Jon thought for a moment. Maybe...well, Karyn was right. She wasn't going to help things by running herself ragged trying to stay absolutely on top of anything, and she probably couldn't do that anyway. She'd do better, she'd think better and make better decisions, if she were in good emotional health. Maybe...maybe getting out and relaxing a bit was exactly what she needed.
She smiled. "You know, yeah. We could go somewhere and get some dinner after school." Besides, she was curious about Tim's family - all she really knew about family dynamics in this new world were what she had observed from her own family; Karyn didn't have any siblings and her parents were unchanged, which seemed to be the case with the only other students she really knew - well, except Sarah, but she figured Sarah and her parents were still probably figuring things out themselves; they didn't need her getting involved. She'd like to observe them a little more - besides, they seemed like nice people.
And anyway, he seemed nice enough too. Jon knew she really could stand to broaden her social life a little; they'd probably have a pretty good time going out for a bite. It'd be fun.
Terri answered the door to see a man in a trenchcoat, wearing a mask of some sort, and a robot-woman. "Can I help you?" he asked.
The man nodded. "I'm Agent Hawkins, and this is Agent Pennsbrook. I spoke with you yesterday wanting to interview your family about your involvement in the Hedgeton incident?"
The scruffy-looking anime man searched his memory for a moment, then brightened. "Ah, right, you were the ones Adam talked to. Why don't you come in. Can I get you anything?"
"Coffee'd be great, if you have some on," Hawkins said. Cecilia shook her head. "I'm fine, thanks."
"Oh, I'll put some on," Terri said. He went to the base of the stairwell. "Toby! Riley!" he hollered. "Company's here!"
Hawkins and Cecilia took a seat in the living room while their host went off to put on coffee. There was a thudding above them, and they saw a girl come down the stairs and enter the living room. Hawkins wasn't sure it was a girl at first - she seemed simultaneously feminine and boyish, and it wasn't until he noticed that she was an early bloomer, for someone who looked eleven or twelve, that he was able to place her. After that things fell into place in the new context, and it wasn't so confusing...though she did seem awfully tomboyish.
He looked her over, trying to figure out whether she was changed, or whether the white-with-purple-tips hair was a dye job. The heterochromia...okay, he wasn't sure about that. Of course people could have different eye colors naturally, but he'd thought it was usually a variation in shades. Was it possible for this, the girl's pink and blue eyes, to be naturally-occurring? Pink eyes only happened in the case of albinism, right? ...no, wait, they were the wrong color of pink for albinism, closer to magenta than to red. Probably changed, then. Funny, though, he thought the write-up on the incident at the Coopers' house had mentioned a daughter and a son.
"Go easy on the stairs, Riley, we've only got the one set." Hawkins looked to see the speaker just coming downstairs herself. This must be Toby, if he remembered the bit about Collins's case correctly. She hardly looked to be in her 20s, on the shorter side even for that, wearing a longish navy-blue skirt and simple white blouse. He thought for a moment that she had a cigarette dangling from her lips, but realized it was the stick of a sucker, which she was rolling absent-mindedly around in her mouth. The nature of her animation-aura made it a bit tricky to judge things like that - it was merely a thin white shape, and he could only really tell by the movements that it was attached to something and not hanging loose.
"Sorry, dad," the girl said, in a not-especially-sorry voice. Toby sighed, smiling slightly to herself, and banded her blue hair, apparently still drying from a shower, into twin ponytails. She turned to the living room and saw her guests, smiled, and gave a little bow, from which she stood back up looking slightly surprised and puzzled, like she hadn't expected her own action. "You must be Mr. Hawkins, I assume?" she said. "And your partner...?"
"Cecilia Pennsbrook," the gynoid said. "Nice to meet you."
Toby nodded and smiled, then took on a more businesslike air. "I'm sure you're anxious to get to business. How much did Adam tell you?"
"She explained how her actions were the source of the incident, and she required the help of a third party to put things back to some semblance of normal," Hawkins replied. "After okaying it with you, she informed us that that third party was your daughter. I assume...Riley...here is the daughter in question?"
Riley giggled softly to herself. "...and son," she murmured.
"Yes, that's right," Terri said, bringing in two cups of coffee, and handing one to Hawkins. "Cream or sugar?"
"Black, thanks," the masked man replied. "Riley, we both owe you a thank-you for what you did. Can you tell me, how exactly was it that you were able to reconnect Hedgeton to our world?"
Riley looked questioningly at her father, who nodded. "Well," she said, "when we changed...we became a...a magical girl. I'm One. And I was thinking-"
"Pardon me," Hawkins interrupted. "Who's 'we?'"
Riley snickered. "Charley and Anna, of course! We became One when we changed."
He raised an eyebrow, looking to Toby and Terri. "So the writeup was correct - you do have two children?"
Terri nodded. "Do, or did...Riley says both are present within her. They chose to expose themselves to the sun after I did."
"I see." Hawkins looked over to Cecilia, who nodded slightly - she was taking note of this. He was grateful that he worked in intelligence, not the Census Office - this kind of thing meant they were definitely going to have their hands full in 2020. "So the two became..." Something clicked in his mind, one of those connections that he was never certain were connections, but felt like they ought to be investigated. "You said 'I'm One.' As in, the number?"
