30th September 1995
21:23 GMT -5
"…that we put a sign on the roof for fliers and climbers, and make sure that the drop-off point has one as well." I
modify the construct image of the upper levels of the mansion with what I have in mind. "That way a potential student won't risk being disintegrated."
Scott nods. "That looks like a good idea. I honestly hadn't even considered that a visitor might not just use the front door."
"Well, to quote Blade, '
Some Mother Hubbards are always trying to ice-skate up hill'. Though his.. usual reception probably doesn't help."
"I always assumed Spider-Man was a mu-." He stops himself, and I smile, and while I can't see his eyes his head tilts in a way which makes me think he's seeing me smile, and then he smiles a little too. "An
x-gene mutant."
"You just wait until I prove it's not a mutation. Everyone on the planet's going to look really stupid."
"So what you're saying is, he's a mutant and we're not."
I nod. "
Yes, if he described himself as a mutant, I wouldn't argue it."
He nods as he goes back to reviewing the security recordings. "How did that happen? Did he get bitten by a radioactive spider?"
"We're not sure how radioactive it was."
His head jerks back to me. "I-. I was joking. Radiation can't just give people powers."
"Not usually. But the Empire State University was working on something called a '
neogenic recombinator', which was.. designed to transfer genes from one creature to another. The spider got hit during a demonstration, then bit him. And, er… A giant pulse of gamma radiation is what turned Doctor Banner into the Hulk, though… He probably had an underlying abnormality that was supercharged by the radiation, rather than acquiring it from the radiation whole cloth."
"Is it still in use?"
"The recombinator?" I shrug. "Well, secret identity; he can't just walk up to the people who made it and say 'you should really be more careful with this'. On my, um… My original Earth, experimentation with human chimeras was illegal, but that was just foetal experiments. We didn't have any way to do something like that to adults."
"Chimeras?"
"Creatures with physical parts from different species. The mythological chimera had a ram's head next to its main lion head, and a snake's head and body in place of a tail."
"Did that get banned because someone actually did it?"
"I don't know. It wouldn't shock me, but… My original Earth doesn't have superpowers. It has
glow-in-the-dark mice with
human ears stuck on their backs. And the ear didn't even grow there: they had to stick it on later. Human chimeras wouldn't have superpowers either; they'd just have huge health problems
if the foetuses were viable at all."
"Spider-Man got superpowers."
"I suspect that's something to do with the differences between this reality and my home reality, rather than it actually making objective rational sense."
"I suppose you got lucky that our reality is so similar to yours. Oh, Alex wanted me to ask: what did you tell Multiple Man?"
"Why didn't he just ask Mister Madrox?"
"Because he didn't want to talk about it."
"I know that I'm not a doctor, but I still think it would be a fairly huge violation of his privacy if I just told people about it."
Scott nods, obviously trying to work out how to balance the conflicting desires of his brother and his friend. "Is it dangerous?"
"Not to anyone else. It's an aspect of his power that he hadn't considered before. But it wouldn't be a risk to any of his-." Oh. Oh dear. "He's not a blood donor, is he?"
"How would I know?"
He might be. He might be.
"So… With a lot of powers, what 'counts' can seem a bit arbitrary, right?"
"Okay, I guess that's true. I don't know why it's ruby quartz specifically that blocks my power."
"And Anne-Marie can't drain trees, for example. Mister Madrox can create and absorb copies of himself. But what counts as a copy? Is a severed arm a copy? Is a cancerous growth something that could get absorbed?"
Scott nods. "Or a pint of blood in someone else's body. Alex needs to know that, and so does the base's doctor."
"I mean, that wasn't what the actual
issue was, and I like to think that no one's stupid enough to use blood from people with powers for non-autologous transplants unless they've tested it
really thoroughly."
"My blood's fairly normal."
"I'd still be worried that there were a lot of small differences that blood banks wouldn't think to test for between abnormal blood and baseline blood. Not all of the changes the x-gene makes are outwardly obvious. Um. But the
actual problem Mister Madrox has is whether or not his power would register any of his
children as being part of him."
Scott tenses.
"Oh..
God, that's
horrible."
"Yes." I nod. "It might not be a problem and I can go back and test it with tissue samples tomorrow, but I thought I should warn him about the possibility as soon as possible. And while we're on the subject… About… Your decision not to have children."
He exhales and turns away from the screen. "I'm not saying that you're irresponsible to be doing it. I'm sure you can keep your children safe from just about anybody. But I'm not sure I could. And even if the mansion was completely safe… Which it isn't." I nod. "I'm not sure what kinda quality of life they'd have."
"Either the Friends of Humanity dies down to the level of a normal hate group… Or people aren't capable of learning to be better and I go and build a colony on another planet, I guess."
"Can you actually do that?"
"Not quickly. I'd have to either find a compatible planet, or find someone who can walk me through the process of terraforming somewhere. And then there's soil microbes and things like that. It's possible, and I'd consider it as a major…
Failure if things got that far." Hm. "Do we want to actually go after them?"
"How do you mean? We can't just
attack the Friends of Humanity."
"America has strong free speech laws, but despite the constitution a lot of places have laws against weapon ownership, and obviously assault is illegal. So we investigate them. If we can come up with watertight cases, we can try and make sure that we get district attorneys and judges who are prepared to do their jobs without fear or favour like they're supposed to. If we lose cases, then we appeal it upwards, and force superior courts to either rule our way or openly and blatantly violate the law themselves."
He nods. "And what then?"
I give him a shallow smile. "It's probably best that I don't tell you."
"Alright." He nods slowly. "That sounds like a good idea. Can you find a few places where they're breaking the law and let me know? I'll talk it over with the Professor when he gets back."
I nod. "Can do. Unfortunately, I don't think it'll be a short list."
?
I assume with the bomb about to go off, the security personnel were in their own bunkers...
