Phantasm read the manual in the first minute.  It was a bit slow for her, but she went at a leisurely pace since they had time to kill.  So, given the unpredictable wait, she politely pretended to read for another 30 seconds as she contemplated strategies for the game.  "Interesting.  Seems like it could be fun.  Let's give it a spin, yeah?" She wasn't interested in winning, merely in the diversion.

Angelo stepped through the glowing portal and gazed around him to take in his surroundings.  The view from the mountaintop seemed to go on forever across a landscape of ice and granite.  The wind at this altitude, unfettered by obstructions like hills and trees, whistled across the front of the ruined monastery ruffling the loose silk tunic he wore over slightly worn jeans.  He'd often thought about coming to Tibet, to see the place where some of the philosophies that grew into Taijiquon were born, but had never seriously made an effort.  There was always some other duty to get wrapped up in.

He turned and pushed open the large, weather beaten wooden door and stepped into the building.  He looked, sadly, at the blackened walls and fire-damaged prayer wheels.  It made him wonder what hidden wisdom might have been lost when the monks had been driven from this refuge, their ancient scrolls destroyed by fire.  He heard voices up ahead and made his way further into the structure.  There he saw Impetus and Phantasm focused on some holographic game.  "Bonita!" he said, surprised, and he couldn't help but smile as he walked over and drew her into a hug.  It had only been a few weeks since they had parted in Bahrain, but those weeks had taken on the feeling of a forbidding gulf.  "You're a beautiful sight for sore eyes.  How've you been?"  He turned and acknowledged Impetus with a nod.  "Boss," he said, "good to see you."

Solitaire stepped through one of Sliders portals, which was unsurprising since she had whisked the woman off to one of her bolt-holes as soon as it was practical to do so. Hell if Solitaire was going to let her out of her sight until she was both fully healed and Solitaire had taught Slider how to defend herself. Not that Slider was capable of learning Solitaires particular fighting style just at the moment, but Solitaire was one of the most experienced and dangerous scrappers on the planet, she could think of something.

After a cursory scan for threats, Solitaire rarely needed to do more than that, she moved on, making way for Slider. Her hair billowed around her in the wind, trailing afterimages through the air like glowsticks at a rave. It had gotten brighter her power had returned, as if making up for lost brilliance with a vengeance. Solitaire was very proud of her hair, she tended to be a bit vain about her appearance when she had the time to be, but hair was always a concern. On the upside, it took care of itself and was largely immune to harm. She didn't even need to style it.

"You rang Imp?" Solitaire said to the assembled Novas with a wave and a grin.

Gale entered through a portal next.  A moment to stretch her wings in the mountain air, and then she was following the others inside.  "Just like old times, right?" she commented, with a small smile.  It had only been a few weeks since the last time they had done something like this, but it had been a long few weeks.  Actually, they seemed to be having more and more of these meetings now.

She took up a place leaning against a Buddha statue, seemingly with no regard for the sanctity of the symbol or even this place.  Religion had never done anything for her, after all.

Phantasm smiled at Angelo, letting her feelings show through.  She moved to stand beside him, but she didn't get too close; they were here on business she was sure, and they were both still destined for different things... at least for now.

She had another smile for Sol and Gale as they came through "I think there's a lot more of this in our future Gale, unless you've decided to hang up your halo and go play at a 9 to 5 job or something." They could all live "normal" lives, normal for novas anyway, if they wanted.  But there were other callings for people that had been through as much as them.  She was pretty sure Gale, no matter how fed up with the world she was, would never stop striving for something more.

"Dragon, thanks for coming." Imp gave the man a warm handshake.
"Sol, Gale, you too. Actually, I'm thinking that this may be the last meeting between all and sundry for quite a while, as every time we do all get together something terrible happens.  It's happened a few too many times for it to just be coincidence.""  He stood at ease, yet pensive. "I don't think any of us is going to have the luxury to hang up our capes for a while, there's far too much at stake."

The events in Bahrain had convinced Wilhelm of at least one thing, the importance of never walking into a place that he didn't know how to walk out of.  Teleportation would have been the easy solution to the problem, but Wilhelm had never picked up the knack.  Or a taste for easy solutions.  Thus the Moravecian rotovator and his entrance thereby.  One moment nothing was visible, except perhaps to novas with the vision to see satellites in orbit.  In the next moment a fine black line appeared, splitting the heavens from horizon to zenith.  In the third moment Wilhelm stepped off the line, now clearly a carbon nanotube tether as big around as a redwood and 160 kilometers long.  In the fourth and final moment the tether disappeared, its momentary halting an illusion brought on by the fact that its tip was moving at 7.8 kilometers per second in a direction opposite the orbit of the satellite connected to its other end.  "Peking wird gehen um mir die Hölle über diese."  The Chinese were a touchy lot these days, especially over Tibet.  It would take hours to convince them he hadn't been hiding a Lama in his teflon trousers during insertion.  Ah, well.  It wouldn't be his first bone of contention with the Chinese government.  They were getting almost as bad as the British.  Still, a worse venue could have been chosen.  The Sutlej Valley had a certain desolate beauty this time of year and it had been ages since Wilhelm had been anywhere nearby.  He let himself into the monastery complex and wandered around, his attention drawn mainly to a few corners up in the rafters where traces of blue, gold, and red pigment could still be seen.  "A pity what happened to Tsaparang in the Cultural Revolution.  The frescoes were quite magnificent.  Tucci documented them all back in the 30s, of course, but it was all in black-and-white.  Not quite the same I'm afraid."
This message was last edited by the player at 08:40, Fri 06 Sept 2013.

Imp looked around at everyone who had made it.  "Thanks for coming, everybody, I know you've got busy schedules.  As you may have noticed, after the events on the stairs at the UN, I was going to go inside and talk to the assembled representatives.  I was stopped by some sort of hive-mind.  It spoke to me, directly into my mind, telling me that I was ruining their plans and that I should leave the world in the hands of our angelic benefactors.  It wasn't even slightly human.  I don't know if it's some very powerful nova, or something not of this Earth, but I suspect the latter.  It also held me against my will, and forced me through the portal.  While I have tried to be a bit circumspect about what I can do since i don't want to scare the people that will be voting for me, but I'm more powerful than I was in Colombia, and at that time i could tk somewhere close to 200 tonnes.  I tried everything I could think of to break their hold and accomplished nothing.  They also made it impossible for me to use my abilities to sway emotions via my entire repertoire of tricks. Anyways, these things believe that they should be the ones that will chart the course of both branches of humanity.  I think they've been influencing Proteus, Aeon, and Utopia.  Which is the only way I can see a group of baselines thinking that they can sterilize us, murder us, and use us to make their lives better. I also suspect that they're also interfereing with various world governments.  I also know that this cannot be made public, as anybody who does go public will get black bagged, or worse, tuned into a puppet.  We need to unite as many resources as we can, build power quietly, and strike before they know we're coming.  I asked you here, and no others, because I think that you still love this Earth, and don't want a war between novas and humans.  We will both lose." He stopped talking to give those present a chance to think and discuss.

Moments after Imp started, Comstock arrived, black and white uniform under a long coat, the stink of the jungle coming through the portal with him.  He did not like this "Slide" character; the Elite wouldn't tell him where he was going, and was clearly calling himself "Slide" to cash in on Sliders notoriety.  He also didn't like how easily the man had found him, and it showed on his face for all the world to see.

But, this was important.  So he listened patiently to Impetus from the back of the gathering.  He agreed with everything Imp said, so he quietly nodded in reply and waited for the others to comment.

Aliens?  Angelo had to take a few moments to process that.  He stared hard at Impetus.  He'd never seen any sign that the man was delusional or given to exaggeration...maybe a touch of over-zealousness in his reactions, but he seemed otherwise straightforward.  The new "Big Picture" that was forming in his mind was radically different than the one he had when he walked in the door.  It threw a whole new perspective on the baseline vs. nova and Teregen vs. Utopia struggles.  It would take some time to get a more firm handle on what this all meant, but one thing he knew for sure.

"I gave sweat and blood, and laid my life on the line to defend my country," he said.  "Hell yeah, I'll stand up for the whole planet."

"Really?  Aliens?  I... actually didn't see that one coming. Uhm, just checking here, but before we move further with this are you sure you're still sane and do we have any other proof?" Of course it was possible, especially in a universe where quantum powers were a reality.  Despite all the "quantum gods" posturing that novas were doing, human novas could just be little more than quantum background noise compared to the other beings out there.  But it still made sense to confirm things like this before reacting as though they were true, and she had the feeling Impetus could convince himself of whatever he needed to believe given the right motivation.

"I agree, it seems a bit far-fetched," Gale piped in after Phantasm.  She almost said something about Europa, but recalled that not everyone here had been there.  Best not to reveal too much.  "I would think that it's someone with as yet undiscovered abilities before I would think aliens.  A better question might be their motive.  If they're so benevolent, why did they not let you speak at the UN?"

Gravitas had arrived relatively discretely sometime before Impetus's speech and was loitering somewhere around the edge of the group. "It isn't far-fetched when you think about the scale of things," he said. "There's life here. That's pretty unlikely, all in all. But there are at least millions and maybe billions of other planets similar to Earth just in our galaxy. The odds of at least a few of those harboring some form of life is pretty good. And that assumes that life is similar to what we have here on Earth. More exotic life? Assuming it exists at all, it considerably ups the population density of the galaxy."

He kept to himself the evidence of alien cultures he'd personally witnessed already. His analysis had been interrupted by powerlessness and insanity, and he didn't entirely trust everyone here to keep their mouths shut after the existence of his Martian home-away-from-home had been exposed during their most recent mission together.

"As for what Imp heard and saw? Sounds like psychics. Maybe alien psychics, sure, but at least psychics. Voices in the head, loss of body control, mass immunization against neurolinguistics? Classic telepathic hallmarks - at least for relatively powerful psychics."

Solitaire frowned. Psychics were pretty much the only thing she had ever found (since becoming a Nova, of course, nothing before that mattered) that actually frightened her. Alien Space Bat Psychic things were rather bad news in her book. She would rather pick a fight with Mal than go up against one.

"So..." Solitaire began, then thought for a moment before continuing. "What do we do about it? I really don't like the sound of this."

"It sounds creepy and pretty scary that they could block even your powers.  I'm leaning more to a conglomerate of powerful novas than aliens, but either way, we'll have our work cut out for us to interfere in their plans. Especially doing so discreetly."


Flare was horrified at the idea that several powerful organizations could be under the control of powerful, likely crazed, novas.  It didn't bode well.

"I don't think it matters, you know?"  Comstock shifted from one foot to the others, his arms crossed over his chest.  "Utopia abused their power and our trust.  Only thing that will satisfy me is turning over Proteus and everyone with it to the UN Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.  If the psychic aliens will do that, then there's room to talk."  He frowned.  "I spoke to Justin.  In New York.  He was still himself.  Knew that he failed."

This all was not exactly news.  Wilhelm said as much.  Psychics, even powerful psychics, were known and had been known for years.  They'd been a problem for as long as they'd been around, from an industrial espionage point of view if nothing else.  Any industrialist worth his salt had started taking steps to minimize their effects.  Regardless of the identity of these psychics -- aliens, angels, leprechauns, or ordinary novas -- the solution to the problem was obvious.  More money spent on projects already underway.  "Psychic powers are already under investigation by any number of sources.  The means of counteracting such powers as well.  Inquiries could be issued without looking too suspicious.  Dr. Wygand at Penn has made some advances in the area.  Dr. Bester at Colombia as well.  Viasoft has a psychic research program too, at least if the information I've seen regarding a prototype psychic computer they're calling CEREBRO is credible.  I've a bit of a program myself as well."  Wilhelm didn't go into details.  The Dream Twister (as the ivory tower folks in the department had taken to calling it) still had a few wrinkles to be ironed out before it could be revealed to the public.  Wrinkles that occasionally resulted in 'Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb.  Mary had a little lamb whose fleece was white as snow.' or the like getting inscribed on the walls of the lab in blood when the thing was turned on.  A liability problem, that was.  "So effective countermeasures are simply a matter of time and money.  Now if you wanted to hunt down these psychics that could be a more difficult matter.  Speaking personally, I don't know why you would want to if countermeasures are available.  Vengeance seems so very overrated."  The last sentiment was directed equally at the idea of hunting down Proteus as at the idea of hunting down the psychics.  Surely the best revenge was the acquisition of power enough to render one invulnerable to one's foes.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:49, Wed 11 Sept 2013.

"Am I sane?  that's a good question.I feel far more like my old self now that we've been restored, as my brain is better able to deal with the pressures put on it by my node.  I'm not experiencing the migraines or rushes of euphoria either.  Also, the voices in my head stopped as soon as I found Car on Europa.  It seems she had been able to communicate with me from within her chrysalis.  I haven't gone to a shrink in a while, but yes, I feel fine." If Grav didn't want to reveal what they'd found on Mars, then Imp would follow his lead, mostly.  "Utopian operatives have discovered probes within our solar system that are not of human design. And those probes were seemingly monitoring Earth. Before I erupted I was working in rocketry, and I examined the things myself.  They were unlike anything i have seen before or since.  this makes me believe that the alienness of the telepathic contact stems from it having an extra terrestrial origin.  It could be a nova, but if so it would have to be someone that was very powerful, and had extremely non-human thought processes.  And a hive mind." He exhaled, "While countermeasures are certainly required, what's to stop them from developing counter-measures of their own, or finding some way to sterilize anybody with the latent DNA that will allow them to erupt?  Or to develop a virus that will kill anybody with that particular sequence? There's too many questions that are not answered, too many unknown variables.
What I think needs doing is for Utopia to be purged of the cancer that's killing the dream that many of us fought and bled for, and many of our friends died for.  I won't let their deaths be in vain.  I also think that someone needs to develop a very large, mainstream power base that they can use to affect geo-politics.  That's why I'm still serious about becoming president.  That will also make whatever this is focus on me and let everybody else do what they need to do."

"You'll need to find another running mate.  I'm busy."

"I'm building my own house.  With safe houses for novas that don't want to be part of Utopia, and a team to keep the peace the way we were supposed to."  He was deadly serious.  "My time will be split between the moon colony and this.  I won't have time for glad-handing."  With some satisfaction, he recalled last week's double-shift on the construction team; with his power returned to its former peak, the difference had been extraordinary.

"That's what I figured, I'm thinking about Fireman, actually.  He's good people, is solid and dependable, and is very much a working Joe with nova powers.  I'll pay him a visit soon, I think. Also, if you need me for anything, just pick up the phone.  I'll be there."

"Still running for president, huh?" Dragón said, shifting his feet as his mind unrolled the potential ramifications of this idea.  "Is there any sort of plan for what the rest of us should be doing in the mean time?"

"Well, my friend, this is war.  A war against someone or something that we cannot come at directly, do not know where its powerbase is, do not know what it looks like, and can only observe its actions by observing what happens after it has acted.  I did not call you here to enlist you as soldiers or subordinates, I can find those elsewhere, instead my hope is that each of us here will be able to see the big picture, know what has to be done, and then create their own plan of attack.  We can, must, coordinate, but having each of us working at countering this in their own way makes us that much harder to to work against, even though it does sacrifice some of our efficiency." Hmmm, so this is how Mal feels, Imp thought to himself.

"I'm with Kraken on tactics.  Anti-psychic measures seem pretty much mandatory.  Though I'm for hunting down whatever is doing this stuff.  Loose ends suck."

"As for gaining a power base, I'm joining 'Stock.  I won't be making any overt power plays.  That doesn't mean that other people can't though.  Oh, and Portman would make a good running mate, but you might want to consider baselines politicians for the job.  They've got connections and skills... Portman is a good man, but he's not a politician."

Gale wasn't the most politically savvy, but the idea of Impetus as president made her smile.  If anyone could get something accomplished while in office, it would be Impetus.  "If we can't identify who these mystery psychics are, then I guess all we can do is keep researching anti-psychic tactics."  She couldn't combat psychics herself, and probably didn't even know if she'd been probed by psychics.  Not a good sign.

Switching topics, she echoed Phantasm.  "I don't have a whole lot of influence outside of environmental groups at the moment.  But I wouldn't mind joining a team with Comstock again.  Now that I'm at full strength again, I have the itch to do something."

"I was just about to ask you what your plans were Gale.  I think we've got a lot in common right now..."  Approval, a not terribly subtle allusion to their meeting with the group's Terats, and an oblique reference to underlying feelings and goals.