2012-08-04 Three Girls and a Geek

It's nearly closing time for Midtown Center's finest cellular phone store -- the one where the clerks have not recently been turned into goats -- but that's okay. Doug doesn't need to go in. He does, however, need to go -past- it in order to find himself an early dinner, and where to stop is warring for dominance in his mind with other, more troublesome subjects. All in all, it makes for a pensive-looking, distracted young man. So distracted that he's completely forgotten to feel uncomfortable in his suit.

If Doug were anybody else, this would be an uneventful walk. But Doug is not anybody else, and that means that when he rounds the corner to pass the phone store, he finds himself walking straight into somebody. He doesn't know who -- in fact, he's 90% certain that he didn't see anybody -- but he still gives a startled yelp and stumbles to keep his balance. "Sorry!"

Someone--Someones--have a phone. They keep meeting people. |"No, I think you..."| |"Esme, stop."| |"Sophie, give it..."| Learning to use it is going about as well as you'd expect. Sophie is too busy paying attention to Esme's untoward phone-snatching to see what's in front of her until it's too late. Good thing Doug's face had somewhere soft to land.

Sophie yelps in a completely un-Cuckoo-ish manner and hops back a step, one hand to her chest. |"NO!"| |"Bad human!"| |"Bad touch!"| All three girls--gorgeous, tall, blonde, identical, flawless girls--turn dangerous, near-glowing stares on the perpetrator, as though preparing to reduce him to ashes.

Oh, sure. -Now- Doug can see them. All three of them, apparently, and he goes -- appropriately -- white as a ghost. He hurriedly holds up his hands. "I'm really very sorry," he repeats quickly. "I didn't see you there. Completely my fault!" Please don't eat me.

There is a momentary stand-off, then detente as the girls finally agree on something for the first time in an hour--forgiving the unwitting. |"Smart."| |"Yes, very."| |"Interesting."| They have an ulterior motive of course. Now Doug gets smiled at, sweetly. The girls do know how they're expected to act to gain ground with most people.

"Our fault." "We were playing with the phone." Esme holds it up to show him. "We just got it." "It's a bit confusing." As much as they'd like to play human, the way their words slide from one mouth to another without pause definitely does nothing to promote that notion.

Okay, that's... a little unsettling. Even moreso than three identical Amazons glaring at him in the first place. "New gadgets do have a bit of a learning curve," Doug replies after a moment, still wary, but unable to resist looking at the phone when Esme holds it up to show him. "That's a nice model, though. Newest sPhone?" he hazards, tilting his head.

The girls shrug carelessly in unison. "It must be." They wanted the best one in the shop. "We didn't really want one." "But people we actually want to talk to." "Keep wanting to talk to us."

Sophie remembers her manners a bit belatedly. "Sophie," she says, extending her hand to Doug. "And Esme and Phoebe." Not that it matters but she's trying to be social--this business where people talk to each other just because is hard going. |"Tell him we don't know how to work it."| |"But we can..."| |"He doesn't know that."| "Do you know much about phones?"

"Doug," he replies promptly, flashing a smile at the trio and reaching out to shake the offered hand. Now that they don't look like they want to skin him alive with their minds, he's finding his footing again. Though the rippling conversation is still a little bit weird. "I know a bit. I'm a little behind on most tech things," he admits sheepishly. Being dead will do that to a guy. "But if you're having trouble, I can try to help. Do you have a manual or anything?"

"It came in the box." Phoebe proffers the box. "But we shouldn't keep you from where you were going," Sophie says. |"He's hungry."| |"He's rather small."| |"Maybe he's still growing?"|

"We were going to get something to eat," they say, lying smoothly. |"Eating is social, he'll talk to us there."| |"Maybe he knows about..."| |"...we are not getting more strange looks for asking about Christmas."|

"So was I," Doug replies with a smile, accepting the box and giving it a quick look. Yup, manuals still inside. Excellent! He leans to the side so he can gesture past them. "I was headed to a burger place on the corner. We could snag a booth and I could help you three try to figure this thing out?" He's helpful and not at all easily manipulated by telepaths, no sir.

Victory. And no telepathic manipulation. It's the legs. And the curves. And... well, the whole deal. Who needs telepathy?

Sophie slides her arm through Doug's. "That would be lovely." |"This is fun."| |"His brain is so complex."| |"He likes us."| |"Of course he does."| |"Fun and useful."| |"And not crazy..."| |"Yet."|

Yet. Doug blinks owlishly when his arm is claimed, but he doesn't protest. He's too surprised and puzzled by why anyone would do such a thing, and much too polite. So he just flashes a slightly uneasy smile and starts walking, this time vowing to pay more attention to where he's walking. The manuals will wait until they're sitting down, he doesn't need to go digging into them now.

...of course, literally the second they've made it into the restaurant and been shown to a booth, Doug is shaking the manuals out of the box while he waits for the girls to lay claim to their seats. Then, he claims his own, and starts reading, paying no mind to which language is on the page he's opened up to. "All right. Let's see here. What are you having trouble with?"

"All of it." One of them seated across the table from Doug is looking at him, chin in her hands, as though he were the most brilliant person ever. |"He's reading the Korean pages."| |"He understood the Dutch pages as well."| |"And the Chinese."| "Let us buy you lunch." |"We're keeping this one."|

"All of it." Oh boy. Maybe Doug's biting off more than he can chew with this one. (It never, not for one second, occurs to him that they're lying in order to spend time with him. Who would do that? For him?) "Okay... see the little 'S' near the top of the phone?" he says helpfully, looking up from the manual. "That'll turn it on. The little rocker-switch next to it controls volume."

"Let me guess," Sophie says, as Esme obligingly leans forward to look at what Doug's doing and Phoebe looks over his shoulder. "Chocolate shake, fries, and a burger... with everything for you. I'll be right back." She gets up and walks off to order--though 'walk' is such a painfully mundane thing for the way she moves. For now, the girls haven't put their mental field back up, and not only are they getting glances, so is Doug.

Of course he is. Look at who he's having dinner with. Anybody'd wonder. Doug blinks owlishly at Sophie, his brow furrowing as she rattles off his order and walks off to place it. He's too surprised to pay much attention to the walk. Very slowly, he brings his gaze back to the other two, and it doesn't take him long at all to do the very basic math. |"You're telepaths,"| he thinks, his mental voice clear and not overbearingly loud. He's done this before. |"Aren't you?"|

It's not as though they can hide it very well when they're not trying, not from those who know about such things. There's a hiccup of surprise and bubble of laughter in their thoughts. |"You know what we are. Even better."| The mind that touches him is far more than one mind or even three minds. |"We like you."| Across the table from him, Esme gives him an adorable little finger-wave. Hi.

A part of Doug regrets tipping his hand, just a little. But the majority of it is still too perplexed by the entire situation to really dwell on it. Besides... they're telepaths. They'd have known he figured it out even if he hadn't 'said' anything. So Doug just smiles oddly at the wave and coughs, looking back down to the manual. |"I'm flattered,"| he replies honestly. |"Very confused, but flattered."| "Be honest now," he says after a moment, glancing between the two. "You don't really need my help with your phone, do you?"

"No, but it was fun to pretend." For what it's worth, that's Esme. "We really like your brain." That's Phoebe. |"Don't worry, we don't want to eat it."| |"Most people are just so."| |"Painfully boring."| "Also, if you teach us our phone." "We won't fight about it." |"That never ends well."| Sophie is getting the royal treatment and scramble at the counter.

Where oh where to even begin. |"My brain is honestly not very interesting,"| Doug notes sheepishly. |"It's mostly just full of useless trivia and obscure tech specs."| He casts a brief look towards the counter, amused, before looking back to Esme and Phoebe, lightly tapping his fingers against the manual before he shakes his head and looks back down at the manual. "...okay. You can set which apps open at startup by flicking the screen left..."

They laugh at him again. |"You're too modest."| "We're paying attention," Phoebe says, watching the phone. "We won't pry," Esme promises. |"We don't do that to people we like."| Sophie returns with their order number, which she hangs on the edge of the table. "We'll try and be sure you won't regret running into us," she says.

"Thank you," Doug replies, and the smile he offers them is genuine. He's pretty sure his bit of anxiety would be noticeable even without telepathic powers, so he really does appreciate it. "And thank you for ordering the food. Are you sure you don't want me to pay my own way? I can cover it."

"We don't usually get to be social." "We're having fun." "And we don't have any trouble getting money." |"You can pay next time."| Doug is on the receiving end of three meltingly sweet blue gazes but the tones in his head are solemn. |"You have your secrets."| |"We have ours."| |"We think you know how to keep a secret."|

No trouble getting money, huh. Doug's expression goes, for a moment, just a little bit troubled. |"I do have some practice,"| he reluctantly admits, pushing the concern aside. Later, if at all. "I'm glad you're having fun. I know how hard it can be to find sometimes." |"Especially when you're... you know."|

That gets more laughter. |"You have no idea."| |"Maybe one day we'll tell you."| |"But you have enough on your mind for now."| Sophie slides her arm around Esme and rests her head on Esme's shoulder. For just a moment, they all look tired, then it's gone.

A waiter arrives with four chocolate milkshakes and a big basket of fries. "Burgers will be out in a minute," he says, before disappearing.

"We're still not used to this," the girls say in that rippling way as they watch the waiter head off, "living in the same space as all these people but never really in the same world. Like when you're swimming and you look up to see people standing on the edge of the pool. Does one become accustomed or is it always so strange?"

"It's always a little weird -- or it has been for me," Doug replies in a quiet voice, wanting to speak aloud but not necessarily be overheard. He peers after the waiter before hunting for a good place to set up some ketchup. Fries require ketchup. |"Did your powers only manifest recently? You seem to have a very good handle on them."|

More laughter from the girls. "No. Not recently at all." "We're just new in town." "So to speak." It helps when other people can talk while you eat french fries.

Talking to people--smart people--is a delight, they're finding. If they hadn't been so worried about being traced in this area by forces they won't even name, they might have found people to talk with sooner. Then again, they likely would have alienated people at the time, more than they do now.

"Ohhh. I gotcha." Well, not entirely... but Doug has met a few mutants from strange places. He went to school with a fair few. With a smile, he picks at the fries a bit while waiting for his burger, and for his shake to melt just enough to be drinkable. "If you're not used to big cities, it'll probably stay weird for a while."

"Cities are fine," the girls say brightly. "It's the people we can't stand." "Present company obviously excepted." "Or you wouldn't have remembered meeting us." For some value of meeting.

Doug can't help but laugh. "I believe you. Thanks for letting me remember so far," he smiles, lifting a fry in a salute. "I'll try not to do anything to make you change your minds." Mind? ... Minds.

"Can we ask you some questions?" The girls can't ask Laura about being 'normal', of course. The burgers come and the girls wait for an answer. |"We can talk like this if you prefer, of course."|

"Sure," Doug says with a nod, giving his milkshake a thoughtful look before trying for a sip. ...good enough! He turns the manual around and pushes it across the table, in the meantime. |"For some questions, it might be better."|

"Thank you." |"This thing--coincidence."| |"Serendipity."| |"It happens to you, doesn't it?"| Random things happening that seem good are disturbing to them. |"That's normal, isn't it?"| |"That you would think of something."| |"And you'd just find it out of the blue."| Nothing happened to them before that wasn't planned and when they weren't interacting with people, it felt as though they had everything under control. Now, opportunities are simply everywhere and it's a bit upsetting.

Doug makes a thoughtful noise, leaning forward so he can prop his chin up in his hand. Even with the suit, it makes him look much younger. |"It does happen sometimes,"| he replies, his brow furrowing. |"I mean, it isn't likely that you'll find literally everything you think of. That goes past coincidence and into something else. But it isn't unheard of to have a run of good luck."|

The girls nod and take a bite of their burgers at the same time, in the same way. |"Not everything is perfect."| |"Just enough to feel."| |"Strange."| Their laughter is like bubbles bouncing off Doug's thoughts. |"It stands to reason."| |"That randomness would soon."| |"Produce a pattern of successes."|

"This is a hard world," one of them says. "And it's so lonely," says another. "Even with all these people." "We were getting lonely." "It was strange."


 * "Just be careful. Good luck runs out eventually."| Doug actually looks apologetic for pointing out such an obvious thing, but he hides it behind a bite of his own burger. The food at work isn't bad, but... there's a difference. "I know what you mean," he replies honestly, bringing his napkin up to wipe some food from the corner of his mouth. "Really. Friends help a lot, though. People you can trust -- though that part isn't easy to find, either, I know."

The girls shake their heads. "Most of these people can be bought." "You don't seem like one of them." "But everyone has a price." |"Even the best people."| |"Can't be trusted."| |"And most people are far from being the best."|

"Buying people gets a bit expensive, doesn't it?" Doug asks lightly, giving the girl next to him a curious look. "And it isn't all that reliable, not really."

The girls give him a level stare. |"The currency that works best isn't money,"| they say, in their strange-unison voice. |"And can be very reliable. Surely you know that."|

Doug pauses for a moment. Ah. Aha. |"Still expensive,"| he replies after a moment, his tone gentle. |"In its own way. Arguably in a more destructive way."|

"One only has to sell one's soul once," one of the girls says, stealing a french fry. She eats half of it and then feeds the other half to her sister. "After that, its destruction is irrelevant." Then the girls laugh. They've been told they don't have souls before. "Who are you friends with?"

"I don't have many right now," Doug admits, and if they weren't telepaths, it would probably be difficult to tell what makes him frown: that, or what they said. It's really a bit of both. "I have one friend that I went to school with... another who I met online recently, though we aren't that close, not really," he admits. "A few people at work feel like they could be. Some day."

"Too many secrets," the girls say sagely. "We only started thinking about it when we met someone with the same secrets as us."

There's a discernible difference between when they're talking as one even if only one speaks or speaking as individuals. Doug can't be sure how he knows, only that he knows it. They speak without speaking, too, the most minute gestures that are only noticeable because they have so few of the indicators most people use, universal expressions and gestures... as though they didn't learn to speak from humans at all.

Doug's paying attention to what they're saying. Really, he is. But he can't turn his brain off and he can't help but notice these things, and when he notices them, he can't help but think about them.

"Pretty much that, yeah," Doug replies with a sympathetic smile. He doesn't trust them, exactly, but he does trust them not to pry. It makes sense to him. "It's tiring, isn't it?"

"Shockingly." "We weren't expecting that." "For the longest time, the noise was terrible." One of the girls shrugs, one takes a sip of her milkshake, one reaches for more fries. "When it faded." "We started to feel--not lonely." "The feeling when you could be not-lonely but you are instead."

There's a pause and a glance between them. |"We're always a bit lonely."| |"We were five once."| |"Not anymore."|

Doug doesn't need to do any real complicated thinking to figure that one out. It actually made some things make a lot more sense. Something had felt like it was missing, like skips in a record, and now he knows why. |"I'm very sorry,"| he replies earnestly, reaching over to very briefly pat the nearest girl's shoulder before politely returning his attention to his food. |"I've only ever been -- well, that isn't true,"| he realizes, blinking down at his burger. He could never forget his self-soul-friend. |"I had a friend. We were two, but we were one sometimes. I miss him a lot."|

One of the girls takes Doug's hand, but it feels like three touches at once, strangely overlaid. |"We're very sorry. It is a loss few people understand. And it's best that they don't."|

This touch doesn't bother Doug at all. Also, there's something in his eye. Pay it no mind. |"There aren't many people who could understand, really,"| he agrees, giving the hand -- hands? -- a grateful squeeze. He'll just drink some more of his milkshake. Chocolate fixes everything. |"They'll try to. I'm sure what I experienced is very different from what you have, probably whole worlds different."|

The girls smile at him, in a way that he can feel it. |"Different, yes, but the loss is the same. Missing out forever on something no one else could give or understand. Moving forever through a world completely ignorant that what you felt existed at all."|

"Your friend is dead?" One of the girls says quietly. |"Sophie,"| says the voice in his mind. "Or just... gone?" |"Esme is across from you."| |"Phoebe is next to you."| That was Phoebe's real hand on his.

"I don't know," Doug replies honestly, reaching up to fidget a bit with his straw. |"I was, for a while."| There's no harm in them knowing that. It isn't useful. |"And when I came back, he wasn't here."| As he explains, his eyes move from one girl to the next as they're identified for him, trying to commit them to memory. Not names to faces, but names to mannerisms. Little personal quirks of motion. Body language.

The girls are quiet but Doug can tell that they're talking, the little flicker of an eyelid or the smallest downturn of a mouth. Sophie's in charge. Esme argues. Phoebe is pensive. |"We could look,"| they say at last.


 * "Oh, no, no, I couldn't ask you to do that,"| Doug says, giving Phoebe's hand a pat. |"It's... if he is around, we have mutual friends who will find him soon,"| he explains, with a small smile. |"And if he isn't... well. If he isn't, I wouldn't want you to waste the effort."| Aloud, he adds, "But thank you very much for offering. I know you meant it."

The girls nod. |"We understand."| |"To do nothing when we could do something."| |"Has never been in our nature."| "We had to offer."

Doug can't help but smile. "You didn't have to, but you did anyway. It was very kind of you." He leans forward long enough to nudge the basket of fries closer to Sophie and Esme. He's pretty sure Phoebe will forgive him.

"We could have not," Phoebe says, laughing as Esme snatches a few fries with a defiant look at her. "But we would not have felt like ourselves," Sophie finishes. |"It feels awful."| That's Esme, talking with her mouth full.

"Hiding who you are, denying it, is a terrible feeling. Sometimes it feels a lot more necessary than it really is," Doug says, before looking down to finish off his burger. Food. Food good.

"Yes, one can be too cautious entirely." "Sometimes for a good reason. "And sometimes," Sophie says seriously, "it only seems like a good reason rather than an excuse not to get hurt again." |"Good thing accidents happen,"| she adds with a wink.