xp_logs | [Julio, Haller and...Medusa, Monday Afternoon]

Julio and Haller have an unsettling encounter with an aspect of Medusa's power in the kitchen.

Something was slithering along the floor. If it had not been bright red, it may have blended into the shadows. As it was, what appeared to be a thin, red rope was gliding smoothly along the floor into the kitchen, cautiously feeling its way around as it moved. It paused as it encountered something on the floor and extended a few strands of hair from the main body to investigate. Apparently deciding the shoe was harmless, it continued its trek into the kitchen over the shoe, moving swiftly until it halted in front of a cabinet.

Julio had been in the process of making a peanut butter sandwich. And peanut butter called for milk. He'd gotten the top of the carton unscrewed when he noticed the red....thing slide across his shoe. Another thing to know about Julio is that he really, really didn't like snakes. Growing up, he and his father had to do a lot of trekking through Mexico's deserts. It was a dislike born of plenty of experience. But the red whatever-it-was was definitely not a snake.

It still made Julio want to scream like a little girl, though.

Jim proceeded into the room cautiously. He thought he'd caught the tail-end of . . . something . . . moving out of the corner of his eye as he'd walked through the halls -- something long and low to the ground. It wasn't something he'd ever seen around here before, so investigation had seemed like the most sensible option.

After spending a sizable chunk of his life living at or around the Muir Island Research Center, Jim liked to think he was reasonably jaded when it came to unusual mutations. He was, he thought, prepared for just about anything the mansion could throw at him. Then he entered the kitchen.

The telepath's gaze traveled inexorably from the vibrant red hair slithering across the tiles to the boy standing with a carton of milk in his hand and an expression of transfixed horror on his face. With characteristic eloquence, the counselor struggled for a word to sum up this situation.

"Um," Jim said.

"It is not a snake," Julio replied, equally as intelligently. His brain was still screaming Run! RUN YOU FOOL! but Julio was transfixed by the odd ropelike creature. Plus, he didn't want to make any sudden movements.

The column of hair laying on the floor seemed to split in two, part extending upwards and looping around the cabinets handle, the other half staying on the floor. As the cabinet swung up, part of the hair slid inside and rustling could be heard. Emerging with a box, the label indecipherable through the strands wrapped around it, the hair slithered back the way it had come, though it did not slide over any shoes this time. It paused for a moment as it bumped into Haller standing in the doorway, then squeezed past him and continued on down the hallway.

The kitchen's two occupants watched in silence as the hair departed, the only sound the faint, slightly-hollow sound as the cardboard box bumped into the doorframe on its way out.

The telepath felt there should be some acknowledgement of what had just transpassed. "Well, that was very . . ." Jim tore his eyes away from the hall as the hair and its prize travel serenely around the corner, ". . . unique."

"Uh-huh." Julio said. He screwed the cap back on the milk and set it back on the counter, eyes never leaving the doorway.

Jim nodded distantly. "Mutations are fascinating things. That was a pretty exceptional display of control. I wouldn't have thought that power could be so versatile." The corner of his mouth twitched, very slightly. "And now that we've seen it I don't think we need to discuss it ever again."

"Ever." Julio agreed. "I...I think I want to take a walk now. Outside. Where there is no....hair." Or just hunch over and rock himself a couple of times.

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. That, and never telling Lorna."