Initiating the talk with Gemma had been harder than Polaris and Marcos thought it would be. Neither were experienced with giving such a talk, and they just weren't sure how to best approach it.
With an adult, they would simply tell them to "cut the shit" and then would go on their merry way.
Gem was a recent member of the Mutant Underground, and they normally didn't take teenagers on missions. Even the other teens who were staying with them, they still considered them to be temporary. Each helped out around the compound and Skyler and Naya were training with Polaris, but otherwise it didn't really feel like they were permanent members of the Underground.
At any time, they could decide they wanted a fresh start in Mexico. Or maybe they wanted to go to another safehouse in a different state. No one in leadership would blame anyone for going to another safehouse, as it seemed anywhere but Atlanta was safer at the moment.
Privately, they knew a lot of their most recent issues had to do with Andy and Lauren, but the two couldn't help that they were powerful mutants or that their father was a former prosecutor.
In the end, Marcos ended up asking Reed and Caitlin who were Adults With Children and he thought they would at least know how to start. The teens were off doing chores, and Caitlin was always hovering from the storeroom, her makeshift classroom, or the kitchen. Reed was usually found with Sage those days, combing through the physical files and the terabytes of data from the hard drives.
They caught Reed and Caitlin at an opportune time when they were both in their room. With so many new people around, particularly a lot of teens and pre-teens, they were more conscious of how people might overhear their conversations and didn't want rumours to spread.
Marcos thought Caitlin was a bit too enthusiastic about them sitting Gemma down to talk about her powers. He didn't want Gemma to curb her powers per se, but definitely use them more wisely when they were on missions. If Mrs. Strucker thought he and Polaris would ask Gem to stop more or less completely, the human had another thing coming.
Reed seemed to be more diplomatic, and perhaps to make up for all the times he missed out on speaking with Andy, he had a lot to say. Mostly about how to not make it seem they were ganging up on her and that their concern came from a place of worry for her and the others' safety.
"You also have to be prepared for her being stubborn and bullheaded. She very well may say 'screw it' and just leave. She's highly independent and completely self-reliant from the sound of it, a lot of it stems from being disappointed by every adult in her life abandoning her as soon as she manifested her powers," Reed personally didn't know how anyone could do that to their child, and did not have a high opinion of Gem's parents. "In law we call this risk management. Is asking her to not go off mission and lightly admonishing her worth the worst-case scenario?"
"Can we live without the food she's grown?" Polaris asked herself. Part of her screamed that it wasn't, that maybe they should just let it go. Not only did they have refugees coming in in droves every week it seemed, but it was also getting harder and harder to move them out and across the border.
"We also have to think of what would happen if she left and then captured later. She knows where this place is and can just drop in. It's the same issue with Clarice. Dreamer normally wipes people's minds as soon as they leave. It's standard procedure. But both of them can leave in a blink of an eye," Marcos pointed out, his stress levels going through the roof.
"I think we also need to give her the benefit of the doubt. She was a little impulsive, but she's 15, are we that surprised? So far she's actually been really easy-going and helpful. She even volunteers for stuff instead of having to be asked to do something. Plus, I don't think she would want to leave Andy. They've been glued at the hip," Polaris pointed out, a little tired they were treating Gem as an emotional time bomb ready to explode at the mere hint of disapproval.
It reminded her a little too much of how she would be treated during a manic or depressive episode. People either treated her as if she were fragile like glass or like a bomb, neither were good feelings or helpful.
The Struckers acknowledged this, although Caitlin looked like she wanted to chew glass. Teenagers dating, and possibly a roadblock of Andy being able to easily leave for Mexico if they needed, was not a stress she needed in her life.
Polaris and Marcos eyed each other quickly and had a silent understanding that in no universe would they tell Caitlin there were also contemplating speaking to Gem about sex. Mrs. Strucker didn't have powers, but that didn't mean they wanted to deal with a human having a mental breakdown in their midst.
In the end, it was decided that Polaris would speak with Gemma alone, and she took to heart of coming to the teen from a place of caring.
There really was no privacy in the bank, so Polaris asked Gem to go on a walk with her through the woods. It was a nice fall day with the sun shining through the trees.
The teen was happy to get out of the building and she kind of knew what the older woman wanted to talk with her about due to Andy's warning. It was the same path from the bank to the creek where they washed clothes. Once they got to the water, they started south where Gem hadn't been to before.
"How are you settling in?" Polaris thought she'd start with some small talk.
"Good…no one has really tried to invade my office room, so I like that," Gem answered truthfully. She had been worried that someone would say something about her getting an entire office to herself when others had to either sleep out in the open or were stuffed on the third cleared out floor. The last thing she wanted was to fight for her privacy.
"Most people respect others' space and given how you can grow thorns the size of my forearm, I don't think anyone wants to mess with you," she teased, and smiled when Gem looked rather proud of herself.
Polaris liked to see a mutant who was at ease with their gifts. So many were afraid or saw them as a burden.
"So, did you lose a bet or something? To be the one to talk to me about the office supplies I stole?" Gem liked the nice walk, but dragging out the talk was killing her.
Polaris laughed, of course Gem was more perceptive than what they gave her credit for.
"No, I didn't lose a bet. I wanted to speak with you and Marcos has a lot of good qualities…but speaking with tact or patience isn't one of them. We do appreciate everything you've done, and for coming on that mission at all. It was a lot for your first week at the Mutant Underground."
Polaris noticed that Gem demurred and perked up at the compliment. She wondered if anyone had really said "thank you" yet to the girl. She didn't think any of the men would think to, and everyone was constantly busy trying to put out the many fires that Sentinel Services were creating. For the most part, Polaris didn't think anyone needed to be thanked for doing a good deed or helping out, but she thought Gem had gone above and beyond than most, especially when the girl had every right to say no.
"Leadership has agreed that we won't ask you to go on missions, not anytime soon. It's not because you did a bad job," she was quick to reassure the teen, "but we think you could use a little more time to get acclimated with the hierarchy and for us to tell you our expectations. Doing side missions without telling anyone, that was dangerous."
"But you all love the chairs, and Mrs. Strucker has claimed like a third of the supplies," Gem pointed out, she thought if anything they would have begged her to keep stealing.
"We do like the supplies; Sage has never been more comfortable to sit in front of the computer for hours on end…but we like you more."
Lorna couldn't help but notice that Gem had almost flinched, she wondered when the last time anyone told the teen that they cared about her.
She could painfully relate.
"It's not that we don't think you're capable or know how to use your powers. It's that we don't know our enemy well enough to think office chairs are worth risking your safety. Did Clarice tell you about Pulse?"
Gem shook her head, the name wasn't familiar,
"Blink didn't get to tell me a lot before she left," and she waited to see if Polaris would give her any indication of why the portal creator would just leave.
Lorna went on as it was drama that didn't need to spread,
"He's a mutant that can nullify powers…"
"Oh, yeah, she had mentioned a mutant with those powers but not his name when she came to rescue me. She said he was John's friend."
"That's right. They served together in the marines. He was like a brother to him, and he was loyal to the mutant cause. I don't even want to think what Sentinel Services have done to him to have him work for them, much less against his former family. I don't want to see that happen to you or anyone. If they can turn Pulse, then they can turn anyone. Who knows who else they have working for them. We don't know their powers, we don't know their tech. We didn't know where you were when you were taking those supplies. Marcos thought you were with us, and we thought you were still with Marcos. Neither of would have known something had happened to you for hours. It can only take seconds for a mission to go right or for someone to lose their life. Pulse was lost on a mission that we followed to the T, but the reality is that no plan survives contact with the enemy. It was sheer luck that nothing bad happened to you when you were stealing those supplies. We would never want to lose you over some nice chairs or pens."
"Because you'd lose the food," Gem said softly and not quite an accusation, but as someone who was used to only being valued as far as she was useful to them. She was, however, starting to see what she had done was dangerous. She didn't like the idea of Andy worrying about her if she was snatched and he wouldn't have found out until he got back to Atlanta.
Polaris stopped and placed a hand on Gem's shoulder, moving the teen so they could see eye to eye.
"No, even if all you could do was grow flowers or make it rain, we wouldn't risk you. Trust me, we didn't want to risk you for the mission in the first place. We care about your safety and the safety of everyone in the compound. We aren't doing this for fun, and we don't pick and choose who is worthy of our help. We help everyone, and we want you to be safe above anything else. It's also why we want to slow down on all the help you've given. We love all the food and everything else, but it shouldn't cost you your health. Rest is important."
Gem grimaced, a little embarrassed she had passed out the day before. She was also more prepared to be angry and at Marcos as she thought that's who would give her this little speech. She wasn't really prepared to be told that they cared more about her than what she could do for them with her powers.
"We also don't want you to get overwhelmed," Polaris went on and they restarted their walk. She was glad she chose to go on a stroll, the fresh air was helping settle her morning sickness, and it was good to be out in nature. The smell of the forest and the sound of running water started to uplift her mood, and she smiled when Gem started to absentmindedly play with the water.
Droplets danced and small waves crashed with the movement of Gem's hands. It reminded Polaris a lot of herself, where she'd twist and twirl whatever metal she could get her hands on, knives those days, to give her ever buzzing mind something to occupy itself while her body did something else.
"It's easy to get pulled under in everything that you think needs to get done. But remember, the Mutant Underground was here before you and will be here after you. No need to run yourself ragged or do everything yourself."
It was nice to hear an adult tell her she didn't need to run herself to death. Even before her powers, her parents had her working in her father's office and everyone there was intent on being the one to kill themselves first by being overworked, as if it was some badge of honor. She knew she slacked off with chores she didn't want to do like laundry or dishes, but providing food it seemed so easy that she lost track of just how much energy and effort she was using.
Everyone seemed hungry all the time, not just Andy.
"Naya has water powers, so she can help with the water collection tanks and watering the garden," Polaris suggested as possible chores she could unload to someone else.
"I don't think she and the others like me," Gem admitted, referring to the clique that formed with Lauren and the other teen mutants. "Not really sure how to ask them to help me."
"Why do you think that?"
"They're always talking in hushed tones and then get silent when I come around…I think they're talking about me."
Lorna had her fair share of run-ins with mean girls and was a little disappointed in Lauren who seemed to be part of the group Gem was talking about. Even though they were all runaways and not in high school, it seemed that high school habits were hard to break.
She was also aware of some rumors going around, mostly questioning how Gem was able to survive in the woods and how she had multiple powers. Lorna knew what it was like to be so powerful that she made people nervous.
"Powerful women are always hot topics," she wasn't going to pretend Gem was overreacting or being insecure. She had been gaslit to last a lifetime and trusted Gem's instincts. "Very powerful women make people nervous."
Gemma smiled, liking the idea that people knew she was powerful more than they were making fun of her.
"So, the plan is to have you stay at the compound. Do Caitlin's schoolwork if you want…" which Gem made a face and Lorna thought as much, chuckling, "Maintain the vegetable garden and the hedge. Every other chore will be divided up fairly and on rotation. Just because you can do it faster or more easily because of your powers, doesn't mean everything should fall to you. I don't want to promise that we'll definitely not ask you to go on any mission soon, because I know something will come up just to prove me wrong."
Gem laughed as she too was of the opinion that God laughed at their plans.
"But if something does come up that has us desperate enough to ask, then we'll do more to train you to follow orders and ask that you think of your safety and the safety of the compound before doing side missions. If there is something you really think we'll need, then come to us first so we can be prepared to help support you."
Gem nodded and wasn't sure how to react. The Mutant Underground were still strangers to her, but they showed more care for her safety and wellbeing than anyone else had in a year.
"Well, since we're talking about the safety of the compound…I do have a little confession."
Oh boy.
Polaris was preparing herself for Gem to admit to all sorts of unsanctioned trips off the compound. She told herself that technically no one told her she couldn't leave when she wanted, although Polaris thought she really shouldn't have to, but then again no one was a prisoner. It wasn't like they had the ability to force her to stay.
"Umm…" Gem picked up a twig off the ground and started to nervously break off little pieces. "I found a safe in the judge's office, I broke it open and found 300k dollars."
Polaris had abruptly stopped and braced herself against Gem. She had a bit of a breakdown in her brain, trying to contemplate that much money.
"How much?" she needed to hear it again.
"300k dollars."
"U.S. dollars?" even if it was in pesos, it was still a lot of money, but at least converted to U.S. dollars it was a figure she could more easily wrap her mind around.
"Uhh…yeah. It's all in $100 stacks."
Gem still thought she and Andy deserved their own stash of money, and $300k was still a lot for anyone, even the Mutant Underground.
And it's not like I wouldn't share more of it if we really needed it. I'm really holding onto it like a bank.
She knew a good lie was not told all at once, so if they asked why she waited to tell them, she would say she couldn't get the safe open at first and had stashed the entire thing in her room. She wasn't sure what she would say if they asked to see the safe itself, but she was buying herself some time.
Three-hundred thousand dollars was a life-changing amount of money. Especially for the Mutant Underground who maybe got a couple grand here and there from charity groups or grateful families they've helped, and a few thousand as an "allowance" from their private donors on a regular basis. It was never quite enough, but they made do.
It was enough money that Polaris honestly didn't care how Gem came about it and wasn't interested in asking further questions.
With Gemma helping them grow most of their own food, the money would stretch a lot further, especially for things like gas and other supplies they desperately needed on a regular basis.
"What would a judge be doing with all that money?" it was always the first question that came to mind.
"Probably some kind of finder's fee from Sentinel Services if they're brainwashing mutants to work for them."
Which made a horrifying amount of sense to Polaris, her hands gave off an aura of green and the knives she had on her person had bent out of shape.
She took a deep breath to get her anger under control, she looked at Gem and asked,
"Is the money safe, now?"
"Yeah, I have it hidden in my room."
"Thank you for telling me," She was sincere and grateful. She was certain that anyone else would have just cut and run with so much money. The fact she was having a baby, she couldn't even say she wouldn't have at least been tempted to do the same if she just happened to find it. "Marcos…well, leave Marcos to me."
She didn't think he would really be angry about free money, only that it was another thing that Gem had done off mission. She didn't want to risk him having a bad mood then pushing Gemma to the point of her actually leaving.
"Well, I think good news should be celebrated with good food," Gemma was of the belief that nothing couldn't be solved with a hot meal. She turned to the creek and furrowed her brow in concentration.
Polaris wasn't sure what she was doing, until there was a great splash and a hovering ball of water over the creek that moved towards them.
Within the sphere of water were several trout and big mouth bass, native to the area.
Despite not being able to smell the fish, just looking at them had caused her to lean over and vomit, thankfully well away from Gemma.
Well, apparently baby does not like fish.
Normally people were happy to see food, any kind of free food, and Gem just looked at her, horrified that she had reacted in such a way.
"Uhhh…are you ok?"
"Yeah, sorry," Polaris was a little embarrassed even though she knew she shouldn't be. She rubbed her stomach in the universal sign that she was with child and backed away because her breath was likely rank, "The baby apparently hates fish."
She tried not to look at the floating ball of water containing confused fish that were trying to swim away despite having nowhere to go.
"The what?"
And that was how Gemma found out Polaris was pregnant.
Leadership was back in Marcos' and Polaris' room. Again, meeting about something to do with Gemma.
Marcos had a lot of emotions running through him, so much that all he could do was rub his face.
John wasn't sure what to say as he crossed his arms and held a hand to his mouth.
Sage, Dreamer, and Polaris had their own opinions but let the men work out their feelings.
There on their bed was a stack of money, in pristine crisp $100 bills.
Movies always made it seem that a filled briefcase was several thousand dollars, but in bills of 100 it didn't take up much room.
"Are we certain she didn't rob a bank?" was the first thing Marcos wanted to know. "Or a gang? The cartels would think this was pocket change."
Out of all of them, only Marcos had seen so much cash in one place before. It uncomfortably reminded him of the debt he owed Carmen and he prayed to every saint and the Holy Mother that by some weird coincidence that Gemma hadn't run into them too and decided they needed the money more.
"She swears it's from the judge and it makes sense that he would take kickbacks. If she robbed a bank, she would have taken more. Same with a gang or cartels. Why only take $300k? I think she took everything that she found," Polaris said on Gemma's behalf, and she really hoped no one would continue to question the girl's story. They really did not need to put her on trial for money they desperately needed.
Given how much heat was currently on mutants, Polaris wasn't above considering that bank robbing or raiding big box stores would be in their future.
"Well, I guess we best hope the judge assumes he lost the money in the fire…" it was another headache he didn't need. Missing money would always draw attention and he had hoped that they had gotten clean away.
"It's not like he can ask about missing dirty money," John pointed out. "If anything, he should be glad she took it because if the fire department found that amount of money burnt in the fire or the safe itself with the money, he'd have to answer a lot of uncomfortable questions."
"And they've probably noticed the missing hard drives by now. They can explain the paper files were burned up, but it's not like computer parts go completely to ash. I would say they would figure out with an 85% accuracy that mutants were behind the theft and fire. The biggest thing we need to worry about in actuality is laundering the money as all these bills are sequential. That can be traced eventually," Sage added.
Due to the nature of their work and donations from anonymous donors, they thankfully had protocols in place to process money and clean cash.
"Gem's also aware she's needed at the compound for the foreseeable future and won't do side missions," Polaris hoped that news would calm Marcos down.
Which was all he could really ask for and glad for at least some good news.
"Alright, so what do we want to do with the money?" he felt it fair to open the discussion democratically, and there was no way in hell he would refuse it.
"Well, Gem has saved us a lot on food, so we can stock up on at least a year's worth of MREs for emergencies. I don't think we need more, and we don't really have the room for it," Sage offered as she always had a constant tally of their supplies. "I would have asked for a comfortable chair, but Gem has gotten that too," she said this to tease Marcos who she knew was all bent out of shape about it. "I think the biggest thing this will ease for us is the cost of fuel. I think we could invest in a more dependable, fuel-efficient van to move mutants to the next safe house. Along with getting more clothes, toiletries, and bedding."
"Gemma actually suggested we build bunk beds for the third floor now that it's been cleared out," John added. "It'll give more beds without taking up so much floor space. She thinks we could build them relatively cheaply with wood from Home Depot and Youtube, instead of buying cots."
"It would effectively double the sleeping space," Sage agreed, glad there was new blood because none of them would have thought of such a thing.
Then again, this is the first-time space has really been an issue.
She didn't really know how much she really thought John or the others knew about carpentry or how much she trusted that Youtube knew about carpentry, but perhaps they could start with one bed worth of wood first.
"I think we all could use a refresh on toiletries and underwear," Shatter was the most pragmatic of the group and they could all admit their underthings and most of their clothes were becoming threadbare. None of them were too concerned with fashion, so it wasn't like they were going to waste any money on anything designer.
John, Marcos, Sage, and Dreamer knew as the ones who looked most human, they'd be the ones to do a major Costco haul.
"I remember everyone's size…unless it's changed, so I'll make a list and get the measurements of anyone else staying long term to get them stuff too."
Polaris appreciated the consideration as clothing was becoming tighter, and she again thanked Gem for the money because eventually they would need to buy things for the baby as well. They had enough to give them a flush of supplies and then some to save for emergencies and ongoing expenses.
"Alright, lets do lunch and then check in with Reed to go over what was found on the hard drives."
Sage and Shatter nodded as they along with Reed were the ones to mainly go over everything they took from the judge's office.
As they made their way down to the first floor, Marcos asked Polaris,
"Are you doing training this afternoon?"
"Sort of."
He merely raised a questioning eyebrow as they walked.
"Well, I had asked Gem if she wanted to join, and she said, and I quote 'getting shit thrown at me isn't my vibe' and said she'd do, and again I quote 'independent study.'"
"What does that even mean?"
"I have no idea. But I asked her what she would do instead of shooting things at them, and she said 'have them figure out what their powers are.' I said that they do know what their powers are and she said 'Do they? Or do they know their gut reaction when they're panicked?' Which wow, really made me think. So, I asked her if she could do a training session her way this afternoon and thankfully she said yes because I had just got done with asking her to not do so much and here I am asking for a favor. So…we need to work on that."
Marcos knew the feeling. He didn't like that he wanted her to do so much, but she had so many useful powers it was hard to resist the temptation.
There was a crowd gathered around the kitchen area by the time they got there, and they all wondered why they were all waiting around.
Polaris was worried the smell of fish would make her lose her appetite, but instead of the smell of fish she smelled what she thought was chicken which made her mouth water.
"Why is everyone waiting around?" Marcos asked the closest person, which was a refugee from Alpharetta who could send out low shocks of electricity from his eyes.
"This is everyone who wants turkey, but Gem won't let anyone have any until you," he nodded towards Polaris "takes your share…because of the baby."
"Turkey?"
"Yeah, apparently there are wild turkeys around and Gem caught a couple because you got sick from the fish. The fish were grilled outside and everyone who wanted it is eating it with a salad."
Polaris almost cried because that was so sweet of Gem to think of her food aversions.
"We're also not allowed to eat any of the avocado because the baby needs a good fat, and none of the milk because baby needs calcium. But we have had some of the lettuce, carrots, and tomatoes."
The others noticed Polaris and Marcos and parted for them to see the table set up. As was promised, there were a couple of platters of deboned roasted turkey breasts, wings, and thighs. In a pot simmering on a butane burner were the bones with root vegetables and some aromatics.
They had gotten a few bags of bulk dry milk, which was used to make mashed potatoes. It wouldn't be as rich as they still lacked butter, but it was still fresher and tastier than anything an MRE could produce.
As was promised, there was also cut up avocado, freshly picked from a tree Gem had grown.
It was probably the most nutritious and calorie dense meal she would have had in years.
"Hey, you're here. Lets get you a plate," Gemma had come into the group and was glad that everyone took her seriously not to start until Polaris had arrived. She loaded up a plate with thankfully a reasonable amount of food, Lorna was hungry but she didn't think she'd be able to eat an overflowing plate.
Andy looked the most grateful she had finally arrived as he was constantly hungry, but willing to wait.
Maros and Lorna were grateful Gem put her foot down because food always went fast.
After Lorna, Marcus, and Andy got their plates, the others descended upon the bounty like locusts. There was nothing left, not even smudges of avocado.
John had made a sort of taco from the lettuce leaves, stuffed with turkey, avocado, and tomatoes. It was refreshing and he was surprised to taste a bit of smokiness and onion to the meat.
"Where'd you learn to hunt?" John was curious as he didn't think that was something she would really learn on her own in the woods.
"My family is big on hunting, half of them are apocalypse bunker people."
"Apocalypse bunker people?" Lorna wasn't sure what she meant.
"Yeah, you know…they think the world is going to end because of the bible or whatever, so they have like three months of food stored up at all times and know all this survivalist stuff," shrugged her shoulders as if it was just something every family had. "I had learned hunting and field dressing, but kind of wish they had started with how to find fresh water first. I was going thirsty before I was going hungry when I went into the woods…some of it was bullshit anyway. They were surviving with like a backpack full of stuff like iodine and flints. I don't think any of them could have survived if they were literally dropped in the middle of the woods with nothing."
They only ever got tidbits from Gemma about her past life, but most present could tell it was still a sore subject. Andy scooted closer to her for comfort, and she accepted his closeness.
"It was awesome," Brian, one of the youngest mutants in the compound who had come with his family. His skin could produce quill like barbs when he felt threatened or upset. Sentinel Services had tried to arrest a five-year-old, all because he had gotten upset at daycare. He couldn't help but give his two cents at Gemma's handywork with the turkeys. "She just ripped the skin off like…"
"Brian, no. That isn't polite table talk," his mother shooshed and hoped her son didn't ruin anyone's appetite.
For the most part, people were too hungry and glad for the fresh meat to really care.
"A lot of people chose the fish when they saw Gem field dressing the turkeys," Andy grinned a little vindictively. "They're all outside enjoying the nicer weather and grilled fish and veggies."
"This avocado is so good," Polaris moaned, mostly ignoring talk of the fish lest she get sick again. The turkey meat was somewhat dry as it was wont to be and Gemma wanted to make sure it was well done to avoid getting sick, but with the fat from the avocado and moisture from the lettuce and tomatoes, it was a delicious combination.
"I can keep them in stock," Gem promised, the crowd was happy to hear that. Avocado was a treat even for most normal people, especially with inflation and the worsening relations between Mexico and the States because of the mutant issue. With Gem's help, they could have it whenever they wanted, and they were all perfectly ripe and almost the size of a Nerf football. "I know how to make homemade tortilla chips…if we could get our hands on a press, masa, and a heavy bottom pot and oil…I could make nachos."
Gem tried to sound casual about it, knowing that even with the sudden influx of cash they couldn't just go crazy and buy whatever they wanted.
"Oh, my God nachos…" Polaris couldn't help but think of the crunchy, cheesy, and creamy food of the Gods.
"And a frying pot is a good investment," Gem tried to spin it as a sensible buy. "I could also make French fries and oil can be reused several times. We wouldn't even need a propane tank, my powers can sustain a fire for like hours."
Suddenly, there were several wide eyes on Marcos, including his pregnant girlfriend, pleading for him to buy a frying pot.
Sometimes he hated being the leader of the Mutant Underground because people treated him as a grumpy, cheapskate father who had to be cajoled into buying even a miniscule taste of luxury.
"Could also make latkes, coquettes, churros…" Gem tempted him further with every fried food she knew how to make.
I did want salsa earlier…salsa has to go on something.
"We'll see what we can get on our next supply run," given that Gem had been the one to get them the money, he thought it only fair she had a say in what some of it was spent on. It was for the entire compound after all, and he thought having a treat of some fried foods now and again would be good for morale.
Growing up, he knew how important family meals were and with the Underground it was rare that they would all eat together as they were now. MRE's didn't exactly foster good conversation or cheer. Gem's food brought them together and they were all laughing and talking. It felt like they were a real community instead of just scared people hiding until they could be moved.
"The bones are cooking down with some onion grass, carrots, and the herbs you guys had growing here already in your hydroponic garden. The bone broth will be really good for the baby. Lots of calcium and collagen."
Marcos and Polaris were touched that Gem would think of such a thing, and both were a little embarrassed that they had to date more or less ignored the more practical portions of the pregnancy up until then. Polaris did need the extra nutrition, and they should probably start thinking of where to find a sympathetic doctor to see her. If they were regular people, she would have had an exam, been put on prenatals, and a myriad of other things they just didn't have at their disposal.
The money was a real blessing, because they would need a good chunk of it just for the baby.
Like most Catholic Latinas, Gemma had come from a big family that was well versed in all things babies. She was more than happy to share her knowledge and talk of happier things such as the excitement of the coming child.
John and Dreamer took off after lunch to look for Clarice. Like the first time he tried tracking her down, her movements were erratic.
Thankfully she was making smaller jumps between places rather than across the city. The majority of her movements were on foot, and they tracked her down twenty minutes outside of Atlanta.
They found her in an abandoned warehouse, cooking soup on a mini butane camp stove. As they walked in, she had tried to carefully pick it up, but she had underestimated how hot it was.
"Shit!" she hissed in pain as she dropped the can, and it splattered on the ground.
Her anger increased when Dreamer and John walked in, she was not in the mood to deal with being embarrassed that they had caught her mistake, but also that she was basically living like a hobo.
She could only roll her eyes and stand up, ready to flee with her hands turning pink and about to open a portal.
"Clarice, please stop," John begged, they had already spent the afternoon trying to find her and he was so relieved that she was unhurt.
Clarice made the mistake of turning to look at him, with the sincerity in his voice and his eyes as wide as Bambie's, she felt her resolve breaking.
But then she saw Dreamer and then wondered if her sudden weakness for John's pleading face was due to her naturally being a sucker for doe eyes or if it was Dreamer's memory that still haunted her dreams at night.
Dreamer and John swallowed hard when Clarice's expression went from potentially yielding to annoyed and almost aggressive.
"I can't trust my instincts anymore, and when I was living on the streets, that's all I had," she told them softly with an undercurrent of fury. "I'm pretty sure in any other instance, I would have told you both to go straight to hell immediately, but I find myself wavering because for some reason, his stupid puppy eyes," she pointed her finger in a harsh motion towards his face, "are making me hesitate. That's very annoying. You know I still see it in my head as if I actually lived it? It's like a bad soap opera I can't escape."
"I'm sorry," Dreamer could only say, she was starting to realize that perhaps the memory she implanted in Blink was doing more long-lasting damage than she initially ever realized.
Normally when she used her powers on someone, she left and rarely saw them again. Now she was confronted with the long-term effects. She always had the impression that her abilities were more or less temporary.
"I could understand loving someone so much that you'd do anything to help them," Clarice went on, "I do. It doesn't make me more forgiving, but it's something I could understand…but why did you have to use a romantic memory? Why put that in my head? You didn't have any 'he's my best friend' or 'he's my fellow soldier in his fucked-up war of humans against mutant' memories you could have given me before you started to date him?"
"It was the first one that came to my mind…his life was in danger, so I wanted to do the memory that would have the most impact…I didn't think…"
"That's right you didn't think!"
John and Dreamer both flinched at Blink's rage but said nothing as she had a right to her feelings.
"And what now? You're chasing me down because the Mutant Underground likes having their own backdoor for missions?"
"I've lied enough," Dreamer spoke before John could deny the accusation. "So, I won't continue to lie. That's the long and short of it…we do need you. Your powers are needed, things are getting worse with Sentinel Services. They are getting increasingly hostile, and the bank is overrun with scared refugees."
"We were desperate enough to ask Gemma and Andy to go on a mission," John admitted.
"They're 15 years old," Clarice told them as if they didn't know, disbelief written in her eyes.
"Yes, and Gemma went off the plan and stole a lot of office supplies for the Underground. She's impulsive and not used to following orders. Who knows what could have happened to her in those minutes she went AWOL. She also stole 300k dollars."
Blink raised her eyes to the heavens in frustration, she was more annoyed with leadership than she was with Gem. To a fifteen year old, stealing money and supplies probably sounded like a good plan and maybe even helpful. She had also only been gone a week, that meant they asked a girl who had literally just gotten to the Mutant Underground out on a mission.
"So, we don't just need your powers. We need you. You're an adult, you keep a cool head, and you have a better understanding of the danger we're all in," Dreamer hoped she was coming off as sincere and not begging.
"It's also not safe," John added, "Sentinel Services is hitting every safehouse and potential ally for sanctuary. They're arresting them in record numbers and clearing out tent cities. They're not even pretending to try to take them in for public safety anymore."
"This isn't my fight," she growled at them, "The whole Mutant Underground…thing. I was minding my own business…" but she found she was too frustrated to even rant properly. She knew she should have just refused them, to go at it alone. She had done so for as long as she could remember, she was fooling herself into thinking she could count on anyone.
But in her heart she knew she hated being alone, and she didn't want that for Gem.
Clarice had been on the run for a week, she knew things were getting worse but didn't have the luxury of a television to be up to date on things.
"I am sorry," Dreamer insisted again. "We had a meeting on it and everything, no more mind manipulation on each other. I swear I won't do it again, not even for Johnny. We succeed or fail on our own free will. If you can't come back for your own safety and for the Underground, then please do it for Gem. She's just a kid and I really don't want to have to ever ask her to risk her life again."
There was a war going on in Blink's mind that they could see written on her face. She hated the both of them for appealing to her better nature. Gem was just a kid and she remembered being 15, on her own and scared. Gem deserved a safe haven, not somewhere they were desperate enough to ask a child to go on the front line.
But they still betrayed her, and she wanted justice.
"If it could make us square, you can punch me in the face," Dreamer was out of ideas and thought it was as good of an offer as any, and honestly the only thing she could actually offer Blink to appease her anger.
Blink didn't hesitate and landed a punch squarely on Dreamer's nose. Her head snapped back and she stumbled backward from the force.
John barely had time to react, surprised that Dreamer would offer violence in the first place then more shocked that Blink took her up on the offer without even a little pause.
Blink flexed her hand, not quite punching with perfect technique and probably had bruised knuckles.
There was a little bit of blood coming out of Dreamer's nose, but it didn't seem broken. She kept silent as she gathered herself and wasn't going to make a fuss since she did make the offer.
"OK, I'm not super proud that it made me feel better, but it did," Blink admitted. "Fine, no more messing with my mind. I will come back…eventually."
"Eventually?" her disbelief a bit nasally with the small injury.
"Yes," Blink wouldn't budge, "The Mutant Underground, that's your battle not mine. I'm only willing to come back because I know what it's like to be alone in this world and scared, but I do have my own stuff to do first."
Clarice gathered her things, what few she had, and started to walk away. She knew her way to the bank and would go back on her own time.
"Stuff? What stuff?" John's patience was running thin.
"When I was sick, I kept opening up a portal to a specific road…my gut feelings, the ones not poisoned by mindfuck feelings for John, tell me that it's important to me. I'm trying to find that road."
"The one out in the country?" John asked, it was hard to forget when her powers went haywire and endangered the entire building and ever mutant in it. It also explained why she was out in the middle of nowhere.
"Yeah, you," she emphasized to John who in the past few weeks had been trying to help her gain more control of her portals, "taught me that none of this is random, the reasons why we use our powers, what we do. That road must mean something to me…and I want to know why."
"Then let us help you find it…my literal powers are for tracking," he insisted when she looked like she was about to tell them to fuck off. "And we have a car. It'll be faster and more efficient."
"We do owe you, if nothing else," Sonya added, despite being punched she felt like she could still do a little more.
That was true enough. Blink had been searching for a week with no luck and honestly no idea where to even start. She had been sick when the portals kept opening to the road, and unfortunately whatever she had seen in her feverish haze was a non-descript road that looked like any other road out in the country.
"Fine…but I dropped my soup and I'm still hungry."
"We'll stop by Chipotle," John promised and knew it was Clarice's favourite spot when they had the cash.
As promised, they swung by Chipotle and Blink was happily munching on a carnitas burrito as Dreamer and John snacked out of a bag of tortilla chips.
Having punched Dreamer and with a full belly of burrito, Blink was in a better headspace. Unfortunately, that headspace didn't include better directions or specific descriptions of the road Blink was looking for. John was running into the same issues Blink was, one country road looked exactly like the next country road.
They stopped by a few backroads and John had used his powers to try to divine if Blink had been there before.
If she had, then any trace of her was long gone.
John had his hand to the road with the two women standing off to the side, on the lookout for oncoming cars.
"This road we're looking for," he asked when his powers were picking up nothing helpful, "do you remember anything about it? Any type of unique monument or even general area?"
"No, I don't. You're the one who saw it, I was unconscious," she snarked, regretting accepting their help if they were going to get snippy with her. "I was hoping I would be able to find something about it in the news, given that Sentinel Services had been called in as well as the local police from what Andy had told me when I woke up."
"Sentinel Services is pretty good about covering up mutant incidents, so…" he started to head back to the car and let her fill in the rest.
Her own frustration was building inside of her, she figured that the government agency had probably gotten gun happy and wouldn't be surprised if humans and other civilians had gotten hurt. They wouldn't want the bad press of using gunfire and not being successful in capturing the mutant in question.
"Well, then," she was done and started back towards the truck, "I appreciate your little quest for redemption, but obviously this is useless. So, take off and chase your next scent," she mocked his powers because she was feeling petty, "or do whatever it is that you do."
John spread out his hands in confusion,
"Clarice" he called out to her, "come on, let us help you."
"No, you can't, because there's nothing to track, no trail to follow," she pointed out and grabbed her gear from the open window of the truck.
"I know this might be in bad taste given what I promised," Sonya started, feeling a bit awkward, "but my powers also include pulling memories from people," Dreamer wanted to be helpful, but she also wanted to get this task over with. She knew Blink was on some spiritual journey or whatever, but it was getting frustrating with their lack of progress.
Blink contemplated punching her again.
"I'm just offering, trying to get your full consent," Dreamer held up her hands in defense. "You're having a hard time remembering why this particular road is special to you, I can chase it down."
"It's something to think about since we're not having much luck and been at it for a couple of hours," John pointed out it was late afternoon. "We can keep going to every backroad outside of Atlanta and crossing them off the map until something jogs your memory if that's what you really want to do. We can also start again tomorrow until we find what you're looking for."
He knew that Marcos would not want to waste the gas, but they had also come into a lot of money, so to get Clarice back to the Underground would be well worth the expenditure.
Blink took a deep breath and tried her best to be as pragmatic as she could. She didn't like the idea of Dreamer in her mind, but she could be fair and say she got her apology, a good punch in for good measure, and it would probably save a lot of time. She was not immune to the frustration of not getting anywhere,
"But I don't remember anything about the road, I just know it was a road," she pointed out, "I might not even have a memory to follow."
"Maybe, maybe not," John told her as they all stood besides the truck. "I think the memory is inside of you, even if you don't know it."
"Aw man, I am not in the mood for some hippie New Age talk right now, all right?" she was seriously contemplating running and hoping John's strength didn't translate into enhanced speed.
"Listen to me," used to people not taking his wisdom seriously, "When an animal is hurt or scared, their instinct is to take themselves to…" he struggled to put it into words, "a place of safety. A nest, a burrow."
"I don't have a burrow, ok?" it was a ridiculous thought, he should know from how many refugees there were, there was no safe place for a mutant.
"Yeah, but you did," he was certain of it," You had a place where you felt loved, and you felt safe."
"If I did, it was so long ago and probably for a very short time, that I literally have no memory I can pull as an adult," she contemplated it, and she felt John and Dreamer simply had no idea just how hard it was for mutants with physical manifestations. "Fine, lets try pulling the memory…but only the memory of the road. If you find things from my fucked-up childhood…then that's your fault," was the only warning she'd give Dreamer.
"Duly noted," Dreamer wasn't particularly interested in Blink's childhood, and took to heart that she might not want to see how hard a mutant with physical mutations had it as a child.
They all piled back into the truck with John in the driver's seat, Dreamer in the middle, and Blink in passenger. Dreamer and Blink faced each other, and Dreamer looked into Blink's acid green eyes.
"Think about the road, your clearest memory of it," she said gently. Blink nodded and thought of when she was sick and saw it most clearly through one of her portals, and one of the few times she was conscious. She tried to marry it to the hazy memory she had of it before, she thinks she had to have been very young and in the back seat of an older vehicle.
Dreamer leaned in closely, letting her powers loose through her breath. A cloud of pink emerged from her lips, and with a mind of its own had sought out Blink.
The purple-haired mutant gasped as the cloud invaded her mouth and nose, it made its way into her lungs and into her mind. Dreamer could see the memory of the road through the portal and the hazy memory of a child in her own mind. She willed her powers to find other memories of the road, and with the ease of perusing computer files, she was able to pull more and clearer memories from Blink's mind.
They were in an old Chevrolet that was as wide as a boat and a dark burgundy. The person driving was a social worker, Blink was maybe 8 years old. The child looked at herself in the rearview mirror, and was just a miniature version of the adult Clarice, but without the pink facial markings she had as an adult. Wide, vivid green eyes, cute pointy ears, purple hair cut short with a thick curtain of fringe.
She was a foster child, her parents perpetually in and out of jail, she was young but knew enough that her features meant that she would never be adopted.
They were on the road from Blink's memories, Dreamer quickly took note of the street name when they passed an intersection. The car veered off the main road onto a residential one which led to a gate.
"Carl and Denise Greenberg!" Blink gasped when she finally remembered, "they were my foster parents when I was really young…they were the only kind ones," the memories brought tears to her eyes, Dreamer's powers started to see more memories. She pulled out quickly as she had promised that she would only look at the road.
Now that the memories were at the forefront of her mind, she directed John where to go.
Clarice could begrudgingly admit that Dreamer's powers were a big help in not only recovering the old memories, but saving them a lot of time. She had no doubt they would have been driving around randomly for hours and maybe even days in order to jog her memory.
The last time she was at Greenburg's, she had just turned 15.
As they drove, John asked more about the Greenberg's.
"They ran a foster home for mutants that couldn't pass as human. I was there from about 8 and through when I should have been in high school. It doubled as a homeschool because most of the area schools either didn't allow mutants or they were chased off soon after enrolling."
"Why'd you leave?" he wondered why she would leave the only safe place she had.
"They were kind," she said with a bit of self-deprecation of her younger self, "But their idea of keeping us safe was to hide us away forever. It was fine when I was little, but it really sucks when you're 15 and tired of the same four walls. It stopped feeling like safety and a home, and more like a prison."
Dreamer and John could understand that. They had fairly normal childhoods and had felt stifled at 15 as well, it had to be a special kind of torment to be hidden away for so long, even if the Greenbergs had good intentions.
When they got to Bryan Rd., Blink's memories were becoming clearer and easier to bring to the forefront of her mind. She pointed to a hidden turn, there were some signs that it was private property, and she knew she was on the right route.
"I remember that gate," she pointed out to a closed wooden gate as they approached the end of the road. They got out of the truck and started on foot.
Clarice came to the gate and by sheer muscle memory, she opened the latch, and it swung open easily.
A one-story farmhouse came into view, there were a few fruit trees in the distance and a chicken coop up front. She remembered hating the chickens and that egg collecting and clearing out the chicken poop was her least favourite chores. She started to walk quickly, she wondered how Carl and Denise were, maybe she just needed to be reminded a little of home like John had said.
John and Dreamer walked a few paces behind her.
They were barely on the property when John's senses were warning him of danger. It wasn't a kind of precognition or even a real power of his. It was a combination of what his heightened senses were telling him that spelled danger.
He smelled the blood, he could see flashes of a struggle from the echoes of stamping feet and breaking wood left behind. He knew that several Sentinel Service agents in full combat gear had raided the building, despite the house looking intact and innocuous from the outside.
Dreamer was used to John's powers, and she had stopped behind him as he looked around worriedly.
"Clarice!" he called out to her, "Maybe you should wait here," he wasn't sure how to go about it, but he knew he didn't want her seeing what was inside.
"Why?" she asked as she turned around, she thought he would have wanted her to hurry up so they could get back to the compound.
"I think something bad happened," he didn't want to say, but didn't know what else to tell her.
That was the wrong thing to say as horrible thoughts started to fill her head. She didn't listen to him and ran towards the house.
The only evidence of something wrong was red warning flyers glued to the front door telling them to not trespass with the Sentinel Services logo large and menacing front and center as they got to the porch.
Although the agency had tried to bar the door, with John's strength he opened it as if it were wet tissue paper.
The dated decor such as wood paneling and pictures of the Greenbergs with mutant children was the same as Blink remembered. There were tons of old board games and books to keep hyper children occupied.
What wasn't like she remembered, everything was broken and tossed to the ground. The glass in the picture frames were broken, and a stench of what Blink suspected was old blood permeated through the air. She rushed through the house, some irrational part of her desperate that somehow Carl and Denise and the children they watched were somehow safe. Maybe they had a saferoom, or one of the mutant children had the ability to cast illusions. She certainly would normally turn away if she saw such destruction in the house.
"Sentinel Services probably searched every house in the area," he tried to explain why they would attack a foster home filled with children.
"Maybe they got away?" Blink was desperate to have any sort of hope, "Right?" she dearly wished one of them would say yes.
She ignored the flies that flew through the air as she checked the rooms but stopped dead in her tracks when she got to the kitchen.
The kitchen where she helped make dinners, she recalled being proud that she was the only one they trusted to handle a knife and to stir boiling pots. She preferred the kitchen because in the living room there were always fights over toys or games, and sometimes even powers accidently going off. Denise was strict on never using powers in the kitchen.
The kitchen had been filled with warmth and good memories, now it was a place of death. The blood was a pool of fetid black, moving with the birth of maggots.
Dreamer had gotten to the edge of the kitchen and almost vomited. Not only from the smell, but the sight of the bugs.
Blink had fallen to her knees in anguish, tears escaping her acid green eyes.
It wasn't just the pool of blood that told her what happened, she saw the bullet holes in the walls, the broken windows, and there were sprays of old blood on the walls. The holes in the back door let streams of light in. It wasn't just the Greenbergs that were gunned down, it had to also have been the children.
"Clarice, I'm sorry," John told her when none of them could hope for a good ending any longer.
"It's my fault," Blink cried out when she realized what must have happened. "My portals led them to here," the words barely making it out of her mouth as she tried to speak through her tears.
She knew that the portal to the main road had opened several times. She was told, each time there were more and more police and eventually a whole squad of Sentinel Services and probably an arsenal of guns and even sentinel robots.
She saw deep gashes in the walls and broken furniture, she wondered if the robots had torn anyone to pieces. The thought of scared children being gunned down and captured had only made her cry harder.
Blink let herself be lifted up and taken into John's arms, she grabbed onto him, not caring whatever her power rattled mind thought, she needed the comfort he was providing. She cried harder and she felt safe in his arms. He tried to tell her it wasn't anyone's fault but Sentinel Services.
It was little consolation as she knew they had only been in the area because of her. Sentinel Services were looking for her. She had been imprisoned, they knew her powers and probably recognized her distinctive portals. Even if they didn't raid the local houses, her records probably listed the Greenbergs as a previous residence and they would have checked there anyway to see if they were harboring her as a fugitive from the law.
She might as well have given them a road map to the most vulnerable mutants in all of Georgia.
John had almost started to cry himself, his powers going haywire over everything he could perceive with his senses, even the attacks themselves. He could hear the bullets tearing through flesh and the cries of children as if he had been there. He wanted to stay strong for Blink, they couldn't all break down.
Dreamer gave them space, she knew she shouldn't be surprised, but she couldn't believe that Sentinel Services would shoot up a house filled with children and two old people who had been kind enough to take them in. She hoped that Clarice would come back with them, it wasn't safe to be a mutant anywhere.
Clarice cried until there was nothing left inside of her, she was embarrassed that she had broken down and probably looked a mess. John didn't notice any of it and still held her if she needed it. They left the broken house that had nothing left for her.
There was one photograph that escaped the carnage, it was one of a smiling Carl and Denise on the porch swing, enjoying some sweet tea and the summer air. She took that and held it close to her heart.
As they walked solemnly back to the truck, Blink hadn't known why she wanted to go back to the Greenbergs, but she had found a purpose.
"You know what I said earlier? About this not being my fight?" she turned to them both before they got in, her tears dried up and her sadness turning to rage. "I don't know if it was before...but it sure as hell is now."
If they had heard that a week ago, they would have been ecstatic to have Clarice as a permanent member of the Underground. They eyed each other, worried that Blink's newfound zeal for the mutant cause and her grief would only lead to more tragedy.