Commencement.

[Stern]

It had been a trying spring semester. Eighteen credit hours, part time work-study, and his other obligations. He had hardly found any time for his roommates apart from awkward or forced interaction.

It came as no surprise that Stern checked out of his dorm room, but stayed around for the extra week to see his roommates walk and recieve their diplomas.

Things had gone well. They played games all day, ordered pizza, laughed, joked, and nearly got arrested by the ESU campus police. It was quite the fulfilling week.

Aside from the near constant overcast weather, things were well.

At last the day for the commencement ceremony arrived. Stern put on his usual kahki pants, and a blue button-down shirt. He waded through the crowd of parents, friends, and well-wishers as he found his way to where the graduates were being gathered together.

He found his friends, shook their hands, took some pictures for them, and then went to find a place to sit down in the stands. Stern was amazed. the basektball stadium (which held hundreds of people already), seemed to have somehow expanded. There were, to say the least, a ton of people gathered.

The mutant wandered around a bit, looking for a place to take a seat so he could best find a vantage point to see his friends. Passing by the closest door to the restrooms, Stern decided to duck inside and "ease nature" as they put it in the Old Testament. As he moved into the hallway, he saw a peculiarly dressed man talking to someone who looked much younger in a language Stern didn't understand at all.

"I wonder what that's about," he muttered as he stepped into the men's room.

[Neutron]

Aslan tugged at the collar of his jacket a little. Such a young man, starry eyed and naive.

He buried his disdain for the young man as he approached. They embraced, each giving a kiss to the side of the other's face.

"Ah Salaam Aleikum."

The youngster had a Maghreb lilt to his Arabic, possibly Moroccan or Algerian. With a knowing nod, Aslan replied in kind.

"Aleikum Salaam."

The Chechen nodded knowingly. The youngster, whom he had been introduced to only as Wahid, was some flunkie who used to code websites for Ansar al Islam before somehow getting a grant to study in America. Apparently, he was more interested now in being a mujehedeen than getting an education. Of course, his handler didn't know that Aslan himself was no longer mujehedeen. A man survives a near fatal nuclear submarine accident and you expect that he fully believes.

"Cigarette?"

He queried his sidekick in second-hand Arabic. Aslan glanced about, not feeling comfortable talking in this particular spot. Visible from the hems of his jacket sleeves, thick black gloves clenched together and relaxed.

[Stern]

Stern finished his business in the men's room, washed his hands, and stood by the automatic hand dryer. They never really did work for him. Another gentleman entered the men's room, allowing Stern a quick glance outside. The strange man and the middle-eastern looking kid were still standing, and talking.

The machine whooshed a moment more and stopped. Stern raised an eyebrow. The older man didn't look like he was here for a graduation. There was something rather off about his appearance, like the devil in The Brothers Karamazov. He was dressed for the occasion, but somehow, his clothes didn't quite do justice to it. The only thing that really seemed to be well about him were those thick gloves.

"How strange."

Stern shrugged, checked the seal on his goggles, then stepped outside into the hallway.

[Neutron]

Wahid nodded to the offer, and the two men made for the front entrance to find a place where they could have a cigarette. Wahid, eager to extoll his readiness to martyr himself, spoke aloud to himself, Allahu Akhbar - God is great.

Aslan's polite smile faded, and he squeezed the back of Wahid's neck sharply, scolding him in Arabic about saying such stupid things in public that even anglophile infidels could comprehend. Inwardly, the Chechen started to wonder if Wahid could tie his shoes without supervision, much less sneak a suicide vest into this venue.

[Stern]

Stern passed by the gloved man and his friend. The younger one said something that sounded familiar to him.

Allahu Akhbar.

He heard that before. Somewhere on the news, he imagined. It has been such a crazy semester. Stern walked into the stadium and absently descended into the stands, rolling around the odd phrase in his mind.

Allahu Akhbar.

Well, Allahu sounded an awful lot like Allah. So it was Islamic. Nothing terribly strange there. There were tons of students at ESU who were adherents of Islam. In fact, Stern had to attend a seminar on terrorism and its influence on Islamic culture for his World Religions class.

Stern had just reached his seat when it struck him like a thunderbolt. "Allahu Akhbar. God is great. Oh, man."

Stern looked around to try to find a security guard or campus police. He bolted back up the stairs, vaulting the middle hand rail to avoid people walking down.

He needed to find someone in charge now.

Those two strangely secretive people might be trying to blow up the graduation ceremony!

[Neutron]

Aslan took a walk with Wahid, lighting the young man's cigarette as they strolled. Casually, the men took a side alley, ducking out of sight, where Aslan had already planted the necessary equipment.

"Wahid, you are mujehedeen. God willing, you will strike the evil ones, but do not waste your opportunity carelessly. Your path is righteous."

He knelt down, pulling a parcel out from a storm drain. It was a plastic-wrapped vest. Removing the clear plastic, he extended the vest to the young martyr.

"Do not look for me again. I will guide you from afar."

[Stern]

Stern was having a hard time moving past the people filling the stadium seats. Both sides of the stairs were filled with people coming down. Stern balanced on the hand rail and moved along it, jumping with care from one rail to the next. It was a bit faster than shoving past the group of people, and with luck his antics would catch the attention of one of the officers he was after.

Indeed, it did work.

Stern climbed the last hand rail and found one of the ESU police waiting for him.

"What's the meaning of this, son?"

Why did all officeres have to refer to people as son?

Stern took a moment to catch his breath. "Sir, there's two people going to blow up the stadium. They went out that way last I saw them. One guy wears a trench coat and gloves, but the other guy is about my age. He was wearing kakhi pants, I think, and--"

The officer cut him off. "You know, that has got to be the wildest story I have ever heard for an excuse."

Stern's heart rate was already kind of high. He needed to calm down before his personal light got bright enough to notice amongst the lights from the stadium.

"And do you have to wear the goggles?" The officer asked.

Stern nodded politely. "Eye condition. Very nasty. Not too nice to look at, I'm afaraid."

Stern held his breath and hoped the officer wouldn't try to remove them.

"You're just full of stories today," the officer said with an incredulous chuckle.

"I majored in Creative Writing," The student replied. He hadn't, but it was the first thing he said that wasn't true.

"I'll say you did. Well, we don't want any kind of incidents here today, so next time just be patient and walk up the stairs. Enjoy the ceremony."

The officer shook hands with Stern and walked off to find another officer to tell about what just happened.

"Balls," Stern said, and scanned the area for the two terrorists.

[Neutron]

Aslan exited the alleyway, not bothering to take another glance back as he finished his cigarette. He meandered in front of the auditorium and idled casually for a few minutes while he smoked. Walid would come later, conspicuous in his desire to remain inconspicuous with such a cumbersome vest. Whether he reached his target or not didn't overly concern the Chechen fighter. He had his own task at hand.

Another breath exhaled, and Aslan quietly watched people pass. These small-minded infidels. They couldn't see past their own obsolete genomes without tripping over their heavy-handed bigotry. In another time, he would have beseeched, imshallah, for their destruction. Now, he knew better. Belief was still paramount, but the enemies of the new mankind weren't going anywhere if you weren't prepared to drag the long blade across their neck yourself.

[Stern]

Stern tried to keep collected. The campus police weren't going to be much good until they saw someone being suspicious.

He felt like a fool. Trying to find people that may or may not be trying to kill tons of people was maniacal. He'd have to try to remain discreet somehow.

The man with the trenchcoat and gloves went outside. In the spring, in that get-up he might not be too hard to find.

Stern stepped outside--directly into the smell of foreign cigarettes. Stern thought he would turn green. He had only experienced that smell from certain professors and then again from stupid high-brow white kids who thought they were better than everyone else for indulging in foreign addictives and the like.

"Follow your nose. Why can't I be finding Toucan Sam right now?"

The man didn't seem to be trying very hard to hide. He stood nearly in the middle of the courtyard just outside the big entrance to the stadium.

With no references to go by other than television, Stern decided he had basically two choices: follow the man as discretely as possible or confront the man outright.

Causing a scene would probably get the cops after himself more than the other guy, so he could only sift through the crowd and try to stay where the guy wouldn't see him. Even if he did, Stern had to make it look like he wasn't watching the guy.

"What a day."

[Neutron]

Suddenly, he had a visitor. A young yankee boy with goggles on his face was making conversation with him. Caught mid stride, Aslan exhaled through his nose. Might as well go along with it, he still had time enough.

"Yes it is good day."

Flicking a bit of ash that fluttered down to the step below him like snow, he regarded the youngster.

"You are is student with school?"

The age seemed right, though his goggles seemed to be an oddity. Perhaps a sight impairment. But then again, perhaps more? A brother perhaps? Perhaps not. Even the gifted weren't necessarily trustworthy. Certainly not here and now.

[Stern]

Man, I stink at this sneaking around thing, he thought. Then again, given my powers, I really shouldn't be trying to be sneaky at all.

Stern kept the twist of anxiety out of his voice and features. The goggles helped mostly.

"Yes sir, I am. Some of my friends are graduating today. I still have another two years or so."

Stern decided to try his hand at subtle questions. He was pretty good at that. Granted, he only really used it to figure out which of his roommates ate his grandmother's cookies and the like, but it might be helpful here as well.

"Do you have a child or family member graduating today?"

Stern watched the sky. It had been raining the past few days and the sky was still overcast. At least most of the storm was over and it stopped being so dark out. With any luck the sun would show itself and Stern's glow would fade into the sunlight.

[Neutron]

"A cousin."

He dropped the cigarette to his feet, snuffing it out with his shoe. Regarding his visitor, he afforded a small smile.

"Well I am must be going to find my seat then."

He extended a hand to the young man.

"Good days."

[Stern]

Stern nodded and replied with a "Good day" and shook the man's hand.

Scary as hell. The guy was so calm. Maybe he really was just there for the ceremony?

Stern turned to watch him go and decided to keep his eye on Neutron just in case.

The man might be harder to spot out in the myriad seats, but he couldn't stay too close. Stern waited for him to step through the doors before he went inside himself.

[Neutron]

Aslan made his way to the upper deck, and to a seat that he'd already cordoned with a baseball cap that he'd laid in his place. It had just the right vantage point. He shuffled through a row of spectators, excusing himself demurely with broken english as he retrieved his cap, and took his seat. He looked relaxed, flipping through the comencement program with disinterest. Outside, if things were going as planned, Walid should be making his move at the chime of the clock. It was still a few minutes too early. More people needed to be inside.

[Stern]

Stern watched the man move through the crowd and to the stairs where the nosebleed seats were. Stern followed, watching the man descend into the rows of seats and sit down.

Stern wanted to keep an eye on him, but he also knew he needed to be watching for the other person too.

Was that a ball cap? Stern hoped the man would wear it, but it seemed the man was more savvy than that.

"I need to mark him somehow."

Stern paused and leaned on the small wall that kept people from falling into the people seated in the last row. "White light might help, but if I focus the beam too much it'll get hot and he'll move."

Stern started to go with red, but people might get annoyed and turn to look at him. He needed to avoid detection.

As Stern continued to mull over his options, the University's clock tower bell tolled the hour. The ceremony was going to start in a few seconds.

Feeling a slight panic, and lacking any better ideas, Stern focused a small circle of white light on the man's shoulder. Maybe people would think it was the ceiling lights and not think much more about it.

Stern didn't have time to think about how strange he looked, pointing at apparently nothing. He was too busy looking for the other guy.

[Neutron]

From where Aslan sat, he pulled what looked to be a TV remote control from his inner jacket pocket. Briefly glancing it over, he returned it to his coat. Still too early.

Outside, Walid chain smoked. He discarded one cigarette after lighting the next with the tip. The clock was chiming. His time was here. He'd spend his last moments on earth before Paradise enjoying a cool cigarette. Then he would take his place as a martyr.

Sweat beaded on his forehead. He felt as if he was looking at himself from outside his own body. Was this really about to happen? All of his years, coming to this decision.

He discarded the cigarette, steeling himself for his trial. He walked briskly to the front doors of the auditorium, and pulled his jacket off, holding a garage door opener over his head with both hands.

"There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his Prophet!"

He closed his eyes and pressed the button. He expected to depart this world in an instant.

It did not happen.

[Stern]

Across the stadium there was a big commotion. People were screaming and running away from someone. Stern looked harder. It was the guy!

Stern flared, suddenly becoming brighter than the floodlights in the ceiling.

People around him covered their eyes and the people in the seats turned to see what was making such a bright light.

Stern could see decently well thanks to the goggles he wore, but still there was an issue as he kept looking over where the terrorist was. The sounds were a dead giveaway as to what happened.

The bomb hadn't gone off. There was nothing to fear from him. But what was the other guy about?

Stern, still burning brightly, took a step back. He got a running start, jumped on top of the small retaining wall and leapt into the stands. He'd probably regret it later, but it was the fastest way he could think of to close the distance on the other guy.

[Neutron]

Aslan was preoccupied with the control to the dirty bomb he'd painstakingly smuggled into the auditorium, so that by the time he caught Stern approaching him, it was too late to brace himself. The kid tumbled into him forcefully, causing the control to fly from his hands.

[Stern]

People recoiled in horror as Stern made his landing. For a moment they thought the cieling was coming down on them. Without stopping to realize what had happened, the bystanders quickly started scrambling over chairs and each other to get away from the commotion.

Stern wasn't exactly sure what to do from there, but luckily adrenaline was on his side. He made the best fist he could and struck Neutron across the face and slammed him against the chair.

"What's the deal? Where's the real bomb?"

[Neutron]

Aslan rose to his feet with ease. He gave the kid credit for his boldness, but he was just that. He smiled, wiping some blood from his mouth with his glove.

"Look behind."

The scoreboard at the far end of the auditorium was massive, and easily large enough to conceal a man-sized device behind the flatscreen video. Within that device, water deadened the radiological footprint of a shaped charge explosive coupled with one hundred pounds of ball bearings. It was all set to an infrared switch.

A switch which lay on the ground behind Aslan.

[Stern]

Stern shifted himself so he could better see behind him without taking his attention entirely off the terrorist.

"What?"

Confusion crossed his face for a moment as he looked out over the stadium.

"Where?"

The podium was one spot, but the commencement speaker didn't seem like a likely target for a terrorist action. It was too...precise.

"Think!" he whispered to himself. The adrenaline wasn't doing much for his thought process.

"The scoreboard?"

Clearly the man had the detonator with him. He wouldn't have shown up to the place if he had it set to a timer. He would have let the whole thing unfold on its own.

"Get it down, turn it off!" Stern shouted.

[Neutron]

"For what reason?"

Aslan replied in a patronizing retort.

"For these peoples? They so suddenly worthy of the living when we, us true brethren, is not?"

Anger flashed in his eyes.

"They hates both you and I, and the fear what we become."

[Stern]

"Mutant suicide bombers. What next?"

Stern slammed Neutron into the stands. What he said made an odd sort of sense. He was not totally unused to abuse, though he didn't suffer it terribly often.

Kids would try to snatch at his goggles, or call him names. Movie theatres wouldn't let him in because of his gift (minor, but enough of an annoyance that he couldn't do very much).

"I get that ok? But I don't see why you have to go and lay out reasons to back up their stupid fears!"

Stern leaned in to grab Neutron by the lapels again when he noticed the remote. He just had to disable Neutron so he could get to it without worry. He hefted Neutron out of the seat and shoved him towards the lower seats. Then he lunged for the remote.

[Neutron]

Aslan fell backwards, but was quick to recover, scrambling over seat tops to come back to higher ground, splashing across the younger man with an energetic lunge, causing him to spill painfully against the seats behind. He balled up one of his reinforced gloves, driving a sharp punch into his kidneys as he worked his leverage.

"They kill us irregardless. Better than doing nothing at all!"

[Stern]

Stern felt a sharp pain in his ribs as he was bucked into the seats. By reflex he managed to keep his throat from slamming down on the back of the bright orange seat. His lower back throbbed at Neutron's punch.

"Never said--"he started with a grunt, "--not to do anything."

He doggedly reached for the remote.

"Might do to make a more concerted and organized effort. Besides, what's the point if you die too?"

The pain in his kidneys was too much. Stern retracted his hand and turned sharply, throwing a wild punch at Neutron's jaw.

[Neutron]

Aslan smiled, taking the youngster's punch. His head rocked back and he smiled, blood-smeared teeth showing.

"I am ready to die for somethings greater than me."

He roughly hefted Stern up by the hem of his shirt, to eye level.

"Wakes and see the world for to what it is."

He then pivoted hurling Stern down the rows of seats below, precipitously close to the ledge to the top deck.

[Stern]

Stern's leg caught on the back of the seat in the next row down. He flailed wildly to regain his lost balance, but took a spill into the seats below. Feeling bruised, Stern climbed to his feet using the guard rail to haul himself up.

"Not--"he paused for breath and felt his ribs scream at him when his chest expanded. "Not cool."

Stern took a second and mentally checked himself. Nothing was broken, but he was sure he had some scrapes that were bleeding.

It was now or never. Stern mustered what strength he could and leapt up the seats towards Neutron. Once he reached the row just below his adversary, he thrust his hands towards the terrorist and blasted a bright flash of light as close to his face as possible.

[Neutron]

"Nyeeeet!"

Aslan's gloves were up to his eyes, but a moment too late. It was like staring into the sun itself. The pain subsided and he removed his hands, but his vision was filled with phantasms, the afterburns of retina overload that lingered after exposure to intense light. They pulsed dark to light, but were depthless and opaque. He could not see past them. Only at the periphery did an aurora of unfocused sight filter through, but to the point of being useless. He flailed about, working at the gasket of one of his gloves to open it up. That prankster yankee was going to have to learn a painful lesson for his treason against his own genes.

[Stern]

Stern nearly smiled. He managed to blind Neutron for the time being and decided to make the most of it.

He started with a solid punch to the man's face, followed by a blow to the ribs and then drove his knee into the older man's stomach.

Stern shoved the man aside and lunged for the remote. It looked almost like a remote for a television or DVD player. The college student picked it up and studied it for a moment, taking care not to press any of the buttons in case one of them wound up detonating the bomb.

It was only a few seconds, but Stern's anxiety levels made it feel like hours as he looked the remote over. "If I disabled it, would that keep the bomb from exploding?"

One person knew the answers. Stern turned around to face the device's creator. "What do you know about this?"

[Neutron]

Aslan laughed through bleeding lips, intrigued that Stern thought that he was in any position to answer that. Still half blind, he stared off in the direction of the kid's voice.

The glove gasket released, and Aslan slipped one hand free of its insulated prison. The air around his exposed fist began to shimmer, like looking to the horizon on a hot summer day.

"Drop it."

Aslan still couldn't see, but it didn't matter too much.

[Stern]

Stern instinctively drew back from the man's hand. "Whoa."

He still clutched the remote tightly in his hand. There was no telling what the man was all about: Stern was kind of hoping his powers were something friendlier. Unfortunately, it would appear that as far as destructive powers went, Stern's gifts were like a newborn puppy compared to the pit bull the other man had apparently unleashed.

"So, let's ask the dumb question. What is it that you can do?"

[Neutron]

It was such a juvenile question, but one that was really at the heart of the mutant movement, wasn't it? Aslan appreciated the kid's candor and willingness to ask, even in the face of an absurd situation. Otherwise he would have been pressed for time, but the idiot gallery below was still so befuddled by Walid's trickery that they hadn't yet dispersed.

Sensing that he had at least a moment to spare, Aslan removed a cigarette from his jacket with a gloved hand, touching the filter to his lips.

"My power is not so much. I resist the radiation."

[Stern]

Suddenly Stern managed to piece it all together. "That bomb," he said, "up there." he motioned with a nod of his head. "It's irradiated, isn't it?"

Apparently, he had reached that point of no return. He was afraid. The feeling froze his blood and made him feel very much alone. He had to settle this guy. If he didn't...

"Don't stand there and smoke!" Stern shouted. "How can you be so nonchalant?"

The young mutant closed the small distance between him and his opponent, and grappled Neutron's arm with the exposed hand.

He locked the man's arm out straight and clobbered him across the temple.

[Neutron]

Aslan took the strike, but barely. It dropped him to a knee and dazed him. The cigarette flew from his mouth, and he looked up to see a semi-solid blur coalescing in front of his vision, which now seemed to slowly be returning.

His arm was contorted in a way that he couldn't strike, but he didn't need to strike at all. The immense radiation his hand put out was enough.

The fabric at the sleeve of Stern's shirt began to wilt, grey, and then crumble away into what looked to be ash. The skin on his hand slowly broke out into inflamed welts, eventually crested by blisters.

[Stern]

Stern jerked his hand back, dropping the remote so he could get rid of his shirt.

Stern suppressed a shout of pain. Instead it came out as a low growl.

He really didn't want to get within range of Neutron now. What he saw on his hand terrified him. But he had to do something. Until he got a grip on what the man did to him, Stern assumed the hand was no good.

So instead he stretched out his good hand. "Archimedes, I hope for your sake that wasn't just a legend."

He began to focus the light radiating from his hand into a tight beam. It was hard--until now Stern had never considered something like it. He curled his fingers into a bowl shape, narrowing down a beam until it was just a pinpoint on the man's face. Then he upped the intensity.

"I really hope this works," he hissed to himself.

[Neutron]

The pinprick of light intensified into something searing, and the brief flash of pain brought Aslan's hand up in front of his face. The tiny dot of light managed to sear a jagged two inch scratch into his forehead and across the bridge of his nose before being broken by Aslan's glove. With his vision returning to him, Aslan pushed forward towards Stern, stooping so that he could pick up the remote.

A smell of burning rubber filled the air as the focused light beam intermittently gained the precision and intensity to sear the glove. It was far from a constant effect, and Aslan was only inconvenienced by it.

He pulled back, holding the remote to his chest.

"In time, you sees I will be right in the cause."

This mutant had great talent, that much could be seen. Aslan wondered to what end that would be put to. Hopefully, he would realize the truth about mutants and the world.

"Do you believes in God? Do not put the faith blindly. It is yourself you should believe. You are the God of simple peoples."

He smiled.

"As am I."

He then pointed the remote to the scoreboard, and pressed the detonation switch.

[Stern]

As Neutron advanced Stern's heart began to thump wildly against his chest. words caught in his throat and panic siezed his brain.

He hadn't felt more afraid or anxious since his last attach of achluophobia. Stern reacted by glowing brighter. Light surrounded him, expanding its radiance until Stern couldn't be seen.

Neutron's words were lost on Stern. The mounting knowledge of his failure hammered home over and over until the sound of the explosion reached him.

Stern's light flared for a moment.

Then he was gone.

When the light around the young mutant faded, he found himself surrounded by the coldest darkness he had ever seen. And yet, there was a brilliant source of light. Stern raised his head to look at it properly and his mouth dropped open in surprise.

It was the sun.

Stern looked in awe a moment or two before the lack of oxygen caused him to black out. Deep within him his subconsious worked with the advancing mutation. Once again Stern glowed brightly and disappeared from the edge of space, returning back to earth where he could survive another day.