CHAPTER ONE

A sheet of discarded newspaper skittered down the street in the breeze, clinging to the gutter as if to avoid the bitter autumn chill. A girl picked it up. She was wary, hungry, and perhaps a little smelly. Her eyes scanned yesterday's news:

Albany Gazette (it read):

NO SIGN OF MISSING LOCAL GIRL

Police are asking for any information regarding the last known whereabouts and activities of Eleanor Mae McCloud, aged 17, of northern Albany. She disappeared three weeks ago somewhere between her High School and her home. There are some unconfirmed reports of an altercation with a dangerous mutant or mutants …

Ellie couldn't bear to read any further. It would only go on to the heartbreaking pleas of her parents for news, any news, of their daughter. Ellie's chest was tight with unspent emotion as she crumpled the newspaper and stuffed it between her jean jacket and sweater. The first thing she learned on the street was how cold upstate New York got over night, even in October, and how to counter it. Newspaper was a good insulator. Trashcans behind restaurants and grocery stores were often full of perfectly good food. Bathing could be had, after a fashion, in public toilets. Thank God for paper towels and liquid soap, she thought wryly.

Nobody, not her parents or friends or teachers, had the slightest clue that the "dangerous mutant or mutants unknown" was, in fact, Ellie herself. For three years she had kept the secret that, when she got too angry, or scared, or anything, something silver burst from her hands and, usually, caused devastation to whatever it touched. She had learned to control if from almost the first incident, and no one, not even her family, knew.

It hadn't been easy to learn that sort of discipline at the age of 14, but anti-mutant hysteria had been huge then. Some terrorist mutant gang (called Morporks, or something) had just blown up a New York City subway. Lots of people had died. The Senate was pushing the Mutant Registration Act, while the House struggled to restrain it with amendments. Even the President didn't seem to know where she stood on the mutant issue. So when Ellie had accidentally incinerated the break-up note from her first boyfriend, she knew no one could know.

That was easier said than done. The older she got, the easier it was for the silver to flow from her. When she was 16, it happened almost without provocation. Finally, when that cow Michelle Green started a fight over some stupid boy Ellie didn't even like, Ellie lost it in public. Incandescent silver burst from her hands, still clenched in tight fists at her sides, and exploded in a blinding blast. Everyone was stunned, but no one more than Ellie, who took the moment of temporary blindness to sprint from the scene. She hadn't gone home.

Ellie didn't want to think of herself as dangerous, but she couldn't deny the evidence of three journals detonating as she poured her angst into them. There wasn't any escaping what she was, especially since Michelle Green had needed stitches from knocking her dumb head on the sidewalk when she fell in the blast that had outed Ellie. What would her parents have thought? She couldn't face telling them. They were so proud of her: a 3.3 GPA, a volleyball player, an all-around American girl. She had posters of Johnny Depp on her wall and a guitar in her closet. She couldn't imagine her parents reconciling that with the dangerous rogue who had put her classmate in the hospital.

Aside from the shame and disappointment she couldn't bear to give them, there was the risk to consider. Ellie couldn't control it, couldn't stop it or prevent it. Her explosions were powerful and unpredictable. Ellie couldn't bear to put her family and friends at risk. And the protection of her loved ones was the ultimate variable. She left, vowing never to return.

Since that incident three weeks ago, she had wandered the streets of Albany. She hid in the day while her face stared out from "missing child" posters. At night, she scavenged for food and avoided the other street people, who were usually addicts or schitzoids and always a bit scary. She was getting good at finding safe sleeping places. Once she got locked in the public library overnight. That had been her most comfortable night yet. She was going to try that again soon. Maybe, if she was lucky, it would become her second home. It was nice: warm, clean, full of couches and bedtime stories. She didn't have a plan for the next week, let alone the rest of her life, but she was surviving, much to her own surprise. That would have to do.

She straightened and looked around at a sudden noise. Moving with a crinkly sound from her newspaper-filled jacket, she headed towards raised voices. They were coming from a dark alley. She had a feeling the scene would be familiar, and it was. This was her secret career, after all. In the alley, a teen with lots of jewellery and fancy sneakers was waving a knife at a terrified man in a business suit. Ellie approached from behind the teen. The business man didn't register her presence; he was too busy keeping his eyes on the blade as he fumbled in his satchel.

"Hand it over," the teen said in a voice surprisingly deep. Without thought, Ellie raised her hands and shot silver at the mugger. He was knocked senseless to the ground with the sound of a small crack, like a baseball bat connecting. The businessman squeaked in fear, threw his wallet at Ellie, and sprinted out the far end of the alley.

Ellie grabbed the wallet as she stood over the form of the stunned criminal. Not a bad result, she mused. She hadn't robbed anyone and she had a wallet to show for it. (Her morals had altered quite a bit after her first night of real hunger and cold.) She opened the wallet- family photos, credit cards, driver's license, and- Yes! Two hundred bucks cash! Food, here I come, she thought. And there was enough for a motel room: hot shower, lock on the door, free shampoo and TV! Of course she'd also use some on bus fare to put the wallet (minus the cash) in the owner's mailbox- she wasn't a monster.

First things first though- Taco Bell was cheap, filling, and relatively nutritious. The 99 cent menu was in her immediate future. As she started out for the nearest Taco Bell, she was unaware of the two people who had silently witnessed the whole thing- people who followed her from the alley.

She first noticed them as she stood in line waiting for her burrito. It was hardly possible not to see them: the man was absurdly large, with huge hands and feet and unexpected amount of grace for a man his size. The woman might have been pretty but unremarkable, except for her wealth of long, flaming red hair. They both seemed well off and young, in their twenties: perhaps with the University. Ellie remembered with a pang that she would never go to college. The man chatted away, telling jokes and anecdotes, and while the woman smiled and even laughed, mostly she just listened. Ellie pigeon-holed them as a new couple and put them from her mind.

She saw them again, though, at the library. The redhead was browsing through CDs as Ellie google-mapped the businessman's address, and the large man flipped through a book on advanced chemistry. They didn't follow her out of the library, but she saw them leave the building as she hopped on the bus to the businessman's suburb. The large man held the car door for the redhead. Ellie envied them their casual dinner date, and idly wondered if the redhead was going to be dropped off or go home with the gentle giant.

Returning the wallet didn't go well. The man didn't have a mailbox but a slot in the front door, and if Ellie had any sense she would have waited till night time to approach. Still, she pushed the wallet through the mail slot as soon as she reached the house. A woman opened the door just as Ellie was turning away.

"Oh, wait! Wait a minute! We want to thank you! I can't believe you came all the way out here to turn it in! Harry lost it down town and we've been cancelling credit cards all afternoon. It's a shame about the cash but I'm glad some nice person found it at all-" Mrs Harry paused and took in Ellie's rumpled appearance before she continued "-and of course if the money went to a good cause we'd be only too happy about that, too. Won't you come inside and have dinner with us?" And before Ellie could answer, or even get a word in, the woman was shouting into the house, "Harry, come here, this girl just brought your wallet back! Come say thank you!"

Ellie got a look at a very relieved, happy man, and had started to smile back at him, before he recognised her. His face twisted in fear, he snatched his wife away from the doorway and slammed the door in Ellie's face. A muffled fight came through the mail slot, starting with 'ingrate' and ending in 'mutant'.

"You're welcome," Ellie called bitterly through the door. She turned and stalked back towards the bus stop, wondering how long she'd have to wait for a bus in this depressingly middle class suburb (which reminded her painfully of home). Kicking her feet at the rungs on the bench, arms folded across her chest against he cold, Ellie saw a familiar car pull up not ten feet away. Her jaw almost hit the floor as she saw the big man and redheaded woman emerge. This was unnerving, even more so as they sat next to her on the bench by the bus stop. There was a pregnant silence.

"That was a very nice thing you did about the wallet," the redhead said in a soft voice. She smiled at Ellie. Ellie jumped, and quickly stood up. Complement notwithstanding, these two were obviously following her. Lifetime Original Movies about kidnapped kids and runaways suddenly filled her head and she backed away.

"I don't want any trouble," she mumbled, hands suddenly clenched and ready at her sides. "I just want to be left alone."

"I suspect you would actually prefer a bit more than solitude, like a warm bed and three meals a day," the large man said with a grin. Perhaps aware of his own intimidating nature, he stayed a comfortable distance from her. The woman stood and approached Ellie slowly, palms out, as if she were coaxing a stray dog.

"You're scared, and that's okay. You don't know us and you have no reason to trust us. How about we go somewhere and talk? Somewhere public, lots of people. We'll buy you dinner." She smiled encouragingly. "I know you won't believe it, but we've both been exactly where you are now. Struggling with the same situation. Please, let us help you." Ellie knew she shouldn't trust strangers, particularly strangers interested in getting a known mutant by herself- but then, they had said "in public", and Ellie's stomach was rumbling hopefully at the offer of dinner.

"I'm taking the bus back to the library," she said warily. "If I see you outside the Taco Bell there, maybe-"

"You don't really want fast food, do you? Come on, we're buying. How does steak sound?" Steak sounded amazing, and her stomach loudly told them so. The big guy laughed, then looked sheepish for laughing.

"We'll take that as a yes. Our car is all heated up, come on." The woman was so inviting, it was as if a voice in Ellie's head was encouraging her to trust them. Ellie felt her common sense giving way.

"Who are you?" she asked, as the redhead led her to the shiny car.

"My name is Jean Grey, and this is Hank McCoy. What do you call yourself?" Something about how Jean phrased the question convinced Ellie that Jean and Hank really had been in her place once. She smiled without humour.

"Call me Silver," she said.