Legend

Myriad Reality

<Snipped quote by Legend>

I mean... Okay.
*Apprehensively turns and jogs over to where you stand, staying away from the peripherals*

@Audacious

Alright Vi, welcome...
*The machinery unlatches itself and retracts, revealing a translucent forcefield with the same pattern as the one surrounding the planet, whose polygons shrink in place and sputter out*
To the lab.
*Behind the entrance lies a vast chasm that once belonged to a natural canyon, now buried with a suspended forcefield ceiling and arrayed with complex equipment that extends down into the hazy depths, itself also shielded*

Myriad Reality

<Snipped quote by Legend>

*Looks down at where the door meets the floor, then back to you*
Is that safe?...

@Audacious

Our heating bill is going to be awful, but this is an emergency. This place is a front anyway, come on.
*Motions you over as I undo a lock on the fridge and swing it open, revealing a complex computer and identity verification system, which starts to scan me*

Myriad Reality

<Snipped quote by Legend>

Are you good?
*Rushes over and tries to help push it closed with you*

@Audacious

*The bottom seems to be getting stuck, like a door on carpet*
Bah! Let's just go!

Myriad Reality

<Snipped quote by Legend>

*Keeps my arms sheepishly crossed as I follow you*
Weeell it's not for me. I'd have expected more response for an alien showing up when you guys try so hard to prevent it.

@Audacious

The shield is everything until we find dad. It's holding up okay.
*Pokes my head outside and looks up into the sky, but quickly shuts the door behind me, which catches on something while closing*

Myriad Reality

<Snipped quote by Legend>

I’m shocked there’s not a more active response to us showing up. I would have expected something to meet us.
*Crosses my arms and rubs my elbow*
I guess I’m too used to the extremely paranoid.

@Audacious

What do you think would show up? It's just like going home for me.
*Swings the door open, and the inside is a well-insulated, nondescript research station with wood-panel walls, an emergency pantry, several open and locked offices, and a lounge with a ping-pong table, couch, and projector*

Myriad Reality

<Snipped quote by Legend>

*Floats down after you in a narrow updraft that smooths my descent, landing on my feet next to you*

@Audacious

*By the time you float down to me, I'm already scanning in the system and turn a large handwheel to open the door separating the lab from the frigid antarctic*
Welcome. You're the first visitor since, well, mom, I guess.

Myriad Reality

<Snipped quote by Legend>

We should still hurry.

@Audacious

Er, right.
*Jumps off the cliff face and lands in a huge puff of powdery snow at the bottom*

Myriad Reality

<Snipped quote by Legend>

*Any snow and water that have covered my person completely evaporate into steam as I stand straight and dust myself off*
Did we make it?

@Audacious

*Nods and closes the hologram, now blinking with a red dot*
Oww... yeah, that's the place.
*Leans over the cliff*
Echo!... aww.

Myriad Reality

<Snipped quote by Legend>

I can melt a path! Brace yourself!
*The ice directly in front of us immediately melts into water in the shape of a paved road ahead, the liquid staying elevated just over the surface of the ice and curving around any massive landmarks along the way*

@Audacious

*The water curls around rock and ice spires and decelerates us enough to land safely in a massive mount of snow perched cliffside, which overlooks the arctic expanse that currently sits strangely calm—at the bottom of the winter mountain sits a humbly constructed complex that appears to serve as a research base*
Oof. Thanks Vi.

Myriad Reality

<Snipped quote by Legend>

*After a moment, my joints tighten up and I pull my flailing limbs and head back upright, and wrap both of my arms around your shoulders to hold on*

@Audacious

*The temperature fluctuates from cold to warm to cold once more as we jump from the water and then start sliding on a new patch of ice*
Slippingslippingslippi-WOAH!
*Skids past a penguin colony as we decelerate*