Outdoor Adventures
Even though she had been in that facility for that long, she did not know the other mutants that were there with her. She supposed there had to be others, it seemed like too big of an operation for it to be just for her. She was special, but not that special. With time, she was proved right.
Whoever it was that was behind this, that person clearly wasn’t dumb. Put a bunch of mutants locked up together and they’ll riot and breakout. Put them separated, and suddenly they are much easier to control. Not that much easier tho.
The first time she ran away she was just sixteen years old. That’s when she met Celia.
Celia was the lovely old lady that erased Summer’s memories every time she ran away, so that she wouldn’t know how she did it or where she went. Now, you would think that that’s a terrible thing to do and that Summer despised Celia for that. But Summer knew better. That woman probably wouldn’t be erasing no one’s memory if she wasn’t being forced to. Celia had an amiable face and white hairs starting to creep their way amidst her dark blond locks. She could be somebody’s mother, or somebody’s grandmother.
In her time there, Summer had attempted to break out a record twenty-three times, making it out of the gates a total of four times. So yeah, she saw Celia an awful lot.
All she knew for those many years was her unbearably white room, her rigorous everyday routine, and her many, many attempts to get out.
Life in the white room wasn’t all bad. She woke up every day at 5am to the blinding white lights turning on. She had nutritiously balanced and completely tasteless meals about three times a day. She was encouraged to study and obligated to practice controlling her powers. Eventually, she got poked around like a rat lab while they ran tests on her. And on your birthday you even got to pick which cake flavour you wanted.
They were all about extending her abilities to the max to see just how far she could go; to see what she could really do and how they could use that. She never got to know what they wanted from her. Granted, gravity control wasn’t something that could be easily weaponized. It’s not like she shot laser from her eyes or something. She merely controlled gravity at will. What they could possibly do with that? What they could possibly do with her?
That many years of practice made her take complete control of her abilities. It was probably the one good thing that came out of that place. And the cake.
Though she had no memories of her outdoor adventures - thanks to Celia - she still thought that escaping was worth it. Those few days she spent out of there were better than a whole life locked in a white room. One day she was going to run away and they wouldn’t be able to catch her back. And then she would be free.
For the longest time, Celia was the only other person Summer knew that was in the same situation as her. That was until she met Tracker. She hated him with all her gut. It was one of those hate at first sight kind of relationships, but oh boy, he did deserve to be hated.
Tracker was stuck there just like her, but he acted like he wasn’t. He acted like he was important, like the men in white were his close friends, like they saw any value in him as a person and not only as a tool.
Tracker had the ability to track people down, that’s where the name came from. Summer had no idea how he did it, if it was smell, body heat or what not. He just knew how to find you no matter what.
Summer also had no idea what his real name was. Tracker was just how they called him. Like how they called her Gravity, just to get on her nerves. It was supposed to diminish her, reduce her to her powers and make her feel less like a person. She wouldn’t give them the pleasure of that.
She couldn’t remember - thanks to Celia - but every time she ran away, Tracker was the one they sent to help find her. He did so willingly, and he was sick for it.
In her non erased memories, the first time they met was when they decided that Tracker needed someone to help him practice his abilities. It made sense: if he was going to practice finding people, he needed someone to find. They decided that Gravity would be perfect for the job.
They secluded a wooded area the size of six football fields for them to practice. Summer wanted to believe that the gigantic electric dome that prevented them from actually escaping was there for other reasons than to just let Tracker have is fun. He couldn’t be that important, it wouldn’t be good for his already inflated ego.
That day, Summer had been drafted to help Tracker practice his thing again. They would release then both in that controlled area, and then Tracker had to find her. They both had done that practice exercise together before; it was a nice change from being stuck in her white room all day, so Summer never complained about doing it; at least not as much as she complained about having to do anything else.
The thing is: something went wrong that day. She wasn’t exactly sure what she had done, but Tracker was not finding her. Maybe he was just that bad.
It had been five hours, and still he couldn’t find her. The men in white were losing their patience. And it was getting dark out.
It was ridiculous, actually. She was simply standing in a big branch on top of a very tall tree, watching as he practically cried to the guards saying he couldn’t find her.
She could’ve turned herself in. Sure, when they inevitably found her she was going to hear about it. They might even punish her; they sure knew how to do that. But where was the fun in surrendering?
No, this was going somewhere.
Suddenly, there were dozens of guards looking for her, and still nothing. Seven hours had passed since they started that little game and now everyone was convinced she somehow managed to ran away. Was she always that good at hiding and seek?
And then there it was. A literal opening. They opened the gate to look for her outside the secluded forest area. And they left the gate open. Guarded, but open. She watched as just two guards stood between her and her freedom. They couldn’t stop her forever.
And that’s how she attempted her twenty-fourth escape, successfully making it out of that god dammed complex. She’s been out in the world as a free woman for the past thirty-seven days. She had no memory of all the other times, but she was sure that had to be a new record.
The key, she quickly discovered, was not staying in the same town for too long. Something about moving cities threw Tracker off every time and it took him sometime to somehow detect some trace of her again.
And they had caught up to her once again. So it was time to move.
“I want to help.” Peter said as soon as it sounded like she had finished the story.
It surprised him that she finally decided to open up to him, so he paid very close attention to everything she said. And what he made out of it was that he wanted to help her to never go back to that place.
She’d be lying if she said that asking for his help didn’t cross her mind. Peter clearly was a mutant like her, which could be very handy for her in the future. She could somehow convince him to run away with her. Maybe she could seduce him.
The thought was discarded as fast as it came to her. She could not use Peter like that; not more than she had already used him. He had a lovely family that loved him, she wouldn’t want to take him away from them. She couldn’t put his life in danger like that.
“Thank you, Peter. Truly. But you have done more than enough.” Summer just shrugged him off.
“I’m serious. Let me help you.” She looked into his eyes. He was determined. He really meant it.
“Look, I’m already sorry they came to your house. I don’t want you to get hurt because of me.” He scoffed.
“Darling, they can’t hurt me. I’ve broken into the pentagon. I saved a hundred kids from an explosion. Actually, I saved the world once. Most of those where in the same day. I’m sure I can handle them” Peter wasn’t one to brag, he wasn’t sure he was doing this right. He wasn’t. And she looked like she was not buying it.
He got up and grabbed a frame from the corridor wall. Peter was never an overachiever, so that one time he saved the world, his mom framed the newspaper. Printed there was a picture of him and his friends and a title that read ‘X-men save the world from the Apocalypse’
“X-men?”
“Yeah.” He got behind her so he could point at the newspaper. “That’s Professor Charles Xavier” He pointed at a bald guy. “He has a school for people like us. You know, the one with the kids I saved from the explosion.” He tried to sound nonchalant. It was really not working. “I think you’d be safe there.” She looked up to him and they locked eyes “I don’t know who’s after you, but I think they’d had to be crazy to try and cross Charles.”
Well, it’s not like she had a plan, other than keep scraping by. Which, by the way, is as hard as it sounds.
But it sounded like Peter had a plan. A solid one. One that did not involve seducing guys to get a place to sleep and stealing money from their wallets the next morning. Not having to say goodbye to Peter just yet also sounded appealing.
It sounded like he had experience in saving the world. Maybe he could save her too. Maybe she should let him try.