The Future is Always Changing [For Nick Gant]

[theycalledmeacurse]

There are special people in this world. We don't ask to be special. We're just born this way. We pass you on the streets every day, unnoticed by most.

It started in 1945. The Nazis were conducting experiments in psychic warfare... trying to turn those with psychic abilities into soldiers.

Lots of us died.

The war ended, but the experiments never stopped.

Other governments around the world set up what they called "Divisions"... trying to do what the Nazis couldn't, to turn us into weapons. Division's agents are trained to track and hunt us down like animals... take us away from our families and friends. There are children stuffed away all over the world.

They test us and categorize us. I'm what they call a "watcher". We can see the future, even if that's not always as simple as it sounds.

Others are called "movers", just an easy way of saying "telekinetic". "Pushers" put thoughts in your head and make whatever lie they come up with the truth. "Sniffs", "shifters", "shadows", "bleeders", it goes on and on. In Division's eyes, we're all just lab rats. Only one problem: We keep dying. No one has ever survived the drug meant to boost our powers.

My name is Cassie Holmes. Division took my mom from me.

Right now the future I see doesn't look so great. The good news is the future is always changing... in the largest of ways, by the smallest of things.

They've been winning a lot of battles. Now it's our turn to win the war.

-Cassie Holmes, Push opening narration

Comments

[nickgant]

Taking a quick breath in and then huffing it out, Nick squared his shoulders. Taking another breath, he stared at the needle, sitting ten feet away on a picnic table. Slowly, the needle began to raise off the table. Nick caught himself raising his hand, clenched his teeth and made himself lower his hand back to his side.

He was getting better at control, but he still had to use his hands to move things. Most movers did, to help focus their mind on moving things where they wanted. He was determined to be better. He could take people by surprise, if he just didn't move his hands and give himself away.

There was a snap of a twig somewhere in the park, and he startled, jerking toward the noise. When his eyes flicked back - the needle was gone; dropped, probably onto the park ground, lost forever.

"Dammit!" he swore softly, vehemently. He reached up and rubbed at his face, immensely tired from training in secret, for months, trying to make his power stronger. He had a headache from using it so much.

[theycalledmeacurse]

Rogue hadn't expected it to be so easy to find him, the man she'd seen with a borrowed gift. She'd heard so many times from her Aunt Irene that the future was always changing, and that's why the visions weren't always clear, but hers had been. Crystal clear, in fact, of him just as he was in the park, trying to train with his power and rather failing at it.

Taking a deep breath, she strode over to him purposefully, moving as if she'd go right past him and then suddenly turning to face him as she came to a stop. "You're thinking too much, sugar," she said quietly in her smooth southern drawl, hands tucked inside the pockets of her long dark green coat, worn against the oncoming chill of autumn. "You have to feel it, so it can be instinct more than thought."

[nickgant]

Nick acted casual as the woman walked past him, as he'd done numerous times while in the park when others had wandered by. His eyes snapped toward her when she started speaking, then narrowed with mistrust. "Who are you?" She could be another mover, or less likely, a watcher.

He'd been careful to only decide at the very last minute which park he'd go to to practice, sometimes even getting a cab and telling them to just take him to a park, and surprise him about which one. But he'd been going at this for months now, he'd frequented all the parks more than once by this point; if she was with Division, they could've just started staking out all the parks, if they'd seen his intentions even once.

But the way she talked about his power, sounded like she spoke from experience, and as far as he was aware, watchers didn't have to feel anything, the visions just happened.

"Who sent you?" Could be Division. Could be Cassie, who was off in parts unknown, trying to amass an army of powers. Nick was off on his lonesome, the way he liked it, the way he was used to, trying to hone his powers to help out, and to protect himself better, as Division seemed to take exception to the role he'd played in Beijing.