Saving Lives a Mile High [open to all]

[applesaucemod]

Welcome to another ordinary day in Manhattan. This barely even qualifies as a dream at all, it's so like waking life. The dreamers will find that they're their own perfectly normal selves going about their perfectly normal business and thwarting perfectly normal crimes in their perfectly normal spandex outfits.




What's that? No, of course it's normal to wear spandex (or leather, for the more chic among you) and go around beating up muggers and thwarting your villainous counterparts, don't be silly. What else would you do with your afternoon, not use your superpowers to better the world? That's grossly irresponsible of you; don't you know that with great power comes great responsibility?

So get out there and make the world a better place -- and be sure not to let that disguise slip if you do make it in to work today. Wouldn't want anyone to learn your secret identity, after all.


[OOC: Characters will find themselves thrust into the role of superhero...or at least, super-powered human. Whether they'd use those powers for good or evil (or use them at all), they'll think they've always been this way (or maybe just since that time they fell in toxic waste and developed cancer telekinesis). Usual dream party rules apply: all players and characters welcome regardless of membership status. Characters will remember or forget the events of the dream at players' discretion.]

Comments

[bloodsprice]

"I have a son. We've been ...separated for quite some time. I've been attempting to find him myself and I've managed to get this close. I know he's here in this city. I don't know where in the city and certain things are interfering with my ability to properly search him out further here. Thus I would like to hire your services in locating him for me." That should hopefully be enough elaboration for the other man about this task. He didn't want to get into too much depth of detail. Not here where he couldn't be certain they wouldn't be overheard by someone or something. Going into just what was interfering with his ability to continue his search himself might possibly threaten his continued existence. Not something he cared to court when he was this close to finding his son again. Which would be why he still held onto the cane and had even modified it to hold a fitting weapon to use against those who would do him harm, here in this city where his magic sometimes chose to desert him. Though sometimes he wondered if his continued efforts toward finding his son were wise. What would his boy, no doubt now a man, think of what his father was now? He banished such thoughts shortly after they arose though, he swore he'd find him and he would eventually. It didn't matter what his boy thought of him so long as he got the chance to tender his apology and the declaration that he did love him even still to this day.

[lottawork]

The arching set of parallels Nicholas has since parsed between them abruptly halts and shatters, spinning into a sick lurch of grief nestled in the pit of his chest. He swallows. Family is all in all a concept he must consider entirely abstract, let alone the notion of offspring, and he - and Gloria wouldn't -

He dislodges the thought with a fractional shake of his head. It is inconsequential. Very little depends on whatever personal ephemera may be disturbed by the general progression of events. As he's come to conclude.

"Naturally," he says, mostly failing in an attempt to keep his voice dry and devoid of inflection. "I would be amenable to that, assuming you have a physical description or a lead of some kind."

[bloodsprice]

He noticed the affect his words had and it is only his own morals about using his newer abilities without justified cause that keeps him from seeking to satisfy his curiosity about the cause of the pain and grief he so briefly glimpsed. "I have a lead and I can give a reasonable enough description, I believe. Shall we discuss your price here or elsewhere?"

[lottawork]

An old scrap of him would have seized the opportunity, that fragment of himself long dead. A specter of regret lingers in the thoughtful roll of his jaw, but Nicholas shakes his head.

"I don't require incentive," he says, the words cold. Vigilantism is a rather trite career choice from any remotely rational standpoint, but when one is not presented with the option of taking a rational route one must forge an irrational one. "Give me what you have. I'll see to it I locate your son in a reasonably expeditious manner."

[bloodsprice]

He inclined his head briefly in gratitude. Partially for accepting his request, partially for not taking advantage of the offer of payment. "I believe he has work as a photographer within the city. He's no doubt taken an assumed name, his birth name is Baelfire. Unless he's chosen to alter his appearance as well as his name, he'll be brown of both hair and eye. Similar to my own. Average in height. He may still possess a love of drawing." He paused, hesitating for a moment before he continued softly. "He may also....not wish to see or be found by me."

[lottawork]

"And therefore he's likely to assume we're one and the same." His lip curls faintly, exasperation leaching into his tone. "Fucking excellent."

He shifts his weight back to his heels, one gloved hand rising to scrub through the short fringe of his hair. He looks out over the city, the thin fog mantled over the nexus of beaded lights.

"I'll be assuming there's a certain genetic similarity, shall I?" he snaps, "seeing as your description is consistent with most of the population of New York."

[bloodsprice]

"I never said this would be simple or easy." He quipped back, unable to resist in the face of getting snapped at. "He might at first mistake you, but I'm quite certain he'll realize you aren't me upon speaking with you." He sighed and looked away over the skyline beyond. Really, the man had a legit complaint, but it had been a couple centuries since he'd last seen his son. He didn't know how his boy looked now, but perhaps he could help in an indirect way. He reached into his coat and pulled out a rather old yellowed piece of parchment from it. He held it out toward Nicolas with a silent reverence. "It's a drawing of my son at the age I lost him at. It's the only thing I have left of him outside of his possessions."

[lottawork]

"Yes, I'm sure he'll come to the conclusion of temporal duplicates as opposed to the mundane explanation of lying," he growls, the defensive bite smoothing the words into a sneer.

He accepts the offered paper, brusque and abrupt. The drawing is altogether unremarkable, as is its subject, and relatively worthless in terms of actively tracking down the person of interest.

"He could be anyone," he says flatly, and returns the sketch. "Fortunately for all parties involved, I'm more adept at locating people than you are at describing them." His fingers twitch at his side, itching for the familiar clatter of a keyboard. He will require a laptop, almost certainly fucking require it. He will require a laptop and a secure connection and then, and then, as always, there is nothing that will not be digitally accessible to him and nothing that can hope to withstand the full strength of his mind and he is certain of this and always has been.

[bloodsprice]

"You are entirely unlike me in the ways that count. That in itself will discredit your being me. Just tell me what you need to find him, I will acquire it for you if you don't already possess it."

He tucked the paper away back into his place of safety as he spoke.

"Money is of no matter in this. I will spare no expense if it will find my son."

[lottawork]

"I'm sure." Nick has already retrieved the dark, slick rectangle of his phone, the entirety of his attention devoted to the luminous glow of the screen. "I require nothing. I'm entirely capable of finding people who don't wish to be found."

He smiles, thin and sharply etched, like the cutting edge of a knife.

"My talents lie in accessing material not meant to be accessed, as I'm sure you're well aware."