xp_logs | Nathan and Angelo

A little later in the evening, Nathan is still spending quality time with some of Moira's favorite machines. Angelo stops in to check on his boss, and Nathan tells him a little bit about what he saw - and is still seeing. It's not reassuring. Everyone else should be reassured that they don't have powers that provide their own foreshadowing.

"I know you're there," Nathan said, lying as still as he could while the EEG did its work. "Moira send you in here to keep what's left of my mind occupied?" He heard Angelo's footsteps and sighed. "Are you all right? I can't precisely turn my head to find out."

"Yeah, I'm good," Angelo answered, settling in a chair near the machine. "Not even concussed, even if I had to sit in an the infirmary for an hour before they let me go,"

Nathan tried not to scowl - scowling moved muscles, and he wasn't supposed to be moving a muscle. "Moira said Marius and Haroun were all right, too. Not that I remember Haroun being anywhere in the vicinity, but trust him to arrive just in time to get blown up..."

"I think he showed up just when the telekinetic wave thing happened. Marius's got nothin' but bruises an' some cuts from his own teeth."

Nathan let the air in his lungs out carefully. He'd have some bruises himself, from the feel of it. "That pill we were testing," he said; Angelo knew all about it, of course. "I went off it, yesterday. The precog apparently decided to play 'let's kick Nathan in the brain'."

Angelo winced. "Comin' back with a vengeance from bein' suppressed?"

"That's what Charles said. And what Moira's concluded, based on what her machines are telling her. And hell, I don't even need to hear it from them... that was like the brownie incident and the chocolate incident rolled into one and ten times more painful." He was trying not to be depressed about that, especially given that Charles knew how to stop it from happening again, but some of the things he'd seen...

Angelo hesitated, then asked carefully, "But with the brownies an' the chocolate, the stuff you were seein' wasn't all real predictions, right?"

"These were." It came out almost automatically, and Nathan smoothed out his expression as the machine gave a warning bleep at him. "I can't prove it, but I felt it. All real, and all part of the same future. My future."

He wasn't absolutely sure why he was telling Angelo this, but... it was Angelo. He'd told Charles, and Moira, and now he was telling Angelo. It seemed like a very natural progression.

"...You're sure." It wasn't really a question, and there wasn't a trace of doubt in Angelo's voice. "...what did you see? Or... no, you don't have to tell me."

"I'm going to want to tell you, at least some of it," Nathan said after a moment. "Once I get it sorted out in my head, I'm going to need help, trying to match the details to real-world places and the like..."

Angelo nodded. "Anythin' I can do. You know that."

"It was all about Gideon," Nathan said somewhat bleakly. His vision was getting odd around the edges again and he closed his eyes as another afterimage hit. That brownstone in New York. Again. The needle of the EEG jumped sharply.

"...figures. What about Gideon?" He kept his voice gentle, not pushing.

"I was with him. Alone. And everything was changing." His head was pounding, and he felt oddly disjointed, as if he wasn't entirely here.

"Changin' how? Like, the vision kept changin'? Or you mean things are goin' to change?"

"It was the end of the world," Nathan murmured, and twitched as he saw the waves crashing on the shore. "We were alone at the end of the world."

Angelo stiffened at that, watching Nathan carefully. "What... what do you mean, the end of the world?"

"I don't know." Then he came back far enough to recognize that Angelo was sounding kind of freaked out. "Gah... I don't meant the literal end of the world. I think."

"...you think." Not really all that reassured, all things considered. "Okay, so... what did you mean?"

"I... don't know." There was something on the tip of his tongue, something familiar about all of this. Why couldn't he remember?

Oh, right. His head was trying to blow up.

"...okay. You can tell me later, if you want. When you didn't just have a drug reaction."

"I swear you need danger pay." And Marius. Damn it. He was going to have to do something about that. Nathan opened his eyes - and immediately closed them again, wincing. The light hurt.

"I'm not gonna say no to that", Angelo answered, trying for a light tone and not really getting there.

Nathan started to reply, and then his breath caught in his chest. "Oh... Corcovado, I know that," he muttered at the next flash. "The statue."

"Corcovado? Where's that?"

"Rio. The statue on the hill over Rio de Janeiro... check, we need to check and see if we can find any Eris holdings in Rio." Common sense kicked back in. "But tomorrow. After you've had a chance to rest, and I'm, you know, vertical and all..."

"Tomorrow works. 'Cause Moira'll kick my ass if she finds me askin' you all these questions right now."

"Heh... there's a song, a Sinatra song, about Corcovado. 'Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars'..." Nathan opened his eyes. "The freaky-ass symbology needs to go away now," he said faintly. "And if I'm sick to my stomach while I'm in this thing Moira will make me start over."

"Will it make it any better if I shut up now?"