By the way, though this won't become apparent until Session 14, internal chronology requires that these events take place about a month after last session. Don't know if any of you folks is enough of a Mage-summary geek to actually keep track of such things, but there it is.

Anyway, to begin:

Dropped off on the doorstep of a heavily-warded motel room, Jasmine soon met her self-appointed "guardian angel," the famed Virtual Adept encryption specialist known as Archangel. The woman explained that Jasmine had drawn Technocratic attention with her recent encryption of the school's records as part of a HALF prank. Not only was the encryption scheme notably advanced, but it incorporated some of Archangel's own code, a definite red flag to the Technos (from whose ranks Archangel had defected some years before). Jasmine recalled that the prank had actually been the work of her *future* self, during the two days she had been living in said future self's body in 2014, and explained as much to Archangel. Fortunately, the older Virtual had had experience with such things, and readily believed Jasmine's story. Nevertheless, she cautioned the kid to take a lesson in security from the incident, and to keep a lower profile in the future. Jasmine worried about that, as she was obviously a gifted child -- perfect Technocracy recruitment fodder, as Archangel herself had once been -- and did not particularly want to hide her talents. Would she have to drop her private tutoring arrangement -- also her older self's contribution -- and go back to the computing-for-the-brain-dead class she hated? Fortunately, that would not be required; Archangel's research had shown Jasmine still listed as a member of the slower class, and she recommended that the kid manipulate the records to keep it that way, thus hiding her gifts from prying eyes without having to shortchange herself. Beyond that, Archangel could offer little advice on how to achieve public success in a science or technology field without attracting Technocratic attention; she herself, one of the Technocracy's Most Wanted, roamed the nation with her boyfriend and children in a charter bus that was part of a gypsy caravan. While she was one of the most gifted mathematicians ever born, few outside the mage community knew of her prowess, and fewer still knew her real name.

  In the course of the conversation, Archangel realized that Jasmine's upbringing in a chantry of adult mages -- all naturally adept at protecting and keeping secrets from those they considered less capable than themselves -- had actually kept the kid from being schooled thoroughly in several of the more important (if seemingly ruthless) principles of survival and success as a Virtual Adept. She offered her services as a part-time mentor, with the understanding that the favor Jasmine already owed her for helping out in this instance had just gotten larger.

 Asked what was being done to divert the Technocratic investigation, Archangel explained that she was presently reworking Future Jasmine's encryption job to eliminate the borrowings from her own work and generally make the whole thing look less sophisticated. Meanwhile, her associates in town would be arranging a distraction for the Technocratic agents on the ground. If all went well, Jasmine should be able to return to school the following evening. In the meantime, Archangel suggested the kid get some sleep.

 Meanwhile, back at school. . . .

The boys (Ivan, Vincent, and Tyler) were the first to arrive at breakfast. Tyler had been warned about the Technocratic surveillance, and passed that information on to the other two. For the next day or so, they would need to behave as normally as possible, to avoid drawing unfriendly attention. Vincent, who had joined the group only after the mind-switch and the final HALF campaign, didn't fully understand what had happened to make them targets. Before the other boys could explain, though, Kelli arrived with her usual daily dose of gossip. This time, she'd heard there was to be a carnival in the nearby town.

 "By the pricking of my thumbs. . ." quoted Vincent.

 ". . . Something wicked this way comes," Ivan finished with a grin.

 Kelli just stared at the two Brits in confusion, clearly not getting the double literary reference. An exasperated Ivan finally reached into Kelli's mind and planted a strong suggestion that she had left her curling iron on. Naturally, the airhead immediately dashed back to her room, leaving the boys alone.

 To head off further interruptions, and as an added security measure, the three agreed to rendezvous in the subterranean library. On the way, Tyler stopped off to pick up Melanie. That prompted Vincent to ask about the situation between Ivan and Mel; he had noticed, over the past month, a certain discomfort in Ivan whenever Mel was nearby. Ivan seemed to resent the intrusion, and made it clear that the subject was a painful one. However, he explained the business about the Sacred and the Profane that his older self had helped him realize, and Vincent seemed to understand. Just then Tyler returned with Mel herself in tow, and Ivan felt compelled to mutter "Speak of the devil and he shall appear" -- which earned him a rather nasty glare from Mel and prompted him to add an apology to his mutterings.

  Arriving at the library, the four discussed their situation. Vincent was told a little about HALF and the encryption of the school records (though no one mentioned the time travel business). As part of their plan to behave normally, they decided to visit the mall. Ivan called Corinna, who wheedled transportation out of her idiot high-school boyfriend Brett, and the group was good to go.

  As they neared the mall, the group discovered that Kelli had been right: there actually was a carnival in town. What's more, the carnival exuded a definite signature of magick. The boys decided to investigate, sending Mel and the two mundanes on ahead to the mall. Corinna, being no fool, suspected what was up and asked if there were weirdness afoot of the sort that usually dogged Tyler's side of the family. Impressed with Corinna's intuition, Tyler and Ivan confirmed her suspicions. Fortunately, Corinna wasn't all that interested in learning more about her cousin's stranger activities, so once her question was answered she went on to the mall with the other two.

  Checking out the carnival, the boys quickly noticed that it was a gypsy-run enterprise. Asked if he spoke Romany, Vincent shook his head but allowed that he could probably pick it up given a bit of exposure. Once again, Tyler and Ivan found themselves a bit unnerved by the new kid's talent for languages.

  While they were considering what approach to take, the boys were flagged down by an extraordinarily thin and pale man who seemed to recognize Tyler. He led them into a battered old bus that was parked nearby. Inside were a pair of slightly older teenagers -- one boy and one girl -- and another little girl maybe a year or so old. The man who'd brought the boys there introduced himself as Aristotle, one of the mages called in to distract Technocracy attention away from the kids. The gypsies running the carnival were all friends of his family; between their activities and Ari's driving around sending up flares of magick, it was hoped that the Technocratic agents on the scene would be too distracted to focus their scrutiny on the Academy. Meanwhile, the kids were to go about their normal activities.

  So the boys returned to the mall and hooked up with the girls and Brett. They shopped at the bookstore. Ivan bought an 11-volume set of The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire as a Christmas present for his father, and a new copy of Paradise Lost for himself. Vincent bought the Kama Sutra and Paradise Regained.

  While Vincent was finishing up his purchases, Tyler and Ivan waited outside the store, and saw Corinna walk up with a companion whom they recognized as the older girl from Aristotle's bus. Corinna introduced the newcomer as Star Wright, who had apparently decided to hang out with the group for awhile. Since Star was dressed in the fashion of her gypsy friends, that would require a change of clothes if the kids were to maintain the necessary low profile. Fortunately, they were in a mall, and Corinna was the Queen of Shopping, well versed in remaking the images of those less sophisticated in fashion than she. She hustled Star off to buy clothes. Meanwhile, Vincent came out of the store, having decided to get some new duds as well. The other two boys went with him.

  Finally everyone met back up. Vincent saw that Star had joined the group, and the other two boys caught him muttering in French about how pretty she was. Immediately Tyler and Ivan took it as their personal mission to fix the two up, and perhaps cure Vincent of some of his shyness, just as Ivan had done for Simon earlier.

 The collected group decided to take in a movie, and settled on the new Bond flick. At the theater, Ivan and Tyler conspired to make sure that Vincent and Star were sitting next to each other. Meanwhile, Corinna persuaded Brett to sit at one end of the row, then sat herself down at the other end next to Ivan, with whom she spent most of the movie making out. (Did we mention that Brett is a complete idiot?)

  Immediately after the movie finished, Vincent hightailed it out of the auditorium without a word to anyone else. Star asked after Vincent, and Ivan told her that he thought Vincent had a thing for her. Then he realized that he had no idea where Vincent had gone, or why. He caught Tyler's eye and the two headed for the lobby to locate their runaway friend.

  They found Vincent in the restroom, obviously under a great deal of stress. When he saw the two of them, his nervousness turned immediately to anger. Though they tried to deny it, Vincent knew that they had deliberately tried to push him and Star together, and he didn't appreciate it. He reminded the other two of his unusual upbringing, and his difficulty in socializing with peers. Making small talk with anyone was hard enough for him, and even more so when the person was a girl he found attractive. Tyler and Ivan insisted that they had only been trying to help him out a little, and he replied in no uncertain terms that he neither wanted nor needed their help. If he wanted to talk to Star or anyone else, he would do it at his own pace and in his own way. Vincent concluded the conversation by stomping out of the restroom, leaving the other two to ponder the error of their ways.

  The ride back to school was mostly silent. Vincent immediately headed for the art building to de-stress by working on his sculpture. The other two boys retired to Tyler's room, where they discussed Vincent's personality and the mistakes in their approach to getting him a date. Ivan, of course, thought Vincent was just overreacting, but Tyler argued that he did need to be handled with unusual care. Though brilliant, Vincent had practically no social skills, much like Simon before Ivan had begun helping him out. Of course, Ivan had commenced Simon's socialization by getting the boy drunk, and he began to wonder if the same course of action would work on Vincent. The discussion was cut short when the boys glanced out the window and noticed an unmarked white van in the parking lot. Quite possibly the Technocrats hadn't been as distracted as Aristotle had hoped.

  Meanwhile, while hard at work, Vincent was approached by a pair of adults whose demeanor screamed "Fed." Sure enough, their names began with "Agent," and in humorless tones they began asking questions about the hacking job on the school files. Vincent pleaded ignorance, and the two seemed to believe him. They handed him a card with a number where they could be reached, in case he should notice or remember anything later. Vincent's magickal senses immediately told him the card was impregnated with multiply-redundant tracking devices, and as soon as the two agents had turned their backs, he threw it away. Then, as they left, he overheard the female agent recommending to her partner that "the Elliot boy" would likely have some of the answers they sought.

  While still debating what to do about the likely surveillance van, Tyler and Ivan got a call from Vincent, who warned them that two Technocratic operatives were on their way to question Tyler. The three decided to relocate to the subterranean library until the heat was off. Fortunately, Tyler and his roommate Brandon had already worked out a series of common excuses to be given to parents, teachers, resident advisors, and other nosy authority figures when one or the other of them was absent. Tyler instructed Brandon to use Excuse #5 on the agents, and he and Ivan proceeded to scram, taking an alternate route to meet Vincent at the art building. Told about the business card, Ivan decided that simply discarding it was insufficient; telling Vincent to wait in the library, he took the card and headed off-campus with Tyler, where he stuck the tracking device to the underside of an outgoing Greyhound bus. Then the two rendezvoused with Vincent in the library.

  No sooner had they started to discuss their next move than Star showed up. She explained that her family was in the process of leading the Technos on an even more wild goose chase. Meanwhile, she'd been sent to insure that the boys were thoroughly hidden. She'd brought along several Technocratic toys of her own, countersurveillance devices which she began setting up around the room. The gizmos were supposed to spoof the Technocratic sensors well enough that they would be safe anywhere in the building.

  Hearing that, Vincent headed upstairs to work on his sculpture some more (and to keep from having to talk to the others). Star followed him, however, and gently asked him about himself. Never once actually looking at her, Vincent described his childhood, explaining that while he hadn't meant to hurt her feelings, he still had difficulty socializing. Indeed, that was why his parents had finally insisted on sending him to a regular school. To his surprise, Star said that they were actually more alike than not. She herself had been born and reared in a Technocracy creche school until a couple of years back, and had yet to fully adjust to normal life. She gave Vincent an email address through which they could keep in touch.

  Shortly thereafter, Star got word from her family that the coast was clear. She collected her devices and departed, and the boys prepared to return to their lives.

That's all for this time. The next installment gives us the long-awaited debut performance of _Faust_, and launches us into the European Vacation storyline. It's coming soon. . . .