Ars Rhetorica (Ethan Evans)

[Alex Kaine]

"A debate is more than an argument. An argument is about two people trying to win. A debate is a contest of ideas."

Mr. Golden prowled the front of the classroom with the confidence of a practiced orator. He was a short, stout man with a barrel chest and a voice that could roll like thunder. You didn't nod off in Mr. Golden's class, not unless you wanted the voice of God shaking you out of your daydreams.

Twenty-eight wide-eyed high school students followed his march up and down the blackboard and the illustrative gesticulating of his chalk. "You might go after the other person in an argument, to score points, to make yourself feel better, to make the other guy look like a schmuck. But that's not debate. Debate is never about you and the other guy. Debate is about--"

Mr. Golden was interrupted by a rattle from the door. It opened to reveal a tousle-haired teen in the doorway with a scabbed-over cut on his lip and a puckering bruise under one eye. One of the office aides stood behind him and briefly made eye contact with the speech teacher.

"Mr. Kaine," Mr. Golden said archly. "How good of you to join us. Please take your seat."

Alex, completely expressionless, shuffled in and sidled his way along the back row of desks. He slumped into the first empty one and spread out as if he were semi-liquid, sinking as far below the other students' eye level as he could manage.

"As I was saying," Mr. Golden continued, "debate is about the audience. Some of the great Greek orators knew their audiences so well, they could persuade a crowd to one side of an issue, then persuade them to the other side, all in one speech. In order to be truly convincing, you need to know your opponent's arguments just as well as you know your own. Why?"

The speech teacher scanned the classroom. Most of the students avoided eye contact. Alex stared from the back of the classroom with reckless indifference. Mr. Golden appeared unimpressed.

But Alex's attitude was a known factor. It was time to test one of the newer minds in the class. "Mr. Evans?"

[Ethan Evans]

Like so many of his classmates, Ethan Evans had been studiously avoiding any eye-contact with Mr. Golden. When his name was called, he felt his stomach sink. In the comparatively small classes at the Cullen Institute, it had been inevitable that each student should be called on throughout the course of every lesson to offer their opinion. Now, with twenty-eight others to choose from, there were not so many instances when Ethan was called upon, if he did not offer an opinion of his own volition. He kept his answer as short as he could, though his voice did not exactly ring with confidence, his eyes twitching for a moment from Mr. Golden to the lacklustre expressions on the faces around him.

“So you can prepare how you're going to deal with any arguements they throw your way?”

[Alex Kaine]

"That's part of it," Mr. Golden replied. "But, remember, it's not about your opponent. Think about your audience. Especially the ones on the other side. They already know their own arguments. And if you can't answer those, then in their minds, you've lost."

The teacher turned toward the blackboard and walked past where he'd written things like LOGOS, PATHOS, and ETHOS in large letters. "I need a controversial topic in current events. Something that matters to you."

Unsurprisingly, when he looked over the class again, there were no hands raised. He decided to take a stab in the dark.

"Mr. Kaine?"

Alex Kaine looked up mutinously. Then, to Mr. Golden's immense surprise, he said, "Mutant registration."

"Ah. Interesting choice. Class, I'd like you to take the next five minutes and write down all the arguments you can think of both for and against mutant registration."

The classroom was filled with the scratching sounds of busy pencils. Alex didn't even take out a sheet of paper.

[Ethan Evans]

Ethan stared at the sheet of paper in front of him, its surface marked only by the date and the professors name. He shifted in his chair and repositioned his right hand, so that the point of his pencil could approach from a new angle. After a moment of nothing, he did this again, the corners of his eyes becoming creased in frustration as he tried to think of something – but his mind was as blank as the paper itself. Whilst people around him scribbled down their answers, every panicked thought in Ethan's head seemed to want to evaporate into thin-air.

[Alex Kaine]

The five minutes dried up. Some students had run out of things to write early on. Others were still scribbling. For most of them, the "pro" column was much weightier than the "con."

"Let's hear what you have to say," Mr. Golden said. He squinted at Alex's empty desk. "Mr. Kaine? Let's start with you."

Alex grimaced and shifted back in his seat, folding his arms rebelliously. "Mutant registration is the stupidest idea in a long history of stupid ideas," he said.

"A full and nuanced argument," Mr. Golden replied. "Would you care to elaborate? To justify your position?"

Alex shrugged. "Why should I?" He considered leaving it there, testing whether he could flap the unflappable speech teacher, but he had too much steam built up from the fight in the restroom earlier that day. "If there's something you need to justify, it's telling millions of people they need their genes mapped and filed and a little certificate that says they're officially a freak of nature. Maybe the cops could focus on something more important, I dunno, like catching criminals."

"Aha," Mr. Golden said. "What we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is an appeal to personal liberty. If the government is going to intrude on the rights and privacy of its citizens, it needs justification. Mr. Evans!"

Ethan jerked upright in his seat.

"You're a press secretary justifying mutant registration to concerned citizens like Mr. Kaine. How do you do it?"

[Ethan Evans]

Imagining that he was a press secretary wasn't necessary for Ethan, who had spent many a morning at the breakfast table listening to his father lamenting the state of the nation when freaks like these can run around unchecked, as if they aren't weapons of mass destruction waiting to be set off.

“God forbid your sister should get sweet on some average Joe, get knocked up and then have him tell her that he's some... half-man half-goat!” Mr. Evans had said, snapping the pages of his morning paper to get a better look at the last mutant scare story.

“Dad!” His daughter was wide eyed and aghast. Her mother, coming across to the breakfast table, ran a tender hand over the girls hair.

“Honey.. I wish you wouldn't talk about this kind of thing at the table. You know I don't like you starting the day in a bad mood.”

“Well, Janet, someone's got to educate the youth of today about the dangers they're facing.” Mr. Evans looked over the rims of his glasses as he spoke, sober and severe. “It's a disease, and like any disease we have a right to know who is carrying it.”

Blinking, Ethan shook himself out of the memory and focused on Mr. Golden. Everyone else in the class was looking, instead, at him.

“I would say...” he said, pausing a moment to wet his dry lips. “I would say that it's for the good of everyone. Normal people and mutants would both benefit... since the government could probably offer them some kind of help. Or protection. The mutants, I mean.”

[Alex Kaine]

"If they want help, they can ask for it, and if you want to protect mutants, you can start by not making a federal case just because some chick has purple hair and can fly," Alex retorted before Mr. Golden could comment. "You can't even enforce this law. Not unless you're going to screen everybody. Which, by the way, they're already doing illegally."

Some derisive laughter fluttered around the classroom.

[Ethan Evans]

It wasn't that he wanted to carry on with the argument, but words were tumbling out of Ethan's mouth before he could stop himself. “Maybe everyone should be screened,” he said, shrugging hard as colour rose into his cheeks. “For their own safety.”

[Alex Kaine]

"Yeah, I feel safer already," Alex grumped.

"Let's stay in the spirit of the debate, gentlemen," Mr. Golden said. "Time to turn the tables. Mr. Evans, you're against mutant registration, Mr. Kaine, you're for it. Mr. Evans, let's hear an argument against."

[Ethan Evans]

Shoving one hand back through what had previously been meticulously tidy hair, Ethan pursed his lips before speaking. “It's unconstitutional,” he started, a snort of laughter from the other side of the room causing him to pause for a moment. “Well, I mean... whose business is it? Mutants were just born the way they were. It doesn't matter, so long as they don't commit a crime, right?”

[Alex Kaine]

Alex didn't even miss a beat.

"The Constitution assumes that everyone is created equal, right? Well, now we know they're not. Who cares about human rights when people aren't human anymore?"

[Ethan Evans]

“They didn't ask to be born different,” Ethan managed, sounding feeble even to himself. “It's the same as someone being born... blind or handicapped. I mean – think about it. Some of us are good at sports, some of us aren't. We all have.. skills and talents. Mutants are just.. skilled in a way that we don't understand yet.”

[Alex Kaine]

Alex took on the patronizing affectation he'd learned from his father. "That's why we need Mutant Registration - to understand them better. After all, how can we control what we don't understand?"

About half the class nodded in agreement - the other half was starting to look decidedly uncomfortable.

Someone coughed in the silence that followed. Mr. Golden sensed the building tension and decided to dispel it. "Well, gentlemen, I'd say you've both given us a lot to think about. Mr. Kaine, I'd like to speak with you for a minute after class, if I could."

Alex barely made eye contact with the teacher as he slumped back down into the desk. The rest of the lesson passed by, a distant, disconnected epilogue to the feelings the debate had stirred up.

The bell sounded some ten minutes later, leaving Mr. Golden to shout the day's assignment over the cacophony of scooting desks and shuffling feet. Alex lingered behind, and Mr. Golden spoke to him in hushed tones. Barely a minute later, the boy stepped out into the hallway, ready to head to the cafeteria for another lunch in solitude.