Logs:A Very Valuable Asset

A Very Valuable Asset
Dramatis Personae Cerebro, Halim, Scott	2024-05-06 Bloody troll.
Location <XAV> Back Patio - Xs Grounds
This patio is expertly laid out for relaxing singly or in groups. The section nearest the back door is a more or less conventional veranda, the mansion's eaves--supported by elegant white wooden columns joined with matching railings--extending out to shelter the long porch swings, rocking chairs, and a chess table from the elements. Down the stairs or the ramp from this is a fan-shaped expanse of slate flagstones populated by clusters of deck chairs and picnic tables, always changing in number and arrangement, and stone planter boxes bursting with seasonal flowers and ornamentals. The centerpiece is an elegant pavilion with a hot tub open for use year-round, even if the transition in and out may prove chilly in snowy weather. There is definitely class happening, right now, and probably most kids are in it. It's the expectation that Kids Would Be In Class that has Halim venturing out of his room for perhaps the first time since he was installed there. He's dressed extremely bland, grey tee shirt and jeans, kind of skulking his way down from the third floor largely unperceived (... by the children) by dint of carefully attending the security cameras on his way. But now he's arrived out on the back patio and kind of -- frozen, still and blank-faced and statuelike, upon encountering not one or two but three children, enjoying a more leisurely breakfast in their morning free period. It takes him an awkwardly long time to recalibrate his expectations and by the time he has put his brain back in gear the teenagers have relocated their meal and chatter to the conservatory, where hopefully there will be no strange men doing Weeping Angels impressions. With the patio thus cleared of dangers, Halim -- mostly still just stands there, actually. He's frowning at the space the kids had been sitting in an uncertain contemplation. Scott, like these surprise (and surprised) children, has a free period now that he was probably planning to spend doing some gardening, in jeans and a buttoned-up, rust-brown flannel, but with knee pads and a canvas gardening bag (identical to his canvas toolbag but differently stocked and differently dirty.) Though he shuts the door purposely behind him as he leaves the mansion he pauses once he sees the other man here; there's a definite sense that behind his opaque glasses that he blinked. "Good to see you out and about," he ventures, in a brusque, bracing tone. "Been a busy couple weeks here, but I promise it's usually a little quieter than..." he shrugs one shoulder and trails awkwardly off. Cerebro's presence on the school's network is at once pervasive and weirdly elusive to Halim's senses, but it becomes abruptly more focused when the ~~invading~~ visiting technopath sets foot outside of his room. The fleet of drones that perform various tasks around the grounds are just drones until Halim draws near, at which point their bandwidth use spike dramatically as the school's sysadmin takes direct control of them from afar(?). And when he moves on they lapse back into (semi)autonomy. None of them follow or approach him, at least not until Scott does, whereupon a small jeweltone robot bee flies up and lands on the back of a chair. Perched, and sat, and nothing more. Halim also does not react -- at first -- to Scott's presence, at least not much. His brows start to crease, and then perhaps think better of this. The arrival of the bee does finally put him back into motion. It's sensible to Cerebro first, a (perhaps still disconcertingly) effortless flex that folds the bee into himself. The bee lifts from its perch, relocating to sit, instead, on Scott's gardening bag. Halim moves to take a seat in the chair the bee has just vacated, nevermind that there are several other available seats and that this one was perfectly usable without touching the drone. His mind is withdrawing from the bee as silent and swift as it came. "You plan poorly." He's finally addressing Scott with this, though it might not be apparent until, at a short delay, he turns slightly in his seat to level a look (almost as blank as the other man's, though without the assistance of Visor) at the X-Man. "You are far over the enrollment cap." Probably Scott is blinking again, first down at the robotic bee on the porch, then -- perhaps with offense -- at this slight to his planning ability, but perhaps his interactions with Halim so far have been too unplanned to mount much defense. He shrugs the same shoulder again. "Shit happens." "Bloody troll." Cerebro's voice, when it issues from the drone, only carries a mild sort of exasperation. "See, this is why I wanted to keep an eye on him," is presumably addressed to Scott. Then the bee takes off again and hovers in the air just out of Halim's (physical) reach, as if that would actually stop him jacking control of the drone again. "You do realize you can just say 'leave me alone' if that's what you want?" "Will happen. The likelihood of successfully preventing powers-related casualties with the guard-student ratio so severely imbalanced --" Kind of idly, Halim is moving the bee again. Further back, just for a moment, while he relocates from his current chair to an identical chair beside it. He sets the bee back down in its original position on the back of the first chair. "Is that what you want?" Scott presses his lips thinly together -- perhaps in amusement, at Cerebro's interjection, but then with fierce severity. "This is not a prison. And we do alright for ourselves," he says, though -- unfortunately -- he seems to feel forced by recent events to qualify this, too, with: "Usually." But as he is watching this bizarre bee choreography he seems amused again, this time in spite of himself, though perhaps he is not keeping entirely abreast of who is controlling what at what time -- he is addressing the drone now, rather than Halim, with, "Do you want to be left alone? I just wanted to make sure you're," some irony has crept into his voice here, "comfortable." "No. I want you." Cerebro overenunciates, as though trying to explain a complicated concept (badly) to someone with poor command of English. "To kindly keep your signal out of my drones. I'm sure you're used to --" When his words cut off they cut off very abruptly. And start again abruptly, too. "If you want drones, you could bloody well ask. Or at least take only the ones I am not using. The way I'm using this one." The bee cants its head at Scott. "For your information, him jerking my drone around is the rough equivalent of a telepath jerking your body around." There's an almost audible ellipsis in his brief pause. "Or your hands, anyway. And eyes, also." "Could have said leave me alone," Halim replies. He doesn't touch the bee again. "I'm used to --" He doesn't finish this. He's looking a little distant, just for the moment. "Usually you have Matt Tessier. Usually not so many time bombs for each of you. I don't," this admission comes in the same flat tone, "know what I'm used to. I shot you." He's looking, now, more to Scott's arm than his face. "Is that comfortable?" The press of Scott's mouth is distinctly amused for a moment, but then he is looking away, tapping his gardening bag absently against his leg (this would be gentle if not for the metallic clank of the tools within.) He drops his gaze to his arm now -- his other arm, not holding the bag -- and tilts his head. "It's on the mend," he says. "And you didn't shoot me. A Sentinel shot me." Cerebro's sigh is remarkably clear and not very much like something breathed into a microphone and out of a speaker. "If I'd wanted to be left alone, I wouldn't be here. I just don't want to be grabbed. You should know very well what that's like." The bee buzzes its wings and grooms its antennae. "That Sentinel wasn't you anymore, when it shot him. You weren't shooting live rounds." "I was a lot of Sentinels." Halim's eyes track to the clinking of the bag. Then lower to the flagstones. "I was also getting kidnapped. Sentinels just see a lot of terrorists attacking a federal official." He's turning, looking past Scott now to the windows back inside, the children eating under the trees. "You think HAMMER is going to distinguish." Scott tilts his head in the other direction; the gardening bag at his side goes still again. "Would HAMMER have distinguished if we hadn't intervened? Half of the team that attacked you were our allies last year. Our fates as mutants are intertwined whether we want them to be or not, and the Brotherhood has stirred a lot of ill will against our people already. God knows I wouldn't like them to succeed in everything they try." His opaque gaze slides back to fix on Halim -- "But nor do I want to see them all slaughtered." "Of course not." Cerebro scoffs. "Even if Malthus Rogers didn't want us all dead -- and he probably does -- the X-Men are terrorists, per the USA PATRIOT Act definition. There are a thousand and one reasons government might come after the school, if they need a reason at all. That's why I was so terrified, after Halim hitched a ride back with me and Joshua." "Terrorists on their radar, now. Stole. Very valuable asset." Halim is still looking at the window, steadily. "-- Hated Jackson. Hates you, now. DO you have a plan. For that?" "To be fair," says Scott, now comfortably, characteristically humorless again, "the Brotherhood stole you. We were honestly just there to chat." Does he have a plan? He tucks his free hand into the pocket of his jeans, thumb tapping very lightly at the denim; his ruby lenses still point unwaveringly at Halim. "We have not survived this long for nothing. Besides," shrug, "HAMMER recently lost a very valuable asset." "We've survived this long by hiding." Cerebro's drone takes off again and circles Scott to hover in front of him. "By being small. Staying out of the fray. Flying under the radar. That has gotten harder and harder, and I know that because I'm the poor sod who puts out every digital fire that might expose us." The bee rotates in place to Halim, then back to Scott. "Okay, that fire was kind of on me. But even Charles is starting to realize this isn't enough, and he --" The bee seems to droop a little mid-flight. "You should ask him about Utopia sometime. And make better plans." Halim's lips twitch, very slight, at Scott's last words. It doesn't quite amount to a smile. He pulls his eyes finally away from the window and the students relaxing beyond, gaze fixing for a long moment on Scott. The small quirk fades back away when Cerebro speaks. The small dip of Halim's head might be a nod, but it is hard to tell. He turns forward in his chair again, silent as he sets it slowly to rocking. Scott lifts his head away from Halim to regard the bee, his expression still schooled into neutrality. He doesn't say anything either, for a long moment, before he adjusts his grip on his gardening bag (the tools clank against each other just once) and sidesteps the bee neatly, heading down the steps, past the flowerboxes, around the corner out of view. At least in theory out of view.