(Anyone who participated in the Future Plot is welcome to post one final scene wrapping up their FP story. One post per person.)

--

Katrina stood on the hill overlooking Prague, or Praha as the locals called it. Sebastian stood behind her, quietly contemplating his own thoughts as the early morning sunlight glinted off off the rooftops and the steeples that gave the city its' moniker the “City of a Thousand Spires”. A gentle breeze still carried with it a slight chill, but it also bore the smell of fresh blossoms. Katrina couldn't distinguish which type of blossoms they were. The similar scents of cherry, crab apple and lilac came to mind.

This hill was as close as she could get to the building where the world leaders were supposed to be negotiating some sort of armistice. The city was crawling with guards that made it nearly impossible to navigate the narrow cobblestone streets and completely impossible to approach the government building, even for a girl who could turn herself invisible. The illusionist hoped her spot in the quiet little churchyard on the hill would be close enough.

One by one, the church bells began to clang, clamor, and chime all across the city in a chorus of consecrated tintinnabulation. It was nearly time for the meeting to commence. Based on what she knew about the personalities of the leaders involved, particularly the Chinese leader, Katrina suspected that the meeting would not go well. The whispered rumor that the Chinese president had originally decided to attend the meeting only because he figured no one would want to bomb Praha when their own leaders were residing there did nothing to sway her prediction of the meetings' outcome toward a more optimistic view. The stories also claimed he didn't want to give the other leaders a chance to plan his assassination, or possibly even the bombing of his entire home city, while his back was turned. Katrina knew the man better than she would like, and both rumors reason seemed perfectly in line with his way of thinking.

With the exception of the American president, Katrina didn't know as much about the other politician involved in today's meeting. What she did know was that there was a lot of bad blood between the two sides at this point. A couple of warheads detonated over one's cities or a plague released into one's rivers tended to break trusts like that. It would take a lot more than a meeting room filled with uninvolved whining foreign dignitaries to convince many of the world leaders involved in the conflict that it was time to make peace.

Katrina hoped that her efforts today would open their eyes, so they could truly see what this war was costing them. The future was at stake, for her students, for her friends and loved ones, for all the people trying to live out their little lives all around the world, and even for herself. She didn't usually spend much time considering what she wanted for her own future, when she was so wrapped up in teaching students and trying to save the world. When she had sat down to make the preparations for today's message to the world's politicians it became clear to her what she wanted to do if she did finally manage to save the world.

Slate? If we live through all this, we should get married.

She didn't wait for a telepathic response to her statement. She closed her eyes and began to concentrate, clearing all thoughts from her mind. She had never tried anything this big before. Since she didn't know enough about the leaders to be able to send her message to only them, she would be broadcasting to everyone in the city. It would take all the concentration she had to pull it off.

The last thing she felt before slipping into the pool of images was a pair of cool hands on her shoulders. Sebastian was here with her, ready to heal any adverse affects the illusions had on her body. She would be stretching her ability farther than she had ever attempted before. It was comforting to know she wasn't alone.

Flame.

A shield of flames wasn't enough to stop the barrage of bullets. “Sorry bud,” choked a young man with flame colored hair and scarlet eyes. “No biggie,” came the response from his perfectly human looking comrade in arms. Both collapsed, their breath laboring for a few moments before ceasing one after the other.

A fire burned in the hearth. A fist rapped at the door. A thin woman with a Russian nose and a swollen belly pushed open the door to see a strange man in a military uniform standing there. She already knew what he was going to tell her, but it didn't stop the tears that were coursing down her cheeks.

The village was still burning, and there was no one left to try putting out the flames. A wiry grey Schnauzer blinked his intelligent eyes, searching through the wreckage. He whined involuntarily as the smoke burned his nose and throat. His home had been attacked, the people killed and burned solely because they had food that someone else wanted. A lifeless hand protruded out from under a pile of broken timbers and debris. The smell that accompanied it was not a healthy one. His stomach growled.

Cloud.

A small for his age Chinese boy replaced the pillow under his sister's head as she lay spasming on her bed. He thought they had survived; they had lived to hug each other and cry with relief that they were still alive after the blast tore their neighborhood apart. Twenty four hours later, seizures tore through his sister's slight frame, radiation poisoning shaking the life out of her from the inside.

Black clouds rolled upwards. Too close. The man's dark hands, toughened by years of hard work and creased with old age, were bloody from his desperate attempts at digging through the rubble. “Please,” he prayed as he attempted to lift and move the debris. If he couldn't reach his wife buried beneath the remains of the the house they had built fifty years ago before the flames did, he would stay here with her until the end.

It was a beautiful day for a wedding. The sky was a clear blue with only a few wispy puffs of white. A plane roared overhead as the minister asked, “Til death do you part?” There was a flash of light, a blast of air and heat, and brief but intense pain that dissolved into white.

Snow.

A small infant cried weakly, too hungry to make any more noise than a whimper. His mother's arms around him were cold and stiff, offering little comfort. She had already given up everything and had nothing left to give him.

White flakes fell over a field. Corn stalks lay limp, dead before they even had a chance to fully ripen. A farmer with threadbare mittens cracked icicles off of an ear of corn as he pulled back the husk to reveal a frost covered mushy cob. Maybe this one was still edible; he plucked it off the ruined stalk and put it in the basket he was carrying.

Tattered boots marched over muddy ground. A cold wind blew and a man pulled his scarf tighter around his face and adjusted his meager pack of belongings on his back. Something silver glinted on the path: a red stained dog tag. Next to it, gazing up at the sky with unseeing eyes was a man whose face, at least what was left of it, made him look like he had been even younger than himself. The young man stooped over the corpse and pocketed the dog tag. The scrap metal might be worth something.

Faster and faster the images changed. Katrina stopped trying to control the illusions and let them come as they wished. Scraps of old memories from her childhood, more recent scenes of the horrors and joys she had encountered during her travels, news and rumors brought to life, scenes of horror showing her fears for what the world might become, scenes of hope and love and peace that could be, the past, the present, and two possible futures: like colorful jewels and jagged pieces of broken glass the images slid and blended one into the next in a design that made more sense when viewed from a distance.

Then, the kaleidoscope broke, shattering into a thousand tiny fragments so small they blew away on the late spring breeze, carried with the pollen and the petals from the trees growing in little churchyard on the hill. The visions faded from the senses of those in the city. People who hadn't realized they had been holding their breath inhaled deeply, tasting the air with renewed appreciation after all they had seen. Soon the city stirred, coming to life once more. A young illusionist collapsed into the arms of an ancient healer, completely spent.

((OOC: Continued from [FP] Warhead.))

May 31, 2019, 23:40

There was nothing for miles except briny ocean... Briny ocean and Jude. The water lapped at the dingy in soft shoves, but they were anchored here. After they had reached their quota of approved Operators, the Controlled Burn elite had been shipped out. Literally. Each Operator and Controller had been dropped off in a dingy by helicopter and then rowed to the exact GPS coordinates that the Research Department had estimated for them.

Ghost was outfitted with a nifty new armband that would automatically deliver the pure sample of Haywire at exactly 00:00 hours of June 1st, 2019. All she had to do until then was relax and ready herself.

"We're going to change the world, you know."

It surprised Ghost that he bothered to talk out loud. In the darkness and complete silence, it had almost felt as if she were some place very private. Jude's voice had shattered that illusion. "I like your moxy, kid." He words were joking, but her tone betrayed her lack of enthusiasm. This was a heavy burden to bear and not knowing the outcome made it all the worse for her nerves.

Everything, every decision she had made in the last nine or ten years had lead her to this point in time. There was nothing more she could do the make this succeed. So she fret over every moment she had missed training or took a break instead of pushing herself. What if it wasn't enough in the end? She imagined her friends in similar situations. The ones who had made it thus far and wondered if she had hugged them hard enough and made her goodbyes properly.

"You're not dying, Ghost. Life will go on after the Gulf Stream is re-instituted." Jude's hands found her narrow shoulders. Funny. Sometimes she could still smell the synthetic plastic smell of her new body. She noticed it now for some reason as Jude kneaded her shoulders.

"Even if this does all work out for the best... in a way, it will be."

Ghost closed her eyes, but the image of Jude's watch haunted her from inside her mind's eye. She got the message. It was time to start emptying herself. The pure Haywire would be injected whether she was ready or not. It was best to be ready.

She followed her training imagining herself a glass, dense glass at the bottom with long and tall sides. Every worry and care filled that glass and was promptly emptied. Slowly and thoroughly she emptied herself of everything and left herself an empty vessel.

Vaguely aware of Jude's lips on her first thoracic vertebrae, she heard his last words before he filled her consciousness like a hand into a glove. "This won't be the end of us."

Click-hisssss.

There was no more world or face or thought or light. Only pain and the burning need to throw her power out and away.

~~~

June 1, 2009, 00:05

The fury of the wind rattled the windows all the way up to the 19th floor. Windows shattered all the way up to the 5th floor for nearly half a block. Trees bowed and lights flickered.

Tornado. It wasn't unheard of in New York, but it was quite rare.

Ghost had been sleeping incorporeally in her office. Her power, unable to break its way out through the plate glass windows had blown out the air conditioning vent she was partially through and she was soon released out into the late New York night. As soon as she was awake enough to realize that there was no Jude directing her actions, the wind abated, depositing a fast solidifying figure onto her knees and elbows on the glass strewn sidewalk in front of the Full Circle.

She sobbed.

It couldn't be true, but it had felt so real. The world, her life, her duty... She felt her still stinging arm for the Haywire module, but it was not there. Lucky New York, it wasn't there. The damage would have been more. Unfortunately for Ghost, most of the damage was internal...

Somewhere in the UK, an 11 year old Jude Coilin woke up in a cold sweat.

(continued from The Long Horizon)

Morning light filtered through the large glass windows of Dr. Wills' office at the Sanctuary. The little motes of dust moved slowly through the small manufactured air currents in the room, dancing briefly in the light of the Sun. A rogue mote found its way toward the good doctor, landing precariously on stumpy lashes, newly forming from the man's eyelids. The lids began to flutter open, the light of the present forming the images for the integrated mind.


It appeared that he had fallen asleep on the sofa in his office again. He was in serious need of a shower and some privacy. Why was he still slumming on the office couch? He had somewhere to go now. He and Sebastian had recently purchased a large apartment in the floor above a clinic. It would be the beginning of many great things. It was just odd for the man to leave his first home, the Sanctuary.

Seizure sat up on the couch, stretching and rolling the neck muscles that were a bit stiff from the sofa. He rubbed his eyes to wake up a bit. His hand remained in the spot between his eyes. Lashes? His hand slid back and the small bristle of burgeoning eyebrows had begun to grow. It was a bit of a shock. As his hand continued to slide back, it encountered resistance from a stubbly mess of brown that was peeking through his scalp for the first time in a decade.

After an excited stumble to the bathroom, his eyes widened as it was coming from his upper lip, his chin, everywhere! He was a living Chia pet, it seemed. It was wonderful! He turned with an excited face to the sterile and cold office. No one here but the motes. He would have to go home instead. Perhaps Sebastian or one of his interesting friends would be there. Still, anything beat the sterile confines of the Director's office.

It was one of those perfect ends to one of those perfect days. Tarin still couldn’t help but wonder sometimes when he’d transitioned from nomadic scam artist, to content husband to, proud papa, but it had happened, and it seemed quickly. Sure it had actually been 10 years, but that time had flown by, and today had been an almost picture perfect family event.

They’d taken Alice to the zoo again. Now that she was immune to haywire by virtue of having survived it, it was a much less tense situation and they’d thoroughly enjoyed it. That had been followed by a picnic in Central Park, one of Alice’s favorite things because it was in the city. They’d left the park just as the clouds had started rolling in and had made it back to the mansion just as the raindrops started to fall. What had followed had been a night of movies, popcorn and Alice completely removed from anything that could be considered a drawing implement. If Tarin and Lee were still slightly in shocked awe of Alice’s powers, she was thrilled. The only problem was, she’d taken to playing with her own creations more than the other living children around the mansion.

The night had gone off without a hitch, with a lights out screening of the most recent Disney movie to come to blu-ray and popcorn. Alice had been asleep before the first musical number had ended. Tarin had watched the whole thing with Lee…as Alice had grown his love for chick flicks had spread to children’s movies. Some of them really did have touching and humorous storylines after all. By the time the end credits had rolled, Alice was drooling on the couch chusions.

Up Tarin had picked her, watching her face intently as he carried her to bed and tucked her under the covers before he and Lee had gone to bed. That’s where they were now, in fact, and Tarin found that he was probably as tired as Alice had been. It was hard work being a daddy, so 10:30 found a thunderstorm rolling in and Tarin Brooks cuddling with his wife in their room. A particularly bright flash of lightly lit the interior of their room followed almost immediately by a boom of thunder so loud that the window shook in it’s frames. Tarin groaned and sighed, “Three….two….”

knock knock the sound came at the door, which opened not even a full five seconds after the knock. Tarin sighed again, but smiled in the dark at the voice, “Mommy…Daddy…” it came, as small and pitiful as humanly possible, “The thunder is scary…can I sleep in here?”

As Lee lay in bed with Tarin, her head on her husband's shoulder, she couldn't stop herself from jumping slightly at the most recent bang of thunder after the lightning had lit up their bedroom. Just based on how light their room had gotten, Lee was expecting the thunder to be loud, yet not quite that loud.

Then Tarin was counting, and sure enough, there was Alice knocking on the door. He was sighing, but Lee knew that there was no way he was going to even think of sending their daughter back to her own bed. So with a quick kiss, Lee shifted over in the bed. "Come on, honey," Lee said softly, patting the bed between her and Tarin.

Just a moment later, Lee felt the bed bouncing as Alice jumped onto the bed and crawled up toward them. Lifting the blankets, Lee let Alice crawl under just as thunder boomed through the room once more, and with a slight squeak, Alice curled up against Tarin.

"It's ok, sweetie," Lee said, reaching out to run her fingers through her daughter's hair. "Daddy will keep us both safe, so just try and go to sleep."

It took a while, but at least the storm seemed to be dying down a bit, the thunder not as loud as it had been, and soon enough Alice had fallen back asleep, still curled up slightly against Tarin. And, much more gradually, curled up on her side facing her daughter and husband, Lee fell asleep.


Bang[/b]

Lee sat up in shock, the thunder having woken her up suddenly.

As the thunder trailed off, Lee took a deep breath and lay back down in bed, waiting for Alice to react to the thunder too. Only, there was no reaction, only silence. Lee frowned. If the thunder had woken her up, Alice should have been woken up too.

Her frown deepening, Lee rolled over and reached her arm out. Only to find just one body laying there beside her.

Lee sat up again, shaking Tarin to wake him up as she looked around the darkened room and tried to push the grogginess of sleep away. Alice had been there when she had fallen asleep; with the storm still happening, there was no way she would have left yet.


(Continued in Bye Bye Baby)

(This should probably go after Slate's post, but it's all ready to go now, so here it is. I'll repost it after Slate's post is up.)
--

Sebastian had made a mistake. He had believed a young woman when she had said that she would be fine if he kept replenishing the energy within her body as she burned it up to create the illusions she hoped would save the world. She had either lied to him or hadn't known about the negative side effects such an extensive undertaking would have on her mind, side effects that the immortal had no way to heal.

It hadn't taken long to realize that something had gone wrong. She no longer responded to him when he spoke to her, she stared at things that were not there, she flinched at sounds no one else noticed and swayed and hummed along to songs no one else could hear. When she walked she swerved around empty spaces only to run into trees. To Sebastian it seemed as though the child was living in a world separate from the rest of them, reacting to the things in the realm her mind created for her rather than the things that existed around her physical body.

Feeling responsible for her situation, Sebastian had escorted her home to New York City in time to attend the Pax Academy graduation. For a brief moment as he sat next to her waiting for the ceremony to begin, that a glimmer of hope had sparked within the healer that she might be getting better. She had looked right at him as if seeing him for the first time, her eyes saw him rather than something that existed behind him or next to him. She reached out to touch his face, then looked at her fingertips as if trying to decide if what she had felt was real.

Once again she met Sebastian's gaze and spoke directly to him for the first time, “We're all corpses, you know. Even you.”

Sebastian's brow creased, disturbed. He grabbed her hand in his own, “Katrina, what are you seeing? Can you hear my voice?”

Her only response was to look at her own hand. “Rotting away,” she whispered before retreating back into her own private world. Her mind was slipping. It was getting more and more difficult to keep her conscious thoughts above the endless sea of her turbulent subconscious. It would be so much easier to stop struggling. She knew she was sinking, but was the real world any better than this one?

The ceremony was about to begin.

--

Sebastian wasn't saving the world for himself any more. In Australia he had lost hope; he had been ready to give up on everything and retreat to some quiet and unoccupied corner where he could be alone with the memories that were so much more pleasant than the real world. He had found hope again, at the graduation. He had remembered the real purpose of Pax: to build a peaceful world for the next generation.

This world was not his any longer; it belonged to the children. As long as there were children who could learn from the past there was hope. He would do everything in his own power to make sure the youth did not have to sacrifice their lives- or their minds- to make their world livable again, not when there were old and experienced men and women who could take up that burden.

The world had gotten so small. Only a few days after being in the Czech Republic, he had returned to New York City. Now he was in an airport just a few miles outside of St. Petersburg, the newly reinstated capital of Russia. He watched the planes landing and taking off out of the large windows as he rested in one of the seats, waiting for his turn to be checked, double checked, and triple checked by customs officials. The metal flying machines soared almost gracefully, albeit loudly, lifting off and landing with only the aid of metal flaps to replace the functionality of feathers. In the background rose the buildings of the city, gold gilded domes raised high mixed in with the more modern structures.

It was still remarkable to the immortal that people had figured out how to transcend their physical land-bound nature and learned to fly. It had taken thousands of years of dreaming about it before it had become reality. If humanity could struggle that long for flight, perhaps they would eventually learn to live in peace. Perhaps after another thousand years of struggling the dream of world peace could come true too. It was worth waiting around to see it, and even more worthwhile helping it happen a little bit at a time.

In a flash, the vision of the city and the planes disappeared from the window. A newborn sun had landed in the city, and its bright white light mercilessly seared unsuspecting retinas. Before there was a chance to react or even to process the sensation of being blind, a concussive blast hit the airport. The force of the wind scattered the molecules of planes and buildings like they were no more than dust to begin with. The heat was enough to melt sand and reduce rock to ash.

There was no time to feel pain. One moment there existed an ancient and gentle man with a spiral horn growing from his forehead. The next moment, there did not.

No amount of healing could regather the infinitesimal pieces and reform the earthly home of Sebastian's soul, so the spirit simply drifted peacefully into oblivion.

--

Oblivion isn't black.

Oblivion isn't white either.

Oblivion isn't anything.

At least, it isn't anything one can see or hear or taste or touch. Only one sense remains constant, carried over from life whilst the others vanish with one's mortal bonds. The final sense, intensified by the lack of all other senses, is the sense of the connection between souls.

Connections between two souls that are forged during life remain even after death. Some connections are intense, between two souls that bonded deeply in their lifetimes. Other connections are weak, made between acquaintances whose lives may have overlapped but never got the chance to really know each other. There is joy in the bright and strong connections and perhaps just a little regret for the weaker, dimmer ones.

Through these connections, souls share everything that remains of them from life: individuality, personality, emotions, memory, and knowledge. Each soul is beautiful in all its subtle complexities; it is impossible not to find them so, for each one is unique and fascinating. The shared experiences, thoughts, and emotions of a single event made each memory a treasure, a brilliant gem with multiple facets and beautiful from every angle. An entire lifetime of memories to share with loved ones was the eternal reward.

Here, in oblivion, the purpose of living is clear. The purpose is to love. Without love a soul is adrift in nothingness and so fades into nothingness itself.

If only those who were still alive could see the purpose that was so clear after death.

Once finding their place in oblivion, not very many souls go back. There are very few who intentionally sacrifice the peaceful all knowing existence to return to life. Few gave up the joy and love they felt in the afterworld in favor of starting all over again from ignorant nothingness. Even if they would regain the connections they had forged in their previous lives once they returned to death, most were not willing to suffer the loss of their loved ones again, even if they knew it was only temporary.

There was one soul who had done it many times; going back again and again to be with her loved one that could not join them in oblivion. Again and again, she became his daughter, his mother, his neighbor, his brother, his cousin, his lover.

Syrinx.

He noticed the absence of her spirit in oblivion only after he had adjusted to the brilliance of the connections, the crowd of spirits, the overwhelming plethora of love pressing in from the souls of his loved ones across the millenia. One of the important connections didn't lead to anyone. Where is she, he thought. Surely she had to be here. She couldn't have dissolved while she was waiting for him, could she?

Souls didn't laugh by themselves, but several memories of laughter were recalled very vividly by the older souls in his family. Pan felt strange being the young and inexperienced one, for once. Never fear, they assured him, she would be back relatively soon.

He had waited millenia to be with her; he could wait a little longer.

((ooc: Continued from Calley’s Graveyard.))

There was no end.

Rather, the end had come and gone. There had been no whimper to herald it, much less a bang. The part of Caleb Swartz that was ‘Calley’ had been dead for five years already, by 2019. The fact that the rest of him continued to move, continued to breath, continued to spy and love and try to help the world or damn it... such little things were irrelevant, to the dead.

He woke up with the memory of pain, and little else.

The rest of him woke up with more.

He curled around himself, and himselves curled back. A red hawk pressed itself against his shoulder, its feathers bristled for something it had lost: its freedom. That had been all it had, and now it was gone. Stolen. A mouse nestled next to his collarbone, its form small and uncertain. It seemed to remember being something... more than this. Something fierce. Something that had made its own purpose. The bits of clutter that formed its mind clung together desperately as the dream faded: and with it, their personality. Everything they were. It faded, until the King Mouse was only a mouse splinter. Pigeon cooed soothingly, one wing tucked over the little gray bundle as its consciousness passed. Sparrow pressed his feathers into that huddle. It remembered, like the hawk, the feeling of skies under its wings. Its wings. Something it had worked towards for nine years; something that was being ripped from it, second by second, as it became more alert.

Kitten remembered nothing more distinct than the taste of fish: he had been eating in the Mansion’s kitchens, hadn’t he? The young white tom cat with black spots here and there turned, as if to confer, with the other cat curled atop the shaking Calley’s back. The ancient black and brown tom arced its spine in a crackling line. Yawned. Went back to sleep, with its yellow eyes half-open. It was just as content here as anywhere else.

More than that—splinters flooded the floor of his Mansion room. They spread out from him in a warm bundle, each losing something as they came awake. Crows cackled laughingly at their own grief; that was what a crow did. A wolfhound looked somewhat startled to be... itself. Calley’s mind was forced full of memories not his own.

But where was his?

Where was his dream?

Miles away, Slate woke up in his room at Mondragon Labs. He wiped the back of his hand over his eyes; stared at it, as it blurred out of his vision again. He was happy. The feeling flooded him; made his breaths hic in his chest with relief.

It was a dream. This was good. This was good, because there had been no future left there for him. There had been... someone he loved. But she had been broken, somehow, in a way he could not fix.

He blinked the tears out of his eyes, and touched his fingers lightly back to them. Wait. He could cry?

...He could love?

((ooc: Continued from Scherzo. WereCat, tell me if the reference to you is a problem of any sort. Kat, tell me if I had too much fun with the Senior’s fates. ))

The wedding date had not been set. They wore their engagement rings like plastic toys; a playground promise that had meant so much at the time.

It was nothing now.

Katrina had been so much. She had been intelligent, creative, patient. What was she now?

Sebastian sat to one side of her; Slate, to the other. The ring on his own hand felt impossibly light. He didn’t know if she even knew she was wearing hers.

It was time for the graduation to begin. This was what they had worked for. This is what it was.

-----

They’d worked together to plan out the day, months ago. It was an open air ceremony in Central Park. It wasn’t just their graduation: they had taken Pax’ teachings to heart, and made it so much more. It was, for one thing, an understated advertisement for the school and its values; obvious mutant and unabashed humans sat side-by-side, clapping together. Reporters had long been sent invitations; after this, the students were supposed to do an interview with CNN. They had cringed when Slate had reminded them of that. In the end, they decided to go through with it. They would sit before the reporters, and they would smile. Perhaps they would even mean it.

Zakiyaa would. She wore the white and silver graduation robe with elegance; her headphones matched. If you send the boys, she had once heard, they will be killed. Yet they had all gone together, and they had all come back alive. Life is hope. Life is change. After graduation, she was returning to Sudan. Perhaps it was earlier than she had planned. What are plans, though? Plans are for making ready. Zakiyaa was a survivor, and she was ready. “Thank you,” she said, as she accepted her diploma. If you send the girls, she had learned long ago, they will return with water. Her country needed that return; to flow with one another like water. To know that they could be pure again.

Lynn tripped on her way up the platform steps. Her heels were gloriously high, and gloriously red. A girl only lives once, and she only has one high school graduation in that entire life. Unfortunately, she’d only had one hour to practice walking in these things, too. She grinned, and kicked them off. With barefoot pride she accepted her diploma, and met with Zakiyaa on the other side—laughing. There was too much wrong with this world. Someone had to do the laughing. Tomorrow afternoon, she would start making phone calls. There was a position with the UN she had her eyes on. It wasn’t open to interns, but she was sure that they would see the benefit in having an omnilingual young woman around. The war crimes tribunals would be starting. Not for China and Russia, but for other nations. Other wars. There was never any shortage of humans and mutants proving just how horrible a world this could be. The nightmares were never going to leave her. She was going to make sure, then, that anyone who tried to put those nightmares in another girl’s head ended up paying for it.

Felix was hit in the nose by her shoes. “Grumph,” he snorted. He picked them up, and tossed them over his shoulder. “Not my color,” he grinned, as he moved up the steps. He took his own diploma with a thank-you sniff, and another grin. New York smelled so... New Yorky. Not a corpse anywhere, unless you counted the hotdogs. His grin dropped.

...Yeah.

He’d been accepted to Rutgers University. He’d go there next Fall. By Winter, he would be suspended for drug use. On January 11th, his body would be found just downriver from the Delaware Water Gap, laying peacefully on its back with the tourniquet still around his arm. The look in his eyes as he stared up at the stars between mountains would be... the happiest he’d been in months. Since this day, this moment, when his friends were still here. They hadn’t abandoned him yet; moved on with their lives, like they could still have a purpose after what they’d all seen. What they’d smelled. He wouldn’t be able to understand how they could do that, and they wouldn’t be around to help him. But that was the future. For now, Felix was alive. He joined Zakiyaa and Lynn on the other side, wrapping one arm around each of their necks with a grin. He looked good, in his gown.

Julia caught the shoes. “Ooo,” she admired, “these are nice.” With a certain artistic finesse, she set them below the stage, angled just so. Six-inch spectators. She shook her teacher’s hand, resisting the urge to open her diploma right then and there. She’d helped design the inside, but her art teacher, Ms. Nobes, had ruthlessly left her hanging on the final product: this was the first time she would actually see it. She thumped Felix upside the head. “No pimping until the after party.” She was going on to art school, of course. Though she was starting to think she’d find her way to a teaching degree, somewhere along that path. There was so much ignorance in this world, and so much beauty. Yeti scalps and crow women and mass graves and mass rescue efforts. What was art for, if not to make sense of all that? To show it, in places no dictator could ignore.

River followed after her, with a well earned smile. The sun was bright, the day was young, and she had absolutely no clue what she was doing after graduation. None. Nada. Three colleges had turned her down; two more were keeping her hanging. Wasn’t it great? She had the liberty to angst over a few form letters, and years left to work things out. “Who are we pimping?” She asked.

“Thomas,” Felix grinned, as the thin teenager crossed the stage behind him. Lucas was right on his heels. Then they were all together: the entire senior class. They lined up for grinning photos: serious face, matrix poses, Charlie’s angels, and a jump shot. The caps came off, to a standing ovation from the crowd.

Lucas’ whole family was there, cheering for him. And that’s what they were: they were his family. He was Lucas Englebretsen; he’d absolutely refused to put on his robe until they’d done an impulse drive past city hall. Not that it was hard to convince his family; not even Davis had been able to resist his enthusiasm. He was Lucas Englebresten now. It was official. He waved at them in between photos, and tried to ignore the black parasite that was posing next to him. He was grinning on the outside. On the inside, though, he was keeping a tight rein on his powers: there was no way he was letting this feeling spread to everyone else. This was their day, too. It wasn’t their fault that it was also his.

The robes came off. Lynn reclaimed her shoes, though they stayed in her hands. There was cake, and white roses, and puppies. Seriously—they’d planned on using their graduation to promote the Pax Dog Shelter, too. There was an adoption center set up a tasteful distance away from the main ceremony that was attracting quite the interest from curious gawkers.

“Are you really joining the army, Lucas?” River asked, trying to keep the dismay out of her voice. Armies. They’d all seen enough of armies.

Lucas glanced back over his shoulder, to where his family was talking with the teachers. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “Someone’s got to. It won’t be long before the US joins the war. I think I can make a real difference, out there.”

“And what are you doing, Thomas?” Felix couldn’t help but ask, as a familiar black Game Boy found its way out of Thomas’ suit pockets.

“I'm competing in the Pokémon World Cup, of course.” He answered simply.

“That hasn’t been canceled?” Julia blinked.

“No,” he replied succinctly. “They’ve simply changed the location to Canada.”

There was much friendly headshaking, and laughs. Pokémon. He could get into any university in the world, and Thomas was focusing on... Pokémon. Granted, there was a pretty decent prize involved for the winner: a rather sizable check and the beta edition of Pokémon Gray. There was little doubt which one Thomas was after.

The gamer felt Lucas’ eyes on him. He looked up, with a small smile. “We should battle again, sometime.”

“Yeah,” Lucas agreed, keeping all of his ice on the inside. “We should.”

----

Slate left the ceremony early, his hand gently guiding his fiancée. He was leaving everything early. His job, the Academy; the unnamed group they had started. He had to. Someone had to look after Katrina. She had wanted to marry him. She had said so. And he had realized that he wanted to marry her, too. There was only one person who he could spend the rest of his life with. There was only one person he could love.

They would never have a ceremony; not in her condition. He did not have to speak the vows, though, to mean them. I love you.

Until death do us part.