Participants:
| Scene Title | Bugging |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Kendall and Valerie meet on the rooftop and discuss the impending doom of the day. Also, Valerie was a mouse once and got stepped on, only not. |
| Date | November 8, 2010 |
Situated atop the Gun Hill apartment building, five stories above street level, the rooftop of the tenement building overlooks the Bronx's gritty urban landscape. A single stair access leads out onto the smooth concrete rooftop surrounded by a three foot high red brick wall with a masoned top. Ventillation pipes and a chimney that connects to the singular fireplace down in the basement rises up from the concrete rooftop, though the chimney's old brick is crumbling and weathered.
A pair of old sun-bleached folding lawn chairs are situated out on the roof along with a plastic cooler, while white sacks of loam and soil are set next to large lengths of scrap wood, a box of nails and a few carpentry tools; a project in the works.
Most cloudy mornings in New York seem the same as any other day. Today— not so much. Even from the rooftop of the Gun Hill, as the sun rises in the hazy sky, there's a sense of unease. The roof itself seems empty for the most part, except for a young woman floating an inch off the top of the casting no shadow as she peers out over the edge. There's so many video games left to be played, but they're no longer going to be playing them. After all, they have far too much to worry about now.
Today's the day. Or so everyone seems to be saying.
Valerie, the young woman who has a floating look-alike on the roof, knows only what the papers told her of today, and the worries everyone in the building has.
Kendall is worried about so many things. After all, bad things are supposed to happen to Gun Hill. What will Kendall do about his video games?! Where can he hide them so they won't get stolen, or confiscated, or broken? Maybe he'll illusion a wall in front of where they are and hope no one notices them. But at the moment, the main thing Kendall is worried about has him headed for the roof, looking anxious. He notices Valerie immediately, since there's two of her and everything, and makes a beeline for her. "Hey."
At the voice, the 'hologram' version of her turns around. It's such an unnatural movement that anyone seeing it would notice something off right away— but Kendall already knows the secret. A projection doesn't need to move like a normal person. Valerie isn't reliant on other people believing what they see is real. "Kendall! Morning. I was just trying to get a look at the sunrise before…" Floating down, her feet appear to touch the floor of the rooftop again. But it's only an appearance.
"Ah, yeah." Kendall spares a glance to the horizon, but it doesn't seem like he's the one coming up to see the sunrise. "I don't think I want to go to work today. Not just for what they say is going to happen, but for…" pause. "Think I'd be able to request off on the basis that the world might end?"
"Do you really think the world's going to end today?" Valerie asks, moving closer to him, and then glancing back towards the hazy sunrise. It isn't every day that people watch the sunrise, at least not teenagers. "I think you can request the day off. I'd be surprised if they didn't allow it, with hundreds and thousands of people dying four years ago today." Four years ago today when she vanished out of time and jumped nearly four years into the future.
"Well you know those visions everyone's had that they're talking about on the news, and how they think everything's going to come true?" Kendall asks, watching her as she approaches. "Well… I had one too. It's not really, uh… as dangerous as other peoples', but…"
"I've heard some, yeah," Valerie says, as she moves to sit down beside him— too bad she's sitting on air. It seems now that she's shared her secret with him, she's not wanting to be descrete about her ability at all. At least not around him. "What happened in your 'vision'?"
"I get punched in the face. At work." Kendall sounds really embarassed to admit it. "By some guy I don't know, and I have no idea why, not even now. Then riots start, and so I grab a ring and make myself invisible. That's actually how I learned I could do that, from my vision. I wouldn't have thought it possible, but I tried it and it worked."
"No one wants to get punched in the face, much less by someone they don't even know," Valerie says, looking away for a moment as if wondering about the riots, and how much she could do if she wasn't staying somewhere. "Everyone keeps saying we will need to leave today— I've been listening in. So maybe it's better if you're here— so that you can take your things with you. Or maybe we could… leave early? Find somewhere to hide until tomorrow."
"No, I already promised I'd help. Running away beforehand would just make it seem like I'm scared." Kendall shakes his head. "I mean, what if what I can do would help keep people from dying and stuff? I have to help."
"Hopefully you won't get punched in the face by a stranger here, then— I don't think you'd look very good with a black eye," Valerie says, settling those blue eyes on his face again, and even smiling with gentle dimples. Is she trying to say she thinks he's cute?
If she is, Kendall's oblivious to it. "I don't think anyone would look good with a black eye. For one, it wouldn't be symmetrical. Kid would hate it." oh, random anime/manga references. "Although two would make you look like a raccoon."
"I didn't know people liked symmetrical things," Valerie says instead, not seeming to 'get' the reference in thise case. "What about eyepatches. People like eyepatches, and you don't see two of them." That'd just be silly.
"I think only people with OCD would really like symmetrical things. I don't really care, actually. But yeah, I don't want to get punched in the face, but I also don't want to miss work…." oh, whatever would Kendall do. "I mean, do the things in visions have to come true? Maybe I can duck."
"Probably. You can always chance what's predicted, at least a little bit," Valerie says, from her own experience with predictions. "In fact that's kind of the point of a prediction— it's a warning. As soon as you see the guy you can duck behind the counter and call the cops. Or you can make an illusion you there take the punch!"
Kendall nods at Valerie. "Well it's true that you can change the future, we'd both be dead right now if that wasn't possible. Oh well, maybe I'll wear a motorcycle helmet or something with an illusion that I'm not. That'll teach him to punch me."
"See! You can make him pay for it, with bruised knuckles," Valerie says, reaching out to pay the younger man on the shoulder, even if he can't feel the pat. It's the visible effect that matters in this case.
Actually in this case Kendall might actually illusion himself to feel it since he expect to. "Yeah…" pause. "So…. what are you going to do, then?"
"Well— I'm gonna stick close to Mister Sumter," Valerie says, speaking quietly, though her voice doesn't carry the strain of emotion that her real voice might. "I kinda wonder if it'd be safer if I wasn't here, though. I mean I can be here without being here. And I can do so much if I'm not here…. but you're the only one I've told about that so far."
"Well can you be somewhere without looking like it?" Kendall asks Valerie. "I mean, do you have to be like that?" he gestures towards the incorporeal double. "Or can you be somewhere without being visible?" is he explaining himself properly?
"This form can't turn invisible," Valerie says, though she hesitates a moment. "But I can take a different appearance," she says. There's another pause, and the young woman sitting on air vanishes, replaced by a sparrow that flaps in place and then lands. The way the wings move isn't quite right, but it looks very close to how a bird that suddenly appeared might.
Kendall appears impressed. "Nice. So you could be a bug or something that no one would notice." he pauses to mull that over, then chuckles. "Heh. You could bug people. Or they can be bugged. By a bug!" snigger.
The bird actually seems to shake her head, and then suddenly Valerie's there again. "I've never done anything smaller than a mouse," she explains. "But yeah, I can watch people if I want to. It's just— difficult. I can't do it very long."
"Oh. Well it's still cool." Kendall nods at Valerie. "I mean, I could do it too, but I'd have to actually be there, even if no one knows I'm there. But if they walked into me, they'd definitely notice even if I make it so they don't feel it."
"Once when I was first starting out with my ability I went into a room someone tried to step on me— and they ended up stepping through me," Valerie says, grinning a bit as she talks about that. "I disappeared through the floor, so the poor woman thought she was seeing things. Probably scared of mice for years— I try to be more careful now."
Kendall laughs. "Yeah, it's better to be something inconspicuous so you DON'T draw attention. So…" he shoves his hands in his pockets, looking around. "I guess I will call in today. Odds are it'd just be one big panic when the shit hits the fan, so might as well be here in case stuff happens."
"I'll be glad you're here, at least," Valerie says, smiling at him from her very human form. Of a cute teenager— which his 'mom' already doesn't like at all. "You're the only one here who knows what I can do. And until my sister comes back from whatever time she's saving…" He's her only real friend?
"Well I kinda told everyone what I could do, simply because I intend to help. So it's not exactly a secret. Although… I'm still not registered, so it might come and bite me in the ass later if anyone decides to talk. Apparently while I was 'dead' a law came into effect or something that says everyone needs to register whether they're Evolved or not."
"Well at least you didn't 'come back to life' four years later when all the laws suddenly seemed to change on you," Valerie says, grinning a bit. "I should be getting back to my body. Do you want to play some last minute video games before we have to run for our lives?"
"Sure. How about one where we have to prevent the world from being destroyed?" Kendall snickers. "Persona games seem to be good for that, although the world isn't getting destroyed, per se, just life as we know it. So, which one sounds better, preventing everyone from becoming mindless zombies, or preventing the entire world from being covered in a fog that turns people into monsters?"
"The fog one sounds cool," Valerie says, before she starts to fade out of sight. "See you downstairs!" she says, starting the race, but turning transparent and vanishing. Good thing she didn't say 'race you'. Cause he'd have no chance of winning.
Kendall lifts his eyebrows at her, then hurries to the door. He should've told her which Persona game to grab so she could have it ready, oh well. Persona 4 it is!