Pricing Pride and Prejudice

Allison had not, much to her regret, learned any form of martial arts. Which was quite a shame, as it would have drastically helped with a number of things; stress relief and fighting with a certain army-trained cousin among them. At this moment, however, stress relief was the issue.

Allison’s landlord did not approve of mutants. Not enough to hunt them, but more then enough to make life difficult for them. And he was businessman enough to convince other landlords to agree with him, and force mutants into a resulting choice: pay extra fees, wait months for one of the rare mutant-friendly apartments to be open (and, coincidentally, probably be living only with mutants; prejudice or not there were some issues that came with that), fake humanity or don’t rent at all.

He was also smart enough to include a line stating that fees could be added or increased at any time for any reason in the rental contract, and make sure to inform all his landlord friends of the total fees for any given mutant who might be looking to move elsewhere.

Allison had a job, and at times had had two, but even with two she wouldn’t have been able to pay for her (really quite miniature) apartment after the first few increases. Her parents had money, and were willing to spend some of it on her, but the last increase had apparently been too much.

That the ‘too much’ line coincided almost perfectly with one of her mother’s favorite nephews starting college neither surprised nor amused Allison in the least.

There was not, however, much she could do. She couldn’t stay in the apartment she had, anyway; it was too expensive and getting worse. She could move, but the fees would carry over to any new apartment, and she couldn’t come close to what she’d need to buy anything outright. Her options were basically limited to dropping out, going home for a semester, and going back to school somewhere else, cutting off contact with her parents and living with a friend, both of which would probably require her to fake being human, or dropping out, getting more jobs, and maybe being able to stay where she was. Even that might take faking being human to get the jobs. And the second option would be easier if she actually had friends in New York, rather than the array of acquaintances she’d so far managed to acquire.

So, drop out temporarily and go crawling back home, or drop out apparently permanently. If she’d been less angry, Allison might have been amused at what it said that she considered the permanent dropping out option better than going home. Not that she was anywhere in sight of happy with that, either.

So. If Allison had been trained to fight, she probably would have gone and found a fight, or at least a spar of some kind. The fights she’d gotten into recently, while still fairly unskilled on her part, had at least been satisfying. But she wasn’t trained; probably even a punching bag would only manage to break her fingers before she calmed down at all.

So, instead, Allison ran. Without bothering to change, still wearing jeans and a tee shirt and even a hat. She had running shoes, but no socks, and by the time she reached an empty park she certainly had blisters already, and wouldn’t be surprised in the least if some of them were bleeding. She’d be more surprised if they weren’t.

Allison stopped, gasping for breath, shoved some loose hair out of her eyes, dropped the hat she’d had to pull off and carry on the ground, kicked her shoes off and began climbing. If she couldn’t get into a fight with people or punching bags, she could at least go to war against gravity. The branches weren’t low enough, and the trunks were too smooth, so it was difficult, and Allison fell as often as she reached a branch. When she did reach a branch, she either aimed for a higher one or, if she wasn’t too high to have a chance at not breaking her neck when she fell, attempted to lump or climb onto a branch from a nearby tree. Once or twice she even managed it.

Fifteen minutes after reaching the park Allison was covered in sweat, scratches, bruises, and blisters, her hair was tangled, she was still panting, and her clothes were themselves thoroughly dirty and probably unsalvageable from dirt and grass stains and small tears.

She was, however, at least calm enough that the anger was no longer making her want to cry. Just strangle a few people. She kept climbing.