the airplane

[instar]

Bella, Andi, and Robin all get on the plane. Bella and Robin have toothbrush caps in their pockets containing flies. Nothing in particular happens when they go through security. They fly for an hour, and then Bella, rather than risk crunch time due to turbulence or a line for the bathroom a little later on, gets up to take Trouble into privacy for demorphing and remorphing.

She takes the toothbrush cap out of her pocket and sets it on the tiny little counter, and then flattens herself against a wall to give him room.

Comments

[instar]

So are the twins.

[sundayfish]

Seems to suit Charlie fine.

The drive home takes about forty-five minutes, and then he says:

"You all make yourselves at home. I'll be out for an hour - got a Sharing meeting, you girls are all welcome if you'd like to come along - but then I'll be back and we can catch up."

[instar]

"You have fun, Dad," says Bella softly.

[sundayfish]

"I know you've made yourselves clear you don't think much of it, but just to be sure..."

[pandion]

"We'll just unpack," says Andi, shaking her head.

[hold_infinity]

"Yeah," says Robin.

[sundayfish]

"Suit yourselves."

And he's off.

[pandion]

"I would never, ever guess," says Andi, shuddering, "if I didn't know."

[instar]

Bella unpockets Trouble. "We know when it eats, or at least have a very good guess, now. We can schedule our we-want-to-go-hiking trip accordingly."

[hold_infinity]

Robin unpockets Ethan.

"Right," she says as the boys start to demorph. "Do we know where we want to go hiking?"

[instar]

"Olympic National Park. Probably most convenient if you're the one who really wants to go hiking. It knows us as well as Charlie does."

[hold_infinity]

"Sure," she says. "Tell me all about Olympic National Park so I can get properly excited."

[instar]

Bella relates what she knows about the park and its hiking-related virtues.

[hold_infinity]

Robin constructs an appropriate enthusiasm.

[aeskhyne]

"So let's talk about the part where I get eaten by a bear," says Trouble.

[instar]

"That's cover-up, not part of the rescue itself. We set up the hike, cut as close as we can to when the Yeerk is going to need to nip out for some Kandrona. Before we leave Andi unloads Charlie's gun in case he brings it. While we are out in the woods, we encounter some bears. You guys can rotate out, but don't let him get to the car or otherwise away. Tree him if you can, avoid hurting him if possible - Trouble, the Yeerk will come out when it's hungry enough pool or no pool, right?"

[aeskhyne]

"Yeah. When they starve, they kind of - shrivel up and ooze out."

[instar]

"Good. When that happens and it's good and dead, we can explain everything to Charlie, and unless he has a better way for him to plausibly meet his end - or, conceivably, can think of a way around needing to - you turn into him and Ethan mauls you and we generally stage the scene like a bear killed and dragged off our father, we go look for park rangers - whichever of you is not being a bear at any given time would be helpful if they were being pigeons and checking for park rangers who might get near Charlie. We tell the park rangers a bear killed and dragged off our father. Meanwhile Charlie gets morph-capable and turns into - something, it'll depend on what's available, probably some kind of bug."

[aeskhyne]

"Sounds good to me," says Trouble.

[hold_infinity]

"I'm not sure pigeons are really optimal for that kind of work, but I guess they're the best we've got."

[instar]

"If you get a chance to grab a bird of prey between now and then, do, I just don't see a great way to manage it and still want to conserve morphs as much as we can." She pulls out her notebook, starts scrutinizing ciphers. "If it's got any plans to take us by force in the next couple days, we can morph our way out. Andi sleeps light enough that it can't even open our door at night without waking her and it knows that. We do the cooking when we're here so it's not like it can drug us. Am I missing anything?"

[hold_infinity]

"How do we keep in touch with Ethan and Trouble?"

[palmofyourhand]

"Good question. I'm assuming we won't be staying in your pockets indefinitely; we do need to sleep."

[instar]

"I was imagining you'd hang out in the woods, sleep in shifts, wake each other up if anybody wandered by. Feeding you will be a little complicated, but for just a couple days you can eat in morph, I'll get you some bread." She starts rummaging for bread.

[pandion]

"We're right up next to the woods. You could stay just within thoughtspeak range, and me and Bella will usually be able to find a moment by ourselves to morph each other."