Mutation (5 page)

“Please excuse me for a moment,” she said, standing and placing her napkin on the table.  Then she walked towards the hostess’ stand – presumably to ask where the ladies’ room was.  Despite her departure, the old couple barely skipped a beat in telling me the story of their marriage.

They were still talking a few minutes later when I finally saw Electra reappear.  However, instead of coming straight back to where we were seated, she seemed to wander the restaurant randomly, stopping to speak to other diners here and there.  Finally, she came back to our table.

I took the opportunity to excuse myself.  I had done my good deed for the day in listening to our fellow diners; Electra could take her turn in the salt mines now.  (Okay, it wasn’t
that
bad – and they actually had some useful words of wisdom – but I just didn’t like the way she’d kind of deserted me.)

I went to the men’s room, and when I came back the elderly couple had departed.  Electra was picking idly at her food, still with a sullen look on her face.  I sat down and reached out to her emphatically, and felt a roiling sea of conflicting emotions:  anger, resentment, sadness, disappointment, and more.  Something was seriously bothering her.  I tried to get her to open up with some conversation, but she essentially shut me down at every turn with simple one-word responses to everything.  (“Yes,” “No,” “Maybe,” etc.)

“Okay,” I finally said in frustration.  “What is it?”

“What’s what?”

“What is it that’s got a stick up your butt?  You’ve been in a foul mood ever since that old couple started speaking to us.”

She looked like she was on the verge of denying it, and then something like resolve settled into her demeanor.

“Alright,” she said.  “Who is she?”

“Who’s who?” I asked, baffled.

“The girl.” When all she got from me was a confused look, she went on.  “The
other
girl.  The one you were originally going to bring here.”

I shook my head, thoroughly nonplussed.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“At least have the decency not to lie about it!” she hissed.  As she spoke, I noticed little sparks of electricity arcing through the tines of the fork she held.

“I’m not lying!  I seriously have no idea what you’re talking about, Electra!”

“You don’t know what I’m talking about?  Fine, we’ll play it your way.” She took a sip of water and continued.  “That old couple said they had to book their reservation here a couple of months ago.”

“Yeah, so what?”

“I also talked to the hostess.  She said this is one of the most popular restaurants
in the world
, and the average reservation is made two months in advance.”

“I’m still listening.”

“I also asked some of the other diners – the ones I could find who spoke English – and they all made their reservations at least two months ago.”

“Again, so what?”

“I didn’t know you two months ago!  And no, your shapeshifting into someone else that I may have met doesn’t count.  The bottom line is that you obviously intended to bring someone else here, and I don’t appreciate being your back-up plan.  Couldn’t you at least have taken me somewhere else?”

I snorted derisively.  “You’ve got this entire thing completely twisted.  First of all, there’s no other girl; there never was.  You’re the only one I’ve been interested in.  Second, you’re right; you do normally have to make reservations weeks in advance.  However, I got a friend who’s a cape to call in a favor.  The restaurant is never at full capacity; they always leave room to accommodate bigwigs who drop in unannounced.  Celebrities, heads of state, foreign dignitaries, superheroes….  They just have to pull out an extra table from the back.  So I’m sorry that it wasn’t necessary for me to jump through all kinds of hoops and make reservations months ahead of time just so you could feel important, princess!”

Over the course of my speech, Electra had slowly lowered her gaze until she was now staring at her plate and just playing with her food.  It should have been enough, but I was still on my high horse.  My grandfather was the one who had used his connections to get us a table here, so her baseless accusations were not just an attack on me, but an insult to him as well.  I was about to continue when she looked up, eyes watery.  I felt shame and sadness welling up in her.

“Jim, I’m sorry,” she almost whispered.  “It’s just that…I like you, okay?  And not the way I’ve liked guys in the past.  There’s something special about you, and I’m not talking about your powers.  I just wanted you to think I was special, too, and thinking that you had planned this for some other girl made me feel that I wasn’t.”

Her apology kind of took the wind out of my sails in terms of anger.  On an empathic level, it was heartfelt and sincere, something I couldn’t overlook.

“I don’t care what you felt or thought; you didn’t have the right to accuse me of something like that,” I said sternly.

“I know,” she said, looking down again.

“It would serve you right if I just left and let you take a cab home.”

She started to nod in agreement, but then frowned as the absurdity of my statement hit her.  She looked up to find me grinning.

“You jerk,” she said in clear relief, before playfully kicking me under the table.  “You almost had me in tears.”

“Well, I’m still mad at you.  I’m just having a tough time showing it.  And why should you care if I were bringing another girl here?  It’s not like you’re my girlfriend.”

That one earned me another connection between her foot and my shin, only this time there was a little less play and a little more kick.  Following that, normal conversation between us resumed.

After dinner, I paid (leaving a generous tip on top of the already-expensive meal), and we left.  Electra was keen to see more of the city, but I convinced her that we should get back.  Although it was midnight by local time, it was only early evening back home.  We had been gone about four hours thus far, and I was concerned that if we spent much more time in
Gay Paree
her circadian rhythm would get thrown off, giving her a teleportation version of jet lag.

My watch read 6:05 p.m. when I popped us back home, just outside the basement entrance to the safe house.

“Are you going to come up?” Electra asked.

It was still early, so it was a very tempting invitation – especially with her standing there facing me and looking incredibly beautiful.  However, I really wanted to end things on a high note, so I declined.

“Anyway,” she said, taking my hand, “this was fun.  We should do it again.”

“Yeah, but now you’ll be expecting something grand every time we go out, so I’ve got to come up with something even better next time.”

“Oh, are you worried that you set the bar too high?  That nothing can top today?  Well, let me put your mind at ease.” She put a finger to her chin and glanced up as if she were giving the matter serious consideration.  “It was okay, I guess.”

“‘Okay’?  What is that, like two out of five stars?  That’s all I can get?”

“On the record, yeah.  You can’t expect a girl to show you all her cards just because you swooped her off to Paris.  So that’s the official verdict.  It was an okay date.”

I stepped a little closer to her.  “And
un
officially?”

“Unofficially?” she repeated as if thinking about it.  She put her hands around my neck and began leaning in closer to me.  “Best.  Date.  Ever,” she whispered, emphasizing each word in a way that made me struggle to keep my nervousness and excitement from being conspicuous.

She kissed me, long and lingering, making my head swim.  Her lips were soft and inviting, like delicate rose petals being gently crushed as I pulled her closer.  She tasted delicious – some provocative combination of sugar and honey that sent a jolt through my nerve endings, setting them on fire.

It wasn’t until we separated a few moments later that I realized that it hadn’t all been in my mind; the air was charged, crackling with electricity.  It took a few seconds for Electra to notice, but as soon as she did, the air became de-ionized.

“Sorry,” she said demurely, lowering her eyes as she pushed back a stray strand of hair.  You didn’t have to be an empath to see that she was slightly embarrassed at losing control.

“You know,” I said, taking her hand.  “Maybe I will come in for a bit.”

She smiled.

Chapter 7

Our date ended with me and Electra going up to the safe house common area and watching TV for a few hours.  I had thought that ending the date right after returning from Paris was the high-water mark, but it turns out that snuggling on a couch was a lot better.  We said our goodbyes - punctuated by another kiss - after agreeing to call each other the next day.  I went home on cloud nine and slept like a baby.

The next morning saw me finally get around to packing for my upcoming stay at the Academy.  I wasn’t leaving for a few more days, but Mom would start to fret if I waited until the last minute.  Packing, in and of itself, wasn’t particularly difficult.  The hard part was figuring out what to take.

Living in-residence, we would be wearing Academy-issued uniforms most of the time.  Outside of class, we’d also have Academy-themed sweats, t-shirts, etc.  Long story short, there wasn’t a need to bring a lot of your own clothes; in fact, the Academy’s recommendation was that students only bring about seven different outfits, plus a set of formal wear.

Bearing all that in mind, I thought that I’d done an excellent job with respect to the clothes I’d planned to take with me.  However, the day before I was to leave, Mom decided to make a surprise inspection of my bag.

“Oh, no!” she screeched in horror, pulling out a threadbare pair of jeans.  “These pants practically have a hole in the knee!”

“But that’s the style now, Mom,” I whined.

“Since when do you care about style and what’s in fashion?” she asked.  I simply shrugged, and she went on plowing through my clothes.  “And what’s going on with this ratty t-shirt?”

“It’s one of my favorites!”

“Not anymore,” she said, and tossed it into the wastebasket I kept in my room.

One by one, she went through each article of clothing and found something distasteful about almost every one of them.

“Jim,” she said when finished, having stacked all of the clothes she didn’t like into one big pile, “this entire wardrobe is shameful.  You are
not
going to go off to the Academy and embarrass this family by wearing any of this trash.” She waved a hand at the mound of clothes.

I was on the verge of protesting when I detected a surging tide of emotion within her:  love, warmth, affection, pride, fear.  Having felt it before, I recognized it for what it was - her maternal instincts coming to the fore.  The issue with the clothes was less about how appropriate they were and more about her need to still be “Mom” to me, to know that she was still needed.  With that in mind, I ultimately let her shove a credit card into my hand as she told me to go to the mall and get some “nice, new things.”

*****

It was a little after one o’clock in the afternoon when I finally got to the mall.  I was fairly excited about being there - not because I love shopping, but rather because this little excursion had an extra bit of excitement:  I got to drive myself there.

Originally, I had planned to get there via teleportation, which is the most convenient form of travel for me.  However, my grandfather had offered me the use of his car.  Of course, he knew I wasn’t licensed, but he pooh-poohed the notion of that being a barrier to me driving.

“Listen to me,” he’d said.  “Everybody driving around out there at some point in time got behind the wheel - unsupervised - before they were licensed.  It’s just one of those things that everyone experiences.”

With that, he’d given me the keys, but not without one final admonition.  “Still, if the cops pull you over, I’m a doddering old man and you took my car without permission.”

Thus I found myself in my grandfather’s sedan, parking on one of the upper levels of the mall’s multi-level garage.  Even though traveling in a car was the equivalent of a snail’s pace compared to my usual mode of transport, I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a certain thrill attached to driving around without a license - the same rush people often get when they’re doing something that they’re not supposed to.

The shopping itself took almost no time at all.  One of the benefits of being a shapeshifter is that you never have to find clothes that fit you perfectly; if you like it, you can just buy it - no need to waste time trying it on - and always shift your body to conform, if necessary.  That said, I prefer to get clothes that are close to my natural state.  Still, I was finished in roughly an hour, having found some jeans, shirts, and tennis shoes that I felt would make my mother happy (and convince her that I wasn’t living like a vagabond while at the Academy).

I was walking back to the sedan, shopping bags in hand, when my cell phone rang.  Ordinarily, that would have been uncommon; being a teleporter, it’s just as easy for me to have a face-to-face with someone as it is to call them - easier, in fact.  However, since I’d started dating Electra, my cell had been getting more of a workout.  (Apparently, while girls might be willing to talk to you when they first wake up in the morning, they don’t necessarily want you seeing them that early, or at other inopportune times.)

As we actually had a date for that night - our last before heading to the Academy - I naturally expected the call to be from Electra.  It wasn’t.  Instead, when I pulled out my phone and looked at the screen, it read “Caller ID Blocked.”

I frowned.  My phone actually came equipped with a feature called Anonymous Caller Rejection.  Basically, if a caller tried to mask or block their own number, my phone wouldn’t put their call through.  That being the case, my curiosity was piqued.  I hit the “Talk” button.

“Hello?” I asked.

“Kid Sensation,” said a voice I immediately recognized.  “This is Mr. Gray.”

I grunted annoyingly in response.  I was getting close to my grandfather’s car.  I had my bags in one hand and was holding the phone to my ear with the other, so I telekinetically pulled the keys from my pocket and hit the button to unlock the doors.

“You shouldn’t have to announce yourself,” I said flatly, “because you aren’t supposed to be able to call this phone anonymously.”

He laughed.  “That’s a minor inconvenience that’s no trouble for us to get around.”

“And the dozen or so FCC laws that you’re breaking in the process, I suppose they’re just minor inconveniences, too.” I telekinetically pushed the button on the keyring to pop the sedan’s trunk open.

Gray sighed, ignoring my comment.  “I had really hoped this call wouldn’t be necessary.”

“What do you mean?” I asked as I tossed my bags into the trunk and slammed it shut.

“You were supposed to call me before you left for the Academy.  I’ve yet to hear from you.”

“Well, I don’t leave until tomorrow.” I walked to the driver’s door.  “And I’ve still got your card in my wallet” - which was true - “so I think you’d agree that I still had time.”

“True.  Yet somehow I feel that you’ve already made a decision about my request.”

I debated for a second.  I had no intention of being his flunky, so why pussyfoot around about it?

“That would be a correct assumption.  I don’t think we could form a compatible working relationship.”

“I see,” he said, almost disappointedly.  “And there’s nothing I can say that can change your mind?”

“That’s a big ten-four, good buddy,” I flippantly acknowledged as I opened the driver-side door.

There was silence on his end for a moment, and then a calm, “If that’s the way you want it.”

The line went dead, but there was something about his tone when he’d last spoke…oh well, I wasn’t going to waste time worrying about it.

I tossed my cell phone into the empty cupholder between the two front seats, where it rattled around for a second.  Then I put my foot into the car and started to bend down, preparing to get in.  A sudden movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention, but before I could turn my head and fully register what it was, something smashed into my chest like a jackhammer, knocking the wind out of me and sending me airborne.