Drew drove like a maniac.

He'd just got done enduring a dinner with his family and was eager to be out of there. Maybe he should reconsider Paramancer's advice. Maybe he should just....disappear for his parents. Maybe they would be happier if he did.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Jessica hadn't been there and he hadn't expected her to be. She possessed a modicum of sense. Granted, she hid it rather far down, but sometimes it flared up. And apparently her sense had told her visiting the parents on Christmas would be a Very Bad Idea.

His brother had been there.

So had his uncle.

He still couldn't look his uncle in the eye, but it wasn't for lack of trying. And his brother still couldn't keep his mouth shut.

Oh well. Drew had other plans for the holidays, and he was guessing Mellow was the kind of man who partied hard. Maybe a little hard partying would do him well, as long as he remembered not to fall back on old habits. In a way it was good that he'd met his uncle at his parents house earlier, just as it was good that he would have company over the hols. The look on his uncle's face...it would keep him strong. It wouldn't let him forget.

Drew really had nothing to worry about at all.

"Okay, Spidersound, let's call it a day." It was amazing he'd held them together for as long as he did. It was coming together pretty well, and Mellow was beginning to think he could pull this off. Twenty concerts with two months? Not starting to look like a problem.

And now...he could focus on a party. He hated to say he needed a party, but he really, really wanted to blow off some steam. The backup singers were probably going to crash (no fortitude! none at all!), but he and the usually reclusive Spidersound were more hungry and wound up than exhausted. Plus, that Drew guy was probably coming over.

The artificial tree was lit up, some jazzed-up holiday standards were playing (distorted to the point of unrecognizability, granted, but playing nonetheless), some nova-quality brew was simmering, and the OpTV had a running list of the "Worst Christmas Movies of All Time!" What more could you want to cheer you up?

Food. Food was good, and Mellow was chowing down, and was content. And he was lucky: this far in Northern California, the infrastructure was still good enough to get takeout.

The plane ticket to San Diego didn't really have Drew hurting. He wasn't rolling in dough, but he could afford to blow some when he felt like it. And, Paramancer's words ringing in his ears (not that he'd spoken them aloud) he flirted with a very attractive stewardess who didn't live tooooo far from Yellowknife and collected a phone number by the end of the flight. So that was okay.

The cab was not okay.

In fact, the cab was fucking awful.

It was the sort of cab you don't see on shows like America's Most Wanted, but only because they have to pixel-blur it out for young audiences. There was a stench rather like rotten onions in the cab, and also a sickly sweet smell which definitely didn't come from rotten onions. There was a brown stain on the seat, right where he would be resting his head, and a white stain on the seat, right where he would be resting his ass. And there was a little bald smiling man of dubious ethnicity sitting in the front, babbling something at him in a language he didn't know and somehow felt ashamed for not knowing.

But there was a shortage of taxicabs at the airport and what's a brotha gonna do? So Drew gave the man the directions, made him repeat them back, and settled down.

The ride took about 45 minutes. Drew was not amused, but the little smiling man was holding his hand out and had a strange, rather more predatory smile on his face, and there was an annoying feeling in his mind like a firebrand that he knew was his danger sense, and Drew suddenly had visions of some gangsters of dubious ethnicity gunning him down in a back alley. So he paid up, gathered his luggage, and strode into Mellow's domain without a backward glance.

Someone's knockin' at the door
somebody's ringin' the bell
Someone's knockin' at the door
somebody's ringin' the bell
Do me a favour open the door...

And sure enough, one of the girls chose that moment to say, "Hey, sweet thing, you got some company." Tarra, that was her name. She had on a Santa hat and an elf costume that had just enough material for an elf. And a strategically placed candy cane. Thank the Gods for central heating.

"Really? Someone showed up early? Must be from out of town." Mellow stood up, belched, and swayed his way to the door. He'd decided to hit some of the nova-strength punch a little early.

He opened the door, and...there was a guy with luggage there. Mellow could suss out that he wasn't from The Biz, but he looked like he had an invite, and the hotels certainly weren't in any condition to hold any more people, so..."Hey, man, come on in! If you'll hand me your luggage, I'll get you set up. If you're a nova, there's nova-strength punch there, it's the electric blue stuff, and the regular strength party mix is red."

"Hey, you'd be Mellow? I'm Drew Fischer; nice to meet you in the flesh!"

The short, brown-haired man sauntered in carefully, as though uncertain that this was indeed, the right place.

"Umm...I couldn't get room in any hotel, and I figured you would have a lot of space...so can you hook me up with a nocturnal dormancy unit, man? I'd be able to pay." Drew's words were both eager and convicted, the power from his node unconsciously pumping through them and making them sound incredibly reasonable. Not that any coercion was needed; Drew could and would pay. He added, "And I don't usually go in for the nova goop. But some weaker shit would be quite welcome, thank you."

"Oh, holy shit, Drew! Hey man, good to see you! We decided to start the party without you, but I'm glad you're here! Let's get you set up."

Mellow wobbled a bit with the luggage up the stairs and down a hallway, to the second door on the right. "Here we go. I don't think this room's been claimed yet." He set the luggage down near a chest of drawers and turned on the light.

"So, how was the trip? Did you just blow off your parents, or did you stop by for a bit? Seriously, I was wondering if you were going to show up or not."

"Anyway, I like spammed the boards with a Christmas Party meet-and-greet, so we may soon be seeing some familiar handles among us. You're kind of early, but that's cool."

"So come on in, I'll introduce you to some people, and we can get some life going on in this party! And if you want to chip in for refreshments, that's cool, but no talk of payment, man! It isn't like Constellation Sounds couldn't write this all off as a business expense, anyway!"

"Sweet! Two is a lonely fuckin' number, dude. I was hopin' we wouldn't be the only novas."

"True dat, but let us not overlook some of the fine company who's already here. There's Spidersound DJ, my one-nova band who'll be helping me on this tour. Don't mind him: he's lost in some musical arranging. He'll be more social later."

"Next up is Tarra, whose fine elf suit is testimony to central heating, and proof that God loves us all. Also Sheila, Mick, Tommy, Sara, Sarai (don't get those two confused! Twins hate that shit!), Leesa, Nicki, Rachel (don't hit on her, dude; Tori will kick your ass, Node or not), Tori, Aleister (goth dude I knew growing up, we still keep in touch), and Garry and some of my soon-to-be road crew are on the balcony doing beer pong."

"My plans for the evening are to get hammered, go jumping off the balcony into the swimming pool after shouting, 'I am a golden god!', freezing my ass off, and getting one or more of these girls to keep me warm. In the meantime, how are things with you?"

Evan opened a portal to Mellow's estate. Reality rippled and he stepped through. It was cool here. Certainly not as cool the desert he had been calling home for the past several months, but the cool of home. He wore a worn pair of blue jeans, a rough weave, white cotten shirt, pockets buttoned and sleeves rolled up. They showed a well-earned tan. His boots were for hiking, not dancing, but that shouldn't be a problem. Evan was here for a meet and greet.

Evan stepped up to the door and rang the bell. He wasn't good at these social things, but meeting a relative neighbor should be good, right?

Drew blinked. That was a hell of a lot of names. "Hi," his brain whirred, "DJ, Tarra, Sheila, Mick, Tommy, Sara, Sarai, Leesa, Nicki, Rachel, Tori, Aleister, and Garry." He grinned. "I plan to party hard, forget my troubles, and make witty remarks, like 'I think the dust, um....hugs the floor because it LOVES the floor, dudes.' But that probably won't be until after I get totally plastered." IF he got totally plastered. Suddenly Drew was thinking maybe it could go either way. Mellow's presence was like that.

Another grin. He said, "And I feel great."

"Awesome! Hang on, that sounded like the doorbell." Mellow quick-stepped to the door and opened it. "Hey..."

Wow ... that was some awesome presence he had there, Evan said looking at his host.
"Hey there. I'm your nova neighbor from up the coast. Evan Sigmar, doctor and Utopian. Does the invite still stand?"
Evan seemed good natured if a bit awkward. He offered out his hand for Mellow to shake, or not.

"Dude! Come on in!" Mellow gave the standard arm-wrap shake he'd slowly made into his trademark and ushered the good Doctor in. "Evan, right? Cool. Evan, this is Drew, who just got here a bit before you did. That's Spidersound being the DJ for the evening. That's..." and here he rattled off a long string of names, vaguely pointing in the direction of the people they designated.

"If you're crashing, I'll find a room. If not, give me keys so you don't drive drunk. If you flew or warped here, please wait until you sober up to say your goodbyes. And now that that's out of the way, how goes it?"

"Thanks," Evan said with more confidence than he felt. "I'm just a hop away from home. No need for a room."

He wanders into the room with Mellow a bit.
"It goes. I'm a bit tired of sand," Evan grins. "I kind of let work get in my way of facing Christmas with the Mother. You can say that about Project Utopia, they keep you busy. What about you? What next on your radar?"

"I've got a college tour of about twenty colleges I was putting some of the finishing touches on. We're trying to raise some awareness for FEMA's work in trying to get California back up and running, along with Mississippi and Louisiana. So I get to sing songs, be a big gorram hero, and hopefully get people out there in the trenches making life a little better."

"Anyway, Drew, introduce yourself. I'm getting some refreshments. What are you guys having?"

Evan heads toward the "Non-Toxic" beverages, making the excuse, "I don't want to end up warping into the sun, or something like that."

While not fashionalbe, his natural charm and good looks quickly attract Rachel to him. Evan was also in conversation with Drew, and the three head off to the balcony to talk. Rachel seems to be quite animated at Evan's side and Tori eyes the two with some hostility and is stoking the fires with drink. Evan seems immune to the glares being generated his way and instead seems to be drawing Rachel into an indepth three-way conversation.

Drew turned his brilliant, somewhat unnerving grin on Evan. "Yo. Evan, my man, what's up? I've seen you around the OpNet - sorry, I'm Andrew Fischer, better known as Drew, put 'er there!" All this said in a rush, with the grin firmly in place. And it actually looked genuine.

Evan smiled in response.
"I'm Evan Sigmar. I am a researcher and doctor with Project Utopia. I've been working on Project Genesis in West Africa, so I see A LOT of sand. I'm helping people, but we are often a long way from any kind of modern convinences."
He looks off for a second.
"So, what do you do? Which Rashoud facility did you go to? Did they treat you right?"

"I'm a boring office guy. I have a boring office job. And I'm not sure what clinic I went to; it wasn't foremost on my mind. And they were okay. Little trigger-happy with the drugs, I thought, but that's it. Now then," Drew's eyes developed a wicked gleam. He leaned a bit close and said in a lower tone, "You see that girl over there? Her name's Rachel, and I was just thinking how lonely she looked. Let's go keep her company, eh?"

This should be good.

Rachel blushed, but stood up to the presence of the two novas.
"Really, I just recognized Dr. Sig ..."
"Evan. Call me Evan," Evan interrupted.
"Evan", she continued. "I recognized from UCLA and I'm Pre-Med and thinking about doing some work with Doctors without Borders, or something else overseas."

"That's noble," Evan told her with genuine sympathy.
"Thanks," she smiled back. "So are both of you novas super-smart, like ... I don't know. How does it impact your lives."

Evan gave Drew a look of curiosity.
"I see how people mesh, or grind, together. I see work patterns and relationships within organizations. I just see the ties that link people. It becomes more natural every day. Drew?"

Mellow was helping one of his roadies lose his lunch over the side of the balcony, into the bushes and not near the heated pool. "Remember, Gretchen, you owe Garry $20 for losing the match." He slid on back to Evan and Drew, only to notice Rachel looking a little overwhelmed and Tori ready to break out the mace.

Fuck. Okay, think: What would the Bulletproof Monk of Cool do in this situation? What would be the best thing to say? This is no impending crisis, just be Mellow...

Mellow slid up to Evan and Drew, gently ushering in Tori. "Hey guys! I see you met Rachel, this is her partner Tori, and they've been going out for about six months now! Tori and Rachel are helping me with the logistics of my upcoming tour. Tori's a Libra, and Rachel's a Gemini. Tori, Rachel, this is Evan. He does important stuff at Utopia, and Drew here recently Erupted. I met these guys through that novas-only site you recommended. I hope a lot of people from there are going to be showing up at some point. Say, everyone having a good time?"

Mellow realized just how grateful he was for his natural charm: If he'd been anyone else, Tori would have probably broken his arm.

"I sort of got the quantum grab bag. I'm super-intelligent, witty, perceptive, and dextrous. I also have a sort of 'Spidey Sense'. But none of those powers are particularly strong. I'm barely above baseline limits, they say. I can't really think of how it's changed my life, other than a pay raise."

A lie. And a lie of omission; he hadn't mentioned the manipulation ability, which was quickly becoming stronger than the rest. But he didn't want to talk about his family, not today, and it was just as well that they didn't know about the gift he was so ashamed of but knew he was almost unconsciously using all the time.

Drew was slightly irritated to see Mellow head off his plan for amusement, but shrugged it off. It was just as well since he didn't know how volatile Tori was. Things might've gotten out of hand.

Still....it would've been funny. Provided he could run fast enough.

What other accompished with charm or persuasion, Evan accomplished with empathy.
"Hey Tori. Rachel and I were just going over her future in the medical profession. She wants to go overseas and asked me for some advice." With a grin, he adds, "I told her deserts suck."
Rachel chuckled and Tori went down a notch.

To Drew,
"I open warps in time/space and heal people by touch. The latter helps with being a doctor, but is really draining. I prefer using my education over the quantum genie most days."

"Damn, I'm a rock star. People like me. I'm still not sure how that happened." Mellow shrugged.

"Well, let's mix it up and mingle. The roadies have been hogging the balcony, and everyone seems to be herding together. That's a sign I'm not doing my job."

"Hey, Evan. Do they. like, have any classes yet at the clinics on how to learn to do different stuff? I'd like to learn how to teleport, or fly, or even disguise myself. Do they have that, yet?"

"I had the advantage of working with Nova Medicine with the Project. I got to watch people use a warp and I trained my node to do - or cause the same effect as - what they did."
With a big toothy grin, he adds, "Want to join Project Utopia?"

Before Mellow can dig himself away from that bear-trap, Evan faux-punches him in the shoulder, "Just kidding. No recruitment tries tonight."

Rachel intervenes suddenly,
"Nova Medicine! Wow, that is so what I was thinking about doing, if I don't go into field work. To work with novas, explore the MR node, and be there as all this new science is created."
Looking to Mellow, she triumphanly smiles,
"And then I will be able to teach you how to fly, and I can still be your back-up singer."

Drew suddeny butts in with, "Yeah, Novas are pretty interesting critters, and there's still so much we don't know. I've always felt that the more information on a given subject, the less an aura of mystique it has, and the less threatening it is. So of course research into Nova abilities and MR-nodes is paramount."

His words were convincing, seemed certain...

"Hey, that reminds me...do you guys remember that one guy with the Bozo avatar, the...Paramancer? He said something about novas being, like the biggest issue on the planet now that the environment was getting better. I just thought of that: are we really as big as all that? I'm not saying that everyone here isn't doing the best they can, but...I'm just not seeing anyone here as a crisis in the making. Not even Gretchen over there getting sick over the balcony, and she doesn't have an MR-node."

"Sorry, weird tangent. Anyway, I'd like to learn more stuff, because being in the entertainment business is great, but what do I do afterwards? Evan, you're changing the world, and Drew, you've got diversity going for you. Rachel, you're going to be on the edge of modern medicine. Tori, you'll always be on top in the entertainment business, because it's always smarter to be on the management side of things. I'm just wondering where I'm going to be in the future, because being David Koresh just sounds so limiting."

Evan shakes his head ruefully,
"Teragen members tend to forget we are sharing a planet with billions of other souls. We are all homo sapiens, wether we be novus or sapiens. We should all work together to make this place better, ya know?"

Evan looks around to see if he's being too preachy. He hoped he wasn't. Though novas often took the lead in research in Utopian labs, the work was done by scores of hard-working baselines most of the time. It couldn't, he though, be done without them.

"Mellow, do you think you would enjoy doing a show without your baseline associates and for a solely nova audience? How much fun would that be?"

"No no no, Evan, I don't believe everything he says. I'm saying...he said novas were the biggest crisis facing the planet. Now, what I'm wondering about is...are we? Really? I know I'm not really worth worrying about, but if there's some nova out there who can do so much with gravity that he or she could knock Earth's out of whack...Do you see what I'm saying? I don't care if he's Teragen, there are reasons people believe what they believe."

"Anyway, just something that popped into my head. Don't mind me. To be honest, I'm more interested in learning how to be more than just another smiling face."

Evan ponders that for a moment before saying,
"Caestus Pax has leveled several hundred feet off a mountain. Divis Mal has hijacked the airwaves for his little proclaimation. We can do some pretty amazing things, but we aren't at the planet altering stage like humanity was back in the Cold War with all the nuclear weapons. We may one day, but I think it is a ways off. Personally, I think we will be pioneering new planets by then. Wouldn't terraforming new worlds for habitation be more constructive?"

"Don't get me wrong though. The power novas represent is problematic. The more good we can do, the more harm we can do as well. I think that is why we need to stay grounded in the reality of living, breathing people whose lives have worth. The more we seperate ourselves, the more capable we become of doing harm and ignoring the lives of those around us. The second we accept us and them, the them have less value."

Mellow smiled. Apparently, he'd tripped a hidden landmine or something. But he made some good points, and it was all cool.

"I'm picking up what you're puttin' down, Evan. Way too soon to worry about any big catastrophes, and we'll probably have figured out how to handle them by the time they come up. Cool!"

"Well, I think I need to mingle a bit. You guys and gals have fun." And with that, Mellow began to circulate, suspiciously gravitating towards Tarra of the revealing elf costume.

Again with the interruptions, but this time Drew was actually grateful. He'd caught the flicker in Rachel's eye that heralded deep respect given to his words and was somewhat disturbed by it. His manipulation ability had been running wild the last month or so, and sometimes he had to rein it in through force of will, as he did now. He idly wondered what Rachel would've said had not Mellow interrupted.

And now Mellow was going to mingle around. Drew surreptiticiously slid away as he was leaving, and sauntered over to the electric blue Nova-level punch. Yum.

Drew grabbed a glass.