Mark and Renee Smith V. The State of New York (2005). The case that will lead to the end of the established order of the world, humans dominating and those who have the power too take being hindered. The strong should have dominion over the weak, it only made sense. And the ones who forced the realization upon Roger would receive the coveted position of the first blood spilled in the creation of the new mutant led world.

Alfred Lyons: a man with a good job, a happy family, and nephew of the prosecutor. He had an almost spotless record, other than a few speeding tickets he had done nothing wrong in life. Too bad for him, his life was about to turn into a living hell.

The first step was to have him lose his job. Someone with as good a reputation as him would take more than just being late for work. Rather, on the day of a big presentation his car started and the engine seized. BMWs don't like to run without engine oil. At work, which he showed up to late, his laptop couldn't download the files for the late presentation off the internet. WiFi is so unpredictable when random waves are canceling it out. An anonymous tip, and some adult paraphernalia found in his desk at work later and he was out of there.

The second step was to rob him of his wife. She believed her husband that the paraphernalia was not his, but that was soon to change. When someone is framing you it is not advised to leave your suit jacket sitting around unattended, especially if your wife does laundry. A business card for a crossdressing call girl is very hard to explain, especially when there have been discussions about men doing this on the radio and the signs associated with it. Trouble at work, irritation at home, finding more adult themed things in semi hidden places. Yet, this only created a rift. The wife left him after picking up the phone to overhear a conversation on the line between her husband and another woman. In reality it was between him and a perspective employer, but wireless phones are not very reliable when someone is a living transmitter.

The wife took the kids and filed for divorce. The prospective employer suddenly backed out of talks and left Alfred in the cold. And now all that was left was for him to be pushed over the edge, to want to end it here and now.

Roger stood in an alley, he had been following Alfred all day, filling his head with messages via commercials over the radio. And after sitting in a coffee shop for over an hour that meant a lot of commercials. Now it was time to plant evidence and have him arrested. Hopefully the hangman's noose would be a bed sheet in county.

"I think I'm on the fence here, Delilah," A bleached blond teenager drawled as the bus bumped along. She fidgeted with her cellphone as she spoke, eyes flicking up to her short-haired brunette girlfriend. They were both dressed preppy, but their make-up had Goth undertones.

"Pick a side," Her friend smirked at her. "Eddy, or Jakob."

"I dunno," She gave a one-shouldered shrug. "They're both dreamy. Honestly, I dun get it. Why can't I have both?"

Her friend sucked in a hiss of air, and dismissed the question with a laugh. "You're terrible! You can't have two boyfriends!"

"Not even if they don't mind it? I think Jakob..."

"No way! Eddy'd never approve of that. He's just too..."

Lenna stared out the window, tuning the drone of conversation out. She didn't understand teenage girls these days. They were juggling multiple boyfriends now? Really? ... Though, she'd never had a real boyfriend. What did she know? Maybe they weren't all as possessive and fearsome as the Johnathon of her past? Or maybe...

"But Edward's immortal! He'd be with you forever, and just as hot!" The brunette enthused.

Lenna's mental gears ground to a halt. She stared at the two teenagers. Immortal?

"Yeah, but werewolves!" The blond retorted.

Werewolves....?!

Lenna slapped her face and sighed. Were they talking about fictional characters now, or was the blond two-timing an immortal and a werewolf? She didn't even want to think about what that would entail. Her hand moved up to pull the line, and signal the driver the next block was her stop. Yeah, she had to get off the bus. These girls... she didn't want to deal with dumb people anymore.

Stupid teenage girls...

The bus stopped, and Lenna got off. Her left hand slipped into the pocket of her leather jacket for a packet of cigarettes, and her right played with the lighter, flicking the cap up and down. She slipped into an alley, and leaned up against the brick wall, without sparing a glance towards the alley's other occupants. She didn't notice the man standing 4 feet away from her, focused on some heavy task, no. Her focus was on losing focus. Lenna lit up the end of her cancer stick, and took a drag. She let out a breath of smoke and annoyance, let the foul mix hover in front of her in the air of the alley.

"Good lord..."

The in the building behind Roger played a message of how if life seemed bad it probably was and could only get worse. The voice could be heard where Roger was, but the words couldn't be made out. Roger was going to move out and plant a firearm on Alfred. He had located a black market dealer and secured one, and since this city is so dead set against guns all he would have to do is plant it and then 'notice' it when an officer is nearby. Then, some woman wandered into the alley and lit up a smoke.

Before handling the gun Roger wanted to pull out and slide on a pair of black gloves, which had the added effect of making his suit look that much sharper. But, they were in his suit's inside pocket and pulling them out might reveal the gun to this woman who stood unreasonably close to him. It is a decent sized alley, tobacco doesn't have to be burnt right beside him.

And what was that static?

The voice Roger was filling the airwaves with couldn't quite be discerned out of the fuzzy static accompanying it. He focused on trying to clean it up, but nothing could eliminate the degradation of his transmission. He stared off at the sky an irritated expression on his face. First, some woman decided to hang around next to him, normally a very welcome thing, but today it meant someone would have seen him just hanging around and if he wasn't careful, see him handling the gun he plants on Alfred. Second, she was blowing smoke around. And third, something was now wrong with his ability.

She flicked a butt. The cigarette flipped, end over end towards the cement. A booted foot ground down on it. Lenna finally noticed the guy in the alley with her, as she tapped out another stick. He looked like a space case, eyes to the skies, with a frown, like something about those clouds stunk.

It was New York, though. Something about the clouds did.

Lenna lit up another, and smoked it, silently regarding him. She watched surreptitiously, acting like her focus was still on the act of smoking. She only spared glances his way when she let out smoke, or tapped off ash. After a few minutes of 'sky-guy viewing', Lenna decided she'd had enough.

Curiosity got the best of her.

"The sky do something to you?" She addressed open air. "You've been staring at it for the past few minutes like it did something bad to your family, and you want revenge."

Time creeped by and nothing seemed to fix correct the static in the barely audible radio. And in that time the woman insisted on standing next to him and smoking. Eventually, she spoke.

"The sky do something to you? You've been staring at it for the past few minutes like it did something bad to your family, and you want revenge."

Roger looked at her, then to her cigarette, and then finally back to her eyes. Normally a pretty woman talking to him would be welcome, but today was special circumstances. "No, just thinking. Which was hard enough without your smoke filling the air." It was blunt, but really standing less than a body length away and chain smoking

Although, as long as Alfred remained in the coffee shop there was time to entertain the company of a woman. In a less irritated tone he started again. "Has it been a rough day?" Roger gestured to the cigarette with his eyes, and the static on the radio cleared up, but a little remained as he abandoned broadcasting his messages to Alfred and let his power be panfrequency but without any real force to it. Keeping up a thought dialogue different form a spoken one is too much of a hassle.

>>"No, just thinking. Which was hard enough without your smoke filling the air."

Oh, he was rude. If he had a problem with her smoking, he could always leave, couldn't he? It wasn't as if the place had a 'no smoking' sign to tap. There weren't any regulations.

There was something strange about him... earlier, when he'd been focused, the alley had been a bit bogged by the sound of radio static. A dull, low crackle of snow. But now, while he was speaking, there seemed to be less of it.

Whatever it was, it wasn't yet apparent whether it was coincidence or connected.

He asked her about her day. Lenna let out a puff of smoke, and shrugged.

"Eh." Nothing worth talking about. A shrug, and a few steps away would suffice. "I'll leave you to your 'thinking'. Don't think too hard, now. You'll hurt yourself." She leaned up against a wall, a couple body lengths up the alley, taking him out of her range. Her eyes drifted curiously back to the man as he focused on whatever it was he was doing.

Lenna took another casual drag.

The woman let out a puff of smoke, shrugged, and then answered with, "Eh" She shrugged again and then stepped away, "I'll leave you to your 'thinking'. Don't think too hard, now. You'll hurt yourself."

She wasn't interested in talking, so be it. "I haven't managed to hurt myself... yet." Roger replied, his voice trailed off a little as he noticed a rise in the static from the radio. It was not as great as it had been earlier, but louder than it had been. His power appeared to be working properly again.

The commercials had ended and music was playing, not the perfect opportunity to influence Alfred's thoughts. Though, he could make it work. As the next song ended Roger concentrated, conveying audio messages as mere voices was easy, keeping focused and recreating a song from memory was hard. He just had to remember, as Christopher Walken once said, "I gotta have more cowbell."

A static filled track came onto the radio, a guitar riff, some cowbell and the lyrics to 'Don't Fear the Reaper.' Hopefully Alfred bought into the view that the song was about suicide.

Roger knew he needed to plant the gun on Alfred, but if this woman didn't leave he would have to bump into him on the street to not seem suspicious. Well, less suspicious.

He hadn't done anything yet, but Lenna suspected he would. A guy standing that still for that long, staring at the sky in some secluded alleyway? It was shifty. He had to be up to something. She was a betting gal, and she'd bet on that. What it was, she didn't know yet, but in this situation, if she wanted to find out, the best course of action... was inaction.

Lenna didn't move from her spot. She stood silently, and waited, smoking her cigarette and staring at the sky.

If nothing else, this whole thing had taken her mind off stupid American teenage girls.

Mission accomplished.

The song struck it's last note as static built. Roger was flooding the the frequency with it. He had no idea when the real song on the station would end and so he would continue to create static until either the coffee shop changed the station of a fair amount of time elapsed and he could let slowly let the real station return without others being any the wiser.

The shop did the former, changing to a station that didn't appear to be affected by whatever was killing the other station.

And none too soon, Alfred decided now was the time to leave. Roger could see him walking off down the sidewalk, his backpack loaded with his resumes and the like on his back. Following a quick look to the woman in the alley he turned to face away from her, slid out a pair of black gloves, and slid one of them on them on as he stepped out onto the side walk outside of the alley.

Alfred made his way down the sidewalk completely unaware of Roger, as he closed the distance, hands in his pockets. One gloved hand looks funny, but the glove might hinder the microwaves. Microwaves which Roger was now directing at the ground near Alfred's tight foot. He wanted Alfred to be hit by the beam but not more than just the foot.

Alfred uttered and expletive and after another step, leaned down to inspect his foot. There had to be a reason why his foot felt like it was burning, right?

This being his chance, Roger closed the gap, sliding on the other glove, and slid the gun into his bag, leaving the end of the grip exposed. Now for the fun part.

"Gun! Gun! He has a gun!" Roger pointed at Alfred and then stepped away from him. People gasped, people screamed, people ran. The police officer nearby had a better response, he ran and tackled the confused Alfred.

Roger smiled and backed away from the scene. He was the one person walking amid the chaos. Making his way into a nearby alley, sliding off the gloves and stuffing them into his suit's inside pocket.

He turned his back to her, and left the alley. Lenna followed him with her eyes, casually flicking off a bit of ash. Whatever he was up to, she could see it from where she was standing, by the end of the alley.

Curious. The one glove look wasn't a good one. He didn't pull it off, so why was he wearing that?

The whole scene went down quick, and hard. She couldn't see the microwaves burning the foot of the man's target, nor did she know his ultimate aim. Two men, each doing separate acts, didn't usually draw one to any wild conclusions. They were unrelated events, happening simultaneously, like a good drop-off. Both people played their parts perfectly. Nobody made any mistakes. None were the wiser.

One man lifted his foot to inspect it, like he'd stepped in gum, had a pebble in his shoe... whatever.

The man from the alley came up on him, and did surreptitiously slid something into the man's bag.

Since Lenna was watching with a trained eye, she didn't miss it. The shouting the man did afterwards made things all-too-obvious. Lenna would have rolled her eyes, but she was moving already, out of the alley. The cigarette butt tumbled, end over end, into the trash can.

Really? Planting a gun on a person in broad daylight? What's this guy up to? Just ruining someone's life? What's there to gain?

Chaos, one could say. That was an obvious. People were reacting to the gun in full force. A woman screamed. A baby cried (he'd already been crying). A fat man licked his ice cream cone just a bit too hard, and the ball of delight splattered on pavement.

But what else? What was there to possibly gain? She'd have to ask him... once she finished tailing him.

Lenna didn't pay much attention to the insanity. Her eyes were still trained on the man from before as she walked. He wouldn't escape. He slipped into another alley, and she stepped in just afterwards.

She slid up against the wall again, tapping her foot, arms crossed. She eyed him impatiently. "You do that sort of thing often?" She asked. "What's your game?"

Roger nonchalantly walked into the alley believing he had completed his task unnoticed. After all, how many New Yorkers actually paid attention to their surroundings instead of being wrapped up in their own little world? He had no need to hang around and observe the scene, he could hear it all behind him as he walked, and besides it would probably find its way onto the news somewhere tomorrow.

Yet, his belief proved to be quite false. He heard a voice behind him in the alley. He stopped, partly because of what was said and partly because of who's voice it was. The woman from the other alley.

"You do that sort of thing often? What's your game?"

Perhaps she had seen what he did, perhaps not. Maybe she noticed he didn't panic like everyone else and was trying to draw out information by treating him like he had something to do with it.

Roger turned around, a confused look on his face. "Do I do what often? Alert authorities when I see guns? No, this was the first time I have seen someone with one."

"Oh yeah? You play dumb often, too? You aren't very good at that. But that isn't why I'm here." Lenna said with a small smile. "You see, I'm a bit like a talent scout. I find talented mutants, and scout them out. Hire them out for nice jobs with good pay. It's on the level, too. Scout's honor." She held up a bold thumb with a smirk. Then, she tilted her head, tapping her cheek with her index finger as she talked. She spoke slow, putting extra emphasis on each word.

"Now, what you were doing back there, I'm not entirely certain. You were staring at the sky, and when I got too close, your power wouldn't work quite right, I'm guessing. I might be wrong, but eh. I'll test my luck. Not the worst odds. When I got further away from you, you got back to business and finished the job. You left, and then... well, on the street back there, it looked to me like you planted the weapon. You were certainly quick to notice it, the second after it wound up on the poor man's person. Nice work, there. So, tell me. Morbid curiosity demands I ask, what's up with that?"

The woman called out Roger's bluff. She knew he was acting. That was an unnerving fact, and forced him to believe that she had seen him act. Yet, assuming this, she acted different from most. Rather than attempting to detain him and contact authorities she announced she was a head-hunter. Roger dropped his confused look, that game was no longer viable in the situation nor viable. Instead he wore a serious face, with mildly squinted eyes. He was attempting to read who whether this woman was sincere, she seemed to know much; that he was a mutant, that he had caused the panic, possibly that he planted the gun himself, and that he was throwing her bull.

He remained silent to question and let her continue to speak, explaining herself. She claimed not to know what he was doing, but talked about his power as if she knew it. She did attest to guessing, but it was spot on. She informed him she saw him plant the gun and complimented his handiwork.

This woman was observant, much more than the sheep who wander the streets. And could formulate highly accurate assumptions based on little information. She was no doubt one whom you should not trifle with. So for now he would play along and see where this talent scouting went, all the while ready to direct microwaves at her and flee should the need arise.

"Oh, Alfred is nothing more than another straw on a larger camel's back. And this event should be the last on poor Alfred's much smaller back." He left it vague, not wanting to give too much information while at the same time entrusting the basic premise of his actions to her. Now it was question trading time, "What leads you to believe I am a mutant? Perhaps I am just some sociopath on the street who allegedly plants weapons on people and therefore not right for the jobs you scout for."

He wanted to play up the vagueness of what he was doing, but that wouldn't fly. She wanted to know. She turned a cold shoulder to him, eying him with a sideways look.

"Another straw on a camel's back, huh? So, one step on your way to some bigger goal? You must do this often, to refer to him like that. Cold, uncaring? You did that because you wanted to mess with him? Ruin him?"

What she was getting from him there wasn't obscured by static. It was stark and clear, even if he was trying to be vague. You don't just plant a gun on someone because you think it'll be a laugh.

Unless he was a sadist? Or a sociopath. But hey, if he suggested it, then why not both?

Lenna smiled a dark smile. "Being a mutant and being a sociopath aren't always mutually exclusive. And the way you talk, your attitude comes off clear as day."

"He was a nobody, a somebody to a few, but to the world as a whole nothing but a nobody. And people around me from time to time find themselves arrested for things they weren't aware they were doing." Roger wouldn't give a straight up or down statement about anything related to illegal activity. "Some commit suicide, some lose all their liquid assets, and officers have shot the innocent. It is one crazy city."

He was providing a fair amount of information, none of which could be used as a confession but conveyed what could be viewed by almost anyone as a list of his involvements. A sort of bragging without risking anything.

"Lets say I am a mutant, why would your proximity matter? He knew he was admitting to be a mutant with the statement, she had somehow discerned it and was adamant on having him say it. So he would try to gleam a little information off of her at least.