A Worthy Cause (Open)

[Joshua Bernstein]

Meta-human. What, exactly, was that term meant to evoke? In the simplest form it meant those humans who had abilities inexplicable, abilities that their ungifted counterparts could never hope to achieve. But there were other, more sinister connotations, implications of a division based not on powers but on humanity.

Human was a word that ought to stand on its own. Meta-human. Sub-human. Humanoid. These terms all implied a lack of humanity on the part of the subject, something resembling humanity but apart from it. After all, what was the opposite of a meta-human? Few would answer non-meta-human; For most, the answer would simply be human, or at worst normal human, and this was simply unacceptable.

Pilot Ridge, Vermont wouldn't have been his first choice as a place to begin major social reform, but it did have the benefit of being the heart of the meta-human community (or at least their center of education, which might as well have been the same thing.) It ought to be easy to convince the locals to discard a term so obviously offensive. It should have been. Somehow, though, he was under the impression that he wasn't being taken at all seriously, and this realization vexed him. Why must it always be such a challenge to make people realize that simple words could have power and that therefore choice of words was important. When words labeled and divided then one's choices were even more important, as some labels were less respectful than others. Recognizing a difference and having words to express that difference wasn't wrong, but whether a word had positive or negative connotations had to be taken into consideration.

Hence why he was currently lounging outside the first coffee shop he'd found, puffing furiously at a cigarette, glaring at nothing in particular. Perhaps if people had merely dismissed him, instead of attempting to make "helpful" suggestions (only, how helpful these suggestions were intended to be was suspect) then he might not have sulked about it quite so much. As it was, he was irked that anyone would think it was appropriate to offer up genetically challenged as an alternative to meta-human.

"How is that better? How is that acceptable?![/b]" He complained, gesticulating vaguely, in danger of burning holes in the clothes of anyone who ventured too close. "There has to be a better word, a better division. Something that doesn't assume they're outside humanity."

He turned to the nearest person, pointing. "You! You agree, don't you?" And then, realizing he hadn't clarified what they were supposed to be agreeing with he added. "Is Meta-human not an offensive term? Gifted and non-gifted would be better choices. Or powered and non-powered. Let's stop this tacit assumption that these so-called meta-humans merely resemble humanity but aren't part of it."

[Nina Levitra]

Nina was, for lack of a better word, wandering. She had been through a suspiciously mellow phase and even though she wasn't itching to do something like normal, she still couldn't find it in herself to stay still. She had a feeling that she needed to be herself today, that she needed to just be comfy in her own skin, so without a moment's thought she had grabbed her camera and headed out the door - locking it behind her, because that was what responsible people did, especially when they were thinking at a reasonable speed - to see what she could find around town.

Pilot Ridge, Vermont was a spectacular town, one that had color and life and a strange brilliance to it, like the place was always alive. The buildings around her seemed to breathe, and Nina didn't doubt for a second that the reason she stayed was because she loved her closeness to dear old Hammel.

The school itself was huge and beautiful, and Nina wouldn't have minded wandering over to the campus and snapping some photos of students in action, except she really wasn't sure if she could do that unannounced. And today, unlike most days, Nina felt that it would be best for her to at least know or understand the rules. The school would have to wait. Instead, Nina wandered into town, looking to maybe peek into the bakery for a snack and a few shots, or straggle by the toy shop and play with just a few of the toys.

As soon as Nina spotted the coffee shop, she knew that was exactly where she wanted to be. Not only would a cup of coffee cheer her up and get her jittery enough to think up ideas that probably weren't the best, but she also could also see the people. People in general varied around coffee, from just plain sleepy to oddly wired and the lax writers who seemed to look up when their cup appeared empty. Nina kipped inside quickly, the smell already energizing her and bought a small cup of blackberry white chocolate coffee - coffee was a toy and an experiment, after all - before trying to wander to an observation seat. She was stopped by a very energized man who apparently wanted her opinion. That was certainly new.

"Hi!" Nina said brightly, knowing full well that she had in no way answered his question. Opinion was a powerful thing, and she wanted to consider what she said. "Well... I never really thought much about the terminology myself." Nina said, giggling slightly. "But... I guess you're right. Though non-powered seems a little unfair for the normal ones." She then noticed the cigarette about to drop ashes on her shoes and sidestepped quickly, sitting down next to the man who had just pulled her into conversation. "If you'd like to talk though, I'm more than calm enough to listen." People enjoyed being listened to, she had learned. And she did so like hearing people's opinions.

[Joshua Bernstein]

"That," Josh pointed emphatically at the young woman with his cigarette, "is exactly the problem!! People don't think. And then you end up labeling the differences as meta-human and normal ones. Are meta-humans abnormal humans? Are non-meta-humans the default for humanity? Would you say there are disabled people and normal people? Or gay people and normal people? No, of course not!"

He answered his own question hurriedly, largely because he knew some people who would have said yes to both those questions. This so far nameless woman appeared sympathetic enough to his views that he hoped she would be sensitive on all issues, but he knew from personal experience this wasn't always the case. People loved to be exclusive, picking and choosing who they would grant equality to, and there was always some group that would be sneered at. As long as Joshua Bernstein had any say in the matter, the group being excluded would not be meta-humans.


"What solution do you propose, then?" He quizzed, narrowing his eyes at her. Perhaps she had a better idea than he about what to replace meta-human with. "What term would imply equal but different?"

He grimaced slightly at his own words, hardly believing they'd come out of his mouth. There was one idea that had been tainted by mankind's penchant for linguistic gymnastics. He couldn't think of a better way to word that concept at the moment, however, so he continued after a brief pause, "What term would be fair to both sides?"

Because she was certainly correct that the acknowledgment of meta-human's powers was, in a way, saying that they had an advantage over those without. Of course, abled and disabled had similar implications; It was a fact of life that some people had more physical and mental advantages than others. Still, it wasn't as if the advantages were so great as to nullify all other factors, so there were no reasons for hostilities, no reasons to pretend anyone wasn't human.

It was only then that it filtered through a mind focused on its mission that she'd not only taken a seat, but had actually offered to listen. This fact hadn't registered at first, intent as he was on explaining his position to someone -- with any luck someone who could be easily convinced to join his crusade -- and so it was only after he'd responded to what he'd considered important about her reply that he realized that he'd ignored the part that social protocol dictated he ought to have answered first. "Ah. Oh. I would love to talk." He accepted, slightly chagrined. "As you can no doubt tell."

The fact that she was expressing the remotest sympathy with his cause helped, of course; he'd been having so much trouble finding anyone who would listen.

"I suppose I should probably introduce myself," He offered, partly because his belated attention to social norms demanded that he address this and partly because if he was going to hold a discussion with her he ought not to think of her entirely as young woman and this was the easiest way to solicit a name from her. "I'm Joshua. Joshua Bernstein. And you are...?"

[Nina Levitra]

As the very energetic stranger continued explaining, Nina found herself wondering if he too had been drinking coffee. Maybe espresso by his energy levels, or perhaps something sugary, though cigarettes and a fondness for sugar seemed to repel each other in most men with hair that wasn't neon. Still, he seemed plenty awake and very passionate, and Nina took a careful sip of her coffee as he talked, making sure none of his ashes ended up in her cup. Smoking was fine for other people but ashes were icky, and she didn't want to have to fish them out with her finger and still have gross ashy coffee.

As he criticized her for not thinking, Nina smiled slightly, crazy ideas beginning to bloom in her head. She was accused of not thinking quite often, and it was true that she didn't really put much effort into seeming smart, but she did think. Nina Levitra was the proud owner of several thoughts, some of them quite useful and when she put her mind to it, she really could be smart. But he was talking quickly and explaining, asking questions that she obviously wasn't supposed to answer because he was asking them rapid fire and answering the questions himself. Obviously, he was making his point.

He did get Nina thinking though. You didn't normally call it gay people and normal people, but weren't only like eleven percent of people gay, even if it was about fifty percent at college and eighty at high schools nowadays? Maybe it was just her, but it seemed like her mind said there was normal and then not normal, normal and genius, normal and mutant, normal and her. Nina Levitra was far from normal, even without calling powers into play, and that was her niche. She wasn't normal ever, and that just really really worked for her. And her coffee tasted great, like some kind of crazy candy. They should sell candy that tasted exactly like what she was drinking. Or popsicles.

"Fair for both sides..." Nina muttered, licking the inside of her lip as she thought. "Ha... I honestly can't think of anything at the moment, maybe if I had a Latin dictionary I could dredge up some cool sounding fair word... Maybe there just needs to be a whole new word, you know?" She took a sip of coffee. She would get a refill. Maybe two. New favorite drink forever. "Like... bloofs. Or maybe something that sounds less like a faerie sound effect." She was well aware that she didn't have a very good word, but she was working on it. Maybe later.

Nina was actually quite glad that he just wanted to talk. She was more than willing to listen to him, because he seemed informed and smart and like he knew what he was talking about. Also friendly and pro-mutant or pro-meta-human or whatever. Nina kinda sucked at keeping up at PC terms, they changed so quickly. It probably made her mind a little racist or something, but she could deal with it. And look, opinion man was introducing himself! How polite.

"I'm talkative and hard to follow and a mutant and slightly hyperactive and Nina Levitra." Nina said cheerfully. "In case you didn't catch all that, my name is Nina, I said it last." Exposing a large chunk of her slightly overwhelming personality probably wasn't the most conventional route, but Joshua seemed understanding enough. "Are you Bernstein, like the Bernstein Bears? Because that would be cool and also memorable." She took another gulp of coffee, now that it was cooling and kept the cup near her mouth. "So, are you like a rallier or a speaker or something? I haven't been to a rally in a while, since like sophomore year..." Nina smiled, in a way she hoped looked friendly because that was certainly how she meant it. Also, you're really good at talking, just gonna say. You don't stutter or anything. Did you take speech classes?"

[Joshua Bernstein]

Joshua wasn't entirely certain that coming up with a fancy new term would accomplish any of his goals. His intentions had been to adapt some term or other already in use in the English language, something that would seem a natural replacement for meta-human. He doubted anyone in America would easily switch from a word with an obvious meaning to a word that had been fabricated without reference to contemporary American English. It simply wasn't practical. However, as she seemed to be making a genuine effort to engage rather than mocking him, he merely furrowed his brow at her instead of making a more vocal disagreement with her word choice.

Her introduction was a little difficult to follow, if only because he hadn't quite caught that the last bit of her sentence was her name and thus he was trying to work out in his head what she could possibly have meant. Fortunately, she very helpfully pointed this out before he'd spent too much energy on that problem. "Nina. That was one of the ships that journeyed with Christopher Columbus, wasn't it? The Nina and The Santa Maria and..." He paused, trying to dredge up the name of the third ship and failing. "And something else. I don't remember. I want to call it The Pinata, but I'm sure that can't be correct." He decided not to comment on the fact that she used the word mutant, as she apparently was one and there was a tacit rule that allowed people to use derogatory terms in reference toward themselves and groups they were part of. He wasn't particularly fond of this rule, but for some reason most people did not take kindly to being told by an outsider that their own descriptions of themselves ought to offend them.

"Yes, Bernstein. Was that the name of the bears?" This didn't seem entirely correct, but he'd been a toddler when the books first started coming out and he'd not continued with the series as he'd gotten older. He thought that if he'd shared their surname then he would have recalled better, and that therefore it was just something similar, but as he couldn't bring to mind what it actually was he wasn't going to argue the point.

"I've attended a number of rallies in my time, but I must admit that unless waving signs and chanting counts I have never spoken at one. And thank you. I did take some classes on rhetoric and communication as an undergraduate. It's been quite a few years since those days, however. Glad to know some of those lessons stuck." The fact that Nina had attended a rally impressed Josh, particularly in light of the fact that she was willing to listen to his opinions. Perhaps she could be persuaded to help him set up a gathering of pro-meta-humans, a protest designed to change language and attitudes. Her self-proclaimed hyperactivity could prove useful in those circumstances. Naturally, he would pressure Sean into helping, so that would be a whole two people other than himself involved. A promising start!

"And what do you do for a living, if I may ask?" He queried, reaching for an ash tray only to discover there wasn't one -- had he wandered into a no-smoking zone by mistake? But no, surely someone would have commented had that been the case. The nearest trash can was several tables away, and he was enjoying his conversation too much to bother getting up, so he contented himself with pinching the smoldering remains of his cigarette between his fingers, twirling it distractedly. "And would you be interested in helping proselytize the masses once we've decided upon a replacement term?"

[Nina Levitra]

"Oh oh, the Columbus ships, those were the Pinta, the Nina and the Santa Maria, right? I think I used to know a song about them." Nina said rather quickly, remembering something about construction paper hats and very poorly organized dancing on a very small stage. And maybe red punch. "I bet a ship named Pinata would be awesome! Pinatas are really fun, I whacked one once and totally broke it and my friend got this action shot of candy flying everywhere. It was awesome." This was the sugar talking, even though all of the talking was actually being done by Nina who was quite suddenly feeling like her usual self again, which was nice but also slightly hectic. She needed to focus on the conversation at hand though, things were happening. New Friend Joshua was talking. "Wow, sorry, that was totally off-topic."

Of course, he proceeded to continue with the off-topicness. "Yeah yeah, I'm pretty sure that was the name of the bears, or something really phonetically close. Haven't actually read the books in years, but I think there was one about telling the truth, with one of those catchy rhymes in the front..." And then Nina's mind made a rather grand leap. "Oh, now that we made name associations, we can have nicknames in case you ever consider seeing me again and not just hiding behind a glass door like this one girl did this one time after I met her in a coffee shop and mentioned that I liked her purse, because I'm a boat and you're a bear, and bears are cool." Nina stopped to take a breath. "Oh, and boats too." she added as an afterthought. "They float. Like Ivory Soap!"

Very quickly, Nina closed her mouth, hoping her rushed explanation hadn't phased the man too much. She was actually talking slightly faster than normal, and it felt weird because her words sounded kinda jumbled and confused when they reached her ears. Which had nice earrings in them. Still, she listened instead to New Friend Joshua talk about speech classes. She had taken one once, and passed it with a low B. Her speeches were normally ineloquent and a bit mouthy for her professor, but doing every single assignment had helped her grade quite a bit.

"What do I do?" Nina echoed, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear and sipping again at her coffee. "I do photography when I can, weddings and graduations and parties and stuff." She held up the camera around her neck as if to prove that yes, this was real, she owned a legit camera and everything. "Sometimes I can sell pictures to magazines or companies or contests... But yeah, my job is kinda up in the air. I'm good at convincing people of stuff though." She smiled, a basic Nina reflex to help punctuate her sentence, because people were easily weirded out by punctuation being announced aloud.

"I'll help you spread the word." Nina assured New Friend Joshua aka Bear! He was twisting his little cigarette nub like he was thinking or something. "Actually, I have a super loud voice, so if you need someone to just say stuff really really loudly in a densely populated area, I'm your girl." She pointed to herself with her thumb. "Also, I hope I'm not startling you. I just got back to about my normal energetic self and it can be frightening for people with heart conditions, low public tolerance or little exposure to children. My cousin said I should warn people upfront that I'm always this energetic, show them a good door they can run out of which is over there by the way." She pointed to the door and took a deep sip, almost finishing her drink completely. "No one's actually ever run away. I consider this a good sign." Oh, but conversation was getting too Nina-centric, which was bad.

"So, what exactly brings you to this relatively awesome coffee shop?" Nina asked, looking into her cup and trying to see if there was any syrup left in the bottom that she could swirl up. "Unless maybe it was to recruit people to your cause? Because if you are, I'll come, I'm wearing recruiting shoes." And that would be an adventure, exactly what Nina was after. Maybe.

[Joshua Bernstein]

Joshua nodded as Nina's recitation sparked his memory. "Ah! Absolutely, the Pinta. Not the Pinata." A boat called the Pinata would surely disappoint if not filled with candy, as Nina's excited account of an encounter with an actual pinata indicated.

"Boats are quite cool. As are bears." He agreed, with absolutely no intention of ever referring to Nina as Boat. Somehow that just didn't seem like an appropriate nickname to give a young woman, even if she was named after one -- and even if he did rather enjoy sailing in them. "I've never particularly identified with bears, myself, but I suppose the facial hair does help..." He mused, though any true bears would surely have mocked his scraggly attempts at a beard. "And I assure you I will not attempt to hide next time our paths cross." There were some people he would prefer to avoid, but he could think of few he would actively hide from should he be forced into close proximity with them. Flee the moment an opportunity presented itself, yes; Hide, no. Assuring his enemies that he feared them seemed to be a rather poor idea, one that would give them more power than they deserved to have over him.

He beamed at Nina when she agreed to help his cause. He would have accepted almost any offer of help, but he had to admit that she had certain qualities that made her a more attractive helper than many, traits she had so helpfully enumerated -- she was loud, energetic, enthusiastic and (supposedly) persuasive. And on top of that, her photography skills could surely be put to good use for propaganda purposes. How had she escaped the notice of other activists?! Perhaps Vermont simply had so few of these that the likelihood of one of them stumbling upon her was slim to none. "You'll have to show me some of your photos sometime." He informed her, even though he'd already decided that she had to be skilled enough to be useful. The fact that she had her camera on her person was good enough for him.

"Recruiting shoes? Excellent!" He celebrated, choosing not to directly answer her question: His reason for being at the shop was to sulk over his inability to find any sympathy for his current cause, but that didn't seem like the sort of truth one admitted to. Much better to implicitly endorse her assumptions. "As a matter of fact, I'm a bit new to the area, so you'll have to forgive my ignorance: Where would the best place for recruitment be, do you think? I don't seem to be having much luck around here." He indicated the largely bored-looking coffee shop patrons with a jerk of the head. Of course, back home they would have looked just as disinterested, but at least he would have known where to go to find like-minded individuals and whether or not it was acceptable to put up flyers. The only flyers he'd seen at this particular coffee shop were about babysitting services and missing pets; this did nothing to illuminate the store policy on political leaflets.

They still needed to come up with a name, but perhaps if they talked to more people someone would help them think of something; perhaps someone had already thought of something, and they just needed to connect. Nina seemed to be done with her coffee -- as far as he could tell, at any rate -- and he'd only been smoking, so it seemed like a good time to finally leave his seat for the trash can, flicking his cigarette inside as soon as he was near enough to safely do so. "I'm afraid you're going to have to lead the way." He apologized, in case she hadn't deduced that from his earlier statements. He hoped she would pick someplace within walking, or at least cycling, distance as he had no other way of getting around just yet, unless he wanted to call up Sean, and Help me follow this girl I just met as she leads me to a place to recruit people to my new linguistic-political cause seemed a bit too trivial even to Josh.

"Ready?"