@chloevlinder
top ten things the scarab latched onto your spinal column says that make you ask what the fuck is artron energy, #1:
<< ALERT :// ARTRON ENERGY DETECTED >>
alice has been standing in front of a tree that definitely wasn't there before her class. she knows it wasn't, even though the trunk is wider than she is, because she's trying to figure out how to get her bicycle out from behind it. alice circles it one way and then the other.
okay, i'll play nice. she doesn't really like talking to scarab, even inside her head, but desperate times. what is a tree doing here and what the fuck is artron energy?
and then it shows her something — well, kind of amazing. a slight shift in perception, and she can see it, the blue light shimmering all over the surface. a literal-minded part of her insists, but it's a tree.
it isn't a tree. it just looks like a tree.
what does artron energy do?
alice blinks and whatever scarab did shutters off again, but not before she sees the woman on the street corner. the same shimmer wafts around her, like a perfume. alice doesn't ask if it's dangerous. ignoring scarab's warnings, she just hares off after her.
all breathless and quizzical: "hey, is that your time machine? it's, uh, parked in front of the bike rack."