do: read; don't: visit 214

[giftedandtalented]

Mehitabel reads a lot.

She starts calling herself "Tab", for short, not that anyone calls her anything apart from Kers. She writes suitably encrypted emails to Aelise about ideas for fixing the world - mostly she asks questions, to start, forming a picture of the exact problem she has to solve.

She misses her parents, but not very much. At least she got to say goodbye.

When her brain won't absorb new information, she bounces around in zero-g.

After six months, Aelise visits again.

Tab says, "Anybody you store up here must be important somehow. If I don't know about the other secret person, I won't know how to come up with ideas that work with them being important however they're important."

Comments

[pythbox]

"Fucking do it then," Harley spits. "'Cause next time you're not gonna fish me out so fast."

[salus_populi]

So Aelise starts draining him again.

There is less point in keeping him so thoroughly hidden now, and something will need to be done about all the screaming to avoid disturbing people; she takes him back to Mont Blanc and arranges for a thoroughly soundproofed little suite tucked into the mountainside, with an office where she can do actual work while she pulls lifeforce from his endless supply. And then, after several hours of draining, she puts him to sleep as fast as she can.

[warmfeelings]

When Anneia and Sandre are home, Chelsa calls them from where she's snuggling with Corona. "Where did you go?"

[lookingforwardtoit]

Anneia cuddles up.

"Oh, Aelise wanted us to fish Harley out of a volcano," she says.

[warmfeelings]

"A volcano?"

[guiltless]

"I dunno how he got there, but he was pretty wrecked when we pulled him out," sighs Sandre. "Wouldn't stop crying until Aelise started draining him."

[warmfeelings]

"That's awful. I'm so glad you got him out."

[lookingforwardtoit]

"I don't think he is," Anneia says pensively.

[warmfeelings]

"He was never going to be happy," sighs Chelsa.

[pythbox]

Corona frowns.

[warmfeelings]

Chelsa pets him.

[pythbox]

He wriggles discontentedly and sighs.

[giftedandtalented]

Meanwhile, Tab wants updates about the results of the experiment.

[salus_populi]

Chelsa is... not as stable as Aelise was hoping. The thing with Harley is a complication, which she explains in as much detail as Tab requests.

Right now, she can't make good predictions about Chelsa's reaction if they continue to push. Better to sit on it for a while. Six months, maybe.

[giftedandtalented]

Tab is annoyed and impatient, but she waits.

[pythbox]

For a while, draining Harley for six to eight hours at a time works to keep him out of trouble. He's too exhausted by the end of it to go anywhere, and Aelise puts him under again too fast to let him.

But it's not a permanent solution.

Three months after he is installed in his little room, Aelise finishes a particularly lengthy session of draining him, and he takes a breath and shudders and disappears.

[salus_populi]

Aelise calls Demauri.

[alicornucopia]

"...Triangulation's not working," Demauri says, after a while of looking. "Or, I dunno, maybe it is, but I've walked four blocks now and if the direction's changed I don't have the sensitivity to tell. He'd have to be ridiculously far away. Not on Earth."

[salus_populi]

Aelise sighs.

"All right. Thank you."

At least all this draining has her supply higher than it's ever been. She won't have to worry about where to get her immortality for a long, long time.

[alicornucopia]

"Love and loyalty," says Demauri. "I can look in on him occasionally if you want, see if he moves?"

[salus_populi]

"Thanks."

[alicornucopia]

"Love and loyalty," repeats Demauri.

And a few days later he calls back.

"Er, you're not gonna believe this, but his direction matches the. The sun."

[salus_populi]

"...Of course it does," sighs Aelise. "Thank you, Demauri. Well, that's going to be a thorny problem."

[alicornucopia]

"Yeah, I wish I could help you."

[salus_populi]

"You found him. That's something."