"Fair enough. Of course it's moot, since there's literally no chance my dad would have been okay with sending me away to space military academy in the first place."

"Mine weren't thrilled. I had to talk them into it. Regular school was boring."

"Dad...has issues with legal authority. Which considering what the legal authority in Germany decided to do when he was a kid isn't all that surprising. He's also...he loves my sister and I desperately. We're all the family he has. If he really honestly truly knew that sending us into space was the best thing for us, knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt, he'd do it. And it would break his heart."

"We... correspond. We don't have a lot to say to each other at this point though."

"I can imagine." She shivers. "I'm going to chalk that up as a fantastically minor but still extant reason to deal with this whole bug problem as quickly and efficiently as possible. And...keep the Institute open, let's see, how long did it last in your world..." flip flip

Did not long survive the death of its founder. Inspired some similar organizations, most of them not very stable, especially as integration efforts proceeded.

"Well, chalk that up as a fantastically minor but still extant reason to keep the Professor alive. And keep an eye out for baby you and offer her a scholarship."

"September 13, 2155. Forks, Washington. Isabella Marie Swan, daughter of police officer Charlie Swan and future kindergarten teacher Renée Higgenbotham Swan. However, a plurality of my alts were born in 1987, one a few years later, so if you get one closer to the mean rather than one who's just like me the date might be earlier. September 13 is consistent where applicable though, and the name is too except for the one who was born in a postapocaylptic dystopia and the non-Earthling... one was born on Earth but in California instead."

"Conveniently, we actually have deploying-things levels of access to public records. Well, half deploying things and half our genius used to work for the CIA. So don't wait a couple of hundred years to look for baby you to give a scholarship to, understood."

"And she's nearly guaranteed to have a dupe of my power if she's a mutant at all. The alts call it 'mental opacity' and those of us with ways to have powers in the first place get that one."

"Oh, that's interesting. I'd be...surprised if I had an alt who wasn't some kind of telepath, but that's a bit more relevant in day-to-day life."

"My power's indirectly relevant to me every day. ...Buy little me an exoskeleton from Milliways if you can swing it. We're also all really clumsy until something happens to fix that, like magic or turning into a vampire."

"True! Bar, if we have a little Aegis, can I buy her an exoskeleton?"

Yes. While it is military hardware, it is not a weapon per se.

"Awesome."

"And don't call her Aegis. We all pick distinguishing nicknames and she'll be annoyed if she gets here and hers is taken. So far it's Aegis for me and there's Golden, Stella, Juliet, Amariah, Shell Bell, and Angela."

"Oh, right. Honestly I just remembered your nickname more than your birth name. A little Isabella then."

"Bella. Probably. The angel and the witch use the full name, the rest of us shorten."

"A Baby Bella then."

"Aaaand if she has my power but it doesn't kick in until puberty like some people's, or if she doesn't get one or that one at all, still stay the fuck away from her head unless she wants to play Welcome To My Brain, there is a damn good reason we wind up with this power and it's not because we find it strengthens our moral character to be prevented from something as fun and harmless as telepathy. Pure-communication shit like talking only silent is fine, livesaving shit is fine, everything else keep it to yourself."

"Oh, sure. I definitely don't read people's minds without their permission anyway."

"Right, just making sure. This applies even if she is two and you can't figure out why she's crying, it applies even if you are mad at her, etcetera, it applies unless you would also be willing to stab her in the face. ...Sues also happen more than once. He will be harder to find because I'm not sure if they all have the same birth name, they hate it enough that it didn't make it into our book in our room."

"...Noted. That is a higher threshold than most people have and I will be sure to respect it. Are there any other identifying features of Sue that I could use to find him?"

"They look the same. I can show you the pictures in the book in our room. They'll come up wacky as all hell on any psych testing but you probably don't have particularly population-comprehensive psych testing... I think they all have rich parents and evil dads who should not be allowed to dad."

"I'd be happy to see the pictures. We're already keeping an eye out for kids with evil parents who should not be allowed to parent but the rich part complicates things, because fuck society."