Laws and Coffee:
I'm sure this will end up filtering back to Emma, but what the hell? She can roll her eyes at my idealism and call me naive, as she likely will but I persist in thinking that good things can come of this.
This is, of course, assuming that she didn't set the whole thing up herself, and a raft of laws saying telepaths can do whatever the hell they want are going to be passed, with myself as handy figurehead and scapegoat for the masses to blame while she runs around doing as she pleases, now with legal backing.
...all right, that may be edging into a little bit of paranoia there, Jean old girl.
Say what I will about Shaw, his money builds nice things. And I thought the facilities at the McClintock Center were shiny. Speaking of which, I really need to put more time in down at the labs there, which should offer a handy excuse to be perfectly cowardly and not bring up a certain issue with Charles again.
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Thursday, October 18, 2007, 7:35 PM
---------------------------------------------------------
=NYC= Lab - Shaw Research Center
While security is not oppressively emphasized, there are all the little, quiet touches you would expect in a lab more or less funded by a major defense contractor. There are big machines and small, and all the computers and screens and gizmos one could want, as well as the simpler luxury of plenty of space. It is a lab space well-stocked, with the big-money machines just down the hall.
[This room is set watchable. Use alias SRCLab to watch here.]
[Exits : [O]ut]
[Players : Adel ]
Dr. Grey here to see Bahir al-Razi? The request is placed with the receptionist out front, and Dr. Grey, dressed in jeans, ankle boots and a neat white blouse with a faux vest in grey, is perforce left to wait. Students and their midterms escaped for the time, she seems content to stand and study the inevitable and inoffensive corporate-scientific artwork hanging about while she waits for an answer to be brought forth.
Easing out to meet her rather than the other way around, Bahir appears in short order. Dressed in the obligatory sweater vest, he's as Bahirish as can be. "Dr. Grey," he greets with reserved cheer as he crosses to offer her his hand in greeting. His thoughts are, perhaps unsurprisingly, rather strongly shielded. There's something like a bruise shadowed faintly behind the shields, emotions controlled, but still too raw to entirely contain. Thoughts, however, are politely silent. "Thanks for coming so promptly. Want a coffee or something?"
Jean's touch is that of telepath to telepath, a handclasp firm and friendly, but kept exceedingly brief, that her own formidable shields might be neither compromised 'nor spammed. In an odd mirror, slightly askew, she sports her own mental bruise, and there's a touch of fatigue visible beneath her eyes. "Coffee," says she, with a sound half laugh, half sigh, "Would be a godsend. How are you doing, Bahir?" she wonders, hands now clasped at the small of her back as she falls in at his flank, consenting to be led to where the caffeine dwells and with the odd flicker of idle curiosity playing over the surface of her mind.
"I've been better," Bahir admits honestly, and meanders across the lobby where the ever-enterprising Starbucks has placed their mark. Ordering chai for himself, he gestures for her to place her own request, and pays for both. "Busy, though, which is good. You?"
Jean glances at Bahir with a brief surfacing of that interest at the admission, concern tinging her thoughts like a sprinkling of cinnammon on the crest of a latte. She favours chai as well, with the modification of the pumpkin spice variety of it, and the addition of a slice of raspberry loaf. "There seems to be a lot of that going around, lately," she admits, with a crook of one corner of her lips, and a well-bred murmur of "Thank you," for the treat. "Let's just say that I appreciate the excuse to be busy too."
Bahir chuckles without any real humor. Once they have their drinks (and Jean has her loaf), he leads the way toward one of the small seating areas in the lobby, and takes a seat beside a tall plant that drinks up the light spilling through glass. "I wanted to talk to you about uhm, the committee meeting. Just touch base beforehand, and thank you, by the way, for the heads up."
Jean has barely settled herself before her fingers find themselves the white cake with its sugary icing and veins of raspberry filling. A small cube is torn free from one corner, and a wry sort of chuckle escapes from her before she pops it in her mouth and munches accordingly. One swallow later, she reflects that "Maybe some day we'll actually run into each other and talk about something -not- business. But isn't it exciting?" she wonders, and all the caution and fatigue in the world can't temper the light that gleams in green eyes.
"We'd come around to business eventually, I think, even if we began with something else," Bahir says, pausing to take a sip from his drink. Incautious, it scalds slightly, and hisses. "Hot. Uhm. Yeah, it's exciting. A little scary, too. All eager for it?"
"Can you tell?" wonders the Jean of sparkling eyes and further nibbling of the sweet cake loaf. "It has the potential to be terrifying," she agrees. "But the fact that there are actually law-makers sitting down and wanting to take a rational and scientific look at just how the mutation that scares everyone the most actually -works-, instead of knee-jerk reactionism and deciding the proper thing to do is to nerve-staple the lot of us..." It is possible that Jean Grey, in less busy times, has played a little Alpha Centauri.
"Mm." A neutral noise answers that, and Bahir tests another sip of chai as his gaze goes distant. "Perhaps. I'm reserving judgment. What do you think will be accomplished? You've had more experience with this sort of thing than I have. What do you /want/ to accomplish there?"
Jean lifts a slight eyebrow at the question, and queries a mild "Fishing?" of her own. But, with a cautious attempt at her own chait turning up a verdict of 'too hot still', she sets down her cup and answers anyways. "A framework," says she, quietly, and then pauses, thoughts being marshalled in a sudden swirl of mental activity, like the spray of atoms against a particle screen. "Something that gives a middle ground between people's need to know that their minds are their own, that steps will be taken if they aren't... and our need to not be burnt at the stake if someone goes running around Midtown with the mental equivalent of 'I did it, it was me, I slept with the neighbour's wife' being broadcast from a loudspeaker and is nervous someone might tell."
"I like fish," Bahir answers with a faint smile. "But it's not just the guilty who will be -- no, who /are/ afraid of us. Even other mutants are. I'm not sure I understand your second point when defining a middle ground."
"Mmm," says Jean, but the open ease of her expression and posture edge slightly into more cautious territory at the non-answer. There's a long pause, as she fiddles more of the cake into neat cubes, and arrays them one by one in a line atop her plate. "Proof of intent, of active interference," she offers, with a vague motion of her hand. "Telepath law wouldn't be just one blanket Thou Shalt Not," she muses. "To be properly fair, it will have to both protect people from the worst we're capable of -- or at least give them recourse, since protection..." The hand motions again. "But it will have to have sections to protect -us- from random Joe McAngry who decides he wants someone arrested for standing in a bank while being a telepath. Hawaii has a nice idea with their mutant rights laws, but they're really a bit broad, and honestly a bit naive."
"All right, that makes sense," says Bahir with a slow nod at her rephrasing. "You know what I worry about, though, Dr. Grey?" He tests his chai again, and finds it just barely cool enough to take a longer sip -- but close enough that he does so. "It isn't really the false accusations. It is what will happen to telepaths who haven't learned to control their abilities, really. Intent is a fickle thing, and I'm not sure how much weight people will put on that."
"Intent," Jean echoes, and there's a brief, grim look down at her own chai. "If I have to, I can trot out my own manifestation as an exemplary tale." But note that she does not trot it out -here-. Noticing Bahir's success with his own cup, she dares hers, and settles back with a sigh. "Well, that seems like something the courts are forced to try and prove day in and day out for far less of a science fiction componant. Of course, another telepath might..." She trails off, and all the caution in the world can't entirely prevent a crooked smirk. "I'm half-tempted to float the idea of government telepaths, just to see the look of horror. But what do -you- think," she turns the questions about, cocking her head and looking encouraging.
Bahir matches her smirk with one of his own, and a lift of his eyebrows. "I think it is inevitable, actually, Dr. Grey. The only real way we have to prove interference is by use of /another/ telepath. A government corps of psionics? Sure." Shrugging slightly, he glances off again with a faint frown. "I still find it unsettling, though. I don't have your optimism. I'm rather more cautious about what this might mean. It's such an temporary thing, here and gone again. Do you think they will be able to set standards of proof?"
"Well, how's your research coming?" is Jean's answer to that, smile crooked over her tea. "Short of being able to establish a marked deviation in behavior, or having the Psi Corps roll into town... have you ever seen Babylon 5?" she queries randomly. "Your work is probably the most likely to be able to turn up changes on a tangible level. Although of course there's the fact that one would need a control MRI in advance to compare with."
Bahir looks a little blank. "Ah, no," he says, a strange twinge of hurt following the answer, quickly folded over. "My research...." He shakes his head. "It's more Natalie's research, that, than my own. I've helped, but. And the fact remains that it is a fast-fading thing. That is, I think, where the major problem will be. Brains change all the time. I wonder if there is a certain discernible pattern common to all examples of telepathic interference--." Briefly distracted, he breaks off. "Maybe. Not any time soon. How long do you think the process will take, crafting the laws?"
"Mmm..." Jean wriggles her fingers again. "There are a lot of variables. I suspect part of the problem is that a modern MRI, while it's worlds better than any scan we had in the past, is still pretty crude in terms of what it can see. The brain remains a black box, if you look at it with machines." Briefly distracted herself, her mind veers off into a small eddy where brief thoughts of cyborg-telepaths swirl gently and then escapse back into whatever mad aether spawned them. "A year, absolute minimum. Probably more."
"Rather a lot of variables," Bahir agrees, and pauses to take another long sip of his chai. He watches Jean curiously afterwards, and bluntly asks, "What do you think your reception is going to be there, after that dust-up last, what was it, spring?"
"Well, that particular senator isn't on the list of attendees," Jean notes, with a wry, wry smile. She looked. "But if they didn't find at least something to value or interest in what I have to say, they wouldn't have invited me. I imagine I'll probably have to answer the usual questions, though. If not in the committee, than surely over cocktails and canapes."
Bahir makes a face. "Cocktails and canapes," he mutters, slouching slightly and taking another sip of his chai. "I suppose trying to skip out on that would be unwise."
"It's where most of the game is played," Jean agrees. "If you're going to be attending as anything other than an earnest scientist using this to boost your profile befor epublishing. And even -then-..."
Rubbing at the bridge of his nose, Bahir snorts. "Right. I ought to know that by now," he says in tangential reference to that which they do not speak of. SHH. "Well, you are more optimistic about this than I even expected, but otherwise, I suppose that is pretty much what I expected to in terms of what they will try to accomplish. Should be interesting."
"In every sense of the word," Jean agrees, with a slight toast of her cup and a small but intensely pleased smile. One way or another, things are -happening-. Dr. Grey approves. "Now," she muses. "Did dear old Sebastian have machine gun turrets installed with my face as a permanent target, or could your old boss manage to convince you into a tour?"
"He didn't have time to see that part of the schematics put in place before his death, Dr. Grey," Bahir says with a faint smile. He rises slowly, prying the lid off his cup to check what is left of the chai. "Luckily enough, that means there is opportunity for a tour. It's pretty ridiculously nice."
"I'm sure his vengeful spirit will roar and rage enough to make up for them," replies Jean, cheerfully speaking ill, or at least mild snark, of the dead as she, too, rises and takes the remaining half of her raspberry loaf slice along with her, to be devoured in neat, if absent, bites.
"I think his spirit has enough to occupy him." A shivering twitch of unease and regret pattern past the gloss of Bahir's shields, and then he tries a slight smile on. "Well. This way, if you would, Dr. Grey?" He waves his hand generally, and then steps forward to take her on the grand tour.
Jean follows. There are many scientific oooohs over shiny things that only a small percentage of the world's population actually knows what they do.
Optimist Jean is Optimistic. Concerned Bahir is Concerned.
This is, of course, assuming that she didn't set the whole thing up herself, and a raft of laws saying telepaths can do whatever the hell they want are going to be passed, with myself as handy figurehead and scapegoat for the masses to blame while she runs around doing as she pleases, now with legal backing.
...all right, that may be edging into a little bit of paranoia there, Jean old girl.
Say what I will about Shaw, his money builds nice things. And I thought the facilities at the McClintock Center were shiny. Speaking of which, I really need to put more time in down at the labs there, which should offer a handy excuse to be perfectly cowardly and not bring up a certain issue with Charles again.
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Thursday, October 18, 2007, 7:35 PM
---------------------------------------------------------
=NYC= Lab - Shaw Research Center
While security is not oppressively emphasized, there are all the little, quiet touches you would expect in a lab more or less funded by a major defense contractor. There are big machines and small, and all the computers and screens and gizmos one could want, as well as the simpler luxury of plenty of space. It is a lab space well-stocked, with the big-money machines just down the hall.
[This room is set watchable. Use alias SRCLab to watch here.]
[Exits : [O]ut]
[Players : Adel ]
Dr. Grey here to see Bahir al-Razi? The request is placed with the receptionist out front, and Dr. Grey, dressed in jeans, ankle boots and a neat white blouse with a faux vest in grey, is perforce left to wait. Students and their midterms escaped for the time, she seems content to stand and study the inevitable and inoffensive corporate-scientific artwork hanging about while she waits for an answer to be brought forth.
Easing out to meet her rather than the other way around, Bahir appears in short order. Dressed in the obligatory sweater vest, he's as Bahirish as can be. "Dr. Grey," he greets with reserved cheer as he crosses to offer her his hand in greeting. His thoughts are, perhaps unsurprisingly, rather strongly shielded. There's something like a bruise shadowed faintly behind the shields, emotions controlled, but still too raw to entirely contain. Thoughts, however, are politely silent. "Thanks for coming so promptly. Want a coffee or something?"
Jean's touch is that of telepath to telepath, a handclasp firm and friendly, but kept exceedingly brief, that her own formidable shields might be neither compromised 'nor spammed. In an odd mirror, slightly askew, she sports her own mental bruise, and there's a touch of fatigue visible beneath her eyes. "Coffee," says she, with a sound half laugh, half sigh, "Would be a godsend. How are you doing, Bahir?" she wonders, hands now clasped at the small of her back as she falls in at his flank, consenting to be led to where the caffeine dwells and with the odd flicker of idle curiosity playing over the surface of her mind.
"I've been better," Bahir admits honestly, and meanders across the lobby where the ever-enterprising Starbucks has placed their mark. Ordering chai for himself, he gestures for her to place her own request, and pays for both. "Busy, though, which is good. You?"
Jean glances at Bahir with a brief surfacing of that interest at the admission, concern tinging her thoughts like a sprinkling of cinnammon on the crest of a latte. She favours chai as well, with the modification of the pumpkin spice variety of it, and the addition of a slice of raspberry loaf. "There seems to be a lot of that going around, lately," she admits, with a crook of one corner of her lips, and a well-bred murmur of "Thank you," for the treat. "Let's just say that I appreciate the excuse to be busy too."
Bahir chuckles without any real humor. Once they have their drinks (and Jean has her loaf), he leads the way toward one of the small seating areas in the lobby, and takes a seat beside a tall plant that drinks up the light spilling through glass. "I wanted to talk to you about uhm, the committee meeting. Just touch base beforehand, and thank you, by the way, for the heads up."
Jean has barely settled herself before her fingers find themselves the white cake with its sugary icing and veins of raspberry filling. A small cube is torn free from one corner, and a wry sort of chuckle escapes from her before she pops it in her mouth and munches accordingly. One swallow later, she reflects that "Maybe some day we'll actually run into each other and talk about something -not- business. But isn't it exciting?" she wonders, and all the caution and fatigue in the world can't temper the light that gleams in green eyes.
"We'd come around to business eventually, I think, even if we began with something else," Bahir says, pausing to take a sip from his drink. Incautious, it scalds slightly, and hisses. "Hot. Uhm. Yeah, it's exciting. A little scary, too. All eager for it?"
"Can you tell?" wonders the Jean of sparkling eyes and further nibbling of the sweet cake loaf. "It has the potential to be terrifying," she agrees. "But the fact that there are actually law-makers sitting down and wanting to take a rational and scientific look at just how the mutation that scares everyone the most actually -works-, instead of knee-jerk reactionism and deciding the proper thing to do is to nerve-staple the lot of us..." It is possible that Jean Grey, in less busy times, has played a little Alpha Centauri.
"Mm." A neutral noise answers that, and Bahir tests another sip of chai as his gaze goes distant. "Perhaps. I'm reserving judgment. What do you think will be accomplished? You've had more experience with this sort of thing than I have. What do you /want/ to accomplish there?"
Jean lifts a slight eyebrow at the question, and queries a mild "Fishing?" of her own. But, with a cautious attempt at her own chait turning up a verdict of 'too hot still', she sets down her cup and answers anyways. "A framework," says she, quietly, and then pauses, thoughts being marshalled in a sudden swirl of mental activity, like the spray of atoms against a particle screen. "Something that gives a middle ground between people's need to know that their minds are their own, that steps will be taken if they aren't... and our need to not be burnt at the stake if someone goes running around Midtown with the mental equivalent of 'I did it, it was me, I slept with the neighbour's wife' being broadcast from a loudspeaker and is nervous someone might tell."
"I like fish," Bahir answers with a faint smile. "But it's not just the guilty who will be -- no, who /are/ afraid of us. Even other mutants are. I'm not sure I understand your second point when defining a middle ground."
"Mmm," says Jean, but the open ease of her expression and posture edge slightly into more cautious territory at the non-answer. There's a long pause, as she fiddles more of the cake into neat cubes, and arrays them one by one in a line atop her plate. "Proof of intent, of active interference," she offers, with a vague motion of her hand. "Telepath law wouldn't be just one blanket Thou Shalt Not," she muses. "To be properly fair, it will have to both protect people from the worst we're capable of -- or at least give them recourse, since protection..." The hand motions again. "But it will have to have sections to protect -us- from random Joe McAngry who decides he wants someone arrested for standing in a bank while being a telepath. Hawaii has a nice idea with their mutant rights laws, but they're really a bit broad, and honestly a bit naive."
"All right, that makes sense," says Bahir with a slow nod at her rephrasing. "You know what I worry about, though, Dr. Grey?" He tests his chai again, and finds it just barely cool enough to take a longer sip -- but close enough that he does so. "It isn't really the false accusations. It is what will happen to telepaths who haven't learned to control their abilities, really. Intent is a fickle thing, and I'm not sure how much weight people will put on that."
"Intent," Jean echoes, and there's a brief, grim look down at her own chai. "If I have to, I can trot out my own manifestation as an exemplary tale." But note that she does not trot it out -here-. Noticing Bahir's success with his own cup, she dares hers, and settles back with a sigh. "Well, that seems like something the courts are forced to try and prove day in and day out for far less of a science fiction componant. Of course, another telepath might..." She trails off, and all the caution in the world can't entirely prevent a crooked smirk. "I'm half-tempted to float the idea of government telepaths, just to see the look of horror. But what do -you- think," she turns the questions about, cocking her head and looking encouraging.
Bahir matches her smirk with one of his own, and a lift of his eyebrows. "I think it is inevitable, actually, Dr. Grey. The only real way we have to prove interference is by use of /another/ telepath. A government corps of psionics? Sure." Shrugging slightly, he glances off again with a faint frown. "I still find it unsettling, though. I don't have your optimism. I'm rather more cautious about what this might mean. It's such an temporary thing, here and gone again. Do you think they will be able to set standards of proof?"
"Well, how's your research coming?" is Jean's answer to that, smile crooked over her tea. "Short of being able to establish a marked deviation in behavior, or having the Psi Corps roll into town... have you ever seen Babylon 5?" she queries randomly. "Your work is probably the most likely to be able to turn up changes on a tangible level. Although of course there's the fact that one would need a control MRI in advance to compare with."
Bahir looks a little blank. "Ah, no," he says, a strange twinge of hurt following the answer, quickly folded over. "My research...." He shakes his head. "It's more Natalie's research, that, than my own. I've helped, but. And the fact remains that it is a fast-fading thing. That is, I think, where the major problem will be. Brains change all the time. I wonder if there is a certain discernible pattern common to all examples of telepathic interference--." Briefly distracted, he breaks off. "Maybe. Not any time soon. How long do you think the process will take, crafting the laws?"
"Mmm..." Jean wriggles her fingers again. "There are a lot of variables. I suspect part of the problem is that a modern MRI, while it's worlds better than any scan we had in the past, is still pretty crude in terms of what it can see. The brain remains a black box, if you look at it with machines." Briefly distracted herself, her mind veers off into a small eddy where brief thoughts of cyborg-telepaths swirl gently and then escapse back into whatever mad aether spawned them. "A year, absolute minimum. Probably more."
"Rather a lot of variables," Bahir agrees, and pauses to take another long sip of his chai. He watches Jean curiously afterwards, and bluntly asks, "What do you think your reception is going to be there, after that dust-up last, what was it, spring?"
"Well, that particular senator isn't on the list of attendees," Jean notes, with a wry, wry smile. She looked. "But if they didn't find at least something to value or interest in what I have to say, they wouldn't have invited me. I imagine I'll probably have to answer the usual questions, though. If not in the committee, than surely over cocktails and canapes."
Bahir makes a face. "Cocktails and canapes," he mutters, slouching slightly and taking another sip of his chai. "I suppose trying to skip out on that would be unwise."
"It's where most of the game is played," Jean agrees. "If you're going to be attending as anything other than an earnest scientist using this to boost your profile befor epublishing. And even -then-..."
Rubbing at the bridge of his nose, Bahir snorts. "Right. I ought to know that by now," he says in tangential reference to that which they do not speak of. SHH. "Well, you are more optimistic about this than I even expected, but otherwise, I suppose that is pretty much what I expected to in terms of what they will try to accomplish. Should be interesting."
"In every sense of the word," Jean agrees, with a slight toast of her cup and a small but intensely pleased smile. One way or another, things are -happening-. Dr. Grey approves. "Now," she muses. "Did dear old Sebastian have machine gun turrets installed with my face as a permanent target, or could your old boss manage to convince you into a tour?"
"He didn't have time to see that part of the schematics put in place before his death, Dr. Grey," Bahir says with a faint smile. He rises slowly, prying the lid off his cup to check what is left of the chai. "Luckily enough, that means there is opportunity for a tour. It's pretty ridiculously nice."
"I'm sure his vengeful spirit will roar and rage enough to make up for them," replies Jean, cheerfully speaking ill, or at least mild snark, of the dead as she, too, rises and takes the remaining half of her raspberry loaf slice along with her, to be devoured in neat, if absent, bites.
"I think his spirit has enough to occupy him." A shivering twitch of unease and regret pattern past the gloss of Bahir's shields, and then he tries a slight smile on. "Well. This way, if you would, Dr. Grey?" He waves his hand generally, and then steps forward to take her on the grand tour.
Jean follows. There are many scientific oooohs over shiny things that only a small percentage of the world's population actually knows what they do.
Optimist Jean is Optimistic. Concerned Bahir is Concerned.