Chapter 8- The Plan

"So here's what we are going to do," Garrett said to the rest of the group as he laid the map of their small towns pier out onto the table. Townsin, Maryland was so small that it wasn't even registered on any of the official maps of the United States. The town consisted mainly of a few people who enjoyed the fisherman life and the boats of rich assholes stopping by to resupply their yachts before heading on to greener pastures. Then again it was quite the beautiful place for being so small. Family owned businesses made it to where everyone knew everyone else. The lack of population making kids know everyone in their schools even if they weren't friends. Not to mention the amazing view atop the bell tower of the small church used by the community that overlooked the entire town.

It was the perfect place for mutants to hide as regular people while going about our secret lives. Underneath the city was a network of tunnels and rooms used by The Principal to house the classes for mutants, making the small high school the perfect cover for the entrance down into the subterranean network. It was there that the Training Grounds was held carefully hidden away from prying eyes. Now what is the entrance you may be asking? Well it's quite funny actually. The janitors closet! By keeping the entrance carefully tucked in the corner of the janitors closet no human students have been able to find the Training Grounds.

These tunnels spread from the high school all the way down to the pier and even towards the mountains at the edge of the town, exits pinpointed all over the town for easy access wherever we are if they ever want to get some extra training in. Not all of them inside janitors closets of course, but all hidden carefully away from the human eyes. The only way to access them being an intense bio identification lock. It would prick your finger and test your blood for the mutant gene it required. If you failed the lock test, it registered your face, blood, fingerprints, and everything that makes you up and locked you out of the system completely.

All of this, once again, only possible to the egghead 'scientists' mutants of the high school. That and the fact that The Principal, while he looks old and fragile as just a steward of the school, was in fact one of the most renowned mutants in the world. He drew resources from those who knew of him and used his fame to build the school and Training Grounds to provide a home that hid the mutants away from the world.

With all that in mind, Garrett placed his finger on the exit of the Training Grounds deep inside of the pier, near the supposed location of the mysterious boat. "Hawk, Angely, and I will exit the Training Grounds from here. From there we will make our way towards the boat which should be only a few docks down. Angely and I will climb aboard and search the boat. Hawk, you'll keep an eye out in bird form on us in case we get into any trouble. Got it?" Angely and Hawk both nodded in unison as they received their tasks. However, Nora and Alex both had their hands raised as their faces filled with confusion. "What about us? You can't possibly expect us to sit on the sidelines can you?" Nora said without waiting for him to acknowledge them. Garrett gave a soft smile at her, pointing at the entrance of the pier. "You and Alex will head to the dock office and try to sneak inside. Find any records of the boat and take them so we can study them once we all get back. Don't try anything stupid alright?" The two girls looked at each other worriedly, Alex shy fully smiling and trying to be friendly while Nora tsked at Garrett.

"Fine. We'll do the safe stuff," Nora spat out at him while crossing her arms. Did he offend her? It was true that going for the dock office was much safer than the plan to get onto the boat but they needed that info too. Garrett quickly spoke up to dismiss those thoughts. "None of this will be safe. You two are going to be breaking the law by breaking into the dock office. If anything y'all two get all the fun. We are the ones who are probably gonna get shot anyways." He chuckled before standing up straight, confident this was a good plan. "One more thing. We can't let The Principal know about this, meaning we can't take our combat suits. We will have to rely on just ourselves and that's it. Otherwise the old man will stop us." Everyone looked around at each other before each giving their own sighs. "You're forgetting about the most important part, Garrett," Hawk said from beside him. "What are you gonna do about the boat after you're done searching. We can't leave it there in case they try to send another person to blow up our school."

Garrett thought very carefully about that question before he broke out into a cocky smirk. "How does everyone feel about fireworks?"