i_throwplates [untitled]
Who: Jake and Babs What: Suspicion to Understanding Where: On the streets
[Jake Chambers]: The street was unfamiliar. New York? Chicago? Los Angeles? He didn't know. If didn't look like New York, but the so-called Daily Planet screamed that it was The City. What city? A few dozen of them, if the bizarre architecture was any indication.
Turning to retrace his steps, Jake let out a cry. It had changed. Again.
He wasn't getting used to this. Which was strange. He could function within changing worlds, going todash, dying and coming back. But there was something that had been lost, and Jake knew that it was something more than his way. His anchors. His friends - his family. His ka-tet. He didn't know what to do without them. And he couldn't find the Path of the Beam.
Tired, frustrated, and feeling horribly alone, Jake sat on a doorstep, curled his knees against his chest, and squeezed his eyes shut, thinking of a different land, a quietly commanding voice, and a pair of pale blue eyes.
[Barbara Gordon]: Babs saw many strange things on the footage she collected from The City, enough so that she couldn't concentrate on all of it. Some of it simply had to be left to the police, because she couldn't be everywhere at once. Nor did she have enough people to send everywhere at once. One of the stranger sightings of the past week at been an odd little boy who --as weird as it sounded-- had killed a man, possibly more than one. It wasn't the weirdest thing Babs had seen, the green man flying around in a very weird and twisted halloween costume on a glider took that prize, but it was definitely out there and worth investigating.
Unfortunately, Babs hadn't been able to do the investigating. She'd meant to send a tip along to the police, but Arkham's appearance, her encounter with Jack and Kori, and then the communications blackout had distracted her from it. So as far as she knew, nothing had been done.
She wasn't even thinking about it at the moment, admittedly. Other things were on her mind as she wheeled herself down the street, and it was only the sound of a child's voice that pulled her out of her thoughts. Babs looked up and down at the long street of brownstones. Not an abundance of children, but there was one, and he looked lost. She couldn't help but wheel over. The local precinct wasn't far from here, and there was probably an adult looking for him.
"Are you alright?" Babs looked down and adressed the mop of hair sititng on a doorstep.
[Jake Chambers]: From the sound of wheels on pavement, Jake looked up, almost desperately, but he already knew from her voice that it wouldn't be Susannah. It didn't save his heart the disappointment.
"No," he said, bitterly, resting his chin on his arms. "I'm really not."
The only thing he could say was better, was that he wasn't crazy. The last time he'd died and gotten seperated from Roland, seperated or never there to begin, the paradox had nearly torn his mind apart. "But at least I'm not crazy," he said, with a short, sharp laugh. "I'm not crazy this time."
He dropped his chin back into one hand, resting the elbow on his knee. "But thanks for asking."
[Barbara Gordon]: She really needed to start carrying around some mode of defense. It was just plain stupid that she wasn't, and Bruce and Dick would most likely give her grief if they knew she was wandering around undefended in this city. Especially if she was going to come across potentially dangerous and armed children.
Of course, Bruce and Dick might have laughed at her if she'd suggested to then that this boy had decapitated someone and stolen their guns. He looked so...innocent. Lost and hurt. They all tended to though, those who had enough mental capacity left to school their emotions and act innocent.
"Well, I'm glad to hear that you're not crazy," Babs said carefully, though she was doubting certain parts of his mental health.
She stopped her chair where it was. If the boy still had weapons on him, she did not need to be too close. She'd already been shot twice. "Do you have parents around here?"
[Jake Chambers]: Jake was shaking his head before she'd even finished the question. People always asked that. Parents. They always wanted to know about parents. It didn't matter that your parents believed in higher living through chemical assistance - just that there was a place for you to be shuffled off to. A place where the responsibility could be passed on to someone else.
He knew she was a little afraid. Worried. She knew about the robbers the other night. How she knew, he didn't know. His touch was light.
Jake shifted his seat, resting his hands on his knees, so she could see. "You don't need to be afraid of me," he said.
[Barbara Gordon]: "Really?" she asked, rasing an eyebrow. Rather cute that the kid assumed right off the bat that she'd be scared of him. Guilty conscience perchance?
She glanced down the street. If things stopped moving for just a few minutes the precinct would stay where it was, just a few blocks down. Maybe she could make up for failing to send in that tip when she should have.
"So, you're out here by yourself? That's not exactly safe is it?" Babs gave him a grin, and used her 'teacher' voice. "Did you get lost?"
[Jake Chambers]: "You are afraid. You're worried because you've been shot before. But I'm not going to shoot you." He glanced in the direction she had, more picking up what was there from her mind than seeing the building. "But I'm not going to get arrested, say thankee."
He let out a sigh. "I'm waiting for my father."
It answered a few of her questions, without completely giving an answer. Roland would find him. Roland always found him again. It was just a matter of time. Come-commala, say thankee, and that is the truth.
Choo-choo.
"Seems like just about everyone is lost here. Why should I be any different? And I'm safe enough." There will be water if ka wills it. He almost said the words, but no. Those were words for Roland's world. For Mid-World, and End-World. Not for a place called The City. Words like that would have this woman - who was starting to seem more and more like a detective of some kind, with how her mind worked - wondering what faction of what cult he was ordained into.
[Barbara Gordon]: Ah, well that explained something, at least. The kid wasn't a normal one. He knew things that he shouldn't have, but rather than make a big deal out of it, Babs kept her face calm and took it all in stride. She didn't want to shock or scare him into running.
There were a myrad of possibilities as to what he was. Her mind immediately jumped to it being a mutation of some sort, but she knew it could be anything. She'd had reports of vampires, after all (though, those had yet to be confirmed).
"I didn't say anything about arresting," Babs continued calmly. "And I didn't say anything about getting shot either, but you are right there. I'd prefer not to see a bullet in my stomach again. I was just hoping that maybe we could take a walk down the street. If you've lost your dad, he's probably told the police to be on the lookout for you."
[Jake Chambers]: Jake shook his head. Did she think he was stupid? No. She just didn't know that he knew that she knew how he'd gotten his guns. "My father isn't here yet. Not... " He gestured with one hand, to indicate the entire City. "Here." He wouldn't tell her that Roland was a law unto himself, the last gunslinger of a world that has moved on. "But we'll find one another when he gets here."
She probably wouldn't understand. But ka didn't care if you understood it or not. Ka simply did as it would. Ka like a wind. Ka like a wheel. Or say it twice and you got the baby word for what Eddie had thought of it.
"Is there another reason why you want me to go down the street with you?" he asked her evenly. Is there a reason why you're talking to me like a hostage negotiator?
[Barbara Gordon]: "Find what?" Babs asked simply, before moving onto his next question. Her eyes narrowed slightly and a slight hint of a smile came to her face. "I think you know why I'd like to take a walk down the street."
She drummed her fingers on the wheel of her chair and eyed the kid. What was he...? Some sort of telepathy was obvious, either that or intensely developed intuition. "Maybe it's just easier if we're honest, hmm? I know what happened the other night."
[Jake Chambers]: "I'll find him. Or he'll find me. We always do."
Jake nodded. "Yeah. I know you do. But that was just self-defense. You don't arrest someone for self-defense." He knew enough of the law to know that. "If we're being honest, you should know that they were going to kill me. They wanted to kill me. They were out for blood. If not me, someone else."
[Barbara Gordon]: "You don't kill people for that," Babs answered. "You seemed quite adept at fighting. I'm sure at some point, someone showed you how to deliver a blow that would render a person unconscious, making killing unnecessary." It was one of the first things Bruce had shown her. Avoid killing, it was a golden rule.
She shook her head. "You could have knocked them out. Killing was the wrong choice, you never know who's watching. They'd have been taken to jail if you'd gone with the less violent route. Instead you've gotten yourself into the kind of trouble no one your age really needs to face."
[Jake Chambers]: Jake sighed. "You don't get it," he said, shaking his head. "You've never lived in a world where the only law was measured by the lead you dealt out. If I would have known there were police here when I arrived, I wouldn't have killed anyone. I'm not a murderer."
He got to his feet. She wasn't trying to signal anyone, or call anyone, not that he could tell, but he didn't think it was a good idea any longer to be sitting this close to the police department. "Whoop-de-fucking-do," he muttered, one of Eddie's quips. "Welcome back to civilization."
[Barbara Gordon]: "Civilization, that's right." She rolled closer to him when he stood up, prepared to follow him if he tried to leave. It was highly unlikely she'd be able to truely keep up, but she would at least know his general direction.
"See, in civilization we usually have consequences to our actions. It's not often one escapes those." Unless you were a masked vigilante. But that was a different story. "Why don't you tell me exactly what happened?"
[Jake Chambers]: He caught her eyes, and the blue irises intensified for an instant. "I told you. They came up to me. Ragged on me. Wanted my bag. Went for their guns. I threw my plate, and some kind of cable caught the other one. A guy in a red leather suit helped me. I'm not psychic. If I'd known he'd help me, I wouldn't have killed anyone. But I didn't know that then. I just reacted."
Jake sighed, tucking his hands into his pockets. The guns were still in easy reach, but he still felt no compulsion to use them.
He said the words again. "I just reacted. And the bastard didn't even have the time to know I threw anything before he was dead. His body hit the pavement before his heart stopped beating, and his friend was lucky that someone in a red devil suit was choking him unconscious, because otherwise he would have pulled his gun, and then I'd have had a plate for him too."
He looked back at her, meeting her eyes again. Softer this time, a boy's eyes. A boy who had seen too much, and not lived enough. He felt for what he'd done, that was true. He felt sorrow for the loss of life. But he wasn't going to tell her about how he'd thrown up once he'd been away from that place. Or how his hands had been shaking. His dreams were safe - there were enough other horrors already there for this to be minor in comparison.
"So, how long do you want to sit there and keep reminding me about what I did, to save my own life, in the best way that I was taught? Especially when it's nothing I can ever hope to fix?"
[Barbara Gordon]: Important details: The boy wasn't psychic. He readily admitted to everything, and Babs felt as if he was telling the truth. A man in a red devil suit... she was going to have to look into that, among other things. The boy was highly trained. There was a lack of finesse, but what he knew how to do got the job done. Lastly, he was feeling around the guns. Babs certainly noticed. She'd been trained to observe this sort of thing.
Her mind filed all of this as she kept her eyes on him. She thought about it, processed it, and finally tried to figure out what the best response was going to be. It wasn't a situation she wanted to act rashly in, and she had the distinct feeling that if this boy didn't want to go to the police station then he wasn't going to let himself go. And, while she didn't think death should go unpunished, she didn't feel so much anymore that he'd done it out of malicious intent. It was, for all intents and purposes, a case of self defense, or so it seemed.
"It's interesting that you were taught that way. And, no, we won't discuss it for much longer, because you're right. You can't fix it. But you also can't expect to escape the consequences forever, even if they don't come from me," She settled on eventually. A silent agreement was conveyed; no, I won't drag you off to the police station. She told herself it was just because she couldn't catch the kid, even if she'd wanted to. "What's your name? And where are you staying?"
[Jake Chambers]: He eyed her, wary. "John Chambers." She seemed like the time to want the name printed on his birth certificate. But he wasn't going to just hand her where he was staying. First, because he didn't want to bring any trouble to Mal's door when Mal had been nice enough to help him out. Second, because he didn't want her to know where to send the cops after him.
You never escape consequences. Jake knew that. You could only outrun them so long. But ka was a wheel.
He wasn't psychic. He couldn't tell the future. What the touch did give him, apart from an unusually deep intuition, was a peek into the minds of others, and the lightest influence on their thoughts and emotions. It wasn't active telepathy unless he really tried. The most he'd ever done was switch places with Oy, back in Fedic. And that had exhausted the last of his reserves. He never wanted to be in that desperate a situation again.
"I have a place," he said, noncommittally. Next thing you knew, she'd be trying to send him to school.
[Barbara Gordon]: "I'm Barbara. It's nice to meet you, John."
Babs wasn't going to try and send him to school. She wasn't on that level yet. Especially knowing that he was a potentially lethal child, no matter how sorry he might have felt for it afterwards. She just wanted to figure this kid out.
"A place is good. Hope that place is actually a place, somewhere inside with a roof," she said nonchalantly. "Does whoever you're staying with know about the other night? I'd expect they'd care, you know, just in case the news got back to them by way of authorities. "
[Jake Chambers]: Jake hesitated. Did he want to tell Mal about what he'd done? He wasn't ashamed of being a gunslinger, not in the least. Not ever. But it changed things. It changed how people saw him. Never again as just a child, now he was a killer.
He didn't know Mal. The man had helped him, sure. But there was no bond, no debt, one way or the other. Jake thought he'd be able to find another place to stay, if he needed to. But the thought of it was draining. On the open road, he'd adapted well to the life of a rover. He just hadn't been alone on the open road.
He shuffled his feet, kicking at a pebble with his moccasins, unsure now of what to say.
[Barbara Gordon]: Babs sighed and folded her arms, staring down at the boy. "Alright, I'm guess that's a no? On both the having a good place to stay, and that whoever you're staying with knows about the other night? Or just one of those?" She looked at him curiously.
"Does the person you're staying with have a name? An address maybe? Would you like me to take you back there?"
[Jake Chambers]: "What the hell do you care?" he asked suddenly, eyes blazing as he looked up at her. "You wanted to arrest me a minute ago. If you're going to, feel free to try. Otherwise, I'll be fine on my own, thankee big."
The Callah speech was clipped with bitterness. Jake started down the steps, hands tucked firmly into his pockets, and began to move away from her, and away from the precinct.
[Barbara Gordon]: "I'm prone to change my mind when I think maybe I was a little to rash in initial decisions," she said simply. "And I thought maybe I was a little too rash."
Her kind look turned slightly sterner as she stared at him. "And, I don't know what it's like where you're from, but generally adults care when they see lost kids on the street in my world. Human compasion. I was just offering to help."
[Jake Chambers]: Jake stopped in his tracks, and looked back at her. After a moment, he dropped his gaze. "I don't like people," he said. "They fuck me up."
Gasher. Tick-tock man. Roland. Flagg. Benny Slightman the Elder. Even -- especially -- Sai King himself. Not to mention his dad, the great Elmer R Chambers.
"Jake. My... my friends call me Jake."
[Barbara Gordon]: "That's a pretty sad outlook on life, Jake," Babs answered him rather frankly. It was an outlook that gave slight insight into his willingness, maybe even ability, to kill. It probably had to do with people 'fucking him' up so much.
She tapped her fingers on the wheels of her chair. "My offer still stands. I can help you find your way back to your 'place', maybe even offer you one if we can't find it."
[Jake Chambers]: "Y' prolly won't believe me if I told ya, sai," he answered, looking up at her with the slightest upturn of his lips in the corner of his mouth - perhaps the closest he might come to a smile. "There ain't a whole lot in my life to give me reason to be thinkin' otherwise. And the things I have gotten, they get taken away, y'ken."
He considered. "If yer offerin' a place, an' it's got four walls that ain't made of stone, I think I'd be better off there, I beg." The Callah speech was becoming thicker as he was growing more comfortable.
[Barbara Gordon]: "I don't know what it's made of, but there're four walls, a roof, three floors, and two empty bedrooms." And an attic was tens of thousands of dollars worth of computer equipment which she would have to be extra careful about if the boy came back with her, but it was nothing she couldn't handle.
Babs looked at the boy and raised an eyebrow. "Does that sound alright to you?"
[Jake Chambers]: Jake nodded. "Does me fine, I ken. Thankee-sai." He gave her a curious look. "Why'd you change your mind?"
[Barbara Gordon]: The fact that I like to know everything, and what better way to keep track of an apologetic, though potentially homicidal child than to keep him under my own roof and send him to school in the place where I work?
But Babs didn't say that. "I have my reasons. Is there anything you'll need to pick from your last place?"
[Jake Chambers]: Jake smiled suddenly, amused by the thought that ran through her head, and he even managed a laugh. Potentially homicidal? And she still wanted to send him to school? "Will I need a uniform?" he asked, forgetting that she hadn't spoken the thought aloud.
[Barbara Gordon]: Very interesting. And he claimed not to be psychic?. Babs gave the boy a tiny grin and nodded. "Yes. Yes you will," she said. "And I think that at some point you're going to have to tell me about that neat little trick you do."
[Jake Chambers]: He blinked at her, genuinely puzzled. "With the plates?" he asked, glancing at his satchel. "That's just training."
[Barbara Gordon]: "The plates, those too now that you mention it." In truth, Babs hadn't even been thinking about those at the moment, but now that they were brought to mind, they certainly did peak her interest. She'd seen the way he'd used them against the robbers and any chance to observe a new fighting technique was a good one.
But no, that hadn't been exactly what she'd meant. "Your telepathy," Babs clarified. "As in your ability to know what others are thinking."
[Jake Chambers]: Jake blinked, then looked away. "Oh. Sorry. I... forget about that." He hadn't realized he'd been getting stronger until the Callah. And even then, the majority of his Touching had been between the ka-tet, who, of course, shared thoughts as easily as other people shared germs. "Roland... my father calls it the Touch. As in, 'you're strong in the Touch'. I just... know what's going on in people's heads, if they're thinking clearly enough. Sometimes I know other things, but I don't know how. I just do." He shrugged. "It's like intuition. But it's pretty useless if I can't even find my friends in this place."
[Barbara Gordon]: "Well, it might be that it's going to take time to find them. Or it's possible that they're not here. Yet." Babs tacked on the last word, not wanting to take away all hope from the boy. And after all, it seemed that people showed up here eventually. Even if it wasn't the version you were expecting.
"If it makes you feel any better, it's not exactly easy for me to find people here either. Granted, I'm no telepath, but still. I get the feeling The City doesn't want it to be easy."
[Jake Chambers]: Jake nodded. But he was worried. The last time they'd gotten seperated like this... "They'll find me. Or I'll find them. But I hope it's soon."
He let out a breath. "Thankee, sai." Jake tapped his throat three times, and then lowered his hand slowly, remembering that the gesture was not custom here. "I mean... thank you."
[Barbara Gordon]: It was when he tapped his throat the Babs truely realised what an interesting experience this was going to be. One of these days she was going to bombard him with questions about where he was from, but not now. Now she would take him home, feed him, and let him sleep in a real bed.
"You're welcome," she said for now. "At least now you'll be in one place. Easier for your companions to find you when you're stationary. Are you ready?"
[Jake Chambers]: Jake checked his satchel, his pockets, and then turned to her and nodded. All he had was what he carried with him. "I'm ready."
[Barbara Gordon]: "Great." Babs smiled at him, before resting her hands back on her wheels. She began to push, gesturing for Jake to follow. "My car's just around the corner. After that, we'll be home in no time."
She rolled along the sidewalk, occasionaly eying Jake just to make sure he was following. She was so very attached to this idea now, there was no way she was letting him get away.