The Babysitting Paradox (as the title says)

Jamison strolled along, without any real destination in mind. New York was still a puzzle to him, one that he wanted to have all mapped out in his head as soon as possible. He tended to operate well when he knew the lay of the land- where to find the cheapest sandwiches could be found, how far away he was from the nearest hospital at any given moment, major subway stations, etc.

He was making sure to study all of the buildings around, in event that he could see part of one from a street over he would still know the building, that way his landmarks would really be three dimensional. He was visual in that way but this still meant a great deal of looking up, which was how he spotted the girl climbing down the fire escape.

The sight would have been unremarkable except for her curious outfit. She was completely covered, and wearing a scarf. Huge sunglasses completed the picture, making the whole thing seem, well, kinda shady. Which wasn’t meant to be a pun. Those weren’t in Paradox’s style of humor.

Is she a run-away or thief? he wondered. A large sign reading “Iris Clinic”, shed some light on the situation. Probably a crazy person trying to escape the psycho ward of a private clinic, he reasoned. Regardless, he made up his mind to find out. After all, people could provide for interesting landmarks, too.

He crept over quietly until he was standing at the base of the fire escape. The he called loudly and clearly. “And where do you think you’re going?”

Jamison hated questions, because then he had to make up answers. Yet, yes or no questions were the worst kind of all for the exact opposite reason. He always had to answer the opposite of what was true. That meant that it could quickly get him into trouble. Like this one.

>>“You my babysitter today, or what?”

He tried hard not to grimace. She expected a babysitter type person to be more reserved than that. “Yes,” he answered levelly. Apparently, he was going to be sticking with this girl for a while.

“Time to head back inside.” He insisted firmly. He assumed that that was what she didn’t want to do, associating her displeasure at seeing him with the fact that she was caught in an escape attempt. “As for me, my name is Markus. Now come on missy. March!”

He felt very drill sergeant for a moment, which made him almost smile. Part of him liked this role, in command. Sure, he’d have to keep on his toes and pretend to know things about this clinic. But that was half the fun of things. Two and a half weeks until the next full moon, I might as well make the most of today… and enjoy meeting people.

She spoke in broken English and then some kind of foreign sounding tongue. And she was cocking her head at him with that smile. That smile that one other women usually meant they were going to try to manipulate him. And she claimed to have some kind of power- referring to mutants and her ability to “do” something. Perhaps it made her dangerous as well as mad.

“Cut out that gibber-babble,” he ordered. He felt so alive playing this part. It felt really right. He’d never had so much energy or focus. ‘Marcus’ knew his next move. He had to bodily escort her back into the building. He was some kind of caretaker, and really, it was for her own good to be back inside.

But when he turned back to look at her, her face was confusing. She seemed confident and sure of herself. There were no strange squiggly lines that usually came along with madness. So why was she in this institution?

He ignored his own questions. They were unimportant to the role he was playing. “Let’s go.” He grabbed her by the elbow, gently and started leading her towards the door.

The girl yelped and jumped back- obviously she was more skittish than he’d originally assessed. Or… perhaps there was another explanation? For a moment, out of the corner of his eye, he’d thought he’d seen something. Like a flash of color or the corner of a painting. Jamison was used to such flashes caused by seeing other people’s emotions and had trained himself not to jump when he caught them out of the corner of his eye. But this time it was different and yet the same.

The picture was more vivid and much less abstract than he’d ever seen before. The glimpse he’d caught was enough to make him know that she was toying with him and was actually speaking a coherent language, not crazy psycho-babble. He saw snow and a strange alphabet and shards of darkness.

But as soon as he’d turned, everything vanished.

>>"Vatareyou doing?!... Are you okay?...” she yelled at him.

Huh, those two expressions seem hard to reconcile… what was she expecting to happen? He was fine, nothing wrong at all that he could tell. His face tingled a little, but that was normal for him. Except, maybe there was a way for him to use this to his advantage? It was a clinic, after all. He now had two objectives: 1. get her back inside, and 2. find out what she normally made happen when people touched her.

“Uhh…” he pointed to his head, “I think I’ll need some ice. Or asprin or something. I have this strange headache all of a sudden…” And she had opened the window for the next one: “What do you do, any way?”

Power boosting, huh? Is that what that was?

“There aren’t any open flames in awkward places, are there?” he laughed, a genuine sort of laugh as they headed inside. It was less hospital-y than he thought it would be, but then again, he’d never really been in a clinic like this and was kind of fuzzy on how they were technically different from a hospital. Anyway, the entrance area was homey and inviting, at least. To make the patients want to stay, perhaps? But if that’s the goal, it obviously isn’t working very well.

“Do? Well I’m a bouncer at a bar downtown,” he lied smoothly, trying to say ‘so don’t try anything’. He hoped that would give enough credence to him being ‘called in’ to come look after her. It also made clear his complete and utter lack of medical knowledge. In case of emergency, he’d definitely ring a nurse or somebody who actually worked there.

“Why are you here, anyway? If that’s all you do?”

He blinked in surprise. Finally some truth, as indicated by her orange righteous indignation, though he wasn’t really expecting her to say that she lived at the place. “So if you live here, why were you sneaking out like that?”

He recognized that he probably sounded too friendly and curious, so he added, “Why didn’t you wait for me to escort you wherever you wanted to go?”

Much better. That made him less like some kind of police officer, impersonal and uncaring, and more like someone she could rely on and confide in- in an official capacity, of course. That was what she was looking for and expecting, wasn’t it? He watched carefully as she thought over this latest query, just in case he needed to revise his behavior and strategies in dealing with her. He was also guided by a very important question: “What would Marcus do?”

Jamison realized, with that little look and too-innocent smile that he'd really stepped in it this time. If he was a blushing-when-he-got-embarrassed kind of guy, his face would be bright red about now. Fortunately, he wasn't.

“Only if you want to go somewhere, miss.” Which was code for no. No, absolutely not. Marcus even would say no. But let her think that he was untrained and unprepared for this whole watching her gig. He was pretty sure that even if she did want to go somewhere, he could handle her. Or at the very least he could keep everyone else away from her.

Truthfully, Paradox felt kind of sorry for her, locked up all day. He could empathize in some ways. And in others, he knew the value of complete unhindered freedom.