applesaucedream | Saving Lives a Mile High [open to all]

Current Music: September 22nd/23rd, 2013

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Saving Lives a Mile High [open to all]

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.]

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(tw: suicide)

Here is how it doesn't happen.

She doesn't stumble upon some crime in progress or hear about a murder on the six o'clock news. She doesn't consider whether she should involve herself, or whether she should just keep her head down and go about her business like a normal citizen. Or, if she does, she always lands squarely on the 'act normal' side of the debate. Because that's what she is: normal. Nobody. Just a face in the crowd. Not some obnoxious asshole in bright spandex and a cape, her image blown up on billboards and splashed on public transport.

She doesn't calmly step in front of said public transport to an aborted cacophony of squealing tires and screeching brakes. She doesn't open her eyes to find herself back in her bed at the start of that day, with the cries of any unfortunate observers still echoing in her ears. She doesn't have a new mission.

She doesn't stake out the scene of the crime. She doesn't watch it happen from afar, taking note of where people are and when, storing facts and calculating variables, memorizing the scene. She doesn't try to dissuade the criminal in some subtle way. She doesn't lose. She doesn't fuck up. She doesn't die as many times as she has to to get it right, to get it perfect.

Here is how it happens.

Someone starts to commit a crime (she has to let them start, if only so everyone else will know what she's stopping), and a lithe, deceptively small figure in a metal mask slips out of the crowd and lays them out with practiced, brutal efficiency. And then the figure is gone, ducking down an alley or deftly weaving between vehicles, before anyone can fully register the extent of what has just happened.

And Rita tucks the mask away and goes about her business.

Here is another thing that doesn't happen: someone doesn't text her the site of a crime before it happens.

She goes, because she's curious, and because she has a get-out-of-shit-free card that never seems to expire. And she watches it happen, the man running off with some distraught woman's purse. Her own face is impassive, though there's a muscle working in her jaw, and her eyes are distinctly cold. She doesn't even try to stop the crime, because it can wait. The question of who's fucking with her takes precedence, and she pulls out her phone to text back this... samaritan.

Who is this?

The message isn't unusual at all. Not everyone hears about him before he encounters them, and often he doesn't wait for them to find out.

Normally he is a bit gentler in his introductions, but there's something about this Rita that disturbs him. It rings too closely of past experiences, things he went through too many times already and does not want to live again. But that just means he's jumping in a little faster; he'd rather catch her on the back foot than let her find out he's here and plan.

That's paranoid. He shouldn't think that way. Not everyone with strangeness in their tunes, too-closely repetitive melodies, is...well.

It's enough that he's taken pains as to his own safety, and he's tucked away in a small bar he's never entered before, miles from the crime scene, when he gets the return message. He's quick to answer.

An informant. Call me B.

Does the 'B' stand for bullshit? She almost entertains the thought of sending that along, but it wouldn't be worth it. If she has to restart the day for this 'informant,' it's not going to be because she fucked up a text conversation.

She doesn't need an informant at all. Not because she can get her information from more conventional sources, or because the time she'd save is a drop in the bucket compared to the time it takes to get things sorted, but because Rita Vrataski is not a goddamn superhero. Which means that (best case) she should not be getting prescient 911 messages, and (worst case) criminals shouldn't be taunting her by way of her personal mobile.

Her phone gets an unimpressed stare. The urge to look around for any observers niggles at her, but if she is being watched, she's not going to blow her own cover by looking as unnerved as she feels. Instead, she fires back: Wrong number, 'B'

Edited 2015-07-06 02:25 (UTC)

It isn't

He wonders if she even went and stopped that guy after all. It's not the end of the world if she didn't; he was only a small-time thief. Big cases go to those who've proven themselves, both as heroes and to him personally. He'd never test a new contact against something major.

(Well, it's major for whoever just got their purse snatched. But he learned a long time ago that he can't beat himself up for everything he fails to prevent. That way lies madness.)

He stares at the phone in his hand, thoughtfully running a finger around the rim of his untouched drink. She'd felt confrontational. Hell, anyone could see that - she's one of the ones who just runs in punching. From what he's seen, at least. When you start getting involved with people who may or may not have time powers, things become complicated. Either way her tone doesn't really surprise him.

Ask around if you want. I work with a lot of people in this city.

'Ask around.' Referring to ~~other~~ superheroes, presumably.

Before today, she could have. Chatting up the top-tier attention grabbers for intel isn't on her list of things she wants to spend a day on, but she could have gritted her teeth and done it. And then she could have reset, confident that she'd be keeping her low profile intact.

But if some self-styled informant wants to add her to his clientele, her cover's already been blown. How?

She taps her thumbnail against the screen a few times in an irritated little tattoo. Well, hell if she's admitting to anything. As far as 'B' is concerned, she still has no idea what he's talking about.

Ask who?

Oh now honestly. He huffs in annoyance, abandoning the pretext of drinking entirely as he types out a response. She's just playing dumb now; she knows exactly what he means. How could she not? Heck, there's a fair chance she's got actual powers, so pretending to be a civilian when they both clearly know she isn't is really just silly.

Other heroes.

And then, because there are plenty of people who don't care for the spangles of "superhero", he adds: Or masked vigilantes, if you like. It's all the same.

Shit.

Now she has to actually find this person. In the back of her mind, she considers resets and triangulating signals, and wonders how simple this person would make things for her. In the fore, well. This conversation isn't over, and there's no sense wasting it. And playing dumb and in denial is getting results.

Not a vigilante. Don't need an informant. Wrong number, like I said.

Sorry. Didn't realize normal people ran around in masks and punched folks now.

Should he be sassing her? She's got something going on time-wise, and the similarities to them are enough that he's hiding out here instead of going about his day. She could be dangerous.

Some kind of solo flash mob?

This is exactly how he got himself in trouble last time. He sighs and takes a sip of his drink after all; maybe he's got some kind of problem.

She can be dangerous, and often is, and if he keeps sassing her she's going to be dangerous right in his goddamn face. If his intentions are the least bit good, he's going to have to do a hell of a lot better than this.

Your mistake.

He knows more than she wants him to, and she's taken feigned ignorance as far as he's willing to let it go. Time to change tactics. A reset is starting to seem inevitable, anyway.

If I was a masked vigilante, I'd say I had things covered. No informant needed.

That so?

And, well, that seems like it should be it! Some people, like Iman, enjoy this cryptic game as much as he does; lots more don't, and have asked him to back off. Generally he does. He has plenty of good working relationships, so why make a bad name for himself by harassing people? As long as the jobs get done, one or two contacts don't mean a whole lot.

...god, though. This is going to bother him. He may have to start keeping tabs on her regardless, just to assure himself that she won't leap out of the bushes and trap him in a spiral of Groundhog Days.

Have a nice day, then

There. He flips the phone shut and puts it in his pocket. Okay. Finally talked to the time lady, got rebuffed, but then again there's no sign that she's on her way either. Maybe he can just call it a draw!

All the same, he gets up and starts to leave. If she's going to come, he needs more escape routes than this room really provides.

Seriously? 'Have a nice day'? That settles it.

Here is how it doesn't happen.

She doesn't reset the day. There are no iterations of their text conversation used to pinpoint the location of B's phone. She doesn't waste time staking out the bar only to find that he doesn't even text her if she stays there, let alone show up. There is no maddening series of near misses when she tries to find him, or stubborn silences and discarded burners when she takes the initiative and texts him, first. She doesn't reset over and over in pursuit of the right combination of moves that will get her to him.

She doesn't make progress.

Here is how it happens.

She knows the bar (knows the whole goddamn neighborhood better than she'd like to, by now), and she keeps her distance, because that's the only thing that works. There's a little park a few blocks away, and she sends her last text from there, muscle memory making it quick and perfunctory. God, she's so sick of this conversation.

Then she settles back against a bench to wait. B's not going to sit in a bar forever, and there are only so many routes out of the neighborhood he might take. This is one of the more pleasant ones, so maybe she'll get lucky. She opens an app on her phone, freshly installed this morning and far too familiar, and watches to see where B's phone decides to go this time.

The phone leaves the bar mere minutes after the conversation is over. He goes through so many, and if she were tracking him she'd be closer by now, so it doesn't occur to him to get rid of it. It's good for one or two more tips.

It does indeed come towards the park. He likes parks!

About one block away, it stops and doesn't move again.

But that's not the end of it, because there is no reason for her to be here. If she were any closer to him, he'd have heard her and ran - oh god. She knows! Why else would she be here, waiting, just outside his range? She doesn't know who he is or he's sure she'd have confronted him directly, but she's already proving herself to be everything he feared. How long does he have before she comes right for him?

He can't take this. He doesn't want to spend the next week, or month, or however long constantly looking over his shoulder for her. Whatever her deal is, he needs to know it now, and for that he's gonna need to get in closer and listen properly.

It does occur to him that he could let a few of his closer contacts know that he might be in danger. Who to go find if he doesn't get back to them in a few hours. But that could endanger them too, and maybe blow his entire cover either way. So he doesn't, and not for the first time the whole secret makes him feel rather lonely.

A while after the phone stops, an unassuming, rather lanky fellow approaches, not from the direction B was coming from last. He doesn't make a beeline for Rita, but rather wanders around a little, stares up at the trees and around at the buildings and down at his phone. Eventually he glances up and makes his way over.

"Hi, excuse me? Could you tell me which way to 31st Street?" He's never really stopped looking like he walked here out of the Midwest; amiable tourist is an easy pretense.

She's watched this happen more times than she cares to count, so the abrupt stilling of his recently discarded burner is unmistakable. A tap of her thumb closes the tracking app, now useless, but she doesn't leave her post. He was headed right for her, which means he still might be.

A new app is opened, some mindless game she can pretend to play while she keeps most of her focus on her surroundings. There's a steady stream of pedestrians coming up the street B was on a minute ago, and none of them so much as glance her way.

Come on, B. Quit being so goddamn coy and take the bait.

She notes when the tall guy wanders into the park, because she's noted everyone who's wandered into the park since her arrival. Learn what's normal, pick out the patterns, it's all second nature. It isn't until he starts to wander her way that she gives him her full attention.

Rita is many things, but approachable isn't one of them.

Her phone is lowered into her lap, and she gives the man a level look. Maybe she's seen him before, but that doesn't mean much and it's not easy to judge. Given how much relative time she's spent in this city, it's all but impossible to place people who merely look a bit familiar. They have to make some kind of impression if she's going to remember them.

Well, at least for this loop, he has. 'Tourist' seems likely enough, but it's not the only possibility. She considers what she's learned of B, which still mostly amounts to 'skittish as hell' and 'doesn't take initial brush-offs all that well,' then indicates the correct direction with a tilt of her head. "That way."

Lifting her phone, she returns to her dumb game. To all outward appearances, she's done with him. And if directions are all he's really after, he should be done with her, too.

He glances in the indicated direction, bobbing his head. "Ah, okay. Thanks!" And then, like an obedient tourist, he starts moving off.

Except he only takes a few steps away from her before pausing, returning to his phone and stepping to the side of the path as he apparently starts peering down at something on the screen. He's looking at a map of the area, just as he said he was, and expanding the view as if scanning around, because that's an easy and mindless thing to do while he listens to just what the hell is going on here.

...the repeating parts don't sound quite the way he remembers them. Songs are far from static, but they don't normally alter themselves within a matter of days.

Look who's lingering. Rita continues to poke absently at her phone as she keeps the ostensible tourist in her periphery. He's not bad at pretending to pay attention to his phone, but he's not good enough to fool her. His mind is elsewhere. Takes one to know one.

So begins the next stage of this interminable goddamn day. Time to figure out if this is B or not, and if so, just how to handle him. She exits the game, then twists on the bench to face him. She doesn't get up - doesn't do anything overtly threatening, unless you count taking a good, long look at him. Which, maybe he does. Her looks can be a bit intense.

"So," she drawls, "should I call you B?" Why not cut right to the chase? If she's right, and he bolts, she can use the next reset to handle him a bit more delicately.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

He may be doing a good job at pretending to pay attention to his phone, but his shoulders definitely stiffen a little as he's addressed. Closing the app, he looks up at her. "What?" That look - god, that's more frightening than the bass line of her song. There's no way he can just run from this. She'll remember his face, and after that it's only a matter of time.

But he's good at keeping his composure under threats. If anything, the jolt of fear makes it easier for him to deliberately loosen his posture, raising an eyebrow in amused incredulity. "Wait, is that like bae? I'm flattered, really, but I'm taken." Married to the job, one might say.

Rita's expression doesn't soften, doesn't betray any shred of doubt or uncertainty. She saw the subtle tightening of his shoulders when she first addressed him, and she's going to handle this as if she's finally found her guy. What's the worst case scenario if she's wrong: she confuses some tourist? Who gives a shit. She'll just do it differently next time, and spare this guy the brunt of her irritation.

But that's for next time. "Not as much fun when it happens to you, is it?" she asks, her tone dry as dust. One corner of her mouth ticks up like the curve of a blade, and she lifts her phone again. Different app this time. "Smile," she intones as she casually snaps a picture.

He doesn't smile.

It takes effort not to snap back, but it's important now that he doesn't. She can't possibly know for sure; she'd have just walked right into the bar if she did, right? Maybe he can play this off - he has to play this off, or he's screwed.

"Okay...?" He shoves his phone back into his pocket and glances up and down the path in a display of confusion. "I'll just be going, then?" Is she going to let him leave? He's gotten as much as he can from her; frankly, he wouldn't have come anyway if he knew this was going to happen. He's going to try it, at least, and he turns to walk off, quicker now as if he might know where he's going after all.

Oh, no you don't. Rita gets to her feet with the menacing grace of a tiger shark and sets off after him, pocketing her phone as she goes. Some distant part of her feels a bit sorry for him if he really is just some hapless tourist, but if he's not, hell if she's letting him just walk away. If he is, well, none of this will have ever really happened. No permanent harm done.

"Hang on," she says with an almost passable impression of amiability as she falls into step beside him. "Big city. You might get lost."

"I think I'll be fine." He turns to flash a smile at her, which turns out quite a bit sharper than he intended. "Thanks anyway." Maybe she really does know, and she's just toying with him. That'd fit in with all the other time-travelers he's ever known.

His attempt at being tricky in his approach means they're heading back towards where he ditched the phone, and towards the bar where all of this started in the first place. At least they don't know him by name there. None of that really matters anyway now that she's got his photo, but it's something. Maybe. He picks up his pace as they reach a crosswalk, taking long quick strides. If he bolts now, he breaks his (possibly already broken) cover for sure. If she keeps tailing him for too long, the same result. How can he shake her?

Are you sure about that? she almost asks. It's tempting. She didn't work so hard to get here just on principle; he's freaked her out, more than she wants to admit, and why the hell shouldn't she return the favor? But if he doesn't know how her power works, she already has the 'intimidation' angle well covered. And if he does... well, same answer. She doesn't have to go out of her way to threaten him.

Keeping up with him is probably enough, and there's nothing difficult about that particular task. Her pace has always been brisk, anyway.

"This doesn't have to be a scene," she says, not sounding menacing so much as tired, because she is, more than he probably knows. Not to be confused with 'weak' or 'defeated,' of course, more of an implied 'I could do this all day.' She could. She has. "I just want to talk."

They're rapidly approaching the bar B came from, and she gives the place a pointed look. If he's not just a tourist, this should put an end to his feigned ignorance. "Back in there, if you don't mind." Look at all this courtesy she's affording you.

The thought does briefly cross his mind that he could just break into a dead sprint and try to make it to the nearest subway entrance. It's pretty easy to lose people down there.

In the end, though, the damage is done. She's seen his face. She knows.

His shoulders slump a little as he follows her glance towards the bar. "Fine." He'll even enter ahead of her, because honestly at this point it doesn't much matter if he turns his back on her or not. It'd be better not to show her that much fear anyway. She sounded honest enough about just wanting to talk; unfortunately, she's shattered what trust he had in her basic decency with the frighteningly prescient stalking. "But I'm not buying."

Rita actually smiles at that, faint triumph and weary relief at the confirmation. She's made it this far. Fucking finally. "Deal." She actually sounds cheerful - or as close to cheerful as she can be expected to get, all things considered.

Still, she keeps a close eye on him as she heads for the bar, making sure he doesn't get any ideas about bolting. It might be unnecessarily unnerving, ordering him what he was drinking before (a tidbit picked up during previous attempts to find him), but hell if she knows what else he might like, and there are more important things to discuss than his beverage preferences. She joins him at a little table - small, but not too intimately so - sets his drink in front of him, and sits down with her whatever-the-hell-was-on-tap, which she utterly ignores.

"How the hell did you find me?" Blunt and to the point.

He certainly does draw into himself a bit as he sets the drink down, staring at her. There is absolutely no way he's going to drink it.

"...people notice when there's new heroes running around, you know," he replies after a moment. It's not a direct answer, nor is it even really to the question she asked. "I bet there's three blogs about you by now." They'll have given her a moniker. He wishes briefly that he'd looked it up; she seems like she'd be very unamused by the entire thing.

Four, actually. She keeps tabs on all of them to make sure this very thing doesn't happen. It's not like she expected a complete lack of attention - the crime fighters who go out of their way to avoid the limelight are more intriguing than the ones who don't bother with masks or secret identities - but she already knows what happens if her actual identity goes public, and she doesn't want it. Never again.

"They don't text me," she says, unamused anyway because that's her default state. "And I'd like to keep it that way." So if there's a leak, it needs to be stopped.

Saving Lives a Mile High [open to all]

ill-advised trip tagging aww yiss

yaaaaaaaaaaaaas

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