The STaff Lounge

I was running faster and faster. The people following me were getting closer and closer. If they caught me, they would drag me back to their dimension. So I kept running. I checked again and they were even closer, so close that, if I had been able to see, I would’ve seen the whites of their eyes. I shouted for my brother, but there was no response. One of them reached for me and I disappeared. At least to them. In reality I was still exactly where I had been. I had stopped running because there was no need for me to run anymore, they couldn’t see me. I observed them for a moment to make sure they were confused, and then I spread my wings and took off, flying to the safety of my brother’s room and my staff lounge. But before I reached it, I woke up.
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There was a small beeping noise when I woke up and, seeing as the clock said it was 3 o’clock in the morning, I assumed it was an alert.
“Computer, what the heck’s going on?” I asked tiredly, still hoping it was a malfunction or something.
“Five mutants have been found and are waiting to be picked up by the Scientist. Oh, and Spike is one of them.” The computer had a British accent and a happy tone in its feminine voice, even though it was 3 in the morning. I groaned. “How is it so happy?” I thought.
“Alright, let’s get this over with. Why can’t this ever happen before I go to sleep?” I thought aloud. Thus began the tedious business of meeting, greeting, and assigning rooms to the four random people that the MAD deemed too dangerous to contain.
The first one I met was a 17 year old boy named Anthony Spencer and he did not want to recognize that I was way above him in the chain of command. Next, there was a British girl about the same age and with the same attitude. Her name is Avalon Baxter. After she had been set up with a room opposite Anthony’s, a boy who didn’t know his age came in. He guessed he was about 15 or 16 years old and went by the name of Pen. He was blind, but he was very good at using his hands to see. The last of the strangers was called Zane. He also guessed that he was 15 or 16 years old.
After sending him on his way to his room, I met with Spike. Spike is my 14 year old robot that I made to age, sent back in time, and helped get out of his recently deceased foster family. The reason I’m proud to call him my creation is the fact that I made him to grow and change like a normal boy. After his foster family died, I decided to use him to get information on certain people or mutants. This was the fifth time he’s gotten captured by the MAD, so let’s just say he’s definitely not a good spy.
“What happened this time, Spike?” I was getting sick of doing this.
“They snuck up on me from behind while I was talking to Robby. He got away but I was tranquilized and captured.”
“You jeopardized the mark? I mean I don’t exactly like the guy but the information he could supply is very important. Because of that you’re not allowed out of the Staff Lounge for 2 weeks. Then you’ll go talk to the Block-head and figure out what he knows. Get it?”
“Got it.”
“Good. Go on to your room. I’ll check in with you tomorrow.” He nodded his head in response as he left. After he did, I rolled over and fell asleep. This time there was no dream.
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When I woke up this time, it was because I wanted to. I checked to see who was up and moving in the Staff Lounge, then I headed downstairs for my Saturday morning breakfast.
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Anthony Spencer had been lying awake in his bed for about 20 minutes. When he finally sat up he didn’t know what to think. He thought he had fallen asleep in a plain white room, but now he was in the center of a volcano. He couldn’t figure out what surprised him more: the fact he had fallen asleep or where he had fallen asleep. He didn’t display this surprise in any visible way. He just got up and went for the door.

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Pen twitched his hands as he woke up. For him, it was the equivalent of blinking a few times before opening his eyes. He got up slowly, and as he got up, he searched his mind for the mental map of the room that he had made last night. He had almost remembered enough of it to get out of the bed when he realized how useless it was. The room had changed overnight. Instead of being a small, yet comfortable, plainly furnished room, he was now in a cave. He got up to explore the cave and discovered that there was a flow of moist air coming from the north side of the cave. He walked in that direction and fell off a cliff. He reacted quickly by unfurling his wings and sloping upwards towards the cliff face. He smiled to himself as he landed and walked in a straight line to the back wall. “Just like with the hawks.” He thought as he searched the wall for a door. After a few minutes of searching, he found one off to the right of the bed. He slowly turned the knob and pressed the door open right in front of a boy that was walking down the hall.

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Anthony easily side-stepped the opening door and turned to see who had opened it. The boy stopped right before he ran into Anthony. The boy was about the same height as Anthony but was obviously younger. He had light blond hair and wore lose fitting kakis with a plain white shirt about a size to big. His eyes were a faded blue color that looked almost grey. The boy blinked and twitched his hands.
“Hi, I’m Pen. Were you brought here last night too or have you been here for a while?” Pen had a smoother, slightly higher voice than Anthony. His face had hints of kindness, pain, and rebelliousness in it all at the same time.
“Tony. I got here last night.” Tony’s voice was gravely and slightly deep for his age. It was hash and degrading. He knew that no one enjoyed talking to him because of that, but he wasn’t too worried about it because his job was to stay invisible. Pen seemed unaffected by Tony’s tone.
“So, do you know why we’re here?” Pen wondered aloud.
“We’re here because the Mutant Accommodations Department thinks we are too dangerous to contain in one of their facilities.” Tony explained coldly.
“How am I to dangerous? I can’t do anything but fly.” Pen said sounding confused and angry.
Tony snorted. “They know more about us than we do.” Tony turned and walked away before Pan could respond. “Why wasn’t he looking at me?” Tony wondered looking at the floor. He looked up and almost froze to the spot.
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Avalon Baxter had woken up beside a volcano after being captured by the MAD and sent to the craziest person in the world the night before. In short, she wasn’t having a good day. The look in her eyes said that she was going to go off at anything that wasn’t to her liking, even if it was only someone breathing to loudly. Looking up and seeing Anthony Spencer, the boy who had broken her best friend’s heart and then convinced her to abandon Avalon and Lizzy, was exactly what she needed to let out her anger. He made her blood boil on a good day, but today his appearance turned her sight red.

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Tony looked right at Ava, who was attempting to kill him with her eyes while preparing to kill him for real. He understood why she hated him and he wasn’t allowed to tell her what had actually happened. From her point of view, he had tried to date her best friend and then broken her friend’s heart. Then he came back and convinced her friend to leave Ava and their school to supposedly protect her friends. In reality, Tony’s job had been to protect Ava from her friend’s identity and enemies. In the end his last order had been to get her friend out of their school to protect everyone at that school from her enemies.
Now that they were face to face, he noticed a new fire in her eyes. It wasn’t like the fire people had in their eyes when they were angry, it was almost like the fire in his eyes. Before he finished thinking through what that meant, Ava pounced at him knocking him to the ground before he could side-step her. Against his better judgment, he fought back. He threw her across the hall, making her hit the wall hard. He got up and watched her take an offensive stance.
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Ava circled carefully, looking for a week spot on her chosen victim. She noticed Tony preferred his left leg. She assumed that he had received a recent injury on the right leg. She took advantage of this knowledge and struck out with a quick blow to his right knee. He stumbled backwards slightly, and she landed round-house kick him on the chest. He fell back into the wall. Bex blinked and he was gone. “Wimp. Where did you go?” She thought looking around. She decided that he had probably gone left and started looking in that direction.
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