Survey Says {open}

[Aisling MacGrory]

The thin girl stood in the middle of the courtyard, nearly overwhelmed by the bulky clothing she wore, particularly the baggy sweater. With her hands was a clipboard, with a pen attached to it via a string. Numbers and tallies were already done there, though not nearly enough. Mostly because it was nearly impossible to get people's attention.

Aisling did know ways of getting people to notice her. She could wave her arms or try some kind of dance number, or even start banging objects together. It wasn't her lack of voice that was the problem. Nor was it the nearly constant stream of numbers floating over her consciousness, reminding her that nearly every third person could be committing a violent crime. It was the fact that she had to actually approach people.

Yeah, that wasn't happening.

Aisling sighed and sat down on the fountain. Her hands came up, resting on her knees and cradling her head. The sleeves had rolled up enough to cover most of her hands. How exactly was she supposed to get accurate results like this? She really should have left this part to a different researcher. Because this clearly wasn't working. In fact, Aisling nearly felt like crying. This felt far, far too much like failure to her.

[Gia Elliot]

Arms full of books, Gia strolled down the halls, trying to figure out exactly where she should sit to study. After all, it had been chilly outside lately, but at the same time, she was tired of being cooped up indoors all the time. And it had seemed to thaw, at least a little bit, for the day, anyway, and she wanted to make the most of it. Still, it was a lot of books to carry around to some of the quieter, less-travelled areas of town, and Gia didn't want to worry about what would happen if she lost something, or had something stolen.

Not that she worried too much about the latter happening. Sure, if the thief was clever enough to think about something else, or in fact, nothing at all when he (or she. Gia was an equal opportunities target, after all) approached, Gia wouldn't notice them at all, but, there was an upside to not having enough control to turn her gift completely off. Whatever anyone was actively thinking about, she could hear. At least, in the general vicinity. It gave her a pretty good first judgment of people, especially when they wanted to hurt her, or someone else, or steal. Still, as she spun around to catch a falling book, Gia glanced at the girl who's thoughts were not exactly pleasant at the moment and frowned.

She didn't look happy, and was alone. Gia's heart went out to the poor girl who was obviously miserable, and more than likely freezing outside, and yet no one was walking over to help, or even to just sit with her. Tentatively, Gia approached and slid her coursework onto the fountain walls before sitting next to the girl. "Are you okay? Is there anything I can do to help?" Of course, Gia didn't have to ask, but she always would. She wouldn't want anyone riffling through her mind at will without her consent, and she had no intention of doing to others. After all, wasn't that basically the literal definition of "mind rape" that people so often used in a joking manner?

[Aisling MacGrory]

As usual, a wave of probabilities and percentages started assaulting Aisling. The chance of her succeeding like this, the probability of someone approaching her to help, what her odds of keeping her job were should she fail at something like this. Sometimes, having an ability like Aisling's simply sucked. Though she took some solace in the very low percent her brain supplied at the notion of being fired. No, they were simply much more likely to shove Aisling into a lab and forget about the social interaction that had been encouraged.

Okay; anything to help? Aisling was already wiping her face with the overlong sleeve, and holding up the clipboard. Several questions were already written down, typed out, actually, and it was relatively easy to see that she was supposed to be taking results. Aisling pointed at it, then at the pen, then at the girl. A tilt of the head: would you help?

Then a sharp stab of guilt. This felt almost like using emotion to get what Aisling wanted. True, she needed results and information for the survey, but this didn't strike her as being the best way to get it. She should pull herself together, try something.

Easier said than done. Aisling's mind nearly sent her into a panic, the foul, treacherous organ. She took a deep breath though, and tilted the clipboard, forcing a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

[Gia Elliot]

To say Gia was a bleeding heart may have actually been an understatement, but that didn't bother her. After all, what did it hurt to help someone who needed it? Especially when no one else would. There was that saying that in large groups, when someone needed help, everyone in the group assumed someone else would do the helping, and thus the responsibility did not belong to anyone. And then no one helped. Like calling the emergency number. Someone's dying, 'oh, someone else will call. I'm a bit too busy to stick around and wait, and surely someone else has less time.' More people, less responsibility per person until it was dangerously close to zero.

Gia wanted to prove that statistic wrong. She cared, even if no one else did, and that was why she took that seat next to the poor girl that everyone else was ignoring. However, the "how can I help" was not really something she thought would lead to filling out a form. Still, as the girl looked at her and then the clipboard and the pen, Gia couldn't help but blink in confusion. That was all it was going to take to make this girl feel better? Answer a few questions? That really wasn't acceptable for people to be ignoring then, was it? Gia smiled back at the girl, though wasn't totally certain, with the conflicted look in the other girl's eyes. But she took the clipboard anyway and read through the questions.

It certainly seemed easy enough to answer, and midway through the first question, Gia frowned at the people still walking past without bothering to look over at the pair, but her eyes returned to the page and finished filling out the form and handed it back to the girl. "I'm Gia. Do you.... need more help with this? I mean, people are just sort of walking past us." She didn't really want to go into the possibility of using her telepathy to get more people to come over, since she didn't want to frighten the girl off (and let's face it, Gia herself would try to get away from someone claiming to be able to read her mind at will as well), and she wasn't certain how well it would work anyway, but it was worth a shot.

[Aisling MacGrory]

What was Aisling supposed to do? She was getting someone else to fill out the survey, though in a way that was making her feel increasingly guilty. She looked at the crowd, seeing several others passing by. Her mind fed her percentages, letting her know precisely what the chances were of a repeat performance. The new information clicked into place, and Aisling knew full well that she could likely pull a sob show for people until she hit her quota.

It just felt wrong though.

Did she need help? Aisling looked over at Gia, and started to nod, but quickly turned it into a shake. Her hands moved, trying to communicate that she was supposed to do that on her own. Remembering that about one student in ten actually knew ASL, Aisling instead tried to communicate this with broad gestures and facial expressions. Not bad, but likely confusing unless you happened to be a mind reader.

Finally, she just smiled and tapped the board, then pointed at Gia. Getting one willing result was better than several forced, after all. Now she just had to hope that Gia actually got the message. Aisling supposed she could get out her phone, if it came to that.

[Gia Elliot]

The frantic hand gestures were not helping Gia make sense of what the girl wanted. If anything, they were distracting Gia from paying attention to the small voice in the back of her head, trying to tell her what Aisling was thinking: what she wanted. What the nod-shake of the head actually meant. Eventually, Gia held her hand out, putting it on top of the other girl's to make the signing stop. The voice grew louder and clearer. Aisling needed to do it on her own; that certainly made sense. Gia nodded slowly before smiling at her and tapping her own forehead. "No need to sign. I'm a telepath. I just try not to use it without permission. You just have to think."

She stood up, glad she could help, even if it was just a little, but the girl had looked so upset before, and Gia really did want to help her out. It wasn't truly helpful to help with half the problem. Instead, she let her mind slowly reach out to the other people who were passing by, getting her attention. "You should really come answer this survey, since it's really fast and it's important." That should get more people for this girl, and help her to cheer up. Even if it was with a little bit of help.

[Aisling MacGrory]

Aisling's hands slowly lowered as a blush slowly raised on her face. A telepath; Aisling really should have thought about that. There was a fairly decent percentage of running into one of those at Hammel (7%), especially in a crowded area like this. Certainly better than your chances of running into one outside of Hammel (.005%), unless you happened to be running from the law (45%, depending on location) or a meta yourself (75%).

So you hear thoughts? How loudly do I need to think? Wondered Aisling. She'd communicated with telepaths before, and mostly found it be an interesting, if slightly weird, experience. She shifted nervously now, trying to remember the best ways of communicating with people who had this gift. Often she found that actually signing did help some, because her brain sent out the signals for the words and such.

Too much thinking. Which really summed up Aisling in three words.

Suddenly, people were coming closer. Considering the low probability of that randomly happening (.3%), Aisling figured that this was most likely a result of the newly arrived telepath (88%).

She started shoving paper at people, wishing that she'd grabbed more pens, and silently thanking the other girl, even as she silently begged the girl for some help here.