Peek into the shadow, I come into the light
You tell me I'm wrong, then you better prove you're right
Janet Jackson
Fall 2010
Bacon grease dripped from her fork to the flyer for DC area cure clinic locations. Her gloves were beside her on the table. The waitress who filled her coffee cup had put two and two together. “Good for you,” in a tone like Marie took bronze in the Special Olympics.
Marie stared over her shoulder, to the clock hanging by the muted TV. It was too late to call this brunch. She’d been moving around since she got off the bus early that morning. She’d stolen a nap in the Library of Congress. She’d watched dueling protests at the National Mall devolve into fistfights that ended in handcuffs. She’d convinced herself she needed a sign, something definitive to offset the disharmonic buzz in her brain.
There was a cure clinic just five blocks from the diner. It was the main one, and the enthusiastic guy who handed Marie the flyer told her it had the quickest staff.
Flyer, sign. Good enough.
Pounding on the door at her back made her about jump out of her skin. She whipped around to see John Allerdyce streaking the glass with his sweaty palms. She suddenly realized why she was compelled to stop in this dingy place. It’d been a frequent hangout of his before Xavier’s.
John looked younger with his bleached hair, like a suburban kid trying too hard to be punk. A cigarette dangled from his lips. He pointed emphatically toward the TV. It was a stunned moment before Marie could look away from him.
The words “live” “cure clinic” and “mutant attack” jumped out from the news report. The building behind the reporter was smoking.
John wasn’t there when she looked back.
She got up from the stool so fast she about knocked herself over. “I’ll be back,” she assured the waitress, pointing at her bag.
Say one thing for grueling, daily training, Marie was faster than she had ever been. She chased John Frogger-style across lanes of traffic and into a dead-end alley.
John spun around and shot a fireball toward her as a warning. She took a step back with her palms thrown up.
Disgusted, she stared him down. “So this is what you left your friends for. To become a terrorist? They’re mutants, John.”
“Fuck those traitors.” He took a panting breath. His cigarette was little more than ash, so he flicked it away. “Fuck you, too.” John looked pointedly at her bare hands. “How’s it feel to be just like them?” That smirk spread across his face, and he advanced toward her. “Powerless.”
Marie edged away as he circled her. She didn’t correct his assumption to keep the upper hand. “You think you’re so smart, but you let Magneto brainwash you. He’s no a messiah, he doesn’t care. He’s too sociopathic think of people and what their lives are worth. Even other mutants. I should know.”
John’s shit-eating grin didn’t fade. “You afraid of me?” He backed her toward the wall.
“I feel sorry for you,” she countered, tucking her hands between her and the cement. She sure didn’t need to augment his crazy.
Blue eyes smiled into hers. Their friendship had always been a strange mix of appreciation and animosity. He’d liked watching her play with his fire, and she hadn’t minded hurting him to do it. John dipped his head, like he was going to kiss her, but just laughed when she flinched.
“I saw your boyfriend today.” He pressed the lower half of his body into hers.
“No wonder you’re so hot and bothered.”
Surprise and anger showed through his mask. Marie had never let on that she knew. John took her elbow and twisted until she acknowledged the pain with a noise.
“Poor little ‘Rogue,’ running off, taking the cure like a whiney bitch. Your mutation was epic. You just weren’t strong enough to handle it.”
Best defense was a good offense.
Marie rocketed her knee between John’s legs. She followed that up with a kick to the stomach well-placed enough to make him drop. While he was sputtering profanities on the pavement, she was stomping the heavy tread of her shoe on the ignition line up his sleeve. Her fighting style may’ve been sloppy, but it was effective.
She did feel sorry for John. What’s more, she empathized. But she got where he was coming from far too well to cut him very much slack.
“You have no concept of how much bigger than your stupid ego all of this is.” A cheap shot to the side was her parting gift. “That’s for the clinic, asshole.”
She jogged back to the diner. There, she threw down some money, took her bag, and told the waitress to give the police John’s description.
Without so much as a backward glance, she boarded a bus rerouting cure seekers.
John’s recrimination followed Marie to the uptown clinic. Mutants held back by uniformed soldiers chanted, “We don’t need a cure!” and hurled insults as she stepped into line behind a long row of people who knew firsthand that mutations were defined not by powers but by limits.
The needle sinks into her skin.
Shattered pieces of her mind swirl in dissent and hope. Intensely personal politics. Circumstantial freewill. Conviction or lack thereof. Her uniform will hang, untried, next to Jean Grey’s and Scott Summers’. No, shut up. She won’t be counted among the dead. She will be alive to live a life she can recognize. She will reclaim mind, body, soul. She won’t be them. She won’t be us. She’ll be something else. Different. Outcast.
Shut up, shut up, shut up. Stop screaming at me!
The cure spreads through her like it’s changing her blood into a gel.
Pressure peaks against her eardrums, uniting drone, crackle, thrum into one note of piercing clarity.
Marie. She’s Marie.
Pale lips mouth, “Congratulations,” through a fog. A cotton swab covers the syringe as it slips out of her vein.
The world outside catches up to speed. Light hums and flickers. Her skin is goose pimpled and raw red under the fluorescence. A butterfly bandage covers a single dot of blood.
Cool skin grips her naked forearm with clinical assurance. She has to look to know who it is. Nurse Kim is guiding Marie to her feet. Her touch is brisk. Efficient. “You’re cured,” she states, and directs her to the door.
Marie stares at the place where their skin meets. Her body is trembling. Her mind is mute. She has been granted detachment.