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.
There was nothing here to like. Panu's hands went to his headphones. He frowned, and tried to change the track. Couldn't. No, could, but… the music didn't change. His phone said that his playlist was fine, but his ears said that this was very not fine.
"Not me," the boy said, raising his camera to look all around. But his camera was wrong about the music, so he did not know if he could trust what he saw. "…Not familiar."
(yes it was)
The figures strode past them. Panu could see the tiles through their plodding feet, could see the stores through their swinging arms. Almost he could hear voices, like a crowd was talking and laughing and happy just behind his head, but when he turned the sound was never closer. A silhouette strode past with a littler shape next to it, a child as tall as Erik. They held hands, and were their shadowy fingers overlapped there was the solid sure black of real contact, not the see-through fakeness.
Panu reached for Erik's hand, and wrapped his fingers around it lightly. The Russian teen was very warm and very real.
"If you let go of hand, then they can take you away." He did not know how he knew—
(yes he did)
--but it was a Certain Fact. He did not know who could take them—
(it didn't help to remember, once they had you you were too small and too weak to fight)
--but he knew it was Bad. He held Erik's had very tight, and stood up very straight, because he was not little and useless anymore.
(file is corrupted. file is locked. file is No Good, Doesn't Help, Stay Away. Do you wish to open file? Y/N)
There were more and more figures around them now, they did not care that he and Erik were there, it was very busy--
(Christmas in one week, everything bad always happened at Christmas)
--and the giants pushed and shoved at them, making it harder and harder to stay together, not because they were mean but because they were too busy to care. Panu had been—Panu was a super villain, but even he knew that was Worst Evil In World. Not caring, not seeing, living happy life while somewhere
(No no no do not open file--)
someone's child was being abducted, and no one even noticed, because they were too busy buying presents for their own.
The roof of the mall split open. A shadowy hand as big as the moon tore it off, and reached its other hand inside. Its fingers sagged like tar towards the floor as the reached towards them.
(This was not how it happened. The man had been nice, he had said come with me, we will find your mom, and Panu had gone and it was his own fault he was stupid stupid)
Panu held onto Erik's hand with both of his, but he knew it would not work would not help, because he knew
(he had always been afraid)
that even if he had been with an adult it would not have helped at all. Just because adults were big did not mean they were strong, and they would only get hurt trying to protect him. And maybe it was better
(safer for everyone)
if he just… let go of Erik's hand.
The Russian teen had been hurt for him once already, Panu did not want to see him hurt again.
Things had happened so fast he did not even know what happened. So fast that when they came tumbling to a stop, he buried his face into Erik's shirt and squeezed his eyes shut (stupid useless reflex why did it even matter) and replayed the footage in his head. Again. And again.
It made no sense. It was like watching a movie with bad special effects, but so bad that they were good again. Bikes did not catch fire like that, they did not explode like that, they did not randomly crash themselves in the middle of empty suburban streets like that.
>> "You alright?"
Panu was maybe shaking a little, but this was a Completely Normal Reaction and not because he was a scared child. Erik had been scared too. Probably. Very loud swearing usually meant either angry or scared, and the Russian teenager didn't sound angry.
The Finn's hands stayed balled up in Erik's shirt for just a moment longer, and then he let go, and sat up slowly. He rolled his shoulders and his ankles and poked at his ribs.
"Nothing is broken," he declared, because he was not going to complain about the way his elbow felt like a skinned carrot. It had bumped into the street when—
When Erik had hit the ground first, trying to protect him.
The Finn grabbed his phone in hand and used it to look at Erik's head and arms and legs and head and back and head he did not have head wound, right? Panu didn't move his head or eyes like most people would, only the phone.
Erik's back looked very not good, but also… not so bad. Less bad, as his camera watched.
"You are healer?" the boy asked, letting the relief get into his shoulders and slump them down. "I am technopath," he offered, because probably it was obvious by now that he was not normal. Probably it had been obvious since he asked to be picked up at the school.
He was focused so hard on Erik, he did not notice at first that the shadows around them were growing wider, and taller, and longer. All around them the nice suburban houses were rising higher and higher, coming closer together, changing into something else. The black street pavement melted and smoothed to checkered tiles as wide as Erik was tall. The rooftops bridged together over the sky far above, locking them on this side, and the sun far away. Giant fluorescent lights flicked on one by one.
They were in a shopping mall built for giants. There were letters on the signs towering above them, but even though they could be read letter by letter, the words themselves made no sense. Window mannequins leered down at them in winter hats and sweaters with Nordic patterns, giving them an idea of exactly how tall the people of this place would be.
It was a mall built for giants, or one seen from the eyes of a very small child.
His Responsible Adult was legal to drive, but not legal to drink (but mostly that was because America was stupid). His Responsible Adult was on a motorcycle, and had an accent that fit with his name of 'Erik Volkov' to make him almost-certainly-probably from Russia.
The little Finn grinned, and hopped down off the wall. He was not even going to delete this footage from the school's cameras: this was too funny. Like taking the exact words of his parole terms and rubbing their nose in mud. He could even prove this adult was responsible—see? The teen was giving him a helmet and goggles.
Very responsible.
He switched into Russian, where his accent was probably not very good, but no worse than when he spoke in English. Google translate whispered the words he wanted in his head, and he spoke them:
"Yes, I am Panu. It is good to meet you, Mr. Erik Volkov."
He set the helmet on his head, and felt at the straps until he knew where they were and how to tighten them. Then he fussed a little at making it just right, because his brain was 100% the most important part of him. Probably his quality of life would be much the same if he was just a head in a jar, as long as his brain stayed alive. And had access to a good data plan. The googles he also put on, but these were to humor his Adult. He did not think there was anything that would make him more blind.
"First we will go to the electronic store on Turner and 14th. Then—"
The Finn climbed on the back of the motorcycle, still rattling off today's itinerary. There were seven places he wanted to go, which left exactly a half hour for each place after drive time.
In his head, Panu called it Rent-An-Adult. Probably this was too insulting to say to his Rental Adult, so this is what the job board posting said:
WANTED: Escort/Bodyguard/Responsible Adult
TASK: Simple escort of (non-whiny) child around New York City. Mutant preferred, humans will be considered, Adapteds should Die In Fire. No significant threats expected, but if you ever go anywhere unprepared for Terrible Things to happen then you are too stupid to live and you should please close this posting and go play with puppies and butterflies.
DURATION: Approx. 4 hours
LOCATION: Pick up child at Xavier's Institute for Gifted and Talented Children That Adults Care For So Much They Locked in Boarding School, drop off at same
The pay was listed, too. It was generous, and specified as being in cash. This was because the Feds had found most Ragnarok bank accounts, but any ATM Panu asked politely would gladly spill out all of its money and also show on its video that no one had been there.
And so it was that Panu, after having sorted through the internet's most qualified applicants-who-live-in-New-York-and-look-at-message-boards, was waiting just outside the Mansion gates, swinging his legs from the brick wall. The Finnish boy was dressed in shorts and a blue t-shirt, and had a smart phone hanging from a cord like he was a tourist. Also studio headphones pushed down around his neck, because it was hot out and they had been making his ears sweaty. Classical music played from them, at a polite not-trying-to-blast-the-street volume.
As it turned out, there was a very big loophole in his parole terms that Panu tried to only abuse when being locked in school was Making Him Insane: the judge had said he could not leave the school at all without a responsible adult escort.
Nowhere did it say he could not pay for a Responsible Adult Escort.
>> "Whoa! You're... what, a full blown technopath?..."
The full blown technopath sat down on the edge of one of the beds. He made sure to sit quickly, so that he bounce-bounce-bounced. Just like a child.
"When we met at mall, you gave me X-communicator. Thank you, it was very useful to Ragnarok. Helping instigator of mall shutdown escape was also very appreciated. I even got to keep dog-robot until stupid police confiscated it."
To be fair, Panu had paid for those services by stopping the Metabots from arresting and/or tasering the X-Men during their escape. And he had wanted to tell Mirror the whole time, because what was even the point of tricking your enemy if they never know?
>> 'I didn't turn my phone on so you could send me pictures of cats...
The Finn sat very still for 0.02 seconds. Then, he smiled like an angel. One that God had just handed a flaming sword to, and said go blow off some steam, kid.
That was permission, yes? She gave him permission? She wanted him to help. She had read his (stupid paper) file, she knew he was not a stupid little kid that needed to be locked in a car to keep him out of the way, she knew he was a best situated in the car. She was front range fighter, he was mage support.
She had given permission. Now, he would help Best Parole Officer Ever to win.
A map appeared on Brook's phone, showing the black and white architectural layout of the building. It was one story, with a basement.
On the map were dots: black for probably-hostages, red for probably-robbers, yellow outlines around definitely-mutants in both groups. Locations were based on the cameras he was watching through. Much more precise than her scanner, since the scanner was meant for longer range tracking, and did not do well with things at super close you-should-be-able-to-see-this-anyway range.
Tapping any of the rooms would bring up camera footage for it. Tapping any of the people brought up whatever he knew. The chipped mutants all had information from the moment the map first showed up; he pulled it from the scanner, so she would not need to juggle both scanner and phone. She had enough in her hands already. Details on the others would begin updating as she watched.
The bank employees were easy: the computers at their stations showed who was logged in, and at least one was logged into staff email, and directory had photos, so even though all the cashiers had been herded out to sit with the customers he could find who they were.
Also, they dressed like bank people.
Customers were harder; some had accounts open on cashier computers, but there weren't photos, only names. Some of those had social media accounts, and he could match names to footage. Some did not.
Little name tags and question marks populated the map, popping up until everyone had something, even if that something was just "Cannot Confirm ID".
When the map was done—less than a minute from when she set cat text joke—he texted again.
Next time, the message said, we get you earbud and smart glasses. Then you have both hands free. This is stupid way to utilize technopath, but I will work with your crippling limitations.
Ms. Brooks talked probably like how a barracuda would talk. There were teeth in her words that smiled at anything that glinted enough to catch her attention. Panu hunkered down in his seat and resolved to be dull and boring and not-attention-grabbing.
This got easier when he found more chipped mutants to play with. The scanner did not have a full database, but it had some names still in its memory from the last time she had searched them, and also he could send a request to server for quick file. If the ride was longer, maybe he would have tried closing his eyes and pretending to nap and see if he could get to the full records before they got to Xavier's. But maybe that was not a First Parole Meeting sort of activity.
Over there was ID81328047, Real Name: Tony Bosco, Code Name: Boston Ivy, Mutation: Gamma elemental, grows plants rapidly from seed, usually vines for traps, Threat Level: Medium, Criminal record: YES
And over there was ID 38470854, Real Name: Unknown, Code Name: Jackpot, Mutation: Full details unknown, Iota always-on passive effect, local probability has been observed to swing in her favor, Threat Level: High, Criminal record: YES
And then there was… more. And for a moment he thought they were rushing towards him, until he remembered he was in a car and started paying attention to cameras again. The chips were not coming closer to them: Ms. Brook was driving them closer to the chips.
There was a bank up ahead. And the little Finn sitting in her passenger seat froze up for a moment as they passed the 100 yard mark and its cameras became his cameras and inside he was screaming no no no but outside he was taking Deep Breath and letting out and pretending not to notice that they were going to the drive in of a bank robbery.
"I will not leave this car unless car is not safe," the Finn promised. Since the car was next to a bank being robbed, it was already very not safe, so that meant he could leave anytime.
He watched on the external cameras as Ms. Brook crept towards the side entrance. She turned on her phone as she went, and suddenly he knew her phone number and contacts, which he mostly ignored for now (though he added her number to the contacts in his head). Right now there were more important things than reading her whole message history.
Things like Proving He Was Useful.
And that is why, when she came to the key card reader on the side door, its steady red winked green at her.
The phone in her pocket buzzed with a new text message.
Do you want map of building, or is borrow layout from city archives illegal?
Panu didn't think it was. But he had never really bothered to check before.
Panu maybe dragged his heels a little on the way out the door, the computers were right there and no one else in the building had turned them off and and…
Shoulder slump. Foot drag.
At least there were other cameras outside of her office. He left the old dinosaur phone plugged into the wall, because 5% charge was funny the same way a beetle on its back on the sidewalk was.
"If I wanted to steal your car I—"
He was so used to muttering threats in Finnish that almost he forgot that she could speak Finnish. He shut his mouth and followed her nicely and tried to pretend he hadn't just said that. He switched back to English.
"I will be good, because not being good is stupid."
Her car was a dinosaur, just like her phone. He couldn't even tell what year it was because it was too old to tell him itself, and he was too cranky did-not-care to Google it.
At least she had the scanner with her. Panu used the parking garage cameras to find the door handle, then he slid onto the seat and felt out the belt and buckle. Snap.
No dash cam or rear cam. No view. Once they got on the road, he would have traffic cameras and people texting while they drove and so many maps talking directions. For now, boring nothing.
Not boring though, because she still had her scanner with her. Panu told it to please keep its screen off, but he used it to start pinging other chips. SUPER had been very busy in NYC.
Gawain was one of those people who didn't get angry at anything. He was made of shrugs and smirks and listening-to-people-when-they-spoke. He was awful.
>> "... uh, if you want, we can get you some cameras in here. You know, for... better vision…"
…
"Yes please," the Finn said, swallowing down every single bit of snark. Since he had been talking with 90% snark, that left only a quiet little 10% volume voice to come out. "Also Angua can be my roommate if she wants to."
But no, this was a trap, the X-Man was just trying to bribe him for good behavior. It was all that goodies really know how to do. He sat on the nearest bed and stuck his feet out in front and made his best glare-face in Gawain's direction (though probably he was glaring at the wall slightly to Gawain's left).
"Just to be clear," he said.
"You don't know anything about me," Gawain's phone said.
"And we are not friends," his x-communicator finished.
"But I will need three or four cameras," the boy himself said, with chin in air. "Thank you."
There was a look on her face as he talked. A grainy, pixilated look. It was the kind of look that any child who had ever met any Actually Smart Adult would recognize. It was the I know exactly what you're doing and I'm humoring you by listening look.
Panu knew by that look alone that his new parole officer was Formidable Opponent. Probably now she was going to ask him all kinds of stupid questions about his history and his—shudder—feelings and—
And… she didn't? She…
She was going to end Boring Pointless Meeting, probably she had only been waiting for the minimum amount of time to pass so that Boss Won't Yell At Her and now she was calling legal system on stupid waste of time that was parole meeting.
And she still had that look on her face. Now he knew it wasn't a I'm humoring you look: it was a I'm humoring The World look.
She would 100% make excellent villainess.
"My nose will be very clean," the Finn said, trying to give her back a look of I know you are humoring and we will humor together (but probably he got it wrong because faces were hard, especially on 0.7 megapixels.)
He was just about to update his mental files with the title Best Parole Officer when she decided she needed to shoot him. Painless and standard procedure were exactly what doctors said before there was pain and flue vaccine that gave him a bruise for a week.
Panu tried for totally don't believe you but this-is-how-I-get-out-of-here look. And held out his wrist. And oww and—
And slow start up. Activation. Transmission.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee--
It was a pet chip. A mutant pet chip. He would be insulted except that—
—eeeeeeeeeeeeee—
--she had just upgraded him with GPS and--
—eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
--now he could call Uber without his phone, he only needed app in his head, oh and Google Maps too, and and and what frequency was it even transmitting at—
HAHAHA got it
"This is the best thing ever," Panu said in very excited Better Than a Birthday Finnish as he looked for—
YES there was a scanner! Right on her belt, thank you Ms. Best Parole Officer.
And now he was looking at every signal in range and… that was a lot of pings from the basement, what was…?
Oh. Secret experiment lab-prison thing. That was normal, even the X-Men had one, they just called it 'school'. At least other groups had decency to put mutants in little cell when they were done, not make them listen to History Teacher Saying What Wikipedia Could Also Say Except Longer. Panu would just have to be useful, then he wouldn't end up down there. Being useful was his #1 trait.
"This is SO COOL how often does the battery need to be—" no no nevermind it was "—bioelectric charging! Oh of course, it's small enough, that must be why you're only transmitting location and not biometrics. Maybe if there were two chips and the first only had to transmit to the second and the second handled the long-distance transmission then you could send more. Or one big chip, but probably that's easier to find and cut out, I can see why you went so small, these are supposed to be secret right? Wait, but just collecting location data is so boring there's no way your amazing awesome wonderful scientists would want to settle for that, if you could at least get heart rate too then you could tell when your subjects are experiencing high emotions, if this is for trying to catch repeat offenders than high emotions are probably a better sign of ill intent than just location alone—"
Said the technopath currently experiencing high emotions. In very fast Finnish (with a slight Californian accent).
"Oh! I need a ride back to school too, you don't waste as much time at these meetings as my last parole officer. Unless you want me to sit in the lobby for an hour until my ride from Xavier's—"
Sit in the lobby. Next to the receptionist's computer. Which was hooked to their network. For an hour. With his new toy and unlimited data access to what all the unique IDs they were transmitting meant.
"—never mind, you're a busy woman, I'll just wait in the lobby and be very quiet. It's no trouble."
The little Finn tried for totally angelic, but maybe got that one wrong, too.
"Training is stupid." Panu grumbled, because Gawain did not even care that Panu was being rude to him and that was annoying. If the Finn was going to take the time to be rude, he wanted results. It was boring if the man just kept shrugging and smiling. "In training you can hold back and everything is okay. It's bad habit, bad thing to practice. Real world, if you hold back people are hurt or die or maybe police catch whole family. Powers aren't for playtime. Probably you did not just learn from training, you did not seem completely awful with your powers at mall."
Grumble grumble.
Angua was on his side, at least. She looked back at him and wagged her tail and pushed into a room.
It was much bigger than the California rooms. There were two real beds instead of bunkbeds, and there was carpet instead of tile, and if he climbed that dresser it probably wouldn't even fall over. Panu held up his phone and looked around. It would not be bad, especially if he could wire up a camera there and there and maybe also there.
…First he would have to find money for cameras. Then he would have to explain to X-Men and his parole officer where he got money. This was going to take forever.
She was writing, he could hear her writing. She was writing and not saying anything and if this was a Test of Will than he would just keep standing. His old babysitter had never believed him about being blind, Panu was pretty sure it was on the long list of things that man had scribbled.
And now she was going through her desk, what, did her pen run out of ink? Maybe she should stop taking notes then—
Desk drawer closed. Chair squeak. Wall… fumble?
And then the glorious sunrise of a phone's start screen. He was looking through its camera as soon as it started up, it's—eww, 1.1 megapixels? Was this what it was like to live in an 8-bit game?
Panu took in a breath and let it out and resolved to accept this gift with the grace of a child eating grandma's stale cookies.
"Very much better, thank you." They were speaking English again, apparently. He tried not to deflate over that either, but his shoulders were slumping maybe a little. She'd pointed the camera so he could see the desk and the chair and himself, so he watched his—shudder—low resolution self set a tentative hand on the chair, and sit down. Through the—eww—0.7 megapixel front camera, he saw her SUPER BIG wow that was close hands motion in maybe a you-can-take-this way but he wasn't 100% sure so he slowly slowly slowly reached for the phone and only when she didn't snatch it back did he actually take it.
It was tethered to the wall by a cord and he had to lean forward a little so he didn't pull it out on accident. She had phone-leashed him. This ruined his Perfectly Straight And Repentant posture but his back had been getting tired anyway so maybe it was okay to put his elbows on the desk and slump a little.
So, what could he tell her about himself?
This was a trick question that adults liked to ask. If he said normal things than they um-hmmed and tuned him out because he was a boring child and children don't know anything. If he said real things they shifted in their seat uncomfortably and that is how he ended up with mandatory counseling sessions at his old school and also teachers who treated him like glass about to fall and break.
Boring was probably better.
"I am learning to play the violin." He was terrible and it was so funny. Being able to mute his ears made violin practice the most passive-aggressive so you want me to have constructive hobbies hobby ever. "I like it a lot. Also I met a dog at my new school," and she didn't ask him questions and she let him lean against her and she was like a furry breathing couch that occasionally dumped him on the floor when she stood up. Best Mansion resident. "She belongs to one of the X-Men, one of the ones who has a stupid this-is-my-power-please-exploit-weaknesses name." He should not call people stupid out loud he should not— "But their dog is nice so probably they're not totally stupid. At least they have good taste in dogs."
As he spoke, he tried to keep his face pointed at her, but he angled the phone's camera little by little so he could actually see the room. Left wall: boring, who even liked landscape paintings, did she even take the default store picture out of the frame? Desk: American flag cup because PATRIOTISM. Enough pens that she would never run out no matter how many notes she took. And little figurines. They had creepy faces, but maybe that was just the camera. Maybe. Behind her was another landscape. Next to that was a landscape. Over on the right wall was a landscape. No pictures of people or pets and definitely no children. That was okay, adults who didn't have children didn't get as many face-wrinkles when they realized he didn't act like their children.
"…Do you have a dog?"
Or a cat. Or maybe one of those fish with the pretty fins that people kept in little bowls and killed a lot on accident. She seemed like that kind of person.
Panu hated paper files. Paper files were like black holes of information, where his old parole officer wrote things and now this new one was reading them and he had to tuck his hands between his knees and cross his ankles so he didn't fidget while she did. Fidgeting looked guilty. Also he should not flinch when she said things like my my my and he definitely definitely should stop his spine from getting a little straighter when she complimented his achievements.
His villain achievements. That he was 100% sorry about.
So he didn't fidget and he didn't flinch and he didn't look Super Proud because all of those were traps. So was talking when she hadn't asked a real question.
…At the least, he wished he knew what they'd written for his power. He knew what his old case worker and his teachers suspected, but he didn't know what they could prove. If she knew something for sure and he lied, then he was Caught. But if she didn't know something and he told the truth, then it went in his file forever and everyone else could know and they could blame him for a lot more and maybe catch him doing them, too.
>> "This way, please."
"Yes, ma'am." He followed behind like a good boy. Mostly their hallway cameras were good, but sometimes she blocked his view of himself and sometimes there were blind spots an 11-year-old could fit in, and he just tried to walk straight for those. 'Straight' mostly meant 'towards the next camera he could feel.'
There were zero cameras in her office. Not even a camera phone, because the stupid paper file had probably told her to turn that off, just like she must have turned off her computer, because what office doesn't have a computer? He couldn't feel anything in here.
Panu followed her in very slowly. No cameras meant he was actually blind, not just organic-eyes-are-overrated-anyway blind. No cellphone in her pocket meant he could sort of hear the direction she went, but he couldn't orient on her. No computer meant he didn't even know where the desk was. Normally he had his own phone, but sometimes parole officers confiscated those from him so he had left it at the Mansion.
He was not going to grope around the room for a chair like a weak useless blind boy, that was not going to happen, he would just stand here and keep his back straight and maybe it would look like he meant to stop in the middle of her… not carpet, and her heels were even more clicky and a little bit more Echoes of Authority then shoes-on-tile, maybe polished concrete? In the middle of her concrete floor.
>> "So. Your file only tells me so much. What can you tell me about yourself, Mr. Harmaajärvi?"
Did file tell you I need cameras for eyes?
That would not be polite. He didn't have to be polite to X-Men, but he definitely needed to be polite to her.
…Standing in the middle of her floor was probably not polite.
"Do you have a phone you could turn on?" His shoulders jumped as he thought of what that maybe sounded like. "This isn't a trick, I'm not trying to read your records, I just… can't see… without a camera. I don't know where the chair is."
His voice was stupid and quiet and weak and he hated it and he hated paper files.
Of course the X-Man thought the question was for him. Probably all X-Men liked being the center of attention, why else would they wear costumes? Panu found it super suspicious that the rise of totally-illegal-but-no-one-arrests-them vigilantes was directly proportional to the spread of camera phones. His history teacher had not liked this example being on Panu's History of Superheroes presentation but that was because the man was biased.
If the X-Men were actually good people, they would do good things all the time, not just in public. Like helping with luggage. Not that Panu wanted help and he would not accept help but Gawain hadn't even offered.
Angua also didn't offer, but she didn't have opposable thumbs, so that was okay. She was the Strong Silent Furry type.
"I bet you can't help train my powers," Panu said. He remembered how it felt to be taken through the mirrors; it was dark and quiet (and peaceful) and awful and there hadn't been anyway to stay oriented because the only electronics he could feel were the ones he was carrying. The whole rest of the world had just gone away (and no data had been pressing at his head saying I'm here I'm here). And then he had been woozy when they came back out because the whole world had shifted by fifty yards, but he hoped the X-Man didn't remember that part. "I already know how they work, why would I need you? And I could take GED test right now and pass if the stupid teachers would let me. Then I wouldn't have to waste so much time in class."
The diploma test in the US was like a history trivia game with a math section. Even a regular kid could do it with a smart phone, why did these adults even think they needed to teach any more? Teachers were like Apple II computers: some were okay in a museum, but they shouldn't be in every classroom.
Everything the woman wore was black. This was an excellent Evil color scheme, and Panu approved immediately before remembering that no-he-didn't-like-her.
And then she opened her mouth and Finnish came out, and he fell in love.
No! He would not be swayed. Her accent was almost-perfect-but-not-quite and her word choice as sub-optimal and someone was testing his resolve by putting her here. Just because it was the first Finnish he had heard in two years did not mean he needed to crumble.
…But maybe he could speak Finnish back. It was the Best Language, after all.
"Hello, Ms. Calahan. I'm very pleased to—"
His accent was terrible too he sounded like he was speaking over rusty nails what was this stupid country even doing to him. The wall camera was in black-and-white but he could feel his face turning very red.
He looked towards her and kept his shoulders squared because this was Trustworthy Body Language, but he probably wasn't meeting her eyes right. It was hard to do unless he had the right camera angles. Probably he was looking off to one side or something that would make him look even more stupid.
"—meet you," he finished. And cleared his throat a little. And tried again, much better this time. "I'm sorry to take up your time. I'm sure you're very busy. I've definitely not been doing anything illegal so you can go back to your day anytime."
He found her name in the records, and her salary and the amount of overtime she'd built up (probably she should take a vacation), but her actual records were encrypted. Encryption was annoying.
Maybe someone had left a password taped to their monitor, and he could just log in? Panu started flicking through camera feeds. Cubicles, offices, cellblock—