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John leads the way to Mr. Heep's room, and once there explains that they need some space to dry some papers.

"Sure."  Mr. Heep waves towards the empty room.  "I'm going for coffee if anyone comes in and asks."  He makes his way out.

John helps Laney lay out the pages she needs to dry.  The room is a science class, so it's occupied by long rows of work tables instead of normal desks.  John then he takes the book and lays it open over one of the heating vents.  "See, plenty of space."

OOC: Colin, John and Laney?

"John, how did you learn to focus your hearing?"

Even blotched and damp, Laney's notes are neat and in very small, precise print.  So precise one could bet the letters measure to the exact same height, and one would win that bet.

Upstairs, away from the drafts let in by open doors and the chaos of excited students crowded too closely, Laney is somewhat more relaxed and even smiles at John for his assistance as they separate sticky papers and lay them out.

"I spent a lot of time in the Metro station.  I hate crowds.  So many things to listen to.  So I'd sit and practice picking one thing out.  And then eventually I got to wear I could pick out certain voices from across school.  It's a lot of visualizing and practice."

Laney silently listens.  This conversation makes about as little sense as the one in the cafeteria earlier, but she has no will to end it.  Each in turn like dominoes. Set in a row.  One, two, three.   Down they go.

"We should dry your cloths."  John says.  He walks up to her.  "Want to see the world in a new way?"

Laney's ingenious reply:  "Huh?"

"Trust me."  he says, and then he scoops her up into his arms, as is she was as light as a feather.  "Hang on."  He looks over towards Colin, "We'll be back in a couple of minutes."  Then he looks back to Laney.  "Think you can trust me?"

Laney squeaks and clutches at John's shoulders, her eyes so wide open they're almost perfectly round.

"Where're we going?"  she manages, remaining utterly frozen in his arms.

"Any place you'd like to go in particular?"  he says, turning towards the door.  "Let's start with just getting these cloths dry."  There is a moment, like on a roller coaster, and the world begins to streak by in a blur.  Laney snatches a breath of air and the two are standing in the main hall, near the front doors to the school.  On the first floor, and the other side of the building from where they started.  John's body heat is unnaturally high, and Laney's cloths are mostly dry from the air that was rushing past them on their way here.  It was just a breath ago.  Seconds.  "So.  Any place in particular?"

Alas, today John is moving faster than Laney's speed of thought.   She has no immediate answer for him when he stops, only shakes and whimpers and tries to climb up his body like a frightened kitten.  If she's allowed a minute to calm down, she murmurs, "I should...um...I left my coat at the nurse's station, but um...it might be closed, now.  I...What did you just do?"

"I carried you down the hall to the East stair well, then we ran down the stairs and out into the main hall."  John turns, still holding her with no apparent effort, and looks at the wall.  "No one in the nurses station.  Hang on."  It's a shorter trip, down the hall, around the corner and past the admin offices.  He gently sets her down and opens the door to the nurses office.  There, on the hook near the door is her coat.  John takes it down and hands it to her.  "Cloths dry?"

Laney nods, cupping a hand over her mouth to stifle surprised giggles.   Accepting her coat she says, "Can we sneak in and grab a couple more of um...2 by 4 bandaids?  They're a nice size and this is...gross.  It got wet and it's itchy and..."  She looks down at her knees, then up at John, her face slowly turning an interesting shade of pink.  Oh, that's really TMI there.

"You met the new nurse?  Nice enough...I guess."

She's sure he moved, there was a little breeze, but he's still there, holding the necessary materials to redress her injuries.  He holds out his hand, "Want a ride back to Mr. Heep's room?"

"Thanks!   Yes, um...Can I ask you something first?  Um...Do you...Have you met this Dr. Banner person?  Do you think he could help?  Colin's really nice, but um...  okay, that's several somethings.  How well do you know these people?  All of them, I mean.  Sammy and Colin and...well, all of them.  They were talking about all kinds of strange things.   Are they in a gang or something?  I don't need to be suspended for getting into fights, John.  I have enough trouble."

John lifts her into his arms again.  "We're super heroes.  We aren't a gang, but we are a group.  And with all the strange things that have happened, if we were going to get suspended it would have happened a long time ago.  As for Dr. Banner.  My folks know them, he and his wife.  What is it they want him to help you with?"

Prepared for it this time, Laney is much more pliant and curls helpfully when he lifts her.  She's even smiling.

"Superheroes...Funny.   You heard Colin.   He offered to help me figure out if I have um...any powers or whatever.  It was very kind of him to do that.   I'm so much trouble.  He said I could contact Dr. Banner for some reason.   Kindof strange to just call the guy up and say, 'Hi, am I a freak?'   Colin also said he might be able to figure things out.   I don't know how, though."

"Well, there is a friend of my family we could go see too.  He's actually a medical doctor.  Hold on."  And the world streaks by again, this time she's conscious of the shifts and turns.  She feels his arm move to open doors, but it's back so fast she doesn't have time to fall.  And then they are back in Mr. Heep's room, and he's setting her down gently.  "The R-Factor test is pretty simple.  Blood test, fast.  It wont tell you what the powers are, or if you have them for sure.  But it's a good indicator."

Laney dizzily waves at Colin, but now she's dry and rosy-faced and smiling crookedly.

"What doctor?  I really don't want so many people knowing about this, John.  And if it's not - Wait. It's just a blood test?  I've had dozens of blood tests.  Wouldn't something have come up by now?

"It's not a series they usually run.  It's a DNA analysis.  But, we might not have to.  See, if Mrs. Pulowski made the effort to get you to us, so to speak, then she has to have some way of seeing it.  Alicia, Rhys, and Jakob.  Three for three.  Those are pretty good odds."

"I think I need to know what my problem is, not whether I have one...I think...I don't know..."  She frowns down at her toes, her head dipped so her recently dried hair becomes a thin veil.

Then she adds in a whisper, "You can't count on the odds being in my favor, anyway."

"I'll ask her tomorrow.  She usually sort of gives me these vague sorts of answers.  Maybe I can convince her to just up and tell me."

"Bring flowers or something.  Soften her up."  A small girlish giggle, then, "Violets, I think."

"Violets I can do."  John moves around checking the papers and the book, "Almost all dry."

OOC: I will leave it at this for a while to give Colin a chance to chat with Laney some more.  That guy, never around when you need him :D  Always helping the Boy Scouts or off bettering his life and getting an education!  ;)

OOC: Sometimes he even dares to sleep! Pfft. Sleeping and missing a post-plosion at 4 am. What a wuss.


Colin bends his head slightly to look at her. "What?"

((What is this "sleep" of which you speak?))

"I only meant...I...It's just an inside joke, I mean...with my family.  I...I'm the Lucky One, you see...that's all...because of the things that happen...Someone started calling me that and it sortof stuck...Irony, I suppose."   She quickly adds, "I'm not superstitious or anything like that." 

"Well, you don't have to be superstitious."  John says, "Some studies have shown that something has had an effect on probabilities under laboratory conditions.  So essentially Luck is something tangible."

"And bad luck is very tangible, is that it?"  Sighing with the seemingly limitless patience of one accustomed to dealing kindly with very young children, Laney opens her hands before her, palms up.   Of course, he knew what he would see: the right has been chewed raw by asphalt and the left bruised by a car door. 

"Listen, John, I appreciate that, but I don't need someone or something to blame.  Bad things happen to everyone.  And if you're suggesting I have some weird power that I'm using as an outlet for masochistic impulses, just stop, alright.  Please.  That's not funny."

"Huh?"  He says looking at her.  "No, I mean exactly what I said.  There have been studies conducted that suggest some people can influence the outcome of certain events.  Not that...why would I think that?"  It's obvious she's confused him.  "The original study was to look for precognition.  There was what the research team thought was bad data, so they redid the tests.  One of the undergrads repeated the test though with the three people that seemed to be the results of the bad data.  The three people in the second study were all able to get consistent results that suggested they were not seeing the future, but more probably affecting the outcome of the test events.  His thesis suggested that it was an as yet undocumented paranormal ability to adjust localized probability.  He essentially proved luck.  The paper is required reading for the Berkley Paranormal Studies program."

Colin nods. "Luck is the name we use when the connection between things become so subtle we can't perceive them anymore. But there are many ways to tip the scales." As he say so, he gently takes her hands. She feels his hands warm, but a of warmth different from John's. Her bruises disappear from the inside, as if they had weeks to heal in a few seconds.

She summarizes carefully, thoughtfully, as if afraid she had misunderstood.  Her hands close reflexively over Colin's.
 
But it was clear to her, very clear and sharp as the patterns in the cold floor she stares at, tiles flecked with a myriad of streaks and specs, scuffmarks and stains, yet every single one was there by design.  Every single one.   If I had been watching more closely...

"It's the difference between knowing what will happen and...and making it happen.  Changing it."  

"That would be more Colin's field than mine.  Magic and abstract powers are out of my general area of expertise.  I'm more interested in abnormal physiological subjects.  When it comes to the power of the mind to alter the world, I think of Colin as the expert.  If it's the power of the mind to alter the mind, I talk to Sylvia."

"It's not abstract if you can define it.  Then it becomes factual, calculable...with no less impact on the physical world than...than your own hand."

"I suppose.  If it's actually something that you can move from your subconscious control to your conscious brain.  If it were a paranormal ability I'd have to assume that would be possible.  Like breathing.  It's an autonomic function, but you can override that to a certain extent."

"Thanks," she whispers reverently, releasing her grip on Colin.

"Breathing's not hazardous to your health.  It's hazardous not to breathe.   So what's that mean?  I'm not breathing enough?"   In a mildly euphoric state now, free of pain, Laney glances up at John and grins through a tangle of hair, daring him to decipher that analogy.

She sees something in his eyes, the analytical mind of the doctor he will become running over something.  "You're hyperventilating."  He seems to snap out of his thoughts.  "Wait, this conversation has gone from a study in probability to being about you."  He starts to collect up the now dry assignment pages.  "But, if it is about you.  You're hyperventilating.  Breathing too rapidly.  All the little things that happen to you are because you're not getting enough oxygen, even though you're breathing really fast.  If you are affecting the probability of events around you it's completely subconsciously.  Emotional and mental state being translated into some sort of external effect."  He shakes his head.  "I don't know enough about this sort of thing.  I'd need to do some reading."

"I think violets and blood tests would be easier."

"I can get the violets.  The blood test I can arrange.  The reading I'll do anyway."  John says, handing her back her assignment sheets.

Colin rummages through his backpack. It's amazing the quantity of stuff he carries with himself everywhere. Finally, he finds what he was looking for and hands it to Laney. It's a pair of dice.
"This would be even easier."

Laney holds the dice in her palm, staring at them expectantly.  Perhaps she thinks they'll turn into something prickly.  "What?"

"Let's give it a try. Concentrate on a number, one of those hard to get. Say, eleven. Then roll them, and we'll see what happens."

"Oh! Sorry.  I um....Alright."  Moron.  What did you think you were supposed to do?  Eat them?  Probability...Too simple.  Why are these desks arranged like this?  They could fit more in the room if  - This isn't going to work.   What's wrong with me?

The dice ((assuming 2d6)) in her hands come into sharp focus, but the room to her seems to drift away.   Laney flings them wrecklessly across the desk before her.

The first cast lands:
1 and 1

for 2

She sighs, scoops them up without a word and casts again a few times:

1 and 2

for 3



2 and 3

for 5



3 and 5

for 8

She stops, mutters, "This isn't a test at all," and irritably tosses the dice once more.

The desk must have an irregularity in its surface, a scratch or tiny gouge from the bored doodling of a student long ago...The dice roll to this supposed scratch, catch and stop without landing flat, leaning edge to edge so four sides are faced upward:

2 and 3
5 and 3

for 13

Laney grabs them again before their tenative balance fails.   Her own balance in jeopardy, her nose red from trying not to cry, her hands visibly shaking when she sends the pair of dice rolling again.   The same impossible - or I should say improbable - thing happens:

4 and 6
5 and 6

for 21

"Well...there's your eleven." 

Colin's eyes go wide as saucers.

"John, do you..." he doesn't know how to go on. He touches the table, checking its smoothness. He tries to speak a couple times, but he is at loss for words.

Finally, he takes a scrap of paper and writes something on it.

Then he fishes again into his backpack and comes up with two ten-faced dice. One actually has the numbers marked as tens, making them together a d100.

"Humor me, Laney. Roll these ones now."

She rubs her eyes, sniffling and nodding, and proceeds rolling...

34

55

89

Then it happens again.
The percentile die lands neatly on 70.
The other ten sided die rests against its mate, rocking slightly. The two uppermost faces reveal a 7 and a 4.   

144

Colin shows her and John what he had written. 34, 55, 89. Fibonacci.

"You know what the Fibonacci number is, right? It's not a matter of luck. It's a matter of pattern. You imposed a pattern on the dice. And they definitely struggle to comply, even when it's, well, impossible."

"Yes, from..algebra and.."  She'd been trying to recall what she had rolled, the numbers eluded her, lost... I can't remember.  What did I change?

It had been with increasing anxiety she set those dice spinning, over and over, until now.   The walls of the room spin, instead.    Laney fumbles for a chair to slump into it.

"What's it mean?"

Colin helps her sit down, and takes her hand.

"I think it means that you are one of us. You have an ability. You didn't even notice doing that, you weren't thinking of anything?"

"I don't know...Eleven?  I don't know."  And so she truly doesn't know.  Not at all.  When she'd concentrated on the dice, the world narrowed to a tight pinpoint, a pressure in her head.  She tried to remember what it was she should be doing...There were patterns in the room...desks... ceiling tiles...the papers John gathered...the light caught in Colin's hair...Eleven?     But she could not.    And what flooded through her awareness was nothing of her making; she allowed it to expand and dominate her fragile contact with reality.  This is all her memory offers in explanation.

"I wasn't thinking of anything.  I'm sorry."

Colin smiles encouragingly.
"Do you remember any particular sensation? We should try to figure out what is your 'trigger', so to speak."

He turns to John. "Have you noticed anything peculiar?"

For good measure, he checks her out with the ghost sight.

"Just a...headache I think.  Not really.  I couldn't...I was...Just a bad day.   Lots of things on my mind, I guess."   There wasn't anything on my mind.  I couldn't focus on a damned thing because...Oh.

"I think...I was a little um...distracted.  Nothing fit right in my head and I wanted it to.  I really did.  Nothing I saw or felt or...Nothing fit.  I just wanted something to make sense.  I'm sorry.  I was supposed to be trying to think of the number eleven, wasn't I?  I screwed it up."

Laney's aura is a pulsating thing with a million threads running off from it to the world.  Some go to John, some to Colin.  The threads increase in number, decrease.  sometimes there are no threads to anyone nearby.  But her threads also connect to objects.  Things.  sometimes many, sometimes none.  It pulsates in brilliant flashes of color.  and it's remarkable when it connects to another person.  When Colin rests his hand on her, a million threads spring out from his aurua to the universe, then are mirrored in her aura.  When he moves his hand away from her it's as though her aura clings to his for a moment, then finally lets go.  When it does release his, the threads he caused to form on hers snap and fall away within a few seconds.

John looks at Colin, "I'm not sure I know what you mean.  Other than the normal peculiat stuff here at school or something specific to Laney?"

Colin shrugs. "About Laney. I mean, if there was anything to indicate she was using her ability. We should help her understand when she's using it, so she can learn to use it at will instead of being subconscious."


"Will you ever stop saying you're sorry? You did nothing wrong. Quite the contrary, actually. You are... connected to everything around you. That's how you affect the world. There are... a sort of strings, tying you to me, to John, to the table, to the dice. Also, you inherit the connections these things already had. That must be why you feel 'lots of things on your mind'. And why you often feel overwhelmed. It is a bit much to deal with. We have to help you learn to center yourself. Like when you dance."

This has Laney shaking her head slowly.  "It's too new.  This place.  You...You don't know me well enough to answer that, and I can't say, either.  I don't know what's normal anymore.  I haven't known for a long time."



She flinches, looking away.  "I'm sor - Um.."


"But when I dance...Well...I feel more connected.  Which is just weird because I kindof don't pay attention to anything else when I'm dancing, only the music.   I don't want to or...or need to.   Sorry.  That makes no sense, either.   What should I do?   Would Dr. Banner or a blood test help with anything?  They can't, can they..?"

"Music requires both sides of the brain.  There are countless studies showing the music effects our metabolism, brain waves, everything.  Maybe that's the key.  Maybe music effects your mood and lets your ability, well relax for lack of a better term.  Or focus depending on the music."

Focus...or connect...or knot strings...whatever they're trying to say.  What does "center" mean?   Where else would I be but in the center?   She can't explain how she feels when she dances, though she tried.  Not relaxed precisely, but alive, part of something.   Because it fit. Is it the frequency, the scale?  Strings...If this is true, I'm like a spider trapped in my own web.  So stupid.  How do I escape?

She lifts her gaze to John, about to ask him that very question, but she doesn't.  Moron.  You open your mouth and nothing comes out, only gibberish.  Just shut up before you sound any crazier.  Trapped...

Instead, she expresses precisely the opposite of what she desires, "I should go home."

John looks at Colin, then back to Laney.  "It's a lot to take in all at once.  You ah....you want a ride home?"

"Actually, it makes a lot of sense. Dancing gives you... harmony. Things fall in the right place. Normally, instead, you try to shape them into a pattern, to give them a sense... and I guess this causes... friction. It's a bit like that for me too. I'm still learning to bend to the wind, instead of trying to make the wind turn. You can't control all those things and people at once. Something's bound to slip. The strings tangle up. Maybe that's why you're so... shall we say accident-prone? What should you do? I think John's right. You should learn to relax, so you could hear the natural music, the natural pattern."

He scratches his head. "We've moved beyond what Dr. Banner could do. I can still help you, though. I'll figure out a way."


Colin looks at his watch. "Right. we've given you a lot of things to think about. It's more than enough for today. No need to rush."

He looks back at Laney. "The most important thing is that there's nothing wrong with you. Quite the contrary. What you have is really beautiful. Like the best flowers, though, it will take its time to fully blossom." he says with a smile.

"Nothing wrong...How do you control it, then?  What should I do?  I want it to stop.  And relaxing has nothing to do with it; I still had this problem when they had me on zoloft.  It was worse.   Now, at least, I can talk to people without -"  without sounding like a babbling idiot.  Shut up, now.  Just stop.   "It's not - Oh.  Um...a ride?  Sure.  I was going to walk.  Thanks for um...for helping me.  I don't think I have to redo any of these.  You can read them, right?"    She flips through pages of her homework distractedly and murmurs, "Flowers..."

"They're readable.  Let's finish getting you packed up.  And zoloft would probably have made it worse."  John shrugs, "Just one of the many side effects that aren't well documented.  Paranormals often suffer from unexpected fluctuations in their abilities if they take it."  He helps Laney get packed.

She checks the zipper on her backpack twice, makes sure she's wearing her own coat not John's, then stands there looking around the room, fidgeting.

"Thanks for helping.  I'm sorry I kept you late."

"School was let out at midday.  Late is relative."  John offers her his hand.  "Where am I taking you?"

"Me? Oh.  Colin's got a ride home already?  I thought...Um...Home, I guess.  I don't have anywhere else to um...go."

((12 Chance Lane? *clunks head against the monitor, groaning*))

She provides a mundane address, a long walk but not so far that she wouldn't have braved it alone.   Staring at John's hand too long before accepting it, when she finally does so she seems more attentive to her surroundings. 

She's also blushing. 

John lifts her into his arms again.  "Hold on."  he says, giving her time to get settled.  It's not even a minute later he's setting her down, they're on the corner of the block she lives on, her home only a few doors away.  "I should get home.  I'll see you tomorrow, ok?"