Chapter 39
Jean fought to keep her hair from blowing every direction at once. Between the wind at the top of the hotel tower and the forceful breeze made by the idling helicopter blades, it seemed like her own hair was trying to strangle her.
Mariko was ready to go back to Japan. And Laura, all her worldly possessions in a GAP shopping bag, was as ready as she would ever be to go with her.
The four of them stood facing one another as though in two teams: Mariko and Laura versus Logan and Jean. Two to get on the luxurious corporate chopper, and two to climb into Velocity. Two for Japan, two for the States. Two towards safety, two into danger.
"I can still come with you," Laura told Logan. "I can fight."
"I know, Kid. But just because you can shouldn't mean you have to. You've seen enough fighting already." Logan, braver than Jean would ever be, reached out to Laura and hugged her hard. "We're coming back for you. Don't you worry."
Jean, without even trying, could feel Laura's doubt. No one had ever cared about her enough to come back. Of course, she hadn't cared enough about then to give a curse whether they came back or not. This was different. This was new for her, and she was scared.
When Logan let go of Laura, Jean stepped up and offered the book in her hands. "Here. I got this for you."
The book was Little House on the Prairie. She'd bought it in a bookstore in the shopping center. It was peppered with Korean footnotes, and the illustrations were drawn anime-style, but the text was in English.
"It's the next book after yours," Jean explained, raising her voice enough to be heard over the noise of the helicopter engine. "There are lots of them. Laura has a long life and lots of adventures." As she handed over the book, she hoped and wished and prayed that the name would prove a talisman. All Lauras needed to grow up and live long, happy, normal lives.
Laura only nodded to acknowledge receipt of the book, but she gripped it tightly in both hands as though afraid someone would tear it away from her.
"If you think you're gonna lose your cool," Logan warned, "you run. You run for the mountains. We'll be able to find you; don't worry about that."
Laura nodded again. The jury was still out on whether she believed him or not, and Jean still refused to read her mind against her will, but that didn't matter at this point. They would come back. Everything would be all right.
Logan and Mariko bowed to one another, the gesture more intimate and meaningful than any embrace Jean had ever seen. Then Mariko turned to the helicopter and accepted the co-pilot's hand to assist her climbing in. Laura followed her, entering the craft with one sudden, grasshopper-like jump. The door slid shut, and the chopper lifted away.
"There she goes," said Jean, for lack of anything better to say.
"Yep."
"What shall we do now?"
Logan shrugged. "Save the world?"
"I don't know. It might be dangerous."
"Well, I guess we better not, then."
Jean looked over at Logan. He was smiling, as much as he ever did, as he glanced back at her.
"I would like a good hot dog, though," Jean observed.
"Fair enough. Let's go get hot dogs."
"New York hot dogs?"
"They make 'em in other places?"
Jean grinned, and followed him into Velocity.
"The fuel tanks might take us as far as Saskatuan, if we're lucky," she observed as she closed the hatch behind her.
"We can catch a train from there. You want first shift?" He indicated the pilot's seat.
"All yours."
Logan sat and revved up Velocity's quiet engine. Jean came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, letting her chin rest on the top of his head. "Are you scared?"
Logan paused a moment, then reached up and wrapped his hand around her arm. "You've got more to be afraid of than I do, darlin'."
"You're right," Jean agreed. The image of Scott, shocked, hurt, and angry, forced its way into her mind again; she forced it back out. Dreading it wouldn't make it any easier. And hard as telling him would be, it would be better than keeping him in the dark. She wouldn't let herself play Guenivere to Logan's Lancelot and Scott's Arthur. She'd make it through this, and emerge stronger and happier than she'd been.
She bent over the back of Logan's chair and pressed her lips to his temple. "But I'm not afraid," she murmured.
Velocity rose off the helicopter pad, turned her nose northeast, and left the safety of Seoul behind.
"Scott Summers takes the stand in his own defense today—"
"The long-anticipated moment. Scott Summers is due to testify—"
"National guard troops patrol the streets of New York to keep order as protesters flood into the city from all over the nation—"
Rogue watched the news from a coffee shop in New Jersey. Gambit watched it from a space station in orbit around the planet. Kurt watched it live from the third row back.
Royal stood up. In a clear, ringing voice intended to be heard by every reporter in the room, he announced, "Your Honor, the defense calls Mr. Scott Summers."
Scott stood up. The suit made him look older than he was, and the already-quiet court got even quieter in response to the sight of the solemn, proud young man facing a judge he couldn't see. The silence was so absolute that Kurt could hear Royal whispering to Scott, probably giving him directions to get out from behind the table without bumping into anything.
Scott walked up to the witness stand steadily and confidently, without the slightest hesitation to indicate he mistrusted Royal's guiding hand on his shoulder. Unlike a few of the earlier witnesses, who had chosen to be sworn in without the old-fashioned ritual of a hand on the Bible, Scott willingly allowed his hand to be guided onto the weighty black book. His fingers explored the cover for a few seconds, feeling the title embossed into the leather.
"Do you swear or affirm," asked the bailiff, "to the best of your knowledge, that the statements you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"
"So help me God," Scott added. "Yes, I do."
The bailiff withdrew, and Scott sat down.
"Would you please state your name, for the record?" Royal asked.
"My name is Scott Christopher Summers."
"And your place of residence?"
"Well, just now it's a jail cell in lower Manhattan, but most days I live at the Xavier Institute for the Gifted in Bayville, New York."
"And would you mind giving the court a quick run-down of how you came to live there?"
"Of course. Like you've already heard, I became a foster kid after my parents passed away, and staying in a foster home became . . . tricky . . . when things started getting smashed to pieces in front of my eyes for no reason I could understand." Scott reached up to his face as he spoke and rubbed at his eye through the blindfold. "I was scared to death. I didn't know if I was going crazy or what. All I knew was that the bad things didn't happen as long as I kept my eyes shut, so that was what I did. For about three months."
"How old were you then?"
"I was eleven years old."
"Please go on."
"Well, lucky for me, one of the therapists who'd been assigned to work with me had just been to a conference where Professor Xavier gave the keynote address. She called him and asked him to consult on my case, so he came down from New York to evaluate me. He was the first person to believe me and the unbelieveable things that I was saying. He eventually got certified as a foster parent so he could take me in. I was home-schooled there for about six months while he and Doctor MacTaggart studied my ability and helped me find ways to manage it."
"And you've been there ever since?"
"Yeah. When I came, Ororo Monroe was already living there . . . just renting a room while she went to college. She helped a lot with my home-schooling, and learned to read Braille so she could teach it to me. Then when we found Jean Gray, who was just starting to manifest as a telepath, I was able to help her kind of the same way Ororo helped me. And I learned that I love being able to support other people while they're learning about their powers. So even though I'm an adult now, I'm still living at the Institute. It's where I can do the most good in the world."
Kurt grinned, thinking back to his first few terrifying days at the Institute. He'd been manifest his whole life, and so hadn't needed the same powers-coaching that a lot of the other kids had, but Scott had helped him adjust to life in America. Those had been good old days.
"Scott, please tell us everything that you remember from the morning of the third."
Scott nodded, sat back in his chair, and took a deep breath. "Well, I'd gone to bed at about eleven o'clock. The house's security alarm woke me up again."
"What time was that?"
"I have no idea. I was running for the hallway before I got my visor on, so I never got a chance to look at a clock."
"Are you a heavy sleeper?"
"Not really. I can sleep through most thunderstorms, but usually wake up when Jean's alarm clock goes off, and she's in the next room over."
"Did you hear Sergeant Carrow announce through a megaphone that you were under arrest?"
"I didn't hear anything like that. The first noise anything made, as far as I could tell, was the house alarm letting us know that someone was inside who wasn't supposed to be there."
"Is it possible that you slept through Sergeant Carrow's announcement?"
"If I did, his megaphone probably needed new batteries."
This won a chuckle from the jury and audience.
"What did you do when you woke up?"
"Like I said, I grabbed my visor and ran for the hallway. We'd . . ." He hesitated here, as though embarrassed to go on. "We'd been running drills to evacuate the house, just in case we were attacked."
"Just in case you were arrested, you mean?"
"No, I don't. We'd all discussed it, and decided that we'd consent to arrest. We wanted to engage in a peaceful protest, not start a war. But we wanted to be ready to run if the higher-ups decided that dead mutants were easier to arrest."
"Isn't that a little paranoid?"
Scott shrugged. "I've got a bullet scar on my leg that says it was perfectly reasonable." His injury had been established yesterday by testimony of the physician who'd examined him after his arrest.
"Please continue."
Scott did, briefly explaining the evacuation plan and the telepathic net that had allowed him to know what was going on with everyone else on the team.
"Another clarifying question, if I could . . . how did you know that these soldiers weren't here to arrest you legally?"
"Well, I don't know how it works in real life, but on tv, when the cops arrest someone, they usually say 'you're under arrest'."
"And no one said that to you?"
"Not a word. They started shooting as soon as they got the wall blasted open."
"Could they have been shooting rubber bullets?"
"Only if rubber bullets go through people's legs." Scott shook his head. "They weren't shooting rubber. I only got hit once, but my teammate Wolverine must've been shot forty times. I was standing behind him . . . I saw the bullets coming out of his back. They were live rounds. I'm absolutely sure."
"Your colleague Wolverine, as we understand, can't be killed by bullets. Is that correct?"
"Yeah, that's right."
"So in his case, live rounds would still have to be considered non-lethal force."
"For his case, sure. But not for me, or Gambit, or Bobby Drake."
"Who is Bobby Drake?"
"One of the underclassmen. He was downstairs in the basement, running for the aircraft hangar. A military sniper shot him in the back."
There was a murmur in the courtroom, but Kurt couldn't be sure if it was of dismay, disbelief, or anger.
"How do you know that?"
"I heard him in my head."
"What did he say?"
"He yelled 'Sniper! Sniper!' and started shouting at the other students to leave him behind and get to the plane. Then he said he was gonna die."
"Did he?"
Scott shook his head. "Two of his classmates went back for him . . . Sam Guthrie and Jamie Madrox. They all made it out alive. Once they did, we on the ground floor ran for it."
"You ran for it."
"Like rabbits. I didn't want to stay in that firefight one more second than I had to."
"Because you were afraid you'd be killed."
"Not really. I've been in life-and-death situations before. But the sooner we got out, the faster the downed soldiers could get medical attention."
"You wanted them to get medical attention?"
"Of course I did!"
"But you and your colleagues were the ones that injured them."
"To make them stop shooting at us, just long enough for the others to escape. I didn't want to hurt them. They're US servicemen! My gosh . . . my dad was Air Force! I would never, ever shoot at an American serviceman for any reason except self-defense. Those Marines had spouses, and kids, and parents. You think I'd ever want to put some other kid through what I went through when all I had left of my father was a box with a flag on it?"
"But you did."
"I did. Because they were invading my house and trying to kill the people that it is my job to protect. Any Marine would understand why I fought back."
Someone in the back of the gallery screamed out. "You lying mutie bastard! How dare you!"
Scott recoiled from the noise like he'd been slapped. The judge's gavel rapped sharply against the wood of the podium. "Bailiff, please escort that person out of my courtroom. If there is another such disturbance, it will be grounds for arrest."
Royal waited for the agitated murmuring to die down again before he continued. "Scott, I'm afraid that our interrupting commentator has a point. We've had a lot of witnesses on this stand who've all stated very plainly that this operation was conducted as a legal arrest and that no lethal force was used. I'm afraid it's your word against theirs."
"Actually no, it isn't. Our house has a DEFCON-style lockdown system. Do you honestly think it doesn't have security cameras?"
"According to the testimony of Operations Specialist Hernandez, your house's security camera system was irreparably damaged during the fighting."
"Our primary system may have been. Not the secondary system. After we all made it to safety, we sent a team back in to recover the recordings."
Royal walked back to his table, reached into his briefcase, and pulled out a small black USB drive. "Your Honor, I'd like to present the recordings of the Xavier Institute's backup security system and have them introduced into evidence as Defense D."
"Objection!" Braddock snapped, lunging up out of her chair. "We were not informed of the existence of any such recording."
Royal turned to her, grinning smugly. "I humbly submit that I'm defense and don't have to inform you of anything, Madam DA."
"You could have forged every frame!"
"We have six independent expert witnesses all ready to testify that we did nothing of the sort."
"Prosecution requests that our own experts be allowed to evaluate this evidence before allowing it to be presented."
"So ruled."
Royal presented the USB drive to DA Braddock with a flourish. "I have copies," he told her.
"I resent your implication," Braddock told him as she handed the drive off to the younger lawyer that was acting as her assistant. He pocketed it and headed up the center aisle, out of the courtroom.
"In the meanwhile," Royal said, turning back to the witness stand, "Let's return to the point of why you refused to register in the first place."
Scott's examination went on for another three hours. Royal went over everything . . . from the original Mutant Registration Act all the way through Scott breaking into the White House. Scott answered everything patiently and cheerfully, occasionally winning another chuckle from the listening audience with some riposte of self-deprecating humor. He mentioned his teammates frequently, by first names rather than combat names, evoking their personalities and the bonds of friendship between them: Jean's classiness and common sense, Kitty's innocent charm, even Kurt's enthusiasm for practical jokes and Bobby's dislike of authority. He was drawing a picture for everyone in the courtroom: not of super-powered monsters, but of regular kids who just happened to have superpowers, the same way other kids had ADHD or seasonal allergies. Even Kurt was feeling warm and fuzzy about himself (in a manner of speaking) by the time the judge declared a one-hour lunch break.
As soon as the lunch recess was announced, Professor Xavier turned on Avalon's makeshift Cerebro and settled the helmet around his head. Betsy?
Hello, Professor.
How's it going?
Much better than I'd expected. Your Scott is quite the public speaker. HIs lawyer has used the security camera footage to buy him more time in front of the jury.
Has the footage been presented yet?
Not yet. We're to expect it after lunch. The DA has been looking more and more annoyed, which is promising. One moment, please. "Tomato and provolone on wheat."
What was that?
It's Pietro's turn to fetch lunch for everyone. Queues are shorter if we send him or Kurt up to midtown.
Ah. Charles smiled, knowing that Betsy could sense the expression, even if she wasn't adept enough to see it. Is Senator Creed still in attendance?
He's just leaving now.
And Eric?
Watching him.
Charles nodded. That's to be expected.
I don't like it, Charles. I wish you were down here yourself. If he breaks the truce, I can't guarantee I'll be able to protect the senator.
I'm certain . . . fairly certain . . . he won't try to assassinate Creed in the courtroom. But he'll try something. I've played chess with the man for thirty years. He's always thinking five moves ahead, and he never loses sight of the king. Keep a close watch on him.
I'll do my best.
Scott hadn't been able to eat anything. Royal let him skip lunch, but made him drink half a glass of water. "A dry throat makes you sound like you're lying, and drinking while you're on the stand makes you look nervous."
"I am nervous!"
"No, you're not. You're calm as a summer's morning because you know you're going to be on your way home by this time next week."
"She's going to rip me apart."
"Yes, she is. That's her job. You're gonna stay calm. And do you know why you're going to stay calm? Because your teammates are counting on you to get them safely home."
Scott took a deep breath. "You're right."
"I know I'm right. Let's go."
By the time Scott got back on the stand, he'd started feeling hungry. Well, too late now. He swallowed, took a deep breath, and focused on relaxing while Judge Webb called the court back to order.
"Mr. Summers," said D.A. Braddock; Scott turned his head towards the sound of her voice. "Did you know that you had broken the law by neglecting to register as a mutant?"
Scott wanted to swallow again, but resisted the impulse. "Yes, I did."
"And you knew that because of your refusal to register, you were required to serve time in prison?"
"Yes."
"That you were, and still are, a criminal?"
"As much as Rosa Parks was."
"Answer the question, Mr. Summers: are you aware that you are a criminal?"
"I am aware that I deliberately broke the law."
"And thus you are a criminal."
"Until that law is overturned, yes I am."
"Mr. Summers, you've stated earlier that you consider your powers to be nonlethal."
"Yes, that's right."
"And yet you can blow holes in walls."
"Well, you can break a hole in a wall with a hammer, but that's not a lethal weapon unless you really work at it."
He could hear the audience chuckling a little. Good; he'd been worried about that one.
"And yet seven men are dead. How do you explain that?"
Scott felt a shiver of guilt and discomfort, and let it run its course, turning his face away from the sound of the DA's voice. "From what the coroner said, most of them were probably killed by Wolverine."
"You couldn't tell at the time?"
"No, not with any certainty. Everything was happening so fast, and it was dark, and there was so much smoke."
"And yet you have quite extraordinary eyes."
"My 'extraordinary' eyes don't help me see any better than anybody else. Sometimes much worse, as you might have noticed."
"You could see enough to shoot?"
"More or less. I could see muzzle flash from the soldiers who were shooting. I used that to target."
"And could you see your teammates?"
"Enough to avoid hitting them. Gambit was charging cards, so he was easy to see, and the light from that reflected off Colossus's armor and Wolverine's claws."
"So you could see what they were doing?"
"Just a little. I was kind of busy at the time."
"So when Corporal Castonado went down, you saw the Wolverine kill him."
Scott flinched again. "I . . . did see him kill someone. I couldn't tell who."
"Mr. Summers, you've stated that you were telepathically linked with your teammates during the altercation. Is this correct?"
"Yes."
"Including the Wolverine."
"Yes."
"When you saw him kill Corporal Castonado, did you say anything to him telepathically?"
"No. There wasn't time."
"Did you know, via that link, that he intended to continue using lethal force?"
Scott felt his throat close up. When he spoke, he could hardly speak above a cracked whisper. "Yes, I did."
"And what did you do about that?"
"I kept shooting."
From the murmur that erupted in the blackness around him, he knew that hadn't gone over too well.
"You kept shooting," Braddock repeated. "Even knowing that any man you knocked down with your so-called 'nonlethal' powers would be dead within seconds?"
"Yes."
"Even knowing that the Wolverine acknowledged you as a kind of commanding officer and would have relented if you'd ordered him to?"
"He wouldn't have."
"You didn't give the order, Mr. Summers! You can't know what would have happened!"
"I didn't—"
"Were you aware that you broke the law in refusing to register, Mr. Summers?"
"What? Yes, of course I was!"
"So you were aware that you needed to be arrested."
"I wasn't—"
"And when representatives if this government came to arrest you, you killed them!"
"No! Well, yes, but—"
"Mr. Summers, please tell us about the mutant called Forge."
Scott stopped in mid-protest. "Forge?" he asked, confused.
"Yes. What is his mutant ability?"
"But Forge wasn't even there."
"All testimony has been very clear on that point. Please answer the question."
"What's Forge's mutant power?"
"That's right."
"He's, uh . . . he's a builder. A fixer. A machine whisperer."
"Is that a mutant ability, or just a talent?"
"Both. Forge can make anything. Tony Stark would sell his soul to be half the mechanical engineer that Forge is."
"Who installed the security system in your house, Mr. Summers?"
Scott frowned as he thought back. "Bobby and Hank, I think."
"And who installed the auxiliary system?"
"Forge did."
"Forge, who can do anything with machines?"
"Nearly anything."
"Who recovered the recordings your counsel has entered into evidence?"
"Kitty and Gambit."
"Did Forge handle the data at all before it was sent to your counsel?"
"I don't know. That was after I was arrested."
"Where are your teammates now?"
"I'm not going to tell you that."
"You are under oath, Mr. Summers."
"Yes, I am, but the location of my teammates has no bearing on this case, and revealing it would put them in danger."
"Move on, please, Madam District Attorney," Judge Webb interrupted.
"Let me rephrase my question. Is Forge with your team now?"
"He was when I left."
"So he would have had access to those recovered files before they were delivered to Mr. Royal?"
"Possibly."
"And could have tampered with them?"
"Of course not. That would take someone with video editing skills, or graphic design. Forge is an engineer."
"Can you guarantee he couldn't do it?"
"I can guarantee he wouldn't."
"Not good enough, Mr. Summers."
"Well, give him immunity from prosecution and I can have him here to testify for himself within fifteen minutes."
"Is he registered?"
"No, ma'am, he is not."
"Then if he sets foot in this courtroom, he will be attested."
"Then just my testimony is going to have to do. Sorry." Scott shrugged and smiled, and was rewarded with a chuckle from the distant darkness beyond the DA's voice.
"Just your word against the correlating testimony of half a Marines strike team."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Mr. Summers, are you seriously insisting that every single one of the other witnesses we've heard in this trial has been lying under oath?"
"What they've chosen to say is none of my business. I let myself be arrested so I could tell the world what really happened that night, and that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm sorry if you don't like it."
"I don't like it all, Mr. Summers. I submit to you that you've learned to be an excellent liar from years of practice in concealing your abilities. I submit that your teammate tampered with these security logs to back up your story, and I put it to you that the only truth you've told here is that you didn't kill those men—you struck them down so the Wolverine could butcher them for you."
"No!"
"No further questions, Your Honor."
Scott felt his jaw clench and his hands squeeze into fists against his knees. He wanted to fight something . . . his visor was here in this room somewhere, and so was Senator Creed . . .
Calm down, Scott, said Betsy's smooth British voice in his head. You did well. Don't spoil it now.
I'm okay, Scott assured her. But I'd be better if I could hear Jean.
I haven't heard her, but I'm sure she's coming.
"Come on, Scott," said Royal's voice next to his ear. "You did good. Come on down. Your job's done."
Scott shook his head as he stepped down from the stand. "Unless we get really lucky, my job's only just started."