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

[lookingforwardtoit]

Anneia and Sandre both stay with her.

[salus_populi]

In three hundred years, this is not the first time that Chelsa has missed a set of morning announcements. Aelise fills in just like always, greeting the appropriate section of the world with a smile and some inconsequential news, and explaining that Chelsa was called away because one of her close friends died unexpectedly that morning.

Then she finds the time to notify Tab, because in no way is Chelsa ready for another flicker, and she probably won't be for a while.

[giftedandtalented]

Tab agrees to wait.

Maybe Chelsa will just fall apart all by herself.

[warmfeelings]

That sure looks like it's a possibility.

Chelsa can't stop crying. She'll let Amdon feed her, when he begs her to eat something, but mostly she just cries.

[salus_populi]

This is... not ideal.

But it's not the worst way it could've happened, she supposes.

Aelise visits Chelsa, amidst her friends. She expresses her condolences and gives Chelsa a hug.

[warmfeelings]

Chelsa will take hugs. She is very tearfully welcoming of hugs.

[salus_populi]

Then Aelise will give her hugs.

[warmfeelings]

Chelsa doesn't really get better.

She's bidden friends goodbye before, to trade them in for warmer models, but they don't die, not anytime soon, and they don't kill themselves, and none of them were her warm sun.

She does a few announcements, on her better days, but she has to have someone sitting with her, out of sight of the camera, and her smile is a little forced.

She stops crying perpetually, but she's listless, and she sleeps a lot.

[salus_populi]

Aelise observes all this.

She suggests gently that maybe Chelsa would like to retire, to a comfortable little island, with all her special friends.

[warmfeelings]

Chelsa would like that.

[salus_populi]

Aelise makes the arrangements. She would like it if Chelsa did one last set of announcements, to say goodbye to everyone, reassure them as much as she can. But she'll understand if Chelsa doesn't feel up to it.

[warmfeelings]

Chelsa doesn't want to upset anyone. She'll do the set, but it will have to wait for a good morning, which delays her departure.

Finally, she has an unusually calm-dreamed night and wakes up and tells the world she's going into retirement, and will miss them.

[salus_populi]

The world will miss her too. They love her very much.

Aelise sees everyone to the island personally.

[warmfeelings]

Chelsa isn't even upset that this all means she'll start aging again. She's afraid her power will go, maybe stay gone; she would like to leave before it does, if it's going to go.

[salus_populi]

And she won't die anytime soon. And her friends will be with her - Aelise makes sure they're all on about the same level, immortality-wise, and they have Kers to repel accidents and Anneia to keep everyone healthy in their old age.

All in all, a comfortable retirement.

Aelise doesn't visit often, after that first time; she has a considerable amount of work to do. A lot of little changes will have to be made to compensate for Chelsa's absence. That was already underway, but it's accelerating now; there are a rocky few years ahead of them.

She also consults with Mehitabel over the best time for her to come back down to the ground.

"I don't think it's time yet," she says frankly. "I don't think it'll be genuinely safe until Chelsa is dead. As long as there is no conceivable way she could know you exist, we still have the inverse shield to fall back on, but once the cat's out of the bag the only thing I could possibly do to avoid an enormous shitstorm would be assassinate her on the spot."

[giftedandtalented]

"I wish I could tell my parents, even if walking around on the planet was too risky," Tab says. "How would she find out, if I told them?"

[salus_populi]

"They might conceivably mention something to someone, who might conceivably mention it to someone else. And so on. It's not likely, but it's not impossible. And they might not understand - it hasn't been that long since she quit the announcements."

She sighs.

"If you want to see them again and tell them the truth, my best recommendation is that you help me find a way to fish Harley out of the sun. Or a way to get my draining range high enough to hit him while he's still in there. I'm already working on broadcast, but of course I don't have an infinite supply to play with, so I have to be careful not to waste it on experiments."

[giftedandtalented]

Tab frowns and nods and starts reading more physics, less sociology.

[salus_populi]

Aelise also provides her with up-to-date copies of the list of all the Gifted people in the world, which is expanding now as she encourages more people to get themselves and their children officially tested.

So far, there are no obvious combinations. There are telekinetics other than Sandre, many with better range, but none with his kind of perceptual detail and none who could work at the kind of ranges required. There are no teleporters except for Harley himself, who can apparently only teleport into uncomfortable situations. Aelise is planning to get a spaceship made that can travel as close to the sun as possible, and have Demauri do a fly-around to map Harley's position. But that project will take years, and it might not help them very much.

So far, no one has been born with the Gift of infinite life.