xp_logs | Phone Log: Lorna and Forge

Monday night, Alex isn't the only one to get a phone call.

Seemingly random drumbeats and arpeggios of guitar feedback blasted
through Forge's headphones as he flipped idly through the electronics
catalog that had come in the morning's mail. Idly pausing at a
rack-mounted diagnostic array, he made a note of the part number and
continued flipping as the song reached its crescendo and just as
abruptly ended in an avalanche of cymbal crashes and power chords.

In the brief silence between tracks, he could hear a fast,
high-pitched chirping, and noticed the lights blinking on the kitchen
phone. With a shrug, Forge removed his headphones and reached out,
flipping the phone into his hand.

"Xavier's, how can I direct your call?"

"Sure, lemme get a pen and... Lorna?" Forge's brain caught up with his
mouth a second late, as usual. "Hey, Alex called, he's been kind of
worried, did you get stuff straightened out and head to Hawaii?" He
fumbled around on the counter until he grabbed a pen and an unmarked
envelope. "Okay, right. Message, shoot."

"Gotcha," Forge mumbled around the pen cap as he scribbled down the
pertinent details. "Tell Alison... family stuff... cousin's baby...
right. Man, you wouldn't believe this dinner Rahne and Dani cooked up
last night after the pool party. I don't know what they did to the
chicken, but man - talk about high class. The Professor even brought
out the good china. Really top-notch, you'd have been proud."

"Just sort of a 'goodbye summer, hello school year' thing, you know?
Real high class. Someone asked if it was catered and I swear Dani was
going to punch him out." Forge capped the pen and leaned against the
wall. "So," he finally asked, "going to make a stop here before
Hawaii? Since you're already late and all? Too bad you're not going to
be around to do the Philosophy class..."

Smiling with glee, Forge shifted the phone. He never missed an
opportunity to talk about his work, of course. "I'm studying a lot
under Doctor MacTaggart this semester, learning about the genetic
codes that are common to all mutants, the parts that help access
powers, you know? Stuff that develops in puberty. Man, she's a
taskmaster, though. Seven HUNDRED pages of reading in the first two
weeks. And not even online, like, actual books that're older than the
Professor! First time I'm actually apprehensive for class to start."

Switching ears, Forge finished scribbling the message. "Uh-huh. Yeah.
All right, I'll pass it along. Okay. You take care too, Lorna." Forge
flipped the phone back onto the wall, signing his name to the message
slip before sliding it into Alison's mail slot.