Week 11, Wednesday Night: Homecoming

Sosie came home looking better than ever, though there was exhaustion surrounding her like a cloud. She was wearing black t-shirt and tight black trousers, new, and was carrying a black briefcase, newer. Her head was shaved again, but she was walking with all of her normal natural grace. Bell was already in her bed at this point, and her eyes opened from "sleep" to roll and watch as Sosie cross in front of the main computer rig. Her mother blew her a kiss, which she nodded once to, and leaned back in bed.

Hungry, Sosie opened the walk in refrigerator door and disappeared inside, coming out a minute later with a mouth hamster-full of creem puffs. "Beww? Wherg tha gurlgs?"

Bell responded with her mouth and over the speakers, adding a clear whisper to the overhead voice. "Darya is in the shooting range. Ida is in her room. Pinkie is no longer within the compound."

Sosie frowned a little at the last bit, and walked over to the kitchen table to drop an armload of food and her new briefcase. She shoved another creem puff in her mouth while she opened the nukerowave, throwing in a bunch of heatable reel-meet burgers. She flopped down in a seat while they cooked, feeling utterly wiped out.

The door to Ida's room opened, and Sylviane walked out. She was carrying Ida, who lied lazily in her bodyguard's arms, dressed in her pyjamas with creem around her mouth showing that she'd been eating much more messily than usual. "Hi Sose. How's things?"

Ida then noticed the burgers heating in the nukerowave. "You want something better? Hey Rico! Wash the creem off your hands and cook something!"

Darya, not knowing Sosie had come in, continued shooting targets with two guns at once, hoping that no one would trick her into being blown up again this time.

Sosie, mouth overfull, took a few seconds to look at Ida. Annoyance and amusement played across her face as she chewed, and she swallowed. "Have you read any of the later Rainchild books? You should. Syl should too, and remember that I am fond of her and wish her the best for when she eventually grows sentient. Do you pay her and Rico a wage? You should." Sosie's riDICulous EI accent was gone, replaced in the subtle tones of her voicesynthed English. There was a smile grin on her lips. "However, I'll eat those and more. I'm starving. I spent all day getting my cybernetics repaired. If I don't need to see a surgery for a week, I'll feel even better."

"C'mon, walk on your own feet. I have a present for all of us." She tapped the box, almost completely keeping the distaste from her voice. She pet her evenly shaved and fuzzy head. "Do you know where Pinkie is? Oh, and Bell? Ask Darya to come upstairs. Actually, belay that. Ask everyone here to come to the kitchen. Did Ace move in?"

Bell's gentle voice echoed through SWA for a moment. "Everyone, Mom would like to see you in the kitchen."

From the pillow fort in the corner of the room, Dusty called out, mostly muffled, "I can hear from here!!"

Upon hearing this, Darya headed up the stairs, still holding a shotgun in one hand and a laser rifle in the other. Her trademark weapons were, as always, at her hips.

Reaching the top, she glanced over at Dusty and smiled, before heading to sit at the table. "Something wrong?" she asked, looking at the box.

Ida gave an incredibly low-effort attempt at a shrug, even by the standards of shrugs made while lying down. "She could be anywhere. Pinkie, where are you? Sosie wants you to come home, she says she has a present for everyone." Ida yawned after smeaking and stayed lying down on Sylviane's arms. Meanwhile, Rico moved to the kitchen and cleaned his creem-covered hands, then began assembling a large salad of various synthmeats and multyveg products, whistling as he worked.

"Well, I don't know if you heard..." Sosie's face was suddenly very serious... and then she licked some whipped creem from her finger. "..But I was recently in an exposion." She grinned. "I wanted to say hi, and ask you guys to give figure out a period of, oh, fifteen minutes or so when you're feeling relaxed and chill, so I can take a neural pattern reading of you guys. I'm adding biometrics to the locks and also to Bell's programming, so add extra security."

The timer dinged, telling her her meat patties were done. She pulled out the pack of six, and offered one to Darya. "You may as well sit down and wait for food, too. I'm trying to convince Ida to.. well, first, we'll say stand up."

Sosie seemed very tired, and she looked smaller and more fragile without her mohawk.

"Look, Sose. It's my night off. I have the right to spend some time doing nothing, and standing is a thing. Besides, you don't mind, do you Sylviane?" Ida turned her head up to the replicant, who was expressionless as ever.
"This is fine," Sylviane answered, motionless. "My mistress is not very heavy."
"See?" Ida grinned. "Now as for when I'm relaxed... I guess I could take another night off or two sometime this week. When's good for you?"

Shaking her head, Darya sat down and took a bite of the food. "I'm fine...whenever. It might be better, if you need me relaxed, if you wait until I come off of the phone a bit later on. I should be happy then." She took another bite. "Though, if you ask me, Ida looks relaxed enough to do it now." She pointed at the thrill seeker, who was cuddling into Syl's arms.

Ida simply yawned in response.

"Now that I think about it...how does everyone relax?" Asked Darya looking around the table. "We tend to do it in our rooms, so I never actually see people doing it....other than whatever Ida's doing."

"Internet.. And I read a lot." Sosie smiled, wolfing down two different burgers. "But I prefer working. Oh, and now there're the kids." She gestured with a patty at Dusty and Bell, on two sides of her, one of whom was sitting with her eyes closed in bed, the other hiding in his elaborate nest of pillows and chair. "Though mostly they just watch me work. It's important for them to see what Mommy does."

She looked at Syl's face, and smiled a little sadly. "When Ida gets too metaphorically heavy, or if you feel a need, remember, I'm a bomb expert who makes replicants. I can remove your kill switch." She yawned again, and shoved food in her face. "How do you relax, Dar? You seem to spend most of your time working. Also, ah.. Did.. Ace move in?"

(Not yet, but he will be on Monday. Partially because of him being busy doing other things, partially because of Sosie being in hospital and not wanting to get in the way and partially because Scott is posting in three separate time streams and is getting horribly confused enough as it is. Also, I'm not sure anyone but Sosie actualy knows he is moving in.)

Sorry a little busy right now, will be back later on tonight.

**Smallest had observed her fortune-forsworn foe fortify his fractional facility with some forethoughtfullness and forewent fedielity as few of the food fabrication folk would feign aid in her facing her faceless fiend of a foe. Her freckleless firestorm folk was far flung or faded, and the ferocious feline needed feeding and so furtively she unfolded and fastly flashed to a favourable folk in the hope of fine food fractional fortune from their feast.**

*To Sosie it appeared that Pinkie's pet cyberlynx, still in factory default fur, was looking up at her with and expression of hesitant expectation, occasionally glancing to Sosie's food from down by her feet.*

"Eh? Ace is moving in? That's nice..." Darya stretched out before putting her arms back down next to her. "If I want to just calm down, I usually just put on some nice music and fiddle with stuff...or I ring Sis..."

Sosie looked down at the lynx and smiled. "Aw no, all this food is for me. Don't you know that if I don't eat your mistress has to feed me too?" Sosie smiled a little, still slightly horrified by it. She looked at Darya, and finished the burgers in her hands. "I did tell you last night Ace was moving in." She furrowed her brow a little, and gave Darya a concerned look. "You did seem out of it last night, though.."

Darya thought back to the previous evening..."Oh, right! At the hospital!" she said quickly, realising what Sosie meant. "Sorry. I was kind of preoccupied then..."

"So Ace is moving in, huh. Should be nice to see another face around the place... I wonder what Fed guys do in their time off," Ida said apparently to herself, since Sosie and Darya were already speaking. "Y'know Sose, I think it's kind of understandable if Darya wasn't quite on top form last night, given the day's events... Like you needing all that surgery. I know I was worried about you, and you know how Darya can be."

"Mm, I do know how Darya can be." Sosie narrowed her eyes at the ex-Lanzas agent, thoughtfully. "As long as you feel better today. I feel fine." To demonstrate Sosie tapped her stomach with a smile, and then her head. "I'm repaired in full, and hey, I have a brain oxygenator, so it's all good."

Now foodless, Sosie reached down and gave the lynx a pat on the head. Oh. Stay safe, Pinkie. See you soon. She looked at Rico, still hungry. "Agents are hard to kill, and I'm harder than most."

"Sorry for the wait, Ms. Terrahaute!" Rico brought over three plates of "meat" "salad" and placed them on the table; Sosie's was far larger than the others. "Enjoy!"

Still lying on Sylviane's arms, Ida reached down and waved her arm futilely in an attempt to grab some of her food. "Bleh. I guess I can sit down..." Ida grumbled, and she climbed out of her bodyguard's arms into a chair.

Darya smiled. "I know you're ok." she said, leaning backwards in her chair again and just stopping herself falling over. Looking at Ida, she tapped her chin thoughtfully. "I think Ace talked about mainly watching TV or looking after your guns as the main things to do as a Western Federation agent. That's the gist of what I got from when we went around PAX, anyway."

"I guess that's something, at least. Ace does seem surprisingly sensible for someone who had to grow up in America. No wonder he left when he got a glimpse of what real living looked like," Ida said with a shrug as she ate.

"You don't need to apologize, Rico!" Sosie smiled and began eating her "salad" with gusto. She needed about Ace being reasonable, though she kept an eye on Darya when she talked about him. About two minutes into eating, a familiar voice whined, "Oh, fine, don't set a place for me.."

Violet was standing by the stairs in what were definitely Sosie's pajamas. (The dancing hams were a give away.) She was speaking in a fast and annoyed sounding Mandarin, though was smiling. Sosie waved her over, "I'm sorry, but Dusty has the last seat, and he might fight you for it. Here, share."

Sosie moved over to accommodate her sister; both women were thin and the agent sized chairs fit both of them easily. "Rico, can you please get my sister a plate?"

Sitting next to each other, there was no doubt that these women were related. Their already similar features were made even more alike by the fact Violet had cut off most of her damage hair, leaving her with a patch of black hair on top of her head similar to Sosie's fluffy mohawk style. With no regard for her sister's space, Violet began drinking from Sosie's glass, and picking chunks of meat off her plate with her fingers. Sosie didn't seem to mind at all. Violet did not make eye contact with Ida, pointedly, as she mumbled with her mouth half full, "Thanks for having me.."

Darya got up from her chair, her food untouched, and gestured to Violet to sit in her place. "Here." She said, leaning against a wall near where Sylviane was standing, and surveyed the woman, not unkindly. Her third eye scanner opened up and she began to examine Violet to make sure she was, physically at least, ok.

"Good thing I prepared extra in case we had any visitors!" Rico said with slightly more smile than usual, and brought over a second plate for Violet almost instantly. "Just let me know if you need anything!"

Ida seemed vaguely happy about Violet's presence, in a polite way, but she was notably not saying anything or making meaningful eye contact with anyone.