Disclaimer: I do not own the world in which this story is placed in or any of the characters or events that are associated with the show. The original characters are of my creation.
MICHAEL MULES - LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
"Michael Mules, get up!"
His mother's voice came through the closed bedroom door like a loud speaker. That helped to get her reluctant son out of bed. With a yawn, Michael pushed himself onto his feet. "I'm up," he yelled so she would stop yelling
"Then hurry up, you're late for school!" she told him as her footsteps began to fade away.
"And you won't have time to take a shower, so just wash your face and get dressed!"
"I guess I shouldn't have been watching that Superman movie marathon last night," he told himself, but hey, since he had a TV with cable hooked up in his bedroom, he would take advantage of it.
He quickly got dressed and went to wash his face in the bathroom. Michael took a minute to stare at his reflection in the mirror after drying his face; he did this often: trying to judge himself by what he saw.
Nothing bad, but nothing impressive either.
At eighteen, he had a scrawny figure, kind of bony like one of his sisters would say. He had a pale complexion that only added to the skeleton comments and his brownish-blond hair was recently cut short at the request of his family; they had complained about him letting it grow too long for six months. What Michael thought to be the best part of his appearance was his emerald-green eyes with their lines of gray.
Enough of that. Only real poor saps acted like this and his life was normal to say the least. What did he have to complain about?
He rushed to the kitchen with his backpack strapped on and he grabbed the plate of food on the table, not bothering to sit down.
His mother was leaning against the counter with a cup of coffee on one hand. "Don't forget a fork for the eggs."
"Mm hmm," was all he said through his bacon-filled mouth.
"Your father took the car and your sister went along with him to work, and I'm waiting on a coworker for a lift, so you'll have to walk to school," she told him. "Sorry."
"Isn't it unfair that they took what is technically my car," Michael said after swallowing his entire toast in one gulp. "Uncle John did leave it to me when he moved."
"It's officially yours when you actually pass your driver's test," his mother pointed out.
Michael's face fell. "Maybe I'd pass if my teacher could not have a panic attack when I'm on the wheel," he said a bit resentfully; that had come out more harsh than intended.
Clearly not wanting to start a fight about this, his mother just said, "Go to school."
He was already dashing for the front door in the next room, embarrassed of himself after that last comment. "Later."
His mother went back to zipping her coffee at the counter; then a minute later the phone sitting right beside her rang. She hoped it was her coworker saying she was on her way because she could not be late again.
"Hello, Mules residence," she said as she picked it up.
An elderly man's voice came out of the other end and he sounded maybe Indian. "Hello, Angela Mules?"
"Yes, this is she."
"I am Chandra Suresh. I'm calling about your son, Michael. You see I'm-"
A beeping came from outside, the man's voice trailed out of Angelas attention. She had to get going. Looking around, she couldn't find any pens or pieces of paper.
""Listen, I'm sorry but I need to leave right now," she explained. "If this is important, can you call the house back and leave a message on the answering machine."
"I suppose I could-"
"Great, I'll call you back when I get back home. Thank you, goodbye." Angela didn't like hanging up like that but the beeping continued outside.
On the other line, in New York City, Suresh hung up the phone and sighed.
"It's hard even to have a talk with these people," he said to Gabriel Grey who was sitting at a desk beside him, seeming earnest.
"Let's try the next person on the list," he said coolly.
After racing up a few floors, Michael would have breathed in relief when he reached the opened door to his first class, had he not lost his footing on the floor, sliding just as he came to the doorway and falling down on his back. The students who had seen him from inside erupted in laughter. A woman's head popped out from the side of the doorway, frowning when she saw Michael lying down on the floor.
"Inside Mr. Mules, quickly," Ms. Jones, his chemistry teacher instructed. "Luckily, you're late on the day that I'm in a good mood. I hope you didn't get written up at the entrance."
"Nope." Michael jumped back to his feet and rushed inside, sitting down on his desk in the front row corner.
"Smooth move, Mules," his classmate sitting behind him said aloud. Most of the class, except for a few sympathetic ones, started crying out "Heehaw!" Michael just waved his arm around in the air to them, as if he was trying to deflect their teasing away. At least after nearly four years of enduring that taunt, he had gotten somewhat used to it.
"Okay class, pay attention!" Ms Jones pointed to the white screen she had rolled down over the chock board where a faint image was showing from the slide projector at the other end of the classroom. Ms. Jones killed half the lights in the room and the image became much clearer. If Michael cared to look at the image, he would see that it was of some mapped out part of a human body.
Ms. Jones started walking back and forth in front of the class. "For the next week, we are going to be studying the different chemicals that reside within our own bodies. What their purposes are, how they react to contact with each other and outside chemicals. These things can change the body in good and bad ways."
With a remote in her hand, she changed the image to one of a bottle of some kind of medication.
"For example, this Aerophia is a new medicine that has only recently been put on the market," she explained. "The chemicals in it have certain properties that can tend to a number of stomach-related illnesses. Of course, I've heard that that wasn't what it was originally made for."
"What do you mean?" one student asked.
Ms. Jones hesitated before answering. "Well, a reporter put out a story about the Aerophia being developed with the intent to chemically enhance the body functions. Increase the senses, agility, things like that."
Whoa, Michael thought. So did the rest of the class apparently, as they were now paying attention to every word the teacher was saying.
"So the government actually tries to do stuff like that?" another student asked. "Make like super soldiers."
"It's just a story," Ms. Jones clarified.
Michael raised his hand. "So they don't do that kind of stuff, thinking it's possible?"
"Well, the chemistry of the human body changes. Some scientists even believe that through evolution, the entire biology of a person can alter enough for those sort of enhancement to happen." Ms. Jones ended her statement shrugging.
"But how exactly could that be possible?" Michael then asked.
"We're kind of getting off topic here. Let's get back to what Aerophia does to our stomach acid." As Ms. Jones got back to her original lecture, half the class went back to not paying attention, including Michael.
When lunch came, Michael sat with his friend Mark and his group of buddies that Michael didn't really hang out with.
"Did Ms. Jones tell your class about this Aerophia that was created to try and make super soldiers?" Michael asked him.
"She left the super soldier part out." Mark was only half-listening to Michael's choice of conversation.
"Wouldn't be surprising if the government was actually trying to do that," he continued saying anyways. "Still it would be cool to be able to do that kind of stuff: move like Spider-Man or hear a whisper from a mile away like daredevil or Superman."
Apparently, Mark was no longer really listening, but saying something to the person sitting on his right side.
"Hey Mark, it's time to meet Mr. Shames at the basketball court," one of the guys in their table said. "He challenged you, again right?"
"What can I say," Mark said in a grin and shrugging. "He's a teacher and he doesn't learn."
"Let's go then."
As the entire table stood up, Mark looked back to the friend he had been ignoring "Later, Michael." Then he and the rest of the group left the lunch area. Thanks for asking me to come along, but I prefer just to stay here, alone.
After finishing his food, Michael just stayed on the empty table with his face covered in his hands, completely bored. H then felt a sudden flow of air blowing against his left ear that sounded like a gust of wind coming out of nowhere, but Michael only felt it on his ear. Was someone blowing at it?
Without even registering it in his head, he took his left hand off his face and swung his arm up to the side. The next instant, a hard object slammed against his opened hand. Michael looked and saw that it was a baseball. A freshman sprinted up to him from a table away.
"Hey sorry, I missed that throw," he said. "That was a sweet catch, though. Really good instinct, you caught it without even looking."
Michael handed him the ball without a word.
"You should tryout for the team next year."
"I'm graduating," Michael told him.
The freshmen shrugged. "Oh, well." He then went back to his table.
Not given it another thought, Michael looked at his watch and saw that there were still ten minutes left until the bell rang. Even though he wasn't interested in - or invited along to watch - the student-teacher match, there wasn't anything else to do. He grabbed his backpack, got up the table bench and tossed his food tray into the trash as he left the lunch area.
The freshman who had failed to catch the ball that had nearly hit him, meanwhile, was telling his friends, "-he just caught it without having seen the ball heading towards him." He looked back to Michael's direction as he was walking off. "The guy didn't even flinch."
The school's basketball courts were occupied by hundreds of students that were surrounding a single court, where Mark was dribbling the ball, facing Mr. Shames at the center.
Michael was a little surprised at how many people were interested in a little competition between a student and a teacher. He watched the game start from the outside walkway in the second floor of the building that stood right beside the basketball courts where it was less crowded.
Within only two minutes, Mark was in the lead by three. As Michael watched Mr. Shames manage another basket, his nose caught the fleeing scent that got stronger in his nostrils within seconds. It was tobacco. He looked to the distant left corner of the walkway, seeing a small group of black and grey-clothed students staring down at the game while inhaling their cigarettes.
Where is a teacher or a cop when they should be around?
The four smokers turned and disappeared into the side of the building's dark and secluded hallway. Even teachers and administrators avoided that small area. Michael found it unbelievable that they would look the other way, but he supposed every school had that little bit of territory that was just ignored for whatever reason.
No longer watching the game, Michael tapped his fingers on the walkway railing, looking to that corner, leading into the dark hallway. This was his senior year, and he hadn't really done any remotely daring in this school. So, he took a deep breath and walked down to the corner and into the hallway. It only briefly came into his mind: Why the other couple of students up here hadn't been bothered or even noticed the strong smell of those cigarettes. It had bothered the inside of his nose so badly.
There were no doors leading into classrooms in this hallway. The lights were dim and flickered constantly. Michael approached the group of smoking students at the corner. They all gave him evasive looks that made it clear they didn't like that he was here.
"Hi guys," he said kindly as if they were longtime friends. "Nice day, don't you think?"
"Is there something we can help you with?" asked the boy with the long-greasy hair.
"Well if I wanted a smoke, yes." He clasped his hands together and started tilting himself back and forth. "But I don't. Instead I wanted suggest to you that maybe you should quit this habit. It's a disgusting one, you know/"
The large kid in the group was looking at him with his sunken eyes, making Michael feel more uncomfortable "Didn't you tell me and some of my friends off a year ago?" he finally asked.
He did in fact distinctly remember this same group when he had been walking passed them. One had puffed a cloud of smoke at his face and another kicked him on the butt. "Yeah, that might have been me."
The one girl in the group, with black lipstick and nail polish walked up to him. "Take my advice and get lost, Mules," she said.
"I'm flattered you know my name . . . uh."
"Wendy, and it's easy to remember your last name when it's also our mascot," she explained, then added lightly, "Hee - haw."
"Just wanted to help you live longer," he told them all. The greasy-haired one blew a huge cloud of smoke to Michael's face from behind the girl, Wendy's shoulders. The horrible nicotine smell hit the inside of his nose like a well-placed punch. He began coughing uncontrollably and the group of smokers laughed.
"Just beat it," Wendy said after seizing her laughter.
"I guess I'll visit you guys in your hospital beds," Michael blurted before he could stop himself.
"What was that?" The greasy-haired one snarled, pushing passed Wendy. When a switchblade was in his hand a moment later, Michael knew that it was really time for him to beat it. He pushed the greasy-haired kid back and ran down the hallway, avoiding the large kid who jumped to grab a hold of him.
He should have gone back the way he came. Behind him, he could hear the group of smokers in pursuit. He leaped onto the stairway leading to the top floor in earnest. Boy, would he get it if they caught him.
As the group got to the stairway, the greasy-haired kid, Carl, yelled, "We'll go the other way!" to Wendy the large and huffing, Joe.
When they reached the top of the steps, Wendy and Joe went in the direction Michael had taken while Carl and Hank went around to cut him off. He had made the mistake of going in the route that would take him all the way around the building to the courtyard the top floor was connected to as it lay against a hill where part of the school grounds were.
Of course, Wendy knew Carl wasn't going to actually hurt him; he would just scare the guy like he did to anyone who got in his face. She speeded down the empty outside walkway, with Joe trailing behind because of his heavy weight.
"Pick up the pace, Joe!" she yelled as he fell farther behind. Rather than wait for him, she kept running as fast as she could and began to close in on Michael as he turned the second corner. They would get him here.
The pour guy made a desperate pull at a locked door, and then he darted for a three foot crate that was sitting outside a closed classroom door. Wendy realized that he was going try and climb up to the roof by grabbing a hold of the pipeline that was laid on the wall above the doors. She thought it would be funny to see him fall on his back.
When Michael put a foot on the crate, she was a mere five feet away from grabbing him. He then made his jump, but rather than reaching the pipeline, he zoomed passed it and then passed the wall. Wendy nearly tripped on herself as she saw him disappear over the wall. She halted in disbelief over what she had just seen. He popped his head out from the roof to stare back down at her for a moment before disappearing again. Joe and the others finally turned on the opposite corners at the same time and reached her.
"Where did he go?' Joe asked, gasping for long breaths at a time.
"We had him surrounded," Carl said. "What happened?"
"He . . . he." She tried to talk but the image of him soaring up onto the roof kept replaying in her mind.
"Wendy!" Carl shouted.
"He ran into and locked it shut."
The bell rang and that meant the walkway would be crowded with rushing students in just a minute.
"That guy for lucky. Let's go." Without another word, they all left the walkway.
Up on the roof, Michael stood with his hands on his knees and his upper body facing the roof floor. What in the world had just happened?
To Be Continued
