Disclaimer: I don't own much, let alone the X-Men.

Author's Notes: I should really bebeginning an essay…but I'm not. Anyway, this one's AU, for obvious reasons, but still with powers and such…just no real X-Men. :) Jean/Logan, because there just isn't enough of this pairing (note: sarcasm), and only this chapter is told from Jean's perspective, even though I'm not too big on the stories that do that. I hope I can pull it off, for your sake – dear Reader –as well as mine.

Scum of the Earth

Prologue

I can never do enough.

Every day someone else dies, or at least that's what it feels like, and I know I could've done something to stop it. And I'm not just talking about money I could've donated to a poverty-stricken third world country, or in the sense that my actions put in motion the death of another person every time I wake up in the morning…I mean I feel as if someone else has died because I haven't done enough, literally. I can stop deaths, if I just fill out enough forms and file them in time. I save lives this way, almost as often as I don't.

I make a difference, yes, but I can't ever satisfy the want I have to make more of a difference.

I'm an administrative officer, which sounds impressive until you realize I'm only a glorified secretary with a bigger workload and the same pay. The difference between me and a secretary is that when I'm not checking ID and letting people through the heavy gates into hidden corridors of the facility, I'm handling paperwork of slaves and prisoners.

Mutants, mutants, mutants…almost every morning there's someone new. The guards tromp in, sit a malnourished whelp in front of me and practically put a gun to the poor creature's head so that I can get their details. Do they know any other mutants? Where were they born? What was their name? Their age? When had their powers developed?

Then the mutant is whisked away, and I file the records.

I'm no fool – I know where they go. There are hundreds of cells under the first floor, and below that…it doesn't bear thinking about. But I know what goes on; I stay here to make sure it happens to as few mutants as I can manage.

…You see, this is a mutant testing facility.

I understand it's run by a rogue faction in the army or something like that. I don't know what they call themselves; I just know they get their funding from a number of government officials. Apparently it's been around since before the 'mutant problem' was even publicly heard of. Having access to almost every file, I can even determine when it was established – 1947.

Of course, this is only one branch of the operation – I work in the Canadian branch. I've processed over twelve hundred mutants in the two years I've been here…and, through fixing the deportment schedules, I've managed to get five hundred of them to safety.

I was put here with a purpose, and I don't mean that in the overzealously religious way – I am employed firstly by one Professor Charles Xavier; I don't know much about him, only that he's got the bankroll to fund a mutant liberation organization. I haven't met him in person, but I send careful coded letters to him to report on my progress every week. Somewhere, after the mutants I organize to be deported have left, they find their way into his care. I don't ask how, but the Professor sends me letters – coded – to tell me if the operation had been successful or not. Only twice has it gone badly, but that doesn't deter Xavier or his supporters.

And I'm thankful for that.

This facility, my situation, the soldiers I see every day and the doctors I give clearance to in the mornings and at nights…all of it sickens me. Physically, I'm a wreck, but I can hide it. I eat more to compensate for the way my nerves eat at me, and pancake makeup does wonders on violet hues under your eyes, let me tell you. Mentally, I'm even worse…

I have to hide my mutation – yes, I'm a mutant. I'm a telepath, and I understand I'm pretty powerful. The Professor told me explicitly, when I was interviewed over the phone by him, that the reason I had been picked for the opportunity was that I could hide my mutant gene, even from the detector tests. Whenever a blood sample was necessary, Xavier's supporters would manage to take care of it for me. It's…amazing, and deceptive. No one's twigged that I'm a mutant; I don't look like it – I was born of two upstanding citizens, though both quietly mutant supporters, and even went to university. I'm a natural redhead, fair skinned and light-eyed. Almost Aryan, the Professor once quipped as if it were kind of a joke – I guess it is, though.

No one would guess, though that's both a blessing and a curse at times. I can't stand talking to the doctors – they're even cheery when they check in for work! The soldiers are even worse – some joke or sneer about mutants, and others flirt with me and ask me out; I don't know which predicament is worse, for me.

But the worst of all of them is the leader, supervisor or…I don't know what you'd call him…commanding officer, I suppose, of the facility. Colonel William Stryker.

Stryker is a snake of a man – his narrow eyes, his venomous tongue, his leathery skin… Every time I look at him I swear he knows my secret, but then he smiles this smile of his at me, like we're sharing some kind of great experience here, eradicating mutants…

I can remember one occasion – the only time I have ever heard him talk – when he was checking out for the night, with a couple of doctors reporting the day's progress as they all went. "Some of our subjects have, unfortunately, uh…quit the experimentation today, I'm afraid, Colonel," a sandy-haired doctor was saying as they checked out. He smiled as he checked his ID with me, before looking back at Stryker. "Fifteen this week, all up."

The Colonel grinned hugely, his cruel eyes gleaming. "Well men, you know what the boys in the barracks call fifteen dead mutants," he told them as he gave me his ID card. "…A good start!"

It's a worthwhile job, but…damn it, it has got to be one of the more difficult jobs in the world.