Aberrant - Changing the World

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After returning from Brazil with the new Nova in tow, they came across Anna DeVries and the Count looking at a large touchscreen.

They explained that somebody had just wiped off over 10 billion in personal loan information from some of the biggest commercial banks in the world by hashing the information simultaneously in several sites and starting electrical fires in backup sites. Some backups were maintained, but a great deal was permanently lost. Whilst there was no evidence of the culprit, they speculated that Ananzi was likely responsible.

They asked Nadia if she would be willing to make a presentation before the UN. Given her performance on Oprah, she was well recognised as the face of Nova affairs. They had already prepared some talking points and were going to vote on a constitution soon. With only a few dozen Novas the democratic process was surprisingly robust with everybody able to have their say.

The twins had finished their work with the James Webb Telescope successfully, helping to stabilize its orbit, giving it a refuel and otherwise making sure it was okay.

Radu had tried to call himself "Wolverine" but when Disney bought out the Lawyers and under Anna's advice he retracted it.

Stephanie wanted to disguise herself as a male to ensure that her identity was not known, so spoke with Traveller who was in the form of a Eurasian male wearing a pair of shorts and pointed out that when they shifted the shorts grew or shrank to match. Something that Anibal had been working on. They suggested that if Stephanie wanted to cross-dress there were certain specialist shops that could help with binders and the like. However she asked if they could helped her shift her form. Traveller tried but they could only manage it for a short time. Traveller instead suggested that she try shrinking and growing only the relevant parts of her body to change her appearance.

Anna found a children's hospital in Tigray, the part of the country that had until recently been in a civil war with the rest of the country. But suggested that treating them first might be politically complicated as the Ethiopian government had only just finished a devastating conflict with them, so she decided to give a big public visit to a hospital in Addis Ababa and a more discrete visit to the children's hospital in Tigray later. Her visit was long enough to keep up the disguise, but she wasn't able to help everybody. The few people who her treatment failed on were almost heartbroken as it gave them a few moments of relief, but then their condition returned. Afterwards she headed off to the airport.

Going to the UN Nadia, Count Orzaiz and Deborah accompanied Stephanie as they arrived by portal. There was an honour guard of UN Peacekeepers in formal uniforms. Nadia was invited up before the general assembly and despite a less then perfect presentation, she managed to present herself professionally in a neat suit with gold and yellow trim. However as her speech was getting towards the end, an armed and masked man with curly black hair came in holding a middle-eastern man in a robe at gunpoint. Nadia swept in to action and grabbed the gun away and waited for the man to explain himself. He called himself Saturn and his prisoner was Afghanistan Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqanil. A currently sitting politician but also somebody wanted by the International Criminal Court. He publicly expressed interest in joining Utopia, but also suggested that for the right price, he could extract wanted criminals from difficult situations for the right price. This caused an uproar on the floor and the Novas slipped out as various nations realised the implications of a super-powered Mercenary who would be able to abduct people across borders for money.

Steph went to Brazil to find the person whose car she had stolen. She left a message on social media for Anansi to help her in exchange for some Nova social credit. She was able to locate him and pay him back for the cost of the car. But in the process, heard about Dr Balmer getting into trouble with the law in an area near the forest fires.

She waited for Nadia to be available to help after the UN conference. Together they approached some frustrated looking police who said Dr Balmer and a group of Native Brazilians were squatting on government owned land and they had been asked to evict them. They asked the Doctor what was happening. He had stuck around after the fire as he was a local and found out that whilst this part of rainforest was protected, once it had burnt down the land lost that protection ad had been sold off by the government to developers. Jerry had raised a stone wall around the place leaving only a gap which the protestors held. To break the stalemate, Stephanie suggested that they could get Bene to come over and regrow the forest, if it was never burnt down then it wouldn't have lost its protection and so couldn't be sold. She arrived by Jennifer's portal and spent most of the day regrowing that area of forest. Nadia explained the situation to the local media and that they were helping and despite not speaking the local language came across quite well leaving the local politician who had already sold the land, fuming.

Back in Addis Ababa They began voting for the head of the new nation. The voting was split between Count Orzaiz, Deborah Ahmed and Dr Primoris.

Deborah wanted more UN cooperation and integration, whilst Dr Primoris emphasises protecting the civil liberties of Novas and allowing them to reach their own potential. Stephanie supported the former, whilst Nadia supported the later with only few people backing the count.

It was a close race, but Dr Primoris reluctantly accepted.

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