Part V
My sessions with Maverick are going well. He is unable to escape, so I have had plenty of time to talk to him and try to work out his problems. I have found out much about him, but I still have not broken his programming. He still lies perfectly still, as if dead, and only when I enter his mind do I feel how alive he is. I know about his power, and about his nickname, and about his abilities, and the smallest amount about his past, but still I can not reach him directly. I will keep trying, I know that I have made progress, and I will eventually succeed; I just hope he is still subdued until I do.
As for Rogue, or rather Marie, it was amazing. She is a telepath, a touch telepath, and I believe that had something to do with her remarkable recovery time. She has had slight relapses, most noticeably raising her palm as if to attack me when she saw me the first few times. She was able to refrain from attacking me, however, and none of the relapses have lasted very long or been very serious. She is adjusting as well as could be hoped. She has friends, and is enrolled in classes, including a class with Logan, which has gotten her used to her most recent powers. She has little memory of her past, but thanks to the personality of a boy she has carried since she manifested, she remembers more than Logan does or can ever hope to. She is still showing some of Logan's traits, but no doubt she will soon have complete control over them. She is the personification of my success, and she brings me hope in the face of the daunting task of the 'deprogramming' of Maverick and even more so, Sabretooth.
Ah, Sabretooth, the biggest challenge I believe I have ever faced, and that is saying something. He knows his name at least, but little more. I can not help but despise him, having been in his head, and yet I always remember Marie's reaction - even as he was killing her, she felt pity for Victor and wondered how he could stand to watch himself do such things. It is an interesting thought, although I doubt Victor can watch himself do anything, for unlike Marie was, his mind is not separate from the programming; he does not recognize that that is not him. I wonder what Victor was like. The earliest memory I have been able to uncover is of pain. Later was the escape, and later more pain. So, where do I begin? I explore his memories a bit, and find nothing of use. At one point I found something that could have been the base of his aggressiveness and pleasure in causing pain so I centered my attention on it for a time, but that was even more firmly rooted than the programming. I soon stopped trying there. The problem is that he has no happy memories, not a one. His best memories are all of death and destruction, and it would be extremely unwise for me to focus on those. Frankly, the only reason I succeeded with Marie was that she had already recognized her programming as separate from herself and tried to fight it, and I entered and gave her the push necessary to defeat it. In fact, in that case it was more Logan's help than mine. In any case Victor does not even want to be separated from his programming, so the first thing I must do is to make him want to be separate, to defeat it. But as long as I am unable to prove that freedom will be better I can not do it at all. All I can do is to talk to him, to tell him how much better it is to be free, to lavish him with acceptance and forgiveness. Unfortunately the latter is clearly the most difficult thing I have ever done, constantly surrounded by reminders of his evil.
Just thinking about them brings thoughts of hatred to me for the men that did this, the Weapon X program scientists and officials. I must stop myself from thinking graphic deaths for them, because I know it would disturb some of my telepathic students. I have found out the name of one scientist from Marie, William Rottner, and, by extension, many others. But what am I to do, send the X-Men after them like assassins, to kill them at their homes while they sleep? There must be something in between. What if I were to expose them somehow? No, public opinion of mutants is not so high that there would even be an outcry against them. To some they would be heroes. So what am I to do, kidnap them, perhaps give them a taste of their own medicine and brainwash them, turn them into lovers and protectors of mutants? Compared with the acts they are perpetrating on mutants, it would be justified. To cut open every inch of skeleton on a person's body and essentially weld metal to it! They did that to two whom I know of, and who knows how many countless more - probably every self-healer and power absorber they got their hands on - with the exception of Sabretooth, who was too formidable for his own good to begin with. I will discuss it with the X-Men.
My sessions with Maverick are going well. He is unable to escape, so I have had plenty of time to talk to him and try to work out his problems. I have found out much about him, but I still have not broken his programming. He still lies perfectly still, as if dead, and only when I enter his mind do I feel how alive he is. I know about his power, and about his nickname, and about his abilities, and the smallest amount about his past, but still I can not reach him directly. I will keep trying, I know that I have made progress, and I will eventually succeed; I just hope he is still subdued until I do.
As for Rogue, or rather Marie, it was amazing. She is a telepath, a touch telepath, and I believe that had something to do with her remarkable recovery time. She has had slight relapses, most noticeably raising her palm as if to attack me when she saw me the first few times. She was able to refrain from attacking me, however, and none of the relapses have lasted very long or been very serious. She is adjusting as well as could be hoped. She has friends, and is enrolled in classes, including a class with Logan, which has gotten her used to her most recent powers. She has little memory of her past, but thanks to the personality of a boy she has carried since she manifested, she remembers more than Logan does or can ever hope to. She is still showing some of Logan's traits, but no doubt she will soon have complete control over them. She is the personification of my success, and she brings me hope in the face of the daunting task of the 'deprogramming' of Maverick and even more so, Sabretooth.
Ah, Sabretooth, the biggest challenge I believe I have ever faced, and that is saying something. He knows his name at least, but little more. I can not help but despise him, having been in his head, and yet I always remember Marie's reaction - even as he was killing her, she felt pity for Victor and wondered how he could stand to watch himself do such things. It is an interesting thought, although I doubt Victor can watch himself do anything, for unlike Marie was, his mind is not separate from the programming; he does not recognize that that is not him. I wonder what Victor was like. The earliest memory I have been able to uncover is of pain. Later was the escape, and later more pain. So, where do I begin? I explore his memories a bit, and find nothing of use. At one point I found something that could have been the base of his aggressiveness and pleasure in causing pain so I centered my attention on it for a time, but that was even more firmly rooted than the programming. I soon stopped trying there. The problem is that he has no happy memories, not a one. His best memories are all of death and destruction, and it would be extremely unwise for me to focus on those. Frankly, the only reason I succeeded with Marie was that she had already recognized her programming as separate from herself and tried to fight it, and I entered and gave her the push necessary to defeat it. In fact, in that case it was more Logan's help than mine. In any case Victor does not even want to be separated from his programming, so the first thing I must do is to make him want to be separate, to defeat it. But as long as I am unable to prove that freedom will be better I can not do it at all. All I can do is to talk to him, to tell him how much better it is to be free, to lavish him with acceptance and forgiveness. Unfortunately the latter is clearly the most difficult thing I have ever done, constantly surrounded by reminders of his evil.
Just thinking about them brings thoughts of hatred to me for the men that did this, the Weapon X program scientists and officials. I must stop myself from thinking graphic deaths for them, because I know it would disturb some of my telepathic students. I have found out the name of one scientist from Marie, William Rottner, and, by extension, many others. But what am I to do, send the X-Men after them like assassins, to kill them at their homes while they sleep? There must be something in between. What if I were to expose them somehow? No, public opinion of mutants is not so high that there would even be an outcry against them. To some they would be heroes. So what am I to do, kidnap them, perhaps give them a taste of their own medicine and brainwash them, turn them into lovers and protectors of mutants? Compared with the acts they are perpetrating on mutants, it would be justified. To cut open every inch of skeleton on a person's body and essentially weld metal to it! They did that to two whom I know of, and who knows how many countless more - probably every self-healer and power absorber they got their hands on - with the exception of Sabretooth, who was too formidable for his own good to begin with. I will discuss it with the X-Men.