Post by Gabriel Constant on Mar 30, 2011 13:39:35 GMT -5
Reviewed by: your mom, bohtuhl, Jupiter's cock.
Accepted by: Hodor!
mm dd, yyyy
Gabriel Constant
Full Name- Gabriel Monroe Constant
Gender- Male
Age- 39
Date of Birth- 17 August 1972
Sexual Orientation- Heterosexual
Location- Las Vegas, NV
Celebrity Claim- Pearce, Guy
What should we call you?- Rayne, and other creative derivatives of the same.
Play anyone else?- Enough to break fire codes. Rayne Campbell, Dakari Johessman, Sparrow Akiyama, Marshall Quatrevaux, Marcus Rodgers, Fallon Daugherty.
Have You Read the Rules?- Yes, I am well aware that, by Jupiter's cock, it always comes back to lesbians. \o/
Personality-
Around others, Gabriel is pleasant, insightful, considerate, and courteous. He is observant and an excellent listener, and is good at making others feel at ease around him. He is not talkative, as he only speaks when he feels he has something of value to offer. Neither is he a very open person, but he is accessible enough that his tendency to keep others at a distance is usually discounted. He treats others with respect, in their presence at least, and is very open-minded and perceptive. He maintains a relatively positive attitude and effervescent affect.
This easily likable demeanor disguises his inner nature quite effectively. In notable contrast to the image he presents to others, his self-image is actually far more cruel, unreliable, and malevolent that what he pretends to be for the sake of personal gain. When there is nothing to be gained by behaving politely and considerately, he largely drops that more socially acceptable façade. This more accurate version of Gabriel is focused, determined, and indomitable. He is a shrewd manipulator, a mastermind over the the emotions and wishes of others. Moreover, he cares little about the results of his actions; there is nothing he will not do if he can profit from it financially or personally. He is not a cynic or pessimist; he is a largely apathetic realist.
A very active person, Gabriel is adventurous and daring, and loves taking risks. He accepts work in countries that most subcontractors would not touch, with full knowledge of the danger that awaits him. He also gambles often, and has made a sizable fortune on the stock market by choosing risky stocks that he knew would skyrocket later. This reckless behavior has increased lately, but he has managed to keep himself out of trouble; he will not take a chance that he is not at least reasonably certain he will benefit from.
He does not manage relationships well. He consistently finds that he cannot develop enough trust and goodwill with another person to enter into anything deeper than a business partnership or acquaintanceship, or a brief, purely physical love affair. His traveling also prevents him from making lasting connections with others. At present, he does not feel that he is missing out on anything by not maintaining relationships. Occasionally, he has bouts of feeling lonely or unfulfilled, but these are usually cured by a night drinking and picking up women. He has not kept in touch with his biological family or any of his past caretakers; he only contacts his mother when it is absolutely necessary. To say that he feels animosity toward his family would be fallacious; he is numb and apathetic toward them, as far as he will allow himself to believe.
Gabriel is not angry about having to endure such a difficult childhood, but he does feel a sense of entitlement regarding the things he has earned and achieved. Specifically, he believes that his past gives him license to be morally ambiguous- or deficient- in his business practices, and in his life. He lived through hell; this means he is allowed to put others through hell. However, he does not expect the world to just give him what he wants; rather, he takes great pride in having gained so much through hard work and perseverance, and views work as rewarding; he considers a person's work ethic the best standard by which to measure that person's worth.
Likes-
- Gambling- It's an easy way for Gabriel to make a ton of money and have fun doing it.
- Music- He likes just about any genre, from rock to rap, as well as a variety of international styles, like Tuvan throat singing.
- Internet memes- They amuse him.
- Drinking- He is something of a connoisseur of alcoholic beverages (but is not an alcoholic).
- Traveling- Seeing new places keeps him interested in the world.
- Explosions- Blowing stuff up never gets old.
Dislikes-
- Musicals- The only sort of music Gabriel really doesn't like. They're too cheery and pretentious for him.
- Mosquitoes- The damn creatures are so bothersome. Especially the huge, creepy ones.
- Tomatoes- Gabriel can tolerate marinara and ketchup, but he finds the fruit/vegetable itself confusing and tasteless.
- Clarinets- The thin, reedy sound of the clarinet annoys him, especially in jazz.
- Getting shot- That shit really stings, you know.
- Coffee, cabbage, and brussels sprouts- As a supertaster, there are a number of foods Gabriel dislikes; by the same token, there are other things, such as beer, that he enjoys more because of his increased awareness of their taste.
Strengths-
- Driven- A deeply goal-oriented person, Gabriel will not stop until he gets what he wants.
- Charming- He can be friendly, and even cheerful, toward others, and exudes an affable, likable aura.
- Intelligent- He is smart, learns quickly, and has exceptional problem-solving skills.
- Tolerant- He is very open-minded about the ideas and practices of others, a trait that helps him fit in with other cultures easily.
- Adaptable- Also, he can settle into any situation with little trouble, and can adjust to any conditions.
- Innovative- He is a creative, imaginative thinker and can utilize any resources at his disposal.
Weaknesses-
- Unemotional- It is nearly impossible to appeal to Gabriel's emotions, as even he has trouble identifying what, if anything, he is feeling at a given time.
- Easily bored- Partly because he often knows what is going to happen, he finds it difficult to remain interested in any subject or situation.
- Paranoid- At his worst, he becomes suspicious of the motives of others and sees conspiracies where there are none.
- Stubborn- Though he is open-minded, there are some issues, such as his business practices, that he will remain totally steadfast on.
- Aggressive- Occasionally, when charm and covert manipulation fail, Gabriel will force others to yield to his will, either physically or through tactics such as blackmail.
- Capricious- He can be reckless on occasion, changing his plans with little or no warning.
Skills-
- Languages- Thanks to his work around the world, Gabriel has a working knowledge of Spanish, French, German, Arabic, and Mandarin, and is familiar with a number of other languages and dialects.
- Persuasion- He is very skilled at convincing others, especially by playing on their wants, and is an excellent negotiator.
- Technology- His job requires that he keep up with developments in technology, and while he is not a skilled software developer or hacker, he can fins his way around a computer program.
- Self-defense- He knows a few martial arts techniques (see "Abilities: Skills").
- Piano- He also happens to be a talented pianist.
Flaws-
- Huntington's disease- He is developing the first symptoms of Huntington's.
- Temporal lobe epilepsy- Under certain conditions, he can experience tiny seizures that cause him to smell, taste, or hear things that aren't there. As it is impossible for him to be certain when this is happening, he occasionally touches objects lightly to re-orient himself, or asks people whether they "smell that."
- Premature greying- His hair has been turning grey since he was seventeen years old; he dyes his hair often as a result.
- Increased sensitivity to pain- He feels pain more acutely than the average person.
- Physical scars- He has a few scars from past gun and knife wounds (see "Appearance").
Abilities/Powers/Skills-Abilities
Dynamic Precognition: Simply put, Gabriel sees the future in psychic visions. However, his version of this ability is considerably more complicated. He can use the ability at will and select a specific time and place to view, though occasionally he does have sudden, unexpected visions as well. In either case, the visions are not limited to flashes of scenes, as one might watch a snippet of a movie. The "visions" are full panoramas, landscapes that he can walk around in and interact with. (However, the vision is still only a psychic representation- if he has the vision while sitting, he remains seated in the real world even if he walks around within the vision.)
This aspect of his ability is incredibly useful. It's more than watching a scenario unfold firsthand- he actually feels as if he is there while it is happening. He can pass through the vision without his presence changing its outcome, and pick up objects without disturbing the vision's progress; alternatively, if he so chooses, he can become part of the vision itself and change it to see what would happen. He can slow down, speed up, rewind, or stop the vision at any time. He can look around for clues to place where he is, if he does not know that already, and in many cases, he can force the vision to run as long as he wants it to, before he exhausts himself.
An example, to illustrate how the ability works: Suppose Gabriel has a vision of a car crash. It would feel to him as if he were standing in the middle of the highway, though no one would notice him unless he wanted to be seen. He would be able to see the highway and the fields along the road just as they appear in real life. The cars would pass by him, and pass through him, as if he were a ghost to them. If he recognized the scenery, he would realize that he is standing on I-10, the route that Bob takes every Thursday at 5 PM on his way home from work.
Once Gabriel decides to interact with the vision, he becomes selectively "corporeal," perhaps visible to some drivers and not to others. He might choose to place himself in Bob's car, and then reach for the wheel and pull it, swerving the car just in time to avoid a head-on collision. But then, the next car bumps into Bob's, causing a fender-bender; now Gabriel knows that Bob could have avoided a severe crash, but still might have needed car repairs anyway.
There is one other aspect to this ability. Gabriel can share his visions with others, effectively "pulling" them into the vision. While doing this has little effect on Gabriel- it puts more strain on him, which is not immediately dangerous- it can be a very painful experience for the person he includes, not to mention potentially stressful depending on the vision. As the vision begins, the person feels stretched, as if they actually have been physically pulled through a psionic wall, though in reality they're still sitting in place. The vision occurs the same way for them as it does for Gabriel. Once it's over, the person is left with a huge migraine and a feeling of exhaustion. (Some precogs, teleporters, and other people with rigorous mental powers or who are used to passing through time and space will not experience these side effects.)
Location Scrying: In addition to these panoramic visions, Gabriel also has the ability to locate people through a process similar to scrying (but without the magic). This ability becomes useful when Gabriel cannot determine the exact location of a vision, or when he needs to demonstrate to others where a vision took place. For it, he needs a solid flat surface, something to draw with, and an open connection to the subject's mind.
Gabriel then goes into a trance-like mode- not a full trance, as he is still minimally aware of his surroundings. (Performers would call it going into "the zone.") His hand draws out an image of the location- usually a map of it, but in rare cases, something more abstract, like a nearby tree. In any case, the vision is always one hundred percent accurate at the moment he finishes drawing. This ability can also be activated at will but occasionally happens randomly.Skills
After being nearly killed on the job several times, Gabriel began training in a couple of martial arts styles. He is now fairly skilled in Krav Maga, has also trained in hapkido, and knows some eskrima. While he is far from being an expert in any of these, he can fight (and has fought) his way out of an ambush. He is also a very good, though not perfect, shot. He has learned how to handle a variety of guns due to, again, the complications of his work. Also, he is in excellent physical shape, and trained as a cross-country runner as a teenager, a practice he has kept up with and which makes him quite agile.
Limits-Abilities
Dynamic Precognition: A major fallacy of this ability is that it leaves Gabriel completely open and defenseless, as his conscious is busy manipulating the ability. He must be somewhere safe when he uses the ability. If he were to use it in the middle of a battle, his body would stop in place and he would be vulnerable to attack. Another limit is the physical and mental strain it puts on Gabriel. A brief vision where he just stands by and watches would have very little effect on him, but the more complicated they get, and the longer they go on, the more they drain him. There is a risk of severe mental injury or death in using the ability too much or for too long.
There are the usual limits as well. Gabriel can only "pull" one other person into any given vision. Fortunately, his dying in a vision does not translate into real-world death (or falling into Limbo). However, by the same token, whatever he does in a vision, such as saving Bob's life, has zero effect on what happens in real life; doing things in visions only give him an idea of what would happen if something had been different. Additionally, while his visions are extremely accurate, they do not always account for human behavior- the choices others will make with regard to the events in the vision. Additionally, he can be wrong about facts contained in a vision- maybe Bob was on I-75 rather than I-10. Also, he cannot see the past, and it is difficult for him to initiate a vision without a specific time, place, or subject to focus on.
Location Scrying: As mentioned above, Gabriel needs an open connection to the mind of the person he is trying to locate. He cannot read the person's mind or control the person at all, and the fact that he is "scrying" them remains completely unknown to them. As with his primary ability, he is very vulnerable while this ability is in use, though not quite as much. He can only use this ability to pin a person's location; for more detail, he would have to attempt a vision. He cannot locate objects, unless they're being held by someone. This ability can also drain Gabriel, though not to the point of death. He cannot use this ability if he is drunk, high, hungover, or otherwise incapacitated.Skills
As noted above, Gabriel is no expert in combat, though he is better than passable. In the right conditions, he could be defeated. The same goes for his shooting; he is not a perfect shot.
Appearance-
At five foot nine, Gabriel is not incredibly tall. He is slender, weighing about 165 pounds. His skin is lightly tanned, a result of traveling around the tropics often. He has wide eyes, a narrow nose, and somewhat full lips. He is in very good shape for his age, and, considering the nature of his work, takes measures to keep himself that way.
Everything else about his appearance changes often. Gabriel's eyes are naturally a very vivid shade of blue, but on occasion he hides this very noticeable color behind brown or green contact lenses. His facial hair may be unkempt, neatly trimmed, or nonexistent. Since he dyes his hair often anyway, his hair color varies from salt-and-pepper to brown or blond, depending on which he feels like being at the time.
He usually wears slacks and a nice shirt. In the field, this becomes a white cotton polo shirt or T-shirt, and cargo shorts. He is not picky about fashion at all, but he happens to wear dark or earth tones more than other colors. He also wears sunglasses often, to hide his eyes as much as to shield them.
Gabriel has a scar below his right shoulder, from having been shot there in Rwanda. The scar healed very poorly, as he was more concerned about escaping alive than caring for the wound. He has a second gunshot wound in his lower left abdomen; this one healed much better and is not as visible. There is also a faint scar that runs along the base of his neck, on the left, a result of having been slashed at with a blade.
Faction- Villain/GEIST
Birthplace- Rahway, New Jersey, USA
Mother- Meredith Constant / 58 / incarcerated scam artist / civilian
Father- Miles Simpson (assumed) / 21 at death / deceased / presumed civilian
Lauren Quatrevaux Jr. (actual) / 61 / marina owner and commercial fisherman / civilian
Siblings- Wesley Quatrevaux, Marshall Quatrevaux, and Angela Chandler are half-siblings to Gabriel.
Spouse / Partner- Alexandria Rosalin Constant (nee Hardt) / 33 / pilot and intelligence specialist / Negative Vision/Superhuman Accuracy
Children- Athena Alexandria Constant / 2 / abilities as yet unknown (Order Inducement)
Demeter Gabrielle Constant / 2 / abilities as yet unknown (Chaos Inducement and Chronolock)
History-
The circumstances surrounding Gabriel's birth are murky even to him. He was born to a young woman named Meredith; his birth certificate listed "Miles Simpson" as his father. This was only an assumption. Miles Simpson, one of Meredith's one-night stands, had been killed in an apparent mugging seven months before Gabriel was born, which made him an easy answer as far as paternity went. Meredith was living with her own parents at the time, and for Gabriel's first few years of life, they moved between her parents' and grandparents' homes. No one, including Meredith, was particularly excited about taking care of the new baby.
Having achieved only mediocre grades in school, Meredith found it difficult to find jobs and impossible to keep the ones she did get. The only ones that really suited her were all scam work. She gained more and more dubious contacts and became involved in everything from posing as a psychic for New York tourists to luring the wealthy into pyramid schemes. At this she was successful about as often as she got caught. Beginning when Gabriel was five, Meredith spent numerous stints in jail for fraud and related crimes. Her family refused to care for Gabriel, leaving him in the care of the state.
Gabriel spent the rest of his childhood moving among foster homes, and occasionally lived with his mother when she was out of jail. After her third stint in jail, though, the courts stopped allowing Meredith to regain custody of her son. To Gabriel, who was ten years old at the time, this was perfectly fine. He preferred to try his luck with the foster parents. Some of the families he stayed with were great; others, not as good- often verbally and occasionally physically abusive. All of them were poor, and relied on the remunerations they received for keeping Gabriel and other foster children. Most of them, however, found Gabriel difficult to tolerate, which was one of the reasons (the others having to do with personal matters such as relocating) that he was moved around so often. His stays with each family lasted anywhere between two months and three years.
As a child, Gabriel had a tendency to "zone out," during which he would imagine future events. This daydreaming turned out to be an early, developing form of his precognition. After a vast majority of his visions actually happened, Gabriel decided he must be psychic. Being the precocious and unwitting child that he was, he bragged about this to his friends, who found it really cool. It was natural, then, that his next inclination should be to make money from this talent.
He had seen his mother pose as a psychic before, and decided that the full-on costume and overdramatic-acting angle was not the way to go. Instead, he became the neighborhood psychic wherever he lived, a perfectly normal child aside from his ability to see future events. At first, he made a sizable allowance from the work, but as he got older and his visions became more complicated and even more accurate, he charged more and more for his services.
As a teenager, he discovered that he could actively explore his visions, and quickly learned to refine that aspect of his ability. He also developed a secondary ability that allowed him to locate people easily; he referred to it as "scrying." This ability was also very profitable. Soon he was a bit of a legend in the upper New Jersey area. He expanded his operations to New York City, and through word of mouth, made even more money.
In school, he did marginally well, despite being quite intelligent. He would have done better if he had cared more. After graduating from high school, he picked up a little job at a department store, at which he was soon promoted to lower management. The steady income allowed him to get his own apartment, now that he was no longer a ward of the state; he also continued his "psychic" work on the side. The money he made was easily enough to sustain his very basic lifestyle, but it soon became apparent that his ambitious nature was not as well suited for it.
After a year in the workforce, Gabriel applied to a few schools and was accepted to the University of New Hampshire. This time, he actually applied himself to the coursework, and earned a bachelor's degree in engineering, with a minor in urban planning. He had no reason for picking these disciplines other than their general appeal. He also held down a couple of jobs while at UNH, but did not play off his abilities very much. As he made and kept few friends, he was something of a ghost at the college; meanwhile, his "fame" in his old New Jersey and New York stomping grounds dwindled until he had been nearly forgotten.
For the next few years, Gabriel worked as a subcontractor for a number of government and private agencies, including the Army Corps of Engineers, helping to plan and improve various residential areas. He moved around as often as the work required it. He designed everything from public buildings and infrastructure to water irrigation systems. Eventually, his work took him outside the country, usually to developing countries in Africa and South America. He quickly found that his impoverished background helped him identify with many of the residents he encountered in these countries, and he often got along better with them than his colleagues did. This was an astonishing revelation, for someone who had never really connected with people.
He exploited this advantage. Along with his natural charm, his understanding of the peoples' plight earned him their trust, and he used that trust to sell them and their leaders ideas that more and more often helped him more than they helped the communities. He made his contractors money, which resulted in more pay for him, by selling the people plans that were not necessarily the most economically or environmentally feasible for them, and which often resulted in debt for them, taking on loans and subsequently defaulting on them when the communities ran out of funds. This worked perfectly well for Gabriel and his bosses, because once the poorer communities owed them, they were essentially in Gabriel's palm. Depending on his own whims, Gabriel squeezed more money out of them or used them to gain political favors. This was not only immensely profitable, but personally satisfying for Gabriel.
This strategy was not without its problems. Gabriel was slick, but occasionally, the community leaders and governments he tried to dupe- usually, the paranoid and violent ones- caught on to him. He was nearly assassinated five times. After the second attempt, he began training in self-defense and other combat techniques. He also learned how to properly handle guns. Perhaps the fact that he was so often in danger should have told Gabriel that what he was doing was hurtful to others, but if he had bothered to recognize this at the time, he still would not have cared. He was making money and enjoying his work; the "good of the people" be damned.
He also caused more than his fair share of violent conflicts. In many developing countries, or in poor areas with gangs or other such factions, he used the politics of the area to further his own interests. There were a couple of incidents in Africa in which he played tribes against each other and cheated everyone out of some extra money, causing very amusing (to him) civil wars. After a while, he began to manipulate his clients for the fun of it, and not necessarily for the money. It was a game to him, a game in which dozens to hundreds of innocent lives were lost. He generally managed to escape with little harm, thanks in considerable part to his abilities and his developing self-defense skills. On other occasions, he was rescued by the U.S. military. In any case, he always made it back home to whichever deluded women were waiting for him.
When he was thirty years old, he grew bored of working for others and established his own company, Constant Design & Development, Inc. A privately held S corporation, Gabriel made himself its only shareholder and officer, which gave him full control over business decisions. He also hired and contracted other workers to help him take on assignments. He used his contacts from his former jobs to secure projects, and continued doing the same work as before; the only difference was that he now had far more control and kept way more of the money made from the work. His career was incredibly entertaining and fulfilling (if, of course, one considers work with such destructive externalities "fulfilling"). He had plenty of money and was able to live comfortably, and he traveled often enough to placate his restless nature.
He passed eight years in this pleasant and contented, and fairly hazardous, manner. Most of the time was spent abroad, as he preferred living among other cultures to hanging around the States. The revelation of Specials came as a surprise to him- he had been working in Kingston, Jamaica in April 2010. He had never knowingly met any other Specials before, and he quickly realized that, rather than being "psychic," he was actually one of them. This did not change his view of his abilities, though. Since he was not currently making money off them, he mostly kept them to himself.
This would change after one night in October 2010. Gabriel, who had developed an intentional preference for being in the worst places at the worst possible time- he was still in Jamaica when violence broke out in May 2010, and had been in Chile three months earlier- had taken on a project in Indonesia. Just before falling asleep that night, Gabriel had a spontaneous vision- one of his own death. In the vision, he was noticeably thinner and older, though he could not tell exactly how much older. He was in a hospital room, one most likely somewhere in the States given its high-end equipment. He died quietly, alone and in moderate pain.
This vision brought up two problems for Gabriel. First, he had no intention of dying quietly. Second, he sort of wanted to know what he was supposedly going to die of. He would have to wait until the Indonesian project was done and he was back in the States before he could really be tested; until then, he was forced to agonize over what it was and whether he even really wanted to find out. Then, the Sumatra earthquake occurred, cutting his stay short. He returned to the States in early November.
Gabriel went straight to New Jersey and underwent genetic testing for a handful of diseases. The results came back positive for Huntington's. Confused, Gabriel had his mother- who was serving another, longer prison sentence- tested for the same. Her blood test was negative. Gabriel's father- whether the deceased Miles Simpson or someone else- had passed the mutant gene down to him. He found the irony, if nothing else about the situation, incredibly amusing. He had not yet begun to show physical symptoms, and his doctors estimated that he had a full twenty years left to live.
Perhaps the news of his terminal illness should have made Gabriel revise his business practices, or should have encouraged him to settle down somewhere. Instead, it pushed him to work harder, and make greater use of himself and his abilities. After wasting a couple of weeks of ignoring his troubles amid gambling and debauchery in Las Vegas, he went right back to work, this time on an infrastructure project in Tripoli, Libya. By the end of February, he had been evacuated ahead of the Libyan revolution, and returned to Vegas to waste time until his next job.
Occasionally, Gabriel tries to revisit the death vision, and sometimes he succeeds. It is usually the same as it had been the last time he experienced it, but very rarely, it changes slightly as his interactions with others change his fate.
Anything else?- There are several countries and towns around the world that Gabriel cannot enter, as he would be killed on sight.
Sample RP-Detroit, Michigan, USA.
After spending so much time amid poverty and violence, the developed world looked almost pristine to Gabriel, even as he sat parked in one of the shadiest parts of Motor City. He had grown to hate working in the States, but the volatile conditions around the globe were making any sort of long-term travel inadvisable at best. So, for the near future at least, he had forced himself to consider domestic projects, such as this one in Detroit.
The government of the blighted city was considering redeveloping a small area to provide affordable housing. He had already reviewed a number of plans from potential developers and conferred with the rest of his staff, which included an architect and another engineer. After studying the area in question- its population, resources, and such- he had picked a plan and was due to present it to the development committee the next day. Tonight, however, he was having dinner with a handful of the committee's members, an informal get-together that would be strategic as much as it was social.
It was these dinners, these unofficial off-the-clock meetings, he knew, that truly determined the acceptance or rejection of his proposals. Away from the office, he was free to be more charming, and his clients were better able to relax and decide that they liked this guy, this blue-eyed stranger with the easy demeanor. Once that prejudice was set in their minds, selling the proposal to them the next day would be almost too easy.
The window of his rented car was rolled down, and his arm was casually propped up on the sill. His eyes scanned the parking lot. As he usually did, he was waiting to enter the restaurant until at least one other person arrived. He was the guest of honor; being the first one in just would not do. Waiting in the dark in the far, unlit part of the lot was probably inadvisable in this part of town, but Gabriel was more than confident in his ability to protect himself. He had not seen the outcome of the meeting beforehand- where was the fun in that?- and was instead gambling on his odds of being attacked, which were considerably low. Even if they had been high, he would not have minded.
Finally, he saw a pair of committee co-chairs arrive and go inside. After letting about half a minute pass, he stepped out of his car, brushing his suit down as he walked toward the door. In the lobby, he was greeted by a smiling hostess, who asked him for his party's name.
"Constant," he told her, returning her smile easily.
He was led to a secluded table in the back, where the first two guests were already waiting. The man rose and shook Gabriel's hand. He was a pleasant, greasy fellow, accompanied by an obvious trophy wife. Gabriel gave her a polite nod, reading her expression carefully. It seemed she had not noticed her husband's lack of wedding ring, replaced instead by a faint band of paleness.
This was an unfortunate setback. The husband and wife were likely out of touch, with perfectly different views. Gabriel would have to find some way to split these two up, choose one to play to, or hope the others would be less complicated targets. "Mr. James, Mrs. James. Thanks for organizing this dinner tonight," Gabriel told them, still wearing the polite, disarming smile.
"Oh, it's our pleasure, Mr. Constant." the wife answered. "I just couldn't object to the idea of a nice little dinner at this nice little place. Please, have a seat. The others should be along shortly."
"Thank you." Gabriel and the husband both sat down. The husband seemed comfortable enough, but Mrs. James was staring at Gabriel a bit oddly. Namely, she was staring at his eyes. There was an interesting development; perhaps Gabriel had been wrong about the woman's awareness of her husband's affairs. At any rate, she was likely not casting any stones in the matter. He gave her a little grin, which amused Mr. James and delighted his wife.
"What do you say we get down to business?" Mr. James commented, already slipping into a mellow mood.
"Oh, Troy. We aren't here to talk about business tonight." The woman addressed her husband teasingly, but Gabriel detected a note of seriousness in her tone. "Besides, the others haven't made it yet. Give them time. I heard traffic was horrible coming into town."
Mr. James nodded. "That'll be something we take care of soon. The traffic, that is. Am I right?"
The last was directed at Gabriel, who picked up the cue with ease. "Surely. The plan I have in mind will reduce traffic on that end by seventy-two percent." Mr. James raised his eyebrows, clearly impressed, and Gabriel chuckled and glanced at Mrs. James, whose affect brightened immediately. "But that's enough business for now." He tapped the menu with one finger. "Mrs. James, what would you recommend I order?"
The woman grinned and blushed a little, looking happily flustered. "Well! The chicken parmesan is just magical...." She reached for her own menu. "What else? Let me see...."
Gabriel browsed the menu as well, and glanced up at Mr. James, who, doing the same, seemed totally disinterested in his wife's reaction. Gabriel smiled, this time to himself. If these two were any indication, the evening's schmoozing would be easier- and more entertaining- than he had expected.