xp_logs | Forge and Cartier St. Croix, Thursday afternoon

Forge meets Marius' father. After a moment of mutual admiration, Forge makes a rather surprising revelation.

Forge paused at the corner of the hallway, readjusting the stack of binders and printouts in his arms. Not for the first time, he cursed Dr. Voght's habit of keeping old medical journals in hard copy instead of on an easily searchable database. But between his long nights of reading and conference calls with Dr. MacTaggart, it seemed that the idea he'd thought of on the spur of the moment was going to pan out for everyone.

Turning the corner, Forge's foot slipped on the tile floor, and he leaned hard into the wall to keep from dumping his stack of papers unceremoniously before he managed to stumble and stagger forward to slam them down on a table outside the waiting room to the medlab. A choice string of curses followed, which in turn was followed by the conspicuous clearing of a throat behind him.

"Pardon me, John Forge?" An unfamiliar older man moved into the room, glancing from the stack of papers to the boy's slightly reddened face, but not commenting. "Excuse the presumption. Dr. Voght directed me this way. You do rather resemble the photograph on the dustsleeve of your book. The prosthesis helped too, of course."

Forge looked up - and up - at the taller man, cocking his head in mild confusion. "That's me, yeah. And you are..." Olive skin, slightly heavyset, and that nose... "You're Marius's father. Cartier St. Croix. It's an honor to meet you, sir." He wiped a dust-covered hand quickly on his pants and extended it. "I understand at least a third of all news media in the southern hemisphere goes through a St. Croix subsidiary at some point."

"Much does passes through my hands, yes," Cartier smiled, shaking the boy's hand. "As does the wellfare of half the mansion through yours, if certain parties are to be believed. It's a pleasure to finally meet you. Marius has always been effusive in his praise even before the biography had hit the bestseller list."

"He's an effusive kind of guy," Forge agreed, feeling a spark of pride that the man who basically owned half of the cable networks in Australia and Indonesia had read his book. "So what can I do for you, sir?"

Cartier raised his heavy eyebrows. "John, in June you saved my son's life. The only favour I intended to ask today was the privilege of meeting you."

"Oh," Forge felt momentarily humbled. "It's... well, he'd have done the same for me. He... dwells a lot on the negative aspects of his mutation. But back in April he managed to use his abilities to heal a lot of people, myself included. He's my friend, utter lack of common sense and all. I wouldn't do any less by him."

"It was good that he had that experience. So many around him have such obviously useful powers I suspect he has developed what in anyone not my son I might term a small inferiority complex. Present company included." Cartier's lips again turned upward in a brief smile before thinning again. "Marius is . . . unlike his sister. His mother and I have been in contact with Dr. MacTaggart since he was brought here. More, after the events of this summer. Marius has been extremely fortunate thus far, both in company and in care, but the underlying problem remains. His mutation is flawed. And sooner or later it will kill him."

Forge pondered that, fingers tapping on the sole red-covered binder in the stack of white ones. The one with the large banner reading "MEDICAL - CONFIDENTIAL" on the cover. He remained silent for a moment, then picked up the report. "Marius is a lot more like his sister than you think," he finally said, holding the binder out towards Cartier. "And Doctor MacTaggart believes that could save his life."