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  “No, it’s a wrong word. There is nothing limited about our research…”

  “Yes, there is,” said Mr. Bean firmly. “First of all, it caters to the needs of a very small percentage of the population. Relatively speaking, a minuscule portion…”

  “Nonsense,” she said brusquely. “There are other genetic conditions, deformities, that Benetech is researching, that are far rarer—not to mention less potentially destructive—than what I’ve been investigating.”

  “Yes, but you’ve been investigating it for years, and apparently you’re no closer to a solution than you were when you started.” He sounded sympathetic rather than harsh, but the words still hit like body blows. “Am I correct?”

  “These things take time.”

  “I’m sure they do, but that doesn’t answer the question. Am I correct?”

  She tapped a finger on the table, a nervous habit that she was unable to quit no matter how hard she tried. It grated on her to admit it, but she had to: “That would be a fair assessment.”

  “Well…there you have it,” said Mr. Bean. He had a thick folder open in front of him and when he closed it, it was like the gates of hell slamming shut. “Understand that we are informing you of our recommendation purely as a courtesy—”

  “What are you not saying?” she demanded, her eyes narrowing.

  Mr. Bean looked politely confused. “I’m not sure I—”

  “There’s something else. Something you’re not telling me. I’m very good at reading body language, Mr. Bean, and there’s something going on that you’re not being candid about.”

  He exchanged glances with the others of his ilk at the table, and then he cleared his throat and said, “The, uh…the simple fact, Doctor Rao, is that mutants aren’t what one might call sexy.”

  She stared at him as if he’d suddenly started speaking in tongues. “I’m sorry? Not…sexy? Have you seen some of their outfits?”

  Mr. Bean and the others started to laugh until they saw that she wasn’t, at which point they immediately fell silent.

  “What I mean to say is that mutantcy isn’t like, say, sickle-cell or Tay-Sachs or Parkinson’s. It doesn’t have someone like Michael J. Fox who everybody adores going around filming commercials or testifying to Congress about how funds are needed for research. People are, in fact, terrified of mutants. Even the so called,”—he held up finger quotes—“‘good mutants’ are objects of fear, because you never know when they’re going to turn evil or destroy property fighting the mutants that supposedly are worse than they are. You think the average citizen cares about who’s good and who’s evil in one of these huge fights? They don’t. To them, it’s an extended bar brawl that’s spilled out into their front yards and demolished their new Ford Fusions.”

  “You’re telling me,” she said slowly, “that despite the fact that people are suffering—both mutants and average citizens. Benetech won’t support research into mutants because they can’t use it for fundraising?”

  “Sad to say, yes. That’s exactly right. Especially when it’s combined with the lack of progress. It’s not like muscular dystrophy where telethons can be held for decades, and people understand the fact that the condition is still around. Being a mutant is simply a different proposition from other genetic research. And that’s the truth.”

  “Really.” She stood up, knowing there was no point in continuing the discussion. That indeed there hadn’t actually been a discussion. The men automatically rose when she did. Then she ticked off on her fingers, one at a time: “Muscular dystrophy. Cystic fibrosis. Hemophilia. Tay-Sachs. Sickle-cell. Do you know what all of those are?”

  “Diseases?” said Mr. Bean, looking puzzled.

  “Mutations. Every single one. Point mutations, to be specific. And people treat those sufferers with simple human compassion. If we’d spent all this time trying to help mutants instead of running from them or attacking them, then maybe—just maybe—the research would be further along.”

  “Well,” and he shrugged, “I guess we’ll never know, will we?”

  “No,” she said icily. “We won’t.”

  She walked out without another word.

  RAO strode down the hallway, the edges of the lab coat, worn over her sari, swirling around her legs. Her fists were clenched tightly and her posture was ramrod straight.

  Fools. Blind fools. They don’t understand. None of them understand.

  She wondered how much of her department was going to be left when she returned to it. Would her office even be there? Maybe they were just planning to move her desk into the cafeteria. She could continue to do her work as long as she was willing to bus tables.

  Then, as she walked past one lab that had been emptied during the last round of budget cuts, she heard a deep, rough voice call to her from within. “Doctor Rao,” it said.

  She turned and looked. The main light wasn’t on, but the glow from a single overhead fixture provided some illumination. Rao stepped to the threshold and looked inside.

  There was a table in the middle of the room with various papers and file folders on it, arranged in what appeared to be a rather haphazard fashion. Even from this distance, though, she could discern that the materials involved genetic research.

  Otherwise the room was filled with shadows. She thought she could make out someone at the far end. Someone big, built like a linebacker. Beyond his general shape, though, she couldn’t see any details.

  “Come in, please, Doctor Rao,” said the voice. It was deep, sonorous, but otherwise didn’t sound particularly threatening. “Close the door behind you.”

  She automatically reached over and flipped the main light switch. It clicked impotently.

  Well, this is coming across like a bad horror movie.

  “As an alternative proposal,” she said, still not stepping inside, “how about I call security?”

  “By the time they arrive, I’ll be gone,” said the voice. “Along with all that tasty research on the table—which, I have reason to believe, will be of great interest to you.”

  On a day that was already spectacularly bad, she wondered pragmatically if it could really get any worse. So what if this was some insane person trying to tempt her into danger by putting out research, like cheese intended to attract a mouse, so he could snap some sort of trap down on her? Even insane people deserve a little consideration, she thought with bleak humor.

  Besides, what she could make out on the table was intriguing.

  She stepped in and shut the door behind her.

  “Thank you,” he said. The shadowy form gestured toward the materials. “Look it over. Take your time. I’ll wait.”

  Slowly she strode to the table and stared down. She touched nothing. She simply looked at the research, all laid out before her.

  “As you see,” said the voice, “it focuses on a mutual interest of ours: mutants. What causes them. And what can stop them. The fact is—and know that I will always be honest with you—I despise mutants. I think them destructive in every sense of the word—and an incredible danger to not only this world, but also to others. You, I believe, have a more…generous…point of view. It doesn’t matter, because our goal is the same. Namely, to render them no longer a threat to anyone. Whether this extends from altruism or self-defense is really beside the point. Our motivations, however dissimilar they might be, intersect when it comes to the intended goal.”

  Rao was barely listening. Her eyes were widening with every moment as she realized what lay in front of her. Copious amounts of information, study, and data that built upon what she had done thus far and took it to the next level.

  It was all right there. At last, there was hope…

  “This is…it’s unbelievable. I can scarcely…” Then she stopped, and a voice within warned her not to get too excited. There had to be a catch. There had to be…

  “Strings,” she said.

  The man in the shadows sounded puzzled. “Pardon?”

  “What are the strings? There are
always strings attached. What sort of Faustian bargain are we talking about here? What is this going to cost me?”

  “Cost?” He seemed offended at the notion. “No cost. Consider it a gift. A small boost the rest of the way to a goal you would have certainly reached on your own. Surely you see that you were very close, Doctor Rao. Your work was brilliant.”

  She looked back down at the research. She still couldn’t help but be suspicious. “My work is what it is. And I appreciate the flattery. But frankly…Henry McCoy is the man you should be talking to. And that’s not an easy thing for me to admit. There are aspects here I have to struggle to understand that he would just intuitively grasp since he’s…”

  “A mutant?”

  “Smarter…is what I was going to say,” she admitted wryly. “For all my expertise, he still exceeds me in this area. In fact, I wonder why you didn’t go directly to him. He is higher profile than I am when it comes to this particular area of study.”

  “Perhaps. However, I don’t believe Doctor McCoy would be objective about my…objective. Given his condition. He seems mostly preoccupied with fully understanding the mechanics of the mutant gene. Laudable, certainly, but that’s a far cry from wanting to do something about it.”

  “And it’s that ‘something’ that concerns me,” said Rao. “Understand this: If I take advantage of this work…if I take it to its logical conclusion—no one is to be hurt.”

  “Are these your strings, then?” He didn’t sound annoyed; indeed, he came across as slightly amused.

  She nodded. “Whatever your feelings about mutants, I will not be a party to murder.”

  “Why, Doctor,” he said chidingly, “I have just this day done the opposite. I have resuscitated a mutant your Earth-based science thought deceased.”

  “What?”

  A slight rise and fall of his shoulders, as if this pronouncement were a casual accomplishment that he performed every day. “I understand your mistrust. In point of fact, I respect it. But there are millions of lives at stake and my only interest is in saving them. I don’t believe you can turn your back on that opportunity.”

  She knew that he was right. She knew she couldn’t, in fact, turn away from it. But that didn’t mean she had to go into it blind, either. Boldly she came around the table and stepped right up to him. “Come into the light,” she said. “I’m tired of this cloak-and-dagger nonsense.”

  “As you wish,” he said, and did so.

  She gasped as the light fell upon him. It took her long seconds to fully process who and what she was looking at.

  Finally she found words:

  “Is this where you say, ‘Take me to your leaders?’”

  “I’ve already been to your leaders,” he said, and produced a final file that he seemed to have plucked out of nowhere. “And they gave me this.”

  She tentatively took the folder from him and squinted in the dimness at the name on the upper tab.

  “Tildie Soames? Who’s Tildie Soames?”

  She flipped open the file and started reading. With each sentence she became more horrified, more distressed. The police reports, the psychiatric profiles, and the pictures, oh dear lord, the pictures filled with what was essentially a crime scene, blood and gore spattered everywhere. What must those people have felt when they died? What must they have thought? They couldn’t have had the slightest comprehension of what was happening to them, and the girl, God in heaven, the girl. It was astounding that she was something other than a complete basket case, curled up in the corner of a room having gone totally fetal.

  “Right now, as we speak,” said this strange being who had just dropped into her life, “little Tildie is in a small, dark room. Isolated, talking to no one, fearing everything including, most particularly, herself. She’s the poster girl for post-traumatic stress disorder. She has no human contact because no human will get near her, for fear of ending up the way her father and mother did. That’s no way for anyone to live, much less a child. And as we both know, Doctor Rao,” and he showed what passed for teeth in his massive mouth, “we must think of the children.”

  I was a child.

  At the time I deluded myself into thinking I was an adult. Kitty Pryde, the adult. It wasn’t all that tough to feel that way when I was with kids back in “normal” school. They were so freaking immature. Like that day when all the kids got together and everywhere I turned, they said, “Hello, Kitty” in these really annoying nasal voices. And all of them—girls, boys, jocks, cheerleaders, nerds, everybody—were wearing “Hello Kitty” shirts with that stupid-ass cat emblazoned on it in pink and white. And I opened my locker and—how they cracked it, I don’t know—about a hundred Hello Kitty dolls fell out. And I felt so embarrassed and so frustrated and so stupid. I hated my name, I hated my stupid hair, I hated everything about everyone and everybody.

  And then I left.

  And I came here.

  And since then, I’ve changed so much.

  But the place hasn’t. Here, nothing has changed.

  As the cab pulls away, I stand in front of the building that was my home for so long. It was more than just a school. It was my haven, my salvation.

  It looks just the same.

  Honestly, I’m not sure I understand how it’s possible. This place has been destroyed more times than the post-season hopes of Chicago Cubs fans, yet here it is, just as I remember it from the very first time I arrived. Not a brick out of place, not a dent in the roof, not a single pane of glass shattered.

  Of course, the Professor would have it rebuilt this way. Give everyone a sense of stability and continuity.

  Nothing has changed.

  I’m standing about ten feet away from the place where I saw Professor Xavier for what was going to be—to the best of my knowledge—the last time. I looked all fancy in my yellow suit with my stupid hair finally, finally smoothed out, the hated curls long gone. Professor X, in his wheelchair, looking at me with a combination of pride and wistfulness. In my mind’s eye, I can see him telling me he can send my furniture to wherever I wind up, or back home to Deerfield. There I stand, my fingers interlaced, like a grown daughter heading out into the world, saying, “No. Keep it here. I intend to visit you guys every chance I get.”

  Liar. I’m lying so much you’d think the pants I have on now would catch fire retroactively.

  The air is nippy. I’m wearing a blue flannel jacket this time. Just in case the X-Men get kidnapped again, I want to be dressed warmer than I was the first time. I have a suitcase in either hand. I’ve tried to prepare for any eventuality, but realistically that’s not going to happen. We’ve seen it all: space, other dimensions, jungles, mountains, deserts. How do you pack for all that?

  I phase through the wall next to the door just because I can. To my right I look at the inside of the foyer and I see my younger self, pointing an angry finger and shouting, “Professor X is a jerk!” I remember it as vividly as if it happened yesterday: Professor Xavier, deciding that my continuing to operate beside the X-Men was too dangerous, demoted me to an incoming class of students called the “New Mutants.” Mutant I was, yes, but not new, and oh man, I was pissed off. I fought the decision tooth and nail and finally, after I took down a couple of bad guys singlehandedly, he put me back where I belonged.

  Back where I belonged.

  Now where do I belong?

  Perhaps I’m kidding myself. Maybe I haven’t changed at all.

  Because when I walk in here, all that happens is that the insecurities and uncertainties I felt when I was younger flood all over me. Despite all my experiences, despite everything I endured and went through, now that I’ve returned…

  I’m a kid again, out of my depth. Completely overwhelmed by everything here. And it isn’t any of our old enemies, the Sidri or Sentinels or the Brood, that surround me. It’s the smaller pieces.

  Shards. Of me.

  There’s the stairway I dangled the mistletoe from so I could kiss Peter Rasputin on Christmas. “Merry Christmas, se
xy,” purred the little kitten in his ear, and oh boy, was he shocked. I must have made the poor guy feel so uncomfortable, this pipsqueak jailbait girl coming on to him. It must have creeped him out something fierce.

  I didn’t care. Truthfully, I’m not even sure it occurred to me. All I cared about was him and how I felt about him and…

  …and God, I miss him.

  Him and Jean. She was the first X-Man to save my hash. Others did over the years, but, like they say, you never forget your first. Especially when it’s today.

  When it’s the fifth anniversary of her death.

  I put down my suitcase and compose myself. Come on, Kitty. No tears. Put on your adult face.

  Nobody around. I hope I’m not late for the orientation. And hey, even if I am, it’s not like it’s a matter of life and death.

  TWO

  SCOTT Summers was dying.

  He knew it. He could sense it with every fiber of his being. And yet, like a man trapped in a freight train that seemed to be derailing in slow motion, he was helpless to escape it or do anything about it.

  Somebody help me. I don’t want to die alone.

  He looked to Hank McCoy, the Beast. Covered head to toe with blue fur, the intellectual and catlike McCoy was nattily attired in a custom-made dark-green suit and bow tie. His round glasses were perched on top of his snout. He was seated in one of the three chairs on the stage, holding the five-page speech that he had finished delivering minutes before. It had been a wonderfully irreverent discussion of the science curriculum, and it had absolutely engaged and delighted the audience. “Got them all warmed up for you,” Hank had whispered to Scott as he slid into his seat. Scott nodded and looked down apprehensively at the small stack of index cards he’d scribbled his notes onto. He’d thought that speaking more or less off the cuff might put the audience at ease…

  The audience. Scott looked out at them, staring up at him, waiting for him to say something, anything that would interest them. A sea of young faces, eager to learn what they could expect from their time at the school. The room was extremely large, with row upon row of seats set up for them. On the wall behind the speakers on the raised podium was a huge letter “X.”