"Hadn't heard that much.  I don't try to keep track of all the espers, there's too many of us."  As long as 'Aumento' isn't on the list, I'm good.

"That makes sense."

Hm...is this impolitic to ask in America? He'll lead with his own information instead.

"I'm Filipino, but I'm with a guild in Korea. Quasar Guild."

"American, here.  Boston, on the other side of the country."  She pauses for a second.  He doesn't know Boston from a hole in the ground.  "Uh, it's a few hours north of New York, if you're familiar?"

Her purple sticky trap vanishes.

He expected it but it's a little sad. Would have been nice to get a secondary guiding partner.

"Yes, I'm familiar. It's not confusingly named, fortunately. I remember when an American friend talked about going from New York to Washington and I was like, 'You drove across the whole country!'"

"Yeah, I uh.  Had a friend who said the same thing.  Washington this, Lincoln that.  Roosevelt the other thing.  We're not that creative, as a nation."  She leans forward and begins to reach for Lawrence's left hand.  Then remembers her manners.  "D'you want to put your arm around me?"

"My complaint about it is more about repeating names. I don't mind New York because it at least puts 'New', so it's differentiated from Old York. Naming something after someone is fine, but don't do it more than once without adding something. It's confusing."

He looks as Carol moves her hand and stops moving her hand. "Yes, if you wouldn't mind," he says, and does so. He does it gingerly.

She stretches forward a little, her shirt rides up enough that his hand might land on skin, rather than shirt.  If he wants.

"There's thousands of Washingtons.  Counties, the state, streets, avenues, probably boulevards..."

He will not change the trajectory of his hand to hit shirt rather than skin.

"That's a lot. I actually have no idea what the importance of Washington is in American history. He's a Founding Father, I think? I only have cultural diffusion to go off of. We name things after Rizal too but...less. Or at least, it seems to me. We do have a very big problem with epal in general...uh, this is a Filipino thing where politicians will plaster their name and face on public goods so they get the credit for it."

Oh god, he's discussing politics at the table. What a conversational blunder.

"He was the first President, he uh, set a bunch'a political norms about being first among equals.  But yeah, we kinda do that too?  Makes me think of how in Egypt, pharaohs would scrub their predecessor's names off monuments and put their own on.  I guess we don't change."

"Maybe that's just the nature of politics," he says. Okay, figure out how to exit..."Are you a combat esper?" He thinks she is but he's not sure.

"That's me.  Killing things and breaking stuff since 2034.  You?"

Two years experience, then. "I am too. But I'm being very conservative with my workload and dungeon deployments because I have very little training and experience. And I want to learn how to better use and be more efficient with my power." How does the sticky goop work in combat? Does it just entrap things? Maybe if you get submerged in it, you drown...

"What's your power like?"  As he begins to speak, she shifts a little bit.  Her shirt just happens to ride up a little, and settle back down over his hand.

Lawrence notices but makes no motion to stop it.

"I can make dungeon monsters move. Go here, go there, stop, et cetera. It's really useful for the Menagerie monsters. It doesn't work on all of them — it didn't work on Volcanic Range's.

I can't hold it for more than a few seconds or it becomes really expensive, though. So I have to be creative and economical with my use of it."

It's not just monsters it works on, is it.  She shivers a little.  "Making them fall down seems like it'd be efficient.  Since they'd have to get back up, and it only takes a second to fall.  And every time you make them stand up, you can make them f-fall back down again."

Uh oh. He should maybe workshop his wording. It clearly affected her...but like. His power is in fact objectively frightening and there's only so much spin he can do to it before he starts saying false things.

"It's very contextual. Tripping them or making them fall works. I also have them stand still so that you can get a clean shot. I can also have them let go of someone if they're holding a victim." He's not mentioning how he can order monsters to kill themselves. "I can only do one at a time so it's terrible at swarms. Better at large singular monsters."

"It's really difficult to make something like an SOP for it, because dungeons and dungeon monsters are so varied...it works on psychic monsters too, I forgot to say that. But I haven't done much testing beyond that. I might get deployed to a significant psychic dungeon at some point because I have a psychic sensor power too. It detects minds and their...I call it 'shape' but basically I can differentiate individuals. And their level of consciousness, like if they're awake or sleeping. I can't read minds, though, only know their location." Slight smile.

"Oh, you wouldn't need to hold it still for me."  She wriggles for a second and pulls a silver dollar out of a pocket.  She closes her eyes.  She flips the coin and backlash spikes once - she snatches it out of the air, eyes still closed, and slaps it down onto the back of her other hand.  One more spike of backlash.  "Heads."

And lo, when she reveals the coin - it is in fact heads.

"Wow! Is that — are you a precog or is that a sensor power or telekinesis..."

He's kind of confused why she used her power twice...maybe she used it once to catch it and another time to know what face it'd have?

"Precog, yeah.  Short range, but it's good enough I can hit anything in range."  Destroy anything in range.

Ah. Well, now it's Lawrence's turn to be frightened! It's really not surprising, though...can you be a combat esper without a frightening power? Killing is the job of combat espers, after all.

"Sorry, short range in time or in space?"

"Both.  It's like, half a second, and the cost gets worse the further away I get.  I carry a gun because I'm not an idiot, but I don't use it as my first-line option.  Most of my work is done with a knife.  Or my hands."

"I do carry a gun too — does your power bestow strength as well?" Or does it just tell you weak points?

"Knew you were a smart one.  It does a little bit of strength and toughness, and I've got the sticky traps.  They're the cheapest thing I can do, basically free.  Surprised you didn't try it, most people do."

Smile. "I didn't know if it was — safe. Not that I was expecting you to do something unsafe, but...I didn't know what it or your power was like."

"Mm.  Still smart."  A purple blob shimmers into existence on the table.  It's smaller than the silver dollar.  "Feel free, if you want."