Chapter 26

"Scott!"

Scott felt his brow knit as he struggled to place the unfamiliar voice that greeted him in the visitor's room. His jaw was still throbbing, despite the Tylenol he'd asked for . . . not enough to be incapacitating, but enough to make thinking difficult. And he was unsteady on his feet, the shock and fear making every muscle in his body twitch and shudder unpredictably. He'd tied his blindfold tight across his eyes, unable to trust his eyelids, and the steady pressure around his head suddenly seemed like the only secure thing in a world pitching out of control.

"Are you okay?" the voice demanded. "It's me, Warren." A hand fell on his shoulder, and he jumped involuntarily.

"Warren?"

"Me, too, if you're interested," said Royal's voice from slightly farther away.

Scott grabbed hold of the arm that still had him by the shoulder, trying to steady his breathing. You know Warren. You trust Warren. Take it easy.

"I take it you got my call," he choked out, after taking a second to steady himself.

"They wouldn't let us in until this morning," Royal told him apologetically. "How's your face?"

"Oh, it's great," Scott deadpanned. "Tooth's all fixed. Did he give me a silver filling, or the tooth-colored kind?" He pulled his lip down a bit, then let it go with a humorless half-laugh. "I guess it doesn't matter."

"You told him you hadn't been numbed?"

"He told me he'd stop drilling as soon as I opened my eyes. It was deliberate. No question."

"Sick," Warren spat. "That guy is one sick sociopath. I knew I had a reason to hate dentists. Don't worry, he's gonna answer for this."

"We're getting everything moving to start an official inquiry," said Royal, "and you better believe we're telling the press. Aside from drilling your teeth open, did he hit you at all? Try to force your eyes open?"

Scott shook his head. "Didn't do anything that could've left a mark."

"Your word against his," Royal sighed. "Oh, goody."

"What does that matter?" Warren demanded. "Just look at him. Any idiot can see something's been done to him. He can hardly stay on his feet."

"I can see it," Royal assured him. "Last time I saw this kid, he was cool as a cucumber, takin' the world on with his eyes shut. Look at him now."

"What do I look like?" Scott asked.

"Like you just woke up from a nightmare about being hit by a truck to discover that the airplane you're flying on is crashing," Warren told him.

Scott nodded. "I can kinda see that." Feeling a need to defend himself, he added, "It's not even that it really hurt that much . . . I mean, it hurt, of course it hurt, it hurt a lot . . . but it was just that I couldn't move. He had me tied down. I couldn't even talk. It was just like a nightmare. Except with actual pain, not just waking up in the nick of time."

"We've got to get you out of here," Warren announced. "This is insane. This whole scheme is insane. No jury's ever going to rule in your favor."

"I wouldn't be too worried about that," Royal interjected. "The security camera footage is standing up to every test we can run on it. The jury's not going to be a problem . . . it's just keeping him in one piece long enough to stand up in front of one. It wasn't supposed to be a problem. He was supposed to be in solitary confinement. We're going to be poking into who gave the order to put you with other prisoners, and with any luck that person will be fired the second we get his name. But inside a prison and outside a prison are two separate worlds. We're doing everything we can, but I can't guarantee that you're going to be safe."

"I can deal with whatever they throw at me," Scott assured him. "Just get me in front of that jury."

"You're sure?"

"I can do this."

He heard Royal chuckle. "Summers, you're an idiot. But you've sure got balls."

"And I'd like to keep them, so if you could ask somebody to let me stay in solitary today . . ."

Cyclops? Cyclops, can you hear me?

Scott felt himself burst into the first full-on, genuine smile he'd managed in days. Professor Xavier!

"Scott?"

Hold on a second, Professor. "Can we wrap this up?" he asked Warren and Royal, gesturing vaguely to his head. "I've got a call."

Hey, I'm here.Scott's familiar voice sounded in Professor Xavier's head. It was, for lack of a better word, scratchy. Charles had become used to the large, powerful Cerebro in the basement of his own home, which was the result of years of development and fine-tuning. This hastily thrown-together substitute had neither the same range, nor precision, nor clarity. But he could get through to the planet surface, and that was good enough, for the moment.

Forge was watching the computer screen he'd rigged into the body of the machine. Dancing lines indicated the output of electrical and mental energy, and how much was feeding back into the system. Eric stood behind the younger mutant, watching over his shoulder, one hand extended as he provided electromagnetic power. The air between his palm and the surface of the desk wavered, as though under extreme heat, and a quiet, wavering hum filled the room.

Charles nodded to them both, letting them know that he'd gotten through. Scott, we've just seen the news up here. Are you all right?

I'm okay.

I thought that jail might be difficult, for you, but I never imagined that someone in a position of responsibility would intentionally harm you. We didn't plan for this. I don't like it.

He could feel Scott's amused wince of pain. I'm not too thrilled about it either, Professor.

I think we need to regroup and come up with an alternate plan.

I think we need to NOT do that.

We can have a strike team down there to extract you in—

Don't you dare, sir. One act of mutant violence with the X-Men's name on it and everything's over for us. We will never get to go home. I'm not gonna let that happen.

Charles felt his fists clench involuntarily around the armrests of his chair. You are too brave for your own good, Scott Summers.

Learned from the best, sir.

I am more proud of you than I can say.

Thanks.

We sent the house's security camera records to your lawyer's office. Did they come through?

Yeah. Royal's over the moon about them. He thinks this case is going to be easy. Tell everybody they did good work. How's the team?

Not as fine as I would like. Shadowcat was captured attempting to recover those files, and Gambit suffered minor injuries on her rescue mission. Storm is still limping. Rogue has been out of contact since the last pickup. We haven't been able to reach Alex or his foster parents. And I haven't heard from Jean or Logan.

Don't worry about them. Jean's been contacting me. She's all right.

I don't doubt it, as long as she's with Logan. I'll try to reach her as soon as we're done here. If she's been in touch with you, she can't be more than a few hundred miles away. The range on the Velocity Cerebro isn't very good.

He felt Scott smile. That's comforting to hear. When you talk to her, tell her that I love her, okay?

I'm sure that she knows, but I'll remind her.

Gambit woke up to pounding.

He groaned, his mind grabbing feebly at his rapidly-fading dream of warmth and the scent of magnolia. What day was it? "Pas le dimanche . . . vignt minutes le dimanche matin, laisse-moi en paix . . ." He wormed his head under his thin pillow.

"Gambit, you in there?"

Reluctantly, he let curiosity get the better of him. He propped himself up on his elbows, tossing the pillow away. "Alvers?" What was Lance Alvers doing waking him up on a Sunday morning?

"Kitty sent me up to get you. There's, um . . . a situation. Planetside. You probably want to see this."

Not another situation. Not one more accursed situation. But his legs kicked of their own volition, exposing his mostly-naked self to the uncomfortably cool recirculated Avalon air. "Be down en cinq minutes," he grumbled, grabbing for his clothes.

"Everybody's down in the rec room."

"We got a rec room?" He really needed to get his bearings in this place; up until now, he'd been too overwhelmed with 'situations' to give the station a thorough going-over.

"It's down the stairs to the level with the kitchen on it, then I think like three lefts and a right. You'll hear people. See you down there."

When Gambit found the rec room, he discovered that he'd been right in thinking it was way too early to get up. The room was crowded with X-Men, Brotherhood, and unaffiliated new arrivals, many of them either in pajamas (those who'd had a chance to pack any) or the hospital scrubs that the pajama-less were using instead. Most, like Gambit, were barefoot and tousle-haired. The room was carpeted, windowless, and equipped with a projector mounted in the ceiling. The projector was splaying MSNBC on the wall furthest from the door. Gambit fished a thin black elastic band from his pocket and put it in his mouth, to free up his hands while he whipped his hair back into its customary ponytail. His eyes scanned the room: no Magneto, Xavier, Beast, or Storm.

The story that everyone had gathered to watch was repeating.

" . . . accusations of torture from the legal counsel of Scott Summers, alleged ringleader of the mutant rights organization known as the X-Men. Summers was involved in an altercation yesterday morning in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan, where he is being held while awaiting trial on multiple charges. Sources inform us that Summers severely chipped a tooth in the fight, and was transported to a nearby dental clinic for emergency treatment."

"He open his eyes?" Gambit asked the nearest X-Man, who turned out to be Sam.

"Don't look like it," Sam murmured back, not taking his eyes from the flickering picture.

"Now, his attorney alleges that while he was undergoing this repair work, Summers was deliberately denied Novocaine or any other form of pain relief."

The picture cut to footage of an expensively-suited man on the steps of a stone building, surrounded by a ring of reporters. "This was not a medical oversight," the man announced. "This was not an accident of any kind. This was hate crime. Mr. Summers has displayed tremendous faith in the justice system of the United States my giving himself up and agreeing to stand trial, and this same system will have failed him spectacularly if this despicable act of torture goes unpunished."

The feed cut back to the reporter. "The man who treated Mr. Summers is fifty-three-year-old Dr. Thomas Garcia, a dental surgeon who has been working with New York's state and federal penitentiaries for well over a decade. Dr. Garcia insists that he did administer Novocaine before beginning Mr. Summer's dental work, and that any accusations that he did otherwise are simply a publicity stunt."

Another cut. This time the screen showed a white-haired, dark-skinned gentleman who would have had a kind face if his expression hadn't been so full of anger and disappointment. "I have been treating inmates for fourteen years," he insisted. "I've worked with convicted murderers and men on death row. My job is not to judge these people. My responsibility . . . and it is one that I consider a great trust on the part of the state of New York . . . is simply to care for the health and comfort of the prison population. To accuse me of knowingly inflicting pain on a patient for any reason, particularly a political reason, is slanderous and deeply insulting."

"Ooh, just lemme at that guy," Kitty hissed. She wasn't hooked up to the IV stand anymore, but she was still pale and looked unsteady on her bare feet. Lance was standing a little bit too close to her, watching out of the corner of his eye for her to need a shoulder to lean on. Her entire attention was focused on the picture, her mouth set in a thin, angry line.

"He looks like a nice person," one of the littler mutants . . . Red Bull? Rainier? . . . observed hesitantly.

"But you don't know Scott," Bobby countered. "He's like the biggest Boy Scout ever made. He would never, ever tell a lie like that."

"As far as I know, he's never told a lie at all," said Kitty.

"I don't think he can spell 'lie'," said Roberto, getting into the spirit of the thing.

"They tortured him," said a soft, pained English voice . . . Betsy.

They tortured him.

Remy had heard the expression 'to see red' before. He'd even used it once or twice. But he hadn't thought it was literal. It was an old, abstract reference to bullfighting, and the red capes of the matadors. And yet the edges of his vision were going hazy, tinted with crimson, like he was recovering from a few more of Piotr's punches. Or, oddly enough, like he was suffering from messed-up circulation from being chained to a ceiling for a couple of hours in an upstairs room of his ex-wife's parents' house.

They tortured him.

Gambit burst into the upstairs conference room so fast that everybody, even Magneto, jumped. "Dis gone plenty far enough," he announced, his voice too loud for the little space, for his customary laconic self-control. "We gettin' him outta dere."

"I understand how you feel, Gambit," Xavier told him, and even through the red haze Remy could see the lines of stress and pain around his eyes.

"Dat's great. So lemme have a strike team, I'll draw up a plan, an' we have him home in time for dinner. Assumin' he can eat."

Xavier shook his head. "I'm sorry."

Gambit went still, the kind of intense stillness that made people nervous. "We are not," he announced, "Leavin'. Him. There."

"I'm afraid we have to."

"You're 'afraid we have to'? It's Scott! He's practically your son! You gonna leave him in prison, gettin' his teeth pulled out and beat to a bloody pulp, just so you can prove a point about human nature to Bucket-head here? He is Scott. He is ours. Let's go get him."

"That's not what Scott wants."

"To hell wid what Scott wants! Scott's an idiot!"

"Gambit, we got Cerebro working this morning. I just finished talking to him. I offered to send an extraction team, and he turned it down. He wants to stay and finish what he started."

"Dat's 'cause he's a moron!"

"It's his choice. I'm no happier about it than you are, but the fact remains that this trial is our best hope for ending this conflict without bloodshed, and Scott knows it. If we pull him out, it will be war."

"He's your boy, an' he's screamin' in pain. Why is it not war already?"

"Because," Magneto cut in, "it is not time yet." His gray eyes were cold and fierce and stern.

"He's tortured," Gambit reiterated.

"Others have been tortured before him. Some have even lived through it. Wait. The time will come."

"Or it may not," Professor Xavier amended gently. "One way or another, he will walk free. I promise you."

Gambit felt a nudge in his mind. Xavier was pushing on the closed, locked gates of his thoughts, asking for admittance . . . maybe to show the sincerity of the promise. Gambit remained belligerently mute.

"Please, Gambit," Xavier requested. The pressure in Gambit's head disappeared. "The team needs you to be strong right now. So few of the senior X-Men are still here. The younger students need to see you see that you are calm, or they will begin to panic. I cannot have that right now. I need your sangfroid."

Sangfroid. Cold-bloodedness. Yes, his sangfroid was in high demand this week. Too bad every drop of his blood was boiling with anger. But outnumbered and outgunned, he was forced to stand down. One breath . . . two breaths . . . the red haze receded; he could think again.

"If y'call Rouge today," he said, "I'd be grateful if you didn' mention what just happened just' now."

"I certainly won't, if you wish it."

Author's Notes:

My dear, faithful friends, my patient wonderful colleagues . . . I have a goal.

My goal is to finish and publish Flight Risk before the new semester starts on the 7th of January.

There's still a long way to go, and a lot of work to be done. Encouragement and hugs are much appreciated.

I remain, as ever, your humble and obedient servant.

Seri

Oh, whoops! Forgot the French.

Pas le dimanche . . . vignt minutes le dimanche matin, laisse-moi en paix . . . Not Sundays . . . twenty minutes on Sunday morning, leave me alone . . . (As you remember, Gambit has strong [almost religious] feelings about being woken up on Sunday.)