So you lift your head and cry aloud
Playing to the darkling crowd
Of circled watchers in the dark
And casting shadows from your heart
- The Circle Stage
Remy LeBeau spent his first day at the Mansion dreaming the colourless dreams of the unconscious.
Up in the hallways and classrooms of the mansions students spoke in whispers and cast sidelong glances at the floor. Details were fuzzy and contradictory – no one had gotten a good look – but everyone knew that their world had been intruded upon.
So they spoke in whispers, swapping contradictory and confusing stories. A crazy man, sobbing and drooling, had broken into the Mansion and attacked Xavier. No – an assassin, waving a gun and shouting anti-mutant slogans, and had broken through the window and tried to kill Dr. Gray. Or else – a sobbing mutant in tattered clothing had hurled himself at Xavier's feet and requested sanctuary from murderers.
No one quite knew what he looked like, not even the ones who had been there. Most, however, agreed that there had been something funny about his eyes.
Down under the floor where the students were gazing, Dr. Jean Gray, Professor Charles Xavier, and Ororo Munroe were holding a hushed conference.
The man who had walked across half a state and through a window to reach the bright light in his mind that had been Charles Xavier lay unconscious on an examination table, bathed in an unflattering, white light. His skin seemed almost translucent, lying like a very thin veil over every stripped and gaunt angle of him.
As they spoke, Ororo cut and brushed the long, tangled mass of his hair as Jean finished dabbing antiseptic on the last of his scrapes. Professor Xavier sat to the side, studying the man who had so rudely interrupted lunch.
"His mind is completely open," said Professor Xavier. "But for some reason I can't access his thoughts at all."
"It's like static," Jean observed thoughtfully. She finished dabbing the last small cut and carefully capped the bottle, stepping away from her patient to face Xavier. "It's like the TV is on, but there's no signal coming through."
"And you are certain he's some kind of telepath?" Ororo asked.
Xavier nodded. "Almost certainly. I can sense that much about him. He has enormous receptiveness and what seems to be moderate broadcasting abilities. But what he was broadcasting was distorted: jumbled and chaotic. I would guess he has no control over what he receives or broadcasts, which would account for the state he arrived in."
"The really remarkable thing is that he managed to arrive at all" Jean said. "In the state he was in, it's hard to believe."
"He was looking for me," said Xavier. "That much I managed to pull from his mind. I can only surmise he sensed me somehow – but how he was able to know I would be a source of help, I do not know."
"If he was under the influence of whatever thoughts he was receiving, perhaps he was simply drawn to the most powerful source," Ororo suggested, finishing with her brush and her scissors, gathering them up and moving gracefully to put them away. Less certain than the two telepaths of the subtleties here, her every movement seemed precisely centred. She was concentrating with every fibre of her being, feeling some deep, as-yet unnamed unease.
"Perhaps," said Xavier, who felt the same unease, carefully hidden. "The question, now that he is here, is how best to help him."
Ororo was silent, standing away from the table. Jean looked carefully down, reaching inside herself for tranquillity.
The man on the table lay silent and still. No movement betrayed his continuing life, not even the expected rise and fall of a breathing chest. Only by reaching out and holding a hand above the man's cracked, dry lips could Jean feel evidence of his continuing existence, in the soft, hitched puffs of his breath.
Xavier was speaking again, and Jean looked up at him with effort.
"It's the receiving that must be the problem, I'm sure of it. Without shields he would be much in the same state you were, Jean."
"Only for a much longer time."
"That can't be helped. We will try waking him tomorrow, when he is more stable. I will attempt to shield him and assess the extent of the damage to his mind."
Jean looked down again, to where her hand had moved to stroke the now- tamed, rich auburn hair. It seemed strange, she thought, so much colour to crown someone so pale.
"Jean?" Xavier prompted, softly.
"There is danger in him," she said softly. Her voice, hazy as the air in summertime, seemed to come from somewhere outside of herself. The three of them stood, silent then, beside a pale, strange man in a white, cold room. Knowing and sharing this sudden, troubling truth.
There was so much possibility.
A single man stood in another white, cold room, examining all the possibilities in his mind. It was a satisfying thought, so much power, so much control. Like a beautiful, beautiful song, just beginning, like the very first steps of an intricate dance.
So much possibility. That was the reason for it, more than anything else. Let Xavier have his precious X-Men; let Magneto have his puppets and his bitch. Let the whole world build its weapons and start its wars, as it had since time immemorial.
Soon, now, he thought to himself. The dance has already begun.
Playing to the darkling crowd
Of circled watchers in the dark
And casting shadows from your heart
- The Circle Stage
Remy LeBeau spent his first day at the Mansion dreaming the colourless dreams of the unconscious.
Up in the hallways and classrooms of the mansions students spoke in whispers and cast sidelong glances at the floor. Details were fuzzy and contradictory – no one had gotten a good look – but everyone knew that their world had been intruded upon.
So they spoke in whispers, swapping contradictory and confusing stories. A crazy man, sobbing and drooling, had broken into the Mansion and attacked Xavier. No – an assassin, waving a gun and shouting anti-mutant slogans, and had broken through the window and tried to kill Dr. Gray. Or else – a sobbing mutant in tattered clothing had hurled himself at Xavier's feet and requested sanctuary from murderers.
No one quite knew what he looked like, not even the ones who had been there. Most, however, agreed that there had been something funny about his eyes.
Down under the floor where the students were gazing, Dr. Jean Gray, Professor Charles Xavier, and Ororo Munroe were holding a hushed conference.
The man who had walked across half a state and through a window to reach the bright light in his mind that had been Charles Xavier lay unconscious on an examination table, bathed in an unflattering, white light. His skin seemed almost translucent, lying like a very thin veil over every stripped and gaunt angle of him.
As they spoke, Ororo cut and brushed the long, tangled mass of his hair as Jean finished dabbing antiseptic on the last of his scrapes. Professor Xavier sat to the side, studying the man who had so rudely interrupted lunch.
"His mind is completely open," said Professor Xavier. "But for some reason I can't access his thoughts at all."
"It's like static," Jean observed thoughtfully. She finished dabbing the last small cut and carefully capped the bottle, stepping away from her patient to face Xavier. "It's like the TV is on, but there's no signal coming through."
"And you are certain he's some kind of telepath?" Ororo asked.
Xavier nodded. "Almost certainly. I can sense that much about him. He has enormous receptiveness and what seems to be moderate broadcasting abilities. But what he was broadcasting was distorted: jumbled and chaotic. I would guess he has no control over what he receives or broadcasts, which would account for the state he arrived in."
"The really remarkable thing is that he managed to arrive at all" Jean said. "In the state he was in, it's hard to believe."
"He was looking for me," said Xavier. "That much I managed to pull from his mind. I can only surmise he sensed me somehow – but how he was able to know I would be a source of help, I do not know."
"If he was under the influence of whatever thoughts he was receiving, perhaps he was simply drawn to the most powerful source," Ororo suggested, finishing with her brush and her scissors, gathering them up and moving gracefully to put them away. Less certain than the two telepaths of the subtleties here, her every movement seemed precisely centred. She was concentrating with every fibre of her being, feeling some deep, as-yet unnamed unease.
"Perhaps," said Xavier, who felt the same unease, carefully hidden. "The question, now that he is here, is how best to help him."
Ororo was silent, standing away from the table. Jean looked carefully down, reaching inside herself for tranquillity.
The man on the table lay silent and still. No movement betrayed his continuing life, not even the expected rise and fall of a breathing chest. Only by reaching out and holding a hand above the man's cracked, dry lips could Jean feel evidence of his continuing existence, in the soft, hitched puffs of his breath.
Xavier was speaking again, and Jean looked up at him with effort.
"It's the receiving that must be the problem, I'm sure of it. Without shields he would be much in the same state you were, Jean."
"Only for a much longer time."
"That can't be helped. We will try waking him tomorrow, when he is more stable. I will attempt to shield him and assess the extent of the damage to his mind."
Jean looked down again, to where her hand had moved to stroke the now- tamed, rich auburn hair. It seemed strange, she thought, so much colour to crown someone so pale.
"Jean?" Xavier prompted, softly.
"There is danger in him," she said softly. Her voice, hazy as the air in summertime, seemed to come from somewhere outside of herself. The three of them stood, silent then, beside a pale, strange man in a white, cold room. Knowing and sharing this sudden, troubling truth.
There was so much possibility.
A single man stood in another white, cold room, examining all the possibilities in his mind. It was a satisfying thought, so much power, so much control. Like a beautiful, beautiful song, just beginning, like the very first steps of an intricate dance.
So much possibility. That was the reason for it, more than anything else. Let Xavier have his precious X-Men; let Magneto have his puppets and his bitch. Let the whole world build its weapons and start its wars, as it had since time immemorial.
Soon, now, he thought to himself. The dance has already begun.