Ariadne dropped her bag and looked around the living space, taking it all in. The room was filled with cots and a few people were sitting around talking and seemingly making the best of their situation. Some of them had very obvious mutations that made Ari glad that she had been able to hide hers for most of her life. She couldn’t imagine walking around with the mutant equivalent of a giant neon sign pointing to the fact that she was different. Yet many people here had to deal with it. It would take a bit of getting used to that was for sure.
It was strange that this was her life now. She didn’t know what compelled her to seek shelter with the Underground but it somehow felt like the best option. Her parents had given her a head start but she couldn’t tell for sure if they were going to chase her so she decided it was better to be safe than sorry. Ari was never political enough to have an opinion on the war against mutants (shocking considering who her father was), but now she had little say in the matter. She was a mutant and so she had to comply with the only group that seemingly wanted her alive.
She sighed before looking around. No one had given her a tour when she arrived so surely they wouldn’t mind if she gave herself one, right? After half an hour of walking around, and a few stink-eyes when she wandered into a room that she was not supposed to be in, she found herself in a room filled with computer screens. She read through them and frowned when she realized what they were tracking. The police. News. Anything that had to do with mutants. It was a stark reminder that the government wasn’t on their side and it was an incredibly strange feeling considering the privilege she had growing up.
She was about to leave when she accidentally bumped into someone as she turned around. An apology was on the tip of her tongue when she realized who she had bumped into. She froze. “Ness?” The name came out as barely a whisper, one that she hadn’t uttered in five years. Standing before her was one of the only people that had managed to take hold of her heart and crush it within the span of moments. Ari wasn’t a romantic. She wasn’t a believer in love, but somehow Nessa had managed to wiggle her way into the part of Ariadne that she didn’t know she even had.
As quickly as her shock came, it disappeared and was immediately replaced by anger. She clenched her fists but no words came. This was the person who upped and left her without a single word after all. What could she possibly say to them?
Nessa had always been a wanderer, someone that traveled from place to place, rarely ever settling in a single place for long. It was one of the few ways to keep the mutant life exciting, but after obtaining a severe injury causing travel to become more difficult, Nessa had no option but to settle down somewhere. So, helping with founding the Underground was a pleasant surprise. Despite being stuck in a single place, they were still given a constant excitement that they’d get nowhere else. That, and the company wasn’t so bad, not that Nessa would often admit it aloud.
After weeks, they’d managed to restore a makeshift version of the tech room to use while the original was still being restored post explosion. Nessa had started working on the few things they managed to recover from the wreckage, repairing what little they could.
Lost in their work, as usual, Nessa had hardly overheard the footsteps, making little of them. People were constantly leaving and coming from tech, that after a while it was one of those things they were used to here. There was always a noise being made in the distance, whether it was others typing away, coffee brewing in the corner or an old school computer struggling to keep up. It was almost soothing at this point.
Finishing up with a portion of their current project, Nessa reached for their tumbler and turned away, hoping a caffeine boost would get them to finish what needed to be done before the carnival. But then, their body collided hard into another, tumbler soaring through the air landing on the floor feet away. “ SHIT,” they cursed out, muttering a long series of curses under their breath, desperately hoping nothing was damaged or more damaged than before.
But then, came the familiar voice that they’d never forget, feeling as though the weight of a semi was crushing them into dust as they looked up, now face to face with her, Aria.
“ How long have you been here?” the words slipped without thought, a whirlwind of curiosities running around through their mind, yet little could be asked after Nessa left the other without a single word, not even a note.
