Chapter 1: Janie

A Chapter by Danny X

The line stretched around the entire building. All of the Seniors were being held and treated as if they were going to mutate in the device until they didn’t. I was in the next group to be alienated: Juniors. I couldn’t believe they were having me tested too. I had created this machine. Honestly, I hadn’t expected it to be used in such a harsh way. I watched my Drum Major be pushed into my machine. Human or mutant, everyone felt the pain of their molecules being tested. I hoped that she was just as normal as she appeared. Luckily for her, she was. She was quickly removed from machine and taken to recuperation like the rest of the seniors. So far, there had been no mutants at my school. The Drum Major was the last Senior, so we knew for sure the entire Senior class would be graduating. The guards started on my grade. Each person was taken from the group and pushed in to the giant whirling machine to see if they changed. As I watched my classmates get pushed in one by one, I regretted ever thinking of the machine. Then guards grabbed my sister and shoved her towards the machine. Still, no one had mutated. A normal inventor would be hoping that their invention actually worked. I wasn’t. I knew it worked and I knew that copies of my machine were all over the county right now as each school completed this process. I had heard that the last count of mutants at Rover was twenty. There were only ten in the entire high school at Henry Ford High School. Rebecca Huckle High School hadn’t started their check yet. I was grabbed roughly by the shoulder and thrown into the machine.

“This is just a precaution, ma’am. We know you’re not a mutant,” The guard said.

“Don’t count your chickens,” I mumbled as he turned the machine on. It whirled and pain ripped through every cell in my body. I felt myself coat in a stainless steel shell. It was the same material I was standing on. Then I disappeared and fell through the ground to the old drama department. My mutations stopped. You see, I knew my invention worked because I tested it on myself. I forced myself to focus and phased through the wall to the hidden stair case that had been installed for people who went through the trap doors on the stage. This part of the school hadn’t been used in years. In fact, the area had been sealed off in the early nineties and only mutants could get in now without a sledge hammer. I emerged from the staircase near the high school office. I was lucky one of my mutants was invisibility. Most of my mutations had been revealed by the machine, but there was one mutation that I had been able to keep hidden in the machine. Of course it didn’t matter at the moment. At the moment, the entire school was on high alert for a rouge band geek slash mutant on the run from authorities. I stayed invisible and took off running for the band room. I ran right through my friend, Tyler. He was an eight grade trombone player. He stopped and looked at me.

“Janie?” He said. I stopped running and turned around.

“You can see me?” I asked. His eyelids flickered.

“Only because I’m looking for you,” He said. I pulled back, turning to run again. “I meant to help you. Mutant or not, you’re a friend and a huge help. Jake’s outside with his truck running. He saw me coming in late and told me to find you so that he could get you to somewhere safe. Come on.” The eighth grade boy tried to grab my hand as I stopped trying to get away from him. I still pulled my hand back.

“I’ll get there on my own. You need to get away from me or you’ll get in trouble to.”

“Tyler, are you talking to yourself again?” Thomas asked. Thomas was only in seventh grade, but he was smarter than the majority of his class, despite the fact he was an extreme redneck. He was one of those people who has practically everything you may need except for what you really need. I secretly hoped he was trying to help me. “You know that we’re supposed to be trying to hide Janie, not losing our minds.”

I smiled. “He’s not talking to himself, Thomas,” I said reappearing. I was still coated in stainless steel, but that wouldn’t help me if they started shooting. “You wouldn’t happen to have any type of indestructible metal on you, would you?”

“Nope. Sorry. You should go to Jake.” Thomas gestured towards the student parking lot.

“Why are you guys trying to help me? Wouldn’t it be easier to just let me go down alone?”

“Sure, but what fun is that?” Tyler said. He smiled recklessly. “Tell Jake I’ll be out in less than a minute.”

“Why do you need to get out?”

“Because I know that machine will make everyone think I’m a total fake. I just need to grab a couple things from the band room. Get out of here now.” Tyler smiled again, and pushed me towards a wall. I phased through it and located Jake’s white truck. The Drum Major saw me and winked. Then she distracted one of the guards looking for me. I ran to the truck and disappeared.

“Howdy,” I breathed.

“Before they hatch,” Jake whispered. “I thought you could use a little help.”

“I didn’t think anybody heard me,” I whispered back. “Tyler said he was coming in a minute.”

“Based on what I saw he needs to. Oh, and I didn’t hear you. Luke read your lips. At first he didn’t know what you meant, but it was pretty clear a second later. How long have you known?” Jake got a little louder as he talked. Tyler jumped in the front seat before I could reply.

“We need to leave. Now. Hopefully without being seen,” Tyler said. He handed me my trombone. “I thought you might want this.”

“Thanks,” I said. I shoved it in the floorboard and maneuvered my feet around it.

“Can you make the truck invisible?” Jake asked.

“For about ten minutes.”

“That’ll do. We just need to get out of town. Go.” Jake started the truck. I concentrated my energy, and the truck disappeared. The next instant, a guard came out of the school with a gun aimed at the student parking lot. He looked angry. Jake laughed and punched the gas.

Dan was waiting for his twin brother to emerge from the machine. After he was done it would be Dan’s turn. Dan bit his lip as his brother screamed. When his brother came out human, Dan thought he wouldn’t be far behind. The guard grabbed Dan and shoved him forward. The machine came on with a loud humming. The Band director was standing in the human zone waiting for him. Dan’s entire body ached as the machine kept working. His head felt like it was being ripped apart. He knew his feet weren’t on the ground. The machine cut off and Dan fell to the floor. He gasped as he looked at where his hands should have been. There were hands but they weren’t his. He located a reflective surface in the machine and saw the face of his band director. It changed back into his in a spilt second.

“Dan?” His band director said. Dan didn’t reply. Instead he took off running. He would not last long in whatever holding facility that these people would put him in. He had barely managed to get through the machine without screaming. How would he survive the test he knew they would put the mutants through? He could not let them catch him. He turned a corner heading for the front door and heard three people shouting behind him. He thought about what had happened with his face. He must be a shape shifter. The girl who had invented the machine had told him about those at All District Band Auditions. Dan’s eyes lit up as he ran out of the building. He went for the band field and hid in the tower. Then he pulled out his phone and called the inventor.

My phone rang, and Jake and Tyler jumped. I had let the truck reappear a few miles down the road.

“Who would be calling you at school?” Jake asked.

“Don’t answer it,” Tyler said. For an eighth grader he was pretty smart, but he was also still an eighth grader. I rolled my eyes and looked at the caller ID.

“It’s the Rover drum major, and I’m going to answer it,” I said sliding the phone open.

“Janie, I need help,” Dan said over the phone.

“What happened?”

“We had that mutant test today and I failed. Is there anywhere for me to go to avoid getting captured or is the capture not a bad thing?”

“Capture is a very bad thing. Where are you?”

“The Rover band field, hiding in the tower.”

“Okay. Hang on a sec.” I covered the microphone in the phone. “Jake, is there any way we get one more person?”

“Yeah. We’re already heading towards Rover. We can get him if we need to, but we only have room for one more, if that,” Jake said.

“Okay. Dan, we’ll be there soon. I’ll text you when we get there. We’re in a white pick-up,” I said.

“Thank you.” He said. He hung up the phone.

“Let me guess. He’s a mutant to,” Tyler said.

“Yes. You’re acting, uh, calm today,” I said. Jake snorted. “What?”

“So are you for a girl who’s caused hundreds of people all over the United States to go on the run or get captured,” Jake said.

“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. My intent with this machine was to satisfy geeks like me that mutants didn’t exist. All though, obviously, I was wrong, and because there are mutants, there are people that don’t like mutants and a reason for people to wage war on people who can’t pay the price,” I said.

“You do realize you’re talking about us, right?” Tyler said.

“As far as I’ve seen, I’m the only mutant in the truck.”

“Not exactly.” Tyler leaned back in his seat.

“Then show me.”

“You don’t want either of us to show you in this truck. Wait until all four of us are safely where we’re going,” Jake said. “Where’s the Rover band field?”

“In front of the school. See the tower?” I said. I pointed through the two front seats.

“Yeah. Text your friend then make us invisible. Tyler, move to the back.”

“But that means…” Tyler started.

“The drum major from Rover is six foot six-ish. Move to the back,” Jake said. Tyler sighed.

“What exactly does that mean, Tyler?” I asked. I thought it may have something to do with the mutations he wasn’t showing inside the truck.

“That I have to climb over the seat. I’m not that flexible,” Tyler said. Tyler twisted his body to get into the back of the pick-up. I laughed as he fell over the seat and landed on the floor board around my trombone. He picked himself up and glared at me. Jake stopped the truck beside the band field. I sent Dan a text. A minute later he came running across the field and jumped in the truck.

“Hi, Dan. I’d like to apologize for being the person to cause your almost arrest,” I said. Dan laughed.

“It’s fine. The twenty other mutants fared worse than I did. Thanks for helping me, by the way. Where are we going exactly?” Dan said. The tall boy seemed out of breath and relieved.

“I don’t actually know. Jake, where are we going?” I asked.

“Somewhere safe,” Jake said.

The new agency didn’t have a name, just a purpose: Stop the mutant problem before it started. The Director looked around his new office. “Sir?” One of the new guards came in.

“What?” The director said.

“We only lost four mutants today in the Rover county search.” The guard was hesitant. Four mutants wasn’t bad for four schools. They needed to be caught and contained though.

“Who and from where?”

“We lost three from Avery High School. Two were unknown abilities because they were scanned with the mobile device. The third was the inventor.”

“The inventor?”

“Yes sir. She was able to pass through walls, disappear, and coat herself in metal. The fourth was from Rover High School. He was a shape shifter.”

“They need to be caught. As soon as possible.” The director glared. The guard nodded and practically ran out of the office. The inventor was a danger to herself and others. They had known that when they found her and her device online. This was going to be a full-fledged war if not prevented and she was the only one who could stop it before it started. The choice was clear to the Director. He needed to capture and to exterminate all mutants, before they destroyed the humans.

Jake pulled the truck into a gas station to fill up the tank. I looked around nervously. Tyler and Dan were talking casually, but I couldn’t focus on their conversation. As Jake gassed up, I watched the television inside the gas station. It was on the news. Suddenly a red alert came on flashing our four most recent pictures.

“Uh, guys, we need to get out of here. Now,” I said.

“What’s up?” Tyler said.

“Check out that TV in there.”

Tyler looked in the gas station and I felt him gasp. “Uh, Dan, tell Jake to hurry up.”

Dan poked his head out the window. “Hey, Jake, the back seat said that we need to get moving.”

“Why?” Jake said. Dan pulled his head back in the window.

“Why?” Dan repeated.

“We can hear him,” I said.

“We’re the governments most wanted,” Tyler said. It was more a statement to himself rather than us. Dan put his head the window again.

“Just trust me. We need to go. And you should really do pay at the pump,” Dan said.

“Got it,” Jake said as the owner came out of the gas station.

“Hey you!” The owner yelled. “Get that truck out of here before you get arrested. Get that girl to safety!” Jake ignored him to start paying. “Forget the money! Just go!”

“Jake, come one. Don’t argue with free,” Tyler said. Jake sighed, but jumped in the truck without paying. Then he put the truck in gear and headed down a road that the others and I hadn’t even seen.

“Again, I feel the need to ask: Where are we going?” I said.

“Somewhere safe,” Jake said.

“Personally I’d like a little more detail!” Dan said as the truck bounced down the dirt road.

“It’s a safe house that my parents set up when they figured out that I was not exactly human. Ever since they’ve kept it stocked with food and well hidden on government property. We should be safe there.”

“Safe on government property? You do realize we’re being hunted by the government, right?” I said.

“It’s not exactly government property. It’s more like a forgotten, shut down, and resold air base that my grandparents got twenty years ago,” Jake said as an open, clear field came into view.

“So, I’m guessing the barracks are where we’re going to be staying,” Tyler said.

“Yep. The three boys in one and Janie in the other. Don’t worry. They’re a lot better than what the real Air Force uses.” Jake slowed down. “Unfortunately, the only way down there takes about twenty minutes in any vehicle.”

“All right boys. I’ll meet you down there. I’m not staying in this truck for another twenty minutes,” I said. I phased through the truck door and the seat belt. Then I jumped into the air and flew. Tyler, Jake, and Dan stared at me like I was Superman. I smiled and waved to the boys in the truck. Then I flew down to the air base and set about exploring.

Tyler watched Janie fly down to the main air field then go in to the closest building. He sighed. She was insane. She was also acting like she had been flying for years, not just months. She had only created the machine three months ago. There was no way she had gotten that comfortable with flying in that time period.

“So, she’s insane,” Dan said.

“A good type of insane,” Jake said defensively.

“Why did she make the machine?” Dan asked.

“She’s a geek,” Tyler said.

“So she decided to devote her entire life outside of school and all of her mental capabilities to creating a machine to identify mutants. ‘Cause that makes sense,” Jake mumbled. He seemed to be getting a little frustrated. “Why’d she really do it, Tyler?”

“Why are you asking me? I’ve only known her for two years. You’ve known her for three.”

“She was your Section Leader,” Jake said.

“The Brass Capitan?” Dan asked. Jake looked like he was going to keep talking, but Tyler cut him off.

“No, she was Brass Lieutenant. A trumpet player was the Brass Capitan,” Tyler said. “That doesn’t make me any closer to her than you. She’s a surprisingly closed person. Mostly, she talked about trombone and ways to sound better or marching tips. She was focused at practice, despite our lack of focus.”

“She had to have mentioned something that would tip you off that she was a crazed genius,” Jake said. He jerked the steering wheel to the side to avoid a boulder that had fallen in the road.

“You’re in the same grade as her, and you have three classes together. How come you didn’t notice?” Tyler said.

“She never does her homework, and she doesn’t actually do well in any class but band.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. The way she’s acted all the times I’ve seen her, she’s acted very smart but only when she wanted to be,” Dan said. They were half way down the hill to the base now. The truck jerked over the bigger rocks on the gravel covered road. “She seemed insane to me, but the good kind of insane.” Dan laughed. “If that even really exists.”

“If it does, she’s a prime example,” Tyler said.

“What about all of the mutants she’s sent on the run because she had to satisfy her geeky needs?” Jake said. He seemed like he didn’t actually care about the subject matter. He just wanted to prove Dan wrong.

“I thought you were her friend,” Dan said.

“Are you?” Jake said. He stopped the car. “You don’t even go to our school. How would you even have enough information to be considered a friend on any level? I don’t even understand why we went to get you. I’ve been preparing to go into hiding like this for years now. Same with Tyler. Janie has been for over a year. You found out today. So tell me why I saved you. Tell me why I helped you, despite the fact that I didn’t have to and that I didn’t need to. All it did was delay our arrival here and increase our numbers, making us easier to find. You have no idea how to use your powers and you probably won’t be able to learn before we get confronted again. You are going to be a hindrance for months.” Jake glared at Dan.

“Then why did you save me? Why not just leave me to die? That’s apparently what you would’ve done if Janie hadn’t been with you. So why didn’t you?”

“Because Janie asked me to help you. That doesn’t mean that I’m going like you or help you anymore. You’re alive and not going to get captured. That’s all I told her I could do. You have to prove to me that you’re worth keeping around.”

“I can do that.” Dan looked Jake right in the eyes.

“When did I miss the memo that this was a soap opera?” Tyler said, trying to lighten the mood. Then he noticed Janie flying up. “By the way, I think Janie noticed that we stopped.”

“What?” Jake asked, looking back at the boy. Then Janie tapped on his window. Jake rolled it down and smiled at Janie. “We’re coming, gem girl. I just had to get the trombone away from the pedals. It slid under the seats.”

“All right. You were stopped for a while so I wanted to make sure your truck could handle the climb down,” Janie said with a smile. “You other two alive in there?”

“Alive and breathing,” Dan said mirroring her facial expression. Janie laughed.

“Okay. I’ll see you at the bottom.” Janie took off again, this time going up to the control tower on the other side of the base. Jake rolled his window up and started moving the truck again. The boys sat there in silence for the rest of the ride. Tyler settled himself to watching the clouds move across the noon sky.

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