Trite? What trite? I really liked this chapter. I don't think Mel is boring, she's just normal, which nice, makes it easy to identify with her. You really got across the way that, despite their wishes to be independant, the children are still very vulnerable and have to be bailed out by adults when things go wrong, which makes a lot of sense. I do find it difficult to believe that Chronos, being a computer, would help people without being given the comman to, but maybe I just don't read enough sci-fi o.0 It was nice to see Matt opening up a bit, he's becoming one of my favourite characters. You handled the scene very well, its a delacate one and you nailed it. Anyway, I'm addicted to this one so thank you :)