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On the Bounty

Jaime looked over to see Andersons new hair and smiled. "Looks good! Really good." She got up to get her cup of coffee. "You look like you could pass for a member of a boy band." She chuckled. Shetook a sip of the hit drink as she brished her hair. "I still have to get used to this red. And all this make up. I look like a racoon." Jaime was slowly getting back into her free spirited nature, though it was controlled. she went into the background to let her ability run free for a bit so nothing happened while on the road or in a place.


"Im ready now. Lets get going." She grabbed her bag and other stuff to leave
 
Anderson snorted and shook his head with a grin on his face. He might have to consider a trim if he looked like that, but for now they were on the road. "You look different, that's for sure," Anderson said after the racoon comment. Jaime looked better without all of the ridiculous amounts of makeup she had put on her face, but it was nice to know that she was taking the public appearance idea seriously. He hadn't doubted that she would, but it was good to see it in action.


When Jaime came out of the bathroom, Anderson had his belongings all shoved inside the backpack he had and his to-go coffee mug in the other. It would suck having to wake up without coffee when they were on the road, but he would survive. If he made it entire months without coffee before he could definitely do it again. "Great," Anderson said, and he opened the motel door to head outside.


It was cooler today than the day before, and there was a breeze running through the air. August was normally the most humid month of the entire year, but this was just a heat without moisture. It felt weird, and Anderson had only been across heat without humidity when he was in Asia. It didn't matter too much, but it was interesting to say in the least.


He opened up the driver side back door and placed his backpack inside before going to the front to start the car. It turned on easily like it did before and Anderson opened the car window to air it out and headed back towards the trunk. He pulled the door up and checked under the mats to see if he could find anything of use. Under on of the plastic floors he found a envelope most likely for a rainy day. When he opened it, twenties and fifties stared back at him. This would help them immensely, and while Anderson felt bad for taking from someone - their car and their money - he was probably in more need of it than they were. In the hollowed out left wall were two keys on a keychain dangling together.


Anderson grinned and headed towards the front of the car and shut it off again. "Look what I found," he said towards Jaime, and he slipped the key into the ignition and turned it on without a problem. "This is fantastic." When they stopped somewhere, he'd need to get another key chain so they would both be able to have access to the car on them in case something happened to the other. Anderson didn't want to think about it, but it was a possibility.


"Ready to hit the road?" he asked. "Food, maybe gas, something else if we see the need and then North again." He shoved the envelope of money into his back pocket and got into the jeep before shutting his door. He didn't know why he didn't show Jaime the money, but he didn't think that it was necessary. "We can get a few sandwiches at subway," he said. "It's a low time of the day so we should be fine. Get some other stuff at a gas station, fill the jeep. We should be good to leave this city in the next half hour."
 
Jaime out her stuff in the car, keeping her notebook up front with her in case she wanted to doodle or write in it while they drove. Hearing Anderson getting excited, she looked over to see the keys in his hand.


"Wow how lucky!" She exclaimed. She put the seat back as they started off. Stopping at subway to get a couple of sandwiches and chips, they took off down the road.


To pass the time Jaime would make funny faces at other people driving fast, or doodle in her notebook. Though she had a bit more fun making funny faces.


She never got to travel the country before, the only other place shes been besides Alabama was New York and she didnt like new York. She loced seeing all the sights they drove by. Rivers, lakes, landmarks, etc. With music low in the background it made the ride a lot better.
 
The next few hours were long and boring. Anderson kept driving, and once his first sandwich was gone he switched to a bag of chips. Sleeping for the better part of the day was making all of his hunger hit him now. The chips had some sort of tomato basil flavoring that Anderson thought was decent, and in minutes the chips were gone and the bag was empty.


They were taking 75 North and passed through Atlanta a few hours into the drive. It was summer, so by the time it was 9PM the sun was still setting. If they continued driving, in two hours they would be in Tennessee and then the next day they'd make it into Kentucky. The interstate was full of drivers heading back from vacations or getting in their last break before school years started in a few weeks. There were many speedboats hooked onto trailers behind massive pickups and a lot of sedans had bicycles fastened to the back.


During the summer before Anderson went into the seventh grade, him and his father had made their last continental road trip before they changed their plans to the Himalayas. They drove around with a RV for the two weeks before Anderson started school and traveled to national parks. They went catch-and-release fishing while they were away from home, and Anderson would bring back photos for his mom to put on the fridge of him on top of cliffs, looking over mountains, and posing with animals that didn't notice he was there. His favorite was a picture of him from the summer before fifth grade, and he had his leg propped up on a rock. Behind him was a family of bears: the parents and two cubs. They didn't try to get close to the animals, and Anderson's dad told him to get over there as soon as they could so he could get the shot. Anderson had a picture of him from that trip with his dad, one with his mom from eighth grade commencement, and another with his brother when he graduated college. Their age difference was staggering, but they still made it to each other's big events.


After a while the music got annoying, and Anderson made a quick switch to the radio. There was a few channels talking about the weather, and after a few moments of dialing he found one broadcasting about Tampa. "-don't even know what we're dealing with. From what the public's been told, these two terrorists are American. We don't know too much about their whereabouts, or even how they managed to get away from the airport. Their faces have not been released, but we can give you their names. Jaime Sulliven, 18, from Carbon Hill, Alabama, and Riley-"


Anderson turned off the broadcast as his first name hit the speakers and changed it back to the CD, Linkin Park's Meteora. His shoulders tensed and his fingers tightened against the steering wheel. If they were naming off his hometown, there was no doubt that people had swarmed his home in Oregon. It would be too much to pass up. His parents were probably being questioned like mad, and while Anderson felt bad, there was nothing he could truly do.


"We should stop in a little bit," he told Jaime after a while. "There's a rest area in the next couple of miles. We can get drinks there and whatever else. I need to use the bathroom."


Since they left Tifton, the small town in Georgia that they stopped for the night, they had only made one other stop a little after Atlanta to take a break. Anderson needed to stretch his arms and legs, maybe get a break for a little while. He uncapped the water bottle he had in his cup holder and took a few gulps. They were making good time, and my early morning they could take a real break outside of Nashville.
 
"That's fine. I can drive now if you want." She offered as she stared out the window while they drove. She had gotten tired of making faces at people and had doodle in her notebook for a good while before stopping. She had doodles of cute little cartoon animals and the like. Before running away from the airport, she had imagined this little road trip would be a lot more fun. Well, more fun to her liking.


When they first left she fantasized about going to Switzerland, seeing the unique culture and trying to learn the language. Seeing all the beautiful sights and just having fun. Doing something different. Becoming someone new. But it was the opposite of that. They were on the run, for who knows how long. Their names were known around the country. Soon their pictures would be released and there would be a huge manhunt. If anyone looked at them carefully, they would be ratted out and surrounded probably within minutes.


The worst part of all this was the fact they weren't even being called people, or teenagers, anymore. They were strictly known as terrorists. And that's the part that hit Jaime hard each time she heard the word. It's not like they wanted to be this way. It's not like they wanted to hurt anyone. They just want to be normal people and live normal lives. But they can't even have that luxury anymore.
 
Anderson pulled the jeep off the side of the road towards the rest area and parked a few spots down from the main entrance. At one end of the parking lot, there was a playground. Since it was late and dark, no one was around, but it was obvious that it had seen some action during the day. Most playgrounds did. He turned the car's ignition off and took a deep breath as he leaned back into the driver's seat. He didn't have much to do if he wasn't driving, but if he didn't take a break he'd probably go nuts.


"You can drive when we get back," he said after a moment, and he unbuckled his seatbelt. Anderson opened the car door and headed inside. He used the restroom, paid for a mountain dew out of a vending machine, and got a pack of twizzlers from the food dispenser next to it. The ride was a long one and if he wanted to survive he'd have to work towards it. Besides, his brain needed something to keep him on track with the rest of the world around him.


He climbed into the passenger seat when they got back to the jeep and he pulled out the map from the glove compartment he had picked up at the motel. "We'll stay on this road for the next twenty minutes, but we're gonna cut off when we reach Route 24. We'll get off of 75 and start heading North on 24 until we get to Nashville, and then we'll make another stop. By then it should be around 1, and then I'll start driving again so you can get some sleep."


[ooc| sorry for the long delay, I've been getting used to the school year starting up again. I'll be back on regularly next week. Sorry, it's been crazy!]
 
When they got to the rest stop, Jaime hopped out to go to the bathroom right away. She had to use it while also flexing her powers out from the long car ride. Taking in a deep breath, and locking herself in a stall, she took her gloves off and went through the motions she had to do to make sure they wouldn't freak out in the middle of driving. She only did this on her hands cause they were the easiest to control, at least for her, at this point. When they got someplace safe where she could really flex her abilities, she wanted to work to see how much more she could control it, and to what extent.


Exiting the bathroom, she got herself a Frappauchino from Starbucks and a bag of chips and skittles. They would at least last her through the long car ride and keep her awake. Heading back to the car, she got into the driver side and buckled up. Looking over the map with Anderson, she remembered which roads she had to go on. "No problem." She smiled taking a sip of her coffee. She started the car up and pulled out of the parking lot, and continued on the road.


She had put in some CD's she found in the car. These people did have a wide variety of music as she put in a Metallica CD and kept it on low to not wake Anderson as he slept.
 
Anderson kept watch out the passenger window. The lights from passing cars and exits flashed as they moved up the highway, and they were something that he could concentrate on. After a long time of sitting, he reached back and pulled on one of his sweatshirts and leaned back in the seat so that he could rest. The interlude of One played on in the background, and soon, he was being lulled to sleep.


Like it would seem, sleeping in a moving vehicle is difficult even without all of the worries that Anderson had floated through his head, but still a hell of a lot worse when they were there. He woke up many times, and after barely getting an hours rest, he sat his chair back up and watched the road from the front window. It was barely ten o'clock.


"I have a feeling that my parents are freaking out back home," he said after a few moments of silence. The CD was still playing low in the background. Anderson watched the front of the car swallow the highway. "My grandparents are probably asking them so many questions. My brother is probably losing his shit."


He pressed a cold hand against his forehead and pushed his new-blond hair out of his face. "It must seem pretty fucked up to them, honestly. I had a great childhood. My parents were great. There was never any reason for them to suspect that I would ever be labeled a terrorist, even though it's barely true. I wish I could call them and let them know that it's not true and why I'm running, but there's probably FBI all around my house. It's most likely crazy there. I just wish that I could make it better."
 
Leaning back as she drove a bit, she could relax a little. There were barely any cars on the high way and she was making sure to go the exact speed limit. There wasn't a need to be drawing attention from cops hiding out in the darkness. Her mind was elsewhere as she listened to the music. She was wondering how her friends back home were doing. A soft smile escaped her lips as she knew exactly how they would react to this news. They would be helping her out, hiding her away from everyone. Honestly, if she didn't leave with Anderson she would have told them about this and left with them.


Jaime sighed as she listened to what Anderson said. She knew exactly how her parents would react. "My parents would probably put on a ruse for the news people. Pretend to be devastated, that they didn't know." She frowned and gripped the steering wheel tightly. "They're only worry is that this news brought some sort of shame to their name in the town, and the state. Because they're so perfect."


She eased her grip to calm herself down. "If they had known sooner, I probably wouldn't be here now. They would have turned me in long ago..."
 
Anderson readjusted himself in the car seat and moved the seat belt so that it wasn't resting against his neck. "My parents are probably flipping out," he said. "They're probably getting phone calls up the wazoo and people standing outside of their house. I bet the news stationed figured out where they lived by now." He shrugged in his seat and sighed as he looked out the window into the darkness. They hadn't been driving for long but Anderson had felt like he had been in this damned jeep for weeks more than days.


"I don't know what we're doing," he admitted after a few long moments of silence. "I thought that I had an idea of how to escape from all of this, but I don't have anything. I don't know where we are or why we're running. They're probably going to find us anyway, and until we get some kind of idea about what we need to do, I'm probably going to be stuck in this same rut."


He shook his head and turned away from the cool glass and faced the windshield once again. It was hard to keep optimistic stuck in a car for all hours of the day, and it was only day two of their little journey. "Either way, I have a feeling that we're fucked. There's no where we can go and be safe. We're probably gonna be stuck on the road until we're found, and by then they'll just do whatever they want with us. We're terrorists, apparently, and I don't think the US is going to care that we're barely adults. They'd kill us before we got to explain ourselves. We're fucked."
 
"I'm not going to let them take me." Jaime said. "And I won't let them take you either. Or anyone else that we come across. Never again will I stay in the back watching them take these people away." Jaime was getting heated up talking about this. And Anderson's words were hitting her hard.


"We left knowing we were escaping the possible Hell that we would be taken to if caught. Shit, we didn't know what we were even going to do in Switzerland! But we were going because we thought we could get away from it all and find peace. And I believe we can find peace here somewhere. Even if we have to go to Alaska or something."


Her hands were changing their form the more she talked and was upset, thankfully the roads were empty so no one could see it. And it was dark in the car so it couldn't be seen in the first place at first glance. She turned the music up a little louder as it played the song For Whom the Bell Tolls. She remained quiet as the song played on to collect her thoughts. The song soon ended and Orion started to play, the beautiful instrumental song filling the car.


She sighed a bit as she started to relax again. "Sorry... for going off like that."
 
Anderson sunk back into the passenger seat as Jaime raged on, and he wanted to believe her, but what she was saying didn't seem entirely plausible. They had each other and, for now, that was it. They didn't have parents anymore. No more friends. It was just them on the road, and it seemed like it was going to be just the two of them for a while before they got anywhere good. No one else had a reason to run yet. There were the ones that were dealt the bad hand from the airport.


"It's fine," Anderson said after their long rifts of silence. "I don't mean to be such a pessimist right now, but it's just the thoughts that I'm having. My life tended to be pretty easy, and then all of this happened. Solar flare. Supernatural abilities. It's a lot to take in, you know? Before all of this happened, I had my entire life planned out. College was going great. I was already looking at grad schools. I had signed to join the Peace Corp after school so that I could pay off my student loans. It was perfect."


It was hard not to get angry thinking about all of the things he used to have, but Anderson managed to keep himself together. "I was never unsure about what I wanted to do. From the time I was in middle school, I had my whole life figured out. I was ahead of the game. And now? Now I have nothing. I have no hopes, I have no ambitions, and I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. The thing I'm most worried about is making it to tomorrow without someone probing me in some lab, and aside from that, I'm pretty complacent. I've never been satisfied with my life until now, and here I am, on the verge of being as a fucking terrorist, and I am finally okay with just being alive. What kind of truth is that?"
 
"I never had any plans. No idea what I wanted to do with my life." Jaime said as she watched the road ahead. "I just figured I would go where ever the wind takes me. Do the opposite of what my parents wanted for me."


Thinking back about the last couple of years, she had gotten into some serious trouble with her parents. Like throwing toilet paper in people's tress on Halloween. Then this one other time she really pissed her parents off by making out with a girl in front of them, just to see their reaction. Before her High School years she was the perfect daughter. She never got to experience what life really was all about, and here she was getting in trouble back in her hometown. Living.


She smiled a tiny bit. "Even though we are on the run for our lives..." She glanced over. "This is kind of exciting. At least for me. We don't know what lies in store for us in the next town, or the one after that. But I want to think of it as an adventure."
 
At what Jaime was saying, Anderson couldn't help but shrug a bit and then smile. "It is an adventure," he said. "I'll agree to that." Even though they had no idea what was going on, they had the ability to know that something good could still come out of it. Maybe people will realize that those affected by the solar flare aren't dangerous and make the government stop worrying about such trivial things.


"We have to make the most of it," Anderson said after a moment. He was looking at a lot of the negative things that were happening, but there were at least a few positive parts of this experience. For starters, he had always wanted to travel to every US state, and at least now he was knocking a few off his list. Another was that he had always wanted a jeep, and even though he had stolen the one him and Jaime were traveling in, Anderson could probably make some very official looking ownership paperwork if they ever got the chance. He got to try out new hair styles. He got to listen to music and now worry about taking gen eds. It was basically a dream come true, and if he forgot the reasoning behind it, Anderson could probably learn to live with it.


It was still dark, still slowly nearing ten o'clock, and the music was still playing idly in the background. "After a while, they might stop looking for us." It was a more serious note, but they were still on the run. "If so much time passes without any sign of us, they might give up. Two teenagers run away from home and then run away from a plane? I know the government called us terrorists to the public, but behind the scenes they probably know we're not. They probably already have an idea why we're running, and after a while they might realize that two more subjects in a case study won't be too beneficial. Maybe they'll wait until we give up."
 
"Of course they will." Jaime said reassuringly. "They can't spend the next couple of months looking over every inch of property in the country to look for two teenagers. The only way they'll be able to find us is if someone discovers who we are and calls them." Jaime yawned a tiny bit as she turned onto the next road along the journey Anderson told her about. She saw a state trooper on the side of the road waiting for someone to speed or do something to get his attention. But Jaime wasn't going to let that happen.


"As sad as it is... they'll find more people out there who are careless with their abilities. Some trouble-maker who think he's invincible and tries to do stuff." A sudden thought hit her in the head. "What if we run into more people like us? Like they're running away, or in trouble of some kind. Do we stop to help and then be on our way? Or should we just drive on by?" The idea of not stopping to help someone made her stomach hurt. Everytime her mind would flash to that little boy's scared face. She didn't want to let anyone else get caught, but she didn't want to get caught either.
 
Anderson didn't know to right answer to her questions, but he knew what he would want to happen if it was him. "I think that if we have a good enough reason to help them we can. Honestly, I don't want to be helping people on the side of the road. We don't know them, and they could be exactly what we're running from. I'm not as worried about strangers as I should be, but maybe until we actually have a reason to assume that someone needs help and is like us, then maybe we should mind our own business."


He knew that the right thing to do to was to help everyone you could, but he had to think of himself before he worried about random strangers from random places with their own problems. There were probably a lot of people that were affected by the solar flare, and Anderson knew that they couldn't help them all. "If someone helps us, we help them. But for now, unless that happens, I think it best that we keep to ourselves. At least until we're farther away."
 
Jaime nodded to his statements. In her mind it seemed right, and it seemed like a good idea, but a part of her didn't like it too. They would just have to see until the situation comes. Since they were on the topic, Jaime wanted to speak her opinion on the whole solar flare thing. "We don't know how many the solar flare affected, but I wanna say it effected one out of 5 people. Why would it effect that one person out of the five and not the others too?"


"What if everyone had this potential to get these abilities? Perhaps more in the future more and more people will just be born with them. Like a new evolution for humans or something." Jaime went on. "Sorry if this seems silly, it's been on my mind for a while."
 
It made sense; what Jaime was saying. Why would one single galactic happening affect only a small number of people, especially when the people that had reactions had such a change in physicality and mentality? It was something that he had been curious about for awhile. What made the ones affected so special, or in retrospect, so unspecial? It was a tad sketchy, and Anderson wanted to understand, but knowing such information could probably only come from doing rigorous tests. As much as he wanted to know, Anderson wasn't willing to give himself over to the government testing and probing. That was out of the question.


"There's no doubt in my mind that there's a difference," Anderson started. "Either everyone was affected or there's some biological difference between the people that were and the people who weren't. It's too weird to think that only a handful of the population had any kind of reaction to the flare considering the people who did, like us, have had drastic transformations."


If it did happen that way it was odd. Either way, Anderson had better things to worry about rather than the health and humanity of the entire world. "We should be getting into Nashville in the next hour, hour and a half. I have a friend there that might be able to help us, and since it's not too late for a weekend, I have a feeling he's still awake." It was reaching 11:00 now, the dash told him, and if they made it to Nashville by 12:30 there was still a good chance that Kaylon was awake. There was now doubt that Kaylon had been watching the news and had seen Anderson's name, but if was able to explain it to him and tell him the real story, Kaylon would probably help.


When Anderson was a freshman last year at Stanford, Kaylon was a senior and standing member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon. Anderson never got the chance to live in the house, but Kaylon was a governing member of the frat and made sure that people like Anderson - young and ambitious - had all of the same options as the other members. It was Kaylon who got Anderson laid for the first time - after a house warming party during homecoming weekend - and had later got Anderson set up with a girl that he ended up dating for close to seven months. She transferred to Caltech, and they were still friends, but neither one of them had wanted anything serious in the first place.


Now, the world was entirely different. Anderson might have still been a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, but he wasn't sure how Kaylon would feel when they showed up at his door step. It would be something they'd have to figure out and something Anderson would have to build up the courage to do, but they needed help. A new car. Fake IDs. Somewhere to crash for a day or two before they moved on.


"We met in college, my friend. He still lives there as of two weeks ago, so I don't think he'd have moved. He should still be there."
 
"Are you sure we can trust this friend?" Jaime asked worried. "But with how it is now, former friends and family could turn on us or something." Jaime mentioned. She was sure there was some kind of bounty on their heads by this point. Probably a lot of money for anyone who had any information or knew their whereabouts. Some people could be easily swayed by money...


By now the CD had ended and was repeating itself, but she didn't mind really. It was good music for now. Jaime's good friend that she crashed at almost every night would be her most trusted friend at this point, but she knew that could have changed as soon as the news got a hold of this story and twisted it. She had no clue if her friend would try to help, she knew her parents would give Jaime away as soon as they could. It was just way too risky going back to Alabama at this point. She'd rather go anywhere but there.
 
Whether Kaylon could truly be trusted was something that Anderson was worried about, but he couldn't fret too much. If he was uncertain in what he was offering, then Jaime would swerve too. "We can trust him," he said as soon as Jaime finished speaking. "I know him well enough to have a good gut feeling with this, and I honestly don't think he'll freak out. Too much."


It was a tricky situation. Kaylon graduated back in May with a chemistry and biology double major. He might have seemed a little out of it a lot of the time, that was because of the stress of college, but Kaylon knew what he wanted and worked very hard to complete his degree. If Anderson remembered right, Kaylon would be starting his first year of grad school at Vanderbilt University in a couple of weeks, so he should still be holed up down in Nashville. He had been working towards medical school for a long time, and when it came back that he was accepted into the program, the rest of the frat was thrilled. Parties had been thrown, keggers had been hosted, and Kaylon had been laid. Many, many times.


Anderson gripped the handle on the passenger door and glanced outside the window into the immense darkness. "If anything goes wrong, I won't hesitate to make a decision. It shouldn't come to that, but if it does I won't be foolish. It'll take care of it."
 
Jaime didn't say much after all. This whole thing with Anderson's friend was all on him, and she could only trust him at this point. She made another turn along the way and headed right towards Nashville.


The rest of the drive wasn't that long, and it seemed to go by pretty fast. Driving into the city was alright as well, letting Anderson guide them towards where ever they were going. This was definitely a country place, Jaime knew it just by looking at it. Seeing people walking with cowboy hats on their heads, most of them carrying guitars around. they did say Nashville was the place to be for country singers, and it looked as if they were right.


She pulled up to the place and stopped the car. She waited a bit before stepping out. "I'll let you do most of the talking then, since you know this person."
 
Anderson got out of the jeep and shut the door quietly behind him. He recognized the house from pictures on Kaylon's facebook profile. With a deep breath Anderson looked towards Jaime and then headed towards the door. "Just hang out," he said. "He'll probably freak out when he sees me, but once he realizes what's going on he'll let us come inside. I known him well enough to think that he wouldn't do anything stupid like call the cops." He moved towards the house and then turned back to face Jaime again. "He's probably seen on the news that I'm a terrorist. I'll explain it to him honestly and if he doesn't let us in, we'll leave. I don't think he'll call the cops. He's too cool for that."


With that, Anderson turned back to face the blue house nestled closely between two others. Kaylon obviously didn't live in the rich side of Nashville, but the bushes were trimmed and the lawn was taken care of. If he remembered right, Kaylon had two other roommates, but if they became a problem then Anderson would leave. No questions asked. Kaylon would understand.


He stepped up the stairs and after a moment of waiting, he pulled back the screen door and knocked on the wood. It was late, it was dark, and it was a Friday night so it kind of made sense that someone was waiting outside his doorway. It was Tennessee after all. There probably weren't any real rules there to begin with.


After a few long seconds of silence, someone came down the inside stairs and stepped in front of the doorway before pulling it open. Kaylon peeked from inside and stared at Anderson for a moment before noticing who it was. He had this confused look on his face before anything dawned on him. "Riley?" Kaylon asked, and he pulled back the door a little bit more.


Anderson nodded from the porch and glanced back at Jaime. It had been a little while since anyone had called him by his first name aside from family. "We need some help," he said and turned back towards Kaylon. "I know you've probably heard some shit, but it's not true. If you let me explain, I'm sure you'll understand. We really just need a place to crash and a little bit of help. I'll pay you; just listen to me." From inside the door, Kaylon stared at Anderson. He looked around the side of his head to see Jaime standing a little further behind him and after a moment sighed. "Shit, man," Kaylon said, and he pulled open the door. "My roommates are gone for the weekend, so be grateful. Get inside before anyone else sees you."


As soon as Kaylon gave the affirmative, Anderson pulled Jaime inside with him and once the door was closed Kaylon was quick to lock it. He pulled both Jaime and Anderson into his living room and sat them down at a couch while he himself sat down in a chair, crossed his legs, and stared at them. Anderson could tell that Kaylon wasn't sure what was going on and that he was worried, but he didn't know what to do to correct it.


"Riley, what the hell is going on?" Kaylon asked, and Anderson took a deep breath before explaining the entire story.


It took a long time for Kaylon to understand what had really happened, and Anderson had to tell him about both him and Jaime experiencing effects from the flare, but it seemed like Kaylon was getting it. "Jaime and I have been driving since earlier this afternoon and had a couple stops along the way. We didn't know where to go, and like I said, we needed help. I remembered that you were gonna be here for a few more weeks before you were at Vanderbilt full time, and then I made the decision to stop here.


"So can you help us?" Anderson asked. "We don't need much. I have money. If you can make us some fakes, maybe new plates. I'll pay for it all, but I can't do it myself."


The room was silent for a couple of minutes before Kaylon looked like he had some semblance of a response. "You both were affected by the flare, right?" he asked, and after a moment Anderson nodded. Kaylon didn't look convinced, but Anderson knew that he had to have some sort of belief inside of him. Why would he had made up such an elaborate story to get a fake ID? Terrorists surely wouldn't do that. Kaylon nodded, more to himself than anything, and then he shared a look between Jaime.


Before Anderson realized what was happening, the empty chair next to the couch was five feet closer to the door and the coffee table was floating six to seven inches off the ground. Kaylon shrugged towards Anderson and Jaime. "I guess I was too."
 
Jaime leaned against the car as she watched Anderson go to the door. She couldn't hear what they were saying, so she just looked around idly as she waited for a signal. She was really hoping that this friend of Anderson's could help out. It was kind of chilly so she put her jacket on crossed her arms.


When this Kaylon guy let Anderson come in, she headed on over. "Hi." Jaime said to Kaylon as she entered the house. "I'm Jaime." She introduced herself and sat down on the couch next to Anderson. Since she didn't know Kaylon personally like Anderson did, she remained quiet through the thing, occasionally nodding at what he would say.


After a bit of silence, she watched the table start to float up and her eyes went wide for a minute. "Whoa..." She said to herself mainly, looking over at Kaylon. Who would have thought this random friend of Anderson would have an ability too. "Yeah, guess you do."
 
"Just before the flare I started getting really bad migraines," Kalyon told them, and he crossed his legs in the chair and tried to remain comfortable. It was a weird thing to talk about, but since he knew Riley it wasn't too awkward. The girl might have been somewhat of an obstacle, but he figured that if he told Riley anything then he'd go and tell her anyway. "One night it got so bad, the night before, that I had to go into the ER. The gave me a CAT Scan and I had a MRI but they said they had never seen anything like it before. Apparently I had a tumor, not cancerous, and it was affecting some of my neural pathways. I went did pre-med in college, so I knew what they were talking about, but none of it seemed to add up. Tumors take over. They don't advance. This thing - this thing was enhancing parts of me that I didn't even have."


Kaylon licked his bottom lip and rubbed his hand at the bottom of his nose before he started back up again. "I have a friend at Vanderbilt - I start med school there in a couple weeks - and he's going through a biochem grad program. I asked him if he had any idea what it could be since the doctors had no idea, and he showed it to a couple of his professors and other students in the program, and the only thing they could think of was genetic mutation. The solar flare; it didn't just affect us in one place. It rewired our entire bodies. Our nervous systems. Our brains."


The room got quiet for a minute before Anderson took a deep breath and shook his head. It was a lot to take in for a short about of time, but it was nice to have some kind of information. "That's why the government is so worried."


"Exactly," Kaylon said. "They think the solar flare is creating non-voluntary super soldiers that they have no control over. We could easily take over their entire world, and they don't like that. They want us controlled or even dead." He fidgeted on the couch and switched legs so that his right was now over his left. His foot flexed, and he leaned back into the chair. "We could take over and they wouldn't have anything to fight back with. They think if a solar flare was able to get inside our heads and mutate us that they could do it too."


Anderson sighed again and sunk back into the loveseat. There was so much that he didn't understand. Why just certain people? Why then? Why was it a solar flare? How did any of this even happen? "This is more than I know how to handle," Anderson said, and Kaylon snorted. "No," he continued, "listen to me. When we left the airport, they labeled us terrorists. The entire country knows what we look like and who we are. And now, with what your telling me, is that the government really thinks of us as terrorists. We're uncontrolled and unmonitored forces that could act against the country at any point in time. If they truly believe that we're dangerous, that we're terrorists, they aren't going to give up. They're going to keep looking for us until they find us. All of us. Anyone affected. We're in so much more trouble than I realized."
 
Jaime shook her head as she tried to take it all in. It was a bit too much all at once, but it all made sense. All of this. So it was similar to what Jaime had originally thought. She lifted her head and rubbed her temples a bit, getting a slight headache. "That's why we changed our appearance, in a way. Our pictures and names are all over the news. We make one wrong move, they'll be on our ass quick."


"And what's to say whatever inside of us was enhanced, that it won't stop enhancing? Or if another solar flare of some kind does something else." Jaime mentioned as she looked between Kaylon and Anderson. "Mine are... a little fidgety as it is. I can control it most of the time, but sometimes it has a mind of its own. If it keeps enhancing, I'm scared I won't be able to completely control it. I don't know about you, but I don't want to wake up one morning with my whole body made out of diamond or stone, or whatever."
 
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