Participants:
| Scene Title | Twin Chess |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | While practicing chess in the park, Gillian catches up with her internet buddy turned Company Agent Police Academy Trainee. |
| Date | July 10, 2009 |
Central Park has been, and remains, a key attraction in New York City, both for tourists and local residents. Though slightly smaller, approximately 100 acres at its southern end scarred by and still recovering from the explosion, the vast northern regions of the park remain intact.
An array of paths and tracks wind their way through stands of trees and swathes of grass, frequented by joggers, bikers, dog-walkers, and horsemen alike. Flowerbeds, tended gardens, and sheltered conservatories provide a wide array of colorful plants; the sheer size of the park, along with a designated wildlife sanctuary add a wide variety of fauna to the park's visitor list. Several ponds and lakes, as well as the massive Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, break up the expanses of green and growing things. There are roads, for those who prefer to drive through; numerous playgrounds for children dot the landscape.
Many are the people who come to the Park — painters, birdwatchers, musicians, and rock climbers. Others come for the shows; the New York Shakespeare Festival at the Delacorte Theater, the annual outdoor concert of the New York Philharmonic on the Great Lawn, the summer performances of the Metropolitan Opera, and many other smaller performing groups besides. They come to ice-skate on the rink, to ride on the Central Park Carousel, to view the many, many statues scattered about the park.
Some of the southern end of the park remains buried beneath rubble. Some of it still looks worn and torn, struggling to come back from the edge of destruction despite everything the crews of landscapers can do. The Wollman Rink has not been rebuilt; the Central Park Wildlife Center remains very much a work in progress, but is not wholly a loss. Someday, this portion of Central Park just might be restored fully to its prior state.
Central Park still has chess boards set up. Early in the morning, with the sun barely up through the haze of clouds, two young woman sit at a board, one holding a book and looking considerably confused, while the other seems quieter and doesn't need to look at the pages before moving. The white side, the one without a book, is winning, at least they have managed to keep most their pieces.
The two women, though… look fairly identical in the face. Each one is dressed differently, giving off what could easily be the appearance of twins playing in the park, but they both have the same beauty mark, the same dimples in their cheeks.
And they're both recognizable as Gillian, to someone who would know her.
Skating all over the city again, having plenty of time before training, Magnes is free! He's decided it wouldn't hurt to go through central park, it never has before. He makes sure to land somewhere people aren't looking, simply skating happily down a path, dodging a few early birds. Then, out of the blue, he does a double take, focusing on the two Gillians. It's his hot internet friend, and there are two of them! "Gillian? You, uh, you're twins?" Somewhere in his mind, he might possibly be remembering a beer commercial; And twi~i~i~n~s!
Never hurts to see twins. Even if they're not real twins. They both look up at the name said, eyebrows raising almost identically as Gillian (both of them) open their mouth to say his name. There's a catch, they look at each other, and then one of them, the one without the book, looks back. "Hey Magnes. It's— no, it's hard to explain. Or easy, I guess. Don't make a big fuss, okay?" Now, technically she is a twin, but that's a different story and the person across the table wouldn't be that twin.
"Hi Magnes," the other one says, waving a little quietly. "Glad to see you're still skating around." There's not quite a smile on her face, but she's not looking quite as grouchy as the other one, for some reason.
"I, uh," Magnes tilts his head for a moment, then looks from one to the other. Alright, a normal person would simply say 'Hi, that's my sister', so clearly this is not the case. "You're uh, Madrox? Y'know, Multiple Man?" he asks, wondering if such a simple explanation will suffice, though his tone is quite low. He smooths his hair back with one hand, though it was already smooth due to the gel. Maybe he's trying to call her attention to his new look!
A normal person would, but considering how not normal she is? "Right now, yeah, we'll just leave it there, though, if that's okay?" Gillian says, not really wanting to explain too much on the matter right now. It would take too much. But there are two of her, and they sound the same, with varying moods. One is happier than the other.
"I like your outfit. You look sharper than you did last time." That would be the cheerful one.
"You were on the run last time we saw each other. Doesn't look to be the case now," the more serious one interupts.
"Ah, well, this is my new style, trying to be more mature…" Magnes modestly says, cheeks reddening slightly. Self-esteem successfully raised by a small undetectable margin! "Yeah, uh, kinda complicated, but in a nutshell, I'm in the Police Academy right now."
"You have got to be shitting me," the one on the white side says rather stiffly, almost grunting even. "You go from being a wanted fugitive terrorist to a member of the Police Academy. I really don't want to know how this ended up happening." There's suspision in her voice.
The more cheerful one looks a little concerned too, but pipes up to ask, "Is that what you want to be doing?"
"Being a cop? Not really. Improving my skills, learning valuable things, building contacts on the inside? Yeah, I do want that." Magnes doesn't comment on how it ended up happening, she doesn't want to know, after all! He looks mildly perplexed by the contrasting moods, but still doesn't comment. "No matter who I work with, it'll always be to further myself so I can protect my friends, and the world. No one can make me betray my friends." Who knows why he says these things, but Gillian always seemed like the suspicious type, and he wants to reassure her.
"That's good to hear, Mags," Gillian responds quietly, the less frowny one doing the talking for the moment while the one whose move it is is consentrating on the board. "Listen, Magnes, I— it's not so much that I think you'd outright betray me, I've just been fucked over a lot recently. Sometimes I'd like just to go back to my old job. I hope you do enjoy it." There's a hesitation, and then she slumps in the seat a bit. As if she wants to add something, but knows better. The white queen moves forward and knocks over a black bishop, pulling it from the board.
"I've never screwed over anyone, hell, I've never screwed anyone period." Magnes admits, shrugging his shoulders as he moves a bit closer to take a look at the chessboard. "All I have in my life are my friends, they mean more to me than money or anything. I'd never ever willingly lose a friend. I lose enough of them as it is. That woman, Isabelle, on the news, she was one of my best friends…"
"That's not usually an admission a guy is willing to make," the rather dire one says with a raise of a single eyebrow. This Gillian seems to be in a bit of a mood— but she's had a bad couple of weeks, one the other one doesn't need to remember quite as vividly as she does. "I saw that in the newspaper, though. I'm sorry that your friend was killed. World's going to hell pretty fast, it seems like."
The one that'd been smiling actually stands up from the seat, put the book down, and walks over and tries to hug him.
Magnes smiles, wrapping his arms around her waist without his usual awkwardness. He understands her gesture, he knows she's not trying anything. "Thanks, Gillian. And the world may be going to hell, but I'm working hard to have the power to change it. I'll fix whatever's wrong with Sylar, I'll capture Adam Monroe, John Logan, and Muldoon, I'll clear Hiro's name, and one day, somehow, we won't be forced to register against our will."
Three of those names tug a memory. One much closer to home than the others. The one hugging him pulls back a little quickly, looking surprised. The Gillian still seated quickly looks over at him and stands up, "Who are those people? I've heard of some of them— everyone's heard of Sylar and Hiro too, but— who are they?"
"Adam Monroe, a very dangerous man doing god knows what, but he killed the lover of a friend of mine, and Hiro's father. Logan and Muldoon captured me and Abby, and, well, they did bad things that you don't wanna hear. Hiro is my mentor, we've time travelled, he trained me a bit, his sister did too. And Sylar, well…" Magnes shakes his head, looking down at his hands after Gillian pulls away. Hugging Gillian is an experience! "I bet Sylar once, read him a comic, I've heard that he might only be a killer because of his ability, some side effect. But, even though I wanna try and help him one day, I can't take him lightly, I know he's dangerous. I saw him kill Hiro's best friend right in front of my eyes, and we sat outside of the diner while Hiro's girlfriend was killed. We time travelled, Hiro was showing me why I should stay away from Sylar."
The topic seems to have made both of the Gillian's look rather serious. And surprised at the same point. He met Sylar. What a strange world she lives in these days. Finally she nods slowly, both of them, almost at the same time. "All right, I'll keep them in mind. You got a lot of goals, so… be careful."
"I will. I don't break the law, but the law won't break me either." Magnes smiles, staring up at the sky, seemingly content. He seems a bit more collected than when they first met. "I've got a girlfriend now, though it's not serious or anything, we're just dating so we can get to know eachother. But I figured she's my girlfriend since we kiss, though she's always shocking me with electricity."
"You have a girlfriend who electricutes you?" Gillian asks outloud, rather surprised and a bit skeptical in her appearance. Both of them seem rather surprised by this. There's probably a couple people who can electricute, though, so she doesn't draw any conclusions. "Fitting you'd be dating someone when I'm single again." one of them says quietly, before the other one sharply adds on, "Not that I'd date you. I can't date a cop in training." Especially not since she's a missing person.
"if it doesn't work out, I'd be interested." Magnes boldly says with a slightly bashful rub of the side of his cheek, his eyes averting to some random rock on the ground. "And yeah, she kind've reminds me of Harley Quinn, blonde and everything. She's, well, playful I guess, gives lots of attention, she listens. Obviously she's Evolved, like us, and uh, she really likes using her ability, but I told her that shocking hurts, so she's let up a bit."
"I didn't doubt you would be," Gillian says outloud, though one of them continues to frown at the talk about his girlfriend. Blonde, electricuty, likes her ability… That doesn't sound like a good thing at all to her, considering she'd nearly been killed by someone with the same ability who could fall under blonde description. "You have as good a taste in women as I do in men. Just make sure she doesn't nearly kill you with her ability." There's a pause. "Shouldn't you be getting to the Academy?"
"Crap! You're right! But, I'll be careful, it's not like she's some homicidal psychopath." Magnes smiles, then waves, looking both ways, and, seeing no one, he wooshes into the air. "Later Gilly!" he calls from above, seeming to quite literally fly, not a jump like last time.
He flies away. Both of the Gillian's watch with a bewildered expression, one of them even waving goodbye. The one not waving glances over to look at the other, "Do you think he'd care if she was a homicidal psychopath as long as she gave him a shot at getting laid?"
"Probably not— but I wonder if we can do that." She points up at the direction he went.