Summary:In the aftermath of encountering the voice box on the street, Nick seeks Isis Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Isis is unsettled and when Isis is unsettled nothing is safe really. Not emotions in the building, not glasses on the tables and certainly not Nicks jumpers and t-shirts. He might notice his favourite one is missing right now. He might also know where to find it.
The feline-like mutant can be found sitting in a patch of sun that's streaming through a window, holding a ball of yarn that she unrolls and then rolls again. And she's wearing Nicks t-shirt. It *hangs* on her much slimmer frame.
Nick should at least be thankful Isis doesn't shred his shirts, usually. He suspects she's done similar with Piotr's shirts on occasion, when she could find them. The scent, he thinks, is comforting.
"You know that's my favorite shirt, right?" He says, leaning against the doorway to the room she's in, arms folded. Yarn. She is so catlike sometimes. Far, far more catlike than he is wolflike. He wonders why, and if she will ever be more civilized.
It's something that was done to her on purpose, he knows.
"How are you feeling?"
Isis only shredded a couple of Nicks shirts in the early days now, she's more than happy to just appropriate them. If Piotr was around more often, she'd probably steal his clothes too. But it's the scent, Nick would be right.
"Mmmhmm. It's my favourite too." Isis purrs, not looking at Nick. If she had a tail it might be swishing at the moment. The ears on her head swivel a bit. "It smells like you." She's quiet, letting the sun wash over her skin and Nick leans against the door.
She might become more civilised in time, no ones sure. She was kept 'feral' for most of sixteen years.
"Alright. I don't like things, Nick. I … " she sighs "Sorry about the other night."
Isis saying sorry?
"All my shirts smell like me, don't they?" Nick says, slightly teasing. In the shirt he's in, his training regimen is obvious. Which is to say that the shirt is tight enough that the muscles on his arms - normally somewhat hidden by his fur - are kind of obvious.
"What happened? I've never seen you do that in response to a sound or a threat before." He's seen her do it when stressed but never that quickly. It was as if something had triggered.
The teasing helps and Isis turns her grey/blue slitted eyes in Nicks direction. "They do. I should take them all, then." beat "except that one. I like you in it." Putting the yarn down, the cat-girl gets to her feet and pads over to where he's standing.
And wraps her arms his waist. He's going to have to uncross his arms, because she's totally invading his space.
"I … " It's like Nick can feel the 'stubborn' coming from her as she struggles with saying anything at all. "… It reminded me of back there. When I was bad someone with voice like that … " she shakes her head, rubbing her ears against him - his arms if he hasn't moved them.
"It's like I was a kitten again …"
Nick unfolds his arms and lets Isis hug him. He hugs back. He knows it helps her feel safe. The fact that it is also quite pleasant is incidental. Well no it's not. It's damn convenient.
"Someone with a voice like that. Someone using a… sound-metal voice enhancer?" Sound metal. Reverbium it had been called. Whatever it is, it's clearly been a key to a lot of things that have been going on in the shadows. And if it was being made and used when Isis was young - ten to fifteen years ago - then this reaches much further than they thought.
"And you just wanted it to stop…"
It's a cat thing, invading Nicks space but it's also really comforting when Isis is like this.
"Noisy metal voice-box, yes. It hurt but they also … did things to make it worse." They know the conditions they found her in. Nick was given the pysch profile after they rescued her. Kept in a near feral state for most of her life, an experiment to begin with, they just kept working on her.
"I… it was like I was there, Nick. And they were doing it to me again. The last time I remember, and I don't remember them all … they'd strapped to a chair and told me to move an object with my mind." She's not a TK, not even remotely, just highly Empathic. There was no way she could have done that. "When I failed. They laughed, one of their voices sounded like that. He … made me hurt … a lot."
Nick cants his head. He's not heard this story before and frankly it sounds kind of horrific. He runs his hand down Isis back. A petting motion to calm her. Cats generally like that. It'll work. Provided she doesn't turn and claw his arm.
"That close, huh?" That means the tech must be the same or very close to the same. "I've never heard of anyone using voice amplification weapons like that. If they've had it for fifteen years, why hasn't it shown up before?"
What is the grand plan here? Nick still feels like he's in the dark and he's getting the feeling that whatever it is, the plan is now in motion
As long as Nick doesn't try to rub Isis' belly, his arms are probably safe today. Probably. The gentle touch on her back does seem to get her emotions to settle.
"Close enough. Noisy metal." Isis agrees "I … don't remember much. Never did after those sessions. Just that they wanted me to do things and if I couldn't, they'd hurt me." They probably also used drugs and other types of stimulants and suppressants. Isis wasn't anything more than a lab rat to them.
"I … don't know." It's a good question that Nick poses. "Maybe when you raided the facility, you … set them back?"
"Maybe, but we caught you at sixteen. You're telling me they had that kind of voice tech when you were six." Nick is thinking. It's possible that the voice tech was just modulated to frequencies that hurt Isis' ears. It's possible they didn't consider turning it into a weapon until much, much later. But that seems like a lot of 'possible' and not a whole lot of 'logical.'
Just a bunch of guesswork.
"How do we keep it from happening again?" He suspects the answer is… 'you don't… but he needs to ask.
"Remember I said they modifying the others around me. They were going to do me next if you hadn't taken me." She'd something about it not happening to the 'specimens' until they were older. Why wait and not do it when they were younger? "Icarus got sick after they changed him. Others too, I could smell them."
"What if they couldn't perfect it … " So many what-if's it makes her shiver.
"I don't know, Nick. I …that scared me, loosing it like that. Even now, I can remember the feeling of dread." beat "Is it possible that we could do some … conditioning?"
"Maybe. To do it most effectively we'd need the thing you're afraid of." Nick is familiar with the basics of exposure therapy. It's meant to deaden the sharper reactions to something that the subject is afraid of. And it does work but it takes time and ideally a trained therapist.
"It'd be better if one of the School's telepaths could help." They CAN do it here. Maybe. But many things are made easier by mutant powers and that is one of them.
"You know there's a good chance that we'll run into more of those voice boxes. Are you sure you still want to keep on this case, Isis?"
Isis rubs her ears against Nicks chest once he speaks, squeezes him and lets him go. He won't hold, make her stay. He never does. Once she's free, she pads over, bare footed, to the ball of yarn and starts to kick it around …. just like a cat might do if it needed distraction.
"I don't like the telepaths, they … " It's so close to what she'd experienced in the facility. "But I've got my counsellors appointment tomorrow, I'll …. talk to them, alright?" In a way that's an answer to Nicks next question.
"I know and that's what worries me. I didn't like feeling like that at all. You won't make me help out but there's no guarantee that I still won't run into them. And they're bad. So yes, I STILL want to be on this case."
"Alright." Counsellors are the next best thing. A counsellor trained in exposure therapy can do it safely and be on hand to manage any panic that might result, and early on, panic is a very, very likely outcome of the effort.
"Alright. The next thing we have to do is get that car thoroughly looked over. We can do that at the school or possibly we can contact Miss Potts and see if she has facilities to do a forensic examination." Stark has the labs, Nick has no doubt. The expertise? That's a separate question.
"So. What is so wrong right now, then, that you need to steal my best shirt?" Steal. As if it weren't already hers.
Er, well. It isn't.
Isis might even try and see a Teep while she's there but Cat that she is, she doesn't say that. "I like Miss Potts. She stroked ears good." For a moment, Isis' worry subsides. "We should go and see her…" Poor, poor Pepper. She might have a cat to adopt as well. "And see what people can tell about that voicebox. It has to have something that gives a clue."
"It's my shirt now." Isis tells Nick "But I'll let you borrow it. I much prefer you in that one, anyway. You look good." Knowing he's not going to let her forget the question, Isis sighs. "If they take me, I want to remember you …"
"Oh is that the mark of a good person." Nick says with a smirk. "We will go see her. She has that voicebox and we need to figure out what's up with it." Which is to say who made it, how, and how easy it would be to replicate. Nick has the sinking feeling that there are more than a few of those around.
"Take you?" Nick finally moves into the room and takes Isis with him so he can sit down.
"Who said I was going to let them take you?"
Isis nods solemnly at Nick. He knows how much she likes her ears being rubbed. "Mmmmhmmm. And good. Noisy metal is bad. Can I have the other piece, that we found in the lab, to take when I go the Institute?" She follows Nick in, still kicking the yarn ball around.
When he sits, she just curls in his lap, resting her head against his chest.
"They're looking for me. In your dream and I've seen them searching them dreams around me. It won't matter if you won't let them, Nick. They'll just hurt you."
"You can yes." Nick isn't entirely sure how good an idea that is. Isis doesn't tend to just loose things but she can jostle them about and he'd really hate if she got exploded on her way to the institute. Maybe he'll wrap it. Really. Really. Really well.
"I'll hurt them back." Nick murmurs. "I told you that you'd be safe with me. Have I ever made a promise to you that I have not kept?"
"Good, I thought I might try and see Scott while I'll there. Let the Institute know … we might have trouble." She's so not happy and Nick can tell.
Isis lets out a very feline sigh, rubbing her ears against his chest as they sit there. "You haven't. And I know you'll keep it. Others might keep their promises as well, though. I don't want you hurt because of me, Nick. I saw AIM in Kyles memories, too, you. They're the ones who ran that organisation, I'm sure."
"Then we need to be on our guard. But you can trust your big fluffy wolf. I won't let you down. I never have." And he hasn't. Of course they've only been working together for less than a year. He possibly hasn't had a chance to let her down yet.
"Maybe, just maybe, if we can move quickly enough, we can stop them from doing anything else. We can maybe… save some of the people you used to know." Some of them might be dead. Or unrecoverable. But…
"You're not fat." Isis answers. She's being honest, just brutally so. She's also mistaken the use of the word fluffy. "And you haven't. I … " She's not going to finish that statement.
She's quiet for the longest of moments as she thinks on what he says. "Do … you think we could? Find them? How?"
"I'm not… NO! I'm not fat thank you very much." Nick snorts. He works out for his fluffy body. Fluffy being his fur and not his muscles. Which are manly. Wolfly. Dogly? Something like that. It's good. It's very good and he worked hard for it.
"Find them? Yes I do. With enough clues as to what they've been doing we'll figure out what they want. Once we know what they want, figuring out where they'll be will be easy."
That might not be quite that simple but Nick certainly sounds confident.
Isis isn't going to admit it but she's scared of her dreams at the moment. Which is bad cause needs them to survive. "I said you weren't…" fat, she means. "I like you like this… in this shirt." Which is good cause he's not getting the one she's wearing back. Ever. He might lose another one too.
"Alright. Do … do you want me to see what I find in dreams? Sometimes … I can find people that I know." Piotrs easy. So Nick. She's learned what their dream signatures look like.
"Yes, if you think you can do it safely." He knows that she's being watched. He's not sure how that would work really but it's possible she'll be tracked and accosted if she goes into dreams. And that's a place that Nick cannot help her. If she is caught there, trapped, will she be able to wake up?
He has no idea. But he DOES know that she can be hurt in dreams. Hurts that come back with her to the real world. He does NOT want to put her at that risk. But he might not have a choice.
"I might. I don't know. Maybe there'll be something more interesting to see." That will at least cover if she doesn't slip into dreams for a bit.
"What are you going to do now? I've made all your files and done the filing." She's still not happy and it shows. Nick might not want to put her at risk but she's already put him at risk, hasn't she?
"I'm going to get a snack." Nick knows that'll get Isis up and following him. Because if he ever finds a time when Isis does not want to eat, the world is likely ending.
And even then she'll complain that there isn't enough food for a proper apocalypse…
The big werewolf rises and tugs Isis with him. "Shall we?"