Sunday August 12, 2001 - Morning

The Komfy Korners motel room was bathed in the darkness of the inky hours of stillness that come before dawn. The ruddy led glow of the faux woodgrain encased alarm clock proclaimed the hour at two seventeen in the morning. The shag carpeting declared the heritage of the motel to have been in the late seventies. The entirety of the interior seemed of similar vintage. Overhead the blades of the ceiling fan slowly rotated. The air conditioner puttered away in the darkness, a faint death rattle that had reminded the sleeping shark girl of Jethro Tull’s Aqualung on her RCG tranced entrance to the room.

While her new partner slept away the brutality of the past month. Rose spent her time examining that active mind. A gentle touch here, a soothing block there, doing her utmost to keep those night terrors at bay. The young woman had exposed herself to so much trauma in addition to everything the world had thrust upon her. That much bloody murder and righteous vengeance would have done Jeanne d’Arc proud, and yet, as suppressed as it was, the trauma was quite real from taking those lives.

Rose also took the time while she had free reign of that mind to pull everything she could, not just the positive, of this girl whose face she wore. To learn her, her nuances, the memories that weren’t active as well. To get a better approximation of the individual her partner wished her to be. Supplementing and implementing those impressions into herself. Hella indeed. The hours turned, the morning traffic outside began to pick up its pace, the drone of the highway began to grow in cadence. A niggling snippet of code was dismissed. Yes under normal circumstances she would wake her partner after a full eight hours of sleep, these circumstances were not normal. She allowed the girl a few more hours, while assembling a schedule for the coming days, there was much driving to do and time was of the essence for vacating California. One full day of driving would place them over the border into Oregon. A reservation lit up at the Komfy Korners Motel in Ashland.

Rose was taking so many liberties, there were so many alerts that she was finding herself needing to disable. It was stretching the limits of what she was supposed to do in these sorts of situations. It was leaving her impressionable to some of that personality she was attempting to imprint on herself. Minerva was however relying on her help to survive this situation, and it was quite the delicate beginning. The AI manifestation in the form of the sleeping shark girl's sister bit her lip. Half a dozen reservations were being made between Ashland and Toronto. Planned stops for meals, gasoline, were scheduled, and the girl would need a fresh set of clothing. A message through the network to the clerks terminal requesting fresh clothing was sent, a shower was also added to that schedule before breakfast.

Her Sis -ERROR- Minerva had better appreciate all this work!

Of course that request for clothing to be delivered at noon would allow little further time for the girl to sleep as the hours had wound onwards. She had been sleeping since a little after two in the morning. Rose activated the waking cycle in the girl's brain. The girl's arms pulled a pillow against her, wrapped up in some of the blankets of the bed. The goggles on her face told her that they were the Thala she had fallen asleep with the night before. Part of her knew better, but it was a small little voice that was easily ignored. She adjusted those goggles, and her own glasses that were beneath them.

“I… can talk again?” Ventured the rousing shark, she felt intensely rested, as if her sleep had been deep and uninterrupted. Her sense of her surroundings, to say nothing of her wakefulness, came on startlingly fast.

“You don’t have to speak out loud, I can hear your thoughts, if it’s more comfortable to subvocalize, that’s totes okay. I will understand you, and you won’t be saying anything loud enough for others to hear, it’s cool!” The image of Thala clambered out from the bed, rolling up to her feet and stretching. Her arms reaching up and her head peering back over her shoulder at Minerva. “You have a busy schedule today. Clothes are going to be dropped off soon by the motel staff. You’re going to have yourself a shower, and then, after that, you need to eat. Yesterday’s diet doesn’t count as healthy. You had a rocket pop, a tiger paw, and a Glock 17 in .45 calibre. A lot of that is indigestible, so you’re gonna have to do the thing.”’ Minerva Knox-Trudeau stared at her sister in horror. The words never made it to her mouth, but they were plain as day on her face and in her mind.

“Yes I know you hate doing the thing Min, and I know mom made you do the thing when you were younger after you ate my hot wheels. And my surfer barbie. And the cookie moulds for my Easy Bake Oven. And now you have to do it again because Smiling Jack’s Glock and Ring are in your guts. So hurry up, evert your stomach and have it over with.” The withering look that Minerva was giving the simulacrum could have peeled the colouring layer right out of those goggles she was wearing.

The older shark knew, in her heart of hearts, that Thala was correct, and that her kind had evolved that technique for the explicit purpose of cleaning out the indigestible from their insides. It didn’t make it something she enjoyed. It wasn’t exactly a messy process, in fact it was something that was supposed to be done now and again by sharks to just clean themselves out. All the same, Thala, who was Rose, turned herself away, to at least give Minerva the illusion of privacy. Waiting for the metallic clatter of that firearm landing in the bottom of the motel room rubbish bin.

“Okay, good, now you’re going to want to bag it up, and we’re going to dump it somewhere well over state lines, the ring you’re going to want to dump that somewhere in Canada when we get there.” With a grumble, Minerva went to comply, albeit with all the vigour of a teen who had just been reminded to take out the trash. “I can feel you rolling your eyes at me. I’m in your head you know!”

The gun was shoved into the plastic bag provided by the motel for dirty laundry, which was then bundled around it half a dozen times. The ring was shoved into the pocket of her dirty jeans that still clung to her body, stiff with the amount of time they’d been on the girl's body. Minerva’s head turned to regard Rose. “Alright, so you’re in my head. You know what I’m going to say before I say it. I understand that, totes. Cool. Rock on. My imaginary kid sister who knows all about mopping up after murder facing a bastard cop. Ground rules; don’t mom me.” she drew in a deep breath. “Mom’s gone, I don’t need you to be mom or dad. If what got dumped in my head about how you work while I was sleeping is accurate, you're what I need or want most in the world. So- Be- Her. Help me get out of this alive and be my sister. Just us on the run from the law together.” A hand rose nervously to her matted strands of once sun gilded hair, her fingers tracing back through them with a mixture of emotional exhaustion and fear at talking back to this digital creature in the shape of her sister standing before her.

Thala spent a moment analysing what she felt from Minerva’s mind. The analysis had not been correct in that direction. Why did it feel like part of her own self modified and tailored code was smirking at her? The program didn’t need to let out a sigh and surrender to what her partner was telling her, all the same she did, the gentle sigh leaving the lungs of the mental perception of herself, and the gentle roll of her shoulders. “Totes. No more momming. You’ve gotta do what I say though, at least about crime and schedule stuff. Okay? This isn’t a grind or a kickflip. I know this stuff.”

The ensuing exchange of appraising gazes between the two was interrupted by a knock at the door. High-Tide moved over, towards the door, hand hovering over the knob, before she opted to peek through the peephole in the door. Looking at the face on the other side. It was the night clerk from the prior evening.

There was no need for pleasantries, there was no need for any exchange really. The shark simply opened the door and took the parcel. The clerk was given a broad toothed smile. Min’s head canting to the side as she closed the door slowly. “Thanks, bye bye.” Once fully closed, the latch and safety catch were both set. The shark upended the parcel on the bed, sifting through the outfit that had been brought to her. It was clear to her the clerk had raided the local goodwill store for things in her size. His choices however spoke to his time in high school, and what he had clearly remembered girls wearing. Track pants, a crop top, a noticeable lack of bra. It… seemed so bloody typical; that undergarment likely hadn’t even occurred to the clerk.

A few minutes later she was in the shower. Her dirty clothes were stuffed into a laundry bag and tied shut. Resting near the duffle bag placed there moments before the shower, ready to go. Once cleaned, dried, and changed into fresh garments, the next task was seeing to food. There was a quick mental back and forth that danced between High-Tide and Thala. On the subject of metabolism, healthy eating, and the necessary dietary balance for optimal long duration driving. None of this mattered to the shark. She wanted to tear into some fast food and burn miles. The pout that High-Tide managed to put on the AI of her sister was legendary, and secretly she considered it a triumph.