Fractals

Fractals Chapter Twenty Two (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… I don’t know what either of us will do once I get all caught up, lol! InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink and Dracena are loverly and wondermous for archiving and hosting! ProPhile: smut in 23! Morgan: How’d the show go? Readers/Reviewers: Thank you!!! And I’ll be catching up on ADASN, HHNF and WWC in the next week… finally!!!


Kitty yawned, covering her mouth with her fingers belatedly as she realized her professor was staring at her. “I’m sorry, what was that?”
The professor raised her eyebrow. “The answer to number six.”
“Oh…” Kitty felt the color rising in her cheeks as she hurriedly flipped through the sheets of paper in front of her. “Um…”
“Miss Pryde, if you are not prepared, there is no point in coming to class,” the older woman said crisply.
“No, no, I have it!” She knew her face was tomato red by this point and she both wanted to throttle Professor Smithers and sink through the floor and disappear forever. “Here it is!” She hazarded a bright smile but wilted inside as the rest of the small class simply stared at her with boredom or vague disdain under Professor Smither’s gaze. Clearing her throat, she said hastily “The Mandelbrot set1 is typical of fractals in that it shows similarities on a small scale but is infinitely variable when viewed as a larger whole despite the apparent yet false sameness of the individual parts.”2
Professor Smithers raised a brow. “And?”
“And…” Kitty blinked for a moment. “And it’s based on an incredibly simple equation?” She winced at the question in her voice but did not look away.
Professor Smithers rolled her eyes. “This is a very special program, Miss Pryde. It’s highly unusual someone such as yourself is even in my classroom. I suggest you keep this in mind as you prepare for tomorrow’s test!” She nodded once and the class rose and surged towards the door, Kitty sitting in place and feeling the insane urge to burst into tears.
Kitty stood slowly and as dignified as she could manage, gathered her belongings and filed towards the door, not even glancing at her professor as she moved by her desk. She did, however, deeply wish for the power to make people dissolve to suddenly manifest. Her face burned all the way back to her dorm room, where she dropped her books on her desk and flung herself face-down onto the lumpy mattresses. She was awash in a sudden homesickness for the Institute, even though she had only been there mere hours before. She missed her bed, even if she did have to share the room with Rahne now (and to be fair, she thought, Rahne had not even really moved anything in other than the bed. She was still getting her clothes out of her own room every time she needed to change and just working around the painters), she missed her view out of the window onto the lawn and most of all, she missed everyone. It was not so much that she felt awkward not being considered the smartest one around anymore, which did throw her for a loop the first day of class, but she missed having people she cared about around her. She was about to let herself get into a really self pitying state when someone knocked on her door. Standing, she smoothed her hair and sniffed, trying to look studious and not sad, then opened the door. The resident assistant stood there, looking mightily bored and holding a slip of paper between two fingers as if it were something offensive. “Phone message?” Kitty asked, not taking the paper yet.
“Yeah, some Irish girl,” she shrugged, waving the slip. “Guy’s name, though.”
Kitty sighed. “ She’s Scottish. Rahne. It’s not a guy’s name,”
“Whatever. She just called her while you were in class though and woke me up from my nap so call her back ‘fore she decides to call again.” The RA turned and shuffled back to the front desk and the only land line phone in the entire dormitory.
Kitty frowned, shutting the door rather than following her and heading to her desk to fish out her cell phone, flopping back onto her bed as it rang. Finally, Rahne picked up. “Rahne,” Kitty said by way of greeting, “you called?”
The connection between to the two cell phones crackled faintly as Rahne replied. “Yeah… um… got a minute?”
“Sure, what’s wrong?” She shoved herself up onto her elbow, frowning out the narrow window onto the courtyard of the dorm quadrangle. “Are you okay?”
“So far, yeah, but something is coming up…” Rahne muffled the phone for a moment and Kitty heard her talking to someone before coming back. “Sorry, Logan’s wanting me to hurry up. He and Jubilee are going into town and I was going to go along to get some books about excommunication…”
“You’re rambling,” Kitty said gently, smiling faintly. _It’s probably just about Jamie being nervous again or something, _ she thought, glad for some slice of normalcy in her life now. “Jamie being twitchy?”
“Huh? OH, yeah, sure, but I think he’s getting better about it. The problem is…well, Kitty, we’re out.”
“Of…?” She frowned.
“No, we’re out… as in public.” Rahne’s voice held a slight tremor to it which made Kitty instantly discard her notion that this was a bad joke or a mistake.
“Rahne, why do you say that? I know there was some brouhaha about it but Professor Xavier and Emma had it under control…” A cold fist of fear seemed to lodge in her belly and spread it’s fingers towards her heart. “Rahne?”
“Look,” she said rapidly, her accent thick and voice breathy with nervousness. “Remy just got back from checking up on Solange—you know, that baby?—and he brought back three different newspapers from upstate. We’re plastered all over them! Newspapers, not tabloids!”
Kitty took a deep breath and urged Rahne to do the same. “It’ll be fine,” she said, not believing it herself. “It’s all going to be seen as bullshit anyway. It’s under control…”
“No, Kitty, it’s not,” she said sharply. “No one wanted to call and tell you this morning because you’re away at school but Kitty, you’re right on the front page of one of these. Professor Xavier was going to send Logan up tonight to tell you but it’s spreading too fast. Jean found something online about us and…” she paused again to hiss for silence to someone behind her. “I have to hurry—Kitty, think about coming home. There’s some scary shit happening and a group’s been formed called Friends of Humanity.”
“What? How do you know all this?” She shook her head, reconsidering the idea it was a mistake and Rahne was flying off the handle.
“Logan will be your way tonight. Pretend to be surprised.” The line went dead.
Kitty stared into space for all of a minute before getting to her feet and turning off her phone. Something was not quite right in any of this, she thought to herself, getting her text books and deciding to head to the library to study and maybe clear her mind before calling the mansion again. Grabbing her jacket, she opened the door to her small room and stopped short. Stuck on the wooden door with thumb tacks were several pictures cut out of a newspaper and printed off of a website. Scrawled in black, still wet from the marker, was one word. “FREAK!” it screamed at her. Shaking, she yanked it off her door and wadded it into a ball, swallowing against a surge of fear, she slammed her door and turned to march towards the front desk, only to find herself facing three people: the RA, an older woman she did not recognize, and her academic advisor. “Kitty,” the older woman said in a soothing tone one would use to assuage a particularly vicious cat, “I need for you to come with me for a moment.”
“Why?” she demanded, fear replaced by anger. “Someone just vandalized my room and I need to report it.” A glance at the RA’s guilty face told her all she needed to know about the perpetrator. “Excuse me,” she began, but the older woman held out her hands to stop her.
“It’s come to our attention that there is a…situation. You need to come with us. Now.”
Kitty felt the fist in her stomach grip her throat. She had no choice. “Fine. But I’m calling my guardian first.”

1 http://www.ddewey.net/mandelbrot/
2 see above for citation