As we rounded the corner in Isabel we came across an odd sign...



"Is that an Atomic Person?"  I asked, looking up at the strange figure.



"I think so," answered Natsumi.  "He's certainly not an AV.  Looks like he's using magic, though.  Weird..."

"Maybe he's lived here for a while.  I've heard that some of them actually adapt to this place eventually.  He could have learned sorcery from one of the locals.  Anyway, it's nice to see that he's trying to adapt."

I tried to keep my tone positive.  I know some really nice Atomic People, but I have also met some rather....odd ones.  The ones who don't adapt always make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.  There was that guy I met on the beach once who tried to hit on me, wearing a full tuxedo, totally heedless of the water washing around his legs as the tide came in.  Or that lady who kept talking about the coffee she was drinking...only she wasn't.   She just stood there talking to me with her hands empty.   It's always like that...the little things...they're only wearing one shoe, or their makeup is smeared on, or they keep bumping into walls.  They're just not all...here.

"Argent, you ok?" Natsumi's voice pulled me away from my own little "there" and back to "here".

"Yeah, just thinking about changing times, hon.  C'mon.  The Shelter is just around the bend."



The Shelter was right there, down the road, but something drew our eye to the Isabel Infohub.  There were people there, people we could talk to maybe, and not campers or 1334 d00dz or griefers or Mexican SWAT team members.  I'm not really sure why we stopped there instead of pressing on, but I'm glad we did.

Masami was the first person we met at the Infohub.  In a lot of ways, she was the first person we really met on this trip.  She was pretty new to this world at the time, still slowly forming herself out of the clay they give you called "Girl Next Door" when you emerge lost and confused on Orientation Island.

She shared stories of the mainland with us.  She told us of orientation areas desperately overcrowded, volunteer mentors trying desperately to orient the neverending flow of newbies.  She told us about Griefer attacks reaching all the way to the shores of Help Island.  People got shot, people panicked, people ran.  She wandered out in the world for a bit after that, and ran into her share of creeps on the way.  Somehow she made it to Isabel.  She slept on the benches, and spent her time with the other wayward souls that had drifted to this little island of stability.



She introduced us to her friend Alice.  Alice is a kid...which is a tough thing to be in a world where you're born with no parents and a significant portion of the population has a less than savory interest in you.  Still, here she had toys to play with and friends to talk to.  I think she looked on Masami as a big sister.  They had met somewhere along the long and winding road that led them here.



Alice had come with good news.  She had finally managed to get adopted.  Good parents are hard to come by here, but she had gotten lucky.  She was going to start school the next day, and showed up to show off her uniform.  I couldn't help but think of my own daughter, Ciel, away at the Conservatory, and just how seldom she got to see Soph and I. 



I stood there for a moment, lost in thought.  But just then something pulled me back from thoughts of home.  Alice was showing off her new toys with the joy only a child could, and Masami laughed with delight.  It was a pure laugh, untouched by all the things she had seen here.  It was good.



Natsumi and I looked at each other and smiled.  We both just knew that the road was trying to show us something here.   The people here in Isabel had nothing - no home, no car, but they had found one of the basic truths that underly this world...

A cynic once said that "Hell is other people".  Today the road showed us that truth inverted.  "Home is other people."

(To Be Continued)