Us Mutants Prefer the Term "Special"

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We were now in an official office, sitting across from the colonel and a small party of "assurance", probably there to make sure we couldn't do anything to him or this facility.

"I understand that you claim our intruders weren't part of any militia or secret party of the US, but what are we supposed to do?" Zaine asked Colonel Matthews.

"We can't exactly go back to a destroyed school with missing, killed, and unexplained whereabouts of our peers and teachers," Jane added.

"Well—"

"Can we just go home?" I asked, hopeful. Maybe because I was so excited at the fact that I can drive thirty minutes down the road to where I grew up at. However, at that question, I wasn't even touching Zaine, but I knew well enough that he went frigid. His jaw even tensed up and he was looking at the desk.

"Yeah right. Do you have any idea how much damage control the government has done to create and recruit you students to the Academy?" the colonel asked. "So much that I'm one of very few people that even know about the operation outside of Washington."

Jane looked across Zaine to see me.

"Not to mention, most of us have nowhere to go," she said.

"And we can't release twelve teenagers on their own with unmanageable powers," a nearby lieutenant spoke. I felt offended.

"Are we not normal teenagers sitting in this room with y'all?" I asked. We were all normal. There were colorful and deformed kids back at the Academy, but us? No way. Sure, we had our powers and whatever problems that came with them, but we were normal.

"But what about the few of you that can commit crimes and endanger the community?"

My thoughts immediately went to Cheshire and the twins.

"I'm sure none of us would risk actually getting caught and the possibility of being incarcerated in that stupid school again," I expressed, taking it personal for some reason.

"That clearly doesn't reflect Mr. Nichols' record then," Colonel Matthews denied. What? "Or is he even deceitful to you, Miss Duchannes? What's to say about the others, or even the ones who've escaped or not even been discovered—"

"Colonel Matthews," the door had opened and revealed the female assistant. "Your phone is ringing with press about the mysterious jet flying over the city and then disappearing."

The colonel gave a particular look to us three in response. Hey, it could've been worse. We were invisible for most of the way, until they called us to land.

"Tell them we were testing new aircrafts," the colonel dismissed and then the assistant left. He leaned across the table. "Do you see the trouble this...specialty causes?"

"Technically, it had nothing to do with specialty; just the knowledge of how to fly—"

"And the knowledge was achieved from some super genius by some special kid that shouldn't have the memory nor brain capacity to learn and adapt so easily," he said, pointed towards Jane.

"Not really," Zaine spoke. "Just me."

There was a somewhat humorous silence in the room at that comment, but I contained my laughter. I'm pretty sure if he wasn't a colonel, Matthews would stand up and point him out for being a smart ass right now. But of course he didn't. Maybe because Zaine's humor was degraded with his presence of seriousness.

"Look, kid, we're trying our best to have this under control," he said with a frustrated sigh.

"Actually, you're sitting in a conference with us, while our friends are getting bored out of their minds," I corrected.