Brilliant, on a curve of Skywalker

( When we'd left our intrepid heroes, they were running awaaaaaaaaaay. They're still doing that. )

[And we're wrapped! Preplayed with the fabulous selfhelphero, screwyoumarvel, dollpocalypse, and hoorayimrich as Tony and as omnomnomtech. NFB, NFI, void in Japan.]

They had been keeping Ender's presence secret from them all - and quite successfully. Alai should really remember never to underestimate Graff. Still, at the same time, Graff should really know better than to underestimate him...

...

Those thoughts didn't stay with him long; only as long as it took him to actually find the damn clinic. It was tucked away pretty well within the maze of Battle School, but Alai had lived here for a good chunk of his life and he knew where all the medical rooms were.

He opened the door with a quick flash of his hand, and came to a stop in the doorway.

( Well, this won't be awkward at all. Noooo. )

[OOC: Preplayed with the stupendous endsthegame as both Alai and Sir Not Waking Up For This Preplay. NFB, NFI, yadda yadda, etc.]

The email Dink had sent had included a series of attachments that took a while to decrypt and uncompress, so Ben set his computer on that task while he went for his usual morning run. The information was ready for him when he returned to his empty room. Keeping half his attention on tracking Ender's position on the island (and feeling slightly guilty about that), Ben sent a gentle Force-nudge at the radio squirrels, telling them to find somewhere else to be and clicked onto the first conversation. What he heard took his breath away.

( Graff is kind of a bastard. News at 11. )

[OOC: Audio provided by endsthegame and Orson Scott Card's totally screwed up little universe. Contents of audio is NFB, please!]

Without his normal choice in coping--making many, many droids--Ben chose his second option: working himself into exhaustion.

Which was why he was down at the practice grounds, ready to face all comers.


( This wouldn't be very interesting if no one stopped by, of course. )

In the morning, Bean got up and posted a message to Achilles, naming a time about an hour later for their meeting. Then he wrote a brief note to Petra, just so she’d know he was thinking of her in case this was the last day of his life. Then another note to his parents, and one to Nikolai. At least if he managed to bring Achilles down with him, they’d be safe. That was something.

He walked downstairs to find Peter, Ben and Ender already waiting beside the IF car that would take them to the perimeter that had been established around the compound. The Wiggins seemed to have achieved some kind of truce, with Ender using Ben as an invisible wall between him and his brother.

They rode in near silence, because there was really nothing more to say.

At the perimeter, near the east gate, Bean found out very quickly that Peter hadn’t lied-the IF was standing behind his determination to go in with Bean’s group. Well, that was fine. Bean didn’t really need his companions to do much.

As he had requested before leaving Damascus, the IF had a uniformed doctor, two highly trained sharpshooters, and a fully equipped hazard squad, one of whom was to come in with Bean’s party.

( This was always here, lala )

[OOC: NFB, NFI, ABC, PDQ, LALALA. Preplayed with the luminous endsthegame, and holy GOD, OSC needs therapy.]

So Bean and Petra were going to have children - even in the midst of all of the confusion, the unsolved problem of Achilles, and the puzzling, continuing absence of Ender in the light of everything Ben and Karla claimed was going on.

They'd found a clinic, though. A place that would get them the children they didn't think they could have otherwise. It'd taken a lot of poking around to get the right doctors to check to make sure none of Petra's children would have the genetic problems that Bean had - the gene that would ensure he'd be dead before he turned twenty.

The morning of her in-vitro fertilization, Petra was still in bed, sleeping off her nerves before they'd head towards the hospital. Bean wasn't. He was restless, his desk a continuous presence in his hands, and eventually he'd slipped into the living area of their two-bedroom suite - and don't ask what kind of strings he'd pulled for that - in order not to bother her.

He ran a quick check of all of his waiting emails.

( Where Ben and Bean don’t kill each other. Yet. )

[OOC: NFI, NFB, preplayed with the talented endsthegame, OOC comments fed pie.]