We're in This Together

[Clint Cross]

"Sounds like you two are going to be friends... I'll ask her if she minds splitting her program between my place and your apartment. She's... oddly easy to talk to." Clint said and looked at her. "Keeps my shit together."

[Liara]

"We've have to install holoemitters." Selene said thoughtfully as she put the car in gear, hit the gas hard, and sped out of the garage leaving a bit of rubber behind.

[Clint Cross]

"Wouldn't be too hard." Clint replied as he chuckled at the squeal of the tires. "May even have some installed to be honest." he glanced at the guard shack and waved as they blew past it. "So once you hit the fork, you'll want to make a right, it'll take you towards the downtown area. She's got a lot of power... whoever tuned this beast really built her for speed. i'm still kind of surprised you never had strawberry ice cream. No that I have it all the time, but it's sort of making me wonder... what else can we introduce to you. You never had Thai before I suggested it. We do have literally every major Earth ethnic and other planetary ethnic group's food somewhere. Also helpful when we're trying to get information, usually some 'food from home' gets them talking. There's a pretty good East Indian place that Noonian keeps getting take out from, I see the boxes every time I visit AlphaTek tower." he pointed out the second tallest building that was coming into view. "City's a melting pot, pretty much everyone has something there, then you get out into the other cities and colonies and things get a bit more one group or another."

[Liara]

"No Indian." Selene said a bit quickly. "Sorry...it's not bad food it's just the only time I ever ate it was with my father and not because I wanted to. If I have to eat it okay but if its an option I'd rather not."

[Clint Cross]

"Completely understand." Clint nodded his head. "Good to know. We can always head down 'restaurant row' and just walk to different places. Try a little bit here and there. I'll confess it's something I always kind of wanted to do, but we usually got caught up in our favorites and that was that. Or one of us cooked something at home or it was made for us. Protein meal shakes are almost a standard. Rare when we actually have the time off to just experiment with new things." he looked over at her. "It would be kinda nice to find something that was more 'ours' ... start some favorites of our own. We don't have to be echo's of people we once knew."

[Liara]

"I'd like that." Selene said with a smile. "Fresh food was rare unless it was given to me. Usually as a reward of some kind or a dinner if my father was showing off or Lucius or Jackson. Sometimes if the mission called for it with a target. Otherwise, it was replicated. Fresh food was something reserved for the elite. You're amazed by how much I love strawberries there are people in my reality that have never seen them. Those that if they snuck even a taste would have lost their life. This world is...extravagant compared to mine."

[Clint Cross]

"It kind of is... but it was designed to be a free place, a safe place for pretty much everyone." Clint replied. "Although it's kind of cool that there is a lot less replicated food here, real cooking, real art, real clothes, real craftsmanship is actually valued, not just replicated stuff that you just snap your fingers and it appears. Granted we have that too, but still. There are a lot of people from realities similar to your's, where being able to run a business, go out when they wanted to, wear real clothes, eat real food was something they never experienced, even among other Terran races. Imperium, before my daughter helped them reform, they kept slaves. Anyone not Terran was fair game for them."

[Liara]

"Same in my reality." Selene said as she took the right at the fork, accelerating into the turn just a bit. "K'n'zy was Jackson's slave with very little freedom. It sounds like she said more of it in other realities. She was always chained or caged and he never would have dreamt of mating with her. There were others and my father even had a few."

[Clint Cross]

"The Jackson we've dealt with and his K'n'zy, they were sort of a terrible twosome... he didn't necessarily fall in love with her, but he lusted after her power, she was an opportunistic psychopath that Dominus literally fried her brain... their kid, Carly, is a crazy powerful telepath, telekinetic. I should introduce you to the 'little' Carly, although it's funny the kid's had a growth spurt in the past year or so, she's almost as tall as her counterpart... who's still little. Tiny but mighty. But yeah... it's kind of disturbing where dystopia and utter insanity is the default and this is almost the exception, hell it would have continued being the exception until another reality tried to conquer this one." he sighed as he looked at his hand. "They almost would have too. When I killed Nick Ryder's son Marcus, chopped him up, sent him bits of him. The plan was to get him so insane with grief that K'n'zy could have taken over the rest of the planet. Luckily... he was more forgiving and seemed to understand telepathic manipulation better than most. For a minute there I shared the same cell that we put your counterpart in when she went mentally manipulated and killed a bunch of people. Now my counterpart is sitting in one of those, about forty miles below the lowest part of the planet. Terra Alpha is a forgiving world."

[Liara]

"Somethings shouldn't be forgiven." Selene said. "But I'm glad he forgave you. Did you kill her at least?"