Chapter Eleven: M.E.L.


“Is that everyone?” Eric looked around his den Tuesday afternoon and actually felt a bit relieved. Everyone had shown up to the meeting except for Jordan, but as Eric had been expecting Jordan’s absence, it hardly came as a surprise to him. That everyone else had shown, however, did.

“Jordan said he wasn’t coming, so yeah,” Jesse replied.

“All right, Karen,” said Eric. “Go ahead.”

Karen was sitting in between Jesse and Cody as usual, but had seemed to be lost in her own thoughts the entire time, causing Cody and Jesse to have to lean forward in order to talk around her. But at Eric’s words she snapped back to full attention, eyes alert and resolute.

“Well, their father definitely works at an MEL—” she began, before being cut off by Cody.

“A what? Mel?”

“No, an MEL—Mutant Experimentation Laboratory,” she explained impatiently. “He’s the director of the Progressive and Behavioral Research Studies Department, whatever that means.”

“Sounds important,” interjected Michael knowingly.

“Yeah, well, he seems to think so too, according to what I picked up from Laura.” Karen continued. She crossed her arms on her chest and tilted her head down, expression pensive. “I don’t know all of what it entails, but it seems as though he has this hobby of finding and capturing mutants to bring back to the lab.”

“New recruits…” Eric mused.

“That’s…that’s just sick.” Jesse gasped, disgusted.

“That warehouse? It’s the entrance to his holding cell,” Karen explained, and the room went still. It was as if all the life had been sucked from the den as the realization dawned upon them. The entire time they had been standing there, casually discussing meetings, mutants had been underneath their feet, probably calling out for help, waiting for someone to heed their cries. “I don’t know exactly how to get down there, but now I know why she and her brother were sent to make sure no one was trespassing.”

“But that’s…” Jesse began, but his voice died in his throat.

“We have to go back there,” Jace said determinedly. “We have to; we can’t just sit here…”

“But it’s too risky!” cried Vanessa in panic. “You, like, saw how his kids almost found us—what if, like, this time we’re not so lucky? We’ll totally be next!”

“We don’t all have to go.” Eric said reassuringly. “But if they were really holding mutants there right under our noses…we’ve been there three times and we didn’t notice anything.”

“Why couldn’t Jordan hear them, though?” Cody mused. “If the guy supposedly has super hearing, he should’ve been able to hear something suspicious?”

“Not if they were too far underground. My hearing’s good, but it’s not that good.”

Everyone turned around in surprise to find Jordan entering the den, his usual late-comer smugness toned down a bit. “Your brother let me in,” he explained to Eric. He chose to leave out the part about the weird look Eric’s brother had given him upon opening the door.

“I thought you said you weren’t coming,” Jesse said, regaining himself after Karen’s news.

“Well, I changed my mind,” Jordan replied. He sat down on the arm of the loveseat Michael and Vanessa were sharing. “That’s all right, isn’t it? Because if not, I could leave.”

Jesse frowned at him, but said, “Take off your coat, Jordan. Your wings will get cramped; you don’t have to hide them from us.” Everyone was astonished enough to hear Jesse giving Jordan helpful, even thoughtful advice, but were even more shocked when Jordan heeded it and stretched his large, silvery wings languidly. A few of them couldn’t help but stare. “Go on, Karen,” Jesse said encouragingly.

“Right…Anyway,” Karen continued after the brief interruption, “the MEL he works for is called Salinas Labs, about an hour away from here. According to what I could get from Laura, it looks like a lot like the labs you described in your visions, Eric: blindingly white, lots of cells with huge glass windows to see the mutants from, and all these people in white lab coats running around.”

“But how were you able to see all that? I thought you could only see what Laura saw?” asked Eric skeptically.

“She did see it. She’s been to this and some other labs before. She doesn’t remember the names of many of the other ones, save for a few. But Eric, at Salinas? It was quick and I’m still not sure, but I think I saw the girl.”

Eric froze. “Blaze?”

“Yeah, Laura was walking by the cells, it had to be months ago, and there was this black girl with red and brown hair wearing some sort of gas mask. And she had these weird orange eyes.”

“That’s her,” Eric said quietly. “Blaze is in Salinas?”

“I think so. Laura’s father may very well work at the lab from your visions.”

Eric nodded slowly and didn’t speak for a long time, closing his eyes. Everyone waited on baited breath for him to speak; clearly, there was something bigger going on than just on the surface, more than just a sickness to deal with now. There were too many coincidences to take everything in stride as pure happenstance. Eric opened his eyes and addressed everyone, “What do you think we should do?” Silence met his question as the others shuffled awkwardly and avoided his gaze.

Finally, Jace looked up and said, “We should focus on the holding cell first. Those mutants might know something about Penetelli or Falcon.”

“Not likely,” Karen interjected. “Those mutants are former Birds—er, I mean, free mutants. Jordan said free mutants wouldn’t know much about the inter workings of the mutant community, remember? They’re just like us.”

“Still,” Jesse said, “we can’t just leave them there.”

Everyone discreetly turned his or her head towards Jordan, ready for the retort, and the angry outburst, but he merely shrugged. “You can do whatever you want,” he said nonchalantly in an answer to their stares.

“All right, a show of hands as to who wants to go back to the warehouse and check things out?” Eric asked, raising his own hand to start, looking around. Almost immediately, Jesse and Jace raised their hands into the air along with Michael, and after some time, Cody. Karen looked doubtful for a moment or two before also raising her hand.

To their surprise, Jordan volunteered his hand next, leaving only Vanessa as the only one without her hand up. She nervously cast glances around everyone else—even Jordan—with their hands stretched into the air, and suddenly felt very small.

Not wanting to seem like a coward and feeling everyone’s eyes upon her, Vanessa’s hand quickly shot in the air as well. When no one questioned her, she withheld a sigh of relief.

“All right,” Eric said, looking around to everyone. “We should try to get there as soon as possible—who knows what could be happening now?”

“Tomorrow,” Jace said. “We shouldn’t waste any time.”

“Better yet,” Michael began, “tomorrow morning, so we can skip school.”

“I dunno…I’ve got a paper due in my seventh period class,” Cody said suddenly, looking worried. “My teacher’s a real hard-ass, too; I doubt he’d let me turn it in Thursday.”

“We should be back before then if we leave early enough,” Jesse reassured him.

“So are we agreed?” Eric asked. “Tomorrow morning at eight, we’ll meet at the warehouse.”

There was a general murmur of agreement (along with the mutterings of slight agitation of the thought of being up so early), and the meeting soon ended afterwards.


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In the chilly mid-October air Wednesday morning, the eight teenagers stood cautiously outside the warehouse, shivering in the cold and looking cagily about them. They had parked their cars four blocks away and walked, making sure that they didn’t draw too much attention to their repeated presence.

“Let’s head inside,” Eric said, hands folded across his chest as vapor escaped from his mouth. He shivered slightly in his large suede jacket before beckoning the others to follow him, their shoes crunching softly behind him on the fallen leaves and discarded trash.

The warehouse had remained unchanged since the Saturday when they had left, but they didn’t spend much time looking around. “All right, Karen—where do you think we should start looking?”

“Well, it could be anywhere,” she replied, glancing around as if she hoped a large neon sign would burst from somewhere and point her in the right direction. “Luckily, it’s not that big of a warehouse, so it shouldn’t take too long to find it.”

“We can split up and look for it,” Eric said. “If someone finds it, just tell me and I’ll tell the others.”

“How do we call you?” Michael asked uncertainly.

“Think really loudly.”

Michael blinked. “Uh…okay.” They slowly began to split up and poke around after those succinct instructions; Karen took to feeling along the edges of the south wall, Jesse on the north and Michael on the west. Jace had climbed the stairs to the east of the warehouse where the landing was and entered through the door there. Vanessa was moving crates and boxes around slowly, checking the floor for trap doors, while Cody did the same further away from her.

Outside, Eric and Jordan were looking around near the warehouse to see if anything seemed suspicious there when Eric suddenly heard Jace’s voice faintly in his head. Eric? Eric, I think I found something! I’m in the room upstairs—tell the others to come quick.

Eric straightened up and called Jordan over from the old, rusted shed he was examining and pointed to inside. As Eric followed, he sent out a telepathic summons to the others, Guys, Jace thinks he might’ve found something upstairs. Jordan and I'll meet you up there.

As Eric and Jordan entered back inside the warehouse, they saw the others scrambling one after the other up the stairs, Jace waiting eagerly by the door. Once everyone was inside, Eric closed the door behind them and looked around. It was a small office, perhaps once for the overseer of the warehouse when it had still been in production. A broken desk and dented file cabinet were all that remained in the office, its walls cracked and peeling, mold hiding in the upper and bottom corners. Eric squinted to see around him; the windows were grimy and broken, letting only a sickly pale light inside, and the roof sprinkled down bits of plaster when they walked.

On the left wall of the office was a closet door, were Jace had led them now. He opened it and the inside looked completely normal, if not a bit cramped.

“Well, what is it?” Jordan asked impatiently.

“Here,” Jace said, indicating the back wall of the closet. “See the hinges in the corner? It opens up somehow. I think this may be the entrance.” The others crowded inside for a better look, and soon realized that eight people in a small closet was not the most comfortable situation to be in.

“So how do you open it?” Michael asked from his spot pressed into Karen’s back.

“Well, I don’t know.” Jace admitted, and someone groaned agitatedly. “But really, I wasn’t worried about opening it.” They all watched in astonishment as Jace leaned his head through the back wall so that only his body remained on the other side, his head completely disappearing behind the wall. “It’s an elevator!” came Jace’s muffled voice from the other side. He pulled his head back out and said, “I think we’ll all be able to fit. I can phase you guys through one at a time.” Jace, noticing that people never seemed eager to volunteer to go first, grabbed the first person available to him, which happened to be Vanessa.

She squeaked in surprise, looking extremely apprehensive, but Jace calmly said, “I don’t really phase other people through things much, but don’t worry—you’ll be fine.” He took her left hand, continuing, “Just walk straight through, but keep hold of my hand. When you see my arm get through the other side, you can let go, okay?”

Vanessa nodded mutely, and proceeded to do as she was told. Cautiously she stepped forward, hand pressed against the wall and let out a startled cry when it fell through, disappearing from view. She walked slowly the rest of the way in, pulling Jace’s arm in as well in a vice grip that was surprisingly strong, and then was completely gone.

Jace pulled out his arm. “Next?”

Michael followed, crowing the entire time about how cool it was, and Jordan and Karen followed silently after. Cody and Jesse went next, and by the time only Eric and Jace left, Jace could feel himself draining.

“We’ll phase together for this one,” Jace was telling Eric as he grabbed his hand. “Apparently repeatedly phasing people through solid, secret passageways takes more out of you than I thought.” Eric smiled appreciatively and Jace led him through the closet wall and onto the platform behind it.

It was an elevator like Jace said; its doors faced the wall they had just walked through. Its walls were a dark coal color, but unlike the rest of the warehouse, looked like it had been used in the last few months. There were few buttons, labeled only with a “B” and a “UL.” The scrolling green-lettered marquee on the top told them they were already on “UL,” and so Michael, being closest to the buttons, weaved his hand around the others and deftly pressed the “B” button, causing the elevator to give a jerky lurch, startling them all, and rattle ominously before slowly sinking downwards.