Project NEON (Pt. 3)

“Aubrey?” I asked in confusion. She looked at me, a slight frown on her face. She wouldn’t recognise me, but Charlie had shown me pictures.

“How do you know my name?” 

“I, um, Charlie told me about you and all the work you’re doing for the NEONs…. Dan, you didn’t tell me Aubrey was here.” I said, looking at him, trying to take everything in at once.

“Uh… I had no idea you knew her, I’m sorry…” He said, looking slightly scared of me. I realised my tone must’ve been too sharp, something I don’t even realise until someone looks at me like that.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you… its, just… this is a lot….” I took a deep breath, trying to clear my mind. Dan and Aubrey looked at me with slight concern, but they ushered me inside anyway. I looked around, half expecting to see more familiar faces, but there was no sign of anyone in the small, office-looking room the maintenance door led to.

As if sensing my confusion and hesitance, Aubrey quickly walked to the other door opposite the one we came into, its old, red, metal paint chipped and showed the bright orange of rust.

“Everyone is through here. This room is like the reception room, and if you go through his door, your brace shuts off, but it’s just for security, so don’t worry about it.” Aubrey said, her hand on the old and probably squeaky handle.

“Don’t worry, I’m well acquainted with that kind of tech.” I said, and she opened the door, revealing a busy, but not crowded area, with booths set up like a NEON market. I could tell almost everyone here was a NEON because they all had a coloured strip in their hair, a side effect of the chemicals used to turn us into NEONs. I pause just taking it in, listening, watching and processing.

“Wow,” I said quietly, my eyes jumping around almost hastily, a habit I had picked up. “You must have like, all the NEONs here…” I can spot a few slightly familiar faces, and I realise they are some of the women I see fighting on Girls’ Night at Charlie’s.

“We have gotten almost all of them, but there’s still like, 20 unaccounted for. You were one of them, but thankfully we’ve got you now. Do you want to see your sister?” Aubrey asked, and my heart stopped again, emotions that I’d pushed down now returning. I take another deep breath and then nod, not trusting my voice right now. 

I’d never been one to wear my heart on my sleeve; I found that just bruised it more. My sister, on the other hand, didn’t care who saw what she was feeling, but then again, we all had problems. My mum included. That’s why my dad left after all. Couldn’t deal with a wife and two daughters needing emotional and mental support.

Aubrey and Dan lead me along the market and towards the back of the building. Then I was taken down a dingy flight of steps and we walked down what looked like a maintenance corridor. When we emerged from the dampness, I realised we were in the apartment building. We went up a few floors until we came to a lift. It looked surprisingly modern and clean compared to the rest of the two buildings I had been in so far. We piled into the lift and Aubrey hit the top button. 

There was a tense silence the whole way up. When the ding sounded, and the doors slid open, we entered a mess of a room, little bits and pieces of everything strewn everywhere. I would recognise the clutter anywhere. I took a shaky breath as Aubrey called out to my sister.

“Med! You’ve got a visitor!” She said, picking her way across the small goat paths along the floor. I followed, almost in a trance. This would be the first time I saw my sister since that day. Since the orphanage.

A loud clang followed by a muttered “Flipping thing…” came from the door that we were heading towards, and I heard a quiet “You ok?” from a male voice. That made me pause. When the door opened, my sister, Medea, stood there, her hair tied up in a messy bun, like she didn’t have any time to take more care of it, and her glasses had a familiar crack across the left lens. She was the definition of a mad scientist by every means.

“Lily?” She asked, her voice cracking slightly as she started to tear up. I just stood there, like a statue, frozen. Then, I see a tall and slightly geeky-looking boy, not a NEON, come over to Medea and put his arm around her shoulder. That made me have two very different reactions at once. My blood simultaneously ran cold with realisation and boiled with anger. I could see Dan looking between Med and me like it was a tennis match, Med’s eyes almost overflowing with tears, but waiting for some sign from me as to how to approach me.

I honestly didn’t know what to do. I wanted to yell and scream but at the same time, I wanted to run to Med and hug her and never let go. Audrey spotted the tension in the room and my posture and she whispered something to Dan. He glanced at me before the two of them slowly backed out of the room.

Then the other boy was looking back and forth between us.

“Do you two want to…. Sit down somewhere? You look like you need to talk…” He said, his voice was a bit hesitant, like he was worried about stepping on a verbal landmine. I nodded and then Med led me through the other room and around a corner to a relatively more clean space, where you could actually see some of the surfaces. There was a little sofa set up, an armchair and a loveseat set across from each other with a coffee table in between. I sat on the armchair and the two of them sat on the love seat. I could see the way the boy was holding Med’s hand comfortingly. Again, it made my blood boil, but freeze at the same time.

“Lily, I-” Medea said haltingly. “We did try to look for you but… We couldn’t find you. No had anything on you. Even Charlie wouldn’t tell us about you. He knows a few NEONs that we haven’t found yet, but he’s very loyal concerning the privacy of his clients. We tried to get him to tell us if you were one of his… participants, but he wouldn’t say anything. Eventually, we had to send Dan out to look for you at every known NEON safe space. He found you coming back from Charlie’s.” She explained almost desperately, her eyes pleading with me to believe her. 

“But why didn’t you look for me?” I asked, my face and voice cold and emotionless even though I was feeling anything but. Med was at a loss for words.

“I- I had to-” She started.

“No, you wanted to stay in the safety of your little lab rather than find out if your sister was alive.” I interrupted. “ And then you replaced me when I didn’t show up immediately.” I said bitterly, glaring at the boy who sat next to her. He looked a bit like a deer in headlights, obviously not expecting to be brought into the conversation.

“Lil…. it wasn’t like that, I promise. I had to add fake histories to all the NEONs we found and I had to help rebuild this place.” Her voice sounded a bit heartbroken, but I knew what she was like.

“You didn’t have to do any of those things, Medea.” I said, using her full name to counteract the nickname she used for me. She looked like she was about to cry, which made me feel a little bad, but my anger was stronger. And anger was safer, anyway.

“As a sister, an older sister, more importantly, your sibling is the most important thing. Nothing else. Especially because you were all I had for a while. How do you think I felt? It’s been three years, Med. Three years. There’s no excuse.” I said, my voice cracking at the last word. I internally cursed, knowing I was getting too emotional. Medea broke down in tears, which made me start to cry as well. The boy was now looking really alarmed, and he hit some sort of button on a wristband he wore, making a small beeping sound. He quietly comforted Med, but every time she looked at me, it set both of us off again. 

Dan then walked in and saw the state we were both in, quickly crouching at my side and rubbing my back like he used to. Both of our sobs slowly stopped.

“Are you okay?” Dan asked quietly once my crying slowed to quiet sniffles. I nodded and then looked back up at Medea. She had also stopped crying and was wiping her nose on her sleeve, a little habit that made me choke out a laugh despite myself. Med looked up and saw the watery smile on my face and gave me one back.

“I’m sorry for snapping at you.”

“I’m sorry, I should’ve come looking for you.” We both spoke at the same time and then both of us laughed. Dan smiled with us, but the other boy still looked a bit worried.

“Peter, it’s ok.” Med said,  looking at the other boy, whose name was apparently Peter. He visibly relaxed.

“Ok, good, ‘cause honestly, I had no idea…” He said, rubbing the back of his neck, relieved. Dan chuckled.

“Yeah, I know it can be tough trying to keep up with these two emotionally, but if they laugh, it’s usually a good sign. You’ll get the hang of their complicated relationship eventually.” Dan said, patting my back playfully. I rolled my eyes.

“It’s not that bad.” But then I looked at Med, who was looking at Peter, his face comically disbelieving. Both of us laughed again after sharing a look.

“So what’s the deal anyway? Like, with you two, with all the NEON stuff and everything…?” Peter asked and all three of us looked at him in shock.

“You don’t know about NEONs?” I asked, frowning at him.

“Well, I know about them, but like, I don’t know why the S.C.A.M. is after them or why you guys have these cool strips of colour in your hair…” He said, gesturing to my purple stirp and Med’s yellow one.

“Well, the deal with the strips is part of the side effect of the chemicals that caused the neuro mutation that caused us to be NEONs. It was part of an experiment run by the S.C.A.M. to see if they could create a way to have light affect people differently, and they found that neon light was the best for this experiment, hence the name NEONs, and then they collected a vast group of people to experiment on.” Peter was still looking confused after Med’s explanation.

“Do you want me to tell you the whole story?” I asked, settling in for a long explanation. Peter nodded.

“Ok, well, about 10 years ago, our dad left our mum because he thought she needed professional help but she refused to go, partially because it was too expensive, and partially because she didn’t want anyone to take away her babies. Me and Med. Med was about…7 or 6 at the time and I was about 5ish… Anyway, we were quite young, and our dad left. Mum then started struggling to pay the bills and in the end, about 5 years ago, she put us in an orphanage because she had read the S.C.A.M. ad about wanting people with no familial ties and would be given lots of money to have tests done on them. What the ad didn’t say was that the NEON formula was not yet ready to test on people, but the S.C.A.M. wanted to move things along.

“So our mum dropped us in the orphanage where we met Dan. His parents had died, and that’s why he was there, but he helped us a lot, mostly me, and then I in turn helped Med. We were probably the closest we had ever been because she became my mother figure, and I was her support. As you may have noticed,” I said, specifically addressing Peter, £Med tends to need someone to vent to and to lean on for emotional things. Well, I was her support. So I can imagine all the kinds of things she’s told you because I was that person at one time.

“But that’s beside the point. The point is, S.C.A.M. then needed more subjects and more subject diversity so they took groups of girls and boys of all ages from orphanages and from off the streets, offering them whatever they wanted. When they got to S.C.A.M. HQ, they were then locked in cells for NEON testing and found it was all a lie. They were injected with the NEON serum and then put back in their cells, not able to talk to anyone or see anyone for days. That’s how Med and I lost each other.”

“And me. I lost both of you remember.” Dan added.

“Oh, yeah, and we were separated from Dan as well. Then, there was a fire, which all of us are pretty sure was started by a NEON, and we all escaped. That of course led to the arrest posters and stuff telling everyone that NEONs are dangerous and what have you.” Peter was nodding along, following what I was saying closely. 

“So… how did people like my mum realise that NEONs weren’t dangerous?” He asked.

“Who’s your mum?” I asked, not sure what he was talking about.

“Aubrey Miller? The one who showed you up here? She’s my mum.” Peter said and I raised my eyebrows.

“Wow, ok, so you’re Charlie’s nephew?” I clarified. He nodded. Medea stepped in.

“So, people like your mother, the kind and caring types of people that would normally try to help, like, homeless people and stuff, they had pity on the NEONs in hiding. And naturally, they spread the word that NEONs weren’t actually dangerous or a danger to society. Soon enough, people like Charlie tried to come up with sustainable ways of helping NEONs out financially, and that’s how the fight nights started.”

“Wait, I thought you said they collected children?” Peter asked, frowning slightly.

“Well, they collected children later, but they had a bunch of adults to begin with.” I explained. Dan looked like he wanted to ask something so I raised my eyebrow at him.

“Um, I was just wondering… what kind of stuff can you guys do? Like with the powers and stuff.” I smirked.

“All sorts of stuff. We can manipulate light, water, our bodies, we can use illusions, we get heightened senses and emotions… all kinds of crazy.” I said, grinning. Med laughed and gave me a slightly amused, slightly annoyed look.

“Well, the effects are different for everyone, but yes, the basic colours result in a general effect.” Peter and Dan both nod.

“And why were you wearing contacts the first time I saw you again?” Dan asked, looking at me.

“Well, if I get exposed to any level of neon light, my irises turn the colour of the light, no matter how strong or weak it is, so it was a precautionary measure.” Dan looks thoughtful, looking into the distance. There was a moment of comfortable silence.

“So… what are we going to do about S.C.A.M.?” Peter asked, his expression slightly determined.

“What do you mean?” Medea and I both asked at the same time.

“Well, we can’t let them get away with this. Making a big lie about you guys. You’re awesome. And you shouldn’t have to live in constant fear of discovery.” We all looked at each other for a moment.

“I can’t say I’ve really thought about that…” Medea said, but I grinned, and based on the slightly worried expression on Dan’s face, it was an evil one.

“Well, I can’t say I’ve not thought of it. The question is, how do we do something about them?”