xp_logs | Angelo and Carlie (Reply)

They meet in the rec room and have a longish talk about mutant-human relations, which gives Angelo a few ideas for the future.

Mostly everyone else was in classes, and Jubilee was in the medlab for a check up on her hands, which left Carlie a bit at a loose end. She'd heard about the student rec room and it's wealth of entertainment options, however, at length from Jubilee, so she decided to wander along and she what she could find to do. At the least she could watch the news - she was feeling deprived. Besides, she might meet someone else new.

Indeed she would - and a puppy that wasn't quite a puppy any more but still behaved like one, into the bargain. Angelo was sprawled on one of the couches watching TV, with Joyita lying on his midsection quite effectively pinning him down.

Joyita's head perked up at the sight of a New Person! and Carlie cooed. "Ooh, puppy! Hello there! Aren't you pretty!."

Angelo oofed as the dog heaved herself up and trampled his stomach in her haste to check out the New Person, then chuckled, sitting up to see who was there. "Hey."

"Hey." Giggling as Joyita sniffed and whuffled at her feet, and then proceeded to lick her hands, Carlie glanced at Angelo. "Is she yours, then? What's her name? I'm Carlie, if you hadn't worked that out yet."

"Yeah, she is", Angelo answered with a grin in return. "She's Joyita, I'm Angelo. Good to meet you."

"Angelo?" Carlie's expression grew a little wary - she'd heard a lot of stories from Jubilee in the wee small hours about the last six months and Angelo had not featured well. There was something else familiar about him, though, and until she figured it out she was willing to make polite. Since it would drive her crazy otherwise. "Jubilee's mentioned you," she said neutrally, taking a seat and continuing to stroke Joyita's head as she sat next to the girl, tail wagging madly.

Angelo's eyes turned wary at the tone and the implications, and his voice was equally neutral when he answered. "Has she now."

"Yep." Carlie left it at that, and reached for the remote. "Do you mind if I put the news on? You guys get the news channel, right? I'm kind of dying of news starvation. Journalism student, you see."

Angelo nodded, still eyeing her a little cautiously. "Yeah, we get two or three different ones, actually. Go ahead."

Of course, the first channel she hit was showing bits of the Columbia rally, interspersed with the original coverage. Leaning forward, she watched avidly - it cut away to a panel of 'experts', who were obviously discussing the future of mutant rights in the wake of Columbia. "Thhat friend of yours did all right," she said after a moment, as there was another cut-away to Amanda's speech. "A bit awkward, and she could have pushed some points harder, but not bad for a first timer."

Angelo nodded, smiling slightly. "I think she did pretty well. Like you say, she's not really used to public speakin'. She worked hard on it, though."

"Oh, I don't doubt it. And she was there, after all - that gives her a certain authority a lot of people her age wouldn't have at something like that..." Carlie said, perhaps a little grudgingly. After all she'd heard about the girl, she wasn't inclined to like her. She focussed on the television again.

"...of course, not all pro-mutant actiivities are as large-scale as this one..." A shot of a housing project in LA, and a familiar face arguing with obvious gang members.

"Hey!" Carlie exclaimed. "That's you!"

Angelo froze, staring at the screen. "...Shit. There were cameras there? How did I miss that?"

"You'd be surprised. The media gets everywhere, and then once it's in archives, it's there for anyone to use in a story..." The coverage was short, and obviously small-station quality, but it got the point across. "So, who were those guys? And any particular reason why you were there? LA's a long way from here."

Angelo nodded slowly, still watching the screen. "Yeah, it is, in more ways than one. It's where I'm from."

"Is it?" Carlie turned her attention back to him fully, eyeing him with that keen gaze her sister was known for. "You used to be one of them, didn't you? In a gang?

He squirmed. "...Yeah. I've seen the argument from both sides, you could say. But I wasn't there that day as a pro-mutant thing, not really."

"You were there as a mutant." Carlie nodded at the screen, where Angelo was depicted in full grey glory. "And you weren't throwing cars around or cackling evilly about puny humans and all the rest of it. Every time a mutant makes an appearance on the media that _isn't_ some battle to the death, it's a pro-mutant thing." Her tone was decisive, passionate. "Because every positive appearance chips away at the propaganda that mutants are to be feared."

He blinked, then looked at her thoughtfully. "Y'know, I'd never thought of it like that. I went without an inducer because I needed them to know who I was, no other reason. But I guess you're right."

"See, that's the problem," Carlie said, warming to her subject. "People don't _think_. They react. They see Magneto on Liberty Island, they see Columbia being attacked, they see the X-Men doing battle with some super-powered baddie in the middle of a populated area, and they think that's all there is to mutants. How many mutants do you see on TV shows that _aren't_ the news? Or in magazines, or in movies without them being the Big Bad? None!" Carlie gestured with impatience. "It's why standing up and being visible is so important. People like Alison Blaire, and the people who did that CNN special here, and your friend Amanda... Even you - you're making a huge contribution, even if you think it's nothing, just by _being_ there and obviously not being dangerous!"

Angelo nodded slowly. "I would've done the CNN thing, but I had... issues with bein' on TV then. An' yeah... anythin' that changes people's minds's gotta be good."

"Which is why this whole thing with your group, HeliX, is so damn frustrating..." Carlie slumped back a bit. "I mean, okay, not much more than a social group, but there was _potential_ there, and now there's not even that. Well, not just at the moment - there's a few people talking about starting things up again, working a bit more politics into it, some actual activist-type stuff. Things to make you more visible."

Another nod. "HeliX could've - would've, I think - been more'n it was, but people got scared after Columbia, an' even more after the cafe burned down, 'cause that was meant for us personally. I really hope it gets goin' again."

"Well, it won't unless people are willing to do stuff to get it going again," Carlie pointed out. "Forge has some ideas, but he's not exactly a people person, is he? Happier with machines and computers." She did smile as she said that, 'though. "You need as many people actively involved as you can get - that was why nothing happened before. Not just fear - inertia." She grinned wryly. "Believe me, I know about that - it's taken my group a couple of years to actually get to the stage they're doing anything specific beyond meeting in the student bar and arguing politics over pitchers."

"So what kind of things are you doin' now?" he asked curiously.

"A bit of everything... we're probably spreading ourselves too thin, since we're only small, and we've only got two actual mutants in the group, but..." Carlie ticked the things off on her fingers. "Letter-writing campaigns to the papers and local politicians, especially about mutant rights matters and responses to whatever wacky press statement the FoH has issued lately; counter-protests whenever there are anti-mutant things; leaflets, that sort of thing. Information's important, y'know? Oh, and we also made student services start up a mutant support service, where people can go for help with their powers, legal advice if they're discriminated against, housing help, that sort of thing. We tried, but we didn't have the resources."

Angelo scowled at the mention of the FoH. "You know, it was the FoH junior branch that burned down the cafe. Ones I've... met... before. All that stuff sounds pretty good - not all suitable for here, but good."

"Well, obviously you don't need mutant services - hell, you _are_ mutant services. But a lot of the rest of it, getting out there, making yourselves known... Yeah, it'll open you up to things like these FoH creeps, but if we let them do stuff like that, be the only voice on mutant matters, then it's _never_ going to change." Carlie was practically bouncing in her seat with the passion of her convictions. "Yeah, it's easy for me to say 'cause I'm not a mutant, but believe me, if there was a way I could be, I'd be so there. Seriously."

Angelo eyed her ruefully, reaching out to pet Joyita. Her enthusiasm was infectious, but... "The first six to eight months I was here, I pretty much spent hidin', after certain things that happened in LA", he told her quietly. "The FoH an' people who think like them aren't always just creeps. But... I do think we can change stuff, with work."

"All the more reason to stand up to them, and to have the numbers," Carlie pointed out, reining herself in a little. "I'm not stupid, Angelo - I know what happens out there. I've had friends beaten up, threatened... Hell, Mad had to get us put on a silent number at home and had some of her FBI friends do some investigating because we were getting threatening phone calls in the middle of the night. But they're cowards, Angelo, when you get down to it. Look at what they do - they don't take on groups, or do things directly. They pick on people on their own, or sneak around and burn down cafes in the middle of the night."

Angelo smiled bitterly. "Yep. It was eight on one, last time. An' the guy said I had an unfair advantage..."

"And as long as they have the only voice on mutant matters, people are going to _believe_ that. You ever hear the saying 'united we stand, divided we fall'? That's exactly what we're looking at here. As long as those bastards think we're afraid of them, they're going to keep getting away with things."

Angelo looked sharply at her at that, having recently started to think exactly that. "That's why I went back to LA, an' lookin' like myself. 'Cause if they'd listen to anyone, it'd be someone who'd been there, an'... it might as well've been me. An' I didn't want to be runnin' from them my whole life, even if they never left the city."

"And it made a difference, didn't it?" Carlie said, correctly guessing it had. "Same as Amanda made a difference, because she'd been there, and stood up any way." She gave him a rueful smile of her own. "It's not easy, Angelo, or safe. But sometimes being a hero isn't about wearing a fancy uniform and fighting the baddies. It's about standing up, even though you know you're going to get smacked down, because you know it's the right thing to do. And I'm not saying I'm a hero - I'm just a kid with way too many ideals for her own good, and a over-developed social conscience, same as all the Bartlets. But someone has to stand up, and the more people that do, the better chance we have at changing people's minds."

"I never was much of a hero either", Angelo said quietly. "I just look after my own. But standin' up... that I can do. With the others."

"It _is_ looking after your own, in a way," Carlie said, smiling. "Just... more so."