The strangest place she’s ever seen

Gone was the cold metal.

Jentorra fell forwards, sprawling, no longer able to rest her weight against the panel. Instantly alert, she jumped up, still reeling.

There had been a moment of disorientation that had seemed to stretch on, a whirl of sensation she couldn’t even begin to describe. Now she was… she wasn’t sure where.

Was that what Kang had been making? Some kind of transportation device?

The ground was warm, but it was the wrong kind of warmth - it was cold and unyielding, more like Kang’s Citadel than any home or hide-out she’d ever had, but even then it wasn’t metal. Green fur stretched out ahead of her, tickling her body, and quickly reminded her of her current naked situation.

Then she heard voiced. Jentorra quickly shifted her weight back, poised to pounce, processing a thousand new sensations as once.

The green below her tickled like cilia, brushing against her shins, and bare feet, but when she applied too much **** to it then it gave way. Her fingertips came back streaked with a brown she first took for some sort of blood, but no, it was dry - some sort of sediment, perhaps/ As she rocked back into a crouching position, she felt the green slide between her toes.

But if it was cilia, it was for a creature far larger than any she’d seen - it stretched out as far as the eye could see, only to vanish beneath something solid and grey.

None of the swirling mist she was used to, no boson-trees or fields of Higgs. Above her was a stark, eerie emptiness - none of the vast gateways she knew, the whorls in reality. Instead there was just blue, wisps of white a pale imitation of the quark-clouds she knew.

A burning orb made her flinch - it reminded her of Xolum’s head, or a predator-crobe like she’d learned to avoid. But no, this one was still, and distant, looking impassively down at her. The bare skin of her back warmed below its gaze.

And then there were people. They were disconcertingly uniform, a species similar to her own, with no sign of beings like Veb or Xolum in their ranks.

And they were staring. Jentorra quickly flushed. The overwhelming bevy of new feelings didn’t quite make her forget that she’d given up her clothes in her attempt to get closer to the generator.

Her eyes widened. She stumbled, turning in slow disbelief, her situation slowly sinking in. There were no panels here, no cover to hide behind anywhere near her, just dozens of people all around the green cilia-field, attention caught by the nude freedom fighter crouched in their midst.

Jentorra ran. Instinct carried her, despite the unfamiliar sensation of the alien ground under her bare feet. She felt dozens of eyes on her, heard murmurs and incoherent voices, and felt all too out in the open. She crossed one arm rightly across her firm chest, hurrying for the first thing she saw - there was a spire of some kind by the border of the green, brown and branching out at the top. She dove for it, meaning to slip behind, only to see yet more people on the other side.

She stumbled, skidding to a halt a few steps from the spire, whirling on the spot. She was still barely sure of where she was, and now she had no idea where to go, if there even was anywhere secluded in this place. Everywhere she turned, there were people.

There were huge, blocky things that seemed more like vast walls than anything, encircling the narrow grey walkway around the green. She didn’t even want to try scaling them, especially in her current condition.

Was this some kind of enclosure, some place Kang sent specimens? Jentorra slipped a hand between her lips, covering awkwardly, eyes wide.

“Jentorra?!”

And then heard someone speak - she turned, to see someone else staring at her, though at least this face was more familiar. Though that did serve to make her blush deepen.

“Cassie?” Jentorra said. “What are you doing in this place?”

“What am I doing- what are you doing here?” Cassie said. “I go to college here! I didn’t think we were taking quantum excha-a-ange, oh wow those are abs.”

Jentorra followed her gaze down, made a vaguely muffled whimpering sound, and did her best to fidget and adjust her arms. Cassie cleared her throat awkwardly.

“I thought you were in the quantum realm,” Cassie said, at last.

“The what realm?” Jentorra said.

“It’s… complicated,” Cassie said. She paused. “Um. Why are you naked?”

Jentorra flushed deeper. She stepped back, shrinking into the shadow of the tree - Cassie talking to her didn’t do much to take people’s attention away from her.

“Complicated,” Jentorra echoed. “Is there anywhere more private? Your tent?”

“Oh! Yeah. Sure. I can sneak a naked girl into my room,” Cassie said. She blinked. “Guess it is college. Follow me!”

There was one vaguely familiar face in this strange land anyway. Jentorra swallowed, and hoped it wasn’t too far to Cassie’s abode.