Chapter 2: Andy

A Chapter by Danny X

Dylan looked at me as I drove the car away from the school. It was a quarter after eight and we both should’ve been in the building, not the car. The reason we weren’t was simple: The mutant test was today. I parked the car three blocks away from the school building.

“Andy, why won’t you let me take the mutant test?” Dylan asked. He was my little brother. Our dad had died two years ago. Ever since then, I had been taking care of Dylan because our mother was barely home.

“We’d both fail,” I said simply. He was just a sixth grader. He wasn’t going to get it. I was in twelfth grade, and I barely got it.

“You don’t know that, Andy. I could be normal.”

“Dylan, we both know you’re not. No one in our family is. You just don’t know what yours is yet.” I sat back in my seat. Dylan sighed.

“Yeah, I know.” He crossed his arms and started pouting in the back seat of the car.

For three generations on our dad’s side, our family had been mutants. At first it was smaller things like minor telekinesis. Every generation it got a little stronger. My dad was able to read a mind from across a football field. I was a technopath. I had assembled an electric motor for my dad’s car before I was eight. Dylan hadn’t shown any sign of continuing the family tradition until last year. He still didn’t realize that his mutation was showing every time he ran. He was so much faster than every other boy in his class. It was a minor thing to start with. He would only be beating the other boys by two minutes or less. Last month it had gotten a little more obvious. He had done a five minute mile. Only Olympians that have been training all their lives can do it that fast. That’s when I knew the big manifestation of his powers would be soon. When they had announced the mutant testing, I had decided to make a run for it. I had gotten Dylan to agree on one condition: I waited to see if Mitch was a mutant. Mitch was my girlfriend. She was in my grade, so she would be one of the first ones to go. I told her, that if she was a mutant, she needed to run and get as close to my car as she could. If couldn’t get here without being seen, she was to hide and call me. If she hadn’t shown up or called by nine, I was to leave with Dylan, and she wasn’t a mutant.

“When do you think they’ll put Mitch in?” Dylan asked. I shrugged. I had enough supplies for the three of us to last a couple weeks on the road. I had already decided we would head to the eastern shore board.

“Soon. They started at eight. She’ll be one of the first people to go in,” I said. We sat there in silence for about twenty minutes waiting for her. Suddenly, the car was floating three feet in the air.

“Uh, Andy, we are either being abducted by aliens or your girlfriend is telekinetic.” Dylan gripped his seat for dear life. I quickly glanced around to ground for Mitch. I saw her running towards us. She looked like she was groaning. The car started moving down slowly. Then it dropped. I checked the systems and fixed the shocks while she got in and buckled.

“Hey Andy,” Mitch said. She paused to kiss me. “Drive.”

I smiled. “All right then,” I said. I stepped on the gas and sped out of the town. Once I was sure that we weren’t going to be followed, I slowed down to the speed limit and relaxed some.

“Hi, Mitch!” Dylan said from the backseat. “You’re telekinetic.” He sounded very matter-of-fact.

“I suppose I am,” Mitch said smiling. “Does this mean that you’re actually going to tell me what type of mutant you are?” Mitch was looking at me expectantly. I laughed.

“I don’t see why not. You’re one of us now,” I said.

“So what, exactly, is my boyfriend?”

“I am a technopath.”

“So you work with computers?”

“Or basically anything that has electricity.”

“Cool. What about Dylan back there? What do you do?” Mitch looked in the rear-view mirror and smiled at Dylan.

“I don’t know, but Andy seems to know for sure that I’m a mutant,” Dylan said. He sounded like he was pouting.

“I know what you do, Dylan,” I said.

“Then why didn’t you tell me?” Dylan grabbed my seat and pulled himself up behind me.

“You know I can’t do that, Dylan. You have to discover it for yourself.”

“Oh come on, Andy. He would’ve found out today if you hadn’t kept him out of school. Anyways, I’m curious,” Mitch said.

“Fine. Dylan, you are a speedster,” I said. He sat back in his seat confused.

“A what?” Dylan said.

“A speedster. Sorry bro, but that’s all you get.”

“I guess that’s fair,” Mitch said. “So where are we going?”

“East. I’m thinking Virginia.”

“Why Virginia?”

“Well you know what they say. Virginia is for lovers.” I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ve heard that it also has some great caverns that I know you’ll love exploring, Dylan.”

“Sounds fun.” Dylan said. He wasn’t really paying attention. He was thinking.

“You know he’s going to be stuck on that word all day,” Mitch whispered.

“I know, but if I flat out tell him what he does, he’ll limit himself to just advancing that without including the advancement of the other aspects of his life,” I said.

“He’s one of those obsessive types huh?”

“Yeah, but he can control it. With this, I think he would choose not to.”

“Oh, so selective obsession. I know the type.” Mitch smiled at me. I glanced at her and smiled back. Then I turned on the radio, and we sang to that for the next two hours. At about noon, I stopped at an open field a little ways from the road. We had made it to Nevada. The area was a very dry place with very few plants.

“Andy what are we doing here?” Dylan asked.

“Yeah. Andy, it’s like eighty degrees out here,” Mitch said.

“Well, on the way here, I had an idea. We are all mutants,” I said.

“So?” Dylan said.

“So we need to practice our abilities.”

“I feel the need to repeat Dylan’s sentiment,” Mitch said.

“We are going to have a little training.” I smiled.

“How am I supposed to train if I don’t know what I can do?” Dylan asked.

“A speedster is a person who can go fast. Really fast. We’ve had a few in our family before, but none to the extent that you can go.”

“Keep going.”

“You’re already going faster than anyone should go on their feet.”

“And?”

“And I’m going to help you go faster.”

“What about me?” Mitch asked. She cocked her hip. “I barely know what I can do.”

“Yes, but that just means you need some concentration.”

“So what are you going to do about that, Andrew?”

“You see those rocks over there?” I waited for her to nod. “You’re going to move them.”

“To where?”

“The other side of the field.”

“I think I can do that.”

“You can’t touch them Mitch.”

“I figured that much.” She smiled and turned her focus to the rocks.

“All right Dylan. Come with me.”

“What are we going to do?” Dylan asked.

“Race.”

“You’ve never been as fast as me.”

“I should rephrase. You’re going to race something I create. You have five minutes to prepare.”

“What are you going to make? How long is the race going to be?”

“The race is going to be around this area. The starting line is Mitch. As for what you’re racing, you’ll have to wait to see.” I moved grabbed a bag out of the trunk of the car. In the bag were pieces of electronics that had died or fallen apart. I smiled and figured out what to make that would challenge Dylan. Five minutes later, he met me near Mitch who had gotten one of the rocks off the ground.

“Watch out boys,” She said. The rock flew over our heads and to the other side of the field.

“Nice job, Mitch,” Dylan said. She shrugged.

“I try.”

“Hey Mitch, can you count us off?” I asked.

“Sure thing Andy.”

“All right Dylan, line up.” I set down a small fly looking thing and waited for Dylan to get ready. Then I nodded to Mitch.

“Racers ready?” Mitch asked. We both nodded. “All righty! On your mark! Get set! Go!” Dylan was off a second later. My fly was ahead of him by the second turn. I watched as Dylan pushed himself harder and harder. Then he was gone. I glanced around the field quickly. He was gone. There was a cloud of sand where he had been, and I couldn’t see past it.

“How’d he do that?” I breathed.

“Uh, Andy, I’d be more concerned with where he’s going. Get in that car and drive.” Mitch was already running to my car. I ran for it while I reconfigured my fly to reach higher speeds and send video data to Mitch’s computer. As I started the car, I updated Mitch’s computer to handle the amount of pixels the video would have to be in to be viewable at that speed from that camera. Then I stepped on the gas.

“Mitch, get your computer out and tell me where he’s going.” I followed the road, but I knew he would be.

“How are you going to follow him when that fly thing can’t keep up anymore?” Mitch was logging on to her computer. It opened to the video and a map with a flashing red dot on it moving with the fly.

“GPS tracking. It’s going to attach to him when it finds him.”

“He’s heading east. Your fly thing seems to have sped up significantly, so I’m going to guess that it’s on him now. There’s no way we can catch him.”

“All right. Wait until he stops moving; then call him and tell him to find a safe place to hang out until we can get to him.”

“Okay. Hey Andy,” Mitch started.

“Yeah?”

“It’s not your fault. It was bound to happen soon enough anyways.”

“Yeah, but it’s my fault my little brother is out there alone while a nationwide hunt for mutants is going on. How far is he?” I watched the road carefully. I couldn’t look at her. Mitch sighed.

“He’s just above Louisiana. At this rate, he’ll be at Virginia by night fall there.”

“Then we need to be there as quickly as possible.” I stopped the car and started remodeling it. “Get comfortable. We are going to be taking off within the hour.”

Dylan kept running. He wanted to beat Andy’s stupid fly thing. He wanted to prove that he really was a speedster, not just a fast kid. When he thought he had reached the finish line, Dylan stopped. He looked around. Where was he? A few minutes ago, he had been in a desert. Now there was a vast body of water in front of him with a line of hotels behind him. The sun was setting. His phone rang. He quickly answered it.

“Uh, hello?” Dylan said.

“Hi Dylan. This is Mitch.” Mitch sounded worried.

“Mitch, where am I?”

“Uh, you are at Virginia Beach.”

“What? I’m coming back to you guys.” Dylan took off running in the opposite direction.

“No, don’t,” Andy said. Dylan stopped. He should’ve been out of breath. He also should have only been a few feet away from the hotels. Instead, he was in a forest.

“Why not? I’m lost out here,” Dylan said.

“That’s because you’re in a forest in Southside Virginia now,” Mitch said.

“You shouldn’t come find us because it’s not a straight shot from you to us. The route’s all wibly-wobbly,” Andy said. “Find somewhere safe to hide out until we can get there.”

“We’re in a flying car now, so we should be there by tomorrow morning thanks to your genius brother,” Mitch said.

“Where am I going to hide? I don’t know anyone in Virginia,” Dylan said.

“Neither do I, so you’re just going to have to wing it,” Andy said.

“You know what; I think I do know someone in Virginia that may be able to help you out. He’s a writer on my site. I’ll message him and see if he’s anywhere near you,” Mitch said. “I’ll text you the results. Until then, work your way to an abandoned house or something where you keep out of the rain.”

“Work your way slowly,” Andy said.

“Thanks. I’ll wait for the text,” Dylan said.

“Be safe little brother.”

“You too big brother.” Dylan hung up the phone. He was alone in a strange place and was expected to hide in another strange place without his brother. “This day cannot get any worse,” Dylan mumbled.

“Freeze mutant!” Someone yelled from the road. Dylan groaned.

“Never mind.” Dylan took off running for a second then stopped again. This time he was in a gas station parking lot. The manager came out and walked up to him. Dylan backed up and got ready to run again.

“It’s all right! I’m not going to turn you in,” The man said.

“Then what do you want?” Dylan said. He was still ready to run.

“To help. There are some mutants hiding down in that valley back there. Go down there and see if they can hide you with them.”

“Uh, thanks.”

“It’s nothing. Just go.” The manager pointed behind the building. Dylan jogged at an almost human pace to the edge of the valley. It was an old air base. He took a deep breath and tried to control his arrival in the air base to a minimum of running.

Mitch looked at Andy as he flew the car in the general direction of Virginia. He was too worried about Dylan. Dylan would do fine on his own. Mitch sent Dylan a text saying that her writer friend was from North Virginia, not Southside. Dylan had replied he found a place to stay where he would be safe.

“Did he find somewhere?” Andy asked.

“Uh, yeah. He apparently found some other mutants on the run and they’re helping him until we get there,” Mitch said.

“Good.” Andy reached out for her hand. She gladly surrendered it to his. “I’m sorry I freaked out. I just didn’t want him to get captured or hurt.”

“I know. It’s hard having siblings in a time like this. Especially if you’re both mutants.”

“What happened with your sister?”

“She was human. So was the rest of the school. It was only the three of us. My family wants me to be safe but doesn’t want me to come home. They know that the government will check there first.”

“Understandably. My mom probably won’t even notice Dylan and I are gone until next week. Then she’ll freak out and go on a crazy manhunt.”

“Won’t that be bad?”

“No. By that time, the three of us will be so far underground we may as well be dead. Hopefully we won’t have to fight our way down.”

“A good hope.” They both sat there in silence for a moment.

“Mitch, why didn’t you leave me when you found out I was a mutant?”

“To be honest, I didn’t believe you. When it sank in you were telling the truth, I was already to close with you to leave you just for the way you were born.”

“Thank you.” He gripped her hand tighter.

“For what? Falling in love? Humans don’t control that.”

“No. For coming with me.”

“I didn’t have much of a choice.”

“You did so.”

“Only if I wanted to be an experiment for the rest of my life.”

“It was still a choice. A lot of people went the other way on that particular decision.”

“Well, unlike them, I have common sense.”

“You have more common sense than me and Dylan combined.”

“Well, I doubt that. You have to be pretty smart to turn a gas fueled car into an electric flying car.”

“Smart doesn’t mean that I have common sense.”

“Well, you leave the street smarts to me, Andy. I’ll keep you covered.”