June shrugged, walking to the door and pulling it open. "I like to show off." She said, completely serious, before walking out of the room. She pulled the other two team-members off guard duty and went to wait outside, where Frank's bike was sitting. It was in contrast with the newer modeled bikes that the agents were riding. As soon as Frank joined them, June passed him one of the ITSDA's headsets. Extremely comfortable and almost completely invisible, this model was usually used for undercover ops, but ITSDA had been handing out the sets to several of the squads doing clean-up duty in Chicago like candy. "Phoenix called for medics, and he's getting the best we've got." June said, hopping on her bike and glancing at Frank. "We haven't broadcast a single thing about it being Sherry that's coming in, and we hope that even if we did, the Wave has minimal information on her and her powers." She pulled on a helmet quickly. "We're taking no risks though. Do try to keep up." She and her team-mates sped down the road almost completely silently. Their bikes were state of the art, after all, and that much noise would just draw attention.

It only took a few minutes for them to rendezvous with Sherry's transportation and fall in behind. Though it was hard to tell, there were barely visible blurs travelling alongside the van. The only visible riders were those that had just joined, and of those only Juniper and Frank stayed visible. "Captain Harding is inside with Sherry." She said, as if that were explanation enough.

When they finally arrived at the burned out husk of a warehouse, there was a semi-truck trailer just sitting on the ground where it had had space cleared for it. There was no sign of the actual truck, just its trailer, and there were several people flitting around outside of it. Ash, Zenith, and the President had been heavily sedated, and placed into the truck. Zenith was still being watched very carefully, however. There was no reason to take any risks. Phoenix had been directed to a cleared spot where a few combat medics were watching over him. His system was strained, but they believed he'd be fine. Though the milling mass looked uncoordianted from a distance, everyone there was doing exactly what they were supposed to be.

A male voice came on over the headset, giving directions to everyone. "Phoenix, once Sherry has fixed you you'll protect the transport for the prisoners until it reaches its destination. You'll return to our operating base in Chicago for debriefing afterwards. We'll want you to stay close for some time to make sure nothing else goes terribly wrong. Sherry, you're only here to make sure none of the prisoners die, then you'll be shipped back to headquarters. June's squad, we want you in New York. Looks like the local police agency has had a run in with Cheshire." Frank's headset spoke to him privately. "As of now, we have an undercover squad heading into Gaultown. Captain Jill has also rerouted to that location. You can go after Cheshire with June's squad, or you can rendezvous with the Gaultown team. Or you can stay here in Chicago and patrol. Right now, we could use you in any one of those places."

Sherry got out of her van and walked over to Phoenix quickly, leaning down and placing her hand against his shoulder. "Minor damage. Easy fix." She said, smiling at him grimly. "Minor damage that it is, if you hadn't been lucky this might've ended up being far worse. Be more careful next time." After fixing him up, she and two guards hopped into the trailer and disappeared from sight.

Phoenix Crimson's battles had not left him in a great condition, and when the responding ITSDA medics had found him he was on the verge of cardiac arrest. It wasn't until Sherry's gift had purged Zeniths drugs from his system and restored his lost fatigue that he'd been able to respond to his new orders:
"That plan suits me. I was hoping to stay in Chicago for a while longer, anyway."



As Sherry turned to enter the van and tend to the much-abused Ash, Zenith and Roman he called out his reply.
"C'mon Sherry, you know that I can't promise that. My careless attitude is, like... my fourth best feature."
Crimson pulled himself to his feet with exaggerated care, like all other gifted Sherry's healing abilities gave Daniel temporary side effects: His powers seemed to flow more freely and easily whilst his personal immunity faded by a small amount, not enough to put him in any danger but just enough to dissuade him from trying any fire tricks for a few short minutes. Furthermore, the sensation of restored strength and stamina after having just been on the verge of passing out was a uniquely strange feeling; he knew that he'd suffer a crash in less than a few hours, but for the moment at least he could appreciate his second wind.
"-Also! You might want to keep the President and the other two separated. I don't really know the details, but they don't seem to be on the same team any more!"

With still a few moments to go before he had to head out Daniel paced the waiting vehicles restlessly, and greeted Juniper.
"Captain! Flying's not the most subtle way to travel, for me. Any chance that you brought a spare bike?"
He turned his grin to Agent Jackson, and greeted him with a similar attitude.
"Old man Jackson! I saw you on the news, it looks as though we've interrupted your Ghost hunt. Sorry about that."

The old fighter shrugged.

"Eh, no big deal. With as much destruction as has happened here and them not showing up on our radar, either it was a rumor and no such Gifted existed here, or they were in the wrong place yada yada and really are a ghost now. Getting paid to drive around in Chicago was fun I'll admit, but I never did get to finish my hotdog; some loon in a church shot it out of my hand. I can see you've been busy too. You do know it's the bad guys' job to destroy the city, and ours to save it, right? Or is everything backwards with you Oriental types, like those funky Japanese comic books that go right to left?"

Frank winked to make his fellow agent aware he was joking good naturedly, then held up a hand and turned his back so as to respond to his communique.

"I'll take Gaultown, I've seen enough of Chicago to last me a while, and I could use a break from a major city. I'll leave for the airport, get me a fast plane cleared and make sure it can stow my bike too. Also, I'll need any and all info you have on the place. Copy?"

"Hold position, Frank. We don't have time for you to catch a plane, so we're sending in an Agent to get you there. Sherry, we'll need you out here to help out some." It was a moment before Sherry jumped back out of the truck, looking upset. "Are you kidding me?" She asked, looking extremely frustrated as she walked up next to Frank. "You realize I've already Juiced him twice today, right?" Her comm unit replied to her privately, and she just shook her head and took on a resigned expression.

"Phoenix, there's a bike already assigned to you. It's on its way as we speak. These bikes are keyed to their riders, so only you can move it, but their armor is negligible versus your Gift. Do not use your powers on or near the things. They will explode, and the explosion will be big. And they're expensive." The comm unit buzzed off and Juniper jumped in, clapping Phoenix on the back. "I've never seen you do anything subtly." Juniper said, glancing pointedly at the destroyed building. "Why would you bother starting now?" She winked at him.

There was a loud crack somewhere behind and over them, as if somebody had just left their airspace at supersonic speeds, and then the sound of someone falling onto the ground and scrambling to their feet. Jump stood there, shaking enough to be more than visible. His glasses were askew, and he seemed to be shuffling from foot to foot madly. "Sherry it feels like my heart is going to explode." He said, his voice shaking. Sherry blinked and scrambled over to him as quickly as she could manage, brushing against his skin. Some of the shaking abided, and he stopped shuffling, but he still looked uncomfortable. "What did they give you?!" She asked, surprise and anger dripping from her voice.

"Pure glucose packet with some steroids mixed in I think." He said. His voice wasn't shaking anymore, at least. "Here to pick up Frank and his bike." He said. "Special delivery to Gaultown. You get to hang with Response Team One, you lucky dog. You'll be arriving ahead of them by a couple of minutes, but hey. And pardon if my targeting is a bit off. It's rather difficult to focus." He shrugged. "But we'll end up in the right place, that's for sure. Let's go. I'm gonna port somewhere where they can't shove a heart-attack in a bag into me after."

"Ehh?! Now just hold on!-"
Phoenix Crimson Objected as both Juniper and Frank made reference to the burning warehouse illuminating them. He recognized that the pair were only joking, but just this once something had been reduced to a heap of flaming rubble and he wasn't to blame, and his pride ruffled at their accusations.
"Unbelievably, someone else set this building on fire first. I'm not taking responsibility if you put this on my expenses."

As Jump materialized with a sharp 'krakk' of displaced air Daniels posture stiffened as he turned to face the intrusion. The initial grin that he'd flashed when he recognised the new agent fell when he picked out the details. 'Of course' he thought 'Jump's been working support, poor guys probably been pushing past his limits all day'.
"Jump, you look like shit." he pointed an unempathic but concerned finger judgingly at him. "If you push yourself too hard and die playing 'Mister Taxi' after we've already won, I won't forgive you."
This message was last edited by the player at 08:05, Mon 24 Aug 2015.

Jump shrugged. "I was sleeping, actually." He said. "But the world doesn't sleep with me. I appreciate the concern, but I was being serious when I said I'd find somewhere to go and crash where they wouldn't stick me with heart-attack in a bag again. To be entirely honest, I've actually enjoyed myself. I've never ported this much in one day before, and I've figured a few neat tricks out." He grinned and winked. "Maybe I'll talk about it later, once I've figured out how to actually put the concepts into words."

Frank stood by quietly as the younger man chatted, ready to go when he was.

Pheonix Crimsons grin returned.
"I'll look forward to it. In the meantime you'd better get going- once the terrible trio are locked away Chicago's going to be filled with spare agents, and if you don't make tracks you'll probably get roped into jumping them all back to NewYork to deal with this 'Cheshire' thing."

He looked down the streets roads as he waited for his own transportation to arrive.
He'd asked the ITDSA's armourer for a motorbike once before; but had been firmly rebuked on the basis that he'd already spent an absurd amount of his expense budget on his flight suit, and that they'd completely refused to build him one with a bright crimson colour scheme. Life was cruel sometimes.

Jump nodded and grabbed Frank's arm. "Alright, I don't normally cut corners but since you're not as fragile as my normal passengers are, this might sting a little." He cracked his neck and glanced at the Frank's bike as well. "I call it bungy jumping. Lots faster, and way cheaper on the calories scale. A lot bumpier too though, so..." He shrugged, and there was a loud crack as Frank, Jump, and Frank's bike disappeared. Everyone depth perception was thrown wildly off for a moment before returning to normal.

Jumped to Gaultown

As soon as Jump left and Sherry had reoriented herself, she stalked back to the truck and hopped back in, slamming the sliding door shut behind her. A motorbike rolled up without a driver and stopped, shutting itself off silently. "Your bike's here, Crimson." His comm said briefly before clicking back to something else.

'My bike can drive itself, that is SO freakin' awesome.' Phoenix thought.

He strode through the spot that Frank and Jump had occupied only a brief moment before, swung a leg over his vehicle and saddled himself. With a twist of the handles throttle he felt the vehicle hum back into life with restrained, stealthy, yet potent, strength.
As Daniel habitually flicked the charred remains of his scarf over his shoulder he began to appreciate the sense of excitement building within him; Even before he'd become Gifted he'd been a big fan of the 'funky Japanese comic books' that Jackson had mentioned, and his situation reminded him of one particular hero and a simpler time. It was little moments like this that Daniel lived for.

He took a moment to pair his masks systems with his bikes, and idled it into position beside Sherry's truck.
"Crimson Rider, ready to move out."
He checked his formation against the other riders. Even though he had almost accomplished his mission he couldn't afford to lower his guard; there was every chance that Namidians were still watching from the shadows, waiting for a chance to jailbreak their two comrades.

The scattered personnel, bikes, and truck melted out of sight. There was a faint humming sound to anyone within 200 feet of the semi-truck, and if they looked out their vision seemed to be slightly clouded beyond a certain point. Not enough to be a risk, but enough that it was obvious that someone was using some sort of gift. Most of the other people seemed to be used to it and kept on about their business, finishing up the last of their preparations to depart. "Crimson, we're placing you with Captain Hall's squad in front of the truck. We depart in 5 minutes. There's going to be a gifted taking care of moving the semi-truck for us so we won't have to deal with the cab, and the truck is reinforced. We have a perception filter set up already, but it's not perfect. The truck can't take that much punishment, so keep an eye out."

June turned to Crimson, hopping on her bike and flicking it on. "You'll be shifted back into Chicago on the outskirts of the city. We've got replacements set up there to take our place when we split up. Until then, you're considered a member of my squad and I'd appreciate if you did your damndest to listen to me. You've already been linked into my comm-channel." She cracked her neck and moved quickly into position, waiting for the orders to move out.

Exactly when the comm had said, the truck behind Crimson and June's group made a strange groaning noise before moving forwards slowly. June waved her hand and kept her distance ahead of the truck even as it began to speed up quickly and began its route for the outskirts of town.

"Whatever you say, bossman."

As the cabless truck drove its way through Chicago Phoenix Crimson shadowed it's every move. Between Captain Harding's visual distortions and the muted engines of the convoy the journey was almost eerily silent and Daniel fought to keep his senses focused for the slightest disturbance that could warn against an imminent attack.

The damaged city provided plenty of it's own background noise; the distant bass roar of fire, a scattered police siren, someone shattering glass, but nothing that indicated any directed threat.
It seemed as though the Namidians had accomplished their goal, and any Villains remaining in the windy city were too scattered or disinterested to spare the ITDSA's armoured convoy any thought.

Suzanne Greens sat behind her large, expensive desk which had been a gift from the investors after her record first quarter earnings her second year of operating the small defense contractor and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Last night, the company had been hacked and the company employee and investor records had been taken by what appeared to be a leftist collective anti-war group. The data taken was not so important but the breach was bad. Their stock prices would plummet if it got out. She tapped a few keys on her computed and checked her personal e-mail accounts, but did nothing official as she waited for Jerry from IT.

---

Jerry liked his job; he misliked his employers. He and a small group of like-minded nerds he had all but cherry-picked and groomed ran the IT department for a small but well-ff company. All he had to do was keep the computers from frying under the careless use of the regular employees and he made considerable bank. Normally, that was; last night was one of the rare cases where he had to work overtime and overly hard. A midnight call from the overnight watch had been the first alert;it had been followed by a long night of "cyber warfare." It wasn't like that shit in movies though. It was hard, complicated work. At last, early in the morning they had gotten what looked like the last of the system secured and offline. Internal memos were out to not use computers for any personal of business purposes until IT had personally cleared your terminal and issued new clearances, passcodes, and security keys.

He nodded to Maryanne as he approached CEO Greens' office and was waved on in. The woman sighed at him and made an annoyed motion at her computer. He noted a personal e-mail site open and sighed himself. He took internal pleasure as she displaced from her seat to the large, plush sofa and he usurped her seat.He noted that she had oddly placed herself at the far end of the sofa instead of nearer the desk but shrugged. He opened up his case and set it aside after taking out several discs. He began the process of scrubbing and recovering her system. At some point,Greens moved to the closer side of the sofa but he hadn't noticed.

"Okay, Miss Greens, I did a complete wipe and restore on your system. Your personal content will be missing now. To restore sensitive files, wait until tomorrow when access to the secure internal servers is reopened. We need to make sure there is no more dangers left in the system. I have here your new passcodes and passwords. Ah here... uh... I must have left your new passkey in the office. It's been a crazy day. I'll have a lackey bring it up in a minute. Any questions?"

---

Suzanne stared at  the IT flunky in cool disdain until he gulped then got out of her chair. The affect to her personal data was minimal. She kept no personal work here, what little she had, and what she might have lost she wouldn't miss. Lacking access to certain work files was going to be irksome, but she would have to bear it. Rushing to work would be counterproductive if any left-over cyber invaders were still lurking. She watched from behind her desk as he left before breaking the seal on her new security profile and leafing through it. She set it aside for a bit and tapped at her computer a bit.

---

He casually leafed through the papers he had just jerked from her hands and took a picture of each page with his cell phone. She had looked confused and irritated for a split second then her mind had been shoved away from thinking about the papers by his gift. He had no way of knowing how she was..not perceiving it, but he cared little. A second latter and he set the papers down. She casually took them up and started scanning again. Nemo strolled casually over to the sofa where he had been sitting all morning since following Suzanne into the company's building and sipped the coffee he had similarly liberated from her during the car ride in. He set his phone on his knee, not on the arm of the sofa, and took the tablet out of his messenger bag. He ran a few apps and programs and used her brand new security profile to log in. Sure enough, she had far more sweeping powers in the system than she was probably aware but was mandated by company policy. The CEO obviously got Administrative access even if she had no clue how to use it. He chuckled as he carefully constructed a back window into the system. Why hack a system when you could make a door? Using her security profile continuously would be risky, but using it to construct his own secret profile was not. He chuckled as he worked.

Minutes later, he used his access to security cameras to scrub his presence in the building clean. He also studied the security layout, accessed several other security profiles, and carefully planned. He would be scouting this company for the next two weeks. Paying that hacker collective to create the security emergency was a trick he had used a few times. It usually worked.

He finished the coffee,threw it in her bin, then strolled out of the office.A few people looked confused at his passing as their willpower was strong enough to notice the anomalous path he wove but most never even looked up no matter what he did. he took a sick joy from it even as it ate at his insides. He was a ghost, the invisible man, Nemo. Inside a couple weeks, he would have total access to this company's research projects an files and he would sell it to whomever the highest bidder was. He might even sell it back to the company if their bid was high enough. He would be sure they knew once it was on the market. He chuckled even as he made a few unnoticed, mischievous stops on his way out of the building.

Once outside, he stopped to access the tablet again and scrub the security system of his presence again. Now that he had the tablet, he needn't come back but he should make sure that once his gift was absent no one would know it was him. They might, weeks from now after his auction was live, go back and notice the anomalies in the security once they knew to look for something, but they would probably never figure out who he was.

He crossed the street to the fast food burger place and walked in. He strolled past all the people, noting how they unconsciously swerved around him. he could have lifted the counter but he slid over instead. Things like lifting the counter lowered the threshold of his gift, so he didn't like to push it too much. he strolled to the hopper and mused for a bit.

---

Jimmy stared at a point hovering in space somewhere a foot in front of the cheeseburgers and tried to remember what he was doing.

"Jimmy! Two cheeseburgers, one fry, two large colas. Come on son!"

Jimmy shook his head and moved to the hopper and stared in confusion. "Mr. Cooper, there's nothing here yet!"

"What?" I just made the burgers, kid! Lemme see.. Well, shit.. Must be the rats." Jimmy saw the look he got and resented it. Just because he was a hungry teen boy didn't mean he had stolen the food.. this time. He swung his sight out to the crowded eating are and stared suspiciously.

---

At the only empty table in the crowded restaurant, Nemo sat by himself eating a burger with the other tucked under his hand.Unattended objects lost the benefit of his gift. As long as he was covering it with his hand like this, people would ignore it too. He sighed as a pair of teen boys slid into the booth ignoring him and began to ogle and talk lewdly about the women in the place. He sighed and finished his burger before throwing the second one at the first boy. The kid jumped up and started shouting accusingly at people nearby as Nemo slipped out of the booth, exited, and walked away.

To Be Continued...

Erin had stopped thinking of himself as Jump after Chicago. Now he was a nobody, a ghost in the system. After the incidents in Chicago, Erin had disappeared. It hurt him, to avoid his friends and watch what happened to them from a distance. He wanted to be there for them, but after blame had been leveled for everything that had happened, he had decided that it was best for him to give it up. The hero spiel, that was. This by no means meant that he had gone villain. He had done a couple of bad things to survive, yes, but he tried to avoid hurting people that couldn't afford it. Unlike this asshole.

"I don't suppose you've learned your lesson?" Erin asked, turning around and quirking his head in the direction of the small man struggling against invisible bonds. He was middle aged, probably, and while Erin could only discern shapes, considering the man's excessive compliment of weapons and what he had been attempting to do before Erin had taken him, he was fairly confident that he was in one of the many gangs that ran around the city of Chicago and terrorized an already terrified population. None of the weapons were still on him, of course. Those were at the bottom of Chicago River. At no response from the man other than grunting noises, Erin stretched his hand out and snapped.

It apparently did the trick, as the man began screaming quite loudly. Floating thousands of feet in the air did that to normal people. "Alright, so, I'm currently holding you up, but really, I have no desire in keeping you around if you're going to try robbing people that can barely feed themselves. So here's what's going to happen." Erin smiled faintly, quite proud of how well he was hiding the strain of generating a portal large enough to fit him and the man and displacing the strong winds generated at this altitude.

"I'm going to put you back on the ground, and you're not going to rob people. Starving or not, turning on each other is really only going to get everyone killed. Trust me on that. Any questions?" He asked politely.

The man squeaked and nodded his head emphatically. Erin shook his head and turned around, both he and the man suddenly back in the alleyway they had started in. Before he reached the sidewalk, he pulled his cane out of his jacket and extended it, walking on as if nothing odd had happened at all. He grinned slyly as the man scrambled out of the alleyway and ran in the opposite direction.

***

 The oscillating fan over his head was barely displacing the air at all, and the heat was getting to him. He stared at the small living room of the small house he had claimed for his temporary stay in Chicago and sighed. With a small twist of his hand, Erin cracked space over his head and an extremely cold wind blew through, quickly cooling the heated room. Erin relaxed back into the couch,and dozed off.

The sound of footsteps in the hallway woke him. He started and stood, staring worriedly at the door as a man pulled out a key and slowly inserted it into the lock. As soon as it had turned 90 degrees, Erin turned and looked out over the city line, atop Sears Tower. He hated the squatting and the running. But he liked the anonymity. He liked the freedom. It was better than what the ITSDA would have had to do to him. An Oversight committee. The horror that would have caused him.

He sighed, and looked down at his stomach as it grumbled loudly. He supposed that it was about time he ate again. He hated that too. Leaving the ITSDA meant he had no job. No job meant no money. No money meant he had to steal to live. It had grated on him more at the beginning of his forced isolation, but it had become easier now. He turned around again and walked out of an alleyway a block down from his favorite burger joint, grabbing his cane and flicking it out.

There was a quiet meaty thud that surprised Erin, and he immediately quirked his head slightly towards the man that he had not noticed. "I am terribly sorry sir, I didn't see you there. Please forgive me." He then turned his head and continued on, stepping energetically towards the burger joint before he recalled that he was blind. He took a quick guilty look around, but noticed no one close enough to have seen him, and then proceeded to click-clack his way towards the building.

Nemo was out the door before it registered; someone had talked to him. They hadn't talked about him or at him, but about him. Two things sank into his mind at the same time: he had let his guard down and this was his first interaction with a living person in months. It was terrifying on many different and earthquake like levels.

He was back through the door and moving along the restaurant service area like a stalking panther instantly. He paid little attention to the people around him as they stepped out of his way without realizing it. Other people didn't even register them stepping out of his way as that would be an acknowledgement of his existence as well. Oh, they saw, heard, smelt, and interacted with him but not at a conscious level. It was how his "Gift" manifested. People interacted with him as normal mostly but simply could not register it, acknowledge it, or create memories of the interaction. IF people just couldn't see him, maybe his life wouldn't be the absolute mess it was. No: he was undetectable because he could not be acknowledged in proximity to him.

Some donut eating slob at Burger Shack corporate HQ going through the video of this branch might not him and think him a bit odd for just charging through the room. He had developed navigation habits in response to how the world operated around him after all. As long as he moved so that any normal person might notice him, these people would move according to if he was charging right at them if he did but have no clue why they suddenly jumped back or swerved a different direction. They'd did it, remember that they did, but he would not be part of the memory as its cause. More, others might not even ask them why they had. His gift was strong.

As he stalked the man, he noted the cane and the blank gaze and that made sense. Sometimes, people with sensory disabilities had a better chance of piercing his gift. They tended to be more focused and attentive to their other senses and more aware of the world. They often navigated differently. Still, most of them did not register him either. No, it took extreme willpower to note him. This man was unique; Nemo had long since learned that the majority of those who noted him were worth noting in return either as enemies or marks. Thus, he took care to stay out of this man's sensory ranges as best he could. It was hard to mark a blind man's hearing range. He was cautious; he observed.

The trip up the counter was swifter than anticipated, and Erin pulled a few dollars out of his jacket to pay for the service before taking the burgers and heading for a table. Something was bothering him though. A nagging at the back of his neck, as if someone were watching him. And something didn't feel right in the area. He just couldn't place what was causing the feeling though. He sat down at an empty table for 2 and ate his burger slowly, attempting to concentrate on his surroundings as much as possible. Everything seemed normal, but he couldn't shake that feeling of being watched.

He went over every single person around him, judging the direction of their head in relation to where he was sitting in order to figure out if they were looking at him. A couple glanced in his direction, which wasn't unusual. He was a blind man, and people seemed to take that as right to stare. It was with a start that he noticed something odd. Another person that he had gone over before. He vaguely remembered going over that person a couple of other times too, but it was odd, as if he were looking at the memories through a thick fog. Only after focusing explicitly on that location was Erin able to grasp the fact that he knew the man. Wasn't he the one that Erin had apologized to on the street? He wasn't great at recognizing people based solely on their physique, since his spatial awareness didn't offer a great deal of perception in relation to detailed features, but he was almost positive that this was the man from outside.

What should he do? The man was clearly a Gifted of some sort or another, with the way he seemed to be able to avoid detection. It was extremely difficult even for Erin to focus on him. Every time his perception shifted even a tiny bit, he lost track of the man, and finding him again was as hard as catching a fish with his bare hands. Why was the man following him? Chance coincidence? Or darker intentions? Was he with the ITSDA? Namidian Wave? Erin gulped down the last of his burger and stood up, heading slowly for the door. He was dedicating so much of his attention to trying to keep track of this man that he didn't have to pretend to be blind to the rest of the world.

Getting outside was a slow trek. Erin had had his Gift for so long that not being without it was, well, like suddenly losing his eyes. Walking blind was a far more complicated process than he had anticipated. He chose an alleyway at random and wandered down it, temporarily losing track of the slippery man before locating him again at the entrance. Erin turned his head and made a waving gesture, hoping that the man had actually followed him, than pointed behind a dumpster and walked behind it. He tapped the wall and walked through it into an empty park, sitting on a bench and waiting patiently to see if the man would decide to follow. As soon as he'd walked through the portal, he lost track of the man, but whatever Gift the man held seemed to lose its grasp over him. His memories were far from clear, but the effort he'd had to put into keeping track of the man's existence was vastly decreased.

He  briefly thought over who this man might be, but nothing occurred to him. It may have best to have simply run. He shook his head. Running was still an option, and he might learn something valuable by attempting to speak with the man, so he sat still and stared at the portal. He'd give it 5 minutes, and if nobody showed up, he'd assume the worst and jump somewhere else.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:55, Tue 13 June 2017.

NEmo prided himself on his ability, even if he rarely had to push himself any more.he supposed a more talented man might have taken his new Gift for granted or a less talented man would not have seen the loopholes in the Gift. Nemo had never had many illusions as to his capability. In high school he had managed a consistent A honor roll, sure, but he had done so through diligence and care. Always he had been careful, a planner, caluculating. No, he was not one to posses more than an average intellect or physique and that he knew it had always been his weapon. Nemo did not entertain false pride, vanity, or underestimation. He did not think any more or any less of himself or others than was merited if at all possible.

This practicality had made him a good spy and an excellent thief. Now, he applied it again. It wasn't hard to tell when the man was focused on him again. It was hard to track Nemo under any circumstance; to do anything less than focus completely was begging to fail. So, each time the man seemed to be tracking him again, Nemo just used a little knowledge of pursuit to make it just a bit harder and the man seemed to lose him again.

However, his razor analysis told him that every time the man locked onto him again, Nemo got pulled further into the pursuit himself. he was becoming obsessed. When the man ducked behind a dumpster, these thoughts fled and Nemo focused wholly on moving slowly to get a view behind it without compromising his position. As he stared at the blank spot where the man should have been and the errant apparition on the wall, he calmly focused on this obsession.

The man was either better at espionage than Nemo first suspected and had given him the slip or he was Gifted; too,the man could just have the aid of a gifted individual. None of the three options were exceptionally appealing to his paranoid sense of safety. All three scenarios seemed to suggest a certain amount of danger to his way of life,mission, and health. Still,he couldn't deny that he was still quite obsessed with the man. Was he obsessed with human contact or the threat to himself; neither was a pleasant possibility. One seemed to suggest he cut ties and leave; the other begged investigation. Investigating would be good and it didn't harm his ulterior motive, so he decided to make the next move. He observed the image through what he suspected was a portal and noted the park. It wasn't far from here but if the man thought he was going through a spacial anomaly that he controlled...

Instead, Nemo moved quickly and a dead run along the sidewalks and streets toward the park.he left a wake of chaos and accidents behind him, but as long as he avoided collisions then he was unmolested and unnoticed. He made it to the park in a few minutes and spotted the man quickly. He stopped and stod a few meters from the man to catch his breath.

Jump had encountered a lot in his 11 years of working for the ITSDA, but no information or experience with this man (or whatever gift this man held) occurred to him. He had heard no news, seen no reports, seen nothing odd. Which was in itself slightly odd. Jump was, after all, renowned for his senses, and to have someone so easily counter them was slightly aggravating. Thus he very carefully noted that distance seemed to not only relieve some of the pressure this man exuded on Erin's mind, but seemed to remove it completely. It was quite simple to track the man's trek through the city, though the portal skewed his perception slightly, so after the man ran off to get to him on his own, he closed it quickly.

Though at least that told him a little bit about him. Curiosity, but tempered with caution. Not using a strange Gifted's portal was intelligent. Something to be marked, at the very least. How was he supposed to record information on this man though? He could hardly use a computer or cellphone. Writing was out of the question. Erin could write, surprisingly. He was able to track the displaced space of lead and ink on a piece of paper, as long as he payed close enough attention. He just didn't have a notebook to write on. In either case, he dedicated the next stretch of time to tracking the man and noting exactly when his Gift started to affect Erin.

Thus when Nemo arrived on the scene, he saw Erin sitting very sedately on the park bench exactly where he had been before. His eyes were closed, but his head was inclined in the general direction of him. He stood and approached a couple of feet, careful to try and keep as much distance as possible, just in case the man was jumpy. He offered a bow, figuring a handshake would get the man closer than he wanted to be, and spoke.

"I'm Erin, previously known as Jump. Ex-Agent of ITSDA. I can't really use either name now, since they're both being tracked. Call me whatever you want. Who are you? And why were you following me?" Erin stood from the bow and backed up a single step. He was very relaxed in general demeanor, but an attentive individual would notice he was on a hair-trigger, ready to jump away (figuratively and literally) at the slightest provocation.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:10, Mon 26 June 2017.

Nemo grit his teeth as the man tracked him. Something curdled beneath his skin as the man approached. On one hand, Nemo was relieved that there were still those who could "see" him, but it also irked and disturbed him. Not the least was because he was working. After a long, silent pause, Nemo responded, "I am no one. You saw; I followed."

The words fell from his lips rustily. It was hard for him to form English any more; It was hard to interact at any level at all. Most of his contact with other humans was via the interwebs and not direct. It was uncomfortable. He wondered if he was jeopardizing his work with this fiat yet again. The fact that the man was ITSDA, even formerly, set his hair on end. This was not going well.

Importantly for this encounter, Nemo forgot that he might need to say anything more.

"Why did you follow?" Jump asked offhandedly. "Your gift was working on me. If you hadn't gone to such lengths to track me, I never would've even realized you existed."

He gestured at a bench sitting across from him. "If we're going to talk, you may as well sit. Unless you want to go, or try to kill me. Either way, this might be a long conversation and there's no need to be standing for the whole thing. Whatever you choose, I've got no desire to kill you and the chances that you'll be able to get from there," Erin pointed at the ground where Nemo was standing, and then pointed underneath his feet," to here before I make the decision to move to the Bahamas is slim. Unless you've got superspeed too. Which would just be unfair."
This message was last edited by the player at 15:10, Mon 17 July 2017.

The man appeared relaxed; Nemo had no such appearance.  He was not uncomfortable, but he was at a more elevated than normal state of paranoia and anxiety. He was quite used to paranoia and anxiety. They were his constant companions and allies. He moved slowly to the other bench and sat down on its edge. He was ready to move at any moment.

Nemo didn't like confronting the Gifted. Put him up against most other humans and he could hold his own, his training made sure of it, but Gifted were not humans and he often had issues overcoming them. His Gift often helped in this; it was hard to defend against something you had troubles or could not track.

This man posed all sorts of troubling issues for his current world view and set of practices in doing his work. But his well trained mind worried at the problem like a terrier with a rat. He was not a man who could thunderbolt a solution out of thin air, but with time and patience he had solved many problems the so-called elite could not. Nemo had a plodding, careful sort of intellect: powerful but slow. Much of that slowness came from him worrying at every possible angle of attack and possibility for variation.

He applied this intellect to a small fraction of the present problem while he acknowledged that there was much of the iceberg below the surface yet. "I followed you because piercing my Gift is a rare aptitude and it posses problems for my line of work."

He tasted the rhetoric of the sentence and found it was well crafted to suit his purposes with plenty of room to audible if needed. Now, to add a question which ought to put the active role of this conversation back in the other man's hands, "Former ITSDA? What are you doing now?"

Jump examined the man as he sat, trying to understand what was going through his head. He wasn't as paranoid as him, but the time he'd been on the run had taught him a little paranoia, and he sacrificed some of his focus on the man to stretch out for a connection with... Toronto. Who would expect him to show up in Toronto? He immediately felt the effects of the man's gift affect him more though, as it took him a couple of moments of thought processing to even remember what had been said to him.

"Running." He said, glancing at the man. "Life got too... too wrong for me. If you're worried about me turning you in, they're just as likely to grab me as you. I'm sure they've thought of something to keep me from jumping at this point. Spending valuable resources on trying to catch a harmless man instead of actually doing what they're supposed to do." He sighed, reigning his temper in. Too much spite had filtered into his comments. "That wasn't the question, sorry. I kind of just... exist right now. I don't really do anything. I scare burglars and steal money to buy food like a hypocrite. Jump to a new city every few days. Just came from Seoul, actually. Hard when I don't speak Korean, but eh, it was nice anyways."

"What about you? What do you do?"
This message was last edited by the player at 13:30, Wed 26 July 2017.

The man's answers were not quite what he was hoping for; however, Nemo was a man that kept his expectations low. His expectations of humanity and what life would hand him. Life was handing him lemon today, rotten lemons. He frowned.

"Me? I am an independent contractor."

Still, he had developed an idea for this encounter and saw a narrow, fraught path that lead toward that objective still. He stroked his chin and sat back a bit on his bench. It had been a long time since he got to play this particular game and he was recalling how much he enjoyed it. He did note the man's struggle to keep Nemo in his perception with a smile. It would appear that moderate levels of deliberate evasion on his part would allow him to slip away from this individual. Nemo noted that carefully.

"So, on the run but still scaring the local criminals as you do? How's that working out for you?"

In reply to Nemo (msg # 107):

"Surprisingly well. It's struck me that they might not even be tracking me down, but my pride simply couldn't suffer such a wound as that, so I've dismissed the idea." Jump said, leaning back on the bench and gesturing openly. "However, I'm afraid that it's really losing its appeal. There always seems to be more, and I've even met a couple of the same people. I'm really not that scary a person. My gifts have little to no combat applicability, seeing as I refuse to teleport people into solid objects, or vice versa. It's quite gory when I do that. Very hard to clean up."

He looked at the man across from him, really looked, very briefly, and then looked away. Jump wasn't capable of seeing through solid objects, per se. He couldn't see through a solid brick wall very much better than a normal person. But thinner things, cloth, glass, etcetera... there was a trick to trying to look through those things that took a bit of practice for him to grasp well, but it had proved invaluable. Hidden weapons, things past closed windows.

He shook his head. "Do you want my business card?" Jump asked the man.

<On a random street>

Steel-gray eyes beheld the sky, and then the world around him as people walked past hypnotized by little devices and cars crawled past in rush hour sludge. The figure took out a cigarette case, scratched a match against the bottom of his shoe, and lit up as he took it all in;

It was different, no doubt about it, yet he could tell it was Chicago; not his Chicago of course, yet it would be...

The removed his wallet from an inside coat pocket, took out a dated one hundred dollar bill, and waved down a taxi. It was driven by a woman from clearly another country, yet the man simply chalked that up to the strange surroundings he currently found himself in. He climbed into the back, and handed the money to the lady upfront. She looked at it skeptically, nd frowned.

"This no real, you get out!"

The gentleman leaned back in his seat, and steepled his fingers.

"I assure you, my good woman, it is indeed most real. In fact I'm so sure of it, how about you and I make a little wager, hmm? I can't remember when I last ate, so you drop me off at a restaurant close to a bank; go in, and ask them if it's real. If it isn't, you know where I'll be and can call the coppers on me easy. But, if it is, then you become my driver until midnight. All you have to lose is a little time, and you stand to gain one hundred dollars. So, feel like a gamble?"

The driver considered it, then nodded.

"Many cabs on road, sometimes not make much money. If this real, I drive you all day. If not, I call police on bad man."

The figure gave a nod.

"Yes, those are the terms as I laid them out, of our bet. Shall we be off then?"

The woman put the taxi into gear, wedged herself into the slow traffic, and they were off at a crawl to a bank.

True to his word, when the cab parked the gentleman got out and went into a restaurant just a couple doors down from the bank and left the driver to check the suspicious bill. He looked around the inside of the eatery, then made his way to the counter and made himself at home on a stool. An old man with white hair and a wrinkled face walked up to him, pulling and order pad out of a pocket as he did so.

"What'll ya have, son?"

The fellow produced another bill almost exactly like the first, only the serial number had increased by one.

"Before I order, would you have any problem with me paying with this?"

The man took the money, held it up to the light, flipped it over, then looked back at his new customer with a grin.

"Wow, you really go all out, don't ya? I mean sure I get gangster buffs in here sometimes, a few of 'em even dress up in outfits like yours. But, outside of you, I've had maybe two guys total actually pay with period money. They spent a good part of their paycheck to get a handful of bills, and even then the stuff was ratty and ripped in places. Yours, now yours looks like it came right out a museum. I can't imagine how much it set you back, and I don't think I want to since even now I can hear my own bank account crying. Are you sure you want to pay with this? I mean yeah my food's good, but I could no doubt sell this to a collector for several times face value at least."

The stranger's smirk grew bigger.

"Of course I'm sure, what's the point of having money after all if not to spend it? And thank you for the compliment, I do try to be as realistic as possible and I'm glad it impresses you. As for my meal, just bring me the specialty of the house and a coffee. Ah, coffee, I haven't had any since, well since..."

The younger man shook his head.

"Strange, can't seem to remember. I guess that just means I need it all the more."

The owner laughed at the joke, and walked off to get a burger and fries going. As requested, he brought back a mug of coffee, and sat it down in front of the fellow while pointing out where the cream and sugar were; the new arrival looked at these things questioningly, then proceeded not to touch them and opted to drink the brew black instead while he awaited his food.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:31, Wed 30 Aug 2017.