The next few days were a whirlwind of pleased confusion to Jess, as she learned her way around the school and was introduced to the other teachers - Jean Grey (Whom Jessie had insisted on calling Dr. Grey until Jean threatened to do nasty telepathic things, and had recently returned "from Canada"); Warren Worthington (who sported enormous wings and had warmly introduced himself as Archangel); Ororo Munroe (the quiet, weather-controlling science teacher, whom Jess thought was about the most beautiful person to walk the earth); and, of course, Scott Summers.



There were several other such mutants at the school, who didn't teach, but apparently worked with the others as "the X-men," such as Logan (Just Logan - he was apparently one of those no-last-name people, like Jewel) and Kurt Wagner (A sweet, religious, blue, German mutant, who had scared her slightly at first).



They were all such different people, yet seemingly united by Professor Xavier's cause - to unite humans and mutants. But at the same time, Jess discovered that there was sometimes as much prejudice inside a minority as outside it. There were several children who made no secret of the fact that they hated having a human inside the school. But Jessie dealt with intolerance well - she'd gone through something similar when she came out as bisexual in high school.



At the end of the week, Jess lay in her darkened room, reflecting on all this as she listened to the night sounds - the crickets, the breeze, the faint hum of traffic some ways off, the helicopters -



The what?



She rolled out of bed, untangled her legs from the sheets, and walked to the window overlooking the lawn, grabbing her glasses. Yes, there were definitely helicopters hovering high over the school, buzzing about with evident purpose - but as she watched, they flew away.



She shrugged it off and tried to go back to sleep, but she couldn't. The school was suddenly humming with a subdued tension, obvious even to a non-telepath. Jess had gathered that there had been some sort of attack on the school some months earlier, and she put it down to that. Well, of course they'd be nervous!



She rolled over. Still, there wasn't anything to suggest that these helicopters had anything to do with the anti-mutant set. They might even have been hovering somewhere else nearby - it was easy for the eye to be fooled.



This whole train of thought was an excellent example of the human - or mutant - mind's capability to deceive itself.



Jess rolled over again and eventually dozed off, having an odd dream where she was surrounded by snakes. They hissed and slid over each other, over her. One slid up over her nose and coiled there, muffling her breathing, looking into her eyes malevolently . . . .



She woke up and wasn't sure for a moment if she was awake. Finally, it occured to her that the reason she couldn't breathe was because her face was pressed in the pillow. But that sense of malevolency persisted, as did the hissing.



She rolled over and groped at the bedside table for her glasses. She sat up and put them on - and choked. Some sort of smoke was filling her bedroom. It made her feel light-headed. Remembering her fire-escape training, she dropped to all fours and was able to get cleaner air.



Crawling out into the corridor, she was horrified to see that the gas was filling the hallways, too, and small leaks around the hinges of the doors suggested that the other bedrooms were similarly filled.



Jess pounded on one of the doors - she remembered that Bobby Drake lived in that room. "Get out of there!" She yelled. "Come on!" She continued down the hallway, yelling similarly, and began to here sleepy voices calling out, crying.



She pounded on another door and glanced at the number. It was the Professor's room. She cursed and looked around the hallway, trying to find someone to help her. Her eyes settled on the boy with the orange glow she had seen her first day.



"Chamber! C'mere!"



The boy imitated her and dropped to his knees, crawling on all fours to her. They needed to get outside soon, or else they would run out of breathable air. She jerked her head at the door. "We've gotta get the Professor out."



"Right."



They both took a deep breath and entered the room. The Professor appeared to be still asleep, but struggling to wake up. They stood and pulled him out of bed, draping an arm over their shoulders. The gas was filling the room faster and faster, and it made it hard to see. They stumbled out of the bedroom into the hallway. About two dozen students were milling about, and Jess, being the only teacher there, started organizing them.



"Get outside! Go on! Run!" She grabbed one of the older students as he ran past and handed the Professor off to him. "Get him outside. I'll go get the other adults."

She ran off to the teachers' hallway and repeated her earlier performance, banging on doors and yelling. Warren and Logan - the dark X-man Jess had just met a few days ago - came out, Logan with his claws out and ready.



"What the hell is going on here?" He yelled.



"I dunno, someone's gassing the place. Get the rest of the teachers, I'll go outside and help the kids."



She ran down the stairs, taking them two at a time, and ran out onto the lawn. She froze, staring in awe at the sky. Instead of clean air, the gas was hovering around the mansion like a sickly fog. But how could that be? It should dissipate once outside the school . . .



The students were sprawled on the grass, moaning, holding their heads. One little girl shuffled clumsily over to her and grabbed her PJ's, whimpering, "Miss Roper, my head hurts!"



Jess lifted the girl onto her hip and absentmindedly soothed her, still staring at the gas. She, too, was beginning to feel light-headed, as if all her blood had just rushed out of her head. Shaking her hair out of her face, she began rounding to the other students. All of them were beginning to groan, complaining of headaches, light-headedness, and nauseau.



"Jessie!"



She turned around in relief as the other teachers staggered out towards her. She ran towards them, calling out, "What the heck is going on?" She met with the group and merged into it, handing the child to Storm.



"We were going to ask the same question," replied Scott thickly. Jessie looked at them in concern.



"You guys, you don't look so good. Sit down, I'll try and find what's keeping this gas here. If you can, find a piece of cloth and some water and wet the cloth down - that should make a reasonable filter."



It was true, she thought, as she jogged towards the edge of the school grounds, that they didn't look good. All of them were pale, and Kurt and Ororo had looked definitely sick. Oddly enough, Logan, Warren, and herself all seemed reasonably unaffected by the gas. She pushed the thought aside - they were just lucky, seemingly - and fell into a brown study, trying to think of what the gas could be.



She ran into something. Something very stiff, very obvious, and nearly impossible to see. She blinked, rubbed her nose, picked up her glasses again and stared closer at the object.



It was a wall of translucent plastic. She blinked again and rubbed at it. Yes, definitely plastic, and extending as far up as she could reach. A slight curve to the wall, both vertically and horizontally, suggested -



"Holy Mother of God," she breathed. "No way."



The gas wasn't dissipating because it couldn't dissipate. The whole school was encased in a plastic bubble.

___________________________________________________________________________

A/N: I really hate writing dreams - in real life, they're never as nice and orderly as we write them. Anyhoo . . . .