X Marks the Future Chapter 3: Part 3: Conference, a cartoon x-overs fanfic

Author's Note: Not much really happens in this chapter; it centers around talking, really. I apologize for the lack of real action. The next part should have some, whenever I get around to editing it and polishing it for uploading. However, I'm not exactly sure when that'll be, due to my recent plunge into the lifestyle of a college student. But when I have the free time, of course, I'll work on finishing this story. =)

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"You know, it's a good thing I only ever have the clothes on my back," Fry was saying, "because what if I ever wanted to use a closet for storage?"

Bender peeked out of their new room's closet to put on his robotic pretext of a scowl. "You just try putting your crap in my room, skintube. While you're at it, throw your wallet and some booze in too."

Scott had shown them to a room with two beds, unsure about what an intelligent robot's sleeping preferences might be, or even if one slept at all. He had still been too wary around the strangers to bother speaking any more than absolutely necessary, let alone ask questions of a surly machine.

That had been nearly an hour ago. Now Fry sprawled on one of the beds, hands behind his head, while Bender poked around in the closet. He casually plucked out the wooden bar meant to hang clothes hangers upon and tossed it out the window.

At their knocking, Fry got up to open the door on Leela and Jean.

"Hey Fry. Jean says now we're to go downstairs and speak to this Professor Xavier."

"Okay. But I think our guy forgot to show us the bathroom."

Behind Leela, Jean rolled her eyes and made a mental note to speak to Scott later. "I believe, in the boys' wing, it's at the end of the hallway to your right," she spoke up, pointing.

"Ah, thanks."

After waiting long enough for Fry to take care of business at the end of the hall, the group went back downstairs. Jean led them to Xavier's large study, where enough chairs had been brought in to accommodate both the X-Men and the guests. The rest of the team was already seated, waiting for them. Each had a plate of food, and four other plates rested on the low central table. Kurt was sprawled across the couch, but at the sight of them suddenly 'ported to an empty chair.

Fry gasped. Leela and Bender had both been looking around at the room itself, but he had seen the activity in the center. He pointed at Kurt. "What was that he just did?"

Xavier spoke up. "That is part of what we are here to discuss with you, Mr. Fry. If you would all have a seat, Ororo has prepared us a wonderful dinner." He gestured to a dark woman with sparkling white hair to his right. After the Planet Express crew and Jean had selected a plate and seated themselves, he continued. "The reason we are eating here is because there are other students here at my Institute, but I thought it would be best to keep what information is revealed tonight among my most trusted, and the smallest group necessary. I find this room a bit more comfortable anyway." He smiled.

Leela took advantage of the pause. "Before we begin, may I ask what date today is, Mister Xavier?"

"Certainly. But, please, call me Charles. Today is May 23rd, 2003."

Leela took a moment to remember how to breathe. She wondered to herself just how much she could reveal to these people.

Fry elbowed her in the ribs gently. "Hey Leela, you ever notice how time jumps are conveniently a thousand years, or at least back to my time? If I wanted to, I could go visit my family and see how they've been doing the past couple of years."

"No, Fry. You're not going anywhere near your family. I won't allow any more chances for you to inbreed." She looked up at all the faces staring at them and sighed. "As Fry so tactfully brought up, we are from your future, or at least an alternate universe set in the future. To be honest, I don't know which. We got sucked into a black hole while returning from a delivery and wound up here. I didn't even know black holes could allow you to travel back in time. I always thought they just killed you."

There was a long silence that Xavier eventually broke. "Well, that makes our situation much more delicate, doesn't it?"

Leela nodded glumly.

There was another silence, this time broken by Kurt. He pointed to the untouched plate of food on the table. "Excuse me, but is anyone going to eat that?" he asked quietly.

Xavier looked to Bender. "We were unsure what a robot of your caliber might use for nourishment, so we made an extra plate just in case."

Bender, who had been surprisingly silent up until that point, shrugged. "Well, I can eat it, but it doesn't really go anywhere. I can't even taste it. So, have at it, furball," he said, looking at Kurt, who winced at the name but chirped out a "Thanks," before taking the food.

"Bender! Sorry, sometimes I think someone forgot to install his courtesy chip," Leela apologized.

"Well, I suppose it's time you learned about us," Xavier said. "I think the topic of the future is better left alone for now, for some obvious reasons. I founded this Institute to harbor students who are gifted in ways the present is not prepared to deal with. Here, I teach my students how to handle their powers more skillfully and how to use themselves for good. There are others like us who would rather use their powers for evil, selfish means. That, along with the simple fact that we are different, has created a great deal of prejudice among humans. We are all mutants, who some believe are a step forward in evolution. Each of us has been granted by nature some special power."

"So what's your special power, Leela?" Bender interrupted.

"Yeah. Aren't you glad there are other mutants around even in my day?" Fry asked.

"I wish I had the power to make both of you disappear, sometimes," she muttered under her breath. Everyone was looking at her again. "Yes, I'm a mutant of the future. But only of appearances. Thus the single eye. No super powers. Just the results of radioactive waste's contact with my family." She stared at the floor. It still hurt a little to think about these things, let alone have to talk about them with strangers.

"I see," Xavier said. "Well, there are many things that have come up tonight that will need to be discussed more in the future. However, there is one more concern I have to address, and that is the problem of your ship. We can't just leave it sitting in the forest where anyone can see it. So while you rested in your rooms, I worked on this." He produced from a pocket of his jacket a small black box with a bit of Velcro attached to the back. "It's a holograph inducer, which will seem to make the ship just another clump of trees, to the naked eye. It should be enough to disguise the ship from any who might wander through that bit of forest, until we can find a better solution."

Kurt leapt up from his seat. "I can 'port it over right now, if you'd like, Professor."

"That was just what I had in mind," Xavier smiled, and handed the box to Kurt. The Planet Express group watched in awe as, with a BAMF sound and a puff of smoke, Kurt disappeared. Xavier chuckled. "Yes, that's his power. He's able to teleport himself and any object he touches to other locations. And he's already familiar with holograph projectors, since for obvious reasons he might need to appear more human to be seen in public." As he finished this statement, Kurt reappeared in his chair.

"I looked around the area, Professor, but I didn't see signs that anyone else had been there yet," he reported.

"Thank you," Xavier replied. "Now I propose we all find some rest this evening. I know some of you have some homework to do this weekend," he paused to look at a few X-Men, "and others have simply had a long day," this he addressed to his guests.

Everyone rose and filtered out of the room. Jean politely took the empty plates from Fry and Leela and asked if they needed help finding their rooms again. Fry nodded and followed her out. Leela, however, lingered behind.

"So there is more you would like to discuss?" Xavier asked.

In reply, Leela seated herself again. She couldn't resist finding out more about these so-called mutants. It only seemed natural to be curious about them after so recently finding out she was a breed of mutant herself.

"So these mutants of the future, they have no special abilities or powers?" Xavier asked her.

"No. Hideous deformities that force them to live in the sewer system," Leela pointed ruefully at her eye, "me being the least-deformed mutant ever born, but no super powers."

"Well, we have had dealings before with a group of mutants who lived underground."

"No, our mutations have been caused by generations of radiation and toxic wastes. I believe we're entirely different species, Charles."

"That leads me to wonder what became of our kind in this future of yours. Does our evolution stop? Do our genes simply die out of the pool?"

Would there a widespread movement to exterminate mutantkind? That was the unspoken question hanging in the air. Neither dared to bring it up.

Leela sat back in her chair to think. She couldn't remember anything from her history classes about 21st century mutants. At least, nothing catastrophic. It seemed they might have disappeared, as Xavier had suggested.

One memory came floating forward in her mind. It seemed totally unconnected at first. But in the late 21st century, there had been a substantial group, working independently, who had made an amazing advance in space flight technology. The ship had been developed separate from any country's space program, financed privately and constructed in secret. Its existence had been unknown until just before its flight. And enough information about its construction had been left behind to determine that its engines were fuelled by dark matter. How the group had acquired any of the stuff had been one of the greatest mysteries in history. They had used dark matter over a century before anyone had discovered it on other planets, after using other fuels to visit those planets. No dark matter had ever been discovered to naturally occur on Earth. Which meant that the group must have acquired it from some advanced race that had happened to visit Earth. Or....

Leela's eye widened in horror as she realized the relationship. The only source of dark matter that she was sure had ever been on Earth in the 21st century rested securely within the Planet Express ship. And she had seen how Xavier already had access to amazing technology, for his time period.

It all fell so neatly into place. Somehow, the mutants of the 21st century would obtain dark matter thanks to the Planet Express crew's adventure back in time. Enough to ferry a spaceship far away from Earth with a large group of outcasted people. It made perfect sense that the outcasted group she remembered so faintly be a group of mutants scorned by humans for their special powers. They would search for a new home, all of their own, where their kind could be safe from persecution and thrive.

Would that dream of a new, mutant-populated world come true? She couldn't reliably remember. Some little voice told her yes. But she couldn't be sure. She didn't want to feel a hope that might be betrayed by reality later, let alone spread that hope to the people to whom it would matter most. She wondered if the ship's computer would have answers. It had records of hundreds of thousands of planets, surely one of them would be populated by a super powered mutant race that once hailed from planet Earth? She suddenly wanted to check, to have a definite answer to cling to. Then she might know how to proceed in dealing with Xavier and his people.

Then again, she knew how she would deal with them. She would somehow wind up giving them a chunk of dark matter that would allow them at least the chance to survive off-planet.

Or perhaps one of them would steal some.

Damn the trickiness of time travel. Was her course of action set in stone, or did she have the power here and now to change the course of history? Which came first: her past, this present, which created all the developments that would lead to her time; or her present, the future in which a black hole would allow her to create her past?

"Leela, are you all right?"

Xavier's quiet question startled her out of her tormenting thoughts. She sat up straighter in the chair, unsure of what to say to him. Was she supposed to keep his future secret, or reassure him that the mutants would not, after all, be subjected to genocide? Which was the course of action she should take? No, that she would take, had already taken.

"I'm not sure what to tell you, Charles. I have the power to reveal your future, and I don't know whether I should, or can, or am already destined to do. It's a ... very ... delicate situation. I hope you can see that."

"I can see quite clearly how it is. I think, although my curiosity to know is burning me up inside, it is best that we not speak about it any further. For now, you should seek a good night's rest and stop worrying about it. Whatever is meant to happen, will come to be. We only have to find the patience to see what enfolds tomorrow, instead of rushing ahead to the conclusion."

Leela smiled and stood up from the chair. "All right, then. Good night, Charles. Thank you for your hospitality and your wisdom."

After she left the study, she wandered down the hallway, still trying to puzzle out her dilemma. She was distracted by a light from the kitchen and a familiar whistle.

"Bender!" she admonished as she swept into the kitchen. The robot was rooting through the refrigerator, carelessly tossing objects and foodstuffs over his shoulder. Leela stepped forward to grab him when she caught sight of a shadow behind Bender. A reflection of the fridge's light flickered as off of metal, somewhere in the stalking shadow. "Bender!" she cried again, a note of warning in her tone this time.

"What?!" he demanded as he straightened and turned to face her. "I'm just lookin' for some alcohol in this stupid house. You know I need some. Would you believe they don't have any?"

The shadow coalesced into a scowling Logan, knuckle blades at their maximum length. "It's a boarding house for kids," he growled. At the sound of his voice, Bender had jumped and screamed. Now he leaned away from the man, staring at the blades. With a soft hiss, they disappeared into Logan's hands.

Leela let out the breath she had been holding to speak. "Bender, we'll go back to the ship tomorrow and find your secret stashes. But first pick up the mess you made!" She looked to Logan. "I apologize for Bender's behavior. He really does run on alcohol, but I never expected him to be so rude as this. I'm sorry if he woke you up or otherwise bothered you."

From his crouched position, Bender's grumbling could be heard. "Stupid humans should know better about robots. We don't get any respect at all. We should just kill all humans. Kill them all!"

Logan looked back and forth between Bender and Leela, then left the room silently.

"You ought to have known better, Bender. And how could you be so rude when they've been so nice to us here?"

"I dunno. Why don't you just shut up and kiss my shiny metal ass?"

Leela sighed and rolled her eye. She turned to go, but stopped when Logan reentered the room. He thrust a six-pack of old-fashioned beer into her arms and jerked his thumb at the robot kneeling on the floor. "For him. Anything so he'll shut up and I can get a decent night's rest. Oh yeah, and you didn't get that from me." He glared at her meaningfully, and she nodded. Then he left again.

Bender finished cleaning up and stood. He brightened up at the sight of the six-pack Leela was holding and grabbed a bottle. He chugged half of it and then suddenly stopped to exclaim, "This tastes like crap!"

"You don't have a sense of taste," Leela sighed.

"Oh. Yeah. Forgot about that." He snatched the rest out of her arms and strode off. Leela shut the refrigerator door and followed. She was suddenly terribly exhausted and her bed sounded wonderful. She had a feeling she would sleep very deeply tonight, despite her strange surroundings.

"You know, it's a good thing I only ever have the clothes on my back," Fry was saying, "because what if I ever wanted to use a closet for storage?"

Someone knocked on the door and Fry got up to open it, revealing Leela and Jean.

"Hey Fry. Jean says now we're to go downstairs and speak to this Professor Xavier."

"Okay. But I think our guy forgot to show us the bathroom."

Behind Leela, Jean rolled her eyes and made a mental note to speak to Scott later. "It's at the end of the hallway to your right," she spoke up, pointing.

"Ah, thanks."

After waiting for Fry to take care of business at the end of the hall, the group went back downstairs. Jean led them to Xavier's large study. The rest of the team was already seated on various chairs and couches, waiting for them. Each had a plate of food, and four other plates rested on the low central table.

Xavier spoke up. "If you would all have a seat, Ororo has prepared us a wonderful dinner." He gestured to a dark woman with sparkling white hair to his right. After Fry, Leela and Jean had selected plates and seated themselves, he continued. "The reason we are eating here is because there are other students here at my Institute, but I thought it would be best to keep what information is revealed tonight among my most trusted. I find this room a bit more comfortable anyway." He smiled. "Let's start with introductions." He more formally introduced Ororo this time, and continued around the room, gesturing to each resident of his institute. Then he turned his gaze back to the Planet Express crew.

"Well, again, my name is Leela and I captain the Planext Express delivery ship. This is Fry, our delivery boy, and Bender, our ... chef. Umm, before we continue, may I ask what date today is, Mister Xavier?"

"Certainly. But, please, call me Charles. Today is May 23rd, 2003."

Leela took a moment to remember how to breathe. She wondered to herself just how much she could reveal to these people.

There was a long silence that Xavier eventually broke. "Well, that makes our situation much more delicate, doesn't it?"

Leela nodded glumly.

There was another silence, this time broken by Kurt. He pointed to the untouched plate of food on the table. "Excuse me, but is anyone going to eat that?" he asked quietly.

Xavier looked to Bender. "We were unsure what a robot of your caliber might use for nourishment, so we made an extra plate just in case."

"Bender! Sorry, sometimes I think someone forgot to install his courtesy chip," Leela apologized.

"Well, I would certainly like to know more about all of you, but I suppose it would be difficult for you to say much without revealing the nature of the future. And if it is indeed our future, it's hard to say whether even telling us about it will affect it. We're stuck in quite a paradox."

"We have gone back in time once before, and altered the history of our own universe," Leela offered. "But we found that history tends to mend itself in unexpected ways."

"I think I will leave it to your discretion whether to discuss more of the future or not. I don't believe telling you about yourselves will do any harm, though." Xavier paused in true storyteller fashion before beginning. "I founded this Institute to harbor students who are gifted in ways the present is not prepared to deal with. Here, I teach my students how to handle their powers more skillfully and how to use them for good. There are others like us who would rather use their powers for evil, selfish means. That, along with the simple fact that we are different, has created a great deal of prejudice among humans. We are all mutants, who some believe are a step forward in evolution. Each of us has been granted by nature some special power."

"So what's your special power, Leela?" Bender interrupted.

"Yeah. Aren't you glad there are other mutants around even in my day?" Fry asked.

"I wish I had the power to make both of you disappear, sometimes," she muttered under her breath. Everyone was looking at her again. "Yes, I'm a mutant of the future. I used to think I was just another alien. I mean ... well, there's a tidbit about the future. Extraterrestrial life and lots of it. Anyway, no super powers. Just the eye ... the results of radioactive waste's contact with my family." She stared at the floor. It still hurt a little to think about these things, let alone have to talk about them with strangers.

Kurt leapt up from his seat. "I can 'port it over right now, if you'd like, Professor."

"That's just what I had in mind," Xavier smiled, and handed the box to Kurt. The Planet Express group watched in awe as, with a BAMF sound and a puff of smoke, Kurt disappeared. Xavier chuckled. "Yes, that's his power. He's able to teleport himself and any object he touches to other locations. And he's already familiar with holograph projectors, since for obvious reasons he might need to appear more human to be seen in public." As he finished this statement, Kurt reappeared in his chair.

"I looked around the area, Professor, but I didn't see signs that anyone else had been there yet," he reported.

"So there is more you would like to discuss?" Xavier asked.

"So these mutants of the future, they have no special abilities or powers?" Xavier asked her.

"No. Hideous deformities that force them to live in the sewer system," Leela pointed ruefully at her eye, "me being the least-deformed mutant ever born."

"Well, we have had dealings before with a group of mutants who lived underground."

"No, our mutations have been caused by generations of radiation and toxic wastes. I believe we're entirely different breeds, Charles."

"That leads me to wonder what became of our kind in this future of yours. Does our evolution stop? Do our genes simply die out of the pool?"

Would there be a widespread and successful movement to exterminate mutantkind? That was the unspoken question hanging in the air. Neither dared to bring it up.

One memory came floating forward in her mind. It seemed totally unconnected at first. But in the late 21st century, there had been a substantial group, working independently, who had made an amazing advance in space flight technology. The ship had been developed separate from any country's space program, financed privately and constructed in secret. Its existence had been unknown until just before its flight. And enough information about its construction had been left behind to determine that its engines were fuelled by dark matter. How the group had acquired any of the stuff had been one of the greatest mysteries in history. They had used dark matter over a century before it had been discovered. And dark matter had only been found to exist in other solar systems. No dark matter had ever been discovered to naturally occur on Earth. Which meant that the group must have acquired it from some advanced race that had happened to visit Earth. Or....

It all fell so neatly into place. Somehow, the mutants of the 21st century would obtain dark matter thanks to the Planet Express crew's adventure back in time. Enough to ferry a spaceship far away from Earth with a large group of outcasted people. It made perfect sense that the outcasted group she remembered so faintly might be a group of mutants scorned by humans for their special powers. They would search for a new home where their kind could be safe from persecution.

Then again, she knew how she would deal with them. She would somehow wind up giving them a chunk of dark matter that would allow them at least the chance to survive off-planet.

Or perhaps one of them would steal some.

"Leela, are you all right?"

"I'm not sure what to tell you, Charles. I have the power to reveal your future, and I don't know whether I should, or can, or am already destined to. It's a ... very ... delicate situation. I hope you can see that."

"I can see quite clearly how it is. Although my curiosity to know is burning me up inside, I think it is best that we not speak about it any further. For now, you should seek a good night's rest and stop worrying about it. Whatever is meant to happen, will come to be. We only have to find the patience to see what comes tomorrow."

Leela smiled and stood up from the chair. "All right, then. Good night, Charles. Thank you for your hospitality and your wisdom."

After she left the study, she wandered down the hallway, still trying to puzzle out her dilemma. She was distracted by a light from the kitchen and a familiar whistle.

"Bender!" she admonished as she swept into the kitchen. The robot was rooting through the refrigerator, carelessly tossing objects and foodstuffs over his shoulder. Leela stepped forward to grab him when she caught sight of a shadow behind Bender. A reflection of the fridge's light flickered as off metal, somewhere in the stalking shadow. "Bender!" she cried again, a note of warning in her tone this time.

"What?!" he demanded as he straightened and turned to face her. "I'm just lookin' for some alcohol in this stupid house. You know I need some. Would you believe they don't have any?"

Leela let out the breath she had been holding. "Bender, we'll go back to the ship tomorrow and find your secret stashes. But first pick up the mess you made!" She looked to Logan. "I apologize for Bender's behavior. He really does run on alcohol, but I never expected him to be so rude. I'm sorry if he woke you up or otherwise bothered you."

From his crouched position, Bender's grumbling could be heard. "Stupid humans should know better about robots. We don't get any respect at all. We should just kill all humans. Kill them all!"

Logan looked back and forth between Bender and Leela, then left the room silently.

"You ought to have known better, Bender. And how could you be so rude when they've been so nice to us here?"

"I dunno. Why don't you just shut up and kiss my shiny metal ass?"

Leela sighed and rolled her eye. She turned to go, but stopped when Logan reentered the room. He thrust a six-pack of beer into her arms and jerked his thumb at the robot kneeling on the floor. "For him. Anything so he'll shut up and I can get a decent night's rest. Oh yeah, and you didn't get that from me." He glared at her meaningfully, and she nodded. Then he left again.

"You don't have a sense of taste," Leela sighed.

"Oh. Yeah. Forgot about that." He snatched the rest out of her arms and strode off. Leela shut the refrigerator door and followed. She was suddenly terribly exhausted and bed sounded wonderful. She had a feeling she would sleep very deeply tonight, despite her strange surroundings.