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xp_logsLaurie and Forge have a quiet moment while the others consult the Deus Ex Phonebook for Haller and Glorian's whereabouts
Forge paced around the sidewalk while everyone was taking a brief break near a handy hot dog vendor. Despite finding nearly everyone who had been with them on the museum trip, the group was still no closer to finding a way out of this strange reality. They'd managed to restore their memories by touch contact, their powers once they saw someone else use them, and somehow everyone knew that coming to New York would solve the puzzle.
But now here they were, hopefully close to the end of the road. Slouching against a mailbox, Forge watched the traffic go by, pushing his glasses up on his nose. In the short while since he'd met up with Julio, he'd noticed differences in this world. Despite the fact that here he wasn't crippled, here he had all the benefits of his power with theoretically nothing stopping him from using it to have a wonderful life - this wasn't his home. This wasn't where he belonged.
Laurie watched Forge pace as she took a bite of the hotdog she'd brought from the vendor. She hadn't had breakfast and knew this might be the last chance for food for the next little while if they didn't find out exactly where it was they were meant to be. She had memories of the other place, where she knew all these people, especially him. But she also had memories of this world, the one where her Grandparents hadn't died in a car accident and her father was still married to her mother. Indeed, where her father was an actual father, rather then just a nightmare her mother had told her about once.
Here he'd come to her school track meets and taught her how to ride a bike and made her mother laugh. Back in the other world, her father had only ever managed to put a special kind of fear in her mother's eyes. The kind that made Laurie want to do something nasty and permanent to him.
"Forge, stop pacing or you're going to wear a hole in the sidewalk." Laurie said, smiling at him.
Oh yeah, and here she wasn't the shy, couldn't seem to talk to people without stuttering girl. What was there really back there for her? Nothing much that she could see.
"Sorry," Forge apologized, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking up at the sky. "I just... this is the kind of thing where the X-Men are supposed to swoop in and save the day, but here there aren't any X-Men, there's just us. I don't know what's causing this, so I can't just snap my fingers and figure out how to fix it and... argh!" He cried out in frustration, kicking the mailbox with his left foot, then jumping up and down in pain. "Dammit! It's easy to forget about stubbing toes when you're not used to having them."
Laurie tried to muffle her laugh as she watched Forge hop about for a bit, shaking her head. "We don't need them. It's not like we're in any real danger. This is New York, what could possibly get us here, now that most of us are together?"
Raising an eyebrow over his glasses, Forge looked at Laurie. "It's not a matter of anything getting us - we're got. This whole world isn't right somehow, and I don't know whether it's something we need to set right, or if we need to get back to what's right - but this can't go on for much longer. I know it's definitely driving me crazy."
"For you, maybe. For me? This is the best my life has been." Laurie replied, looking away at the traffic moving past them. Normal, every day New York traffic. Yet, Forge had been right, the feel of the place wasn't right and it wasn't just her returned memories of the other world either. "How do we know the other memories are the real ones, anyhow?"
"I thought about that," Forge explained, "and the probability of a dozen strangers from all across the globe having the same set of hallucinatory false memories - AND being the only mutants on the planet, powers that just happen to coincide with these common memories? Occam's Razor. The solution that requires the least assumptions is more likely to be true." He paused, then chuckled and shook his head. "Of course, Occam never expected the words 'alternate reality' and 'pervasive memory alteration' to ever be involved in the simplest explanation."
Stopping for a moment, he looked at Laurie carefully. Somehow she looked different. It wasn't just the slightly different makeup, or the nicer clothes - it was an attitude. She carried herself like someone who'd been used to being the popular one. Automatically accepted, and why wouldn't she be? Athletic, pretty, with what was apparently a perfect home life that she didn't have in the 'real world'. For a moment, he almost felt a pang of regret for the "just friends" decision a few weeks before.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly, walking over to her and putting an arm on her shoulder. "This isn't easy for anyone, but I know it's got to be hard for you. I mean, I don't know anything about your dad, but... you know that no matter how good this seems, it isn't real, right?"
Laurie sighed, and allowed herself to be comforted. What Forge said was true, this _wasn't_ real. No matter how much she might want it to be, or rage against it not being, it didn't really make much difference. What was true, was true, whether she liked it or not.
"I know. I just wish...I wish we could take the good parts back with us, you know? Have the best of both worlds."
Closing his eyes for a moment, Forge thought to himself, yet another girl with absent father issues? I should collect the set., before patting Laurie on the shoulder. "All we can do is make the best of what world we've got. And that's something I want to get back to."
"Yeah. And maybe...well, maybe we'll remember all this, yeah? Maybe take some of the good stuff back with us." Laurie replied, giving him a squeeze on the arm and then stepping back. "So, how long has it been since you ate? Because, seriously, these hot dogs are the best in New York."
"Mmm, processed meaty by-products..." Forge said as he rubbed his stomach sarcastically. "I'd just love to-- hey, they're moving! Looks like we've found something, come on!"
"Finally." Laurie replied, following after Forge and the others.
The chase begins. And logic begins to break down spectacularly.
He needed to escape this place before another emergency came up. David shrugged into the shabby red jacket he'd been meaning to replace for something like seven years and pinched the bridge of his nose. Another day was finally over. Now if he could just get through Admitting before he could be dragged back by something dire he could go home and collapse. And possibly, since he couldn't remember if he'd actually done so today, eat. For someone who'd been on a shift as long as he'd been his stride past the front desk was remarkably quick.
It had taken a little doing but she'd convince the rest of the group that she should be the one to approach Haller. Explaining exactly why would have been out of the question so she'd stuck to a lamer, 'he's my best friend' which they'd thankfully bought if only to shut her up. Briskly, Lorna hurried inside the hospital and very nearly missed David on his way out. Shit. "David!" Not going to know you at first, Dane! "David Haller! Can I talk to you a minute?"
The unexpected address got an actual jump from David, and the effort it took to look away from the door verged on physical pain. Oh please no, I was so close . . .
"Um," he said, "Sorry. Wasn't paying attention. Sorry. Do you need something?" He actually registered the appearance of the woman talking to him, her clothes and her demeanor, and blinked again. . . . and why did you pick dye that green?
"My name is Lorna Dane. I need to talk to you. It's important but I swear it won't take long." Lorna frowned and momentarily forgot her part, "Let me guess you totally didn't eat anything today? Good god, how do you even survive without a babysitter." It was the type of acerbic comment she regularly bestowed on her best friend but it had to sound strange coming from a perfect stranger. A fact that caught up to her about two seconds too late. "Um. Look, I mean...can we just sit for a second?"
no no no NO you die "I um. Okay. I can't really sit right now, but okay. Talking, I mean." David tucked his hands in his pockets and tried to avoid too much direct eye contact lest his inner monologue make its way to reality. "Are you family of a patient?"
Truth or lies? "Um." Oh hell, might as well, "Not exactly. We have some mutual friends in common. They thought maybe we should meet." Did that sound like I'm hitting on him? Oh Christ, kill me. Lorna rubbed at her temple. "I know this is weird," but not as weird as seeing David with blue eyes--she wasn't used to that at all, "but I swear I can explain if you just give me five minutes."
"I, um." Not two minutes into the conversation and already the story had a major problem. Friends? "Could you maybe be more specific? I'm sorry, maybe I'm just tired, but that was kind of aggressively vague."
Damn, should have lied. Lorna shrugged one shoulder uncomfortably, an old habit carried over here where the scars didn't exist. "You're going to think this sounds insane and...it kind of is but...you're my best friend. We're mutants and this world isn't the one we're from. And I need you to take my hand so that you'll remember that and we can all get out of this life."
David processed this. And processed again. And found that, despite all odds, the second time actually made less sense.
"Um, wow," he said, and took one huge step back.
Damn it. Lorna sighed, "Yeah, I know. Like I said, it sounds insane but all you have to do to make me go away is take my hand. If nothing happens then nothing happens." She extended her right hand to him, palm up. "Please, David?"
His mouth fell open just for an instant before he managed to snap it shut. Sounded insane? A woman he'd never met before with a haircut that was more than what he earned in a month was standing there telling him she was his friend, holding out her hand and an impossible reality. His memory might have those patches of no time and no where digging claws into his certainty he could never have seen her before, but either way the essential truth couldn't be real. Either this woman was insane, or he was -- or the only other alternative.
Someone knows. That was the only explanation. The only one that made sense, and now that he realized it he could feel the stares of his coworkers combining to painful heat on the back of his neck. somebody finally found you out and now they all know, and they're fucking with you all your life everyone everyone just fucks with you David
And if they didn't know, they will now.
"I need," David managed, his voice strangled, "I'm sorry, I need to go."
And bolted past Lorna to the front door, the offered hand untouched.
She made a grab for him but missed and swore, running after him, her boots skidding on the polished tile floor. She hit the glass doors immediately after him but had to slow to dodge around a little old lady in a stroller. Out on the street she looked left then right, trying to locate Haller among the press and crush of people. Across the street, a dark-skinned man smirked at her and she resisted the urge to flip him off. Down the block she caught a glimpse of the dull red jacket and started in pursuit.
Tommy and Shiro had been waiting outside, checking to make sure he hadn't left yet or that he would use another exit then the main one, basically just walking around the building. It was the taller boy that spotted the man make a get away, Lorna right behind. He grabbed Shiro's arm and pointed. "Look like Ms. Dane scared him off." He said gruffly, his tone making clear just what he thought of that, as his memories of why he hated the woman had surfaced when they'd met again in this weird reality.
"She has a habit of doing that," Shiro responded, his tone perfectly echoing Tommy's. "She never makes things easy, does she?" With a sigh, he nodded at Tommy and started off after the two. He never much cared for Brooklyn and was dressed a little too nicely for this part of town. Haller would have a lot of explaining to do if he got jumped by a mafioso.
David was so freaking TALL that he covered ground much better than Lorna did though she never lost sight of him completely. She dodged around a group of Japanese tourists taking pictures of a jumper on a ledge way above the street and nearly ran smack into a bright yellow cab. "David!" she shouted, over and over, "David, stop damn it!" When he from the street suddenly near the old ornate architecture of Grand Central Terminal, she stopped and screamed. This being New York, no one gave her a second glance. After a moment, she ran inside and hoped that she hadn't just lost him for good.
*****
Same shit, different day. Thoman Glorian sighed as he was patted down, and put his hands behind his head. "I know, I know. Assume the position," he grunted as the cop pushed him against the squad car. Fucking NYPD and their holier-than-thou attitudes.
But he could have sworn he had his permit. It was always in his wallet, why wasn't it there now?"
"What do we do, what do we dooooo?" Angel turned around and spotted Bob watching the scene, head titled. She made a mad grab for him, trying to shake him. "Bob, what do we..." There was a small, noiseless explosion between her hands, feathers flying through the air as she suddenly tottered backwards and then onto her butt. And then, oddly, there was a rain of chicken nuggets and breading, some of which fell right down Angel's shirt.
"....eeewww, exploded seagull down my shirt! I so did not do that." A bottom lip quivered. "...Bob..."
"Keep your head down." Kyle hissed between his teeth. "They're patting him down. Wait until -we- know he doesn't have a gun. I don't wanna get shot." He kept one ear turned towards the direction of the officers and Glorian, and had a hand over the other ear to block out unnecessary sounds. "Anyone got ideas to distract those cops?"
His eyes were practically indiscernible behind his sunglasses, but Forge's smile was undeniable. "Oh, only something I've wanted to do for a long, long time. Call it a deep-seated dislike of bullies. And three cops harassing one street performer kind of fits the description." Practically strutting down the sidewalk towards the arrest-in-progress, he whistled a jaunty tune as he approached the officers. Meanwhile, his hands were practically a blur in front of him, cracking the back cover off of a purloined cell phone and reconfiguring wires and circuit boards.
"Reach out... and touch someone," Forge whispered to himself, snapping the back of the phone back on and hitting the CALL button. Immediately, both police cars parked against the curb erupted into cacophonous noise, sirens blaring, lights flashing, and horns honking in a chaotic rhythm.
"That kind of touching was almost the bad kind of touching," Angel said, grinning as she watched the police start to freak out. The cuffs they were about to put on the guy hit the ground and before the office could grab them again, she concentrated, sending out a ball of fire to melt them. "No can do!"
Julio squinted as he sized up the two cop cars. Making things go boom in a big way was one thing, but subtly was the key here. A fine sheen of perspiration broke out on his forehead as he concentrated, and then with a flick of the wrist a small fine vibration shot through the air, tearing the tires on the cop cars to shreds.
"Hey, I did it!" he said, delighted, and then swayed. "Oh, not fun."
Laurie watched all this with an air of uselessness until she saw the way Julio was swaying, now this she could help with. Stepping forward, she placed a hand on his arm, thinking about coffee and alarms and that one time she'd eaten an entire bag of Halloween candy in one night and ended up with the sugar rush to end all sugar rushes.
"Just call me the sugar plum fairy." Laurie said, grinning. "But...you know, without the wings, or the plums, or the sugar. Okay, I suck at witty, just don't pass out on us. That would be bad."
Gusts of wind swirled around the officers, knocking off their caps and sending them flying around. Not quite enough. Without warning, the police officers found themselves caught in a sudden downpour… a downpour that existed only over their heads. As the officers tried to move out of the rain, their sodden caps came flying at them and the shower followed their movements.
"Now that's just nifty." Angel waved at the guy just staring at the cops. "Hey, you! Come on! We're your knights in not quite shining armor, dontcha know? Hey guys, now he's giving us a shifty look. See? That's right down pretty darned shifty."
He had seen many things in his life, but a bunch of kids shooting fire and making the wind blow? Glorian gave the group a wry smile, and then took off as fast as he could down the street, dodging a suddenly very convenient accident with two delivery trucks. One filled with rubber bouncy balls, the other one full of ...birds?
"Where the heck is he going? This is supposed to be a rescue!" Angel stomped her foot as they started after him, only to come to a screeching halt as a flock of birds swooped past her head. "Eeeek!" She ducked, covering her heads and whimpered, "I knew I never should have watched that movie with the birds attacking people...gah, incoming balls!"
Bouncy rubber balls, where the hell would a truck be delivering bouncy rubber balls too? This was the thought that ran through Laurie's mind as she watched Angel dodge several of the incoming brightly coloured objects of distraction. It was at this point that Laurie realized that she should probably be chasing after the subject of their attempted rescue, who seemed to be doing his best to not be rescued.
Why the hell was he running away, anyhow? Laurie took off at a run, catching up to Angel as the other girl made a rather athletic leap over the river of balls sliding down the street toward them.
Forge threw his hands up in frustration, then stopped. "Wait a minute. I can run!" Jogging down the street after Glorian, he let out a whoop as he ducked under the bouncing rubber balls, swatting away a crowd of fluttering quail. "Hey, this is kind of fun! You! Crowd people, get out of the way!" he yelled, vaulting a trash can as Glorian headed down a side street littered with archways, flagpoles, and awnings. Looking over his shoulder, Forge skidded to a stop and held out both hands for a boost. "Kyle! Go airborne!"
"Dude, sweet! Like in that movie!" Kyle was only a few steps behind Forge, and took a running leap off the sidewalk. His feet hit Forge's hands only for a second, using the young man's arms not as a launchpad, but simply a stepping stone to the awning above. "I'll head him off at the pass!" He yelled, already running across the awning towards the next building.
Well, this is silly. Already hovering in the air, Crystal soared up above the bouncy balls, birds, and awnings. Catching a glimpse of Glorian, she shot forward in the direction in which the man was fleeing, quickly closing the gap between them. What on earth were they supposed to say to him once they caught up with him, anyway? "Hi, we just kind of need to touch you for a second"? That had worked so well with her, hadn't it?
This was nuts, Glorian dodged an overturned apple cart and ducked through an alleyway. For some reason there was a subway entrance in the alleyway. Not one to question this truly bizarre logic, he ran down the stairs, taking them two at time. Those freaks where after him! Why?
Julio himself tried to run down an alleyway in order to head him off, only to emerge several seconds later, followed by the escaped birds. "Don't question it, just run!" he yelled, grabbing Angel and Laurie by the arms and propelling them forward.
Nearly off-balance from ducking the birds and the balls, Angel very nearly faceplanted again. But Julio didn't let her fall and she soon was able to run at something that wasn't a tilted angle. "I am not being pecked to death by a bunch of birds," she said, yanking her arm out from her boyfriend's grip. Turning, she managed to jog backwards and lob a fireball at the birds at the same time. She shrieked, though, when the fire hit them and they exploded into a white powder...only to have yet another flock of birds fly right through their supposed-to-be-but-not-really crispy friends. "Nope, running!"
Stopping to catch his breath, Forge blinked when he saw the birds explode. "Well, then. Definitely not running through that. Need some wheels..." Looking to his left, he smiled as he saw a pizza delivery boy dismount his Vespa and run into a nearby building. Without wasting a second, Forge hopped on board. "Okay," he mused, "I can drive a car. That has four wheels. This has two. Therefore, this is only half as difficult."
Revving the small scooter's engine, Forge sped around the crowd of people and the slowly settling cloud of feathers, aiming for the subway entrance. He laid on the horn as he passed his friends, speeding towards the stairs. "Follow meeeeee....!" he called, before disappearing out of sight down the stairs.
****
"Hey, move it! Some people are in a hurry here!"
Commuters buffeted the confused young German girl as she stood in the main terminal of Grand Central Station, trying to get her bearings. The strange man at the Customs desk had told her to come here, had insisted on it, really, but now she was here, she wasn't sure why. So many people, bustling around, and so rude!
Well, she couldn't just stand here. Hoisting her pack a little more securely on her shoulders, Amanda decided to see if she could find an information booth. Preferably one that had someone who spoke proper English, like the language courses.
***
Shiro came to a screeching halt (literally, there was an actual screeching sound just like in the cartoons) just outside Grand Central. "Anou, that should not be here." He looked around, confused, ignoring the rush of people exiting and bumping into him. "Weren't we in Brooklyn? How did we get to 40th?"
Tommy's halt matched Shiro's as he looked around and then at the building in front of him. He'd spent his entire life in and around New York city...and this was very wrong. "This isn't right. The city has been changed around. Wonderful, one more thing to worry about in this fucked up reality..." He grumbled as he shook his head and plunged into the group of people, hoping Shiro was following him. He had to hop over a bench to get out of some rushing people's way and as he did, he caught a glimpse of the pair they were chasing. "They are heading towards the ticketing offices!" He called to Shiro over the rush of people.
Where the heck was he going? He wasn't headed for any of the tracks--which was good because Lorna had no idea how to navigate the subway system--but that just meant that he had no good reason for coming in here at all other than to try to shake them. And...damnit! It was working! Where the hell had he gone? Stopping, Lorna planted her hand on her hips and scanned the crowd, searching for a familiar face. She found one but not the one she expected. "Amanda?"
The German girl jumped, head whipping around at the sound of her name. "~Who...?~" she said in German, frowning as she scanned the crowd. Her eyes widened at the sight of the frantic-looking, green-haired woman coming towards her. "~Who on earth...?~"
It was a good thing Tommy was so tall because he saw Lorna stop and and go in a different direction from the still fleeing Haller. Cursing under his breath, he went crushing through the crowd, trying to fight his way through people. He was trying so hard to keep his eye on Haller while weaving between people that he completely missed the fact that people were gathered around a street performing mime. The sudden lack of people made him pitch forward, right into said mime to tumble into a heap on the ground. There was an audible 'FUCK' that may or may not have come from Tommy himself.
"Fuck it." The x-gene might technically not exist in this reality, and even though the main concourse was filled with busy commuters running to the trains or the subway, Shiro didn't see himself having much of a choice. He lifted himself ten feet off the ground to look for the familiar head in the sea of irate (and now frightened) New Yorkers. "What, haven't you ever seen someone who can fly before?" he spat at the crowd of people gathering underneath him in awe.
Half a block away David didn't even have time to blanch at the psychological implications of witnessing such a clear defiance of physics, because suddenly the crowded street around him got even more crowded. There was only the barest moment of musical warning from a marching band before the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade intervened. Though under any other circumstance David might have had some fairly big problems with this development, all the normal nitpicky details like is this on the route? or isn't it January? were handily solved for him by the fact its appearance meant his flying pursuer was suddenly under assault by an escaping Underdog balloon.
"There's no need to fear! Underdog is here!" it bellowed. Or, Shiro hoped, one of the announcers declared. The Nintendanger Room was one thing. A fully articulate giant super-dog was something else. Shiro muttered something that could have been interpreted as "STFU" and dashed down underneath it, barely avoiding massive hands that reached to grab him.
"This is so clearly retarded," he growled, "And I am going to kill him when we wake up. Nothing but trouble."
*****
Crystal dashed down the staircase, flying alongside Forge for a few moments. "The others can't move this fast!" she pointed out, directing her voice at him. "Maybe Angel can, but since she is new to flying and landing, I would not advise it." Focusing on the task at hand, she shot forward in pursuit of Glorian.
Laurie watched Forge disappear down the stairs as she allowed herself to be dragged along by Julio. She started weaving between people as she ran down the stairs, trying to make out Glorian in the crowd. It was then she noticed the street performer that looked suspiciously like their quarry, who was currently appeared to be trying to hide under a huge hat. "Um, guys?"
Julio screeched to a halt, arms flailing as he nearly lost his balance. Their quarry saw them and turned around, fleeing down another hallway. Gesturing wildly, Julio got the others to follow him and they dashed after the red-headed man, only to come to a stunned stop at the end of the hallway. There before them, all hustle and bustle and gleaming marble was Grand Central Station.
"How in the world did we come to Grand Central Station?" Julio said, flabbergasted, then he shook his head quickly. "Oh, fuck it, it does not matter, there he goes!" They pursued him down another flight of steps, and Julio wasn't even going to ask how Forge was navigating it on a vespa, and into another hallway. This one full of doors.
"Now what?"
"Just pick one?" Angel suggested, heading toward the nearest door. She opened it cautiously and when nothing came screaming out at her, ducked in. It closed with a clang and a few seconds passed before she popped out of one all the way down the hall. "...you guys look all distorted!" she shouted. "Wait, I think I saw this in Scooby Doo in, oh, every episode."
"If this is Scooby Doo, we need chase music!" Kyle shouted, coming out of one of the doors, balancing on the back of the Vespa behind Forge. He was almost sure he'd been going into a totally different door than Forge, and how did he get the Vespa in the hallway anyway? "Okay, no more talking from me!" He added, after diving and rolling to avoid the marching polka band that spilled out of one doorway and down the hall, only to disappear into another open door, leaving the repeating echos of oompahs and accordions.
Forge pondered for a moment, then drove the scooter through the first door, coming almost instantly out another one down the hall. Glorian stuck his head out of yet another door, then ducked back in, exiting even further down the hall. Leaning over the handlebars, Forge frowned. "Okay, even using tesseracts and n-dimensional folding, this doesn't make any sense. I demand this to start making sense!"
Julio ducked out of one door, and opened the one directly across from him. His eyes widened as he noticed that, like all of those old Bug Bunny cartoons, there was a train coming directly towards him. He slammed the door shut quickly. "Somehow, not as funny as the cartoon." He looked to the right and to the left, and ran down the hallway, ducking into another door.
Glorian ran out of a door down the hallway, and noting that coast was clear, opened a door that had a large exit sign. Only to have all of the students fall down on top of him.
"Ow, Jesus...what the fuck?"
"Gotcha," Julio said.
"If someone doesn't remove their hand from my butt, I'm so setting you on fire."
****
Back in the station, Lorna dashed up to Amanda, determined to make this one quick and painless and not send another person into terrified flight. "Hi. I know this is weird but I really need you to come with me for a minute. It's urgent. I know I seem like a crazy person to you right now and that's fair but two seconds of your time and a hand shake is all I need so..." She stopped when she noticed the younger woman was giving her the oddest look. Not the 'wow, you're nuts, lady' one. The 'I don't understand a word that's coming out of your mouth' one. "Um...Amanda?"
"Ja?" Amanda said doubtfully. How did this woman know her name? She'd never seen her before in her life - that shade of green would be pretty unforgettable. "I am sorry. My English is not good. Please, who are you?"
German. Of course, she was German because why on earth should anything go right in this ridiculous world? "My name is Lorna." She offered her hand to Amanda--just a handshake would do!--and then saw that the other girl was wearing gloves. Argh. "Would you like to go get a cup of coffee?" Coffee meant she'd have to take her gloves off and then she could touch her and they could go back to loathing each other.
Coffee? This strange woman was offering to buy her coffee? Why? Amanda stepped back hesitantly, her backpack colliding with the crowd around Tommy and the mime and somehow knocking more people into the pile. "~I don't think that is a very good idea,~" she said in German. "~My mother warned me not to talk to strange Americans.~"
"What? Christ, I don't speak German." Lorna frowned and raised her voice a little, speaking more slowly. The pile up of people was completely ignored. "Please let me shake your hand." She held up her own ungloved hand and wiggled her fingers to demonstrate what she meant. "Take your glove off and take my hand. I need to touch your skin."
"~You want to WHAT?!~" Okay, apparently Amanda had encountered one of those perverts you saw in American movies all the time. She made a move to escape, but the woman grabbed at her hand, pulling the glove off. Panicked, Amanda's hand whipped up, slapping the woman sounding across the face. And then she blinked. "What the bloody fucking hell?" she exclaimed, English accent as broad as South London could make it. Then she realized what she'd done. "Oh, bollocks. Um, sorry?"
"Ow, fuck. Damn it. Should have left you German." Lorna rubbed at her cheek sullenly. All this physical abuse had to stop. "So you remember who I am now? And who you are? Because if I just got slapped for no good reason, blondie, I'm going to do some serious payback."
"Well, the fact I'm swearing in English might have tipped you off," Amanda retorted, but not as harshly as she might have. She felt a little bad about the slap. "I thought you were cracking onto me, what with the wanting to touch me and all." She glanced around. "What the fuck is going on?"
"We're...you know what, no. I'll explain on the way, we have to catch David." Reaching into the pile of mime, tourist and Tommy, Lorna yanked out the mutant boy and set him on his feet. "Let's go. Did anyone see which way Shiro went?" Looking around, Lorna caught sight of the parade though the glass doors, "Okay, I'm guessing that way."
As Lorna yanked him out, the mime was suddenly encased by a golden box. "Get out of that box, if you can." He muttered darkly, as he got firm purchase on standing and looked around to catch his bearings, taking note they had somehow gained Amanda. Oh wonderful. Noting the Parade that Lorna pointed out, Tommy sighed. "Follow me." Then he resumed his previous action of pushing through the crowd, using his height and bulk to clear a bath for the two women.
When they made it to the street, Tommy paused to look up and down the street and rolled his eyes when he saw Shiro floating above the crowds. He cupped his hands and called to the other boy, "Shiro! Where is he?"
An awful, high-pitched cackling erupted, and Shiro turned to see a Spongebob Squarepants float flying up behind him. "Urusai!" he shouted in frustration, tossing a fireball that burst a hole in it. Shiro took pleasure in seeing it deflate, disrupting the procession. He'd have to remember to tell Dani that he'd ruined Thanksgiving, even if it was only a dream.
With that settled, he landed by his companions, sparing Amanda a raise of his eyebrow but nothing more. "He is going down . . . that way?" Towards the Twin Towers, which were apparently also located in southern Brookyln now. "He needs a geography class or two."
Amanda groaned, and hoisted the pack a little higher on her shoulders. It seemed to have gotten bigger, and she couldn't see a thing over the crowds. "So, we're chasing Haller? Why exactly?"
"Later." Was Tommy's short reply as his patience with this whole thing was wearing thin. "Come on, we better follow him before we *really* lose him."
Lorna sighed and followed the boys as they pushed through the parade crowds, "See, it's like this..."
******
Breathe. Breathe.
David braced himself on the edge of the sink of the convenience store bathroom, head bent low to the sound of the running faucet. Insane. This was insane. Improbable thing on top of improbable thing, people chasing him across the city, acting as if he should know them. He didn't know them. Did he know them?
did I we did he did he
Water streamed through his cupped fingers as he splashed his face. The tap had been open for five minutes and the water was still freezing. He straightened, ignoring the cold trickle into his shirt collar. He only needed to hang on a little while longer. He was almost home.
His reflection was a blur through the water stinging his eyes -- all he could make out was the impression of dull blue walls and yellow lights behind him. The paper-towel dispenser whirred; empty roll. He raised one arm to wipe the sleeve of his jacket across his face instead. The red fabric soaked through black.
Something banged out in the store. It was the door slamming against the wall. Voices followed. No, shouting. People were shouting.
What's going on?
Moving away from the sink, he opened the door--
--to the barrel of a gun.
Four people in the store around him: two frightened faces behind the counter, middle-aged with a wispy mustache and young and shining with piercings, a man standing an aisle away, tall and broad-shouldered, and the last. Dusky skin and black, buzzed hair, primitively done prison tattoos that scored his hands and knuckles -- the filth, the cheap clothing insufficient for the cold -- every detail sharpened to brittle clarity at the weapon's end. As David's eyes swung to his face the gunman began to scream "Put your hands--"
And immediate as a shiv to the side, connection.
Tattooed hands went nerveless. The gun clattered to the dirty tiles with the weight of a toy, unfired.
"Oh," whispered David.
Blue held brown eyes across the store that now might as well have been empty, and two mouths spoke the same words.
"This isn't right."
Finally, the two x factors are brought together, and they shake hands.
Amanda heaved off the enormous backpack she'd been carrying for some reason, dumping it on the pavement outside the 7-11 and sat on it with a sigh. "So, let me get this straight. We're stuck in la-la land and the only person who can get us out of it just vanished. Plus, we have no idea where the rest of the Scoobie gang's got to. Anyone else think we're royally fucked?" She looked down at herself - somehow in the struggle through the parade, her clothes had morphed into... something. With poofy sleeves and knee socks and a skirt that wouldn't look out of place on a ballerina. "And what the fuck am I wearing? Someone's idea of a German folk costume?"
"It is very . . . becoming," offered Shiro, "But I do not know what it is becoming. You look like a beer-serving tavern wench." It was the nicest thing he'd said all day. "I think that we ought to regroup with the others. Maybe the street magician has a rapport with him or something."
"I can't believe you lost him. Freakishly tall guy in a bright red jacket and you lost him." Lorna slumped against a light pole and wished for a cigarette. She really hoped that craving wouldn't carry with if they ever got out of this fucked up world. "Nice look, Amanda. Are you auditioning to be a Charlie's Angel or just trying to get in touch with your heritage?"
The small rumbling of a Vespa cut off Amanda's response as Forge rounded the corner slowly, smiling widely. "People!" he announced, coasting to a stop and spreading his arms wide. "Our egress from this ersatz Purgatory is procured. We've got our half of the telepathic twinset to get us back to reality... weren't you guys supposed to find Haller?" He pushed his glasses up onto his forehead, then rubbed his eyes in a doubletake. "And wow, what in the fuck are you wearing, Amanda? Some kind of folk costume?"
"Please don't Forge. We've been over the costume already." Tommy said from where he was leaning against a wall and smoking a cigarette. This version of him didn't smoke and as his memories returned so had his craving. "And Shiro over there lost him in a parade. We have nothing."
"You know, if this was the movies, someone would've tagged him with one of those little tracking devices." Laurie replied, finally making it around the corner and joining the others. Having a vehicle would have made this so much better.
"If this were the movies, we'd have had a lot more explosions." Kyle said. "And a lot more product placement. I mean, seriously." He gestured towards the 7-11, and then towards his stomach. "I? Am going to go eat. I feel like I haven't eaten in like, two days and I am totally starving. I say we eat, and once we've eaten, our brains will be better for finding lost teachers." It made sense. To Kyle, anyway.
Crystal glanced at the convenience store, hiding a grimace. Both dreamworld Crystal and real Crystal could agree on one thing… ew. "If this were a movie, our quarry would just suddenly appear out from nowhere, right about… now." She glanced around and shook her head. "Or maybe he would arrive just as we left to go search elsewhere, but this is not a movie." It is a nightmare. She sighed slightly and shook her head. "I, for one, am not hungry at a time like this." Especially not for whatever processed junk they would find inside such a place.
"I think we should stick together," Amanda said, getting up off her backpack and going to Tommy. "Give us one of those, will you?" she asked, gesturing to his cigarettes. As he reluctantly complied, she lit up with a sigh of relief. "Speaking of which, I hope one of you actually brought your bloke back. Do Julio and Angel have him?"
Lorna gave Tommy and Amanda's cigarette's longing looks and dug into her pocket for her bottle of pills. Valium this time--she had the best cocktail ever in there, she was going to miss all the over-medicating. "The better question is how do we track down David now that we've lost him? Did the phone book update with his home address? We could go wait for him there and steal from his fridge." Well, not really, because Lorna was willing to bet that there wasn't anything in his fridge. No matter how nuts the world was, Haller still wouldn't remember to feed himself.
Crystal was quite thankful that she had full use of her powers. Too many people were smoking and she was glad that she could still remain close by. Amanda was right, at this point in time, the group needed to stick together. Where were Julio, Angel, and Glorian anyway? "After all of the criminal activities we have engaged in in this world, taking food from the house of someone who is rightfully a part of our little group does not seem like such a horrid act." Not to mention the fact that none of this is real, anyway.
"All right, all right. Keep your pants on, I'm goin'" The aforementioned trio rounded the corner. "So alls I gotta do is shake this guy's hand and you'll get off my back?" The man speaking was short, red-headed and with a gap in-between his front teeth. The guy from outside the museum Friday.
"Yes, that is all you need to do," Julio said. He still had a firm grip on the man's arm, in case he tried to bolt again. He was all for tying him up and carrying him, but that might have been just a little too gauche. "Then you can go back to getting arrested, I promise."
Angel, still out of sorts with everything that happened, resisted poking him in the side. But only barely. "And we can go back to normal." She waved to the rest of the group. "Look what we found. Can we so totally not take him home with us?"
Amanda blinked. "The busker? From the museum?" She shook her head. "Bloody typical. We got ambushed by a bloody amateur street magician."
Kyle was still pouting that his plan for food had been doubly thwarted by first, being convinced that if he went into the store and away from the group, he could easily disappear, and second, that he had no actual cash on him. "Can we tie him to something? A light pole? A car? An elephant?" Just in case, he looked around for an elephant. Stranger things had happened already.
The actual result was far less impressive; in the meantime the door of the 7-11 opened and banged twice, unnoticed.
"Hi," David called, half-raising one hand in a wave as he strode towards the group. "Sorry. Here."
"About fucking time." Tommy said as he stood up and rubbed his cigarette out on the wall behind him. "Come to your senses or do we have to chase you through out of place landmarks again?"
"No. I'm pretty sure I got that out of my system." David gave Tommy a lopsided smile before turning to Glorian. "Hi. No offense, but when we get out you're going into the brochure as the reason mindreaders either need to get trained or not screw around in someone else's head."
"Excuse me? I was doing just fine, pal, until I got a load of what's going on in that brainpan of yours. They let a crazy person be in charge of kids?" He turned to Julio. "You can let go of me now, I ain't goin' anywhere. I want out of this funhouse as much as you do."
David shook his head. "Um, I work in a school for mutants. You'd be disturbed by how weird this kind of thing is not." He could remember at least one person in the school's history who'd had an incident similar enough for mockery, and right now all he really wanted was to get out of this, make a call, and hear her voice.
Lorna had pushed away from the light pole when David had appeared, thankfully in his right mind (...minds?), and now wrapped her hands around his arm and tugged, "Nice of you to finally show. I need a cigarette before we're out of here because I'm sure as hell not smoking one when we get back and I'm dying for one right now."
David's hand moved automatically to his pocket before he realized there would be nothing there. "Um, I don't have any," he said, a little uncertainly. Then he raised an eyebrow. "You smoke? Wow. The amount of crack in this dream sequence is pretty high."
"And she also wrestles students too!" Angel supplied. "I turned a fire extinguisher on them. It was great. But I'd really like to go home. I mean, there's no clicking of the shoes and stuff. So, you two! Be all manly and touch each other! Gooooo on. Toooooouuuuuuch. But if it's the bad touch, I am so either going to take pictures or get sick. Or maybe both."
~Like the lost catacombs of Egypt only God knows where we stuck it...~ "Yeah, can we -please- just go the hell home?" Kyle broke his humming of a familar and vastly overplayed Bloodhound Gang song to stalk over towards Glorian. "I mean, one, nobody will let me go get any food and I am starving. Two, this place sucks, and I'm probably totally on the Most Wanted List or something and I'd like to stop being here before the FBI shows up with helicopters. Three, did I mention the part where I'm starving?" Maybe he had a one-track mind, but the chicken nuggets from before had reminded him. And no one had let him eat them. Which was not cool at all. It wasn't like Bob was using them anymore.
"Angel, I'm going to start asking you where on the doll the bad man touched you if you keep with the 'bad touching'," Amanda joked, but raising her eyebrow a little at the younger girl. She took the last drag of her cigarette and dropped the butt, crushing it under one dainty slipper-like shoe. "And as much fun as it's been, this Cinderella'd like to go back to being the scullery wench. Time, gentlemen, and all that."
Pouting slightly, Lorna wandered away from David again. She wanted nothing at all to do with the meeting of the minds that was about to take place and given that David had failed her desire for nicotine--some smoker he was--there was no reason to hang around. Slowly, she worked her way to the back of the group, smiling wryly at Angel's response to the situation and her characterization of Lorna's repeated brawling, chuckled to herself at Kyle and Amanda's replies. They were done here and you could hear it in everyone's voices--the hope and the relief.
"Lorna."
Lorna turned. Behind her, standing well apart from the group, a man with buzzed hair and dark skin was holding out a cigarette. The clean white paper stood out against the tattoos on the hand offering it.
Puzzled, Lorna took the cigarette, studying the man more than the act, fumbling the pass a bit and her hand brushing his. She lifted the cigarette to her lips and leaned in as he lit it, his eyes level with hers. She recognized him but didn't know why and she frowned as the tip flared to life. "Who are you?" she asked, uncertain as to why he knew her name but too used to the dream world to question it. Talking birds, magical phone books, living parade floats...it was all just a dream within dream.
But he looked familiar...
The man only turned from her without a word . . . but not before looking to someone else.
She followed the look and was only more confused. Why would he be interested in David... Suddenly she recognized him--the man from outside the hospital, the one who'd watched her search for David and smirked at her loss. But why would he be here and why now? And why leave so silently, without more than just the one word. Lorna inhaled around the cigarette, smoke burning her lungs and tickling her nose. What was going on? Why did David look so carefully unreadable--like he had outside the museum when it had meant that so much more was going on than what could be seen?
There was a loud and very pointed throat-clearing. "So, we gonna do this or you gonna stare stupidly at each other all day, huh?" Glorian tossed his hair out of his eyes and gave Haller a disdainful look, holding out a hand.
The counselor's eyes trailed slowly back to the other man, face completely expressionless. Just as it had to be. The kids were waiting.
"Right," he said.
Jim took Glorian's outstretched hand.
The world went white.
Forge paced around the sidewalk while everyone was taking a brief break near a handy hot dog vendor. Despite finding nearly everyone who had been with them on the museum trip, the group was still no closer to finding a way out of this strange reality. They'd managed to restore their memories by touch contact, their powers once they saw someone else use them, and somehow everyone knew that coming to New York would solve the puzzle.
But now here they were, hopefully close to the end of the road. Slouching against a mailbox, Forge watched the traffic go by, pushing his glasses up on his nose. In the short while since he'd met up with Julio, he'd noticed differences in this world. Despite the fact that here he wasn't crippled, here he had all the benefits of his power with theoretically nothing stopping him from using it to have a wonderful life - this wasn't his home. This wasn't where he belonged.
Laurie watched Forge pace as she took a bite of the hotdog she'd brought from the vendor. She hadn't had breakfast and knew this might be the last chance for food for the next little while if they didn't find out exactly where it was they were meant to be. She had memories of the other place, where she knew all these people, especially him. But she also had memories of this world, the one where her Grandparents hadn't died in a car accident and her father was still married to her mother. Indeed, where her father was an actual father, rather then just a nightmare her mother had told her about once.
Here he'd come to her school track meets and taught her how to ride a bike and made her mother laugh. Back in the other world, her father had only ever managed to put a special kind of fear in her mother's eyes. The kind that made Laurie want to do something nasty and permanent to him.
"Forge, stop pacing or you're going to wear a hole in the sidewalk." Laurie said, smiling at him.
Oh yeah, and here she wasn't the shy, couldn't seem to talk to people without stuttering girl. What was there really back there for her? Nothing much that she could see.
"Sorry," Forge apologized, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking up at the sky. "I just... this is the kind of thing where the X-Men are supposed to swoop in and save the day, but here there aren't any X-Men, there's just us. I don't know what's causing this, so I can't just snap my fingers and figure out how to fix it and... argh!" He cried out in frustration, kicking the mailbox with his left foot, then jumping up and down in pain. "Dammit! It's easy to forget about stubbing toes when you're not used to having them."
Laurie tried to muffle her laugh as she watched Forge hop about for a bit, shaking her head. "We don't need them. It's not like we're in any real danger. This is New York, what could possibly get us here, now that most of us are together?"
Raising an eyebrow over his glasses, Forge looked at Laurie. "It's not a matter of anything getting us - we're got. This whole world isn't right somehow, and I don't know whether it's something we need to set right, or if we need to get back to what's right - but this can't go on for much longer. I know it's definitely driving me crazy."
"For you, maybe. For me? This is the best my life has been." Laurie replied, looking away at the traffic moving past them. Normal, every day New York traffic. Yet, Forge had been right, the feel of the place wasn't right and it wasn't just her returned memories of the other world either. "How do we know the other memories are the real ones, anyhow?"
"I thought about that," Forge explained, "and the probability of a dozen strangers from all across the globe having the same set of hallucinatory false memories - AND being the only mutants on the planet, powers that just happen to coincide with these common memories? Occam's Razor. The solution that requires the least assumptions is more likely to be true." He paused, then chuckled and shook his head. "Of course, Occam never expected the words 'alternate reality' and 'pervasive memory alteration' to ever be involved in the simplest explanation."
Stopping for a moment, he looked at Laurie carefully. Somehow she looked different. It wasn't just the slightly different makeup, or the nicer clothes - it was an attitude. She carried herself like someone who'd been used to being the popular one. Automatically accepted, and why wouldn't she be? Athletic, pretty, with what was apparently a perfect home life that she didn't have in the 'real world'. For a moment, he almost felt a pang of regret for the "just friends" decision a few weeks before.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly, walking over to her and putting an arm on her shoulder. "This isn't easy for anyone, but I know it's got to be hard for you. I mean, I don't know anything about your dad, but... you know that no matter how good this seems, it isn't real, right?"
Laurie sighed, and allowed herself to be comforted. What Forge said was true, this _wasn't_ real. No matter how much she might want it to be, or rage against it not being, it didn't really make much difference. What was true, was true, whether she liked it or not.
"I know. I just wish...I wish we could take the good parts back with us, you know? Have the best of both worlds."
Closing his eyes for a moment, Forge thought to himself, yet another girl with absent father issues? I should collect the set., before patting Laurie on the shoulder. "All we can do is make the best of what world we've got. And that's something I want to get back to."
"Yeah. And maybe...well, maybe we'll remember all this, yeah? Maybe take some of the good stuff back with us." Laurie replied, giving him a squeeze on the arm and then stepping back. "So, how long has it been since you ate? Because, seriously, these hot dogs are the best in New York."
"Mmm, processed meaty by-products..." Forge said as he rubbed his stomach sarcastically. "I'd just love to-- hey, they're moving! Looks like we've found something, come on!"
"Finally." Laurie replied, following after Forge and the others.
The chase begins. And logic begins to break down spectacularly.
He needed to escape this place before another emergency came up. David shrugged into the shabby red jacket he'd been meaning to replace for something like seven years and pinched the bridge of his nose. Another day was finally over. Now if he could just get through Admitting before he could be dragged back by something dire he could go home and collapse. And possibly, since he couldn't remember if he'd actually done so today, eat. For someone who'd been on a shift as long as he'd been his stride past the front desk was remarkably quick.
It had taken a little doing but she'd convince the rest of the group that she should be the one to approach Haller. Explaining exactly why would have been out of the question so she'd stuck to a lamer, 'he's my best friend' which they'd thankfully bought if only to shut her up. Briskly, Lorna hurried inside the hospital and very nearly missed David on his way out. Shit. "David!" Not going to know you at first, Dane! "David Haller! Can I talk to you a minute?"
The unexpected address got an actual jump from David, and the effort it took to look away from the door verged on physical pain. Oh please no, I was so close . . .
"Um," he said, "Sorry. Wasn't paying attention. Sorry. Do you need something?" He actually registered the appearance of the woman talking to him, her clothes and her demeanor, and blinked again. . . . and why did you pick dye that green?
"My name is Lorna Dane. I need to talk to you. It's important but I swear it won't take long." Lorna frowned and momentarily forgot her part, "Let me guess you totally didn't eat anything today? Good god, how do you even survive without a babysitter." It was the type of acerbic comment she regularly bestowed on her best friend but it had to sound strange coming from a perfect stranger. A fact that caught up to her about two seconds too late. "Um. Look, I mean...can we just sit for a second?"
no no no NO you die "I um. Okay. I can't really sit right now, but okay. Talking, I mean." David tucked his hands in his pockets and tried to avoid too much direct eye contact lest his inner monologue make its way to reality. "Are you family of a patient?"
Truth or lies? "Um." Oh hell, might as well, "Not exactly. We have some mutual friends in common. They thought maybe we should meet." Did that sound like I'm hitting on him? Oh Christ, kill me. Lorna rubbed at her temple. "I know this is weird," but not as weird as seeing David with blue eyes--she wasn't used to that at all, "but I swear I can explain if you just give me five minutes."
"I, um." Not two minutes into the conversation and already the story had a major problem. Friends? "Could you maybe be more specific? I'm sorry, maybe I'm just tired, but that was kind of aggressively vague."
Damn, should have lied. Lorna shrugged one shoulder uncomfortably, an old habit carried over here where the scars didn't exist. "You're going to think this sounds insane and...it kind of is but...you're my best friend. We're mutants and this world isn't the one we're from. And I need you to take my hand so that you'll remember that and we can all get out of this life."
David processed this. And processed again. And found that, despite all odds, the second time actually made less sense.
"Um, wow," he said, and took one huge step back.
Damn it. Lorna sighed, "Yeah, I know. Like I said, it sounds insane but all you have to do to make me go away is take my hand. If nothing happens then nothing happens." She extended her right hand to him, palm up. "Please, David?"
His mouth fell open just for an instant before he managed to snap it shut. Sounded insane? A woman he'd never met before with a haircut that was more than what he earned in a month was standing there telling him she was his friend, holding out her hand and an impossible reality. His memory might have those patches of no time and no where digging claws into his certainty he could never have seen her before, but either way the essential truth couldn't be real. Either this woman was insane, or he was -- or the only other alternative.
Someone knows. That was the only explanation. The only one that made sense, and now that he realized it he could feel the stares of his coworkers combining to painful heat on the back of his neck. somebody finally found you out and now they all know, and they're fucking with you all your life everyone everyone just fucks with you David
And if they didn't know, they will now.
"I need," David managed, his voice strangled, "I'm sorry, I need to go."
And bolted past Lorna to the front door, the offered hand untouched.
She made a grab for him but missed and swore, running after him, her boots skidding on the polished tile floor. She hit the glass doors immediately after him but had to slow to dodge around a little old lady in a stroller. Out on the street she looked left then right, trying to locate Haller among the press and crush of people. Across the street, a dark-skinned man smirked at her and she resisted the urge to flip him off. Down the block she caught a glimpse of the dull red jacket and started in pursuit.
Tommy and Shiro had been waiting outside, checking to make sure he hadn't left yet or that he would use another exit then the main one, basically just walking around the building. It was the taller boy that spotted the man make a get away, Lorna right behind. He grabbed Shiro's arm and pointed. "Look like Ms. Dane scared him off." He said gruffly, his tone making clear just what he thought of that, as his memories of why he hated the woman had surfaced when they'd met again in this weird reality.
"She has a habit of doing that," Shiro responded, his tone perfectly echoing Tommy's. "She never makes things easy, does she?" With a sigh, he nodded at Tommy and started off after the two. He never much cared for Brooklyn and was dressed a little too nicely for this part of town. Haller would have a lot of explaining to do if he got jumped by a mafioso.
David was so freaking TALL that he covered ground much better than Lorna did though she never lost sight of him completely. She dodged around a group of Japanese tourists taking pictures of a jumper on a ledge way above the street and nearly ran smack into a bright yellow cab. "David!" she shouted, over and over, "David, stop damn it!" When he from the street suddenly near the old ornate architecture of Grand Central Terminal, she stopped and screamed. This being New York, no one gave her a second glance. After a moment, she ran inside and hoped that she hadn't just lost him for good.
*****
Same shit, different day. Thoman Glorian sighed as he was patted down, and put his hands behind his head. "I know, I know. Assume the position," he grunted as the cop pushed him against the squad car. Fucking NYPD and their holier-than-thou attitudes.
But he could have sworn he had his permit. It was always in his wallet, why wasn't it there now?"
"What do we do, what do we dooooo?" Angel turned around and spotted Bob watching the scene, head titled. She made a mad grab for him, trying to shake him. "Bob, what do we..." There was a small, noiseless explosion between her hands, feathers flying through the air as she suddenly tottered backwards and then onto her butt. And then, oddly, there was a rain of chicken nuggets and breading, some of which fell right down Angel's shirt.
"....eeewww, exploded seagull down my shirt! I so did not do that." A bottom lip quivered. "...Bob..."
"Keep your head down." Kyle hissed between his teeth. "They're patting him down. Wait until -we- know he doesn't have a gun. I don't wanna get shot." He kept one ear turned towards the direction of the officers and Glorian, and had a hand over the other ear to block out unnecessary sounds. "Anyone got ideas to distract those cops?"
His eyes were practically indiscernible behind his sunglasses, but Forge's smile was undeniable. "Oh, only something I've wanted to do for a long, long time. Call it a deep-seated dislike of bullies. And three cops harassing one street performer kind of fits the description." Practically strutting down the sidewalk towards the arrest-in-progress, he whistled a jaunty tune as he approached the officers. Meanwhile, his hands were practically a blur in front of him, cracking the back cover off of a purloined cell phone and reconfiguring wires and circuit boards.
"Reach out... and touch someone," Forge whispered to himself, snapping the back of the phone back on and hitting the CALL button. Immediately, both police cars parked against the curb erupted into cacophonous noise, sirens blaring, lights flashing, and horns honking in a chaotic rhythm.
"That kind of touching was almost the bad kind of touching," Angel said, grinning as she watched the police start to freak out. The cuffs they were about to put on the guy hit the ground and before the office could grab them again, she concentrated, sending out a ball of fire to melt them. "No can do!"
Julio squinted as he sized up the two cop cars. Making things go boom in a big way was one thing, but subtly was the key here. A fine sheen of perspiration broke out on his forehead as he concentrated, and then with a flick of the wrist a small fine vibration shot through the air, tearing the tires on the cop cars to shreds.
"Hey, I did it!" he said, delighted, and then swayed. "Oh, not fun."
Laurie watched all this with an air of uselessness until she saw the way Julio was swaying, now this she could help with. Stepping forward, she placed a hand on his arm, thinking about coffee and alarms and that one time she'd eaten an entire bag of Halloween candy in one night and ended up with the sugar rush to end all sugar rushes.
"Just call me the sugar plum fairy." Laurie said, grinning. "But...you know, without the wings, or the plums, or the sugar. Okay, I suck at witty, just don't pass out on us. That would be bad."
Gusts of wind swirled around the officers, knocking off their caps and sending them flying around. Not quite enough. Without warning, the police officers found themselves caught in a sudden downpour… a downpour that existed only over their heads. As the officers tried to move out of the rain, their sodden caps came flying at them and the shower followed their movements.
"Now that's just nifty." Angel waved at the guy just staring at the cops. "Hey, you! Come on! We're your knights in not quite shining armor, dontcha know? Hey guys, now he's giving us a shifty look. See? That's right down pretty darned shifty."
He had seen many things in his life, but a bunch of kids shooting fire and making the wind blow? Glorian gave the group a wry smile, and then took off as fast as he could down the street, dodging a suddenly very convenient accident with two delivery trucks. One filled with rubber bouncy balls, the other one full of ...birds?
"Where the heck is he going? This is supposed to be a rescue!" Angel stomped her foot as they started after him, only to come to a screeching halt as a flock of birds swooped past her head. "Eeeek!" She ducked, covering her heads and whimpered, "I knew I never should have watched that movie with the birds attacking people...gah, incoming balls!"
Bouncy rubber balls, where the hell would a truck be delivering bouncy rubber balls too? This was the thought that ran through Laurie's mind as she watched Angel dodge several of the incoming brightly coloured objects of distraction. It was at this point that Laurie realized that she should probably be chasing after the subject of their attempted rescue, who seemed to be doing his best to not be rescued.
Why the hell was he running away, anyhow? Laurie took off at a run, catching up to Angel as the other girl made a rather athletic leap over the river of balls sliding down the street toward them.
Forge threw his hands up in frustration, then stopped. "Wait a minute. I can run!" Jogging down the street after Glorian, he let out a whoop as he ducked under the bouncing rubber balls, swatting away a crowd of fluttering quail. "Hey, this is kind of fun! You! Crowd people, get out of the way!" he yelled, vaulting a trash can as Glorian headed down a side street littered with archways, flagpoles, and awnings. Looking over his shoulder, Forge skidded to a stop and held out both hands for a boost. "Kyle! Go airborne!"
"Dude, sweet! Like in that movie!" Kyle was only a few steps behind Forge, and took a running leap off the sidewalk. His feet hit Forge's hands only for a second, using the young man's arms not as a launchpad, but simply a stepping stone to the awning above. "I'll head him off at the pass!" He yelled, already running across the awning towards the next building.
Well, this is silly. Already hovering in the air, Crystal soared up above the bouncy balls, birds, and awnings. Catching a glimpse of Glorian, she shot forward in the direction in which the man was fleeing, quickly closing the gap between them. What on earth were they supposed to say to him once they caught up with him, anyway? "Hi, we just kind of need to touch you for a second"? That had worked so well with her, hadn't it?
This was nuts, Glorian dodged an overturned apple cart and ducked through an alleyway. For some reason there was a subway entrance in the alleyway. Not one to question this truly bizarre logic, he ran down the stairs, taking them two at time. Those freaks where after him! Why?
Julio himself tried to run down an alleyway in order to head him off, only to emerge several seconds later, followed by the escaped birds. "Don't question it, just run!" he yelled, grabbing Angel and Laurie by the arms and propelling them forward.
Nearly off-balance from ducking the birds and the balls, Angel very nearly faceplanted again. But Julio didn't let her fall and she soon was able to run at something that wasn't a tilted angle. "I am not being pecked to death by a bunch of birds," she said, yanking her arm out from her boyfriend's grip. Turning, she managed to jog backwards and lob a fireball at the birds at the same time. She shrieked, though, when the fire hit them and they exploded into a white powder...only to have yet another flock of birds fly right through their supposed-to-be-but-not-really crispy friends. "Nope, running!"
Stopping to catch his breath, Forge blinked when he saw the birds explode. "Well, then. Definitely not running through that. Need some wheels..." Looking to his left, he smiled as he saw a pizza delivery boy dismount his Vespa and run into a nearby building. Without wasting a second, Forge hopped on board. "Okay," he mused, "I can drive a car. That has four wheels. This has two. Therefore, this is only half as difficult."
Revving the small scooter's engine, Forge sped around the crowd of people and the slowly settling cloud of feathers, aiming for the subway entrance. He laid on the horn as he passed his friends, speeding towards the stairs. "Follow meeeeee....!" he called, before disappearing out of sight down the stairs.
****
"Hey, move it! Some people are in a hurry here!"
Commuters buffeted the confused young German girl as she stood in the main terminal of Grand Central Station, trying to get her bearings. The strange man at the Customs desk had told her to come here, had insisted on it, really, but now she was here, she wasn't sure why. So many people, bustling around, and so rude!
Well, she couldn't just stand here. Hoisting her pack a little more securely on her shoulders, Amanda decided to see if she could find an information booth. Preferably one that had someone who spoke proper English, like the language courses.
***
Shiro came to a screeching halt (literally, there was an actual screeching sound just like in the cartoons) just outside Grand Central. "Anou, that should not be here." He looked around, confused, ignoring the rush of people exiting and bumping into him. "Weren't we in Brooklyn? How did we get to 40th?"
Tommy's halt matched Shiro's as he looked around and then at the building in front of him. He'd spent his entire life in and around New York city...and this was very wrong. "This isn't right. The city has been changed around. Wonderful, one more thing to worry about in this fucked up reality..." He grumbled as he shook his head and plunged into the group of people, hoping Shiro was following him. He had to hop over a bench to get out of some rushing people's way and as he did, he caught a glimpse of the pair they were chasing. "They are heading towards the ticketing offices!" He called to Shiro over the rush of people.
Where the heck was he going? He wasn't headed for any of the tracks--which was good because Lorna had no idea how to navigate the subway system--but that just meant that he had no good reason for coming in here at all other than to try to shake them. And...damnit! It was working! Where the hell had he gone? Stopping, Lorna planted her hand on her hips and scanned the crowd, searching for a familiar face. She found one but not the one she expected. "Amanda?"
The German girl jumped, head whipping around at the sound of her name. "~Who...?~" she said in German, frowning as she scanned the crowd. Her eyes widened at the sight of the frantic-looking, green-haired woman coming towards her. "~Who on earth...?~"
It was a good thing Tommy was so tall because he saw Lorna stop and and go in a different direction from the still fleeing Haller. Cursing under his breath, he went crushing through the crowd, trying to fight his way through people. He was trying so hard to keep his eye on Haller while weaving between people that he completely missed the fact that people were gathered around a street performing mime. The sudden lack of people made him pitch forward, right into said mime to tumble into a heap on the ground. There was an audible 'FUCK' that may or may not have come from Tommy himself.
"Fuck it." The x-gene might technically not exist in this reality, and even though the main concourse was filled with busy commuters running to the trains or the subway, Shiro didn't see himself having much of a choice. He lifted himself ten feet off the ground to look for the familiar head in the sea of irate (and now frightened) New Yorkers. "What, haven't you ever seen someone who can fly before?" he spat at the crowd of people gathering underneath him in awe.
Half a block away David didn't even have time to blanch at the psychological implications of witnessing such a clear defiance of physics, because suddenly the crowded street around him got even more crowded. There was only the barest moment of musical warning from a marching band before the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade intervened. Though under any other circumstance David might have had some fairly big problems with this development, all the normal nitpicky details like is this on the route? or isn't it January? were handily solved for him by the fact its appearance meant his flying pursuer was suddenly under assault by an escaping Underdog balloon.
"There's no need to fear! Underdog is here!" it bellowed. Or, Shiro hoped, one of the announcers declared. The Nintendanger Room was one thing. A fully articulate giant super-dog was something else. Shiro muttered something that could have been interpreted as "STFU" and dashed down underneath it, barely avoiding massive hands that reached to grab him.
"This is so clearly retarded," he growled, "And I am going to kill him when we wake up. Nothing but trouble."
*****
Crystal dashed down the staircase, flying alongside Forge for a few moments. "The others can't move this fast!" she pointed out, directing her voice at him. "Maybe Angel can, but since she is new to flying and landing, I would not advise it." Focusing on the task at hand, she shot forward in pursuit of Glorian.
Laurie watched Forge disappear down the stairs as she allowed herself to be dragged along by Julio. She started weaving between people as she ran down the stairs, trying to make out Glorian in the crowd. It was then she noticed the street performer that looked suspiciously like their quarry, who was currently appeared to be trying to hide under a huge hat. "Um, guys?"
Julio screeched to a halt, arms flailing as he nearly lost his balance. Their quarry saw them and turned around, fleeing down another hallway. Gesturing wildly, Julio got the others to follow him and they dashed after the red-headed man, only to come to a stunned stop at the end of the hallway. There before them, all hustle and bustle and gleaming marble was Grand Central Station.
"How in the world did we come to Grand Central Station?" Julio said, flabbergasted, then he shook his head quickly. "Oh, fuck it, it does not matter, there he goes!" They pursued him down another flight of steps, and Julio wasn't even going to ask how Forge was navigating it on a vespa, and into another hallway. This one full of doors.
"Now what?"
"Just pick one?" Angel suggested, heading toward the nearest door. She opened it cautiously and when nothing came screaming out at her, ducked in. It closed with a clang and a few seconds passed before she popped out of one all the way down the hall. "...you guys look all distorted!" she shouted. "Wait, I think I saw this in Scooby Doo in, oh, every episode."
"If this is Scooby Doo, we need chase music!" Kyle shouted, coming out of one of the doors, balancing on the back of the Vespa behind Forge. He was almost sure he'd been going into a totally different door than Forge, and how did he get the Vespa in the hallway anyway? "Okay, no more talking from me!" He added, after diving and rolling to avoid the marching polka band that spilled out of one doorway and down the hall, only to disappear into another open door, leaving the repeating echos of oompahs and accordions.
Forge pondered for a moment, then drove the scooter through the first door, coming almost instantly out another one down the hall. Glorian stuck his head out of yet another door, then ducked back in, exiting even further down the hall. Leaning over the handlebars, Forge frowned. "Okay, even using tesseracts and n-dimensional folding, this doesn't make any sense. I demand this to start making sense!"
Julio ducked out of one door, and opened the one directly across from him. His eyes widened as he noticed that, like all of those old Bug Bunny cartoons, there was a train coming directly towards him. He slammed the door shut quickly. "Somehow, not as funny as the cartoon." He looked to the right and to the left, and ran down the hallway, ducking into another door.
Glorian ran out of a door down the hallway, and noting that coast was clear, opened a door that had a large exit sign. Only to have all of the students fall down on top of him.
"Ow, Jesus...what the fuck?"
"Gotcha," Julio said.
"If someone doesn't remove their hand from my butt, I'm so setting you on fire."
****
Back in the station, Lorna dashed up to Amanda, determined to make this one quick and painless and not send another person into terrified flight. "Hi. I know this is weird but I really need you to come with me for a minute. It's urgent. I know I seem like a crazy person to you right now and that's fair but two seconds of your time and a hand shake is all I need so..." She stopped when she noticed the younger woman was giving her the oddest look. Not the 'wow, you're nuts, lady' one. The 'I don't understand a word that's coming out of your mouth' one. "Um...Amanda?"
"Ja?" Amanda said doubtfully. How did this woman know her name? She'd never seen her before in her life - that shade of green would be pretty unforgettable. "I am sorry. My English is not good. Please, who are you?"
German. Of course, she was German because why on earth should anything go right in this ridiculous world? "My name is Lorna." She offered her hand to Amanda--just a handshake would do!--and then saw that the other girl was wearing gloves. Argh. "Would you like to go get a cup of coffee?" Coffee meant she'd have to take her gloves off and then she could touch her and they could go back to loathing each other.
Coffee? This strange woman was offering to buy her coffee? Why? Amanda stepped back hesitantly, her backpack colliding with the crowd around Tommy and the mime and somehow knocking more people into the pile. "~I don't think that is a very good idea,~" she said in German. "~My mother warned me not to talk to strange Americans.~"
"What? Christ, I don't speak German." Lorna frowned and raised her voice a little, speaking more slowly. The pile up of people was completely ignored. "Please let me shake your hand." She held up her own ungloved hand and wiggled her fingers to demonstrate what she meant. "Take your glove off and take my hand. I need to touch your skin."
"~You want to WHAT?!~" Okay, apparently Amanda had encountered one of those perverts you saw in American movies all the time. She made a move to escape, but the woman grabbed at her hand, pulling the glove off. Panicked, Amanda's hand whipped up, slapping the woman sounding across the face. And then she blinked. "What the bloody fucking hell?" she exclaimed, English accent as broad as South London could make it. Then she realized what she'd done. "Oh, bollocks. Um, sorry?"
"Ow, fuck. Damn it. Should have left you German." Lorna rubbed at her cheek sullenly. All this physical abuse had to stop. "So you remember who I am now? And who you are? Because if I just got slapped for no good reason, blondie, I'm going to do some serious payback."
"Well, the fact I'm swearing in English might have tipped you off," Amanda retorted, but not as harshly as she might have. She felt a little bad about the slap. "I thought you were cracking onto me, what with the wanting to touch me and all." She glanced around. "What the fuck is going on?"
"We're...you know what, no. I'll explain on the way, we have to catch David." Reaching into the pile of mime, tourist and Tommy, Lorna yanked out the mutant boy and set him on his feet. "Let's go. Did anyone see which way Shiro went?" Looking around, Lorna caught sight of the parade though the glass doors, "Okay, I'm guessing that way."
As Lorna yanked him out, the mime was suddenly encased by a golden box. "Get out of that box, if you can." He muttered darkly, as he got firm purchase on standing and looked around to catch his bearings, taking note they had somehow gained Amanda. Oh wonderful. Noting the Parade that Lorna pointed out, Tommy sighed. "Follow me." Then he resumed his previous action of pushing through the crowd, using his height and bulk to clear a bath for the two women.
When they made it to the street, Tommy paused to look up and down the street and rolled his eyes when he saw Shiro floating above the crowds. He cupped his hands and called to the other boy, "Shiro! Where is he?"
An awful, high-pitched cackling erupted, and Shiro turned to see a Spongebob Squarepants float flying up behind him. "Urusai!" he shouted in frustration, tossing a fireball that burst a hole in it. Shiro took pleasure in seeing it deflate, disrupting the procession. He'd have to remember to tell Dani that he'd ruined Thanksgiving, even if it was only a dream.
With that settled, he landed by his companions, sparing Amanda a raise of his eyebrow but nothing more. "He is going down . . . that way?" Towards the Twin Towers, which were apparently also located in southern Brookyln now. "He needs a geography class or two."
Amanda groaned, and hoisted the pack a little higher on her shoulders. It seemed to have gotten bigger, and she couldn't see a thing over the crowds. "So, we're chasing Haller? Why exactly?"
"Later." Was Tommy's short reply as his patience with this whole thing was wearing thin. "Come on, we better follow him before we *really* lose him."
Lorna sighed and followed the boys as they pushed through the parade crowds, "See, it's like this..."
******
Breathe. Breathe.
David braced himself on the edge of the sink of the convenience store bathroom, head bent low to the sound of the running faucet. Insane. This was insane. Improbable thing on top of improbable thing, people chasing him across the city, acting as if he should know them. He didn't know them. Did he know them?
did I we did he did he
Water streamed through his cupped fingers as he splashed his face. The tap had been open for five minutes and the water was still freezing. He straightened, ignoring the cold trickle into his shirt collar. He only needed to hang on a little while longer. He was almost home.
His reflection was a blur through the water stinging his eyes -- all he could make out was the impression of dull blue walls and yellow lights behind him. The paper-towel dispenser whirred; empty roll. He raised one arm to wipe the sleeve of his jacket across his face instead. The red fabric soaked through black.
Something banged out in the store. It was the door slamming against the wall. Voices followed. No, shouting. People were shouting.
What's going on?
Moving away from the sink, he opened the door--
--to the barrel of a gun.
Four people in the store around him: two frightened faces behind the counter, middle-aged with a wispy mustache and young and shining with piercings, a man standing an aisle away, tall and broad-shouldered, and the last. Dusky skin and black, buzzed hair, primitively done prison tattoos that scored his hands and knuckles -- the filth, the cheap clothing insufficient for the cold -- every detail sharpened to brittle clarity at the weapon's end. As David's eyes swung to his face the gunman began to scream "Put your hands--"
And immediate as a shiv to the side, connection.
Tattooed hands went nerveless. The gun clattered to the dirty tiles with the weight of a toy, unfired.
"Oh," whispered David.
Blue held brown eyes across the store that now might as well have been empty, and two mouths spoke the same words.
"This isn't right."
Finally, the two x factors are brought together, and they shake hands.
Amanda heaved off the enormous backpack she'd been carrying for some reason, dumping it on the pavement outside the 7-11 and sat on it with a sigh. "So, let me get this straight. We're stuck in la-la land and the only person who can get us out of it just vanished. Plus, we have no idea where the rest of the Scoobie gang's got to. Anyone else think we're royally fucked?" She looked down at herself - somehow in the struggle through the parade, her clothes had morphed into... something. With poofy sleeves and knee socks and a skirt that wouldn't look out of place on a ballerina. "And what the fuck am I wearing? Someone's idea of a German folk costume?"
"It is very . . . becoming," offered Shiro, "But I do not know what it is becoming. You look like a beer-serving tavern wench." It was the nicest thing he'd said all day. "I think that we ought to regroup with the others. Maybe the street magician has a rapport with him or something."
"I can't believe you lost him. Freakishly tall guy in a bright red jacket and you lost him." Lorna slumped against a light pole and wished for a cigarette. She really hoped that craving wouldn't carry with if they ever got out of this fucked up world. "Nice look, Amanda. Are you auditioning to be a Charlie's Angel or just trying to get in touch with your heritage?"
The small rumbling of a Vespa cut off Amanda's response as Forge rounded the corner slowly, smiling widely. "People!" he announced, coasting to a stop and spreading his arms wide. "Our egress from this ersatz Purgatory is procured. We've got our half of the telepathic twinset to get us back to reality... weren't you guys supposed to find Haller?" He pushed his glasses up onto his forehead, then rubbed his eyes in a doubletake. "And wow, what in the fuck are you wearing, Amanda? Some kind of folk costume?"
"Please don't Forge. We've been over the costume already." Tommy said from where he was leaning against a wall and smoking a cigarette. This version of him didn't smoke and as his memories returned so had his craving. "And Shiro over there lost him in a parade. We have nothing."
"You know, if this was the movies, someone would've tagged him with one of those little tracking devices." Laurie replied, finally making it around the corner and joining the others. Having a vehicle would have made this so much better.
"If this were the movies, we'd have had a lot more explosions." Kyle said. "And a lot more product placement. I mean, seriously." He gestured towards the 7-11, and then towards his stomach. "I? Am going to go eat. I feel like I haven't eaten in like, two days and I am totally starving. I say we eat, and once we've eaten, our brains will be better for finding lost teachers." It made sense. To Kyle, anyway.
Crystal glanced at the convenience store, hiding a grimace. Both dreamworld Crystal and real Crystal could agree on one thing… ew. "If this were a movie, our quarry would just suddenly appear out from nowhere, right about… now." She glanced around and shook her head. "Or maybe he would arrive just as we left to go search elsewhere, but this is not a movie." It is a nightmare. She sighed slightly and shook her head. "I, for one, am not hungry at a time like this." Especially not for whatever processed junk they would find inside such a place.
"I think we should stick together," Amanda said, getting up off her backpack and going to Tommy. "Give us one of those, will you?" she asked, gesturing to his cigarettes. As he reluctantly complied, she lit up with a sigh of relief. "Speaking of which, I hope one of you actually brought your bloke back. Do Julio and Angel have him?"
Lorna gave Tommy and Amanda's cigarette's longing looks and dug into her pocket for her bottle of pills. Valium this time--she had the best cocktail ever in there, she was going to miss all the over-medicating. "The better question is how do we track down David now that we've lost him? Did the phone book update with his home address? We could go wait for him there and steal from his fridge." Well, not really, because Lorna was willing to bet that there wasn't anything in his fridge. No matter how nuts the world was, Haller still wouldn't remember to feed himself.
Crystal was quite thankful that she had full use of her powers. Too many people were smoking and she was glad that she could still remain close by. Amanda was right, at this point in time, the group needed to stick together. Where were Julio, Angel, and Glorian anyway? "After all of the criminal activities we have engaged in in this world, taking food from the house of someone who is rightfully a part of our little group does not seem like such a horrid act." Not to mention the fact that none of this is real, anyway.
"All right, all right. Keep your pants on, I'm goin'" The aforementioned trio rounded the corner. "So alls I gotta do is shake this guy's hand and you'll get off my back?" The man speaking was short, red-headed and with a gap in-between his front teeth. The guy from outside the museum Friday.
"Yes, that is all you need to do," Julio said. He still had a firm grip on the man's arm, in case he tried to bolt again. He was all for tying him up and carrying him, but that might have been just a little too gauche. "Then you can go back to getting arrested, I promise."
Angel, still out of sorts with everything that happened, resisted poking him in the side. But only barely. "And we can go back to normal." She waved to the rest of the group. "Look what we found. Can we so totally not take him home with us?"
Amanda blinked. "The busker? From the museum?" She shook her head. "Bloody typical. We got ambushed by a bloody amateur street magician."
Kyle was still pouting that his plan for food had been doubly thwarted by first, being convinced that if he went into the store and away from the group, he could easily disappear, and second, that he had no actual cash on him. "Can we tie him to something? A light pole? A car? An elephant?" Just in case, he looked around for an elephant. Stranger things had happened already.
The actual result was far less impressive; in the meantime the door of the 7-11 opened and banged twice, unnoticed.
"Hi," David called, half-raising one hand in a wave as he strode towards the group. "Sorry. Here."
"About fucking time." Tommy said as he stood up and rubbed his cigarette out on the wall behind him. "Come to your senses or do we have to chase you through out of place landmarks again?"
"No. I'm pretty sure I got that out of my system." David gave Tommy a lopsided smile before turning to Glorian. "Hi. No offense, but when we get out you're going into the brochure as the reason mindreaders either need to get trained or not screw around in someone else's head."
"Excuse me? I was doing just fine, pal, until I got a load of what's going on in that brainpan of yours. They let a crazy person be in charge of kids?" He turned to Julio. "You can let go of me now, I ain't goin' anywhere. I want out of this funhouse as much as you do."
David shook his head. "Um, I work in a school for mutants. You'd be disturbed by how weird this kind of thing is not." He could remember at least one person in the school's history who'd had an incident similar enough for mockery, and right now all he really wanted was to get out of this, make a call, and hear her voice.
Lorna had pushed away from the light pole when David had appeared, thankfully in his right mind (...minds?), and now wrapped her hands around his arm and tugged, "Nice of you to finally show. I need a cigarette before we're out of here because I'm sure as hell not smoking one when we get back and I'm dying for one right now."
David's hand moved automatically to his pocket before he realized there would be nothing there. "Um, I don't have any," he said, a little uncertainly. Then he raised an eyebrow. "You smoke? Wow. The amount of crack in this dream sequence is pretty high."
"And she also wrestles students too!" Angel supplied. "I turned a fire extinguisher on them. It was great. But I'd really like to go home. I mean, there's no clicking of the shoes and stuff. So, you two! Be all manly and touch each other! Gooooo on. Toooooouuuuuuch. But if it's the bad touch, I am so either going to take pictures or get sick. Or maybe both."
~Like the lost catacombs of Egypt only God knows where we stuck it...~ "Yeah, can we -please- just go the hell home?" Kyle broke his humming of a familar and vastly overplayed Bloodhound Gang song to stalk over towards Glorian. "I mean, one, nobody will let me go get any food and I am starving. Two, this place sucks, and I'm probably totally on the Most Wanted List or something and I'd like to stop being here before the FBI shows up with helicopters. Three, did I mention the part where I'm starving?" Maybe he had a one-track mind, but the chicken nuggets from before had reminded him. And no one had let him eat them. Which was not cool at all. It wasn't like Bob was using them anymore.
"Angel, I'm going to start asking you where on the doll the bad man touched you if you keep with the 'bad touching'," Amanda joked, but raising her eyebrow a little at the younger girl. She took the last drag of her cigarette and dropped the butt, crushing it under one dainty slipper-like shoe. "And as much fun as it's been, this Cinderella'd like to go back to being the scullery wench. Time, gentlemen, and all that."
Pouting slightly, Lorna wandered away from David again. She wanted nothing at all to do with the meeting of the minds that was about to take place and given that David had failed her desire for nicotine--some smoker he was--there was no reason to hang around. Slowly, she worked her way to the back of the group, smiling wryly at Angel's response to the situation and her characterization of Lorna's repeated brawling, chuckled to herself at Kyle and Amanda's replies. They were done here and you could hear it in everyone's voices--the hope and the relief.
"Lorna."
Lorna turned. Behind her, standing well apart from the group, a man with buzzed hair and dark skin was holding out a cigarette. The clean white paper stood out against the tattoos on the hand offering it.
Puzzled, Lorna took the cigarette, studying the man more than the act, fumbling the pass a bit and her hand brushing his. She lifted the cigarette to her lips and leaned in as he lit it, his eyes level with hers. She recognized him but didn't know why and she frowned as the tip flared to life. "Who are you?" she asked, uncertain as to why he knew her name but too used to the dream world to question it. Talking birds, magical phone books, living parade floats...it was all just a dream within dream.
But he looked familiar...
The man only turned from her without a word . . . but not before looking to someone else.
She followed the look and was only more confused. Why would he be interested in David... Suddenly she recognized him--the man from outside the hospital, the one who'd watched her search for David and smirked at her loss. But why would he be here and why now? And why leave so silently, without more than just the one word. Lorna inhaled around the cigarette, smoke burning her lungs and tickling her nose. What was going on? Why did David look so carefully unreadable--like he had outside the museum when it had meant that so much more was going on than what could be seen?
There was a loud and very pointed throat-clearing. "So, we gonna do this or you gonna stare stupidly at each other all day, huh?" Glorian tossed his hair out of his eyes and gave Haller a disdainful look, holding out a hand.
The counselor's eyes trailed slowly back to the other man, face completely expressionless. Just as it had to be. The kids were waiting.
"Right," he said.
Jim took Glorian's outstretched hand.
The world went white.
Tags:
- c: .modsock: laurie collins,
- c: amanda sefton,
- c: angelica jones,
- c: david haller,
- c: kyle gibney,
- z p1: c: .npc,
- z p1: c: .retired: crystal amaquelin,
- z p1: c: .retired: forge,
- z p1: c: .retired: julio richter,
- z p1: c: .retired: lorna dane,
- z p1: c: shiro yoshida,
- z p1: c: tommy jones,
- z p1: p: when it all goes wrong again
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