[ open ]

[mindtricks]

CHARACTERS: cassandra anderson + you
LOCATION: gym
WARNINGS: none as of yet
SUMMARY: anderson offers self-defense classes. people who need no classes are welcome to come spar.
NOTES:



[ anderson divides the vast majority of her time between gunnery and the gym, where she gives self-defense classes both to people that she has a standing appointment with as well as to those who just wander by and express an interest.

in the moments between lessons, she can be found stretching, or having a go at a punching bag. ]

Comments

[mindtricks]

( guangtou.

she still doesn't have an answer, but she does have a name now and that means she can ask more specific questions. she's interested in the answer to this one, though, genuinely so. )

I have things to do here.

( her classes, gunnery — and anderson, for all that she is capable and wants to make a difference, is also cautious. more so than dredd had been; she likes being on the safe side. she likes some semblance of certainty in a world that is anything but. )

Who's Guangtou?

[dogbane]

[The disc scratches. Bzzzrrghk.

William blinks, surprised. He glances up at her, retracts his feet back to his person, stretching exercises apparently falling to the wayside. Internally, his reflexes are good: somebody taught him something of basic telepathic defense, the fact that fighting back a thought direct is the best way to rear it in greater and greater strength. So he attends to the present, instead: the sturdy, aerodynamic lines of her armor as he stands up, the feel of the floor under his shoes, the quality of light coming down her hair.

Of course, it only works for about five seconds before the word leaks out, self-conscious, more than a little paranoid, and for good reason:

demon] Wha-- [he lifts a finger, scuffs a backward boot, catching the thought even as it's said. It'd be funny, if she couldn't smell the fear crawling off him rancid and real.] --but not like that. Bloody Hell, ma'am, ain't nothing like a telepath, is there? He's-- not evil. He's, uh.

A friend. [It's close to the truth, no intent to lie. In his mind, Guangtou rolls over like a dog waiting scratches, wallowing comfortably in the walls of William's head. Peers at Anderson upside-down. A vague presence, still; nothing violent, nothing clear. No clean line of communication, certainly, even if she would want one.]

[mindtricks]

( it's disconcerting, the incongruity between the association that comes with the word demon and the mental image of guangtou rolling over, upside-down and belly-up. all that is missing is the equivalent of a tongue lolling out.

anderson never had pets growing up, certainly no dog, but she can still read friendly well enough off the movement. she's not certain she would want a clean line of communication. perhaps out of interest — but her curiosity is no reason to push too far, to really get into william's head and see if she can't reach the demon. )

How did he get into your head?

( ma'am. she's not higher ranked than he is; she has no rank at all. she notes his fear and part of her wants to alleviate it, wants to assure that she isn't going to do anything bad, that he has no reason to be afraid.

another part of her presses on instead, neutral and without judgment, but knowing full well that keeping her face passive is an interrogation strategy in itself. )

[dogbane]

No idea. [Some idea, is the guilty thought, a half-conscious whisper like the fumes off the surface of a very old, very sick bog. William came from a world that was terminal, and she has a flash of an image in her head: poverty and squalor, corruption, infrastructure rotted from the inside out in so many places. Yet a minority that persisted, still, in perverse opulence.

Maybe I was weak. But it's not a damning notion, exactly; it carries with it the tired, almost indifferent knowledge, that everybody was weak. Earth was dying.] He can't get at anybody else direct, [he reassures her.] Asks me to do shit sometimes, but it ain't ever been to hurt anybody else. [The opposite.

There's a trembling memory of watching a girl in an unfamiliar uniform with her hand gashed open, cut to the bone, the terror on her face; the feel of her shoulder under his hand, and then the wound closing up like the surface of syrup after a dipped spoon. It took him half an hour, but the memory is a split-second.] Are you gonna--

[And this image is not memory of experience, but the impressionistic scrabble of remembered imagination, cut together with a vid clip or five somewhere. The terror hadn't stayed long, but there had been there. Burnings, lynchings. Hunts in the street, government experimentation that was so imperatively secret that everybody knew it, between the United States of America and the Royal Parliament of Cambodia. Not all of the demons had fought back, but it was their carriers, really, who had paid the price. Some part of William has already guessed that there are far stranger creatures aboard the Tranquility, and perhaps none so frightening as the Tranquility herself, but.

Some worlds teach their denizens to be careful.] --raise some sort 'f alarm?

[mindtricks]

( he thinks and thinks and anderson follows his trail of thoughts, sees the poverty and the corruption, sees the crumbling infrastructure and is reminded in many ways of her own world.

sees the image of the girl's wound healing, too, and makes her decision. )

No.

( anderson is not a judge here, and even if she was: there is no law to cover this and anderson would not consider it justice to condemn him for something that does not appear to be a crime, when he has not done anything bad but only something she cannot quite comprehend or grasp.

people fear what they are ignorant of, that is true, but anderson has always been curious and a quick study. ) Unless you give me reason to.

[dogbane]

Awright.

[Through the conduit of her ability, Anderson can feel it when relief lifts off him like steam off water, good riddance of uncomfortable heat and excess energy. To those of us with ordinary eyes, though, he keeps a good game face. Nods, straightening, folds an arm briefly behind himself. It's a good burn, the stretch of muscle.] Thanks.

[For most people, he'd say more. To be polite, mostly; elaborate about the reception he was anticipating, the kind that he would have expected if he were the first of his kind ever discovered in the times back home. Anderson, though, warrants a sidelong glance, a vague understanding that words need not be said. If nothing else, he thinks of himself as vastly harmless.]

I'm gonna fuck off to the showers, I fink. Thanks, ma'am.

[The shapeless glare off the chromed walls looks like a demon's smile.]

[mindtricks]

( he's right — there is less of a necessity to speak, when your conversation partner is able to pick the thoughts and emotions out of your mind instead.

she inclines her head, agreement and acknowledgement. )

You're welcome.

( both for the training and for not telling on him. )

[dogbane]

Night. [William's smile not only looks genuine but is genuine, goes all the way up to his eyes.

He inclines his head, turns away. His anachronistic sneakers squeak a little as he lopes on out into the hallway, vanishes into the labyrinthine spaces beyond.]