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

[salus_populi]

"Yes, that's what I thought you'd say."

She explains on the way: Harley, whom she's sure they remember, has managed to get himself stuck in the middle of a volcano. She is hoping that some combination of Sandre's telekinesis and Anneia's indifference to extremity will let them conspire to fish him out. It's likely to push Sandre's range, but maybe not that far. And although Kers is protecting both of them and is more than proof against a little lava, her protection against unpleasant sensations has been known to give out long before her protection against real physical harm. Hence why Anneia will be the one diving in after Harley, with Sandre keeping hold of her to haul them both out.

[lookingforwardtoit]

"I'm all for it," Anneia says cheerfully.

[salus_populi]

"I know you are."

[guiltless]

They find the volcano; they perch as close to Harley's last known position as they can get without an undue risk of falling in; Sandre reels Anneia down, letting her familiar body anchor his perception to pull it past its ordinary limits. She's just at the edge of his range when he feels something else beside her that's not lava - there and gone and there again, in a bizarre but familiar way.

He hauls them both out. It takes twice as long as he expects it to, because he can't move Harley while Harley is doing his mysterious immortality thing, and he's bouncing in and out of it as rapidly as you'd expect from someone swimming unprotected in hot lava. But eventually, they both emerge, and Anneia snuggles up to Harley and pours healing into him, and Sandre pulls them up to where he waits with Aelise and hugs them both.

[pythbox]

Harley weeps desperately into Sandre's shirt.

[lookingforwardtoit]

"What happened to you?" murmurs Anneia, petting his miraculously regenerated hair.

[pythbox]

"Chelsa got me again, I was miles away, I wasn't even awake and she got me, I can't fucking stand it," he sobs. "I hate it, I hate her, I hate everything, I want to die and if I can't have that I want to hurt until I stop caring."

[salus_populi]

"There are other methods available for that," says Aelise.

[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.