Jin stood on the disembarkation area of the Nedjer Class shuttle from Novo Paradisio, the 64th Flying City. She tried hard to be dispassionate about her refusal of entry. She pondered the hostility of the girl that looked so much like a skinny, younger version of Toxic, who regarded her from twenty feet away. Jin said flatly, "It's not polite to stare." The girl, that someone had remarked to be Neon, hadn't blinked all the time she had taken up a position guarding the emergency room door from intruders. Which Jin apparently was. Neon asked without preamble, in a curious tone, "Can I ask you a question, hate-filled bitch? Why do you want everyone to hate your guts?" Jin blinked her one good eye and almost laughed, trying not to recoil from the painful barb. "What? What in hell did I do to you?" Neon said reasonably, as one of the Meshite Nurses carried out a tray of food through the nano-tech curtain from the emergency room, "Plenty. You're a plague-carrier, which is bad enough for most people---but you inflict your 'diseaseness' on EVERYONE by not being courteous enough to even wear an eye-patch! You want people to shun you and be repugnant by flashing an empty eye-socket, and naked skull-bone, I'm just curious about why. You don't give a rat's ass about yourself....how can you care about 'Toxic'?" Jin boiled inside. This barb had found it's target, deep inside of her. She blinked and wanted to throttle the girl for her wise-mouthed comments. She heard the sarcastic way that Neon had said Toxic's name and heard the pain behind it, combined with...jealously? The Meshite Nurse in the apron asked Jin, "Are you hungry? I brought you something to eat if you are. I mean...even if you cannot enter the hospital. Being one of the Blighted and...such." Jin clenched her fists and answered slowly, "I've lost my appetite. I'm NOT contagious. Yet. I have to have ALL my skin peel off an start screaming as a Red Howler. THEN I'd be a danger. Since I'm offending people by standing around here, I'll go back in and sit down in the shuttle cockpit." Jin turned and stomped off into the interior of the shuttle. Inside the curtain, Jav frowned and stared hotly at the back of Neon's neck. Lil swaggered up, toting her pulse-blaster, and cape and said off-handedly, "I can see why you two broke up. Neon sure does have a mouth on her!" Jav replied in a surly tone, "Cork it,Lil!" He wasn't sure why Neon had come back into the city, but he was sure it boded ill. He just didn't know for whom it bode ill for. --To Be Continued-- Media is Poser 6