Second Mutant Meet-Up: Technofreak in Real-Life

[Flux]

Felix rubbed his eyes. He hadn't slept much the night before (he'd been out late with Banner Laverick, the stunning hotness that was his first real blessing in mutantcy) and was beginning to sack out, even though it wasn't even ten o'clock. He'd just read a post on the Mutant Blog by a correspondent called Technofreak.

Felix admired the guy (or girl, could be a girl) for his/her outspokenness on the topic of powers, mutants, humans, and the unwillingness to tiptoe around subjects or walk on eggshells. He (or she, if Felix is lucky) made it quite clear that being a mutant was the best thing in the whole universe. Felix had finally agreed, after meeting Banner and testing his powers for a day. Now, this person with their crazy technology ability had found his email out and sent him a message with a proposed plan for a meet-up. Felix had considered it for half an hour, and finally shot off his reply:

Sure, I'm all for it. It'd be good to meet more people with the mutant gene, get a bigger perspective on it than the blog whiners and the girl I met last night. Just get the time and place pegged down for good and let me know.

After that he'd put the computer in hibernate mode and gone to bed. No sense staying up waiting on a reply; he'd check it at school tomorrow.

[The Brotherhood]

Re: Mutant meet and greet

Hey, Magnet Man.

I'd meet you at the Haven, but the boss lady apparently doesn't like our business anymore. Get to the Galapagos Cafe on 141st and Sycamore at 1 pm Saturday. Look for a Jamaican man reading the newspaper - that'll be Boomer. He'll guide you the rest of the way.

Try to get there before he finishes his cafe au lait. See you.

Tron

[Flux]

The library was one of Felix's favorite places not because of the learning, but because nobody ever went in there. He was free to sit at a computer in a little cubicle and do as he liked without interruption, and right now, he liked his email account.

Technofreak, or rather, Tron, had written back, and Felix spent maybe 2 seconds hammering out the reply "See you Saturday". He spent the next 10 minutes considering the content of the email. The Haven didn't like Tron's business? Did he (yes, "he", Tron in the movie Tron was a he) start a fight there, or what? Felix wouldn't be surprised; at clubs like that it's a wonder the whole place didn't erupt into Smash Bros. every hour or so. He wrote it off as "probably nothing".

The Galapagos Cafe wasn't really something to his liking. Felix didn't enjoy coffee, and didn't really like the kind of people who'd just sit in there and be mock-intellectual, or whatever. But hey, at least it isn't Starbucks. He logged out and checked the date on the computer. Four days to Saturday. The wait's gonna be killer.

[The Brotherhood]

The Galapagos Cafe was not unlike hundreds of other lazy coffee shops throughout New York - small, muted paint tones, indy music playing on the sound system, a definite current of social activism in the posters and flyers on the walls. On the counter was a rack stocked with homemade brochures which had titles like 10 Pillars of Mutant Oppression and THE TRUTH: What Daneil Cohen Isn't Telling Us. A rally flyer for some mutant demonstration already had most of its tabs torn off.

In the front corner, clearly visible from the shopfront window, sat a lanky black man with a goatee and corded hair sipping his coffee and perusing a paper called (r)Evolution Weekly. The seat across from him was empty.

[Flux]

Felix had taken the bus to the nearest stop, two blocks from the Cafe, and then walked the rest of the distance. He wandered in with his hands in the giant front pocket of his hoodie, braced around his aging CD player to keep it from skipping; it'd been fairing poorly since his initial trip to the junkyard.

He couldn't help noticing all the mutantcy-related stuff on the walls and counter; no wonder Tron had picked this place. Once he was done just looking at the place, he went and took the empty chair across from Boomer. He'd seen the man reading as he'd passed the shop window.

"Boomer, I presume?" he asked as he sat, just in case he was wrong.

[The Brotherhood]

The stranger lowered his paper. "And you must be the Magnet Man," he replied with a bright grin. "Welcome, brother."

He gave Felix an energetic handshake, and Felix felt something like a jolt of static electricity when their hands met.

"Ha, sorry about that, man. Sometimes I forget to ground myself. So, you been talking to Tron lately. What've you been talking about?"

[Flux]

"Thanks," Felix answered, rubbing the tingle out of his hand as they withdrew. He was encouraged by Boomer's warm attitude, and eased up a little bit. Felix grinned back and answered the question he'd been posed. "So far it's been a lot of sass about freaking out and being emo over getting powers, and a lot of "hell yeah" moments where we talk about how much it rules to have them." All of this he said quietly, just in case. "Gotta admit I'm pretty paranoid about it all still. I keep thinking someone's gonna figure it out and try to jump me or something."

[The Brotherhood]

"It's their funeral if they do, right?" Boomer replied. And then he laughed. "You can't sweat the mundanes, man. We're Homo superior for a reason."

[Flux]

"Yeah, but damage-proof isn't part of my power set," Felix quipped. "Wish it was. It's hard to find metal thick enough to stop bullets and knives and crap when you're just out and about." He shook his head and laughed again. "Damn, I need to loosen up. So anyway, what're we up to? Going back to your place, or are we meeting Tron somewhere? He just said to meet you here."

[The Brotherhood]

Boomer shook his head reproachfully. "Can't rush the coffee, man. I'll take you in a minute." He sipped his cafe au lait exquisitely. "So what's your name? It isn't Magnet Man, is it?"

[Flux]

Felix barked a laugh.

"No, dude, that's just my nerdy blog handle. The girl I mentioned on there called me that, but I don't think she keeps up with that thing. Probably was coincidence or something." He caught himself rambling, cut off the tirade, and just answered. "Felix. Is Boomer your real name?"

[The Brotherhood]

"It's my real name now, man," Boomer replied. "Ever since I found out what I was. New you, new life, new name. You don't let yourself be defined by nobody."

He tipped back the last of his coffee and set it down with a contented sigh. "So, you ready? Follow me."

Boomer led Felix, not to the front door, but to the back of the cafe. He opened a door to a hallway which cut deeper into the building, then up a concrete stairwell to the third floor.

They emerged in a dingy hallway with paper-thin carpet and peeling paint. Boomer stopped at number 319 and unlocked the door.

"Welcome to home, sweet home."

On the other side of the door was an apartment that was unmistakeably owned by bachelors. It wasn't so much dirty as covered in a patina of unknown origin, and the table was covered in empty take-out boxes, and what little was visible of the bedrooms past the cracked-open doors was mostly a jungle of bedclothes and laundry. The modest common area was furnished with an old, overstuffed sofa and a couple beanbag chairs; the home improvement fund had obviously gone into the big plasmascreen TV and the strangely cobbled-together gaming console in front of it which, paradoxically, had both X-Box and PS3 controllers sitting on top of it.

There were footsteps coming around the bend from the kitchen, and an absolutely immense Polynesian-looking man stepped into view with a plate full of microwaved spring rolls. "Hey, Boomer," he said. "This the kid Tron was talkin' about?"

"Geryon, this is Felix."

Geryon blinked. "'Felix'?"

"For now," Boomer replied.

One of the bedroom doors squeaked open, and a guy much closer to Felix in age and body type came out in a T-shirt and jeans. He had what looked like a wireless card in his left hand.

"Hey there, 'Magnet Man'!" he said, grinning, putting out a hand to shake. "I'm Tron. Good to see you. Come on in, we'll sit down."

[Flux]

When Boomer had gotten up to play guide, Felix had automatically turned toward the exit. This proved to be a mistake, and so Felix wound up spinning a full circle by the table to correct himself. It was a common occurence with his friends, but with new people he found this quirk to be embarrassing, and so followed his new acquaintance into the back in silence.

"Welcome to home, sweet home."

Felix looked up to see a permutation of his brother Frederick's college dormitory, a rampant mishmash of belongings that had settled comfortably wherever they liked. The big exceptions were the entertainment; The TV and game system were nothing like what Freddy's band of roommates could afford. He was about to comment when Geryon made his introduction.

Felix, quite intimidated, just nodded to the big man after he was introduced. The "for now" went unnoticed by the kid as Tron made his entrance shortly after, breaking Felix's quiet awkwardness with his more friendly attitude. Felix shook his hand with a return grin and headed further into the common room.

"Hey Tron, it's good to see you, too. What's up?"

[The Brotherhood]

Tron flopped back into one of the beanbag chairs, Geryon occupied a little more than half the couch (which sagged), and Boomer pulled in a folding chair from the kitchen table and sat on it backwards. All three were oriented toward Felix.

"I wanted to talk to you about some things we couldn't really discuss in the American Girl's blog," Tron replied with a bit of a sneer on the eponym. "About what mutation really is. And why the Homo sapiens are really afraid of us. What is it they tell you kids in school these days? Genetic abnormalities, transcribing errors, that kinda crap. What do you think, Felix? Why do you think we suddenly have so many mutants on this planet?"

[Flux]

Felix took the other beanbag, settling himself in it comfortably as Tron spoke his mind. He laced his fingers together and put his hands behind his head, leaning back to look at the ceiling as Tron finished up.

"Man, I still don't know what to think. I don't know if it's evolution's fast-forward button, tinkering from some divine medium, or if it's just plain stupid luck. I don't know why it happened, and honestly, I don't care. I just wanna deal with it in the least immature way possible so I don't have to put up with a ton of crap over it. Yeah, it's special, but I'd so rather we treated it like it was no worse than acne or voice changes. The drama people put up over this junk is so stupid annoying. I'm ashamed I participated in it, even if it was just for a little while."

[The Brotherhood]

"Don't tell me you think this is about getting picked on at school."

It took some effort on Tron's part to keep his tone light enough that it could be passed as a friendly dig rather than a diss.

"People always attack those who are different," he said. "It's all part of the herd instinct. But see, we're not just different. We're better. And that puts it at a whole 'nother level."

"The people who shove you in the hallway or call you nasty names," Boomer interjected, "ahhh, they're just gene-jealous rubes. But there's far worse out there, man. People in high places who want to keep the mutants down. 'Cause they're afraid. They're afraid we're gonna replace them."

[Flux]

Felix rub his eyes and sat up a bit.

"Well, when I said 'drama', I meant both the petty teen wangsting over I have powers/I'm afraid of people with powers, and the big bads out there who want us all in concentration camps or whatever. I think you're right that humans believe we'll replace them, and I think it's fitting that we do. C'mon, that American Girl replaces a dozen jobs in construction just by being able to forcefully move and bend heavy, durable material. Tron, I'm pretty sure, replaces nearly every job in the computer industry." Felix shrugged. "People need to just get over it."

[The Brotherhood]

Tron relaxed and nodded. "I hear ya. It'd all be so much better if the mundanes just left us alone to do our own thing. 'Cause you're right - we are the next step in evolution, and we are gonna replace them. But right now we're an endangered species. Crap like mutant registration. The Jericho Center. Stuff like that threatens the very existence of mutantkind.

"And that's where we come in. We're part of an organization that's dedicated to protecting our kind from those 'big bads' you're talking about. Mutants fighting for mutantkind."

[Flux]

Protecting people from bad guys sure sounded like heroing to Felix, who distinctly remembered a post Tron had made denouncing such a lifestyle. Felix chose not to bring it up, and instead launched into questions.

"So, like, do you guys put on costumes and go run missions against people and do patrols, or what?" He couldn't help grinning a little at the thought of it; these three made the most unlikely team of "heroes" he could think of. "Or am I totally and completely wrong, like I suspect I am?"

[The Brotherhood]

"You should see Geryon in his leotard," Boomer said. "He looks adorable."

Geryon tossed his now-empty paper plate and banked it off Boomer's head into the trash.

Tron ignored the exchange - he was focused on Felix. "Costumes are for people who want to be noticed," he said. "Most of our work is done in the dark. Rescuing prisoners. Finding out secrets. Sometimes we make deliveries for other groups like us. It's dangerous, and it's not glamorous. But we make a difference."

He nodded at his compadres. "Boomer's specialty is demolitions. Geryon's the strongman, you probably could figure that out. I'm technical support - if it's electronic, I can shut it down or make it work for us. We've done well for ourselves so far, but we could use a fourth."