A Reductive Quality [Open]

[platt]

There weren't any first day jitters. He got up, he dressed, he had coffee and a scone. He went over his lesson plan, wrote in his notepad and then went to his assign room. It would be a few minutes, say fifteen, before the starting bell would start and roughly a half an hour before the morning bell would ring. In that window, he had time to explore the room. He moved among the chairs and open the closet and the drawers. He went to the desk and open the desk and looked inside and closed it again. He turned and went to the blackboard and lay his fingers on the black slate and felt the grainy chalk on his fingertips. He wiped the dust on his pant leg and grabbed the eraser. He held the eraser out and arms length and clapped them twice. He smell the chalk dust and closed his eyes and took it in.

Teaching was his first love and like all first love it taught him about the world and left bruises in little stamped with it's name. The mixed of anarchy, frustration and delight that came with standing and lecturing was something that he was never able to replace, even with the rush of the pen in his hand and the danger of the terrible stories needing to be told or even the pride he felt after receiving prize after prize after accolade after accolade. Nothing could top the sensation of querying minds and the four humble walls where learning happened. He sat on his desk and grabbed his satchel and went thorough his things. He put down his miniature hobbit and his vial of twenty-sided dice from all over the world. He lay his books and his pads and his computer and arranged his pen-bag in the drawer. He sat down and open his laptop and searched his email. In ten minutes, the starting bell rang. It would not be long now, he thought. Not at all.

[Rose North]

"You are the new teacher....?" The quiet voice belonged to the 15-year-old known as Rose Nightshade. Standing in the doorway, she tilted her head very slightly to the side, examining the teacher carefully and suspiciously, more out of habit then necessity. When you were raised by the Nightshades, you learned rather quickly not to trust anyone on first meetings. Even if she had left them near six years ago, she was still extremely wary of strangers, as if expecting them to attack her.

Rose didn't move an inch as she watched him, eyes slightly narrowed, before finally shrugging, deciding he was no threat to her.... yet. Stepping forward, she rang her fingers through her hair, she wandered to a desk... Careful never to turn her back to him. Taking a seat, she propped her elbows on the desk, her head resting on the back of her fingers, still watching him. A few moments passed of her just staring at him. Finally though, she pipped up once again.
"Can I ask for your name?" The way she spoke was very proper and respectful, though slightly cold at the same time. "I am Rose.... Rose Nightshade." She hesitated for a moment. "Please don't compare me to my mad cousins...." She wasn't sure if this fellow knew about the Nightshade family and how destructive they were, but if he did she didn't want him thinking she was just as blood thirsty as them.

[platt]

He was writing on the board when she came in. Her noticed her black hair out of the corner of her eye and then he looked her briefly and kept writing. " Yup. Come right in and take a seat. Anywhere is fine. " he said. She was the first but not the last. There would be more and so he focused on the board being clear and his words fine. He wrote in a clear script that lack flourish but served it's purpose well. It was legible and clear and big enough to be read from the back of the room. He half-filled the first board and began working on the second board when she spoke. She introduced herself as Rose. He looked at her and gave her a reassuring smile. " I'm James. " He said " and I won't. " He added. He put the chalk down and grabbed his satchel and sat down on the chair behind the desk. He took out a stack of stapled paper and dropped it on the corner of his desk. He took the top sheet and stood and handed her one.
" Here you go. " He said. " The syllabus. ". He sat back down on his desk and opened his laptop.

The morning bell rang then and they sat silently waiting it passed.

[aiden]

Considering the fact that Ayden was Charles Xavier’s granddaughter, she had almost nothing in common with him. She strutted into the class with her usual air dancing around her. While she seemed cocky and sure of herself on the outside, she was really rather insecure, mostly because she knew exactly what everybody thought of her. It wasn’t because she wanted to, but because she didn’t have the same control over her mind that her grandfather had acquired.

She walked into the room only a few seconds after the bell rang and quirked a brow before glancing up at the clock. She glanced at the teacher, hoping to maintain her tough exterior if he decided to snap at her for being late. Ayden had a piece of gum in her mouth and instead of spitting it out she decided that it might be in her best interest to swallow it just incase the teacher was a jerk. She didn’t need that. She had enough issues as it was.

“Did everyone decide to skip class or something?” she thought aloud to herself as she made her way to edge of the classroom closest to the window in the front corner seat of the room. She wanted to be by the window to be as far from her pupils as possible, but she needed to be close to the teacher. She didn’t need troubles paying attention in class to add to her issues.

[platt]

“Did everyone decide to skip class or something?” Ayden said after swallowing her gum.

James never looked up from his computer. "God, I hope so. Easy paycheck. Step right in." He looked away from the screen and picked up a sheet from a top of the pile. He put the sheet on Ayden's desk and sat back down. He looked at his watch and then looked at the clock above the blackboard. " Fifteen minutes." He said and waited. They came in scattered pairs and triplicates. Some came laughing. Most said nothing. They took their chairs. Friends congregated together but James gave them a withered look. He made a note to himself and stood and walked to the board. He went to the door and looked outside and looked down the hallway and then closed the door. When he stepped in, he clasped his hand and said " Welcome to Humanities. My name is James. I'll be your teacher for this semester. Let's get this ball rolling. " He handed a piece of paper to one of the students. The paper was numbered and after each number was a blank line.

"I'm going to need your names here and after the class I'm going to need to see your programs. Just put your name and pass it back. Put it on my desk when your done." He went to his desks and looked down. He shuffled paper and came up with a stack of sheets from his desk. " Last packet, I swear." He handed them out. As he went down the row of chairs, he spoke.

" This class is fairly easy. All you really have to do is be here and take part of the discussion. There's no homework, no take home assignments, no big projects that need to be done. Just discussion and hopefully some understanding. " He handed the last of the paper and went to his desk. He sat the papers down on and leaned on sat on the corner of the steel escritoire. He passed his fingers under his nose and sniffed. He rubbed his mouth and smacked his lips. He yawned and spoke thorough it.

" What this class is...about the human condition. Sorry. It's about trying to understands what it is that makes humans being different from nearly ever other animal on the planet. What separates us from other living species. Not just sociologically, not just biologically, not just psychologically, but emotionally and even spiritually. Humanities is about studying values. The ideas we create in order to understand and interact with our world. These things that we make that truly do not exist. Concepts of love, mercy, democracy, hatred, control, power. These things that exist in a psudeo-space where they have no...truly quantifiable meaning in the purely scientific manner that say an atom has mass or that light travels. I'm here, hopefully, to teach you what it is to be human. And you're here, hopefully, to come away with a better understand of things you've known all your life. So, let's get right to it. First page, what do you see?"

The page depicted a older man, a hand outstretched before him. A small collapsable cane was held out, angled to the ground. The man's eyes were milk-gray and exotropic, one rolled down, one staring off to upper-left. The man had an jovial but lost smile. The look of a man who is comforted by the dark.

[Rose North]

Rose was the first to scribble her name down on the paper. When she moved to pass it to the person behind her, she tried not to notice the cringe from the person, setting the paper down on the corner of their desk before turning back to the front. It wasn’t anything new, she was completely used to this behavior from people. She just rested her head on the knuckles of her fist, watching and listening to the teacher as he spoke. Already she was building an impression on the man, taking note of the way he held himself, the way he spoke… Trying to piece together what sort of person this man was, all for the purpose of sorting him into the category of friend or foe.

Rose could feel a few intense stares on her back when he mentioned values and power. Values for what her family had tried to rid her of… Power for the blood thirsty people who happened to be those who raised Rose, people they thought Rose was like in all ways. To them, she was nothing more than a ticking time bomb, which in some ways she might just be. Closing her eyes she thought for a moment on what he spoke of. Unable to stop herself she smirked softly. Mutants taking a class about humanity. Humanity hated them. Sure, most mutants were still ‘human’ in face and heart, but many were not. Some were void of all humanity, those who had no ‘room’ left in that shell they called a body for feelings or emotions. Or those who were stripped of their humanity at a young age by those who they called mother and father.

Slowly she reopened her eyes, fixing that dark gaze of hers on the teacher for only a moment, before lowering her eyes to the packet in front of her. First thought, weak. No way could she say that to the class. Not unless she wanted them to become even more nervous around her. What did she think about the picture that wasn’t… To Nightshade of an answer? Only a few moments passed before she lifted her head from her hand, slowly raising the same hand into the air just enough that he would spot it.

“Perhaps he is in many ways like us. Someone who is born just a little different… But because of that difference all those around him treat him as if he has stained their good name…”

[platt]

He pointed to the raised hands. " Yes?" he said. He nodded his head at the answer. " Very perceptive but I was looking for something a little more...specific. Good try though. ". He eyed the class and felt this answer was sufficient to make his point. " He very much is though. This man was born blind because of a genetic anomaly. A mutation. Next page. "

There was a chorus of riffled paper. The second page portrayed a child of one year, resting along a raised platform. Pale skin wrapped tight around coils of packed muscles. Defined and tense, as if the child was prepared to sprint. James looked up and could see their narrowed eyes stared, their knotted forehead, the silence of thought. He prodded them almost smiling. " Anyone tell me what this is?" Someone raised their hand.

" A baby " they said.

" Very good, but what do you notice about the baby?"

Someone else. " He's standing."

" You almost got it. One more. How about you?" He pointed to Ayden.

[aiden]

Ayden drummed on the desk, glancing from the door to the teacher, to the clock, to the window, to the other student, and back again. She fought against herself to enter the teacher’s mind and the other girl’s mind. While Ayden’s power had its advantages, sometimes she wished she didn’t have it. Well, that wasn’t true. She actually wished that she could control it. Invading the mind had its advantages, but she didn’t need to know the secrets of everyone she knew and even everyone she didn’t know.

More silent moments passed and Ayden switched from leaning forward onto her desk to leaning back in her chair. Though more students had shown up she still felt as if many of them were missing, for the majority of the seats were vacant. She was beginning to feel as if it were Sunday and she had shown up for class anyway.

Once the teacher began speaking again, she perked up and reached into her black shoulder bag with many pins and band names sewn into the fabric to pull out a green notebook with many sketches on it, some of them her own, and others printed from the computer, but all of them had a Tim Burton style to them. Then on the back of her notebook there were other pictures she had printed and made a collage of, all of them from Tim Burton films. Among them you would be able to find Edward Scissorhands, Sweeney Todd, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Beetlejuice, Corpse Bride, 9, Coraline, and even the new Alice in Wonderland he had directed. It was clear to see who her favorite director was.

She opened the notebook and began taking notes, her brow furrowed in effort to concentrate on his words and keep his thoughts out of her head. It may have looked a bit like she was in pain, but she paid it no mind. She had grown used to it.

She swallowed when he pointed at her. Though she didn’t want to hear it, some of the students internally sneered about her just reading his mind and getting the answer right. She winced at this, trying to push the voices out and then searched for the correct answer within her own thoughts, doing all she could to ignore all the other brainwaves.

“The baby looks like it’s an athlete on steroids to me.” she answered honestly. “Babies are supposed to be round and rolly. Even the skinny ones have some fat one them. It's like its body has advanced long before it should have."

[platt]

The answer elicited a laugh from the assembled parties. It even drew a smile from James himself. " You're right. That is one tough looking baby. ". James held the paper. Then he brought it down and looked at it then back at the class. " This child was born with a rare genetic mutation that blocks the production myostatin, a protein that inhibits muscle development. This baby is, technically, a mutant. Like everyone in this room." He flipped to the last page. He heard the riffling of paper and forced back his smile. He shrugged his shoulder and cracked his back and sighed.

" Last one. Tell me what you see? If you can tell me who that is, I'll give you a candy bar?"

The man in the image was a dark haired gentlemen in his forties but looked younger. He had an easy smile. One hand raised as if to playfully swat at something or ask a question. Nothing at all threatening. And yet there was his eyes. Deep and black and without light. James felt a sliver of terror drop in his heart like a pin in a pool of water and he shook himself clear of it. Someone raised their hand.

" It's a man with his hands raised."

" Very good. What else? "

" He's taking an oath. "

" No. I think he's being sworn in or something? "

" It looks like he's on drugs. "

James waited a little longer as the conversations began to build. They rose to a mid-level crescendo and then he raised his hand and stilled the talking.

" One at a time. " He said over them. " One at time. " He pointed to Rose.

" Can you tell me what you see?"

[Rose North]

Rose paid very little attention to the second picture he had them look at. Of course something was wrong with the baby. Babies didn’t have muscles, that much is obvious. Why no one had realized it before Ayden said anything though was a mystery to her. Leaning back in her chair a little, she brushed her hair onto her shoulder, starting to make little braids in her long hair as he spoke again. With a sigh, she turned to the next page just as the others had, though she froze when she spotted the image.

Her breath caught tightly in her throat, unable to move, just stare into those black eyes. The part of her that wasn’t captivated by the image was calling the other students idiots, why couldn’t they see it?! She forced her eyes shut, finally able to breathe when she couldn’t see it. That is, until she knew he was pointing at her. Reopening her eyes, she quickly glanced to him, to stop herself from looking again. She pursed her lips, almost dropping her gaze, afraid they wouldn’t want to hear her answer. Finally though, she took a deep breath, her lips parting. “You won’t like my answer…” She spoke barely above a whisper, though it was her warning nonetheless.

“A monster hidden in a human’s skin… Void of all emotions. Mercy… love… Everything those around him deem ‘worthless’. All that matters is power. Power that is used to destroy everything… Someone that would have no problem killing innocent bystanders… Friends… even his own children. All for the sake of power.” The way she spoke was as if she knew this from experience, and she did. This was the exact thing her family had become… What they had tried to turn her into. Human, and trustworthy on the outside… A monster on the inside…

[platt]

Silence fell like a wool comforter. James looked at the class then looked at Rose as whispered skittered like spiders. He felt his brow knot. His lips purse. " That's a way of putting it. " He nodded and then said. " And she's right. This man here. " He lifted the paper, gripped by his thumb, pressed against his palm. " Is Theodore Bundy. He was a serial killer with a body count of over 30 victims. He apprehended and escaped twice before being captured.". There was a chortle of nervous laughter. Someone said "awesome" in a voice of low awe. James ignored it.

" He is not a mutant. Genetically, Bundy was one-hundred percent baseline human with no genetic anomaly's to be found. Yet he was responsible for an allegedly 100 murders between the years of 1973 to 1978. He was a diagnosed sociopath. Unable to feel empathy for his victims or anyone else. Yet, Bundy was well educated and well-liked member of his community. " James put the paper down and began to pace in front of his desk. He looked in the eyes of his students, 27 in all, and as he spoke he spoke to each of them individually as well as collectively.

" Everyone in this room knows what it's like to feel pain. Everyone in this room know what being mad feels like or being afraid fears like or being happy. Everyone in this room can get on in a social setting and can understand the plight of others without being able to experience said struggles themselves. Everyone in this room can empathize, not just with each others, but with people who you've never even met. " James pointed to the desk, to the paper on it, to the man on the page smiling easy with his eyes like drills boring into the soul. " This guy couldn't." He said. " Does that make him more human than he is?"

He pointed to the boy in the back, a fair-skinned blond hair boy with eyes like rain puddles. " You. Are you more human than, say, him?" He pointed to the boy a few rows up with horns and the skin the texture of pavement gravel. James smirked. " Would you be surprise if I told you that genetically you're more of an aberration because of your blond hair?" He turned and looked at the board. He picked up the chalk and underlined the first note on the board. In his blocky font he had written ARE WE HUMAN?

" Here's some numbers." He said, turning back to face them. " Mutants make us less than 1% of the world's population. That's roughly about 70,000,000 people. Big number right? How abut a small one? The percent of difference between those with X-gene mutation and baseline humans is less than .000001 percent. That's less than the difference between humans and chimpanzees. " He looked around. " You're mind blown yet? Let's do one more." He looked at his desk and shuffled around page. When he found one, he pointed to it and nodded. He looked up at the class.

" Beside the presence of the X-gene in mutants, scientists have found no substantial difference between humans and mutants genetically. For the majority of X-gene mutants, the only difference between them and their non-X counterparts is the presence of this one gene. Anthropologist, sociologist and psychologist all agree that one-to-one humans and mutants develop exactly the same in optimum circumstances. Psychologist agree that to develop a child into a full-functioning adult is the exact same for either humans or mutants. "

James raised his arm, gestured to his student.

" So I ask you truly, what is human? What is mutant? What do these things mean? And how do they inform us? " There was silence. Uncomfortable shifts. Someone stifled a yawn. James throat is parched. He licked his lips and sat on the corner of the desk, his arms folded. " I want you to think about that for the next class. Ask yourself where the line is? What makes one person more human than the other and where do the ideas of humanity comes from?" James rubbed his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. He yawned and rubbed his mouth. He picked up the syllabus. " Alright, I want everyone to pick up their syllabus and turn to page..." The bell rang then. The sound filled the room with the suddenness of summer thunder. James looked at his watched. " You got off easy. " He said over the bell. Already students were reaching for bags and putting books away. " Before you leave, I want programs. " He checked his desk for a moment. " Who has the sign in sheet? "

Someone handed him the sheet of paper. " Okay, cool. Bring your programs up and let me see them. "

And they came up and he checked the programs before they began to leave.

[Rose North]

Rose just closed her eyes again, turning the page over so she wouldn’t have to look at the picture anymore. She could hear the whispers behind her back. Perhaps saying that hadn’t exactly helped her position among the students… “I told you, you wouldn’t like it.” She kept her voice soft again, hoping no one would hear her. Listening to what he said next, she almost smirked, shaking her head softly. Only thirty…. But for a human that was many. For a mutant…

When she heard someone say awesome, her eyes reopened, glancing over her shoulder to try and see who it was so she could yell at him. To slow though… The room had gone silent once more. Almost sighing she turned back to face the front, hiding part of her face in her hands as she watched the teacher, listening once more. The more he spoke of this serial killer, the lower her stomach sank. She closed her eyes again, feeling nauseous. It was as if he were describing her family. Well, other than the well-liked part. No one liked the Nightshades. The only reason people ‘put up’ with them was because they didn’t want to be killed.

Rose quickly bottled up the thoughts, not wanting someone to accidently read her mind and catch that… She did her best to listen to the teacher again, not bothering to look and see who the two boys he pointed at were. Obviously they were both very different in appearance then each other.

Rose just about raised her hand when he spoke of the X-gene, it took all her will to stop herself. She’d mention it to him when the bell rang… That way the other students didn’t think her a know it all. But he had forgotten to mention that it wasn’t just the X-gene that made someone a mutant. It was the state of the x-gene…. She completely zoned out the remainder of his lecture, coming back to reality only when she heard the bell ring. Blinking, as if surprised, she set her bag on her desk. Stuffing her things into the bag, she waited until most of the class was gone before rising to her feet. She swung the bag onto her shoulder, slowly walking up to his desk and placing the ‘program’ on his desk. Crossing her arms lightly across her desk, she tilted her head to the side.
“You were only half right about the X-gene. It’s whether the gene is active or not that determines if someone will be a mutant. There are plenty of ‘humans’ with the gene, but it’s not active. It how ‘human’ parents have a mutant child.”

[platt]

He was at the last few when he saw her from the corner of his eyes. She was standing nearly in the same spot she was at the beginning of the day. James felt the unease of deja vu settle within him and his rationale batting it away like a shuttlecock. He read the last name on the program, waved them off and then turned to Rose. As she talked, he began to grab his things. " You're right." He said when she finished. " Dunno why you didn't mention it in class. " He turned and looked at her. " I'm not going to look down on you if you cut me off mid-ramble to make a good point. I encourage it. " He grabbed his laptop and put in his satchel. He grabbed the papers and open the desk and thorough them in and he took a set of keys from his pocket and locked the desk.

" But as almost to make my point, if the difference between night and day is a light switch..." He lifted his head, tossing his satchel over his shoulder. The desk behind him was cleared away and free of everything he had brought with him. "...how much different are they?" He slipped his hand to his pocket and walked to the door. " I teach Humanities again at fifth period. If you want to discuss it further, you can come see me then if you don't have any other classes. " He said.

[aiden]

When Ayden turned the page she sighed and shook her head. Ted Bundy. She knew this man very well. In fact, she and one of her friends had gotten into a heated debate about who the most memorable serial killer was. Her pick was Jack the Ripper. His had been Ted Bundy. While they were both very terrifying and horrible, she stood firm with her believe that Jack the Ripper would have a longer lasting legacy of fear than Ted Bundy. When Rose had called him void of emotion she arched her brows before raising her hand.

“While Ted Bundy basically was one of the worst kinds of monsters that you could find he wasn’t void of emotion. His actions were based on revenge. Anger. Loathing even, I could care less what you call it, but he did feel. Just because his feelings didn’t consist of any positive aspects doesn’t make him a sociopath. If he had no emotion then he would have gone after any victim at all, but he went after women resembling a female who had hurt him, his college girlfriend to be exact. He wanted to kill her, but never did because he still had an emotional tie with her so he did to others what he couldn’t do to her. Ted Bundy was a monster, there’s no question about that, but he wasn’t born that way. With other aspects of his past molding together that’s how he became that. He was created a monster, not born one. The fact that he was madly intelligent just made him a bigger threat.” she turned to glare at some of her classmates who mentally declared that she had plucked the speech from the teacher’s head and finished with a snap, “And no I did not read his mind to get that answer. If I had I would have kept it to myself.”

She turned back into her seat with a scowl on her face before continuing to listen to the rest on the lesson, scribbling notes in her notebook. Had she been having a one-on-one session with the teacher she wouldn’t have needed to, but she did need the notes to remember the lesson with the rest of the class’s thoughts swimming around in her head.

The bell rang and everyone else with the exception of her and Rose stood to leave, some of them shooting glares at Ayden as they passed. She didn’t care at this point. She scribbled rapidly, glancing from the clock back to her page as she did so.

[Rose North]

Rose raised an eyebrow at his comment, as if surprised he would even wonder why. "It's obvious. The others don't like me to much to begin with, what would their reaction be if I were to interrupt the teacher? It'd give them a reason to try and get me in trouble." She didn't necessarily care what others thought of her at the school, she'd grown used to it all. It was the 'try and get her in trouble' part that made her wary. They looked for any reason imaginable to get the girl expelled from the school.

She blinked in surprise when he mentioned Night and day, as if having never thought of it that way before. Suddenly she smiled for the first time that day. "That's a good way of putting it. Only once you flip the switch you can't change it back. Even if people still try to." She couldn't help but think about the 'Cure' for mutation at the words. Pausing when he mentioned discussing it later, a look of surprised touched her expression. "Sure, I guess I could. All my classes are morning anyway, so all I really do past fourth is Danger Room sessions. Hazel will be glad not to have to deal with me for a day." She opened the door, holding it wide enough that he'd be able to pass through as well. "Well, I better be off then. Parker is probably looking for me, and we don't want him dissecting minds to find me." She waved softly, before hurrying down the hall, brushing her hair off her shoulders as she left.