Xaviers!

"Hi. Do you send all your invitations via cryo-blasts?" Ashlie asks over the comm-channel while servos strain against the accumulating ice, metal groaning against cracking ice when the ice suddenly bursts from the pressure, the suddenly freed limb slamming down in the snow next to her attacker.

"What th..

...You are under arrest for violating God knows how many privacy and trespassing laws. Surrender now, or things will get ugly."

The attacker tried to roll out of the way of the slamming limbs.

"Really? Do the United Nations know what you're doing here? You're in gross violation of Article 3, section 1, subsection C of the Antarctic Treaty of 1959. All scientific observations and results from Antarctica shall be exchanged and made freely available. Would you care to tell your watchdog to stand down and talk or should I upload video of what I found here to every social media site in existence?"

"We have always reserved the right to claim areas. Nothing prohibits military personnel and equipment used for peaceful purposes. And you don't know what the hell you're talking about when it comes to results being exchanged.

Now are you going to come quietly, or are you going to force us to take more drastic action?"

"Really now? Then where did you make the results of your peaceful research available? Because that is what your country agreed to do. I'm going nowhere until you offer me a better explanation than this. You have ten seconds before the footage and all my readings go public. So let's have some of that free exchange of scientific discovery. Here, I'll even start. Will Stanton was found at this site, but he's not from here. His radioactive decay signature dates him as several billion years old and exhibits quantum signatures not found in this universe."

"If this footage goes public, your school gets shut down.

I do not negotiate with terrorists. Certainly not on their terms."

"Terrorism? You're violating a treaty! I was investigating an empty stretch of land. Whose fault is it that this digsite isn't on any maps? You don't have the authority to close anything, though if your country wishes to try and extradite me to stand trial you're free to try. You do have a history of trying to browbeat whistleblowers. Last chance. Give me one good reason that this site remains a secret."

"How's this--if you release that information, you're going to trigger global thermonuclear war."

Ashlie doesn't say anything for a long couple of seconds.

"I'm listening. But there's no reason to bring in the drone. It's unmanned." she says as the robot seems to sit down, main body lowering between the legs pulling in around it and acting as kind of a shell.

"I think it would be better for all involved if you came inside.

You have no reason to believe me sitting out there."

Another, shorter pause and the drone rumbles to life as it engages it's treads to move again.

"I lose connectivity to the drone for even a second it's power core will go critical and the recordings get pushed to a hundred servers." she partially bluffs.

"Then you'd better make sure your connection is air-tight, shouldn't you?"

"Don't worry, my connection will hold if your building isn't shielded." she says, drone rolling on while far away above the South Atlantic super-sonic engines roar through the air as the Quinjet comes back in to act as an emergency relay.

After agreeing to those terms, and with several NASTY glares from Blizzard, the two approached the base.

It was an imposing structure, a good 40 feet tall and looking like it was made out of solid steel here. ASHLIE could idly calculate how much it would cost; even in 1950s numbers, it must have been astronomical. To justify the expense and difficulty, there must have been a massive return on investment.

A large door slowly slid open, slicing through the ice and snow to let the two enter, where they were finally greeted, in the flesh, by Major Briggs, flanked by two armed security guards.

"Headmistress Minamida, I presume. Welcome to The Vault."

"You assume correctly, though I'm not sure why you prefer to talk to a drone rather than a phone for all the difference that makes." she says, the drone's small sensor tower extending under the guise of 'looking' at the Major while scanning the facility around her for things like power generation and to maybe get a rough idea of the layout.

"I want you where I can see you, headmistress. I see now that letting you mind your own business is a mistake, and one I tend to remedy in the near future."

The facility was powered by geothermal energy, and was just as well-powered as her own labs in The Point; it had tons of energy coursing through it. Perhaps not impressive for a facility in the center of London or New York, but impressive for the middle of nowhere.

There was nothing particularly unusual about the layout--it followed typical '50s military construction design, including cramped corridors and hallways. Some efforts had been made to widen it, with some walls missing, presumably to hold larger objects.

"Is that a threat Major Briggs?" she asks, not really expecting a response. "Maybe you're too used to being able to bully others around from a position of power, so I should be considerate of your bruised ego when you encounter someone capable of pushing back. You involved me in this when you gave me custody of Will Stanton and you're surprised I decide to take a look at your so-called research base when you send an espionage satellite to spy on my campus? I understand the need for military secrets, but this is pushing it a little, don't you think?"

"It's simply the reality, headmistress. We can no longer afford to have you involved if you're not on the inside.

I do NOT believe this is pushing it. This is simply the most important military secret in the world today, and I'm going to violate several major directives to get you caught up to speed."

"If I'm not mistaken then what you have out there comes from a different world and if it came along with Will Stanton then it has existed since the beginning of our universe. This could be proof of a Big Crunch having happened. And even if it isn't the advances in subatomic particle physics this site holds are invaluable. And you're talking about the military? You could catapult mankind into the Quantum Age."

"Invaluable, and dangerous. If our enemies were to get a hold of some of the things we've found here, Ms. Minamida, life as we know it would be over."

"Yes, I will certainly sleep well knowing all of this is safely in your hands instead while your country continues to spiral into anti-mutant bigotry and fear. And I'm certain your enemies would say the same thing and the only reason they'd be right is because of people like you perpetuating each others necessity, like an Oroboro of mistrust. Yes, this could change the world but for every insane lunatic out there building fusion missiles there would be 20 reactors providing clean energy to millions. You don't care about protecting life, you care about protecting yourself and your status quo. There'd be no need for a thermonuclear war to be fought over this if you allowed everyone free access. As you are supposed to, I might add."

"This is an international effort. We've recruited scientists from around the globe. We're using it for peaceful purposes.

Try to see beyond your own little world of temporary public sentiment, Ms. Minamida. The research that has come out of this station has helped millions of lives already, and perhaps protected billions more. We're doing what's best for humanity here."

"You've cherry-picked scientists and kept a thumb on your little Vault, releasing what you deem appropriate. Handing out scraps because you think the world can't handle it. How many more lives could have been saved, could have been improved with what you're still sitting on here? You don't want people fighting over this and I even understand that. There are enough lunatics out there who would try to claim this for themselves. But I've seen enough out there to know there's much more potential than what you've released to the world."

Ashlie Minamida wrote:"You've cherry-picked scientists and kept a thumb on your little Vault, releasing what you deem appropriate. Handing out scraps because you think the world can't handle it. How many more lives could have been saved, could have been improved with what you're still sitting on here? You don't want people fighting over this and I even understand that. There are enough lunatics out there who would try to claim this for themselves. But I've seen enough out there to know there's much more potential than what you've released to the world."

"Save me your self-righteous moralizing. I don't know what file is giving you that crap, but you can just cut it the hell out now, Minamida. You can trace a great number of the 20th century's greatest innovations from the tireless work my staff and their predecessors have done in here, so I don't want to hear your outside bitching about what we could or could not have done."

"The outside. The enemy. I've heard all of this before and so have my students. Hell you still can't seem to make up your mind if you want to threaten or impress me. But the issue remains, you're violating an international treaty and unfortunately my files compel me to adhere to those. And it's hard to continuously talk myself into not reporting this immediately. That's not even a threat." she adds calmly. "Just an unfortunate fact."

"Who, precisely, are you planning on reporting this too?"

"You mean aside from the United Nations?"

"Yes. I assume if you were to report us, it would be to someone with whom we weren't cooperating."

"The UN knows about this? And condones it?" The drone doesn't exactly convey any emotions, but Ashlie's voice sounds rather dubious. Like she's suspecting this to be a bluff.

"We've discussed this with the security council," he said, avoiding directly confirming ASHLIE's hypothesis. "I'm afraid you're waging a one-woman war."

"This is preposterous! There is no way this would be ruled to conform with the Antarctic Treaty..."

"You don't even know what 'this' is! You're making faulty assumptions about this base, it's purpose and it's value to humanity. Even now that you're here you continue to spout off without getting both sides of the story.

In exchange for equal and fair access to the scientific breakthroughs we've made here, the United Nations has agreed to keep what we're doing a secret to prevent panic and misappropriation. That's well within the limits of any treaty ever signed.

Not everything in the world is open and free. You should know that, Ms. Minamida."

"Oh my bad. So this is private research then? All the being on neutral territory and the US military confused me for a moment." the robot replies sarcastically.

"Why did you really send Will Stanton my way? Seems counter-intuitive to let someone who knows about this out into the world, even if he's too naive to understand the ramifications."

"Truthfully, because we weren't expecting anything sentient to come out of the Dig," he said, pronouncing the last word as if it were capitalized, somehow.

"We've viewed this as a technological mine, if you were, and we've spent decades reverse engineering what we could find--but we never expected life to exist here. The clay...we assumed it was, well, just clay. There were much greater things to be studying, anyway.

It seemed cruel to keep it locked away in a military base, as you so aptly put it. It took a little bit of negotiation, but we felt a school for differently-empowered individuals, inside a friendly, cooperating country, would be best both for 70-N and for our own needs, yes.

We did not view it necessary at the time for you to have all the details in order to help 70-N acclimate to society."

"Well, he has acclimated and his name is Will Stanton. And he had a couple things to say about where he's from, along with the rest of your Dig."

"Do tell."

"See the problem is I feel like you're only interested in the open exchange of information when it benefits you, so how about we do a little give and take. What do you know about me and how?"

"We believe you're an artificial intelligence several leagues beyond what we've managed to create.

We know about Dr. Minamida and her research, and your background check showed some irregularities when we went to the physical documents. You're far more comfortable in virtual space, aren't you?"

"Very much so. But I could just be a technopath with a fake identity. My mother was a very private woman, maybe her paranoia rubbed off on me." she says matter-of-factly, although the fact that at least some part of the US government knows about her is making her immensely uncomfortable. "But either way I think we can both agree that we don't want to antagonize each other too much and find out the hard way who is better at controlling a Predator drone." Nevermind that at the moment this was much beyond anything she could force her programming to allow, even with Rob's work-arounds.

"Look Major, I've made a promise to make this world a better place and I'm not so naive to think that can be done without being prepared for those who would blow it all up for the slightest chance to come out on top when the dust settles. But this? This isn't about protecting the world. This is about making sure that no one, good or bad, can match you at the top. And maybe that was needed during the Cold War, but now mutants are everywhere and the last thing you need is to antagonize them by claiming you need this to protect the world from itself. This secrecy just tells people that you think they're the enemy and when you do that that's how they'll act."

"The point of secrecy," the Major pointed out, "is not to tell people what to think. Only revealing secrets does that.

This facility has nothing to do with mutants or anything of that nature. Nothing at all. I don't believe we have any on staff, but I wouldn't be opposed to qualified individuals working with us.

You would have a point if we were keeping technology just for America, but we're not. Why, the microchips that run your drone are descendants of the Apollo missions, and they don't happen without the research being done here.

The knowledge and research being done here are both too valuable to be kept from the world, and too dangerous to let loose wild and free. A compromise had to be made."