Gifted

  “Look who’s talking.”

  “People!” Hank raised his voice angrily. “Perhaps you think this is funny, but I—” He sighed when he saw that Kitty was raising her hand. “Yes. What?”

  “It’s just that…I kind of really don’t know why I’m here,” said Kitty. “I didn’t get in anybody’s face, I didn’t get into a fight with anybody…”

  “You were late yesterday,” said Emma.

  “Yeah,” Kitty said, “you really gotta learn to let things go, which I know might sound like kind of a weird idea, considering this bunch nurses so many grudges it’s like you all have cast-iron nipples…” Clouds started to drift into her face. She brushed them away in annoyance. “Ack! This is…is this like a theme thing, us being so big? Going with the whole ‘looking up to us’ bit?”

  Hank was still incredibly frustrated that he wasn’t managing to impress upon them how angry he was, but he was also a bit chagrined that Kitty had pointed that out. “Actually, it’s my fault,” he admitted. “I programmed the Danger Room to replicate Hawaii because I thought it would relax our combatants. It appears I should have been more specific about scale.” He pulled out a remote control and started reconfiguring.

  Kitty was able to shoo away the last bits of the cloud, but not before it managed to moisten her head. “Great. Now I have cloud hair. Remember when this place was just flame-throwers and rotating knives? I miss that.”

  “As I was saying,” Hank said testily while he continued to work on the remote, “Scott, Logan…you two should be long past that nonsense.”

  “I’m not apologizing to Logan, and I wouldn’t accept one in return.”

  “Scott,” Hank said, “you’re acting head of the—”

  But Scott put up a hand, interrupting him. “It was inexcusable, I agree. And it’s going to make what I have to say all the more absurd, but I’m going to say it anyway.” He paused, and then said, “We’re a team. We’re a super hero team. And I think it’s time we started acting like one.”

  “Ho, whoa, wait,” said Logan. “Is this gonna be about tights?”

  Despite the frustrating circumstances that had forced them into this idiotic situation, Hank couldn’t help but smile a bit to himself. He had no desire to act like the hall monitor from hell and he had resented the hell out of Logan and Scott—especially Scott—for putting him into this situation. If Scott was ready to pull his cranium out of his nether regions and act like a leader instead of a brawler, then Hank was happy to listen.

  SEEING that Hank looked a bit less angry than before, Scott relaxed slightly. Of everyone in the room, he and Hank went back the furthest. They were the only two people there from the original team, brought together by the dream of Charles Xavier. Because of that, Hank’s support for Scott’s new vision was the most important to him.

  “It’s about everything,” said Scott. “Truth. Perception. We’ve saved the world—worlds, even—time and again. That’s the truth. That’s what we do.” Two dolphins were copulating against his ankle. He ignored them. “But the perception is that we’re freaks or worse. That we’re Magnetos, just waiting to happen. We’ve been taking it on the chin so long, just trying to keep from being wiped out, I think we’ve forgotten that we have a purpose.” He stood up and pointed east toward the mainland, far in the distance. “I know the rest of the world has forgotten. The point is—”

  He turned back to them and was startled to find that they were all standing on a normally proportioned beach. The water gently lapped up to their toes. He could hear the dolphins in the distance making loud, high-pitched sounds. He knew why they were doing it, and realized he’d never hear dolphin noises the same way again. Hank nodded with satisfaction at the remote control.

  “The point is simply this: We need to get into the world. Saving lives, helping with disaster relief. We need to present ourselves as a team like any other. Avengers, Fantastic Four—they don’t get chased through the streets with torches and pitchforks…”

  “Here come the tights,” Wolverine said under his breath.

  “Sorry, Logan,” said Scott, trying to sound sympathetic and not succeeding terribly well. “Super heroes wear costumes. And quite frankly, all the black leather is making people nervous.”

  Kitty put up her hand again, then glanced at it self-consciously and lowered it as she said, “Okay, I officially, really, really don’t know why I’m here. I’m not a fighter. Not like you guys.”

  “You’ve been in it plenty, kid. I’d take you at my back any day.” Only Wolverine could take a compliment and make it sound like a grudging admission.

  “But you’re not a fighter,” Scott agreed with her. “Your power isn’t aggressive, it’s protective. That’s good to show. You’re likable. Even Logan likes you. Which says something.” Logan tilted his head slightly in mute agreement. “Hank’s articulate as anything, but what people see is mostly…well…a Beast. Emma’s a former villain, Logan’s a thug—”

  “Born and bred,” said Logan.

  “And me,” Scott said, “I can lead a team, but I haven’t looked anybody in the eye since I was fifteen.”

  “So I’m…what? A P.R. stunt?” Kitty was clearly not sure she liked the sound of that.

  “Yes, our own little poster child. Isn’t that sweet?” Emma said with what sounded like a purr. “The ‘Nonthreatening Shadowcat’ or ‘Sprite’ or ‘Ariel’—a made-up compound noun, a brand of soda, and a cartoon mermaid—or whatever incredibly unimpressive name you’re using nowadays.”

  “Emma, shut up,” said Scott.

  Emma had almost as practiced a poker face as Scott, but this time she reacted with visible surprise at the rebuke. Scott ignored her. “You all may have perfectly good reasons for not wanting to do this, but you’re the team I chose. So think about it.”

  There was dead silence for a long moment, and then Hank finally said what absolutely none of them were thinking:

  “Am I the only one who’s dying to see the outfits?”

  I don’t know what to make of it.

  I go back to my room, get showered, wash cloud out of my hair, get dressed. I only have one actual class today and, considering I’ve never actually taught someone, I don’t do a half-bad job of it. As I walk through the hallways, I hear kids muttering about the big fight they saw in the morning. “I thought they were supposed to be super heroes,” one of them says, and another replies, “Super heroes always fight each other. It’s how they say ‘hello.’”

  Super heroes. Such a stupid phrase. I’m not even sure what that means. The obvious thing is that it’s someone with super-powers, but there are guys with no extraordinary powers who the public calls super heroes. What’s required to be one? You take on an assumed name, wear some kind of protective armor, carry a weapon, and try to right wrongs with a sidekick following you around? By those criteria, Don Quixote was a super hero.

  Stupid phrase. Probably trademarked, too. Knowing our luck, if we start getting called super heroes, whoever holds the trademark is going to come around and send us a cease-and-desist letter. Maybe charge us a hundred bucks for every use.

  I go for a stroll in the latter part of the afternoon. Sun’s setting earlier these days, but it won’t be dark for a while. The back lawn’s empty. No one’s trying to beat the crap out of each other. That’s a plus.

  Even as I dwell on the things that Scott was talking about, I shove them aside and start to worry about something else. I look to the skies and they’re empty. Someone should be here who isn’t, and it’s starting to concern me.

  “You see something, kid?” Logan’s voice, practically at my elbow. How the hell does he do that? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, though. This is a guy whose idea of hunting is going into the woods, creeping up on a deer, and brushing his fingertips across its fur without it even knowing he was there. Compared to a deer, when it comes to being aware of the world around me, I might as well have headphones on and be listening to Black Sabbath.

  “Lockheed wanted to
fly on his own. I thought he’d beat me here.” I’ve been watching the skies intermittently ever since I got out of the cab yesterday, but there’s been no sign of his little winged self.

  “The dragon’ll show,” Wolverine says confidently. “I did.”

  I turn to face him. At least he doesn’t smell like my Uncle Geoff during Purim anymore. “Big entrance.”

  “Sorry about that. Wasn’t planning it. Sometimes I go off more since…”

  “I know.” He doesn’t have to explain. Her death hit all of us hard. Must be worse for someone who has a short fuse even at the best of times and has convenient blades in his hands. Of course, when the bad guys are coming down on you from every angle, there’s no one better to have at your side. So I suppose it all balances out.

  He joins me to watch the skies for a time, but it’s clear his mind is elsewhere. And then, in seven words, he summarizes what it is:

  “Super heroes. Summers has gotta be nuts.”

  Assuming you count “gotta” as one word.

  And I can’t disagree.

  SEVEN

  THIS was not remotely what Doctor Rao had had in mind.

  When she had confirmed the breakthrough (her breakthrough; that was how she had to start thinking of it) to the board, she had assumed that the news would be announced through a dignified press gathering. She had envisioned that the editorial heads of about a half-dozen prestigious scientific journals would gather around the table in one of the conference rooms, and she would present her research to a group of scientifically inclined minds that would be able to understand everything that had gone into the process. Her greatest concern was that they would ask difficult questions, the same questions that some board members were curious about. After her years of research on the topic had come up empty, for instance, how was it she had suddenly had this breakthrough out of nowhere that had exponentially accelerated the entire process? What flash of inspiration had triggered it? She hadn’t been exactly evasive with the board, but instead stuck to saying it was really just a set of happenstances, none of them connected, that had prompted her to abruptly pull a lot of pieces together. The board had nodded and congratulated her and agreed with her that the news needed to be announced, preferably through a press conference. Obviously their priorities had been elsewhere: namely, on getting publicity for Benetech.

  The prospect of facing a board of formidable scientific journalists had been somewhat daunting. But she needn’t have worried. What she was getting was as far a cry from a roundtable of distinguished minds as she could possibly have imagined.

  Instead Benetech had rented a small venue off-site at a hotel, one that a number of politicians had used for various announcements, usually because they had accidentally tweeted parts of their anatomy to their mistresses or other such idiocies. The notion of announcing something that could reshape the face of humanity in a room customarily used for such tawdry matters was offensive to her. Almost as offensive as the twenty-year-old woman popping gum while applying makeup to Rao’s face as she waited behind the blue curtains for her cue.

  “Please take that away,” she said to the twenty-year-old, brushing the woman’s arm aside. “I’m not going to get any prettier.”

  “I think you’re very pretty,” said Tildie, standing next to her. Tildie was a far cry from the terrified child of the other night, but her desperate need for Kavita’s support and presence was as palpable as ever. She was clutching Kavita’s hand like a drowning girl. The doctor hoped this idiocy wouldn’t be too overwhelming for the child.

  A thin, slightly twitchy young man named Feist from the publicity department was peering through the curtains. “Doc, you’re about to change the world. You gotta look glam!”

  “I have to look ‘glam’?”

  “Yeah! There’s gotta be a hundred reporters out there…”

  Inwardly Kavita cringed. Outwardly she remained calm. “You know what, Mr. Feist? You should look at photographs of Edison, Einstein, Tesla, Hawking. None of them were especially ‘glam,’ yet somehow they managed to accomplish what they did without that particular gift. Or is it because I’m a woman? Do you think that if it were a man telling the world what I’m about to tell them, the lead sentence in the news stories would be, ‘Dr. Rao took the microphone, looking smashing in a blue Brooks Brothers suit with his hair elegantly coiffed’?”

  “Depends on who the reporter is,” said Feist.

  Despite it all, she allowed a small smile at that. “Perhaps.” She glanced down at her young charge, who didn’t seem the least bit concerned about what they were about to face. “Are you all right, Tildie? You’re not scared?”

  “Do I get to sit near you?” That was the only thing that mattered to her. The message was clear. With Kavita at her side, Tildie could face anything, no matter how horrific.

  Kavita Rao had known for a long time that she would never be able to have children. A fertilized egg had a better chance of surviving in the Mojave than it did in her uterus. She had not been bothered when she’d received the news. No one understood better than a geneticist that sometimes people simply drew the biological short straw, and that’s the way it went. Some people could eat a whole pizza and not gain an ounce; others could eat a slice and pick up two pounds that never went away. Some were tall, some short, some fertile, some…not. No use arguing about it or expending any anguish.

  Yet now, with the way Tildie looked at her as if she were the most important person in the world, Kavita felt a tinge of anguish and regret that she would never have a child of her own. That in fact Tildie would likely be the closest she would ever get.

  Might as well make the most of it.

  “You’re going to be standing right next to me, actually. Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to come out and talk to the people out there a little bit first. And then we’re going to bring you out so the people can meet you…”

  “Are—?” Her voice caught a moment.

  “What is it, honey?”

  Her voice so soft that Kavita had to strain to hear her, Tildie said, “Are they going to be mad at me? Because of what I did?”

  Kavita crouched so she would be eye-to-eye with the child. “No. Because I’m going to explain to them—just as I explained to you—that it wasn’t your fault. At all. No one gets mad at you for something that isn’t your fault. And I’m going to explain to them why it can never happen again. Mad at you? They’re going to be happy for you.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Oh. I have something for you.” She pulled out a small, rectangular object from her bag and held it up.

  Tildie’s eyes widened and she gasped in delight. “A DS?”

  “A DS3,” Kavita corrected her. “For you.”

  Tildie took it and held it almost reverently. “I so wanted one…”

  “I know. It’s already loaded with some games. And it comes with this…” She jacked in a small set of headphones. “So it won’t make noise, you can play it while wearing these. Let’s get you set up.”

  Moments later Tildie was sitting cross-legged on the floor, completely absorbed in a game, headphones nestled comfortably over her ears. Kavita watched her and nodded in satisfaction.

  “Showtime, Doc?” said Feist.

  She could feel the fight-or-flight reflex kicking in, one of the most basic of survival instincts hardwired into the genetic code. She took a deep breath, eased it out to steady her nerves, and then nodded.

  Feist stepped through the curtain and a barrage of flashes went off immediately, as if a miniature lightning storm had erupted in the room. Feist raised his hands and said, “Folks, folks…save it. I’m not the one you’re interested in.

  “The woman you’re about to meet is here to tell you about a discovery that will solve one of the great problems of our current society and, at the same time, improve the quality of life of hundreds of thousands of people. Now, ‘hundreds of thousands’ may not seem like a particularly large number since well over a quarter of a bi
llion live in this country alone. Nevertheless, considering the nature of the individuals in question, the ramifications will in fact be global in scale. And here, to explain it all to you, please join me in welcoming renowned geneticist Doctor Kavita Rao.”

  She pushed the curtains aside and stepped out into the light. She had to squint against the intensity of it as she made her way to the podium. There was a darkened monitor screen set up to the right that she would be using shortly. An array of microphones stood in front of her, representing a dozen different news agencies. Feist had been right: There had to be at least a hundred people crammed into the room, recording devices of all sorts aimed at her to take down every word. For some reason she had a quick mental image of a caveman announcing the invention of the wheel while a cave reporter rapidly etched pictures on a nearby wall to immortalize the moment. Not sure we’ve really advanced all that much since then.

  Kavita paused at the microphone and gathered her thoughts. Then she launched herself into the void.

  “What is a mutant?” she asked, not expecting a response and not receiving one. “They’ve been called angels and devils. They’ve committed atrocities and been victims of atrocities themselves. Yes, they’ve been labeled monsters, and not without reason. But I will tell you what mutants are. Mutants are people. No better or worse by nature than anybody else. Just…people. People with a disease.”

  She saw a few raised eyebrows from the group. It didn’t surprise her. They’d spent years writing about the “mutant menace,” egged on by blowhard pundits like that moron who owned The Daily Bugle. The notion of lumping in mutants with people who were genuinely struggling with illness didn’t seem a comfortable fit with the narrative many of them already had in their heads. Well, she was just going to have to educate them.

  “Mutants,” she continued, “are not the next step in evolution. They are not the Homo sapiens to our Neanderthals, no matter how many times the term ‘Homo superior’ might be invoked by certain mutant activists. They are not the end of humankind. The mutant gene is nothing more than a disease. A corruption of healthy cellular activity. And now…at last…we have found a cure.”