Who: Rachel Summers(811)/Faith Lehane What: Surviving to learn When: Tuesday 5/26 Where: Streets of NYC and old subway tunnels Warnings: Language - Faith has a filthy mouth
Her second day on her own and Rachel was falling into a pattern. Not predictable, but she was learning how to survive on the streets, and avoid being found. It was easier than she thought, and so long as she focused on her immediate needs and the demand for obfuscation she didn’t have to think about her conversation with the Professor, Mystique or James. She didn’t understand where she screwed up still, but she accepted that she had. Charles had made that very clear, that she was not to be trusted and was unstable.
She reasoned it was better that she be on her own. Her theory was that if the conditioning truly was still in place eventually it would take over, revert her to the Hound and she’d be dealt with. If it was broken then she truly was…lost? Kate, Logan and Erik had taught her how to survive, how to protect herself. Rachel understood that this time, this place, was not what she was used to, but she did not understand the subtle shades of ethics and morals these people lived by. She knew Erik’s would be similar to her own so he couldn’t be a source for her. Charles had made it plain that she couldn’t turn to him. Mystique she couldn’t trust. Not with the past Rachel remembered. James…had been someone she thought she might have gotten to know, might have been able to talk to. How wrong she’d been! He’d run to Charles with what she’d done. That had hurt, and the hurt was turning slowly to anger. No, she was on her own. It was better that way. Right?
The first day had been spent in finding a hole to hide in, someplace to put her back against, someplace safe and hidden. In her time she remembered the stories of the Morlocks. Those mutants had shunned humanity and society. They had scarred themselves as a physical representation of that rejection then took over the labyrinth of abandoned train tunnels beneath the city. Rachel already had the scars, even if she hid them. All she had to do was find the tunnels. That had taken all day, peeking at the minds of a few maintenance employees she encountered while she cloaked her presence. Locked access doors. Boarded up entrances. That was all easily bypassed through the use of her telekinesis. Some of the tunnels already had residents, but they were avoided just as easily. Finally, she found an old docking tunnel that wasn’t in use by the subway system or other homeless. It was bigger than she liked, too open, but it would do. A quick touch of her telekinesis, and the debris was rearranged to build her a partitioned area she could accept.
A look at her phone proved that it was too deep beneath the surface for it to receive any signal at all. She liked that, however it meant she would have to go street side to contact Erik like she said she would. That was inevitable anyway as she would need to get food and supplies for herself. Rachel had already removed cash from the credit card they had given her upon her arrival then she destroyed the card. A tap of nearby minds at the ATM had shown her how to use it, and gained her the knowledge that the potential for funds to be renewed on the card was there. Even if it was she didn’t want to use the card again. The knowledge that it could be tracked wasn’t a welcome one. She would get supplies for herself then solve the money issue later.
The rest of the night she spent building up her mental shields. She didn’t sleep much or deeply anyway so she put the time to good use. The shields weren’t just something to keep other telepaths out, but they were camouflage as well. The Kennel Master had trained her in precise subtlety. After all, she had to be able to hunt other telepaths without alerting them, and Rachel had proven to be very clever. Mental touches were slid aside, probing was reflected and attacks…well, those triggered a swift and somewhat painful response. Rachel didn’t want to hurt anybody now so she left off the last part, but it would warn her enough for her to deal with it consciously. It took almost all night to build the shields and set them in place. She wasn’t sure if Charles would even look for her, but she would take no risks while he had Cerebro.
Yesterday she went street side to buy some supplies. Clothing and bedding from a Goodwills was easily and cheaply managed. Canned food she could heat over sterno, water, even basic medical supplies to put into a simple first aid kit. That had taken up a good chunk of the day for making trips back and forth. She could have carried it all telekinetically, but that would have attracted attention. Even under the disguises she projected of being blonde this time, brunette next, even male at one point, no single human could carry all of that at one time. Besides, traveling back and forth taught her more ins and outs to her hole, as well as revealed a few places to stash supplies in case she had to abandon her central location. By the end of it all she was actually feeling tired so after a dinner of lukewarm Raviolis Rachel burrowed beneath the blankets she’d bought and fell into a shallow sleep.
Today began the next and more important stage of what Rachel wanted to accomplish. It would require her to return to the surface and back into the public eye. She’d spotted the traffic and security cameras on the street. Facial recognition programs, scans…those cameras were suspect, and a problem. Without a mind to affect Rachel could do nothing to hide her appearance from them. A lightweight hoody with the hood pulled up to hide her red hair she kept her face down while on the street. She moved with the pace of the crowd so as not to attract attention by rushing or going too slowly.
She had no destination in particular she was aiming for. She just wanted to be out among people. That was how she would learn about this time and the people in it. That was how she would learn how to behave, how to be part of them. What was acceptable. What was anathema. How they thought. How they interacted with each other. Everything. She wanted to learn it all and prove to Charles, to herself, that she wasn’t evil, wasn’t bad. Wasn’t the Hound anymore. So as she walked among the streets of New York she opened her mind to eavesdrop, soaked in the information or casual conversations and thoughts, the unconscious motions people went through that got them through little moments and experiences. Nothing was unimportant. She would learn!