"... I mean, we'd leave them with better stuff before we left, and give them the silicon deposit's location for a chance in hell of their entire town not falling apart, but. ... Yeah. Basically."

"That totally sounds like 'put up with this murderer who killed your families or die,' you know. But I guess you know that. Huh. Guess we've corrupted you, too."

"More like the situation has," she mutters, leaning into Zash. Thinking this thing hurts. Can she go back to being a plant engineer? Please?? She's worn so many strange and confusing hats.

"If they'd put up with me I'd want to stick around until they had a bigger chance than that, make sure the town is properly on its feet and has enough supplies to last a while and enough of a handle on the silicon mining to be able to trade with others but..." He sighs again, running his fingers through Yvette's hair and resting his chin on the top of her head. "Yeah. I guess that's how it'll go."

Zash is the one to break the news of Nai to the villagers because he feels responsible. Nai is his twin, after all, and besides he's promised full transparency. He explains that Nai's the string attached to the plants, that what he wants is for them to learn to treat plants well enough that they can last forever.

(Which is true. What Knives wants is to determine the truth one way or another, but Zash caught the feeling in Nai's head, that the outcome he's hoping for is the one where he was wrong all along. It's gonna feel awful and he's going to feel compelled to fix everything personally—he's a plant, and Zash's twin besides—but at least it means the humans won't die, and he'll have two people he loves helping him with the fallout.)

To say they are not thrilled is... an understatement. Sort of to the degree that 'the Fall was a bit of a disaster.' The news that they would be welcoming back the man who destroyed their lives starts several heated arguments, at loud volume. Zash isn't shot again, but it's clearly because they don't want to waste the bullets, not because they don't want to. Two people flat refuse to stay; they get a ride to the nearest town and the emergency double dollars Yvette had been keeping hidden in her car.

The rest.... well. They're furious, but practical. After all, they're the ones that didn't get in Nai's way the first time. They want to live, on their own terms, and working with the twins and rebuilding Jeneora is the best bet they have for managing that. It helps that Zash was honest and frank instead of sneaking around about it. It also helps that they can, in fact, leave, as has just been proven. They're going to be plotting some murder, but they have had it proven to them that actually, no, they cannot take Nai in a fight. It's mostly just therapeutic, to plot all of the ways they could horribly kill him in a perfect world where they're allowed to have some justice.

Extremely legit of them. Zash himself has plotted Nai's murder in gruesome detail hundreds of times over the years.

(He also thinks that he could talk Nai into letting them effectively-kill him if it would be cathartic but he expects it wouldn't be, with the knowledge that he'd be okay afterwards, so he doesn't bring it up.)

This sorted, Yvette is the one sent off to retrieve Nai and the plants. She's not going to be super useful if Legato descends from the sky to menace them, and if Zash and Morgan escort her to the underground transport network, she's not even going to be particularly vulnerable to ambush. She... will be a little, and she is very cognizant of being used as a hostage of some kind, but. The trip is relatively quick, there was no way to predict she'd make it, and Nai's transportation network is further underground than Legato's estimated telekinesis range, so. It's probably fine? It's fine. She'll be fine.

To her relief and paradoxical discomfort, she arrives in February without incident.

Nai can't hide from Yvette and so she will notice that although he's trying not to dwell on it once he notices her getting closer he starts to slightly... vibrate... with anticipation and anxiety.

Yeah, her too. He can have a hug before they set out.

"We are absolutely going to have you and the humans avoid each other as much as possible," she tells him, seriously.

That's... probably good, yeah.

(The parts of him that aren't Knives and that are hoping that this experiment is a success and that he was wrong all along feel a... pretty reasonable measure of anguish, about Jeneora. He didn't, really, want this. Didn't want to have to be this way. Didn't want this to be the world he lives in.)

Yeah. That is another reason for hug.

Fortunately they can immediately distract themselves with logistics of transporting themselves, six plants, and a hell of a lot of extra supplies and food to Jeneora! That is very nicely distracting. Does Nai think he can carry six plants to Jeneora from the station? Because she would like to avoid the giant robot.

Easily, yeah, though he wants to check the facilities in Jeneora beforehand so the plants should stay underground while he does that.

That's fair! She checked them already and everything should in fact be all ready to go, but she supports and is not insulted by him wanting to verify that.

The trip to Jeneora... is also not notable.

Nai/Knives will find that the plant factory is all tidily set up for them in advance, ready to go. There are, approximately, several dozen safety measures in place to prevent anything from going wrong ever, especially if some but not all of the plants are removed, especially if a new and unrecognized item is added to the library, and most especially to prevent anyone from sneaking in here and messing with the goddamned controls and inputting something that is not allowed. There is a short list of what is allowed. Nai has the password and DNA-hashed signature to change it, as do Yvette and Zash, but no one else does. If nothing is inputted in the next hundred years, the plants would be free to run through this, and only this, short list of allowed items until this (very generous) safety threshold is met, and the whole thing gets shut off for safety. Presumably, if all members on the list of administrators are still indisposed, the plants can then focus on healing each other until they are safely within operating parameters again.

Yvette was very thorough in being sure that the stupid computer cannot fuck anything up, and no one that is not a member of their trio can touch anything. Is this a bit much? Maybe, but damn it, they really really need to not fuck this up, okay.

(...he is feeling very fond of her for this thoroughness.)

Presumably they won't all be personally managing every plant on this planet forever, though. What's the plan for long-term support away from their personal attention?

They will be doing regular checkups/inspections on the plants regardless, and be setting the safety margins that are then adhered to. Even if they're not personally managing every single thing the plants make, it will still be forced to adhere to their library of approved items, and turn off if the plants get too banged up.

Also, she would like to sneak in a little quiet alert message that'll go fetch them if certain parameters are met, like the plants being removed from their receptacles entirely, which could result in them being moved to factories that are less serious about their safety standards. She has the programming side of it sorted and already set up, but it's not immediately clear how to message them. She would appreciate assistance in this sphere and was planning to see if she could dig up some old communicators from before the Fall, or tech based therein, but this was one of those things that she was going to work on as it actually became relevant.

Hmm. With his underground tunnels they could in theory run some networked cables, but he's not sure how well that'd go, people might find out about the tunnels if they do that...

[set a couple of wireless towers around that get signal from the underground tunnels, most of which are duds, then the cables are all underground and people don't have a way to find them without some pretty thorough digging]

[...Zash, why are you in this call]

Nai'd kinda been trying to avoid him because they once again parted on not the greatest of terms and he's anxious again about that.

[little brother you are literally the only person on this planet who can hide from psychic senses and you chose not to. you are lying if you tell me you hadn't kind of hoped that I'd show up.]

Well now Nai is hiding again.

[Yvette, love, can you tell my dumbass twin to stop being a tsundere and take the teasing like a good sport so we can resume the practicalities?]

She does, of course, along with defining what a tsundere is for his convenience and communication.

[That's a good idea, though, I think that'll work.]

He is not a tsundere.