Logs:S: After three (3) inhalations, pt experienced impaired verbal processing skills (reported noting conversation becoming illogical and confusing). P: Experiment with strains and dosing to see how postmortem manual metabolic processing affects tolerance.

S: After three (3) inhalations, pt experienced impaired verbal processing skills (reported noting conversation becoming illogical and confusing). P: Experiment with strains and dosing to see how postmortem manual metabolic processing affects tolerance.
Dramatis Personae Leonidas, Zack
In Absentia	2024-06-17 "Part of me wants to get a law degree, and the other part just wants to find a squat and be a hero."
Location <NYC> Central Park
The Pond in the southeast corner is a popular place on a beautiful day. There's sunbathers on the small lawns dotted around it, joggers and dog walkers on the paths that wend about. The water itself wraps around a nature sanctuary, acres of beautiful wooded land highly popular with birdwatchers. Zack, dressed in khaki shorts and a lightweight red checked button-down open over a black sleeveless undershirt, has found himself a comfortable perch along a stretch of rocky outcroppings overlooking the water. There are a number of water birds -- some egrets, some herons, a whole passel of ducks. Zack is paying none of these any attention; he's lounging with his head pillowed against the side of a sturdy tan-and-white pitbull who is napping in the sun. Zack himself is looking, contemplatively, at a joint held between his ashen fingers, squinting at it against the backdrop of the clear blue sky as if it has some secrets to offer. He and the dog are both largely intact today, though the waxy cast of his skin still looks decidedly Off. “Fuckin’ ditch chicken.” Leonidas mutters to himself as he passes one of the blue herons, stopping to stare at it for a moment before it inevitable flaps off, putting distance between itself and the giant teenager. He glances around not so furtively before pulling a silicone case out of his pocket and shaking a blunt out into his hand. After some more fumbling for a lighter he finally manages to bring it up to try and light the cigar, except there’s no flame. “Sumbitch..” he grumbles, striking it a few more times with the same result. Sighing he looks around and noticed Zack, then the joint, and starts walking over. “Scuse me,” he lifts his hand in a small wave, “wouldn’t happen to have a lighter, would you?” "Eh?" Zack turns his head to the side; the motion prompts a weighty sigh from the dog, who proceeds to stretch languidly in his sleep and kick at his human's arm. Zack fumbles the joint, dropping it -- thankfully only as far as his own chest, where it rolls down to get lost somewhere between his shirt and undershirt. "Oh -- oh, shit, yeah, I --" He sits up. The joint slips out of his clothing to fall to the rock while he pats at his pocket. He fishes out a cheap plastic lighter, tossing it lightly underhand toward Leonidas, considerably lower than probably makes for a comfortable catch. "Wo-oah sorry might've lowballed my throw there you are -- way bigger than you looked upside down." Leonidas stoops to catch it before lighting the blunt and offering the lighter back out. “It’s cool, also dropped yours down there on that rock.” He takes a long drag before blowing the smoke upwards. “Definitely appreciate it. I’m Leonidas by the way.” "Oh shit. Haven't even smoked the shit yet and I'm losing track of every-damn-thing. Thanks, bro." Zack pockets the lighter again. He looks to his left and then his right and then picks up the joint where it's rolled against a crack of rock. He's holding out his other hand in a fist for dap. "Zack. This big dumbass," he's thumping the sleeping dog on his side, which elicits a couple sleep-heavy thumps of tail, "is Zero. Glad we could rescue you it is too nice a day to be sober." Leonidas delicately taps his fist agains Zacks, taking another drag, opening his mouth slightly, and inhaling the smoke up into his nose. “That’s a pretty dog. And it really is, yeah. Spent so much time setting up stuff to do today I forgot to double check the essentials. Just glad I could get off campus to smoke.” He pauses for a moment, “Guess I don’t really have to worry about that anymore since I’ve graduated now.” "Stuff to do?" Zack peers around their current idyllic surroundings kind of as if he's worried they are about to get mugged by Surprise Errands. None show up, though, and he's leaning back against Zero once more, lighting his own joint and breathing in slow. "Ohhhh no shit, graduated, congrats! You mean like, next-steps kinda stuff? That's big, that's big. What'cha gonna tackle now?" “Turned eighteen today, figured I’d get into the city and do something.” Leonidas explains before breaking out into a coughing fit that lasts a solid fifteen second, “Oh shit, it grabbed me.” He wheezes out, thunking his chest with a large fist a few times. “Going to try my hand at construction first, try and figure out if I want to go after a degree or not.” "Wha-a-a-at." This starts out kind of incredulous, Zack not-so-surreptitiously looking a little bit harder at Leonidas, but by the end it has morphed aaaalmost seamlessly into a cheerful excitement. "No way, happy birthday, man. Eighteen, that's --" He's glancing just another quick peek at the big teenager. "Look like you would do alright in construction for sure. What do you like doing?" “Yeah, I look twice that old.” Leonidas doesn’t seem bothered by the reaction, almost used to it. “Been big since puberty. Older I get the more I look like a bog though.” He takes another long drag while he thinks about the last question. “I’m not sure. Part of me wants to get a law degree, and the other part just wants to find a squat and be a hero. Seems like a waste of a good mutation not to.” "Get the law degree," Zack replies, prompt. "No disrespect but that other thing is dumb as dogshit. You want to help people, yeah?" “That’s what people keep saying. Honestly not great at it, how I ended up in a lab in the first place.” Leonidas rubs awkwardly at the back of his head. “I do. Just not sure where to start.” "They keep saying it because it's true, bro. Someone out here gonna pay for your food, clothes, all that shit while you run around playing hero? Most of these flatscan fucks," Zack is waving his joint in the vague direction of Everyone Else in the park before taking another drag, "would call the cops on your ass for battery if you pulled them out of a car crash. But, where you think Holland or Black would be right now without some damn good lawyers? How many poor-ass nobodys in this city you think could use one because they pulled some dude out a car with their telekinesis and are on the hook now for that damn. Mutant powers in public -- bullshit." He squints up at Leonidas, appraising. "'sides, law degree's not gonna make you any smaller, is it? You'll do a whole lot more good for people if you can help them out when the world's screwing 'em over, and it won't stop you helping out if you pass by a burning building on your way to cashing that --" Here he sounds wry, smile twisting crooked, "sweet sweet... public defender paycheck. Which lab got you, anyway? I was down in Euler a few years." “Yeah, Mister Jax would probably beat my ass if he caught me trying to play hero.” Leonidas clicks his tongue a few times before he goes back to smoking. “Lassiter’s. School friend got locked up so we decided to try and break them out. Can guess how that went. Was there just long enough for them to torture out another mutation. So now I’m big and can fly. ” "Holy shit, you were one of those kids?" There's just a bit of laughter in Zack's voice and maybe he's aware that the tone he's said Those Kids in is not in the least flattering, because he is valiantly attempting to look more serious after this: "Yeah, shit, Lassiter's a shithole, sorry. Damn. Right, but --" He's snapping, pointing at Leonidas, "you have any idea how many people would never have had to see that shithole if there were more lawyers willing to take on freak cases? A lot. A lot. And it'll be a lot easier to change your mind and switch majors or drop out or whatever than to decide to go years from now if all you have on your resume is vigilante." “Not even the first time we ended up in one, back when those portals were opening we got swallowed and ended up on another earth.” Leonidas has a small grin on his face now, knocking the Cherry off his blunt and putting it back in the container. “That shit was fucked up. They went full scorched earth on mutants there, just breathing was enough of an excuse for them to throw you in a lab. Probably be a good idea to get a degree before we get to that point here.” Zack blinks. Then takes a drag of his joint. Then blinks again. "Sorry, what?" “Yeah, back in 2020. It’s the dimension the new Dawson Allred came from. Lot of people thought it was fake, but I was there.” Leonidas gets this distant look on his face. “We tried hiding but it didn’t work. Think it was that universe’s Tony Stark that sold us out. Hard to remember the specifics though.” "Uh --" Some time while Leonidas's eyes go distant Zack is nudgenudgenudging his dog with his elbow until Zero wakes up. "That, uh, that sounds rough, man. Kinda wild. Sorry." The dog is yawning, stretching, blinking blearily, and is just cycling up to being Very Excited that a new person is there when Zack clips his leash to his collar. He gets to his feet, stretching, too. "I gotta, um --" Pause a beat before not very convincingly: "get this boy his dinner, uh. Enjoy your afternoon, yeah?" Leonidas snaps back with a few blinks and nods at Zack. “Gotta run myself if I want to make this show time. I appreciate the light, y’all take care now. We run into each other again and I’ll hook you up.” If he notices something is off he doesn’t say anything, instead he throws up a lazy salute and digs his phone out to punch in an address before wandering off.