Jacob and Laurie

[x-wallflower-.livejournal.com]

[Posting early due to work/time zone issues]

Laurie meets her new boss for the rebuild



Laurie looked around at the bustling Red-X encampment, watching people moving back and forth with what looked like pureposeful energy but she couldn't see who she was meant to report to. She'd been told to look for the man in a black chef's hat.

She pulled up a likely looking guy who appeared around her age and asked where she could find the head of catering operations and was pointed toward a large looking pavilion about 5 meters from where she currently stood and told to ask around once she got inside.

***

"Um, Mr...? Do you know where I can find a, um, Jacob?" she asked hesitantly of the rather large man she'd been pointed at when she asked around. They'd been too busy to really talk but she assumed that this guy was the one doing most of the directing, surely he'd be able to tell her where her boss for this Red-X mission was?

"Jacob," the large man replied, pronouncing it like "Yak-cob" with a heavy Slavic accent. "Call me Cob. You're with Red-X? Excellent. You can help me with preparing food. Your name, please?"

"Laurie!" she replied, giving him a bright grin and holding out her hand to be shaken. "How big is the operation?

Jacob laughed. "Operation! Operation today is you and I, Laurie. And Baba!" He patted the large pickup truck next to him, its bed full of styrofoam coolers and a large charcoal grill. "We have fifty workers to bring lunch to for today, down in Barrio Logan. Here we cook, then we deliver. You have experience with cooking?"

"But..." she started, before shaking her head and starting again. "I'm in the advanced cooking class at my school, and I've helped out cooking meals at the school I go to so I can deal with quantity and still keep it in good quality."

She'd been expecting a larger staff, but she supposed if Lorna could cook for an entire school with only a few helpers such as herself then Jacob would be able to do the same. She'd never cooked out of a truck before, so that was going to be interesting.

Jacob smiled, one large gold tooth shining in the California sun. "Splendid!" he exclaimed, opening one of the coolers and dropping a tough-looking chunk of beef onto a tray and handing it to Laurie along with a carving knife. "Please cut steaks. I will prepare the grill. Today, I think, steak au poivre with light horseradish and pearl onion, yes? We make maybe, eh... ten or so rare and we see how it goes from there, Laurie?"

Laurie took the carving knife and looked at the steak somewhat doubtfully - it wasn't of the quality she was used to, and she wasn't sure how they were going to manage steak au poivre with it, whatever that was. Maybe she shouldn't have been quite so boastful in her cooking abilities? She was a good student, but hardly michillian(sp?) star quality. "Doesn't it...well, um. Isn't it a bit tough?"

Jacob made a 'tsk' noise in the back of his throat, letting a spatula of butter sizzle and pop on the hot grill surface. "Who is being the food critic? Look here, Laurie, I am showing you special gift now. Pay attention."

Taking the carving knife in his fingers, Jacob expertly sliced a chunk of the beef off into his hand. Grey and stringy, it looked as if someone had gone to the most disreputable deli in town and headed straight for the cheap counter. With a flourish, he held the chunk of meat up in his fingers, peering at it intently. After a few seconds he dropped it onto the grill, flattening it with the broad spine of the carving knife. The smell that wafted off the grill, however, could have been emanating from a gourmet kitchen. Flipping the small chunk of beef over as he whistled a tune, Jacob stabbed it with a serving fork, then extended it towards Laurie. "You try, see how we like, yes?"

Laurie took the serving fork and turned a doubtful look Jacob's way before she bit into the piece of steak. She assumed he wouldn't give her food poisoning, since that would look quite bad. As the steak touched her tongue, her eyes widened. It was...it was, she couldn't describe how juicy it was. It tasted like the best steak she'd ever had. How was that possible?

"It's magnificent," she said, mystified. "But how?"

"Special gift," Jacob repeated. "Not every mutant is lifting buildings or welding beams with their mind, understand? I take, eh, how is it said? Moving molecules around in specific ways. Food is, eh, is chemistry, yes? Change this bond to that one, move this little bit around here, is difference between delicious steak and the boot leather. I make the chemistry what I wish it to be, and what I wish it to be is the fine food. I do not go to school for to be doctor or lawyer, I go to be chef. And I put to use where I can. From each according to his means, to each according to his needs, you understand?"

"I think I do." Laurie replied with a smile, and quickly went about cutting up the meat as Jacob had instructed. "When did you, um, manifest?"

His previous statement had been something she was familiar with through history class but she'd never seen it used in a real-life situation. It was something she could agree with, and something she'd often thought that as mutants they should aspire to. They all had gifts that they could use to make the world better, and that they had those gifts meant they had to use them, not just stand around and expect others to do the work. It might never work as a political movement, but on a small basis, as part of someone's personal philosophy, she couldn't see the harm in that.

"In the college, six, maybe seven years ago," Jacob explained, taking a steak from Laurie, seasoning it liberally, then dropping it on the grill. "Luck of the draw, I am told, to be in perfect place to practice my special gift. I come to this country and I have many opportunities, it is only right that I use the gifts I have to help other people. This city, it..." he breathed out through his teeth, a hissing noise of contempt. "I see on the television where they say mutants do this thing, that we are dangerous. I think more of the mutants, they are like me. No danger, we only wish to live our lives. Some of us wish to help, others, eh, they just wish to be."

Laurie continued to cut up steaks, thinking about what he said before she responded. She wondered what life might have been like for her if she'd just been allowed to be, as he said. She wasn't sure she'd ever have gotten the urge to become a doctor, or become involved in Red-X.

"I think fear does strange things to people, and some powers that we have are pretty scary." Laurie replied after a time, looking up at the man beside her. "I can, well, my special gift would make it easy for me to make someone do things they might not want to do. That's pretty frightening when you can't do anything to defend yourself against it."

Jacob made the 'tsk' noise again, shaking his head. "People fear what they do not know. We show them there is no need to fear, then they will not fear. Eh, perhaps is idealist. But I think better to be idealist than fatalist, yes? I cannot turn fear to acceptance, but," he flipped two fully-cooked steaks off the grill and into a plastic carton with a handful of vegetables, "what I can do, I make steak. It is something, yes?"

"Definitely something," Laurie said with an easy smile, she thought perhaps she and Jacob would get along just fine.