The X-men run missions and work together with the NYPD, striving to maintain a peaceful balance between humans and mutants. When it comes to a fight, they won't back down from protecting those who need their help.
Haven presents itself as a humanitarian organization for activists, leaders, and high society, yet mutants are the secret leaders working to protect and serve their kind. Behind the scenes they bring their goals into reality.
From the time when mutants became known to the world, SUPER was founded as a black-ops division of the CIA in an attempt to classify, observe, and learn more about this new and rising threat.
The Syndicate works to help bring mutantkind to the forefront of the world. They work from the shadows, a beacon of hope for mutants, but a bane to mankind. With their guiding hand, humanity will finally find extinction.
Since the existence of mutants was first revealed in the nineties, the world has become a changed place. Whether they're genetic misfits or the next stage in humanity's evolution, there's no denying their growing numbers, especially in hubs like New York City. The NYPD has a division devoted to mutant related crimes. Super-powered vigilantes help to maintain the peace. Those who style themselves as Homo Superior work to tear society apart for rebuilding in their own image.
MRO is an intermediate to advanced writing level original character, original plot X-Men RPG. We've been open and active since October of 2005. You can play as a mutant, human, or Adapted— one of the rare humans who nullify mutant powers by their very existence. Goodies, baddies, and neutrals are all welcome.
Short Term Plots:Are They Coming for You?
There have been whispers on the streets lately of a boogeyman... mutant and humans, young and old, all have been targets of trafficking.
The Fountain of Youth
A chemical serum has been released that's shaving a few years off of the population. In some cases, found to be temporary, and in others...?
MRO MOVES WITH CURRENT TIME: What month and year it is now in real life, it's the same for MRO, too.
Fuegogrande: "Fuegogrande" player of The Ranger, Ion, Rhia, and Null
Neopolitan: "Aly" player of Rebecca Grey, Stephanie Graves, Marisol Cervantes, Vanessa Bookman, Chrysanthemum Van Hart, Sabine Sang, Eupraxia
Ongoing Plots
Magic and Mystics
After the events of the 2020 Harvest Moon and the following Winter Solstice, magic has started manifesting in the MROvere! With the efforts of the Welldrinker Cult, people are being converted into Mystics, a species of people genetically disposed to be great conduits for magical energy.
The Welldrinker Cult
A shadowy group is gaining power, drawing in people who are curious, vulnerable, or malicious, and turning them into Mystics. They are recruiting people into their ranks to spread the influence of magic in the world, but for what end goal?
Are They Coming for You?
There have been whispers on the streets lately of a boogeyman... mutant and humans, young and old, all have been targets of trafficking.
Adapteds
What if the human race began to adapt to the mutant threat? What if the human race changed ever so subtly... without the x-gene.
Atlanteans
The lost city of Atlantis has been found! Refugees from this undersea mutant dystopia have started to filter in to New York as citizens and businessfolk. You may make one as a player character of run into one on the street.
Got a plot in mind?
MRO plots are player-created the Mods facilitate and organize the big ones, but we get the ideas from you. Do you have a plot in mind, and want to know whether it needs Mod approval? Check out our plot guidelines.
((OOC: This thread takes place directly after Null and Void))
New York was getting too hot. Not physically, of course, spring was incredible compared to the concrete jungle summers. No, New York was getting hot in that her stolen credit cards were being declined, her love interests had fallen off the map, and there was not a soul she felt like talking to in the entire megalopolis. There were few options open to her and even fewer of those sounded like fun. Last on that list was a trip to the library for some computer sleuthing. So of course that is exactly where she went.
A google search of "morgue records" revealed a few promising leads. Death-Records.GovDeathRecords.com promised her Death Records on Anyone... for Free. Well, that promise of ease and lack of cost meant that niggling bother in the back of her mind could be laid to rest. After all, there was nothing more annoying than dead people that kept you up at night. Of course the website wanted $39.94 for the full report after she'd searched. What a rip. She fished out a credit card with the name Maynard Frederickson on it and typed in the numbers. Ew. Maynard? Poor guy. Well, at least some good would come of him, he was getting her a year's worth of searches through public records.
Lori frowned at the screen and printed herself a copy for 10 cents. That she had to dig through her pockets for and no, after she'd given them a quarter they wouldn't give her change. She went back and printed another report just to get her money's worth.
Autopsy reports were typically more interesting than what she'd gotten off this site, but it was a website hack job. They could only release so much to non-immediate family members and unless she was willing to impersonate one, Lori didn't think she was going to get much better. What she did have was the toxicology, birth, death, and social. It was certainly enough to dig around. Were they gamblers? Do drugs? Did they have interesting skeletons in their closet? 2 hours and three different library computers later, they most certainly did not. There was no way in the world that these people were so very mundane and also died, equally mundane. Not when their son was so very, very unique.
Lori went back to the trailer practically empty handed. She had a destination that was it. No friends or acquaintances to meet her. This would be a solo job. One that she wasn't getting paid for. Not monetarily at least. So she packed her red alligator skin bag. Two spare shirts, two changes of underwear, a bikini, towel, deodorant, dramamine, digital voice recorder, four different forms of ID all with different names, a portable defibrillator, 500 dollars cash, a book and reading glasses. If that couldn't get her a round trip to Florida, nothing could.
Dramamine and a book was the best she could do to ensure that she wouldn't fry the bus to smithereens. The drug did help her peace out, but it was the book that was the focus of her travel time. Considering her fear of sleeping around strangers, it was good that the book was as thick as her fist. It was going to be a long ride.
Checked out from her recent trip to the library, Legal Aid (Practice Notes Series), was giving her the ins and outs. Because if there was any chink in this secretive armor around death, surely it was the lawyers. If they had any case information, she was going to get it... or at least get them to get it for her.
If the legal angle didn't work, honestly, Lori didn't know how much more she could find. Short of finding a psychometric or a zombie raising mutant, what leads did she have? Nada. But if there was something to find, hopefully the lawyers had it or the start of it. Or access to it. Money trail? Mystery disappearance? Something... there had to be something. There was no such thing as normal, average, every day happenings. There just weren't.
It was interesting to get out of New York. She'd never really had a chance before. Well, sure she'd had the chance, but nothing had yet convinced her to go very far. She'd been born in Virginia but that hardly counted for anything when all Lori knew of the world was tall buildings and crammed space. The Greyhound windows showed her what she'd caught glimpses of on TV. Wide open spaces, tall, old trees, wild grass that no one was trimming or... even cared for at all. The buildings were more squat, less classical and more class-less retro.
It was one thing to see it on screen, but another to know it really existed. Especially when they'd stopped at a gas station and someone told her she was "perdy." She'd seen woods and other part of New York state, but things were different the further south they went. Less... touched and cultivated. More open. The people were too.
Two shakes of leg and she was set up with the local grifters. It wasn't hard to know one if you knew what you were looking for. First thing was first, she went on the list for recon jobs. Simple little nothings that gave a payoff: income and better, it would build up her name in this pink plaster and palm tree covered town. And if a grifter never owned anything beyond their name.
The temp agency had insisted she get a suit and as much as she hated it, she had to admit that it did her good. The lawyers hadn't looked twice at her, but instead put her straight back in the records room for a good day of work. And she did work. You didn't have to have a law degree to do research for bigwigs that were making 50 times more than you. Nope, but the check she got at the end of the day was still nice enough that she considered a life change.
Being a lawyer had its serious perks. For one, she located the case file in question. Of course she hadn't thought it would be conveniently located at the firm she was temping for, but she was able to put in a simple request under a real lawyer's name for a false case number. Ooops. Clerical error by the temp worker. The files were being overnighted. She only had to keep the temp job until she'd looked through the files, made the copies she needed and was satisfied. In fact, perhaps there were a few other cases she could pull... later, at another agency perhaps. She didn't want to muddle this search by attracting attention. She could do that later.
When the files arrived, Lori's jaw actually fell open. She'd been expecting a folder. Maybe two or three at most, but she signed the name Lily Potter (with hearts for dots on the i's) to get her grubby little paws on three boxes of folders. My, my, my Tallahassee had a problem. Someone seemed to see it, but apparently no one knew just what to do about it.
Digging in at once, it was easy to see the police saw the pattern but couldn't seem to put the pieces together. She'd specifically requested deaths like the couple in question, but more than that rested between those manilla casings. In this one, a man's heart had practically exploded in his chest. Another mystery death in bed, a single woman possibly because the husband had already passed on, one where a man had run so fast he had died when he was unable to stop himself from hitting a brick wall?
Beyond proximity of TOD and location, Lori didn't immediately see a connection there. Nothing in the officer notes seemed to make sense as to why these files were specifically grouped. No real hints. The officer who had put this together obviously thought there was something here, but he or she never did seem to figure it out. Curiouser and curiouser, the outside of the box was labeled. Possible Link. was scratched out and very nearly illegible. In angrier letters the words DEAD END! scrawled. Every box showed the same words. Dead End. Don't waste your time.
Lori didn't have anything else left to waste. So she diligently read the reports, setting aside a small stack of copies that fit her exact description. Even if there were no skeletons in the King's closet, that didn't mean every one of those people were squeaky clean. Somebody had their fingers in some pies that someone didn't want them to find. She didn't realize that person was her.
After some careful thought and consideration, Lori could find no better explanation than a mutant. The idea had been scribbled here and there in different handwriting, but no one seemed able to follow up on the idea. Nobody knew mutants better than a mutant, though. And her money was on mutation.
It'd been a week and she'd only just recently figured out where the real mutants hung out.
Oh sure, like the Xmen, there was an Americans Against Hate organization. She'd read about them plenty since they tended to go through the proper legal channels. Proper legal channels that she got to skim and prepare briefs for. The AAH probably didn't know jack so she went for the other visible mutant hot spot which was a Sanctuary-like grouping. It seemed like the only above-ground place that may harbor the less-than-above-ground types. It wasn't a mutant organization per se, it was better-- a bar called "In Between." A lovely place to come an fall through the cracks, no doubt.
Looking at her intended duration of stay, Lori really didn't have time to get to know the people like she usually would. This would be quick and dirty, but hopefully none the less effective. She only had 3 weeks left. While she had a decent start, she was no where near as close to the answers she wanted.
Frequenting the bar for a week, getting free drinks and in turn buying drinks for others got her a list of names. Well, mostly pseudonyms like Pulse, Squiggy, and Zipline. Pulse apparently played guitar in a band and Squiggy worked as a clown who cut little kid's hair.
Goody.
Considering that Lori often miss-stepped and put her own research ahead of the Lawyers', she was surprised that they kept her around for part of the second week. She didn't make it past Wednesday, but, hey, any time she had gathering information from those records was time well spent. And it was time she still got paid for. Girls got away with so much sometimes. When she went home to New York, Lori had a whole new career path a head of her.
After the temp position fizzled, Lori was on full time reconnaissance for the grifters. They were interested in information about a certain building with valuables inside. Nothing too risky for her and nothing too risky for them if she got caught. She took meticulous notes about the comings and goings of said building from a mostly empty apartment for three days. That was hopefully enough time to let the bar cool off so she could go back without looking too interested in the mutants she sought.
It was kind of funny when she thought about it. She came to this town with nothing. She would probably leave this town with nothing. But in the mean time, Lori was making sure the dress she'd bought with the money from the various jobs she'd been working could hide the digital voice recorder without leaving a tell of its existence. The point of a wire, after all, was to get proof of something that someone did not want you to have proof of. That couldn't be accomplished if her left breast screamed I'm recording every word you say.
The dress, if it was a dress, was ultramarine-colored and silky. It clung to her body the way it was supposed to, hiding what decency demanded, but leaving very little to the imagination. A fresh Florida tan graced legs stuffed into blue spike heels, no hose. The heels helped with the illusion of long legs. In reality, she had stumps, but with heels the whole package came together. And to think the woman at the store had tried to sell her pink. PINK for goodness sakes. No, blue was her color. It made her skin like sunlight and her eyes look large and impenetrable. Pink made her look like a doll. Wearing a dress was bad enough. But it would pay off when she walked into that bar and every man in the room watched her.
Squiggy turned out to be an honest sort of fellow, if men who dressed up as clowns and breathed a pacifying gas at kids so he could trim their hair could be considered honest. Zipline was new to town, fresh from Tennessee. He could have possibly been behind the man running himself into a brick wall, but he was too conspicuous in power to deal death with no trace. That put one guitar-playing Pulse at the top of her list. Tonight she was going to sit through his performance at a bar and make with the googly eyes and the low cut dress and hoped he spilled something more interesting than gin on her.
She hung on his every strum. She wore a dress short enough to make her Gramma roll in her grave. And after the set was done, she ignored him like the Dickens. When a drink arrived for her gratis and compliments of the night's guitar player she had only wide eyes and demure flutters of her lashes. Three drinks in, she wasn't so demure anymore. Lori excused herself from the booth where the band sat and went to turn on the device hidden in her dress. When she returned the rest of the band had found an excuse to be elsewhere.
Lori regarded the man waiting for her in the booth. He looked strong and proud as many young men did. He carried a sprinkling of tattoos across his corded arms. His skin was pale and his hair long and messy. It was easier to pretend to adore him if she imagined he was someone else. The biker macho-man just wasn't her type. They were a tad too unpredictable for her tastes. Dangerous. She could use that.
"Your music... the rhythm is so powerful I could feel it right down to my toes." Contrary to popular opinion, flattery could get some people anywhere.
He eyed her as she slid into the booth. The dress was short enough that there was no graceful way to avoid an eye full. He swallowed almost convulsively.
"Almost hypnotizing, wasn't it? It's a Talent." He scooted closer and clinked his half empty glass against a newly full one for Lori. Yeah. That was one wasted drink. Lori latched her eyes on his. The way he had said talent, there was some slight inflection of superiority to it, she hadn't missed it. It was the opening she'd been working toward.
"Talent? You don't mean..." There was a soft shuffling as she leaned toward his ear. "you're not dangerous are you? A mutant?"
He chuckled low and long in a way that was all male and leaned closer. "Oh, I'm dangerous."
Their conversation was all breath and meaningful glances. How did she ever think a digital voice recorder would capture the proof she needed. "Have you ever... killed?"
"You a cop?"
The question took her by such surprise that she laughed a hard barking laugh. "That's as good as a yes you know."
She squeaked as he made to tickle her ribs and pull her into his lap. "Didn't think you was a cop, too pretty."
"Now that's downright offensive. A pretty girl never kick your butt before?" She was loosing the conversation and knew it. How to get back without being too obvious... "Or did you kill the pretty girls before they got to you?"
"I'd kill the pretty ones if there was money in it." He seemed to regard Lori for a moment and her heart suddenly sped up in her chest. She put her hand there to try to calm herself. It wasn't like her to loose her cool in front of a mark.
"Y-you're not doing that are you?"
"Doing what?" He didn't wear coy well. The smile he flashed was full of potential, a little evil, a lot of sex.
Her heart thudded in her throat until all Lori could hear was her blood pulsing inside her head. She wanted to run, to lash out, to scream, but she had to sit there and let him do his thing or she'd never get the confirmation she needed. He'd already admitted to killing, killing for money even. It was enough to take to the police, right? But not enough to know that he was the one to kill Jacen's family. "I think I might have had one too many... my heart..." As soon as the words were out of her lips the pounding subsided.
"Did you like that?"
"That was you?" She didn't really have to try to be scared there. The man had his arms around her and could kill her the old fashioned way, give him a mutation and he could kill without a mark. It had to be him.
"I can do more than just break hearts... it's anything with a beat, a Pulse." Lori didn't miss the inflection that indicated a capital letter. It was a lot like when he'd said he had Talent.
Her science brain kicked into gear. "Sinusoidal rhythm... that could be almost anything. Walk speed, breathing rate, heart beat... living organisms depend on marching t the beat of their own drum, literally." Her eyes flicked up to his in sudden understanding of just how dangerous he really was. It filled out the pattern perfectly. She couldn't help herself. "So why aren't you a drummer?"
"You kidding? Guitarists get way more chicks."
Partially wrapped around him, sitting on his lap, his arm right around her waist.. she couldn't particularly argue. "Even dangerous ones?"
"Especially dangerous ones." He lipped her cheek.
"You haven't gotten anyone I know, have you?"
"Well that depends... you have anyone die in their sleep? Long and slow heartbeats until they just didn't beat anymore? Or maybe they breathed so fast they passed out or their heart just... burst."
"The Kings... a man and woman..." He seemed interested in her horror, her fear. "Oh, I can't remember them all, but if it was a couple, sure, it's possible. Got a whole bundle some years back for--hey. Where are you going?"
She'd heard enough. More than enough really. There were only two reasons why a guy would admit all that. 1) He was stupid, or 2) He was gonna hurt her to keep her from saying it back to anyone else. Her money was on the second option. While she was sure taking a chance to run off on her own might put their conflict in a less populated place, she was sure that Mister Pulse would not keep company with her here in this bar forever. He would eventually want to move to a location of his own choosing and that, Lori couldn't be sure to survive. This wasn't a suicide mission. She was a survivor.
She was heading for the door. Lori made it out of the booth and down the lane before her companion was quite sure what was happening. Was it obvious to run now? To be afraid now? She knew what he could do, but worst of all she knew that he would do it. Except that her legs were not running. It wasn't the spiked heels that were keeping her from a frenetic pace, it was Pulse. Lori ran in heels as comfortably as a dilettante. Or maybe it was the obviousness of running or running away. Lori strained against herself feeling like she was getting the calf work out o the century. He wasn't even going to let her get to the door! But maybe that was a good thing... She could still shout for help here. There might be witnesses and good Samaritans out tonight.
She slowed from a trot to a walk and from a walk to a hesitating step at a time. Just when she thought she could not take another step, his hold disappeared. Lori jolted forward into the doorway that was just swinging open.
"Augh!" Lori's face blossomed with red and she put her hand up to cradle a battered nose.
"Aww, hell. I'm sorry ma'am."
There was a set of hands at her arms before she realized that her nose was bleeding, yes, but there was no power leak. In fact, her access to her power was entirely cut off. The hands helped sit her at a stool at the bar. Jacen! She turned a bright, sun-filled smile to... a stranger. She was crestfallen. And suddenly feeling more of the effects of the alcohol that usually were kept at bay by the burning well of her power. Someone like Jacen? There were more mutation stopping humans?
The bar tender slid a glass of ice water toward her and the man dipped a napkin in the water before daubing gently at her face. "I-I think that guy wants to hurt me!" Lori's eyes became very glassy and wide, almost as watery as her words. She really didn't want to cry in front of a stranger, but if that was what it took to get him to stay with her and shield her from Pulse's silent killing power, she would do it.
"What guy?" His voice was low an his movements indicated no change in his behavior. "Where is he? Is that why you were right behind the door?" The man seemed alert all at once. A professional? Lori started to turn her head to look for Pulse, but a firm and callused hand kept her chin still as he put the cold napkin against her nose. Lori hissed. "Don't look around. Just describe him to me, if you can."
The tears spilled over as he handed over control of the cold napkin on her nose. "Tattoos... and messy hair. Brown hair? Maybe? He, he played guitar here toni--"
"Shhhh." He put a finger against her lip. "I know him. You're lucky you ran into me, that man is very dangerous." Lori nodded. She knew. Did he?
Lori leaned in very close, confidentially. "I think he's a mutant." She nodded and regretted the movement of her face. Wince. "He didn't seem to like the fact that I..." What? Got too much info out of him? She had to fill that informational hole with something and fast so she blurted out the first thing that came to mind, "I can nullify his powers." Oh that was stupid. A very, very stupid claim that she had no way of backing up. She cringed.
The man in the wrinkledy suit regarded her with new eyes before ordering a stiff drink for himself. "Can you keep a secret?"
"Well, what's your range? How long have you known?" She nipped at his heels like a toy schnauzer. Truth be told, she wasn't going to go out of his range tonight if she could help it. And she didn't know what it was just yet. The door to the motel shut firmly behind them and the man kept walking, forcing her to took it all in as they walked past. Evidence of fast food, room within walking distance of Pulse's favorite bar, binoculars by the window. It didn't take a genius.
"What did you say your name was again?" He was rustling through some papers he had grabbed off of the desk and still walking. Where was he going?
"Allison. Allison King." The first name was in keeping with her theme. She'd used A names all over Tallahassee so far. Not that she wanted to becomes a King or anything like that, but if she was going to find any clues specifically regarding Jacen's parents it was going to be the best way to cut right to the point.
He seemed disappointed but rallied himself for another question. "You have a brother?"
She nearly lied about having a sex change. Instead she hazarded some real information and crossed her fingers that it wouldn't lead to something bad. "Jacen King, why?"
Those precious papers were being folded away into his breast pocket. Lori wanted those papers. No, she needed them.
"How old are you, Allison?"
She frowned. Somehow he was getting all the information here. "Well, how old are you?" She looked around, her nose was feeling exceptionally large and hot from all the blood. No doubt it was swollen. "And what is all of this? A motel? binoculars? Are you stalking me?" Hopefully it wasn't her, but it seemed a logical way to get down to business.
"Him, actually." The man opened a file folder and spread a few interesting photographs around before finding the one he wanted. The folder closed and he handed it to her. Pulse, it was labeled with a red grease marker. That was him alright. Lori was really starting to hate that guy.
Lori sat down at the edge of the bed. "Did you... come to save me?" She wanted that folder of pictures too, but just taking this one would be getting away with more than she'd expected. How much could she get from this hardened professional?
The man actually looked a bit abashed. Oh? Did he have a soft spot for her already? "Wh-I didn't save you, you were already running away by the time I came around. Too smart to hang around with scuzz like him."
"So, you're like a cop?" The role of questioner had decidedly shifted into Lori's capable hands. The picture, she set down next to her. She'd get it when the time was right.
"Not exactly." Not exactly? What did that mean? He reached for the photo and Lori put her hand on top of his, guiding it to the silky material at her hip. Like he'd get it back that easily. "You really did save me, you know." She gave him Florence Nightingale eyes. A human that could nullify powers. Why would she ever want Jacen if she could have one of her very own? "You put yourself in danger for me." She scooted closer to him and farther away from the picture. "It was very brave." He swallowed loud enough for Lori to hear as he turned her face up toward his.
He was very careful. Careful of her nose, careful of her body. It wasn't like she was going to break just from that one kiss. They separated and Lori smiled a little watery smile up toward him. This was pathetic. Where was the heat? The passion? She tried again. His hands tangled into her hair, but no lower. She liked a man that knew what boundaries to press. What? Was she going to have to carry him the whole way?
"What's wrong?"
Betraying tears came unbidden to her eyes. What was wrong with her? He had information she needed and she knew one way that she could get it. A way she normally enjoyed. He even had the same genetic blip that made Jacen so attractive to her. Through the waterworks she saw the 'oh no' look dawn on his face. She cried. Maybe it was the alcohol or the fact that most of this was for that stupid, emotional man. But this guy... whoever he was... he just wasn't enough.
As hard as it was to admit, Lori knew she'd f*cked up.
Waking up handcuffed to a hotel bed with needle pricks in her arms and only a vague recollection of how she got there was definite grounds for f*ck-up-dom. They'd taken a sample of her blood. That wasn't too surprising since they thought she was special in the way of Jacen. Boy would they be disappointed when they ran that lab work, assuming it wouldn't be super saturated with alcohol. But they couldn't be as disappointed as she was now. The file folder of pictures! All that information that had been haphazardly spread around last night was now all gone. She'd had her chance, and instead spent it blubbering to a stranger.
Her slinky dress was still in place at least. Two points for mister lonely. Though he automatically lost a point for cuffing her to a bed post that wasn't contained. All she had to do was stand up and stretch to her tippy toes and Lori was able to slip the handcuffs off of the wodden post. Or maybe that was him taking pity on her. Lori bent and unbent her stiff arms as she made her way to the desk. Assuming there were a few paper clips, she could free her self.
She pulled open the drawer and already the day was looking up. Two paperclips meant two chances. She wasn't the best at this since she didn't have the opportunity to practice all that much, but she could do it with two. The desk drawer slid home and something underneath the desk caught her attention. Trash can. It was full of tiny ribbons of paper that had been through a shredder. Of course, she could almost read the whole last page they'd shredded. They hadn't mixed it around a lick.
Lori turned her head to match the orientation of the page and tucked back the stray hairs that attempted to obstruct her view. Jacen King's name was on that page. The top said something about Adaptation, capital Adaptation. Ever so carefully she slid her hands around the page and clamped them down around the information. She deposited the ribbons of paper onto the desk top and looked for tape... which apparently wasn't standard issue in a hotel room. Bleh.
Telephone receiver in one cuffed hand, she hit the front desk button and pulled a paper clip into the right shape as she listened to it ring. The front desk was most helpful. When Lori asked if she could extend her stay, the girl up front said that her credit card number was still on file, if she could confirm the last four digits, which the girl read out loud to her, then she was fancy free. Lori extended her stay for one week and hung up so that she could work on getting that cuff free. She sighed when it popped open. What a master escape artist she was. Ri-ight.
A sudden thought occurred to her and she dialed room service. Food and condoms. Why the condoms? Because someone higher up was going to see the bill and choke on their self-righteous spittle. Hehe. Well, room service didn't offer scotch tape so she would have to make a quick jaunt over to the 7-11 around the corner. After the second cuff popped free, she lay the Giddeon's bible over the partially together sheet to make sure it didn't go anywhere while she was gone. She grabbed the keycard off the desk and by the time she'd returned with tape, stamps, and a courier's envelope, a rolly tray was sitting outside her requisitioned hotel door's do not disturb sign.
So it wasn't a complete loss.
In fact, something smooth reflected light and caught her attention. It lay partially under a loose sheet next to the bed. After she'd wheeled in the tray, she snatched it up. The picture of Pulse. He must have been in a real hurry to get out. She'd gotten lucky this time. Not bad at all.
Tape first, then eat. As hungry as she was, Lori wasn't going to risk getting room service grease on the document. Because this was a piece that was going to take it all home. Jacen's name was the list along with some last names that looked mighty familiar. She'd have to double check to be sure, but if there was a match then she'd found him for sure. Pulse. What a jerk. If Jacen didn't off him for taking his parents off the map, then she might do it just to better society. She was such an altruist.
After everything was said and done it was time to fly to coop. She could come back if she needed a place in the next week. This would be one of the last on her options list though, just in case the Feds came back. At least, she thought they were Feds. While she was taping, she had spotted the mangled insignia. Eagle in a circle seal holding stuff in all the right colors. It looked legit, but she'd never really seen internal FBI documents before, assuming that is what they were. Okay, so there was a lot of assuming going on. All the more reason to get the heck out while she still could.
Lori scooped all her sensitive information into the trash can that was still littered with paper shreds. The hand cuffs and condom box went on top. She left a tip for the Room Service. Wasn't the bus boy's fault.
She took everything back to the empty apartment the grifter's had rented for her reconnaissance. Opening the door, everything was as she had left it, bare floor and empty walls except for a pair of binoculars a pad of paper, a pen, and her red alligator skin bag. She added the trash can to her collection before grabbing some more cash out and running more errands. There were more things to buy before she could ship off her present to Jacen.
"Jacen... I know you're probably still steaming, but I wanted to give you the one gift you would never think to give yourself."
Lori listened to her own slightly slurry voice on the digital voice recorder. She'd made that recording not two days ago in the bathroom before visiting Pulse. Not everything on the recording was perfectly audible, there were scratchy parts to be sure, but she'd captured the bad guy on tape. Heh. Bad guy. Like she wasn't a bad guy too. Lori went back to highlighting and organizing. She wanted to make it painfully obvious who's fault this all was.
While there were still bigger things going on with the Feds and the folder full of pictures, she'd gotten enough to hook Jacen about what killed his parents. A morbid gift, but a necessary one. There was no way he could live in his happy bubble forever. She was just clearing the sh*t out before it hit the fan. Did this mean she was becoming a good person? Lori leaned back on her haunches and tapped the end of the highlighter against her chin.
If there were ever a person who could convince her to play nice in a world full of meanies it was this guy. She was teaching him things, didn't that allow him a certain amount of teaching on his end? She re-capped the marker and looked over the papers nervously again before playing the tape's introduction one last time. The gift he would never think to get himself... That was something she'd learned from Mars. It was better if Jacen never found that part out.
Everything went into a special parcel package.
The copies of police reports bearing similar situations to Jacen's parents' deaths complete with color coding to match the copy of the reconstructed list of names. That meant the names on the list were plausibly children of murdered parents. Like Jacen was a child of murdered parents. A baggy of shredded papers accompanied the papers along with a black and white photo labeled "Pulse" and finally the digital voice recorder. Something seemed missing, though... some personal touch to make certain it was from her. Lori grabbed the hotel stationary from the Fed's room and scribbled a note in her own hand writing.
"There is no such thing as normal. ~L"
Perfect.
Her trip to the post office was short and uneventful. The parcel was to go to her trailer. From there it was to be delivered by courier bicycle to Jacen's apartment. That way any rabble would end up at her house, not Jacen's. Now all she had to do was finish up the grifter's job and tail Pulse until Jacen came. Because he would come. He'd have to be a moron to not see the evidence she'd packaged so nicely for him.
Electricity and heat did not get along. Lori was sluggish and wanted nothing more than to laze in the air conditioning. The heat did no favors to her throbbing and purplish eggplant of a nose either. It was one of those really good bruises that made her question if the nose had been fractured. Today it was a wonderful blackish purple with red stippling that spoke of a really deep injury. Despite her achey breaky schnoz, she had things to do.
Her day started out relatively normal. She turned in her latest assignment from the grifters and started another while poking around at a safe distance about where Pulse liked to hang out. She had been deemed a reputable enough source to assign a few grifters to her case. This was what she had been working toward, after all, and it was everything she'd hoped for. Unfamiliar faces who could ask questions and disappear into the crowd with no eggplant nose to give them away.
The information she found out through her new sources didn't help her much. Pulse was on retainer for a firm that no one seemed to know the name of, nor could they figure out what they did. They only knew where it was because Pulse visited once a week to get his assignments, if any. If he had an assignment he could disappear for weeks at a time, not unlike a certain blond that had finally made her way out of New York. If he had a hit this week, hopefully it was in town and if she was really lucky, there would be no hit at all.
What had started life as a pair of jeans, was now a pair of knee-length shorts. It was too freaking hot for pants in Florida and she'd already ditched the dress. So bikini top with a man's dress shirt over top and shorts it was. Even if Tallahassee wasn't on the beach front, people still got away with such things. Lori even pondered getting a wig of some kind. She really, really didn't want to get recognized by Pulse, but in the end decided that she was no super spy and went for a second hand baseball cap. Red Sox only because the hat was red. It was better than some of the alternatives. She tucked her hair up in it and it was even better for keeping cool.
If there had been a pool she could have swam in, she would have done it. Instead she was stuck being miserable and taking notes on other people's lives. Jacen had better get here soon because there wasn't any Global Cooling in sight. This time, her info gathering was about a person. That meant no free lodgings and so, when at the end of the day it was time to get changed and find a safe distance to trail Pulse, she was checking into a new hotel. Make that motel. She wasn't made of money.
The red alligator skin bag found a home next to the bathroom as she went in to do something about the hot and stickiness. With the water running, she wet the smallest corner possible of a washcloth and went about carefully dabbing at the skin of her face and nose. She didn't even hear the door open again. But she did see a movement in the mirror. Something big and uglier than her nose.
He had a gun. Cute. It went flying to the side and landed with a plop into the toilet. He cursed. "They said she was a null!" And for once, she was glad to disappoint. He grabbed for her, she was just a little thing, gun or none she should have been an easy snag. Should have. What he grabbed was thin air. She'd dropped to her back and drove both legs up and out into his leg, focusing on a point three feet past his knee. The sound it made was gross, but effective. Sucker.
Lori pushed herself up to her feet and did a strange hopping dance to get over the fallen man. Despite his injury he still made an attempt at grabbing for her legs. Valiant. He succeeded in tripping her, but that was it. She scrambled to get her legs under her again and someone caught her hair and pulled painfully. Backup? The bad guys weren't supposed to have backup. That wasn't fair.
Lori raised her hands to give the hair pulling meanface the shock of a life time, but he had other plans. He flung her backward into a wall. It was enough to knock the air of out her and make her really angry. Angry enough to know the next thing that touched her would regret it. Something harder than flesh hit her in the face and knocked her head back against the wall.
She rose out of the darkness slowly, dragging upwards like swimming up to teh surface of a deep pool. What had woken her? She couldn't remember going to sleep. Lori tried to roll over and couldn't. Suddenly, she became very awake, eyes wide, body straining. She'd been tied up before and it was one of her least favorite things. A few seconds of pure panic filtered by as she bucked against the ropes that tied Lori at the wrists and ankles. She fought, pulling until she realized that the knots were getting tighter as she wriggled.
The chair was old and straight-backed. Lori's wrists were tied to the slats that made up the arms of the chair. Ankles tied separately to a leg of the chair. The ropes were tight. She tugged one last hopeful time at the ropes, wishing for some slack. There wasn't any. She had this Houdini fantasy that she would find enough slack to wiggle free. It never works that way. Once you're tied up right, you stay tied up until someone lets you go.
And that someone had been enjoying the show. He rewarded her efforts with a golf clap as he pulled up a chair and her red bag. He sat in the chair backwards in front of Lori like one of the cool kids. By the looks of him, he had never been one of the cool kids. Or maybe she was just sore at him for tying her up? Naw. Lori's nose throbbed hot and large, demanding attention from the middle of her face. Despite her panic it would not be ignored, especially in the warmth of the room. The air was stagnant as if air conditioning were a distant dream. Had she been wearing more than a bikini top, she would have been soaking.
Eyes the color of dirty windows followed his hands as he went through her things. He was an invasive son of a bitch; and Lori wanted to hurt him. To hurt him because he scared her. Was he the one in her room? For who did he work? There were entirely too many unanswered questions for Lori to be comfortable. Well, that and the being helpless at a stranger's mercy, but by god, she was not going to break the silence first.
He pulled out the portable defibrillator first, eye curious as if he had never seen the contents of her bag. Surely that was a lie. There was no telling how long it had been from the hotel room until now. The paddles he lay aside and next he pulled out the wad of cash she'd earned while in town. He clucked his tongue and ran a practiced finger through the green. A pro could estimate a wad just by fingering it like that. The money also he lay aside in favor of what seemed most interesting to him. Her different forms of identification. This time she'd picked an "A" theme.
His voice was jarring in the heavy, hot silence. She'd known it was coming, could see the words forming behind his lips, and she still jumped. And she hated him all the more for it. "This Ohio driver's license says you're Abigail Henson. This passport, Allison Gentry. And this-- Anna Parme?" He tossed the group of paper and plastic to the ground and Lori's eyes followed it as if it were magnetized. "What's your real name, sweety?"
Lori stared up at his softly amused face. He was a condescending bastard, but if it ever came to real violence, one of them would have to die. Unfortunately, with the odds as they were, chances were good it would be Lori. She pressed her lips together forming a thin line. There were no answers she could give him that would make either of them happy. Instead she did her best to ignore the man and inspect the room around her. It looked like any middle American living room. Plush carpet. White walls and ivory colored doors. Hell, there were doilies on the table that Lori's grandmother would have been proud of.
"Come now, surely FBI agents have names." He took her look of puzzlement to a 'how did you know I was FBI?' rather than 'why the hell does this whackadoodle think I'm FBI?'. It was a subtle distinction to be sure. "We know you work with RUPERT. How'd they put it in Heroes? One of us, one of them? That's how your teams are split up, right? On mutant, one adapted?"
She remained very still hoping that if she could avoid drawing attention to herself that he would keep talking. Because as scared as she was, he was saying things she'd never heard before. Possibly useful things later on in life. Assuming there was life beyond this room for her.
"Hey now--" were quite possibly the first words she'd spoken to these men as she wriggled her arm under the hands that were steadying her. Because she had tensed up, it hurt more than it should have when the needle bit home. "What is this shit?" She'd been holding her tongue because she knew that once she'd talked, she was more likely to talk again. The more she talked, the more likely they were going to get something useful out of her. So far she was coming out ahead and had learned far more than they had.
They thought she was a Federal Agent, which meant they were big time enough to think they could abduct a governmental employee and possibly get away with it. That didn't bode well for her survival rate, but until she'd bit the big one, she'd be listening. The people who had her didn't like the adapteds, what one of the men in her hotel room had called a null. Adapted. That's what Jacen was.
She had to work very, very hard on blank eyes when they'd asked her about the adapteds. How was the list coming along? How could they get their dirty paws on it? How many they had recruited? What was her assignment? Where were they setting up base? They had a whole slew of questions that answered a lot of Lori's questions. This faction was well connected, well funded.
What had started life as a private firm tasked with finding the particular anomaly that nullified mutant powers, had now turned into an adapted killing task force. They had found a way to identify adapteds by something in the blood. As soon as that happened the government had stepped in and taken over, taking all of their research with them. Now they had nothing but the knowledge of what was out there and some names from an initial run through a database. They'd made all of them orphans that they could. Killing the parents had been their first step to ensure that no more threats to mutant kind were made from successfully proven matches.
Damn. She told him there was no such thing as normal, but this was pretty whack on her scale.
One of her visitors had tried to be particularly cruel in telling her these facts to scare her about her partner. Heh. Because they thought she had someone out there looking for her, a whole agency and even better a partner. All she had was Jacen and as great a guy he was, she'd never seen him in action before. Well, not the kind of action that was search and rescue.
Even if Jacen decided to come to Florida, which seemed like a bad idea right now given the current adapted hostility level, there was no telling where she was or how he would find her. And there was no way in hell she was giving up the only adapted she knew. Her silence all but corroborated the story they had cooked up for her. She would have told them every name on the list if she could have remembered them.
Lori licked her lips. She could maybe remember a last name or two and go from there, but there was no real guarantee that she wasn't just making it up. After all the highlighting and snooping, when she'd found the list, her eyes had always floated back to Jacen King's name. Besides, she'd gotten to know the highlighted names the best. And those were the orphans, the ones that this sick-o group had already gotten to in some way.
An unnatural calm flooded through her and the hands that had been holding her still slid up her arms to her shoulders and from her shoulder to the chair back.
"You shouldn't have killed Lionel. He was the nice one."
Lori tried not to smile. He had been nice, in a way. He'd told her a lot and when he got out his nifty torture set, it had been a lovely matching metal one. Most of the pieces were probably still standing up out of his face like exclamation marks now, buried too deep in the bone for them to take out before they dragged his body away. They'd wizened up and removed all the metal they could feasibly remove from the room. Now they had given her a nifty chill pill in the form of an IV.
She swiveled her head around to get a look at the tube as if it would tell everything to her.
"Sodium Pentothal." Just hearing the words made Lori smile serenely.
"I hope you know that truth drugs don't work."
"Seems to be working just fine so far."
Lori frowned and only then seemed to remember to breathe. And what she breathed in smelled like garbage. "You reek." Why did he suddenly smell like bad onions? "You can suppress my higher cortical functions all day and it won't give you a peep out of me because you smell. Nope. You smell. I don't talk to smelly stran--" He caught her cheeks between his fingers and squeezed her lips into a funny shape to shut up her sing-songy assessment.
"Whlay-alrh-lew-slo-lad-lat-lee?" The man with dirty window eyes put his face in front of Lori's, a definite invasion of personal space, especially with her face all goofy looking. Well shucks, she felt kind of stupid now. His eyes would have been so lovely under different circumstances. Lori would have loved to to see the blue sky beyond the dirt.
"I'll tell you why I'm mad at you, because you won't talk to me. It's really starting to hurt my feelings, you know."
As Lori relaxed further, her power started to leek. The man let go of her cheeks when it became too much and rubbed his hand on his pants as if he'd touched something icky. Well, a slight current might have provided enough heeby jeebies.
"Since you've decided to betray your kind, you've left us no other option but to use your gifts to further our cause."
"Wouldn't you need me to cooperate in order to use my gift?"
He gave Lori a condescending look. Ask a stupid question...
