Log Dump: December 2007 Edition Part I
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Wednesday, December 12, 2007, 1:13 PM
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=XS= Jean's Office - Lv 1 - Xavier's School
Just another step in the grand tradition of renovation that dogs all great and old houses, Jean's office has been snuck nearly seamlessly into the footprint of the mansion library. Despite the headmistress' taste for clean lines and light colours, rich oak panelling and footstep-muffling carpet in a venerable shade of forest green are the order of the day. Light is freely admitted by a large leaded glass window that looks out over the Victorian garden and its fountain, although hanging curtains in the same emerald as the carpeting can be drawn to turn the room dark enough for presentations to be shown. The central feature of the room is an imposing desk, stained dark to match the paneled walls. A modern ergonomic office chair is positioned behind it, with two uphoulstered chairs in front. A laptop rules the desk, two filing cabinets, several framed diplomas and a bookshelf hug the side wall behind it. One corner holds a thriving ficus plant, and the central piece of art in the office is a framed representation of DNArt, a small brass plaque informing observers that this is the genome of Dr. Jean Grey.
[This room is set watchable. Use alias XSJeanOffice to watch here.]
[Exits : [Li]brary]
[Players : Jeremy ]
It has not been the best morning ever for one Jeremy Wallace. His first class passed in, when are sorry to say, something of a distracted haze. The bags under his eyes and the knot of anxiety centered below his sternum make for the most likely culprits. In any event, when he comes a-calling at Jean's office, he does so on slow-trudged steps like a man anticipating some measure of doom, and knocks on the frame of her door as he peeks inside. "Professor?"
Jean is distracted, and as such has her mental walls thrown high enough to prevent any outward leak of puttering thoughts and concerns. Walls work both ways, alas, and thus her first warning that Jeremy is inbound takes the form of that knock on the door frame, and prompts a brief startle in her seat as she looks up at him, and over her reading glasses. "Jeremy," she greets, soft and somewhat searching. "Come in. Close the door behind you, if you'd like."
Jeremy draws the door shut behind him as he ambles in and shoves his hands into his pockets. Or rather, pocket: he wears the omnipresent sweatshirt with its inevitable kangaroo pocket. He rocks forward onto the balls of his feet and gives her a rueful sort of look with a twist of his mouth. "Hey," he says. "So. Uh. Jubilee thinks that we should tell you about this stuff that's been happening, and I could maybe use some help. Or advice. Or something."
"I'll do what I can," Jean assures, a mild promise, yes, but one that she can at least be sure of following through on. Motioning to one of the chairs, she pauses for a moment to consider the cat sleeping in the next one, and admits that "I forget... do you have allergies to go with the asthma? I can put her outside, if so..." in a little bit of the business of getting a person settled, before she nods once, pauses to wait for a reply, and then prompts one anyways with a "Go on, though."
"Nah, animals are okay." Jeremy sniffs experimentally, and then rubs at an eye with his first two fingers. "At least, if there's an allergy it's not anything big." He scratches at the side of his face and moves inwards to plop down in the chair, which he slouches into and peeks up at her, sucking thoughtfully on the inside of his cheek. "So there's this pastor guy in town, Jack, at the church with the youth group where some of the kids were going, and there's this girl Autumn who hangs out there a lot. She got trapped down in the bodega with us when it collapsed, and she said some things while we were down there that got me thinking that she might be a mutant. So Jamie and I started poking around trying to see what we could find out, yeah?"
The cat in question chirrups once in her sleep, twitching a tailtip as the plop in the chair beside her does not -quite- wake her, and then curls a little more inwards upon herself, blissfully uncaring of whatever the humans are nattering about now. Jean, on the other hand, leans forward with her elbows on the desk, attention riveted on Jeremy from the words 'Jack' and 'church'. "Yeah," she murmurs as the tale pauses. "I met her myself, once, on Thanksgiving."
Jeremy chews on his lower lip, nodding. "Yeah," he says. He lifts his thumb to scratch just beneath his nose with its jagged, chewed-on nail, and goes on, "Okay, so I didn't guess it at first or anywhere near. Just Autumn had this big crush on her preacher. But she told me some things and I was sure that the headaches and the build-up she felt about meant a power like mine, only way stronger maybe. So she got tested here and yeah. Mutant. She was pretty freaked. But she doesn't get the headaches when she's with this guy. And she's like, obsessed with this guy. So it's kind of weird..." He trails off, hesitates for a moment, and scratches his head as he peers back at Jean again, looking to catch her gaze finally -- before he was just kind of talking and letting his eyes wander around the room, but now he tries for eye contact, to try to gauge what she may be thinking, although he is for sure no telepath. "Uhm. You know Amp, right?"
"When I met Autumn," Jean offers up information in the hopes of encouraging more. "Her mind reminded me of the minds of drug addicts that I'd felt when I was doing my residency." Her tone is dead-level as she shares this rather fantastical (Anywhere except Xavier's) bit of news, but is derailed by the question asked of her from sharing any more. "I do. I helped get her in touch with her parents, and I got her some sedatives when you had her stashed up in our guest suites."
Jeremy goes through a series of expressions -- vindication, guilt, hope. This leads mostly to confusion! Too much to feel at once. He scrubs his face with both hands and then slouches back in the seat again, dropping them to his lap. "Okay," he says. "Uh. Right. Amp was staying with Pastor Jack at the church and it was ... changing her. I mean, you know her background. This is not someone who's trusting. But she was right in Jack's pocket. Jamie and I were suspicious that /something/ had to be going on, between Autumn's obsession and Amp's ... whatever. Except ... then he went to talk to Jack, investigatey like?" Jeremy raises his eyebrows, widening his eyes as he meets Jean's gaze. He delivers his next sentence as though it bears the quality of being the nail in an already solidly built idea coffin: "And then Jamie Madrox wasn't suspicious anymore."
"I noticed that myself," Jean admits, with a wry compression of her lips and a random reach for a cup of cooling tea that she swigs from without much thought. "Now, granted, Jamie Madrox trying to convince me he's got it all under control all by himself isn't exactly news, but I went to go see Pastor Jack myself. I believe you that there's something up," she assures. "But... he may just be an extremely charismatic preacher. He didn't read like another telepath to me, at least."
"Maybe," Jeremy says, looking dubious. "I don't think so, though. I think he's doing something to them. I'll explain why, look -- you know Amp. She figured out he was lying about something. About being just benevolent towards Autumn, I think it was. Jamie said it was nothing, that there was a plausible explanation, there's no case, but -- Amp's powers let her use the vibrations in someone's voice to tell they're lying, and /she/ knew it. So she got out of there. But she was like in withdrawal, Doctor Jean -- I mean, she had to force herself not to go back to him, she was cutting over it," and he turns his head and gestures upwards, indicating the floors above her office and the guest rooms up there. "--and I brought her here and, uh, stashed her like you said, so we could keep her here and she wouldn't go back."
"Incidentally," Jean notes briefly. "In the future, please be sure to let a member of the faculty know when you bring someone in...?" But that, it seems, is all the censure that will be delivered on the matter of bringing home strayed audiokinetics. "There could be other mutations besides telepathy that could leave someone with that sort of hold. Of course, there's also a few non-mutant ways to do it. But... Jack was lying about his intentions towards Autumn?" she prompts, with remarkable composure if one overlooks the whitening of the knuckles and the grip of her hand on the corner of her desk.
"Yeeah." Jeremy rubs at the back of his neck. "Sorry about that. I just ... I didn't want to explain. I didn't have any proof. But I got proof now." He drops his hand and scratches his leg. "We figured if he was lying about that then he was really a scumbag molestor probably. Then Autumn had told Amp that Jack kissed her once, no tongues, but that still kind of cinched it." He takes a deep breath, and then plunges onwards. "So Jamie was useless. Said there was no case. So I talked to Jubilee instead, and I talked to Amp, and then Amp talked to Professor Xorn -- anyway, we worked out this plan. Amp's a sound-manipulator and if there's room for the soundwaves to travel she can get them to go pretty far, and we figured that if we could get close enough to the church while Autumn and Jack were together alone that maybe we could get some proof that crap was really going down and he wasn't this paragon of the community or whatever, right?"
"Professor Xorn?" There's a momentary blank look as Jean scrubs a hand through her hair and attempts to replay whether she'd missed a staff memo, before her brain is marshalled back into line and to attending to Jeremy's story. "That wasn't a bad plan," she offers. "There wouldn't be much in the way of security to worry about getting the wrong idea."
"It worked okay. I mean, mostly. The trouble was that Amp was like ... addicted. We had to hold onto her to make sure she didn't like, break away and go in the church and screw it all up. But yeah. We went to the church, and I told Autumn--" Jeremy pauses and scrunches his face up into a definite grimace. "I tricked Autumn into thinking Jack was about to be carted off to prison so she'd run in and tell him they were caught, and it worked. We got the whole thing recorded -- well, most of it anyway." He must admit that they did not get it all, his hands fidgeting together in his lap as he does so. "It was pretty skeevy and Amp got really upset, but we got out of there. Xorn had to like carry her back, but we got out."
"So Professor Xorn knows?" Jean asks, and there's a half-successful attempt to keep an 'And I didn't' out of her eyes and the set of her shoulders. Fortunately, the other person in the room is a worried teenager. "Well... Time spoke with me yesterday afternoon. He didn't have the kind of hard evidence you guys collected, but I went to Detective Rossi with what I did know."
"Oh, good." Jeremy gives her a little grin, mostly oblivious to the trouble soup that he may have just dropped his erstwhile partner in crime into. "Yeah. Jubilee and I called Detective Rossi when we had the file on CD and gave it to him, so he's filled in from both of us now. Except that's not really all," he adds, and his nose crinkles again.
Jean looks more subdued than cranky, at least. "He said he was on his way up to Westchester when I last heard from him," she offers. "We've been playing telephone tag. But... what else is up?"
"Autumn," Jeremy says, and sighs. "Because I tricked her into going to him, I guess. Jack's gonna rabbit. He's leaving town and she's real upset. Uhm. She came by here to give me a note yesterday -- I don't have it," he adds, with a slight shake of his head as he continues, "I gave it to Detective Rossi, but she's either going to kill herself or run away or /something/, for sure. There are about fifty Jamies running around Westchester trying to find her I think. We didn't manage it last night. I barely got back in time for lights out."
"Oh, Jeremy..." Jean's expression is pained, but for him, not at him, as she turns to look out her window as if this might conjure up an Amp on the front lawn. "Have you told Detective Rossi this? If not, I could, and maybe see if she'd qualify for an Amber Alert. I'll contact the local hospitals, in any case, and..." She trails off, and gnaws thoughtfully at her lower lip. "I only met her the once, but... well, has anyone told you about Cerebro?"
"Yeah, Rossi's on it," Jeremy says with a crinkle to his brow. "He's got the card and everything. He said he'd take care of it, and I think between him and all the Madrii running around she's sure to turn up. I just hope when she does it won't be in the river." He tips his head, frown deepening the furrow at his brow. "Told me about who what?"
"Cerebro," Jean repeats. "Or, as Professor Logan refers to it, 'a big round room'. It's... well, it's basically a telepathic amplifier. Charles has used it to find people, in the past, as have I. It usually knocks me on my as--" Jean coughs, and re-chooses her words. "Takes a lot out of me, but we could try it. You have to know at least a little about who you're looking for, though."
"Do you know about Autumn?" Jeremy asks, squinting a little as he peers at her. "I don't know that even I really know her. I've been talking to her for weeks but there's just -- gloss, big smiles, not wanting to be bad."
"I know... what the surface of her mind felt like," Jean supplies, with a quirk of her lips. "I guess that would be like the telepath equivalent of seeing someone's face in a crowd. If she hasn't grown a beard or gotten contacts, mentally speaking--" Abruptly, Jean gives up on the metaphor. "In any case, I could try. I might not be able to find her, but it's something."
"Okay," Jeremy says, nodding and then sitting back against the chair again. "Well. It's probably worth a try. If you can't find her, I bet you could find the Jamies, right? He has no way of keeping in touch with himself. Maybe you could use it to keep track of him at least so he's not going over his own tracks all the time?"
"I could try and find her," Jean offers. "Something like coordinating the Jamies..." There's a distinct wince, mindful of just how bad a psionic headache that would entail. Weakly, she offers "Maybe with another decade's practice. For that, I'm going to have to talk to Charles."
"I just thought maybe he'd be easier to find. I mean, there sure are a lot of them." Jeremy laughs awkwardly, and then scrubs a hand at the back of his neck. "And you'd know him and stuff. But sure, okay."
Jean chuffs a soft laugh of her own, and admits that "The more of him makes it more complicated... but that wasn't a bad bit of logic. I'll need a little time to get ready," she admits. "And we'll want to have people ready to go, if I can get a location."
"Okay," Jeremy says, nodding again. "I'm going to see if I can find Amp. She might have better insight into where the heck to find Autumn when she's not at church."
Jean nods approval of this, before there's a pause and a catch of of her breath. "Ah," she wonders. "Has anyone spoken to Autumn's parents yet?"
"Rossi went to talk to them," Jeremy answers, flattening his palms against his knees and sucking in his cheeks. "I don't know if he got anything but. Yeah."
"I'll call him again," Jean promises. "And if I hear anything, I'll let you know." She turns back to the window again, and finds that there are still no Autumns appearing on the lawn, considers it a moment, and then turns back to ask "Is there anything more I can do to help, Jeremy?"
Jeremy scratches against the inside of his wrist, mouth twisting with a hint of rue. He shakes his head. "I don't know," he says. "I don't know what else needs to be done. I mean, besides that we gotta find Autumn and the cops need to put Jack in the clink."
"Amen to that," says Jean, with a grim crook of her mouth. "But... well I won't keep you," she promises, with an eye to the clock and the break between classes as it ticks away. "But Jeremy, I do want you to feel free to come to me. My only regret is that I've come to this so late, and if it's because I've seemed unapproachable, well, I apologize for that."
Jeremy looks somewhat uncomfortable, and squirms in place. "Well. It started because Jamie and I wanted to ... do it, you know. On our own, I think," he tells her. He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees, tipping his head as he lifts his gaze to her face again. "And then it was like, well, almost like we were going to get in trouble, or ... like no one would believe us because he's done all this community stuff, with the youth group and all that." He swallows and shakes his head. "I mean, she's one -- maybe ditzy girl who'll swear on her soul that he never did anything wrong, and one other ... street kid out of another world like. That's no kind of evidence."
"So you didn't trust us to believe you," Jean sums up, lips thinned out as she says it and her level tone paired with an accepting, if slightly wearied, bob of her head. "Well... I can see that, I suppose," she admits. "But Jeremy, if something like this ever comes up again, I promise that I'll hear you out on it."
"Okay." Jeremy makes a face. "Let's hope it doesn't, Doctor Jean."
Jean snorts ruefully. "True enough," she agrees, before giving Jeremy a small smile, and then reaching for her phone. "I'm going to try calling Rossi again."
"Okay," Jeremy says again. This time he pushes himself slowly to his feet. "I'm going to try and ... do some of my homework. Maybe. Before my next class."
"If you need to take a day off, I'll write you a note," Jean offers, the smallest but most tangible of what help she can offer.
"Hah," Jeremy says, pausing before his chair and squinting at her with no little amusement. "Excused from class on account of drama?"
"The technical term," Jean points out with a faint hint of a twinkle in her eye, "Is 'compassionate grounds'. We expect you kids to shoulder a lot," she says, eyes going a touch distant as she studies a speck of invisible dust in the air. "But we don't want to see you break down under it. If class is going to be a wash for you, your attendance records can spare you a day off."
"Okay. Then uh." Jeremy runs a hand through his hair. "I'd appreciate it. I could use a little extra sleep before I catch Amp." He makes another face, this time directed more like inward, and confides, "Last night wasn't great."
Jean picks up a magic pen, and after collecting an equally magical square of paper from a top desk drawer, imbues the magic items with a smidgen of her arcane power of deputy headmistressness and produces a note, which she offers over across the desk. "Nights like that never are," she murmurs. "But go on and get some sleep."
Jeremy breathes out in a low laugh and shakes his head slightly, closing his eyes in a slow blink as he retrieves the note. "Thanks," he says, and turns on his heel to shuffle towards the door of her office.
And somehow, that was totally the most damning of the evidence against Jack.
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Wednesday, December 12, 2007, 3:54 PM
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=XS= Jean's Office - Lv 1 - Xavier's School
Just another step in the grand tradition of renovation that dogs all great and old houses, Jean's office has been snuck nearly seamlessly into the footprint of the mansion library. Despite the headmistress' taste for clean lines and light colours, rich oak panelling and footstep-muffling carpet in a venerable shade of forest green are the order of the day. Light is freely admitted by a large leaded glass window that looks out over the Victorian garden and its fountain, although hanging curtains in the same emerald as the carpeting can be drawn to turn the room dark enough for presentations to be shown. The central feature of the room is an imposing desk, stained dark to match the paneled walls. A modern ergonomic office chair is positioned behind it, with two uphoulstered chairs in front. A laptop rules the desk, two filing cabinets, several framed diplomas and a bookshelf hug the side wall behind it. One corner holds a thriving ficus plant, and the central piece of art in the office is a framed representation of DNArt, a small brass plaque informing observers that this is the genome of Dr. Jean Grey.
[This room is set watchable. Use alias XSJeanOffice to watch here.]
[Exits : [Li]brary]
In the wake of Jeremy's departure, there is just Jean, and temporary calm, in which she can be heard leaving yet another message for Rossi, swearing quietly at her computer, and then clattering away at her keyboard. There's another phonecall. At some point she leaves, teaches her next class, and comes back. There is coffee. And then there is Jean sighing, and at last staring up at the ceiling as she scrubs her hands across her face. "I want to go to Aruba," she says. Over on one of the chairs, a sleepy cat chirps inquiringly. You speak? Is there food?
Past the open crack of the door, an eery blue light tracks right to left at eye level, followed closely by a glint of metal and a creak of leather as Xorn passes quietly by. He gives the office little thought; attention clearly aimed ahead at the nearest line of bookshelves.
A portal to the Carribbean is not forthcoming. With a sigh, Jean pries her gaze off the ceiling, and looks forward and out just in time to catch the blue light go a-wandering. Her eyes narrow slightly, thoughtfully, and there's a "Professor Xorn?" called out to try and attract the source of the light himself. "Do you have a few minutes?"
Xorn stops automatically at the sound of his name, rather like a robot toy whose crank has run out. He hangs in the balance for a moment, looking almost as if he intends to pretend that he has heard nothing. Then he turns back, broad shoulders leaning in to push through the partially open office door.
Only in Jean's mind is a 'click-whirrrrr' supplied to go with the stopping motion. She blinks a couple times to try and derail that particular train of thought, clears her throat, and motions to the office chair that doesn't have a cat in it. "Have a seat, if you want," she offers. "And mind closing the door?"
As prompted, Xorn turns to close the door behind him without protest, but when he settles into a parade rest before Jean's desk when he is done, it does not appear that he intends to take a seat. He is silent, macabre mask tilted inquiringly, politely down at her.
"First off," Jean offers, craning her head to look Xorn evenly in the eye-- er, in the glowing blue orb, with a pleasant little smile. "I think I owe you some congratulations. Charles was musing about making your position here permanent, and I have to say I thought that was a fine idea."
They are not orbs so much as hollow, barred over sockets whose narrow metal slats presumably guard over the orb stationed behind them. The effect, however, is much the same. Inhuman. Unnatural. "Thank you Professor Grey. I signed the papers Monday evening."
"I think I saw a memo to that effect," Jean murmurs, continuing to look into the disturbing eye-stand-ins as if in some sort of personal challenge. (There's a touch of rigidity to her shoulders as she makes herself keep it up.) "In addition to some speculation on whether you could eat potato chips or not, Charles also mentioned he'd like to get you brought in on a certain staff project. Did he end up deciding on that too?" Her words, although friendly and unhurried, nevertheless have a bit of a quality of a script about them, recitations in the face of no cues either facial or mental to guide things one way or another.
"He mentioned the possibility of an apocalypse and asked for help. I agreed. I cannot eat potato chips." Unblinking on account of the fact that he lacks eyelids, Xorn maintains an unflinching, impossible sort of eye contact. His posture is confident, but not combative. He is simply here, low voice resonant throughout the office.
"Consider yourself invited to the next science-fest that Hank and I hold, then," Jean replies, interlacing her hands on top of the desk and pushing her chair back a bit so that she needn't strain her neck to look up at him. At last, her gaze falters, veering away from the eyes to settle on where an ear would normally be found. Silence falls for a while. Jean has run out of script. At length: "Jeremy spoke to you about a situation with a girl named Autumn, and Pastor Jack Brighton?" It's not really a question, for all she's given the end word an uplift.
Where ears should be, the helmet compensates with rounded, cap-like protrusions, vaguely reminescent of diminutive metallic earmuffs. When the line of her gaze shifts to focus upon one of them, Xorn shifts his weight between the shoulder-width set of his boots, then resettles. "That is true."
"He said that you went with him and Amp to set up recordings of Pastor Jack while alone with Autumn Clarke," Jean relays a little more, and then scootches her look sideways and slightly up to the eye sockets again. "Did you tell anyone else on staff what you were up to?"
"That is also accurate." says Xorn, posture impassive, and expression -- well. It is the same jack-o-lantern grin as always, turned mockingly down upon Jean and her desk without evident apology. "No."
"Ah," says Jean. And goes silent again, in the lack of any read whatsoever on this. "Well," she says next, and then heaves a sigh, giving up on getting anything other than her own paranoid interpretations. (He's -laughing- at her in there, isn't he?) "In the future, I know I'd appreciate it if you'd tell your colleagues. I admit that I'm a little guilty in that I didn't exactly post my own discussions to the staff listserv," she admits. "But, well, I'm finding out now that we probably could've moved more smoothly if we'd each known the other was looking into things."
Silence. The hoarse rattling of some manner of breathing or regulatory apparatus provides an ongoing underplay of white noise from the tubing-bound region of Xorn's neck, but he is otherwise quiet for several seconds. "I was taken into confidence. There are times when an official inquiry is not sufficient without evidence alarming enough to stir the conscience to decisive action."
"I'd buy that more if you'd tried telling me and I'd dismissed you," Jean replies, one eyebrow cocked and her hands shifting in their folding on the desktop to place the other hand on top now. "Something like sexual misconduct with a minor is not one of those things likely to be brushed off these days, especially not from someone in the clergy."
"Forgive my presumption Professor. I am accustomed to being dismissed. I was also not under the impression that I was expected to answer to you in matters of authority. I will do better next time." Devoid of emotion, Xorn tips his chin slightly down to peer at her desk, and everything on it. Then he looks at the cat. "But it does not matter if an earnest interest is taken up if there is no evidence. Pastor Jack is well respected in the community and our strongest witness against him is from another dimension. Autumn will not willingly concede to a rape kit exploration. Her parents are not interested."
The cat yawns and looks up at Xorn, meeting the unblinking stare with a more natural source of one. She sheds a few delicate calico hairs to drift over and cling to his pants. Jean spreads her hands, and notes that "On the school front, I'm Charles' second in command. I'm not trying to be a martinet here, but when I'm trying to coordinate with Detective Rossi and other people, it's good to have all the information on who here is involved in something." There's a pause, and she, too, looks at the cat. "Although... did you let Charles know what you were up to?" There's a moment's doubt shading the tone, directed not at Xorn but somewhere else, likely the ineffable Xavier's ineffable sense of what's worth sharing.
"My actions were in the best interest of those involved. They do not care if the official channels are coordinated. They wanted to help. Now they have." Addressing none of the questions asked of him, Xorn speaks with the unshakeable fortitude that is inherent in the robotic thrum of his voice.
"Your actions were in what the teenagers thought was in their best interests," Jean bats back, eyebrow lifting again, although the rest of her expression seems to be schooling itself to calm serenity. After all, it's only fair if she's hard to read in turn. Totally. "You're not a teenager, so while you were right to help them, next time be sure to encourage them to seek out others' involvement. We're raising them to be independent, not isolated, and if there was a little more coordination earlier, we might not be trying to track down Autumn now, in the hopes she hasn't killed herself. But does Charles know?" she asks again.
"I am not a teenager." In this, at least, Xorn can find grounds for agreement. He reaches idly to dust cat hairs from the side of his trouser leg -- an oddly human gesture, all things considered. "I will take your opinion under consideration. Would it bother you if he did know." Brush, brush. Xorn straightens to peer directly at her again.
As Xorn straightens, the cat decides that it must partake of that ritual common to all felines when someone is indifferent to them. She stretches, chirps, and then promptly hops off the chair to twine around his pant legs and shed further floofy calico hairs on them. While purring. Jean watches this, and makes no move to call off her beastie. "Actually," she starts, then pauses to think about it honestly. "Well, I admit I'd be a little disappointed that he hadn't seen fit to tell me, when I'd talked to him about it, but if he -had- known what you were up to, then at least someone in charge did, which means that we can honestly say that we knew, if questioned."
Xorn listens, but does not respond. Perhaps, like an automated artificial intelligence system, he only responds to directed statements and questions. Or perhaps he is being obstinate. Either way, he simply watches her, ignorant of the cat.
Eventually the cat tires of twining, and disappears beneath Jean's desk. Crunching and munching sounds ensue, suggesting how she convinces the cat to stay in the office as much as it does. Not so much silence spins, then, as a lull in the conversation, before Jean comes up with a direct question again. "So," she asks. "Does he know?"
"I was taken into confidence." Xorn repeats, as if he is not certain if she heard him say it earlier. "I have told no one."
"Ah," says Jean, followed by a "Thank you, Professor Xorn," and a return to earlier pleasant business. Under cover of the desk, her foot slips out of its shoe and idly prods at her cat's back as she eats. There is arching. "So, now that you're officially signed on as one of us, is there anything I can do for you on that score? Teaching supplies? Field trips?"
"I would like an overhead machine." His head turned aside as if listening to a conversation somewhere else within the school's walls, there is the distinct impression that Xorn has lost interest in his current situation.
"I'll have one dug out of the supply closet for you," Jean promises, tilting her head to one side to study him as the silence looms again, before she eventually shakes it slightly, and offers that "I'm out of questions for you with that, I guess. Do you have any for me?"
"No." His gloveds hands having resumed their mild clasp behind his back, Xorn looks back to Jean. "Am I dismissed."
Something like mild exasperation makes it through Jean's expression to flare in her eyes at yet more unreadability. She stuffs it back down again quickly, and gives a little nod. "Thanks for your time, Professor Xorn. And thanks for looking out for Jeremy." That last, at least, has the ring of something more genuine than simple formality.
"You are welcome." And with that and a formal nod, Xorn...remains standing where he is. He waits, silent in his undying patience.
"Uh..." says Jean, as he remains standing there. "You are dismissed?" she tries.
Another nod, and Xorn turns to let himself out.
Once there is no more Xorn in her office, there is a long sigh. And Jean scrubs her face with her hands again. "Christ," says she. And then picks up her phone again.
Xorn has more evidence. But no potato chips. And dammit, Jean is sure he's laughing at her somewhere in there!
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Thursday, December 13, 2007, 3:39 PM
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=NYC= Clinton
Hell's Kitchen, because oh if that is not the preferred name for Clinton outside of the law offices, almost dragged itself up by the knuckles into respectability. But that was before the poor as piss housing and Hell's Kitchen's reputation for grit and shadow drew the attention of new gangs and new criminals -- and new refugees. Mutants have tried to disappear into the sagging tenements and alleys and been found dead on the streets. A Worthington safe house for mutants once stood here, but government backing and all, it could not outlast the violence. But the mutants are not only victims -- some of the bodies found on sidewalks or apartments are humans, and not all of them are masked gang members. While the mutant issue has lit the nation into a political hotbed, it has made Clinton dangerous for everyone. Proceed carefully.
[This room is set watchable. Use alias Clinton to watch here.]
[Exits : [Ch]elsea, [Mid]town, [M]ustard [S]eed [C]linic, [L]iving [C]olor [T]attoo, [P]aradise [F]ound Bar and Motel, and [P]aradise [V]illa]
Night falls swiftly on a winter city, but darkness never quite follows on the streets of New York. Even far from the blinding glitter and flash of Times Square, the orange-pink glow of sodium street lamps colours the dingy snow and turns blacks and blues and greens of cars and coats alike into some mingled, unidentifiable shade of 'dark'. Police eyewitness reports are often spotty on colour as a result. It's questionable that the pair of young men currently slouching down a broken sidewalk are aware of this little fact, however. Builds could be thick or thin, beneath the absurdly puffy fabric of their coats, and legs bandy or stocky beneath sagged jeans that could easily clothe a young elephant without pinching. There are knit caps, pulled low. There is a glint of a knife. And there is idle banter, beneath the irregular puddles of working street lamps. "Yo, man, you think we could knock off that free clinic? I bet they got some -sweet- shit in there."
"Fuckin' dumbass," opines the other, slightly smarter one. "They got bars on the door. You gonna cut 'em with that knife."
"Cut -you-, fucker."
"Fuck, man. Just hold up. Someone'll be along."
"Think they gonna have shit on 'em? Cut out the middleman, that'd be -sweet-."
There is a little flash of a bic in that semisweet darkness, as it lights up a cancer stick between the lips of a form. Male or female, white or black or somewhere in between. Could be any of those things. Whoever it is, they are very small and slender, with the hood of the navy hoodie pulled up to obscure face and hair and all manner of description. The figure doesn't quite pass the pair of men, instead slipping into a nearby alley.
Someone /will/ be along, though the situation may not be quite as sweet as they think. But their delusions continue for a little longer as a pair of feminish forms--one dressed in a long wool coat, the other bulkier but shorter--approach said clinic. The shorter form bounces around a little bit like a Labrador puppy, looking here and there and spinning around to walk backwards in front of the taller. "...Yeah, yeah... next time I go to spy on a preacher, I'll stay out o' his office. But hey! If he doesn't have a bruise now, he's /got/ to have a healing gig. Why are we here again?"
"A healing gig would be nice," reflects the taller figure, hands in the pockets of the oddly-fashionable wool coat, and a flash of copper-bright hair slightly muffled by a black hat to match it. "Then we could tell Logan to have some fun with him. And we're here," she instructs the shorter, and by the voices younger figure, "Because there's no telling what shape Autumn will be in when we find her. I want supplies." In the darkness, a flash and jingle of keys as they approach the barred door of the aforementioned free clinic, neatly out of line of sight with both the young men and the whatever-it-is in the alleyway across the street from the women that watches the men. "Keep a look out?" inquires woman the elder. "I guess it goes without saying that this is a bad neighbourhood."
"Bitches like that, I bet it's pills," says Young Thug 1 to Young Thug 2. "Still," says the other. "The tall one looks loaded. We get money offa that, sure. Maybe a little fun, too, with both of 'em." A pelvic thrust suggests the nature of this, bravado as it may be. Sharing a nasty laugh and a couple of shoulder punches, they advance, walking heedlessly past the alley and towards the figures at the clinic door.
The alley is close enough to the men where the strange figure can hear everything. Footsteps of the men let said figure know that they're walking, and from those gloved fingers the butt of the cigarette is flipped across the snow. Nadia is watching, peering around the corner of the alley. Getting across that street and to the men won't be a problem if indeed a problem should arise that needs her attention. For now she's just watching. What with that cop up her ass, she doesn't need to be harming people needlessly.
Jubilee is lots of fun! Promise! Jubilee laces her gloved fingers together and puts them on top of her head, nodding once and kicking her foot out as she pivots in place, a few steps away from Jean. She scans the street slowly, rather like a lighthouse without the bright light. Yet. She lifts a brow at the approach of the hoods, but doesn't call attention to them just yet. They may be harmless after all. "Wolvie may get his gut streamers for his bike after all."
"Just as long as he doesn't store them in his bedroom," Jean opines with a fastidious little sniff. "I had enough trouble with Scott keeping engine parts on top of my bureau." A fumble with the keys results in them dropping from gloved and chilled hands. "Damn it," mutters Dr. Grey, and stoops to retrieve them, back exposed and eyes blind to anything but where the keys have landed.
The young thugs may lack in higher ambition, but they are possessed of enough cunning to get by on the streets. Casual still, sharing jokes about whose mother is better in bed, they advance with hands still in pockets until they're standing before Jubilee. "Yo, chica," one calls. "You wanna good time?"
Nadia lets her eyes roll back in her head. Bo-ring. And lame. Still, she'd been listening to them talking. She'd be stupid to just walk off now. Two women alone in Clinton? Yeah, the perfect situation to end up on the evening News. Idly, she lights another cigarette, letting her eyes flit back up to the men.
<< Hmm? >> Jean's mindvoice is distracted, paired with the absence in her expression as she fishes around for the keys, which have thoughtfully dropped themselves into a small runoff grate for rainwater. There's a sigh, and she resorts to telekinesis rather than touch that much probable hobo-pee. << Probably. Remember to let them make the first move so that it's self defence. >> she counsels, and resumes trying to struggle with a cold-frozen lock. "Shouldn't you boys be at home working on your homework?" she adds in her own suggestion, in teacherly tones.
"I can give you plenty, chica!" says Hoodlum 2, hands clenching in his overly-puffy pockets at this tacit challenge to his mighty, mighty, streetwise genetalia. "Like maybe shove it down your throat and work it a bit." "Whoah, chill, bro," says Hoodlum 1, playing The Smart One and giving Jubilee a smile that plays it cool. "Honey's just got -feist-. You maybe wanna ditch the old lady over there, come take a little walk with us?"
Despite Jubilee's distractions, the lovely little Hoodlum fanclub, there is still someone on lookout. By this time Nadia's almost through her second cigarette. A deep breath later and the thing is finished, tossed away in the snow. She's not even nessisarily trying to to hide anymore, instead just leaning on the alley with her arms crossed. Her eyes rol back into her head once again. "Somebody take a swing already." She groans. Hey, it's cold out!
<< Got it. >> Jubilee answers back, her mind already flashing bright colors of anticipation and amusement. "Honey's got a whole lot more'n feist," she singsongs, dropping her hands and tucking them behind her back. A small glow gets cradled in her palm. "Though, you wanna take a walk with me, you gotta talk to the old lady. She's my pimp."
"I am--" Jean begins hotly, before sighing and fixing the back of Jubilee's head with a pained look. And playing along. "Not going to hire my best bottom boy out to a couple morons like you. Do you know hard it is to find trade that can actually cross-dress convincingly in this part of town?" Tone patrician and dignified, she favours the hoods with a lifted eyebrow and then returns to fencing with the door.
One of the hoods is reaching for Jubilee at this comment from Jean. In a moment's wash of sexually-panicked bigotry, interest turns to fear, and the hand yanks away, only to turn into a heavy swat on the fly. "Get away from me!" he cries, with a quick look at his buddy. Not gay, man. Not gay! The other advances, and the knife comes out. "Y'know, I think maybe we take a little more'n just cash."
"Oh, finally." In a flash of about two seconds, Nadia is across the street. Her hood falls back at the sudden movement, revealing her dark hair and her ethnic skin and...oh yeah. Her girlish face. One hand darts out to a man, she's not sure which one except that she's sure not grabing one of the females. Her tiny fingers clasp around the man's wrist and holds him back. The whole thing takes about four seconds or so.
It's Jubilee's turn to look pained. "I am /not/--" Her protest is interrupted by the swing which catches her with a glancing blow, the majority of the force dodged by training's reflexes. She pivots on the ball of her right foot and steps back with her left, tucking it behind her so that now her shoulder is presented to them. "Ow!" Now she's grumpy. And /now/ there's a third person? A flash of light discharges unheeded from her fingers behind her.
Jean will regret that loaded sally. Later. When there's time to think. With a jingle-chime, the keys are dropped again, this time left stuck to rattle against the metal of the door grate as they stay stuck in the lock. As Jubilee spins to defray the force, Jean does her own bit of warning before engaging, in the form of a low "You -really- don't want to do that..." as she turns, and... sees a third person? "The -hell-?" says the educated Dr. Grey as she advances. Logan's been rubbing off.
"You're gonna say a lot more than that when I get through with you, ass pirate," threatens the hoodlum, knife raised warningly and glinting eyes missing entirely that crackle of sparks. His partner, the Smart(er) One, does however. Warily, with a hiss of "Freak..." he backs up. And into Nadia's welcoming clutches. "FUCK!" rings loud and sharp on the night air, and his free hand, the knife hand, swings wide and catches at the fabric of her clothing. They do not seem to hear Dr. Grey's warning.
"Shut up." Nadia's voice, though young, is flat and quiet. Her navy hoodie tears at the behest of the knife. Nadia quickly moves to grab his knife-wrist and twist it, which would, in essance, make a loud breaking noise centering from somewhere around his elbow. "That. Is my favorite shirt." She says, as if reminding him of something. The sparks and the rest go unnoticed, as Smart Start is a few heads taller than Nadia, making it hard for her to see much of anything that isn't in peripheral view.
Been? Logan's rubbed off so much they could collect the hair and make a blanket out of it. Jubilee rolls her eyes and mutters, "Yeah, yeah, freaks and weirdos. Got anythin' original?" She glances between Nadia and the knife. The knife is closer and a little more immediate of a problem. "Like what? Take me now, take me hard?" Dumb Hood dances in place a bit until his associates expletive jerks his attention away from Jubilee. Bad move. She settles back and lifts her leg into a roundhouse kick, Jet Li style, baby!
"Shit, Jubilee, they've got backup." Maybe it's the tone. Maybe it's the adrenaline. Maybe it's just a bit of kill 'em all and let God sort it out. Regardless, Nadia's appearance does not say 'savior' to Jean. And when one worries a powerful telekinetic... There's an unseen burst of energy from her. Thug and young superheroine get to experience the novel sensation of floating. Apart. When their feet are two feet off the ground is when Jean turns to Jubilee, and wonders an absent "Everything under control?"
"SHIT MOTHERGOATFUCKING SHIT OH MY LORD JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!" This scream brought to you by the letters 'J', 'N' and the number 'dislocated elbow'. Jean may be floating Smart Guy out of further stab-attempts, but there's still a Nadia attached to him. This is painful. His partner in crime is more succinct: There is the meaty sound of a head being hit with a foot, and over he goes with an "Ungh."
All teh while, Nadia is talking to the dislocated fellow. "Do you have any idea how cold it is outside? Next time you want ot jump somone, jump 'em or don't. Don't leave me standing out here waiting to see if you're really a bad guy." And then she's flying. What the fuck? "WHy am I flying?!" She announces to the world, squeezing hard on the wrist of said attacker. Hey, he might be doing it! "I don't like flying!"
One "Ungh" and a clatter of steel against concrete later, everything is! Jubilee scampers forward (her first few steps a little off balance from her not quite to the ground kicking foot) and straddles him, hands in front and the glow from them is quite evident this time. "This? They tell me it's plasma. All I know is it explodes. You really don't wanna test it out, I promise," she warns the grounded thug cheerfully, then grins over at Jean. "Yep. Oh!" She looks back down at Dumb. "I'm really am a girl."
As the thug's scream switches from swears to a wordless animal keening, Jean advances from the shadows of the doorway to lift her face to the light and reveal her mildly well known profile. Into her pocket goes one hand, and out comes a cell phone. "I have other places to be tonight," she says. "But before I let you down, I'm going to give you the courtesy of telling me -why- I shouldn't let the police sort all this out."
Not just wordless animal keening. There's also a liquid gurgle, and it turns out that while the thug was out cruising for money, he was in no need of food. Interestingly, perhaps, the vomit doesn't hover too. It goes splat. Woozy pinned guy turns his face to try and dodge the spray, and wonders a muzzy "You gonna flash me to prove it...?" It's hard to tell if it's smartassery or hope.
Nadia glances down at Jean. "Ya know..." She says, even having recognized the woman. "Most people say thanks when someone tries to help. Now let me down, I get airsick worse than he does." She's since let go of the floating thug and shoved him awawy to see if he'll move. Barf is gross! "And I projectile vomit." Let her down! She doens't like flying!
Jubilee lowers herself to a near squat and murmurs, "I would, but it's kinda cold, ya know." The conversation between flying Nadia and Jean tugs at her ear. "Is /that/ what you were tryin' ta do?"
The vomit-covered thug doesn't seem likely to go anywhere. Jean thus kindly lowers him to the ground. Less-kindly, she doesn't move him out of his own puddle. He curls fetal around his arm anyways, and continues to pant in rapid little pained breaths. Nadia, however... Jean lifts an eyebrow, and wonders "Are you just going to bolt, if I let you down? You've probably dislocated, possibly broken that misguided young man's arm, which means that there -will- be questions. And I'm a doctor, I've seen worse than projectile vomit."
The other thug, who is still communicative enough to get his own pose, stares crosseyed up at Jubilee and wonders a vague "Whaddya gonna do?" Testingly, he rocks beneath her, trying to unseat her. Go, go, greater mass! Please?
Nadia huffs softly. "It wasn't your arm I broke, was it? I was trying to help you guys." She asks, turning her head to Jubilee. She's glaring at them now where she wasn't before. The she looks back to Jean. "Just put me the fuck down. And next time I promise to let thugs with knives do whatever they please to a couple of ladies walking around teh city." Not even a thank you! Pfft on that.
"Hey!" He is successful, but only in knocking her off her feet hard enough to sit down on his stomach. /Heavily/. "Maaaan. Nuts to this. Jean! There needs ta be a law that all wanna be heroes gotta start wearin' capes." She rocks in place and struggles back to her feet.
"Jubilee, don't make -that- one vomit," Jean sighs, one gloved hand lifting to pinch at the bridge of her nose in a familiar (To Jubilee.) gesture. But then her attention goes back to Nadia, and with a little nod she lowers her back to terra firma. "Your heart is in the right place," she offers, more gently. "And if we'd been in trouble, I'm sure we'd be thanking you. But your methods... what would you have done if they had guns?"
The girl dusts herself off, as if she'd been ruffled. She feels ruffled. "They didn't have guns, did they?" She glances over at Jubilee, then back to Jean. "Ye of little faith. You guys might consider wearing signs of yourself. Half an hour I was over there watching those guys. I was freezing my ass off."
That One groans, but eventually lies still. Sorta. There's a peanut gallery comment of "Are you gonna call the fucking cops already, man?"
"Oh, shut up. I'm not /that/ heavy," Jubilee retorts downwards.
"Ah," says Jean. "But how did you know? And what if they had?" she presses, before flicking a glance down at Jubilee and her quarreling capture. And lifting her phone as she reaches inside her coat again to produce something rectangular and card shaped. In fact, it -is- a business card. Gasp! "If you want to learn a little bit about how to do this properly, give me a call," she offers. "Or... if you need to be bailed out of jail, that works too."
"You kicked me in the head!" This is a pertinent point of contention, apparently. "Like fuck, man, are you some fucking street ninja?"
Nadia takes the card, glancing over it. "Shut up." This time it's her who gets to snipe at the man on the ground. "Might be the latter if you call the cops right now." She says, looking back up at Jean. "Got a lady so far up my ass I can taste her hairspray cause some mugger got knifed down in Queens." She holds up a hand. "I'd like to point out that I never knifed anyone, nor have I ever carried worse than my bic. But with that in mind hope you don't mind if I get on my way? Almost time for prayers anyway." Yep. Muslim mutant Arab.
Jubilee bends over to smile down at her captive. It's a kind of creepy smile, especially on Jubilee's face."Yeah. That's me. An' you can tell aaaaaaall your one friend that you /totally/ got laid by me too. Laid /out/, that is."
"What's your name?" The question is a simple one, Jean canting her head sideways to take in all five feet three inches of wannabe-hero before her, and crook her lips in a slight smile. "Answer me that one, in case I -do- get that phonecall from the NYPD."
Jubilee's captive? He just swears. And closes his eyes with the expression of a man convinced that a jail cell might actually be not so bad right now.
The muslim grins a wide, wide grin. "Sarmatia. It's a muslim thing." She shrugs, pulling out a cigarette and her bic, lighting it before she starts to step back, intent on heading her own way but still conversing with Jean. "I'll give you a call sometime. Or if you ever need some help in the ass of the city, let me know."
From secreted pocket, Jubilee pulls out a pair of zipties and kicks her guy over to fasten his hands. The conversation is only given half an ear, but she does manage to get another eye-roll out.
"I'm not going to find that in the phonebook, am I?" Jean questions rhetorically. But seems content to let it go with a wry curve of her lips, and the note of "I'm going to make full disclosure to the police, just so you know." But with that, the cell phone's out, and Jean is hitting a button. Speed dial, an X-Man's best friend. Nadia is, apparently, free to go. "Hi!" she greets with a bright tone. "My name is Dr. Jean Grey, and I'd like to report an attempted, uh..." She trails off and glances over to zip-tying Jubilee and her prey, and checks on the downed and vomit-covered Smart Guy. "Act of stupidity outside of the Mustard Seed Clinic on --th." The resigned eyeroll from the other end of the phone is almost audible. Jean sound stung for a moment. "I was just minding my own business!"
Nadia notices Jubilee's eyeroll and shakes her head. "On second thought....have a nice life." And with that she turns and goes off her own way, which seems to be down the street wence she came.
Jubilee straightens from her task, gives the poor guy a kick for good measure and crosses over to Jean, looking after the departing Nadia with an undecipherable expression. "Well. That was /fun/." Or perhaps not.
Jean's conversation goes on for a time, but as a promise is made to wait, and a promise to send a squad car and an ambulance is received in trade, she ends the call and then looks over at Jubilee with a lift of an eyebrow. "You totally got laid by me?" she questions, before she, too, watches Nadia go. "Now I know why the cops bitch about civilians," she proclaims.
Nadia glances over her shoulder once, as she hears the others talking. Shaking her head, she lifts ulls out her headphones and turns on her ipods and starts jogging. Soon, she's gone in the dark.
Jubilee says the sweetest things, and also practices Tai Kwan Leep. Nadia appears, and finds out that it's hard to get a break as a teenaged superhero. It's easy to get a break if you're a somewhat-incompetant mugger, though. Warning: Bad language!