Monstrous [complete]

[Aimee Connors]

"A-alex?" Aimee clutched her cell phone with both hands, her voice shaking. "I- I need to... to talk. To you." She sniffed hard, trying to leave a message on Alex Kaine's voicemail that didn't sound completely incoherent. In her distress her New York accent was thicker than usual.

"Somethin' happened at work. I... I'm at the library." She looked around herself, and added, "In Periodicals in th' back. Um, please hurry."

She hung up and buried herself behind today's copy of the New York Times.

[Anita Stern]

It was her first day on the job; her second day in Los Angeles, having just settled temporarily into a hotel room until the final details were sorted out on the purchase of her... no, their new home. However, it was far from her first day on this particular kind of job and certainly not the first time that being a librarian was her primary line of work. Living somewhere that didn't get winter, per se, was going to be something new, for certain. Anita looked down to her left hand, twisting her wedding ring left and right on her ring finger and smiling, a giddiness mixed with a whiff of nerves as she sighed almost inaudibly and looked back up to make sure she wasn't getting lost on her way to the back of the large public library that was her new place of employment.

She was to be going through the training to be the head librarian, which seemed to almost be a mere pleasantry simply because she was the 'newbie'. Having experience in libraries from ones with archaic management systems right to the newest categorizing systems - not to mention the not-readily advertised fact that she never forgot a single thing - meant she should get the hang of the place in a snap. So, it was easy enough to take a task to put a few newspapers and magazines back in place.

At least, it would be if purple hands clutching a copy of the New York Times wasn't so distracting and perhaps a little more out of place in this library, compared to the one back at Cullen's. She didn't overhear the exact words of the...girl? Yes, girl... as she whispered into the cellphone, but Anita could certainly hear the distressed tone of voice. Taking only a few seconds to consider how to approach someone who obviously didn't want to be noticed in a public place (obviously, being purple had something to do with it), Anita approached the girl quietly, yet not too quietly as to sneak up on her and placed her stack of periodicals on the table, before slipping gently into the chair across from the girl.

"I can see you're hiding, but... hiding in plain sight is about as obvious as it gets, I'm afraid. Especially since your hands are a bit of a giveaway." She whispered as she sat, grabbing a fair glance of the girl's face before settling completely. She considered that the girl might not be all that comfortable with her obvious purple state, blushed slightly and took another tack. "Um... silly of me. Are you alright?"

[Aimee Connors]

The paper rustled, then closed. Aimee struggled with it for a few moments, trying to fold it back up, and then awkwardly set it aside. "I'm fine," she said crisply, her cheeks mysteriously wet. "I was reading the paper, not hiding."

She was wearing jeans and a white tank top, her long black hair swept up into a ponytail. "And if I was hiding it was not because of my skin color."

[Anita Stern]

Anita let out a long breath, swept a thick gathering of hair back behind one ear and smiled, the smile dimming a little at the wetness of her face.

"Good, then." She fiddled absently with her ring, watching the girl. "I apologize for assuming, . I'm new here. My first day. New job, new city, new... mutants. You're from New York, aren't you? I just moved from there."

The petite brunette paused - the girl was almost glowering at her - and lowered her voice again. "Are you sure you're alright? I'm not going to tell you that you can trust me - that's something you would have to figure out for yourself - but i've got what makes me different, even if it isn't obvious and I'm used to teaching other mutants like yourself and helping them if they need an ear... if you like."

[Aimee Connors]

"You're different?" Aimee raised an eyebrow, and then wiped at her face irritatedly. "I'm sure you get a lot of stares on the street."

She scrunched up into the chair, tucking her feet underneath her. "You look like all the others mundanes. Everyone does." She hesitated, then gestured helplessly at herself. "Obviously not everyone. But all my friends..." Aimee sighed, shuddering a bit as she felt the tears threatening again. "Look. Normal."

[Anita Stern]

"But you still have friends, right?"

At the renewing of the tears, Anita slid a hand across the table, hesitated, then curled her hand into a fist and left it in the middle of the table, leaning in instead to feebly hide her urge to physically comfort the girl with a holding of hands. She could control it, she was certain but... the girl was new to her and she wasn't entirely certain how she would react to such an action.

"There's nothing anyone can do to you by staring. That hardly puts any dent in the hurt it probably causes, I know, but what they think of you should matter none. Eventually it won't. You're either better than that or you aren't. You either rise above it or give them the satisfaction of giving in. You can let people like that destroy you or let them try and fail."

Anita kept her eyes steady on the girl, keeping her voice low.

"I know what it's like to be affected by what people think of me. I couldn't touch anyone for years. No hugs, no reassurances, not even a high five, because I would know for sure what they thought. I would feel violated and then, horrified at myself for violating them unintentionally and without their knowledge or consent."

She opened her closed hand and laid it palm up. "Then I learned to trust... and overcame my fear enough to learn control. So I could have, well, some semblance of a 'normal' life. History dictates that every 'visible minority', every person who chooses to live differently from what is 'socially acceptable', what is the 'norm' has had to fight for their right to be seen as normal and treated fairly. We are the blacks and the women of this age. And yet, you still have friends, right?"

[Aimee Connors]

"Friends," Aimee repeated, a little hollowly. She'd never had friends like she had now. Friends that knew her as Aimee, the blustery but slightly shy girl who tried to get good grades but was always falling behind and needing a tutor. Friends who had no idea who Creep was... the purple kid who lurked in the shadows, mostly moved at night, and stole for a living.

Suddenly she ached for Ginny, a friend she'd left behind... who'd left her behind in New York. Aimee sniffed.

"I've got friends. They're on their way," she added defensively, suddenly wondering why a strange woman was so interested in her. Some people were like that - infatuated with the strange. But her words had sounded so sincere, and Aimee wanted to trust her.

[Anita Stern]

Anita nodded, looking away to crane her head around, getting a good look around the library, before turning back to the girl.

"Well, I'd better get back to it. First day and all." She said as she pushed up from her seat and gathered her stack of periodicals. Then she remembered something, shuffled the stack to her left arm, mustered her barriers and held out her right hand. "I'm Anita, by the way. I'll be around if you need anything...?"

[Aimee Connors]

"Uh, sure," she said, shaking the librarian's hand a little limply before retracting her hand. "I'm Aimee. Thanks... for trying."

The woman smiled and wandered off, but Aimee imagined she could feel her eyes on her every once in a while. She tried to read the paper, but ended up putting it back in its stack and settling for a National Geographic while she waited to hear back from Alex.

She was fairly sure he'd call her back. But the minutes ticked by and she nervously looked at the time on her cell phone, wondering if the whole world had forgotten about her.

[Alex Kaine]

"I don't know. She sounded really upset. I'm heading over there now. So, you know, if you want to head back home... Well, I guess you can. Yeah, the library. She said she's in the periodicals. I'm almost there. All right, see you."

Alex flipped his phone shut. He considered calling Aimee back, but the library was just at the end of the block, and he'd been planning on heading there anyway after he'd picked up some poster materials at the Hobby Lobby. He and Jim had taken the bus downtown to run some errands; he'd just called his roommate to let him know he might be longer than he expected, depending on how bad a shape Aimee was in.

Alex charged up the library steps with his bag of poster supplies in tow and headed straight for the periodicals in the back. Aimee wasn't hard to find, nestled in the little reading nook in the corner behind the compendiums of National Geographics.

"Hey," Alex said, and he dropped into the seat beside her. "Sorry, I was in traffic, didn't hear the phone when it rang. You okay?"

[Aimee Connors]

Aimee smiled at Alex, but her face started to twist it into a rather pathetic expression as she tried to keep her emotions at bay at the sight of a friendly face. "Um. Not really..."

She closed up the magazine and folded her arms around it, trapping it against her chest. "I went to work today and I got fired and I can't go home because Anna -" Her words came out in a rush and then she snapped her mouth shut, cutting off the rest of her sentence.

[Alex Kaine]

"Fired?"

Even to someone who didn't particularly like his job, that was a punch to the gut. Last he heard, things had been going just fine at Home Depot, aside from a few snotty co-workers.

Some ugly suspicions floated through his mind, but he shut them out for the moment and focused on Aimee. He carefully reached an arm around her and rubbed her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Aimee. Did... did they tell you why? Or do you want to talk about it?"

[Aimee Connors]

She sniffed, resisting the urge to lean into him as he put his arm around her. "I... they said there were customer complaints. About my work." Aimee looked at Alex, adding quickly, "I was a good worker though. And... last week... Don had some paperwork..."

She buried her face in her hands. "I just signed it. I wanted to keep my job. But I guess it didn't matter."

[Alex Kaine]

Complaints. Alex felt something stirring in his gut - the rolling, sickening feeling of running up against institutionalized prejudice. But what Aimee said put even that on hold.

"Paperwork?" His hand froze on Aimee's shoulder, and his whole bearing went from calm and supportive to tensed and ready to spring. "What kind of paperwork?"

[Jim Lewinski]

Jim had an agreement with his local library, whereby he'd call in advance and have the librarian gather his books, ready to be promptly exchanged when he arrived. It was a win-win situation; Jim recieved excellent service, and in return, he was able to collect his books without disturbing the peaceful ambience of the library. Alex called it heinous discrimination and an obstruction of public services.

The agreement, however, went out the window. Jim was about to make an unscheduled visit and, following Alex's call, he was pumped full of adrenaline. Aimee was upset and had taken refuge in the library. While he sprinted across town, his thoughts surged, drawing to mind innumerable, and often nonsensical, possibilities. And yet, once he arrived, the first thing he could think of was that Sir Slouchalot had beat him to the punch. Papers were sent spiralling into the air and he screeched to a halt, planting both hands firmly on the table.

"What-happened-what's-going-on?"

[Aimee Connors]

Aimee jerked away from Jim's sudden appearance, the carefully stacked newspapers fluttering down through the air. She halfheartedly grabbed at one, but missed and the floor was soon littered with haphazardly placed papers.

"I - He said I had to to keep my job," she began, cringing as she looked at Alex. "MRA papers. I... I didn't want to, but... but I needed the job."

Aimee glanced at Jim, who was fidgiting mightily, but mostly staying still, and added, "And then I got sacked anyway!" She covered her face with her hands again, trying to figure out how she could have been so stupid.

[Alex Kaine]

"He... he made you register?"

Alex lurched forward in his chair, elbows on knees, head down to try to keep Aimee's face in view. She only nodded behind her hands.

"That... that duplicitous, candy-assed, fascist, populist, neolithic son of a bitch! Damn it, they haven't even made the freak list mandatory, and he makes it a condition of employment and then fires you anyway because the dumbass hillbilly customers are afraid of the color purple!"

The lights on the local fuse began to flicker. A battery back-up for a nearby bank of computers squealed in protest at the interruption.

[Jim Lewinski]

It felt a little bit like hearing things in reverse, but Jim was so used to hearing Alex rant that he was able to piece together the parts of the story he missed simply by guaging the degree to which his politically, and electrically, charged friend was angered. Alex had many degrees of sociopolitical outrage, and this was particularly high up on his rage-ometer. He glanced up at the flickering lights nervously.

"Sooo... lemme get this straight. This mundane schmuck twists your arm and forces you to sign the fuckin' papers. And then- and then fires your ass, anyway? On what grounds!? I'm tellin' you, you can appeal that shit, Aimee- we're gonna appeal that shit! Fu-Fu-FU- Registration isn't compulsory anyway, so we just get Senator what's-his-name?"

He started snapping his fingers at Alex, "Senator-fuckin'-Maguire! We get him on the phone, and tell him you want off that list! Don't worry, Aimee, we got you on this- A-yo, Sparky, can you quit with the goddamn lightshow? I'm tryin' to think here!"

[Aimee Connors]

"Appeal it?" Aimee pushed her fingers into her hair, clutching her head and messing up her ponytail. "Uh, I don't... I just..." Her yellow eyes welled up again, and she angrily swiped at them.

"I didn't know what to do," she whimpered. "I knew I should have asked someone but I just got ... flustered."

[Alex Kaine]

"That's the thing, once you're in the system, you don't get out, not unless the servers are destroyed, and even then, if anyone's made a copy..."

Alex stopped himself there - there was no sense in scaring Aimee more than she already was. He took a deep breath to calm himself.

"Okay, look, Aimee," he said, "you're in the same boat as over a thousand mutants who've already been registered. The way we help you is the way we help all of them. We shoot down this McCarthy act before it becomes mandatory, make it illegal to use any of the information they've stolen."

[Aimee Connors]

She scrubbed her hands over her head, and tugged the elastic out of her hair, letting it fall past her shoulders. "Okay." Aimee bit her lip, and looked up at Alex, slightly confused. "And how do we do that?"

She looked at Jim, and then blurted, "Oh God, am I going to be on an internet site like a child molester!?"

[Jim Lewinski]

"Like a what? No! Nooo... Aimee, you're not gonna be treated like some kinda criminal."

Jim wasn't convinced and he feared his tone betrayed him. In the corner of his eye, he saw Alex rear up, ready to brutalise his optimistic claim with a salvo from his anarchist's thesaurus. His face suddenly creased and he snapped an incredulous look Aimee's way.

"What kinda websites have you been visitin'!?"

[Alex Kaine]

Jim, as was his wont, was getting off topic again. Alex just ignored his latest conversational leap.

"No, look, the list isn't public," he said. "But it's open to government agencies, hospitals, and law enforcement, plus all the interest groups that bankrolled last year's elections."

Alex laid a hand on Aimee's near shoulder. "Listen. There's a group of mutant screen actors filing a lawsuit against the MRA at the LA Superior Court on Thusday. Every mutant rights group in the valley is going to be there to support them. I'm gonna go, and I was gonna ask everybody at the house to come, but you definitely should come. The place is going to be swarming with media, you'll be able to tell your story to the press. And even if you don't - this is the first step in overturning this law, and you're going to get to be a part of it."

[Aimee Connors]

"Oh, no, not going to talk to the media." Aimee shook her head emphatically. "I don't want to get remixed and auto-tuned and put on YouTube." She shuddered. "But... going to this thing, it'll help?"

[Jim Lewinski]

"No!" Jim squealed, startling himself, and collapsed into a seat at last, "No, Aimee, now- now you listen to me. This mutant rally business? It's nothin' but troubleeee! I mean - come on! - we've seen it all before, these things never turn out well! Think of it this way: do you really wanna put Anna through anymore- uh, heartache? Huh!? And you!"

Jim fixed Alex with a damning glare. His shoulder and neck started to work independently of the rest of his body, forcing his torso to jerk this way and that, as if he were under the influence of an invisible puppetmaster. He prodded a finger at Alex from across the table.

"Now, I was- I was gonna say you outta know better but-you-obviously-just-can't-help-yourself, can you? Anythin' for a good old knees up in the name of mutant equality, uh? These things are dangerous, Sparky!"

His eyes darted wildly about the library, as if suspecting that at any moment an angry gangbanger would emerge, fully-loaded, from behind a bookshelf. He pressed his chin against the table and yanked his beanie down over his ears.

"Fuckin' Hobby Lobby..."

[Alex Kaine]

"Dangerous? You think standing up for your rights is dangerous?"

Alex repeated the word as if it had personally shat in his oatmeal that morning. His mouth had acquired that almost-smiling curl he got when he approached an argument, like a wolf approaching a contested kill.

"No, dangerous is staying at home. Dangerous is watching your rights get trampled by some fascist bigot who's still stuck in the Pleistocene era. Dangerous is letting the mundanes set policy for human evolution!"

[Jim Lewinski]

"Will you stop callin' it human evolution like you know what you're talkin' about? There is no evidence to support it, in fact this phenomenon deviates completely from every respectable evolutionary model, and if anything, Alex, we are an anomaly. You can have your freakin' Foucault and his biopolotics. No, in fact- in fact you can keep it. Just don't use science as a crux for your psuedo-philosophical non- non- BULLSHIT!"

The entire table trembled, and Jim clung to it to prevent himself from parting company on a chair which drilled the floor like a jackhammer.

[Alex Kaine]

Alex threw his hands in the air. "Okay, forget evolution, then. This is about a law that singles out a segment of the population for intimidation and surveillance. This is ass-backwards nineteen-thirties reverse eugenics bullshit. If some of us are going to fight this in a court of law, you better believe I'm going to be out there supporting them."

He waved to include Aimee in the conversation. "It's not like this is a drunken pep rally at Berkeley. It's a demonstration outside a courthouse, for God's sake. If we can't stand up for our rights in the public square, then what the hell are we supposed to do?"

[Aimee Connors]

"Shhh!" Aimee glared at both of them. "Keep it down, will you? I'm really not in the mood to get kicked out of the library today."

She looked at Jim, trying to backtrack the conversation to where she'd last been addressed. "And of course I don't want to hurt Anna. I already got fired... trying to live like a mundane and looking like... like this," she waved at her body with bitterness in her voice. "They just think I'm a monster."

Her lips trembled, "I've already disappointed Anna, and she doesn't even know it yet. How can I tell her?!" Aimee bit her lip, slipping back into despair.

[Jim Lewinski]

"Aimee, this is Anna we're talkin' about. She knows you. We know you. You're no monster. You're a good person that has just had bad things happen to you. Cut yourself some slack."

It was a sincere attempt at sensitivity, and Jim even managed to sedate himself enough to maintain eye contact with Aimee while he spoke. Tact wasn't something that came naturally to him, it wasn't that he sought to anger or offend people, he just couldn't bottle his thoughts. Perhaps there was some comfort to be had in knowing that when Jim said something nice, he meant it. Then his expression darkened when he looked at Alex, he spoke in an undertone.

"I believe in mutant rights too, Alex. You gotta believe me. But when dodging bullets enters the equation? A little discretion goes a long way."

[Alex Kaine]

Alex settled back into his seat - which, as far as he'd scooted forward in his idealistic fervor, meant he was now slumping. Now that he'd dialed things down again, he realized he'd been flinging his bile too indiscriminately. That happened a lot.

"Sorry, I know you do, Jim," he said in a tone more appropriate to the back of a library. "But this is as legit as it gets. There's gonna be police, there's even gonna be people selling refreshments..."

Alex glanced over at Aimee and knew this was an argument for another time. "You don't have to worry about that now, Aimee," he said. "Look, Jim's right. This isn't your fault. Just tell Anna what you told us, and she'll know how hard you tried to keep this job. She'll understand. We're all mutants, we've all been there."

[Aimee Connors]

"Okay... If you say so." Aimee still felt a little dubious, but she stood up and stretched, pulling every inch she could out of her five foot frame. "Thanks for coming out, guys. Really. I - I didn't know who else to call." She hoped that Alex knew how much she respected his opinion, and Jim's too.

Aimee sighed, and added, "I'm just not used to things that happen to me mattering to others. Not that it should," she said awkwardly, "But I guess it's like being in a weird, freaky family."

[Jim Lewinski]

"We are a weird, freaky family. And that matters more than any stinkin' job, I can tell ya."

Jim was on his feet and clapped an arm around Aimee's shoulders. It felt like the mood was changing, and he liked that, because it meant less time spent moping around in a stuffy library and more time for chocolate-brownie-ice-cream-sensation therapy. A job well done.

"Oh, and if you're uh- lookin' to earn a few bucks in the meanwhile, there's a certain laundry basket full of socks back home. If you think you're man enough to take 'em on, I am willing to pay handsomely, bu- but I will not be held responsible for any secondary mutations you may develop from their r- ra- radioactive properties."

[Alex Kaine]

"Don't take him up on it, Aimee, I'm telling you this as your friend," Alex said. "I think they're starting to develop a collective intelligence."

[Aimee Connors]

Aimee laughed, looping an arm around Jim's waist and looking up at him. "I'll break out the breathing mask, scuba tank, and barbecue tongs. I think Anna has some industrial strength cleaner that should neutralize whatever funk you have growing."

Realizing she was tucked neatly under his armpit she made a big show of sniffing, and a mock grimace.