Description: Zach and Soma bump into each other on the Suiryuu. However, for every way the two seem to be the same, they find out just how different they are.
While not exactly claustrophobic, Soma Travedi has never been fond of enclosed spaces. A visit to his brownstone living space-slash-office in Southtown certainly confirms this: windows everywhere, little clutter, furniture at the edges of the room. He has always been more comfortable in open space... and, at least on the Suiryuu, he is distinctly *uncomfortable* with the uneasy feeling he gets creeping from the very walls in the cabins and belowdecks, especially after his meeting with Hotaru.
Thus the early evening finds him on the main foredeck, as near to the bow as the railings allow and looking out over the dark sea as the ship cuts through it like a knife. This far from land there's not much to be seen, except the orange-red disc of the sun dipping low under the horizon line, turning the impenetrable green-black of the sea, at least somewhat, into an undulating sheet of burnished gold. The sight may be plain, but it's certainly one that might inspire thought and calm reflection.
Something Soma can use quite a bit more of than he's had, ever since he dropped from 50,000 feet onto this very deck, a tiny groove in the waxed wood all that remains of his unorthodox descent. By the time he was awake, even the massive black parachute and insulated black flight suit he'd been wearing had been cleared away, as if the ship's keepers wanted to eliminate the evidence as bad as Soma himself might.
Turning away from the sea, the undercover ICPO agent sighs and, turning away from the sea to lean on the railing, runs a hand through his dark hair, the silver tips hanging briefly over the dark rose-tan of his skin. Between the Ryouhara angle and now the energy-eating ship angle Hotaru was kind enough to give him, he's got a lot to think about.
Energy eating ships? That might explain why the other man on the foredeck was invited to the tournament. Zach is seated on the deck, arm around one railing with his legs dangling off over the edge of the bow. The wind runs hidden fingers through his own purple hair, as Zach stares at something.
He switches between the view across the water, and the pair of sunglasses he has in his hands. Soma, if he is sensitive to such things, is likely to pick up on Zach much like a parent picks up on really loud rock music being played behind the bedroom doors of their children. Strange, since the young man hasn't said much of anything to anyone this evening...
He never had anyone to talk to about it with -- he knows nobody else... save one individual with whom Soma has no intent to speak on such things -- but while he was in Thailand, helping with the resistance, all the time there was something strange, something uncomfortable buzzing in the back of the undercover agent's mind. Not even his Interpol superiors, who know nothing about his empathic abilities, heard a description.
But in his mind he always described it like an author would: a thread of static, like the tiniest pops and crackles in the sound of a phonograph. Only audible if you spend the time to listen to them, but ever-present, built into the music.
Soma's eyes were drawn up and away into the sky as he turned around, but his gaze suddenly drops to the crowd. The 'noise' isn't the same -- Vega's power and influence are hard to top -- but the same feeling *is*. He frowns, looking around the scant few people already up here, trying to pick it out. It's unusual, only the second time Soma's ever encountered another individual who set off his 'radar'... and thankfully not radiating the sense of disquieting violence that the 'Ojike no Oni' did when they met. And after he found that the Suiryuu's seals do indeed react to his power, a power other than chi... if that person was invited too, it might be an important clue.
Zach is about the polar opposite of what anyone could even unreasonable call sensitive. Imagine being /in/ the room with all of that loud rock music. Zach doesn't radiate violence so much as noise barely contained by the room it is in.
He is also clueless to the fact that Soma's attention has zeroed in on him. He eventually pulls himself to his feet and leans on the railing himself, staring down at the sunglasses in his hand...
At this hour there's not that many people left on the deck of the Suiryuu to be the source of this... not uneasiness, but tension. Like a string stretched too tight, vibrating with the folding and unfolding of kinetic energy. Soma is actually a psychic of no mean ability... but as a child, his options were to learn control or to lose his mind in the sea of extrasensory data. Decades and many years of training later he's finally gotten to the point where he doesn't feel the feelings of others unless he wants to, with a few rare exceptions.
Narrowing his eyes, scanning the crowd, the undercover agent finally narrows it down to two people: a woman with bright blue hair leaning against the railing, wearing what appears to be punk kid clothing, and Zach. Pushing himself off the railing, he walks toward the blue-haired woman purposefully... and then gets close enough to let his hand, swinging at his side, brush her back.
Nothing.
Leaving only one target left, as Soma gives the innocent girl an apology and turns to walk away. But he's too good an undercover cop to let Zach know he's heading *right* at him. All he needs to do is make contact. Like a psychometrist who reads auras by touch. That should make certain...
Zach has learned, in the last three years, that =his= options are to either control the power that he has or let it rip him apart from the inside. Not that it /would/, but Zach doesn't know that. He muct be lost in thought. He doesn't even notice Soma coming at him, let alone in such an indirect matter.
The sunglasses have his attention, or more specifically, the =owner= of the glasses does. Arika... Glen is not sure what to think about Arika Fade.
The trick is to zigzag, do other things, swing around. If Zach were a perp, by the time he noticed anything Soma would have his gun at the back of the boy's head. One of those tricks of profiling they teach you how to do if you survive long enough to need to know how. And for the briefest of moments Soma realizes he still HAS his M9, holstered under his jacket near his shoulder. The pistol is the soldier's weapon of last resort... and even Soma's weapons of *first* resort are strapped to the inside of his sleeves, as always.
But he doesn't sense hostility, even as he gets closer to Zach. Some of the stress drains from the policeman's otherwhise whip-tense body. Weapons... he hopes he won't need them.
And then it's time to make his move. Soma doesn't even introduce himself. Instead, as he steps past, he moves a little too close, lets his hand swing a little too wide...
...and for his trouble, his hand is briefly surrounded by a flare of silver-black and purple, clashing against each other, before he yanks it back in surprise, blinking. His power *did* react. It's the real deal.
"...excuse me, sorry," is the only thing that comes out of his mouth, but even that is tinged with disbelief.
At the flare of energies Zach's eyes go wide beneath the ball cap, and young man spins around. He brings up a palm, almost in a blur. It stops just short of Soma's face, as the purple energy seeps loose. Zach is glaring at Soma intently at this point, his breathing a little rough from the sudden flush of adrenaline.
"I would suggest, sir, that you step back nice and slow," Glen says in an even tone of voice, "You don't /seem/ like trouble, but I can't promise I will be able to not blast you in the face if you move too suddenly." There is no threat in Zach's voice, it is an almost clinical statement of fact as the younger man sees it.
From the expression on Soma's face, Zach may as well have turned around and started to dance a jig. He doesn't even blink at the sudden movement of the hand, practiced reflexes already humming. After all, he burned up all his tension just getting this set up... and the dry, almost rote tone of Zach's sentence gives it the sound of something long-practiced but ill-intended... which is to say, it's very unlikely the boy before him has ever had to follow 'don't make me have to blast you in the face' with an actual blast to the face.
His torso doesn't move, though one dark black eyebrow raises on Soma's face, and the hand he was pulling back to himself as Zach suddenly spun goes to his hip, the Indian's elbow making a triangle with his torso. "You seem the tiniest bit jumpy," Soma says in a dry tone, as if he hadn't just been threatened. "Especially for someone who's taking a relaxing sea voyage."
Zach considers himself lucky for that, actually. He keeps his eyes locked on Soma for a moment as the purple energy slowly fades from around the hand, before =he= loosens up. He shakes the hand loose for a moment before regarding the undercover cop.
"You would be too, if you were in my shoes," Zach shakes his head, "I'm sorry. My control over my... power is far from perfect. I meant how I said that just now." He sighs, looking Soma over for a moment.
"So I gathered." The tone isn't necessarily mocking, though it is kept carefully neutral... an affectation that might lead Zach to think Soma is making fun of him. Visual manifestations of his own power -- the black-edged silver glow -- are nowhere to be seen, though perhaps now that the two are in close proximity Zach can sense it himself... and sense the intense, tight barrier the ICPO agent has walled around himself in that regard. The imagery is like light shining through the cracks and mortar of an old stone wall.
However, eventually Soma steps to Zach's right, gazing out over the ocean... and there's an edge of sympathy in his voice. After all, he's not 100% certain what it is young Zach Glen meant by 'in my shoes', but he's got a good guess. Memories bubble up of being 5 years old and totally unable to tell which thoughts and feelings were his, and which were his mother's, his father's, even their house staff. A lack of identity, and a commensurate lack of control. For some, it's the most terrifying feeling in the whole world.
"I think I understand what you mean."
Zach eyes Soma a bit uncertainly. He doesn't sense anything of Soma's power now that they have actually broken off active contact. As it has been said before, Zach is decidedly =not= sensitive in the way Soma is. He has too much noise he would have to listen through in order to pick out anything, let alone anything useful.
A lack on control on Zach's part, he learned that first day and in the days that have followed, result in property damage and perhaps injury to those around him.
"I'm not sure where it came from, how I got it, or anything like that. Just one day, during an arguement over something stupid..." Zach frowns, "When I woke up, my house had been pretty much levelled."
Although he doesn't turn back far enough for Zach to see it, that statement surprises me. He doesn't have the *outward* energy to level a house. His power has always been more internally-oriented, in his head, in his bones and his muscles. For a moment, he wonders if his early training in meditation is what's responsible... if he'd been allowed to just go nuts as a child if he too wouldn't be blasting down buildings... and panicking at the touch of another human being.
Turning around, Soma finds the railing and leans back against it before turning his head toward the young purple-haired man. His expression is amused, almost wry; the most he can do, having been hardened by too few years of fun and too many of civil service work. "You say that as if it were your fault it happened," he adds, keeping that eyebrow raised. "I can't say 25 seconds has given me a handle on your personality, but when you turned and warned me, it wasn't with the intent to hurt me. You were trying, in a strange way, to protect me." Soma turns his head again, looking back over the deck. "So my guess is you didn't flip out and blow up a house because you wanted to."
"Oh no. I was pretty pissed off. Roommate overspent, made the rent check bounce. The anger was intentional. I was pretty much /ready/ to flip out." Zach frowns as he returns his his gaze out over the water. "Levelling the house, putting him in the hospital for a month, those were accidents." He gazes down at the empty hand, "But I was still the one that did those things, regardless of what I did or didn't mean to do."
It might be noted that Zach didn't panic at the /touch/ as much as the flaring of power. He has only met two others who wielded power similar to his own, and only knew of two others beyond that. So far, it's been a 50-50 mix of good and evil. He was not, at the time, certain of where Soma was in all of this. He's =still= not sure.
"I still lash out and hurt people with it. At least in competitive fighting, the people I hurt know that they might be hurt."
It finally occurs to the ICPO agent that Zach *doesn't* actually register that Soma himself shares the power that let him ferret out Zach's place on the deck in the first place... and for the time being, he's comfortable existing in the space between truth and fiction. There might be a good time to reveal his own secrets in this scenario, but just as Zach is feeling out Soma in this situation, the undercover agent is as well. Instead he shrugs a little as he turns back to look at Zach.
"You were ready to yell, maybe. Intentionality... it applies for more than people think. It can be the difference between murder and manslaughter, for example," he says blithely, a cop to the core even if he's undercover. "Or the difference between 'I'm sorry' and never speaking to someone again. Besides, it was a good object lesson, wasn't it? In the need for control..." The stress he puts on that last sentence is perhaps a little too heavy for someone with no connection to the subject.
With a sweep of the hand, Soma gives Zach a mild, casual salute. "My name's Soma Travedi. You'll forgive me if I decide not to shake hands."
Zach chuckles at Soma's quip. "Zach Glen, and forgive me if I understand completely." He waves slightly. "I haven't met anyone that can pull my power out quite like that before. I..." Zach fumbles a bit, "I wasn't ready for that. I didn't feel like I had time to figure out what your intentions were." He sticks his hands in his pockets, "Sorry if I worried you any. The fact that you didn't do anything after that spark gave me a moment to think." He glances around; the two men are alone on the deck at this point, "I get the impression that something strange is going on around here. Damned if I know what, or even if I could do anything about it if I knew."
Now there's a conversational gambit that absolutely no psychic powers are required to respond to. Soma gives a short, sharp "Heh!" as Zach infers that not everything is alright in the good ship Suiryuu, and once again turns to lean on the railing as he responds. His voice has a low, dry tone as he does so, too. "You and everyone else on this floating deathtrap." There's a pause, and then a sigh. "There's so much mystery I don't even know where to START thinking about it." And this much is absolutely true. Between his own observations and information from Hotaru and even Elle, there's too many leads for a frustrated Soma to follow.
"As for the sudden jolt, well..." There's a pause. This is the Rubicon, this is the border than can't be re-crossed, this is the step off the cliff. Soma doesn't turn to face Zach; he holds up his right hand, and an aura of silver edged with black flows around it for just a moment, then vanishes. The ICPO agent's dark violet eyes are cold as he turns them to the young American, and now his tone becomes somewhat severe: "Accidents happen." There's a pause, and then Soma leans back his head to look at the sky.
Soma makes his Intimidation check against Zach by the barest of margins. Zach nods gravely at the ICPO agent, "Yeah." Zach's hand tightens around the sunglasses he is holding in his pocket. He blinks once, blinks twice. "If you'll excuse me, I have a couple of things I need to return to someone."
With that, Glen starts to head belowdeck.
Log created on 21:11:10 09/11/2007 by Zach, and last modified on 06:02:15 09/13/2007.