Dismal Angel 2010 - Episode 11

Chapter 5:  GMCF

          Rogue took a seat around the large circular table in the war room, holding the pile of print outs Kitty had made on Remy's criminal records online.  The others all sat around the table once again, silent as they had been on the morning after the clone's death.

          Rogue glanced across the table, Bobby Drake looked thoroughly distraught, his pale blue eyes staring into space, his face twisted to try and hide emotion, but Rogue could tell just from the way he pursed his lips he was nowhere as fine as he was making out. 

She felt terrible and wished he'd just pay her a tiny bit of attention – just enough to put across the fact she was sorry.  But she knew how it felt to be hurt, and how long it could take for the anger to slide away.  It'd taken her seven years to get over the hurt Remy's leaving had caused her, she knew how it felt to be burned by the fire of love and be left with nothing more than the ashes of it. 

          "Is it just me, or is it cold in here?" Kitty shivered, as she spoke, her breath steamed visibly in the air, and she made a face, "did someone forget to pay the heating bill or something?" she hugged herself, still shivering.

          Rogue glanced down to the chrome table, there was a very thin sheen of frost forming upon the top, she felt her cheeks burn from embarrassment, obviously being in the same room with her was causing Bobby's emotions to run slightly higher than usual.  And it wasn't uncommon for mutant powers to manifest accidentally during periods of heightened emotional stress.

          "Bobby…?" Jean turned towards Bobby, her expression one of the utmost concern, "are you alright?"

          "Fine, just leave it," Bobby uttered, he folded his arms, sighed and frowned, staring towards the table top refusing to raise his eyes from there, as if he were afraid they might stray towards Rogue.

          How can someone like him love me?  Rogue pondered as she ran her gloved finger against the layer of frost which had begun to grow thicker.  Her finger left a trail of clear chrome tabletop behind, she chewed her lip and glanced over to Bobby wondering once again how she'd be able to fix all this.

          "I am sorry I am late…" the Professor said as he, "I was on the telephone with someone…okay, shall we begin, who wants to start?"

          "I guess I will…" Jean spoke up, "me and Kurt checked over every single name on this list of people who attended the conference, and two names on the list don't check out.  One doesn't seem quite right and the other doesn't have any records what so ever…at least not that I can trace…" Jean said.

          "Who are they?" Piotr asked sitting forward in his chair a little, looking rather intrigued.

          Jean looked down at the papers in front of her as if to check once again to make sure she had her information straight, "A woman, by the name of Elle Muir, I did find one match for the name on the database but…she would be an elderly lady in her late eighties, I doubt she could be involved in this."

          Kitty paused, then glanced across the table at Jean, "what makes you so sure?  What if she's mutant and she has decelerated lifespan due to a healing factor similar to Logan's?"

          "Good point," Logan said, "I'm living proof someone can be well over the age of a senior citizen and still be capable of anything."

          "How WELL over the age of senior citizen just ARE we talking here anyway?" Kurt asked curiously of Logan, raising an eyebrow.

          "Mind your own business, blue," Logan snorted.

          "Alright, so you think this name might be a lead?" Kitty asked of Jean, changing the subject of Logan's age.

          "Normally I would think so," Jean said softly, "but…I had a friend of mine – a private investigator with some excellent tracking skills and well, Elle Muir is a woman who lives in Salt Lake City, devout Christian, goes to church, involved heavily in charity up until she broke her leg four years ago, that was as much as he could dig up in the short time I gave him.  He did say that as far as he could see there was no information regarding any mutant ability.  I did also think about decelerated aging," Jean confirmed.

          "What about the other name?" Rogue asked, brushing her hair away from her face.  "You said there were two names that didn't add up…"

          "A Nathan Xiessel, an odd surname I had never heard of before…I can't find anything on it, or any background history on the name even.

          "That name sounds foreign," Bobby said, it was the first time he'd spoken.

          Rogue glanced over at him but he was still avoiding looking right at her.

          "Nothing on him either?" Logan asked.

          "Nothing at all, its like he doesn't exist," Jean scratched her head.  "I'm going to do more digging and see what I can come up with…I'm going to call the conference hall and find out if they keep any security cameras up by the entrances."

          "Doesn't that mean matching a face to EVERY name on that list?" Kurt groaned.

          "It's necessary if we want to find Remy," Rogue glanced over at Kurt with a cold glare, "he could be in trouble, we have to do EVERYTHING we can, even if its painstakingly difficult and sounds impossible."

          "What else have we found?" Piotr asked, changing the subject, sensing a fight might break out between Kurt and Rogue at any moment.  The fact that they were only foster brother and sister never stopped them from arguing as true-blood family when the occasion rose.

          Rogue gestured towards Remy's criminal records that had been on the Global Criminal Database, "Kitty hacked into the GCD earlier this evening and got this…Remy's criminal record."

          "Look at how thick it is…" Scott gaped.

          "Yeah, weird, isn't it?  I mean I always figured Remy as the careful type," Rogue admitted, she flicked through the pages, "He was actually caught quite a few times, charged with stupid petty crimes…and I don't get why…I mean he never lets himself get caught, and I just don't believe he's THAT careless."

          "I spent time with him, he had several thousand dollars worth of stolen merchandise in his apartment, he COULD be that careless," Kitty protested.

          Rogue didn't feel like starting an argument with her best friend over this – especially not at that moment, but she decided to take a stab at redeeming Remy's talent for criminal actions, "but he was smart…he just wouldn't have been that stupid."

"Hell-o," Kitty chanted, "he was depressed," she sighed, "and it's no secret."

Rogue folded her arms stubbornly, "what does that have to do with this?"

"Depression can make you like, not care," Kitty said, "maybe he just…I don't know, gave up, didn't see the point in anything anymore…?"

Rogue ignored this, and decided to continue with what she'd found out on the records, "he also went under a few other aliases such as Jeremy D'Ancanto," Rogue felt her cheeks go red.  The only person in the mansion who knew her surname – or in fact her first name – was Kitty.  The others weren't to know why Remy would have used this surname, but she still felt the embarrassment of it.  "In January to March in 2005 he also went under the names of  'Ross Gellar' while he was in Florida, 'Joey Tribbiani' while he was in Michigan, and 'Chandler Bing' while he was in Wisconsin…"

Kurt started laughing hysterically, and a few chuckles escaped the room.

Professor Xavier raised an eyebrow, "Is something amusing?"

Rogue chewed her lip, and glanced towards Kitty, pleading with her eyes to explain it to the Professor.

Kitty giggled, "Haven't you ever heard of 'Friends'?" She asked, "You know, that sitcom, from the 90s…god, no one watches it now, its so out of date, but like, it was REALLY popular…and anyway, those names were three of the characters," Kitty explained.

"And stupidly enough," Rogue raised an eyebrow, "the cops didn't realise this until his second arrest on EACH name…"

"Damn, even the cops aren't tryin' anymore," Logan chuckled.

          "Was he TRYING to get sent to prison?" Kurt asked, "using stupid obvious names like that and all?"

          "I don't know…I know its not significant or anything," Rogue said, "it's like Kitty said, he could have just been slipping…or that he was just being an idiot and trying to raise some attention…" Rogue thought back to some of the stupid things Remy had done in his past and that kind of thing certainly wasn't beneath him.  "But anyway, the only thing I could find is that he was arrested in Seattle during April 2005, and ended up somewhere that's noted on the criminal record as GMCF."

          "What the hell is that?" Logan asked gruffly.

          "I have no clue," Rogue said, "It doesn't give any information as to what he was arrested for exactly…"

          "Maybe it's some kind of rehab," Bobby stated coldly.

          Rogue shot a look over at him, he still didn't raise his eyes from the table, "Remy doesn't use drugs, nor drink heavily…"

          "How do you know that?" Bobby demanded, "We hadn't seen him in seven years, for all we know he could be a heroin user…"

          "I saw his arms…his arms were clean," Rogue assured.

          "What if he was injecting it between his toes?" Bobby snapped.

          Rogue shook her head, "anyway," she decided to ignore Bobby now and promised herself she'd deal with him later.  "Remy was also arrested during the December of 2007 – in Paris."

          "Whoah…" Kitty blinked, "that kind of ties in with Piotr's cousin locating him – Piotr, didn't you say your cousin Ivan traced him to Paris two years ago."

          Piotr gave a curt nod, "yes."