"Can you chill, honey?"
Fabian looked honestly dumbfounded, his mouth hanging open. Katja's almost hysterical outburst, after being the quiet, meek girl by his side for so long, was visibly overloading his system. His beer bottle almost slipped out of his hand and shattered on the parking lot floor in front of the club, where this Saturday night had probably begun cheerful enough a couple of minutes ago. Until Katja had arrived, bold enough to actually confront Fabian with something.
The honor of a part-time Goth sorely hurt – which in a sober light was mainly based on poorly groomed, waist-length hair, the constant use of black kajal, and a pair of greasy leather pants though –, Katja's partner turned away from her, as if he needed a moment to deal with the accusation of cheating on Katja, and with his ex-girlfriend no less. But his tense shoulders and the way he held on to the half-empty bottle immediately let Katja know that he was just looking for an escape. He knew he had lost, and that was something he wasn't used to. Not with her, who, in her blind infatuation, had never doubted him even once all these months. Until now.
"Get real, will you?" When Fabian had regained his composure, he gave Katja one of those well-trained, innocent looks from his deep blue eyes, always the charmer. "Can we talk about this? We don't have to go to that party. It's lame as fuck anyway. Let's head for my place. I'll order us some pizza, and then ..."
It was easy to imagine what "and then" would have meant. Loud, not too melodic music from some German alternative group, a bit of making out, one or two joints for Fabian, a furtive drag or two in between on her part to forget the humiliation. Sex at some point, maybe, if Fabian could still get it up, and things would have been back to shiny. Katja had been there. She had fallen for it for weeks, as she realized with every passing minute.
"Don't bother. Keep your buck for that other chick. I've been stupid enough, believing you actually give a crap about me, long enough."
Even though dozens of people had gathered around the two of them, among them an intern from Katja's office of all people, if she recognized him right from the corner of her eye ... She couldn't help herself, or she would have exploded. On her way here, her hands had already been shaking in anger so badly that she had almost hit two traffic signs with her mother's car. After the initial shock, which, to her own embarrassment, had almost triggered an actually long-buried instinct and made her reach for the first knife available, to distract herself from this burning pain inside … By now, even the disappointment was limited. She should have known from the start that this guy, too, wouldn't put up with her for long. Hardly anyone did.
Letting it all out what had been building inside her since she had gotten that one message from a mutual friend this morning, hurt less. Katja tore the side pocket of her backpack open so roughly that the cute dolphin-shaped zipper tag was torn off, and held up her cell phone for Fabian, the display showing the photo that had been secretly taken of him and his ex-girlfriend, clearly showing an intimate kiss.
Silence. The only sound was thick raindrops starting to fall on both their jackets and a deep rumbling in the distance. A rare winter thunderstorm was coming that the weather report had not talked about in the morning. It fit the situation. Perfectly.
Fabian emptied his bottle in one go. The wheels in his head were visibly turning, but now he couldn't think of anything else to save his now slightly tarnished reputation in front of his friends, who were watching the argument in disconcertment. "If you're going to turn every molehill into a mountain, it's indeed better, we call this whole thing off. I don't need to answer to anyone for a little bit of making out. How many times have I told you, you're the only one I want? Is it the paranoia telling you otherwise? Good thing you never really joined the gang. You better keep your hands off weed if you can't handle your fill."
Katja felt her face lose color before it turned a bright red. Though, admittedly, she was to blame for that as well: This remark said far too loud one hundred percent intentionally, had made the conversation much more disastrous. So much for the promise of keeping Katja's forbidden little experiments with Fabian's favorite drug between the two of them. With so many people listening, and thanks to the ever-reliable village gossip, that had been it. Which meant, Katja's employers would also hear about the story. Goodbye to enjoying a secure job in an economy that had been crappy for years.
How much could one single person fool you?
"Just when I thought you couldn't go any lower."
Fabian laughed hard. "Welcome to real life. Go back to your horsies and the gym if you can't handle that."
This snide tone of voice, this complete lack of empathy suddenly, now that Fabian had realized that Katja had nothing left to give to him, was too much. Not even thinking about it, she lashed out to slap her now ex-boyfriend – it would be the first time in her life to hit anyone.
Fabian saw in time what she was about to do and quickly took two steps back. That saved his life.
Only a split second later, lightning struck the piece of grass that he'd just been standing on.
The thunderstorm disappeared as quickly as it had come.
Had Katja thought it had been quiet before?
A soft chattering. She needed a moment to realize it was her teeth.
When, after what felt like half an eternity, she finally managed to look away from the burned spot in the muddy ground and back at Fabian, she saw that he was trembling all over as well.
"Have you lost your mind?" Her ex-boyfriend had gone very pale; his voice was failing him.
Katja was just as taken aback, but fortunately, she had enough quick-wittedness left to understand what he was saying. "Don't fucking look at me like that! So now that's my fault too?"
"Stop shitting me!" Upset, Fabian raised his hands, as if about to her by the shoulders, but backed away even further instead, just as a precaution. "You saw that just like I did, so don't play dumb!" He eyed Katja just as shocked as his friends did, a silent accusation in his eyes.
Other people started to leave as well, whispering in agitation. Some were all but fleeing into the club. The unspoken words, the realization of what might have happened to Katja, what had just caused this dangerous situation, were in the air just as heavily as the rain.
"What I saw is that you were very damn lucky a second ago," Katja replied, feigning calmness. What else was she to do? She couldn't show this person of all people, who had hurt her so much, that she was on the verge of panicking?
This disgusting feeling trying to paralyze every rational thought wanted to rage inside her like an ice storm. Her breathing was frantic, her hands turning to tight fists in her pants pockets as if that could help prevent something like what had just happened to repeat itself. Yet she didn't even know what she had done, how she had done it ... She needed to get out of here immediately, needed to try to understand, to seek help ... As of yet, her mind still refused to accept what the others all seemed to believe anyway. This couldn't be ... Not her ...
"You almost lost your life. You keep that up, that's not all you'll lose." She turned abruptly.
"You tried to kill me." There they were, the words she had almost been waiting for, dreading them. "My God ... You ... you tried to kill me, Katja ..."
"Maybe you're the one who should stop using, Fabi. You're delirious." Katja walked toward her car with shaky steps. Any party mood was gone for good. "Don't embarrass yourself."
"You stay!" Now Fabian did briefly put a hand on her shoulder, but immediately let go again, as if he had burned himself.
"Don't. Ever. Touch me again." She spat out each syllable, slowly, to get it across that her ex-boyfriend would earn his slap after all if he didn't leave her alone. She didn't even recognize herself. Never had she been this hateful before ... But no one had ever cheated on her either. And she'd also never seen anyone control the weather with a single gesture. Maybe on TV.
Except that was exactly what had just happened. And it hadn't been just anyone.
"How the hell did you do that?" Fabian's warm, dark voice, to which Katja had loved to listen so much just a few days ago, started to tremble. The shock was really setting in now. Katja doubted this guy had ever been this sober since he'd been 13. "What did you just do?"
"None of your fucking business. You make me sick. I never want to see you again." With that, Katja left the party before it had even really started.
Ororo only realized where her steps were instinctively taking her after this disaster in her apartment, when the doors of Cerebro a few feet away abruptly opened for her, without her even making herself known. As so often, Charles knew better than she did when she could use a few words of encouragement.
"Well, that was a quick dinner." She must have interrupted him; when Ororo entered the spherical room, walking up the long ramp toward Charles' chair, the scattered lighting was immediately dimmed again. Her mentor was also still wearing the helmet that connected him to the powerful device, but for the moment, his thoughts were with her. With the inconspicuous attempt of mediation that he'd suggested himself. Stubborn conflicts, alas, could rarely be resolved over dinner.
"Was the soup too spicy?"
"The sound of our spoons was too loud."
In fact, it had been Ororo herself who had sent her two best friends out the door with a lame excuse at one point. The frustrated poking at plates would have bothered her even if she hadn't spent half of the evening in the kitchen, trying to pull off a somewhat decent molokhia from memory. Better to store the generous leftovers in the community kitchen's refrigerator. In a house full of adolescents, they wouldn't even last the night.
"Maybe Scott and Jean just don't like coriander." Charles' shallow banter sounded as resigned as Ororo felt.
It hurt to see a storm coming that even she couldn't control with her powers and no lightning rod in sight for miles.
"I just don't know what to do. I tried what I could."
"Then now the time for a retreat has come, I'm afraid. One can only lose on the front lines of a foreign war. We'll be facing enough other challenges."
Charles gestured her to stand still and resumed his mental link to Cerebro. Almost instantly, the abstract reddish silhouettes of thousands of other creatures began to buzz across the now almost completely darkened room like ghost lights, without any of them being in the spotlight. Apparently, Ororo's mentor had not been searching for anyone in particular in the past few days. It was more likely that after the troubling conversation with his former lover that he had had after that equally terrible hearing in the congress, he was stretching his antenna. Just in case.
"Recruiting again, Professor?"
These weren't exactly new efforts. The mutant world's climate had grown harsh in recent years, and the team's current constellation was limited to the most necessary basis. Even with the certainty that in case of emergency, they could have called more than one ally to help anytime, whether it was Hank or Emma, who could have been at their doorstep with half a battalion of well-trained fighters within an hour ... Especially now that things were not always smooth between two members of Ororo's group, additional permanent personnel would not have been a bad thing.
Unfortunately, not even Charles could find those on every corner. "Right now I'm just browsing."
Well, that would have been too good to be true. Waiting for a competent soldier to fall into their laps anytime soon was as much a waste of time as addressing politicians who had long forgotten how to listen. "Maybe we better focus on training the youngsters we already have."
"Not every new hope takes the shape of a child, Ororo." Charles didn't lose his focus on the images of the many souls around them even for a second, but Ororo could hear him smiling.
"Don't you always say, late mutants are extremely rare?"
"Which makes it a lot easier ..." Charles leaned forward a bit. His hand closed tighter around one of the armrests of his chair as something seemed to mentally catch his eye. The silhouette of a woman lying on her side lit up a little brighter than the others, was magnified as that same mental eye focused on her. A restless twitch of nightmares flashed through the small but fully grown figure. "... tracking them down."
Ororo willingly closed her eyes as she felt an unobtrusive touch in her own mind, opening up to the echo of what her mentor could hear at that moment, to give his newest target a first look herself. However, she couldn't understand the choppy words of a bright voice, in a foreign language with harsh consonants.
The term "mutant", repeated several times, Charles and she could both clearly hear though.
Charles nodded in satisfaction.
Ororo blinked, startled when in the woman's jumbled dream images, she could see lightning crack the sky for a moment. Definitely not part of the much clearer weather all around, as if it were Ororo's own powers reflected there in this stranger's mind. "Who is that, Charles?"
"We'll find out, I think." Charles discreetly withdrew both from her and the sleeping woman's mind, removing his helmet with a deep breath. "Keep your eye on the sky, Ororo."
You tried to kill me.
Bathed in sweat, Katja sat up, so jerkily that her cat, sleeping next to her, jumped up in fright and hissed in protest. The dream. Again she had dreamed about it. She was feeling cold, although her room was rather overheated, and had a stale taste in her mouth. Fear. Still, she was afraid.
What had happened that night outside the club? Did she even want to know?
According to what Katja had heard, most of the bystanders who had been there in that parking lot were of the opinion by now that the whole thing had been an accident after all. There had been no incidents since, no reason to believe otherwise.
Even Fabian had stopped denouncing Katja both in various online portals and with mutual acquaintances since a couple of people had given him a piece of mind. Though Katja had indeed never really warmed up to these people, as she had a hard time letting others get close to her since she'd been in school: As expected, more than one member of Fabian's gang had been anything but thrilled about what her ex-partner had done to her.
Still, Katja couldn't forget it any more than he could, as was obvious from a tireless bombardment of e-mails demanding answers. Not that it even occurred to her to reply.
Still shivering, she got up, and took Morpheus in her arms, who had got comfortable on her lap after the brief protest, hoping for cuddles. Standing at the window, she leaned heavily against the broad sill, trying to regain her serenity ... in vain. The sight of the weather did not exactly lift her spirits. It had been raining almost continuously for days. Since Katja had come back from that fight to be exact, completely distraught and scared, so shaken that she had been on sick leave since then. On Monday, she would have to go back to work, though she already knew, thanks to a certain registered letter in her mailbox, that her days in that company were numbered, just as feared. But instant dismissal on top of that would have been catastrophic for her finances; moneywise, the last few years had been hard on her mother and her. Actually, Katja should long have been looking for a new job anyway, instead of hiding in bed.
Why couldn't she believe it herself that the whole thing had just been a stupid coincidence? Why was she worrying so much?
She wearily leaned her forehead against the glass. Because she knew better. Because she had been there. She had raised her hand and aimed a bolt of lightning at Fabian. Somehow. What if she ...?
No. Definitely not. Mutations almost always occurred at puberty. Or were there from birth. Katja was almost 21 and had never shown any signs. That was completely impossible. Besides – as far as people knew –, there were only a few tens of thousands of mutants existing worldwide. Why should she of all people be one of them? It was ridiculous ...
After standing there helplessly for several minutes, all tiredness gone, she sat down at her desk with a sigh and turned on her computer. It couldn't hurt to get a little information, could it? Just in case.
The website took half an eternity to load. What the hell was Katja doing? Probably such a site didn't even exist, or it was just about how to best protect yourself from mutants ... Since science had encountered this new species of humans back then, the world had been living in fear. Nobody felt safe anymore.
Up to now, Katja had hardly concerned herself with the topic anyway, if she was being honest. There had only been a few public cases in Germany. The rare media coverage was usually very sober and impartial. You just didn't think about certain unpleasant things in everyday life.
Until you were suddenly part of them yourself.
Finally, the images in her internet browser changed. Even a first quick glance let Katja know that the website in question listed only a few basic pieces of information, all of which she was already familiar with. Useless.
With her cursor already hovering over the x-button in the upper right corner, she spotted a phone number at the very bottom of the page.
Well, that was weird. Owning a non-commercial homepage, you didn't actually list such important information on the internet if you didn't want a bunch of idiots trying to reach you. Proper legal information that more and more site owners voluntarily decided to publish recently, usually also looked different. Behind this plain sequence of numbers in a very small font, here it just said a single word.
Help
Maybe ... If you were only to ask, casually ... That still didn't mean anything. Nothing was proven yet. Katja was just being curious, right?
Two seconds later, she had her cell phone in her hand. It was ringing. Once. Twice.
Then a young girl's friendly voice spoke up in English. "Hello, how can I help you?"
At first, Katja wanted to hang up, the moment she was done stuttering her name. She was already about to.
But then, right before her eyes, she saw how Fabian had looked when that lightning had struck. Bewilderment, shock ... The reflection of her own feelings.
You tried to kill me, Katja.
She swallowed hard and closed her eyes, unwilling to have to watch herself on the monitor as she spoke the words she shied away from for the first time. "I think I might be a mutant. I'm scared."
"Hang on, I'll put you through." There was a brief crack on the line – then the girl hung up on her.
Of course. Had Katja really expected a mutant to pick up that phone and take care of her? She must have lost it for a moment. She didn't even have circumstantial evidence, yet here she was, calling a total stranger in the States. This was nuts! She decided to go back to sleep after all. She would need her strength soon, to catch up with everything that had been left on her desk in her absence.
The ringing of her cell phone had her startle. Though she had no way of knowing that at that moment, the sound of that stupid, squawking ringtone – that one famous anthem of the Star Wars-movie series – would change her life forever.
Not only because the display showed a suppressed number, Katja pressed the button to answer only hesitantly. "Yes?"
"Hey, Katja, this is Jubilee. You just called because you're in trouble, right?" The voice mispronounced her name so terribly that there was no doubt, that Katja was talking to an American.
How was that possible though? When she called someone, her own number didn't show up on the receiver's display either. Whoever this young woman was working for, they were doing a good job. Shouldn't she better be hanging up right away? Forget all of this? Or enter a game when she had no clue how it might end?
"Katja? You still there?"
"I'm here." She took a deep breath, applied canter aid to herself, and took the obstacle. "Strange things are happening to me. I don't know what to do."
"Okay, listen attention. I'm about to give you an address where you're welcome anytime. If you're a fake, don't even try though. A lot of people did that. We've had everything from the drunk village sheriff to those FBI guys with the hot suits. They all fucked off without even pressing charges. There's nothing illegal about offering a counseling service. Don't waste your time. And since my computer is just telling me, you're from Germany: Don't waste a lot of money either. But if you're serious, pack your bags and get on the next plane to New York. As a mutant, you can become a danger to yourself and others if you don't have anyone to support you. This is where you'll find us ..."
Katja mechanically wrote down the details in a blank document of her editing program without giving it much thought. Just to be on the safe side. This thing would surely soon turn out to be a mistake. But if it didn't ... Then it was good to have some joker up her sleeve.
Westchester, not far from New York. In fact, on the other side of the world, far from that cozy village in the mountains where Katja's roots were. Yet another reason not to even consider that there might be something to all this bullshit.
"Thank you."
"You coming?" Jubilee didn't just give up. What kind of name was that anyway, Jubilee? This whole institution didn't seem particularly serious. This wasn't high school, where everyone was on a first-name basis. Then again, judging by her way of talking, that girl was certainly still a rookie herself. What kind of advice did Katja expect?
"I ... I don't know. I don't know anything right now."
Jubilee sounded concerned, and so sympathetic that Katja immediately felt sorry for her unkind thoughts. "Listen to me. You wouldn't have called if nothing had happened. Something far worse can happen. Remember that."
"I'll think about it." Katja hung up before the girl could keep on trying, instilling doubts in her that she had been trying almost violently to suppress for days.
The cell phone did not ring again, fortunately.
Even more confused than before, Katja shuffled back to the bed. She needed to finally get some rest. Tomorrow was early enough to ponder over what strange thing she had just stumbled into …
Sharp pain on the sole of her foot had her cry out softly. What the ...? She knelt down, feeling around on the dark carpet. An earring ...
She should have known, she was never wearing earrings herself. But instead of just throwing the thing into the trash can, she turned on the light, of course, and looked at it more closely. It belonged to Fabian.
A free instant ride into the past was the reward for her curiosity. Everything came at her ruthlessly from behind, the deep feelings, many wonderful weeks together ... How Fabian and she had searched a flea market for engagement rings with the proper medieval touch ... The first serious nights of passion with a man ever ... And then this disgusting photo that had been etched inerasably into Katja's memory.
How Fabian had still tried to talk his way out of it ... She hadn't even been worth that much honesty to him.
Katja threw the earring against the wall with a loud sob.
Deafeningly loud thunder woke half the village. The digital display of Katja's DVD player went out, as did the lights. Power failure. Lightning had knocked out the power in the whole house.