Vixen, are you well?

It stay there upon the screen, unmoving. She stared at it. It stared back - or appeared to - and it was Roxanne who looked away first.

"Jesus," was all she could mutter. "He's still out there."



Walt Whitman once said, "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes."

It was a comment made upon the nature of the human mind - that there is not just one unified process occurring, but hundreds if not thousands of cycles, weaving in and out. Sometimes those cycles align - too often, they fail to do so.

Which is why Roxanne Richardson, a doctor, a smart person by anyone's standards before and after eruption, and the leader of an examined life, was capable of knowing that her shadow-swathed aggressor was still out there, but still able to put the thought out of her mind - onto a different cycle, as it were - and get on with her life.

Sometimes, however, life won't let you get on with it.



Yes, Bastian, I'm fine. And you? How's the raping and brainwashing business these days? Still drugging up runaways or are you too 'nova' for that?

She sighed, mashing the backspace key, and her response evaporated. She leaned back in her chair, staring at the ceiling, blowing out between her lips, trying to calm her queasy stomach and racing heart.

Mitch was off at work. She was alone, currently dormed because a fan inside their computer case had fallen out of alignment, and the noise was irritating to someone who could hear a fly sneeze. She'd balanced her checkbook and resolved to go out and get herself a contract, because things were starting to get critical. One major unexpected expense could set both of them back.

She wondered if the others ever had to balance a checkbook or work with accounting software. Probably not. They either worked steady work for a company that paid them eight figures a year or they just stole whatever they needed.

When did I start comparing myself to them? When did I start giving a damn about how they thought of me?

The question sat there in her head. No answer accompanied it. She started wondering how often the others had to worry about telepathic slavers mentally raping their families, as well.

Goddamnit, Roxanne. Focus. Get a job. Just tab over to your mail program and read through the job offers. There's dozens. Maybe hundreds. Pick one. The money will keep you set for at least a year.

Vixen, are you well?

No, Bastian, I'm not well. My father's in the hospital and my sister's in therapy and my mother only recently came off antidepressants. If I ever see you again I'm going to start cutting off your body parts starting with your

"God DAMN IT!" She held down the Backspace key once more. "Fuck fuck fuck. Christ. Fuck."

She stared balefully at the monitor, and then quickly switched back to her mail program. The filters she installed deposited every job offer she got into a special folder. She opened it, and began to read.

One of her legs bounced with nervous energy. She read through the offers. The Gestalt had fired out a contract through NSI that was asking pseudo-psionic individuals for help with a study. A private corporation in Japan wanted to build an ad campaign around her as a spokesperson. DeVries was sending out its automated recruitment drive. Novation Toys wanted to know if she wanted to put out any more merchandise.

She looked up at the wall, at the one piece of official merchandise she'd ever had them do... for similar circumstances, except it was someone else who needed the advance check. It was a small stuffed fox with two tails and suction cups on the hands, the type of cheap toy you dangled off the back of your window. It was so she could buy a gift for Endeavor, during that dark period in her life...

Initiated, oddly enough, by people on that board. The one that sat in her browser, with the words Vixen, are you well? Sitting there in space.

There was the rub. There was why she didn't go there any more. She was associating with self-confessed criminals half the time, it seemed. People who were downright proud of their belief they didn't need to follow the law, and that the law was incapable of adapting to fit their lifestyles. And of course, she felt that was bull and said as much, that the legal system adapted to changing times and social trends and would change once more if need be... and was that why she was targeted?

It did seem like Project personnel were literally chased off the board. It certainly couldn't be on moral grounds, over conspiracies four years dead, since that would be textbook PKB syndrome with the way the 'sphinxes' bragged about their ability to manipulate world events. Was it deliberate? Were people who didn't believe in Teras and objected to it singled out?

From deep within her case, the fan slipped further out of alignment. The computer rumbled, sending soft vibrations through the desk. Reflexively, her teeth gritted.

She tabbed back over to the browser. There it sat. Four little words...

A few follow-up posts had emerged. People wondering where she was.

Friends?

Enemies disguised as friends?

How much did she really know about them? How much did they already know about her?

The rumbling subsided for a moment, and then resumed, echoing within the case...

They knew which city she lived in. One quick glance at the Yellow Pages would give them the addresses of the three Roxanne Richardsons in Seattle. Geryon had found her. Bastian had found her.

The fan caught on something and clicked in rapid succession, like machinegun fire.

They could find her. There was no limit to what they could do to her. Every day the fear was there, that she'd come home and they'd be here, and her imagination never fell short when called upon to envision what she'd find when they finally decided to do it...

Vixen, are you well?

No, I'm not well. I can't sleep at night without seeing your idiot savant face in my nightmares, smelling that scent of yours everywhere I go. I'm so terrified I can't even send the one worthless scrap of evidence I have to the cops because if I involve the authorities in this that'll just mean you'll come after me that much harder, because no matter how much I love them I can't protect them and every time I touch minds with Mitch I see that raw, rotting memory in his brain, of when you'd claimed you'd come back for me, and I can't protect them, I can't even protect myself

The screen went dead. A loud crackle, like a rifle shot, went off inside her computer. There was a smell of burning ozone.

"God damn it! Fuck! Dammit!" She grabbed the case and tore it off her desk, cables and peripherals wedded to it like seaweed. She threw it at the floor. It bounced once off solid concrete, cabling spread everywhere like the limbs of an octopus in its death throes, a tiny plume of black smoke railing out of the case.

She sucked in deep, shuddering breaths, and then sat back down again, the brief burst of adrenaline gone, the anger gone, leaving nervous spasms in her muscles.

Some disconnected cycle in her brain commented that now she had more incentive than ever to get a job.

Gently, she stood up, setting the computer upright once more. And then, she put on her shoes, and went outside.



"Lucy! I'm ho-ome!"

Mitch opened the door, looking around. "Roxy? You in?"

"Downstairs!" came the response, muffled by a door.

"Mmmm..." Mitch descended the stairs into the basement. "You all right? ... What's that smell?"

Mitch opened the door to the study. Roxanne sat there, a stack of books with library tags by her side, and a large stack of printouts on the desk. She turned around as she entered. "Heya."

"Hey. What's all this?"

"Oh, went to the library. That smell is the computer. It kinda went, er..."

"Oh." Mitch made a face. "Ow."

"Sorry..."

"Sorry? For what? You didn't break it."

"I just... We could go out and get a new one, right now, if I'd just picked a damn job sooner-"

"Roxy." He leaned on the desk, staring down into her eyes. "It's all right. You were in a coma. No one's rushing you. No one. Now - what's on the plate?"

"Two interesting ones... the PETA wants me for an ad campaign, and NSI set me one saying it was an exclusive offer."

"What kind of offer?"

"I'm one of the few novas who can put multiple people into telepathic illusions at the same time, and just about the only one on the project's list of trustworthy novas. They think that I could put together training scenarios that would be better learning experiences than drills and practice runs."

Mitch beamed. "Good! I'm glad they finally noticed how good you are with that. Who's it for?"

"Team Tomorrow."

"Team Tomor- what? You're joking. Team Tomorrow?"

"No, Team 2 Weeks from 2sday. Yes, Team Tomorrow." She hoisted herself onto the desk. "What's so funny?"

"They're hiring you to be the Danger Room. That's what's so funny."

"Yes, and I get my own wheelchair and I get to say 'to me, my X-Men' a lot. I get to fly the Blackbird and tell everyone it's called the Blackbird and not the frickin' X-Jet. I get to bitch about how much it sucks to be a mutant, living in the lap of luxury and being able to shoot fire out of my fingers. It's all there in the job description. Even has the Danger Room bit underlined."

Mitch held up the piece of paper, reading it over. "Roxanne?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you just make a joke about being in a wheelchair?"

Roxanne paused for a moment, then smiled. "Yeah. I guess I did, didn't I?"

"So what's the other job offer? PETA, right? Ad campaign... are you going to do that?"

"Probably not."

"Why not? I thought you supported the PETA."

"I do. But this, is, er... They're bringing back the 'I'd rather be naked than wear fur' campaign."

Mitch paused for a moment, opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it. He opened it once more, and then closed it, his face churning through multiple emotions before settling on confusion. "That, uh... how would that work?"

"Pretty much how you're picturing it in your head, Mitch. And no, I can't read minds while dormed, but you're a man and therefore I don't need to."

"But even when you are naked you're still wearing fur."

"I know. That's the joke."

"... thinking of passing on that one, huh?"

"Oh yeah. Can you just picture how my mother would react? She'd probably skin me alive. And then I'd have to do the ad without my skin."

"Team Tomorrow's official Danger Room it is, then." He leaned forward and gave her a kiss. "Anything else happen today?"

"Not really."

"Mmmmm. You're a good liar, hon. But you can tell me later." Gently, he took her into an embrace. "So, for dinner... macaroni & cheese sound good?"

"Yeah, it does. Yeah. Something nice and normal."

"Nice and normal? Nice and normal..." He broke out into a grin as he brushed the side of her face. "Between having nice and having normal... I'll take nice."