The apology slowly faded from Angela’s face, and as she thought it over it turned into a suppressed anger and scorn.
As a doctor and scientist, hearing the word “mutant” for the first time and connecting it to Warren’s wings, she’d grown overly excited at such an unprecedented, brand-new discovery—which was already somewhat disrespectful to “mutants,” and was why she’d apologized.
And yet Charles Xavier had said her attitude was already very good.
This “very good” was being measured against whom?
Obviously, it could only be against the “ordinary humans who aren’t mutants” in this world.
So how did the ordinary people of this world treat mutants?
It certainly couldn’t be anything tolerant or kind.
Indifference, dismissal, rejection, disgust, hatred?
Angela lowered her eyes, no longer looking directly at Charles, gazing at the floor instead to hide the dark, violent emotions churning inside her.
“In the history of evolution, human beings have never stopped ‘mutating.’ Without genetic mutation, there would be no such thing as modern humans at all. If someone can’t even accept genetic mutation and treats it as something alien, then he should go check his own genes and those of his parents right away—and then get ready to kill himself.”
No one’s genes are ever entirely identical to their parents’.
In generation after generation of reproduction, life always produces variation—this is precisely the “change” every biological population must undergo in order to adapt to the world and to keep surviving.
Some mutations are beneficial, some are harmful, and some show no sign of good or bad in the short term; only when the corresponding environmental change occurs is the answer revealed.
To better adapt to a complex environment, a biological population can’t all just copy and paste the same genes.
The moment a disease targeting that type of gene or an environmental shift appeared, such a population would go extinct on the spot, with no room to struggle.
It’s because of variation that there is difference, and because of difference that some individuals can always survive natural selection and go on reproducing.
Charles Xavier didn’t need to read her thoughts to see what the “angel” before him was thinking.
He had always been a protector of mutants, and he’d seen far too much malice toward them.
For an ordinary person not to see a mutant as a monster already counted as “friendly”; being willing to befriend a mutant already counted as very good.
But how many people would actually condemn the ordinary folk who rejected mutants, on the mutants’ behalf?
Mercy.
He silently repeated this woman’s codename in his heart.
She really was too merciful after all.
He decided to use a simpler, more direct method to make her understand why ordinary people were so hostile to mutants.
(Angela.)
Angela heard someone call her name and reflexively raised her head to look at Charles.
Seeing what looked like displeasure on his face, she assumed he disliked her overly radical remarks just now and got ahead of it: “I won’t apologize for what I just said—the way I see it, as long as there’s no reproductive isolation, I won’t consider ‘mutants’ to be anything other than ‘human.’ This is just one more way of dividing people into groups—and an unscientific one at that.”
Charles laughed despite himself and once again conveyed what he wanted to say through telepathy.
(Angela, the change a mutation brings isn’t only in appearance. Most of the time it comes with changes in other respects too—superpowers, for instance. It’s not entirely without reason that ordinary people fear mutants.)
Because she was looking right at Charles, Angela could clearly see that he hadn’t opened his mouth, yet she had indeed heard the voice.
She instinctively touched her own ear, and then, in the warmth of his smile, it dawned on her.
“Is it an ability of the mental kind? Mind reading?”
Charles nodded.
(Yes—telepathy, one of the abilities a mutant might develop. You can answer me directly in your mind as well.)
Angela thought it over with some difficulty, then spoke up anyway: “But if I’m thinking about many things at once, how do you know which sentence is the one I mean to tell you?”
Charles smiled and pointed at his own head.
(When your mind is focused on something, that thought grows stronger, and it comes through very clearly.)
Angela lowered her head and thought for a few minutes.
If it were merely the ability to “read the current inner voice,” that would hardly be worth mentioning.
A person’s thoughts shift endlessly—one moment may be completely different from the next.
The headmaster of a school full of superpowered people surely couldn’t have only this much to him, and this much wouldn’t be worth Charles wearing such a serious expression to convince her that “mutants pose a threat to ordinary people.”
Think carefully—what abilities might telepathy entail?
Setting aside whether the “mind” was a scientific concept or a metaphysical one, just from being able to directly read thoughts and communicate through thought, this was already more impressive than the “neural-implant photonic computer” still on the drawing board in Overwatch’s R&D department.
A step beyond reading the current inner voice would be reading other information in the brain—in other words, “reading memories.” And if it wasn’t merely “reading” but also a “writing” ability, then it might be possible to erase, alter, or fabricate memories; and if one could seize the brain’s command over the body, one could control a person outright.
She tried to convey her words through thought.
(Is that it, Charles? Reading memories, altering memories, commanding the nervous system—the powers a telepath might possess?)
After a while, Charles gave his affirmative answer.
(Yes.)
Angela couldn’t help smiling.
She looked at the superpowered man before her and asked in earnest, “Since you have the ability to change others’ thoughts, why haven’t you used it to change those people’s minds—to make them accept the idea that ‘mutants are just a part of humanity, neither special nor frightening’?”
Charles Xavier was taken aback, and shook his head in reply: “I can’t do that—and besides, I’m not able to.”
“You really are a…” Angela weighed it carefully for a moment before picking out a word she thought fairly fitting.
“…a man of integrity.”
If she were the one facing this kind of situation, she certainly wouldn’t hold herself back on principle like that—she’d absolutely use the ability in the most self-serving way possible.
This was already beyond what simple “kindness” or “tolerance” could describe.
To walk the proper path and speak by reason, to remain fair and selfless, to never bend one’s will for the sake of comfort or alter one’s conduct in the face of danger—these were precisely the principles a person of integrity upheld.
Charles Xavier accepted the praise with a smile.
“I’m quite curious where your ability comes from, too.
Perhaps you’re a mutant as well, Angela.”
“Me?” Angela pointed at herself and burst out laughing in an instant.
“I’m nothing but a lucky and unlucky ordinary person.
Being able to heal others relies on technology too, not any special ability.”
Charles Xavier said with a twinkling smile, “I wasn’t referring to ‘healing,’ but to your ability to store and retrieve objects from the void—that’s a spatial superpower, isn’t it?”