Logs:Recursive Loop

Recursive Loop
Dramatis Personae Joshua, Lily
In Absentia Hive, Steve, Tag	2022-03-30 "Didn't know there was an us before."
Location <NYC> Chimaera Arts - Dumbo
This is just one of the many abandoned warehouses in DUMBO, and like many of them it has recently changed hands. Unlike most of those, however, it does not have some corporate developer's sign out front promising a transformation into luxury condominiums or a boutique shopping center or the latest concept restaurant. Instead it's marked by a piece of weathered but wildly colorful plywood propped up on a stack of broken pallets, which reads "Chimaera Art Space!" above "chimaera.org" in smaller letters. The warehouse is moderately large and decorated with graffiti art in various styles--some of it recognizable as the work of renowned local street artists. A pair of monstrous scrap metal sculptures, perhaps still works in progress, flank the entrance. The building itself has undergone significant renovation recently, complete with wiring, plumbing, and a modular partitioning system. The grounds, too, have been cleaned up, ramshackle fences torn down and rusting detritus removed in favor of reclaimed (and brilliantly repainted) outdoor furniture ringing an impressively engineered firepit. It's never quiet around this warehouse, exactly, but today it's at least calm. Several of the partitioned stalls are occupied, from the woodworking space there's the sound of classical music playing over the buzz of a scroll saw, several people in the courtyard are sharing a vape while discussing an upcoming eviction defense action. Joshua has been in none of these places; he's very abruptly just there, appearing near them entrance with a very large plastic tote that he drops heavily to the ground almost as soon as he's arrived. He's looking fairly beat, bags under his eyes and his clothes -- olive cargo pants, a NYCAM sweatshirt -- dirty and rumpled, his kippah (red with an embroidered black flag) askew before he reaches up to fix it. "Oh, hi. Thanks." Lily sounds fairly nonplussed by the sudden arrival, though there is a chance Joshua noticed how she jolted upright when he arrived. She's seated at a table along the warehouse wall, where she has been occupied sorting supplies into two large plastic bins at her side and occasionally adding some numbers to a spreadsheet. She's in black jeans and scuffed boots, a NYCAM teeshirt under green and black flannel. Lily gets up, pulls the tote closer to her workstation. Peers at Joshua with furrowed brows. "You look like you should sit for a minute." "Hngh." Joshua's quiet grunt doesn't sound like he disagrees. He's dropping down right then and there to fold himself cross-legged onto the floor, scooting back against the wall for a place to lean. "Thanks. You up for going out later? Pigs are evicting the folks by McCarren Park soon. Someone's gonna need us." Lily reaches down under the table, pulling two water bottles from her bag -- one huge Nalgene covered in rock climbing stickers, the other a more standard disposable number. Sets the second one on the ground next to Joshua before returning to her folding chair. "Mm. Probably. Define later, and whether I can get a teleport to Queens to feed a cat first." She's already pulled her phone out, though, thumbing through contacts until she hits 'ASTORIA MARCH + APRIL NEIGHBORS' and taps out a text. "Do I get to pet the cat?" Joshua takes the water bottle with a grateful bob of his head. "Later like after I put some food in me. Learned passing out is not at all helpful." He squints over at Lily curiously. "You can't --" He makes a yoinking motion with one hand. "S'pretty safe, as teleportation goes. Long as you don't try it on anyone else." "If you want. You like sphinx cats?" Lily hits send on her inquiry and looks back to Joshua, one eyebrow lifting just a touch. "I could, yeah." There is some faint trepidation in her admission. "I'd prefer a lift, though, if you don't mind. I'm trying this new thing where I don't borrow powers blind." "What's not to like about cats that are also gremlins." Joshua takes another gulp of the water, and drops his head back against the wall. He's squinting slightly up at Lily for a thoughtful moment before asking. "-- What's it take for you to learn?" "Watching, mostly." Lily twists the plastic rim of her bottle, brows briefly creasing before she adds, "Or feeling, sometimes, if there is something to feel. –It's not learning. Not really. I get some like -- muscle memory of how to do what I saw, but I don't get anything else. Like plagiarism. I can repeat the right answer but ask me how it works and --" One shoulder hitches up. "Seems like a good way to get lost." "What kind of things can you feel?" Joshua is sitting up, his expression a little more intent. A little more curious. "Like if I wanted to show you how to target, is watching me jump enough, or --" He falls silent for just a second, eyes flicking -- past Lily to the rest of the warehouse, then back. His voice drops just a little lower when he adds: "When someone's using a power around me, I feel it. See it. Get to know it. And even after that I don't like copying without -- well. Some people's things are way more dangerous than they look." Lily's lips press tight together, fingernail peeling at the edge of one worn sticker on her water bottle, scrunched in thought. She's opening her mouth -- maybe with a reply, an index of what she can feel -- and snaps it shut again, leaning forward towards Joshua with suddenly wide eyes. "... You feel it," she echoes, hushed and fascinated, "like -- shit, when a telepath's talking in your brain, can you feel the shape of the rest of it? I can only get the --" she hits the side of her water bottle, gently, but loud enough to make a sloshy sort of thud. "-- projection. Everything else I have to learn from the inside. Which is," and no one has admonished her but Lily is slumping back into her chair, anyway, "a dangerous mistake I'm not trying to make again." "Oh, shit, what'd you fuck up and steal?" Joshua sounds amused at this, his eyes a little wider. "I nearly melted my own damn brain once. Thought someone was a healer, turned out they had some horrfying level of control over anything organic, that was awful." His expression is more animated, here, than his usual, and he's nodding along to Lily's question. "I can feel all of it. Had to learn to focus to tell what it's doing but when I pay attention --" He shrugs, though it's anything but nonchalant. "Watch for a bit, I can learn what it feels like pretty good before trying it on. And once I have it, it just -- makes sense." He bites down on his lip, his brows scrunching. "... if I talk you through it, would it help?" "Hive." Lily is wincing even as she says this, though Joshua's story is easing the tension in her shoulders. "My brain also kind of melted." She's leaning forward again, bracing her arms on her knees, slowly nodding with the air of someone really trying to take notes. "I think so, if I was already wearing the right X-Gene, but probably not while blanked -- wait," interrupts her own speeding speech as she slips off the chair onto the ground. "Can you copy me? When it's just me?" "Guay de mi, Hive? And you're still here? And we're still here?" Joshua's cheeks puff out; it's hard to tell if his expression is horrified or impressed. Maybe both. His frown deepens after this, thoughtful. "Haven't tried you," he answers, almost immediately following this up with, "-- but yeah. Shit's weird, huh? Decade and a half, three labs, and I'm still learning how this all works." Lily just grimaces, fingernail catching on the edge of a sticker. "Not for fun. Mine tries to grabs whatever's around, and if I'm not paying attention it will just – turn on whatever it can see. Spent a decade staying far away from other mutants, so pretty much everything I know about mine is from --" Her lips press into a thin, unhappy line. "...is pretty academic. Does yours -- not? Just go –?" She reaches out and grabs at the air, mimicking the yoink motion Joshua made earlier. "No. Learning them is easy, taking them is hard. Like this whole wall I have to push through. Thank God, honestly, because most powers I've found I would not want to wear." Joshua's mouth twitches as he subsides back against the wall. "Yeah, pretty much everything I know about mine is -- well." He lets out a short-sharp huff of laugh. "Wouldn't advise taking my route, either. Learn a lot, but the accommodations are for shit." "Huh. It's the other way around for me." Lily rips a line down the center of one faded mountaineering sticker. Rolls it up between her fingertips as she considers Joshua a moment. "...Can I copy your notes? There's so much I know about mutation up here," she taps lightly at her temple, "but actually being one has been pretty different. And being one like --" us is on the tip of her tongue, but with another glance at Joshua Lily changes tact. "Well. Figure there's reasons I thought you just had two powers." "My notes are a whole-ass jumble. I have taught so many mutants how to do their thing but I --" Joshua levels a long and searching look at Lily before squeezing the water bottle tighter. His eyes lower to it, one finger pressing harder at the dimpled plastic. "Didn't know there was an us before. Don't really have a course outline for --" He waggles the bottle back and forth in indication between the two of them. "Don't touch Hive would be intro class." After a moment of thought he adds, "-- don't touch anyone without their permission would be the prereq." Lily scoots across the warehouse floor, sitting now beside Joshua with her back to the wall. Maybe this is so when her gaze drops down to her water bottle its less obvious she's looking away from him. Pulls her knees up and balances her water bottle precarious between them. Her next question is just a touch softer in volume. "...How do you even ask? In, uh, not-the-night-before-a-raid conditions." Joshua's gaze has gone a little distant in front of him but he looks up swiftly when Lily moves to sit beside him. "I don't think there's a good -- formula. Some people will be happy to explain what they do, teach you something, if you ask, but --" His shrug is small. "Some people will get stressed as hell if you even notice they're a mutant. Some don't want anyone knowing what they can do. Some people don't even know they're mutants and they will not love you if you are the first to tell them. I try to make sure I'm real clear on knowing where someone's at before I approach them about all this. I mean -- just because we can do magic doesn't mean we're entitled to take anyone's who happens by, you know?" One side of his mouth pulls up in a crooked smile. "Feels like cheating if you can't grab mine but -- you mind if I --" His water bottle waggles in her direction. "Some aren't impressed when you tell them they aren't a mutant, either," Lily adds in the small space between clauses, almost under her breath. At the question her eyes widen, bright and curious. "Oh, sure, yes --" It's not like she has to be in position for the power-yoink to occur, but she straightens up anyway, extends her legs out in front of her to sit more properly. "--How many can you stack? How long do yours stay, I can only hold borrowed magic for, maybe two days at a time." "You can tell?" Joshua's brows lift, impressed. "Mine's erratic as hell. Pings on like -- Steve and not Tag." Where Lily straightens, Joshua eases back against the wall, taking another gulp of his water and setting it down. It's quiet and painless as his power reaches out, to coil into Lily. The transition is quick as his power feels out the boundaries of hers, mapping it and copying it over. Brief though it is, it doesn't look painless on Joshua's end; when it is through he's slumped more heavily, a slight pallor to his brown skin. "When you do it it looks so easy." He sounds a little wry. "Complicated." His brows knit again. "Once I take a power there's a kind of -- blueprint that I can't --" For a beat he is quiet, plastic crinkling as his fingers press in again. After a moment he blinks, draws in a quick breath -- "As long as I want is -- the short answer." "I think so -- I definitely can feel Tag, but I can't feel Steve at all. Or Skye. Someone else, too, so that's a trend. My X-gene is sort of -- unstable, I guess, that's not quite it but -- my power needs a complete X-gene to scaffold new helper proteins --" Lily cuts herself off with a faint flush. "Academic understanding. It's weird." She looks over at Joshua, holds up her water bottle in a silent encouragement to Hydrate before unscrewing the lid and taking a sip. "Well. I don't know how long you want mine, but it is easy. Temporary, but easy." She twists the lid on again. "-- Woah, if I copy you now would I get the teleportation and my own power, again?" Her eyes have lit up at the hypothetical, and it's with cautious excitement that she elaborates with a bottle-waggle of her own -- "Do you mind if I?" "It's really cool you know that, though. I know what I do but how --" Joshua just shrugs. "'sides, I've long since lost any sense of what's weird and not. Met someone once who could change genes entirely, that's unsettling." He picks his water bottle back up, fidgeting with its half-peeled wrapper. His eyes have fallen mostly closed, but one cracks open wider, peeking over at Lily. "Shit, yeah, go for it. I'm taking no blame if you get stuck in some kind of weird-ass recursive loop once you become your own clone, though. Eat every mutation in range at hyperspeed." Lily's eyes go wide. "Oh, that's fascinating. Can they interact with the base pairs or are they seeing each gene as its own component?" The touch of her power on Joshua is light, barely there, just a quick press against Joshua's X-gene(s) before pulling away. "-- oh no I'm doing it again, maybe you could just introduce me sometime and I'll ask directly." It's hard to see, from the outside, what Lily is feeling out internally -- the second press of her power is longer, maybe a full second, before withdrawing. "-- Huh. I guess it's only fair it scales -- this is, what, two? Three genes?" She tips her water bottle out towards the rest of the workshop, out to where one artist's hair is shifting in shade to match her painting. "Can't feel her with recursion-me, but I did before. That's neat." Lily sounds genuinely pleased at this observation. "Uh -- I don't -- know what the difference would be," Joshua admits, a little sheepishly. "Be fascinating to find out but I probably -- won't introduce you, I don't think they plan to out themselves any time soon." His eyes close again, brief, but crack back open to peek across the workshop floor. "Yeah -- yeah. Kinda waters it down the more I take, like, in theory I can stack forever but by the time I get more than a couple none of them do anything. Kinda interesting sometimes seeing what that means -- like with some teleportation it means fewer jumps, some it means shorter jumps -- I have yet to find a range on this one but carrying too much shit gets harder, or jumping too many times too quick." He takes another gulp of water, brows lifting curiously. "Where in Queens did you need to be?" Lily nods, only a little disappointed at this never-introduction promise, a lot curious at the nuances of Joshua's power. "Probably there's only so much that can be expressed at a time? Maybe?" Probably, in the time he's know her, this is the most excited Lily has sounded, the most unmasked excitement displayed at once. "--shit, I'm dual-wielding. You don't know how much I've wanted to just, not have to worry about choosing one tool over another." She takes another drink too, smiling into the mouth of the bottle. "Astoria. 36th and 31st. They got food in Queens -- I got," she informs Joshua, "no clue how to aim this." "It is pretty great," Joshua allows, with a very small twitch of smile. "I've been jealous of how effortlessly you can switch." He takes a slow breath and pushes himself up against the wall, getting ponderously to his feet. "Aiming -- to an address like that takes a lot more practice, but. If you look for something -- someone. Familiar, it'll come easy." The heavy droop of his face does not show excitement very readily, but Lily's energy is reflected all the same in his bearing, in the lightening of his voice when he says: "Just find me, and you'll be good." And then he has vanished. Lily smiles wider at the admission, though the dip of her head when she gets up and tucks her water bottle away hides the accompanying pink in her cheeks. "Just find you? What do you mean—?” The question ends early when Lily realizes the answers have gone somewhere else. Her brows furrow, deep, staring into the spot that Joshua just vacated. Doesn't move from her spot other than to grab her pack, to blink -- -- and then she’s standing next to Joshua on the corner of 36th and 31st, eyes wide. "Oh. Just find you." There's some awe in her tone, soft under the ambient noise of the city. "That's -- no wonder you let people think you're a teleporter, that's incredible." "Isn't it?" Joshua's smile is pleased when Lily appears beside him, and though it fades soon enough back to his resting somber droop his tone is still distinctly upbeat. "C'mon. Promised me a gremlin to pet."