Discovery 1.3

Chinese was what was for dinner. A difficult find, Anna could at least imagine, for wherever the hell the three of them had ended up. What was even more strange, was how quiet it was. Normally when they all sat down, there was conversation, laughter, or at the very least one of them would ask how she was doing or how her day was. But instead, there was only silence as Anna munched on cold noodles and chicken out of her paper Chinese pint box. Her moms ate too, though not nearly as vehemently. Sitting on the bed opposite hers, as far as Anna could tell, the pair of them only had a couple of bites of their meal between them, before setting it aside and watching her finish.

Slurping up the last of her soy sauce-soaked noodles with a plastic fork, she wiped her lip with a flimsy napkin and looked up at them. Neither of her Moms met her gaze. Even Irene, who always wore her sunglasses, held her head in a position that made it clear that she didn't even want her head facing in Anna's direction.

Anna crossed her legs on the bed and rubbed her face up and down with both hands. "Will someone… please… tell me what in the hell is going on?"

"Anna - Raven and I -" Irene was cut short as Raven rested a hand on Irene's thigh. A strange secret language was shared between them, then Raven raised her head and looked Anna in the eye for the first time since she left for the dance.

"Anna-" She reached out and took one of Anna's hands. Anna noticed that both of her Mom's hands were gloved in sleek nylon gloves. "There are some things you need to know. Things we weren't sure when to tell you. Things… I wanted to protect you from."

Anna blinked rapidly "P-Protect me? Protect me from what?"

"Well," Raven looked to Irene. "We knew this would happen one day." She looked back at Anna. "Not like this exactly, but we knew at some point in your adolescence you would develop certain… unique abilities."

"Abilities?"

Raven ducked her head. She shifted seats and sat next to Anna on her bed. "I'm sure at some point in school they've mentioned evolution to you, right? How humans have developed from prior animals like monkeys and such?"

"Yeah…"

"Well, evolution hasn't stopped. The species continues to grow and try new things to see how it can better survive. Sometimes evolution gets a helping hand by modern science, and sometimes there are anomalies -"

"Where are you going with this exactly?"

Raven let go of Anna's hands and pushed Anna's hair back behind her ear. "There is… a new type of human now. It's not incredibly well known just yet, but the more ham-fisted types call them mutants. Mutants are people with special abilities that set them apart from the rest of the human race."

"And… this is what you think I am? A… mutant?"

"That word is crass and hurtful and full of misunderstanding. What people like me, and others like us, prefer is 'Gifted.'"

"Like… us?" The last word felt like dropping a bowling ball out of her mouth.

Raven smiled a low-watt smile and held Anna's hands securely between both of hers. "That boy at the dance-"

"His name was Cody," Anna said with a jolt.

Raven paused then nodded. "Cody… you kissed this boy. You said you had a sort of… melding of minds with him followed by a surge of strange power, correct?"

"Yeah, basically. I guess."

"It's what I told you," Irene said from the other bed. Raven looked at her, nodded her head once, and looked back at Anna. "You are one of us Gifted, dear. We knew for a while you would be, your Mah saw it because she's Gifted too. You, Anna, my sweet baby, you have the ability to touch a person and gain their memories and abilities."

Anna jerked her hand out of her Mom's. "What in the hell? Wh - What are you talking about? That thing I did… that was a-"

"Gift, honey."

Anna looked back at her Mom like she had three heads.

Raven took off her glove and held up her forefinger in Anna's direction. "Anna, I want you to touch my finger -"

"What are you doing, Raven?" Irene shot like a broadside from the other bed. "She'll see-"

Raven looked back at Irene. "The girl needs context, Irene. It will only be a second." She looked back at Anna. "I want you to touch your finger to mine for just a moment. Okay?" Anna looked from her Mom's finger, and back at her face. Raven smiled back. "It will be fine. I promise."

Anna blinked, held out her finger, and touched the tip of her finger to her Mom's. There was a surge of electricity between them and Anna ripped her finger back. Her mind's eye flashed with glimpses of Irene, of the long drive over, of herself from a rear-view mirror in their Toyota. She saw what looked like the front office of the motel, of a large amount of cash being exchanged, then an image of a man with slick white hair. She then felt an intense fear buried deep in her chest next to the protective sort of love reserved for something precious. She shook her head and she was back in the present with her Mom looking back at her. Her gaze seemed a little dazed but was otherwise fine.

"I don't understand," Anna said, staring back at her. "When I kissed Cody, he got laid out."

"As far as we can put together." Her Mom remarked, a little slack-jawed. "It all depends on how long your initial contact is. It determines how long your memory exchange is, and how long you'll inherit their abilities."

"Abilities?"

Her Mom nodded at Anna's hand. "Look."

Anna looked down and saw that her hand had disappeared. She jerked it back, rose it towards the ceiling, and saw a hand-shaped pattern of the bed sheets in contrast to the white popcorn ceiling above. A moment later, her hand shifted white till it matched the ceiling perfectly. "Oh my god. Oh my god, what's happening!" As she finished speaking, her hand, seemingly by magic, returned to flesh. She brought it close and looked it over. Her hand was back to being as normal as normal can be.

"Wait." She paused and looked up at her Mom. "You said I gain people's memories and abilities."

Her Mom nodded. "And like I told you earlier, you aren't the only gifted one. In fact, you aren't the only gifted one in this room." Like that, her Mom's hand and entire arm began to lightly shimmer. Her skin almost seemed to retract within itself and was replaced with a blue scaly texture.

"Oh - Oh" Anna clapped over her mouth with her hand. "Oh my god."

"Not everyone's abilities are the same," Her Mom continued as if they were discussing the weather. As she spoke, her arm changed again. This time it morphed before Anna's very eyes into a much thicker, hairier arm with a deep olive skin tone. "Mine, as you can see, is to change my body's shape and appearance at will." Her arm then became blocky and developed what looked like a gun on the end. She pointed the barrel of her gun arm at the wall behind Anna and she saw a flash at its end. She ducked and covered her head, waiting for the eardrum-shattering 'kaboom' of a gun, but the blast never came. She unveiled her ears and face from her hands and looked back up at her Mom who still held her gun arm at the wall. She flashed its barrel several more times, but still, nothing exploded and nothing came out of the end. "But as you can see, my ability, unlike yours, is limited only to appearance. I can morph and change my body into whatever I want, but I can't turn myself into a weapon. I also can't take the form of another Gifted and gain their ability… but you can."

"Okay -" Anna looked at the gun arm, then back again at her Mom. "So, what - does that make me special or something?"

"Your gift makes you especially valuable, Anna." Her Mah, Irene said from the other bed, her tone stiff. "There are many others like us, but not all of us agree on how to best use our abilities. There are others who seek out especially powerful gifted people, and try to use them for their own twisted political purposes."

Raven looked back at Irene. "Don't needlessly scare the child."

"She needs to know, Raven. I can tell you that she will be in contact with one of them soon. I don't know when exactly…"

Anna looked between them. "Am I… going to be kidnapped or something? Am I in danger?"

Raven looked back at her, her arm returning back to normal. "No, no - you are safe. You're with us. And just like always, as long as you're with us, you will always be safe." She gestured to the room around them. "That's why we set up this safe house. We knew at some point that your powers would manifest, and we wanted a place for you to fall back on for safe keeping when it happened. We have thought through this long ahead of time, all thanks to your Mah." She took Anna's hands in hers. "You are in safe hands, baby."

"He's going to want to meet her," Irene said.

"Who's 'he'?" Anna asked, spikes in her voice. "Is he the 'he' you two kept mentioning in the car?"

Raven stroked the back of Anna's hand. "No, this man is on our side. He's, well, I guess you could call him my boss."

An image of the older man flashed across Anna's vision, his white hair slicked back. "Your… boss?"

"Yes. He leads our group called 'The Brotherhood.' He has the best interest in mind for our kind. And like your Mah said, he is very interested in meeting you."

Anna didn't say anything immediately. She met her Mom's gaze and wondered if those deep brown eyes were real, or just another illusion like the gun arm. She looked down and stared at her own hand supporting her weight on the blanket.

"I think that's more than enough for today." Her Mom said and made to let go when Anna clutched her gloved hand suddenly.

"What about home? What about my life? What about Jess?"

A pause hung in the air like a thick soup. Her two Moms looked at each other and yet another silent conversation was held between them. It was then Anna knew the answers. She relinquished her grip on her Mom and let her hand fall uselessly to her side on the bedspread.

"I'm sorry, baby," Raven spoke first. "It's too dangerous. Back home, they all know now. People like them… they would never accept people like us knowingly. You saw all the police."

Anna wanted to argue, say that Jess would if she just had the chance to explain. But nothing came out, not even a breath. Instead, she sat on the bed, hunched, her face concealed by her hair. She felt a heat in her face and did her best to bite back the tears that threatened the levees of her eyes.

"Honey…"

"I think we should give her some space, Raven," Irene said, her voice annoyingly neutral.

Raven's hand hovered over her daughter's shoulder but fell back down onto the bedspread. She rose, evenly and elegantly, and said nothing to Irene as she passed and rested her hand on the door nob of the front door. Irene too rose, feeling her way along the wall, then met up with Raven and wrapped her hand around her partner's bicep.

"We are in the room directly diagonal to this one," Irene explained. "The one next door got rented out suddenly and the one downstairs was the only free one. If you need us, we are here for you."

Raven looked over her shoulder at Anna, who hadn't raised her head to acknowledge either of them. Her eyes lingered a moment before twisting the door-nob and walking out the door with her partner in tow.

When the door closed, the room was once again plunged into a deafening silence. Anna wasn't sure how long she sat there, staring at her own crossed legs. She felt herself move more than she commanded herself to, she grabbed the pillow off her bed and threw it as hard as she could at the lamp on the nightstand. It was flung across the room with enough force to shatter the bulb when the lamp smacked against the opposite wall. Now all that sounded from the pitch black room was Anna's muffled cries.