[b]It was almost as if the unsettled weather was an omen of things to come.[/b]

The sky was dark and overcast - despite it only being late afternoon - and the thick, heavy quality of the air carried the promise of thunder and lightning, though quite when it would hit, was a mystery. In the town square, people were rushing past, eager to get home before the storm struck and this sense of urgency seemed to be as equally present in the winds, which whipped open coats and long hair into faces. 

A small, crudely built stage was erected in the middle of the town square and a huge, hand-painted banner was hung above it declaring the name of the current mutant rights activist group - there was a different one every week; anything to get attention. A surprisingly large crowd had gathered, nearly fifty figures - normally, people steered clear for fear the government would label them Mutant Sympathisers. But not today. Today, the atmosphere seemed almost...reckless. 

A red-headed guy was shouting from the stage through a megaphone but his words melded into an undecipherable buzz to anyone who wasn't in the immediate proximity of the stage. Dr Douglas winced slightly as she caught sight of them, marching down the pavement that ran the perimeter of the square and, on hearing the enthusiastic announcing and applause, she found herself slowing slightly to listen. She knew she shouldn't but she couldn't help herself. It was one of her few bad habits. Curiosity, as a physicist, was hard to stifle.

Her bag was weighed down with several heavy books full of notes on quantum physics - the topic of her lecture, which she had come home specially to deliver. Maybe she should visit her parents…or maybe not. She could feel the weariness seeping into her limbs and the strong breeze was weaving its way into her thin coat, causing her to shiver slightly. She had her hands thrust deep into her coat pockets but she could still feel her fingers being seized up by numbness. A pair of dark-tinted glasses sat on the bridge of her nose; a precaution, in case she accidentally tapped into her technopath abilities, which turned her eyes into an unmistakable fluorescent colour and showed her up as a mutant. It seldom happened but she just couldn’t take the chance. Especially not in cities, where she could sense electricity buzzing everywhere, tempting her. 

She didn't want to look at the red-head, but she found herself doing anyway, wondering what his mutation was. Whether he even was a mutant or just a righteous non-mutant. Shaking her head, she felt her phone receive a message - despite it being on silence - and paused, fishing it out of her bag. Her eyes remained glued to the rally. 

It was a notification from her website, FreeGenes. A new member had signed up, following the tracking session she had spent last evening draining her energy doing, but at least something good had come from it. That made a grand total of 43 users now. Dr Douglas smiled to herself, at her small victory. 

The shouting was becoming more passionate and intense, now. A murmuring was snaking through the crowd as everyone's adrenaline seemed to mingle, fashioned and directed towards their cause. Dr Douglas felt a faint prickle of alarm as she slipped her phone back into her bag and continued walking past, her shoes clicking on the sidewalk. The rallies, though frequent, didn't often reach this magnitude. She could see her car parked in a space on the opposite side of the square and she only had another corner and stretch of pavement to go. It felt like she was approaching the last mile of a marathon.

Situations like this always made her feel uncomfortable. Hit a little too close to home. She was always paranoid that, in the crowd, there was a mutant who could detect other mutants. She had encountered a couple on her website; though she could seek out mutants through the internet, she couldn't identify them, but they could. If they pointed her out, her cover would be blown and her reputation, her career - her [i]life[/i] - would be ruined. And Dr Douglas always liked to feel in control.

Silently, she picked up the pace and carried on, a bad feeling settling in the pit of her stomach.