| Finding Nate Grey |
| Summary: | Douglock finds X-Man (Nate Grey) and takes him to Xaviers'. |
| Date: | 2016-08-29 |
| Related: | None |
| NPCs: | unwashed and unnamed masses in Mutant Town |
| Scene Runner: | NA |
| Social/Plot: | Social |
| Players: |
 .. .. |
Location: Mutant Town, New York City
Nate Grey isn't entirely comfortable in M-Town, but, then, he isn't entirely comfortable anywhere in this world. There's so much noise - his own world, devastated as it was, had no cellphones, no billboards, no neon lights. Television and radio were little more than propaganda broadcasts or fugitive alerts.
Anyone with a hint of psionic ability probably knows of Nate's existence, even if they haven't found him specifically yet. His mind goes relatively unshielded, his lack of training showing through, a beacon of expansive power, raw and harsh, a nova of psionic might without focus or control.
At the moment, that nova is simply eating an apple, sitting on the fire escape of a strange building, his legs dangling through the bars as the world goes by outside the alley.
Doug has been spending a lot of time monitoring Cerebro up in Westchester County. This morning, after noticing a strong signal in New York City, he grabbed a motorcycle from the garage and drove to the Lower East Side and narrowed his search by emulating a portable Cerebro and walking around. Finding himself in Mutant Town he ends up at the building Nate is at and, hoping he won't have to dig, looks up when he registers as being in the same spot as the signature.
Nate Grey registers that the young man entering the place is different looking but, then, many people around here are. Nate found it rather startling at the time - all of them just walking around freely. Sure, mutants were a privileged class in his world, but only those that fell in line with Apocalypse - and many hadn't.
He finishes his apple, throwing the core up and attacking it with his TK, shattering it into infinitesimal particles rather than littering the place with his refuse. "Hello," he says, warily, his left eye glowing golden as his psi-scans the newcomer.
":Hello,:" Doug says in reply as he reaches up to grab and pull down the ladder at the bottom of the fire escape, stretching his arm to do so. Once he has pulled it down he climbs up and then uses the stairs to reach the level the young mutant. ":How are you doing?:" he asks the stranger as if approaching one in New York is an every day event.
Nate Grey cocks his head warily. The strange guy is psi-blocked, although not in a way he's seen before - he's felt resistance, but this is more like…a sussurus of alien thoughts keeping him at bay. He senses that he could perhaps push into the tide and swim in it, but it would be more trouble than it's worth.
Just use your words, Nate.
"I am…" he says for a moment and struggles with the words to find, "existing? I do not know if I am doing good or bad. This place is…different than what I'm used to," he admits. "Who are you?"
Doug starts to extend a hand in greeting but stops seeing the young man's problem with words, he doesn't want to seem threatening. Instead he answers simply and honestly, ":My name is Doug Ramsey.:"
("Hey boss, did you notice his eye glowing?") urRamsey asks his primary, ("It looked something like Cable or Longshot.") Doug replies in their shared mind space, ("I didn't thanks.")
":Different? Are you not from New York…:" he stops that question and asks, ":What can I call you, by the way?:"
Nate Grey considers. He isn't sure exactly how to explain where he comes from - he isn't even sure he can understand it himself. The whole idea of parallel universes, alternate pathways, none of it is something he's really had explained to him.
"Not from New York," he says softly. "Somewhere…else. My name's Nate Grey," he says.
Grey. And with that jawline… and the shape of those blue eyes, if they were green they'd match her's exactly… and Nate's hair would be the same color as his if not for the hints of red. Doug sees the resemblance now.
("Wow,") urRamsey says in the mindspace he shares with his primary even as…
Doug says, ":Wow.:" After a few moments to process his thoughts and sort out the immediate possibilities of what he's observed he continues by saying, ":I suspect… well, a lot actually. This isn't your world though I believe.:"
Nate Grey seems startled for a moment, his eyes narrowing in suspicion before he calms himself. He's secretive by nature, having learned to hide for most of his conscious life. What he can remember of it, anyway.
"No, this is not," he says, "I fell through here after a…conflict," he says. "This place is almost a…paradise in comparison."
Doug hehs before sweeping his arm out in a gesture to indicate the whole city around them. ":If you think New York is a paradise I think you'll be really surprised by Westchester County then,:" he says.
("Do you think you should just bring someone up there unannounced, boss?") urRamsey asks. ("Really, do you think I'd get chewed out less for reporting him and not having at least invited him? He looks like what you'd expect Scott and Jean's son to look like around twenty. Plus you're not in charge.") The last was said playfully and urRamsey chuckles to indicate he took it that way.
":This may sound odd, but I might know people you are related to… in a odd multiversal way at least,:" he explains. He also says, ":You and I are what I've come to call DeePees. For Displaced Persons.:" He then fairly bluntly asks, ":Do you have any powers?:" in a way that implies that he is sure the answer is Yes and that he's more interested in what they are.
Nate Grey considers what he's being told, his head cocked. The idea of being related to someone doesn't seem that far fetched - he met his own world's versions of Jean and Scott just before he left his world, although they weren't exactly the best of friends or very much in love. Quite the opposite, in some ways. "A one-eyed man? A redhaired woman?" he says, curiously.
"I have abilities, yes," he says warily, "Mental and physical," he says. He casually reaches out with his mind and lifts up a nearby dumpster, raising it about ten feet in the air and then crumpling it into a balls as if it were gripped by a giant fist.
Passers by, on seeing a dumpster start to lift into the air, begin to give that area a wide berth. Not out of fear, this is Mutant Town after all, but out of respect for the risk of a falling mass.
":Well, Cyclops means one-eyed, but he actually does have two eyes beneath his visor,:" Doug says as he watches the dumpster lift into the air, ":But yes, Jean and Scott. He's not at the school currently, we haven't been able to track him down to confirm if he's been replaced or not and… well, Jean's busy running the school. She's probably in the middle of a class otherwise I suspect she'd be on her way to meeting you right now.:"
Nate Grey doesn't really understand all of that, "She's a…schoolteacher?" he says, trying to imagine the woman he met briefly as a schoolteacher. She was a survivor, a freedom fighter, ferocious and untamed. "The man I met, my male donor, he…had only one eye," he says. "But a different world, yes. I am not…I was not born normally," he admits, ashamed and looking away, "I was created in a laboratory," he says.
He reaches out and does his best to uncrumple the Dumpster, leaving it cracked and awkwardly shaped but at least functional again when he returns it to the ground.
":Well, not just a school teacher, but that is one of the hats she wears,:" Doug explains partially. ":This isn't the best place to discuss everything but… well, she's involved in a place that is a school and a haven for people like us. Used to be more important as mutants felt they had to hide themselves, but even today there are those who attack those who are different than themselves.:"
Nate Grey nods, "A haven?" he says. "I've heard that before - usually from people who want to trap me. Or use me," he says. "Although this world does seem different," he admits.
"I admit that I…don't have anywhere to go, really. I have nothing. I am no one," he says, running a hand through his snow-streaked hair.
":Just don't start referring to yourself as 'a boy' or 'a man' and I think things'll work out fine, Nate,:" Doug says making a cultural reference that the young Grey is likely going to miss entirely. ":No one is no one, at the very least you are yourself. And if you had no place in the world you left we can try to find you one here. If you're interested I can take you to the Institute…:"
Nate Grey has no idea what that was about either, but nods in agreement, solemnly. "I…am interested," he says. "If they'll have me. I often make people uncomfortable. Or afraid," he says. He was made to be a weapon of mutant mass destruction after all, a knife to stab in the back of the most powerful being on his world.
Doug laughs and shifts his body to versions of himself - a body builder, a child and back to 'normal' - then literally twists his arms into a pretzel shape and out again followed by changing his entire form into a more natural Technarch appearance, huge circle around his left eye and glowing circuitry lines and all.
Remaining in the Technarch appearance he asks, ":And you think I don't?:" on the topic of making people uncomfortable. ":If you feel like you aren't welcome I'll eat your shirt,:" he adds, not sounding like he's making a metaphor there.
("Aww, that's just cheating,") urRamsey says to his primary in their shared mindspace.
Nate Grey raises an eyebrow, "No, you…you probably do. Wow," he says, "That's pretty amazing. Don't eat my shirt," he says, wondering why the strange being would do that even if he was unwelcome. "That wouldn't make things better."
Douglock grins, broadly… stretching his face broad for a moment. ":Mostly its a saying… quote I'll eat my hat end quote … which I mangled intentionally.:" He looks around and finds a discarded banana peel hanging from a level of the fire escape above them.
Reaching up he takes the peel and converts it into techno-organic matter and drains its energy then lets it crumble into dust and blow away.
":That's one of the ways I can recharge. Any organic material will do… thus I could 'eat' your shirt. I won't though, don't worry,:" as he says the last he restores his appearance to his normal look, reforming the clothes and everything in the process.
Nate Grey considers, "That…does sound very useful. The food here is really good, though - they have these things called 'hot dogs'. You can get this protein paste on it called chili, which is an odd name because it's hot, and it's very delicious," he says. "I ate ten yesterday."
"Do you have a vehicle? Or should I fly us?"
":I came on a motorcycle. We could fly but that might draw unwanted attention,:" Doug answers and then says, ":Do you mind riding behind me or would you rather I come back for the bike later?:" Obviously flying isn't totally out of the question.
Nate Grey shakes his head, "I don't mind riding behind you. Why would I mind that?" he says. The idea that anyone might think it odd doesn't even occur to him.
Another data point stored: Nate Grey comes from a world in which social judgmentalness is either reduced from "modern" mores or has shifted away from them.
":Alright, that's better as it doesn't leave the motorcycle unattended for hours after all,:" Doug says as he begins to descend the fire escape towards the ground below.
Drive Montage…
Once they get to the bike and Nate is wearing the helmet (Doug makes his head look like he's wearing one) they head Northwest on 49th street to 10th and take NY-9A North out of the city to NY-116 and then into Westchester. Doug rides leisurely though Salem Center then back out into Westchester County again beyond that to Xavier's. The gates are open and he rides into the grounds and directly to the garage.
After parking the bike and returning his head to its normal appearance, Doug leads Nate out of the garage into the courtyard in front of the mansion and between the Adminstrative buildings.
":Welcome to Xavier's Institute, Nate Grey,:" he says with a sweeping gesture to indicate the grounds and the mansion.
Nate Grey looks around in a bit of wonder, shaking some of the dust from his jacket. His mind expands, finding all the other different consciousnesses in the place. It makes him nervous - he hasn't been around this many people. Sure, the city, but the city is full of strangers, all passing by. He didn't have to get to know them.
"I'm afraid," he admits aloud.
For all his ability to communicate and the power his techno-organic physiology gives him, this is one of Doug's weaknesses… dealing with people. Geeks, no problem. Superhuman attacks, easy to cope with. A frightened young man… Doug falters a bit.
("Tell him you understand, that you've been where he is before, anything,") urRamsey suggests. ("Ha, but I haven't. I had loving parents… he talks about donors. And being lonely… It sounds like he's from a world like the one Bobby encountered adult Sam and Dani in… or where Ray is from… Okay, I can work with that actually.")
The mental conversation was over faster than Nate's heart beat and so Doug speaks again, ":I've been in places unlike anything I'd experienced before also. I know how you might be feeling and its alright. I wish I could have Jean… or Rachel even… meet you but everyone seems to be busy right now. Maybe I could call someone out… or I could just show you around. Or we can stand here and keep talking. What would you prefer, Nate?:"
Nate Grey considers, looking around, "I…don't know. What's the right answer?" he says, looking back at the other young man. "I don't know how I got here to this world. I don't know why I'm here. I don't know what to make of having…family. Or friends," he says. "Part of me isn't even sure I'm real. I barely have any memories, it's like I'm a…simulation of a person. Someone made me, on purpose, as an experiment. A very, very bad person. Does that mean I'll eventually be bad like him? I…I don't know."
Douglock considers something he hasn't considered in a very long time but… he barely knows this person and the risk to Nate on top of the intimacy… no he dismisses the idea as quickly as it formed… Somewhere between 'sim' in simulation and 'son' of person. No, a soulmerge is not a solution to this, it would be like using a sledge hammer to dive a nail into a board.
":I don't think it has to mean that. Also, being made doesn't change your being a person. If nothing else 'The Measure of a Man' taught us that… but there are so many other ways to have that question examined."
("Hey! Yeah, we can introduce him to Star Trek, he must have never see it boss,") urRamsey chimes in and is ignored by his primary.
":Again, these are things that Jean or others could help you with better than me, but… well, just don't worry about that. You're Nate Grey like you said and if you are still learning who that is then we'll take that ride with you.:"
FADE