13660/Two Technopaths

Two Technopaths
Date of Scene:	23 July 2021
Location:	The Bronx Subway Station
Synopsis:	After seeing Sinister in action, Theo follows him and asks for tutelage.
Cast of Characters:	Hardline, Sinister

---

Hardline has posed:
    The subway car had to be towed before everything was done, another car being sent to draw it forward and bring it to the station. This wasn't the place to engage the mutants or this strange individual. Not where there was no room to run if things went sour. So he sat, his eyes deliberately did not track either of his personal targets to follow up, sitting and minding his own business until everyone was given the exit when the station workers brought the subway in, though Theo was the first to get to the door, pulling the manual lever.

    He seemed polite, letting everyone else exit first, but it was really because he wanted to follow the pale skinned man whose eyes glowed red.

Sinister has posed:
THe kid had best keep eyes on that figure if he wants to stand a chance -- before the events of the hijacking were cool in the water, the man with the red eyes had changed his face and his entire attire with it, a man in a black, fitted duster, 'V' neck shirt beneath, a couple of wooden necklaces and a handsome, but ordinary face. Grey eyes, black hair in a 'tail that were it loose would come down just below his shoulderline. Blue jeans, nice looking toe-capped ankle boots. He kept the same height though, which is a little bit helpful, as 6'5" stands out.

Nobody got in his way much. Oh, occasional people crossed paths, but his way to the exit turnstyle was muchly unimpeded, as if people just of their own mind, got out of his way. He glances up the stairs and starts trotting up them swiftly.

Hardline has posed:
    Theo was watching when the change happened, following at a reasonable distance. That was...another thing. How many abilities had he shown now? How many couldn't he see that had occurred. The exit of the subway made it more difficult to pinpoint the technology anyone individually had, but the strange advanced nature of the devices that this stranger carried meant that it was a little easier. Theo didn't need to be able to operate them to be able to hear them.

    Theo didn't as easily make his way through the crowd, being bumped and pushed in front of like any other teenager. He even got shoved down at one point because he tried to manhandle his way past a thick group. He didn't have time to worry about the germs he just picked up now, though, and scrambled back to his feet, to tail Essex.

Sinister has posed:
At street level, this is the Bronx. New York. It's not even all that quiet in the middle of the night, there's always some hustle somewhere. North, south, east, west, from small delis to corner shops, barios to pawn brokers, coffee joints to hole-in-the-walls, to tenement housing stacked cramped and long. Where did he go? The pull of the technology says north, turning a little down a side street so he's cross-town.

Theo is likely eyed once or twice, but otherwise ignored. This is the wrong time for muggings and shadier elements.

Hardline has posed:
    Not practiced in stealth, Theo picks up his pace so that he doesn't lose track of the man, and as a light turns red against him, he changes the lights to favor him. Of course, all of the traffic comes to a stop, suddenly with red lights on both directions of the intersection, but it's not his problem, he has somewhere to be. He jobs a bit until he reaches the side street, and looks around the corner to the source of the signal.

Sinister has posed:
That ends up with a helluvahonking, quicker than a new york second. But angry drivers and confused crosswalkees in a melee of pedestrians in all directions, just gesture right on back.

And so, jogging to catch up the side street has a couple of chinese restaurants and a mini-mart. And a figure crossing the street to the other side, heading to the steps up to an iron-clad redbrick. But he doesn't go up, he goes down and around the side of the narrow alley where the garbage gets dragged on trash day...

Hardline has posed:
    Theo winces when he smells the alley, not a fan of the filth. He follows still, though, doing his best to be more quiet now that the path has taken him off the crowded streets. "Where are you going?" he thinks to himself. He expected something a bit more...refined as the location that such a man would be making his destination. An alley? And...an alley this gross?

Sinister has posed:
The exit of the alley disgorges into a little square yard with even narrower lanes between, that a cat or a rat could squeeze down. Several of the fire escapes disgorge here, dumpsters and a few steel cans sit where they're supposed to, that is until Theo makes it to the little quad -- then one garbage skip books it to the exit, cutting off retreat and maybe even shoving the kid forward.

Sinister 'hero lands' in the middle of the quad, stands and advances in a smooth, fluid stalk. Grey eyes glint red at their cores. "Why are you following me, boy?"

Hardline has posed:
    As the garbage dumpster suddenly slides behind him, Theo realizes all too late that he's been made, he turns, shoulder slamming into the dumpster as it propels him forward, and he lands on the asphalt. He looks up as Sinister lands before him.

    Many people may show fear at this moment, but Theo? He doesn't look afraid. He has data that says this person isn't out to harm him, and even gave aid to the mutants on the subway.

    "You knew what I can do," he says evenly. His heart isn't racing, though he's clearly alert, eyes shifting to take back in the surroundings again. "I don't know how, but you knew. And you did...I don't know what you did. Who are you?" Did he answer directly? Nope.

Sinister has posed:
Sinister comes to a stop towering over Theo, but no further threatening action comes about. Yet. It is enough it seems that he's cut off an easy retreat. The red remains in his eyes as he gazes downward, sticking one hand in his pocket and the other withdrawing a silver tin full of cigarettes from his jacket. He clicks it open, ferries a smoke to his lips it seems by telekinesis, though he lights it with the zippo he just retrieved. A deep toke taken, he turns his head to the side a little, watching the kid still across the bridge of his nose and down the plane of a hollowed in cheek, as the lighter 'clicks' in that ubiquitous way.

"I'm complicated, son," is the reply, in a haze of sweet clove tobacco. "But you're not wrong. You also didn't answer me. In some circles, evasiveness is impolite."

Hardline has posed:
    Theo hesitates, the calculating look in his brown eyes says that he's trying to deduce the next thing to say. Clearly he has options, but he's taking his time rather than hastily responding. "Is it considered impolite in this circle? And I can handle complicated." He owns the evasiveness, nearly directly inferring that he just plain doesn't want to answer that yet.

Sinister has posed:
"No, I suspect you really can't," Sinister says with a soft sigh, taking another toke. He then crouches onto the balls of his feet infront of the downed youth, looking him over as he exhales like a dragon through his nose. "Sometimes, yes. It is. But you haven't been -rude- precisely. If you had, we would not be having this conversation." He wrinkles his nose then, gesturing with his right hand in a little upwards flick -- with it he rises, but likely so does Theo, levitated to his feet negligently and set right down again, right as rain on his own two pins. "Ugh," that, just that and the same hand that made the flicking gesture moves to his side as a circle of electricity manifests in the air, crackles with energy and a 'worm hole' appears within the ring, disgorging a slender metallic tentacle and a gadget, which it drops into Sinister's palm. The portal and tentacle vanish shortly after; but the technopath in Theo will likely have gone haywire for a bit, given how extremely advanced both of those things were.

"Stay still." The instruction is given as he points the device toward the young man's legs, butt and hands. But he doesn't switch it on. Instead, he holds it up again, glances at it and proffers it handle first to Theo instead.

Hardline has posed:
    Theo hadn't moved in the whole time, his entire focus on the conversation. When he's righted by levitation, it certainly takes him by surprise, and his heart does speed up a little, uncertain whether he made a mis-step. When he is put down and the wormhole appears, his right cheek twitches a little. His eyes shift to the wormhole, and back to Essex. Sinister hasn't answered him either. There is a great deal of apprehension, but he doesn't run, or move. If something terrible is about to happen to him, it's too late to stop it now.

    When the new device arrives, he studies it, sensing all sorts of unfamiliar things. He stares a bit, clearly mystified before he even takes it, but finally, he reaches out with a bit of sudden authority and decision to grip the handle.

Sinister has posed:
Sinister nods at the device in his palm, proffering it further with a motion toward Theo.

Signal had been sent literally BY Sinister, to the nearest cell towers, bounced off several relays very fast and up to satellite GPS. It pinpointed his location and used seven point triangulation to fold space to his location. The power for that came from elsewhere.
    That tentacle was cybernetic and a part of a hive-mind neural net with modular AI's linked into a whole that makes the entire able to multitask very efficiently.

And that device, which looks cylindrical, smooth and is about the size of a large cellphone, is a sterilizing device that relies on hyper ultrasound waves to accomplish both dirt removal and microlysis as a chemical hand sanitizer would.

Hardline has posed:
    Theo is a clean person. He's not THAT clean. All that takes a back seat as the signal is sensed it overtakes his senses. It's much more than he's ever tried to process at once, and he convulses by the sheer volume of information that strikes his brain. He grips the cleaner, trying to focus on just it. "Hnnnnnggg," he feels the world spin, and his body tilts like a felled tree, and he lists to the side, surely about to fall unrestricted toward the ground.

Sinister has posed:
Falling is arrested by invisible force. Left handed this time, Sinister rotates the 'catch' gesture through forty five degrees to set the youth to rights again, keeping a faint 'grip' on him just in case his legs buckle, too.

All the while this is occuring, he draws on his cigarette, calmly smoking as he watches, flicking ash to the wind. "I told you it was complicated," he notes, head tilted just a little bit. "Electronics are just signals, like any other; the pattern of electrons transferring in a circuit. I do not need to tell you that. But there's very little difference in the complex understanding, between the circuits of a cellphone and the circuits of a living being. Some never make the jump. Others fall over the edge and it's never the same again. You asked me who I am, kid. I am Sinister."

Hardline has posed:
    Theo blinks, his focus starting to crystallize around the hand cleaner. "That's complicated," he concedes, eyes like saucers. "I'm Theodore Fegenbush." News files can find him. Registered missing person, believed to be possibly dead after his home was burned to the ground by anti-mutant protesters, and it killed not all but several members of his very large family. He takes a few breaths, trying to oxygenate his blood again. "Sinister. He gives a slight tilt of his head. "I might have chosen a less nefarious sounding moniker," he comments, though judgment against it seems to be withheld in his tone. "Can you teach me?" There's a certain fire of determination in his eye. Being changed? That happens to everyone, it's just a question of how you are changed. "I came here looking for a school that mutants are kept safe. But now I've found..." he isn't sure what he's found. But it might be better. "Whatever you are."

Sinister has posed:
Sinister's finger in his pocket touches his own cellphone, scans files with the speed of mind and frowns only slightly at what he reads behind his eyes. "I was given the name. In honour of that last breath, it seemed fitting. Besides, there's another meaning to the word that has been entirely lost to semantics over time. You might want to consider the view askew, so to speak," the last of his cigarette is dragged, exhaled with a tip back of his head blowing up toward the sky at an angle and the dog-end is pinched in between his fingers, pocketted into a portable ashtray, perhaps?

But for the whole of this, there's a flaring of the red in his eyes at the mention of that 'school', a subtle tautening of his jaw, but he doesn't lose his cool. That's actually rare. "You want to learn? From me?" Forgive the very slight tone of incredulity that laces his words. "My, my, they would be having conniptions if they heard you ask me that, those errudite scholars at the school you were looking for." He clucks his tongue, taps his lips a couple of times with one uplifted finger, viewing Theo under hooded lashes. "I /could/ teach you, yes. I certainly could."

Hardline has posed:
    Theo knows the history, and is left-handed himself. But the semantics discussion seems less important to comment on. His stance is almost like a stone warrior, one that stays at the ready as if to charge a fight, but never advances, and never retreats. "Will you teach me?" he asks. "I'm smarter than anyone I've ever met," he declares. Perhaps a little arrogant on his part, but so are many teenagers. "I can handle it. And I know how to use information when I get it." He's confident in his claim. "People give pleasantries and sympathy when I hear them talk about the state of mutants. I'll take it given the current lack of alternative. But it's not enough. I want something that can be used. And being smarter than everyone only gets you so far if you don't have the information to properly arm yourself." He swallows, as if knowing his bold claim is a bit risky. There's several ways that it could be interpreted.

Sinister has posed:
Sinister blinks. Just once. But there's something there anyway. Surprised. And this is a man that rarely ever gets surprised. Disappointed, frustrated and annoyed a lot of the time, but surprised? He thinks for perhaps two minutes, maybe even three, gazing at Theo like he might be playing stare-down chicken, daring the kid to buckle under or change his mind. "Whenever I get to thinking I've heard it all, there goes human nature with just a little bit I haven't heard before. Are you willing to self-experiment and..." he looks over the youth with an oh-so-slight grimace "...potentially augment? Seriously, you look as if I could sneeze at you hard and you'd fall over on a bad day."

Hardline has posed:
    During the pause, Theo at first looks concerned. His hard gaze becomes a little more nervous, almost certain that he's crossed the line too far. But after the first minute, he recognizes that it's not a condemning silence, and his composure returns. He looks like he wants to speak again, further questions to provoke a response itching between his teeth. But he holds his tongue.

    It's almost a surprise at the point that Sinister actually speaks, given the long wait, and his body reacts. Not a flinch, but a sudden movement that indicates he wasn't ready for it.

    Now it's his turn to be quiet. He's not THAT weak. Not in his estimation. Still, he knows he has hardly the physical prowess that many others do. He's silent not as long, maybe thirty seconds as he considers the question. "That's something I'd have to decide when the time comes. I don't have enough to make the conclusion now. And I don't want to answer something when I may be agreeing to something that I later regret."

Sinister has posed:
Sinister taps the side of his head a few times, with the tip of one finger. "The trick is to have no regrets. Regrets just twist the psyche on itself and create sticky knots that you can get tangled up in. Hold onto memories, they have worth, but regrets are a fatally moralistic affectation." He considers a moment, then informs, as if this may be a thing to consider. "I am not a mutant, by the by. I never was. If I were to be designated and phenotyped, you might call me a mutate. I created myself, through ...." and he looks straight in Theo's eye at this "...being smarter than anyone I've ever met."

He then gestures at Theo's legs and butt again and his hands. "CLean yourself up please, the filth where you fell is extremely unsavory."

Hardline has posed:
    Theo gives a lopsided grin as his own words are thrown back at him. When commanded to clean himself, he has no problem agreeing to that, and he uses the device immediately to clear off the dirt, the ultrasonic wand accomplishing the task with ease. There's a smile that hints he is still a youth. He likes this thing. The fabric of his clothes indicates that they are new. Very new. It's possible they had never been worn before today, with the exception of his sneakers, which are still fairly new.

    He looks uncertain what to say, feeling that he's been given at least a probationary acceptance by this mutate, as he calls himself, but finally asks. "So now what?" Not the most clever of questions. But then, it is the obvious next to come.

Sinister has posed:
"Good question," Sinister muses, glancing at the alley, upward at the fire escapes also. He then raises a hand and the dumpster hoofs it back to where it had originally sat, squeaking in protest as it abruptly halts. "Well." Staring at the alley that he took to come down here, Sinister shakes his head. "That's a big fat nope. When did you last get a decent meal, Theodore?" Not one for shortenings until familiarity has come to pass, it's rather in his bearing and carriage that he takes such manners very seriously.