Chapter 8: Cold Reception
Scott Summers inhaled deeply. He hadn't been sure what to expect with this mission, but the X-Jet now had two extra mutants on board and on their way to the Institute. Exhaling, he wondered whether he could consider this mission a success, even if he personally deemed one mutant untrustworthy and the other as yet an unsolved mystery.
Destiny may have once been Mystique's ally, but she remains Rogue's foster mother. I sense no malicious intent from her, and I believe it would be best for her to join us at the Institute…
…Where we can keep an eye on her. Scott finished the thought, multitasking as he co-piloted the X-Jet and carried on the mental conversation with the professor.
Yes, Cyclops. The use of his codename was a sign that this was serious business.
Scott took a quick look over his shoulder. Logan sat alone, feigning sleep; Irene and Rogue appeared to be catching up; and Jean was trying to engage Larry in conversation, but he kept glancing at the floor, distant and uninterested.
So what are we going to do with Larry? Give him the grand tour? I'm sure the letters home will be interesting: 'Dad, today the mutants showed me the Danger Room…'
Cyclops, please! Xavier cautioned him. Larry is a mutant. His father is a dangerous fanatic, and you cannot seriously believe that his bigotry would exclude his son, when all other evidence proves just the opposite. Larry Trask is no threat to us.
Scott sighed, remembering how he felt watching the file footage of the Sentinel ravaging the streets, targeting his friends; the sight of Rogue, Wolverine, and the others locked up in glass boxes like insects about to be pinned and mounted…Scott shook his head. The anger was still fresh.
I'm sorry, Professor. It's not Larry, not really. But the timing of all this…it just seems so crazy. It's suspicious.
Perhaps. But that is not our major concern right now. The young Mr. Trask has just gone through a major upheaval in his life, and we need to make him comfortable. He must be reassured that he made the right decision. Let him know he's among friends who can understand him.
---
"No way!"
"Are you kidding me?"
"Wasn't 'Trask' the dude who…"
"Get the hell out of here!"
Larry was pushed back and hit the wall; Scott and Logan acted as human shields, separating him from the teenage mutant who had nearly rushed him. The entire student body of the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters had been gathered in the front hall of the expansive, nearly-completed mansion to meet the new arrivals. Larry stood aside as Irene was introduced first; he had attended over a dozen different schools in his short life, but he had a sneaking suspicion that nothing could prepare him for being the "new kid" in this particular class.
"And this is Lawrence Trask…"
Those words were off Xavier's lips only a second before a lanky punk with multicolored hair (who, according to the outraged Jean, went by the appropriate name "Berzerker") snapped. And so Larry found himself under the protection of Scott and Logan as Berzerker seethed, bright bursts of blue electricity crackling around his clenched fists.
Stop!
A mental command from Xavier could not be ignored; the loud, omnipresent voice that spoke directly in Ray Crisp's head caused him to back down immediately, and the dangerous energy in his hands dissipated. He stepped back, and the other students pulled away from him instinctively.
However, one student, a clean-cut boy in khakis, sprang up for his defense. He pointed an angry finger at Larry and demanded of Xavier, "Professor, you can't be serious! What's a Trask doing here!"
Larry scowled; he did not enjoy hearing his name spit out like something foul and disgusting. Stepping forward to personally answer the boy's question, he felt a hand on his shoulder and it kept him in place. His head turned. To his surprise, the hand belonged to Rogue.
"Why are any of my students here, Bobby?" Xavier wanted to know, his voice loud and irate. "Larry is a mutant, and he needs help controlling his power. That makes him one of us, and his surname is irrelevant."
"Then he is related to that freakin' mad scientist," Ray muttered, as if it justified his outburst.
"That 'mad scientist' is my father, yeah." A few heads turned toward Larry, who could keep his mouth shut no longer. He balled his hands into fists, making eye contact with Ray, and then Bobby. He did not waver. "Not that it changes what I am."
Someone cleared his throat, breaking the heavy, awkward silence. "Well then, welcome to the X-Men." A smiling black-haired boy with a soft German accent approached him and offered Larry his hand, which he shook with only a second's hesitation. He didn't notice how unusually hairy it felt. "I'm Kurt Wagner."
Larry felt a small tug at the corners of his lips. He smiled, albeit reluctantly. "Hi."
Kurt's gesture had penetrated the air of gloom. As if nothing had happened--no harsh words, no near bodily harm--the introductions resumed, and again Larry felt that perhaps, maybe, he had made the right decision.
---
"I don't believe this," Ray muttered as he hung back from the crowd, watching Kurt and Kitty chatting up the Trask kid, with Scott, Logan, and Jean forming a protective semi-circle around him, as if anyone was going to make a jump on him now.
"Just be cool," Bobby said, trying to give him a reassuring smile and failing at it.
They heard the automated wheels roll up behind them before they heard the measured but clearly displeased voice of their professor. "Berzerker, Iceman, come with me."
Ouch, Bobby thought. Xavier calling them by their codenames when they weren't in uniform was worse than his father screaming "Robert Louis Drake!" at the top of the stairs back home. He knew they were in for it.
"Would you like to explain to me just what exactly was going on in your mind?" Xavier demanded of Ray once they were behind closed doors in his study. "You attacked that boy—your fellow mutant—with your power. You could have possibly killed him."
"I wasn't going to!" insisted Ray, who felt shame at being chastised by the man he owed so much to, but was too proud to back down. "I just—come on, Prof, he's a Trask! How could you let him in here? He's probably just as crazy as his old man!"
"You are in no position to be a judge of Larry's character, Mr. Crisp. This institute is about control. You are supposed to help people with your power, not fly into a berserk rage at the sound of a name. Have you learned nothing here?"
Bobby, who had been looking at the floor and nodding his head at everything Xavier said in an effort to get things over with, glanced up. Ray's face was red from a mix of embarrassment and anger, but even he could not argue with Xavier anymore.
"No…it's not like that, sir." He swallowed hard. Bobby knew this must be killing him. "Sorry."
"All right," said Xavier, apparently satisfied. "You'll be hearing from Logan about your punishment tomorrow morning. You are dismissed."
Ray was quickly gone. Bobby hesitated. "Am I free to go?" he asked, hoping he sounded sheepish enough.
The elder mutant's frown was answer enough. "I expected better of you. You've been here long enough, and been in trouble enough times to know that was unacceptable behavior."
Bobby rubbed his neck, shifting his weight from one foot to another. "Okay. Yeah, I should have kept my big mouth shut. I am sorry, but you gotta admit that Ray kinda had a point. Not the whole, 'Argh, I'm gonna kill you' thing, but still. His old man, like, nearly killed the X-Men. I was at Area 51 too, and I saw what Trask's friends were gonna do to Wolverine and Mr. McCoy and the others…" Furrowing his brow, Bobby threw caution to the wind and said what he had wanted to say from the very beginning. "That guy said 'he's my father' like he was proud of it. It'll take a lot to convince me that the apple didn't fall far from the tree."
Xavier, who had been holding his hands in his lap until that moment, stroked his chin thoughtfully and didn't immediately reply to Bobby's statement. His words were chosen carefully. "The world is a dark place for mutants at the moment. Eyes are watching us and judging us, simply because of a gene we carry. It is extremely important that we do not turn on our own kind. I certainly do hope you'll change your opinion of Larry Trask…"
Bobby raised a questioning eyebrow.
"…Because he is your new roommate."
---
Bolivar Trask was a prisoner.
He did not know where he was, though he could guess that his cell was somewhere between Area 51 in Nevada and his former research installation in Bayville, New York. Trask was receiving the treatment reserved only for SHIELD's most secret, dangerous prisoners, locked away in a small box with only the bare requirements of food and light. To the top brass of SHIELD he was not even a person, just an object that had, in their eyes, outlived its usefulness and was being stored away and all but forgotten. He knew what they must be thinking: without the Sentinel he was nothing. Trask vowed to prove them wrong.
Sitting motionless on his cot, knees drawn to his chest in a tight posture, he thought of his children. His only son was missing, and in a brilliant form of torture, Trask's jailors were telling him nothing of the case. Memories of their last communication came back to him, with Lawrence raving in the night about dreams and imploring him to help. And then he had vanished. The possibilities ran through his mind almost nonstop, but in the end there was only one conclusion about Lawrence's fate that Trask could draw. His jaw tightened.
Lawrence.
Sleep came uneasily that night. Trask's mind remained sharp, alert, and thinking, but then suddenly a strange sort of drowsiness came over him, like a gas or anesthesia. His eyelids were too heavy to keep open. He could feel himself slipping, try as he might to resist…
He dreamed, and he thought he dreamed of Elizabeth. Her form was dim and hazy, almost like a hallucination, but he could hear her voice in his head with perfect clarity.
"Bolivar, what have you done?"
What I had to do.
"You've destroyed it. You've destroyed everything. Our life together, our children…"
Ridiculous.
"Then where is our son?"
I did this for his sake. My only intention was to preserve the future for Homo sapiens, so our children could live in a world without the mutant menace…
"You are a monster."
Elizabeth—
He dreamt that he reached for her, and took hold of her long dress, and when he touched it he knew it was real, that it was not his imagination, and that she was here—
Trask woke suddenly, with a hiss. A shiver ran down his spine, and he mentally cursed himself for his weakness and for being so unnerved by something that couldn't even properly qualify as a nightmare. What he felt in his heart, more than anything else, was a great and terrible longing for a woman who was dead. Her absence from his life could still bring about a real, physical aching, and it was compounded by the fact that his wife was not the only one he had now lost.
He caught a glimpse of something in the corner of his eye, something that had not been in his cell when he had fallen asleep. It rested atop the empty food tray in front of the reinforced steel door, and he rose from his cot to pick it up.
In his hand he held a simple, ordinary tarot card, and as he examined the surreal image on its front Trask took note of its title: The Wheel of Fortune.
A/N: Hmmm...What could possibly be going on with Daddy Trask? This was a short chapter, I know, but here we're seeing the beginnings of major plot points. Some of you may think I'm being too harsh on Bobby, but I have definite plans for him and this isn't mindless character bashing.
Elrohir: I don't know when—or if—Mystique will make an appearance, but the depth of her relationship with Irene will probably be mentioned.
Bowles: Sins of the father, eh? You may be onto something…
Thanks for reading, everyone! --Sandoz