open; late arrival
It had been somewhere around about 2am when Spencer's train had finally reached Washington, and then it had been a further hour and twenty minutes on a bus to Lincoln City before he was greeted, albeit stoically, by a member of the army. After so many hours travel and so many hours in cramped, confined space, Spencer just allowed himself to be
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To be honest though, despite the fact he was wearing a shoulder brace, Ric's movement wasn't all that limited. He could still carry a tray and his mouth wasn't broken either so the sarcastic and somewhat flirty comments were not hindered. Spying the new recruit though Ric paused mid-stride and eyed him up.
The guy didn't look like he was a threat, unlike the crazy mo-hawked lunatic from a couple of days ago, but then you never knew who you could trust and the guy did appear to need a good nights sleep. Throwing caution to the wind - in true Julio style - Ric joined the guy in the short queue to fetch food and coffee. "Rough night?"
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Spencer wasn't a stranger to long days and nights, there were times when he'd have to push himself to the limit to meet a deadline, some pieces just didn't want to write themselves and all he could do was drain energy drinks and force himself to stay awake another hour to finish it. Meetings and interviews were never at the most convenient times and there were times when Spencer didn't get any sleep at all.
Then again, those times weren't usually right before he was thrust into the body of an all mutant training team with the army. "Bit of a rollercoaster really."
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Setting his plate down Ric held out a hand, nudging the tray along the rack with his hip. "Welcome to the carnival I'm Julio Richter but everyone calls me Ric or Rictor. I take it you must be new seeing as the Captain won't let just anyone in here."
Julio wondered just who the poor guy had encountered so far, casting a quick gaze across the mess hall it was easy to see that the team were slowly arriving in dribs and drabs.
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"Captain?" Since no one had mentioned anything about any Captain -although the common sense part of his brain argued that of course there would be some sort of military official involved with all of this, how stupid would it be otherwise? "I'm not sure who that is, but I am, yes. Fresh off the bus, and train and car."
Three tiered travelling was something he was going to try and avoid from now on.
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With a smirk Ric grabs his tray and heads over to a table, glancing back over his shoulder to check that Spencer is following. "Yeah Captain Sykes, you'll recognise him easily enough. He's the guy who walks around like he's got a stick up his ass and he owns the camp. Though technically he co-runs it with Emma Frost." There's a chuckle, Ric's amused at an inside joke obviously.
"You'll meet him soon enough." Settling in a seat Ric starts to shovel food into his mouth, pausing only to swallow a mouthful of coffee, waving a fork in Spencer's general direction. "So where are you from them huh?"
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"From L.A, I work in Los Angeles, live in Anaheim. It's just a little better weather than this place." And really, having moved out from Iowa -which had pretty decent weather most of the time too, Spencer wasn't used to damp or cold or anything that this place was.
Having followed Ric to a seat, Spencer took steady sips of his coffee until he felt just a little more compus-mentus. It would take more than a half-assed mug of coffee, but it was getting him there slowly but surely. "What about yourself?" The question and answer part of the show was something Spencer would be fine with.
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Working his way steadily through his plate of food Ric listened as Spender talked and worked his way through the coffee. "Yo nací Guadalajara, Jalisco en Mexico. He viajado mucho." Slipping into his native tongue Ric's Mexican accent seems in distinct contrast to his usual tone. He's managed to lose his accent mostly, allowing him to blend in with other people though when he wants to he can slip back into it.
"I've travelled a fair amount because of work and stuff. Spend most of my time recently near to Tijuana and in America. So who recruited you?"
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Smiling slightly, Spencer nodded, "I spent a week and a half in Nuevo Casas Grandes, it's a great place." Spencer had never had the chance to head further into Mexico, although he would've loved to. Spanish was a learned language; working in California made it necessary.
"I sort of ended up recruiting myself I think." Too many prods, too many questions. "I was, I was writing a piece on conspiracies and mutants and the fact that there were questionable disappearances and unsubstantiated stories on certain mutants. Next thing I knew I was in New York talking to members of the Pentagon."
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Spencer would soon learn that Ric was one of those open book types, said what he thought and more often than not, exactly what he meant. Screw the consequences for that matter too. Hence the fact that Ric spent most of his time covered in bruises and sporting black eyes.
The recruiting himself aspect though? Now that was interesting. So either Spencer was a mutant with an interest in googling or just a google-freak; yet it seemed unlikely that Emma would just bring someone in because they took an interest in mutants. Julio sat forwards at that and could hardly resist asking the next question. "Did your searches and unsubstantiated stories about certain mutants by any chance bring up anything about earthquakes in Africa and Japan gringo?"
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"The story on Japan hit just a few weeks ago, my investigating into that was pretty choppy. There's too many instances of Japanese superstition versus conspiracy theories versus interference by the Japanese Government. They're claiming that there's some kind of cover up going on. But with the riots and protests that took place, no one can really tell for sure."
Spencer, was a geek. Spencer was such a geek that he spent hours in his own basement, with his computers, reading and researching, even with he was off the clock. The fact that he got so energetic about the whole thing, even with the lack of sleep he was suffering, pretty much gave that away.
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"It's nothing to do with superstition or conspiracy theories and everything to do with mutants. The riots and protests triggered the quake because they upset a mutant who then went on to lose it. Difference between Japan and Africa was that back in Africa it was a focused experiment that got a little out of hand. Japan though, well that was an entirely different cluster-fuck." Julio is more than a little bit pleased to hear that his antics have caused a few waves amongst the theorists out there. Heck he's just pleased that they didn't automatically point the finger of blame publically towards him because it was bad enough knowing the Daken had been sent to kill him. Anything more would be terrifying.
Ric though is curious to see how much more Spencer wants to pry into the knowledge of who this mutant is and what Julio knows.
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Being told facts from the time, getting to the bottom and scuppering a theory completely isn't as satisfying, but he's still driven to doing it. "You know what happened? Were you there?" Eye witness accounts were usually varied and not terribly reliable, but enough of them and you could piece together a story, usually mildly biased in one direction, but that was where the encouraging of other opinions came in. "Was it a member of the team? Of course that would make sense -at least for the experiment theory. Young mutants, or inexperienced ones, it's natural to test the boundaries, see the limits and work out the expectations. There's only so much you can gather from controlled use."
Spencer knows this; it's how he learned not to sneeze in water, how he learned that thunderstorms weren't really his friend -he fried himself six times in the space of seven hours because apparently he was a conductor that attracted the lightening now. Spencer was all about learning. "What exactly were the complications for the Japan riots?"
His questions about powers and the use of the team were momentarily forgotten. Since this could be something he could actually send to his boss.
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"Of course it was a member of the team but it wasn't a young or inexperienced mutant in Africa. Two mutants decided to test their own little theory and it would have worked if one of them hadn't nearly passed out and lost it." Okay so maybe Ric sounded a little bit huffy at that point. Africa hadn't been his fault, Martini had been the one who had really fudged up there but Japan was all him.
"Japan though? It wasn't a riot but a staged ambush by... well we don't know who if we're honest. Could have been anyone, but probably mostly down to an anti-mutant group. They started the riot so that they could execute the mutants without drawing attention to their exercise but things got a little out of hand. They nearly killed one of them and then..." Ric falters, gaze slipping back to the table as he tried to keep his emotions in check. He's allowed himself to get too caught up in the moment and he forgets that he's trying to build up to the punchline. "I lost it. I just couldn't keep my focus, there were so many people just like back in San Fran and the Right. Trying to kill me. Trying to get at me."
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It was the last few sentences that really struck home though. Clearly, Rictor felt somehow responsible -clearly he kind of was too- and Spencer could accept that whatever it was that happened, Rictor hadn't meant for anything to happen to anyone. Hadn't meant to hurt anyone. Spencer watched him carefully, trying to at least appear supportive and understanding -he wasn't one to judge anyone. "These kind of things happen. The overwhelmingness of it build up and it's hard to maintain any kind of control. It's not like you meant to do it, did you?"
He wasn't actually asking the question with a serious thought that it could've been. Just from a few moments conversation, Rictor didn't strike Spencer as the type to wilfully cause harm to others for no reason. Just because his power was mildly destructive when uncontrolled didn't make that his fault.
Or, you know, sort of like that.
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Maybe some other time Ric would talk to Spencer, find out what he could about the news reports that had come through on the earthquakes that he had caused. But right now he was trying to ignore the nagging feeling, the knowledge that there was a mutant in the brig being held for trying to kill Ric. Sent by the Japanese Government to kill him.
Actually... "When you were doing your research about Japan did they say anything about knowing the cause? I know you said you were delving a little deeper but I mean, are you or were you writing a report on it?"
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"So far the speculation is a lower level tsunami that didn't reach the mainland causing tremors along the fault planes and resulting in the abnormal reactions. Although there are a few groups that blame mutants, there was never any actual proof of the matter. Just thoughts, rumours, the fact that mutants were in the area." Spencer hadn't managed to dig too deep -he didn't speak Japanese, and no one was really willing to translate for him.
"I was mostly investigating the American governments involvement in mutant training programs. There are some hints towards things like this being set up not not really funded properly by the government. Really it all looks like the old school Black Ops systems from the Cold War era." There was nothing substantial, nothing tangible. Which was why he was here.
Apparently, he had to come here to get his story.
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