"Welcome back. Do you... remember where you are?"

Noel's heart was pounding so hard that it threatened to choke her. Her arms were secured tightly to the arms of her chair and she couldn't remember where she was. When she was. But she did know who she was and what she could do. So that was a good start.

"No." The man speaking was gray-haired and kindly looking with a bulbous nose that screamed "gnome." The room was bare, an office space or impromptu interrogation space. That had to be it. They were trying to get something from her and she'd nuked it away. She tried to calm herself, physically breathing slower and forcing her shoulders out of their tense knot. "You aren't going to get any answers from me so whatever this is, it's a complete waste of time."

"On the contrary, Miss Gage. We're here to help you. We gave you a mild sedative as a precaution. Please listen, I'm told you can taste the truth of things. You will know the moment I speak an untruth?"

She looked at him for a long moment before nodding. The man began.

He was calm and non-threatening as he pointed out the site of her injection. They were here to help her and her partner recover after nearly becoming compromised. They were years deep into an undercover operation in the secretive mutant stronghold of Haven. This was news to Noel, but it didn't taste like a lie. Something had gone amiss, they didn't know what, and Noel had done some quick mental maneuvering to get them out. They were asking her and her partner to lay low while they assessed the damage. Perhaps they could return to their mission, but they wouldn't risk it until they knew for sure. To further complicate things, when she and her partner came to neither had remembered that they even had a mission.

"If it was as high stress a situation as it sounds like, it makes sense. Sometimes my abilities can trigger just from that."

They had sedated them both and separated them, hoping to recover at least the human side of their operation, if not salvage the entire thing.

---

Out of everyone here, she remembered the Ranger the most. Everything was quite jumbled. Apparently she had some giant bear-dogs now, and technology had jumped from the first iphone to now having biometric credentials being a normal thing. Weirdest of all, when she looked in the mirror, she saw exactly what she expected to see. It was almost like she'd time traveled here from 2009. Or been cryogenically frozen back then. But, apparently people in Haven would know them. And her power set would give them an easy excuse on their confusion if they happened not to recognize anyone.

Noel took a seat next to the gurney where they'd sedated the Ranger. She stole glances at the man while she both read their files and waited for him to wake up. This was some serious sci-fi looking stuff. No diodes or beeping monitor, they monitored all his vitals just through a small fingertip clamp. This was all going to take some getting used to...

Ranger felt as if he had decided that it was a good day to go play in traffic. His head felt scrambled, his chest felt like it had been hit by a baseball bat, and his arms felt like a porcupine declared war on them. Were it not for a sedative, he would have likely woken up swinging. Instead he flopped his arms weakly around.

There was a note in a file somewhere that enumerated the number of needles that had been broken on Ranger’s arm before someone had the idea to slam something into his chest a few times and then stick in the needle.

Seven. They broke seven broken needles.

”Wha-?” Ranger breathed out as he opened his eyes and moved his hand with what looked like some futuristic pulse oximetry device attached to a finger. ”Where am-?” Ranger fiddled with and removed the device from his finger as he sat up and looked around the room. It wasn’t a hospital. It was mostly just an empty space, save for him and… ”Noel?” It took Ranger a moment, he’d only met her the one time but it hadn’t been that long ago. And dealing with ninja at a wedding with someone makes an impression.

He jerked like he was a marinette and someone else was holding the strings. A part of her thought that maybe she should take his hand. Be, like, a comfort or something. But she hardly knew the guy, despite everything they had supposedly gone through together.

Plus, the file she held said he'd accidentally smashed a couple things no human should plausibly be able to smash. So. Touching was not exactly a safe activity for now.

"You're safe." Was the only truth she could say. She hadn't exactly been given their exact GPS, nor had she asked. "Yeah. It's me, Noel. You- we both went through a rather large memory wipe. It's going to take a few sleep cycles to settle into a new normal." She pat him on the leg through the flimsy cotton blanket. That seemed safe enough. Nothing in the notes about growing leg spikes or whatever.

"I- I only know what I know." Which sounded stupider outside her head than it had when it was still inside. She kicked herself and started again. "You and I are partners. We were undercover, but it's possible that cover got blown. While we figure figure things out we need to lay low." The people here had offered up a couple locations, but Noel couldn't put her finger on it exactly... something about all this was more messed up than usual.

She scooted her chair closer. "Are you okay? Because, right now I'm not entirely sure who to trust. Besides you, I don't recognize a single person in this whole outfit. Do you...?" Yeah, she had lost memories before and she was used to working blind, but this was... so blind. Usually there was something, but this time there was only the Ranger. A near stranger she'd come to trust, but they'd only worked together once.

"You're safe."

Normally Ranger would look for exits, make a threat assessment, and locate a weapon when hearing those words when waking up in a strange place. Normally he wouldn’t have someone he went through a fight with next to him telling it to him.

Noel explained some and set her hand on his leg comfortingly. Ranger tossed the finger device across the room and relaxed some. A memory wipe. He knew Noel could do memory wipes, maybe she did it? How much time had he lost? What was gone? He didn’t know how he got here but how long of a time from what he last remembered now was gone, and what old memories got caught in the crossfire?

Ranger’s worst fear. Mind manipulation. He groaned and put his put his head in his hands for a moment.

Anyone other than Noel and that would be enough to drive him up a pole. Hell, had Noel and him not had the first meeting they did and a sedative was still wearing off in him and he might have raised hell anyway.

She continued on; the pair of them were partners and they were undercover. Not too far of a stretch, they were both security personnel of a sort and Ranger was no stranger to clandestine operations. Needing to lay low… Going to ground was always a good option when cover was blown. How bad had it blown though? He was laying on a gurney.

"Are you okay? Because, right now I'm not entirely sure who to trust. Besides you, I don't recognize a single person in this whole outfit. Do you...?"

”Yeah…” Ranger said, still mulling over what Noel had said. ”I don’ recognize anyone either.” He said as he casually cast his eyes around. After a moment he looked back to Noel, ”Any idea how we got here? Last I remember was… I… I was preppin’ f’r an overseas trip. CENTCOM. Last I saw you was… A couple weeks back? At the Jang Hyun weddin’.”

Ranger ran his hand over his chest, feeling at where he was clearly hit. He wondered if anyone got the plate on the car that must have run him over. "What's in the files?" Ranger asked, nodding his chin in the direction of the files Noel had.

She could see the calculations going on behind his eyes and, had their positions been reversed, she might have done worse than just throwing the little medical doodad across the room. Still, she was tense for her own reasons as well as echoing his tension. Not really understanding her partner's motivations was torturous. She wanted to cling to him and trust him because he was the only life raft of recognition in the room. At the same time, that felt like a trap somehow.

She was glad to see him taking it all in, but also taking it all seriously.

> "Last I saw you was… A couple weeks back? At the Jang Hyun weddin’.”

She scooted her chair closer and turned to face Ranger and the back wall. He had eyes for the door and he'd said he was okay. For now she was willing to trust that in order to hide her half of the conversation better.

"The Hyuns celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary this year. That wedding was just a few weeks ago for me, for you. But for everyone else ten years have passed." She turned to watch someone walk past out of her peripheral vision in case he needed a moment for that bomb to finish exploding. Ten years was a lot of life to lose, and yet... "You look real good for your age don't you think?"

He'd asked about the file so she passed it over. It was her profile, some photos of them individually and together, his profile, a very sparse outline of the last ten years (some of which sounded rather unbelievable- alternate universes?), and their original mission brief which started, apparently, 3 or 4 years ago. They'd been at this a long, long time. Apparently.

"Look closely." She tapped a photo of the Ranger lifting a gigantic black pick up truck in the snow. Noel was hanging out the window, and both their faces were visible. They were older, more like the ten missing years she might have guessed she'd see on herself. But she didn't quite look like that now.

"Any new scars? Or missing ones? Or... I don't know. It just doesn't add up. It's not the whole story." Noel wasn't missing any scars that she could think of, but she was certainly missing a hell of a lot of tattoos. Tattoos were supposed to be permanent. That was the entire point of them. The fact that they were now gone...

Tenth wedding anniversary. Tenth. It had been ten years since the wedding Ranger was at working security a few weeks ago… If you allow for a little memory loss that involves an operation maybe a year or two… ”uh… T-ten years?” Ranger quietly stammered. Ten years was a significant amount of one’s life.

As Ranger considered the ramifications of losing a decade of his life Noel added, You look real good for your age don't you think?"

How he appeared hadn’t even crossed his mind. He cast his gaze around looking for something reflective. A window gave him a decent enough view. ”I… Look the same…”

Shouldn’t he have aged ten years? Look in his mid thirties, not like he was still a young adult.

Noel handed him a file. Ranger opened it, setting aside age weirdness. The file contained a fair amount of information but half of it was unbelievable. There were details on her, him, multiple universes, powers, his company, and their mission. It looked like they were embedded in an organization Ranger had never heard of before.

"Look closely."

Ranger looked at the picture she tapped. ”The Fordasaurus… I can’t lift that much…” Yet, it was clearly him lifting it. And noel was hanging out the window. The them in the pictures fit the description of a ten year older them.

"Any new scars? Or missing ones? Or... I don't know. It just doesn't add up. It's not the whole story."

Immediately Ranger reached for his side. He pulled up the shoddy hospital-y shirt he was wearing and could see where he stitched himself up at the wedding. It was healed up and scarred over. Still pink and angry looking but no longer stitched up or in need of them. Ranger ran a hand over it, ”This was still stitched up, last I remember.” He looked around his body, no other new scars, any tattoos, or other anomalies he could find.

”I think we should get the whole story.” Ranger said as he slid his feet to the floor and then asked, ”Any idea who runs this place?” as he rose to his feet. If they weren’t being given answers then he would go get answers.

She felt sick. Maybe it was the smell of the place. Or how careful everyone had been. Maybe it was the shock of losing... or gaining ten years. Or maybe the drugs. Or all of it. Whatever it was, Noel wanted out. She wanted to be safe enough to relax and have time enough to poke at the mental blocks in her head, as there were many...

"Wait." She didn't get up, but she did put her hand on his abdomen, near the scar, and hoped it would be enough to give him pause. If he wanted to go, she literally could not stop him. But she hoped they still had enough trust that he would give her a chance first.

"If you start swinging, you'll have to fight them all to get out. I don't know a lot, but I do know they're not lying, or they know not to lie to my face, anyway." Noel reclaimed her hand. She didn't remember their conversations from the wedding perfectly, but she remembered enough. He had experience working with governmental agencies. He should know how the red tape gets stickier the more you fought it. "Right now we're not prisoners. They want us to go to a safehouse and lay low. All I'm suggesting is that we find a... safer house. If they want to let us walk out of here, we should let them. Don't do anything to jeopardize that."

In other words, don't start a fight. Which was probably the whole reason they'd let her wake up first, to convince him of exactly that. Though, she hoped they wouldn't expect a jailbreak and deviation from the plans they'd laid out. If they did, they'd probably have assigned more security, right?

Noel stood and gathered up the file she'd been given. Haven was their target and they'd managed to get into the organization's security forces and in their confidence, according to the file. They could worry about that later, supposedly they had time to go on vacation together and that was their cover for now.

It was time to find the man in charge.

Before Ranger could move to seek out someone in charge, Noel placed her hand on his abdomen and stopped him. Perhaps it says something about how the wedding went that Noel immediately thought he was going to talk with his fists. Ranger wasn’t always a bulldozer in a china shop, he could be subtle when he needed to be. He just happened to be the biggest of shit-magnets who believed that while violence was never the answer it often was the solution.

He stopped at the touch and listened to Noel. They had yet to lie to her. Which meant either they were telling the truth or they told someone a lie and that someone was parroting. They weren’t prisoners, the someones wanted them to go to a safehouse, and Noel had the right idea to ensure they could leave under their own power.

”I won’t jeopardize it.” Ranger said, ”I can play nice when I have t’.”

While Noel was gathering collecting the file, Ranger stepped out toward the middle of the room. There was no obvious indication of where he was relative to anywhere else in the building nor anything indicating who was in charge.

What’s behind door number one? Ranger moved to the nearest door. Testing to see if anyone would stop him. Not making a scene, no aggression, just casually testing for any limits while trying to draw out the person in charge.

Her eyebrows went up and stayed up. Why was Noel not at all surprised that the Ranger walked around in (basically) his birthday suit just as comfortably as he walked around in a wedding suit? Maybe it fit the whole not-giving-a-care attitude. He had danced through stitches with only bourbon (or turpentine, she wasn't sure which) to get him through last time they'd met. He wasn't afraid of anything, it seemed.

While the Ranger went to poke his nose anywhere and everywhere, Noel went to the temporary looking nurse station to make sure no one was freaking out over the finger clip (they weren't) and to see if they had any spare clothes (they freshly laundered the clothes Ranger came in with). Noel balanced a set of boots in one hand and tossed the shirt at the Ranger as she passed back into the room where he'd woken. She left the boots and everything else there. He could dress. Then they could talk their way out.

---

"...I think it'd be best if you took some time to decompress. That's all."

Noel had her arms folded around her file folder and was in conversation with the gnome-faced man, the first and most in charge person that she seemed allowed to speak with. They were really, very careful.

"Our whole lives are in that building— Phones. Wallets. Identification. You can't think it's too dangerous just to find a dog-sitter, can you?" She was trying every tac she could to get them to let her back into her apartment, but so far it was no dice.

"We can handle some of that." He assured her. "It really is that serious. Until we know the extent of whatever triggered all this, you can't go back."

Testing boundaries proved fruitful. A few minutes of finding his way through every door he could find and a man bulbous nose appeared. To Ranger this meant that while he was free to roam, they didn’t appreciate him taking the liberty of actually roaming.

The first order of business? Asking Ranger to put pants on.

The man gestured to the gurney where Ranger had woken up. It appeared Noel had seen to finding him some clothes. He then indicated where Ranger could go to change in private. Behind a thin white screen.

The clothes fit him well enough, they looked like they could have been his, but the shirt seemed somewhat too large. The Ranger that is in the pictures must be larger by at least ten pounds. The thought of being more muscular was odd to Ranger. Large men didn’t make it through selection into Delta. The mass was too metabolically demanding when you are forced to ruck across a mountain. Uphill. Both ways. In the snow.

Ranger did note a lack of contents in his pockets. No keys, phone, wallet, gun, or knife. It made him feel naked. More naked than when he was cruising around in less clothes.

---

The conversation was interesting. Ranger wasn’t used to someone in a governmental agency not using doublespeak and lies that hold kernels of truth. Having Noel with him and them knowing what she could do did seem to simplify things.

The man was insistent that they couldn’t return to their homes. Which it turns out that for both of them were apartments in Haven. Noel was putting up a fight to go back. Ranger was more on the fence. While he wasn’t willing to blindly follow the directive of some functionary, they did make a convincing case that he had worked for them until whatever had happened. Not to mention they were offering to help with some of the missing personal effects.

”Y’ want us t’ go t’ ground. Avoid contact with anyone who might know us, any connections t’ this Haven place. That’s fine.” Ranger waved a hand dismissively, ”But I ain’t gettin’ left high an’ dry because some bureaucrat missed a stamp on the form that’ll make sure I’m covered wherever we hunker down. I need t’ ensure I have what I need, what we need, goin’ in... Y’ say I’m head of security for Haven. Fair t’ say I designed the protocols they follow?.. Alright, well then I should be able t’ get us in an’ out unnoticed. Get a few essentials, make sure these bears we have are taken care of. “

Ranger wouldn’t push the issue if he needed to, but he wanted to secure cash, arms, and most importantly, intel. Mission files and other records for the past ten years. Something to catch him up to himself. And maybe confirm what he was being told.

Trust but verify.

"A compromise then."

They got to send in someone they trusted to look for a few items they specified beforehand. That was tricky since neither of them was entirely sure what or where they should be looking. Ranger seemed to have more of an idea what he should look for.

That was how they came to be in a chauffeured car, each holding a duffle bag packed by one of the Ranger's guys.

It had all been processed and rummaged through by their employers to be sure Haven hadn't bugged them or sent anything deadly that wasn't asked for. Noel and all of everyone handling the packed bags came to realize that Ranger's guy had done his boss a solid by packing only the raciest underwear for Noel. Or did Noel just always dress in underwear like that now? Fantastic. She turned red all over and prayed for a giant life-destroying meteor that never came.

They allowed Ranger and Noel weapons, though the Ranger had asked for (or maybe just owned) more. And the dogs had been temporarily rehomed for the duration of their vacation. Even the Ranger's business was suspended or passed off or something. Noel hadn't been paying the closest attention since that apparently had nothing to do with her.

Her ill-feelings persisted. Her head, her stomach, her everything. When Noel placed a memory block, she could often feel it. She might think of something and run right up to the edge of it when it was fresh. Like a big boulder, it would block her way. She could choose to back off or smash right through.

Right now, Noel had her eyes closed and she was trying to think of any memory she had around the scenes in the photos: The Fordasaurus, as the Ranger called it. The photo of her carrying the Ranger on her shoulders. Noel in a hospital room, cuffed to the gurney and glaring daggers. The Ranger in fatigues.

Nothing rang a bell. She didn’t run into a block. There was just... nothing. She could imagine the scenes, give them a bit of life and a guess at story just because she had seen the images, but the reality of the situation was that she had no memory of any of it. Like it had never happened, or hadn’t happened yet.

"We're here."

Noel opened her eyes to see the hustle and bustle of an airport.

"Where are we going?" The driver turned and passed over their tickets. Minnesota? She hadn't even packed a coat...

The man didn’t break, but he did bend. He maintained that Ranger and Noel couldn’t go into Haven for things, but allowed someone they trust to go in. From their list. It was convenient that the list mostly consisted of operators Ranger had served with and worked for the company he recently… Ten years ago… founded.

Ranger was interested to learn his small PMC had grown into a fair sized, and quite profitable, company. He learned this as he signed documents that gave temporary authority to manage almost the entire business to someone named Jude. Apparently he had proven himself adept at this exact task once before. Ranger’s Alpha team maintained autonomy to take on some new darkside jobs in a limited capacity. Anything requiring above a certain dollar value in assets from the business would require Jude be read in.

As Ranger went through the documents and signed everything, his man went into Haven and grabbed Ranger and Noel both a go-bag. Conveniently, Ranger always had one packed and ready so his just needed a few additions. Noel’s was packed on the spot...Embarrassingly enough for her as when she inspected what was grabbed she became a human tomato when she found her underwear that was packed. It certainly got Ranger’s attention… And every other guy nearby.

From there they were in the back of a car being chauffeured. They were being sent to the airport to catch a flight to… Somewhere. They wouldn’t tell Ranger and Noel where, which meant they didn’t know. They might operate in cells, a good practice when working intelligence, or their contact Director Gnomefacé was a mushroom. Kept in the dark and fed bullshit.

On the ride to the airport Ranger went through some of what was in his bag. He had no doubt that the bag had been gone through and he had looked it over once before. That was just an inventory though. This second time Ranger was function checking weapons and looking over devices as if he was someone taken from the bush and handed their first smartphone.

His phone had only three buttons. Power, up, and down. How was he supposed to operate it? Sure he could use the touchscreen to text but it lacked a menu button, a back button, or a button to tab through. Why didn’t his phone do like his old phone and have a full touch screen and a full slide out five row keyboard? The laptop he had was a laptop. It had bigger numbers on the specs but that was mostly g(r)eek to Ranger.

The weapons were what he would have expected. A few trust full sizes, a couple revolvers, and some compacts. What surprise was with a couple pistols he could fit in his pocket. Beyond that there were a few knives and a tomahawk. None of these items were ready to be sent on a plane per TSA regulations. Ranger had a feeling this organization they were with would do something to fix that. Ammunition was also limited. That was easy to correct later.

When they arrived at the airport, Noel asked, “Where are we going?”

In reply the diver simply passed over a pair of tickets… For Minnesota. In December.

Ranger’s bag was not one kitted for winter combat. Noel’s was certainly not optimal either. They needed coats and long underwear, she had what likely wasn’t even ‘walking underwear’.

That’s what they get when Sideshow packs the bags.

Ranger slid his ticket into his back pocket as he climbed out of the vehicle with his duffel bag slung over one shoulder. He waited for the chauffeur to drive off before quietly saying to Noel, ”This all feels too controllin’. I vote we find our own safehouse. Lay low where we cain process this without bein’ fed the party line.”

Being fed a line was not unusual for Ranger, it had been the SOP while he was in the military. Since becoming a contractor he had been able to ensure he had better intelligence. If he didn’t like the Defense Departments answers he could refuse the job. This new agency likely would have been the same way but they were being cagey. Their pitch sounded good to Ranger but the execution left questions.

”They got trains here. Hop one an’ get somewhere before the handler on the other side misses us?”

To the Ranger's plan she could only agree. Controlling was the government's middle name, but this was a lot to process and they were expected to do it and do it under far too controlled terms. "We'll play it by ear."

Noel trailed the Ranger through security which involved a special line and a special paper full of permissions, a special search and a special waiting period in which Noel tried and failed not to hear too much from too many people. Only, the normo security line was just behind them and far, far too many people "forgot" or otherwise were fibbing about what they were trying to take in through security. She felt like she was going to throw up and looking at the many screens around had only made it worse. So she shrugged off any attempts by Ranger to talk and she diverted her entire focus into a few pamphlets. Once they were allowed to move on, she used some of her petty cash to grab a diet drink from one of the stores in order to wash her mouth out.

Being a psychic in a crowd was terrible. Situations like this just made Noel constantly aware of the fact that there was no off switch to her power.

They had to go through security. There had been too much done ahead of time for them not to, it would have been suspicious. But once they were through there was a hell of a lot less anyone could do to stop them. They would know where they went, sure. Security cameras were everywhere, sure, but had their keepers wanted to stop Noel and the Ranger, they would have already had to have been inside of security, having jumped all those same hoops that Noel and Ranger had.

Security was lax going from an airplane to a train. They'd already gone through security so there was no need for a second check at this location. They simply paid cash for a one way ticket out on the next train and got on. Everything was quick enough that Noel felt pretty comfortable that they wouldn't be followed in person. There were still more hurdles, but that was a major one, freshly cleared.

They could get off at any stop from here to Arkansas where the trainline ended. Their handlers would have to look at them all since not even Ranger or Noel knew their final destination just yet. The midwest was their oyster.

Noel rubbed her forehead with the flat of her hand and did her best to stay totally within the confines of her own seat. They were almost out. Almost to a place where she didn't have to run on orange alert while feeling like complete and utter crap. And even worse, even deeper was the fear just barely kept at arm's length.

"I don't know where to go. Choose a stop?" She passed over the pamphlets that had gotten her through security, informational about the train line they were on, points of transfer, time estimates... there was a lot should anyone care to read it all. If they transferred, they could go all the way to the West coast. If they just followed the train to the end of the line, that would dump them in Arkansas sometime late tomorrow. Trains didn't go nearly as fast as airplanes, but they did apparently have wifi and plugs for their laptops. Nifty.

Their course of action was unmethodically adopted. To buy time which would give them space they moved chaotically. Instead of a plane they went for a train. They had no destination in mind, they would just ride the train. Only after their disappearance was realized would they then check security footage and see they boarded a train for Arkansas. From there they would need to check every stop along the line. This would give them time to board another train. From wherever they found themselves they could move by car or bus to another place where they could hole up.

Eventually they would be found. Major US cities were already becoming surveillance states in 2009, give it ten years and it could only be worse. Cameras, GPS in cars, and more that could all be tapped. Being found wasn’t a concern, it was an understood inevitably. Ranger just wanted breathing room. Somewhere that he could process and investigate without top-down guidance.

In support of the goal, Ranger drew cash from an ATM. As a regular cash user this wasn’t suspicious. It would also allow Ranger and Noel to operate without using a credit card. Sadly, Ranger didn’t have any checks to use. Those would take days to process and would be useful to buy them a little more time if the cash ran out.

Ranger would have to thank the agency later for making moving through an airport loaded to the gills so easy. The staff behaved like the duffle bags were diplomatic pouches. Immune to scrutiny.

On the train, Ranger armed himself and stowed his bag. Ranger had secured them their own little room on the train. Travelling with a small armory long enough that you would need to sleep at some point necessitated it. It also meant Noel could be away from the lies told in the crowds.

When he sat down Noel passed over her pamphlets and asked him to choose a stop. Ranger looked at the list of stops and picked one in Arkansas. Not the last stop but one they still had options from. ”Here.” He pointed to one on the pamphlet. ”From there head West. Stayin’ away from bases. Avoid Bryan too.” The last stop would be a good place for the agency to start a search. Work from the first and last stop simultaneously and then go in. From there bases would have assets they could likely tap. And Bryan-College Station was home, they would likely send someone there the moment they realize Ranger and Noel had gone off script.

The next step decided Ranger grabbed the laptop that had been in his bag and settled in for the long haul. There is a reason people use planes nowadays. Outside of a bullet train or something from Taggart Transcontinental they didn’t break 60 miles per hour.

”Let’s see what we’ve been up t’.” Ranger said as he turned on the laptop. It sprang to life much faster than Ranger had expected. The login screen looked new. And Ranger didn’t know the password. ”... Or not...”

Noel watched Michael come to a conclusion. Just like that, they had a destination. Texas.

"Do you know someone there?" It could be good, could be bad. She couldn't decide. Michael popped open his laptop and was greeted by a password prompt. Hm. Noel wondered if hers was the same so she followed suit. A little red light flicked on, it told her to stay still, and then it said it recognized her face. So, she was still not terribly different looking in 10 years, she guessed.

Since her laptop was free reading, Noel passed over their files. "Maybe you can find your password in there? Your birthday is in March. You've got a dog... I dunno. What do people normally put for passwords?" Apparently she knew that there would be times when she did not know her password and so Noel was smart enough to use her face, something she'd always have at the ready.

"My computer doesn't even connect to the internet." Unless things had really changed a lot and she was doing it wrong. There was virtually nothing on this machine except some dated word files. She picked one at random and fired it up.

I don't get it. No. Actually, I hate it. I hate relying on someone else and I hate that Michael is so freaking reliable. He is a trap and he is trapping me and I walked right the fuck into it.

Oh? Noel gave him a bit of side eye. What the heck was this? Noel scrolled back to the date. April 2017

You can not fall in love with him. No. Full stop. Don't do it if you are in a place where you're reading this and it's not true right now. Just don't. Steal his pants, but don't spend time with him any more if you value your independence. It's too late for my feelings today. Emotions are big fat stupid selfish wastes of time. And... also kind of nice.

She went forward a bit.

I met myself today. My doppelganger from the other universe. I interrogated him, but some things he said hurt worse than what I found in his head. Who knows how to hurt me better than me?
He said that he could tell I was walking around fooling people about knowing them. That I was a husk compared to a real person. Fucking ouch. How do you know what you stand for, Noel? I made him take in severe mental issues from someone else until there was none of him left. I rewrote him. Now there's no second me, just two men with mental issues.

She clicked around for other interesting events and paused to read a short entry.

He let you take his classified memories. He's safe now. He trusts me that much.

He trusted her that completely. Despite his fears and despite his very valid hesitations. She seemed to return that trust. Noel shut the laptop with a frown. It was her, but it was all totally new. Like someone had crawled around in her head long enough to get the feel of her. Then they wrote a story that would have been sweet if she wasn't the main protagonist of it.

"Michael, I have been searching my memories forwards and backwards and I can say with certainty that I have maybe 5 years of my own memory right now." Maybe it was out of the blue, but reading about future her had unnerved her more than she cared to admit. She wanted to move on and to do that, they had to get out of this situation scott free. "And part of that memory is working for a different department than we're dealing with now. My job was to help track people, mutants especially. I need you to... check me. I need to know that the subdermal tracking chips that I've used on other people aren't now being used on you and me."

Time to take a leap of trust.