trans_9 | Wide Open Spaces [Open]

Owen smiled as he surveyed the park in the city. A little bit of terrain and obstructions here and there, but for the most part, plenty of open space. The perfect place for a good workout. He knew he could get the sensorium to take care of this, but right now, he wanted to get a little more of this place mapped out.

He shed his jacket and hung it over a bench, pulling just a standard run of the mill boomerang from a clip. He gave it a lazy toss, letting it arc and come back to his hand at the same spot with a satisfying 'slap' against his skin. He then started up a gentle jog around place, still hurling and catching it. He could feel his muscles start to twitch, but he kept his speed normal. He still hadn't quite managed to always make the superspeed happen, but he could pretty well keep it normal when he wanted to. Hard for running to be good exercise when it's effortless.

He grunted as he made a hurl straight ahead a bit stronger, then broke into a run to try to catch it before it would reach all the way back to where he threw it. This was good and relaxing, but still needed a bit of focus. The perfect level of activity for when you didn't want to think about other things.

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Owen cringed. "Girl.. I did the same thing when my father died. Fell in with people that wanted me to make all the same bad decisions they did, and I paid for it. It's not evil to kill in self defense to keep living, but there's not much else of a 'right' reason to kill."

He looked at her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Katara... what is it you're going to do? If it's something that one person can't avoid having to kill with.. maybe two people could make a difference?"

"I don't disagree with you Owen. I've been there and I'm not proud of the situation I put myself in. But this one is new, and its for entirely different reasons. I'm not doing this so I can redeem myself, or because I want to get back at somebody. I'm doing it because I'm scared there might be a threat to us and I'm not going to ignore it."

Katara shrugged, but felt reassured. "You've heard about the Yeerk at all?"

"What's a Yeerk?" Owen blinked.

Katara facepalmed. "You're as bad as my brother," she said. "A Yeerk is apparently a brainslug that's got the ability to go into your head and make you do stuff against your will. There's a trail right now, and they're going to let the last one left go free. Because they decided by the law enforcement on the ship, no one is supposed to contest that."

Katara looked down. "But there are people who aren't satisfied with that. I'm one of them. I don't like thaht I'm thinking about killing this thing, but think about it. There are a lot of super powers on this ship, eople able to do a lot of damage. If that brain slug somehow got released, how would we know who's who?"

"How do I know you're not Yeerked right now?" Owen replied.

Yeesh, at least Starro had the decency to go right on dudes' faces.

"If I were Yeerked, I wouldn't be talking about this to you, would I?" Katara said. She only wished she could find the humor in this.

"But do you see where I'm coming from?"

"Well... spell it out a bit more for me. How 'free' is some slug expected to be?" Owen scratched his beard.

"Well he wouldn't be," Katara said. "I guess he'd be contained somewhere, away from others. My fear is how long would that really happen before someone Stacy brought here was bad for us, enough that they would free that Yeerk?"

Owen rubbed his chin further. "Bad guys tend to worry about themselves first. Letting loose something that might just as well take them over? I'd call that pretty bad odds."

"Unless it was taking direct orders from the person to begin with," Katara said. "I know I sound paranoid, but its totally something that would have happened in my world. In fact, there's somebody I know who would have done something like that in a minute."

Owen folded his arms uneasily. "I really don't know what to say. Mind control creates too many 'what ifs'. These slug things got dealt with before though, right?"

"Exactly," Katara said. "Believe me, just not being able to move your own body is bad enough. I had it happen to me once. There are way too many complications if it can actually control your brain. If they were dealt with before though, they wouldn't be having to deal with them NOW. That's the problem."

Wide Open Spaces [Open]

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