One thing Caim had become used to during his trips around the eastern part of the country's alleyways and back streets were the gang signs and helpful tags. There were certain symbols that would alert a street person to the amount of police activity or to where there was a dry place to sleep. Caim kept alert for a few, typically the ones telling about the police, but he mostly kept tabs on the ones that mutants would put up. There was one certain image though, an 'M' within a circle around it done in red, a copy off of the V for Vendetta logo. Beneath the image were always a date and an arrow. This one particular symbol would alert any mutant who happened to see it that a public meeting would be organized on the date below the image in the direction that the arrow pointed in.
As Caim headed aimlessly down a back street he noticed the image spray painted above a series of garbage cans. Pausing he checked the date and the direction he was surprise he hadn't missed it, the meeting would be tonight. Coincidences are stupid but wow... He glanced in the direction that the arrow was pointing and realized that the venue was behind him. The tag never explained where, just in case some humans or police wanted to crash their party, so it was up to the invited to figure out where to go.
He turned around and headed back in the direction he had come, thinking back on his first meeting. He had been sleeping in an old abandoned church in Boston when the sounds of several footsteps and the dragging of furniture had woke him up. He had pulled his switchblade out of his pant pocket and cautiously gone upstairs from the basement, hoping to just talk with the people and get out at soon as he could.
When he hit the top of the stairs he noticed that two of the people moving furniture didn't look human. One had what looked like green snake scales climbing up the side of his neck and on the back of his hands and the other girl had pink hair with what looked like bones growing out of her shoulder blades and other spots on her body. Automatically he knew that they were mutants, who else would look like that? The boy had glanced over just at that moment and looked him up and down, a playful smile creasing his lips. "Hey," he had said.
Caim had taken a step back towards the stairs, unsure of what to do.
"We're not going to hurt you," the boy said. "We may look freaky but we're not-"
"You guys are mutants right?" Caim asked before he realized what he was saying.
The boy and the girl exchanged a look before the boy looked back at him and nodded. "Yessssss."
"I think I am too..." Again he spoke before he realized what he was saying.
The boy laughed. "You think? Alright. Well why do you think that?"
Caim had been reluctant to show him but after a couple seconds he released the fire from his shoulder and focused intently on it as it created a ring around him that didn't touch the floor. After a moment he released the power and the fire disappeared.
He looked up and saw the boy smiling; the girl had gone off to help move the rest of the pews out of the way for whatever they were doing. "Niccccccce," the boy said. "Ssssso you a pyro or ssssssomething?"
"No. It's a tattoo..." Caim had stood up a little straighter then, and lowered the blade he still held. As he did the other boy seemed to notice the weapon and took a small step back. Caim had forced a small smile and closed it, slipping it back into his pocket. "I'm not going to hurt you."
The boy laughed and stepped up to him, holding out his scaled hand. "I'm Riley."
Caim had looked at the hand but hadn't taken it. "Kyle," he replied, still not comfortable enough to give up his real name.
"Niccccce to meet you. Sssssso what you doing here? Are you jusssssst really early for the meeting?"
Caim had raised an eyebrow. "What meeting?""
Riley laughed. "Yeah, you probably wouldn't have come up with a blade if you had known about the meeting." He smiled and Caim couldn't help but note that he had a really nice smile. "It'sssss a public meeting for mutantsssss. There'sssss one around here about once a month, twiccccce a month depending on what'sssss going on in our world. You should ssssstick around for it."
At that moment Caim had decided he wouldn't but he offered his help with setting up. Halfway through setting up he thought that maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, so he had stayed. That had led him to staying for the night and listening to a couple of people talk about mutant rights versus homo Sapien rights. He had never been one for politics but hearing how the mutant community was generally treated made him feel the angriest that he had been since his father had killed Mia.
That was when finally understood why he did it.