Participants:
| Scene Title | It Is So, So Time |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | While working at the Suresh Center, Melissa meets another person needing help. |
| Date | October 26, 2010 |
There comes a time in a woman's life when she realizes that she just can't go on the way she has been going. For Skyler Martin, that time is now. Ever since the bomb, she's been coasting, just surviving and waiting for the next shoe to drop, prepared at all times to run and hide, to cower, or as a last resort, to fight. But it's just not enough anymore. She's seen where homelessness leads, to the camp in Prospect Park. There are other matters too. She's heard, at Prospect, that you can get 'help' here at Suresh. Well. For whatever that's worth, she's decided to check it out. Skyler swallows and wrestles her usual paranoia about going indoors to the ground, and steps through the door.
Perhaps luckily, Melissa is one of the counselors at the Center today, though she certainly doesn't look like anyone's version of a counselor. Black cargo pants, a black, long-sleeved tee-shirt, boots and blonde hair with black streaks in it. Nope, it doesn't scream counselor, but she's by the receptionist, talking to someone she's just spoken with before they leave, both smiling, apparently pleased with the chat.
Skyler slips her sunglasses off and brushes her still-wet-from-the-shower bangs back from her face as she addresses the receptionist. "Hi. Um. My name is Skyler." She takes a slow breath, but the words come hard. "And I'm Evolved. I've been living on the street for a long time. Um. Help?" It's a white knuckle moment for Skyler. It doesn't help that she can feel every computer within a hundred meters of where she's standing, from desktops to cellphones to pacemakers, and they're all crying out to be touched.
Unfortunately Melissa isn't helping that desire to touch technology, since she has two cell phones on her at the moment. But she hears the woman, studying her for a moment before bidding the person she was talking to good bye, then giving her attention to Skyler. She smiles and offers a hand. "Hi Skyler, I'm Melissa. Want to come with me to someplace a bit more comfortable to talk?"
Skyler nods. "Yes please." Skyler's hands squeeze into fists and back. She offers a hand to shake after forcing it to relax. Like her hair, it's freshly scrubbed, even under the nails. "Nice to meet you." She adds. There's this flicker, just for a moment, of bright amber against the dark brown of her pupils, as she gives in for just a moment and touches Melissa's cell phone. Not much more than opening it and looking at the screen, as far as what she can get out of it. She closes her eyes and stops, then moves to follow Melissa wherever it is she's going.
The hand isn't held long. Melissa knows that some abilities make touch uncomfortable. But she does lead Skyler down the hall towards an empty room, and closes the door behind them so they won't be interrupted. "Please, make yourself comfortable. And you can relax with me. No need to be formal or worry about appearances. I'm a counselor here, but I'm Evolved too."
Skyler settles into a chair. She looks up as Melissa says that. "Are you?" Skyler reaches to her chest and undoes her web gear, and sets it, and all the equipment in it, on the floor, then settles into the chair again. Her fingers fidget with some of her more favorite tools. "What do you do?" she asks, finally.
Melissa smiles and nods. "I am. I'm a pain manipulator. Makes me very popular when women here go into labor, since I'm better than any epideral. Mind telling me what you do? It's perfectly alright if you don't. Not everyone's comfortable discussing their ability."
Skyler chuckles very quietly at Melissa when she mentions that. It's a tight sort of chuckle. "I'll bet. I can think of lots of uses for that kind of ability. She looks at Melissa and marshals her strength. "I'm a technopath. I'm registered. Sort of. Which is to say they don't know everything I can do." Skyler chews her lip a little.
Again, Melissa smiles. "Don't worry, I won't spoil the secret. I'm not here to judge or turn anyone in. I'm just here to help anyone who needs it, the best I can. So why don't we start with you telling me what you need help with, and I'll see how I can help?"
Skyler relaxes a little as Melissa doesn't freak out, doesn't call the police, doesn't slap the cuffs on her. "Technopathy's not all it's cracked up to be." She starts. "It's like… addictive, at least for me, and every damn piece of electronics around me calls out to me to touch it. Things came apart for me when I was younger, and I left New York to get away from it all. Make a long story short, I came back because even a dairy farm in Iowa uses high tech anymore. So I came back to try and control what I can do, use it. I got back right before the bomb. The day before. Then came the registration and the blizzard, and I'm so paranoid now I don't like being indoors. So. Um. Some… mental health stuff would probably be good. Second thing is it's been five years since I saw a dentist, and my teeth are starting to give me trouble. And the third thing is… I'm sick and tired of being homeless. I want what I wanted when I came back. To do something." She gestures stiffly at her head, reaching for words, pausing in the torrent of words she's already said. "With this."
Melissa nods as she listens, her expression understanding. "We can certainly help you. I'm not a doctor, but we do have psychiatrists here who can help with the addiction. I can help some with control, though our abilities are vastly different. But I'll bet that if you can get the addictive nature of your ability under control, that you can control your ability. And with that taken care of, it shouldn't be much of a problem for you to get a job and a place of your own. Everything's run by computers anymore, like you said, so someone who understands them is a boon in a lot of fields of work."
Skyler nods. "I have degrees in IT and engineering. So I do. You know. Understand. I mean, I fix cell phones and ipods and stuff in the park. That's what I've been doing for money. So I guess… where do we start? My teeth hurt, and I'm living in a cholera epidemic waiting to happen, and winter's coming.
"First I'm going to introduce you to one of the doctors. They'll get you checked out, and then we find a place for you," Melissa says with a smile. "We'll get you taken care of, Skyler." She rises and moves to the door, opening it. "It'll be a lot of work on your part, but we can help."
Skyler gets up and nods. "Okay. Thank you Melissa." She says softly. Work? She can do that. It's time. It is so, so time.