The woman jumped, throwing the chips all back into the chest with a loud yell, making Jesse jump back and clutch at her cloak automatically. Notch, if she grabbed it any harder she was gong to rip the cloak.

She looked around, shiftily, gray eyes darting everywhere, before the woman said, rather shakily, "Th-that you, PAMA?"

Jesse frowned. "Who?"

The woman looked even more startled at that. "Okay then," the woman said, looking around, getting her composure back, "okay." She pointed at Jesse, eyes narrowing. "Who sent you?"

Jesse blinked slowly at that. "... myself?"

The woman blinked again, and Jesse slowly put her uppermost set of arms up in surrender, squinting at the woman. "Um, would you calm down? You're kind of freaking me out," she said, pretty timidly.

The white-haired woman threw her arms into the air with a soft sound of frustration. "You're freaked out?! How do you think I'm doing?!"

Jesse kept her hands up in surrender, tilting her head as she tried to recall it. "Hold on," the woman said, gray eyes narrowing as she pointed at Jesse again, "you're serious."

The woman squinted at Jesse, getting close to the point where Jesse would've pushed her away, if it weren't rude. "Okay... eyes, not red... NOT red... well, except for-"

She stopped. She blinked. And then she got even closer, face so close that their noses were practically touching.

She squinted at Jesse, before standing back, looking utterly bewildered, eyes flickering to the cloak which concealed Jesse's extra arms, then back to Jesse's green and red eyes. "Jesse?"

This more than anything put her on guard. "How do you..."

Harper's mouth fell open as the others, having probably gotten a little worried from how long it was taking, trotted up to stand behind her a bit. "And there- you're all- this should be- it's impossible!" she spluttered.

Jesse glanced back at her friends, expecting the utterly confused looks they were giving her- and then stopping cold at Cassie's. Cassie's look wasn't exactly cold, no.

It was downright glacial.

Her green eyes were harder and colder than any iceberg Jesse had ever seen, and that included the ones in Ice Lakes. Her face was frozen in a look of quiet anger, disappointment, hope, and recognition. Emotions that were more mixed than Jesse's right now looked as though they'd been thrown together into a blender with over half the blender filled with ice cubes.

The woman was staring, eyes flickering over Jesse and Cassie, before her eyes hardened and she glared at them. "Okay, is this some sort of joke? Who are you people? What's going on here?"

"It's a very poor joke if I've ever seen one," Cassie seethed back, hands balling into fists. The woman looked at Cassie for a second, before averting her gaze from the red-haired girl at Petra, Ivor, and Lukas. "I've seen Cassie and Jesse before... but not you three."

Jesse gave the woman a funny look. "Petra and Lukas are hybrids too. Shouldn't you know? Didn't you work at the Bureau of Amalgamology?" Jesse asked, curiously.

The woman looked at Jesse, blinking. "Did the memory chip malfunction...?" she wondered, sort of under her breath but still aloud.

"She did," Cassie said, coldly, "but I don't think she was there when Petra and Lukas were... 'created', for lack of a better term. The Old Builders-" the woman winced a little at the harshly said name, "didn't stick around for very long."

If human or hybrid jaws were capable of hitting the floor, every person except for the woman and Cassie's would've been slamming through and continuing down to the center of the earth.

"A-anyway, I know this might sound... odd, but we came here through a portal," Jesse said, to try to break the completely awkward silence that had started filling the room.

The dark-skinned woman looked rather interested. "A portal? A PORTAL portal? Really?"

Jesse nodded, Cassie saying nothing except crossing her arms. Winslow let out a soft meow that was ignored.

"Okay," the woman said, putting her hands to her head and pacing the floor, "okay okay okay okay, uh, been alone for a while, so.. this is a lot to take in right now..." She hesitated, before speaking up again, as Petra sat down on the floor with a completely dumbfounded look. Lukas was looking around the room, tail twitching, Ivor was poking through a chest, and Cassie was still sending the woman a harsh death glare. "The people- the citizens of Crown Mesa- you've met them, right?"

"If by 'meeting' them you mean seen the fact that they have red eyes and a chip on the back of their head and screaming your head off upon seeing them, then yeah," Jesse said, sardonically. "Out with it, what's going on with these people? What is up with this TOWN?"

The woman put a hand on Jesse's shoulder, making the spider hybrid tense a little bit. Did she like this woman, back at the lab?

... casting back through her memories, Jesse got a generally warm feeling. It was faint, but it was there. So... she supposed she HAD liked this woman. Maybe even trusted her a little?

"It's probably hard to understand right now, but if you meet any more people, please, don't hurt them- they're my friends," the woman said, sounding really sincere.

Jesse blinked, before inclining her head forward in a stiff nod.

"They're good people," the woman said, looking down at the ground, "I promise." She hesitated, before starting backwards, hand lifting up rapidly off Jesse's shoulder. "Oh, oh, oh no no no no I've wasted too much time."

Cassie scowled at the woman, eyes still harder than ice chips. "Yeah?"

Lukas interrupted this, his voice a whole octave higher than normal. "Uh, Jesse?"

Jesse turned to look over her shoulder. Immediately, she wished she hadn't- a line of five people with glowing red eyes were marching towards the house. "We've got company!"

Jesse turned back to the room- and blinked. The woman from before was completely gone now. "Hey, where'd she go?"

Cassie made some uncomplimentary comments under her breath. All Jesse caught was something about 'never reliable' and 'should've said something', but since she was pretty sure she'd end up on the wrong side of Cassie's axe if she voiced these thoughts, she very wisely kept her mouth shut.

"Well, they're definitely not ignoring us anymore," Petra sighed.

A/N: Stopping point!

Ugh writing Harper as 'the woman' was so annoying. You have no idea (makes a face)

I love how no one's commented on the previous chapter name :)

rebekahtpe: Happy birthday! Episode 8 was my favorite. I know, I'm weird, right xD And mine was the battle between the Old Builders and Jesse, my heart was beating at fifty miles an hour the whole time xD

angelwings: Aw, well, I assume you liked the ending? Or... no?

RapidSammi: You'll have to guess when... but holy crap yes (evil grin)

LittleAngelbun: Mayyyybe.

x.X. A.L. X.x.