Even Elena and the other Megs ask for Mercy’s fried ice cream cake recipe. Charis would, but she can just get the details from Elena later. All the same, Mercy simply adds her to the list of people present who get the data transfer. This is a benefit of nano-chat. Since it’s essentially telepathy, you don’t have to spend time trying to communicate a thought or idea. You can just transfer the entire concept into the other person’s mind to ensure they get a full, proper understanding. Of course, it’s no fun doing this for everything, thus why most people like to “stop and smell the flowers” by orally communicating the old-fashioned way. When you can do virtually anything, daily inconvenience sometimes becomes more enjoyable than constant, mundane luxury. These punks just like the nostalgia of their normal days.
And then, there’s Keb, who occasionally turns her auto-heal off for the sake of endurance training.
With all this craziness, lunch goes by quickly and the team decides to tour the space station itself.
“Meg,” Duplica asks, “Why aren’t you wearing all your weapons and gadgets like usual?”
“Because it’s my day off, obviously.”
Kammy comments, “Well, considering she’s dead, I imagine every day is her day off.”
C3 laughs and corrects this. “Hey, that’s kind of personal there. And for your information, I have things I have to do. I’m not just a lazy bum, loafing around the Juniper District.”
Megs XV and XI debate this with XV saying, “I had to wait two and a half days to get my favorite spatula back because you lost it before telling anyone you were taking a nap for two straight days. Your Canbel looked all over your place for it and couldn’t find the thing.”
Mercy jives to this beat. “Sounds like my kind of hobby.”
As this conversation persists, the newly begun hike takes the crew to look at the space ships in the launch bay and then the medical facility nearby. They see the healing pods and the rehabilitation station. When the tour moves over to a fight simulation room, the boys ask if they can try this out. Duplica and Jo really want to let the kids try, but are afraid of the time this would take, so they decline.
“What I’d like is a nap,” voices Faye.
“Oh, honey,” Gigi expresses her delight at this thought, “if we could take a nap right now, I would be tempted to pay whichever teacher gave the okay.” Due to time, no one takes her up on this offer.
Instead, this tour takes the group to a nearby window, of which there are many all over this station. Duplica decides it is time to move on and puts her hand to the glass, allowing it to phase through. This is the kids’ cue the time in CCCXLI is up. Via Duplica’s power, the teens are able to follow her right through the wall and are now all out in the vastness of outer space.
“How should we leave this time? Make it good.” Cat looks around for suggestions.
“Eh,” says Ent, “let’s take the elevator.” So, in accordance with this proposal, Cat pokes the emptiness of space and a button lights up. Moments later, a sound can be heard from inches in front of the teacher and nothingness separates to reveal the door of their transport. The kids get inside and watch Catherine push one of the buttons inside of this elevator. The door shuts, and the group, which now includes Elena, her friends and the three Megs, waits as the room ascends. About twenty seconds later, the movement stops, a bell rings and the door opens to reveal they have arrived back at the house of the Beluus and the Scotts. All the guests file out of the elevator with Elena saying they’ll take the Megs home after they’ve hung out for the rest of the day. And with this, the final goodbyes are said for now and the elevator door shuts again. We’ll have to catch up with them again some time.
Inner Man Theatre 