Stormwall: Chapter 2

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Sorry for the delay on posting this part, I was stuck at one point in the piece and my muse was apparently on a long vacation.

I'm hoping that I'll be able to post more pieces fairly soon, but I need to find a new place to live, that's much more important right now.

**********

Well, as they say, life goes on, and on Wednesday, it was back to the training, but this time it was purely physical. They had me lifting weights on various machines, running as fast as I could around a one mile underground track circuit, jumping jacks, toe touches, stuff like that.

I'm definitely a girl when it comes to ordinary physical stuff, I know I didn't impress them while using the weight machines. Yeah, I can lift a bit over 1000 pounds if I really want to do it, but that takes a bit of effort. Heck, there are several mutants out there that go way beyond that.

The running was nice, it seems my being an exemplar has me in very good physical condition, and I ran a mile in 3:45 without breathing hard. They had me do it again, pushing myself as much as possible, and that time I almost broke through a three minute mile with a 3:04 time.

So I can dead lift a fair bit of weight, I'm very fast on my feet, my best mile as a boy was 4:01, and I'm very, very flexible. I found the jumping jacks, toe touches and other exercises to be rather fun, being able to jump, bend, twist, roll, etc. will help if I ever have to fight.

Well, the training ended about 2:30 PM, everyone met in the house and we had a big lunch, I definitely needed it at that point. Jenny had been staying over the last several days while I had been training and had been preparing and serving most of the meals in the house.

What I hadn't known was that Old Jack, my dad and a few others were working on getting my IDs changed, and dad had contacted the nearest office of the MCO to inform them that we would show up at the office in Lexington some time next week to get sorted.

Lunch today was buffalo burgers, she made patties, each about eight or nine ounces and grilled them on the BBQ at the back of the house. We had baked potatoes and corn on the cob with the burgers, I demolished three burgers, five cobs of corn and two baked potatoes.

Hey, what can I say? A girl using as much energy as I seem to be doing lately has to eat enough to let that energy rebuild itself, ya know?

Either Liza or Lila suggested that we go into Oakland and do some shopping, they whined at me until I agreed to go with them.

**********

Well, I had a nice shower after the meal and dressed in a denim skirt, a Rolling Stones t-shirt and a pair of comfortable running shoes with bobby socks. The skirt was snug, but not overly tight, I'd be able to take it off and put it on easily enough if I ended up trying on any clothing.

I decided to play it safe and wore the deerskin cap Dad made for me a few years ago, it's big but it covers my hair which is good. It may look a bit odd in California when the temp often hits the high 60s/low 70s F, but I don't think it would be a good idea to have my hair be visible.

I wasn't expecting it, but Dad handed me $350 so I could buy things if I found items that I wanted. I gave him a big hug and he blushed.

Liza, Lila, Sherry and I walked out to Old Jack's ten year old Suburban, where we were met by another woman, the mutant Slingshot; she has this nasty attack using her TK where she gathers about five thousand bits of metal about the size of ball bearings and slings them at a target. I think her actual name is Eliza May or something like that, she's from somewhere down in Mississippi or Louisiana.

She was one of the extra supers that were brought in to help test me in the process of discovering my abilities. She's a one-shot pony, her TK 3e is pretty good, but beyond that, she's a level 1 exemplar, level 2 regen and level two internal energizer, which she uses as a protective shield. If it weren't for that shield and the regen, she'd be in trouble in a serious fight, I think, although I could be wrong. I am sometimes.

Anyway, Slingshot ended up behind the wheel, Sherry in the other front seat, and Liza, Lila and I were in the seat behind them.

**********

We ended up going to the Bay Street mall in Emeryville. Slingshot parked the vehicle; once we were out, she remote locked it and we were heading into the mall itself. We wandered around for a bit, had some soft drinks and relaxed before we hit American Eagle Outfitters.

I liked the logo jogging pants they had and picked up three, one burgundy, one green and one grey before we checked the skirt section. In the skirt area, I ended up trying on two skirts, a black denim one and a light brown corduroy one, and decided to buy both of them.

We wandered through the t-shirt section, I picked up two red/pink and white tie-dye t-shirts and a couple of other t-shirts.

Oh boy, we've only hit one store and I've already spent about half of the money that dad gave to me earlier. Yikes!

We went to H&M next, I found a pair of pants that I liked and three long sleeve shirts, those items killed another $70 of the money from dad.

I spent about an hour wandering through the racks and shelves at Barnes & Noble, eventually finding new books from a few series that I'd been collecting since I was nine. I'm not sure where the other four went while I was in there, but just after I exited from that store, Liza and Lila appeared, grabbed me by the arms, then started walking through the mall, eventually pulling me into a well-known shoe store company.

We were in Aldo's for about thirty minutes, and I found a pair of nice, sleek low platform shoes that just were begging for me to take them, so I shelled out $65, leaving me with about $10 out of what Dad had given me earlier.

We did wander through Aerosoles as well, but I didn't see anything there that I wanted or needed.

It was nearly 6:30 PM by the time we left Aerosoles, so we headed out to the parking lot. My three bags were joined by about ten more belonging to the other four girls, then we climbed in and headed back to Uncle Jack's home.

I've never shopped as a girl before, so I was a wee bit worried about how Daddy would react over my spending all that money.

**********

We arrived back at Uncle Jack's home about forty minutes later, each of us grabbed our bags and headed into the house.

Dad was standing in the doorway of the living room, looking into the kitchen where Jenny could be seen toiling over the stove.

"Ummm, hi, dad, ummm, I spent almost all of what you gave me," I said in a soft voice as I nervously glanced at him. As I said earlier, I had no idea how he might react to my spending almost all the money, but a quiet chuckle and a hug from him caused my fears to vanish.

I took my new clothes up to the room I was using and put them all away, then headed back down to the kitchen to help Jenny. It was a bit less than an hour later before the meal was completely ready, I set the table as Jenny called everyone down for dinner.

The meal consisted of totally yummy venison steaks, baked sweet potatoes and peas, with a strawberry cheesecake for dessert. Once again, I ate heartily, putting away two steaks and three of the potatoes, along with some peas and two servings of that scrumptious cheesecake.

After the meal had ended, I sat in the living room with Daddy and watched the movie Armageddon on DVD, then wandered off to my bed.

**********

Thursday was more training, this time a bit of everything, and the day passed rather quickly thanks to staying busy.

Now it was Friday morning and Dad I were making sure that we had everything for our flight back to Kentucky this afternoon. I had been putting items in suitcases and removing them for an hour, finally I felt like everything was where it needed to be, so I closed the three suitcases, two of which were given to me by Liza and Lila, then we lugged them all down to the front hallway, dropping them near the door.

The next two hours passed as we ate a quick lunch and goodbyes were said to one and all.

Dad loaded our bags into the Suburban, I climbed into the seat behind him, joined by Liza and Lila, and Slingshot rode shotgun. She would be driving the vehicle back to Uncle Jack's once we were safely on the plane and heading home.

Dad had opted for a mid-afternoon flight, to be safe, we were at the airport just after 1 PM, checking in our bags.

I hadn't realized it when we left, but I had forgotten that deerskin cap back in the house.

**********

Dad had just taken his bags off the conveyor and was reaching for the last one of mine when I was grabbed from behind by someone.

A baritone voice not far from my left ear stated, "You're coming with me, we can't have unknown mutants running rampant in here, can we?" as the person pulled on my arm and started half-dragging, half-hauling me toward a doorway along the far wall of the corridor.

Liza and Lila were not happy, Liza yelled out, "Just who the heck do you think you are that you can do this to my cousin?"

Lila stepped forward, her eyes gleaming dangerously as she cocked a hand forward, ready to shock the unknown male. "Answer her now."

The male, still trying to drag me off, turned partway around and snarled, "I'm with the MCO, this mutant needs to be detained."

Dad apparently had a better viewing angle, as he asked, "Then why, sir, are you not wearing your uniform and where is your badge?"

The male faced forward and started to pull me along again, saying, "In the office, I was headed there when I saw this freak."

I twisted around, catching the expressions on the faces of Dad, Liza and Lila, they wanted to take this guy down hard. I shook my head, saying, "I'll go with him for now, you guys go find the head of MCO here and bring them back to that office ASAP."

None of them liked it, but they couldn't come up with a better option. Liza took off at a dead run, headed for the airport's main offices.

**********

The male pulled me into the office behind that door. The space wasn't very big, maybe twelve feet on each side, with two doors on the left wall and two more on the right wall. One door on the left was slightly open, someone could be heard talking quietly in the room beyond it.

Against the back wall of the entry room I saw two large leather couches with a rather solid looking end table sitting between them.

The guy continued to pull me across the room until we were near the couches, then shoved me at one of them. I whacked my left knee off the front of the couch, then lost my balance for a moment and my head hit the cheap wall behind the couches, leaving a head-sized hole.

I was dizzy for a few seconds, then shook it off, using one arm to push myself up from the wall, then turned to face the man.

"Do you normally commit assault upon US citizens?" I asked. "Mutant or not, I'm still a US citizen."

"You're a damn freak just like any other mutant, we should throw you all out of the country like the trash you are."

I shook my head, then giggled as I saw my dad and Lila standing in the doorway from the corridor, they had obviously heard everything. I wasn't sure if they had seen what happened, but that was soon cleared up when dad said, "You had no need to treat her like that."

"Why not? She's a mutant, I'll do whatever I think is necessary to deal with an unknown mutant. Got that, buster?"

It seemed that Liza had been lucky, as she came running into the room followed by three people all in MCO uniforms. Interestingly, it seemed that the lone woman was in charge; she sighed, then questioned the guy next to me. "You dragged this young woman in here, McCallan?"

The man, who had just been named by his superior, replied, "Yeah, she's an obvious mutant, I thought she might be a risk to others in the airport, so I detained her, then brought her in here so I could hold her for immediate deportation."

Dad snarled, "Do I need to tell you that he physically grabbed her without even speaking to her first, then started hauling her off without saying why? Do I need to add that doing that while not wearing his uniform and without his badge makes it a clear case of assault? Perhaps you might want to know that when he hauled her in here, he threw her at the couches there, causing her to hit her head on the wall?"

Lila stood up straight and tall, fury quite evident on her face as she hissed, "And what the hell is this about deporting her?"

Dad continued, "Furthermore, we've just spent the last week having her go through initial testing at Jack Faraday's farm. We've also started the process of changing her IDs, as she was male before the mutation occurred, and we have contacts in Lexington and Louisville, Kentucky, that I am sure would be quite willing to give you a fairly detailed history of our family, as would Jack and the rest of the family here. Oh, we'll also be meeting with someone in the Lexington office of the MCO next Thursday to get her mutant card finalized."

The woman's jaw dropped when dad mention Old Jack, she asked, "You're referring to Jumping Jack Flash?"

Dad nodded, smiling a bit as he replied, "Yes, indeed, Chief Agent Cargill," after a quick glance at her badge on the front of her uniform.

Cargill grinned at dad, saying, "My grandmother's sister was a teammate of his from '45 though to '78, she died protecting the Bay Area."

Cargill then turned to face McCallan again, scowling at him. "I have no choice but to suspend you, McCallan. You acted inappropriately, especially since you were not in uniform at all, thus you had no right to detain the young lady. Further, you deliberately assaulted her by first physically grabbing her, then by throwing her once you had brought her in here. You're damn lucky that she doesn't appear to be harmed."

Cargill then turned to me, smiling as she asked, "Are you sure that you are fine, child?"

I replied in the affirmative, at which point she stated that we were free to go, but that we might be needed if McCallan faced any charges.

I smiled, saying, "Thank you," to her as dad, Liza, Lila and I headed for the gate where dad and I would catch our plane to go home.

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Comments

Ahhh, the good old MCO and

Ahhh, the good old MCO and some of its very backward thinking by some of its 'brain dead' members.

Re: Ahhh, the good old MCO

Yes, but that is balanced by the fact that they have people like Chief Agent Cargill working for them, who has had at least one relative that was a mutant. Cargill does not outright fear or hate mutants. It's also possible that there are other mutants in Cargill's family.

Familiarity does have the ability to create tolerance of others, perhaps even acceptance and respect.

Or maybe she has interacted with many mutants during her career and learned they are just like other people, some good, some bad.

Spoiling a nice trip home

Jamie Lee's picture

Moron! He's lucky he didn't end up in the hospital, grabbing her like that without proper identification. She could have thought he was just another mutant hater and laid him out.

But he got his own butt into a sling by his action. Maybe the Arctic needs watching.

Others have feelings too.

Stillhe faces chrges

I suspect his career with the MCO is over.

Re: Still he faces charges

His career is either finished, or he will end up in some backwater place with nothing to do but twiddle his thumbs all day.