the place to be

[point_b]

Bella finds it.

"Alli!" she twines. "C'mere."

"You c'mere. Easier for you."

"No, you need to come look at this, seriously."

"Okay, fine, where are you?"

"Garage."

So Alli comes out to the garage. Their parents aren't home; Charlie's working, Renée is volunteering with some of the refugee kids at a shelter, trying to find which have parents who just wound up somewhere else, which need adopting, which are going to wind up coming of age adrift in the bursting-at-the-seams system. It's just them, not attending school, recovering.

"Whoa," says Alli. "So when you said you were at the garage, you meant that you were at the freakish restaurant that someone put in our garage."

"This isn't somebody's idea of remodeling," Bella says. "It's too big to be the garage."

"Do you think it's safe?"

"I think one of you should go in first, for sure."

"We don't actually know if I work that way," say two Alli voices, but Bella pushes one of them towards the door anyway.

Nothing happens.

The Allis converge, inside the bar. Bella follows.

Comments

[point_b]

"...Since getting my basics, yes."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Right. When I'm like that...the wind isn't not me the way Helen's lightscreens aren't her. I do understand that this is a major concern, but I can in fact put everything back the way it was, minus the ash."

[point_b]

"Okay. Do you need me to put you anywhere in particular for you to do this? Is this thing going to be inside my weight limit?"

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"As long as it's on the same continent as the ashfall it should be fine. And I don't know what your weight limit is, but it can be carried. Not that easily, but it can." She requests the relevant object from bar. It is a humming device about the size of three briefcases laid on top of each other. Several wires and leads extend from the device. She leaves them untouched. "It's better if I don't actually use it until I'm not going to have to walk anywhere."

[point_b]

"Okay, well, our parents aren't home, so if you can do it from indoors, I don't need to teleport you anywhere, I can just hold the - actually, Alli, half your attention, please?"

[alli_oop]

Alli splits, Bella points at one, and that one goes and holds the door open.

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"If I'm going to do it indoors I'll need all the windows and doors open as far as possible. It would actually be better to go out into the yard--the fewer barriers between me and the atmosphere at large the better."

[point_b]

"Okay, I can put you in the yard. ...My sense of place does not think I can teleport past the threshold there, it must not count as being in the same gravity well, we will have to walk."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Okay. I can carry this as far as the door, certainly, it's heavy but not unmanageable." She picks it up and starts lugging it through the door.

[point_b]

"Don't you close that door, Alli," Bella cautions. "And if you do let it close then inside-you should open it before converging."

And when she's stepped past the threshold, she, passenger, and device are in the backyard in the very ashy Pacific Northwest.

"I can get you a face mask but maybe you don't need one."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Like so the ash doesn't get in my lungs or to protect my identity? The former might actually be helpful, while I'm focusing on larger things it would help not to have to make sure I don't breathe in flecks of volcanic glass."

[point_b]

"The former. I'll get us a couple."

Pop. Pop. Have a mask.

[maggie_of_the_owls]

Mask.

She carefully attaches the leads to various points on her body--her temples, a few pulse points--and feels it take effect.

She is the wind.

She has a flesh body, of course, but she pays it no more attention than you would give your little toe. She is the wind, and the wind is heavy with ash.

This needs to stop.

Carefully, as her consciousness settles into the ten feet or so above where the ashpiles have already settled, she stills it, noting the way the air was moving before so she can put it back later. Winds gather the particles into clumps, letting them fall from the sky like black snow. The still zone rises as the ashlevel gets higher, always leaving a safe zone. The ash over areas not devastated already is carefully herded over to the destruction before being shaken from the sky.

When she is done, she takes a moment to remember where her body was, and fumbles for a moment before turning the machine off.

"Ngh," she winces. Coming down like that--becoming merely human again--was always the not fun part. She checks her watch. It's several hours later.

[point_b]

Bella is sitting nearby, with a book. "Hey. I forgot to ask how long that would take but fortunately your girlfriend had a guess. How'd it go?"

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"I don't think I got every single last speck, but your meteorologists should be freaking out over how the sun isn't all blocked soonish."

[point_b]

"Awesome. I hope Lorica doesn't feel redundant; there's still a lot of ash on the ground and I can bring her little robot to places that might need that to not be the case, but this is a bigger deal. Back to Milliways?"

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Back to Milliways." She yanks the last few wires off herself and stands up and picks up the machine.

[point_b]

Bella teleports them and the object to the door, where an Alli is sitting with a Gameboy. In they go.

[thinkering]

"There you are," says Lorica. "I'm not sure if we have the same fingerprints and I want to lock this to you so it'll behave for you and not obey random passersby, give me your hand." With Flicker's hand, she puts palm to a flat part of the roomba-like object, now otherwise finished. It bleeps.

[whatamithinking]

"I didn't check with any of my alts whether we have the same fingerprints or not but I doubt it, even identical twins don't have the same fingerprints."

[thinkering]

"Easy way to check." Lorica pats the object. It bleeps. "Same fingerprints as far as the ash-eater can tell."

[whatamithinking]

"Okay, I'm surprised. Ah well, dimensional bullshit, what can you do."

[thinkering]

"Also the entire thing came in under budget, Bar had some good alternative materials suggestions in several cases!"

[whatamithinking]

"Well, that's good. Bar's good at that kind of thing."

[thinkering]

"Yup." Lorica returns all her borrowed tools. She hands Flicker the robot and then asks for a piece of paper to write up a user manual on. Bar provides; Lorica scribbles.