The Swede's Hideout
The Swede walked inside carrying Catherine's sleeping body. Without saying a word, he walked through the house, placed her on the bed and closed the bedroom door as he walked back out of the room.
Sammy shuffled his way inside and grabbed a kitchen chair. He pulled it into the room but pretty much as away from everyone as he could. Andrew made his way inside and barely bothered to look around. His eyes were wide but it was obvious he was worried about Catherine more than anything else. The Swede walked out into the garage and looked around. A few beeps could be heard and then the garage door lowered. He walked back in and stood facing the group.
"Anyone who is hungry can feel free to raid the fridge. Not a ton in there but plenty to feed the bunch of you. We'll get down to business as soon as I change out of this outfit." As he spoke, he reached up and removed his helmet. The shiny metal and leather costume was a sharp contrast to the older, weathered face of Coach Shelton. "I'll only be a minute." With that he walked into a darkened room on the other side of the kitchen.
True to his word, Coach Shelton reappeared in no time. He was wearing an old U.S. Marines t-shirt and camouflage b.d.u. pants, his bare feet sticking out from under the pant legs. He got a beer from the kitchen and pulled a stool into the room with everyone.
"We'll start with my story and then get to you kids." He took a big drink from his can and then set it aside. "I grew up in Smalltown an joined the Marines a few years after high school. Everything was still pretty normal at that point. Then some mutant terrorists killed Senator Robert Kelly and all mutants became outlaws in their own skins. I'm sure you know all of that from your history books though, right." He offered a small smile.
"I was transferred into a special unit. The unit was for super human pacification. They didn't have Sentinels ready to go yet and they wanted to feel like the could do something so they took every experiment they had been working on and dumped it all into us. There were two dozen Marines that got turned into watered down Captain America's. But we were on short leashes and our mission was simple, ferret out and super powered resistance and eliminate it. Our squadron was named the Hounds." He stopped for a moment to see if it was sinking in.
"We thought it was great. We got to be junior super heroes and work with SHIELD to dig out any mutant bad guys. But that didn't last long. Pretty soon we were being sent after anyone with super powers. It became obvious that we were just the point men for a war against powers. The Sentinels came online and it was on. Full blown war. We were going after anyone with a mutant gene. A lot of people didn't like that, so then we got sent after them. A lot of those people were super heroes, the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, New Warriors, didn't matter. All of a sudden we weren't so proud of what we were doing anymore. SHIELD felt the same way and turned on the U.S. Government. Now they were a bad guy. Luckily, my unit knew some of those guys pretty well. We staged a huge battle, us against SHIELD, an d everyone died. At least that's the way it looked."
"SHIELD high command wiped our files, there was no record of us anywhere. We disappeared and started new lives. But we didn't stop fighting. We became the backbone of the resistance. The Mutant Underground Railroad. We dug into positions in major cities where we could make a difference and we fought a new fight. I had some friends from high school, a few buddies I stayed close to. One of them was a cop. He saw the winds changing and tried to warn me but I didn't see it until it was to late. Once I got out I found out that him and another friend of ours started the Underground Railroad right here in Smalltown. When I got word, I made my way back here, only it was too late. My friend, the cop, he was gone. Dead. He was helping a bunch of school kids who had no idea they were mutants or what was happening to them. They were going to be shipped off to prison and killed. My buddy got himself on that transport and got the kids out of there. He got the kids to safety but he got caught and went down fighting."
Coach Shelton got quiet for a minute and took another drink from his beer. "His other buddy in the resistance told me about that. he was a school teacher in Cleveland and he explained how a teacher with the right knowledge and motives could hide kids from the gen scans. So I got into the school system and started doing just that. That's why there hasn't been a mutant detected here for years. Theres been plenty of them, but I get them out. Just like I was going to do with you, well some of you. I didn't even know about most of you until this morning. Robertson. Ward. Allen. Vinyard. I knew about you guys and was working to get you out. Then they moved the damn gen scan." He slammed his fist into his hand as he finished his sentence. He stopped talking at that point and stared at each of them. For the first time ever, they saw Coach Shelton look sad.