xp_logs | Lost Generations: I Have Diplomatic Skills, Really (Nathan and Jean) (Reply)

A chance encounter in the teacher's lounge between Nathan and Jean turns into a discussion of his Southeast Asian mystery. Jean is as disturbed about the numbers as Moira was, and offers her help, while gently introducing Nathan to the truth that annoying UN bureaucrats can be managed in ways that don't involve looming or other forms of intimidation. The subject of Askani also comes up, but only briefly.

I am not going to miss doing my own photocopying, Nathan grumbled to himself, balancing the pile of law finals in his arms as he headed for the teacher's lounge. At least the photocopier had collated them.

Jean looked up from her marking, raising an eyebrow as Nathan entered the room, preceded by the not-quite-black cloud of grumbly thoughts that followed him about recently. "Afternoon," she said, smiling at him.

Nathan snorted at her. "Don't chirp at me, Red. I may feel the need to beat you with my law finals." He started to lay them out on the table. "You haven't seen the stapler around, have you? There wasn't one in the room with the copier."

"Ah, but if you do that, Charles will just make you grade my Shakespeare papers and I'll get to start my holiday earlier. Stapler's over there somewhere," she said, thumbing over her shoulder towards the cluttered counter onto which everyone had been placing stuff as they cleared off other flat surfaces to work.

"Shakespeare. Fate worse than death. Although I occasionally reread Henry V and then laugh lots and break things," Nathan said flippantly, spotting the stapler. He tugged at it with his mind and it came flying to his hand. "So. Are you teaching next term?"

"That's the plan, yes. I have not yet burned out on the four jobs at once thing, although with Maddie and Hank gone it may not be long before I do."

"Ah, but I hear you have a replacement redhead down there," Nathan said. "I haven't met her yet. Moira seems to like her."

"Amelia? She's nice, yes. Very capable as well, which is good, but not terribly... outgoing." Jean shrugged, then grinned. "I am worried that Charles keeps hiring only redheads for the medical bay. Hints at some deep, dark, insufficiently repressed need to have pretty scenery around when he's sick."

Nathan paused. "Okay, my mind is going disturbing places. Could we stop going there now?" His hands started moving again, picking up each exam packet, stapling, then piling them together. "My kids are going to curse me for all these short answers, but I didn't feel like marking essay questions."

"Oh, you definitely made the good call on that one," Jean said. "There are times I almost wish I could give them multiple choice and just let the computer grade them, and then I realize what I'm thinking and have to assign full paper topics in penance. But other than worrying about marking, how are you doing?"

Nathan's gaze slid to her, warily, then moved back to his papers. "I've had better months," he said. "Not... adapting very well to the quiet inside my head."

Jean nodded slightly. "I can't even imagine," she admitted, "but I wish there was something I could do to help."

"There's not. But I do appreciate that you wish you could." The stapler proceeded to not make it cleanly through one package, and Nathan sighed. "So what are your plans for Christmas?" he asked, prying it out telekinetically. "I know Moira and I are going to Muir at some point."

"Alaska. We're going to get away and have some quiet time, I think. We haven't had a chance to talk about it much, though." And Jean was still a little worried about how Scott would handle being around his grandparents and, more specifically, their business, and not being able to fly.

"Sit on him," Nathan advised, and his lips suddenly twitched. "Sorry. Again with the mental images." The staple went through cleanly this time, and he moved on to the next package. "I don't know how long we'll be gone. I've got a few things on the go, here..." He paused, then gave Jean a very thoughtful look. "Have I talked to you about this situation in Southeast Asia?"

"Hmm? Asia?" Jean tapped her pen against the paper in front of her. "Not that I can remember. What's up?"

Nathan actually flushed as he sank into a chair. "Damn. Um. The mutant birthrate is about twenty percent lower than it should be in the rural areas of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam."

She blinked, then blinked again. "Say what?"

"I came upon it by accident, just skimming statistics. When I checked, there were a couple of references in the annual reports of some of the medical NGOs that work in that area... I went back a number of years, just on instinct, when I saw the first signs that there was something odd." Nathan told himself to keep stapling. "Moira yelped at me when I told her."

"I'm not in the least surprised by that. Twenty percent, Nathan? That's... God in heaven, that's not good."

"It's only in the rural areas, too. The rate in the cities is a little lower than expected, one or two percent, but Moira says that's within natural variance." Nathan frowned. "I only saw it because I was... well, actually not looking at regional breakdowns. I was trying to do my own, because there weren't regional breakdowns in the reports I was looking at."

"Well, it would have to be rural areas - that's where superstitions come into play, and the lack of authority out to protect the kids." Jean's pen went back to tapping on the paper, but she was definitely not thinking about Shakespeare. "Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, you say? Just those three or do you simply not have numbers for any of the other countries in the area?"

"Well, Thailand's numbers are normal, according to Moira, and Burma..." Nathan sighed again. "Who the hell knows, when it comes to Burma?"

"True enough," Jean admitted. "Is it sticking to the Southeast? I can't really imagine China willingly giving up any asset or resource, and mutant children are definitely a 'resource'." Jean's look was rather foreboding. "But, again, rural areas are hard to monitor."

"China's tricky, too, but I have a number of contacts there, so I've got partial numbers. I'm..." Nathan hesitated, biting his lower lip for a moment. "This is going to sound incredibly paranoid. But these NGOs whose documents I was scrutinizing... they work specifically in the rural areas of those three countries and nowhere else."

One of Jean's eyebrows lifted, and then the other. "Oh ho... Huh. That's... Well then." Already her brain was ticking over too fast for her mouth to keep up.

"Three of them. Regional groups," Nathan said, rattling off the acronyms, which he was after all seeing dancing in his dreams lately. "I've got a comparison between their figures and the initial information from the World Health Organization, if you want to see it."

"Yes, most definitely. Are there any other links between them? Common donors or officers?"

"I've still got Angelo chasing down donor lists. You'd think they were highly classified information or something. And Moira got us a meeting with a really fucking annoying bureaucrat at the UN who wouldn't even look at my figures."

"The number of really fucking annoying bureaucrats at the UN is not infinite, but hardly to be sneezed at. Still, I'm surprised he wouldn't even look at them."

"Especially given that I came with Moira's recommendation." Nathan rested his chin in his hands, looking vaguely wistful, as well as frustrated. "I'm not getting anywhere with this. And yet something is so clearly off... the last time I had this 'feeling', I wound up having a drink with my psychopathic bastard of an uncle in Srinagar."

Jean started to say something, then stopped and gave Nate a long, hard look. "Nathan, don't take this the wrong way but you weren't... hmm, how to put this... You weren't an overbearing bastard during the meeting, were you? I mean, from a bureaucrat's perspective."

Nathan blinked at her. "I... was direct, I guess." Jean continued to regard him steadily, and he shifted in his chair. "Okay, so I was in a really crappy mood that morning. I wasn't verbally abusive or anything."

The eyebrow lifted again, the look in Jean's eyes closer to one that she'd give one of the kids attempting to claim that the dragon had eaten their homework. "Nate, I think the fact that you have to clarify that you weren't verbally abusive says rather a lot about your methods. Bureaucrats are not in the same league of evil as shadowy government brainwashing operations, I promise you."

Nathan gave her an indignant look. "I have a sense of proportion! And... diplomatic skills. Really." She didn't look convinced.

"Uh huh. Which is why you think about this guy as 'Mr. Proper Channels', as though there were something morally offensive about proper channels. Nate, do you want some help, or at least some pointers about dealing with these guys?"

"I just don't understand why when you have the numbers right in front of you that you wouldn't look at them," Nathan said defensively. "It was a dominance thing, I swear..." But Jean just raised an eyebrow at him, and he sighed. "Yes, I would like some help. And pointers. Can I have both?"

Jean smiled, managing to keep it just this side of evil amusement. "Yes, we can do that. But after finals, I think. And give me your Mr. Proper Channels' phone number, if you've got it. I'll see if I can smooth down whatever feathers you managed to ruffle."

Nathan opened his mouth, then closed it again, knowing that his expression was probably just this side of sulky, but unable to help it... or to properly sublimate the sudden surge of despondency that came along with it. "I'll get the hang of this eventually," he said, trying to make it sound light. "I mean, I'll have more time, now that I won't be teaching..."

"It's a different way of dealing with people," Jean said, all traces of amusement gone from her manner, "and it takes just as long to learn as any other skill, and it's not one you ever needed before. There's nothing wrong with that. Plus, you do have some serious heavy hitters on your side and willing to help."

"This is going to sound very low and selfish of me," Nathan said, speaking rapidly, as if he needed to get the words out before he lost his nerve, "but I need very much to make something work. It doesn't have to be this, neccessarily, but something..." He trailed off, shook his head. "Never mind," he said more softly.

"Hey, woah, no." Jean reached across the table, gently touching his hand. "I understand, Nathan, really I do. I hope you know, too, that I'm here for you, to help with whatever, or just to listen if you want to talk."

"I may just take you up on the listening. Once I convince myself that I have to talk. You..." He faltered again. "You knew her, what she was. More than most..."

She nodded. "Whenever you're up to it, I promise."

Nathan closed his eyes for a moment. "~Thank you,~" he said in Askani, his voice almost steady.

"~Anytime, brother, though I need no thanks.~"

It was good to hear someone else speaking the language, Nathan thought. Even now. Very good.