Chapter fourteen: What had Dreaming Ever Done for Her?
She didn't know why she was panting for breath but Ultra had to take a second when she became solid again at the other side of the door. That was precisely the reason that she loathed these private meetings. That was why she tried to put some distance between herself and him whenever they were in a room together. She wished that it was because he was a disgusting old letch, fondling her at any opportunity, but what Charles Xavier did was much worse. Sometimes she wished that he'd just grab her ass in a great handful so she could knock him the hell out of that chair of his. What he actually did was give her hope.
Ultra wanted to block that last, telepathic part of their conversation out of her head but there was something about what he said that just kept resonating. It was as if he had put some kind of coding into the message that kept on repeating until you were driven mad.
We don't know anything about you but we all know that we love you.
Sentimentality like that made her want to rip out her ears. How could the idiots in this huge building love her when they knew absolutely nothing? They were brainless, lovesick, sentimental fools. But Ultra couldn't deny the little warmth that she felt in her heart. She hadn't been loved since those days with the Freedom Fighters and Low, and that was a different kind of love. These idiots wanted her to belong to their motley crew, not just to have the glory of the most powerful mutant in existence sleeping under their roof but to have her as a friend. The larger part of her wanted to run fast and long to get away from it but the reasoning in her brain asked her where she would go if not here. Trying to find Low was completely out of the question. If he had even survived his dalliance with Stryker the odds were high that he would be under surveillance after her escape. Stryker would be waiting for her. At least here she could drop off the radar, one mutant among many.
Her mind slipped to what Charles had said about taking some classes. She reached into her bag and took out a dog-eared notebook. She held it open, spine down, and flicked through the pages with her telekinesis. Every single page was full of notes, diagrams and graphs. Ultra disliked Jean for reasons that she didn't fully understand but she was a good teacher.
Ultra remembered always having a natural flair for the sciences, a flair that had only heightened since her mutations had manifested. The subject of genetics, especially screwed up ones, fascinated her. She wanted to try and figure out what it was about those tiny, mysterious strands and base-pairs that resulted in such amazing abilities. She hadn't had the opportunity to progress like most kids and her dream of one day studying at university was a far off fantasy now, but it would be nice to learn a foundation that could possibly one day lead to a research project. That was when she had been naive enough to dream.
Scowling at the pages, Ultra slammed the book closed and hurled it down the corridor. What had dreaming ever given her?
She turned to march off down the corridor, almost bumping into Jean Grey. Their eyes met but neither woman said a word. They regarded each other for a moment before Ultra stepped to the side of her and walked away, her heels grinding her dreams into the floor.