Electra
-
Posts
11,284 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Freedom City Guidebook
Freedom City PBP: A How-To Guide
Gallery
Events
Everything posted by Electra
-
"We could take him home and give him to Mr. Faretti," Erin suggested with a shrug, looking down at the thoroughly defeated thug. "He could probably figure out something to do with the guy. Or at least find out where he's been." She shot the baby a quick grin, but was ignored because JJ was still busy licking his lips and watching the infirm prey on the ground. "You've got that, whatever, that pocket thingy, right? You could put him there anyway, I guess, just to get him out of the way."
-
Erin blinked, caught off-guard when she'd expected Mike to ask Mark next. They were roommates, after all. She looked over at Trevor and pursed her lips thoughtfully. "I don't think I better let Trevor get too far ahead of me, pointswise," she concluded with a decisive nod that made the room rock a little in front of her eyes. "Better give me the truthy dare as well." She shot Trevor a challenging grin.
-
Miss Americana gave Joan-the-Reporter a smile as brilliant and sharp as one of her diamonds. "Oh, of course, I've read some of your work in the local paper. I was fascinated by that series you did on the bay area and the industrial pollutants being released. Did you know that ArcheTech is working on a polymer that will soak up water pollution and float it to the surface for ease of retrieval? It's a very exciting project, and I think you'd be interested. Call me sometime and we can arrange a chat." She turned her attention back to the doctor, her smile becoming something more real. "I'd love to dance," she told him. "And I love being conspicuous," she joked in an undertone as they headed to the dance floor.
-
"Okay," Erin agreed. Before the man could do so much as focus on her, she executed a neat flip that took her behind his back, then executed a very fast series of deft sucker-punches. It was over so fast that he was unconscious for a few seconds before his body realized it was time to fall down. "Why are people challenging you in the middle of the park?" she asked curiously. "They don't want your job, do they?"
-
Acrobatic bluff, DC 28! Power Attack! First roll stinks! HP reroll! Wow, 29! Autofire adds +5, so that's a DC 39 check, which I am assuming he does not make.
-
"That's a cop-out answer," Erin protested, wrinkling her nose. "You're gonna graduate before you get married anyway, so it's not even like it's something you want to so. What do you actually want to do like for fun, or see, or try, while you're still young and single and, I dunno, not tied down even in good ways." She nodded decisively, then laid her head on Trevor's shoulder, then took it off again, not sure if she was supposed to still be mad at him or not.
-
Erin looked at Eli, a little surprised. "I could do it," she said with a shrug. "I think I get the idea of it pretty well, and I do acrobatics drills like that all the time. But it's a drill for your team, isn't it? If I go in there, it'll mess up the rhythm and everybody else won't get as much benefit from the training." She paused a second, then shrugged again and finished, "It seems like it would be rude."
-
Stesha wasn't gone long, and when she came back, she seemed less anxious than she had been, even as she went over to her cozy living-room furniture grouping to curl up on the couch. "If you don't like tea, there's a few soft drinks in the little refrigerator under the table," she offered to Jill, slightly belatedly. "And I think there's a box of cookies on top of it as well, and the rest of the doughnuts," she added, expanding the offer to both her guests. "Help yourselves to anything that looks good."
-
"Victory!" Miss Americana said warmly, turning to greet him with a kiss on the cheek. "It's so lovely to see you here," she told him as the photographers snapped their pictures. "I had no idea you'd be coming tonight, but that was quite an entrance you made. You know Doctor Archeville, of course," she added, nodding to her companion. "We'll have quite a little enclave of science here tonight, which will be wonderful if things start to get dull." She laughed and went inside then, out of the reach of most of the cameras, anyway.
-
"I'd be delighted." Miss Americana took the good doctor's hand to allow him to help her from the car, decorously arranging her dress as she stepped out onto the low heels she'd chosen so as not to overwhelm her escort for the night. As a superheroine with no secret identity, she'd chosen to attend in her signature colors, though certainly not in her typical uniform. A shimmering dress of deep red clung to her every curve, the neckline skirting just high enough to remain classy while inviting minds to wander, the skirt down almost to her ankles, but slit nearly to her thigh for ease of movement. White diamonds burned and sparkled at her wrist and ears, while a diamond necklace with a sapphire pendant provided the requisite blue. With her blond hair curled and pinned up artfully, she looked far more like a supermodel than a scientist, but that was all part of the plan. There was a certain amount of socializing and political maneuvering required for a company like ArcheTech to stay on top of the scientific heap. She was happy to do her part to make that socializing go as smoothly as possible. Giving the doctor, and then their audience, a brilliant smile, she stepped into the party with him.
-
"In fact, that sounds like a really good idea!" Stesha cut in. "I'm sure we'll be more comfortable back in the house." This time without asking, she teleported all of them into the little plant sanctuary. "Would you mind putting the kettle on, Q... ah, Supercape?" she asked. "The water is in the jug, and the kettle plugs right into the extension cord on the counter. I need to excuse myself just a moment." She headed down the little hallway out of the main room.
-
Erin watched, blinking with great intensity as Trevor turned his headstand. His shorts were long enough that the headstand didn't reveal more than the tops of his knees, so it wasn't embarrassing or anything, she supposed. "Who's Sandstone?" she asked, frowning when he revealed his thoughts on hot supervillainesses. "I don't think I know her." Or maybe she did, but right now her memory was a little cloudy. She knew for a fact she didn't like her, whoever she was.
-
"Running my own company would be too much of a headache," Miss A assured him easily. "I'd rather have my time free for the science, access to the equipment and draw a nice regular paycheck for it. I'll leave the CEO duties to those far more suited for it." She watched carefully as he worked through her file, noting the small changes and omissions that she would do well to keep in mind while she was working for ArcheTech. "I think it'll pass muster anywhere," she said approvingly. "I will have to do some of my more intensely focused work after hours or from off-site, but that won't be a problem." She rubbed her hands together, looking pleased. "If that's all taken care of, where do I start?" ~fin~
-
"It sounds like a project with a huge amount of potential," Miss A agreed, taking a seat as she continued to watch the holograms thoughtfully. "It bears more thought, certainly. I'm fairly sure that given enough time, I could put together a computer algorithm to begin correlating the data and creating a pan-lingual rubric for the various mystical traditions. But it's all GIGO, of course," she added, waving her hands. "The program can only be as good as the data itself. The purer the input, the purer the output. But I suppose that's a project for another day," she pointed out with a smile, "seeing as how I don't even have an email account on your server yet."
-
"Yes," Erin told Trevor, leaning close to murmur into his ear, "but you can say it again if you want. You look good yourself." She slid down fully into the water, blinking as her mind suddenly seemed to cloud in a not-unpleasant way. It was a lot like what she'd thought being drunk would feel like, but surely it couldn't be from one sip of one drink. She took another, harder look at the champagne, then another drink. "I don't know," she told Mark, giving him an owlish look. "I'm not sure I trust what dares you'd come up with."
-
"It probably doesn't help that you're not here on weekends and after school," Erin pointed out again. "Like you said, a lot more social stuff and training and studying goes on then. Maybe if you're worried about leaving your mom alone too long, you could like invite people over to your house sometimes or something like that. People like to get off campus, and they'd probably think it was cool to meet your brother too, if he was gonna be around." Erin had her own opinion of Jack of all Blades, but she knew he was fairly popular, as heroes went.
-
"Alex is probably a better choice for a study partner, " Erin admitted. "If you're in mostly advanced classes, we won't be studying the same stuff. I took all regular classes, so I would have a lighter courseload. It makes sense for me, but since you're going to college and stuff, you want to do as much as you can in school. It's okay if you need to wait on the hero stuff till you're done with school or whatever. They're always reminding us of that here anyway. There's lots of time after graduation."
-
"Yes, and there are obviously a number of different programming languages, more or less compatible with each other," Miss A replied thoughtfully. "Even without mages themselves to study, if we could gain access to enough of a lexicon of several of these different languages, a comparative study could grant substantial insights. Of course, even a single open-minded magic user willing to entertain our hypothesis would be invaluable for adding meaning to the symbols of his particular language, almost a Rosetta stone for the mystic languages."
-
That explanation got Miss A nodding again. "I've thought some of the same things," she agreed. "But I'm not sure it's merely a matter of rote that makes the spells and symbols appear so necessary to the use of those powers. We have seen in the lab that it's possible to make the human brain respond to certain visual cues in a predictable way, almost to the point of being able to order up a certain set of brainwaves with the right cues. It's all very rough of course. I believe it's possible that, perhaps by accident, perhaps by some sort of lost technology, the first users of these mutant powers were able to create very specific rituals and pictograms to create the necessary brain patterns for the functions of the power." She paced the room, looking at the hologram. "If it's true, it would be revolutionary, of course. It would be the equivalent of finding the punchcard for the computer of the mind. Primitive, but actually effective, and from there, who knows what programming languages could be written? It would require immense study, though."
-
"What's your going theory?" Miss A asked curiously. She'd done some reading on the attributed powers of magic-users, which were exceedingly impressive and equally hard to quantify. In many cases, they claimed to be able to do anything, if only they had a spell for it. Her own pet theory was that it had something to do with quantum physics and the behavior of explained and observed particles, behavior that science could not yet measure. She was more interested right now in hearing what the expert thought.
-
Erin grinned at Trevor's reaction, which was exactly what she'd hoped for. "Glad you like it," she told him. "Let's get in the tub." Slipping past him, she took a glass and toasted with the others, though she only sipped her drink, and sat on the edge of the hot tub to dangle her legs in the water. "Thanks, Mark," she said with a chuckle, drinking to herself, though she wasn't sure that was the correct protocol.
-
"Oh yes, I actually keep it out on the counter because it's so striking," Stesha nodded. "You should stop by for a cup of tea after we're done here. I actually picked up some loose-leaf for my strainer now, so I can give you the good stuff. In fact," she admitted, "I think going back and sitting down is a great idea, if you're both ready. It's been a busy morning so far." She absently picked up a few weeds that had sprouted around her feet, crumbling them to dust in her fingers.
-
"It helps that I only sleep every three days or so," Erin allowed, turning her steps towards the cafeteria. "Even so, it took awhile to figure out how to do everything I needed to do. I was taking a lot of extra classes for awhile too, so now that I'm just on a regular class schedule, it seems like there's a lot more time. You'll probably feel better by midterms, or you can go talk to the guidance counselor about it, maybe."
-
Erin narrowed her eyes as she looked towards the little ripple. Reaching again into the diaper bag, she withdrew her bat, collapsed into a slender tube no longer than one of JJ's diapers. "Maybe you should take JJ and get out of here," she suggested. "I'll check it out, whatever it is." Magic wasn't Erin's strong suit, but it was surprising how many bad guys, magical or no, just straight-up charged you the second you went looking for them. "Can you see it?"
-
"It's nice to meet you, Caroline," Stesha said politely. "I hope you can get everything worked out for your sister's wedding. It sounds like you're really working hard to make sure that her day is special, and I hope she appreciates that. And remember, if worst comes to worst and you just can't find anything, most people probably won't even notice if some of the table centerpieces are silk. Good luck!"