Jack sat quietly in the driver's seat of a black cargo van. Next to him sat Johnny "Sol" Johnson, who silently stared through a pair of binoculars. Neither had spoken for more than two hours.
Jack hated performing surveillance missions, especially with Johnson. Both young men were rather quiet, but together, it was like a funeral. They hated each other. They couldn't stand the sound of each other's voice. But they had a job to do, and no petty problems could keep them from achieving their goals.
It had been thirty days since Jack decided to join Altman's little army, a group that he'd learned was called the Shadows. More than four weeks since he nearly left the mansion. Neither he nor anyone else spoke of the events of that morning ever again.
Jack was nearly asleep. He'd been awake for nearly forty hours, and had been sitting in this van for one-fifth of that time.
He began to think about the people back at the mansion. He thought about Warren, who was quickly becoming his best friend. He thought about Altman and Avery, who were becoming his mentors. He thought about Ray and Paula, the couple who he secretly envied.
His jealousy didn't stem from a secret crush on Paula, for there wasn't one. It didn't stem from the fact that Ray was held in such high regard by all of the students, teachers, and Shadow members at the mansion. It wasn't because he disliked the couple. It was because they had each other, and he had no one.
He thought of April momentarily, then the girl of whom she reminded him. He would have given the world to get close to either of these charming young women, but he just couldn't. He didn't want to hurt anyone, especially someone that close to him.
He thought about an incident years ago, when he was still a teenager. For no apparent reason, he just lost it, abandoning all reason and goodness. He was an animal that day, and couldn't explain why. He did things he didn't mean to do. He said things he didn't mean to say. He didn't want that to happen again.
"Come on," Sol said, waking Jack from his drowsy state. "He's here."
Jack lifted his head in time to see a black luxury car pulling into the parking garage of a nearby office building. The two young men climbed out of the van, dodging cars and trucks as they crossed the busy morning traffic. They ran to the garage, where they began following their target. They watched as he climbed out of the vehicle, and they quietly approached him as he made his way toward an elevator.
The man seemed vaguely aware that he was being stalked, but he saw no one. He quickly ducked into the elevator, and sighed in relief as the doors closed.
At the last possible moment, an arm shot into the elevator, causing a sensor to open the doors. In stepped two young men, both wearing identical black uniforms and long overcoats. One was slightly taller than the other, and his hair was a bit lighter. A scar ran down his left cheek.
The man cowered, exhibiting a bit of trepidation as the two youthful men stared him down. He wanted to run, but he was frozen in fear.
As soon as the elevator doors closed and the large metal box started to ascend into the building above, Jack reached for a red button, pressing it with two fingers. A bell rang, and the elevator jolted to a stop.
Johnny held up a hand. He formed a bright golf ball-sized orb of plasma, which he flicked at a glass panel in the upper corner of the elevator. The glass shattered as the orb exploded, and the security camera behind the glass was rendered non-functional.
Jack pulled out a pistol, pointing the muzzle against the flesh behind the man's left ear. He leaned in closely to the man, whispering, "Where is she?"
The man was shaking and almost hyperventilating, but somehow managed to ask, "Who?"
"Don't play games with us, Morgan," Johnny said through his teeth. "Tell us where she is. Now!"
Morgan's face was one of agony. "What makes you think I know where she is? Why would I know where the kidnappers are holding her?"
"Because we know what you're up to." Jack drove the gun a little further into Morgan's flesh. "It isn't too hard to figure out, really. You're running for Senate on a strong anti-mutant platform. Your daughter's a mutant. Now, when you hate a certain group, and your offspring is a member of that group, what's an unstable man like yourself do? He has her killed. But the public doesn't know she's a mutant, so it looks like you, a loving father, have lost a loving child. You commit murder, gain their sympathy, and get the votes."
"Where is she?" Johnny asked, barely waiting until Jack had finished speaking.
"You two are crazy!"
Sol pushed Jack out of the way, wrapping a hand around the short chubby man's neck. "So what if we are? You know, crazy people do crazy things. Know what sounds like a really crazy thing to do? I think it would be just crazy to kill you right here, right now. No, maybe we should kill your wife. Or your mistress. Or maybe, just maybe, we can arrange a meeting between them, and they can kill each other. Yeah, that'd be crazy!"
Morgan was now sure that these young men were out for blood. "Please, don't hurt me. Or my wife." He swallowed a lump forming in his throat. "Or Kelly."
"That's your whore's name?" asked Johnny. "Well, I don't really care what her name is! All I care about is finding your daughter before your plan goes any further!"
Jack pushed Johnny aside, whispering, "Sol, just calm down. Let me handle this." He turned to Morgan. "Now," he said, "you seem like a...reasonable man. Why don't you just tell us where she is, then we'll take her off your hands for you. No blood spilled."
"I'm not gonna tell you anything. That little freak deserves to die, just like the rest of you."
Johnny punched the portly politician in the gut. "The only ones who deserve to die are ignorant intolerant people like you!" he yelled. He examined the fear in Morgan's eyes. "But you deserve to be tortured before you die." He made a sphere of hot energy in his hand, and then lowered it to the man's crotch. "Tell us where she is, or you'll never be able to walk, run, or feel a warm summer's breeze ever again."
"Okay! I'll tell you!" Morgan was on the verge of wetting himself in horror. "She's at the old power plant about fifteen miles west of the city!"
Jack couldn't help but laugh. Morgan really thought that Johnny was going to make him a lesser man. Then again, Jack somewhat believed it, too.
"Thank you, Mister Morgan," Jack said smugly. "You've been very helpful." He removed a small phone from his pocket, pressed a button, and when someone on the other end answered, he said, "She's in an old power plant fifteen miles west of here."
Johnny released the fearful man, and pressed the elevator recall button. The steel box shuddered, then lowered back down to the garage. He looked at the pitiful excuse for a man, who was now on the floor of the elevator. He kicked him in the gut. "We should kill you, you inhuman piece of--"
Jack grabbed Johnny's arm, dragging him out of the elevator. He looked at a tall black man approaching the elevator. "Hey, Avery," he said smiling, "why didn't you just tail him and probe his mind? It would've been a lot easier."
"Because," Avery answered quietly, "He needed to be ruffled up a little." He knelt down beside the collapsed politician, and put a hand on his forehead. "Besides," he said, "I don't like probing people's minds. I do, however, like to alter memories." An invisible force ran out of Avery's hand and into Morgan's brain.
"In more recent news," the anchor on television said loudly, "Daniel Morgan has announced that he will be resigning from the senate race. The former candidate was found unconscious inside an elevator at his law firm, and after regaining his senses, he immediately declared his intentions of quitting politics. There is still no word of his daughter, who mysteriously vanished three weeks ago."
Jack pressed the power button on the television's remote. He smiled to himself. It had only been one day since he and Johnny had strong-armed the disgraceful man. "Avery's voodoo must've worked better than we all could've imagined."
"That's one less intolerant pig we'll have to worry about," Warren said. "And one new friend we've saved."
Suddenly, screaming erupted from down the hall. Jack felt it as an unfamiliar voice, and immediately realized that it must be that of Gina Morgan, the girl that was rescued from her father's evil clutches.
Jack and Warren left the rec room, running toward the source of the screaming. They found the girl sprawled out on the floor, wearing a white gown, like the one Jack had worn at the hospital so many weeks ago. Altman stood over her with a look of despair and discouragement on his face.
"Leave me alone! You're worse than him!" The girl was hysterical. "You're worse than him! You're all monsters! Killers! You're worse than him!"
Avery ran forward, and knelt beside Gina. He stuck her with a small needle.
Warren was afraid, and began nervously chanting the digits of Pi, something he did whenever stress overpowered his troubled, over-productive mind. "Three point one four one five nine two six five three five eight nine..."
"You're all evil! Evil! You're worse than him!" Gina's screaming grew quieter and slower as the tranquilizer slowly took effect. "You're...worse...worse than him."
Behind him, Jack could still hear Warren, who was now several digits into the numeral Pi. "Five zero two eight eight four one nine seven one..."
Elias sighed. "I'm afraid we can't help her," he said. "Her mind's gone."
That night, as Jack exited the shower, all his thoughts were on Gina's outburst. He knew she was probably just rambling on about nothing, unable to control her words, but something inside him said that she was truly trying to communicate. Trying to tell what she felt.
He knew that the girl was a psychic. She could read minds. "Did she find something that nobody else here knows about?" he asked himself silently. "Is Elias lying to us all?"
Jack quickly dismissed these questions. He once asked himself similar questions, but they were nonsense to him. Elias wasn't a liar, as Jack had once believed him to be. He was a mentor, a friend.
Jack's troubled mind slowly shut down for the night as he drifted off to sleep.
