ERQ

2: Danielle Jeanette Masters, CVT

Jeannie awoke in a dumpster, after an unknown amount of time. The paralyzing, frozen terror that made her cringe whenever Pimp-Stupid would raise his voice was gone. A sort of pins-and-needles sensation inside her brain told her that something was different, but she didn't know what. Had she gained something or lost something? She did not know.

She knew that she hurt, though. The cuts on her face from where Pimp-Stupid had sliced it to pieces stung like a mother-fucker, and the arthiritic ache in her left ankle drove her to distraction.

She couldn't stay in the dumpster, she had to get out. So Jeannie climbed out of the dumpster and limped from alley to alley, looking both ways. Not so much out of fear as some kind of intuitive understanding.

She had enemies and she was vulnerable, even at night.

Artie left her to get some food. She could have commanded him to stay, but getting something to eat was more important.

It took her a couple of hours to discover one of the maintenance doorways to the sub-levels of the city. Once she found it, getting a crowbar was easy. It took her 3 tries to get the lock off the door, but afterwards she made it quickly past the first sub-level and down to the sewers, below Sub-Level 3.

Artie came back to her, carrying a half-eaten cheeseburger on his back. She could not say how he managed to do this, nor how he managed to get all the way into Fort Hillford's sewers without getting caught, but at this point she didn't care.

Jeannie picked up Artie and gave him a kiss. And then she picked up the half-eaten cheeseburger and ate it. There had been times when she'd had no money and no food thanks to Pimp-Stupid being on one of his coke binges, and him completely forgetting about her.

She realized that she'd inherited a new power, that she could draw life-energy from any one rat or small group of rats and use it to heal herself, but she could sense things too. Not just PKE -- any half-assed 'Sniffer' or Mage Class could do that. No, she could use mental speech to talk to them, and they would understand her. Just to make sure it worked underground, Jeannie sent a simple emote to Artie:

'Mother-Goddess loves Artie.'

'Artie loves Mother-Goddess.'

Good. It worked.

'Mother-Goddess hurts. Must heal.'

'Artie gives.'

And then another rat responded. 'Kee-Mo gives.'

And then 3 more came to her, all willing to giver her the life-energy she needed to heal herself. But more than that, they also gave love, something she'd had so little of in her former life.

Jeannie drew the power from them, but it drained them nearly to death, so she could only heal her ankle and her sliced up face so much. When they all passed out, she picked them up and put them in an old plastic bin that was lying nearby, and then took off her t-shirt and covered them up.

She sent another message to them while they slept: 'Mother-Goddess loves her babies.'

The rats were happy in thier sleep, she could sense it.

There were no mirrors in the sewers, but considering how she must look with her face all cut up she was glad to not have to see it.

And then her old life came back to her in a flood of pain and despair that nearly caused her to collapse under it's weight.

Jeannie began to cry, but found a chamber nearby to hide from her babies. They didn't need to feel her pain right now.

She'd never been what boys would call pretty, but had always been a practical girl. Knowing what boys were like, she avoided them like some nano-plague until about 15, when she'd befriended a girl with a car. Jeannie didn't talk about sex, in fact avoided it altogether. As long as the boys thought that she thought that sex was icky, they stayed away. At least for the most part.