Bait and Switch Retype - Complete

It isn't until now, sitting behind my team's table, that I begin to understand why I want to be here so badly. It isn't for Professor Frankens, or the rest of my math team. It's not even for school pride. And despite all the whispers and odd stares I get from everyone who'd thought I was dead, this still feels right.

This competition is something I understand. It's something that I can to a degree control, and know how I'm going to play it. Sure, I don't know what questions they're going to throw at me, or what the other team will be like, but math is something that I can control, and it's unchanging. No matter how you play it, two plus two will always equal four.

Donald, Barbara, and Adam all gape at me, as I take the last seat at the table.

"What happened to you, yesterday?" Adam asks in a whisper that everyone can hear. I'm gratified to see that his acne has cleared up, but still bothered that I couldn't repair his skin. Hmm, I ponder, I've been able to do more lately than I could at the beginning. Maybe. . . Yes! The switch to repair the acne damage to his skin forms, though I'm unable to move it more than just a tick.

"Yeah," Donald follows up, "we all thought you were dead, and then when you didn't show up in class today. . ." Donald keeps blinking at me behind his thick glasses, and I realize they're no longer to his prescription.

"Have you been getting headaches?" I ask him, ignoring their questions.

His beady appearing eyes blink a few more times, before saying, "Yeah, how'd you know?"

I move his 'vision correcting' switch all the way, and he gasps, but I also lean forward and pull his thick frames off his nose at the same time.

"But I need those. . ." he argues, then blinks some more, and looks around. "How did you—?"

"The way you kept squinting through them," I tell him, as if that explains everything.

"The police were looking for you," Barbara says, as though it's her turn to try to get an answer from me. Her skin definitely looks like it fits her better, but isn't perfect yet.

I hadn't thought about the police. After an altercation like that with the twins, it's no wonder the police would be looking for me. I'll have to keep an eye out for them.

Before I have the chance to formulate an answer for the brunette, a buzzer sounds, which startles me half out of my seat.

The judge introduces himself, and then the two teams. I see Professor Frankens smiling at me in the front row, and Gina, Dennis, and Robin a few rows back. The judge goes over the rules, and we test our buzzers, before the first equation is displayed.

I freeze in shock when the screen lights up with the equation. It's not that the equation is hard, quite the opposite, really. No, what startles me, is that I see the answer. I don't meant that I know what the answer is, just by looking at it, but rather that the nanites solved the equation, and are displaying the answer to me as soon as it's revealed.

Unfortunately, the other team is quick on the ball and gets the point.

"It's okay," Donald says. "It's just one question. We'll get the rest." I almost laugh. This is going to be too easy!

As soon as the second question appears on the screen, I hit my buzzer. Everyone stares at me in shock, but I easily give the answer that's floating before my vision. There is a murmur in the crowd, when the judge announces a correct answer, and Adam pats me on the back.

A black haired Asian girl on the opposing team glares at me, and I note that she's the one who answered the first question.

Looking at the crowd, I decide that I'd better wait a couple seconds before answering next time. I don't want to make things too obvious.

That is, until the Asian girl hits her buzzer as soon as the third equation appears, and gets it right.

"Well," The judge's voice rings out, "it looks like we have quite the spirited and talented competition on our hands, tonight."

'Lela, does she have the nanites?' I send to the angel. I can't sense any of the switches on the ship, but I know she'll get the message.

'No, but she has her gene activated,' the words appear a moment later.

'I think she has some kind of superior intellect,' I tell her, then curse myself for being too distracted and missing the fourth question. She'd answered as soon as the screen lit up that time, also.

The crowd is really "ahh"-ing now, and I decide to get my butt in gear, if we're going to have a chance of winning this.

The other girl hits her buzzer just a moment before the screen lights up this time, disqualifying her team this round, and I let Barbara answer this one.

After that, it's a battle to see who can hit the buzzer first, without hitting it too early. I screw up once, but quickly use a switch to display the equation. The girl really begins to glare at me after that, and ends up making two more mistakes.

The temptation to use my switches more than that once grows, as we stay neck and neck, but I hold back.

And then we're one point behind for the final question. It's worth two points.

The tension in the room is thick, and silence hangs supreme as everyone waits for the final problem to appear. No pressure at all.

The screen lights up, and suddenly my vision goes blank. I don't mean the room dimmed, or I couldn't see the screen, I mean everything went gray. A solid, flat gray.

It takes me a moment to realize that I'd heard the opponent's buzzer, but no answer following it.

"She doesn't have it," Adam says next to me. "Look at her, she's shaking her head and her eyes are huge."

I wish I could look at her. Why can't I see?

"I need your answer," the judge announces officiously.

Another buzzer sounds, indicating that the other team took too long.

"We've got this," I hear Barbara say. "What is it, Nick?"

"I don't know," I tell her in confusion. "I—I can't see."

The judge calls for us to answer, and I can hear Adam furiously scribbling, trying to come up with the answer.

"What do you mean?" my female teammate demands. "It's right there!"

I shake my head in denial, and point shakily at my head. She doesn't understand, and I'm starting to get worried. Have I somehow overused the nanites? Did something fry in my brain? 'Lela?' I send in desperation, but I can't even see my own message.

Adam hits the buzzer, and shouts, "Forty-two!"

"I'm sorry, that is incorrect," the judge drones, and just that quickly, my vision returns.

Immediately I glance at the screen, wanting to know what kind of equation could stump the other team, but it's already gone.

'Lela, what happened?'

'Your race is not yet ready for that answer,' she responds a moment later.

What's that supposed to mean?

Another buzzer, and the game is over. We lost.

The girl on the opposing team stomps over to me and stares me in the eyes for a moment. "You cheated," she states, matter-of-factly.

The judge hears her. "If you have some sort of evidence to present, young lady?" but she shakes her head, and walks back to her celebrating team.

Then Gina, Dennis, and Robin are right there, looking around, and I realize they're acting again as my bodyguards.

"Nick," Barbara yells after me, but I need to get out of here. What had Lela meant by our race not being ready for that?

I see Professor Frankens looking at me, worried, but I continue moving.

The four of us head for the exit, but the Asian girl cuts us off.

"Why didn't you answer that last question?" she demands, and I only notice a faint accent in her voice this time.

"Why didn't you?" I shoot back, not liking her attitude.

"You know what it was too, then?" she asks, curiously, there is no longer any heat in her voice.

I nod that I do, even though I have no frakking clue, and walk past her.

Unfortunately, the police are waiting for me, right outside the door.

"Mr. Xavier?" a cop with the obligatory mustache asks me, and I nod. "You're wanted in connection with the altercation that took place yesterday.

"Nick?" Gina's voice is thick with worry.

For a moment I debate on making a switch to make the cop forget, but that won't make the problem go away, and it'll likely get the cop in trouble to boot. I've never had a reason to hate the cops, knowing that they're only there to do their duty, and help protect us.

Does that make me an Earth cop, because I'm trying to protect all of humanity? A question for another time.

"It's okay," I whisper to her, and go to the officer. "Any chance my girlfriend can ride with me?" I ask, already knowing the answer. I use a switch to make him more accommodating.

Yes, I'm manipulating him, but I'm worried about Gina's psyche if I'm gone too long from her.

"Um, I'm not supposed to, but I guess if you behave. . ." The policeman seems a bit confused as he walks us to the car. He even goes so far as to politely open the doors for us.

I tell Dennis and Robin to head home, and I'll be there before too much longer. Dennis gives me a wink, before leading a chortling Robin away. They know I can handle myself.

"What's going on, Frank?" a second cop asks as we get situated. "We're only supposed to pick him up, not his floozy too."

Hearing Gina referred to as a floozy pisses me off. I crank hard on Frank's 'accommodation' switch, then make and flip some in the partner.

"Listen, bub," I say in as deep and menacing a voice as I can muster, "This lady is a high-class gal. In your whole life, you'll be lucky to have a woman such as her even look at you. Treat her with respect, am I clear?" I release him from his paralysis and let go of his 'intimidation' switch, and smile as he turns fear filled eyes to me. He quickly nods, and turns back to the front, as we pull out of the parking lot.

Gina is left in the lobby as I'm taken back to a different officer's desk. I half expected to be taken to an interrogation room, but won't complain that I'm not.

I'm not waiting long, before a large brutish looking woman sits across from me, and glares for a moment. Her nose has obviously been broken numerous times, and there are small scars around her mouth. Her shoulders are easily big enough to play for any professional football team, and even with my ability, I'm just a bit intimidated.

"Mr. Xavier," she says, and her voice is gravelly, and barely feminine at all, "your name has been popping up a lot lately." She studies me for a reaction, but I just stare blankly back at her. "When that happens, we here at the precinct like to call that a pattern."

Really? She's going to treat me like a child? I know I shouldn't, but my mouth speaks before I can get my filter into place. "You mean like how if I see two circles and a square, followed by two more circles, the next is likely to be a square?"

The scars around her lips tighten at my flippant tone, but she doesn't rise to the bait. "Why don't you tell us where you were yesterday afternoon, Mr. Xavier?"

"You mean when those two lunatics were trying to kill me?" I ask. "I was home taking a bath."

Her large fist slams down on the table, startling me, and I realize I'd better cool it. "Don't play games with me, kid. Four other students got hurt, and one of them is in critical condition. Witnesses as well as numerous online videos place you at the scene, before you mysteriously vanished."

For a moment I think to tell her the truth. But after the way I've been acting, telling her that an alien experimented on me, and another two of her experiments tried to kill me, but thankfully that alien also teleported me to her ship before they could burn me to a crisp, and oh, by-the-way, I also have six kids with that alien, just doesn't seem very viable.

"Look," I tell her, trying to come up with something fast, without looking like I was trying to come up with something fast, "I don't know what happened. All I know is that I was walking out of Professor Frankens's class, when there was a huge commotion. I ran outside to see what was going on, when those two attacked me. Why don't you ask them?"

"I did, this morning," she tells me, and I blink at her. "I'm Special Agent Albrecht, in charge of finding the siblings that have been traveling across the country, frying people to a crisp. This morning, we caught them in the Arizona desert, hundreds of miles from here. The sick perverts were fucking in the desert." She shakes herself in disgust, but her attitude doesn't bother me. She doesn't strike me as the type of woman to enjoy anything. She picks up a folder and her desk, and looks through it for a moment. "When we questioned them, they told us that they were on a holy mission to cleanse the world of demon infested souls, and that you had somehow blocked their God-given powers, and turned them to temptation." She folds her massive hands in front of her, and fixes me with a piercing stare. It's only then that I notice her eyes are two different colors. The right one is an ice-cold blue, while the left one is a dark brown, bordering on black.

I have no doubt that many perps have broken under that mismatched gaze.

"As I'm sure you can guess, we're very interested in talking to you. We already have one of your victims in lockup." She states this last part almost as if it's a second thought, but I have no idea who she's talking about.

She must correctly recognize the look on my face, as she goes ahead and confuses me even more. "I hate men who lord their power over women, Mr. Xavier, and you look like the type of tough guy to do just that. Like that doe-eyed gal in the lobby. Do you beat her up every night, unless she obeys you?"

"What? No!" I reply, shocked at the accusation. I know she's trying to throw me off balance and see if something shakes loose, but I hate the mere thought of violence against a woman.

"I've seen many women like her. Always following her man around, afraid to be too far away, lest he beat her for not being available at his every beck and call," she continues as if I hadn't spoken. "Now I know some poor fool women prefer to live like that, but when you rape a woman, leave her pregnant, and beat her. . . Well, I just won't tolerate that."

What the hell is she talking about? I know Gina hasn't been spreading any lies, and while I can see how it might look like Gina was a simpering slave, she is anything but!

"Ha!" she nearly spits at me. "You're so arrogant, that you've already forgotten about the poor woman you mistreated." She stands, and grips my shoulder painfully. "Why don't we go back and visit her?"

She literally picks me up with her grip on my shoulder, and I'm left with the choice of being dragged, or walking.

Walking seems more dignified.

'Do you need us to come get you?' I know the question is from my sister.

'No, I need to clear my name, and get this straightened out.'

She takes me back to a group of cells, and points to someone cowering in the corner. At first I think it's a guy, until I notice that there are only women in the cell. The hair is short, and the clothes ragged.

"There," Agent Albrecht shoves me at the bars, and the girl looks up, then turns around terror. If she had a voice, she would have screamed.

I recognize her. . . Or him. . . Or, well, I'm still trying to figure that out.

Harley Quinn as I now think of her, the person who had once been Derek, cowers in fear in her cell.

"Look what you did to that poor woman," Albrecht growls behind me, and I feel my temper slipping.

"Derek," I say through clenched teeth, "What lies did you spread this time?"

She only continues to cower, not answering. Albrecht's grip on my shoulder tightens, and I know I'm in trouble. This has to look really bad, from the agent's point-of-view.

"Listen," I tell the large woman, "I don't know what he, or I mean she, told you, but she is a known liar. She raped the girl out there—" I point to the lobby, "—numerous times, and I saved Gina from that monster in there. If he, er, she is pregnant, you'll find that it's not mine!" I look between the two for a moment, then ask, "Why is she in there, anyway?"

"She was caught shoplifting. She wrote down her story while we booked her. You want me to believe that that weak little thing raped another woman?" Albrecht asks incredulously.

"Go ask Gina for yourself," I tell the agent. She gives me a queer look, then drags me back out to her desk. Depositing me forcefully in the seat, she storms out to the lobby.

Damn Derek and his damned lying. I'd thought I'd taken care of him before, but apparently I'd let her off easy. I'd taken away her voice, apparently she'd gotten pregnant from her own cum when she'd been a man, and still he was trying to get at me. Then I curse myself for the fool. There's more than one way to communicate.

This time, I'm going to make sure nothing like this can ever happen again. I remember the movie 'Liar, Liar' and know how I'm going to handle Harley Quinn.

Albrecht comes back from the lobby, shaking her head.

"She corroborates your story," the massive agent states, towering over me. "I think she's batty, though, talking about aliens and sex changes. But that doesn't mean I believe you. And that doesn't answer the question about you and those two deviants we caught in Arizona."

There is a loud commotion from down the hallway with the cells. A guard rushes out, and up to Albrecht.

"That nutcase in cell three is calling for you," he tells her, and I can tell she doesn't like the term 'nutcase.'

"Stay here," she growls at me, then storms off again, only to come back wide-eyed, and confused a few moments later.

"That girl just confirmed everything that your girlfriend just said. Including the parts about aliens and sex changes. Funny how she never spoke a word until you got here." She gives me another one of her ugly glares, but I sit placidly, waiting. "What can you tell me about the other two?" she asks when she sees I'm not going to buckle.

"Exactly what I told you before. I came out of class, and they attacked me."

"Witnesses claim your leg got badly burned," she continues to dig.

I lift both my pant legs, showing her my undamaged skin.

"And you suddenly vanishing?" She doesn't want to give up.

"I admit I haven't seen the videos, but as soon as I could, I took off running. If it looks like anything else, the videos must be edited." I'm keeping my voice calm and smooth, knowing she doesn't have anything on me, now.

"Why couldn't we find you until tonight?" She's starting to lose some of her heat, but wants every question covered.

"They attacked me," I tell her. "I didn't know if they knew where I lived or not. I didn't know what to do."

"Why didn't you come to the police?" Now she just sounds curious.

"They were throwing fireballs at me. What could the police do?"

The questions only continue for a few more moments, before Special Agent Albrecht has to admit that she has nothing on me.

Gina greets me with a massive hug as I reenter the lobby. A cab is called, and takes us to my place, where Dennis and Robin give me another interrogation, laughing as I tell them, and then laughing harder when I have to explain about what I'd done to Derek.

"That guy always was a prick," Dennis chortles.

"Not anymore," Robin laughs, and she has to get herself under control, before she can continue. "Now she's just a pussy!"

We all laugh at that, and have a couple beers to relax after the crazy day, before going to bed. Dennis and Robin invite us to join them, and Gina's game, but I just want to call an end to this miserable day.

As soon as Gina and I are in my room, though, I find myself on Lela's ship, and groan.

"Nick?" Gina's worried voice sounds behind me, and I groan again. Is everybody going to come up here? Next thing you know, Donna, Mom, and Nancy will be popping up for a visit!

'Do you want them here, too?' Harana mentally asks.

'NO!' I quickly reply, not realizing that I'd been broadcasting my thoughts again.