Change the World: Part Two

by Thomas Wilde

Chapter 2: The Voice of the People

July 5th, 1999

"...this is Trish Tilby, reporting live from the streets of New York, getting the public's opinion on Scott Summers' controversial decision to run for governor. Ma'am?"
"Well, mutants are still American citizens, so he should be able to run... but he better not think that he's qualified just because he was a superhero."

July 5th, 1999
New Orleans, Louisiana

"Gambit."

"Guilty as ever, _mon ami_." Remy LeBeau watched Logan cross the crowded tavern with an all-too-familar grin. "Good to see you in New Orleans."

"I ain't here for pleasantries, Cajun." Logan pulled out a chair and seated himself without being asked.

"Ah, it good to see you still got your manners, Logan. Beer?"

"Sure."

Gambit signaled a waitress. "This don't have to do with Xavier, does it? I'm out of that, Logan, well out, and happy that way."

"So'm I." Logan watched the crowd around him like he was expecting them all to pull knives. "Chuck's been dead for a couple months now, Cajun."

Remy's jaw dropped. "What...?"

"Brain hemorrhage. We were fighting the Shadow King--again--and he put too much power into it. Jeanie says Farouk's shattered, and she and Betsy have been lookin' for the larger pieces of that fat bastard on the astral plane when they get the free time, and breakin' 'em down... but Xavier died. No reprieve, no resurrection, we saw the body, gone."

Remy lit a cigarette. "He was a good man."

"He had a martyr complex. He was arrogant, selfish, and didn't give a damn for anything or anyone besides his dream. He carried the weight of the world on his back because he didn't think anyone else was worthy of carryin' it."

Remy watched Logan intently.

"But yeah. Chuck was one of the good ones." Logan's beer arrived, the waitress seeing his scowl and hustling across the room to give it to him. He nodded at her. "So this ain't about him."

"You better not be gettin' the X-Men back together, _mon ami_. I ain't a superhero. Never was, but it was fun to pretend for a while."

"This ain't superheroing I need you for, Cajun. You read the paper?"

"Ever' so often."

"The New York Times?" Logan took a pull off his beer.

"Why would I read that?"

"To see what we were up to after ya left, maybe." Logan extracted a day-old copy of the Times from his jacket pocket and slapped it on the table. The headline read MUTANT DECLARES IN GUBERNATORIAL RACE, with an old stock photo of Scott underneath it. He was standing next to Jean in his light-blue-and-white X-Factor uniform, waving to a cheering crowd. Jean's face had been cropped out.

Remy read for only a moment. "Scotty?"

Logan nodded tersely. "It would have to've been right after ya left. Last year, we got into a scrap with the latest batch of Sinister's Marauders down south. We got 'em, o'course, but Scalphunter took a chunk out of Cyke's leg 'fore Drake took him down. He got a tourniquet on it and Worthington got him to the hospital in time for them to save it, but he's gonna walk with a limp for the rest of his life." He drank again. "Turns out he'd been thinkin' 'bout retirin' anyway, with Chuck gone and Jeanie waiting for him..."

"Didn't dey get divorced?"

"Yeah, but that ain't the point, Cajun." Logan finished the beer. "The point is, he couldn't be a superhero anymore, but he'd inherited Chuck's fortune, mansion, and that trust fund that paid for all yer spare trenchcoats back in the day, and he still had the dream."

"The dream." Remy took a terse drag on his cigarette.

"The dream." Logan folded his arms on the table. "He's runnin' for governor, Cajun. D'you know what kind of attention that gets, 'specially for a mutant? He's not gonna stop, either. Scotty's talkin' Presidency, if he can."

Remy snorted. "An ex-superhero mutant divorcee with no real education, no background, and, when he *has* records, a criminal record longer dan mine." He ground the cigarette out on the underside of the table. "He got 'bout as much chance of bein' President as I do."

"Sure." Logan shook his head. "He probably ain't gettin' anywhere. I've been tellin' 'im that, Jeanie has, 'Roro has, Alex has, but he's still, deep down, that idealistic punk kid that used to annoy the hell out of me. He thinks he can do it, Cajun."

"You workin' for him." No question.

"What else was I supposed to do? Let him take a bullet because I don't think he's got a shot in hell? 'Least security is somethin' I can do in my sleep."

"And you want me to go work for him too."

Logan dug out his own cigarettes. "I can handle security. You're my backup, you and Betts and Kurt. We want to handle any trouble quick and quietly, and there ain't anyone better at that than you. 'Cept me. Of course."

"And if I say no?"

"Rogue'll be disappointed."

Remy's head snapped up. That aura of cool that irritated Logan so much evaporated like burning rice paper. "Rogue? But she with--"

"She ain't with Magneto anymore, if that's what yer askin'."

"When did that happen?"

"He's got too many demons, and she's got too much ahead of her. They went their own ways. Rogue's been livin' with Scott and Jeanie for the last few months. She's bein' Scott's bodyguard; who better to take a bullet than a girl who can take an artillery shell?"

Remy stubbed out the cigarette and watched rain run down the window of the bar. He didn't turn his head when he spoke. "You realize you got me right where you want me."

Logan nodded.

"You know I move heaven and earth to see dat girl again."

"Yup."

"You're a goddamn bastard with a heart blacker than an assassin's soul."

"I've been called worse."

"When do we leave?"

"As soon as possible."

"Lemme pack a bag."

"No problem, Cajun." To his credit, Logan never so much as smiled.

July 5th, 1999

"...sir, what do you think?"
"I think that superheroes got no business runnin' for government. I own an apartment building in midtown Manhattan, and my insurance bills are through the roof 'cause Spider-Man or somebody might crash through the window in the middle of some fight. J. Jonah Jameson's been right all along; superheroes are menaces, and I don't want any of them in my government."

July 5th, 1999 Westchester, New York

"Mr. Summers, I--"

"Please, Captain, call me Scott. We've saved the universe together enough times--" he grinned self-depreciatingly, "--that you might as well call me by my first name."

Captain America looked slightly uncomfortable. "Scott, then. I can appreciate what you're doing here, but I can't, in good conscience, endorse your candidacy."

Scott kept calm. "Why not?"

On the other side of the video link, Captain America shook his head and rubbed at his eyes. "Scott, I receive about a thousand calls like this every election, and I turn them all down. I'm only talking to you now because you called on the X-Men's old waveband; I thought you might need the Avengers' help. I'm a soldier and a symbol; I can't get involved in politics, or I cheapen everything I stand for."

"I thought as much. Thank you for your time, Captain."

"Good luck with your campaign. How's your leg, by the way?"

Scott looked down at it, almost reflexively. "It's not going to get any better. Today's better than most; I usually have to use a cane."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"There's nothing for you to be sorry for. Just keep an eye out for our old rogues' gallery."

Captain America nodded. "We've got the files you sent us. Hank's been very helpful."

Scott smiled. "Tell Hank he should call more often."

"I will. Captain out."

The video screen went blank, and Scott rubbed his temples with one hand. He'd been forced to take every 'phone in the mansion off its hook earlier that morning; half the calls were from the press, and the other half bordered on the obscene.

He walked out of the old radio room to find Rogue in the front hall of the mansion. She was wearing workout clothes, and was beating a small army of reporters back from the front door. It was hard to tell whether the reporters constituted the workout or not.

"Mr. Summers is currently indisposed, ladies and gentlemen! Ah will be more than happy to tell him you stopped by, and ah will see you at the press conference!"

"But, Miss--"

"Just one--"

"Any comment--"

Rogue decided she had had enough of being polite. With a scream of frustration, she kicked the door closed. She didn't kick it as hard as she was able to--the door would've gone into orbit--and the door was made of the same reinforced wood as the rest of the house. Still, those reporters stubborn enough to be in the way of the door when it slammed shut were catapulted off the front porch of the Summers mansion with amazing force.

Trish Tilby watched some of her contemporaries roll to a stop in the dirt, and couldn't help but fall to the ground laughing.

"You missed your calling, Rogue," Scott said. "You should've been a bouncer."

She turned to him and blew a strand of hair out of her face. "Ah couldn't even go for a jog this mornin' without gettin' a microphone jammed down my throat. You know Ah couldn't let that slide."

"True enough." Scott took note of a boot print on the door. "Any calls other than them?"

"Nope, although I got the mail. Some hate mail, a couple of death threats," she smiled, "a letter from Sean and Emma about the kids at the Academy, the new J.Crew catalog, a card from the Richardses..."

"Nothing too unusual, then."

"Not yet. We're probably gonna have to move the mailbox further away from the house, though. I'll be getting the mail from here on out, too, just in case."

"You're that paranoid?"

"I'm that realistic, sugah." Rogue fixed him with a flat glare. "You're a public figure now, Scotty. You might want to keep that in mind."

Scott started to say something back, but thought twice and revised it. "You're right. It's just that after all that we went through as the X-Men, I just can't seem to get scared of something as relatively minor as a bomb threat..."

July 5th, 1999

"...what do you think about Scott Summers?"
"He's a mutie. He's gonna die with the rest of his stinkin' kind when Judgement Day comes. Mark my words, there's gonna be a reckoning. God is not pleased with us, and these are the End Tim--"
"Thank you, sir, that will be all." Trish waited until the man was a fair clip down the street. "Sheesh."

July 5th, 1999
New York City

"You've read the papers, my friends," Warren Faraday said ominously.

The assembled members of the Friends of Humanity, some of whom were waving old "Creed in '00" placards about, shouted out that yes, they had, and no, they weren't in the least pleased.

"Kill the mutie!"

"String his ass up!"

"Murder the genefreak!"

"Calm down," Faraday said. When they didn't, he repeated himself, and finally, he fired his .45 into the air. *That* shut them up. "My friends, this is not the time for slogans or shouting. This is a time for action. Swift, ruthless, and final *action*."

The Friends of Humanity screamed their approval.

This further interruption displeased Faraday. He singled out a particularly vocal man in the front row, a man with a shaved head and tattoos down both arms. Faraday took careful aim and blew out the man's right kneecap. He toppled like a poleaxed cow.

"If I can continue without you sheep cheering me on for every word I say?" he asked sweetly.

There was absolute silence.

"This is perhaps the greatest threat to human sovereignity on this planet since the last time Magneto had nuclear weapons, and I'm not going to *stand* here and listen to you applaud my speeches while that freak of nature, that crime against God sits in his mansion, with all his little mutie friends, and plots a takeover of the American government!" Faraday spat. "He used to be an X-Man. Do you know what that means?"

His audience, eying his .45 and the screaming man in the front, stayed perfectly still.

"It means that if he should, by some freak of coincidence, ride some liberal voting block to victory, first thing he's gonna do is appoint all his superhero buddies into positions of power. I don't think I'd care to live in a world where some spandex-wearing Boy Scout faggot is telling *me* what to do, do you?"

"NO!" the audience replied hesitantly.

"Me neither. Second thing he's probably gonna do is work to overturn the Mutant Registration Act, the *one thing* the stinking liberals in Congress have done to protect, decent, God-fearing *human* citizens like you and me! And even if he *doesn't* win, that means that muties all over the United States--hell, the *world*--are gonna start thinking they have the same rights that humans do! We're gonna have muties running for office in every state of the Union!" Faraday paused for a moment to let this sink in. "Imagine a government run by muties, ladies and gentlemen, and where humans would fit in. Bolivar Trask saw this coming decades ago, and now the reality is upon us." He lifted his gun into the air. "Scott Summers must not live to see Election Day!"

July 5th, 1998

"Ma'am, what are your thoughts on the new entry into the gubernatorial race?"

"I think it's great that a mutant candidate's in the running. I just wonder what kind of chance he honestly thinks he has."

"Thank you, ma'am. This is Trish Tilby, reporting."

[next part]

back to Thomas' stories | Cyke and Logan archive | comicfic.net