Listen to the Skies Fall In Real Time (Penny)

[Joshua Bernstein]

Trips to the Supermarket were never quick affairs no matter how little one had to purchase. There would always be that one person with the million items who then had to fetch a stack of coupons out of a disorganized purse. Or, as was the current case, someone had failed to read the very plainly posted notice that ID was required to buy alcohol and thought that arguing with the cashier would result in a change of rules. Just because she was very obviously older than he was did not mean the cashier could willfully ignore the rules of the store, and Josh wished that she would acknowledge this and continue on her way rather than giving some sob story about the hotel staff forgetting to return her ID after they checked her in. Would it really be that difficult to go ask them to return her ID and then come back for the beer? If one of the other lanes were open he would have ditched the one he was currently in, but no, of course management had decided that only one cashier was needed for the day -- or else they'd all called in sick. He preferred to blame management.

As it was apparent the line was moving nowhere fast he grabbed one of the tabloids off the magazine rack, thumbing through it in the hopes that drug addicted starlets and forbidden affairs would take his mind off the lack of progress the cashier was making with the nuisance. There was as little substance as he had expected -- reality star dates twenty different guys and isn't committed to any of them! Politician has secret lesbian affair with local Dolly Parton impersonator! Chihuahua sacrifices self to save toddler from the neighbor's escaped python! Yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck! He could do without photos of anorexic "beautiful" people coiled about one another, without captions proclaiming how the same anorexics were gaining weight and now too fat to work, and without the implication that his sexuality was gossip fodder.

He flipped through the pages with dismay, wondering if there were any redeeming articles in the entire magazine when an image caught his eye. It wasn't a celebrity, it wasn't food, it wasn't an adorable animal. No, it this was an image of angry looking adults waving poorly spelled signs. He peered closer, raising the magazine to his face until the tip of his nose was almost touching the pages. Protesters! Unless they were protesting celebrities in rehab or off brand clothing then this was the sort of article he hoped to see in a magazine of quality -- even poor quality.

"Ugh!!" He exclaimed as he read the (very short) accompanying article, nearly crumpling the magazine in disgust. No. NO. People were not supposed to protest against equality. "Can you believe this?!" He demanded, whirling to face the young woman behind him and shoving the magazine under her nose and pointing. "How is this allowed? How can people oppose the punishment of someone who injured another human being? Self-defense! Just because the young man he put in the hospital happened to walk through a wall in front of him? Who in their right mind would even support such an absurd claim?!"

[Penny Stone]

Her grandma held some animosity towards MSAD for only one reason; they took her slave--granddaughter-- away. She couldn't order around the twenty-five year old as much as she could when they were living under the same roof and the old shriveled woman did not like that one bit. Of course, she had no idea what MSAD meant and what they did on a regular basis, and if she did, she'd probably notify someone of their actions. Her grandma had long since learned to love meta's because of her prized grandson, and maybe because of her granddaughter, and ever since Nicholas was attacked and hospitalized because of an anti-meta attack, the woman was practically a patriot. She'd tell anyone who would listen about them damn white men and their narrow minds.

But back to the control thing---Grandma still roped Penny into doing her shopping and this was why the young Chinese woman was standing second in line at the only register at the only grocery store in Pilot Ridge that carried all of the things on Grandma's list. Thankfully it wasn't a long list and the woman was able to stuff it all into one of those green carrying baskets. She was currently looking over the list to make sure she got everything.

Just because she had perfect recall...she knew if she left anything out, she'd never hear the end of it. She bit down on her lip once she got to the end of her check list with all of it present in the basket. She flicked up her gaze to see the obviously underage woman trying to purchase alcohol, and just not giving in. What was the point? If the girl liked to drink, then she would have an older friend that could buy it for her.

Penny rolled her eyes and looked down at her feet when she noticed the man in front of her turn to the tabloid rack and pick up one of the magazines. Penny never touched those things because she didn't need any of that useless information cluttering up her mind. She honestly couldn't care less what the famous people were doing nowadays, or who they were seeing (or not seeing) and who was fat and who wasn't. It didn't mean a single thing to Penny and because of her gift, she'd always have the story with her in her mind.

She looked up when the man exclaimed in disgust and she couldn't help but grin a little. It served him right to bother himself with such crap. She stepped back in surprise when he shoved the article in her face and the picture of the protesters was ingrained in her memory forever. She blinked and shoved the magazine away with her free hand. She glared at the man for a moment until she understood what he was saying. He was outraged because those people were protesting the punishment of a man who hurt someone else. Or something like that.

"Family, I suppose. Or idiots. You can never really tell these days." She commented off handedly. Maybe her answer would appease him and he'd leave her alone. Or not, because he seemed like the type of guy to rant about everything, especially things he believed in.

[Joshua Bernstein]

Josh flapped the magazine distractedly at the young woman behind him, not at all put off by her lack of interest. "No. No, no, no, no. How could they possibly....no. They can't be that idiotic.I mean, clearly they are, but it's simply unfathomable how they've been allowed...how ordinary people could....I am at a loss for words." He informed her, scanning the article once more, ingraining it into his memory with the very conscious intent to remain offended long after he'd left the store -- which was going to be awhile, if the lady in front of him continued to be difficult.

Of course, at this point he was unlikely to notice should she actually acquiesce to the cashier's demands and leave as he was to enthralled with this fresh evidence that humanity wasn't conforming to his expectations. Was kindness and respect really too much to ask? Apparently the answer was an eternal Yes, Josh, your standards are far too high. He had considered lowering them for the sake of his mental health, but he wasn't entirely sure how to go about that and in any event he wasn't sure he truly wanted to understand a mindset that allowed for thoughtless, unprovoked violence; he wasn't even particularly keen on justifying provoked defense. In cases where hatred was the main motivating factor he couldn't fathom the thought processes that lead to justification -- he'd heard the arguments, he knew what they were, but he couldn't understand how anyone could truly believe them when to his mind they were pathetic, hollow excuses that anyone with the least bit of intelligence should see through. It disturbed him mightily that so many people of average (and in some cases above average!) intelligence could in fact hide behind these pretenses and honestly think they were correct.

"Family I could understand. Maybe." He agreed doubtfully; he had difficulty reprimanding his own family when their words were biased or unkind. But if any of them took words to disrespectful and violent action against another human being he wasn't sure he would be able to condone that. Was there any choice other than to accept that even people you loved could be guilty? "Although they're taking his side. Claiming he was justified. There is no justification for injuring someone simply because that person happens to be different." He informed her severely, as if she'd claimed otherwise and was siding with the photographed protesters. "That anyone could rationalize beating someone near to death is outrageous. The victim didn't even threaten him. And no, the fact that he was a meta-human and not afraid to make that knowledge public is not a threat."

He attempted to smooth out the wrinkles he'd caused in the poor magazine, realized this was a losing battle, and tossed it onto the conveyor belt with a sigh. Might as well buy it now. At least he could make some attempt at a crusade against the protesters and in favor of the poor young man whose victim-hood they were justifying. "And we're supposed to be a civilized country." He muttered darkly. "How is terror and violence civilized? Are we supposed to believe that attacking people for being different makes you superior? Because I think it's pathetic."

[Penny Stone]

Her eyes flared angrily as he rudely flapped the magazine at her. Not just because it was rude, but because the sound was terribly annoying. He stopped before she could smack it out of his hand, thankfully. Starting a scene in the middle of a grocery check-out aisle was definitely something she wasn't supposed to do. She folded her hands tightly across her stomach and let the basket sit on her hip. She watched him, stammer about his obvious hatred towards people like that. Penny didn't like stupid people just as much as the next person, but this guy just seemed so hung up on the fact, she wouldn't be surprised if he lost sleep over trying to fathom it. The idea of it brought a wry grin to her face.

Speaking of idiots, underage-bimbo was still holding up the line and from the look and sound of it, it was going to stay that way until the manager showed up from some dark corner of the store and handled the ordeal. She rolled her eyes at them and dismissed it from her mind. She glanced back at him, however, as he seemed to continue to simmer about the article. Judging from what she had seen and heard from him so far, he had high expectations about humanity and how people should act instead of how they act. You throw any three people in a pit from any part of the world and throw in only enough food for one, the three will fight it out before they share it. It's how they are hard wired, mostly. Obviously not in this guys case. That guy would insist that someone out of the hole was working with some sort of organization to get them out of the hole and that they should just wait it out.

Or at least that is what she thought he would do.

She looked up when he replied to her other suggestion. If her parents ever decided to come back from wherever they were in the world, she'd probably hit them. Honestly, because of what they did to her and her brother. Sure they were out there in some foreign camp healing people who have never seen the inside of an air conditioned building, but still. In this world, you have to put your family first because no one else will. Penny also hated them because they stuck her and her brother with her grandmother. Her hands curled into lethal fists when he continued his reasoning about family. "People like that need to be dismembered. Different it is a load of horseshit. Everyone is different." Her words held some venom in them, but when he mentioned the fact that the man that was beaten was meta she had to force herself not to grab the article.

She went rather still her eyes looking at the magazine as he smoothed out the pages he a wrinkled. "People like that deserve more than just a lethal injection. Intolerance like that is what is keeping this world so crappy." She might sound calm at the moment but if Penny ever found the people who hurt her brother, she'd be sure to use every single advantage her endless memory gave her to make their short lives very miserable. She pinched the bridge of her nose for a moment to calm herself down. This guy in front of her was actually starting to seem alright, giving that his opinions were a lot more reasonable than people like, say the ones who nearly kill others for being 'different'.

[Joshua Bernstein]

Josh wasn't entirely certain how to respond to this call to violence. On the one hand, she was agreeing with him that hate crimes were wrong. On the other hand, he wasn't particularly disposed to treat capital punishment and torture as a legitimate response to hate crimes. Or any crime, for that matter. He much preferred mediation and education to dismemberment. That was barbaric and entirely too reminiscent of the punishments incorporated by less enlightened societies. There had been some truly creative methods of capital punishment throughout history and as much as he enjoyed learning about the past he was not eager to reinstate any of them. In fact, the thought of them made him a bit queasy; he wished for a more merciful, gracious world than the one he currently occupied.

"Yes, exactly. Intolerance is a horrible blight upon humanity!!" He nodded vehemently. "But it doesn't have to be that way. If we started teaching tolerance at a young age." If there were some way to negate the influence of bigoted parents he would jump at the opportunity, but he couldn't think of any solution to the parental problem other than putting all the children of every prejudiced parent in foster care, and that seemed highly impractical for the present. "Although I'm not sure I would go so far as to kill them." He added with visible discomfort. "I was thinking more along the lines of reeducating and rehabilitating them. I would much prefer to end violence than add to it." This didn't always work quite as well as he would have liked, of course, but he saw no real benefit to killing people off. That seemed a sure way to add fuel to whatever fires of hate they already had burning.

The girl holding up the line had finally gotten a clue (or not, as she was stalking off to yell at the manager) and moved out of their way, finally freeing up the line so that Josh could purchase his very important cigarettes, peanut butter, saltines, and cereal. And the magazine. He could show it to Sean and they could be offended together -- that is, if Sean was up to being offended over something that was unrelated to this puppet-master he was currently worried about. It seemed much more likely that his friend would fail to react to the article and instead freak out about the fact he'd gone to the store by himself. Not that Josh thought it was all that likely that the grocery store would be attacked or that, out of all the people in the grocery store he would make the most promising target, but he had to allow that worry was not conducive to reason.

"An eye for an eye seems a cruel way to live," He added, tapping his credit card against the palm of his hand as he waited for the cashier to ring him up. "An ice cream for an ice cream, that is something I could approve of. But a constant quest for revenge..." He shook his head. That attitude ruined life for all parties involved, not just the one vengeance was wreaked upon. "It just doesn't seem like a very useful way to spend life. Seems like it would make life more miserable, not less."

[Penny Stone]

Being meta was something no one could control. You can't just decide to be it, and you can't decide to not be once you had the power. There wasn't anything wrong to being a meta, since it was a completely natural--as far as everyone knew--random occurrence. Her brother and herself both were meta, even though their parents and grandparents aren't. There wasn't an explanation for that. It wasn't as if their parents had chosen for their children to be meta. And because of such a random thing...why would anyone want to hurt someone because of how they were born? People like that didn't deserve a second chance--or a chance for them to reproduce either. They just needed to not exist.

He did have a good idea. Teach children to be tolerant. If only the rest of humanity would agree and do that. It was an impossible expectation to have because people just weren't like that. Or maybe some were, but the vast majority were intolerant, selfish, self-satisfying, egotistical, and a large list of other things that wouldn't do anyone else any good. There were just too many demographics out there in the world for everyone to meet in the middle and be happy. It would take too much work--work that hardly anyone was willing to do. And as to what he said, about rather not killing them...well people were just like weeds. Or parasites. Either one, they couldn't really be coxed into being anything different than what they were. It would be easier to just kill them, but Penny was aware that that wouldn't change anything.

It didn't mean it didn't change her opinion in the matter, she just knew it wasn't proper.

She sighed when finally the clog in the line was out of the way and she could get out of this place. It was time to get this food to her grandma, and continue on her mission with Paulo--Oscar. It wasn't like she forgot she was supposed to be undercover, she just...well usually moved the information into her brain library and forgot about it there. It was too much for her to remember everything all the time, so she used a complex system of memory files, almost like a computer. She could remember things instantly with uses of key words (thought or spoken). This conversation would be put in some useless category of her mind...though she just couldn't shake the feeling she should remember this guy.

He seemed useful, albeit annoying. Maybe she'd get his name, in case she needed Oscar to find him. She watched him start to check out and while she did she started to place her items on the conveyor belt. Eggs, rice, sweat peas, baby carrots, chicken, milk, and cheese. All would probably be gone by the end of the week. For some reason, the crazy old bat still cooked for an entire family even though it was just her in the house. Penny visited every now and then but tried not to stay for desert. Granny always voiced her protests about Penny's life choices and they always grated.

"Useful or not, it's just the way things are done." Penny didn't really believe it was successful, but that really was how things were done. Everyone was out for retribution. Penny, herself, had only joined MSAD to get revenge on the people that attacked her brother. Whether or not that was a self-destructive way to live--Penny hardly cared. Her brother was a great man and was innocent, but was attacked just for being born. It was injustice. And those men would pay for it.

[Joshua Bernstein]

Josh scowled darkly at her comment. "Just the way things are done...!" He repeated, unimpressed with this argument. He knew that she was correct and that was exactly how most people operated, but he was trying to fight against inertia, not give in to it. "That attitude is exactly why things don't change." He complained, swiping his card at the cashier's prodding. "Just because most people don't do the right thing isn't a good enough reason to go along with them. That's the easy thing to do, but why choose easy when you can choose correct?"

Peer pressure and the masses were a double-edged sword, in Josh's mind. On the one hand, he hated when the influence of the masses caused people to float on with no thought for growth. On the other hand, social stigma was a useful tool in the arsenal of anyone with an agenda, and that included himself. When there was a stigma attached to using a label or behaving in a way that he believed inappropriate then that was useful, and when people rallied for a cause he believed in then he was pleased and would willingly accept a bit of chaos for the greater good and he snarled at the idea of the government stepping in to enforce peace at the expense of his message. When people stigmatized behaviors he approved of or rose up for causes he disagreed with, well, that was an entirely different matter. That was when the populace became a menacing beast in need of government control. When it came to promoting peace he was in favor of going against society, because society as a general rule favored keeping score. Keeping score resulted in a build up of resentment and an endless cycle of violence and misery that he would rather combat than condone.

He smiled at the clerk before realizing the bagger was using plastic bags. "No, no, don't use plastic. Do you have paper?" He demanded, shrugging his concerns about meta-humans and the mob mentality away for the moment. Now that he was checked out he had no real reason to stay, except to continue his conversation with the young woman, and as much as he valued telling people how to live he could see he was making very little progress. She would cling to her idea that bitterness was the way the world was run regardless of what he had to say about it, but perhaps sometime in the future she would stop and think about it and realize that he was correct. Perhaps he had planted some seeds and someone else would come along and tend to them; he had to hope this was the case, otherwise his mission of enlightenment seemed almost pointless.

"I hate to cut this conversation short, but I'm afraid I must run. I do hope you'll think about changing the world instead of siding with the status quo." He told her, grabbing the paper bag the teen in charge of bagging had reluctantly switched to. "And perhaps next time we meet the status quo will favor those who oppose mindless violence."

(wrapped)