[fic] We'll Have It Good
For skids_sally for the song drabble meme.
Sally takes the photos--
It's Genosha, and she has to get a note to miss classes without getting black marks against her attendance records. There's all sorts of problems with the foreign ... places going people that she likes to pretend are all about Genosha being a barely recognised country and not at all about genes. It's kind of odd passing through a customs gate that's in the middle of a building miles and miles from any physical border. She has to bite her tongue to stop herself yelling at the agents when they ruin two rolls of film by opening a box in direct light that quite plaining says "Do Not Open In Direct Light" on it. They make her sign into her laptop and go through it, so that's an hour of her life and her battery power she's never getting back.
When she's finally allowed to step through the transit gate, she manages exactly half a sigh of relief before alarms go off around her and there's a chuckling guard taking her laptop away again and explaining that bugs are always planted on every visitor.
"Why do you think Mike always sneaks everybody in through the Citadel?" the guard asks. Her name is Alice, at least according to her badge, and she speaks English with an odd accent Sally can't quite place, somehow both French and South African at the same time.
"I was trying to show we have nothing to hide," Sally complains. "We're law-abiding citizens."
"Oooh." Alice tuts and shakes her head with amusement. "They hate that the worse, chérie. There -- all clean."
"Why do they bother if you just remove them? If they know you know--"
"Politics."
"That makes no sense."
Alice laughs again. "Like I said."
The supplied driver proves rather more surly -- in total, he says maybe two dozen words to her the entire time she is on the island -- but Sally takes this in her stride, using her digital camera to take shot after shot on the ride. She'll come back and use film for the things she likes the best (or rework digitally if the light goes). Mr Surly is, at least, a good driver; she barely feels the bumps and twists in what passes for a road.
A statue made of dead Sentinels dominates the skyline here, dark against the twisted coral spires of the Star Citadel beyond, the ocean beyond that. On the slow turn in, the sun gets caught behind the island and she snaps off a shot, half Magneto, half Charles, gold haloed and black against the ice white towers, the glittering blue-green water, the pinking sky.
There are people then, pulling her this way and that, and Sally takes the photos as the world offers them to her, smiles and laughter and stern grins, sweat on working muscles, frustrated tears, blooded gloves still working, loud moments and soft, bright and dark and half-lit, Sally takes the photos.
She's watching the fishing boats go out -- little things with sails instead of motors, nets thrown and winched by hands, even though Genosha has more than enough technology to do it the modern way -- when Mike finally appears, sitting on the balcony wall, legs dangling over the drop down to the surf below. Sally finds herself wondering if people still fear falling when they know they can fly. Mike looks amused, so she glares at him in case he was reading her mind without permission, because telepaths were sneaky like that.
"Having fun?" he asks and then, not waiting for an answer, "People like you. The kids especially."
"I'm glad," Sally says. He twists around in his seat to watch her, in that annoying way of his. Sally resists the urge to raise her shield and push a little. "What am I doing here? It's not that I don't appreciate the exposure, or what you're doing, but--"
"In centuries to come, the conservatives will blame you, you know," Mike interrupts.
Sally stares. He just grins until she gives in and asks, "Okay, for what?"
"For shaping a future where the notion that all people are born equal, with unalienable rights, is not just a pretty introduction but a universally assumed precept; for putting faces on and souls within the enemy, so that slowly, but surely, we are all humanised." Mike beams at her. "That's what you're doing, right now. Saving people, one shot at a time."
"Right," says Sally.
"This," Mike says sincerely, reaching out to tap her camera, "is how you change the world. This is how you make history, backwards and forwards."
After a moment, Sally smiles back at him. "You really believe that?"
"Absotively," Mike insists. "You're a national treasure."
Sally grins at the thought, and then shoves him off the balcony. He yelps, tumbling out, catching himself half-way down and flying back up towards her.
"Uh-uh!" she calls. "No blasting the National Treasure!"
When he huffs at her, half-amused, half-exasperated, Sally snaps off one last shot, and later, back in New York, she uses it as a centrepiece of the show and laughs and laughs when he sulks about it for days and again when, despite everything else, it's still there when the gallery finally opens.
Sally takes the photos--
It's Genosha, and she has to get a note to miss classes without getting black marks against her attendance records. There's all sorts of problems with the foreign ... places going people that she likes to pretend are all about Genosha being a barely recognised country and not at all about genes. It's kind of odd passing through a customs gate that's in the middle of a building miles and miles from any physical border. She has to bite her tongue to stop herself yelling at the agents when they ruin two rolls of film by opening a box in direct light that quite plaining says "Do Not Open In Direct Light" on it. They make her sign into her laptop and go through it, so that's an hour of her life and her battery power she's never getting back.
When she's finally allowed to step through the transit gate, she manages exactly half a sigh of relief before alarms go off around her and there's a chuckling guard taking her laptop away again and explaining that bugs are always planted on every visitor.
"Why do you think Mike always sneaks everybody in through the Citadel?" the guard asks. Her name is Alice, at least according to her badge, and she speaks English with an odd accent Sally can't quite place, somehow both French and South African at the same time.
"I was trying to show we have nothing to hide," Sally complains. "We're law-abiding citizens."
"Oooh." Alice tuts and shakes her head with amusement. "They hate that the worse, chérie. There -- all clean."
"Why do they bother if you just remove them? If they know you know--"
"Politics."
"That makes no sense."
Alice laughs again. "Like I said."
The supplied driver proves rather more surly -- in total, he says maybe two dozen words to her the entire time she is on the island -- but Sally takes this in her stride, using her digital camera to take shot after shot on the ride. She'll come back and use film for the things she likes the best (or rework digitally if the light goes). Mr Surly is, at least, a good driver; she barely feels the bumps and twists in what passes for a road.
A statue made of dead Sentinels dominates the skyline here, dark against the twisted coral spires of the Star Citadel beyond, the ocean beyond that. On the slow turn in, the sun gets caught behind the island and she snaps off a shot, half Magneto, half Charles, gold haloed and black against the ice white towers, the glittering blue-green water, the pinking sky.
There are people then, pulling her this way and that, and Sally takes the photos as the world offers them to her, smiles and laughter and stern grins, sweat on working muscles, frustrated tears, blooded gloves still working, loud moments and soft, bright and dark and half-lit, Sally takes the photos.
She's watching the fishing boats go out -- little things with sails instead of motors, nets thrown and winched by hands, even though Genosha has more than enough technology to do it the modern way -- when Mike finally appears, sitting on the balcony wall, legs dangling over the drop down to the surf below. Sally finds herself wondering if people still fear falling when they know they can fly. Mike looks amused, so she glares at him in case he was reading her mind without permission, because telepaths were sneaky like that.
"Having fun?" he asks and then, not waiting for an answer, "People like you. The kids especially."
"I'm glad," Sally says. He twists around in his seat to watch her, in that annoying way of his. Sally resists the urge to raise her shield and push a little. "What am I doing here? It's not that I don't appreciate the exposure, or what you're doing, but--"
"In centuries to come, the conservatives will blame you, you know," Mike interrupts.
Sally stares. He just grins until she gives in and asks, "Okay, for what?"
"For shaping a future where the notion that all people are born equal, with unalienable rights, is not just a pretty introduction but a universally assumed precept; for putting faces on and souls within the enemy, so that slowly, but surely, we are all humanised." Mike beams at her. "That's what you're doing, right now. Saving people, one shot at a time."
"Right," says Sally.
"This," Mike says sincerely, reaching out to tap her camera, "is how you change the world. This is how you make history, backwards and forwards."
After a moment, Sally smiles back at him. "You really believe that?"
"Absotively," Mike insists. "You're a national treasure."
Sally grins at the thought, and then shoves him off the balcony. He yelps, tumbling out, catching himself half-way down and flying back up towards her.
"Uh-uh!" she calls. "No blasting the National Treasure!"
When he huffs at her, half-amused, half-exasperated, Sally snaps off one last shot, and later, back in New York, she uses it as a centrepiece of the show and laughs and laughs when he sulks about it for days and again when, despite everything else, it's still there when the gallery finally opens.