Ice cream. Pizza delivery. Traffic lights. Fed-Ex. Magazines produced weekly, bimonthly, monthly, quarterly, yearly. The New York Times Bestseller List. The Top 20 on the Pop Charts. The streaks in the sky jets left as they flew by, high overhead. Valet parking.
Dr. Henry "Hank" Philip McCoy had learned to live without his reading glasses.
The consummate absent-minded professor, in the year of hiding, of constantly moving from place to place in order to avoid detection, Hank had either lost or broken every single pair of his prescription lenses. Since then, occasional hunts through surviving optometrist and glasses shops like Lens Crafters had proved relatively fruitless for his exact needs. Attempts at using a similar prescription had only resulted in furious headaches and blurred vision for days after only using them for a few hours. He could not get his claws on the proper equipment to make his own, although in his collective, pack-rat nature, he had bits and pieces for the project stowed away, should he ever get that far.
Of course, ever the one looking for the silver lining in any cloud, Hank had quipped that it was very lucky, indeed, that he was the one to suffer so, instead of Scott.
So, when the members of the X-Men began to siphon into the Central Nerve Center of the underground facility, they found the hulking blue man hunched over at a station in order to squint at the small font that sped by in a code that only he could really understand; it took days for anyone else to decipher what he could blaze through in a mere minute. Strains of Chopin perfumed the air, as he had been working in there before the alarm had sounded.
The Central Nerve Center had been Hank's idea, of course. The certified genius trapped in the apish physique had immediately begun converting everything that he could think of to make life easier, and survivable, for everyone in the underground chambers of what had been the mansion as soon as he had returned. He had reasoned that, although a potential security risk should they ever come across a traitorous individual that might act as saboteur (which, he had gone on to explain, at length, as highly unlikely, due to the current situation of humanity as a whole, with his calculated figures scribbled up on a white board), a single room containing all of the processing computers that acted as a brain for the underground levels, ensuring that all systems, such as ventilation, lighting, heating and cooling, security, functioned nominally at all times, would be their wisest choice. Due to the power of the computers, they could be left alone, if necessary, and only one operator would be required to handle any situation that might come up, if manpower was scarce. Also, by placing all of these systems in one room, said room could be reinforced to withstand even the most volatile of attacks.
Of course, Hank had also suggested that there be a back-up center in another room, on another level, where they could override the main brain, just in case, and take over control of the most important of systems, should the need arise.
They had all agreed with him. So, the Central Nerve Center had been born.
But, beyond the CNC, as some of them liked to shorten it, Hank had done so much more for the livelihood of all of them. The first to realize that their dependence on fossil fuels would serve to strangle their efforts in a few short years, as the gas stations around them would all eventually be bled dry by their needs, he had at once begun the conversion of everything possible to another means of power. He had led the effort to dig out an extra level to their location, largely to allow for more living space, but also so that he could construct a small-scale variant on a Kaplan turbine to power their generators with. As a back-up (Kaplan turbines, of course, required a water flow), he had also devised batteries that could be charged by Jubilee's powers. All of the vehicles they used he had also converted to electricity-driven, rather than requiring gasoline, and he had improved upon the battery design for them to improve their maximum storage capacity.
Hank had not stopped there, however. The blue Beast had done a multitude of other things, such as tracking down a warehouse that had been full of energy-efficient, long-lasting light bulbs that had been hitting the market when They had arrived. A portion of the warehouse had survived, and so they had carted off better than 500 bulbs, each with a lifetime expectancy of five years. He had reworked the ventilation systems and the water heating and cooling methods to be less reliant on expended energy; one of his ideas, for instance, had been to run water through ceramic pipes located in the giant, walk-in refrigeration storage room -also of his devising- to cool it off, should anyone have a need for cold water. They had also tapped into a ground well as a source of a fresh water supply, which first ran through the turbine, and then passed through a series of filters that he had constructed.
He had been terribly determined to improve upon their conditions, and make it as homey as possible. And it had worked, as most of them referred to those underground levels simply as Home.
There had been a downside to his unending creativity, however. As time had gone on, and Hank had proved, time and again, how invaluable his intelligence was, he was taken on scavenging trips less and less, until such opportunities had all but ceased to exist for him; no one wanted to risk losing such a precious commodity. Understanding, he had acquiesced in a type of voluntary confinement without complaint. There was an unspoken rule that he could not even go topside by himself.
Besides his reading glasses, Hank had learned to live without his freedom.
His friends made it bearable. Indeed, the entire refugee population did, as well. They saw in him something that had failed to surface in the years before the arrival of Them. His status as a fount of knowledge, as a doctor, his quiet, guiding nature, like a steady light in a dark hallway, had solidified him into the image of an elder for the small, underground community. For the first time in his life, an entire group of people, not just individuals, overlooked his physical differences, his beastly visage, to respect him, even revere him, seeking him out for needed advice, for teachings and little bits of imparted wisdom without so much as a glance at his fur, at his protruding canines, his claws. Even the other X-Men saw him in this way. No harm could come to Hank because, ironically, it would be the greatest insult to their humanity. He, more than anyone else, had come to embody the society they clung so desperately to in order to hang onto themselves as people.
In a way, Hank had assumed the mantle that had become a cold, fathomless void when the Professor had died.
Therefore, when he shushed those entering the Central Nerve Center as Chopin played softly, and yet still managed to win out over the blaring alarm, they all fell silent and did not dare to ask him what had triggered the system. To do so would have been close to sacrilege, like trying to interrupt the meditations of the Dalai Lama or the Christmas Mass of the Pope.
Marie instead took the time to note who had arrived. Ororo was already there when she and Logan had arrived, and she guessed that the weather witch had been there prior to the alarm setting off. Storm and the Beast had grown close to each other over the past couple of years, in a quiet courtship that almost belonged in another era: sweet and gentle and proper, and so unlike her relationship with Logan that she could not help but smile about the seeming innocence of it every time she saw them. It was almost like watching some PG-rated family film that was heavy on the geeky guy meets attractive girl from out of town and makes clumsy attempts to woo her that results in making him endearing theme.
Shortly after they arrived, Scott and Jean filtered in, the former still wearing the sheepskin-lined jacket, having still been unloading the truck when the klaxons sounded. The telepath had taken on that faraway look of hers when she was listening for things not found in the room, her hand absently settled on the large swell of her belly that gave away her pregnancy.
That, almost everyone in their little community was quite sure of, had not exactly been planned for. Life, however, seemed undeterred by invading alien species hell-bent on its destruction, and doggedly trudged on, defiantly flipping Them the bird along the way.
Having ferried the kids she had been training down to the lowest level, leaving them to the adults among the refugees, Jubilee appeared perhaps half a minute after Jean and Scott, followed quickly by the Shadowcat. Responsibility had suited the two young women well, growing into roles that had proved vital to the whole group's survival more than once. Jubilee had been given charge of the maintenance of the meager fleet of vehicles they had, ensuring that each and every one was able to run at all times, fixing any problems that came up after returning from venturing out into the open. Kitty, with her ability to even sink into the ground at any signs of danger, had taken on the role of scout and spy for them. She was one of the very few people that knew exactly what They looked like, what They smelled like, sounded like, from the distance of a mere few feet. She did not, however, like to talk about it, as much as the younger residents (and even some of the older ones) asked. After that had happened, after she had been toe to toe with one of Them... she had aged in ways the other X-Men didn't even know were possible.
As was the usual trend, Remy was the last one to show up, his air of nonchalance relatively unaffected by the past five years, that Bo staff of his resting on one shoulder as he produced something of a cocky grin as, not so much a greeting, but an announcement that he had arrived.
It was a long, tense moment while they waited for Hank to say something, to the point that Logan was just about to open his mouth and growl something out to remind him that they were all there, knowing just how forgetful the big blue guy could get. But finally, he sat back from the screen and spoke.
"Well, I can certainly say with satisfaction that it is not Them," he said with a borderline happiness. "I also do not believe it to be any type of native fauna to the area, as the movements do not resemble the usual patterns of a herd of deer, and they are much too large to be a pack of wild dogs or coyotes."
"So, people," Logan voiced before anyone else could.
"That would be my assessment, yes," said Hank.
"How many?" was what Scott asked, moving over to one of the other computer stations to rapidly click through a bunch of different programs, trying to bring something up.
"Ten would be my best estimate, due to the movement and heat signatures," the Beast replied, looking over to the visored man.
A kind of tentative uneasiness slid through the group like engine oil getting into a city's water supply. They were not, all of the sixty-two residents in the underground levels had learned, the only enemy that could rear its ugly head; other humans, the dismal dregs of society, occasionally banded together and sought to prey on the weaker members of their species in order to survive.
Scientifically speaking, of course, it was one type of good strategy employed in the process of evolution. Survival of the fittest, with an elimination of the weaker genes.
Humanly speaking, however, it was loathsome, dangerous, and made one question his or her own state of being, and why humanity should even be allowed to survive in the first place, were they so inclined to such dark thoughts.
Had it been a group limited to just a few souls, the tenor in the room would not have changed so drastically; thugs tended to roam in packs, for superior numbers, where stragglers and those in need of help did not. Experience teaches the wise to expect the worst.
Still, they could not simply leave them out there.
Scott absently scratched at his beard while he studied the screen before him, which had gone a shade of gray. In actuality, it was a wide multitude of grays, all mixing together, pixel by pixel, to create a sort of singular shade that was constantly changing, though changing so slowly that it could not be easily detected by the human eye. He tapped the Enter key on the keyboard, there was a momentary fizzle, and then the screen went gray again. He repeated this process multiple times, with each person in the room watching the screen. Numerals that displayed in the lower right-hand corner, and slight deviances in the shading, appeared to be the only changes.
The X-Men had learned some time ago that the weather was both a strange ally and stranger foe. They seemed to favor the daytime more than They did the night. They seemed to favor sunny days, although They were out occasionally in the rain. They did not seem to mind snow, however, either on the ground or in the air, and They came out the most whenever the sky turned those weird shades of green that threatened to produce tornadoes, which seemed to violate Their general rule about sunny days.
The most important fact that the X-Men had learned, however, was that They never showed up in fog.
Indeed, other communities of survivors around the globe had discovered this little nugget of information, as well. Via CB Radio transmissions, Hank had chatted amiably with small pockets of people living along the coast of Maine, up on the Grand Banks in Newfoundland, Canada (which was, he mused, the foggiest place on earth, so they must be quite restful there), and even as far away as Cape Disappointment in Washington State. It was heartwarming to learn of other people out there, people surviving, making due with what was left to them, and refusing to back down. It made the world feel a little less empty now and then, even while hammering that realization home all the harder.
Of course, they could not keep the terrain above the lower levels enshrouded in fog all of the time. Storm would have been drained within three days of attempting to do so, and fog juice was a rare commodity. So instead, the X-Men decided on a compromise: each vehicle in their possession was fitted with a tracking device, and whenever one of those vehicles was on the move, within a ten mile radius of the entrance to the underground, fog machines would automatically trigger aboveground, to conceal the area. The last thing they needed was to have Them descend upon a returning foraging team just as the hidden entrance opened wide to allow their return. That would have been disastrous.
The fog that had been triggered upon Scott's team's return was still lingering on, clinging to the ground like a sleepy child hanging onto a bed with the hope that it was still the weekend, not a school day. None of the security cameras could provide a view that was unobscured by it.
"Well," Scott said, after a while of switching from camera to camera with growing frustration. "I don't think we can really wait for it to burn off. Those people might need help."
"Or they could just be waiting to ambush us," Logan offered, a bit flatly.
"I'm willing to take that chance," was Scott's answer, undaunted. "They could have simply been draw in by the fog, knowing They won't show up in it. I'll go up. I'm already dressed for it, anyway."
Marie glanced between the others, thinking. Scott couldn't go alone, as that would be too dangerous. But Hank couldn't go, Jean wouldn't be allowed, knowing Scott, despite how useful she could be when encountering people, Jubilee rarely ventured out unless it was with a vehicle convoy, and Remy rarely volunteered for anything, though he usually wound up going, anyway. Ororo, of course, would never let Scott go alone, and anything to do outside was a given for the Shadowcat's involvement.
And meanwhile, Logan had settled into what Marie liked to think of as his defiant stance: back rigid, unmoving, with his arms folded across his chest and his head cocked slightly at one angle while his jaw set in the other direction as if just daring anyone to try to move him even one measly inch. It was the pose he assumed when he expected to butt heads with someone. Especially Scott.
It always made her smile internally, largely because he still tried it on her every so often, and it never worked. He'd take it on when he didn't agree with her on something, usually her safety, and she'd just brush it off with laughter, a quick kiss, and after his initial bristling like a porcupine afterwards, he would cave in. She knew that now would be no different.
Logan tilted his slightly narrowed gaze in her direction. That mischievous look must have appeared on her features again.
"I'll go with you," she then volunteered to Scott, a little cheerily, though she was looking straight at Logan.
And Logan tensed in posture, shoulders hunching a little more and seizing up as if he might explode with an adamant ordering of her to stay the hell inside.
There was a long moment of silence, in which everyone watched him expectantly.
"Fine," he finally said, and then, "I'll get our shit," was growled out while he stalked from the room.
And Marie had to fight the threat of laughter at her grumbly Wolverine.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Sorry for the delay in installments; unexpected overtime at work and the stomach flu have conspired against me.