Also CUPCAKES! [Open]

[Annie Holmes]

While her friend and travel-mate Ginny wheeled her luggage into her dad’s office, a shorter Annie was carrying two three-tiered cupcake containers down the hall and into the staff lounge where she plopped them onto a table. Unhooking the lids she began to arrange the cupcakes on plates pulled from the pink bag that had been slung into the crook of one arm. Everything had to be perfect.

Teachers were so under appreciated, the ones at Hammel even more so. They did so much for the kids there, and all of them were super nice. They didn’t get thanked nearly enough so every time she and Ginny came into town, Annie made absolute certain to have fresh cupcakes ready. These, these were her crowning achievement of the week, a recipe she had tried only once before on her dads. Pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese icing placed to look like fall leaves. They weren’t as fancy as some of the ones she’d brought before, but they would certainly melt in the mouths of the employees.

For the students she’d already dropped off the carrot cake cupcakes in her sister’s room and Julie was running around passing them out. School, particularly boarding schools, were lonely places. Surrounded by people or not, you missed your family and Annie knew, from her sister, that several of the students felt like they’d been taken from their homes and away from those they loved. That had to be hard. She knew that it was hard for her being so far from her dads. Of course she missed her sisters too, but it helped to have Julie pretty close even if everyone else was scattered.

Being deaf, she didn’t hear the door to the staff room open, but she did catch the shadow as they passed behind her to reach around for a cupcake. Lifting her head she grinned into the friendly face and signed, “They are pumpkin!”

[Oberon Sparks]

Ronnie didn't actually come into the office all too often. Whenever there was work to be done at home, that's where she would be. It was easier that way, and even though Oberon was used to the fact that one of his duplicates was transgendered, not everyone else was, and he did still get questions about why he sometimes wore makeup and dresses.

But today Oberon needed some extra help with the expense accounts reports he was getting from the recruiters--and none of the others were any good at this--so he'd spawned her in his office, and she'd changed into the spare set of clothes he kept there. (Though Ronnie wouldn't wear the tie.)

But since she looked more or less like Oberon himself it didn't matter much who went to the office for coffee. "Hello?" Ronnie said, wondering who the girl setting out the desserts. She didn't turn around, right away. "Hello?"

Then the redhead turned and signed something, and it made sense. "Oh, sorry. I didn't realize. I'm.." And Ronnie tried to fumble her way through the fingerspelling Oberon had picked up one day when he was bored and looked up the signed alphabet online. "I'm Ronnie. Hi." Well, she was pretty bad at that. (She also might have accidentally spelled Rammie instead of her own name.)

"They look delicious," she said with a smile, picking one of the cupcakes up. She didn't know if the girl could read lips, but she hoped her enthusiasm made up for that.

The first bite was heaven. "Wow, these are fantastic. Pumpkin?" Much better than what Benny and Jude ever came up with, when they went on their baking kicks in the middle of the night. (And it took a lot of cookies and cupcakes to fill all the people who lived in their house.)

[Annie Holmes]

Grinning, Annie bobbed her red head and waved two fingers in front of her mouth to indicate that she could read lips so it wouldn’t be difficult for Rammmie/Ronnie to communicate. But by the way the other stumbled through the signing, he wouldn’t be able to keep up. Good thing she kept the iPad with her. Or at least her phone.

The reaction to her cupcakes was exactly why Annie did it. There was a moment of pure bliss when first biting into a cupcake. Something about the combination of flavor, smooth icing, and cakey goodness. It’s what she called the perfect moment. The apex of the bite, the second when time itself stops. It helped, too, that Ronnie’s expression conveyed every ounce of joy that Annie herself felt. Or, at least, that’s what she read in the eyes and upturn of lips.

Pulling the iPad from her bag, she made a few quick taps and a notepad appeared on the screen. A few more quick taps using the four major fingers and leaving out her thumb, Annie turned the screen around so Ronnie could read.

“I’m glad you like them! Don’t worry about not having known about the whole hearing thing. It’s not like I wear a sign on my back. : ) Besides, you like the cupcakes so it’s all good. I’m Annie and I promise I’m not trespassing, my sister attending and I figured the staff could benefit from some treats instead of scowls.”

Waiting until she got indication that Ronnie had read what had been typed, Annie turned it around and started typing again, her right hand flying across the screen’s keyboard before turning it around again.

“I was thinking about putting a request box for cupcakes in here. My sister, Julie, could collect it and get back to me with the most requested cupcake for the next weekend voyage. What do you think?” Once more she waited then held the iPad to her chest. They used to say one shouldn’t talk to strangers, but Annie’d never really paid much attention to that. There weren’t many stranger than her family and she was always the one passing out cupcakes and candy. Perhaps she was in a small minority of people who didn’t have some kind of weird stranger experience, but it had colored her whole life.

[Oberon Sparks]

Ronnie was relieved that the redhead could understand her, and even moreso when the iPad came out. (She was well aware she wasn't any good at the finger spelling.) "That's handy. It's nice to meet you, Annie." She took another bite of the cupcake, smiling as she did so. Mmm, there was something about biting into a pastry that could make anyone smile, even on their gloomiest days. As the teenager typed away at the device--that was the first time any one of the Oberon duplicated ever referred to an Apple product as "handy", by the way--she finished it off, carefully licking a smudge of frosting off of her fingertip before tossing the crumpled wrapper in the garbage.

"Oh, your sister goes here? What's her name?" As the accountant, Oberon didn't have regular access to the students, with the exception of a select few with wealthy parents who made contributions to the school. Ronnie had even less contact with them, since it was so rare she was spawned there at all. "And that is very kind of you. How long did it take you to make all of this?" Of the few students Ronnie actually was acquainted with, only one or two were of the "I hate school, I hate Hammel" variety," but she'd been there at one point as well, and she remembered the feeling of confinement. Back when Oberon had been enrolled, none of the duplicates would have taken the time or energy to produce so many treats for the staff.

Okay, seriously, was this girl an angel? Cupcake requests? She'd have to tell Jude and Benny about that one. "That sounds amazing. I work in the accounting office, so I don't have to deal with moody teenagers most of the time, but I'm sure the rest of the staff will appreciate it." She certainly did.

[Annie Holmes]

Reading Ronnie's lips, Annie glanced down only when the other was done speaking. Or she though the other was. Her fingers flew over the iPad typing up the answers to the questions that were graciously asked between bites of cupcake. It really was rewarding to see those she baked for enjoying the sweets of her labor.

"Julie Warrick, she's tiny, red headed, and cute as a button!" Annie was more than a little proud of her sister. Technically a half sister but her sister none the less and the "half" part never occured to any of the family. Holmes or Warricks. They were connected, the lot of them. But then, Annie loved without question. She loved everyone and with an openness that was uncommon. Or so she'd been told. "She speaks to cats," the typing continued, "Julie's awesome." Ah, the pride of a sister.

Looking up in time to catch the next bit of question, the colorful cupcake bearing teen resumed her one-handed typing. "I don't even know. I just like baking and cupcakes have always been a favorite of mine to make. I lose track of time when I do it." And had missed at minimum four classes because of it. Having learned from that lesson she no longer baked durring the daylight hours, but after her work had been done.

"As for being in the accounting offices and away from students, that doesn't mean you don't have to deal with the horrors of math." Granted if one was an accountant one probably enjoyed math more than the little bakeress did. It did, however, please her further that her idea about a suggestion box, though it puzzled her that people could continue to hate Hammel after being there.

She supposed she understood on a small level. Being taken away from family, having to deal with all of the teenagerly things on top of having an extraordinary ability that was developing and flaring.

A thought occured to her, amidst all of her other thoughts and Annie turned the iPad back to her to type again. An expression that could only be described as giddy lit her face. "We could set up a tray of cucpakes and coffee to take back to your office to share with the others, unless it's just you?" And if it was just Ronnie, then that was okay, locked away in an office crunching numbers all day couldn't possibly be healthy.

[Oberon Sparks]

Julie Warrick? No, didn't ring a bell for Ronnie, and she was pretty sure Oberon hadn't met her either.

"Aww!" Ronnie's face lit up at the mention of the girl's power. "I'd love to be able to talk to animals of any kind. We don't have a cat, but I have a rabbit and my housemate has a dog. He's a trainer here, so if he works with your sister, I bet he's going to want a cat as well." She grinned, then realized she'd skipped a vital part of the explanation. "Jude is a mimic, that's his power. So he comes home with random abilities all the time."

"The horrors of math" made her laugh though, and if Annie could have heard it, she would have been able to hear how feminine the giggles were. "I really do like what I do though. It's fun...okay, well it isn't really fun, but I like it anyway. It's just being presented with problems that I know how to solve, and that makes me feel good, you know?" She'd sat through enough boring accounting lectures in college that she knew what she had to do, and it was fulfilling to have a full day of work done.

And there was only so much fulfillment you can get from being the duplicate of a nerd.

"Thanks for the thought, but it's just me and Oberon up there today. So I guess just Oberon, that is. His power is duplication, and I'm one of the clones." Ronnie shrugged, long since used to having to explain that she was a clone of the school's accountant. "We're the entire office, because there never needs to be more than three of us at a time, but since we're all technically him, it's just the one salary." Hey, it worked for them. Most of the time the duplicates didn't even eat; they were usually absorbed back into him during meals, then respawned afterward. "But can I take just one up to him?"

[Annie Holmes]

A duplicate of a person? That didn’t make Ronnie any less of an individual than the original, at least not as far as Annie could tell. After all, it was Ronnie, and not the mentioned Oberon, who had eaten her cupcake. Which suggested to the young college student, that Ronnie had a digestive system, taste buds, and a need (maybe?) to eat. Admittedly, however, Annie didn’t know much about the different types of Meta, their abilities, or what they meant. She knew about her sister, because, well it was her sister.

Research would need to be done, clearly, for better understanding.

Annie nodded her understanding about feeling good when it came to solving problems. Even if those problems were of the mathematical nature, it still had to feel good. To be useful.

Flipping the iPad around, the tiny redhead pursed her lips as her fingers flew across the touch screen. “Only one salary, but the school is getting two or three bodies to work. Doesn’t that violate some labor laws?” She was truly curious, not being malicious, but curious. So many things about Metas were still in the grey area that people didn’t understand. The knowledge was always changing as new Meta’s were discovered with different abilities. Though the laws, Annie had seen, weren’t always fair, right, or in any way ethical. They were produced from fear. Nothing more.

There were activists and lobbyists who were trying to change things, to make it easier for the mass populace to understand, but it was going to be a long, rough haul. Maybe longer and rougher than the Gay Rights fight. Which was still being fought. Tooth and nail.

Remembering the question, slightly belatedly, about taking a cupcake up to Oberon, Annie smiled, it lit up her whole face when she did, and bobbed her head again. Red hair bounced around her face and shoulders as she did so, the side-swept bangs falling into her eyes, only to be pushed away again. As much as she loved the bangs, they sometimes got in the way. But they looked cute on her, so that overpowered any annoyance they might cause. Besides, that’s what headbands were for.

“You can take as many of the cupcakes to your... you? Other self? What’s the correct term for it, please, I’d really rather not offend or make a faux pas, please.” Turning the iPad around, Annie tilted her head to the left only slightly to indicate the question and that she was all ears, as it were.

[Oberon Sparks]

Oberon--and by extension, Ronnie and the rest of the Sparks duplicates--had only ever met one other meta with duplicating abilities before. Amanda had been several grades above them at Hammel, and her power had worked a lot differently. She'd been able to spawn as many duplicates as she wanted, so long as she had enough energy to maintain them. But they acted with a hive mind, and shared all of their experiences.

The Sparks, on the other hand, exhausted Oberon when they weren't spawned, which is why one or two was always around the firehouse. Memories, experiences, and physical state were only transferred one way, however, from Oberon to them. He wasn't going to get any recollection of this conversation with Annie, but she'd get his memories of working in the office next time she was absorbed.

The question made Ronnie smile. She'd realized a long time ago that some of the strongest pro-Meta campaigners weren't Meta themselves, but the humans closest to them. She had no doubt Rose would stick up for any of them, even Ron. "Not exactly. We still get paid for the hours I work. If we both put in four hours, it gets reported as him doing a total of eight hours of work. It's just easier that way, since he's always around, and it's really hard to pay taxes on someone who doesn't exist all the time, you know?" That had actually been a compromise reached by Oberon and the school board's financial advisor, though it had been used as a model for other duplicators in the business world since.

The woman headed over to the coffee pot and refilled the mugs she had been carrying. Technically, it was a bit superfluous for her to eat and drink, but it was comforting and delicious, so she often did it anyway. Then she found a napkin and crossed back to the table, before picking up another treat to bring back with her. "Just call him Oberon. I do. I guess his term would be originator or something, since we're all kind of him, but he's not really any of us."

That didn't make much sense, did it?

"What I mean is, we all respond to "Oberon", since we share his memories and he's the one who's always around. And next time I'm 'spawned' I'll have his memory of eating this," she said as she picked out a cupcake to bring up to him.

[Annie Holmes]

Annie really hoped that the man wasn’t saying something as he turned to fill the coffee mugs. Thankfully, when he returned to where he’d been before. Perhaps her question had been presumptuous, but with two gay fathers who were very active in the LGBTQ community Annie had learned how to ask what the proper terms would be so she didn’t inadvertently insult someone. Like, with the Transgender community, one always, always referred to the person with the terms the identified with. Her, for the M to F, and Him for the F to M’s. She didn’t understand why some people found it so difficult to figure out, or stick to, but then, she had to remember that not everyone was raised to it the same way she and her siblings were.

Fingers flew, as they often did, over the iPad again.

“That makes sense. Though. Just because you come from someone doesn’t mean you’re going to be them. There was a study one of my older sisters was really into regarding cloning. Being a twin, she said it was like science trying to recreate what nature already did. She said that being a ‘natural’ clone herself, but having a totally different personality than her twin was proof, combined with the study, that no matter how much you recreated the upbringing and scenarios that the original went through for the copy, didn’t mean they were going to be the same all the way around. Personality can’t be cloned.”

Had she made any sense? Reading over what she’d typed, Annie decided to go ahead with it, and added, “Oberon. That’s a fun name. From Shakespeare isn’t it? A king I think… I don’t remember.”

She was insanely interested in the relationship between originator and … copies? Clones? Spawns. No matter the word they all sounded slightly derogatory to the young college student, but if spawn worked for Ronnie, then who was she to disagree? It was fascinating, and Annie felt a little guilty for wanting to ask more and more questions. It wasn’t for her to dig that way. Ronnie, Oberon, and the others weren’t there for her entertainment. They were people, spawn or not.

Bobbing her head at the man as the cupcake was chosen, Annie grinned. Again. It was, quite possibly, the best feeling in the world to have someone enjoy her cupcakes so much they wanted the memory two fold.

[Oberon Sparks]

Ronnie smiled slightly and shook her head. She could absolutely believe that Annie was in college; she could remember being just as insistent that she knew exactly what was wrong with the world. "Personality can't be cloned, but I am going to be him, later today in fact. When it's time to go home, I'll be dematerialized and stop existing. That's what I meant by 'being him'. I'm different from him, but not entirely separate." It had taken some getting used to, but it was something she, Ron, and Ben had come to accept. Benny...well, he never had a mature approach to anything, and Obie still seemed to have issues with it, at least when he had to be dematerialized.

She was her own person...most of the time.

With a grin, she nodded at the question about Oberon's name. "He was king of the fairies, from A Midsummer Night's Dream. So of course he was asked to be in the school play junior year. He's lucky Ben could remember lines, because none of the rest of us could." Then, after a moment, she added, "Ben's another one of the duplicates. He's 'the cool one.'" The sarcasm might not have translated well through lip-reading, but her shit-eating grin certainly did.

Finally, she wrapped the cupcake up in a napkin to bring along with the coffees. "I really should be getting back. There's numbers to be crunched. Thank you for bringing these; I'm sure I'm not the only one who appreciates it." She picked up the mugs and grinned one last time. "I'm sorry, but if you see someone who looks like me, and is wearing a tie, that's Oberon. He's not going to remember meeting you, but I will. Thanks for the cupcakes."