Free X-Men: The Last Stand by Chris Claremont

that invisible line that turns us into tyrants over our fellow men?”
    “Professor,” Kitty countered, seizing the opening with a question that was actually pertinent, yet also just that faintest bit naughty, “if the line is invisible, how do we know when we’ve crossed it?”
    Some of the others grinned, and even Xavier permitted himself an itsy-bitsy quirk of the lips that might be interpreted as a smile. His game of choice had always been chess, but Kitty’s was tennis, and she served to win.
    Behind the professor, a flat-screen display revealed a hospital room, together with a legend that identified the source as the Muir Isle Research Facility, Scotland. It was an isolation cubicle, marked with the international biohazard trefoil and an
M
stamped in the middle to indicate mutant biohazard. A man lay on the single bed, clearly not in the best of health. Beside him stood a woman, Dr. Moira MacTaggart, old friend of Xavier’s, a former lover, and partner in many of his current researches.
    “This case was forwarded to me by a colleague, Dr. MacTaggart.”
    Everyone took notes. Kitty couldn’t help sneaking an envious peek over at Weezie, who was merely running a pair of fingertips along each line of her notebook page. In their wake, every word Xavier spoke was transcribed automatically from her ear to the page. Although it seemed to be going smoothly now, it wasn’t always as easy as that; when she got distracted, Weezie’s transcription power tapped into her thoughts and her notes became a stream-of-consciousness exercise that put Joyce’s
Finnegans Wake
to shame. Then, of course, it was all hands to the rescue among her best friends at school, Kitty included, to try to separate out what was
supposed
to be there. This morning, though, she looked totally on track.
    Dr. MacTaggart was speaking, the screen obligingly providing subtitles for those who found her Highland accent a bit hard to fathom.
    “The man you see here,” she said, indicating her patient, “was born with no higher-level brain functions. His organs and nervous system function normally, but he has no consciousness to speak of. That has been confirmed both by the most comprehensive medical scans available to us, and telepathic examination as well.”
    Xavier paused the transmission.
    “What if,” he asked the class, “we could transfer the consciousness of one person, say a father of four with terminal cancer, into the body of this man?”
    Kitty couldn’t help muttering, “Sounds like someone wants to play God.”
    Weezie giggled.
    Xavier ignored them both.
    “How are we to…”
    He paused, looking off to the side for just a moment, then tried to move on.
    “How are we to decide what is within the range of ethical behavior and what is…”
    His voice trailed off and this time he wasn’t the only person to look out the window. When class began it had been a bright, sunny afternoon; now it was completely overcast, dark with clouds that were growing thicker and angrier by the moment.
    “We’ll continue tomorrow,” Xavier announced suddenly, to the surprise of very few. You didn’t have to be a student at Xavier’s very long to figure out what moments like this were all about. “Class is dismissed.”
     
     
    Charles tried reaching her telepathically as he rolled his wheelchair through the halls, but as was usually the case when her powers were this active, there was so much charged electrical energy coursing through her system that it coated her mind with a sleet storm of psychic static. Even the fleeting contact necessary to determine her location threatened a nasty headache.
    By the time he left the shelter of the doorway, wind was whipping enthusiastically across the Great Lawn and the scattered figures of students were racing for cover. He could taste the ozone in the air; it made his skin crawl.
    The cause of the sudden weather change stood alone, staring off over the trees, so lost in thought she had no idea what was