AND SHE'S OFF - Xander

(Thanks Clover)

Alice was in her own little world as she kept going. She also tended to do this when she was fully concentrating on anything as she kept the laps counting down getting a little faster every time. The last lap took more effort as she flew higher to clear the hurdles and landed not so smoothly. It stopped her for a few seconds before her sprint kicked in and she stopped the watch. A big happy smile crossed her face as she'd knocked some extra time off. She'd ran this twice previously this session and it felt like a good time to stop.

Scooping her sports bag up in her left hand that was stashed near the hurdles she finally looked up and spied somebody. Somebody who might just need the track as well. A man in fact.

"Oh Hello, I just finished" she replied sounding happy. Anybody good with accents would place her as a Floridian. Her happiness also showed as her wings flapped as she walked.

Xander would now see something even more interesting that her wings. This was the fine art of making clothes work for you and she had to do most of the work herself as she was pretty rare even in an island paradise for odditys. "I don't need to rush away yet" she mused then introduced herself. "I'm Alice". Now she opened up her sports bag and took out a hoodie dress but not one that would be normally seen along with a little black belt.

This was modified to be nearly backless. The only thing holding it on her neck and shoulders was the part of the hood that was still attached. Then she stepped into it and bent at her waist. Now she could pull the hood over her head and let her wings that had gone loose out again. She was well used to the draught by now as she buckled the belt round her waist.

"They've always marked me out in life" she added with a little smile. In the past they were the reason she wasn't even allowed to go near ordinary people. These days she had made up for lost time.

She also offered "I can assist with your workout if you want". A workout was easier with two people and it wouldn't be as dull.

Xander Dayspring

"Pleased to meet you Xander" Alice replied. She pulled down the hood now she felt comfortable again. And there was a question. The job wasn't just her location and she mused with a smile "I'm an investigator in the Security Services. I sometimes get to see the refugee ships arrive myself". She did some of the job of a police officer when cases overlapped with the Ashford Police Department as well as some internal cases. It did mean getting out and about as she wasn't always office bound.

"Squats and leg exercises sound simple enough and I've a spare energy drink in the bag for later if you want it" she cheerfully added. Company would be prefered rather than have to head back home.

Xander Dayspring

Alice reached into her sports bag and by touch found one of the tins. Then handed it to Xander with a little smile. She then located the other one and opened it up as she'd need her own drink. "Xander all we can do is keep trying but if war ever comes here I'll be on the front lines. However I believe as long as peace can hold this paradise will continue to grow. By the next generation it might even be unrecognisable from what we have now. A beacon to the whole world".

She clearly believed there would be a future as she was even studying for a degree while working full time. There'd be a need for people who knew how to grow things in that future too along with builders and visionaries. Also a need for regular people like Xander and herself.

"Coming here is good for the mind and body. As well as dealing with the stress. It's just too easy to let work get you down". She knew all about that and that was why did try and get out some evenings.

Sipping from her own tin she looked up and then around. Today didn't seem as busy as usual. They might have just gotten lucky.

"So what do you do for a living?" she posed.

Xander Dayspring

Alice truly wanted to live in peace and never have to fire a gun in anger or to defend her own kind. Yet the world they lived in probably wouldn’t allow that. If it wasn’t one of their own striking back at humans it probably would be a zealot human trying to cause trouble here. She had to be a realist and still might be doing her job in twenty years time.

Alice had kind of heard about the robot but that wasn’t her case or department. Other officers had dealt with that one as she looked back to Xander. “I did hear about that. Why be so creative just to to be destructive? That robot could have done so much good if it had been programmed that way. I’d rather not have to shoot anything in anger but I do have to defend our people” she mused looking serious.

“You do an essential job. Don’t let anybody put you down” she added with something of her own to say.

“I grew up in a military background but not in the way people think. I can’t call the US government my government when they left me caged up to the time I came here. The cage was a big army base near Jacksonville and I never got to leave it; What I learned there I now use to defend our kind” she added. Only the start of a story and one that didn’t hurt much in the telling now she’d come to terms with her childhood.

Xander Dayspring

Alice suspected that very few people were truly evil. She tended to notice a lot given her job and even the smallest thing might unlock a puzzle; people were never that simple and it could just be as simple as one bad day or the road not taken that would lead to their actions. She certainly had good reason to go on a rampage herself but hadn't; An army nurse called Erica Harper and a few of her friends in the base became a family of sorts for a little girl that was alone. She hadn't even dealt with other children till she'd came here and all because she was an obvious oddity. They taught her right from wrong, showed her love and when that family broke up due to new assignments Alice always had that time to hold onto.

"Have you ever considered that it only takes the slightest change in a persons path to bring them to where their actions lead?" she mused with a sigh. "I lost all that time but there was an army nurse called Erica Harper who became a mother of sorts to me. The only thing I got from my birth parents was my name and my hair colour. She stopped me going of the rails and that was what led me here.The last I heard about her was when I was twelve and she left the service to go into civilian nursing.

I'll never get that time back but I can make up for what I lost" she replied. She took more of her drink and there was a lot she never got to do as a teenage girl. No going to a proper school, no prom.. you get the picture. Things people took for granted and she had years to catch up on.

Xander Dayspring