Prologue
1944
Raven was just getting used to living with Charles. It was like he had said; his parents barely cared enough to notice one child, let alone two. She was starting to think he would be true to his word. That she'd finally found a place to stay. She'd even told him about her problem.
She didn't know when she'd been born, how long she'd been alive, what her birthday was. One day she'd simply become what she was and she'd stayed the same way, never growing, never changing. Except when she changed herself, of course. One of the few things she remembered was that in her old home, all her siblings had gotten big and tall, teased her for still being a little blue girl, until she'd gotten so mad that she'd made herself an old woman just to spite them.
Charles was picking up on the thoughts of the most forward-thinking minds in evolutionary biology. With his parents being such pillars of academia, such minds were often brought into his orbit, and he guzzled down their knowledge like a thirsting nomad would come across an oasis. After James Dewey Watson had dinner with Mrs. Xavierâlusting after her all the whileâCharles formed a theory.
"He's quite off-base with regards to eugenics, but I believe his subconscious mind has the right of it," Charles said, having quizzed it while Watson slept in his hotel. "You see, we age because of any number of subâ" Here, Charles used a word that Raven didn't understand, "processes. Like pages in a book, as our cells multiply, this number inside them progresses. In fact, we die because this number climbs too highâour cells become copies of copies and inevitably degrade. You don't have that problem. It's quite possible you're immortal."
"Yay," Raven said dryly.
"I've vastly simplified the process, of course, but perhaps I could transmit it into your brain at a later date." Charles assumed he'd be able to do that soon. Raven just nodded. "But your cells all change with your transformationsâyour body has lost its place in your cells' 'page numbers.' You can't go from page three to four because your body doesn't know it's on three."
"If I want to be an adult, I can
be
an adult."
"But don't you want to mature naturally? Alongside me?" Charles looked confused. "How else are we going to be at the same level of intellectual development?"
"I think that was off the table the minute you read Einstein's brain."
Charles could be stuffy for a childâhe could transform into an old man faster than her. "For the past few months, I've been feeding people the image of you beingâaverage." He said instead of normal. "But you have to age, otherwise people will notice. And it has to be a natural progression, not in fits and starts like your transformations. I suggest we find you a girl of a similar ageâor a boy, if you likeâand you model yourself on their appearance. Then hold that transformation. Let your body age naturally in its changed state."
"So you don't want me to transform?"
"I want you to limit the use of your powersâexercise self-restraint for your own good." Charles nodded to himself, liking the sound of that. "As your body becomes used to this 'second skin,' you'll be able to resume it quite easilyâpick up where you left off, so to speak."
"Like a bookmark?"
Charles winced, wishing he'd thought of that. It was his own damn metaphor, after all. "Yes, precisely."
Raven frowned. Made herself blue. "It won't be what I really look like.
This
is what I really look like."
"Yes, and my father doesn't really have a full head of hair, male pattern baldness running as it does in my family, but we all have faces we must show the world andâfacets of ourselves we keep hidden."
Raven tapped her forehead on her skull in imitation of him. "Easy to say when it's so easy to hide."
He leaned forward. "I have to concentrate with the greatest of will to avoid your thoughts stabbing in to me. All of us to our own crosses, Raven. We'll go into the city tomorrow. Find you someone to wear. I think every mind I've read would've appreciated that opportunity."
Raven thought it over, kicking off the ground so her swing went into the motion. To her side, Charles did the same, so they were both pendulums under the swing-set, him swinging high while she swung low.
"I wanna be blonde," Raven said.
***
Chapter 1: 1979
Ever since about six years back, mutants had been coming out of the woodwork. It'd been scary at first, knowing there were people who really did have claws and furs like the boogeyman, but after a while, Rosalyn decided they were just like the Negros or gays. A little funny, sure, but they wouldn't bother you if you didn't bother them. She already knew there were people who could bend spoons with their minds, talk to the dead, all kinds of stuff. Now there was someone who could control metal like a big junkyard magnet? Pah!
Besides, a mutant had saved the President. Health of Tricky Dick aside, how could you argue with that? So when Rosalyn heard there was a real-life mutant giving an exhibition of his superpower at the Dallas Center, she instantly made a date for her and Danny. Irving didn't want to goâhe was sure it was all flim-flam, smoke and mirrors, like he'd said about Uri Gellar. Sydney agreed with him, the little suck-up, so they went to the Dallas Center alone.
It was a big community center stadium. Rosalyn had taken Danny there to see races and dog shows. Now the field was filled with a number of tarp-covered mysteries, being checked on by crew members as the show geared up. All around her and Danny, people were taking their seats, buying snacks. It was a pretty liberal crowd, which Rosalyn didn't take withâall those hippies and love-in sorts, thinking they were so high-minded for going to see a freakshow. She kept a firm hand on her wallet.
"Mommy, will the mutant be scary?" Danny asked.
Rosalyn patted him on the head. "No, honey. Mutants are just weird. Ever since I married your father, I've been used to weird. Now the Commies, them you've gotta worry about..."
The show started. First a man in a tweed suit came out to give a brief lecture on evolution, explaining for all the cheap seats what mutation was and how they were still people and yadda yadda,
get on with it.
After five endless minutes, he got done, and people must've felt the same way as Rosalyn, because they clapped. Then a guy in some funky union suit came out. He looked like a wrestler or something, but he explained to the microphone that he was Unus the Untouchable, and his mutant power was to project a forcefield that made him totally invincible.
The first tarp was pulled off. Underneath was a table filled with chair legs, baseball bats, crowbars, lead pipes. He asked for some help from the audience, big stout guys, and got a crowd of dock workers to come down. They all picked a weapon and took some tentative whacks at him, but their blows just bounced off his body like he was encased in Plexiglass. They really went at it then, for a good two minutes, but Unus just stood there with his arms folded like he couldn't even feel it.
"They're ringers," Danny said. "Unus planted them in the crowd, they aren't really hitting him, they're pulling their punches."
That boy had been spending way too much time with Irving.
The PA system crackled. "I sense some of you are unconvinced," Unus said. "Further demonstrations will show you!"
The next table had a buzzsaw and a blowtorch. Assistants with welder's masks took them to either side of Unus's head, but he just yawned. A Black & Decker drill didn't work either. Neither did the handgun, or the rifle. When they brought out the flamethrower, Rosalyn sensed a pattern at work. It reminded her of something that had always bugged her about the King Kong movie, at the end, when the guy had tried to make a show out of Kong. Yeah, a big ape was impressive at allâbut, what, you were supposed to stare at the same thing for two hours?
"You wanna go?" she asked Danny.
"Nah!" Danny was leaning forward in his seat, watching them trying and failing to put a dent in Unus like every spark was Star Wars.