Rally Time

8:15 AM, Friday, June 30, 2009

A cordon had been drawn around the park to the East of the Stanley Mosk Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles. Already the park was thronging with protesters at least a hundred strong, an eclectic group of people who at first blush could very well have been a random selection from Los Angeles and the surrounding counties, only with a more imaginative palette that, in a few cases, included blue and green and scales and fur. Waving above the energetic crowd was a forest of posterboard signs with slogans like "REGISTRATION IS INHUMAN" and "ABOLISH THE FREAK LIST." Towering over the rest was a vinyl banner stretched between two poles: "END MUTANT REGISTRATION NOW!"

A cheer went up as a large, bearded man with a black T-shirt, sunglasses, and a face for radio mounted the platform near the courthouse steps - most of the assembled recognized him as Don Iverson, an outspoken and inflammatory radio personality who had never been shy about his own mutancy. He took his position and roared into the microphone:

"Good morning, mutants of Los Angeles! Are you ready to make some noise?"

The response was immediate and thunderous.

"In about forty-five minutes, my good friends Jack Covington and Crystal Villanueva will arrive. Now, you all know them for their work on the big screen. You know them as award-winning and industry-defining artists who just happen to have the X-gene. But if that's all you know about them, then you don't know squat. I have been covering the struggle for mutant freedoms against prejudice and oppression for fifteen years, and I have never met any two people with more passion and more dedication to the cause of mutant rights.

"You don't think they understand the threat of Mutant Registration? You don't think they care, just because their identification as mutants is already public? Anyone who thinks that has a lot to learn!"

An air horn squealed from across the street, where another knot of protesters had formed, for the moment standing a respectful distance away from the squad cars and police officers drawing the line between them. Over the cacophony of jeers and maledictions, one of the other crowd shouted, "Go back home, freaks!"

"And they have a lot to learn, too!" Iverson shouted back, drawing another cheer. "This country has to learn that there is strength in the mutant community that goes beyond genetics! We will not be silenced, we will not be controlled, we will not be intimidated into living like animals! Today we will make our voices heard! Jack, Crystal, we're all behind you. Go into that courthouse and give 'em hell!"

The atmosphere in the van was happy excitement. Jamie was riding shotgun, twisting back and saying something to Scott as Anna took the N Spring Street exit off the 101. "Almost there!" she called out, and her passengers began staring out the windows, each trying to be the first to catch sight of the courthouse, and the rally.

In fact, there were a few different courthouses in the same area, and Anna was craning her neck, staring at street signs and trying to figure out where they were going. She drove past a parking lot on the right that was already nearly full, and ended up turning on 3rd Street, hoping to loop back around somehow.

"The Disney Concert Hall is right here!" said Jen, excitedly. "Somewhere!"

Dónde aparcar? Por favor... Anna's head felt like it was on a swivel, but she finally nosed the big van into a parking lot at 3rd and Broadway. She rolled down the window but was just waved in by the lot attendant, so pulled into a spot and put the van in park. At last. She leaned back in her seat, taking a moment to relax while she dug some cash out of her purse, but the side door was already sliding open and everyone was piling out into the sun.

Alex fairly dove out of the van with his picket sign already in hand - double-plied posterboard on the end of a sturdy dowel rod. On one side, in an assortment of magic marker colors, was a list headed "10 Reasons Mutant Registration Is An Assault On Humanity." On the other, in big block letters, was the much more concise, "FOUCAULT WAS RIGHT!".

He lingered by the door of the van to give Lana a hand down whenever she could jostle through the moving bodies, but he took a moment to get his bearings. "The courthouse is on Hill and First," he said. "Okay, there's Hill Street. We just have to follow that to the right until we see the rally. Must be where they're going."

Two women had just climbed out of a Honda a few rows over, carrying a rolled-up banner between them. Then they shook it out and unfurled it:

"KEEP MUTANTS OUT OF OUR SCHOOLS"

"Oh, sure, segregation solves everything!" Alex shouted.

Jane walked the perimeter of the rally, a grande Starbucks cup in her hand that she sipped from occasionally. The crowd was just getting warmed up, more bodies were entering the park every minute, and the knot of opposing protestors across the street weren't being too beligerant. Yet.

"Geryon," she said into her Bluetooth earpiece, "Remember, if you see anyone from Redencion, you stick with them."

"Got it, Zombie," he replied. "Like white on rice."

"Whatever," Jane smiled, taking another drink of her black coffee. "Everyone else in position yet? We're coming up to the beginning of it."

"Heeeere we go," Tess grinned and loped out into the bright sun with Jen right behind her. While there was no sign trailing after her, Tess hadn't left all the advertising up to Alex (not that he wouldn't have done an admirable job of it.) Over her khaki shorts she wore a loose T-shirt, it's plain white cotton adorned with a bright red X across which was silkscreened: LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL?

Shading a hand above her eyes the woman swept a gaze over the milling parking lot. Jeepers there were a ton of people presumably en route and that meant the actual park had to be a hotspot already, filling up fast.

"Are we bringin' this cooler?"

Tess nodded absently and twisted her torso until she was facing Scott, hips and feet still aligned in the other direction. With a friendly wink she snagged the small Igloo soft cooler from him. It was full of water bottles and a few bags of orange slices, supplies for their little band of revolutionaries.

"Thanks," she said. "Anybody need sunscreen? Guarantee the shady spots have been scoped out already."

Pacing towards Jane from the opposite end of the street, Void made no attempt to acknowledge his fellow mutant. Like the rest of the Brotherhood in attendance at the mornings rally, he was incognito – foregoing grease-paint that was a hallmark of his Void identity in favour of a black Motorhead t-shirt and wrap-around shades that covered his solid-black eyes but did little to hold off the headache that the morning sun was giving him. He found an all too rare shady spot on the pavement and fished into the deep pockets of his skate shorts to find a disposable cell phone; it was so outdated and chunky it would have made a good projectile weapon, if the rally escalated into a brawl. His attention wavered between the crowd outside the courthouse and the phone's small screen as he thumbed a text message, selected the addressee – Jocelyn – then clicked send.

It read: Waiting.

“Friends, don't be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you - but rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ!”

As the small circle of people around Saul Nielsen grew, the young men and women at his side – each of them wearing the same inoffensively coloured button-down shirts and beige slacks as Saul himself – moved with smiles to the innermost ring of the crowd where passers-by and protesters alike were offered pamphlets for the 'Church of the Humble.' Saul stood at the centre of the circle, steel-blue eyes almost unblinking as he met the gaze of everyone around him.

“These so-called mutations are not gifts to us, they are a test – a test of our humility! Our Father has given me a single, noble purpose on this earth and that is to help each one of my brothers and sisters show their humility, by giving them the chance to cast aside their mutations – cast aside this strangeness which sets them so far apart from their fellow man – and once again become equal in the eyes of the Lord!”

She paused as everyone piled excitedly out of the van, taking Alex's proffered hand and hopping out after them. Their enthusiasm was infectious, but not enough to completely overcome the peculiar sense of dread she had building deep in the pit of her stomach.

Lana sighed and half-closed her eyes as the blazing sunlight hit her, sighing happily as it sunk into her skin and warmed her. Energy danced across her hands and made her eyes blaze, until a nudge from Alex brought her back to herself. She slipped dark, glittering sunglasses over her eyes and flashed him a sheepish smile, her free hand smoothing out her soft cotton top.

Letting go of Alex's hand, she turned to grin at Tess. "Sunblock? Who needs sunblock?" She quipped, letting her skin glitter brightly for several seconds.

She passed in front of a sign that said "I thought we already did this in the 60s." Veronica didn't get it entirely. Oh sure, she'd heard of the Civil Rights Movement and MLK and that other stuff, but she'd never bothered to read about it. You couldn't blame the public education system if you've never used it.

Veronica knew, like everyone else, that if someone was going to start some shit, it was going to come from the Anti-Mutant protesters. Someone was going to do something dumb like fire a gun at mutant or stab a mutant or pretend to be a mutant and stab/shoot a normal person, and everything would go to hell via priority overnight mail, handbasket optional. Fear makes people do dumb things, especially when you don't know if the blue skinned guy can turn you into a frog or not. Or eat you like a frog. There was a full riot squad on standby, already embedded into the venue, but not on patrol. No, they got to sit in air conditioning. That was fine with Veronica, she felt better out in the open.

She smelled faintly of sunscreen and Gatorade. She held a cheap white umbrella over her shoulder that kept the sun off of her police blues, which mercifully breathed well. Veronica had asked Stern if she could go in pedal patrol clothes, but he had said no because "the people needed to know that the police were there." She didn't think much of that, but suspected it wasn't entirely Stern's idea, given the LAPD's lousy history with race riots. The umbrella had been a gift of compromise.

Saladin's instructions somewhat conflicted with her undercover job, and Veronica wasn't entirely sure how she felt about it.

It was like a day at the carnival. People swarmed in tight congregations, the buzz of innumerable voices raised in tones of excitement and impatience, music was pumped through loudspeakers somewhere nearby and the tang of fried onions lingered on the humid breeze. Everything was bathed in sunlight, skin glistened, the sidewalk sizzled, colours were vibrant, and the masses wore their colours with pride, the colours of confrontation; there was promise in the air.

Cameron meandered aimlessly through the crowds, taking note of the bold banners and the indignant proclamations of their owners with vague interest. It was an impressive sight, if only for the sheer number of protestors involved, a number that was sure to grow with time, and it was still early. He checked his watch and cut a beeline through the swarm towards one of the larger parking lots. There he saw a familiar van and an even more familiar girl, she stood out from her friends, shimmering like an amethyst jewel. A smile, and a confident step, he approached the band of mutants, wearing a shirt emblazoned with the Darwin fish in a show of good faith.

Aimee was holding Jamie's hand, to make sure the girl didn't get lost while Anna locked up the van and the whole group started moving toward Hill Street, Alex enthusiastically leading the way. Although, to be fair, Jamie was already nearly as tall as she was, so Aimee wasn't sure how much good she was doing.

Anna gathered the younger girl, announcing that once everyone was settled she and Jamie were going to go out to lunch with one of her brothers who was in town for something - Aimee's attention was arrested by a head of dark hair and a face with a dimple that was waving at her, and she grinned excitedly, hanging back until Cameron caught up with them.

Scott rolled his eyes at her as he walked by, but gave Cameron a whats up nod before moving on. Aimee threw her arms around her boyfriend, giving him a breathless kiss. "I'm so glad you made it!"

The Redencion House group was getting further away, but she didn't mind being a few feet behind them, her hand tucked safely into his as they followed the crowds to the courthouse.

She felt a little like a mother hen, her chicks bunched up around her as they moved down the sidewalk. Only one remained under her wing, however; Jamie stuck close while the teens began to spread out, some lagging behind, others bounding forward with excitement.

Anna could already feel the heat of the sun on her hair, and reached down to straighten Jamie's baseball cap. "Just a little further, I think!" she said over her shoulder to Tess, the other adult chaperone for their little field trip.

She was wearing a green shirt with Redención House printed on the back, although she'd considered a shirt to match the one Tess was wearing. In the end though Anna had decided that putting a big red X on her frontside was just asking for too much attention. Plus it looked too much like a target.

The group made it to 1st Street, crossing it and then following it toward the park where there were more people than Anna could have imagined. She reached down and gripped Jamie's hand as the crowd thickened around them.

Stern stood near the radio host with his hands behind his back, his goggle-covered eyes on the shifting border between anti and pro-registration protesters. It shifted and squirmed, reminding the mutant officer of a fault line.

Nearer the crowd stood several of his own MCU officers and some other uniforms from the LAPD. Stern had the officers lined up mutant-mundane-mutant-mundane, so as not to segregate his force and possibly create in-fighting amongst them.

He saw Hu and nodded with satisfaction. He was really starting to rely on her. Stern looked at the rest of the officers and hoped they would prove just as reliable in maintaining peace and order with neutral standing to the two sides.

Just in case, he had a riot team tucked away. He really hoped he wouldn't need them.

"Hey, Mutie!"

Flux briefly glanced over the top of his book to the guard, a Chinese-American man today, and considered stooping to that level and returning the slur. He decided to be the superior man he knew he was and continued to read.

"Your freak buddies are out at the courthouse rallying against the Registration Act. Cops are gonna shut their shit down real fast and ain't nuthin' you can do to stop 'em. We're gonna fill the place this afternoon. How you like that?"

Flux turned a page. "I like it very much. If you bring my brothers and sisters here, I won't have to go find them later when I decide to escape and destroy this place." His nonchalance seemed to unnerve the guard, and he was glad when the jailer stepped back out and locked the heavy doors. Flux raised a fist as the guard cast a surreptitious glance back into the cell.

Power to the Powered. Long live the Mutants.

Alex led the procession arm-in-arm with Lana, and he had to actively restrain himself to keep from pulling Lana out of her shoes. The park was a veritable who's who of mutant rights advocacy - a dozen or so groups were flying their banners in the sticky June air, from national organizations to associations so grassroots you could smell the copy toner on their signs.

Alex had his own homemade sign tucked under one arm to keep it out of the wind, but that didn't stop him from playing tour guide to Lana. "That group of green shirts, that's the Friends of Genetic Freedom. They publish (r)Evolution Monthly. There's Mutant Voice, they're a little mainstream for my tastes, but at least they're on the right side here... Freakwatch, seriously? They've got cojones showing up around this many cops. And over there--"

He stopped short at the sight of someone who had cleared himself a spot in the shade the way planets clear their orbital neighborhoods - a mountain of a man with a cutoff T-shirt and a thick mane of black hair tied into a large braid.

"Speaking of cojones," Alex muttered.

Geryon had seen the Redencion contingent and raised a huge hand to wave them over. "Hey. There's room over here."

Pulling her cellphone out from the small case dangling from her wrist, Spectre read the message and smiled as she tapped one back, telling him she was on her way.

She was waiting for the two beverages she had ordered from the vendor cart hawking drinks at the increasing number of people showing up for the rally. If there weren't so many haters, it might have looked like a freaky festival of some kind. Maybe someday..

Today she was on her very best incognito behavior. She had actually paid for the drinks, even left the man a tip all in her effort to follow orders. She had an important detail today. The group she was keeping tabs on was in view, one girl in particular had her attention. Tilting her head down, the wide brim of her hat shielded her identity as they passed right by her. She was just another lady in a white sundress, buying drinks for herself and her sweetie.

Turning in the opposite direction, she crossed through a line of pitch fork waving, propaganda spewing, assholes. She managed to not plant the idea in their heads to start gnawing on each others body parts, too early in the day for that sort of thing.

Spectre came up behind her partner on silent, sandaled feet, pressing one of the frosty plastic cups of lemonade to the back of his neck in greeting.

Officer Lorrance Duquesne ambled up beside Stern, hands clasped behind his back, a crop of sweat glistening on his bald head in the searing June sun. "It's a damned circus," he muttered. "I just inspected our whole perimeter. No one's crossing our line without us seeing it, but..."

He nodded toward the two streams of human traffic adding to both groups of protesters by the second. "Nothing to stop someone just walking into the wrong crowd and causing trouble."

They'd be stupid to do it, of course, mutant or non, but Duqesne had learned never to underestimate the human capacity for stupidity, especially when there was a whole crowd to egg them on.

Duke pointed at the massive man occupying a healthy chunk of real estate beneath a spreading Japanese maple tree, impossible to miss. "That man, the big islander. That's Noah Makaha, alias Geryon. He's a confirmed member of the Brotherhood. If he's here, chances are he's not alone."

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aimee Connors

"I'm so glad you made it!"

---

"You're beautiful. How could I miss out on that?"

Their fingers interlocked on instinct. Hand-in-hand with Aimee, she was beginning to feel like a natural extension of himself, and Cameron looked giddy to have her at his side. In tow with the rest of the group, they strolled pleasantly through the crowds, allowing Alex and a few others to form their more vocal element.

When they arrived at the stretching maple tree, Cameron gave the burly stranger a nod in greeting and an echo of a smile. Pressed against the trunk, he held Aimee close, content to observe the proceedings with the ease of a spectator on a golf course.

"Seeing all these protestors is giving me the strange urge to burn your bra. Is that weird?"

She giggled, tucked against his side and watching the commotion around them. "Well its not normal!" His fingers plucked at a strap under her shirt, and Aimee swatted his hand away, still laughing.

Noah - or Geryon as he liked to be called - had been around the House a few times in the last month, so she had recognized him when he called out to them. However, he made her nervous, mostly just because of his sheer size. She felt like a chihuahua next to a mastiff, as though he could step on her by accident and never even notice.

Aimee strained up on her tip toes, trying to look over the heads of the crowd. "Are Jack and Crystal here yet? I can't believe they're really going to be here."

Life had a funny way of repeating itself, tossing out instant replays of places or people from the past. Sometimes it was a nostalgic interlude and other times it was just awkward. This was one of the latter. Tess stared at Noah, overcome by the unnerving sensation of suddenly being two people all at once - herself and someone long since left behind, an old shed skin from another time and place. Back in New York, when she and Geryon had lived in the same Brotherhood-funded apartment and she'd gone by Cirque.

It all seemed so ridiculous now. Tess's jaw tightened and she raised a stiff hand in acknowledgment. Geryon was still part of the dangerous extremist organization, yes, but he was ultimately a sweet guy and she couldn't disregard entirely the friend he had once been.

Still, it was with a tense expression that she threaded through the crowd toward him. Tess had no intention of hunkering down next to the massive Samoan. The Brotherhood didn't work in singularities.

When she got near enough to make shouting unnecessary, she greeted him a terse nod and skipped right over pleasantries. "Where're your buddies, Geryon?"