「 The Professor & I 」VOLUME II

(252) A Quivering Prayer

Lynn's POV

"Do you want some?" Charles probed softly, cordially offering his cup of tea to me as my vitals stabilized.

"I'm good, Charles. You can have it," I politely declined, smiling at him convincingly, and he nodded, gladly taking a sip of his drink.

Quickly consuming the soothing beverage, Charles mounted the sophisticated headpiece onto his skull while I docked away the emptied cutlery and the bluish dome promptly sealed itself with a loud swish as it came to life.

"You want me to leave?" Logan investigated nervously as he scrutinized the oddity of his glowing surroundings resembling the magnificent Milky Way and registered the intimidating hum of the vigorously churning gears.

"No. Just don't move," Charles ordered calmly, gazing at me encouragingly as he delicately stroked my back, and I heaved deeply to brace myself against the heightened psychic feedback while Logan compliantly froze in position.

"These lights represent every living person on the planet. The white lights are humans," Charles educated fluently as the specks of illumination clouded around in clusters simulating the geographical continents of the world.

"And these are the mutants," Charles declared in a proud tone as a glimmering red rapidly infiltrated the virtual picturesque map before us.

"Through Cerebro, we're connected to them, and they to us," Charles explained with an incredibly intelligent aura radiating from his tone as he safely navigated us northwards from the East Coast through Philadelphia and New York.

"You see, Logan? We're not as alone as you think," I emphasized, smiling sincerely up at him, but he was clearly disinterested in all the information Charles and I had shared thus far.

"I found the base at Alkali Lake. There was nothing there," Logan complained in frustration but Charles was too preoccupied by the exhaustion that began to percolate as he focused to trace our target's signature trail to be bothered with Logan's irrelevant comment either.

"The broken line represents the path of the mutant who attacked the President," Charles remarked in detail as the sparkling image projected onto the curved walls converged to an intermittent stroke actively bouncing on the border leading up to Boston.

"We've been finding it difficult to get a lock on him," Charles lamented, still frantically chasing the irregular appearances of the peculiar individual as he hastily migrated.

"Can't you just concentrate harder?" Logan suggested mockingly.

"If he wanted to kill him, yes," I snapped sharply, increasingly annoyed by his flippant attitude, but Charles gently squeezed my palm, attentively mollifying my stirring fury.

"There. Looks like he's finally stopped running," Charles conveyed in a relieved tone as the blinking point flashed with reduced frequencies, eventually halting at a single spot.

With the fleeing person ceasing his erratic motions, we were allowed to revel in a tinge of respite but as Charles narrowed our mental view to the interior of the shelter our dear fugitive had elected to seek, an old church on the secluded side of town undergoing massive renovations, we were unfortunately greeted by awfully heartbreaking sights.

His uniquely carved cerulean skin hid shamefully under strange clothing and a long trench coat as he lurked tentatively in the shadows. As if yearning the refuge of the dark, he deliberately steered away from the stray streaks of psychedelic rays seeping through the intricate stained glass, searching for solace only in the overcast.

In the murk, it was none other than Kurt.

Crawling expertly, and stealthily, along the numerous construction racks stashed within the deserted building, he effortlessly overcame the tall metallic frameworks but not quite so the multiple layers of plastic sheets draped messily over them.