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Tuesday morning Sylvia is at her locker, getting what she needs for class when she realizes smith is standing next to her.  You ready to learn what I can teach?

(http://www.kfaq.net/marvels/2011/faces/smith.jpg)
OOC: Hair may not be right, but I thought this might be a good look for Smith

Sylvia jumps like a grasshopper and drops her math book.  One of Carolyn's better cusswords explodes from her lips.  She forces herself to smile and say, with pointed deliberation, Hello.  How are you?

One of the other kids walking by bumps into smith, but keeps going as though he didn't even see him.

I'm well.  Been a long time since I rode the El.  It's colder out than I thought it would be.  Didn't mean to startle you.

Sylvia watches the kid who rebounded off of Smith.  "You--you're actually here.  You're actually standing here."  I don't look like I'm talking to myself, do I?

Sylvia tracks a blinged-out sophomore down the hall, yammering away at no one in particular through the clip on her ear.  Fair point.  She picks up her math book.  So what is this thing that made you come all the way to the dangerous part of town?

Time to see how far we can stretch your brain.  Starting with listening to the noise.  Sylvia's mind is flooded with the sounds of the thoughts around her.  It's like being in a movie theatre with the lights off and everyone talking all at once.  Noise with no points of reference.

Slowly the noise pulls back so that it's like being in the auditorium during a rally.  Tons of people talking, but you can still hear the person on the stage speaking.  This is what it's like.  Smith says as they begin the trek down the hall to Sylvia's class.  Several people bump into Smith, and no one seems to notice he's there.  Now, pick a person, focus on something on them so you can exclude everything else.

When Sylvia picks someone and manages to focus she can hear their thoughts.  It's a conversation like the ones she can hear, except for the acerbic comments the girl she's watching injects mentally.

Now, let's see if you can take the noise all day.

She quickly grasps the ramifications of telepathy.  Wait.  You can turn this off, right?  If I change my mind?  Nervous, she flounders, gets washed under a wave of noise, and then grabs ahold of that senior there, who's obsessing over the girl two lockers down.

Rattled, Sylvia tries to focus on the exercise with all the jackass stubbornness at her command.  The senior's stream of consciousness is polluted by stolen glances at the bustier girls who stroll down the hall.  Pig, Sylvia says.  It's like he's shopping for steak.  She looks for someone else on which to anchor her telepathy.  Maybe that new wrestling coach from--

Ugh, double pig!

She tries to find someone who looks quiet and calm.  Slow rivers run deep, they say.

That one.  The kid in the flannel shirt.  Smith guides her someone slightly up the hall.  His head is trying to wrap itself around polynominlas..polynoials....numbers hard.

Some are easy, some not so much.  Try that one at the water fountain.  She's thinking about cloths, then shoes, then homework, then boys, then a certain boy, then cloths to impress the boy.

Some are scary.  Try the kid with the trombone case.  Sylvia sees the methodical steps of an elaborate plan in his head.  He's going over them again and again as if the repetition will somehow give him the courage to go through with it.  There is no trombone in the case, it's somethign else, some kind of wormhole generator.  He's tired of his teacher not listening to his theory, he's going to show him it will work.  He's going to generate a stable wormhole in the classroom, then everyone will beleive him.

See, not an evil doer.  It's rarely that simple.

Sylvia focuses hard on the trombone player who's toting a ticket to the Phantom Zone.  Doesn't that worry you?  That worries me.  Do you have a long-distance plan?

It's safe, it worked in the garage.  Should be safe.  right?  The boy stops walking.  What if it's not.  Power spike, bad connection.  Shit.  The boy looks around. I need to rethink this.  Maybe I can stash this in Mr. Heep's room until after class and then take it home.  Yeah.  I'll do that.  He changes directions and heads towards Mr. Heep's classroom.

Disaster averted.

Did you do that?  You gave him a little nudge?  She tries to ignore the hint of nervous nausea in her stomach.  Do you--do you ever feel a responsibility to go looking for evil?

Not me.  I'm just acting as the conduit.

Smith laughs.  A crackling sound from lack of use, but Sylvia can recognize it as a laugh.

No, I don't.  I'm not sure I'd recognize evil if I saw it.

It's a weird sound, at first, but when she recognizes it for what it is, her anxieties diminish.


"Evil" isn't the right word, maybe.  Trouble.  Like, you know, jumping from dark alley to dark alley in the night, looking for muggers and burglars, but in someone's head.  You'd be like Batman.

There is a axiom among psychic warriors called the tapestry.  Basically the idea is that if you start fixing things, by pulling at the loose threads, the tapestry unravels.   It's one of the few things that keeps us from unraveling society.  It's probably a convenient excuse not to do anything really good either I guess.

I guess it'd be kind of creepy, too, to turn yourself into the thought police.  She frowns.  I should let someone know about the wormhole trombone.  I wish TJ were still around.

Operator, do you think you could connect me to John?  I'm not sure I can talk on the phone through all this noise.

So the kid has a trombone case that can rupture the fabric of timespace, I'm still not sure I see the problem.

Sylvia can hear a low noise, it's obviously John and he's concentrating on a concept of neurology and addiction.

Your call is connected Ms. Adler. Smith says.

Sylvia feels a little awkward about intruding on John's thoughts.  She tries not to look beyond the biochemistry.  John?

Sylvia senses him answer her, then get a little confused.  He said "Yeah".  There is a pause. Sylvia?

Yeah.  Um, sorry to trouble you, but I thought I should let someone scientificky know, and you're the best we've got.  There's a trombone case in Mr. Heep's room with a--  Lacking the vocabulary, she hits him with an abstract concept, her best rendition of what she picked up from the trombonist's head.  Not sure what to do.  He seemed to change his mind about using it, but--  Uncertainty.  --it'd be stupid to keep this to myself, wouldn't it?

I'll talk to Mr. Heep between classes.  Thanks for the heads up.

Sylvia feels the connection slip away and the sound of the auditorium come back.

That kid is entirely too serious about this super hero thing.

It is kind of serious business, don't you think?  We're not playing kid games here.  People have died.

People die crossing the street, they die giving birth, life is a sexually transmitted disease which is always fatal.  Nothing should consume you so much that you forget to live.  Not even saving the world.  No, especially not saving the world.  It's the most energy and passion Sylvia has ever heard from him.  for a moment he seems self conscious, then he grits his teeth, takes a deep breath and relaxes some.

In the pause that follows, she does her best to make a careful reply instead of giving him the instant feedback of her untrained mind.  She locks onto him, the strength of his telepathy enough to shut out the ambient noise.  Have you forgotten to live?

She's flattered by the acknowledgement but a little worried, too.  Is it dangerous?  Are those people still looking for you?

She decides not to ask about that.  My gym teacher's pretty cute--when you're ready to take that next step.