Handle

Participants:

elisabeth_icon.gif rebecca_icon2.gif

Scene Title Handle
Synopsis Elisabeth takes Rebecca to be tested. Insight ensues.
Date March 15, 2009

Assigned Vehicle of Elisabeth Harrison


Elisabeth offered to take Rebecca to get her testing done. Word around the precinct is that Becca has started to manifest her power. When it was reported that she tested positive, a pool began. Unfortunately no one collected when word spread that she was a seer. Rebecca was thankful for the ride and the friend. They did talk quite a bit on the way there, but Rebecca has been awful silent on the way back.

The testing went pretty much as it had been described to her. Lots of 'open your eyes, do you see anything?', 'close your eyes, do you see anything?' She looked at a lot of objects of different textures and shapes and sizes. They asked her to concentrate and try to induce a vision, while they had her hooked up to some machine. Even though she wasn't able to induce a vision, the machine was able to tell that there was some correlating signs whenever Rebecca looked at something shiny. Combined with the evidence of the two previous visions, they deemed her Cognitant, and based on her description of the events she witnessed, they decided to mark her down as Post-Cognitant.

This did little to ease the mind of the lab tech as they drove back to the precinct. She stares out of the window as they drive along the busy streets of the city. After a while, she finally speaks. "Well, I suppose it's not entirely horrible.. it could have been worse."

As she drives, Elisabeth is giving Rebecca a bit of space to process everything. When the forensics tech speaks up, though, she looks sideways. "Wanna tell me about it?" she asks mildly as she pulls into the precinct's parking lot and turns off the car. Turning in her seat to look at the other woman, Liz adds quietly, "You know… you've told me a lot of things, but never really how you're feeling about this. It's not all that bad." Says the woman who uses her abilities practically every day lately.

Rebecca returns the gesture, turning to face Elisabeth as they speak. She rarely slouches and this is no different. She always seems to be sitting upright and proper - at least when she's not having a vision-induced headache. "I don't really know where to begin to talk about it. I never expected to have this, and I certainly never expected to be able to see into the past. It's like.. random. I just randomly look into the past and see.. stuff. Nothing imporant. Nothing that I can fix. Nothing I can solve. It's just.. stuff." As close to a scientific term as she's going to find here, probably. "It seems like a useless ability if I can't control it, or find some way to manage it somehow."

There's a pause for a moment, and Elisabeth considers. "I think almost all abilities must seem useless, at least at first. I mean… what use is flying? Sure, it's convenient and all, but… really, what are you gonna do with it? Get from here to there? Eh, okay. And then…. one day you happen to see a burning building and a little girl that the firefighters can't see at a window, and you take a chance and you get there first." She doesn't have a clue if that's actually what happened that day with Maria, but it sure seems to fit the moment. "And look at what I do? The first manifestation I had? I was shouting 'Stop!' after a looter and knocked him ass over teakettle down the street… it wasn't until later that I realized I was also subconsciously using it to calm down the large groups."

Listening intently to someone who's had quite a bit of experience, Rebecca nods. "How did you ever learn to control what you do? I mean, have you ever been talking to someone, then realized they never heard a word you said because your ability started up without you knowing it?" She asks this is a very serious manner.

Elisabeth shakes her head. "No, it doesn't work quite like that for me, no. I have…." She pauses and then grins a little. "I have on several occasions cracked every bit of glass in my apartment when I was…. out of control," she admits with a laugh. "But that's about the extent of that. I've made people sick with my ability, but … I learned pretty quickly that the subsonic range of sound could be used to help people get to a more suggestible state of mind, which is how I do crowd control, but it also has the ability to create a panic if you're not careful with the amount you layer. So that did take a bit of practice, certainly."

A look of frustration crosses her face. "I don't even know how this works, really. I tried all morning to make it work. It just seems to come when it wants to come. I have no idea how I'm going to get control over this thing, when I don't even know how it works. I just know that I look into something that reflects and every once in a while I see something from the past." Rebecca makes a face. "I am probably sounding pretty whiny right about now." she smirks. "I don't mean to. I'm just.. a little weirded out by it all."

"If you weren't weirded out, I'd be a bit worried, honestly," Elisabeth tells her with a faint smile. "It's not easy. It'll never be easy, I think. And in your case, it sounds like you can't force it. But with a bit of time and practice, you may learn to be able to direct it a little. Maybe not WHAT you see, but how you see it."

There's a nod at that, as Rebecca smiles. "That would be nice. Right now I feel that it controls me, as opposed to me controlling it." She fiddles with her fingers in her lap. "How long did it take for you to get a handle on what you can do?" She's trying to avoid looking at the windshield or the mirrors or pretty much anything reflective in the vehicle, so Elisabeth is probably the best thing to look at right about now.

With a tilt of her head, Elisabeth says, "I was sort of thrown into the deep end of the pool, sink or swim. My powers manifested on 9/11. I was still in uniform them." She shrugs a bit. "Afterward, when things settled a little, I took off for a while to go get a grip on them. Took me several weeks of experimenting to feel like I had something close to control. Imperfect, but enough that I could come back to work."

Rebecca nods. "I can't really afford to take time off, and I don't think this will affect anyone but me. At least, not in any way that I can possibly imagine right now. There's just so much going on right now, that I'd feel guilty to leave this in the hands of the others." She smiles over at Elisabeth. "Thanks for taking me. And thanks for talking to me. I am not sure what I do now.. I guess I just wait for the next one to happen. See if I can get a grip on it. The problem is.. it tends to get a grip on me first." She grins and shrugs.

Elisabeth smiles gently. "I don't know any, but I bet you could request whether Homeland could put you in contact with another post-cognitive talent… maybe they'd be more help." At least then the Registry might actually function the way it's supposed to, right? HELPING the people on it? "My talents are different enough that I'm not sure how much help I can be, except to be an ear when you need one."

Rebecca's face brightens. "I hadn't thought about that, actually. I'll see what I can find. Thank you." She reaches for the car door, then stops and turns back. ".. for everything. You've been a good friend. Shall we go on in?"

Elisabeth looks at the door to the precinct and just sighs. "Yeah… let's go in," she says quietly. Cuz after all, where else is she going to go?

Rebecca moves back to her office and pulls up something on her computer. Whatever she types takes a moment to process. When the results pop up, she scrolls through the list of names and she pauses. "Zoe Porter." A few moments later she has a phone number and picks up her phone and dials. Voice mail. "Ms. Porter. My name is Rebecca Nakano. You don't know me, but.. I think you can help me."


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March 15th: Where The Hell Is That Line?
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March 15th: No, You
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