xp_logs | Cain and Nathan, at the quarry, Tuesday morning

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Set this morning, Cain and Nathan journey out to the quarry. Nathan demonstrates some remarkable feats of telekinetic control while he and Cain discuss the school, the kids, and telepaths.

Cain squinted into the sun as he crested the ridge, pushing a pine branch away from his face. "Almost there," he said, looking over his shoulder. He shouldn't have been surprised to see Nathan right on his heels, but he'd promised Moira to keep an eye on him should the mercenary pass out or something.

"Walking hills is a lot different when you're not carrying a ruck, ain't it?" He offered the mercenary by way of conversation.

Nathan laughed briefly. "That's for sure," he said, smiling around at the landscape. The grounds really were gorgeous, he thought. He needed to spend more time out here and less in Moira's rooms. "Got to admit, I'm looking forward to this," he confessed, focusing on Cain again as they continued to walk. "Slept like hell last night, and I just really have the craving to blow something up."

Cain rubbed his hands together gleefully. "Oh, believe me," he crowed, "I know the feeling. It's why I was glad to find this old place still here. God knows Chuck's little wonder gym ain't got anything in the way of a challenge." Cain stepped out across a narrow dirt road, overgrown with decades of neglect. "Back 'round turn of the century," he explained, "they dug granite from out back here. Built most of the state capitol from granite from this mine, in fact. Before my time, though." He indicated for Nathan to follow as he stepped through the underbrush and gestured expansively. "And here we are."

"Perfect," Nathan murmured, seeing all the rubble. Things he could break that no one would miss. "Is that the water you wanted moved?" he asked curiously, looking down the slope.

Cain nodded. "I've been... well, digging around and shit for a few months. Seems I hit an old wellspring. And I was wondering, I've seen pictures of..." Cain rummaged through his brain for the name, "Dr. Grey, I think her name was, lifting stuff with her mind. Didn't know if water'd be easier or harder."

Nathan took a few steps down the slope, staring at the water. Fairly deep, he thought, and gave Cain a sideways look when the other man didn't volunteer a destination for the water. Some sort of test, maybe, Nathan reflected with a flash of humor. Well, he could play along. "Harder," he said, imagining a massive version of one of those spiral straws. He started to pull the water up into it, feeling the strain quickly. Water was heavy, and tricky, too. "Good exercise, though," he said.

Cain tried, with little success, to keep his eyes from bugging out of his head. "Holy shit..." he gasped, managing to extend the epithet by at least three extra syllables. He continued to watch in amazement as the water poured as if from an invisible faucet, scattering over the far side of the hill and creating a momentary rainbow as it spread.

Noticing Nathan's expression of concentration, Cain tried to compose himself. "That's, uh, that's not bad."

"I could evaporate it," Nathan murmured. Doing this and talking at the same time was even better exercise. "But I don't know that I want to be messing around with telekinesis on that level for a while. After the glass trees."

"Yeah..." Cain murmured. Frankly, Nathan's power left him in awe. Charles could snoop people's minds, Slim could shoot lasers out his eyeballs, but this... "So yeah, it's a lot better out here when you've got the itch to just blow off some steam." He casually folded his arms, looking sideways at Nathan. "Or just take some potshots, if that's what works for you."

"I may be out here quite a bit," Nathan said more dryly, continuing to draw the water upwards and spread it across the hillside until there was only a little left at the bottom of the quarry. "Don't think that'll solve the problem. There is some kind of spring there," he said, rubbing at the back of his neck briefly. "I could feel it."

Cain just continued to blink in amazement. "Yeah, figured that. But hey, any time, y'know? Believe me," he said, "when those little sons of bitches get on your nerves, well - Chuck kind of frowns on smackin' 'em one."

"Some of them could definitely use a good kick in the ass once in a while," Nathan muttered a bit darkly, thinking of Manuel. He pulled at a half-dozen of the mid-sized rocks and started to juggle them, to settle his nerves a little. "Not my place, though."

Shrugging, Cain picked up a basketball-sized rock and sidearmed it across the quarry, watching it explode into dust against the rock face. "Gotta tell you, I've had half a mind to make it my place some days." Another rock joined the first, thrown with more force. "But I figure, screw 'em. They'll be gone eventually. Chuck's gonna get old, school's gonna shut down, and I'll finally get some peace and quiet."

"Waiting for the day when school's out forever, huh?" Nathan sent all but two of the rocks he was juggling at the rock face, hard enough to break them, if not as impressively as Cain's had. He encased the other two in a TK bubble and smashed them together. "Some of them are good kids," he said, manipulating the fragments, pushing them back together, trying to mold what had been one rock into two. "Some of them need 'I will be grateful for the opportunity to be here' written across their forehead, true, but some of them appreciate it."

"Amen to that." Cain dropped to a crouch, turning over a small piece of quartz in his fingers to watch the light reflect through it. "I may not agree with what Chuck's doing, but most of these kids have it better here than where they came from. Irony is, those're the ones who appreciate it the least." He snorted derisively as he continued. "Folks like the Shaw kid could probably buy themselves security anywhere they want. But someone like that fucking thug greaser, kid gets free living in a place he's probably only dreamed of burglarizing, and he's still pissing and moaning. Buncha fucking spoiled brats."

"Angelo just needs to do some more living," Nathan said, and dropped the twisted mass of rock to the ground. He wiped his forehead, grimacing. That had taken a little more than it should have. He was badly out of practice. "Same's true with a number of the others, I imagine. They're trying to figure out their places in the world. Not that it makes me want to slap some of them around any less..." But part of that was frustration born of envy, Nathan admitted to himself frankly, grimacing.

Cain dropped to a sitting position, pocketing the quartz and folding his hands behind his head as he leaned back against a tree. Despite the fact that his body almost dwarfed the tree, the posture gave him the look of a teenager out at his favorite swimming hole. "Suppose so. Moira tells me it's harder for them growing up in this day and age, and 'remember, Cain, ye were thurr age fitty yurrs ago, ach begorra...'. " Cain's horrible imitation of Moira's Scottish burr brought a smile to his face. "You ask me," he drawled, "I don't know who's to blame. In my day, the worst a kid had to worry about was getting caught stealing from the old man's liquor cabinet. Now we've got kids on government shitlists? Fugitives from mental wards? Fucking runaway gangbangers, dope smokers, and addicts? And what gets me," Cain growled, "is that Chuck and the rest of 'em just think it'll be fixed with a hug."

Nathan levitated another set of rocks, moving them in a figure-eight this time. "They need to want the help," he said absently. "Or to be convinced that they do..."

Cain twitched involuntarily, remembering his conversation with Moira about trusting the psis. "Convinced?" he asked warily.

Nathan eyed him, catching the sudden, arrow-like thought. "Not like that," he said, unable to keep the disgust for the idea out of his voice. "I just meant that they needed to be shown that it's all right. That they need the help and it's not weakness on their part to accept it. A lot of these kids have had a rough time. They're not used to anything good being offered voluntarily, without a catch."

Hunching his shoulders, Cain absently rubbed his chest, feeling the gem under his shirt and suddenly realizing how utterly vulnerable he felt without the protection of the psi-blocking metal. "They ain't alone, not by a long shot. Still - the lot of 'em wouldn't know a good thing if it came up and bit 'em on the ass."

Certain things started to fall into place. Nathan flung the rocks at the side of the cliff. "I wasn't trying to read you there," he said evenly, levitating another set. "You were projecting, a little. I don't go digging. My telepathy's not something I'm all that comfortable with."

Fighting his initial urge to stand and push Nathan away, Cain remained seated, breathing in deeply. "I figured. Moira trusts you, it's just -" he swallowed, too loudly for comfort. "I ain't had much reason to like people mucking around in my brain."

"You and me both," Nathan said frankly, exploding several of the rocks but directing the fragments in the other direction. "I don't know if you heard what happened with me and the de la Rocha kid, but I just about did some serious damage to him and your house, because of something one of the many people who mucked with my brain left behind."

"Figured as much." Cain distracted himself by crushing pebbles between his knuckles. "Government boys?" he hazarded the guess.

"Yeah," Nathan said, trying to pull the fragments back together again. It was like a giant jigsaw puzzle, he thought, 'feeling' each piece with his mind. "Got snatched up into a black ops program when I was a kid. You?"

"Coma." Cain replied. "They had a guy poking around trying to get me out of it for the better part of the seventies. I figure it's lucky I didn't wind up a vegetable." Spinning a smaller rock into the chasm before him, Cain glanced over at Nathan's handiwork and smiled. "Must take a hell of a lot of control."

"It does, but it's good practice for the virus." Still manipulating the fragments, Nathan glanced sideways at Cain. "I still don't know why they let me get away with never developing my telepathy," he said slowly. "Telepaths are... a valuable commodity, among certain circles. But they never really pushed. Taught me a few things, on top of the shielding, but that's it."

Cain pondered a moment. "Probably sounds like they weren't exactly trying to make you a well-rounded human being," he guessed. "I figure if you're gonna learn, though, they told me Chuck's the strongest one around." Cain stared at the sky for a moment before continuing. "Can't say the thought of having more telepaths around doesn't scare the piss out of me, but-" he struggled with the words, "-the doc, Moira, she trusts you pretty damn completely, and she's a pretty good judge of character. Figure there oughta be one honest telepath among the lot of you."

"You've got my word," Nathan said seriously as the rocks reassembled themselves into a close approximation of their former selves. "My mind goes nowhere near yours."

"Fair enough." Cain hauled himself up to his feet, dusting stray pebbles from his jeans. Suddenly his eyes grew wide. "Shit." He glanced back toward the mansion. "This is gonna sound really strange, but you got any way to tell where that weird English girl is, the one they sent off to some boot camp, got back just a bit ago?"

"No... my range isn't that good." Nathan tilted his eyes, giving Cain a quizzical look. "What's wrong?"

Marko shook his head, cursing under his breath. "The shield I'm supposed to wear - that one that blocks you guys from getting in my head - it keeps her from using me as a damn battery to fuel... whatever the fuck she does. I forgot she was back, I usually don't wear it when I come out here."

Nathan's eyes widened slightly as he digested the information. "She's liable to come looking for me at some point, too," he warned. "Might be a good idea to get it. She's doing too well to fall off the wagon now."

Cain turned and stepped back out onto the access road, looking down the hill to where the last rays of the sun reflected off the lake. "I'll take your word for it," he announced. "So long as she doesn't open up any more gates to Hell or drug the student body or turn everyone into frogs, I got no quarrel with her." He turned to nathan as he began walking backwards down the road, tossing the chunk of quartz idly in the air. "I just ain't too keen about being, whatchacallit, an enabler."

Nathan couldn't help a grin. "Marko, you're not nearly the grouch you like to think you are."

Cain grinned, starting to jog briskly backwards, smiling as if to taunt the mercenary. "When you get to be my age, it just sort of comes with the territory. Come on, youngster," he quipped, "see if you can keep up with the senior citizen."

"I think I'll stick around for a bit," Nathan said, still smiling. If he worked himself into exhaustion, the stress over Manuel and Angie and Amanda and the lack of visions might be less of a consideration. "Break some more rocks. I'll go around by the lake on the way back and see if I can't fix that tree."

Cain shrugged. "Good enough. You gimme a blast on your pager if you start freaking out or some wacky witches from the future show up, got it? Wouldn't want the mad Scotswoman after my ass for leaving you out here to spaz out all by your lonesome."

"Will do," Nathan said with a nod, and then grinned again. "And I'll leave some rocks for you, don't worry."