August 14, 2015
In a private facility in upstate New York, a team of twelve researchers has just completed the world’s first time machine. If successful, they will have broken a barrier that has stunted humanity’s growth since time immemorial. They hold their breath and watch as one of their number step up to test the device.
The gateway opens: a rippling sheet of darkness throwing sparks like wayward stars. The time traveler strides closer–closer–and through.
The blast of radiation tears through the facility, splintering windows, cracking walls, shorting out instruments, igniting carpets–and shattering the delicate internal workings of the machine. All of the team are exposed–though to what, they will never truly know. Nothing like this strange energy has been observed before, nor will be after.
The would-be time traveler emerges through the gate, as battered as the rest of the team. Together they make their way from the decimated building and eventually to their homes.
August 14, 2020
At the age of three, Mazie has recently learned the power of a temper tantrum. If she wails and flings herself to the floor, and if her parents are fealing beleaguered enough, she will get whatever it is she wants. What she wants now is the noisy toy that Grandma gave her, that her mother placed on top of the refrigerator for the sake of her own sanity. Mazie wants it back. She begins to cry.
Before either of her parents can begin to contemplate retrieving the toy, another sound breaks through the crying–a scraping, a rattling, as insistent as a child’s tears. The toy shudders its way to the edge of the refridgerator, teeters for a moment, and falls into Mazie’s outstretched hands. Mazie grins. Her mother stares in horror.
Her old team had scattered to the winds. She sought them out. Some were still working on the project, no less determined after five years of failure and diminished funding. Some, like her, had turned their focus to family or had moved on to other positions. One had died.
None of them had noticed anything odd.
Except, perhaps… the last one. The one who had dropped his career like an empty soda can, the one who hadn’t spoken to his family in two years, the one who could only be found by tracking a tiny traveling circus in its wanderings across the country. That one, when she finally found him, claimed that since the accident he could change the colors of his skin.
He offered to show her.
It was true.
August 14, 2071
Legislation has been passed today to address the existence of a growing population of mutants. The law now makes clear that, while no human being should face discrimination, the potential for harm represented by certain dangerous mutations calls for government oversight. The law grants official government-sponsored status to certain schools and facilities which have arisen to cater specifically to mutants, and establishes a system of registration and classification for all mutants in the United States. They are ranked by their potential for harm, watched as youths by social workers and as adults by officials who are carefully not called probationary officers. This is for the protection of all.
The riots end eventually without bringing any change in the law.
August 14, 2082
Doctor Wheelwright’s School for the Gifted was the first mutant school established, and has persisted since the early days of the mutant era. Doc Swift, as he is affectionately called, has endeared himself to generations of students–many of whom have stayed with him, as the school has expanded and become an entire, insular community. The mutant commune worries some–but, for whatever reason, it retains its government license and public funding, not to mention its older reputation as the first and best mutant school, and parents who have not heard the more troubling rumors continue to send their children there to learn the control and development of their powers alongside their history and math.
However, a select, wealthy few of these parents have grown concerned for their children. They aren’t quite sure they trust the letters they receive, or the word of the school’s employees and associates. They want to know what’s really going on.
Someone has to go in.
Hosted by:
Stars Haven (ATreeFullOfStars)
Rotating narration
Started 08/26/15.
Scenes played: 22
License: Community License
