From his control room, Magneto continued to observe the transmissions from
Sam's implants. Everything the boy saw and heard, Magneto saw and heard.
Right now, he was listening to Glen telling Sam how they would change the
world by being more open with their relationship. Magneto curled his lip at
the boy's naiveté. Being more open was not going to change anybody's
opinions, he thought. All it would do would be to give people a visible
target for their fears. If Glen truly wanted to change the world, Magneto
thought, then he should reveal his powers and give people a REAL reason to
be afraid of him, and then use that fear to his advantage. He absent-
mindedly ran his fingers over a particular button on the control panel as
he looked over at Mystique, standing next to him and watching the screen in
silence.
Mystique caught Magneto's glance as she watched the monitor, and thanked whatever god that might exist that the mutant sitting next to her wasn't telepathic; if he could read her mind, he might kill her on the spot for what she had been thinking. At the moment, she had been thinking her own son, Kurt. About the experiments that Magneto had subjected him to shortly after his birth, and their tragic consequences. Mystique had been perfectly content to raise the boy by herself and let his powers develop naturally, but Magneto had been impatient, and insisted on his "treatments" in order to give the boy enhanced abilities. Somehow, along the way, something had gone horribly wrong; a contaminated strand of DNA, a flaw in the re- sequencing program, and the results had been freakish even by her standards. She recalled her hysteric flight from Magneto's castle that night, trying to save her son from any further harm, only to lose him, possibly forever. Magneto had not killed her that night, but had exacted her unswerving loyalty in exchange. That was why she was still by his side now; she had no means of confronting him or just flat out leaving. She was no match for Magneto, even with the Brotherhood at her side. And besides, she thought, where would I go? To Xavier? Never. Even if Kurt was there.
She watched Magneto toying with the button on the console in front of him. He had insisted that she be here so that he could again display his cruelty and remind her of his control over her. As if turning her son partly into an animal hadn't been bad enough, now Magneto was going to make her watch as he killed a perfectly innocent boy, not even a mutant at that, all so he could move closer to the day when he would be seen as the King of mutants.
"Very soon now, Mystique. The boy will be where we want him, and then we can begin," Magneto said ominously. Mystique continued to gaze at the screen, powerless to change the course of events that were about to unfold.
Scott, Jean, Glen and Sam arrived back at the Institute. Inside, Scott announced to the rest of the X-Men that their normal training session would be postponed until later that evening, which suited them fine; most of them had school projects that they'd rather be working on. Scott led Glen and Sam down to the Danger Room while Jean stayed upstairs, studying.
Scott paused at the door of the Danger Room and turned to Sam. "Before we start, I want you to promise us that you won't tell people where or how you learned the things we're about to teach you. It took the Professor a lot of convincing before he agreed to let me do this," Scott and Xavier's concerns were genuine. In addition to the issue of their secrecy, the Institute had fallen victim to a hacker earlier that year while a party was going on upstairs. Xavier had had to wipe a LOT of minds that particular evening, and made it clear that visitors were not to be allowed access to the lower levels of the Institute without proper supervision. Which basically meant that nobody got in, period.
"I promise," said Sam. "And thanks again for doing this,"
Scott nodded, and opened the door to the Danger Room. They walked in as the door closed behind them with a pneumatic hiss.
"Now, the best way to win a fight is to not get hit," said Scott. "Nothing personal, but you don't really match up too well against Duncan and his buddies. You wouldn't stand much chance if you went toe to toe with them,"
"So I need to be faster than them," Sam concluded.
"Exactly," said Glen. "If you move fast enough, and they can't hit you, eventually they'll just get frustrated and give up,"
"So we're going to teach you some 'defensive' offensive skills," said Scott. And for the next hour, they taught Sam how to fall properly, recover quickly, and dodge blows. They also taught him a few basic throws and judo moves. Sam took it all in like a sponge, and by the end of the session, Scott and Glen were convinced that Sam would be able to win a fight without even throwing a punch.
"You're doing really well with this," said Glen. "I couldn't even get this stuff down this fast,"
"Thanks," said Sam, wrapping his arm around Glen's and leaning his head against Glen's shoulder. "So when do I get to see what you can do?"
"How about right now?" asked Glen. "Think we could show him what this room can really do?"
"Couldn't do any harm. Just don't over-do it, okay?" said Scott. He then turned to Sam. "Come on, it'll be safer to watch from upstairs," He led Sam out the door and up to the control booth as Glen prepared for the Danger Room to come alive.
Magneto watched Sam follow Scott up to the control booth. "It begins now," he said, and activated the other implants imbedded in Sam's brain.
Scott was too busy working the controls of the Danger Room computer to see the effects of Magneto's implants taking their effect on Sam. As he activated the startup sequence, he didn't see Sam walking over to one of the terminals on the far side of the room.
Magneto continued to send commands through Sam's implants, controlling his movements. At the moment, he was having Sam access the memory banks of the Institute. He had had Pietro plant a special subroutine in the Institute's computer system that would be small enough not to be detected by the computer's virus sweepers. The program didn't do much, but it would allow him to access minor systems in the Institute, such as doors, lights, and.
"Scott, could you come down to the hanger for a minute," Logan's voice rang out from over the intercom. "I need to talk with you about a couple things,"
Scott turned away from the computer and walked over to the intercom. "I'll be down in just a minute," Then he turned to Sam. "Ok, I'll be back in a few minutes. The computer's starting itself up, and it should be running by the time I get back," He then paged Glen down in the Danger Room and informed him of Logan's summons.
"If you're just going to be a minute, why don't we just get started? I can tell him how to load up a training program from down here," Glen replied.
Scott pondered this. As much as he didn't feel comfortable with Sam being alone in the control booth, it made sense. After all, he was just going to be a minute. What harm could it do? "Sounds good," he said, and walked out of the control booth.
Magneto watched Scott depart. He grinned as he sent more commands to Sam's implants, and another page went out over the intercom system of the Institute. His eyes were suddenly drawn to a flashing indicator light on his console. One of the implants that was receiving his commands had malfunctioned. It was still working, but the signal protection system had been compromised. That meant that if a nearby telepath was focusing their powers enough, they would be able to detect the incoming psychic transmissions, and eventually trace them back to their source. He had Sam query the computer, and then made two more pages.
In her room, Jean looked up from her physics book. She had been studying peacefully when her mind had detected something. It was a very faint telepathic signature that had distracted her attention. She concentrated and tried to hone in on the signature. It seemed familiar, one she encountered very recently. Her attention was broken by the intercom system. "Jean, could you come down to the study?" she heard Xavier's voice ask. "I've picked up a strange mental reading,"
Jean triggered the intercom. "I just felt something too. I'll be right down," she said, and walked out of her bedroom. Sam looked up at the security screen in the control booth, his eyes sending Magneto a view of four separate mutants getting up and moving to other parts of the Institute. Next, he walked over to the intercom and called down to the Danger Room. "Which program should I run?" he heard himself ask.
Glen was feeling a little adventurous, despite Scott's request for a mild display. "Try program 6-K," he called back. "It's the fourth one on the list, under 'Urban environments',"
"I see it. Hang on," Sam's voice came back. In the booth, Glen could see Sam working at the computer, and he steeled himself for the onslaught that was about to come; a narrow alley on a dark night, complete with lots of simulated street punks with nasty attitudes.
All of a sudden, the Danger Room went pitch black. Faint red lights came up inside the room a few seconds later. In the dim light, Glen could see Sam stand up and walk outside of the control booth. He could barely make out the words flashing on one of the largest monitors, "Emergency Shutdown Activated,"
Scott walked into the hanger, expecting to see Logan. Instead, all he saw was the Blackbird, sitting in its usual place. "Where is he?" Scott wondered to himself. He got his answer a second later when the door opened and Logan walked in. "What'd you want to see me about?" Logan asked him.
"Wait a sec. I thought you wanted to see me," Scott said, confused.
"Don't get smart, kid. I got a message over the 'com that said to meet you down here. Now what's going on?"
"That's what I want to know," Scott said. Was somebody playing games with them?
Sam walked down the halls of the Institute's lowest level. He could feel the haze lifting slightly from his mind as he became aware of his surroundings. Because of the malfunction to his implant, he could actually feel his body moving, against his will. He tried to stop his legs, but they marched on, oblivious to his commands. "What's happening to me?" he thought to himself.
Up in the study, Jean encountered a concerned-looking professor Xavier. "Jean!" he said. "Your powers, are they starting to surge again?" He had gotten a message from Jean, saying that her powers were starting to go haywire again. The last time this had happened, the Institute had wound up with an unintended skylight, and Xavier was very worried that a similar surge in Jean's powers could do more serious damage this time.
"What are you talking about, professor? My powers are fine. Now what was this mental reading you were talking about?" Judging by the professor's raised eyebrow, she could tell that she had been just as mislead as him.
"Perhaps there's some problem with the intercom," the professor said.
"How could that be?" asked Jean. "I thought Forge upgraded it last week,"
"It would seem that there are still some bugs to work out," quipped Xavier.
"Hang on, professor. Just before I got paged, I did sense something, very faintly. It wasn't the first time I've felt this; I picked up the same reading earlier this afternoon, or at least I thought I did. I could have sworn the first time I got it that it was coming from Sam,"
"I don't know what to make of that, Jean," said Xavier. "We've already confirmed that the boy doesn't have the X-gene, so those readings couldn't have been coming from him,"
"I know," said Jean. "It was like something else were projecting the readings, onto Sam,"
Xavier considered that. Could there be some mutant out there with a powerful enough mind to project psychic readings directly onto another person's mind? Xavier could only think of one mutant whose powers were anywhere near that advanced. But he couldn't have gotten that strong, could he? Xavier asked himself.
"I don't know what we can do about this for now," Xavier said. "Keep trying to trace this signal, and let me know if you find anything. I'll also be trying to trace it," With that, he turned and wheeled out of the room.
In the Danger Room, Glen struggled with the grate covering the vent shaft. Wherever Sam was going, Glen thought, he had to stop him before he got hurt. The Danger Room wasn't the only place in the Institute's basement that one had to watch their step in. He finally pried the grate off and crawled up into the vent shaft. He made his way through the narrow shaft in almost total darkness. He came to a T-junction and paused, debating which way to go. If he wanted to get back to the main hallway, he would need to go left, but if he went that way, he would run into the security measures that Forge had installed to keep people from doing the reverse of what he was trying to do now. But if he went right, he could be crawling around the bowels of the Institute for hours, and he didn't have that sort of time. He went down the left shaft, hoping for the best. When he got to the first laser screen, he breathed a sigh of relief as he saw that it was inactive. When Sam shut down the Danger Room, it must have deactivated the security system as well. He crawled past where the screen would have been and kept on going.
Back in the hanger, Scott and Logan were baffled by what was going on. "There's gotta be a problem with the 'com system. I think this is someone's idea of a joke," Logan growled.
"Hang on a minute," said Scott, keeping a cool head. "How is it that we both get called down here and neither of us paged the other?" He switched on the intercom and called upstairs. "Jean, it's Scott. Have you gotten any weird messages over the 'com in the last few minutes?"
"Only from the professor, which he said he never sent," Jean said back into the intercom. "And he said he got one from me, but I haven't been on the comms until just now,"
"Ok," said Scott. "We're gonna try and figure out what's going on down here. I'll call you back if we find anything,"
"Sure, Scott," Jean said, and went back to trying to track the source. She had almost had it pinpointed before Scott had called up. After a few moments, she had it located. But what she found made no sense; it was very close by, and moving. She focused hard, and her eyes went wide when she realized exactly where the source was. "Professor!" she called out, and ran to Xavier's room to tell him what she had found.
Sam reached an imposing door at the end of a hallway. Large electronic letters above the door said: "Cerebro chamber. Authorized personnel only," He felt himself kneel down next to a terminal and saw his hands pull the casing off the wall. He watched as his hands reached inside the panel and began pulling out random wires and touching their ends together. Sam tried to keep control of his hands, but he could not do so. Suddenly, he felt a brief second of control; his hands stopped for a moment, but then went back to their task of trying to short out the door controls.
Magneto started as Sam briefly regained himself. For a moment, the implant had shorted out completely, but then had resumed its control. A few seconds later, it shorted out again, this time for a slightly longer period. On the screen, Magneto saw Sam look at his own hands before they were again taken over by the implant.
Sam saw his hands reaching back into the panel and grabbing another wire. Whatever was controlling him, it was starting to lose its power. He concentrated very hard, and pulled himself backwards.
On Magneto's monitor board, the light representing the implant's status changed from yellow to red, meaning that it had been compromised and was no longer receiving commands. He looked up at the screen just in time to see Sam fall backwards.
As Sam pulled back, his fists clenched as he regained control over them. He fell backwards, pulling several wires out of the wall. There was a shower of sparks, and an alarm klaxon went off as the hallway went red.
In the hanger, a similar alarm had sounded. It took Logan and Scott two seconds to realize the same thing; somebody was trying to break into Cerebro. "Come on!" shouted Logan, and they took off running out of the hanger and down the corridor.
Mystique caught Magneto's glance as she watched the monitor, and thanked whatever god that might exist that the mutant sitting next to her wasn't telepathic; if he could read her mind, he might kill her on the spot for what she had been thinking. At the moment, she had been thinking her own son, Kurt. About the experiments that Magneto had subjected him to shortly after his birth, and their tragic consequences. Mystique had been perfectly content to raise the boy by herself and let his powers develop naturally, but Magneto had been impatient, and insisted on his "treatments" in order to give the boy enhanced abilities. Somehow, along the way, something had gone horribly wrong; a contaminated strand of DNA, a flaw in the re- sequencing program, and the results had been freakish even by her standards. She recalled her hysteric flight from Magneto's castle that night, trying to save her son from any further harm, only to lose him, possibly forever. Magneto had not killed her that night, but had exacted her unswerving loyalty in exchange. That was why she was still by his side now; she had no means of confronting him or just flat out leaving. She was no match for Magneto, even with the Brotherhood at her side. And besides, she thought, where would I go? To Xavier? Never. Even if Kurt was there.
She watched Magneto toying with the button on the console in front of him. He had insisted that she be here so that he could again display his cruelty and remind her of his control over her. As if turning her son partly into an animal hadn't been bad enough, now Magneto was going to make her watch as he killed a perfectly innocent boy, not even a mutant at that, all so he could move closer to the day when he would be seen as the King of mutants.
"Very soon now, Mystique. The boy will be where we want him, and then we can begin," Magneto said ominously. Mystique continued to gaze at the screen, powerless to change the course of events that were about to unfold.
Scott, Jean, Glen and Sam arrived back at the Institute. Inside, Scott announced to the rest of the X-Men that their normal training session would be postponed until later that evening, which suited them fine; most of them had school projects that they'd rather be working on. Scott led Glen and Sam down to the Danger Room while Jean stayed upstairs, studying.
Scott paused at the door of the Danger Room and turned to Sam. "Before we start, I want you to promise us that you won't tell people where or how you learned the things we're about to teach you. It took the Professor a lot of convincing before he agreed to let me do this," Scott and Xavier's concerns were genuine. In addition to the issue of their secrecy, the Institute had fallen victim to a hacker earlier that year while a party was going on upstairs. Xavier had had to wipe a LOT of minds that particular evening, and made it clear that visitors were not to be allowed access to the lower levels of the Institute without proper supervision. Which basically meant that nobody got in, period.
"I promise," said Sam. "And thanks again for doing this,"
Scott nodded, and opened the door to the Danger Room. They walked in as the door closed behind them with a pneumatic hiss.
"Now, the best way to win a fight is to not get hit," said Scott. "Nothing personal, but you don't really match up too well against Duncan and his buddies. You wouldn't stand much chance if you went toe to toe with them,"
"So I need to be faster than them," Sam concluded.
"Exactly," said Glen. "If you move fast enough, and they can't hit you, eventually they'll just get frustrated and give up,"
"So we're going to teach you some 'defensive' offensive skills," said Scott. And for the next hour, they taught Sam how to fall properly, recover quickly, and dodge blows. They also taught him a few basic throws and judo moves. Sam took it all in like a sponge, and by the end of the session, Scott and Glen were convinced that Sam would be able to win a fight without even throwing a punch.
"You're doing really well with this," said Glen. "I couldn't even get this stuff down this fast,"
"Thanks," said Sam, wrapping his arm around Glen's and leaning his head against Glen's shoulder. "So when do I get to see what you can do?"
"How about right now?" asked Glen. "Think we could show him what this room can really do?"
"Couldn't do any harm. Just don't over-do it, okay?" said Scott. He then turned to Sam. "Come on, it'll be safer to watch from upstairs," He led Sam out the door and up to the control booth as Glen prepared for the Danger Room to come alive.
Magneto watched Sam follow Scott up to the control booth. "It begins now," he said, and activated the other implants imbedded in Sam's brain.
Scott was too busy working the controls of the Danger Room computer to see the effects of Magneto's implants taking their effect on Sam. As he activated the startup sequence, he didn't see Sam walking over to one of the terminals on the far side of the room.
Magneto continued to send commands through Sam's implants, controlling his movements. At the moment, he was having Sam access the memory banks of the Institute. He had had Pietro plant a special subroutine in the Institute's computer system that would be small enough not to be detected by the computer's virus sweepers. The program didn't do much, but it would allow him to access minor systems in the Institute, such as doors, lights, and.
"Scott, could you come down to the hanger for a minute," Logan's voice rang out from over the intercom. "I need to talk with you about a couple things,"
Scott turned away from the computer and walked over to the intercom. "I'll be down in just a minute," Then he turned to Sam. "Ok, I'll be back in a few minutes. The computer's starting itself up, and it should be running by the time I get back," He then paged Glen down in the Danger Room and informed him of Logan's summons.
"If you're just going to be a minute, why don't we just get started? I can tell him how to load up a training program from down here," Glen replied.
Scott pondered this. As much as he didn't feel comfortable with Sam being alone in the control booth, it made sense. After all, he was just going to be a minute. What harm could it do? "Sounds good," he said, and walked out of the control booth.
Magneto watched Scott depart. He grinned as he sent more commands to Sam's implants, and another page went out over the intercom system of the Institute. His eyes were suddenly drawn to a flashing indicator light on his console. One of the implants that was receiving his commands had malfunctioned. It was still working, but the signal protection system had been compromised. That meant that if a nearby telepath was focusing their powers enough, they would be able to detect the incoming psychic transmissions, and eventually trace them back to their source. He had Sam query the computer, and then made two more pages.
In her room, Jean looked up from her physics book. She had been studying peacefully when her mind had detected something. It was a very faint telepathic signature that had distracted her attention. She concentrated and tried to hone in on the signature. It seemed familiar, one she encountered very recently. Her attention was broken by the intercom system. "Jean, could you come down to the study?" she heard Xavier's voice ask. "I've picked up a strange mental reading,"
Jean triggered the intercom. "I just felt something too. I'll be right down," she said, and walked out of her bedroom. Sam looked up at the security screen in the control booth, his eyes sending Magneto a view of four separate mutants getting up and moving to other parts of the Institute. Next, he walked over to the intercom and called down to the Danger Room. "Which program should I run?" he heard himself ask.
Glen was feeling a little adventurous, despite Scott's request for a mild display. "Try program 6-K," he called back. "It's the fourth one on the list, under 'Urban environments',"
"I see it. Hang on," Sam's voice came back. In the booth, Glen could see Sam working at the computer, and he steeled himself for the onslaught that was about to come; a narrow alley on a dark night, complete with lots of simulated street punks with nasty attitudes.
All of a sudden, the Danger Room went pitch black. Faint red lights came up inside the room a few seconds later. In the dim light, Glen could see Sam stand up and walk outside of the control booth. He could barely make out the words flashing on one of the largest monitors, "Emergency Shutdown Activated,"
Scott walked into the hanger, expecting to see Logan. Instead, all he saw was the Blackbird, sitting in its usual place. "Where is he?" Scott wondered to himself. He got his answer a second later when the door opened and Logan walked in. "What'd you want to see me about?" Logan asked him.
"Wait a sec. I thought you wanted to see me," Scott said, confused.
"Don't get smart, kid. I got a message over the 'com that said to meet you down here. Now what's going on?"
"That's what I want to know," Scott said. Was somebody playing games with them?
Sam walked down the halls of the Institute's lowest level. He could feel the haze lifting slightly from his mind as he became aware of his surroundings. Because of the malfunction to his implant, he could actually feel his body moving, against his will. He tried to stop his legs, but they marched on, oblivious to his commands. "What's happening to me?" he thought to himself.
Up in the study, Jean encountered a concerned-looking professor Xavier. "Jean!" he said. "Your powers, are they starting to surge again?" He had gotten a message from Jean, saying that her powers were starting to go haywire again. The last time this had happened, the Institute had wound up with an unintended skylight, and Xavier was very worried that a similar surge in Jean's powers could do more serious damage this time.
"What are you talking about, professor? My powers are fine. Now what was this mental reading you were talking about?" Judging by the professor's raised eyebrow, she could tell that she had been just as mislead as him.
"Perhaps there's some problem with the intercom," the professor said.
"How could that be?" asked Jean. "I thought Forge upgraded it last week,"
"It would seem that there are still some bugs to work out," quipped Xavier.
"Hang on, professor. Just before I got paged, I did sense something, very faintly. It wasn't the first time I've felt this; I picked up the same reading earlier this afternoon, or at least I thought I did. I could have sworn the first time I got it that it was coming from Sam,"
"I don't know what to make of that, Jean," said Xavier. "We've already confirmed that the boy doesn't have the X-gene, so those readings couldn't have been coming from him,"
"I know," said Jean. "It was like something else were projecting the readings, onto Sam,"
Xavier considered that. Could there be some mutant out there with a powerful enough mind to project psychic readings directly onto another person's mind? Xavier could only think of one mutant whose powers were anywhere near that advanced. But he couldn't have gotten that strong, could he? Xavier asked himself.
"I don't know what we can do about this for now," Xavier said. "Keep trying to trace this signal, and let me know if you find anything. I'll also be trying to trace it," With that, he turned and wheeled out of the room.
In the Danger Room, Glen struggled with the grate covering the vent shaft. Wherever Sam was going, Glen thought, he had to stop him before he got hurt. The Danger Room wasn't the only place in the Institute's basement that one had to watch their step in. He finally pried the grate off and crawled up into the vent shaft. He made his way through the narrow shaft in almost total darkness. He came to a T-junction and paused, debating which way to go. If he wanted to get back to the main hallway, he would need to go left, but if he went that way, he would run into the security measures that Forge had installed to keep people from doing the reverse of what he was trying to do now. But if he went right, he could be crawling around the bowels of the Institute for hours, and he didn't have that sort of time. He went down the left shaft, hoping for the best. When he got to the first laser screen, he breathed a sigh of relief as he saw that it was inactive. When Sam shut down the Danger Room, it must have deactivated the security system as well. He crawled past where the screen would have been and kept on going.
Back in the hanger, Scott and Logan were baffled by what was going on. "There's gotta be a problem with the 'com system. I think this is someone's idea of a joke," Logan growled.
"Hang on a minute," said Scott, keeping a cool head. "How is it that we both get called down here and neither of us paged the other?" He switched on the intercom and called upstairs. "Jean, it's Scott. Have you gotten any weird messages over the 'com in the last few minutes?"
"Only from the professor, which he said he never sent," Jean said back into the intercom. "And he said he got one from me, but I haven't been on the comms until just now,"
"Ok," said Scott. "We're gonna try and figure out what's going on down here. I'll call you back if we find anything,"
"Sure, Scott," Jean said, and went back to trying to track the source. She had almost had it pinpointed before Scott had called up. After a few moments, she had it located. But what she found made no sense; it was very close by, and moving. She focused hard, and her eyes went wide when she realized exactly where the source was. "Professor!" she called out, and ran to Xavier's room to tell him what she had found.
Sam reached an imposing door at the end of a hallway. Large electronic letters above the door said: "Cerebro chamber. Authorized personnel only," He felt himself kneel down next to a terminal and saw his hands pull the casing off the wall. He watched as his hands reached inside the panel and began pulling out random wires and touching their ends together. Sam tried to keep control of his hands, but he could not do so. Suddenly, he felt a brief second of control; his hands stopped for a moment, but then went back to their task of trying to short out the door controls.
Magneto started as Sam briefly regained himself. For a moment, the implant had shorted out completely, but then had resumed its control. A few seconds later, it shorted out again, this time for a slightly longer period. On the screen, Magneto saw Sam look at his own hands before they were again taken over by the implant.
Sam saw his hands reaching back into the panel and grabbing another wire. Whatever was controlling him, it was starting to lose its power. He concentrated very hard, and pulled himself backwards.
On Magneto's monitor board, the light representing the implant's status changed from yellow to red, meaning that it had been compromised and was no longer receiving commands. He looked up at the screen just in time to see Sam fall backwards.
As Sam pulled back, his fists clenched as he regained control over them. He fell backwards, pulling several wires out of the wall. There was a shower of sparks, and an alarm klaxon went off as the hallway went red.
In the hanger, a similar alarm had sounded. It took Logan and Scott two seconds to realize the same thing; somebody was trying to break into Cerebro. "Come on!" shouted Logan, and they took off running out of the hanger and down the corridor.