001. [Video]

[doctor_mccoy]

[ Audio kicks in before the feed does, only for a few seconds and with it comes the dull buzz of distant voices and lazy not-quite-bustle of a restaurant, a diner perhaps, which becomes clearer with the slanted view of a waitresses elbow as she passes, and the florescent lights above.  The NV is propped up (properly).   The man is disheveled, exhausted, but god knows he's probably been awake since he arrived late last night, but then who could sleep after that? ]

"You're kiddin' me right now...." 

[At least the coffee he has clutched between his hands is probably helping, or just fueling his already exasperated bewilderment of the entire situation.  Thankfully no one knows him enough to recognize that the sardonic expression on his face is just the little sputtering fuse on it's way to the dynamite.]

"Sorry I ducked out of the welcoming parade, aloha's and floral leis aren't exactly my thing."  [That's dripping sarcasm boys and girls, because by aloha's he means "monsters" and by parade he means what the hell just happened? ]

"I'm guessing my road to enlightenment is paved with questions, so if anyone can spare a minute to fill me in on what exactly is going on here that wasn't covered in the vacation brochure, I'd be obliged."

[Don't expect him to show much appreciation, but he'd really like to fill in the blanks.   Oh and feel free to join him in the diner, but expect to pay, seems he left his wallet in the 23rd century.]

Comments

[southernreaper]

[Kevin shrugs.]

From what I 'member, jus' 'cause they c'n, don't mean they know what they's doin'. Meanin' anatomy an' all that still come in handy.

[Hey, that's what the problem with Josh was...]

[doctor_mccoy]

Fantastic, means I can fix what they screwed up.

[Don't get him on the topic of work, he's even more irritable then.]

... so what's your trick, kid?

[southernreaper]

[Kevin looks up from his meal. Green eyes flashed behind long bangs, and he loses the easy going southern gentleman attitude that he's had until now.]

Some people heal with a touch.

[He clenches a gloved hand into a fist. The glove creaks softly.]

Some o' us don't.

[doctor_mccoy]

[Alright, easy there Mr.Hyde. McCoy just looks at him, polishing off the bacon on his plate so at least the chewing keeps him quiet enough to think about how to answer that. He can put two and two together easily enough.]

I'd be worried... but you seem like good people, kid.

[southernreaper]

[He can't help it. Because... people always treat him different after they find out. Especially when they realize it's his entire body and he can't control it. It'll take him a minute to relax. He'll just take a moment to sip his coffee.]

Ain't always. But m'Daddy taught me not to let anythin' stop me from tryin' t'be a gentleman, an' a friend.

[doctor_mccoy]

Sounds like our folks took a page from the same book.

[Not that McCoy was doing a very good job at showing the colors of his proper upbringing, maybe if the world wasn't so damn irritating he'd have a better time at it. The 'please' and 'thank you' lessons had gone right over his head.]

So, clearly you didn't get the pick of the litter on powers. Is it fixable?

[everything was fixable.]

[southernreaper]

[Kevin stares at him. Just... stares.]

Ain't... C'n I learn t'control it? Maybe, eventually. Ain't nothin' wrong. Jus' a genetic quirk o' my DNA.

[Because being able to kill with a touch is just a genetic quirk, of course.]

[doctor_mccoy]

[Curious, he just stares back with an arched brow. Wait a cotton-pickin' minute...DNA?]

You're saying you had this quirk before you even got here?

[southernreaper]

[Kevin nods.]

Yes sir. Back in my world, mutants - folks that got powers 'cause o' their DNA - were common. Had it... [He stops for a moment.] Almost two years now, includin' how long I been here. Got it when I was fourteen.

[Sooo... he's 15.]

[doctor_mccoy]

Mutants? Not a very pretty word for it. [it wasn't as if he hadn't seen his fair share of mutations, either due to interspecies reproduction or reactions to different sort of radiations. But nothing that gave people strange powers.]

...Is it a select gene mutation at birth or an outside factor?

[now he was curious.]

[southernreaper]

[He's 15. He doesn't know all these things... But he'll try.]

I c'n tell ya what I know? On my world, some humans're born with a specific gene sequence, called the 'X-Gene'. There's very, very few that're born with it active. C'n think o' two that I know o'; ain't neither one here. Fer others, like me, it activates, usually durin' puberty, durin' times o' great emotional stress.

There's a few others from m'world in the Port. They might know more.

[doctor_mccoy]

[McCoy studies him for a moment, thoughtful, but it's really interesting from a scientific stand point. Not that he should be worrying about that right now with so much on his plate.]

Theoretically if it manifests at puberty, and is dormant until then, it could be switched off.

[Kid, you may have just become a side project. But it wasn't as if he had a lab to work with at the moment.]

[southernreaper]

[Kevin actually chokes on his eggs right then. He jerks his head up and looks at the man utterly horrified. His hands dropped into his lap and he leaned back against the booth, the color draining from his face.

Did he like his powers? No. Did he want control? Yes. Did he want them taken away? Hell no.]

That... that ain't...

[Nope. Still horrified. He'll try to figure out how to say it.]

No. Takin' a mutant's powers is akin t'rapin' their minds. It's like sayin' the color o' their skin ain't right or... the color o' their hair ain't right. It's... No. Powers cain't be switched off. It destroys who someone is.

[doctor_mccoy]

[He hardly moves past a quirked brow, and if he's worried about having offended him it doesn't show. Teenagers tended to over react anyway. Besides, Kevin had just admitted to having some wacky power that could hurt people, or worse, if McCoy read between the lines properly.]

I'm not here to judge you, kid, i'm just saying it should be possible.

[southernreaper]

[Offended? Not really. Scared shitless? Yes.

Kevin shakes his head.]

Ya don't understand. Ya cain't. One o' m'teachers back home, his powers make 'im blind. Ya shut 'em off, an' he won't have no balance, no depth perception, no nothin'. 'Nother teacher back home, if'n he didn't have his powers, he wouldn't be able t'walk, 'cause o' his body. An' if'n several mutants didn't have their powers, they'd be dead, an' so would a lot o' others.

[He stares at the doctor.]

Would ya shut off someone's sight, or their hearin'? That's what shuttin' off a mutant power is.

[He's so not a good one to talk about this. He's really not... but he's trying.]

[doctor_mccoy]

[It's a long moment of him sipping his coffee. He's still curious about it, despite how adamant the kid is about protecting it. Made sense if they considered themselves a whole new race, if there was enough of them.]

Alright, so it makes sense that a mutation would evolve to compensate for a handicap, most do-- of course it usually takes a few hundred years in an entire species, not one at a time.

[He was thinking out loud, moving to flip his PADD around, opening an app to make a few notes, mostly for himself.]

... you should probably lay off the coffee by the way. M' not shutting anything off.

[southernreaper]

[Kevin looked over the rim of his coffee cup and pointedly sipped it. You could take his coffee when you pried it out of his cold dead fingers.]

Sorry, but back home, there's people who c'n take ya powers away. They don't exactly care if'n ya willin', or if'n ya survive or not. In fact, if'n ya don't, all the better fer them.

[He set his coffee mug down.]

It's somethin' we get a mite worked up about.

[doctor_mccoy]

Fair enough. I'm not a geneticist, it's an interesting subject.

[and sorry kid, but you're an interesting case-study.]

[southernreaper]

[Great, now he's a lab rat.]

There's a doc here, from my world. Probably knows quite a bit, since he's a mutant too.

[doctor_mccoy]

[Now now, he'd have to have a lab for that.]

Don't suppose I'd mind meeting him.

[southernreaper]

[He's smart. Kevin's sure he'll figure something out.]

I'll give 'im yer name, if'n ya don't mind. Mutants're... untrustin'.

[doctor_mccoy]

Yeah well, that makes two of us.

[southernreaper]

[Kevin smiles crookedly. McCoy doesn't know paranoia. Not until he meets more mutants.]

I'll try t'call 'im later.

[doctor_mccoy]

[oh believe me, he knows paranoia. He's pretending this place doesn't bother the shit out of him... stiff upper lip and all that jazz.]

Appreciate it. The help too.

[What's that, almost two thank yous today, he's on a roll.]

[southernreaper]

If'n ya need some place t'stay, I got a few suggestions. [A frown for a moment as he tries to think.] If'n ya need a job, I'd ask a doctor by the name o' Miss Unohana. Pretty lady, Japanese, works at the clinic.

[He pulls out a pen and a piece of paper and writes down a pair of addresses and his number.]

If'n ya ever need anythin', jus' gimme a call. Even if'n it's just chicken an' dumplin's, cause everyone 'round here is yanks and cain't cook t'save their lives.

[Atlanta boy is snobbish when it comes to southern food. He's going to find okra, eventually, dammit.]