business meeting

[universal_translator]

Emma's father gets the phone call just after lunch on a Saturday. The Indian company he's been trying to attract has a VP in town, and would he like to set up a meeting? (Yes. Yes, he would, yes please and thank you.) So he and Emma rush into his office, and Emma waits outside the lobby while her father scrambles to collect paperwork, contracts, whatever it is he needs for this deal.

Usually, it only takes him five minutes to do this kind of thing. But this deal is last minute, and after twenty minutes, Emma's restless. Jerhattan's gotten a lot of rain recently, and the bench by the door is too wet to sit on, so she's just leaning awkwardly against the wall while she waits. There isn't even anyone to talk to; the office is totally dead on weekends. So Emma dips a toe in a nearby puddle and starts drawing patterns on the ground. It's something to do, at least.

Comments

[all_too_familiar]

"Hm," says the possibly-confused but still very cooperative Talent. "I see. Any limits that you do know of?" That he can disprove.

[universal_translator]

Emma grimaces slightly. She hates not knowing things. It happens regularly! But she doesn't like the feeling. At least he's not making the mildly exasperated, disappointed face her parents would. "I don't know precisely. I know there's nothing too crazy. No one's teleporting to Asia or flying or lifting buildings or anything? Uh, I think almost all of them need line of sight? At least a lot of the detail work does."

[all_too_familiar]

"Ah." He considers technically blowing his cover with her. ... Later, maybe. He knows how. Just fly and she'll probably believe him. Or he can injure himself and heal pretty obviously.

He smiles encouragingly at her. "What about the others, do you know? Precogs and finders and telepaths?"

[universal_translator]

She thinks back to the vidcasts. There was a whole section on 'signs you should get tested', if she can just remember it. "The vidcasts say, uh." She tries to recall the phrasing. "Telepaths can project or receive or both, usually at touch or short distances. Empaths about the same but just with projection. Finders and precogs usually have specialties, some finder woman does kids and is on the news sometimes. Finders use objects, precogs use dreams." She makes a face. "Being a precog sounds awful, lots of the legal stuff the Center has is to protect them."

[all_too_familiar]

"From people that take issue with them?"

[universal_translator]

"More like, didn't do enough or fast enough? The last big case was something about a canal with an oil fire that wasn't. I think, uh, companies with diverted boats were angry? It's hard to say 'this is how much worse it would have been' when the alternative never happened."

[all_too_familiar]

"Ah. That's a bit messed up."

[universal_translator]

She shrugs and starts to reply, but there's movement inside. Finally! She waves at her dad.

[hidebound]

Her father emerges, looking slightly frazzled but with a packet of papers under his arm. "Okay, all set. Sekhar should be here soon and we can get started." Then he notices the stranger, and eyes him warily. "Emma, who's this?"

[universal_translator]

Emma immediately discards the thought of mentioning the teleporting. Her dad is fine hiring Talent, but he's always been vocally suspicious of them as a concept.

"He asked me for directions, and my language skills impressed him," she says. It's the truth... ish. "Um, but I didn't catch his name." On an impulse, she lets herself switch to one of his languages at random (it turns out to be Romanian). "He's a bit weird about Talents," she warns.

[all_too_familiar]

"Noel," says he of that name, smiling. "Pleasure to meet you, sir. Sorry for the trouble, I just have a bit of a passion for practicing languages, and I rarely get someone else who knows as many as I do." He smiles at Emma like she's been testing to see if he can understand her instead of giving him a warning. Covering for her, is the term. "Understood that, too," he switches to Mandarin, "I hope my accent isn't too atrocious?"

His accent is not atrocious. Actually, he sounds like a native speaker.

[hidebound]

The excuse passes muster. "Good job, it's always good to get more practice," he says, slightly distracted with his eyes on the road. "You know how important these contracts are. Wouldn't want to get out of the h- oh!" He spots a car turning a corner and waves. "That must be the bigshot from Delhi."

[marrinikari]

A tall man in a suit gets out of the car and heads for their group, followed by two larger men in suits and a smaller man wearing a badge proclaiming him a working telepath. The man in the lead looks Very Official; definitely a bigshot. Enough for his own entourage, and higher up in the organization than advertised, if he had his own telepath.

He walks up to the group between Emma and Noel; he hesitates for a moment as he almost walks into Emma- him clearly expecting her to move, her too frozen in nervous surprise to move fast enough- then switches paths to go around Noel instead. Just as he tries to walk around, a gunshot rings out.

[all_too_familiar]

Well, the Very Official man is officially very lucky, too. Noel considers himself also very lucky, even though he was the one who was shot. He's immortal. He can take it. Better him than someone else, even if it stings like a bitch. He stumbles a bit from the bullet, and he'll have a bruise, but that's the worst of it.

"Ow," he growls, looking for the shooter. Fuck subtlety, someone's got a gun, and his summoner is in the line of fire, if she dies he can't stop the gunman. First priority: protect the squishies.

He picks up the car. He's very fast about this, but when he sets it down in between the squishies and the gunman he's got enough practice to not damage it. Something big and made of metal to hide behind, sure, but if he can avoid it he won't break someone's car. "Behind this, all of you. I'll take care of it."

And up he flies. Where is the idiot who thought shooting someone in front of him was a good idea?

[marrinikari]

The idiot is on a nearby rooftop. He's tall and awkward and doesn't seem to know precisely what he's doing. When he sees the flying man, he screams and drops his gun and starts mumbling prayers as he turns to run.

Meanwhile, Bigshot's entourage has formed a defensive shield in front of him and are hustling him inside the vehicle. They seem to have a fair bit of practice with this scenario.

[universal_translator]

Emma just screams and clings to her father. There are gunshots and flying people and this is not okayyyy what is going on?!

[all_too_familiar]

Well. He sort of feels sorry for the idiot, actually. But he isn't running anywhere. Instead he is running in mid air, and going nowhere.

Noel flies over, and lands on the rooftop.

"Hello," he says. "Do you have a good reason for trying to assassinate someone while he is standing by a bunch of innocent bystanders?"

[marrinikari]

His response is a confusing babble of anti-capitalist propaganda, religious sayings and clearly parroted political hype. If allowed to ramble long enough, his speech can be condensed into roughly "the government is evil and his corporation enables it and he must be removed for the good of mankind." He doesn't seem clear on how, precisely, removing this man in particular will help, but he sounds quite confident that it will. He also seems convinced that this plan is Approved By God, or at the very least some man going by the title Very Reverend Ponsit Prosit.

[all_too_familiar]

Okay then. So, crazy. Got it.

"What group do you work for?" he interrupts, when the idiot starts repeating himself.

[marrinikari]

He mumbles something about "the Faithful Brotherhood."

[all_too_familiar]

What an inspired name.

"Okay. Well, if you don't mind, I am going to go take you back to people that vaguely resemble authorities, because I do not know enough about this shit to handle it properly."

Off the two of them float, back to the car. He leaves the gun, for now. He'll pick it up later if he wants it, but he'd rather not have a witness (crazy as he may be) seeing him taking it.

He mentally berates himself for flying now - Noel, you have a problem with disproportionate retribution. You did not need to break out the big gun to handle this, now you've gone and blown your cover as a special snowflake. Good job, genius. Ugh. He's very disappointed in himself. Getting shot is no excuse for sloppy handling of situations.

"Found the shooter," he calls, floating down with his prisoner. "Disarmed him. Didn't look like he had any immediate friends. Apparently part of the Faithful Brotherhood, though. Ring any bells?"

[marrinikari]

The two bodyguard-esque minions get out of the car. The closer one appears to be in charge; he nods at the second man who goes to stand underneath the still-floating prisoner (and manages to look only slightly nervous). Then he turns to Noel, looking uncomfortable. "There have been previous incidents. I apologize that you became involved; they have never followed Mr. Ram to Jerhattan before. We greatly appreciate your assistance. Thank you."

The man in the car barks something in Punjabi. The man nods and continues to Noel, "Mr. Ram wonders if you are on the Jerhattan Center's bodyguard roster? He has been in search of a new telekinetic guard since the station work began."

[all_too_familiar]

"You're welcome. Ah - no, I'm not." Awkward? Awkward. "Name's Noel, if I ever get added." He picks one of his fake last names, because he would like only people he trusts to have his actual last name, if they ever figure out summoning. "Noel Duval."

[marrinikari]

The man shrugs philosophically. His job would probably be the safer for the addition of Noel, but only in the strictly physical sense. "If anything changes." He holds out a business card.

[all_too_familiar]

"Sure, thanks," says Noel, pocketing the card.

He looks at his captured crazy assassin.

"Can I trouble you to take care of, uh, him?"