[b]Earth:[/b]

Rudy’s escape pod will land safely. 

Then he will be trawled out of the ocean off the coast of New Zealand, and taken to his mansion. It was a bargain, really - Real-estate on Earth got a lot cheaper with 90% of the population gone, one way or the other. 

Then he will realize how much he preferred the intimacy of his apartment. He will roam the opulent corridors like a restless spirit. He will try to catch up on the books he never had time for, and put them down after only twenty pages. He will start a show he has always been told is good, get up to get himself a drink, and come back to the still-paused television hours later to turn it off. 

He will rub the hair off his arms in a cold sweat, and his fingernails will dig into pudgy wrists, and he will remember what Orange told him. 

It will cause him to go to the people in earnest. To go to bars, to community centers, to the farmers markets. Life will not be post-apocalyptic, just deeply rural even in the old cities. Something, on the other side of this world, a mouse named Marco had been growing to appreciate more and more.

Rudy will despair, because as hard and as sincerely as he tries, he will find no one with Purpose. At first this is because he believes he is bad at this, but with dawning horror he suspects that most people simply [i]don’t[/i]. He’s known people like that, he knows what it looks like when he sees it, and he left all of them behind on Aevum. That ‘many’ might only be true when you can select from a large enough population, larger than he has now. 

And then the depression will grow dark, and he will be grateful for it, because under the smothering neurochemical blanket he will at least be able to lose days to games of Victoria 6.

He won’t drink. Every time he considers a second glass of whiskey, he will instead reflexively reaches for his phone first and stare at his secure email inbox for a solid ten seconds, thinking he needs to stay sharp in case someone asks him to make the numbers [i]dance[/i] again. 

Now, though, Rudolph Merkin covers his eyes with the brim of his porkpie hat. He stares out the aquarium glass of Selene down at the faraway Earth and wonders what it’ll be like, to finally be able to relax. 

[b]Bondi:[/b]

Bondi is a woman this year. She changes her mind on that one now and again, going back and forth between Bondi and Bond. She’s not so much ‘non-binary’ as she is ‘alternating current’, a maximal commitment to one presentation or the other. Both those presentations reflect the kind of Swedish descent that just screams the Magnussons family wealth shared a vault with Nazi gold.

He was Bond when he took up magic; he was tall, with a flustered but confident smile and raked back blonde hair. Achingly handsome if you’re into guys who look like they play tennis, and a kind of innocent mischievousness to him. You’re pretty sure he fell into magic as a way of pulling off a prank without victims. He’s a fratboy in photographs and a schoolboy in videos.

Bondi’s better at it, though. Bond’s charisma is that of an earnest real-estate agent doing his best, but you know he’s got the job because his Dad owns the company. In Bondi, things just click. The flustered smile is more endearing, the confidence more charming. That same energy of ‘I’m out of my depth, but I’m trying my best’ that are frustrating in Bond, gives Bondi the resonance of an anime protagonist. 

Her spirit animal is the Easter Bunny. Tall, a cascade of blonde hair, it is almost offensive to describe her beyond that; A hip to waist ratio most people need a corset to achieve, distractingly large breasts, and a thigh gap you could throw grapes through. 

This becomes relevant when the base of her magician costume is a leotard and fishnets. Sure, later it’ll be more kid-friendly looking when she’s also wearing tailcoats, a cape and the silk tophat. But for now-

“You should be my assistant!” Bondi leans forward excitedly on tippy-toe, holding up a butler’s suit in November’s size on a coat hanger. “It’s always so much more fun with an assistant!” 

Let’s chalk those details up to being a potential operational asset. She’s not going to be a deliberate seductress, but apparently it only takes minor alterations to her costume to render her an effective distraction - Just ask Orange. 

[b]Red:[/b]

Welcome back, by the way. Anything you've felt like you've missed, anything that you want to catch up on? Anything different about your new body this time around, now that finances are less tight than last time (even if you [i]are[/i] still giving most of it away)?

Is it worth asking why Sophie's texting you seeing if you still want to help out, some time?