"But I don't even care very much for golf!" Hank protested. "It's a terrible way to ruin a day which might be much better spent getting caught up on one's reading. I'm not precisely in great demand as a partner, either."
Once again, they were in the infirmary, and Jean was reapplying the sensor discs to Grace's face and head.
"Don't blame me, I'm just the messenger." Grace Engstrom shrugged. "It might not come during the day, either. The panther said to keep the ringer on your phone. I know that some golf courses have electric lights for night games."
"Hold still for a moment," Jean scolded. "Just a few more on this side…"
"You don't know when or who? Not even a hint?"
"I wouldn't expect it to come before my complaints are filed and the defendants file their answers. That would be pointless. 'A friend in a high place' is all the information I have on who it will be. That gives you at least a month to a month and a half to practice, so get swinging."
"Who do I know who likes golf and could get us a timely court date?" The Beast put his hand to his forehead and rubbed his hand through his hair. "Why would he—or she, I suppose—be calling me? Nobody owes me that big a favor as yet."
"Perhaps it will be someone with a secret mutant in the family who wants the Act repealed, but can't allow themselves to be linked to the suit openly." The professor suggested.
"It's hardly likely," Hank complained.
"Hey." It was Callisto. "Magneto is in the observation room and everybody else is in the Danger Room. We're waiting on all of you."
"Hang on a minute. I have to stick dots on you next. You're done, Grace. Callisto, have a seat."
"Join the party," Grace pointed to her own sensors. "The worst of it is, they itch after a while."
"All right." Callisto submitted to the procedure, while Jean talked.
"Your skin is more sensitive right now. It's the increased blood volume and heightened oxygen absorption. "
"All part of the wonder of impending motherhood." Grace said. "I have to admit I'm feeling much better than I have a right to—according to the book I read."
"I suspect your healing factor is compensating for that. Could you bend your head down, please, Callisto? Thank you."
It may be more than just her healing factor, Professor Xavier thought. A mutation focusing on childbearing and motherhood would almost certainly ensure an easy pregnancy and birth.
"Callie, yesterday I bought a couple of lipsticks that would work well with your skin tones. One is vermilion, the other cinnabar. Would you like to have a look at them later?" Grace asked.
"Sure." The young woman shrugged. As unmoved as she sounded, the corners of her mouth turned up.
Indeed, the more I think on it, the more possibilities occur to me. Humans cannot easily give birth without help; relationships and social networks are of critical importance at such a critical time. Therefore, she has a gift for establishing connections.
Even further: Erik himself said that a child thrives best with both parents in the home. She may be influencing him emotionally, without knowing she is doing so…
Or perhaps I am reading too much into what is simply her personality. One can overanalyze a phenomenon. Yes, technically speaking, Botticelli's Birth of Venus is merely various minerals and organic compounds daubed on a wall with an animal hair brush. But to reduce and oversimplify all its beauty and significance until they are obliterated is an insult to the human soul.
"Okay, all done. Off to the danger room with the two of you. We'll be along in just a moment." Jean went to the infirmary computer.
"So you have not only Ms. Engstrom, but everyone below the rank of teacher fitted up with sensor dots today. Dare I ask why?" Hank McCoy looked from Jean to the Professor.
"I want to see what effect, if any, Ms. Engstrom has on those around her." Xavier replied.
"What do you suspect?" asked the Beast.
"That she has empathic powers we did not detect on our first scans. I don't believe she's doing it intentionally; I think that in her earnest desire that everyone should get along, she is influencing them to do so. But come—I'm sure they're all getting impatient."
The real-world training exercise of the day before had been valuable, but training under more intense situations—even if they were simulated—was needed. Therefore Grace, dressed in a set of the school's exercise sweats, was going to be the target of various attacks, varying in type and severity and ranging from an over-excited mob of photographers to an all-out pitched battle. The missiles aimed at her would be paint, which was why she was wearing the very unglamorous sweats and a bandanna over her hair. If she was hit in a crucial area such as her head, neck, or body, it counted as a death; in a non-crucial area such as a limb, a wound, and if she were hit too many times in a non-crucial area, she was to be considered too injured to move on her own.
"At last!" Erik said when the three of them entered the observation booth. "Are you ready?"
"Yes." Xavier answered.
"Sequence initiated," Magneto informed the danger room through the microphone, and pressed the enter key. "I added a few refinements to the programming. I had the leisure to go over the last several sessions on tape, and it seemed to me your students were becoming entirely too comfortable with the program as it was."
Oh, dear. What can he have come up with?
Jean slipped into her seat in front of another computer, and linked to the scanning computer down in the infirmary. Xavier took a spot where he could see both the Danger Room and her computer screen.
As he watched, the room became the plaza in front of a courthouse, and a crowd of photographers appeared. The scene was indeed more menacing than originally programmed—a mob of anti-mutant protesters jostled and shouted from all angles.
"Bobby, Kitty, John—excuse me, Pyro, Arclight—you're up with me." Storm announced. The five of them sprang into a circle around her, and they started the long walk from the courthouse exit to the waiting car. Ororo called up a rainstorm, which diverted their pursuers, and all seemed well. Until one of the photographers threw a smoke bomb, and then it all went to pieces.
"At least Kitty caught her before she could fall on the ice." Jean observed. Below them, Ororo helped Ms. Engstrom to her feet, and she in turn helped Kitty, apologizing as she brushed the girl off.
"A good start," Xavier said, diplomatically, "but a better use of your powers, Bobby, would have been to encase the bomb in ice. Arclight, if you could tone down the strength of your shockwaves to the point where they simply cause a tumble, you'll have it. Pyro, nicely controlled, but the bomb did explode. Kitty, well done. Ororo, a wind gust would have taken care of the smoke. Next?"
The next team was the Toad, Rogue, Jubilee, Spyke, and Scott. This time the threat was a sniper on top of the building. He hit Grace in the shoulder, and although most of the team closed in to provide first aid, Toad broke formation and scaled the building to throw the 'sniper' to his death. "Keep in mind that Ms. Engstrom is your first priority, and that we do want the perpetrator in a condition where he can still answer questions." Erik said, and they went on.
Half an hour before the scheduled end of the session, it happened. In his effort to make the session more interesting, Erik had imported a Sentinel, which no one was expecting. As the team scrambled to respond, suddenly the enormous robotic simulacrum took a sharp right angle upward, and kept going…right into the ceiling. And through it. And through the four levels above it, through the roof, and up further still.
The damaged system shut the program down, and the walls went back to white.
"All right. Who did that, and how?" Professor Xavier looked down over the room.
Nobody replied.
"Anyone?" he prompted.
"It was not, technically speaking, thrown." Erik said. "Not by anyone there. It was the centrifugal force of the Earth's rotation." He pointed to his screen. "Someone cancelled out the gravitational pull on it."
"I don't know of anyone who can do that." Startled, the Professor turned to Jean.
Jean simply pointed a finger down at Ms. Engstrom.
The Professor took the microphone. "Ms. Engstrom, what did you do just now?"
"I'm not sure. It just felt like that jump when you get a sudden fright." She spread her hands helplessly.
"Very interesting." Erik murmured, looking at her brain scans on that screen. "It's not in the higher thought processes at all. That wave is right down in the limbic system. Pure instinct." He sounded gratified.
He would be pleased with that. No doubt he would approve of her sending not only Sentinels, but anyone anti-mutant into orbit. And how do I train her to control it? "I believe this session is over for today," Xavier said, looking up at the hole. "Class dismissed."
