Doctor Ian Hanley didn't look like anything like a doctor. He looked to be in his late twenties, early thirties, but she knew that he was more than 50 years old. So how old exactly did that make Sandeman, and for that matter Ames she wondered.
Ian looked more like a teenager in his regular jeans and t-shirts than a certified Ph. D. He looked at odds with in this room, like a child playing grown-up. But when he talked, he didn't sound like a child or a teenager. His blue eyes were permanently crinkled in concentration. He was always reading a book, researching some thing or other. She had asked him if he didn't think that it was a waste of time to raise his ire but he simply looked at her and say: "I suppose if you fail, well, none of that, none of us will matter, yes?" She had crimsonned in shame.
For the moment, he was ignoring her, and studying numbers and figures he had put on a white board. It was old fashioned. He was mumbling to himself and she was trying to distract herself with other things. She was still hooked up to the machine that was monitoring her vitals and her brain activities. She was never the most patient person so she unhooked herself up. After, the umpteenth time, she could do it in her sleep.
She tried to think of something else but the result but after ten minutes, she gave up and rose abruptly from the chair she had perched herlself on.
"Out with it Doc!"
"Mmm?" he looked up from his laptop screen. "The results are interesting to say the least."
"Just say it: I failed." she voiced with conviction.
Ian Hanley looked at her, really looked at her and stated: "I don't know where you got the idea that you were failing Miss Guevara, but you certainly are not failing. Your result are impressive, and you don't even have any idea of what you are doing." added in wonderment. "You're just magical Miss Guevara!"
Max was not stupid, nevertheless, it took her a few seconds to process what Hanley had just said.
"I'm afraid, I am the one who failed you." continued the familiar. "I have not explained, what we were doing, and furthermore, what you are, what you can be."
For most of her conscious life, she had been labelled freak. She knew she was a killer. She had been genetically engineered to be a killer, a soldier. This was her truth. Max had learned to live with that truth. So if that wasn't her truth, who was she, what was she? She wondered in panic.
Doctor Hanley was a lot of things: he was a good doctor, a wonderful researcher but he wasn't a good observer of mankind. He missed her stricken expression not because he was incensitive but because he was self-centered. He was just focused on himself and on every kind of knowledge that he could acquire. That was simply who he was.
"Miss Guevara! Miss Guevara!" Hanley didn't like to deal with other persons: books, antiquities and computers were easy to deal with, people were complicated and sometimes distracting. To put it simply, he was not a people person. During his first interactions with 452, also known as Max Guevara, he was curious. Well who wasn't in the base? In the course of their meetings, he had observed her, and he was disappointed that she had so many human reactions. She was not what he expected. She was a beautiful and wonderful specimen but she lead too much with her emotions and yet sometimes, her reactions weren't quite human either.
He had failed to inform her of what he was doing, what they were doing but he expected her to react differently to the news. Though, he hadn't yet explained exactly what they were doing.
"What am I?" If he had been human, he wouldn't have heard her whisper.
"Well you're like a switch Ms Guevara." he waited for her to meet his eyes. "Professor Sandeman built you to turn all the familiars off."
This time, she understood immediately. She blanched. "Ray? Ames?" she asked.
"If they were in your vicinity." he nodded. It was a simple fact for him. "I don't know your reach yet. We haven't determined that. Right now you are at stage three..."he rambled caught on by his explanations and all the possibilities.
" . Are you really saying that I could kill Ames? Or Ray?"
"Yes." he simply answered. "You have to understand that it is not something that you can control in that way. In a sense, what you are is a missile. You don't, no, you can't make the difference between the heat signatures that you'll receive. You'll simply destroy them all."
This time, he didn't miss her stricken face.
"Don't worry Ms Guevara. We are all prepared to die. In fact, we are doing all of this so the 'meek can inherit the earth'."
That explained the selflessness that she had felt in Cameron and in Andrea and so many other. They had agreed to give up their lives. At least those who were still training in the facility, which meant 20 persons. There was joy and life because they thought that they were going to die soon. At least, the majority of them were.
She had noticed that only a skeleton crew operated the base. The rest of the rebel were already deployed somewhere else. They were all preparing for the big event not caring that their loved ones were all going to die in the process. She didn't care about them. Ok, that wasn't true. She did care. She wouldn't be who she was, if she didn't care. But she cared even more for Ames and she knew that he was planning to accompagny her. She knew because if it was him, she would go with him.
"No!" The no wasn't for Hanley's benefit.
"No? I'll have you know Miss Guevara that I ran all the test available, and I am most certain that..."
"Not that." the confused transgenic said with a snap. "He's going to come with me. He can't come with me."
"I don't understand." Something in her tone didn't quite sit with Ian so he started to squirm on his chair. He was hoping that she wouldn't cry. He never knew what to do when people cried.
Max was not going to cry. But she was very close to hysteria. Somehow she had started to believe that things were going to turn out fine. Afterall, if she could end up in a happy – and mostly healthy – relationship with Ames White of all people, there had to be hope for this world. She had already imagined them someplace warm, or cold, wherever but far from people chasing or wanting them dead. Zack was right, this world wasn't meant for them.
"So I'm a bomb."
"No! No! No! That is not what I said Miss Guevara..."
"Call me Max." she interrupted.
"Right, right! That is not what I said." She noticed he didn't say her name. "It's more like a switch really. How can I explain this to you?" he was pacing. Finally, she was showing some interest. "Do you know Professor X?"
"Professor who?"
"Professor X, Charles Xavier, the mentor of the mutants in the comic..." he stopped short. "You don't know who Professor X is."
"What gave me away?" she replied sarcastically.
"Well, I think that his ability is in some way close to yours."
"How?" she said leaning in.
"Well, he was not as powerful as you. He could make contact with all the mutants all around the world through a computer called Cerebro."
"So?"
"Given time, you won't need a computer to reach every familiar soul on earth."
"I'm..." she didn't know how to put it.
"You're quite powerful Miss Guevara."
"Max, my name is Max."
She was many things that she didn't chose, but her name, she had chosen. Guevara was just the name of her first foster family. But Max, that was all her. She was sure of Max.
"Okay, Max." Ian tried her name. "I have to admit that my reluctance to call you by your name is not because I consider that you're just a number." he made a pause. "I realized that you might think that that was the reason. It isn't. It's because I believe it would be better for you if you kept a certain distance with us. So that it would be easier to..."
"Kill you." she finished for him.
"I wouldn't quite put it that way but, yes. We will end up dead afterall. And at your hand."
"How did it work for the Professor X?" she asked.
"Well, the Professor, he was telepath..."
"Am I a telepath then?" she cut in again.
"No and yes. He was capable of reaching all the minds of the other mutants and if he focused on them long enough, they would die."
He gave her a few seconds to let that sink in.
"That's what I do? That's all that I am. A switch to turn you all off."
"Oh, you are so much more than that." he said with awe in his voice.
"A freak is what I am Doctor Hanley." Max stated. "There is nothing to be awed about in me Ian." She looked him squarely in the eye and asked, "Is there any way I can...I don't know shield him or any of you for that matter?"
Ian shook his head no. "As I told you before, it doesn't quite work that way. But don't worry, at stage three, you're not doing anything consciously, and it will take an enormous amount of effort on your part to succeed."
"I'm not doing anything." she disagreed her panic rising again at his words.
"Oh, but you are. Haven't you noticed that none of the tatoos are appearing on your face any more?" he asked.
"No, I didn't because the tattoos are out of my control." she said tartly.
"Actually, you're doing it."
"I'm doing what?"
"Imagine you're a computer, normally the tattoos would be programs or documents on your desktop. You don't want them to be seen so you're moving them away. They should appear on your face, but you preventing them."
"So if I understand you correctly, and use another computer metaphor, I can't control the download of informations, but I'm just choosing where they are stored."
Ian beamed. "Yes! That's exactly it." He rose up, and reached for a stack of paper. "And you see this..."
"I don't understand any of this Ian."
"Well, this means that your alpha status is almost at it peak now." he translated.
"Aren't we all alphas?" she asked.
"Yes and no. The transgenics would still need some sort of hierarchy. Haven't you noticed some unusual violence or reaction to your presence in some of your congeneres? I mean when you were in Terminal City."
She thought of Jacky.
"Yes but, I'm an 09er, the other transgenic always have some sort of beef with me or the others from my unit." she simply stated.
"True. I'll ask Sandeman, he would have oberved the interactions of the others with you." he nodded to himself.
"The Professor was long gone before I left Manticore Ian."
He looked apologetic. "I meant the Professor's son."
"Oh."
"Tomorrow we'll start you training. And we should schedule some tests about your pregnancy. It is fortunate that you are. All those hormones are going to multiply your power." He said the excitement in his voice evident.
"Great!" she scorned.
