A/N: to Simply Myself, no these are not Gary and Marina's children. This story is independent from my previous works. There is another Gary/Marina story in progress though. Thanks for the review! :-)

Chapter One

  For as long as he could remember, Paul McKinstry had been fascinated by mutants. As a young boy he'd always wanted to know what it was that made them different from other people. He'd always wanted to understand why so many people feared and hated them. He'd have given anything to have met one. One boy at his school had disappeared, his family moving away quite suddenly, and rumours abounded that he had been one. As he entered his teenage years, Paul had harboured fantasies that he himself might be a mutant. He'd heard that most mutations didn't manifest themselves until puberty, and it wasn't until he was nearly eighteen that he'd finally accepted he was just an ordinary person. When he finished school, winning prizes for biology and chemistry, his fascination with mutants was still as strong as it had ever been, and it was no surprise to any of his family or friends when he applied for and was accepted into a mutant genetics course at University. Most people found his obsession a little strange, and many suspected that he was in fact a mutant, but Paul was not concerned. He didn't subscribe to the popular view that mutants were an abomination. If this was the way Nature wanted humans to advance, then who were we to stand in evolution's way?

 Amazing his lecturers and tutors with his grasp of the subject and his incredible thirst for more knowledge, Paul was now in the final year of his degree course. Part of his degree involved a major research project in the final year, and he had opted to study exactly why it was that mutations rarely showed themselves until the teenage years. He was already pushing back the boundaries of contemporary science, going far beyond anything even his supervisors had ever seen before. Ironically, perhaps, for somebody who was so interested in mutants, he had yet to encounter one face to face. He'd worked in the laboratory with tissue samples from dead or captured mutants, but that was incomparable to actually meeting one. Sometimes he felt like an archaeologist or palaeontologist, working with what he had to find out what he could about beings he had never seen.

 Determined to actually come into contact with a real mutant, Paul McKinstry had begun scanning every newspaper report he could find with any mention of them. He'd built a small radio receiver to intercept police transmissions. He'd gone to the locations of recent mutant sightings, hoping to find some clues that might enable him to meet one. He guessed there were probably some mutants being held in prisons or in police custody, but they would be under heavy guard and he couldn't expect to be allowed to see them without a good reason. Frustrated, and with his final exams just around the corner, Paul had abandoned his search, at least temporarily. In theory, the exams should have been relatively easy, since he knew more about the topic than the people setting the exams did. But his course irritated him. There were certain theories and assumptions taught that he was sure were incorrect. Unfortunately, without having a real life mutant to test on, there was no way he could prove any of it. He had been using previous exam papers for practice, and the one from three years ago now sat in front of him.

 With reference to Rosiçky's Theorem, explain in detail why only human males carry and propagate the mutant gene, he read. Paul groaned with exasperation. Rosiçky's Theorem was wrong! It made too many assumptions! If ever used in practice, it would cause damage to the brain! He'd explained this a dozen times to his supervisor, but without any real experimental data he couldn't publish his own theory. He sighed. That was the problem with being young. Nobody listened to you. With a wry smile, he could imagine in twenty or thirty years, young men and women sitting down in front of their exam papers and moaning about McKinstry's Theorem. He had already decided that his future lay in research. He wasn't interested in working from a commercial point of view. Money didn't interest him, besides having enough to live on. His obsession with mutants and their secretive powers was what drove him.

 His mind was beginning to wander, and he couldn't keep his concentration on the exam paper. A thought had just occurred to him. If a mutant child were abandoned by its parents – which happened in most cases – then it would end up in an orphanage, wouldn't it? Maybe he should try and find where the nearest one was. Maybe he could gain access to a mutant that way. Maybe he could even adopt one, once he had graduated and started earning. Paul yawned and glanced at the clock. It was nearly 1am. His stomach rumbled. I'm hungry, he decided, and stood up to walk through from his room to the kitchen. Opening the fridge, he flicked on the TV, hoping to catch the news headlines. It seemed he'd just missed them; the program was now on to regional news. He listened idly to what the newsreader was saying:

 "…police are continuing their search. The origin and motive of the mutants remain uncertain…"

Paul's attention was grabbed by the mention of the word 'mutant'. He looked up from the sandwich he was making, and focussed fully on the news.

 "…let's go now to an earlier report from our correspondent at the scene."

The camera switched to a man wearing a fleece and scarf to protect himself from the fierce winds that played havoc with his greying hair. Paul recognised where he was standing; it was that big open space down by the sports fields, not far from the university's main campus. The reporter spoke into a hand-held microphone, "Yes, I'm standing on just about the exact spot where a crowd of witnesses this morning claim to have seen a young girl vanish into thin air."

Paul raised his eyebrows. An invisible mutant?

 "It seems clear that mutation is the only explanation for this anomaly, which cannot simply be dismissed as a trick of the imagination. Over a hundred people claimed to have witnessed the phenomenon. Unsurprisingly, fear and tension have grown among the locals. The thought of an invisible mutant on the loose is a terrifying prospect. Police continue to try and track the suspected mutant, but so far without success…"

Paul didn't wait to watch the interviews with random bystanders. He switched off the TV, grabbed his sandwich, and went out to the hallway to get his coat. This was a chance too good to miss. If he could actually come into contact with a real life mutant, it would – well, it would be a dream come true for him. The police hadn't found any traces, but Paul reckoned he knew as much about mutants as just about anyone alive. If anyone could track one down, it was him. Maybe if found the mutant, he could even start to prove some of his theories were correct. He closed and locked the front door behind him, heading out into the darkness of the night. If anyone could hunt down a mutant, it was him.