Working on the Railroads [open]

[Pan Gomure]

Pan loved winter, It was the one time when she could wear gloves and earmuffs and not look insane. At the moment she was bundled up in a raggedy black coat with gloves on and earmuffs and a beanie on. Her pale skin and white hair stood out in stark comparison to her all black attire. She kept her head down and eyes shaded as she walked through the streets. Going to work sucked. They always demanded that she come in during the day. Why not at night, you know, when she wasn't actually terrified of everything happening. Pan grumbled to herself silently as she arrived at the police station.

As she arrived Pan removed her earmuffs. Instantly she was assaulted by at least ten different people's thoughts. All the way from policemen to somebody whose mother had been murdered, Pan nodded to the policeman near the door. Most of the people who worked here knew her, the mute albino who could read minds, from either her work there or her history. She walked over to the desk of the officer she usually worked with. "You called for me?" She asked in the officers mind. He nodded without looking up. "Go sit in the waiting area. We have a couple of suspects coming in and I want you to tell me if any of them are guilty." He told her out loud. He often called her in for little things like this.

Pan shuffled over to the waiting area and sat down in and empty chair. She grabbed a sketchbook out of her bag as she began sorting through peoples thoughts. Because of Alan's history in crime and her telepathy she made a good consultant for the police. When they wanted information gathered discreetly she was the gal to call. Thanks to her age and ragged appearance she wasn't the first person that people expected to be working for the police. Pan sketch people who walked in as she sorted through their thoughts. One persons dog had been killed by a Troublemaker. One person had faked their testimony for witnessing a murder and wanted money for it. Pan began drawing his face. Another person had a run in with a thief. The station was active today.

Pan never liked coming to the police station, but work was work. As she drew sketched out the faces of the people who were there for nefarious purposes she wished that she was allowed to put her earmuffs back on. Even though she could sort through all the thoughts in order to hone in on one specific person that didn't stop the constant chatter of everybody else's thoughts. Pan was aware that some of the policemen and women tried to stop thinking while she was around, but nobody could really stop thinking. Often the people who knew about her power began to wonder if she knew about some of their darkest secrets and then of course she did because she heard them wondering about it. She was like a box of everybody else's secrets. It was annoying.

[Sparrow Wrightworth]

    It's just a little business call, Sparrow told himself as he walked to the police station. The air was clear, crisp and chilled today as the young man walked down the sidewalk to the rhythm of his own thoughts. Visibly breathing into his hands covered by finger-less gloves, the boy continued to think of what he could do today. The police had recently endeared themselves to Sparrow for his natural talents of negotiation and interrogation, and considered himself an asset to the justice system. Due to that "fact", he had also been given the nickname "Justiciar Grandmaster" for his strategy and administration of justice, but that was merely a name. He of course didn't mind the title, but if it became a hassle for too much publicity, it could and would become a nuisance to his work.

    Sparrow placed his hands in his winter coat pockets as his sneaker-covered feet stopped at the front steps of the police station. With a small sigh, he walked through the door and felt a few eyes draw towards him. It was an easy thing to do, really, what with his snow white hair and ruby red eyes. With a calm smile he greeted some of the officers as he walked past, going to the secretary with a purpose. "Hello," he began as he smiled politely, "I believe I submitted some of my 'work' here a few days ago, and I just wanted to make sure the transfer and transactions went off without a hitch."

    With a certain bored look, he gave a small sneer to Sparrow and slid a signed contract across the desk. Taking the sign of completion and placing it in his grey coat's pocket, he pulled out a slip of paper in its place and slid it back to the officer. With a small grumble and groan, he looked at the paper and motioned for Sparrow to head over to the waiting area so his request could be fulfilled. Getting paid to follow his plans was ultimately a nice bonus for himself, although he wasn't hurting financially. Insurance and inheritances from a family of lawyers and judges that died in a series of fires had a nice balance at the end.

    As he walked into the waiting area, his eyes were immediately caught by a similar look to his own. A young girl sat with a sketchbook and pencil in hand, drawing something particular. He couldn't make out all of it, but it appeared to be a face of someone from the basic outlines. Sitting down a couple of seats away from her, he pulled out his phone and checked his messages quickly before putting it back in his pocket. For some reason, the girl interested him, but he could not place his finger on why. Shaking the thought away, he pulled out a notepad and a blue pen and began to write down some future steps that needed to be taken today. Every so often, he would look out of the corner of his eye to see the girl still sketching, and wondered what her story was....

[Pan Gomure]

As Pan was sketching yet another face of somebody who was guilty she felt somebody else's thoughts turn to her, but this time it wasn't about the fact that she could read minds, instead it was about the fact that she was albino. That wasn't exactly new for her. Pan scratched at the scars at the edge of her mouth as she ignored the guy and continued to do her job. It seemed, however, that the guy wasn't going to just ignor her like she was him. Pan rolled her eyes. "If you want to talk to me just do it." She projected into his mind.

A man walked in who was stealing people's pets for the reward money. Pan frowned and started sketching his face as well. The more people that walked in the more nervous they got. They already hated being in public without their earmuffs, but now it was starting to turn into a crowd. Crowds were scary enough without Pan being able to read their every thought. She continued sketching the guy who had been stealing pets. There were now around three or four faces on the page, each one having done something against the law to get into Pan's sketchbook. This was how she worked, drawing the faces of the people who needed to be arrested. The now sitting near her, however, seemed to work here just as she did.

[Sparrow Wrightworth]

    As he felt a girl's voice speak to him in his mind, he was a bit surprised. He hadn't met anyone with telepathy, and so Sparrow became immensely more interested. His own ability dealt with psychic powers, but it was in a more physically interactive form. To see someone who could read minds and speak through mental power was always an intriguing notion for Sparrow. Waving at the girl, he spoke, "Well if that's the case, my name is Sparrow. Pleased to meet you, miss."

    Continuing to write, the young man paused for a moment and noted what looked to be scars on the girl's mouth. Was she mute perhaps? He pondered the thought for an instant before going back to wrapping up his notes. The girl did not seem like one that would enjoy company, but Sparrow hoped that he could become a small exception for her. Making allies and avoiding animosities would make his plans so much easier, and more importantly, enrich his life further than it would alone. Putting the notepad back into his pocket, he looked at her again and asked, "I suppose if you are using telepathy, you would be considered a Gifted like myself. However, before this conversation continues, would you be more comfortable if I spoke or simply thought to you?"

[Pan Gomure]

As the boy, Sparrow, continued talking it became evident that Pan was either going to have to focus on the conversation or her work. While work made her money she kind of hated having to sift through all of the people's minds. It was much easier to focus on one person's mind and drown out everybody else's with theirs, so conversation it was. Pan closed her sketchbook and instead focused on Sparrow. Once she finally looked up she was slightly surprised to find that he was albino, just like she was. She heard his thoughts on the scars and flinched a little at the memory they brought on. "The scars haven't cause my muteness, but I am mute." She explained to him in his mind. Not only did Pan have scars on her mouth, but also on her eyelids, throat, arms, and many other places.

Pan shrugged when he asked if he could speak to her in his mind. "Speak to me however you wish. I won't stop you from thinking, but I can read your thoughts so that is a method of communication." Sparrow might find rather quickly that Pan wasn't much for conversations considering her usual friends were Darkness, but she wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to stop thinking so hard on other people's minds. Pan took off her coat as she realized that the inside of the police station was hotter than she needed a coat for. Underneath she was wearing a white shirt rolled up to her elbows with suspended on. This revealed not only her neck scars, but her arm scars as well. Pan didn't dare take off her gloves though. They usually kept her from passing out after touching things.

[Sparrow Wrightworth]

    Seeing the girl take off her coat, Sparrow noticed he was getting a tad warm as well. Taking his coat and scarf off, Sparrow folded them up and placed them neatly on his lap, "Thinking sounds good, then." he answered.

    As much as vocal conversation was a part of his job, focusing on his thoughts would be a nice distraction from the noisy waiting room. A quick glance to the right revealed a familiar face. He had received intel on the man a few seats away a few interrogations ago. There was a reliable tip that he was spotted breaking into one of the wealthy families' homes to steal some of the wife's jewelry. Of course, the man was also a high ranking official on the city council, so accusations could not be made lightly. Sparrow made a mental note to look into the man's connections later.

    He noticed himself getting lost in thought again and snapped back to the telepathic conversation. He smiled apologetically as he got a better look at the new acquaintance. She had a certain air of mystery about her, not from her muteness or her appearance, as there were many strange young adults in Argi City. No, there was a certain...displacement that set her apart from "normal" humans. Sparrow also took note of the gloves that she hadn't taken off. What were they for? Noticing the other scars on the girl's body, he winced slightly out of sympathy. He sprung back to the present and realized he had begun to trail off again and mentally kicked himself; "Pardon my spaciness. I tend to think about a lot of things as part of my work, and I have a hard time turning that off in my everyday life. On a better note, your sketches are quite impressive. Are you a witness of sorts, then? I happen to work with the police here as an interrogator."

    The thought of Sparrow's work passed through his mind so that the girl could have a general idea of what he did. Mostly it was shaking down criminals to get confessions or information, using his abilities as his method of leverage. It was then that he realized that the girl hadn't revealed her name yet; "Oh, I suppose I don't know your name...would you mind telling me?"

[Pan Gomure]

Pan nodded at the idea of a thinking conversation. They didn't really like thinking, or their power, but since they couldn't speak they were often caught inside their own thoughts. This would be worse than being caught in her thoughts since she's be caught in his thoughts and her thoughts, but it was better than everybody else's in the entire building. So Pan focussed on Sparrow's thoughts, and he did have a lot of them. His first thoughts drifted to a man, who was apparently fairly powerful in Argi's city council. Pan turned to the man and instantly his thoughts came to the forefront of her mind. He was here to report a break in, not because he had been a part of a break in. Pan turned back to Sparrow, disregarding the council man.

Sparrow really seemed to enjoy getting lost in his own thoughts, which was strange to her. This time his thoughts were on her and her scars, her gloves, and how she seemed strange to him. Simply wonderful. Pan kept a straight face as she sat and waited for him to actually talk to her. Thoughts directed at her and people's thoughts in general were different from each other so it wasn't very hard for apan to tell when he actually began talking to her. "I've noticed your thoughts, don't worry about it hearing people's thoughts is part of my job. Which is why I'm drawing faces. The faces are people who are guilty of some crime or another. The police call me in for many different thing and this is one of them." Pan explained.

The thought on his work was interesting. Apparently he was gifted too and he used it in his job as well. Pan had never interrogated people before as they found that they didn't have to. When you can read people's thoughts there isn't really something that people can do to hide their secrets. It was then that Sparrow asked for her name. She had forgotten about that part in regular conversations. "My name is Pan." She stated. Pan knew that her name used to be different, but she didn't like to think of back then and even if she cared to she couldn't quite remember what her name had been.

"So what is your ability?" She asked Sparrow. Pan got in many different fights with many different people and so it was always better to know something about everybody in case an encounter turned south.

[Sparrow Wrightworth]

    Hearing a more detailed description of what Pan did here, Sparrow was impressed. Certainly the Gifted were a grey area when it came to the justice system's protocols, but if it did reveal the truth behind crimes, it would be a necessary action to take. Taking another look at the girl's sketch, he matched some of the proportions to a man close to where they were sitting. Upon hearing the part about noticing his thoughts, a quiet nervous laugh escaped Sparrow's lips and he looked away for a moment. Secrets obviously couldn't be kept from Pan, whether they liked to know about them or not.

    Sparrow turned back and heard her ask about his ability. He pulled his cell phone, notepad and pen out of his pocket and held them in his hands. Looking to make sure he had Pan's attention, he dropped them simultaneously. Before they hit the ground, Sparrow generated his psychic threads to hold complete control over them. The multiple items floated in midair and began to rise back up according to the boy's will. Turning his hand over, he spun them in a circle around his fingers, motioning for their individual rotations. Cancelling the threads, the items gently fell into his hands and he placed them back in their respective pockets. "My ability has been called 'Grandmaster's Threads'. I can manipulate certain objects and beings to do as I will them to do with my threads. It feels wrong to do it to humans though, so I try to avoid directly controlling them. Usually only other people with psychic abilities or spiritual connections can see my threads, so to most people it looks like simple telekinesis. But my commands can be a bit more active, if I would like them to be."

[Pan Gomure]

Pan's eyes darted around the police station. More and more people were arriving and leaving and moving about and she wasn't enjoying all of the people. One of her many fears was crowds and all these people in the police station was starting to turn into a crowd. Pan pulled her legs up onto the chair with her has she focussed back on Sparrow. It seemed he was about to demonstrate his power. She watched carefully as he dropped the items he had pulled out of his pocket. Soon string attached themselves to the items and he began to swing them all around individually. It was an interesting power and according to Slarrow it could also me used on humans.

She was trying to separate her thoughts from everybody else's when she felt another person's thoughts focus on her. This time it was some cop wondering if she knew about an affair they had been having. Pan closed her eyes for a second and took a deep breath. "Very interesting power." She stated with her eyes still closed. She held up a finger as if to get him to pause. Pan pursed her lips and put her earmuffs on and almost instantly all the thoughts stopped flooding in. She sorted through her own thoughts with this relative silence. If he could control people then she would have to find if there was a way to cut his strings in order to even think about winning a battle against him.

Pan took her earmuffs off again. "Is there any way to cut your strings? Pan asked the question finally. She wondered if he would get suspicious as to why she was asking so many questions about his ability. On the other hand it was a common question in Argi since so many people had powers. She just hoped that she was going to win any eventual battles that they may end up having.

[Sparrow Wrightworth]

    Sparrow was a little surprised at Pan putting on earmuffs. But with all of the thoughts that she must be hearing, could it be her way of focusing? He wondered if that was the reason for the gloves as well. Hearing her compliment on his ability, he smiled. "Thank you," he replied, "I've had this power for a while now, but only a while ago did I begin to make actual use of it instead of just using it for parlor tricks. It's pretty versatile when I need it to be."

    It was then that the mental exchange became interesting. She wished to know more about Sparrow's power? The context made it simple enough to assume that she was looking for weaknesses. He saw a strategist's mind in her, and he respected that. To plan ahead and find the weaknesses of possible opponents - it was a valid and effective tactic. "Hmm..." he began as he pondered what could cut his threads. Certainly nothing he'd faced before.

    He hadn't really thought about what could sever the mind. After all, psychic abilities operated on a plane separate to one's physical existence. It was a mental, even spiritual connection to one's surroundings. Sparrow was certain that Pan understood that in her own ability. With a small shrug, the young man looked at the girl with an apologetic look. "My apologies," he replied, "I don't know what would cut my strings. I haven't faced anyone who could in the first place. All that I'm sure of is that normal blades like knives and box cutters won't work against them. But if you are creating a strategy against my ability, I would like to assure you that I don't intend to fight you."

[Pan Gomure]

Pan leaned back in her chair and tried to appear calm as she sat there focussing on his thoughts. He was explaining the history of his power, which Pan found little to no use for her knowing, but she supposed that was the nature of conversations. People told each other useless information in order to establish relationships. She didn't talk to people enough to find use in things like this, but that didn't mean she was just going to interrupt him and tell him about the uselessness of how he hadn't gotten good at his power until recently. Pan wasn't as rude as she could be. Of course her patience for things was lowering as the number of people in the room rose.

Pan picked up a thought about her trying to pick out his weaknesses and chuckled in her mind. She supposed that somebody who specializes in interrogation was going to be able to pick up on things like that's, but of course that didn't stop him from telling her the truth as to what could cut his psychic strings. Of course the answer wasn't so a weakness, but it was still the truth. The end of his talking was what intrigued Pan though. "Who ever said I was worried about you fighting me? You may be good at the job you do, but you have failed to find out too much about me. I don't know who you associate with and nor do you know who I associate with. Our next meeting might not be so friendly." Pan looked him in the eyes. Sparrow seemed like a person who tried to do things in a morally good way, and Pan knew that wasn't how she ran things.

Pan put the earmuffs back on and stood up, effectively stating that the conversations was over without really telling him that. She put her coat on and picked up her bag. As she walked back over to the detective's desk she wrote down each crime the person had committed under each of their photos. She handed him the page and he thanked her and gave her her payment. Pan stuffed the money in her bag and then hurried out of the police station. She didn't think that the guy might follow her or that she would have to see him again, but who really knows in this town? She was just glad to be out of that awful police station.

[Sparrow Wrightworth]

    Hearing her little mental outburst, Sparrow could see Pan was becoming more and more uncomfortable. He had noticed the the police station had gotten more crowded as their conversation continued. Well, at least he got to talk - er - think with her while it lasted. On her way out the door, she mentioned that their next encounter might not be so friendly. That was fair. It was true he never learned about her associations, but he wasn't truly interested in that. While he did have a problem separating the thoughtfulness of his work with his social life, he still had control over what kind of information he wanted to look for.

    As he looked out the window and saw the girl's silhouette grow farther and farther away, he thought one last time in her direction, "Maybe it won't be so friendly, but I still hope that one day we can be friends. You're too interesting not to like!"

    With a small laugh, Sparrow got up from his waiting chair as he was called into the chief of police's office. It was time to take another step as the Grandmaster pondered what sort of person Pan would become in his future. Whatever it was, he smiled as he continued into the office to talk business with the chief, and about the future of Argi City.