Michelle "MJ" Jones

Getting inside of Hammer Industries wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be.

We moved in the shadows as we headed towards Hammer Industries headquarters. Once we got close enough, we hid behind a nearby building. Betty had a pair of binoculars with her, which she handed to me.

"Why me?" I asked.

"You're observant," Betty replied.

I narrowed my eyes, but I didn't say anything. I didn't want to admit it, but as much as I hated this idea or sneaking in to Hammer Industries, I couldn't deny that Betty was probably a lot better prepared for it than I expected her to be. So, instead, I looked through the binoculars. It was the typical set up – booth with a lift gate, said booth being occupied by a guard, a one way spike strip, fence with barbed wire... none of it surprised me.

"Shadowcat would've been perfect for this," I thought out loud. "Heck, Frictor would be better than us for this. Getting through the front is a no-go."

"Can't we just run up and take him out?" Betty suggested.

"There are several problems with that option." I lowered my binoculars and stared at her. "If we do knock this guy out, he's only going to be unconscious for so long before he comes to and sounds the alarm and we'd still have to deal with whatever security they'll have at the front desk inside."

"And we don't have the firepower to deal a likely armed force," Cessily added. "Going through the front door is definitely not the move to make."

"So what do we do?" Betty asked.

"Let's move around and see if there's another way in," I suggested.

And that's what we did. We kept our distance from the building, doing our best to stay in the shadows as tried to look for an opening. Eventually we found one.

Literally.

We were posted up in a nearby alleyway while Cessily was looking through the binoculars.

"Nothing so far," Cessily said. "It looks like we got to fall back and try to come up with another…" She trailed off for a moment. "Hold on… I think I see something."

"What do you see?" Betty asked.

"I see a woman… scantily clad… not hard on the eyes."

"By scantily clad, you mean…"

"Jean shorts that might as well be a bikini bottom, a red top that barely covers her chest, fishnet stockings, black stilettos… I don't want to make any assumptions, but something tells me that she's out working."

"As what?"

"The world's oldest profession," I said evenly.

"Okay, so she might be prostituting," Betty mused. "What's the big deal?"

"Well, right now, she's waiting by the outer fence," Cessily replied. "I think she's meeting someone."

"She's probably waiting on clientele," I said. I shook my head. "I don't think there's anything there."

"Unless the clientele is coming from within."

I raised my eyebrow. "What makes you think that?"

"There was this one guard that kept on making his sweeps around this part of the perimeter. I didn't think anything of it, but maybe… Oh there he is."

"May I?"

Wordlessly, Cessily handed me the binoculars. After taking them, I looked through them. Sure enough, there was a woman dressed the way Cessily described. She was a blonde woman that was a bit on the voluptuous side. I eyed her as my face heated up from the intrusive thoughts in my head. I couldn't help but bite my bottom lip.

I couldn't shake the feeling that she charged quite a bit for a good time and was worth every penny.

Bringing my focus back on the topic at hand, I looked past her to see a guard making his way to the fence. He stopped at the fence, looked left and right, then put his hands on the fencing. He pulled his hands apart, forming a hole from what I assumed was a part of the fence that was cut, and stepped through it. The woman in question looked happy to see him. The feeling was definitely mutual as the two shared a sultry kiss as he grabbed her ass with both hands.

"Well those two seem very familiar," I quipped.

"So I was right?" Cess asked.

"I can't be a hundred percent sure of that, but it does loan credence." Her being a prostitute was definitely possibility. There was also a possibility that she was this guy's girlfriend… wife even, or just a chick on the side. I kept my eyes on them. They ended their kiss. They exchanged a few words before they started making their way towards our direction, walking hand in hand. My eyes went wide. "Shit!"

"What's wrong?" Betty said.

"They're making their way towards our direction."

"Crap, what do we do?!"

"We need to hide!" Cessily said.

"Okay, but where?"

I turned around and looked at the alley. My eyes then landed on the dumpster deep in the alley. I sighed.

"In the dumpster," I decided.

There was no protest from either Cess or Betty. We ran towards the dumpster as fast we can. Once we were there, I raised one of the lids. I waited until Cess and Betty climbed before I dove in myself. I let the lid drop on top of us.

"Ugh, great, I'm lying on top of trash," Betty complained.

"Wouldn't be my first time doing so," Cessily deadpanned. "But enough about my exes…"

"Guys, shut up!" I growled through clenched teeth.

The two of them went silent. We heard nothing at first. And then we heard some giggling along with footsteps.

"You're rather eager tonight!" a voice said, belonging to who I assumed was the woman.

"It's been three days since I last saw you," another person replied. That had to be the guard.

"You never called."

"I've been busy and frustrated. My ball-and-chain has been rather irritable about my hours and boss's been riding me hard… but not as hard as I'm going to ride you in a few moments."

"Is that so? Well how do you want me, sugar?"

"The same way I always like – with your hands against the wall and your shorts and panties around your ankles."

"Well you're in luck – I'm not wearing any panties tonight."

"Even better."

We started to hear sounds in the background.

"I need to poke my head out," Cessily said. "I need to see what they're doing."

"Cessily, I don't think now's a good time to be a voyeur," Betty deadpanned.

"First of all, fuck you. Second of all, I need to see how distracted they are."

"Okay, and why?" I asked.

"Because I have an idea, and whether or not I can implement it depends on how distracted he is."

"Okay, but what if he sees us?"

"He won't. Now can one of you do me a favor and give me some light."

I sighed. "Hold on." I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. After unlocking it, I turned on the flashlight. I shined the light on Cessily as she tapped away at her watch. The hologram was down, showing her natural appearance. I had to narrow my eyes – Cess's skin was rather reflective

"Thank you," she said. "Now watch my clothes." With that said, her form shifted as she melted into a mass. The mass jumped into an arc before it dove into the trash, leaving her clothes behind. I heard the sound of digging before there was silence. I realized that she probably squeezing her way out through the dumpster's drainage hole.

"…Is that her true form?" Betty asked.

"It is," I said. I looked at Betty. She tilted her head.

"Did you know she could do that?"

"As of earlier today, yes."

"Huh."

I raised an eyebrow. "What's on your mind?"

"It's just…" Betty trailed off for a moment. "I was just wondering what it's like to be in her position."

I was confused. "In what way?"

"You see… Craig, Kitty, Buford, Joanna… and Scott, to a slightly lesser degree, can easily hide the fact that they're mutants. But Cess has to use a hologram on a daily basis. It's like… she's basically…"

"She basically has to hide who she is every day," I finished for her.

"…Yeah," Betty said in agreement. "Exactly. I can't imagine having to live like that – not to such an extent, anyway."

I merely nodded. Inside my head, I recalled the Friends of Humanity incident. Not for the first time, I wondered how many closeted mutants were walking the halls of Midtown and how it must've felt to have a spot that was supposed to be a safe place invaded by the very group that wants them eradicated.

Then again, was there ever really a safe haven for mutants? And if there was, what's stopping it from going the way of Tulsa or Rosewood?

I was taken out of my thoughts when I heard the sound of trash rustling again. Cessily was back, moving as a silver blob. She snaked her way back to her clothes before she slowly reformed. Once she was back to her normal form, she took a moment to adjust her clothes. She then fiddled with her watch until she had her previous hologram up again.

"Okay, we need to quietly leave this dumpster," Cessily whispered. "Right now he's distracted."

Betty and I looked at each other for a moment. I then slowly lifted the lid. I looked towards the end of the alley. Judging by the sound of dirty talk, moaning, and flesh slapping against each other, I had a very good theory about what it was that was keeping the two of them distracted. Slowly, I climbed out of the dumpster, making sure to keep quiet as my feet touched the ground. I held the lid upward to allow Cessily and Betty to do the same. As I slowly lowered the lid, I saw Cessily pick a couple of things off of the ground. The three of us then made our way out of the alley.

"So what was your idea?" I asked. Cessily handed me what she picked up. I looked them over in my hands. One of them was a wallet. Another one was a keycard. I opened the wallet to see an ID belong to a Donald Gill with a picture of a man who had brown hair and brown eyes. "How'd you get this?"

"I had a feeling that the guy was rather brazen when it comes to where, when, and how to partake in certain," Cessily replied, pointing a thumb over her shoulder. "The two of them had their pants around their ankles while he was railing her from behind. So it didn't take much effort for me to slide over and pluck a couple of items out of his pants without him looking."

"Great stuff," Betty complimented. "But are you sure you didn't sneak a peek?"

"…Why are you like this?"

"We got a keycard and I.D.," I interrupted. "I'm guessing we're sneaking in through the hole. And then what?"

"Well…" I looked at Cessily as she took the wallet and keycard from me. After pocketing the keycard, she pulled an ID out of the wallet. After fiddling with the watch, she held the ID over the device. I watched as the ID was scanned by the device. Cessily then put the ID back into the wallet before pocketing the latter. Her disguise changed, making her become a dead ringer for the apparent Donald Gill. She then adjusted her height until she was just an inch shorter than me. "My image inducer comes with a little handy function. Basically, I can scan an ID. After basically doing an internet search, it can give me a good approximation of the person on the ID. Of course, the effectiveness of said function depends on the person's digital footprint. Luckily, this guy's pretty open about what he posts online."

"Okay, so we have everything we need then," Betty said. "Let's sneak in while Donald's getting his rocks off."

"We'd still be careful about security," I pointed out as we reached the fence.

"I know. But since he's in the alley and not on company grounds making his rounds, there's definitely an opening for us to sneak towards the entrance."

It turned out that she had a point.

After making our way through the opening of the fence, we slowly made our way through the gap in security. We kept our heads on a swivel. But once we reached the building, we made our way to the side entrance. Cessily used the keycard to open the door. She went in first. After a few moments, she opened the door to allow us in. Once I was inside, I looked around. While the main lights were off, there was still enough light in the room to keep things just bright enough to take in everything. Everything was clean. The floors were buffed to the point that I could see some semblance of a reflection. Nothing really looked out of the ordinary. There was a certain feeling of dread. It wasn't just because we were trespassing and us getting caught would affect the others in a major way. Maybe it was because I knew the type of person Hammer was. Maybe it was because the recent happenings had me believing that there was something amidst happening in New York. But something told me that if we got caught, the consequences would be… You know what? It'd be easier to say we'd be heavily fucked.

"We're inside!" Betty said with an excited whisper.

"So where do we go from here?" I asked.

"We have to find the conference room where the attack happened."

"And do we have a layout or directory?" Cessily inquired.

"We do." Betty reached into her pocket and pulled out a phone. Cessily and I both looked over her shoulder as she turned the phone sideways, unlocked it, and went through it before she pulled up a PDF. We saw the blue print of the building. Betty scrolled through page after page until she stopped at one. "I had The Guy In The Chair do some research for me. According to the information he found, the conference rooms are on the seventh floor. Once we're there, we're going to find that room, make our way in, and look for clues. We'll be gone right after that. It'll be ea-"

"Don't say it," I interrupted. "Let's not jinx things. Let's just do what we need to do and get out."

Slowly, we moved through the building. It only took us about a minute to find the elevator. After we went inside, I pressed the button for the seventh floor. Nothing happened. Cessily stepped forward, beckoning me to step aside. After I did so, Cessily took the key card out and placed it against a nearby scanner. After it lit up green, Cessily pressed the button for the seventh floor. This time the elevator moved. As it ascended, I took in a breath to try and calm my nerves.