What happened

Astronomically, spring was only a month away. The spring equinox, they said, was the first day of spring.

How stupid.

Why did they look at the sky to measure the beating heart of the earth? Seasons were important, yes, but they weren't timed. A tree didn't lose it's leaves because of the calender month. And plants certainly didn't grow just because the days was equal to the night.

And here, in the City, it was still winter. Still cold and dark, even when the sun was out. Ivy didn't like that. Not at all. But when Ivy didn't like something she changed it. Ivy was good at that; nothing in natured stayed the same. It was a cycle.

Sometimes you to had to spin it forward a little.

She had been working on this for a long time, carefully selecting and breeding plants that were hardy to the cold, purchasing equipment to help them, having it installed in a quiet corner of the City.

She was almost ready.

Spring was almost here.


Why yes, Ivy is planning something! It should be ready to spring into action by the weekend. Keep off the grass, but feel free to visit Ivy in her greenhouses in the meantime.

It seemed all Ivy's hard planning was finally coming to fruition.

Since her very first day in the city she had concentrated on one thing: finding Harley. She scoured newspaper articles, trying to find crime reports that would match her partner-in-crime's style. She checked hospital lists for anyone matching Harley's description, and visited half a dozen women without success. A seduced warden at the stated penitentiary gave her insider access to the inmate lists, but even that hadn't helped at first.

Then, it seemed, the city did Ivy an favour and swallowed Quinn, spitting her out into a heavily guarded block in the prison.

Still, Ivy was nothing if not resourceful. A week of careful cross-pollination of a few of her special tricks had produced a gift that would certainly help Harley on her way to freedom, if not carry her right into Ivy's arms. It hadn't been easy. The plant had to be small enough to seem safe, and had to be free of any poison or toxin to pass the mandatory screening.

Ivy was rather proud of this one.

Her seduced prison guard could get the gift inside and up to the cell, and from there it would do all it could to get Harley out into the open air. She hoped her friend was in a fit state to utilize the opportunity.

---

"Quinzel!"

The guard clunked his baton against the door a few times to get her attention, before jerking it open and tossing a small box in Harley's direction. It was plain brown card, tied with string.

"It ain't poisonous, so don't trying chewing the leaves." He wasn't quite sure why he was delivering it to her in the first place. His head felt...odd. "I'll take it off you if you do anything dumb, understand?"

He clanged the door shut, and left her to read the card that accompanied her gift, a pot no more than and inch and a half tall, with three tiny ivy leaves sprouting from it.

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Darien had taken great pains to sleep in late and take his time getting ready. It would be his first full day at the Agency going by his rules, and he was going to take advantage of it. He was out of bed at nine, dressed by nine-thirty, then lingered over a breakfast of cereal before pulling on his leather jacket and leaving his apartment close to ten. On his way down the stairs, he snuck a look at the tattoo on his wrist, pleased to see the green snake there. It had been green for a few days now, with no signs of changing.

Today was going to be a good day.

Striding through the lobby of his apartment building, he pushed open the glass doors, fully expecting to emerge into the bright Californian sunshine... and stepping out into a downpour instead.

He sputtered for a moment before having the sense to back against the apartment building, in a spot where he'd get rained on slightly less. What the hell? It had just been sunny. He saw it. Since when did San Diego get freak thunderstorms?

It was then that he realized that the Starbucks across the street was gone. That one office building was gone, too. It was just another apartment complex, one that he hadn't seen before. Confused, he stepped back out into the rain to get a good look down the street. He didn't recognize any of it, mostly because this wasn't his street.

Of course. He had been right about San Diego not getting freak thunderstorms.

"Aw, crap..."

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