New Renaissance Man: The Picture

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

Scott gets back from his meeting in New York with some disturbing information.

OOC: There is a log set in New York, but loggers were eaten by life, so it will go up later.



His grip tense on the envelope, Scott stepped into the suite, closing the door behind him. "Jean?" he called. He could sense her in the bedroom; he'd been keeping his shields up since that first moment of shock in New York, however.

It wasn't until she heard his voice that she processed how tightly he'd locked down his mind - she hadn't even realized he was back yet. "Scott?" she asked, coming out to join him in the main room. "What's wrong?"

"I've just been to see Doug." Scott forced himself to loosen his grip on the envelope as he went over to sit down on the couch. "He had come across something... flagged it, because of... well." His hands only slightly unsteady, he pulled out the picture and set it on the table. Grainy, black and white, it was still very just as clearly Lyman and Haverford as when he's first seen it.

Jean stared at the image. Blinked. Stared again. Yep, still there. "What the hell?"

Scott's laugh was a bit strained. "Just what I said. Doug didn't have any idea who Haverford was, obviously," he said, leaning back into the couch and folding his arms tightly across his midsection. "Lyman, though..."

"Okay..." Jean was struggling to regain her mental footing as the world shifted around her. "This is... problematic." Reasons, options, thoughts whirring abuot in her head, she leaned over the back of the couch to get a closer look at the picture. "Where are they? Is that an airport?" Didn't look like Newark, at least, or any of the locals.

"Yeah. Cairo." Scott's voice caught a little. "Uh, Doug gave me a list of places they've been. Seems they've been getting quite a lot of frequent flyer miles lately. Lyman's apparently been in Witness Protection. Guess he must have cut a deal, or something..." He knew he ought to be focusing more on the fact that Haverford was there, too, but he couldn't... quite manage it.

He was still keeping himself pretty tightly sewn up, but it didn't take a telepath to see what was behind the strain in his voice. Shifting slightly, she slid an arm aound him from behind, resting her forehead on top of his head. "We'll... we'll figure this out. Need more information, but it'll... I'll make it be all right." And the part of her that was very, very angry at Lyman would be kept tightly under control. Yes.

"Doug's looking. I think, probably safe to say that wasn't food poisoning at the restaurant." Scott closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and only then went on. "Drugs in the food, or is he a mutant, do you think?"

She thought back, reexamining the sickening feeling of illness. "Given the reaction," she said, voice remarkably calm, "I'd say drugs. No idea if he's a mutant, but I'm betting drugs." Tied into the memory of the illness, though, was the memory of the night and, now that she examined it more closely there was definitely something... wrong with the memory.

The scale of the potential security breach hit him then, finally, and Scott's jaw clenched. "We're going to need to try and figure out what happened."

Proof of just how badly this had rattled him, that it had taken this long for him to get to that point. "There's... a block, I think. It's definitely not telepathic in nature - feels chemical." 'Feel' was the wrong word. It almost tasted chemical to her telepathic senses but that was a different matter. "I think I can get through it."

"Okay. First course of action, I think, while Doug's looking for more information. If we know, somewhere behind that block, what Haverford wanted... we might be able to help Doug target the search," Scott pointed out, his voice getting steadier.

Jean nodded, then moved around the couch to sit on the couch next to him, legs tucked up so she could face him. She craddled his cheek in one hand, reaching out... Yes, there. The same block in his mind. "This is going to be strange," she warned him. After all, it was so much easier to undo a telepathic block, or find a way around a normal mental block. She was pretty much going to have to just break through the chemical induced fog here.

Scott closed his eyes, fighting back dizziness as she worked despite how gentle she was clearly trying to be. What surfaced were voices, Jean's and... Haverford's, definitely. Asking questions?

It was strange to see memories of herself that she couldn't recall, her own memories still locked away. How does he know about the Rose? She couldn't think about that yet - still needed to focus on Scott.

"... but which one of them is it?" Scott said, still sounding disoriented as he turned over the somewhat scrambled memories of the 'conversation'. "Initiating this... Haverford or Lyman..."

"I don't know," Jean said, sitting back and taking a deep breath. The block out of his mind, she turned her attention inwards to break through the mess in her own. At least know, with the closer understanding of the block and not as much need to take care as when working in Scott's mind, the process went a little faster.

Scott watched her, unable to quite keep the anxiety off his face as she worked. His mind was turning over the problem, trying to figure it out. Could Lyman be interested in a Tibetan artifact designed to help meditation? He - well, Stryker had been interested in Cerebro, so there was a possible connection...

Jean's skin took on a sickly tinge as she broke the memories free of the cloud in her mind, reliving them at the same moment and remembering both the feeling of the chemicals and the helplessness she'd been unaware of at the time. It took a few deep breaths before she concurred the impulse to be sick and could open her eyes. "He thinks the Rose is a weapon?" was the first thing she said, looking confused. "But how does he even know about it?" She didn't know Haverford well enough to judge what was in character for him, to try and see what was his own idea, and what might have been Lyman's.

"We need more information," Scott said, reaching out without really thinking about it and taking her hand. "And we need to tell Charles about this. I just..." He gave a tiny, crooked smile. "I just needed to tell you first."

Jean lifted his hand to press a kiss to the back of it. "I have the worst luck," she said with a sigh. "I'm not sure all the good contacts I make at these events is really worth all this. Again."

"Very different situation," Scott felt the need to point out. "And at least we've got a heads-up now."

"I guess that counts as something of a break, yes." Glancing at the clock on the wall she frowned. "Ready to go talk to Charles?"

"Well, it's not going to become any more comfortable a conversation for the delay."