Gifted (4 page)

30
 

“BRING
it on. Who wants a piece?”

The bar was prime fight territory. It was small and squalid and filled with large men who had been drinking considerably and both smelled and looked like it. Country music filtered scratchily through the speakers, and no one ever really walked on the floor, which hadn’t been scrubbed in possibly forever, because the inch or so of caked dirt prevented their shoes from actually touching the ground. Rumor had it that a guy from the Board of Health had been by recently to check the place, but supposedly he had simply stroked out upon seeing it and never had the opportunity to file his report.

The challenger at that particular moment was at least a head shorter than even the shortest of the behemoths chugging back beer. His black hair seemed to have a life of its own, as did his sideburns. His growling words betrayed hints of a Canadian accent.

“Logan, knock it off,” said the bartender, a normally cheerful man named Clancy. “Come on…”

“
You
come on,” Logan retorted. “I heard him,” and he pointed at
31
one of the largest men, a guy with a shaved and tattooed head, leaning against the pool table with a half-filled mug. “I heard what he said.”

“Logan—”

“I believe I heard him say,” Logan over-enunciated each word, “muttering under his breath—and these ears catch everything, trust me—that he’d never seen a sawed-off runt drink so much. Am I right?”

The bruiser cleared his throat and said, a little nervously, “Yeah, I did say that—”

“And that’s gonna cost y—”

“But,” he added quickly, “I was talking about him.”

He pointed, and Logan’s gaze flickered to a darkened corner of the bar. A little person, less than four feet tall, was sitting there with three empty mugs around him. He looked up with bleary eyes and, fixing them on the bruiser, said angrily, “My girlfriend dumped me. You got a problem with that, jerk?”

“No, no, we’re cool,” said the bruiser hurriedly. “Just me muttering. Didn’t mean to broadcast it. Sorry, pal. How about I buy you a pint?”

The little person considered it, then said, “Long as you don’t make jokes about half-pints.”

At which point the bruiser, the little person, and several others in the bar laughed aloud, all of which seemed to defuse matters until Logan stepped to within an inch of the bruiser’s face and growled, “And you think that settles things?”

The bruiser gulped slightly. Everyone stood utterly paralyzed. Working to keep his voice as flat and neutral as possible, he said, “If you want, I’ll buy you one, too.”

Logan’s nostrils flared like an animal’s. “I smell fear coming off
32
you. In waves. You that scared of me, bub? How about your friends? They scared, too? Is that what it’s gonna take? Telling you what a bunch of total wimps you are, so that you’ll stand up for yourself?”

The bruiser spoke barely above a whisper. “Seriously…the offer of a drink’s still open…”

“No, it’s not.” Clancy’s voice cracked sharply across the bar that was otherwise silent save for Logan’s barely controlled fury. “He’s cut off. You’re cut off, Logan.”

Slowly Logan’s furious gaze turned toward Clancy. Then he walked toward the bartender, one slow step at a time, like a gunslinger, until he was right in front of the bar. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Which word was unclear? ‘Cut’ or ‘off’?”

“You can’t cut me off, Clancy.” There was no pleading in his voice. Logan was incapable of pleading. Instead it was a flat statement.

“I sure can. You want to keep having liquor served to you? Go to another bar.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why the hell not? There’s plenty of other bars around.”

Logan paused, his jaw twitching, and then he admitted in a low voice, “They
all
cut me off.”

Clancy didn’t understand. “What? You mean today?”

“Yeah.”

Clancy took in what Logan was saying, and then called over to the bruiser that Logan had just threatened. “Jerry. Take over the bar for a minute, will ya?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Clancy came around the bar as Jerry slipped in behind. He gestured
33
for Logan to follow him, and Logan did so.

Clancy brought him around back to a storage area and turned to face him. “You telling me you’ve been drinking all day?”

“Yeah.”

“How the hell are you even standing up? I mean, I figured you were drunk, trying to pick a fight—”

“I ain’t drunk.”

“That’s ridiculous. You’d have to be—”

“Wanna hook me up to a breathalyzer? I’m stone-cold sober, Clancy.”

Clancy looked him in the eyes. He stared for quite some time, then said, “Holy God, you are. How is that possible? Back in the bar, you were slurring your words, you were kind of wobbling…”

“Wishful thinking. My…metabolism…it fights me when it comes to getting hammered.” It seemed a less complicated explanation than a mutant healing power that repaired any damage to his system so quickly that it was practically impossible for him to get drunk. He saw the way Clancy was looking at him. “You got something to say? Spit it out.”

Clearing his throat, Clancy said, “Look…Logan…I’ve known you for a while. And I always known you’re not, y’know…”

“I’m not what?”

“You’re different. Okay? I dunno what your deal is, and you know what? I don’t care. It’s none o’ my beeswax. You pay as you go, never run up a tab, which is more than I can say for some of these characters, including Jerry who’s probably single-handedly gone through a quarter of my stock by now. You usually keep to yourself, and you’re decent
34
company when you’re in a talkative mood. Whatever else you are, whatever else you do…
zei gezunt
, you get what I’m saying?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I get it.”

“But now you’re picking fights with guys? Why the hell are you doing that?”

“That’s not the question,” Logan said irritably. “The question is, why won’t they fight? Them and the guys in other bars. I used to get into some pretty good scraps in bars. Now I insult them to their faces and they won’t even defend themselves.”

It was all Clancy could do not to laugh. “Of course not! Word’s gotten around about you, Logan. Hell, a couple of places I know keep a picture of you behind the bar just to warn people off. Word’s out that you don’t mess with the short Canadian guy with the mutton chops. No offense.”

Logan considered it. “Nah. That’s a fair description.” He looked almost forlorn. “Nobody?”

“Nobody,” he said firmly. “I mean, jeez, man, you’ve sent guys to the emergency room and you walk away without a mark on you. Guys have pride, sure, but they’re not suicidal. They figure you can call them all the names you want, but at least they’ll come out of the evening in one piece, and their egos don’t wind up needing a full-body cast and a hundred stitches if they get banged around. So you can go around saying what you want to pretty much anyone you want, but nobody’s gonna take a swing at you because Thanksgiving’s not that far off, and they don’t feel like having their turkey fed to them through a tube. You get it now?”

“Yeah, I get it, okay? This has been real great, Clancy.” There was
35
a door with an exit sign on the other side of the room. “I’ll just be on my way, okay?”

He headed toward the door, but stopped when Clancy said, “It’s a woman, ain’t it?”

He didn’t look back at Clancy, keeping his face away from him. “What makes you say that?”

“Because it’s always a woman. Always. What’d she do to you? Cheat on you? Dump you?”

“She died,” Logan said quietly. “Five years ago. Today.”

“Man, I’m sorry to hear that. What happened, if you don’t mind my asking.”

“Rather not say. Trust me, ya wouldn’t believe me anyway. See ya later, Clancy.”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. And Logan…good luck getting drunk or picking a fight.”

“Don’t worry ’bout that,” said Logan. “I’m a pretty resourceful guy. I’m sure I’ll find a way to pull off one or the other.”

And with that, he walked out and let the door slam shut behind him.

36
 

EMMA
Frost had warned that violence at the school would not be tolerated in any form. That caution was still ringing in the air when the Sentinel attacked.

There had been no warning whatsoever. One moment Emma had been finishing her speech, and the next the entire ceiling of the room was being torn away. The sun’s rays filtered through in a haze of red, but no one paid any attention because they were busy dodging the debris that was tumbling from the ceiling.

Many of them had, at some point or other, seen the mutant-hunting Sentinels on television. But that hadn’t really conveyed just how big the damned things truly were. This particular Sentinel was gargantuan, and seemed even bigger to the terrified students. The blue-and-purple robot was twenty feet tall, yet some would later swear that it was bigger than the Washington Monument.

And there was another one behind the first one, looking down with its expressionless face and perpetually glowing yellow eyes.

A handful of the students actually responded in a manner that was
37
appropriate to beings of their nature and power. One young boy left the ground, flying as quickly as he could between the bits of falling debris. Another student, an Asian girl with a look that was both frightened and determined, created a force field that conformed to the shape of her body, as if it were some manner of energized armor.

The vast majority, however, scrambled to get out of the way of the oncoming threat. “Mutants targeted,” rumbled the nearer Sentinel, and several of the students were knocked off their feet and nearly trampled in the rush to get away. The Sentinels, they knew, had been created specifically to seek and destroy mutants.

Scott Summers was on his feet. Memories of his boring speech were immediately banished from the minds of the students as he snapped open his visor and they beheld Cyclops in action. A red beam of energy lashed out, blasting into the nearest of the Sentinels, staggering the gigantic robot but not stopping him. Hank McCoy was yanking clear his necktie, all semblance of the erudite and urbane individual from minutes earlier gone and replaced by a snarling creature that truly fit the name “Beast.”

Kitty Pryde backed up, phasing right through her chair. Her power gave her limited offensive capabilities, but she was studying the oncoming robot carefully, looking for some sort of weakness, some opportunity she could seize to fight back against the unwanted intruder.

And as people screamed and energy blasts ripped through the air and the Beast unleashed a defiant roar, and as the students were nearly killing each other just to get clear of the terrifying, towering robot that was coming right at them…

…Emma calmly touched a device sitting atop her podium.

38
Just like that, the Sentinels faded away. The debris likewise disappeared and the ceiling fixed itself, the hole vanishing to be replaced by a flat sheet of metal.

It was difficult for the students to process the idea that they were no longer under attack. Their collective pulse was still extremely high. One of them leaned against the wall, dramatically clutching at his chest. (He would later be found to be suffering from heartburn.)

Finally, all eyes turned to Emma, who was standing precisely where she had been, utterly indifferent to the pandemonium she’d caused.

“So. What have we learned?” she said, as casually as one might ask a child coming home from kindergarten. “Anyone? Anyone?” No one replied. Small wonder. The students were busy composing themselves, and Cyclops, Beast, and Kitty were just glaring at her, irritated about becoming pawns in Emma’s little battle of wits.

“We have learned,” she went on, “that they will always hate us. We will never live in a world of peace. Which is why control and non-violence are essential. We must prove ourselves a peaceful people. We must give the ordinary humans respect, compliance, and understanding. And we must never mistake that for trust. All right, you all have your room assignments. Classes start tomorrow. Dismissed.”

She watched the shaken students file out. Some of them were still trembling, and there were nervous mutterings of, “Is that gonna happen all the time around here?”

Kitty approached Emma and snapped at her, “I should have known. Holding the orientation in the Danger Room…I should have known you’d pull some sort of holographic stunt just to scare the crap out of them.”

39
“Yes. You should have,” said Emma, not the least bit put out by Kitty’s clear annoyance. “Perhaps you weren’t sufficiently prepared the first time you attended this school. You may want to take a refresher course or two. You might find some of my lectures useful.”

“Yeah? What are you teaching? Defense against the Dark Arts?”

“Next semester, perhaps.”

Emma descended from the podium, one elegant stride at a time. Hank walked to the edge, no less annoyed than Kitty. His shirt was half open and his glasses were in his hand. “Are you aware what could have happened here, Emma?”

“It was a calculated risk.”

“Those kids,” and he pointed a clawed finger, “were in a panic. One or more of them could have been badly injured in the stampede. Did you factor that into your calculations?”

“Yes, I did. Just as I factored in that everybody is the hero in their own narrative.” One delicate eyebrow arched on her chiseled face. “Everyone imagines that, when faced with danger, they’re going to save the day. It leads to overconfidence, which in turn leads to death. These children are just beginning to learn the harsh realities of being a mutant in a world in which people would just as soon kill them as look at them. They need a baseline from which to start, an honest assessment of where they are now, so they can understand just how far they need to go. Every student here who shrieked or ran or soiled her or himself, the first time they faced what they believed to be true danger, is going to be shamed by that reaction. They have been forced to face themselves and they’ll know they were found wanting. It will give them something to aspire to, someplace to build from, so that when the real
40
thing comes for them—as it inevitably will—they’ll be ready. Or at least as ready as we can make them. Oh, and by the way, Doctor McCoy…” She smiled thinly. “Love the glasses. Marvelous disguise. When you wear them, I can’t even tell it’s you.”

Then she looked to Scott. A moment frozen in time. Even Kitty and Hank turned to Scott to see whether he had something to say.

He said nothing. He simply stood there and stared at her, his face devoid of any expression.

That silent moment seemed to extend indefinitely. Then, without another word, Emma turned and walked away, her hips swishing back and forth.

“Nice going, Scott,” said Kitty. “You sure told her.”

“We’ll discuss it,” said Scott. “Just not here and not now.”

“When, then?”

“When I calm down.”

He strode away, leaving Kitty and Hank looking at each other.

“He was angry?” she said.

“Actually, he was,” said Hank. “You could see the edge of his mouth twitching slightly. That’s how you know.”

THEIR
paths didn’t cross again for the rest of the day, and it wasn’t until they were in the suite they shared that Scott finally had the opportunity to talk to Emma face-to-face.

The suite had two desks, one for each of them, which faced each other. There was also a sitting area where they would meet with students who needed personal time with either of them. Historically, and
41
interestingly—although perhaps not that surprisingly—the male students gravitated to Emma while the females would gaze longingly at Scott. Scott had once asked her if she ever quietly eavesdropped on the boys’ thoughts. She’d laughed and said, “Trust me, I could be bereft of telepathic powers—not to mention deaf, dumb, and blind—and I’d still know what they’re thinking.”

Now they stood opposite each other, leaning against their respective desks. Scott’s arms were folded across his chest, while Emma was leaning back, her arms at her sides, hands flat on the desktop and—Scott couldn’t help but notice—her hips thrust slightly forward.
She’s trying to distract you
, he thought.
Don’t let her do it. Don’t let her do it
.

“You should have told me you were going to do that,” he said, all business.

“You would have said no.”

“Among other things.”

“I feel it’s always better to ask forgiveness than permission.”

She said it in a slightly teasing voice, but Scott wasn’t going for it. He kept his expression stern. “Everything both Kitty and Hank said was right.”

“As was everything I said. Or don’t I get points for that?”

“Being right wouldn’t have mattered if there’d been a fatality. How are we preparing children for the future if they have no future because the lessons killed them? We both know that once that chaos was unleashed, once they started running, anything could have happened. Someone could have died…”

“Then they had better do it and decrease the surplus population.”

It took him a moment, but then he got it. “You’re Scrooge now, is
42
that it? Is that how you want people to think of you? Heartless and uncaring?”

“Scott, in all the years you’ve known me, have I ever given a damn about what people think of me?”

It was a fair question.

“No,” he admitted. “On the other hand, I don’t think you’re heartless and uncaring, which leads me to wonder why you’d want anyone to think you are?”

“I would also point out,” she said, “that the line about the surplus population was said by the Ghost of Christmas Present, who was mocking Scrooge’s opinions. And Christmas Present loved mankind beyond all things.”

“So you’re saying you did it because you love our students so much.”

“Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind,” she said with a shrug of her shapely shoulders.

He still wasn’t swayed. “What you did wasn’t right, and the proof that even
you
knew that is that you didn’t ask me.”

She let out an annoyed sigh. Her tone went from wheedling to resigned and business-like. “During orientation, I scanned the students. Nearly ten percent of them were more than a little excited at the prospect of a fight. I thought we should know—”

“Which ones were,” he completed the thought. “To know who might have the most capability for joining a fighting force…and who might be the most reckless and possibly get themselves killed in a real fight. It’s a valid point and one I’d
almost
buy—except you were the one who decided we should have the orientation in the Danger Room. Which makes it come across to me as if it were more premeditated than
43
something you just decided to do on the spur of the moment.”

“Why are we wasting time with verbal fencing, Scott? It was a valid exercise in student assessment, and whether it was planned ahead, spur of the moment, or a little bit of both, really doesn’t matter. Although for the record, where else would we have orientation except in the Danger Room? It’s the largest room in the mansion, unless you wanted to have it down in the hangar bay…in which case, most of the students would have been busy looking at the Blackbird.”

The Blackbird was the X-Men’s transport of choice, a sleek aircraft that had begun its life as a simple spy plane. Since then the ship had acquired concussive missiles and other weaponry.

“I don’t know about that. With you on the podium, who could possibly be distracted by anything else?”

“Good heavens, Scott.” She stood upright and began to sashay over toward him in a manner that was determinedly coquettish. “Is that a
compliment
? A few more like that and you might actually turn my head.”

“There’s always that possibility.” He thought a moment, and then said, “The students…which ones were—?”

“I’m not Professor Xavier, Scott, despite our many physical similarities,” she said wryly. “As much as it pains me to admit it, as a telepath I’m not remotely on his level. He can wield his mind like a surgeon does a scalpel. I’m more of a sledgehammer. I can’t pinpoint with that facility, especially when it comes to new minds that I’m encountering for the first time. But if you’d like, I’ll go through the roster and try to narrow it down…”

She was close enough then to rest her hand on his chest. She gazed into the red slit in his visor that kept him blocked off from the rest of
44
the world. “…tomorrow.”

“Not tonight.”

“No,” and her gaze flickered toward the door at the far end of the suite: the door that led to their bedroom. “I have other plans for tonight.”

“And they include me.”

“Well, I
could
start without you, but I’d much rather you joined me.”

She’s trying to distract you again. Don’t let her do it. Don’t let her do it
.

He let her do it.

And later, when the clothes came off and their bodies came together, they were able to escape—just for a moment—from the truth that neither of them wanted to admit or even think about:

Some of those kids
were
going to die. What had happened that day in the Danger Room was simply a dress rehearsal for the actual, brutal demise that awaited some of them. There was no way of knowing which ones it would be, but there would be some. There might be many. It could be all of them.