Issue 1 Downtime

Even through Natalya's heavily insulated door, the sounds of explosions and machine gun fire could be heard. Given that the door itself and the wall were still intact, it was probably not a serious attack, but she was definitely juicing her sound system right now.

((Open))

There was knocking at the first door. If it was a bit sharp, it was only because it was competing with explosions.

After a moment, an explosion cut off abruptly in mid-boom. Another moment and then a muffled "who is it?" from the other side of the door.

"Is this a private apocalypse, or can anyone come along?"

Natalya opened the door, rubbing her eyes. "All apocalypses are equal opportunity," she said, stepping out of the way so that Sam could come in.

"I'm sorry I've been scarce," she said as she walked in.

"Crap happens," Natalya said with a shrug. "We have very good spit and bailing wire around here. Things have held together." She shut the door behind Sam, "Can I get you something to drink?" She made her way towards the kitchenette.

"No need. How've you been? I saw someone's idea of a joke on your office door."

Natalya hesitated as she rummaged through the fridge and Sam could sense her shields drop into place. "Well, Wisdom's crew has offered to shelter Will, though I still need to discuss that with Will. I have the coordinates on a Black Air base that's spinning back up, so that assault's in the planning stages. I've signed more papers than I can shake a stick at, but Mars' guardianship is moving forward slowly. I've been running background checks and ASHLIE's been monitoring network traffic for me. Day in the life, you know."

"But something else is bothering you."

"What isn't bothering me these days?" She pulled out a water and began drinking it.

"So I'll take that as a 'no, I don't want to talk about it.'"

"What are you going on about?" Her face registered genuine confusion.

"You closed up as soon as I came in the room, even though you know I'd never abuse your trust."

"It wouldn't be the only thing to go wrong recently," she sighed. "For starters, there's..." She went back to drinking her water.

"Nailah's put everything back in me that ought to be there, but if you're uncomfortable talking I can respect that."

"Hrm?" She brought the water bottle back down. "What were we talking about?"

"You didn't specify."

Natalya shrugged, "Must not have been important." She walked back into the living room and sat down. "So everything's going okay with you now?"

"Am I supposed to be insulted or concerned here, Natalya?"

"About?" She frowned and looked confused again. This time Sam could actually sense the confusion past Natalya's shields.

"You started to say something and just trailed off, and now I don't think you're snubbing me."

"If I was snubbing you, you'd know I was snubbing you," Natalya agreed, still somewhat confused.

"So that leaves the possibility that you don't know you're doing it, which is concerning to me."

"I could see... how that might be a concern... yes..." She took another sip of her water.

"So the question is more how willing you are to have me take a look at that."

"Or I suppose some sort of trigger will engage and we could have an epic fight that no doubt Mister Strong would try to film and put on the internet."

"I... I... um... don't know..." That was a tone Sam hadn't heard from her in a long time. Fear.

"And here I thought that would calm you down a bit. There's no rush in answering, Natalya."

"If I'm not answering to myself, you should probably have a look... Just... be careful."

"You're going to want to make yourself comfortable, then."

She set her drink aside and leaned back in her chair, "Only way I'd be more comfortable is kicked back on my bed." She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

Samantha sat down across from her and did likewise. Natalya could feel the presence of the flock drawing close as Samantha made contact.

Natalya's mind was attempting to block her out, though there didn't seem to be any conscious effort to do so on Natalya's part. The shields shifted and moved, forming what were, to someone of Sam's skill, obviously ingrained rabbit trails. Whatever was doing this, it was at least able to call on Natalya's mental training to do whatever it was doing.

"I'm not trying to cause you any discomfort here, but someone rather wants to direct me somewhere."

She purposefully avoided those, probing at the shields with the feelings of trust that the two of them had shared in the past.

"I'm not inclined to be led."

Natalya's fingers clenched, but the shields gave, Sam apparently tripping some sort of safety. They opened up to her, leaving her looking at Natalya's surface thoughts, which were a jumbled mess of stress and juggling a lot of balls in the air. There was nothing immediately obvious on the surface causing this.

"You poor dear. I'm sorry for doing this."

Samantha looked to see if she could find the train of thought that had derailed a short bit earlier. If it wasn't evident, she intended to move deeper.

It took a minute of sorting, but she found the memory of the ice dragon attacking her. That seemed to be the thought attached to the derailed thought train.

Focusing on that, she followed it down deeper into the memory associated with it.

The memory replayed for Sam, but as she watched it, she became aware of a sort of iridescent smoke beginning to haze into the mind area. A somewhat cultured voice inhaled deeply and then asked an imperious question, "Who... are... you?"