What We've Become [Khalidah]

[Layton Ranta]

And our freedom's consuming itself!
And what we've become is contrary to what we want.
______________________________Muse - "Take A Bow"

Just what the hell was the point of this apartment, anyway?

It had been something Layton had been meaning to ask Khalidah ever since she'd plucked him out of his old place and transplanted him halfway across the country. Rather than a change in career or a sudden significant windfall, this new chapter in his life had come about because of something as innocuous as a conversation in a chatroom. Having been adopted from Ark Industries by Intellitouch - who he know knew was the company Khalidah helmed; he'd done his research - the chatroom had been a not-really-covert online meeting place for people with abilities to congregate and share their worldly wisdom. But, before, during and after visiting the chatroom for the first time, Layton wasn't entirely certain that he was meant to be there.

Sure, he'd been sent the customary - and quite possibly automated - email which had revealed the URL to him; just as he surmised all of the other specials had but, when the ability he felt he had stood quite a good chance of being a simple coincidence born from his imagination, he'd been left just as confused as when he'd started. Nevertheless, Khalidah Rahal - this enigmatic matriarch of the domain - had revealed her piqued interest when the discussion turned to the apparent abilities of the new guy. The user name he'd chosen for himself hadn't really been that serious; more personal humour than anything else. Having watched a documentary on marine biology shortly before jumping onto the computer, the species he'd seen had influenced him and, once he realised that one of the animals was a spoonerism away from resembling his surname, he'd done precisely that and typed it in.

And so, RantaMay was born.

Although he was definitely the novice of the bunch, he had understood their position when it came to listening to his account of what he could apparently do. In a world where simply having an ability was rare enough in itself and witnessing people who were capable of blocking their use were even more so, it was only natural for people to peg the odds of a man who claimed to be able to both block existing abilities and induce temporary copies of those abilities in mundane individuals somewhere in the ballpark of surviving a lightning strike while winning the lottery. Suffice to say, they were remote. But he had still been brought to Los Angeles by a private jet and given a new place to live.

Khalidah had done this without so much as a by your leave and, rather than tell him precisely what she wanted, she'd simply left him to his existence. She didn't even bother to tell him if the apartment's upkeep was his responsibility, which had led to the most nail-biting four weeks of his life. Without a job, he had feared the inevitable expenses associated with a place of this size but, when the only thing through his door at the end of the month had been a menu for a local Chinese restaurant, those fears had somewhat subsided. Which meant that someone else was paying the bills. Which meant that someone wanted something from him.

And the only person who knew the answer to the question had been the one who had brought him here.

Another drawback to the apartment he'd been given was how much of a target for thieves he'd become. His apparent status had skyrocketed and, as such, it wasn't long before someone had seen fit to try their luck. The night before, while Layton had been watching television, the sound of breaking glass had piqued his interest, though it wasn't until he heard footfalls in another room that he actually got up to investigate. Living alone, unannounced footsteps were an alarm bell in and of themselves and, sure enough, he'd managed to walk in on the would-be criminal while he'd been ransacking the kitchen. The room wasn't usually a place for valuables to be found but, in a house so large, he'd presumably thought it prudent to try regardless.

In hindsight, Layton would have probably thought twice about engaging the thief, especially when - to his surprise - the man turned out to be a special; something which became abundantly clear as a stream of searing purple light hurled him against the nearest wall. Believing him to be unconscious or worse, the thief took the opportunity to rush into another room to continue his search. Unfortunately for him, however, the half-Nordic inhabitant of the apartment he'd chosen to rob was made of sterner stuff than he'd imagined and, after grabbing a baseball bat from the hall, Layton followed the noise once more. This time, he was prepared. Now that he knew his adversary was a special, he could finally set an experiment into motion.

"Hey, that actually hurt, you know?", he casually remarked in his accented voice, planting his hand on the pommel of the bat like a cane. The thief, obviously startled by the interruption, thrust out his right hand, hoping to knock Layton back down. But, to his horror, nothing. No stream of neon light, no harm brought to bear upon this unknown man. He was somehow powerless; minus his advantage. "Yeah, I turned off your cute little lightshow. Now get the fuck out." The sudden "loss" of his ability had rattled him enough and, when Layton swung for the back of his shins, he quickly took the hint, fleeing the scene about as abruptly as he'd entered it.

It seemed he could manipulate abilities, after all. But, as his sporadic experimentation had already shown him, he could do a lot more than just block them. The only problem was figuring out how. Khalidah would probably have helped. If she hadn't run back to her ivory tower as soon as she'd handed over the keys to the apartment and had her lackies move his stuff in. But what could he really expect? He barely believed his own ability, so why would anyone else?

[Khalidah Rahal]

I know you're a light
And there's a lamp to let inside
It's not just burning bright
It won't blow up in your face if you try

The City of Angels, California

Following the skirmish in Jamaica, IntelliTouch had found itself inundated with requests to join with the Department of Homeland Security as a contract agency to ensure that the war stayed contained and didn't make its way across the Atlantic to US shores. Now her company found itself entrenched in government operations, which was something that she'd hoped to avoid. Governments—especially nascent oligarchies—were notorious for overstepping their boundaries in times of war. The citizens of the nation were looking to their leaders for strength in the wake of the famine, but their leaders had no satisfactory answers. Everyone could sense the undercurrent of unrest gradually sinking its claws into the populace; all it needed was a spark of instigation to set off a chain of events which could potentially explode into another Civil War.

If her hands hadn't been tied with doing press conferences and guest appearances on all the major news networks, she would have flown out to Los Angeles much sooner than she had. She knew that she'd uprooted Layton with little (if any) explanation; she at least owed him that much.

The apartment she'd moved him into was located in Venice Beach which, while not in Los Angeles per-sé, was a posh and affluent suburb which catered to the young and nouveau riche. She'd left him her number and had arranged for his amenities to be paid for out of IntelliTouch's ample profits. Monopolies were generally discouraged in the United States, but her particular niche in the economy had only small rivals whom she could easily bankrupt before bringing them into her fold.

When she'd first mat Layton via the Ark Industries chatroom, she learned of his ability and found herself immediately interested in laying claim to him. In the coming months, a unique ability like his would be the ace up her sleeve; not that she was trying to turn him into a veritable cash cow, but she could definitely make him more profitable. Individuals who could negate or enhance latent abilities were always good to have around as leverage, and their abilities tended to be highly underestimated.

She parked her rental car in the lot adjacent to his apartment in time to see a man clad in dark clothing steadily limping his way away from Layton's apartment. From a distance, she could see the broken plate glass window leading into Layton's kitchen and connected the dots in her mind. Khalidah ignored the failed burglar as he attempted to run and flee the scene. If he decided to try his luck at the same residence again this evening, he would have a lot more to worry about than nursing two busted kneecaps.

Khalidah approached the door and politely knocked on it. Although she had a key to his apartment (did he know about that? Whatever, it wasn't a big deal anyways), she wanted to allow him the chance to invite her in or decline her entry into the accommodating beachside condo. While she waited for him to answer the door, she checked the status of her stocks on her iPhone and glanced up when she heard the locks disengage.

Layton was a rather average -looking fellow. White male, approximately six feet tall, dirty blond hair—well, that is, when it wasn't dyed a bright fire engine red—and hazel eyes. Or maybe they were green. They could have been blue. She never really paid much attention to eye colour. With the exception of his ostentatious hair, it would have been nearly impossible to pick him out of a photo lineup since he looked like roughly every other 30-something white male of Nordic descent.

She put her phone back in her purse and extended her hand for a handshake, then thought better of it and let her hand drop to her side. From what she knew of her brief encounters with him, he hadn't quite gotten a handle on his abilities; physical contact seemed like it would be a little risky until he became more adept in using his unique skills. That was precisely why she was here. “My apologies. I'd shake your hand, but I don't want to risk it.” Over countless centuries, she'd come into contact with abilities of all sorts. While her particular realm dealt strictly with that of energy in all its forms, it was easy for her to mentor young specials who were just coming into their own. She'd raised a healthy number of children who possessed abilities ranging from teleportation to unending intellect.

“I would've talked to you earlier about everything, but it's been a complete fucking shitstorm with the famine and the war in Jamaica—I've been having to run damage control and make sure the US government doesn't do something stupid, which is like telling a dog not to lick its own ass.” Khalidah sighed. “And at the risk of sounding really cliché, I'm sure you have a lot of questions. So why don't we get started?” She stepped over the threshold and walked into the apartment, then immediately headed for the kitchen. Avoiding the shards of broken glass littering the floor, she walked straight for the refrigerator, opened it, and retrieved two bottles of beer from the shelf on the side of the door. Tossing one to him, she reached into her purse, pulled out her keys, and used her keychain bottle opener to free the glass bottle of its metal cap so that she could consume its alcohol laden contents. “This used to be my place—well, one of them, at least—when I lived in Los Angeles. Pretty much hated it here. Needed to get back to the high desert which is how I ended up in Nevada.”

Beer in hand, she made herself at home on the plush couch in his living room, which faced the famous Venice Beach boardwalk. “I know people who'd kill for this view. I'll have someone over later tonight to fix your window and clean up. Always helpful to know a few people with hyalokinesis.”

חלדה רהל חלדה רהל

∞ Word count: 1097
∞ Mood: Meeeeh. Rain.
∞ Outfit: Idk, I'll find one later.
∞ Lyrics / Quote: Anti-Matter, N.E.R.D.
∞ Illustrations: Included in post.
∞ Comment / Informational links: None.

[Layton Ranta]

I wish I was a little bit taller! I wish I was a baller!
I wish I had a girl who looked good! I would call her!
Wish I had a rabbit in a hat with a bat and a six-four Impala!
I wish I was like six-foot-nine so I could get with Leoshi...
...'cause she don't know me but yo, she's really fine!
Y'know, I see her all the time, everywhere I go!
And, even in my dreams, I can scheme a way to make her mine.
______________________________Skee-Lo - "I Wish"

So he'd pummelled a robber's knees with a baseball bat.

And here he was, thinking life in Los Angeles was going to be boring.

"Mitä vittua..?" The questioning curse was mostly to himself as he was finally able to survey the extent of the damage. While the kitchen drawers and cupboard doors which lay either open or dropped onto the floor after being whipped out of their mountings were little more than playing Tetris with the cabinets to put them back in place, the broken window was a more lasting - and more expensive - matter which needed to be solved. The night air was already sweeping into the room, causing curtains to gently flutter whenever the breeze picked up. Layton hated clearing up a mess at the best of times, especially when it was a mess he hadn't even made.

He'd make a start on it later, he told himself. The traditional procrastinator's response of choice. From his preliminary survey of the kitchen, it looked like the burglar hadn't really found anything of value before getting the tables turned and, as he turned to leave the room, Layton's thoughts shifted to burglar's ability. In its unfocused state, Layton's own power was able to act as a rudimentary "special detector". Because he was able to perceive the abnormalities in a person's genetic code which had given rise to abilities, he could tell with a fair degree of accuracy who was and who wasn't gifted - or cursed, if one subscribed to alternative schools of thought - with that little something extra which set them apart from the rest of humanity.

More often than not, it was only a vague sensation in the back of his mind; something a little more pronounced than the paranoid suspicion that told a person that someone felt a little off by the way they conducted themselves. If he wanted to specifically find out what ability a person had, Layton had needed to put in more effort. Physical contact was sometimes the best way for him to get a "sample" of the abnormal fragment of DNA, although it was more an abstract image in his head as opposed to a sample for a microscope slide. Certain abilities referenced certain memetic triggers in his mind. The DNA of pyrokinetics was enough to coax his imagination into visualising a hazy, formless heat, while those who were able to fly almost made him shudder with the imagined feeling of vertigo.

Khalidah, however, was a whole different example altogether. He knew already that she was immortal - just about all the specials on the chatroom seemed happy enough to boast about their abilities in some manner or another - but, when they'd met for the first time in Brownsville, he recalled needing to brace himself from the sensations her ability as a whole had provoked. Whatever she could do besides living forever had been so unfathomably immense compared to him that he had needed to exert quite a lot of willpower to stop himself from crumpling to the floor whenever he made eye contact with her. The flight from Brownsville to Los Angeles had, thankfully, been long enough for him to build up some semblance of resistance to the phenomenon, but Layton wouldn't have wanted to meet her - or, rather, her ability - out of the blue.

The knock at the door was enough to bring him out of his thoughts. Given that he had just been robbed, albeit unsuccessfully, Layton's first assumption was that a neighbour had swung by to check up on him; to see if he'd been injured or needed some sort of assistance. Nothing had been taken and, aside from a few minor bumps, he wasn't hurt, either. He needed neither the police nor the paramedics. As far as he was concerned, the matter was closed. He'd just buy a new window and have it fitted tomorrow. But, as soon as he strolled out into the hallway, a wall of imagined force caused him to stumble. He knew precisely who was on the other side of the door.

Even when Khalidah wasn't using her ability, Layton felt as if she was uncontrollably exuding an aura of energy; a wave of... something which it seemed only affected him. "Hello, Khalidah." The door hadn't even been opened six inches before he spoke, raising his voice to ensure that it carried beyond the hinged panel of wood and glass. It wasn't telepathy or precognition. He could simply feel her coming from metres away. But it was only her. No-one else he'd met, it seemed, was as powerful as her. Glancing up from her purse, Khalidah extended her hand for a moment before seeming to think better of it and retracting the gesture. "My apologies," she began, still the voice of professional propriety she'd been on the flight. "I'd shake your hand, but I don't want to risk it."

Understandable. If he was able to pick up mental copies of people's abilities like he'd theorised he could, it would have been nothing short of dangerous for him to try it with Khalidah. While not accurate, it was safer for him to assume that the imagined depiction of the DNA which created her ability might just have boiled his brain. "I probably wouldn't risk it either," he sighed, keeping his hands behind his back just in case. "You wanna come in?" Standing aside, he allowed the immortal to step inside at her leisure. "I would've talked to you earlier about everything," she began, finally explaining why she'd effectively been incommunicado for the better part of a month. "But it's been a complete fucking shitstorm with the famine and the war in Jamaica. I've been having to run damage control and make sure the US government doesn't do something stupid, which is like telling a dog not to lick its own ass."

He'd heard about both of the recent events on the news, but didn't think that the CEO of a biotechnology firm would have been in the sort of high regard which would have allowed her to help with either of them. Nevertheless, it was a damn good reason for their separation and, rather than feel pissed off, he quietly accepted it. If he had been in her situation, he would have probably prioritised the wider picture over some California-bound half-Finnish guy with a cute ability. "And, at the risk of sounding really cliché, I'm sure you have a lot of questions. So why don't we get started?"

"Sure." Trailing slowly behind Khalidah, he followed her towards the kitchen. "Sorry about the mess. I had a bit of a vermin problem." Khalidah, like him, seemed to ignore the carnage for the moment and dodged her way around the room until she reached the fridge. Two bottles of beer were apparently the order of the night and, after getting one tossed to him, Layton held it by its neck until he could work his way around to get at the bottle opener in the drawer. "This used to be my place. Well, one of them, at least, when I lived in Los Angeles. Pretty much hated it here. Needed to get back to the high desert which is how I ended up in Nevada."

"I suppose Nevada's nice, if you like the heat." Like many with his particular heritage, Layton was rather precise with his words, electing not to ramble on if he could help it. "This whole country's pretty warm for me, though I suppose living here - nearer the coast - is better than the south end of Texas." Grappling with a drawer, he fished out a bottle opener and, once the cap was free from his beer, he simply tossed the tool onto the floor. There really was no point having one little thing tidy if he wasn't going to immediately clean up the rest of the room. He'd either do it all at once or not at all. It wasn't as if he had anyone else in the house who would be pissed off at the state of his kitchen.

The living room was the next port of call. It, like everywhere else in the house, was a wide open space of luxury. The bay window, in this case, quite literally looked out over a body of water; namely the Venice Beach boardwalk and the Pacific Ocean which lay beyond. Not wanting to make things awkward, Layton stayed standing, leaning by one of the modern pillar-like structures which were probably just there to make the room look nice. "I know people who'd kill for this view. I'll have someone over later tonight to fix your window and clean up. Always helpful to know a few people with hyalokinesis."

Would it have been overstepping the mark to try and toy around with this person's ability when they arrived? It might not have been much to write home about, but to see how his ability would interact with someone with the capability to manipulate glass was just interesting enough to pique his interest. "I bet it is," he said with a smile. He did have questions. But the decision of which one to ask first was a non-issue. "But I've gotta ask: why did you do this for me? You could have quite easily thought I was bullshitting when I talked about my ability. I know I probably wouldn't have believed me. Seeing as I need other people like me in order to do anything in the first place, there are times where I still don't. I have no idea about the extent of what I can actually do. Like the guy who tried to rob me just now. He sent me flying across the room with a neon laser beam one minute, then he was running scared with a busted shin the next. It's confusing, if you ask me."