|
     |
Lorna has partially disconnected.
*
There's zombies, right? Zombies in Central Park! That's completely mad. At the moment, at this certain edge, it's fairly quiet as the sun settles on the edge of the horizon. Where some parts of the park are overrun, this one seems… No, look, there. Its a zombie sort of shambling around. Its a fairly recent one, really. Just a bit rotten along the edges. Dry aged, maybe.
Across the street stands Josh, in his bright yellow hoodie and jeans, but the hood is down and his skin is tanned. He has his arms crossed over his chest and has an intense expression on his face: but also some determination.
*
ROLL: Maximus +rolls 1d20 for a result of: 12
*
Lorna was out and about, doing what exactly on her own? Well trying to find that magical person that had set off that riot of course. The problem being, however, that the mutant had no magical talent whatsoever, much less an idea what she was doing. What had started out as a means to get out and do something had fallen into Lorna sulking as she walked along. She had missed the memo about zombies in the park, however she knew enough that bad stuff went down in it, and knew to avoid the greater park.
The normally green haired mutant, now a mousey brown hair thanks to a Wanda charm, barely noticed the shambling corpse across the way. She stumbled, staring in shock with her mouth agape. "Oh. My. Gosh." She squeaked, clapping a hand over her lips as she looked around and her gaze settled on Josh nearby.
*
It's night. A really bad time to try and cross Central Park. Even if a car accident tangled up West 59th on the south side? There are much better choices than taking Central Drive and cutting through. Except there aren't. Not for someone who does not know New York so well. Vesper looks uncomfortably over her shoulder at the nice, straight road going north. Trees do not crowd too close. Nice and open. The folded up map she consults shows a neat, straight line representing some other kind of road. Obviously no one has marked 'Zombies here!' helpfully in a corner. It would be easier, you know?
Hugging her bag tighter to her shoulder, she paces along the sidewalk. Really, how far is one mile? Not so bad. Doable. Please don't let that be an awful shuffling zombie…
*
It IS all Madness. These zombies have been here forever and no one has even built a wall yet. It truly was only a matter of time before the dark-haired man realized that this was prime territory for…sport. Not that anyone can tell what he's doing, really. He just seems to be standing there. However, he can see Lorna nearby, and he can also see Vesper trying to cut through the park. With a flash of ability, he tries to trip the latter, to see how brave the former will be.
*
"Oh, Hi!" Josh lifts a hand to wave it at Lorna, but its decidedly a wave towards him, not away. "Hey, come away. Don't draw its attention. Its this… not-dead dead thing, thing. Don't let them bite you! I don't know if I can cure it." But he's already moving to cross the street, and going towards the zombie, waving his hands, "Hey, you! Dead thing! Over here! Me, not her! Come have a snack and I'll see if I can heal you!" Considering he's in a very bright hoodie, he does have the zombies attention.
And suddenly its running right for Josh. This is not a slow zombie. He eeps. Manfully. "…!"
*
ROLL: Vesper +rolls 1d20 for a result of: 6
*
It could be me. Or is it we? Her? Them? Us?
The endless mind floats through the ethers and the torrential terrain of pre-determined terror.. a darkened wisp of a spirit that if glimpsed at, could be seen as a woman in a suit who takes on a dancing routine that would make Elizabeth Taylor blush..
Or a pear shaped man who walks with a cane and glasses with no ears to hang upon his nose..
Or perhaps a swirling mass of purple with tentacles and writhing connectors..
Or something?
Something. Something that reaches out to touch the mind of the dead thing that races at a breakneck speed towards the loud and helpful.. happy.. bright.. terrible..tormented.. ghost.. of a thing and..
'HAAAAA! IT HAS NO MIND! Funny..'
The zombie. Not Josh.
*
A wisp of a thought brushes past, a distraction. The French brunette is closing on the drive cutting north through the park, an inviting stretch of concrete. It's not to be. Feet tangle up under Vesper, catching on a curb. She releases her bag but not her map, clenching the crumpled paper in her hand. Flats slide and she drops to her knees, her cheeks turning pink in surprise. Pavement abrades her skin at the joints, her skirt fluttering in a dark pool. It isn't polite to swear and she doesn't.
Josh is yelling to the zombie and waving his arms. She does chirp a sound of surprise, high pitched and noisy. That probably hurt a bit.
*
Lorna hurried over toward Josh as he waved her over, her brows climbing higher as she inspected the lumbering, shambling dead thing approach. "Then why are we still here?" She whispered.
And then promptly clapped her hands over her mouth as Josh stepped out to gain the thing's attention. She hurriedly glanced around her, searching for the nearest bench or lamp post to be ready to yank it hard at the not so slow undead thing. A grunt, and the bench lifts with a scream of metal and she makes to try to wrap the running zombie up in an embrace of iron and steel.
*
Maximus starts a slow clap as Lorna takes charge and attacks the thing. He approaches the pair of them, dark curls whipping in the breeze. "It has been a long time…golden one. /Lorna/." he greets their hand-flapping and distress with an utter calm. Its not that he isn't afraid of the zombie if he were the only one here, but there are /so many people/ that he could make run slower than him that he's not particularly concerned.
*
Josh is about to be bowled over, but his expression is set, his eyes firm, and his hands out, ready to grab the zombie even as it crashes into him and tries for a bite of — oh. Metal wrapping around the zombie? "Hey, you know, that's useful. Thanks. Hold it still, don't hurt her." he repeats the thought in a compliment to Lorna. He blinks over and sees Max, and flashes a grin, "Max." As for why are they still there… that's answered a moment later when he reaches out and clasps the head of the dead thing, even as teeth snap at him. A moment later, Josh is no longer tanned, but gold: it looks like he's made of pure gold. So gold that warm, radiant light flows out of him and pours… *into* the zombie, even as it struggles to free itself from Lorna's metal, and bite Josh, …
Nothing obvious happens at first, just a lot of glowing light that keeps pouring into the zombie. Josh's expression is set and determined.
*
Vesper sets aside the map and brushes her hand over her stinging knees. A screech of metal when Lorna tears out the pole from the ground brings an alarmed look. Flinching, she hurries to get up. Now might be time to run. No one seems to be paying attention to the girl who tripped, plus one to the minus ten for falling. "Mon dieu," she mutters, looking down at her lightly bleeding knee. Nothing seems broken, though, and she hugs her bag close. Her eyes narrow behind her sunglasses in Maximus' direction. That expression is wiped away by the golden light, something so odd. Holy if she believed in such things. All the more reason to back away very, very slowly.
*
Lorna glanced toward Maximus as he called to her and started clapping. Her focus turned frazzled and she determinedly squared her jaw and turned her attention back to keeping the steel wrapped around the zombie as it gnashed its teeth at Josh and he tried to heal the creature.
"I don't want to know." She offered shaking her head as she approached, arms out stretched as she tugged another piece of metal higher. She tried to wrap the metal around the creature's mouth, her brows furrowed as she gritted her teeth and tried to stay focused.
*
Maximus can recognize when something REALLY terrible is about to happen. Bringing people back from the dead….the Inhumans have terrifying legends that start that way. His expression becomes incredibly concerned. "Lorna…Lorna kill it. Josh…you must stop! The result will not be what you want it to be!" Plaintiff, and warning.
*
And Maximus was right.. the King laid in wait..
*
"No! Lorna, don't!" Josh hisses. It takes quite awhile as far as Josh healings go, but soon enough the little bit of rotting that showed on the fresh zombie body closes up. And then the struggling and attempting to bite stops: eyes that were glazed over in death blink and clear. Josh stumbles back and actually falls to the ground, looking seriously drained. Still gold skinned, though.
And the zombie looks around, confusion on her face, "What… where am I? What's going on?" There's an edge of panic in her voice. But not a zombie.
Josh looks to Maximus, shaking his head slowly, "I can heal death." he says softly, "I wasn't sure until the other day, when Captain America got shot— he was dead by the time I got to him. I had to see if I could help… them." Though he sounds deeply exhausted. It is then that he notices Vesper, looking at her for a long moment, "Uhh, don't go back to the park. The whole park is infested. And I can't do that again tonight."
*
Vesper tucks her arm against her chest, fist to her right shoulder. Her face is drained of color. Lips are bleached under a tacky layer of pink lipstick, and her eyes are too wide. Whites would show if her big round sunglasses weren't on, as impractical as they are at dusk! Yes, she knows. "What is he doing?" The question is for Maximus, the only person she knows. His bad reaction only compounds hers. "This is not a… Infested? Infested with what?" The clear fact she is French can be heard on the air, doubled by the fact she still has her precious little map.
*
Lorna didn't immediately try to kill the zombie, simply held it still while Josh worked. A furrow of her brow followed as she approached slowly. When Josh sagged, she reached out to try to help steady him. "Oh. That's why Julian wanted to get you before.." She muttered, her gaze swinging toward the woman encased in metal still. A hand waved and the steel slowly lowered from the woman's mouth as she spoke.
"Hey, calm down, it's okay.."
*
Maximus points out to the park Vesper just came through, and he treats her as sociably as he would any friend. He's yelling, though, "THAT PLACE is infested with not DEAD, but the UNDEAD. And this idiot here…/attractive as he may be/. Really attractive. The sort of attractive that makes you sort of wish you could invent a machine that would freeze him in place in the gold state, so that you could put it in the center of a pool of…I'm thinking possibly magenta water…" He's derailed. "THIS IDIOT," he points again at Josh, back on track, "Has just brought the undead back to life!"
*
It was simple. Taking over the mind of a weak one, especially as injured previously and now healed as she was like slipping into a pair of warm snug shoes. It was the expansion of thine own mind.. stretching to fill the body space.. slipping sideways into that area and becoming all.. or.. some parts.. but most parts.. most parts that electrify and twitch and nearly tremble as both brains connect to sing the body electric..
'What… where am I?'
'What's going on?'
The voices intermingle, intentions connect.. dominance instilled..
"Why are you yelling?!" The woman shrieks out! Time to show off those acting skills.. says the King.
*
Josh flashes a bit of a smile towards Lorna as she helps him from completely falling on his face, sort of staring at Maximus like the guy grew a second head. He blinks at being called attractive, blinks again at where that derailing went. "Uhh,…" Pause, "Wait. Hold up. We'll leave talk of me gold in magenta water for another time." He can't help it, he laughs: a little giddy after all of that rushing power, "I told you, Max. I can heal death. If I can heal death, why can't I heal whatever it is that is? You don't know the limits of my power. I don't either. I had to know." He shrugs slowly, "Though I wouldn't try that on a more rotten one now that I see how much it took. I might…" He blinks a bit, "Pass out." He takes a deep breath, and forces that away, "Even if she's dead.. undead.. whatever that means… she's still made out of organic matter. I have control over anything organic." He smiles, goldenly, at the woman, "Its okay. You were uh. Let's say sick. I healed you."
*
The scientist blinks. She pushes her sunglasses up over her hair, catching on her stylish scarf wrapped around her head. "Undead? «Goules?»" That means ghouls, pretty similar in sound. Vesper's point is made plain enough. She has to ignore the idea of a man being in the middle of a fountain. "How can that be? Mais non, say it can happen, the tissues would be dead. The resuscitation, the brain damage. Long term damage to the nervous system. All of it is dead, you see? The decay damages the system. To grow it, we could not have the same pieces. Not the same person. It is like a broken doll? Pieces of a person are missing, and replaced with fresh grown ones, they are not an actual person. Not the same person." Though it begins directed at Maximus, it goes eventually to Josh.
"You can… heal these things, but how you can be sure about the original patterns they follow? What you have made," she says slowly, careful to translate her thoughts right. "Maybe she is alive now. She is not what she was before. Not unless you can build the spirit of a person, too? The stuff of identity, the memory, the soul? How can the brain hold onto this when it is deprived of the oxygen and the blood?"
*
Maximus looks like he's going to burst. He grabs for Vesper, trying to capture her upper arm. "She is right. Perhaps you will listen to her. But…perhaps not. I will prove it…" His eyes glow blue, then, an ability that no one has seen him use before, and his puppetting attempt on the newly revived woman is at full force, the power that he would use to take over a fellow Inhuman. He is grasping at the mind within…but to everyone else, it just looks like he's staring at her with blue eyes.
*
Lorna winced as the woman freaked out, and she made a sympathetic noise at the back of her throat. "Shh, it's okay. Look, I'll let you go here in a minute. Okay? Just to make sure that you're safe and that we're safe. Promise. Just so you don't hurt yourself." Her voice gentle and kind. Then her gaze swung back toward Josh and arched a brow upwards. "How do you even know Maximus?" She muttered, still hovering around Josh to make sure he wasn't going to keel over anytime soon.
"She seems fine to me.." She muttered as Maximus and the strange woman started on about how the woman couldn't possibly be better.
*
'Let's see what we have here..' King says, the woman now small, dancing around the mindscape of the newly minted meatsuit that was for the taking. Books were thrown about the dark room, records were smashed to bits and put back together again, tables were knocked over and kicked aside and..
'Oh? No.. wonder..'
Though, the woman with the dark hair remained around the lot, her fingers bitten hard by the flesh, her eyes darting left and right to those who stand before her, the need to protest -real-. Very real. Okay, not so real. You cannot play victim -too- hard, people will start to get suspicious..
She smiles a little 'fraidly' towards Josh, though the frown draws upon her lips again, dirty as they were with the taste of old, rotted flesh. "Oh.. oh god.. wh… why wasn't I at the hospital?" It doesn't stop there, Maximus' agression towards her has her fingers doubling against the lower lip, a hard grasp in between fingers and a slight pull as those big doe eyes widen completely…
And on the inside? King laughed! 'WRONG MOVE!' Or right. Whatever!
*
"Brain tissue that's dead, is still *there*. I can make it live again: restore it to its original state. I'm a biokineticist. I can repair brain damage. I don't… grow new tissue, not unless some is missing. I revive existing tissue. Identity is all about memory, and memory is biological. I can read the dead tissue and see how it should have been, and *restore* it. The memories, identity, that's all biology." Josh then gives a little shrug, "There's no such thing as a spirit, a soul." He's weary but regaining some strength, "The only time I can't restore someone is if they've decayed too much: at that point the reason I can't restore it is because its not just dead tissue, but tissue which has been eaten by bacteria, turned into waste, which other bacteria eat. At that point there's little of the original tissue left, so nothing for me to restore. But if a body is put on ice soon after its dead, or if I get to it before the bacteria destroy too much tissue, I can restore it. That's why I've been looking for a …whatever it is… that was recently dead. Not a lot of rot." He shakes his head to Maximus, "You don't know how my power works so you can't know if she's right. Look— she's alive. She's talking." He winces at the woman's question, "It… was a very weird sick. Makes you wander around to spread the, uh, disease." To Lorna he adds in a mutter, "Met him a couple times. There was this weird swarm of bugs eating some people."
*
It's not hard for Maximus to grab Vesper. She is a slim thing, easily blown away in a light breeze. Consumption is, without question, a bitch. The habitual flutter of her lungs struggling with the polluted, poisoned air builds to a feverish twitch of her diaphragm. The congested drag of air through her inflamed airways produces a wheezy inhaling pattern. She is suppressing the cough that wants to come out. Her shoulders quake. Hard work, that.
"That is not how the brain works," says the Frenchwoman. Her voice is getting quieter, quickening to the damnable lack of air. Her body isn't listening. "It is not fully the same. You could build the exact same structures on the damaged streets. It will not produce the same memories. The exact duplicates do not create things with a common experience or even preference. There have been enough studies to show that. But she…" A hand gestures sharply to the woman. "…is not the same person as she was alive. Looks the same, not the same. You are a bio — I am sorry, I do not know this word. Cinetique. Biokinesie? A life mover? I am a biogeneticist. Your experience is one, mine is another. Show me the empirical evidence." More coughing, now. "Messieur Maximus, this is not a good place to stay." Not with the person who isn't supposed to be alive and reason is fighting through it.
*
Maximus is working off old legends…things his parents would only whisper about, that he had to find out about on his own, in the bowels of the city archives. Oh yes, oh yes, he may be completely wrong, but his fear and axiety comes from a real threat, a threat they have cast away, exiled, forever. He doesn't care if she's a different person. He'll never know the difference. What he does care about is if he can control the woman, override the mind within with his own, and make her calm and drop her hands to her sides.
*
"Ah, well, that's less interesting than I was hoping for," She offered to Josh's comment on how he met Maximus before.
A roll of her eyes followed Vesper's comment, "Well obviously he can, and you're wrong. Science doesn't have answers for everything out there. And there's a lot out there that isn't 'possible'. Seriously, my old roommate is Queen of a Hell dimension." She offered and then glanced back toward the woman still wrapped up in steel.
She still had yet to completely let the woman go.
"Hey, what's your name? Do you remember? Where do you live?" She offered, ignoring Maximus, the scientist and Josh for a long moment.
*
Funny how the brain works. Are mutated brains any different? While the conversation spills all along them, the influence presses in, King wasn't himself/herself at tip, top shape.. but he/she was just enough to get the job done. The job of .. allowing the influence to take over. Just a little. It all goes with the play. The play of the shoulders slowly slumping, the arms dropping down to her sides, how it plays and toys with the machinations as the little figurine that now dances inside the room of the mind of the recently healed begins to kick up sheets.
Sheets that fly up into the air and nearly hang. Hang in the air as the dancing soon stops and the push-back soon comes. King.. in all his/her/its attempts tries to get Maximus to copy her.. and yet the tiredness was soon to come.
'Fine! You want to play!' King states, her arms folded about her as she flops down upon the bed with a bounce. 'Play, I don't care. But I got your number, buddy! I got it real good!'
Poor Lorna, the woman could barely even speak, locked in the thrall that Maximus put upon her. Perhaps she really didn't know, perhaps she really couldn't answer. Or maybe, just maybe King didn't get that far into the womans brain just yet to figure out the correct answer to Lorna's question. Locked up as she was in metal.
*
"We don't know, scientifically, *how* the brain works — but I know more then most." Josh nods his head, "If I touch someone, I know everything there is to know about their bio-organic makeup, and I can manipulate— move— any part of it. What is 'alive'? Alive is organic tissue in a certain state. What is dead? Organic tissue in a different state. The molecules are all still there— unless too much rotting happened. The cell might no longer function but I can *make* it function. The cells might be broken but I can put them back together. But my power is not limited to what medicine is capable of. Though I am limited sometimes by my own understanding of, for example, genetics." He offers a golden hand to the woman, "Here. Take my hand and I will heal you. I'm also a medical doctor."
*
Vesper looks back at Lorna without flinching. She may not be terribly tall. Nor has she any kind of power to call on. What lies under the surface? Good old Gallic pride. "Au contraire, madame, science does have answers. To know the right question sometimes counts, but you can be quantified as much as a quasar or the electrons around an atom." Given that revelation is less than a year old, how exciting to use it in proper terminology! Or she is an astronomy student in addition to the most unseemly masculine art of biogenetics. "It is reasonable to ask for what can be done. I appreciate the scientific method. You say you can do something, if it can be replicated, understood, this is a wonder of understanding. But you see I may have doubts someone how long dead is the same self?"
Josh's offer? Ooh, tempting. And he is gold. But her doe, dark eyes slide to Maximus. "Is it well? Safe?" All these people are different except her. The only human, how droll. And ignorant — she doesn't know that yet — but. Her hand is slowly extended. "It is a lingering malady. I fear that is what I am."
*
Maximus tightens his jaw and then releases the woman of his control, his eyes fading back. Though, he is surely tempted to control her to just bash her own head in. Those around here would notice that. Hard to get away with such a thing /now/. He relaxes his hold on Vesper as well.
*
Lorna held her tongue in regards to magic and other chaotic things that she felt science could never explain. Better to not do that with a strange woman bound in metal. She loosened her grip on the metal when it appeared the woman was calm enough, her hands rising and falling to let it unwind around the woman. A glance was offered toward Josh and she shrugged.
"She doesn't seem to want to run away.." Though she still held her grip on the metal, the loops floating around the woman gently.
*
As Josh's hand touches Vesper's, he shakes his head slowly, "I don't mind giving evidence: after all I did that to see if I could. I'm still studying my limits." As his golden fingers touch her, he does just that— touch. His eyes unfocus a moment, and softly he murmurs, "Your body… is filled with toxins. Way more then it should be." And then the golden light spreads out from his body and pours into her hand: its warm, the light. As it spreads through her tissue, it stengthens the immune system, making it *work* like its supposed to; but the power also searches out the excess toxins and moves them to the deep intestines, rendering them inert there. "I can't tell if its a genetic defect, or some other— wait." He looks… surprised. "You're not entirely human. I have never seen anything like your genome. Its mostly human. But not entirely." And his hand falls away. He looks questioning at her, then to Max, since he knew her. Then to Lorna, because maybe she has a clue. "Without knowing more about your genome I can't fix your immune system permanently, but…" He nods to her. Temporarily, though? He's intimiately familiar with how immune systems are supposed to work.
*
Vesper is fairly cool to the touch, at least her hand is. The stylish belted trench and sweater under keep the rest of her warm. She holds fast with the patience of the prodded, the poked, the jabbed. Medecins sans frontiers means something different when you're the patient. With that artificial calm she permits Josh do his whatever it is. Friendly poke of power into lungs riddled with imperfections and fluids, the arteries diminished with their oxygen capacity. Toxins stacked up and up in quantities that would imply something. To today's scientists and doctors? An odd strain of tuberculosis. Chronic pulmonary troubles, though nothing like cystic fibrosis. That good old catch all: consumption.
Her back stiffens when he names a diagnosis. Chin lifts, eyes white and wide. His hand falls away and she has such a reaction delay on snatching hers back like it's scalded. Must be some kind of comedy but the comedy is her life. "Q-que ca?"
*
Maximus perks at this news. "What do you mean…she is not entirely human?" Heasks of Josh, then looks to Vesper, the French lady he keeps running into. That Gorgon was entranced with. "Do you know about this?" This question for Vesper.
*
A shrug follows as Lorna listens to Josh's diagnosis. "Is she a mutant? Or maybe an alien? There's been a lot of those around according to a few people I talked to. Or she could be from another dimension? Would that work?" She tilted her head to the side as she considered the strange woman, her hands settling on her hips.
A glance being spared toward Maximus. "He's not human really, have you checked him out for comparison?"
*
"She's not a mutant, either. I don't mean that. She doesn't have the X-Gene." Josh shakes his head as he says that to Lorna, "I've gotten real good at identifying it in people. I don't know how to say it any more then that — a certain portion of her genome is not like any I've ever seen before." He pauses, reaches down and plucks up a blade of grass, closes his eyes a moment, "See this is about as far from human as you could get, but its still familiar to me. Her, though?" He shrugs, "There's some portion of her that I don't recognize at all. Its a guess, but I think that might be why her body wasn't processing toxins like its supposed to. Its compromised her immune system so the …this…" He gestures around, "…is like a low-key toxic environment. Only she's always in it so it adds up." Back to Lorna, Josh shrugs, "I've never tried to read an alien and don't know anything about dimensions." He extends a golden hand to Max at her suggestion, but he doesn't touch him without the man's permission. He does smile though.
*
"Non." It turns out, under the surface, Vesper sometimes finds her courage. With that comes her tongue. Her jaw works for a moment under the barrage of questions. Really, it rather is. Stepping back, she covers her mouth and no coughing follows. It should. Habit-forming, that coughing. Breath goes in, breath goes out, no constant punch to the windpipe to get it out. She backs up a step, explanations being what they are. Does that give room to think?
*
"Privacy!" Maximus frowns at Lorna. "Or shall I walk around outting you to everyone as a mutant?" Max certainly doesn't need any help outting himself, honestly. He presses his lips together, the ends curving up as he considers letting Josh touch him. He may have already thought about it. Just not…as scientific as this. Finally he unfurls his hand like a blooming flower and lets the golden man take it.
*
With all of this hubaloo going on, the talk of mutants and things of that nature, or aliens.. King has the better mind of all of them to just.. hide. To lick his wounds and fester.. or her wounds.. But with the metal still surrounding her, it was hard for her to actually leave this place.. and yet, with a clearing of her throat, she attempts to get Lorna's attention, a shaky hand lifting to point towards the hovering apparatus. She definitely wants to run away.
*
Another shrug, "Okay, so maybe she's just got a little extra going on. Who knows." A glance was spared toward Maximus and she arched a brow. "What, you're always acting like you're better than everyone anyways.." She waved a hand and just as she was about to say more, the shaky hand from the woman caught her attention.
"Oh! Sorry, are you okay?" She asked, turning around to look over the woman. "Do you remember your name? Anything? Can I call anyone for you?"
*
Curious about all of this, Josh takes Maximus' hand and squeezes it. It lasts only moments before his brow furrows, "You're like her." he says softly, "Mostly human, but not entirely. But… different. The genome is active— its just junk DNA in her. I don't understand why: I'd have to study you both more closely to identify the mechanism, what's different in you. But… your body has a similar immune system weakness as hers. Its just not as far gone. Here." There's a golden light again, and it pours into Max: boosting his immune system. Its not permanent, but he'll breathe more clearly and not feel ill for awhile. "That's as best I can do for you without knowing more."
*
Maximus yanks his hand back and turns sharply on Vesper. He looks her up and down thoughtfully. "You really should come with me now." Dead serious. "And you, Josh…tell no one. Its important."
*
The brunette turns on her heel. Rudeness only goes so far. "I am right here," Vesper says to Lorna crisply. "You do not need to talk about me or anyone with that scorn. It's rude." Her tone is still soft, and she gives Maximus a shaky little nod. Oh, the immune system is functioning. It probably works better than it has since whenever. It cannot do a darn thing for the world going pear-shaped. "Merci, monsieur… Ah, I do not know your name. I— I thank you though. For trying." And that's when she briskly takes a few steps away and presumably Max is going to point where to go. At this rate? She'll take the zombies.
*
Once she was finally freed, the woman offers up a nervous smile. "Ah.. yes.. no.. I'm.. I'm fine! I just.. need to go! You all look like you have important stuff.. to.. do.." As she speaks, she backs away, gesturing over her shoulder. With.. really nothing more to say, she takes off in a half-beaked run, staggering AWAY from the zombies and towards civilization. Nothing to see here folks!
*
Lorna blinked as Josh tested Maximus and made the connection between him and the strange woman. "Well, huh." Her focus returned to the fleeing woman and she winced, "Hey, wait, it could be—" She broke off 'dangerous' as the woman took off into the darkness away from the park.
Here's hoping Maximus was wrong about her..
Green eyes flickered toward the brunette and she rolled her eyes, making a face before her gaze swung back toward Maximus. "You know I won't actually say anything to anyone." Her hands lifting upward before her, and then she was putting the twisted metal of the bench back into place.
*
"I can keep a secret." replies Josh with a smile to Maximus, "Now what was this about me being attractive and magenta water?" He nods to Vesper, "To my people, I'm called Elixir." For perhaps obvious reasons. "Josh is okay too." He lifts golden hands in a 'peace' gesture between Vesper and Lorna, "Come now, we're all special. Genes, but I am starving and tired now, though." He nods to Lorna, "I can be trusted. I'm not just anyone." he assures Max and Vesper.
*
Maximus winces slightly. "Ah…well…we all have things to do…we can discuss that another time." He may have been King once, but he has ever been rubbish at pick-up lines. Time to escape! He will head off with Vesper if she comes along. He does lead the way towards the swankier part of town.
*
Vesper does. She walks… hurries, a little, to catch up to Maximus. Secret histories and dark linkages bind them all. So does the simple need to move and edge away faster than a walk, not really a run.