"Touch"
Chapter Nine: "False Affection, False Creation"
Her eyes traced the words across the screen. It seemed to be a vast, dense list. Nothing fancy, no presentation, no warning, just a gigantic wall of text. This was why she had ended up hurting Scott? The knot in her chest threatened to return, but she dismissed it for the time being – no mind could be spared for her regrets. What was this?
She searched for a sorting mechanism, something to put it into perspective. Found that she could sort the list by Names (Ascending and Descending), Codenames, Place of Origin or Current Residence (Nearest to Furthest and vice-versa), Power/Threat Level or Affiliation. Or, she could search for something specific.
Looking at the list, she saw that each entry had an attached document, marked as Xavier File and a number to go with it.
She started reading random things on the list to start: Absalom, Adam X, Boost, Omega-level, Epsilon-level, Byron Calley, Amara Juliana Olivia Aquilla...
Wait. Magma?
Rogue read the row. Amara Juliana Olivia Aquilla, Codename Magma, born in Nova Roma, currently residing in The Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, Lambda-level Mutant with a High Threat Rating, affiliated with the X-Men.
A chill traveled down Rogue's spine and she wondered why. This was ordinary, she knew that there was a database of each and every one of them. Their little stint with Arcade during the unauthorized party, which had allowed Mystique's break-in had let them know. Then why was she so nervous?
She looked at other names, just to be sure. There were those she recognized, Scott Summers, Jean Grey, Robert Drake, and then, those she didn't know at all, like Kevin Ford, Sean Cassidy, Neena Thurman.
The affiliations list was even weirder. X-Men, Academy of Tomorrow, Magneto's Brotherhood and city-based Morlocks, along with unaffiliated... Bayville Morlocks, Brooklyn, New York...
Sudden urge to search for one particular item.
And there it was. Her own file.
She opened it, and before her was an enhanced list, along with several official photographs.
Name: Unknown
Codename: Rogue
Birthplace: Unknown, presumed to be Caldecott County, Mississippi
Current Residence: Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters
Power Level: Lambda to Omega
Threat Level: Moderate to Extremely High
Affiliation: X-Men (past affiliation, Brotherhood of Mutants)
Xavier File(s): 0-2-4, PO Experiment Log.
Experiment?
Rogue accessed the Xavier File 0-2-4 first.
Immediately, the screen filled up with various screenshots and snippets from various video-feeds. The van, the Blackbird, traffic cameras... a medley of all the times she had been captured on camera using another's gifts. The security feed from the concert, where she had first lost control. Traffic cameras from the time she had battered Wolverine for all his worth. In-school cameras seeing her touch him and her and him, their respective echoes reawakening at the replay, flashing memories across her mind.
The professor's voice filled the room.
"Xavier File 0-2-4, Codename Rogue. From what I can understand, she has the ability to mimic others' gifts, much in the style of Cal Rankin (refer to Xavier File 1-3-9 for Cal Rankin, Codename Mimic.) Unlike Rankin, who can accomplish this by proximity alone, Rogue has to come in skin-to-skin contact with whomever she will mimic, seemingly every time she has to borrow their gifts.
Whenever Rogue touches someone, she forms some sort of link, absorbing their life force, their psychic essence, their memories, personalities and, if any, mutant gifts. The singular major drawback seems that every single contact leaves within the recesses of her mind a psychic after-image, an echo. Similar to multiple personality disorder, she shares a singular brain with many, many personalities, each of them primed and independent. The only way she can cope with this is by keeping self-imposed mental blocks on these personalities – like how she enjoys her privacy. The condition doesn't seem to affect her at the time of this recording, but I have my doubts about how much she can handle. Will she lose control of her gifts if there are more echoes within her than she can live with?
Another question is why she can't control the trigger of her gift. Unlike Mimic, she wasn't, to our knowledge, experimented on. Mystique may be many things, but her irrationally strong fear of experimentation, given her affiliations, led me to believe that Rogue wasn't the product of laboratory work.
My theory refers to Xavier File 0-0-3, Codename Cyclops. His inability to control his optic blast stems from a physical shortcoming, namely, the brain damage he suffered during the accident. Rogue has no such condition, but her inability to control the absorption, if you will, seems to come from her upbringing. Social isolation, enforced deviance and Irene Adler's experiment in extreme parenting, seems to have created in her an aversion to physical contact. Whether or not this might evolve into full-blown aphephobia remains to be seen.
One further question is whether or not she can absorb physical mutations. Mimic had, upon coming in contact with Kurt Wagner (Xavier File 0-0-7, Codename Nightcrawler), inherited his blue skin, as well as Logan's (Xavier File 0-0-2, Codename Wolverine) claws. Can she mimic those types of mutations as well?
Refer to Experiment Logs for conclusions."
Rogue stopped. This was more than the prof had ever let on. This was, more or less, a breakdown of who she was.
She accessed the experiment logs.
"Experiment Log: Codename Rogue. Progressive Overload Experiment.
My initial forays into her mind during her waking hours have allowed me to understand one thing: her need to make actual physical contact to use her gifts is a psychological need, above all else. It is deeply-seated in her mind, cutting across both the unconscious, subconscious and conscious parts. She has a phobic aversion to intimacy. Try as I might, I cannot erase it without traumatizing her further.
My presumption is that Rogue has simultaneous access to every gift she has absorbed, and can utilize them at will. This, I base on the fact that the link she forms with her targets is deeply psychic.
Hence, the first experiment will test how she copes with a progressive overload.
My operating hypothesis is similar to the frog in boiling water. I will, during her resting periods, gradually remove the lines keeping her echoes and her inner self separate and generate a sense of intimacy within her subconscious. If my hypothesis is proven, she will gradually have access to every gift she has absorbed. I will boil the water slowly so as not to alert the frog, so to speak.
I do, however, have to be more careful. The power surge experiment I have conducted with Jean Grey (Xavier File 0-0-5) almost was a complete catastrophe due to an unforeseen leap forward on her part. But that near-failure taught me never to lose patience with mutant power experiments. I will not repeat the same mistake again."
Something about being abstracted to an argumentative concept disturbed her. Chilled her even more than the fact that the prof seemed to be talking about the day she had wiped the floor with her fellow X-Men.
She wondered about what experiment he was talking about, the one with Jean, but could give a fuck about her at that point.
The prof was still speaking.
"Conclusions: my initial theory has proven right. It so inclined, Rogue can employ any gift she desires, any time she desires it. However, this requires an active presence of the echoes in her conscious mind, and creates a fugue-like episode. Her psychotic breakdown, though not as dangerous as the power surge experiment had been, could only be controlled through Wolverine's inept suggestions, which, in turn, relied on their similarity as people.
Creating any further trauma would be counter-productive, so as of today, I am stopping the experiment. I will continue trying to devise workarounds for her problem, and, if anything, the experiment will give me total access to her."
Her idle hands were trembling as the file shut itself off and returned her to the main index of herself. An emotional explosion was slowly expanding, pushing away all other knots.
Rage. Fear. Disappointment. Sorrow. The feeling of having been violated, used, raped, all of those and so much more, mixing in.
Bile.
Rogue leaned over the chair and threw up whatever light snack she had had before Jean-by-Rogue had taken over her.
Tears. Choking.
Clenched teeth grinding against each other.
It was indescribably bitter – it was as if she was jumping out of her skin, so many emotions bombarding her at once, each one pulling her in a different direction. There was a scream, building, but even the scream wouldn't be enough. She wanted to tear away at that computer console, tooth and nail, bite it free and smash it, destroy it, burn it...
"Rogue!"
Barely-registered presence. Someone there.
Thinking of grey, the abstract, bare concept of grey. Why?
"Jean, get over here, something's..."
"Scott, you really shouldn't..."
"I said get over here!"
Someone there? Someone coming?
Nobody. No. Nobody. No trust left, not to anyone, to anything. Belief and reliance and trust and dependence had all disappeared, had died a few minutes ago with something inside her.
"I can't..." someone whimpering, someone in pain, "Scott, I can't... her mind's too..."
"Rogue? Rogue? Listen to me, listen! I'm here! Okay, I'm right here, with you, you hear me?"
Words. Words, all words, all nothing, all without meaning.
Someone in her mind. The presence of another, more alien, more foreign... intrusion, violation, pressuring inwards...
Echoes. Logan-by-Rogue, Taryn-by-Rogue, Kurt-by-Rogue, ululating inside her head.
A scream, in the distance, somewhere.
Scott-by-Rogue, speaking.
Scott shook Rogue, but it seemed to have no effect. She was curled up in a ball on the chair, before the console, her eyes shut tight and her teeth clenched so tight, he could hear them grinding against one another. He was saying whatever the fuck it was one was supposed to be saying in situations like these; whatever he knew to make a connection.
"It's alright, Rogue! It's alright! Whatever it is, it's alright, you hear me? It's okay! No harm, no foul! It's alright!"
No response. Scott looked at her. Dark red eyes through the ruby quartz of the visor – dead. Staring off to the distance.
"Rogue, it's me, come on! Snap out of it!"
Behind him, Jean, trying her best to get into her mind.
"Jean?"
"No." Jean said, "It's too hard, it's impossible... I can't even bear to be here, she's an emotional atom bomb right now."
"Fuck! Then go get the professor!"
"I'm not gonna leave y..."
"Just do it!"
"Scott Summers, I am..."
"Go!"
Jean looked at him and wished she could see through that visor to see what his eyes looked like. But his tone of voice and the sudden increase in his sense of urgency told her all she needed to know.
"Just go, Jean!"
Jean?
Rogue heard the name and latched onto it. It seemed to mean everything in the world in that moment, and so she sprung into action, fingers hitting the keyboard through the blur of the presence beside her. Quicker than she had ever known, lifting the skill straight from Arcade, she used a ten-finger type to call up Jean's experiment log.
Jean was already gone, however, but upon hearing the first line, Scott's interest was piqued.
"Experiment Log for Xavier File 0-0-5, Jean Grey: Power Surge Experiment."
The professor's voice. The traitor's voice.
"My operating hypothesis is that if a psychic overload was to be induced in her, Jean Grey's mutant gift can extend to psionics. The difficulty in both our cases is that while I'm a powerful telepath, I am not a very good telekinetic. Jean is a very good telekinetic, but her telepathic potency indicates she can be so much better at that.
My main method is to remove the obstacles I have placed in her mind, that keep her powers from getting out of control. Introduce a new load by increasing the amount of input she receives and see if this will lead to an increase in output."
A moment's silence.
"Conclusions: my hypothesis was proven. If placed under load, Jean Grey has the capacity for psionics. However, there is a serious drawback to introducing such a load to her: the increased input induces a psychotic, near-comatose state and she can't maintain enough consciousness to even attempt to control it.
I would postulate that her subconscious mind blocks out her consciousness in order to cope with the additional input, sacrificing what is otherwise the normal function of her brain in order to make room for the expansion of her gifts.
This, however, allows me to generate somewhat of a hypothesis when dealing with the uncontrollability of two other subjects. Codename Cyclops and Codename Rogue both have uncontrollable gifts, and if substituting physical brain function for mutant gifts is possible, there might be a way to help them. Mutant gifts are basically the result of a unique frequency DNA/RNA-feedback. If these results of the power surge experiment can be replicated, then there might be a way.
Then, what should be next on the agenda is a progressive overload experiment. Preferred subject is Codename Rogue."
Silence. Idle screen light bleeding out, dark blue, drawing shadows across their faces.
The hum of Cerebro in the dark.
Whisper in her ear.
"Rogue..."