Ramblin’
Posted on Fri Mar 13th, 2026 @ 11:17am by Marisol Cabral
811 words; about a 4 minute read
Mission:
Episode 7: Pathogens and Contagions
Location: A Greyhound Bus
Welcome to New York
Madi breathed a sigh of relief at the sign. She was almost at her destination. Her journey had been long, depleted most of her savings, and taken her all over the continental United States before finally leading her here.
It had all started several months ago on a school field trip. She had been taking the students to a new rock climbing and high ropes course in the area- something she found very exciting because how often did the phys ed teacher get to take the students on a field trip? Her intention was to show kids that exercise could be fun and didn’t have to be a chore. Whether or not she would have been successful, she would never know, because on the way there, the bus was involved in a major accident and she was required to expose her mutant abilities to save them all.
The bus tilted precariously, threatening to topple off the bridge at any second. Kids were still making their way to the back to jump off, but Madi knew that the more kids who exited the bus, the more likely the rest of them were to fall to their deaths; their weight was currently keeping that from happening, but every kid who jumped clear was another 40-90 pounds less weighing it down.
She could pull the bus back to safety, of course. She could probably pull five fully loaded buses back to safety at the same time, provided she could get a grip on them all. But to do so would expose her as a mutant and public opinion on mutants was extremely unfavorable. It could- and probably would- cost her her job.
In a split second, she made her decision. The children were more important than keeping her cover. If it meant she lost her job, then so be it. But she had to save them. So, without a word, she pushed into the line of kids leaving the bus, jumped off and dove under the bus. She braced her feet against what was left of the cement guard rail and took hold of the rear axel of the bus. Then, she carefully and slowly began to pull it back onto the bridge.
Madi closed her eyes against the memories. She couldn’t bear to think how those kids had looked at her after she had pulled the bus back to safety, how the parent chaperones had pushed the kids fearfully behind them, the accusatory looks of the bystanders who seemed to find it scandalous that she had saved the lives of about 20 children. Why was the only thing anybody had seen been a mutant and not a hero who saved kids? Why had they sent the police to her house to arrest her?
And who had been the caller who had tipped her off in just enough time to run?
She didn’t have any answers. Or at least no concrete answers.
She had sold her car to a scrap yard in Louisiana when the timing belt slipped. She couldn’t afford to fix it and didn’t want her name on anything official anyway, in case the authorities in Michigan tried to find her and have her extradited. (Was it still extradition or it was state to state or did they call it something different?) From there, she joined the hobos jumping on cargo trains and found them to be a lot friendlier than she would have imagined.
She had called her father when she’d reached Arizona, but he advised her not to call again and to never tell him where she was- for her safety, she now realized. Her heart hurt not knowing how he and her brothers were doing, whether or not they were safe, if the police had arrested or questioned him- or really anything at all about her family. She desperately wanted to call, but didn’t dare. Doing so could put them both in danger.
So instead, she was on a bus heading to New York. She’d been traveling for almost a week and for what? A rumor. While in Arizona, hanging out in the Home Depot parking lot to get day work from contractors, she had heard about a school for mutants in New York. A few discrete questions had gotten her the city name, but no more. She didn’t dare ask for much more. That didn’t matter, though. There couldn’t be that many private schools in Salem Center, could there?
The answer was probably yes, but she would worry about that later.
All she had to do now was keep her head down- metaphorically- and mind her own business. That shouldn’t be too hard- as long as this bus didn’t try to drive off a bridge, too….
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