first mutant

History will remember July 17^th, 2024 as the day everything changed. On that day, a young boy of 14, we’ll call him John, suffered what the experts like to say spontaneous cryogenesis. If you can’t puzzle that out, he froze up, along with everything around him, including a nurse. The vid showed every part of the hospital room frozen solid. Not just frost along the walls, more like an ice cube. He had been admitted to a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona 4 days earlier. He wasn’t the first mutant to appear, and his existence would have been kept a secret like all the others except for coincidence.

            On that day, at that moment, a local reporter was visiting the hospital. She was outside the room when it happened and as luck would have it, had her trusty hand recorder at the ready and set up to stream to her blog. The event spread across the web in minutes, along with all the theories you will here. She kept recording until the ice started to melt, 4 hours later. Speculation says that’s when John finally died, possibly of asphyxiation.

            After that the lid was blown wide open and information started seeping from the shadows. No one is saying how long mutants had existed before this event; months, maybe even years. In the following months at least a dozen events were reported while panic ensued. Experts arguing about facts they new little about. Preachers quoting the end of the world, claiming mutants were demon-born or some nonsense. Others claiming it was all a hoax. The few rational voices trying to figure out what to do about their kids turned living catastrophe were drown out.

            That was what, three years ago. A lot has happened since then. A few disasters got the community up in arms. Most of the names have been forgotten, we just give em our own names. Not mutant names though. For example, little Amy was shopping at the mall with her parents in Chicago. Rumor says she got in an argument with her mom, but her screams started shrill like a normal 13 year old girl, and then turned super sonic. The death toll was in the hundreds most of the mall was reduced to rubble. No one could get near her to stop her until finally she was silenced by the collapsing roof.

There was no chance really, for those who wanted to protect us. That still saw us as kids; their kids. Fear and paranoia always win out. Spook squads had already been operating in the shadows, but it wasn’t long until they came out in the open. If that wasn’t bad enough, some preachers started organizing witch hunts, claiming we were demons. Then there’s the private citizens that form up militias and hunt us, either out of fear or sport.

Mutant names

Mutant names, true names, soul names, street names. It’s all the same, names we choose for ourselves. Usually descriptive and often arrogant, we want them to inspire fear and respect. After all, that’s the only currency we have out here. Some of our ancestors believed that names held power, that if you knew someone’s real name you could control them. I don’t know about then, but these days a real name can tell you anything. A persons family and medical history. Where they went to school, what their grades were and their bank account. It will cost you of course, but you hate someone enough you’ll pay to hit them where it hurts. That’s reason enough to take new names I suppose. Mutants are mostly kids still so we don’t care about most of that. Mostly it’s about power. A spook yells ‘Halt! Toby Guiness’, I might be inclined to listen. I might hesitate. They tell Riot to stop, well, they’re gonna wish I hadn’t.

A brief history

Ten years ago the American government collapsed. It wasn’t war that did it, or foreign powers. It was debt mostly. The corporations moved in to bail the government out, just as they had been bailed out in the past. However, the damage had been done. With politicians in the pockets of mega-corporations and a lack of funds leaving the central government all but powerless to enforce their laws, the corporations started to become a law unto them selves.

            It was basically a civil war, but it wasn’t the citizens fighting each other. It was security teams, assassins and eventually privatized armies; It was corporate espionage, bought judges and corporate take-over, often enough with a gun instead of a check. The war never spread to the streets though and many people still consider it an urban legend. The delusional rants and conspiracy theories of the paranoid. All they could see was lay-offs and government incompetence. The war lasted years really, or maybe it’s still going on. Things are stable enough now, assuming you don’t mind a corrupt government that’s having it’s strings pulled by corporations with enough money to buy a country and that not only flaunt the law, but are the law in everything but name.

            By the time things stabilized there were 7 mega-corporations standing tall. I’m not gonna name them, you should know if you ever go to a mall or watch a vid screen. The point is those 7 run everything and control everything. That’s not say small businesses don’t exist anymore. You can still live the American dream as long as that dream involves a corporate franchise and paying your dues. Don’t open it on another corporations turf though, some dogs are too loyal.

            It was only a few years ago that the first Eden was built. I’m not sure which corporation built one first, but it wasn’t long before they all had them. Self sustaining cities that put thick walls and a lot of guns between them and the rest of the world. Allegedly to protect the corporation’s assets and their families. The name is appropriate enough though, little paradises amidst the squalor, as long as you ignore the corruption at their heart. Stay as far away from them as you can.

            The comparison of heaven and hell is apt enough. It’s not all squalor though. There’s not much rural area left and it’s owned and fenced off anyway. Theirs still the middle class. Not as much of it, but it’s still there. They live outside the Eden’s but work for the corporations; Factories, retail and services, same as always. It’s just that now there are so many more places they fear to drive.

            It’s the old cities, slums and ghettos that have slowly crept over the land that people avoid. They’re the bad parts of town where gangs and drugs rule, a cancer that has slowly been creeping across the land since before the collapse. Corporate Spook teams will occasionally sweep the streets, killing off or capturing anyone they see, but for the most part they are lawless areas where anything goes and you sleep with one eye open.

            I see the way you’re looking at me. Wondering why I’m giving you a history lesson at a bus stop. It’s simple enough. I know where you’re headed and sometimes, you need to know where you’ve been before you can figure out where you are.

            Too deep for you?

            Let me start over. My names Prophet and I know what you are...

You’re a mutant, a neo-human, one of the reborn, a demon, whatever you want to call it. One day you woke up with powers no human has and you realized you either have to run and hide in hell or spend the rest of your life in a lab. I’m here to tell you how to survive.

            Hmm, Why do I care about you?

            Because I saw the future…and you’re in it.