In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 747):

The woman and child in the house continue on about their domestic routine.  It's oddly normal given the situation.

HT lightly jogs down the path after the jogger.  A blonde woman.  Not bad looking in a MILF kind of way.  Maybe HT just is looking for a prom date?

Nah.  Couldn't be that.

You have three messages.

Ooter has sent you one. Just following up to make sure the part you ordered from us is performing.  Please let us know if there are any concerns.  As always, thank you for your patronage.

HT cuts off the path and heads into the woods.  The jogger, who has headphones on, seems oblivious to him.

Kevin has sent two texts.

The first one from earlier this afternoon reads Thanks for the image related research material.  Found some more.  Link below.  He provides a link.

HT is cutting across the woods, apparently trying to get ahead of the jogger.  He's moving fairly stealthily.  Much more so than you might expect for a guy his size.  Training you guess.

Inside the house, the phone rings.  The toddler gets up and walks over to the counter the cell phone is on.  The toddler snaps her fingers.  Mom reaches over and picks up the phone.

You can hear what the jogger is listening to.  It may not be what you were expecting to hear.

A woman's soft voice is repeating the same things over and over again on the head phones.

they must have wanted it that way.  or they wouldn't be so delicious.

they must have wanted it that way. or they wouldn't be so delicious.

they must have wanted it that way. or they wouldn't be so delicious.

Kevin's second text reads Snooped around that store.  They have intel on you.  Lets meet.

The toddler looks at the cell phone and frowns.  She thumbs the screen and says, in a voice that rings with the same kind of hum as you heard from the box and from the house's second floor

"You better have good news for me."

The jogger makes a turn on the path.  HT comes out from behind a tree and swings his fist at her head.

The jogger comes apart before he connects.  The two sides of her split open.  Instead of gore there's a crevice inside her that resembles the inside of a flower bud.  Instead of ribs there are long, needle like fangs.  The jogger has come open like a Venus Fly Trap.

HT stops his fist before he swings into the maw and instead pivots, going low and sweeping at the legs.  The jogger flops over, but her body becomes a flowing mass of vines and long sharp thorns.

Others on the path start to scream.  HT roars out for them to run.  He looks at the mass of vegetation and asks

"What are you doin' here Maneater?"

You've heard the name.  A meta-powered assasian, though nothing you've read referred to them being like...this.

Maneater rights itself, no longer resembling the jogger at all.  Instead it looks like some kind of colony of moss, vines, and leaves.  A mouth like opening flaps.

they must have wanted it that way.  or they wouldn't be so delicious.

HT sighs.  "Yeah yeah."

Inside the house a small chime starts to ring.  The toddler and mother look up.

"Damn," the toddler says.  "Breach alert.  Release a wave and begin evac."

Down the stairs, pouring out from the top floor of the house, fifteen men all carrying guns and knives begin to descend towards the front door.

So?  Whatcha gonna do?

Ooter’s message gets a quick look of understanding, but he doesn’t dwell on it. He hasn’t had a chance to try the suit at all, as he hasn’t done any Cowl work, but soon.

The message from Kevin gets another glance and he is about to click on the link when he notices the phone ringing in the house. These aren’t normal people, they don’t take phone calls, he’d bet money on it.

So as soon as the cell phone starts ringing, before Maneater and HT have begun their dance, Jack puts the truck in reverse and swings the SUV down the block. Driving with one hand and the occasional glance while the other hand is used to undo the back of the phone and pull out the simcard again, tucking it all away into his pocket. Parking it a block and a half further away. Two blocks should be adequate, or this will have gone sideways in a way that the Capes can’t blame him for. Stepping out of the vehicle, he shuts it and locks up. Then takes off.

The first direction he heads is for a fly-by cold breath on the plantsassin, flying a quick loop around it, he slows just long enough to say to HT: “They’re evac’ing, deploying a bunch of Reflections.”

And then he’s off again, zipping off above the trees fast enough to cause a quick burst of a sonic boom before he begins a rapid slowing effect, and rips the sleeve off his shirt. Once again using it as a make-shift mask, tying it across the bottom half of his face and behind his head as he advances toward the front door.

As he walks, he turns his head sideways, frying the wheels on the minivan. Just the wheels, no need for real property damage with them melted to slag.

As he walks, he prepares to respond to the Reflections, while also trying to keep an eye on the toddler and ‘mother.’

Oh man! Action!
This message was last edited by the player at 20:39, Tue 30 Mar 2021.

This one might be interesting.

I can't find my notes from the mall fight.  Let's just call them Reflections.  Thanks

HT blinks as you do a quick freeze on the 'plantsassin'.  "Wait..what?  Hold on-"

But you're gone by then.  You can see the freeze didn't take. Maneater does freeze up.  But shoots come out from underneath and start to reform the central mass.  HT swears and dives at them.  Seems he's occupied for the moment.

The front door flies open and the Reflections stare at you.  Some of the smarter ones shoot at you with predictable results.  Just like at the mall, they seem to shatter once you hit them.  It takes very little time for you to plow through them.

The toddler is standing at the other end of the foyer, arms crossed.  The toddler shimmers and then reforms into a man.  Sort of.  The figure is definitely masculine and human looking.  But somehow weirdly out of focus.  There's a sort of soft light around them but they don't have a heat signature.

"Sorry Jesse James.  If you're looking to play cowboy, there's one of those horses that give you a ride for a quarter over in front of the Safeway.  Now if you'll excuse me."

'Mom' is headed out the back door, hand in her purse, fishing out car keys.  She's acting more like she's late for picking up the kids at computer camp than she is leaving the scene of a metabrawl.

HT is ripping apart Maneater.  But he'll be a while by your estimates.

Glowy, who you guess might be Pale Image, is waiting to see what you're going to do.

Of course, the only reason that Jack can’t hear what HT says after that initial ‘hold on’ is that HT stops talking because he assumes Jack has flown out of range, most likely. He’ll need to remind the guy that he can just call out things, and doesn’t need to worry so much about range.

Something to bring up later.

Jack zips through the Reflections like they’re made out of paper, zipping between them as he enters the house. Tilting his head sideways as he watches the toddler and the woman. He knows from past observation that he shouldn’t rely on his eyes with Pale Image, so as he advances a few steps inside he looks around for signs of projection.

This is a tech guy, tech guy means he’s relying on tech. Probably trying to get to another portal. The woman’s nonchalance is strange.

Even as he takes the time to look the place over at super-speed, he tunes back into the end of the Pale Image’s banter. Very witty.

He responds with a shrug and then a wink, and whistles at a high pitch, while reaching sideways to flick the wall. The randomness of his actions might seem childish and foolish, but in truth, he knows that the Pale Image’s work is delicate at times, the interior of that mirror was wafer thin. Beautiful circuitry all tightly inserted into the smallest space possible.  That sort of thing might respond poorly if someone were to whistle at ear-piercing frequencies, or to start knocking things around. Even as he launches a few random actions out there, he thinks. Fast.

In a blur, he zips backwards right back out of the house, flies up over it, and comes back in the back door. Standing in front of the woman as she is playing with her keys.  He wants to keep down the damage.

Looking at the keys in the woman’s hands, he reaches out and plucks them away.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 751):

The toddler/thing seems to shimmer when you whistle.  Whatever happened, it seems to have at least given it pause.

Soccer Mom blinks and then grabs at the keys.

"Hey!  I don't know who you think you are mister.  But you can't carjack me!  What are you?  On drugs?"

"Millicent."

It's the same voice as the toddler/thing back in the house, which is still shimmering in phase.  It takes you a moment to locate the voice's source.  It's coming from the van's side rearview mirror.  Pale Image's face is taking up the mirror.

"Millicent.  I think it's time for your walk.  Why don't you go do a lap around the block."

Soccer Mom blinks and then turns, starting to walk off down the driveway.

"Leave her out of this Jesse James."  Pale Image sort of pulls himself out of the rear view and stands up by the van.  "You wanna pester someone, you can pester me."

When Pale Image sends the woman off, Jack scans her to make sure she isn’t taking something off with her, but the way she acts seems to imply that she is under some sort of hypnotic effect. Turning his head slightly, he scans the interior of the room and then the upstairs. Wondering if the Pale Image’s actions are intended to be some sort of diversion from the real deal. In particular, he scans the sky overhead.

The upstairs being shielded, he darts up the stairs rather than engage with Pale Image. Either the guy is playing games, or he’s drastically overestimating himself.

Seeing as the guy’s focus is on technology, he zips up the stairs and opens the door, checking all of the rooms in the house that he can’t see from the outside.

Only when he comes back does he paw at his mask and realize that the Jesse James comments are about his mask, and not his status as an ‘outlaw.’ Which keeps him from commenting.

He doesn’t want to be recorded by the tech-oriented villain.

Coming back out of the house again a few minutes later, he walks over to the image of Pale Image and gives it a little flick on the forehead out of curiosity. Followed by a sharp piercing whistle.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 753):

Let's back up to Jack going upstairs first

As you zip upstairs, you see...

Well the hallway looks normal.  There are photos on the wall of Milicent and the guy she was talking to in the van the other day.  They're making goo-goo eyes at each other.  The toddler is with them in a couple of photos.  In two of them, she looks older than she did before she turned all shimmery.

All the doors are shut.  You can't peer through them.

As you open the first door, you are confronted with a mirror.  It's right in front, covering the entire doorway.

You're staring back at you.

You can't see past the mirror into the room.  There's a hum coming from the mirror.  Your trick with the whistle didn't seem to have an impact on this one.

There are three other doors, also shut and Jack-proof, along the hall.

Doing anything to this mirror?  Opening the other doors?

Jack will open and then shut each door in turn, checking each interior. He isn't about to smash things up, he just wants to be certain there isn't some spot that Pale Image's meat body is sitting around waiting for an opening so that it can slip away. As he opens each door in turn, he is looking for ways to shut things down without damaging things.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 755):

Each door has a mirror right behind it except the door at the end of the hall, which just opens into a normal looking master bedroom.

You can't really see past the mirrors or into the mirrors themselves.  There's no circutry on these.  They just seem like blank space.

No meat bodies anywhere.  Maybe for Christmas.

But there are Jack bodies.  As you finish your circut, the doors behind you begin to open and Jacks, obviously reflections, come out.  Three of them.  And these don't break as easy.  There's a bit more solidty to them.  As they grab at you, you can tell they're strong.  Not your level strong.  But they'd give HT a hard time.  No pun intended.

If Jack had come here on his own, he would deal with this whole situation differently. Vaporize all the mirrors and then deal with the Pale Image a bit more forcefully, probably fly through some of the walls just to make sure there’s nothing hidden behind them. But if he did that, he is almost certain that HT would say that he had over-stepped. He was expected to demonstrate his judgment, but his judgment here is that as long as he can keep the threat from spilling over, it’s not the end of the world.

When the Mirror-Jacks emerge and don’t immediately get torn in half by a passing hand, his eyebrow quirks, but he continues to not speak. Increasingly unsure if Pale Image’s abilities are tech or meta powers. Both maybe?

He tests how fast they are just to see if it’s only strength, and then once he has their measure, he proceeds to start dismantling them so that he can zip back toward the driveway. His main concern at this point is to keep the property damage down. Using a combination of basic grappling and his strength to grab limbs and pluck them apart like flies, albeit with more force than he'd needed against earlier Reflections.

Hopefully Pale Image can’t make them in the future, that’d be a real pain.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 757):

They are poor copies.  You judge them to be at maybe a third of your level.  Darja could probably handle one, maybe two.  Three might be too much for her.  They take you about a minute forty seconds.

By the time you have them wrapped up, you find HT in the driveway, standing over a cracked apart Pale Image.  Sirens are coming.  Lots of them.  The cops are about fifty seconds to two minutes out.

HT glances at you and gestures at the sky.  "Head out.  I'll handle the cops.  Rendezvous where we met up tomorrow oh seven hundred AM."

Seems like your first ride along is letting out early.

"There's a woman he had hypnotized or something, brainwashed, maybe? This is her house, she's walking over that way," Jack mentions even as he takes a moment to be sure that HT is actually HT and not some sort of copy that the Pale Image can make to trick him. He wouldn't put it past the guy who can make a copy of him to be able to fake a scene like this and send him away.

Once he's certain that he has a good handle on things, he nods his head at the instructions.

Floating up off the ground, he flies away in a visible manner and then circles back to keep watch until the police arrive, but from above the clouds. Just in case.

Assuming that everything goes down in a sensible manner, he turns and banks away.

---

Flying up north, Jack comes to a stop down the block from the mental facility, pulling the sleeve off his face he rips off the sleeve on the other arm and makes the two sides match. Tossing them into a dumpster as he walks along the drive toward the facility where his mom is being held.

As he walks, he takes the time to pull out his cell phones and check them, sending a few quick messages to Lydia just to be a good boyfriend.

To Kevin, in response to the earlier comment about the file on him: Pale Image is detained. Still curious about the file though, meet you somewhere tonight?
This message was last edited by the player at 20:50, Mon 05 Apr 2021.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 759):

Millicent has disappeared when you scan for her.  HT nods at your words.

Things seem to go as well as can be expected.  A couple of suits show up.  They seem to be Feds.  HT gives them a run down.

Apparently this was just a simple check in but he spotted Man-eater.  Man-eater is a high level assassin who never surfaces unless they are tracking a target.  You catch this exchange.

One of the Feds:  "You think it's You Know Who trying to drive any competitors off their turf?"

HT shrugs.  "That'd be my guess.  Let's talk about it later."

You notice he cuts his eyes skywards when he says that.  He can't see you, as far as you know.  But maybe he's wondering if you're skulking about.

You skulker you.

Kevin chimes back while you're skulking.  Skulker.

Let's meet up at that burger joint. 9 PM

He means that run down burger joint with the high level shielding.

---

Kevin is wolfing down two jalapeno cheddar burgers and a plate of tater tots.

The restaurant is, like last time, almost deserted this time of night.  The bored looking cashier and fry cook are staring at their phones in the back, gossiping about how much they hate the dayshift manager.

No one's paying attention.

Kevin pops the last bit of burger one into his mouth and washes it down with a Mr. Pibb.

"Sorry for pigging out.  It's been a long day and I'm starving."

He belches as he unwraps the second burger, then grabs a tot and dips it in the lake of ketchup he's got to one side.  "Word has it Hard Time had a run in with Paley this afternoon.  You heard anything about it?"

He takes out a thumb drive and passes it across the table to you.

"When I peeked around Pale's shop, I found a hard drive.  That's what was on there about you.  It says your Mom is crazy.  Sorry if that's the case."

He leans a bit closer.  "Dude. They've got your DNA."  He stuffs the burger into his mouth as he stares at you, taking a huge bite out of it.  "At least that file says they do.  Any ideas on how they even know about you?"

You recall what you read in the information file about Pale Image Kevin had provided you.

Pale Image was a lab tech who, surprise surprise, gained powers in a lab accident.  He also turned out to be a genius when it came to transdimensional imaging.  Apparently both his powers and his tech are about pulling copies of people and things from alternate timelines.  But the copies aren't perfect.  Pale Image himself can turn into a holographic image and travel along light waves.

Whatever HT busted up this afternoon, it probably wasn't the real Pale Image.

Millicent is apparently his actual wife.  They had a daughter who died.  Part of Pale Image's motivation is revenge against the hospital that she died in.

How any of that relates to you...?

Jack wonders if they’d actually caught Man-Eater then, or if HT had really just totally blown the surveillance by putting them so close. He’d have to give the man a hard time for it, later, since it means that on a trip that was meant to “test him” it’d been the mentor who’d pushed things too far.

Hearing about Voldemort, his eyebrows arch slightly and he tacks that onto the list of things to talk to people about. Maybe save it for his conversation with Omen, whenever that happens.

Cutting away, he glances at his phone and heads home.

Still no AER, so he decides that today he’ll continue to work on languages while he watches Star Wars. Egyptian could be a good one to know that he doesn’t know already.

And damn, he’s going to need to get rid of this shirt.

---

Scanning the area as he comes in, Jack proceeds inside, hoofing the distance from where he’d landed to the restaurant.

Showing up at the burger place, Jack goes to get himself something to eat, getting a double cheddar burger with bacon, and a chocolate shake. He stands to the side until he is called up and then takes his tray over to sit across from Kevin.

“No worries, I had to learn to get over how people sound when they’re chewing when I was five,” he mentions with a smile and nods at the question about Paley. “I was there, so was Man-Eater, and Pale’s wife, though I thought she was a bystander. She seemed out of it, but she hid. Makes me think it was a ruse,” he mentions.

Jack reaches out to take the thumb drive, putting it into his pants pocket.

“Crazy is a simple word for a complex woman, and she has drowned herself in alcohol,” he answers with a mild shrug. He knows she’s unwell, but that was not a new idea, he’d known that for years.

The mention about DNA earns a mild shrug.

“I have some ideas, but no, no certainties on how they know about me. But I can assuage any worries you have, I’m a result of a lot of tricks all being applied at the right moments in the process of growing an embryo, super-genius meta work, I can’t be copied. They could make a genetic clone, but my genetic makeup is only a small aspect of what I am,” he mentions to Kevin, so that there is no worry that they need to go and storm the castle to get back his genetic material.

Not that he isn’t concerned and won’t act, but it’s not something that makes him panic.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 761):

Kevin listens to what you say and then shrugs himself, sucking ketchup off his fingers.

He goes in for more tots.

"Maneater showed up huh?  That's funny what-the-fuck not funny ha-ha.  Maneater only takes contracts on other metas.  Or that's the gossip.  I wonder who..."it's"?..target was."

He thinks a moment.  Another shrug.  Another handful of tots.

"Paley's wife is, far as I know, really his wife.  Yeah, she probably acted all hypnotized to try to get away.  As far as I know though, she's in on it.  They have some hard on against some doctor or something like that.

"Good to know they can't copy you.  One of you is enough of a pain in the ass."  He burps.  "But I'm sure Gun Shot is sayin' the same thing about me.  Welcome to the club.

"So.  How are things in the kiddie pool?  They gonna let you do the adult swim soon?"

Your cell buzzes.  HT.

Things all straightened out.  You did good for things going south like that.  We'll recon tomorrow.  Link for AER attched.  Your user name is Buckshot.  I didn't pick it.

“One of the Feds speculated,” Jack mentions and then does his best impression of the Agent, like how Darja had done it, but he definitely hasn’t practiced it enough to know if it’s within his powerset. Then again, he also doesn’t want to step on Darja’s nuts too much, she needs to know that he isn’t stealing her thunder.  "You think it's You Know Who trying to drive any competitors off their turf?"

Having said that, he makes a little gesture like that explains it, but realizes that out of context even Monkey might need the last dot.

“I think it might have been there to kill Paley, or scare him, at least, he seems tough to kill, just a guess though, obviously I didn’t try,” he speculates, and hearing the comments about how she’d been in on it, he nods a little. He’ll remember that for next time and just detain her. Then again, that would have probably prompted Pale to pull out the stops and retaliate.

She’s the family he has left.

“Well, I think I handled this thing well, and I’ve shown I can get around without them knowing I’m out there,” he answers with a shrug. “I’m still not sure if I should show them my new suit, or keep it as backup in case I want to do something on the QT.”

Pulling out his cell phone he glances at it, making mental note.  Cool.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 763):

Kevin furrows his furry brows when you first mention "You Know Who".

"What the fuck..."  he mutters.  He probably isn't aware he said it out loud from his expression.

He absentmindedly picks up another handful of tots.

'Something's going on.  Minneapolis has never been this active before.  There's too much going on. And there's too many coincidences."

He looks at you oddly and then reaches for the last bite of his burger.  "If you tell them about the suit, they'll tell you to mothball it.  They won't want you runnin' around without being on someone's insurance.  And if you're as powerful as I think you are, that's gonna be one hell of a monthly insurance premium someone's gonna have to pay.  And that someone will want a say in how you do things.

"Don't take this the wrong way.  But maybe you should mothball it. At least for a little while."  He shrugs and chomps on the burger.  "I'm sayin' this as a friend.  I don't know your whole background and whatnot. But it's pretty obvious you didn't grow up in the regular nuclear family.  Maybe take some time to be regular folks.  You might find that you like it more than the Life."

He shrugs and pops the last of the burger into his mouth.  "Just throwin' it out there.  You should do what you want."

Jack doesn’t get the impression that Kevin knows who they are referring to, but he isn’t about to voice that. The whole Voldemort thing makes him think that discussing it is probably something he should only do with someone like Omen.

The comment about coincidences just mirrors earlier thoughts and comments he’d made, indirectly skirting the idea, rather than directly speaking about his father or someone like him.  Someone pulling a lot of strings to maneuver events for some reason.

“Okay, so don’t use it with them, but I’m not going to mothball it. I’ve had need for it recently, and I’m tired of tearing up shirts to make a mask,” he grumbles and stares off into space for a moment as he thinks about things and then glances over his shoulder, letting himself do a periodic glance around to make sure that they aren’t under surveillance.

The comment about being ‘regular’ makes him roll his eyes.

“If the world were at peace, if I couldn’t hear people,” he pauses, “Maybe I could really bury my head in the sand. I could maybe move somewhere remote, build a cabin. That’d be nice. The Yukon or something? But I don’t have that luxury, and being ‘regular’ means ignoring things. You know, I’m sure you’d have handled Faust just fine the other day, but maybe you wouldn’t have? Maybe the world would be short one Light, if I’d just buried my head in the sand that night, and then all the good you’ve done since would be,” he throws a little hand into the air. Like he’s sprinkling dust.

He answers and shrugs a little, returning the shrug.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 765):

Kevin cocks a hair eyebrow when you mention the shirts.  "Why don't you just carry a bandana?"

He shrugs back at you.  "Sorry.  Not tryin' to piss you off.  It's not like I can blame anyone for not takin' the easy way out. And I don't mind the assists ever.  Just...well.  You never know if someone's joining the life cos they want to or cos someone expects them too.  Like your friend Odeila.

"Anyway.  I won't bug you about it again."  He belches and wipes his fingers on a napkin.  Picking up his Mr. Pibb, he looks at you.  "You want me to nose around and see if I can figure out why Paley was interested in you?"

“I had originally mostly just wanted a mask for that reason, something small and pocket sized, but yeah, since I can’t carry that around,” Jack agrees, he’d make a mental note to always carry a bandana in the future. Something pocket sized to disguise his features somewhat. Though apparently people like Paley had his details, which meant that he probably wasn’t accomplishing a lot with the measures. "Good idea."

The mention about Odelia gets a quirked eyebrow.

“She was out in that outfit because someone expected her to?” he asks.

The question about nosing around earns a sort of non-committal shrug. “I mean, if you can do it safely, yeah. Just don’t stick your neck out for me, since it’s not like I’m really at risk,” he asides, and finishes off his own cheeseburger, dipping a few more fries into the ketchup.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 767):

"Yeah," he mutters when you question about Odelia.  "She's definitely a brat.  But she does seem to have come by the chip on her shoulder fair and square.  It's...complicated."

He shrugs back at you.  "The thing about it...if someone has your DNA...I dunno.  Makes me wonder if maybe someone's trying to make another you.  Or find a way to deal with the one they got."

He finishes his drink.  "Anything I should know?  I mean...I do live here.  And I guess I'm kinda committed to keeping it safe.  Well.  Safe-ish.  Anyway I'll keep you in the loop. But if you come across something, do the same."

Jack isn’t sure that answered the question, but he doesn’t push the issue.

“I’m not saying I’m not concerned, I understand,” he confirms, nodding his head, the second thing might be a thing, he supposes. A weakness.

The question of things that Kevin should know earns a thoughtful look as he goes over his mental rolodex of problems. He’d told Kevin about the BEs, the sandman thing, Faust he knew about, exploding people he definitely knew. He’d passed along HT’s warning.

The only thing he hasn’t mentioned is his father and some of his suspicions, but those are the sort of thing he wants to play close to the chest. Not because Kevin would sell him out, but because without more information it’d just be idle speculation and could put a target on the Monkey.

“No, I think that’s it,” he answers.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 769):

Moving us along

Lydia texts you.  Mostly a lot of nothing.  Seems she just wants to chat or some such?  Since one of her texts is about which is better:  Fresca or Diet Barq's Root Beer, you assume she just wants to chat.  Or maybe it's code.

Darja texts you.  She's getting pulled in for early morning training.  She'll see you at school.

Colby also texts you.  <i>Have you got time this weekend?  Need help with a big pizza delivery.  Couple hours of work.  Will $$$$$$$$$

---

HT has a thermos.  One of those big thermoses as long as your arm.  You probably assume it's coffee, but when he pours a cup it smells and looks like tea.

"I gotta switch from joe to tea.  This is white tea.  Supposed ta be good for ya.  My wife's been nagging about it."

The two of you are sitting at a small breakfast table inside the house you met at last time.  The house is sparsely furnished.  Most of the furniture looks older than you are.

HT chuckles.  "We decided not to spend a lotta money on amenities for the safe houses.

"Alright.  So before I tell you about what happened yesterday, you tell me what happened.  What were your impressions?  What did you think went right and what went wrong?  Don't be afraid to be blunt."  He grins at you as he starts to sip on the tea.  "I don't break easy."

Jack text back Lydia: Fresca is part of some sort of mind control experiment, avoid Fresca.

He sends back a thumbs up emoji to Darja.

To Colby: I assume in the evening? Should be fine. Might have some stuff in the morning, but it shouldn’t take all day.

---

Jack is surprised he couldn’t smell the difference through the thermos, then again, it is just water with leaves in it.

“Your wife back in Chicago?” he asks, looking around a little as he sits down, he wonders if HT is making her up, or if there are actual signs of another person living in the small house.

He doesn’t judge the furniture, or the choice. Mom had never been one to mind the age of the furniture, or electronics. Despite how much one would assume that’d be a thing for a mad scientist.

“I can tell.”

The question about his impressions and right/wrong earns a small nod as he appears to take a moment to organize his thoughts.

“Let’s see.

For you, first: you should have SOP for approaching a target like that. Brief me or another trainee on what a target can do before hand, and known ways to take them out or detain them. Should I have annihilated all of the mirrors in the area the moment he was exposed? Should I have avoided contact at all costs? I should have known his wife was in on it. Next, since you were trying to ascertain my sensory range for your edification, you should have been dialing in from further off. Stop at a few miles off, see if I can hear the people there, then move closer until I can, not drive up and scope it out like it’s Brooklyn 99. Nine-nineee.

For me:  I should be carrying a better mask in my pocket,” he pulls out his bandana.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 771):

"Oklahoma City," HT answers when you ask about his wife.  "My mother-in-law is early stages Alzheimers.  Helen wants to spend some time with her while she can."

He laughs at the end of your analysis.  "So I get the beating and you get "better mask" huh?  Well.  I can't argue that it didn't go well.  I had no plans on engaging with Pale Image.  Maneater kinda threw a wrench in the works."

He leans forward.  "Yesterday wasn't really gonna be about your sensory range.  We coulda tested that at the gym.  I wanted to see how you'd scope things out.  Ya know..."  He waves a hand at his temple.  "How you'd process the set up.  Was gonna have you give me a plan of attack and everything. Which you ended up doing anyway.

"You won't always get to know what the bad guy can and can't do ahead of time.  Personally, I think it's better to throw you guys into unknown situations.  Let you sink or swim...ya know.  Of course backing you up.  But the best teacher is experience.  Making you run obstacle courses for months on end can only get you so far."

He takes a swig of tea, studying you over the rim of the cup.  "You've got pretty control of your powers.  What you're lacking is experience.  So what I'm considering is letting you do monitored patrol activity.  You'd get to actually patrol the city under supervision.

"Whaddya think about that?"