Site X was a sprawl of a few dozen acres in a discrete corner of the Ochoco National Forest in central Oregon. Security and camouflage were multi-layered and redundancy quintuple. A miracle mix of exotic, mutant-engineered technology, psychic trickery, and manipulation of the environment itself.
The Sphere was a large chamber, buried underground and shielded with baroque layers of incomprehensible, Forge- authored tech. This, along with the omnipresent telepathic obfuscation projected constantly by the Cuckoos' psychic hivemind, ensured its impenetrability to virtually every known means of surveillance or telemetry. There was no entrance or exit: only Nightcrawler, the teleporter, or Kate, who could walk through walls, could ferry them in an out.
There was a round table in the center of the room. It was of course intentionally symbolic, representative of the idea of a collective rather than a hierarchy, meant to impart Cassandra's notions of consensus. Jean thought it silly and meaningless. She trusted Nova with her life, but she knew as well as any of them the gesture was nonsense, whatever checks on her power the others had tried to exert at any given time.
They were all there. Jean sat between Nightcrawler and Storm. Kate and Forge were across from them between Sage and Monet. Cassandra leaned forward in a seat next to the latter.
"Kate was right," Cassandra said. The others were silent, waiting for her to continue. "Norcal might very well be home to its own shiny new Master Mold, the first we've seen stateside in at least half a decade."
"What evidence do we have?" asked Monet. Her posture, as always, was perfect.
"Enough," said Kate, before Nova could reply. "Intel was stolen from a mutant source in DC and Jean, Kurt and I were able to do a few drone sweeps of the supposed site. All of the data mirrors that of previous US Master Mold sites in terms of energy consumption and land usage. I sent you my report, Monet."
"Yes, and I read it, and I'm not particularly convinced. There are any number of things that would require such intense security and resources. Your specifics aren't specific enough for my liking."
"I mean, did you actually read the data?" Forge asked. "Radiation shielding a meter thick, underground silos, deposits of processed minerals and organic compounds. This is a factory, Monet."
She shrugged, her eyes rolling just enough to register. "Even if it is, I don't see why we should go defcon 4 when no machine that humanity could make could find our little psychic-walled oasis."
"We're in the middle of another wave of emerging mutants, Monet," said Jean. "More and more every day. This can't be a coincidence. They realized all of those initiatives they blundered through aren't working, or aren't working fast enough, and they're panicking. We can't trust the government to not start hunting us down again."
Monet didn't respond, casting her gaze down as if in contemplation.
"Well," said Nightcrawler, "what are our options, short of carpet bombing a government facility?"
"Kate's been training the security forces. Preparing a few squads to handle individual Sentinel attacks should be a priority," said Forge.
"X-Men," said Sage. Jean could feel Nova cringing internally.
"I think it might be wise to get in touch with Genosha again. Secure refuge for our people, at least." Kate said this directly to Nova, who sighed.
"My damned brother," she said.
"Soon," Kate said. "Regardless of what we end up doing there are kids here. We have to keep them safe."
Nova sighed again, running her hands along her face. "Charles won't talk to me."
"Yeah, but..." Kate turned to Jean "...maybe he'll talk to you?"
Everyone stayed quiet. Jean met Kate's gaze. She was about to object when her mind was suddenly filled with a quintet of voices all saying the same thing.
Ms. Grey, there's something going on up here. The voices were similar but not identical, the effect layered, like vocals through a delay pedal.
Jean's posture straightened at both the intrusion and breach in security protocol. What the hell are you doing? You know we're in the Sphere!
We're sorry. Please don't be mad at us, but there's someone here to see you and he says it's important and we don't know what to do.
Who is it? Jean saw Nova lean forward, and felt her head open up. A psychic gesture, the older woman asking to be let in. She resisted, almost as a reflex.
The professor, they said. Professor Xavier.