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The RV gave an ancient wheeze and shuft of noise as it finally settled onto the the tossed up beach. half the dunes had been tossed to fair hell.. but..the waterline was mostly intact. junk both from the sea floor and from humanity lay exposed to be picked up, or examined. It was nearly nightfall and there was a mass of color above the shoreline, not a cloud in sight nor one would be expected for miles. It was deserted, fear of anything that had been talked about in the news made the beach population scarce.

"All the more to my liking.. ...going to be clear out tonight..." She looked out her window from the drivers seat and out at the ocean again. "No moon out tonight..." Newton had come to the beach to camp her mobile home behind the dunes.. one of the four major camping beaches she loved. It was out of the way, and one of those private treasures she had found when she had done work as a truck driver delivering goods. It..hurt a little to see it in shambles.

Trotting up and down the beach, she collected driftwood, paperjunk, plastic junk and dug a firepit as the sun sank down... A good night to just sit and think. Newton ate from the camping tin bowl and watched as the old greek myths played out in the sky...

There would be something to be said several days later, about a campfire at the beach during pale moonlight, but quite frankly Newton would've much rather grumble about the latest prank gone awry.Somedays it didn't pay to lace the brownies with body dye. She mentally cursed herself out since the prank had no effect and as usual, the idiot didn't even get the mass-printed posters taped up over his door with the theory of nature=god man=afraid of god on it... At least she hadn't gotten caught, she mused to herself tossing more junk onto the fire and getting up to walk along the messy beach. At least the Anti-Pikaia shirts were selling out quickly whenever she set up the booth.. mostly to the younger generation.

Newton looked up to see the stars, she had a good view of the bear, nemean lion, even a half decent view of cetus the serpent and andromeda's family tonight... The beach was empty, but lately she still carried a stun gun incase of anything happening. The news today had manage to upset her when there was word of someone being found dead with cambrian eggs. It made her feel sick inside hearing about people doing that. A stiff wind came in off of the water as she stared out at it towards a barest trickle of gold light on the distant waters. Maybe that was the abyss, quantum life at the best of it where hundreds of possibilities existed at once. She stared out at the water for a while as the waves crashed on...

A distinct non-wave splashing drew her attention..something was either getting beached or the tide was uncovering baby sharks in the sand again.. "what are you.." A small angelshark was flopping about with a glowing glob of something in it's mouth. Newton bent down picking the shark up a little above the tail, scooping out the glowing glob and tossing the small shark back into the water before it could bite her. ... It was a string of fish eggs. she stuck her hand back into the water to keep them wet. They glowed faintly in the dim light of a barely there moon and the myths above, sadly several of the tinier ones had gotten busted. "awww...lost your bebes to the sea monster huh?" Newton cupped her hands to keep the eggs wet and in water. "let's get you little ultraboogers back to the lair.." It took her a while to walk back to the RV and place the eggs and seawater into a mug to rest while she cleaned out the third fishbowl for a new guest, the two betas watching her work quietly, doing their..blub..blub..blub and the occaisional bonk trying to fight each other. It was the way of betas.

Carefully she plopped the eggs and seawater inside of the fish tank making several trips to fill it and put in the old filter and oxygenator. "there you go ultraboogers..." The weight pressed at the back of her mind now.. would those Pikaia bastards come after her for saving these little guys.. Most likely. She'd just have to be prepared. Very prepared. In the meantime the ultraboogers would just have to sit and chill. What if these did turn out to be cambrian eggs?

She sat back and stared at the glob, thinking. "Hey..you little fellas and chickas. ...if you do turn out to be quantum possible life... ..I'm gonna do my best to be there for you little spudruckers. Y'hear?" Newton patted the fishbowl.. and went outside again to stargaze and think.

Inside the eggs, now safely tucked away in their new home only twitched and glowed as her cd-player played the jazz music of India...

Newton yawned, rolling out of the little sleeping nook in the wall of the rv, rubbing at her eyes and her head. Last night was a definite calender marker for weirdness.. Strange people in shapes and colors speaking in a language she didn't full understand but remembered slightly.. Newton hadn't had dreams like that since she was six, and those mostly featured muppets from Sesame Street. ...If she didn't know better and checked her food she could have sworn someone had spiked her drink. Living alone kinda threw that theory out the window.

she went about her usual morning routine scrubbing up and getting dressed, feeding herself and the fishes when she noticed the ultraboogers had formed a megabooger while she was asleep. A little..bug that looked like a woolybear caterpillar on acid was flitting about the fishbowl happily, frilling and fluffing at the betas occassionally. "Now..you're not at all what I expected to come out of there little booger.."



The little bug only whirred over to her face by the bowl frilling out again at her as she looked closely. Little legs scattered the bottom of the bowl, those must have been the other hatchlings.. "You are one hungry little bug huh... ..well my own fault for not putting food in there for you.." she sprinkled in a generous helping of fishflakes to the bowl which sank under the surface to be quickly gobbled up before the bug returned to her face. "heh.. ..aw come on I feed you too much you're going to get sick little bug.." Newton set the canister of food aside and wriggled her fingers against the fishbowl surprised when the bug tried to mimic her. She grinned and kept this up for a few more minutes before standing up again thinking. This was...way odd. Today was moving day she'd have to pack up the shirts and head out...

With that the RV lurched out of the road leading to the beach and back onto the regular roadways..

Bump in the karmic wheel

That night it was quiet out in the RV park, a waning moon barely lit anything in the hazy fog that came in off of the sea and obscured nearly everything. Under the soft mist figures went about from RV to RV..as if searching for something or someone to harass. They paused near Newton's RV, a plain sticker saying "Honk if you loves freaks of nature" on the back bumper..

Inside Newton was still half in those strange dreams again and half out listening to the Indian jazz.. Then she heard the screech of metal bending, a cheap doorframe under the placed abuse of a crowbar trying to force the hinges off. The lights came on in a flash and she lunged for the door. "GORRAM SHELLHITS I'M GONNA BURST YOU YOU MAGGOR ******** FACTOREEEKS!" Suffice to say, she wasn't coherent or coordinated, but the noise brought the attention of her neighbors in the lot who saw one of their neighbors being attacked and ********!" The one with the crowbar got his.. or her, was hard to tell in the dark, arm smacked and nearly broken by a swung skillet. The next swing nearly took off their head and the others were making a run for it. "MUTANT LOVER!!" Was the curse uttered by those fleeing, getting captured breifly as silhouettes in the beams of flashlights as they disappeared again into the night. The fight turned when Newton actually started waking up, and her former target became an assailant kicking and punching to get away from the madwoman before fleeing into the night with the commrades.

"Holy s**t..holy s**t... oh ******** you alright?" One of the neighbors brought up his shotgun to take a shot at the fleeing figure and grumbled as they got away.

Newton brought herself up slowy, she had gotten lucky, getting away with a few bruises, a busted lip and thankfully no broken bones. "..********.. I'm alright..nothin' broken.." she looked at the door to her RV which was nearly off it's hinges. The manager from the park came up shining light onto the graffiti of witch..hate...b***h..whore...all spray painted onto the sides of her van. " ..goddamnit.." This.. this changed things. She could only look at the damage to her vehicle and..worry..what if they had gotten inside...gotten to the little Mega-booger..to her.

The manager brought himself to speak slowly. "...I'll pay out the damages.. and see if I can help get the paint off. God damn..."

"...Don't bother... ..I think I might have to get a new place.." Newton put force to the door which tore off it's last hinge and fell with a heavy...desperately certain thunk.

"you shouldn't let just one thing rattle yah.."

"It's not just one thing..." She pointed out a sign on the rear of the RV. " ..god damn.. they even painted the Pikaia's bastards symbol back here too.." PC gonna get you. Such horrifying words in bright red on the back.

The news ran fresh in the mind of the park owner. "you ain't..got one of.."

"No. ...I just publically think the PC are a bunch of psychopaths." Her reply was curt and sharp. "Don't think they'll be coming back.." but she wasn't going to be sleeping tonight, just in case they did. Newton made plans until daybreak, the park owner came by that morning to help scrub off the graffiti, her door was held on by packing tape and rope. That afternoon she paid her electricity fees and left. She was going to have to make some stops, and do things she really didn't like... but..it looked like her tour of duty harassing the PC group had ended for now. what matter most was getting to a safe place.

"...get a new door for the RV. ...move to rosewood." ..after that..

Bolide hadn't been seen in several days. Ordinarily, this would be cause for celebration for Martina. She loved the man... crab... thing, but dealing with him constantly wore on her nerves. Maybe he had finally left on his proposed trip to Micronesia. The last time she had seen him, there had been quite a lot of wailing and stamping of feet and gnashing of teeth, resulting in a bloody mess all over her floor when Bolide attempted to take a bite out of her computer desk in frustration and lost a row of teeth. Martina felt guilty, and although she hoped he was off enjoying himself, the urge to apologize for their argument drove her steps towards the beach.

The appearance of a rather scruffy figure on the beach was cause for caution. Martina slowed, observing the stranger. The woman probably wasn't a threat, but Martina was used to being careful around the Institute. As Martina drew closer, she waved and called a friendly greeting.

Some type of paints and drying T-shirts littered the beach. Martina squinted at the stranger. A hippie? Those shirts didn't look tie-dye, but making t-shirts on the beach was definitely some type of hippie behavior. Stifling a sigh, she smiled pleasantly. "I live nearby. I was just out for a walk." Martina ran her eyes over the shirt-making accessories once more, deigning to comment. She really didn't want to get caught up in a long-winded pot-fueled discussion of T shirt politics.

"Safe?" Martina raised her eyebrows, curious despite herself. Up close she could easily see the bruise that darkened the woman's face. Hmmm. Safe from what? Maybe the woman was a fugitive of some kind. She looked more pathetic than threatening, but Martina was starting to feel nervous. The coastline by the Institute got more than its fair share of transient wackos.

If the stranger went loony-tunes, Martina would dive into the water and just swim back home. Long association with Bolide had made her an excellent and confident swimmer, and she figured she could get away much more easily in the water than on the soft sand of the beach. "Safe from what?" Hopefully there would be some semi-reasonable excuse, like a jealous boyfriend or pissed off Fish and Game authorities on the hunt for an illegal pet ferret.