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“Scott, please drive us back to the school.”
“Is something wrong, Professor? Is the school alright?”
“No, no, everything is fine.” He sent his old student a sense of calm. “I’d just like to get back to the school for tonight. We can drive back out in the morning.”
Charles had meant to stay the night at the conference hotel rather than return to the school, but that was before he’d seen Dr. Adam Pierson.
Charles had been part of a panel discussion, Societal versus Biological Understandings of the Word ‘Mutant.’ The discussion had gone well, a range of opinions voiced, good questions asked. Dr. Pierson had asked a good question regarding those mutants who pre-dated the word ‘mutant.’ Charles had never studied historical linguistics so he had ever so delicately scanned his co-panelist’s mind in order to further understand the man’s answer. And he had tried to do the same to Dr. Pierson.
Dr. Pierson was…
… very quiet …
… and a long ways down.
It felt like free fall before he jerked himself back.
Not all minds are made equal. Charles doesn’t tell anyone this, though, since it’s bound to give the wrong impression. He absolutely believes that all people should be treated equally. Part of his belief is based on the idea that equal treatment is the best practical option rather than because it’s based on people being equal.
The other part is that while minds vary, they don’t always vary in a way that makes them better or worse. They’re just different. More or less common. More or less compatible with his own mind.
Minds are not equal. And thus, Charles can’t help but interact with them differently.
When he was just making his way down a street, or attending a conference as the case may be, he tended to skim the thoughts that radiated outwards rather than bothering to look any deeper. The thoughts were a light pressure on his mind whether he paid attention to them or not.
Figuring out the meaning of the thoughts varied in difficulty from person to person.
Some thoughts were easy to know, slipping into Charles’ own mind as easily as if they were his own thoughts.
Other thoughts were more difficult, like walking in sync with someone with an odd skip-step. He had to match his own mind to theirs to interpret the thoughts correctly.
Sometimes such tricks were fun, like making his mind match that of a laughing six-year-old, and sometimes it was deeply unpleasant, like twisting his mind to match that of a terrorist.
Fun or unpleasant, easy or difficult, Charles could read people’s minds, he could see them.
Except for Dr. Adam Pierson.
Dr. Pierson’s thoughts had not radiated out from him, nor even lay in easy reach of a surface scan. Instead, there was only silence. Not a blocked silence like Erik in his helmet, or a violent silence of Emma Frost attacking, or even a dead silence like he’d heard too many times, but the silence of waiting for a sound that might never come. Like shouting into a cave and hearing no echo. It was a neutral silence that didn’t care about him one way or the other.
It was deeply unnerving.
“Professor? We’re here.” Scott interrupted his musings; he still looked worried. Charles was completely unsurprised to see Jean open his door for him, ready to interrogate them about their unexpected return.
“Ah, thank you. I’m going to go check on something with Cerebro. I’m sure Scott would be delighted to tell you all about the conference.” Charles almost felt bad about throwing Scott to the wolves, so to speak, but nowhere near guilty enough to refrain.
He got to Cerebro and locked the door with everyone else on the other side.
With the headpiece in place, he reach back to the conference center.
When he needs something more than just surface thoughts, Charles approaches people by the core of their being. Each person has that single shining point that is their self. It is these points which Cerebro helps him reach. Sometimes a person’s self is hidden by a layer of shadow. Mostly undercover agents or really dedicated method actors. Generally, he can delve through the layers with a bit of effort, although there have been a few people he had needed Cerebro to access.
Knowing that central point of self allowed Charles to know the person without the distraction of thoughts or even memories. He knew them, even if he didn’t necessarily know their histories.
Reaching out to the conference center hotel, a thousand people lit up to his senses. He shuffled through them rapidly. There were staff and students, volunteers and presenters. None of them were Dr. Pierson.
He pulled back and reshuffled through them, slower this time. Rather than just looking at who they were, he looked at their thoughts this time too.
Dr. Natarajan was speaking to Dr. Pierson in the hotel restaurant.
They were speaking Hindi, but Charles could have understood if he needed to, but instead he used Dr. Natarajan as a focal point to attempt to find Dr. Pierson. Because Dr. Pierson wasn’t there. His self didn’t shine to Charles’ senses, instead there was a faint shimmer that was almost like a heat mirage, there and not there. And then, with a twist of his mind, Charles found it, found an opening in the world. It was the deep well that Charles had almost fallen down during the session.
It was very deep and very shadowed. It went down deeper than Charles could sense, even with Cerebro’s assistance. There was a self down there, Charles knew. There had to be that shining center of being. But it was very far down in the dark depths, too far for Charles to know it existed except for how it must surely exist.
Charles peered into those depths as far as he could, but saw only shadowy depths.
There was the temptation, oh the temptation, to let go of his anchor and allow himself to sink ever deeper, for surely if he went just that tiniest bit deeper he would see something, he would see the light at the bottom. Instead, he pulled himself back into his own body and powered down Cerebro.
Tomorrow morning he would go back to the conference and see if he couldn’t approach Dr. Pierson.
Charles had never felt so like a mutant before, so dependent upon his powers, as in this moment when they failed him. If he wanted to know more about Dr. Pierson, Charles would have to get to know him the human way, by speech and voice and personal appearance. Charles was a mutant, yes, but he was also a human being. If he couldn’t know Dr. Pierson the mutant way, then he would meet Dr. Pierson the human way. Because if there was one thing his mutant powers had told him, it was that Dr. Pierson was something special and worth knowing.