Blue Rush

I wake up with a bright light in my face. I wince and turn away, blinking aggressively. I try to use my hands to shield my eyes, only to realized they were cuffed to the chair, as were my feet.

"What the hell…" I mutter.

"Do not spoke unless spoken to," says a woman in an aggressive tone.

"Valice he's just a kid," says a softer voice. It's the voice of a man this time.

"That's Commander Valice, Bonds."

"I'm sorry Commander."

Eventually my eyes adjust, and I realize I'm seated at one side of a metal desk. Across from me are two officers. One tall, blonde-haired woman with chiseled features is staring me down intensely. That must be Commander Valice. A step and a half behind her is a polite looking young man. He seemed to be barely out of college. That must be Bonds. Officer Bonds?

"Where am I?" I ask.

"You're at the West Fulton Police Station," replies Officer Bonds politely.

Commander Valice then whips around to face him, startling the poor dude.

"You're not supposed to respond to him! He talked out of turn," she scolds.

"R-right. I apologize Commander," the officer stammers.

She then turns back to me. "You are at West Fulton Police Station. You are under interrogation."

"What for?" I ask. "I didn't do anything wrong."

"Is that so?" she replies.

She then snaps her fingers and Officer Bonds reaches under the table and pulls out the scarf and goggles that I had around my face earlier. He places the items on the table and returns to his spot behind Commander Valice,

"If you weren't up to anything, why were you at the scene of the attack wearing this?" she asks.

I sit there and stare at the items on the table for moment. When I'd put the get-up on, I thought it looked bad, not that it made look like a terrorist. But it absolutely did. Crap. I have to choose my next words carefully.

"I was trying to help," I say, matter-of-factly.

"Ah, so you admit to being in league with those creatures?"

My blood runs cold. "No no no. I was helping the people get out," I clarify.

"Likely story," says the Commander. "Then why was there no footage of you coming through the front?"

I open my mouth, then shut it quickly. What was I gonna say? I jumped three stories up on accident and had to work my way down? That wouldn't go over well, nor is it a believable response. I sit silently.

"Your silence speaks volumes, kid," the Commander says, pacing the room.

I huff. How do I explain any of this? "Look you have to let me go."

"Oh yeah?" the Commander chuckles. "And why is that?"

"Because something bad is happening and only I can stop it."

"Oh sure. Should I go ahead and release your comrades while I'm at it?"

I knew that she was referring to the mutants. "No. I said I'm not with them."

"So, you control them?" she asks.

"No, I don't."

"So, you create them?"

"No. I don't."

She slams the desk in front of me, starting the poor guy in the back once again. "Then where the hell are these damn things coming from?"

"I honestly know as much as you do," I shrug, keeping my cool.

"Then let me ask this," the commander takes seat. "What are you?"

I give her a look. "What do you mean? I'm human."

"A human with glowing blue eyes. Eyes that match the ones on the creatures that attacked the school."

I pause once again. Do I explain my recently attained power? I sigh, might as well. With the exclusion of some details, of course. I give the commander and officer the summarized version of my experience at the hospital and how I believe my power works. I also explain how I avoid getting in the CFHS without being spotted. I take care to leave out the part about Archie, however. I didn't trust them with that information yet. After I conclude my little recap, the commander sits in silence, deep in thought.

"Incredible. Commander…" Officer Bonds says, breaking the silence. "You know what this means don't you?"

"We don't know that yet," the Commander says in a low tone.

"Well, we should at least consider…"

"We DON'T know that yet," she shouts, standing up.

"We should consider what?" I ask, intrigued.

The Commander stays silent. After a moment, the Officer pipes up.

"We have had theory about the dipotymene drugs for some time now," he begins.

"Officer!" the Commander yells, preparing to rant at him.

"No Commander. With all due respect, he deserves to know," says the officer.

The Commander is shocked but backs down. "Very well."

"We have a theory about the drugs," the officer continues. "The drugs may have fatal effects that the government is failing to address."

"Fatal?" I ask. "But nobody has died after using Rush."

"Maybe not, but what about after overdose?" he questions. "We currently have a couple of the creatures in the lab undergoing testing. And the results are showing that the creatures are more accurately to be described as mutants. Mutants that seemed to be victims of Rush overdose. And it seems that you might be victim of this, as well."

"Me?" I say, trying to hide my shock as another piece of my puzzle falls into place in my mind. Did Archie overdose me somehow? Was it the injection? If it was, why didn't I mutate?

"I have a question," I say. "What about that one guy from the hospital? He was under watch. There's no way he could have overdosed. So, why'd he mutate?"

"That's the million-dollar question, isn't it?" the Commander chimes in. "He seems to be our only missing link." Then she shoots me a look. "So far…"

I ignore her gaze and turn to the officer. "Did you come up with these theories?"

The officer smiles. "No, I could never. That was the work of our intern."

"Intern?" I ask, shocked. Someone who isn't even fully hired here made this much head way on such a case?

"Indeed," the officer replies. "She'd be thrilled to meet you, someone who has experienced these strange phenomena first-hand. May I, Commander?"

The Commander nods. The officer presses the nearly invisible communicator in his ear. "Rachel, come to interrogation room 8 immediately."

In a matter of seconds, the door to the room is slid open aggressively and a girl barrels in.

"Is that him?" she pants, staring at me in a manner that unsettles me. She looked like she wanted to cut me open and play with my insides. I look her up and down.

Rachel seemed to my age. Maybe a year older? She had short curly red hair. She had intense green eyes and a face full of freckles. She wasn't exactly slight of build, in fact she was surprisingly built, pretty tall too. 5'9"? She was wearing a white button-up shirt, sleeves rolled up, with a black sweater vest over it. And lastly a plaid shirt and black sneakers to top it off the look. She also had the faintest hints of a Scottish accent. In summary, she was almost cute, but the hungry look in her eyes took away from pretty much everything.

"It is," the officer says. "This is Evan Foster, our hometown hero."

"What's up," I say, afraid to break eye contact with this creepy girl.

Rachel then rushes at me at an alarming speed but stops a few paces away.

"You really saved 11 people from the building wreckage during the attack?" she asks, a little too loudly. "And you took down 2 mutants single-handedly?"

"Yep, that was me," I say. Then something clicked in my brain. "Did you say two mutants?" I'm pretty sure I stopped three mutants in that attack?

Rachel nods. "Yeah, two. At least two that we recovered and took into custody. I reviewed the footage and we a lot of mutants escape today." Rachel shakes her head disappointedly. "Sloppy work. I've been saying that A-bullets don't effect dipotymene-based mutants. But nobody listens to the intern."

I got two things from what Rachel just said. This girl talks a lot. The second thing is that there were loose mutants in Fulton City.

I shake my thoughts back into place. "How are we getting those mutants back? Having them running around can't be good for public safety."

"Don't worry yourself with that," says the Commander. "We're in the process of creating utilities to subdue the mutants with minimal damage to the city."

"She's lying," Rachel says bluntly.

The commander's face turns a shade of dark pink.

"We have no clue what to do," Rachel continues. "All the weapons we have are Azure based and thus have no effect on the mutants. Personally…" she turns to the commander. "I say we hire him."

"Nonsense," the commander spits. "We will take no aid from a child."

"What do you mean?" Rachel exclaims. "We have no other options! And we sure as hell don't have time to wait for a new weapon. And who turns down help from a damn superhero?"

"Silence!" the commander roars. She storms toward the door. "Put the boy in a cell. I'll deal with him later."

I don't believe it. Loose mutants? I don't know what was going on, but I was positive about one thing. One way or another, I was saving this city, with or without police help.