xp_logs | Tuesday afternoon: Jamie's first Danger Room session

In which Alison is sneaky and evil. Which shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but still manages to blindside Jamie.

Jamie adjusted the collar of his grey trainee leathers, staring out across the empty expanse of the Danger Room. Somehow, an obstacle course, or an army of robots, or . . . well, anything would be more reassuring than this big . . . plain . . . completely empty room.

He shot a glance up to where Alison's silhouette was barely visible behind the glass of the control booth. "Um . . . okay, I guess I'm ready," he called. "What happens now?"

"Now?" Alison's voice echoed through the bare room, entirely neutral sounding though anyone able to look closely at her would have been able to see the devilishly amused glint in her eyes. "Your mission for this day, should you choose to accept it, Multiple Man," and there she paused, only too aware of the suspense this generated, "is to find a way to use your power after the one minute mark."

She was being sneaky, Jamie thought. That was ominous. Alison and sneaky was considered by anyone with half a working brain to be a combination only slightly less dangerous than bathwater and a handheld electrical appliance.

As he approached the middle of the room, a green blob bubbled up from the floor. He tried to run for it, but the blob expanded rapidly, its color fading as it took on a gigantic oblong shape. Jamie had just enough time to bellow "A gelatinous cube? You evil--" before being engulfed.

Alison smiled serenely at the rapidly expanding cube, until it was jiggling pleasantly while taking up at least twelve by twelve feet of space in the middle of the Danger Room. "You mean, you expected easy?" she asked serenely, all the while watching intently. She knew both Scott and Ororo wanted recordings of this session, the both of them very curiuos as to how long it would take Jamie to find a way to fulfill his "mission mandate", as it were. And she was pleased that no one had any doubt he would - it was the how and how long that was in question, and that was it.

"I didn't know what to expect!" Jamie called back. Well, at least the stuff didn't seem to be affecting his breathing, or anything . . . he just couldn't move, at least not any of his major extremities, and . . . dammit, whatever this stuff was it was at the same time too sticky to fight free of and too slick to let him snap his fingers. This was going to be a problem.

"You always have to be ready for any and all eventualities!" was the sing song, merrily given reply. Alison allowed herself a low cackle, just enough so that he could overhear her over the comms. It was both a processing and psych test, though the latter was a subtle one. She grinned and tilted her head to the side, pondering on whether this cube idea might not be applicable for a larger team work exercise as well.

"Yeah, yeah," Jamie muttered. Truth be told, the near-paralysis was starting to get on his nerves, and it really didn't help that he'd gotten stuck inside the cube in an awkward sort of jumping-away position that was gonna play merry hell on his left shoulder if he didn't get out of here kinda fast. "I really didn't think any and all eventualities included the Monster Manual!" Hrm. Well, that was a thought. He had enough room around his head to breathe, maybe he could bang his head into the stuff and give himself enough of an impact . . .

Or maybe the goo would have the general consistency of Nerf, and he wouldn't even get the satisfaction of banging his head on something to express his frustration. Gah. Alison was evil.

"Time's a-running," Alison murmured, trying not to laugh out loud at the abortive head banging gestures coming from within the gelatinous cube. Oh yes, this had been a lovely, lovely idea, she decided. And it had to be shared with others. She had no doubt Scott and Ororo would be more than up to the task for that. She smiled a bit wistfully at the thought, then turned her attention back to the current exercise.

"I'm going to get you for this. One of these days, I swear." Dammit, about the only appendage he could move was his jaw.

Hang on. His jaw. Ooh, his dentist was going to have words with him about this, but desperate times . . .

Jamie's first attempt ended in a loud yelp and a mildly bitten tongue; his second and third attempts didn't generate quite enough force, though his jaw was starting to get sore. Finally, on his fourth attempt, he felt the familiar little shock and a second Jamie found himself stuck inside the cube. The dupe had one hand free of the goo, which he waved feebly at Alison.

A crow of delighted laughter greeted that, though Alison was making a mental note to send Jamie to the infirmary for his jaw once they were done - not that she'd have to, at that. He'd be good to go all on his own. "And you didn't even flip me the bird with that free hand too! Good going!" Chuckling, she keyed the aerosol dispensing system, currently loaded with the chemicals needed to dissolve the cube.

"Well, I don't know what you'd come up with if I got on your bad side, if this is your cheerful idea," Jamie replied, grinning sheepishly and reabsorbing the dupe once he could move again. "That it, or do I get more?"

"Hrm," was the non-commital reply, Alison watching the cube slowly ooze away in all directions. Melting, yes, but not... dissapearing. The secondary chemical reaction should be kicking in any... time... now.

"Why does that not reassu--yiii!" Jamie's feet skidded out from under him as the melted ooze spread, and he landed square on his butt. Another dupe popped, and promptly slipped, spawning another, and another . . . by the time the dust settled, over a dozen Jamies, holding absolutely still, lay sprawled on the oil-slick floor. "Oookay, what's my objective now?" one of them asked. "Stand up?"

The door to the Danger Room swished open smoothly, and Alison leaned forward, grinning entirely too sweetly. "Just make it out of the room, actually. That's it."

"I'm going to be trapped in here forever and Kitty's going to be pissed at you, I'm giving you fair warning right now," Jamie groused.

Okay. Time to take stock of the situation. Maybe if he crawled, very carefully, he could manage enough traction to get moving? One dupe waggled its arms and legs carefully . . . which did absolutely nothing; the stuff seemed to be damn near frictionless, and it still had enough cohesion that he couldn't press through it to get to the actual floor, which was the next thing he tried.

And walking on top of his dupes just sent them careening off across the room to bang into walls and left him sprawled on his back again, though at least this time he was able to keep his control ratcheted up high enough so as not to make the situation worse.

But the skidding across the floor reminded him of something, and he grinned. "Rule number one," he muttered under his breath, "never open the package . . ." Pity there wasn't a handy bicycle around to kick the pedals off of.

He started the dupes pushing off each other, sliding through the goo to kick off the walls and return, linking hands to spin around and build up speed. It took a while and a few false starts, but finally he had all the dupes lined up along the back wall--and one by one they pushed off, skidding through the open door and ending up as a jumbled pile in the hallway.

"HA!" he shouted, panting slightly from the exertion. "Victory is mine!"

Laughter pealed from the control room, Alison no longer trying to control it. He'd made it through and the cube exercise itself had been thought up for a very specific reason. It would be refined with time, until Jamie had an even finer control on the production of his dupes, but for now, this session's aim had been satisfied. "Go take a shower! You're covered in slime and Kitty will kill me if I deliver you back to her that way!"

And if Jamie did decide to go find people to slime hug, well, it coudn't entirely be blamed on her, could it?

She would, too, Jamie thought. Which had definite possibilities.