The General

--1980--

Tap.

...

Tap.

Aaron rolled out of bed and over to the window where someone was targeting his attention with tiny pebbles. It was his girl... well... almost girlfriend, Ruth. They had been on one date so far, to the movies, where they had held hands. He blushed at the memory of the tingles her touch had sent up his arm, but hoped she couldn't see that in the dark. As quietly as he could, he slid open his window. Ruth grinned up at him, then started climbing the oak outside his window before he could even question what she was doing there so late at night. He hadn't realized she was such an adept climber.

One should never underestimate the power of a fifteen-year-old in love, he supposed, then blushed again. There was no knowing if she really loved him or not. After all, they had only held hands.

"I couldn't keep away any longer," she breathed as she tumbled in through the window.

Aaron stared at the girl who had come through his window as if she were an apparition. Surely he had to be dreaming. This didn't happen in real life.

"I know how you feel," he whispered back. It was true, he had been thinking about her as well. He reached out a hand to help her up, and once again felt the warm tingles in his fingers at her touch. He hadn't even realized he'd been feeling a bit nervous, but now that she was here, he could relax. Something about being with her was completely calming, and yet exciting at the same time.

She reached out and caressed his cheek, leaving trails of burning tingles all down his face. Being with her, it was like a drug.

He wanted more.

So did she, apparently.

She snaked her other hand behind his other ear and started pulling his face towards her own. Her lips were like fire against his. Or lightning. Or fire twisted up with lightning shooting all throughout his body. It was too warm, too strange almost to be real.

Ruth shifted and started messing with the buttons on his nightshirt, but Aaron stepped back. "You're going to fast," he gasped, keeping her at arms length. She would regret it later. "We should wait."

She slapped his hands aside and pulled his face close again. "I don't care. I need you." Her hands on his face were burning hot, almost painful against his skin now. She kissed him again, as if kissing him were more important than breathing.

"You're scaring me." He pushed her away again, a little too hard.

She gasped as she stumbled backwards, like he'd knocked the air out of her. She grabbed at her own throat in shock and sank to the floor.

"I'm so sorry," he really hadn't meant to push her so hard. He stepped toward her and offered her a hand by way of apology. Her hand grabbed his arm and she pulled on him desperately. Her fingers were so hot they hurt him. Her mouth gaped at him as she gasped for air.

"Ruth?" She was choking. "Ruth!"

"I... ...you," she tried to say.

"What's happening?" Aaron was no longer worried about being quiet. "What's wrong?!"

"I... need...," her eyes rolled back in her head as she slumped to the floor.

"Ruth?" Her once burning grip on his arm had turned to ice. "Ruth?"

She didn't answer.

He had to pry her fingers off of his arm. Then, as fast as he could he threw some clothes into a bag and ran out his front door into the night. He had to get away, before whatever was wrong with him could hurt anyone else.

--2009--

A shabbily dressed man slumped against a brick wall outside of some big fancy school. They wouldn't care. It was nighttime anyway, and all the students would be home by now. This would be a good place to sit and think about the strange dream he'd had. The impossible dream.

It had been about the future. He'd had friends there. Friends who cared about him, even loved him. That's why it was so impossible.

"To love is to destroy," he murmured to himself.

Footsteps approached along the sidewalk. The man huddled, pulling himself into a smaller, less noticeable lump. The feet would hurry up and pass. They always did.

Except this time they didn't.

They stopped.

Right in front of him.

The man lifted his head. There was a boy there. He looked like he was about ten years old. Thin, blonde, and wearing sunglasses even though it was dark out. Maybe he was blind, thought the man.

"Eros, I knew I'd find you here."

The man lifted his eyebrows. Eros? Who was that?

The boy lifted his glasses and looked him in the eyes. Together they fell through time. They saw his whole life stretched out on a thread, the past dark and dismal, the future bright and warm. They would build a family. They would train together. They would save the world. He could see himself, surrounded by happy faces, each of them loving each other. No one dying.

"It's not a dream," the boy said as he replaced his shades. "It's the future. We can make it that way. Will you help me?"

The Colonel

Letitia had practically been born a mutant hater. She couldn't much help herself, having grown up in the house of John and Sarah Abrams who were pretty much the most self righteous couple that had ever lived. They made her proud to be who she was.

Imagine her surprise when she found out that she actually was a mutant.

The whispers she heard at night. The voices from the walls. The secrets she knew. It meant she was a mutant.

It also meant her parents were wrong. Mutants were supposed to be evil, vile, dirty, inhuman things. She wasn't any of those, and she was a mutant. So therefore, they were wrong, simple as that.

They didn't see it so simply. They yelled at her, then tried to set her on fire. It didn't go so well for them. Her mother missed when she threw the burning candle at her. She hit instead a big pile of newspapers her dad had been saving. (He always saved things he didn't need.) Even then her mother didn't stop coming after her. A shoe came next. Then a vase.

By the time she threw a picture frame, the floor was roiling with angry grey forms. The voices from the walls were shouting now, squeaking their fury. To Letitia it sounded like salvation. To her parents it sounded like a nightmare.

"Rats!" Her mothers voice was more of a shriek now.

Rats indeed. They swarmed up and around her, forming a protective shield on every side of her. They wall kept out the knives, the smoke, even the bullets. For it sounded like her father had returned from upstairs with his shotgun. The rats squeaked and shuffled around her, and the noises of her parent's screams faded into the distance. They were running, the rats told her. They would take her to safety.

By morning they had reached the city. The rats informed her that this was a good place to live. Food was plentiful and there were many places to hide.

It may have been perfect for a rat, but for a twelve year old girl, Letitia was not so sure. It seemed kind of lonely, to be so full of so many strangers.

As she contemplated the sun rising over the city and wondered what to do a man in a long shabby coat and a boy with sunglasses came walking around the corner. The boy pointed and the man smiled as he reached out a hand to welcome her home.

The Lieutenant

--March 2010--

Three long years he'd been hiding down here. Three years cowering in terror that he may be attacked by Stalkers at any time. Three years afraid of being taken away to mutant concentration camps.

Three years was a long time for a shark boy to sit around doing nothing.

He could hear whistled notes floating down the staircase. Jonah.

"Hey!" Jonah's cheerful green eyes and tousled brown hair practically sparkled with cheer as swung around the corner. "You're in luck, dinner tonight is supposed to be salmon and I snagged a couple raw ones for your dinner."

Elias' stomach growled involuntarily. He tried not to sound too desperate for decent food, "Sure, thanks."

Jonah was his caretaker and only friend in the world. It was because of him that Elias was able to evade capture and imprisonment by Registration officials. If he set one foot outside his little basement cubby, he'd be hauled off to prisons even worse than his little self imposed dungeon. Elias just wished there was more to do down here; concrete pretty much killed radio waves and internet signals, so he was stuck with a whole bunch of books.

"Were you able to get a hold of a newspaper by any chance?" With the paper rations, he knew it was a long shot, but it was worth a try.

"Sorry, man," Jonah shook his head. "Haven't seen one of those in about a year now. Mostly they are sticking to the airwaves for broadcasts. Some lady gave birth to eight babies. There was a huge earthquake in Haiti. As for around here," he shrugged, "no change."

Elias sighed. There never was a change. Things had gotten so stagnant lately. Elias let his fist smash itself against the wall. It was really frustrating.

"Hey, easy there. The wall never did anything to you," Jonah was always so easy going. "I did bring you a couple new books, and the homework to keep you caught up with the rest of the school."

Elias sighed, and held out his hands to accept the homework. "Thanks."

--June 2010--

It had been a week. An entire week. Elias feared that Jonah had been taken, somehow found out for being a psychic. He had thought that being a human look-a-like would have spared him from the clutches of Registration, but apparently it was only wishful thinking.

It had been a week since he'd had fresh food, too. Three days since his granola bars vanished. All he had now was rusty tasting water from the old drinking fountain in the hall.

He had to face the facts: he couldn't stay hidden any more. He had to take his chances in the world.

Elias blinked as he emerged from the cellar out into the bright summer sunshine. Whatever he had been expecting the campus to look like, it wasn't... this.

The lawn was immaculate and almost completely deserted. Sister Marta was up on a ladder with a broom, attempting to remove the last couple of graduation hats that had lodged themselves in the upper branches without much luck. She nearly fell from her perch when Elias cleared his throat behind her. She nearly fell off again when she saw who it was that cleared their throat.

To her credit, it did remember his name after a few moments of stammering, "Eli. You're back?"

Back? But he had been doing the homework... Never mind that. "What happened to Jonah?"

The nun blinked in confusion, "Happened? Why... nothing. He graduated. Top of his class. Valedictorian. You're a week late for the speech, though." She waved her hand to indicate the hats up in the tree.

Elias stood slack-jawed for a moment while his brain caught up with his ears. It wasn't a good look for him, what with all those teeth. Sister Marta looked immensely relieved when he clamped his mouth shut again.

He wanted to hit something, but the only thing available was Sister Marta's ladder and that would have been decidedly un-nice.

"Forget it," he growled and stormed out of the school yard. He was so angry he almost ran into the man in the long coat that was waiting outside the school gate with a brown paper bag from McGreaseKing.

"Someone told me you'd be hungry," the man held out the bag as an offering.

The Army

--Present Day--

Marco paced rapidly around the room. He didn't do anything that wasn't rapid; it was kind of his thing. It was the pacing that wasn't quite so normal. He couldn't help it, though, he always felt a little out of sorts when their fearless leader was gone and this time he had been gone longer than normal.

"Would you give it a rest?" Elias snarled at him from across the room, "You're making me dizzy."

"Maybe if you wouldn't grind your teeth like like a madman...."

"Boys," Letitia's warning was accompanied by a sudden wave of chattering voices that came from within the walls itself. The walls not only had ears, they had lots of little teeth as well they wanted it known. Letitia was knitting a very tiny sweater for her captain of the guard. In her hands the knitting needles glinted dangerously.

Marco glared once more at Elias and flopped down into a chair. Geez, he hated this waiting. They all did. But he hated it most of all, he was sure of it.

"You could go help the younger kids with their homework," Letitia suggested in a way that was really more of an order than a suggestion. Ordering people around was one of her favorite ways of dealing with stress and Marco thought it was even more obnoxious than Eli's, mostly because her suggestions were so dang sensible. The distraction would help him keep his mind off of... things.

A blink later he was at the doorway to the twins' room, still smiling at the effect his breeze had on Eli's hair as he blurred past.

The twin's looked up from their bunks simultaneously, Julia's round black eyes darker than night and Crow's brilliant gold ones blinked together. They weren't really twins, of course, but they always acted like they were. Opposites, yet perfect compliments in every way.

"Hey kiddos, want some help on your homework?"

A wave of angry, bright white heat followed by a lazy indifferent chill was his answer. Not. Really. Both put their heads back down on their pillows.

He had forgotten it was worse for the littler ones. "Aww, come one. It'll be good for you to get up and moving. Maybe we could do a little training or something. Target practice anyone?"

Crow pointed his first finger at Marco's face in imitation of a gun and pulled the imaginary trigger. Julia simply rolled over and pulled a blanket up over her head.

"Maybe later then," Marco shrugged his shoulders up then let the slump down as far as they would go. Maybe he could kill time by going for a run around town.

He was just deciding on the route he was going to take when he felt it: the familiar tingling warmth in his chest that meant their fearless leader was back. He felt a smile creep across his face once again.

With an excited flicker of lights, Julia and Crow tumbled past him in a tangle of black and white limbs. The smile on his face split into a grin. Finally everything could get back to normal. He put aside the shoes he had been about to put on and followed the twins into the common room to greet Eros and see what was up.

Continued in The Recruit.