Calley was in Central Park, bird watching. Delicious, delicious bird watching. He even had out one of those “Birds of North America” paperbacks, opened hungrily to the English sparrow. Also known as the house sparrow. Passer domesticus delicioso.

Currently, he was in human form. His increasingly thin frame was covered in happy baggy clothes of weight-loss-hiding goodness: a pair of baggy black sweat pants, and large green army overstock coat over a gray NYU hoodie. He was wearing a gray scarf around his neck, too, but that was Slate's. He was just borrowing it.

He was sitting on a park bench. More specifically, he was sitting on the back of a park bench, with his feet on the seat, intently watching the cute little birdies eat up the seed he'd bought for them. They were on the ground, a whole little flock of them. English sparrows: his favorite.

On that note, it was probably time to eat again. Not here, and not at the local McDonald's, either, though that was tempting: he should go back to Mondragon Labs, where the cooks had started assuming the vast quantities of food he went through on a daily basis were just part of his mutation. Which it probably was. Now if he could just find that part, and cut it out with a rusty blade of dislike... In any case, Frank was waiting for him just outside of the park, reading a John Grisham novel behind the driver's seat of one of the Labs typical we're-totally-inconspicuous black jeeps. Calley officially had a ride back to the Labs any time he wanted one. Which would probably be soon. Besides the fact his stomach was trying to gnaw into his small intestine, he was also getting cold. Not having much body fat will do that to a guy, in a New York winter.

Oh, sparrows. He could spare a few more minutes to watch them grow fat on the food he'd scattered over the snow. Eat, pretty feathered ones, eat. Calley would be back for them another day, in cat form.

Taz walked on the path of the park. He knew Cassiel had told him to stay at the mansion and not be seen, but he had to clear his head. So he had walked out to the park. Taz looked down at his watch 1:00 pm he should probaly be getting back but, Cassiel would yell at him. Taz shuddered at the thought, and continued walking on the paved path.

((ooc: Taz, I keep having to search to find your character's profile! As the great Lady J has decreed in her Site Adminly wisdom, you should put a link to that in your signature. There's a tutorial here, if you don't know how. Thank you! )

There was a person walking down the path. The sparrows had also noticed this, and relocated away from the seed Calley had tossed onto the beaten snow of the path and back into the trees. Since the sparrows were much more interesting than people, this meant Calley didn't like this person very much. Though people certainly could be fun. This one was his age or a little younger, his height or a little shorter, and wearing blue jeans and a brown sweat shirt. He was also scrawny. And despite the company Calley had kept recently, odds where that any particular person he came across in New York City wasn't actually willing to kill him for annoying them.

Calley had that comforting statistic in mind as he pointed an accusing finger at the teenager. "You! You, Sir! You, Sir, are a villain! A fiend! A chaser-away-of-my-sparrows! A plague! A plague upon both your houses!" He vehemently (and quite happily) shouted.

ooc( it looks so confusing lol.)

Taz looked at the boy. " i ..I ..I didint mean to scare away the sparrows " Taz said looking around until he found his accuser. "The sparrows will come back in a few minutes!" Taz muttered darkly as he stared at the stranger.

((ooc: Put this in your sig:

[ url=http://theultimatexmen.proboards26.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=charactersprofile&thread=1197865663&page=1] Taz Highcrest[/url]

Just copy and paste it in, and take out the space I put in before the "url=" part. It won't work if you don't take that space out.

Does that help?))

Ooo, he was getting dark muttering stares. This was fun. "No they won't! They are gone forever! Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio." He lamented loudly. By the way, the Shakespeare quotes? Entirely Slate's fault. He'd run out of Mathematical texts after that Astrophysics one. Somehow, that had lead to him going on a Bard bender. Calley wasn't sure he approved, but he was finding the old English speeches a lot more entertaining than multiplication tables. He particularly liked this one (he liked it so much, in fact, that he said it aloud for Mister Random Teenage Stranger's benefit): "To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." End quote. Calley hopped off of his bench-back perch, and stood, dusting bird seed off of his pants. "So, what brings you to this fine park on this fine day?" He asked brightly.

Taz looked like he was about to laugh at the funny yet odd stranger and said. " It seems as if the world hates me for something they dont know." and looked down at the ground and said " I came to clear my thoughts."

"Huh." Calley answered, a little taken aback. Well, that was certainly... "Depressing. Any particular reason? Parents ground you? Flunk out of Algebra? Father got run over by a train? Best friend got outed as a mutant and got shipped to an internment camp? Dog got eaten by an escaped zoo tiger?"

Dog. Huh. Now that was something he'd never tried before... Calley's stomach gave a warning rumble. Another thing he hadn't actually ever tried: bird seed. Experimentally, he took a handful of the seed mix out of the rolled up bag in his coat pocket, and shoved it into his mouth.

...Grainy.

"you wouldent even begin to know why."taz said sadly ... Noticing the stranger eat birdseed Taz asked " would you like to get a hotdog with me at the vendors?"

Naturally, the kid's response prompted a quick song from Calley: "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen, nobody knows my sorrow..." He grinned, and stuck out his hand. "I'm Calley, by the way. And I can guess. Do you have Ebola? And yes, hot dogs good." He started walking towards the vendor, but he kept up his guesses. "Are you an undercover CIA agent with amnesia? Did Russia send you over to spy on our nuclear weapons program, but you feel madly in love with an American girl? Are you really a mutant? It's Ebola, isn't it?"

"nice to meet you calley im Taz."
"and no im not a secret agent for russia"
"can you keep a secret Calley?" Taz said quietly.

So he wasn't a secret agent from Russia. That meant, quite clearly, that he was an undercover CIA agent with amnesia and Ebola. Potentially, he had fallen in love with a girl while he was working with the nuclear weapons program. Most likely, she was a Russian, and also had Ebola. No wonder he was so depressed.

Calley popped another handful of bird seed--it wasn't that bad, actually--and raised his eyebrows at Taz. "Oh, I can keep a secret. In fact, it's safe to say that the general population underestimates my secret-keeping abilities. What's up?"

"well... im a ... mutant." Taz looked away. " I know your probaly going to scream and yell a mutant and run away with hate in your eyes." Taz said looking down at the ground.

"Nope," Calley popped another handful, chew-cruch-crackled, and swallowed. He also stopped walking towards the hot dog vendor. It wasn't exactly the nicest day outside, and winter wasn't prime Central Park visiting time to begin with, so fortunately there wasn't anyone around who could have heard Taz' words without super senses. And if someone had super senses, they probably weren't a problem. But there was still a point to be made here: "I'm going to tell you you're stupid, though. Really, really, really stupid. You do know that there's a Registration Law in place, right? Or are you already registered? Either way, not the best conversation topic to bring up with the random teenager eating birdseed." To illustrate his point: he ate some birdseed. It was actually a little addictive.

"Lucky for you," he continued, "I happen to be friends with some folks who are also, ah," what was that word the media was tossing around? "Develop-genetically challenged. You want I should hook you up with them? It's sort of... a support group. Yeah. And perfectly legal." He couldn't say that last line with a straight face: he just couldn't. But if anyone actually was listening, someone who wasn't supposed to be... he could always claim that everything he said was because he was on drugs. He was pretty sure that 99.9% of the population would believe him, without making him pee in any cups.

Calley ate another hand of birdseed as he waited for his fellow teen's reply. The little round yellow ones were really good, but they were getting stuck in his molars. It was annoying.

"I know about that law they made. They almost had me killed with there robots. You have friends that are .. like me?" "I would love to meet them"Taz said excitedly.

Calley grinned at his fellow teen's excitement. Boy-howdy, would it be easy to lead him into a dark alleyway and kill him.

Calley, please do not think like that.

It was a joke, Slate. 'Cause he's even more naive than we were. Get it?

Hmm, Slate replied noncommittally, before turning back to reading Hamlet. They'd tried a fun new trick today: they'd flipped through Shakespeare's great tragedy, and had each thought from the clutter memorize a few words from each page. Slate was seeing how well they could put the entire book back together. So far, he was up to Act I, Scene IV. None of them were quite sure where Scene II was, but Slate was confident he would find it before Act III began.

...Calley took this small moment to acknowledge how messed up his brain was. Then he popped another handful of birdseed, and smiled at Taz anew. "We could go right now, if you want. I was actually just headed that way, after I was done with the birdies. Care to join me?"

He didn't worry about whether Taz was lying about being a mutant or not. Sure, he could ask for proof. But if Taz was some police informant out fishing for information, he was possibly the worst informant in history. And really, it was so much quicker and easier to just bring him to the Resistance. If he was lying, he was dead. If he was telling the truth, he was home. Simple!

Were you supposed to take sunflower seeds out of their striped shells before you ate them?