G
G surveyed his kingdom. Run down and dirty, yes, but it was full of life. He walked through the throng of the Washing Square, savoring it as he always did.
A fountain stood in the middle of a large, paved yard, which was bordered by two-to-four-story stone and brick buildings. The crooked structures stood in varied states of disrepair. Several streets branched off from the square at random angles. Shop awnings arched out from the ground floors of the buildings, beneath which used wares from utensils to clothes to books to machine parts were spread on the ground, ready for purchase.
Most people came here for the fountain, though. The object itself was surrounded by men and women doing just what the name suggested, washing. Mostly clothes, but sometimes children or even themselves. It was a communal area. A place where people came to chat about their family struggles, the latest UpMountain scandal the tabloids were pushing, or the sorry state of the world in general. G reveled in the mess of life around him.
In that moment of peace, he could almost ignore the grey clothed bodies that frequently appeared at the edge of the courtyard. Or the cluster of young woman, most of whom were clearly pregnant, conversing to his right.
"Hey G," a voice called out from the crowd, "recruiting again?" G waved dismissively, though he was thankful for the distraction.
"Not today, and definitely not here!" Friendly laughter met his joke.
"Well then, if you have a free moment, come join us for dinner, lil' gambit. It's been too long," crooned the voice of an old woman.
G recognized Joan with her pointed ears and unnaturally long fingers, and went over to give her a hug, ignoring the hoots of laughter that erupted from her use of the pet name. He was over 6 feet tall now, but when he had come to the Montagne at age 6 the community here had taken him in and given him the name, which had eventually been shortened to lil' G, then to his present nickname.
"Not today, Grammy J. I am on a mission. Possibly an impossible one, but one that if it works out might just save two lives." He said the last part theatrically, and the old woman rolled her eyes but smiled.
"Off you go, then. If there's one thing this world needs most of all, it is you saving lives." G grinned and went on his way.
Several more people called out to him, but he passed by with just a wave. His visits to the fountain had become rare, though he had spent a considerable amount of time here as a student. There were other duties to see to now. Today brought an unusual mission, but one G was finding to be particularly pressing. He hoped it would turn out as he wished.
Reaching the far side of the square, he turned back briefly before entering the dark, narrow street ahead of him, and looked up. Light glinted through the few but massive windows built into the stone of the mountain above to let in a bit of natural light, supplementing the sun lamps that dotted the haphazardly-braced cavern ceiling. Mirrors, specially placed to spread the light throughout the gigantic cavern, glistened. When the sun was out, you could tell, roughly, the time of day by the color of the light from the windows. The orangish tinge told G it was mid-to-late-afternoon. He didn't have much time. Hunting down his prey had taken up too much of the day.
Continuing down the street, he walked by two more blocks of buildings, residential this time. Functional and plain, with stone walls and small windows, they rose up four stories on either side. Ropes with laundry drying spanned between the buildings, and there were some people hanging out more, having just returned from the Square. Catcalls and yelled conversations created a soothing cacophony around him.
G again felt a sense of peace. In spite of the many flaws of this city inside a mountain, it was more or less a place of safety where life could flourish, and he understood the value in that. Further, he took claim of it, caring for it however he could.
The people UpMountain would probably object to his sense of ownership, but they didn't care about this place like he did. Obsessed with their own rich lives, perpetually staring at themselves in a mirror they didn't know was there, few of them would ever understand the true value of the most run-down part of the Montagne. G did, and that was all he needed.
Eyeing the two-story building he was approaching, he slowed. Why was the man coming to a place like this? G didn't understand it. It made him angry, though he was careful to rein in that emotion. He needed to get the man's help, not to alienate him further. G wished there was someone else he could turn to, but this man was unusually suited to the task at hand. Determined, G approached his destination.
It was decrepit, even by Sewer standards. A dimly glowing sign out front showed a pool table with crossed cues. Inside there were also arcade games, card games and other ways to pass your time without producing anything of value. Not that G didn't understand the need to blow off steam, but when someone came to a place like this nearly every day for 4 months straight, it did not bode well.
Resigned, the heavyset young man with thick, wooly black hair and deep brown skin stepped inside, and surveyed the occupants of the dim interior. They were mostly youths, still in their teenage years, but a few adults were hanging out as well. Several of the occupants looked up, then dismissed him. They thought he had given up on them, that he had stopped coming around asking them to try out his new hangout. They were wrong. He never gave up on anyone once he made a connection. Except, perhaps, the man he had come to find today.
Spotting him was easy. Even in plain clothes and hunched over his card game, he stood out like a peacock among pigeons. He was a tall man, on par with G, when he wasn't trying to hide it. Warm brown skin, and mid-brown eyes that Bright called creamy, stood above a strong triangular nose and a wide mouth. A mop of disheveled dark brown curls topped off the long slightly-oval shaped face. G snorted in disgust. Everyone said the man was extremely handsome, but G couldn't see it. Not his type at all.
"Summers!" he bellowed. The tall figure straightened, head snapping up look to the door. Despite G's tone, the man grinned, and came over. He looked cautious, and perhaps a bit guilty. Good. He should feel guilty, not to mention the fact that G could use that to his benefit.
"G! What brings you here?" Really, the man asks him that? G held his eyes.
"Yeah, I wonder," he said, his tone dripping with sarcasm, "oh, that's right," he continued, feigning sudden recall, "sex-addicted friends who seem determined to further degrade themselves. And never visit old friends. You wouldn't know anyone like that, now, would you, Mattie?" He smiled sweetly, eyebrows raised.
Matthew's brow darkened, "Look, G, I told you to leave off that stuff. If you didn't bring it up so much maybe I'd visit more," he retorted.
"And miss such a juicy opportunity to laude your unexpected gifts? If what they published is true, you may be one of the lucky few with two mutant abilities. And if even only half of it is true, you could be having a far nicer time than hanging out in this place, not to mention with much better-looking company."
Matthew's look of anger changed into exasperation, and finally rueful humor. G relaxed a bit. Matthew was acting like himself, not some overstuffed peacock. That was good, too. "Ok, what is it, G? Do you want some advice? I didn't think you had much interest that way, but I'm happy to help out an old friend."
G looked speculative. "Well, if you are offering." He chuckled at the pained look on the tall man's face. G continued in an arched tone. "You're right about the not visiting. It's weighed on my mind greatly I'll have you know." Matthew rolled his eyes. "I've decided it's time for you to make it up to me. Come on. I'll fill you in while we walk."
Matthew looked reluctantly back at the table where he had been sitting. There had probably been some sort of wager going. Unsympathetically, G grabbed his friend's arm, for friend he was degraded or not, and dragged him out of the building. The last thing this man needed to worry about was losing a bit of credit.
Matthew reluctantly followed, but G didn't make good on his promise to explain right away. Instead, he took the opportunity to needle the man a bit and see if he could shed some light on his distressing behavior.
"Mattie, seriously, what are you doing? I get it, the red-head cheated on you in a big way, you took it hard. Not to mention the reputation you've earned on top of that. About that, you sure you haven't been tested for a second mutant power? I'm asking for a friend, by the way. Hey!" Matthew hand had landed on G's head, and the man pushed his friend away in annoyance. "No need to get violent there! But, seriously now, this? You're better than this." His teasing tone turned disapproving.
"You sound like my father." Before G could insert his usual colorful exposition about Matthew's foster father, Matthew held up his hands. "Don't even get started on him."
G held back, reluctantly, but didn't let Matthew off the hook. "Come on, Mattie, talk to me. Something's eating at you."
Matthew glanced at him, but didn't say anything. His eyes were shaded, though, which tweaked G's memory in an uncomfortable way. Matthew broke eye contact. "I just don't want to, ok?"
G could fill in what Matthew didn't say. 'You wouldn't understand.'
With difficulty, G shook off the feeling that a chasm, perhaps unbridgeable, gaped between him and his childhood best friend. These years living in separate worlds had worn that friendship thin. However, he wasn't one to give up easily. He focused on his reason for hunting the man down.
"OK, so, here's the deal." Matthew looked back at him, skeptical but listening. "There's this girl."
The tall man actually turned around and started walking back the way they had come. They had reached the Washing Square, and he almost tripped over someone's basket in his haste.
"No, G, whatever you want to imply about me, I'm done with women."
"Hey, man, one, I don't imply, I state facts, two, based on those facts I seriously doubt that last bit, and three, it's not like that at all. In fact, if you even think of doing anything sexy with this girl, I'll have your head."
The crowd around them tittered. Most of them knew G, and he saw that several were starting to recognize Matthew. Ouch. It hurt to be famous sometimes. Matthew stormed back as the speculative conversations picked up around them and, grabbing G's arm, pulled him to the far side of the square. G knew he was blushing heavily.
"G, I don't have a lot of patience for this-"
"You owe me, Summers." G ignored Matthew's glare at the sarcasm he placed on the name. "You know it." G found himself desperate, not a situation he let himself get into often. He opened up. He hoped Matthew would understand. "She reminds me of Tara."
Matthew didn't immediately release his grip on G's arm, but it softened, as did his face. He looked sad, and after a moment he turned and continued forward, finally dropping his arm. "I miss her, G."
"Yeah." Tara had been his sister, three years younger than him, and two years dead. She had been injured the day when Matthew, G and their sisters had been retrieved from the Wasteland. She had never been the same after, although her sweetness had shone through whatever damage had been done.
He pulled his thoughts back to his companion in the present. He had Matthew's attention, and didn't want to lose it. He gazed at the Towers as they came into view, and continued.
"She showed up a couple weeks ago. Darts about like a rabbit, and hides like one as well. Her clothes are worn. It's clear she's alone. I want to help her, but she runs away whenever we try to approach her. We haven't tried too hard cause we're worried that she will go somewhere else. Her survival instinct is strong for sure, but it's keeping her from getting the basics."
He looked sideways at his friend, wondering how quickly he would get it. "She doesn't go the cafeterias, doesn't sleep in the dormitories," he paused, "doesn't go to school." Matthew gave him an annoyed look at that last comment. It hadn't been just about the girl. Then the man slowed as understanding dawned. Yes, he got it. Matthew could be a bit dense at times, but he it wasn't because he lacked intelligence.
"She doesn't have a pass-card," he murmured, "but why, they are the easiest thing to get once you are registered. Unless…she's not registered. That's odd." Everyone was registered and assigned a number. G pulled his friend close.
"Mattie, I think she came from outside. I'm positive of it." Matthew started.
"That would mean she slipped by the refugee check-in. But how? Why?"
G had pondered the same questions. The check-in was locked tight. The whole Montagne, a civilization inside a mountain, was sealed tight. It was very difficult to get out. Not that many people tried – no one survived long on the Wastelands that surrounded it. Nonetheless, while that mystery was intriguing, it was not the point he was making or that important in the long run.
"Yeah, she slipped through. Rare, to be certain, but apparently not impossible. And, by the way, don't mention that to anyone else." Matthew nodded, serious. "The thing is, Mattie, that is no way to live. I can help her, but I've got to get close to her first."
"If you haven't gotten close to her, why does she remind you of Tara? Tara never acted like this."
"She almost ran into me one day, and I got a good look at her. She looks like Tara. Something in the face." It was true. The young woman must have only just arrived. She had never made that mistake again. He had been coming around a corner, and suddenly she'd been there springing back at his sudden appearance. For a moment their eyes had met, and then she had turned and darted away. He had seen enough for it to pull at his heart. The girl had been on his mind ever since. "And they must be about the same age. The age Tara would have been." He tacked the last on sadly.
"OK," Matthew said slowly, "but what do you want me to do?" He eyed his friend suspiciously. "You know what I won't do, right?" He looked ready to turn around again.
"I do. And it's not that," G asserted quickly, "She dances." Matthew stopped dead. His eyes went flat.
"I don't dance anymore."
"Don't be so melodramatic, twinkle toes." G let out, stopping as well and turning back towards his friend. His tone was exasperated. "It's not just that she dances. She dances like you used to dance. When you were young. After we first came here. You owe me, man."
It didn't hurt to rub that in a bit. Matthew had been a bit of an asshole, only coming to see G twice since he started slumming in the DownMountain four months ago. Those visits had been perfunctory at best.
Matthew eyed G, his expression unreadable, but he started walking again. G let him think in silence as they approached the Towers. Two buildings, stretching up to 10 stories, they dwarfed all the other buildings in the DownMountain. However, they had never been finished.
The bottom two stories, where G held his activities, were mostly complete. But from the third floor up the buildings were near skeletons. Some walls were in place, but openings gaped where windows should have been and the rooms visible through those gaps were bare concrete. Iron girders stuck out in some places and steel rods paraded the tops of walls like some kind of paltry defense. The Tower closer to the mountain wall, they had been built at the very edge of the DownMountain, had some rooms stacked up one atop the other with no way to get to them. A few I-beams perched precariously on half-built concrete walls spanned the distance in places.
It was an eyesore to say the least. The sign of overambition, some said, though G didn't know the details. No one liked to talk about it, just like they avoided talking about Katya's Locker, the decrepit nook where non-mutant humans tended to end up. So, G had taken advantage of the neglected building, and made it into something more. Maybe someday he would be able to do the same for Katya's Locker.
Matthew and G entered the Towers. Several kids ran past moving from an interior room to the courtyard which stretched out to the left. Matthew started in that direction, but G grabbed his arm and pulled him towards the stairs. When the tall man balked, G stopped to look back.
"G, I can't help you with this…whatever it is. So, I can dance. If this girl always runs away, she's not going to stick around to see me dance. And if she did, what are you expecting? That she'll be so impressed she'll start talking to me?"
G gave him a flat look. "My, we do have a fine opinion of ourselves, don't we?" Hauling Matthew by the arm again, he said, "Just come with me, ok? I won't force you to do anything but look," he acceded, "it's just that…well, you'll see."
They ascended the stairwell. This one was completely enclosed in concrete. The kids that came to G's hangout were forbidden to go above the second floor as the building had a habit of just stopping where you least expected it. Not that they always heeded that rule. G was wholly familiar with the structure and moved about confidently.
They climbed five stories, then exited left onto an exposed walkway. Halfway down, the walls began again, with doorways opening out from them at intervals. G took Matthew to the second doorway on the right.
The room they entered was fairly large and faced away from the main body of the DownMountain, towards the second tower. Two of G's friends were sitting in the room, both with a pair of binoculars, and one, a young man, was using his at the moment. Matthew quickly put together what was going on, and protesting loudly, tried to back out of the room.
"G, you say all that shit about me, and you're doing this? THIS is messed up. No, it's just wrong. Maybe if you leave the poor girl alone, and don't stalk her, she'll be more willing to talk to you. I'm leaving."
G grabbed a pair of binoculars from the young woman sitting there and shoved them into Matthews hands. "We're not always here, but today I needed to know if she left. Just look, ok? Then if you are still not on board, I'll let you go." He was so close. He pointed to a room a level down on the far tower. The buildings were separated by about 100 yards, with the courtyard stretching out on the ground in between.
Exasperated, Matthew put the binoculars to his eyes, but a moment later was pushing them back towards G. "There is a person there dancing. I looked. I'm going."
"Really look," G growled. Matthew glared at him. "You owe me." G repeated to him quietly. Matthew reluctantly put the binoculars back to his eyes, this time focusing in earnest on the room in question.
G watched his friend. The man had no idea what G had gone through to get him here. Finding a day when the girl was there – she disappeared roughly half the time – and he could track Matthew down had not been easy. He surreptitiously crossed his fingers and waited.
The annoyance in Matthew's posture slowly melted as he watched the distant figure perform. G was no expert – that was partly why he had thought to bring Matthew in, the man knew dancing – but he thought the girl was good. He did know that her dancing was compelling; once you started watching, it was hard to look away. As the minutes ticked by, G knew that Matthew had found the same thing.
Matthew slowly lowered the binoculars still looking at the far building. He almost made as if to bring them up again but caught himself and slowly turned to look at G, reluctant to take his eyes off the distant figure.
"She's good," Matthew said, surprised. He studied G, then shook his head as if in disbelief at what he was saying. "I'll try, G. I have no idea what I can do, but I will try."
G felt himself relax. While a part of his mind berated him for getting so caught up in this one girl, he couldn't shake the feeling that she needed them. He nodded in appreciation. "That's all I ask, man."
Matthew looked through the binoculars again, and asked, "Is she dancing to music?"
"Nope," Patches replied before G could do so.
Tray, sitting beside him, nodded. "All in her head," she added, a bit dubiously. Tray was skeptical about G's obsession with the girl, but found it entertaining.
Matthew studied them, then nodded his thanks. He handed the binoculars back to Tray and turned to G.
"I gotta get going, but I'll be back tomorrow." He rolled his eyes up in disbelief at what he was agreeing to do. "I'll see what I can do."
G walked with Matthew back down the stairs. At the bottom, they clasped hands. G held on tight and looked purposefully into his old friend's eyes. He had given up on this man, but now felt as if him might get him back. Purposely, he spoke.
"Go to the airlocks, man. Go to the airlocks."
G thought he detected a hint of exasperation in his friend's eyes, but if he felt it Matthew didn't say anything. He simply returned G's gaze and spoke softly before turning to go.
"Go to the airlocks."