Danger room control booth: Scott and Terry

[x-siryn.livejournal.com]

Terry and Scott talk about leadership, learning, responsibility and Scott has an evil plan. As usual.



It had taken a considerable amount of time to program this. Scott knew
that there were details missing - had to be, when he was relying only
on his memory for the finer points of the scenario - but the major
variables were there. Sitting in the observation booth, he peered down
into the Danger Room, watching the fight in the Blue Area play out
once more. Still not seeing it. Why aren't I seeing it?

It bothered him when he couldn't figure out where his tactics had gone wrong.

There was a sound of throat clearing behind Scott, not rude, just
meant to warn him that he wasn't alone anymore. Terry paused in the
door of the observation booth, holding a water bottle negligently in
one hand and waiting for an acknowledgment. As she leaned against the
doorway, it occurred to her that she was tired--not physically, just
mentally.

Scott looked back over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow. "I didn't
think anyone else would be down here for a little while," he said,
then gestured somewhat negligently at the view through the windows
-even as he reached out and deactivated the program. "Just running an
amped-up version of a tactical review..."

She came up and leaned on the back of an empty chair, arms folded
along the back. "It's quiet down here. Soundproofing is better, cuts
out most of the mansion chatter." She lived in a world of perpetual
sound and hated and feared silence more than anything else. But
sometimes even she wanted to spend less time with the noise of other
people and more with the quiet of just a few. She could have gone for
a walk but the idea was unappealing. "What's the review of?"

"Things you probably don't want to see," Scott said after a moment.
"The mission where we found them." He knew he didn't need to
elaborate.

Terry went pale and her stomach turned. "Not yet. I...I know I
should. It's important that I know what happened but I just can't
yet." Her best friend. Torn apart, destroyed, rebuilt into the worst
sort of monster. She hadn't even wept yet, afraid this wasn't over.

Scott didn't answer right away. "You know you should, huh?" he asked,
not quite lightly. "I don't know as though I agree with that, Terry.
You know what you need to know."

"I know they were taken. I know they were tortured. I know they were
used. I don't know how to stop it from happening again." And without
that, she didn't know what she needed to know. The only things that
mattered were reversing the changes--and that was impossible--and
stopping it from happening again. She didn't know if that was
possible. "If you thought that it was all that was needed, you
wouldn't be down here reviewing the scenario."

"This is going to make me sound cold," Scott said, "but I'm not
reviewing it with them in mind. Something went wrong that day," he
went on, "on a level that has nothing to do with what happened to our
people. How I handled the situation tactically is something I
know I can learn from."

Terry's shoulders shifted as she considered Scott's reply, "You think
there's only something for you to learn from this, Mr Summers?"

Scott raised an eyebrow at her. "As opposed to what, Terry?"

"There are always lessons from every situation. When you make a
mistake, when you fail a job, there's always something to learn. The
best way that you can learn is from other people's mistakes, the next
best is from your own. The worst is not learning at all." All of
which she'd learned at Tom's knee, still young enough to cry when she
fell down. "If there's a lesson for you, why wouldn't there be a
lesson for the rest of us?"

"I'm not sure why I'm getting the lecture, Terry," he said after a
moment, no edge to his voice. "I don't think I said anything about
anyone other than myself." One eyebrow went back up. "Unless you're
telling me that I need to take everyone else into account, any time I
do anything team-related - in which case, I need to strenuously
disagree. Leadership doesn't mean not being allowed to pursue
something of your own, on your own."

She leaned into her arms, her red ponytail tumbling over her shoulder.
She caught the strands in her fingers and pulled them through idly.
"I'm saying that you don't have to give me a bye on it because he's my
friend. I'll do my bit and I'll learn what I can. You're not doing me
any favors by not holding me to it."

"That's a little presumptuous, don't you think?" Scott asked, his tone
mild. There might have been a little calculation there, but it was
well-buried. "That I shut this program off, and suggested to you that
maybe you don't need to know the whole story just yet out of a desire
to spare your feelings. Maybe I watched you drift in here, watched you
go white as a sheet when you found out what I was doing, and decided
that you weren't any good to the team if you were incapacitated by the
reaction you haven't clearly haven't let yourself have, yet."

"Presumption based on what you said. You didn't say yet. You said I
already know what I need to. Sure I appreciate a break from it but
I've no intention of shirking. I won't be a liability to this team,
Mr. Summers. You've no cause to fear that." Terry's tone was
deliberately just as mild as Scott's. "Do you think I can't manage
myself?"

"I don't know. Maybe I'm not willing to risk it. Being determined to
handle it isn't enough sometimes. And being determined to turn it into
a learning experience usually only works when you can detach
yourself emotionally from the content. Are you really telling me that
you're prepared to do that right now?"

"No," Terry replied unequivocally, "I'm not. But I will be and I'd
like the chance to decide when that is instead of being barred from
it."

Scott smiled a bit thinly and left the subject alone. This was
probably not the time to get into a discussion of leadership and how
one 'managed' the people for whom one was responsible. Yes, it's
always better to choose an example where the person being managed
doesn't have quite this much emotional involvement...

"Moving on," he said. "I may pair you with our newest trainee for a
run at some point. I want to see how Lillian's powers do or do not
cope with sensory overload."

"That should be fun." Terry replied, sliding easily into the new
subject. She didn't really want to fight with Scott and there were
better times to have this argument. "If she starts bleeding from the
ears, that's a sign I should stop, right?"

Scott let out a soft laugh. "I want your observations on how she
relates to you in training, too, if you don't mind. You're useful for
my purposes on another score - you're young, and you did all your
training here. Your dynamic with her could be informative."

"Yes, sir," Terry nodded, much happier with that than the earlier
conversation. Too often she worried that her place on the team was
legacy more than anything else, that having grown up here meant that
she could never been seen as an adult. Perhaps that was true but at
least it offered this advantage--they already knew her and her
abilities and could trust her to do her job. "That'll be on the next
training schedule, I suppose?"

Scott nodded. "I always wonder about the ones who come in with other
training or experience," he said, almost under his breath. "Sometimes
they work out well, sometimes they don't. Generally it depends on
their attitude," he said in a more natural tone. "Which is why
I want your take on Lil's. I played the heavy a little too fast with
her, so she's not going to be honest with me." Too worried I'm
going to ship her home...

Dropping your voice was so much more effective when you weren't in the
same room as a mutant with enhanced hearing. As always, Terry didn't
even bat an eyelash. She was well used to it. "Lucky for you people
like me, then, isn't it?" Terry replied with a fast, cheerful grin.
"Anything I should know about her, other than how you've tried to
scare her off?"

"See, giving you her whole dossier would make this unfair. And
just because I'm using you to test her doesn't mean the reverse isn't
true, too," Scott said with that amiable look that always meant bad,
bad things.

"Double-edged test then?" Her fingers flexed at her side and she
glanced at the simulation console, trying to decide if doing her own
research would be cheating. Maybe she'd just keep her ears open. That
usually yielded a surprising amount of data. "I'll look forward to
it."

"See, when you say that, I actually believe you mean it..."