Logs:How to Identify Birds

How to Identify Birds
cn: murder, mentions of past rape and abuse, prison/medical torture, genocide, homophobic slurs
Dramatis Personae Ansel, DJ, Hive, Dawson
In Absentia	friday through sunday "Do you ever wonder what you might have been like, if the world went just a little bit different?"
Location <BOS> International Conference on Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering - Boston University
Probably, if you are really into biomedical technology, this has been a riveting conference. There are a lot of engineers and researchers and doctors presenting lots of workshops and talks about lots of advancements and potential advancements in the field. All day long people have been doing important things like Networking and Capitalism and Discussing Science. As things start to wind down, they are making evening plans to do other important things, like Networking and Capitalism and Discussing Science, except at restaurants and bars instead of in the halls of the university. Ansel hasn't been doing any of that nerd shit. He's not (in case there was any doubt) here to learn about or teach about the latest cutting-edge medical technology. He's dressed in a slightly ill-fitting uniform, his name printed on his badge. Stitched onto his drab grey shirt is the company name (Integrity Security Services) beside an extraordinarily generic shield logo; inside the shield is an extremely unfortunately kerned monogram, the I kind of swallowed into the background so that what stands out is SS. For most of the day he's been posted up by one of the side entrances, checking IDs and bags or playing Subway Surfers on his phone. Occasionally his attention is drawn away from work or play to exchange some bland and awkward pleasantries with this or that conference attendee, several of whom seem to know him from, uh, previous employment. Now, though, as things wind down, he is antsily getting ready to leave. He's even turned off the Subway Surfers in eager anticipation of the shitty fast food dinner he will be shortly eating. DJ has been doing plenty of nerd shit all day, and looks it, in professionally bland slacks and tie and button-down; his arm at least stands out, with its detailed ornamentation painted up in the speckled brown and black and white of a northern flicker's plumage, a bright splash of yellow feathering on its underside. His last panel of the day has been sparsely attended but makes up for low numbers in the passion of its attendees -- the world of adaptive tech for mutants is pretty niche, but the people in it pretty intense. It's been a jangling dissonance in DJ's mind, taking diligent notes for the Clinic's sake while trying not to fixate too hard on where a couple of these people were working last. Though he wasn't on the panel he's gotten caught up for a good while after the talk actually ends with one of the presenters, a (pretty nerdy) show-and-tell about the extremely specialized prosthesis he wears and what parts of this technology might have wider applicability for disabled mutants. Eventually, though, this chatter ends, largely because they both have promised dinners to get to. DJ is saying his goodbyes and making his way toward the exit -- maybe this is the first time today he's used this one because as he nears the posted security he's slowing. His eyes fix hard on Ansel by the door; the hitch in his step is barely enough for most people to visibly clock. The sick panicked stutter in his mind is much louder. He tucks his hand in his pocket, jaw setting as he beelines for the door. Ansel has just tucked his phone away, shoved his keys back into his pocket. He's unbuttoning his shirt already as he gets ready to go and is veering towards the door at very nearly the time DJ speeds to reach it. His steps don't slow. He gets to the door just about as DJ does, and slams one meaty hand down against the door. It thuds back closed; Ansel is looking DJ up and down with a clear incredulity. "You shitting me?" DJ's eyes have fixed on the door, on Ansel's scarred and calloused hand. He doesn't reach for it. Doesn't step back, either. He lifts his gaze to Ansel, a long and intent study of the man's face. Maybe it ends inconclusively, because his expression doesn't change. That panicked flutter in his mind is quashed hard (somewhere in the back of his head Turn It Off is jangling chipper and familiar.) His voice is quiet. "We aren't in the lab anymore." Ansel's heavy brow wrinkles. He is not that much taller than DJ, but he's pulled himself up high into his very best looming (and if looming were an Olympic sport, this man would be flying out next week to loom for America.) His jaw has set, his eyes narrowed into a scowl, but -- just for the barest second when DJ does not quail as he so clearly ought -- there's an uncertain ruffle that shivers through his steely gaze. "You don't even belong here," is equal parts grouse and accusation, as if DJ has showed up on this planet as a personal affront against Ansel himself. "Do you terrorist fucks ever stay dead?" Somewhere, eight thousand miles away and right here, it's another conversation entirely. The rain is a steady patter against the thick protective canopy of the actual banyan they're under, receiving blessing in the form of fresh rose-apples just-picked from this neighbor's garden, giving blessing in return upon them and their home. Somewhere in the middle of the familiar words, though, there's a sharp prickle of rage, pulling attention from one side of the world to the other as a sharp mental root whips outward -- -- and is yanked, deft, back in. << I'm fine >> rings true enough, faintly apologetic for this disruption. Somewhere beneath this assurance there's half-formed remembrances sounding a dissonant beat in counterpoint to the continued cheery melody -- the heavy crack of a baton spilling a lunch tray over the polyurethane floor, the slam of a sturdy cell door, the hiss of steam from the hot shower and the sick smack of wet skin on wet concrete. Somewhere beneath this assurance << we're fine >> isn't quite as confident. "This is where God put me." DJ's brows lift, just a little, as if he is genuinely curious about the answer to, "Where do you suppose he'll put you?" "Is that a threat?" The reddening of Ansel's face, the indignant spitting crack to his voice, suggests that his imagination can not stretch so far as to think that this man is not threatening him and, at one and the same time, can not stretch so far as to think that this man is threatening him. "You --" There is very likely a threat of his own forming here, though God only knows what it was. There's another pair of conference attendees heading for the door, now, and -- scowl receding but face no less red -- Ansel shuts his mouth tight and pulls the door open for them. --- DJ is, in fact, an extraordinarily punctual person, but he's not here Mad Early on campus because of his love of science. He's got a croissant sandwich and a cup of fruity herbal tea. He has tucked himself, not far away from the cluster of conference buildings, along the riverway. His food is on the bench beside him and he's holding a pair of binoculars in his bionic hand. His phone is in his lap -- he may be terrible at answering texts but what he is very diligent about, right now, is marking down his sightings in the Audubon app. He's just marked down a Northern Parula before putting the binoculars back to his eyes. Crack. Ansel still has a baton, still loves his baton. Right now it's smacking down hard on the bench beside DJ, sweeping to the side to push the sandwich and drink off the edge of the bench. In the lenses of the binoculars he's just a huge blurry obstruction. "You sure you want to be out here alone?" Across DJ's minds there's a rustle, rapid like the sudden fluttering of a bird spooked from its perch. This doesn't translate, outside; if he flinches, it doesn't show. There is another quick flicker -- it might be hard to track, rapid as it is, but when it settles, his sandwich (intact) is back on the bench beside him and he's lowering his binoculars to sip at his unspilled tea. He glances past Ansel's bulk to the river, then over his shoulder to the distant university complex. "I'm sure." Ansel does flinch, here. His weight shifts reflexively back into a more defensive stance, and his eyes are trying to follow that flutter of motion. It ends with him just staring down in a brief confusion at the ground where the food should have fallen. He looks up slowly, and maybe when his eyes light on DJ's cup there should be a fear there, but unfortunately whatever warning clanged him into motion to begin with has now been thoroughly muffled under his blustery outrage. "You --" is fierce, to begin with, but the, "-- better watch your back," if it had any teeth to begin with, is somewhat defanged by the fact he is retreating hastily from the riverfront as he spits it. --- This time, DJ isn't even giving the guard's station a second look as he heads out for the evening. There are a number of other attendees with him, clustered close and chattering -- about the last panel they were at, about sports, about dinner plans. DJ is holding the door for the others as they exit, and though he isn't looking back, several of the people who are with him do look over -- some a little furtive, some not so much. The one young woman who does actually say thanks to Ansel has a definite smirk in her voice, like there's a joke somewhere in the rote courtesy that he hasn't been let in on. Ansel doesn't reply to this thanks, maybe hasn't even registered the actual words past the woman's tone. His eyes are fixed steadily on the back of DJ's head like he's trying to bore holes into it, and by the time he summons up enough composure to say anything at all, the group is gone. --- This evening, DJ is on a panel. It's even more sparsely attended than the adaptive mutant tech discussion two days ago -- weirdly a significant chunk of people here with a particular focus in mutant research aren't that invested in the ethics of mutant medicine. Go figure. Probably DJ fully expected this, but nevertheless the discussion has taken a lot out of him; even after the room has emptied he is in here quite some time by himself. Long after he has finished collating notes to take back to the Mendel Clinic he's just sitting, thumbing through the well-worn pages of his Book of Mormon until the many anxieties sparking in his mind have quieted. It's only the custodial staff starting to do their rounds that pushes him finally to his feet rather than linger and make their jobs even a small bit more tedious. He makes his way out of the building. He takes the front entrance this time, whether consciously or not, though the guards here have long since gone. The sun has set, but between the regular pathway lights and the full moon overhead it's plenty bright as he detours down towards the riverside again, lingering along the bank to squint out towards the silhouette of some long-legged bird on the other side in idle consideration. Whump-whump. Whump-whump. There's plenty of warning that DJ is getting company; Ansel's lopsided gait has returned to the unnatural heavy tromp it used to have in the halls of Blackburn, distinct even when he leaves the paved path to stalk down to the riverside. He's got a cigarette half-finished between his finger and a deep glower etched into his face, and though he strode down here With Purpose, once he has arrived he seems a little at a loss for where he wants to begin. His hand has balled into a fist at his side, teeth clenched hard before he unlocks his jaw, rolls it like he's about to try out some harsh words. "Can you see a crest on that bird?" The bird in question is just a faint grey silhouette tucked half-hidden among the darker silhouettes of the plants on the opposite bank. DJ is, nevertheless, pointing, like maybe as a Well-Practiced Lurker, Ansel will have better-honed night vision than him. "What?" Whatever Ansel was about to say is very much derailed by this. He is obligingly turning to look -- there's some very ingrained reflex when someone is Pointing! -- but he's just as soon turning, incredulous, back to DJ. "The fuck I know about your faggot-ass bird," he had been gearing up towards a real anger but has deflated now into just a kind of indignant petulance. Nevertheless its gathering heat back again, slowly, with, "you ruined my life." "Plumes," DJ helpfully elaborates at that first startled question, "Kind of, coming out the back of its head?" The admittedly extremely mild hope he had of identifying this bird is slipping away with Ansel's growing ire. "I actually -- never met you before this weekend." The correction is mild; DJ doesn't sound defensive, doesn't sound anything except quietly thoughtful. "Do you ever wonder what you might have been like, if the world went just a little bit different?" "You know what I mean," Ansel snaps back, angrily. "The -- you-you." DJ's philosophizing is only confusing him more, which is only angering him more. "The fuck? Yeah. Fuck. If we'd just shot all you shitbags on sight I'd have my old job, my wife, my kids." "It's tough to lose your family." DJ's sympathy sounds sincere enough. "Back in the world I came from -- well, I didn't know you, but I knew a lot of you. Used to work the labs, before the country went kind of -- mask-off on the genocide. I worked with some real terrible people. Just -- incredible monsters, but you find allies where you can when you have a lot of lives at risk. Lot of bullies who'd have happily beaten me up in a cage a couple years before but changed their tune once things got bad." He shrugs, kind of absently. "Met some people here who were monsters back home, too. Some people who were horrible back home who are so lovely here. It's just hard to know. How circumstances might change you. Who you could have been in -- little bit different of a world." "Bitch isn't even letting me see the kids." Is this DJ's fault too, probably. Ansel's eyes are narrowing as DJ talks. He rubs briefly at his face, and his teeth grind. "What the fuck are you talking about." He's saying this before he's made, really, any attempt to think through what DJ might be talking about and when he does, the conclusion he's coming to is just a self-righteous defensiveness. "I'm not a fucking monster. Everyone thinks that because of you. I did everything right." He's turned, jabbing a finger at DJ's chest, far more heft in this than should be possible for such a small motion. "I served this goddamn country. I worked to keep everyone safe from criminals like you. One fucking video and they all think --" What do people think? It's elided in the mack truck of a swing he's taking, now, towards the other man. Those first jabs land, bruising-heavy, against DJ's chest. Maybe his heart is hammering faster, under there; Hive can feel it, no doubt, can hear it, flashback memories that are clamoring to surface, a nausea that is trying to rise. It doesn't. Within them there's a stirring, a storm-whipped lash of psionic tendrils that start to reach out until DJ once more pulls them back, curls them instead strong and protective around that other stressed impulse. His eyes have flicked around the riverside in lightning-fast appraisal, unnecessary though it is; it's not like he hasn't checked (and re-checked) (and re-checked) his surroundings compulsively since he got here. By the time Ansel swings on him he's looking squarely back at the man. There's a brief ghostly instability where he'd been standing -- not there one instant, back there the next; in the interim Ansel's fist has landed only on air. "That's what I've been trying to tell you." His hand lifts, oddly gentle in its brief press down against Ansel's. There's just one more blink. "I'm not him." Ansel doesn't reply, this time. The bulk of his body is slowly creeeeaking down to split the wood of a staghorn sumac far too young yet to support the immense weight that's been impaled across several of its several thin trunks. The young tree snaps, finally, with a rustle of leaves and a splash into the shallow water. Across the water, a heron is taking flight, brighter now that the moonlight is catching its pale feathers. Though he's looking up now, Ansel's wide frozen eyes probably can't make out its slender crest. DJ glances up at the flap of wings. He's pulling his phone out of his pocket, but, in typical fashion, he's forgotten to charge it; the battery is blinking angry red. Marking down the Great Blue Heron will have to wait; he lingers just long enough to murmur a quiet prayer over the unfeeling man in front of him, and then, with just a flicker, he is gone.