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evilbeej12/30/03
08:14 PM
Logfile from Project Infinity.
Pete Wisdom
Hey, look. It's your friendly neighborhood Stylish Rogue: disarmingly (possibly distressingly) cheerful bright blue eyes, thick jet-black hair that both needs a trim and constantly has the coveted 'just rolled out of bed' look to it, pleasantly even features, permanent five o'clock shadow, quirky smile. Y'know, he even comes complete with minor scars about his face and hands, and visible elsewhere should he shed clothing layers due to remarkably warm weather. Witness the built-in hardcore scruff.
Having learned from experience that the simpler your wardrobe is, the less needless complications enter your life, Pete'll usually be seen wearing a rumpled black suit, with the occasional addition of a grotty black trenchcoat. Rumor has it he's got a closet full of white shirts and black trousers, and three identical pairs of shoes. This is untrue, but it's not hard to believe. It's a widely-known fact that he only has one tie, which he always wears loose; his sleeves are almost always rolled up.
Cypher Pass
A long, lonely stretch of two-lane that forks off of Pikeman's Circle to the south and dead ends into Southland Drive. The buildings lining Cypher Pass are a slowly degenerating mixture of light industrial and warehouse retail, all struggling to survive this close to the wasteland of the slums. A dull, unobtrusive shade of tan seems to be the dominant color scheme. The road is cracked, the white and yellow traffic lines faded nearly into obscurity, ground into nothingness by the constant congestion of large semi-trucks. The occasional scummy, 'ex-mom and pop' gas station sprouts here and there, pushing rusted, scraggly signs towards the sky, black letter sales pitches now gap-toothed from lettering being stolen or lost. Several non-profit organizations rent space in these depressing office parks as well.
It generally doesn't /look/ like prowling -- only ridiculous costume people actually /prowl/. What Wisdom does is a lot closer to meandering: hands in pockets, easy gait, cigarette hanging from lips, no hurry, eyes bright and alert under unworried half-lids. Occasionally he'll stop and talk to someone apparently completely random: a mechanic from an autobody place, an odd-looking schleppy wandering teenager, a secretary having a smoke break outside a non-profit organization's office - mostly he seems wrapped up in his own little world.
A little way up Cypher Pass, strolls a young man with the wide eyes of a tourist. The image inducer is switched on, and to a casual glance it's perfect; a slender, dark-haired boy gawking unashamedly into shop windows. As he pauses in front of the costume shop, though, it can be seen that something's wrong. The rain isn't *landing* on him; it seems to, then fades, and *then* registers its appearance. Low down, about the level of his knees, there's an occasional flickering presence as the thoughtful tiptapping of Kurt's tail overlaps the boundaries of the projection. At one point he leaves it outside for a full ten seconds.
When the rain turns into more than a hazy mist, clinging to everything, Pete takes the cigarette out of his mouth, cups it in his hand, upside down. Take drags that way, yeah, less chance of the dreaded fssstch sound effect. While the oddity of the rain's landing on Kurt is lost on Pete until he's quite close, the tail's a bit hard to miss. So's the expression of amusement on Pete's face: "Kurt," he says, conversational volume, when he's close enough. Just a test. Gotta be a new one; the last disappeared forever ago, and besides, not a lot of experience with the image inducer, there. Puff of smoke into the air. "Mind your tail." Just this black-haired damp Englishman, perfectly random.
Kurt jumps visibly, and turns, eyes getting wider, if it were possible. His tail disappears, probably wound around an ankle, and he stares at Pete for a moment before saying carefully, "I do not know you." Unless of course it's his mother, but she's not usually so coy. "Perhaps you have been knowing a different me." His English isn't perfect, but he's getting there.
Kurt
There's something immediately mischievous about this young man; an impish quality of expression and movement. He has grace, but it's an odd, almost animal grace, at odds with his apparently-teenaged appearance. He looks perhaps eighteen or nineteen, slender and short at five feet seven. His features are soft, almost pretty rather than handsome; wide brown eyes are half-obscured by tumbling, dark curls. His skin is pale.
He wears a long coat, clearly tailored to fit him, in a shimmering navy; the cuffs are wide and the sleeves long, almost obscuring his hands. Under that are a simple, white short-sleeved shirt, a pair of blue jeans and sneakers.
The guy - thirty-/five/, scarred, scruffy-looking - grins lopsidedly at Kurt. "(A couple of different versions of you, yes)," he answers in German. He's keeping enough distance to avoid seeming threatening through proximity, and his demeanor's pleasant enough. "(Sorry to startle you. Wasn't sure if you knew me or not. Name's Pete Wisdom -- probably a better chance you know Pryde?)" The cigarette gets flicked to the gutter; at the last question, his face is searching but not intent.
Oh, German. Kurt breaks into a smile, at the sound of his language, but nonetheless speaks English himself. "I am in America now, and always must be speaking English," he tells Pete firmly. "Or I will never learn." He listens closely, and shakes his head, rueful. "No. Many people I have met who know me, in the - the X-Men - I was not there. Remy and Piotr and Doug and my mother all think they have known another me." All that information, happily trotted out to a complete stranger on the street.
There's a quick laugh from Pete; he hooks his hands back in his pockets, odd grin left resident after the fade. "All right then, English it is. They /did/ know other versions of you - where I come from, right, you'd be..." Brief distracted look. "Thirty-three. Brilliant field leader, tactician. Didn't know the version of you was here before you very well, though. Oh right, out of curiosity, your surname Wagner or Darkholme?" /There's/ the intent look. His stance is still relaxed, no sign of tension.
Thirty-three? That's old! Kurt stares at Pete, deeply impressed, and doesn't appear to quite notice the intensity of the Englishman's scrutiny. The tone is casual, the words are casual. "Wagner," he says. "The one - the other one, he was not left behind." Made all the difference. "I am twenty-two," he adds, in case that helps Pete orient himself.
"Twenty-two," grins Pete, thoroughly amused. It's more or less a 'Kitty'll love this' expression. "He also never knew Jimaine," the older man notes, almost offhandedly. "If that means anything to you. Look, are you on your way somewhere, or d'you want to get out of the rain? There's a takeaway place down the road, Panna - best chicken tikka you'll find in this city."
That would be the first person who has *ever* mentioned Jemaine, and Kurt looks briefly stunned. "I - am not going anywhere. I will go with you. Please, do you know, in your world, if Jemaine and my mother are well, if - " No, not going there just yet. "Do you know?" He'll follow Pete like a puppy, now.
"All right," says Pete accomodatingly enough, starting down the street in the direction he'd indicated with a vague gesture. "Now, look, I'm going to precede anything I say with a reminder that your world /ain't/ my world, and you may as well consider I'm from an alternate /future/. And I can't believe I just said that with a straight face." Sigh. Wisdom lights a cigarette somewhat disgustedly. "That said, do you want the whole answer, or the nice bits?"
"Alternate future, yes," Kurt says, and holds up one hand, the apparent fingers welded into a perma-live-long-and-prosper salute. "Two ways, four ways, eight ways to go. I understand." The last question is more difficult, though, and the boy frowns, tail briefly flickering into view again as he becomes more uncertain. "I think... I think the whole answer."
"Schroedinger'n all that rot," agrees Pete, apparently very carefully watching the passing building numbers, or maybe the alleys, or maybe the passers-by. Quick glance at Kurt, slight frown. "Tail. Either mind your disguise or don't hide at all. Either works, but not a combination." He reaches up to take a drag of the cigarette, ashing in the street, then does the exhale-as-you-speak bit. "Your counterpart, last time I knew, was living happily with Jemaine, who goes by Amanda Sefton now; she's a full-time flight attendant and a part-time sorceress. That's the best bit." Quick glance to see how that sits.
Kurt frowns, and again his tail disappears; dropping the hologram in the street, and while with this strange, strange man, isn't something he wants to consider. Living with Jemaine... there's a complicated little tangle of Freudian weirdness. "Always she wanted to fly in planes," he says, quietly. It's good! But on the other hand, it means he really did lose her. "I am glad that they are happy."
"Very happy," says Pete quietly, strange note in his tone. He's not looking at Kurt. "And it's funny - her job, right, the stewardess bit - is what keeps her grounded with all the other bollocks always about, the magic and the insanity. Always said it'd've done the others worlds of good to live in the real world a while, take a page from /her/ book." Crooked smile, sideways look to Kurt again. Doesn't last long, he's looking ahead again. He gestures at a building on the next block. "There's our destination. As far as Margali goes, no one's seen her in quite a while. She went mad; Acton's law. Power corrupts. Constantine - there's a version of /him/ here, too - got her out of it, mostways. Wherever she is, she's getting better; it were part of the deal."
Kurt stops in his tracks and stares, absolutely stricken. He looks like - well, pretty much like Pete just told him his mother went insane. "She - what did she - did she hurt people, did she - like my brother, did she?" That business with Stefan was about six months ago in his personal timeline.
"Weren't her when the worst of it began," says Pete shortly, definitely not looking at Kurt - at least, not until he's several steps ahead, and then it's just pausing in his own walking, turning his head back slightly but not far enough to see Kurt in any more than his peripheral vision. "And you're not keeping in mind it's not your reality. You were twenty-seven when that happened, and it was the result of years of complications revolving around something that doesn't exist in most universes."
Kurt starts walking again, slowly, his posture slumped as it naturally is, rather than upright in imitation of everyone else. "Yes. I am forgetting. Not the same. I am sorry to not be understanding well," he adds, subdued. "Perhaps *my* mother is well."
"She must be," affirms Wisdom with a note of finality. "No one else I've talked to here, from a hundred different realities, a hundred different times, has /ever/ heard of the Soulsword, of Belasco." He wheels around, stopping in front of a many-times-painted-over green door with the words 'Panna Two' in shiny metal letters stuck on, pulling it open. The hallway it reveals, leading inside the run-down building, is ringed in crepe paper and chili-pepper lights and magenta Christmas lights, which makes it look somewhat like the inside of someone's intestines. For a vote of confidence, however, the menu /is/ on the door...and a Hindi remix of 'Who Let the Dogs Out' is playing somewhere in the depths, at the dark end of the hall.
Kurt slinks after Pete, somewhat reassured by the man's words. Stefan went mad, but Margali might not, and Jemaine certainly won't. Not as good as he hoped, but better than he feared. "Those lights are looking like chili peppers," he says, suddenly, all impressed. Look! Like shiny chilis! "And how we know each other? You are in the X-Men also?"
"Chili, yes. Brilliant, innit?" Cigarette gets flicked away one more time; Pete looks tired for a second at the last question. The door shuts behind them. "Ahaha. No. Not the X-Men. Where I'm from, right, the X-Men were apparently dead, but Pryde and Wagner were injured at the time and recuperating in Scotland, so they din't supposedly die with the others, and wound up starting a brand-new team with this girl Rachel, who was the alternate future daughter of friends of theirs, and two others, Braddock and Meggan." There is no possible way in heaven or on earth that Pete could possibly look more disgustedly amusedly sarcastically disbelieving. He continues down the hall, lit weirdly by all the red and orange and pink light. "I wound up attached to that team because of Pryde." As they get to the end of the hall, a tiny little sit-down restaurant can be seen next to the takeaway counter - Pete calls something out in another language and is answered cheerfully in kind. Pete, glance at Kurt again. "Ever had Indian food?"
Utterly bewildered by all this information, and the fact that versions of people he knows are dead, and and and -- Kurt blinks at Pete. "No. Except only once and then I was little, and it was nice but afterwards it did not love me."
Pete stares for a second, then cracks up. No, just there, he cracks up. Still grinning, he turns back to the guy leaning on the counter, who's looking somewhat smug, and orders something that involves a lot of words. A string of very-not-English. Or German, but hey. Then a grin back at Kurt. "There. Not spicy. Ought to sit well. So how're you getting on, here?"
Made him laugh, that's probably good. Kurt grins at Pete, in return, letting the dark cloud slip away from the conversation all too willingly. "I am getting on very well. I live at Solace House, and I have many friends, and slowly I am getting to know my real mother. I have two jobs," he adds, proudly.
"Good-oh," is the response to /that/: cheerful enough as Pete's paying the guy, and then turning back to Kurt, leaning against the counter. "Two jobs - takes a lot of your time, eh? And good, friends - you'd mentioned some of the people you'd met, yes. Pryde's good friends with Doug and Piotr, as you'd said. Remy stayed with us for a stretch. Good to hear he's still about; haven't seen him in a while." There's a faint, funny smile for the next, "Your mother's a good woman. Very true to what she believes in. She's achieved quite a bit in this city."
Kurt frowns a little at the words regarding Remy. "I think this is a different Remy. This one has stayed at Solace House always since he arrived here." And he should know, he caught the guy in freefall. Then mention of Mystique, and Kurt beams, transparently delighted. Nobody else has said such nice things about her. "Yes! She is very good, and kind, and she is knowing many things. She gave me this machine." He gestures at himself, conveying the holoprojector without saying it. "I am very happy to find her."
"Ah." Blink. At the Remy explanation, there's a visible shift in Pete's bearing - he surpresses an uncomfortable expression and straightens, no longer leaning. But then Kurt's beaming, pleased, practically like a kid wanting to put a scribble on the refrigerator. Wisdom relaxes again, faintly wry. "'S a great gift. Someday you won't even feel the need to use it. Bit like training wheels, way I see it."
Kurt looks down at himself for a moment. "Yes. I know. I only am using this sometimes. It makes things more easy." He grins at Pete. "But I am not ashamed of the way I am looking normally. She has told me this, to never be ashamed, but I knew already. I am not hiding how I look, only I am - I am below radar. To avoid troubles when there is no need for troubles. The city lately is not so friendly."
Satisfied nod, almost pleased. "Glad to hear it," says Pete, leaning a bit on the counter again. "Below radar is a marvellous place to be, just as long as it's only a tool. If that makes any sense. I can't--" Interrupted! The counter guy reaches over to tap at Wisdom, since Wisdom talks too much and it's hard to get a word in edgewise when he's in the middle of a conversation with someone. There's another quick exchange in Hindi, Pete laughs amicably and takes the two bags the guy hands him, then reaches over and snags a business card - this last he hands to Kurt, along with the smaller bag. "There, just so you know what you're eating, you've got chicken tikka, dhal, halal, banana fritters, akee, and a container of mango lassee. Come on--" Heading for the door again, back through the intestinal hallway.
The card is taken, and Kurt pauses to look at it for a moment before trotting after Pete. The Englishman is *very* nice, and cool, but confusing to the utmost. "This food is smelling very nice. But this hallway is making me think of what will happen later," he adds, with a grin. It is very intestinal.
"No no, not a bit of it's hot at all, except for temperature," assures Wisdom, pushing open the door leading back to the street. It's gone back to this sort of sometimes-raining misty blargh, and Pete's glancing at the time on the cellphone he pulled from his pocket. "I told Kitty I'd be back around...now. If you aren't expected anywhere, you're welcome to join us for dinner -- if not, that's yours and your mum's got our address and number." A heartbeat's pause before Wisdom steamrolls the next bit: apparently he really doesn't want to keep Kitty waiting. "Stop by anytime, just mind you ring first, make sure we're there. Unless you're coming now? Warning in advance, you're likely to get attack-hugged upon walking in."
Cue bewilderment. Kurt clutches his bag of food to his chest as if it's his firstborn child, and blinks at Pete. "I think... I hope you will not be offended, but - today already has been very surprising. I hope perhaps soon I will come to see you? I will ask my mother for your phone." A pause, and he frees one hand to reach behind himself and turn off the hologram. Damp fur is a feature, and he offers his hand to Pete. "It has been *very* good to meet you, sir. Very good."
Yeah, uh. Pete's a little bit overwhelming at first meeting. But there's a much wider grin than before when Kurt switches the inducer off, and he shakes the younger man's hand firmly. "Same. Just call me Pete. Or Wisdom. Whichever. Be seeing you." And then he's off into the night, not wanting to, you know, bear the wrath of Pryde.
