He chews on that, then smiles. "Then I suppose it'd be shitty of me to let you down." He grabs some hardware - special speakers and high clarity cables - and wheels on over to his computer to get set up. For the next little while, he does little experiments, trying to find frequencies the pod seems to respond to. At first it seems like whatever he tries, the same looping 'message' is being broadcast.

Ishte seems to be the one who notices it first, however, on one particular experiment, head lifting up to listen to the new, synthesized sound. The pod is next, the music stopping for a moment before responding with a low, thrumming 'melody.' Then silence, as if waiting for a response.

Kenan listens to it intently and makes notes, then tries different things. It takes a while, and the music back and forth isn't exactly one that gets the adrenaline flowing. "I think I have a basic sort of vocabulary. That is assuming her responses had a ... human-ish reasoning behind them, anyway. So... let's try it. I'll probably still sound like a tourist, but, here we go..."

He sends a melody through, longer than the other. There's a long moment of silence, then the golden form within the pod seems to... lean, or turn, towards the humonculus form next to it. Then it responds with a single, could-be-affirmative-maybe? synth sound.

Looking at it earlier tonight - or yesterday night, it's well in the little hours of the morning - she would have had no earthly idea how to open it. But after having stabilized it and given it power, she knows precisely how it works. Lacking the password doesn't really mean anything when you have symbols and rare meatls etched into the material itself, and it responds to her. Then the manual part of unlatching the 20 or so catches until there's a hiss of pneumonics.

The glass raises. The figure disappears, not visible without the strange polarizing panel, but the shard is all too visible. It does seem to have a solid core, some crystaline formation from which all that energy is coalesced into and around, but it's hard to tell - it's like looking at the arc of a welding torch, just on a more visible-light spectrum.

For a moment, it sits there while the pod powers down its containment. The shard vibrates and twitches in place before it shoots at startling speeds out of the pod, cuts a sharp angle, and crashes into the body.

Light fills every nook and cranny of it, from the skull to the feet. Details begin to be filled out, first with golden light - hair and eyes and flesh and fat and skin until there is this ...avatar of the sun laying on the ground, drawing a first breath with a synthetic gasp, glowing eyes opening.

Then she slumps back down and the light fades... leaving a nude, 30-something matronly, looking blonde woman, unconscious on the ground. She has that same sort of synthetic perfectness that Ishte has, both because of the body Seshat built for her having been made symmetrical, but even the little detail coverings have been encouraged into symmetry and textbook anatomy.

Seshat can still feel her program in the joints and limbs, though she does not feel the need to filter her own ability into them. Clearly, the shard within is doing just fine keeping them fueled and functioning.

There's just silence except for Seshat's stuff still humming away... everything else seems to have shut off, from the lights to the computer and cameras.

It takes a bit for her to stir, eyes fluttering open slowly. They're rather bright looking silver with specks of gold, and she slowly sits up, with the large volume of her hair draped along her back like a cape. She looks up at Seshat, then at Kenan, then at Ishte, where she freezes for a moment. She reaches up to grab the other woman's wrist, quickly speaking in a tongue that is not English, and doesn't seem entirely possible for vocal cords to form, like it requires having two voice boxes at very slightly different timbers working independently. It seems urgent, though.

Ishte looks surprised, both at being seen and being touched with such ease - the movement alone would have felt like moving a dumbbell for Seshat to do - and at being spoken to. "I... I feel like I know what she is saying, but I do not know how to respond."

"It is difficult to translate directly. It is not knowledge as it is translating from Spanish or Greek. More like intuition." She crouches down by the woman, however, listening intently. "I think she is... asking me, if I know anything about the..." She bites her lip, uncertain.

"Sundering? Breakage? Something along those lines. I am afraid I am ignorant, however."

R&D has managed to reboot his computer and routed some power back some of his equipment, though the entire lab is on low-power mode, which means Seshat's scarabs are still the only source of recording capability.

{Gathering information based on the recording,} Kin-and-Six chimes in. {I will try to isolate patterns.}

The woman is warmer than normal, radiating no small amount of heat. Shamsa turns to her, seeming to take her re-assuring tone and, slowly, the tension leaves her body. She reaches up and touches the side of Seshat's mask, leaving behind a feeling of warmth. "It's... oh, kay," she repeats. "Figure... this, out."

Followed by a few words. Ishte looks to Seshat. "She says she feels confused. Or her memories do, though they felt like one and the same."

"I'll keep on trying to make progress with what little I have. She seems able to absorb English pretty quickly, so maybe with some visual aids I can give her a vocabulary."

R&D gives her a smile and nods his head at her. "Thanks, but it'd have been for naught if you hadn't been there to use it. Take a kip."

For a time, a mere minute or two after landing on the seat, she's dragged down into sleep. Dreams of the more regular persuasion come and go, her mind too exhausted to seek out more meaning than simple comforts. But ultimately, she does find herself standing on an all too familiar platform overlooking an all too familiar void.

She has her stairs that lead to Ishte's platform, where the blue girl stands, impassive and out of time. Far away, still out of reach, is the red brother and his ever present, oversized vigil. The green glitch continues to flicker and morph on that other platform. There's a lack of stairs yet, though she can make out a faint figure near her.

But a new one has joined them. A central staircase leads up to a larger, wider, thicker and more elaborate platform, adorned in symbols of Seshat's own making - those she put in Shamsa's new body. It's inhabited by a great golden figure. She's a far cry from the confused, panicked wreck in the laboratory. She has her head head held high and a stoic, regal look about her as her hair billows in an unseen wind. She's clad in an Ishte-style bodysuit of a golden color, but unlike her, it's decorated with elaborate armored pieces - a breast plate, bracers, thigh guards and boots - that are filigreed with ruby red, gemstone looking writing and patterns. It makes her look militaristic, decorated and important.

And yet, the puzzle finds an ever increasing number of pieces fall into her possession. One day.

"Reflecting," she answers, the golden figure significantly taller than most people, and her voice has a womanly depth to it. She looks down at her with more curiosity and seeming awareness than platform-Ishte ever displayed. "My memories are in disarray and very incomplete, and I must organize what remains to make as whole a picture as I can."

Then she nods. "I know who you are. Your power pulses within me. Without it, my tale would have ended prematurely, and another's would have started."

She looks back towards the void. "Do you regret doing it?"

"Were that this credo of yours be more universal. I feel the situation would be vastly different."

"At the moment, I can say little, because I have little to say. My memories are in disarray. I am confused. Falling is not gentle, let alone being contained after that fall. That is why I have been reflecting. To begin recovering myself." She glances down at Seshat.

"I can tell you there has been a sundering. They... shattered something. I was deposed." She frowns. "Worse is yet to come, there and here."

"I can feel it coming back to me, slowly. I will have more to say, and more to explain. But you will have to forgive my lack of an elaborate grasp on your language. I can only use your brain here, where time has both already flown and has yet to."

Shamsa seems to take some time to look them over, mulling over words and feelings. "...volunteers. We needed information on what lay beyond. But simply jumping inside would just result in..." She motions at Seshat's chest indicatively.

"So they went inside in a way to ensure they would not land. I... have nothing else at the moment. I have a feeling they should have long since come home, but ... clearly that did not work out."

"I believe ours has ... sucked ... a lot lately as well. We may not be as different as you think." She manages to quirk a little smile.

"You need rest as well. Go. Dream. It is good for you, and for yours. I will see you again where time moves."

Why yes she did make the body anatomically correct. Shamsa can thank her later - she's an artist and has pride in her creations.

No help for it - she stretches, joints popping, and goes to get a quick shower and changes into her casual linen dress, then she makes her way to get some food. She was sore, tired, hungry, and thirsty, so this'll help straighten her out. No use pretending the government doesn't know who she is, but no sense going public either.

{Hey Dad. I've had kind of a busy couple days.}

She gets him caught up - though not without gushing about the Dragonfly and her own incredible genius in constructing Shamsa's body.

{Deal, Dad.}

She stares at the internal text for a while, thinking about the shard they share. Her fingers twitch as if typing.

{Love you.}

She sighs.

If it came to it, would she take his power from him? She might - it feels like she's been gagged and chained, and she doesn't even know for sure what they could do together.

Time to go meet the newest refugee in person.

"Morning, everyone," she calls in a chipper voice as she enters the mess hall. She looks at the goddess from another world and smiles, coming over to clasp her hands. "How is the body holding up?"

"I have! Iry's mastery of the kitchen is undisputed." She's not remotely surprised that she can eat and drink.

"How have you been settling in, Shamsa? I was glad when I saw that the suits hadn't hauled you off to DC." La Lame's political connections at work.