A Year and A Day
Chicago, Illinois
by
Jenn



Chicago, March 8

Dear Jubilee,

God, I'm tired. I've been on the road for sixteen hours. A few minutes ago a bunch of rabbits barreled across the highway. As you are aware, rabbits are hibernating this time of year and I don't even know if Illinois *has* rabbits, so I kind of figured I'd best stop. Hallucinations aside, my foot kept trying to slip off the pedal, so I'm shacking up at yet another flea bitten little motel that if Logan hasn't been in, I'll have to give him the address. He's missed a great opportunity to commune with nature--cat-nature outside the window since I got here, flea-nature all over the damned bed, and something-howling-nature that's too damned close for my peace of mind.

Things I Have Learned:

One--suburbanites are scary

Two--their kids are scarier.

Three--erotica is bad, when mixed with certain kinds of mutants.

Xavier gave me their address and asked me to stop by specifically--seems their youngest kid is definitely--one of us. A telepath, no less, and she manifested damned early, which is really disturbing. She's about twelve and clicks around in the head of anyone in range, which made me edgy the whole time and of course, really inappropriate thoughts kept just bursting to the top of my head every chance they got. I mean, really inappropriate, and that kid giggled every damned time.

She giggled all the way through dinner and even I couldn't focus on mashed potatoes and roast beef through that. She asked me who Logan was and why I was contemplating the chocolate cream pie in relation. Her parents tried to laugh it off, but they watched me after that. Well, they watched me anyway because I explained what I was and why I was dressed as a modern day mummy--I mean, with a kid around, I can't be too careful, right?

Anyway, about this house...

You remember the Stepford Wives, that idiotic movie Bobby made us rent last year? Perfect lawn, perfect house, that guy has his wife-zombie-robot screaming "You're the champ!" or something like that? I'm telling you, I was in one of those houses. It was *clean*, like, everywhere, and I mean everywhere, and there's no way that's natural. There were matching towels everywhere that had, I kid you not, crocheted lace on every conceivable edge and doilies--you know what a doily is, right?--doilies practically leaked off every available surface. I got really freaked when I was in the bathroom and noticed that the toilet wasn't just clean--it was spotless. Like they never used it. And it had this really cute bright pink furry cover that matched this bright pink furry rug and this pepto colored shower curtain--and the crochet-edged towels--which was so disturbing that I didn't want to go anywhere near it. Which meant I had a case of toilet fright and couldn't use it, which meant I took several trips down the street to the convenience store to buy a soda and take a restroom break. They had to wonder why I needed all that caffeine.

And the wife--for some reason, I guess I expected someone like my mom, or maybe Jean if she was older, but no way. Dressed to the housewifely nines, and I think she followed me around the house not to chat but to make sure I didn't track in any dirt. When a leaf fell out of my hair on the floor and she practically threw herself into intervening before it could touch her polished wood floor--oh man, I was soo trying not to laugh. She cleaned the whole time I was talking to her. The husband was--well, he was there and I can't get more specific than that. Real quiet and really--well, faded. Like he was the Stepford Husband, and when I thought of him yelling "You're the champ!", the kid started giggling again and that just--Jubilee, don't go there, ever. Ever, ever, ever.

Well, everything went okay despite my nerves--I told them Xavier's message and they were really glad to hear that Xavier would take the kid--Rachel, by the way--next year. I'm not sure why he's waiting, but in any case, they told me they were glad then subjected me to the life history of the little girl--and you know, she's a cute kid even if she can pick up indecent thoughts out of your head, but no one is cute enough to be worth two and a half hours of pictures and rambling accounts of her manifestation and all that. I know more about this kid's childhood than I know about my own. Natural childbirth, which was described in such loving detail that when I find Logan, he sure as hell better not be interested in kids. Rachel got her first tooth at three months--did you ever hear the like? Potty-trained by nine months. Was doing fractions before anyone in her class. Oh whoopee.

And she was breast-fed, which explains everything, or at least her mother thinks so. Why oh why can't people keep some information to themselves? Is that too much to ask?

Well, I got away as soon as Little Rachel had to be put to bed, and told them I was glad to meet them but had some errands to run and see ya. They walked me to the door--they were in step, I swear--and waved goodbye with the same rhythm and I just about broke the accelerator trying to get out of there.

The worst part--the whole neighborhood was like that. So I drove *really* fast for a long time and it's only pure luck that I didn't get pulled over or anything.

Now to the good stuff.

I found the place Logan stayed here--her name is--take a guess--Randi with an 'i', mind you, and she's a stripper. Red hair, legs that go forever, and the biggest smile I've ever seen on a human face. Very pretty, and very friendly, and when she found out my name, she practically dragged me in her apartment and got me some warm milk.

Warm milk. It gets worse, Jubilee. Way worse

Here's something that should just about make you die. He talks about me. In a little-sister way, which was unbelievably depressing. How smart I was, how well I was doing in school--God, Jubilee, I almost sat down and cried, and if it hadn't been for just how nice she really was, I swear I would have just walked out, because I can get past his thing for Jean and I can get past his cross-country treks, but I can't handle de facto incest. Damn, damn, damn.

Anyway, we got passed that and I asked her when the last time she saw him was and what he was doing. She was really helpful (hear the sarcasm?), shared all kinds of stuff with me that if I was his little sister I shouldn't know about--have these people ever heard that maybe some things should be kept private?--and then told me something that actually turned out to be useful. Logan was scouting out a potential contact, with the ever-so-grandiose nick of Specter, who apparently is also missing. Read this to the Professor--this really caught my attention.

About two weeks after Logan left, some chick showed up at Randi's door looking for him--said he was supposed to help her. Randi didn't know what to do with her and couldn't contact Logan, of course, but remembered the Specter person and sent the girl there. Well, Specter and the girl are gone, not a big shock to this community, but still--well, anyway, the address of the apartment is at the bottom of the letter. It's cleared out--I broke in three nights ago when the manager was less amenable to bribes than one might expect considering the state he was living in. That room was bare--but clean as all hell. Really, really clean, like someone went over it with a toothbrush--and repainted--I could smell the paint still, so it was layered and layered a lot, which makes you wonder what was under it. That was six months ago and the apartment hasn't been rented out or anything. Combine that with that very odd little manager and something's going on.

Okay, back to you, Jubes, and your eyes only here--I went clubbing.

You're asking why. Here's the deal. Randi had a dance--even I'm laughing at that euphemism--at a mightily upscale club. Very chic, you understand, and very private, and she wanted to move up in the world--from fifty dollar strips to five hundred dollar strips, if how she explained it was right. Anyway, her partner Lacey--yeah, her partner, and if you ask what Logan was doing with two, then you're too young to read this letter--was in the hospital, apparently the victim of pneumonia or an STD, who knows which. So she didn't want to go alone. Okay, you've gotten this far, Jubes, and you're saying to yourself--Marie strip? Of course not--me as a stripper would be me as an assassin, not a good idea for a future superhero. No, she just wanted company--Logan, being the charming soul that he is, implied that I was in school to be a bodyguard--well, that's what she got out of it and she isn't too bright, so I left it there. Easier that way anyway. She didn't seem to notice how short I was, and maybe the gloves or something gave me an air of competence--well, it was flattering! Anyway, she asked and I had nothing better to do that night and sitting around the apartment categorizing her sex toys and trying not to imagine what she and Logan did with them--she and Logan and her partner!--well, that was *not* my idea of a good time. So I sucked up my stomach and considered that I was broadening my education and said sure.

Jubilee, if this is what strippers make, we are in the wrong business. I went in black and tried to look mean and sat backstage--and God, in three hours she was up four thousand dollars, I think. It made much better sense why she wanted someone else along. The other girls--for some, you'd have to combine their ages with their height to bring them anywhere near legal--just wandered around and after watching the obsessive interest they seemed to have in the bathroom, I figured they were high on something.

Maybe we're in the right business after all.

And right now, Jubilee, you're asking yourself--Marie, where's the adventure? Where's the fighting, the sweating, the outrunning of something evil or predatory or policeman- like? And if you asked that, if you're asking that right now, I'd have to answer that the part coming up should satisfy you. Because I made a monumentally huge mistake, because I can be so damned stupid.

After Randi--with an 'i'!-got offstage, she, and by extension me, were invited to eat dinner with some of the nice men that run this joint. I should have said no. I should have dragged Randi out of there, because all my instincts were just screaming that we did *not* want to stay for dinner, but Randi was so darned pleased to be asked--well, I fell for it, and I was hungry anyway. The only difference I can see between this club and that place down in the city that Bobby and Remy go is that the men wear much better suits here and drop fifties like the boys drop fives. The guys still ogle--which is the point of these places, I know--and they still use some of the least subtle innuendo I've ever had the misfortune to listen to. Makes Logan sound like a fucking poet. So I'm looking at the food and trying to figure out what it is, because its all covered with some yellow substance that can't be sauce, looks like something you'd sneeze into your tissue, really. And Randi is eating away like there's no tomorrow, and the fact that the guys aren't eating at all doesn't seem to bother her much--and then this girl comes out on stage and that's when I start to get really, really edgy.

She's an empath. Jean didn't train me for nothing--it only took a few seconds before I knew something was really, really wrong.

You got the distinction, right, not telepath? Empath. She picks up and broadcasts emotions and she starts dancing and suddenly the only thing I can think of is how much fun it would be if I could crawl into the lap of the guy next to me, the one that's been feeling me up with his eyes all the time. And then I start really looking at him and you know, he has hazel eyes and he smiles in this way that reminds me of Logan and he has dark hair and he reaches out to touch my cheek and--

--well, you know what happens then.

I get away before he gets really damaged, but those filthy memories are in me and--and God, Jubilee, I want to throw up. Randi doesn't even twitch when this guy almost keels over in her damned lap and suddenly I'm getting a lot of attention and someone says 'mutant'--and the girl on the stage gets all distracted and I get my head clear and that guy on the floor is a short blonde in desperate need of acne cream.

So I'm on my feet and trying to pry Randi out of her chair, and she acts so out of it that I'm wondering what the hell was in that sauce anyway--and this is the worst place to be, because there's only two ways I know of in or out--and our teachers taught me a hell of a lot better than that. And the bouncers--well, they are big and they look trained, and so I only have one real choice here--

"I can kill with a touch!"

Yeah, I actually said it, stripped the glove off my hand and pointed as dramatically as I could at the guy on the floor. Whether they actually believed me or not is another thing altogether, but they're rich little bastards and don't want to die before they can spend their way through their trust fund. They see the poor little boy on the floor, think about their Ferraris, and suddenly like lemmings they are running for the door--nicely blocking those bouncers, by the way--and I get Randi on her feet and drag her up on stage and out the back door while someone yells for the police or security.

Are you laughing? It's raining and Randi's slowly waking up to the fact that maybe something went on in there that wasn't quite right, but by now I have my glove on and try to play it off as a fire drill and she believes me. And we can't get a cab, so we end up walking half the fucking strip before some cabbie who must have been desperate as hell pulled over. I tipped him big. Real big.

When we get back, Randi was in bad shape--I don't know what was in that food or what effect having someone broadcasting erotica directly into your brain does. So I made her some tea and sent her to bed and since she was sleeping and I was staying there--well, I sort of searched her apartment.

I still didn't know where he was. And this was his last known location, seven months and three days ago, so maybe there was something. Anything, though its not really likely. So I search her room--she's so out that I could have done a tap dance on her head at that point--and then the rest of the place, but there's nothing that will help. So I sat down and started thinking of everything she'd told me and I thought about his usual routes through the greater United States--

--and when she woke up I almost tackled her.

"Did he use a rental car?"

She stared at me like I'd lost my mind but she said yes.

So he drove--I had something--and it took two phone calls to some of the people on my list to access the vehicle registration and rental services, and I narrowed it down to five people who left around the same day Randi said he left. Three went to Maine on business, one went to Alaska, and the last headed south, toward--

--toward Mississippi.

So I'm going. Everything in me is saying this is the right way to go. But of all the places, he had to go there.

I gotta get some sleep. Probably on the floor, the fleas are throwing a huge party on the bed. I'll write again when something happens.

Marie Summers



CHAPTERS:   Prologue   Des Moines   Chicago   Jackson   Harlingen   Interlude   Austin/Los Angeles   Seattle   Vancouver   Calgary/Regina/Winnipeg   Niagara Falls   Epilogue




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