Participants:
| Scene Title | Like a Child |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Three atmokinetics pay a visit to Ipswitch after playing find the hotspot with the weather. what they find is an atimokinetic of enormous ability and very much like a child. |
| Date | March 22, 2010 |
Ipswitch, Massachusetts
Roadtrips are interesting. Normally, they're done by families, bags packed, a cooler with food and DVD's to put into the DVD system so that along the way should one sibling haul off and give the other a bloody nose, you just pop in jungle book and all is well.
Normally, it's not three atmokinetics in an SUV, bearing down on snowy roads as they carry on hours away from New York in a northeasterly direction. Massachusetts hooo, complete with cooler filled with water and a couple thermoses with coffee that was refilled at a gas station. All three using their abilities to ping and get a feel for the hot spot in a game of hot and cold. Cold. Cold. Cold. Warmer. Warmer. Warmer. Hot.
"What about now?" Michelle inquires, hands on the wheels and keeping an eye on the road and the GPS as they near the hot spot they have been tracking in this early afternoon light. She keeps asking the question like some french Verizon commercial representative. It's the cue to ping and see if the answer is 'fucking hot'.Behind them, keeping a respectful distance is the person set to watch over the Brennan family, dealing with the snow in their own vehicle.
"I dunno." In an SUV, everyone who wants one can get a window seat, and Helena's looking out of hers. She's got a paper map on her lap - so retro! "Maybe more toward Ipswitch?" she suggests faintly. She'd proposed a literal triad of power so to speak, for their lay-out of power - Michelle as the top of the triangle, and she and McRae as the respective corners.
Helena adds belatedly, "Nothing for me, thank you." As Don did, this to the servants, though she gives Ivonne a grateful look.
As far as former Moab convicts go, McRae is a remarkably serene subspecies of paranoid. All right, so the Brennans are under watch. By. Some inscrutable dude in a car. Stranger things have happened these past few months, and there's some vague hope that an old man with a common enemy would be enough to keep bureaucratic pests out of his very thin hair. He's in the back seat, nearly far enough from the tiny GPS monitor to make it unreadable for him. Kids and their new-fangled technology, you know?
At least it isn't Garmin. His nephew had a 'Garmin' a few years back, and the Dark Goddess' voice always sounded like something you should contradict unless you were in fact in congress with insidious forces, if you dared to try her very tartly, primly British contralto ire. Every day, that seems further off. Even Carolina's death does now, too, and the two other atmokinetics' enthusiasm inspires a similar bluish cast to his thoughts.
"We should start worrying about parking, too," he adds after a moment, a wry note nocking into his aged voice.
"We should find a school. They are on March break right now. The parking lots will be cleared and we can work from there" She takes McRae's comment in stride and marking it down as pretty hot. Rightly so as they start to look like they're headed into a town. One hand still on the wheel, the other presses the screen of the GPS and eventually, there's symbols for schools popping up and she presses for the one nearest. "How much do we want to poke back at this person? Do we just want to let them know that we are here and knock on their door or do we want to try and change the weather and hold it, so that they get the idea to stop?"
Helena considers this thoughtfully. "I'd like to see if we can figure out why they're doing this. I mean…are they being forced? Are they doing it on purpose? These may be," she tries to find a word, "Nuances? That may not come through. Emotional resonance tends to be pretty vague; we're not empaths. But if we can try to figure out why they're doing this - what they want, that'd be ideal. If not, if we can narrow the hotspot any tighter, communication first, location second. Or maybe it should be the other way around." She turns to look at the oldest of the three. "McRae?"
McRae nods his domed pate at their pretty-coiffed driver, acquiescing about— school parking lots. That makes sense, and he can't think of anything better than that, anyway. These days, his transportation modes are limited to illicit ferry rides, vans packed in with flea-bitten refugees, and long soliloquys walked through the snowy city around the Sweat Lodge. The Brennans' car is terribly nice. It makes sense that the terribly nice lady of the household would also have a grasp of good parking decisions.
He is slightly better-equipped to answer Helena's question. "We should be able to find out where the focal point of their influence is. Usually that corresponds with the atmokinetic's location, but… if he or she is very powerful, they could be hundred of miles away. We can see whether we can break their hold, sure. See how that goes. It might tell us something extra. Or better yet," he shifts his pale stare out the window again. "End this."
'End this" Michelle agree's. "Perhaps the three of us can stomp our collective evolved pied upon theirs. We shall see hmmm? Worst is that she or he come to us to find out what is happening. Who is interrupting them. Like bee's to a clover blossom" The sign for a high school looms ahead, go cougars, and she flicks her turn signal. to indicate that they will be turning up ahead.
"I do not like this cold. Not at all. My neighbours are having to use their heating all through the day for the first time this winter. Their bills shall be terribly expensive" Everyone's electricity bill or gas bill to heat homes will get more expensive this year to keep up with the necessary hot air to warm a home.
The SUV rocks slight as she pulls up into the parking lot, pulling towards the center and maneuvers the gears into park. "well now. In here or shall we go outside and do it?"
"Ideas like that always sound good in principle, but somehow never work out how you expect them to." notes Helena a little wryly. "But it is the end of the month." (Dawn's in trouble? Must be Tuesday.) "I don't think it really matters whether we're in the car or standing in the parking lot, but we might be less noticeable if we stay in the car. If we go stand outside and something or someone came along, we might be so focused we don't see it. This at least affords us some protection." She looks between the two. "Unless you both feel strongly about stepping outside."
Indeed: suppose it begins to hail? McRae's head has no padding, except for the tuque that one of the kids jammed into his coat pocket on his way out of the door, and the tuque has bears on it, so. That could cast him in an odd light, spotted leering outside of a school. An ex-con, even one of McRae's character, is aware of such awkward possibilities and civilian suspicions. "I think we should stay in the car," he agrees, but he reaches down to unclip his seat belt. Better comfort.
"We try to use as little heating as possible, where I live," he adds to Mrs. Brennan, belatedly. "But it's taken its toll on us, too." By which he means, localized control of atmospheric pressure in gradiated degrees. His fine-control for subtleties of temperature and microspheres is not on par with Helena's, and it's been hard keeping his grip on what little influence he can exert over his neighborhood.
Whether you're a well-to-do expatriate and mother of— however many little Brennans there are or a ragged old Ferryman operator, however, the weather has been alike unkind. McRae shifts slightly on the upholstery, and squares his shoulders, his jaw squaring with renewed stubbornness. "Last time we did this, I followed Ms. Dean's lead. Worked from the outside in. How would you like to do this, ladies?"
Three little Brennans and one temporary honorary one. "I defer to the woman who has done this before" In the car it is and the Michelle remains within the vehicle, seat belt off so that she can turn. Car left running but her window cracked to let in fresh air and exchange out old air. Never sit in a running vehicle without a window open. Her control over temperature is where her skill lays and manipulating existing weather. As such, she's kept the vehicle warm and no need to tax the engine and the heater. Not that it would on a vehicle as new as this. Her hand flourishes towards the youngest atmokinetic.
"Well…I think Michelle said she has to center range around herself, right? And me and you, McRae, we can set our own focal points anywhere in our range. So I thought we might do this." Helena digs into her backpack and pulls out a pen, circling the town they're in on the map first. "This'll be Michelle, this point can be either me or McRae, and this will be whoever takes the third point. We focus our weather sense inward." It basically forms a triangle around the region that the source seems to be generalized in.
Will you look at that! Craning his head over the shotgun seat, McRae's eyes squint down at the illustration provided. It is geometric logic, and something he's willing enough to try, despite that it feels slightly counter-intuitive to the way he's used to using his atmokinesis. Strange times demand some creativity, after all. The old man's mouth goes into a pensive line, and he nods his head slightly. "We'll definitely cover New York City this way, and get a lot of the outlying areas too."
Yes. For my own, I am the center" Michelle confirms with a nod of her head as she studies the map and the areas that Helena points out. Doing what they've been doing on the way here but smaller, tighter and in a hop to pin down more precisely. It's the other two that will have to figure out their locations, Michelle however closes her eyes and from the center that is her, the two can feel it thanks to their own abilities as she pushes outwards with her ability. Nothing changes inside the vehicle, and the weather outside doesn't either as Michelle concentrates on digging her own invisible evolved fingers into the weather system above and around them. She's not trying to take control of it yet, just assert herself, anchor and be ready.
"Alright. So um…I'll take the northwest, and McRae, you can take the northeast? You've got more finesse than me, it's probably better to let you work the coastline." Helena waits for confirmation and then, "I don't know if this will help, but…" she holds out her hands to either atmokinetic. It certainly can't hurt.
If nothing else, it might be moral support. Assuming Mrs. Brennan doesn't feel awkward holding hands with a random old man stranger, that is. McRae casts the Frenchwoman a brief glance, perhaps slightly wary of offending her sensibilities; he comes from an older gentleman's culture, after all, and is not wont to make a genteel lady such as herself feel uncomfortable. Assuming she doesn't mind, however, there's a smile and then he's putting his hands out. "I'm familiar with coastal weather patterns."
Helena remembers how that went.
Despite his claim to poorer temperature management, he isn't wearing gloves. His hands are coarse from manual labor, skin worn to the texture of leather. His grip doesn't harden as it contracts, his features going still with concentration. In a moment, it's as if he isn't seeing anything in the car at all, leaving his body and his companions to the watchful eye of the Brennans' security detail.
Mrs. Dr. Brennan's sensibilities don't offend with the offering of hands as she opens her eyes a fraction long enough to slip them into each others hands. The contract of McRae's rough to her soft physician's ones apparent and they tighten gently around his and then Helena's in a supportive squeeze. "We begin then" in the accented English.
Indeed, they begin. In contact with the other atmokinetics (Maiden, Mother, and Crone, if you put McRae in drag), Helena lets her weather sense expand to the furthest reaches of her capability, to her designated start point and then stops, seeking then to turn toward herself instead. Now, slowly, she begins to spread that awareness out, seeking the signature of their mysterious fourth as her power carries like ever-expanding ripples in the atmospheric pond.
Like colored dye blossoming out from a single droplet in clear water, the senses of three atmokinetics begin to roll outward from a single point, filtering into what comes as a more turbulent series of emotional tugs than had been before. New sensations seem so much sharper out east, the feelings of loss, longing, fear, uncertainty, sadness and anger all layer one over another like the foundation stones of a very ugly house. The thick cloud covered here over Massachusetts offers no view of the sky or sun, and yet the atmokinetics can feel it on the tops of the clouds, bright and warm sunlight that should be bringing Spring to the northeast and is instead bringing nothing but violent cold.
As the three reach out, feel and search, it's like grasping for that dye in the water with bare hands. It slithers ephemerally between their fingers, squeezes out between grasps of prying attention and seems to be diluted everywhere and nowhere at once. Helena might liken it to the way that Hana Gitelman seems to be a part of everything and nothing at once when she becomes Wireless and emerges into the Net. Michelle experiences the sensation more in the way an observant parent can spread themselves so very thin around when trying to keep a watchful eye on their children, managing to emulate a sense of omnipresence in a way only mother can. While David McRae hearkens back to darker times for this sensation, like being perpetually watched, as if that weather were trying to permeate through everything and anything to reach and grasp and touch like the invasive security systems of the Moab Federal Penitentiary.
But no matter their own individual perceptions of the storm, those base emotional sensations of having lost something precious and fearing it will never return is somewhat overwhelming, it's much more palpable here, so much closer to the epicenter, but in that same way it is spread like butter on toast, with no clear pin-pointed area of emanation, no eye of the literal storm.
But then, there is something else in this weather that Michelle and Helena had felt before— adamancy. The storm is like the bedrock of a great mountain, rooted and firm, dug in deep to the weather systems like an ancient Redwood with roots that spread hundreds of feet beneath the earth. It it as immutable as the mountains themselves and yet as pervasive as mist on the wind. Never have they as a trinity touched on the surface of an atmokinetic quite this reinforced, and from the feeling of it, the weather power is stronger than it was several months ago.
But if all three of them were to try something at once, perhaps— just perhaps— they could move mountains.
It's like pointing out that the sun is up at noon on the summer solstice in the middle of Death Valley, but it bears saying anyway, in the opinion of one David McRae. "He's stronger than I am." His voice is faint and low, as if it is coming from over a vast distance rather than locating its origin in the sturdily built, if old figure settled in the back seat of the Brennan family vehicle. His pupils are pinpoints of undissolved ink in his irises, and his hands are motionless in their clasp around either of the women's. A Bodhisattva would look as separate, as strangely apart.
And perhaps wield as much impossible influence over the tangible world. Already, his sentience is filtering into the kinetic energy of his own particular focal point, squirming to make its imprint on the massed eddies of gas exchange and unrelenting force of the unseen stranger's inscrutable agenda. He's mildly disconcerted to find that subtlety isn't working very well. One would have better luck using an ear horn and a toy hammer to discover the fault-lines inside a mountain.
Bulldozers it is. Unless— "It may be best to wait for the Childs girl."
"Not so strong. She's" Michelle is convinced it is a woman. "Has just had a longer time to cast her roots deep, she has been here longer, working longer. Months, maybe more" The brunette replies, nothing so strange with her eyes other than perhaps her own pupils a little larger. "I do not know who this childs girl is, but.. Even the largest tree must fall if you pull hard enough with the strength of many." She chases around the edges, as if trying to encircle her arms around said system and try yanking on the roots themselves, by herself, experimenting. Undaunted by the mountain that lays before them. "Finding her, may proove a bit more difficult. Perhaps if we uproot this system, then we can find out when they show their displeasure?"
Helena is quick to point out, "There's three of us. And if we wait for Gillian, this might grow even stronger. I think we should see what we can do now, but only if we're all in agreement. I don't think this can work unless we're all in accord." Helena plays the good cop to Michelle's bad cop - focusing on warm fronts, trying to thin out the cloud cover; shaping it into something akin to an inquiry, an offer - a hand of friendship extended first, before the Collective Pimp Hand of Atmokinesis must necessarily come into play.
One to take the tree by its roots, another to set a brutish shoulder against the trunk, the third to—
—shake peaceable hands with its branches? David chooses not to dismiss his cohorts' ideas so quickly, however insufferable he personally finds this person. "She," all right, they'll agree about that, "must be powerful to have built this up over so much time. My influence certainly dwindles at night. I've been able to correct storm systems over crop fields during bad seasons, but there was a lot more flux than this.
"There's… it's very— regular," he finishes, finally. Brick-laid, mortared, less like the wild and organic growth that he is used to following or eroding his own particular whims into. A droning that's grown nearly obsessive in its tidy, artificial repetition, separated from the slow swing of Earth's orbit and the melt and change that should have come of it. A beat. That isn't to be taken for disagreement, however.
"I'm watching. Go ahead, Helena."
It's like reaching out to that brick wall McRae feels it as; a hand over featureless stone. There is no reciprocation from the offering of some other human contact, the way that a toaster does not respond what elicited for a response to a question. There is only the stark contrasts of a seemingly indomitable weather pattern and that overlay of the same sorrowful emotions lingering behind it. Perhaps in a way, it's like a stubborn child that refuses to listen to an adult's advice, more so than an emotionless machine. Not something incapable of responding, but too stubborn to.
Helena knows a guy like that.
Well, that didn't work. Time for the Pimp Hand. Helena joins her efforts toward uprooting the tree, so to speak. Gaps in the weather system holes are flooded with the right combination of pressure and temperature to expand those gaps. Her weather senses expand to get an idea of what the other two are doing, so she can work in concert.
It isn't quite telepathy. Not as quick, but the decision and the message and the agreement were simple enough that it's just as clear, but three atmokinetics tuned into the same weather have a reasonable understanding through that medium of what they're bound to do. The fourth, well. The fourth can pretend she doesn't understand all she likes, but it's been too long since Spring was supposed to reach their homes, and the stubborn child is to be made to listen.
McRae's strength of will crashes hard into the skies over Ipswitch. Leads the charge, sending out a pulse-wave of a grab hard-handed and long-fingered through the bleak canvas of the sky, as vicious an exertion as the snake-tongued whip that had dragged a column of screaming seawater out of Staten's harbor that Helena had seen months ago. Evolved supremacist he may be, but his wrath now is that of a benevolent god pounding his gavel in disagreement with an indifferent one. Force rocks through Helena's skull, gathers in Mrs. Brennan's mind's eye.
And all the while, the man's face is fixed in an eerie calm, his mouth a bow-curve that's nearly neutral enough to be mistaken for a smile.
Michelle's comes in the wake, not even a breath between her and McRae with wrinkles that mar her forehead as she frowns in consternation at the unmoving, feet planted atmokinetic that they are taking on decides to ignore. Evolved ability - twofold - reaches right in, lending strength to that gavel that he wields even as her other metaphysical hand grabs a hold of the tree tight as if that alone could hold it in place tight and move it to meet the gavel sooner. "Je vous suis prévenus" She murmurs as she lends her strength to it all.
"Nnggh." Helena has endured worse. Honest to goodness. This isn't even nosebleed territory. But yes, the pressure of McRae's power is somewhat daunting, and neither of the two women is anything to laugh at. As abilities begin to interlace, she starts to understand her role better in the trinity, anticipate where the openings are in the combined force to push in the way that they need to. All things can topple with the proper application of leverage.
Haunting, that is the quality of the feeling behind the storm as all three atmokinetics put the brunt of their force against the storm. There is a buckling, like a man blindsided by a tackle crumpling to the ground, and a hole opens up in the sky where the clouds push back as though a great hand had just swept it aside directly above where Helena, Michelle and McRae are performing their work in unison. Effulgent rays of sunlight lance down through the hole in the clouds; warm and bright. The sky is a crisp azure beyond the ring of gray and black, but for all that blindsided confusion the three joined atmokinetics can feel the repercussions of their action already crashing down around them.
Like throwing a huge stone into the still surface of a pond, there are ripples and a splash, and eventually the water displaced comes rushing back to its source. The clouds darken at the edges of the hole as it squeezes down like tightly closed fists. There is a surge of power behind the construction, followed by a funneling of air in a downward spine where cold meets hot, and the sudden impact of thermal differentials generates the one and only natural response that it possibly could.
CRACKA-BOOM
A thunderclap comes as the clouds slap closed and blot pitch black, swirling strongly before a downcurrent of wind rocks the SUV they're seated in, a strong wind whistling against their vehicle in the immediate and reflexive action like a child who was told what not to do throwing a temper tantrum and kicking its toys around.
A sudden gust of hurricane force winds whips through the parking lot, driving drifted snow around in cyclonic force as the SUV rocks to one side from the blow and another low and rumbling growl of thunder shakes the heavens above. The three can feel the source of the storm clamping down further, buckling in digging its heels down and waiting.
Certainly, they can affect the weather, but the blunt hammer was met with twice as much resistance in return; a dangerous game to play so close to the source, wherever that happens to be.
David McRae doesn't find that the most responsible or reasonable answer. Finally, temper comes carving visibly into the tidy serenity that had sculptured his weathered features into that strange discipline and arrogant mercy. His brows sink, hooking steep shadows over his glass-pale eyes, and his jaw sets, cords standing out even in the subtlety of the SUV's shadows.
Threats, Dumbo? the irritable god inquires, snatching the feather out of the fat baby elephant's snail-curl of a snout. Those ears were made for listening.
Atmospheric pressure escalates inside the car, mounts in a wide column of air around the hapless school, its parking lot. Presses tangible against the laminated glass of the windshield and whispers cracked against particulate snow, frost-rimed windows. If this weather had a chart, it would throw a dradle's dervish of contour lines across the map; lightning chased back with a killing blight of heat, sun-bleached exposure, wind thrashing trees with whiplash-inducing force as diametrically-opposed temperatures fight for dominance and wreak havoc on convection currents.
An obstinate three year old with feet planted that just screamed at being herded towards the bathtub where they will melt like sugar should they get in. Michelle's face is marr'd further, fine line around her eyes as she frowns, hands tightening around the other two at the buffeting that the vehicle takes. But just like McRae, the full measure of her ability now, and not just half, is applied, riding along with him, intent on the same purpose and that same goal. Three against one again. Only this time, they brought bubblegum. "Harder" Michelle murmurs even as the poor man who was set to guard the Frenchwoman is likely making sure his seat belt is on and wondering what the hell they're doing in the car.
For once, Helena actually does invest in the idea that The Older People Know What They Are Doing, and as such, she follows their lead. With an intake and release of breath, she brings her full power to bear. Her grip in either hand tightens reflexively, as she continues to focus on undoing the foundation of the power of this weather system, much in the same way the others are. She can do this. They can do this.
This time when the three weather manipulators bring down the full concerted efforts of their powers on the storm, there is a resounding growl of thunder from the skies, and the clouds crack like glass under pressure, criss-crossing lines of sunlight showing through the upper atmosphere, before a low push of subarctic cold comes whipping in and the cloud cover thickens and intensifies. The hammer down effect comes fast and with little preamble beyond the thunder's rumble.
The wind picks up again, this time harder than before as the clouds overhead begin to dimple downward and the emotions within the storm change; fear and confusion reign supreme along with fitful anger, very much the child's tantrum again as those dimpled clouds begin to funnel downward, wind swirling and circling as snow is lifted up off of the parking lot ground and into the sky. A howl of wind blows across the street, trees dance nearby and power lines swing side to side as a funnel cloud begins to form in response to the push, the precursor to a full on tornado starting to wriggle its way down like an angry finger pointing at the SUV menacingly.
But there's no menace in the storm, just frustration, confusion and that lingering feeling of being alone despite the hand held out in offering; like someone who desperately wants one thing and will not be satisfied with substitutions. Unfortunately for the three in the car, this means a trip to Oz is forthcoming if they don't figure something out.
"Stop" No blame is being placed for what is happening, even as they can all feel what is building, can feel the strikes from the other atmo. "Stop. She will not listen. Now we repair" Michelle lets go of hands, placing her own palms together. Her strength lies in temperature and manipulating current weather.
"Dissipate the funnel cloud" She murmurs. "soothe over hurt feelings like it is a child hmmm" Even as she's pulling back from the brute force they tried, so that she can sink the tendrils of her ability into the funnel cloud to pull at it as if it weer cotton candy and one were trying to consume the wisps of spun sugar. "We cannot approach with a hammer. Whomever this is… they are like a child. We chose the wrong battle to fight."
It's Helena who attends to it first. Tornadoes are not difficult to move - if you know what you're doing, understand how the funnel is formed. She begins to try to coax it to unravel, like a princess pulling on a spool of thread to better guide her hero through a labyrinth. It can't just be stamped out. It has to be undone delicately. "McRae," she croaks, "We can't - this is the wrong way."
Tension changes the slant of McRae's jaw, hollowing his cheeks out for a brief moment like he was about to hiss something, perhaps a curse or merely a dismissive and oddly uncharacteristic sneer. It frustrates him. It does, but he ultimately acquiesces to the women's respective requests. His white-knuckled grip on the sky loosens. The child's scruff is released, and the old man backs away, acknowledges the might of the tantrum by dismissing it, grudgingly, but without anything you could term hesitation.
His retreat is perhaps more total than it necessarily needed to be, but he allows this to be a token, the part of the olive branch, even as he stills his temper and regroups.
McRae doesn't have to look out the window to tell why the shadows throb like this inside the car. Like an organic heartbeat wrought out of the sky. Or maybe that is just the distant drubbing of the wind lending the illusion of rhythm to the spectrum of visual light. His features fade to blank, like winter easing out of the sky— an ironic analogy to be sure. He releases his breath slowly through his teeth.
Peaceful reproach and the subtle crossing of upper air currents to break the funnel cloud effect gently causes the dark gray cummulus to dissipate from the updraft Helena and Michelle create when McRae steps back from the figurative front lines of their battle. This time there is a tremor of disturbance in the air, a shudder like a slowly retracted hand with muscles twitching freely. The funnel cloud does not reform, and the uniform stillness to the skies returns as little more than slate gray and a few flurries of snow dusting across the windshield remain.
Snow has been driven by those winds up one side of the SUV to the windows, blanketing the parking lot from where it was drawn and swirled, thinning the drifts in other places. A collective atmospheric sigh of relief comes when no further meteorological backhands come from above, but it is made eminently clear that whatever force the three of them are fighting against, they have the power to affect it when they work together, but the collateral damage from their confrontation could possibly be unacceptable.
All the power in the world to wage a war, but none of the precision to end it.
"Who is this other woman you spoke of?"Michelle asks in faded voice as the weather calms to what it was and she looks outside the window, wrinkling her nose at the snow that rides up one side of the vehicle. "Pauvre petite" She murmurs, glancing up at the sky. Her thumbs strokes along the leather of the steering wheel before she looks to the other two. "What do we do? If anything"
Helena shakes her head, pressing her hand to the glass. It takes a few moments, but some of the snow starts to drip-slide down the glass. "We try again." Helena says. "Not tonight, and we either have Gillian with us, or we use a different tactic. I think maybe - yeah, this needs a mother's intuition. There's something very young about this person, isn't there? Like we're dealing with a kid."
The old man's mouth is turned downward, now, but his frown implies far less anger than the ugly subtleties of his earlier expression had. McRae's thinking, now, and the processes of logic put him into agreement with his fellow atmokinetics. "Childs. She can augment our abilities. But you're right; I don't think raw force is going to do this, unless we have enough power to actually disable her. She's too powerful and she's putting up a fight by instinct.
"I don't know if she's actually physically close to here," he adds, the ash-colored accents of his brows knitting in the middle of his forehead. "I'd think so— judging from the violence of her reaction, but…" he raises one gnarled hand, points out the window. "I can't do what she just did now, not alone, and I've been manipulating the weather for twenty years."
"Nearly seventeen or so for myself" Michelle nods. "She is like a child. Obstinate, no control over everything else so she grabs it where she can and holds on tight. The girls, they can get like that and you cannot budge. You must come back later, come with a soft hand and soft words and try again. Perhaps with a bribe. She is close, I am sure of it. Such power wielded. One is stronger at their base. Helena, can you clear a bit of the snow yes, so that we can head back. Before the police they come and try to do something like arrest us?"
"Already on it." Helena promises, letting warm permeate the air around her, cracking one of the windows a bit to give it someplace to go. A little bit of snow falls in her lap, but she ignores it. "How long do you think we should wait? As long as it takes to get a hold of Gillian?"
McRae does not know Gillian as well as Helena does, and hasn't raised a daughter in as long as Michelle's been working with the weather. This time, the calibration of expertise has it that he has the least valuable knowledge in the SUV, and he's looking now at demoiselle Brennan, expectantly, like it's the most natural thing in the world. They may be half-buried in snow and bound for a lot of questions from various authorities, but he's keeping his balded head on task, for now.
This is a welcome change for him.
Seat belt is fastened and when enough snow is moved, the SUV is turned on and engaged, working it's way out of the accumulated drifts carefully, a wave for the overseer from afar. All is well and fine, nothing to see here! "We see when Gillian can help us. No more than a few days I think. It has to be soon. Children, they have such short memories and it will only work if they remember what came before, and the difference between the hand and the carrot and which is better"