Cute Mutants Deluxe, page 13
There’s a stack of X-Men trades on the table from where I was potentially hoping to draw inspiration for various things from—like my fucking proper codename. Lou’s been flipping through them idly.
“New Mutants,” Lou says. “That’s what we are, right?” It’s a tiny bit annoying because I’ve been trying to get him to read that book, particularly the Demon Bear Saga, since we first got together and finally now he looks at it.
“More like Cute Mutants,” Alyse says, and this is met with applause.
I don’t even know where to start. Democracy has failed again. We’re the Cute Mutants, and I’m Chatterbox. It’s not literally the worst, but it’s hardly badass.
“Wraith, Glowstick, Goddess, Moodring and Chatterbox,” Alyse says, pointing around the room.
Everyone laughs, and right then, right there it stops being awkward and becomes something better. The whole situation is surreal and yet here we are. Dylan Taylor is finally on a superteam. It feels momentous and at the same time, it’s just a bunch of teenagers sitting in a house.
Pear comes home shortly after to find a mess all over the lounge and all these randos sitting around talking. They give me this weird look like ‘who are you and what have you done with my child.’ They’ve got their girlfriend Sarah and her three kids with them, as well as Sarah’s dog. The house becomes a whirlwind of bodies and voices and leaping animals. Rather than risk any awkward explanations, I manage to drag the Cute Mutants out of the house.
“Right, so everyone needs costumes if you don’t have them,” I say. “Which mostly means you, Wraith.”
Everyone stares at me, like they don’t know who I’m talking to.
“Bianca,” I say heavily. “Codename Wraith?”
“Oh, fuck, yeah.” She laughs. “Is this not a good enough costume?” She gestures at the dress, which I mean, okay, if we were a team of vampires intent on sexually harassing the world into submission, maybe.
“You at least need a mask,” I say faintly, because I have to accept the hand I’ve been dealt.
“I can start surveillance tomorrow,” Emma says, her hands in her pockets but her eyes all lit up. “We just need a place, because Mum and Dad would not approve.”
“Mine leave at like four in the morning for a flight to Aussie,” Alyse says. “So come to my place whenever.”
“It sounds like a plan,” I say as decisively as I can, which is still janky as fuck but okay.
Everyone hugs each other as we leave. I don’t hug people, but I hug these people. I’m trying not to be tense and also trying to sense if they hate the forced proximity to me. I’m still so overwhelmed with everything that I can’t really tell.
When I go back into the house, both Pear and Sarah are looking at me.
“What was that?” Pear says with a vaguely believable casual air.
I walk over to the coffee table and start collecting up the leftovers.
“Kids from school,” I say. “They’re making us do clubs this year.”
“I’ve never seen you have more than one person over at a time.” They regard me with suspicion. Generally I tell Pear everything, but this isn’t only my secret—it’s everyone’s. Pear is the one who brought me up on X-Men. Those comics saved their life as a teenager. Yet I feel like if I confronted them with a whole bunch of kids with real powers in real life, the romance would die instantly. We’d be at the doctor getting poked and prodded, rather than going to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. So I say nothing and put my headphones on and tidy the lounge until Pear turns their attention elsewhere.
Emma turns up at Alyse’s house the next morning just after me, which is far too early. I’m yawning in a t-shirt and literal pyjama pants and clinging to coffee like it’s the only thing keeping me alive. Emma is bright-eyed and excitable and has her cousin with her, a lanky Chinese guy who immediately starts unloading a whole bunch of gear from his car. We all help him, ferrying it to the table in the dining room.
“This is Wei,” Emma says. “He stores all my gear for me.”
“Illegal gear.” He dumps a box with drones in it onto the table.
“It’s not all illegal.” Emma opens a bulky laptop that has gadgets plugged into the USB ports. She waggles the power cord at Alyse, who connects it up. “Some of it is stuff that I don’t want to explain to my parents.”
“Supervillain in training,” Wei says.
I stare at Emma behind his back and make a lip-zipping motion but she doesn’t see me.
“Not villain.” She laughs. “I’m the voice in the heroes’ ears.”
Wei smirks and spins a drone’s rotors with his finger. “Don’t say anything else. I don’t want to be in the position of having to lie to Auntie Jing.”
As soon as he’s gone, Emma has three laptops set up on the table. One’s showing a map of Jack’s earthquake sites, another has a top-down map view around Jack’s house, and one is currently blank. She’s fiddling with a drone that has a real estate company logo on it.
“Did you steal this?” I ask, more incredulous than I’ve ever been.
“No!” She pushes my hand away, but there’s a faint blush in her cheeks. “People think it’s taking property footage if they see it.”
“Omigod, you’re so properly devious.” I’m impressed and delighted.
“Stop it,” she says quietly, but she’s smiling wider than I’ve ever seen her. The third laptop screen flickers to life, showing the interior of Alyse’s house. I carry the drone outside and fling it into the air like it’s a little bird I’m setting free.
The drone wobbles and rights itself with a whir. It ascends to float away over the line of beautiful houses.
“—totally illegal,” Emma is saying as I come back into the house. “It’s got massive range and the camera in it is amazing. If it got caught and traced back to me, it would be very bad.”
“What have you used it for before now?” Alyse asks.
She shrugs. “Nothing, really. I just wanted to see if I could do it.”
Alyse catches my eye.
“Supervillain,” we say in unison.
Emma grins and ignores us, because she’s concentrating on piloting the drone. It’s cool to see the city underneath it, and the way she tracks the progress on the other laptop as the map moves around the city.
“An eye in the sky,” I say. “Like a fucking Goddess.”
Finally, the drone floats down to perch on the roof of the house opposite Jack’s.
“Motion detector,” Emma says cheerfully. “It’ll ping me when there’s movement.”
It’s cool to see her like this, confident and in control. It’s her element, and it makes me wonder what mine is or if I even have one. She seems entirely happy fiddling with her computers, so Alyse and I drift through to the lounge and end up watching Food Wars. Every so often, Emma gives us an update that nothing’s happening, although she seems quite content.
I text Lou, but he’s non-committal about coming round and in the end he doesn’t show.
“Are you guys okay?” Alyse asks me.
“I honestly don’t know.” It gives me the beginnings of a headache thinking about it.
“Well good luck with it. I had enough of boys, and now I’ve had enough of girls,” Alyse says. “I’m single until I find someone legitimately irresistible and hopefully uncomplicated.”
“Seventeen is far too young to be so jaded,” I say in my best impression of Pear. “And good luck finding someone uncomplicated.”
She laughs. “Wildly hot would do as a backup. No, I’m kidding. I just want to find someone nice. Like kind, you know. Lou’s kind, right?”
I look at the credits on the TV because looking at Alyse and talking about this makes everything too real and in sharp focus.
“He’s really nice to me most of the time. But he’s not okay about this powers thing and that fucks me up. But it’s like… I care for him, you know? I want him to find a way to be happy in the world. Like he deserves it, he’s been through so much shit. And if I could look at him and know he was going to be ok then I could breathe easier.”
I dare a glance at her, and she looks like some mythical creature, green and gold and willowy and sad and I think the word is ethereal? It’s trippy and gorgeous, and I get a lump in my throat looking at her.
“I think you’re very kind, Dylan,” she says from golden lips.
I get this lurch in my chest when she says it, because I’m not sure what she means and I don’t need my life being this complicated, thank you very much.
“Oh God,” she says. “No, sorry. I’m not hitting on you.” The willowy creature is gone and in its place is the scuffed and faded embarrassment Alyse. “I honestly don’t want a relationship right now. But being friends with you is exactly what I need.”
This makes me feel even more heart-fluttery because, aside from Lou, I don’t have friends. Not people that are willing to call me a friend anyway and that I like and think are cool.
“Good,” I say, and I’m blinking about a thousand times per minute because I’m pretty sure tears are imminent, but Alyse flits away to the kitchen and returns with lemonade and we drink it as if nothing happened.
We’re halfway through an episode when Emma shrieks from the other room. Apparently Jack is on the move. On the laptop screen, we watch him cross to his assholemobile and get inside. The drone floats into the air.
“It’ll be hard to track his car because it’s just a boring black,” Emma says. “We should’ve tagged it, or had someone tailing him.”
“Who is this mysterious hacker girl we invited to your house?” I say to Alyse over Emma’s head.
“I have no idea,” Alyse says. “I don’t recognise her. I think she’s some kind of evil genius.”
Emma gives both of us the finger, one with each hand, and we both mock stagger as if we’ve been shot.
“All I mean is I might lose him, so don’t bitch at me if we do.” She grins up at me. “We’ll do it better tomorrow.”
In the end, we don’t lose him. Emma’s drone tails him to a computer warehouse store over by the airport. It’s still an hour or so before it’s due to open. Jack stops in the middle of the car park. We see him get out of his car, and walk to the front of the building. He crouches down. A few seconds later the building shakes, as if the entire image is being jolted.
Jack goes inside, and Emma floats the drone lower, switching cameras so we can see a shot of the ruined front of the building. It’s pretty fucked up. One of the doors is shattered and the right side of the building leans precariously.
“Can you record this?” I ask.
“I’ve been recording this whole time,” Emma says. “It’s all evidence, right? Illegally-obtained, but still.”
She’s on the verge of floating it inside when Jack comes out with a pile of boxes in his hands. He’s wearing a balaclava. Emma sends the drone soaring skywards.
“Shit,” she says. “I’m running low on battery, even with the extra pack. Gonna have to park baby somewhere safe. We have enough footage, right?”
“Are you kidding? This is amazing!”
We’re all grinning at each other, like we’ve accomplished something incredible. Except we have to go pick up the drone from where Emma parked it behind a dumpster at the edge of the industrial park. At least Alyse orders us an Uber rather than having to take the bus.
Last thing of the day, we all convene in the group chat to organise what’s next. It’s adorable because everyone has changed their display names to their codenames. Alyse was first of course.
Moodring: cute mutants group chat what what
Moodring: code names only bitches
Goddess: Okay so we really need some close-up footage if possible.
Goddess: Which means someone will need to get up close to him.
Goddess: I’ve got a hidden camera setup that might work.
Moodring: of course u do u villain lol
Chatterbox: wraith seems like ur dontseeme trick might work best
Chatterbox: u ok to stalk tomo?
Wraith: on it
Chatterbox: after schools find
Chatterbox: fine
Wraith: i said im on it chatty
Wraith: gonna ditch
Chatterbox: u dont have to
Wraith: no but i want to 🤡
Moodring: he has a car tho. do u drive?
Wraith: no but my gf does and she’ll take me
Wraith: she doesnt have uni tmrw
Moodring: ur gf is at uni?
Wraith: ya shes 21. we can use her car its all good
Wraith: she knows my secret & shes cool
Within thirty seconds a side chat has popped up between everyone else to exclaim that omg Bianca has a 21 year old girlfriend and discuss whether a four year age gap is creepy, and if so what level of creepy it reaches. I mute the notifications and go back to the other chat.
Chatterbox: thanks wraith
Chatterbox: keep the group updated
The next morning, my phone buzzes on the way to school
Wraith: um slight early problem
Wraith: i tested dontseeme on shell and um
Wraith: lets say now shes mad im not here yet lol
Chatterbox: who the fukc is shell?
Wraith sends us a video of a petite blonde with big circle-glasses. She’s on the phone, leaving what sounds like a very pissed off voice message
“—I could have done many other things today, but for some reason I promised you that I’d help you with some fucking errand—”
Wraith: i dunno how long it takes to wear off lmaooooo
By the time I’m at school and in class, Wraith is still blathering on. Her girlfriend still hasn’t found her. The teacher is actually focused on us for once, so I have to look attentive and engaged. Alyse is the only one with a smart watch so she gets texts on her wrist, but she’s not in this class. I’m trying to balance my phone surreptitiously on my knee without the teacher noticing.
Wraith: alg were on the way
We get a photo of an angry blonde and then one of Wraith with her chest open and one of the little demons reaching for the camera, surrounded by about fifty cry-laughing emojis.
Wraith: lil fuckers are fiesty today
Wraith: guess thats what happens when ur girl has a tantrum lol
I don’t see that much to lol about, but Wraith is fucking weird at the best of times, and that’s coming from me.
Wraith: at his house now
Wraith: let the stake out begin!
It’s really annoying having to actually be at school when there’s important shit to deal with. I find it hard enough to pay attention in class at the best of times, but today I am next-level scatterbrained like it’s my secondary mutation. All of which makes it worse when I get to chemistry class and I’m paired with an ultimate high-achiever.
“Dylan, what did I just say?” Dani is looking at me with a) those eyes that honestly look like some real-life Snapchat filter has made them into something extraordinarily complex and beautiful and b) extreme fucking disdain.
“I don’t know,” I sigh, flopping down on the desk so my fringe swooshes in my eyes. Lou finds this endearing. I don’t think Dani does, although she does flick my hair off my face. Her fingertips are warm on my skin.
“Listen.” Her tone has the exact same snippiness it does when she’s telling me what a mutant disaster I am. “I actually want to get credits for this, so can you please focus?”
“I don’t care about credits,” I tell her.
“Well I do.” She frowns. “What are you going to do after high school?”
“I have no idea.”
“But you have to know.” This seems to exasperate her beyond reason, which I don’t get. Her life will be fine. She’ll be successful and rich and whatever else people want.
“I’ll figure it out.”
“Stop shrugging.” Dani sighs. “I don’t know how you can do that. Just… I don’t know, assume the future will work out.”
“It’s reckless too, is it? Maybe I’ll be a superhero and you’ll be in your fancy doctor clinic saving lives. Some supervillain will attack and I’ll come in and save the day.”
There’s a tiny smile on her face. There must be a translation, but I still don’t have the guidebook. “Who’s going to pay you to be a superhero?”
“In comics they always find a billionaire who’s somewhat chill. The problem is irl billionaires are giant problematic trash-holes. I’ll have to do it for free.”
She shakes her head, like a dismissal. “Well unfortunately for you, I still need credits. So I’ll do the thing, and you take notes.”
It’s fascinating to watch her. Everything is so precise and organised. It’s like she doesn’t doubt herself for a second, and I wonder what that’s like. She murmurs things to herself as she works and I find myself with my head resting on my hand, watching her lips and her deft movements. I wish I were as good as her at anything.
I manage to write some notes, which she reads at the end of class and deems adequate, which I’m pretty sure is like bouncing up and down and saying squee in Dani-speak. I realise I haven’t even looked at my phone. I fumble for it, but there are no notifications.
I’m on the way to history, feeling like I’m swimming upstream in the corridor against a bunch of sharp-eyed, sharp-chinned girls with aggressive hairstyles, when my phone starts vibrating non-stop. I duck off into an alcove.
Wraith: hey look its ya boi
Wraith: except hes not ya boi he is the worst obv
Wraith: actually for a skinny white dude he’s kinda dummy thicc
Glowstick: so are u wraith
Wraith: excuse the fuck u
Moodring: omg wait
Moodring: i know ur stealthy wraith babe but watch out he doesn’t hear the clap of ur ass cheeks
Chatterbox: omg brb literally dying
