Operation: Teenage Wasteland - Getting it Together

[x-tarot.livejournal.com]

Remy and Nico have dragged all of X-Force to the offices - or in Emma's case, to the boardroom, and they attempt to figure out exactly what the hell is going on.



"Dis is a fucking nightmare." Remy muttered, looking across his boardroom table. It would have looked like any other meeting, considering the cast that was sitting around it, but it didn't take long to notice the things that were wrong; Sarah's open hostility, Wanda and Amanda still locked into fight or flight assessments, the open terror on the faces of Sofia and Marie-Ange. When Remy was relying on Nico to help him plan an investigation, it had to be a sign of the Mayan Apocalypse. Didn't jaguers come to eat the Earth this year or something? Remy could only hope.

"Everyone quiet down." He said, finally cutting through the chatter and the odd giggle. "I know dat dis is very confusing, but by now, you should have figured out dat even though you don't remember it, none of you is sixteen any more. You've seen de date in de paper and on television. You looked in de mirror. So we not going to dwell on it."

Remy leaned forward, hands lightly steepled. "De important thing is to find out what's happened and why just you lot are affected. Normally, dis is de kind of thing dat I'd call in de Professor on, or our other friends, but we don't know whether or not de effects will spread, or if de time loss will get worse. So we need to figure dis out now."

"'S obvious, ain't it?" Amanda said, lighting up a cigarette and blowing the smoke deliberately at Wade and Doug. "'S a spell, that's what it is. Someone's fuckin' with me."

There was a brief spat of Romanian before Wanda screwed up her face and started over again. "There is something wrong with all of us," she said, surprise flaring slightly as the English rolled off her tongue, "not just you. So why would they be "fucking" with you and get us caught as well?"

The idea of there being magic didn't phase her but, then again, she was sixteen in an old woman's body - she was starting to get tired of being freaked out.

Doug's eyes widened at the string of Romanian that had come from Wanda. It was pretty clear that he had one of the more bland and 'normal' upbringings in the room, if a sixteen-year-old could swear like that. Or smoke like Amanda, whose background he at least knew. Or radiate the barely-contained hostility towards everyone and everything that Sarah did. "You know there are those of us in the room that understood all of that potty-mouth-edness, right?" he asked, in the least confrontational tone he could manage. Which, considering this was Doug at sixteen, practically came with an 'oh god don't hurt me' tagged on the end.

Wanda turned to look at Doug and gave him a Look that would have done her actual age self proud. "Potty-mouth-edness?" she repeated slowly and then comprehension dawned. She replied in Romanian with: "I suppose there are better uses for my mouth than to curse but not as appropriate."

Doug flushed bright red at the implication of what Wanda was saying. That she would say something so bald-facedly, and who knows who else in the room might speak Romanian...

Keeping quiet, Wade watched the volleys go back and forth in a different language and shifted backward in his seat in an effort to get a little farther away from Amanda and her cigarette.

"I am sorry, what I do not understand, why are we all sixteen? We are all different ages, we cannot all be sixteen. Is sixteen... why is it sixteen?" Marie-Ange was eleven, or perhaps sixteen kinds of uncomfortable in this board room, with these people she did not know. "If someone made us all sixteen, why did they pick that age?"

"Maybe it's a clue. Remy think dat de key is why not Nico and I? Why Wade at all? He doesn't work here."

"Well...I think he had breakfast with Marie-Ange?" He probably had a lot more than breakfast, but somehow that didn't seem like the proper thing to bring out at that moment. Or ever. "But he probably saw Glorian as well; he must have."

"Yesterday wasn't- wait. Nico? Where you in de boardroom before 'manda marched out Glorian?"
Nico had been a bit out of it for a moment, looking in awe as how the people that were supposed to be fighting in the shadows and doing all sorts of dangerous stuff were currently...slightly pitiful. She was going to feel bad about feeling that way later, but for now she had to keep it cool.

"No, I had gone out for a moment. Hey, you weren't in there as well right? So everybody affected was inside the office in the time frame. I mean, Cammie wasn't in the boardroom, but she escorted Glorian all the way up..." At that point the whole deal sounded pretty obvious, and Nico wondered if the man was thinking the same thing she did. "No way! Don't tell me..."

"I'm an idiot. Glorian is de damn missing factor dat ties it all in."

"Who," asked Emma quietly, "do you think this Glorian is? What can she do?" Emma was eager to pursue anyone else who knew something about telepathy, seeing this red-eyed man had proven so useful. Perhaps this Glorian would show her something helpful.

Nico turned back to Emma. "He's...an informant of sorts. And bad news if he's the one messing with your head and everybody else's." She had to wonder just how was the man himself after pulling such a trick.

"Nico, get down to de safehouse and check if he's dere. Take 'manda, Wade and North. If he's not, ask around de neighbourhood." Remy sighed. "Doug, we need to get back into you systems here. After that, I want you to give Marie-Ange, Sofia, Emma and Jubilee a crash course on Google. At dis point, all de major New York papers and local broadcast news are on-line. I want de four of you to go through all dat information, and look for examples of strange, impossible events. If he's doing it, even accidentally, dere's going to be evidence of it. Wanda, Ororo, go grab a couple of de full red-tagged manilla envelopes from de black cabinet over in de back and den wait for me by de elevator. Everyone clear?"

"Nah, got a question for you. Who died and made you King of the World?" Amanda snorted derisively. "An' what makes you think 'm goin' anywhere with these two old geezers and the wanna-be here?"

"Because unless dis gets fixed, you back to a future of blowing old men in de Tube and passing de money to Rack. Dat a good enough reason to listen to me?" He said, his red-on-black stare hard.

The mention of Rack was enough to shut the witch up - she snapped her mouth closed, meeting Remy's stare with a glare of her own.

Christophe snorted, muttering under his breath in German about stupid women and slouching in his seat as he took in the varied personalities around the table. His mastery of the English language was slightly spotty, but he could recognise the English translation of his last name and understand the instructions that were being issued. “And what do we say when someone questions us?”

Because as far as he was concerned, even an individual walking normally along the streets could be stopped and interrogated, much less such an unlikely group searching for a man.

Remy answered back in perfect German. "That you have a dear friend visiting from out of town and you think he wandered off accidentally."

“I hope the American police are as dumb as they say they are then,” Christophe replied plainly with a smirk.

"They won't have to be stupid if you sell it well enough, dude," Jubilee noted, popping her gum and placing her feet up on the table. She'd spent her time listening and surveying the people in the room, trying to figure out just what the hell they were expecting from her. She still found the entire thing completely surreal and wasn't entirely sure this wasn't some sort of drug trip or weird dream that she'd wake up from and have to tell Ororo about.

Wade pushed his chair back from the table, away from the smoke the blonde seemed bent on blowing in his direction when she wasn’t glaring at the guy in charge of everything, and stood up. He wasn’t sure he’d be any good at selling anything, but he knew how to take orders and these seemed pretty simple. Go find a guy. “Whenever you guys are finished bickering,” he said, lifting his chin toward the door. “I’ll be over there.”

"Dat's what I like to hear. Anything else? Otherwise, let's get moving. De faster dat I'm not babysitting any more, de happy Remy be."