xmm_cal

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 03:36:28 GMT

Clean lines and dark cherry-stained wood dominate the decor of this bar, a classy, sharp place near the Lennox Hill hospital. There's a bit of a lull now, with the happy hour drinkers gone but the evening not quite under way, but a lull doesn't mean dead. There are still people clustered in the booths and at the bar, doctors and lawyers and their ilk talking and drinking in a quiet sort of way. Caroline Jones has found herself a table near the bar, a half-emptied glass of wine set by her elbow, but her attention is focused down on papers in a black folder, and she twists a pen between her fingers as she reads what looks to be some kind of medical case study.

Nona has her own little leather-chased black folder full of notes! It even has her company's logo embossed on it! One of the leading endocrinologists in her field, she pretty much comes here to look important and business-like, since she has a lot less work now that she has employees. It makes her feel good about herself. When she plops down next to the bar, she waves her hand and orders,"Something expensive and over-priced that doesn't taste like ass." She hasn't been wealthy a long time like many of these people probably have.

Cal's hazel eyes flicker up to Nona as she settles in, and her eyebrow arches at the woman's order. She glances back down, clicking the pen to draw a neat box around a paragraph of note. She pauses then, vaguely hatching the box darker and letting her mind wander, poking idly into other minds about the bar with a sort of clinical, detached curiosity.

Nona oddly enough has the sort of mind that reflexively rebuffs the psionic probings of others without ever realizing it does it. She's a wall of discipline. Which is not to say, she's impossible to probe. Simply put, one does not tend to do so idly. She does note, however, the other woman studying her notes,"Tough case?"

The curiosity is sufficiently idle that Cal hardly notices as Nona's mind rebuffs her mental gaze, instead skimming right on to the next person in line -- but she is then startled to be addressed, having noticed no attention on her. Her chin jerks up, and she eyeballs Nona critically for a moment, and then glances down at her paper. "Not one of mine," she says, shaking her head. "Just studying up, that's all." Her sharp glance finds Nona's folder, in turn, and she asks, "And you?"

Nona gestures to a seat across from her,"Pull up a seat? And me? I'm researching MGH, and looking into the possibility of reproducing it artificially. Of course, if my theories are right, then I'll have all new problems. Pigs flying may be a classic expression that's just DELIGHTFUL, but in practice, it's impractical."

"MGH?" Cal's eyebrows lift, and she leans forward slightly in interest. She does not, however, move seats, instead gesturing to the empty one across from her instead, in offer. (/She/ was here first, after all.) "I can see how practicalities of that could be problematic. What made you even get into that line of research, anyway?"

Nona hops seats without comment, offering her hand politely to Cal as she re-seats herself,"I'm an endocrinologist, a self-styled captain of industry, and owner of Quaidiquq Industries. It's pretty much, whole-heartedly my business to be interested. But right now, I'm in the study phase. I don't even have a viable test-product."

"A self-styled captain of industry?" Cal asks, dryly, as she reaches to take Nona's hand in a firm clasp. "It sounds like you're reading your own advertising copy."

Nona grins at Cal as she sends out an electrochemical signal through Cal's system, all while offering a simple jolt of endorphins. Yes, it's fun holding the hand of the nice lady... The signal also serves to generate a sort of mental readout for the state of Cal's endocrine system. "Actually, it's in my brochure, page three."

Cal's endocrine system is all in very neat order, one accustomed to the doctor's life of high stress, high adrenaline and low sleep. Everything's quite calm right now, however, and hasn't even been stressed lately. Cool, calm and collected she seems to be, inside and out. She withdraws her hand with a slight smirk that veers towards a smile, and shakes her head. "I see. Sounds interesting. Your work, not the brochure."

Nona doesn't do further to tamper as she releases the woman's hand to its own recognizance. "Mmm... well, I like it. But then, that's why I'm a specialist. I actually find it a proper shame that there's such a stigma against the improvement of human life, after all... Why must doctors merely save lives, or cure afflictions? Why can't we improve the quality of it for /healthy/ people. Of course, most of my work has medicinal purpose, but it would be nice to give people something to be excited about."

"Because most healthy people can't afford it and the insurance companies won't pay," Cal says, pragmatic. "And there are plenty of ways healthy people can improve the quality of their life as it is and they choose not to. Water seeks its own level." She shrugs, eyes flicking back down to her page thoughtfully. She frowns slightly, and then shuts the folder.

Nona shakes her head softly,"That's the thing... it doesn't HAVE to be expensive. A lot of hormones can be grown in pigs, on farms. Not just insulin. Really cheap to breed, really cheap to harvest. And if you just charged a flat rate that everyone could afford, more people could afford to buy. I'd bed you'd make up in volume what you lost in markup... But I just research things, not sell them. That's other peoples' job. Better living through science, I say."

"Hmm," Cal says, the very picture of noncommittal, expression flat. She picks up her wine glass, regarding the centimeters of wine remaining for a second before she sets it back down on the table, untested. "So you say. Well." She slides back her seat from the table, and picks up the folder, tucking it beneath her arm. "Good luck with all that."

Cal meets an endocrinologist.

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 02:03:56 GMT

=NYC= Lobby - Shaw Research Center - New York University

Doubled sets of doors open into an atrium filled with light. The delicate webbing of brushed chrome that supports the glass seems a fragile support, yet it holds. The interior is sleekly modern, with metal, glass, dark woods and stone. Plants are lush, bordering so-carefully on untamed.

The seating is comfortable, scattered into various conversational arrangements around low chairs, with higher cafe tables and stools near a Starbucks pressed flush against one wall. The reception desk is typically manned by undergraduates, and

Much like a great, great number of PhD students, Tess opperates to a great degree on coffee. Thus it is that she is outside of the office once more, staring a little cross-eyed at the menu at Starbucks from outside the range of the line, probably debating prices. She has the tired and cross-eyed look of someone coming out of being buried in books and computer screens.

In a crisp white lab coat, Cal blends in quite well with the denizens of the research center, even if she's clearly too old to be a student yet lacks the busy, harried look of a professor. She drifts up by Tess, looking at the menu with a thoughtful eye (uncrossed). Her mind is shielded, though barely, a screen that obscures the thoughts and impulses that buzz around the coffeeshop without entirely tuning them out. "The trouble with the holiday gimmick drink," she opines, out of nowhere, "Is that it really isn't all /that/ good. But if you wanted it even a week from now, you couldn't have it. And so you're more inclined to pay the premium now to buy it, before they disappear. People are very stupid and marketers, it seems, are very bright."

Tess jumps a little, surprised at being noticed. She's also shielded, but it's a rough, half-conscious affair, relying a lot on the fact that many of the people surrounding them are out of her range. "I guess there will be a lot of red ones, soon," she responds with a smile, once she recalls her attention. She glances at Cal's attire. "Are you--new here? Or visiting?" She bears the appropriate ID clipped on of working here herself.

"Hm, yes, there's always the new gimmick coming up next," Cal says, nodding faintly in agreement, hazel eyes still fixed upon the menu. "I'm visiting, I suppose. I've been visiting here frequently, though. There is a lot of interesting research being carried out here." Her eyes flicker to Tess's ID. "What field are you in?"

"Anthropology." In the face of the labcoat, Tess seems a little uncomfortable, and she shifts from foot to foot. She gestures down herself, thus the street clothes, though while they may have seemed bright and interesting when Cal approached, that impression must have been in error. They're...well. Clothes. Jeans. Something. Very boring and unremarkable. She offers a hand, mind primed to brush against the other woman's at the touch in search of her real opinion of anthropologists, whatever she might say aloud. Expecting no shields, however, of course.

Oh, there's no need to look in to Cal's mind for /that/ opinion. She shares it with a roll of her eyes, even as she takes the other woman's hand in a firm grip. "Anthropology? At the Shaw Research Center?" Her tone is one of disapproval, and while the partial shield obscures and fuzzes her mind, a certain sense of cynicism mingled with superiority can certainly be gotten nonetheless. "I wasn't aware there were anthropologists here. I wasn't aware you'd need a /lab/ for that -- just coffeeshops and jazz clubs."

"Oh!" One might take Tess's reaction as coming in response to Cal's words, but she drops the woman's hand immediately, and frowns at her, considering her in a new light. "My funding wouldn't go to you even if I wasn't here." The snapped response comes a little belatedly, but has a worn quality, smoothed by use.

"Yes, but now I'm curious," Cal says, with a superior little smile and a tilt to her head, gaze focusing on Tess. "What /do/ you use a lab space for? Interviews?" Her own shields lower, preparatory to a little poking at Tess's.

Tess puts a hand on Cal's arm, with the excuse of guiding her out of the path of someone hunting for the cream and lids at the counter near them. As her concentration ramps up, it gets harder to pay attention to her. She's so unremarkable, that it's boring just to keep one's attention on her. "Interviews, sometimes. I don't have a lab, I have an office. I write up results there." She tries prodding of her own. Cal is a telepath, right? Right?

Hazel eyes swinging back up to the menu even as Tess pulls her out of the way, Cal finds it fairly easy to ignore the anthropologist. The mental poking, however, demands attention, the mental gaze sharpening and focusing even as the physical goes a bit vague. Indeed, she is a telepath, registered and all. << That's three, then, >> she tallies, no mere inner thought but displayed for the benefit of the one-who-prods. << Wait. Four. Maybe New York really /is/ crawling with telepaths. >>

<< Could have fooled me. >> Tess's is a proper surface thought--she could probably figure out the theory of offering something for Cal to read, but she's never done it before, and it too excited to think of it now. She tries to plunge deeper without meaning to, suddenly desperate to know Cal's level of training, to be forewarned before she stops snobbing about it.

Cal's level of training is not terrifically high, mostly learned from what academia and the Internet has to say about telepaths. However, she /has/ gotten a lot of practice mucking about in other minds, albeit primarily to keep tabs on parts of the nervous system that do very important things /not/ having to do with conscious thought. Tess's dive for knowledge is eyeballed as one would eye a kitten tangled in string, but not arrested or impeded. << You could just /ask/, >> she nevertheless notes, snide. << What are you after? >>

<< Blackmail, >> Tess sneers back, thinking the thought at Cal this time. << You're no better off than I am. >>

Cal chuckles aloud, much to the confusion of Starbucks patrons who merely see her regarding the menu intently. << Never claimed otherwise, did I? And if you find blackmail information in there, let me know. That sounds interesting. >> This time the rolling eyes are merely mental, but nevertheless there.

Tess's discomfort hits a level where Cal should get a really whammy, especially with her shields down--ignore, ignore, ignore. Since Tess's field works with what it has, that likely capitalizes on Cal's opinion of her--the girl can't possibly find anything, is too inept to find anything, why even bother to pay attention to what she's doing ineptly. Tess meanwhile, pokes around. What does Cal /fear/? Why doesn't she think about /that/.

Oh, Cal's got fears enough and to spare -- the problem with poking around in people's minds when they're lying on the operating table and dying is that sometimes, well, they die while you're in there, and you share a little in the pain before, and then the abrupt, grinding halt. Dreams of blackness, of suffocating weight snapping her ribcage, of blood pooled and cooling haunt her, and yet (adrenaline junkie that she is) also thrill her. She shakes off the suddenly morbid turn of her thoughts with a shiver down her spine, and then, with great effort, draws a mental eyeball at Tess, conveying disapproval, and then returns her attention to /coffee/. Something with a lot of sugar in it, and possibly whipped cream on top. Sprinkles? Maybe. She steps forward with a long-legged stride towards the line.

Tess makes a choking sound, and pulls out entirely. Careful what you ask for! She lets Cal go without anything said out loud, though a << sorry >> floats around the surface of her thoughts. She presses the heels of her palms to her temples. /Ow/.

Cal ignores Tess (it's apparently quite easy to do) and gets herself some coffee without so much as a glance back for the other telepath.

A small telepathic scuffle. Cal's kind of a snot.

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 02:46:21 GMT

No snow whitens Central Park this evening, leaving it bleak in the sharp cold of the first day of the new year, trees shaking bare taloned branches at the dark gray sky. It's cold enough that the grass crunches underfoot and the children walking with their families are barely recognizeable beneath their bundled scarves, hats, gloves and coats. Caroline Jones is not quite dressed for the cold, honey-dark locks hanging loose over her shoulders, her cheeks and ears turning bright pink. She commands a narrow bridge that arches over a small, half-iced over stream and leans against the railing. Her mind is unshielded, brushing against others nearby, and calm in a sort of quiet meditation as she methodically drops small rocks gathered in the palm of one gloved hand over the bridge side, snapping the thin skein of ice over the brooklet.

It is not the first night that Tom has slipped his keeper for a few hours to wander the city alone. Bundled against the cold air in puffy black coat, black gloves, and black earmuffs, he cuts a small, dour figure, appropriate to the barren chill at the dawn of January. Beneath warm clothes and pale skin, the boy's mind is only loosely shielded, a thin, distracted protection against the mental background noise, full of cracks and fissures. For now he, too, is calm, watching a passing family and its noisy, happy children at a thougtful remove. His boots slide, slow dragging steps through crisp grass and over dark earth.

The fireman tucked his flashlight under his arm, and continued forward. As pleasant as night walks in the park can be, they also cannot be the safest. He brought his hands to his mouth to breathe warmth into them, and wrapped his coat tighter around his chest. The concrete path drifted below him, barely in his mind, until his foot was greeted spontaneously by an outcropping of broken cement. He stumbled slightly, but continued along anyway, ignoring the now warm pain in his toe.

Even a loosely shielded mind is more interesting via its shield than any other minds here, all occupied with cold and hunger and predictable concerns about New Years resolutions, exercising and losing weight. Cal's thoughts settle that way, peering at the shields and then tapping politely on them, a small mental tug of attention. Hello? She turns away from the bridge railing, hazel eyes searching for Tom but pausing on the fireman en route. "Watch where you're going," she reminds, dryly.

Stopping abruptly where he stands, Tom lifts his gaze to sweep the dark. There is little fear in him for the night spectres of the park, confidence born as much of arrogance as any ability he has to protect himself. The distinctive feel of a tug at his mind enough to draw him completely out of his reverie, he hunts for the source of it, attempting to match the warm glow of power with its owner in the imperfect light. << Hello, >> sparks the answer. He is all bright interest, curiosity chasing away general malaise and youthful rebellion. He is too inexperienced a telepath to prevent the spill of extraneous information from accompanying his greeting; he is cold, he is by himself in the park, he carries ill-defined wist for the childhood he is rapidly exchanging for tumultuous adolescence. His slight figure is hard to see in the dark, what with his small stature, dark clothing and dark surroundings, but he is not at all far from Cal's bridge or the stumbling fireman.

Mr. Teale continues walking, eyes sweeping the ground for any more mean cracks. "I will." His flashlight passes over the bridge entrance, and he glances at the woman standing there. "But thank you, for your concern."

The extra information passes through Cal much like water beneath she stands on -- noted and summarily dismissed with near complete disinterest. Everybody is cold and nostalgic this time of year, aren't they? << From the rumors, I thought New York would be crawling with telepaths, >> her mental voice slides into his mind, a bit overcareful, unused to a two-way meeting like this. << But there's hardly an infestation here. Disappointing. >> Her eyes swing over the flashlight's passage, and she smirks. "Hmm," she hums, noncommittally. "just being polite. It would actually make the night a lot more interesting if you fell and broke something -- but it's a bit cold, and these clothes are new -- so I suppose a bloody accident might be undesirable, after all."

Approaching the bridge on steps whose sound is only quiet crunching, Tom picks up the tail end of the conversation, and gives Mr. Teale a considering look. He frowns faintly, eyeing the beam of the flashlight with distaste. He huffs past his lips, making the steam curl into the air more impressively. << I've met a few, >> he says to Cal. His mind carries a flicker of impression, no real revelation of identity or even any images of faces: just a whisper of familiarity, colored by a weird strain of guilt and the sensation of a scowl. << Most are cautious. Hide. >> In silent communication, there is little of the fierce bravado that might mark his flagrant discourtesies aloud, such as: "Why do you have a flashlight?"

"So much for polite." Brian scratches the back of his head with his flashlight. "Damn New Yorkers..." He mutters, and steps onto the bridge. His thoughts are, at the moment, perfectly undisturbed. He turned to the boy, and said, with a grin on his face the timbres of calm, "So I can bloody see. Why else would I have a damn flashlight?" Well, almost calm. Mr. Teale doesn't much like kids.

"I'm not from New York," Cal remarks to Brian, her tone meandering a little with her mental distraction. << Of course. People are tightly wound about telepaths, even here. As though more than 3 percent of their thoughts were interesting. >> 'Their' seems to be an inclusive phrase, encompassing human, mutant, adult and child alike in its dismissiveness.

Confronted by Brian's logic, Tom gives him a skeptical snort and shoves his hands into the pockets of his puffy black winter coat. "There are lamps and lights and stuff," he points out loftily. He runs his tongue along his teeth, tipping his glance over Cal as he considers the relative interest of minds generally. << Mostly they are kind of gross, >> he says with the maturity of his years. It is not just disgust tht colors his tone, though, but the ripples of old trauma, a scattered snowfall of what it sucks to overhear. On this, young Sikorski is fast becoming expert.

Brian dismisses the woman's remark with a wave, and scoffs at the child. "Indeed, there /are/ lamps and lights and /stuff/, but not where it matters. Do you feel like getting mugged?" He grinned, and shined the flashlight into the bushes on the side of the path. The bush rustled. "HA!" Brian exclaims, amd gives the bush swift kick with his boot. The bush rustles harder, and a small white rabbit hops out, terrified, running away from its attacker.

Cal's amusement registers not only in Tom's mind, but on her face, a smile tipping her lips up, tinged only a little with sympathy. << That they are, >> she agrees. << But even gross gets boring eventually, unless somebody's really out of the ordinary. >> "And you think a flashlight will deter a mugger?" she wonders, blankly. The rustling of the bush only results in a little curiosity -- she knows there's not a person in there, after all -- but the emergence of the rabbit does seem to startle her, and she steps back quickly. "Was that a /rabbit/?" she asks, in the same tone one might inquire after a UFO.

About to unleash a fleet of quips, Tom pauses where Cal has gotten there first, and stares blankly at the bush for a moment instead. He even breaks off mid-thought, losing track of where he was going entirely: << It all seems weird enough-->> He eyes Brian, reaching the simplest conclusion after a quick mental reversal over the relative likelihood of a cute fuzzy animal ordinarily loose in Central Park. "Did you bring your flashlight because you lost your bunny?" he asks.

"I think a flashlight makes an awfully useful club. So, the light will probably not deter a mugger. But the hard metal casing, I am sure, will." Brian replies, still shocked by the escaping rabbit. "How would a flashlight help me find a bunny? I found that rabbit by kicking a bush."

"Bunnies would be more likely to hide in the areas not covered by the lamps, don't you think?" Cal wonders, her gaze still fastened into the dark the rabbit fled into. "So a flashlight would be useful, in that case." She stares off after it for a moment more and then turns her attention back to the two, sweeping over Tom and then settling, almost critically, on Brian.

"Weird," Tom pronounces after a moment's pause, shrugging his shoulders as he curls his fingers into the lining of his pockets.

Brian sighs. A disgruntled, drained sigh. "Enough about bunnies." He flicked the button on his flashlight, turning up the brightness. "I brought my flashlight so I could see. Not all of the park is lit."

Cal nods vaguely at Brian and shrugs, conceding the point. "Not all. Though most of the interesting parts, at least." Her gaze slides back to Tom, and she wonders, "Shouldn't you have a parent -- somewhere around here?" Her finger gestures in a circle around.

Tom shrugs as though the matter of his parent is not one of particular interest to him, although the flicker of guilt that fans awake in his mindscape is likely answer enough. "She's around," he says. The weight of compromise is the cell phone heavy in his pocket, which he thumbs not without gloom and eyes the adults beadily. "Why, where's yours?"

Brian turns to the boy, unsurprised. "Around. Hmmph." He turns to bend over the bush, looking for any more surprise hares, but is satisfied in the lack of them.

"Missouri," Cal answers, and then glances at her watch, taking a moment of thought to calculate. "And probably having dinner. But I'm past the age where people expect me to cart my folks around, aren't I?" The wind picks up, sharply, and she wraps her coat more tightly about her as she turns to face Brian. "So if you aren't looking for a pet rabbit, is there a particular reason you're... " she trails off, lifting a questioning eyebrow.

The low breath in his throat a grumbled imprecation on, probably, changeable standards, or possibly the world in general, Tom shakes his head slightly and hunches his shoulders in a diffident shrug. He glowers at Brian for no immediately discernable reason, scowl lingering in the crease of his brow. << You try hanging around while your mom tries not to think about how much you're a freak, >> he tosses in Cal's direction with more or less randomized bitterness, and he starts to stump across the bridge, step slow with sullen exaggeration.

"Nope." Brian replies.

<< I see. >> Though still not exactly sympathetic, Cal's thoughts at least seem to slip into Tom's mind with a modicum of understanding. << You'll get used to it. >> Comforting! She fixes hazel eyes, suspiciously, on Brian for a moment, and then nods briskly. "Well. Good night, then." She considers her surroundings for a moment, getting her bearings, and then selects a direction to travel in.

"Ha ha," Tom says aloud, rather than laughing. He kicks at a clump of grass with one booted foot as he shuffles slowly along his own chosen path.

Telepaths, muggers and bunnies.

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 00:41:03 GMT

=NYC= Lobby - Shaw Research Center - New York University

Doubled sets of doors open into an atrium filled with light. The delicate webbing of brushed chrome that supports the glass seems a fragile support, yet it holds. The interior is sleekly modern, with metal, glass, dark woods and stone. Plants are lush, bordering so-carefully on untamed.

The seating is comfortable, scattered into various conversational arrangements around low chairs, with higher cafe tables and stools near a Starbucks pressed flush against one wall. The reception desk is typically manned by undergraduates, and security is tight, but discrete.

Quinn is, as is usual, sitting at one of the tables in the small starbucks, sipping at a large mug of steaming tea. It is pretty obvious that he is taking a break from work, as he still has a labcoat over his usual clothes, and he occasionally writes a few scribbled notes in a little flipbook sitting infront of him on the table. Because of the weather, the starbucks is doing a good trade, but he has managed to secure a table to himself - well away from the students chatting loudly over their notes.

Following her experience at the mall and the ambulance ride, Cal has changed into clean, fresh clothes -- slacks and a blouse and a labcoat, herself -- though she's still simmering with adrenaline and energized, the smells of blood and antiseptic clinging to her hair. She orders something from Starbucks with minimal caffeine, but /lots/ of sugar, and then scans the open tables. "Mind if I sit here?" she asks Quinn, even as she sits down across from him.

Quinn's nose wrinkles a few moments before the sound of a voice registers in his ears. "Hmm?" he says, absentmindedly, his eyes coming up from the notebook, as he casually flips it closed - though before he does, its easy to see he's been doodling chemical structures. "Oh, not at all. Its better than crowding in with the students." he says, in a perfect english accent. His eyes run quickly over the labcoat, and a puzzled look crosses his face. "Do you work here too?" he asks, politely.

"Thinking about studying here, actually," Cal answers, reaching for a sugar packet and then adding that to her already sweet concoction. "Right now I'm a doctor without a hospital, so I thought if a hospital didn't show up, I might simply pick up another doctorate. And there's interesting medical research going on right here, don't you think?" Her eyes flick down to the chemical doodles.

"All kinds of interesting research going on here - the medical side is just one part." from a quick glance, to someone with the knowledge, it would be obvious that the doodle is unfinished - but looks to be a representation of adrenalin. "Let me guess, they moved your ward to another hospital? Happens all the time back home." He breathes through his nose a few times, then rubs it with a knuckle, as though relieving a slight itch.

"Fired me unceremoniously," Cal answers, matter-of-factly. "I'm a trauma surgeon. Good emergency departments rarely get moved or shuffled to other hospitals -- you need one at each one, really." She drinks from her cup, and once she's fortified with a little extra sugar, telepathy slips familiarly outward, brushing past the consciousness of patrons in the shop and settling low into Quinn's.

Quinn's eyebrows raise slightly, in a speculative fashion. "Well, this place isn't a bad place to head - its got top of the range facilities." He comments, lightly, while his thoughts are off on a tangent, wondering if there has been some odd malpractice going on - and why in the world would this woman smell of blood? What has she been up to? More interestingly, if it can be sensed, his nervous sytem is a little.. odd. Not massivly different from the normal, but there are more nerve endings in his skin than is usual, and the whole seems somehow more.. efficient. "What kind of research are you interested in?" he asks, still pondering the odd smells surrounding her.

Cal's nostrils flare as she attempts to smell herself -- /she/ can't smell anything especially odd, except the antiseptic. The metallic tang of blood and even just barely there, elusively, the bitter ghost of gunpowder, she can't sense at all . Intrigued at that very nice effiency down there about the brain stem, telepathy settles in a little further, scientifically peering about. "Oh, I'm interested in all things," she says, distracted, as she takes another sip of her drink. "Mutant medicine's quite interesting, of course, and this is certainly the place for it. I've heard that the biotech sector here is quite good, as well."

On a closer inspection, it appears that quite a few of his nerves are a little odd. There are more of them, for a start. Its as though he is wired to be more sensitive than other people. How unusual. Quinn finally takes another sip of his own drink, studying the woman opposite over the rim of the cup. "I'm Quinn." He says, a simple offering of name. "There are a couple of people here looking into that kind of thing - I'm poking around with hormones at the moment, though its not medical research persay." No. Its research into mutants. But never mind.""

"And that would be why you've got adrenaline right there," Cal replies, eyes dropping to the molecule. Satisfied with her little poket around in his brain, she relaxes back in her seat and withdraws to a mere brush of her mind against his, a habitual sort of monitoring for interesting things. "And I'm Caroline -- Cal."

Quinn looks down, studying the molecule again. "Well, it will be adrenaline. Sort of." he doesnt qualify that, not even in his mind - its an offhand comment. He continues to sip at his drink, though it is now starting to cool down. "If you go back to study, what will you do?" he asks, interested.

"Something," Caroline says vaguely. "I'm considering my options right now. I doubt I'll be able to do what I would most like to, so for now I'm just searching for something that looks otherwise attractive."

"Psych can be pretty interesting - I studied it at undergrad." he suggests, thoughtful. "And if you wanted to, you can always use it to respecialise too." He swirls the last of his tea around his mug, inhaling the aroma's for a moment.

"Psych?" Cal's eyebrow raises, dismissive. "Hardly likely. I'm entirely uninterested in how people overthink things and invent problems for themselves and believe that they're so unique in their existential angst. They're not. Everybody's about the same, I think." She tips back her cup to drain the rest of her own drink, and scoots back in her chair, preparatory to leaving.

Quinn shrugs, not fazed by the reaction. "Each to their own." He smiles, finishing his own drink, and standing up. "It was a pleasure to meet you. Good luck with finding something new." he nods his head in a goodbye, and starts to head back into the labs.

</lj-ct>

Log 10. A meeting at the SRC Starbucks.

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 22:05:22 GMT

=NYC= Manhattan Mall - Midtown - Manhattan

Keeping with an 'open concept' idea, the Sunrise Mall sports a large front lobby area - complete with a massive fountain located smack dab in the middle - its spray shooting up towards cathedral ceilings. Behind the fountain are tall, marble pillars that flank either side of dual escalators, their whiteness broken-up by ornamental circuits of bronze and brass. Those adornments match the rest of the decor, from the railings along the second floor patio, down to the new-age style benches lining the corridors that split off from the foyer. Everything looks so very shiny and new, though it's certain that it won't stay that way for long; especially after the swarms of teenagers have settled in.

The Manhattan Mall is swarming with citizens of all ages: toddlers, teenagers, young adults, adults, older adults, and the withering elderly, each of them searching for the best value for family and friends. The Saturday before Christmas is not exactly the best place to find peace and quiet, but it is a place to get trampled, pushed, etcetera. "--ouch!" Elisabeth Braddock, not the only person victim to holiday shopping spree pricing excitement, is quite tired and settles near the fountain. Three bags dangle and occassionally will balance between each hand, now settle onto the floor as the purple haired woman crosses a heeled foot and sits onto a bench currently occupied by another. "Why did I decide /today/ would be my shopping day - of all the days," she says, more to herself by vocally for another to hear.

Already settled on the bench, Cal has a pinched expression easily attributed to shopping headaches, or perhaps merely the expression of a telepath in a crowd who doesn't know how to shield well, her mind open and brushing past the passers by. "It's a pretty bad day to go to the mall," she comments, unsolicited, to Betsy as she sits down. "I should have just shopped online."

"Bad day is an understatement," Betsy replies, violets trailing those passing by for a second before landing on the woman presently sitting next to her. A varied pinched expression aligns onto the telekinetic's facial features, but more inclined toward throwing people around with a twist of her wrist. But that would be very Scroogeish of her, yes? "My gifts wouldn't have gotten here on time if I shopped online, sadly. Sometimes I think I purposely punish myself."

"Everybody does," Cal says, wryly, looking up and scanning the crowd. "Only one person really wants to be here. Maybe two." She points out a sales-hungry middle-aged woman, and a teenager hurrying to meet friends. "Everybody else is just doing penance for their sins of not preparing early enough. Get anything good?"

Betsy follows the pointed finger and grins at its victim. "Yes, they do look rather pleased with all of this commotion," she adds, returning to the three bags below her: two white, one pink. "Well, I got something for my boss. I'm sure she'll hate it and release the hounds as soon as I give it to her." Picking up the pink bag reveals the Victoria Secret label, violets looking at her choice contently. "But everything else is for me. Don't have many friends here in the states. And yourself?"

"I've never gotten anything for my bosses," Cal admits, leaning back on her hands. "But then, they've never deserved it." Her own bags are tucked underneath the bench, plain white. "Got things for my parents, though, and a friend back home. That's all I had to take care of. I just moved here, myself."

She places the VS bag back onto the floor, a faint smile capturing a mental image for a second, and then Betsy comes back to reality. Blink blink. "Fake it until you make it," is her answer to that. "Where are you from, originally, if you don't mind my asking?"

"St. Louis, Missouri," Cal answers, offering a hand in greeting. "Caroline Jones. And you're from England, I would assume?"

Hands bond for a moment, shake, and then Betsy's returns to her lap. "Elisabeth Braddock. The hair always gives it away," Betsy jokes, flipping strand of violet behind a pierced ear. "New York is quite the melting pot. How do you like it?"

"The hospitals are understaffed and overworked, the people are tense and prone to hysteria -- probably because they neither get enough sleep nor exercise -- the politics are incomprehensible and the buildings are falling down around us, but the scientific institutions are cutting-edge," Cal says, with a slight smirk. "I think I like it very much."

"It can be a little overbearing at first, but getting used to it all is something easily accomplished." The sound of excitement can be heard far in the distance, echoing throughout the mall like a bullhorn in an auditorium. Betsy parts from Cal to look toward the source. "That, you'll get used to. I promise."

"A person can get used to anything, given time," Cal notes, eyes turning to scan in the direction of the excitement. She does not get up from her prime seat on the bench, though. "What's going on over there?"

"I don't know," Betsy answers, eyes peering and neck stretching, not wanting to get up either. That brand of excitement gets louder, now followed by swift movements in that direction. "But it seems to be causing quite the ruckus."

Telepathy quests outward from Cal, searching for the source of it or a clue in people's minds. Yet even this minor search, when she's already tired, makes her wince and pale. "Maybe I'd better just get up and see," she decides, picking up her bags as she rises, with a quiet sigh, to her feet.

There is no telepathy in Betsy's arsenal of abilities, so neck-stretching is all she can do for now. But there are clues as to the urgency of the situation far beyond what the eyes can see. One man runs passed Cal just as she stands. Another, a woman, trips and falls in an attempt to get away from something. "What in the world is happening?" Betsy asks, not truly directing it at the other woman but in curious wonderment. She cant help but stand to her feet now.

"I'm not sure," says Cal, and begins to walk towards the source of the commotion, eating up the ground in long-legged strides. "People are frightened, though. Might be best to stay back." But /she/, she is a doctor. She lives on fear and adrenaline. In fact, a grin chases over her face and her postures straightens some as she continues on in the direction of trouble.

Bodies continued to run past the two curious women, violets capturing fear and worry and a yearning for escape by any means necessary. What Betsy captures in Cal is quite the opposite, her words contrasting her actions quite a bit. "Yeah--" A tendril of telekinetics thrust forward as a man nearly rams into her. Instead, he eases to the side by the invisible force. More scared than confused, he continues his pursuit for the mall's exit. "it looks that way. But now I'm even more tempted to see."

A gunshot can be heard in the far distance. Screaming and running ensues.

At the sound of the gunshot, Cal pauses and then starts /running/. No, wrong way, Cal. Don't run towards the gunshot. Run away from the gunshot. "I'm a doctor, let me through!" she urges people as the panicking masses block her way.

The gunshot causes Betsy to wince, lower and then fall back into her seat. "Oh my goodness!" is her initial vocal response, eyes going wide at the unraveled spectacle. Seeing Cal run towards the gunshot and announce her occupation, Betsy marvels at the woman's confidence. Also seeing the masses of people flooding in their direction, there is little hope for the woman to get through in time. "Bloody hell," Betsy curses to herself, standing back up and following the doctor. Again, invisible force pushes through and creates a divide a couple of feet before Cal, so that she can inch through the crowding civilians. A miracle!

Cal does not ask questions, though her low-level scan of telepathy picks up the surprise and dismay from people pushed unexpectedly aside by the invisible force. She just takes advantage of it and hurries through, scanning over the heads of the crowd as she does so, in search of people with guns or gunshot wounds. "Morons," she mutters to herself. "Standing around and goggling and panicking like /sheep/."

"Welcome to New York!" Betsy says, shouting over the screams and panicking of the sheep. She trails closely behind the doctor, maintaining her concentration on the small field giving them better access toward the sound of the gunshot. When they reach that center, the area that seems the most secluded, there is no sight of anyone with a gun. But a figure can be seen laying on the ground.

"Mommy!" comes a scream from a little girl, running toward the laying figure which seems to be covered in liquid. Crimson liquid.

Cal can't help but laugh at the welcome to New York, but it's quickly replaced with a hiss and a low curse. "Shit! Somebody take care of the kid, get it out of the way," she says, running forward and skidding down onto her knees on the ground beside the body. Automatically, telepathy slips in to monitor vital signs and dampen down pain. "Shit shit shit," she says, dropping her bags and hunting in her purse. The good doctor always carries some anti-bacterial gel, which she rubs on her hands while her eyes assess the situation.

Betsy does as she is told, not knowing what to do in instances as these. Her telekinetic hold drops and she hesitates for a second to rush next to the still tearing child. The blood still pouring from the woman's wounds cause Betsy to feel illness, a sadness trembling through her. The child - her focus - is taken into her arms, crying, and screaming, and trembling along with the violet haired one. "Shh. It's going to be okay, little one." A look goes to Cal wondering if everything would, actually, be okay.

The body jumps and the woman sighs regret for coming to the mall. Pain, agony, blood - it all heightens. "Ahhh!" she screams, a feeling once felt through movies and television shows now emplored upon her. She can feel death - and pain. Her eyes meet Cal's.

"You, call 911," Cal instructs, hazel eyes flicking up towards a gawking person standing by, just in case it hasn't been called yet. "And everybody else, give me some space." Her telepathic presence inside the woman flinches at the sudden awareness of agony and pain, and Cal's body jumps at the scream. << It's okay, >> a soothing thought enters the woman's mind, firmly pressing down on pain and awareness to calm them. Her hands find the wound, though arterial gushes leak through her fingers, Dr. Jones presses down firmly on it, maintaining the pressure to halt the flow.

The wounded woman's pain dims, but her worries continue somewhat. A tilt of her head gives better vision of her daughter in the arms of a stranger - purple hair, eyes, but still a stranger. <

[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<i'm>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]

<lj-cut text="'Welcome to New York!' (Betsy, 12/20)">

=NYC= Manhattan Mall - Midtown - Manhattan

Keeping with an 'open concept' idea, the Sunrise Mall sports a large front lobby area - complete with a massive fountain located smack dab in the middle - its spray shooting up towards cathedral ceilings. Behind the fountain are tall, marble pillars that flank either side of dual escalators, their whiteness broken-up by ornamental circuits of bronze and brass. Those adornments match the rest of the decor, from the railings along the second floor patio, down to the new-age style benches lining the corridors that split off from the foyer. Everything looks so very shiny and new, though it's certain that it won't stay that way for long; especially after the swarms of teenagers have settled in.

The Manhattan Mall is swarming with citizens of all ages: toddlers, teenagers, young adults, adults, older adults, and the withering elderly, each of them searching for the best value for family and friends. The Saturday before Christmas is not exactly the best place to find peace and quiet, but it is a place to get trampled, pushed, etcetera. "--ouch!" Elisabeth Braddock, not the only person victim to holiday shopping spree pricing excitement, is quite tired and settles near the fountain. Three bags dangle and occassionally will balance between each hand, now settle onto the floor as the purple haired woman crosses a heeled foot and sits onto a bench currently occupied by another. "Why did I decide /today/ would be my shopping day - of all the days," she says, more to herself by vocally for another to hear.

Already settled on the bench, Cal has a pinched expression easily attributed to shopping headaches, or perhaps merely the expression of a telepath in a crowd who doesn't know how to shield well, her mind open and brushing past the passers by. "It's a pretty bad day to go to the mall," she comments, unsolicited, to Betsy as she sits down. "I should have just shopped online."

"Bad day is an understatement," Betsy replies, violets trailing those passing by for a second before landing on the woman presently sitting next to her. A varied pinched expression aligns onto the telekinetic's facial features, but more inclined toward throwing people around with a twist of her wrist. But that would be very Scroogeish of her, yes? "My gifts wouldn't have gotten here on time if I shopped online, sadly. Sometimes I think I purposely punish myself."

"Everybody does," Cal says, wryly, looking up and scanning the crowd. "Only one person really wants to be here. Maybe two." She points out a sales-hungry middle-aged woman, and a teenager hurrying to meet friends. "Everybody else is just doing penance for their sins of not preparing early enough. Get anything good?"

Betsy follows the pointed finger and grins at its victim. "Yes, they do look rather pleased with all of this commotion," she adds, returning to the three bags below her: two white, one pink. "Well, I got something for my boss. I'm sure she'll hate it and release the hounds as soon as I give it to her." Picking up the pink bag reveals the Victoria Secret label, violets looking at her choice contently. "But everything else is for me. Don't have many friends here in the states. And yourself?"

"I've never gotten anything for my bosses," Cal admits, leaning back on her hands. "But then, they've never deserved it." Her own bags are tucked underneath the bench, plain white. "Got things for my parents, though, and a friend back home. That's all I had to take care of. I just moved here, myself."

She places the VS bag back onto the floor, a faint smile capturing a mental image for a second, and then Betsy comes back to reality. Blink blink. "Fake it until you make it," is her answer to that. "Where are you from, originally, if you don't mind my asking?"

"St. Louis, Missouri," Cal answers, offering a hand in greeting. "Caroline Jones. And you're from England, I would assume?"

Hands bond for a moment, shake, and then Betsy's returns to her lap. "Elisabeth Braddock. The hair always gives it away," Betsy jokes, flipping strand of violet behind a pierced ear. "New York is quite the melting pot. How do you like it?"

"The hospitals are understaffed and overworked, the people are tense and prone to hysteria -- probably because they neither get enough sleep nor exercise -- the politics are incomprehensible and the buildings are falling down around us, but the scientific institutions are cutting-edge," Cal says, with a slight smirk. "I think I like it very much."

"It can be a little overbearing at first, but getting used to it all is something easily accomplished." The sound of excitement can be heard far in the distance, echoing throughout the mall like a bullhorn in an auditorium. Betsy parts from Cal to look toward the source. "That, you'll get used to. I promise."

"A person can get used to anything, given time," Cal notes, eyes turning to scan in the direction of the excitement. She does not get up from her prime seat on the bench, though. "What's going on over there?"

"I don't know," Betsy answers, eyes peering and neck stretching, not wanting to get up either. That brand of excitement gets louder, now followed by swift movements in that direction. "But it seems to be causing quite the ruckus."

Telepathy quests outward from Cal, searching for the source of it or a clue in people's minds. Yet even this minor search, when she's already tired, makes her wince and pale. "Maybe I'd better just get up and see," she decides, picking up her bags as she rises, with a quiet sigh, to her feet.

There is no telepathy in Betsy's arsenal of abilities, so neck-stretching is all she can do for now. But there are clues as to the urgency of the situation far beyond what the eyes can see. One man runs passed Cal just as she stands. Another, a woman, trips and falls in an attempt to get away from something. "What in the world is happening?" Betsy asks, not truly directing it at the other woman but in curious wonderment. She cant help but stand to her feet now.

"I'm not sure," says Cal, and begins to walk towards the source of the commotion, eating up the ground in long-legged strides. "People are frightened, though. Might be best to stay back." But /she/, she is a doctor. She lives on fear and adrenaline. In fact, a grin chases over her face and her postures straightens some as she continues on in the direction of trouble.

Bodies continued to run past the two curious women, violets capturing fear and worry and a yearning for escape by any means necessary. What Betsy captures in Cal is quite the opposite, her words contrasting her actions quite a bit. "Yeah--" A tendril of telekinetics thrust forward as a man nearly rams into her. Instead, he eases to the side by the invisible force. More scared than confused, he continues his pursuit for the mall's exit. "it looks that way. But now I'm even more tempted to see."

A gunshot can be heard in the far distance. Screaming and running ensues.

At the sound of the gunshot, Cal pauses and then starts /running/. No, wrong way, Cal. Don't run towards the gunshot. Run away from the gunshot. "I'm a doctor, let me through!" she urges people as the panicking masses block her way.

The gunshot causes Betsy to wince, lower and then fall back into her seat. "Oh my goodness!" is her initial vocal response, eyes going wide at the unraveled spectacle. Seeing Cal run towards the gunshot and announce her occupation, Betsy marvels at the woman's confidence. Also seeing the masses of people flooding in their direction, there is little hope for the woman to get through in time. "Bloody hell," Betsy curses to herself, standing back up and following the doctor. Again, invisible force pushes through and creates a divide a couple of feet before Cal, so that she can inch through the crowding civilians. A miracle!

Cal does not ask questions, though her low-level scan of telepathy picks up the surprise and dismay from people pushed unexpectedly aside by the invisible force. She just takes advantage of it and hurries through, scanning over the heads of the crowd as she does so, in search of people with guns or gunshot wounds. "Morons," she mutters to herself. "Standing around and goggling and panicking like /sheep/."

"Welcome to New York!" Betsy says, shouting over the screams and panicking of the sheep. She trails closely behind the doctor, maintaining her concentration on the small field giving them better access toward the sound of the gunshot. When they reach that center, the area that seems the most secluded, there is no sight of anyone with a gun. But a figure can be seen laying on the ground.

"Mommy!" comes a scream from a little girl, running toward the laying figure which seems to be covered in liquid. Crimson liquid.

Cal can't help but laugh at the welcome to New York, but it's quickly replaced with a hiss and a low curse. "Shit! Somebody take care of the kid, get it out of the way," she says, running forward and skidding down onto her knees on the ground beside the body. Automatically, telepathy slips in to monitor vital signs and dampen down pain. "Shit shit shit," she says, dropping her bags and hunting in her purse. The good doctor always carries some anti-bacterial gel, which she rubs on her hands while her eyes assess the situation.

Betsy does as she is told, not knowing what to do in instances as these. Her telekinetic hold drops and she hesitates for a second to rush next to the still tearing child. The blood still pouring from the woman's wounds cause Betsy to feel illness, a sadness trembling through her. The child - her focus - is taken into her arms, crying, and screaming, and trembling along with the violet haired one. "Shh. It's going to be okay, little one." A look goes to Cal wondering if everything would, actually, be okay.

The body jumps and the woman sighs regret for coming to the mall. Pain, agony, blood - it all heightens. "Ahhh!" she screams, a feeling once felt through movies and television shows now emplored upon her. She can feel death - and pain. Her eyes meet Cal's.

"You, call 911," Cal instructs, hazel eyes flicking up towards a gawking person standing by, just in case it hasn't been called yet. "And everybody else, give me some space." Her telepathic presence inside the woman flinches at the sudden awareness of agony and pain, and Cal's body jumps at the scream. << It's okay, >> a soothing thought enters the woman's mind, firmly pressing down on pain and awareness to calm them. Her hands find the wound, though arterial gushes leak through her fingers, Dr. Jones presses down firmly on it, maintaining the pressure to halt the flow.

The wounded woman's pain dims, but her worries continue somewhat. A tilt of her head gives better vision of her daughter in the arms of a stranger - purple hair, eyes, but still a stranger. <<I'm going to die. My baby is going to be alone. Please, Lord, don't take me.>>

The voice that replies in her head is severe, clinical. << You are going to the hospital. You will have surgery. This is messy, but /fixable/. >> It does not brook dissent, but nevertheless, Cal's expression is worried. "The damn ambulance better get here /soon/," she mutters, looking down at the red spilling over hands and down onto the floor, seeping into the knees of her slacks.

And as per request, red lights and sirens blare through the clearing behind them. Betsy looks at the arrival of the ambulance and police offers scrambling to maintain traffic control. "See," she says to the child, "everything is going to be alright." A stretcher pushes its way through the crowd and next to the fallen and the doctor.

"Thanks for your help," Cal calls over her shoulder to Betsy as the EMTs arrive. << All of your help, >> the thought follows into Betsy's mind in the doctor's cool, brisk way. "I'm Cal Jones, I'm a surgeon," she says, not letting up the pressure on the bleeding gap. "Gunshot wound to the abdomen; she'll need to go right into surgery. It looks like -- " And then it devolves into medical jargon as the victim's loaded onto a stretcher, Cal's capable hands never leaving the patient.

Betsy continues to hold and calm the child in her arms. She watches, simultaneously, as the woman she trailed calms the wounded woman and attempts to treat her wounds with such guile. Guile Betsy never thought she would ever gain. The voice gets an eyebrow raise. "No problem," Betsy replies.

</lj-cut>

<small>How do we welcome people to New York? With GUNFIRE. (Number six for me!)</small>

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 04:00:42 GMT

=NYC= The White Room - Greenwich Village - Manhattan

A small, comfortable little place, this: a minuscule cafe of little fame and ridiculously good coffee. The main room is small and rather inordinately comfortable, prevented from being claustrophobic by a theme of whites in the decor and the fact that the regulars - a sundry bunch of academics, artists, lawyers, workpersons, and every other group New York has to offer - are generally quietly occupied with coffee and good, solid plates of food. There is no theme, no specialized and exotic varieties of coffee or tea; the atmosphere is thick with comfort, not desperate sophistication.

New York is apparently celebrating its renewed freedom of movement by having coffee. All of New York. At the same time. At the White Room. It's nearly standing-room-only, all elbows and shopping bags and frustrated scowls, save for the lucky few who's snabbed a seat. Lisabeth is one such, although she's clearly sharing a table with someone she does not know, as they both sit with newspapers folded in front of them. Her companion, however, must have somewhere to be, as he glances down at his watch, sighs in annoyance, and scoops his things up to wander away - leaving the opposite chair free. QUICK. MUSICAL CHAIRS.

Cal is quick to take the seat as it comes free, smiling demurely at a young man with a pierced ear who didn't manage to get there in time. She reaches for the sugar in the center of the table to add to her coffee (no whipped cream or sprinkles, this time) and nods briefly at Lisabeth. "Busy here," she comments.

Lisabeth glances up, smoothing one hand over her newspaper as she fixes a brief smile on Cal. "Isn't it?" she agrees pleasantly, her accent light and warmed with a sip of tea. "I've no idea what the attraction is. Surely the coffee can't be /that/ good."

"I've never tried it, so I couldn't tell you," Cal says, lifting her shoulders in a shrug. Hazel eyes flick to the newspaper, curiously, and then back to her coffee as she finishes sugaring it and lifts it to her lips for an experimental taste. She hums appreciatively, and settles back in her chair. "Well. I still don't know if it's worth /this/ line. But a slightly shorter one, certainly."

"Mmm? Well. That's good to know, I suppose," Lisabeth agrees easily. "The line was rather shorter when I came." A crinkle of paper, and she flips it a bit, flopping it open to a page full of opinions and varyingly truthful facts about the recent transit strike.

"Anything interesting in the news?" asks Cal, eyes dropping again to the newspaper page as she takes another sip from her cup.

Lisabeth lifts her brows slightly in time to a curved smile and slides the paper toward Cal, so that the headlines are clear for her reading pleasure.

"Thank you," Cal murmurs politely, scanning the headlines and the first few lines of a few of the stories with a thoughtful glance. "That's been inconvenient, hasn't it?" she asks, vis-a-vis the transit strike, and then pushes the paper back, clearly uninterested in reading deeper into the commentaries. "I've just moved here and suddenly I'm reconsidering."

"Rather," Lisabeth answers with a murmur, tugging the paper back toward her. "It's an understandable mess though, don't you think?"

"Mmm," Cal says, non-committally. "The subway's still far safer than driving, no matter who they let onto it." Spoken like a trauma surgeon.

Lisabeth lifts her brows slightly and tips her head to conside Cal. "Do you think?" she says, non-commitally.

"Well, there's been one subway incident in all this time," Cal says, gesturing with her cup. "New York's been a mutant hub for ages, hasn't it? And in this incident there were a few fatalities and a handful of injuries, from what I've heard. And of course, some expense, with the damage to the car and platform. And I couldn't pull out the statistics for New York offhand, but I was visiting an Emergency Department at a nearby hospital just two days ago and saw three fatalities there. The main difference is that people are mentally prepared for the possibility of a car accident and not a mutant blowing up a portion of the subway."

"There's only been one large-scale fatality," Lisabeth murmurs in idle correction before curiousity colors her gaze. "You see no difference between the two?"

"Accidental death is accidental death," Cal says with a casual shrug. "The end result is much the same to me."

"I see," comes the reply, along with a smile (non-commital!) as Lisabeth tugs her paper back toward her and lowers her gaze.

Cal does not pursue the point. She settles back in her chair and drinks more of her coffee, engaging in idle people-watching as she does so.

Lisabeth does likewise. Non-commitally.

Coffee. Everybody is very non-committal.

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 05:27:06 GMT

It is still early enough that, despite being Saturday night, the back of the cab does not yet smell of either stale liquor or vomit. The odd mix of take-out and road salt is marginally better. Into this slightly dank warmth, Elliott half ducks, half tumbles to escape the crowd surging along the sidewalk, hauling along a scant few bags bulging with holiday shopping. "Thanks," she chirps toward the driver, just a little breathless, and pauses to rearrange her small collection of /stuff/ to sit at her feet before leaning over to tug the door closed. Get something caught once or twice, and you learn.

Spotting the cab pulling up from across the street, Caroline Jones zig-zags dangerously through traffic to run up to it and tug open the driver's side passenger door just as Elliott is getting settled in. "Oh, damn," she says, heartfelt, and leans an elbow against the open door as she catches her breath. "Where are you headed?"

Elliott looks sympathetic. Bad as it usually is getting a cab in New York, the holiday season combined with the uncertainty of public transit has only made it worse. "The East Village," she replies. "If you're going in that general direction..." She trails off with a small shrug, leaving the offer hanging.

"I'm up that way," Cal confirms with a brisk nod, and unhesitatingly slings herself into the cab, grabbing the door and shutting it behind her. "Thank you." She brings only one bag with her, a professional leather laptop case/briefcase, which she carefully sets down by her feet.

"Wouldn't want to strand anyone in this," Elliott replies. She flashes a friendly smile, then leans down to shuffle her bags to make more room. It's only polite. "A person could get trampled out there. --Autumn Lights Apartments," she tells the driver, leaving a pause for the other woman to give her own destination.

"And I'm sure somebody did," Cal says, sliding her fingers through her hair to push it back off her face. "Or will this week." She smiles politely and then leans forward to give the driver the name of a hotel up on the East Side.

"Worse every year," Elliott agrees, grimacing just a little. Tramplings and riots and toy-muggings, oh my! Her head cants slightly at the mention of the hotel, and she glances towards the leather case. "Here on business?"

"You could say that," Cal says after a moment, tilting her head slightly to the side. "I want to move here, but I'm still looking at hospitals and trying to find one that suits me. It's a little more difficult than expected."

Elliott winces slightly. "My sympathies. Are you a doctor, then?" Hers is a friendly sort of curiousity, unselfconscious in its manifestation. They're stuck in the car until it manages to trudge its way through the evening traffic and reach their destinations, after all.

"Yes, I'm a trauma surgeon," Cal says, her words crisp and neutral but the slightest self-congratulatory glint in her eye. With that reminder, she reaches for her seatbelt and buckles herself in. "And what do you do?"

"Must be tough." Elliott shrugs, smiling a little ruefully. Not something she could do! "I work with computers. Security, mostly, and general sysadmin work. --My name's Elliott, by the way."

"Cal," the doctor replies, extending a hand across the cab to Elliot. "And it can be challenging. I enjoy it, though. I'd enjoy it more if I could find a hospital suited to my particular talents, so hopefully that's what I'll be able to find. YOu'd think there'd be at least one in all New York City that would work."

Elliott twists in her seat to reach over and shake the offered hand. Her palm is dry, and warm despite the absence of gloves. "You'd think," she agrees. "It's not as though there isn't a need." She glances briefly out the window, at the crawling cars and the tide of pedestrian traffic beyond. "For what it's worth, I wish you luck."

"Thank you," Cal says, tipping her head in a nod. Her gaze wanders out her window in turn, and then back to the front. "I don't suppose -- I'm interested particularly in mutant medicine. New York City has the reputation of being the hub of that sort of thing, but... I know Lennox Hill has a program, but are you aware of any others?"

Elliott cants her head, studying Cal for a moment, friendly curiousity sharpening into something a little more concrete. "Are you? Lennox Hill's the most established, but I know there are a few fledgeling programs out there...and this /is/ the city for it." She glances towards the cabby. Edgy? No? Good.

"My last hospital was... less than interested in the field, which is why I've moved on," Cal explains, voice and face carefully neutral. She glances out at the traffic alongside the car. "I'd be particularly interested in a hospital that explores mutant participation in treatment and not only the ones that are willing to treat mutants. But from what I've seen, that's a bridge too far for even the hospitals around here. Liability issues, you see."

"I suppose that does go beyond even conventional experimental treatment," Elliott replies. Then pauses, frowning to herself, her gaze casting ever so slightly upward. After a moment, she shakes her head and continues. "There isn't that much data on how most mutations work, and even then, what's true of one might not be true of the next." She wiggles her toes, the tip of one boot crinkling against a stray loop of plastic. "Maybe someday."

"Maybe," Cal says, absently. She pauses, perhaps on the verge of saying something more, and then leans back against her eat. "Get all your shopping done?" she wonders, glancing at the bags.

"Most of it." Elliott nudges the bags with one toe and grimaces slightly, though she at least refrains from sticking her tongue out at them. "Of course, there will always be /something/ I'll forget up until the last possible instant. Even if I make a list, there always is."

"Of course," Cal says with a wry smile and an absent nod. She leans forward, suddenly, looking ahead to see her hotel approaching. "Thanks for sharing the ride," she says, pulling up her laptop bag to withdraw her wallet from its pocket, and then bills from her wallet.

Elliott nods slightly in acknowledgement. "Again, good luck," she says, offering another quick smile. "I hope you find what you're looking for."

"Thanks," Cal says, distracted as she hands over the money to the cabbie for the fare thus far. She hooks her laptop bag over her shoulder and then leans the door open. "And you have a good holiday," she says, and then swings her legs out of the cab and strides off to her hotel.

Cab sharing.

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 05:07:45 GMT

=NYC= Lobby - Shaw Research Center - Emerson University

Doubled sets of doors open into an atrium filled with light. The delicate webbing of brushed chrome that supports the glass seems a fragile support, yet it holds. The interior is sleekly modern, with metal, glass, dark woods and stone. Plants are lush, bordering so-carefully on untamed.

The seating is comfortable, scattered into various conversational arrangements around low chairs, with higher cafe tables and stools near a Starbucks pressed flush against one wall. The reception desk is typically manned by undergraduates, and security is tight, but discrete.

With the school year winding to a close, the students that staff the SRC are either stressed or giddy, depending on their level of finals-completion, although either state results in a similar outcome: Not a lot of work is getting done. The student that mans the desk is hunched over a thick biochem textbook, frantically studying and ignoring Cal, who leans an impatient elbow on the table. She clears her throat, but the sound is drowned out as a contingent of engineering/robots/comp-sci students arrive to spread noisy Christmas cheer. The cheer comes in the unlikely form of life-sized animatronic penguins with red scarves looped around their chubby necks, remote controlled by one student who seems a bit tipsy already, laughing hysterically with his fellows as he makes the penguin wave hello at Cal.

She does not seem amused.

Into this scene of seasonal cheer steps Bahir, still shrugging into his recently retrieved coat. With one arm through and his right pulled up next to his body, he pauses. He stares. Green scarf swinging and threatening to slide off, he completes the motion and pulls his coat on, although he leaves it loose over cardigan and shirt. "What the fuck," he mutters under his breath, hands going to his pockets as he slides in the direction of Starbucks.

Cal looks from the penguins, to the studying girl at the desk, to the remote-controllers of the penguins, and then back to the girl at the desk. And then at Starbucks. Rather than endure another moment of frat-boy behavior, she straightens up from the desk and walks quickly over to Starbucks, heels clacking against the tile floor. Her mind is open and unshielded, brushing past others but hardly paying attention to them.

Bahir's mind is a tightly curled ball of close-coiled telepathy: it is a little like a hedgehog, all curled up, with little warning spines poking out. The feel of it is markedly different from the usual. Having beat Cal to the counter, he demands service with a sharp, "Hey," that pulls attention in his direction. "Coffee. Just coffee. No milk, no whipped cream, no /sprinkles/." He glances over his shoulder, distracted curiosity pulling his gaze across Cal.

Oooh, hey, a hedgehog -- even more interesting than penguins. Cal's gaze slants over to Bahir, and a careful mental finger pokes at the hedgehog's poky spines. When a server catches her gaze, she leans over and demands, "Coffee. With milk, whipped cream, and /sprinkles/." And then she ruins the parallelism by adding, "And caramel."

Spines ripple, bristling further at the touch. Their edges sharpen. Bahir stares at Cal in disbelief. "/Sprinkles/?"

"Sprinkles," Cal answers, flatly, as she pays. She stops poking at the hedgehog, having no desire for bloody fingers.

Bahir's lip curls. "Aren't you a little /old/ for sprinkles?" he asks with perfectly friendly hostility as he leans forward to watch the progress of his coffee.

"I didn't realize there was an age limit," Cal replies, arching an eyebrow.

Bahir waggles a hand. "It seems one should outgrow sprinkles when one outgrows balloons."

"So now you want me to get rid of my balloons now, too?" Cal asks, archly, straightening her cuff as she leans against the counter.

Bahir snorts, leaning forward as the barista hands over his drink. "I might be persuaded otherwise by a balloon animal," he mutters, prying off the lid of his drink somewhat suspiciously.

With sudden and incrediable speed and energy, Natalie appears behind Bahir, bouncing up on her tiptoes to peer over his shoulder just as he pries the lid off his drink. "Hey!" she greets, sneaking a quick and teasing kiss to his cheek. Hi! Her eyes drop to his drink, and she moves around to ask him sadly, "Oh, man, did they gip you on the sprinkles?"

"Would a balloon snake count?" Cal wonders, and leans over, obnoxiously in Bahir's personal space (which has now been crowded by Natalie, too!) to peer at the drink. "It looks like just coffee," she declares, and leans back, hazel eyes flickering between the two of them.

Bahir twitches a slight startle at Natalie's 'Hey!' but escapes scald. He gives her a grin. When Cal's interest is likewise drawn drinkwards, he pulls the lid off entirely, and turns a look over his shoulder at Natalie. "Please tell me you don't /like/ sprinkles on your coffee," he pleads, pointing an accusatory thumb at Cal. "She does. Balloon snakes don't count, either."

"What? Dude, sprinkles are awesome. They do these little like crunchy sugary ones that--" Natalie breaks off and turns to stare at Cal, blinking. "Um. Oh," says she. "Hi?"

"I don't really like sprinkles /in/ my coffee," Cal clarifies, turning slightly to watch the creation of her drink. "I like them on my whipped cream, which goes on top of my coffee." Her eyes dart back to Natalie, and she nods. "Hi."

Bahir's nose wrinkles up as Natalie sings the praises of sprinkles. Succinctly, he says, "Ew," and turns away just slightly to rifle through the offered sugars and fake-sugars. "I don't like whipped cream on my coffee, either. Whipped cream is for /desert/."

"You're so weird," Natalie determines cheerfully, and then she nudges her elbow into Bahir's side, pointedly. "Aren't you going to introduce me?"

"This is dessert coffee," Cal says, as she takes the completed drink, with the whipped cream, sprinkles, caramel, and everything. "And yes, aren't you?" Her eyesbrows lift challengingly as the mental fingertips poke once more at the hedgehog, just for good measure. Hi.

"Nope," Bahir says promptly. He hesitates in choice between sugar and raw sugar, and kicks Natalie's foot belatedly. This apparently helps him pick, and it is regular ol' sugar he picks up, tree packets worth. He looks back at Cal's foul concoction with a visible and audible, "Ugh." Hedgehogs spike a trifle more sharply, and he narrows his eyes with a quick glance around the lobby.

Natalie rolls her eyes and turns to Cal instead. HI CAL. Cal gets a brief smile as Natalie skims a hand back over her ponytail, tucking away stray strands, and then extends it toward the other woman. "Natalie," she offers. "Hi."

"Dr. Jones," Cal says, gripping Natalie's hand briefly and then taking a half-step away to hunt for a plastic spoon. Spoon found, she dips it into the whipped cream and sprinkles that top her concoction, and takes a generous spoonful of it. "Nice to meet you."

Bahir watches Cal spoon up the whipped cream in a sort of silent horror. Mechanically, he taps down the sugar in his three packets and rips off the tops. Pouring the sugar in, he stirs, all without taking his eyes off the spoonful.

Natalie's brows shoot up, and she glances at Bahir, only /barely/ refraining from mouthing at him, mocking, '/Doctor Jones/'. Barely. Gosh, it's tempting. It's a bit of a belated afterthought that has her adding, "Oh, er. Yeah, you too" before wondering, "Why the hell are there robotic penguins?"

The spoonful of whipped cream and sprinkles is devoid of any coffee whatsoever. That's all farther down in the cup. But that does not stop the mound of sugar and whipped dairy product from being set right into Cal's mouth, or her from scooping up another, similar spoonful, though just slightly tainted with coffee. "It appears to be somebody's final project," she opines.

Bahir shudders. "Oh, God, that's gross. Who did you say you were again?" he asks Cal, sipping at his own blissedly untarnished coffee with care.

"Doctor Jones!" Natalie supplies again, before she can help herself. It's so not her fault if she sounds a little mocking.

Cal looks flatly at Natalie, and then back at Bahir. "And you never said who you were," she prompts, as she scrapes up another spoonful of sugar.

"Thank you, Dr. Simon," Bahir says as his gaze slants toward Natalie. His lips curl in a slight, baffled smile. Something funny? Lid popped back on, he inclines his head. "Dr. al-Razi," he introduces, just so he isn't left out.

"I'm getting coffee," Natalie announces primly, and moves away from the pair of them to sidle toward the bar and its blissfully non-existant line.

Pausing with the spoon in her mouth, Dr. Jones considers the other two doctors with new appreciation. "I recommend the sprinkles," she tells Natalie, before swiveling back to Bahir. "Dr. Grey suggested I look into your work," she tells him. (There are an awful lot of doctors crawling around, aren't there?)

Bahir rolls his eyes. /Sprinkles/. "Get sprinkles and I'm never talking to you again!" His interest levels on Cal again, sharper. "What is your area of study?" he asks, as though the only Doctors come with a PhD.

"Idle threat!" Natalie choruses back over her shoulder, and promptly orders something frothy and whipped creamy and sprinkly, with one ear cocked toward the conversation.

"Trauma surgery," Cal answers, blithely. "Although not especially recently. I'm looking into the biomedical research program here, though it's been suggested that the biotech program might be better. And your area of study?" A glance back to Natalie sweeps her into the question, as well.

Bahir watches Natalie as she makes her order, trying to catch her eye so that he can properly express his /disgust/. His expression is a trifle blank as Cal answers, clearing as she speaks. "Ah. Biochemistry, generally. Which here? At the center, or the school?"

Natalie cares not for disgust! She calls back to the pair, "I do maths."

Cal looks generally nonplussed. "Oh." There is a pause to scoop up more whipped cream, though now what's left is thoroughly coffee-fied. "At the school," she says. "Although I have been told some interesting research goes on here. Has anything made it to publication yet for me to read?"

"Here?" Bahir tips his head back at the laboratories and offices locked away behind the walls. "Quite a bit, actually, including the work that Dr. Simon over there did, and my own. The research down here covers quite a range of disciplines: physics, biochemistry, medicine, just for a start. The common thread is the mutant factor."

Natalie waits for coffee. With sprinkles!

Cal sucks off her spoon of the last of the whipped cream and then discards it, only the milky liquid left in her cup. "Right," she says, nodding. "It's an interesting area of study -- and a shame more institutions aren't open to it. I suggested a mutant study at Barnes-Jewish, while I was there. It didn't go over well with the board."

"Well, a lot of places aren't equipped to deal with mutants, one way or the other, or the attention they can bring," says Bahir in slow, distracted fashion as he leans over to see if Natalie is /really/ getting sprinkles. "We get threats from both sides of the political spectrum here, you know. Some accuse us of making mutants run in rat wheels and others of trying to turn everyone into mutants." He sips his coffee. "Still, there's always something interesting going on."

"Such as penguins in the lobby," Cal conjectures, and takes a sip of her coffee.

"I ... think those are from the school," Bahir says with a glance in their direction.

"Unless they're mutant penguins," Cal says, tipping her head to look at them. "Which, admittedly, they don't seem to be."

"Tough to tell, though," Natalie puts in chipperly as she appears with a cup postively /teeming/ with whipped cream and little crunchy sprinkles.

"I doubt it." Bahir looks at Natalie's cup with quiet disdain.

Cal looks approvingly at Natalie's cup, and takes a sip from her own. "I'll have to come take a look around sometime when work is actually getting done," she comments, absently. "And when there aren't penguins."

"I /like/ them!" Natalie enthuses, sipping at whipped cream as brown eyes settle bright on the mechanical penguins. "Very festive."

"Uhm. You might want to call ahead," Bahir says after a moment. "Make an appointment." Get your background checked. "One of the guys on the physics side is doing some wild-looking stuff." To Natalie, an undertone: "That looks /disgusting/."

"This isn't where the /really/ interest physics work is going down in New York, though," Natalie points out, scooping up a finger's worth of whipped cream and /grinning/ at Bahir as she pops it into her mouth. Mmmm.

Aside from the whole registered mutant thing, Cal will sail, squeaky clean, through a background check. "I'll do that," she says with an absent nod to Bahir, and then lifts an eyebrow at Natalie. "So where is the really interesting physics work going down? Not that I'm even a physicist." Two letters can make quite a difference.

"Auu-ergh-ych," groans Bahir in elaborate fashion. "I don't know. /I/ think that we are /much/ better than they are." He lifts his eyebrows at Cal over the rim of his cup as he takes another sip. "Oh, at that park, where there was that rift. They have a whole research park there, but since I'm more interested in the mutant-side of things, I think she's wrong. Not that alternate realities aren't pretty wild."

"Tompkins Square," Natalie puts in helpfully. "And it's more interesting on the /physics/ side, thanks. You're just more interested in the bio-chem side." From her tone, Natalie is not.

"That's interesting," Cal admits vaguely, but ultimately comes down on Bahir's side. "I'm sure the physicists are going wild over it. But there's quite enough going on in this reality, isn't there? The rest of us should have plenty to study. And the mutant science is very interesting."

"There are mutants who seem to cross into realities of their own, just like that rift. We could do the same research here, just with more variety," Bahir says obnoxiously. "Tompkins Square has a lot of funding, though," he adds wistfully. "Lots of those letter-soup places have a finger there."

"When rifts start to open, 'this reality' gets a bit complicated, don't you think?" Natalie says archly, brows lifting a tad pointedly. "I, for one, would rather know how it works sooner rather than later. If at all possible."

"Alphabet soup," Cal corrects Bahir, pedantically, and then tips her glance to Natalie. "And I'm sure the physicists will have a fine time figuring that out for us," she says, lifting her shoulders in a small shrug.

"Whatever." Bahir waves off the correction with an irritable prickle, like one who takes correction /so well/. He is silent a moment, eying Natalie curiously over his coffee as he takes another few sips of it. His eyebrows arch at her in silent inquiry.

Inquiry is ignored, for the moment, with a twitch of Natalie's lips before she sips at her coffee in silence.

Cal sips at her coffee in turn, and then breaks the moment of silence. "So are you two together?" she inquires, hazel eyes switching between them.

Bahir inhales coffee up his nose, spluttering into a snort of laughter. "No," he says, almost rude, really. "She turned me down," he adds.

Natalie has a nearly identical reaction, sputtering to a coughing mess before she shoots a Look at Bahir and jabs an elbow at his side. "As if he'd be brave enough to /try/," she retorts.

Cal raises eyebrows and twitches a small smile at the simultaneous coffee-inhalation. "I see," she demurs, and sends another sip of coffee down her esophogus; not her windpipe. No coughing here.

Bahir wriggles his eyebrows at Natalie in exaggerated fashion. "You wanna?" he asks, tipping his head as though there is a king-sized bed just over his shoulder.

"Without laughing?" Natalie returns, deadpan.

"You really should just get it out of your systems," Cal recommends.

"The Doctor says we should just get it out of our systems," Bahir echoes.

"Well, in that case, c'mere, lover," Natalie responds, and turns to pull Bahir toward her, coffee held carefully to one side as she curls her fingers into his shirt and tugs. Not laughing. /Really/.

"Though sex isn't really my area of expertise," Cal asides into her cup of coffee as she tips it up for another sip. "I'd be most useful to you in the case of a gruesome car accident."

"You'll embarrass her," Bahir protests with a sidelong glance at Cal, looking a little flustered himself as he gives Natalie a weak smile. Coffee in one hand, he rests cup-warmed fingers on the wrist of her grasping hand. "I think she just suggested it would be like a gruesome car accident. Kind of harsh."

Natalie rolls her eyes slightly and halts her tug as Bahir's fingers find her wrist, although she doesn't release his poor shirt. "Well," she says practically. "Maybe we should rethink our irresistable need to hop into bed together simply because we are the opposite sex and happen to get along, then."

Cal does not /seem/ embarrassed, generally unconcerned about tugging or untugging or irresistable needs. "I'm not easily embarrassed," she tells Bahir, and then eyes her coffee cup, empty already, with a little more concern.

"Well. If you can control yourself," Bahir says to Natalie, detangling the grasp of her hand to squeeze her fingers. His cup, not yet empty, gets another sip to ease it on its way.

Natalie smiles at Bahir, the expression genuinely warm for a moment as she returns the hand squeeze before pulling back to sip at her own coffee. "Gosh," she tells Dr. Jones. "That was exciting."

"Was it?" asks Dr. Jones, absently, wandering a few steps away to discard her coffee cup into the trash.

"Most excitement she gets in weeks," Bahir seconds happily.

"And on that note, I'm going back to the lab," Natalie shares with the pair of them, wiggling her fingers in farewell.

"And I'm going to look at another hospital," Cal decides, tilting her chin upwards in farewell and turning towards the doors.

"I'll just stand here then," Bahir says, failing to complete the trio as the two women make to break away. He wiggles his fingers at Natalie, and just watches as Cal leaves, gaze vaguely suspicious as he levels it after her back.

Sprinkles. Also, penguins, so last RP challenge done. I am the champion of the world.

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 03:57:23 GMT

The cafe across from Lennox Hill is not precisely nameless, but it is one of those unfortunates of the restaurant industry that has changed owners so many times that no particular name has a chance to stick in the minds of its patrons. Happily for a cafe's continued existence in the spot it occupies, there is no shortage of patrons, mingled between the affluent fashions of the business elite, and the muted rainbow of scrubs that makes of the medical counterpart to it. There are occasional flashes of doctors in consultation formality, but this is, for the most part, where the people pulling 40 hour shifts to save lives take the time to refuel. A tall redhead is among the scrubs contingent, sporting a wool coat over hers and currently waiting at a table with a glass of mocha coffee for company, and an expectant look being cast at the panini grill press every couple of minutes. Dr. Grey is -hungry-.

Though she arrives with a contingent of scrubbed-up doctors, Dr. Caorline Jones is not in scrubs herself, but rather businesslike slacks, blouse and blazer underneath her coat. She parts company with them at the door -- the scrubbed ones all grab a table together but she smiles and shakes her head at them before moving to lean at the counter and look over a menu. Her mind is open, unshielded, brushing past those around her, but with complete disinterest, paying no more attention to any of them than to the restaurant decor (which is to say, very little.) Hazel eyes flick up from the menu to take inventory of the patrons around her and scan for empty seats, and then pause on Dr. Grey, thoughtfully.

Jean has an empty seat across from her. It is lacking in arranged coats, dropped books, bags, laptops, or other silent indicators of reserved status. The thoughtful glance from Dr. Jones intersects with one of Dr. Grey's own glances over towards the panini as they grill, and wins a brief flash of a smile, absent but friendly, before her attention moves on.

In that brief flash of meeting Jean's gaze, Cal comes to a decision. Abandoning the menu and any pretense of ordering, she walks swiftly over, heels clacking against the tile floor, and takes the seat across from Jean. "You're Dr. Grey," she says, by way of hello.

Closer to Jean, there is a sense of ordered calm on the psychic plane that isn't terribly surprising when one gives it some thought. Her mind is not absent -- there is still a little bit of surface skim, of a sharp hunger driven by the ravening furnace of her mutation, of a little twinge of pain here and there, stiffness of too long standing coupled with the more esoteric feel of a brain beginning to complain about too long left shielding -- but its output is more restrained. She makes a moment's show of patting around for a nametag on herself, looks up, flashes a grin instead of another smile, and admits that "So I am. A hungry Dr. Grey at the moment... you'd think the transit strike was bringing the kitchen staff along with it."

"Long day," Cal comments, in absent agreement, eyes a little unfocused as psychic attention lingers on that slightly different feel of Jean's calm mind. She then glances back towards the grill, herself, and rises to her feet suddenly again. "I'm going to go order, but I want to come back and pick your brain about something," she says, directly.

"Nice of you to be up front about it," Jean murmurs, with a twinkle in green eyes. "I'll keep the seat for you." And lo, her coat is shrugged off fully, and dropped onto the other chair.

Cal nods at Jean, and then wanders away to the counter. Rather than wait for anything that has to be grilled or cooked, she gets herself a large pastry from the display case and a cup of coffee, and so is swift to return to Jean's table, setting out her food and grabbing sugar packets to dump in the coffee without ceremony. "I've read some of your articles," she comments, apropos. "Mutant medicine, right?"

"Among other things," Jean agrees, with one last flick of a glance towards the panini grill, and a renewed bubble of feed-me colouring her thoughts, before resolving herself to wait, and wait patiently. Mostly. "I could publish a lot more, but then you have to try and find the -time- to publish... I'm sure you know how it goes, Dr...?"

Cal divides the pastry in half with a knife and picks one half up off the plate. The plate she then pushes forward to Jean, without explanation, save for a little mental awareness poking at the hunger urge. "Jones," she answers. "And I'm impressed you find /any/ time to publish. You seem to have a lot going on."

"Is it that obvious?" Jean wonders, a hint of colour coming to her cheeks at the offered pastry. She's not too sheepish to turn it up, though, and offers a "Thanks -- I had a smoothie for breakfast, and one of the nurses called a Code Brown over a box of Godiva chocolates, but that panini will be amazing when it gets here." She nibbles pastry, sets it down, and then offers a hand across the table. "Pleased to meet you, Dr. Jones. And I think I keep going based on the premise that I need to, and not look back, because something might be gaining on me."

Cal has to grab a napkin to wipe pastry stickiness off her hand before taking Jean's offered one in a firm clasp. "Call me Cal," she says. "And you're not that obvious; I'm good at reading people." She takes a bite of her pastry, and then tests the coffee. Finding it not quite sweet enough, she grabs another sugar packet. "You work at the hospital here?" She tilts her head in its general direction.

"Call me Jean, then," Jean offers in turn, and takes a sip of her mocha, leaving it between her hands to warm them. "And that I do -- on call specialist in mutant medicine, officially, although since there really aren't enough mutants to justify what they pay me, they get some ER and clinic hours out of me too. New hire, or new hopeful?"

"Just checking things out, for now," Cal answers, leaning an elbow casually on the table while she picks at her pastry. "I just left private practice in Missouri and moved here. If I find a trauma center I like and it takes me, I'll go that route. Otherwise, I'm looking at Emerson's biomedical research program."

You set the "doing" message of Cal (#1070).

"Bit of a change from Missouri," Jean reflects, drumming her fingertips against the sides of her glass mug. "Lennox Hill's not bad, depending on what you're looking for in trauma. They've been moving pretty strongly into new research, between the CF program, keeping me on in spite of my mutant-mutant ways, and various other things, and the ER isn't as busy as some, thanks to the area, but it's New York," she concludes. "Weird stuff abounds."

"St. Louis," Cal says. There's hardly a trace of a southern accent in her clipped, urbanized speech patterns. "It's a bigger city than you might think. Has one of the best trauma centers in all the Midwest." She takes another sip of coffee, and asks, "So Lennox Hill has a progressive policy with mutants? With patients, do you ever...? " She taps a finger to her temple, and looks questioningly at Jean.

"Oh, I meant no insult to St. Louis," Jean assures, with a placating sweep of one hand, soon re-wrapped around the mocha mug. "But New York... I did my residency in Boston, and it's still like nothing else-- God, I -want- that." The panini has arrived, and while it's only in Jean's mind that there are celestial choirs accompanying its delivery, her conversation pauses for a time as she basks in the first glorious bites of toasted ham and provolone. Her mind picks up the slack, no longer simply subdued but instead richer and more complex in its opinions of taste and smell and texture. She settles back with a sigh, and picks up her mug again. "Occasionally. More out at the school in my own infirmary. Lennox... well, they're more progressive than some, but I'm pretty aware that my mutant status is largely tolerated by the board because, frankly, I'm their best option at this point in time. I'll probably be replaced by one of my residents in the next five years."

"Hm," Cal says, eyeing Jean's food with an echo of Jean's own enjoyment. "That's unfortunate." She pauses, and then adds, abruptly. "I'm registered. And it makes me an excellent doctor, if they'll let me use it. But if I can't find a hospital that's open to it -- " She shakes her head, sharply. "There is no point in settling into a program with no long-term prospects for me."

Fork and knife flash, and a segment of the panini is sectioned off, and offered to Cal with a lift of eyebrows in invitation, and a small smile that soon grows introspective. "You honestly may have better luck with private clinics," she offers. "There are mutations that would definitely be considered a bankable asset, but not a lot of large hospitals have board willing to take the liability risk. And with good reason -- I can and have used my own abilities to break up a thrombus, or to pull together bone splinters, but if I didn't know what I was doing..."

"I have tried a private clinic," Cal says, reaching and taking the offered bit of grilled sandwich with her fingers. "It's very dull." She pauses to put the panini in her mouth and chew it with an appreciative nod (though no celestial choirs.) "And I'm confident in what I can do. I used it all through med school, my residency, a couple years at Barnes-Jewish. It was only an issue when I told them about it." She shrugs, and then takes another drink of coffee.

"Often the way of things," Jean offers, with a wry twist of her lips, and a repair to her coffee. "If you get bored during the job search, I do fund a private clinic down in Hell's Kitchen that's a little less with the dull... but it's not to everyone's taste. I do get a certain amount of mutant clientele in, though," she reflects, lips twisting again. "Clinton's sort've the last refuge for a lot of the physically obvious mutants in this fair City. Poor bastards."

"Poor bastards," Cal agrees, though without much sympathy in her tone, just that same blunt directness. "Maybe I'll come help some time while I'm deciding what to do with myself."

"Just tell my receptionist Elsie that you're down because I told you about the place, and she'll get you oriented and weighed down before you'll know it," Jean predicts, before canting her head and cutting another bite off her panini. "But you mentioned something about biotech as an alternative?"

"Biomedical research," Cal answers, after the last bite of her pastry is dealt with. "So that if I couldn't do surgery, at least I could run studies and start publishing. I do hear there's some interesting movement on the biotech front, though."

"Oh, definitely. I'm actually collaborating with a former grad student of mine on something that could be a hot potato," Jean reveals, with a smile of the sort that academic tigers wear. "He's got his own lab now, through the SRC -- you've heard of it?"

Cal first smirks in response to Jean's smile and then slowly frowns at the mention of the SRC. "Heard of it," she says, shortly. "Mostly by reputation; I haven't looked at much of their research."

"It's still a relatively new center," Jean admits. "Not a lot of research has gotten into a publishable state, yet, although my former employee and a colleague of his published on using MRIs plus some fancy mathematics to analyze mutant brains for patterns."

Cal shrugs, though sharp hazel eyes betray a spark of interest. "I'll have to look that up," she says, and takes another sip of her coffee. "See what they're doing."

"Dr. Bahir al-Razi," Jean supplies, a name if not a card to put it on. "I've gone the corporate route, myself. More freedom, if still quite a small company, in the scheme of things."

"I've heard of your place," Cal says with a nod. "Gradient, right?" Lazy fingers of telepathy reach out to try to poke at Jean's shields, hunting to get the spelling of Bahir al-Razi out without actually having to ask for it.

"Home of the mutant research mouse," Jean confirms. Her shields are present and accounted for, glimmering like a pale blue soap bubble across the surface of her mind, with thoughts like spellings obscured beneath little rainbow slicks. "And several undergraduates doing research projects, on loan from their universities."

Poke poke poke. When poking proves to be more difficult than asking, Cal lets out a short, grumpy sigh of frustration, and asks, "Would you mind spelling Bahir al-Razi for me, so I can look up what he's doing? Trying to google how I think it should be spelled will no doubt be unhelpful."

"A-L dash R-A-Z-I," Jean rattles off obediently. "Small 'al'. And he's a bit of an ass sometimes, which doesn't translate well to papers, but the intelligence makes up for it... and are you a telepath, Cal?" This question is soon followed by the disappearance of more panini, giving the other woman time to dodge if she wants it.

Cal mouths the letters to herself, fixing the spelling in her mind with a bit of repetition. "I am," she then answers, directly. "Apparently." She takes another sip of coffee, and shakes the cup to swirl around the remaining liquid in the bottom.

"I thought I felt someone nudging at me," Jean muses, looking content at the solving of a minor mystery. "What were you hoping to find?"

"The spelling," Cal answers, casual as can be. "The conversation had moved on; it seemed like more work to interrupt and ask. And now I totally missed what you were saying about Gradient, for example."

"Oh, nothing important," Jean assures. "Just mentioning an infestaionof undergrads." Mmmm, panini. The penultimate piece of it is popped in her mouth.

"How unfortunate," Cal sympathizes. Perhaps an undergrad exterminator is in order? "Any of them any good, or all they all just underfoot?"

"Oh, I may complain, but they're all apallingly bright," Jean admits, lips curved and crooked as she sips at the lingering bits of hot chocolate and coffee. "I'm very interested in what a couple of them will come up with."

"And there's one more thing for me to go take a look at," Cal says with a thoughtful tilt of the chin. "They told me New York would be interesting." She pushes back from the table, aiming her empty coffee cup at an open trash can and sending it arcing over. It misses. She frowns at it, and then rises to her feet to go collect it and put it in correctly. "Pleasure to meet you, Dr. Grey."

"Likewise, Dr. Jones," Jean assures, with a toast of her less-disposable mug. "Look me up if you have any more questions, mm?"

"I'll be in touch," Cal says, glancing back over her shoulder before she pushes open the doorway and walks off into the winter's evening.

Introducing Cal! She is -- doctory and telepathery.