They were the least of the room’s combat capabilities though. Larger smite drones, complete with hefty, armored front prows, slammed towards Cyclops from almost every angle, seeking to shatter bones or pitch him from one floor panel to another. Their assault was further enhanced by the fact that not all were actually real – powerful projectors in the room’s ceiling created holographic echoes, a convincing mimicry of the buzzing machines that could distract from the real ones as they swooped in to strike. And, to top it all, energy nodes at different heights in the wall occasionally emitted linked beams of crackling force at random intervals, searing across the space between them.
Cyclops battled them all at once. Cipher watched as he vaulted from one floor segment to another, higher section, rolling as he landed to duck beneath one of the energy bolts. A flurry of attack drone bolts rained down like a shower of stinging, crimson rain on the space the X-Man had occupied a split-second earlier, scorching it. He rose and turned in one motion, his visor searing the attacking flock from existence with a beam of red brilliance that left Cipher’s eyes aching.
A smite drone swung in from the left, its rotors screeching. Cyclops made no move to stop it, instead side-stepping another volley of shots from a second attack drone swarm holding station near the dome’s roof. The smite drone slammed into his side, or it would have, had it been anything more tangible than a projection. It shimmered and blinked from existence as Cyclops dropped down to a lower floor section rising to meet him, using the higher one to momentarily block the angle of the real drones shooting at him.
Cipher shifted to avoid one of the energy node beams, not taking her eyes off Cyclops. This was a side of him the rest of the school almost never saw – swift and deadly, a near-flawless blend of focus, control and strength. He made tactical decisions in a heartbeat and moved with total conviction. It wasn’t even that his fighting style was flawless. Nobody’s was, and the scorch marks on his X-suit and the light graze across right thigh and shoulder evidenced where he’d taken hits. He always recovered though, always kept fighting and resisting. As Cipher watched, he unleashed another optic blast from his glowing visor, bouncing the beam from one of the angled wall plates and deflecting it up to knock out half of the drone swarm that had been seeking out a new angle on him.
She knew she was watching a demonstration of why, even among the most talented X-Men, Scott Summers was considered a leader. There was more to today’s exercise than that though. She had witnessed him training before. She had never, however, seen him moving with such underlying fury. His efforts in this session seemed to possess a particular edge, a degree of viciousness that rarely showed through. Cyclops wasn’t just running through the motions in an advanced training program. He was fighting something much larger.
Another beam, bounced between no less than four different surfaces, shattered the last remaining drone units. As charred scraps of metal and melted plastic rained down around him, Cyclops stood, head bowed, panting. There was a sonorous whirr of hydraulics and the whine of systems powering down as the floor panels slowly began to retract and the wall sections folded back on themselves.
“Session completed,” intoned the automated female voice of the Danger Room. “Threat Level Alpha, rescinded. Beginning cooldown protocols.”
“Twenty-eight minutes and nineteen seconds,” Cipher said. “A new personal best.”
Cyclops turned sharply, looking right at her. Momentarily, Cipher felt as though he was about to unleash that burning red glow. She didn’t flinch.
“You don’t have permission to be in here,” Cyclops said as the segment he was standing on reached the rest of the floor, sliding home with a heavy thunk. “In fact, you don’t have permission to be out of your dorm.”
“I know,” Cipher said, still invisible as she allowed herself to float to the decking plates as well. “But there isn’t a security system in the Institute that can keep me there. And unlike Jonas, I’m less likely to follow instructions based solely on authority.”
“I told you after the incident with Victor that you were on your final warning, Alisa,” Cyclops said, his tone harsh. “You’ve left me with no choice other than to have you expelled.”
“I know,” Cipher repeated. “That’s all right. I’m leaving anyway. Jonas too.”
She walked towards Cyclops as she spoke, picking her way over the broken remnants of the drones. It would take months to restock the Danger Room’s supply of self-automated units. As she went, she dropped her invisibility, the tall, dreadlocked girl materializing right in front of her principal.
“Jonas and I have been talking,” she said. “And I’ve been thinking. You know where Victor is. You know, but you haven’t gone after him.”
“And why would you think that?” Cyclops demanded, his red lens focusing on Cipher.
“I wouldn’t want to reveal your secrets, principal,” she said with the barest hint of a smile. “I know how important those can be. But I think you need to admit why you haven’t gone looking for Vic when you could have. I think it’s much the same reason you’re in here tonight, wrecking the Danger Room.”
Cyclops half turned away, his facial expression dark. He was clearly unused to being lectured by a student, but then few were as piercingly incisive as Alisa was.
“Go on,” he said in a guarded tone.
“You don’t have the resources to go after Vic,” Cipher surmised. “You want to. You want to get his dad back too. But Santo was your last card. There are no senior staff with mutant abilities left at the Institute except for you. Everyone’s out on operation, trying to hold back the tide of hate that’s swelling up everywhere.”
She paused to see if Cyclops had anything to add, anything to deny. He stayed silent. She continued.
“So, your first duty is to continue to oversee the Institute. Not only that, but to guard it. You don’t want to. You want to be out there, with your colleagues, your friends, taking the fight to the ones causing all the harm. But you’re a dutiful man, Principal Summers. And if duty means staying buried beneath a mountainside running endless Danger Room drills while making sure no more kids get hurt, then so be it. If Vic decided to ignore that and go off looking for his dad, well, the safety of the rest of the school has to come first. So you’ve got to leave him to it, and hope Santo comes through.”
Cipher stood watching Cyclops after she finished, her arms crossed. The principal turned back towards her, and this time his expression held a bitterness that his visor couldn’t conceal.
“I’m glad you’re one of the sharpest students at the Institute, Miss Tager,” he said. “If you weren’t, I’d be deeply concerned that one of my pupils has discerned so much.”
“I get to see and hear a lot more than most students, principal,” Cipher said. “Luckily for everyone, I can keep a secret.”
“You’re a nightmare to try and confine. I hope you know that.”
“It’s what I’m all about. And it’s partly why I’m here. As I said, Jonas and I have been talking.”
“You want to go after Victor,” Cyclops said. It wasn’t a question.
“We do,” Cipher said. “We can help him. We’re both confident in our abilities. And responsible.” She added the last word as though it was the sort of thing she thought a school principal would want to hear.
“You yourself said I was still here because I took my duty to protect the pupils at this school seriously,” Cyclops said. “But you expect me to sanction two more of you to head out into grave danger without my assistance?”
“And you admitted I was a nightmare to confine,” Cipher pointed out in turn. “You know you can’t stop me. You might be able to stop Jonas, but I doubt you want to deal with him without either myself or Vic around.”
“So, this is a courtesy call,” Cyclops said, looking unimpressed. “You’re happy to get yourself and your friends expelled into the bargain?”
; “If it means making sure Vic is safe, then yes. You know you couldn’t have forced him to stay here, even if it was for his own safety. The same applies to me. Out there the odds are against Vic and Santo. With Jonas and with me, they start to become a bit more even. I thought you’d appreciate that.”
Cyclops stood looking down at her. There was a deep rumble, and the heavy blast shutters surrounding the chamber began to slide upwards, exposing the reinforced windows and the data nodes and security ports that dotted the Danger Room. Throughout the school, dim lights brightened once more.
“Cooldown protocols complete,” said the automated voice. “Please exit at your convenience.”
“Return to your dorm, Miss Tager,” Cyclops said.
“You’re not going to give me permission to leave, are you?” Cipher asked.
“You said it yourself,” Cyclops responded. “I have a duty to my students. All of them.”
•••
Graymalkin remembered to not look up as he sensed Cipher enter. He sat at the desk in his dorm in the pitch black, reading. The text was a magazine he’d found abandoned in the canteen, entitled Life Choice Premium. It seemed to contain nothing but poorly sourced anecdotes about people he could only assume were what passed for “celebrities” in the modern sense. None of them seemed worthy of interest, but if there was a whole magazine full of them, he supposed he should at least make an effort to learn about some of them.
He waited for Cipher to speak, trying not to give away his anxiety. He knew she had the news he’d been waiting for.
“I spoke to the principal,” she said, as unannounced as ever. “He said no.”
Graymalkin sighed, closed Life Choice Premium, and slid it back on top of the pile of hot gossip mags he’d acquired over the past two years. It was as he’d feared.
“Did he threaten us with further punishment?” he asked his invisible friend.
“He did,” she confirmed. “He said he’ll expel us. I think that might just be me though. He wasn’t pleased that I left the dorms and went in the Danger Room when it was live.”
“It was bold of you,” Graymalkin admitted. “But I would not see you suffer alone, my friend. The plan was conceived by both of us.”
“You don’t have to come,” Cipher said. “It may be difficult getting you out, for starters. You don’t deserve to be expelled. The school is your home. There’s no shame in that.”
“If so, then you and Victor are my family,” Graymalkin said. “One is not much without the other.”
A sharp rap at the door cut through the conversation. Graymalkin froze. He sensed Cipher looking at him. He had not expected the principal’s reprisals to begin so soon.
He stood up from his desk and opened the door onto the dorm corridor. One of the Institute’s paid security detail – Graymalkin believed his name was Wilbur – was standing across the corridor, as far as humanly possible away from the door he’d just knocked on. Graymalkin recalled him from the diversionary opening of the Lower North hatch on the night they’d gotten Victor out. He’d never seen someone look at him with quite as much abject horror as the poor man had on that occasion. It seemed he still hadn’t fully recovered from the experience.
“Principal Summers would like to see you in his office,” he said haltingly. “He also said... if Miss Tager is in there with you, to ask her to come too.”
“Thank you, Wilbur,” Graymalkin said with a polite smile and eased the door half shut.
“The principal wishes to see us,” he said to the approximate location of Alisa. The words came out level, but the thought of being ordered before Summers made him nervous. He was, in a sense, the father of the Institute, and Graymalkin had more than enough memories of being ordered into the presence of his father.
“He’s probably going to formally expel us,” Cipher said with a dash of scorn, showing none of the apprehension Graymalkin couldn’t help but feel. “I wonder how long he’ll give us to pack our bags.”
“We should still speak to him.”
“I already tried.”
“Then I will,” Graymalkin said, mustering his courage. “And I will let him know that nothing shall dissuade us from finding our friend.”
“Well, if you’re going to see him, I’d better come too,” Cipher said. “Otherwise he’ll probably think you’re just trying to distract him while I run another escape attempt.”
•••
By the time they reached the principal’s office, Cyclops had changed from his battered X-suit into a shirt and tie. It was strange to see him dressed formally, the vision of a smart, professional young educator thrown off somewhat by the continued glower of the ever-present visor.
“Please, have a seat,” he said, looking up from an open folder as Cipher and Graymalkin entered. They took the proffered chairs opposite the desk.
“Miss Tager, I’d appreciate if you remained visible throughout this exchange,” he went on.
“Yes, principal,” Cipher said quietly, phasing into view. Cyclops nodded his thanks and spoke to Gray in turn.
“I assume, Mr Graymalkin, that you are aware Miss Tager spoke to me recently in the Danger Room.”
“Yes, principal,” Gray answered with stiff formality.
“You know that following the incident with Victor I made it clear any further infractions would see you both expelled from the Institute,” Cyclops said.
“Yes, principal,” Graymalkin and Cipher repeated together.
“I had a discussion with all three of you in this very office some time ago, when you were all new to the Institute,” Cyclops continued, setting down the folder he’d been holding. “Jonas was struggling, and Alisa and Victor were bearing that struggle without sharing it. Do you remember what I told you all when I found out?”
Cipher and Graymalkin were silent. Cyclops went on.
“I told you that no one in this school ever carries a burden alone. That is the very essence of the Institute. Could either of you explain to me the purpose of what we do here?”
“To prepare promising young mutants for inclusion within the ranks of the X-Men,” Graymalkin said, like he was reading from a college prospectus. “To furnish them with both a higher education and the practical skills necessary for them to better both themselves and wider society upon graduation.”
“Ostensibly you are correct, Jonas, as usual,” Cyclops said. “These are indeed the outcomes of what we do here. But they are not the core reason for the school’s existence. They are merely byproducts. You are both orphans, are you not?”
“We are,” Graymalkin said. Cipher said nothing.
“You are probably aware that you’re not the only ones here in similar circumstances,” Cyclops said. “When I was still a child, I believed my parents had been killed in an airplane crash. I grew up in the State Home for Foundlings in Oklahoma. My powers were partly activated by the trauma of that initial incident, and the difficulties of the years that followed.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Principal Summers,” Graymalkin said.
“It’s all right, Jonas,” he responded. “It turned out for the best, eventually. But that isn’t the case for all of us. The number of mutant children worldwide who are orphaned, abandoned, even attacked by their parents is many times higher than that of the average human population. It is a terrible weight that thousands of innocent mutants are forced to live with, some for as long as they can recall. But there are people, and organizations, out there that try to make a difference. The Institute is one of them. We are not just a school. We are, whenever and wherever possible, a family.”
Silence followed the principal’s statement. Graymalkin bowed his head slightly. Cipher sensed he had been affected by the words, but they rang colder for her.
“Like any family, we aren’t always perfect,” Cyclops carried on. “We make mistakes. We have arguments. But we don’t
give up on each other. We’re a safe home for everyone who hasn’t had one before. And when it feels like no one will listen, and no one cares, my door is always open. That may not mean much, but you made the choice to come through my door today, Alisa. You didn’t need to. You could have left and none of us would have been able to stop you. I know you don’t care about my authority. But you showed the Institute respect. I’ve taken note of that.”
“I didn’t want you to punish Graymalkin,” Cipher said. “I thought it would be worse for him if I left without saying.”
“I would not have shirked any punishment,” Gray said firmly, looking from one to the other.
“I know,” Cyclops responded. “Which is to your credit. Between the two of you, you’ve reminded me why families exist. A family supports. Vic was trying to support his own. And it’s our job to support him. Your job. He’s a part of your family. For that reason, go after him, both of you, and make sure he finds his father.”
Cipher and Gray stayed silent, and a small smile crept over Cyclops’s face.
“Well, it’s not often I get to see both of you looking surprised. I only have two conditions to allowing you out of the Institute to find Victor.”
“What are they?” Cipher asked, finding her voice.
“Firstly, that you don’t leave until tomorrow morning. Get a good night’s sleep. I suspect you’ll need it. Secondly, I’d like you to both visit Mrs Borkowski before you go. She’s been moved from the infirmary to Miss Frost’s old room. I’ve tried to reassure her about her son, but she’s mentioned you both on several occasions, and I think you might do a better job than me. Let her know some of the Institute’s finest will be looking for him.”
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