ArchivedLogs:Vignette - Early Summers' Morning

Vignette - Early Summers' Morning
Dramatis Personae Scott Summers
In Absentia	2013-05-14 Scott wants to go back to bed.
Location <XS> Roof
Outside it was the early morning. The sun had not yet crept over the horizon as one man sat in his plaid robe clutching his coffee mug with both hands in a deck chair on the roof of the Xavier School. Normally, he would make the effort to get dressed and look professional before he would ever dream of stepping outside his room. Today he was a little shaken. Most of the lights besides a couple of guides were off on the roof, too, so it was mostly laptop light that bathed his face. It was a sallow and unshaven face, a sloppy mess. And yet all Scott could do was watch scrolling RSS feeds, news outlet updates, Twitter. There was another coffee mug next to this computing device, for double-fisted caffeine consumption fury. All he could do was swallow nervously. Summers prided himself on his courage and conviction, but all he could see right now when he looked out on the grounds of this scenic Salem hideaway awash in wee-hour darkness were the borders closing in. Reporters, self-appointed minute men, the National Guard. The haven that his mentor Charles Xavier had carved out for the children Scott had been charged with – the head count for which had already been incongruous – was in dire jeopardy. And he was at the center of it. Yesterday, he’d given it absolutely no consideration. Rasa Djalili had been in danger, and he, Walters, and Wagner had been there to answer the call for help. That was the long and short of the matter in that moment. The important thing was that she was safe. Things had escalated in a way that could have been predictable. Perhaps if there’d been time to investigate… Scott shakily took a slurp of coffee with a shaky hand, leaning back in the deck chair and caressing his aching temple. @brooklynbrijjit had tweeted, “these people have to be crawling out of somewhere #dismantleterrorism #newyorkcrusaders”. A laundry list of reply tweets quickly followed, as the internet was ablaze with chatter. People were already hyper conscious. Now things were taking a terrible turn. People were getting anxious, and when they got anxious, they’d get vicious. It was Oscorp, Summers. He slapped his forehead a couple of times over this stupid-ass mistake, his teeth grinding. Not just a high profile weapons manufacturer and already a bona-fide symbol of American might on a world stage – one that he and the X-men had just waged war on - but Norman Osborn had just made his Institute announcement. Whatever troublesome angle there was with that operation, you could bet that Scott had just helped hasten the subsequent legislation and legal precedent’s signing into law regarding mutants. The idea of mutants being herded into its doors and divvied up into Seals squads made him physically ill. He put his hand over his mouth to suppress a disgusted upheaval of his stomach’s contents. He wondered if Xavier could hear the poison coming out of Scott’s imagination from up here. Either way, he was sure he’d be hearing from him in person inside a day’s time. Slurp.