Lexa Prine is mine. All other comic references belong to their respective owners, authors, directors, artists, etc...
“I’m sorry, Agent…Myers, was it?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“No, no no…wait a minute,” she snarled, pausing to glare at him. “First, it’s Lexa, not Ma’am. Second, why the hell are you taking me to the sanitation department?”
“Lexa,” Myers said, his voice shaky, “please bear with me for a moment. I need to get you inside before someone stops us. After all, you are still under surveillance.”
“By who? Magneto? What’s he going to do to me?”
“My guess would be kill you,” Myers retorted, resting his palm against the pad on the wall. Lexa watched in amazement as a small, metal eye shot out of a hole above the pad, scanned Myers’ left eye, and disappeared. He blinked away the light and retracted his hand. “I am under specific orders from Professor X to protect you.” She continued her glare, the anger contorting her face. For a moment, Myers was certain her chin had actually become longer.
“Fine,” she spat, crossing her arms over her chest, “lead the way, Skippy.”
Lexa followed along behind him, quietly muttering something about the unfairness of being taken to a sewer plant. Myers listened to the personal rant, and smiled without response. He led her down the long walkway to the front of the building. The door whooshed open quietly, the brushes along its bottom side sweeping quietly across the tile floor.
For the first time since their meeting at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, Lexa began to take an interest in her surroundings. The large, golden emblem on the floor in the center of the room caught her attention, and she walked around its edge. Myers stopped in the center, nodded to the guard at the desk, and cleared his throat.
“Watch your arms,” he said simply. She looked at him, and the jolt of the hydraulic lift under the floor beneath her feet startled her. Lexa moved closer to Myers as they sank into the lobby floor.
“What is this place?” she asked. “This isn’t like any sewer company I’ve ever seen.”
“This is the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.”
“You mean, like from the Hellboy comics?” Lexa rolled her eyes. Myers nodded, forcing his smile away. “No way…” she started to pace around the perimeter of the gold emblem again. “Wait…” she paused, face contorting into a confused mess, and turned back to him. “I thought the lunkhead on those late shows said this place didn’t exist!”
Myers laughed. “Agent Manning is paid to lie,” he said, and his expression turned serious. “Lexa, you exist, and the legislators would have the world believe you don’t.” She opened her mouth as if she would argue, but the jarring of the braces on the platform edges stopped her. “Sometimes things aren’t always what they seem.”
Quietly, Myers started toward the door, leaving Lexa standing on the platform. Her face fell, and reluctantly she fell into step behind him one more time. The tunnel was dank and dark, carved into a vein of rock. A warm, yellow glow emanated from the doors at the end. Lexa normally would have been afraid of a place like this, but the knowledge that it was a place where she could belong eased her mind.
Myers was already gone by the time she got to the door. Her nerves were in shambles after the run-in she’d had with Mystique, and she knew she wasn’t prepared for anymore bad surprises. However, she knew she couldn’t continue to loiter in the doorway without consequence either. Someone would inevitably come through and ask her who she was and what she was doing, and then she’d have to…
“No!” she snarled. “Not here!” She had to stop herself from digging her fingernails into her palms. “I’m normal…I’m normal…” she chanted. Lexa was afraid of the rage she could feel growing. It was never good, and she could rarely remember what had happened when it was over.
Sighing, Lexa reached out and made herself pull open the door. Warm air wafted out against her clammy skin. The inviting scent of spaghetti sauce lingered in the air, and just past the corridor she could see what appeared to be a study with large, plush chairs. A faint, bluish glow was coming from the right-hand wall. Intriguing, she thought and started toward her destiny.
The room at the end of the corridor was indeed a study. One wall was lined ceiling to floor with books, and the blue glow was coming from what looked like a large fish tank. Close to the back wall, she could see something swimming in it close to the back wall. What hit her as strange was not the huge tank, but the fact that four stands stood facing the tank, each with a large, heavy volume of literature.
“War and Peace?” she asked out loud, wrinkling her nose, “Who the hell reads Tolstoy?”
“I do,” came the reply. The voice was smooth and even, and muffled by glass. She jumped and turned, and the sight that greeted her caused her to simultaneously scream and drop the book on her foot, which in turn caused her to draw her foot up and hop around the room wildly. If the facial muscles had been available, the thing in the tank would have smiled. “Would you mind turning the pages for me? That one was on page six-hundred sixty.”
“Wh-what the hell is that thing?!” she shrieked, limping backwards into the middle of the room.
“Abraham Sapien,” the thing responded. “You are Alexis Marie Prine, but you go by the name of Lexa. You are nineteen years old, a Libra, and your natural hair color is much lighter than what it is now. Strong telekinetic powers. You,” it said, tilting its head to the side and blinking inquisitively, “are a shape shifter.”
“How the hell do you know that about me?!” she cried out, frantically searching for some sort of weapon. Her rationality was gone, and she had yet to notice that he was on the other side of a very thick glass wall.
“Abe is something of a genius,” Myers replied, appearing from the doorway to her left. “Unique frontal lobe that lends him a touch of telepathy. He also reads four books at a time, every day.” He crossed the room, picked up the book and replaced it on the rack. He then walked down the line and flipped the pages on each.
“Oookay…” Lexa replied, closing her eyes to still the thrumming of her heartbeat. “But how does it-er… HE know about me?”
“Blue likes to learn. Most of it came from the case file the Professor sent over. The rest,” Myers shrugged, “that’s for him to know.”
“Blue?”
“Yeah…each of our special agents has a code name. Security measure in the field. For example, Abe is blue, because his locator beacon is blue.”
“Oh…”
“Agent Myers, might I ask you a question?” Abe asked. His hands were pressed to the glass, and his large, black eyes continued to blink curiously. Myers turned and pressed his own hand to the glass, and Lexa watched in amazed horror as the two appeared to have a conversation entirely without words. Finally, Myers broke away, laughing.
“Yes, Abe…that is definitely going to be an interesting sight. I’ll let you know how it goes.”
Curious and frustrated, Lexa narrowed her eyes as Myers neared her. “What’s so funny?” she demanded as he took her arm and led her toward the door.
“Oh, nothing…” he responded, leading her into a brightly-light hallway. “But Abe is curious to know what your reaction will be when you meet Red.”