September 3, 1974
"You wanna go to this one?" Warren asked.
Jean looked at the title of the conference and frowned.
"It's just another genetics class," she said, "We already have plenty of those."
"Might be interesting to have another point of view on it," Warren said.
Jean shook her head.
"This is our last class before we have to go meet Moira," she said, "I don't want to waste it on something I've already heard."
"Okay, okay," Warren said.
He gestured around them.
"Where do you want to go then?" he asked.
Jean frowned and looked at the list of lectures.
"How about McCoy and Baulson vs. the FDA?" she asked.
Warren grinned.
"Now who wants to listen to something we've already heard?" Warren asked.
"Apparently it talks about the application of mutant rights in the workplace," Jean said, "And how they're considering adding a specific amendment to the constitution concerning mutants."
Warren paused.
"Okay," he said, "That one actually sounds interesting."
Jean nodded.
"I thought you would like that one," she said.
She looked further down the hall. Everyone was filtering into the different rooms. She grabbed Warren's arm, trying to hurry him along.
"I think it's down here," she said.
Warren blinked at her, and Jean suddenly realized that she was still holding onto his arm. She wanted to blush and let go. It was the first time that they had even casually touched since she had gotten together with Scott. However, she had to pretend that things weren't weird. It was the only way that she could get through everything.
"Come on," she said, "We're going to be late."
She dragged him slightly. He hurried to keep up with her.
"You're excited," he said.
She shrugged.
"I wouldn't want to miss anything," she said.
Sinister looked at his watch, licking his lips as he waited. It was so close, all of it was just within his reach. All he had to do was wait a little longer.
"Permission to move in sir?"
The crackle from the radio was annoying. He felt like it was destroying the rhythm, the aura of delicious anticipation.
"No," he hissed, "I'll tell you when."
He had to be precise. There couldn't be any delays to destroy his perfect plan. It had to run like clockwork, perhaps a bit more to his liking than the watch though. He couldn't afford to have anything go wrong. To his delight he saw the final second tick by. He looked over the conference hall and smiled.
"Now," he said.
"-and we believe that the changes in the human genome first started making themselves known in the late 1940's."
Lorna looked away from the presentation, bored. She couldn't believe that it was standing room only for this presentation. She felt the urge to go up to the presenter and tell him that he was an idiot, that mutants had been around for much longer than the 1940's. He wasn't even counting the Invaders, and she knew for a fact that certain members of that team had been mutants.
However, she knew that drawing attention to herself would be a bad idea. She had already told Lance to keep a low profile: she couldn't go around contradicting herself so blatantly. At the same time she wondered if she should include the presenter's lack of knowledge in the final report to her father. It was certainly telling.
She yawned and shifted her feet. She gazed out the window. As she did she thought she saw movement. Lorna frowned and edged a little closer to the window. She could have sworn that she had seen someone standing there. Lorna continued to look at the spot, but she couldn't see anything move.
However, she decided to watch for a little longer. Azazel had always taught her to search for longer than anyone would expect. She'd found out more things about the way that people hid and concealed themselves by watching for an extra minute than she had in all of her classes with the Brotherhood.
She saw another flicker of movement. Suspicious, she crept up to the window. She could hear Lance's footsteps falling on the ground beside her. She jerked her head towards the window. Lorna ran her fingers alongside the frame, feeling for the metal. She felt it and forced the window open, peering outside.
"Excuse me, miss?"
Lorna ignored the presenter. She leaned out the window. With her vantage point she was able to see the heavily armed soldier who stood there. For a minute they stared at each other. Then he leveled his gun. Lorna scoffed. It was made of metal. She flexed her fingers and the gun crunched in on itself.
She stepped back from the window and willed the metal towards her. It was time to stop being subtle. The solider barely fit through the window frame. He crashed onto the floor, scattering the audience. He slammed into the floor and Lorna walked up to him, Lance trailing her closely.
Lorna kneeled down next to the guard and grabbed him by the front of his collar. She pulled his face close to hers.
"Alright asshole," she said, "I'm going to ask you this once. Who are you? FOH? Sapien League? Huh?"
The man started to laugh. Lorna glared at him.
"I can kill you right now you know," Lorna said, "Half your gear is a playground for me, do you understand that? Who are you and where are the rest?"
He laughed again. A moment later the window on the other side of the room shattered, and three more soldiers crashed in. Lorna reached out for the metal in their guns, but to her surprise found very little. She snarled to herself. It seemed like the soldier she had attacked was the exception for weaponry. Why were people learning so fast about metal guns?
They still weren't thinking about their environment though. They were in a room full of folding chairs. Metal ones. The chairs began levitating around the room, battering the soldiers. Lorna had to direct them so that they were gentle enough so the soldiers didn't die, she might need them for information later and their deaths would be unnecessary, but it was easy.
As she finished she realized that she hadn't received any help. She looked over to see that Lance was pinning down the first soldier. Everyone else had fled the room. Although some of them had been humans, some had been mutants. They could have fought back, but they had chosen to run instead.
The thought made her angry, but she had to forget it. Lorna pulled off her blonde wig and tossed it on the floor. She knelt by the first soldier again.
"Tell me," she asked, "who are you working for?'
He shook his head.
"The future," he said.
"Wrong answer," Lance snarled.
Lorna looked at the man in front of him. She understood the glint of a fanatic when she saw it. She had learned to tell a true fanatic from one that would crack. They weren't going to learn anything from him without the aid of serious torture. Lorna wasn't going to cross that line for a foot soldier.
She lashed out with her fist, knocking him out. She guided the metal chairs around the room, turning them into bindings for the soldiers. Lorna got to her feet and walked to the window. She looked down and saw several other soldiers advancing towards the building, shoving protesters out of their way.
Lorna pulled herself back.
"We need to get our gear," she said, "And then we need to find the others. Right now."
The noise was almost deafening. Jean was sure that she could hear shooting further down. Someone knocked her to the ground. She struggled to get to her feet and avoid people who seemed more than willing to trample her. She felt an arm grab hers and pull her to her feet before jerking her into a side hallway.
She looked up at Warren, who peered at the flood of people.
"Something's gone really wrong," he said.
"You're telling me," Jean said.
She swallowed and looked down at herself. She was wearing a pencil skirt with a pretty but professional blouse. Jean had been wearing heels at one point, but they had been lost in the ensuing stampede. Warren was wearing a suit that was now torn, the fabric rumpled almost beyond recognition.
It was not an ideal situation.
"Warren, we don't have our uniforms," she said.
He nodded. It was more than just the protective cloth that they were without. They were without their utility belts, filled with an array of lock picks and flares. They were without radios, without any real way to contact their back up, which was now miles away instead of being close.
"Kind of makes me nostalgic for the Danger Room sessions," he said.
"Right now we're in a danger center," Jean said.
She looked around the conference center. The flood of people heading for the exit hadn't been stymied.
"Do you think you can contact the Professor?" Warren asked.
"My range isn't that good. I'd need to find a quiet place to concentrate, and this definitely doesn't fit the bill," Jean said.
"Alright," Warren said.
He looked at the fleeing people at the end of the hall. Soldiers were gathering there to try to block the exit. They shot into the air and the people stopped, looking frozen.
"What's our next move?" he asked.
Jean swallowed.
"We need to figure out a way to contact the others," Jean said, "Emergency protocol."
She bit her lip.
"Then we need to find Moira."
Moira leaned back in her chair and checked her watch. Warren and Jean would be arriving in half an hour. She needed that time to calm herself down. She had quietly gone to another room to get her feelings under control after she'd returned to teh center. It felt almost as though she were about to be sick just thinking of what waited her back in Westchester.
One of the windows to her left shattered. She immediately ducked and rolled under the table. Moira heard each consecutive window shatter, one after the other. A few pieces of glass skitted their way beneath the table cloth. Moira closed her eyes and put her hands over her head until it was over.
When the noise ceased she moved to the edge of the table. Moira wondered if the noise had something to do with the protesters she had seen begin to gather outside of the conference. Seeing a group of heavily armed soldiers was not what she had expected. Moira watched them as they began to surround the other chaperones and a few of the early students who had come into the dining room. She saw a group of wait staff backed into a corner.
A hand grabbed her wrist and she was jerked into the open air. A soldier stared at her with amusement. Moira didn't waste time. She reached behind her for a table setting. They hadn't put out steak knives, which was a pity in hindsight, but something was better than nothing. After a second she came up with the fork. It wasn't perfect, but in some ways it was better than the butter knife. At least this had some prongs on it.
She stabbed it into his wrist. He howled and let go. Moira dropped to the floor and kicked him in the legs. He fell and Moira slammed her elbow into his throat, knocking the breath from his lungs and sending his eyes rolling to the back of his head. She got to her feet, only to find another soldier pointing a gun at her.
Moira glared at him, panting. She curled her hands into fists.
"Now now, we don't want to damage the data. Now- goodness, is that Moira Xavier?"
Moira whipped around. Red and black eyes stared at her and she felt her breath catch in her throat.
"They killed you," Moira said, "Twice."
"They tried," Sinister said, "Now, I must admit, I didn't see this coming. A Westchester faculty member, here for my little party."
His eyes lit up and he grinned.
"How wonderfully exciting."