"He may not have; never having run into this particular variation has a
tendency of leaving even the best and the brightest blind to it. The
problem that arises if it comes out in trial that his patients were
metahumans - aside from the public backlash in general - is that the
prosecutor may give up on the case entirely. If a metahuman's been
performing experiments on metahumans, then why should he care?" Pete's
voice, even as his hands are tense and hot on Seishi's wire-tight
shoulders, thumbs nearly touching behind her neck, is quick and low. Even
if Kitty's released /her/ stress, he needed to clarify. "Especially when
of late, they've mostly been immigrants, right? We can't force
Ballantine's hand. Not with Melanie missing. Best we can hope for - unless
we find her - is engineering it so he does something blindingly stupid and
doesn't connect it with any of us. Thinks it's his fault, even. With
/him/, anyway. The others - yeah." Kitty would've been better at this,
she'd've given Seishi hugs. Pete leans over Seishi's head, hands still not
moving, raises his eyebrows. "Relax, for Christ's sake. Just a little. I
know, not much to relax over. But come on."

"I can't," Seishi says quietly, almost reasonably. "Not right now. I have
to keep control." And that's what it is--every muscle tensed to secure a
grip on her self-control, to keep her from raging at them for things they
couldn't help. To keep her from finding Ballantine and doing what she'd
refused to let Whisper do. "Is there anything else we can be doing?" she
wants to know. A focus, a goal. Work helps; it channels anger and burns
off despair.

"Watching Ballantine. Watching Blithe. Keeping an eye on Barbara and
Constantine. If we can find a way to stress him into a display of temper,
before the board review, that might help. We still need to watch the staff
- making sure nobody /else/ disappears, now that we know what lengths he's
will--" Kitty breaks off midword, her eyes flicking abruptly up to Pete's.
One of her hands draws up, fingertips slipping into a pocket of her jeans.

Pete's eyebrows go up and he shrugs lightly at Kitty, then nods. His hands
briefly leave Seishi's shoulders, and then he moves back to the side of
the armchair, leaving just fingertips on the closer shoulder. And he
fishes out his cigarettes with his free hand, speaking until he's gotten
one into his mouth and the pack in his pocket, and is lighting it.
"Possibly also speaking with former and current patients. As far as
current ones go, have to make sure we don't frighten them. Watching Sera
and Ray. Watching each other. Not letting anyone else disappear. It's a
poor substitute, but--" There's the cigarette, lighting now with his free
hand.

Nothing to do right now, then. Not until she can find Holmes, at the very
least. She'll go mad without something to do!--It's an errant thought
quickly dismissed. She'll keep control. "All right," she says in that same
quiet voice. "Thank you. Both of you." And then she looks to the side,
unhurriedly, and observes in a somewhat vaguer tone, "My ice cream is
melting."

"It wants eating," Kitty says a little more mildly, heedless of hers being
barely-touched and looking decidedly soggy around the edges. "Or putting
away. Depending." There is /something/ they can do - they can try to put
plans together in a more detailed form, they can work out schedules, find
ways to run checks, patrols, try to get a step ahead of Ballantine rather
than chasing him - but she can't tell whether Seishi's in shape to handle
that. Can't tell at all.

It's always good to put the suggestion on the table. Pete glances up at
Kitty again, putting a light pressure on Seishi's arm before letting go,
moving away. And picking up his own ice cream carton, empty as all hell.
And forcing himself not to think about Holmes', in the freezer. "I'll toss
this, Sei, but you'll have to tell me which bin is the trash. Don't want
to fuck up a delicate experiment." Glance at Kitty again, before moving
off into the kitchen. Ask her, Pryde.

Seishi gets up herself, to put the lid back on the half-eaten Half Baked.
Better to save it for when she can enjoy it properly. On some levels,
she's running on autopilot. Sort of a pretense of normalcy; it's better
than the alternative. "It's there," she tells Pete, angling her chin
towards the garbage can. Unlike most things in this apartment, it's rather
easily identified. She stows the pint in the freezer, besode the untouched
pint of Phish Food (hands off, Pete), and then turns to go back to the
chair. But doesn't sit. Just stands and looks at it for a moment.

Kitty uncurls carefully from the couch, lidding her own and stowing it in
the same plastic bag it was brought in - there, if it drips, it'll do so
safely. A couple of steps, and she's less than an arm's length from Seishi
... but not touching. Not right now. "If you're up for it," she says more
quietly, "we need a plan, Seishi. We need a little more organization than
we've got right now - okay, to half of us that's not a word in the
dictionary, but we need to work out /some/ details. If you can handle
that. If not, Pete and I'll do what we can, try to keep things under
control till we hear from you and Holmes." That's twice she's used his
real name in one conversation. Strange.

Yep. Toss. In trash bin. Pete's carefully keeping himself out of this part
- also strange - and he's peering at the sink, wondering if it's safe to
wash his spoon. He glances over his shoulder, then gingerly turns the
water on. The sink might, in fact, eat him.

It seems safe enough, and, at any rate, Seishi doesn't warn Pete away.
Instead, she turns that tightly controlled look toward Kitty. "Honestly,"
she says, enunciating with care, "I don't know too much about the process
of the things we need to be doing. I can try. But working with Holmes
would be better." She looks down at her hands, spreads them in a slightly
helpless gesture, echoing what she was too polite to say to Kate before.
"I mostly just do as I'm told."

Kitty reverts to her habitual gesture, tugging fingers through her curls.
Her eyes don't leave Seishi. The urge to point out 'but Holmes isn't
/here/' is strong - but oh, the other woman knows that already. "Sei ...
that you follow his lead doesn't mean you're not intelligent and competent
in and of your own right. Yes, it'd be better. But we need at least a
stopgap, till," and she quirks just the faintest hint of a little grin,
"he tells us what to do. We can probably make Pete do most of the work,
but you know the people we're working with better than he does - you know
your schedule, Barbara's temper, /much/ more of most of our capabilities.
If we can work together on this -"

Finishing washing off his spoon and depositing it with the others - even
though it's still tinted that odd greenish color - Pete shuts off the
water and turns, coming back over, keeping a fair distance. "- we'll not
only get far more /done/, we'll get it done with no loose ends. We can
tell you what needs doing, and you can tell us when and how and with
whom."

"I can try, anyhow," she repeats, unhappily--emotion is progress of a
sort. Maybe she's untensing a bit? "If we can find her," and if we can
trust her, Sei thinks but does not say, "Barbara is ideal for watching
someone. We *could* also recruit Erik for this, but I hate to do that
unless we've got no other choice." She doesn't elaborate on why. Settling
down carefully into a seat--not in Holmes' chair this time, and sitting up
straight--she half-lids her eyes, trying to bring various pertinent
details together.

Kitty settles down again as well: look! No looming! "Barbara's ideal, yes.
I'm good, but I can't be as invisible as she can. Barbara also pointed out
that Ballantine might not be able to affect her when she's being sneaky -
it's not something I'd like to have to gamble on, but it's something we
ought to keep in mind."

Startlingly, Pete doesn't have anything to say at the moment. He's gone
into quiet mode, listening to the two women, thinking.

"There are a few other things to consider on those lines," Seishi murmurs,
brow creasing. "I have no idea from your description how his ability might
work, but I think I have a pretty good chance of beating it. Another thing
I'd hate to have to bank on," she inclines her head a little to Kitty,
"but it's there. Along with Barbara, Holmes-sama is the best we have for
surveillance and tracking. Jack after them. I don't know how good he is in
the city--I haven't seen him work much--but he has some advantages on the
rest of us. The best I can do is be very quiet and hopefully stay out of
sight. Kate will do just about anything we ask her to, but I hate to put
her in any risk. John--can make himself invisible, or near to it. He's
done it before. I'm not sure what else he could do that way, but it's
worth asking." She's definitely relaxing now, if one can call this
businesslike focus *relaxed.*

Kitty confirms quietly, "And I've dealt with it to an extent - I can work
/past/ it, after the initial surprise." But, given her particular reaction
to being startled, that initial surprise isn't such a good thing in and of
itself. "That gives us at least three people with some degree of
resistance; I don't know about the rest of us, but we're likely all better
off than the average person, at least." Kitty considers for a moment, her
fingertips twitching just slightly as if moving on a keyboard. "Pete,
you've had at least a glimpse of Jack working, haven't you?" The
circumstances are carefully not mentioned, yes. "So we can watch. And we
can be somewhat resistant to being discovered. Should we do anything more
active - try to stress Ballantine, or get something out of Blithe - or is
that best saved for either after consulting Holmes or necessity presents
itself?" The question's directed somewhat at each of them: Wisdom for the
practical aspects, Seishi for the ethical.

Wisdom's once again found something to lean against, something that
doesn't look like it's going to fall over or explode. He fears their
apartment. There's a slight, strange grin playing at the corner of his
mouth as he answers the question about Jack. "I have. He's very good at
ducking and covering, extraordinarily good at sneaking, provided his
target doesn't have better ears than eyes. He's a bit gun-happy, which is
a vastly different thing from trigger-happy. This is all, mind, from very
brief observation." He reaches up to scratch his nose, looking slightly
dubious. "I'm not sure what else. Given the fact that he went after the
dragon, I'd also be willing to lay odds he's a bit reckless." He finally
takes another drag of the neglected cigarette, then finds something
ashworthy to ash in. "Yeah, let's wait for Holmes on the last."

There are probably impromptu ashtrays scattered throughout the apartment,
the way Holmes smokes. Seishi nods quiet agreement with Pete's statement.
"First, because stressing Ballantine could result in fallout on Melanie,"
if she's alive, "or his patients, and trying to shake something out of
Blithe could alert Ballantine. And second, because he'll want to explore
what you've found out with his own methods before he acts on it, and he's
better at finding things out." She pauses, then nods again and says, "I'll
confirm everything you said about Jack. I think he's happiest when he has
something to hunt. He's also occasionally all but prescient, usually at
extremely convenient moments. I don't know if it's experience or something
else, but we need it now."

Somehow, the impromptu ashtrays seem terribly familiar. Kitty is /still/
trying to convince Pete that coffee cups aren't appropriate to that
purpose. "Agreed," Kitty says, looking a trifle relieved. Sometimes it's
good to have a pair of fairly sensible opinions to rein in the desperate
wish to do something satisfyingly stupid. "Mm. Maybe we should ask /Jack/
to look for Melanie." Not quite joking; not quite not.

"Besides the fact that I'd really like to speak with Holmes on the
prosecution before he makes any moves - and before we make any moves."
Pete is watching the smoke from his cigarette curl up toward the ceiling,
not particularly smoking, but at the same time not particularly using it
as nearly a prop. "We ought to get Jack to--" He looks up, grinning at
Kitty. "No, yeah, we really should." Glancing at Seishi, eyebrows up, he
gestures with the cigarette. Illustrating, again. "First, if it makes him
happy - then, well, mild prescience at convenient moments. Hopefully,
hunting without the end result of shooting the target will be acceptable."
Amused look.

"Should be," Seishi replies as though it were a serious consideration.
"I'm sure he would be glad to try. Particularly if Holmes-sama or any of
us could point him at specific areas to look."

"Barbara or John might be able to," Kitty contributes, "depending on what
they've come up with. I should've asked him the other night, but we were
short on time." And just a little preoccupied.

Nodding either in agreement or acknowledgement, Pete brings his cigarette
to his mouth one more time to take a long drag before stubbing it out. As
he's finally exhaling, he straightens up off of what he's been leaning on
and sticks his hands in his pockets. He glances at Kitty once more, as if
to ask what comes next. Should they go begin acting on what they've
decided? Or does Seishi need them to stay? He has no way of telling. Then
his gaze turns to Seishi, thoughtfully, wishing he could read /her/
better.

"Regardless," Seishi murmurs now, "we still need to *find* Barbara. I'd
feel a little better if I knew where *she* was." She lets out a breath,
not exactly a sigh, and then she shakes her head slightly and doesn't say
anything else. By her lidded, vaguely distant dark eyes and the faint
crease in her brow, she's still thinking.

( And the three of them proceed to work out the details and mechanics
involved in keeping watch more actively.  And forestalling, if at all
possible, any more ... disappearances. )