The Sci-Fi Party

[Gambit]

Jun 3, 2011 12:24:44 GMT -5 Shade said:

"Yeah." she said. "I´m all right." She looked at Morph. "We just met." she then said. "Me and him and some others that already left kind of... I don´t know, zoned out and ended up in some postapocalyptic place. One moment to the next." She was trying to wrap her mind around it and guessed it had to sound really odd to Gambit, but she couldn´t help it right now.

"You what?" Gambit asked. "Literally?" he shifted his glance between Shade and Morph.

[Morph]

"Hard to say," Kevin replied, having acceded to the invitation to stay. He felt now was the time to have a cigarette, he really needed one, but there was no way to smoke in here, so he had to hold out without it so far. "Though not really, wait-" he leaned forwards to be able to speak and to listen with less effort over the noise. "It seemed like it was only an illusion of sorts. We're clean, without bruises - I mean, I was tired and now I'm not. It was definitely not real and not physical."

[Shade]

Shade nodded. SHe didn´t even know whether she had had any bruises but there would have been dust at least, from the debris. And other than that: she had been exhausted."I was really tired too," she agreed. "I don´t know, I was here and all of a sudden I was in a kind of... destroyed city. It´s like a dream now, a really scary one. I´m glad you didn´t leave yet." he said, nodding to Morph. "I would´ve thought it was just me."

[Gambit]

Gambit was thinking fast. There were two witnesses, and Shade said there had been someone else she knew - probably all of the involved were at the club. It had probably been someone's powers playing tricks around here. Well, not like this had never happened here - it was bound to, in a place full of mutants, many of whom were frequently intoxicated.however, he liked to keep such things under control or, at least, be informed. He did like to be informed.

He took his cellphone and called the security. "I think dere be someone ' round 'ere gettin' into people's heads," he told them. "Listen around. If ya hear any talks of hallucinations, ruined cities, misplaced locations, find de source."

He switched the phone off and looked at them both. He figured that he could listen to the details of it in Shade's rendition later, for now there could be other things to discuss.

"So Kevin," he said, "ya still owe me a favor, ain't dat right?"

[Shade]

His reaction was typically Gambit and Shade did not need the full scope of her memory yet to be able to identify it as such. She knew they would talk later and Gambit would listen and probably help her see things clearer, as he usually did. But especially with everything that had happened, he would of course not discuss that kind of thing in public.

Her leg under the table moved slightly, leaning against his. Not to provoke him that way, just as an almost unconscious need for closeness. She was still a bit shaken but didn´t show it right now in any other way than that.

She tossed Gambit a short glance at the question. So the two of them apparently knew each other, maybe even well.

[Morph]

Morph was still tense in Gambit's presence, ever since their first meeting when the other man had so quickly seen through his disguise - and Kevin used to believe that his powers were reliable enough in that respect.

Almost automatically, he noted inwardly the details of how Gambit handled the news of someone's powers affecting people at his club. If this story with this illusion ever got anywhere, he'd need those details.

"I guess I do," he said cautiously, "anything particular you've got in mind?"

[Gambit]

"Nothin' too specifically formed so far," Gambit said, thinking as his leg touched Shade's in response to her covert gesture. The plan was evolving quickly in his mind, even though he'd probably prefer to keep it there for a while, but it would never hurt to test the waters. "How well can ya imitate another person? Voice, fingerprints, iris pattern?"

[Shade]

Shade didn´t say anything right now, but she wondered what Gambit might be on about. It didn´t surprise her that he knew the other man, someone with such a practical mutation. Over the time that she had known and remembered him she had stopped to be surprised at the connections that Gambit had and that seemed to come in handy at all sorts of places. However, she wondered which direction this was heading into.

[Morph]

This did nothing to ease Kevin's tension. Least of all he wanted to discuss this in front of Shade. It was something between a professional secret and an intimate, personal thing that you don't open to people just like that.

"Well, this is kind of personal," he said warily.

[Gambit]

"Personal or not," Gambit smirked, "dat been somethin' Gambit once bought for twenty grand. So would ya please provide de manual as well?"

[Morph]

"Do you mean to suggest that you're planning to hire me for my powers?" Kevin turned his head slightly to the side and narrowed his eyes, trying to guess the meaning of all this. "If so, I gotta tell you, I'm kind of retired. I'm raising a kid; spy games are not the kind of risk I'm taking these days."

[Gambit]

"Are ya hikin' up de price, mon ami?" Gambit mirrored the same skeptical tilt of the head. "Consider de risk I'd be takin' if I bought a pig in a poke, without relevant details. Come on now, just answer de question." He couldn't be bothered playing the diplomacy game now. His ability to persuade people was supposed to work now, so he just studied Morph's mistrustful face, waiting for the response.

[Shade]

Shade could tell that the other man was rather uncomfortable. He was being elusive and this made her even more curious what this little exchange was about. Apparently she herself had never met Morph before which put her at ease a bit about wondering how she was supposed to react around him.

She very briefly wondered whether she was intruding, whether she should rather excuse herself so the two men could settle their business, but then she quickly reconsidered. If this were really that private, Gambit would not be leading this discussion right now, if it were too private for her ears, he would have found another way to talk to this man. So she stayed.

[Morph]

Gambit was very persuasive, this much was undeniable; Kevin had no idea that what he'd gotten under the influence of was an aspect of Gambit's mutation. Though Kevin, of course, knew that he was, unfortunately, an easy prey for telepaths and empaths.

"Depends," he said. "I can play Tom Cruise but I'll never make him credible because I have no way to observe his casual behavior around those who know him."

[Gambit]

"Awright," Gambit said, "how 'bout Shade?"

This was what he had in mind and why he had let Shade to sit and listen to their seemingly irrelevant and private exchange.