The X-men run missions and work together with the NYPD, striving to maintain a peaceful balance between humans and mutants. When it comes to a fight, they won't back down from protecting those who need their help.
Haven presents itself as a humanitarian organization for activists, leaders, and high society, yet mutants are the secret leaders working to protect and serve their kind. Behind the scenes they bring their goals into reality.
From the time when mutants became known to the world, SUPER was founded as a black-ops division of the CIA in an attempt to classify, observe, and learn more about this new and rising threat.
The Syndicate works to help bring mutantkind to the forefront of the world. They work from the shadows, a beacon of hope for mutants, but a bane to mankind. With their guiding hand, humanity will finally find extinction.
Since the existence of mutants was first revealed in the nineties, the world has become a changed place. Whether they're genetic misfits or the next stage in humanity's evolution, there's no denying their growing numbers, especially in hubs like New York City. The NYPD has a division devoted to mutant related crimes. Super-powered vigilantes help to maintain the peace. Those who style themselves as Homo Superior work to tear society apart for rebuilding in their own image.
MRO is an intermediate to advanced writing level original character, original plot X-Men RPG. We've been open and active since October of 2005. You can play as a mutant, human, or Adapted— one of the rare humans who nullify mutant powers by their very existence. Goodies, baddies, and neutrals are all welcome.
Short Term Plots:Are They Coming for You?
There have been whispers on the streets lately of a boogeyman... mutant and humans, young and old, all have been targets of trafficking.
The Fountain of Youth
A chemical serum has been released that's shaving a few years off of the population. In some cases, found to be temporary, and in others...?
MRO MOVES WITH CURRENT TIME: What month and year it is now in real life, it's the same for MRO, too.
Fuegogrande: "Fuegogrande" player of The Ranger, Ion, Rhia, and Null
Neopolitan: "Aly" player of Rebecca Grey, Stephanie Graves, Marisol Cervantes, Vanessa Bookman, Chrysanthemum Van Hart, Sabine Sang, Eupraxia
Ongoing Plots
Magic and Mystics
After the events of the 2020 Harvest Moon and the following Winter Solstice, magic has started manifesting in the MROvere! With the efforts of the Welldrinker Cult, people are being converted into Mystics, a species of people genetically disposed to be great conduits for magical energy.
The Pharoah Dynasty
An ancient sorceress is on a quest to bring her long-lost warrior-king to the modern era in a bid for global domination. Can the heroes of the modern world stop her before all is lost?
Are They Coming for You?
There have been whispers on the streets lately of a boogeyman... mutant and humans, young and old, all have been targets of trafficking.
Adapteds
What if the human race began to adapt to the mutant threat? What if the human race changed ever so subtly... without the x-gene.
Atlanteans
The lost city of Atlantis has been found! Refugees from this undersea mutant dystopia have started to filter in to New York as citizens and businessfolk. You may make one as a player character of run into one on the street.
Got a plot in mind?
MRO plots are player-created the Mods facilitate and organize the big ones, but we get the ideas from you. Do you have a plot in mind, and want to know whether it needs Mod approval? Check out our plot guidelines.
They had got a ridiculously good deal with this place, actually. She was relatively sure that someone knew someone who had pulled some strings, but she hadn’t asked. Sometimes it was better not to know. She made Jac’s cocoa to match her own and once they were settled began sipping slowly. As much as caffeine was her friend, it was nice to have a caffeine-free hot drink.
“Nnn, yeah, you caught nee on ny walk hone. All I had today was Xa’iers’s, t’anksully. Nostly pretty caln,” Jack continued, “Duh kids at duh school are nostly good. Sun shenanigans, yet no sights today. Sist sights.”
Ah, so the school she worked at as security was the school for mutant children (and adults, from what she could tell), well, that was aesthetically fitting. Zinn had been to the school once, not to study, but to run a once-off first-aid class. She hadn’t seen Jac there. She would have remembered. It was an impressive school to say the least, and the type that would benefit from having around some muscle to round up any misbehaviours before something got out of hand.
“I imagine with all the power running around there that fist fights might be the least of your worries?”
She started serving out the food as Jac reflected her question and she thought about it, dipping her head in response to the compliment on the food. She hadn’t had back-to-back placement and nursing home, so she hadn’t done too many hours, but the hours she had worked had been brutal. Summer was generally a worse season for injuries on the whole, with tempers running high and fuses short people were more reckless, had more accidents, and bled more profusely. Autumn had its fair share of damage though.
“I was on E.D. today, so lots of variety. Little kid who got crunched in a subway door. Old guy who slipped on some wet leaves and was stuck laying out for two days before someone found him. Appendixes, carcrashes, mostly usual stuff. Nothing too perculiar, except maybe the guy who had a bunch of marbles imbedded in him. He claimed a mutant woman attacked him, but who’s ever heard of marble manipulation? Guts and gore and not much glory today I’m afraid.”
She loved it, though, the good times and the bad, and she was smiling as she bit into her forkful of cheesy potato. It was pretty good, savoury and soft, with just a little crisp where the cheese on top had formed a crust. Just the way she liked it. The potatoes and green beans she had bought from the hippy vegetable co-op group that operated from a greenhouse on the rooftop of one of the nearby buildings. The onions were plain old store-bought variety. They lasted long enough that they could be, and she had found the rooftop onions just didn’t have the right size or aroma. The rooftop was relatively cheap, though, and prided itself on being poor-ganic.
Her cocoa was finished and half of the drying dishes wiped and put away when the knock came. She flicked the kettle on and tossed the teatowel onto the bench. The rest of the dishes could wait. It was dinner and a movie time. Unless that was Steph who had locked herself out, again.
“Zinnia, it’s Jack,"
She opened the door and smiled up at her shelled friend, it was good to see her. She stepped aside and welcomed her in. The apartment was relatively cosy, from the residual oven heat, and by the look of Jac’s attire the temperature had dipped dramatically since she closed the window.
“Please come in. it looks like it will be just the two of us tonight, my housemates are AWOL. Is it cold out there?”
Hot food, cocoa and later the couch blanket for movie watching would solve that chilly issue. The kettle flicked off and she moved to the kitchen to make herself another cocoa, plus whatever Jac wanted.
“Tea? Coffee? Cocoa? Something cold? What would you like?”
She stopped herself from saying ‘honey’, because it was just too much like her mother. She assembled her ingredients and poured their drinks before setting them lightly on the table. She had already put the potato bake there, plus some green beans she had steamed to brighten them up.
She hesitated for the briefest of instances on which seat to take, but settled for the one facing towards the door, leaving the seat facing the window for her friend. It would mean they were sitting on the two equal sides of a equilateral triangle; next to each other but not next to each other, opposite but not facing. She found it was the most comfortable position when there were only two table occupants. Not that the housemates sat at the table so often, usually choosing the sectional couch and balancing the dishes on knees or the coffee table. The couch was not so delicate it couldn’t take it. It was partly why she had bought it, because it was reasonably priced on an online listing and they needed a couch. It was also the coolest looking one, and seemingly the only one without a floral pattern.
“How was your day? Did you come straight from work?”
Cocoa cupped in her hands Zinn sat crosslegged on the kitchen floor, peering through the oven glass. She had left the kitchen before and burned the meal to a crisp, so now she was a little more cautious. Now with no background noise blasting she heard the phone easily. Jac was free, and down for dinner. Awesome. Her reply was brief and sent swiftly.
“If you want anything in particular to drink, yes. We have milk, cocoa, red soda.”
She prodded again at the cheesy layer and the layers below gave gently. That was better. She had the bake out on the bench when she had another thought.
“Do you have any allergies or special dietary needs?”
It was a bit of a nursish question, but poisoning her new friend would be a bit of downer. She followed up with her address and moved to setting the table. A couple plates, glasses, mugs, cutlery. They even had material napkins in a drawer that someone had got as a housewarming gift and they were clean! She shook them out a bit to get out the worst of the drawer crinkles and plopped them unceremoniously on the table next to the plates. She was no wizard who could fold ducks out of napkins, nor fancy shapes, but at least they had something to wipe the cheesygreasy away.
The couch was mostly clear, except for a stack of textbooks which she picked up and deposited in her room, snagging the top blanket and dvds while she was there. Guardians was a must, but she grabbed a handful of other assorted movies, she was not sure about Jacqueline’s taste, after all. Once she felt that she was more or less prepared she retrieved her now lukewarm cocoa to finish on the couch while she waited for her friend to arrive. The oven was doing a good job in taking the edge off the chill, but it was going to be a cold night.
With the vacuum blaring it was impossible to tell exactly when the reply came in, the ringtone muted by a combination of pocket and cleaning noises. When she turned the machine off to change the head to the edger the gentle reminder tone let her know she had an unread message still waiting. She flicked it open with one hand while stepping on the standard vacuum head and yanking the pole out.
I don’t, why? Good to hear from you.”
There were several reasons; it was a free way to communicate, as long as there was an internet connection the messaging was instant, asking about it was a nicer way to start a conversation than “S’up?”
“I was going to add you so we can chat online, without the chatrooms full of weirdos or the distractions of BookFace. What are you up to tonight, working?”
With the smaller attachment connected she set off around the edges of the living room. Each of the housemates was in charge of cleaning the common areas of their flat entirely once a month, it was her week this week, and she had been a bit slack the last time around because of exam prep. This time she was going to do a good job.
Ding.
Thankfully the oven was louder than the phone tone, and she heard it over the motor of the hoover. She ran one more pass along the back of the couch and kicked the ‘off’ switch. Dinner was ready. Or at least, dinner was ‘check me now so you don’t burn me’. She peeked in and the layers of cheese were bubbling promisingly. The resistance to the quick stab with a knife told her it still needed a little longer. Potato bake.
Once she had wrapped the cord up and stashed the hoover she tapped on Steph’s door. After a few moments with no response she poked her head in. Empty. Apparently she was not in her room reading after all. Perhaps she had taken her book to find a quiet spot less vacuumey. Well, now there was no one to enjoy her potato bake. Unless… She slid the unlock screen across.
“My housemates have bailed on my cheesy*ss dinner, wanna come over? My plans are dinner and a movie. In a totally non-date way.”
Plus, she could pitch her costume idea while they were at it.
The dishes swished in the water beneath her hands, becoming clean under the bubbles, before she sat them on the drying rack to drain. Glasses, plates, cutlery, all were working their way through the cycle from dirty to clean. Her flatmates were nowhere to be seen, one in her room reading, the other at work. With limited distractions she was listening to music and letting her mind wander. She had been invited to a Halloween party and was constructing a costume in her mind. She was planning to go as Gomora from Guardians of the Galaxy, it was a sexy costume, but not so sexy as some of the Halloween standards. The ‘sexy nurse’ was a costume she particularly avoided, although she knew some of her workmates embraced the sexualisation of their career. She liked her job, but ‘sexy’ was not a word that sprang to mind in relation to it.
Swish, swish.
The mixing bowl was resisting coming clean, something sticky dried on, banana muffin mix she was pretty sure. It was while she was trying to scrub the goop from the glass that her mind turned to complimentary costumes. If she had a kid she would have dressed them up as rocket, even though he seemed to go better with Groot.
Hmm. She knew someone who looked a little Grootish. Quite a bit Grootish, come to think of it. Perhaps she could be convinced to dress up with her… Her mind was already racing with ideas of how to make a Groot costume, foam floor tiles bent into the right shape and melted a little with a hot knife, or added to with a hot gluegun was her current plan of attack. Giving up a little on the bowl, or leaving it to soak, she pulled her hands from the gloves and fished her phone from her pocket and scrolled through the contacts until she found Jacquelyn’s.
“Hey, do you have Skype?”
A few seconds passed as she walked to and closed the window, the breeze that was coming through was no longer warm and tinged with delicious smells, it was distinctly cool. She hung the washing gloves under the sink and wiped the bench down a little with the damp sponge.
“This is Zinnia, by the way.”
She had entered her details into the phone when her prawnish friend had given it to her to swap numbers, still it didn’t hurt to be polite. She turned on the kettle, it was cocoa time.
Jac couldn't drive either, and the thought of her trying to squeeze in behind the wheel of Zinn's Dad's Bug was a giggle-worthy thought. So Zinn giggled, quietly, so it would not be thought that she was laughing at Jac. Once Jac began to chuckle too, she let loose into a real giggle. Now they were laughing with not at
"No problem."
If Jac was coming to dinner Zinn would give her flatmates some warning. They were cool, but it would only take one "Dayum!" to scare Jac off from ever coming back. Plus, what might she eat? Zinn tucked away 'tea' for future reference.
The larger mutant slipped on her facemask and Zinn aknowlegded the privlige she had of seeing her friend's mouth at all. Clearly it was something she was shy about. Or otherwise she was like a frog and couldn't help but lick up insects. Ew.
Zinn slipped her phone back into her pocket and nodded her agreement to being done. Jac cleared away the dishes, and Zinn took a moment to pack her book away snugly and shoot a affermative reply to her housemate. She would get milk. She was on dinner duty. She exited the little cafe, nodding to the guy behind the counter as she went.
"Today was good, T'anks sore duh caw-see... and sayin' sun-t'ing earlier."
"My pleasure." and she honestly meant it.
"See you around?"
The proffered fist was familiar to her. She had seen the Hero movie with her little brothers and ever since Baymax fistbumps had been a regular thing. She bumped, and couldn't help the:
"Bah-da-ladala-dah-la" that escaped her.
She dipped her head and turned away before she could see if her new friend got it. She would be embarrassed if she didn't, and so she didn't want to know.
The idea of parting with an unfinished piece seemed to horrify Jac, like showing an incomplete painting in a gallery, or screening a movie with the dotty morph suits unedited. She offered to complete it before giving it up and Zinn agreed. She took the offered phone and typed in her details, name, number and email address, somehow she didn’t take Jac for much of a call-and-have-a-chat type, but perhaps she was mistaken.
“T’anks. I took wood-shot when I was sixteen, did a section on whittling. Been doing all sorts o’ woodwork since.”
Zinn realised as the taller woman spoke that she had no idea how old she might be. It was impossible to tell by looking at her, she had no wrinkles in any of the places soft-skins did to show age, no hair to go grey. She worked as a bouncer at a bar, so surely she would have to be at least 21, but other than that Zinn had not the faintest idea. For all she knew Jac could be 80. She doubted it though, and Jac moved to give her a little clarification, which was sweet of her.
Her attention was drawn again to the ball in a cage, and she imagined Jac bent over it, carefully working around the bars, using little tools to smooth the ball to round. It seemed likely to take forever, and if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, touched it with her own hands, she might not have thought it possible.
“Well, once the wolf is finished you could email me? I would love to buy it from you.”
She turned the piece over in her hands, already dedicating a spot on her bookshelf for it. She had a few knickknacks in her sharehouse, but many she had left at her parents, or disposed of after highschool when they lost their significance. Love notes from your crush from elementary lose out against the space they take up when you’re sharing an apartment in NYC.
“What’s… sun-ting you… always wanted to do? Sun-t'ing you're good at, sun-t'ing you're not good at... and sun-t'ing you drean of doing?"
Zin pondered the questions for a moment as she finished her coffee. They were good questions, deep thinker questions.
“I always wanted to see England, visit the places my Dad grew up, meet my grandparents, see the house where he had his childhood. We never did make it back before they passed, and the house has been sold, but I’d still like to visit some time. Hmm, I’m pretty bad *ss at taking blood, but other than that I guess listening? Lame I know. Oh yes, I can sew alright.”
Recognising a weakness was an important skill, but many of her work-related improvement areas wouldn’t make any sense here, so she took the easy way out.
“I am a terrible runner, literally winded in a minute, and I’m a pretty bad sleeper, I have to wear a machine to remind me to breathe, otherwise I might just stop… Oh, and I can’t drive”
Dreams were tricky to put a name on, she was still pretty young, a career was one thing, and that she had plotted out and was on the road towards it. But more than that? Was that what her crunchie friend was asking?
“I’d love to be a paramedic, first on the scene type thing, maybe spend a year or two researching mutant specific maladies and what we can do to improve health care for our X-geners. Kids maybe? One day?”
She was unsure if kids were a dream, or just something she was expected to do one she hit a certain age. If she did become a mother she was almost certainly going to adopt, unforeseen surprises aside, too many younglings without families for her to justify growing her own. Plus she had many years of work that wasn’t really suited to baby bellies (at least on the staff).
Zzzt zzzt.
It was rude, but she checked her phone, sometimes there were emergencies she needed to attend to. This was not exactly one of these times. “Hey Z. out of milk, are you on dinner tonight?” it was one of her housemates, and she realised she was in fact on dinner duty. And that she hadn’t prepared anything. Spaghetti it was. She would grab milk and ground beef on her way home.
“Hmm, my housemates need me to cook dinner. I had better go. Unless you want to come?”
That was a bit weird maybe, bringing someone home on the same day. She pressed back until she got to the ‘add contact’ page, and offered it to Chief.
Zinn was in agreement with the no powertools thing. She had had one incident with the blender trying to make a smoothie. Never again. She would buy all her smoothies pre-smoothed. Or bribe a housemate to work the devil machine.
Jac set some examples on the table and with a quick glance for permission, Zinn lifted them one by one to observe more closely. The optical illusion brain teaser one was fascinating. How did she get the ball inside? By turning it over in her hands several times the ball rolled about loosely until she could see where the grains matched up. This had been one piece of wood, carved whittled into the shapes. She was suitably impressed.
Her large friend stretched out her fingers and Zinn gave them another look, well she was offering them and curiosity was an emotion Zinn found hard to supress. It made sense that the smaller fingers she had glimpsed in the change room did the delicate work, compared to the larger hands visible now. When they slipped once again behind the edge of the table Zinn turned her curiosity to the unfinished owl and the detail in the feathers. Jac was speaking confidently now, and she had to concentrate to keep up. It was like listening to someone with an accent, the more effort you put in, the easier it became to follow. Each feather was beautifully textured, and Zinn ran her fingers delicately over them, feeling the grain of the wood and the bitten sections where the knife had coaxed the animal out of it.
“I got a little carried away.”
The excited ramble came to a sudden stop. Zinn glanced up and Jac was hiding her face (somewhat ineffectively due to size) behind the teacup. Aww, she was shy. Zinn took a swig of her own drink then made sure her fingers were clean and dry before picking up the least completed piece, the beginnings of a wolf emerging from a piece of wood. The workmanship was on display, the nose was perfect, complete, the ears had fur carved just so to see the breeze ruffling them. This detail faded around the shoulders, as the body faded seamlessly into the wood, showing the shape of the piece that the artwork had started as. This was her favourite by far, showing all the steps of its creation.
“Is this one spoken for? It’s great.”
Her friend seemed a little shy about her passion, but the joy it clearly gave her was infectious.
“How long have you been whittling, to get this good? And how long did these take you to make?”
She had indeed heard of things like that, in her studies. Similar to children with disabilities the statistics for children who tested positive for an X-gene were at higher percentages of adoption and foster care.
“Lots of parents feel they are not equipped to properly handle an X-positive child, there seems to be little difference though in whether they find out through a test or through the manifestation. I guess some people benefit from having some fore-warning, but the people who would abandon their child based on an active X-gene probably not going to be great parents to them anyway.”
Too late she realised she may well have stuck her foot in it.
“No offence, of course.”
People who chose to adopt or foster whilst being fully aware of the challenges their charge may face in later years were usually better prepared for a mutation should it manifest. It was a careful screening process to ensure that that was not the sole reason for adoption, though, even more questions than the standard paperwork.
“I guess that’s why there isn’t an in utero test yet, too much concern that terminations based on X-gene would go way up.” It was just a little too close to eugenics. She suspected eventually they would cover the possibility in an ethics class, but so far she had not had to debate whether it was an option for expecting females to decide to terminate because of the possibility of their child being different.
“On a lighter note, it means that people can organise to have training in self-control already established by the time a mutation manifests, which should reduce the number of young mutant malfunctions.”
School shootings too, as schools began to implement relaxation, meditation and mindfulness classes in an effort to minimise the risk of young ones losing control and burning down the classroom, or accidentally vaporising the gym pool.
“What sort of woodworking do you do?”
A subtle change of topic, and a chance for her new friend to show off her talents.
Jac described her transformation briefly and Zinnia winced. Puberty had been bad enough, but growing a shell instead of just hair in new and exciting places didn’t sound like a fund trip. That was not factoring in the wicked growing pains that she assumed would have to come from changing from a pre-teen human to a fully-formed mutie with a shape like Jac’s.
“Yowch, that sounds awful. I guess it’s good you don’t remember it too much.”
It reminded her of a case study she had been assigned, one of the few that mentioned mutations in a medical capacity, where a young man had begun growing tentacles from his face, like an octo-beard. The pain had been agonising, and for weeks he had sought medical treatment with no success. All painkillers had no impact, and the transition was messy; blood and tiny severed wriggly things from the times he had tried to push on with shaving, serious ‘ingrowns’ causing problems far worse than unsightly dots. Eventually he had signed up for a voluntary induced coma, and they had put him under for six months until his body ceased the changes. He woke up an entirely changed man, and with a whopping hospital bill to boot. It had been an ethics case, about whether it was the right thing to do. Zinn had argued yes, because at the end of the day he was in unbearable agony, and all other options had been exhausted.
“Dere are tests?”
Zinnia dipped her head, three main ones with varying degrees of price and intrusiveness that she knew of.
“There are a couple of pretty accurate ones, all post-birth, there hasn’t been any successful tests developed in utero,” she was torn on whether or not she wanted there to be, “a blood test, a DNA swabbing and the least accurate is a non-invasive pee test.”
There was far too much error in the pee test for Zinn’s liking, too many people expectantly awaiting their mutation, or concerned about it impacting on their lives and on further testing showing negative, too many visible or otherwise confirmed mutants testing as negative. It was the cheapest, though.
“Having a positive result doesn’t necessarily mean that the X-gene will manifest, or that the mutation will be noticeable, some people have it and only carry it, some like me might have it and never know about it. Mutations aren’t always dramatic unlike what the politicians like to imply.”
Jac had not seemed uncomfortable for Zinn’s admiration for her shiny skin (shell?) and Zinn felt herself relaxing a bit. When her new friend cracked a joke she grinned, the awkwardness of not knowing what was and was not ok to talk about draining away further with every slurp of her coffee.
“I’d totally go see any movie with you as the hero! Plus then you’d win at every cosplay contest ever.”
It would be difficult for anyone to hardcore cosplay Jac, with a waist that thin and a stature that could be classified as hugenormous. She imagined though, that if her new friend were to chase the acting dream they would have to cast a voice actor, and Zinn liked the purring growl of her voice, so unlike any voices she was used to. She kept that to herself, two compliments in a row was a little heavy handed.
Jac asked about the discovery of her mutation and Zinn dipped her head a little, it was a good story, but could come across a little over dramatic if not told carefully.
“My younger brother almost drowned in the pool of our building when I was young. I was the only one there to resuscitate and I did my best, but I was just a child, I didn’t know how to do it right.”
It had been terrifying, trying to copy what had been hinted at on TV and in movies with no technique.
“When the ambulance got there they drained the water from his lungs and there was so much, he shouldn’t have come out of it. They did a bunch of tests, to see how much damage might have been done to his brain from lack of oxygen, but they found he was fine, and had a higher than average oxygen. For a while they thought he was a mutant – but they did some tests on me too and found that it was me.”
It was around this time that she had first discovered a desire to be a nurse. Seeing how calm they were, how gently they treated her brother and herself. How much knowledge they had compared to herself. Life goals- set.
“How about you, did you change gradually or one day – boom, visible mutation?”
<<I don’t go to school. I’m a bouncer at a night club, and part of the security staff at a local school.>>
The little robotic voice informed her of Jac’s employments and she nodded. These were both jobs where her appearance would be a boon, not a detriment, and Zin was pleased that such visible mutants could work in such standard jobs. Mutation was the new tattoo, and often workplaces subtly discriminated against anything that could be seen while wearing full length sleeves and pants.
Wood working was cool, although not something she had pursued herself. Shop had been running at the same time as biology, and to her the science had had more of a pull. She noted the detail away, she would have to ask about the wood working that her new friend did at a later stage. People liked to show off their crafts in her experience.
The spoon looked tiny in between the massive fingers, but it stirred the tea delicately, barely clinking against the side of the cup. Zinn took another sip of her own icy beverage as Jac explained the family rift.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
It was an unfortunate fact that Mutants and particularly visible mutants were at far greater risk of all the terrible things than their human counterparts – domestic violence, suicide, self-harm, substance abuse, all the unfortunate lot of mutantkind. She had been lucky, to grow up in a family to whom mutation was no big deal. She briefly wondered if she had had a visible manifestation of her mutation what might have been different for her.
“I used to look hue-nan,”
The difference between her face and the face of a stock-standard human was obvious even from behind the mask, but with it removed the contrast was stark. A part of her mind wondered what she had looked like before the change, had she been blonde and pale, dark like herself, something in between, tall, short? It was impossible to tell by looking at her now. Whatever it had been, it was clearly nothing like her mutant form, if the family had reacted so badly. She didn’t know what to say in response to the family information, yet she didn’t feel so bad for asking. Maybe she was just nosey.
“Well, I think you look pretty awesome now. Just saying.”
Pretty pretty too, but that was a bit too much for a first coffee meet. Plus she wasn’t sure if she herself was comfortable with that, and Jac seemed to be shy about her appearance, at least the mouth part.
“Nust be nice, doh, to be duh eldest,”
Zinn raised her eyebrows and gave a miniscule snort, these were the words of someone who was not the eldest.
“It’s a trade-off, you get more attention, but you get more rules too.”
For instance, if she had wanted a pet reptile as a pre-teen there would have been no way that was going down, but now both her brothers had scaly pets, multiples even. Even now her parents liked to share their opinions on what she should and shouldn’t do. The difference being now she was an adult, they were only suggestions, not so much rules.
“My brothers are brats, but I think all little brothers are. They’re sweet sometimes too, and too clever for their own good. Neither of them are mutants as far as we know, but neither of them have been tested either.”
What was the point, when an older sister clearly carried the gene, if they manifested mutations so be it, it would change nothing about their home life. Plus, it was an expensive test, with few benefits to knowing ahead of time. She made an effort not to stare at her friend’s mouth, but she gave it a quick glance or two, it was fascinating if a little private. Part of her was surprised how delicately she sipped her tea. Part of her was not.
“Ah, well my mutation means I can breathe non-oxygen. My respiratory system works a little differently, so usually I’m operating on carbon dioxide in, oxygen out. Like a tree.”
This was what she was operating on now. It was a boon on hot days when the air was smoggy, and in air-conditioned environments where a breath of fresh air was a rare commodity. It was not so combat-oriented as some other mutations she had seen or heard of, but in its own way it made sense as an adaptation to the world she lived in. Evolutions attempt at reversing climate change perhaps. Jac didn’t seem like the type to grab and experiment, plus she was certain that she had coffee-tinted breath, but she had been told in the past it was something like smelling the ocean air, or ozone. She certainly wasn’t going to offer, that was just obscure.
Subdued apparently meant dead. The massive robot gave her enough time to start her scramble before the bullets started perforating the pavement. She felt like a cartoon character, that her legs were spinning and spinning and she was making no progress. She must have been, though, because she couldn’t feel any bullets hitting her legs. For now. She had lost sight of the coffee stain man, and then suddenly he blinked into appearance just ahead of her.
She had enough brain left over that was not screaming ‘run’ for another word.
“Cheater!”
He was using his mutation to pop out of the line of fire and she was impressed, and a little jealous. Stupid breathing power, getting her in trouble with the bots and providing no advantage against them. It felt like the bot was getting closer, the shots fired at an oddly rhythmic beat.
Was it shooting them to we will rock you? The absurdity would be amusing, except for the fact they could well and truly die here. Who would tell her parents? Her brothers? She was determined not to die today. She tried to keep up somewhat with the popper mutant, having two targets it was trying to get a bead on meant it was half as likely to hit either.
“You zig, I’ll zag!”
There was a black trash bin on wheels coming up on the side, and Zinn fully intended to knock-throw it down in the path of the bot. Perhaps with its clearly malfunctioning bot-brain it would get confused and stop shooting at them. She snagged the bin’s handle and yanked, hard, as she passed it. It tipped and trash spilled out across the street.
“Littering is a crime. Criminals need to be served justice.”
Oh brilliant. She didn’t want anything this bot was serving. At least it had momentarily stopped shooting to scold her for the trash. The ominous ‘shuck-shuck’ suggested the reprieve was short-lived, however. She was frantically searching for an alley entrance, like a feeder mouse desperately scurrying along the transparent wall of her brother’s snake tank. A seemingly never ending wall of glass blocked her path too, but on the other side were well dressed mannequins, not kids peering in to watch nature at work.
“Alley?”
She gasped out the word. Carbon dioxide to oxygen wasn’t a good one for sprints. Could he pop ahead and find one? Would they be safer there? The bot seemed either to have trouble aiming, or wanted simply to watch them dance. She had no delusions that she could outrun bullets. This bot was clearly broken.
So Jac also found the steady swish of water rushing past the ears soothing and meditative. Did she have ears? There were none poking out of the sides of her very bald head, but she was answering Zinn’s questions, so she must be able to hear her somehow. Perhaps the things Zinn would have pegged as antennae were actually ears.
“Not much of a runner myself, but I understand it’s one of the better exercises you can do.”
Especially if you didn’t want to purchase large amounts of highly specialised equipment, just a good pair of shoes will be enough. It was almost a pity that she didn’t enjoy it really. But you can’t force yourself to enjoy something, and running for exercise seemed more like a punishment to her than a peaceful break from the demands of life. She would put up with having undefined calves. Who really looked at calves anyway?
Their drinks arrived and she received hers gratefully. It was a massive cup, as large as three of her fists stacked on top of each other. Comparing Jac’s tiny cup in her massive hands and Zinn’s large cup in her average hands they were quite the contrast. The ice rattled a little against the sides of the cup as she took a sip through the straw.
“Dat’s a huge-“
The carapaced mutant hesitated and Zinn glanced at her and then her coffee, it was pretty big, but ‘huge’ was somewhat of an exaggeration, especially considering who it was coming from. A standard cup of coffee was maybe a third of the size of this one, but in her defence – much of this cup was ice. Her friend started tapping away furiously on the phone and Zinn was impressed by her speed- she couldn’t type nearly as fast, and she had fingers that phones were designed for. Once the typing stopped the translator added the rest of the sentence, and Zinn realised it was not her coffee being remarked on, but rather her textbook.
“Yes, I’m a student, I am studying nursing. I’m a Licenced Practical Nurse, and
I’m working on getting Bachelors to become a Registered Nurse.” The textbook was interesting, but not really light reading for interest’s sake. Plus, the pictures were pretty gorey to suddenly be confronted with.
“Are you studying? Or what do you do with your free time?”
Besides swimming and running of course. It was rude to ask if someone had a job, but not so rude to ask about their hobbies. Sometimes the two coincided.
“Do you have any siblings? I have two younger brothers.”
As of yet, neither of them had displayed mutations, but that wasn’t to say that they wouldn’t. If Jac had any siblings would their X-genes manifest in the same way? Would her own brothers develop mutations similar to her own? It was impossible to tell. She knew for certain her brothers would freak out if they saw Jac, in a totally positive pre-teen boy way, with lots of ’sick’ and ‘wicked’s thrown into the mix.
She nodded along to two excellent points, using mutations to expand the scope of first aid was exactly the sort of thing she was talking about, and it was not only your own mutation you had to watch out for, but other people’s as well. In an unknown situation it was always a good idea to calm the injured person down. This class was going to pass with flying colours at this rate.
“Great work, it’s also worth noting that if they are conscious you should always ask questions:” She turned and wrote the acronym AMMPLE on the provided board, downways like an acrostic poem and began filling them in as she spoke.
“A-llergies, is there anything you are allergic to? This can be important for when the ambulance gets on the scene. M-edication, are you on any medication at the moment? Elderly people taking aspirin for their hearts can bleed very heavily from minor wounds, and some medications react badly with others. M-utation, do you have an X-gene that requires particular caution or special treatment? For example, some of the time I breathe in carbon dioxide and out oxygen- putting me in an oxygen mask when this is happening would be the same as putting a pillow over the face of a human, these are important details. P-ast history, has something like this happened before? Obviously not relevant for things such as wounds from fighting, but it is particularly relevant if the person has lost consciousness, or blacked out, as past history of the same could mean something more sinister. L-ast time you ate? This is important if they need to go in for emergency surgery, also important if you are speaking with a diabetic who is low on insulin. And finally; E-vents, what happened that led up to you needing to step in? If you saw it happen, then it is good to match their version of the events with what you saw- see if there are any gaps. If you didn’t see what happened then this question can help you determine what kind of care they are going to need.”
She took a sip of water and gave them time to note it down. It was in the infobook she had sent ahead, but it was one of the easier ones to remember, and made a huge difference when it came to passing the casualty over to someone like herself or an ambulance officer. Sometimes the information handed over from a bystander on the scene was the difference between life and death for a casualty. It was important to give people the tools they needed to ask the right questions.
“Ok, has anyone performed CPR before?”
She had the dummies in zippy bags behind her, and in order to get their certificates she would show them the correct technique, once each for adult and baby-under-18months, then guide them through one round, then ‘test’ them, by watching them complete a set of 30:2 five times with no instructions. It wasn’t a hard exercise, but it was one that needed to be done right.