Stark Industries, Monday

[endsthegame]

Ender had caught onto the phone stuff pretty quickly, although not quickly enough: he didn't want to think about where his messages had gone. He hadn't answered the last one, because by then he'd realised the messages weren't meant for him.

He was never going to ask Hannibal about what he'd meant with his message. In part because he could figure it out, and in part because he really didn't want to think about it.

So he set up shop quietly and early and busied himself with Stark's satellite, wiping the phone problems from his mind.

[ open! ]

Comments

[momslilassassin]

Ben poked his head into the store, eyes sparkling. "So you don't care if I like girls, huh?" he teased.

[endsthegame]

"Not a quantum," Ender told him. He'd been busy, but right now he was just sitting at the desk, his fingers on his keyboard, somehow unwilling to move.

[momslilassassin]

"Yesterday was odd," Ben declared, shrugging it off.

[endsthegame]

"I figured that out around the second message I got," he said. "There's things about Hannibal I don't want to know."

[momslilassassin]

"And now can't get out of your head?" Ben guessed.

[endsthegame]

"You wouldn't have any secret Jedi tricks to wipe it from my mind, would you?" He sounded like he was joking. Ender didn't think he ever had any trouble not thinking about something like that.

[momslilassassin]

Ben's eyes widened in surprise. "Yeah, but I don't think I'd do it."

[endsthegame]

"Relax," he countered, "I can do it on my own. Did you get any bad ones?"

[momslilassassin]

"I got turned down for dates by a lot of people I've never met," Ben said.

[endsthegame]

"At least now you know what your options are," Ender said, non-committally. He pushed the laptop back shut and closed; nothing was coming anyway.

[momslilassassin]

"Limited, apparently," Ben said with a tiny smile. "I'll get over it."

[endsthegame]

"I got your cousin yelling at me," Ender volunteered freely. "I don't think I'll be dating her, either."

[momslilassassin]

Ben snickered. "Yeah, I think her boyfriend would object. Glad she's back, though. She goes back and forth to a warzone."

He knew he didn't have to explain why that might make him a little anxious.

[endsthegame]

"How frequently?" Ender wanted to know, his eyes finally tearing their thoughtful gaze off his laptop to meet Ben's face.

[momslilassassin]

"Every few weeks?" Ben said. "In her galaxy, Jacen's dead." He wasn't sure how he felt about that, and it was apparent in his tone.

[endsthegame]

"How did he die?"

It wasn't the most sensitive of questions, but the differences between universes were strange and alien, and it made Ender curious enough to nudge at that little soft spot. Nothing more, though.

[momslilassassin]

"Strike on a species called the voxyn, who were genetically altered by the Yuuzhan Vong specifically to kill Jedi," Ben said. "Kill the queen and the rest of them died. Jaina and Jacen went. The strike was led by their younger brother Anakin. Thirteen Jedi Knights. In Jaina's version, only six came back." He shook his head. "She lost both brothers on the same day."

[endsthegame]

Kill the queen and the rest of them died. The words struck him as ironic, considering his own predicament, but he kept silent about it. "Rough," he said, "It happens."

Not that he wasn't sympathetic, but by the sounds of it, it'd save them a lot of trouble.

[momslilassassin]

"Not generally to Jedi, it doesn't," Ben replied. "There are only a few hundred of us. We don't go out in huge groups unless it's really, really important." His chin went up. Pride in what his cousins had accomplished ran deep. "This was."

[endsthegame]

"I'm taking from that that they beat the voxyn," Ender replied, neutrally. "Took the queen, right?"

[momslilassassin]

Ben nodded. "Jacen used his empathy with living creatures--," he broke off, smiling wryly. It seemed like he was describing an entirely different person, "--to find and destroy her."

[endsthegame]

"He'd have to," Ender noted. His tone still had that neutral edge. "Hive minds operate very differently at war."

[momslilassassin]

Ben got the feeling he should be treading carefully here. "Do they?" he asked. "I was too young to really pay attention when we fought the Killicks."

[endsthegame]

"Every thought is instantaneous," he said, "So they're faster than you could imagine. But they don't change quickly. They rarely improvise. And they kill a lot of people because they don't realise it's not like chopping off a foot for us." That was one side of it.

[momslilassassin]

Ben nodded, filing the information away. "The galaxy is well rid of the voxyn," he said. "They were living biological weapons."