(In response to Booting Up Cerebra)

Katrina nearly pounced on the bishop when Slate first moved it, but something made her stop before she completed the capture. Something wasn't right here. Slate didn't usually make such mistakes. She studied the board again, what was she missing?

"You okay?"

Her handsome tour guide gave her a questioning smile and Katrina realized she had been staring off into space rather than staring at the things he had been pointing at with his ever-so-strong arms.

"Yeah, so... the library, huh?"

That got him started about all the different aspects that made their library better than all the other college libraries, and distracted him for another ten minutes while the little illusionist thought about her next chess move. She couldn't see the logic behind what Slate had done. Finally, frustrated, she decided to just ask him.

Is this supposed to be some kind of trap?

...

Katrina frowned. Her tour guide looked alarmed and hurried her along to something she might like looking at better than a bronze fountain by some famous artist that had once gone to the academy. The little illusionist was distracted, not caring in the least what he showed her next.

Slate?

Still no answer. Something was wrong. It was possible she was being a paranoid over protective girlfriend and Slate was just busy doing something, except if he was busy he wouldn't have contacted her first. ...No, something had to be wrong. She was sure of it.

"Sorry, but I need to use the ladies' room," she blurted out, surprising her guide. She didn't even wait for him to point in the right direction before hurrying off. As soon as he was out of sight she pulled out her phone and dialed Slate's blackberry number.

No answer.

Apartment phone.

No answer.

She was out of numbers to call and starting to panic.

Finally, out of desperation, she grabbed her X-communicator and looked at it carefully. She did not know how to use it to call just one other comm; she only knew that the main button on the side called everyone. Hopefully everyone would not be upset.

"Slate? What happened? What's going on?"

As she waited, she clung to the communicator as if for dear life. Someone had to answer. They had to, or these communicator things were completely worthless and what use was it being an X-man anyway?

Normal communications rarely ever worked in the Cerebra room. Thankfully enough, however, whoever supplied Cerebra in the first place also supplied the X-comms.
Kat's voice came through loud and clear. Maya was pulled out of her concerned and thoroughly unproductive staring at Slate's body. She scrambled to answer the comm and almost dropped it.

>>"Slate? What happened? What's going on?"

Maya made sure the channel was private before she answered. No need to alert the entire system just yet.

"Katrina? Kat, where are you? This is Maya. Slate is on Cerebra. We have a situation. Sam is missing, took a bunch of students with him, and he might be mind controlled. It's a long story. We gotta find him fast."

Wait. What?

She could barely believe what she heard at first. Maya's voice answered her, and explained quite rationally what Slate was up to. Using Cerebra. That made sense. He probably should practice it anyway.

The why he was using Cerebra was what didn't quite register in her brain as something that was even remotely possible. CS, kidnapping students? Impossible. Except. Mind control. Anyone with malicious intent could probably pretty easily figure out that young impressionable mutants would be easy to mold into super soldiers or whatnot. It was one of the reasons Katrina tended to downplay what her powers were.

The X-men had figured out a long time ago that they could train soldiers or vigilantes or heroes or whatever, when they first opened their school. So why would someone not want to take a shortcut and take students that were already halfway trained? Especially if they had someone who could control people's minds.

Mind control. Katrina shuddered.

Once upon a time, in a far away reality, Slate had taught classes on how to protect one's mind from outside influence. Perhaps it was time to start doing that again, or rather, way past time. It was already too late now.

It took a moment for her mind to catch up to what Maya had told her. Meanwhile her mouth answered, “Oh my god.”

Then her brain caught up again and she responded more quickly.

“Are there any other clues as to where he would have gone? I'm in Colorado on a college visit. It would take me a couple hours to get back. How long do you think it will take Slate to find him? What can I do to help?”

She glanced across campus at the planes that were taking off from the nearby airstrip. Her mind was already running through possibilities of how she could get home to help with this. There was also a little voice telling her she had better be careful not to ruin her chances by doing something dumb. Missing kids and a mind controlled CS were very important, but so too was getting into college. Would she be forced to pick between those? If so, which would she pick?

Katrina was easier to convince than Slate. Thank god. Two stubborn people dating each other, that never ended well. Maya sighed and collected herself, trying to keep control of the situation.

>>“Are there any other clues as to where he would have gone? I'm in Colorado on a college visit. It would take me a couple hours to get back. How long do you think it will take Slate to find him? What can I do to help?”

"Slate is working on it. Cerebra might give us a chance to actually find him wherever he is. Last time he... went missing, he was in Canada. It is a solid chance he is somewhere around there this time too, if what I am guessing is correct. I need you back here, we gotta go as soon as Slate pinpoints a location. I can fly the jet, but I'm nowhere near your expertise. Get back here as soon as you can. But be safe, okay?"

Who knew what else was in this deck of cards. Someone using CS as a distraction to confuse the rest of the X-team? Maya did not want to make a mistake she could avoid by thinking twice.

Continued in Booting Up Cerebra

Back, from Booting Up Cerebra

Three cans of Foothill Frost, a bag of Cheesey Cornpuffs, and an hour and a half of winding back and forth later, Katrina and her handsome tour guide pulled of at the side of the winding road in a little dirt parking lot. There was maybe room for three cars.

“That's Ormes. This is as close as the road goes to the peak. There are trails that go farther up. It's a fairly easy walk up, as mountains go.”

“Let's take a look.”

Another exercise filled twenty minutes brought them to the top of the mountain. Katrina was pleased to see that when it came to slightly longer distances she was at least no more out of breath than her guide. She silently thanked CS for the torture he had put her through in conditioning classes. From the peak Katrina had an unimpeded view of the area all around them. She slowly turned, comparing the landscape to her mental image of where CS was supposed to be.

South of them was another peak, the only one in sight that had snow on it at this time of year.

“Of course. That's it,” Katrina was sure of it.

“Ah. So. What now?”

“We take a closer look.”

A closer look took a lot longer than Katrina expected. There wasn't a road out to the other peak, at least not really. There was kind of a path that was almost wide enough for the car, except when it wasn't. Then they had to start walking, and by walking, of course, she actually meant hard-core hiking. It wasn't easy going on foot and she really wished she had the X-jet to just hop on over all this wilderness and land right on top of where she wanted to be.

“Sorry to drag you into all this,” Katrina panted.

“Well, it isn't normally on the tour, but if there are kids in danger we don't have much of a choice, do we?”

She shook her head, “Still, I...”

Katrina stopped talking. They had just reached a clearing and the scene across the field matched her mental image exactly. She waved her hand for her guide to be silent.

“You should stay here. I'm going to go take a look,” her voice was a whisper. She started forward, but felt a hand on her arm.

“Wait, I can't let you go in alone and helpless,” he protested quietly. “Let me come.”

“I'm hardly helpless. Mutant, remember?” With that she disappeared, making his fingers around her arm feel as though they held nothing but air. He relaxed his grip in response and she slipped away from him.

“If I'm not back in an hour, go home without me,” she whispered before slipping away across the field.

She thought she heard a faint “fat chance” and had to smile just a little to her invisible self. He was being very chivalrous for a guy who knew she had a boyfriend. Maybe he was just one of those types that couldn't say “no” to helping a girl in need.

I found the place, she informed Slate. I'm just going to look and see what I...

The thought was cutoff by the sound of gunshots and an explosion of dirt next to her feet.

Katrina hit the dirt. A log, some tall grass. It was all the time her mind had to process before she dove for the ground.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

She should have realized, should have been more careful. Just because a college boy couldn't see her didn't mean that mutants or even normal humans equipped with the right technology couldn't see past her illusions of invisibility.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

What had she been expecting? CS having a nice picnic with the kidnapped students on a mountainside with some psychic pal that had simply sent him a friendly invitation?

More bullets exploded dirt in her vicinity, though not so near as the first. She crawled on her hands and knees through the tall grasses, trying to get away from where most of the shots seemed to be clustered. She reached the log and cowered beneath it.

After a moment the bullets stopped. There was the sound of a scuffle, then a crunch of knuckles on nose, followed by something hitting the ground.

“Go! Get back to safety! I'll cover for you,” she heard her tour guide from the direction of the disturbance.

She was in the very middle of the field. She could go back, certainly, but what would she accomplish? She could tell the X-men that the place was guarded by people with guns and that was about it. Where was CS? How could they get to him? Where were the children? Were they safe? She didn't know the answers to any of those questions.

She closed her eyes and concentrated. She could be invisible in more ways than one. She imagined herself making no noise, leaving no smell, having no heat signature, not existing in any way. Her body was not there, it was just another part of the background. She even tried to make her mind a blank slate as best she could.

When she was ready she rose to a crouch and looked over the top of the log. Nothing happened. She made her way to the side of the field where cover was the closest, hunched over all the way. She ducked behind the first tree and was startled to find that the spot was already occupied. A man holding a gun was still pointing it at where she had been a few minutes before.

Katrina hardly dared to breath. She skirted around him, toward the next available tree, as silent as possible. Before she had quite disappeared behind the trunk, the man lowered his weapon and raised his hand to his ear. The little illusionist was almost certain he was getting ready to blast her with laser beam eyes or something. Fortunately he was simply reaching to touch the communicator attached to his ear.

“She vanished. Not even infrared.” He was silent for a moment, then nodded and added, “Roger.” Then he stared stalking away in the direction of the mountain.

He was giving up? Or getting reinforcements?

There was movement around the field, all in the direction of the mountain base. She was too far to see where they were going. If she could just follow one of them, she could find the door, find the way into their base.

Or she could just leave. It wasn't too late to get out.

Except that the X-men would be here for hours and who knew what could be happening to those kids. Taken not just by a mind controlled teacher, but by a mind controlled teacher to some kind of militant base inside a mountain.

It may have been stupid, but she was going to do it anyway.

Katrina slipped out from behind the tree and made her way silently, invisibly toward the base of the mountain. Alongside the edge of the field, a little way behind the man with the gun, as invisible as she possibly could be.

The rustling of the wind in the leaves overhead sounded like, “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

It was all a nightmare. It had to be Sam jumped up from his warm bed next to his wife and he was covered in sweat exhaling loudly. The woman next to him slowly opened her eyes then realized Sam was sitting and she jumped up now slightly awake but far more alert than she was before. “Sam, another nightmare?” she asked with a touch of concern in her voice as always. For years he had been plagued with nightmares ones that would occasionally cause him to jump awake and even in some instances lash out. Luckily Alexandra was Alexandra so in his dazed state he never even managed to throw a snowflake at her.

”Yeah…” was all he said as he closed his eyes reliving everything he just saw. He was in the mountain base again from when he was a child only he was an adult and he only could see out of one eye. Slowly Sam reached his left hand up to his left eye and looked through the right. Something felt oddly familiar. Shaking his head and chalking it up to a sense of Déjà vu from his most recent dream he ignored the feeling. “I’m here baby if you need to talk.” Alexandra said reaching her hand up and putting it on Sam’s right cheek. She was warm and the night was warm. He was still sweating, ”I know Alex, think I’m gonna take a shower.” he got up slowly and walked to the shower glad it was just all a bad dream. This was his life, Alex and the kids.

-----

“Who is it?” it was a simple enough question the fact that none of the grunts could figure it out just irritated her, “She vanished. Not even infrared.” Came the reply. She sucked her cheek slightly and looked to Sydney who had the look like a million things were running through his head at once. “Amanda,” was all Sydney had to say before the girl closed her eyes and nodded. She reached out and scanned the area where one of her grunts just was using him as an extension of herself she could see what he saw and caught a glimpse of a blonde haired woman.

“Shit.” Was all Amanda could mutter before she opened her eyes and looked to Sydney, “One of Sam’s new friends.” She said simply enough all she needed was the hair and body frame and she could pin it to the one Sam called Kat. Amanda had been spending enough time in Sam’s head after all so pretty much he had ever known she knew. Anyone worth knowing at least. “She turns invisible,” was all Amanda had to time to say before Sydney reacted, “I want her with us. Send a team down there and round her up toss her in a cell and have her ready for training in the next two hours.”

Amanda nodded her head and then added, “I think I should try to take Sam for a test drive, I’m in control again and there is no way that physic will be able to break my hold twice. Now that I know what he looks like.” She was glad Sam was good with faces. Sydney nodded his head, “Fine, if she really is one of his I doubt she’ll put up much of a fight.”

Amanda nodded her head and walked to the exit and before she did she looked back to Sydney, “Give her an easy trail to follow into entrance three. I’ll have Sam intercept her along with a team shortly after she makes her way in.” with hat Amanda walked out of the command center of their little operation and went back to her room to sit so she could concentrate on controlling Sam. She didn’t need this much concentration to control him but the last thing she wanted was to lose Sam again. She doubted Sydney would be all right with her losing control again.

“Hey Sam.” Amanda said in the comfort of her own room protected by a few armed guards. “A friend is here to see you.” There was no response from Sam because he was nowhere near she and wouldn’t have been able to respond even if he was. His body however sat upright and his right eye opened. He got up from his bed and exited his room and proceeded down the hall.