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Post by skybright on Sept 12, 2007 22:17:48 GMT -5
Daws snickered. "Boy, you said it. There's a list as thick as that book of people who'll be best forgotten as quick as the next generation can manage it." She pulled a wry face. "Nick Tiernan is right up near the top of it."
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Post by Jordanna on Sept 12, 2007 22:24:35 GMT -5
"Eh." Joey grimaced. "I just hope we can stop him from doing something too terrible to forget."
A moment later he glanced up from the book. "Here's a mention of some rich widow having a big charity ball or something for that Doctor Pendergast's clinic. It doesn't say anything about what kind of patients he had, though."
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Post by skybright on Sept 12, 2007 22:28:42 GMT -5
Daws glanced down at him. "Doesn't list an address for the clinic, does it? Knowing what neighborhood it was in might be useful. Not that it'd still be there, of course -- but the building might be. " She sighed. "And if this case proves anything, it proves that you never know what an old building might be hiding."
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Post by Jordanna on Sept 13, 2007 19:20:19 GMT -5
Joey frowned at the page and shook his head. "Nope, nothing else but that they raised ten thousand dollars. I wonder what that amounts to today."
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Post by skybright on Sept 13, 2007 21:40:38 GMT -5
Daws let out a low, impressed whistle. "It'd amount to one heck of a lot of money, I'll tell you that much. Must've been some clinic."
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Post by Jordanna on Sept 13, 2007 22:10:55 GMT -5
"Or this Pendergast was some guy," Joey mused. "I've seen Tiernan have big charity events for mutant welfare--or that's the line, anyway. We know the real story, but there are some rich people that fall over themselves donating to him. A lot of 'em are anonymous, but still."
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Post by skybright on Sept 13, 2007 22:20:04 GMT -5
Daws nodded. "A little charisma matched up with a lot of rich people who want to make themselves look good. Especially in the Roaring Twenties, that'd be a recipe for Doctor Pendergast to make himself good and rich, if he had a mind to." She reshelved the book she'd been looking through. "Still doesn't tell us what his connection to our mystery woman and Rizzo is, though -- not directly, anyhow."
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Post by Jordanna on Sept 13, 2007 22:24:13 GMT -5
Joey shrugged. "I guess if this guy did have some kind of underground mutant practice, she might have been a patient. Maybe he was the one who made Rizzo disappear."
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Post by skybright on Sept 13, 2007 22:36:29 GMT -5
"Yeah, maybe." Daws rubbed the back of her neck. "It's times like these I wish we had more histories of what mutant life was like back in the old days, y'know? If anybody from back then had been able to write about things like the clinics they went to and the places they gathered at -- without risking their life by doing it . . . well, for one thing, it'd make our job a lot easier."
She shrugged. "I guess whatever Proteus can tell me is as close as we'll ever come to that, though."
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Post by Jordanna on Sept 14, 2007 22:45:24 GMT -5
"I hope he was around New York when all this happened," Joey reflected. "Sounds like he traveled a lot."
He continued flipping through the book, and shook his head thoughtfully. "I'm getting more amazed people didn't realize mutants were starting to show up back then. I mean, how did they hide themselves so well for so long? And didn't they even think about taking a stand and going public the way mutants have these days?"
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Post by skybright on Sept 15, 2007 1:41:34 GMT -5
Daws shook her head. "I guess some of 'em probably did, sure. But," she gestured at the book in Joey's hands, "In 1926, women had only been allowed to vote for six years. Segregation would be legal for another thirty years. And all the stuff we know now about genetics wasn't even dreamed about yet, so even if mutants decided to go public they'd have no real way to explain what they were."
She ran her fingers absently along the spines of a shelf of books. "That's an awful lot to try going up against, especially with fewer of us around then to do it. It would've been a lot easier in comparison to just ignore or disguise what they were -- those who could, anyway. I imagine that a lot of people like me didn't even get the chance to try."
Daws frowned thoughtfully. "I remember Proteus sayin' that a lot of the mutants that were around worked together, too -- helped each other out, looked out for the ones who couldn't pass. That would've made hiding easier, I guess."
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Post by Jordanna on Sept 15, 2007 20:44:46 GMT -5
Joey pensively rested his chin on his hands. "Sounds sad, having to hide... but it's kind of too bad mutants can't work together peacefully like that today. Now it's all fighting on a hundred different sides, like ours and Tiernan's and the Spooks, or the mutant gangs in L.A. I've read about. No wonder norms are scared of us--we can't even get along with each other."
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Post by skybright on Sept 15, 2007 22:21:36 GMT -5
"Yeah." Daws smiled ruefully. "I guess that's just human nature, really -- none of us are very good at getting along with one another, never have been. The only real difference is that we can do things that regular humans can't. Things that make us seem more dangerous than they are."
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Post by Jordanna on Sept 15, 2007 22:30:38 GMT -5
"Yeah, I'm real dangerous," Joey retorted with a wan smile. "The human rubber ball. The worst thing I can do is bounce people like Tigger."
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Post by skybright on Sept 15, 2007 22:38:30 GMT -5
Daws snickered. "I know I'm terrified of your super-intimidating rubber ball powers." She shrugged. "It's the same old story -- people are scared of what they don't understand. They wouldn't have to be so afraid if they really knew us." She sobered slightly, thinking of Tiernan, and added "Well, most of us, anyway."
She turned her attention back to the bookshelf in front of her. "I swear, most of these books just say the same things over and over again. They all must've used each other for references."
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Post by Jordanna on Sept 15, 2007 22:47:41 GMT -5
"Yeah... I don't know how much more we're gonna get out of 'em." Joey scowled at the book in front of him, then glanced up. "What's next after we leave here, anyway? Mister Rosenstein's place, or one of those other clues you mentioned?"
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Post by skybright on Sept 15, 2007 22:53:06 GMT -5
Daws shrugged. "Figure we'll make a quick detour through the newspaper archives in the basement here -- though I don't know how much help they'll be -- and then stop by the Paragon and see what Sid might have stored up in that safe of his." She sighed. "If neither of those turns anything up, we're down to talking to Proteus and trying to track down Doctor Pendergast's clinic through other avenues."
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Post by Jordanna on Sept 15, 2007 23:04:09 GMT -5
"It's funny there isn't more about the guy, if he was so popular with bigshots," Joey mused. "I wonder if he was shy about being seen in public, like Tiernan is."
With a sigh, he resumed leafing through the ancient book in front of him.
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Post by skybright on Sept 15, 2007 23:15:50 GMT -5
"Yeah." Daws shrugged one shoulder. "Or maybe he just wasn't exciting enough to get noticed. The papers and historians like a little scandal mixed up with their do-gooders -- that hasn't changed much in eighty years. Not that hanging out with guys like Rizzo is the best way to foster a clean image . . . but then, we really don't know that he did hang out with Rizzo, just that Rizzo had the guy's card in his pocket."
She sighed and slid a book back onto the shelf. "I think we've learned all we're gonna up here, and it's getting late. I say we head for the basement and see if there's anything in the old papers to help us out."
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Post by Jordanna on Sept 15, 2007 23:27:02 GMT -5
"Sure," said Joey as he stood up, looking a little relieved. Even if the next step meant plowing through old papers instead of old books, at least it meant they were closer to being done with their reference work, and that was fine with him. "Just let me put this book away."
He left Daws for a moment to replace the book in its own section, then returned to follow her toward the basement.
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