Quetzal gradually and reluctantly rose out of unconsciousness. She kept her eyes closed against the light and tried to evaluate her surroundings. Once again she was strapped to a bed with medical restraints. After a few seconds the noises around her resolved into voices and then words.

"Look at the CAT scan. Her brain is incredibly primitive. These large areas here are for sensory input. These smaller areas are where the information is processed. In a human this is reversed. With much larger portions dedicated to processing information."

I did not know that about myself. Heat patterns around her were starting to resolve in a way that made sense. A room of people, some carrying weapons, some were probably doctors. There was something heavy around her neck. I don't like this. How am I going to get out of this? I don't have anything to keep back.

The woman continued to go on about Quetzal's brain function. "With brain structure like this she's probably got a very low IQ. If we tested her I imagine we would find she is severely mentally retarded."

Flipping Heck! – That's my out!

"I don't know," said a voice of dissent. Quetzal could hear the frown in his voice. "It doesn't seem like something the X-men would do. Taking a disabled child into combat."

"That 'child' is hardly a creature in need of protection. She took out six of our men in New York and actively killed four here. Three more are dying of infections that our antibiotics can't keep up with. That doesn't count the other injuries she inflicted. And the reports from her capture are clear. Even as far as mutants go she's barely human. They were likely using her as some kind of tracker."

A third voice. "I think she's waking up."

Now is as good a time as any. Quetzal opened her eyes. She looked around the room. Given the amount of weapons in the room she decided to play the compliant child.

"Hello," she smiled nervously.

The doctor leaned over her with a wide smile. "Hello there. What's your name?"

Quetzal looked away. "Not supposed to talk to strangers," she muttered. "Dad says."

"Well, I am Dr. Norris. You know what a doctor does right?" The woman's voice was low and soothing, downright friendly with only the slightest hint of her hatred for mutants.

"Doctor makes you better," Quetzal said softly, still avoiding the woman's eyes. She didn't have to feign her nervousness.

"That's right. I'm trying to make you better. So I'm not really a stranger. So tell me your name."

"Quetzal dos Santos."

"Well Quetzal, you got hurt pretty bad didn't you?"

"Yeah."

"Can you tell us what you were doing here?"

"We're looking for Miss Jean." Quetza forced a smile. "Do you know where she is."

"I'm sure we can find her. Frank, will you take Quetzal here down to the registration area. LEt's get her set up with a bed and some food. Would you like that Quetzal?"

"Yes'm," Quetzal said softly, wanting to rip out the woman's throat.Staying meek and vacant was going to be hard. Let's hope all that community theater pays off.

Quetzal leaned against the wall and contemplated her situation, careful to maintain her vacant, cheerful expression. Four days so far and the situation just seemed increasing desolate. Wolverine was being kept in a triple-max facility but the others had power-negating collars and were being put to work finishing construction of the compound with the other captive mutants. She was put to janitorial work, mopping and sweeping. She pretended it was the most she was capable of. Quetzal's work was pretty easy and gave her access to most of the base, and it was amazing what people said and left around when they thought she was too stupid to understand. But it kept her segregated from the other X-Men.

It was while she was collared that Quetzal confirmed something her dad had speculated about. Several of her talents were inherent, not the result of the x-factor gene the collars deactivated. She could still see heat and her ability to taste things in the air remained.

The implications didn't bother Quetzal. She'd always known that she was a construct and that her humanity was built into her as window dressing. Her dad was blunt with the truth when it came to his kids and had been frank with Quetzal about what she was for as long as she could remember. Besides, whatever was intended when her designers made Chimeras look human, her humanity did run deeper than her skin. She had sentience, she had morals, she had a soul; and all that was human enough for Quetzal. No matter what her genetics looked like, or what these anti-mutant idiots thought, she was human. God's special creature and daddy's little angel.

And at the moment she was approximating the situation she was designed for: a small scale incursion against an enemy that completely underestimated her. She just had to gather enough information to know where to ply her strengths against the compound's weaknesses.

Thinking about it in terms of being the viper nestled against the chest of the Genoshans made it easier to keep from completely freaking out when she woke up every morning to find herself with a heavy collar around her neck. Certainly the X-men were making their own plans to escape. But she was sequestered from them. She would make her own plans. Probably theirs would work first, but she couldn't sit idly by. She had never felt so claustrophobic in her life.

Cautiously she tested each talent. The very last thing she needed was anyone paying close attention to her. Changing forms was impossible so flight was completely out of the question. However her ability to hibernate remained; there were some definite possibilities there. In a hibernating state her heartbeat was so slow and shallow that her pulse was almost impossible to find. And she could still hold her breath for a good ten minutes with her heart that slow. It'd be easy to make them think she was dead.

It wouldn't do any good to fake her death inside the compound. Some paranoid nut had set a policy that all bodies were dosed with a lethal amount of potassium before cremation. But the collars were very expensive and removed before the bodies went in the oven.

And the collars had tracking devices, so she couldn't just make a run for it either.

"What are you doing Quetzal?" she heard one of the guards say.

"Hello!" she chirped. "I'm watching the birds!"

"Well you should be sweeping out the offices."

"Okay!" Quetzal beamed and scurried off to meet the rest of the cleaning crew. It was a group of mentally handicapped mutants who were deemed to be nonthreatening. She did her best to imitate them.

In the offices Quetzal dragged the broom across the floor without enthusiasm. Her attention perked up when she saw Beast being escorted down the hall.

"Fuzzyman!" she squealed and launched herself on him, wrapping him in a hug.

"Quetzal?" He was nervous around the armed guards but hugged her back. "Dear god, what did they do to you?"

Quetzal grinned and rapped her knuckles against her head. "I'm a cuckoo. Remember? I'm just a little cuckoo chick. I'm gonna keep being a little cuckoo chick." Then she went back to pick up her broom before he did anything that might give her ruse away. Maybe he would get the message.

Hank was horrified by what he had seen. He had been watching Quetzal as he was walked down the hall. Something had happened to her mental faculties. She was having problems remembering directions on where she was supposed to sweep. Her expression was vacant and her eyes were blank. The only time they lit up was when she spoke to him.

Scott was equally upset. "We shouldn't have taken her with us. She's just a kid."

"She's a cuckoo," Hank frowned. "She said she was a cuckoo."

"So they've told her she was crazy."

"I wonder," Hank said. "Maybe she hasn't been damaged. She said she was a cuckoo. A cuckoo chick."

"And the significance to that?"

"A cuckoo lays her egg in another bird's nest. When the cuckoo chick hatches it shoves out all the other chicks. The mother bird is completely fooled by the intruder that kills her chicks."

"So what?"

"Maybe she means she's not what she seems. Maybe she's managed to infiltrate their nest."

"Then we need to find a way to talk to her."

The plan struck Quetzal fully formed as soon as she saw Toad. A way to get outside the fence and get the collar off. She smiled broadly and went back to dragging her mop across the floor, unable to keep herself from whistling cheerfully.

Daddy always said that if you needed a fall guy you couldn't do better than Toad.

"What are you so happy about songbird?" the guard asked her.

Quetzal winked at him. "Tomorrow is going to be a great day."

Strong hands pulled Toad into a dark corner, one clamped over his mouth and the other was around his neck. He was shoved against a wall and his assailant started frisking him.

"Hey, how 'bout you buy me a drink first," he tried to jerk away as the hand ran up the inside of his leg. The hand holding the back of his collar gave him another shove into the wall.

"Shut the hell up," at least the voice was female. "One noise out of you and you're cat food. The cameras don't cover this corner." Satisfied he wasn't wired or a threat, she turned him around.

"I know you, you're that feeble cleaning girl who –" his face flared in pain when she slapped him.

"Watch your mouth," she hissed. "Now I've got a plan to get out of here, but I need a little help. You're it."

"What makes you think I'll help you?"

"One, I'll get you out of here. Two, if you don't, I'm going to snuff you. I've got a sweet deal going on and I can't afford to have it compromised." The look in her eyes was cool and predatory and Toad had little doubt that she would kill him if given an excuse. He recognized her as the particular breed of killer that was born that way.

"When are we going?"

"I have a few arrangements to make first. I'll let you know," she said. "And remember, should you get the urge to squeal like a rat, I'm the feeble cleaning girl. They won't believe you." She smiled brilliantly and it echoed something familiar that sent a chill down his spine. "And they won't find your body either."