The Streets Of New York [James]

[shade]

Running felt good. It was something to do. Shade hadn't eaten in a day, but that didn't really matter. In fact, it really, really didn't matter. Her body barely noticed. It was too full of a lingering load of adrenaline and had been that way before. She certainly didn't care. For her, caring was a luxury, one she generally avoided. It was like a bad vice. It was like drugs. She didn't do any of that stuff. For her, running was enough. Where she would stop was up in the air. If the universe was kind, she'd just keep running until she died. That would have suited her more than fine right then.

Shade was running because everything else in her life was upside down. She didn't have a family. She didn't want a family. She didn't have a job. She didn't have school. Several years ago, she'd run away from all of that. She'd done alright for herself, as pretty criminals go. Then she'd woken up with skin blacker than it should be and monochromatic vision. She kept her hood up to hide her skin and stranger eyes, but it was getting dark anyway as she peeled off into a nearby alley, going nowhere in particular. It was four days ago that she'd woken with black skin. Things had gotten worse since then. Ever since she'd accidentally burned that posh lady with shadows, she'd kept to the backstreets. She ran because that was what she was good at doing.

Night was setting in over the city, but Shade barely noticed. Her name was so fitting, wasn't it? She'd been Shade for long before her spontaneous change. Not that she was hanging around with anyone that could verify that anymore. What was she supposed to do? Who was she supposed to approach? Nothing. No one. She didn't know what do, so she ran and left it at that. A dingy street, a grimy alley, it all blurred together. She kept moving and kept her head down, even as her muscles grew tired and started to protest. She gritted her teeth and reminded them that they knew better than that.

Shade's night vision kicked on without her even noticing. In pitch black and broad daylight, the world looked basically the same to her at that point. What she noticed about the impending night was the shadows growing louder. They sensed her agitation and flickered, telling her that they could help. She felt crazy. She looked crazy. Of course, she'd felt that way before. She just kept running. It was only when she was finally out of breath that she stopped, coming to hover in the cone of light beneath a streetlamp. The growing shadows of the evening flickered around the edge. With care, she reached out. They jumped readily into her grasp and a bit shot up to coat her palm. She stared down at it from beneath her hood and swallowed. It felt cool against her skin, but she knew it could burn.

[Dr. James Campbell]

This was less than ideal.

James didn't want to be in New York. If he'd had his druthers, he'd be in Vermont that night, sipping hot chocolate on the couch with Chase and Nikki, and planning out what they were going to do for the holidays. But he had responsibilities as Head of the Recruiting department, and everyone else was out on assignments. There was no one else available to bring in the new recruit. Not to mention, a rich, influential woman had been injured.

He didn't know if Gabriel Underwood was searching for possible recruits still, so time was crucial here. There was a shadow manipulator somewhere in New York City, and he had to find her.

James didn't miss this part of his job. Sure, it had been exciting to travel when he was younger, and he honestly didn't mind visiting people in their homes and explaining that no, their child wasn't crazy, and there was a way for him to help. But he'd never been athletic, and chasing a teenager through the city wasn't how he imagined spending the rest of his week.

After interviewing the injured woman in the hospital, he headed out, hoping that he could see some disturbance in the shadows, something to indicate that something wasn't right. (And there was so much of that in New York. Just being in certain areas made his skin prickle with discomfort. Even though it was almost December, and Manhattan was in full-on Christmas mode, the city was dirty and disorganized and he hated it. The sooner he could get out of here, back to Chase and Nikki, the better.

It was almost dusk when he noticed the difference in the shadows. It wasn't a lot, just flickers in the shade that made it look like the shadows were settling back into place after a disturbance. In all of the flickering brightness and neon of storefronts and displays, other people didn't see it. But James had been at this for over a decade now, and he knew what to look for. The recruiter started following the flickers of the shadows, letting himself be led into darker, more dangerous areas of the city. But his night vision was excellent, and with his shoulders hunched, his trench coat disguised just how thin he was.

There. He'd been tracking the shadows for quite a while when he finally saw her turn a corner. She was slowing down. He picked up his pace, but thankfully she decided to stop on her own. (He wasn't particularly fast, and he was more than twenty years older. Though he could keep up from a distance, he'd lose her if she started to sprint.)

James approached cautiously, taking her in. She looked older than most newly-manifested metas, which made him wonder how long she'd been running. His team was good, but there had been other people like him who had slipped through the cracks.

And usually he already knew the new meta's name. Just how much of a handicap did he have this time? "Please don't run. I know what's happening to you, and I can help." His voice was low and calm, and he stayed back, far enough away from her that she could run, if she decided to. He knew that the worst thing he could do is corner someone. "My name is Dr. James Campbell, and I know what you can do."

[shade]

The sound of a voice did nothing for Shade's temper or state of mind. She had heard footsteps and tensed already, but the voice, addressing her of all people, made her adrenaline spike. For a moment, she froze. The shadow on her hand twitched, more than happy to help, but she ordered it to mind its manners. Surprisingly, it listened, better than her muscles on occasion, as if it was an extension of her skin. It was the same color as her coal black flesh. She breathed in and out, listening to the individual behind her. She didn't bother with her sight. In the dark, she saw better than most, but she missed the colors.

After a moment's passed, Shade tried to turn. However, her thoughts weren't quite in order and her understanding was limited, so the urge to run, strong and clear in her chest and body, decided to try to make a break for it. She shifted, body disappearing into nothing more than a bit of shadow. However, as running in that form was all a mental feat, the supposed escape stopped there. She remained in shadow form for a passing second. Then she recalled how to shift back.

"Fuckin' damn it;" Shade swore under breath as she came back, shaking the eerie feeling of being shadow, something that wasn't quite describable but felt a bit like swimming, off of herself. Shadows clung to the entirety of her arms at that point, but that was intentional. She'd shifted out several times before, but she still hadn't figured that part out. The shadow manipulation, she had that better. She wasn't about to trust this James and she knew that her new powers, whatever they were exactly, would aid her trained ability for combat. Her shift had left her with most of her clothes, as they were mostly synthetic, a luxury, she was finding, but her hood was in tatters and she stared out at James with her whiteless eyes. Her scarred hands flexed around the shadows they held, getting used to their new ally in defense.

Stubborn as ever, Shade made her wariness perfectly clear when she spoke, even if the intensity of her apprehensive stare wasn't visible to most. She kept her distance, poised on her toes. "I don't need help."

[Dr. James Campbell]

James tensed, watching the girl's movements, ready to run himself if he needed to. Of course, that meant he would literally be chasing her, instead of tracking her, and that was never good for recruiter/student relations. (He supposed this was how a hunter must feel, though he hated to think of himself that way.) But he stayed away, steadily looking at her, not even flinching when she shifted into the shadow. He'd seen students do that before, and with more skill. Even though she'd become a shadow, she still looked different from the shadows that surrounded her. If she had run in that form, he'd have been able to follow.

But then she was back, and from the sound of it, she still didn't understand how that worked. Good. He offered her a small smile, taking his hands out of his pockets and letting them fall to his sides, showing her that he was unarmed. "That was a good shift for a beginner. How long has it been? A week? Less?" She seemed to have good control otherwise, but with the discomfort of a newly-manifested meta.

James didn't stare her down. He just met her gaze squarely, reading the distrust on her features. After taking a deep breath, keeping his voice low and calm, he spoke again. "You put a woman in the hospital. Do you think I'm the only one looking for you now?" His tone was light and casual, as if he was remarking on pleasant weather. "You have already discovered that you're a meta-human. I am too. And I want to help you. There's more of us, a lot more, including people who can teach you how to control your ability."

Carefully, he took a step forward. It wasn't much, but it closed the distance between then slightly. But after the step, he stood still again. At this point, just he had to get her to listen. "I can't control shadows like you, but I know people who can. I work for a school--The Hammel Institute--and we want you to be a student." James had a standard script he used when he was talking to kids and their families. One teenager on her own was much different.

[shade]

Shade held her ground, even though the single step towards her made her nervous. However, running was a sign of weakness. Her mind was deciding between flight or fight. Before she could do either, she had to decide on which to do. She listened to him speak and heard what he had to say, but she had no intention of obeying his wants. Compliance was not something that she did well. She didn't answer his question about how long it had been. Saying nothing seemed better to her. It had only been four or five days, but he didn't need to know that.

Meta? Shade scoffed at the term. Mutant. That was what she was. Freak. She'd always been a bit of that. She'd met a few meta-humans in her travels. None of them had been anything like what she'd become. With care, Shade took a step forward, testing the boundaries between them. She still didn't trust James, but close quarters wouldn't hurt her. She swallowed away fear and made sure to keep her expression blank, her eyes betraying nothing. She knew others hunted for her. Why did he think she'd been running?

"You're a meta?" Shade sounded skeptical. He looked normal enough. Compared to her, he was extremely tall. He wasn't tiny. He didn't have black skin. He didn't have black eyes. Lightning didn't strike the ground he walked upon and his voice sounded just like any other voice. She took another careful step towards him. Then another. The shadows on her arms slipped off and she pushed them from the three dimensional world, sending them back to their place. The light played across her dark skin, growing dimmer as she moved towards the edge of the circle beneath the streetlamp. The shadows continued to flicker and dance.

"Prove it." Smart as she was, Shade struck before she spoke. Wariness turned into aggression, plain tension turning into fluid motion. Her attack was not one with her powers. She knew the shadows could burn, but she wasn't sure of everything she could do with them. Her strike was a beautiful example of street fighting as she careful measured what distance was between them and immediately went for the knees, stomach, and groin. Someone small like her moved fast.

[Dr. James Campbell]

The recruiter knew he was treading a thin line here. He couldn't make her too uncomfortable, because that would start her running again. But he had to throw her off her game enough that she'd see that he was the only one in this conversation who knew what he was talking about.

She didn't vocalize her distaste for the term "meta", but she honestly didn't have to. He'd heard it all; freaks, mutants, abominations. He'd heard them from recruits, from parents, from random strangers who didn't think that someone who looked as normal as he did could be one of "them." But at least she took a step closer. That was progress.

"Yes, I--" James saw the strikes coming, but he was no fighter, and he didn't have the reaction time. The first two blows hit him squarely, but he managed to take the last one to his side as he dropped to one knee on the sidewalk, soaking one pant leg in a puddle. It made him shiver, feeling the cold, dirty water on his skin. Just perfect.

He managed to keep his calm and take enough deep breaths that he knew he wasn't going to start cursing, then he stood, again. "Obviously, I don't have super-speed. I have enhanced perception. That's how I was able to follow you. The shadows change around you, and I followed them." James straightened his posture and brushed off his trench coat, then looked at her square in the eye. "And that was assault. You're really having one hell of a week." He wanted to tell her that being stupid and violent was only going to get her into more trouble, and she was still going to end up going to Hammel, even if it meant he called Stephen to come join them and had him control her all the way back to Vermont.

But he wasn't going to threaten her with that. Yet.

"Like I said, I'm James. What should I call you?" Other than a crazy little girl who punched him on his first trip out in months. The smile was still on his face, but it didn't reach his eyes. Instead, there was grim determination; this girl wasn't getting away that easily.

[shade]

Shade didn't exactly care that James wasn't pleased with her. She could read his body language well enough to tell and it was just plain common sense. If she'd been looking to make friends, she wouldn't have hit him. Her punches had been solid, though he'd managed to turn against the last one, leaving her knuckles to collide with his side. Not truly good enough, but it would do, she supposed. Attack done, she retreated, light on her toes, hands raised, and let him get up. She snorted at his words, unabashed and cautious. The shadows made a new dance, subtly rolling about the edges.

"If 'assault' was the worst of my problems right now, I think my life would be pretty good;" Shade informed him, briefly shifting her hands to place air quotes around the word assault. She apparently had little respect for the charge. As a petty criminal, it would take attempted murder or manslaughter to get her blood going cold.

Despite that, when he didn't strike back, Shade began to relax. His excuse for his failed response made sense. Tracking in the city wasn't easy. Of course, she believed it more than possible that he was lying. What caused her to relax was that he seemed to have no intention of hitting her back. In her world, that was weird. It touched on what morals she had. If he couldn't fight and wasn't going to try, he wasn't worth it. She bit her lip for a moment and rubbed at one of the scars on her arms. Then she finally relented. "You can call me Shade."

[Dr. James Campbell]

The recruiter noticed the change in the shadows, something he wasn't even sure the girl was aware she was causing. And even if she was aware, she wasn't controlling it. Not yet. The darkness was just reacting to her and her energy. But he didn't comment, instead focusing on her, and how much his knee hurt. (And the cold feeling on his leg, from the puddle, and a slight draft from the tear in the fabric. For her sake, he prayed that she hadn't caused him too much harm, because when she eventually did end up at Hammel, she might have to deal with a very put-out powers trainer.)

Maybe it was an alien concept to her, but there was no way James was going to strike a teenage girl, no matter how hard she hit him first. The more he looked at her, the more he was sure; there was no way she was older than Ginny. And it seemed to make her uncomfortable, that he wasn't doing the expected thing and fighting back.

But at least something made her answer his question. That was a start, at least. "That's not the worst of it, Shade." She knew that, or else she wouldn't have been so derisive of the comment. "Where do you plan on going, from here? What are you going to do when someone else catches you? What's going to happen when you get too tired, and you can't control the shadows around you any more? What's going to happen when somebody connects you to the woman in the hospital?" He stuck his hands in the pockets of his coat again; damn, he'd forgotten how cold it could get in the city, with the wind channeled down the streets by the tall buildings. "You can't hide forever, so what's your plan?"

[shade]

James' questions irritated her, but it was in a personal way. It was the sort of frustration that grows in you, but makes you punch a wall, rather than another person. She'd never been a girl for plans. When her mom had broken her hand in a supposed accident, she had cooked. She was a horrid cook, but she had done it. When everything had fallen apart, she'd figured out how to run away and done it. She was the sort of girl who did things on the fly, winging it until she found a place where she could rest for a moment or two. Frowning to herself, she rubbed at her knuckles, expertly cracking a few of them for good measure.

"I run. I fight. Maybe I go to jail." The shadowmancer's insides went cold at the thought of jail. She doubted her appearance would make that experience any better. However, they went even colder at the thought of having to go back to her parents. A shiver went up her spine and the shadows lunged up. However, she checked her emotions and the moment passed. He would probably find her parents eventually, but she had her name. The ball was still in her court.

"How is this school of yours any better? There's a lot of places I don't want to go. How is this place not just another item on that list?" It was in her nature to question. Blithely following along went against every stubborn fiber of her being. Maybe this school was what she had to do, but she needed a reason why. She needed something other than no other place to turn. There was always Canada or Mexico, regardless of the consequences. If that wasn't far enough, she could go farther. She liked New York well enough, but in all honesty, it was a hell of a city.

[Dr. James Campbell]

For the first time, James flinched. It took Shade's knuckles popping to get that reaction, but he really, really couldn't stand the sound of joints cracking. It was just...ugh. The sound was just cringe-inducing. Honestly, that was what bothered him, more than the girl's hostile attitude. He could deal with belligerent teenagers and runaways and most manners of public officials, but he hated that sound.

"The Hammel Institute is a haven. We can take responsibility for you, retroactive to before you put that woman in the hospital. I know it was an accident, and we can smooth it over. And once you graduate, you won't be a minor, and other records you might be running from can be sealed." Bribery? Maybe. But incentives were important, and at least Shade was listening to him. There had to be something that "Not to mention, a group of metas with experience training those with newly-manifested powers. You don't know what your capable of yet, and we can help with that." He paused to let that sink in, then continued. "Plus, it's a boarding school with free tuition. You'll have a place to live, at least until you're able to graduate, and you'll have the means to support yourself afterward." Hammel wasn't in the habit of kicking people out. Technically, Vincent could have been expelled by now--he was an adult and had full control over his ability--but keeping at the school seemed the lesser of two evils. At least there he couldn't rent his body out for scientific experiments.

And as it was cold and windy and getting later--and he hadn't eaten anything since this morning, on the plane--he said, "Are you cold, Shade? Hungry? We could find a place to eat, and I'll be happy to answer any more questions you have."

[shade]

Shade listened to James talk, keeping her peace. The bribery was a smart move. Money talked to her. Money and freedom were her currencies. There wasn't much else that would tempt her. A free place to stay and a cleared record would be good for her. If he thought she was just running from warrants, that was fine by her. Most people who figured she was a runaway from her parents wanted to try to return her to them. She didn't generally approve of that sort of plan. Despite the logic of James' temptation, she wasn't sure she liked the idea of training or having to graduate. She was an adult in three months. Her powers were getting better, or so she hoped. Still, she did need to get official to become an adult. She needed a place to crash.

At the mention of cold, Shade's nose gave a twitch. Yes, she was cold. She just hadn't been thinking about it. No matter how much she hated cold weather, the present situation was worse. However, his offer seemed sound. She considered it for a moment, trying to find some flaw it. Then she finally relented. She narrowed her eyes at him for a moment, then let her gaze roam up and down the street. Before then, she hadn't known exactly where she was. However, her colorless sight soon found her a road sign to read. "There's a restaurant a couple of blocks from here. It'll be open. Food's crap, but whatever."

With that, Shade turned on her heel and started down the street, expecting him to follow and not really caring if he did. She walked quickly, wanting to hear him have to limp along. Not the nicest desire, but it put her in a better mood. She tramped down the street, turned the corner, and kept going. She didn't stop until she came to a small corner cafe and pushed open the door. Inside was warm and she relished the sensation. The smell of food, even if it wasn't good food, made her stomach rumble. There was no one inside but the man behind the counter and he gaped at her black skin in shock. That rather ruined whatever cheer had wormed its way into her attitude. She glowered back.

[Dr. James Campbell]

Yes, James assumed she was a runaway too. But the nature of his job--recruiting kids and bringing them to Hammel--required him to deal with the guilt of taking them away from their families. In a way, runaways were easier for him; though they were often suspicious of him and any authority figure, he was offering them a safe place away from where they had run.

"Right then, lead the way." They were in New York; restaurants were everywhere, and better ones than the one Shade was referring to. But James could deal with mediocre coffee if it meant the girl was comfortable there. He could tell that what he was saying was getting through to her, at least enough to keep her listening. And since she had agreed to get something to eat with him, the conversation was shifting to his terms, even if they were going somewhere she wanted.

He winced again as he followed her, limping on the leg that had hit the concrete. It hadn't hurt as bad when he'd just been standing there, but now he was getting pains shooting up from his knee whenever he put pressure on it. (He hoped Shade didn't end up with Chase for a trainer; unless he found a biological manipulator before heading home, the injuries were going to take some explaining.)

The recruiter looked distastefully around the little cafe, taking in the inherent greasy-spooness of the establishment. He hated places like this, where he felt squeamish ordering most of the items on the menu. It was the kind of place that Chase knew never to suggest. And his displeasure only increased at the man's reaction to Shade's appearance. He shot the man a glare over the girl's head, then approached the counter, looking at the menu up on the wall. It was all fairly standard food for that type of place, and therefore nothing he was particularly interested in trying. But he was hungry, so he said, "Coffee, please. And a burger, well-done, with no lettuce or tomato. And what will you have?" The last bit was directed at Shade, as he offered her a smile.