John Jackson
May 11th, 2011, 12:09:16 AM
John hated airports.
The fact that they earned his ire was hardly unique. He hated train stations, too. Cinemas. Diners. Motels. Buses. Bridges. Park benches. It wasn't the crowds of people that you always had to negotiate. It wasn't the cacophany of noise that preyed on your concentration. It wasn't the inconsiderate assholes with their MP3 players blaring as they completely ignored any kind of manners and social convention.
Well okay; maybe they contributed a little. But mostly, it was the memories.
One of the weird things about human beings was that they really weren't all that private about what was going on in their heads, no matter how hard they tried to be, or how successful they thought they were. People always tried to hide their emotions from their expressions and their body language, and yet still radiated it from their minds like a giant neon billboard. The more intense the emotions, the brighter the radioactive sign.
Some mutants picked up on that sort of thing. John had met - even arrested - a few. Compared to him, they were the lucky ones. They plucked thoughts from the minds of people; felt their emotions when they were fresh enough for a difference to be made. John couldn't do that, no matter how hard he tried.
The trouble with radioactive anything - emotions or otherwise - was that it contaminated the world around it. From that perspective, John was a walking geiger counter. Every emotional high and low left an imprint on the place it had happened, and John felt every one of them. Every time he crossed a bridge, he felt the depression and despair of every person who had ever jumped. Every time he sat in a diner, he felt the nervousness and ellation of every first date; the crushing sadness of every last date; the bubbling rage of every seething bitch-session about that ex and the tramp he'd run off with.
They faded over time, and became blurry as new emotions were stamped on top. The fresher they were, the more he could determine: not the who, necessarily, but certainly the what and the why. That had been the one glimmer of hope he'd managed to find: turning his curse into a gift to help him catch the scum of New York City.
It had taken it's tole on his private life, though. Especially his love life. At first it had been great: every moment he spent in his appartment had been accompanied by the joy of every date; the merry comfort of every evening of sofa-cuddled movie watching; the blissful sensation of pure togetherness. And the bedroom? He'd had to resort to sleeping on the sofa when she was away, just so his head was clear enough to sleep. But then, as happened with every relationship, things went a little wrong. Though few, their arguments had been spectacular; and they lingered. And it became hard to savour those quiet evenings together when the bitter aftertaste of every row tugged at the back of his mind.
He'd kept it a secret for months; that had been a mistake. She'd suspected something; confronted him. So he told her. That too, it turned out, was a mistake. She'd left - for his sake, or so she said - and he'd been left alone as the bad memories became worse, and the sweet ones turned bitter.
When the LAPD had put in the call - contacted the NYPD for help in establishing their own mutant crimes division, Jackson had jumped at the chance. And so here he was, standing outside LAX, flagging down a taxi to take him where he needed to go.
He clambered into the back of the black-and-yellow cab that pulled up, keeping his conversation to a disgruntled minimum. A scrap of paper was dragged from his pocket, and passed wordlessly to the driver. On it was scrawled an address, and three letters: MCU.
The fact that they earned his ire was hardly unique. He hated train stations, too. Cinemas. Diners. Motels. Buses. Bridges. Park benches. It wasn't the crowds of people that you always had to negotiate. It wasn't the cacophany of noise that preyed on your concentration. It wasn't the inconsiderate assholes with their MP3 players blaring as they completely ignored any kind of manners and social convention.
Well okay; maybe they contributed a little. But mostly, it was the memories.
One of the weird things about human beings was that they really weren't all that private about what was going on in their heads, no matter how hard they tried to be, or how successful they thought they were. People always tried to hide their emotions from their expressions and their body language, and yet still radiated it from their minds like a giant neon billboard. The more intense the emotions, the brighter the radioactive sign.
Some mutants picked up on that sort of thing. John had met - even arrested - a few. Compared to him, they were the lucky ones. They plucked thoughts from the minds of people; felt their emotions when they were fresh enough for a difference to be made. John couldn't do that, no matter how hard he tried.
The trouble with radioactive anything - emotions or otherwise - was that it contaminated the world around it. From that perspective, John was a walking geiger counter. Every emotional high and low left an imprint on the place it had happened, and John felt every one of them. Every time he crossed a bridge, he felt the depression and despair of every person who had ever jumped. Every time he sat in a diner, he felt the nervousness and ellation of every first date; the crushing sadness of every last date; the bubbling rage of every seething bitch-session about that ex and the tramp he'd run off with.
They faded over time, and became blurry as new emotions were stamped on top. The fresher they were, the more he could determine: not the who, necessarily, but certainly the what and the why. That had been the one glimmer of hope he'd managed to find: turning his curse into a gift to help him catch the scum of New York City.
It had taken it's tole on his private life, though. Especially his love life. At first it had been great: every moment he spent in his appartment had been accompanied by the joy of every date; the merry comfort of every evening of sofa-cuddled movie watching; the blissful sensation of pure togetherness. And the bedroom? He'd had to resort to sleeping on the sofa when she was away, just so his head was clear enough to sleep. But then, as happened with every relationship, things went a little wrong. Though few, their arguments had been spectacular; and they lingered. And it became hard to savour those quiet evenings together when the bitter aftertaste of every row tugged at the back of his mind.
He'd kept it a secret for months; that had been a mistake. She'd suspected something; confronted him. So he told her. That too, it turned out, was a mistake. She'd left - for his sake, or so she said - and he'd been left alone as the bad memories became worse, and the sweet ones turned bitter.
When the LAPD had put in the call - contacted the NYPD for help in establishing their own mutant crimes division, Jackson had jumped at the chance. And so here he was, standing outside LAX, flagging down a taxi to take him where he needed to go.
He clambered into the back of the black-and-yellow cab that pulled up, keeping his conversation to a disgruntled minimum. A scrap of paper was dragged from his pocket, and passed wordlessly to the driver. On it was scrawled an address, and three letters: MCU.