"I'm sorry to call you back in, Jono. We know you wanted time to yourself after the 'incidents' with Weapon X."
By 'incidents' you mean getting m' whole life turned up on its arse. " It's okay, Scott. Can w' just get started?" I shook my head at thinking of how this entire mess had begun. I hadn't even really been sure I wanted to come back, but sometimes the choices made are not necessarily the ones you really wanted. And now, I was sitting in an Edinburgh pub, watching a girl have a wonderful time with her mates, while I nursed a pint and tried not to look obvious or suspicious.
She was beautiful, a musician, apparently quite smart and funny, and very, very active in the underground club scene. She also happened to be a mutant, and apparently a mutant at risk from Weapon X. So, after that bit of information had been dug up, the Professor had decided that someone needed to keep an eye out and stop them when they tried, and why not send the person with lots of dearly bought experience in espionage, who would also know about the girl's hobbies. So here I was. At least I wasn't covered in bandages anymore. That made the shadowing a bit less conspicuous, though I was sure she'd spotted me at least once. And while I'd been mentally shielding, she seemed to have caught a whiff of me psychically at least once or twice.
Frustrating stuff. Especially since, in any other context, I'd probably be quite interested in chatting her up. Shaking my head again, I let my mind drifted back to the biographical data on her. Alexandra Maeve MacVei, age 19. Excellent musician, father an actor of good reputation, mother a quantum physicist. Parents still very much in love with each other, remarkably enough. She had a decent amount of money behind her, skilled Bass guitarist and vocalist. What they'd been able to tell me about her powers was that they included eye-contact triggered hallucinations, being able to bring someone pleasure and-or pain, some mild psi and not-so-mild empathy. She was not too difficult to look at, either, she was tall and posessed a toned, slenderly curvaceous build. Her hair spilled to her hips in waves and appeared night-black in shadow, but when it caught the light, it shimmered with violet and plum highlights. Smooth, pearl-pale skin contrasted nicely with her hair and her face was a lovely, slim oval set with wide, slanting, almond-shaped eyes of a deep indigo, delicately chiselled features and soft, full, cupid's bow lips. If only I'd met her in a club instead of as part of a secret mission...
I'd also been getting a decent look at her bandmates, who seemed to mostly be her best friends, except for one gent who kept standing a bit out, apparently the boyfriend of one of the members, and looking a bit greasy. Some of them came to the bar to get a new round, and I put my head back into the sport page, attempting to keep from being recognized, and grumbled again. No, this really wasn't all that fun at all. Every other mission like this, I'd been encouraged to try and talk to the subject as part of the investigation or detail, even if I hadn't revealed why. But with the X-men in enough of a public stink of late, not to mention mutants in general, I'd been told to keep covert, and it was damned annoying.
By 'incidents' you mean getting m' whole life turned up on its arse. " It's okay, Scott. Can w' just get started?" I shook my head at thinking of how this entire mess had begun. I hadn't even really been sure I wanted to come back, but sometimes the choices made are not necessarily the ones you really wanted. And now, I was sitting in an Edinburgh pub, watching a girl have a wonderful time with her mates, while I nursed a pint and tried not to look obvious or suspicious.
She was beautiful, a musician, apparently quite smart and funny, and very, very active in the underground club scene. She also happened to be a mutant, and apparently a mutant at risk from Weapon X. So, after that bit of information had been dug up, the Professor had decided that someone needed to keep an eye out and stop them when they tried, and why not send the person with lots of dearly bought experience in espionage, who would also know about the girl's hobbies. So here I was. At least I wasn't covered in bandages anymore. That made the shadowing a bit less conspicuous, though I was sure she'd spotted me at least once. And while I'd been mentally shielding, she seemed to have caught a whiff of me psychically at least once or twice.
Frustrating stuff. Especially since, in any other context, I'd probably be quite interested in chatting her up. Shaking my head again, I let my mind drifted back to the biographical data on her. Alexandra Maeve MacVei, age 19. Excellent musician, father an actor of good reputation, mother a quantum physicist. Parents still very much in love with each other, remarkably enough. She had a decent amount of money behind her, skilled Bass guitarist and vocalist. What they'd been able to tell me about her powers was that they included eye-contact triggered hallucinations, being able to bring someone pleasure and-or pain, some mild psi and not-so-mild empathy. She was not too difficult to look at, either, she was tall and posessed a toned, slenderly curvaceous build. Her hair spilled to her hips in waves and appeared night-black in shadow, but when it caught the light, it shimmered with violet and plum highlights. Smooth, pearl-pale skin contrasted nicely with her hair and her face was a lovely, slim oval set with wide, slanting, almond-shaped eyes of a deep indigo, delicately chiselled features and soft, full, cupid's bow lips. If only I'd met her in a club instead of as part of a secret mission...
I'd also been getting a decent look at her bandmates, who seemed to mostly be her best friends, except for one gent who kept standing a bit out, apparently the boyfriend of one of the members, and looking a bit greasy. Some of them came to the bar to get a new round, and I put my head back into the sport page, attempting to keep from being recognized, and grumbled again. No, this really wasn't all that fun at all. Every other mission like this, I'd been encouraged to try and talk to the subject as part of the investigation or detail, even if I hadn't revealed why. But with the X-men in enough of a public stink of late, not to mention mutants in general, I'd been told to keep covert, and it was damned annoying.