Never According to Plan

[Kara Hawkins]

Vacations are supposed to be relaxing.
Vacations are supposed to be fun.
Vacations... are supposed to go according to plan or be awesome when they break away from them in spontaneous glory.

So Kara refused to call what happened in Florida a Vacation.

It had been... an exercise in communing with your abilities and testing your merit and self control when things go belly-up. Yes. That was a far better way of putting it.

The plan had been simple: Go to Florida, bum around an ATM long enough to snatch other tourist's PIN numbers out of their heads and wallets out of their purses, don't take a TON, just enough from each one until you had a buttload, use the money to go on a drunken rampage through Disney World that would never be forgotten.

Only it hadn't gotten that far. Bank security had caught on to what she was doing after the first two people and had called the police. Only problem was they couldn't figure out how she had done it. So with no real evidence they had tried to keep her. Yeah... that didn't work out so well for them. Kara hadn't hurt them or anything, but there certainly was going to be a few officers who had the unfortunate business of trying to explain how their suspect (She loved how they used that term even when they knew you were damn guilty) had walked right out the front door.

And now she came home, back to Arizona, the armpit of the United States, empty handed and...

A man standing in the middle of her single roomed studio apartment?

The fuck?

Kara pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes for a moment before opening one and glaring accusingly at he intruder.

"You better tell me who the hell you are and give me one good reason to not start screaming for my crazy gun-toting neighbor."

[Michael Beckett]

Michael immediately took a shine to the concept of a crazy gun-toating neighbour. It appealed to him on a number of levels. For starters, he liked guns: so the prospect of finding a kindred spirit so close by was nice. More than that though, Michael was Canadian: and things like crazy gun-toating neighbours went a long way to confirming all of the racial stereotypes that floated up past the border.

Best of all, the thread was completely and utterly empty. Michael wasn't a rookie. This wasn't his first rodeo. And while admitedly he was more of a team player than a solo operator - solo operators in the Army were otherwise known as idiots, or eventually KIA - he was at least smart enough to surveil the building for long enough to be sure that there wasn't anyone even remotely formidable left inside.

"I'm sorry," he said, with enough sarcasm clogging up his words to stop the apology sounding even remotely genuine. "Your crazy gun-toating neighbour isn't home right now. And even if he were -"

He wrenched out a pistol the size of a small dog - one of the bits of techo wizardry that his employers had managed to get their hand on, which would aledgedly stun his targets in a cool science fiction way, instead of a lame tazer way - and brandished it casually.

"- pretty sure mine is bigger."

He tossed a shrug in the redhead kid's direction. "I need you to come with me now, Miss Hawkins. I will knock you unconscious and drag you in if I have to, but I would really prefer it if you just came quietly. It'll be much less awkward and uncomfortable for everyone involved that way."

[Kara Hawkins]

Well fuck...

The gun was well... intimidating. It was meant to be, she figured, so at least it was doing that part of its job well. She had no intentions of testing out the rest.

Not that she had intentions of going quietly either.

She considered asking again who the hell he was, but the whole call-you-by-your-last-name thing could really only mean that he was with some sort of agency and with her track record and is fancy equipment it probably meant two things: The Feds, or some crazy anti-mutant organization that was going to eliminate her. Nice.

Not that she had a lot to start with, and mostly everything she had wasn't technically hers anyway, but she still was pretty pissed off about having to ditch it all. Oh well, go out with a bang!

"Well, since you put it that way..." Her eyes flicked away from the Agent-of-Whatever and towards the decent sized television that sat on her dresser. Kara didn't figure his eyes would follow hers... that was, until the thing was picked up and hurled at him. It didn't have to be hard, the thing was big enough to cause enough problems...and a great distraction for her to bolt out the door and run down the hall towards the fire escape.

[Michael Beckett]

Michael almost shot the TV. Which would have been a bloody useless thing to do, all things considered. Maybe a decent shot with a large enough calibre weapon would have knocked it off course or something, but the stunner? That would be like standing in the middle of the railroad tracks with your pants around your ankles, and trying to slow down an oncoming train with a stream of your own piss.

The smarter plan was to just get out of the damn way, which Michael managed to do, barely. His leap for safety was perhaps a little more theatrical than it needed to be, but at least he escaped the electronics assault without any damage, and had managed to aim himself at a relatively comfortable patch of sofa.

His quarry was already gone however. A curse tumbled from his lips. "Why do they always run?" he muttered to himself, clambering back to his feet, and hurling himself through the door in her wake.

[Kara Hawkins]

There was no turning back to look if he was gaining because he was obviously going to follow. The fire escape was reached, but not before she managed to detonate a fire extinguisher in the hall, sending shards of it's glass display, metal bits of the canister and white puffy foam and smoke everywhere. Kara knew it wouldn't stop him. When the Feds wanted you, nothing really could stop them. Slow them down, discourage maybe...but stop?

She might later reflect on the ease of using her telekinetic abilities against meaner objects when she was stressed out, but right now adrenaline was kicking aside all curious thoughts and gave full way to a variety of curses that were only found in the best British mob crime movies.

Kara's exit was perfect, even so far as riding the rapidly depending ladder down to the ground at the end of the fire escape. She hadn't quite planned for the teeth gritting impact when it connected with the alley though. Pain rattled through her in one good jolt but the need to flee was stronger than the need to find out if she actually hurt herself.

But where was she going to go?

Fuck it. Kara would figure that out later. Now to just get somewhere safe...

The street was too risky and the alleyway had all sorts of miserable endings... usually in a chain-link fence. Cars and people were objects you didn't want to mess with, though. Fences could be torn down...

The choice was simple: The alley.

[Michael Beckett]

Michael Beckett had a select few skills. Shooting things was one of them. Flying things was another. The third of significant note was jumping off or out of things. Often the jumping came immediately after the flying, and shortly before the shooting. It was all wonderfully organic and interlinked, really.

The fourth thing was sarcasm. Smart-ass comments peppered the majority of what he did, and they did not form a link in his skillset chain: they were the glue that held the links together, or something. Or maybe not. Whatever. You had to go a hell of a long way down the hierarchy of things he was good at before you found being an intellectual, and he was completely okay with that. He didn't need to try and understand the technobabble, because someone would inevitably dumb it down for him. Life was easy. Life was sweet.

However, it did lead him to do some very stupid things at times, like hurling himself off a fire escape and into an alleyway.

He landed on a closed dumpster, knees absorbing the impact and converting it quickly into a second leap towards the ground. He landed half way into a crouch, and admittedly, the entire ordeal made his legs hurt like hell. Too much to put up with all this bloody running, anyway.

He rose to his feet, a growl tumbling from his lips. "Stop!" he bellowed, his commanding voice echoing down the alleyway in her wake. His hand trained his oversized pistol on the fleeing shape of his quarry's back; the debris and obstacles she tossed about with her powers not nearly enough to obscure his clean shot. "Stop, or I shoot you and make you stop."

[Kara Hawkins]

Not gonna happen.

Well, that's what she would have said if her lungs hadn't been so busy trying to force in air as she heedlessly continued onward.

Of course, luck wasn't her power, or her strong suit recently. There was no chain link fence at the end of the alley way like the movies always showed. It just came to a stop. Another apartment building. Sure she could have found her way around it, but... path of least resistance and all that. Which meant another fire escape, only this time going up. She couldn't just enter this building though - which meant the roof.

And what the hell was she going to do when she got there? Some crazy parkour shit that would get her from one roof to another and maybe around and away and out of site?

Psh... it was worth the chance. Not that she knew if her abilities would let her control her body like she did other objects, but there was always a first time for everything when it came to sussing out what you were capable of.

[Michael Beckett]

Dear General Heller -

Michael grunted as he spurred his jarred knee into action, surging down the alley and around the corner where Kara Hawkins had disappeared from view. It seemed obsurd when you thought about it. Given the amount of gun crime in the United States, he'd never have imagined it would be this difficult to shoot somebody.

I regret to inform you that I will be tendering my resignation, effective immediately. This job sucks, and people won't stay still long enough for me to shoot them.

Beckett's boots gave him much more traction than Kara's civilian shoes, and his special forces grade fitness and longer stride closed the gap between the two of them in no time at all. His eyes settled on the fleeing redhead, clambering up the fire escape that snaked it's way up the side of another building. He levelled his pistol and fired, A pulse of crackling blue energy racing towards Kara; but it splashed harmlessly against the fire escape, the partial cage of metal that surrounded the girl clearly doing something wonky to the stun blast, which probably had something to do with magnets.

He growled, eyes quickly sweeping his surroundings, and his mind cursing the fact that no one had bothered to invent a Batman style grapple gun for him just yet. There were no short cuts; nothing he could conveniently jump up onto in order to get within snagging distance of the girl.

"Tranquilizer gun," he muttered to himself as he began his rapid clamber up the fire escape ladder. Metal and magnets wouldn't screw up one of those, and he still wouldn't get in trouble for killing anyone. "Next time, bring a tranquilizer gun."

[Kara Hawkins]

Did he just... try to shoot her?

She was taking the stairs two at a time now.

What the HELL type of GUN WAS that?!

Her brain wasn't registering the fact the metal surroundings had saved her. If she had figured that out she may have stopped running, forced the guy to get in close so his gun was practically useless and then... what? Fight hand to hand? All the practice of floating things in the air was definitely not going to help against someone who was probably trained in all sorts of combat. Yeah, okay, so it was best that she hadn't considered it... well, not in any serious form anyway.

The roof was still the best option, but when she finally cleared the last step and found herself standing amidst the air conditioning unites and other utilities that buildings tucked away up top she found her idea well... had been a pretty shit choice. The next roof top wasn't nearly close enough to jump to like she thought it might be.

Fucking lying media.

They had been right about all the hiding places though. So she quickly ducked behind a large box-like thing that seemed to encase something that hummed awfully. As she pushed her back against it, she felt strong vibrations run against her spine. It was a miserable sensation, like you were being slowly shaken apart from the very core of your being. But, Kara figured, it had to be better than getting shot.

[Michael Beckett]

A final showdown on a rooftop. Everything else aside, Mike had to give the kid credit for her sense of drama and genre-appropriate decision making.

Of course, she was totally ruining things by hiding now. How the hell were you supposed to feel like Batman chasing someone across a rooftop, when the person you were chasing turned things into a weirdly distorted game of laser tag? Or telekinesis tag. Or whatever it was that the kid was playing at.

He walked slowly, gun held ready in both hands as his vision swept the various hiding places that littered the rooftops. Making a young woman - a young woman with crazy psychic powers, granted, but a young woman all the same - run away and hide was feeling very, very unheroic, and frankly it was messing with his job satisfaction. Worse, anyone who read his mission report was gonna rib the shit out of him for having so much trouble bringing in a little girl. That simply would not do.

So, he settled upon using the only weapon in his arsenal that could shoot around corners and behind walls: his mouth.

"I saw the security tapes from the Precinct," he announced, ears peeled between words for any sounds of shuffling and scuffling that might give her a clue to his location. "You wouldn't have walked out of there if you could have flown, so I'm guessing the only way off this rooftop is through the sexy guy with the gun."

He waited; checked behind one of those air vent outlet things that looked like candy canes for giant robots. Nothing. Not a sound. Not even a swoon. That was disappointing. Maybe she hadn't got a decent enough look at the beard.

"I'm not a cop," he added, hoping that would maybe win her over a little. Nobody liked cops. Cops didn't even like cops: that was why they were always grumpy, and why they had to comfort-eat doughnuts all the time.

People like mounties, his brain protested. And Mike had to admit, it was a good point. But mounties weren't just cops. They were beyond cops. Supercops. Who didn't like a guy in an awesome hat?

"Frankly, I thought what you did at the Precinct was damned cool. And that's why I'm here," he continued. "I'm not here to arrest you: I just have orders to bring you to New York so you can sit down and have a talk with the General."

[Kara Hawkins]

Not a cop. Didn't rule out not a Fed... but the word General messed with her perception even more. Military? Why would they be after her? And more to the point, have a talk sounded an awful lot like Tell Us Where the Rebel Plans Are and that never ended well. Now that she wasn't consumed with running away she could focus. Which was necessary when it came to the other side of her abilities. Tossing things about with your mind had been pure instinct for her, something she had learned how to control and master quickly. Telepathy on the other hand was far more tricky. Which was a blessing probably... she never had inadvertently overheard people's thoughts. Not that she couldn't read minds... it just took a great deal of effort and most of the times it came to her like trying to listen to a bad radio station where half the words were cut off and the rest were heard at various volumes. Controlling people, altering their perception, even that was easier than just reading what they were thinking for some reason. But there was one thing she had figured out and gotten pretty good at and right now it was what she needed.

I don't believe you.

The thought would pop into Beckett's mind. Just a simple thought, simple was good. It wasn't like she had spoken into his mind, more just planted the thought in there from her perspective. At least, that's how a friend who had helped her figure it out had described it at the time. Maybe it was different for everyone. Sadly, she wasn't planning on asking this guy.

Her chosen hiding place was near enough to the edge of the building and she eyed it intensely. Moving objects was easy, but she honestly hadn't experimented with moving herself. She doubted she could levitate herself and make herself fly, just like the guy-with-the-gun had pointed out, but maybe, just maybe, if she jumped she could slow her acceleration and come to a nice gentle landing rather than take a one-way-trip to splatssville.

[Michael Beckett]

I don't believe you.

Beckett nearly filled his pants. This wasn't something that they taught you at soldier school: crazy broads whispering in your head with magical powers. Screwing around inside people's heads just wasn't right. There was no way you could defend against that. At least, not completely.

He did have a plan, though. Scrunching his features up into his concentration face, he focused really hard on an image of himself in the shower.

That she didn't believe him was troubling, though. He was a people person. A likable guy. Sure, he often had orders to kill a lot of the people he was sent to meet, and he often had to annoy people into submission in order to get what he wanted, but that was still dealing with people, right?

He sighed and stopped, crouching a little as he sent his pistol skimming along the ground towards the edge of the group. It scuffed awkwardly against the... whatever the hell the roof was made of, and inside he weeped, making a silent vow that he'd polish it better when he made it back to base.

He straightened up, and held his hands in the least threatening way he could. She probably couldn't see, but whatever. When they turned his life into an autobiographical action movie, this would be exactly what the scene required, so he retroactively made it true to life.

"I'm unarmed," he called, in his friendly voice. "Not a cop. Not a spy. I'm just a strange man who wants to fly you to New York in his helicopter. Nothing weird about that at all."

[Kara Hawkins]

Was he even listening to himself?? Nothing weird about that?? Very fucking funny.

The sound of the gun scraping across the rooftop was promising, but she still had to wonder if he didn't have a backup of some sort, or three... But she could even the odds up a little bit. The gun raised into the air and shot behind her hiding place and smacked into her hand satisfyingly. Only once she got a decent hold on it did she slowly stand up. She didn't aim the weapon at him, rather kept the barrel aimed towards the roof, but she was more than ready to raise it if necessary.

"Why New York? Why not here? There are other ways to meet with people than barge into their homes and," she paused to nod her head towards the techno-fire arm. "Threaten them."

She glanced at the edge of the roof again out of the corner of her eye. "Going off with strange people who chase you down is a sure way to end up dead in a gutter. You start explaining yourself and what this is really about and I might start considering seeing things your way."

[Michael Beckett]

Beckett shrugged, his arms folding casually across his chest. He kept his tone light, but behind his eyes he was still frantically imagining the process of scrubbing shampoo into his chest hair; he kept a careful look out for any telltale signs of disgust or arousal that would tell him if she'd been poking in his brain again.

"You're a very cautious person, Miss Hawkins. You're also a fellon. You're honestly trying to tell me that if I'd knocked on your door and flashed a badge at you, you wouldn't have just mind-raped me like the guys in Florida and walked right on past?"

He shook his head. "You're not the first psychic I've met, Kara. The only way for a mundane guy like me to stand a chance is to catch you off guard - get the upper hand before you've got time to work your crazy mojo."

His brow furrowed, intensifying his visual scrutiny of her as he idly chewed at the inside of his cheek. Apparently Chuck Norris could control the length of his beard by chewing it off from the inside, but Mike hadn't quite worked out how to do that yet. It was an ongoing project.

"But you want the story, so fine. Here's what you need to know."

He drew in a breath, as if he was about to embark on a triumphantly long list. "Uno: I am a soldier. I'm not a cop, or a spy, or any of that cloak and dagger stuff. I'm not even American: I'm from Canada. So I don't give a damn about the pockpocketing in Florida, the GTA joyride in Seattle, the chocolate bar you psychic-shoplifted from the corner store last weekend, the sexy lingerie you lifted after breaking into a locked up mall a few months ago - I would've gone with the purple rather than the black, by the way - or the apartment full of stolen goods downstairs."

He fixed her with a look. "Yes, we know they're stolen. We checked your financials. And the financials of your friends and family. And the security cameras at every store in a two mile radius. We have a lot of resources -" He trailed off for a thoughtful moment. "- and apparently far too much time on our hands."

"Dos: we've been watching you for a long time. We watch a lot of people who have the potential to be useful to us. That means we know quite a lot about your misdemeanours, and we have plenty of tasty footage to boot. Just because we don't care about your antics doesn't mean that the Feds won't: I hear they've got a bunch of agents dealing with people like you who think their powers put them above the law."

Despite the threat in his words, Michael rattled them off like he was reading the instructions on how to make a soufflé from a cook book.

"And trés: we're not new at this. We have all kinds of contingencies set up. If I don't show up with you in New York by the end of the day, all that information gets emailed to the Hoover Building in DC. You can screw with my head all you want. You can probably try it with the first couple of agents you run into. But every crime you pull just makes you more and more dangerous as far as the US government is concerned. If you run, they're not going to give up: they'll just send more and more people after you. You can't run forever. And you can't mind-wipe the entire world."

There was an intensity in his gaze: but it was one of honesty, not threat. He implored - that was an awesome word - implored to her with his eyes, willing her to think about the sheer gravity of her situation.

"The people I work for: they can make it all go away with the click of a button. Not just the evidence we have: we've got enough pull with people in the right places to get every single misdemeanour scrubbed."

"And to earn that?" He shrugged. "All you've got to do is come with me to NYC, and hear the General out."

[Kara Hawkins]

He had a good point. Well, three good points, apparently. That last one had been the real kicker though. She figured it would only be a matter of time before her antics got her caught. Kara took the moment to consider that this was actually far preferable to someone who instantly offered her a set of metal bracelets for her trouble.

It still didn't make sense what the military wanted from her, though. But given the list of petty crime that he had listed off so quickly, she could start making a few educated guesses. Maybe they'd even take her to a secret underground bunker and start calling her Soldier Hawkins.

Ha.

Right.

Funny though.

"Okay." No fancy way of putting it was coming to mind, she'd spent all the good ideas on trying to make a poorly-planned get away. "I'll go for this little chit chat, you guys clear my record, everyone goes home happy."

[Michael Beckett]

Okay.

Wait. What?

Surprise snuck up and kicked Mike squarely in the balls. His brain recoiled in confusion, scampering to the back of his skull while it tried to fathom what had just happened. His genius plan had been to stall and distract the girl, so that he could whip out his second pistol and pump her full of stun blast. Then he'd scoop her up, march back to the airfield, and walk in with the target in his arms all triumphant like.

But instead, he'd apparently managed to talk his way out of a situation, rather than shooting his way out.

This was gold. This was brilliant. This? This was getting rubbed right in Lockhart's face, the second he next saw her.

"Well, you'll be happy," he threw back, his mouth firing off and potentially undoing all his good work before his brain had an opportunity to engage. Emergency protocols kicked in though, and slapped a hint of a smile on his lips. "I was kinda hoping to shoot you. You did throw a TV at me, after all."

[Kara Hawkins]

"I could have made the roof collapse on you instead." She delivered the line deadpan. After all, Kara wasn't entirely sure that she couldn't have done it, but it sure as hell sounded good.

Her grip on the gun didn't lessen any, though. Some part of her wasn't so damn sure that the soldier-boy wasn't going to say fuck it and carry on with is grand idea of shooting her anyway.

Kara's first few steps towards him were cautious, almost timid, as if any wrong move from him and she would bolt again. It was hard trying to talk your body down from doing things that seemed perfectly logical.

"Guessing you'll be wanting to take me to your fancy helicopter now? I haven't even had lunch and you know... jet lag's a bitch."

[Michael Beckett]

"Oh, hell no."

A single finger rose to his ear, pressing the bud sized earpiece that was tucked with in. "Copy that, AF-6," he said, seemingly to himself, the subvocal mic strapped to his throat picking up the words and relaying them to the radio tucked beneath his clothes. His eyes swept his surroundings, gauging the heights of the various prominances and protrustions on the appartment block rooftop. "We're clear for pick-up."

His hand fell down, and he reached for the sports watch strapped to his wrist. Fingers pressed and held buttons in opposite corners; after a second or so, the backlit display flashed, a beep sounded, and his hand returned to his ear. "Beacon is lit."

He turned his attention back to the girl, and flashed her a that's right, I have James Bond shit going on right now smile. "The helicopter is coming to us."

He frowned for a moment, contemplating her other comment. A helpful suggestion sparked in his mind, and tumbled out of his mouth. "You probably won't end up too jetlagged if you let me shoot you with my stun gun."

[Kara Hawkins]

"And I'm sure the trip will be much more pleasant if I hurl your body into the helicopter blades." She held the sickly sweet smile for just a beat before letting it drop.

If he wasn't such an ass, Kara might even have allowed herself to show that she was pretty impressed with the whole spy routine. It seemed like a lot of trouble and yeah, it had her curiosities even more peaked about why some General with a bunch of fancy toys wanted to even remotely take any of his time to speak with the likes of her.

But solider-boy had to go and ruin it.

Not that she was really helping but Kara pretty much made the decision right then and there to avoid having to talk with Captain-Shoot-You as much as possible. It was going to be a long damn flight to New York.

[Michael Beckett]

"That's just stupid," he muttered. "It'd break the engine, and send you tumbling to your death. That's pretty much the opposite of pleasant."

His eyes were drawn upwards, his attention grasped by the sight of the chopper forming on the horizon. It wasn't the most subtle of aircraft, admittedly: it was blatantly military, and wasn't the sort of thing that people saw flying overhead and dismissed as an every day thing. But it was the best they'd got; the best that he'd been able to commandeer from the air pool in New York. And when you thought about it, it was kind of impressive too: most helicopters were burdened with poor fuel efficiency that ballsed up their effective range, but the geniuses at the Tread-something aerospace firm that had designed the contraption had found a pretty effective way to duck around that problem; the helo could make it from Arizona to New York and make it seem like it was as casual as a trip to the store.

Mike cast another look back in the girl's direction, and contemplated following through on his threats of shooting her. Maybe if he aimed it right, it wouldn't even knock her out. The techs had told him to aim for center-mass if he wanted to actually incapacitate someone. Maybe if he just went for an arm or a leg, she'd have a mega case of pins and needles for an hour. It was almost worth it just to see what would happen.

But on this rare occasion, Mike decided to be the bigger man. Bigger person. He turned his mind to more creative solutions. "Do you think they'd let you take a helo through a drive-thru?" he mused aloud, a hand scrubbing at his beard.