Jaydonen: Giving Maggie some help Jaydonen was also enjoying his evening. Chairs right close together, he was able to sit right next to Lily, holding her hand. He gently squeezed it, and got a squeeze back. And a brief smile before she returned her eyes to the stage. Wow, this is nice. My first girlfriend. It had started after that lesson in ethics when the group, minus Erasyl, had all gone out to have a snack. It was currently progressing quite satisfactory, in the opinions of both parties. And after this we will be walking along the river shore, and find some secluded spot for some more kissing and cuddling. Yes, life was looking up for Jaydonen. And Lily. Hmm, Maggie's friends are, well, probably a bit out of my comfort zone. That weird threesome with Mr Teylon and his two ladies, which turned out not to be his ladies after all, yeah, they do have a wicked sense of humour. And Juniper... what the hell was all of that about? And Erasyl, who now seems to be behaving nicely... Whatever, if that's what Maggie wants, then I'm not complaining. Although I might be able to tease her a bit more... Jaydonen's ability allowed him to detect when other espers were exerting their ability, and allowed him to increase their power a little. A very little, about two percent. At the maximum. Some espers he could hardly influence at all, while others he could go the full two percent. An ability that was, frankly, not all that much use. In fact, its best use was not in increasing someone's power, but merely being able to detect when the espers around him were exerting their power. Right now, he was idly noting that someone three tables away was using their ability at close to full power. Who knows what he or she is doing with it. Maybe it’s to enhance their vision or hearing. Or something. He looked over in that direction, and, apart from some teenage girl pointing a stick at the stage, could not see anything out of the ordinary. He shrugged his shoulders slightly, then returned to the more important topic of Lily. Oh, he was also following the plot of the play currently being enacted on the stage. Mostly. There was a small crashing noise. Someone near him suddenly turned on their esp ability to almost full power. Closely followed by two more people turning on their abilities to full power. What is all of that about? He turned around, and realised that Maggie was the one at almost full power, and that Adalace and that really strange lady Juniper were running at full power. What are they doing? He looked up, to see a glowing fireball, half a metre in diameter, three metres above Maggie's head. I don't know what that is, but it looks really bad. And, what are Adalace's and Juniper's abilities? A few seconds passed. Time enough for the emergency response centre, somewhere buried beneath Verdant City, to come on line. All of those security cameras were not just for Adalace to look through, and they were not just for spying on people. They were connected to automatic monitoring computers, forever on the lookout for something, anything, that could develop into a dangerous situation. Half of the people were not even aware that anything out of the ordinary was happening. The other half, mainly those who were currently being showered by small pieces of safety glass, were looking around in perplexity. Nobody was showing any signs of panic. Yet. Nobody got the chance to panic. Everybody's wristband flashed red and blue, and a voice spoke without any echoes. "This is an emergency protocol situation. There will be a controlled evacuation starting now. All those whose wristbands have turned green make way to their nearest exit. Everyone else, stay in place but get ready to move. All those involved in the emergency continue as you are." The voice was masculine, so it cannot have been Annie the Announcer, but someone else. Countless drills, ever since kindergarten, instilled the necessity of not panicking and of obeying emergency evacuation commands. Accordingly, the ones with green flashing wristbands filed out of the exits in a controlled rush, while everyone else waited for their turn. The unseen emergency control room operators over saw the exodus through the security cameras, and issued the computer commands to control the colours of the wristbands as needed. By now, Jaydonen and Lily were standing, as was everybody else. Waiting for their turn to go. They had their arms around each other. And Jaydonen was concentrating on the esp power levels of Maggie and the other two. Maggie's is continually increasing her power level, but the other two are at maximum and staying there. What the hell are the other two doing? But I certainly know that Maggie must be confining that fire ball thingy. And Maggie is starting to max out. Indeed, to his esp senses, he could detect that Maggie's ability was becoming dangerously stressed. So he promptly exerted his own power to add a bit to hers. She looked up, saw him, and smiled briefly, before looking down again to concentrate. The crowd had mostly disappeared, there was only a small circle of tables left to evacuate. And Maggie's esp ability reached maximum. He could sense her struggling to maintain it, struggling to increase it even more. Fucking hell, what's going to happen if she fails? He started to struggle himself, to somehow increase his help. The green wristbands at last reached their tables. Jaydonen's friends, except for Lily, gravely nodded at Jaydonen as they filed passed. They could see that he must be busy with his ability, so they did not distract him. Lily, however, remained right were she was. "Lily, you should go." She tightened her hands around his arm. "No, I stay and support you. You must be helping that Maggie girl, aren't you?" He nodded his head. "Besides which, all of her friends are staying." He made an effort to take note. Indeed, they were. Those two angry looking ladies were sitting on either side of Juniper, supporting her. Sarsaparilla was hugging Adalace and Kaydence had moved around to Sarsaparilla, followed by Leroy. Sarawatch and Erasyl had moved and were on either side of Maggie, with Teylon behind her. And Francesca was still sitting at her chair, looking around in interest at the glowing fire ball, then at the people at her table, and at him. She saw him looking at her, and smiled a friendly grin back at him. He could tell that Maggie's ability was past her normal maximum and starting to get unstable. He made a gut wrenching effort, and managed to increase his help to her. How am I doing this? I've never managed, no matter how hard I tried, to increase my power level before. Maggie's power level stabilised. Then she had to increase it again. Panting from the effort, he managed to raise his yet again, allowing her to back off into a safer power range. This is bloody fucking hard. I never even knew I could do this. And, fuck, Maggie is beginning to whimper. What the fucking hell is that fireball, anyway? "You can do it, I'm right here to support you." whispered Lily into his ear. Panting and sweating profusely, he managed to increase his power yet again. My guts feel like they are tearing apart, my lungs are on fire, fuck why does it hurt so much to over exert my power? It must be because I don't really know how to do it, so my brain is going crazy and just throwing everything at the problem in the hope that something sticks. Concentrate! Concentrate! Something is definitely working! I don't know what, but I will just have to keep on doing it. The pretty green colours on their wrist bands all winked out at the same moment. A soft chime sounded, followed by a female's gentle voice, this time over the theatre's intercom system. "Don't let me disturb you, keep up the good work. Shane the shield is being flown in by a levitator and should be here in thirty seconds. I'll count them down for you..." Jaydonen could taste the bile at the back of his throat. Keep up the act! If I lose control now I won't be able to maintain my ability! And Maggie looks as if she's about to vomit, also. The voice counted down the time in groups of five. Bang on time, there was a flicker of movement and two figures, one holding the other, zoomed in through the broken window. They braked hard and came up to the fireball. Click. Shane's shield, at full power, grabbed the ball and enclosed it in its own totally opaque cover. Another second and they were all accelerating out through the window. Juniper and Adalace relaxed and sagged into their seats. Maggie bent over and puked all over the table, her expensive dress and, for good measure, Erasyl's new suit also. Jaydonen sagged and the only reason he didn't collapse on the floor was because Lily supported him. Oh fucking hell, what a relief to stop that. Fucking hell, am I going to vomit also? After a few seconds of gingerly monitoring his condition, he decided that he probably was not. He turned to wrap his arms around Lily, when he realised Fuck. I've wet myself. It's dripping all the way down my trousers and onto the floor. Oh fuck. He froze in place. But Lily turned to him and she gave him a hug instead. "It's all right my dear. It looks like we could have all been killed here, so a little accident is not going to upset anyone." Francesca tries to act Francesca, as soon as she realised that some sort of emergency was happening, remained precisely where she was. My fireballs will only make things worse, so I can't help. And the three people containing that bomb are already getting all of the moral support they can deal with. Let's see, Maggie is containing the fire ball, Adalace is sucking energy from it and Juniper is blocking its radiation. So does that means it is some sort of small nuclear explosion, currently bottled up by Maggie? Pretty impressive situation, I must say. Hmm, Maggie is beginning to stress, and, that Jaydonen fellow is also stressing out. Now what was his ability... that's right, Maggie said he could slightly increase somebody's else's esper ability. So he's helping Maggie? This could get interesting. Although, if Maggie fails, none of us will even know it. Not having anything else to do and not willing to miss out on the experience, see watched everyone involved like some tourist fresh from Earth seeing Verdant Dome for the first time. Shane zoomed in, grabbed the fireball, and zoomed out. Right! Now I can do something! She jumped up and moved in on Leroy. "Leroy! This is no time to delay, Sarsaparilla can look after Kaydence. I want you to fly me out of that broken window and help me track down the bastards that did this!" He looked hesitant. However, the two nearest, Sarsaparilla and Adalace, nodded in agreement. Consequently, within ten seconds he was holding her in his arms and flying out of the broken window. "Try to fly in a straight line going out, so that when we look back we can roughly see our table outlined in the broken window. That bomb must have been moving in a in small arc, it must have come from somewhere about say half a kilometre away, with luck we can find the launch site." "OK, ah, you're not going to start shooting pink fire balls at them if we do see them, are your?" "Of a course I am! If I can positively identify them. They tried to kill all of us. And my nephew! Plus a whole lot of other people totally unrelated to us. You really need to stop being so squeamish about killing someone when it's justified ." "Ah, well, OK." These naive pure hearted kids. Sort of cute in their own way, but a bloody pain on occasions. "Also, is it always so cold up here?" "Actually it gets a lot colder, but fortunately we are not going to be getting any higher." Francesca's phone rang. At the same time, another levitator flew right up to them and started tracking them. He was a man, and his flight jacket had the word 'Police' in big white letters on it. "Hello, Francesca," said the voice over the phone. Oh-oh, this is our contact for our hit jobs. She set the volume so that Leroy could also hear. "While I admire your keenness in attempting to track down the would be killers, and without any mention of any payment at that, I would like to request that you refrain from any further action. We want to positively identify the culprits before taking an action. And we don't want any such actions happening out in the public. After all, you Girls in Pink have already decided not to take any more hit jobs because of your involvement with Kaydence and Juniper, correct?" "Oh fuck you, you little creep..." Hey, wait, I don't normally go around swearing like that - this whole thing must have upset me just a little. Without waiting for a reply, she hurried on - "OK, OK, we'll return, don't worry, we couldn't possibly want to spoil your little party." She glared at Leroy, who took the hint and reversed their flight path. The policeman zoomed away without ever having said anything, and in a few more minutes they were back in the theatre. Francesca, her feet back on ground, sheepishly grinned at the others. "It was a great idea, but we were told off in no uncertain terms. Say, where have Jaydonen and Lily gone to?" "Maybe that is for the best?" said Teylon, "And Jaydonen and Lily were taken away to the local medical centre, just to make sure that Jaydonen is all right. They wanted to take Maggie too, but, of course, our little magneto is far too stubborn to make such concessions for the sake of her health." Both Maggie and Erasyl looked wet. They must have sluiced themselves down using the water from a few water jugs pinched from a few nearby tables. Since the original occupants were no longer there, they could not object. "Rubbish Teylon, I'm perfectly all right. I just want to stay with my friendship group! After all, it's what I came here for, isn't it?"

Francesca: Discussion at Teylon’s Half an hour later they were all back at Teylon's place. Maggie had borrowed some dry clothes from Devina, while Erasyl was wearing some of Teylon's casual wear. And Adalace, fiddling with various search terms on her wrist band, had found out that the Emergency Status news channel was showing a full coverage of the incident. There was an endless loop showing the highlights of the entire incident up to date, interspersed with short segments to give any new information. They watched all of this on Teylon's big screen for a while. "Interesting, they talk about Maggie's and Adalace's and Jaydonen's contribution, but make no mention of Juniper's." said Sarawatch. "Well, after all, she, and Kaydence, don't officially exist, do they?" said Sarsaparilla. "I don't?" said Kaydence. "Of course you do! I'm sure we can sort things out eventually!" said Leroy. Forever the hero. And, if I may ask, how do you intend doing that? But Francesca decided there was no need to be negative and didn't say anything. "In fact, they don't even show Juniper and Kaydence faces. All of the security footage manages to ever so accidently pick just the right angles and scenes so that there are no clear shots of them." said Adalace. "Thankfully they also don't show me puking all over my new dress." said Maggie. "Not to mention all over my new suit." said Erasyl. "Who cares about your new suit? I was the one doing all of the work!" "Now, now," said Teylon, "there's no need to argue, ah, look there's finally some information about the culprits!" Indeed there was. "Four people of interest have been detected moving across the landscape just outside of the dome. They have boarded a small land surface rover and are moving away as fast as possible. Authorities are scrambling to pursue them, ah; some more new information has come in! They have just reached one of the spacecraft parked outside on the rocket launch pads, thirty kilometres from the dome. It appears that they are going to take off! Fortunately, it has been determined that none of these people are younger then forty, thus they won't have any esp abilities." "Shit!" said Teylon, "They are escaping! Why can't you lot get your act together and detain them before they lift off!" However, strangely enough, the others did not appear to be all that upset at all. "By you lot, do you mean our noble police force?" said Sarawatch, "Cause they certainly do have their act together. Look, they are actually showing a live video feed of the rocket launch pad. See those vehicles with the flashing blue lights surrounding it? Those people have nowhere to escape, so they have to launch themselves." "But, but, but, once they lift off, how are the police going to catch them?" Adalace made a tsk-tsking sound. "Teylon, you obviously don't know much about orbital dynamics, do you?" "Well, I suppose you could say that..." "Yeah, once they lift off, their options become severely limited. Basic equations of motion." said Leroy. Teylon looked blank. Juniper and Kaydence did not quite get it. But the others were beginning to enjoy themselves at Teylon's expense. Maggie managed to get in first with an explanation. "You see, Teylon, none of these people are espers. The announcer did not tell us that for no reason at all, you know. That means that the rocket's path is strictly determined by how much fuel it has, there can be no help from esper pilots. Moreover, no matter how much fuel it has, it can only do one complete manoeuvre. Either point to point on Mars, or go from Mars to one of the local satellites, or from Mars out to the Asteroid belt. And no matter what, orbital defence can track them and somebody can be waiting for them at the other end." "Oh. Right." "Remember, this isn't Earth, with its millions of square kilometres of open surface and billions of people to get lost amongst. On Mars, everyone is tracked and accounted for. Err, unless the authorities are deliberately hiding someone, like our two girls here." said Sarawatch, pointing to Juniper and Kaydence. "So, basically, those four destined to meet our so called noble police at some point in the near future." said Francesca, with much delight sounding in her voice. "Shame I can't be there also, but them's the breaks." she continued. "Shush!" said Adalace, "They're giving extra information." "They are doing an initial launch burn-" On the screen appeared a schematic of the surface of Mars, with the position of the rocket marked, together with some numbers representing its speed and acceleration. A small insert screen showed, from some orbital satellite, an actual video image of the rocket. It appeared as a bright spark creeping up and across the Martian landscape. Dotted lines extended and indicated the most likely destinations. "Yes, the best guess is that they are heading towards a cluster of small domes, many now unused, on the other side of Mars. They can maybe reach there before the authorities can get enough personnel together. However, they can't escape, nor is it possible to hide, so perhaps they plan on refuelling and making a run for some asteroid settlement? Not that that will do them any good, since - ah, hello they have cut the burn - " The current display disappeared, and a replay of the previous news started. "Hello, why did they suddenly cut out like that?" said Sarawatch. Yeah, that was strange. And why are both Leroy and Maggie looking as if they are working out something in their heads? Hey, and Adalace is busy twitch typing something... Maggie got there first. "They kept on updating the flight path right up to the point where the rocket stops firing. If my calculations are correct then the rocket will come down much sooner than expected. And pretty close to Ocean Dome." Leroy nodded in agreement. Adalace took over half of the screen and, using Teylon's computer, presented her own schematic of the flight path. It looked a lot more basic than the one from before, but it gave more details of the important bits. "Going by the numbers they gave us, if the rocket does not fire its thrusters again, it will hit on or very close to Ocean Dome." she said. "Which is bad. If you are going to be doing planetary manoeuvres, you never, ever, plan your free fall part of the orbit such that, if the thrusters fail, you would end up hitting an important target." said Leroy, "It's basic space craft orbital policy. In fact, the flight control computers should have prevented it. The fact that they appear to have not is very worrisome." "I say, can someone translate all of that into an Earth language?" asked Teylon, clearly behind the scenes. "The space craft stopped firing its engines are precisely the moment when, if they are not turned back on, will result in it hitting Ocean Dome." said Sarawatch. "Oh." At this point, the half of the screen that was showing the replay went black, then the schematic of the surface of Mars reappeared. Adalace hurriedly removed her stuff, letting the emergency channel have the whole screen. "It appears, due to unknown causes, that the escapers have bungled their flight path. If they do not resume their orbital burn, they will hit the exact middle of Ocean Dome. A category five alert has been issued. The authorities are calling up orbital defence resources. Authority to act will be given within a reasonable margin of safety." On the screen appeared a view, taken from some close by satellite. It showed a speck of light, drifting across the Martian landscape, and out in front of it a flash of sunlight reflecting off Ocean Dome. "What, exactly, does this authority to act entail?" said Teylon. He gave all the indications of having a good idea, but he just did not want to connect the dots all by himself. "They blast them into a million tiny pieces, of course." said Francesca, "What else can they do? There's a hundred thousand or so people in that dome. Even if they all get down below ground, there will still be plenty of causalities. Not to mention the damage caused by a complete dome rupture event." The emergency channel did not bother doing anything more than show a continuous video feed of the space craft creeping slowly towards its rendezvous. And a countdown. When the countdown reached zero, the speck that was the space craft grew into a small cloud, then faded out. Silence. Teylon turned off the screen. "Perhaps that's enough for one night. Since we didn't have the full meal, you're welcome to raid my fridge, then can we retire for the night?" he said. "Good by me." said Francesca. Yeah, he means the two girls retire for the night, and the rest of us can have a little chat about a few things. Later, after both Kaydence and Juniper were asleep. "Say, Teylon, since those people were definitely evil, does that mean your job here on Mars is completed?" said Maggie. She sounded slightly worried. "I don't know. I mean, I, or us, really didn't have much to do with their elimination, did we?" "And, anyway, how do we know if they had any connection with the other evil stuff which we have encountered, like the cloning business?" said Francesca. "Haven't a clue. Also, why the hell did they try that crazy stunt anyway?" "Well, if they were the Futures Group, then they are definitely connected to the cloning stuff. And, maybe, they got upset when we removed Ajaeren from consideration?" said Erasyl. "Bloody hell, there's upset and there's total bat shit berserking insane!" said Sarawatch, "I mean, killing thousands if not more just to get back at two teenagers?" "But Ajaeren's pseudo mind control might have warped their emotions so far that that was the only way they could react. Maybe?" said Maggie. "Particularly as they could not rationally expect to ever escape justice after doing such an atrocity." said Sarawatch, "Even with the Girls in Pink being unavailable." "Oh, that reminds me, when my contact was telling me off, he mentioned both Kaydence's and Juniper's names, as reasons why us Girls in Pink were no longer doing hit jobs. So it's not just the Futures Group that knows about the clones." said Francesca. Teylon put his head in his hands. "I still don't know how the hell I'm supposed to eradicate the evil at the heart of Mars society. But since these unknown authorities know all about us, and even say so when contacting some of us, could we just please arrange a meeting between us, and have a big discussion? Maybe we can convince them of the error of their ways and it all can be resolved amicably." "Sure!" said Sarawatch, "If you can give me their email address?" She got an extremely irritated look back from Teylon. "I'm retiring for the night also. Will the last one person standing make sure the lights are off, the fridge door closed and the front door locked?" he said, as he disappeared into his own room. Everybody remaining took the hint.