HOW THE LEOPARD CHANGED HER SPOTS
Part I
Minisinoo



Notes: Thanks to Mara and Avi for airport and hospital info, Naomi for Lilith, Libs and Minarya for checking Ro, and Aelin for Piotr and Ilyana's Russian. Thutmose is for Bren, who helped with the original Cypher story. The manipulation at right was made for me by Meret, the others of Mystique-Jean were made by Elena. Further notes at the end of the fourth part.

Alternating Scott and Jean point-of-view.

It's not often that I'm called to Xavier's in my professional capacity.

To be sure, I spend time there -- especially at holidays -- and sometimes I play chaperone on field trips. But I can't teach, and Polaris won't let me on the X-team no matter how many times I've proven I'm not helpless. Besides, I prefer the job I have here in Washington; this is where I can do the most good. But today, I got a call for my skills as a translator, and Xavier sent Warren to fetch me and my cat.

Warren Worthington is an old friend, among the first fellow mutants I ever met, and, like me, has a non-combative power, choosing to help the school without teaching or living there. He employs the connections of birth and wealth instead. When I exit the taxi to meet him at Montgomery County Airpark, he begins explaining almost immediately. "Ro and Logan rescued a pair of kids from Wolverine yesterday."

Wolverine? I fingerspell, then sign, Since when does the Brotherhood go after children?

"Charles thinks they want to recruit the boy. It's a pair of siblings, both physical mutations. The elder, the boy, can convert into some kind of organic steel." My eyebrows arch at that. "The girl . . . Well, Hank's still trying to figure her out. Apparently, she absorbs life force, or something. The only person she can touch is her brother -- and only when he's in metal form."

Why do you need me?

"They're Russian. The professor's the only one who can talk to them."

Ah, I mouth silently while Warren's pilot loads my luggage in the little Leerjet. I take Thutmose out of his box and grip him in my arms though he's squirming and digging into my arm with his claws. He hates to fly, but I can't leave him in my apartment for some unspecified number of days. Jean says I travel too much to have a cat, but he keeps me company, and he's useful. Other people have Seeing-Eye dogs. I have a hearing-ear cat. If I miss the flashing lights when the doorbell rings, Thutmose comes to fetch me. He listens for the phone, too, and takes walks with me -- without a leash. Smartest cat I've ever had.

Once we board, Warren explains the rest of the story. Logan had been up in Canada, shutting down his cabin for the winter months, when he heard about a 'freak boy' making the rounds of cage fighting -- and winning. Unable to resist the challenge, our feral Sabretooth had gone off to investigate, and called for backup. Ro had arrived in time to help him rescue the kids from Victor Creed, the Wolverine. Jean hates the man. He's only nominally controllable, she says, coming and going as he pleases. Erik finds him useful, both for his healing factor and his bloody-mindedness. But like his namesake, he's a loner -- and a weasel. I can't imagine kids in his hands, especially kids who can't speak English. (Not that he speaks much beyond growls himself.)

I wish Jean was around. She might tell me something. Or she might not.

It's been two weeks since the day I spoke before the Senate, and Kelly's registration bill presses onward. The vote's coming soon and it's going to be damn close. I'm afraid the Brotherhood will try something drastic. After my speech, Jean had hugged me despite anyone watching (which I guess was believable as she was supposedly a colleague), then whispered, "I have to be gone for a while. Don't worry if you don't hear from me." But of course I worry. I wish she'd at least send me email, and I'm reminded (again) that she could be arrested, or dead, and I wouldn't know.

I fight in more conventional ways. I show up in senators' offices unannounced when they don't return my letters, or corral them in hallways on Capitol Hill. My face isn't a welcome sight anymore. I'm calling in favors in unprecedented quantities, but it's the only coin I have, and I'm not happy about being pulled away at such a critical juncture, but if Xavier requests it, I come.

It's not a long flight from Washington to New York and beyond the debriefing, Warren and I don't talk much. We both have work to do, and coexist in companionable silence at 19,000 feet while Thutmose leaps back and forth between us, getting in our way. "I hate that cat," Warren tells me, and I smile because I know he doesn't. Warren's the one who gave him to me. God knows I don't make enough to buy a registered show-quality Abyssinian who acts like Egyptian royalty (which is how he got the name Thutmose). Neither of us knew how big he'd get, though, or how much he'd get into everything.

We set down right at the school; they have an old landing strip on the property, though it entails a walk in with both cat and luggage. I don't mind; it's early April in the (relative) country -- still chilly up here, more so than in Washington, and mid-morning light glows verdant through leaf buds, glancing off the blossoms of cherry trees, a riot of delicate pink along an old split-rail fence. I glance at Warren and tap his arm, signing, How's the vote going to turn out?

He shakes his head. "I don't know."

Don't know, or won't say?

"Don't know, Scott. I don't' see everything. If I knew, I'd tell you. Trust me. Too many loose threads in the future."

It could go either way?

"Yes. Somehow . . . these two kids matter." He glances at me. "So does Jean Grey."

I blink, but try to keep the surprise off my face. Of course Xavier would have told them. How does Jean matter?

"I don't know. I wish I did." He pauses, then asks. "Do you really love her?"

"Yes," I say aloud.

"Scott, don't you know what she does, what she is --?"

Don't start with that, I sign. I know better than you do. She's not evil, Warren. She's doing what she believes is right. I think she's wrong, she thinks I'm wrong, but we . . . deal. She's not a bad person, and she's not our enemy.

"Not your enemy, maybe." But he has the sense not to say anything else. My jaw tightens.

When we arrive at the mansion, the professor meets us in his office. "My presence is required in Washington, Scott," he says, and I want to ask, And mine's not? He knows, and replies, "You've done what you can; it's my turn now. But I can't leave these new students without any means of communication." He indicates the two kids waiting in his office with him, a young man who towers over all of us, even Warren, and a petite girl with very fair hair who's covered from crown to toe in clothes.

"Piotr and Ilyana Rasputin," the professor says, in Russian. "This is Dr. Summers. He'll be staying here in my place, while I'm away. Dr. Summers will have no trouble understanding you, but he's deaf, so please be sure that you're facing him when you speak. I should return in a few days." Both look dubious but I smile and offer a little wave, mime that I'll be back, and exit with Xavier and Warren. Thutmose follows. The professor is ready to go, his bags waiting in the foyer. Warren is taking him to the city, just as he brought me here. An exchange of place.

I'll take care of them, I sign to the professor. I mean more than just the kids in the office.

He smiles, sending telepathically, I know you will, Scott. That's why I called you home.

The thing with Jean --, I begin.

"Shh," he says aloud, adding, I trust you. We've known each other long enough, that's all he needs to say. He and Warren depart and I return to his office to visit with the two kids for a while, asking via written query where they're from, and about their abilities and their experiences on the road, trying to fathom Erik's interest in them. The boy talks while his sister pets Thutmose, getting ruddy fur on her white gloves. Apparently, Piotr's known about his powers a while but was able to remain in his small village in the Ural mountains until Ilyana manifested. A steel boy who could lift several tons with his bare hands was useful in a farming community, but a vampiric girl who stole the life force from others (however accidentally) was something else. She'd put a local boy in a coma after a tentative kiss and her brother had snatched her from a pogrom, fleeing with her by rail across Siberia to seek asylum in Alaska. Why Alaska made no sense to me (regardless of the fact I'd been born there), but then, there's no accounting for human whim.

Finally, I send them both to their rooms, and after lunch, call the X-Team: Polaris, Sabretooth and Beast. Polaris -- Ororo Munroe -- is field leader; we have a . . . complicated relationship. When younger, we dated and broke up, dated and broke up more times than I care to count, and if we've had our moments of fire, we make a lousy long-term couple. Too much competition or not enough common ground, I'm not sure. About six years ago, we finally gave up trying and I moved permanently to Washington. We're better as colleagues, and she's never questioned my right to be Xavier's XO off the field, just as I no longer fight her to be called an X-Man on it.

"Scott," she says now as she enters, her green hair a rich beacon, but she's cold like metal to me. She takes her usual place near the window and builds castles from paper clips. I don't know if she's just nervous, or trying to annoy me.

Logan and Hank enter after her, Logan sniffing. "That damn cat's back." Thutmose hisses at him from a corner of Xavier's big oak desk and Logan snarls in reply. The cat flees to hide under my chair.

Hank frowns sideways at Sabretooth, saying, "I'm glad you're here, Scott."

From my place behind the desk, I incline my head in acknowledgment, then raise a pad on which I've written: Thoughts on why Erik is interested in these two kids?

"Why don't you ask your girlfriend?" Logan snarls as he lowers himself into a reinforced chair and shakes back his mane of grizzled hair.

"Sabretooth!" Hank says, and even Ro cuts in with, "Scott's loyalties are not on trial, Logan." I'm mildly surprised. She has no reason to trust my liaison with Jean and what I shared with her only complicates the situation. Her support means a lot.

It's a fair question, I write, to placate Logan. And no, I haven't talked to Jean Grey since the senate hearings. I have my side, and she has hers.

Logan's lip curls. "Would you just talk, dammit?" Neither he -- nor Ro -- have ever had much patience with my insecurities.

"Fine," I say aloud and notice all of them wince, which means I'm yelling. I lower the volume to ask, "Why does Lehnsherr want these kids?"

"We have no idea, beyond the obvious," Ro replies. "The boy would be valuable, and was cage fighting -- not precisely legal, especially for someone underage. Maybe Lucifer thought he would be an easy convert?"

Elbows on the desktop, I steeple my hands and press my mouth to them, thinking. "But the boy manifested years ago; wouldn't Lucifer have gone after him then? What if it's not the boy he wants?"

"Why would he want the girl?" Logan asks -- an obvious question. "Maybe he just didn't know about 'em before they showed up in Canada?"

"He has Cerebra."

"So? He ain't Xavier. You think he could pick up a mutant kid on the other side of the globe?"

It's a valid point and I glance at Hank, who simply shrugs. "So we're in the dark?" I ask.

"We don't even have a flashlight," Ro agrees.

"I wonder if this might be connected to the upcoming summit?" Hank says.

I nod. "It might." That it could involve the UN summit on mutancy is exactly what I'm afraid of, and frustrated, I rub at my forehead, thinking, Bluebell, where the hell are you and what's the Brotherhood up to?


***

The only advantage, so far as I'm concerned, to impersonating a guy is that I get to piss standing up. Otherwise, I'd rather be a woman any day of the week. Unfortunately, I've been male now for two weeks almost continually, with only the occasional snatched period for relaxation. I can't hold a form more than about seventy-two hours without taking an hour or two as myself, but it's so very, very dangerous in this assignment. The smallest slip up and I'd be caught. I don't even dare write Scott, in case the email were traced from my borrowed computer. I toyed with the idea of using a cybercafe, but discarded it. Better to stay hidden; a letter to Scott isn't necessary communication and I told him not to worry -- and if I'm honest, I want to write to him more for me than for him. Yet everything -- everything -- rides on this. It's for our people; I keep that in mind as I go through another day as someone I'm not. I'm the only one who can do this. But the day finally comes when the pieces are all in place and we're ready. Dominic has weaseled his way onto our chartered chopper as pilot, and together, Senator Robert Kelly and I cross the landing field from his limousine. "Henry," he says, handing me his briefcase to climb aboard. I smile. Come into my parlor says the Spider to the Fly. I follow him up the steps and through the hatch.

Inside, we settle into our seats. Kelly pours himself a scotch and sips it while he talks on the phone to the president. I listen as I pretend to work on something else. The call is obviously not going the way Kelly wants and I hide a smile. When he hangs up, I can't resist rubbing it in. "Well, what was his opinion?"

"He's the president of the United States. He doesn't have an opinion. He smiles, he waves, he shakes hands."

"Isn't that what you do, sir?"

His glare is scathing; I don't care. It will soon be over, this charade. "Well, this time it's not up to him. It's up to me, and Congress."

"What of the UN summit? Have you considered staging a demonstration? The whole world will be watching."

He continues to glare. "I don't care about the world. I'm only interested in Americans. The 'world' can't vote for me in the next election, can it? Let Germany and Britain and Italy deal with mutants any damn way they please." He sips more scotch. He poured me some, but mine remains untasted. "You know," Kelly says, "this mutant problem is exactly the kind the liberals beg us to ignore until it blows up in their pansy-ass faces, then guys like me are left to clean up the mess. I'd like to see Summers and his ilk put away. Permanently."

My jaw grinds. For the past two weeks at every opportunity, he's run Scott down and I am so sick of it. Now, he turns his head to look out the window again, sipping the scotch. "This situation -- these mutants -- it's the reason people like me exist, Gyrich."

Quite suddenly, something seems to register with him, and he frowns -- concerned, but not yet scared. "Where the hell are we?" He looks at me in question.

And I smile again . . . for the last time in this form I've come to hate so.

And I change. Right before his eyes, I change. Such a relief. Every cell of my body is exhausted from holding another form so different from mine with little rest for two weeks. "It's people like you," I say in my real voice, "who made me afraid to go to school as a child."

I watch horror cloud his eyes -- an expression I know so well. Fear, disgust, hatred. I'm the monster who escaped my closet and won' t stay decently hidden. He moves abruptly, lunging for the cockpit. (Where the hell does he think he's going?) He barely escapes his seat before I lift a foot, kicking a heel into his chest to shove him back, then use the foot edge to knock him into unconsciousness. "Take that, you son of a bitch," I mutter when he's out cold.

Rising, I go join Dominic at the chopper controls. "That was easy," he says, conversationally.

I fit on the earphones. "One guinea pig on the way to Erik."

"Think anyone'll miss him immediately?" Dominic asks.

"Not even his wife," I reply.

"I missed you," he says after a moment. I choose to ignore it. He's not Scott.

Erik and Raven meet us when we set down and Erik gives her charge of the unconscious Kelly. "See to it that he's transported to the machine." And she disappears in a puff of sulfuric smoke, Kelly in her grip. Erik studies my face. "Go relax, Jean. You've earned it. Kelly will be unconscious for a while. Meet back at the machine in five hours. We'll debrief later."

Nodding, I hurry off, escaping any inquiries he might have and any unwanted solicitation from Dominic. For the first time in two weeks, I can walk as myself, and back in my room, I grab sweat clothes to throw on. It's always cold here. But before I sleep, I open my cell phone and -- against my better judgment -- dial a memorized number. It's not his. It's an answering service we took out some while back for both of us to use, leaving messages for the other. He gets mine in TDD, but I get to hear his voice this way.

"Where are you?" is recorded several times. "Jean, contact me as soon as you can. I'm worried." I listen to the messages three times, my fingers soft on the earpiece, before erasing them. Then I record my own: "I'm fine. I told you not to worry. I'll talk to you soon." Then I fall onto my bed and sleep. I'm so tired -- and so glad to be home -- that I fail to notice Dominic has followed me back to my room and now stands guard outside it.


***

My vibrate alarm catapults me awake, and a quick glance at the clock tells me it isn't morning yet -- which means someone else triggered it. Grabbing my robe, I barrel out of my usual mansion room into the hallway, looking around frantically for the emergency. Thutmose follows me. A small crowd has gathered further down the hall in front of Logan's bedroom door and I trot down to join them, pushing my way through kids, the cat on my heels. But (of course) I'm the last to arrive; Ororo and Hank already have the crisis well in hand. I'm not even sure what's happened, except that Logan is lying unconscious on the floor and the new girl, the little Russian kid, is eeling her way out as I make my way in. The other students give her a wide berth, though her brother follows her. I lean out to see in what direction they head, but need more information before I do anything about it.

Ro and Hank are busy with the incapacitated Logan, but one of the older students, Bobby Drake, is standing there along with his girlfriend Marie. I pull them both aside and make, "What happened?" clear enough with brief gestures.

I can tell from body language that Bobby speaks softly to keep what he says from other students, though surely they must have seen. "I'm not really sure," he tells me. "We heard some yelling, and when we got here, that new girl had hold of Mr. Logan's face and the veins were sticking out in his neck and temples --"

"-- and she was all scratched up!" Marie adds. My eyes flash to her mouth. "Her face was all torn up, and her chest. Blood everywhere. But then . . . she healed. Like he does."

"She must have taken it out of him," Bobby concludes. "Her gloves were off and she was touching his face, so she could take his power. Then she . . . ran off." He gestures out the door, clearly troubled.

What I want to know is what the hell the kid had been doing in Logan's room in the first place? Not that I suspect anything inappropriate from him; he regards the kids like cubs in a pride and protects them accordingly, but it was still odd. Bobby and Marie are clearly shook up by what they've witnessed and a little scared of the girl, and it's never good when the kids get scared of each other. I've seen it before. Speaking aloud from necessity, I point out, "Well, borrowing his power meant she isn't dead -- which she might have been otherwise." People badly mauled by Sabretooth didn't usually survive to tell about it.

Bobby and Marie glance at each other, then he nods. "Yeah, there is that."

"Go back to bed," I tell them. "Take the kids with you. Talk to them if they need it."

They both move to herd lingering students away from the door and out into the hallway. Hank has already left with Logan; he's the only one strong enough to pick up the big man. It's just me and Ro left in the room, and Thutmose; I shut the door. There's blood all over the carpet. Fill me in? With Ro, I use what's called PSE, or pidgin sign English. Real ASL, American Sign Language, is a language with a unique grammar, and like any language, one has to spend time with it to use it well. I'm the only deaf person Ro knows, and while she, Warren, and Hank have all made an effort to learn signing, I don't live in Westchester anymore and they don't use it enough to be proficient. Only Jean (and Xavier) have learned true ASL, and only after three years of near-constant practice has Jean become fluent. Even so, when she translated my senate speech, I had to help her prepare it in advance.

Now, Ro makes a helpless gesture with her hands. "I am not sure I know. I heard shouting from Logan's room and ran down here -- along with everyone else, as you saw. I buzzed you. The new girl, Ilyana, was kneeling by Logan's bed, torn by his claws. She had him by the face, but he was gripping her, too, as if he did not want her to get away. He looked horrified, Scott. Whatever happened, he did not mean to hurt her." And it's interesting that the students had seen Ilyana hurting Logan, while Ro had seen Logan hurting Ilyana. The only ones likely to know what had actually occurred were either unconscious or AWOL.

"She absorbed his power enough to heal," Ro continues. "Her brother had arrived by that point and I was afraid he would attack Logan, though Logan was unconscious. But she said something to him and they left together."

I rub my forehead, then sign, Logan will probably be okay. I'm going to try to catch those kids.

"They may have gone back to bed."

"I doubt it," I say aloud. She follows me out. Go check on Logan, I sign and she nods, heading down the hall to the elevator as I drop off the cat in my room, then turn in the direction I saw the siblings flee earlier -- towards the back stairs. I wish I had Xavier's telepathy to help me find them, or at least had heavier clothes. The April night's chilly, and the kids aren't in any of the obvious places, so in desperation, I use my voice, calling out, "Piotr! Ilyana!" There's no reply. Frustrated, I return to the mansion and check their rooms. They're not there, either. They could be anywhere; this is a big place. Annoyed at my own helplessness, I walk hallways. The other kids all seem to be back in bed, or at least back in their rooms. Power crises aren't so uncommon, though it doesn't usually involve an adult. Finally, I descend to the sub-basement. I've never been all that fond of the place; it seems too sterile and futuristic. Or maybe I've just spent too much time in dusty nineteenth-century museums.

Entering the medbay, I find Logan awake, if groggy. He's talking to Ro and Hank, and I pull over a third chair, watching their mouths to pick up on what I've missed. All of them adjust a little so I can see their faces. They know the routine.

It turns out that the new girl has a bit of a crush on Sabretooth, which baffles me but she wouldn't be the first -- some 'tame the animal' appeal, I suppose, and he did save her from Wolverine. In any case, she'd heard him crying out in the night and her infatuation led her to do what the rest of us (who've been here any length of time) know better than to try -- she woke him from a nightmare. Startled and still in the grip of his private horror, he clawed the hell out of her, so she absorbed his healing factor in order to survive. It worked, but it seems that when she touches someone, she gets their thoughts and memories as well as their powers. I can't imagine what a fourteen-year-old girl is feeling with the memories of Sabretooth.

"I can't find them," I report when they all turn to look at me. "I've checked the obvious places, but no luck."

"Shit," Logan says, pushing back grizzled hair from his face. With his black eyes, claws, and fangs, not to mention the sheer size of him, he looks dangerous -- which he cultivates -- but if I can't say he's all bark and no bite, he's far gentler than he seems. "That poor kid's gotta be freaked. I could track her --"

"No," Ororo says, ever practical. "You are still too weak. We shall wait until morning; they cannot have gone far and it will be daylight soon."


***

Erik built Cerebra -- his own version of the professor's Cerebro -- years ago, but the Mutant Registration Act spurred him on to create a specially modified version that Dominic has taken to calling "that damn machine" because everything on Genosha revolves around it these days. Mini-Cerebra doesn't reach far, but it wasn't designed to. Erik's powers aren't the same as Xavier's, and this machine, while matching Cerebra in principle, is designed to boost both his telepathy and his telekinesis. But he didn't build it to push around bigger objects. Moving big things, Erik says, is easy compared to the manipulation of tiny objects -- microscopic objects. Like DNA strands. And he couldn't do it without mini-Cerebra. Using himself as a power source, the new machine can manipulate the basic building blocks of the human genome.

It can make mutants.

He's already run a few trials on animals, all successful, so today, we're going to implement his theory on the first flatscan.

Raven had teleported the unconscious Kelly from the helicopter down to the chamber, strapping him in a chair directly in front of the doors to mini-Cerebra. Erik could have gone forward with his test while Kelly was asleep, but that defeated the point. We wanted Kelly to know what was coming -- just as we stared down the barrel of his registration bill, knowing what it would mean for us. Tit for tat, senator.

So I'd had my nap, and now, when I wake and emerge from my bedroom, I find Dominic standing there. "Hey," I say. "What's up?"

"Just waiting on you." He gives his patented 'Aren't I charming?' smile. Like his code-namesake, he flirts with anything of the opposite sex (if no Ganymedes). "Ready to see what that damn machine will do?"

"Wouldn't miss it." So we head down into the bowels of Genosha, Erik's island fortress. It used to be an oil refinery, abandoned some decades back and fallen into disrepair until Erik bought and converted it, made it his headquarters and housed Cerebra here. It's rather ugly -- functional, not decorative, and perpetually cold in winter or sweltering in summer, but that doesn't seem to trouble him. I spend as little time here as possible; I have a home in the city with climate control. I like my creature comforts.

The test chamber is especially gloomy, the bare rock still showing in places. The real Cerebra is still one level beneath us, but the smaller, specialized, mobile version is here, set up on one side of the circular arena. At the room's center is a simple armchair where Kelly has been deposited and bound. When Dominic and I enter, the man is already awake and asking Erik a series of rapid-fire questions. Mostly, Erik ignores Kelly, though he speaks now and then in that glorious voice of his, telling the man to have patience. "I assure you, senator, you're not in danger of your life. Nor am I interested in ransom."

Kelly glances over when Dominic and I enter, and his face contorts upon seeing me. Leaving Dominic at the arena's rear, I saunter forward to kneel beside the chair, my hands grasping it like a lover. "Hello, Bob," I purr.

He's pulled as far away from me as the chair will allow. "Get away from me, you freak."

"How rude of you, senator. I am, after all, registered to vote. Weren't you just telling me how concerned you are to court voters?"

"Not voters like you."

I laugh. I suppose his words could wound me, and on one level they do, but mostly, they just fuel my anger, and my belief that people like him need to be taught a lesson.

"Mystique," Erik says to me, "quit playing with your food," and he gestures for me to rise.

I obey, glancing down into Kelly's appalled face. "A joke, senator," I tell him. "I eat the same things you do -- as you've seen for the last two weeks."

Abruptly, Raven teleports into our midst and it causes Kelly to lose his composure completely, screaming in horror -- either at her unorthodox arrival or her physical appearance, I'm not sure which. Probably both. If Raven had pupils to roll, I'm sure she'd have been rolling them. "Why are we wasting our time on this piece of flotsam?" she mutters to Erik.

He ignores that. "We're ready," he says, then adds softly, "Remember when I'm done, I probably won't be able to stand without assistance."

"We know," she says.

"What about Wolverine?" I ask.

"What about him?" Raven snaps as Erik replies, "He's on a mission." That Creed also isn't part of our small family is something we all know but don't say, and I wonder if Erik sent him away on purpose at the moment of our fruition.

Raven touches Erik's cheek, and turning on my heel, I leave them. She's stood at his side ever since Charles Xavier cast him out, and I won't attempt to take her place now, so I go stand with Dominic. He grins, moving closer to me, and I know what he thinks -- he's going to marry Clytemnestra and inherit Mycenae. Dream on, Agamemnon. I am not Tyndarus' child, and my heart belongs to a deaf Uriel, Archangel of Salvation, but also master of Tartarus who guards the gate to Eden with a fiery sword. How fitting, that he should fall for the dark daughter of Lucifer.

Now, Erik speaks to Kelly. "Are you a God-fearing man, senator?"

Kelly is eying Raven and I know he thinks he's fallen in with the devil. Lucifer's Lilith lashes her spade-shaped tail, wrapping it around Kelly's bound wrist, and he recoils from her just as he did from me. Erik is still speaking, "'God-fearing' is such a strange phrase, wouldn't you agree? I've always thought of God as a teacher, a bringer of light, wisdom, understanding." Erik moves to stand over Kelly, who is pressed all the way back in his chair. "You see, what I think you really fear is us. My kind, the brotherhood of mutants." With a hand, he gestures to include the rest of us.

Abruptly, he turns away and approaches the doors to mini-Cerebra. "Fearing mutants is logical, I suppose. As an old friend has told me often enough, humans have always feared what they don't understand. And have made laws they think will protect them -- like your bill, senator."

Kelly suddenly finds his voice, "The intention of the Mutant Registration Act --"

Erik holds up a hand imperiously. "Senator, please. You and I both know what the road to hell is paved with, don't we? We aren't talking about intentions. We're talking about human fear. It's only a matter of time before mutants are herded into camps, studied for weaknesses, experimented on, and eventually cleansed. Wiped off the face of the Earth. I should know." He pulls up the sleeve of his shirt to show Kelly the tattoo in his skin. Ugly, ugly. A number the Nazis put there. "I've seen it happen in my lifetime."

To his credit, Kelly keeps his mouth shut.

"But I am not like them," Erik says. "I don't intend to kill you; I intend to help you understand. Don't fear God, senator. And most certainly don't fear me. At least, not anymore." And with those words, he enters mini-Cerebra.

Unlike the real Cerebra below us, this one has transparent walls, and I'm not sure if that's for Erik to see how far his effect has reached, or if it's mere vanity. I may admire my teacher, but I've never been blind to his faults, even if Scott says I am. (I find it ironic when Scott tells me that I trust too much.)

Inside, Erik seats himself at the controls and places the helmet on his head, then leans back to close his eyes. Slowly, gradually, the chamber begins to pulse with red light, rising up behind him like two great wings, embracing him. Then they extend and tremble, and we're all bathed in such a brightness, it's hard to see.

He is Lucifer, Angel of Light. Erik took that name years ago in defiance of St. Jerome and Western mythology. The Morning Star, the glory of heaven, Lucifer stands for sanctuary, knowledge, understanding -- all things Erik prizes so. And when his full power grips him, he's beautiful and terrible, like a raptor plunging. Like an angel. All of us but Kelly have raised our hands to shield our eyes and Kelly's turned his face away. We can't look on his full glory.

The red wings ripple slowly outward, inches at a time, until they cover the chamber floor, walls, ceiling. They caress Raven and she gasps, holds out her arms like one baptized. Kelly is next, but his reaction is different. He screams in agony. It's a terrible sound, and I wince. Erik told me this wouldn't hurt. "They'll feel odd, perhaps. But it won't be pain." Yet Kelly's scream doesn't sound like fear; I know the difference between frightened and hurt, and this is hurt. Unconsciously, I grip Dominic's arm. Chest puffed out, he slips an arm around me, but before I can disengage, the red wings have reached us both.

The sensation is similar to being brushed by a bramble, scratchy and not entirely pleasant, but not painful. Kelly is still screaming. Then abruptly the effect reverses and the fiery wings diminish until they disappear back into Erik. After their brightness, the room seems dark indeed. Raven goes to the machine while Dominic and I blink to regain our vision. Kelly's head is sagging and he makes little moaning noises but otherwise appears conscious. When Erik emerges from mini-Cerebra, he can barely stand even with Raven's support. He looks terrible as he approaches Kelly.

"What have you done to me?" Kelly asks, his voice raw.

"Welcome to the future -- brother," Erik replies, setting a hand on Kelly's shoulder as he and Raven move past him. He gestures to Dominic, who goes to the chair. He'll take Kelly to a cell.

I approach, too, and reaching out, cup Erik's cheek. "Look at what this did to you, just inside this room. You can't plan to use this on the whole of Ellis Island. Your heart can't take the strain."

Smiling gently, he covers my hand with his. "Don't worry, child. I have no intention of sacrificing myself. Our work is just beginning."

"You need to rest," Raven tells him, shooting me a displeased look. "Let me take care of him, Jean."

"Yes, ma'am."

They teleport away, leaving me standing there in the chamber, frustrated. Dominic is leaving with the bound Kelly and turning on my heel, I stalk to the machine, shoving the door open to enter. This is the first time I've actually been inside it, and I pick up the helmet, speaking to it. "You'd better not take him from us."

It's only then that I notice this helm -- unlike the other -- has a chin strap. Unsettled, I drop my eyes to the chair, which I find has bindings. I glance at the control board. There aren't many dials on it as the machine is controlled by Erik's mind, yet this one has a switch Cerebra doesn't. "Locked," the switch reads.

I touch it, fearfully. "Erik, you weren't lying to me -- were you?" I could have sworn he wasn't lying, and it's my business to read body language that way. But if he wasn't lying, why put in these restraints to keep him from interfering once the machine had started?

"I don't understand," I tell the empty room.


***

It wasn't so many hours between our night crisis and morning, so I'd gone back to my room to feed the cat, shower and dress in warmer clothes, then head out with Ro to search the grounds again for our missing kids. We came up empty-handed even as the sun was rising. This isn't good, I sign to her, back in the mansion foyer as the other students are heading reluctantly to breakfast before classes. What makes you think they wouldn't have left the grounds?

"Scott, where would they have gone? And how? All the cars are still in the garage."

They crossed Siberia and got as far as Alaska without a car, Ro!

She looks far more troubled in the dawn light than she did in the medbay, her fine lips pursed and her green hair in disarray from the wind. Finally she gives a little shake of her head. "Okay. I will ask Sabretooth to track them."

I just nod. Twenty minutes later, Sabretooth is dressed and stalking into the foyer. His long mane lifts in the wind of his passage and I almost expect him to growl at me. "You're coming with me?"

"Ororo and Hank have classes to teach," I say aloud. "And can you talk to the kids if you find them? Convince them to come back?"

He glowers at that and shrugs with one shoulder. "Fine," he says at last. "But you better keep up, cub."

My jaw tightens. "I'm not delicate, Sabretooth, just deaf. I can take care of myself."

He snorts and stalks out the front door. "I already tracked 'em from the room. They ran upstairs first, looks like, then went back to their rooms a little later, then downstairs right out the front door -- probably sometime this morning when you was out lookin' for 'em." He glances back at me as I follow. He has a ground-eating stride. "They coulda walked right behind you and you wouldn't'a known it."

It's a blunt statement not meant to spare my feelings, but not accusatory, either. It's been Logan even more than Ororo who's blocked my joining the X-team. 'There's just some things a deaf man can't do, Scott,' he'd say. 'That ain't pity or meanness. It's honesty, eh?' And a small, frustrated part of me knows he's right. But I do have my uses -- like now. I'm the only one who can converse with these kids.

We walk. And walk. It's clear they're running again. They probably assume they've worn out their welcome, and their path is generally south-southeast, headed towards New York itself. I hope we can catch them before they hit more urban areas in southern Westchester that might interfere with Sabretooth's ability to track . . . not to mention places we'd draw notice -- or where he would, at least. Like Jean, Sabretooth is an obvious mutant.

We cross a few roads, follow others, and traverse a few parking lots, even a cow pasture. We make good time -- probably better time than the kids did. I walk a lot, preferring my feet or the Metro to a car. (I can drive, I just don't like doing so in Washington.) So it's not hard for me to keep up with Logan, and I think he's impressed, even if he won't say so. Their trail finally turns due south along Highway 133 towards New Castle. There's a train station in New Castle, and if they catch a train, we'll lose them. It's late mid-morning already, and I'm getting tired and hungry -- not to mention hot. I've already doffed my jacket. It's tied around my waist.

Logan stops abruptly, one arm thrown out to block my movement forward. "Wolverine!" he mouths so I can see.

"What?" I mouth back, startled. A car passes us on the highway, whipping our hair and clothes. Wolverine can track the same as Sabretooth, of course, but how on earth could he have known the kids were on the run to intercept them?

"His scent is all over the place," Logan mouths again and gestures for me to stay put. I'm not going to argue with that. Meeting six blades from behind isn't my idea of fun. Sabretooth rips through the roadside wire fence and disappears into the bush beyond. For such a big guy, he can move with remarkable silence.

Five minutes later, he's back, and doesn't even pause to explain, just grabs my forearm and drags me into the woods. Piotr is about ten feet inside, propped against a tree trunk, barely conscious. There are three nasty puncture wounds low in his right shoulder; I hope they haven't hit his lung, and the girl is nowhere to be seen. "He took her!" the boy says in Russian as I approach. "He took Ilyana!"

Kneeling in front of him, I look up at Logan. "Wolverine has Ilyana."

"Damn," he replies, and pulls out his cell phone to call Ororo. "Ain't no way that kid's walkin' back."

I return my attention to Piotr. "Chto sluchilos?" I ask him in Russian, aloud. What happened?

"Ti mozhjesh govorit!" he gasps, surprised. You can talk!

"I can," I reply, still in Russian. "I don't like to, especially outside English. It's hard for me to make the words sound right." And whatever I just said must have proved my point, because he's frowning, puzzling through my butchered verbal Russian.

When it comes to English, my deafness is post-verbal and I have a certain advantage. I know how to make the sounds, even if I don't practice much and can no longer hear myself. I still have the memory. Yet when it comes to other languages, and no matter how quickly I learn vocabulary and grammar, I'm a preverbal deaf speaker. I don't know how they sound -- which is very important for a language like Russian with its hard and soft sounds and consonantal groupings that don't exist in English.

In any case, he must have understood enough, because he proceeds to tell his story, which I translate (aloud) for Sabretooth while we wait for someone to arrive from the mansion. There isn't much to tell. The kids ran for exactly the reason we assumed they had -- fear of what would happen to them, as well as fear of hurting anyone else accidentally. As for the attack, Piotr couldn't tell us more than that they'd been walking along the highway, headed south, when Wolverine had suddenly appeared in front of them out of the roadside bushes. Piotr had panicked, transforming into steel and grabbing his sister to run across the road straight into the brush on the other side. Wolverine had followed, and between protecting his sister and his own inexperience, Piotr had been overpowered within minutes, Wolverine's adamantium claws stabbing right through his steel form. When Piotr had collapsed, Wolverine had grabbed the girl and made a break for it. Piotr had tried to follow, but hadn't been able to keep from phasing in and out of human form, and had soon passed out from simple blood loss -- where Logan and I had found him. He had no idea how Wolverine had known they weren't at the mansion, or where to find them.

"Creed musta been lurking around the school, waitin' for a chance," Logan says now, and I nod. Yet the fact he'd taken the girl, not the boy, underscored my earlier hunch. This wasn't simple recruiting.

"Why does he want Ilyana?" Piotr asks me now, plaintively, echoing my own thoughts.

"I don't know," I tell him. "I wish I did. But we're going to get her back."

Fifteen minutes later, Ororo picks us up, and as soon as we've returned to the mansion -- Hank working on Piotr -- I send a message to the professor, letting him know what's happened. Then I check the answering service I share with Jean, hoping for word. Miraculously, there's a message, and while I'm relieved to hear from her, it also means she's back where I can contact her. Opening my laptop, I send her email, telling her to message me by phone, and forty-five minutes later, my phone vibrates. The boy Piotr is out of danger and resting now, and I've gone up to the professor's office. Alone, I open the phone and enter, I've never asked you about Brotherhood business before, but Wolverine just abducted one of our students. What the hell is going on, Bluebell?

There's a pause, then she types back, What are you talking about?

Long story. In brief, two of our kids ran this morning -- normal first-week jitters after a power accident. We went after them, but Wolverine intercepted them first on Highway 133, stuck his claws right through the boy's shoulder and left him bleeding, then took off with the boy's sister. This isn't the first time he's chased them, either. Sabretooth and Polaris rescued them from him in Alaska a few days ago. Whatever disagreements between your people and mine, LEAVE THE KIDS OUT OF IT! I didn't realize how mad I am until I type that last sentence.

Another brief pause, then she replies, Cypher, I don't know anything about this. You have to believe me. We don't make war on kids -- certainly not mutant kids. You know that. Lucifer would never sanction such a thing. Wolverine must be acting on his own.

And I feel better, because I believe her. Jean and I have a policy of honest truth or plain refusal to answer. If she's telling me this, she's not lying. Can you find out what's going on?

I'll try. Lucifer won't be happy to know Wolverine's attacking children in his off hours. I'll contact you as soon as I know something.

And she ends the call. I don't doubt her for a moment. That's why I'm so shocked when, ten minutes later as I tell Logan and Ororo the news in Xavier's office, I receive twin disgusted looks. "You ass!" Logan bellows, before Ro shushes him.

"Scott -- when we ran into Wolverine in Canada, he said Lucifer wanted the kids."

"What? But Jean --"

"She lied to you."

"No!" I protest.

"It's what she does, bub," Logan tells me, but despite his words, his voice isn't cruel. It's almost gentle. "It's who she is. Lies are her business."

"Not with me. She's never lied to me."

"Can you be sure of that?" Ororo asks.

Rising from the professor's desk, I stalk out of the room and then from the mansion altogether -- go out onto the front lawn and turn my face up to the sun, eyes closed. I don't know what to think anymore.


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