Dismal Angel 2010 - Episode 11
Chapter 6: Mutants Only
Kitty gave a loud groan as she disconnected from the Global Criminal Database for the ninth time that night. It was getting late, and still no leads had been found. Rogue was pouring over other print outs of the limited information that Kitty had gotten from there, mostly on the LeBeau family. Only three members of the LeBeau family had ever been caught at all, it made it difficult to trace.
"This is getting us nowhere," Kitty grumbled as she began to clear the logs from the bounces she'd made to connect to the server.
"Tell me about it," Rogue rubbed the back of her neck, which was starting to ache from leaning over the print outs for hours. "His cousin got arrested – but there's nothing about this GMCF on those records, neither on the records of his uncle – his uncle was arrested in 1973 so that's no help at all," Rogue sat back, massaging her neck with her bare hands.
Kitty tapped her fingernails absently on the countertop, "It'd help if we knew exactly what we were looking for," she muttered, "But all I'm getting is zilch. His family have no leads at all…"
"I wonder if his real family would have any leads…" Rogue pondered aloud, although she knew herself that without any information about Remy's true family she'd never be able to find out anything.
"Unless we know their exact names I doubt we can find anything on them," Kitty spun her chair around to face Rogue, "Unless he ever told you?"
"I don't even think he knows his own real last name," Rogue admitted softly, "which is kind of sad," she added.
"Yeah, it is," Kitty brushed her bangs away from her forehead, "anything else?"
"All I know is his mothers name was Gabrielle," Rogue explained, "he said that was all he knew…all he…held on to…"
Kitty looked away, "so that's why he called his daughter Gabrielle."
"That messed him up you know," Rogue said, "he was a little bit…y'know…left of centre, and all, but when Gabrielle died, I…I don't know, he just…changed," Rogue rubbed her forehead, "he was a little loony but not…not like he is now…"
"You know it worries me a little, this clone thing," Kitty's expression changed to one of extreme concern, "I mean…what if…we never EVER knew Remy LeBeau, what all these years we've been dealing with clones?"
Rogue shuddered, the thought made her feel cold all over, the thought of having been in love with nothing more than human skin with a memory chip in its brain. "They're nothing more than cyborgs, really, half human, half machine…"
"A little more than that," Kitty sighed, "god this is so…I don't know…futuristic and weird," she clenched her fists, "why can't we mutants ever just have normal situations…?"
"I know," Rogue uttered, "sometimes seems like God is punishing us."
Kitty turned back to the computer, "Remy shouldn't have left us, we could have helped him," she began to set up a connection for the Global Criminal Database again, "I'm gonna try again," she said firmly, "I'm not gonna give up – for Remy's sake."
Rogue smiled and got up, moved over quickly and took a seat beside Kitty, "you're a good friend."
Kitty smiled faintly, loaded up the necessary software and hit the connect button. She'd added a few more bounce points, finding out that if she used servers where she already had login names, it seemed to take much longer to trace.
Soon, she was breaking the password, deciphering the code and verifying the voice access panel to get into the database once again, "Okay, 1134 seconds – plenty of time," she grinned and proceeded to the search button. She loaded up Remy's records once again, hoping this time she might find something she hadn't seen before.
The records hadn't changed since earlier when they'd hacked into the database. Rogue stared at the picture of Remy, his hair was wet, his face unshaven and his eyes dark underneath, it made her shiver. He looked hollow, as if nothing were behind those eyes, the expression was haunting, and she knew if she closed her eyes it'd still be burned inside her mind.
Rogue leaned inwards towards the screen, gazing carefully at everything, reading intently, with the faith that something might have been missed. "Hey," she said softly, "what does this mean…" She gestured to a small number on the screen in a box under the identification photograph of him.
Kitty glanced at the record, "I don't know…arrest number? Prisoner number?"
"I would have thought so, but the Prisoner number is here," Rogue pointed with her bare finger to a section of the record on the screen where it showed the relevant information.
"Hmmm," Kitty paused, "never noticed before," she glanced at the trace tracker, "we have 1020 seconds."
Rogue wrote down the number, "that number is vague, is there another search option?"
"Yes," Kitty said, she closed down the records screen and found the search options. "Okay, we have Prisoner Number, Prisoner Name, and this MRP Number."
"What's MRP?" Rogue asked raising an eyebrow.
"I don't know, but let's try anyway," Kitty clicked inside the field, "what's the number?" she asked.
"5073-D," Rogue responded, reading off of the piece of paper she'd just written the number on.
The loading screen came up, slowly making its way towards something else in the database, Kitty glanced at the tracker, 932 seconds," she informed. A new login screen came up, asking for password and voice verification, Kitty ran the software again taking an additional 60 seconds. The passwords and verification were rejected due to limited security.
"They sure have this secured," Kitty frowned, she loaded up her software for firewall, proxy and monitor bypassing, and tried logging in again. "Looks like someone is trying to keep people from finding something out," she muttered.
Moments later, a new record came up, almost identical to the record of Remy LeBeau, except there were noticeable differences.
"Oh my god," Kitty whispered, "Look at this…Registered Mutant April 2005," she spun around and looked at Rogue, "the government are registering mutants?!" she demanded.
"That can't be!" Rogue frowned. She knew that at some point in the February of 2005 there had been some political hearings about the Registration of Mutants. A test had been made by registering twenty different mutants, all who'd been murdered by people because of what they were. Just the thought of it made Rogue shudder.
"They're still fighting on this," Kitty reminded, "That conference Hank attended ages ago was on mutant registration and the incarceration of dangerous mutants, it makes me wonder if the government are just big fat doing it anyway," she frowned reading the screen.
Rogue read carefully near the bottom of the screen, "says here he was arrested on the 15th of April 2005 for kidnapping a politician…" she stated, "Taken to the…" she swallowed, "Mutant Containment Facility," her eyes bulged, "GMCF…that's what the MCF stands for…a mutant prison!"
"But where is it though?" Kitty asked, her blue eyes wide with wonder, she tucked her hair behind her ears and read more closely.
"Doesn't say," Rogue swallowed, "says he escaped on the 30th of January in 2006 though it doesn't say how," she added, "then again, he was arrested in December of 2007 in Paris, no reason is given but it was probably for escaping…taken again to Mutant Containment Facility – there isn't any further information to say he ever escaped or not again."
Kitty tapped her fingernail on the screen, "there's a connection to the GMCF from here, but I can't get to it without knowing who the systems administrator is," Kitty made a face, "Otherwise we can't find out more."
"Hey…do you think…that…?" Rogue trailed off looking a little anxious.
"What?" Kitty asked, turning to Rogue once again.
"That every mutant who's been arrested and kept in custody is probably taken to the GMCF…is there a way to find out?"
"Yeah, probably…" Kitty said, "if we look out in the newspapers for arrests on every single mutant and match it up to the GCD then we'll probably find out."
"I don't get it though…" Rogue pointed to the trace tracker which was getting closer to tracing them.
Kitty left the records and moved onto the logs section to delete them.
"How could any prison hold a mutant?" Rogue asked, "I mean…we're homo-sapiens superior, if there was a mutant containment facility somewhere, wouldn't the mutants just gang up together and bust themselves out?"
Kitty nodded, "I would have thought so, but obviously the government has come up with some way to contain mutants without having them break loose, maybe invincible walls or something?"
"Walls of adamantium?"
"Even that wouldn't be invincible," Kitty confessed, "Any mutant with decent pyrotechnic powers would probably be able to throw force at it enough to melt it. If there were at least three or four pyrotechnic mutants in the place, they'd melt down a wall like that no problem as long as they were powerful enough. It just wouldn't work."
Rogue hugged herself, "something bad is going on here, Kitty…it's obvious this is bigger than just Remy…there's something really…really bad going on."
Kitty disconnected from the Global Criminal Database and connected to another server to clear her bounce logs, "okay, so what have we learned so far? There's some extensive scientific experimentation going on here, I mean cloning a human being? That's huge, the stealing of Hank's research – that's even worse, that has trouble painted all over it. Now we find out there's some sort of government conspiracy to register mutants? And I still don't exactly understand Remy's involvement in all this," Kitty frowned, "Is he on our side or theirs, and if he's on their side why was he arrested and incarcerated…nothing is making sense…"
"For that matter, why was Remy kidnapping a politician?" Rogue asked, "He's a thief, NOT an assassin…Thieves don't just kidnap people…"
"It seems weird doesn't it, out of character for him to do something like that, and even more out of character to get caught so easily…"
"Think a clone did it?"
"Maybe," Kitty shrugged, "who knows…god this whole thing is giving me the creeps…"
"I know what you mean, now I'm wondering if ANYONE we know is actually the real them…we hadn't seen Piotr in forever, now he's here, and what if he's also not really Piotr?"
"No, he's really Piotr," Kitty assured, "besides, if he wasn't, why would he tell us about Remy being traced in Paris?"
"Good point," Rogue admitted, "Alright I think we better speak with the Professor."
Kitty looked away with worried eyes, her lip trembling, "Yes…maybe he can make some kind of…sense of all this because…I sure can't."
The End (or is it? DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN. Yes, I know its sucky and slow but if anything it's keeping people guessing. As always keep reviewing, I love it so much seeing what people think – especially looking forward to the conspiracy theories that some come up with, its always interesting to see how people can guess what I'm getting at in the story. Oh well, anyway…look out for episode 12. Ta-ta. – Ash)