American comics: I am full of martial virtues and I love to be kind to others.

Good morning. How can I help you?

“My name is Lynn Carter. I’m an FBI agent. I need to see Professor Xavier about something urgent.”

The speaker was silent for a few seconds.

"Detective Carter, please wait a moment."

About a minute later, the iron gate slid open silently to both sides.

They drove into the college grounds along a gravel driveway. Large, well-manicured lawns lined both sides—still a vibrant green despite it being late October—with a few solitary large oaks spreading their enormous canopies in the center, their leaves a fiery orange-red. Further on, a lake shimmered in the sunlight, with a gazebo and a path leading into the woods.

The main building appeared at the end of the driveway—a grand Gothic Revival mansion with grey stone walls, pointed arched windows, a sloping roof covered in a layer of verdigris, and a flag fluttering gently in the wind atop a corner tower. The whole building evoked a feeling somewhere between an English country manor and some kind of old European boarding school. Two pots of blooming orange chrysanthemums sat on the steps in front of the main entrance.

A woman was standing at the main entrance waiting for them.

She was in her early thirties, tall and slender, with short, white hair—not the gray of an elderly person, but a pure, almost solidified silver-white—that fluttered gently in the morning breeze. She wore a dark brown turtleneck sweater and black straight-leg trousers, exuding a composed and efficient air. Her skin was a deep, rich cocoa brown, and her amber eyes shone with a warmth almost inhuman.

“Detective Carter.” She walked down the steps toward them, extending her hand. “I’m Ororo Munro. We met two years ago during that incident in New York Harbor; I don’t know if you remember.”

Lynn took her hand. Her palm was cool, and there was a slight tingling sensation at her fingertips—like static electricity, but not quite.

“I remember you. Stormgirl. You created a localized thunderstorm that night, capsizing all the smuggling ships at the dock. It took the port authority a week to salvage those containers from the water.”

A slight smile appeared on Ororo's lips. "I wasn't quite precise enough back then. I'll be better now."

"This is my colleague, Agent Diana Waters."

Diana and Ororo shook hands. The two women looked at each other for a second, as if two rulers were measuring each other's scales.

“The professor is waiting for you,” Ororo said, turning and walking towards the door. “Please follow me.”

They passed through the main hall—a huge chandelier hanging from the high ceiling, marble floors polished to a shine, several classical oil paintings on the walls, and a bronze plaque bearing the school motto—and walked down a long corridor lined with classrooms, their neatly arranged desks and blackboards visible through the glass windows. It was still early morning, and a few students occasionally walked by in the corridor—ranging in age from their early teens to their early twenties, dressed in various casual clothes, looking no different from students at any ordinary boarding school.

But occasionally, some unusual details would appear. A girl reading in the corridor had her hair floating gently in the still air, as if she were in water. A boy of about twelve or thirteen passed by, his fingers unconsciously twirling a few strands of blue light, like he was playing with an invisible thread. A classroom door was ajar, and a teacher was lecturing to a completely blank wall, but as Lynn walked over, a complex three-dimensional geographical model suddenly appeared on the wall—mountains, rivers, oceans—as if it had been carved out of plaster, so vivid and lifelike.

“Don’t stare, it’s impolite,” Diana whispered behind him.

At the end of the corridor was an oak door with a small brass plaque that read "CFX Principal's Office".

Ororo pushed open the door.

The room was much larger than Lynn had expected. Three walls were lined with bookshelves from floor to ceiling, crammed with hardcover books from various eras, collections of papers, and several yellowed documents that looked like handwritten manuscripts. The fourth wall was a floor-to-ceiling window, facing the lake and woods behind the college, the autumn colors outside looking like an oil painting framed within the window. In the center of the room was a huge walnut desk, on which were neatly arranged several stacks of documents, an old-fashioned desk lamp, and a silver fountain pen.

Behind the desk, Charles Xavier sat in his wheelchair.

He was thinner than when Lynn had last seen him. The sunlight from the window reflected off his smooth head, and his light blue eyes shone with a soft yet penetrating light from their deep-set sockets. He wore a dark gray three-piece suit with a tie tied in a perfect Windsor knot, making him look more like a tenured professor at an Ivy League university than one of the world's most powerful telepaths.

“Detective Carter,” Xavier said in a gentle, clear British accent, his voice not loud but each syllable firm and resonant. “Please have a seat. I’ve had tea prepared, but you may prefer coffee if you prefer.”

"Coffee, please, thank you." Lynn sat down in the chair at the desk.

"Auroro, thank you for your help."

Ororo nodded, turned and walked out of the room, gently closing the door behind him.

Xavier's gaze shifted from Lynn to Diana, then back to Lynn. His expression was almost imperceptible, but Lynn knew the man was observing them in ways he couldn't see or feel—not mind reading, Xavier was known for not performing unauthorized mind scans—but even without using his talent, his eyes were already two highly accurate intelligence-gathering devices.

“I knew you would come at 4:17 this morning,” Xavier said.

"You sensed me?"

“Not intuition. It’s deduction.” Xavier smiled slightly. “Last night, there was a bridge collapse caused by a mutant in Battle Creek, Michigan. After the incident was brought under control, local police found a young man named Taylor at the scene. He was emotionally distraught but hadn’t harmed anyone. He told the police that a federal agent named Lynn Carter had him call a phone number—our school’s contact number. I had Scott pick him up, and he arrived last night.”

"Taylor has arrived? How is he?"

“He’s scared and confused, but physically okay. Hank is doing some basic ability assessments. His deformity seems to be stress-triggered—his forearms and hands petrify under extreme anxiety or fear. We’ll help him learn to control it.”

Lynn nodded. "The Taylor incident made you aware of my presence on the East Coast."

“It’s not just about that.” Xavier pushed his chair forward slightly, placing his hands on the desk. “For the past week, I’ve detected unusually dense, Brotherhood-related psychic activity within my sensory range—fear, anger, pain, emanating simultaneously from multiple different geographical locations. This isn’t a normal pattern. Something big is happening. And then you show up, an FBI agent, on a Michigan highway with a young mutant in need of help. Putting those clues together, it doesn’t take telepathy to guess you’d come to me today.”

"Can you guess why I'm here?"

"I can't guess. I don't like guessing. So please tell me."

Lynn opened his laptop—he had copied the most crucial files from the USB drive to this device beforehand—and turned the screen toward Xavier.

For the next twenty minutes, he showed Xavier all the information about the Midway training facility: satellite photos, subject files, training protocols, and security manuals. His presentation was concise, without embellishment or sentimentality; it was simply the facts. Xavier remained silent throughout. His expression hardly changed, but Lynn noticed that his hands, clasped on the table, tightened slightly when he saw the file on the eleven-year-old child—the skin on his knuckles turned pale.

After I finished speaking, the room was quiet for a long time.

At one point, Ororo walked in carrying a tray with two cups of coffee and a pot of tea. She placed the items on the corner of the desk, glanced at Xavier's expression, said nothing, and quietly retreated to stand by the window.

“Thirty-seven people.” Xavier finally spoke. His voice didn’t rise an inch, but every word seemed to be carved from beneath the ice. “Twenty-two were kidnapped. The youngest is eleven years old.”

"Yes."

"They are training these children with starvation, sleep deprivation, and electric shocks."

"Yes."

"Three subjects died during the experiment."

"According to the document records, yes."

Xavier closed his eyes. A vein throbbed slightly on his temple.

Then he opened his eyes. The gentleness vanished from his pale blue irises, replaced by something Lynn had only ever seen in the eyes of the most dangerous people—not anger, but something deeper, quieter, and more terrifying. It was the calm of someone who had already made a decision.

“What do you need?” Xavier asked.

"Manpower. Your men and mine, all going together. The Brotherhood has deployed twenty-four mercenaries and three trained mutant security personnel on the island. One of them, codenamed 'Silence,' can suppress the abilities of other mutants. This means your students cannot act alone—they need the support of conventional tactical forces. Within 'Silence's' range, my men will handle the fighting; outside of that range, your men will utilize their mutant advantages."

"Do you have a preliminary plan for the operation?"

"The framework is there. I need a small commando unit—no more than fifteen to twenty people—capable of long-range projection into the middle of the Pacific, with maritime infiltration and island warfare capabilities. My people will handle the mercenaries and legal repercussions—the kidnapped subjects need to be formally rescued and placed in the federal witness protection system, while the adult mutants who volunteered need to be arrested and prosecuted according to the law. Your people will handle mutant security, while also comforting and protecting the trapped subjects—many of them are children who, after being rescued, need not handcuffs and interrogation rooms, but a sense of security and understanding."

"Have you considered the transportation issue? Midway Atoll is 1,300 miles from the mainland."

“That’s the biggest bottleneck. Commercial flights won’t work, and military transport requires Pentagon authorization, which I’m not at a point where I can trust the Pentagon yet. I was thinking—” He paused, “…does your school have some kind of—specialized means of transportation?”

Xavier and Ororo exchanged a very brief glance.

“We have an airplane,” Xavier said simply.

Lynn waited for him to continue.

"Blackbird. A variant of the SR-71. Supersonic, capable of stratospheric flight, with a global range. The flight time from Westchester to Midway is approximately four hours."

Diana's coffee cup stopped just short of her lips. She slowly put the cup down, then looked at Xavier with an expression that suggested she had seen something she shouldn't have.

"You have an SR-71."

“A modified version,” Xavier corrected gently. “The original only seats two people; our version can carry twelve to fourteen people, along with the corresponding equipment.”

“You have an SR-71 modified supersonic jet that can carry fourteen people parked in the basement of a boarding school in Westchester, New York.” Diana spoke each word as if savoring a hard candy.

"The underground hangar was converted from a nuclear bunker. A legacy of the Cold War."

Diana opened her mouth, then closed it. She looked down at the coffee in her cup, as if using the dark brown liquid as a mirror to examine whether she was still in the real world.

“The transportation issue is resolved,” Lynn steered the conversation back on track. “Next is personnel. Who can you send?”

Xavier backed his wheelchair a step and looked out the window. Two white swans were swimming slowly on the lake, their white bodies like two floating snowflakes on the deep blue water.

“Auroro will go.” He didn’t turn around.

Ororo nodded slightly by the window.

“Scott and Jane will go too. Scott’s lasers are the most effective suppressive fire in enclosed environments. Jane’s telepathy and telekinesis are irreplaceable in rescue operations—she can sense the exact location of enemy personnel before the firefight begins, and she can use her telekinesis to protect those trapped in building collapses or emergencies.”

Is anyone else here?

“Logan.” Xavier’s lips curled into a very subtle, almost bitter smile as he uttered the name. “I’m not sure he’ll agree; he hasn’t been in a good mood lately. But when it comes to the children—he’ll go.”

Logan is—

“You don’t need to know everything about him, Detective Carter. You just need to know that he’s extremely skilled at handling close-quarters combat, and that he’s virtually impossible to kill.”

Lynn decided not to press the matter further. (End of Chapter)