Scott tapped his pen against the polished wood of the Professor's desk while he listened to Hank describe in detail what had happened in Boston. Scott being the fearless leader, would never have let the rest of the team know that these debriefings truly bored him to no end. While people like Gambit may be convinced that the pen tapping was a torture device designed to keep the attention of unwilling audiences, in fact it was focusing on the repetitive tapping that was what allowed Scott to stay awake through most of these things. It was even worse listening to Hank ramble on in all his scientific jargon about what was discussed at the convention, with the Professor sitting there smiling, nodding, and even venturing to ask intelligent questions. How he can even understand half this stuff is beyond me Scott caught himself thinking as he stopped tapping and began trying to remember what Hank had said before the Professor instructed him to "write that down." I'm sure Hank took plenty of notes, why should I take notes on his notes. But as Scott learned, you didn't become leader by questioning the man in charge on trivial things. Laboriously Scott scribbled down something about X-Factor chromosome: minor, then went back to tapping his pen. In fact in his head he was so busy tap-tapping out My Cherona that he almost didn't hear when Hank said:
"Something else happened in Boston that I think you should both know about." Scott barely caught the end of the statement, but it was enough to wake him out of his reverie and pay attention to exactly what Hank was saying for the first time since he'd sat down.
The Professor nodded, encouraging Hank to speak on and Cyclops poised himself with a fresh sheet of paper to begin taking notes on. "I was confronted." Hank stated plainly. "Truthfully, for once I am at a loss for words as to how to explain to you what exactly took place. A young woman, whom I mistook for a young child confronted me en route to the train station. Later on in our ensuing discourse I was informed that she was in fact nineteen, not the nine or ten years that I had originally assigned to her. She disclosed to me that she was a mutant, but did not feel confident to explain her talents. The most interesting thing she said, however, was that she was being stalked by governmental agents for a purpose on which she was not entirely clear. She did make it plain that this was not a good thing, and proceeded to leave the establishment we were visiting when she noticed that she had caught the interest of two gentlemen entering the shop. The girl, Anna Metford was her name, bid a hasty retreat with these men close on her tail." Hank shook his head. "She wanted our help Professor."
Scott and Xavier looked at each other before Scott slowly began to respond. "Hank," Scott said, pondering his next statement, "I know you're concerned. Truth, it doesn't look good for this girl, whoever she is." Hank started to open his mouth to respond, but Scott cut him off. "Contrary to what some people believe," Scott answered his unspoken question with visions of cajuns dancing through his head, "the mansion is not a safe haven for fugitives from the law." Hank opened his mouth to protest, but Scott cut him off. "I know you don't think that's what's going on here Hank, but I think it would be best if we try and get some more information here instead of wandering in blindly. What would you suggest Professor?" Scott asked, turning his entire focus to the man sitting at the head of the table in an alien hovercraft.
"I think you would be correct Scott." Charles Xavier steepled his hands in front of his face as he pondered this new development. "I will contact Valerie Jones, Hank." He said, turning to leave the room. "In the mean time I suggest we find out all we can about this girl." With that he left and the meeting was officially over.
* * * * *
Anna ducked into her dorm room just in time to avoid what she and her roommate had dubbed the "FOH parade." The school's Friends of Humanity Club's newest recruits hooted and hollered their way downstairs to the large study lounge, banging on doors as they passed. She shivered as they pounded on her door, then turned the corner to thunder their way down the stairs. Her roommate, Claudia, sat on her bunk facing the door. White face powder was marred with tear tracks that ran down her face with veins of black eyeliner. Blue highlights frizzed and clumped together with the pink until her hair looked like a rejected clown wig. One shoe was off, and god only knew where it was hiding or if she even still had it. The fishnets were torn to the point that there was more hole than there was material covering her legs. She looked pathetic. Worst of all, though, was the brand new leather miniskirt that had cost eighty dollars smeared with mud and water stained so badly it looked like it was supposed to be brown instead of black.
Claudia was a mutant too, as far as Anna knew all Claudia could do was create these little black orbs that would dance around the room then blink out of existence without really doing anything. She had what Anna thought of as a party trick mutation, something that was pretty impressive, but wasn't useful. The university had assigned them to each other at the start of freshmen year: two mutants, same major, good enough for the bigwigs who were in charge of running the school. The UMCF, United Mutant College Fund, was paying for Claudia's education.
Right now Claudia sat there whimpering pathetically. "You went there again didn't you?" Anna asked emotionlessly, hanging her jacket up inside her closet. Once it was on the peg she turned and looked at the girl two years older than she was, old enough to know better. "Come on," Anna sighed, grabbing Claudia by the arm and lifting her to her feet. "Let's get you cleaned up." It was an interesting combination, Claudia's fear mixed with Anna's indifference, but somehow the FOH just didn't seem so scary when you were being stalked by the United States government.
Claud had a friend who worked with Amnesty International, who was constantly at the new Protest Corner of the Common speaking against anything and everything. She'd tried to warn Claud that Protest Corner was FOH territory and to stay away, but for some reason the idea just didn't seem to click. Almost once a week now Claudia went down there and would get hurt or attacked and come back to the dorm a complete mess waiting for Anna to tell her that everything was okay. It had taken Anna a month to really get the rumor going that Claudia was on drugs. It was bad enough that Anna's mutation was obvious she didn't want everybody to know why Claudia was really getting all messed up all the time. Mutie lovers took a lot of crap, but not like mutants did and it was better for Claud this way.
It took a good ten minutes to get the hair untangled, the make up cleaned up, and the fishnets in the trash. Now Anna sat in the middle of the floor trying to figure out what to do with the skirt. The more she looked the more unsalvageable it seemed, but Claudia was so upset that Anna didn't want to break the news to her. Finally she just shrugged and tossed the skirt in the laundry pile to deal with later. "Why?" She finally asked the girl laying on the bed across from her. She really liked Claudia, but sometimes it was just so hard to understand the girl.
Claudia shrugged and stretched herself out a little more along her body pillow. "We were talking about mutant rights, we want mutant sufferage." She rolled over and just lay there.
In a way Anna could understand, it was frustrating not to have any say in the government. Congress' new pet theory was that the Constitution does not supply the right to vote to nonhumans, and technically mutants are not homosapiens and therefore are not humans. What had finally won the vote entirely over to revoke mutant voting rights was the day good ole Strom Thurman brought a skunk into the Senate chamber and said "He ain't a human, we gonna let him vote too!" It was ridiculous, but stranger things had passed through Congress before. "Can't you demonstrate someplace else?" Anna pleaded to the girl's back.
"Tried." Claudia mumbled into her pillow, "cops kicked us off the State House steps, campus cops kicked us off campus. Protest corner's the only place the pigs let us demonstrate." She sat up and looked Anna in the eyes for the first time that night. "The FOH might harass us, but at least we're there, we're fighting!" Then she slumped back down onto her bed. "You should come sometime Annie, instead of just sitting there and taking it."
The thought made her want to rebel and cringe and hide at the same time. "You know I can't." She answered after a moment of internal debate. "Someone might touch me, and then I'd kill 'em and the whole place'd erupt." Or the Feds'd see me and it would be all over she added silently.
Claudia shrugged and turned back toward the wall. "G'night Annie."
"Night Claud." Anna answered, grabbing the skirt again and trying to decide just how to clean it up.