Ausente sin Culpa ni Presente sin Disculpa | Estrategia

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The X-Men and Cecilia try to figure out the best way to handle the mutant drug gang.

After she'd finished discussing the whole story, Cecilia had been mostly silent on the way back to Carmen's office. There had been smatterings of Spanish, bits of tense, short conversation between her and the other doctor. And when one of the X-Men piped up with a question or observation, she'd provide an answer. But generally, as the car moved out of the slums, she was quiet. The conversation flowed around her, and she was content with that while she sat and processed.

There was a lot to process. Even beyond the simple fact that she'd been shot.

(Or shot at. What was the terminology when a bullet grazed your genetically-powered biofield?)

Now, though, heading back to the conference room in Carmen's office, she knew it was time to talk. Scott had made it seem like this was her mission. And she still eschewed that, she did, but of the four of them, she was the only one with a stake in the game.

"Okay," she said, stepping through the door to find her three friends gathered around the table. "Quick check-up at Carmen's assistance. No surface damage." Her right fist was closed around a bottle of Advil; she reached for a mug of coffee with her other hand.

"So. Mutant drug gang set fire to my clinic." The words were surprisingly businesslike. She sat and shook two ibuprofen tablets out, then swallowed them with a coffee chaser. "What else?"

"And basically have been terrorizing the people in the neighborhood as well, with no one really able to take a stand against them." Sooraya succinctly summarized the issue as she saw it, though she eyed her friend worriedly. "You sure you are up for this?" She lowered her voice as she asked.

"I'm fine," Cecilia said rather automatically, her voice not bothering to lower to match Sooraya's. "Okay," she said to the group. "Right." Cecilia looked down at her mug, swirling the coffee as she tried to piece these things together. She was quiet for a while, replaying some of the events of the past few hours in her mind. "I just don't — I mean, those guys just..."

A door slammed somewhere nearby, and she inhaled sharply, her head looking up from the table. She was quiet again, but after a few seconds, she sank back into the chair, her facial features were still a little tensed. "Take away the guns for a second, and tell me how those guys could possibly terrorize a neighborhood."

Angel had been uncharacteristically quiet for far too long now, her mind flashing through the fight they'd just walked away from. "Drugs," she finally said, reconnecting with reality. "One of them had — it looked like a vial. I think it was that drug Dr. Dueñas was telling us about. Rave."

Scott shook his head slowly, "Rave is a part of it, but not the whole part. It gave them the boost and confidence to terrorize, but so few of them? That can't be it all." He gave the team in the room a sad look. "The people here, especially after M-Day, are scared of mutants. It's why there needed to be a clinic set up, and why so few of them have such power. We can throw firebolts and scour the flesh off people's bones. We wouldn't but someone else might and that fear of powers they can't understand or deal with, that's a terror that can strike at your core. Add a drug like Rave into that fear and you can blow the lid right off that powder keg."

"That's an oversimplification, but yes." Cecilia looked over at him. "We all know..." She looked around the room. It was just the three of them, but she lowered her voice to a near-whisper anyway. "We all know how power can corrupt and destroy. Better than anyone."

The drugs were helping her muscles, but she had a sudden headache. That figured. "To regroup: Mutant drug gang set fire to my clinic to make a point. They've been terrorizing a neighborhood and dominating the game by using the drugs they sell to augment their powers." She pursed her lips. "All in a country that's been destroyed by gang violence, the drug trade, and a sequence of natural disasters."

Her hands felt cold, and she wrapped them around the mug again. "Least we solved the mystery that brought us here, I guess."

"I's not quite the answer we were hoping for," Scott admitted, "but at least we know the problem and can see what we can do to fix it now."

"We can at least see to taking down their gang and hopefully destroying their source of Rave in the process. And once back home, we should talk with Angelo, see what we can do for Dr. Dueñas and her efforts here." Sooraya pulled out her phone, sending off a quick ping to get that moving already.

"Sorry, what?" Cecilia's head turned quickly, and she faced Sooraya with her eyebrows raised. "You want to do what now? That is not what we're here for."

"We came here to help, Cecilia," Angel told her quietly. "And the best thing we can do to help this place is to cut the gang off at its feet. If we leave things the way they are now it's just going to get worse."

"We can't change everything here, fix all the problems, but this is something right in front of us that we know how to deal with," Scott agreed. "It will at least take care of one of the issues here and hopefully stop this gang from spiraling out of control."

"No!" Cecilia surprised even herself with the force of her own objection. "No," she repeated, pushing away the coffee and turning to look at Scott. "You can't — is this what you do?" Her frustration was still evident, but she had adopted more measured tones. "You drop into a country, make fairly uninformed decisions and hope everything works out? This isn't an action movie, Scott. Everything doesn't end when the bad guys are taken care of."

She turned away, looking at the two women as well. "You don't know this place or these people, but I do. Whatever violent, disruptive thing we do will just make things worse."

"Cece, what would you have us do then?" Sooraya asked. "If we take down the gang, people will have a chance to rebuild. We can see what we can do to support them with that, but it does not help if things are torn down again."

"Which is going to happen either way, Sooraya." Cecilia closed her eyes for a second, taking a deep breath. When she opened them, there was a look of mild disappointment on her face, as if she'd expected the situation in front of her to vanish. "This is — the drug game's not that simple here. One gang falls, another one rises up. Some drugs go, new drugs come." She wrapped her hands around her mug again, hoping to leech some of its extra warmth, but her coffee had gone tepid. "I just — I don't know. We know a lot. We have information, we can find out more. Why not go to the police or the FBI or the CIA or one of the 30 other groups you people seem to associate with?"

"Because none of them are here and none of them are really going spend too much energy trying to deal with a mutant gang out here either. They'll just thank us for our time and send us on our way, if they even listen to us anymore and don't try to arrest us or send us away without giving us the time of day. After M-Day, mutants aren't exactly popular. Even the X-Men aren't as popular as we once were, but w'ere here and we have the ability to make a difference. Shouldn't we at least try?"

"No one else is going to care about this place anyways," Angel pointed out. "Tiny, poor, it's not even at the bottom of a priority list. The Rave might put it on a list somewhere, but it's not a big enough problem to ping the radars of anyone who matters."

"So, that's it?" Cecilia could not have looked less pleased if she had tried. Her face was hot, and she looked down to notice that her hands were tightly clenched. "Parachute in, try and solve the problem, and hope for the best?" She looked back up, turning to address Scott. "You've got to be kidding me, Scott. That sounds okay to you?"

"It's not perfect," Scott agreed with a sigh, "but we're here and there are people suffering in front of us. We can't turn away and leave things be, not when we have the power to help and stop the gang before they can terrorize and hurt anyone else. Someone needs to stop them but the government isn't prepared to deal with this. But we're right here and dealing with these situations is what we do. I can't just go home and let them keep doing what they're doing here."

Cecilia folded her arms, but she was quiet. Car horns and radios from just outside the window filled the silence, and she let her gaze drift toward the view. Then she looked at each of them, considering them for a few seconds. "I think you're all wrong," she said, her certainty almost unnerving. "I think this is a bad idea, and a stupid plan, and ill-thought."

She looked to Scott now, fixing her eyes on his. She thought maybe he seemed surprised by her intensity. She almost was. "But if you're going to do this, even after I object 100 more times, I'm going to come with you."

"Cecilia." Angel's voice was quiet. "Your opinion is registered and all but you at least have to admit we're a little more trained for this than you are."

"Angelica." Cecilia's voice was equally quiet. "I am a trained trauma surgeon familiar with the geographical, political and social structure of this city. So if you guys get injured, or if debris falls into random bystander, or if you accidentally give someone second-degree burns, I think I'm a little more trained for that than you are."

She could sense their skepticism, and she sighed. "Look. You're acting like soldiers. I'll be your medic. I'll stay out of your way. Won't even notice I'm there."

And they wouldn't, because she wouldn't be. The wheels were turning in Cecilia's head, and something, some idea, was forming. Not that she was totally sure what it was. That was future Cece's problem.

First things first. "So?" Cecilia's eyebrows raised again, and she began to drum her fingers on the table. "Tell me, then. What's your plan?"