Publish or Perish (Forge, Nathan, Kyle, Lorna, Jennie)

[x-forge.livejournal.com]

At a small Waldenbooks in New York City, Forge's book hits the shelves and he's there to sign a few copies. Nathan, Lorna, Kyle, and Jennie all come along - as do two members of the Brotherhood in disguise.




Forge signed his name on the inside cover of another copy of his book, shaking the reader's hand and making the required small talk before they moved on. Despite his initial fears and hopes, Polarity; the biography of Erik Lehnsherr wasn't exactly flying off the shelves. Maybe forty people had shown up to hear Forge read from the opening chapter and get books signed by the author.

Granted, without the Friends of Humanity outside, attendance may have been higher, Forge thought. About a dozen or so protestors with signs objecting to the book's release, claiming it was funding Magneto's operations - a bunch of conspiracy theorist crackpots, he decided, but at least they weren't directly harassing anyone.

Nathan was lurking around the edges of the signing, leafing it through the occasional book and keeping one eye on the kids and part of his mind on the scene outside. The protestors outside were in fact being quite well-behaved - for bigoted conspiracy-obsessed nitwits, he thought with a fair amount of derision - but he was quite content to blend into the background and watch. Then again, if you're going to do that, Dayspring, you really ought to stop prowling around glaring at people...

Jennie lurked near the back, watching Forge chit-chat with a bespeckled young man with curly hair. Jennie herself had been dubious on the popularity of a book about Magneto, but she could barely write an essay, let alone publish a book, what did she know? She chewed thoughfully on a cuticle and surveyed the crowd. Some academic-types, several obvious mutants, and even a grandmotherly-looking woman. You never knew what people would read these days.

Kyle paged through the Cliff Notes for Billy Budd, trying to keep a bookshelf between him and anyone who looked like they might possibly give him crap for trying to get around reading the book. Classic literature his fuzzy butt. All in, this was pretty cool - espically the dispensation from grounded-ness part, but also the part where people were actually asking Forge to sign stuff. And one old woman pinching his cheek and telling him he was 'such a nice boy', but that was just plain -funny-.

Forge looked around after another handshake and quick schmoozing. So far three people had wanted to know what it was like to be a mutant, one had asked if Magneto really was gay like this internet site said, and two people had called him 'such a brave young man'. The platitudes were starting to be a little much, and Forge held up a hand as he backed away from the table briefly to grab a drink of water.

Lorna had vanished into the cafe immediately upon arrival and was on her third triple shot latte (non-fat). She still thought this was a bad idea but she wasn't going to let Forge do it alone. Besides, she was curious about what kind of people would turn up for a book on Magneto. Fans? Foes? Who actually liked books about psychotic masterminds? Then again, true crime books still sold.

Nathan lightly brushed the minds of each of the attendees from Xavier's, making contact only for the instant he needed to reassure himself that they were all fine. In a variety of moods, but that was only to be expected, given the situation. #Hand cramping yet?# he sent to Forge as he turned in the direction of the children's section. Rachel had developed an abiding passion for pop-up books.

#I learned to sign my name with my left hand last week,# Forge sent back with a smile. He returned to the table, looking briefly at the young man in the dark sunglasses shuffling up with a copy of the book in his hand.

Forge accepted the book, his nose wrinkling instinctively. This guy might have looked all GQ, but he smelled like he'd been sleeping in the same clothes for weeks. And... something else, something he couldn't put his finger on.

"Who should I make this out to?" Forge asked, looking up with a practiced smile.

"Mortimer Toynbee," the young man said in an almost-hiss, voice thick with smug amusement. "Hello again, John."

There was something foul as hell over by Forge's table. Kyle had caught it on the wind, and at first, chalked it up to Baby Ray having the gas or something. Babies did that. But the more he smelled it, the more he recognized it.

Babies didn't smell like wet mildewy basements -and- stank. They smelled like baby powder and cheese and poo gas. But he knew for damn sure what did smell like this, and it was too damn familiar not to be the same guy. Time to put that mental loudness to good use - if he thought 'too loud' sometimes to not be ignored, now was a good time for it. ~NATE! NATE NATE NATE!!! TOAD! TOAD TOAD TOAD!!!~

Moving as fast as he could, in a crouch, because he sure as hell didn't want Toad seeing him, Kyle dodged behind shelves of books. Nate was in the kids' section. Near the squeaky books. And thank God for grabby little baby hands and minds, because the squeaking led him right to Nate.

"The guy. In the sunglasses. At Forge's table. IS TOAD." Kyle growled.

Nathan, who'd been busy wincing at Kyle's mental roaring - in a hypothetical future where Kyle opted for the X-Men, whatever lucky telepath doing switchboard duty was never going to have any difficulty whatsoever keeping tabs on him - wrestled his expression back under control as Kyle arrived at his side. "I see," was his answer, his eyes unfocusing as he started to move back towards the area where the signing was taking place - moving at a measured pace, but smoothly in a way that his teammates would have recognized immediately. "You take a deep breath and go stick to Jennie like glue, okay?" he told Kyle, his voice calm. #Lorna. Trouble,# he projected without making actual contact.

Lorna winced and stepped out of line for another coffee, turning toward the signing area. She locked on the twitchy man standing in front of Forge instantly and supressed a muttered string of curses. She'd known something was going to happen. Only crazy people provoked Magneto. Why didn't anyone ever listen to her? At least, she thought with relief, she was the only one in the area messing with EM fields. Considering Magneto did that just by breathing it was unlikely he was anywhere around. Small mercies. The bangles around her wrist writhing into a single thin blade...just in case.

Jennie cocked her head at Forge, who had just gone pale. She looked around quickly, Nathan and Lorna were both quickly moving towards the table while Kyle was coming directly towards her. The look on his face said it all. Trouble. She put the book back on the shelf and looked around. It was still a little crowded in the bookstore. Luckily, they had her. She palmed a white disk and waited.

Forge began to sign the inside cover of the book, and got halfway through the dedication before pausing. That was the odd smell, the peculiar tinge of ozone from an image inducer. Especially one that wasn't particularly tuned well. Coupled with the name and the fact that this man sounded familiar and oh my god...

Placing his hands flat on the table, Forge looked up into those dark glasses. "You've got to realize I'm not here alone," he said quietly. "There are at least half a dozen X-Men in this store that are ready to knock you into next week if you so much as try anything." Forge hoped his bluffing skills had improved enough to make Toad believe the exaggeration.

"What do you want?" he managed to ask in a level voice.

There was a wet-sounding snort, and the eyebrows of the face shot up over the sunglasses, as if the person behind the image inducer was surprised. Or scared. "Just to thank you for writing this book..." he hissed, in a low whisper. "And to warn you. He doesn't like traitors, John Henry Forge."

Nathan had been closest, and came to a stop ten feet away from the table, his eyes locked on the man standing across from Forge. There were too many people around. Dramatic gestures needed to be avoided. His eyes narrowed and he sent a bare ripple of TK through the table, enough to shift it a little - and warn the bastard that he was there. The unfamiliar face - image inducer? - turned briefly towards him, and Nathan stared back flatly.

Lorna smiled at a bystander as she slipped by, then leaned against the bookshelves just out of the man's peripheral vision. The way he moved was familiar but she couldn't quite place it. Across the table, Lorna caught the faint motion of Nate's TK and used the distraction to slip in just a bit closer. The couple other people in line didn't seem to missing the faint malice in her movements and backed off slightly.

Toad snatched the half-signed book off the table, and turned, the CPU of the inducer causing the illusion to change a breath slower than Toad could move, causing a eerie rippling effect where a false human image could not meet mutant physiology. "Must be in season. First the furball, now you. Makes it easier to come get you, when you're not hiding in your lab dreaming about getting laid."

Forge gripped the edge of the table, then paused. Behind Toad, standing casually between two shelves of local interest books, a blonde woman in a white business suit was looking at him with an amused expression. Subtly, she raised a finger to her lips, her eyes shifting from blue to solid yellow and back again.

Slowly, Forge's fear turned to an odd sort of confidence, bolstered by Nathan's presence at the other end of the table. "She really didn't tell you," Forge said cryptically. "I'm not surprised. You know why they kept you around even when I was there, Mortimer?" he said with an acidic bite to his voice. "Because he likes to think of himself as a king. And every king needs a jester. Someone they can laugh at, someone they can pity. Is that really what you want?"

He cocked his head at Toad, looking at the false face in earnest concern. "You're brilliant, I'm not going to deny that. If you went legit, there's no end to what you could accomplish. If you stay with him, you're throwing away that chance. You deserve better than being the butt of a joke."

"Who didn't tell me -what-?" Toad said, looking over his shoulder. He bent down, to look Forge in the eye. "Go legit. Right. And spend my life hiding behind a fake face so that people can feel comfortable? My chances were stolen from me the minute the -flatscans- decided that only brown and pink people matter." He looked down at the book in his hand in disgust and threw it at the floor. "Take your chances with the humans, John. I'll take mine with my people." And then he left - pushing and elbowing his way through the crowd to the front door of the store before disappearing in a single leap.

Forge shook his head with a sigh, picking up the book and setting it behind him on a table. He looked over at Nathan with a shrug. "I tried," he said sadly.

Nathan was staring straight at Mystique. An invisible wind ruffled the covers of the books on the single shelf directly in front of her. "It's a pity he didn't actually take the book," he said, to Forge. "Reading it would probably do him some good."

Lorna moved quietly to Forge's side. She didn't know Mystique was there but she could tell that no one was any less tense yet. And at the moment it seemed better to be overcautious. "Do we even know if he can read? I don't remember ever seeing him try."

Forge chuckled slightly. "He's a genius, and probably one of the best mechanical engineers on the planet who isn't... well, me," he admitted. "I always wondered what would happen if he wasn't so... he reminds me of who I could have been if I'd made the wrong choices."

Pondering for a moment, Forge reached for the book behind him, scratching out the first line of the dedication and writing something else above it, then signing his name. Tucking the book under his arm, he walked over and placed it on a table between the X-Men and where Mystique was standing.

"Free of charge," he said, before turning his back and walking away.

With a wry smile, she walked over and picked up the book. Opening the front cover, she gave a quick laugh, one hand fluttering to her mouth before she closed the book and walked briskly out the front door.

Jennie put a hand on Kyle's shoulder and watched the blonde woman go. "We just missed something, didn't we?"

"Uh, sorta." If the sunglasses guy was Toad, Kyle had a pretty damn good idea who the woman was. It just made sense. And he'd sure as hell remember that smell too, if it was worth it. He needed to find someone and ask if her scent changed when she shifted. Maybe Logan would know, and if he didn't, Nate would. Or Mr. Summers. Somebody. "If nobody explains, I'll grab you later? I got some idea of what just happened."

Forge signed one last book, then stood up. "All right, thank you all for coming. Remember, Thursday at seven p.m., online discussion group if you have any comments or questions. I really hope you all enjoy the book, and remember to grab a flyer by the door and if you have some spare change, the box for HeliX donations is by each register. Thank you all so much."

He shook a few more hands, then turned to the other four. "If someone could point me to a bathroom," he said weakly, "I'd really like to go throw up now."