xp_logs | Log: Matt & Artie

Matt meets with Artie to begin setting up emergency plans for Excalibur in case of wormhole collapse for crossfunctional collaboration

Stepping into the brownstone that housed X-Force, Matt looked every inch the lawyer he was. Normally, at the mansion, he wore jeans and t-shirts, only getting dressed up for work when he needed to go to court for something or make an official appearance, whether that was in person or over zoom. This, being an in-person meeting, meant that he looked like the lawyer he was. Maybe it was unnecessary, it was likely unnecessary, but it was drilled into his head long ago that this was what was appropriate. Plus, he did enjoy looking smart in a suit.

He hadn't actually been there before, but this had given him the opportunity to get a few things done in the city beforehand as well as finally see the place. X-Force was very hush-hush and secretive for good reason, so he couldn't help but give in to the urge to visit in person. So far, it was a decidedly normal brownstone. Pulling out his phone, he texted Artie that he was there since there was no one currently at the front desk.

Artie texted back a quick OMW. The desk was a courtesy. No one entered the building without being seen. He entered the foyer and smiled at Matt's lawyer getup. It fitted the environment as much as the dressy casual young professional vibe he wore himself. "Hey Matt. I've set up a meeting room for us. Can you use paper or is a screen reader better?" The voice that came out of the synthesizer was flat, Artie not bothering to manage tone and expression today.

"I have a braille display," he indicated the shoulder bag he carried with his laptop inside. "Screen readers are always appreciated as well," he could read paper, but it was tedious and depended variously on the type of paper, type of pen and how the other person wrote. "Your voice synthesizer is useful."

"It's not my favourite but sometimes I have to go out into the world, you know? It lets me fake it." Artie led the way to the meeting room. "Chair is 56 inches ahead of you, 33 to your left, from the side of the doorframe. I'll take the other side." Artie moved around the table, setting into a chair on the other side.

"I'm good, thanks," Matt had a nice mental layout of the room from the gentle background hum of the air conditioner. Useful things, other than just for keeping comfortable in places, "I can't see like you're likely familiar with, but my powers are very good at giving me an incredibly detailed layout of my surroundings. Just...don't ask what colour something is. And of course, screens aren't in my range. But I can tell you some incredibly invasive things about your digestion if you're ever interested," not that he normally listened to things like that other than as general background noise. Everyone made noises, whether they realized it or not.

Taking a moment to get his laptop and braille display set up in front of him, Matt slipped an earbud in one ear and was ready. "X-Men are required to have their affairs in order just like any soldier might, so that's the starting point. Where it gets more complicated is in those outlier situations and of course, interdimensional travel and all that unknown it entails."

Artie nodded and settled at the other end of the table. "Yeah. That's where we come in. We - X Force - we do the spy shit but some of what we also do is build cover IDs, that kind of thing. Alibis, you know? What we need you all to do is decide what we do with your life if you go missing. You and Clint are one outlier, because your family knows but for the others? Do we finish their degrees? Send them to an ashram? I don't know. But they can't go missing necessarily so what do we do?" He paused for a moment and then added, "Dead is easier, you know?"

"Dead is easier, unless they come back. Bringing someone back legally, at least as themselves and not as someone else, is a whole other can of worms," Matt pointed out. It was doable, but it was a clusterfuck at best. "And really, our dad's mostly just know about Clint. They know we're working together on stuff, but they kinda assume that I'm safely tucked away in an office. Which....I haven't exactly disabused them off. But I can have that conversation with them so they don't assume," and really, after all these years, Matt wasn't so sure they were actually oblivious. It was just sometimes easier not to discuss things. "The big issue as I see it, are families that might go looking for people. We can keep someone alive and in limbo indefinitely so long as they don't have a missing person's case on them or something."

Yeah, duh. Artie nodded and took a moment to compose his face. His voice, through the synthesiser, was mild. "Exactly. We need all of you to supply us with your desired cover. When - if - you need us to go live, what do we tell your family? The best ones aren't exactly flattering, you know? I can tell Kitty's family she's hooked on heroin in Scotland and decided to go no contact with everyone and keep a few replies running from her phone so no-one goes looking for her, but that might do more long term damage than she wants to her family. You see what I mean?"

He nodded, good, stable, normal people didn't typically go no-contact with their families for no reason. "I think sticking as close to the truth as possible is always best," the fewer lies to remember, after all, "at least when we can. For those that we can't....Kitty takes a job in Scotland studying something involved and remote. Antarctica. There are options, if we work at it."

"For sure." Artie typed, "Just remember, when they give us a list of what they want, there needs to be a reason why they're not responding to texts from their old girlfriend or whatever. If we're not killing your identities, we need to keep you alive and incommunicado in case we have to go live. And we'll cover the rest. When - if - you get back, we'll have a life for you to pick up again."

He paused and then added, "What's it like? On the other side of the wormhole? I mean, this is --" Artie waved expansively at the room, "This isn't our OG universe but it's mostly similar enough, you know? How different is it over there?"

It was his OG universe, to put it in Artie's words. At least, so far as he knew. Typing a few notes into his computer for later, Matt considered, "The world's are....very similar, at least as far as I can tell. To me, it feels off, but not wrong. If there are purple trees though, no one has told me. And Clint's colourblind," and often on comms instead of with them. "I suspect that the further from our own universe we go, the more different things become."

Artie nodded. "I think I might leave a lot of this to you. There's just something about the idea of getting stuck over there that gives me the heebie jeebies, you know? Lotta universes out there and personally, I'm okay with this one. I don't want to try my luck twice."

It was all very scifi-movie if he was being honest. And not entirely in a good way. "Well. That's why we need you here. To lie about our disappearance to those that need to hear it."