plain_jane | IC Contact: Boomtown

I don't know. Swooning is kind of cute. Did the app help? They didn't discover it?

Pretend I swooned and it was very dramatic or something.

It did. I was able to send my Angels to rescue other Conduits that had been captured, just from tracking and listening. They had no clue what the hell was going on for a while. It was kinda hilarious, now that I think about it.

I can't imagine what that must have been like. Even with the app helping you stay a step ahead...I'd have been terrified. What you did was brave.

I was.

I don't like bullies. That's all the DUP and Augustine were. Just because you're stronger than someone else, or you think you are, doesn't mean you get to be an ass.

Most people wouldn't try to stop them. How did you find out you could do your thing? That you were a Conduit?

[ Because Eugene thinks this story's too much for text. He doesn't really sound like he's okay with saying any of this, but Jane's important to him. He wants her to know, even if he is having a hard time saying anything. ]

I had a bully problem in school and usually I tried to ignore it. Tried to blend in and just get through the day. But one day I got pushed too far. I was sitting outside with my laptop, just goofing off on my computer. One of my more aggressive bullies shoved my laptop out of my hands and it broke. People...laughed and had their usual comments about how Eugene's a big...whatever... and I remember just getting so angry and getting this massive headache and then one of the demons from Heaven's Hellfire appeared. One of the ones I usually use to punish the villains in the game.

[ He's going to leave off the details of exactly what happened. But he's sure she can figure out it was intense and Not Good. ]

[She listens quietly, thinking of the times when people did similar things to herself or Harry. How being different caused so much pain and frustration - and how she threw herself into the arms of the first man who seemed to be remotely interested. That had gone so well.

Eugene understood, though - better than anyone. And he had done something most people couldn't. And yes - while she can guess what happened next, she's not exactly sympathetic to the antagonist of the story.]

Do you get headaches every time you do it?

No. Not anymore. It uh...it felt like I was overloading on everything going on. All the stress from that, from trying to keep up appearances because my mom was a congresswoman. Who, by the way? Signed the bill that put the DUP into action a few months before this.

[ That's probably the very definition of Irony. Or Bullshit. ]

It was just the one headache.

Stress made you do it?

What happened to your mom?

Stress activated the conduit abilities I didn't know I had. And mom...I don't know. I haven't spoken to her since. I haven't really...wanted to.

[There's a pause, because what she asks next is an awkward question.]

Do you think she'd have signed that bill if she'd known you were a Conduit?

That...I don't know.

I'm not mad at her for signing it originally. She had no way of knowing what I was going to become.

I'm mad at how quickly she handed me over. I don't know if she was doing it to save face or what. I'm hoping not.