Snippet #1445331

Brihan happily sipped the apple juice Rat had slipped her ("What? You don't eat meat and you don't drink? What do you live on, air?") while she listened to the chatter of the young hipsters sitting around the bar (though they would probably object strongly to being called hipsters, once they'd stopped laughing at her for speaking like their grandparents). Their conversation had jumped from whether spiral skirts were dolcier than cling-jeans, to whether Ariana Fong had undergone rejuvenation therapy and nasal sculpture, to whether Takeru Toyoda was jammier than Hussein Shahbaz (it was finally decided that Takeru was the jammiest, but it had been a near contest and the green-haired girl was reduced to tears; finally she was consoled by Hussein being awarded the consolation prize of 'very jammy indeed, but still not quite as jammy as Takeru'.)

Brihan listened intently, feeling like an anthropologist stumbling upon a remote tribe, being forced to learn their language and strange customs. It was surreal to sit here and listen to people discussing the most trivial details as though they were the most important things in the world. Of course she had known that such people must exist, in theory; after all, she did very rarely venture into the world of mainstream media, but she had never been so close to such people in real life. She wondered if they knew that out there their fellow citizens were starving, withering in poverty, being exploited, kidnapped, experimented on, killed, and if so, did they care? How could they pretend that nothing was wrong? Or perhaps she was being too hard on them. It was easy for her to judge, having experienced the injustice of the government first-hand, but if she hadn't been abducted, if she had grown up in normal society, would she be sitting at the bar now with multi-coloured hair and a head full of inane nonsense? It was a fascinating and frightening thought.

At that moment two familiar faces approached the bar; Seamstress taking a seat next to the pink-haired girl and ordering a drink from Rat, while Xypher made his way to sit beside Brihan. The teenage girls looked at Seamstress's bizarrely-scarred arms and unusual outfit with a mixture of deep respect and admiration. Xypher made less of an impression on them. One of the girls took a look at the teleporter's customary plain and practical clothing, and made some derisive remark, causing Xypher to reward her with a disdainful look. Brihan had to smile. Less than a day ago she had seen Xypher trying to beat a giant robot to death with a steel pole; somehow she didn't think he would be fazed by a few high school girls.

"Hey... You alright? You're hanging with a bunch of sheep... That's definitely not normal Bri-haviour." Xypher snickered.

Brihan quirked her eyebrows at him and smiled. "Making mediocre puns? It's good to know some things haven't changed." She was glad to see Xypher up close, looking healthy. The last time she had been this close to him, he had been lying in a bed with serious injuries. He was always putting himself in danger and she worried that one day she might lose him. Of course, she had known that he was at least partially recovered, as she'd seen him in the dining room interviewing the new mutant. Speaking of which...

"I thought you were speaking to that new guy Ariadne and Cain picked up? You can't have finished getting to know him so quickly." She thought back to the young, pale-coloured man she'd seen in the dining room with such a closed, withdrawn air about him. "You didn't scare him off, did you?" Brihan shook her head reproachfully. As one of the senior members of Armada, Xypher was usually in charge of debriefing new mutants they picked up. Sometimes Brihan wondered if that was a good idea. Xypher was a good leader and teammate in many ways, but he wasn't renowned for his sensitivity or understanding for the emotional needs of others. "Now Xypher, you know that a lot of these people are suffering from mental or physical trauma. Their pasts are a source of pain and confusion. I've told you before, you should try to be gentle with them."