I walked up to them and tapped my foot at the man with a scowl on my face. I must admit, I am a convincing actor when I need to be, because this man was not the first to buy my act. "Um, ma'am, uh, this kid stole from me," he had calmed down a little after seeing me, what he imagined to be a reasonable and responsible adult who would fix what my young charge had done wrong. He probably thought I was tapping my foot at Ade.
I relaxed marginally since no self-respecting employee of the Institute would call one of their experiments anything close to ma'am. I hated to burst the guy's bubble and send him packing without whatever justice he felt he was owed, but hey, life's not fair.
I put on my angry face and directed it at him, "So? What gives you the right to drag my son around? You could be a rapist or a pedophile! Do you realize that could be considered kidnapping?"
The guy was starting to sweat, clearly not expecting to be chewed out when he was the 'victim'. Ade caught on to what I was doing, and promptly started to cry, subtly looking innocent and scared.
The guy looked back and forth between Ade and me, starting to feel the odds turn against him. That's right bubby,I thought to myself, you're not going to win this one.
A few people, like the little old lady feeding pigeons and the teenage couple previously smooching beside the roses, began to watch. The guy realized they were watching, and let Ade go. Ade ran over to me, and like the drama king he was, hid behind me and clutched my leg, putting on the best wounded puppy eyes he had.
"Oh, uh, Jeez, I didn't mean it like-"
I interrupted him, raising my voice gradually, and emphasizing certain words to the benefit of my listeners, "Like what! Like HAULING a little kid, who IS NOT YOURS around the park, AGAINST HIS WILL?"
The guy's eyes widened the louder I got, and his level of nervousness rose too. I felt a little bad for it, but it was a means of survival, so I had to follow through. Otherwise, he would call the cops on us, and the Institute would find us.
He tensely pleaded with me in a hushed voice to stop, his eyes on those watching us. I made to look for my cell phone, and then grimaced. "Do you have a phone?"
My question startled him, and he turned to face me, "Yeah, why?" I sighed impatiently, making my face a little angrier, and coolly replied, "I must have left mine at home, give me yours so I can call the cops and my lawyer."
His expression was priceless, and I had to suppress the urge to laugh. "Please, please, don't call the cops, I didn't mean anything like that! I just," he took a step towards me, trying to explain himself, and Ade let out a panicked sound. He squeezed my leg as hard as he could while trying to get away. It made for a pathetically sad little scene, and now the audience was against the guy, a couple of them even stated whispering.
The guy froze, well aware of how it must look, "Please, don't call the cops, I swear I wasn't trying to hurt the kid!" I let my face calm down, and threw in a little contemplation, as if I might be considering him. I then looked away from him, letting him sweat it out for awhile.
"Fine, I won't call the cops," the guy visibly relaxed, "but I want your information for my lawyer." He snapped back to tense, and he cupped his hands, flat out begging me, "What do I have to do?"
"Listen, you traumatized my kid, so youowe me," I glared at him sternly, making him squirm. He dug his wallet out of his pocket, retrieving a hundred dollar bill from it. "Here, take your kid somewhere nice and I'm sure he'll be back to normal. I swear I didn't do anything to him!"
I looked at the money for a second, and then turned my glare back onto him, intensifying it two times, "Are you bribing me?"
The poor guy was about to wet himself, but thankfully, I was almost done with him. "N-n-no, n-no," he shook his head and stuttered. I let myself deflate, and turned my softened eyes away, "Listen, if you didn't, then you didn't. Keep your money, but don't ever touch my son again, he has it rough enough as it is."
I turned to leave, Ade separated from my leg, and his hand in mine. The guy grabbed my arm as he called out for me to wait.
"Take it anyway, it's the least I could do." His sympathy was genuine, and I felt the prick of guilt again. I accepted it with a hint of begrudging trust, and undertones of forgiveness and thankfulness. I gave him a tentative nod, and half-heartedly returned his smile.
Then Ade and I were off scot-free and an extra hundred dollars richer.
Once we were a safe distance away, we ducked down in a condemned building. We sat on the debris strewn concrete floor and ate our now lukewarm hot dogs. As we ate the last few, I turned to face Ade, "What did you steal from him?"
Ade shrugged, still munching away on his hot dog, "I – hack – mhaybwe," he paused to swallow, "took his," he bit off another chunk, "frwrenchw frw –hack – ies."
I raised my eyebrow incredulously, "You took his french fries?" He nodded, and we burst out laughing.
But then I sobered up, bad news to deliver and all, "I didn't get the file yesterday."
"We'll try to get in one last time today. They won't suspect us to try it again so soon, and this time, we'll walk right in their front door like a regular New Yorker would," I paused a minute, letting him think it over.
"I was chased off before I could get it," I noticed he had questions, and hoped to avoid telling him about the erasers, "but I know where it is, so we'll have to use our powers in tandem to walk in and out of that place."
Before I go on, yes, we both have powers. And fortunately for us, they work well together. I won't spell it out for you just yet, so you'll have to figure it out on your own.
He asked a few questions about the details, and I did my best to make them up just like the rest of my plan. I realized the danger to both of us, but what other choice did we have? It was now or never if we wanted to find the other six.
I looked at my watch, or rather, some poor salesman's watch that I 'borrowed'. It was a little after eleven, so Ade and I went out to the nearest water fountain for water, and the nearest pavilion to eat whatever non-moldy scraps we could find. We struck out when we found two half-eaten sandwiches and a bag of chips some picnickers didn't bother to throw away. Ade and I ate quickly ate the generous find and sifted through the rest of the wrappers.
Filled just enough to put off hunger, Ade and I went into the dense area of trees, ready to take off. The sun was out, and it light up the highlights in my hair and wings.
I loved it when that happened; it was like sparkly gold. Ade's wings were more silvery, but they light up, too. I inhaled the sweet scent of the firs around us, and then took off at a run. I pushed off first, and Ade was right behind me. The feeling of flying is…indescribable to say the least.
We flew straight towards the building but veered off before we could be in the sight of any potential erasers. We landed on some roof overhanging a secluded and vacant alleyway. We repelled down the wall using the fire escape and our wings as quickly and carefully as we could. Once we safely on the ground, we pulled in our wings tightly against our backs. We ducked behind a dumpster before we could emerge in people's view to fix our 'disguises'.
When I say 'disguises', I mean I use my power to change the light waves refracted off our hair, eyes, and/or clothes. In this case, I was making his hair red, my eyes brown, and our clothes darker, lighter, and cleaner looking than they really were. I have to in physical contact with Ade to maintain his 'disguise' and trust me; it takes a lot to maintain these 'disguises'.
I mean think about it, I have to focus on all the surfaces I'm messing with and align the wave lengths of each color I'm making. It's a lot to do! But at least I can hold it longer now without it slipping like when I first got the power.
When we emerged, I was a blonde haired, brown-eyed mother wearing a navy-blue trench coat and tan pants. 'My son' came out with red hair, green-blue eyes, a baby blue jacket, and medium blue jeans.
We walked briskly to the building, and quickly entered on the tails of some other visitors, keeping our heads down and turned from the security cameras. We made it in and on the elevator, going up as high as the public could go. From there, we took the stairs, the other pair of stairs that were supposed to be a secret, but I knew about them from my surveillance yesterday.
Ironically there were fewer security cameras the higher up you went. I guess the big bad Institute didn't want some of their more illegal activates to be recorded.
From there, we entered the forty-second floor, after what felt like forever. We slunk carefully down the corridor and paused every now and then to listen. There was a little unintelligible speech coming from somewhere in our hallway, but we weren't sure where.
Finally, we made it to the one I was looking for. And I know because I mapped its location in my mind and was carefully pacing out our progress. I tugged on the door, silently praying it wasn't locked and –
It wasn't. I guess they felt so secure that no one would be able to get this far. The lack of security cameras was made up for by patrolling Erasers. We walked right in, and I had Ade stand guard while I searched for the file or files.
Fortunately, these people were very organized, and I was on the right track for finding what I wanted. Unfortunately, the voices, three distinctive ones, had left their room down the hall, and were coming our way. They might not want to come in this particular room, but I nodded to Ade to be on the safe side, and he began to use his power.
Now the average human doesn't have as good a hearing as we do, but still, if there was even a slight possibility they could hear me riffling around in here, then I wanted Ade to make sure they didn't.
Ade messes with vibrations, like how I mess with light wavelengths. So he created a zone around our room that stopped the vibrations, or in other words sound, from making it out where the people would be passing.
But of course, they wanted in this particular room out of all the freaking doors in this particular hallway. So as one of them turns the doorknob, Ade and I disappeared into the room, ready to take the first way out. Meanwhile, I can't quite shake the familiarity of one of the voices….
And of course, in walks the nicely dressed guy I threatened this morning. What a day!
