[MM3]Sunstormers IC

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Tony Jones
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

Post by Tony Jones »

Khemis is content that she has made her thoughts on the subject known, and she knows you can't do much more than that on the Internet...

"Yes, this is Khemis," she replies to the caller, without letting on that she recognises the voice. "How can I help you?"

OOC: Also, did she have any luck talking to a police sketch artist while she was there?
jmucchiello
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

Post by jmucchiello »

Deborah also spends a little time at the station getting surface thoughts from the various people around her. She's gauging how many people have been influenced by Harold to become anti-sunstormer.

She leaves the station and goes back to her high-rise condo. Her staff bombard her with questions about what happened at the plaza and whatever work she was hoping to get done for her next video does not happen. She sends them home early using the trying day as an excuse. She feels she needs to loop someone into her being a sunstormer but she isn't sure. She files that thought away and thinks about how she's going to approach the meeting later tonight. Checking the weather, she sighs when she sees how cold it will be. Well, it will be easier to be disguised wearing a heavy coat and a scarf or two. She knows her hair will not enjoy the ski hat.
Neo-Paladin
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

Post by Neo-Paladin »

//Yes, she did. This call assumes that she did.

Deborah notices that the ordinary citizens at the station are too busy with their own problems to really think about it. Harold has a lot of the officers getting nervous, but with most, it's not yet ready to develop into full-blown prejudice.

Khemis' caller pauses, gathering his thoughts and composure...
" Look, I am not supposed to call you, but...this woman you described. The dark one? I...have heard of her before. My fiance's nephew in Atlanta...he's probably a Sunstormer. We don't know yet. But he's had hallucinations since he woke up from the coma. Always seeing this woman..."
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Tony Jones
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

Post by Tony Jones »

"Thank you for that," Khemis tells the officer politely. "That is really quite worrying. If she's trying to influence someone in Atlanta, and has influenced Harold here, then whoever she is, she has a much longer reach than I had thought when I saw her in the crowd at the Plaza! Maybe she looked so pleased because Harold was her first success."

"But I suppose you can at least tell your fiance's nephew that he is not hallucinating, but that a Sunstormer is trying to influence him, get him to do what they want. That they are real and he should resist them, and not do what they suggest."

"And if she is trying to influence people here and in Atlanta, how many other people across the country - and maybe the world - is she trying to influence?"

"We need to find out more about this. I'll post the image I have on Sunstormer related social media. Try and see how many other people may have seen this woman. Maybe get some idea how big a problem this actually is. Thank you again for coming forward with this."
Neo-Paladin
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

Post by Neo-Paladin »

" Thank you...it's just that nobody else could see her even if he says she's standing in a crowd. His parents are worried sick. At least I can tell them that they don't need to send their son to therapy. Since the whole Sunstormer thing became known, they've been wary around him anyway because nobody knows what he'll manifest..." The man is babbling, that much is obvious, trying to deal with the stress in his own way.

//What's Helen doing?
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Tony Jones
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

Post by Tony Jones »

"Seeing her in the crowd when no-one else could is exactly what I saw," replies Khemis soothingly. "Even the other Sunstormers at the Plaza couldn't see her."

She pauses. "Please tell his family that he is still their child, even if he might have Sunstormer powers. Or end up looking ... unusual. He'll need their support, not their rejection!"

Her last words get a little more intense and passionate than the ones when she started, as it hits a bit close to home for her.

"Has anyone done some kind of facial recognition search on this woman?" Khemis asks as the thought occurs. "If she is in the 'system' that might tell us more about her? [OOC: Unless this happened in the background at the police station, in which case I guess the woman didn't show up, and Khemis won't mention it now.]
Neo-Paladin
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

Post by Neo-Paladin »

" I will...and no, she hasn't shown up anywhere. She's not registered in our files."
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Tony Jones
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

Post by Tony Jones »

"Ah, that's a shame," Khemis replies. "Oh well. It can't be helped."

"But thank you for reaching out," she continues. "And please let your fiance's nephew know that if he wants to talk, he can find me on most social media these days. Or there are Sunstormer support groups out there he might find helpful." [OOC: A number of these must have sprung up in the last week!]

She gives the officer a moment in case they want to say anything more, and if he does not then rings off with a "Goodbye!"

----

Once Khemis finishes the call, she starts posting the picture of the woman to all of the Sunstormer-related social media sites she can find, in particular the support groups and related sites.

'Have you seen this woman and no one else around you has? Is she trying to influence you? You are not hallucinating or going mad. Other people have seen her too, in the same way, when no one else does. And in places hundreds of miles apart. I'm trying to track down anyone else who may have seen her. Please contact me if you have any information on her.'

She realises this might be putting a bit of a target on her back, or at the least risking getting every kook on the internet spamming her, but still thinks it is worth doing if she can find out more...

[OOC: This may take a while, and she doesn't expect any response any time soon, so I'm happy for this to keep her busy until it is time to meet up with the others at 10PM.]
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

Post by Neo-Paladin »

We can move forward to the meeting now.

Helen, meanwhile, arrives home and, exhausted, eventually decides to go to sleep. But the events of the day do take their toll...and by the time she realizes how elusive sleep is today...she also realizes she is hovering several inches above the bed...
((Sorry, triggering her ability as GM fiat since she is not fully aware of it and thuis has no full control))
jmucchiello
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

Post by jmucchiello »

Deborah's day is spent reading people's reactions to the events of the day. It isn't good. At 9 pm, she has to resist the urge to leave early to go to the park mere minutes away from her high-rise condo. She steps out onto her balcony and floats slightly upward a few feet. Should I fly to the park? She imagines flying straight out over Lake Michigan and then heading north so she could arrive in the park from the northside, so anyone seeing her land doesn't think she just lives a few block south of the park. Inwardly she sighs about being secretive. Someone with her level of social media presence learns early to keep the number of secrets they guard as low as they can. Her concentration lapses and she drops back down to the balcony. No, I'm not ready for that kind of flight, she thinks.

9:07. I don't want to be too early. Don't want someone snapping a pic of me in the park at night with some kind of salacious headline in the morning.

Around quarter of, she met her driver and had him drive her to the park. He was to circle until she called him back. Bracing for the cold she stepped out of the car and wrapped her scarf around her face better. With the hat and scarf the cold was tolerable. She walked through the snow toward the lit face beacons in the fountain area. She leaned near the southern tower waiting for someone else to arrive.

Image
kenmadragon
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

Post by kenmadragon »

Sunny

Sunny had a relatively uneventful afternoon. Work kept him busy for the most part, though coding and double-checking the configurations on remote devices could get pretty tedious. Some online conversations with other colleagues showed that he wasn't alone in feeling the drone of yet another day of remote work. Sunny loved it - sure beat sitting at a desk in an office doing the same thing. He wouldn't be able to kick back at an office-desk while wearing slippers and a bathrobe as he worked, much less have his personal laptop playing youtube videos on the side. It also allowed him to more flexibly set his own hours, so he could log off when it was around dinner-time and make himself a nice, warm meal - grated cheese, quickly chopped lettuce, some black beans and a little store-bought guacamole in a wheat tortilla on a pan made for really quick burritos. Took a bit of work, but Sunny had already finished his leftovers from last night's takeout for lunch, and getting take-out so regularly wasn't a great idea after the Sunstorm - global supply lines that had been returning to a semblance of normalcy in the last year after being disrupted by the pandemic were now further disrupted further by the Sunstorm. Getting access to certain lentils and spices from India was a lot more expensive now, which was really, really annoying.

Once his plates and dishes were cleared away, Sunny checked the weather and clicked his tongue in annoyance. Freezing temperatures were bad enough, but there were going to be winds over 10-mph that cause wind-chill and make the world outside feel like it was sub-zero. It was already pretty darn cold in the day-time, but the winds and temperatures were much worse this late in the evening. It would be even more so up in the skies, where the winds were stronger and more biting. While Sunny no longer felt the chill the same way as he did before the Sunstorm, he still needed to blend in and pick his attire accordingly. Thankfully it wasn't going to be snowing tonight, so at least he could wear the more comfortable jacket and pants than his water-proof ones.

In practically no time at all, Sunny was comfortably attired (despite not really needing the layers for this level of chill) and out the front door of his apartment complex. He'd already mapped out his route to Millennium Park online hours before, but road-maps were not terribly useful if you could just fly over the city. Even keeping himself to sub-sonic speeds more reminiscent of a car on a freeway, taking the crow's-flight path towards Millennium Park (with only a few turns around the skyscrapers, just for fun), got him there pretty quick. He landed a short distance away on the roof of a brick building (some storefronts, Sunny believed), then vaulted over the side to land in the alleyways before making his way out onto the surface streets after checking that the coast was relatively clear.

Minutes later, Sunny was staring at the glowing face on the Crown Fountain statues. Considering the hour and the temperatures, there were very few people who would be present in Millennium Park - and given how the area where the Crown Fountain was was really flat and without any real cover against the wind, even fewer were by the fountains. The wind howled and Sunny questioned whether this was the best place for a clandestine rendezvous with other heroes, or if they might have been better served looking for a quiet cafe instead.

Sunny waited for a minute, walking the perimeter of the Crown Fountain, glancing at the edges of the salted-promenades and sidewalks which bordered the fountains, before realizing that there was someone just standing there, near the southern tower of the two fountains. His eyes narrowed, pupils adjusting as he focused and called up his telescoping sight. Yup, that was a woman standing there. Vision filtering in non-visible light to perceive greater spectrums of electromagnetic frequencies gave him more information - there was the tell-tale thrum of power about her. She was a Sunstormer.

Huh. Sunny could have sworn he was early enough to be the first one here. Guess not.

...Well, he better head over to her, then, huh?

Sunny walked down the sidewalk towards the southern fountain then hopped off it when he was close enough and headed over to the woman, hands in his pocket and his gait casual. His pace was slow enough to ensure that she saw him coming, but not so slow as to seem sinister. Once he was close enough, Sunny waved in greeting, smiling behind his mask and scarf. He recognized the aura around her now - she was the telepath.

"Hi there! Guess I wasn't the first one here, huh?" Sunny chuckled. "I hope you haven't been waiting out here in the cold for too long..."
jmucchiello
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

Post by jmucchiello »

"Hi, it's not so bad in the lee of the monolith. How were you sure it was me?" Deborah asks lightly out of curiosity.
kenmadragon
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

Post by kenmadragon »

Sunny took a breath, reveling in the plume of wispy white that escaped in his exhale, gathering his thoughts. He certainly wasn't going to admit to the fact that he was casually checking her out in energy spectrums beyond visible light to see if she had the aura of the Sunstorm radiating off of her - that sounded creepy. On the other hand, he had another way of explaining it that wasn't un-true either.

"You're a woman standing in the lee of the Crown Fountain monolith a few minutes before 10PM. It's currently below freezing and the winds tonight are terrible enough to make someplace this open feel sub-zero. You haven't moved from your spot since I got here, despite the cold, and are obviously waiting for someone because you keep looking at everyone that walks by. If you were a pretty girl waiting for a date or a friend or someone else, you'd be doing it from the cafes across the street and be checking your phone for updates. But you? You're waiting for a stranger out in the cold and dark." Sunny explained, shrugging.

He smiled under the mask and scarf, a little pleased with himself. "I had pretty good odds, so I took a guess. You just confirmed it."
Last edited by kenmadragon on Thu Apr 28, 2022 6:50 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Tony Jones
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

Post by Tony Jones »

Once she was done on the internet, Khemis prays, then changes into a fresh set of clothing, this time a blue headscarf and trousers with a loose cream long-sleeved shirt, again seeming far too light for the freezing weather outside.

One dressed, she emerges from her room and spends some time with her flatmates Astrid, Bibiana and Maria over coffee. She catches up with their days and tells them about hers. Among other things she discusses how she might return to her university course without giving away her identity...

As 9PM approaches, she says her goodbyes, and steps back into her room, closing the door behind her before putting on her flip flops and, invisible in the darkness outside, slipping out of the window, up the wall to the roof and away. She takes a roundabout route, including leaping from rooftop to rooftop hidden by the darkness, eventually emerging onto West Belmont Avenue and walking to an eastbound bus stop.

She keeps hidden in the shadows, people watching, until she sees the number 77 bus approaching from the west.

Ignoring the glances of the other passengers and the worried look of the bus driver, she paid for her ticket like like any other passenger and took a seat at the rear of the bus.

From there she looks out of the window at the passing city. Keeping an eye of things. The city is dark to other people, but not, thanks to the grace of Allah, to her.

Fortunately tonight is quiet and the bus reaches Belmont and Sheridan without incident, where she disembarks and makes her way unseen to Lake Shore Drive.

A few minutes later the number 146 bus comes down from the north and she emerges from the darkness to board it and pay for her ticket. Everything outside was also quiet as the bus trundled down the shore of Lake Michigan before turning inland, into the centre of the city, where she disembarks at State and Washington and once again blends into the darkness as she walks briskly towards Millennium Park.

Still one with the darkness she leaps gracefully over the locked gates of the closed park and makes her way towards the Crown Fountain and the glowing faces of the statues at each end.

Maintaining a modicum of caution she circles the fountain, invisible in the darkness, and quickly spots the two figures standing in the lee of the south tower.

For a moment she considers pranking them, appearing out of the darkness and shouting 'boo!'. But no. Definitely not the responsible thing to do. And likely also not a good idea to be surprising people with superhuman powers!

Instead, she simply lets her blending into the darkness fade away, and walks out of the shadows towards the pair, her light clothing fluttering in the icy breeze.

"Good evening!" she calls when she gets to within a few metres of them.
Last edited by Tony Jones on Fri Apr 29, 2022 6:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
jmucchiello
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

Post by jmucchiello »

"Hello. How did it go for you at the police station? I hope the officers there were less... abrasive," Deborah says.
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