xp_logs | Newsworthy - Julio and Amanda

The kids are running amok in New York, thanks to Amanda's bus trip. One of the places they hit is Central Park, where an unsuspecting Julio is about to have a very unpleasant encounter. Thankfully, Amanda has great timing.

The Bethseda Fountain was considered the crown jewel of Central Park. Hundreds of people gathered there in the summer to ride bikes, take pictures, hang out, or even sometimes take a dip in the fountain itself.

On this particularly humid Saturday afternoon, Julio found himself sitting on the lip of the fountain, trying to get his breath back. Manhattan felt so weird to him, the ground below run through with countless tunnels and sewers. He'd wandered around central park with the others who came on the bus to New York, but he separated when they suggested visiting the zoo, instead deciding to lose himself in the crowd. He was enjoying the rare freedom. He always felt so coddled when on Mansion grounds, and being in public by himself was a big step forward.

Julio titled his head back and closed his eyes, resting for a minute before going to see if the others were still at the zoo. They had a pre-arranged meeting place, but that wouldn't be for another hour.

It was on the lip of the fountain, sleepy and sun-stupid, that he was found.

"Excuse me, I wonder if you'd be interested in giving me an interview?" The voice was female and young and very sure of itself despite the question. "I'm a journalist, you see."

Julio jumped, startled. He turned to notice a young, fashionably dressed redhead nearly on top of him. He blinked, trying to clear his brain fog. "Er, yes? For what?"

"Changing Face. It's a magazine devoted to current events," she replied smoothly, brushing her long straight hair back over her shoulder. She was in her mid-twenties, pretty in that carefully groomed fashion of the upwardly mobile. In her hand she held a small tape recorder and was looking at Julio keenly. "I can give you a business card, if you'd like?"

"Uh, okay?" He dumbly accepted the card. It was crisp and official-looking, and the woman was looking at him earnestly. Julio got the uncomfortable sensation that he was a bug being looked at as a possible dinner by a bird. He looked around quickly, to see if he could spot anyone familiar, before realizing he was trapped. "What...what do you want to know?"

The woman - the business card identified her as one Jane Olsen - took the opening provided by the question and sat down next to him, pressing the 'Record' button on her tape recorder. "Well, given the numbers of young people manifesting as mutants, we're looking at what young people in general think about the San Diego earthquake, particularly now Magneto has claimed responsibility for it. Did Magneto's announcement change your opinions on mutants, and if so, how?"

Julio felt his heart stop, momentarily. Of all the things to be asked. He looked down, trying to formulate a response that didn't involve bolting. "No," he said, still looking at his shoes. "It did not."

"Can you tell maybe in a bit more detail what your reaction was to the news? After all, the San Diego earthquake was the worst disaster in the last hundred years... To find out an individual was responsible for that kind of destruction... how did that make you feel?"

It makes me feel like a goddamn murderer, actually. Julio licked his lips. "It makes me feel. . .terrible," he said finally. "That someone would want to hurt all those people."

"Magneto declared he was making a strike in the war between humanity and mutant-kind; what do you think about that statement? Do you think a war between mutants and humans is inevitable?" Jane, sensing she'd gotten something a little more interesting than the usual bored responses of 'dunno' and the mindless rhetoric of the FOH member she'd encountered.

"I-I hope not," Julio replied. "I hope to God not. One crazy man in a helmet does not represent everybody. Human and mutant." Julio added quickly. He had only been a mutant since the summer, but after witnessing the violence against mutants back home, he was going to be very cautious. No sense in "outing" himself. Especially considering the line of questioning.

"So, you'd consider yourself someone who believes in peaceful co-existence between mutants and humans?" Jane asked, tilting her head slightly to the side. "Given the dangerous nature of some powers, what happened in San Diego, you can see why some people might be afraid of mutants."

"Excuse me, I couldn't help overhearing... You're doing some sort of story on mutant affairs?" The voice was Amanda's, although the accent was definitely smoother than earlier when she'd greeted Julio on the bus. "I'm so sorry for interrupting, it's just I work for a think tank specializing in mutant affairs and some of the questions you've been asking cover a lot of the research we've done in the wake of San Diego." The Brit smiled brightly at the journalist. "Like RedX and their part in relief efforts, for example?"

Julio turned from Amanda back to Jane, who was staring a little open-mouthed at the blond girl. "Si, Yes," he said quickly, inwardly glad for the save. "People with dangerous powers can be a bad thing, but only if they don't know how to control them. Or get used for them."

"Much like learning to drive a car," Amanda pointed out, easing herself into the conversation and distraction attention from Julio. "In careless or negligent hands, a car can be every bit as deadly as, say, a telekinetic. Emphasizing the bad, stirring up a culture of fear, it only makes things worse. If you have a society that fears mutants, there's less chances for that education and training that would prevent many of the powers-related incidents out there. Not to mention groups like RedX actively encouraging young mutants to use their powers for the public good."

Jane was nodding, moving the tape recorder from between her and Julio so she could catch what Amanda was saying. "It's certainly a perspective I could do with hearing more about, Ms...?"

"Seaton," Amanda supplied her public alias easily. "Look, why don't I give you my card, you can call me and arrange an interview? I'm sure we don't want to keep this young man here while we go into mutant politics."

The younger boy's lips drew into a thin line. His temper was starting up, and he didn't know why. "She can help you more than I can," he said finally. "I have to go, I am m sorry, but I am meeting friends and I do not want them to leave without me." He threw Amanda a pointed look and then stood up quickly, dodging through the crowd and trying not to run.

"Um, well, thank you for your time!" Jane called after him, before turning to Amanda with a slight roll of the eyes. "Kids, huh?" she said, before clicking off the recorder. "You said something about a card?"

Amanda was already digging through her wallet, secretly glad Betsy had impressed on her the value of business cards. "Here," she said, handing it over. "I'd stay and talk now, but unfortunately I've got a meeting to go to. But definitely give me a call and we'll set something up. I might even be able to pass you onto some people who can give you a more hands-on perspective." And it'd give her a chance to study up a bit - she could cover generalities, but interviews needed more than that.

Thanking her, Jane let her go, already scouting out a new victim. Breathing a sigh of relief, Amanda went looking for Julio. Wouldn't be Xavier's if there wasn't a drama on the first day of something, she thought wryly.

Julio kept his head down as he weaved in-between the people in the square. The reporter's words were spinning around in his head like angry bees. He'd looked like a deer in headlights, back there. He maliciously wondered what her response would have been if he had told her the truth. That she was talking to the kid who had caused the San Diego Earthquake?

Damn tall kids and their long legs... Amanda grumbled to herself as she finally spotted Julio, still on the move. Dodging around a group of Japanese tourists, finally caught up with him, a little breathlessly. "Hey," she said, accent back to the normal rougher-edged English than earlier. She quite deliberately didn't grab him. Kid was jumpy enough and uninvited contact would only make him worse. "Either I need to get fitter or Xavier's needs to start up an athletics team and sign you up. You up for company? It's okay to say no, by the way," she added, with a slight grin. "Just say the word and I'll bugger off and see you on the bus."

Julio nodded, not slowing down. He wanted to get out of the square and away from these people, quietly terrified that he would set something off. He didn't want to think about the consequences of making the ground shake here.

Luckily for him, he was with a New York local. Or sort-of local. Amanda quietly guided him out of the square and to less-populated parts of Central Park. Picking a bench that was a decent distance from any paths, other people and wandering journalists, she nodded at him to sit. "Be back in a tick," she said, dashing off only to return a minute or two later with two bottles of water from one of the hot dog vendors. "Here, get some of that into," she said. "I dunno about you, but talking to that woman's given me the worse case of dry mouth."

The boy accepted the bottle and drank from it, finishing half of it before coming up for air. "It is too humid," he commented dully. His heart was still pounding. "She caught me not paying attention. That will teach me not to wander off. 'Excuse me, boy, would you like to talk about the earthquake you caused that killed hundreds of people?'" He adopted a high-pitched tone to mimic the reporter, "The crazy man in the cape wants to use it to start a war, how does that make you feel?" He spat the last word before polishing off the rest of the water.

Amanda watched him from her seat beside him. There's a hell of a lot of anger in there that's not being allowed out, she thought, remembering how it had been for her the years after being taken from Rack and getting sick of the pitying looks from social workers and doctors and anyone else who knew the story. She'd been so furious, all the time.

"'S the funny thing about the school," she said at last. "Coincidence tends to make you its bitch. If it's worth anything, I thought you handled that pretty well. In your position I would have told her to get knotted."

Julio chucked the empty water bottle at the trash can. He was still working his way through the English slang, but he could tell from Amanda's tone that 'knotted' was probably akin to 'go fuck herself'. "I was raised to be polite," he said simply, "First day back outside and I cannot escape it." A muscle in his jaw twitched. "There is a...memorial? On the west side of the park. Four hundred and five pairs of shoes." And flowers, and candles. Seeing it made Julio want to vomit. "It is not quite done, there was also eleven from the Guadalajara quake I caused."

"There's something similar at Columbia," Amanda mused. "Bloody thing gives me flashbacks every time I see it - fuck knows what it does to Nate." She looked at him, face sympathetic but not pitying. "Thing is, tho', you're going to get reminders. What happened in San Diego was a huge fucking thing and there's going to be memorials and news reports and t-shirts and fuck-knows what else, and it's not going to go away any time soon. So what do you do? Spend the rest of your life hiding away from the world, like that Tommy Jones? Let buckethead ruin the rest of your life?" If her tone was a little challenging, it was because she got the feeling getting all touchy-feelly with Julio wouldn't work. Quite the opposite, in fact. Hopefully this wouldn't backfire on her - she didn't want to have to explain that she'd broken one of the students on her first day out.

"Tommy Jones is a puto for hiding in the mansion." Julio replied. He had never forgotten the way the boy had spoken to him in the journals, expecting him to hate him because he belonged in the friends of humanity. The only thing Julio hated more than pity was cowardice. He was quiet for a minute as he thought. "It is wrong," he said finally, "that I am walking around, safe, free. I have done something wrong, and I should be punished."

"You're in the wrong place for that," Amanda said dryly. "They'll forgive just about anything at the school." She snorted softly. "I think it's something in the water. And I bet whenever you say anything like that at the school, people fall over themselves trying to tell you it's not your fault, yeah? But it doesn't help, does it?"

Julio turned and for the first time looked Amanda in the eyes. "Yes," he said evenly. "Or they do not even mention it, but it is there. Always. The newer girls, they do not know, I think. I like that. A man is supposed to acknowledge his mistakes, and I did, but now," he looked down, "Now I would rather that no one know. But that is cowardly."

"You got a rough road ahead of you, mate," she told him frankly. "And in some ways you're in the best place you could be in, but in other ways it's going to make things harder. Sometimes there's so much going on, it's easier to not talk about the difficult stuff. Like Lorna being brainwashed or something by Magneto and nearly killing Remy. Or me going over to the bad guys last year." She said it matter-of-factly, almost briskly. "Other times you can't get them to shut up. In the end, tho', it's not them you have to face. It's yourself." She took a long swallow of water, grimacing slightly at the dryness of her throat. Talking too much.

Julio blinked. "Lorna was...brainwashed by Magneto?" Now THAT was news to him. And explained why she was eager to train him. He sat back, slightly stunned. "They are forgiving. I did not know."

"It's on the journals," she told him. "Go back and have a look -you'll see her wanting to be punished, same as you." With a flash of insight she understood Lorna a lot better now. Bugger it all. "'S not a secret or anything, and it might help." Amanda shrugged a little. "Probably best you don't mention me if you mention it to her, tho'. We don't get on." Which was the understatement of the year.

"English is not my first language," Julio replied dryly. "To read the journals, I need a dictionary. I am only back to February." Though now he figured he'd be up all night again slogging through everything.

Amanda laughed. "Hell, when I first arrived, to write in the bloody things I needed a dictionary. We do love the sound of our own voices a bit." Then she sobered a little. "Seriously, tho', talk to Lorna. She probably has a better idea of things than most of them. If she'll talk about it - Lorna tends to do the whole head in the sand thing about the important stuff." She glowered a bit, thinking of the mess the green-haired bitch had left Remy in. "And some things she can't leave well enough alone. Any way," she continued, shaking her head a little. "That's not the issue. Point is, there's people out there who can understand your situation and some of them might not even give you that whole pity bullshit. Just might take a while to ferret them out."

Julio exhaled and leaned his head back against the bench. "I am tired," he said quietly. "I just want people to leave it alone. . ." He trailed off when a couple walked by in 'Remember San Diego' t-shirts, printed in red white and blue. He sighed. "But, that won't happen." He turned and looked at Amanda again. "Thank you for the water. I think I want to go find the others at the zoo. Angel was saying something about monkeys."

"Not a problem," Amanda replied, knowing it was best to leave it for now. "Think I'll pop back to the office for a bit, get some of that RedX stuff together for Ms. Hotshot Journo. See you back on the van at five, yeah?"

"Yes," Julio nodded. He stood up and stretched, and then walked off in the direction of the zoo. If they were not waiting for him outside, he could always call them.