20 Years ago-------
"Your daughter is a danger to anything and everything...You have to give her up." The agent sitting in front of the scared mother froze her hand to her sweating forehead, never taking her brown eyes from the baby wrapped entirely with rubber garbage.
The two eyed each other for a long moment in the abandoned home before the agent cleared her throat to speak once again. "Marla, excuse me, Mrs. Andrews--Please think of the risks that come with keeping yourself and her isolated like this. What will happen to her if you were to perish at the hands of the very creature you mean to protect?"
Creature.
Marla sat upright, pushing past the pain of her many third-degree burns. "My baby is human like you or me--"
"Your child is not human. Forgive my harsh use of the word earlier, I mean no offense...truly. My husband and I simply understand the affliction much more than even the government." The agent shifted a glare to her purse that was sitting on the small coffee table between them.
Marla looked at her tiny baby and then ran her fingers through the charged red hair that fluctuated even as the child slept. "How would you two know anything about what it's like to look over your shoulder every day? The constant agony knowing that your daughter will be taken from you?!"
The agent leaned forward, giving no facial reaction to the questions flung. "Because I have twice the problem...My sweet beautiful twins were born afflicted like your daughter--Obviously, not as dangerous as your bundle of voltage but still plagued nonetheless." When she finished the woman leaned back, breathing in a sigh as she began to stare out of the window toward the night sky.
"What are their names?"
The question jostled the agent from her thoughts. "My daughters?"
Marla folded her arms over her daughter, feeling the electricity humming beneath the thin insulation she had rummaged together. "Yes, what are your children's names?"
"Mina and Amy..."
"What makes them like my daughter? The only news I've heard of other Aberrants was when that one poor kid went nuclear and almost leveled half the city...I'm guessing that isn't one of your 'sweet' babies, right?" The woman was now keenly aware that Marla's tone was becoming edged, almost blade-like.
"The former has the most wonderous ability; She is able to conjure portals...able to connect anywhere she has ever been with the place she sets them--It has been a great asset as she and my husband evade the federal government's filthy hands." The woman paused.
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"The latter has the mind somewhat akin to a supercomputer, my intelligent little Amy...a five-year-old with the capacity to out-maneuver entire agencies--She is waiting for me back at my motel, most likely already tracking down the next possible ally for our little group."
Marla was unable to keep her scorn contained, covering her baby's ears before speaking. "You lying fucking bitch! You would say anything to--"
A gunshot rang out, stilling the shrill yelling.
Marla's obliterated skull fragments were only mere inches from the woman's face.
"Why did you do that...I had it handled." The agent wiped her pants, flicking pieces of brain matter from staining their gray-fitted aesthetics.
A man pushed a closet door open, his face dirty and hair matted with soil. "She was going to say no--Just like Amy said, you need to stop being so nice and wasting our fucking time Jade! Next time we're just snatching the stupid little shit and killing the parents from the get-go."
"You could have shot the--" Before Jade could finish her sentence the man quickly put a long-needled syringe into the neck of the young Arc, cyan sparks blasting out only momentarily.
As the energy dissipated instantly he snapped his beady eyes in her direction. "Shut up, the girls are waiting...I don't have time for your shit right now--Next time; don't fuck around talking for so long."
Jade cradled the unconscious Arc, her eyes darting between the child and Marla's lifeless body.
"Let's go," her partner growled, already heading for the barely upright door. "We've wasted enough time."
As they stepped outside and into the slums, a battered camper came into view. Jade's pace quickened, eager to reunite with her daughters once again.
However, as they approached, her expression shifted from anticipation to exasperation.
Inside the camper, two young girls sat amidst a cluttered array of electronics. Mina, her hands outstretched, was conjuring small portals that flickered in and out of existence just barely the size of her body.
Beside her, Amy's fingers flew across a modified cell phone, lines of code reflecting in her intense gaze.
"Girls!" Jade snapped. "What did I tell you about using your powers in public?"
Amy barely peeked up, her rose-gold hair falling in her small face. "We're not in public, Mama. And I'm almost into the CIA's mainframe."
Jade's partner propelled past her, depositing Arc onto a makeshift bed that mainly consisted of dirty clothes. "Enough," he snarled, though his earlier aggression melted away as he faced the children.
"We need to move. Amy, shut it down. Mina, no more portals until we're safe. Listen to your mother...."
As the camper rumbled to life, pressure filled the air. Jade stood rigid, her composure cracking as she watched her partner interact with the girls lovingly. Suddenly, his fierce voice softened into a melody, a lullaby that seemed to soothe the chaos around them.
The psalm soaked over Jade, and for a moment, she saw not the hardened man who had just taken another life, but the father of her children whom she had loved for nearly half a decade. She turned away, her hand covering her mouth to stifle a sob, as more memories of violence clashed with this moment of tenderness.
As they drove into the night, Jade's thoughts turned to Bill Armistead, the man she believed responsible for the Aberrants' existence-- and for her own painful past.
She glanced at Arc, then at her daughters. Whatever it took, she would use these children to bring him down, to right the wrongs of her past, and to ensure a future where her daughters could be free.
The camper disappeared into the streetlights of New Heaven, carrying its cargo of extraordinary children and adults with extraordinary burdens, all hurtling toward an uncertain future.