Scene 7 - October 28th

Interior MLED Compound - Afternoon

Quinn Kaufman

I found myself back at the MLED compound shortly afterward, trying to commiserate with the Journeymen and failing - instead of allowing me to complain, they were insistent on seeing me do impressions.

“I had no idea you were such a good actor!” Holly said through her laughter.

“This, uh, this isn’t acting,” I said, still in Jeff Goldblum’s voice and fiddling with my fingers. “At best it’s, uh, it’s improv at best. Learning lines is not, uh, my strong suit.”

“It’s still great,” she insisted. “What else can you do? Han Solo, Elvis, William Shatner, Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum...”

“How about Oprah?” asked Hypnos - he still hadn’t revealed his identity, insisting that he wouldn’t share unless I joined.

I paused considering. “I haven’t actually taken the time to work one up properly, you understand...” but they were looking at me expectantly, and I don’t want to disappoint my new friends. So I put my hands together, leaned forward a little, and said, “the thing about Oprah is that she often speaks in a very low, very emphatic voice, often about how important something is or how meaningful it is. And sometimes,” I brought my voice higher, adding in a touch more excitement, and point, crying, “she gets excited, and then you get a car, and you get a car, everybody gets a car!”

They both laughed, and Holly clapped. “You’re underselling yourself, Quinn,” she told me after we had calmed a little. “I disguise myself all the time as Loki, I know how hard it is to alter your body language and expressions on the turn of a dime like that.”

“Yeah, it’s really impressive,” Hypnos agreed.

I shrugged. “Well, let’s see one of yours,” I challenged her.

“I don’t have a ton of specific people,” she warned. “It’s mostly archetypes, like street thugs and innocent civilians.” Hypnos gestured for her to get on with it, and she took a deep breath. “Let me just step into character here...”

A shimmer went over her body as she stepped to the side, and suddenly she was a heavily built street thug, bearded and slightly balding. “You know what’s good for you, you’ll get the hell outta here,” she warned in a deep voice, pointing over my shoulder. “You don’ wanna know what’s goin’ on.”

“How about an innocent?” I asked.

She straightened and shrunk, turning into a young man in a button-down, sweatervest, and glasses. “I already know everything,” she said in a slightly nasal voice, adjusting her glasses. “There’s a 93% chance that you’re dealing drugs, and an 68% chance that you have a gun - oh.” She swallowed in exaggeration fashion. “Maybe I’ll just go, then.”

I laughed as Hypnos remarked. “That’s mean, shit-talking Vulcan behind his back like that.”

Holly huffed. “I would never shit-talk Vulcan like that!” she protested. “I would shit-talk him like this.”

Her body swelled into something even more muscular than the gangster form, but her clothes remained the same as she said, “I’m Vulcan, and despite being the most muscular man in the city with a jawline that could by mistaken for an anvil, I’m incredibly socially awkward and no one understands how I ever got a boyfriend.” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and adjusted the position of her arms, and there was a creaking sound as the sleeves of her button down tore, the massive biceps beneath them popping free. “Oh dear,” she said, Hypnos now laughing so hard he fell off the couch, “I seem to have lost some of my clothing again. I feel quite embarrassed, but at least no one seems to mind -”

“Hey!” came Anima’s voice from the console room. “Don’t make fun.”

“Sorry mom,” Holly called, returning to her normal form - or at least, what I assumed was her normal form - with a shimmer.

“Yeah, sorry,” Hypnos echoed.

I raised an eyebrow. “Anima is your mom?”

She shook her head. “No, we just call her that because she mothers us all the time. It’s sweet, really.”

“If a little overbearing at times.”

“Huh.” I sat on the couch Hypnos wasn’t occupying, and Holly flopped down beside me. Her bare feet ended up in my lap and, after a moment of anxious panic - had she meant to do that? Was this intentional flirting? Was it flirting at all? What should I do? What should I do? - I took a breath and let my hands gently rest over her feet. She wiggled them slightly and I squeezed instinctively.

“Ooh, that felt nice. Keep going, please?” she asked, and I obliged. I felt like I was getting mixed signals overall, but that one at least was pretty clear.

Hypnos smirked at us, but didn’t say anything.

“Listen, I didn’t come here to do impressions,” I said. “I wanted to get advice on whether I should join the Journeymen or not. And costume ideas, because to be frank, that deadline is a lot sooner.”