Logs:Bomb
| Bomb | |
|---|---|
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia | 2024-11-12 "Marde." |
| Location
<NYC> Water Suite - Le Bonne Entente - Astoria - Queens | |
The roughly L-shaped sitting room of this suite has a plunge pool for a conversation pit, though there is dry seating available, as well. The bedroom is more conventionally shaped, the smaller of its interior walls a large cichlid tank with striking black lava rock that makes the bright fish stand out all the more. The king-sized bed is surpassingly comfortable and faces a flat screen that spans an impressive percentage of the wall that isn't an aquarium. The bathroom is an expansive wet room with a shower cubical and a luxurious jetted tub. The entire westward facing outer wall is a dimmable glass waterfall and an elegant balcony beyond, accessible from both rooms. Charles is in a blue-gray three-piece suit that highlights his also blue-gray eyes, his wheelchair a minimalist silver one that he's come to favor recently. The subtle tension in his body, practically second-nature, starts to ease when the door closes. The soft-scented warmth of his presence is a little fainter than usual today, and he looks even more underslept than usual. He wheels up to the aquarium wall and gazes impassively at the slow, sedate fish moving through the light. "They all sound different," he says with quiet wonder, letting the choir of this particular aquatic community bleed out into his psionic aura. "Thank you for seeing me, I am sure that you must be horrendously busy." Lucien, as ever, adds very little to the psionic noise -- the surface of his thoughts is glassy-polished and tranquil. If he's underslept, it doesn't show -- he's looking as polished as his impeccably regimented mind, in a plain charcoal suit classically cut, with an odd vest in green satin arabesques, the collar of the soft white shirt underneath somewhat rakishly open, displaying the emerald silk neckcloth to better effect, and black bit loafers. He is just setting a tray down on the table near the dry side of the seating, delicate pastries and hot tea. "If we waited until life took a break, we simply never would." Charles hums his agreement, and in and through and beyond the sound is an attempt at conjuring a restful state of mind, wry and self-aware. He does, at least, start furling his intricate psychic shields as he guides his chair around to the table. "I admit I'm also anxious to know where matters stand with Rasheed Toure's legacy." The image that accompanies this is a stereotypical bomb, complete with a snarl of many-colored wires and a detonator with red letters counting down the seconds. Simultaneously, he conveys an abbreviated sensory recounting of his own attempts, terminating in the mind of some hapless clerk on retainer to the estate who had already discharged his part in the elaborate posthumous plan. "I allowed my staff to believe I was dashing about on Hive's behalf." Lucien can feel his mind pushing out reflexively for something it cannot reach before relaxing back into the music of the cichlids. "And dared to hope you might have met with some success." The bomb splashes into the quiet waters of Lucien's mind, sending agitated ripples out in all directions. His jaw tightens briefly, as he pours the tea. "If those rank amateurs had not gotten in the way -- this week he was going to meet with his lawyers to amend --" Though his tone is sharpening here, he cuts himself off with a small exhale, a small shake of head. His mouth compresses, eyes focusing on the task at hand as though the pouring tea could rinse away some of his agitation. Perhaps it works, because the tension is washing out of his expression, at least -- the disturbed ripples still shiver uneasily in his mind. "There is little enough we can do for it at this point, save prepare your people for what comes next." "Amateurs," Charles echoes, lips compressing. A chill passes through and beyond him. << (who?) >> The clatter of chessmen is more tactile than auditory. << (why now?) >> An oversaturated red-and-blue map, the sharp scent of precision-engineered poisons. There is a quiet sense of apology in the warmth that has resumed radiating as he shuffles away his unpleasant linguistic props and focuses on the tea -- the round aroma and soft burbling of the filling cups. "There was little enough safety we could offer before, and this --" He swallows back the compressed memory of the the FBI rifling through his school, terrorizing his students. "I kept us calcified too long for that safety. We are changing now, but the world is changing faster." Twining these words is a cool, sinking fear no matter their preparations, his people will not be ready. "Short-sighted greed, I can only imagine. Elections are fitting times for this sort of endeavor -- the turbulence inherent in them covers up all manner of financial malfeasance." Lucien settles himself down on an adjacent armchair once he has finished pouring the tea and setting it before Charles. He picks his own up, eyes slipping half-lidded as he settles back in his seat. Somewhere just out of Charles's easy sight there's a busy tick-tick-tick in his mind, a kaleidoscopic glimmer of intricate colorful thoughts obscured beneath the still-rippling watery veil -- but here there's a glimpse of vivid stained-glass tattoos and there a sharktoothed smile, there a brief flutter-glimpse of yellow feathers, there a smear of blood and raspberry against a filthy sidewalk. He takes a slow sip of his tea, letting the delicate flavor wash his mind once more back into calm. "Is the world changing?" he finally ventures, very mild in more a musing than an argument; he's following this up as if in answer to his own question with, "-- I suppose here as many places, technology might be a strong equalizer." Charles nods abstractedly. "I don't suppose they would have cared about the collateral damage -- global or personal -- even if they had known." He accepts the tea with a small incline of his head and a warm flush of gratitude that harmonizes smoothly with the comfort that his first sip brings. Other thoughts flutter in the diffuse not-light at the edge of Lucien's perception, turning over the question. Maybe he was only thinking of the technology. That technology grew from a field he once fostered in the hope humankind would accept mutantkind if only they understood them. It was a tortuous path from -- -- bidding his mother farewell as he departs for boarding school, dropping the hand he stretches out for an embrace when she recoils, eager to be rid of her once-beloved child whose incomprehensible powers made him monstrous -- -- hovering over electrophoresis trays to help Moira map out his genes on pencil and paper, his breath stops at her bright starburst of triumph when she finds one absent from all the controls -- -- tracing the pale scars on Erik's skin with trembling fingers as he pours the atrocious experiments that left them into Charles's mind, willingly laid bare -- -- American rockets streaking through the smoke-filled sky over a Utopian beach, shattering his family, his body, and his dreams -- -- teaching Jean to hide her gifts and that doing so is necessary for building a world where they wouldn't need to -- -- staring down at a test kit he could mail away to discover whether he carries the X-gene -- -- Scott returning with Jackson and over a dozen other traumatized mutants -- -- a machine atop Lady Liberty's torch, poised to kill millions -- -- the blank registration form lying on his desk -- -- an unassuming electronic device -- -- another beach -- -- to the realization he ought to have known long ago this day would come. There's no sense of guilt here, and not even much regret, just a haunted void that he tries to fill with tea and the quiet music of his companions' minds, human (mutant) and fish alike. He can no longer shield his students with money, telepathy, and a militia desperately pretending to be something else. Perhaps he never could. The only thing he says aloud across all of this is a quiet breathy "Marde." | |
