Crystaline

[This is a whateley academy fan fiction, it may or may not match cannon timeline characters etc.]

That morning I was running late, even though I had no lessons until one thirty, I still had a tutor period, I barely had time to put some clothes on, pick up my bag and start running. I got to the bus stop, really just a spot on the main road where we all congregate, in time. Although it was pulling up as I arrived. It was on the bus when I noticed that I felt awake, much more awake than I remembered having been in a long time, and that my eyesight seemed better. I attributed both of these as the reward for sleeping longer; not only had I slept in I'd been ill the night before, a fever and a headache and so had gone to bed much earlier than usual.

No one noticed on the bus, looking back I found that rather strange, but it was probably due to me having my nose in a book, as per usual, but the guy sitting next to me, a friend, Chris, in tutor did.

I caught him looking at me strangely and he asked "Hey, are you wearing contacts?"

"What? No" I replied, confused "why would I wear contacts, my eyes are fine".

"Your eyes are blue" he said, staring at my eyes. I just looked back at him as though he was insane.

Mr Bentley had some announcements about some enrichment activities and then tutor was over and everyone was leaving to either lessons or to do their own thing. I started walking towards the library; I was planning on getting some homework done. However I took a detour to the toilets.

After I washed my hands I looked up into the mirror and saw that my eyes where in fact blue. Which was shocking because as long as I could remember my eyes had always been brown? At first I didn't believe it but I soon caught on, after I found out I wasn't wearing contacts ; ouch that hurt. It was shocking. Yes. But they didn't worry me too much, not enough for immediate attention anyway. I figured I'd tell my mum when I got home and maybe go to my GP.

After I got over the initial shock, and disbelief, I looked at my new eyes and realised that they were beautiful. Most guys wouldn't ever call anything about themselves beautiful, it's just not a term usually used by men for themselves, but eyes are, pretty much, genderless and there was no mistaking it. They were the brightest blue I've ever seen, I really am surprised no one noticed before tutor, and had streaks and speckles of other colours mixed in, different shade of blue, purple, indigo and violet.

The rest of my day went pretty much as usual, I finished examining my new eyes, and I walked to the library and set to work on an essay for English. At break I met up with some friends who didn't have a free period and played some cards.

While we were playing Chris had asked about my eyes again.

"I have no idea what happened, I was a bit ill last night but nothing serious, they're just blue"

"Huh, so they are blue. Maybe you're a mutant, noticed anything else?" asked Gail, the one girl in our small group.

"I... haven't thought about that, it is possible, haven't noticed anything else though. I've felt more awake today but that's not saying much".

"You, awake? It's a miracle" jumped in Chris.

"You should see a doctor, just in case"

"Yeah, I will, probably tomorrow though"

I had another free period after break, in which I finished the essay. At lunch I was feeling much more hungry than usual and so I went to the fish and chip shop down the street and ate on my way back, I joined up with the others and spent the rest of lunch playing cards again. I then had a double period of maths and then I was on the bus home again. The maths had seemed almost too easy although, again, I just attributed that to my feeling 'awake'.

On the way home my thoughts returned to what Gail had said; I may be a mutant. It was very possible. My eyes had changed colour and that just doesn't happen past infancy. I thought about how people would react if it turned out that I was a mutant. I didn't think it would be too bad locally, at least I hoped not. I may have been naive. My main worries are what would happen next, I had no idea what happens to a mutant after he or she manifests, I hadn't even seen a mutant in person, not knowingly anyway.

After the bus dropped us off I walked home slowly thinking about how to tell my parents about my eyes I decided that I'd wait until they were both home before I told them. I knew that they wouldn't react badly; my dad sometimes makes some jokes but nothing serious.

When I arrived at home I ran upstairs to my room and set to researching about mutants; I was understandably curious, even though I wasn't sure I was one. What I found wasn't very helpful, and even less pleasant. Most of the sites I found had, at best, very little information and many were created by groups such as Humanity First. Some of the stuff I read there began to make me afraid; I had no idea some people thought that way about mutants.

After my fruitless search, it didn't last long, I assumed that I would find out anything I needed tomorrow at the hospital, and I sat down to do some physics homework. Which, like that maths, I found strangely easy. It was as though I could remember everything that I had been taught perfectly. When I thought about it I realised that even calculations that would have taken me half a minute before writing notes on paper were completed almost instantly inside my head. I began to wonder if my IQ had been increased by my possible mutation.

It was then that I noticed that my parents had gotten home and I walked down the stairs to break the news to them.

I walked into the living room, paused the TV and said "Mum, Dad, you need to hear this. I think I might be a mutant"

My Dad, who was obviously on the brink of chastising me for pausing the TV, stopped, as he realised what I'd said, and exclaimed "What!?"

My Mum, who was also about to grumble about the TV, stopped and asked "What makes you think that? Are you OK?"

"I feel fine, in fact a bit better than usual, I think my IQ's getting higher, and I feel more... 'awake' than usual. That and my eyes have turned blue."

My parents stared into my eyes for several moments.

"Wow, they're beautiful" said my Dad who often, being a photographer, made similar such comments about eyes.

"You can say that again, I think I spent 10 minutes today staring at my own eyes" I quipped.

"What should we do now?" Asked my Mum.

"I think we should book a hospital appointment for tomorrow. I feel fine so it shouldn't be anything urgent" I replied, not too sure about the 'not urgent' thing, I was worried as hell. "There's not really anything we can do"

"Sue, sound reasonable. I'll call the hospital how about getting some food on?"

"Yeah, OK. What is there?"

"There's stuff for chicken curry"

I walked into the kitchen and started dinner. I made some chicken korma with source from a pot and some egg fried rice from scratch. I then served it out and we sat in the living room and talked about me possibly being a mutant. We didn't come to any conclusions and decided to wait for what the doctor said; I now had an appointment for the next day at ten o'clock.

After dinner I decided to find out how far the new aspect, my apparent increase in intelligence, to my 'mutation' went. I grabbed some paper and started doing some work on electromagnetic fields (EMFs), doing research on the internet when I needed information. I soon had some theories down that, to the best of the accessible internets knowledge, had never been seen before. It was then that I knew that I was a mutant; no one's IQ increases. I carried on for a long time, which I lost track of pretty soon, and came up with some ideas for a project that I could make to test my new brain power. I couldn't wait to see if it worked, this is going to be awesome.

The next morning, about seven o’clock, I had just finished the designs for my first project, I looked at my watch for the time and realised that I hadn’t slept. Or felt tired at all. In fact I still had that weird feeling of being ‘awake’ that I had the day before. It was very strange feeling like this having not slept; I’d done so before and I’d always felt very strange, tired but not tired as though my body needed sleep but my brain was going hey its light out. I thought it might be another aspect of my supposed mutation.

I then had a shower and got dressed, a light blue casual shirt and jeans, before going downstairs to make breakfast. No one else was up yet. I made bacons, scrambled eggs, beans and some toast. I made enough for everyone else as well. And sat in the living room to eat while watching the TV.

As I was eating everyone came downstairs and joined me, even my little sister — who’d been brought up to speed when she finally came home last night. My family where showing their worries which they hadn’t last night now that my doctor’s appointment was coming up; I could see it in the way they moved, as though they thought I had cancer or something. They treated me like glass that morning and hardly said a word either.

It was… humbling, to see proof of love that just isn’t seen in everyday life.

We talked a bit over breakfast, mostly about what I had been doing last night; they were surprised about my staying awake and not feeling tired and didn’t understand anything about my ‘project’.

After breakfast I went back into my room to have a look over my work from last night and was soon engrossed in looking it over. Unfortunately I found that, while looking over the work towards my project, that in order to actually build it I would need something that, to the best of my current knowledge, didn’t exist. What I needed was the crystalline form of an element that either didn’t exist or wasn’t public knowledge; I even worked out the atomic and molecular structure of this material. I would need to do more research before I continued.

Nothing much happened as my mum drove me to hospital. The trip was spent mostly in silence because of our worries and I have to admit my excitement. When we got there we had to wait to be let into clinic five, we were sat there for about half an hour before we were called in to see a Dr Billington.

When we got into the room he asked me what made me think that I was a mutant and I described my change in eye colour, my apparent intelligence increase and the fact that I felt no worse for wear after not sleeping at all in over 30 hours. The doctor and my mum then had to leave the room as I changed into a hospital gown before he proceeded to give me a full examination, very embarrassing, I’ll tell you. He then, after I had gotten dressed he took some blood samples and asked for a urine sample, he also took some hair samples. I found out that my roots were growing in blue as well.

“Now from what I’ve seen today the chances are that you are a manifesting mutant, due to the early stages I can’t tell much else as there is not yet anything visible apart from the hair and eyes. However from what you have told me you will likely be a gadgeteer or devisor.” Taking in our confused looks he told us that we will be given an information packet before we leave. “For now I will be setting up some weekly appointments with your GP who will refer you back to me if anything major begins to happen and when we believe that you either aren’t going to change anymore or that your changes have finished I will set up an appointment for testing and application for an MID at the nearest ARC facility.”

So that concluded my little doctor’s appointment; apparently I had nothing other than a few cosmetic changes at the moment and that nothing else was readily apparent. Apart from me maybe being either a devisor or gadgeteer, which apparently is my so called ‘intelligence increase’, which are both someone who has an instinctive ability to create pieces of technology, only a devisor doesn’t have to follow the laws of physics; to quote Adam Savage ‘I reject your reality and substitute my own’. Personally I’m fairly sure that of the two I’m most likely to be a gadeteer; everything that I’ve done so far seems to follow the actual laws of physics, not just some twisted ones I came up with on the spot. But apparently it’s next to impossible to tell without having someone else to check.