Adelaide McLisk
Feb 9, 2014 0:04:54 GMT -5
Post by Adelaide McLisk on Feb 9, 2014 0:04:54 GMT -5
The easy S T U F F . . .Name: Adelaide Rhiannon McLisk
Nickname: Add (preferred), Addy
Age: Twenty-Five
Member Group: College Student - Greenview
Power(s): Probability Calculation - can predict the exact probability of an event occurring, to a much greater extent of the average human being. This does not mean that someone can actually alter the probability of an event, beyond what a normal, non-powered human could do. A possessor of this power can only foresee the probabilities of something actually happening. It does mean that if it is within their power to do so, they can work within the realms of the predicted probability. It also makes them incredibly intelligent, especially in math and other pattern based fields, as they can nearly always discover the exact pattern in use.
Unfortunately, possessors of the ability have difficulties understanding that things can operate outside of probability, that random factors actually do occur. Even if there are no random factors involved, sometimes there are simply so many probabilities that it can momentarily stun a person with this ability. They feel almost compelled to mentally calculate all the possible variables before moving, resulting in what looks like a state of catatonia that is difficult to be snapped out of. Plus, they have great difficulty in grasping the fact that other people can’t see things as they can. Also, those with probability manipulation can completely mess with a probability calculator's head to almost ridiculous degrees.
Play By: Danielle PanabakerLet it F L O W . . .
It started with a birth announcement, as most things do:
Sean and Lorelai McLisk are pleased to announce the birth of their daughter, Adelaide Rhiannon McLisk.
The announcement was faded, and the girl couldn't read much more than that. She frowned down at it, leaning in to get a better look. This was the start, the beginning of everything. Though that did seem rather pretentious when you considered that it was just a birth announcement. Birth announcements happen all the time. People are born and they die at surprising rates. 8.1 births per minute in the United States alone; 257.8 births per minute in the world, if you'd believe the exact statistics. Adelaide McLisk was just another among many.
The girl shifted, revealing another “official” document:
Adelaide McLisk has passed preschool.
We are concerned, because Adelaide does not seem to want to play much with the other children. I saw her talking to them the other day, but the discussion soon erupted into a fight. Still, she's advancing remarkably well scholastically, and you should be very proud of her.
Children were awful, just in general. The girl knew that. Everyone knew that. Every minute, 15 children die in the world. That one minute means that there are fifteen broken families out there, living without their precious child. The girl knows that she should feel guilty about that. There's actually something in the back of her mind insisting that this is horribly sad and that she needs to react. Just as she feels a tear trickling down, her fingers land upon another document. The girl crumples it up, before realizing what it was. She smooths it down, smiling.
A teacher smiles up at her. His arm is around a pretty teenage girl. She's all limb, really, with legs too long for her body. Her reddish brown hair is something of a mess too, with loose tangles falling about her face. A hair tie roughly pulls the hair away from her, yanking it into something that could generously be called a pony tail. That hair extends most of the way down the girl's waist.
The hairstyle does little to make the girl look prettier, but she does have a certain innocent prettiness about her regardless. Her brown eyes twinkled slightly with her smile. They weren't exactly thrilling, those eyes, but they did help with the whole “cute girl next door” image that the girl seemed to possess. Her face has a nice shape, pleasant, even. Her smile isn't too bad either. Teeth do not show; the lips are pursed tightly together. This was the year Adelaide, and it was most certainly her in the picture, this was her last year with the braces. Most people didn't even care about them though, or the glasses, for that matter. Several people saw the pretty girl. There isn't a statistic for how many pretty girls get asked out per minute, unfortunately. For Adelaide, it was probably a few. She went out with most of them too. Some were even likeable. But most fell straight into the standard norm. The average age for intercourse for the standard US male is 17.0 years of age; for females, 17.3. Adelaide would not lose hers till 19. College would help make those limbs grow out, as well as remove the braces and the glasses.
It would also distance her from the teacher though. And the school, to some degree, though it wouldn't be too possible to really be distanced from the school. Adelaide didn't really want to be distanced from it. The school felt very homey, and everything there made a certain kind of sense, lined up right.
The girl tucked the picture back into a book. A yearbook. Her fingers fell on the pages for a moment and she cracked it open to the cover. There were several signatures on the book: Adelaide had been at least somewhat popular, or, to be more accurate, somewhat well known. The girl ran her fingers across the writings, wondering if there was something to be gleaned there.
Not many “have a great summer”'s, which was a good thing. That was another thing that didn't have a statistic; it was just general knowledge. When you didn't know what to write in someone's yearbook, you scrawled a “have a great summer.” There was only one, from a male named Martin, the last name completely indecipherable. The signatures varied from there. Some were oddly positive, almost eerily so:
“Thanks so much, Add! Tommy and I oh you so much!” - Sarah
“Add, my life wouldn't have been the same without you. Keep doing what you're doing.” - Simon
“ADD, U DA B**CH! SERS, SARAH & I WOULDN'T EXIST W/O YOU! HAMMEL 5EVAH!” - Tommy
“Add, thanks so much fordadwhat you did. I knowyou didn't want to do ityou were doing what you thought was best. It'sawesomegreat what you did. Thanks.” - Elise
“ADD, HAVE FUN DESIGNING ROCKET SHIPS!” - Su-lin
Elise had been saved from a father who showed probable signs of abuse. Su-Lin had been one of Add's few friends, a fellow math whiz who had witnessed Add's mind work its wonders. Sarah had wondered about the probability of her relationship with Tommy succeeding; an announcement of their marriage as somewhere round here. Simon had, well, that had actually been a mistake. Not everyone could live up to the probabilities.
Others though, others bordered on threatening:
“You are a f**kin' (several curses were scribbled out, with just one four letter word in all caps. No signature)
“You are a conniving schemer, 'Add.' And your nickname isn't clever. We all no u'r good at math.” - Jessica
“I will never forgive you for what you did, Adelaide McLisk. Don't think I won't remember you.” - Riley
"How does it feel, messin' with people? You ain't right with me, remember that, 'Add'" - Jerome
They had reason to be. Riley had been Elise's brother; he hadn't known what his father had done, didn't believe it when Add figured out the probabilities and offered enough suspicion for a teacher to report on it. Jessica had been, simply put, a rival. She had been near the top of the grades, toppled when Add had done better than her in math tests. It hadn't helped that Add had figured the probability of someone like Jessica cheating. It was a shame really; Jessica hadn't even actually been doing anything, just thinking about it. That first... that one would hurt if she thought too much. Nobody wanted to hear the chances of their future turning out poorly, of the probabilities of turning out like an unpleasant parent. Jerome had been another miscalculation. He'd been too good, defying probabilities. Too good to be that good of a basketball player. Add had reported him. He'd really just been that good.
Some people defied the probabilities laid before them.
People were problematic.
There was one last one though, on the back, that the girl paused at. There were a handful of different notes from various teachers. Most promised that the girl was going to go places, that she was smart, intelligent, and that she seemed to understand how people worked. That last was only partially true. The girl knew how people worked when they followed patterns, when they did what made sense.
“Adelaide, Add, you are a remarkable young woman. You have managed to figure out how to use your ability with incredible skill. But you need to try and start putting other people first. People are people, Adelaide, they're not puzzles. They're not a mass of statistics for you to figure out. People are more than math. You have to learn to let people alone, let them be themselves. Just look at this book, Adelaide. Not everyone appreciates what you dotofor them. You're smart, especially when it comes to math, but you know that. Start feeling a little more and thinking a little less. You're going to go far anyway, Adelaide, but you'll go farther with people.”
There wasn't a name or a signature. Adelaide hadn't needed it; she'd recognize the handwriting anywhere. The girl closed the book and set it down. Dust and air whooshed around it, disturbing a few of the other papers. Some fell to the dusty floor. Sighing, the girl bent over, scooping up the papers with her fingers. Most of them were the standard junk: report cards, mostly with A's and B's, except in gym. A college acceptance letter. A notice from that same college about Adelaide's GPA, which did not match her performance at the high school level. Odd that Adelaide's parents would have that. But a last letter slipped out of the girl's fingers. She looked down at it.
Dear McLisk Family,
We are writing to let you know that Adelaide McLisk is currently under investigation for misuse of her meta ability. We realize that the National Lottery service had already issued the funds into your account, and we regret that we must insist on those accounts being locked at this point in time. We also appreciate Adelaide's offer to donate a large majority of her winnings to help fund the school. We are taking into consideration the fact that this is Adelaide's first major infraction in these regards. Regardless, we wish to take these funds into consideration, and we ask that Adelaide remain at Pilot Ridge for the time being.
Sincerely,
Hammel Staff
The girl stared. They'd already gotten the letter. So they'd probably known why she'd been there in the first place. The girl sighed. How long had it been since she'd first come there? She'd been excited then. A blood test, a blood test had insisted that Adelaide Rhiannon McLisk was one of those metas. There was something excited in being told you were different, and Add had relished it. Technically she'd gotten her power a week and a half before the blood test, though she hadn't quite realized it at the time. Add had always been intelligent for her age, and she'd only thought that perhaps she'd had some sort of breakthrough. Ironically it had been gym; there were no notes on that, no record, it wasn't that common of knowledge. Who would believe that an eleven year old math prodigy discovered her gifts by determining the probabilities of dodge ball? The recruiters had shown up a week an a half later. There had been that blood test, which had revealed that she was, in fact, a meta. It wasn't until she began applying statistics to people that she really began to get a handle on her power, on understanding things. There were records of that, though they weren't in the attic, training reports. If it hadn't been for him, well, that was in the past now.
“Or maybe not,” muttered the girl. She sighed, reaching up to brush back some of her hair. It was russet, that red brown, and almost reached the small of her back. It framed a face that looked far younger than twenty-five, with that cute, girl next door face. That was a face that would have no trouble lying straight to someone's face, to manipulating them. The female designed hoodie hid most of her lean body, though she still looked small, scrawny. Her teeth were perfect now, thanks to braces, and Lasek had done wonders for her eyes. She'd gotten that as a graduation present.
Adelaide McLisk looked down at the letter in her hands. She looked at the yearbook. People weren't pawns, they were people. Why were those words always so hard? Add sighed, gathering her things, stuffing them into the backpack. She was only supposed to be up here for thirty minutes. Her ride was probably waiting downstairs. Her parents and kid brother would want hugs too. The average American family was 3.14 people big. If Rory counted as .14 of a person, then the McLisk's were statistically average. But what was the stat on a meta? And what was the stat on that meta “abusing her powers.”
Add sighed. Too many variables. She'd get caught in the web, paralyzed, and that always sucked. She turned to the steps leading back to the house. She had a ride to catch.Behind the M A S K . . .Name: Fate.
Age: Err, It's Twenty-Seven, I think. I keep forgetting.
RP Experience: Me RP long time.
How did you find us?: Oh, the usual, stalking HammeliansShow your S K I L L S . . .There were twenty-one thousand, four hundred coffee shops in the United States. Fifty-four percent of all Americans over eighteen drink coffee in some form or fashion, and a large majority of those are college aged students. Technically Add was no longer college aged, not by the strictest definition. She was in the process of getting re-enrolled in the local college, figuring that a degree would probably be a beneficial thing to have. Sixty-three percent of all jobs involve a degree of some kind. That number jumped much higher when you considered what kind of job Add wanted.
She entered the shop regardless, tucking her chin further down into her coat. It was fashionable, both the shop and the coat. Add knew that the coat was one of the more popular coats worn, with a fairly high percentage of young adults preferring it over the other brands. She'd been able to pick it out of a coat lineup too, knowing that it would likely handle things better. It was brown too, and she liked brown.
Add shuffled into line behind several other people. One had to be between eighteen and twenty-two; there was something about him that suggested youth and college. It might have been the messenger bag with the local college logo emblazoned on it. Another was a cop. Add didn't mind the cops; it wasn't as if most of them recognized her. The guy at the front wore a suit, a nice one, fairly new. Probability stated that he was probably some kind of businessman, though that didn't explain what he was doing in a Pilot Ridge coffee shop.
Probably got lost.
Add chuckled at her mental joke, shuffling forward. The line moved quickly, quicker than average. Add figured it moved about forty percent quicker than average. That was good, really. It should take roughly seven minutes, twenty seconds at the current rate.
The bell rang behind her. Add shifted to look over her shoulder. Young-ish, she guessed. She didn't look long. Something told her that the probabilities were lining up beautifully. The math flowed over her for several seconds. Wait, too much math: way, way to much math. Add froze in space, staring at numbers that no one else knew existed, breathing deep and trying not to look like she'd just entered some kind of trance.
The math was just... beautiful.
