Jono, Artie, North | Statements (2/4)
Feb. 22nd, 2024 02:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logs(Slightly backdated) Arthur continues his interviews of mansion psionics to discover the scope of what's happening.
***
Quentin suggests interviewing Jono, even if Jono isn’t convinced he’s telepathic. He hasn’t noticed anything off.
“It is nice to meet you, Jono.” This had been trickier to set up than the other interviews. Quentin had specifically recommended talking to this young adult, but the vibe Jonothan Starsmore was giving off was decidedly off.
“First, I want to let you know that I’m going to be taking notes.” Arthur tapped his pad in hand with a ready pencil, just like in all of his interviews. “There’s no wrong answers here — all I’m doing is a little fact finding.” Flash the smile. “Let’s start there, set the stage. Easy questions. We don't know each other yet, but Q suggested that I talk to you. Can you tell me about your powers?"
Jono rolled his eyes and pulled out his lightwriter. “I can tell you that they’re fucking stupid and that his whole theory about me being a telepath because he heard me in his head is all in his head.”
"Quentin's a very good listener," Arthur stated this carefully, keeping a concerned smile. "I want your perspective. Keep this easy, comfortable. How do your powers normally work?"
Jono bit down the instinctive urge to respond with a snarky 'they don't.' He rolled his eyes again and then in what was a slightly more polite tone typed. "I am constantly on fire and am missing my upper chest and lower jaw. I do not know how my organs stay in my body and I do not know why I am not in pain."
"Whatever the reason," Quentin said from where he stood, casually leaning by the doorway, "It doesn't make you any less a psychic. You're going to have to accept that, mate."
"I only learned I was kind of psychic last year," Arthur added with a note of sympathetic concern. "The label doesn't come with instructions. But," his eyes locked on Jono's and he set his notepad down, "I'm sorry." The man meant it too. There wasn't a hint of pity or condescension in his tone, just the hint of a deep, underlying sadness.
"We've trying to find a pattern." It wasn't an elegant change in subject, but what was? "When did you arrive? Have you been traveling since you got here, or away from the mansion at all?"
"Mostly stay in my room or the library. Sometimes the music room. Went into the city once. The only odd thing that happened was I didn't buy anything at the record store." Jono typed, looking pointedly only at Arthur and completely ignoring Quentin. It was bad enough he had to deal with Quentin for 'lessons', but an interview? This was obnoxious. He hoped Quentin could hear the snarking in his head.
Of course he could. Quentin would have to be completely impaired to not pick up on those vibes. He just rolled his eyes and kept quiet so Arthur could continue.
Arthur's attention never left Jono. "Thank you. Let's cover it all quickly then. Have you been having any abnormal headaches? Voices in your head? Visions you can't explain? Feelings that weren't your own? Anything out of the ordinary?"
"Not unless realizing I'm bisexual counts?" Jono typed, staring straight ahead, face completely neutral.
"Oh, that happens to everyone," Arthur stated like he was talking about the weather. But, then he stopped and squinted. "Then again, what if. Stranger things have happened. Did the thoughts not feel like your own, Jono?"
Jono had a sudden flashback to strong hands on his in the music room, and incredibly specific comparisons to Renaissance paintings and tried to ignore the heat rising to his cheeks as he stubbornly refused to look either man in the eye. "No, they were mine."
Still keeping quiet and out of the way, Quentin couldn't help but laugh, which he hastily silenced. How exhausting it was to be a baby psi, and how downright wearisome to be a psi in the vicinity of a baby. He was developing a whole new respect for Jean these days. "How has your control of your pectoral WMD been?" he asked, changing from one delicate topic to another.
Jono stared directly at Arthur as he responded, pointedly ignoring the man he worked on power control with. "Thank you for asking, Arthur. I've still just been covering it with fire blankets and doing my best not to blow. No incidents so far."
Arthur, for his part, had leaned back into his chair. His eyes tracked from Quentin to Jono. He had set aside his notebook. "Jono, I'm thrilled you are doing your best. It sounds like a lot of hard work." An honest observation. "I'm not in the loop, so you'll have to humor me — how do you know you aren't a telepath?"
“Hearing voices is something I think would be pretty obvious. I haven’t heard any that weren’t him shoving into my brain uninvited after stealing my old face.” Jono typed, sparing a fake glare towards Quentin over something he had long since accepted was not the other man’s fault. “I don’t have any of the symptoms.”
All this got Jono was a delighted grin. "I didn't realize there was a checklist," Arthur said with a soft chuckle, "That would have made it so much easier last year when my psychometry kicked in. I didn't even know I had it until someone else got both of my powers."
“Yes well, I’m fairly certain telepathy, even if it’s weak enough that I can’t hear anyone’s thoughts unless they project their own into my head directly, wouldn’t result in a fiery explosion that almost killed my then girlfriend and should have killed me.” Jono typed, looking decidedly unimpressed. “I highly doubt I have a power if there are no signs of it.”
Arthur raised both hands in surrender. A show of submission. "Sounds like the case, and that's a lot already. Again, I'm sorry. " He stood up. "It sounds like whatever's happened skipped you. Those were all of my questions, unless you have any for me?"
Jono paused, and then erred on the side of politeness. "You were injured during the whatever the fuck that was, yeah? Are you feeling better?"
"I used my luck to help save a man in District X," Arthur softly corrected, leaning forward onto the chair. "That's the same power that I once, in a panic, accidentally used to derail a passenger train and almost brought a mountain down on top of a town. It used to scare me too, Jono."
The man got back up and smoothed down the front of his shirt. His smile was back, full force, and dazzling. "I am feeling a lot better, thank you. It was wonderful to meet you." Arthur's eyes snapped over to Quentin, and they narrowed in a pointed "we need to talk about this" look.
***
Artie shares the details of his power issues that started during the arrival of Hope Summers.
“I value your time.” A little different of a start, but Arthur had it confirmed by X-Force that Artie was already suffering from whatever was happening. However, it was always better to get details straight from the source.
“First, I want to let you know that I’m going to be taking notes.” He was speaking in both crisp sign and speech, even if his ASL was out of practice. “There’s are no wrong answers — what I’m looking for are facts and honesty.” The man smiled kindly. “Let’s start, set the stage. Easy. How do your powers normally work?”
Artie gave a nod in reply and shrugged. "Do you want me to use ASL or text to speech?" He'd brought his computer just in case but for this moment, he replied in images, green text against a white background.
"Whatever is more comfortable," Arthur replied. "Just looking for answers."
"I use psionic energy to create images in visible space. They're intangible but visible. So a traditional telepath just tells your brain what to see and you see it. You fill in the details but it works on suggestion. I create images in space that are seen by your eyes, so I provide the detail but there's a threshold where people will accept what I show them as real even though the detailing and frame rate might not be quite what's supplied by reality. People are pretty suggestible and they can see it, so it has to be real. The catch is that this means that I have to use perspective and all that fun stuff so that everything doesn't look too wrong." He demonstrated, projecting the image of a cup on the table, fully detailed but with the perspective rotated so that, from both their seats, it was subtly, incongruously wrong.
"I see," Arthur said before making a couple notes. It was hard to look away from the cup, and he studied it with curious interest. "Have to pay attention to the viewer's perspective. Keep the tone. This next part is probably trickier to answer, but how does using your powers normally feel?"
Artie shrugged. "It depends on what I'm doing. Small images are effortless. Face illusions, things like the cup. Text feels wrong, but I've learned to think about words as images to manage that." He kept typing. "Large illusions, ones where I can't see them - those are harder. This should be easy," he added, throwing the two of them into a bubble. They were, suddenly, on the moon. Two men, two chairs, and a table. "But it's hard right now. Everything just splinters." Artie pointed to a wireframe diagram of them, showing that the bubble was barely six feet in diameter.
He held one hand out and the bubble began to disintegrate, breaking into shards of light and static around his hand.
It was all very impressive, but Arthur's attention was firmly locked on Artie. "How does 'hard' feel? Let me confess that Marie-Ange told me you were having issues, but my psychometry has been overly sensitive lately too. I know this is different for everyone. Can you give me examples?"
"Headache. Fatigue. A sense of 'effort', I guess." Artie let the illusion go and rubbed his forehead.
"Does that happen every time, or does it come and go? Is it worse the longer you keep an illusion going?"
"It gets worse if I push it," Artie admitted. "And right now, I have to push it to get control. It's like everything is . . . slippery. It's not the concussion, either. It predated that."
Arthur tapped one temple in sympathy. "Ah. Injury buddies, huh? I can't say if mine is impacting my reading." Mostly because he was avoiding using that power. "But, what does slippery feel like? Tell me about that."
Artie gave a wry smile. "I have to expend more effort to get the same result. It's hard to quantify but where I should be able to do something easily, it will be tiring instead, or I can't make the image without extra effort or it simply looking wrong."
"Ouch," was all the other man could really offer. "I'm sorry to hear that. You said it predated the concussion, though — when did this start?"
"A few days before Hope Summers arrived. I'd figured out work arounds by mid January. You don't think she's responsible?"
Arthur shook his head. "Earliest incident I've got is either that night or sometime before, but the real issue there is motive. She's either a master-class actor or just a sad kid." It was clear which one he was leaning toward. "I know you work in the city. Are your illusions the same level of hard everywhere?"
"I've been off for a month. Injured. I was due back next week. So." Artie shrugged, expressively.
That got another scribble. "Ah, right. I guess I don't have a monopoly on going stir crazy in this place either. Someone gifted me a kombucha starter if you want a new hobby." His smile gentled. "That leads into my last question — have you been away from the mansion for more than a day since that night in December? Do you recall if your powers were hard to use that day in DX?"
Artie wrinkled his nose. "God no. Keep the kombucha to yourself." He continued, "No, I haven't been away for more than a few hours. I honestly don't remember about my powers that day. to be honest."
"Ah." Arthur had to flip to the back of the pad to jot down a sad checkmark into the "regifting" column. "I can see that, some things just blur together," said a man who couldn't really shake that day. He shut the notepad. "That's all I've got. What's normal, what's changed, the when and where of it."
"Not a problem. I hope you get some answers."
***
North shares that he’s been having unexpected flashes of the future.
“Thank you for agreeing to meet.” Arthur warmly smiled at the man across from him. He only loosely knew how David North operated, as the spy mostly just existed next to or around people that Arthur knew much better. The man’s ready agreement to giving a statement was a surprise that made smiling easy.
“First, I want to let you know that I’m going to be taking notes.” He tapped his pad. “There’s no wrong answers here — all I’m doing is a little fact finding.” His most genuine, dazzling smile. “Let’s start there, set the stage. Easy questions. How do your powers normally work?”
"I take it you refer specifically to the precognition," North said, casually leaning back in his seat as he considered his answer. "Put simply, when my adrenal levels spike, it triggers a vision of a potential future. As far as tests have shown, I can choose for it to run as far ahead as my adrenal levels remain at a certain level or I can re-roll the dice, so to speak, to look for alternative futures for the same length of time."
"Now I know a bit about rolling the dice," Arthur said politely as he jotted down some notes. "But let me make sure I have this right: you have to go into fight or flight for your precognition to turn on? I used to," this was stated like he actually given up that gun, "be something of an adrenaline junkie, but that high never lasted as long as I wanted it to." He smiled warmly. "So it isn't something you use everyday?"
"Not necessarily fight or flight. Amphetamines used to work very well for me to trigger visions at will, but certain events altered my body and I now have a too-fast metabolism for that to be a reliable method." Not to mention overdosing was a nice bit of trauma to deal with, but that sort of information was probably not what the younger man was after.
"So, no. I do not try to trigger my precognition without cause. It either comes unintended, through intense physical activity or through some finicky use of kinetic energy that I store through my secondary powers." The older man's smile was wry. "It is a work in progress."
This got an eager nod. "Gotcha, David. I'm just trying to figure out what normal feels like for you. Set the scene. Have you tried to use it within the last few months? Did it feel normal?"
"For the most part," North nodded, fingers drumming lightly against the armrest of his chair. "Though, I accepted this meeting because I have had an unexplained uptick in the accidental visions. Not many, mostly mundane and fairly short in duration."
In other words, enough to notice but nothing to lose sleep over. "Is there any cause for concern?"
Arthur's pen on paper traced tiny circles in the margins as he considered. "No one is positive," he said honestly, "many of the psis have been experiencing something. Sudden power growth, flares, changes, but there's nothing to suggest any ill intent. My psychometry has been off since December." The reedy man shrugged. "Considering that — you called the sudden uptick an accident. Accidental how?"
"Visions triggered unintentionally at the most random of moments," the German explained, his expression thoughtful. "It can happen when I have too much kinetic energy stored but the last ones have been during low-energy days, even at rest. That means I am either losing control or there is outside interference."
"So," Arthur's eyes were focused somewhere just above North's left shoulder as his mind turned, "No extra energy or an adrenaline spike? Huh. I've been leaving memories on objects for others to stumble across and reading objects without touching them, so I'm betting on interference." He tapped the pen on his notebook. "That said, I just need a timeline. Have you been away from the mansion over the last three months for more than a day?"
"A couple of times, for work."
"When's the earliest one you can recall?" Arthur opened his notepad wide to reveal a crisply drafted calendar that held some shorthand scribbles. The grid was mostly empty, save for a sketched stick figure in one of its corners in a leather jacket. "Don't worry, I'm not looking for anything I'm better off not knowing. When, to your best guess, and if it was around or outside the mansion."
He offered the pad in case North was more comfortable writing this down himself.
North declined with a shake of his head. "Nothing sensitive. Spent a week in Croatia and France and returned two days before Christmas day."
"When did the upticks begin?"
A phone was produced from somewhere about North's person. He scrolled through the calendar app, brow arching slightly upward when he found the answer. "The earliest I noticed was January 3rd."
There was somewhat of an amused glint in his eyes as he glanced up at Arthur. "But I was intoxicated for most of the New Year's so it may have started earlier."
Marked and noted. The look North got in return, however, was a lot more serious than Arthur's interview cadence. He folded the notepad and placed it into his lap. "Does that work?" There was a new, sober honesty to his tone. "Is it easier when a little drunk? Or does it stop them?"
"No." The slight lift and drop of a shoulder was dismissive as North put his phone away. "With my current metabolism, it affects very little."
For that, he had HYDRA to send a thank you card to. The spy had spent a copious amount of time investigating his changed powers since his last brush with death. Discovering the link between the levels of kinetic energy and the rate of unintended and uncontrolled visions had been both enlightening and more frustrating than he could care to admit to anyone else.
Arthur's eyes widened just a little at the sudden tension. "Hey, no. I'm sorry. See, that was for me. I recently discovered my psychometry can go forward instead of just back." He fully put the pad aside to really drive home this wasn't the interview. "I've really only been able to talk about it with Marie-Ange."
The older man cocked his head at him, expression thoughtful. "Was this a. . . sudden development?"
"Right before Halloween," Arthur admitted like a confession. "Before all of this," and he gestured at the notepad to illustrate the psychic phenomenon, "began happening. I saw a choice had to be made. It only worked again during the events in District X." His expression turned inward, thoughtful. "They aren't visions, like the past. More like impressions of what's downstream. Like reading rapids."
"Are these impressions tied to the specific object you are leaving them on?"
"I see and feel the past," Arthur said with a casual shrug and an uncertain twist of his hands. "The object is the center, but I can use that to focus on the person. I need the object, but what I get is high emotion and intent."
"I see," North said, not unkindly, crossing his ankles as he leaned back against his chair. "What kind of help do you need?"
"How do you control what you see, if you can?"
North took a second to think about it. "I have to. . . grab ahold of it before it grabs ahold of me." His gaze darted down to Arthur's hands for a second. "Fear and panic tend to be hindrances in that regard."
This got a nod, but Arthur's gloved fingers were dancing as the man considered. "Those two have never really done me many favors. Are you seeing things as they actually happen? You, me, Marie-Ange — we all seem to get different filters on how it works."
"My visions are from my perspective and hence, always into the future. I can control how far into the future the visions run. In the field, seconds to minutes are most helpful. Unintended visions have run months in advance." Another shrug. "I could not name you two mutants to have the exact same powers, though the principles around control often have similarities."
"That's fortunately more straightforward than with my luck," Arthur admitted with a laugh. "But: noted. Color me curious about control and how to get more of it, but I could talk your head off all day. I already have everything I need for this investigation." He smiled politely.
North nodded, rolling his chair back and standing to show Arthur out. "I would be interested to know the outcomes of your investigation. As for control . . . meditation could be a good starting point. You have my number if you have more questions."
***
Quentin suggests interviewing Jono, even if Jono isn’t convinced he’s telepathic. He hasn’t noticed anything off.
“It is nice to meet you, Jono.” This had been trickier to set up than the other interviews. Quentin had specifically recommended talking to this young adult, but the vibe Jonothan Starsmore was giving off was decidedly off.
“First, I want to let you know that I’m going to be taking notes.” Arthur tapped his pad in hand with a ready pencil, just like in all of his interviews. “There’s no wrong answers here — all I’m doing is a little fact finding.” Flash the smile. “Let’s start there, set the stage. Easy questions. We don't know each other yet, but Q suggested that I talk to you. Can you tell me about your powers?"
Jono rolled his eyes and pulled out his lightwriter. “I can tell you that they’re fucking stupid and that his whole theory about me being a telepath because he heard me in his head is all in his head.”
"Quentin's a very good listener," Arthur stated this carefully, keeping a concerned smile. "I want your perspective. Keep this easy, comfortable. How do your powers normally work?"
Jono bit down the instinctive urge to respond with a snarky 'they don't.' He rolled his eyes again and then in what was a slightly more polite tone typed. "I am constantly on fire and am missing my upper chest and lower jaw. I do not know how my organs stay in my body and I do not know why I am not in pain."
"Whatever the reason," Quentin said from where he stood, casually leaning by the doorway, "It doesn't make you any less a psychic. You're going to have to accept that, mate."
"I only learned I was kind of psychic last year," Arthur added with a note of sympathetic concern. "The label doesn't come with instructions. But," his eyes locked on Jono's and he set his notepad down, "I'm sorry." The man meant it too. There wasn't a hint of pity or condescension in his tone, just the hint of a deep, underlying sadness.
"We've trying to find a pattern." It wasn't an elegant change in subject, but what was? "When did you arrive? Have you been traveling since you got here, or away from the mansion at all?"
"Mostly stay in my room or the library. Sometimes the music room. Went into the city once. The only odd thing that happened was I didn't buy anything at the record store." Jono typed, looking pointedly only at Arthur and completely ignoring Quentin. It was bad enough he had to deal with Quentin for 'lessons', but an interview? This was obnoxious. He hoped Quentin could hear the snarking in his head.
Of course he could. Quentin would have to be completely impaired to not pick up on those vibes. He just rolled his eyes and kept quiet so Arthur could continue.
Arthur's attention never left Jono. "Thank you. Let's cover it all quickly then. Have you been having any abnormal headaches? Voices in your head? Visions you can't explain? Feelings that weren't your own? Anything out of the ordinary?"
"Not unless realizing I'm bisexual counts?" Jono typed, staring straight ahead, face completely neutral.
"Oh, that happens to everyone," Arthur stated like he was talking about the weather. But, then he stopped and squinted. "Then again, what if. Stranger things have happened. Did the thoughts not feel like your own, Jono?"
Jono had a sudden flashback to strong hands on his in the music room, and incredibly specific comparisons to Renaissance paintings and tried to ignore the heat rising to his cheeks as he stubbornly refused to look either man in the eye. "No, they were mine."
Still keeping quiet and out of the way, Quentin couldn't help but laugh, which he hastily silenced. How exhausting it was to be a baby psi, and how downright wearisome to be a psi in the vicinity of a baby. He was developing a whole new respect for Jean these days. "How has your control of your pectoral WMD been?" he asked, changing from one delicate topic to another.
Jono stared directly at Arthur as he responded, pointedly ignoring the man he worked on power control with. "Thank you for asking, Arthur. I've still just been covering it with fire blankets and doing my best not to blow. No incidents so far."
Arthur, for his part, had leaned back into his chair. His eyes tracked from Quentin to Jono. He had set aside his notebook. "Jono, I'm thrilled you are doing your best. It sounds like a lot of hard work." An honest observation. "I'm not in the loop, so you'll have to humor me — how do you know you aren't a telepath?"
“Hearing voices is something I think would be pretty obvious. I haven’t heard any that weren’t him shoving into my brain uninvited after stealing my old face.” Jono typed, sparing a fake glare towards Quentin over something he had long since accepted was not the other man’s fault. “I don’t have any of the symptoms.”
All this got Jono was a delighted grin. "I didn't realize there was a checklist," Arthur said with a soft chuckle, "That would have made it so much easier last year when my psychometry kicked in. I didn't even know I had it until someone else got both of my powers."
“Yes well, I’m fairly certain telepathy, even if it’s weak enough that I can’t hear anyone’s thoughts unless they project their own into my head directly, wouldn’t result in a fiery explosion that almost killed my then girlfriend and should have killed me.” Jono typed, looking decidedly unimpressed. “I highly doubt I have a power if there are no signs of it.”
Arthur raised both hands in surrender. A show of submission. "Sounds like the case, and that's a lot already. Again, I'm sorry. " He stood up. "It sounds like whatever's happened skipped you. Those were all of my questions, unless you have any for me?"
Jono paused, and then erred on the side of politeness. "You were injured during the whatever the fuck that was, yeah? Are you feeling better?"
"I used my luck to help save a man in District X," Arthur softly corrected, leaning forward onto the chair. "That's the same power that I once, in a panic, accidentally used to derail a passenger train and almost brought a mountain down on top of a town. It used to scare me too, Jono."
The man got back up and smoothed down the front of his shirt. His smile was back, full force, and dazzling. "I am feeling a lot better, thank you. It was wonderful to meet you." Arthur's eyes snapped over to Quentin, and they narrowed in a pointed "we need to talk about this" look.
***
Artie shares the details of his power issues that started during the arrival of Hope Summers.
“I value your time.” A little different of a start, but Arthur had it confirmed by X-Force that Artie was already suffering from whatever was happening. However, it was always better to get details straight from the source.
“First, I want to let you know that I’m going to be taking notes.” He was speaking in both crisp sign and speech, even if his ASL was out of practice. “There’s are no wrong answers — what I’m looking for are facts and honesty.” The man smiled kindly. “Let’s start, set the stage. Easy. How do your powers normally work?”
Artie gave a nod in reply and shrugged. "Do you want me to use ASL or text to speech?" He'd brought his computer just in case but for this moment, he replied in images, green text against a white background.
"Whatever is more comfortable," Arthur replied. "Just looking for answers."
"I use psionic energy to create images in visible space. They're intangible but visible. So a traditional telepath just tells your brain what to see and you see it. You fill in the details but it works on suggestion. I create images in space that are seen by your eyes, so I provide the detail but there's a threshold where people will accept what I show them as real even though the detailing and frame rate might not be quite what's supplied by reality. People are pretty suggestible and they can see it, so it has to be real. The catch is that this means that I have to use perspective and all that fun stuff so that everything doesn't look too wrong." He demonstrated, projecting the image of a cup on the table, fully detailed but with the perspective rotated so that, from both their seats, it was subtly, incongruously wrong.
"I see," Arthur said before making a couple notes. It was hard to look away from the cup, and he studied it with curious interest. "Have to pay attention to the viewer's perspective. Keep the tone. This next part is probably trickier to answer, but how does using your powers normally feel?"
Artie shrugged. "It depends on what I'm doing. Small images are effortless. Face illusions, things like the cup. Text feels wrong, but I've learned to think about words as images to manage that." He kept typing. "Large illusions, ones where I can't see them - those are harder. This should be easy," he added, throwing the two of them into a bubble. They were, suddenly, on the moon. Two men, two chairs, and a table. "But it's hard right now. Everything just splinters." Artie pointed to a wireframe diagram of them, showing that the bubble was barely six feet in diameter.
He held one hand out and the bubble began to disintegrate, breaking into shards of light and static around his hand.
It was all very impressive, but Arthur's attention was firmly locked on Artie. "How does 'hard' feel? Let me confess that Marie-Ange told me you were having issues, but my psychometry has been overly sensitive lately too. I know this is different for everyone. Can you give me examples?"
"Headache. Fatigue. A sense of 'effort', I guess." Artie let the illusion go and rubbed his forehead.
"Does that happen every time, or does it come and go? Is it worse the longer you keep an illusion going?"
"It gets worse if I push it," Artie admitted. "And right now, I have to push it to get control. It's like everything is . . . slippery. It's not the concussion, either. It predated that."
Arthur tapped one temple in sympathy. "Ah. Injury buddies, huh? I can't say if mine is impacting my reading." Mostly because he was avoiding using that power. "But, what does slippery feel like? Tell me about that."
Artie gave a wry smile. "I have to expend more effort to get the same result. It's hard to quantify but where I should be able to do something easily, it will be tiring instead, or I can't make the image without extra effort or it simply looking wrong."
"Ouch," was all the other man could really offer. "I'm sorry to hear that. You said it predated the concussion, though — when did this start?"
"A few days before Hope Summers arrived. I'd figured out work arounds by mid January. You don't think she's responsible?"
Arthur shook his head. "Earliest incident I've got is either that night or sometime before, but the real issue there is motive. She's either a master-class actor or just a sad kid." It was clear which one he was leaning toward. "I know you work in the city. Are your illusions the same level of hard everywhere?"
"I've been off for a month. Injured. I was due back next week. So." Artie shrugged, expressively.
That got another scribble. "Ah, right. I guess I don't have a monopoly on going stir crazy in this place either. Someone gifted me a kombucha starter if you want a new hobby." His smile gentled. "That leads into my last question — have you been away from the mansion for more than a day since that night in December? Do you recall if your powers were hard to use that day in DX?"
Artie wrinkled his nose. "God no. Keep the kombucha to yourself." He continued, "No, I haven't been away for more than a few hours. I honestly don't remember about my powers that day. to be honest."
"Ah." Arthur had to flip to the back of the pad to jot down a sad checkmark into the "regifting" column. "I can see that, some things just blur together," said a man who couldn't really shake that day. He shut the notepad. "That's all I've got. What's normal, what's changed, the when and where of it."
"Not a problem. I hope you get some answers."
***
North shares that he’s been having unexpected flashes of the future.
“Thank you for agreeing to meet.” Arthur warmly smiled at the man across from him. He only loosely knew how David North operated, as the spy mostly just existed next to or around people that Arthur knew much better. The man’s ready agreement to giving a statement was a surprise that made smiling easy.
“First, I want to let you know that I’m going to be taking notes.” He tapped his pad. “There’s no wrong answers here — all I’m doing is a little fact finding.” His most genuine, dazzling smile. “Let’s start there, set the stage. Easy questions. How do your powers normally work?”
"I take it you refer specifically to the precognition," North said, casually leaning back in his seat as he considered his answer. "Put simply, when my adrenal levels spike, it triggers a vision of a potential future. As far as tests have shown, I can choose for it to run as far ahead as my adrenal levels remain at a certain level or I can re-roll the dice, so to speak, to look for alternative futures for the same length of time."
"Now I know a bit about rolling the dice," Arthur said politely as he jotted down some notes. "But let me make sure I have this right: you have to go into fight or flight for your precognition to turn on? I used to," this was stated like he actually given up that gun, "be something of an adrenaline junkie, but that high never lasted as long as I wanted it to." He smiled warmly. "So it isn't something you use everyday?"
"Not necessarily fight or flight. Amphetamines used to work very well for me to trigger visions at will, but certain events altered my body and I now have a too-fast metabolism for that to be a reliable method." Not to mention overdosing was a nice bit of trauma to deal with, but that sort of information was probably not what the younger man was after.
"So, no. I do not try to trigger my precognition without cause. It either comes unintended, through intense physical activity or through some finicky use of kinetic energy that I store through my secondary powers." The older man's smile was wry. "It is a work in progress."
This got an eager nod. "Gotcha, David. I'm just trying to figure out what normal feels like for you. Set the scene. Have you tried to use it within the last few months? Did it feel normal?"
"For the most part," North nodded, fingers drumming lightly against the armrest of his chair. "Though, I accepted this meeting because I have had an unexplained uptick in the accidental visions. Not many, mostly mundane and fairly short in duration."
In other words, enough to notice but nothing to lose sleep over. "Is there any cause for concern?"
Arthur's pen on paper traced tiny circles in the margins as he considered. "No one is positive," he said honestly, "many of the psis have been experiencing something. Sudden power growth, flares, changes, but there's nothing to suggest any ill intent. My psychometry has been off since December." The reedy man shrugged. "Considering that — you called the sudden uptick an accident. Accidental how?"
"Visions triggered unintentionally at the most random of moments," the German explained, his expression thoughtful. "It can happen when I have too much kinetic energy stored but the last ones have been during low-energy days, even at rest. That means I am either losing control or there is outside interference."
"So," Arthur's eyes were focused somewhere just above North's left shoulder as his mind turned, "No extra energy or an adrenaline spike? Huh. I've been leaving memories on objects for others to stumble across and reading objects without touching them, so I'm betting on interference." He tapped the pen on his notebook. "That said, I just need a timeline. Have you been away from the mansion over the last three months for more than a day?"
"A couple of times, for work."
"When's the earliest one you can recall?" Arthur opened his notepad wide to reveal a crisply drafted calendar that held some shorthand scribbles. The grid was mostly empty, save for a sketched stick figure in one of its corners in a leather jacket. "Don't worry, I'm not looking for anything I'm better off not knowing. When, to your best guess, and if it was around or outside the mansion."
He offered the pad in case North was more comfortable writing this down himself.
North declined with a shake of his head. "Nothing sensitive. Spent a week in Croatia and France and returned two days before Christmas day."
"When did the upticks begin?"
A phone was produced from somewhere about North's person. He scrolled through the calendar app, brow arching slightly upward when he found the answer. "The earliest I noticed was January 3rd."
There was somewhat of an amused glint in his eyes as he glanced up at Arthur. "But I was intoxicated for most of the New Year's so it may have started earlier."
Marked and noted. The look North got in return, however, was a lot more serious than Arthur's interview cadence. He folded the notepad and placed it into his lap. "Does that work?" There was a new, sober honesty to his tone. "Is it easier when a little drunk? Or does it stop them?"
"No." The slight lift and drop of a shoulder was dismissive as North put his phone away. "With my current metabolism, it affects very little."
For that, he had HYDRA to send a thank you card to. The spy had spent a copious amount of time investigating his changed powers since his last brush with death. Discovering the link between the levels of kinetic energy and the rate of unintended and uncontrolled visions had been both enlightening and more frustrating than he could care to admit to anyone else.
Arthur's eyes widened just a little at the sudden tension. "Hey, no. I'm sorry. See, that was for me. I recently discovered my psychometry can go forward instead of just back." He fully put the pad aside to really drive home this wasn't the interview. "I've really only been able to talk about it with Marie-Ange."
The older man cocked his head at him, expression thoughtful. "Was this a. . . sudden development?"
"Right before Halloween," Arthur admitted like a confession. "Before all of this," and he gestured at the notepad to illustrate the psychic phenomenon, "began happening. I saw a choice had to be made. It only worked again during the events in District X." His expression turned inward, thoughtful. "They aren't visions, like the past. More like impressions of what's downstream. Like reading rapids."
"Are these impressions tied to the specific object you are leaving them on?"
"I see and feel the past," Arthur said with a casual shrug and an uncertain twist of his hands. "The object is the center, but I can use that to focus on the person. I need the object, but what I get is high emotion and intent."
"I see," North said, not unkindly, crossing his ankles as he leaned back against his chair. "What kind of help do you need?"
"How do you control what you see, if you can?"
North took a second to think about it. "I have to. . . grab ahold of it before it grabs ahold of me." His gaze darted down to Arthur's hands for a second. "Fear and panic tend to be hindrances in that regard."
This got a nod, but Arthur's gloved fingers were dancing as the man considered. "Those two have never really done me many favors. Are you seeing things as they actually happen? You, me, Marie-Ange — we all seem to get different filters on how it works."
"My visions are from my perspective and hence, always into the future. I can control how far into the future the visions run. In the field, seconds to minutes are most helpful. Unintended visions have run months in advance." Another shrug. "I could not name you two mutants to have the exact same powers, though the principles around control often have similarities."
"That's fortunately more straightforward than with my luck," Arthur admitted with a laugh. "But: noted. Color me curious about control and how to get more of it, but I could talk your head off all day. I already have everything I need for this investigation." He smiled politely.
North nodded, rolling his chair back and standing to show Arthur out. "I would be interested to know the outcomes of your investigation. As for control . . . meditation could be a good starting point. You have my number if you have more questions."
