Log: Dayspring & Farouk

[x-farouk.livejournal.com]

Cable runs into Farouk. Catfight ensues





Amahl zipped up the bag and swung it over his shoulder with a faint
groan. It was becoming tiresome, he thought glumly. If he wanted to
engage in any sort of honest work, what was the point of having a
man-servant?

Alas, Esteban was still nursing a concussion and it would a while
before he was ready to resume his duties. Which was arguably for the
best, since Sefton's inability to give a clear answer to half the
questions he asked was beginning to seriously fueled his temptation to
engage in some sort of violence.

So far the better angels of his natura, who were coincidently in
charge of his self-preservation instincts, limited his reactions to
Amanda largely to passive-aggressive strategy. With Esteban's capacity
for mayhem at his disposal... Who knows.

He locked the door to his apartment and jiggled the handle
experimentally. The habit acquired in his college days and the relaxed
security of the Sorbonne dorms has stubbornly clung to him - and over
the years he's found himself less and less eager to shake it.

Which was a rather sad commentary on his life, now that Farouk thought about it.

He shrugged and turned, already thinking of the commute back. Even in
his somewhat distracted state, however, it proved difficult to
overlook the sudden presence looming over him.

Amahl's eyes flicked upwards and he smiled easily, thinking something
extremely rude.

So much for quick and easy get-away.

"Mr. Dayspring. How nice to see you."

Nathan, who had in fact come inside and up to the third floor with the
intention of seeking out Cain to get his opinion on some minor
boathouse renovations - he didn't like making any changes that the
other man didn't okay - had been rather startled, and not in the
pleasant way, to see Farouk exiting his suite. What, you expected
him not to come back? That would have been too nice to actually
happen.

"Dr. Farouk." If there was a chill in his voice, it was a mild one. It
wasn't the man's fault, from what Charles had said, and Nathan
was capable of not ascribing blame willy-nilly where it wasn't
deserved. "Welcome back."

"Yes, thank you. It's good to be up and about again." Amahl trailed
off, unsure of what to say. Finally he hitched up his bag and coughed.
"So... um. How's the family?"

Gray eyes narrowed ever so slightly. "Well enough. How's the head?" It
was one of those funny situations where you weren't actually asking
after someone's welfare because you cared, but rather, to see their
reaction.

Amahl shrugged self-deprecatingly. "Still attached. These days that
seems like reason enough to be thankful. It's a dangerous world out
there."

'Really? I hadn't noticed.' would be far too sarcastic, as replies
went. Also hostile. And he wasn't hostile - much. Nathan satisfied
himself with a monosyllable, and then raised an eyebrow at Farouk's
bag. "Was I premature in welcoming you back?"

Farouk hefted the bag thoughtfully. ""In truth, I am not sure myself,
yet. I'm just back from my sabbatical for now, and am still doing some
research in the city. So it made sense to get a temporary apartment
there. But I do still have classes and obligations here."

"I see." Nathan remembered something, and tried not to grimace. "You
know, one of your students insisted on giving me some books you'd
loaned her - Eliane, the young French pyrokinetic? I guess because I
used to teach the less 'standard' sort of history around here..."
Nathan paused, reaching out almost skittishly with his mind to see if
Cain was in his suite. Didn't appear to be. "The person I came up here
to see isn't in, so if you wanted to make a brief detour to the
boathouse, I can give them back to you."

The ideal weather that had descended in New York a few days past was
coming to a close, and the sporadic spatter of rain showered both men
as they made their way through the grounds of the mansion. The
conversation remained stilted at first, both eager to avoid the faux
pas of some sort, and finding that such intention turned most topics
into a dangerously sensetive minefields. The feeling of unease was
only punctuated by the strange glances towards Farouk from the passing
students.

So it was with little surprise when Farouk suddenly found the
conversation veering into the area of relatively safe discussion of
the other man's professional pursuits.

"-the standard DDR protocols need some adapting, obviously, when
you're dealing with child soldiers with mutant abilities," Nathan
said. He wasn't sure why he'd responded to this particular line of
conversation, except that, well, it was consistently on his mind these
days, and it was a fairly safe subject. "There being no disarmament
possible, per se. We decided that powers training was the best way to
go. Most of these kids don't have control over their abilities. But it
does require stepped-up counseling of a very particular sort. We're
critically short of people with the appropriate skills."

"I suspect that most such people are currently working for the various
agencies whose names are composed of a bewildering array of acronyms."
Farouk commented absently, his eyes following a gaggle of giggling
sophmores wearing an improbably light array of clothing that by all
realistic measure should have had them experiencing severe
hypothermia. He shook his head, suddenly smiling. He must be getting
old, when the horizon of miniskirts mostly tempted him toward medical
advice.

He turned back toward Dayspring, wrenching his mind back toward the
topic at hand.

"I have not studied the issue specifically but it does dovetail with
the other emerging themes. The mutant population is currently in a
curious position of being large enough to worry people and to present
a valuable resource, but not yet enough to develop its own
transnational or transethnic identity. Athough that is inevitably just
a matter of time. In fact the signs of its emergence are already
evident. So the ability to indoctrinate the maximum numbers of the
current generation of the x-gene becomes that much more pressing. The
leash on them confers on the state or organization that achieves it a
tremendous advantage, since it also gives them the ability to control
their descendants."

Farouk waved airily.

"Let the geneticists argue. It seems highly unlikely to me that the
X-Gene probability is not enhanced by having mutants as both parents.
Child soldiers were an inevitable outgrowth of the already existing
trends. The breeding programs will inevitably follow. In the age where
nuclear arsenals are rendered meaningless by the size of one's mutant
resource there is no other future.'

The Arab nodded slighly at another student who recognized him and
ground to a halt, gaping at the conversing pair.

"In another generation, two at the most, I suspect we shall be seeing
a world-wide crisis of the current socio-political system. The
democratic ideal, after all, works fundamentally due to the promise of
equal opportunity. We..." Farouk gesture encompassed both men and the
school grounds, "put the lie to that promise simply by existing."

He sighed, squinting at the overcast sky. "Feudalism and corporate
society, I would imagine are due for a come back. Aristocracy and
serfdom based on the eugenic suitability. We are heading into a time
of blood and fire."

Nathan, much to his credit, actually managed to wait out the whole
mini-lecture without reaching out and smacking the man upside the
head. Pompous blowhard - 'inevitable outgrowth' my ass. And
'blood and fire'? It was too bad Askani was two thousand years in the
future and couldn't hear this. She would laugh her ass off. Or liquify
Farouk's brain. Maybe it was better that she was no longer here.

"Well," he said, in a near-drawl that did a real good job of covering
the seething, "I think you'll probably forgive those of us who are
parents of mutants from working to avoid the breeding programs.
Not to mention," he went on, "those of us who are ex-child soldiers.
Or did you jump to the conclusion that I was involved in this out of
some abstract sense of altruism?"

Farouk fought down the overwhelming temptation to roll his eyes.
Another Proud Victim with a Cause.

And it was just like this walking case against steroids to assume that
just because Farouk could recognize the trends he approved of them. It
was so hard to have a good discussion these days, without being
bludgeoned to death with the Moral Implications. People insisted on
taking everything so personally...

And Dayspring was certainly proving to be a most sensitive mercenary.

It was amusing, however, that he apparently saw himself as stemming
the tide of militarization of mutant society. Swift was right yet
again - there are none so blind as those who will not see.

He thought for a moment, pondering wisdom of speaking his mind...
True, the school failed with rather dramatic flourish to solve the
very problem that brought him to them.

On the other hand it was never wise burning the bridges.

On the third hand the boy-soldier really needed to get his face rubbed
in the facts of life...

Oh, well.

"No, I made some inquiries on the background of the Xavier's staff
once i realized that there was more to the school than simple
academics. You... erm, career was not hard to trace."

Farouk smiled sweetly. "I admit it did come as somewhat of a surprise
to me that a man with your history made such a comprehensive circle,
coming back to his roots so to speak. Child-soldier to soldier to
teacher of the next generation... of soldiers. It shouldn't have, of
course. We are all products of ours pasts after all. "

"Oh, I see," Nathan said brightly as they approached the front steps
of the boatouse. "This is where I'm supposd to get all huffy and...
what, throw you in the lake? Not to worry," he said as he climbed the
steps, "I've had lots of very expert therapy, so I no longer try to
drown people I disagree with simply because they're making sweeping
generalizations based on insufficient evidence about people or
institutions I'm emotionally invested in. Mind you," he added
cheerfully, holding the door for Farouk, "I may make an exception if
you keep sounding like my late unlamented uncle Gideon. The
Faraday/Morrow family legacy is still something that fills me with a
great deal of irrational rage."

Yeah, whatever helps you sleep at night, muscles.... Farouk nodded his
thanks steeping through the door with the imperious nonchalance.
"Well, it wasn't really part of my master-plan so if you can refrain
from defenestrating me, I could learn to live with it. Interesting
tradition of conflict resolution for an organization devoted to
pacifism, I must say."

Although the last time he really did deserve it. He was still faintly
mortified at losing his control like that at that girl of Garrison's.
Pathetic exhibition.

Shaking off the unpleasant memory, Farouk brushed the wet hair out of
his face and straightened his mustache with a practiced gesture, "As
for your family - I must confess to ambiguous emotions. Their funding
was certainly instrumental in the development of the Critical Mass
school in Mutant Studies. It's a pity that they turned toward
bankrolling politicized polemics by the end. But such is life.

"I think you could call the X-Men many things. Pacifists? Not so
much." Nathan let the door swing shut behind them and paused, looking
around in an effort to remember just where he'd left those books. "As
for my family... I find it kind of amusing that Gideon was so
well-rounded in his approach. Then again, what's the point of being a
mutant supremacist with Social Darwinist tendencies and deep pockets
if you can't pay for a few pet intellectuals? Gives a veneer of
respectability to the megalomania." It wasn't just bordering on rude,
it was rude. But he also hadn't assaulted the man over his connection
to Gideon, which Nathan figured meant that he was growing as a person.

"No, describing X-Men's actions as pacifistic would definitely be a
misnomer," Farouk agreed placidly. "As for for Mr. Faraday - I met him
several times. A complex man, straggling with complex issues - in his
own way. Less and less of them these days, their successors seem
content with simplifying the situation into the easy platitudes. Be it
the promises of paradisaical co-existence or coming reign of the Super
Race. Interestingly, megalomania remains a constant, however."

He was tempted to ask what the respectability bought by Elpis was
hiding, but decided against it. Too easy.

Oh, now he understood. He'd dared to interrupt the man's lecture, and
hence, by the arcane rules of academia, had earned himself a nice long
barrage of 'putting my loutish intellectual inferior in his place'.
Nathan smiled slightly as he headed over the bookshelves. He ought to
have recognized this particular dynamic, but then, it had been a long
time.

"You enjoy trying to put people on the defensive, don't you?" Nathan
asked, pulling one of the books off the shelf and frowning slightly as
he looked for the others. Things were out of order here. Rachel had
clearly been 'practicing' again. "I heard all about your 'discussion'
with Marie. You aren't the first person to take issue with what we do
here. You're not even the first person to take that particular
issue. I'm sure I'd be much more distraught and defensive if I'd
actually been brought up here, but, well... mine was a very different
experince. I can value a great deal of what I find here, without
thinking it's the be-all and end-all. And if I forget," Nathan said,
letting go of the book, which floated over to Farouk, "I have that
office on the other side of the boathouse to remind me."

Amahl plucked the book out of midair, stifling the temptation to give
form to disdain that Dayspring's casual show of telekinesis
engendered. He never trusted people who used their powers
unnecessarily. Usually it concealed vast amounts of insecurity which
never meshed well with their capabilities.

Alternatively the man was trying to intimidate him, in his own clumsy
fashion. Certainly the reminder that he had an alternative power base,
autonomous of Xavier's could be construed as such. Or was farther
proof of his insecurity.

Probably both.

His face reflected nothing of his thoughts, however, as he nodded.
"Ah, a 'fellow traveler.' With the Movement but not of it?" Personally
he always found Lenin's definition of such people as 'useful idiots'
as much more apt, he thought, and quirked a curious eyebrow at the
other man. "So which part of Professor Xavier's ideology gives you
pause, exactly, Mr. Dayspring?"

Farouk's approach to the conversation was telling him all kinds of
things about how the man's mind worked, really. "Nothing, really. I
agree with him in just about every respect. But I also look at what we
do here, both with the school and the X-Men, as one part of a much
larger picture. There are needs a school in Westchester and a
rapid-reaction team can't address. But with Elpis, my family's money
can be put to more productive use in the rest of the world. Specialty
medical teams, educational and powers training programs... it's the
same basic set of motivations beneath it all. Just a wider
application."

"Ah, I see." It seemed his initial impression was correct. This was a
follower, and dreadfully uneasy about it. No wonder the comments about
his uncle's intellect discomfited him. He was probably forever
worrying that people were seeing as nothing but a thug, while he
desperately wanted to be a leader.

It would be interesting to look into Elpis finances a little deeper.
Faraday always turned a profit, one way or another. Somehow Farouk rather
doubted the family fortune fared equally well under Dayspring's
management.

"Well, this was most illuminating. And, once again, thank you for
hanging on to these." Farouk collected the books carefully and
inclined his head slightly. "I am sure we'll run into each other
again, around campus."

Nathan inclined his head just as slightly. Smug old bastard, with some
ugly depths if what his mind had spawned was any indication. He'd have
to keep an eye on him. At least Farouk hadn't formed any real ties
here. His own sense of superiority would keep him from having any real
influence on the students or the team. Give people like this enough
rope and they usually hung themselves. Gideon had.

"Best wishes for staying out of the lake, Doctor Farouk," he said, and
opened the door for the man with his telekinesis. Just to be
irritating.