ArchivedLogs:The Future Belongs to the Brave

The Future Belongs to the Brave
Dramatis Personae Hive, Merit
In Absentia	2013-01-18 A drink, a dance, and a telepathic duel
Location <NYC> Provocateur - Meatpacking District
One does not simply walk into Provocateur. The almost preternaturally attractive women who guard its doors politely but firmly turn away anyone without a spot on the guest list, with very occasional exceptions. Many of the guests are rich, powerful, or well-connected, but some are allowed on the list--or, more rarely, in from the street--for remarkable beauty or charisma. Exclusivity may be this Meatpacking District nightclub's most famous gimmick, but it certainly has other things going for it. The sound system is one of the best around, and skillfully arranged lighting in a myriad of cool colors lends the interior an otherworldly look. Plush bench seating abounds in the lounge area, and a massive fiberglass sculpture of wings mantle over the dance floor. The long bar serves ludicrously priced drinks, each bottle lit from below with colored LEDs. The warm-up period at Provocateur is shorter than the scene average, and by half-past ten the club is mostly full, with a line of hopefuls forming outside. Still, the first set of the night attracts relatively few dancers, as many patrons are still working up the courage--or inebriation--necessary to get them out on the floor. Not to be put off, Straylight spins his edgy industrial best from the DJ's booth overlooking the dance floor. He sports a silver satin wushu suit with blue EL wire piping that pulses faintly in time to the music. A petite promoter in a skin-tight black dress brings him a drink that seems to glow faintly under UV lighting. Although he does not look that way, he knows that Boss Chen Ling-Yin has already arrived--fashionably late is not the fashion among the Triads--and claimed a horseshoe-shaped couch in the corner of the lounge area for himself and his entourage. Their business suits look incongruous against the other club-goers, and so they got the wide berth they so obviously desire. Straylight queues up his own mix of Quicksilver by the Cruxshadows and takes a delicate sip of his perfect Illuminati, gray eyes gleaming with borrowed light. It is nearly eleven by the time Hive shows up; outside there's a brief moment of loitering across the street before the man actually heads past the line and to the door. For once he is dressed entirely unlike a hobo! Perhaps he borrowed his clothing; neat dark jeans over black shoes, a soft green v-neck shirt with a grey vest unbuttoned over top. He talks to the women at the door like he /belongs/ there, and with his name on the list for once he does! Upon entering he does not head to the dance floor, but moves towards the bar, slipping up to order a vodka tonic with a twist of lime. He leans against the bar while he waits for this, glancing out over the dance floor. Over to the lounge area. In the DJ booth, Straylight gets a brief (and none-too-comfortable) mental nudge, quick and then gone again. Hi. At the moment, Hive is not giving much attention to Boss Chen, mostly just surveying the dance floor thoughtfully. Perhaps he is considering dancing. Finishing off his set with a classic, Straylight spins Covenant's Bullet. He descends from the booth, heavy New Rock boots striking the metal stairs in time to the track's driving beat. He pauses at the bottom to exchange greetings--and a peck on each cheek--with his relief, a heavily tattooed and scantily clad young man. It takes him some time to meander over to the bar, where he blows a kiss at the bartender and asks for another Illuminati. "Nice set," a tall woman beside him says, "not the average Provocateur fare, though." Merit smiles a sweet and wicked smile at her. "I wouldn't subject you to anything average," he replies. The woman laughs a wind chime laugh and wanders back to a conversation with her friend. Merit takes his drink and vacates his spot at the bar to lean against a pillar, whose purple lighting plays strange shadows across his illuminated outfit. << Good evening to you, too, >> he forms the words deliberately in his mind, not trusting his verbal thought process to get the message across. << Care to dance? >> Hive is sipping at his drink, distractedly watching the dancers on the floor as the DJs change position. There is a young woman at the bar beside him, who he turns to with a quiet murmur of something that leaves her smiling, but then he is turning away. He leaves his empty glass at the bar, answering not in words but by slipping past Merit's pillar and to the dance floor, his hand brushing absently by the other man's elbow in passing. Over by the door, a young man who had been waiting quite some time to get in rubs at his head, complaining abruptly to his companions of its sudden ache. And then suddenly is not aching anymore. The next quiet touch to Merit's mind is less crushing than before, still a /noticeable/ mental pressure but less so. << I love the Cruxshadows. And I always like to dance. >> Merit quirks a faint smile behind his drink. The piping on his jacket flickers momentarily as he siphons from the batteries--only a little. It would be a bad night to get too manic. With his free hand, he fires off a two-word text to C0G up in the booth, then follows Hive out onto the floor as the last bars of the latest Iglesias hit fade into one of deadmau5's newer efforts. The overlapping fields generated by the speakers coil around Merit, and he moves with sinuous ease across the staccato electronic beats. The new DJ's skill becomes evident as he negotiates a seamless transition from deadmau5 to a frenetic mix of Breedless by Ego Likeness. Donna Lynch's vocals declare, sultry and low, "My blood is not pure, my body untrue, and I'd rather be breedless than be like you..." Now Merit really comes alive, dancing close to Hive between the spinning patterned lights that slice their way across floor. His thoughts are intense like a fever dream, but sharp and clear, merging words with rapid-fire images culled and cobbled together from memory. << Boss Chen is here for an associate's birthday. The lieutenant you seemed so interested in yesterday is named Hua Yong. He owns the Jing Hua Yuan, a bookstore on Mott St, just south of Canal. >> The images disintegrate back into the electrical hum of the dance floor. There are a few other people, here and there, scattered around the club, who find themselves distracted for a moment with sudden headaches. Perhaps the loud music is getting to people. One by one they pass, though, the people returning to whatever they were doing before, albeit a little bit more vacantly than they had been. Hive is relaxing, a smile curling across his face as he moves, too, moving easily to the music and for a moment seeming to be far more absorbed by it than his company, though he dances close to Merit. It is a little while before he answers Merit, and this time his voice slips in almost gently, no more abrasive than his speaking voice might be. << Do you know, I think I even know the place. Nearby the tea store, yes? >> This is absent, distracted perhaps by the music. Or by his gaze roaming the dance floor from one gyrating body to the next. Or perhaps by his thoughts, slipping out towards the men in the lounge; with them, now, his probing is not uncomfortable, mental fingers quietly probing at surface thoughts before digging deeper. << Are you always this -- >> There's a hesitation, a hint of /amusement/ coloring the thought as he finishes, << -- wired? >> A map of Chinatown, Google-derived but with Merit's mental annotation, confirms Hive's suspicion, placing Jing Hua Yuan at the end of the same block as the Tian Ren tea shop. << Right /now/, I am always this wired. >> Merit's eyes flick back to Hive's. << It requires the right sort of stimulation, and try as I might, I cannot take /this/ with me. >> 'This' is highlighted with the raw feed of his electrical sense, edging on glorious overload. << Maybe someday. >> Frozen Plasma's Earthling fills the club with layers of space-age synth. Off in the corner of the lounge, Chen is exchanging platitudes in Mandarin with a young technocrat who is slightly better dressed for the scene than he. Beside the Triad potentate, Hua Yong stirs from his carefully cultivated boredom and casts his thoughts around the club. Hive draws a slow breath at the feelings coming from Merit, his smile twitching just that much more pleased. << No, I guess you can't take this from here. Shame, though. >> Far from harsh, now, there's a distinctly pleased undercurrent to his voice, Merit's only overload echoed back again in Hive's tone. His lips compress only briefly at the Mandarin. Around the floor other people's dancing is changing, just slightly, suddenly more /perfectly/ in tune with each other, though with the thumping beat to guide them it is likely less noticeable than it would otherwise be. Mentally he stretches deeper, slipping past surface thoughts and pushing further. Thoughts. Memories. With Boss Chen he looks, at first, for hints of connection to mutants; himself, his family, his interests. Hua Yong he probes for his connection to the Boss, and his business. << Not a shame at all. >> Merit's grin--and his sensory gestalt--is edging toward manic. << It's motivation. >> His gaze slides past Hive and focuses on the empty air filled with noise and signal. C0G puts on a Daft Punk track, but not one he can immediately identify. Boss Chen, none the wiser, continues his lecture to his associate. He needs this cocky young man to understand the heavy responsibility of tradition, lest he use his /abilities/ too casually and gain the attention of unsavory persons and organizations. He does not think of his underlings' powers in such crude terms as the Westerners are wont to use. Men like Hua were gifts from the ancestors to help him reclaim their crumbling culture, and he needs to bring more such prodigies under his banner. Hua himself is not so transparent. He only lets slip his obligation to and fear of the Boss before his mental shields snap into place around himself and Chen a little belatedly. The shielding puts a brief dimming in Hive's smile. Brief. It's back again a moment later, something edging towards /predatory/ in its sliver of teeth. << Motivation. Is this what moves you? >> He turns his eyes outwards, watching the dance floor. The lounge. The people at the bar. There is a slow /spread/ of synchronization; not overt in that people continue to function largely as they have been, but with a touch more vacancy to their expressions, a touch more coordination to their movements. << How much do you need to know, of this man? >> is abruptly more targeted. His mental voice has gotten smoother, still, no longer simply /not/ jarring but now actively alluring, soft mental touches that carry a promise of -- something. Something pleasant, and consuming. He does not probe at Hua's shields; at least, not at first; when he finally returns his attention to the men it is less prying fingers and more prying needles, slim and slender-sharp to seek out /cracks/ and slip in a good deal more subtly than he had before. Whisper-soft as he roots out obligations, and fears; roots out Chen's interest in the mutants he surrounds himself with. How far his mutant collecting /goes/. His interest in Merit's project. << Knowing what moves someone means knowing how to move them. I guess like you said, that's power. I -- >> There's a moment where there /is/ a sense of power, brief and laced with a hunger that seems almost like desire as it curls in lazy caress around Merit's mind. And then withdraws, all in one quick snap. Around the club people -- largely return to normal. A few a little more disoriented than before, but none so badly it could not be explained by a drink or two. << -- could use another drink. >> Which is all Hive says before shifting away, brushing past Merit to head to the bar. << I have goals, yes. Doesn't everyone? >> Merit has only begun to notice the synchronization. He has seen a lot of dancing in his life, and this does not feel /quite/ right, somehow. << I want to be more than a lightning rod. I want to be the /lightning./ >> Maybe it's just the song that he cannot place. No, of course it had to be Hive, who is entrancing him in the some indescribable way. << A person is just so much information, and... >> His thoughts start losing resolution there. Chen's empire is not as vast as he would like, with only a half-dozen mutants and fifty others under his employ. Even so, he has gained ground rapidly on other bosses, rapidly enough to be seen as a threat by some. He needs a recruiting ground, and Hua assures him he will find such a recruiting ground in the club that this Merit Constantine intends to build. The DJ himself is not Triad material, though he wears a Chinese face. Still, each tool has its use... Hua suspects--fears--that his shields have failed. He dares to interrupt Boss Chen with an urgent whisper. The Triads retreat precipitously through the back door, ignoring the obsequious apologies of the proprietor. Merit blinks his eyes clear. His body never stopped dancing. He recognizes the song now: Brainwasher. Drifting off the dance floor after the back door shuts behind Chen's last bodyguard, he leans on the bar--as much to conceal the shaking of his hand as anything. "A drink for my friend," he tells the bartender, his physical voice ringing strange in his ears. "Appropriate," Hive murmurs, half lost beneath the music, his body sagging into a lean against the bar as Merit comes up beside him. He looks a little more drawn than he had before, pale where he should be flushed from the exertion of dancing. << I don't doubt you can be. >> Hive's voice isn't seductive, anymore; this time it /slices/ into Merit's mind, harsh and steel-hard and knife-sharp in a quick stab of speech. << A person can be many things. And I can have all of them. But for now -- >> For now -- a drink.