Chapter 93: What Comes Next

The expression on Gwen’s face was worth the name alone. She stared at Blueberry for several seconds before looking at me again as if she was still trying to understand why anyone would build something like this and then give it such a stupid name. Sara was smiling beside her, but Emily had already stopped paying attention to the name. Her eyes had gone straight back to the reactor.

She moved a little closer to the table and studied the glowing center before asking, “You said this isn’t Stark’s original design, so how much did you actually change? If you replaced the core material, you couldn’t just leave the magnetic containment and heat transfer the same, right? A stronger core would change the amount of energy moving through everything around it.” I hadn’t expected her to go that far immediately, but it made sense considering what she was studying.

I nodded and pointed toward the narrow blue lines running through Blueberry’s casing. “That’s why most of the inside changed too. The core is different, but I also changed the containment, cooling, internal pathways and how the energy is transferred. Just replacing the original material would’ve worked, but it would’ve wasted most of what the new core can do.” Emily leaned closer without touching anything and asked whether the smaller size caused problems with heat buildup. I told her it had at first, which was why several parts had to be moved and redesigned instead of simply shrinking Stark’s layout.

That seemed to make her even more interested. She looked over Blueberry again before asking several more questions about stability, energy loss and whether the reactor could maintain continuous output without the containment field drifting. I answered what I could without going so deep that Sara and Gwen stopped understanding the conversation completely. By the time Emily finally looked away from the reactor, there was a much bigger smile on her face.

“So you actually are this smart,” she said. “Here I thought you only had money.” I placed a hand against my chest as if she’d somehow offended me and replied, “Don’t worry. If you want, I can act like I don’t—” Gwen coughed loudly before I could finish, making me turn toward her. She didn’t even bother commenting on what I’d been about to say and simply pointed toward the stairs. “Okay, I think we’ve looked at Blueberry enough. Can we see something else now?” Sara immediately agreed, while Emily gave the reactor one last look before finally stepping away from the table.

I covered Blueberry again and started toward the stairs with them. Sara and Emily were a few steps ahead when Gwen suddenly said, “You two go ahead. We’ll follow.” Sara looked back at us for a moment, but Emily pulled her along, and the two continued upstairs while Gwen remained beside me. I waited until their footsteps were far enough away before looking at her.

Gwen crossed her arms and asked, “Are you going to tell them?” Instead of answering immediately, I asked, “What do you think?” She thought about it for only a moment before saying, “I think the earlier we tell them, the better. Especially Sara. If something really is going to happen to her body, she should know before it happens instead of finding out the way I did.” That was already close to what I’d been thinking, so I nodded, but Gwen still didn’t move.

She kept watching me before finally asking, “Why is this so important to you?” I raised an eyebrow and reminded her that I’d already explained why I wanted them to trust me before anything happened, but she shook her head. “No. That’s not what I mean. I know what it feels like when your own body suddenly feels wrong. I couldn’t control my strength, I was breaking things without meaning to, and I was scared I might hurt Mom just by touching her. So I understand why you don’t want Sara going through that alone, but you’re still hiding part of it. You wouldn’t be planning this much just because you’re worried she’ll be scared.”

She was right. When Gwen’s powers appeared, I’d only told her enough about mutants to help her understand that having powers didn’t make her a monster. I had never explained everything else I’d learned, mostly because she hadn’t needed to know any of it at the time. Now that Sara was involved, keeping that part from her didn’t make much sense anymore.

I leaned against the wall beside the stairs before saying, “Do you remember when I told you what mutants are?” Gwen nodded, so I continued, “I left out a lot. Mutants have been hidden from normal people for a long time, but they aren’t just scattered everywhere with no organization. There are entire mutant groups, and some of them are powerful enough that governments have had to negotiate with them.”

Gwen frowned slightly, so I explained the part I’d learned from Malick. “About ten years ago, two of the largest mutant groups fought each other and nearly destroyed an entire city block. After that, the government decided they didn’t want powerful mutants living all over the country without anyone knowing where they were. They reached an agreement with the leaders of those groups, and most active mutants were moved away from normal society.” Gwen stared at me for a second before asking, “Moved where?” I answered, “The dark side of the Moon.”

For several seconds she simply looked at me. “You’re serious? Mutants are living on the Moon?” I nodded and explained, “They’re not alone there either. Another race called the Inhumans already had connections with the government, so the mutants were allowed to settle near them.” Gwen’s expression made it clear that I’d reached the point where everything sounded ridiculous again, but considering everything she’d learned about me recently, she didn’t tell me I was lying.

Instead, she asked, “What does any of that have to do with Sara?” I looked toward the stairs before answering, “Their leadership doesn’t just sit there and wait for new mutants to find them. One of the people leading them is an extremely powerful telepath, and from what I know, they periodically scan Earth looking for mutants.” Gwen’s expression immediately became more serious as she asked, “So once Sara’s powers appear, they could find her?”

“That’s what I’m worried about. Her X-gene hasn’t activated yet, so I don’t think they can detect her as an active mutant right now. Once it does, that could change.” I paused before continuing, “If they find a mutant on Earth they didn’t know about before, they’re going to want to know who she is, what she can do and why she’s still here.”

Gwen looked toward the stairs again before asking, “And then they’ll take her to the Moon?” I shook my head slightly. “I don’t know exactly what would happen if she refused. Everything I know about the agreement came from someone else, so I’m not going to pretend I know every rule. What I do know is that when that person believed I was actually a mutant, he was surprised nobody had already found me, taken me there and figured out who I was.”

That was the part Gwen needed to understand. “Sara doesn’t know any of this. She doesn’t even know she has an X-gene. If it activates and they find her before we explain anything, then the first people telling her what she is could be strangers who already expect her to leave Earth with them. I don’t want her trying to make that kind of decision while she doesn’t even understand what’s happening to her own body.”

Gwen became quiet for a few seconds before slowly nodding. “Then we definitely tell her.” I agreed, but when she started to move toward the stairs, I stopped her. “Not yet. Give her the day first. She came here expecting to see where she might work, not to find out that her entire life could change. If we tell her now, she’s not going to think about anything else for the rest of the day.”

She thought about that before asking, “Then tonight?” I nodded. “Tonight. That gives her a few hours before we sit down and explain everything properly.” Gwen seemed satisfied with that, but then another thought came to her. “What about Emily? If we’re telling Sara, are we telling her too?”

That was more difficult because I didn’t have the same clear answer for Emily. I knew exactly what the Research Assistant had detected in Sara, but Emily only had dormant mystical potential. I still didn’t know what would cause it to awaken or what exactly would happen afterward, so there wasn’t nearly as much I could tell her.

“I’m not as sure about Emily,” I admitted. “Sara is simple. She has an inactive X-gene, and I know what that means. Emily is different. I know there’s something unusual about her and that it could eventually turn into something much bigger, but I haven’t confirmed enough to explain exactly what she is.” Gwen frowned slightly and asked, “But you think she’ll get powers too?” I answered, “Probably. And if that happens, there’s a good chance she’ll eventually have to go somewhere to learn what they are and how to use them.”

Gwen thought about that for a few seconds before saying, “Then both of them tonight. Sara shouldn’t be the only one finding out something like this when they’re both here.” I nodded. “Both of them. We tell Sara what I know for certain, and with Emily I only tell her what I actually know. I’m not going to make up answers just because I don’t have all of them yet.”

With that settled, we finally headed upstairs. The moment we came out of the basement, I stopped because Sara and Emily were standing only a short distance away. They weren’t directly beside the basement door, but they were close enough that it was obvious they hadn’t gone very far, and the way both of them quickly looked away didn’t exactly help.

Gwen noticed it at the same time and stared at both of them. “My God, girls. You’re really the worst.” Sara immediately smiled and said, “We were just waiting,” while Emily tried to look slightly more innocent and added, “And maybe we were a little curious.” Gwen gave them both a look before asking, “A little curious? You were trying to hear what we were talking about.”

Sara didn’t even bother denying it properly. She smirked and said, “You suddenly told us to go ahead and then stayed behind with him. What did you expect us to do?” Emily smiled beside her and added, “We couldn’t hear anything anyway.” Gwen stared at both of them for another second before shaking her head. Apparently keeping the conversation secret until evening was going to be harder than expected.