nasatya

[point_b]

There's more evac work to do, but it's slower going - no more easily drained population centers with functioning phones and internet, and fewer places to put the people. Eventually the last places that were willing to take evacuees fill up and close and they have nothing else to do.

A little while after that, things at the Junebug offices calm down enough that they're willing to make calls that say things like:

"Are you willing to give an interview for the Associated Press on your contribution to the evacuation efforts?"

Bella says she will if they want, if it won't take too long, and if they'll give her lunch. Alli agrees under similar conditions.

They're minors, so they're supposed to go by code names for limited identity protection. (Adults sometimes have these too, but it's required for anyone still in school.) Apparently somebody in the Junebug offices has suggested "Flicker" for Bella, which she accepts. Alli thinks on it with Bella's help and two of her own brains for an hour before settling on "Verge".

Their interviews, Alli followed by Bella - Verge followed by Flicker - are only a few minutes long each. Alli smiles at the interviewer and says that mostly she was just helping her sister and that she's really glad she had a chance to do something about Yellowstone and that she's really impressed with all the scientists who gave them warning and that she's glad she had the chance to move in with her dad since her home was within the danger zone.

Bella's is a little different.

"Flicker," says the interviewer, "you're thirty-second out of all the Junebug evacuators in estimated lives saved. You're going to get a medal when school starts up again in the spring term. Are you proud of yourself?"

"I suppose abstractly I could be," says - Flicker. "But I'm really not. It's not about my place in the ranking, per se - I don't think I could have cleared Sweep's number even if I'd been perfect. But I don't think very much about how good I was, I think about the moments I was distracted or tired or hungry and I slowed down just that little bit. When I was perfect and everything was lined up by the National Guard or other Junebugs, I could do four people a second. I don't know exactly how many I lost the chance to teleport to safety from stopping to catch my breath, or roll over after I woke up from an enforced sleep break, but - it was more than a few."

"Still, you did more than a million other participating twins."

"I didn't do it by being clever or brave, I did it by having a good bonus and concentrating, and I didn't do as well as I would have liked at the concentrating."

The interviewer changes the subject. "What are you and Verge doing now?"

"I think she mentioned we're living in our dad's house, outside the tuff area. It's ashy but livable, sort of - I've been doing the grocery shopping in other countries."

The reporter nods sympathetically. "How did you feel when you were teleporting people?"

"I avoided doing too much of that, really, it would have slowed me down - I had to focus on places and targets and not having emotional reactions. When I had any it just made me concentrate on being faster, because for every person I happened to get a good look at, there were millions who just weren't standing in the right place and didn't deserve help any less." She swallows. "Now that there's nowhere else to put anyone and nothing else for me to do I mostly think about the school bus that got swallowed up in the quake when it first hit. I didn't get everybody out."

"Do you think," says the interviewer, "that it was wrong to put a child of your age in that position?"

"Absolutely not," snaps Flicker. "Even if I couldn't deal, even if I were going to spend the rest of my life crying in a corner - and I'm not, I'm holding up - but even if that were going to happen, I saved one and a half million people. Sparing me would've been literally throwing every one of those people into the fire. One and a half million isn't my algebra homework, it's lives. Even if I were going to spend the rest of mine crying in a corner, one and a half million people get to have lives at all because the Junebugs didn't have qualms about child labor laws when Yellowstone rumbled. I wouldn't hesitate to make the same call if it were up to me."

"Do you have anything you'd like to say to the people you saved, Flicker?"

"I'd rather they didn't think of me at all. I wish they hadn't needed me, and now that they're done needing me they should go back to living like they appeared in Japan or wherever I put them by autonomous magic. They don't owe me anything, even listening to whether I think they do or not."

The interview ends there.

Comments

[blink_and]

Adana watches the interview, because she suspects she is going to be asked to give a similar one, later. Then 'Flicker' starts talking.

Her head has a very brief, non-functioning moment. Well. It's not very brief at all, really. It's probably a good thing that her non-functioning face is exactly the same as her usual face, because otherwise, she would probably be in a bit of trouble. Or, at least, in a heap of embarrassment. Because Bella's replies were, quite possibly, the best fucking summary of Adana's feelings on the entire matter. Except for one, tiny, minuscule little detail.

Bella has damn good reasons to be proud of herself.

Adana is sort of bewildered by how fierce and determined that opinion comes out. She is even more surprised by the opinion that she should also find Bella and kiss her. That's - that's new. Or maybe it isn't, maybe she was just so busy because of evacuation and guilt and living in a house with six other people that she didn't think about any of her opinions of kissing one of those other six members of the household.

The one that went on a date with her sister.

... Right. Let's just - take those feelings and ignore them. For possibly forever. And ever. And then, maybe when the stars burn out, she'll mumble to her shoes that she has a crush on Bella. Once.

[point_b]

Adana and Savannah are asked for interviews. (Bella gives them a lift to the news station.) Adana's suggested nickname from the Junebugs is "Conduit". Savannah is given a list of speedster names that are already taken and invited to pick anything that isn't there already.

[you_miss_it]

Her sister takes the suggested nickname, but Savannah has a bit more trouble.

"All of the good ones are taken!" she complains. "Like, what, am I going to become 'Zipper'? Fuck that shit, I do not belong on a jacket."

[blink_and]

"I'm pretty sure you can be literally anything, as long as you're okay with being known by it. It doesn't have to have anything to do with being a speedster."

[you_miss_it]

"Pfff. Wonder if they'll know me as 'that kid that's on a permanent sugar rush.'" She pauses, and then checks the list. "... Rush is not taken. Rush is not taken. Actually, no, correction, it's taken, by me. Mine."

[alicornucopia]

Rush gets interviewed first. There is liberal use of the censor button in the aired version.

Then it's Conduit's turn.

"Hello, Conduit. With an estimated three million people evacuated through your portals, you're seventh in the rankings of lives saved. The top officials of the Junebugs are on record as saying that once they have any non-emergency funds on hand you and others with similar accomplishments are due bonuses, and in the near future you'll be getting a medal when school starts again. Could you tell us how you feel about that?"

[blink_and]

"Uh - I don't really have an opinion on the medal," says Conduit, awkwardly. "And the money - I'm - I think when there's a large-scale disaster it's not - I don't need to be paid any sort of bonus. It should probably go to working on recovering, especially for farmland, that's - some people lost their livelihoods, I'm a twin with a really useful power, I can just make money with powering a hydroelectric generator or something."

[alicornucopia]

"That's very altruistic of you," remarks the interviewer.

[blink_and]

"It's really not, it's practical, there are - my entire family is fine, my friends are fine, and we're not having any sort of - money issues or anything. Other people are not that lucky, so it should - really, really go to them first, money's nothing in comparison to a - to what people have to deal with after the eruption, but - it can seriously help. And it would be statistically more helpful to them over me. That's not altruism, that's pragmatism. Large-scaled pragmatism, but - you get what I mean. Right?"

[alicornucopia]

The interviewer nods, sympathetic if not exactly understanding. "You're staying with Flicker and Verge's family, I understand. You and Flicker worked closely together during the evacuation, would you tell us about that?"

[blink_and]

"Er. I need to see or be near where I'm making portals, or have my twin be on the other side of one, so - obvious problem there. Flicker can go anywhere on the planet, and can take a passenger, so - she would drop me off where the portals needed to be and I'd make them."

[alicornucopia]

"Junebug officials have said that you pushed your portal size farther than your ratings suggest you ought to be able to."

[blink_and]

"I really wanted them to be as large as possible and was kind of - stubborn. About it."

[alicornucopia]

"While you were holding static portals open what did you do?"

[blink_and]

"Tried to organize, mostly. People missing family members, everyone scared and wanting to go back because they left something important in their home or wanting to find their friend or - it was - there was organizing that needed to be done. And I was free, because I was keeping the portals open, and people were inclined to listen to me because of the uniform and the bonus, so. It seemed kind of obvious what to do."

[alicornucopia]

"How do you feel about having done so much at your age?"

[blink_and]

"I - am - when you say it's 'so much' I - it wasn't enough. I could have probably worked another half a foot out of my portals if I'd tried harder, probably could have had my portals up and going faster if I'd have packed essentials faster, and - that's just - I just got lucky. If I'd gotten really lucky and had a - volcano bonus or something that let me stop it, before people died, then it would be enough." Pause. "I do not have a volcano bonus. It wasn't enough."

[alicornucopia]

"But it was a lot of people. Do you have anything you'd like to say to them, Conduit?"

[blink_and]

"I'm - not - I'm not marginalizing them," says Conduit. "This isn't - I'm - ..." Pause. "I'm sorry. That I couldn't save everyone. I - tried."

[point_b]

And with that the interview ends. Flicker's waiting behind the set to take her home.

"You did good," she murmurs.

[blink_and]

Hey, crush? The one that she is not supposed to talk about? Stay in your corner. Don't come out. No, not even now.

"So did you," she says, anyway.

[point_b]

"Thanks. I can't stand how I sound outside my head, but I'll take your word for it that not everybody is focused on my dorky voice."

[blink_and]

"You don't sound dorky," assures Adana. "Really. I like your voice."

[point_b]

"You do?"

[blink_and]

"I - um. Wouldn't have said it if I didn't, I am a terrible liar."