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Chicago is Burning
Madin encounters a naggingly familiar face at the foodbank.
Madin had their beanie pulled down tight over their ears, a grubby coat on and gloves. They were doing their food pantry shift for the Mutant Resource Centre today, like they had most weeks for the past few months. The pantry was a temporary affair in a carpark, a van for transport with awnings stretching out from the sides to shelter the volunteers against the wind, a pair of trestle tables, some milk crates and the big, brown paper bags that were handed out and an urn of soup.
Madin scanned one eye down the street, cautiously and looked back at the older man and teen walking up. "Hey. Youse here for a feed?" they called, wincing inwardly when they realised it was Postman. God, he was just so weird. Postman and a young guy who looked distinctly less crazy and weird than most of Postman's friends did.
"Yeah." Postman's voice was gruff, but he'd seen this particular person around recently, so his curtness was less hostile and more to the point. "Gotta new mouth this week, teaching 'em the ropes." He went to set his hand on Ben's shoulder, tugging the beanie further down on the boy's head so the distinct curls that had been on the news would be more easily covered. This drop was generally visibly mutant friendly, but one that had been on the news recently... it wasn't worth the risk. But he couldn't leave the kid cooped up either, it'd just be trading one cage for another. Hence the meagre attempt at some coverage, just another man and kid down on their luck and grouped together for safety.
A complaint rose briefly when Postman's hands yanked on his hat, his own hands coming up before seeming to think better of it and stuffing his fists in his pockets. While his body language was stiff there was no anxiety and it was obvious to anyone with eyes that his adoption of the demeanor had been set long ago. Turning his attention to stare at the purple person blankly, he eventually nodded slightly, though a frown had set on his face. "Sup, so now what?"
Madin's eyes narrowed, watching the interplay between the two of them. Possessive barely began to describe the way the older man acted. Fatherly, but off. A protector? A pimp? "I can do one parcel each," Madin said. "If you'd come by earlier, I'd have been able to add some more ready to eat stuff but, like, we ran out. Um. It's mostly pasta and chickpeas and bikkies now and like, two minute noodles." The young guy looked familiar. "I just need yous to sign the log before I can give anything out." They pointed at the sheets of paper on a clipboard. "And there's some soup if you want some."
"Is what it is," Postman muttered, mustering up something resembling a smile for the young man. He signed the log with the name he'd most commonly used in homeless circles in the city when he was on his own, accepting one of the parcels and stepping to the side to let Match sign for his own. "Soup sounds good, we'll take some."
"That's no-" Match stopped, brows furrowing together only briefly before he nodded as well, suddenly realizing that drawing attention to the number of people they ran with might be a bad idea. He scanned the sheet before quickly jotting Benjamin Adams, in neat square letters before passing the log back. "Take whatever you got, better than nothing." But he did nothing to cover up the annoyance edging into his voice.
Madin filled in the gaps. "Give me a hand in van for sec, will ya?" they asked. The young guy was looking increasingly familiar and yeah - one bag each wasn't going to be enough when Postman had like five people in his gang. Inside the van, Madin began to get together an extra bag of odds and ends and whispered "Look, I know that guy's a complete fucking weirdo and so's all his friends. He's been coming around for ages, apparently. He's not..." the handwave was explicitly non explicit. "you know. For food or anything is he?"
He'd rolled his eyes but followed after, watching with the mildest of interest when he noticed that they'd be getting away with food for more than just two people and perking up just a tad. Then the frown returned. "He's not a weirdo, the-" Heat washed off him in waves as the urge to get away from Madin and their implications briefly took over, though he clenched his fists at his sides to keep from anything catching on fire. "No." The word was spat out firmly. "They're not weirdos, they're good people."
"Fucking bullshit they're not weirdos," Madin said. "They live in a sewer but. Here." Madin tossed the bag at Match before climbing back out of the van.
Postman and his crew come to a tough decision about what to do next. He doesn't see staying on there as safe after Eve botched the alarms on the convenience store raid.
Shatter's skin glittered in the light of their torches as he reached out to take the bags from the food pantry from Postman. As he turned his head, the gaping crater on one side became visible.
"Good work, Boss," he said.
"You too, kid," Postman replied gruffly. His eyes scanned the area, every nerve in his body on high alert after the incident a few nights before. It was increasingly difficult to barely survive as a visible mutant on the Chicago streets, and now he had a new kid to take care of. It wasn't the sort of thing that inspired anything resembling good sleep, leaving him on a hair trigger fuse with his nerves at a 14 out of 5. "Anything weird while we were gone?" He guided the younger man in front of him, unwilling to have anyone at his back as he made sure their part of the tunnels were secure.
Shatter shook his head. "It's been real quiet, man. No-one comes down here except the electric company people and they ain't here today."
"I don't see why they even need to," muttered Eve, a battery from one of the flashlights cradled between her hands, face a picture of concentration as she recharged it. They all headed in ahead of Postman, Trader taking point. It was almost half a mile to their base, a series of rooms cordoned off from one of the old tunnels, formerly a sub-sub basement in an office building that no longer existed.
Eve ran the power there, lights daisy chained to car batteries and on days like today, when she felt good, she'd run space heaters, holding the ends of the cords in each hand. Trader began to sort through their supplies while Shatter helped, a practiced set of jobs that the mutants had done a hundred times.
Unsure what to do now, Match watched the goings on with a detached interest. Once again it became glaringly obvious that the group he'd joined up with had all found their place with each other and he was, well, he was the kid that they'd brought in. Turning over the last few days in his mind, he kicked a few loose stones, before coughing then clearing his throat loudly. That Trader and Angel looked at him was enough, and he opted to finally ask. "Is it always this bad during this time or - or is it getting worse?"
Postman let out an aggrieved sigh. "It wasn't always this bad, but it's always been bad. Tale as old as time itself, kid. People're always scared of shit they don't understand, especially if it's stronger than them. Gotta beat it down, lock it up, whatever they can to make sure things conform to their neat little bubbles. It's not just mutants, we just happen to be the weirdest, scariest thing on the block right now, especially after M-Day." He gave the young man a rough pat on the shoulder. "Reminds me." He raised his voice just enough to get the attention of the other three. "Cop a squat, all of you, rest of that shit can wait a few."
He waited until they were settled before speaking again, pacing in agitation as he talked. "It's getting more dangerous out there. Better cameras, faster security. Scoutin' a new area's not the easiest or best idea, when it'd have us open to all that, and fightin for territory besides. We gotta decent thing down here. Thinking we should do our last bit of surface looking, then move deeper into the tunnels for good. Cut ties with the surface."
One by one, the crew put down what they were working on to come and sit by Postman. They didn't always agree with what he said but it paid to listen to him.
"Completely?" asked Shatter. "There's the Deep Tunnel project." He drummed his fingers against the milk crate he sat on, the plastic transforming into crystal.
"Floods," Trader interjected.
"Rarely."
"It won't be safe for Eve, if there's too much damp."
"Eve is right here," said Electric Eve. "I think it will be okay. As long as it's dry enough. "
"You can't go into standing water, though," Trader said, fiercely.
"I remember what happened when I had that powers accident," said Eve.
"No, you don't. We do, though. You could have died." Trader shook his head.
As each member spoke, Match's eyes darted to them, back and forth between Trader and Eve as they argued about the severity of what had happened, to Shatter and Angel speaking so softly he couldn't make out what was being said, and finally to Postman. This was the first he'd heard of either of these instances and learning about them at the same time hit him like a wave. "Wh-" Nerves had him tapping his foot to a beat only he could hear as he tried to figure out what to focus on. "What are the deep tunnels?"
"Quit yer fightin, yer scarin the kid," Postman barked at Eve and Trader in annoyance. He turned back to Match, attempting to be reassuring. "Just what it sounds like. The deep tunnels are designed for floodwater diversion, but there's a few places that are effectively grey space between them and the old freight tunnels we're in now. Don't want another Loop Flood disaster, most likely, so they didn't repurpose some of the empty spaces, or they meant to but forgot." The glint in his eye was a good indicator of exactly how they'd forgotten. "They cover most of the county. Trader's right though, they're not as dry as these."
He turned to the rest of the group. "We done with the bitchin and ready to be useful? We gotta do something. Security's gettin tighter, it's harder an harder to even get scraps. We go deep, we can expand where we safely hit, but it's gonna be a lot of walkin and effort. So work with me here." He gave them all a stern look, then hooked a milk crate with the tip of a boot and dragged it to the rough circle to sit.
Eve shook her head. Her arms were scabbed up and she looked rough at the moment. "I'm hurting," she whined. "I can't just leave it all. Can't just let my damn ex keep going while we run away. I want him to pay." She scratched fretfully at her arms, not saying that she could use a fix, too. Ghosts of electricity flickered around her fingers as she fidgeted.
"My dog." Shatter drummed his fingers against his knees. "I can't leave my dog. He's been in a shelter ever since I -- " He trailed off, gesturing at the hole in the side of his head. He stared into the darkness, clearly not crying. The light shone on the crystals in his skin.
Angel just nodded silently, fidgeting, unable to sit, movement fueled by the anxiety that fed her powers. She circled the group, walking around and around them as they talked.
Trader nodded. "We all got something to close up here, man," he said. "Some kinda loose end that needs to be wrapped up. I agree wit' you, this is dangerous. Cops will be out looking now, especially after --" he cut himself off, and eyed Match. "That was real showy, you know? But what about your damn wife? Don't you want to say goodbye?"
Postman gave him a hard look. "Course I wanna see her again, especially if I'm sayin goodbye. And don't give the kid no grief, you know it's hard to control at first, specially if you don't know you got powers to control. So we all got somethin we wanna wrap up, wanna do a last food run in this area as well if we can. Nothin too flashy. We'll draw lots for the order, only way it'll be fair."
"Okay." The word was soft and Match dropped his eyes, foot still as he weighed what he was agreeing to. And for the first time since the heat that radiated off him cooled and he rubbed his arm. "Lots... lots is good. Okay."
Madin had their beanie pulled down tight over their ears, a grubby coat on and gloves. They were doing their food pantry shift for the Mutant Resource Centre today, like they had most weeks for the past few months. The pantry was a temporary affair in a carpark, a van for transport with awnings stretching out from the sides to shelter the volunteers against the wind, a pair of trestle tables, some milk crates and the big, brown paper bags that were handed out and an urn of soup.
Madin scanned one eye down the street, cautiously and looked back at the older man and teen walking up. "Hey. Youse here for a feed?" they called, wincing inwardly when they realised it was Postman. God, he was just so weird. Postman and a young guy who looked distinctly less crazy and weird than most of Postman's friends did.
"Yeah." Postman's voice was gruff, but he'd seen this particular person around recently, so his curtness was less hostile and more to the point. "Gotta new mouth this week, teaching 'em the ropes." He went to set his hand on Ben's shoulder, tugging the beanie further down on the boy's head so the distinct curls that had been on the news would be more easily covered. This drop was generally visibly mutant friendly, but one that had been on the news recently... it wasn't worth the risk. But he couldn't leave the kid cooped up either, it'd just be trading one cage for another. Hence the meagre attempt at some coverage, just another man and kid down on their luck and grouped together for safety.
A complaint rose briefly when Postman's hands yanked on his hat, his own hands coming up before seeming to think better of it and stuffing his fists in his pockets. While his body language was stiff there was no anxiety and it was obvious to anyone with eyes that his adoption of the demeanor had been set long ago. Turning his attention to stare at the purple person blankly, he eventually nodded slightly, though a frown had set on his face. "Sup, so now what?"
Madin's eyes narrowed, watching the interplay between the two of them. Possessive barely began to describe the way the older man acted. Fatherly, but off. A protector? A pimp? "I can do one parcel each," Madin said. "If you'd come by earlier, I'd have been able to add some more ready to eat stuff but, like, we ran out. Um. It's mostly pasta and chickpeas and bikkies now and like, two minute noodles." The young guy looked familiar. "I just need yous to sign the log before I can give anything out." They pointed at the sheets of paper on a clipboard. "And there's some soup if you want some."
"Is what it is," Postman muttered, mustering up something resembling a smile for the young man. He signed the log with the name he'd most commonly used in homeless circles in the city when he was on his own, accepting one of the parcels and stepping to the side to let Match sign for his own. "Soup sounds good, we'll take some."
"That's no-" Match stopped, brows furrowing together only briefly before he nodded as well, suddenly realizing that drawing attention to the number of people they ran with might be a bad idea. He scanned the sheet before quickly jotting Benjamin Adams, in neat square letters before passing the log back. "Take whatever you got, better than nothing." But he did nothing to cover up the annoyance edging into his voice.
Madin filled in the gaps. "Give me a hand in van for sec, will ya?" they asked. The young guy was looking increasingly familiar and yeah - one bag each wasn't going to be enough when Postman had like five people in his gang. Inside the van, Madin began to get together an extra bag of odds and ends and whispered "Look, I know that guy's a complete fucking weirdo and so's all his friends. He's been coming around for ages, apparently. He's not..." the handwave was explicitly non explicit. "you know. For food or anything is he?"
He'd rolled his eyes but followed after, watching with the mildest of interest when he noticed that they'd be getting away with food for more than just two people and perking up just a tad. Then the frown returned. "He's not a weirdo, the-" Heat washed off him in waves as the urge to get away from Madin and their implications briefly took over, though he clenched his fists at his sides to keep from anything catching on fire. "No." The word was spat out firmly. "They're not weirdos, they're good people."
"Fucking bullshit they're not weirdos," Madin said. "They live in a sewer but. Here." Madin tossed the bag at Match before climbing back out of the van.
Postman and his crew come to a tough decision about what to do next. He doesn't see staying on there as safe after Eve botched the alarms on the convenience store raid.
Shatter's skin glittered in the light of their torches as he reached out to take the bags from the food pantry from Postman. As he turned his head, the gaping crater on one side became visible.
"Good work, Boss," he said.
"You too, kid," Postman replied gruffly. His eyes scanned the area, every nerve in his body on high alert after the incident a few nights before. It was increasingly difficult to barely survive as a visible mutant on the Chicago streets, and now he had a new kid to take care of. It wasn't the sort of thing that inspired anything resembling good sleep, leaving him on a hair trigger fuse with his nerves at a 14 out of 5. "Anything weird while we were gone?" He guided the younger man in front of him, unwilling to have anyone at his back as he made sure their part of the tunnels were secure.
Shatter shook his head. "It's been real quiet, man. No-one comes down here except the electric company people and they ain't here today."
"I don't see why they even need to," muttered Eve, a battery from one of the flashlights cradled between her hands, face a picture of concentration as she recharged it. They all headed in ahead of Postman, Trader taking point. It was almost half a mile to their base, a series of rooms cordoned off from one of the old tunnels, formerly a sub-sub basement in an office building that no longer existed.
Eve ran the power there, lights daisy chained to car batteries and on days like today, when she felt good, she'd run space heaters, holding the ends of the cords in each hand. Trader began to sort through their supplies while Shatter helped, a practiced set of jobs that the mutants had done a hundred times.
Unsure what to do now, Match watched the goings on with a detached interest. Once again it became glaringly obvious that the group he'd joined up with had all found their place with each other and he was, well, he was the kid that they'd brought in. Turning over the last few days in his mind, he kicked a few loose stones, before coughing then clearing his throat loudly. That Trader and Angel looked at him was enough, and he opted to finally ask. "Is it always this bad during this time or - or is it getting worse?"
Postman let out an aggrieved sigh. "It wasn't always this bad, but it's always been bad. Tale as old as time itself, kid. People're always scared of shit they don't understand, especially if it's stronger than them. Gotta beat it down, lock it up, whatever they can to make sure things conform to their neat little bubbles. It's not just mutants, we just happen to be the weirdest, scariest thing on the block right now, especially after M-Day." He gave the young man a rough pat on the shoulder. "Reminds me." He raised his voice just enough to get the attention of the other three. "Cop a squat, all of you, rest of that shit can wait a few."
He waited until they were settled before speaking again, pacing in agitation as he talked. "It's getting more dangerous out there. Better cameras, faster security. Scoutin' a new area's not the easiest or best idea, when it'd have us open to all that, and fightin for territory besides. We gotta decent thing down here. Thinking we should do our last bit of surface looking, then move deeper into the tunnels for good. Cut ties with the surface."
One by one, the crew put down what they were working on to come and sit by Postman. They didn't always agree with what he said but it paid to listen to him.
"Completely?" asked Shatter. "There's the Deep Tunnel project." He drummed his fingers against the milk crate he sat on, the plastic transforming into crystal.
"Floods," Trader interjected.
"Rarely."
"It won't be safe for Eve, if there's too much damp."
"Eve is right here," said Electric Eve. "I think it will be okay. As long as it's dry enough. "
"You can't go into standing water, though," Trader said, fiercely.
"I remember what happened when I had that powers accident," said Eve.
"No, you don't. We do, though. You could have died." Trader shook his head.
As each member spoke, Match's eyes darted to them, back and forth between Trader and Eve as they argued about the severity of what had happened, to Shatter and Angel speaking so softly he couldn't make out what was being said, and finally to Postman. This was the first he'd heard of either of these instances and learning about them at the same time hit him like a wave. "Wh-" Nerves had him tapping his foot to a beat only he could hear as he tried to figure out what to focus on. "What are the deep tunnels?"
"Quit yer fightin, yer scarin the kid," Postman barked at Eve and Trader in annoyance. He turned back to Match, attempting to be reassuring. "Just what it sounds like. The deep tunnels are designed for floodwater diversion, but there's a few places that are effectively grey space between them and the old freight tunnels we're in now. Don't want another Loop Flood disaster, most likely, so they didn't repurpose some of the empty spaces, or they meant to but forgot." The glint in his eye was a good indicator of exactly how they'd forgotten. "They cover most of the county. Trader's right though, they're not as dry as these."
He turned to the rest of the group. "We done with the bitchin and ready to be useful? We gotta do something. Security's gettin tighter, it's harder an harder to even get scraps. We go deep, we can expand where we safely hit, but it's gonna be a lot of walkin and effort. So work with me here." He gave them all a stern look, then hooked a milk crate with the tip of a boot and dragged it to the rough circle to sit.
Eve shook her head. Her arms were scabbed up and she looked rough at the moment. "I'm hurting," she whined. "I can't just leave it all. Can't just let my damn ex keep going while we run away. I want him to pay." She scratched fretfully at her arms, not saying that she could use a fix, too. Ghosts of electricity flickered around her fingers as she fidgeted.
"My dog." Shatter drummed his fingers against his knees. "I can't leave my dog. He's been in a shelter ever since I -- " He trailed off, gesturing at the hole in the side of his head. He stared into the darkness, clearly not crying. The light shone on the crystals in his skin.
Angel just nodded silently, fidgeting, unable to sit, movement fueled by the anxiety that fed her powers. She circled the group, walking around and around them as they talked.
Trader nodded. "We all got something to close up here, man," he said. "Some kinda loose end that needs to be wrapped up. I agree wit' you, this is dangerous. Cops will be out looking now, especially after --" he cut himself off, and eyed Match. "That was real showy, you know? But what about your damn wife? Don't you want to say goodbye?"
Postman gave him a hard look. "Course I wanna see her again, especially if I'm sayin goodbye. And don't give the kid no grief, you know it's hard to control at first, specially if you don't know you got powers to control. So we all got somethin we wanna wrap up, wanna do a last food run in this area as well if we can. Nothin too flashy. We'll draw lots for the order, only way it'll be fair."
"Okay." The word was soft and Match dropped his eyes, foot still as he weighed what he was agreeing to. And for the first time since the heat that radiated off him cooled and he rubbed his arm. "Lots... lots is good. Okay."