A quiet evening

[ana]

Though she'd been staying with the research team at El Dorado for some time now, Ana had not yet gotten to know Mr Lensherr in a more than passing acquaintance. She generally spent most of her time in the company of his employees, observing and taking notes and occasionally lending her thoughts, though she often felt that they were simply humouring her when they asked her opinion.

She was learning a lot, though, even without a whole lot of interaction with her host. From what she had been told, most of the experiments conducted in El Dorado were of Mr Lensherr's design, so Ana María had been waiting for a chance to come along for her to speak more closely with him about his work.

What Sylvia had been explaining to her was extremely intriguing - the idea that mutation could be triggered in humans was one that she had not encountered before. But considering that Ana had not even heard of mutants before coming to the facility - apparently, her mother had been depriving her of genetics journals for a reason beyond their subscription fee - her ignorance was not much of a surprise.

But tonight, she was to have dinner with Mr Lensherr, and she was hoping that this would be her chance to speak with him. More than that, she was hoping that it would be her first chance of many, and as she pulled a jacket on she wondered how she should present herself for such an occasion. Her mother would have known, of course, but Ana had a tendency to just wear whatever was in her wardrobe - no doubt the reason that it was cleared and restocked as soon as the seasons changed and her old clothes were no longer high fashion. For the moment, skinny jeans and a singlet with a plain black blazer seemed fine - if she made the wrong decision, she would deal with it when it caused a problem.

But if she didn't get a move on, it wouldn't matter what clothes she was wearing because she would be late. To Ana, that was a far more grievous transgression. Setting off toward the dining area, Ana found herself slightly nervous. There was no reason for it, of course - Mr Lensherr was kind enough when she spoke to him, there was no need to feel worried. But she could not help but think that her ignorance would come back to bite her.

[magneto]

For his part Erik Lensherr was already seated at a table wearing a burgundy jacket and pants and shirt sleeved white shirt. It had always been his favourite colour and felt that it made him look distinguished now that he was in his later years.

That was not an idea he liked to think about however. It is the fate of great men to die before they see their dreams realised.

Erik sipped his wine, a fine red imported from South Africa and pondered the dinner ahead.

His guest was young Ana Maria Grisales, a promising biochemist that the rest of the staff had taken in willingly, if not warmly enough. She had expressed a great deal of interest in the work being done in El Dorado and so he had decided to take a more personal interest in the young woman.

It was time to find out what she was made of.

[ana]

Rounding the corner with a slightly nervous smile, Ana arrived to find Mr Lensherr already seated and sipping what looked like a nice red wine. Not that Ana drank too often, but she'd certainly seen enough people drinking at dinner parties to make the assumption. He wasn't exactly the type who would drink bad wine, in her mind.

But then, her vision of him could be completely wrong. That was part of why she was having dinner with him.

"I hope I'm not late." Though her vocabulary was almost perfect, Ana's words had an obvious accent to them. English was not her first language, but she was certainly comfortable using it. She had to be, if she was to study the sciences beyond a text-book level. Mathematics may be the purest scientific language, but English was not far behind it - being the most widely used in publications.

"Thank-you for seeing me, Mr Lensherr." Ana María approached the table a took a seat with a smile. She hoped that she wasn't taking too many liberties, she did not always know how to act around foreign men.

[magneto]

"Of course not my dear, a woman is allowed to be fashionably late," he said amiably and filled her glass.

"And it is my pleasure to properly make your acquaintance. I try to make time to personally meet with all of the staff here at El Dorado, but time has a way of slipping away does it not?"

Truth be told, this was the first time Erik had taken a meal in the staff dining area for a long time. He usually preferred to dine along in his quarters but this young mind had seemed particularly sharp on their few previous meetings and he was intrigued to see how far she was prepared to go for her science.

"I trust your quarters are to your liking?"

[ana]

His words made her smile shyly - she hadn't considered herself a member of staff, more an observer funded by her parent's rather generous donation to the cause. The fact that she had only recently finished her normal schooling probably contributed to her underestimation of herself.

"Sí, time does fly." Ana murmured an expression that her old english tutor had used quite often. He'd been a bit strange, eccentric was probably the word, but very lovely nonetheless.

Taking a sip of her wine - she was not actually old enough to be drinking it, at least in her country, but she was not going to let that stop her - Ana María nodded.

"Oh, yes, everything is wonderful, thank-you for your hospitality." She knew that her parent's 'generous' contribution should have guaranteed her a certain level of comfort, but she did not like to take things for granted. The quarters here really were wonderful, too - at least the rooms outside of the medical observation centre were. Even those within were still comfortable enough, but certainly not on the same level.

But it was a medical observation facility, not a hotel. Just as the entire facility was dedicated to scientific research, so it was interesting to see how it had been set up.

"Sylvia has been explaining the nature of your research to me in more detail. I am very interested to know more."

[magneto]

Erik favoured her with a smile, "I try to make sure that my people are well looked after, they do valuable work and I wouldn't want to think that any of them were uncomfortable here." If they were, that was just too bad. Fortunately, thus far there had only been two defectors early on in the history of El Dorado and they had both come to bad end at the bottom of the sea.

"The study of mutants and of their powers has been my life's work," he told her quite honestly, "the fact that I have found so many others that share my passion does my heart good."

He took another sip of wine.

"The process for gifting people with powers of their own however is quite new and has not been without its errors. Our successes on the other hand have been very pleasing indeed."

A white-clad waiter appeared at the table.

"Would you care to make a choice miss," he asked politely, presenting a short menu.

The dining area was usually self service, a long row buffet cars and self serve dishes providing for all of the staff needs. Nobody would have dreamed of allowing Mr. Lensherr or his guest to serve themselves however and so one of the newer lab assistants had been forced into the role of waiter for the evening.

At least he looked the part.

[ana]

A soft smile played over Ana's lips as Mr Lensherr spoke of his work. His passion was obvious in his words and his tone, but the young Colombian had no chance to respond before being interrupted by... Was that Richard? Dressed as a waiter? He'd arrived not long before she had, and it must be grating at him to have to do this.

Blinking, Ana spoke quietly with only a cursory glance at the menu. A salad and a piece of grilled fish, what she usually got for herself from the buffet. No doubt the wine in her hands meant that she was supposed to skip the fish, but Ana found herself having difficulty caring. Her mother wasn't here to watch her every move, now - and more importantly her every bite.

She waited for Erik to order and Richard to leave before returning to the conversation.

"Yes, Sylvia was telling me about some of your successes. It does sound very exciting." Taking another sip of her wine, Ana continued, "She hasn't been able to explain how the process works, though. Perhaps I do not know enough about genetics." She wasn't sure if Mr Lensherr knew that she had never even heard of mutants before her arrival, but she didn't know that it was the best thing to be telling him. Especially when she was still confused as to her exact function on his staff.

[magneto]

Erik selected the fish and gave the young man a warm smile as he trundled away. He took another sip of the excellent wine before returning his attention to Ana Maria.

"Mutants are the next stage in human evolution, the next step up the food chain if you will. At the moment the ratio of mutant to human births is relatively low, but it is on the rise. Twenty years ago mutants were few and far between. Thirty years ago they were all but unheard of."

Erik glanced around at the few other staff present in the dining hall. Not all mutants, but most.

"Can you imagine how the world will change in another thirty years? And what of those that have not been born mutants?"

He smiled.

"I believe the genetic information to bring about that next evolutionary jump exists within us all, it just needs the right stimuli to awaken it. That is what I am trying to do here, give homo-sapiens a chance at the next step. The problem is that the exact genetic stimulus for each individual is subtly different. It is my hope that you will be able to lend your own insight into the mapping of these genetic triggers."

[ana]

Pondering his words, Ana María found herself speaking as her thoughts came.

"Well, if mutation is showing up apparently spontaneously all over the world..." From what Sylvia had been telling her, there was no one country that was free of mutants, no group that seemed to have a significantly higher quantity.

"It stands to reason that it is not a mutation in the traditional sense." She realised that she had lapsed into Spanish without thinking, and looked down with shame.

"I apologise, Mr. Lensherr. It seems to me that this is not a mutation as we have traditionally known them." Mutations were usually spontaneous, then passed along over time. Not within such a large population all at once.

"Has there been a DNA sequencing project for mutants yet?" She was very aware of her accent all of a sudden, and she took another sip of her wine, feeling somewhat self-concious.

"It is possible that it is a recessive trait, or even present in more than one place on the different chromosomes." She knew that there were therapies to stimulate genes other than those dominant within you - her father had looked into hair regrowth options, afraid that he would take after his father and be bald by the time he was thirty. He had ended up taking after his mother's side of the family, but Ana remembered hearing about it as a child and being curious.

"I wonder if perhaps it is a combination of genetics and environment that determines the nature of a person's mutation." Though that was a long standing debate, and would be hard to prove.

Ana found herself blushing as she realised how long she had been rambling on for. At least she managed to stay in the correct language after her one lapse.

[magneto]

"The commonly held belief that the gene is passed through the father's side of the family is currently in question. A doctor by the name of Moira McTaggart has done some quite fascinating work on mapping the mutant genome and believes that the gene is actually passed down the mothers side as a part of the X chromosome."

The wine really was very good.

"This would go a long way toward explaining why the Worthington's recently developed cure appears to be wearing off."

He said the last with only a hint of the distaste he actually felt. Erik still had trouble believing that a man like Worthington who had developed the cure specifically to apply to his son would have made such a grievous error. It had taken years to develop as it was, and for something so basic to have been overlooked seemed peculiar.

But fortunate, particularly as far as Erik was concerned.

"As for it being a recessive trait, I believe you may be right and that all X chromosomes possess the possibility for mutation but require the correct trigger to start the process."

He paused.

"And a body strong enough to withstand the stress of the change."

[ana]

There was so much for her to learn about mutation, she was feeling terribly behind all the rest of them. Ana was surprised, actually, that he'd agreed to let her come and work in his facility with her limited knowledge - but then there was that small matter of her parent's donation again.

"I wasn't aware that there was such a difference in the number of men and women who are mutants." Other things carried on the X chromosome were much more prevalent within the male population - approximately sixteen times more prevalent, if she was remembering her facts correctly.

Ana María could not help but cock her head to one side at his mention of a strong enough body.

"Does the presence of a dominant X-gene lend some extra strength?" She presumed that enhanced strength was a mutation posessed by people, but not necessarily something that everyone had. "Or is it something else? Surely, if mutation usually manifests at puberty, there are mutants who are not strong and fit." Not every teenager was strong and fit. What Sylvia had been telling her of mutation, they generally manifests in periods of heightened stress. Perhaps the genes weren't actually dominant in anyone, and it was caused by environment.

She was intensely curious about how the specific mutation was determined - by genetics or environment or a combination of the two. Too many new things to think on.

"How do you decide on the subjects of your... process? Will you take any volunteer, or will you only take those of a certain age and strength?"

[magneto]

Food arrived; grilled salmon on a bed of cous-cous. It smelled superb.

"Natural mutants need not be strong and fit, though the change has been known to be physically stressful in some cases. Artificially inducing mutation puts much more of a strain on the body however, it is that factor which has limited our success."

Erik took a bite of his excellently cooked salmon.

"I welcome all who would volunteer to undertake the transformation process, it demonstrates great conviction," or desperation in some cases, "and fortitude. The risks are great but the rewards considerable."

Adam and Anthony had taken well to their powers. It was a pity Adam had fallen in with Charles' crowd; it would slant his view of mutant affairs, blind him to what really needed to be done.

Anthony on the other hand was no priest.

He had come to love his powers and would perhaps in time come to see mutants as the superior race Erik knew them to be.

[ana]

Taking a forkful of her fish, Ana stopped to think for a moment. She noted that the salmon was expertly prepared and wondered for a moment who it was that prepared Erik's meals.

Her mind couldn't stay on the meal for long, though, it was too busy wondering about the possibilities of the process, whether it would work for her or not.

It was something she'd been considering ever since she'd found out about what they did - how much easier would it be to study mutation if it was given to you? Medical tests before and after, comparison of DNA, all these things could help discover the changes that the process wrought on the body.

"What about somebody like me? Have you tried the process on someone closer to the usual age for mutation to surface?"

She wondered if it was painful.

She wondered what would happen if it failed.

[magneto]

"Thus far all our volunteers have been older than the average age, but most have been bodily fit if perhaps not entirely athletic."

There were not many teenagers around ready to throw themselves at the mercy of medical experimentation, particularly when it concerned mutants.

"Make no mistake though my dear, it is not without its risks. Sometimes it merely fails but there have been times when the side effects have been most undesirable."

Madness and death were pretty undesirable no matter how old you were or which walk of life you came from.

[ana]

Shrugging, Ana María nodded. "What is the expression? No pain, no gain?" She took another bite of her salmon, taking time to savour the flavour.

"The knowledge gained from such an experiment would far outweigh the risks." Provided that it worked. But then, history was full of examples of risks taken for science, some of which had led to incredibly important advances.

She wondered why most people chose to undergo the process. It was unlikely that their motives were scientific - but then, she didn't even know them. Who was she to judge? Furthermore, could she really say that there was not some desire in her heart to experience the wonder of having mutant powers?

Perhaps it was not just scientific interest that was making her intensely curious about what kind of power she would have.

Was that so bad?

"I would very much like to arrange a controlled comparison, with tests before and after." She realised that she'd assumed she would be allowed to undergo the procedure. "If you will allow me to, of course."

[magneto]

Erik took a slow sip of wine.

"I do not like to discourage anybody from volunteering if that is what they wish to do," he said carefully, "but if things should go badly, I am not entirely sure your parents would be understanding in the matter."

She was old enough to make her own mind up of course, but that was besides the point. He liked to avoid loose ends where at all possible.

"If you are sure however, I will have the machine prepared for tomorrow morning. I do urge you to think carefully about what it is you are volunteering for. Even should the process work your life will be forever changed."

[ana]

"My parents can be dealt with." They were always off doing something or another, they wouldn't even notice if something had changed about her. Whether the change was for the better or the worse.

Finishing off the last of her dinner, Ana dabbed at her mouth carefully with a napkin. There were many things to do if she was to undergo the process the very next morning, much to think on. She doubted that she would have time to think it over too thoroughly - the readiness with which he'd agreed was quite a surprise.

With a shy smile, Ana bowed her head.

"Thank-you for dinner, it was a pleasure."

Finishing off the last of her wine, the young woman placed the glass back down carefully.

"I should go to the medical laboratory, if this is to be conducted properly." She would probably end up in there for most of the night, running all sorts of physical tests so that they could compare the results afterwards. Hopefully there would be somebody there.

[magneto]

Erik favoured her with another smile and drained his wine.

"The pleasure was mine my dear."

He watched her finish off her meal and stand, already looking thoughtful, already considering what lay ahead.

"Do try not to stay up all night," he said with a faint smile, "the staff work in shifts and will be only to glad to assist you, but there is still much to consider and I would not want you to go into this without having properly thought it through."

He could see she had already made her decision, but he needed to play his part for now.

The young were so impetuous these days.

"I will see you in the morning."

Then she was gone.