In Charles's office, they sat and leant around the room, Erik took the seat facing Charles across the desk. Scott, Charles noticed was keeping his gaze directed straight at Magneto, presumably to discourage Erik from pulling his glasses off.
"So what do you know?" Charles asked, as Bobby closed the door.
"More than you do, I dare say, but to save me from repeating myself…" Erik waved Charles on.
"Whoever they are, they don't seem to want to harm the mutants they take." Erik scoffed softly. Charles carried on. "They return them unharmed. We've only known them cause harm so far by clumsy dosing of sedatives. They're using grunts to do at least some of the handling, and the grunts know nothing."
"Do they really?" Erik asked. "I'd have thought you'd have fairly efficacious means of extracting information."
"The grunts know nothing, believe me, Erik. They're given drugs and told to call a number for instructions. The number requires a password we failed to obtain, so we don't know who they speak to. The number is for an office block in Wyoming. Other than that… males. With the exception of Mystique, they've only taken males as far as we know."
"Is that it?" Erik asked.
"Yes." Charles said calmly. "That's it."
"Well." Erik said. "We can do much better. The operation is at least partly government funded, Mystique found it hiding in the health budget, of all places, but there is paramilitary involvement."
"What's its aim?"
"What it always is, Charles. Breeding mutants for war, or whatever else we're deemed useful for."
"So why males?" Charles asked. That didn't make sense. "Males are necessarily heterozygous for the mutant gene, therefore more difficult to reproduce it from."
"They'll be after the women soon enough." Erik said. "Mystique, gifted creature that she is, managed to… procure from them a white paper. It lays out their plans to produce between fifty and a hundred mutants for military or industrial purposes over the next twenty years." Charles was a little skeptical. The only certain way to produce a mutant was to cross two mutants, and even then, up to half of the males never displayed their mutations.
"So do they intend to keep the women captive for…"
"Yes." Erik said flatly. "'Handle high level males on a catch-and-release basis' - they talk about us like feral cats – 'and intermediate to low level females on a residential basis, thereby reducing the risk of handling hostile high level mutants."
"Have you learned that off pat?"
"It proved itself rather memorable."
Charles sighed deeply and ran a hand over his head, a gesture he'd developed when he still had hair. "It's not… mutations don't follow predictable genetic lines, or at least they don't seem to. Cryoforms aren't any more likely to have cryoform children than empaths are."
"How certain are you of that, Charles?" Erik asked. "How many genetic trees show it?"
Charles sighed. He wasn't certain. He only had half a dozen families with multiple mutants in them. In a sample size that small, it was hard to say anything for certain. Perhaps if you 'bred' fifty to a hundred mutants it would average out.
"What do you propose?" Charles said flatly.
"Cooperation in the face of a clear threat." Erik said at once. "Neither of us much likes the idea of mutants who follow us, or we ourselves, being drugged and violated or carted off as breeding specimens. You have your children to protect, they could probably find all the specimens they wanted here, all higher levels. It is in your interests to stop these people, and you seem to have so many X-men now."
"Be specific, Erik."
Erik put the tips of his fingers together. "I have in my possession the White Paper Mystique procured. That I will give you for no fee. I also have blueprints of their facility, though not its location. In return for that, we attack together. The Brotherhood and your X-men."
"How many are you now?"
Erik laughed. "Charles, you forget I'm immune to your powers." He tapped his helmet. "I'll commit equal numbers to you to the fight, including myself. That is a promise."
"Two fewer." Scott put in. Everyone looked at him. "If you turn on us, I want you to be at a disadvantage." Charles saw the image of Erik manipulating Logan like a marionette rise in Scott's mind.
"Two fewer." Charles agreed.
"Very well." Erik said. Not being able to glean anything – anything – from Erik was disconcerting. Charles was used to being able to pick up rough emotional state, secrecy, whether or not he was about to be attacked… Erik might as well have been dead. It was like being confronted by someone who didn't breathe. "And, if you'd like me to, I'd be happy to commit mutants to the defense of the school until you are able to find their base." Charles frowned at him. Erik glanced about. "Well, I have double figures of fighters at the ready, varyingly experienced, and a rough sketch of the school's layout. Pyro's memory for physical space isn't what it might be, but he has other attributes that make up for it."
Charles felt four or five others in the room silently urging him to refuse. Scott and Storm were prominent, Bobby and Kitty were nearly as loud.
"Thank you, Erik, but we are quite capable of defending ourselves. If we were to counterattack… where did you say their base was?"
Erik drew a breath slowly. "We don't know. It must be somewhere in the United States-"
"That's quite a wide area."
"My thought was that you'd have a far better chance of locating it than me."
"Cerebro?" Charles asked. "To find a base with an unspecified number of non-mutants, with or without an unspecified number of mutants, somewhere in the United States." He said flatly. "Do you see the problem, Erik?" Erik didn't reply. "Give me a firm location, then we can talk about attacking together, if I feel it's appropriate."
"I'll hold the plans until such a time then." Erik said. "If there's to be an attack, I want in. I make that clear. Do you see that we've anything else to discuss?"
"If you won't give us the plans unless we agree to go with you, no."
"Well, do keep in touch. Let it be known among the staff of Hellfire the Second that you want to meet, I'll know soon enough."
"Will you stay for chess, Erik?" If he was lucky, Erik would let something else valuable slip while in check.
"Very well."
"Scott, bring everyone back up. I don't think we're in any danger."
,
Logan padded through the halls of the school. Magneto was upstairs and everyone was just getting on with their days. It was recess. Kitty was sitting at the piano with a group of younger kids around her, all singing, Kitty playing.
"Somehow I cannot hide
Who I am
Though I've tried."
Mystique and Magneto were in the school and everyone else was just carrying on. When he'd said this to Storm, Storm had just shrugged and said.
"It's not always like it's been lately with Magneto. He and The Professor used to be best friends. Sometimes we end up fighting on the same side, like we did to rescue The Professor."
"He backstabbed us then too."
"Yeah, but… This is different. He owes us for saving John and Mystique, and he knows it. And he wants what Cerebro can give us. It's not in his interests to pick a fight right now."
Logan didn't like it. He didn't like it one bit.
"Logan." He turned. Jean was looking at him from the shadow of a doorframe. There was a very funny look in her eyes.
"What?"
"I want you to help me."
"Do what?"
"Get the plans to the base, so when we find it, we can attack without the brotherhood."
Logan frowned. "Okay, what do I have to do?"
"Get Mystique in to this classroom within the next five minutes, then keep her talking for five minutes or so." There was a syringe in Jean's hand. Logan looked at it. "Midazolam." Jean said. "Anterrograde amnesiac. Dose her with this, she won't remember the next ten minutes, so we can do what we need to."
Logan hesitated. "Does anyone else know about this?"
"No. We don't have a lot of time. She's interested in you. Go. She's on the steps outside."
"What do you mean 'interested in'-"
"You saw her in the infirmary at the weekend. She'll come if you call her. Go."
,
Logan went, but he wasn't entirely sure why he went. Mystique was exactly where Jean had said she'd be, well, he assumed the young woman he didn't know with long blonde hair and a gorgeous figure was Mystique. She smelled like Mystique, anyway.
"Hey." She looked up at him. "Things we need to sort out. Come on." She got up and followed him, turning blue again as she did. He led her in to the empty classroom. It smelled like Jean was in the cupboard. Logan sat down on the front of the teacher's desk.
"Keep her talking, Logan."
That was Jean.
"So what did you want to say to me?" Mystique said, turning in to Storm and stepping up closer.
Logan folded his arms. "That's exactly what I was going to ask you. You came to me first."
Mystique turned in to Rogue. "Did I? You touched me very deeply." She took his hand in hers and laid it to her stomach, where he'd stabbed her. "Hm." She said. "You don't seem to like this one." Suddenly, he understood. Mystique had been flirting with him. Trying to turn herself in to a woman he wanted was her way of flirting with him. That ought to make distracting her really, really easy.
"She's a girl." Logan said. Behind Mystique, he saw something move, a loaded syringe, uncapped, flying towards her back. "I go for women." He settled his hands on Mystique's waist. She put hers on his shoulders and turned in to Jean.
"Like this one?" Mystique said, leaning in to kiss him. Logan put a hand over her mouth.
"Why her? Actually, no, that's not my question. What do you want from me?" Mystique tilted her head at him.
"You're strong. You're wild. Your mutation means you can take a lot of punishment. Xavier's boys are usually… neutered. You're not like that, not yet."
"Uh-huh." Logan said. "So you come to me looking like that because you're in to me. Do you want to hear what I think?" He leaned in closer to her. "I think you're listening out for Cyclops. I think you're hoping he'll come in here and see me with my hands all over his woman. I think you're a stirrer. Who was that blonde a minute ago? She was pretty." Logan more than a bit reluctant to mess around with Mystique while she looked like Jean and Jean was hiding in the closet at the back of the room. He wasn't mad about the idea of Jean watching him with another woman anyway.
Do what you need to do. Jean's voice said inside his head. Three more minutes.
Mystique went back to the blonde, curvy woman she'd been when he'd approached her.
"Who is she, anyway?" Logan asked.
Mystique shrugged. "Been using her body for years. I can't even remember where I saw her. You seem to prefer me pink to blue, unlike Magneto."
Logan pushed her away. "You screw Magneto?"
"So what?" Mystique replied. "He doesn't own me. I can have other men if I want. I can be other women if you want. Why is this hard for you to understand?" Logan really wasn't sure what to say to that. Mystique gave a dramatic, teenage-like sigh. "He doesn't own me, I don't own him. He has other people, I have other people. That's all there is to it."
She reached to kiss him again. Logan stopped her again. "Last time I let someone get touchy-feely with me, the world started spinning and I woke up in the infirmary."
Mystique showed him her hands. "I got nothing." She stepped two inches closer. He let her. "They got you too, huh?" She was swaying. Only very slightly, but she was swaying.
"Yeah." He said. "Someone spiked my drink."
"You could have avoided that." Mystique said bitterly. "We got darted. What you do to animals." She sighed. "'Cause that's how they see us. And that's never going to change. It's them or us. We're at war." He let her close the distance between them. He breathed for her smell. Smoke. Kerosene, kerosene smoke, wood smoke, and still something underneath it smelled damp. He'd noted her smell as hers before, but never troubled to think about it. And her smell had changed since Ellis Island. Then she'd smelled of stone and water and soap. This was a wilder smell. It suited her better.
Mystique jumped, as though she'd been poked with a stick from behind. She spun around, then went still, very still. Logan looked at her. What the hell? Mystique walked calmly out of the room. Jean emerged from the closet, jaw tight, face set. There was a wild look in her eyes. Logan felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
"What?" He asked her.
"She's going to steal the plans." Jean said. "She won't remember any of this."
Logan frowned at her. That was using her powers on another mutant without their consent, while not actually fighting them. They had a truce, didn't they?