Somewhere in LA an airplane touched down, it seemed a bit old fashioned but a trip half way around the world took half the time it did ten years ago. In that airplane was Cer, who seemed more than a little depressed and scared, when she left the MHLA they had been up at full speed, well protected, and helping people. It had been only two, maybe three years and she went back to find piles of charred remains and old bodies. She had no idea how to tell who was who, and had left one base to find another in the same condition. Some were older than others, some had been found by locals, and some were destroyed completely. It was horrifying and Cer still felt her skin crawling from the last one, animals had gotten in and eaten the remains, it was less than a year old. The last few were in America, she already knew that the old farm had been burned down and the city based ones had been found due to smell. However she hadn't anything found anything about the one in LA so here she was, the last 'stronghold' of an organization that had saved her from a dismal existence.

A tap on her shoulder pulled her out of her darkening thoughts, the poor flight attendants were trying to get her to leave. She felt bad for them, Cer could not travel without some kind of meta identification and some people were natural afraid of Metas, it was a natural response, instincts made people feel hatred or fear towards imposters who were, in this case, Metas . But however badly she was treated by normal people, bureaucrats were the worst with all their documentation just to travel, if she weren't so worried about people knowing that she replicated abilities it would be so much easier because then she would just fly places, maybe in another world where ranks did not exist it would be possible but not here. After getting off the plane she was guided towards a special desk for Metas arriving. LA was a lot better than other places, she wasn't stared at for being there, a tired man stamped her US passport and pointed her to a screening room where they asked her a few questions, simply routine stuff, checked her bag and sent her out into the exit path. 

She hadn't realized how long the whole process had taken until she was out side, she had arrived early in the morning and it was already midday, fortunately she planned ahead and should have a rental car ready for her. She entered the rental place and approached the desk "It's under Kytel." Cer probably didn't realize that she was staring directly into the sales person's eyes with out break. 

"E-excuse me?" The man stammered taken back by her intense stare, Cer was pretty confusing to look at with her color less hair, dark blue eyes, barely tanned skin. It made her stand out a bit and people often took a moment trying to figure out whether she was young or old.

"My rental, I called a day in advance you said it would be ready. Perhaps the spelling is the issue, would you like me to write it down?" Cer's calm manner and ceasless stare made it pretty obvious that she was unaware of social norms. This thought didn't occur to the man at the desk who was just getting more uncomfortable. Cer however, felt she had little time to waste, "Fine I will do it, so much for customer service." She went behind the desk to the shock of the sales rep and entered her name, swiped her card and found the keys. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

Leaving the man dazed she found her car, some fancy fast car of course, as her mentor had been a rich man and she had expensive tastes as a result. She could afford it and if worst came to worst she could call in her debts but that didn't stop it from being bad for her, nice things only sparked more greed. Cer tried to chastise herself but the sound of the engine revving was so awesome she had to forgive herself. Most contries were more about efficiency and being cost effective, not America, everything was as big and as loud as it possibly could be. At least that's what it felt like to her, she hadn't been in America for a long time.

Cer pulled up to an abandoned warehouse, even in the changed scene of LA somethings from the past still remained in the form of abandoned ware houses usually. There was a fishy smell everywhere but also something more sinister beneath it, in a way she knew what she was going to find before she even entered

On the inside it looked fairly unsuspicious, empty crates and tarps everywhere, stereotypical warehouse stuff. But if you looked carefully it was clear it was a set up and the key pad on the office was way to nice for the run down area. It wasn't meant to trick everyone, just the local vagrants mostly. Gingerly, Cer entered a code into the keypad, it didn't work. Looking carefully at the door she noticed a crack left, it was almost official at this point that something had gone wrong here but she needed to be sure. Wrenching the door open she dry heaved at the sight, it was a good thing she didn't need to eat any more because she would have thrown up whatever was in her stomach. The scene was somewhere around a week old and the decay was literally sickening. A lot of puncture wounds, not as many burns, total death count was at around 29, everyone who belonged to this sector of the organization was dead. As far as she knew everyone in it was dead, which meant that everyone she had met for the majority of her life was a pile of charred bones, barely more than a skeleton, or a corpse in some stage of decay.

The reality of the situation left her a little winded and very empty inside, it was like that children's book about the dinosaur, all her friends were dead. She could have cried or promised to avenge them or even felt anger, but she just robotically carried out the data termination sequence. It was pointless, the culprit could have taken all the info already with out her knowing but she moved it all on to her personal drive anyway. It was more of a safety blanket than a necessary task. She went on to properly gasoline the place and toss the match in, per procedure. Retreating a safe distance away she watched the flames for a moment before returning to the car. She tossed the drive into a pocket of her duffle bag where it came to rest with many others just like it. Cer knew that the chances of the LA base surviving was comically low but she still felt woefully unprepared to face the truth.

All that was left now was the safe house, bases in large cities often had places for members to stay and LA's was a magnificent loft with a stunning view of the city. Cer needed to make sure no trace was left and sign it back over to the building owner, who was probably very eager to have it back. Then she would... visit her parents? No, they adopted her when they were in their mid 50s, for reasons she still did not understand, they were probably almost 80 now and dead or dying. She hadn't seen them since she was nine. If she wasn't going to visit her parents she could find her real ones. Which of course wouldn't work either, the trail always went cold, someone had taken a lot of time to cover them up. Cer knew the obvious choice was to at least get to the bottom of her friend's deaths but she didn't really want to know who did it. Closure wasn't what she needed but she could just walk away and not feel guilty about it.

Pulling into the building's garage she exited the car and took the elevator up to the top floor. Using the elevator jey, that had been so nicely left, she punched in the top floor. Soon enough the elevator opened with a ding to reveal an untrashed, bodyless apartment. It was a nice change in scenery. It felt rather odd having a 'home' she hadn't really ever stayed in one place for more than a couple of months even when she was part of the MHLA. Realizing she was going to have to figure out what had happened, she froze, how was she even going to start? She was facing a challenge worse than any opponent she had ever fought, human interaction. This was going to require research and finding other people to interact with. Which posed yet another challenge, she had to figure out where people spent their time and what people did the things they spent in their free time. This was too difficult, where could she even start. When she was in the Eurasia zone she usually just went from slum to slum making sure all was right. Unfortunately picking fights with organized crime, gangs, and ne're do wells was probably not what normal people did or even most metas did. Though she couldn't be sure, she hadn't met any other metas outside of the organization.

After much deliberation Cer took to the streets, after all when in doubt wander aimlessly.... she was going to have to come up with a better saying than that. While aimless wandering didn't help her understand people much it did give her a bit of understanding, in LA meta was pretty much every where. Prostituting themselves for money, power, or maybe acceptance. It was depressing and entirely unhelpful to figuring out what people did, her task was still as daunting as ever. At least she could pretend like she knew what she was doing, fake it until you make it...

That was definitely a better motto.