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It was ridiculous that they tried to pass this place off as a dressing room, Riley decided as she struggled to do her own hair and make-up in the small vanity mirror the photographer had provided. Things had definitely changed since the day a gold-man had ran into one of her shoots and two Jr. Detectives had followed by window and by doorway. It had been hard enough admitting, even to herself, that she was one of the many freaks wandering the streets of New York. Riley had always been achingly mediocre...and she'd never wanted to be special. Not this way.

Word got around quickly in the industry and besides the strange shoot at the Sanctuary, Riley had practically been begging for any job, let alone one of the more classy ones.

Riley sighed and straightened the corset she’d stuffed herself into, sighing down at the garter and stockings. The shoes were heels…always heels, and Riley grumbled as she struggled to bend to the mirror and apply her eye-liner. She stomped her foot in frustration and struggled not to make a verbal sound to express her frustration. This wasn’t actually a dressing room, it was a series of cheap partitions arranged in a square with a card table set up in the middle. A paycheck was a paycheck, though, and Riley wasn’t going to complain. Rent was going to be due in a couple weeks and she had to start rebuilding her reputation somewhere. Here was as good as anywhere….if only there was a real mirror.

Hooch whistled…actually whistled at her and a frosty smile curled up the edges of Riley’s mouth. Let him look. That was the whole point of the outfit, allowing muscle heads who could only think with their hormones to get their jollies off of a girl surrounded by space men. She blinked slowly, deliberately. Let him think what he wanted, if he even could. Pig. The man stopped existing in Riley’s mind except for an irritating ball of hormonal annoyance somewhere to her right.

He decided to try his hand at barking orders while the blind kid was…blind, and again, nobody listened. It wasn’t like they had any jurisdiction here…whoever they were. Mutants, though, definitely mutants. The Asian kid muttered, and Riley just caught the words and her eyes flicked to him, then the photographer. The man holding the camera had stopped his squealing and was now staring at Riley as if all of this was her fault. Suddenly it looked like more than her paycheck for this shoot was going down the drain. Even if this guy was a pompous ass, he was legit. Riley didn’t respond to the kid, and jerked her head back to Hooch as he gave another set of barked orders and blind Turner made it obvious he disagreed.

”I’m sorry, all the testosterone must have clogged your ears.” Riley said, cold mega-watt smile firmly in place again. ”I just said that there’s glass all over the floor. At least your partner pretends to have a brain ” Riley turned to look at the male models, ”Don‘t get on the ground. I don’t see badges on either of these jokes…” the dark haired woman gave them both a meaningful look, even if the kid couldn’t see it. ”They can’t do anything anyway.” she said, the cold smile turning to a warm smirk.

Hooch reached for some sort of walkie he had in his pocket and one of the gold men decided it was the perfect time to make a break, which he did. Unfortunately, he managed to take three steps before he came within four feet of Riley. Without even knowing it, her field neutralized the man’s X-Gene and golden-hued skin suddenly flickered out of existence, leaving almost unnaturally pale skin behind. Riley gaped, she’d never seen her unrecognized ability function on someone with a visible mutation before. The man was on the ground now, curled in on himself and by the look on his face, he was in pain. Riley straightened, looking at the people in the room, each in turn. The other male models moved away from her, quietly but quickly….then there were the interlopers.

”I guess this is what you wanted.” she said, crossing her arms and giving Hooch a haughty look. "If so, take it and get the hell out. I've got work to finish here." Riley said, tossing her hair back and hoping she looked haughty as opposed to the absolute terror and despair that was coursing through her. What was she?

Work was work, but sometimes it was just so damn amusing that one had to wonder why they even got paid. Riley mused as the makeup artist put the finishing touches on her hair and eyes, she probably wouldn’t go so far as to wonder why she got paid…this was definitely a job, but she’d seen the male models she was going to be working with. Three of them. Painted gold. She had to laugh out loud again, just a little bit. The concept was so out of this world…literally.

Apparently the idea was that they were some sort of androids and she was their creator, or ruler, or something out of this world. The men were literally gold. She, on the other hand, was dressed in silver. The outfit was really only mildly skimpy as far as some of the things these places put her in were concerned. In fact, it looked like an aluminum foil, one-piecek sailor’s suit. It was short as all get out, of course, and the slightly gaping top probably would have better fit someone half Riley’s size in that area, but all her bits and pieces were covered, and if she didn‘t button the top past the third button, she could breathe. The thigh-high boots in the same shiny material as the rest were kind of fun too, and gave her just enough added height to make the male models a little uncomfortable. All in all this was such a strange concept…at least the men had speedo-type costumes….gold to match the body paint. The less awkward, the better.

The make-up artist finished with the voluminous curls that laid on her shoulders, and Riley studied the effect in the mirror. She really did look like something out of a 50’s magazine. She made her way to the area set up for the shoot, and got to work. The photographer was a snooty type, and after he’d bossed her around for the first few takes Riley was tempted to remind him that he wasn’t shooting for Vogue…not matter what his ego said.

The door opened and another model sprinted into the room. Riley rose an eyebrow, the guy was seriously late. The photographer ripped the guy a new one, while he had the audacity to look shocked, then thrilled by the situation. Then he joined the group and everything picked up where it took off.

, and a few more poses were gone through and snapped, the little group completely oblivious to the commotion going on outside. At least until some Asian kid burst through the door.

Riley didn’t scream, what the hell would the point of that been? No, she plopped her hands on her hips and glared at the boy as he clapped his hands over his eyes and started stumbling around like he was blind.

The photographer threw a fit, of course, and the kid started babbling about evil doers and adaptoids or some such nonsense. ”What the hell is an IFG, and what the hell are you doing in the middle of my photoshoot? Is this about the guy who was late?”

Screw the photographer. They all knew who was really running the show here.

Lori seemed greatly amused by her comment about opposites, then revealed her hidden talent. Magnetic fields. That was...great. It explained why the woman had trouble with pictures.

The blond called out and Riley smiled slightly, so it was to be the next set of shots? Riley nodded her head and looked around at the props the photographer's assistants were moving into the shot. Couches. Riley almost smirked, the last shoot she'd been on had also involved a couch. For some reason, though, she didn't think they'd want the same kind of poses here. No, definitely not if they were trying to draw mutants of the normal sort to this enormous termite mound of a building.

Speaking of termites, apparently Riley had unintentionally met the Queen when she'd started talking to Lori. Woman in power? Maybe that's where she'd seen Lori, on the news or in the paper...not that she ever paid much attention to those things, but it would account for the strange sense of familiarity with the other woman. Riley shrugged and sank onto the couch as the assistants went to work primping.

A heart warming conversation? Riley smiled, then turned it on. This was the sort of thing she acted out all the time. Lori asked how small her nullification field was, and it took Riley a moment to realize that the question was addressed to her and not one of the assistants.

"Oh...a few feet I guess." she said offhandedly, tilting a head and directing a warm smile in the blond's direction for the benefit of the camera. Inside, Riley was anything but pleased with the turn the conversation had taken. "Not something I've really taken the initiative to find out for sure." Truthfully she'd avoided the topic like the plague. It was impossible to hide, it turned out, but she'd hoped to at least a keep a low profile. Apparently that wasn't in the cards.

>>"Maybe you're consoling her, Lori. She just learned what she can do."

Riley actually laughed out loud when she heard that piece of advice. Probably not what the man was looking for, but the attitudes around her had been anything but consoling when the harsh reality of her ability had been thrust into her face.

The smile smoothed from Riley's face almost as quickly as it had appeared and she turned on the drama. They wanted consolation...she turned her head away from Lori, eyes broken and lost as she gazed off into nothing. There...she was playing the part of the wounded and shocked outcast. It was up to Lori to do the rest.

They finished with that routine and the photographer chimed in with another scenario, "Now you're girlfriends, think camaraderie. Just having a girl talk."

Riley nearly smiled again. This was cake.

As Riley watched, the mutant models started to relax, and the photographer started getting shots. It was sort of a relief. Riley had been on shoots where it had fallen on her to carry the thing, sometimes she’d succeeded, sometimes she’d failed. Failure in those situations was worse than a normal bad shoot…they blamed you then. Pay usually suffered and reputation definitely did. The kids on the couch making nice and taking good pictures made Riley’s job easier. She felt slightly less animosity towards their ignorance.

Lori and the photographer were working in synch almost as though they were sharing thoughts. Riley wondered, as she watched, if they were somehow linked at the brain. Was that Lori’s mutation? She shook the notion off after a moment, this close to Riley, Lori's mutation wouldn't work at all.

Soon enough, the visible mutation kids were done and they shuffled past the dark haired woman who had spoken so rudely to them with hardly a glance. Riley was ready to shoot…but apparently it still wasn’t her turn. She sighed and took up a position to start watching again. These kids looked like they were still fully ensconced in teenage rebellion.

Riley had hit that phase, but hadn’t had the necessity of darkening her hair. She’d had a few piercings at the time, but they’d all long since closed, definitely didn‘t fit with that group. She didn’t fit in with the first group either. It was kind of a weird mirror of her life…she didn’t fit in anywhere. Definitely not with the rec-room-couch-sitting, laughing-with-each-other, kids that were all having such a great time. Where was the part where they showed off the sexy, lingerie wearing girls that lived here? That Riley would have been comfortable with. This whole natural thing…no wonder the kids were having a rough time.

To their credit, the punk kids had a much easier time looking natural. Granted, for them, natural was looking like they couldn’t have given a shit less who was taking pictures of them. They’d probably come out excellently.

While the photographer shot, Riley studied the woman next to her again. The chick looked distinctly familiar, but Riley simply couldn’t place her face. She was pretty in the tiny way that a certain type of men simply couldn’t get enough of. ”Why aren’t you taking part? Surely there are swanky, business type mutant women out there who need a place to go. ”

”Ah” Riley said, as Lori explained that they were using some mutants for the shoot. That was great…just great. Riley started going through the mental prep required for a hostile work environment. Hopefully this wouldn’t be like the time the other “models” had taken her clothes and left her with nothing but the lingerie from the shoot. Riley could give as good as she got, though and her jaw clenched slightly…more when Lori spoke again.

Realization dawned on the dark haired woman and Riley stopped for a second before moving to catch up with the blond. They’d asked for people who were special. In the time it took for the blond woman to finish that statement, Riley watched her career swirling down the toilet. The recognition curled into a tight ball in her stomach and she struggled not to growl in frustration. She’d worked so hard to get a decent group of photographers to work with her, now she was going to have to start all over again…with this whole freak thing on her back. ”Heh…yeah…special. That’s me.” she said, trying to cover the bitterness in her voice by being haughty.

They walked into the room where the Photo shoot was going to be, and suddenly the monkey on Riley’s back became a pygmy marmoset compared to the mountain gorilla on some of these people. It wasn’t that Riley hadn’t ever seen a mutant with a visible mutation…but decked out the way they were…was just a little shocking. So was the way the make-up artists changed when Riley sat down to be worked on.

Now wasn’t the time to be meek, she thought as she once again tossed her hair back behind her shoulders and sat. The woman working on her avoided the mirror assiduously and Riley wondered if it was because the girl would hate what she saw…or what she didn’t see. Riley Sommers didn’t ask those kinds of questions though, and didn’t want to know the answers. Frankly, she didn’t care, she just wanted to make it out of this thing with her skin intact and a check in her hand.

The woman finished and Riley didn’t say anything, just watched as the mutant models made their way around her. They gave her more space than was probably necessarily, but Riley didn’t exactly mind. There was something nice about all this isolation at a shoot. Lori called her over and Riley made her way to the woman….who then asked if she was a professional.

Riley snorted, ”I’m a pin-up model usually. Slightly different from the All-American thing it looks like you’re going for here.” she said, shaking her dark head slightly, ”Sex sells the things that I model.”

Riley paused for a moment, watching the photographer work with the obviously rookie mutants, ”If you’re trying to sell safe and normal…they need to act safe and normal….not camera shy and stupid.” Maybe that was a little blunt…but the woman had asked.

A photo shoot was a photo shoot. At least that’s what Riley kept trying to tell herself as she made her way to the address she’d scribbled down in her appointment book. There wasn’t anything in particular she’d been told to wear, and there wasn’t anything specific she’d been told to bring. There wasn’t going to be anything particularly weird about this shoot…but Riley was still a nervous wreck. Why? Because she was walking into the middle of the largest mutant stronghold in New York City and she was a freak. Not the normal kind of freak in New York City, the absolutely freakish kind of freak in New York City.

Riley didn’t even know if they had a name for what she was, and it was the most carefully guarded secret she could possibly have…except that it wasn’t a secret at all. In fact, since a certain event she refused to think about, work had been more scarce than it had been since the beginning of her career. How could she say no? Riley sneered slightly as that statement rolled through her head…you could always say no. If you didn’t, and you didn’t do it over and over, you were basically asking for whatever you got….and that’s what she was doing. Asking for whatever it was she was going to get as soon as everyone within a few feet realized what it was she could do. At the best, they’d just sent her packing with no check. At worse….well there were a lot of things better than not being able to pay rent.

The building that belonged to the address might have been innocuous…if giant golden doors were innocuous and Riley wondered exactly how a place like this had managed to be so obvious and still call itself a sanctuary. There wasn’t a sanctuary out there for people like her…she shook it off. It was time to do business.

The door opened with surprising ease for its size, and Riley walked into the foyer of the large building, surprised at how….pretty everything was. Places like this sometimes ran themselves like businesses….this place seemed to be trying to be wonderful. Riley didn’t really care, but it helped to know what a girl was walking into. There was a reception desk there, and a woman behind it. She
approached, tossing her black hair over her shoulder, ”Hello, I’m here for the ph-”

”Oh, for the photoshoot, of course. Just wait there.” she said, ignoring Riley’s raised eyebrow as she picked up the phone on her desk and dialed. Riley tapped a heeled shoe on the floor as she waited. Just because she knew she’d probably be shown out on her ass in a few minutes didn’t mean she had to act like she was nearly as scared as she felt.