xp_logs | The Gates: Sparks

Nathan, Rahne and Angelo come across a spontaneous demonstration in a park inside Smichov. As it breaks up, Nathan spots a familiar face.

"More power lines down over here," Nathan said, shaking his head as he raised the camera and took a couple of pictures of the toppled poles and the lines lying on the ground. "They don't look live, but I think we'd better stay well clear..." Some of them were maybe the power lines for the tram that ran through this part of the neighborhood when it wasn't sealed off from the rest of the city.

He lowered the camera and looked around. They were nearly at an intersection, too quiet as per usual in Smichov during the day. The stores were all closed, showing visible signs of damage to windows. There'd been looting on this stretch, as well, and Nathan raised the camera again, taking a few more pictures.

He didn't know how journalists did it. The observer role was not sitting well with him at all. "One of the area parks is just up ahead," Nathan said quietly. "We should go take a look."

"If it's still there," Angelo said equally quietly. "Odds to evens it's half burned down by now."

"Even so," Rahne said, "isn't that one of the things we're supposed to be looking at?"

"I do want to see if anyone's been taking firewood," Nathan said. "Given the power problems, and the weather at this time of year..."

"I hope they have been, even," Angelo muttered. "Better that than people freezin' to death in their own apartments."

"That's a point." Rahne looked in the direction Nathan had indicated, shifting her feet a little on the cobbles. "Well. Let's go?"

Keeping well clear of the fallen cables, Nathan headed in the direction where the map had indicated this park was. There were, at least, a few people on the streets as they continued on their way. Nathan had noticed this the last couple of mornings as well. The people of Smichov, or some of them, did eventually come out to face the day - but cautiously. As if they weren't sure what they'd find after the previous night.

"Eventually more will start happening during the day," he said quietly to Angelo and Rahne. "Probably sooner rather than later. When people get desperate enough to not need the cover of darkness anymore."

"You mean people stealin' the stuff they need?" Angelo asked, frowning. "Or the fightin' that's been goin' on?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of the latter. And there are probably close to fifty adult mutants inside these barricades, judging by that demographic research we did. Most wouldn't have powers that would make much difference in a fight, but imagine what one serious energy-projector could do to the soldiers at one of those checkpoints."

Rahne grimaced. "And the reaction afterward would hardly be as... restrained... as after the one went for the UN building."

"Goin' on precedent," Angelo said grimly, "the reaction would either involve a lot of arrests, or a lot of death. If not both."

"Let's not be too depressing - we're talking about hypotheticals, remember?" Nathan reminded himself to watch his musing aloud. Smichov was wearing on everyone's nerves, and there wasn't much point to making themselves any more anxious than necessary. "And look... I do see trees," he said, pointing ahead as the park came into view.

Rahne sniffed the air automatically, though she was only the tiniest bit shifted and couldn't really pick anything up from this far. "Aye." She tilted her head. "'Tis noisy...."

"Noisy?" Nathan asked sharply and immediately dropped his shields, frowning as he reached out with his mind. "Okay," he said very cautiously, "let's go take a look. Seems like some kind of small-scale demonstration... stay close and put the cameras away for now, okay?"

Angelo's camera had already disappeared, but he didn't look at all keen on getting any closer to whatever it was. "We're not goin' to get too near it, right?"

"Only as close as we need to..." They should have had Juliette with them. #Just keep walking past the park - get a good look, but don't look like you're stopping,# Nathan sent as they came up alongside the small green space. There were perhaps fifty people there, all surrounding a single speaker standing up on a park bench shouting with obvious vehemence in Czech.

And he was, quite unmistakable, a mutant. The blue hair might have been dye, but the blue tinge to his skin and the webbing between his fingers as he waved a hand were definitely not baseline human.

Rahne fought the urge to shift further; even in a gathering of mutants, suddenly growing fur could draw attention, which they did not particularly want. And it wasn't as if more sensitive hearing would suddenly mean she could understand a speech in a language she didn't know!

Angelo just nodded and kept walking, keeping pace with the others. "Watch for the military," he said quietly.

Nathan was deep in concentration, scanning the minds of the people in the crowd and trying to pick up what he could, despite the language barrier. They seemed angry, but not about to burst into violence. The one in the center, the mutant, was definitely trying to rally them for something, however...

He heard a vehicle, up ahead, and groaned inwardly as he saw a group of soldiers in a Jeep heading this way. Their minds seemed calm enough - until they heard the commotion from the park.

"Cross the street," he said to Rahne and Angelo. "Right now."

Angelo had never been gladder to be wearing the image inducer - this was emphatically not the time and place to be a visible mutant. He and Rahne obeyed, trying not to look as if they were hurrying, just as the Jeep veered into the park and towards the little rally.

Rahne took a last deep breath, nostrils flared, before she dropped even the subtlest shifts. Not something that would be noticed from a distance, with her hair down and her mouth shut, but it was theoretically possible that someone would decide to take a closer look at her ears and teeth. She almost wished she hadn't. But then, it didn't take enhanced senses to pick up the change in body language in the crowd at the approach of the jeep.

The pushing and shoving started instantly, Nathan saw out of the corner of his eye as he hustled the younger two towards the other side of the street. He paused once there, turning to get a better look. The mutant who'd been shouting to the crowd was now shouting angrily at the soldiers. Not making any violent moves himself, thankfully, which Nathan was sure was a very good thing - the soldiers were noticing the visible mutation, and getting more and more tense.

"Go home," he muttered at the crowd, under his breath. "Damn it, just go home." For the first time since they'd come to Smichov, Nathan faced the very real possibility of fighting happening right in front of him, where he didn't dare do anything about it.

Angelo was watching nervously, trying to keep out of sight. Just in case. The crowd didn't seem to be going beyond pushing each other and - for the braver ones - the soldiers, and shouting, however, and he relaxed a little as some of them started to disperse.

Nathan breathed out as the crowd continue to disperse. "Not ready to take on men with guns," he said, shaking his head as the mutant speaker shouted something that sounded utterly foul over his shoulder at the soldiers as he hustled, more quickly than the others, towards a side street.

Then a couple of the soldiers noticed them standing across the street, watching, and started in their direction. Nathan's heart sank. "Stay put," he told the other two. "Take your papers out."

Rahne obeyed, trying not to look either rushed or distressed. Polite, nonthreatening body language. Right.

Angelo had got better at acting, over the last two years - a lot better. The urge to bolt was still there, though, firmly pushed down. He held out his papers to the approaching soldier, silently.

The lead soldier looked at the papers, one set at a time, shoving them back at their owner without ceremony. "Camera?" he snapped at the three of them, in heavily accented English. Nathan dipped into his mind, just briefly, and saw his awareness that there were NGO teams in Prague, and that perhaps it would be better if they had no pictures of what had just happened. "Camera!"

"~No,~" Nathan said quietly, one of the very rudimentary Czech phrases he'd picked up in preparation for this trip. "No cameras."

"Camera!"

Nathan stared back at him flatly. "~No.~" He and the soldier stared each other down for a full minute, everything in Nathan's expression and posture asking 'Do I look like I care if you have a gun?' There was no threat, just the suggestion of immovability. Eventually that seemed to sink in. The second soldier eventually mumbled something to the first, who backed off, looking sour. He snapped something at Nathan, accompanying it with an angry gesture that made it clear that he expected them to move along promptly. Nathan merely nodded, slipping his papers back into his coat.

"Think we should go back," Rahne murmured, "or on?"

"No sense temptin' fate," Angelo put in. "We got some pretty good pictures, maybe we should head back while we still have the cameras."

Nathan opened his mouth to reply but hesitated, still watching the crowd disperse and letting his mind drift over theirs, getting a sense of their mood and what they thought of the near-incident. Most were afraid, wishing they hadn't come. Others were angry, wishing they'd had the courage to push things farther.

One woman, a tall blonde, seemed to be moving away in a more leisurely fashion than the others who'd been listening to the mutant speaker. She half-turned, looking back over her shoulder - and right at Nathan. Her smile was visible even from here, sly and somehow knowing.

And he'd seen that face before. A world away, at a booksigning in New York. "That," Nathan said in a voice that was soft, yet utterly flat, "is Mystique."