xp_logs | X-Men Mission: Rubicon

With the rescue successful, the X-Men regroup and determine that the mission is far from over.

After about an hour of running and passing the still-unconscious boy between them, the small team of X-Men managed to find a secluded spot on a heavily-overgrown ridge. While Jan and Logan scouted to make sure the Reavers hadn't trailed them, Marie and Amara began tending to the young mutant.

Forge walked over to sit on a broken stump near Haller, pulling out his PDA and perusing it closely. "I pulled as much info as I could from their systems in that lab," he explained, scrolling through the data. "The facility's owned by a group called Combine Energy, from what I can tell. They have a no-bid exclusive contract with the Brazilian government... wait, this can't be right. They have a contract to provide low-cost environmentally-neutral electricity to underdeveloped areas out here. This reads like a humanitarian Nobel Peace Prize pitch. I note that none of their public documentation says anything about how they're generating this zero-carbon-footprint energy, the bastards."

"Good. The lack of detail means I don't need to go to the Brazilian government and break the spine of the first person to say the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few." The motion Jim used to light his cigarette was abrupt and violent. Jack had retreated, but now the anger was closer to the surface. In his attempts to calm a part of him was trying to alot the creators the benefit of the doubt. He'd heard the division between Brazil's upper and lower class was among the sharpest in the world. Perhaps someone had looked at the living conditions and truly believed this was the only way. Maybe it wasn't malice -- only simple math in a place where no life was expected to be easy. Even knowing that, though, Jim's faith in humanity was unequal to the task. He'd seen too many people cloaked in the banner of "the needs of the many" use this as an excuse to use and abuse the few -- something that could have been attested to by Marie and Forge both.

If you were very lucky, you would first be asked . . . but rarely would the answer make any difference.

Jim took a drag and mentally turned to Charles. In this terrain and with the availability of Cerebro psychic contact was more reliable than radio. Jim had sensed the man monitoring them during the extraction, and it took little to sharpen passive attention into rapport. #Did you get that, professor?#

#Yes.# Charles's mental voice was calm and level, as always, but to Jim, who knew him so well, there were hints at the emotions beneath the surface. #Good intentions or no, this is rank exploitation.#

#Agreed.# Jim looked to where Amara and Marie sat, talking over the boy, then back to Forge, who was stealing glances over his PDA. #Course of action?#

#With the Reavers involved as security...# There was a pause as Charles examined Jim's memories further, and then a sense of brief withdrawal, and contemplation. #I trust you to use your judgment, but you must do whatever is necessary to shut down this facility permanently.#

Jim listened for a time, silent and motionless except for a single drag of his cigarette. Finally he nodded slightly. "Understood," he murmured, even as the characteristic unfocused look of telepathic conversation receded from his eyes.

Forge glanced over to where Haller had been seemingly zoned out in silent telepathic conversation. "Well?" he asked. "What's understood? What's the plan?"

"The professor says . . ." Haller raised a hand, and the length of the cigarette it held burst into flame. As the cigarette in his gloved hand crumbled to ash, the older man turned and gave Forge a broad, green-eyed smile.

". . . that place gets to burn."