Anomalies: Control

“Hey Charge, can I ask a favor?” Tracker poked her head into the kitchen where Cole was seated with Banshee, Duplicate, and a nomad that had been hanging around the last few days, Jacob. He wasn’t sure his power, but he was nice, and friendly, and Cole hadn’t pressed it. The others looked from Tracker to him, and he nodded.

“Of course. What’s up?”

“I told Kane I’d meet him at the metro station over on Wisconsin, but Maggie asked me to go with her to find a runaway someone told her about, and I can’t not go. Would you mind meeting Kane for me, so he doesn’t have to walk alone?”

They all tried to let each other walk alone as little as possible. Kane and Banshee were the ones with active social lives with people outside the Anomaly circles, and they were often coming and going to meet people. Tracker worried about Kane, and even Kane had moments of hypocrisy and worried about Banshee going out so often, because they’d be out of range of help from the rest of Skye, and Tracker was apparently obsessively insistent about meeting them when they were due to come back.

So he rose from the table, already nodding. “’Course. Is he due in soon?”

“About twenty minutes.”

He went to the hall closet to grab his jacket, and already had it on one arm as he reached for the door handle. “I’ll be back guys!” He called to the kitchen, letting the door shut behind him.

He jogged most of the way there, worried he’d be late and leave Kane standing around. He may not like the guy, but that didn’t mean he wanted him lingering suspiciously on the street corner.

He hadn’t thought much about why he still didn’t like Kane; he assumed it was simply the continuation of his original dislike. Kane had a lot of good qualities, he was decisive and protective, but he had a quick temper. There were a lot of faults Cole could overlook, but a quick temper was really hit or miss for him. Rune had one, Tracker too, but theirs seemed to only flare up in defense of themselves or someone they cared about, and neither woman really varied from her usual annoyed and sullen. Kane flipped from happy to pissed off and back to calm almost too quickly to follow sometimes, and that unpredictability was something Cole just didn’t trust.

Banshee trusted him, though, as did Tracker and Tech and most of the others, and he’d never given Cole a reason to truly dislike him, so the two remained acquaintances, if not actual friends.

He reached the corner before Kane, and found himself a nondescript spot on the wall to linger, taking a phone out of his jacket pocket and pretending to fiddle with it. The phone itself didn’t work; it wasn’t even charged because none of the discarded phones the Skye residents had collected over time actually worked, they were just props to blend in with the crowds. Tech didn’t trust phones because they could be traced, even the supposed ‘burner’ phones had new technology in them that could allow a trace if someone wanted it bad enough and had the right connections.

“Cole?”

It wasn’t so much the use of his actual name as it was the familiar voice that said it that made him look up at the familiar brunette that was staring at him. “Lily.”

Her jaw was hanging slack, but it only took a few seconds for her expression to change to surprised delight. “Oh my god, Cole!” She crossed the few feet between them from when she’d passed him, and hugged him. “How are you? I can’t believe you’re here, you’re-” she cut off what she was about to say, looking abashed, and he laughed, slipping the useless phone into his pocket and hugging her tightly.

“Alive, you can say it, we were all thinking it when I left.”

They let go of each other and she stepped back, running a hand through her tawny hair, and smiled at the ground for a moment before lifting that nervous smile to him, and his expression suddenly turned worried. “Are Greg or Laurel here with you?” It was unusual for Lily to be so far from home without someone with her. The kids were pretty free to do what they wanted, but they usually kept to their own microdisctricts, or the ones immediately surrounding their own.

“No!” She rushed to assure him. “No they’re not here. I, uhm, I don’t… live… with them anymore.”

He grinned, hugging her again. “That’s great, Lil. Did a job open up, let you get out early?” She was younger than Cole and Henry both, a year under Cole, ten months under Henry, but she wouldn’t be the first to have the chance to leave a foster home early if the right opportunity presented itself. Lily was cute, and polite, and smart; he’d easily believe she found a fair job early.

“Uhm, no, not exactly. Hen… Henry, actually, found a job. Sort of, anyway. He’s a paid intern at a law firm, and they gave him a scholarship so he can go to university and law school. So he got an apartment and he… invited me to live with him, so I could leave Greg and Laurel’s house.”

It took him a second to respond, but eventually he did, and managed to smile while doing it. “That’s great. How is Henry?”

“He’s… he’s Henry.” She laughed. “So it’s a little over organized and a little intense sometimes, but overall it’s good. And I’m out of Laurel’s house and that just feels amazing.”

“I bet. Are you looking for jobs yet?”

“I’ve started. I’m not done with school for another year, but Henry said it couldn’t hurt to start looking early.”

“Smart advice.”

“He’s trying to convince me to take a part time job at the firm, but I don’t know if that’s because he wants me to bring in money to the apartment or because he wants me to decide I like being at the firm and work there forever. I mean, I’d be alright if it was the former, but I just don’t know if law’s where I want to be, and even if I do go into law, it’s going to be hard to basically compete against Henry for a job there. I just, I get the feeling that Henry wants-” She shrugged, cutting herself off, and shook her head. “I’m so sorry, I finally run into you and here I am just babbling about bullcrap. How are you? How have you been, how’s everything been?”

“No, no it’s fine. I’ve been alright, things have been alright.”

“Where are you living?”

“With some friends.” The lie slipped so easily he surprised himself a little. It was technically truthful, vague enough to not give her details and clear enough to hopefully discourage questions.

“That’s good. I’m really happy for you, and to see you! We should-”

A pointed throat clearing to their right made them look to see Kane lingering a few paces away, trying and failing to look like he hadn’t been listening to them while he tried to get Cole’s attention. “Hey man.” Cole nodded to Kane and turned to Lily with an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Lil, I’ve got to go. It was good seeing you though.”

“Wait, let me get your number, we can get together, have lunch or something.”

“All I’ve got right now is a friend’s phone,” he started to explain, not wanting to touch on the fact there was no number she could reach him at, but it didn’t deter her.

“Here,” she reached into her bag and pulled out a pen and a little scrap of paper, scribbled a phone number and held it out to him. “Have mine, then.”

“We should go.” Kane said softly, and Cole nodded, backing away from Lily a step.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Lil. I’ve got to go.”

Lily was a lot of things, naïve among them, but she was also a perfect example of how naïve didn’t always mean stupid. It only took a few seconds of confusion before the meaning of his denial dawned on her, and she nodded, matching his step away. “Right. Well, maybe we’ll run into each other again.”

He just nodded and she trotted off toward the metro line Kane had come from, and Kane fell into step alongside Cole as the two turned to start walking home.

Kane managed a whole two minutes before curiosity got the best of him. “So who was that?”

“An old friend.”

“I gathered that much.” Kane snorted.

“That’s all.”

“Didn’t look like all to me.”

Cole threw the older man a baffled look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Means it looked like you two were more than just passing friends.” He couldn’t tell if Kane was serious, or just messing with him. Maybe enjoying messing with him while being serious. It was hard to tell with Kane sometimes when he was in a good mood; his serious talk always had a lighthearted tone when he was in a good mood.

“We spent some time in the same foster home, alright? Drop it.”

“Ooh, touchy.”

“Shut up.”

Kane laughed and fell silent for a few minutes, but it didn’t last long. “Foster home, huh?” Cole only sighed in response, making Kane chuckle again. “How long?”

“Does it matter?”

“Only because you’re so secretive about it, which makes me think you’re either hiding a dirty secret or hiding a major crush on the girl that just left. And I don’t think you have any dirty secrets, Charge.” He wiggled his eyebrows at Cole, who finally gave in and laughed with the Exceptional.

“I am not, nor have I ever crushed on Lily.” At least not in the typical way. He’d had crushes before, but his feelings for Lily were different. He’d watched out for her since she’d come to the Callahan home, when she was just eleven to his twelve. She’d been taken from a neglectful home, and she’d been scared and skittish and wanted her parents more than anything else. Cole had been the one to comfort her, to show her where the snacks were kept and the best time to sneak an extra one behind Greg and Laurel’s backs, the one who gave in and watched sad girly movies when she was having a bad day. Henry came two years after Lily had, and the two fourteen year old boys had tread lightly around each other at first, two dogs being brought into the same house and trying to figure out who was dominant. Lily had been the one to make them focus on their similarities instead of their differences, and the one to spark a friendship between the two boys.

He didn’t always trust Henry around Lily; by the time Henry had arrived, the trio weren’t little kids stuck in a strange house together, they were teenagers trying to protect themselves and become the people they needed to become, and Henry had always liked Lily as more than a foster sibling. Cole didn’t think it was jealousy that prompted his distrust, it was that crushes on each other could be dangerous in situations like theirs. And a little because he thought Henry and his steamroller personality would crush whatever individualism Lily had.

“Alright, man, whatever you say.”

“If you want to talk about girls, why don’t you talk about Tracker?” He wasn’t sure what prompted him to even say it aloud, but he couldn’t deny the curiosity of Kane and Tracker’s relationship. They were constantly around each other, always on each other’s sides, and both paced like caged tigers when the other was outside Skye or the house.

“What about her?”

“You two seem pretty close. Is there anything going on there?”

“With me and Track? Nah. We’re close, but we’re more like Lights and Gaia than Tech and Maggie.”

“Did you two know each other before you got to Skye?”

“Yeah, a little. We’d crossed paths before, but we weren’t as close as we became after we got to Skye.”

“You arrived at Skye together?”

“You ask a lot of questions, Charge.” The words seemed irritable, but the Exceptional was still smiling, and his tone wasn’t irritable. “Yeah, I brought her to Skye. I’d heard about it through Banshee, and Track was in a bad place, so I brought her along and we both just… never really left.” He shrugged.

“I do, sorry.” He wanted to ask what sort of bad place Tracker had been in, but he didn’t want to flip that temper switch of Kane’s. Silence was definitely the better option.

But then Kane clapped a hand on Cole’s shoulder. “No worries, Charge. You’re one of us, makes sense you’d want to know who you’re dealing with.”

“Yeah.”

Kane shook Cole’s shoulder before he let go. “I didn’t mean shut up. Ask away. Just know there’s going to be a few dead end answers where Track’s concerned.”

Cole smiled a little. “Ok then… how about you? I know you and Banshee have friends outside Skye, how do keep that going?”

“It’s easy for me and Bansh. We don’t have anything that that would make us stand out from the crowds. Banshee’s parents kept her under wraps for a while, but kicked her out when she graduated, so she pretty much just keeps up appearances and acts like she’s in her own place and works a job and all that good stuff. I pretty much do the same, met some friends at bars, diners- Ken, one of my good friends, I met playing Frisbee golf in a park. It’s just a matter of keeping your private life separate from your social life.”

“Why didn’t more of you do that?”

“Different reasons. Some of us don’t like fraternizing-”

“Please tell me that’s an exact quote.”

Kane laughed and nodded. “From Lisa. She’s not a fan of non-Anomalies. Plus she and Suki are on some watch list because of the whole thing in South Dakota. As is Tech, and the triplets, and Lights-”

“Lights?” How did that cheery, energetic boy get onto a watch list?

“Yeah, apparently he got labeled when his ability finally showed, and he accidentally caused a blackout in his school. He got away with help from Gaia, but according to the two of them, only Lights’ name is on a list.”

“I didn’t know he could even do that.”

“The sad part for him is that it was a fluke incident. He hasn’t been able to duplicate it yet, only small things; individual lightbulbs, he can make multiple lights flicker all at once, and he’s learned how to turn on a string of them, but he needs to concentrate and as you’re probably aware, concentrating is not Lights’ strong suit.” He was still chuckling, and Cole joined him.

“Wow, I’d have never guessed.”

“Duplicate’s on a list too, she’s pretty wanted.”

He couldn’t help his jaw dropping a little at the mention of the girl he’d been chatting casually with at the table with Banshee and the new arrival Jacob. Another person he wouldn’t have pegged as being wanted in any way, shape or form. She wasn’t overly friendly like Banshee, or overly standoffish like Rune and Tracker. She was just… quiet. “Duplicate, really?”

Kane grinned at him like they were sharing a joke, but it fell after a second when Cole didn’t laugh along with him. “She- yeah. You, you don’t recognize her?” Cole shook his head, and Kane let out a loud laugh, startling the couple passing them on the sidewalk. “Dude, you need to talk to her, she’s got a killer story. She used to be a model, famous for overbooking and somehow always showing up to every shoot she booked.”

Cole laughed. “By duplicating herself.” He realized.

“It gets better. By day, fun loving model with scheduling issues, by night: jewelry store thief. They called the robberies team jobs, and nicknamed them ‘the clockwork thieves’ because they were always in and out in a few minutes, and they always broke in to separate stores on the same night, at the same time.”

“Wow…”

“Tell me about it.”

“How did I not hear about this?”

“Because it mostly happened overseas. Which is why she’s currently hiding out here, where she doesn’t have any active warrants. She thinks she’s on the list because the Pravitas department figured out that the robberies were Anomaly caused, but as far as she knows they haven’t connected her real identity to the robberies. They’re the ones that gave her her nickname, because they just have her listed as The Duplicate.”

Cole opened his mouth to respond, but he really didn’t have anything to add to that. They rounded the corner to Tech’s house, and they reached the house in not-entirely-awkward silence. They trotted into the house and Kane immediately went back to the kitchen, and Cole followed, hoping to pick back up his conversation with the girls and Jacob, and knowing that Kane was going to eventually ask where Tracker was. “Track’s out with Maggie looking for a new Anomaly runaway, she should be back soon.”

Kane nodded and took claim of a chair at the table. Banshee had vacated the room, but Duplicate and Jacob were still sitting next to each other, engrossed in conversation until Kane plopped into the middle of their chatting. Duplicate rolled her eyes, shooting a smile at Kane. “Interrupt much?”

“Aww, Duplicate, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you wanted me to leave you alone so you could keep flirting with newbie.”

Her face flushed beet red and Jacob smothered a smile. Duplicate glared at Kane, kicking him under the table. “Go away, asshole.”

Kane laughed but got up, ruffling Duplicate’s dark hair and jogging out of the kitchen when she swiped at him. “Whatever little girl, I’m gonna go find someone who actually wants my company.”

“Good luck with that!” She shouted after him, propping her elbows on the table and hiding her face in her hands. “I’m so sorry about that, Jake.”

Jacob was biting back a smile and shook his head. “No, it’s- it’s fine.” She refused to uncover her face and he reached over to nudge her with his elbow. “Oh c’mon, there are worst things than being accused of flirting.”

“Very few.” She mumbled past her hands.

Cole held back a laugh and left the two of them to the kitchen, grabbing a soda from the refrigerator and heading to the living room to relax on the couch and go back to obsessing over plans to get their missing members.