Panu was wearing a blue button up shirt and dress pants and also a little spotted bow tie. This was for two reasons: because it made him look like he was Not Likely to Reoffend, and because the people at the Mansion hated him. He knew this for a fact because A) Mirror wouldn't let him keep Angua in his room at night, and B) there had been too many aww's right before someone said "I have a bowtie he can wear!"

He had sealed records in Finland. He was on an Interpol watch list. He was a domestic terrorist in both countries he had citizenship. He was going to destroy this bowtie.

…But not until after he sat up very straight and told his new parole officer that he was very repentant and he had not affiliated with any new criminal organizations nor had he broken into any databases.

As he sat in the little blank-walled room waiting, he practiced making innocent faces at the camera in the corner.

Also he broke into their employee database.

In his defense, this room was really boring.

Ugh.

Brook didn't know who she pissed off up the ranks, or what she did to deserve this, but it really wasn't fair. She hated desk-work. That was bad enough, but this was cruel and unusual punishment. It had to be. Usually, a highly dangerous mutant needing someone to keep them in check was right up Brook's alley, but this...this....Ugh.

This was a child. Eleven years old. She was a SUPER Agent. Highly trained in subterfuge and a registered killing machine, and here she was expected to babysit?!? The blond woman sighed deeply, her heels clicking on the floor as she walked down the hall. Dressed in a black blouse, a matching black skirt and heels, she carried herself like she meant business even though she was definitely not happy to be here.

With another sigh, she opened the door to the waiting room to find the kid decked out in...was that a bow tie? Okay he was cute, for a little delinquent, but kids still weren't her thing. She glanced down at his file in her hand, taking in what info she could. Finland? Well, at least she'd get to show off her lingual skills.

"Panu? My name is Brook Calahan. It seems like we're going to be...hanging out...for awhile," she said, her Finnish a little rusty, but not bad, though maybe she was having a hard time hiding the fact that she really didn't want to be there. But as far as she could guess....neither did he.

Everything the woman wore was black. This was an excellent Evil color scheme, and Panu approved immediately before remembering that no-he-didn't-like-her.

And then she opened her mouth and Finnish came out, and he fell in love.

No! He would not be swayed. Her accent was almost-perfect-but-not-quite and her word choice as sub-optimal and someone was testing his resolve by putting her here. Just because it was the first Finnish he had heard in two years did not mean he needed to crumble.

…But maybe he could speak Finnish back. It was the Best Language, after all.

"Hello, Ms. Calahan. I'm very pleased to—"

His accent was terrible too he sounded like he was speaking over rusty nails what was this stupid country even doing to him. The wall camera was in black-and-white but he could feel his face turning very red.

He looked towards her and kept his shoulders squared because this was Trustworthy Body Language, but he probably wasn't meeting her eyes right. It was hard to do unless he had the right camera angles. Probably he was looking off to one side or something that would make him look even more stupid.

"—meet you," he finished. And cleared his throat a little. And tried again, much better this time. "I'm sorry to take up your time. I'm sure you're very busy. I've definitely not been doing anything illegal so you can go back to your day anytime."

He found her name in the records, and her salary and the amount of overtime she'd built up (probably she should take a vacation), but her actual records were encrypted. Encryption was annoying.

Maybe someone had left a password taped to their monitor, and he could just log in? Panu started flicking through camera feeds. Cubicles, offices, cellblock—

Nothing illegal at all, no ma'am.

Okay so the kid's accent was a little rusty, but she wasn't sure how long he'd been away from home. Native tongue or not, when you go awhile without speaking a language, it sometimes took time to find your rhythm again. She studied the boy's body language, like he was trying to behave but something was off. He wasn't looking in quite the right direction but...that could be for any number of reasons. She glanced back through her file.

'Can control tech at short range.' Well, that explained why she was holding an actual paper file instead of scrolling through her tablet like usual.

"My my my..." she murmured in Finnish as she continued flipping. "You've been a busy young man, haven't you?" she said, somewhat growing intrigued by this little brat. She hated kids, but...this one had..something. Maybe with the right influence he could be some--oh what the hell was she doing? She wasn't this kid's mother. She was his parole officer, which meant two things: first, that she was there to keep his ass in line, and make a record of every time he stepped out; second, SUPER didn't regularly assign parole officers, so this meant that he was quite formidable, even if he was a juvenile.

"This way, please," she said as she turned to lead him down the hall to her office, though making sure to walk more beside than ahead of him, never turning her back or letting him out of her peripheral.

Opening the door, she led him to her office. It was simple, but it was hers. There were no pictures on the desk or on the wall, just assorted figurines, a few paintings of different landscapes, and an American Flag cup full of pens. Her technology; computer, tablet, even her phone, was shut off for the duration of this meeting, just in case.

"So," she said, finally. "Your file only tells me so much. What can you tell me about yourself, Mr. Harmaajärvi?" She sounded truly interested, but you could tell a lot about someone by what they said about themselves, especially....children.

Panu hated paper files. Paper files were like black holes of information, where his old parole officer wrote things and now this new one was reading them and he had to tuck his hands between his knees and cross his ankles so he didn't fidget while she did. Fidgeting looked guilty. Also he should not flinch when she said things like my my my and he definitely definitely should stop his spine from getting a little straighter when she complimented his achievements.

His villain achievements. That he was 100% sorry about.

So he didn't fidget and he didn't flinch and he didn't look Super Proud because all of those were traps. So was talking when she hadn't asked a real question.

…At the least, he wished he knew what they'd written for his power. He knew what his old case worker and his teachers suspected, but he didn't know what they could prove. If she knew something for sure and he lied, then he was Caught. But if she didn't know something and he told the truth, then it went in his file forever and everyone else could know and they could blame him for a lot more and maybe catch him doing them, too.

>> "This way, please."

"Yes, ma'am." He followed behind like a good boy. Mostly their hallway cameras were good, but sometimes she blocked his view of himself and sometimes there were blind spots an 11-year-old could fit in, and he just tried to walk straight for those. 'Straight' mostly meant 'towards the next camera he could feel.'

There were zero cameras in her office. Not even a camera phone, because the stupid paper file had probably told her to turn that off, just like she must have turned off her computer, because what office doesn't have a computer? He couldn't feel anything in here.

Panu followed her in very slowly. No cameras meant he was actually blind, not just organic-eyes-are-overrated-anyway blind. No cellphone in her pocket meant he could sort of hear the direction she went, but he couldn't orient on her. No computer meant he didn't even know where the desk was. Normally he had his own phone, but sometimes parole officers confiscated those from him so he had left it at the Mansion.

He was not going to grope around the room for a chair like a weak useless blind boy, that was not going to happen, he would just stand here and keep his back straight and maybe it would look like he meant to stop in the middle of her… not carpet, and her heels were even more clicky and a little bit more Echoes of Authority then shoes-on-tile, maybe polished concrete? In the middle of her concrete floor.

>> "So. Your file only tells me so much. What can you tell me about yourself, Mr. Harmaajärvi?"

Did file tell you I need cameras for eyes?

That would not be polite. He didn't have to be polite to X-Men, but he definitely needed to be polite to her.

…Standing in the middle of her floor was probably not polite.

"Do you have a phone you could turn on?" His shoulders jumped as he thought of what that maybe sounded like. "This isn't a trick, I'm not trying to read your records, I just… can't see… without a camera. I don't know where the chair is."

His voice was stupid and quiet and weak and he hated it and he hated paper files.

Brook noticed after sitting behind her desk that his demeanor had changed. He was just....standing in the middle of the room, straight as a board. Something was wrong.

""Do you have a phone you could turn on? This isn't a trick, I'm not trying to read your records, I just… can't see… without a camera. I don't know where the chair is."

The older woman's eyebrow quirked as she looked at him; the boy seemed to be telling the truth. Opening the folder, she took her pen and jotted down a note on a new page. 'Can't see without technology?' Heh...the boy was Bluetooth compatible. She smirked, keeping the note on a blank page just in case he was lying; once she was sure he wasn't pulling her leg, she'd put it in the actual file.

Opening her desk drawer, the woman fumbled around, digging out an old flip phone and a charger, plugging it in and turning it on. She turned it so the camera was facing the desk, and gave him time to sit down, motioning for him to take the old dinosaur of a phone once he'd done this. The phone wasn't in service anymore, and there was nothing of use on it. He needed to see, and that was basically all it'd be good for.

"Better?" she said, reverting to English as she waited for him to get situated. "So, what can you tell me about youself?" she repeated, her pen to the piece of paper, ready to take notes.

She was writing, he could hear her writing. She was writing and not saying anything and if this was a Test of Will than he would just keep standing. His old babysitter had never believed him about being blind, Panu was pretty sure it was on the long list of things that man had scribbled.

And now she was going through her desk, what, did her pen run out of ink? Maybe she should stop taking notes then—

Desk drawer closed. Chair squeak. Wall… fumble?

And then the glorious sunrise of a phone's start screen. He was looking through its camera as soon as it started up, it's—eww, 1.1 megapixels? Was this what it was like to live in an 8-bit game?

Panu took in a breath and let it out and resolved to accept this gift with the grace of a child eating grandma's stale cookies.

"Very much better, thank you." They were speaking English again, apparently. He tried not to deflate over that either, but his shoulders were slumping maybe a little. She'd pointed the camera so he could see the desk and the chair and himself, so he watched his—shudder—low resolution self set a tentative hand on the chair, and sit down. Through the—eww—0.7 megapixel front camera, he saw her SUPER BIG wow that was close hands motion in maybe a you-can-take-this way but he wasn't 100% sure so he slowly slowly slowly reached for the phone and only when she didn't snatch it back did he actually take it.

It was tethered to the wall by a cord and he had to lean forward a little so he didn't pull it out on accident. She had phone-leashed him. This ruined his Perfectly Straight And Repentant posture but his back had been getting tired anyway so maybe it was okay to put his elbows on the desk and slump a little.

So, what could he tell her about himself?

This was a trick question that adults liked to ask. If he said normal things than they um-hmmed and tuned him out because he was a boring child and children don't know anything. If he said real things they shifted in their seat uncomfortably and that is how he ended up with mandatory counseling sessions at his old school and also teachers who treated him like glass about to fall and break.

Boring was probably better.

"I am learning to play the violin." He was terrible and it was so funny. Being able to mute his ears made violin practice the most passive-aggressive so you want me to have constructive hobbies hobby ever. "I like it a lot. Also I met a dog at my new school," and she didn't ask him questions and she let him lean against her and she was like a furry breathing couch that occasionally dumped him on the floor when she stood up. Best Mansion resident. "She belongs to one of the X-Men, one of the ones who has a stupid this-is-my-power-please-exploit-weaknesses name." He should not call people stupid out loud he should not— "But their dog is nice so probably they're not totally stupid. At least they have good taste in dogs."

As he spoke, he tried to keep his face pointed at her, but he angled the phone's camera little by little so he could actually see the room. Left wall: boring, who even liked landscape paintings, did she even take the default store picture out of the frame? Desk: American flag cup because PATRIOTISM. Enough pens that she would never run out no matter how many notes she took. And little figurines. They had creepy faces, but maybe that was just the camera. Maybe. Behind her was another landscape. Next to that was a landscape. Over on the right wall was a landscape. No pictures of people or pets and definitely no children. That was okay, adults who didn't have children didn't get as many face-wrinkles when they realized he didn't act like their children.

"…Do you have a dog?"

Or a cat. Or maybe one of those fish with the pretty fins that people kept in little bowls and killed a lot on accident. She seemed like that kind of person.

He went the 'boring' route. Smart kid. Give 'em what they ask for without giving away too much. It still didn't make her very happy, but they were at least getting somewhere. Brook admittedly perked up when he mentioned his 'school' and X-Men. Things were different on this side, sure, but she'd done her homework. That many mutants in one place...sure they were trying to do the right thing, from what she could tell, but every bunch had rotten apples in it, even when said bunch of apples were all self-righteous.

"No, I don't have any pets. It's just me at home." Unless one were to count her budding alcoholism as a pet...

She looked back through his record. "So, from the looks of it, we're going to have plenty of time to get to know each other. Regular visits and all that. When all is said and done, maybe not having to see me again will be motivation to keep your nose clean," she said, cracking a joke but it came out very dry. Though maybe she was hoping it'd be true; in her experience, not wanting to see a certain someone made a great motivator to not do what results in seeing them.

"Now, one more thing. I need you to hold out your wrist," she instructed, pulling her chip gun off of her belt and walking around the desk to get to him; since the phone had him on a short leash he couldn't exactly scoot closer to the desk, so she'd come to him.

"This is overall painless, but it's standard procedure." When he was ready, she'd use the device to insert the chip in his wrist, and then SUPER, or more specifically, Brook would be able to keep better tabs on him, not that she was spilling everything.

There was a look on her face as he talked. A grainy, pixilated look. It was the kind of look that any child who had ever met any Actually Smart Adult would recognize. It was the I know exactly what you're doing and I'm humoring you by listening look.

Panu knew by that look alone that his new parole officer was Formidable Opponent. Probably now she was going to ask him all kinds of stupid questions about his history and his—shudder—feelings and—

And… she didn't? She…

She was going to end Boring Pointless Meeting, probably she had only been waiting for the minimum amount of time to pass so that Boss Won't Yell At Her and now she was calling legal system on stupid waste of time that was parole meeting.

And she still had that look on her face. Now he knew it wasn't a I'm humoring you look: it was a I'm humoring The World look.

She would 100% make excellent villainess.

"My nose will be very clean," the Finn said, trying to give her back a look of I know you are humoring and we will humor together (but probably he got it wrong because faces were hard, especially on 0.7 megapixels.)

He was just about to update his mental files with the title Best Parole Officer when she decided she needed to shoot him. Painless and standard procedure were exactly what doctors said before there was pain and flue vaccine that gave him a bruise for a week.

Panu tried for totally don't believe you but this-is-how-I-get-out-of-here look. And held out his wrist. And oww and—

And slow start up. Activation. Transmission.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee--

It was a pet chip. A mutant pet chip. He would be insulted except that—

—eeeeeeeeeeeeee—

--she had just upgraded him with GPS and--

—eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

--now he could call Uber without his phone, he only needed app in his head, oh and Google Maps too, and and and what frequency was it even transmitting at—

HAHAHA got it

"This is the best thing ever," Panu said in very excited Better Than a Birthday Finnish as he looked for—

YES there was a scanner! Right on her belt, thank you Ms. Best Parole Officer.

And now he was looking at every signal in range and… that was a lot of pings from the basement, what was…?

Oh. Secret experiment lab-prison thing. That was normal, even the X-Men had one, they just called it 'school'. At least other groups had decency to put mutants in little cell when they were done, not make them listen to History Teacher Saying What Wikipedia Could Also Say Except Longer. Panu would just have to be useful, then he wouldn't end up down there. Being useful was his #1 trait.

"This is SO COOL how often does the battery need to be—" no no nevermind it was "—bioelectric charging! Oh of course, it's small enough, that must be why you're only transmitting location and not biometrics. Maybe if there were two chips and the first only had to transmit to the second and the second handled the long-distance transmission then you could send more. Or one big chip, but probably that's easier to find and cut out, I can see why you went so small, these are supposed to be secret right? Wait, but just collecting location data is so boring there's no way your amazing awesome wonderful scientists would want to settle for that, if you could at least get heart rate too then you could tell when your subjects are experiencing high emotions, if this is for trying to catch repeat offenders than high emotions are probably a better sign of ill intent than just location alone—"

Said the technopath currently experiencing high emotions. In very fast Finnish (with a slight Californian accent).

"Oh! I need a ride back to school too, you don't waste as much time at these meetings as my last parole officer. Unless you want me to sit in the lobby for an hour until my ride from Xavier's—"

Sit in the lobby. Next to the receptionist's computer. Which was hooked to their network. For an hour. With his new toy and unlimited data access to what all the unique IDs they were transmitting meant.

"—never mind, you're a busy woman, I'll just wait in the lobby and be very quiet. It's no trouble."

The little Finn tried for totally angelic, but maybe got that one wrong, too.

"We'll see about that," she said matter of factly, looking over the bridge of her nose at the kid. His record said his nose would not be clean, but time would tell. She may have been setting the little punk up for failure, but he could change her mind, but not easily.

And then....what the hell was he doing? He was...excited about the chip? That was...unusual, but not unexpected, considering the boy's powers. She may have zoned out during the whole fan boy bit, but she came right back to earth when he mentioned a ride to school. Well, it looked like she was the boy's mother now. "Well, I wasn't planning on leaving the office, but...yeah I'll give you a ride..." she sighed as she grabbed her keys and stood to her feet.

"I have to run an errand on the way though. If you step one foot out of the car, my report will read that you stole it," she said sharply as she stood to her feet to lead the lad out of the building, keeping him well within her sight as they reached her car that was parked on the curb; it wasn't quite what one would expect: a twenty year old Crown Victoria, black. Unlocking the door, she motioned to the back seat.

Panu maybe dragged his heels a little on the way out the door, the computers were right there and no one else in the building had turned them off and and…

Shoulder slump. Foot drag.

At least there were other cameras outside of her office. He left the old dinosaur phone plugged into the wall, because 5% charge was funny the same way a beetle on its back on the sidewalk was.

"If I wanted to steal your car I—"

He was so used to muttering threats in Finnish that almost he forgot that she could speak Finnish. He shut his mouth and followed her nicely and tried to pretend he hadn't just said that. He switched back to English.

"I will be good, because not being good is stupid."

Her car was a dinosaur, just like her phone. He couldn't even tell what year it was because it was too old to tell him itself, and he was too cranky did-not-care to Google it.

At least she had the scanner with her. Panu used the parking garage cameras to find the door handle, then he slid onto the seat and felt out the belt and buckle. Snap.

No dash cam or rear cam. No view. Once they got on the road, he would have traffic cameras and people texting while they drove and so many maps talking directions. For now, boring nothing.

Not boring though, because she still had her scanner with her. Panu told it to please keep its screen off, but he used it to start pinging other chips. SUPER had been very busy in NYC.

"You, what?" she said in Finnish, her face sporting a confident smirk like that poker player who knew he had four aces. "That's a good boy," she said a little more quietly, yet there was a menacing edge to her voice.

She sighed as she got into her car and turned the ignition. Sure, she was lucky to have a car in a place like this--at least until you hit traffic, but...this old beat up can wasn't her car. In fact, she'd left her car on the other side of the rip. It was a brand new Mustang that still had the new car smell, everything electronic, the works. Sure, she no longer had to pay the note on it but...gods she missed that car sometimes.

The old Crown Vic roared to life--though it sounded more like it was protesting being alive. She grumbled slightly, though maybe the car without all the fancy electronics was a good thing today, considering her passenger's abilities.

She turned on the radio, though it was laced with a bit of static, as she drove. Before getting to the Mansion, she drove by the bank, going through the drive-through ATM, figuring at the last moment that her errand would be better if she didn't have to get out of the car. But as the agent got to the bank, she saw there was nobody at the window. Her eyes scanned what bit she could see...it was too quiet. Way too quiet.

So she parked her car in the nearest parking spot on the street and looked back at Panu. "Do not. Leave. This. Car," she instructed in stern Finnish as she looked to the building, surveying another entrance to sneak into. Her hand was on her gun, but the other reached into her pocket and turned on her personal cell phone. There was nothing in it the kid could really use, but she figured it might help.

From what she could gather, there was a side entrance she could slip into, and the security was supposed to be tight. But from what she could tell...this was a hostage situation. Really, it brought her back to her NYPD days, back before things started to suck.

Ms. Brooks talked probably like how a barracuda would talk. There were teeth in her words that smiled at anything that glinted enough to catch her attention. Panu hunkered down in his seat and resolved to be dull and boring and not-attention-grabbing.

This got easier when he found more chipped mutants to play with. The scanner did not have a full database, but it had some names still in its memory from the last time she had searched them, and also he could send a request to server for quick file. If the ride was longer, maybe he would have tried closing his eyes and pretending to nap and see if he could get to the full records before they got to Xavier's. But maybe that was not a First Parole Meeting sort of activity.

Over there was ID81328047, Real Name: Tony Bosco, Code Name: Boston Ivy, Mutation: Gamma elemental, grows plants rapidly from seed, usually vines for traps, Threat Level: Medium, Criminal record: YES

And over there was ID 38470854, Real Name: Unknown, Code Name: Jackpot, Mutation: Full details unknown, Iota always-on passive effect, local probability has been observed to swing in her favor, Threat Level: High, Criminal record: YES

And then there was… more. And for a moment he thought they were rushing towards him, until he remembered he was in a car and started paying attention to cameras again. The chips were not coming closer to them: Ms. Brook was driving them closer to the chips.

There was a bank up ahead. And the little Finn sitting in her passenger seat froze up for a moment as they passed the 100 yard mark and its cameras became his cameras and inside he was screaming no no no but outside he was taking Deep Breath and letting out and pretending not to notice that they were going to the drive in of a bank robbery.

"I will not leave this car unless car is not safe," the Finn promised. Since the car was next to a bank being robbed, it was already very not safe, so that meant he could leave anytime.

He watched on the external cameras as Ms. Brook crept towards the side entrance. She turned on her phone as she went, and suddenly he knew her phone number and contacts, which he mostly ignored for now (though he added her number to the contacts in his head). Right now there were more important things than reading her whole message history.

Things like Proving He Was Useful.

And that is why, when she came to the key card reader on the side door, its steady red winked green at her.

The phone in her pocket buzzed with a new text message.

Do you want map of building, or is borrow layout from city archives illegal?

Panu didn't think it was. But he had never really bothered to check before.

He was a smart kid, she'd give it that, though Brook didn't mention to the lad that if the car ever became 'not safe' then that meant Brook had failed to do her job and she was probably dead. Sure, this wasn't really her problem, but it seemed the cops hadn't made it yet, and old habits died hard. Besides, her scanner told her there was a mutant inside, which meant there was at least one mutant inside.

She'd parked far enough away from the bank so the boy wasn't in immediate danger, but close enough to get there in time. When she got to the side door, the red light blipped green, and she slipped inside quietly as her phone went off.

'I didn't turn my phone on so you could send me pictures of cats...' she texted back. Even though she had her gun in one hand, texting with the other, and was about to storm a hostage situation, Brooklyn Callahan still made a point to use precise grammar and spelling in her texts, which probably spoke volumes about her personality. Once the text was sent, she checked the scanner.

'ID 42189954, Real Name: Marco Benoit Code Name: Kinesis, Mutation: Full Details unknown, Energy manipulation. Threat Level: High. Criminal Record: YES.'

She eased her way through the building, moving just so she could get a vantage point before disappearing into the shadows again. Her breath sharpened as she saw part of the desk had a large chunk missing, as if it was blown off. She could see a few people huddled in the corner, a few obviously mutant. But she couldn't see the perpetrator yet. Her heart racing, Brook closed her eyes and took a deep breath as she assessed the situation, her old instincts kicking in.

>> 'I didn't turn my phone on so you could send me pictures of cats...

The Finn sat very still for 0.02 seconds. Then, he smiled like an angel. One that God had just handed a flaming sword to, and said go blow off some steam, kid.

That was permission, yes? She gave him permission? She wanted him to help. She had read his (stupid paper) file, she knew he was not a stupid little kid that needed to be locked in a car to keep him out of the way, she knew he was a best situated in the car. She was front range fighter, he was mage support.

She had given permission. Now, he would help Best Parole Officer Ever to win.

A map appeared on Brook's phone, showing the black and white architectural layout of the building. It was one story, with a basement.

On the map were dots: black for probably-hostages, red for probably-robbers, yellow outlines around definitely-mutants in both groups. Locations were based on the cameras he was watching through. Much more precise than her scanner, since the scanner was meant for longer range tracking, and did not do well with things at super close you-should-be-able-to-see-this-anyway range.

Tapping any of the rooms would bring up camera footage for it. Tapping any of the people brought up whatever he knew. The chipped mutants all had information from the moment the map first showed up; he pulled it from the scanner, so she would not need to juggle both scanner and phone. She had enough in her hands already. Details on the others would begin updating as she watched.

The bank employees were easy: the computers at their stations showed who was logged in, and at least one was logged into staff email, and directory had photos, so even though all the cashiers had been herded out to sit with the customers he could find who they were.

Also, they dressed like bank people.

Customers were harder; some had accounts open on cashier computers, but there weren't photos, only names. Some of those had social media accounts, and he could match names to footage. Some did not.

Little name tags and question marks populated the map, popping up until everyone had something, even if that something was just "Cannot Confirm ID".

When the map was done—less than a minute from when she set cat text joke—he texted again.

Next time, the message said, we get you earbud and smart glasses. Then you have both hands free. This is stupid way to utilize technopath, but I will work with your crippling limitations.

It was the very fondest of messages.