xp_logs | Nathan and Manuel, Tuesday evening

In Times Square, Nathan and Manuel try an experiment. It doesn't work out, and Nathan takes a frustrated Manuel to dinner. They have one of Those Discussions about the difference between empathy and telepathy, intimidate a waiter, and yet somehow manage not to argue (at least not as loudly as usual). In passing, Nathan mentions something about the Askani that definitely classes as 'more significant than he likes to admit'.

Manuel looked at the busy evening-time crowds in Times Square and scowled. He understood the reason for this test, but it was not going to be easy. And to make it worse, the evening was cool to his Castillian blood, and he bitterly wished he'd brought his light jacket along.

He should have had Manuel wear a blindfold, was Nathan's thought as he moved casually with the crowds, starting his second circuit of Times Square. Although he supposed that might have garnered a few too many questions. Still, if Manuel just happened to spot him visually through the crowd the test was more or less invalidated. Hence why he was staying well-clear of where he could sense Manuel was.

He had a light shield up, but not the full defensive configuration. The psionic noise was wearing him down a little already, but he needed to be fair to Manuel, give him a decent chance to 'spot' him. Of course, if he'd carried the whole defensive configuration it would have been easy - all Manuel would have had to do would be to look for the blank spot.

Manuel, in keeping with the spirit of a test, had the Wall Street Journal open in front of him. He was reading it - slowly - but his real purpose was to use the newspaper to ward his eyes as he scanned. Normally just Looking didn't make his eyes glow, but the last thing he wanted to do was slip and touch off a riot in Times Square. That could get - uncomfortable. Unfortunately for him, checking each and every mind was rapidly tiring him out and highly inefficient to boot.

Maybe he'd treat Manuel to dinner after this, Nathan thought, glancing at his watch. Would be the civilized thing to do, and it would be interesting to see if they could be social for a couple of hours at a time.

Manuel gritted his teeth and checked the next pod of travellers. There _had_ to be a way to do this en-masse. But Nathan would be shielding himself, probably blending in with the crowds and making a royal nuisance of himself.

Into the third circuit, now, and Manuel still hadn't tagged him. Nathan chewed his lower lip thoughtfully, then started to reach out and brush the minds of the passers-by. Not scanning, just enough to trigger a little surprise, a sensation of being watched...

Manuel's luck was lousy tonight - he was looking the other way when Nathan started lightly tagging passers-by. And he was _still_ brushing people one at a time, to check for Nate-ness before moving to the next. Behind his newspaper, he ground his teeth.

Not going at all well. Nathan checked his watch again, then set his jaw - and dropped his shields. The mental cacophony was fairly awful, and he swayed a bit as he moved out of the flow of the crowd, leaning back against a storefront. Two minutes. No more, or he'd have a hell of a headache tonight. And if Manuel didn't pick up on this... well, that said something, didn't it? Especially given that part of him was screaming 'Shut them out! Shut them out, you fool!' at the top of its panicked little lungs.

Manuel _finally_ got the hint when he mindbrushed someone who Nathan had touched. Relieved at finally getting a clue, he pulled a typically Manuel Stunt - he turned up the power up past eleven and looked for Nathan's emotions. The spike of Nathan's unshielded panic, when he felt it, nearly tore his head off entirely. The paper in his hand crumpled.

Nathan slammed his shields back up, sensing Manuel's reaction, and quickly made his way through the crowds to where the young man was standing. "Well, that was moderately asinine," he said mildly, wiping the sweat from his forehead. "Are you all right?"

Manuel tossed his crumpled newspaper into a trash can. "This was dumb. I failed." he said. "I couldn't scan everyone fast enough. Not and be sure, not when you were probably shielding to feel like one of them."

"I wasn't, actually," Nathan said, inclining his head in the direction of 46th Street. There was a decent Italian restaurant down there, if he wasn't mistaken. "Just enough of a shield to preserve my sanity, until the last minute or two there."

Manuel stood up and gestured for Nate to lead. "Still. I don't know how to scan more than one person at a time." he admitted. "I've never had to."

"Are you sure that you need to actually scan everyone?" Nathan asked. "You know my mind, the pattern of my emotions, fairly well by now."

"I thought you were going to try to blend in, disappear. So just looking for you wasn't going to get me very far." he pointed out. "Maybe I'm wrong. Wouldn't be the first time. Stupid power."

"If this was the third or fourth time we'd tried this I probably would have, just to add a complication," Nathan conceded. "And don't start with the 'stupid power' nonsense. You made a decision to look at everyone, to find me. That's got nothing to do with your power - it's your strategy."

Manuel shrugged. "I mean, I could have just ripped through everyone there, and the one who fought it off was the one I was looking for. But that wasn't exactly practical." he said with another grit of his teeth. "I'm trying to feel my way through this, remember?"

"And don't get huffy at me, either." They found the Italian restaurant, which was moderately busy but not excessively. "Table for two," Nathan told the maitre d'. "You'll give it some additional thought the next time."

"No, you don't understand. I was trying to -feel- my way through it." he said, struggling to make himself understood. "I check one person. He's not you. So then I check the next. And so on. But there were too many people, moving too quickly."

"There's no individuality to emotions, then?" Nathan prodded as they were led to a table. The waiter was giving them an odd look, and Nathan gave him a flat stare that sent him scampering.

"Not to the basic emotions themselves, no. How they're expressed, most emphatically yes. That's what I was looking for, actually." he said, sipping at his water.

"So how did you find me finally?"

"I followed the panic." he admitted. "When you dropped your shield, I happened to be looking in the right direction, and saw the new threads."

"Hit me a little harder than I expected," Nathan said frankly. "I forget sometimes how much sharper that side of my ability's gotten. But I suppose that was a very particular shade of panic, too."

Manuel smiled thinly. "Quite distinctive. I know it well." he said, and then snagged a breadstick to chew on it.

The waiter came back with menus, inquiring as to whether they wanted anything to drink. Nathan shook his head at him before the words were half out of his mouth. "Would you like something, Manuel?" he said.

"Cappucino." he said to the waiter. "As hot as you can possibly make it." He then snagged a menu and opened it, to glance at the fare being offered.

"So why do you think I had you doing this?" Nathan asked, glancing at his own menu. He wasn't all that hungry, but that didn't mean he shouldn't eat.

"Because you hate me, and because being able to find someone in a crowd is a very useful skill to have." he said sullenly. He _hated_ failing, which means that over the last few weeks he felt a whole lot of hate.

"Firstly, stop saying that because you know it's not true, and secondly, you're right." Nathan settled on a light pasta with seafood, on a whim. "It's much easier for someone like me, obviously. A mental voice is easier to pick up on, more distinctive."

"I don't hear mental voices." he reminded Nathan peevishly. He ordered a dish heavy on the red meat and sauces. Something that fit his mood like a glove. "I work by feel."

"And you also like stating the obvious still. Didn't I just concede that?" Nathan reflected that his patience was really a very tenuous thing these days. He probably needed to work on that. "There'd be a difference, I'd think, if you were looking for someone you knew. You'd be more likely to find him or her. A stranger, on the other hand..."

Manuel shrugged. "I don't know how to scan multiple people at a time. I mean, I can manipulate multiple people at a time - that's easy - but I can't read them."

"Funny," Nathan said, leaning back in his chair and picking up his water glass. "You seemed to think you had the passive side of your abilities mastered and all that remained was to worry about the active."

Manuel growled at Nathan and nibbled another breadstick. "Scanning is active if I want to know anything besides the blindingly obvious."

"But you're not affecting anything," Nathan pointed out. "You're just looking at what's there."

Manuel sighed. "Touch my mind for a second, OK? I want to show you something." He then put down his breadstick so that he was free to concentrate without distraction.

Nathan set down his water glass. #All right,# he sent, reaching out and establishing very light contact with Manuel's mind. #What?#

Manuel Looked at the restaurant, at the riot of emotional connections and feelings, and shared that perception with the link. #All right, funnyman. You tell me what it means, and who these people are.# he said with a very distinct ill-humor.

#So how do you try and tell what's what and linked to who?# Nathan asked with perfect aplomb, Not Falling For It. If Manuel was going to ask him to believe that empathic scanning involved active manipulation of emotions he was going to have to clarify.

#I have to follow the emotional tie out and see where it leads# he explained - mindspeech was still a trial to him, and he mindspoke slowly and hesitantly. #And that takes effort. I'm no telepath where I just know at a glance. I have to work for it.#

#And you honestly think that a telepath just knows at a glance?# Nathan deepened the link a little, tensing a bit as he opened up his shields again. The restaurant was crowded enough that it was a significant roar of noise, crashing against their minds suddenly, then multiplying expontentially as the noise from the crowds outside reached them. What was the speed of thought, anyway? he wondered very distantly. #You think it's no work to pick out a specific mind from this?#

#You don't have to reach for meaning.# Manuel countered with stubbornly. #It comes to you.#

#Everything comes to me.# Images with the noise now, overlaying the voices, wrapped around them. #I need to work as hard to make sense of it as you do with emotions. You think there's no interpretation in telepathy, Manuel?#

Manuel looked around via the mindlink, at the hubbub of voices. #All you have to do is filter. If I try to feel the way you hear thoughts, I'd be right back where I started. That _is_ how I got into trouble - I tried a telepath's technique.#

#Back to the feeling sorry for yourself, I see.# Nathan cut off contact, fairly gently, and straighted in his chair, reaching out for his water again. "Maybe you need to discard the things that are too hard, then," he said casually. "Like finding people in a crowd. If it's really beyond your capabilities to do it with any sort of efficiency."

Manuel's sarcasm-detector went off with alarm-bells jangling. "Reverse psychology?" he said with an amused look on his face. "Really."

"Seriously." And if Manuel wanted to brush it off as reserve psychology, so be it. "You said you ran into trouble because you were trying techniques I would try. Maybe you're trying too hard to be a telepath, still. Trying to be too versatile."

"You're the only one with access to fully-trained empaths. Why don't you ask them what's possible and what isn't? Unless that would lead too easily into your favorite game of Guess What Manny Can't Figure Out." he said sullenly.

Nathan shrugged a little uneasily, Manuel having hit upon a slightly sensitive subject. "They're... it's harder to talk to the individuals than it was," he said a bit vaguely.

"Then try harder." he said, in a nearly dead-on perfect imitation of Nathan's own way of speaking.

"You're not getting it." Nathan stared down into his water glass. "They're fading."

"Fading?" Manuel said, not understanding. "What do you mean, they're fading?"

#Into a single voice.# Nathan took a sip of his water. #The stronger voices are still there, but quieter. But I don't have the sense of most of the others anymore. It's been that way for a while now...#

#So ask that single voice.# Manuel said with a roll of his eyes.

#She doesn't remember them as clearly anymore.#

#Great. So now you can't ask the only people who actually _do_ know what they're doing.# Manuel thought.

Nathan shook his head a little. He shouldn't have said anything - Manuel didn't care. "They healed, and led, and served as diplomats, and occasionally killed," he said neutrally. "They weren't telepaths, and they didn't try to be. There was a great deal of honor in what they did do and they were content with that."

Manuel sighed. "Never mind, forget I mentioned it." he said verbally. "This entire exercise was a failure."

"Would you be able to find Amanda in that crowd?" Nathan asked suddenly.

"I'm linked to Amanda. I could find her anywhere." he said with a grin of pride. "In the dark, blindfolded, I could find her."

"So you found her. And you did find me, when my emotional signature was charged enough." Nathan shrugged a little. "Finding the ones you know, under certain circumstances... if Alex was in trouble, you might be able to sense that, whatever kind of a crowd he was in. Because you know him, because he's your friend. What you can do in this area may not be as flexible as you want it to be, but that doesn't mean it can't be worthwhile."

"We're playing your favorite game again, and I've no stomach for it." he said, picking up his half-eaten breadstick and nibbling at it.

"Recognizing your limitations isn't a game. You just don't like it," Nathan said bluntly, but dropped it. He'd given Manuel a little food for thought. If there was one thing he had learned over the last year, it was that points were simply not hammered in with the empath. Trying to do it was futile.

"I don't believe I should have any limitations." he said defiantly. "There are just things I have not yet puzzled out how to do."