Nathan and Laurie log: Psi shielding
Jun. 26th, 2006 07:00 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsWhen: Monday 26th June 2006 Time: 7:00pm (Going for the way, way back machine on this one.)
Who: Laurie Collins, Nathan Morrow.
What Happens: Laurie comes by for a little psi shield training.
Laurie knocked on the boathouse door, looking around as she waited for an answer. When Nathan had offered to teach her how to shield, she'd been excited at the prospect of learning something new; she just hoped she didn't disappoint him. She wasn't sure if she'd be any good at shielding but she'd give it her best try.
The door opened as she knocked; revealing the Elpis office, quiet at this time of day and the lights on the desks off. #Through the office and up the stairs, Laurie,# Nathan's voice said amiably in her mind. #I'm upstairs. No Rachel this evening, so no need to look out for the dive-bombing flying baby. #
Laurie had gotten used to Nate's mental voice during the trial process and it had the same comforting effect on her thoughts now as it had then. She smiled, walked through the office and headed up the stairs, looking around curiously as she did so.
'Aw, and here I was looking forward to listening to her wrap you around her little finger.' Laurie thought.
She wasn't a psi and thus couldn't 'think' the thought at Nathan but she'd learnt that concentrating on a thought for long enough usually gave him time to 'hear' it.
Nathan, sitting on the couch, his laptop open on the coffee table in front of him, looked terribly amused. "I'm really turning into the world's most notorious pushover, aren't I? Either that or I have a terribly manipulative ten month-old... possibly both." He waved a hand at one of the armchairs as he saved the file he'd been working on and closed it. "You know, it's really ironic. A couple of years ago, I was the one in need of help shielding, and that's a hell of a lot more serious for a telepath than for a non-psi. Now I occasionally teach other people."
"You're a good Dad; I think that almost requires that they wrap you around their little fingers." Laurie replied, sliding into one of the other chairs.
She looked down at the device she used to keep her power under control among the others. Nathan had been around her when she didn't have it though, and hadn't seemed scared by the effects of her powers. She needed to start learning control without its help, this meant not using it when she could.
"Do you mind if I turn it off?" she asked.
"Go right ahead," Nathan said easily. "I don't intend to scare the crap out of you at any point during this, so you shouldn't have any odd pheromone reactions to deal with." And if she did... well, he'd know what was causing his reaction, so that was all that mattered.
Laurie turned off the device, smiling nervously for a second as she watched Nate's reaction. He didn't seem to tense up at all, so she probably wasn't projecting. Probably, since the only way Laurie could really tell currently that her power was on was how others reacted to it. She'd been told that with time she'd learn how to tell when she was projecting.
"So, how does this work?" she asked.
"Gradually," was Nathan's wry reply. "Very, very gradually. You're going to leave here today and not feel different in the slightest. For non-psis," he explained, leaning back into the cushions of the couch, "it's a question of mental discipline that your brains aren't actually designed to achieve. You're doing something profoundly unnatural when you learn how to shield your thoughts from a telepath." He didn't mention empathy. They had no empaths around anymore, after all, and why complicate the issue? This was going to be enough for Laurie to process as it was.
Laurie swung a foot back and forth absently as she thought about what Nathan had said. She'd always liked puzzles that involved lateral thinking, she wondered if this would require the same kind of mental twist.
"Lead on, O Captain my Captain." Laurie replied with a grin.
"The first thing you have to understand," Nathan said, "is that there's no single way to do this. Nor is there an infallible way to do it." He was sliding into lecture-mode effortlessly, part of him noticed with a flash of wry humor. "What I'm going to teach you is not what the Professor would teach you, if you went to him for this. He approves in general of how I do this-" Regular sessions for two years made him pretty confident in stating that. "-but his approach would be very different. If mine doesn't work for you, his might."
"Telepaths are different, then?" Laurie asked, curious.
She hadn't really thought there were that many different ways to read somebody's mind. Of course, she hadn't known telepaths existed in the real world either. She'd thought they were strictly the realm of Science Fiction. Not that her whole weighty sixteen years on the planet had been enough to see everything; but it was still a shock sometimes, just how many things she was still being surprised by.
"Oh, very. It's not just power levels, either," Nathan said. "It's a matter of strengths and weaknesses... what you can do, what you feel most comfortable doing. I'm mostly a communications-oriented telepath. I can do the scary stuff, but I prefer not to. It's hard for me, for a lot of reasons."
Laurie nodded, placing that little bit of information into her store of 'interesting facts about psi mutants' mental box. She'd gotten into the habit of keeping 'mental boxes' of a sort as a good way of studying for high school finals and it had worked so well that she started doing it with most of her memories. She didn't have perfect recall but she'd noticed an improvement at least.
"Will it hurt at all? Learning to shield, I mean." Laurie asked after a moment, settling herself more comfortably.
Nathan raised an eyebrow at her in amusement. "Learning to shield, no. Although," he conceded a bit reluctantly, "if you are ever in the position where a telepath is trying to get in - which is very unlikely for you, Laurie, I think, it would hurt if they tried to break through the shielding." Maybe he shouldn't be quite that honest, but he'd gotten into the habit of being honest with her during the court case, and it wasn't something he really ought to break, he thought.
She thought about that for a moment, wondering what that kind of pain would be like. Physical? Or like the kind of pain she'd heard that amputees felt, phantom pain that seemed to come from a place but wasn't really there. She paused for a second, as another question surfaced. "Mr Morrow, is it harder to do that sort of thing if you're distracted? Probing someone's mind, I mean. Like, maybe having your body react in some way you weren't expecting?"
Both eyebrows went up. Clever girl... It was a fairly impressive display of an intuitive leap, especially for someone Laurie's age. "Extremely," Nathan said candidly. "Especially if the person whose mind you're trying to probe is defending against you."
Laurie grinned, feeling incredibly pleased with herself. She loved to learn new things, and having a teacher willing to answer random questions was half the fun. "Guess I've got added incentive to learn to control my powers then. I get the feeling living here makes you a little more likely to have to use them then usual."
It wasn't that she considered the school dangerous, albeit it was a little alarming how often this place seemed to have _things_ happen to it, just that she had always been taught to adjust to her surroundings as best she could. Current surroundings dictated that she learn control, not just for her sake but for everyone else's as well.
Nathan's smile was sudden and warm. "You want to be able to look after yourself," he said, quietly and approvingly. "There's something I can get behind in any way, shape, or form..."
"It wouldn't really be fair to expect you guys to always be around to tell us what to do. I mean, protect us, sure. But somewhere in there I've gotta be able to know what to do if something happens, so you can all concentrate on the important stuff." Laurie replied, feet swinging loosely again as she talked.
"I'm a big believer in self-sufficiency," Nathan said, the smile turning almost mischievous. "I do not, however, do the 'throwing you into the deep end to teach you how to swim' thing. So we're going to take this slow," he promised her, "and make sure you have a good strong foundation to develop this particular skill. It's the only way to do it properly."
Who: Laurie Collins, Nathan Morrow.
What Happens: Laurie comes by for a little psi shield training.
Laurie knocked on the boathouse door, looking around as she waited for an answer. When Nathan had offered to teach her how to shield, she'd been excited at the prospect of learning something new; she just hoped she didn't disappoint him. She wasn't sure if she'd be any good at shielding but she'd give it her best try.
The door opened as she knocked; revealing the Elpis office, quiet at this time of day and the lights on the desks off. #Through the office and up the stairs, Laurie,# Nathan's voice said amiably in her mind. #I'm upstairs. No Rachel this evening, so no need to look out for the dive-bombing flying baby. #
Laurie had gotten used to Nate's mental voice during the trial process and it had the same comforting effect on her thoughts now as it had then. She smiled, walked through the office and headed up the stairs, looking around curiously as she did so.
'Aw, and here I was looking forward to listening to her wrap you around her little finger.' Laurie thought.
She wasn't a psi and thus couldn't 'think' the thought at Nathan but she'd learnt that concentrating on a thought for long enough usually gave him time to 'hear' it.
Nathan, sitting on the couch, his laptop open on the coffee table in front of him, looked terribly amused. "I'm really turning into the world's most notorious pushover, aren't I? Either that or I have a terribly manipulative ten month-old... possibly both." He waved a hand at one of the armchairs as he saved the file he'd been working on and closed it. "You know, it's really ironic. A couple of years ago, I was the one in need of help shielding, and that's a hell of a lot more serious for a telepath than for a non-psi. Now I occasionally teach other people."
"You're a good Dad; I think that almost requires that they wrap you around their little fingers." Laurie replied, sliding into one of the other chairs.
She looked down at the device she used to keep her power under control among the others. Nathan had been around her when she didn't have it though, and hadn't seemed scared by the effects of her powers. She needed to start learning control without its help, this meant not using it when she could.
"Do you mind if I turn it off?" she asked.
"Go right ahead," Nathan said easily. "I don't intend to scare the crap out of you at any point during this, so you shouldn't have any odd pheromone reactions to deal with." And if she did... well, he'd know what was causing his reaction, so that was all that mattered.
Laurie turned off the device, smiling nervously for a second as she watched Nate's reaction. He didn't seem to tense up at all, so she probably wasn't projecting. Probably, since the only way Laurie could really tell currently that her power was on was how others reacted to it. She'd been told that with time she'd learn how to tell when she was projecting.
"So, how does this work?" she asked.
"Gradually," was Nathan's wry reply. "Very, very gradually. You're going to leave here today and not feel different in the slightest. For non-psis," he explained, leaning back into the cushions of the couch, "it's a question of mental discipline that your brains aren't actually designed to achieve. You're doing something profoundly unnatural when you learn how to shield your thoughts from a telepath." He didn't mention empathy. They had no empaths around anymore, after all, and why complicate the issue? This was going to be enough for Laurie to process as it was.
Laurie swung a foot back and forth absently as she thought about what Nathan had said. She'd always liked puzzles that involved lateral thinking, she wondered if this would require the same kind of mental twist.
"Lead on, O Captain my Captain." Laurie replied with a grin.
"The first thing you have to understand," Nathan said, "is that there's no single way to do this. Nor is there an infallible way to do it." He was sliding into lecture-mode effortlessly, part of him noticed with a flash of wry humor. "What I'm going to teach you is not what the Professor would teach you, if you went to him for this. He approves in general of how I do this-" Regular sessions for two years made him pretty confident in stating that. "-but his approach would be very different. If mine doesn't work for you, his might."
"Telepaths are different, then?" Laurie asked, curious.
She hadn't really thought there were that many different ways to read somebody's mind. Of course, she hadn't known telepaths existed in the real world either. She'd thought they were strictly the realm of Science Fiction. Not that her whole weighty sixteen years on the planet had been enough to see everything; but it was still a shock sometimes, just how many things she was still being surprised by.
"Oh, very. It's not just power levels, either," Nathan said. "It's a matter of strengths and weaknesses... what you can do, what you feel most comfortable doing. I'm mostly a communications-oriented telepath. I can do the scary stuff, but I prefer not to. It's hard for me, for a lot of reasons."
Laurie nodded, placing that little bit of information into her store of 'interesting facts about psi mutants' mental box. She'd gotten into the habit of keeping 'mental boxes' of a sort as a good way of studying for high school finals and it had worked so well that she started doing it with most of her memories. She didn't have perfect recall but she'd noticed an improvement at least.
"Will it hurt at all? Learning to shield, I mean." Laurie asked after a moment, settling herself more comfortably.
Nathan raised an eyebrow at her in amusement. "Learning to shield, no. Although," he conceded a bit reluctantly, "if you are ever in the position where a telepath is trying to get in - which is very unlikely for you, Laurie, I think, it would hurt if they tried to break through the shielding." Maybe he shouldn't be quite that honest, but he'd gotten into the habit of being honest with her during the court case, and it wasn't something he really ought to break, he thought.
She thought about that for a moment, wondering what that kind of pain would be like. Physical? Or like the kind of pain she'd heard that amputees felt, phantom pain that seemed to come from a place but wasn't really there. She paused for a second, as another question surfaced. "Mr Morrow, is it harder to do that sort of thing if you're distracted? Probing someone's mind, I mean. Like, maybe having your body react in some way you weren't expecting?"
Both eyebrows went up. Clever girl... It was a fairly impressive display of an intuitive leap, especially for someone Laurie's age. "Extremely," Nathan said candidly. "Especially if the person whose mind you're trying to probe is defending against you."
Laurie grinned, feeling incredibly pleased with herself. She loved to learn new things, and having a teacher willing to answer random questions was half the fun. "Guess I've got added incentive to learn to control my powers then. I get the feeling living here makes you a little more likely to have to use them then usual."
It wasn't that she considered the school dangerous, albeit it was a little alarming how often this place seemed to have _things_ happen to it, just that she had always been taught to adjust to her surroundings as best she could. Current surroundings dictated that she learn control, not just for her sake but for everyone else's as well.
Nathan's smile was sudden and warm. "You want to be able to look after yourself," he said, quietly and approvingly. "There's something I can get behind in any way, shape, or form..."
"It wouldn't really be fair to expect you guys to always be around to tell us what to do. I mean, protect us, sure. But somewhere in there I've gotta be able to know what to do if something happens, so you can all concentrate on the important stuff." Laurie replied, feet swinging loosely again as she talked.
"I'm a big believer in self-sufficiency," Nathan said, the smile turning almost mischievous. "I do not, however, do the 'throwing you into the deep end to teach you how to swim' thing. So we're going to take this slow," he promised her, "and make sure you have a good strong foundation to develop this particular skill. It's the only way to do it properly."
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