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Chapter Two
Project Freedom Force

The mansion was quiet. They’d finally managed to run the last of the little ones to bed, even after a round of tearful “Ms. Munroe, puh-leeze, just five more minutes.” She’d settled in the kitchen with a bowl of Chocolate Delight while listening to Logan and Alex drone on about basketball. Or were they talking about small motors, now? Didn’t matter. She was using her momentary freedom to wrap up her stray thoughts.

Earlier, she’d held a meeting about her conference with the CSA. The Commission on Superhuman Activities was barely forming when the Statue of Liberty incident happened. It was still just a ragtag group of selected individuals who thought they were qualified to police mutants headed by Steve Rogers. The first time the Professor mentioned them to her she thought it was a joke. What did they hope to accomplish?

After meeting them face to face for the first time and listening to their agenda, she could tell they were willing to go to whatever means necessary to ensure the safety of the general populace”all with the blessings of the president. Right now, they were “investigating” the institute, had been since the fiasco with Stryker, assertively so since the Alcatraz incident.

Forget they’d help them against Magneto. This was war, and if they weren’t in line with the government, then, they were against them. She’d been grilled for hours on the school, their motives, what they hoped to achieve. When she tried to get across that they wanted to promote peace and teach young mutants how to control their powers, one of the CSA agents told her that you didn’t train soldiers if you weren’t going to war.

She didn’t respond to him, hadn’t known how to respond to that allegation. She felt, in part, that might’ve been true. She was teaching them the same things she’d learned when she was a student at the institute. She was stimulating their brains while training them to use their powers for good. She could argue that she was preparing them for the real world, but plenty of mutants survived in the real world without knowing how to unarm a man by using their powers.

She was unable to ascertain whether they really had it out for her or not, but she knew one thing for sure. If she crossed the line, if they felt her school posed a real threat, they’d tear it to the ground before they’d have another Alcatraz. To them, Alcatraz was bigger than what happened at the Statue of Liberty or Alkali Lake. The culmination of such power was terrifying, and they wouldn’t let it happen again.

In other words, Big Brother was watching them.

The thought of going up against the government to protect the children was a terrifying thought. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d been considered enemies of the United States, and she’d let them feel the full fury of her wrath before she let them harm anyone in the mansion. Precarious times, indeed.

“I had dinner with Steve,” she said. Her face warmed when she realized how that sounded. It wasn’t an intimate dinner. It was “off record,” but it wasn’t personal by a long shot.

“What happened to Mr. Rogers? And dinner alone with Mr. Rogers, excuse me, Steve? This is serious,” Alex said with a waggle of his eyebrows. Scruffs of dull green hair”the result of the numerous washings he’d given it”fell into his eyes. She felt like reaching over to pinch him just like she used to do when they were lab partners and he started making stupid jokes. “You’ve been fraternizing with the enemy? Way to go, Munroe. We always need more friends in Washington.”

“Can it, blondie, an’ let her finish what she’s tryin’ to say,” Logan said, opening the fridge in search of something stronger than orange juice and milk. No luck. Orange juice it was, then. They were really going to have to talk about this “no beer” rule. He turned just in time to see Alex sticking out his tongue at him. Ororo snorted at Alex. He couldn’t say it wasn’t nice to see her smiling again, though. And she did a lot of that while the younger Summers was around, even though they were always squabbling like they were siblings.

“Did he tell you that you were pretty?” Alex said in a sing-songy voice. “Did you kiss him?”

Kiss this, Ororo told Alex silently as she moved her hands to her lap, flashing Alex two middle finger “F-U’s” under the table for decorum’s sake. She knew she shouldn’t be giving him the finger. Next time, she’d make sure the dye in his shampoo was bright pink and permanent.

“That’s not nice,” he mouthed her way with a chuckle. He didn’t have to see her hands to know she was flipping him off. She used to do that sort of thing back when they were still Charles’ pupils after he’d said or done something to piss her off like taping the bra she’d left in the laundry room to her door. Well, he’d earned himself more than a pair of middle fingers for that one. He’d known it was hers because she was the only girl in the mansion who was still wearing granny panties and plain white bras at the time.

It wasn’t personal. He did it all the time because someone was always leaving something in the laundry room. Hell, he taped his own brother’s tighty-whiteys to his door, and he’d known they were his because of the S. Summers written on the waistband. Dork. But talk about Scott losing it. He sighed to himself as a sharp pain gripped his heart at the memory. His smile faltered for just a second. He should’ve been here. Maybe his brother would still be alive. His eyes skimmed Ororo’s face, hoping she hadn’t seen the slip. He summoned up a smile.

Ororo didn’t miss the slight pain that crossed his face. She felt it, too, felt it every time she shared a private memory with him. Out of all the friends who showed their support for the school during their time of need, Alex was the hardest person to look at sometimes because his grief mirrored her own. Sometimes, he was the only face she wanted to see when she opened her eyes for that fact. They could sit in silence for hours”in the rare event they were granted that kind of time”just reflecting.

“Anyway, Steve”” Ororo paused and glared at Alex when he made kissy faces her way. “Mr. Rogers said the CSA are implementing a rehabilitation program for convicted super-criminals.”

“Is there anything that can’t be rehabbed these days?” Alex asked, dipping his finger into Ororo’s ice cream bowl, scooping a chocolate glob with one finger, and licking it from his finger.

“That’s disgusting, Alex.” She couldn’t believe he still did that. He was notorious for sticking his fingers in other people’s food when they were younger, especially ice cream.

“Like you’re not gonna eat it, anyway, O.” He gave her a look that dared her to tell him he was wrong. Parting her from chocolate was like trying to part someone from their skin, it wasn’t happening without some pain and suffering.

“Only because your nasty finger wasn’t in it longer than five seconds,” she mumbled around her spoon. They’d implemented the five-second rule in the mansion because of Alex. It was like the three-second rule when you dropped food on the floor. If Alex’s hand wasn’t in their food longer than five seconds, it was still edible. She wasn’t sure what it was supposed to accomplish other than making them feel less gross because they still wanted to eat their food despite Alex’s grubby fingers.

Logan rolled his eyes, feeling like the only responsible adult in the kitchen right now. “What is this program supposed to do?” he interrupted.

“Well, the criminals agree to join the program in lieu of jail. They’re calling it Project Freedom Force.”

“That’s an odd name for it,” Logan said. The “project” part already made it shady in his book, especially if it was important enough to warrant them giving leniency to criminals. Probably meant they were going to poke around on their insides like they were a bunch of lab rats. He didn’t know if that was really a better alternative than stuffing them in one of the new super prisons.

“Wait until I finish telling you about the program. They plan to put them through a rigorous yearlong program that’s supposed to address their psychological issues. I guess that’s a nice way of saying they’re aggressively trying to purge them of their evil.”

“Do you think it’ll work?” Alex asked as Ororo slapped his hand away from her bowl.

“I’m not sure to be honest. Steve didn’t get into the specifics of what they actually do to them.” And she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She wanted to believe they would do what was right to help them without resorting to coercion. Steve seemed like an honest person. He said that he and another CSA agent, Valerie Cooper, would be overseeing most of the program. Unlike some of the other agents of the CSA, Valerie and Steve had treated her warmly. The others were suspicious, but she didn’t blame them.

“It ain’t gonna work,” Logan said before gulping down a glass of O.J. He probably would’ve drunk it straight from the carton if she wasn’t around. He might as well if she was going to eat ice cream that Alex stirred his finger around in. Logan bet she wouldn’t yell at Alex if he drank out the carton”five-second rule withstanding.

“I don’t know, Logan. Maybe it could if they’re receptive to it and genuinely want the second chance. But here’s the clincher.” She paused because she knew this wasn’t going to settle well. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it yet. “After the end of this one-year tenure, they plan to train them as field agents.”

“Field agents for what?” Alex asked, searching through the drawers for a spoon. When he retrieved his spoon, he took his seat across from Ororo at the table and dipped his spoon in her bowl. She glared at him. He shrugged. It was easier just to mooch off her than to actually go through all the trouble of getting his own bowl. Didn’t she know that?

“They’re going to use them to track down other super-criminals.” She winced as Alex let his spoon clack against the glass bowl in surprise. Yeah, she had a similar reaction over her spring salad when Steve told her.

Logan walked closer to the island table. Oh hell no. He didn’t like the sound of that. “So, they’re a military strike force, in other words. What do they think we’re doin’?” he asked, starting to fume. Did they think he did this for his health? He could think of better things to do than being thrown through walls by these “super-criminals.”

“Not enough, apparently,” she said. She guessed they didn’t deal with them in the decisive fashion that the government seemed to prefer. “They’re already training their first six subjects, have been for nearly a year. Well, they’ve been working with four of them for a year, anyway.”

“Who are they?” Logan wanted to know everything she knew about this.

“Mystique recently started. That was part of her clemency deal. Even though she’s depowered, she’s still formidable. They plan to make her the co-leader of the Freedom Force. There’s a Dominic Petros. They call him Avalanche. He generates vibrations from his hands that cause earthquakes. He’s the youngest person in the project.”

“How old is he?” Logan asked.

“Eighteen. He was tried and convicted for blackmailing the whole state of California,” she said, giving them the very short version of Dominic’s endeavors. Logan raised his eyebrows at her. “He threatened to rip it off the map with a powerful earthquake if they didn’t acquiesce to his demands.”

“Way to go, kid. That was kind of smart,” Alex mused. Logan and Ororo stared at him hard. “I’m not saying what he did was right. I’m just saying that’s beyond most teenaged thinking. Most kids that age are trying to impress girls with their powers. I know I was. If I were a bad guy… Oh, never mind.”

“There’s the Maximoff twins,” Ororo continued with a shake of her head.

“Wanda and Pietro? What did they do?” Alex said. His eyes widened in surprise. He hadn’t seen or heard from them in years. He figured they were just off doing their own thing, being adventurers, like he had since leaving the institute.

“I don’t know, but whatever it was it was serious.” Steve had tried to give her the details, but whatever her old friends had done, she didn’t want to know. She would rather believe whatever they’d done it was for some valid reason.

“Who are they?” Logan asked. Ororo and Alex were exchanging all kind of strange looks with each other. He hated being in the goddamned dark about things, sometimes, especially when it came to people he might have to punch in the face.

“Those are Mags kids. Pietro’s a speedster. Wanda manipulates probability. We all attended school here back when the Professor and Erik were like this,” Alex said, crossing his fingers. “Erik and Pietro never really saw eye to eye, but both of them would’ve done anything for Wanda. I don’t think they’ve been in contact with Magneto since he tried to cripple Pietro. Wanda broke his heart when she chose to leave with her brother.”

Logan watched Alex and Ororo share a grim glance. Ororo broke the look first as she looked down in her bowl. She swirled her spoon lazily in her melting ice cream. There was more to the story. He guessed he’d learn in time. Until it came out, that would give him time to wrap his mind around the fact that bucket-head had kids. “Who are the other two?” Logan pushed, bringing their attention back to him.

She looked at him, then back at the bowl. He definitely wasn’t going to like this. She barely liked it. “Victor Creed and Mortimer Toynbee,” she said so quickly that she hoped she wasn’t understandable.

“What?” his voice snaked low and dangerous through the kitchen. “They’re gonna let that psychotic asshole loose? Don’t they see this is just the opportunity he’s waitin’ for? And didn’t you fry that little green bastard?” He wasn’t surprised that Creed survived the Statue of Liberty incident, but Toad”he hadn’t seen that one coming. He was sure Toad being alive wasn’t from any lack of trying on her part.

“I know that’s a tough one to swallow.” She slid her bowl toward Alex. She wasn’t in the mood for ice cream anymore. She watched him push it to the side. She guessed she wasn’t the only one.

“Mystique, Sabretooth, and Toad together again? They think that’s a smart move?” He wondered who this one could be credited to.

“Since when has the government done anything that could be called ‘smart’?” Alex asked, adding the finger quotes to the word smart.

“I’m still maintainin’ it ain’t gonna work.” Logan crossed his arms to underscore his point. And he hope Ororo rubbed it all in this Steve’s face when they had to go in and clean up their mess.

“Did you trust the Professor, Logan?” she asked softly. She had a couple of more things to get out in regards to this.

He didn’t know if he always believed the old man didn’t go snooping around in other people’s heads, but he always thought Charles had a good heart, one that was too good for this world. “Yeah, I did.”

“Then, you’ll have to trust this will work. Charles submitted these plans to the government years ago according to the information I read. He believed that mutant criminals could be rehabilitated. The reward for their dedication to starting anew would be to reintroduce them into society and give them meaningful jobs to show there was something more for them. Of course, the government has tweaked the program to suit their own needs.”

She doubted Charles would’ve liked the idea of turning a group of rehabilitated super-criminals into the judge and jury. She was sure he would’ve felt they would’ve benefitted more by trying to help others in some way. Maybe even letting them teach at the institute.

“An’ who’s to say it’ll work now that Chuck’s gone?” Logan complained. Not that it would’ve worked well with Charles alive. Charles had still been an idealist in many ways. And this was a lofty goal at best. You tell a bunch of criminals you’ll suspend their jail sentence if they play the part of a bloodhound and expect them to not feign interest in it. It was a disaster waiting to happen in his opinion, and they’d learn when Creed gutted a few of them for their efforts.

“Nobody. Only time will tell, but the government is desperate. After what happened at the Statue of Liberty, Alkali Lake, and Alcatraz, they’re worried that these attacks are only going to increase, so they figure why not use super-criminals? They know how a criminal mind works, after all.”

“Why did Steve tell you all this, O? You’d think they’d want to keep something like that under wraps if the project fails,” Alex interjected.

“He trusts that I’ll keep the information classified, and…” She trailed, considering how she could word her next statement. “They wanted to know about our school. The security, I mean. They’re making plans to build a Freedom Force facility, and they were hoping to base the security on ours. They have Stryker’s information, but they know it’s terribly outdated now since we’ve revamped the systems. They thought that divulging this information would help me to see their point.”

“You didn’t”” Alex stopped short.

“I didn’t. My first priority is, and will always be, the safety of the children. I told them that we were just a school, not a maximum security lockdown military facility.” Not that Steve had actually bought any of that, but that was the nicest way she could tell him that she wasn’t giving him anything on the school.

“Could’ve fooled me,” Alex muttered.

Smart ass. But she wouldn’t have it any other way. “I wouldn’t trust them with that kind of information. They ask me to trust our government when we’ve seen firsthand how that works. Then, they ask me to trust a group of criminals who’ll be privy to that information, too. I believe in penance, but that’s too much good faith to give anyone for a program that might fold. I told him to look Forge up. He could help them come up with something I’m sure.”

Picking up the bowl, she walked to the sink and dumped the melted contents down the drain, taking a few moments to wash it out. She left the bowl in the sink and turned around to look at her confidants. Both were deep in thought. Worry underlined their expressions. Logan was rolling his empty cup between his palms. Alex furrowed his eyebrows. What did she expect? She did just feed them a lot of information.

“So, if they’re preppin’ Mystique to be the co-leader, who’s the leader? And don’t you dare say Creed.” The question had been scratching his brain since she mentioned they planned to give them positions. He had many questions, actually, questions he didn’t think she’d be able to answer.

“Okay, I won’t say it.” She leaned against the counter and looked down at her nails, giving him time to process that information. She heard a noise akin to extreme annoyance rumble in his throat.

“You’ve gotta be shittin’ me. First, they recruit him, and then they made that dumbass the leader. Yeah, I can see that’s gonna be a success.” Were they trying to set themselves up for failure? Sabretooth was about three donuts short of a dozen.

“From what I understand, he’s not as dumb as we think. He’s hacked into high security computers and escaped from maximum security prisons with little detection. So it’s safe to assume he’s highly intelligent.” She wouldn’t tell him that they were making him even more adept at hacking into security by training him on some of the hardest simulations she’d ever heard of. May the gods be with them if he ever decided he wanted to take a crack at their security.

“Are you takin’ up for him?” he asked through his teeth because it sure has hell sounded like she was to him, and he didn’t like that either. He thought women were supposed to be the experts of holding grudges. That was what they did, anyway”nag and hold grudges. No bother, he was still pissed enough with Creed to hold a grudge for both of them.

Ridiculous, she didn’t have the fondest memories of Sabretooth, but everyone deserved a second chance. She was just giving him the facts. And he might actually be trying. They trusted him enough to make him the leader and to take care of someone other than himself. Steve mentioned he had an adoptive daughter, a purple-skinned girl he’d saved in Miami. He wouldn’t tell her the circumstances behind Victor saving her. He just that she had purple skin and she’d taken a liking to “Mr. Creed.”

“No, but we’re doing exactly what he wants us to”underestimate him. And we might as well get used to the fact that we’re playing on the same team because there may come a day when we have to work with the Freedom Force.” Her words floated through the air like an unwanted prophecy.

“That sounds like fun. I’ll bring the hot dog buns,” Alex said, trying to cut the sudden tension in the kitchen. No dice.

“An’ if they decide we’re the ones fuckin’ up?” Logan asked. Would they send their hounds after them, too? He would be more worried about that than a collaboration. This might’ve been a none-too-subtle way of warning them of what would await them in the future.





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