A bad sign (Solo)

She walked past this bar every day, or just about, on her way to the sword shop. Today, something was different. She almost missed it, walking briskly by, but it caught the corner of her eye and she stopped to look. A large sign, A3 at least, was stuck to the inside of the window. A big, red, struck-through circle over a multi-legged dog and two humanoid silhouettes, one with an alligator snout, the other with two heads. In case the message was unclear, it was spelled out below in thick black letters “no x-genes allowed”. She stood in front of the window, just staring, for several seconds. The discrimination, open, public, signposted discrimination was shocking, for some reason she had thought people were getting more used to the idea of mutants, growing to understand that they weren’t so very different.

She walked away, pondering how exactly they were going to enforce the no-mutants policy. They could toss out visible mutants, but what about those like herself, who carried the gene and the power, but had no obvious external features different than the next person. Would they demand that everyone who entered the bar take a blood test, to prove their unclouded humanity? She stopped in at one of the small grocery stores, to replace the poster she had put up, advertising the sword shop. Guessing from how many new orders they had taken, all the pull-off tabs with the website on them were most likely gone. While she was there she looked across the other posters, advertising everything from budget prom makeup to dog walking. She had probably seen 80% of the adverts before, but it never hurt to look, and she was early anyway. A new poster, in tacky comic sans caught her eye.

Do mutants deserve to vote?

Do you want your children to grow up under the leadership of someone chosen by x-gene carriers?

How can I tell if a candidate is a mutant?

Should the gene status of all those running be public?

These answers and more available at one of our FREE information nights, details below…

There were one or two tags missing, with the email and meeting times printed on them. Further annoyed that people were so narrow-minded Verdy quietly pulled tag after tag off the poster, until there were none left, and made a mental note to keep checking back and de-tagging it each time she went past. Bigoted information nights seemed to breed more bigots, and judging from the sign she had seen earlier (which looked eerily official) they were already on the rise.

~~~

On her way home after a long, but relatively quiet day, she walked back past the bar where she had first seen the no mutants symbol. The window where the sign had been was smashed in, criss-crossed with police tape, and the door had its closed sign up, despite being within its opening hours. While violence was not really the answer, it was unsurprising that someone had taken offence, and apparently a hammer, to the window.