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[Public | Audio]

A couple of questions.

How good are the medical facilities at the hospital?

Who here can hold their breath a damn long time and help me have a look around the ship? [It's for more medical supplies]

[Private to Charles | Audio]

Loan me your brain for a minute. I have an idea I'd like to share. [And he's too paranoid to share everything over the network.]

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They probably don't live long enough to spread much of a word. Hence the masks.

[He thinks about it, before putting the ring down.] Litmus Chronograph. If you touch the bottom side against someone, even through cloths or a layer of disguise it can tell whether the individual is homo sapiens sapiens. If they are, the grid on the ring will be blue. If they're not, it'll be red.

...I think we have enough technology that if we can find the right meta-humans, we can give him a boost until a definite cure can be found. I want to know more about that government, and where he got out.

[ Charles picks it up, and, after a brief pause, touches it to his own skin.

Red. ]

Well, that decides that.

[ Is that a hint of disappointment in his tone? ]

Don't sound so down. Everybody's gotta evolve sometime. [He pulls out his notepad.] Thing is, if this works, the Authorities might be interested in knowing who it was I used for it. I can wipe my memories, easy, but I'd rather give them as few resources as possible.

[Meaning if Charles found the people with the immunities and got the samples, Kay wouldn't have to know who precisely they were. No amount of mind-reading or torture (not that torture would work anyway) would drag it out of him.]

Everyone's got to grow up sometime, doesn't make that a good thing either.

[ He studies Kay, carefully, and then nods, slipping the ring into a pocket. ]

I understand.

What's it like back where you're from? [He has to ask, because it seems like sometimes Charles isn't happy to have what he has.]

Bad.

[ The first word, the first association that comes to mind. Charles winces; there's little in the state of the world that he can't trace back to him. What he's done. Him, or Erik, or overwhelming movements that the two of them began, like avalanches from a few stray snowballs. ]

Though I suppose my life isn't ... typical. Even for where I'm from. Why do you ask?

No reason. [He says it idly as he picks up a glass and looks at it.] Seems like you're a guy that's spent most of his life on the outside lookin' in.

And the top looking down.

-- ah. That sounded less astonishingly egotistical in my head.

No, I get it. The idea people are missin' out on something. [He put the glass down.]

Just asked because it looks like it's hard on you.

[ He's silent a moment. ]

Not that long ago, I discovered that by my actions, I saved millions of lives. Literally millions, by a clear and direct count. I found that by sacrificing the course of my life, the world changed utterly. I've always felt that I caused myself misery and caused the world misery by what I've done, that my life was difficult because I did terrible things.

Now I've learned it was just -- difficult. That maybe I didn't deserve to be as badly wounded as I am. And I'll be honest with you: I dont know where to go from there.

A lot of people don't deserve what happens to them. It just happens. But if people always got what they deserved, no one would be born with anything exceptional about them or bad wrong with them.

[He frowns to himself.] Maybe it's an oversimplification of things. But I'm just a normal guy. And every time I get wounded, I keep going because it might end up saving millions [or billions] of lives.

That wasn't the shock. The shock was that, perhaps, I deserve a chance to heal -- that I deserve to let myself heal. But -- God above -- I don't even know if I can heal. Now I'm just a ball of scar tissue masquerading as a man, because I thought that was what I deserved.

[ A hell of a thing to tell anyone, but easier since Kay was a relative stranger. He never could have said this to Erik. Not even to Raven. ]

But you're not normal. Your mind is exceptional -- polished and sharp. It smells like... how obsidian feels under your fingers. Smooth one moment, the sharpest material on Earth the next.

Will it stop you from doing something necessary in the future? [He silently credits himself a good memory (what he's allowed himself to keep of it), but that's about it. He's careful not to let pride get the better of him, stopping that part of him that wants to revel in it before it can get started.]

I don't know.

I gotta say, I haven't seen you sitting on your ass so far. [He raises his brows and looks at Charles pointedly. He figures the guy has a lot more strength than he gives himself credit for.]

I'll take that as a compliment.

[ He moves to his feet. ]

And thank you for listening. Is there anything else?

It's meant to be one. [Though he says it a little sadly.]

Just be careful out there. I figure you already know how people don't like other people knowing too much about 'em.

[That's genuine concern there, even as he takes out his pad to write down a note in yet another language.]

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