xp_logs | Nathan and Haroun, Saturday afternoon (Reply)

Haroun goes looking for Nathan to find out what exactly did happen in Belgium that had Alison so upset upon her return. Nathan tells him, and the two of them get into a bit of an argument about the best approach to the problem (which kind of results in Nathan blowing up the living room. Just a little.) Haroun then points out to Nathan that despairing over it is not particularly productive.

Haroun, jaws cracking in a massive yawn, wandered over towards Nathan's suite. He needed to talk to the big man, but he was proving somewhat elusive to find. Moira wasn't in, and unfortunately neither was Nathan.

Madelyn had 'suggested' he take a break from watching over Mick and get a shower. There had been comments about applying "my size eights to your rear end, Nathan". He had decided that the resistance probably wasn't worth it, and to be honest, he needed a break anyway. And Madelyn had promised to watch Mick while he was gone.

He reached the top of the stairs and stopped, seeing Haroun just turning away from his and Moira's door. "Hey," he said as he headed down the hall, his voice low and rough with fatigue. "You were looking for me." It wasn't a question.

Haroun nodded. "Yeah, but you look like dogshit. Got a couple of moments?" he asked, sizing up Nathan's appearance and demeanor succinctly. "Wait - go get a shower, then come back out here. I want to talk to you about what happened in Europe."

Nathan stopped at the door, thought about the implications of that for a moment, and then nodded curtly. "I'll be right back."

It took him approximately five minutes to take a quick shower and change into a pair of Institute sweats - the first thing at hand - and Haroun was still waiting outside patiently when he emerged. "You want to come in, or shall we do this in the hall?" Nathan called through the open door, rubbing at his unshaven jaw.

Haroun shrugged. "Best to do it inside." he said, and stepped into Nathan's suite. "So what the hell happened in Europe? Did you drag Alison into a Death Camp Tour 2K4 and mindlink her so she could share? She barely slept last night."

Nathan blinked at him, then went over and sat down. Bad idea. He wasn't so sure he was going to be able to get back up again. "I didn't know," he said, his voice hoarse. "The plan was to find Foley before Mistra did. They got to him first, and we--got enough information to know where they were taking him, so we went after him. It was--" Focus, damn it. No falling apart. "It was another training facility. Like the one in Vermont. They got away with a couple of the kids, when we hit it, but there were eleven..." Nathan stopped, wincing, and rubbed at the back of his neck. "Eleven dead kids in their morgue," he finally said, almost inaudibly.

"Let me see if I can translate that. You mindraped some poor bastard, pulled Foley's location out of his or her brain, trekked over to Europe, brought the hammer down, rescued your man, and then discovered a bunch of dead kids on-site. That about sum it up? Merciful God, I'm not surprised she didn't sleep much last night."

"No. I got another call from MacInnis. He told me Foley was using one of my old exit strategies." Nathan fell silent for a moment. "The mindraping of some poor bastard came a little later," he muttered. "But the rest of it... yeah. About sums it up."

Haroun waved that off. "Whatever." he said, and then nodded. "I got basically the same story out of her, but she wasn't exactly at her most coherent. And the butchers who did this? Have they made their apologies to God?"

A rattled laugh slipped out before he could stop it. "A... few of them. Alison laid down some ground rules before we went into the second safehouse, the one in Leuven. Apparently I was getting a little out of hand." He looked up at Haroun, his jaw clenching. "I want to say I wish she hadn't been there, but I can't. She handled herself too damned well, and I don't think I could have done it without her."

Haroun nodded. "She's very good at what she does, but she's not a soldier. Or a terrorist, for that matter." he said with a bark of laughter. "So the butchers, the killers of children - they still live?" he asked. "Do you think we can ask some of the groups in Europe - perhaps the Herbstgeists or even the Pack, to take care of that little loose end for us? I can't offer them much by way of pay, but if we pick the right group, they might do it pro-bono."

"If I had any idea where they took off to with the remaining kids, I'd be calling GW and paying the Pack's fee myself." Nathan rested his head in his hands for a moment, wrestling with control. "Mick might be able to help. Once he stops begging us to kill him."

"Maybe we could spread the word wide to the mutant groups out there? Get _everyone_ hunting down the sort of animals who would do this to children." Haroun mused. "Just give them the details, and let things attend to themselves." he added, displaying the same sort of thinking that led the government of Morocco to ask him to leave the country.

"And what?" Nathan snapped, his hold on his temper slipping, just a little. "Hope that Mistra doesn't pull a scorched-earth, off all the kids, and start again somewhere else?" He got up off the couch, pacing over to the window. "They've broken the new training program up into cells, Haroun. I have no idea how many there could be, especially if they're situating them outside North America, which scares the fuck out of me. Who's to say they're still only using American kids, now? They could be kidnapping children from all over the world, expanding their operations... if I needed any more evidence that they'd gone completely rogue, this would do it."

"Which would be better - a clean death or life as a slave?" Haroun asked, his voice getting a little hot. "I still think it's a good idea."

Nathan whirled on him, the earlier flash of temper heating up to out-and-out rage. "Oh, you do, do you? Well, I'm really fucking glad that's not your decision to make, then!" His hands clenched into fists at his sides and the furniture in the room rattled. "I didn't suggest giving up on them, I pointed out that declaring open season on Mistra is not the way to go!"

"Why isn't it?" asked Haroun back. "The problem is TOO BIG for us on our own - especailly if they've gone international like we're fearing. We get everyone involved, that way we've done the world mutant community a favor, and maybe we can have a drop in the numbers of butchers who KILL CHILDREN!"

It hit Nathan then. Two safehouses. Most of the children in each of them dead. Both cells at the same stage in the conditioning... His breath caught in his chest in a ragged gasp, and he actually staggered. "Oh God--" he choked out. "The training--simultaneous start dates--NO!"

And his control over his TK slipped. Furniture went flying, and the windows blew out. It lasted as long as it took him to fall to his knees. Nathan fought desperately for composure, but it wouldn't come.

Haroun took cover as the telekinetic blast went off. Luckily, most of the blast was directly away from him, so all he had to worry about was flying glass and shards of wood. A few of which embedded themselves in his arms, and one pencil-sized splinter drove itself into his left thigh. Ignoring it, he moved over to Nathan and tapped his commbadge. "Jetstream to Medical. Powers accident, Nathan's room." he barked. "Minor physical wounds."

Eight weeks in. Eighty percent death rate. How many cells? The unbalanced equation spun around and around in his mind, no solution, nothing but dead kids in bodybags... Nathan realized he was starting to hyperventilate and tried to slow down his breathing.

"Nathan!" Haroun called over to the bigger man, cursing as his leg decided that it really didn't want to move the quad muscle much when there was a stake of wood through it. He half-hopped, half-dragged himself to Nathan's side, where Haroun could grab a hold of him and try to shake some sense into him. Or get turned into chunky salsa, one of the two. Anyone's guess, really.

"I'm sorry," Nathan managed, jerking away from Haroun as he reached out to him. "I'm sorry, I--" Focus. "Are you all right?" He blinked rapidly at Haroun, willing his vision to clear.

"I'll live. More important - are YOU OK? Medical's been alerted, your woman is probably on her way here now to personally kick your ass back to the Stone Age." he said with a grin.

Nathan looked around at the room, wincing at the damage. "Shit..." He rubbed his eyes, trying to slow his breathing down further. "I didn't mean to... fuck. Next to no sleep since about... Tuesday. Not that it's an excuse. I'm sorry." He swallowed, wrestling for composure. He could have killed Haroun totally by accident. He was not supposed to slip like that. Closing his eyes for a moment, he sent a reassurance down the link to Moira, telling her that she didn't need to break landspeed records getting here. "It just... it just hit me. Two conditioning facilities, both with more dead than survivors... I don't know how many are out there, but if they all started at the same time..." He looked away from Haroun's steady gaze. "Most of the deaths are within the first three months," he said hoarsely.

Haroun nodded. "I empathize with you, Nathan. I really do. But trashing your suite and being Nathan the Cyborg Slayer isn't going to bring those kids back, and it isn't going to make you sleep any better at night." he said with a faint growl. "So instead of cranking up the woe-is-me-the-world-sucks, how about cranking up the let's-go-get-these-bastards, eh?"

"Would you and Alison please get on the same page?" Nathan demanded tiredly, pushing himself back to his feet and offered Haroun a hand up. "First I'm getting them a little too enthusiastically, then I'm brooding too much..."

"I wasn't aware that it was required that we be on the same page." Haroun said drily, but he accepted the hand up. Grunting, he hung onto Nathan and pulled the wooden shrapnel out of his leg. "OK, I think I've got a problem here." he said. "Diagnostics are really unhappy with me."

"Sit down," Nathan said, nudging him in the direction of the couch, which was thankfully undamaged. Once Haroun was safely seated, Nathan half-collapsed beside him. "You don't have to be. But I wish someone would be, just once..." Moira was getting closer, and he closed his eyes, sending another reassurance. "The mixed messages are getting to me."

"Life is like that." Haroun said simply. "But in this case it's pretty simple. They're putting kids in bodybags. This is unacceptable to both God and man. So we try to stop them. It's only when you go into the doom-and-gloom riff and when you start blowing your rooms up - again! - that we get a little concerned for your well-being."

Nathan's eyes stung again at the bodybags comment, and he looked away from the sight of Haroun picking splinters out of his arm. "I'll be all right," he said, knowing how utterly hollow that sounded. "We brought back the harddrives from the safehouse in Leuven. There's probably information on there Pete can use."

"Good." Haroun said. "When it comes time to put these butchers away, I'd be glad to help in any way I can." he said simply, wincing a bit as he picked splinters out of his organics. "Dammit, man, if you're going to pepper me with wood splinters, AIM FOR THE LEGS!" he mock-roared in an attempt to lighten the mood a little.

"I'll keep that in mind next time I try to blow you up." Nathan looked up at the door. "She's at the end of the hall. My last chance to run," he joked feebly.

"You're doomed." Haroun intoned. "It's too late to run, and it's too late to hide. You'd better be really good at grovelling, because I think there's some long and cold nights on the couch for you."

Nathan made a face at Haroun. "She loves me even when I blow shit up. When it's people, she starts to get a little uptight..."