LOG: Forge and Jennie

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Forge gets to show the New Kid around school.



Forge downed his third cup of coffee, absently finishing the last of his egg-on-waffles sandwich as he read through the latest printout of the sonics experiments he was setting up for Terry. Glancing on the clock, he arched an eyebrow at the "2:10" reading, and gave a quick look out the kitchen window to try and figure out if it meant AM or PM.

A quick buzz from his PDA caught his attention. A text message from Dr. Bartlet asking him if he could show a new student around? Forge shrugged and placed his coffee mug in the sink. Tour guide it was, then. Walking into the foyer (after pausing to make sure his shirt was on right-side-out, of course. One of the perils of a nonstandard sleep schedule), Forge saw the brunette looking over to the sunroom.
"So," he announced by way of introduction, "did you already get the speech about new beginnings and the possibilities of the future, or have you only been here five minutes?"

Jennie jumped about three feet in the air.  The jet lag combined with the whirlwind hihowareyouhere'syournewlifehavefun! Bits of the morning had left her in something of a self-induced coma. Guiltily she swung around and noticed the shorter boy with the glasses and...metal arm?

"And here I thought that speech was just for little old me." She remarked, hand over her chest to quiet her heart.

"Are you kidding?" Forge responded with a smile. "I think they just ought to put it on a brochure and have a stack by the door. 'A myriad of possibilities in a new world...' By the way, Professor Xavier's English class? He actually TALKS like that. You get used to it. I'm Forge, by the way. John Henry, but no one calls me that, because I ask them not to." He extended his hand, trying not to seem like an absolute dork.

"Jennifer Stavros.  Jennie.  Any Forest Gump jokes and I get to smack you around." She smiled.  Her fingers twitched.  Up close, it looked like a metal hand.  A working metal hand.  But that was impossible?  Then again, people who shot laser beams out of their eyes had been semi-improbable yesterday, but that got shot all to hell this morning.  "I'm sorry. I don't want to be rude, but, is that really your arm?"

Forge paused, then pushed his sleeve up his arm, showing off the rest of his prosthetic. "Oh, this?" he asked rhetorically. "Yeah, I'm one of our resident folks with mechanical parts. You'll probably meet Mr. al-Rashid later. Had an accident almost two years ago, ended up building my own replacements." Forge kept speaking as he walked past Jennie down the hall, nodding for her to follow.

"That's what I do, by the way," he kept explaining. "I build things. Big supergenius mutant brain. Kitchen's back that way, you'll probably see Ms. Dane in there a lot, she's in charge there. Green hair, can't miss her. But she doesn't do all the cooking, some of the students help out. Down that way's where most of the classrooms are. Teachers' offices are at the other end. You're still in school, right? Well, not now," he stammered. "Summer and all that. Am I babbling? I do that sometimes."

Jennie waved  a hand.  "No, it's okay.  I speak fluent babble.  My friend Julia is...ah..well, was a constant babbler."  Jennie hurried to keep up with Forge.  The rooms passing by in a kind of almost numb blur.  She was sure that she should be paying closer attention, as it would probably bite her in the ass later when she needed the restroom or something.   A purple girl walked past them, smiling and waving.  Jennie almost sprained a muscle in her neck from double-taking.  "Woah."  She looked at Forge.  "I'm just kind of not used to seeing, y'know, people like us."

Forge bit back his immediate sarcastic remark, seeing as Jennie was probably the most normal looking person he'd seen around the mansion in a while. No fangs, tail, or weird skin colors or funky scars or tattoos. That he could see, anyway. "It all becomes normal pretty quickly here," he said. "Everyone's got their own little quirks, even the normal looking folks. Just wait until you meet Mr. Wagner. He's a teleporter. Leaves this smoke cloud that smells like a burnt fart, though. Have they assigned you a room yet?"

"Not yet."  She replied.  "I think they said I'd get a temporary room, until the new school year started."  She shrugged.  "What are the classes like here anyway?  I mean, I haven't been to school for ages. Got too damn boring." Jennie grinned.

"Boring?" Forge had to smile at that one. "You won't find that here. If you're into science - well, the names McCoy and MacTaggart ought to interest you. They're both on staff here. Mr. Dayspring and Ms. Monroe teach History and Humanities. Not my thing, but it's a challenge. They're good here with throwing challenges your way. I mean, if that's what you're interested in." He leaned against the wall, trying to look less interested than he suddenly was. "I mean, do you mean boring like too easy, or like 'I'd rather be out scoring pot behind the bleachers' boring?"

"Nah, none of that stuff."  Jennie waved a hand dismissively.  "It's kids like that that made up my whole high school back home, 'cause it had to take all us trailer trash.  And they had to introduce this new program so all the students had to learn at the same level, because the test scores sucked ass.  So they did away with all the advanced classes.  I got stuck in Algebra 2, and I could do that stuff in 7th grade.  I mean, the teacher got all pissed at me because I kept correcting the textbooks.  I felt like I was getting dumber just be being there.  Have you ever felt like that?"  

"Yes, I call it 'waking up'," Forge replied with a mixture of sarcasm and relief. "So you're a math whiz? That's cool. Even aside from my power, I swing to the engineering and science side of things anyway. So," he said after a brief pause, "the inevitable question that everyone who comes here gets - what is it that you do?"
 
"Well."  Jennie paused for a moment.  "I'm trying to think of how to describe it.  Basically, I can give people or things good luck or bad luck. I can alter the probability of an object or event, like, I could make that vase over there fall over or crash on the floor with a red disk, or if somebody was going to fall down the stairs,"  Jennie concentrated and a small, fist-sized disk of white energy appeared, resting on her fingertips. "I could hit them with one of these white disks, and they'd teeter and fall away from the edge."  She shook her hand and the disk dissipated.  "Makes my hands go all tingly when I don't use 'em."

"Probability manipulation?" Forge's eyebrows shot to his hairline. "Wow, like Miss Maximoff, only you go both ways. Fascinating. Hard to quantify, but believe me, you'll get enough practice here. I know they were saying that everyone's getting active powers training next semester as part of the new curriculum. Should be fun. Better than yet another week of dodgeball, I say."

"As long as I don't get stuck in any kiddie courses, I'll be happy as a clam."  Jennie rubbed her fingers, trying to get the tingling to stop.  "So what are the kids like here?"

Forge pondered how to answer that one. "I think it's impossible to find someone NOT to fit in with here," he finally said, continuing to walk through the halls. "Students, staff, it's all pretty easy going. Unless my roommates are beating each other up in the suite again. In which case, we have a fully stocked medical facility onsite and four active doctors, two of whom are the previously mentioned McCoy and MacTaggart - short of losing a limb," he waggled his fingers in explanation, "they can fix anything that's wrong with you."

"And rumor has it that there's some secret program here to hook everyone up with a significant other, but I'm not sure who's behind it. When I find out, though, there will be beatings." Forge tried to put on a cheerful face for the new student. No fair throwing the full sarcastic and bitter act at her on her first day, he thought.

"Let me guess.  All the pretty, popular and well groomed have gravitated to one another and are now trying their hardest to breed more pretty, popular people?"  Jennie snorted.  "Yeah, no thanks.  I've had enough romance to last me until my late 20's."  She pointed.  "Hey, wow, is that TV for you guys?"

"You bet," Forge said, rolling over the back of the couch and landing in a sprawl on the cushions. "This is the aptly named 'TV Room'. Usually you can find folks hanging out here pretending to study, or Shiro and Kyle trying to beat each other's Dance Dance Revolution score. Like I was saying, there's plenty to do here to keep you from ever getting bored. Plus if you can drive, or get in good with someone who can, you can ask to sign out a car and head into Salem Center for stuff, or sometimes folks take a day trip into the city. You drive?"

“Yeah, don’t have a car though.” Jennie flopped herself down next to Forge. “This place is amazing. I think my brain’s finally given up. It’s jumped ship and gone to Madagascar.” Jennie shrugged and looked at Forge. “Last week, I was working at the mall and paying rent and buying groceries, while my friend Julia kept disappearing on me. Now she’s dead and I wind up here, in a whacked-out version of Barbie’s Dream House. Too good to be true, y’know?”

"Seems that way," Forge said flatly. "Forgive me if I'm not really shocked by the story - I know Dr. Bartlet used to work for the FBI, and since you don't look like you got brought here for medical reasons, I figured it was the other end of things. You've probably realized it, but for the record?" he said with a smile, "Kiss 'normal' goodbye. But if you ask me? This is better."
 
"I'm going to be living in 'interesting times' from now on, hey?"  Jennie sighed, and rubbed the bridge of her nose.  "I just had to make sure you're all not some super-secret government agency and my brain's not going to end up in a jar."  Jennie shrugged and grinned.  "So, what else have you got?  A tank? Stealth Bomber?" She rubbed her hands together gleefully. 

Forge paused, refraining from answering the 'Stealth Bomber' question, choosing instead to just smile. "No worries about brains in jars. Most people around here like to keep their bodies in one piece. And here we are," he said, holding the door open for Jennie, "back in the kitchen.

Any problems with your room or anything like that, the box there's where you can leave a note for Mr. Marko, he's sort of like the caretaker here. Can't miss him, he's the size of an SUV. This
concludes your tour, pick up your souvenir balloon animal in the foyer, and enjoy the rest of your stay at Xavier's Wacky World of Mutant Mayhem."

"Um, can I ask one eensy little stupid question?”  Jennie said reluctantly. "Where *are* the girls rooms?"