Hundred Thousand Changes, Everything's the Same

[Katarina Kane]

Meanwhile...

If there was one benefit to the awkward meeting between Katarina Kane and Leo Eskandari -- well, her Leo Eskandari, at the very least -- it was a healthy respect for the man's sense of smell. It was possible -- perhaps, she hoped, even probable -- that this Leo didn't share the same abilities as his beastly counterpart, but it was what she had to work with at the moment, and work with it she would.

A Command to an unsuspecting man in the park, enjoying the summer day perhaps a bit too much, gave her a cup of warm lager. A moment later, it was dumped over her head, as she tried to mask the distinctive smell of the river and the mud and the salt she must logically be tracking behind her. A quick splash through the water park helped cut things that much more -- and she made the act of ignoring that she was slightly more comfortable in damp clothes a more active pursuit than normal. She looked different; she smelled different, and that was about all she could manage at the moment, other than just getting distance between her and the others.

She also made sure that she "borrowed" a hat and sunglasses as she continued to make her way across the park towards the high street.

Sunglasses...

Ryn could take care of herself. If anyone could, it would be Ryn, Katarina tried to reassure herself. Whatever she had been through, whatever had turned her into the broken machine she had become, it had made her tough. She wasn't abandoning her; she was making a strategic retreat to attempt to recapture the upper hand. Logical. Strategy. Safe. She'd be no good to the girl if she was being poked and prodded in a lab, after all.

That gnawing feeling in her gut was probably the aftereffects of the portal, or perhaps what passed for alcohol here in the UK.

So. What to do. Where to go.

Part of her, deep inside, screamed to go for the ocean, but that part was a jerk and a liar, and could safely be ignored.

Answers presumably lay at that university the two had spoken of, but that was not a safe direction to go in at the moment. Access to the lighthouse would make a certain degree of sense; it was a clear landmark, gave a high vantage point, and was spoken off interestingly by the two natives as well. But going there would be a sure way to get captured instantly, even if it was the last thing they'd expect. If they were part of a clandestine agency, they'd have more agents there, of course. And if they weren't, and this was all some sort of coincidence, then there'd be no point in checking it out in the first place.

Calling PATHS. Now there was an interesting idea. If this place did double for her own, perhaps they had their own PATHS; perhaps the emergency phone number would work. Backup is always useful. That didn't quite seem right either, though -- her PATHS had her practically as a hostage; who knows what this strange PATHS would do? Anyway, she hadn't seen a payphone yet, and this strange device, a phone according to the Manticore, didn't seem to work. It was broken in some way. Perhaps it needed to be charged? There was no way a battery could fit inside. Solar, perhaps? The oil crisis had pushed people to look into that; perhaps they had perfected it here. Still...maybe not.

Right. Let's go through the fundamentals of reconnaissance. She was already on site. She didn't have backup waiting in reserve; she was on her own. Orient on the objective -- gather information, find out what this place was, evaluate it as a threat, seek ways to close the portal. Report all information rapidly and accurately -- well, that couldn't happen while she was on this side of the portal; and she didn't have much to report now, anyway. Retain freedom of maneuver, check; avoid decisive engagement with a superior force and develop the situation further. Gain and maintain enemy contact, and then develop the situation rapidly.

Right. OK. Gaining contact right now would be a terrible idea; she had no idea what she was up against. So, information it was. A library, perhaps. A newsstand. A coffee shop. Something towards the center of town; memorize the streets, memorize the alleys, be ready to move, always check the windows across the way, but keep moving.

And so Kata Kane continued to make her way downtown, walking fast.

[Laura Kinney]

Faces pass, but Leo remains the only one 'mirrored' to home. Here and there she can spot others who show signs of physical changes, though none as extensive as the manticore's and they're few and far between. For the most part she is surrounded by regular people going about their business. Of course, that in and of itself is a little strange. Everywhere people are holding the little flat rectangle 'phones', speaking into it or looking down at them. Some she can tell are moving or bobbing their heads to music with no headphones in sight, only little devices stuck in their ears. Only once does she spot an actual phonebooth in the typical British style, like a preserved relic.

Finding a newspaper stand seems almost impossible. Digital displays however are plentiful compared to what she knows, even if a lot of them are just small screens hung in store windows to advertise things. Even a little tobacco and lotto shop has one, showing the jackpot for the week of a year that is off by about 40 years. It's disorienting enough she misses the woman leaving the shop, stuffing a pack of smokes into the pocket of her oddly low-rise, tightly cut jeans. She's wearing a worn and loose fitting t-shirt that'd maybe fly in California or on a popstar going for a more risque look, but then again, everyone's fashion seems strange to Katarina. A lot more tightly-fitting tailored things and not a single shoulder-pad in sight.

The woman is looking at one of those odd phones herself and damn near runs into Katarina as she turns onto the sidewalk. The two manage to avoid each other but something about the woman's sudden yet smooth and determined movement feels oddly familiar. Even startled she's not really caught off-balance and just for a split-second she wonders if she's somehow bumped into Ryn again. But no, the short wildling would never be caught surprised like this. And though the woman is short she's still taller than Ryn.

"Whoa, hey!" she says as she briefly fumbles her phone and grips it again. "My bad." she says though it's at least a little bit perfunctory. Like something someone who's swallowed their first instinct and is trying to be polite instead.

[Katarina Kane]

"Oh, no, my apologies," Katarina said, forcing a smile. "Don't know where my head is at these days. I'll try to be more careful."

Katarina was doing her best to keep her head in the game, as it were. Everything was so...strange here. It was no wonder she had nearly crashed into the short woman; how could she not be distracted by all the shining lights and screens? In the future, everyone must really be famous for 15 minutes, if they needed so many televisions to show everything.

There was definitely enough information here to confirm that wherever....this was, it was a good 40-something years ahead of her own time. That matched with the technological jumps, as well as the few dates on the objects that had slipped through the portal. Nothing new there, but it was...overwhelming to see it all in action at one time.

[Laura Kinney]

"'Bout standing on the sidewalk?" the woman quirks an eyebrow. Laura can't exactly place Katarina's accent but it's not British, which around here usually meant student or staff at the school. Maybe a bit less so since Minamida had thrown the gates open to anybody who wants to stroll right in, a terrible idea in Laura's opinion. "This isn't exactly the big city where you're holdin' up people." she says as she fishes a cigarette from her pocket along with a lighter. Odd, Katarina hasn't seen a single person smoking around here. Must have fallen out of fashion.

[Katarina Kane]

"About being an obstruction," Katarina smiled. "I've been wandering around myself; I should have been paying more attention."

To most observers, Katarina was doing alright walking around. But her clothes were still a little damp, and did not quite fit right. And there was a faint smell of alcohol around her, too. Enough that someone like Laura might notice something off.

[Laura Kinney]

Aside from setting her nerves from 'alert' to 'mildly twitchy', her smoking also serves to dull her sense of smell. Nobody wants to have an acute sense of smell around a bunch of twenty-somethings, much less ones she regularly puts through rigorous training. But the smell of alcohol is hard to miss. Laura is intimately familiar with the concept of day-drinking as well as the kind of emotional states that tend to lead to it. It reminds her of a time when she would have let other peoples' problems be exactly that, but being part of the X-Men eventually rubs some compassion off on you no matter how much the lone wolf in her bristles at it.

"Alright. But if you're running form anything, anyone... Ah hell, you just look like you've been through something, is all." Overly polite (by Laura's standards anyway) and apologetic, just a little disheveled. Might be nothing but apparently Minamida's talk about community outreach and all that nonsense has gotten to her. Doesn't mean she's any good about actually doing it.

[Katarina Kane]

"It has been...quite the day," Katarina said, keeping the phony smile on. "But I certainly wouldn't want to take up too much of your time. After all, you might have many more people to run into today," she joked.

She then paused, thinking. "You often offer to help random strangers?"

[Laura Kinney]

"No, not really. But I've had my fair share of bad days and people helped me, so I guess against my better judgement I let them rub off on me." she says with an only slightly chagrined smirk. "Closest I normally get is brooding and commiserating over beers with the person next to me at the bar."

[Katarina Kane]

"Well, better to be out and about than brooding too much, yes?

Tell me, are you from around here? Originally, that is?" Katarina asked.

[Laura Kinney]

"Hah, not even close. Probably would not have picked Maldon of all places to get stuck in if it wasn't for the school. Should have listened to the old man when he warned me about the end of your roaming days sneaking up on you." she shakes her head with the hint of a chuckle. "Anyway...I've been kind of all over but I guess I'm from California?" she offers. The question of where she's from is loaded, to say the least and she's a little surprised the thought of it no longer makes her nearly as angry as it once did.

[Katarina Kane]

"Oh, you're part of the School, too? I guess this is kind of a...university town, no? Or it has become one, yes?"

Casually hone in, that's the way to do it.

[Laura Kinney]

"I am. And it might be on it's way there? The first year people were not super happy and it doesn't help to be a magnet for all kinds of shit. But hey, you fight off one wave of time-displaced Nazis and people change their minds. A little. Of course now we're straining what good will we have by turning into a proper mutant refuge but who knows. People smarter than me are making those calls. You here on vacation?" she asks. It's not many, but occasionally tourists bold enough to wander into Mutant Town from the nicer parts of London make their way to Maldon. Though mildly bedraggled as Katarina seems it's equally as possible she slipped through to escape some kind of situation. Or, she supposes, it's possible Maldon attracted an actual international visitor. It's a quiet sea-side town - most of the time - and some people are into that.

[Katarina Kane]

"I'm actually here on behalf of a friend. She's a little...special," she said, carefully. "And some people thought this might be a good place for her. I want to just check it out and make sure it's safe first, you know?"

I mean, all the individual statements weren't lies. That's something, right? Let Laura infer what she would from their connection.

"But if you are from here, you have a unique perspective. You say this place is a...magnet for shit. Could you explain a little more? Pretend I don't know anything; all I know is what I read in the papers, and we know that they're not always right..."

[Laura Kinney]

"The papers don't know the half of it. They only see the big flashy stuff like when that walking jellyfish threatened to flood the town or the time-travelling Nazis. Had some fairy tale critters terrorize the town. But then you get your super-villains brainwashing everyone on campus into acting out some 50s sitcom or tiny robots deciding they're gotta build something and shrinking everyone down so they don't get in the way. Dude kidnapped a student once cause he thought he'd bring about the end of the world or something." she rattles off.

"But despite all that we've had no real serious injuries. Hell, Minamida once showed me statistics and there's fewer injuries here than a regular college. And don't let anybody tell you it's mutants who attract this shit. It'd happen anyway. Whole place is build on top of some kind of dimensional faultline or something. S'possed to be under control now and I have to admit, it's been a couple months without anything weird showing up out of nowhere." Laura blinks and looks at Katarina with a bit of confusion. "Probably should not have told you all that. Doesn't exactly make the place sound like a safe haven, does it?"

[Katarina Kane]

"No, no, it's fine. Good to be blunt about things, yes? Especially if young people are supposed to come here."

"You said....some sort of dimensional faultline? You're kidding..." Katarina added, gears spinning in her head.

[Laura Kinney]

"It's not exactly dangerous, but it caused some problems. Stuff from other places coming through, especially when it's somebody forcing the door, so to speak. I'm told the new locks or whatever we got on there fixed it, but I'm just the one who teaches the kids how to throw a punch and makes sure anything that gets too close to the non-fighty folks has to go through me first. If you want to know more you'll have to check with the head-mistress, she'll either tell you to buzz off or make the next hour of your life feel like a whole day with a lecture on this stuff. She'd want to know how you even know about this though and this better not come back to bite me."

[Katarina Kane]

THIS was a lot. Some kind of...unstable rift? Perhaps that was what had broken over to her world; whatever this 'university' actually was guarding causing a problem. Were they just bad at guarding it? Or worse, had they caused the problem to begin with? Threats or incompetence? That was worth investigating.

First, however...

"Teaching the kids to throw a punch?" Katarina asked, her ears pricking up at that.

[Laura Kinney]

"You know, the X-Men. And I guess they're more like twenty-somethings. They're the ones who respond to all the crazy shit and handle it and I teach 'em how to do it safely. Safer. Okay safe-ish."

[Katarina Kane]

The hell? 'X' Men? Some sort of attack squad? G-Men?

"The...X-Men, you said? And you train them to handle anything...odd that might appear?"

[Laura Kinney]

"Yeah." she says, beginning to sound at least mildly suspicious. "I mean I know we're not as big and important as the Avengers or SHIELD but we have saved the world once or twice. Where did you say you were from again?"

[Katarina Kane]

"Oh, I don't mean to sound critical. I'm sure you're doing a fantastic job. I just didn't realize the...students were in charge of keeping things safe," Katarina said, not answering the question. "I'm sure there's nothing to worry about with them in control... is there?"

These... X-Men. Whatever they were. Apparently she was supposed to have heard of them? Asking straight out what they were would probably be enough of a tell to have the woman fight off the mental suggestions and feel concerned about things; she could look up what the hell they were supposed to be later.

But, oh, if she had any lingering doubts about their competency? A subtle nudge could get her to unload. And from that, maybe she could figure out what was going on here. If this was an accidental rift; some kind of mistake on their part, than perhaps PATHS could come in and protect their world themselves and take over; offer help where a bunch of students might be in over their head. And if it was intentional, maybe this would give her some indication of where to strike to protect people.

[Laura Kinney]

"Well, they're not perfect but who is? It's really more of a... high-intensity community service for things that are a little beyond regular peoples' ability to deal with. And the occasional life-or-death situation builds character. But they're good kids. Saved my ass once."

[Katarina Kane]

"And they...patrol these dimensional problems, do they? What do they do if there's something that...gets through?"

[Laura Kinney]

"Really depends on what it is. The giant jelly-crab didn't exactly seem like it was up for negotiations, but then we got one of the shapeshifting lizard-people we fought making friends with us. And I sure did some things I regret before I got into this whole superheroics business." she shrugs. "People are complicated. But if something or someone's causing problems and they don't stop when asked nicely or not-so-nicely, you just have to put your foot down. Rare that it goes beyond that and if it comes to that I certainly wouldn't let the kids do that kind of dirty work." Some part of her knows she is giving out more information that she should, but all of this are things that could be considered things to worry about and for some reason she wants to address this woman's concerns.

[Katarina Kane]

"Are they...actively patrolling? Or is it more wait and see if something terrible happens?" Katarina asked, thinking back to the redhead and Leo just happening to be where she and Ryn emerged. An awfully big coincidence...

[Laura Kinney]

"Patrolling? Nah! Though that gives me a great idea for a punishment for the ones who fail the training course." she laughs. "But we've got Telepaths and a Precog and all kinds of different or enhanced senses so they run into things more often than you'd think. Sometimes you just have to follow your hunches."

[Katarina Kane]

So they did know we were coming.

It was time for a shot in the dark. It wouldn't hurt so much if she just turned her Voice up just a little tiny bit, could it? This was for the greater good after all...

"I will be honest with you," she lied. "One of my biggest concerns about my friend Ryn coming here is the...rumors. About the medical center. About how sometimes, strange people come in...and they are not heard from again. Any truth to any of that?"

The fact that Leo had first suggested taking her to the secret facility's medical center -- that's how the PATHS agents had started, as well. If they used this base to study things as well...

[Laura Kinney]

"Whoa! No, absolutely not!" she snaps perhaps a bit too harshly. "I don't know who told you that but that is not what we do. I..." she hesitates but Katarina's words are swimming around inside her head still and spur her on. "...have been to places like that. They exist." she says, clenching her fists, though with how much they're shaking it's easy to tell this is not aggression towards Katarina. "The ones I knew about no longer do." she says, a steel-edge to her voice.

[Katarina Kane]

Well, small favors, at least.

"It is an easy mistake to make," Katarina said, soothingly. "Any time you have groups of men, X or not, patrolling things? Power follows along with it. I am relieved to hear that you are not such a group, though I sure you understand why I would be concerned, no?"

[Laura Kinney]

"Oh trust me, I get it. Bit too well, honestly." she says and slowly takes a couple breaths, uncurling her fists. "Sorry 'bout that. Spent my formative years locked up in one of those places between 'patrols'." she goes on, doing the actual air-quotes with her fingers. "So no, don't worry, the school is nothing like that. We try to help people, not turn them into weapons. The team is strictly voluntary."

[Katarina Kane]

"Y...you were?" Katarina said, taken aback. "How did you...

How did you get out?"

[Laura Kinney]

Laura smirks and holds her hand up. Clenching it into a fist the two adamantine blades snkt out between her knuckles.

"I'd decided I was done. My aunt was kind enough to take me in for a while until I found my way to the school's equivalent in the US." She retracts the blades again and the exit-wounds slowly knit themselves back together. "Owe them a lot so when they needed somebody to come here and help train a bunch of college students I put my hand up."

[Katarina Kane]

"Those look...quite painful. Does the...medical center at the university help you with those?" Katarina asked, staring at the wounds knitting themselves back together.

[Laura Kinney]

"Oh, no that's all me." she says, quirking an eyebrow. Not many people outside the world of superheroics know her but there's very few people who haven't at least heard of her genetic father and would recognize the similarities. "The blades are courtesy of the place I grew up in. Doesn't really hurt that much anymore, guess you can get used to a lot."

"You really aren't from around here, huh? The blades and healing factor usually tip people off. I'm Laura Kinney, sort-of daughter of Wolverine, but if I had to guess that probably doesn't mean anything to you." she says, holding her by now completely healed hand out to Katarina.

[Katarina Kane]

"Kata Kane," Katarina said, shaking Laura's hand and neither confirming nor denying her suspicions. "And you truly can get used to almost anything, can't you? Doesn't mean you necessarily should, however."

[Laura Kinney]

"Yeah, well. Some days I feel like the good I've done makes up for the bad and some days I don't. Life's not fair and sometimes you can't win, but that shouldn't mean you should stop trying. That's a shitty platitude that's worth fuck-all at the end of the day though."

[Katarina Kane]

"Well, sometimes you have to pick and choose your battles," she said, after a moment.

"I'm an agent of an organization the Hoffmann Society. You have a problem here; one you may not have been aware of. Me and my partner were sent here to try to determine what was going on. A school for...mutants seemed like a potential source of the problem. But sometimes, as you say, you must...make a leap of faith, as it were."

[Laura Kinney]

Laura is caught a little off-guard by the sudden reveal, though it explains a lot about Katarina's questions.

"Huh. Most organizations that drop by to investigate know about us already, so I'm guessing there's something else going on. If something's amiss it's probably best if we head for the school. You can fill me in on the way?"

[Katarina Kane]

"With what I know, which isn't much. We just arrived, after all..."

[Laura Kinney]

"We? So that friend of yours does exist. Well, whatever you can tell me. Is there any immediate danger to anybody?"