Some folks find Whateley Academy on their own...

He fished the wallet out from under the seat on the bus. That made six today and this was the second one with money. Now to pick up another cell phone and he could go check some of the parks for more lost stuff.

He sighed. It'd been a lot easier before that jerk accused him of stealing stuff. At least he hadn't been dumb enough to try sending in tips directly to the cops about any of the big stuff. He shuddered at what might have happened. That news story about the psychic that some mob boss had gone after had been just in time.

Okay. The next stop was a park he hadn't worked before. He got out and sat on the bench to assemble the old metal detector he'd bought early on. It was a good cover for what he was really doing.

He got up and looked over the nearest part of the park. He thought "lost stuff" and got a lot of sparkles. "Lost money" still a fair number. Most of it would be pennies if his luck ran like normal.

He worked through the list as he headed for the nearest sparkle "Jewelry", "wallets", ...

He stopped and mentally slapped himself. He dug out the clipboard with the map. "Anything lost or unowned worth more than $100" Several spots on the map sparkled.

That was good. he made some faint pencil marks. Just for good luck he tried "over $1000". And perked up a bit when two of the sparkles stayed. He thought about money and jewelry and then tried plot plot a path in his head that'd get him to the spots without looking too suspicious.

He wasted the better part of an hour digging up scattered coins and a few rings. He stuck the coins into a coin purse he kept separate from his regular change. He'd discovered by accident that his ability while very flexible didn't extend to knowing that a rare coin was more valuable than face value unless he was searching for that particular coin. So he always kept the coins separate. Besides, nobody was going to give him grief over those. He still had the occasional problem with found jewelry.

Come to think of it, it was a bit odd. He had found the occasional gold nugget or the like, and did "know" those were valuable. Of course, that was probably because he knew gold was valuable and his ability "knew" how big they were.

The first "over $1000" made him cuss. It was a small knapsack that'd gotten buried under some leaf mold in a brushy patch. Looked to have been there for several months. That was not a good sign. He hoped it was just a stash some homeless person had made of their valuables. Since it showed when he looked for "lost or unowned" that meant whoever put it there either couldn't remember the spot or was dead. That wasn't fun.

He was afraid it was something else though. Nobody was near and he didn't think anybody could see him. Even so, he grabbed it and made a point of wiping out his footprints. He quickly stuffed it in a trash bag and tied it off.

The second "over $1000" was a problem. It was off near the edge of the park, which was pretty undeveloped because of the unbuildable slope and all the rocks. He was gonna have to shift a bunch of rocks, carefully to get at whatever it was.

When he finally got to it it seemed to be a wooden box. Not in very good shape. Probably been there for years. That was good. Less likely to be the sort of trouble he was afraid the knapsack might be. He went to try to shift it and discovered it was heavy.

Good grief. It wasn't all that big. It had to weigh 50 or 60 lbs. It couldn't weigh that much unless...

He thought "gold?" and was practically blinded by the glow. Shit.

There was a lock, but the wood was half-rotted. He used the trowel he'd been using to dig for coins to pry away the wood near it.

There were a lot of rounded objects inside. Cloth? He brushed some of the rotten wood off. Oh, good, felt like oilcloth. That might actually be fairly intact.

He was very glad he'd brought the rolling backpack today. Even hauling this load back to the paths was gonna be no fun.

The bags held together as he shifted them out of the box. He lined the backpack with a couple of trash bags just in case. Then he shifted the bags into the pack. Some felt like they had sand in them And were heavy as hell. Gold dust, most likely. Which meant that box had been here a long time. Some others felt like coins. And in the bottom, some sealed flat pouches. Money? Papers? A journal? He'd check that later.

Pity the box was in such bad shape, it might have been worth something if there was a journal to go with things.

He pulled enough rocks back over things to make it look like kids had been trying to climb the loose rock and caused a small slide. It'd have to do.

He struggled back to a hidden spot about 30 feet from a path. It was best to check that knapsack before he went any further.

He took the bag about 10 feet from his other stuff and pulled on some gloves. He hoped he was being paranoid but...

Damn. Some bundled bills. And a lot of loose bills rolled up and fastened with heavy rubber bands. He wasn't surprised when he found the baggies. He knew that if he did some digging in the files of the local paper he'd find some mid level dealer or a runner for one had died near this park a few months back.

He carefully moved the cash out of the knapsack but kept it inside the bag. Then he zipped up the knapsack and tossed it under some bushes.

Finally he retied the trash-bag. It was a pain taking all the stuff from the box out of his pack and then stuffing the bag of cash in the bottom and replacing everything. But he figured that it was the safest way. If anybody dug that deep, he was screwed anyway.

The gloves went in a baggie and that went in a pocket on the pack. He struggled to the path and then set the pack down and extended the handle. Fortunately the path was paved.

While waiting for the bus, he dug out a city map and tried something. He'd originally gotten cell phones by looking for ones that had been tossed but still had time. Once he realized that he needed phones for sending tips and that he could toss, he'd gotten the idea of looking for phones that folks had gotten to use as "burner" phones and tossed. Sure, he didn't dare turn them on until he was sending the tip, but doing it on a bus, and leaving the phone (minus the battery) in the trash after getting off seemed to work.

This time he was trying something he wasn't sure he could do. He knew he could find who something belonged to. That was how he'd gotten accused of stealing.

OK, lets try finding who the drugs and money belonged to... Okay, that was a sparkle in a cemetery. Who did they belong to now. Ow. That hurt a bit. But he got a sort sparkle from several places. How about a just discarded or lost phone belonging to them. OK, that was easier. One that still had some time?

Bingo. He recognized the spot on the map as someplace he'd "found" a few phones before. And it was on the way home.

An hour later, he'd grabbed the phone and sent a text message to a police crime tip number. Then he'd pulled the battery and stuffed the phone in the baggie with the gloves.

30 minutes more and he had stuff locked up in the old "fort" just downslope from his house. He'd already checked and the lights were still on, so there was no point going up to the house. He locked things up and walked to the store and got some food and other things he'd need. Like more gloves.

Back in the fort, he rigged the blackout curtains and turned on the lights. At least he had some power. And the place was warm. He wondered how long it'd be this time before mom got over her mad and started to acknowledge his existence again. It'd almost been easier before he realized he was big enough that she couldn't beat him unless he let her.

He'd made keys to the house first chance he got after she'd locked him out the first time. Lucky for him, he knew a way into the house she didn't. She'd never asked how he got back in. Not that he'd have told her.

Still, it was safer to avoid her until she cooled off. The fort his former Big Brother had helped him make made a good place for that. It was a pity John had retired and moved to another state. Then again, George had never been able to tell him what living with mom was like.

Hell, it hadn't been that long ago that he still believed all the stuff that she'd insinuated whenever he complained about the way she treated him. He finally realized that the cops might not just send him back if he complained. But once he'd started finding things, he realized there were other problems. He didn't want the MCO after him.

Still, he'd learned to be sneaky having to hide stuff from mom. And some of the stories he like to read had some good points on how to avoid getting caught by the "enemy".

This wasn't the first time the "valuables" he'd found had been something illegal. Just the largest stash. Well, largest cash. He'd stick it with the other money he thought might be "hot". If there was an emergency, he had it.

He turned on the portable TV for some background as he opened the pack. The oilskin stuff got set to one side. He counted the drug money. Good grief there was almost 50 grand!

He opened the secret storage locker that not even John had known was built-in to the "fort" (OK, actually, it was more like small house but sturdier. Workroom, bunk-room, and a sort of kitchenette. Power and water, but no bathroom.).

The new money got added to the rest. George decided to close up the compartment before starting on the oilskin stuff. The strongbox he'd bought with some of his earlier "findings" would probably do for that.

He dug some empty containers off the shelves, as well as a balance. OK, the sandy stuff was gold dust or something that looked like it and seemed to weigh about the right amount according to the best guesses he could make.

He wound up transferring the gold dust to some empty pop bottles. It was a bit mind boggling to realize he had 25 pounds of gold in a 24 oz bottle.

There was a bag of nuggets, and several smaller bags of coins. Old gold and silver coins. The coins would have to go through a coin dealer. Which would be a pain. But given that the gold value of an old $20 gold piece was around $800, even if he had to sell them one at a time months apart, they'd help a lot.

Wait a second. He turned on the computer. Thank god for Wimax... he could get internet without using the router in the house.

Gold prices... OK.. And he had how much gold...

George dug out his calculator and stared at the figures. He had over a million dollars in gold. There was no way he could keep that quiet.

He put his head in his hands. Great. The biggest score of his life.. A way to get free of everything. And he couldn't use it.

What good was this power if it wouldn't let him find a way out...

Wait a second... find a way out?

He dug out a map of the US. Is there a place I could go? Several places lit up. None of them made a lot of sense.

He fired up Google maps and tried with a map again. Which is the best place? Someplace in the NE US. OK drag that to the center and zoom in. New Hampshire. Berlin? No, a bit away. Dunwich? Zoom some more. A ways outside the town.

Whateley Academy? He followed a link. Some sort of prep school? how the hell could he get into that? And why would he want to?

He felt a sort of tug, like when he was searching for something out of sight. Felt like it was a few miles away. He dug out the map from his bag. It wasn't too far off. But what the hell was it?

He went back over what he'd been thinking. What was Whateley? A glimmer. Why would he want to go there? A bit stronger? How could he get there. Bingo!

OK, it was at least worth checking out.

He locked the gold in the hidden compartment, and locked the rest of the stuff in the strongbox. Then he shut things down and locked up the fort. Good thing it was so sturdy. John had been worried about vandals, but he'd had access to some pretty heavy duty stuff. Nobody was going to break in to it easily.

George managed to unlock the garage door quietly and get his bike out. Soon he was riding off to see whatever he needed to find.

A short while later he was looking at the remains of a burned out house. He remembered something in the news about a firebombing. There'd been rumors about Humanity First though a lot of folks said it was a mutant running amok.

Yet another reason he was trying to keep a low profile. And why he wanted usable cash.

Now where? Ah. There was a glimmer over by a dumpster. A nice desk, but pretty well charred.

Hmm. One of the drawers? No. He pulled them out and it was still there. A secret compartment? OK, there had to be a trigger. Something gleamed. He tried pushing. Pulling... and something grated.

It took some work, but he got it open. There was a large, thick envelope. he cleaned his hands and picked it up. It was some courier service he'd never heard of. From Whateley Academy to this address and a name that he thought he recalled from the news.

He quickly stuffed it in his pack and closed the secret compartment as best he could.

Back in the fort, he washed his hands and sat down to look at it.

He slit open the envelope. There were several brochures and a lot of papers.

Shortly after opening the brochures, he knew why he needed to go to Whateley. It was the mythical "Mutant High".

If he hadn't "found" this the way he had, he'd never have believed it.

He almost choked at the tuition listings. Then he remembered the gold. And that there had to be lots of stuff they might want found that he could trade for tuition.

The application form was really weird. Sex "complicated"????

His abilities seemed pretty tame. Being able to "find" things was listed. Range, well, he'd found Whateley so that had to be several thousand miles.

He filled it out and, after thinking about it a bit, took a few precautions.

The next day he went clear across town and used some of the drug money to buy a prepaid cell phone. Then he called the number of the courier service to arrange for delivery of the application. He'd stated he needed fast & secure delivery so he was only mildly surprised to have the courier pop up in the clearing in the woods he was calling from.

The courier had to call back to his dispatcher when presented with the heavy box. But another chunk of the drug money got that smoothed over.

Shortly thereafter at Whateley.

"Chief? Got a special courier with a special handling package. It's an application form return, but they'd rather deliver it to someone away from the offices, says the sender paid for it with cash, and added a heavy package, Could be legit, but ..."

"Right. I'd be suspicious too. I assume they soaked them for a deposit?"

"Yep. Paid it with no argument. But they also paid for some hefty insurance."

"OK, that's different. Anything else?"

"Yeah, the return code was for an app that we thought got destroyed. A few weeks back? The Westlakes?"

"Say what? Just how heavy is that package?" asked Delarose.

"They said 28 pounds."

"Right. Get Everheart out to Range 5 to meet the courier. I want folks to check that for everything!"

Several very busy hours later...

"Ms. Carson?"

"Yes, Chief Delarose?"

"We've gotten a rather unusual admission application."

"Unusual how? Most applications here are unusual."

"Well, to start with the applicant isn't the person we sent the application to. They seem to have located one that got 'lost'."

"Our applications aren't supposed to get lost, Chief."

"Well, I do believe it was excusable. It's the one we sent to the Westlakes, it arrived only hours before their house was firebombed by H1. Apparently it was in a secret compartment in a desk, and survived the fire. The applicant claims to have the ability to 'find' things and used that to find it."

Ms. Carson raised an eyebrow. While finding things wasn't that uncommon as an ability or spell or even devise, finding something that she suspected the finder had never seen or heard about before was definitely "unusual".

"You said 'to start with'? I assume that means there's more?"

"Yes. The applicant is a minor, wants help getting out of an abusive home situation, and sent us a 'retainer' with the application."

"A retainer? What sort of retainer could someone in that position give us?"

"Well, that's why Security was on alert earlier. They paid cash for a warper to deliver the application and retainer. Only they didn't tell the courier what the package was other than that it was safe with a hefty deposit attesting to that. But with a package that weighed over 25 lbs, we were rather suspicious..."

"I imagine so. But what was the package?"

"A box with a lot of bubble wrap around a 24 ounce soda bottle. The bottle has 25 pounds of gold dust in it."

"25 pounds. That's quite a 'retainer'. I think I'd better look at this application. Amelia is apt to have problems with the irregularities."

"I imagine you are right about that. I just happen to have it with me. I'll just leave it here and go make sure that the retainer goes into a high security vault for now."