-X- X-Men: Foundations part 2: Changing World Summary Chapter 1: Bright Stars Chapter 2:Stand Still Chapter 3: Empire State University Chapter4: Distant Early Warnings Chapter 5: Brand Annex Chapter 6: Open Secrets Chapter 7: Change of Faith Chapter 8:Winter Breaks Chapter 9: Healing Breaks Chapter 10: Ice Skate Eve Chapter 11: Razor's Edge Chapter 12:Last Call Chapter 13: Thoughts Ignite Chapter 14: Red Tide Chapter 15: The Pass Chapter 16: Spring Breaks Chapter 17: Kid Gloves Chapter 18: Second Natures Chapter 19: Prime Movers Chapter 20: Moving Parts Chapter 21: Barriers Fall Chapter 22: Hand Over Hand Chapter 23: Hand Over Fist Chapter 24: Open Hand Chapter 25: Open Hand Closed Fist Chapter 26: Racing Heart -XX-
X-Men: Foundations part 2: Changing World
Chapter 17
-X-
Second Natures
Xavier Institute. Medical Lab.
From his office in the medical lab, just off the school’s infirmary, Hank McCoy started the day by pouring himself a steaming hot cup of black coffee and sliding a biochip into viewing position under the microscope. He took a sip of coffee, looked through the eyepiece, and opened up a notebook to record his observations. He had been monitoring the biochip’s daily rate of decay since he’d recovered it months ago. Its rate of decay was quickly becoming exponential; that had not seemed related to the probe’s removal from its host, but more a function of time, with the decay increasing more and more rapidly over the past several weeks. That backed up his hypothesis that the bioprobe had only been meant for short-term use. Even in its currently weakened state, the disembodied chip was still collecting and relaying data. It didn’t seem built for storage, and certainly was not meant to allow for data retrieval. It was only meant to serve as a temporary weigh station between researcher and test subject. Hank had also been trying to hack into that relay mechanism, thus far without any success. Perhaps he’d literally crack the thing open after it went completely dead. That was his last remaining investigatory option. He closed the notebook. The mystery this bioprobe presented would have to wait at least another day. He sipped his coffee again before heading into the infirmary where he would begin warming up medical equipment for the diagnostics soon to come. Today was going to be a busy day.
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Annandale-on-Hudson.
Moira pulled the Bentley up to the Greys’ drive well before the neighborhood had begun to stir on Saturday morning. She had already circled the quiet subdivision a few times, looking for anything suspicious. Thus far there was nothing more exciting to see here than a few early morning joggers out for exercise. “I didn’t really expect them to linger past last night,” Charles admitted as Moira helped him into his chair. Presumably his psychic sweeps of the area had proven equally uneventful. Standing in front of John and Elaine’s home, Moira remembered her initial surprise a few months ago when Charles had told her they would be coming back here. “You remember John and Elaine Grey,” he’d offered cheerfully. “They have Jean, Ororo, and Scott for the holidays. In fact, we’ve all been invited to dinner at their home.” Moira had since learned that the invitation was more of a concession owed to Elaine Grey than one given to Charles. From the beginning of their arrangement, Elaine had insisted that if her youngest daughter was going to live at Charles’s school, then Elaine would expect to frequently have the kids home for holidays and for short breaks. It had never been in question that the deal included Scott and Ororo along with Jean; John and Elaine Grey had very simply, more or less adopted them into their family. Moira had also learned the hard way that Charles’s characterization of the dinner invitation was a bit off. Perhaps John and Elaine had been given more advance warning, but Sarah Grey had no idea that Moira was coming to dinner along with Charles... if they had all known what to expect, things may have gone a bit more smoothly. Charles Xavier could be a difficult man to know. He wasn’t particularly close to his students or his colleagues – at least not in a personal, familial sort of way – and even his oldest friends would readily admit that he could be guarded and secretive, as well as driven; even they wondered with surprising regularity if they really knew the man, or if they only knew the parts of Charles Xavier that he wanted them to know. Moira was no different in that regard despite going back further with him than anyone, save perhaps for John and Elaine. They first met Charles when they were upperclassmen at Bard, and Charles was a very young college freshman – technically still a high school student, but already taking college classes at Bard. Moira had been a bit surprised to find Charles in favor of, even encouraging, the time-sharing arrangement for his students. It had surprised her precisely because it would open them to the possibility of an incident like this one. Despite the Greys being old friends, despite them being accepting and supportive parents to Jean – and to Scott and Ororo too – there was still a lot of risk involved. But then, Charles seemed to have doubled down on that level of risk by enrolling them at ESU. He could better control their environment at Xavier Institute, but he seemed to have realized – perhaps from his own fractured childhood – that young people benefitted from more well-rounded environments. And if a loving home was available to them, sterile, cavern-like halls and intricately manicured grounds were often poor substitutes for forming stable human connections. In short, he seemed to recognize that much work still needed to be done at his Institute before it would be ready to provide everything he wanted to offer his students there. While he still very much needed Scott, Ororo, and Jean to help in that endeavor, Charles also wanted them to have and enjoy their own lives – and especially these one-of-a-kind formative times in their lives. With the Greys willing to welcome Scott, Ororo, and Jean, Xavier had been willing to accept that their doing so might create its own risks, be that a family falling-out over the holidays or an attack by an unknown mutant or mutants possessing yet undefined power sets. By the time they reached the front door, John Grey had padded downstairs to meet them, still dressed in his pajamas. He welcomed them inside with cheerful reluctance and they were soon joined by the rest of the household. They all gathered around the kitchen table and in the time it took to partake of the coffee and donuts Moira and Charles provided, Xavier had psy-scanned the entire household and found no abnormalities that couldn’t be explained by elevated stress levels from the previous night. Jean remembered aloud something from lab orientation – a warning that exposure to various medical equipment, or even certain chemicals used in labs, could sometimes cause whole groups of people to have strange dreams or nightmares. It was as much an excuse to explain their removal to the Institute for her parents as anything else. John was willing to go along with Charles’s decision that they return to his school for a few routine tests, just to be cautious. Elaine, never one to be shy about her opinions, was none too happy to let them go... but in the end, she conceded without too much fuss. When pressed by John, who gave a wink in Jean’s direction, Elaine did remember a whole month in John’s medical internship where an anesthesia rotation caused him a terrible time: poor sleep, nightmares, persistent nausea. And of course, Elaine had her own remembered physical and mental trials over the course of two pregnancies: various weird happenings of the human mind and body. She recalled a peculiar fondness for pickle, ranch dressing, and potato chip sandwiches right before bed. After an hour or so, the Greys were successfully convinced that nothing serious was amiss, but also that caution was warranted. Elaine hugged them each before watching their departure, still in her housecoat and slippers, from the living room window. She did insist to Charles, “I’ll expect to have them back here for at least a few days this summer, Charles!” Xavier politely promised to comply, and to take good care of them while they were with him. Elaine, still a bit wound up over their sudden and unexpected departure, mutinously insisted that children couldn’t be expected to spend all their time working and studying without breaks. Jean hugged her mother again, reassuring her once more – they’d be okay – before they all walked outside and piled into the back of the Bentley. John watched them go, an arm around his wife’s shoulder. He’d noticed the kids were quickly dressed and already packed. If they hadn’t already suspected this was coming, Charles had at least given them advance warning to expect his visit.
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Back at the mansion, Scott, Ororo, and Jean filed into the infirmary to meet Hank. They were now accompanied by Warren as well as Xavier and Moira. Warren had met them upon their return, spotting their approach on his morning flight. He was displeased that he was just now being brought up to speed on the cause for today’s unexpected flurry of activity, despite Xavier’s insistence that nothing could have been done overnight, save what Jean had already done. Scott and the others were set to spend most of the day undergoing a battery of testing. Jean went first, followed by Ororo, while Scott killed time going through extensive debriefs with Xavier and Warren, the latter of whom only excused himself around lunchtime to meet Candy when she arrived upstairs. At the end of the first round of testing, Moira and Hank assured an exhausted Jean that she should get some rest; they’d call her back downstairs when they were ready to review the results. Jean still waited for Ororo and Scott to be finished with their first round of exams (napping from time to time on the sofa in Hank’s office) before they all returned upstairs for a brief attempt at rest and some lunch before starting the afternoon’s rounds of testing.
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Hank was eating lunch at his lab desk, over yet another pot of coffee, when Warren returned to the infirmary. He sat down across the desk from Hank, reached into his pocket and slapped a small metal object, open palmed, down on the surface of Hank’s desk. “I found this in Scott’s bag,” he announced without preamble. “Candy didn’t find anything in the girls’ rooms.” Hank looked a bit stunned by that announcement. “Before you ask– no, we didn’t tell them Candy and I would be searching their rooms while they were down here. To be honest, I didn’t expect to find anything. At least nothing so obvious as this– whatever this is,” he amended. It was flat and thin, about the size of a quarter, but heavier, like a magnet. Hank picked up the device. “No,” he agreed. “This is either very sloppy work or someone trying to send us a message.” “The question being, Who? And what message?” Hank nodded, absently studying the device. If he recognized what the thing was or what it did, he wasn’t letting on. Warren had little hope remaining that it might be something so ordinary as a listening device. His and Candy’s previous attempt to plant a few of those at the Hellfire Club had gone nowhere. He had expected some form of retaliation... but not against the kids. “Just to be safe, I’d like to scan you too, Warren. A quick MRI will do.” Warren ruffled his wings distastefully. “I hate that damn tube. You really think they’d tag me too?” “Like you said, it depends on who’s behind this and what their motives are. The Hellfire Club? Maybe. Brand? Probably not– but possible, if we’re dating the start of all this back to the Brand Annex’s opening. Either way, even a rule out gives us a little more information to work with, and perhaps brings us closer to more answers.” “I hope you intend to scan yourself as well.” “I’ll add myself to the end of the list,” Hank agreed, directing Warren out into the infirmary. “Probably more questions than answers,” Warren noted testily as he got into the tube. Warren tended to be suspicious by nature. Being caught up in a spying plot at the Hellfire Club and one too many times today left out of the loop at home didn’t help that disposition. But more than anything else at this point, he wanted to know who the hell was messing with Scott, Ororo, and Jean.
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“Warren found this in Scott’s room, hidden in his travel bag.” Hank slid the device across his desk to Charles, where Xavier studied it for a few moments. It looked inconspicuous enough. Flat and thin, quarter-sized. Two interlocking halves meant to be turned one against the other, dial-like. The center of one side appeared to be fitted with a magnet. The opposing side was marked only with a faintly imprinted diamond insignia. Where Warren hadn’t recognized the transceiver enough to know its likely origins, Hank and Xavier did. “Charles,” Hank paused to take off his glasses and rub his eyes tiredly, “I understand your desire to shield him, but I don’t think we can any longer.” “And tell him what, Hank? An unknown person planted a mysterious device in Scott’s bag for purposes we don’t yet understand?” “It’s not quite that obtuse, Charles. We know who did this, and we have a good idea as to why. Most importantly, we know he’s coming after Scott, specifically.” Xavier countered that argument calmly but stubbornly. “We suspect that he has tagged various mutants with biodegradable microchips, presumably for the purpose of genetic study.” Hank held up the device Warren had found. “This device is different. The others are transitory, short-term. This one is the anchor of a long-term experiment, and not just for arbitrary data collection. Its purpose is high frequency/long-range broadcast.” Xavier countered again. “The reason for the increased frequency and range could be explained by the temporary, biodegradable nature of the chip. Paired with the attack at the Grey house–” Hank interrupted. “You’re not hearing me, Charles. This transceiver is an ‘XMTR’ capable of relaying collected data back to its source, like the bioprobes. But it is also an ‘EMTR’ emitting shortwave signal, which it broadcasts constantly at only one specific frequency – one vulnerable to human brain waves. I’ve scanned Scott’s head every conceivable way since the day he walked through these doors. I’m telling you now, this device is designed and calibrated to him– particularly attuned to Scott’s and only Scott’s unique brainwave patterns. This is why and how that attack at the Greys focused on him while only more mildly affecting the others present. “Best case scenario? The device was meant to follow Scott back here and remain with him over the summer. That means we caught it early. Prolonged exposure to this thing would be disastrous: sleeplessness, paranoia, delusion. In short, gradually losing touch with reality– it could quite literally have driven him mad. Slowly. Over a long enough period of time for him to feel his mind slipping away from him, potentially worsening as the settings were purposefully intensified over time – as quickly or as slowly as its creator wished to torture Scott. “All the while, data is collected and reported back. Patterns of Scott’s specific brain waves under distress– his reactions to very specific types and levels of mental distress. All in all, probably an extension – perhaps a less painful, less intrusive followup – of the earlier so-called study that was carried out on Scott at the Nebraska State Home for Foundlings under the ever watchful eye of one Nathaniel Essex.” There was a brief moment of silence, in which Hank returned the device to his desktop with more force than was strictly necessary. By contrast, his voice remained soft and low, almost in monotone. “Charles. I find I’ve reached my limit; I can and will no longer remain silent for you.” Xavier sat back in his chair, offering Hank an unexpected grim smile. “Hank, you say that as though I’m asking some personal favor of your silence. We both know Scott well enough to know exactly how he would react to this news. Tell him all this flat out or give him enough pieces for him to solve the puzzle for himself. The result is the same– he’ll drop everything to settle this. Ororo and Jean will go along with him. “Erik has been hunting Essex since Moscow– a decade before that he was tracking down Sir Robert Windsor, and two decades prior it was Nosferatu. Nearly forty-five years, Hank– and he’s come up empty, time and again. What chance do you think these kids have in that fight? I’ll tell you. They won’t stop until Scott finds Essex – and they won’t find him until he wants them to. We would be marching the three of them right into his clutches– straight into his twisted plans for them. “No!” Xavier pounded his fist on the table, causing the device in question to jump on impact. “I’ll not have it, Hank!” Xavier pounded the table again for emphasis, but open palmed this time. The transceiver gave no more than a weak shudder. Hank slowly nodded in agreement. For all his many regrets, the risk still proved too great. Xavier was right about one thing: Essex still wanted Scott and, for whatever convoluted reasons, he still wanted to make Scott suffer. As someone who knew firsthand how much suffering Essex could inflict in the name of his mad research, Hank could not risk Scott’s falling back into that trap... and Hank, especially, would not be the one to deliver him there. Hank released a heavy sigh. “Well then, Charles. We continue on our present course.” They each took a moment to regroup. “Now.” Xavier prompted. “What is the current status of this thing?” “Deactivated.” “And the corresponding bioprobe?” “No different from any of the other tags, judging from their MRI scans. Without the external probe to activate its more harmful properties, it will continue to harmlessly degrade over time. But, when matched with this one,” Hank nodded to the transceiver, “the bioprobe also becomes an amplifier.” Xavier nodded. “The same way it constantly absorbs and relays biological data, it absorbs and re-broadcasts the external probe’s signal. An insidious way to extend the transceiver’s reach.” Hank agreed. “The bioprobe is a much weaker device than the transceiver, and constantly losing power as it naturally degrades. But when paired with an external probe, its contribution would be enough to keep exposure to the transceiver’s signal a constant, even when the subject is physically separated from the external probe.” “What is he trying to do here?” Xavier asked, almost rhetorically, his voice deeply troubled. Far more troubling than any specific machinations was the simple confirmation of how far Nathaniel Essex would go to continue his work. Hank answered bitterly: “The same as always. Trying to take mutants apart to study them. He thinks he can piece them back together again at the end, stronger than they were before.” “Like Frankenstein with his monster.” “Often just as dangerous, and tragic, in his results.” “He must still be trying to figure out how Scott’s mind and optic blasts work. As much as I loathe the idea of Essex regaining any sort of foothold into Scott’s life, I’m even more worried about additional data he’s now collected... on Jean.” Hank nodded grimly. “Jean was able to fight off this most recent attack, both on her own mind and on behalf of the others. This device will have relayed evidence of that feat back to Essex in the form of Scott’s brain wave patterns.” “The extent of her abilities won’t escape his attention after this.” “I almost shudder to ask, but since we aren’t telling them the whole truth of this plot, how are you planning to explain this attack to Scott, Ororo, and Jean?” “We know Mastermind has a role to play in this drama for the Hellfire Club; this most recent attack is primarily his doing. I no longer think any of what happened at the Greys’ was part of Essex’s larger plan, simply Mastermind building on the pieces Essex had already put in place for his own ends. We will focus on that first. It’s the only part of this puzzle the others need know of at present. “Now, I have no idea what Wyngarde hoped to accomplish with this attack. I also think the effort was something too intricate for Mastermind to accomplish on his own; I’m certain he had help. So I will focus on uncovering Mastermind’s purposes and his likely accomplice or accomplices. Warren and Candy will continue their work to those same ends, determining the Hellfire Club’s interests in all this. Vera, along with Candy, will continue to help us monitor the major players and goings on at ESU and at the Brand Annex.” Hank sighed heavily. “I should get back to work here.” Hank would keep his silence, and he would devote his focus and efforts to stopping Essex from resuming his periodic reigns of terror. But all this espionage was not suited to his talents nor liking. “This will end badly Charles; so much secrecy and duplicity always does.” “Perhaps so, my friend,” Xavier conceded heavily... in that maddening way that assured he had no intentions to reconsider his own actions or decisions. “Keep me apprised of your findings here,” Xavier motioned to the transceiver device. Then he paused. “And let’s crack open that biochip as quickly as you think it prudent to do so.” Hank nodded. “No time like the present, then.” Rapidly running out of excuses to wait. Xavier nodded in return before he rolled out. “I’ll meet with Scott, Ororo, and Jean, and with Warren and Candy as well. And I’ll ask Moira to take over this afternoon’s testing schedule and the medical briefings with Scott, Ororo, and Jean.”
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Today was not Charles Xavier’s day for making anyone happy. Like Hank, Moira had deep and serious objections to his decision to omit any mention of Essex’s potential involvement from the news they gave to Scott, Ororo, and Jean. But she did agree to take over their medical testing and result briefings from Hank while he worked on other matters in the lab. And Xavier did not tell her about the device Warren had found, its likely origin nor likely purpose. Warren and Candy were displeased at having been left out of the loop regarding recent goings on at Brand, whom they now assumed were likely culprits behind the biochip development. While they had known about the “tracking chip” Hank had recovered a few months ago, the scope of the potential plot had now widened with news of Hank’s lab scans finding further evidence of strange, organic biochips. Evidence of tracking chips coupled nicely with Warren’s and Candy’s recent discovery of an unknown transmitter/receiver and its peculiar associated electrical signals. Meanwhile, Scott, Ororo, and Jean were equally blindsided to learn they had been left out of the whole Hellfire Club-Brand Corp. corporate espionage-spying drama. For their purposes, Xavier conveniently left out the part about the biochips altogether and instead focused on a previously unknown-to-them mutant illusionist who was a known associate of the Hellfire Club, calling himself Mastermind. But much like a master magician performing sleight of hand, Xavier successfully ensured that everybody knew just enough of what they needed to know to keep progressing smoothly forward, everyone playing their respective parts in the ongoing drama.
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Xavier Institute. Medical Lab.
After a restless attempt at sleep, Hank McCoy had jolted awake to a lightbulb moment. This one involved his own words from earlier today to Charles and a conversation Hank had with Scott a few months ago, in the middle of the night, in the midst of dealing with the attack on them by Shadow King and D’Spayre. The combination had brought Hank back down to the infirmary in the still early hours of Sunday morning. Now it was close to dawn, and Hank was staring at his own fresh brain scans in numb horror. He remembered an ultimatum he was first given in Moscow... the easy way or the hard way.... “You will now be joining us in our work here – either as a researcher or as a test subject... you will be given ample time to consider each option.” Hank once chose the hard way, unwilling to participate in Nathaniel Essex’s unethical research on his fellow mutants. And for that, Hank himself was imprisoned and experimented on; he had the scars to show for that decision. What Hank didn’t realize until this very moment was that the threat levied against him then had been more literal even than his imprisonment, or forced labor, or torture in the name of unethical medical science. Hank was very clearly staring at the now-familiar debris of organic scar tissue lodged in his own frontal brain lobe, left behind by a long-ago degraded biological chip. Its placement corresponded to a tiny skull indentation, a scar barely the size of a pin tip, that he could feel on his scalp just behind his hairline. He could only assume that, as part of his experiments on Hank, Essex had implanted an early prototype of this bioprobe directly into Hank’s brain. Its placement revealed its purpose: meant to alter his brain chemistry. To gradually override or deteriorate Hank’s center of moral thinking and reasoning enough so that Essex could fully use his knowledge and skills to his own unethical likings. The newer bioprobes were both less specific and shorter-lived than this implanted one appeared to have been, judging by the scarring that remained. Hank could only hope that meant the earlier version had not worked to its full effect (beyond causing Hank short-term, meaning months rather than years, of the most trying psychological trauma – anguish, self-doubt, depression, despair – that he had ever experienced). Hank had been planning to wait until the device went dead. Xavier’s directive moved up that timeline. This discovery moved it up even further. He discharged the biochip manually by exposing it to a suitable current conductor. Then cracked it open and placed it, still in its insulated shell, back under the microscope. When Hank’s dissection instrument first contacted this biochip’s inner circuitry, it let off a residual shock, enough to temporarily numb his hand and elicit a few choice curses as static electricity trailed up Hank’s arm and shoulder. He then removed a rather clever energy storage mechanism. That was enough to explain the chip’s continued function apart from its ability to parasitically draw energy from an organic host. The remaining charge stored in the circuitry had been enough to make the hairs stand up on Hank’s arm and his scalp periodically tingle, even half an hour later– but the damn thing stayed dead for its autopsy after that.
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New York City.
When Karl Lykos was summoned back in the pre-dawn hours to the deepest portion of the wine cellars below the Hellfire Club’s New York City headquarters, he was stunned to find the place stripped bare. “Have you finally decided to heed my warnings then?” The cold man only laughed in dismissive amusement. “Your warnings are inconsequential. I do not fear detection, as you do. This is all in plan.” “Obviously. That’s why you’re running,” Lykos challenged dryly. “Strategic retreat is sometimes part of the beauty of my plans. Call it what you will.” “I call it running. Summers has gone back to Xavier. Mastermind’s recklessness has likely already alerted Xavier and McCoy to your presence. You won’t be able to hide here in plain sight, under the Hellfire Club’s outstretched wing, any longer.” The cold man laughed again, more of an honest laugh than what Lykos generally got from him– he found Lykos’ predictions of his imminent downfall genuinely amusing. Lykos persisted. “The Hellfire Club will soon realize your deception. You never intended to help them at all, only yourself.” “The Hellfire Club is of no long-term consequence to me; Lang will deal with Wyngarde. If not Lang, then Shaw. Power abhors weak strong-men even more than it does a vacuum.” “And what becomes of Wyngarde then?” The cold man waved that question away as inconsequential as well. “Mastermind and his little cohorts have been playing both sides all along. I fully anticipate he will now try to re-integrate himself within the Hellfire Club’s graces, such as they are – with the use of my inventions – which places him firmly in my debt.” “That’s better than his finding his way back into Lehnsherr’s employ, I suppose.” “Quite so. And the Hellfire Club did prove useful, leaning on university administration to secure your position here for the past year. I suspect they will again prove useful, unintentionally providing a wide range of distraction and drama that will nicely cover my exit.” “And you think the Hellfire Club will conveniently forget that they paid a lot of money for you to rip off Brand on their behalf, to steal data from the Human Genome Project for them?” “They have money to spare. The items of real value are ones they will never possess the wherewithal to miss.” Lykos watched the cold man gather up his overcoat from its resting place, draped across a nearby chair. He paused to remove something from an inside pocket which he then handed to Lykos, who felt his heart sink. Lykos had harbored some small hope that once this misadventure was over he could look forward to getting off a plane in Argentina and going back to some semblance of his old life.... Instead he was looking at a one-way plane ticket to New Mexico’s high desert country... feeling more and more of whatever remained of his own accomplishment, his own agency, continue to drain away under the cold man’s cruel grip. “It seems our time together here has come to its end, Dr. Lykos.” “You’d better hope you’re far away before they realize they’ve been had.” “As I said, Stephen Lang will be busy settling Brand’s accounts with the Hellfire Club for some time to come; I will be no more than an afterthought in that equation.” “It was never about the Hellfire Club or Brand Corp. at all. Not even about the Human Genome Project... was it? It was the Summers kid you wanted all along.” The cold man paused to study Lykos for a moment, looking oddly impressed with that deduction. “Primarily Summers. Though, it was very useful, having everyone looking the other way at Brand and the Human Genome Project. Additionally, the Waren and Serba labs were doing quite interesting work.... But then, Brand has a history of doing interesting things, dating back to Henry McCoy’s tenure there. However, I would take deep and profound offense at the very notion that something as trivial as ‘mapping’ the human genome or even ‘isolating’ the illusive mutant genetic E-factor are feats that I have not already accomplished, with ease, and long ago.” “You’re completely delusional,” Lykos sputtered in disbelief. “You really think Summers won’t figure out what happened to him here? He’s a smart kid, but he’s still a kid. Maybe you think you can use this as leverage to control him, silence him–” “Why do you think I have invested years, if not decades, to so thoroughly learn my subjects and all of the key players surrounding them? I know which ones are too arrogant, too self-centered, or too self-righteous to see the truth. And I know which ones are too damaged to do anything about it. Such is the depths of my brilliance.” “You mean your madness,” Lykos countered. “Really–” the cold man sneered, “I thought you possessed some minor skill or insight as a therapist.” “He’s a good kid,” Lykos insisted, “and he’ll grow into a good, decent person. Unlike me, he won’t be held under your thumb forever. But if you really think you’ll have no one to answer to for this – not Xavier, nor McCoy, nor even Lehnsherr – you’re more delusional than even I thought.” “Amusing, that you think you know better than I....” “You think he won’t tell Xavier what you’ve done– that they won’t hunt you down for this?” “I assure you, he won’t, because he can’t... no more than he could choose to take off those glasses of his. It’s an impossibility. Summers won’t tell anyone at all, because he can’t.” Lykos was dumbfounded by that statement. It seemed the cold man’s narcissism had attained all new heights. Possibly mistaking his stunned reaction for scientific interest, his companion continued on conversationally, as if presenting some novel finding at the polite invitation of a journal club. “That much is a crucial building block of his intrinsic psychological make up. I should know, I played a key part in shaping it.” “I’m talking about what happened here. Progressive physical and mental deterioration, likely sleep deprivation-induced psychosis, at the very least.” “Precisely. And after all those weeks spent digging through Summers’ wounded psyche, you still have no idea what makes him tick. If I’d actively gone after one of the others– any of his little friends– that would have been another matter. But no. That part, I had to do more quietly. “Unobtrusive little bioprobes, discreetly beaming their genomic data back to me. That spectacular feat was accomplished in the relative blink of an eye, and Brand made to look responsible for it. Child’s play. Summers is another matter, a more fitting challenge. “I spent years building up and tearing down– over and over again– like so many castles in the sand, with Scott Summers. Do you know what I learned? Given the right set of conditions, he will choose his own suffering and self-sacrifice, every single time, without fail.” Lykos winced. “I even had to be cautious with his exposure to you. His getting even the smallest glimpse of your relative discomfort over his suffering would have been enough to get his attention, to prick his conscience and push him to troublesome actions. But because I hurt him, it becomes inconsequential. He will take that punishment. He will claim it as his own, bury the weakness, and tell no one. I know this flaw because I have exploited it, every time, without fail. “Perhaps I overestimated your worth, doctor. All I had to offer you was the carrot of using your own so-called skills rather than the blatant stick of having you provide the only thing of value you have to offer me: the naked ability to drain real strength from mutants far stronger than yourself. But you played your part well, dear doctor. You were pacified from his suffering while Summers was sufficiently distracted by your guilt. It all goes according to plan.” Lykos could only stare blankly while the man who now called himself Arnold Bocklin donned his navy hat and overcoat before climbing the stairs to the outside world. “Tie up any loose ends remaining here.” He handed Lykos a red and blue business card. “Then proceed to the address on the back. There, Sauron will have his reward for a job well done.” Karl Lykos winced again as he felt the beast shift inside him, insistent with hunger pangs. Lykos knew his days would now be numbered – weeks at most – and at the end of them he would have to cede control again. With the cold man’s intercession, it would be quick and mostly painless. No one else needed be hurt– or worse. Under his own power, the alternative was more unpredictable, his self-control uncertain in the face of Sauron’s hunger. The price for his soul was no more than his own free will. “And you would call my plans madness,” Bocklin mused thoughtfully.