It's amazing, how much information you can find in a state capitol when you can be invisible and are willing to spend a few hours following people and waiting 'till the wee hours of the night. Very little of it, of course, was of any good to me, though I took pictures of some of the more personally embarassing things hidden in certain offices. Really, people get so careless about their kinks.
Overall, though, by thirty hours after I'd woken up, I had a fairly robust idea of what had happened and what the general response within the halls of power was.
Sachie would've been shocked, I think, and I was pleasantly surprised. Not the slightest hint of open hysteria, no 'dissapearances' or exertion of influence - influence as a ninja would view it, at least. There were plenty of schemes to hire those of us who'd been changed, as anything from paramedics to interrogators to researchers to heavy lifting, and the opening stages of a massive internal brouhaha between the various organs of the state and federal governments over who got first dibs on the choicer talents.
Personally, I was betting on NASA as getting the lion's share, given the nature of the player base. Space travel has a lot of 'cool' and not a lot of getting yelled and/or shot at.
Then I went back to Nathan's apartment and went to sleep. Like I said, I'd been up a while, gathering information as quickly as I could because I didn't have any way of knowing how urgent things were or weren't. With my most urgent questions answered, I could afford to stop pushing and be more cautious.
I woke up to a ringing cellular phone, and didn't regret the fact in the slightest. Sachie hadn't really had the temperment to be bothered by nightmares, and Nathan hadn't had much in the way of source material to work with, but combining a conscience and a dose or innocence with the memories of someone who'd first killed while still under the protection of every child pornography law on the books - who could and had made knee-high piles of corpses with her bare hands and never cared...
Even that was probably saying too much.
Anyway. I was glad to be awake, and grabbed the phone immediately. It took a moment of thought before I checked the number and opened it on the third ring, though. My biggest worry, for my family's safety, had been directed at obscuring the connection from the government... which was, given my research trip, as close to a settled concern as it was going to get. That being the case, I could risk at least phone contact, for the sake of my own peace of mind as much as theirs.
"Hi, Mom," I said.
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
Overall, though, by thirty hours after I'd woken up, I had a fairly robust idea of what had happened and what the general response within the halls of power was.
Sachie would've been shocked, I think, and I was pleasantly surprised. Not the slightest hint of open hysteria, no 'dissapearances' or exertion of influence - influence as a ninja would view it, at least. There were plenty of schemes to hire those of us who'd been changed, as anything from paramedics to interrogators to researchers to heavy lifting, and the opening stages of a massive internal brouhaha between the various organs of the state and federal governments over who got first dibs on the choicer talents.
Personally, I was betting on NASA as getting the lion's share, given the nature of the player base. Space travel has a lot of 'cool' and not a lot of getting yelled and/or shot at.
Then I went back to Nathan's apartment and went to sleep. Like I said, I'd been up a while, gathering information as quickly as I could because I didn't have any way of knowing how urgent things were or weren't. With my most urgent questions answered, I could afford to stop pushing and be more cautious.
I woke up to a ringing cellular phone, and didn't regret the fact in the slightest. Sachie hadn't really had the temperment to be bothered by nightmares, and Nathan hadn't had much in the way of source material to work with, but combining a conscience and a dose or innocence with the memories of someone who'd first killed while still under the protection of every child pornography law on the books - who could and had made knee-high piles of corpses with her bare hands and never cared...
Even that was probably saying too much.
Anyway. I was glad to be awake, and grabbed the phone immediately. It took a moment of thought before I checked the number and opened it on the third ring, though. My biggest worry, for my family's safety, had been directed at obscuring the connection from the government... which was, given my research trip, as close to a settled concern as it was going to get. That being the case, I could risk at least phone contact, for the sake of my own peace of mind as much as theirs.
"Hi, Mom," I said.
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."