Asunder
John's eyes flew open a split second too late as a Cheerio collided with his forehead and tumbled down his cheek. Zingo leapt onto the bed in hot pursuit, gobbling it up off his collar bone and voraciously licking and sniffing the area for any more. John gave the dog a few pats and sat up. Clarice stood at the foot of the bed, bowl of cereal in hand and lifted her chin in challenge. She plucked another Cheerio from the bowl and held it between her fingers in warning. John scooted out of the bed.
"I'm up! I'm up!"
"Not that I don't dig the idea of you staying in bed more, but it's been nine hours and James is up and he wants to try again."
John stretched his arms and chest muscles, prompting Zingo to jump on him and he rubbed her again before coming to take what he was hoping was his breakfast from Clarice. She handed it over and they shared a brief kiss. The previous night had been disappointing; James had logged in the chat to find only two people online, both apparently AFK and he'd ended up posting a note that he wanted to speak with someone called Nightcrawler before disconnecting and he and John took turns using up all the hot water before going to bed. Now, however, it was evening and there was hope that wherever James's contact had been earlier, he might have seen the message by now.
"Also, maybe not the best time, but we may need to talk to Kitty about her phasing. I heard the teenagers arguing over whether or not it counts as sex if you walk through somebody."
John snorted and ate a quick spoonful, following Clarice downstairs. By the time they reached the bottom, James had spotted them from the sofa and was making his way over, Kitty close behind him. John took a look at all the socializing going on and muttered Outside between mouthfuls.
A light drizzle of rain fell from an otherwise clear sky and James whipped out his phone, not bothering to sit down. John leaned against the porch railing.
Peeking over James's shoulder, Kitty's reaction gave it away before James could turn the phone towards them. A response had been pinned two hours ago beneath James's note saying to send a voice call once he saw the message. James hit Call and the speaker button and the line began to ring.
"Hallo?" A masculine voice on the line answered in thick accent Clarice thought might have been Dutch.
"Hey man, this is Warpath. I just saw your post – thanks for responding, by the way. You're the guy who travels through wormholes or something, right?"
"Ja."
"I kind of wanted to ask you about the physics of it all. My team, we have someone like you-" Clarice tried not to bristle at the wording, at the insinuation that even among other mutants that she was not like them, "and something went wrong and we're missing a team member. We wanted to know if maybe there's some void or whatever that lost people in portals go to or, I don't know, if there's some kind of memory log of recent portals made so we can track her-"
"Is there a way we can find out if she's still alive?" Clarice spoke over James, his rambling coming to a grinding halt at her bluntness. That was what he was getting at, anyway. What he was embarrassing her for. Did people cease to exist when they disappeared inside of a hole torn from the fabric of space itself? She didn't know, and now they had to ask a stranger because, apparently, this stranger had manifested his mutant abilities at birth. This mutant didn't work under the guidance of the X-men, he was a X-men member.
"You are not going to like this, but it depends on your method of transportation."
Kitty and James were looking at Clarice, as if the sentence made any more sense to her than it did to them. She frowned.
"What do you mean, the method? We hack reality with shortcuts between point A and B."
"Liebchen, you are the transporter? Every mutant is different, even if we do the same thing, we accomplish things differently. Many ways to skin a cat."
It was news to Clarice. She'd never really considered how many mutants had variations of the same power. Actually, she'd never in her wildest dreams thought there was another mutant who could do what she did. For there to be more than one person like her would have to mean that she wasn't a mistake. It was a wild thought.
John set aside his bowl and took the phone.
"Any chance we could meet up, get a demonstration? Maybe the method is the key to this whole thing."
"...Verarschen? I am...not human passing. Most are uncomfortable with meine appearance."
There was a pause as John tried and failed to figure out the first comment, then:
"Yeah, it's no problem. Tell us what you need to find us. Coordinates? Landmarks?"
"Ein foto."
"Done. Thanks man, I can't tell you how big of a favor this is."
John ended the call and stepped off of the porch to take pictures of the house and the yard. Kiity looked at James.
"James, have you met this guy before? Like, face to face?"
"No. Alison met him once, mentioned him in passing. All I know is he was one of the last groups the X Men trained before everything went sideways. I don't know what Underground he's at, but Philly's leader – Salim – he hits him up when he wants advice."
"When do you think he's co-"
John made a startled yelp and all eyes turned to him and the...very unusual mutant standing next to him. Kitty took in a breath. No wonder Nightcrawler had warned them about his looks. He was blue, for starters, skin engraved with strange symbols all over his face and arms. His pronged hands and feet were unlike any Clarice had ever seen, and his ears were pointed even more sharply than hers. And then there was that swishing, pointed tail behind him that just made it even more utterly ridiculous that he was dressed in a white tank top and gray sweats. He was the first teleporter Clarice had ever laid eyes on, outside of a mirror, and she quietly wondered if every mutant of her type was cursed with the inability to blend in. John signaled for them to come over.
"Guys, this is Kurt. Kurt, this is Kitty, James and Clarice."
"Hallo."
Up close, Kurt had the most vibrant golden yellow eyes. Or rather the most vibrant eye sockets, there being no distinction between pupil and scelera. A fact which Kurt was well aware of, his eyelids hooding in a way that made Clarice think he was looking at the ground, avoiding eye contact. She remembered how sensitive she'd been about her own when somebody referred to them as 'radioactive green'. A little piece of her heart cracked and she reached forward to pull him into a loose hug.
"Nice to meet you, Kurt."
He hesitantly hugged her back in a quick motion, two exaggerated canines showing when he offered a shy smile. It was enough to jolt the others out of the shock of seeing him, and Kitty and James took turns shaking his hand.
Five minutes later found the group seated on the grass as James recounted to Kurt the details of what had happened to Alison followed by John explaining his theory of a possible biological incompatibility between Alison and Clarice. Kurt turned towards her, his tail flicking idly behind his shoulder.
"Interesting. Shall we take a trip and compare notes?"
Clarice hesitated, accustomed to having John with her when she portal hopped, until she saw him give a small nod.
"Sure." She stood and brushed the back of her jeans off. Taking two steps from the group, Clarice spotted the closest energy mass and stood there, readying her hands, and pulling open a portal. "After you."
Kurt and the rest stood, though he watched with his head tilted to the side and a slight frown. On the other side of the portal lay a park Clarice had run away to once in her childhood in Savannah. There was a downpour and cool gusts of wind and rain were blowing through. Kurt walked in and after a look back at John, Clarice walked in behind him and let the portal close. Her hair was pasted to her head before she could regret the lack of an umbrella. Kurt was unbothered.
"Can you make another? Somewhere more private?"
She squinted in the rain, spotted another energy mass and opened a portal to an abandoned barn she'd taken cover in last year. When they were both through, she released the portal and immediately wrung the water out of her hair. When she was done, she found Kurt watching her.
"How far are we from your Underground?"
She shrugged. "A couple of states."
"Und you are not exhausted, liebchen?"
"No?"
"Geil!" He looked positively giddy. "Do you even know how amazing that is? Komm."
He took her hand, and before Clarice knew it, they were standing in an empty room. It looked to be the remnants of an old laboratory. Clarice coughed and gagged, tried not to retch. Kurt rubbed her back.
"Sorry. It happens to everyone the first time. It's the sulphur."
Clarice coughed. "Sulphur?!"
"Ja. Think about it, how do you make your portals? You think it's as simple as connecting here to there? Can you make a portal just anywhere?"
She wheezed and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "No. Only where there's enough energy built up. There has to be an access point."
"Und can you go anywhere from any portal?"
She hugged her arms to herself, starting to become chilled from being soaked to the bone. Kurt was talking to her in that way teachers did when they were really into a subject and wanted more class participation. Clarice almost started daydreaming out of conditioned response.
"Not quite. It either has to be somewhere I've been before or somewhere I can see. Otherwise...bad things happen."
"Exactly. Nature has it's own rules. There has to be something there to connect the two points. You want to know about the sulphur? It took me a long time to find out, but when I travel, I move from one dimension to another und back."
"Another dimension?"
He smiled a toothy smile again, stuffed his hands into his pockets and leaned back on nothing. After a second, Clarice realized he was balancing against his tail.
"I have seen a lot, in time you will too. The truth is that reality has layers, und each of those layers is another dimension. The connective layer between my teleportation points is the Brimstone Dimension."
She frowned and tried not to look as uncomfortable as she felt. "Sounds delightful."
"I think the answer to your problem of the missing madchen is in your connective layer; your midpoint."
"So the void ate her? What about the photons and atoms and echo weaponization? You're telling me this isn't some science experiment gone wrong, but that she's literally lost?"
Kurt nodded, one hand gesturing at nothing in particular.
"Or taken." When Clarice just stared blankly at him, he continued. "You have never seen anyone like me before, ja? Truthfully, I am only half mutant. The other dimensions aren't exactly empty. Liebchen," he said softly, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear, "Have you ever seen another such as yourself?"
The implication hung thickly in the air. Clarice thought about how much of her life she'd spent in orphanages and foster care. How she'd broken into the file room and found there was no information at all on her parents. How no matter how many mutants she met, none of them had eyes like hers.
She turned and emptied the contents of her stomach. Kurt sighed, grabbed her by the hand, and teleported.
They popped back in front of the Underground amidst a small cloud of what Clarice now knew to be sulphuric smoke and she puked again.
"Clarice?!"
John was running towards her and she gripped Kurt's arm to keep from faceplanting in vomit. John had her a second later, and she could feel the rumble of his voice in his chest as he asked Kurt what happened.
"John, I'm fine." she mumbled into his chest, more lightheaded than she cared to admit. She was pretty sure her stomach had nothing left but she desperately hoped not to puke on her boyfriend. Few things were less attractive than that. John tipped his head downward and Clarice swore she could feel him frowning at her.
"You're drenched, shivering, and hurling like a supermodel before a show. You're not fine."
John shifted her to one arm, the other sweeping behind her knees to gather her up in his arms. If she could trust her nausea to stay at bay, she'd tell him he was overreacting. As it was, she held her breath and willed her stomach to settle.
"A bit of tea might help her, if you have it." She heard Kurt suggest as John turned and carried her towards the house, all traces of earlier confidence gone.
By the time Clarice had changed into dry clothes and drank some tea, Kurt was gone and John was hovering like a distressed knight. When John finally stepped away to check in on Marcos, Clarice flagged James over.
"Did you get a chance to talk to Kurt before he left? Please tell me he's coming back, because I don't think we were done and I don't think I was smart enough to ask enough questions."
James sat gingerly on the corner of the bed, as if not quite sure it was allowed.
"Yeah. He said to tell you he's sorry you got sick. He sounded really impressed that you can move so many people through your portals; said he can only manage one extra person at a time and that it takes a lot out of him. He also said he thinks Alison might be 'in the in-between' somewhere. And that when he comes back he's bringing a friend."
Clarice bit her lower lip and pulled a pillow into her lap.
"Damn, I missed all the good stuff."
James made a quick glance at the door, then back to her. He felt younger to her all of the sudden, and Clarice blamed it on his shifty-ness. His body language was that of a child with a secret and the fact that he was already so much more casual than John made it hard to read him.
"Can I ask you a question?"
"...Yeah." She had a feeling that she wasn't going to like where this conversation was about to go. Please, she though, clutching the pillow a bit tighter, don't ask about Kurt's appearance. Don't ask about my appearance. Don't ask if we're related. Don't ask!
"Kurt said something else before he left. He said he noticed that traveling in your portals, time stays the same. Instant transport."
"Well, yeah. Why wouldn't it be?" It was mostly true. Most of the time.
"He said it's different with him. He said he teleports in realm time, as if…as if you do it in suspended time." James licked his lips, glanced at the door again and lowered his voice. "Do you know how long you two were gone? Four hours."
Clarice's eyes widened. Four hours? No way that had been four hours! It felt like thirty, forty-five minutes at most.
"Seriously?"
James nodded. "He said some mumbo jumbo I didn't totally follow, but the general idea was that travel takes time, it's just that the time passes differently so we don't perceive it or something. But he says you're different. He thinks you're not just ripping holes in space, Clarice. He thinks your power interferes with time."