Chapter Eight: All in the Mind
We walked a little further that night, then found a sheltered spot in the forest where we could catch a few hours' sleep.
"Where are we going to go from here?" Chloe asked. "We can't go back to the mansion. We can't go back home. We don't know where Chameleon or his brother are. We haven't got anywhere to go."
"I don't know. I'm trying not to think about that right now," said Chris. "It's possible that Jacqueline managed to locate Chameleon and the rest before the machine overwhelmed her. That seems to be our only hope right now."
"Neil, can you try again to bring her back?" asked Chloe.
"I can try," I said. "But, guys, I've got no experience whatsoever with telepathy. I might be doing more damage than good if I go into her mind again. There's already two of her in there. She probably doesn't want another person."
"At least go in and try to find her seventeen year-old personality," said Chris. "Ask if she needs your help to make it back out."
I sighed, "All right. I'll try. We've been walking for about an hour, so give me some time to get my energy back."
"OK. In the mean time, use your long-range eyesight to spy on the mansion. See what they're doing and if they've sent anyone after us."
Chloe and Chris laid Jacqueline down gently on the ground, and I turned to face the direction we'd come. It was dark, but my night-vision was good and I forced my eyes to focus further and further into the distance until I could see the mansion. There was nobody in the gardens and I couldn't see any lights on in the building. I zoomed in further. Cyclops was standing at the back door where we'd left the mansion, obviously on guard. I wondered if they knew that we were gone, that we'd been responsible for the noise, that we'd broken into the Cerebro machine. Then an idea occurred to me. Could I read Cyclops' mind? Would it work over this distance? I decided to try it. I concentrated hard and made my mind leave my body, trying to direct it to the mansion. The fact that my eyes were already focusing on Cyclops made it a lot easier for my mind to home in on him. I had the strangest sensation of floating, of travelling, of flying, then I was there, inside his mind.
Cyclops was thinking about Dr Grey, and a man named Logan. He was also thinking about the Professor – and about us. He wanted to come after us. He wasn't being allowed to. The Professor had said…
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the Professor approaching. Quickly I jumped out of Cyclops' mind before Xavier could detect me, and my consciousness floated back into my own head. I watched as the Professor and Cyclops exchanged a few words – I had no idea what they were saying; I wished I knew how to lip-read – then Xavier went back inside the building and Cyclops returned to guard duty.
"See anything?" Chris asked.
"Cyclops was talking to Xavier. He wants to come after us, but the Professor won't let him. I wasn't able to find out why."
"You could hear what they were saying from this distance?" he asked in surprise.
"No. I was reading his mind."
"Oh, of course. I'd forgotten you can do that now. Don't get any ideas about reading mine. You might not like what you find," he said with a grin. "Do you want to try and help Jacqueline again?"
"All right."
I knelt beside Jacqueline's still figure again, placed the tips of my fingers on either side of her eyes, and entered her mind. It was the same as before, her unhappiness and her anger floating around, out of control, without her conscious self to keep them restrained.
Her seven year-old personality sensed my arrival, and asked, Qui est ici?
I didn't speak any French, so I didn't know what she'd asked, or how to respond. Instead of words, I tried telepathing an image to her. I imagined a picture of two people holding hands, standing close to one another, and telepathed it to her, trying to tell her that I was a friend and I wouldn't hurt her.
Qui est-tu? was her uncertain response.
I sent the friendly image again, hoping to reassure her – it must have been terrifying for a seven year-old mind to be trapped in this body for ten years, then suddenly left alone as Jacqueline's other personality went dormant.
Ami? she replied.
What did that mean? I hoped it was a positive response. I was going to send the friend image again, when she responded with a picture of her own. She'd obviously realised that I didn't speak her language, and had cottoned to my new method of communication. The picture was that of a child holding out her hand towards her mother. Seven year-old Jacqueline was seeking reassurance. I sent back the same picture, with the mother reaching out and holding the child's hand. A couple of seconds passed, and she sent another image: the child with her arms outstretched, wanting a hug. I sent back a picture of the mother hugging the child. I sensed relief, and some of the fear swirling around her mind disappeared. She began sending me more images, in some kind of sequence, trying to tell me what was upsetting her. I tried to make sense of them.
A kitten, running out into the middle of the road. A bus driving towards it. A small girl – I assumed it was Jacqueline – stretching out her hand to stop the bus. The horror on her friends' faces when they realised she was a telepathic mutant. The child, home from school, looking terrified, going to her parents for reassurance. Stretching out her arms to her mother to receive a hug. Being turned away. Her father yelling at her. Her mother pushing her aside. The child, on the floor, screaming and crying. Her parents looking at her with disgust and contempt.
Even with Jacqueline's emotions flowing back and forth along the telepathic link between us, I still couldn't even begin to imagine how she must have felt. Despite what my father had done to me, I still had it easier than Jacqueline. After all, I hadn't even found out about my father until I was sixteen and old enough to handle it. I felt a great surge of anger towards the man and woman who had treated Jacqueline in this way. I allowed my fury to grow and boil, until I realised the seven year-old consciousness could sense it and was frightened. I calmed down and sent her the reassuring images again. Her fear went away.
Talking to her child mind was no good. I had to talk to the teenage Jacqueline, the one who was dormant. I had to seek her out in the hive of sadness and confusion that was her mind. I sought the point at which the negative emotions were strongest, and projected my consciousness in that direction. That was where she had to be. As I moved away, I sensed the child mind becoming frightened again, afraid of being left alone. I felt bad about it, but I knew I couldn't stay with her indefinitely. Things would only be fixed if I could talk to the older Jacqueline and get her to take control of her body again.
I travelled deeper into her mind, always seeking the point where the emotions were most powerful, seeking the focus of her sadness, the centre of her psyche. I knew she'd be there, at the centre of it all. As the feelings around me became stronger and more intense, I found it harder and harder to go on. It was almost as if she was using them as defensive barriers to stop anyone from getting to her. I felt the emotions as if they were my own, and they clamoured for my attention, forcing me to apply my concentration to the utmost to keep focusing on what I was doing. Suddenly I was getting close, I could sense it. She was near. The real Jacqueline. Pushing past the last wave of her bad feelings, forcing my way onwards, I broke through.
Into nothing. The sudden lack of emotions gave me such a shock that I almost lost the telepathic link. There was nothing here. Pure neutrality. Cold, emotionless, distant, imperturbable – yes, this was the teenage Jacqueline's domain, away from the haunting fears of her younger self. I tried to communicate with her, Jacqueline?
She responded instantly and with surprise, Neil?! Is that you? How did you get in here?
I'm a telepath. You were right about that.
What are you doing here?
I've come to help you get back.
I've been trying. I don't think I can.
You can. I'll help you.
I can't. The emotions are too strong. Every time I try, they turn me back. I can't concentrate on bringing myself back when I'm being bombarded with those memories and feelings.
I understand, I told her, I just went through them myself. Do you realise there are two of you in here?
Yes. There's me, and there's the person who was me ten years ago. I've never been able to let go of her.
I was talking to her just now. She told me what happened to you.
She hesitated, and I could sense she was uncomfortable with the fact that I had shared some of her most personal, painful memories.
Then you know why I can't come back, she said, I can't live the rest of my life being haunted by those memories. If I stay here, in this neutral zone, I can be away from them.
But your body will die without you controlling it!
I – I know. I just can't do it.
Jacqueline, you can. I'm here. I'll help. You've got to let go of the past and live for the future. I know that better than anyone. We're in the same boat, you and I. Both of us have had our lives irreversibly changed by the actions of our parents
But I can't – I can't face my past again.
You've got to be strong.
You're right, she said slowly, all right, I'm going to give it a try. If I can get back, I can try and stop other people from having to go through what we did.
Right. Are you ready? I'll help you.
Let's try it.
I sensed her consciousness moving, towards the surface, and I went along with her. We reached the barriers of her emotions, and she began to hesitate.
Come on, I said, I'm with you.
OK. Here goes…
We both plunged straight into the sea of emotions, fighting our way through to get to the surface. More than once Jacqueline stumbled, and tried to turn back, but I grabbed her attention and convinced her to continue. She anchored herself to me, and together we broke free of the barriers. Finding ourselves back in the swirling cloud of memories and feelings of her younger mind, I urged her onwards, We're almost there. Chris and Chloe are waiting.
Let's do it, she agreed.
Was it my imagination or I did sense something, a positive feeling, at the mention of Chris' name? I tried to forget about it; it wasn't right to pry into her thoughts that way when I was supposed to be helping her.
Où aller-vous? I heard the child asking as we approached the exit, the periphery of her mind.
À réalité. À mon corps. N'inquiéter pas, Jacqueline reassured the child.
Non! N'aller pas! the child cried.
I told her I was taking control of the body again. She doesn't want to be left alone, Jacqueline said.
As I left her mind, the last sound I heard was the crying of the seven year-old, and I felt a huge stab of guilt. I'd rescued one of the two minds that was inside of her head, but the other was still unhappy and troubled. This wasn't over yet. Someday, maybe with the Professor's help, I'd venture back inside Jacqueline's mind and help her sort herself out.
Opening my eyes, feeling exhausted, I saw Chris and Chloe looking on intently.
"Hey," I croaked weakly.
"She's been moving. Twitching her arms and trying to speak," Chloe said.
"I got her out. I convinced her to come back to us."
Chris breathed a sigh of relief, "Good work. I knew you could do it."
Jacqueline made a sharp intake of breath, and her eyes snapped open.
"Hey, she's back!" Chris greeted her.
Chloe smiled and hugged me tightly. Jacqueline suddenly screamed and tears began to fall from her eyes, as she gave vent to all the emotions that had been bottled up in her mind for ten long years. She clutched the nearest person, who was Chris, and flung her arms around him, sobbing into his shoulder. Taken by surprise, he put his arms round her too and began patting her gently on the back, awkwardly trying to comfort her.
"Don't worry," I said. "I had to get her to relive some pretty awful memories in order to get her out of there. She'll be fine."
Jacqueline wouldn't let go of Chris; she wanted somebody she could hold on to and be comforted by, as her parents had refused to do for her. Eventually she cried herself dry of tears, and simply rested in his arms, reassured by the warmth of him.
"Um, Jacqueline," he said finally. "I'd like to be able to move, please."
She relaxed and let go of him. He looked at her with genuine care and concern in his eyes, "Are you all right?"
"Yes," she lied.
I didn't uncover the lie. There was no way that Chris or Chloe could know about the troubled state in which we'd left her second mind, and I wasn't going to tell them until Jacqueline wanted to reveal it. I knew she was certainly in a better condition, both mentally and emotionally, than she had been for years, but there was still a way to go before she could honestly say she was 'all right'.
"I told you it would be a bad idea to use the Professor's machine," she told him. "You almost lost me. And where are we, anyway?"
"We had to run. They'd have found us," he said. "We're going after Neil's father. Incidentally, did you manage to find them at all when you were using that machine?"
"I couldn't pinpoint them exactly, but I have a vague idea of their position," she said. "They're somewhere in New York City."
Chloe raised her eyebrows, "That's not too far away from here – right?"
"I think so," I said.
"It does give us a pretty wide area to search," Chris, ever the pessimist, grumbled. "Do any of you know just how big New York City is? Still, it's a start. That's where we'll head."
"On foot? How far is it?"
"No idea. Let's just keep walking until we hit a road, or the ocean. Then we can hitch a lift the rest of the way."
"We really don't have a clue how to get there, do we?"
"No," Chris answered honestly. "But I'm sure it won't be hard to find somebody who's travelling to NYC. Even if they won't offer us a lift, I'm sure Jacqueline could persuade them. Anyway, we'll get some sleep tonight and then head out. Neil, can you take another look back at the mansion to make sure nobody's following us?"
I turned my eyes back towards the mansion and focused over the few miles we had come. Soon it came into view, and I said, "Cyclops is gone. Storm's taken his place."
"Try reading her mind."
"Jacqueline, you do it," I said. "You're better at it. Borrow my vision."
I felt once more the odd sensation as Jacqueline delved into my mind, to see what my eyes could see. I could sense, very vaguely, her consciousness floating out towards the estate, and then she was inside Storm's mind.
"They know it was us who broke into Cerebro," Jacqueline said. "They know we've run. Storm wants to come after us."
"Yeah, to kill us, no doubt," said Chris.
"No," said Jacqueline, shaking her head. "She's worried about us. She's hoping we're all right. She's hoping we don't get hurt. Storm genuinely cares about us, Chris."
Snapping off her telepathy, leaving both my mind and Storm's, she turned angrily to face him, "Damn it, Chris, they were the only friends we had in the world and you had to go and piss them off! What if the Professor never wants to see us again? We may have just thrown away our only chance of making something good out of our lives!"
"What, you mean joining Xavier's human-loving X-Men?" Chris snapped. "Don't make me laugh! You know as well as I do that humans will never accept us! Why should we waste our time helping them?"
"Oh, so you'd rather go around killing humans?"
"No, of course not! All I'm saying is they can look after themselves!"
"Will you two stop arguing?" I said. "What's done is done. We can't change the past, so let's concentrate on the future."
Chris nodded, "Yeah. You're right. Let's get some sleep."
Chloe yawned and her eyelids began to droop. Chris lay down in the sheltered area we had found, turned over and fell asleep instantly. As Chloe made herself as comfortable as she could, Jacqueline walked over to me and whispered, "I just want to thank you for not telling them about the problems I was having. You know, with my second mind. She's still in there, and she's still crying. She wants us to come back and talk to her again."
Can she hear this? I telepathed.
No. She doesn't have a direct link to the telepathic part of my brain. You'd have to completely enter my mind, like you did before, to talk to her.
"Can't you talk to her yourself?"
"No. For the same reason. I can hear her but she can't hear me. She's got no way of detecting it. I'd have to go dormant in my mind, and I don't want to do that again in a hurry."
"Are you all right? I mean, are you holding together?"
"At the moment. I'm scared, though. I feel like I'm going insane. Having two people in your head is not something I would recommend."
"You'll get through it OK."
"I wish I could be sure. Anyway, good night."
I watched her as she curled up on the ground and tried to go to sleep. She was different, ever since I'd been in her head and brought her back out. She seemed more vulnerable, and used her emotions a lot more. Anger, fear, worry, I'd sensed them all in her since freeing her mind. I couldn't decide if it was better or worse, from her point of view.
I went to lie down next to Chloe and catch some rest. Tomorrow we'd head for New York City, where we'd hunt down Inferno, Chameleon and my father, and put an end to their cruel experiments. We'd sort out my past, and then, when it was over, maybe, just maybe, we'd be able to help Jacqueline sort hers out too.
