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xp_logsAfter his encounter with Radha, Haller presses Quentin about the methods employed by his new partner in achieving mutant utopia.
The younger man had beaten him there. He could only see the back of Quentin's distinctively pink head, but he looked to be absorbed in his target practice. As Haller watched he saw the other psi draw his hand back in a cocking motion followed by a sound like hard rain. It was the paper of the target shredding as if blasted by a shotgun. There had been no gunshot.
"Quentin. Thanks for meeting me."
Though the double-barreled shotgun Quentin held was only a psychic construct, as evidenced by the fact it was bright pink and glowed, Sydney's gun safety lessons were ingrained, so Quentin lowered it and set it aside before turning to face his visitor. "Jimothy. You seem . . . different. Did you do something with your hair?"
"No. I went to see Radha a couple days ago." The older man paused, as if struggling to find the right word. Then, seeming to find nothing more accurate, he said, "She cured me."
"Of your crippling need to sacrifice your own wellbeing for the sake of helping other people who barely appreciate it?"
"No." Haller looked at the target so recently decimated by Quentin's shotgun and raised a hand.
It happened slowly enough that the process was clear to the naked eye. The noise came first: a tortured snapping, like someone slowly bending a two by four. The wooden posts began to splinter as if unseen hands were rending the wood apart from every angle, shredding them into dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of pieces barely bigger than matchsticks. They hung in the air, a latticework of drifting wood, and the X-Man twisted his hand. The particles began to smolder, then swirl. A column of tiny flames swirled into the air like a swarm of fireflies. With a final snap of Haller's fingers the column exploded outward into a shining cloud.
The tattered paper target fluttered to the grass, untouched.
Ash raining around them, Haller turned back to Quentin.
"My other problem."
It was an impressive display, kind of showboaty considering Quentin's own telekinesis was limited to carrying groceries or packing a bowl, though he could appreciate the drama of it all, particularly the final snap.
"Looks like she just replaced mental illness with compulsory destruction of property," he sighed as he dismissed his psychic shotgun in a puff of pink mist. He would have to take to the Danger Room now to practice, and he really did not care to have any X-Man watching over his shoulder. "Not her best work. But a cure's a cure, I guess."
"I didn't ask for one. She didn't even warn me. She just did it." The words were uncharacteristically sharp. Even as he heard it he tried to rein himself in, but it was difficult. His emotions seemed to be closer to the surface, messier, especially the aspects that had previously been delegated to Cyndi and Jack. Haller took a deep breath and tried to choose his next words with care.
"Look," he said, "Radha saw something she thought was ugly, and instead of asking she just changed it. She went into my mind and made me conform to her expectations of what a real person should look like. Like I was just a piece of broken furniture she found on the side of the road that she could refurbish and sell off again." The counselor shook his head. "I know you respect her, and that she seems to have done a lot of good for a lot of people, but if this is how she thinks -- what are the implications for the world she's trying to build?"
Quentin crossed his arms and defiantly glared at Haller. (Just David now? He wondered. This meant Cyndi was gone. Pity.) "Seems to me she healed a lifetime of trauma and intense psychological impairment, which you've spent how many decades trying to treat? And no one else has ever even come close to it, while she did it in the blink of an eye. Painlessly. She found your problem and fixed you, and I bet she didn't even ask for a 'thank you' in return."
"That's the thing. She didn't fix anything. She just got rid of how I dealt with it. DID is a survival mechanism, not a party trick. If Radha had bothered to ask, I'd have told her the others were created to hold experiences and memories so traumatic I almost lost my mind, and that all she did by removing my ability to dissociate was ungate them for me all at once. Now I remember everything. Feel everything. Unfiltered." Haller took a swift step forward that brought him immediately into Quentin's space, staring the younger man dead in the eyes. A small blotch of brown in his left eye was the only remaining trace of his natural heterochromia, but the ice in his tone could have been Jack's.
"Tell me I'm lucky to remember the sound of fat popping while I burned six people alive," Haller whispered. "Tell me I should thank her for the memory of being trapped in every single one of their disintegrating minds as I tore the tendons from their bones. That I owe her for a memory I didn't even know I had: being trapped in the rubble under my guardian's corpse, smelling charred human meat while the flies crawled over us."
He was breathing hard now, and he could feel the telekinesis shivering just beneath his skin -- close. Too close. This wasn't Quentin's fault. Haller turned away and pressed his hands to his face, steadying himself. He took another deep breath. "Sorry," he said, "but those decades of worthless treatment are the only reason I'm still standing here."
Another second invading Quentin's personal space and the telepath was ready to reclaim it with a 12-gauge to the face. Good for both of them—and the surrounding environs—that cooler heads prevailed. "And yet," Quentin said, his tone firm and only mildly derisive, "you are still standing here and not curled up in the corner of your room. Very resilient. Radha clearly saw that within you and knew you could handle it. You have full access to your mutation now. Any brain damage? Physical injury? Because you seem hale and hearty to me."
Quentin was good at laying bait, and Haller nearly went for it. Unsettled as he was right now, something as clear-cut as an argument would have been a relief. But he was still thinking clearly enough that he recalled, too, what he knew of Quentin's personality -- specifically, what was likely to exacerbate confrontational behavior. Rather than succumb to the urge to match aggression with aggression, Haller sidestepped.
"So you're comfortable with this approach," he said, watching the younger man's face.
And he could not answer straight away. It was a complicated question in Quentin's view. He held Haller's gaze as long as he could before his own confusion turned him away. "You know this mutant plague that's going around, making people lose control of their powers? That case in Seattle where a man blew up a warehouse and took a flatscan with him. That pyrokinetic in Miami who self-immolated. The Memphis teleporter who tore themselves to pieces. Mutant communities are terrified and on the verge of falling apart. But the people who've gotten to Radha soon enough, they've fully recovered. Like Inez. If she can stop it, get these communities back on track, isn't it worth it?"
The older man continued to study Quentin. The knee-jerk response to this was, of course, something about the needs of the many versus the needs of the few, and all the paths that sort of thinking could take you down, but Quentin deserved more than a stock response. Instead Haller took a few moments to give the question serious consideration and decided to answer honestly.
"I'm not sure I have the answer to that," he said at last. He folded his arms across his chest and looked out into the shooting range. "I can't argue that she does what she says she can do, and anything that leads to fewer dead mutants, fewer grieving families -- I don't know. I know what I want to say, but put me back on Muir for a couple months and ask me again." With a sigh he turned back to Quentin. "Just do me a favor. Before you get in too deep, think about this: If someone doesn't bother to understand the world we live in . . . what kind of world are they going to make?"
Quentin wanted to tell him he was too late with that warning, Quentin was already in deep as could be. This brave new world Radha was building was just as much his own. That's why he was there, to ensure his own brand was built in. To moderate her ego with his own. "You saw the commune," he said softly, his hands falling to his side. "Saw how everyone takes care of each other. I have to imagine that any world that puts mutant wellbeing first like that is better than this one."
"She said something to me about that. Something about how she put out a call to welcome only those who welcome her message. That's better than taking people by force, but it also begs the question of what happens to the people who don't." Haller shook his head. "I'm not trying to lecture you. I know you'll use your own judgement. Just go into it with your eyes open, that's all."
"You're not trying to, it just comes naturally to you." It was a petulant, childish response, but he had had it up to here with people questioning his judgment. "I haven't given you any reason to trust me, but you're just going to have to nut up and do it, anyway, because I know what I'm doing with Radha Dastoor."
Haller studied the younger man. Never show uncertainty, never back down. Quentin's normal response to a challenge. Well, maybe he was right. Haller had only met Radha once, he didn't know what was in her heart. He only knew what he had experienced, and to him it had felt . . . wrong.
But it was Quentin's life, and Quentin's decision. So instead he said only, in tones that could have come right from Cyndi's mouth:
"If you say so."
The younger man had beaten him there. He could only see the back of Quentin's distinctively pink head, but he looked to be absorbed in his target practice. As Haller watched he saw the other psi draw his hand back in a cocking motion followed by a sound like hard rain. It was the paper of the target shredding as if blasted by a shotgun. There had been no gunshot.
"Quentin. Thanks for meeting me."
Though the double-barreled shotgun Quentin held was only a psychic construct, as evidenced by the fact it was bright pink and glowed, Sydney's gun safety lessons were ingrained, so Quentin lowered it and set it aside before turning to face his visitor. "Jimothy. You seem . . . different. Did you do something with your hair?"
"No. I went to see Radha a couple days ago." The older man paused, as if struggling to find the right word. Then, seeming to find nothing more accurate, he said, "She cured me."
"Of your crippling need to sacrifice your own wellbeing for the sake of helping other people who barely appreciate it?"
"No." Haller looked at the target so recently decimated by Quentin's shotgun and raised a hand.
It happened slowly enough that the process was clear to the naked eye. The noise came first: a tortured snapping, like someone slowly bending a two by four. The wooden posts began to splinter as if unseen hands were rending the wood apart from every angle, shredding them into dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of pieces barely bigger than matchsticks. They hung in the air, a latticework of drifting wood, and the X-Man twisted his hand. The particles began to smolder, then swirl. A column of tiny flames swirled into the air like a swarm of fireflies. With a final snap of Haller's fingers the column exploded outward into a shining cloud.
The tattered paper target fluttered to the grass, untouched.
Ash raining around them, Haller turned back to Quentin.
"My other problem."
It was an impressive display, kind of showboaty considering Quentin's own telekinesis was limited to carrying groceries or packing a bowl, though he could appreciate the drama of it all, particularly the final snap.
"Looks like she just replaced mental illness with compulsory destruction of property," he sighed as he dismissed his psychic shotgun in a puff of pink mist. He would have to take to the Danger Room now to practice, and he really did not care to have any X-Man watching over his shoulder. "Not her best work. But a cure's a cure, I guess."
"I didn't ask for one. She didn't even warn me. She just did it." The words were uncharacteristically sharp. Even as he heard it he tried to rein himself in, but it was difficult. His emotions seemed to be closer to the surface, messier, especially the aspects that had previously been delegated to Cyndi and Jack. Haller took a deep breath and tried to choose his next words with care.
"Look," he said, "Radha saw something she thought was ugly, and instead of asking she just changed it. She went into my mind and made me conform to her expectations of what a real person should look like. Like I was just a piece of broken furniture she found on the side of the road that she could refurbish and sell off again." The counselor shook his head. "I know you respect her, and that she seems to have done a lot of good for a lot of people, but if this is how she thinks -- what are the implications for the world she's trying to build?"
Quentin crossed his arms and defiantly glared at Haller. (Just David now? He wondered. This meant Cyndi was gone. Pity.) "Seems to me she healed a lifetime of trauma and intense psychological impairment, which you've spent how many decades trying to treat? And no one else has ever even come close to it, while she did it in the blink of an eye. Painlessly. She found your problem and fixed you, and I bet she didn't even ask for a 'thank you' in return."
"That's the thing. She didn't fix anything. She just got rid of how I dealt with it. DID is a survival mechanism, not a party trick. If Radha had bothered to ask, I'd have told her the others were created to hold experiences and memories so traumatic I almost lost my mind, and that all she did by removing my ability to dissociate was ungate them for me all at once. Now I remember everything. Feel everything. Unfiltered." Haller took a swift step forward that brought him immediately into Quentin's space, staring the younger man dead in the eyes. A small blotch of brown in his left eye was the only remaining trace of his natural heterochromia, but the ice in his tone could have been Jack's.
"Tell me I'm lucky to remember the sound of fat popping while I burned six people alive," Haller whispered. "Tell me I should thank her for the memory of being trapped in every single one of their disintegrating minds as I tore the tendons from their bones. That I owe her for a memory I didn't even know I had: being trapped in the rubble under my guardian's corpse, smelling charred human meat while the flies crawled over us."
He was breathing hard now, and he could feel the telekinesis shivering just beneath his skin -- close. Too close. This wasn't Quentin's fault. Haller turned away and pressed his hands to his face, steadying himself. He took another deep breath. "Sorry," he said, "but those decades of worthless treatment are the only reason I'm still standing here."
Another second invading Quentin's personal space and the telepath was ready to reclaim it with a 12-gauge to the face. Good for both of them—and the surrounding environs—that cooler heads prevailed. "And yet," Quentin said, his tone firm and only mildly derisive, "you are still standing here and not curled up in the corner of your room. Very resilient. Radha clearly saw that within you and knew you could handle it. You have full access to your mutation now. Any brain damage? Physical injury? Because you seem hale and hearty to me."
Quentin was good at laying bait, and Haller nearly went for it. Unsettled as he was right now, something as clear-cut as an argument would have been a relief. But he was still thinking clearly enough that he recalled, too, what he knew of Quentin's personality -- specifically, what was likely to exacerbate confrontational behavior. Rather than succumb to the urge to match aggression with aggression, Haller sidestepped.
"So you're comfortable with this approach," he said, watching the younger man's face.
And he could not answer straight away. It was a complicated question in Quentin's view. He held Haller's gaze as long as he could before his own confusion turned him away. "You know this mutant plague that's going around, making people lose control of their powers? That case in Seattle where a man blew up a warehouse and took a flatscan with him. That pyrokinetic in Miami who self-immolated. The Memphis teleporter who tore themselves to pieces. Mutant communities are terrified and on the verge of falling apart. But the people who've gotten to Radha soon enough, they've fully recovered. Like Inez. If she can stop it, get these communities back on track, isn't it worth it?"
The older man continued to study Quentin. The knee-jerk response to this was, of course, something about the needs of the many versus the needs of the few, and all the paths that sort of thinking could take you down, but Quentin deserved more than a stock response. Instead Haller took a few moments to give the question serious consideration and decided to answer honestly.
"I'm not sure I have the answer to that," he said at last. He folded his arms across his chest and looked out into the shooting range. "I can't argue that she does what she says she can do, and anything that leads to fewer dead mutants, fewer grieving families -- I don't know. I know what I want to say, but put me back on Muir for a couple months and ask me again." With a sigh he turned back to Quentin. "Just do me a favor. Before you get in too deep, think about this: If someone doesn't bother to understand the world we live in . . . what kind of world are they going to make?"
Quentin wanted to tell him he was too late with that warning, Quentin was already in deep as could be. This brave new world Radha was building was just as much his own. That's why he was there, to ensure his own brand was built in. To moderate her ego with his own. "You saw the commune," he said softly, his hands falling to his side. "Saw how everyone takes care of each other. I have to imagine that any world that puts mutant wellbeing first like that is better than this one."
"She said something to me about that. Something about how she put out a call to welcome only those who welcome her message. That's better than taking people by force, but it also begs the question of what happens to the people who don't." Haller shook his head. "I'm not trying to lecture you. I know you'll use your own judgement. Just go into it with your eyes open, that's all."
"You're not trying to, it just comes naturally to you." It was a petulant, childish response, but he had had it up to here with people questioning his judgment. "I haven't given you any reason to trust me, but you're just going to have to nut up and do it, anyway, because I know what I'm doing with Radha Dastoor."
Haller studied the younger man. Never show uncertainty, never back down. Quentin's normal response to a challenge. Well, maybe he was right. Haller had only met Radha once, he didn't know what was in her heart. He only knew what he had experienced, and to him it had felt . . . wrong.
But it was Quentin's life, and Quentin's decision. So instead he said only, in tones that could have come right from Cyndi's mouth:
"If you say so."
