Make sure to read Part One and Part Two!

Still trying to stretch the kinks out of her legs from sitting so long on the holobus, Sam knocked loudly on the warehouse door. Scrawled across the metal door was a crude drawing of a laughing clown with the words ‘Down with normies’ and ‘half breeds not welcome’ scrawled below it.

Sam bit her lip, the words hitting her hard. Never fully accepted into the mutant world or the normal world, Sam had been walking a thin, dangerous line her entire life. At least she had found friends like Tash who, even though she had probably been the one who scrawled the words, had actually welcomed Sam with open arms. Sam couldn’t help but wonder what had possessed her friend to put filth like that outside her hideout. Not exactly incognito.

After what seemed an eternity, Sam heard a rustle on the other side of the door followed by the loud clank of a stiff lock being opened. The door opened to reveal Tash’s grinning face on the other side, and another vaguely familiar face beneath a mop of black hair.

“Tash!” Sam exclaimed, hugging her old friend before focusing on the person behind her, “Jay? Is that you? Never seen you with black hair. You alright, man?”

“You knocked really loud…” Jay mumbled, a band of muted red moving from his scalp to the tips of his hair, followed by a cheery yellow as Sam pulled Jay into a friendly embrace. They had never been overly close, but she missed all her mutant friends. Trying to make it in the ‘real’ world meant she couldn’t associate with them anymore; not if she wanted to remain a full citizen.

“I’ve missed ya, Jay. Tash. How are you? Tell me everything!”

“We’ve been good, considering.” Tash tugged absently at one of the wires running from a small device behind her ear into the base of her skull. Her skin was silver and covered in fine scales, and she had upgraded herself with a number of implants. In fact, Sam was pretty sure that Tash had replaced one of her eyes with a bionic one since they had last seen each other; it just didn’t quite focus properly. “The sentinels have been getting better at tracking, so we gotta be out of here quick.” Tash pulled Sam inside the warehouse and, after peering cautiously out the door to ensure no one had followed her friend, slammed the door shut and clicked the lock back into place.

“We’ve been moving lots.” Jay put in, a dark navy blue replacing the yellow in his hair. He fished a tuque out of his pocket and pulled it low over his head, allowing only the tips of his hair to peek out. He’d been wearing his emotions on his head all his life, but still wasn’t comfortable letting anyone but Tash see them. He and Tash weren’t related, but everybody considered them siblings. You never saw one without the other being close at hand.

Sam’s eyes swept over the interior of the warehouse. It was dark, lit only from a couple of the florescent lights that hung from the rafters; lights that flickered constantly and threatened to give Sam a serious headache if she spent much time here. What Sam could see by the flickering light was pretty off-putting. There was a nest of blankets up against one of the walls; at least Sam hoped it was blankets and not something more sinister. Near that was a shower curtain that seemed to be attempting to hide a bucket covered with a board. The curtain didn’t even touch the ground. “Oh god, Tash. This place is the worst! Why are you here?”

Tash looked confused for a moment, but then realized what her friend meant. “Oh, right. This is just the front, to throw the sentinels off for a minute or three if, when, they find us. The idea is that they will think this is just a nest for one or two mutants, and hopefully not search further. Our hideaway is a little more, well, hidden. And nicer.”

Sam was led to the back of the building, which sported a row of lockers, two big piles of crates, a couple grimy buckets, and a large, industrial sink. Tash reached behind the sink and pulled on something that, with a dull click, opened up the wall behind the lockers. On some sort of automated system, the lockers sank into the wall and split off the both sides, revealing a set of stairs that, presumably, led to the real hideout. Sam took a moment to appreciate the genius of the design – there was no scraping on the warehouse floor, and the seam that opened lined up perfectly with the wall joints, making it invisible when it wasn’t open. The stairs themselves turned sharply, so they wouldn’t take up much space on the ground level, which would make it far more difficult for the sentinels to pinpoint it.

Getting down the stairs was not fun. Dark, steep, and with a distinct smell that clung to the air. Sam would have breathed a sigh of relief when they stepped into the brightly lit, clean, fresh-smelling basement, but she had no breath left.

“Alright, this is better than upstairs. I admit it.” Sam declared once she had recovered somewhat. All around her was the computers, monitors and other devices that she had grown accustomed to seeing in Tash’s hideouts. One large, central monitor seemed to be displaying the location of all sentinels within a 10 mile radius, the intelligent machines just weaving through the streets, monitoring constantly for illegal activities and persons. Even as she watched, three sentinels converged on a single alley and Sam felt a sinking in the pit of her stomach, knowing they were rounding up another mutant whose only crime was being born different. “This is new.”

Tash looked up from the smaller computer to see what Sam was referring to, “Ah, yea. Picked them up after one of the last raids. It was too close, almost lost Jay in that one. Been able to use it to help a couple mutants out, too. Gotta be careful though, don’t want anyone finding the hideout.”

“It looks big for just you and Jay.”

“It ain’t just us anymore. I mean it was, after you got your citizenship last year, but I decided it was time to expand operations. We’ve taken on a few talented strays, but they’re all out right now. Didn’t want them seeing you, or you them.” Tash chewed on a licorice, using the candy to gesture as she spoke, “Plausible deniabilty and all that.”

“Ok…” Sam said slowly, confused, her tiny wings shifting “You’ve never been that careful around me before.”

“I’ve never been about to ask you something like that.” Tash grabbed Sam’s hand and led her over to a corner that seemed to be set up as a living or social area, with a couple couches, a small kitchenette and worn out armchair. Tash sat on one of the couches and motioned Sam to join her. Jay settled into the armchair, his hair a ombination of shades of blue and black, with a shot of green once in awhile. “I need your help, Sam.” She said earnestly. “I need access to data that only a citizen can get to. I can’t hack it, because it doesn’t exist in the datasphere. I need you to go to the Library and find the name of one of the scientists that was involved in the mutant uprising. I’ve found something, recently, that suggests the scientist may have hidden away a powerful weapon that can only be used by those with mutated blood.” Tash rubbed her hands together, a look of delight crossing her face, “If we can find that, we can take our rightful place in this world!”

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