Washington, DC--One Year Later
The cold of the winter day was long forgotten inside the Senate Hearing Room, as the packed bodies in the gallery and the heat from the television lights forced the temperature in the room up far above normal. Several of the senators, despite the intense media scrutiny of these hearings, had taken off their jackets. Many viewers in the balcony were fanning themselves with notebooks or loose paper.
Professor Charles Xavier sat in his wheelchair near the center of the room, watching patiently. He could tell that the crowd was a very hostile one. He didn't need to read their minds to sense that. Their hostility clearly emerged with every action of the hearings' chairman, the flamboyant senator Robert Kelly.
Kelly was a white-faced, white-haired man who was clearly using the hearings on mutant registration to propel his own career closer to the White House. And it seemed as though he had other demons that were driving him, though it wasn't quite clear to Professor Xavier what those demons were. At least not yet.
In front of the hot room, at the witness table, sat Dr. Jean Grey. Even alone at the long wooden table, she had a commanding presence. A strong, good-looking woman in her early thirties, she had been called upon to explain to the Senate Hearing the basic science behind the emergence of mutants.
Professor Xavier had helped her extensively with the drafting of her presentation. They had gone over it time and again so that it would be clear not only to the senators, but to the audience on the other side of the television cameras.
And considering the hot-button interest the public had taken in the mutant registration law, there was no doubt her presentation would make the news. To many, mutants had proved ripe for persecution based on the long-standing tradition of fearing anything unknown. So the best defense, Jean and the professor had determined, was to help the regular people from middle America understand mutants and what they really were. The bigots like Senator Kelly would fold like wet tissue if public opinion shifted against them.
But for the moment, the public was squarely against mutants. And the public was scared to death. Senator Kelly was a master of playing that to the hilt.
"Lights, please?" Jean said.
A few people murmured something about that help-
ing the heat, at least.
As the lights dimmed around him, the professor didn't need to shift in his wheelchair to watch the show. Instead he focused his gaze straight ahead and opened his mind, to let the feelings of those around him flow in, but only a little. Not enough to read their thoughts--just enough to gauge how reaction to the presentation was going.
He could feel boredom and hostility. Jean had a very deep hole to climb out of, it seemed. They all did, if they were ever going to be accepted by society and defeat this registration law.
"DNA," Jean said, spacing each letter as she started her presentation. "It is the basic building block of
evolution. Changes in our DNA are the reason we
have evolved from single-celled organisms to Homo sapiens."
Figures on the screen showed the various stages of evolution, along with a graph displaying a diagonal line that indicated the ascent of the human animal: the evolution of man.
One image took over the screen, focusing attention on the lowest order of humanoid: Homo habilis, a primitive apelike humanoid covered in thick hair.
Around him, Professor Xavier could feel the crowd's interest increase, ever so slightly. And some revulsion emerged, as men and women confronted images of what they were descended from.
"Within our DNA," Jean said, explaining what was happening on the screen, "are the genes that decide our physical characteristics. When these active genes mutate, we see changes in the body."
The image on the screen began to mutate, and the apelike humanoid slowly started looking more and more human.
The professor could tell many of the people around him were becoming fascinated. Perfect. It was just what he and Jean had hoped would be their reaction at this point.
"These evolutionary changes are subtle, and normally take thousands of years."
The image of the now-human man on the screen froze, and his body went transparent. Twenty percent of it was marked in blue, representing moving, active genes. The remainder of the image of the man was marked in red, showing static, dormant genes.
Now the people around the professor were really caught up. The room fell silent, except for a few whispers coming from a couple of the senators who clearly were not paying any attention and didn't want to.
One of them was the chairman, Senator Kelly.
"Within each of us," Jean said, "lie not only the millions of genes which dictate our physical makeup, but millions upon millions more whose purpose has been completely unknown to us."
She paused for a breath, then went on. "These unused genes have traditionally been referred to as 'junk DNA.' In fact, over eighty percent of our genetic structure is made up of this so-called junk DNA."
The words present day appeared on the screen, as
a number of the red, dormant genes began to move, slowly at first, then faster and faster.
"In recent years," Jean said, "and for reasons which are still a mystery, we have seen this latent DNA in our bodies mutating. These mutations manifest at puberty, and are often triggered by periods of heightened emotional stress."
With a glow of pride, the professor knew that--at this moment--with the exception of a few of the closed-minded senators, Jean had her audience. Despite the heat, they were paying rapt attention.
"The new DNA strands caused by the mutations are producing some admittedly startling results. In other words, this previously unused DNA is not 'junk' DNA at all, but rather a vast storehouse which contains the almost limitless potential for human advancement."
Suddenly the graphic on the screen showed the man performing amazing feats. First he grew in size; then he moved an object with his mind; then he changed the color of his skin.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we are now seeing the beginnings of another stage of human evolution. Not a new race of creatures to be feared, but rather the opportunity to find advancement within us all."
The lights slowly brightened.
Scanning the room once again, the professor could tell that Jean and the presentation had accomplished what they had hoped. With understanding, the perception of mutants seemed to have begun to shift ever so subtly. The professor began to pick up feelings of uncertainty, of people rethinking their positions. And the level of hostility was clearly lower. But now came the hard part. Jean had to hold this hard-won ground against Senator Kelly.
Kelly turned from the man he'd been talking to and smiled at Jean, like a father might smile at a small child who had just done something cute. "Thank you for the wonderful cartoon, Ms. Grey," he said in a vaguely patronizing tone. "It was quite--how should I say it?--educational."
Some of the crowd snickered.
"However," Kelly went on, "it failed to address the larger issue which, I might add, is the focus of this hearing. Three words: Are mutants dangerous?"
There was a low rumbling among the crowd, and the professor could feel new and increased uncertainty flowing among the people.
"Well, Senator Kelly," Jean responded, "don't you think that's an unfair question? The wrong person behind the wheel of a car can be dangerous."
"Well," Kelly countered, "we do license people to drive."
The professor listened carefully to the murmurs of the crowd as Senator Kelly's aide, Henry Guyrich, moved behind the panel and handed Kelly a black folder filled with documents.
"But we don't license people to live, Senator,"
Jean said.
Kelly said nothing.
"It is fact, Senator," Jean said, pressing her point, "that mutants who have revealed themselves publicly have been met with fear, hostility, and even violence."
The professor could feel that things were again turning against Jean. This time, though, as he scanned the crowd with his mind, he felt a new presence, a
powerful and familiar one. He turned around in his wheelchair and studied the back of the room, which rose above him.
There, by the door, in the shadows where he couldn't be seen, stood a dark figure wearing a very expen-
sive suit.
It was his old friend Eric. What was he doing here?
The professor nodded, and Eric did the same. The professor turned back to face the front, his attention again on the crowd.
"It is because of that ever-present hostility," Jean said, "that I am urging the Senate to vote against mutant registration. To force mutants to expose themselves will only further subject them to unnecessary prejudice."
Senator Kelly smiled and wiped a drop of sweat from the side of his head. The professor could tell he was going to attack Jean, and attack her hard--as they had expected.
"Expose themselves?" Kelly asked, his voice calm and strong over the silent crowd as he played to the television cameras. "What is it that the mutant community has to hide?"
"I didn't say they had anything to hide," Jean said. "What I did say--"
"Let me show you what's being hidden," Senator Kelly said, talking over Jean without hesitation. He raised a blown-up photo of a car on a freeway. The car appeared to have been melted. "This was taken by a state police officer in Secaucus, New Jersey. A man in a minor altercation literally melted the car in front of him."
Professor Xavier set his jaw. The crowd was again turning fe...
