Ah, finally, here it is! Another plotty chapter I'm afraid, but after this—well, remember what I said about the next time Erik and Charles see each other…? ;) So yeah. I hope you like it! :o
Beta'd, as usual, by the indispensable idioticonion from LJ!
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lxxxiii.
Charles' new plan was, essentially, simply an addendum to the old plan: he approached Hannah the moment he arrived at the lab and asked, "When we were talking the other day, you said you would be able to supply yourself with drugs—did you mean that you have access to medical storage?"
She peered up from her centrifuge tubes, eyebrows raised in inquiry. "Um. Yes, I suppose? I worked there for a little bit back when I came here. Security wasn't as organized back then so I still have the key. Why? Did you need something?"
"I need to go there," Charles explained.
Hannah frowned; then her eyes lit up with a cold glee and she pointed at him with the sterile tip of her micropipette. "You're going to poison Magneto, aren't you!"
"I—" Charles stared at her doubtfully. "What makes you think that?"
She gave him a look that suggested he was being very dense. "You're Charles Xavier. You're the one who is supposed to defeat him!"
Charles sighed and shook his head, just a little—sadly. "Not you, too? Look, I'm not—I'm not a hero, it's just… There's no one else, and the Brotherhood can't keep going on like this…"
"But that's the point. You don't really gain anything, do you? But it's the right thing to do," Hannah explained, patiently. She set the micropipette down on its side, tip hanging over the edge of the counter.
Except that I do gain something from it, Charles reminded himself, and then shushed that part of his mind. Instead, he said, "All right, yes, I'm planning to drug… Magneto. Beast and I were going to get the sedatives through official means but Frost caught on to it. If we can get down there ourselves, however… We'll have another chance."
"I see," Hannah agreed, nodding to herself. Then, contemplatively, she added, "I'll go too."
"What? No, absolutely not—the fewer people, the less chance anything will go wrong," Charles insisted.
Hannah did not roll her eyes, but she appeared to seriously consider doing so. "Look, I'm familiar with their filing system, and I'm not going to let you lose my key since I do rather need it."
"Beast and I can't risk being caught," Charles reminded her. "We only get this one chance, so if you would just let me borrow the information from your mind…"
"Certainly," Hannah replied, nodding shortly. "But wouldn't it be good to have more than one set of eyes? In any event, it's not as if I can afford to be caught either. I've had three and a half years of practice, you know."
Charles pinched the bridge of his nose, then inhaled deeply and ran that same hand through his hair. He did not like this; not at all, not one bit, but… "All right, fine. We'll need someone to carry my chair down the stairs anyway."
So he went to Beast, and because the office was slightly too small for all three of them they met again in the room Hannah and Charles shared. The two other scientists eyed each other over with evident curiosity.
"I don't think we've officially met before," Hannah said, and extended a hand to Beast, who shook it warily.
"I recognize you," Beast realized, nostrils flaring as he sniffed at the air. "You implemented the histidine tags that I hypothesized could be used for protein purification, didn't you?"
"I did," Hannah acknowledged, standing as tall as she could. Then, cautiously, she boasted, "I also designed the gel electrophoresis technique that we use, and the RNA blot test."
Beast pursed his lips over his sharp teeth and nodded appreciatively. "Ah, yes—those would have been useful tools to have back when I was developing selective gene expression in the CIA's labs."
The two stared at each other for a moment longer before Hannah relaxed and smiled. "Oh, so it's true that you did the initial research on expression! I must say, it's remarkable what you did with it, considering how little prior data existed at the time. I wouldn't be able to do any of my work without your discoveries."
Hannah and Beast turned their attention back to the business at hand, mostly ignoring each other now that they had determined themselves to be too far apart in skill to worry about competition.
"We have to do this tonight," Charles told them, and Beast furrowed his tufted eyebrows.
"Tonight! That's… That's quite the short notice," he protested, voice piping up to pitches he'd mostly abandoned since his transformation. "I had planned on staying up in Engineering; there was a project we wanted to finish; goodness, that's soon… Why tonight?"
Charles glanced over to him. "It has to be. Erik—ah, Magneto—is going to be in Virginia, and I'm fairly certain that he can use the metal of my chair to check my location while he's here." Fairly certain, yes—and that was not anecdotal evidence that Charles especially wanted to revisit, although he inevitably did just that.
He didn't regret what he'd tried to do with Azazel—well, he did, but not because of the deed itself; rather, he regretted the involvement of the other man in his affairs. Maybe I should have altered his memory, Charles mused, and then cringed; no, that was definitely not the correct way to deal with that problem; just because he could use his telepathy… In any event, he would have to apologize to Azazel, the next time that he saw him.
"It is really wise for you to come along?" Beast asked, crossing his arms as he leaned back against a counter. "Not that you wouldn't be helpful, of course, but you can't deny the risk…" His hesitation had gone; now his leonine eyes shined with a hard glint of calculation. More than any snarl Beast had ever indulged himself with, this was the stare of a predator.
"It's not a risk I want to leave you to deal with alone," Charles replied, brushing away the image of a patiently attentive wolf. "In any event, the benefit of having a telepath along may well outweigh the danger; we're probably more likely to run into staff than security so I should be able to reach their thoughts." He looked at Hannah for confirmation and she nodded.
"Still, tonight…" Beast mused, rubbing his chin between his claws. "I'd really like if there was more time to plan… Well, that's a moot point anyway, I suppose. I will, however, need time to copy down the lists of sedatives for you to reference."
"No need," Charles told him. "I'll make sure that we all know any relevant information when the time comes. Beast, you should come to my rooms at eleven; Hannah, meet us here."
"I'll be here anyway," she said.
Beast inclined his head. "I assume you'll be giving me a false pretense for bringing you here, so… How about, I'm taking you to see the automated teleporter that we're building downstairs while it's not crawling with techs."
"Perfect," Charles agreed, then creased his brow. "Really? An automated teleport? Oh, you really must show that to me for real some day."
"It doesn't look like much yet," Beast muttered with a shrug. "It'll be cooler when it's done."
Charles smiled brightly at the furred scientist. "I'm sure it's lovely. All right, then—tonight, yes?" The others gave their cautious assent. "Marvelous; I'll block your memories until then."
Hannah raised her chin, frowning. "Not mine, right? I've managed with my own secrets all this time."
"Yes, and you've managed brilliantly at that, but this goes beyond your personal safety," Charles explained, as he brought the tips of his fingers up to his temple. "Think of it as a favor—at least you won't spend the rest of the day worrying about it."
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lxxxiv.
Those words turned out to be damningly prophetic, and Charles found himself wishing that he could alter his own memories and forget that he had any reason to check his watch. Excitement and dread chased each other like twin squirrels around the walls of his stomach, and worse: somehow Charles had to sit still through all of that commotion as he went through yet another day in the manor.
After a few highly productive hours of fumbling with his pipette tips, Charles was forced to wait at Erik's side as the Brotherhood preformed their daily roll call of neglectful corruption. The issue of the day seemed to be the growing number of protests from the anti-extictionists and, to a lesser extent, from Brotherhood supporters; Erik's public speech later in the week was intended to pacify these complaints, to assure the humans and their allies of his honesty and to stress the pragmatism to his followers.
Even within the conference room itself, however, attitudes were chill toward the idea, and the inclination seemed to be to treat the speech as more of a bad joke than a serious priority. Charles wondered how much of that might be true—whether Erik, for all of his stern reminders that yes, security was important, but no, they shouldn't have rows of gunmen and pyrokinetics menacing the crowd—if maybe Erik was only putting on a better show than the rest. It was hard, after all, to give the benefit of the doubt to someone who had already done as much as Erik had to deny that trust.
After the meeting Erik escorted Charles back to his rooms as usual, and as Erik's fingers rested gentle beneath the telepath's chin and his lips brushed over Charles' forehead, he had to wonder; he had to stare into those gray-green eyes and ask, calling from outside the impenetrable wall of the helmet, what would you do if you knew? But Charles' thoughts slid off as usual and in the next moment Erik was gone; had bid Charles farewell until—and Erik's eyes darkened meaningfully as he examined Charles from the door—tomorrow.
Charles shivered, and now it was almost a relief to think about his plans for the night. Better that, than to ruminate over the next night, and whatever Erik might have planned for him then. Where did their deal stand, anyway? Was Erik still restricted to touching him—touching him above the—
His mind stuttered to a stop and Charles reminded himself, with forced cheer, well, we might all die before then anyway; who knows. Which… Was admittedly unlikely. But it was quite a different subject altogether than imagining a return to Erik's arms—to his lap—
Charles took a very deep breath and exhaled shakily. It didn't matter; it didn't matter, after tonight. He would stay close as long as he had to, and then… Well. Whatever came after that. In the meantime, yes, he would quite possibly become involved in some further sexual relations with Erik, but that was still quite a ways off, compared to his other concerns.
Eleven o' clock, as it turned out, took its time in arriving. The tsking of his watch provided him with an abundance of minutes and a shortage of hours, but that was more than enough time to think of all the ways it could go wrong. They might not be killed, but they could be captured; the others—Beast and Hannah—could be injured, and quite possibly for nothing.
Charles reminded himself again what Erik had done: the freedoms he had already taken from Charles, and from the rest of the world. Little freedoms—little luxuries that they had taken for granted and now sorely missed. Perhaps… Perhaps the threat of capture did not matter so much, because they were already imprisoned.
Then again, maybe he shouldn't be so quick to decide which further liberties his colleagues were willing to sacrifice.
It was a relief, finally, to be taken away to physical therapy.
Charles blinked and then smiled to see that Badger had gone without her helmet again; she scowled at him, but not without fondness.
"Yeah, I'm flattered that you think so highly of me, but please tell me that after I left last night you chucked it into the trash in a fit of rage," Badger pleaded.
Charles had to think back, beyond Azazel, past the coatroom, past all the—the dancing—and could not remember anything about it beyond when he had set it down. "No," he replied, contrite. "Have I gotten you into trouble?"
"No more than usual," Badger sighed. "Just… Be careful, yeah?" But then she left him in the clutches of a phenomenally lightweight leg press and Charles lost that anxiety to the general background hum of the rest.
The susurration of the hydraulics failed to distract him, but it helped, and Charles missed the work when he again sat in his rooms. He held a book but did not read it; he stared to where his crutches leaned again the opposite wall but did not go to them. He considered taking a nap before Beast arrived, but his mind went grainy with restlessness at the mere idea.
It seemed to take forever, but then, too soon—there was a knock at his door. Charles looked down at his watch and saw that the hands leered back from eleven and twelve.
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lxxxv.
Beast talked about his teleport project the entire way to the labs.
"It's not strictly speaking mine, of course," Beast clarified, setting his hands out to make a vague box shape in front of him as Charles looked on in queasy bemusement. "It's mostly all Eli and Isaac's doing, but I do like to help when I can. It's all very exciting—they've done enough tests on mutants with spatial displacement abilities to have some idea on how to reverse-engineer the process but of course it's very risky; according to my calculations, we could accidentally teleport this entire wing of the mansion to, mm, say, the Artic, if it's close, and outside of the galaxy if it's not, so none of us are in a rush to turn it on before we're absolutely certain that it's ready."
"The Brotherhood let you build something that dangerous inside their headquarters?" Charles asked, surprised. All that, and they determined a measly bottle of sedative to be the greater threat?
Beast shrugged. "Well, it's not attached to the power generator, yet. Actually, the generator itself isn't even finished; it still only produces enough energy to bend a volume of space roughly equivalent to a sunflower seed."
"Of course," Charles conceded, frowning.
Shortly afterward, they reached the lab; still talking, Beast opened the door—and froze, blinking in at Hannah, who stared back in equal shock as, slowly… They remembered again.
"Oh," Hannah remarked, sounding dazed. "That is strange. But at least it explains why I have these flashlights." She held up a pair of electric torches, one in each hand, and then tucked them into the pockets of her lab coat—one each for her and Charles. Beast had declined the offer earlier in the day, explaining that he could see perfectly well in the dark.
With that, they left again—quite without gossip, now that they all knew where they were going.
Charles tensed as they passed a pair of scientists walking down the hallway in the opposite direction, poised at the edge of their minds in case they raised any questions, but instead one of them glanced up at Beast briefly and raised a few fingers in a perfunctory wave before returning to their own private conversation. Charles let out his breath in a long, low hiss once they were gone.
But really, that proved to be the rule, rather than an exception; as they made their way through the long pristine hallways of the second-floor laboratory wing, walking with casual, confident purpose—none of the late-working people they passed even questioned them.
They turned into the hallway that led to the staircase and Charles let the wheels coast beneath his palms for a moment, not quite long enough to slow down, as he saw the guard lingering just inside the recessed landing of the stairs, tucked into an alcove created by some quirk of construction. He was wearing red; not the rich, thick coat that Badger and her fellows wore, but rather the thin starchy cotton of security. More importantly: he was wearing a helmet.
Calm, Charles impressed into the minds of the scientists walking before him. Stay calm. Keep going. Neither of them wanted to; Beast wanted to go on past the staircase, act as if they'd never been going there in the first place; Hannah wanted to stop and turn around, but her foot skipped up off the ground before she could plant it down and she sent a wordless, shuddering dart of ! flying into Charles' head.
Sorry, dear, Charles whispered, staring straight ahead. But we can't hesitate for even a moment.
The guard looked up as they approached; his eyes widened beneath his helmet and he snatched a white blur of cigarette from his lips—tried to hide it at his side, failed—then turned around a little to hide his face, back straight as if they might suddenly forget that he'd been having a stealthy smoking break in the back stairway.
As Charles coached the minds of his companions—calm, he repeated, just stay calm; act like we belonghere—he stopped near the top of the stairs; Beast came to stand on one side and Hannah the other. Under the guard's very scrupulous non-attention, Beast bent down to let Charles sling his arm over his neck.
The telepath's fingers sank into thick blue fur as Beast hoisted him upright easily, as if he weighed nothing at all. One thick, unyielding hand cupped under the curve of Charles' ribs, holding him in place as Beast half-carried, half-supported Charles down the stairs. Behind them, Hannah folded the wheelchair with drilled proficiency and hefted it down after them, hurrying a little so that she could open it back up before Charles needed it again.
Once he was seated, Charles resisted the urge to look back up the stairs, to see if the guard was watching them. His neck prickled. Really, though, there was no doubting that the man at the top of the steps would be staring—the question was why. Benign, if impolite curiosity? Or something more insidious?
Take your own advice, Charles told himself. None of this is out of the ordinary. Or at least… As far as he knows. That was the benefit of having Beast with them; he lent their group some amount of authority. So, firmly, resolutely—Charles began moving again. They were almost there.
The hallways downstairs were essentially identical to those upstairs, but the odor was different—outside the biology labs the hallway smelled of a strange meaty sterility, of agar and bleach and ethanol; here the air was dominated by the burn of cut plastic, the heavy sweetness of hot solder, and most especially: the overwhelming, dull presence of steel.
"That's where we would go, if we went to see the teleporter," Beast murmured, nodding down the long expanse of hallway they now turned away from. Charles only gave a low grunt of acknowledgement, disinclined to break their cultivated silence. There was nothing down that corridor that might indicate the presence or absence of anything, let alone something that might bend the laws of space so extraordinarily—only more white tile and black trim; more anonymous metal doors.
The hallway they traveled now, by contrast, was much warmer, in mood if not temperature; Charles' brow furrowed as the wheels of his chair resisted the cushion of the rich brown carpeting. The walls were still white, but they were painted with a different gloss: warmer, more textured, and without that hard plastic shine. The doors here were made of wood and the industrial scents were gone, drowned out by carpet cleaner and recently applied wood finish—well, more recently than Charles was used to, at least.
Where the labs were designed for efficient cleanliness, this was a place that at least acknowledged the comfort of its denizens.
Hannah, in the lead, stopped them before they could turn the next corner, and the uncomfortable tingle returned to run its claws down from Charles' scalp to the line of his scapula. You're in a place you're not supposed to be, it hissed into his ear, and Charles shook it off. He had to be here; he was doing something right. Although… They were awfully exposed, all huddled up behind the corner. That must certainly be what had attracted this dread; this skulking unease.
"The entrance is around there," Hannah whispered, pointing through the wall at an angle, and Charles' attention drew to a keen, narrow focus on that implied location. He was all right; in fact, he could see why Erik liked this sneaking around and plotting. It was quite… Exciting, in a way.
"Well?" Beast urged, eyes wide. "Take a look."
"Me?" Hannah squeaked. "Why me?"
"You're the only one of us who's not blue, or," Beast indicated Charles, "in a chair. Or well-known. So if someone sees you, it won't matter as much."
She stared beseechingly at Charles. "It's true," he confirmed. "You're less conspicuous than either of us, and you did volunteer for this." Nonetheless, Charles had to pause, to take a deep breath and remind himself: he had once stood unflinchingly under a rain of missiles. Now they were standing in a hallway, essentially just after curfew—in no way did the two compare.
Except that this is your only chance at this, Charles thought, and you couldn't exactly do anything about the missiles. Outwardly, however, he smiled confidently and reached out to squeeze Hannah's shoulder. He tried not to imagine what might happen if she were caught and discovered; tried not to wonder whether he had enough influence over Erik to…
"You'll be fine," Charles reassured her. "Now go on, be a good accomplice and have a look."
She nodded briefly and edged up to the sharp line of plaster, fingers settled just within its margins. As her shoulders bunched around her ears, Hannah angled first her nose out, and then one eye.
She jerked back. "Shit, shit—there's a guard! With a helmet!"
The other two scientists stared at Charles, frozen; their panic twined around him like creeping, choking vines; thin for now but growing.
"It's all right," Charles told them, puffing air through his cheeks. "We can't know what his mutation is so we can't simply attack. We'll just… We'll have to… Talk to him. Yes. Get him to leave."
If they had been staring before, now… Well. Beast and Hannah did not, to put it mildly, seem especially impressed with this plan, but at least the edge of their fear had been lost to incredulity.
"Yes," Hannah snapped, "I'll just stroll up and ask where the break room is, and if he could lead me there!"
"That could work," Charles insisted.
"No," Beast said slowly, "it would definitely not work. Complain about the lazy guard on the stairs."
Now Charles and Hannah looked to Beast in bemusement. "The guard on the stairs?" Charles asked, pressing his eyebrows together. "What about him?"
Hannah pursed her lips. "Did you just volunteer me?"
"Yes, for the same reasons as before," Beast explained to her, and then turned to Charles. "Nobody hates a loiterer as much as someone who's doing their job."
"Yes, but—" Charles spluttered, "But, Beast, not everybody has work ethic like we do!"
"I do," Hannah piped up.
The geneticist tipped his head back and groaned. "We're scientists. Moreover—we're consummate scientists. We're hardly a representative sample of the population."
"Just, how about this," Beast offered. "Hannah, you walk down, act very aloof and indignant—you know, like someone in charge. Like Frost."
"I've never actually seen her," Hannah replied, dryly. "Or I wouldn't be standing here."
Beast flapped his hand dismissively; that wasn't the point. "Anyway, then ask about the guy standing around smoking in the stairwell. If he buys it, keep walking and we'll start down the hallway as he's walking toward us. If he says anything to us, or comes back—then we're just passing through."
"I'm not sure I like this plan," Hannah confessed.
"I'll be with you," Charles reminded her, tapping his forehead with his middle and index fingers. And if it didn't work—well, they could risk violence, couldn't they? Or maybe just go back to their rooms…
"Okay," she agreed, nodding quickly. "All right." Then she muttered: "Luck, don't fail me now—" before standing up straight, squaring her shoulders, and smoothing her tied hair against her neck.
She stepped out into the hallway junction and slumped. "Oh," Hannah said. "He's gone."
"What? Where?" Beast demanded, starting up from his crouch.
Something squeezed around Charles' lungs, writhing madly around in there—too easy, this is too easy—but Charles shoved at Beast's back. They didn't have time for this. "Go, just go."
Beast staggered into motion as all three of them hurried down the hallway to the door.
It was wooden, like all the others, but it had a little frosted window with the dull gold letters of Medical Storage painted on. It looked very underwhelming, and it unlocked easily, on the first try. Beast, Hannah, and Charles all looked around at each other wildly before tumbling in.
Beast shut the door behind them and flattened his bulk against the wall as he reached over and locked it again. He paused, eyes shining in the sudden shadow. "…Did we have a plan for how we're getting out again if the guard comes back?" he asked.
"Brain him from behind," Charles replied simply, and beckoned for a torch.
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lxxxvi.
Beyond the desks and little offices, beyond the racks of slim manila folders marked and alphabetized with the names of patients—Charles thought, with unease, that his file must be in there, with all of his scars and troubles, and maybe Erik's as well—past all of that there lay a room that seemed somehow both bigger and smaller than its real dimensions. Smaller, because it had been a long time since Charles had seen a room so crowded with shelves and boxes and trays; larger, because the sheer immensity of the collection was staggering, despite the ruthlessly compressed organization.
There was barely enough room for the chair between the shelves, and Charles' knuckles brushed cardboard as he squeezed through, balancing his light over his thighs. He reached for a box that seemed, according to the memories he'd borrowed from Hannah, to be a likely candidate for one of the items on the list he'd taken from Beast's mind.
A little ways down that same aisle, rummaging on the opposite shelf, Beast huffed. "No wonder they get so annoyed when we're not specific," he mused. "This is insane. Ooh, this is interesting—vincristine—no, no, that's old, now… Well, relatively new, but still old."
"That's not on the list," Charles murmured, shining his torch into the box on his lap and turning over labels with the other hand. "Stay on track."
"Sorry," Beast replied, not sounding especially apologetic at all. "It's just, I can't help sort of glancing around for a new project that's come down the pipes—you won't believe this: it was in a red folder."
"Oh?" Charles said vaguely, closing the box and setting it back on the shelf. Most of the folders that he saw on a daily basis were red.
"That means that it comes from the top," Beast hissed—there was no way anyone out in the hall would be able to hear them, but neither of them felt inclined to raise their voices. "Maybe even from Magneto himself."
Well, that would explain the proliferation of red folders, then. "What was it?" Charles asked, startling himself with the loudness of his voice.
"It's strange. It's an order to resume—well, begin, really—cancer research; for humans, of course. I can't think what that means," Beast explained, "except that it's all very quiet, for such a political order. I would have expected more hand-waving and fanfare. I wonder what Magneto's playing at."
Charles' hands stilled over the lid of another box. "Maybe he genuinely wants to help," he proposed.
There was a sharp laugh from the hulking darkness of Beast's silhouette. "Maybe," he acknowledged, "Or maybe, if he really wanted to help, he would never have spilled all that radiation out into the atmosphere in the first place."
Abandoning the box he had been about to open, Charles instead pushed himself forward a little and lifted one from a higher shelf. "A person can feel regret, can't they?"
Charles heard the clinking of glass bottles as Beast rummaged around. "Sure." His voice was muffled, but clearly dismissive. "However, I think this goes a little beyond what can be forgiven, don't you?"
The light of the torch sparkled off the brown glass inside Charles' box, throwing that glare back into his eyes. Charles blinked and moved his fingers to partially-shield the bulb; instantly, he could see comfortably again, and what he saw was… What? He was riffling through a box, looking for a poison to, to—not exactly kill a man he wasn't yet sure had gone beyond redemption, but what then? What kind of safety could Erik possibly expect at his hands?
"Oh, I remember this drug!" Beast exclaimed, although in a hushed sort of way. "We used this in our first mutant infertility tests."
"Your what?" Charles inquired, torn from his contemplation. He set down the bottle he'd been peering at.
"Mm, well, I suppose it's not really common knowledge, is it?" Beast hummed. Charles saw the green-gold gleam of the other mutant's retina in the scattered light from his own torch. "Essentially, the whole thing where mutants aren't adversely affected by radiation is a lie. Well, not an intentional one; Shaw wasn't exactly being scientific when he determined that we'd only benefit."
"Let me guess," Charles drawled. "It doesn't induce further, harmful mutations in our bodies—but it affects the performance of our reproductive organs?"
"Exactly," Beast confirmed. "Especially in males, since they have less body mass in the way to absorb and deflect radiation. Sort of, hmm, interferes with the signaling proteins in the membrane? As well as a few other effects, like abnormally shaped sperm, which is bad of course but much easier to overcome in the lab. The signaling, though, that's tough, and we only found out about it after investigating last year after recovery rates were lower than expected. It prevents fertilization pretty effectively."
"So when I said that we were at risk for rampant genetic drift, I was more right than I knew," Charles stated, although his attention had snagged on: recovery rates were lower than expected. As in, this was something that had been modeled and plotted—a little bit of statistical analysis to welcome in the post-apocalypse. It wasn't the fault of the scientists, of course, but that there had been the need for that objective assessment of human life…
Well, and mutant life, since those were different categories now.
"Indeed. It varies with exposure, of course. For instance, Magneto's always been out in the worst of it—don't tell anyone," Beast told him, in a gleeful tone of voice that clearly meant tell everyone, "but he's essentially sterile."
Charles frowned, picking through his box with half of his attention, letting the names on the labels filter down through his mind. It didn't seem fair, to mock Erik for something so beyond his control; certainly, of all the targets to choose from, it seemed the least relevant. "He must care about it, if he volunteered for testing."
"Possibly," Beast agreed, disinterest evident. "In any event, we needed mutants on the far ends of the spectrum. Of course, it doesn't stop these Brotherhood soldiers from exposing themselves to more radiation, but we can only advise them, not control them. Low-exposure mutants, on the other hand, are more difficult to come by…" His voice brightened over the clink of glass. "Say, you've been pretty isolated from everything—you should consider donating a sample!"
Clearing his throat awkwardly, Charles offered, "Maybe some other time."
"Hey, well, if you change your mind—any unused genetic material goes toward stem cell research or, if viable, is used for artificial fertilization. It is your evolutionary imperative to pass on your genetics, after all. I've done it—I'm sure I have a few F1's out there, myself." There was a soft, rather mischievous chortle from Beast's shadow.
Charles, remembering again that Beast really was quite a bit younger than himself, resisted the urge to give in to a pained groan as he inevitably imagined a gaggle of fluffy blue toddlers clambering over some unfortunate family's furniture.
Perhaps Beast caught the edge of that thought, because Charles felt a wash of smug from the other mutant. "You have to admit they'd be cute if they looked like me," he chided.
Now Charles did groan. "You're terrible."
"Hey, so long as I don't have to deal with them," Beast reasoned.
Charles snorted, and ducked his head down in case Beast could see his smile in the glow of the torch. He examined what appeared to be a bottle full of yellowish dust—some sort of dried and ground fungus, apparently—before dropping it back into its paper partition and closing the box. He reached up carefully, balancing it between his hands to slide it back onto the shelf above.
Charles dropped his hands to the rims of his chair and moved forward, casting back into his borrowed memories for the next likely spot to search. The torch rested between his knees, made dark to preserve its batteries.
He came to a junction in the shelves, and, minding his elbows, Charles turned into that corner. The back of one wheel smudged into the face of a box and he grimaced; why didn't they design these places to be more wheelchair-friendly? Granted, they would perhaps lose a row of storage, and, well, no one really designed buildings to be navigable from a chair—but he couldn't believe that it would be easy for more than a single person to work on a given section of shelving even if they did have full use of their legs.
Still, at least it was fairly well-organized; despite the time that had passed, Hannah's memories seemed to still be accurate, and Charles could appreciate the elegant beauty of an efficient filing system.
He glanced down to rescue his torch—it had slipped, somewhat, and leaned precariously down between his shins—when Charles saw a flare of light, not his own, through the racks of the shelves. He reached out an ember's trail of thought to ask Hannah if she'd had any luck, and found—his tongue stuck dry to the roof of his mouth—nothing. There was no one else there, except…
Except that of course there was—Charles simply couldn't reach their mind.
They'd been found—or, at least, were about to be.
Beast, leave now, Charles commanded, tucking his unlit torch back between his thighs and hurrying to push further into the greater darkness between the stacks of boxes. Not that it would hide him, of course—no, the bounce and sweep of the other's light would see to that. We're not alone—get out of here, before they see you! And where was Hannah—he couldn't find her—how did she always manage to vanish—
Beast, at least, was there, and was not a fool—he did not linger to replace the open box on the floor, or waste time asking Charles for clarification. He was already moving, slinking away on silent, bare feet; faster than any person should be and still so quiet.
Charles continued to creep toward the back of the room, away from the door as another light joined the first and then did not move from its post—someone had taken position at the door. The door, Beast—!
I know, the other mutant growled, a crackling fury blurring the sense from the words. He was trying already; attempting to work around the mobile light to take the stationary guard by surprise, thinking that with any luck, they wouldn't see his face; that they would be too stunned to register the mane of blue all roused up to twice his real size—
Charles saw through Beast's eyes, saw the darkness in all its muted, buzzing grays—quite hauntingly beautiful, if he ever got the chance to witness it again—and he watched as Beast swept past an aisle, and as he halted to press himself against the end of a shelf as the torchlight swept by. Charles could do no more than ride along as Beast rushed down an empty row, a helpless passenger as suddenly it wasn't empty; there was another mutant there, a third intruder who did not carry a light, could evidently see in the dark as well.
Beast's mind took an instant's measure of the man: thin and reedy, easily overwhelmed through sheer momentum. Beast would simply angle his shoulder to catch him in the chest, knock him over and then—well. Do what had to be done.
So Beast bent down as he ran and Charles could feel his lips pulled back into a silent snarl, could feel the steep slant of his ears, could feel… Could feel… Was that a tongue? Had that man just, just opened his mouth and struck out with his—
Beast—and Charles, with him—felt the sting of its barb. For a moment the two of them together surged forward still; Beast's eyes were wide with the need to lash out, to hurt, to prove that he could not be so swiftly bested… But Charles knew, from his vantage, that Beast was moving on borrowed time; even as the leonine scientist pitched himself toward the other mutant Charles could feel him slowing; could see the sluggish gray fog moving in over the landscape of Beast's mind.
Charles fought it, or tried to—he drove his fingers into both his temples, squeezed his eyes shut, and pushed, urging those neurons to fire—and they did, thankfully, they did, because Beast was not after all dying—but so slowly. This was not a thing Charles could stop, and for a moment he had to marvel at it: now this is a sedative I could use—
Beast was not fast enough to outrun the numbness of the tranquilizer, no longer possessed the reflexes to adjust when the slimmer mutant stepped out of the way, and Charles resigned himself—he would have to make Beast forget again. Except that all of Charles' usual paths—that bit through the hippocampus that he liked so much—they were all clouding over now; retreating inaccessible into the mists and he had to make do, accomplish what he could with what remained.
There was no time to construct a falsehood, and anyway—what could Charles offer? He took threads, from here and there, weaving together a blankness; a glaring emptiness of possibility, inviting exploration. He could not make Beast forget, not really, but he could give the scientist a better lie—the best lie: one of Beast's creation, to convince himself of once he woke and wondered.
The smartest people were always the best at self-deception.
I'm sorry, my friend, Charles whispered, as he slipped from Beast's mind. For a moment he saw the face of the guard through Beast's eyes, leaning down in cocky curiosity, and felt—well—Beast had known the risks. The two of them were not, after all, so young as they were back before when they'd thought that Darwin had died and they had realized that even the most elegant plans were built to fail.
But now Charles had to worry about himself—because what could he do, against these people? Have a reasoned conversation with them over a cup of tea, explaining how he was really quite justified? No, that—that was not a viable solution, and he needed to leave, but… But where? He was trapped here, trapped and the guards were speaking to each other, calling out from too nearby:
"I got one, but not the guy we're looking for."
"A friend, or did we just get lucky?"
"Mm, 's'wearing a lab coat; could be with the professor."
Charles moved slowly, slowly deeper into the room; where could he go? He couldn't exactly hide in the corner—in the old days he might have considered climbing the shelves, but then he'd never had to deal with this in the old days, had he?
But Charles' hands wouldn't keep still, and finally he looked where he was going, and almost laughed—no; quiet—because he could see the baleful red light over the freezer—the walk-in freezer—and if there was anywhere that they might not check, might overlook, that would be it.
So Charles went faster, and caught himself into a stop at the handle of the freezer—backed away to pull it open and was grateful when no light rushed out to meet him. There were plastic drapes hanging over the doorway to keep the cold in, and as Charles shoved through them he heard: "say, did you hear—"
Then the rubber seal of the door sucked closed behind him and Charles hesitated; his lungs burned with his first breath. How cold was it? He could see, vaguely, in the dim red light; the shelves of ice-licked bottles like cave formations, solemn shapes stumbled upon by clumsy human eyes ill-adapted for anything less than daylight. The interiors of Charles' nostrils went dry.
There was a light-switch next to the door's release lever, and for a moment Charles had a mad, desperate desire to turn it on—a claustrophobic need to see, to reassure himself of the world's boundaries—but no; no, he wasn't safe here, not really, and they might still look—
Charles moved deeper into the freezer, around one of the racks of frozen samples, where his chair fitted neatly against the wall. There was barely a finger's thickness of space to either side of him and he tore his skin away from the dull icy grit of the metal. He wasn't well hidden, by any means, but he wasn't in the open at least.
Settling in to wait for as long as he could, Charles drew his legs up to his chest and hugged his arms around them, tucking his chin and nose between his knees and wedging his fingers in the press of thigh and calf. Lower surface-area-to-volume ratio, his mind whispered. Slow heat loss; delay hypothermia as long as possible.
The edges of Charles' ears seared. He regretted, for an instant, that his hair had been cut recently and no longer lay over them.
And then—though he desperately wanted to believe that it was only the rattle of the heat exchange overhead—he heard the door handle grasped from outside, tested, and then… The rubber peeled away from the doorframe and the red light was drowned out by gray, filtering in past the dark person-shaped outline Charles could see over the curve of his knee.
The man raised a hand and parted the plastic drapes; they slapped together in the sluggish cold and Charles heard the soft hiss of breath as the cold air hit the other's throat. There was a hard rapid staccato in his ears, horrifyingly loud, and for a dizzying moment Charles heard it as his heartbeat; urged himself: calm, calm, stay calm. But then—no, it was his watch, where it rested just outside of his coat sleeve, and the steady cascade of the unwinding mainspring was out there for anyone to hear.
Surely the guard must have felt its prick in his ear over the hum of the freezer, but Charles dare not move to muffle the timepiece because the man was looking around now, flashing the beam of his torch over the private glittering darkness of the shelves and bottles and he would surely see the movement—no, he must see Charles, because he was sitting right there, separated by no more than a thin frame of steel and glass. Charles could certainly see him clearly; the gleam of his eyes in the sudden reflected light. So close.
And yet… And yet, those eyes moved over Charles without pausing, without even registering; maybe because the guard didn't recognize Charles' shape with his legs up, or maybe because he didn't really expect to see Charles there and simply wanted to get out of the cold. Either way, the guard flicked his cone of light about the small metal room without any notice for the geneticist huddled less than two meters away and then left, letting the plastic drapes fall back into place and shutting the door behind him.
The latch clacked home and Charles still did not move; barely even breathed, though what did cross his lips crackled dry against his skin. He stretched out his mind, through the door—because he could feel through the door, vaguely; it wasn't shielded but there was no one to shield, or at least that was how it seemed. Where was Beast, now that he had been drugged and subdued? He should have been visible, at least. And where was Hannah? Charles hadn't spoken to her since—well, not for a while—and where had she gone? Had both been captured? Could—could Hannah have betrayed… But no, he would have sensed that.
Charles exhaled, finally releasing the unruffled air from the depths of his lungs. What about himself? Yes, it had all gone rather disastrously wrong—clearly someone had been sent to check on him in his rooms, or the guard at the top of the stairs hadn't been as lax as he'd appeared—but Charles himself had not truly been caught yet.
He shuddered, trembling out from his clenched abdomen to the points of his elbows. Charles was cold, yes; very cold, but—but he might have to let Beast take the fall for this. If Charles could get away, back up to his lab maybe, and stay to fight another day—shouldn't he? Even though… Even though Beast might be punished?
The twist in Charles' stomach had nothing to do with the temperature this time. What would happen to Beast? Covering his memories had been complicated, without a fully conscious mind to work with; it had been art, but that didn't mean that it had been effective. Frost might well notice them no matter what cunning ruse Beast could convince himself of. Even if she didn't—well, what then? He was a known sympathizer; out after hours in a place he wasn't meant to be. There was no way Beast could escape back to his work after nothing more than a few unkind words.
But he had known the risks; had volunteered for them, and had confidence in Charles. That confidence demanded, now, that Charles honor it—that he try what he could, no matter its efficacy. He would have to make an attempt to return, uncaptured, to his workstation.
In any event, Charles could not remain in the freezer.
He had begun to shiver in earnest now; the night previous did not compare to this cold, this greater stillness of molecules, and its seductive lethargy pulled at the heat of Charles' cells until the minuscule capillaries of his skin closed down in protest, hoarding warm blood at his core. Charles could not feel his ears anymore, and even the arch of his cheeks had gone numb.
Regardless of what might be waiting on the other side of that door, Charles had to move.
He unfolded from his tight ball with stiff joints, frowning at the thought: is this a sign of getting old? Except that was ridiculous—he wasn't quite thirty yet; he couldn't start thinking that way, especially not now. In any event, he wasn't frozen, not really, but he certainly felt the creak of his knees as he lowered his feet back to their rests, and his elbows complained as he pushed against his hand rims and hobbled his way over to the door.
Charles depressed the long steel rod that released the latch from within the freezer, and then—slowly, but still much too fast for his liking—he eased the door open, rubber seal peeling back with a noise of stubborn suction as the plastic flaps parted reluctantly around his arm. When there was a line of black down the edge of the door, Charles waited; he cast out his thoughts again, just in case, but those waters were just as dark and empty as those in his own mind.
There was nothing for it; the only way he would know whether it was safe or not was to actually venture out, to risk capture. And really, it wasn't as if he himself were in any danger—his cause, perhaps, but not Charles himself. He felt sure that Erik would not allow that; that even if the rest of the Brotherhood didn't know the nature of their relationship, they might guess the extent of it, and know better than to cause him harm.
With that in mind, Charles pushed out into the main of the storage room and looked around with his own eyes: there were no lights, no people that he could see.
He appeared to be quite alone. Still… Still, Charles was cautious as he ventured out between the shelves. He kept quiet, straining his eyes to peer into the shadows around him. There appeared to be nobody there, but Charles did not trust that fact; he did not indulge his arms' desire to wrap around his torso, and he clenched his teeth tightly together so that they did not clatter under the convulsion of his muscles as the blood returned to his skin to find its capillaries cold.
Charles felt sure that there would be more searchers nearby; it was not a matter of escaping capture so much as controlling where Charles allowed himself to be found, so it was with a patient creeping caution that Charles went to the storage room's door, glancing only briefly over at the box Beast had left out before their interruption, and opened it. As best he could, Charles leaned out and looked into the office space that lay between himself and the hallway. Again, he seemed to be alone, and he went untroubled from there to the frosted window of the hallway door.
When Charles opened that and still did not see or hear anyone, he felt a curling tendril of doubt, almost bordering on hurt—had they really moved on so easily, and so quickly? Could they have underestimated him because of the chair? Were they occupied with Beast's capture?
He could stay in the main part of medical storage, Charles knew—he didn't have to leave, now that he was no longer at risk of freezing. He could stay in the storage room until morning, if he needed to; he could leave before any of the workers arrived and then… Deal with the stairs, somehow.
No. He could probably manage the stairs better now, when the likelihood of passersby was less. Charles had considered it previously—had once considered crawling down the steps, to escape, but…
Charles wavered. He was on the ground floor now. Couldn't he leave? Hadn't that been his intention, back then?
No, he told himself. You've done too much to give up now. And anyway: there was Beast to consider.
Charles ventured out into the hall, cringing a little as his wheels again dug into the rich brown carpeting. Everything was as he remembered except that now he was on his own, moving with impatient wariness. He paused, once, when something on the wall caught his attention; his outstretched fingers hovered near to brushing over a long, thin red smear on the wall—almost a string of it; a perfect line of trajectory. It seemed too bright and unreal to be blood, surely—and anyway, Charles had been in a hurry, previously; it'd probably been there before. Probably. He hoped.
Stairs, Charles murmured to himself. He had to reach the stairs. If it was blood—if it was fresh—then, well, he wasn't sure that he wanted to know whose it was, or why. No distractions.
He saw no one the rest of the way, even when his chair again coasted over tile, and Charles wanted more and more to turn around, to go back to the storage room and wait there. Where was everyone? Who was supposed to be looking for him? And everything had been going so well…
Before Charles could change his mind, the stairway loomed before him like the spine of some great reclining animal. He could not help but move into that empty space; he could not help but pull up next to the bottom step and, with something of an ungainly tumble, fall down onto it hip-first.
Charles knocked at the joints of his chair until it folded, then fumbled his fist around one of the supports of the arm rest, tugging experimentally to be sure of his grip. Then, gingerly, Charles lifted himself up to the next step—pulled at the wheelchair—heaved himself up to the second step—
Charles panted through a grin as he perched nearly halfway up the stairs. He could do it; he could climb a flight of stairs unassisted. His one real cage, essentially useless now, and how much easier would it be to go down? All he had to do was reach the lab—he could claim that he'd never left, that they'd missed him somehow—he only had a little ways farther to go—
But then Charles heard the clack of brisk footsteps on tile, and he could not hurry fast enough to avoid seeing those shoes come into view beneath the stairwell ceiling. Another pair of shoes—boots, really—padded along shortly behind and soon enough Charles was smiling awkwardly down at Skink and Zeus as they gazed up the stairs at him. Neither of them returned the expression—or at least, not kindly.
"Oh, hello," Charles offered as they started to climb toward him, one along either wall. Skink wore a helmet, he noticed, and Zeus—Zeus was using his electricity to generate a shield, but not very well; Charles would be able to overcome it in a minute or two, maybe use the one to take out the other—take Skink's helmet off, erase his memory before they took him back—
"So, here we are, then. It's good to meet you here," Charles continued as they drew closer. "I suppose you've come to escort me back to my rooms?" And that was all right, really; it would give Charles time to melt through Zeus' mental barrier—to turn him against Skink and escape—except… Except…
"You're not here to take me back, are you," Charles stated, and was proud of how little his voice wavered as the pair closed in.
"Sure we are, love," Zeus reassured him absently, bringing his forefinger and thumb up to suck between his lips. They emerged gleaming wet and Charles leaned away. Just another minute, he thought; give me another minute… "Sure we are."
Then Zeus' hand wrapped around Charles' forehead, finger and thumb slick on either temple, and there was pain—astonishing pain piercing right through the bone—and a sound, like a struck bell that went on and on, until there was nothing else.
.
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