Rogue was nervous. The last time she had been here was at the evacuation a year ago, but there had been so many people there then... Well, she knew mutants were still welcome here, but nonetheless she was one, and she just didn't know what security would be like these days.
She didn't even entirely remember how to enter the place. And it sure didn't help that all she could see for miles around was desert. She could miss the entry completely.
Then she saw a little house. There were clothes strung across a line in the backyard. The house looked vaguely familar, so she thought she was stop and look around. As soon as she stopped, a gentleman stepped out.
"Good evenin' miss," he said. "You lost?"
"Umm..." Rogue paused, uncertain as to what to say. "A little, yes... Ah don' suppose you have a map?"
The man eyed her for a moment, then grinned.
"Allow me ta int'aduce meself," he said. "I'm Colin, and if ya wants to direct yo'self inta the garage, you'll find a place to park. Just follow the signs you'll get to admin, and the teleportation centre."
Rogue stared back.
"This is..."
"Yessire," Colin grinned. "You've found yo'self the entry for the space station. We don' get a lot of mutant visitors. Oh, and I hope yo' don't mind me looking inside your head. We do actually get some folks who really are lost, and well most folks who come 'ere for upstairs have a membership card."
He chuckled, and Rogue couldn't help but grin back.
"Ah didn't know about the membership card... Wait, you were able to read muh mind?"
Rogue was fairly impressed, seeing as how she'd been told her mind was a patchwork of all the minds she had ever absorbed and it generally took more time than most telepaths were willing to deal with to make any sense of it.
"Well enough to figure you're a mutant. And 'couse you didn't know about the membership card, mutants don't have 'em. Though, if ya ask me, me thinks we should, seeing as how much we int'act with you folks an' all. But there is a pass yo' can 'pply for ta get in from now on."
"Okay, thanks," Rogue smiled. "Ah'm Rogue."
"Nice ta meetcha. You can head on in."
Colin stepped away from the car and opened up the garage door so she could drive in. And what a garage it was! The wall on the otherside opened and the ground sloped downwards into an underground parking lot. As directed, she found herself a place to park, and then followed the signs to the elevator. She pressed the button for the level marked "Admin and Teleportation".
The trip down seemed to take forever, but eventually the elevator doors opened and she stepped out into the eatery she remembered going through when she was last here. It was starting to come back to her.
"Rogue?" asked a voice nearby.
Rogue jumped at the unexpected call of her name.
"Sorry," he said. "Colin said you'd be coming. I'm Matt."
"Hi," Rogue replied.
"And what brings you to Houston?"
"Visiting pleasure, mainly," Rogue replied. "But I... I..."
All of a sudden she was relunctant to admit she had the powers of a Dathrian hybrid, despite having no alien blood at all.
"I have some fuzzles. Seven of them."
"Seven? Really?" Matt looked interested.
"Yes. I got Liberty - my first one - a bit over a year ago now. A friend of mine arranged to get her for me because my powers didn't allow me to touch anyone, skin to skin, without hurting them. But Fuzzles are all hair, so we figured I might actually be able to have a pet without killing it."
"I can see how that would be an important thing."
"It was the highlight of my year," she grinned. "And then the other six came along after Liberty met the male Fuzzle of muh boyfriend."
Matt chuckled.
"Okay now we can send you straight on up, if you want. They do most of the room assigning and stuff up there - I assume you're not staying with anyone?"
"Nope."
"Okay. Have you been to the station before?"
"Only at the evacuation last year."
Matt nodded as he sat down at his computer.
"In that case you should be in the system already..." he said as he tapped away. "Rogue is a codename?"
"Uhh, yes, did you need my real name?"
"Only if someone else has that name," he grinned at her. "See now, unlike most human systems we have allowances for aliases. Ah ha, Rogue - Marie?"
"That's me."
"Great. I'll make you up a pass so that you can get back in without having your mind scanned by a telepath next time. And it'll also help you get in upstairs and to other, how shall we say, YIRAAS controlled events and places."
"Okay."
Matt pressed a few more keys and then waited as nearby machines revved.
"This'll only take a couple of minutes," he said. "It'll look like a club membership, which it is, in a way."
"Okay, thanks," Rogue replied.
"Anyway, the teleportation room is just over there," Matt pointed. "Just wait in there until they're ready to send you up, which shouldn't be more than an hour, depending on how many others are being teleported - we have amplifiers in England and Genovia now, so there's a lot more co-ordination required. Anyway, when you get upstairs they'll get you to sign in, and then they'll assign you a room."
Not long thereafter, Rogue was 'upstairs'. A woman greeted her, had her card scanned and gave her a room.
"Do you know how long you'll be staying?"
Rogue shrugged.
"I hadn't really decided. I'm sorta... travelling around for a year with no real schedule in mind."
"Fair enough. Enjoy your stay."
She headed for the elevator and started on her way down, travel bag and fuzzle bag slung over her shoulders. She was going to find her room, dump her stuff and have a nice soak in the bath. Yes... a bath... Definitely wanted a bath. With bubbles.
The station felt much bigger than she remembered, but at least this wasn't her first visit here. If that had been the case she would have needed a guide on acocunt of the vast differences in technology here, even different from what they had at the mansion. Guess that's what they got for having the number of technokinetics that they did.
On the way to her room, she noticed a pet shop - she would definitely have to stop by later.