Logs: Hank, Jubilee, Logan, Magneto
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Monday, August 04, 2008, 10:47 PM
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=XS= ComSys Room - Lv B3 - Xavier's School
The Communications Systems are located just off to the side of the infamous Danger Room, a plethora of beeping, flashing, ever-working computers used as the X-Men's unofficial headquarters and briefing room, as well as linking into the Danger Room master control. A well-oiled grid of collected global information concerning and helpful to the mutant activist team, and even mutants themselves, displayed in enormous monitors stretched across the walls linked into television broadcasts, with smaller rows of viewscreens stationed between them for relaying security camera images. The whole of the unit seems to run just fine on its own, although occasionally a staff member runs to and fro checking the systems with the area being totally off-limits to students, and most anyone but the X-Men.
[Exits : [M]ain [H]allway and [D]anger [R]oom]
[Players : Hank ]
A watched pot does in fact boil, if watched for long enough and if actually placed on a heat source while filled with liquid. This aphorism having been disproved by a bored and quizzical Jean Grey at the age of five, the Jean Grey of thirty seven is trying out a new one: does, in fact, a watched newsfeed never update? Hunkered down in one of the more comfortable (for a given definition of comfort) chairs of the ComSys centre, she's got the remains of a mug of coffee in one hand, a new and shiny Kindle displaying an eBook in the other, and her eyes on neither of them. There is a screen across from her. It has a search program running on it.
The other occupant of the room has opted for a more sturdy if less comfy seating option. Placing some credence in the idea that perception of time can be influenced by how distracted on is, Hank offers the boiling pot aphorism a little more respect and studiously ignores everything but his chosen distraction. At the moment that is the New York Times, folded to the crossword which is about half finished now. His pen moves steadily with no pause for thought. With a hint of a sigh in his tone he notes to Jean that, "The Monday crossword progresses to a level of difficulty I am sure no elementary school student would find challenging."
"Try getting one of the other papers that does a cryptic version," Jean suggests, still staring at the seach results like a border collie staring down electronic sheep. "I know they strain my brain in a good way, so you should be able to polish them off in at -least- as long as five minutes."
OH NOES. LOST POSE!
"Possibly we need two puzzles. Beginners and advanced," Jean reflects. "Or do them on alternate days..." Trailing off, she looks away from the screen long enough to notice that her coffee dregs have solidified, and therefore the mug is set aside, leaving her with her electronic reader for company. But it is not running a search, and so she looks back at the screen that is. "Trying to see if there are any hints of Doomsday cult activity."
"Ah, a wise search, with a strong likelihood of results considering a doomsday approaches that was predicted by the scientific community and is accepted by the general population." Hank eyes the discarded coffee with a thoughtful air, not currently having a caffeinated beverage of his own to hand. "We at least have potentially useful endeavors to focus our energies on, unlike most. I would be saddened but unsurprised to here of groups preparing for mass suicides, even. Did anything in particular inspire your search?"
"Mmm," says Jean, with a vague hitch of a shoulder as she at last stops watching the screen's slow aggregation of reports newslike, low-level governmental and otherwise, and instead turns her attention on Hank. "Mostly, it's stemmed from a talk I had with Ororo. We're not all going up on the Pegasus II, or whatever they end up naming it. I wanted to try and find some things for the folks left on the ground. Worthwhile things."
"Ororo is feeling frustrations then, at her uninvolvement in the mission? I must admit, it is difficult to come terms myself with the concept that I must stay grounded and work only in a support capacity." No longer bothering with his paper, Hank sets it in a clear spot to one side, laying down his pen as well. His chair creaks softly in protest as he settles more comfortably into it. "How is Ororo holding up? And you, for that matter, with something so daunting ahead."
"I think she's frustrated that she might end up having to uninvolve herself, yes," Jean confirms, quietly, 'lest someone somehow overhear her as she sits two levels below ground and behind several security layers. "Like many of us, she's not used to running up against personal limits. I want to leave with as much intel gathered as I can," she murmurs, one hand reaching out to pat at the screen banks, as she concludes, more quietly still, that "After all, there's still a not insignificant chance that I'm going to come back on my shield instead of with it."
"I do not believe that there is any appreciable advantage to thinking in such terms," Hank informs her sternly, but in a voice much lower pitched than usual and not quite level. He swivels his chair to another screen beside him and begins to key up a search of his own with brisk efficiency.
"No," Jean agrees. "So, I try not to. But it would be just as foolish to ignore it entirely -- I've made sure my will is current. I'm giving you control of Gradient Genetech in it, since I trust you to share my ethics on the mice."
"I'd be honored to ensure the continued humane treatment of your mice," Hank informs his keyboard softly. Then in a more normal tone he takes a jump back several subjects to wonder with an attempt at faint humor, "Have they not yet settled on a title for this mission, then? To simply retain the name seems less than inspirationally creative."
"Operation Hail Mary?" Jean suggests, an innocent look quickly slid overtop of lingering concerns for mortality. "The Phoenix Project. Attack of the Space Mutants...."
"All very good thoughts, but one must keep in mind how the appellation would hold up to hundreds of years in the history books. I certainly hope that football will remain as prevalent as it is currently, but I am not convinced that the hail mary pass might not fade from collective memory, leaving us with a religious affiliation sure to become quite controversial." Hank enters the last parameter of his search with a definite press of the enter key and turns back to Jean with an unsuccessfully surpressed smile. "And of course, vanity must be considered also. School children must be more likely to remember you if your name graces the mission."
"I was thinking more in the 'rises from ashes' sense," Jean notes, but doesn't succeed at hiding a smile. "But... well, a little vanity isn't a -terrible- thing. But that would be just me, and what about the rest of the group? Should we call it something like X-Factor?"
"If the choice were left to me I might chose some sort of literary allusion. Ouranus, perhaps. But, as far as the good it might do in changing the opinions of the general populace, X-factor might be a very effective name." Greek gods make Hank think crossword again, and he reclaims his pen to begin once more, slower this time.
"I suppose we could put out a suggestion box," Jean reflects. "Assuming we get the all-clear to tell the kids some time before liftoff... and I suppose it's ultimately NASA's call." At last! Her screen of interest goes 'Beep', and Jean's chair goes 'rattle' as she scootches over to see what it's found for her. For a time, conversation fades away from her end of things.
Every great mission needs a name, right? (Jean still votes for Attack of the Space Mutants.)
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Friday, August 08, 2008, 10:14 AM
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=XS= Danger Room - Lv B3 - Xavier's School
When not composed of digital dreaming, whether made to be an alley way or forest, this room is nothing more than a large dome-like structure made of nickel-titanium. Electromechanical security doors as well as localized force fields operate the only doors into and out of the danger room itself, although there are more outside in the Ready Room that lead up to the Observation Deck. Panels lining the walls, floor and ceiling give away to training dangers such as lasers, projectiles, and sophisticated robots built for combat. Centered high in the right corner of the arena rests the control area where spectators can monitor training events and operate the holograms. Automated doors and the intercom system are located directly below this glass-walled bubble, showing the exits to this 'Danger Room'.
[Exits : [M]ain [H]allway and [C]omSys [R]oom]
Jean Grey is not claustrophobic. In truth, it was only last week that a sulking Wee Nate was surprised out of said sulk by his mother joining him under his bed, -with- a flashlight and cookies. That said, space suits are not exactly open-concept. Floating-sitting on a bench inside an entirely fabricated airlock, the sharp smells of very real silicon plastic and unknown fabrics are thick in Jean's nose, and her face is just a touch pale beneath the thick not-glass of the helmet. "Christ," crackles in an escaped sigh over the suit's built-in radio. It's soon followed up by an attempt at humour as she notes to the othe suit-wearer that "You -did- remember to pee before getting into that, right?"
"Yes, mum," Jubilee sighs in a very good approximation of the aforementioned Nate. She's busy testing out the limits of the suit mobility, and the gymnasticly trained Sugar Bomb is decidedly Not Pleased.
"Enlightened self-interest," crackles Jean, with the sharp clicks at the end of her transmissions that are really a Hollywood space-movie staple. "This particular telepath could really do without a chorus of 'gotta go, gotta go' while trying to move a space rock. What's our atmosphere in here at now, Logan?" she wonders to someone unseen, rapping a heavily-gloved fist against the airlock wall to specify 'in here'.
Logan's voice also crackles across the system, answering Jeans question of atmosphere. "0.25... 0.15... 0, you should be good to go now." but can't resist a small bit of joining the tease: "And Bright Eyes, if you electrocute yourself, don't go blamin' us 'cause you missed you potty break."
"For the last time, I went 'for--" Jubilee breaks of with an audible gulp, then a hissed-grump of, "I hate you all." She'd fold her arms in front of her chest, if she could a) move her arms like that, and b) find her chest in the suit. Hey. It's in there somewhere.
"You'll be the one sitting in the wet diaper..." is Jean's last little bit of brattiness on the subject, smug with the knowledge that she's skipped morning coffee and much else liquid. Logan's report leads her to push off gently from the bench, and very, very cautiously try and float her way over to the airlock door, hands making useless little swimming motions that mostly serve to make the suit start slowly rotating. A rather irritable mutter escapes, before she starts flailing for a hand-hold. "So. What's the scenario for today?"
"Scenario 11." Logan lists off with a stutter as he finds where that is listed on the console screen and reads it aloud. "That is if we can get past the 'quit tripping over yourselves' scenario. Assuming the most fragmentation and debris. Gonna have to sweep your way to the targets. Warning ya now: We've put a couple of surprises in this one, so be careful."
"Crap," Jubilee mutters, grabbing for and hanging on to her own nearest handhold for dear life. "I /hate/ your surprises, Wolvie." With an athletes consciousness of her body that rarely translates in gravity, she fares slightly better than Jean in her own push for the airlock. Though she does manage to bump into it with an alarming thump. Whine.
Jean has a hand-hold. She and the hand-hold are going to be the -best of friends- and she's never letting go, if the grip she's applied to it is any indication. "Wonderful. Although this scenario does mean less to actually move, if it's fragmented smaller." The bright side is apparently being latched on to as firmly as the handhold as she uses her free hand to be sure that the tether line on her suit is securely fastened. "Buckled in over there?"
Jubilee holds onto /something/ and turns around to shake her tether at Jean.
"Alright Darlin's... hold on." And as if on cue the entire shuttle shakes as something collides with the hull, sending out a resonating 'Thung!' Slowly the airlock opens, and slides to the side revealing... nothing. Literally. The vast empty of space and a starry sky. And already bits of rock begin zooming past the door, from the size of a baseball, to the size of a trash can.
"Christ," says Jean again, finding comfort in blasphemy or prayer, whichever it is. "All right. We -really- do not want to connect with those, but..." There's a startled gasp as something goes pelting past the open airlock. "OK," says Jean, gnawing at her lower lip inside her suit. "If we spend our energy deflecting everything, there will be little left to move things with, but I -think- everything should be--- damn it, where's Hank? I'm not a physicist."
"There'll be little left o' /us/ if we /don't/ deflect them," Jubilee points out.
"We either need to start moving in the same direction at the same speed," Jean ponders, ducking back again at a THUMP that shakes the spacecraft. "...although we have to be close to it already, or we wouldn't survive what we're getting as-is-. But if we can't match speed, perhaps shield behind one of the larger chunks--"
"Just tell me what to blow up!" Jubilee grins, cheerful in her position as NOT mission leader.
Jean lifts a hand to run it through her hair distractedly. This makes her glove go 'clunk' against the side of her helmet. "I think we really need to have Dr. Lensherr down here for this scenario," is her verdict, but as a look in the airlock reveals no Magneto for this particular training run, she then looks glumly back out at the dark starfield, and the little moving patches of deeper darkness against it that say 'asteroid'. "All right," she decides. "Give us a spotlight out there, Logan, and I'm going to see if I can find us something to hide behind."
A spotlight is obediently flipped on, but no other words are heard over the intercom. It makes things rather eerie. Jubilee hauls herself as far out of the way as possible and shoots a glance at the doctor, impudence slowly fading as things get Serious.
Jean is very still inside her suit, but her breathing grows deeper, and her pulse, obediently monitored by sensors within the space suit, jumps up to a pitch more at home in an athlete just starting a marathon. Out in the now-even-more-twinkling starfield, a chunk of asteroid the size of an entertainment unit stutters suddenly in its' flight.
Around it, other smaller pieces of dust and debris woosh past or bounce off in a new direction, according to their proximately and flight path.
The chunk doesn't alter course for a moment, inertia laughing in the face of mutant powers. There's stillness from within the airlock, from within Jean's spacesuit, but across her face is a flicker of internal conflict, as her normal limits run up against what she's capable of if there's letting go. It's not with any real joy that her decision is made, but false flickers of flame begin to swirl around her all the same, if more tenuous due to the lack of atmosphere, and the conflict dissolves into a faraway look indeed. The rock moves.
"Jubilee," murmurs Jean. "Take care of any smaller chunks between us and that, please?"
"It's hard to track. Logan, can you... I dunno. Give me someplace to aim?" She pushes off to gain a better vantage point of incoming debris and sights on a larger, slow moving piece. She pulls upon her own reserves to channel energy into her hands; the typical glow is muted in the absence of oxygen to burn. It pulses and swirls like gas in water, then releases to sprint with surprising speed toward the target. Nothing happens for the space of a breath, and then the chunk expands out in all directions silently.
"Alright Red, no worries." Logan's voice calls out across the channels. It is a little lighter and a little less evil than the old man usually is while running the DR. "Alright, the read outs from the on board say that the first targets are just around the front side of the ship. You say the word, and I'll have the 'Pilot' reposition the shuttle how ya want it, Darlin's."
The trouble with a lack of friction is that the rock, once started, does not want to -stop-. This is problematic when the trajectory of it is now heading right for the Pegasus II. Her voice is darker and a little -more- evil than usual as she swears under her breath. The spectral light around her flares out, and the would-be shield rock splits in two as telekinesis squeezes at an unnoticed weak point. "God -damn- it!"
"You need me to blow that one?" Jubilee calls out, concern pitching /her/ voice higher.
Logan says nothing further. His channel goes light, and he moves his hand over the abort button in his console. For now: he waits.
Jean's answer is not in the form of a question. The half of the fragment still heading towards the ship is blasted back on a wave of frustration and ends up smacking into its sibling like a billiard ball. No more incoming large rocks. It being rather difficult to flop down into a seat in microgravity and a spacesuit, Jean gives up on any other bits of temper tantrum to instead offer an off-toned mutter of "Back at the damned start of the problem. Sorry." Inside the shuttle, and relayed to the control room, there are a lot of monitors unhappy with her blood pressure.
Jubilee hangs on to her handhold and bobs in place like a marshmellow floating in a punch bowl. "Can't we narrow /down/ the scenarios? I mean, isn't there any way of tracking the stuff?"
"From what I've heard, Bright Eyes, they have narrowed 'em down." Logan answers looking over the list of simulations in front of him. "We gotta idea 'bout whats up there, but there ain't gonna be no tellin' it all 'til..." And then the com goes light again, and he asks Jean specifically: "Want me to restart?" but the tone is clear: 'Want me to stop it?'
The marshmallow suit holding Jean settles itself back down on one of the airlock benches, one arm threaded through a handhold. A sigh crackles across the com, and with it the word "...No." Closing her eyes, she devotes some time to getting her mental house back in order, monitors showing a slowing heart and quieting breathing as meditative excercises take over. "This is, if I'm right, the scenario that says that the asteroid is incredibly brittle -- it has to be, to have this many bits in such a small area. The call here may be to just break down the biggest fragments, rather than redirect them. And I think this is one of the Magneto-or-death scenarios. We should," she sums up, "Be prepared for the -or-death, just in case. Since we have a setting where we don't have to go to that point."
"I need to know where our limits are," she concludes, giving context for the morbid plan.
"In that case, I'll just work on the big ones, right?" Since she's /really/ good at the pulverizing angle, but not so much anything else.
"All right, girl, I'm gonna line one of those big ones up for ya, then." Logan answers now none too happy with the situation. Momentum changes, the ship begins to move again, and the stares begin to spin slightly. "Putting you in a pocket... you'll have a few seconds clear, but that won't last long." And sure enough, he's honest to his word: The fragment that is lined up is massive, and thanks to being in its wake, there is less junk in the way.
"Big indeed." Jean confirms. "The smaller fragments will burn up in atmosphere, for the most part, or maybe take out someone's car. We want to focus on the ones that are... hell, let's say 50 meters across and up, and then work down when we run out of those, if we still have some brainpower left."
Jubilee nods. She may not be able to eyeball size to Jean's specifications, but focusing the OMFG THAT'S HUGE ones isn't so hard. Like the one slowly spinning toward the shuttle. She repeats the earlier performance, gauging and measuring the energy expenditure versus the need to 'get 'er done'.
"Jubilee," says Jean, with frustration and grimness suddenly cut through by the shiny gleam of an Idea. "Next one, let me try and see if I can 'feel' what it's shaped like. I know I've been practicing that aspect of telekinesis in my off time, and while the distance is big, there's not much distraction. I could find a weak spot, if it worked."
"Sure," she replies, a little wanly. The typical energy and exuberance is dimmed slightly in light of energy already used and being rationed for the future.
Wherein X-Men in the Danger Room learn that some scenarios really just need a Magneto along.
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Saturday, August 09, 2008, 11:39 PM
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=XS= Map Room - Lv B3 - Xavier's School
A room small by association with others on this floor, the Map Room shares with them the futuristic-utilitarian neutral grey colour scheme and use of cool metal accents with sharp, clean lines. The room is predominantly free of furnishings, although ample floor space for seating is present. Drawing the eye is a centrally-placed pedestal with what looks to be a circular, table-sized version of one of those pin-sculpture trays often found for sale at county fairs and flea markets. This one's a little more high-tech though: combined with sophisticated mapping software in the computer that's also part of the pedestal unit, it can accurately display moving images of terrain, buildings and other geographical features. An invaluable tool for briefings.
[Exits : [M]ain [H]allway]
Yet another one of the apparently-endeless series of underground X-Man rooms, the map room is big on the open space, and low on warmth. Thus, while Jean is poring over the map table, she is doing so with the addition of a thick knit sweater. "We can add scenario eleven to the list of situations that will fail horribly unless you're there," she reports, looking as wan and worn as only an X-Man fresh from the Danger Room can. That she doesn't -smell- like that suggests there has been a shower somewhere between then and now. "The fragments were too numerous and close for me to deal with using just brute force."
Magneto smells. Also, he is on the ceiling, and not paying attention. Having used whatever time he had between the scenario's end and now to dress himself back in slacks, shirt, and vest, he does not appear particularly bothered by the slow drain of blood into his head while his boots are planted against ceiling tiles. He watches the bulge of veins filling up with blood in the back of his right hand, instead.
"I -was- able to be of some use in using telekinesis to map the structure of the fragments," Jean soldiers on gamely, -not- looking up at the ceiling, although the set of her shoulders suggests that she's entirely too aware of the Magneto-fly on the wall. Inhaling a heavy breath, she offers that "It is, of course, something you can do with far greater finesse, but having that little bit removed from the burden-- are you -trying- to reenact that Kafka story?" Jean looks up, mild exasperation in her eyes.
Pop, pop. Pop. Erik's neck clicks at its base, settling into a more comfortable alignment. The space between his shoulders follows suit when he flexes and stretches his arms back, apparently at ease in his own little upsidedown world. "So far as I know, I have four limbs, zero antennae, and no wings, either." His voice is hoarse. Tired. Also, it is hard to talk upsidedown.
"You'd need to bring your Ellen here if you wanted that, in any case," Jean mutters, and steps away from the mapping table, leaving it paused in the middle of displaying the pockmarked surface of an entirely hypothetical fragment of space rock. Opting to remain in the loving arms of gravity, she finds a chair and settles in it. "Incidentally, if you'd rather just ignore the debriefing, I'd be glad to stop talking to myself."
"Alright," says Erik rather passively. There is an odd hum when he lifts one foot to plant it before the other. And so on, until he has taken three steps, and is directly above the hypothetical space rock. He cranes his neck to look up (down) at it, and the pins ripple and deform, reconstituting themselves into a rough approximation of the old brotherhood island.
The computer program controlling the pins object strenuously to such forced rearrangement, with the small electromagnets controlling the table's motion humming at a painful pitch before it gives up the ghost, blue screens, and leaves all the pins to hang limp and unresisting in the thrall of magnetism. Jean studies it from her chair between slitted eyes, one hand lifted to brace against her forehead and tangle fingers in auburn hair. One eyebrow flickers slightly at the image. "Are you looking for an apology?" she wonders, tone less inflectionless and more simply tired.
"I have never had much use for apologies." His ability to stay up on the ceiling this long without passing out is improbable, but he still seems relatively unbothered, and even paces several steps away before executing a neat, straight-legged flip that lands him on the ground again.
"I might have noticed," Jean offers dryly. She slouches in her seat, abandoning the prim Dr. Grey posture of upstairs in favour of a slide halfway out of her seat to leave long legs sprawling across the floor in contract to the neat landing. "Just as well. I'm not sure how much of one would be honest. But what do -you- propose for a scenario eleven situation, if it came up?"
"We could simply antagonize you into losing your mind. You might murder everyone aboard, but you should have more than enough in your personal reserves to divert the greatest of asteroids. Should you see fit to spare the planet, of course." Perfectly logical and even in posture and address despite the fact that his hair is still damp with sweat, Erik paces back to the map table. His right hand passes over it, and pins lick up after it, eager in their obedience.
"By my best estimates, it took Jason and Emma several weeks of sleep deprivation to do that to me," says Jean, the bristle at his suggestion, and the flicker of fear at the thought of it being converted into a painfully crisp tone as she looks up from her slouch, no longer boneless. "Too late. Although--" But while Uncle Erik may have been a confidant for youthful fears, it appears Magneto is less of one. Jean rises, and wanders along an edge of the room.
Magneto's mouth thins into a sidelong smirk at the unmistakable prickle of her reaction, square hand splayed to recall a different scene. A shabby motel, unfamiliar to Jean's eyes. He looks over it carefully, altering details here and there, then allows it to fall away into nothing. He does not say anything at all, perpetually unhelpful.
Jean makes a noise low in her throat, undefined but irritable. She paces more firmly, making a slow circuit of the room to head back towards the door out. "It's wired in the part of my brain in charge of managing the bulk of my power," she finally states, one hand on the door frame. "I'll have to call on that. If it takes over irrevocably, I'd appreciate it if you'd kill me." Confession made, she hits the command pad of the door with her palm, seeking escape.
"What is one more death on my conscience when I would see the entire world to its end, after all." Voice little more than a low growl, Erik spins out something that resembles a wide strand of DNA, winding it once around the table's sprawl before he allows it to fall flat again, and steps over to the accompanying computer.
"Well, do it -after- I move the rocks, then," says Jean, pausing in the doorway. "But I shouldn't think I'd trouble your conscience all that much any more."
"If you decide to move them," Erik reminds, tapping out a command line that sees the beast restarted. "I don't think I have a conscience, to be entirely honest. If I did, I'm sure you would trouble it."
"I suspect I would," Jean reflects, oddly thoughtful as she draws away from the door, but not yet resuming her pacing or her sitting. "Self-preservation remains, and I can't survive in a vaccuum. Only one way home... and I suppose that's something," is her belated thought on consciences and regrets. "Did Charles make off with it?"
Magneto's spine stiffens a little, the line of his shoulders suddenly /very/ straight beneath the neat cut of his vest. His jaw hollows somewhat as well, jowls tucked to his neck while he patiently waits for the the computer to revive itself. He says nothing.
"No," Jean decides, settling in her seat again, and studying him sidelong across the room. "He'd be more likely to try and stuff one into you." One hand waves vaguely, dismissing the line of thought and the resulting bristle, as she resumes staring at the pin table. "I'd like to try running scenario eleven with you along." quoth she, taking refuge in business.
A noncommital frown is Erik's answer, in the way of him not really having anything better to do while he's trapped down here and surrounded by the X-Men. His fingers flex over the keyboard, still waiting. His spine remains rigid. "I'm going to need the helmet that I left here. For Xorn."
The computer program just isn't all that happy. It gives Magneto a blue screen to tell him so. Jean, meanwhile, gives a slight nod. "I'll see where Charles stowed it away," she assures, and then lapses into the half-aware state of a telepath poking interrogatively at another.
Magneto's thoughts are black and cold beneath the rugged surface that guards them. They are of things like dying alone and hating everyone. It isn't a pleasant place to be, and even the surface, usually alive with venting steam and the occasional earthquake, is lunar in its stillness. A flick of one finger shuts the computer down again with an ill-advised flicker of electromagnetism, and he restarts it again.
Although Jean's thoughts are for Charles, such a forceful psyche as Magneto's at such close range has a certain amount of spill to it. Unreasonably unsettled, her eyes fly open wide to stare at him, before she rises, arms wrapped about herself. "I'm going to go talk to Charles," she informs, with more portent to the hypothetical conversation than there was before. She goes then, and stands not upon the order of her going, with just a bare flicker to another X-Man mind that the Old Man is being left alone by her.
Magneto is immune to staring, apparently. He registers the look, but chooses to ignore it, prodding again at the keys when a more promising black screen comes to light. The wiry muscles in his neck remain taut, and he nods.
Swish. The door opens, untroubled by such glitches as beset the computer, and Jean is gone, with her own tension to deal with.
They are such up people.