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Professor Charles Xavier had been an outspoken advocate for mutant rights in the public eye for about thirteen months when a 43 year old man murdered his wife and blamed it on being mind-controlled by a telepath. Four years ago the defense lawyers would have claimed insanity or delusion when a client made such a statement, but now they could actually run with it.
“Everyone is innocent until proven guilty” the immaculately dressed lawyer said into two dozen cameras on the evening news “And there is currently no concrete evidence to dispute my clients claim. For all we know, he might have been mind-controlled. We know it can happen. Maybe it already has.”
Three days later the media was flooded with stories of seemingly peaceful citizens who “snapped” and started killing. Some of them claimed telepaths controlled them, others had the claim made for them. Everyone from single gunmen holding up a 7/11 to school shootings where suddenly the work of a telepath. Self-proclaimed experts sat in television studios and speculated on how there are no physical signs on telepathic abilities to a nation-wide audience. In high schools and at work places, people were starting to suspect one another of being a telepath. Why did Linda in accounting have such a hot girlfriend when she herself was so plain? Why did Jules always get the best grades even though he never studied?
By day four, Charles came to the horrifying realization that it was a modern day witch hunt.
He was called to the trial as an expert witness, cameras flashing in his face as Hank, big and blue for the occasion, wheeled him up the courthouse stairs. Attending was one of the biggest mistakes of his life. Under oath he thought he could persuade the jury, but he wasn’t able to recover from the trails most obvious chain of questioning:
“Is there a possibility that my client could have been controlled by a mutant with telepathic abilities?”
“That is a highly unlikely scenario.”
“But not impossible?”
Charles waited a couple of seconds too long, staring at the defense lawyer like he was staring down the barrel of a gun, before he answered “No.”
All hell broke loose after that.
Suddenly, the X-men’s biggest priority was responding to public disturbances where people ganged up on someone thought to be a telepath. In all cases they weren’t, but there was no way to prove that.
Teachers, for some reason, where the first people to start losing their jobs over accusations of telepathy. A second grade substitute teacher had a whole class turn against her after they all claimed to have been mind-controlled by her. The story was made news by tabloids who were more careful with constructing their alarmist headlines then they were checking their sources, and the poor woman became a household name overnight.
When someone set fire to the peach tree in her yard and the police wouldn’t make a report the X-men came and took her into protective custody for a couple of days, waiting for the hysteria to blow over.
It didn’t.
As the trial progressed and media attention for “telepath stories” ripened and swelled from initial reports to gleeful hate-mongering it became increasingly clear that it was ridiculously hard to prove that someone had not been telepathically controlled - unless you yourself was a telepath.
“I can bloody tell he’s lying!” Charles shouted at Moira over her neat CIA desk, staining it’s polish with a few drops of spit. Moria glanced at the droplets with displeasure before politely going back to pretending not to notice them. Her former lover had more or less completely unraveled during the past week and she could endure some breaches in his etiquette.
“We’ve been over this, Charles.” her words where the matter-of-factly tone of a divorced spouse “Your word is simply not good enough. If there was another way…”
“There is none!” the professor slammed his hand into the steel brim of his chair “Hank has looked into everything.” His voice took on more notes of desperation as he went on “There are no equipment that can track any interference, nor electric residue in the brain that could account for telepathic intrusion. It’s just me!”
“And you are hardly an unbiased third party in this.“
“Not to them! They’ve cast me the villain. But you know I’m not lying.”
“Actually Charles, I don’t.” Moira replied, her words ringing like ice cubes dropped into an empty glass “There is no way for me to be sure, that’s the whole problem. And even if I believe you, I am not a judge or jury. It’s not me you have to convince.”
“What I find amusing is that out of all of us, you could actually convince the world that it’s not true. Stop all this before it escalates further. But you will not.”
Erik slowly rotated a pawn between his fingers, only slightly aided by the push of magnetic fields, while he coolly took in the disheveled professor, slumping in his chair as if the pale evening light weighed tons on his shoulders. The board of their monthly chess game stood untouched on the table between them.
“I can’t, Erik” he mumbled, an echoed reply from conversations past “You have to understand that I can’t.”
“Oh, you are fully capable, old friend. The correct term is that you simply won’t. You would rather watch as the world burns outside your window than to put a dent in your ideals.”
“It’s not about that. If I would use Cerebro to change the verdict of this man, to change the opinion of those who could sway the public, then I’m committing the type of crime which existence I’m attempting to disprove.” He looked at Erik, sky blue eyes clouded by weariness “I can’t make their hate truth. I won’t.”
On the third week and final day of the trial Charles decided to very publicly be very far away from the courtroom. He traveled to Canada and halfheartedly took part on a panel on pedagogical advancements for children with special needs, while trying not to compulsively check his watch.
Outside the courthouse in Salem the handful of reporters from the first day had grown into a lake of cameras and crazies come to preach their new-found hatred to all who would listen. The past week the “Telepathy defense”had become the new fad in the tin-foil community, and now they congregated like cults outside the white marble steps, chanting their truths into any lens that would have them. Signs like “Justice for Jenkins” bobbed over the crowd like ships on a stormy sea. Everyone seemed to have forgotten about Jenkins murdered wife, the tragic loss of her life had become a side note in a much juicier story.
The verdict was passed in the courtroom at 15.06, and repeated on the stairs at 15.11. A roar rose from the gathered crowd and police officers stepped in to create a path for the lawyers trying to make it to their cars or onto the evening's news.
“People can rest easy knowing that justice has been done here today.” a ruffled prosecutor said to a gathering of journalists pointing recording devices at him “The overwhelming technical evidence against Mr. Jenkins left very little room for doubt. He took out a life insurance in her name three weeks before the murder and put a down payment on a houseboat, for Gods sake. This was a clear cut case from day one, and the only reason it lasted this long is because the defense, in their desperation, decided to play up a rather unflattering political angle. Thankfully, the jury couldn’t be swayed with fear-inducing rhetoric, and thanks to that a murderer goes to jail today. Hopefully, tomorrow, the world will be a little bit saner.”
The defense gave a rather toothless comment on how they intended to appeal the long prison sentence, but they said nothing about trying to overturn the guilty verdict. The mob roared and foamed and was ultimately dispersed by police officers on site. That night most major networks aired the story of the verdict, some with added commentary.
“It seems that while everyone was caught up in reporting about this ‘Telepath Defense’, people forgot about all the other things that makes up our justice system.” a woman in a proper pants suit and an expert's air about her said on one channel “It is a great credit to America that while this spectacle was going on, the jury judged not on speculation, but on facts.”
Some channels of course had their conspiracy theories. Who could say that a telepath had not interfered with the verdict? However, the only one known to the public had been nowhere near the trail at the day of the verdict. It took two more days for the news to run it’s course. The discourse changed from telepaths to the media's role and it’s influence on the justice system. On the third day, four weeks and two days after the initial reporting, no mentions were made of telepaths in media.
“So, did you do it?”
Charles let the question hang unanswered between them while he moved a rook to intercept Eriks tower, throwing off a strategy that would have granted the master of magnetism victory on eight moves.
“Without the aid of Cerebro I couldn’t have reached anyone at such a distance, even if I had wanted to.” the telepath replied evasively.
“If you were in fact in Canada.”
“You should apply to Fox News.”
They watched each other across the board while a clock somewhere in the mansion struck midnight. Eriks expression was hard to read as the shadows cast by his helmet in the sparsely lightened study distorted his features.
“I believe you.” Erik said, finally “And I am disappointed.”
“When is one of us not disappointed in the other, old friend?”
“You risk too much.”
“I disagree.” Charles said, smiling faintly “Having faith in humankind's ability to see beyond those who shout the loudest, to lean on logic and empathy rather than hate, is a risk worth taking.”