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Unfortunately, when Sue comes back from Alethia, Peace is still empty of Aegis. Jane is still down.
Figures.
Hell with it; he knows what he has to do.
Aegis's campaign for Hegemon has just barely crawled out of the domain of rumour when she vanishes. It's not too late to switch gears a little. So Sue does that.
He maintains absolute public ignorance of what the hell happened to Admiral Peace, and publicly grieves her absence. He continues to be the only person who can talk to the buggers; there's some exchange of language going on, but first he has to demonstrate what a language is and why they should care, and it's not an easy job. He doesn't explicitly point out that he could quit doing that anytime and leave the two species with a hell of a diplomacy problem, but the spectre of this threat hangs over him nonetheless, and he is okay with that.
Early on, one of his more prominent allies decides to provide one of his nastier rivals with some information on the sly that could lead to his assassination, if his assassination was a physically possible thing. Sue decides that he does not like this. His ex-ally is poisoned the next morning, with a substance that is nearly but not quite entirely undetectable. Sue calls for an investigation. It's the method they were planning to use on him, and while there isn't enough evidence to convict in an international court of law, the court of public opinion is another matter. His rival's reputation goes down in flames.
The media discovers that he has an unprecedented ability to make himself look good. Copious use of magic and his mutant power means that he's never caught off-guard by an unexpected question; he can spin any scandal, explain any policy. Everyone loves him, except a few vocal minorities - increasingly vocal, but increasingly minor - who hate him for some combination of being a mutant, negotiating peace with the buggers, changing his name to Sue Ivy War, and being unapologetically sixteen (seventeen eighteen nineteen) years old.
Three years after Aegis disappears, the previous Hegemon retires. An election is called. Admiral War beats the next candidate down by a twenty percent margin, and proceeds to show the world that he meant every single word he said in those three years about transparency, accountability, and making the universe a better place.
Hell with it; he knows what he has to do.
Aegis's campaign for Hegemon has just barely crawled out of the domain of rumour when she vanishes. It's not too late to switch gears a little. So Sue does that.
He maintains absolute public ignorance of what the hell happened to Admiral Peace, and publicly grieves her absence. He continues to be the only person who can talk to the buggers; there's some exchange of language going on, but first he has to demonstrate what a language is and why they should care, and it's not an easy job. He doesn't explicitly point out that he could quit doing that anytime and leave the two species with a hell of a diplomacy problem, but the spectre of this threat hangs over him nonetheless, and he is okay with that.
Early on, one of his more prominent allies decides to provide one of his nastier rivals with some information on the sly that could lead to his assassination, if his assassination was a physically possible thing. Sue decides that he does not like this. His ex-ally is poisoned the next morning, with a substance that is nearly but not quite entirely undetectable. Sue calls for an investigation. It's the method they were planning to use on him, and while there isn't enough evidence to convict in an international court of law, the court of public opinion is another matter. His rival's reputation goes down in flames.
The media discovers that he has an unprecedented ability to make himself look good. Copious use of magic and his mutant power means that he's never caught off-guard by an unexpected question; he can spin any scandal, explain any policy. Everyone loves him, except a few vocal minorities - increasingly vocal, but increasingly minor - who hate him for some combination of being a mutant, negotiating peace with the buggers, changing his name to Sue Ivy War, and being unapologetically sixteen (seventeen eighteen nineteen) years old.
Three years after Aegis disappears, the previous Hegemon retires. An election is called. Admiral War beats the next candidate down by a twenty percent margin, and proceeds to show the world that he meant every single word he said in those three years about transparency, accountability, and making the universe a better place.
Shit! says Sue. Aegis, fuck, I missed you - are you okay, is Jane okay, where are you? I'll give you what I've been up to but it's kind of long, like four years long, I don't wanna hit you with it all at once.
autokinetic
I'm fine! Jane's loopy but up, I'm apparently in a disused space station, I dunno, the door just went here - where are you, can I pop in? Four years, shit.
Hold off, I'm in a press conference. Five more minutes and I'm all yours. I can catch you up in the meantime if you want, or you can tell me what happened to Jane; yours is probably shorter.
autokinetic
New Bell has a shitty world that made Glass puke when she got a look at it - has a kind of anti-causal thing, it doesn't play fair basically, science - like, the concepts of induction and empiricism - do not work - fried Jane but good - we didn't dare make wishes or use half our magic, there was this weird lady - Picture of Callahan! - who seemed to know something but wouldn't tell us shit, eventually I found a door, we were only there a couple days but it was way long enough. Problem is her Joker's not portable, he's a field that doesn't transplant in addition to the part that looks like you. And goes around naked all the time, which amused Cam 'n Ama okay but I just missed you.
I love you, says Sue, in full emotional depth. ...And you're still fifteen, wow, I might have some weird feelings about that?
autokinetic
You realize Rose and Aurora and Golden and Sarion rock waaaaay bigger age gaps, right?
Yeah, I think Sarion kinds of wins that contest, but I'm still gonna have weird feelings. You fifteen and me sixteen is okay; you fifteen and me twenty is - less okay than that.
I'm definitely not going to dwell on the idea of welcome-home kisses while I'm talking to reporters, he says fondly. We can talk about it in a bit, okay?
Love you.
That part hasn't changed at all.
That part hasn't changed at all.
autokinetic
Love you too. And we're going to make Jane a body - a Devicey one like Brilliance's - to live in the Belltower nice and safe so this never happens again and I don't have to, like, be under house arrest for her protection.
Ooh. Why did we not already do that? We should've already did that, says Sue.
autokinetic
We should've, yeah. In fairness if we'd expected that shithole world we wouldn't've gone into it.
Yeah, but it's always the thing you don't expect that bites you in the ass, he sighs. Anyway. Here's what I've been up to...
He gives her a condensed summary of three years of campaign and one year of being Hegemon. The existence of magic is now classified information; the circle of people in the know is small, but steadily expanding, and he freely makes use of coins to help things along wherever it wouldn't be obvious to anyone who doesn't know. He has long-term plans for dropping the secrecy eventually, any of a number of ways depending on how things go.
The Hegemony is not what he would have chosen to do with his life, but he is really, really good at it.
He gives her a condensed summary of three years of campaign and one year of being Hegemon. The existence of magic is now classified information; the circle of people in the know is small, but steadily expanding, and he freely makes use of coins to help things along wherever it wouldn't be obvious to anyone who doesn't know. He has long-term plans for dropping the secrecy eventually, any of a number of ways depending on how things go.
The Hegemony is not what he would have chosen to do with his life, but he is really, really good at it.
I wasn't gonna just leave your campaign hanging, he says. Anyway. Now I can hand it off to you, but probably not in the next few years. And we'll have to cook up a story to explain your disappearance. If Jane's stable enough, though, we can unveil resurrection and maybe say you were dead - that'd be a good next step, I think, we could get that station you were talking about up and running. It'll hit pretty hard but I think people can take it. Bet it'll kick up the numbers in the colonization program; you think Earth's crowded now, wait'll it's full of dead people, right?
autokinetic
No kidding. If I'm being resurrected does that mean I should not magic myself to look nineteen so it looks like I've been aging the last four years?
...goooood question, says Sue. I would maybe have fewer weird feelings if you looked nineteen. Which is silly and shallow, but there it is.
I love you too. See, the problem is, I don't actually want you to spend four years growing up without me but I want the results of you spending four years growing up without me. Whatever. I'll live with what I've got; I'm good at that.
He laughs, entirely in their heads, and hugs her similarly.