Erik crossed the lawn in sweltering heat, unalleviated by the encroaching evening. He approached the white golf-ball of Cerebro. He didn't like that Charles had gone there by himself; unless someone was with him, he had a tendency to overreach himself, emerging after hours pale and trembling with a migraine that drove him to his bed for hours. Erik let himself in and approached cautiously, not wanting to alarm Charles while he was connected to so many minds.
"Come in, Erik," Charles said, not turning around. Erik approached. He noticed that the scratching arms of the polygraphs that were set up to record the co-ordinates of the mutants Charles focused on were still.
"What are you doing, Schatz?" he asked. Charles smiled.
"I'll show you if you like." Erik was suddenly in Charles's mind, seeing what he saw through Cerebro's reach. Charles would normally never do this when conducting a search – the volume of mental information would be too much, could give Erik a nose-bleed if he was lucky, kill him stone dead if he wasn't. But he wasn't searching; he was concentrating on one mind, a sleeping mind – a human mind. Erik could see the subject of Charles's gentle scrutiny, a baby-faced black man with deeply scored worry lines around his mouth, sleeping uneasily. Erik's confusion mounted; Charles explained.
"His name is Michael King; but he calls himself Martin Luther, after the German religious reformer. I've been watching him for a while now.
He's a Baptist Minister from Georgia, although he's living in Alabama just now, agitating for negro civil rights. Not terribly successfully, as yet. But he is well-loved by his downtrodden people; they need his strength.
"But he's so tired, Erik. So angry. He's seen so many people die, so many be injured, just for asking for what should be theirs by right – the freedom to exist. He's tried so hard to stick by the tenets of his religion; to keep the faith, to be peaceful, to love his fellow man. But he's heartsick; he doesn't understand why God is testing his people so cruelly; he fears that the evil in men's souls means that his goals will never be achieved, unless they abandon non-violence, make their peaceful movement into an army. He hasn't the heart for that, but he can't see any other way forward any longer."
Erik looked with pity at the man, his expression troubled even in sleep, then withdrew gently from Charles's mind. "He may be right, Charles. The dominant humans don't seem to care for those of their own kind who are different any more than they care for us." Charles sighed.
When will you realise, Erik, that we are all more alike than we are different? King understands that fact, deep down. He's just lost his way a little, that's all. It doesn't mean he can't get back on the right path."
Erik crouched down beside Charles, saw his eyes narrow in concentration.
"What are you going to do?"
Charles smiled.
"I'm going to send him a dream."