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She smiled, it was true that many of the words the younger kids used she wasn’t certain of. She was confident now about ‘planking’ and she had even paid enough attention to know that MySpace was no longer cool, but things like pop culture and trending clothes she was clueless about.

A bit too…?

Girly? She was pretty sure from the way the younger kids spoke about scales that he was a guy, and that it was true, she probably couldn’t, or at least wouldn’t, wander about like that all body parts considered. He covered by making a joke at his own topless expense and she smiled.

While it was true that humans would be awesome to draw, her extremely limited experience told her that they tended to move around too much. Maybe she better start with something a little stiller. Like a bowl of fruit or something.

“Maybe do some fruit then move onto people?”

Oh yeah, totally moving away from the awkward there, girl.

“Draw. Maybe I should draw fruit… it doesn’t run away.”

And she never felt the need to blush from prolonged periods of time staring at every curve and groove in an orange. A body on the other hand, might provoke a little more of the embarrassment. She fumbled in her bag and produced one of the lead pencils, holding it up for his approval like a child. Realising her action was a bit… weird, it was too late to put the pencil down and pretend she was merely getting it out to set it on the desk. She rolled the pencil around in her fingers until the type was revealed.

“Erm, 2B ok?”

It had taken some time and on-the-move shuffling around in her bag, but finally she had got the pencils to stop cascading around making a high pitched clatter. By the time she arrived the only aural warning of her presence was the gentle swish-swish of denim against denim as she walked. She reached the door, and as she was a little early, pushed it open, expecting the room to be empty.

The room was not empty.

She was confronted first with the bare back of her soon to be teacher (a very nice back, as far as backs go). Then as she made a startled noise that was meant to come out as an apology, but instead manifested in a squeak of surprise, he turned to look at her and she was confronted with his bare front too (also a very nice front, as far as fronts go).

“Sorry!”

She should have knocked. You always knock.

She backpedalled into the hallway a more brilliant shade of red than the primary coloured pencil somewhere in her bag. It wasn’t really that bad. It could have been much worse, much, much worse. Still, it was not exactly the opening to the lesson she had been expecting. She waited what she thought was an appropriate shirt-donning duration before cautiously peeking back into the room.

“My bad.”

Nothing quite like a little embarrassment to start things off. Still, it was quite the icebreaker, or in the case that her cheeks were burning, melter. She fumbled with her bag awkwardly for a second until she could feel the flush cooling from her cheeks and neck. Right, so, that was that then.

The shop was quiet, as it often was. Jack lay dosing in a corner, occasionally flickering an eye open to check on his human pouring over one of her books. Verdy was reading a detailed instruction on how to etch a pattern into leather without compromising its strength when the song that had been playing through the radio on the desk petered out, and the intro to the hourly news update began. She set down the book and stretched out in her chair. Sometimes the news gave updates that changed the way she would get home. Once a broken down bus along her route slowed her down by more than an hour, and after that she made a point of checking the traffic update, as well as the other news segments. No harm in keeping up with the current events.

The reporter’s voice was calm through the segments that had already been discussed in the earlier news update, but when she began talking about a video gone viral on the internet her voice shook with some emotion Verdy couldn’t quite place; suppressed rage perhaps, or tears. This alone made her pay attention, in general this was a reporter who sounded perky even when delivering dire news.

“… brutal bashing of a mutant at the hands of police. I am informed that the mutant in question had been taken to a hospital, and the officers involved are undergoing investigation…”

Her fingers were already smashing out the url of ViewTube and she didn’t even have to type in a search, the video was there right at the top in the ‘popular now’ section. The still was a scene of horror and she felt sickened as she realised she had seen the girl before about the mansion. From what she recalled the girl had seemed nice, not at all someone who deserved to be treated the way the video was unfolding. The still wasn’t the worst of it, she couldn’t even imagine the pain and damage done to the delicate wings. Birdlike bones, from what she knew, were hollow, and apart from anything else plastering wings couldn’t be an easy task.

The video came to its brutal end and she stood and began pacing the room. The news update was over now, and she had missed the traffic report. This was bad, very bad. Bad things happened to mutants all the time, be it from bigots, zealots or simply the ‘system’ but this was different, this was the kind of thing that could cause big trouble. Jack’s eyes followed her as she continued her tracking back and forth across the concrete floor, then suddenly threw herself back into the chair and began scrolling through the comments. There was outrage, of course, and the usual trolls and scammers that tried to get a rise regardless of who they were mocking. Some people spoke in the defence of the police, saying that different measures needed to be taken with mutants, because they could turn dangerous instantly. Others commented that regardless of the situation the treatment of the girl was inappropriate. Comment after comment was hidden, flagged as spam. Flicking through to other sites she saw the extent of the virality. It was being shared on almost every social media platform she could think of, and being discussed on pretty much all the others.

The danger was suddenly very present, she could feel the tension within herself and she forced herself to take several deep breaths. What was important now was taking Jack and herself home. Getting somewhere safe, and accountable. She needed to see people, people she trusted. She guessed that due to the nature of the incident all of MRC would be busy, and to call Jorge would only slow him down if he were dealing with any aftershocks. She considered her other options, Cafas, Slate, Andrew, Andrea. It felt like too long since she had spoken to them to call them now. Cafas was the exception, but she guessed that she would see him at the mansion when she got there. If she got there.

Gathering up her books and scooping them into her bag she clicked to Jack and he got to his feet, his fluffy tail wagging slowly, uncertain of this sudden change in activity levels. She locked the door carefully, sliding across the protective metal lattice and ensuring that the code box was on and armed. She didn’t want to be alone in this.

The people waiting at the bus stop spoke in hushed tones about it, and she passed them by. Sometimes drivers would turn a blind eye to Jack, letting him ride unnoticed, but today with the fear she could feel in the air rules were more likely to be enforced, to keep the peace. They set out on the long walk home, made longer by the tension crackling in the air. This would pass, give it a few days, still there was no point in being foolish, and her hand found its way into her pocket to clutch the small cool spheres there. No point in being defenceless either.

~~~

By the time she got back to the Mansion she was sweating despite the coolness of the air, and Jack was panting heavily. Their frequent walks did not prepare them for a sudden adrenaline-pumping trot through the city where people murmured and shifted uncomfortably on the streets. The Mansion was too quiet, and she could sence the video here, on screens in rooms and common rooms. She could hear the muffled sounds of the video through the doors as she passed them and the sickness passed over her again. People here would know the mutant girl, and more than the passing recognition Verdy could claim. There would be friends, waiting anxiously on updates. Lovers, even, as the boy recording the video had mentioned she was an attractive mutant. Was. Verdy wondered if her graceful limbs would ever recover fully, if the beating had damaged some part of her body or her mind so badly she would never again be herself.

Think about it, hearing it, made her angry, and she moved to the kitchen where she wrenched a can of cold drink from the fridge and threw herself down on one of the stools to try and calm herself. It would get sorted out. She was safe now, in the Mansion.

Continued in Atsy-Fartsy

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.

Oh good, he was the right person. While she was not unfamiliar with awkward situations, where she fumbled over someone’s name, or confused someone’s boyfriend for her ex-boss, it was always a relief when the person she expected, was the person she expected. Mr Holloway, she noted, not a difficult name, she would try not to forget it. She shook his hand, not too tight or long, but not floppily enough to be rude, a good handshake meant a lot when meeting someone, even more so when in the mansion, and they could be reading your soul with the slightest touch.

She entered his office, which was nice and relatively tidy, and took a seat opposite the teacher while he explained the classes. He seemed to fumble over her age for a second, and she was reminded of her own hesitance when it came to face-to-age matching. Would being in a lower grade than her age put her at a disadvantage in the class?

“I’m college age, but I only did school until sophomore year, I’ve been doing classes online and I’m almost finished senior year, but I don’t really know if that changes anything? Private lessons sound good, actually, I’m usually at work during school hours, but maybe if you were available in the afternoon or evening?”

Early morning would work too, but she was rather a night owl, and getting up any time before she had to to be at work on time made for a grouchy (and she doubted artistic) Verdy. Regardless of when they held the lessons, there was bound to be some sort of supplies she needed, perhaps he had a list or something, to give to prospective students?

“Is there anything specific I would need to bring?”