Discovery 1.4

The next morning came too soon. Twisted in the top sheet of the bed, Anna's eyes creaked open to see bright light out the window. Before she had the time to comprehend the time of day, she heard a man's cursing outside and the sound of falling metal. She blinked the thin film off her eyelids and slowly sat up. Hair, matted and sweaty, stuck to the sides of her face and she did her best to comb it out with her fingers.

She eventually stood and shuffled over to the bathroom, splashing her face with the cool tap water. She caught the sight of her reflection in the tiny mirror and saw the bags developing from the lack of solid sleep. She wiped away the water and remaining sleep residue with one of the scratchy white towels, then heard another drop of heavy metal outside. She walked up to the large window and pushed back an inch of the curtain. Past the rusted metal rail, she could just see the top of a head bobbing in the parking lot below. Without giving it much further thought, she walked for the door and made to twist open the knob, when she spotted a handwritten note taped to the inside.

- Honey, we will be out for a few hours and be back around five. We would like you to be dressed and showered by then. There is someone you will be meeting. We bought you breakfast, it's in the mini-fridge.

Love, Mom, and Mah. -

Anna looked around and spotted, for the first time, a tiny white mini fridge sat beneath the ancient TV. She popped it open and found a white clamshell container. Inside was lined with mini pancakes and in its center was a small mountain of scrambled eggs and diced sausages. She plucked one of the mini pancakes out, made for the door, and opened it.

A hot summer afternoon greeted her and immediately made the pores of her skin prickle. The sun stung her eyes and the humidity was like wading into a pool of muck. Blinking her burning eyes against the sun, she leaned on the rail and looked down. She spotted the man that was rooming next door, Logan - if she remembered right, leaning over the open hood of his junky-looking hatchback. There were soot-covered tools on either side of the car and his white undershirt was stained with black grease. She could hear the sound of a ratchet being cranked and in between twists she could hear muttering.

"Whatchya doin'?" She called down to him and saw the open hood of the car jump up.

"Jesus Chri -" A moment later the man popped into view and was rubbing the top of his head. "Hey, kid! Mind not scaring people while they are working?"

Anna took another large bite of her pancake. "Sorry." She said, one cheek full.

"Yeah." He said, his reply clipped. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand, leaving a trail of black grease in its wake. "I noticed the horses are running a little low and was seeing if maybe cleaning this crap machine out a little might give me a little more power."

"I think your problem is you bought a crappy car," Anna said around the last mouthful of her pancake.

"I'll say." He kicked one of the tires hard enough the whole car shook. The stick he had found to hold up the hood was dislodged and the whole thing came crashing down and locked back in place. "Crap. I freakin' hate cars." He walked around the burnt sienna monstrosity, popped the lever for the hood release on the driver side, then felt under the lip of the hood for the release lever.

"If you hate cars so much, why did you buy one?"

"I didn't buy it. It was gifted to me." He continued to feel under the hood for the release. When he did, a smile split his face and he raised the hood, then realization struck. "Uh - hey - if you're just going to stand there, could you do me a favor? I lost the stick I was using to hold this up -"

"Yeah I gotcha. Hold up." Anna wandered back inside, fished out a pair of jeans out of the dresser, and replaced her pajama bottoms with them. She then took her box of breakfast down with her to the parking lot and placed it on the roof of the car. She walked around its perimeter till she found the dislodged stick and handed it over to the man.

"Thanks." He grunted and lodged it back in place.

She peered over his shoulder. "Why are you using this stick again?"

"What does it look like? To hold up the hood."

"But you got-" She reached past him and pulled free grime-covered, arm-length, metal prop stick mounted on a swivel on the inside of the hood.

He took it from her grasp, looked at her, then kicked the stick out with his elbow and replaced it with the prop stick. "Er… Thanks."

"You really don't know anything about cars, do you?" Anna plucked another pancake from the box and munched on it.

"I know plenty. I just don't prefer them. Motorcycles are more my speed. The pretty boy is the car one."

"'Pretty Boy'" Anna air' quoted. "He your boyfriend or something?"

Logan sniffed and smiled. "He wishes he was so lucky." He then bent over, collected a socket wrench, and got to work back on the engine block.

"Well, if he is the friend that bought you an AMC Gremlin, I don't think he's your friend." She took another bite and continued with a mouth full of dry pancake. "At least it's custom, I guess. Normally the hood release in this thing is in the grill somewhere, this one has it in the driver compartment somewhere. Maybe some other stuff is fixed on it."

Logan paused and looked up at her. "Why do you know so much about this thing?"

She sniffed. "You ain't from around here, are you? Not sure if you caught on, but Caldecott County ain't exactly swimming in it. We make do with what we can get, and that means keeping heaps like this alive for as long as possible. I know at least three boys at school with junkers like this, and they call them their 'shaggin-wagons.'"

"Isn't that… quaint." He returned to his work on the engine block. "Sleep okay by the way? I heard some crashes last night."

"Heard that did you?" Anna leaned against the car and watched him work. She didn't bother explaining further, only continued to munch on her food.

"You know, some say I can be a bit of a hot head too. I've been known to tear up a hotel room or two when I was your age."

"Yeah? Somehow I think our similarities would probably stop there, mister."

"How do you figure?" He looked up and saw the pancake in her hand. "Look, if you're going to eat those right in front of me, could you at least give me one? I haven't even had breakfast yet."

She reached up and passed him pancake which he accepted with a greasy hand. He bit into it, nodded with some sort of approval, and continued his work. "Anyway, what makes you so different from the rest of us?"

"You know, the funny thing is I don't think you'd even believe me if I told you."

"You can try me."

Anna paused and looked away. She rested her backside against the side of the car and crossed her arms. "I would, but I don't know if I even believe any of it myself." She listened to the sound of the man's ratcheting and the occasional passing of a car on the highway adjacent to the motel. She listened to the words her mothers said to her the night before over again in her head.

'There are many of us.'

A vision of the white-haired man from her shared touch with her mother came to mind. She swallowed. "Have you ever… heard of something called 'The Brotherhood?'"

The ratcheting paused and she turned to face him. He stared at the engine, his forehead slick with sweat. "Yes. Yes, I have." He said in a near growl.

"Are - you one of them?"

He sifted his heavy jaw back and forth. "No, I'm not."

She blinked and looked that the leathery hand still holding the bitten pancake. "But -" She said, weighing the words carefully in her head. "You are… one of us aren't you?"

The hand holding the pancake curled into a fist, then slowly a single flawless blade slid out the back of his wrist till it was the size of her forearm. She stared at it, her heart catching in her throat. Then, as easily as it appeared, the blade slid back into the man's flesh without any sign of it ever being there.

"Oh my god." Her breath trembled.

"As I said, I think you and I have more in common than you might think." He said evenly, cooly.

She swallowed, staring at his hand. "Are you here to kill me?"

"Kill you? The person that taught me about the prop - sticky - thingy on the car? I would never." A smile curled the ends of his five-o'clock-shadow, but when he saw her face, his own returned to neutral. "Sorry. No, I don't do that if I can help it."

"And if you can't?" Anna tried not to let the fear show in her voice, but every word trembled like a leaf in the wind.

The man lowered his head to his chest, turned, and rested his rear on the lip of the car. "I'm not going to hurt you. And I'm not here to make you do anything you don't want to do either. Believe it or not, I'm only here to give you options, and to make sure you're okay."

"Options?" Anna scoffed. "What options have I exactly had this entire time? Since this whole fucking nightmare started? A week ago I was a normal person and now… I'm like - this highly valued target with superpowers!"

Logan nodded. "I know. I know what it's like to be handed something and not have even asked for it. Abilities… a situation… you were just trying to make it in life and-" he crossed his arms. "I looked into Cody for you."

"What? Cody?" Anna touched the tip of her fingers to her chin. "Is he -"

"He'll be fine. He was taken to the hospital after what happened. He was out cold for a couple of hours but he's recovering fine. More confused than anything else."

"Oh thank god." Anna clutched the roof of the car with one hand and her chest with the other. "Do you happen to know anything about my friend Jess? I haven't seen her since the dance."

"I only know what the police channels have been hot with. So I know she was questioned about you, and that she didn't seem to know anything. Nothing legally is being taken against her in any way. But… I am sorry to tell you this, but there isn't really a life for you back there anymore. You're not a wanted criminal per se, and the heat will die down, but the cops and that boy's family will always want answers. Those are answers I wouldn't recommend giving. Not here at least. Not yet."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Logan opened his hand to reveal the crushed pancake and let it fall to the ground with the passing wind. "It means that your life is going to change whether you like it or not. It also means that you're going to be made to feel like you only have one choice on how to proceed, but it's important to know that you don't."

Anna looked at her bare hand, then Logan's bare arm. She swallowed and kept her hand at her side. "Do I need to ask for you to explain?"

He smirked. "Pretty soon you're going to be presented to a man named Erik Lehnsherr. He's a very, very powerful man in both ability and presence. You asked me about The Brotherhood. Well, that's his organization. When you speak to him, he, or one of his cronies, are going to talk to you about some pretty serious and pretty scary stuff. He's going to tell you how much people will despise you for existing, and how much they will want your head on a pike. He'll then tell you about the importance of joining together with your fellow mutant, fighting back, and ultimately destroying the current regime of 'normal' humans."

"Jesus! That's… some rhetoric…"

"It is, and the sad truth of it all is he's not completely wrong. Your powers being revealed to you, learning you're gifted - or a mutant or whatever - is going to make some people hate you. That's just a fact. It's also not the whole truth either."

"And - what - next you're going to tell me you know the 'whole truth?'"

Logan snickered. "Kid, I'm not claiming to know a damn thing. What I will tell you, is there is another way of looking at it. I know this man, his name is Xavier. He's kind of an oddball, but he wants… better for the world. He wants to give people like you and me an opportunity to show the world that we aren't their superiors or inferiors - that we are equals. I don't entirely understand how he plans to accomplish this but -" Logan sighed and let his words simmer a while before continuing. "It just… sounds better than being afraid or being angry." He straightened his back. "Eh, I'm probably not making much sense -"

"No-" Anna cut him off and nodded her head. "I think I understand. A little at least."

Logan shrugged. "You could of course go your own way. I did for a long time."

"What stopped you?"

He set his jaw and seemed to consider. "Honestly, it got lonely. I don't always know what to do with Xavier's flowery approach to the whole situation but… at least there is plenty of people to share a meal with. People to watch your back."

"How many people?"

Logan rubbed his chin. "They've been kinda trickling in lately. Think there's five other kids there about your age."

"You've got ones… my age?"

"Yep. It's when it starts. Kicks in during puberty." Logan shivered and turned to face her. "God, can't pay me to go through that again."

She looked down at the long cracks in the pavement. He took her shoulder a moment, looked at it in his hand, then pulled it away. "Eh, sorry. Didn't mean to make you feel bad." He paused, then walked around her and popped open the driver's door. He dug around in the center console and eventually resurfaced.

"There's something I want to give you - if you want it." He held out his hand and in it was a single black plastic pen with a red stripe down either side. "It's a locater. To activate it you just pull the cap -" He pulled the plastic cap off the pen, put it on the opposite end, and twisted the cap around in a circle. "That sends a signal to me that you need help."

She looked at the pen, then up at him. "Will I need help?"

"You need options. Like I said, I'm just here to give them to you." He recapped the pen, poised his meaty paw over her offered hand, and dropped the pen into her waiting palm. When he tried to pull his hand back, she clapped down on his bare hand with both of hers. She saw him try to evade her grasp but she was too quick for him. A surge of energy unlike any she had felt before coursed through her veins, through every muscle, bone, organ, and cell.