Margritte nods and comment, almost more to herself than to Network, "Yes, the prudent thing... and the easy way out."
She speaks again, this time more directly to Network, saying, "Besides these concerns, are you in any other way unable to perform your duties?"
"No," Network intones, flatly, but after a long silence, "I do not believe my fitness is the issue at hand. If I do pose a threat to the team, that should be enough cause for my removal."
"No, I don't agree with you Nicholas," Margritte tells him. "Logic can be used to rationalize anything, but that does not mean it is the "right" action. There are too many possibilities to make anything certain. And, I think in your case we don't even have all the facts. I could sit here and talk to you all day about the opportunities Newborn had to program you, but we don't know. Your diagnostics are coming up normal; so, we have an argument for keeping you on the team."
Then, she adds, "No. I don't think that this is a decision to be left totally to logic. We need you on the team. With Typhoon gone, our ranks are getting bare. I need people with experience, as well as enthusiasm."
Network stares forward, not responding, almost as if he didn't even hear her. After several moments he asks, "If I remain on the team and a hidden program does surface, what will you do?"
"We will deal with it when it occurs. That's what we do Nicholas. Besides, let's be positive. The Minute-Men defeated Newborn once. Don't you think we could do it again?"
"Yes," he answers, his characteristic drone resonating through the cabin of the mini-van, "but at what cost?"
The two are quiet for a moment, watching the scenery streak by, as they make their way to the school, and then Network breaks the silence, turning towards Margritte.
"We never discussed my....."
He stops for a moment, perhaps looking more human now than ever before, and he adds, "We never discussed the circumstances surrounding my rehabilitation. I was curious to learn of your feelings regarding what occurred between us."
"Train you to use your powers with more control," Angela answers. "Like I said, your very existence is dangerous to the multi-verse. Somehow the accident with MacDonald Gate linked you to the forces that maintain the dimensional barrier. Theoretically, you're a weak spot within the time-space continuum... a living gateway. Because of your abilities, dimensional travel should be exceedingly easy for you, once you begin to understand the idiosyncrasies of it. On the other hand, you could also be a easy tool for crossing through to other realms. That's why you need to be trained."
"Well, I'm game... but my powers aren't magical in nature, like yours are. Do you really think the same training will work?" Else asks.
"Dimensional laws don't change," Angela answers, "just because you use a different means of manipulating them."
Massaging the back of her neck with her hand, Else grimaces and asks, "And who is this j... jt... J'ttarrizi fellow you mentioned? Another past Nexus?"
"Yes," Angela nods. "He was the Nexus before Ukanwoke inherited the title. He's an interesting... umm... person. Not all of the Nexus holders have been from this realm. So far, there have only been three of us, including Ukanwoke and I."
"How many have their been?" Else asks. "And what is it, exactly, that you are guarding against?"
"I don't know how many of us there have been over the centuries. Probably more than I could count," Angela says. She leans forward and pours another ladle of water onto the lava rocks. "What we're guarding against is a little more complicated of a question."
Meridian brushes the hair out of her face, waiting for her friend to go on.
Angela pauses for a moment, looking as though she is trying to remember something that happened long ago, and she says, "The Nexus is a kind of guardian. The barriers between dimensions aren't really rigid things... there is a kind of ebb and flow... subtle variations in the barriers... there are instabilities to account for... threats to the integrity of our collected realities."
She smiles, and then jokes, "I'm not making any sense, am I? You see, we don't really guard against any one thing. I've heard rumors of secret cults that are trying to keep specific entities from entering our reality... that's not the type of thing that a Nexus does. What a Nexus does is protect the dimensional field; preserve the stability of the realms in existence."
Else nods, allowing Angela to continue.
"You see, in space, everything is separated by vast distances. If our sun were to go supernova, it would destroy this universe, but Alpha Centauri, four light-years away, wouldn't suffer the consequences of that destruction. With dimensions, you have thousands and thousands of different realities, all operating in the same place, separated by the veil of perceptions, of frequencies. You know how different colors are created by differences in the span between the wavelengths of light? With dimensions, it is those impossibly small differences, that separate our world from a world were dinosaurs still walk the earth."
"Now, I'm really babbling!" she finishes.
"Not at all," Else counters. "What do you think my and my father's studies were all about? Pushing the envelope. Opening doors to new worlds. Worlds not light-years distant, but rather, only micro d-frequencies away. From what I know about the barrier, it's actually quite easy to penetrate. Developing a safe, standard means of doing it is the problem."
Angela laughs, as she pulls her hair into a thick ponytail, and says, "Now I know, you definitely need training...."
The door to the sauna opens, and for a quick moment, Dr. Stauffer's face is visible through the steam. The young doctor, who is rumored to be one of G.H.O.S.T.'s up-and-coming paranormal physicians and researchers, wipes some steam from his glasses, and squints into the sauna.
Else tugs her towel a little higher on her chest and raises her eyebrows at the man. Clearing her throat, she lets him know the room is occupied.
"Oh!" he says. "Excuse me! I didn't think anyone would be in here."
"That's all right, doctor. We'll be out shortly," Else says.
He waves for a moment, blushing, and then shuts the door, waddling off in his towel.
"Well," he says, sheepishly, "you asked what I wanted. And you did offer to pay...."
Mouse laughs. "So what else am I going to spend my pay on?" she asks. "It's not like they ever let me out of here, at least, not unless its on a very short leash."
Noisily, he digs into the massive sundae he created, making a mess of both himself, and the table.
After a few minutes of silence, he looks over at Mouse, whipped cream sticking to the end of his nose, and asks, "You know how you said that you should cheat to win? Well, I thought that being a Minute-Man was all about doing the right thing, and winning. You know, that "hero" thing. That counts too, doesn't it?"
"Not with me David, not with me."
She stares into her drink a few moments, contemplating things, then says, "For the rest, maybe. But I was born before World War Two; I was about your age when the Japanese separated me from my parents. I thought them dead... that's when my powers showed up. At first, I didn't understand. I mean, you look into a mirror and instead of the bright-eyed, cute, little English girl, you're staring into the face of a hardened Japanese woman. It took time and I took revenge... anyway I could. Then the Russians caught me and it got worse. Damn, look.... I learned the school of death, not like you, and the rest. No safe people to train me, someone at my back when the going got rough. It was live or die, nothing between."
She leans back in her chair, pushing the half-full drink away.
"I lost too many people I'd come to like, or love, or just respect. I learned, if you have to act, do it. Worry about the fallout later because anyone can Monday-morning quarterback, only the living manage it in live action."
She shifts, becoming the Doctor who's office she'd admitted being in.
"After all boy" she continues, mimicking the man voice and behavior, her clothing matching her new body. "When you have an ace up your sleeve, by all means play it." Shifting into a duplicate of Stevie Nicks she continues, changing voice, clothing and actions as she does. "There's no rehearsal for the real thing, when you walk out, the lights come up. Its real. You perform, or you don't."
Continuing her shifting she becomes the President, John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe and a dozen other current & past personalities the boy would recognize, finally returning to her everyday form. "I'm called Mouse because when I'm not performing, I tend to look like one. The more relaxed I am, the more mouse-like I become... to a point. When I was in Siberia, my only pets were a couple of mice, I sort-a impressed on them, or they me. Not that I mind" she smiles, "But, well, it does put a crimp in your love life."
Sitting back up she taps the table, more a nervous action than to gain attention.
"Danger rooms are not what I need, maybe you, not I. I don't fight, not unless I have no other choice. Then I strike to kill, period. My talents are more like an agents, I get in, take care of business and get out. They won't help me train for that, so I do it myself. There isn't a room in this complex I haven't been in, not one. Either as a guard, lizard, or the authorized person themselves. Doing it trains me, I can die from a bullet just as fast as anyone else. If I'd blown it, I'd be dead right? I don't just LOOK like someone, I AM them, down to the DNA. Hell, I got a girl preggers once, I'm that much what I seem to be." Holding up one hand she points too it. "When I'm that Doctor, I can pass any security measure as long as I know the codes. That includes the new thermo-imaging security systems, I'm them, not me as them."
Putting her hand down she picks up her drink, "Then, I'm never the same lover every time... It DOES have it's advantages. I can be anyone I've seen," she shifts into Dax. "Even a space alien with a symbiote in her stomach," followed by Worf then one of the Duros Sisters. "Or a Klingon, I do great at science fiction conventions." Her final shift is of a well known little gray-green alien. "Fear, fear not. All the same it is."
Finally returning to her normal form, but with a much sexier outfit on, she takes a drink. "We all have talents, gifts. Wither Goddess given or machine implanted, their ours now. I could just as easily make an excellent living as the President of the United States, or better yet his wife, as I could anyone else. But I chose this, and this is what I'll do until its gone." She waves towards David's forgotten food-group. "I paid for it, you eat it. Or I just might be the Doctor that does your medical checkup next month..." One arm shifts into an alien style tentacle, slime dripping to the floor, "And I can get really... strange" she laughs, reverting to normal. "Don't worry, I won't do anything nasty like that to a child. Now, when your an adult.... Watch out who you date hmmm?"
David blushes, looking away, then he slowly turns back to face the shape-shifter and says, "Would you really do that? I mean, trick someone like that... be their doctor or their girlfriend or stuff like that? Gosh!"
While the two are talking, Triage and Wallflower wander into the cafeteria, Wallflower still rubbing her side, casting a few nasty glances at Triage. They both get sodas, then plop down at the table with Mouse and David.
"Hey, guys," Triage chimes, "what's going on?"
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