The next day Alanna was waiting in the principal's office with Emma, looking at the floor nervously as the brown-haired man talked to Emma who was posing as her older sister.
"Ok, we're all set Ms. Jones." The man said, shuffling his papers. Alanna shook his hand when he offered it, and then walked out with Emma and down to her room that was conveniently directly above Matt's. After they had lugged a few suitcases up for appearances sake, only one of which contained her laptop and a few changes of clothes, Emma and Alanna went out to eat.
At the restaurant Alanna picked at her food because of her nerves. "You're only going to be there for tomorrow. You're going to do fine." Emma said, reassuring her. "I know." Alanna responded, looking at her food for a moment more and then started to eat. After they ate, Emma and Alanna went back to her room and said their goodbyes. After Emma left Alanna sat on the bed a moment, just staring at her comlink. She got up when it was close to the time of dinner and changed into the maroon and black school uniform, and then walked down to the floor below pretending to be lost.
After waiting awhile a huge dark-haired teenager waded through the crowd, and Alanna bumped into him and fell down. "Oh, I'm sorry. You ok?" Matt apologized, giving her a hand up. She looked up at him, definitely thinking he was good looking with his dark brown hair and glacier blue eyes. "I'm not hurt, but I could use some help finding the cafeteria." Alanna said; taking his hand and pulling herself back on her feet. Matt smiled, "I'll help. One sec though, I have to put my books up." He said as he turned around at unlocked a door and stepped into the room and came out a moment later without his book bag. "First day?" He asked as he led her to through the maze of halls.
Alanna smiled, at him a moment and looked around. "Yeah. This place is huge. It's going to take me a week to find my classes." He laughed, "What classes are you in?" Alanna told him; inwardly relieved that everything was going smoothly as she told him the exact classes he was in. His handsome face lit up, and he dropped back to walk beside her. "We've got classes together. If you want I can walk with you to the classes tomorrow so you don't get lost." Alanna smiled again, empathically radiating friendliness to him the whole time. "That would be wonderful! Thanks." She responded as they walked into the dining hall. She grabbed a tray and got in line behind Matt, skipping the salad and guiltily grabbing a piece of fruit. She started to walk over to an empty table when she had finished her tray. "Hey, why don't you sit with me and my friends?" Matt invited; so Alanna went over to a table with a few other teenagers sitting at it and sat in an unoccupied chair. "This is...?" Matt looked over at Alanna, questioningly. "Alanna Jones." She replied and got a mumbled welcome from the half that didn't have their mouths full. "I'm Matt Collins by the way." He said as he sat in a chair and put his heaped tray on the table. He easily made the chair look like it belonged in a kindergarten class as he started to eat the mountain of food on his plate. Alanna ate quietly, and none of the other kids spoke to her during the meal. That was fine with her; several of them didn't like her from the readings she got when she scanned them.
Following the meal she and Matt walked back to their dorm and she went to her room, shutting and locking the door behind her. She turned on her laptop and reported in to Adam and the team, thinking it was odd to be the one reporting in instead of listening to Shal, Bren, Jesse or Emma back at Sanctuary. "Good job. We'll be there to pick you up as planned." Adam said, severing the connection a moment later. Alanna sighed, pulling up that project again. She had been searching for two months now for her birth certificate, but no luck. She hadn't wanted to ask Jesse because he already had a full plate, but now she was almost ready to give up on it.
Hours later she left the laptop and went to bed, keeping an ear open for sounds of fighting in the room below hers in case agents showed up. Suddenly she woke up, startled awake by a noise. She listened carefully, hearing a window slide open in the room below, so she quickly pulled on the black clothes she had packed for just incase something like this happened. She quietly opened her own window, taking a deep breath of the freezing night air and looking down. A dark figure was sliding out of the window to Matt's room, so she waited until the shadow was several yards away and jumped out of her window. She landed with a soft thud on the ground, and was immediately slammed into the brick wall of the building as soon as she stood up, her head cracking against the wall. A pair of glowing green eyes with slits for pupils flashed right in front of her. Her eyes automatically flashed back, and the figure pulled back. "Alanna?" Matt's voice came out of the darkness, but she fell to the ground, feeling like she had been run over by a semi before she blacked out.
Alanna opened her eyes with a snap; jerking awake and trying to sit up, but someone put pressure on her shoulders, making her lie on her back. A face outline hovered over her, and she recognized it as Matt's. "Stay down a minute." He said, stepping back and taking the pressure off. Alanna did as she was told, and experimentally tested her limbs, checking for broken bones or sprains. Finding none she slowly sat up, looking around. "Where am I?" She asked, looking at the large looming figure sitting next to her in the dark. "In my room. You're a feral too?" He asked, the figure leaning forward and she could feel excitement coming off of him in tsunami waves. Alanna sighed, her bruised back protesting as she did so.
"Yes I'm a feral. I'm a feline feral." She put her hand to her head, feeling the nice sized lump on the back of it from hitting the wall. "I've never met another feral before." Matt said softly. "Well, I'm sorry I can't say it's exactly been a pleasure meeting you." Alanna replied as the resulting headache started in her temples. She felt the guilt from Matt a fraction of a second after her statement. "Sorry. I just didn't know who you were. I've had these FBI looking guys come after me before." Alanna put her head in her hands and her elbows on her knees. "They weren't FBI, they were GSA, from Genomex." She explained. A few minutes passed in which neither of them spoke.
"Are you one of these GSA people?" He asked. Alanna immediately knew how Brennan must have felt when she asked him the same question months ago. "No, I'm from Mutant X." She immediately felt the shock from Matt, "That's a urban legend." Alanna shook her head. "It's real." A few more minutes passed. "So why are you here?" Matt's voice asked. Alanna thought a moment, not seeing a reason not to tell him so she did. "You are now one of the GSA's primary targets. So tomorrow night the rest of the team is coming to take you to a safe house." He nodded, "Well if they aren't coming tonight we had better get some sleep." Alanna nodded back, getting up from the bed with a little moan as some of the bruises protested and opened the window and lowered herself out.
Matt stuck his head out, "What are you doing?" Alanna didn't answer, she just crouched for a moment, and then launched herself at her window. She crawled in and stuck her head out, "Goodnight." She said shortly before she shut her window and retreated into her very chilly room. "Great, just great." She muttered vehemently, changing back into pajamas and sliding into her cold bed.
The next morning she woke up with a groan. Her lungs ached horribly, and she had a roaring headache. She was just glad her face and hands weren't bruised as she dressed, someone might have noticed and blown her cover. Someone knocked on her door, and she grabbed her book bag and opened her door to a very apologetic looking Matt. "I'm" He started, but Alanna cut him off. "Don't be, I should have been more watchful." She stated firmly, shutting her door and locking it behind her. "Lets get some breakfast." She sighed as she turned around.
Following breakfast they went to their classes, and Alanna just hovered in the background. In gym she played the meek little teen girl, even though she desperately wanted a workout, and almost blew up at the gym teacher for telling her she needed to get more exercise. When they went to lunch, she was in a bad mood and furiously dissected her meatloaf, not eating a bit of it. After the rest of her classes and a dinner that she picked at, she went straight to her room.
She hailed Adam on her comlink after she had changed back into her black clothes, and after a few seconds his voice came back over her comlink. She responded as she packed her laptop, shutting it down. Adam didn't respond for a few minutes. Alanna slipped her laptop into her book bag, and set it on the empty dresser by her door. She waited fifteen minutes, and then grabbed her coat and the book bag, walking down to Matt's room. Just as she was about to knock he opened the door and stepped out. They walked out of the dorm, leaving a note for the dorm supervisor that they were going to a pizza place downtown to study.
They took the bus for the fifteen-minute ride, and walked to the old warehouse Adam had chosen for their pickup location. After a few minutes out in the cold wind they decided to go inside and wait out the last few minutes before the Helix landed. They were talking with their backs to the door when they heard it open and five people enter. Alanna broke off their conversation, turned around and found herself looking at five agents all armed with guns. One raised his arm and fired, hitting Matt in the arm with a tranquillizer dart. Alanna dived to the side as another agent raised her arm and fired at her, the dart missed and she ran up beside her before she could fire again, kicking the gun out of her hand before kicking the side of her head hard.
Matt got up with a roar, running at the agent that had hit him, and slammed him onto the concrete floor with a crunch while Alanna leapt onto the next agent, kicking her legs out from under her and hitting her with a psi-blast, knocking her out. She instantly came up in a crouch, facing Matt and his next target as he slung him against the wall. They both turned to the remaining agent as he fired at Alanna, who ducked, and then at Matt, hitting him. The agent dropped his gun as they heard the sound of the Helix's engines.
Matt stood there for a moment, weaving, before he fell from the tranquilizers. Alanna caught him just before his head hit the concrete, flashing her eyes at the remaining agent. The agent grinned at her, raising his hands straight out towards her. Alanna saw what was going to happen a moment too late as flames shot out of his hands, curving around her. Alanna panicked as the flames rose, crouching and staring at the agent as he cut off the flames from one hand and grabbed the gun again. This time when he fired he hit her, and she groggily fell to the floor as the first agent she had attacked got up. The flame wall dropped and she saw the man and woman come over to her, she felt herself being lifted as she tried to clear her head enough to send a psi-bolt at one of them, but the drugs won the fight and she slipped into oblivion.
As the Helix landed Emma scanned the warehouse, feeling fear and rage radiating from Alanna's presence below her, it faded after a fraction of a second, and then disappeared. "Something's wrong." She told the others as they got out and ran down the stairs leading into the warehouse, only to find one large teen feral out cold on the floor. Shalimar picked up her book bag, looking out the open door. "Eckhart has her."