text: The next time Jean opened her eyes, she found that nothing had changed. She was still restrained, still in the white room, and still mind-dead. She was almost glad for everything but the latter.
  
  She tried to move and pain soared through her head. Just more of the same. She was right back where she had started, with nothing to show but an even worse headache and the certain knowledge that breaking people's kneecaps in this place was not going to get her anywhere. Time to gather information and strategize.
  
  Her first instinct—basic, like breathing—was to reach out with her mind and simply steal the information she needed. She suffered a quick reminder of how impossible that was, and had to bite down on her tongue to keep from swearing. She was not going to rest here helpless. She refused. There were other ways to use her mind and not all of them relied on being a mutant. It was something Jean was beginning to realize she had forgotten.
  
  She pressed her face into the floor to give herself better leverage as she rolled to her knees. Dreadlocks fell around her face, and she remembered she was a man. Which might have been more distressing if she was free, but at the moment, she did not have time to indulge herself in thinking about it. Much.
  
  Fighting the urge to vomit, Jean carefully stood. She had to lean against the wall for several minutes; she desperately wanted to lie down again, but was afraid if she did, there would be no getting up. Despair and fatigue were a dangerous combination, and she teetered close to suffering from both.
  
  She heard someone out in the hall and steeled herself for another bad encounter. The lock turned, the door opened, and an unfamiliar man in a white nursing uniform peered into the room. He had brown eyes, brown hair, and an unmemorable chin.
  
  "Hey, Jeff. How you feeling?'
  
  "Fine," Jean said, still amazed at her new voice. "I'm very sorry about last night. I don't know what came over me. I woke up frightened. Is that man... will he be all right?"
  
  "Just peachy." The nurse gave her a strange look. "Has Maguire been doing a Henry Higgins on you?"
  
  "Excuse me?" Her head hurt so badly she wanted to scream.
  
  "Your voice. You're talking different."
  
  "Oh," she said. "Well... Maguire tries to do a lot of things to... help."
  
  "I guess so." The young man entered the room, glancing over his shoulder at the hall behind him. "Just between you and me, Jeff, this time you really fucked up. Maguire had the administrator all convinced that you shouldn't be transferred—and boy, was the doc pissed when they suggested it—but after last night..." He moved a little closer, smiling. "Well, you know. Easy come, easy go. I think they're going to do it fast, in the next couple of days before Maguire comes back. Easier on him if he's not here to see it."
  
  Easier on the administrator, who would not have to deal with any immediate protests. Jean studied the young man's uniform, recalling her previous night's encounter. She most certainly was inside the mental hospital. Why was another matter entirely—but if she was here then the others might be, too. The problem was finding them.
  
  "Why are you telling me all this?" she asked, not liking the smile on his face.
  
  "Because I want to see you squirm." His smile widened.
  
  The long hall felt like an extension of her room, a prison nightmare of doors and barred windows. The air smelled like disinfectant: stale, chemical.
  
  The nurse did not turn his back on her. He kept his distance, walking several steps behind with a rolling gait that felt like he was winding up to hit something. She glanced over her shoulder.
  
  "I'm having trouble this morning," she said. "I keep forgetting things. How long have I been here? Why was I seeing the doctor?"
  
  He laughed. "They must have cracked your shit up last night. Damn. What do I tell you, Jeff? That you're a junkie? That you almost beat a man to death for not giving you the time of day, because that's how much you needed to know if you were late for meeting your dealer? Yeah, you're a real angel. I don't know why Maguire wasted his time on trying to iron you out, but he had his favorites, and man, when he latched on, there was no changing his mind."
  
  "Who else were his favorites?" Jean asked.
  
  He gave her a strange look and said, "Here's the bathroom."
  
  The bathroom was a large space, with stalls on one side, a row of urinals on the other, and an open cattle shower between them.
  
  "You need to crap?" he asked.
  
  "No." She wondered if that was a mistake. Perhaps he would take his guard down if she sat on the toilet. She could try to subdue him—
  
  Too late. He pushed her to the urinals.
  
  "I'll try to be gentle." He grinned and unzipped her pants. It was a horrible sensation, feeling his hands down there, and even though this was not her body she felt indignant for herself, for the man she was, and stared at the wall as he shook her loose.
  
  "Well, come on." He looked down, and then up at her face. "We don't have all day, Jeff."
  
  Her bladder ached but this did not feel natural. She had trouble relaxing that part of her body.
  
  "Don't mess with me," said the nurse. "I'll take you back to your room."
  
  "Wait," Jean said. "Please. Just...turn your back. I need a minute. I need some privacy."
  
  "Right," said the nurse. "You just want to kick my ass. Oh, but wait—your hands are tied. Tough, man. Real tough."
  
  Jean grit her teeth. "Fine, don't turn around. But step back a little. I can't go with you watching me."
  
  "Aw, you're shy like a little girl. Okay, Jeffy. If it makes you feel better, I'll ease back a little. Just so." He moved. She turned back to the urinal and stared at herself, trying to overcome the desire to scream in frustration. There was also just the simple need to scream—for no good reason, other than the fact she had a penis attached to her body and there was currently no way to escape from it.
  
  She did finally manage to urinate, but it took time and she could hear the nurse grow more and more impatient. She was actually surprised he lasted as long as he did, until finally he stalked over and slipped her back inside those hospital pants. He went to the sink and washed his hands.
  
  Another man entered the bathroom. Slender and dark, with a narrow face and bright eyes. He wore the loose garb of a hospital patient.
  
  "Well, now," said the nurse. "Fancy this. Jeff, meet one of those people you so conveniently forgot. Renny, can you believe it? She doesn't remember you."
  
  "Ah," said the man, with an odd smile. "You do not remember me, mein freund? Truly? If it helps, my favorite color is blue."
  
  Jean's breath caught. After a moment, she said, "Mine is red."
  
  "What a lovely color, too," said Renny. Jean thought, Kurt, that is Kurt, and he said, "We have all been wondering how you are. I cannot believe you forgot us."
  
  "Hey," said the nurse. "What's with the German accent? The hell is Maguire giving you guys?"
  
  Jean ignored him. "How are the others?"
  
  "Fine," Kurt said, and then the nurse grabbed Jean's shoulder and shoved her to the door.
  
  "Playtime is over. Renny? Don't hang out here too long, man."
  
  "Bye," Jean said, and then, fast, "This might be the last time you see me. I'm being transferred."
  
  "What?" Kurt looked startled. Jean tried to say more, but the nurse pushed her out of the bathroom and Kurt did not follow. She did not blame him. Best not to attract attention in this place. It was enough that the others were here. Selfish, yes—but better than wondering if her friends and husband were alive or dead.
  
  She and the nurse passed a slender Chinese woman, leaning against the wall beside a poorly lit stairwell. She seemed very pretty, though it was hard to tell with her gaze so shy on the floor. She sneaked a peek at Jean and winked.
  
  Jean stumbled. The nurse pushed her. "All your little friends are here, huh? You got a girlfriend, Jeff?" And then, to the woman, "You better get moving, Mindy. You make eyes at Jeff, I might just ask you to do the same for me."
  
  Something hard flashed through the woman's gaze— for a moment, Jean thought there would be a fight—but then she looked away and shuffled down the stairs. The nurse laughed.
  
  Jean glanced over her shoulder. Behind the nurse's back, the woman—Mindy—peered around the stairwell.
  
  She met Jean's gaze and pointed at her eyes. Mouthed, "Scott."
  
  Jean took a deep breath and looked away. If she stared any longer she would say or do something stupid. Scott. Thank God. He was okay. Kind of. Her husband was a woman.
  
  Wow. Someone was probably laughing about this.
  
  And when she found that person, he was in big trouble.
  
  Kurt left the bathroom after Jeff and the nurse disappeared from sight. He ran to Scott and said, "That was Jean."
  
  "What?"
  
  "Truly, I am sure of it."
  
  Scott stared down the hall, trying to recall that masculine face, the dark eyes. A part of him was not entirely surprised. There was one moment—brief, startling—when he looked into Jeff's face and felt that trickle of connection that he always had with Jean: comfort, a sense of coming home.
  
  But that immediately seemed wrong, and the reason was superficial: Jeff was a man. Scott, enlightened politically correct mutant that he was, felt strange having those kinds of feelings for a man. But if Jean was in there...
  
  You love her. You love her and it doesn't matter.
  
  "It is lucky we decided to come and check her room, ja? If we had not seen her in the hall..Kurt hesitated. "Jean believes she will be transferred soon, perhaps tonight. She managed to tell me this."
  
  "Perfect," Scott said. The hall was empty; most of the patients seemed to be downstairs in the recreation room. The nurses' station on this floor was at the other end of the wing. He began walking after Jeff. Kurt followed.
  
  "Scott," he said.
  
  Scott ignored the tension in his friend's voice and said, "How athletic are you now, Kurt?"
  
  Kurt shook his head. "If you are asking me what I think-"
  
  "I am."
  
  "—then yes, mein freund. I am strong enough."
  
  Scott began to run. He turned the bend in the hall and saw the nurse pushing Jeff— Jean—into her cell. Scott did not slow down. Silent, fast, he raced toward the nurse and the man looked up at the last moment, saw it was Mindy—sweet quiet little woman—and brought his hands up too slow. Scott slammed his tiny fist into the man's throat, Jean kicked out the back of his knees—and then as the nurse went down hard, choking, Kurt arrived and hit the fallen man hard in the face, again and again, until he went very still. Scott checked his pulse.
  
  "We are still clear," Kurt said, breathing hard as he looked up and down the hall. Scott stood and reached for Jean. He gazed into her unfamiliar face and said, "Are you okay?"
  
  "I am now," she said, and turned around. "Get me out of this thing."
  
  Scott ripped away the Velcro ties and helped Jean slither out of the straitjacket. Kurt attempted to drag the nurse into Jean's cell.
  
  "I could use some help," he muttered. Scott and Jean grabbed arms and legs and hauled the nurse out of the hall, stowing him right up against the wall where he would be out of sight from someone looking in through the observation window. Kurt wrestled him into the straitjacket.
  
  "That won't keep him quiet," Jean said, but Kurt removed the nurse's tennis shoes and stripped off his socks. He stuffed them both in the man's slack mouth. Scott searched his pockets and pulled out a set of keys.
  
  "We need to get Logan and Rogue," he said.
  
  "That is not going to be easy." Kurt stepped back from the nurse and peered through the observation window.
  
  "My life stopped being easy the day I hit puberty," Jean said, nudging him aside to carefully open the door. Scott pressed up against her back, listening hard. He heard nothing but the distant echo of voices, the sounds of men and women in motion.
  
  The three X-Men left the cell and hurried back down the hall to the stairs. Logan and Rogue were being held one floor above them, but in a different wing. According to Scott's memories of the hospital blueprints, the only way to reach them required going down to the first floor and past the recreation room to another flight of stairs in the adjoining wing. It was a crowded area; Scott did not like their odds.
  
  "If someone sees me..." Jean whispered.
  
  "I know," Scott said. "But the only surveillance cameras are near the exits and there are more patients than staff in this place. If we're careful—"
  
  "That might not be enough," Kurt said. "Someone is coming."
  
  There was no time to retreat; they were trapped on the stairs. Taking a deep breath and hoping for the best, Scott pushed forward. Up until now, he and Kurt had relied upon no one paying attention to them. With Jean, that would change. Scott imagined that most of the staff knew that she—or rather, Jeff—had been locked up for violence. If anyone questioned why she now walked free—
  
  It was Nurse Palmer who appeared in front of them. She carried a stack of files and her steps were slow, heavy. The light from the window behind her no longer seemed quite so bright; Scott wondered what time it was. Night would be a better time for escape.
  
  You should have left Jean in her cell until you were ready to leave this place. You just worsened your odds.
  
  But then, Scott preferred to take his chances with Jean at his side, rather than risk a transfer or some other harm to her. The X-Men had no control over their lives in this place.
  
  Scott did not stop walking nor slow his pace; for a moment he thought Nurse Palmer would let them pass, but at the last possible instant she stepped in front of him. Scott teetered on his heels to keep from running into her. Jean brushed up against his back.
  
  He glanced at Nurse Palmer from under his lashes and found her staring at Jeff. Her forehead creased into a thick frown. "Now, this can't be right. Who let you out of lockup, Jeff?"
  
  "I don't know," Jean said. "One of the nurses. He said he didn't want to take time to feed me, so I should do it myself."
  
  "Of all the..." Nurse Palmer shook her head, shifting backward. Scott wondered if she was getting ready to run. He did not blame her; she was one solitary woman, outnumbered by three mentally unstable individuals. Scott was surprised she had even bothered confronting them.
  
  "He's hungry," Kurt said. "Can't he have dinner with us?"
  
  Nurse Palmer narrowed her eyes. "No, he cannot. And why do you care so much, Renny? Jeff has always terrified you, and now, suddenly, you're acting like friends? You're spending time with Mindy and looking for Dr. Maguire? Something is wrong here. You're acting out of character." She gave Scott a searching look. "All of you are."
  
  She backed down the stairs and Scott knew they had only moments before she began calling for help. He said, "Wait," but this time Nurse Palmer did not respond or act surprised by his willingness to talk.
  
  And then another woman appeared, running lightly up the stairs from the first floor. She looked vaguely familiar. Her eyes were odd, and she wore the loose uniform of a patient.
  
  "Suzy," said Nurse Palmer, and the woman smiled, stepping so close that Scott felt sure the nurse would say something—a shout, a warning—but colors shifted in the patient's gaze, whorls of gold and green, and Nurse Palmer shut her mouth.
  
  "Those are real heavy files," said the woman, Suzy.
  
  "And it's been a hell of a long day. I think you better move on now and find a place to rest your feet."
  
  Nurse Palmer shook her head, though her gaze never wavered from Suzy's eyes. The woman swayed close, her hips round and soft like her voice, and she said, "Go on now. These people aren't important at all."
  
  "But-"
  
  "No." One word, dropped into the air like stone. "Now go."
  
  Nurse Palmer turned and walked up the stairs. She did not look at Scott or the others as she passed. She did not seem to see much of anything at all.
  
  No one else moved. They looked at Suzy, whose smile widened.
  
  "You're so screwed," she said.
  
  "Have we met?" Scott asked.
  
  "No," she said. "You're usually not much of a talker."
  
  Right. He kept forgetting that part.
  
  "Thank you for your help," Kurt said politely. "But forgive me if I question why."
  
  Suzy smiled, nasty. "Renny, Renny, Renny... that's your name and don't wear it out, right? You're not shaking in your boots, Renny. You don't act worried at all. You act like a man with balls."
  
  "And that surprises you?"
  
  Her smile widened. "Bras and toilets, Renny. Remember that nice diversion I created for the nurses?"
  
  "Ah," he said. "Yes-
  
  She folded her arms over her chest "You're a terrible liar. You were then, and you are now. Whoever you are."
  
  Scott frowned. "What do you mean by that?"
  
  She merely looked at him, and again he cursed his big mouth. Her eyes swirled like the sun shining through water, light to dark, pupils expanding and contracting like the beating of a heart, subtle and hypnotic. He looked away, concerned about staring too long into that gaze.
  
  "Smart," she said. "Some are more susceptible than others, but they don't always realize it. I'm a bitch, so I warn them."
  
  "You're a mutant," Jean said, and Scott thought about the mission that had brought them here. "Are you being kept at the hospital against your will?"
  
  Suzy laughed out loud. "Shit, Jeff. I liked you better when you were a thug. No, I'm not being kept here against my will. I say I deserve it. I'm just a little crazy sometimes. Just a little."
  
  "Just a little?"
  
  "Just a little song, just a little dance, nothing at all special. Crazy, I'm just a little crazy." She showed some teeth. "And you all are impostors. You and Renny and Crazy Jane and God knows who else. Impostors, illusion, wrapped up in shadows. You're all screwed."
  
  "Are you a telepath?"
  
  "That's too big a word for a girl like me," she said, sly. "Use smaller talk, Mister Mindy."
  
  Scott went very still. "How do you know?"
  
  She tapped her head. "I just do. Instinct, maybe. Or the cards." She pulled a stack of them from her pocket, a regular playing deck, well used and rough at the edges. "It took me a while with Crazy Jane, but when I figured her out, the rest of you were easy. I saw you ail talking. That shouldn't be, no matter what Dr. Maguire has been doing with you."
  
  "Do you know anything about that?" Scott stepped close—too close, maybe, those eyes might be dangerous—but he needed to know, and if this woman had the answers—
  
  "No," she said, and he could not tell if she was lying. "I never got a chance to talk to the doctor. Not many did. He came and started seeing only certain patients. And then lie narrowed those patients, and then again, again, until he had you five. You special dirty little five."
  
  "Does that make you angry?" Kurt asked.
  
  "Everything makes me angry, Renny. That's why I'm here. Partly, anyway. But you shouldn't be here. You shouldn't at all."
  
  Scott studied her face, that smile, those cold eyes. "Are you offering to help us?"
  
  "I'm offering something," she said. "I got a feeling I should. Crazy jane pulled a bad card and I been pulling more. Five of hearts, Five of diamonds, Five of spades and clubs. Five seems to be the magic number and after seeing you love children all together, all friendly when you've never been friends at all, I got my message loud and clear."
  
  "Which is what?" Scott asked cautiously.
  
  She picked her teeth with a fingernail. "To set you free, little red bird. I'm going to set you free."