"So you still haven't told him."

"What am I supposed to tell him? Oh, by the way, did you know I could rip a hole through the wall if I stumble and my glasses slip? Come on. I like him, and I'd like to keep him as a roommate."

Jean swiveled her chair all the way around and bent to clasp her hands on her knees, staring Scott down. She'd been working in the lab on the UNIX Sun station, assembling data to elucidate specific nucleotide sequences and their distribution in mutant genome samples. It might, she'd told Scott, give some clue as to the evolution of mutant characteristics. But Scott wasn't even sure what a nucleotide was, much less what it had to do with mutant evolution. He considered asking her to explain it to him, but doubted the diversion tactic would work.

"Scott," she said now, "everything you've told me about your roommate makes him sound like an exceptional person. More to the point, if you do indeed like him and want to remain his friend, then you need to tell him the whole truth. There's a point past which being careful slips over into simply being dishonest."

She was right, he thought, but it wasn't her neck on the line, and he almost muttered, 'Easy for you to say,' but bit his tongue. As if reading his mind - although he knew she couldn't do that anymore - she added, "I know it's a risk. But real friendship often is. It means opening yourself up to get hurt, and that takes courage. Don't be reckless, of course, but don't be so cautious that you close yourself in. Think about it, okay?"

"Okay. I'll think about it."

That had been Scott Summers' last private conversation with Jean Grey before returning to Berkeley. Despite the fact that Scott had a round-trip ticket, Warren insisted on flying him to the West Coast personally, putting him in the co-pilot's seat of the little Lear jet and using that opportunity to teach him about cockpit controls. Of course Summers already knew most of them, but he thought that Warren enjoyed the telling, so he kept his mouth shut and listened.

He and EJ arrived back on the same day - EJ with a car - and they promptly returned to their routine of sleeping late, noodling at music, staging bottle rocket wars on the quad, and harassing Phoebe and Elizabeth in the double next door - all between classes, of course. Thanks largely to EJ's natural affability, Scott had been integrated at last into dorm life. It helped that he was good at math and willing to tutor his dorm mates, yet his primary reputation wasn't as the Norton Hall math geek, or even as the guy who always wore shades. He was the biting white half of the infamous Salt and Pepper, Pranksters Extraordinaire.

If most of their practical jokes had been on the small scale, at the tail end of the previous semester, when everyone had been panicking over final exams, Scott and EJ had snuck out in the middle of the night (wearing gloves) to put industrial-strength cellophane over all the building exits, and then had set off the fire alarms. Rushing out of rooms and down halls, Students had thrown open the stairwell exits only to smack into cellophane with "Gotcha!" and "Relax! Go to it!" penned in magic marker around the edges of the clear plastic . . . along with smiley faces.

It had done much to lighten the mood around the place, though the university police hadn't been so amused. Without fingerprints, they hadn't been able to positively identify the culprits, even if most of the students had a good hunch who the culprits were. As no permanent harm had been done, it was let go, but one of the cops had gathered all the students together out on the lawn to say, "Part of a good practical joke is knowing how far to take it, and knowing what isn't so funny. With the circus going on, somebody probably didn't get to study for a test tonight."

And so, more ashamed than triumphant, Scott and EJ had gone back to their room and been very good boys for the last few days of that semester. They hadn't intended to create quite the stir that had resulted; they simply hadn't thought that far, which was, of course, the difference between maturity and immaturity, Scott mused later - the wisdom to factor in the possible consequences. But the Great Cellophane Escapade had guaranteed their reputation, and Christmas break had eased their contrition, so they returned for spring in rare high form, like a pair of over-excited puppies. Prudence made them trim back their trouble-making to smaller venues: putting green Kool-Aid mix in the showerheads in the bathrooms, or painting Phoebe's soap with clear nail polish, or gluing coins to the dining room floor. The latter wasn't particularly original, but they still laughed themselves silly, at least until they saw Phoebe approaching from the checkout line, pretty face dark and mouth tight with irritation. Then they beat a hasty retreat. As it had turned out, the bar of soap that Scott had painted hadn't been Zest, or even Dove, but some seven-fifty-a-shot special cosmetic cleanser.

"Didn't you notice the name on the damn bar was some ritzy make-up company?" EJ had asked Scott later.

"I'm not the one who has sisters! How was I supposed to know 'Clinique' meant anything?"

Throwing up his hands, EJ had said, "Ain't you ever walked through the cosmetics section of Robinsons-May? It's usually at the damn store entrance, man!"

"Well, yeah. But fuck it, I wasn't looking at names on the bottles!"

"You are so freakin' clueless, Slim."

Thus, just four weeks into the semester, Salt and Pepper had managed to land on Phoebe's bad side, at least until Scott had gone out to purchase a new bar of soap for her. That had been Lee's suggestion.

"So what do I do to make it up to her?" he'd asked Lee after practice one Sunday.

"Did you try replacing the soap you ruined?"

"Ah - no."

"Well, why don't you start with the obvious then?" Lee had replied, adding in disgust, "Men."

Scott had refrained from pointing out the fact that she'd claimed to think like a man back in November. People didn't always appreciate having their inconsistencies highlighted. Instead, he'd taken her advice and replaced Phoebe's soap, and all was forgiven. He even got a peck on the cheek for his trouble.

The same night that Scott gave Phoebe her soap, he called Jean for their weekly chat. They exchanged email daily, and once a week, he called to listen to her bemoan the tedium of finding expressed genes and protein binding motifs in her nucleotide fragments. And she listened to him bemoan his English literature class. "I don't get it," he told her. "I mean, we're reading The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene, and I don't get it! There's this priest down in Mexico, where they're doing a purge of Christians, but instead of standing up for what he believes, he runs away! And he's supposed to be the novel's hero? What kind of hero is that? And he's a drunk, too!"

EJ, who'd been sitting at his desk by the door, working on a presentation for his communications class, half-turned to call out - loudly enough to be heard by Jean - "I been telling Slim here that the guy's not supposed to be some Superman. That's the damn point! He's just a guy, like the rest of us. He don't wanna die, but he winds up getting caught 'cause he keeps stopping to help people. He's not making some grand stand based on a bloodless ideal, man. He's doing what he ought to be doing as a priest. He cares about people. Holiness ain't the trappings. It's in your heart. It's about compassion. That's what Jesus taught. Be right - inside. Don't just act right."

"You see what I have to put up with in a roommate?" Scott said, only half-serious. "He reads this stuff and he gets it. I'd be so dead in this class . . . "

Jean was laughing on the other end of the line. "Then be glad you're both in the class together."

"I am."

"And have you told him yet?"

"That I'm glad we're in the same class?"

"No, have you told him? About that?"

Scott didn't reply to that for a full five breaths. Instead, he glanced guiltily towards EJ's back; his roommate had returned to work on his presentation. "Not yet. I will."

"Soon, boy-o." And she hung up.

"Bye," he whispered to the dead line, and set the ear-piece back in the cradle, sighing.

When he spun his chair around, he found EJ watching him over a shoulder. "She may as well put a dog collar on you with a tag that says, 'Call Jean Grey if lost.'" He was grinning. Scott shot him a friendly bird, which only made him grin wider. "You are so wrapped around her finger, Slim. She's your goddess."

Blushing bright red, Scott looked away, out the window over his desk. The sun had nearly set. "Yeah, well, I can't help it. She's just so . . . amazing, Eeej. She's just amazing."

"Hey - I'm not making fun of you, man. Not seriously. And it don't seem to me that she minds you panting after her any too much."

Summers glanced back at his friend. "You don't think so?"

"Oh, come on! How long you guys usually talk on the phone? At least half an hour. Every damn week. If she wanted to ditch you, she wouldn't be chatting you up that way."

"I'm just her friend."

"Yeah, so? There something wrong with that? I mean, I know you'd like it to be more, but she is, what, twenty-seven? Be real, dude. Friendship's nothing to sneeze at. And there are some mighty pretty girls a little closer to your age around here. In case you ain't noticed, Phoebe's been over a lot since the semester started - well, except when she was pissed over the soap."

Scott's eyebrows hiked. In fact, he hadn't noticed, though once he would have. And he probably should have. Lee's fleeting interest in him had demonstrated that women might still find him attractive, glasses or no. "I figured she was over here to see you."

But EJ just shook his head. "Don't think so. Open your eyes, slim-boy."

"We got a gig."

"Whoa! Say What?"

"We got a gig, man. Two weeks. We're playing for the Nupes frat party on Saturday. Fifty bucks a person."

Two beats went by, then three, before Scott found the wit to reply. "Whoo-hoo!" And he threw his Econ note-cards into the air, laughing and leaping off the bed to slap EJ's hands. "All right, so it's a fucking stupid frat party, but it's a gig. Did you call Lee?"

EJ was grinning, too. "Not yet; I only just got it confirmed. Came back to tell you, man." He hesitated and studied Scott. "Kappa Alpha Psi is a black frat. That bug you?"

Scott blinked. "No. Should it? As long as they don't expect me to sing hip-hop, I'm cool."

"Nobody's gonna wanna hear you rap, man; trust me. You sound like somebody stuck a damn pig poker up your white ass - stiff as a sixteen-year-old with a girlie magazine in the bathroom."

"Oh, gee thanks! I love you, too!"

"Hey, you sing great. You rap badly. We're sticking to Living Color, the Fishbones, and Hootie."

"And your stuff?"

"Yeah, and my stuff, but they're mostly gonna want to hear covers."

In fact, and despite Summers' protests, EJ had harbored doubts as to whether his white band mates would be comfortable at a black frat party, but as it turned out, Summers was in his element when performing, whatever the racial makeup of the audience. The boy who, six months ago, had been ducking every social opportunity in the dorm, now hammed it up on stage. EJ had assumed he'd only sing, leaving EJ to act as front man. But Mr. Shades could put on a show with expansive gestures and friendly, teasing banter to the audience. "You like this shit," EJ said to him after the first set. They'd left the little corner of the frat house porch set aside for their instruments, but hadn't moved far into the crush of people milling about on the lawn in the dim light of a California evening. Even EJ kept apart. Black or not, he was as much a stranger here as Scott or Lee.

Now, Summers shrugged and, in one swallow, polished off half the beer he'd been brought in a plastic cup. "I guess. But it's like . . . it's not me up there - just some guy with a guitar."

"The magic mic," Lee said, slipping the cup out of Summers' hand to finish it.

"Hey!"

Lee ignored his protest. "Some people freeze up when you put a mic in their hands, some dig it. You're good with a crowd, Scott. And you're also underage."

"Like that matters? You're not my mother, Aleytis. Go get your own beer."

Lee grinned. "We don't need a drunk bassist and singer. One cup an hour is all I'm letting you have."

"Man!" Summers implored the sky. "What is this? And we don't need a drunk drummer, either. Ever heard of timing?"

"Oh, I won't get drunk."

So the night wound down; people came and went, some weaving on their feet. Free beer induced much laughter, squealing, flirting, and a rather adolescent humor. One of the brothers walked around with a bra wrapped about his head like a diadem, and another wore a suit jacket, tie, white fedora, and no shirt. After ten, Soapbox moved their instruments inside to the frat house living room, but it did little to lessen the volume. Sound carried in the clear night air. Fortunately, the (non-frat) neighbors were either inured, indifferent or too pessimistic to call the police, so overall, their first gig was a success. They played covers for the first set, a mix of covers and originals for the second, and mostly originals for the third. No one complained - or not about the nature of their musical choices. After the final set, while they were packing up, a guy edged his way around the amplifiers to say, "You need a guitar player."

EJ and Scott paused in their equipment break down to exchange a glance. They had debated whether or not to seek a guitar player, but after the trials of finding a drummer, had ditched the idea. "Why you think we need a guitar player, brother?" EJ asked, unable to completely erase an edge of hostility from his voice.

"Hey - you're good on the boards, man; I'm not dissing you. But you need an edge. I really liked the originals you threw out, but you need an edge."

"And you think you're that edge?"

The interloper just grinned. "Try me."

EJ and Scott exchanged another glance. Their wannabe guitar player looked all of sixteen, and what he was doing at a frat party, neither could figure. Someone's little brother perhaps. He had an earnest face, slight build, neat clothing, and heavy plastic glasses.

"Let him try," Lee said from behind them. "Why not?" Then to him, she called, "We practice on Sunday afternoons. Think you can wake up in time tomorrow?"

And EJ added, "It's at the Unit Three dorms down on - "

"I know where they are. Music room under the dining hall?"

"Uh, yeah."

"I'll be there."

And he was. At two the next afternoon, he was sitting on an amp outside the front door, waiting for Scott and EJ, and Lee, to arrive, a Fender case and an effects box beside his left foot.

As it turned out, Richard Chabon had been born in Cincinnati, was twenty, a sophomore in the college of business, and the treasurer of Kappa Alpha Psi. And with his Lake Placid Blue Strat in his hands, he talked as easily as he used English. "Why ain't you already in a band, man?" EJ asked - dumbfounded - after they'd heard him play.

Chabon shrugged. "I'm not interested in doing covers, or singing. I want to work on original stuff. I liked what I heard of yours, and you already have a singer."

And so Soapbox acquired their fourth and final member.

"Relax, man. I've been inside a church before. Not even that long ago. I know how to act."

"Well, yeah, that wasn't what worried me, but . . . You're not exactly into it, and . . . ."

"Look, Eeej. Your dad's the preacher. It'd be pretty rude of me to visit over break and not go to church with you. It's no big deal." And Scott turned back to the dresser mirror to straighten his collar. "Do I look okay?"

Before EJ could reply, Clarice - the eldest (and shortest) of EJ's three sisters - stuck her head around the doorway. "You're gonna be late, guys." Both boys jerked about. "Put it in gear, okay?" Seeing Scott in his suit, she pulled in her chin and raised both brows. "Wow. You look very handsome, Mister Summers." And then she was gone. They could hear the click of her heels as she climbed the three wooden stairs back into the den from the remodeled garage where EJ had his bedroom.

"The Clarie Seal of Approval," EJ told him. "I guess you pass muster. She'd sure as hell tell you if you didn't."

Scott laughed. "I kind of got that impression."

In truth, he found all three Haight girls rather charming. Clarice was the most like her brother, albeit more serious. Only fourteen months younger than EJ, she was the intelligent one, set to graduate as class valedictorian. "She wants to be an astrophysicist," EJ had told him on the way down from Berkeley, making Scott spit coke out his nose all over the dashboard of EJ's car. "Christ!" was all he'd replied. It had seemed to Scott a prospect as daunting as Jean and her double doctorate.

But if Clarice was the family brain, then JaLisa was the family clown. The youngest at not quite fourteen, she seemed to assume that her designated role in inner-family dynamics was comic relief. She was also, along with EJ (and their mother) the most musical. Me'Shell, the middle daughter, was - like many middle children - quiet, reserved, and inclined to act as the peacekeeper. JaLisa was probably the prettiest, but Scott preferred Clarice's smooth braids, luminescent smile and witty repartee. He also found himself spending almost as much time in her company over that week as he did with her brother. They sat on the hood of EJ's car in the drive, watching traffic go by and debating old, classic movies and partial differential equations, Bill Clinton's scheduled trip to visit Nelson Mandela and the Clinton-Paula Jones scandal. On Friday before supper, EJ cornered him about the matter in EJ's bedroom. "You got a thing for brainy girls, slim-boy?"

"Huh?" Scott turned from the mirror. It had begun to startle him, to walk by and see white skin.

EJ shut the door that led upstairs back into the house proper, then confronted his roommate. "Are you hitting on my sister?"

Taken completely by surprise, Scott's mouth dropped open. "Uh. Not intentionally." But then a surge of anger replaced the shock. "Why? Would it be a problem if I were?"

Shaking his head and crossing his arms, EJ eyed him sidewise. "You're nuts over that Jean chick back in New York. I don't want to see you leading Clarie on, and hurting her. She's smart about a lot of things, but sometimes she's so smart she's not smart. Y'know what I mean?"

Picking up his watch from the dresser, Scott slipped it on so he wouldn't have to meet EJ's eyes. "Yeah, I know. And I'm not hitting on her. I just enjoy her company. You were the one who said I ought to look for someone closer to my age than Jean - "

"Yeah. But - "

"But it's different if it's your sister."

Feeling slightly hypocritical but driven to make his point anyway, EJ shrugged and picked up dirty clothes, tossing them in the hamper. "I just don't want to see her get hurt. You're smooth, slim-boy. You know how to talk to girls." He eyed Scott again. "How many chicks did you date in high school, man?"

"I don't know. I wasn't making notches on my bedpost."

"Yeah, but you dated enough that you'd actually have to stop and count, wouldn't you? Clarie's gone out with two, maybe three guys." He paused, then just said it, "She's already half fallen for you, man. Back off, okay?"

And Scott didn't know how to reply to that. Instead, he'd busied himself fastening his watch while EJ observed a moment, then ducked out again. Dinner was tense, sitting between EJ and Violet Haight with Clarice across the table, smiling at him every time he spoke to her. EJ was right. The girl was half-way into a crush and he hadn't even noticed, just as with Phoebe - and he wasn't sure if his blindness owed more to the glasses or to his fixation on Jean Grey.

But it made him ponder the whole situation. And watch Clarice. The light above the long dining table fell soft on the curve of her cheek and shone in her dark eyes. Maybe EJ had a point about finding a girl his own age. Jean might be fond of him, but only as a little brother. It had been almost a year since he'd met her; he needed to get past his obsession. Clarice was smart, and honest, and good-hearted, and she had ambitions for her life . . .

. . . and she was also EJ's little sister, and EJ was watching him. Sighing, he turned his attention back to the generic broccoli-chicken-rice casserole that Violet had made for supper. She was watching him, too, he noticed - rather belatedly - and when supper was over and conversation had wound down, she abruptly handed him her plate. "Scott, you're almost a part of the family, so you may as well get your share of chores." Her smile was both wicked and wise. "Clarice, why don't you show him how to run the dishwasher?"

"Oh, yes!" JaLisa shouted in glee, making victory fists and hopping up to say, "I'm going to call Val - bye," before her mother could change her mind. It had been her night on kitchen clean-up.

In shock, and with Violet Haight's dinner plate still in his hands, Scott watched JaLisa disappear. EJ seemed ready to say something, but Jeremiah interrupted him. "I need you out back in the shed, Elijah."

So Scott wound up with Clarice in the little kitchen, loading a nearly archaic dishwasher and trying to decide if EJ's mother had really just set him up with her eldest daughter? After a while, he quit worrying about it and just enjoyed Clarice's company, until she left to finish her homework; her school wasn't on spring break. EJ came in as Scott was filling the soap tray. Snapping the tray lid shut, he held up both hands - box of Cascade still in one - and spoke softly. "I'm not after your sister, man. Your mom did that."

Arms crossed, EJ leaned up against a counter and sighed, replying, "I know. And . . . okay. Fine. Dad reminded me that she's a big girl now." For a full minute he didn't speak; he and Scott merely studied one another. "Are you interested in her?"

Closing the dishwasher door, Scott stood and glanced out the kitchen door into the dining room. No one was there. He could hear JaLisa on the phone in the hall, laughing loudly, and out in the living room, the television blared the local news with the requisite burglaries and murders. This was LA. "I honestly hadn't thought about it. Not until tonight."

"You go after her, you'd better be good to her."

Grinning, he asked, "Is that permission or a warning?"

"Both. You know I'm better than you on the sparring mat, slim-boy. You hurt my sister, I'll drop-kick your ass all the way back to New York."

Scott frowned down at the linoleum flooring. Faced with the possibility of dating someone again, several matters loomed in stark relief. Clarice wasn't a mutant. Would she still be interested in him if she knew the real reason he had to wear the glasses? "Well she's down here and I'm up north, and even if I were interested - and maybe I am, I'm not sure - it's a long drive for a Friday night date."

"This year. She's going to be at Berkeley next fall."

Scott jerked his head up. "She is?" He hadn't heard that yet.

"Yeah, she is. Schools are fightin' over her, man. But Dad didn't want her going out of state, and he'd rather send her someplace where I can keep an eye on her."

"So she'll be at Berkeley." Scott couldn't keep the grin off his face; EJ's expression was more doubtful.

"Yeah. She'll be at Berkeley. But you remember what I said."

Scott held up his hands in surrender once more. "I hear you, I hear you!" And he shrugged. "Like I said earlier, I hadn't even thought about doing anything until you brought it up." Tilting his head, he held his friends' eyes. "But I like her, and I respect her. And if she's coming to Berkeley next year, well . . . we'll see what happens. No reason to rush."

"That's for damn sure," EJ said, thinking that Summers dating his sister could wind up being even more awkward than Summers dating Lee Forrester. Then again, what if it worked out? Scott had become, in just six months, the closest friend EJ had known in years. He could think of worse people to call brother-in-law - although thinking that far in advance was rather putting the cart before the horse.

A very loud roar from the living room television caught their attention and they exited to see what was on the news. "Look at that!" Violet was saying from her perch on the sofa. A forgotten bit of cross-stitch lay in her lap. Jeremiah lounged in a recliner, book in his lap and glasses on his nose, half-reading and half-watching at the same time.

On the small television screen, a large man with shoulder-length blond hair was - quite literally - flipping over cars on a freeway somewhere . . . obviously not in California, as there was still snow on the ground. "And in Winnipeg today," the announcer was saying, "Evening rush-hour traffic was completely halted when an unknown male walked onto the Pembina Highway near the University of Manitoba campus and began overturning vehicles."

"What the fuck?" EJ muttered beside Scott.

"Language, Elijah," his mother said.

On the news video, Canadian police had arrived, attempting to drive the tall blond man away from the halted traffic so that ambulances could get to the injured in pop-can-crumpled vehicles. "The assailant was finally forced into the surrounding forest, but disappeared near the Red River before police could apprehend him. Twenty-six people were injured and ten are in critical condition at Victoria General Hospital. Authorities are seeking any information leading to the identification and apprehension of the man being called The Winnipeg Marauder."

Both Clarice and Me'Shell had wandered in now as well, to see the strange news on the TV. JaLisa remained on the phone, apparently oblivious. "Did Bigfoot suddenly decide to reveal himself?" Clarice asked, amused. "Or is this just a really weird pro-wrestling gimmick?"

And Scott Summers couldn't form words to answer her, though he feared that he did, indeed, know the answer. Instead, he sank down on the sofa beside Violet Haight and stared at the screen, his hands clasped tightly between his knees. His skin was cold, and he became aware of the ticking of the wall clock behind and above the sofa, an annoying tat-tat-tat beneath the drone of the reporter's voice.

Was that man in Winnipeg a mutant like himself? But no - not like himself, or like anyone else at Xavier's school. They didn't wander through cities, wreaking casual havoc. And he needed to talk to the professor, but couldn't think of where he'd find the privacy to do so without raising suspicion. So he sat frozen in a Los Angeles living room, watching a piped-in broadcast of a crisis that had occurred several hours earlier and a couple thousand miles further north.

". . . . like Bigfoot on speed, eh?" someone was saying into the camera while the reporter interviewed eyewitnesses.

"Whatever it is," said another man, "it needs to be caught and thrown in a cage!"

"Some kind of escaped circus freak," offered a third.

The broadcast shifted to the book-lined walls of an office. 'Dr. Rosaline Tey of the UCLA School of Medicine' said the caption under a Dr.-Ruth-clone in front of the camera. "While it's impossible to draw a definitive conclusion based on a five-minute video, this individual may - I stress the may - belong to a small, recent phenomenon being called 'X-Gene Manifestation.' It's a mutation at the DNA level that results in exceptional physical or mental abilities . . . ."

It was clear she was still talking, but the over-dubbed voice of a reporter cut off any elaboration. "The medical community is divided on the exact cause of these 'x-gene mutations' or how widespread the phenomenon may be in the general population, though most consider it rare. Opinion is also divided as to what kind of danger such mutated individuals might pose to normal human beings. But if he is a mutant, the Winnipeg Marauder would demonstrate that these 'mutants' can indeed be dangerous, causing injury, even death, to others."

"Good heavens," Violet was saying. "What next?" Her expression was shell-shocked. The rest of the Haights were still staring at the TV screen.

Scott opened his mouth, closed it, opened it, then closed it again. His skin was still cold and his stomach heaved and the weight of the glasses on his face was as heavy as a condemnation. Abruptly, EJ turned to look at him, and for a moment, his heart spasmed in his chest, but EJ said only, "Ain't your friend back in New York into genetics? Jean, I mean?"

"Um . . . yeah." Scott's throat was dry. They were all looking at him now.

"She know anything 'bout these mutants?"

It was an innocently tendered question, but guilt and fear and panic made Scott Summers laugh out loud. Swallowing it, he managed to say in a normal voice, "She knows a little."

"So what's the deal? She said anything to you?"

"Ah . . . um, well - I'm not exactly an expert - but it's, ah, it's just part of evolution." He paused to glance around at faces, recalling that he was in the house of a pastor. "Ah, I don't know if - "

"It's all right, Scott." An amused Jeremiah Haight cut him off before he tripped further over his own tongue. "Not everyone who believes the Bible takes it literally." He winked at his son's friend. "Science might tell us how we got here, but religion tells us why we are here. Two different questions."

Scott relaxed. "Okay. Then, like I said, I'm not an expert, and I can't explain it like Jean could, but it's really pretty simple. Some people - at this point, a really small number - are born with this extra pair of genes called X-genes. They're dormant until puberty. Then they kind of . . . wake up, and you get these changes. It can be pretty sudden, and it's usually stress triggered, but, um, some researchers" - he deliberately did not say Hank or Jean - "think it starts a while before it actually manifests, as some kind of stress build-up over a long period, getting the body ready. Then something happens - it doesn't even have to be big - and wham! The mutation appears."

"The straw the broke the camel's back?" Jeremiah asked.

"Yeah, pretty much."

"How do people know if it will happen to them?" Clarice asked, eyes wide.

"They don't," Scott said. "Not right now anyway." Seeing Clarice's dark skin go gray, Scott waved a hand in denial. "No, no! It won't happen to you, Clarie, or it would've already." Then he thought about his own mutant manifestation at his senior prom and amended, "Well, probably not. For most mutants, it happens in the mid or early teens. Researchers are trying to map it, but there aren't enough examples to even start guessing. The most anyone can say now is that there are two basic mutation types - psi mutations and physical mutations. That is, changes to the brain or changes to the body. Some mutants don't look any different, and some, well . . . " He gestured towards the television, which had now moved on to relate the weather forecast. "Some physical changes can be kinda dramatic."

"Are they all dangerous like that man?" Me'Shell asked.

"No!" Scott shook his head again emphatically. "Most aren't like that at all. They don't want to hurt people. They want to learn to control it so they don't hurt people!"

And though Scott Summers didn't realize it, his 'inexpert' explanation had - some exchanges back - shifted into a convincing, if colloquial, voice of authority. That change wasn't lost on either of the elder Haights.

"Does your friend work with mutants?" Jeremiah asked, keeping his voice curious, not accusing, but Scott momentarily froze in any case. Violet and Jeremiah both noted that as well, but refrained from exchanging a glance.

"Uh, only in general," Scott said. "I mean, it's kind of a hot topic. You know - in her classes and stuff. Plus she's doing some research into evolutionary changes. So yeah, it comes up. She told me some things." Two spots of color had stained his high cheekbones, and his ears were bright pink. Seeing that, Jeremiah deftly turned the conversation to a different matter and the girls drifted back out again, to pursue whatever they'd been doing before. After a while, Scott's muscles relaxed.

The evening passed slowly, and Scott fretted until he thought enough time had passed that he could escape to use the bathroom without raising suspicions. Hurrying downstairs, he fetched his cell phone and then holed up in one of the two bathrooms to dial the mansion in Westchester. It was Frank who answered, and Scott thought belatedly to check his watch. Eight-fifteen in LA meant it was after eleven in New York. "It's me - Scott," he said into the mouthpiece. "What the hell is going on up in Winnipeg?"

"No one knows," Francesco replied. "Henry and the professor have gone north with Warren to see if there is anything more to know."

"Jean didn't go?"

"No."

And Scott breathed out in relief. The idea of Jean anywhere near that big blond guy had scared him at an instinctive level. "Is he a mutant?" Scott asked.

Frank hesitated. "It is not for sure, but I think . . . yes."

Scott had caught the hesitation. "What do you know about him, Frank?"

Silence cracked out of the phone's receiver. "He is not yet a threat," Frank said finally.

"But he will be?"

"He could be. You know there is nothing of certainty, mi amico."

Sighing, frustrated, Scott ran a hand into his hair and tugged at it. "Okay, okay. Look, I'm at EJ's, but I'll call again on Sunday when I get back to Berkeley. If there's an emergency, though, buzz me on my cell."

"Of course."

Scott decided to stay up, hoping others would retire to bed and leave him to the TV. He wanted to catch any further reports about the incident in Winnipeg. Unfortunately, he hadn't counted on the fact that Violet Haight was as much a night owl as he. She showed no signs of heading to bed, even when the wall clock chimed one in the morning and EJ finally gave up and went out to his garage room. Scott sat next to her on the sofa, an afghan over his legs, channel-surfing with the remote and striving for unobtrusive interest. When he did finally stumble over a repeated report, Violet said, "Stop there. I'd like to hear more." So he stopped. It was just coincidence, he told himself. Why shouldn't EJ's mother be curious, too?

"He must be either very angry or very frightened," Violet said as they both watched repeating video loops of the blond man tearing through cars. Her comment startled Scott, and he glanced over.

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, in my experience, that's usually the root of violence - fear, or anger." She had dropped her eyes back to her cross-stitch, not the TV, or him. "It gets covered up with other motives, but if you peel it back, it's fear or anger. And maybe anger is just fear by another name."

Scott pondered that. It wasn't much different from what the professor believed. "So you think people can be educated out of violence?"

"Maybe. But they're more likely to be loved out of it." She glanced up at him. "Imagine looking like that poor man. Does he have a home, you think? Or anyone who might care about him? Or do people just run when they see him coming, before they know a thing about him?"

Like darts, her words struck Scott hard in the chest, making his breathing shallow.

"My husband," she went on. "You know what a good man he is. But he's a big man. And he's a black man. And sometimes when he walks into a 7-11 after dark outside black town, the help - they get real close to the counter, in case they need to push that emergency button hidden there. They don't know a thing about him but what he looks like." She was silent a moment. "It hurts, y'know? Distrust like that - it eats away at the soul. So I wonder what that poor man up in Canada feels? What does the counter help do when he walks into a 7-11 after dark?"

"'He came to feel,'" Scott quoted, "'that the important thing about a man is not the color of his skin, or the texture of his hair, but the texture and quality of his soul.'"

Violet smiled as her needle flashed in and out of white cloth, drawing black thread. "My son's been at you to read Dr. King?"

"No - Jean gave me a book of his writings. Jean . . . the woman I was talking about earlier."

"Ah. The one who's studying mutant genetics."

Scott opened his mouth to correct her - but he'd be lying if he did. And he wondered, suddenly, how much good any of his subterfuge had really done. As before, he became aware of the tat-tat of the wall clock, and after a minute, said, "So you don't think that guy's dangerous and should be locked up?"

"Oh, I think he's dangerous. But anyone can be dangerous, Scott. Give me a gun and I could be dangerous, too. The question is, would I be? And I guess the real question is - does that man have to be?" She shrugged and cut the thread she'd been stitching, pausing to tie it off and slip her needle through fabric holes to hold it in place until she was ready to work again. "I suppose it depends on how angry he is. Or how afraid. And a lot of that might depend on us, don't you think? Do we only see what he looks like? Or what he is like?" And she stood, one palm at the small of her back as she stretched. "My, it's late. I think I'll head to bed."

Scott Summers stayed up a long time after, still channel-surfing, hoping to stumble over more information, but there was none, and finally, he went to bed himself, still thinking about what EJ's mother had said, and he continued to ponder it for the whole next week.

"And where the fuck were you, man?" EJ asked - loudly - as soon as he unlocked their dorm room door. Summers had missed their English class, and a quiz, and that wasn't like him. EJ had conjured visions of accidents or other dire emergencies until he'd gotten back to Norton Hall only to see Summers' racing bike locked up downstairs in its usual place.

"Don't yell, please," came a voice from the bed. The room was dark, or at least dim, with the curtains shut tightly, and Summers lay on his bed, on his back, a cloth over his eyes. The room stank badly, all sweet and sharp, making EJ gag.

"God, did you vomit?"

"Yeah. Jesus, I'm sorry. I just . . . I'm so sick. You might want to go somewhere else tonight."

Shit, EJ thought to himself. This was the fourth time Summers had suffered one of his migraines since the year had begun, but always before, the migraines had hit him in the late afternoon or early evening, and had never been this bad. Shaking his head, EJ dug through his dirty clothes for a towel. The smell told him where Summers had dumped his breakfast near the bed's foot in front of the little fridge; it had half-dried into the cheap brown carpet. Getting down on his knees, he began to clean it up.

"Don't do that," Summers hissed from the bed. "You don't have to do that."

"Don't have to, no," EJ said softly. "But the longer it's on the floor, the worse the room'll smell. And you're in no shape."

"EJ."

"Shut the fuck up, Slim. You're sick."

He finished the job, though he gagged three times and almost emptied his own stomach in the process. It took two towels and a bowl of water. When he was done, he opened the windows but left the curtains shut, then seated himself carefully on the edge of his friend's bed. "You take anything for it?"

"Yes." Summers' face was pasty even in the low light and he was sweating, his jaw clenched tightly from pain.

"It's bad, ain't it?" EJ asked. Summers didn't reply. "I think you ought to go to the Tang, man. I'll drive you over there." Tang was the student health center.

"No."

"Slim-boy - "

"No, EJ. I've had them this bad before. It's just . . . too much light." He was almost panting as he spoke. "It'll be better by morning."

"Maybe so, but you got a quiz to make up. You know the prof requires a legit excuse to let you retake a test. You need a doctor's note."

"Not for this. Migraines are on my disabilities form."

"Then at least let me call one of the student health workers. They're just downstairs."

"No, dammit!" And he winced. "Ow." A pause to breathe. "Just go away, okay?"

So EJ took his books next door and tried to study in Phoebe and Elizabeth's room, but they were perched cross-legged on their beds, deeply involved in a discussion of which show's heroine was tougher: Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Xena: Warrior Princess. On another afternoon, he might have found it amusing, or even joined in, but not today. Fed up, he returned to check in on Summers, who appeared to be asleep. Cautiously pulling out the chair at Summers' desk, EJ seated himself where a little late afternoon light slipped in through the curtains and he could read. He might have retreated to the lounge, but didn't want to go that far, in case Scott needed him. Breathing heavy, Summers had rolled onto his side, the white cheese cloth still over the upper half of his face. He'd said before that wearing glasses or goggles only made it hurt worse when he got these headaches. Too much weight on his eyes.

About an hour had passed when Summers suddenly said, "I need to go pee."

EJ glanced over at him. "You want help?"

"Maybe to get down there, yeah."

So EJ shut his book and helped Summers to sit up very slowly, while Scott tied the cloth over his eyes like a blindfold. Then EJ helped him stand. He was shaking and still sweaty. "I am so sorry to bug you with this," he said, an edge of both anger and real pain in his voice.

"It's not a problem, man. What do you think friends are for?"

Summers didn't reply to that. He'd been taught to stand on his own two feet, keeping pain - either physical or emotional - to himself. He might be happy to give assistance, but hated to take it unless he were utterly incapacitated. As he was now. Needing EJ's help speared his pride. Fortunately for them both, the bathrooms were close to their room, and nearly empty just now, but the bright light of the hall, the necessity of movement, and the noise of conversation or music from other rooms sawed into Summers' skull like a dull knife. As soon as he got into the restroom, the first thing he did was push his face up against the cool tile wall. "Hurts," he said. EJ almost had to carry him into a stall, which got odd looks from the few others in there.

"Bad trip?" one asked.

"It's not drugs," EJ snapped back. "He's just sick."

"Whoa," the other boy replied, holding up hands and backing out of the toilet area. "Just asking, dude. Maybe he should go to Tang?" But he was gone before EJ (or Scott) could reply.

"You don't have to hold me up; I can piss by myself," Summers said, shutting the stall door in EJ's face. Shame had rendered him rude. Taking it philosophically, EJ grabbed some paper towels from the dispenser above the sinks, in case he needed them, only to be interrupted by a crash behind. Summers had collapsed after all - fainted in fact - and EJ had to crawl under the door to get inside so he could stand him up and pull on his pants. But EJ's hands felt wrapped in gauze and a belly-deep panic caused him to fumble buttons and zippers. The stall was too narrow for two people, and the whole situation fell to the far left of absurd, but they weren't going to be laughing about this later. Conscious once more, if groggy, Summers was sobbing in humiliation like a drunk, apologizing over and over and saying he was too dizzy to stand.

"Stop it, man," EJ hissed. "Come on, stop it. You're making yourself sicker and you'll throw up again. Relax and let me take care of you. Trust me, okay? You gotta trust somebody."

Summers nodded and, in that moment, something subtle shifted. EJ felt his body relax, and he leaned his forehead into EJ's shoulder. "Okay. I trust you."

So EJ got him dressed and slipped an arm around him, walking him over to the sinks where he could wash his face with cool water, or as much of it as the cheese-cloth bared. Then he just picked him up and carried him back to their room. He ain't heavy, he's my brother, he thought, trying to lighten the moment because he was scared out of his mind.

After getting Summers back into bed, EJ did something he knew wasn't kosher, but he was desperate, and one step away from calling an ambulance. Taking Scott's cell phone off his desk, he went out into the hall and pushed "1" on the speed dial, waiting while the phone rang, and breathing out in relief when a woman answered, "Hello?"

"Is this Jean Grey?" he asked.

Silence. "Yes. Who is this?"

"EJ Haight - Scott's roomy. Man, I need your help. He's really sick and I don't know what's up but he won't let me take him to the school health center or call a student health worker and I'd call an ambulance but I thought I'd try you first and see what you thought I should do, if there was anything else to do, and - "

"EJ!" she interrupted on the other end. "Stop! Calm down."

He stopped and caught his breath. "Okay."

"Good. Now listen to me. You cannot take Scott to a hospital. Do you understand? Do not take him to a hospital! They won't know what to do and could wind up hurting him. I need you to answer some questions for me. Can you do that?"

"Yeah."

"Then tell me what, exactly, is happening."

"It's one of his headaches, but really bad. It must have hit right after breakfast 'cause he missed class. He threw up, too, and he just totally flipped me out in the bathroom by fainting."

"He fainted? Tell me, how many times did he vomit?"

"Just the once."

"Does he know where he is and who he is, or is he delirious?"

"No, he's okay on that score, I think."

She sighed into the phone and he realized that she must have been scared herself. "That's not so bad, then. Is Scott where I can talk to him?"

"I'm out in the hall. He doesn't know I called you."

"I thought maybe as much," and he could hear the amusement in her voice. "Take the phone back into the room and give it to him. I need to ask him some questions."

"He's going to kill me."

"Not when I get done with him. You did the right thing. He's pushed himself too far."

So EJ took the phone back into their room and sat down on Scott's bed. "Hey man, Jean's on the phone and wants to talk to you."

"What?" Summers muttered, rolling slowly onto his back and reaching out blindly to feel for the phone. EJ put it in his hand. "I didn't hear it ring."

"It didn't. I called her."

"EJ!"

"You're in a bad way, man. I needed some advice."

Scott, came from the cell phone's earpiece and Scott put it to his ear. EJ moved over to his own bed, to give them some privacy. He couldn't hear what Jean asked, but Scott replied only with 'yes,' 'yes,' 'no,' and 'okay.'

Finally, he held out the phone to EJ, who took it back to ask, "So?"

"He'll be fine," Jean replied. "This is a bad one, yes, but he's been through worse and there isn't much to be done beyond what you're doing already. Just let him sleep and give him Imitrex - his pain meds - if he asks for it. And he'd better ask for it. In the morning, he owes you an explanation. I told him that. But call me again if he should start vomiting, become delirious, or complain of a great pressure in his head."

"All right."

"EJ - thank you. He won't say so, but thank you."

So EJ bullied Scott into taking some pain medication, then went next door again to let him sleep, hoping Elizabeth and Phoebe were past their Kick-Butt-Women-on-TV debate. They were, but he still got little studying done and retired early at ten o'clock. The next morning, Summers was up but wobbly on his feet, so EJ insisted that he stay home from class. When EJ returned sometime after two, he found Summers sitting at his desk under the window, showered, dressed, and wasting time surfing the Net. He turned at EJ's entrance. "Hey."

"Hey! How you feeling?"

"All right, I guess. A little stupid."

"Why? It wasn't your fault."

But Summers just looked off at the far wall, no expression on his face. Light from the window behind cut his profile clean and sharp. Then he stood. "We need to talk, Eeej." Head tilted, he eyed his friend. "You asked me yesterday to trust you. Okay, I'm going to."

"Why does this sound like something I may not like?"

Summers shrugged. "I don't know what you'll think. But after yesterday, you deserve to know the whole truth. Let's go somewhere else, though. Some of this, you need to see - and I don't dare show you here."

EJ's unease was metamorphosing into a low-grade alarm. "What's so bad you can't show me here?"

"It's not bad. It's just . . . . I can't show you here. Let's go up to that little woody area near the Big C. Come on." And he slipped past EJ, out into the hall, then paused to glance back. EJ still stood in their dorm room, his backpack over his shoulder. "Look - I'm not going to take you up there and murder you or anything." He grinned, but it was strained and the joke fell flat. "Let's go," he finished, and EJ tossed the backpack onto his bed and followed him out.

They rode bikes; EJ still had his even though he'd brought back a car after Christmas. No one drove on campus. Only mid-afternoon on a Thursday, students were still thick on the sidewalks, so they had to weave their way carefully, which suited Scott. He wasn't yet up to great physical exertion. The spring temperatures were mild and trees were blooming under a clear-quartz sky, early flowers bright in mulched beds and crowded into artfully placed cement planters. The ride might have been pleasant had his stomach been churning less. They reached the rise that led up to the Big C overlooking the Bay, but he turned off the path before they were even halfway there, heading into the surrounding trees on foot, pushing his bike. EJ followed, and Scott kept an eye out to be sure that no one else did, accidentally or not.

Some way inside, there was a little clearing that Scott had found the previous August. A fallen pine had taken down two others, creating an odd triangle of rotten wood draped in vines and white lichen. There, they leaned their bikes against trees and faced each other - edgy, unsure, suspicious - until abruptly, Scott started laughing. "Christ, this seems so pretentious!" Baffled, EJ said nothing, just watched as his friend sat down on a fallen log. "Sit, Eeej. You look like you think I have a brain tumor or something."

In fact, that very fear had flitted through EJ's head earlier, but he couldn't imagine why Summers wouldn't have been able to tell him that in the dorm, or what Summers had to show him that necessitated being outdoors. "Okay," he replied cautiously, and came to sit on another log, a few feet away. Summers noticed the distance but didn't comment.

And now that the moment was upon him, Scott had absolutely no idea where to start. He'd spent most of the day thinking it through and rehearsing, but - perhaps predictably - everything had scattered out of his head when the time had arrived. So he went with the short and simple. "I'm a mutant."

EJ didn't immediately answer, then said only, "Huh?"

And Scott Summers blinked. He'd anticipated any of a good half-dozen replies, even prepared for them, but none had included 'Huh?' Perspective thus duly returned, he laughed at himself. However much the events in Winnipeg had preyed on his own mind for the week since spring break, EJ had probably forgotten all about it. "I'm a mutant," he repeated. "You remember that guy from the news when we were down at your house? The guy up in Winnipeg who was - "

" - turning over cars?" EJ's bafflement had transformed into shock, but not into alarm. "But you don't . . . you're not . . .." EJ stopped and stared. "You don't look like that guy did."

"No. Each mutation is unique. I have no idea who that guy was, or even what his mutation is, other than excessive strength. I don't get my jollies flipping SUVs, though. I usually try to avoid hurting people. My own mutation . . . " He tapped his glasses. "It's here, in my eyes."

"What do they look like?"

"Huh?" His turn now for monosyllabic brilliance.

"Your eyes - what do they look like?" EJ leaned in a little. "I figured there had to be something seriously wrong with them, since you won't ever let anyone see them."

"Actually, they don't look any different at all - as long as they're closed." He glanced up, to be sure no branches obscured the sky directly overhead, then shut his eyes and pulled his glasses off. "See? It's when they're open that we have a problem. That's why I have to wear the glasses, and why I had to bring you out here. I could try to explain it to you, but it's probably easier just to show you."

Tilting his chin up, he opened his eyes and felt the energy coil, then explode skyward in a bright neon wash of red.

One second, two, three.

Shutting his eyes once more, he lowered his chin to put the glasses back on. There was silence, not even the call of birds. And no sound from EJ at all.

Safe behind ruby quartz, Scott opened his eyes to find his friend on his feet and half way across the clearing. But he wasn't running. Instead, he wore a stupefied expression. "Holy shit! You're the Berkeley UFO?"