WHO: Scott and Cable WHEN: Right after this convo WHERE: X-Mansion WHAT: Some father and son bonding in the only way Summers men can. WARNINGS: Not really.
!log/threadNathan had questions.
As much as he vocally maintained otherwise, there was something comforting in the Summers tradition of not really asking questions when it came to family. Because the basic fact of the matter was there was never a good way to explain dumping your infant into the timestream or operating for decades in space in isolation, or whatever the hell Sinister had meddled in their cross-dimensional genetics. But inevitably, Summerses kept doing it. Scott Summers sighed and refastened the onesie of the three week old infant whose life he had yet to throw into chaos.
"What do you think, Jakey?" Jacob, for all his highly developed talents, stuck his tongue out experimentally then opened his mouth wide. He was unaware of the minefield of this upcoming discussion with his older (half?) brother. Just as he was blithely unaware of the existence of said brother, or whatever was to his left when he looked right.
Scott wasn't sure he'd ever been that at ease with his surroundings.
"I agree…" He probably wasn't imaginative enough to pinpoint exactly what he agreed with the infant who looked so much like his other son. Scott picked up the baby with a "C'mon then," instinctively ducking his head back from the hands that groped for the red lensed glasses he wore. Scott carried Jake over to his crib, settling the baby down for what would hopefully be a productive nap--as much as their lives ever had that sort of down time. Scott clipped the X-communicator he had been using as a baby monitor on, and onto the spinning bird mobile over the crib.
Scott triggered his own communicator, ever at his shoulder like a scapular. "Cyclops." He reported in. "Jake's down and up on comms. I've got ears on him. I've gotta go talk to Nate."
He turned off the light, and--perhaps a little later than intended--went up to open the door.
Settling into this brand new time period was a lot more difficult than Nathan’s last go at doing so. At least then he’d had a mission, a goal to accomplish that had taken over most of his focus, and while it had been successful and the future he’d known put back to rights, sticking around to ensure the people in the past didn’t continue to screw things up had been an almost easy decision to make. There was absolutely nothing to work toward in this alternate dimension that from what he’d been able to research had no claim on the world he knew.
There were the other mutants, and while some of their names registered with him from old tales he vaguely remembered from his childhood, he didn’t feel whatever rapport with group that some of them seemed to expect. Talk of their Danger Room on the network had peaked his interest though, and the open invitation to head on over to the mansion allowed for an easy way to get some answers and hopefully some access. Whether or not that was granted access was up for debate at the moment.
He stood waiting outside the front door, scanning the perimeter while also working to access the various networks set up for guarding the place. There was a lot more to the old mansion than the brick and mortar exterior. Especially when he followed the different electrical signals under the ground.
The door finally opened and Nathan turned his attention toward Scott. “Took you long enough.”
Scott glanced up at the door jamb. Given that Nathan hadn't left or destroyed their entryway, Scott figured it couldn't have taken him that long. But he figured whatever timeline, Cable never had been much of one for small talk. In some way, perhaps that was a greeting.
He thought about explaining his delay. Blaming it on his son, but there was a sort of irony in defending that he really couldn't just leave his infant son alone to the infant son he or some timeline's him left with his sister for somewhere between -600 and +5000 years. Scott decided it was better to brush it off and "I'm here now."
Scott stepped back and aside to let him in.
He stepped inside and his senses felt like they were on fire for a moment as his body began assessing all of the new information that had suddenly opened up to him. The feed to his mind was on a constant loop, accessing and processing the information all around him at a speed that Nathan could never quite explain to anyone else. It had been doing so for nearly as long as he could remember and the addition of the various bionics to his body had only increased that rapid response, allowing it to become more streamline. He couldn’t really remember a time when he hadn’t seen the world on varying planes.
All he knew was there was no way this place had ever just been a school and that Colossus guy had seriously left behind some decent equipment when he’d come to assist with the fight.
Never one to really beat around the bush...“What the hell is a Danger Room?”
Scott's eyebrows lifted slightly behind the lenses of his glasses. While it made sense that his recent post had captured Nathan's attention, he couldn't exactly say if he was disappointed that that was the questions Nathan had for him. He certainly understood.
"Well." Scott shut the door to the mansion behind Cable. The Danger Room was an open secret, here even more than at home where most of the superheroic community knew of its existence and purpose and early blueprints were even regrettably available under the Freedom of Information Act thanks to Stryker's Congressional inquiries. But, particularly given the more closed secret parts of its history, there was deep protective streak that ran through many of the senior X-men, Scott certainly included, in regards to speaking about it.
Still, even if Cable wasn't always on the X-men's team, he was on their side. And it was the folly of Xavier's dream that sometimes led his X-men to, like himself, trust too readily. "It's our augmented reality training facility. Simply put uses hard light lasers and pinpoint gravitational lenses to simulate objects, creatures and environments."
Huh.
Now that actually sounded useful.
“Why does a school have an augmented training facility?” What exactly were these people teaching kids and why the hell wasn’t something like that around in his timeline? Oh right, Apocalyptic wasteland for most of it. But why wasn’t something like that being used to train the portalguard who obviously lacked the skills to contain anything coming out of the portal?
“You’ve got at least two sub levels on this place.” Possibly a third but he probably should pay less attention to the feedback he was receiving and more to what Scott was saying. “What exactly is this place?”
"Three." Scott spoke as he walked into another room, a large sitting room with classic, read dated, furniture. If Nathan was sniffing around after the Danger Room, he'd figure that much out eventually anyway. It was really impressive more people didn't infer the labyrinthine subterranean complex of the X-mansion. As much as they worked to keep it off traditional grids, it was a massive instructure of exotic metals, moving parts, and shielding materials.
"We're a school for gifted young people--mutants. That takes the form of academic subjects, sure, literature, mathematics, art. But we're dealing with young mutants with newly awoken powers. Training in self-control and mutation development is just as critical for functional adult lives."
It was an old answer to a frequently asked question that Scott, in his capacity as poster child for the X-men could answer in his sleep. But there was a distance between words and reality. Hardly any of the X-men were what one could call functional adults, even with their experience as soldiers, superheroes, and targets. Co-existence wasn't the only dream.
"The Danger Room was a gift from…" The question of how to explain Lilandra and the Shi'ar when he wasn't certain Nathan's timeline had even had First Contact. "My ex-stepmother"--perhaps the least descriptive way to summarize the Shi'ar Empress' complex (and emotionally absent) relationship with the X-men.
“Nice standard bullshit company line answer.” Training was one thing. Training inside a specialized room that could adapt and alter reality around them--even if it was only a simulation--was overkill if that was all they were doing. Considering the uniforms of the X-Men he’d met in his world with accompanied super sonic jet and the tales that were slowly coming back to him, Nathan was certain that was hardly all this group was doing.
He glanced around the room and headed onward, pass the ordinary features as he utilized his bionic sight to locate the paneling in the sidewall that actually hid an elevator behind it. Maybe he was supposed to give some sort of reaction to the step-mother information, but Nathan simply filed it away, knowing he’d need to do a google search later on, and made his way toward the door.
“You up for giving me a tour?” He could ask now and the answer was no, then he could always return later on his own and give himself one.
"Sure." Scott could recognize that devil-may-care look in Nathan's eyes from decades of working with Logan and other impulsive mutants. It was less a question than either of them would acknowledge. He could see Nate had found the panel behind the sitting room wall. He wasn't wrong that it would get down to B3. There was another guest entrance, but he figured at this point, walking away from the elevator might raise more questions than it answered. Scott walked over to the wall panel, opening it with a thumbprint and mechanically lowering the shades in the sitting room.
He shifted slightly to key in his access code to call the elevator. And started giving a general overview.
"It was built in the 1820s up in Westchester New York as a family home. It's been in the Xavier family some ten generations now. It was converted to a school in 1963 that's catered to anywhere between 5 and 131 students at a time. It's been rebuilt and expanded a few times to fit that purpose. Here it's mostly residential, though the Ellie Phimister School was originally located here. We've got about 20 residents at present. Most X-men from various worlds."
You were born in the kitchen didn't quite fit anywhere.
The elevator, a large, non-metallic structure opened with a quiet ding. Scott gestured to Cable to enter the buttonless structure. "The current technology is a mixture of experimental 21st century, 53rd century, and Shi'ar technology."
Nathan listened to it all, taking in what was said and wasn’t said, as he glanced around the area before stepping inside the elevator. It took seconds for his brain to accept what it was now seeing, this technology a lot more like the one he had grown up knowing and adapting to as it had been weaved into him. 53rd century sounded about right for when he was supposed to be from, give or take a few of them. Shi’ar must have tied into the step mother that had been brought up before.
Looked like Google was going to be his friend here and he accessed it as they rode the elevator down, easily scanning through the material he could get about the X-Mansion from the web. It wasn’t exactly the most trustworthy source in his opinion--especially these wiki pages that could seemingly be edited by anyone at their leisure--but considering the fictionality of all of them that really couldn’t be helped. Though finding out the connection between himself and the man standing beside him through said wiki was probably not the best way to go about learning who his alternate reality father was.
His mouth twitched with this new knowledge. First Danger Room information and then maybe he’d delve into the rest.
"Third sub-basement" He spoke to the room, both a vocal recognition precaution and directing the elevator that began a descent which suggest if there were three sub-levels, that they were larger than standard floors. The bulk of that had to do with the unmentioned hangar on the second level, but the Danger Room and Cerebro were both fairly large.
Scott, for his part was largely silent on the way down, stepping out into chrome colored hallway. "We have some other WORD here.. A research lab, a tactical conference room, a telepathic amplifier that the Professor built, locker rooms, and Medical. We're not using most of those here. The Danger Room's down at the end of the hall and control is accessed around the back."
Everything Scott said checked off with the plans that Nathan was accessing through the internet, though seeing it in person was different than simply downloading drawn out plans scanned from a comic book. They weren’t quite right, though the approximation was good enough considering they probably weren’t supposed to be completely accurate.
“Seems less like a school and more like a military operation.” Which fit in with what he was reading through the pages about the X-Men’s history. His mother had definitely skipped over pieces of it when she had told him those stories when he was younger. Considering the trouble and strife that they experienced and had escalated exponentially in his timeline having an army was more helpful than a school. Though a school seemed like a pretty good front to him. He’d need to remember that for whenever he was sent back.
And he hadn't even called the conference room the War Room.
"It's a little of both," Scott ceded, walking with a direct pace down the hallway " We do take in mutant children and train them in control and use of their powers, which all of them will need to live some semblance of a normal life if that's what they're chasing. Some of our students leave, attend college, start or work in charities, businesses, what have you. But some don't."
"Some of those students go on to join the X-men proper, a superhero team that works to protect mutantkind and, in its best times, reach out to and foster a relationship with humanity. Most of the resources on this floor reflect that dual purpose." If it sounded like they trained child soldiers, it was only because they did. The fact most students (that lived until close enough to graduation) did ultimately join the X-men, or some X-derivative team was as much a consequence of their training as a reflection of how damaged a lot of mutants were by birth families and the danger of their lives. Scott, perhaps the textbook example of all of that, was less bothered than most.
"You never heard stories of them back home?"
“They’re more myth than anything.” If Nathan had known he was having a history lesson each time he’d been told stories he might have listened a little harder. But considering the tumultuous life he had lived, stories of some mutant superhero group seemed more legend than reality. And whatever normal life some of them had been aiming for had definitely not been a reality for long considering how his future was comparing to the Cable from this man’s world.
Everything he was learning only further cemented for him that sticking back in the present to fix the future had been the only course of action for him to take.
“Mostly heard stuff about a Red and Slym.” A pointed look in Scott’s direction before he looked back down the hallway to start accessing the various electronics that he could of the rooms in front of him.
As interesting as the history lesson was his interest laid more in how the Danger Room worked and operated.
Scott's step paused for a moment when Cable mentioned Redd and Slym. How long had it been since he'd gone by Slym in any meaningful capacity. The 40 year old in him darkly wondered how many pounds ago he had fit that moniker, despite "From Clan Askani?"
"You know. In my timeline, or the timeline of the Cable we know. It's always so hard to talk about these things." He clearly didn't just mean timelines. Scott stopped in front of a door, concentrating on an access panel and a hand scanner. "Jean--she went by Redd" He spoke freely while he could silence the overanalytical and anxious part of his mind with the rote task of keying in information about the session and guests. "Jean and I actually spent some time in the.. in the 37th century I want to say with Clan Askani and Nate. For about 12 years."
He wasn't sure it was the best time, but Cable only ever showed at the time that was right for him, and not necessarily anyone else. "Well….um... raising him." The door in the wall swished open pulling the air from the hallway into the negatively pressured and cavernous dormant Danger Room.
"Here it is." Nathan didn't have to respond.
There was at least one difference then. He’d never been raised by his version of Red and Slym. Given up to the woman who raised him and while some of the rest of what Scott said was definitely familiar, it wasn’t something Nathan was willing to dwell on. Especially not with the Danger Room’s control room finally being open. He’d review that alternate history at some other time and compare it more closely to the life he knew.
Finding his family was an easy enough matter to put on the back burner. He’d been doing so for as long as he could remember.
Hopefully walking into the room was as good a sign as any for the end of that particular discussion. A thorough glance around, taking in the console and different mechanics that littered the room as his brain eased into all that it was seeing. Definitely alien and much more familiar than the rest of the tech on this planet.
“So you going to show me how this works, Slym?”
Scott pressed his lips into a line at the added Slym, never sure to what degree people were including him compared to targeting him with sarcasm. But he had said his piece, and maybe optimistically Cable was saying he had understood it at least.
"Yeah. So uh… ." He was grateful for the question. It was easier than talking family. Scott placed a hand on the central programming panel and quickly went to work pulling up the menu onto the projection screen that looked into the for the Danger Room. "Everyone who goes in wears a special biometric monitoring suit and there are strict safeguards in place for physical safety. Obviously, we want a challenge. And progress is observed from up here and recorded for later debriefing purposes."
He turned to face it pulling up the programming computer onto the projection screen that looked into the for the Danger Room "So the holographic elements I mentioned are rotating on a 360 degree axis at the top, bottom, and periphery of the chamber. Atmospheric elements are similarly spaced, allowing a multi-angle coverage for formation of the hard light objects." As he spoke, his fingers flew through menus, highlighting occasional items that appeared both a table-top projected version of the room, and, if peering into the room itself, there as well.
"We can create them de novo. 3-D scan them and assign interactive functions, AI, that sort of thing. Or we have a catalogue of pre-made objects, locations, environments, and creatures, including known threats the X-men have faced that can be inserted or editted" And to the careful observer, most of the X-men in the list of pre-made objects.
"But what's really is that you can assign these objectives, challenge ratings, acceptable biological limits, and build entire automated but reactive scenarios--which we've got a library of right…." click-click "Here." Scott pretty proudly opened it, displaying screen full of files. " "What are you in the mood for?"
It was an in depth system, one that Nathan was finding it difficult to determine any flaws in. Bits of it reminded him of some of the training facilities he’d been in now and then before they had been destroyed or taken over throughout the years. All of those probably came from this or something like it, evolving through the centuries with the improvement in technology. Too bad they were all gone now. Though he couldn’t help but wonder if he could somehow bodyslide the room into the future with him. He filed that away to try out whenever he got sent back.
Cable scanned through the catalogue of options, taking note of all of them, rapidly making connections with the names he knew of those in this world and his, before finally stopping on one name he’d wished hadn’t been a constant.
Apocalypse.
“That one.” Couldn’t hurt to see the similarities and differences between the one he knew and the one that was in here. “I’m not wearing a suit.”