Operation: Mutant of the Seas - Log 9

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Starting with Emma and Kevin, X-Force starts to infiltrate the cruise ship.



Bland. Kevin loved bland. Bland was what spies like him did best; boring, dull, background people that your eyes slid right over. Which was why walking behind Emma Frost was a tremendously nerve-wrecking experience as the woman was the opposite of bland. In a lobby full of rich post-surgery teens and highly expensive trophy wives, she still stood out in breathtaking exquisiteness. He knew that in step behind her, in his porter uniform and unremarkable features, he was as good as invisible to the eyes on her, it was still too close. Like a moth around a flame, he mused as he fought to keep up a steady pace with her baggage behind her.

"Hurry up," snapped Emma at Kevin as he dropped behind her momentarily. The Swiss finishing school might have been a very long way in her past, but the French language and the oddly indeterminate accent that could only be described as "European" still came fluently to her. "Papa didn't spend all of that money to buy me a ticket for this thing for me to have to discipline tardy help." For one idle moment, Emma wondered if this was the person she would have turned into if she hadn't gone insane. And then driven Winston insane in her own little act of karma.

"Sorry ma'am." Kevin said, ducking his head with the rebuke. That was one of the negative things about being the adaptable one. You tended to get the low level jobs, which in this case involved moving a dozen pieces of luggage, heavily packed with expensive clothes (and a few pieces of more interesting equipment disguised as benign things). He pushed the cart over to one side as she approached the check in.

The receptionist, unsurprisingly on the kind of ship this was, slipped into French without missing a beat when Emma snapped out her name and a list of demands for her cabin: its size, location, the relative sizes of bedroom, bed, bathroom and the nature of both the shower and spa. Its proximity to the nearest bar was nearly a disaster of epic proportions until it was made clear that Emma would have any drinks (or, it was somehow intimated without ever being said, any other requirements for both licit and illicit pleasures) delivered within a minute of phoning her personal concierge. Whose name was Georges and whose picture was provided to ensure he was sufficiently aesthetically pleasing to be worthy of drink delivery.

Kevin busied himself unpacking the luggage from the cart and making sure it was properly seated. Emma's words were cutting; a verbal flaying of the staff for imperfections so minute that the fury in response was unbelievable. He hadn't had much contact with Emma, but after forty years of government service and an ex-wife who was part of New York society, he recognized every insult, dismissal and self-aggrandizing gesture. In fact, it seemed that the difference between her and that Worthington character was that she was doing it intentionally.

"And this one," Emma finished her conversation with the receptionist with a careless wave of her hand in Kevin's direction. "He's proven adequate. I presume his gratuity can be included on my account?" The receptionist's agreement was swiftly delivered and Emma took her keys and headed to her cabin without a backward glance at Kevin.

A backward thought was another matter, however. ~Be careful,~ she sent, and the words inside Kevin's head were tinged with a hint of apology.