May 15, 1987

Whew. It feels like I was writing for days, trying to get all that down.
    On a side note, today is my birthday—or rather, the date printed on my drivers license and so forth. I haven't mentioned that to anyone, and I think I'm going to use June 1 from now on, anyway; the anniversary of my first date of conscious existence. Close enough, I figure.
    Things have been quiet since we got back, and Boston had the courtesy to stay trouble-free during our week-long absence. Phoenix Talon took Dawn and went to visit his mother in New York for a few days, came back in time for the parade this morning (Dawn has changed her look again, much more American now—she's really somewhat unnerving). Not much to be said about that, really. It was nice, I guess. Kind of weird, given that just a few days before they had been screaming obscenities at us. I'm not as shy as Lucky about these things—she did as much as she could to be unnoticed while standing on a float in a crowd of thousands—but it was kind of embarrassing. Phoenix, of course, was as happy as I've ever seen him, and Scott seemed to be enjoying himself, too.
    Albert wouldn't take part. He insisted on a TV special. Everyone was very careful around me for a couple of days, but I actually think I'm okay. So far the only aftereffect I've noticed is waking up scared every morning, and I think that will go away eventually. The whole thing was, in that eminently neutral term, a learning experience. I guess I still miss having a past more than I realized; one of the main temptations of their version of the story was that it meant I wasn't alone after all. I'm sure other things will come up to be dealt with over the next few weeks; for a change, I'm going to at least try to deal with them, rather than assume they can't be dealt with.
    I still have a lot of unanswered questions, and I'm trying to resign myself to the fact that I may never know exactly what their plans were and why they've done what they have. For the moment, I'm not going to worry about it. They've suffered a nasty blow and will no doubt have to spend at least a few months recovering from it, hiding any remaining trails, shuffling vulnerable personnel, making new plans. We blew up some really expensive stuff. No doubt those plans will eventually include me; even if the Tempest Scenario is entirely scuttled, there's always revenge.
    As always, there's a lot to do here, and I have plans of my own to make. First I have to go see Reilly and let him know I'm taking a couple of weeks off, immediately if possible. With the team back up to full strength, it shouldn't be a problem. I think I'll go to Maine, or maybe even Canada. It's still early for tourists that far north; I'll find a nice quiet island somewhere where I can do some thinking. It's too easy to distract myself here, and there's a lot of things I should sort out my feelings about—should have done it a long time ago, probably. I'd like to head out west and visit Trent and Emily, too, if he's feeling better. With ulterior motives, of course—I want to see if I can bring up some pertinent details in those old memories—though I also think it would be nice to just spend some time with other people. See someplace new. We're a pretty claustrophobic little group sometimes.
    After that? Hard to say, really. I feel I should talk to Travis, give him the rest of the story if he's inclined to hear it. He's probably safe now; killing him would be pointless. Then back to work, I guess. Tracking down Felix Javelin will be heading our priority list for a while, I think, as I doubt that he'll settle down as a law-abiding member of society just because we preempted his revenge. There's local political issues to settle—despite whatever Justin might do by way of cover, it might be a good idea for someone local besides Reilly to know. There's also the little matter of our budget. Now that we've been doing this for a while and better understand the sort of thing we'll be up against, I'm making up a Christmas list.
    And if it isn't already too late, I'm going to try and find my sisters. Including Tempest, who either needs to be helped or stopped. Until I have evidence otherwise I choose to believe she had no more choice in her role than I did in mine when this began. Just as I choose to believe that the reality I am currently experiencing is, in fact, real—if only because I'm enjoying it a good deal more than I enjoyed my stay in their version.

    "We're a hell of a team," Phoenix ruminated this evening. It was the first time we had all been there... ever, really, since Phoenix left before Scott and Albert came aboard.
    "I'm going to bed," Lucky sighed.
    Dig those relationships.

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