Chapter 16

The repercussions came faster than Gambit had expected. He'd hoped for at least fifteen minutes between when the X-Jet landed on Avalon station and when Piotr figured out that Kitty wasn't on it. It seemed that there had been some radio or telepathic communication in the half-hour he'd been unconscious, because when he, Hank, and Ray descended from the plane, there was a crowd pouring into the re-pressurized hangar, composed of one very big, very angry Russian and a couple dozen other people who didn't know what was about to happen but wanted to be there to see it.

"WHERE IS SHE?"

Gambit held his hands up in surrender, for all the good it did him. Piotr could swing punches that would send even Logan reeling. Gambit heard several people shouting in the fractions of a second before the punch connected with the side of his head. He ducked, but twenty years of thieves' training weren't enough to get him out of the way in time. Every sense whited out with pain. He caught himself before he hit the floor, landing in a crouch with part of his weight supported on one hand, and waited there for everything to stop spinning.

"You left her behind . . . you ran to save your own skin, you filthy coward!"

On previous occasions in Gambit's life when he had Colossus had resorted to physical violence as a means of conflict resolution, one punch had usually been enough to settle whatever score had been between them. This precedent meant that Gambit was completely unprepared when the next blow landed, as he was trying to stand up. He hit the side of the plane, seeing stars.

His hand found the staff in his inside pocket. It whipped out, almost of its own accord, and diverted a third punch barely in time.

"He left Kitty behind."

"What? He wouldn't do that!"

"Where is she? Is she okay?"

"I wouldn't've left her," Gambit protested, dodging away from the plane so he had more room to stay clear of Colossus. "I couldn't . . ."

Another punch. He brought his staff up to block it, but his arms nearly buckled under the force.

"She was your teammate!"

"We gon' get her back!"

"You were supposed to be the great thief," block, "the professional," block, "so why would you leave a teammate behind? Was it because he told you to?"

From somewhere beyond Gambit's very fuzzy peripheral vision, Magneto's voice observed, "It's gratifying to know that under stress we're all acting rationally, displaying charity and compassion. Score one for Charles's utopia."

Gambit caught another blow, a glancing hit to his ribcage that knocked at least some of the wind out of him. He lashed back, whipping the end of his staff at the side of Colossus's head to win a split-second of recovery time.

It was like hitting granite. Taking out Colossus simply required more force than Gambit's arms could produce. He just shook off the blow like Gambit had never even hit him. "Half an hour this morning he spent in private conversation with Magneto, and tonight he leaves Kitty behind at the first sign of danger!"

"Call me traitor," Gambit hissed. "Go on, do it."

The cloud of murmuring, questioning voices still pressed around him.

"He wouldn't . . ."

"Professor Xavier would have known."

"The Professor can't read him."

"Telepaths can't read him."

"Didn't he lose his staff in the fight?"

"Rogue would have—"

"Kitty—"

"If the Professor and Jean can't read him—"

"Was it a trap?"

"Who would have known they were coming?"

"I didn't think anything could catch Kitty."

"Couldn't he have gotten her out?"

"If they can't read him, how can we know . . ."

Colossus was coming at him again, and he knew with sickening clarity that he couldn't take one more hit. His thumb found the second button in the middle of the staff, and the wicked, curved blades sprang free. They sang like Wolverine's claws. Colossus pulled up short, the bright edge of the raised blade inches from his neck.

"Where'd he get that?" demanded the disembodied voices. "I've never seen that." "Could his staff do that?"

"Already flaunting your wages," Colossus snarled.

"If I'd sold out de X-Men," Gambit hissed back, feinting a jab with the bladed staff when Colossus tried to move closer, "I'd be chargin' a lot more dan dis. My loyalty don't come dat cheap."

"But it is for sale."

He was armoring up. Gambit went for his cards.

"STOP IT!"

The voice was Storm's. Blinding light sliced between Gambit and Colossus, a guided overload in the electrical system. When the spots in his vision cleared, Storm was standing between them, one hand raised to each of them and her eyes white.

"STAND DOWN," she commanded. "You are X-Men. Stand down this instant or surrender your badges."

It wasn't an empty threat. With Scott out of action, Storm was field commander, and if she demanded their Institute marks, they were done.

Gambit killed the charge in the cards he held, letting them scatter harmlessly onto the floor. The blades whipped back into the staff and the staff collapsed in on itself. Colossus's armor plates receded, and he stood at parade rest.

"I don't know how this happened," Storm continued as her pupils reappeared, "and right now, I don't care. If Kitty is gone, then get her back. Understood?"

Gambit nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

"Good. And what about your mission?"

Gambit dove into his pocket and tossed the USB drive at Storm. "Le voilà," he spat. "Yo' goods, delivered as ordered. An' she might have traded her life for it, so mind y'don'leave it lyin' around."

He left the hangar, warily, making sure to stay out of Colossus's range and not making eye contact with Magneto, whose gaze he could feel burning into the side of his head. "Where's de professor?" he asked of the group in general, which was giving him a wide berth on the way out.

"Upstairs," said Bobby, "still working on the new Cerebro with Forge."

"We still got dat untraceable phone?"

"I think so."

"Good. I gon'be on it."

He left without a backwards glance, his face and ribs throbbing with pain and anger and humiliation. His friends. Those people back there were his friends.

Or they had been.

"Hey, Gambit?"

He spun on his heel, too quickly, and Lance jumped. He'd followed him out into the corridor. "What?"

He knew Lance was scared of him; he'd given the younger boy good reason, back when he'd been in Magneto's employ. Lance had obviously not forgotten. But he kept talking, regardless. "If there's anything I can do to help, man, to save her . . . I'm not exactly covert ops, but if you need anything shaken into a million pieces, you know who to call."

Gambit gave him a glance-over. "What you wearin', Alvers?"

Lance glanced down at himself. Somebody had given him a gray Institute uniform, the standard-issue kind the younger students wore. He shrugged. "I didn't bring a change of clothes."

Gambit allowed the corner of his mouth to twitch in ironic amusement. "Wearin' de X don't make you one a'dem. Take it from me."

"Wake up, Mutie. Your lawyer's here."

Scott jolted awake; his eyelids quivered, but his makeshift bandage held them down. He rolled off the mattress and felt around for the slip-on sneakers he'd been given as part of his oh-so-stylish prison uniform. He didn't even know what color it was. Probably orange.

The voice outside continued, "Come to the door, turn your back, and put your hands through the door slot."

"Okay. I'm coming. Hold on." Once the shoes were on, he stood up and followed the wall around to the door. Finding the slot, he turned and offered up his hands and felt the cuffs click into place. The left one was about one click too tight and was uncomfortable, but he didn't mention it. Probably wasn't any point.

The guard escorted him (which was nice; having a hand on his shoulder kept him from running into walls) out of the cell block. Though he wasn't planning on escaping from this place, he still counted off his steps, memorizing the building's layout in his head. It was something Logan had trained into him, back in the old days . . . how to pull information from his other senses, in case there ever came a day when he wouldn't have the glasses to save him. He'd griped about the training regimen at the time—he'd been thirteen; he griped about everything—but Jean had cheerfully done all the drills with him, which suddenly made training his favorite part of the day. And what Logan had taught him had saved his life more than once. So he counted off the steps, out of habit and loyalty and trust in his teacher's judgment.

The guard brought him into a smaller room (small and bare-walled; he could tell by the sound) and left him inside, locking the door behind him. Scott stood still, preferring to wait for some kind of input instead of stumbling all over a space he didn't know with his hands tied behind his back.

"Mr. Summers?" It was a man's voice; there were footsteps that accompanied it, coming towards him. "I'm Jeremy Royal; I'm your lawyer."

Scott bobbed his head in lieu of a handshake. "Nice to meet you, but what happened to the guy I was talking to last night?"

"Oh, your court-appointed defense attorney?" asked the other, with a little hint of patronizing laughter in his voice. "He's been supplanted. Royal, Baker, and Harrison are about the best trial lawyers that can be had for love or money, and we're at your disposal courtesy of Mr. Warren Worthington, the Third."

"Warren?" Scott repeated. "Warren sent you guys?"

"Called me at three this morning. He says, and I quote, 'Knock 'em dead.' I assume he meant it as a metaphor."

"Let's hope," Scott laughed. "Man, I owe Warren the favor of the century."

"Yes, you do," Royal agreed. "Have a seat. You need a hand?"

"Yes, please." He felt a steadying hand on his elbow, which led him to a hard plastic chair.

"I like the eyes, by the way. Very Oedipus."

"Wasn't what I was going for, but I guess it could be worse."

He heard the squeak of the chair across from him as Royal sat down. "You're being moved to a facility in Manhattan in about an hour, so we don't have much time to talk. Three points that need to be covered: first, what happened; second, where are the others; and third, what about your glasses?"

"I'll tell you everything you want to know about questions one and three," Scott told him, "but I'm going to have to tell you flat-out: I'm not telling you, or anyone, where my teammates are. It's life and death."

"That's a little melodramatic, don't you think?"

"You won't think so after I answer question one. I will say that they're out of the country . . . way out. But the whole point of this thing is to keep them safe, so that information goes with me to the grave. That okay with you?"

Royal sighed. "We'll work with it. But there goes plea bargaining. So how about question one?" Scott heard a rapid series of clicks: a pen being prepped for action.

"Okay. Well, the house went into lockdown at about three a.m. . . ."

"Pause. Back up. Your house has lockdown?"

Jeremy Royal was quick, but he was thorough. For everything Scott told him, he had at least two clarifying questions. And he began to be very, very glad that he was recounting this story this way, and not straight-off to a judge and jury, because as he talked he began to realize, as he hadn't for a long time, just how weird his life would look to an outsider. He had to explain why he knew what everyone in the house had been thinking during the entire raid, how his college-freshman housemate had "handled" two marine combat helicopters and a missile launcher, why Storm slept in the attic and Kitty had to fly Velocity, what the purpose of the Danger Room was and why they'd left it in ruins behind them.

"Can you be absolutely sure?" Royal asked, his pen scratching furiously, as he swung back to the crux of the matter. "From what you're saying, things got pretty loud pretty fast. Are you absolutely positive that you were never placed under official arrest . . . never given a chance to surrender?"

"One hundred percent positive."

"Were you contacted by any law enforcement or military agency before the raid? Served with a warrant, maybe?"

"Never once. We were waiting for it, hoping, but there was never any word at all."

"Good. Well, not good. But it gives us a lot to work with. We're almost out of time, so . . ." The pen clicked a few times again. "Your eyes. Did you ever have a formal prescription for the glasses you wear?"

"No. They were custom designed by Professor Xavier and Dr. MacTaggart."

"Who?"

"Moira MacTaggart, of the Muir Island Research Institute in Scotland."

"Do you know how to contact her?"

"I did. Her home was raided the same night. She and her husband are on the run somewhere. They're not with my team, that's all I know."

"Do the powers cause you pain?"

"No, not directly."

"Are you going to suffer any long-term damage from not having your glasses?"

"I don't think so. Before they were made, I was stuck like this for about three months. Unless I walk off a cliff, I should be okay."

"We're going to do what we can to get them back to you, but don't get your hopes up too high. Without a prescription or a medical reason, it's going to be hard to convince a judge to give you something that could be interpreted as a weapon so easily."

"Everyone in here would be a lot safer if I had them on."

"Don't say that to anybody else. It sounds like a threat."

"I know it does," Scott sighed. "I've never been able to get that sentence to come out right."

"I knew what you meant. Can you read Braille?"

"Yes, I can. I'm out of practice, but I can manage."

There was a sharp triple tap of knuckles on a metal door. "And now for a word from our sponsors," Royal deadpanned. "I'll see you in New York for the arraignment."

"Looking forward to it."

Rogue and Kurt both slept later than they meant to. When Rogue rolled out of bed and padded, barefoot, out into the living room, Kurt was still sprawled on the big white couch with his eyes closed and his mouth open. He had one leg kicked up over the back of the sofa and a fleece blanket twisted around his torso. Warren was in the kitchen, frying things that smelled greasy and maple-y and good.

"Good morning," he called over his shoulder. "I didn't want to wake you guys, so I called in sick to work."

Rogue combed her mass of heavy tangled curls back off her face. "Ah kinda figured rich guys didn't have to call in sick."

"I'm not rich enough that I don't have to call in. Just rich enough that when I do, nobody believes me but I get away with it anyway. Well, mostly. My father will probably decide to check on me, but he's a late riser, too. You two should be long gone by then."

Rogue couldn't think of anything to say to this, so she turned back to the living room to shake Kurt awake. She'd already reached for his shoulder before realizing she had no gloves on; they were still on the nightstand in the guest room. She picked up a pillow instead and poked him with it. "Kurt, wake up. There's breakfast."

Kurt muttered, moaned, rolled over, fell off the couch, ported back onto it, and sat up. "Breakfast?"

Breakfast was substantial; by Warren's own admission, it was the one thing he could cook. While they'd been asleep, somebody had delivered a plethora of useful things: a change of clothes for each of them, a pair of backpacks, a prepaid cell phone, a debit card with a four-digit PIN on a post-it stuck to the back.

"Don't be shy about the card," Warren instructed, "but don't go crazy, either. Visa's gonna start asking awkward questions if you buy a yacht."

"Like 'What did he do with the yacht he bought last month?'" Rogue asked.

"Sure, take a stab at the rich guy. We're easy targets."

"Can anybody track us through this?" Kurt asked, flipping through the instructions on how to activate the phone.

"I don't think so. But keep it turned off when you're not using it, just in case."

"Ah really don't know how tuh thank you for all this, Warren," Rogue told him.

"Just save the world and we'll call it even."

"Zat's our job," said Kurt, clicking the battery case off the back.

Rogue tossed him the debit card. "Activate that, would ya? Ah gotta brush my teeth or Ah'm gonna kill somebody."

By the time this was accomplished, Kurt had gotten both phone and card working and was ignoring the massive amounts of breakfast available to him . . . very strange, for Kurt . . . to type in a number.

"You be careful who you're callin'," Rogue warned.

"I just want to talk to Amanda."

"Don't you tell her where we are."

He pointed at himself with one finger of his free two-fingered hand. "Not stupid."

The phone started ringing. Rogue turned away, embarrassed to eavesdrop on Kurt and Amanda's private conversation but unsure how to leave without being obvious.

"I just vant to make sure she's okay," Kurt continued. "She doesn't have a class this—"

There was a click. The volume was up too loud on the phone; Rogue and Warren could both hear every word. "Hello?"

"Amanda?" Kurt asked.

"Kurt!"

Rogue whipped around, all pretense of not listening abandoned. There was something way beyond strain in Amanda's voice, too sharp and tense to be explained even by worry for Kurt's safety. The others could hear it, too; Warren's wings raised up, arched and slightly open, and the fur on the back of Kurt's neck rose like that of an angry cat.

"Are you okay?" Amanda hissed through the phone. "Tell me you're okay!"

"I am; I'm okay. What's wrong?"

"They took me out of class yesterday . . . two guys in suits, they showed me their i.d.s, they had the Marines logo on them . . . they asked me a bunch of questions about you and the team, and I tried not to tell them anything, but they might have guessed stuff, and now . . ." Her voice dropped to a hiss. "There was a car parked up the street from my house all night, and somebody I didn't know hanging around outside my class this morning. I think I'm being watched, Kurt . . . I don't know what to do . . ."

Kurt gripped the phone with both hands. "Amanda, listen. It's going to be okay. Ve're coming to get you, okay? Ve're gonna get you out. Sit tight. I'm coming. I promise."

"Please hurry. I'm scared."

"I know. Just stay calm. Hang up and erase zis number."

"Okay. I love you."

"I love you."

The call cut off.

Kurt looked up and met his sister's eyes. Rogue shot a glance to Warren, including him in the circle of their worry rather than letting him spiral in his own.

"You know she's bait," she observed at last.

"Yeah," said Kurt.

"You know they're waiting for you to come after her."

"Yeah."

Rogue sighed. She knew what they had to do . . . what she would do without stopping to think if the circumstance were hers to face. "We'll figure it out. But we'd better get going. We've got a lot of ground to cover."

"Who is she?" Warren asked.

"His girlfriend," Rogue told him. "She's a friend of the team, and besides, she knows a lot more about the X-Men than Ah want the CIA knowin', or the Marines or whoever."

"Okay. Call me when you get her out. If I don't hear from you by tomorrow, I'm sending the lawyers to find out what they did with you."

"Thanks." Rogue turned back to Kurt; he was still sitting motionless on a bar stool. "Kurt," she started gently. When he didn't look at her, she tried again, louder. "Kurt."

Still no response. Rogue took a deep breath—she hadn't tried this for a couple of weeks, and with her nerves shot all to heck the move was dangerous—forced all the stress and worry and wanting out of her system, and gripped Kurt's shoulder with her bare hand. He jumped and his eyes snapped back into focus.

"Eat breakfast," she ordered. "Ah'm gonna get dressed. Then we're gone. We're gonna find the rest of the names on the list, and then we're gonna get Amanda, and then we make the rendezvous and get everybody out of here. Okay?"

"Okay." Kurt glanced down at the hand on his shoulder. "That's, um, tingling . . ."

Rogue snatched her hand away. "Sorry." She gave her head a shake, seeing if she'd accidentally absorbed any of him. Better not try that again today. "Just . . . don't worry. We're gonna get Amanda. Ah promise."

"Oh, I know." Kurt's gentle, playful gray eyes were suddenly hard and fierce. "And I know just how ve're going to do it."

"Look at that," Logan ordered. "You see that?"

Jean looked up where he was pointing. It strained her neck; she'd been looking down at her feet, trying to pick out a path on the wooded uphill slope, for what had to be hours now. "See what? I don't see anything."

"Right there, about fifteen feet up. Can you get up there?"

Jean lifted herself off the ground and shot up along the tree trunk he was indicating. It was a tall, straight, massive pine, with snow caked against the north side of it. But where the reddish, scaly bark was still visible, she saw what he was looking at.

"They're cuts," she called to him. She reached around herself and awkwardly fished a pen light out of the side pocket of her backpack. She twisted its beam into a tiny, sharp line and shone it into the hole. "Deep. Maybe an inch long, about two inches apart."

"Look just below your knee. See another one?"

She dropped. "Yeah. This one's horizontal, and a little wider than the other, I think."

"That's her. She's been here. We're on the right track."

Jean dropped out of the air a little faster than she needed to, just for the childish pleasure of landing in a pile of snow. Brushing herself off, she asked, "She's got a . . . a foot claw?"

"Yep. And watch out for it, 'cuz it stings. Handy for climbing, though. I wish they'd thought of that when they were putting me together." He scooped up a handful of old, grainy snow . . . the most plentiful kind, here at the end of the season . . . and took a bite. Jean wouldn't have dared try that, for fear she'd get some sort of horrible intestinal bug, but Logan could afford to keep himself hydrated with whatever was handy.

"And I wish I'd waited to get a cell phone until they released the kind with video cameras in them. There's always that upgraded model." She tucked the flashlight back into her pack and looked up at him. "Do you remember any of this? Any idea how much farther we've got to go?"

He shook his head. "Not a clue. Sorry."

Jean cast her glance out over the valley below them. They'd left anything man-made behind them long ago. Now as far as she could see, forested mountains scattered with snow fanned out in all directions. The day was bright and clear . . . almost hot, if you were hiking hard . . . and at the far end of the valley they'd just climbed out of, she could see a frozen lake twinkling in the sunlight. "I can't remember the last time I saw something so beautiful. If I'd ever been here before, I wouldn't forget."

"It would depend on what happened here."

Jean turned to him. "Why? What happened here?"

He turned away, leaning his weight forward into the mountain as he started hiking again. "Hopefully nothing important."

Against every urging of his will, Gambit felt his mind wandering off topic again. It wasn't anger, or even worry about Rogue. It was just plain, simple exhaustion—the string of disjointed logic that a mind wanders into just before shutting off. He'd been running on little sleep and lots of adrenalin for somewhere around thirty-six hours. He was still too keyed up to feel tired, but the last two days were taking their toll.

But he had to keep pushing. Kitty was out there someplace, in the cuffs that should have been his.

He'd found the phone, and a computer—a fast, expensive screen fixed to a glossy black table top that sparkled with touch controls. In sharp contrast to the modern machine, the rest of the table was covered with plain old paper. He'd pulled a half ream out of the printer, found a piece of broken pencil in one of his pockets, and proceeded to 'figure it out.' If he'd had the time, most of this scribble-work would have been done in his head, crafted and fine-tuned over the course of weeks in the quiet moments between activities and people demanding his attention. But he had no time for that, and no more room for error. This had to be done fast, and done right. And that meant lots of paper covered in notes and sketches and diagrams and equations, the inner workings of his sophisticated and specialized thief's brain spread out across the table and the floor like a sloppy mental autopsy. Ashes of rejected plans and miscalculations were scattered over everything like a year's worth of dust.

Exhaustion quickened his reflexes but impeded his judgment; when he heard the door hiss behind him, he was up out of his chair and whipped around before he even realized he'd been startled. His defensiveness was half justified, as one of the two people walking up to him was Colossus; but the other was Storm, her hands gently outspread in the universal sign of peaceful intentions.

Remy struggled to slow down his breathing and his heart rate, or relax his tensed muscles, with limited success. "What now?" he demanded, his voice snapping like the crack of a whip.

If Storm was bothered, she didn't show it. "I came to see if I could persuade you to rest a few hours. You're exhausted."

"Yeah? And what shape's Kitty in?" He turned back to the table, wishing he didn't need it to help him balance. "Dis ain't de time." He turned his glare turned to Colossus. "And what d'you want? Need me t'turn de other cheek?" He hadn't seen himself in a mirror, but he knew from the constant ache in the side of his face that he had to be turning some pretty spectacular colors where Colossus's fist had landed.

"I came . . . to apologize," Colossus admitted. "When I heard she was gone, I . . .you were the first convenient target."

"Gonna tell me you're sure it wasn't my fault?"

"No."

Gambit sank back down into his chair. "Good. Smart man." His face and his pride still hurt, but he had the spine to acknowledge that if their situations had been reversed, he would hardly have behaved much better. And he wouldn't have had the guts to apologize, either.

"I am not certain who to trust," Colossus elaborated. "This is my team, and I do not think ill of any member of it. But to trap Kitty Pryde requires planning, and information. Information must come from somewhere."

Gambit nodded. "We got a traitor in our midst someplace. An' cards on de table . . . I'd have a hard time provin' it ain't me. Especially as I walked outta dat place an' Kitty was carried. If I weren't sittin' in dis skin, even I'd figure I'd sold her out. I'm de only person I know who'd sell her but save me."

"My thoughts exactly."

"We know too little to deal with this problem, if problem it is," Storm told them. "The priority is Kitty. Gambit, I am no master thief, but at least I know the vocabulary. If I can help you, I am here."

In that moment, if Gambit had still been able to touch people, he probably would have kissed her. It was easy to forget that Storm, too, was a thief . . . not Guild, not in his league, but a thief nonetheless, who could think the way he needed to be thinking and catch the oversights that he knew were escaping his exhausted brain. And on an endless day that had seen everyone, even his Rogue, turn their backs on him, Storm's benefit of the doubt was the most precious thing he could have been offered.

"I'm gonna need y'both, actually," he admitted. "Dis gonna be at least a three-man job, an' we gonna have to time it to de second if we want t'make it out alive. Here." He dug through a pile of papers and extracted a printout. "Dis de Solitude 4 base."

"Where did you get this?" Storm asked.

"Bullied de New York Guild again. But dis de last time I get t'pull dat . . . dey royally peeved at me now. Dey hate doin' favors for t'eives dat don't bust jobs." He'd also added 'deadbeat thief' to 'traitor' and 'coward' on his list of insults he'd never had to take before. He shook it off—revenge was for later. "Pull up chairs an' take a look. I'll show y' what I'm plannin' here."

"Stand up," Jeremy Royal whispered to Scott, giving him a nudge. Scott carefully rose to his feet. At Royal's suggestion, he'd removed the rag bandage for this appearance, which made him look slightly less crazy but did raise the risk that his eyes would jostle open if he was bumped or startled.

"Scott Christopher Summers," said an unfamiliar male voice, in front of and slightly above him.

"Judge," Royal whispered.

Scott swallowed and addressed the voice. "Yes, your honor."

He stood still, his eyes dancing and squirming under his eyelids, as the judge read off the list. Refusing to register under the Mutant Registration Act. Aiding and abetting others in their refusal to register. Resisting arrest. Aiding and abetting others in resisting arrest. Conspiracy. Attempted murder. Murder.

He heard a rustle of paper near him. Royal spoke up. "Your honor, my client is a beta-level mutant whose powers prevent him opening his eyes without risking serious injury to himself and others. Without special corrective lenses, he is functionally blind. We therefore request that reasonable accommodations be made to him, and that he be allowed use of his custom glasses to read the charges presented."

"Your honor," said a woman's voice off to Scott's left, "the defendant's optical equipment is not a pair of corrective lenses, but a specialized tool designed to weaponize his mutant abilities. To give him access to this tool would endanger the lives of all those around him."

"Agreed."

"In that case, your honor, the defense requests that this and all other legally required printed materials be provided in Braille."

"So ruled. Are you prepared to enter a plea at this time, or would you prefer to wait until after a Braille transcription has been provided?"

"No, your honor. We're ready now."

"Very well. Scott Christopher Summers, how do you plead to the presented charges?"

"I plead not guilty," Scott intoned.

"Noted."

"Your honor," said the woman's voice that Scott could now confidently label as the prosecuting attorney, "due to the nature of the charges and the defendant's abilities, as well as the fact that all of his alleged conspirators are currently at large, we would like to suggest that he poses an extreme flight risk and thus should not be allowed pre-trial release on bail or any other conditions."

"Your honor, my client willingly turned himself in and agreed to stand trial. If he were a flight risk, he would already be gone. In fact, if he wished to flee right now, he could probably do it. He's no less secure out of jail than he would be in it. Incarcerating him is absolutely unnecessary."

"I'm forced to agree with the prosecution. Bail denied."

Scott sighed. He hadn't actually expected bail, but it would have been nice. He'd let himself get his hopes up for a second about being able to put his glasses on and go home, wait all this out in the relative comfort of the emergency dorms under the lawn or at least in a hotel room someplace. Nope. Jail it is, then. Oh, well.

He snapped out of his rather pathetic daydream about a blank and lonely room that he could at least get into and out of at will to discover that Royal was upset about something. "All due respect, that's not nearly enough time! We have to prepare . . . almost anyone who could serve as a witness is on the run from the law—"

"Two weeks," the judge announced flatly. "I want this case in, out, and done."

There was a clack as Royal's jaw snapped shut. "Yes, sir," he said through his teeth.

"Dismissed."

Scott sank back down in his chair. When he heard Royal sit down next to him, he leaned over and whispered, "So this is bad, right?"

"Very," Royal hissed back. "But now's not the time to talk about it. Wait until Senator Creed leaves."

"Senator Creed's here?"

"With full entourage. Shush."

Scott obediently held his tongue as he heard shuffling and footsteps behind him, and the light, sharp tapping of a pair of high-heeled shoes. A lot of people were leaving the room . . . six at least, probably more, and one of them a woman. "Who else is here?" he asked.

"Mostly reporters. I guess the next guy up for arraignment doesn't sell as many papers as you do; they're all off to file their stories."

"We've got to go to trial in two weeks?"

"That's what he said. Either he really does want the case off his hands before there can be too much of a media circus, or he's got it in for us. You didn't hear that from me."

"Who'm I gonna tell?"

"Point. Well, if he thinks we can be run into the ground in two weeks, he's sorely mistaken. It's weird, though. Not strictly illegal, but definitely not classy. Very out of character for him. Some judges are jerks, but I'd thought Judge Webb would . . . well, never mind. We'll see it through." Royal squeezed his shoulder affectionately. "Don't go anywhere, Kid. The fun just got started."

"Charles?"

Professor Xavier turned toward the sound of Hank's voice, one finger raised carefully to his lips. He was outside the room that Hank had expected him to be in, the one where construction of the new Cerebro was underway. The door was ajar, and from inside raised voices echoed.

"The circuit cannot be left without a redundancy. It is going to blow out."

"Look! You're not even looking. You see that? It's a perfectly good overload relay so it doesn't need a redundancy. Waste of space and equipment."

"It is not going to hold."

"It is, and can we move on already? The prof's all like 'Get it done fast, matter of life and death,' and then you won't shut up about circuit redundancies."

"It's Charles who's going to die of an aneurysm when this thing explodes inside his head."

"It is not going to explode!"

There was a faint crackle of sparks.

"Okay, that exploded, but my point is—"

Hank dared a peek around the edge of the door frame.

The contents of the room looked as though someone had disassembled twelve large computer towers and a half dozen erector sets and then started snapping them back together into a desk. In the middle of the chaos, flat on their backs, heads hidden under the central mass of the new construction, were two people: one, Magneto; the other, Forge.

Amazing, isn't it? asked Charles. They've been at this for nearly two hours.

And you've just left them alone? Magneto's a dangerous person, and Forge is . . .

Oblivious, I know. Charles smiled. No respecter of persons. That's something that Magneto hasn't had to deal with in a long time: someone who isn't afraid of him.

Hank recognized one of Charles's oldest tactics, the way he'd won over so many of his X-Men: sending in one non-threatening representative to find common ground with a potential recruit or ally. Jean and Scott had been the favorites for this; they were tactful and sympathetic and persuasive. Forge had no social skills to speak of, and most conversations in which he had a part tended to end with everyone else involved wanting to hit him. If Hank had been called upon to pick a student to leave alone with Magneto, Forge would not have made the cut.

But he also couldn't think of anything more therapeutic for someone as angry, uptight, and self-absorbed as Magneto than a couple of hours of being unavoidably bullied by a nineteen-year-old mutant tech whiz.

I created the X-Men to change people's minds, Charles murmured. On both sides.

You implied you were gambling everything on Scott's trial, Hank accused gently, but that's not it at all, is it?

Only partially, Xavier admitted. I'm betting everything on the X-Men. And they're fighting on every available front. I have faith in them.

Well, I'm glad you still do. There's been a bit of a fiasco downstairs, with Kitty and Gambit and Colossus . . .

Yes, I heard. They're going back for her?

Tonight, I think.

Good. The professor's lips pressed together a little, worried. I need to get back in there and try to get that thing working. If it were running by now I'd at least be able to know where Kitty is, and if she's hurt. I can't tell you how frustrating it is, not knowing.

Yes, you can. It's how the rest of us live. Hank jerked his head in the direction of the work room. Good luck with those two. If either one of them gives you any trouble, you know where I'll be.

Author's Notes:

You guys all know by now what Le voilà means, right? You're so smart. :)