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It's been a while since Isidore has been at Westchester. The hotheaded young man is still somewhat the rowdy that he had been during his student years, though older and hopfully a bit wiser now. A fairly recent graduate, he probably wouldn't stand out too much, and some might recognize him from his time as a student. Now, though, he wanders the halls of his alma mater, wending his way into the cafeteria. He's definitely got the look of someone with something on his mind, a little more tight-lipped than he usually was. He nods to nearby students when he arrives, and stops to take a deep breath, as if just breathing it in.
Kaleb might be a professor at a glance. The 18 year old dressed an easy 45. how many college freshmen wore a a suit to school? Pressed trousers and shirt with the edges crisp and neat, and a sweater vest in dark slate over top really did add years to the young man. He didn't look up while sifting through a book on Babylonian architecture and taking his mid-morning coffee and coissant. "Professor Grey just left if she is who you are looking for." Breviloquent was apparently the word of the day.
"Hm. Yeah, maybe." There's a bit of something foreign in the admittedly thick Brooklyn street accent Izzy speaks in. The outfit matches the accent, almost comically so — black leather jacket, jeans, boots, greased ducktail hair. He turns to look the student over, lips pursed in thought for a moment. "Profs here today, for the most part?"
The square eyed the greaser but seemed to stow any overt reservations on this. At least the pinky wasn't out when he drank his coffee. The pretense only went so far thankfully. "Those that are on site are I think doing lunch. You can sit and wait if you want. Most of the other residents seem to be making hell of all the leaves in the halls." Yes the 3' drifts of leaves in teh lower halls of the school? Oh yes they're attracting many young mutants a many. This one seemed to have less than zero interest in that particular levity. For that matter this might be the only room in the school where the laughing and sound stopped dead at the door. Good insulation on the caf apparently. "You returning for college acaemia, or other business?" He was… actually listening for an answer? Who knew.
Isidore wrinkles his nose a bit, recalling the strange obstacle course on the way here. The reflection doesn't last long. He shrugs, turning to let his eyes roll over the kitchen area before settling back on Kaleb. "Lunch first, I think. Then, yeah, some of both. It's gettin' busy out there." He's not any more specific than that. Good as his word, he moves to acquire eats before returning to the table the square kid sits at. He spoke earlier, so now he's gonna get sat with.
Kaleb was not, as it turned out any of the following: personable, talkative, friendly. He was at least casually conversational enough to sate his curiosities. "So when did you first come here? What do you do? What's your goal after grad school?" Well at least he was assuming the greaser was going to grad school rather than trying to figure out if 'it' knew how to read. If he was here that meant Mutant and that seemed to buy any outstanding prejudices some sort of pass.
Isidore talks around his sandwich, shrugging easily. "Few years back. My folks figured I should get educated, an' it worked out." Chomp, nom nom. "Right now? I spend a lot of time workin' with rights groups, like COFO and such. Ain't money in it, but I gotta do what I gotta do." His brows go up as he explains, pausing to demolish a pickle. At some point he remembers he has a napkin and wipes his hands off, putting his elbows on the table so he can gesture more effectively. "Hell if I know. Gotta fight the good fight, but there's lots of ways to do it." He tilts his head and eyes the younger man. "You look like you got plans already."
Kaleb arched an eyebrow just slightly, "Your family knows about you?" this seemed very strange to him. out happened, just not in his high priced world apparently. When the other fella started talking about rights groups, Echo sat back and quietly have him his full attention. There seemed to be done agreement, "As Nietzsche says, 'We have only ourselves to answer for our existence; consequently we want to be the real helmsman of this existence and%<u2e48c>not permit our existence to be a thoughtless accident.' a man with no plan is not a man, but permits his bring to that of a pawn for someone else's propose." He paused and his jaw tightened briefly, "We are not pawns. But yeah. Working on doing something with my trust fund other than be a high profile past." casually he dropped with deadpan humor, "Not that I'll give up my day job, buuuuut. Yes. I'm starting a non-for profit global outreach program for mutants. We run oops to get out people out of captivity. Should come with us."
Isidore nods, leaning back to lace his fingers behind his head. "Sure. We ain't the secret keeping kind with each other." He watches the youth quote the philosopher, lips pursing for a few moments. "You got money, eh? makes sense." He looks Kaleb up and down once more, then tilts his head to one side. "Captivity? Like what, a zoo? Where does that happen?" He looks like he's not sure he believes it, or moer outraged at the idea.
Kaleb cracked a faint grin at the understatement, "Yeah, something like that." Arrogant, but apparently not a braggart. It was teh tail end about the others that he seemed more inclined to discuss. All business, no youth. "It's happening all over. Switzerland. Warren Worthington III got nabbed. It was… vile." Echo's eyes closed momentarily as some high pitched thrum started to build in his water glass before, very gingerly, he placed his hand over the top of it to still the reverb in the glass. "Two more from New York. Myself, actually, and one other. We were… taken to separate places. likewise expieremented on.. We flew out to teh Congo to help a kid not get sacrificed to bring power to a military war camp. There was also oe we rescued out of Iceland that has been… sadly problematic. There are others though. Like me, like Warren, maybe worse. Governments, independant agencies, religious groups. It varies. Mutants without help who live in fear and think they are entirely alone at the mercy of baseline brutes."
Isidore listens, eyes moving to the glass when things get thrummy. "Huh." It's a somewhat noncommittal observation before he frees up a hand to guzzle the remains of his drink. "Baseline brutes? You never seen a mutant brute? You got some flawed thinkin' there." He leans back, still at ease. "Evil is evil, and it don't matter what kinda flag it waves, or what kinda pants it puts on in the morning. Rescuin' people is all well and good, hell, that's part of what I do. Drawin' lines by race, well, that's a problem."
Kaleb shook his head and popped a grape in his mouth, "Nah, not saying it's not a problem. I went down to Harlem to help withthe reconstruction after the riot because that was some shit. Same with Mutant Town, Pride riots, the others… It's all the same fallout from the same bullshit social structure put in place by princes of finance sitting downthere on Wall Street. Trust me, man. I went to prep school with most those assholes. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that Mutants can't be assholes. What's I'm saying is that guys like Live? That asshole we picked up in Iceland that came within a hair of killing five of us two weeks ago does not get born that way. People like that get tempered by years of fear and assault. This isn't some Brotherhood of Mutants I think we're better than Them." He shook his head and offered plainly, "What I'm saying it Mutants, time and time again, like other groups to the right and left of us, are being left without support or ability to live a life by thier own design. The current op is to liberate those being abused and turned into weapons, or dissected like animals, or made to be ashamed of themselves living in fear."
Nod, grunt. Isidore scowls slightly in agreement that things are, indeed, messed up. "I can see that, yeah. That makes more trouble down the line." He reaches into his jacket then stops himself from pulling out whatever he was going to with a visible effort. A sigh, and he tucks his hands up again. "How do you find all this out? You got a psychic? And when you do, you fly out there? You gotta be loaded."
Kaleb shrugged faintly and set his empty coffee cup down. Neat cuffs folded back to the elbows left bare forearms rest against the table. "Let me tell you this, you do not want to wake up unable to commune with your own body trapped inside your self hooked to a machine." said from aforementioned experience. "I was lucky and had the very right people looking for me. Others? Not so much. We have been relying on Professor Xavier presumable. Professor Grey hasn't said. My assets don't actually factor into this. The Reach out program we're looking to create a more sustainable future. The present though is an entirely different amtter." Yeah he was 18 going on 58. He was curious though and asked witha bit of a squint, "You said civil rights? What got you into this? What's your story? Whose civil rights?"
Isidore nods, musing, "If anyone could do it, the prof could." He frees up a hand to rub his nose, fidgeting slightly. "You don't gotta explain the money angle to me, there's probably way too much to go over there." He waves his hand a bit before tackling the last question. "Yeah, pretty much anyone's civil rights. My folks raised me right, and.. it's kind of a necessary thing for my people, way I see it." He grins slightly at that, before frowning at a though as he mulls something over. There's a bit of internal dialogue, and whatever he was going to say, he distills down into, "I'm a Jew."
Kaleb was trying to figure out what 'we' Isidore was getting to. At the end there was an aaaah. There was a faint wince of- did Kaleb have sympathy or know what it was? Perhaps. The range on his ability to emote seemed narrow at best. "Oooh yeah, You're in the two-fer club. People love to just find more boxes to stuff us all in. Still, good for your parents man. Dated a Jewish girl for a while. Was not fun watching her struggle with people being unabashedly stupid." He shook his head and offered a hand across the table like the young business moguel he might be. "Kaleb. Kaleb Miller. They call me Echo." Now there were introductions, but really, this guy was alright enough to get the 'polite iterateration' of Echo apparently. Shared passion for causes can do that.
Isidore accepts the hand, smartly shaking it. "Good to meet you. Name's Isidore Resnikoff. Folks usually call me Izzy. Around here, they call me Tough." He chuckles a bit as he mulls over something else said. "Yeah, I kind of am a twofer. It was worse a few years back, even. Threefer, maybe. I didn't get the whole royal flush, though." he shrugs and leans back. "Yeah, my folks and I saw some rough times. Lost all my family except for them. We don't want it to get that bad again, so we do what we gotta. Well, kind of. I maybe do a little more, but I get pissed sometimes and get a little cranked, you know?"
Kaleb arched an eyebrow easing back in his chair without a rush to get through lunch and didn't have a class just yet so he ignored the bell change. "Threefer? What was the third one?" He blinked and looked at Isidore with a side eye, "Your family move to Jersey?" Really? That was the lynchpin there? He shrugged and offered perhaps perfectly too frank, "Outside of that you're not going to get much in the way of judgements from me. I've got my own -fer's." He paused though and furrowed his brow asking that critical question, "You lose them recently or this like twenty years back?" Oh he was versed on the War, but tthere was that underlying idea that if something else was happening recently there might be some shit.
Isidore chuckles when Jersey is mentioned, and gives a shake of his head. "Brooklyn. That's better than Jersey, right? But we got here from the USSR. So what the suits see is a Jew Mutie Red. Three strikes." He gives a shake of his head to the last question, frowning a bit. "Between Russia, Poland, and Germany, they almost wiped us all out. And they're still trying. I could say it's better here, but that could change pretty fast. I spend a lot of time down South and it's pretty medieval there."
Kaleb actually cracked a wry, honest to goodness grin at that. "Yeah. As a suit? yeah I can see it. Good news, at least I'm your suit." There was a slow nod. No judgements there. "The greatest hero of Mutants is Jewish. Who is to say the next one can't be too?" Okay so he had a high opinion of Magneto, but he was friggen Magneto, champion of Mutant social causes. He wrinkled his nose. South. "Hot. Bugs. Houston is dusty. I cannot say I overly care much for it. My roommate tells me stories about back home in Kentucky. Real rough for him growing up gifted. Just… brutal. Hell the things I grew up hearing and that they think they're doing us a favour? Good lord." That one got a small headshake. "So Tough huh? Inevitably because we ask, Endurance specialist I take it? Sounds… kinda rough actually."
Isidore nods when Magneto gets brought up. "True, man. It works for us, and it works against us, too. Folks find out one thing they don't like about us, and it doesn't matter about the rest. We.." He looks to each side, voice dipping into conspiratorial tones. "Well, we gotta keep trying, but we don't gotta be nice about it all the time. It's like a sludgey nightmare of heat, moisture, and wall to wall good ol' boys looking to put a hurt on you." He shakes his head. "I get in a lot of trouble there." Then, only, then, he smirks a less than kind smirk. Then, "Oh, yeah, pretty much. I can take any beating anyone can dish out. It gets old, but when you're in the gym and there's a kitten knocking you around, it gets agreeable fast enough." He finishes that with a smile and a wink.
Kaleb glanced left and right before casually commenting flatly witha wave of his hand. "Oh, people around here know i'm not nice. This isn't a secret." Hey, he was owning his shit at least. Point to Echo. Still a faint smile came to him and he assured, "Oh don't worry, no one away from this table can hear any of my conversations. You're fine." He wasn't eltting onto somehting but looked like he might have eaten a canary while giving Isidore his undivided attention. "Oh no shit?" No he didn't filter hismelf even if ladies and kids went to the school, though he did seem overconfident that no one would be dropping any eaves on them like a snooping Hobbit. "My roommate's got a wicked fast healing factor. Not the same but I will tell you it is iiiiimpressive. I imagine that's got some downsides to it. That's pretty far out. Useful too. Really, consider gving us a hand in the field. We can use more able minds and able bodies. It's good work. Sometimes… gritty… but better us than putting that on others."
Izz snickers a bit at the admission of not-niceness. The language doesn't seem to bother him too much, but he does seem a salty sort. "Quiet for the rest of the room, huh? Nice." He scoots his chair back slightly so he can lean it back lazily. "Yeah, healing up is nice when you get hurt. But you *feel* it, I'm told. That's gotta mess with your jets." he shakes his head. "I cut out the middleman and just don't get hurt. Actually, I get kind of a charge from it." He grins and looks around the room. "But it is rough on the wardrobe. That gets annoying. Anyway, I see where you're coming from. Doesn't sound too different than some of what I do now, except maybe less people are gonna make a stnk if I whup someone's ass during it."
Kaleb nodded sagely "Yeah my driver sort of is invincible and can catch fire. I've seen what a volatile power set can do to a wardrobe." His thumb rubbed in an idle circle aganist his fingers witha nod of confirmation to Isidore. "Yeah, I'm told I'm what we call a sonic. Elementalist, not projective. I mean I can. It's hell on me when I do it but, it's a constant awareness and manipulation of sound as the waves themselves. It's… weird. If you met anyoe that can conflagrate and shape fire? Sort of like that on an audible level. We want to speak privately? We can redirect the waves so they deaden into teh wood of the table rather than expand outward. It's… not being bulletproof, but I can keep our ops covert and help with systems relay communication. It's jsut… constant stress I guess. Everyone's got a thing. We jsut have to embrace that which makes us unique rather than give into being conformed into the shape the baseliners wnat us to be. And in difference the world is beautiful out of monotany, is it not?"
Isidore lifts a brow. "Huh. I saw a guy do that, but his fire didn't burn his clothes. I think his was magic, though." He listens to the further power description and nods. "Controller, not creator.. well, not more than most people? Yeah, it's useful. Me, I don't think I control it in my case, it just sorta happens. The profs were always telling me to dig deeper and find.. whatever, but it's not like that for me." He shrugs and goes on, "I don't think the suits want us to be the same. They want us to be just like all the other minorities. Obedient and expendable."
Kaleb widened a sharklike grin, "Oh, there's so much policing of our own. It's such unbelievable bullshit, trust me. To the point like my father would lose his entire empire of people found out his kids were mutants, or gay, or dated interracially. oh yeah, and forbid if you aren't a woman married to someone in presentable financial standing from an approved family with a kid on the way by age 20. it's some shit."
Isidore smirks and nods. "Yeah, yeah it is. You got a plan for fixing it? You sound like the type to." A bit of a chuckle escapes him, and he looks around the cafeteria again, squinting one eye. "How's it been here the last couple of years? I haven't been around, and got to wondering. Who are the people to talk to?"
Kaleb let that sharklike grin hang, but it hit his eyes in that slight, but poignant moment of myrth. "Yes, there is a plan. And if all continues to go smoothly, we will maintain important relationships with other similarly gifted communities that are hurting. But, hence, the world group." Echo's jaw shifted from side to side. And the expression went back to a thoughtful-neutral. Eyes shifted to outside and all. the damn. leaves. Where did they come from? There weren't even that many on property.
Looking back he filed his words thoughtfully. He was speaking with someone that was expertly marginalized growing up which meant he didn't have to explain why these things were important and make him empathize. This was good. Talking 'feelings' was not exactly Kaleb's forte in the slightest. Izzy had his own experiences, he could use those, good for him, and expound from there. Marvelous. "I grew up angry. Last few months learning about here though? Getting to talk with Magneto? Getting nabbed by- shit my own class?" His brow fuoorwed and his tongue ran along his bottom lip, "Getting to do something about things? Well I figured out anger's sort of like gasoline. You can just let it burn and consume everything around it or you can turn it into fuel and use it to get you where you need to go ya know?"
A slow grin spreads across Isidore's face. He nods knowingly, some slow motions of assent. "Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Cookin' with gas." He lifts his brows, then. "Your own class really snag you? That must have been a trip. I gotta know how that went down, sometime." He lets his chair tip back forward, and stretches a bit, popping his knuckles and his neck. "Got any plans for other groups? Not just Mutants?"
Kaleb nodded slowly and let his face fall to a dispassioned neutral witha tightening of his jaw before confirming, "Social, not school, but yes. Was out to dinner. GOt drugged. Woke up a couple days later hooked up to some machine unable to move in a very high end piece of real estate in Saratoga Springs. I assure you I was not there for the golfing. Had no powers. Was drugged to teh gills. Couldn't even lift a hand to scratch my own nose. It was…not something I'd care to ever do again or see anyone else go through. We're still working out what they were running through those IVs. Elixir pulled me off the blockers and my powers? Shit, man they went haywire. Catch Warren sometime. They ripped his damn wings out and replaced more than half of him with some bio organic metal and his healing factor is pretty amazing so you can imagine the work they put into perminantly mutating him." Apparently Kaleb subscribed to the 'we are evolved, not mutated' theory.
He took a bite of his sandwich and words formed and spoke wihtout the need of using his head as a speaker. "There's other 'powered persons'. Captain America and the expierement of science group, there's extra-planar persons, interdimensional persons. All sorts really. If they fall, we fall next. That's how the majority keeps control; maintaining division among its opposition. FOr that matter even if they are human, while our funding is there for Mutants standing with other powered groups is important. Standing with other stepped on communities? brings unity. Shit, humans can't even respect one another. Sometimes the peopel we need to look out for are the folks to the right and left. You're a treefer, my brother's a twofer…hell I might have gone from a onefer to a three fer over the summer. Point being? We are more than one thing and those other things I believe do matter. The bullshittery, as they say, needs to stop."
Isidore lifts his brows as the dispassionate diatribe grows into fine form before him. He almost speaks a few times, but holds his tongue. "Yeah, and they identify better than we do, I guess. They make better face players." He wrinkles his nose a bit, then pinches it, heading off a sneeze. "Yeah, you got some good points in there. Problem is that comfortable people are lazy, so we gotta pushthem along with baby steps. One thing at a time. It kills me, but if I push as hard as I wanna, things will break and fall apart. So.. yeah. You got it figured out." He squints again and looks at the hall. "Do I even wanna know?"
Kaleb sighed and shook his head in agreement, "Its not the enemy that damns us, it's the silence of ones allies. You got it in one." Talking about what happened to him still seemed to set him back to a neutral state. He wasn't one to fall apart over things easily. He finished off the grapes when it came to his itimized list of 'grievances' against the sensibilities of society. "Hey I can't tell you what you want to know or not. Long and short? I'm seeing someone that is a screaming list against what so called polite society would demand of me. And this? This is me not caring what they want."
Isidore chuckles. "Hey, I'm all about giving squares the finger, trust me." He lifts his brows. "The trick is not to piss off the people who will back your play. We're gonna need them later." He looks around the room again, and nods once more. "I'll keep your group in mind. I gotta find some staff and have a pow wow about some stuff. You can look me up if you need me for something heavy, but I'll be easy to find if things work out."
Kaleb nodded with amicable enough nature. He flipped open the page and took a note; southpaw without the hook in his wrist. "Number." Apparently this substituted for asking politely. His other hand dug out a small business card which was extended to his new accomplice in good taste.
Isidore responds with the number, apparently used to brusque communications. He takes the card, eyeing it before he tucks it into one of the pockets in his jacket. "Cool beans. I'll catch ya later." He winks and moves to stand, stretching out before tapping his fingers together, brows furrowing up as he visibly thinks.