Carmen Goes Home

Van, Wendy, and Joshua hitchhike with Carmen 99 to her hometown named Trinolia where Van knows of an engineer who should be able to crack the data disk recovered from the dragon armor. Carmen 99 reunites with her childhood friend Haeta, the daughter of an engineer named Findley who just happens to be the engineer Van was seeking. Haeta declines Van's request because of her father is now crippled and in poor health, but Findley overhears Van's request and accepts. While Wendy and Joshua stay at Carmen 99's house to spruce up, Van goes with Carmen 99 to her old school where she explains that Findley and her father had been business partners, and that Findley had fostered her after the deaths of her parents. The town has prospered in the last six years thanks to a special flower Haeta has helped cultivate. But Joshua overhears a conversation between Haeta and a visitor and realizes Haeta is growing the flowers for the Claw. He runs and tells Carmen, but knowing Van's reaction, orders Joshua not to tell him until she has gathered more information. She goes to Uncle Findley. She finds him collapsed in his lab, and he reveals the flowers are a drug that makes people happy, but it has horrible side effects - inhaling its pollen without the proper antibodies causes debilitating physical side affects, the cause of his poor health and crippling. The Claw supplies them with the medicine, but even with it, long term the pollen still causes problems. He begs Carmen to stop his daughter and destroy the flowers before they destroy the town, and Carmen goes to confront Haeta. Their talk is interrupted by smoke coming from Haeta's house. Wendy had made her own discoveries about the flowers. Trying to identify the flower Haeta is growing, Wendy had inhaled too much pollen and collapses and then woke up joyful and hyper to an extreme degree. Seeking to find out what ailed his young companion, Van started looking for answers and found them in Findley. Haeta has been growing the flowers