rockingstar

The realization did not come to Lila Cheney until she was at the grocery store in the snack aisle, comparing crisps. She had run dangerously low on snacks and while she was certain she did not want to eat until Christmas, she kept strange hours and didn't like cooking for herself. Her basket was full of many packaged things to satisfy her hunger those nights when she couldn't go out and buy take-out. She has been idly thinking that, now that she had resolved whatever issues there were between her and Forge, she could now start working on her relationship with Gaia or maybe even apologize for bruising poor Brian's ego.

( However, her mind didn't wander too far from Forge. )

takingrisks

Artie Pan was NOT going to stand for this! Captain Lila was NOT going to steal away their mother and the princess and get away with it! This was just not okay! He gathered the Lost Boys and the Darlings to him, telling them the plan.

"I'll fly in and tell Sally and Heather that we've come to save them. You'll all need to watch out for the pirates, okay? Make sure they don't surprise me." He shot a look at Meganbell, affixing her with a very stern gaze. "They'll have to fly out with me, and Heather doesn't know how to. So we'll have to teach her, okay? And quickly."

rockingstar

Lila Cheney couldn't be too sure about what technology they had, if they could somehow trace her or find her and follow her. She wasn't prepared to bring them back to Earth with her, much less back to her Dyson Sphere. It was her home away from home and the transfer spot she used when teleporting around Earth. She didn't need them finding out where that was.

So for what could be considered Earth-days, she took Gaia around the galaxy. This time there was no fun and it wasn't a vacation. They stayed in a place for only a little while before teleporting to another place across the galaxy, a distant planet where no one would know who they were. Lila perhaps spent a little longer doing this than she normally would -- if only because she was paranoid about getting caught again. They only stopped to eat and sleep and Lila let silence sit comfortably between them except when it was absolutely necessary to talk.

When they got back to Earth, Lila let Gaia get away. She then headed to her own room, ready to collapse.

rockingstar

Lila felt heavy when she woke up. She slowly came into consciousness in the central hospital. It was bustling and no one had the luxury of privacy at the biggest center of xenotransplantation and related research in this sector. The patient beds were in bunked cubes, taking advantage of all the space to treat as many as they could on this interplanetary hub. Nurses went between the cubes, floating on little pods to reach the patients at the tallest heights before levitating to the next bed. The low humming almost lulled Lila back to sleep.

What caused her to jerk was the sudden realization of the restraint around one of her wrists. How the hell did she get there? It kept her connected to her cubicle and when she tried to teleport out of there, it lit up and she didn't go anywhere. She shook her arm, tried to wrangle it loose.

"It is sending a bioelectric current through your nervous system to neutralize your abilities," an electronic monotone voice explained, on a two-second delay as the humanoid beside her spoke in an unknown language. ( 'We could not let you leave before your trial' )

themaker

It was a rare moment for Forge to be found in front of a computer, rather than hidden away behind the workbench. Crutches left forgotten on the floor beside him as he hunched over a peculiar customised keyboard, the monitor's backlight was his only source of illumination tonight. It was past midnight, and Forge couldn't sleep. Over the past few weeks he had grown accustomed to the strange chemical smell of the hospital, the soft buzz of machines that hovered at the edge of silence. Now that he was back home, the dull and painful ache pulsing from where his right leg ought to have been was causing him a great deal of discomfort, and there was no morphine drip to ease that pain.

If anyone were to see him now, they may have had cause to be concerned. The computer's glow illuminated his tired expression, deepening the shadows under his eyes and lengthening the frown lines in his mouth. He briefly passed a hand across his brow and sighed.

Though Forge much preferred the cold, hard impersonal machinery of the repaired workshop, he kept his personal computer in his own tiny space out the back, away from prying eyes and disconnected from the network. Unfortunately it hadn't fared well in the earthquake, the harddrive having been completely crushed by an overhead beam, and so he was faced with the delicate task of retrieving the data from it.

It wasn't really that much of a problem to be honest. Forge was, after all, a mechanically minded genius and so repairing a few crushed motherboards was child's play; a game he could do with his eyes closed. What had been particularly difficult were the nature of some of the files he'd come across, hidden far within the digital jungle of zeroes and ones, archived so deeply that he'd all but forgotten about them. Brow furrowed in concentration, Forge entered a few command prompts into the machine and as the screen before him flickered to black Forge caught his breath, the floodgates of his memory giving way as he suddenly remembered exactly what this file was.

( The footage began by passing quickly over black material, grainy at first until it could make out and grab onto shapes. It came into focus on a head of dark brunette hair, the automatic zoom panning out to capture its target. )