HOLDING THE INFINITE

Breaking Out || closed starter

He keeps a careful eye on both girls as they approach the building. One of them, Ten, the beacon, seems not quite relaxed, but considerably more at ease now that she can see where they’ve been taken. But her sister still looks scared, and Amir worries that she may want to run. For both of their sakes, he hopes they don’t--Central City’s current cold front had clearly been taking its toll when he found them, and it was only by some cosmic mercy they’d managed to avoid the slums. They’d been wandering treacherously close to Darbyinian territory.

Amir leads them inside. For all intents and purposes, the lobby still looks like a motel, with a middle-aged man sitting behind the desk directly before them. The lobby is small--meant to minimize any red flags that non-metas might otherwise get that this building’s purpose is different than it appears. Amir nods his greetings at the man.

“Evening, Gerald. These girls need a room.” “Of course.” Gerald smiles warmly at the girls, and gestures them to come over to the desk. “Hello, girls. I just need to give you guys room access, which means I’m gonna need you to hold out one hand each for me, alright? We don’t want anyone able to get into your room but you, so we use fingerprints,” he explains. “Don’t worry, no one will be able to get them from us.”

Breaking Out || closed starter

“Okay. I’ll just make sure you two get plenty of options. You can tell me in the morning what you liked and didn’t.” Amir rolls his neck, grimacing just faintly as they start moving back into the more populated area of the city, and accordingly, more mental noise. “I’ll also look into getting you some clean, proper clothes.” It’s only a few minutes later once they get through the traffic, that the car stops again, pulling up outside what looks more like a motel than a traditional shelter. As it’s intended to. Amir gets out of the car, and holds the door open for the girls. “I promise, it looks a lot better inside.”

Breaking Out || closed starter

Those aren’t names, those are numbers, and as the girl points at her twin, Amir catches a glimpse of her ‘name’ tattooed on her arm. Something twists in the pit of his stomach. Jesus. He has a horrible, vague idea of just what sort of past, exactly, they’re coming from, from the tattoos and ‘names’ alone, and the momentary curl of disgust and anger has the lights for half a block flickering for a moment before he reigns himself back in, smiling reassuringly at the girls. “Sorry. I have to constantly try not to turn things off. Doesn’t always work right. Nice to meet you, Ten and Eleven.” He holds open the car door for the girls and climbs in after them, and the car starts down the street. Amir stays to his side of the car, not wanting the girls to feel threatened. “I can give you girls a room together at the shelter, if you’d like. Is there anything special you like to eat? I’ll get you whatever food you want.”

Breaking Out || closed starter

Oh, thank god they said yes.

He would never force anyone to come with him, but he would be worried the girls were going to freeze or starve to death if he didn’t get them to the shelter. Or worse. This is the best thing for them, and he’s glad they seem to realize it enough to trust him, at least a bit.

“It’s a few blocks away. You girls look tired, so we’re going to get in a car, okay? You can still leave whenever you want, I promise, it’s just so you don’t have to walk in the cold.” He’s already sent for the car, and it should be here in a moment or two.

“My name is Amir. What can I call you two?”

Breaking Out || closed starter

“Yes, like you,” Amir says. “I know that some regular people can be mean to people who are special like us. So I help the special people. I have a safe place where the special people--the metahumans--in this city can go and get food, and medical care, and a place to stay as long as they want. No government, no fighting, just help. I can help you look for people too, if you want, or help you disappear. Whatever you need.” Amir slowly starts to stand, but keeps his hands where they are so the girls don’t think he’s going to attack. “Do you want to go there?”

Breaking Out || closed starter

At least the girls will be a bit warmer, even if they spook. But he’s hoping they don’t. They clearly need more than just a coat. “You’re welcome. Do you have somewhere to stay the night? You don’t want to stay outside, it’s going to get even colder.”

He hesitates on showing his hand before continuing, hoping it’ll put the girls at ease rather than scare them off. “You’re... special, aren’t you? You can do things other people can’t? I can too, that’s how I can tell.” He makes one of the streetlights behind him flicker before it comes back on. “See?”

Breaking Out || closed starter

Amir can see the kids suddenly start to panic, and he lifts his hands a bit more, showing them his palms. “Hey, it’s alright. I’m not going to hurt you, I promise.” He slowly moves down onto his knees so he’s a bit more on their level. “I’ll stay right here, okay? I just wanna make sure you’re alright.” Now that they’ve turned around, he can tell that the children are girls, and look identical. Twin sisters, then. But no parents; there’s no one else on the sidewalks, and it’s far too late for the girls to be out on their own if their parents cared where they were. “It’s a bit cold outside tonight, huh? Let me give you my coat. No tricks, I promise,” he reassures, keeping one hand up as he slips his arm out of one sleeve, and then switching to do the other. He picks the coat up off the ground and tosses it forward onto the ground between them, as close to the girls as he can manage.

Breaking Out || closed starter

Three hours, wasted.

Three hours of sitting at a table listening to men twice his edge and half as intelligent argue over the most absurd of minutiae of a proposed acquisition while somehow managing to avoid nearly everything of importance until pointed in the right direction. He doesn’t know why his father had put these people on the Board, or why his uncle has kept them there, but he intends to make a few changes in the coming weeks once he’s vetted his employees enough to know who the best suited replacements are.

The meeting had been exhausting, listening to the idiocy being spoken aloud in one front and being bombarded with the city’s technological noise on another, but despite his fatigue, he can’t bring himself to go home, yet. Being alone so much has grown increasingly less pleasant, and he’s willing to suffer the mental bombardment with the help of a little *chemical stimulation* for the sake of getting some human interaction for a few hours more.

He’s making his way from the business sector downtown, to the crowds and shops and lights, when there’s suddenly a bastion of power far larger than there should be--far larger than even the power plant--forcing its way into his mental sphere, and Amir stops for a moment, trying to determine the nature. But this power is not decipherable, like a power grid or even a weapons system would be. It’s just... raw.

So he goes looking, turning left instead of right and following his mental compass to the power source, in a more secluded part of the city.

It’s not a machine, much to his surprise, but a kid. There’s another one with them, and both children look far too young and far too ill-dressed to be out in a Central City winter. The dual appeal to his curiosity and his urge to help draws him in closer to the two small figures before he calls out, offering a friendly smile and keeping his hands where they can see them. Kids aren’t out alone on the streets on nights like this for no reason.

“Is your friend there okay?” Amir calls out as he notices one leaning heavily on the other--he can’t see their faces, yet, but he can tell that the answer to that question is clearly a ‘no.’

It takes a few moments for him to catch up with the sudden change in gears, and then he remembers his manners and nods.

“ I don’t actually have a fridge. I have an icebox in the basement, though. What do you want? I have some fresh fruits and vegetables in the kitchen, still, but if you want something cold I can get it for you.”

At the mention of a lab, Amir scoffs slightly, tucking his gun into his pants at the small of his back. After the accelerator explosion, he’s not much of a fan of so-called ‘pioneering’ lab experiments.

“ Of course. Apparently scientists can’t leave well enough alone on any planet.”

The living room doesn’t seem to be in disarray, other than the mutant sitting on his couch, which is fortunate. His furniture store charges exorbitant prices to ship out here.

Right.

Amir lowers his gun completely; despite the man’s talons (talons!), he doesn’t seem to be a threat. And frankly, he himself isn’t much of a fan of guns either, though he’s willing to protect himself if he has to.

“ Amir Patel.”

He licks his lips, thinking about the best way to phrase this, before deciding to just be blunt. The man’s in his house, after all.

“ What are you? Are you a metahuman?”

Amir stares for a long few moments, trying to wrap his head around what, exactly, is going on his living room, before lowering the gun halfway. He opens his mouth once. Closes it. Thinks. Tries again.

“ Two questions. Did you just teleport into my house? And if the answer to that one is ‘yes,’ follow up question: why?”

Life in his house tends to be more or less the same every day. Off the grid and well out of the range of the city and all its noise (both literal and technopathic), his home is peaceful. Much of what he does when he’s home involved either gardening, reading books, or going over files for his business. Mercifully, his uncle hasn’t bothered to question why Amir has suddenly opted for paper briefings rather than emails.

He’s cross-legged on the floor of his bedroom, surrounded by papers, when he hears a crash and a yell from downstairs. Both he and the cats (Aza curled up on the bed, and Allie lounging on the windowsill) perk up immediately, and he swiftly and quietly gets to his feet, grabbing his gun from his desk and making his way down the stairs and into the living room. He’s expecting a burglar, though why a burglar would be all the way out here, he has no idea.

Decidedly unexpected is what seems to be a winged man upside down on his couch, and a rapidly closing blue hole in the middle of the air before it winks out of existence a few seconds later.

“ What the fuck?”

#( c: zatanna )#rispple #indie rp

I’ve Known Stranger || rispple

Amir has lived in Central City his whole life. True, he doesn’t go into the city quite so often as he used to, anymore, given where his house is, but he still knows the streets like the back of his hand.

There’s never been a magic shop on 33rd.

He can’t remember the last time he’s been on this street, to be fair, but he’s the CEO of one of the largest corporations in this city, a corporation built off of investing in start-ups and family businesses, and he’s never even heard of this shop.

So it’s clearly new, and clearly not something his uncle considered a feasible business interest. But Amir finds the idea interesting, so when he finishes his lunch, he decides to head into the shop, slipping inside. Immediately, the air feels different.

“ Hello?”

@rispple

20 Questions (+1)

1) Full Name: Amir Patel 2) Age: 26 3) Date/Place of Birth: April 12, 1992; Central City, US 4) Astrological Sign: Aries 4b) Enneagram Type: 6 5) Eye Color: Brown 6) Hair Color: Black 7) Hair Type: long, wavy 8) Ethnicity: Indian, Irish, Welsh 9) Distinctive Physical Features: N/A 10) Height: 5′10″ 11) Weight: Slightly underweight 12) Medical Problems: Drug addict, chronic migraines 13) Educational Level: College (unfinished) 14) Occupation/Income Level: Businessman, wealthy 15) Relationship Status: Single 16) Current Residence: Personal house 17) Biological Parents: Rohan Patel (father, deceased), Isha Patel (mother, deceased) 18) Siblings: Vani Patel (older sister), Nikita Patel (younger sister), Anisha Patel (younger sister), Rhea Patel (older sister) 19) Other Family: Ajith Patel (uncle) 20) Random Fact: Amir first hacked into the FBI website at age 12.

#( character development )

deityful

art of war | amir