xp_logs | Marie-Ange and David North, short and long term precognition

Marie-Ange and North compare their two forms of precognition over coffee and a tarot reading. The reading makes only a little more sense than usual, right up until the end when the deck starts playing tricks on them.

Having set his "Out of Office" message on his official Snow Valley email and forwarding the appropriate notifications on to the erstwhile "bosses" at the Center, David North had decided to take a Wednesday afternoon off. Partly for the ability to get some peace and quiet in the Brownstone, but also because it was quite simply something he'd never done before. Eleven years undercover with Initech, and he'd never taken a legitimate sick day that he remembered.

Of course, he'd apparently taken some he hadn't remembered, but since he wasn't being activated by a subconscious program to go out and terminate former colleagues turned rogue agents, he counted this as a first.

Many people would "play hooky" by going to a sporting event, seeing a movie, hitting the bars, or sleeping the day away. Instead, David was 'celebrating' with a handful of Ritalin, a chaser of high-caffeine energy drink, and a vintage Schoenwald cuckoo clock that he'd purchased while in Bucharest.

The stimulants had the interesting affect of kicking his precognition into gear by tricking his brain into thinking it was in a fight-or-flight combat situation. The odd sensation of viewing anywhere from ten to sixty seconds into the future while simultaneously perceiving events occurring in the present was somewhat like trying to rub his head and pat his stomach at the same time, except using a brain that was almost a decade out of practice.

As he adjusted the pulleys and gears inside the antique wooden clock, he 'heard' the knock at his door a full six seconds before hand struck wood.

"Kommen sie hieren," he intoned exactly as the knock sounded. "The door is open."

If Marie-Ange was at all unsettled about the demonstration of precognition on a totally different scale than hers, it didn't show. Part of that was her priding herself on being unflappable; a few years of giant worms, cults and death gloves had seen to that. The other part was that she was more fascinated than anything else, and so what little 'strangeness' there was to David North's precisely-timed greeting was overtaken by how useful and just plain interesting it was.

"I brought coffee." she said, unnecessarily - her hands were full of a drink holder from the local coffee shop with a quartet of steaming cups. "And some of my tarot decks. Sometimes it works better if the deck itself is part of the interpretation."

"Your precognition is long range, yes?" David asked, deftly placing his tools in a leather satchel as he closed up the front of the clock. As his fingers gently shut the carved wooden panels, he turned to Marie-Ange, his eyes still faded white with the effects of his power. "You see the future and you... interpret it through your paintings? Or the cards, I understand. I understand, yes. Your code name makes sense on many levels. My power, enh... not so versatile. I see... thirty, maybe sixty seconds into my own future. And only under adrenalin."

He held up the pill bottle for emphasis and smiled, speaking to the empty air above the chair that Marie-Ange hadn't sat down in yet. "So we are to see what we can do with our powers together, yes?"

Marie-Ange set the coffees down before sitting, and in that short space of time, decided that it was just better to add David North to the list of people who she didn't comment on their conversational quirks. Having a best friend who occasionally talked to subways and a boyfriend who slipped into Esperanto in bed tended to mean it was just easier to accept. "Long range and it is subject to interpretation." The explanation was much easier when she didn't have to explain "I see the future." first. "I either have precognitive dreams, or I have to, ah, force it through a card reading. It is a tricky power."

"Ah yes," David mused, his hands fidgeting unconsciously as he sat across from the young redhead. "Mine was once the same. So much... eh, manipulating, you could say. In my brain, to make it focused. Like the clockwork, you see. Finely tuned. So then, let us work on fine-tuning ourselves. You have brought your cards?"

"Oh yes." She had brought several, and took pair of decks out of her shoulder bag and set them on the table. Idly, she picked them up, reshuffling one, and then frowned, and put it back into her bag. "I usually have a deck or two.. or .. three... somewhere in a bag or in my pockets" she admittedly, a little sheepishly. "But I think the traditional is best here." It felt right, using her well-worn traditional Rider-Waite deck.

David reached his hand out, fanning out the top few cards. "And I pick one to represent me, yes?" At Marie-Ange's nod, he flipped over the top card, raising an eyebrow at the image of an angel pouring water from one cup to another. "Temperance," he read, glancing back to the young Frenchwoman. "Explain?"

"It means.. many things, sometimes moderation.." Marie-Ange gave a significant glance to the empty can of energy drink. "Although in this case, perhaps not. I think perhaps, the interpretation that it represents a joining of opposites, a sort of balance in differences, yes? A former operative who repairs cuckoo clocks in his space time and finds his co-workers better dental benefits?" She neglected to mention the other interpretation she remembered, that Temperance guided the souls of the dead to judgment. North didn't need to be reminded of Wraith or Carol Danvers.

Pondering that for a while, David nodded. "Temperance, then. So how do we proceed with..." He stopped, cocking his head as his mind filtered the future from the present. "One sword. What does that... I am sorry, I get ahead of myself sometimes. Where are we now? Temperance, yes. And then?"

Across the table, Marie-Ange's attentive expression broke briefly into a sheepish smile. "And now I understand exactly how it feels when I do that." Hers were a little more specific, avoiding a traffic accident that would happen six days in the future, or simply working through an entire 48 hour period and losing track of what day it was, but strange to people all the same. She tilted her head in puzzlement, looking down at the deck in her hands. "I wonder if I shuffled this right now, if the next card would still be what you predicted." she mused aloud.

But she did not shuffle, turning the next card over to reveal a card with a hand holding a single sword, ringed by a crown and putting it in the middle of the table. "The Ace of Swords. Which could have just as easily been your indicator card. But here, it is.. now. It is supposed to mean what your current situation is, or who you are at this moment."

"Auspicious beginning," David mumbled with a half-smile. He took a drink of the provided coffee and placed his knuckles against the table, letting out a slow breath between his teeth as he closed his eyes. "Ace of Swords. And the meaning? Who am I at the moment?"

"It is an odd card to come up here. It... it is supposed to mean logic, or trying to think through problems or adversity." Marie-Ange frowned at the card, but did not touch it, or her deck. "It.. it is usually a solution card, mind over matter is the saying. Here, it is ... well, you have had a change in circumstance, perhaps it means that you are adjusting to that? I am not certain."

David laughed, a deep and honest sound. "You could say that, yes." His eyes were blank as Marie-Ange dealt out the next cards, the first crossing the Ace of Swords, and then one to each cardinal point. "Devil. Men fighting with sticks. Angel with trumpet, man with stick, and a king? The king is upside down, though."

He narrated the cards a split-second before Marie-Ange laid each one down, head rolling from side to side, the muscles around his eyes twitching. "This kind of focus, it is unusual. Normally I get... flashes, that is the best way to describe them. Trying to hold onto them is like trying to stare at the sun and not blink. Or go blind. Blind, hah. To only see the future. I remember a woman... but we are looking at the future, and not the past. What do we see, madchen?

David North knew...? That could not possibly be right. Marie-Ange put the thought aside and turned her attention back to the cards. "The past plays it's part in this reading. The Five of Wands and Judgment card." She pointed to the cards that North had described as "Men fighting with sticks" and "Angel with trumpet". "These I think I understand. The past, years ago, your Weapon X group had conflict, and the immediate past, you rediscovered your identity, a resurrection of a sort, yes?"

She put down one last card, above the rest, the Page of Wands; a young man holding a tall wooden staff, but focused on another card, with a stern-looking man sitting on a throne. "This should be the near future, something happening very soon. The Emperor... it is odd, when I was just learning of my power, this card came up for Professor Xavier, but never reversed... reversed, it can be a twisted ruler, or a dictator, or that someone in a position of power will lose that position. Deposement or death.. What is odd is that ..." she pointed to the Page of Wands card. "This is supposed to mean the best possible future, but the card usually indicates change or action."

"A change, to either a twisted ruler, or someone removed from power..." North mused. He shrugged and leaned back in his chair, his eyes slowly darkening from white to their usual blue. "If you had asked me - Gott, mein Kopf..., such a headache when coming down, where is that coffee?"

Shading his eyes with one hand, North fumbled around until Marie-Ange carefully pushed the cup of coffee into his hand. He drank, then reached into a pocket to tear open a packet of aspirin, swallowing two and chasing them down with the last of his coffee. "Even with the drugs, there is only so long I can keep looking to the future. I suppose it keeps me from going mad. I suppose Stryker... yes, that was what I was saying, wasn't it? The Emperor reversed. If you had asked me years ago, I would have seen William Stryker there," he tapped the card with one finger. "The leader becoming the tyrant, then killed. You said this once represented Professor Xavier to you. Do you think he is in danger?"

"I do not know... I cannot think of who else it might be." Marie-Ange pinched the bridge of her nose, as if trying to prevent a headache. "I do not think he is going to become a tyrant. But killed? He is very visible as a mutant activist, and tensions have been very high since Apocalypse attacked New York City. What if... someone wanted to make him a martyr? The mutant Martin Luther King? I would believe that more than someone trying to just kill him."

"Possibly worth a little extra diligence, yes?" North commented, then he reached out to tap the deck with one finger. "So what do we do from here, hmm?"

"Four more cards. Internal and external, ah, what you bring to the future and what people or the situation will bring. Also what you worry about, or want to happen, and then last, what will happen in the end." Marie-Ange pulled three cards from the top of the deck and held them out in a fan, almost as though she were inviting North to keep predicting them. Which was very much the case, since the demonstration of nearly instant-range precognition was absolutely fascinating to her. Hers did not work in that way at all.

David exhaled deeply and closed his eyes, then opened them again, hand shaking as he tapped three cards. "Crying man in a bed with swords on the wall, upside down. Heart with three swords stuck in it. Man on a horse with sticks... six of them, also upside down."

Marie-Ange flipped her wrist, to show the cards exactly as North had described them, and set them down on the table in a column. "This is your influence." She explained, pointing to the Nine of Swords. "This is... one of the most traditionally negative cards. If it were the right way up, it would mean suffering, but with an end. Reversed, it usually means something recurring. Nightmares, or pain, or a wound that does not heal."

David nodded, holding a hand to the bridge of his nose and grimacing. "Too apt," he grumbled.

"I am afraid it does not get much better." Marie-Ange tapped the second card with her index finger. "The Three of Swords is another negative card. As an external influence, I think someone with a deep sorrow?" She shook her head, frowning in thought. "I do not think... if the Professor is in danger, I cannot think of who this could be." Unless it was someone associated with David North. "I hope you do not have an angry ex-wife that you cannot remember."

David looked up over his hand at Marie-Ange, eyes suddenly back to their clear blue. "Gott, I already have had enough games played with my memory, I should hope I would remember a marriage in there somewhere. No, I do not think I have any deep sorrows or brokenhearted lovers left alive in my past."

The last card had a man on a horse, carrying a staff, with his footmen surrounding him. Marie-Ange adjusted it slightly to line up with the others as she explained. "This one is obviously military related, or something akin to the military. Reversed, it can mean a war, or a defeat, or a, what do they call it when both sides will not enter an place, like the border between North and South Korea?" It didn't matter what the term was, really, and she continued on without waiting for an answer. "I have to wonder if this is related to the Nine of Swords? Your Weapon X, it was like a military unit, and it was shut down and all of you were dispersed.."

"That makes a certain amount of sense," North replied through barely-open lips, still holding the bridge of his nose as if to ward off a migraine or nosebleed. "A demilitarized zone, where neither force can act. So tell me, how does it all end?"

The card that Marie-Ange turned over had the same Angel and trumpet and riverbank as the first, but the art style was completely different. The lines were heavier, and all of the colors were darker. The angel was dark haired, and the wings a tawny gold. She looked up at North, and then turned the card over to inspect the back. "Did... you see me pick up another deck? I do not let my decks get mixed up like this."

On a whim, she turned over the next card, sighing audibly when it came up the Ace of Swords, in the same heavy-handed art style as the second Temperance card. Third, fourth and fifth cards also came up in order, repeating the reading she had done already. She counted four more cards, not looking at them, and then swore. After the ninth card, the back of the cards changed, and she turned that card over to show another version of Temperance, this one almost drawn in a stained-glass style. "I do not stack decks. I shuffled this!"

Puzzled, North reached out to touch the deck. With one finger, he flicked it briskly, sending an array of cards scattering over the tabletop. Shuffling them around, he began turning them over one at a time. "Temperance. Ace of Swords. Devil. Five of Wands. Judgment. Madchen, if you do not recall stacking your cards consciously..." He paused to wipe his hand under his nose, then frowned at the thin streaks of blood he saw. "Ah, Christ, I hate this power sometimes. By the sink in my kitchen, there is aspirin. Would you...?" He motioned with a hand towards the small apartment kitchen.

While Marie-Ange got up from the table, David held one hand to his nose, absently turning over cards with the other. Each one in order, the same repeating pattern as if preordained. Or predicted, he reminded himself. Closing his eyes, he sighed.

"I recall my life being simple once. Vaguely, long ago. There are days these powers of ours are nothing but a curse. Knowing the Sword of Damocles is above your head does nothing to make you feel safer, you know."

"I know. All too well." Marie-Ange said from the kitchen. "It seems that all that I get from seeing the future is that I know when the gun will be fired, but never how to stop it before it is loaded." She emerged from the kitchen and set the aspirin and a cup of water down on the table.

The extra cards face-up did not go unnoticed. "All the same, and in the same order, yes?" She flipped a few over herself, confirming her theory. "Perhaps our powers are clashing? Or whatever is to happen is something that the outcome matters less than the events? Someday I would like just to find the future written in an fortune cookie as plain as day. That would be nice."

"Don't cross the streams," North quoted, downing the small pills. He pantomimed cracking open a fortune cookie and reading the paper inside. "Dear David. Your life sucks today. Go back to bed." he mock-read with a smile.

"And if anyone asks you if you are a god, you tell them yes." Marie-Ange responded. "And do not think about marshmallows." She began scooping up the cards and stacking them haphazardly into a messy pile. "Mine would probably tell me that bed was pointless because I will not be sleeping tonight. I think all the same, I would rather have warnings than sleep. It is ironic, my precognition gives me headaches and makes me not sleep, but when I did not have it, I missed it."

"Eleven years without mine," David commiserated, "I... did not miss it, I did not recall even having it. When Elisabeth unlocked everything again, it took some readjusting. So I understand, yes." He chuckled. "It is like our own fraternity, those who see the future and most of the time get nothing but headaches for it. La Cosa Nostradamus, or something of the sort."

Marie-Ange laughed dryly. "Perhaps the next time we do this, we should have pasta and cannoli and espresso." She picked up the pile of cards and tapped them against the table to line up their edges. "But I think no horse heads or trying to save Frank Sinatra's career, because dead horses are tacky and cliche."