Day 8
Burg

"You had me at 'this area's pretty much deserted'." Irene told her. "So... what else is here? I mean, it's an aquarium, so obviously there's going to be fish...."

Day 8: Burg

"Oooh, LOTS of fish," Xandria grinned. "And jellyfish and octopi and sharks and...I should probably just show you. Come on."

She led Irene through the ground floor first, starting at the gift shop (just in case they found anything interesting and usable), and winding through the ground floor and the smaller cases. Then they went up the great staircase into the upper floors, through the jellyfish room, the documentary room (probably the best place for a guest room, just in case they found any other mutants that were afraid of water), and around the large tanks. Xandria's favorite tank, the one that she returned on each level, was the large one with everything from small minnows to the sharks. The ground floor had a tunnel leading through the bottom of this tank, and it continued up into the rafters. After they finished on the last floor, Xandria invited Irene up.

"This is where I have been experimenting," she said, as she scurried up a ladder and onto the catwalk. "There's plenty of room for me to try out stuff."

She knelt down at the edge of the catwalk and looked down into the tank.

"Earlier you were asking me about transforming. This is what happens."

Xandria leaned forward and lowered her hand and part of her arm into the water. It immediately took on a glistening, scale like sheen, a web forming between her fingers and along the bony edge of her arm.

"This is it. It makes me feel slightly wicked, sometimes, like I'm doing something wrong, but other times, I just feel like--feel a little light headed and giddy. I try not to think about how I must look too much, or else it scares me some."

Day 8
Burg

The place was bigger than Irene had been expecting. She didn't really know what she was expecting, but she was glad to be wrong. As they walked, Irene started taking mental notes, trying to figure out what rooms could be used for what.

Finally, they got to a large tank, with all kinds of fish inside--ooh, including sharks. Well, as long as they stayed on that side of the glass.... Xandria led her to the top of the tank.

"Earlier you were asking me about transforming. This is what happens."

"Whoa, what are--" Irene just barely kept from finishing that sentence as Xandria put her arm in the tank with the sharks. She was a bit distracted, though, when the transformation happened. "Wow...."

When Xandria admitted how it made her feel, Irene didn't really know how to respond. It's not like she was any less confused about it. "I don't know why it feels wrong to use our powers." She muttered, a volume slightly louder than "to herself". "I mean, yeah, we're keeping it secret, but it's not like we asked to get them, and it's not like we're doing something wrong just because we're not announcing it to the world...." All the rationalizing in the world didn't mean much if your feelings were insistent on something else.

Burg: Day 8

"It's like...it's like having an extra serving of dessert when you know you shouldn't. It isn't wrong, wrong, but you feel like if someone caught you, you'd somehow get in trouble," Xandria pulled her hand up out of the water and shook it, the scales and webbing slowly receding into her hand as it dried. "There's nothing wrong with having it, and once you take a bite, you can't really hand it back, but...you still feel guilty."

Day 8
Burg

"It's hardly our fault that we got superpowers and not everyone else did." Irene muttered. "Anyone who wants to think it is, that's their problem." Irene cleared her throat and shook it off. Louder, and more happily, she added, "So... since we've got the run of the place, where do you want your room to be?"

Day 8: Burg

Xandria sat back and thought for a few minutes.

"I really like the kelp forest room, and the blue one, with all the deep water fish, so I'd be game for either of those. Which room do you want?"

Day 8
Burg

"Honestly? I was thinking either the jellyfish room, or the gift shop. From the gift shop, I'd be able to see if anyone came poking around--though, of course, they could see me, too. And the jellyfish room would be kind of like having giant lava lamps around... which would either be really cool, or get really obnoxious."

She shrugged and added, "I've made beds out of stuffed animals and slept in chairs before, so I don't even really need anywhere with space to lie down."

Day 8: Burg

Xandria laughed.

"I've been sleeping on bean bags and the ocean floor," she said. She grew serious. "I think it would be best for our long term mental health, however, if we do our best to maintain a regular schedule and homelike appearance, as well as keep normal hours. Though we'll have to figure out what all we need--what do we need? Maybe we should make up a list of stuff before we go out scavenging at those stores you mentioned."

Day 8
Burg

"Good idea. Well, we've already talked about food, and clothes... I guess some furniture would be nice. I imagine there are a few chairs around, but probably not many. Hmm, do you think they have any lockers--like, employee lockers? Otherwise, it might be nice to find something to store any... well, anything valuable we might find. And maybe we should go back to the library and grab a few books...."

Irene stopped, blushing a little bit. "Wow. Motor mouth, much?"

Burg: Day 8

"No, no, brainstorming is good," Xandria said, nodding. "I vote we bring the bean bags and blankets from the library. Pretty much anything we want from there should get moved over first. I'll be happy to get out of there as soon as possible. There is an employee area, but I didn't really take time to look at it in depth. If we have stuff we want to hide, though, I think we should find other places that are a little less intuitive for storing."

She shrugged.

"Do you want to start moving stuff once it gets dark tonight, or explore more? Or I guess we could just crash. I've only been awake for a little while, though."

Day 8
Burg

"Well, I'm not really tired yet, so... yeah, let's do some exploring. I'd like to get to know this place a bit more, if you know what I mean."

Burg: Day 8

"Sure," Xandria nodded. "I already checked the whole place, and there's nothing dangerous that I've found. So it should be fine. If you don't mind, I'll feed the fish and like that while you wander?"

Day 8
Burg

"Sounds good. I'd like to make sure I know my way around." She waved to Xandria, and started off towards the nearest hallway she could see. First, Irene would double-back to make sure her mental map was reliable--maybe see if they had maps of the place. It kind of took the adventure out of "exploring", but she'd rather have that than get humiliatingly lost in an aquarium.

Burg: Day 8

Xandria made her way down to the storage room, sorting out the food and doing her best to open the door as little as possible. She could feel that the temperature was several degrees warmer than it had been when she fed the fish that morning, and the higher the temperature was, the less time the food would last. She also needed to figure out a way to make the water systems work again. The aquarium could be self sustaining, but each individual tank was not equipped to do so. Plus, the backup aeration system was faltering; in fact, she wasn't quite sure how it was working as it was. She had stopped by to inspect it after Irene and she had split off into opposite directions, and while it was clear whoever had designed the system was a genius, she could not understand how it worked without electrical power. From what she could tell, however, that was the precise point of the system. Perhaps if she could figure out how to divert some of the power from the tanks that she planned on emptying to the larger tanks...she shook her head. A problem for a different day. But the environmental systems would all need reworking, and she was no match for those.

She did her best to think of other things as she began distributing food, but found that the best substitute was worrying about Irene and, of all things, Jason. Why had she agreed to meet with him? She grumbled about it to herself, turning the idea over in her mind and not having any good ideas about it. Finally, she dumped the last bucket of food in its tank and looked around. She half tried to find Irene, but soon found herself wandering to the top of the tanks. She sat at the edge of the shark tank for a while, suddenly wondering what would happen if she stuck one leg in the water, but left the other out. A horrid image of her tail torn in half gave her the shivers, and she decided against trying, but stripped down and dived in instead.

The cool water rushed over her, intensifying the shock of her body changing. It was much better than before, fortunately, but it could still be better. She swam down through the different levels, keeping an eye out for Irene, but lazily drifting through the tank. Her shark friends swam by, almost nuzzling up against her, and Xandria resisted the urge to grab her fins and get a short ride. She didn't know her quite well enough to do that yet. Instead, she swam down to the bottom of the tank and settled against the seaweed, then held her hand out and tossed out a tendril. It snaked halfway up the tank, then sagged. Xandria blew bubbles in frustration, then tried again. Nearly to the top of the water.

This could take a while.

Day 8
Burg

Irene continued wandering around the aquarium for a while, but eventually, she ran out of new places to check out. She'd looped around the entire building, and was back near the gift shop. Well, with no more exploring to do, she needed to find something else to do. After all the walking around and logistical planning, Irene wanted some time to herself, just sitting around... doing whatever she felt like. That's what the life she'd remembered so far had been like, and at this point, she was kind of missing that.

Irene made her way back to the documentary room, a place where she wouldn't feel like eyes--human or not--were constantly watching her, and with no windows for some strange passer-by. Besides, this room was designed for shows, and... well, she was feeling a bit theatrical.

Without any of the electric lights working, the documentary room was pretty dark. "That's the first thing I'll change." Irene muttered, and with a flourish of her hands, the room seemed to light up. She found a seat, in the back row of the room, looking across it, taking in the details... what few there were. Since the focus was supposed to be on the screen, the rest of the room was pretty bland. For her, though, this was just like a giant canvas.

Irene gestured towards the front of the room. The strip of wall underneath the screen turned light tan, while the screen itself turned blue. She added a strip of yellow to the very top of the wall. There, she had the makings of a beach-front scene. She started focusing the bottom, making the tan strip look more and more like sand on a shoreline with every pass, adding more details. It was easier to start with a rough framework and add more details as she went, especially since it forced her to think about how they all fit together. Besides, it was no fun if she skipped ahead to the final product.

Before she'd even finished the sand, though, Irene shook her head and dispelled it. "I'm in a giant room," she muttered to herself, "surely I can be a bit more creative." After all, this was a stage--why should she settle for a virtual painting, when she could make a set? Irene walked towards the center of the room, thinking about it when she went. She wanted to make something versatile, something like a set from a play. After all, there were two entrances to the room, not unlike stage right and stage left--even if the entrances were on the wrong side of the room according to the stage.

'This play takes place in an office building.' Irene decided. And most of the action took place, naturally, in the office itself, so... she started tracing out a floor plan of the room, dividing it up into cubicles. Hmm, that made the place kind of dreary. She snapped her fingers at the screen, and voila!--now it was a set of windows, letting in bright "sunshine". There, nice; now it at least looked like a cheery office.

She glanced to her left; if this were a play, there'd be multiple rooms built into the same set. So, this seemed like a good place to put... the boss's office. Yeah, a big space, which would give the illusion of a luxurious private office. Irene put in a big, finely "crafted" wooden desk, and behind that, a large bookshelf. Maybe a bookshelf wouldn't make that much sense for an office, but it looked nice to her. It wasn't like anyone else would see this.

Okay, but this "building" still needed an entrance. Irene turned around, to her right, and started working on the lobby. The wall needed wooden paneling on the bottom, but the rest of the wall was painted white. Irene imagined a wooden desk, the kind that a friendly receptionist would sit behind, welcoming anyone who entered the building. As soon as she set it up, Irene suddenly realized that the desk seemed oddly familiar--disturbingly so. She tried to shake the feeling off, but a few seconds later, she realized the problem--it looked exactly like the place she'd seen in her dream. Suddenly, all of those memories came rushing back in, and she suddenly regretted the idea of making a three-dimensional virtual world....

Irene flinched and closed her eyes; when she opened them again, the documentary room was back to its original state. All of her changes were gone; Irene wasn't really sure if she'd dispelled it herself, or if it had all just collapsed. Regardless, Irene thought it best not to try that again, at least not for now. Perhaps she should try to sort out her imagination from her dreams before she tried something like that again....

Irene stepped out of the room, looking for the nearest possible outside window. "Boy, it's getting dark." She realized. Irene followed the path she'd taken with Xandria before, back to the tanks. It didn't take long to find Xandria again--she had a feeling she was still in the shark tank. Irene came up to the tank, and sure enough, there was--woah. Irene had to do a double-take; she knew that Xandria transformed, but... well, she hadn't really thought about what Xandria would like like when she was completely transformed. Irene couldn't decide whether it was beautiful or terrifying.

Irene shook it off; Xandria saw her, and started swiming towards the water's surface. As soon as her head was above water and Irene was confident she could hear her, she called out, "So... did you still want to grab some things from the library?"