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domarzioneThis is 1250 words of... not sure. More ironing out the practical points of the X-movie, I suppose. Worldbuilding, which is probably my favorite thing to do.
"Should we stand at the steps or something? Be prepared to intercept if she doesn't stop?"
Charles looks up at Sean, all eagerness and earnest excitement. "I don't think it will be necessary," he assures, doing his best to hide his smile. "And if it is, I don't think it would do much good."
Gabrielle Haller is employed in the Office of Cultural Affairs at the Israeli General Consulate in New York. She may very well have duties that involve cultural affairs, but she is primarily a spy, the Mossad's lead agent in New York. Even with the assistance of their mutant abilities, Charles isn't sure he'd give Sean and Alex the odds of making her go somewhere she didn't wish to go.
"C'mon," Alex says, pulling at Sean's elbow. "Let's go catch a movie. The new Hitchcock is playing over on Third Avenue."
Sean is momentarily distracted. "It's about birds."
"Maybe you can pick up some pointers," Alex suggests easily. Too easily, because Sean starts to bristle. It's been a rough couple of weeks as far as Sean's advanced flight training has gone -- his dexterity in the air is ever-improving, but his landings remain rough.
"There's a new Disney film, I hear," Charles says as Sean prepares to inhale deeply. "If you two are feeling childish..."
Sean exhales with a harmless sigh. "We're stopping at the Chock full o' Nuts for egg creams and nutted cheese," he warns.
Alex holds up his hands to indicate he wishes no argument.
"See you later, Professor," Sean says, then taps his temple. "Call us if you need us."
Charles watches them cross the plaza until they disappear behind a planter, then returns his attention to the building across the street that houses the consulate. It's the end of the lunch hour and the sidewalk is thick with UN employees walking east back to work; the Babel-esque sea of words flows past his ears easily even as he catches snatches of mental conversation that require no translation.
He watches with his eyes and his mind for Haller, unsure which will let him find her first. He's not sure what she looks like; he knows her name only from a passing glimpse in Erik's mind and that was less a picture than an emotional impression. But fleeting glance or not, she was a name he could connect to Erik and, perhaps, a way to connect to him now.
"Doctor Xavier?"
The woman standing next to him, tall and about his own age, most certainly did not come out of the doors he'd been watching. He also didn't feel her approach, which disconcerts him but shouldn't because there was no reason for him to hear a stranger over the crowds if she wasn't mentally shouting his name. It's just the circumstances that are making him ill-at-ease, the potential for danger combined with his acute awareness of just how much his physical limitations hamper him now in ways they hadn't before.
He shakes himself out of his surprise and smiles, holding out his hand. "Miss Haller," he greets her. "I'm so very glad you agreed to meet me."
Up close, her wariness radiates off of her like a perfume. She's not worried about her safety -- at least not from him -- but she is taking no chances. She's carrying a gun in her purse, which she sets on her lap for ease of access as she takes the seat Charles offers with a grand gesture.
"You gave me no choice, Professor," she says as she brushes imaginary lint from her skirt. "You present far too many questions to be ignored."
Her accent is similar to Erik's, English artfully arranged over German, but the cadence and pronunciation are different, more cultured and graceful by nature and not by the necessity of Erik's chameleon life. It does not make her seem less dangerous, however. Beneath the well-tailored clothes and elegant comportment that are supposed to announce 'finishing school' to people of Charles's social standing, there is her mental aura, which to a telepath does not so much say Chateau Mont-Choisi as 'survivor.'
But he cannot, must not, react to what everyone else cannot see, and so he just smiles in what he hopes is a harmless fashion. "I do have many questions, some of which I hope you'll have the freedom to answer."
He'd called the consulate the week before, asked to speak to Miss Haller, and had been told that that was not possible at this time and would he like to leave a message. He did, saying he hoped she'd be able to put him in touch with a friend he'd lost track of, Erik Lehnsherr. It had been something of a wild guess and a great risk, but one that had paid off. He'd come upstairs from Hank's laboratories yesterday to find out from Sean that Miss Haller would meet him tomorrow and had provided a place and time.
"Before I answer anything, Doctor, I would have you answer one question first," she tells him and he has to wait for the words to come out of her mouth before answering because he can hear them so clearly in her mind. "Who the hell are you? And don't tell me a friend of Erik Lehnsherr."
She's done research on him, he can see in her memories, but is not satisfied by the answers. In every official and unofficial record, Charles Xavier is a promising Oxford don who is trying to turn prep school headmaster after a car accident left him a paraplegic. He comes from money, has social connections he tends not to use but doesn't let lie fallow, and is still considered not only marriageable, but quite a catch by the doyennes of New York society who want only the best for their daughters and think the Xavier money can get it. Twenty years ago, there might have been a whiff of Erskine Childers-inspired adventurism about him, but the only war now is a Cold one and there is nothing about him that said 'dabbles in espionage' even when he could walk.
Which makes it peculiar -- at best -- for him to be calling up the New York katsa and asking about a covert operative. There is no reason for him to know that she is anything but a cultural attache. There is no reason for him to know Erik Lehnsherr. She is here now because clearly he does and there must be a reason for that and she wants to know what it is so that she may take appropriate measures.
Hence the gun resting on her lap.
"I am a friend of Erik's," he begins, holding up his hand when she starts to react. Without needing his telepathy, he's aware that everything he says now must be precise and carefully chosen. She may be headblind, but she has not risen to her current station without being able to read both people and situations. "Or I was. As much as he was capable of having one. I helped him track down Klaus Schmidt."
Gabrielle freezes at the name, her eyes narrowing.
"He's dead, by the way," he adds. "Schmidt. By Erik's hand."
He barely suppresses the full-body shiver that comes unbidden with the memory of it, visceral and sharp and undimmed by the passing of time. Especially because he can see the coin, that coin, in her memories, lying in Erik's upturned palm.
She nods once. "Good."
+++
TBC, I suspect
[The point: Erik's resourceful, but you can't really be a one-man-band as a globetrotting Nazi hunter. He had help. And Xavier's hoping to use that because there's no other way to find him right now.]
"Should we stand at the steps or something? Be prepared to intercept if she doesn't stop?"
Charles looks up at Sean, all eagerness and earnest excitement. "I don't think it will be necessary," he assures, doing his best to hide his smile. "And if it is, I don't think it would do much good."
Gabrielle Haller is employed in the Office of Cultural Affairs at the Israeli General Consulate in New York. She may very well have duties that involve cultural affairs, but she is primarily a spy, the Mossad's lead agent in New York. Even with the assistance of their mutant abilities, Charles isn't sure he'd give Sean and Alex the odds of making her go somewhere she didn't wish to go.
"C'mon," Alex says, pulling at Sean's elbow. "Let's go catch a movie. The new Hitchcock is playing over on Third Avenue."
Sean is momentarily distracted. "It's about birds."
"Maybe you can pick up some pointers," Alex suggests easily. Too easily, because Sean starts to bristle. It's been a rough couple of weeks as far as Sean's advanced flight training has gone -- his dexterity in the air is ever-improving, but his landings remain rough.
"There's a new Disney film, I hear," Charles says as Sean prepares to inhale deeply. "If you two are feeling childish..."
Sean exhales with a harmless sigh. "We're stopping at the Chock full o' Nuts for egg creams and nutted cheese," he warns.
Alex holds up his hands to indicate he wishes no argument.
"See you later, Professor," Sean says, then taps his temple. "Call us if you need us."
Charles watches them cross the plaza until they disappear behind a planter, then returns his attention to the building across the street that houses the consulate. It's the end of the lunch hour and the sidewalk is thick with UN employees walking east back to work; the Babel-esque sea of words flows past his ears easily even as he catches snatches of mental conversation that require no translation.
He watches with his eyes and his mind for Haller, unsure which will let him find her first. He's not sure what she looks like; he knows her name only from a passing glimpse in Erik's mind and that was less a picture than an emotional impression. But fleeting glance or not, she was a name he could connect to Erik and, perhaps, a way to connect to him now.
"Doctor Xavier?"
The woman standing next to him, tall and about his own age, most certainly did not come out of the doors he'd been watching. He also didn't feel her approach, which disconcerts him but shouldn't because there was no reason for him to hear a stranger over the crowds if she wasn't mentally shouting his name. It's just the circumstances that are making him ill-at-ease, the potential for danger combined with his acute awareness of just how much his physical limitations hamper him now in ways they hadn't before.
He shakes himself out of his surprise and smiles, holding out his hand. "Miss Haller," he greets her. "I'm so very glad you agreed to meet me."
Up close, her wariness radiates off of her like a perfume. She's not worried about her safety -- at least not from him -- but she is taking no chances. She's carrying a gun in her purse, which she sets on her lap for ease of access as she takes the seat Charles offers with a grand gesture.
"You gave me no choice, Professor," she says as she brushes imaginary lint from her skirt. "You present far too many questions to be ignored."
Her accent is similar to Erik's, English artfully arranged over German, but the cadence and pronunciation are different, more cultured and graceful by nature and not by the necessity of Erik's chameleon life. It does not make her seem less dangerous, however. Beneath the well-tailored clothes and elegant comportment that are supposed to announce 'finishing school' to people of Charles's social standing, there is her mental aura, which to a telepath does not so much say Chateau Mont-Choisi as 'survivor.'
But he cannot, must not, react to what everyone else cannot see, and so he just smiles in what he hopes is a harmless fashion. "I do have many questions, some of which I hope you'll have the freedom to answer."
He'd called the consulate the week before, asked to speak to Miss Haller, and had been told that that was not possible at this time and would he like to leave a message. He did, saying he hoped she'd be able to put him in touch with a friend he'd lost track of, Erik Lehnsherr. It had been something of a wild guess and a great risk, but one that had paid off. He'd come upstairs from Hank's laboratories yesterday to find out from Sean that Miss Haller would meet him tomorrow and had provided a place and time.
"Before I answer anything, Doctor, I would have you answer one question first," she tells him and he has to wait for the words to come out of her mouth before answering because he can hear them so clearly in her mind. "Who the hell are you? And don't tell me a friend of Erik Lehnsherr."
She's done research on him, he can see in her memories, but is not satisfied by the answers. In every official and unofficial record, Charles Xavier is a promising Oxford don who is trying to turn prep school headmaster after a car accident left him a paraplegic. He comes from money, has social connections he tends not to use but doesn't let lie fallow, and is still considered not only marriageable, but quite a catch by the doyennes of New York society who want only the best for their daughters and think the Xavier money can get it. Twenty years ago, there might have been a whiff of Erskine Childers-inspired adventurism about him, but the only war now is a Cold one and there is nothing about him that said 'dabbles in espionage' even when he could walk.
Which makes it peculiar -- at best -- for him to be calling up the New York katsa and asking about a covert operative. There is no reason for him to know that she is anything but a cultural attache. There is no reason for him to know Erik Lehnsherr. She is here now because clearly he does and there must be a reason for that and she wants to know what it is so that she may take appropriate measures.
Hence the gun resting on her lap.
"I am a friend of Erik's," he begins, holding up his hand when she starts to react. Without needing his telepathy, he's aware that everything he says now must be precise and carefully chosen. She may be headblind, but she has not risen to her current station without being able to read both people and situations. "Or I was. As much as he was capable of having one. I helped him track down Klaus Schmidt."
Gabrielle freezes at the name, her eyes narrowing.
"He's dead, by the way," he adds. "Schmidt. By Erik's hand."
He barely suppresses the full-body shiver that comes unbidden with the memory of it, visceral and sharp and undimmed by the passing of time. Especially because he can see the coin, that coin, in her memories, lying in Erik's upturned palm.
She nods once. "Good."
+++
TBC, I suspect
[The point: Erik's resourceful, but you can't really be a one-man-band as a globetrotting Nazi hunter. He had help. And Xavier's hoping to use that because there's no other way to find him right now.]
no subject
Date: 2011-06-20 20:12 (UTC)Good point. Especially since Erik's mutant power doesn't make it that much more easy for him to get resources or information from people than it would be for a regular human. Erik with Charles telepathy at his disposal otoh would have been much scarier, and perhaps could have done something like that. I mean, it's far more inconspicuous to pluck information right out some banker brain without them even noticing than having to threaten them with literal teeth pulling...
no subject
Date: 2011-06-22 04:39 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-30 05:35 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-30 16:11 (UTC)The Mossad had trouble getting into Argentina after kidnapping Eichmann in 1960 and were starting to get heat from elsewhere for their actions; a free agent who couldn't necessarily be tied to them who wants to go in on his own steam? Sure.