In the conference lobby at the top of Iolcus Tower, Aaliyah and Hannah sat together on a couch, a coffee table across from Garrick, Max, WhiteOut, Zariah, and Underdog.
Zariah was petting Underdog in her lap. Max leaned over the couch rest. Garrick, hunched over with his elbows on his knees and his fingers interlaced above his nose, silently stared. Hannah put on a shaky smile while Aaliyah sweated celestial sparkles and avoided eye contact. Whiteout’s smile, on the other hand, was porcelain as ever. The badge-wearing staffers around them felt the weight of the tension in the air and hoped to stay out of it as much as possible.
“So,” started Zariah, “Aaliyah never talked about you before the other day. How long have you two been friends, exactly?”
“We—” was all Aaliyah managed to get out before a buzz interrupted her.
“Zariah was speaking to Hannah,” asserted WhiteOut, “Hannah, you answer the question.”
“We, uh, played at the library when we were little, but we only started hanging out together in college. After that we went our separate ways,” said Hannah.
“I-I see,” said Zariah, “To get straight to the point, I would like you to explain your mutant abilities to the best of your knowledge for us.”
“Oh!” Hannah sparked up, ”My mutation is electricity and I can use it in all kinds of ways. It makes me super strong. I can blast it. I can fly. It can shield things. Oh, I spread it around, that’s how I can shield and carry other things, including my own clothes. I can even give energy directly like this,”
Hannah bent over the coffee table and held out her hand which emanated a cloud of energy toward Zariah. Zariah drew back her arms and Underdog lept out of her lap. A rainbow of ghostly beasts filled the lobby, to the shock of everyone. Blue zebras stampeded through a school of fish that swam between branches of the chandeliers. Pink bears aided yellow beavers in building a dam over the elevator. A spotted orca was spooning with a striped bunny. And next to Hannah was a hippo sitting on its hind. It was only then that Hannah blushed as she realized the number of guns that she just jumped.
“Ah! Sorry! It’s just I already started off nervous and all and I wanted to make a good impression and show you everything but then I got excited because it was the first time I got to do it in public I mean I got here because I did but that was an emergency an-”
Aaliyah, now pouring sparkles, put her hands on Hannah’s shoulders to calm her down. The spirits disappeared. Garrick did not budge but all the drones in the lobby were now above him and aimed at Hannah.
“Is that what it’s always like for you?” asked Max, “That seems annoying.”
“Ya get used to it,” meekly chuckled Zariah. Garrick rubbed his thumbs on his temples.
“WhiteOut,” said Garrick, “Can you come to my office for a second.”
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Up the stairs, Garrick’s office overlooked the lobby. Inside it was a wall-sized formicarium where he observed his ants. Garrick was close enough to see the hair on their mandibles.
Linepithema Humile—Argentine ants that he put in the formicarium—are famed for their mega-colony that spans continents and crosses oceans. They are the only species to rival humanity in empire-building.
They are not the mightiest warriors; that fits the likes of far larger and more ferocious genus of Ecitons such as army ants who are too brutish and ravenous to settle down, instead constantly raiding on their warpath.
They are not the most sophisticated or clever; such traits can be seen in various slave-maker species like Leptothorax which usurp the queens or capture broods of other colonies to exploit the parasitized workforce for their benefit while the slave drivers live leisurely.
Instead, they are the most productive: they practice pleometrosis, as they have several times the average number of queens in their colonies which allow them to breed far larger brood. Through ecologies of scale, they literally drown their problems in bodies.
“Why are you telling me this?” asked WhiteOut in the chair in front of Garrick’s desk.
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“The point is that operational and logistical superiority is what guarantees success. Every part needs to work in concert and this situation is gunk on my gears. Especially Aaliyah. She kept this from us. We cannot let this stand.”
“I want Hannah to be your sidekick.”
“Did you hear anything I just said?”
WhiteOut got up from her chair and came to stand beside Garrick at the formicarium.
“The only thing I learned about argentine ants is that they are an invasive species that can only be rid of with professional pesticide application. Commercial ant bait won’t cut it. As you said, there are so many of them it’s impossible for normal means to track down and kill them all.
I was created to investigate international mutant activity and I have recently uncovered a criminal conspiracy related to the disappearances of mutants. A conspiracy that I have labeled ‘Immortal’.
While governments openly extradite mutants to America, they capture and even attempt to create mutants in secret. This is not about them. Instead, there has been a pattern of criminal organizations either undergoing radical changes in leadership or achieving sudden supremacy in their sphere. You may have already noticed that mutants stop appearing in certain areas, yes?”
“Well, now that you mention it. But mutations are so sporadic, there is no way to tell where they will appear.”
“Be that as it may, we can expect some mutations to appear over a decades time in a region. I believe that some kind of benefactor is supporting these groups in exchange for mutants and I believe it started here in Colchis, Lerna specifically.”
Garrick rarely liked to hear what WhiteOut had to say, but she has never been wrong. Even if she did not tell him the whole truth, she could be trusted to pursue results above everything.
“Do you think that this relates to Aaliyah?”
“I don’t know yet, I still want to learn more about this benefactor. I am most concerned with what mutants they have gathered so far, especially if they are able to control and weaponize them without gaining notice. What I am saying is: I don’t think you are enough to beat them. I want to have Hannah as our pesticide. Powerful mutants like her usually get sent to Tartarus, but the time when weapons like her become the cornerstone of militaries fast approaches.
Starting with someone popular is the best opportunity to bring a weapon like Hannah on board. It will also help get your projects pushed forward as the brass will see the importance of unconventional arms in the future of paranormal warfare. This is an opportunity we cannot afford to lose.
We. Will. Take it.”
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“UnderDog, Max,” said Garrick when he returned with WhiteOut, “escort Hannah to her dorm.”
Hannah stood up, bowed goodbye to everyone, and followed Underdog out of the lobby to the elevator with Max in tow. The last thing she saw before the gate closed was Whiteout waving with her plastered smile. Once the gate opened again, she followed Max outside of the building. The mutants they came across kept their heads down. The soldiers saluted Captain Max as he passed by. More of them were out and about than during the tour; with all the drills and patrols, you would think this was a military school rather than a mutant reserve.
The dorms, separated by gender, were built based on ever-expanding needs with each new building thrown together more hastily than the last. Save for Underdog, no other mutant animal has been entertained within Olympus. Such cases were always brought to Tartarus.
“For what it’s worth, I think you did good,” said Max. Flattered, Hannah held her hand over her heart.
“Thank you. That means so much coming from a real superhero!” said Hannah. “I just wonder what that whole thing was about. Who wakes up one day and decides to bomb people.”
“No one. Everything has a reason to happen or a thought put into it to make it happen. This one, however, did not have much thought put into it as it seems that our amateur left his faulty bomb at home. As for the reason, apparently, he was the father of Carol Muse.”
“Who?” asked Hannah.
“Carol Muse? The girl who sent Australia into an ice age?”
“Oh… I heard about that part but it was so sad, I could never get into the details.”
“Well, her mom was the one who turned her in when we got there. I guess dad’s been holding back his second thoughts this whole time.”
“Still, how was this supposed to help anything?”
“People do crazy things when resentment builds up with nothing to answer it. But that’s out of our hands. Anyways, here we are.”
When they finally reached her dorm building, Underdog jumped onto Hannah who struggled to hold him back as he licked her face. Max pulled him off and sent her on her way. The other mutants in the building continued to avoid Hannah like the plague had walked down the hall.
The door to her room was open when she got there. Hannah was prescribed to bring a very specific volume of clothes and they were being crammed into the dresser beneath her bed by a maid crouched in the pod that was to be her room. A thin ray of light came through the slit that would be her window.
Hannah took in the details of her new room: the angle of the camera that would watch her, the thin and drab walls, and the scratchy static of the hidden microphone. She was taught to read the currents of electricity as naturally as she felt the air on her skin though she wished she had not done so for her new home.
When the maid scurried out, she squeezed into the pod and lay on the bed that could barely hold her. She opened her phone to see that her timeline on Bouldr was as much of a mess as she expected. The bright side is that she would get to see Aaliyah every day now.