24 Gifts Of 2012 - Day Ten - Brave New World
Finally I post this... Internet was seriously in and out all day... bah...
The opening bit of what may someday become a longer story... A multifandom AU based on the show 'Terra Nova'. The Cohens+1 go from an overpopulated, polluted, future to nature in the extreme 85 million years in the past. But things don't go smooth and never will. I took the basic premise, including the population police thing, but twisted it around a bit.
Fandoms in this part: The OC (Cohens+); Eureka (Zane Donovan); Supernatural (Dean Winchester); and Stargate: Atlantis (Sheppard and Weir).
Ryan Cohen was sitting in his cell, absently tossing a ball up into the air and catching it again, when the door slid open. He was scrambling to his feet as a guard came in and grabbed his arm wordlessly, pulling him down the dimly lit corridor towards the main offices, and all of Ryan's instincts said to fight because the last time a member of his work detail got hauled out off shift it was because they'd been found guilty in the courts. But he forced himself to remain calm, and was rewarded for it when he stepped into the offices and saw his mom waiting for him, her smile full of smug confidence.
"It took you long enough," Kirsten said. "Now let go of my son before we're late."
"Mrs. Cohen..."
"He never should have been here, and if we weren't leaving, you would have a lawsuit on your hands," Kirsten continued as though she hadn't been interrupted, crossing over to Ryan's side and slipping an Ident Card over his head. "Let's go, honey. We're already running behind schedule."
Ryan nodded, keeping quiet until Kirsten had hustled him into a private transport car. "Mom?" he asked softly as she turned and wrapped her arms around him.
"My father may already be in Terra nova, but luckily his name still has a lot of power," Kirsten said as she pulled back.
"Mom?" Ryan repeated.
"I used his name, and what was left of the money to buy our way out of this mess," Kirsten said.
"What?" Ryan asked. "But..."
"I also bought our way into the Tenth Pilgrimage."
Ryan froze, the questions on the tip of his tongue falling away. "We're... we're going to Terra Nova?"
"We are," Kirsten said. "All of us. I bought off a judge to hurry things along, declare that we did everything legally, which we did, and make sure all three of you are legal, erase the charges from Sandy's record... and we're going to start over, somewhere with clean air and no rules that make one of my children looked down on."
Ryan leaned back in relief. "We'll be able to see the stars?" he asked. "I always wanted to see the stars."
"Soon," Kirsten said with a smile. "Your bag's on the floor, pretty much all clothes, but..."
"All I need is that and my family," Ryan assured her.
~~~
"Where are they?" Seth asked, looking around anxiously as they walked down the gangway towards the rift.
"They'll be here," Sandy replied firmly, trying to keep his own worry in check.
"Mommy! Ryan!" Sophie Rose yelled, and her father and brother turned, relief washing over them as Kirsten and Ryan reached them.
Sandy set Sophie Rose down to embrace Ryan, pulling his older son close. "I'm so sorry, kid," he whispered.
"It's over now," Ryan replied, squeezing tightly. "We're together, we'll be okay," he added as he stepped back and crouched down in front of his little sister. "Hey, mouse, remember me?"
Sophie Rose nodded and jumped into Ryan's arms. "I missed you and daddy so much," she said.
"I missed you, too," Ryan said, getting to his feet with his sister still in his arms.
"I can take her," Kirsten said.
"I'm okay," Ryan said, shaking his head. "Me and mouse gotta catch up, right?" he said.
"Right," Sophie Rose agreed. "Mommy showed me pictures of what it's suppose to look like," she added.
"Yeah? Is it nice?" Ryan asked as they started moving again, making their slow progression towards the portal.
"It's really pretty," Sophie Rose said. "And there's real animals and dinosaurs! I read a book about them in school."
"That's cool," Ryan said. "What's your favorite dinosaur?"
"The Brachia... Brach..."
"Brachiosaurus," Seth supplied from beside them. "She got it right the first day, not even once since then," he added.
"Well it's a big word," Ryan said. "It's at least three times as big as Soph is."
"We're really going to be okay," Sandy said as he watched the kids walk ahead of them.
"Never let it be said that money never did any good," Kirsten pointed out, taking her husbands hand.
"Yeah, remember that when we get there and have nothing," Sandy replied with a laugh.
"We have each other," Kirsten corrected. "That's all that matters."
They were less than a hundred feet from the portal by then, and while there was an air of nervousness on the gangway, there was far more excitement and joy. And behind them, near the rear of the column, there were angry shouts that no one at the front could hear. They did hear the rapid shots of a pulse rifle, though, and the line stopped moving as confused murmurs ran through the crowd. Sandy looked back, seeing bright burst of fire lighting up in the distance, growing closer all the time. "Run," he said, pushing his kids ahead. "Run! Fast as you can! Get through the portal!"
There was chaos as people realized Hope Plaza was under attack, and in the mess of the crowd the Cohens were separated, but Ryan kept running, one arm tightly wrapped around Sophie Rose, clutching her to his chest, and the other grasping Seth's arm to pull him along. As they neared the portal, Ryan paused to look back, searching for their parents. "Mom! Dad!" he yelled.
"Go! We're right behind you!" came Sandy's voice, and Ryan caught a glimpse of him before turning back towards the portal and shoving Seth through. With one last hesitation and glance back to see his parents break free of the crowd, Ryan stepped into the rift, feeling a jolt of pain, as though he was surrounded by flames, that was gone as quickly as it began as he came out the other side, falling to the ground. He managed to turn just enough to protect Sophie Rose from the impact, but cried out in pain as he hit the ground, his head already buzzing from Hyperoxia.
"Breath slowly," came the order from a man who leaned over him, holding a mask to his mouth and nose to help.
When Ryan glanced around, desperate, he spotted Seth and Sophie Rose nearby, both seeming to be okay, but looking around in confusion and fear. Ryan looked again, realizing what was wrong and fighting to sit up. "Mom! Dad!" he yelled, shoving the mask away and looking around frantically until his eyes fell on the portal, until his gaze drifted to the ground where a man's arm and foot, just his arm and foot, lay in front of it, blood seeping out into the dirt. Ryan felt the air leave his lungs, looking around again, slower this time, and realizing that his parents weren't there. That they must not have made it through the portal before... before something horrible had happened.
~~~
"There was some sort of power surge," Zane Donovan told Lieutenant Dean Winchester. "It overloaded our end."
"So... the rest of that guy...?"
"Could be anywhere on the planet, along with anyone else who stepped through the portal as it happened." Zane said.
"Maybe the rift just shut down, spit people back out in '49?" Dean suggested.
"Maybe," Zane agreed. "But not likely. They're probably somewhere out there, and we can only hope a couple soldiers are with them and armed. Or they're not gonna make it."
Dean sighed, running a hand through his hair and glancing over at the three kids who had apparently been left without parents by the accident. "Let's keep the doom saying quiet," he said, nodding towards the kids. "I don't want them..."
"We don't know what happened, but probably everyone else is okay and they'll turn up," Zane agreed. "In the mean time... what are you gonna do with them? Especially since there's three of them."
"Don't know," Dean said. "Let's find out their story," he added, starting across the clearing towards them.
"Are mommy and daddy dead?" the little girl asked her blond brother, and Dean flinched.
"They'll turn up," Dean said as he crouched down. "Probably just got spit out somewhere else, but I'm sure they're okay, Miss..."
"I'm not suppose to talk to strangers," the girl replied.
"It's okay, Soph, he's a soldier," the blonde boy said. "She's Sophie Rose Cohen."
"And you two?"
"Seth and Ryan," the blonde said, gesturing at his brother and then himself.
"I gotta ask..."
"I was adopted when I was eight," Ryan said. "It was all done legally, and follow up papers were filed when mom got pregnant with Soph, it was all legal."
"Okay," Dean said, guessing there'd been problems regarding the legality in the immigration process. "I'm Lieutenant Dean Winchester, I'm one of the security officers for Terra Nova, and I want you three to stick close to me on the hike back to the colony, alright? We'll figure out the next move for you once we're there."
"Our grandfather came through on the eighth," Ryan said. "Caleb Nichols."
Dean grimaced. "I'm sorry to inform you, but Caleb Nichols died a few months ago. Syncillic Fever, it hit hard and fast."
"Grandpa's dead?" Seth said.
"We'll figure things out," Dean promised.
"But..."
"Enough," Ryan said. His voice was quiet, but the tone conveyed so much that Seth immediately shut up. "If Lieutenant Winchester says we'll figure it out, then we'll figure it out, and there's no use worrying about it right now."
~~~
Ryan carried Sophie Rose for most of the walk to Terra Nova, and had Seth walk just ahead of them, so he could make sure he didn't lose either of his siblings. He was so intent on placing his feet on the uneven ground, and ignoring the fear in the put of his stomach, that he didn't notice Sophie Rose's intense skyward gaze until she spoke.
"Ry?"
"Yeah, Mouse?" Ryan asked, looking up, then tilting his head back to see that through the canopy of trees there was clear blue sky, the occasionally fluffy white cloud passing by. "Wow," he whispered as a bird flew between the trees.
"Get used to it," Dean said. "Lots of wide open blue skies around here."
"You'll even be able to see the stars from your front porch at night," Zane put in. "Even the rain is refreshing."
"Just like mom said," he told Sophie Rose, who nodded and returned her attention to the sky.
"I'm Zane Donovan, by the way."
Ryan looked over at the man and nodded. "Ryan Cohen. Miss bird watcher is Sophie Rose, and the guy about to hit himself in the face is Seth," he introduced, glancing over his shoulder as Seth swatted at a mosquito.
"They carry disease!" Seth protested.
"Not here and now, they don't," Zane said. "At least not anything we can't treat with a simple hypo."
"You never would have made it Granding," Ryan told Seth, shaking his head.
"Granding Prison?" Zane asked.
"After nine years of all paperwork saying that things had been done properly with my adoption, and four years of everything properly filed for Soph, since technically they weren't having a third, they'd taken someone else's second in, all of a sudden last year the population police are busting down our door saying I'm not legally registered, they broke the law... Dad ended up in Sanders, I was put in Granding," Ryan explained. "We still don't know what happened, but... mom used every cent we had to get things straightened out and get us onto the pilgrimage list." He paused, realizing what he had said could be misinterpreted. "Not by bribing people..."
"Hey, I was in the Fifth Pilgrimage as an alternative to prison for hacking a mainframe," Zane said. "I was playing Robin Hood."
"Who?" Sophie Rose asked.
"Robin Hood," Ryan said. "He's from a story, he would steal from the rich and give to the poor. He was a good guy, but he did bad things, so he is not a hero so much as an anti-hero."
"Oh. Does that mean Mr. Donovan is an anti-hero?" Sophie Rose asked.
"The biggest anti-hero," Zane said with a grin.
"He's one of the good guys," Dean said. "Much as he likes to pretend otherwise."
~~~
Ryan was the oldest, so when Dean took them up to the Colony leaders' office at the center of the settlement, he gave his brother a sharp look that said to keep quiet and let him do the talking.
"We took a look at the Pilgrimage files as soon as Lieutenant Winchester gave us your names," Dr. Elizabeth Weir said as she sat behind her desk, Colonel John Sheppard standing beside her. "And they confirmed your story that your adoption, Ryan, was done legally, even if there was some confusion."
"Confusion? They put him and Dad in prison," Seth protested.
Ryan elbowed Seth in the side. "When the population police came, our dad took the blame to protect our mom," he explained. "And because my biological parents had multiple criminal charges on their records, I was automatically labelled criminally dangerous. They did what seemed appropriate based on the records available to them."
"That's diplomatic," Sheppard said.
"That's the facts of it," Ryan said. "And it's better to focus on facts, than on anger about things that are done and can't be changed."
Weir nodded, glancing at Sheppard, who nodded as well. "Until your parents turn up, we need to decide what to do with the three of you," Weir said.
"I'm seventeen, I can take care of them both," Ryan said quickly. "It's bad enough not knowing where our parents are, we need to stay together."
"Your family didn't have any funds to transfer to local creds," Sheppard said. "So..."
"I'll find work," Ryan said. "I finished my compulsory schooling three months before... before. I can find work to make creds."
"What kind of work?" Sheppard asked, curious.
"Whatever's needed," Ryan replied, lifting his chin. "I'm good with computers and engineering, but I can do phsyical labor just as well, they made me do it at Granding. I can build, I can dismantle, I can wire and rewire, whatever I have to do."
Weir nodded again. "Well, for tonight, we'll let the three of your settle into your housing, the pantry is already stocked with basic provisions, so you can wait a few days to find work. No one here starves, but it's nice to afford luxuries like toys and new clothes..."
"Don't sound like luxuries to me," Seth said.
"Seth, you think fresh vids are necessity," Ryan said pointedly. "Thank you, ma'am," he added to Weir.
The End (For Now At Least...)
If I write more, following my loose plan, Neil Roberts, Summer Roberts, Brooke Davis, and Jo Lupo will all appear... possibly a few more Eurekans...
The opening bit of what may someday become a longer story... A multifandom AU based on the show 'Terra Nova'. The Cohens+1 go from an overpopulated, polluted, future to nature in the extreme 85 million years in the past. But things don't go smooth and never will. I took the basic premise, including the population police thing, but twisted it around a bit.
Fandoms in this part: The OC (Cohens+); Eureka (Zane Donovan); Supernatural (Dean Winchester); and Stargate: Atlantis (Sheppard and Weir).
Ryan Cohen was sitting in his cell, absently tossing a ball up into the air and catching it again, when the door slid open. He was scrambling to his feet as a guard came in and grabbed his arm wordlessly, pulling him down the dimly lit corridor towards the main offices, and all of Ryan's instincts said to fight because the last time a member of his work detail got hauled out off shift it was because they'd been found guilty in the courts. But he forced himself to remain calm, and was rewarded for it when he stepped into the offices and saw his mom waiting for him, her smile full of smug confidence.
"It took you long enough," Kirsten said. "Now let go of my son before we're late."
"Mrs. Cohen..."
"He never should have been here, and if we weren't leaving, you would have a lawsuit on your hands," Kirsten continued as though she hadn't been interrupted, crossing over to Ryan's side and slipping an Ident Card over his head. "Let's go, honey. We're already running behind schedule."
Ryan nodded, keeping quiet until Kirsten had hustled him into a private transport car. "Mom?" he asked softly as she turned and wrapped her arms around him.
"My father may already be in Terra nova, but luckily his name still has a lot of power," Kirsten said as she pulled back.
"Mom?" Ryan repeated.
"I used his name, and what was left of the money to buy our way out of this mess," Kirsten said.
"What?" Ryan asked. "But..."
"I also bought our way into the Tenth Pilgrimage."
Ryan froze, the questions on the tip of his tongue falling away. "We're... we're going to Terra Nova?"
"We are," Kirsten said. "All of us. I bought off a judge to hurry things along, declare that we did everything legally, which we did, and make sure all three of you are legal, erase the charges from Sandy's record... and we're going to start over, somewhere with clean air and no rules that make one of my children looked down on."
Ryan leaned back in relief. "We'll be able to see the stars?" he asked. "I always wanted to see the stars."
"Soon," Kirsten said with a smile. "Your bag's on the floor, pretty much all clothes, but..."
"All I need is that and my family," Ryan assured her.
~~~
"Where are they?" Seth asked, looking around anxiously as they walked down the gangway towards the rift.
"They'll be here," Sandy replied firmly, trying to keep his own worry in check.
"Mommy! Ryan!" Sophie Rose yelled, and her father and brother turned, relief washing over them as Kirsten and Ryan reached them.
Sandy set Sophie Rose down to embrace Ryan, pulling his older son close. "I'm so sorry, kid," he whispered.
"It's over now," Ryan replied, squeezing tightly. "We're together, we'll be okay," he added as he stepped back and crouched down in front of his little sister. "Hey, mouse, remember me?"
Sophie Rose nodded and jumped into Ryan's arms. "I missed you and daddy so much," she said.
"I missed you, too," Ryan said, getting to his feet with his sister still in his arms.
"I can take her," Kirsten said.
"I'm okay," Ryan said, shaking his head. "Me and mouse gotta catch up, right?" he said.
"Right," Sophie Rose agreed. "Mommy showed me pictures of what it's suppose to look like," she added.
"Yeah? Is it nice?" Ryan asked as they started moving again, making their slow progression towards the portal.
"It's really pretty," Sophie Rose said. "And there's real animals and dinosaurs! I read a book about them in school."
"That's cool," Ryan said. "What's your favorite dinosaur?"
"The Brachia... Brach..."
"Brachiosaurus," Seth supplied from beside them. "She got it right the first day, not even once since then," he added.
"Well it's a big word," Ryan said. "It's at least three times as big as Soph is."
"We're really going to be okay," Sandy said as he watched the kids walk ahead of them.
"Never let it be said that money never did any good," Kirsten pointed out, taking her husbands hand.
"Yeah, remember that when we get there and have nothing," Sandy replied with a laugh.
"We have each other," Kirsten corrected. "That's all that matters."
They were less than a hundred feet from the portal by then, and while there was an air of nervousness on the gangway, there was far more excitement and joy. And behind them, near the rear of the column, there were angry shouts that no one at the front could hear. They did hear the rapid shots of a pulse rifle, though, and the line stopped moving as confused murmurs ran through the crowd. Sandy looked back, seeing bright burst of fire lighting up in the distance, growing closer all the time. "Run," he said, pushing his kids ahead. "Run! Fast as you can! Get through the portal!"
There was chaos as people realized Hope Plaza was under attack, and in the mess of the crowd the Cohens were separated, but Ryan kept running, one arm tightly wrapped around Sophie Rose, clutching her to his chest, and the other grasping Seth's arm to pull him along. As they neared the portal, Ryan paused to look back, searching for their parents. "Mom! Dad!" he yelled.
"Go! We're right behind you!" came Sandy's voice, and Ryan caught a glimpse of him before turning back towards the portal and shoving Seth through. With one last hesitation and glance back to see his parents break free of the crowd, Ryan stepped into the rift, feeling a jolt of pain, as though he was surrounded by flames, that was gone as quickly as it began as he came out the other side, falling to the ground. He managed to turn just enough to protect Sophie Rose from the impact, but cried out in pain as he hit the ground, his head already buzzing from Hyperoxia.
"Breath slowly," came the order from a man who leaned over him, holding a mask to his mouth and nose to help.
When Ryan glanced around, desperate, he spotted Seth and Sophie Rose nearby, both seeming to be okay, but looking around in confusion and fear. Ryan looked again, realizing what was wrong and fighting to sit up. "Mom! Dad!" he yelled, shoving the mask away and looking around frantically until his eyes fell on the portal, until his gaze drifted to the ground where a man's arm and foot, just his arm and foot, lay in front of it, blood seeping out into the dirt. Ryan felt the air leave his lungs, looking around again, slower this time, and realizing that his parents weren't there. That they must not have made it through the portal before... before something horrible had happened.
~~~
"There was some sort of power surge," Zane Donovan told Lieutenant Dean Winchester. "It overloaded our end."
"So... the rest of that guy...?"
"Could be anywhere on the planet, along with anyone else who stepped through the portal as it happened." Zane said.
"Maybe the rift just shut down, spit people back out in '49?" Dean suggested.
"Maybe," Zane agreed. "But not likely. They're probably somewhere out there, and we can only hope a couple soldiers are with them and armed. Or they're not gonna make it."
Dean sighed, running a hand through his hair and glancing over at the three kids who had apparently been left without parents by the accident. "Let's keep the doom saying quiet," he said, nodding towards the kids. "I don't want them..."
"We don't know what happened, but probably everyone else is okay and they'll turn up," Zane agreed. "In the mean time... what are you gonna do with them? Especially since there's three of them."
"Don't know," Dean said. "Let's find out their story," he added, starting across the clearing towards them.
"Are mommy and daddy dead?" the little girl asked her blond brother, and Dean flinched.
"They'll turn up," Dean said as he crouched down. "Probably just got spit out somewhere else, but I'm sure they're okay, Miss..."
"I'm not suppose to talk to strangers," the girl replied.
"It's okay, Soph, he's a soldier," the blonde boy said. "She's Sophie Rose Cohen."
"And you two?"
"Seth and Ryan," the blonde said, gesturing at his brother and then himself.
"I gotta ask..."
"I was adopted when I was eight," Ryan said. "It was all done legally, and follow up papers were filed when mom got pregnant with Soph, it was all legal."
"Okay," Dean said, guessing there'd been problems regarding the legality in the immigration process. "I'm Lieutenant Dean Winchester, I'm one of the security officers for Terra Nova, and I want you three to stick close to me on the hike back to the colony, alright? We'll figure out the next move for you once we're there."
"Our grandfather came through on the eighth," Ryan said. "Caleb Nichols."
Dean grimaced. "I'm sorry to inform you, but Caleb Nichols died a few months ago. Syncillic Fever, it hit hard and fast."
"Grandpa's dead?" Seth said.
"We'll figure things out," Dean promised.
"But..."
"Enough," Ryan said. His voice was quiet, but the tone conveyed so much that Seth immediately shut up. "If Lieutenant Winchester says we'll figure it out, then we'll figure it out, and there's no use worrying about it right now."
~~~
Ryan carried Sophie Rose for most of the walk to Terra Nova, and had Seth walk just ahead of them, so he could make sure he didn't lose either of his siblings. He was so intent on placing his feet on the uneven ground, and ignoring the fear in the put of his stomach, that he didn't notice Sophie Rose's intense skyward gaze until she spoke.
"Ry?"
"Yeah, Mouse?" Ryan asked, looking up, then tilting his head back to see that through the canopy of trees there was clear blue sky, the occasionally fluffy white cloud passing by. "Wow," he whispered as a bird flew between the trees.
"Get used to it," Dean said. "Lots of wide open blue skies around here."
"You'll even be able to see the stars from your front porch at night," Zane put in. "Even the rain is refreshing."
"Just like mom said," he told Sophie Rose, who nodded and returned her attention to the sky.
"I'm Zane Donovan, by the way."
Ryan looked over at the man and nodded. "Ryan Cohen. Miss bird watcher is Sophie Rose, and the guy about to hit himself in the face is Seth," he introduced, glancing over his shoulder as Seth swatted at a mosquito.
"They carry disease!" Seth protested.
"Not here and now, they don't," Zane said. "At least not anything we can't treat with a simple hypo."
"You never would have made it Granding," Ryan told Seth, shaking his head.
"Granding Prison?" Zane asked.
"After nine years of all paperwork saying that things had been done properly with my adoption, and four years of everything properly filed for Soph, since technically they weren't having a third, they'd taken someone else's second in, all of a sudden last year the population police are busting down our door saying I'm not legally registered, they broke the law... Dad ended up in Sanders, I was put in Granding," Ryan explained. "We still don't know what happened, but... mom used every cent we had to get things straightened out and get us onto the pilgrimage list." He paused, realizing what he had said could be misinterpreted. "Not by bribing people..."
"Hey, I was in the Fifth Pilgrimage as an alternative to prison for hacking a mainframe," Zane said. "I was playing Robin Hood."
"Who?" Sophie Rose asked.
"Robin Hood," Ryan said. "He's from a story, he would steal from the rich and give to the poor. He was a good guy, but he did bad things, so he is not a hero so much as an anti-hero."
"Oh. Does that mean Mr. Donovan is an anti-hero?" Sophie Rose asked.
"The biggest anti-hero," Zane said with a grin.
"He's one of the good guys," Dean said. "Much as he likes to pretend otherwise."
~~~
Ryan was the oldest, so when Dean took them up to the Colony leaders' office at the center of the settlement, he gave his brother a sharp look that said to keep quiet and let him do the talking.
"We took a look at the Pilgrimage files as soon as Lieutenant Winchester gave us your names," Dr. Elizabeth Weir said as she sat behind her desk, Colonel John Sheppard standing beside her. "And they confirmed your story that your adoption, Ryan, was done legally, even if there was some confusion."
"Confusion? They put him and Dad in prison," Seth protested.
Ryan elbowed Seth in the side. "When the population police came, our dad took the blame to protect our mom," he explained. "And because my biological parents had multiple criminal charges on their records, I was automatically labelled criminally dangerous. They did what seemed appropriate based on the records available to them."
"That's diplomatic," Sheppard said.
"That's the facts of it," Ryan said. "And it's better to focus on facts, than on anger about things that are done and can't be changed."
Weir nodded, glancing at Sheppard, who nodded as well. "Until your parents turn up, we need to decide what to do with the three of you," Weir said.
"I'm seventeen, I can take care of them both," Ryan said quickly. "It's bad enough not knowing where our parents are, we need to stay together."
"Your family didn't have any funds to transfer to local creds," Sheppard said. "So..."
"I'll find work," Ryan said. "I finished my compulsory schooling three months before... before. I can find work to make creds."
"What kind of work?" Sheppard asked, curious.
"Whatever's needed," Ryan replied, lifting his chin. "I'm good with computers and engineering, but I can do phsyical labor just as well, they made me do it at Granding. I can build, I can dismantle, I can wire and rewire, whatever I have to do."
Weir nodded again. "Well, for tonight, we'll let the three of your settle into your housing, the pantry is already stocked with basic provisions, so you can wait a few days to find work. No one here starves, but it's nice to afford luxuries like toys and new clothes..."
"Don't sound like luxuries to me," Seth said.
"Seth, you think fresh vids are necessity," Ryan said pointedly. "Thank you, ma'am," he added to Weir.
The End (For Now At Least...)
If I write more, following my loose plan, Neil Roberts, Summer Roberts, Brooke Davis, and Jo Lupo will all appear... possibly a few more Eurekans...