Perfect Synergy
"Affections are like lightning: you cannot tell where they will strike till they have fallen." – Lee Iacocca
It was crazy, in a span of no more than fifteen minutes my life had completely changed. No longer was I the delinquent of an all girls' school. No longer was I the tomboy who swore like a sailor and had the breasts of a twelve year old. Who was I kidding? I would always be a tomboy at heart, and I would never filter my mouth for nobody! And my boobs aren't progressing anytime soon. But the point is that there were many things in my life that I was pretty sure I would never become, a nurse, a chef, a princess, and most certainly not a super secret CIA agent. Yet, there I was. Standing in front of the blah blah blah study of supernatural something for defense or something like that; I never did learn the full name of that organization of the CIA. It was a fairly modern building, consisting of simple architectural shapes and designs, lacking any color, but it practically oozed secrecy. I was sure there was going to be some things that I would see or witness in there for which I would never get a straight answer. Conspiracy is always a hot topic.
At that exact moment I couldn't care less. I was free from the bitches of my boarding school forever! And as I was about to jump out of my skin from happiness I felt a presence in my mind attempting to calm me down. I turned on my heel to glare at Charles, who was kindly getting my nap sack out of the trunk of the sedan that had picked us up from the airport. He gave me a mischievous smile as he pulled his paperboy bag out. I harrumphed very stereotypically, and then I yanked my bag from his grubby telepathic hands and swung it over my shoulder.
"Grubby? Now that was uncalled for." Charles said to me with a smile, assuring me that he wasn't offended by my choice of words...thoughts... Man, I thought, this is going to take a while to get used to. I stuck my tongue out at Charles, which got me a chuckle.
All jokes aside, I had to admit that I thoroughly enjoyed his company. Over the hours spent on the plane together I learned that Charles was an Oxford grad in molecular mutation, as well as genetics, and had recently been given the title 'Professor'; though he said that I couldn't call him that until he actually had a teaching job somewhere. I also learned that Charles had a younger sister, Raven, who was also a mutant. He made it perfectly clear that Raven was his adopted/foster sister and shared no blood relation. It must've been easier for them, having each other. My family was just full of muscular army guys, nothing out of the ordinary there, and I had no one to turn to when my gift revealed itself. Eventually I had to tell my parents, they didn't shun me or anything, they were just a bit cautious around me for a while. My brothers were all ecstatic and refused to treat me any differently. I guess it could've been worse. So I can't complain about my home life much.
Charles gave my thoughts a nudge with his powers, successfully bringing me back to reality. He placed a calming hand on my shoulder before turning back to the sedan. Erik was still asleep in the back seat. He wasn't lying when he said that he was tired. With a smile on his face, Charles placed two fingers to his temple. Suddenly, Erik woke with a startled expression on his face. Charles tapped twice on the window. The older man scowled slightly at his friend before getting out of the car on the other side. He smoothed out his turtleneck and pulled his brown leather jacket back into place, which had attempted to escape his arms while he slept. Quickly and calmly, he grabbed his briefcase from the trunk, slammed it shut, and started towards the CIA building in front of them. Charles and I looked at each other and chuckled respectively. Erik sure was a sight to see.
"We should be getting inside; I have a meeting to attend to with the director of the CIA in just a few moments." Charles said with his fingers still placed against his temple. Was he reading my mind? Just as that thought passed through my head Charles removed his fingers and smiled at me. "My sister is coming this way. She should be here soon to show you to your room to change and meet the others."
I nodded my understanding and watched him walk into the building as well. Charles had taken the time on the plane to tell me about the other young mutants I would meet. There was Angel Salvadore, a girl that they found at a strip club, Sean Cassidy, a boy who seemed like an average, if not impulsive, guy, Alex Summers, who they found in a high security prison, Armando Muños, a New York City taxi driver, and Hank McCoy, one of the CIA's youngest researchers. They all seemed like a pretty unique bunch. I couldn't wait to meet them. But first I had to wait for Raven. I looked at my watch, 11:01 PM. Hopefully, I wouldn't have to wait long; but long enough for me to have a few drags would be fine.
I sat down on the curb next to the black sedan and reached into my bag for a smoke. I had packed all of the packs that I owned, but there seemed to only be two in my bag. Damn that Charles! I plucked out one of my baby's, lit it, and sucked deeply. There was no better feeling in the world than lungs full of whatever was in those wonders. Though, I now know that there's rat poison and the sort so perhaps I should stop doing what feels good and start doing what's healthy.
"Aren't those bad for you?"
The sudden presence of someone behind me startled me. I hadn't even exhaled so when trying to speak I choked on the smoke, hacking profusely into the sleeve of my uniform. Whoever was behind me knelt down so we were at about the same eye level and pounded a couple of times on my back. It hurt, but I was able to cough out most of the smoke. I looked to my right. There knelt a beautiful blonde girl in a cute black turtleneck dress. She had subtle green eyes, rosy cheeks, and a charming smile on her face. I had to struggle not to smile back; this girl had induced a choking fit and had then pounded on my back! Yes, she helped me, but she was the one who caused the problem in the first place! Cute face or not I wasn't happy with how these circumstances unfolded!
"I'm so sorry; I didn't mean to scare you!" She laughed slightly. She stood, offering a hand to help me up as she did. I took the helpful hand, still feeling a bit spiteful. "I'm Raven. I'm sure Charles mentioned me."
I was promptly yanked into a standing position. Strong girl. I dusted off my black skirt; God, how I hated that thing. I went to take the cigarette out of my mouth when I realized it was on the ground, I groaned. These mutants were hell on my smokes. I stomped on my discarded cigarette, only a bit frustrated. "Yeah, he mentioned you."
There was a brief flash of disbelief on Raven's face before it went back to that pleasant smile. "Oh, you're just being spiteful because you dropped your cigarette."
It was the truth, but I just gave her a sarcastic look. She ignored it, grabbed my hand, and dragged me towards the entrance of the CIA building.
"You're going to love it here! Free food, free room and board, and absolutely no restrictions! The CIA has mostly been leaving us alone and letting us take care of ourselves. Just imagine, open bar, makeovers, and enough ice cream to make us puke! We're going to have a blast!" The bubbly girl practically exploded with excitement. I thought to stop some of her ideas right in their tracks when Raven suddenly stopped and whirled around to face me. "Holy crap, I'm a terrible person! I never even asked you your name!"
Inwardly, I laughed, outwardly, I sighed. "Name's Maxine, though I prefer Max."
Raven gave me a look. "You prefer to be called a boy's name?"
"I have five brothers and I like being one of the guys; something about the liberation, the humbleness, and the pants." I said a bit dryly, motioning to the skirt I hadn't bothered to change out of. I really could be a dumb ass.
Raven laughed as if she had a realization. "Thank God, Angel is so far out there with all that stuff and she encourages me to be the same all the time. Which I do, I'm like that sooooo bad. But I needed a girl on the other end of the spectrum to even it out. Sure, I like to dress girly and all that fun stuff, but I need someone I can just talk to that is female but won't squeal along with me."
We laughed at that statement. Clearly we both had our share of annoying girls. God how I hoped that the other girl I was going to be spending, possibly, months with wasn't as bad as she sounded. Raven correctly read my thoughts; maybe she was a telepath like her brother.
"I'm making her sound a lot worse than she actually is. She's actually really cool." She smiled at me reassuringly and pulled me back in the direction she had started.
Raven pushed open the doors to the building with her shoulder and I was greeted by a large entryway/atrium. It seemed to be just a place where you could get from one place to the other. Men in black suits were crossing the circle entryway, heading up the stairs to our left and right, and chatting avidly with each other. Seemed pretty occupied for it being so late. Overall though, very high class. Raven led me up the shallow staircase in front of us. Our entrance was met by several pairs of eyes studying us quizzically.
I had never felt so objectified in my life.
Did all of the agents here know about our gifts? I was guessing that they did but I didn't want to voice my thoughts. My eyes drifted back to Raven who seemed to be having a splendidly easy time ignoring everyone's curious glances. Her head was directed towards a single door across from us. On the door was a sign with the traditional writing indicating, 'Woman's Bathroom'. Good, because I really had to pee just then. I headed towards the white bathroom, trying not to leak everywhere.
As we approached the door, Raven turned towards me. "I know I was supposed to take you to your room and let you unpack and everything, but I'm really excited to learn everyone's powers and we all swore to keep our individual gifts to ourselves until everyone was present." She paused to make a grand gesture to the room I was so desperate to reach. "So here we are! You can change in here if you want or we can just head straight to the break room."
Seemed doable, and I really wanted to get out of that damn uniform I had been forced to wear for the past two years. "I'll change now, I guess." I tried to say as nonchalantly as I could, which was incredibly difficult with a bladder threatening to explode.
"Great!" Raven clapped excitedly. "I'll wait out here."
I gave my new acquaintance a small smile before pushing open the swinging bathroom door. Man, I was glad that it was empty. There was only one stall in the small powder room and thankfully the swinging door locked. Why have swinging doors to the bathroom in the first place? A question I would never get the answer to. With a shrug I locked the door, dropped my bag underneath the sink, and did my 'business'. Once my hands were washed and dried I thought it was about time that I changed out of the hideous blazer and skirt. First I tugged off the pleated black skirt with a red trim and flung it in the trash. No offence to the skirt I just never liked the feminine heathens. Next came the blazer, in the same colors as the discarded skirt, and the nasty tie that came with it. After further examination, I decided to keep the tie while the blazer followed my horrible skirt into the garbage. With the tie still in hand I then carefully unbuttoned the white shirt I had always been forced to wear underneath the wretched blazer. I didn't really mind the shirt; it was loose and not particularly girly. I then dropped the shirt onto my bag and there I stood, clad in nothing but my underwear. Around my breasts were two rolls of Ace bandages so nothing was exposed.
Why the bandages? No, I still had breasts underneath them I just chose to wrap them to make playing sports much easier. Honestly? Breasts just got in my way. I also didn't like guys staring at my chest, not that there was much to look at anyway. I was barely a 32A. I developed late and didn't develop much when I had. I smirked and returned to my bag to grab the denim shorts and the men's white tank within. The tank went on easily while I had to struggle slightly to get the shorts on. Once the clothes were on I glanced in the fairly large mirror on the wall above the sink. My hip length straight black hair was all frizzy and unkempt. Side effect of my powers, sadly. I groaned and began pulling the electricity that naturally forms around me, when I'm not concentrating, into my skin. My body shook from the charge and my mood instantly improved. Looking back in the mirror, I smiled. My hair had successfully calmed down. Thank God.
But my eyes. Shit. They were yellow. They only turned yellow when I was charged with electricity; otherwise they were just a plain old brown. Of all eye colors I could have it would be the most common of them all. I decided though that having yellow eyes when meeting your fellow mutants wasn't advised so I expelled the energy inside of me into the circuits of the base. My mood instantly plummeted. Another side effect of my powers. A nasty one. My now severely exhausted eyes found their reflection once more, assuring me that they had returned to their normal state.
And with that, I was done in the bathroom. I quickly shoved my tie and my white shirt back into my nap sack and tried to go through the swinging bathroom door as I swung my bag over my shoulder. I yelped as my nose connected with the metal obstacle in front of me. I, being the dumb ass that I was, had forgotten to unlock the thing. And also I hadn't even stopped to check, or even push it open with my hand. I literally walked right into it.
"You okay in there?" Raven asked from the other side of the door.
"It's all good!" I said a little too enthusiastically as I unlocked the door and pushed it open. Little did I know that Raven was right in front of the metal death device and it stopped abruptly when it smacked her in the face.
"OW!" She cried. Making sure she had moved, I pushed the door open again to gauge her condition. She leaned against the wall next to the door and was clutching her nose. There was no blood, thank God, but having experienced the same exact thing not seconds ago I knew that it hurt like a bitch.
I placed a hand on her shoulder. "You okay? I didn't think you were right on the other side of the door." She looked at me with tears forming in her eyes. They weren't really tears of pain as much as the nose was just extremely sensitive and any slight disturbance induced tears. I could also tell that she wasn't in too much pain because when she took a good look at me she started laughing.
"Your nose is all red!" Raven said before bubbling over with laughter.
With a closer look to Raven's face you could see the blood starting to rush to her nose. I found myself laughing with the girl I had smacked in the face. All around us people were staring. I leaned against one of the columns that supported the second floor walkway in an attempt to avoid judgmental eyes. And yet our laughter never ceased. Well, eventually it did. I couldn't exactly live out the rest of my life as a laughing hyena. Actually, that sounds like fun.
After a minute or so we calmed down enough to talk coherently. We both agreed it was about time that we went to meet the others. She grasped my hand in hers again then steered me to the left through another swinging door. This time there was two. On the other side of the doors was a bleak grey hallway that only went a few feet then took a right. We followed the path until we came to yet another pair of swinging doors. That's when I felt it. A room charged to the brink of emotional electricity. There were people on the other side of those doors and either they were all getting along very well or they wanted to rip each other's tongues out. But based on the giddy smile on Raven's face I would have to say it was the former. Or she was a sociopath and it was the latter.
"Here we are!" The blonde beamed as she briefly let go of my hand so she could push both of the doors open at once. She waltzed into the room with a childish spring in her step while I followed as conspicuously as possible. The room was fairly large; to the left of the door was an oak bar with all assortments of alcohol. Across from the bar were a couple of square dining tables, white, with bland chairs on each side, black. The dining tables were next to a large display window that overlooked a very large open space that was only occupied by a large golf ball shaped structure that was emitting electricity at enormous amounts. Whatever the building was, it sure was important. Next to the large window was a pinball machine. It was fairly new, and it had flippers, I had never seen a pinball machine with flippers, though I heard it made the game quite a bit easier. On the wall across from the door was a juke box, man how I missed music. Music was banned from the school; well, all music except for classical, which we were forced to play in band. I shivered just thinking about it. Next to the juke box was a small fish tank, cute, but not terribly exciting. Opposite the window overlooking the lawn with the golf ball structure was another window which revealed a rather quaint courtyard.
The courtyard was square in shape and had a glass awning over a walkway to the left, a few shrubs to give it some appeal, and in the centre was a large bronze statue of a man; I had no idea who the man was and I didn't particularly care. Back in the room in front of the window was a coffee table with a black couch on either side of it and two matching comfy chairs were angled to look out the window but were placed far enough apart that the occupants didn't bump knees. The furniture wasn't all that important; it was the people sitting upon it that grabbed my undivided attention. On the couch facing me was a young girl, who I assumed to be Angel, and a black man, to the left of their couch, sitting in one of the comfy chairs, was a red headed guy whose face was covered in freckles. Next to the red head was a pretty boy blonde who wore a very angry expression. He's going to be a butt load of sunshine, isn't he? I thought to myself with a laugh.
There was one other mutant in the room. A chestnut-haired boy whose back was turned to me. I've always had a thing for brunettes... Brunet's? Gaaah. I don't know. But still, something drew my attention to him. Like he was the most important person in the room and as far as I knew, maybe he was.
"Guys, this is Maxine, the last member to our little group!" Raven said, motioning to me before sitting down next to the brown-haired boy. At the sudden movement and words he turned around to face me. The serene blue eyes behind thick rimmed glasses connected with mine and I smiled. He blushed in response. How cute. These next few days were going to be tons of fun.
"Max. My name's Max."