Mrs. Osborn sends her thanks in advance, and asks that all visitation requests be forwarded to her private PINpoint number.

Amber's never been more thankful for her powers than now, able to hear so perfectly the mind of the tiny child growing inside her. Hearing little Sophia, still with four months to go before she comes into the world, think her little baby-thoughts and dream her little baby-dreams. Getting to meet her baby girl so long before any other mother is so lucky.

And so what if she doesn't always keep it to just listening? It's her child, after all. Why shouldn't she be able to ensure that she'll grow to be someone that will make her parents proud?

<AmberOsborn> Amber is home, probably waiting for Norman -- so that she can tell him how the day went, and the thing with Eiko.
<Norman_Osborn> He comes home, then. How convenient. Today's been... a busy day. A few too many people to see, and a good handful to be avoided.
* AmberOsborn ordered out tonight, rather than cook, and she's just starting to consider starting without him when he comes. A halfhearted wave, when he comes in the room, but she's smiling. ( Read more... )

So they're going to do it. But they're not going to go about it blindly, pretending there isn't danger. She's too smart for that (too paranoid), and so is he.

They spend long hours that night, talking the whole matter over and figuring out what they'll need. Who they'll need to talk to, to get it.

And Amber calls Eiko, the next morning.

For someone who owes her existence to the Nexus, Amber isn't feeling particularly charitable about the place, right now. She's finally given in and visited the interdimensional hub again, today -- and been rewarded for her efforts with having to hide from the strawberry-girl in the Sanctuary, and then with what happened in the main Nexus, with those lights...

She depends... depended... so completely on those powers, she never even realised. And the world is so quiet without them, without the warp and weft of reality underneath her fingertips, without the babble of minds inside her head. So quiet, and goddammit, she needs some noise --

A groan, and Amber pulls the pillow on top of her head. "Norman!" she yells, muffled. "Put on some music!"

......Norman.

I'm sending you a tape.

Don't watch it anywhere you don't trust.

Business has come up, I'm afraid, and I won't be able to make much in the way of trips to the Nexus for a while. My apologies.

Amber is a clever woman, even at her most stupid. She can imagine all too well what will become of her if she is found out as having captured Zeller -- by the Web, or by overly-heroic outsiders -- and she knows that to avoid this, she needs to get rid of as many risks as she can. She's gotten rid of Savannah, and of the other telepaths in the psychic network... now she needs to focus on those who know the Web better than the rest.

She needs to cut away Gabriel Grey and Alistair Munroe.

"...Amber?"

"That's me." She smiles, and pats the spot beside her on the couch. "C'mon? Hermes told he what happened. I won't bite, honest." The smile doesn't waver as a flicker of green power unfurls, wraps around him like a thin new vine.

"Did he?" He's tired, and it sounds -- yes. Sitting sounds like a good idea. He goes to her and does just that, smiling as she smiles.

"Mmmhmm. Amnesia, right?"

He nods. "Amnesia. S'so... frustrating."

"I'll bet. You feel lost, don't you? Too far behind?" She leans against him, and he can't find it in himself to protest. Instead, he nods as she pushes the green into his mind, cool and calm and so very careful.

"...lost. Stuck in -- something that isn't mine." He blinks slowly, as her mind wraps around his. Everything's slowing down, covered in green honey. Gumming up the works, and he can't think to complain. She smiles again.

"That's no good." She kisses his cheek, fingers threading through his hair. "Maybe you should rest? You sound tired." Another push. And he does, doesn't he? Because he is tired. So tired...

A yawn, and he nods. "Y'don't...?" You don't mind? Please?

"I don't mind, no. You need your rest, hm?"

"Mmm." His eyelids flutter shut... and he's gone.

And Amber smiles and cuddles up next to him, as she peels his mind like a grape. Time to undo this foolishness, and get her Norman back.

There's beauty in her power, Amber thinks. In the babble of thoughts and feelings, in the rainbow of auras and tangled threads that makes up her universe. In the way an unwitting mind shivers and twists and bends, when she pulls and pushes just the right way. The way it feels when they realise, and try to fight, up until the moment she crushes the urge into dust. The way it feels to make them love her, worship her, beg for her touch.

It's an art, in its way. A little like sculpture, or dancing. Like making love, or taking a life.

And she loves it that much more, every time she does it. Every time she takes a new subject off the streets, claims another lost soul to be remade into a new plaything, servant, spy.

She knows that it makes her a monster, to love it like she does, and that if the people of the Nexus knew, she'd be brought down as brutally as Norman was, and far swifter. But she isn't Norman, as much of her springs from him. (Or so she tells herself.) And she refuses to make his mistakes. She takes the utmost care in selecting her subjects, and tells no one about what she does, what she can do, that she does not already know will protect her.

She's smarter than he was. And she will not fall.