Just what the heck is Telepathy anyway?

[Forge]

Forge sat at his workbench in a small corner of a garage. He was hooking up wires and resistors to a football helmet, not to mention light sockets, Christmas lights, staples (which weren't actually stapling anything) and a jaunty little feather. He knew the feather was important, but for the life of him he had no idea why. He turned to look at the gentleman sitting in the chair beside him, his eyebrow raised in a "this is what you asked for" kind of air.

About three hours ago, Bobby Drake had come to the Garage and asked Forge to build him a device to help him control his burgeoning telepathic powers. At first, Forge was a little skeptic of the notion that Bobby, a mutant of astounding power already, was developing a secondary mutation that had nothing to do with his current powerset. However, upon seeing Bobby's serious face, he was inclined to help. Forge had known Bobby for as long as the former had been at the Mansion, and, given that both gentleman tended to view everyone in their immediate vicinity as friends, the two formed an instant relationship. They weren't best friends, but Forge knew Bobby well enough to know that he didn't push a joke like that and he didn't, generally, overreact to things.

Three hours of general small-talk later, in which Forge discerned the goings on in the Mansion proper (having not socially interacted with anyone for the last several weeks), they were at this stage. Forge was nearly finished. He took a package of 13W compact fluorescent lightbulbs (those kind that are supposed to light as well as a 60W but are all twisty and take up less power) and inserted all four into the four light sockets that he had installed on the helmet.

Under normal circumstances, Forge would have used better gear and equipment, but currently most of his resources were sunk into the rather compact machine that occupied the right end of his workstation. It was a miniature fabrication machine, with a robotic arm that was busying itself forging (ha ha) what appeared to be a set of composite rings. The tool it was using was too small for anyone to see, indicating nano-manufacturing going on.

Not bad for someone who had to use broken-down Danger Room parts to build it.

On the left side of his workstation there occupied a small black cylinder on a stand with a large red button on one end. It was securely locked down, with the button in such a way that it could not be pressed unless it was unlatched and unsecured from its stand. Forge never mentioned it or referred to it in any way during the entire conversation.

He connected some wires trailing from the helmet to what looked like a small multimeter with several displays and knobs.

"Okay," he said, sitting back and crossing his arms. "That should do it." He looked at the contraption, which looked utterly ridiculous, examining it to see if it would work or explode. Everything seemed fine, but he still remembered making that darn repulsor gauntlet.

"First," he said, picking up the helmet and handing it to Bobby. "Are there any questions you might have before we do this?" It was only fair to ask him that. Forge might not be able to answer all of the questions, but he would try. Admittedly, Forge knew very little about telepathy, so he was kind of winging it. As near as he could tell, the device would do exactly what he wanted it to do. He just really hoped that doing it wouldn't lobotomize Bobby.

After all, if he ever got better, he'd never let Forge live it down.

((Tags Bobby. Get ready for some mad science, X-men fans! You're about to be treated to as many uses of the words "brain waves" as I can fit into a post)

[Bobby Drake]

Bobby inspected the contraption for a minute in silence. It looked like something out of an old hairdresser’s nightmare with glass spheres in place of curlers and a salad bowl in place of the hairdressing…helmet…thingy.

“Wow,” he said with mock enthusiasm and a healthy dose of fear. “That’s really…” he furrowed his brows as he sought out the perfect describer. “Wow.”

He took it in his hands and hesitantly put it on his head.

“And you think that this is going to help me…focus my psychic energies…or whatever?”

He tried to keep the doubt out of his voice. Forge was the best at coming up with gizmos and contraptions after all. But when he looked at himself in a dusty mirror he couldn’t help but have some pretty serious doubts. “And I have to like…wear this. In public.”

[Forge]

Forge remained silent during Bobby's silent minute, to help the silence grow until it suffocated both of them. The more he looked at that thing, the more ridiculous it looked. Sure, he had built it, but he'd been kind of strapped for parts this time around. Thankfully, Bobby shattered the oppressive silence and placed the thing on his head.

Forge did his best effort not to laugh when he saw it on somebody's head. He was only marginally successful. "Well," he began, trying to take the mirth out of his voice. "First, the device itself needs to be calibrated for you." He put his hand on the multimeter-looking thing. "When I turn this device on, it'll turn on the helmet and give a feedback measurement of your brain wave activity. Then, I'll need you to use your telepathic powers to their utmost, and we'll find out what brain waves are most active when that is happening." Now that he'd gotten into the explanation part of the device, he'd completely forgotten how stupid the helmet looked. "Then, I'll adjust these knobs to tell the helmet to suppress those brain waves." He had to think a bit before he answered Bobby's actual question.

"We should be able to adjust the helmet to suppress only random surges of those brain waves, but not any actual directed effort."

He then looked back up at Bobby, and snickered again. That thing looked utterly ridiculous. He began thinking about how to make it, er, less noticeable. He would need the machine behind him, the one that was currently working and that he hadn't had access to this time.

“And I have to like…wear this. In public.”

He was having a really hard time trying not to laugh. "Yes," he said, his voice shaking. "Hey, just be glad I didn't go with my original plan of using that bucket instead of a football helmet," he said, pointing to a bucket full of broken chain links. "I would have been obliged to paint it purple and start calling you Professor Lensherr."

Actually, now that he thought about it, he could easily modify Professor Lensherr's helm into a device capable of doing exactly what Bobby wanted. He might even be able to make it smaller, more like a baseball cap. These thoughts took him away from the conversation for a brief moment.

"Don't worry too much about it. As we speak, I'm working on a way to make it smaller. I'll probably be able to get to work on it at the end of the day, 'cause that's when that machine," he pointed to the one behind him that was independently working on a pair of small finger rings, "will be done with what it's doing. It's been working its servos to death for the last week fabbing that for me. I should have your replacement done by the end of this week."

His attention turned back to the measuring device. "But for that to work, I need to know if this will work. Don't worry, the electronic components, with the exception of the light bulbs and sockets, all came from Danger Room components. They all work, I tested them, and they're all top-of-the-line. The light bulbs are mostly there to let me know that everything's working. I suppose I could have used Christmas lights, but I would have had to go out hunting for the darn things, and you'd have grown old. Only Guido knows where those darn things are."

He kept a straight face when he looked at Bobby, because he was ready to turn the machine on, and that required seriousness. "Okay, everything's hooked up. It's all ready. Legally, I'm required to inform you that there is an incredibly unlikely, highly improbable sliver of a chance that this device might lobotomize you. Don't worry too much about that, though. You ready?" And without really waiting for a response, he turned the machine on. He probably should have waited for that response, but it was best for Bobby that he go through with this.

OOC: Jesus, Lord, this guy never shuts up.

[Bobby Drake]

When Forge started talking his techie talk, Bobby immediately felt his eyes glaze over. Something about calibrating the inverter or something…he honestly wished he had a fast forward button for Forge’s mouth sometimes. At first he was nodding in agreement, a perpetual rhythm that matched the ceaseless noise that was coming from Forge’s lips.

Bobby was honestly thinking about how he so wasn’t going to wear this stupid helmet. That was about the last thing he needed! Bobby Drake had a certain reputation to uphold, after all. The ladies have come to expect a certain style…and this Back to the Future…mad scientist…

Wait.

“What?”

Bobby heard the word ‘lobotomize’, and though he wasn’t exactly sure what it meant, he had a pretty good idea. “No…no…DUDE!” But Forge didn’t hear him and the next thing Bobby knew the machine was making a whining noise as it wound up. Bobby pinched his eyes shut and screamed “NOOOOO!” He didn’t want a lobotomy! He’d never even been with a girl before! He reached down and shielded his privates from the inevitable.

[Forge]

The machine whirred to life, and the little A-scan display started mapping Bobby's brain waves, just like it was supposed to. The little compact fluorescent bulbs came on, dimly flickering to indicate that the device was working, but it needed calibration.

Bobby's reaction told Forge two things. The first thing was that Bobby had no idea what a lobotomy was. The second thing was that he hadn't been listening to Forge at all.

"You weren't paying attention, were you?" he said, a little hurt. He knew he could go on a rant occasionally, but it still hurt him a bit whenever someone didn't listen to him. He always listened to everything everyone else had to say.

Covering up his hurt pride, he continued. "You're okay, Bobby. The lobotomy would have happened just as the machine came on. You're fine. You can uncover your junk, now. I need you to use your telepathic powers as much as you can." He tried to keep his sentences shorter. It was hard.

[Bobby Drake]

Bobby unpinched his eyes and dared a look downward. Everything seemed to be in order down there. He breathed a sigh of relief at Forge’s words. “Dude, I so totally was listening,” he protested. “You said something about calibrating the…calibers to fit my…” he gestured at his head with a sweep of his hand “You know what you said!”

And now the pressure was on. Bobby was supposed to focus his psychic powers, and he didn’t even have the first clue on how to begin doing such a thing.

But he tried.

Narrowing his eyes, he pushed his brows down and really focused.

Immediately the room vanished. Bobby was standing on a street corner in the snow. Someone was watching him in the shadows, it was like watching a movie where he was the main character. He was in love with a beautiful young thing named…

“…Callie…”

They had been together. Someone stepped up behind him, he turned to look as his heart started to race. He’d seen this movie somewhere before. “NO!” Bobby yelled loudly into the room that only he and Forge occupied.

But it was too late.

A clawed hand emerged out of the front of his chest, blood dripping thickly off of the fingers, melting crimson holes into the blanket of snow at his feet. Bobby felt cold. It was so vivid…

…so real.

In horror he tore the contraption off his head, his eyes wide as he held his chest and tried to catch his breath.

[Forge]

Forge shrugged, still a little hurt about Bobby not hearing what he was saying, but too excited about what they were doing to dwell on it. Okay, he felt that he shouldn't be excited about effectively messing with your friend's head literally, but he always got excited whenever he tried out a new device.

He readied himself for what came next, placing his hands next to the knobs on the calibration device. Bobby closed his eyes, and suddenly the darn thing started going crazy. The A-scan was showing not so much massive brain wave activity as sporadic brain wave activity. Whatever this was, it couldn't be telepathy. It was pinging off too much of Bobby's brain to be. Luckily, it made no noise, so that didn't freak out Bobby.

Unfortunately, Bobby did make a noise. He said something, a word, maybe? Forge couldn't really tell, wasn't paying much attention. He was working the knobs, trying to get the patterns that were showing up to stabilize, to normalize. Bobby's breathing was getting rapid, panicked. Something wasn't right, here. He should be accomplishing something with his frantic calibrations, but everything was shifting so fast it was hard to tell what he should do next.

Bobby screamed, the A-scan spiked, and Forge finally got a clear indication of what he needed to do. He finalized the calibration moments before Bobby ripped the device off of his head. Forge didn't even realize until it was over, but he was breathing hard, and his heart was beating rapidly. He turned to look at Bobby, to find his friend as pale as death.

"Yo-you okay, man?"

[Bobby Drake]

In terror Bobby looked down at the clawed bloody hand that was still jutting through his ripped shirt. Slowly it lost tangibility and faded away, leaving a completely whole shirt. He frantically put his hand on his chest and inspected for damage, saucer eyes glancing up at Forge uncomprehendingly until he was sure he was all right. Gradually his breath returned, one gasp then another and finally a regular rhythm of laborious panting that sounded dangerously close to hyperventilation.

“Dude,” he managed after a few more seconds to catch his wind. He looked at the ridiculous contraption with a new kind of respect mingled with fear. “I think you did it.” He looked up at Forge. “This thing works. I…I think I might have seen into the future or something.”

A chill ran up his spine.