Logs:In Which A Number Of Interviewees Are Approximately As Forthcoming As Could Be Expected

In Which A Number Of Interviewees Are Approximately As Forthcoming As Could Be Expected
Dramatis Personae Polaris, DJ, Lily, B, Taylor, Nick, Shane, Tian-shin, Ion, Scott, Marinov, Charles, Kitty, Skye, Matt, Jax, Ryan, Steve	march madness 2024 "You're free to go."
Location The Arms of the Law
Polaris doesn't even let the agents finish their spiel. "Guess it's about that time. Seriously, what took you so long?" She sheds her apron and starts collecting her things. "We're not going to serve you, so you may well wait for me over there." She's pointing down toward the pick-up counter even as she indicates the actual paying customers queuing behind the feds with a meaningful arch of green brows. "You're holding up the--" "-- gospel study, gentlemen." There's an unswerving politeness in DJ's quiet voice, but neither this nor the very earnest expression he wears seem to much put the pair of agents on his doorstep at ease. Maybe this is the expected discomfort most people have with proselytization, but possibly the large and growing crowd of men behind him in his meetinghouse -- most watching DJ and not the agents, as if waiting for instruction -- are helping their unease along. DJ isn't moving from the doorway, even if he sounds perfectly sincere in his, "-- of course you're welcome to join us, but if not I'm afraid --" "-- you have the wrong Doctor Allred." This Dr. Allred seems far more bitchy than she ever did on TV. Surely this bad mood has nothing to do with the feds interrupting her while writing chart notes, right? She rotates the standing computer a little more out of the agents' line of sight. "My professional geneticist opinion is that 'being a mutant terrorist' is not, actually, a heritable condition, but I understand how you both might have gotten confused." Lily waves her MAD card in front of the agents, indicating the '0A' with the end of her pen before returning both to the pocket of her labcoat. "I was just a human spy. There was a movie, you could watch that. Was there anything else, or can I --" "-- remind you the last time anyone saw Mr. Magneto around here, he was breaking my ba's skull open?" B is perched atop her hoverbike, eyes opened disconcertingly wide to fix on the pair of agents trying hard not to look too hard at her. "It's all over TikTok if you -- wait, do you," B is leaning forward slightly (maybe just to watch the agents lean back as she does), "know what that is? Sorry, with you people I sometimes have a hard time --" "-- believing some ancient-ass white dude outta fucking Austria or wherever the fuck is thinking brothers when they talking Brotherhood, you feel me?" The agents across the table in this aggressively drab interrogation room do not look much like they want to be Feeling Taylor right now, though they are very much tracking every squirm and writhe of his many tentacles in their unnecessarily ceaseless fidget behind him. He's braced one against the edge of the table, idly pushing against it to rock his chair back as he continues, blithely. "I mean, we in the goddamn year of our Lord twenty twenty four and you still rocking a misogynist-ass name like that, please, my momma raise me up right and you ain't finna catch me --" "--barking up the wrong tree, man." Nick is perched awkwardly at the edge of a chair that was not designed for his canine haunches, which forces him to slouch forward with his arms braced on the table. This puts his canine muzzle that much closer to the agents across from him, who don't look too comfortable sitting on their human haunches. "Do I look like a 'mutant supremacist' to you? I got better things to worry about. I got bikes at the shop that need work. I folks back home that need dinner. I got part of my spine sticking out of my ass and it is not wagging because you got me sitting in this--" "-- complete goddamn joke of an investigation, you have to know that, right? Like, shit, did you clowns even make sure you got the right shark because y'all fuck that up a lot." Shane hasn't sat down, leaning up against the uncomfortable chair with his arms crossed against its back. "Just please tell me you're stupid enough to be heckling all my family over this because after this summer that's gonna go great for you, I bet. You know, real damn soon you're going to be hearing from my --" "--lawyers who got those charges dismissed." Tian-shin has her hands folded primly over the pencil and legal pad she'd bullied some poor intern into bringing. "And now you're questioning me and members of his family over--I won't dignify these claims by calling them spurious, but they are telling." She leans forward slightly, though her expression remains serene. "Either you genuinely cannot tell the difference between Mister Holland's activities and Mister Lensherr's--in which case you have no business in law enforcement--or you are harassing us out of sheer petty bigotry. Now..." She picks up the pencil and smiles at the agents. "...what are your names again? I want to make sure--" "-- we speaking on the same dude? Old as hell, big-ass drama queen, got some flashy-ass trick with the metal?" Ion's grin is bright and the sparks crackling sharp and warning around him are sharper. He seems quite unbothered by the ceaseless shivering of the room's lights or the way the agent has just jerked back with an undignified yelp when his hand brushes the metal table that Ion is also currently leaning against. "You boys must be hard the fuck up you harassing me and my dogs. Cameras every corner, drones come circle Freaktown every ten minute, million and two satellite blot out all the stars and you gotta drag me out my damn grave to see what I know about the most famous terrorist on the damn planet? I got a secret for you, if people like you they tell you shit, you tried not being a --" "-- lifelong believer that peace and cooperation between mutants and humans is possible, and worth striving for." Opposite the agents, Scott is sitting ramrod straight and statue still in his chair, but his bearing is calm, not tense; perhaps it helps that any movement in his eyes is rendered invisible by his opaque red glasses. His voice is steady and vaguely disapproving. "I have no love for Magneto or his Brotherhood. I would like to see them brought to justice. Mutant supremacy and mutant hate are rooted in the same obsession with what divides us, rather than what brings us together. Or what should bring us together." Here Scott pauses, his lips pressing into a thin line, shifting in his seat for the first time. "If I knew anything, rest assured I would say so. But I'm afraid I rather doubt that --" "-- you have any understanding of the fashion industry." Marinov's neutral expression as their eyes pass up and down over the interviewer somehow makes their words all the sharper. Their arms are crossed over their chest, the tip of their tail twitching in frustration. "But let me enlighten you. Just as I am promoting my spring collection, I already need to get ahead of the production schedule for the summer season, plus the bespoke work that I do a lot of. And I have to sleep, like, eighteen hours a day! Do you really believe I have time for these... extracurriculars?" They huff derisively and then, all the while maintaining eye contact with the agent, swat the paper cup before them off the table and onto the ground. "Now, is that all? Or am I --" "-- to understand you are accusing me," Noted Philanthropist Charles Xavier inquires, regarding the guests sitting on the other side of his desk with an air of noble sufferance, "on the basis that I took a humanitarian interest in Mr. Lensherr's wellbeing during years of detainment without trial? I should hope that your investigation uncovered my decades of charity work benefitting the genetically diverse. I had hoped that other federal agencies might strive to do better by these oppressed individuals, especially after the horrors of Prometheus came to light. It disturbs me deeply that you have chosen not only to double down on but expand your witch hunt." He starts to lift his teacup, but pauses to lift his eyebrows at the agents, instead. "It would disturb me further if you drag me away from my classes to answer spurious questions founded in your own lack of compassion. I will be sure to mention it when I pay a visit to --" "-- little ol' me? Wow, I'm kind of flattered that you think these people would tell me anything." Kitty's eyes are open wide in doe-y innocence when she looks up from the blurry photographs on the metal table. "I see maybe why you would ask me about Dr. al-Jazari but Magneto? Assuming all Jewish mutants know each other is kind of --" Kitty's voice drops to a dramatic hush, "--antisemitic. You must be struggling with finding them, huh?" Kitty leans forward, unsettlingly into the table, propping her chin up in her hands. "I get it, the boys handling my dad's missing persons case are out of leads too. Oh! Maybe you all could do a case swap? Get fresh eyes on your problems?" Kitty's eyes knit together for a moment. "Is that allowed, or do you all have to work for --" "-- the Hellfire Club, where your real masters are pulling the strings!" Skye is leaning forward with both elbows braced on the interrogation table, one leg folded under herself and the other bouncing restlessly. "I bet you don't even want to find Magneto. You already have extra-jurisdictional reach, which you overstep with impunity. Now you can push the envelope as far as you want with the excuse that the Big Bad Mutant is 'still at large'." Maybe the scare quotes should have gone around "Big Bad Mutant" instead? She doesn't seem too fussed about it. "Joke's on you, because you're not even pawns in this game. You don't even know the game, it could be fucking backgammon for all you know. But the moment you're not useful to them anymore? Bam!" She slaps the table with one hand, making one of the two agents jump and the other side-eye him in disdain. "They'll disappear you like --" "--my brother's body," Matt says placidly, "is not yet cold, but the vultures are circling already." He fixes the agents with a piercing green gaze over the edge of his teacup as he sips. "So it goes, and I will not go with you, either. If you think it worth your time and that of the hapless judge you have on call, by all means feel free to return with a warrant." He sets his cup down and props his chin up on one fist, his eyes disquietingly steady but his expression just kind of...bored, really. "Let me save you some paperwork: to my knowledge the only time my brother met the legendary M. Lensherr was in the park over a game of chess, which I had the privilege of spectating. The man is an absurdly aggressive player, which I'm sure will surprise you not at all, but not a particularly good one." The smile seems to come out of nowhere, his delight sharp and pure. "That might not say much about his command of real-life strategy, but whatever it does say isn't particularly flattering to--" "-- my ego, sure, but even y'all can't be dumb enough to think that crowd shares confidential info with me. What, like, the power of my voice is just that beguiling the world's fiercest freak freedom fighters gonna answer to some glammed-up rock star?" Ryan's fingers have tented light against his chest, his eyes batting up with an exaggerated innocence. His other hand curls down hard against the arm of his wheelchair. "I know I had a damn good publicist but please tell me you don't believe everything you read in the gossip pages, I only style myself a hero. These days I can barely --" "-- believe we're going through this charade again, and now of all times." Jax's voice is very flat. It's hard to tell whether he looks as unimpressed as he sounds, because at the moment his paint-splattered clothes have been swapped for a very familiar deep purple and red cape-and-suit ensemble, capped off with the iconic helmet. Despite being custom-made illusion it isn't sitting right on his head, too big, drooped down over his eye, and his sharp puff of air upward unsurprisingly does not shift it away from where it obscures his gaze. He's slouched back in the uncomfortable chair, arms crossed against his chest. "But fine. You know your lines and mine by now, m'sure, but in case y'need a reminder --" Somewhat disconcertingly as his clothing melts back to its original form and the helmet vanishes, his mouth is vanishing, too, flesh knitting itself smoothly closed. In lieu of speech there are words appearing on the table's surface in bold red block letters: 'I WANT MY --' "-- country to serve the needs of her people, not the interests of the wealthy and powerful." Steve Rogers is jabbing a very Captain America Wants You finger at the agents, his expression stern. "I'd like to say I'm disappointed, but your bureau has been suppressing freedom of speech and association from the very start. I remember J. Edgar Hoover pioneering the illegal surveillance that's become so trendy, and thank God I was in the ice through the McCarthy and Civil Rights eras." He presses his hands flat on the table, as if it's taking him a great deal of willpower not to do something else with them. "Now you persecute mutant activists, not because you genuinely believe they or I have anything to do with Magneto but because you, your superiors, and their superiors in Washington are terrified of people actually standing up for the very liberty and equality this government claims to uphold. Shame on you. What do you have to say for yourselves?" He raises his eyebrows expectantly and turns one hand up toward the other men in none-too-patient prompting. "There are a lot of news crews outside, and I'd hate to keep them waiting too long." What do these agents have to say for themselves? Agent Mulcahy is giving Agent Jacoby a faintly desperate, pleading side-eye; Agent Jacoby is studiously pretending to flip back through a legal pad full of useless doodles -- Magneto's helmet here, a racecar there -- and random non sequiturs -- 'J Edgar Hoover?' and 'Backgammon' and 'Austria?' but nothing very helpful seems to be standing out. Agent Mulcahy sucks some air through his teeth and twists at a loose tuft of his mustache. Agent Jacoby flips the pages of his legal pad back in the other direction. When they do make eye contact again it is with matched expressions of dread; one gets the sense that they are each silently trying to communicate, 'Nuh-uh, you say it.' But after about five seconds of this, it is Agent Jacoby, setting the legal pad delicately on the desk, now open to a bunch of doodled snails, who finally clears his throat and manages, "You're free to go. Captain America. Sir." At his side, Agent Mulcahy lets out a world-weary sigh.