It was almost eight in the morning and Chris was sitting cross-legged on a park bench in Inwood Hill Park, reading a pocket book. It was an old copy of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, borrowed from the library and containing a good deal of loose pages. He was just reading the part were the monster begged Frankenstein to create a girlfriend to him.
I am alone and miserable; man will not associate with me; but one as deformed and horrible as myself would not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the same species and have the same defects. This being you must create.
Chris frowned, closed the book and put it next to him on the bench. He looked up at the Hudson River in front of him - on the other side, he could see skyscrapers and the usual mix of buildings.

Chris was dressed in jeans and a hoodie over a black and blue wetsuit - he was actually going swimming today. The only reason he was still sitting here and reading 19th century literature was that he was waiting for someone. He and Locke had agreed to train together today - Locke wanted to see to what extent his powers worked under water, and Chris was - well, he wasn't exactly sure about what he was going to do, maybe he should be trying to distract Locke? And anyway, he'd never turn down a chance to go swimming.

The Californian had no wetsuit, and had it not been for some packages from home, he'd have no swimming trunks either. He did however have a sturdy rope with him. Chris was built for water, and Locke knew how to swim, but the idea of trying to keep a golem together in the water was going to be intimidating enough. That's why he had brought the rope. Locke had no intentions of ending up wherever the Hudson River stopped. Looking at the water though made him question if he really wanted to do this. He had done his homework, he knew about the heavy metals that were in that water, about the high level of pollution.

Not only was he worried about what might be in the water, he was also worried about the temperature. Already he was freezing his butt off and he hadn't even stuck a toe into the river. He opened his mouth, about ready to tell Chris that this just wasn't going to happen. But the two of them had gotten out of their respective rooms, a big enough accomplishment in some ways, and they both had made their way here. To not go through with this would not only be a let down to himself, for he'd have no clue if he could even make a golem with the water vibrations interfering, but if it would move at all, but Chris would be disappointed as well. "Sorry I'm late," Locke apologized. No way was he going to let the two of them down. "Couldn't find my beach towel."

A sudden sound made Chris turn around, but it was just Locke who had arrived. Chris jumped down from the park bench and stuffed down his pocket book in his backpack.
"No problems," he said. "I don´t even think it´s eight yet."
He turned his head and looked down at the river. They were standing in front of some kind of muddy bank that gradually sloped down into the river. There wasn´t that much people around so early in the morning, just an occasional jogger now and then, so he planned to leave his backpack under the park bench. Hopefully they would notice if someone would try to steal their stuff.
Chris noticed that Locke didn´t exactly seemed thrilled, but he was here anyway and didn´t seem like he was about to back out. Chris, on the other hand, felt uncharacteristically enthusiastic - he was eager to get started.
"Nothing like a swim in the river to begin the day, right?"
He hadn´t trained much with other people before, but everytime he did he always felt the same mix of nerves, anticipation and excitement. He tried to act a little calmer, lowered his voice and looked back at Locke.
"Okay, so how do we do this? I mean, what do you want me to do?"

“I guess,” Locke said when Chris said there was nothing like an early morning swim. He wasn’t really the type to jump into a pool while the sun rises. It was cold for one, and wet for the another. Those two things alone were enough to keep Locke dry and in bed. “I’m more of the sand castle type than the surfer type” he confessed. Laying in the sand and absorbing the sun sounded wonderful. If he were an animal, Locke would be a reptile of some sort, and he certainly would never be a member of the Polar Bear Club.

He walked about the area trying to find something solid to tie his rope to. Locke had briefly considered grabbing a cement block to use as an attachment point. Then he realized that in the end it would just be an anchor to drag him down should he end up pulling it into the water. The bench was a possibility, though Locke wasn’t sure if the rope was long enough for him to go any bit deep into the river if he tied off there. “First I’m getting myself a security line. I get… distracted with the golems and I don’t want to end up ten miles downstream if this actually works,” he explained his actions, heading to a tree that was a bit closer to the water line, “Just do whatever you want in the water… maybe if I can get Fluffy to work under there it will be a great game of Marco Polo huh?”

Chris nodded when Locke went around looking for a place to tie his security rope. He took of his hoodie, folded it and stuffed it down his backpack.
"Okay, that sems logical."
Locke dismissed a cement block and a bench and then went for a tree close to the river. Then he said something about ´Fluffy´ which made Chris look at him with a blank expression.
"I´m sorry, but could you repeat the last part? Who´s Fluffy?"
He´d never played Marco Polo, but he knew what it was. Well, basically, anyway.

“Oh yeah, I haven’t introduced you to Fluffy yet,” Locke said with a grin. The mud was pretty good for working with, and so Locke descended his mind into it. He felt as though he was saying hello to an old familiar friend, and Locke pulled and prodded a human shape up and out. Fluffy wasn’t all that large, just slightly smaller than Chris, and as usual had only the vaguest similarities to a human. The mouth and eyes were just gaping holes that looked as if someone had scooped out handfuls of the mud. It had two arm like things, as well as two legish supports, but was hunched over more like a gorilla. “Meet Fluffy,” Locke somehow managed to grumble out. Talking while keeping Fluffy together was something he hadn’t experimented with much, but he’d have to get use to it sooner or later.

Chris's eyes widened and he backed away two steps, a bit startled by the mud creature Locke had conjured. The thing wasn't big, but it looked a bit eerie with those hollow eyes and the hollow mouth. He could see why Locke had wanted to study anatomy - the thing looked human enough to be creepy, but otherwise it wasn't very anatomically correct.
"Right," he answered a bit hesitantly, giving the mud creature - or Fluffy - a little wave. "It's not... you know, alive or so?"
Chris was pretty sure that Locke was just animating the mud, but you never could be too sure.

Then Chris turned to the Hudson river. He pointed upstreams, were a small piece of land and rocks protruded into the river not far away.
"Anyway, see that small cape over there? It's slowing down the current a bit here, and I think it will be enough so that it won't get swept away."
Chris nodded towards Fluffy to show what he meant by 'it.'
"But the longer you get away from the cape, the stronger the current will get. Oh, and it probably will get pretty deep too. In this area it's pretty shallow when you're close to land, just a few feet, but I don't really know how deep it can get out there, I haven't been down to the bottom. Too much trash down there. and it's too dark to see anything."
Chris normally didn't talk so much, but it was important that Locke knew the way the land - or river - was laying.
"So... I don't know... How about you start by trying to keep that thing together underwater and then, when you're ready to step it up one level, I'll try to disturb you by trying to destroy it?"

Locke gritted his teeth together and ushered Fluffy in the direction of the river. Mud didn't stay together nearly as well as concrete and definitely not like the marble floors. It slipped and slid about in ways that he couldn't prevent. After all Locke only affected dirt and rock stuffs, not water and not gravity. Not only was it hard to keep replenishing the golem, but moving it felt a bit like mixing caramel sauce and pancake mix.

This isn't right,[/i] Locke thought as Fluffy's first "foot" went into the water. It grew thinner feeling, and although there was a brief moment in which Locke was aware of the mud in the riverbed, the golem was dissolving too fast for him to connect and build back up Fluffy. It melted. There was a floating bit of mud that was broken up and carried downstream by the current. "Alright that didn't work. Guess that means we're both going in."

Chris watched as the mud creature struggled to stay together in the water, but it was no use - the currents slowly dissolved it and what was left drifted away with the water.
"Alright that didn't work. Guess that means we're both going in."
Chris nodded.
"Yeah, maybe we should have started at a lake or something instead. Learn to walk before you learn to run."
Chris took of his hoodie and jeans (he had his wetsuit on under the clothes) and folded them neatly before leaving them on the grass next to the bench. He wasn't really worried someone would snag his clothes while he was in the water - this area of Inwood Hill Park didn't have many visitors at this time of the day, and none of the occasional joggers would want to steal clothes that smelled like fish anyway.

Chris started to wade out in the water. It deepened quickly and it didn't take him long until he'd reached a point where he could dive, so he did that. The water was a bit cold and it would have been very refreshing if it hadn't been so polluted that you could actually taste it, like a metallic aftertaste in your mouth. Well, he didn't intend to stay in for long, but it still was nice to get out and swim.
When he came up to the surface he turned around to see how Locke was dealing with the water. He hadn't seemed too eager to swim earlier.

”I thought we were walking,” Locke mumbled as Chris went into the water. The Californian stared at it with distaste. He detested the cold, and being wet, and now he was going to have to be both. Why couldn’t Fluffy have stayed together? Locke hesitated before going closer to the water’s edge, slowly taking his shoes off and dipping a toe in the water.

By no means was Locke squeamish. He had changed diapers, both wet and soiled, had experienced every shade of baby spit-up, watched all Saw movies while eating pasta, and had to deal with cleaning out a dead eye. Yet putting one foot in the polluted river made him want to shudder. This is disgusting. Still, if he was this far into the whole idea he might as well see if there was anything that he could do. The mud was there, or at leas Locke was pretty sure that it was mud. It felt workable, but mostly he was disturbed about the feeling of sludge clinging to him. Chris was lucky to have a wet suit. Locke wanted something to keep the sludge off him. He tried to make a golem out of it, and all that really happened was a blurp and a bubble of sludge went to the surface. “It looks like I’m only going to be able to make it hard for you to see at first,” Locke called to Chris when he surfaced. When the fish boy was in the water Locke couldn’t tell where he was. He’d have to work on this.

Chris was treading water, his head bobbing a bit above the surface. It was easy to see that Locke wasn't exactly overjoyed over going into the water. Chris could see his point - he knew that most people liked swimming and bathing, especially in the summer, but the Hudson River wasn't exactly known for being nice to swim in. If it hadn't been for his mutation he definitely would have thought twice about diving into it himself.

He watched as Locke tried to connect with the mud or something - actually, it was pretty freaky when you thought about it. How did his powers work, exactly? Was it some kind of kinetic powers, since he could affect stuff some distance away from him? And if so, why did it only work on earth and mud? Chris would have to ask later.
When Locke said that it seemed that he, at first, just would be able to use the mud to hinder Chris's vision, Chris answered glumly:
"So you mean you've found a way to make the water even sludgier? Wonderful. Remind me why we're doing this again."
It wasn't much of a joke and probably didn't do much to lift anybody's spirits but dry, half-sarcastic comments were about the only kind of witticisms Chris was capable of.

"We're doing this," Locke responded, his tone serious, but his expression one of sheepishness, "Because we're two guys who can't think of anything better to do with our time then swim in heavy metals and have a mud fight. Or, in other words, we're looking for an excuse to act like we're three." Just as Chris's joke might have been a little off from normal definitions of comedy, but it wasn't all that off from Locke's own nature.

A visible shiver ran through the hesitant teen and he said something that might have been a swear word had he actually enunciated at all. Ultimately he just made a strangled garbled noise to express his discomfort. He knew that the water would bother him less if he just sucked it up and went in further, but just having his feet wet was plenty for Locke. He didn't want to spend the rest of the day soaking in a hot shower to try to get the grimy feeling off his skin. No, scratch that idea. Right now a hot shower would be heaven. "Does that wet suit keep you from freezing your bum off or is it part of your mutation? And if the answer is yes how can I get my hands on it?". The mud seemed to take offense at his statement, perhaps thinking that he wanted to trade powers with someone else, and another blurbble of the sludge made it look like Locke was trying to turn the river into a jacuzzi.

Chris nodded solemnly at Locke's comment.
"Except three-year-olds are probably smart enough not to swim in cold, polluted rivers. I think. Well, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger... or gives you lead poisioning."

But that was easy for him to say. Locke was clearly struggling against the cold, and it struck Chris again that they maybe should have thought through this a bit more thoroughly. He had actually started to think of Locke as a friend - he was calm and not very outgoing, which made him easy to be around for a withdrawn guy like Chris.
But Locke seemed determined to do this, so Chris didn't object. After all, Locke was old enough to decide for himself, so instead of asking Are you sure you wan't to do this? he answered Locke's question.
"Actually, it's part of my mutation. The..."
He hesitated for a second.
"...the slime keeps me from freezing. I can feel the difference between cold and warmth, of course. If it gets really cold I'll freeze, but then it will have to be almost sub-zero."

The longer Locke kept the conversation going the longer he was in the water, which meant the more he felt like he was made out of garbage juice. But he was slowly getting use to the temperature of the water. “You’d be surprised what a three year old will do. Mai once took a bite out of a crayon because I told her that it was Mac n’ Cheese. She didn’t get that it was the color name. And there’s all those medical flyers and old TV warnings about your baby eating paint chips. The only difference is that stupid stuff involves sticking something in your mouth. Not taking a morning swim in this.”

“Shoot, I was hoping that it was the wetsuit,” Locke confessed, not able to hide the jealousy in his voice. Apparently his mutations were useless in the water and he couldn’t help but want to switch with the fish boy. Even the slime thing didn’t phase him too much. When they had met Locke had shaken hands with him. It felt odd of course, but knowing now why Chris had that ooze made things better. “You can always get your hands on a wetsuit, but how am I suppose to get thermal slime?” He sighed and poked around mentally again finding this time a rock in the mud. A little mental nudge and it rolled away from him. “Oooh, rocks work.”

Chris started to swim in slow circles on his back, his webbed feet paddling through the water. He might as well start to warm up while Locke was getting down into the water. He listened to Locke when he told about someone named Mai eating crayons, and other things toddlers might do which could be hazardous to their health. He was no expert at kids, he had never knew any younger children at all when he grew up, but it seemed so weird that kids ate stuff that was dangerous to them. Wasn't humans supposed to be the smartest animal there was? Then why did they spend their first years putting themselves in constant danger?
"Who's Mai?" he asked and then guessed: "Your sister?"

When Locke then said that about the thermal slime, Chris stopped swimming and went back to threading water. He was a bit surprised over the question, and even more surprised that there had been a hint of jealousy in Locke's voice. He must have imagined that. Why would anyone want to be covered in slime?
"If you had a chance to get it I would advice against it," he said seriously. "I think the novelty would wear off quickly."
He hadn't intended for it to sound pointy, it wasn't as if Locke had meant anything about it. It was just that Chris was kind of sensitive about his appearance, and it was his slimey, grey skin that had caused him most of his grievances.