The Animal Inside-Amaya Jiwe

Phone Home...

"What makes a hero?" Ray asked the team rhetorically, pacing around the bridge. He had coaxed us all into doing team building exercises. I sat next to Amaya on the steps leading up to the parlor, my arm wrapped around her waist. "Is it powers? Strength? Bravery? No. A hero is forged by his or her relationships. Our bonds of brotherhood or sisterhood. That is why I'm taking you all through the ten step team building process I perfected at Palmer Tech. Step one, part one: icebreakers."

"Dude, we've all been stuck on a ship with one bathroom. I think we know each other well enough." Jax pointed out.

"And your timing couldn't have been worse, given that we're being chased by the water wielding assassin and the Time Bureau." My father agreed.

"We need to grow as a team. First step is two truths and a lie." He smiled as we all stared back at him blankly. "It's gonna be fun."

"Lie." Mick grunted, taking a sip of his beer.

"I haven't started yet. Look...I know you guys probably think this is lame-" Sara and I cut him off at the same time.

"Truth."

"But we have a new crew member, and it is important for Zari to bond with us, not only as team members, but as individuals."

Zari spoke up. "Yeah, well, I'm no hero, and I'm not a member of any team. Besides, I already have you all figured out." She stood up and approached my father. "The old guy wants to be anywhere but on the ship." She walked up behind me and Amaya. "These two have some on again off again thing." She looked at Mick. "Rory's been drunk since breakfast." She kept pacing, not looking at Jax. "Jax and Nate are wondering if I'm single. And your ship's still mad at me for doing a tenny hack on her subsystems. Now what's this about one bathroom?" We all erupted in protest.

"You're right, Haircut." Mick finally spoke up above all of us. "This is gonna be fun."
"Let's just skip to step two, trust falls. Now to demonstrate, Mick, who hated me when we first met, will fall trustingly into my arms."

"All right, you promised me a good coin for doing this." Mick said, setting down his beer.

"And you said that you weren't going to say that outloud." Ray returned through gritted teeth. Mick fell back into Ray's arms, but before he could catch him, Ray disappeared. More precisely, he fritzed out of existence.

"What the hell?" Mick muttered, holding his head angrily.

"Gideon, what happened to Ray?" Sara asked the AI.

"According to public record, Mr. Palmer died in 1988."

"Wait, Ray's dead?"

"He better be." Mick grunted, still holding his head.

"How could Ray be dead? He was just here." Sara pointed out.

"Yeah, well, he owes me money." I smacked Mick on the back of the head, causing him to yell at me in return.

"Gideon, you said Ray died in 1988." I repeated the AI's words back to her.

"Mr. Palmer went missing on October 31st, 1988. They recovered the body two days later."

"He was found in the woods, dead, only eight years old." Amaya read off the computer screen.

"If Ray disappeared on Halloween, we'll just go back to before whatever happens happens." Sara decided. "Gideon, get us to October 30th, 1988." We all sat down, except for Zari, who was lingering on the back of the bridge.

"Wait, are we time traveling?"

"You better buckle up." I warned her.

XXX