Xaviers!

"Self esteem issues. Good! Not a new development, I'm sure, but a welcome one.

And yet, it appears your opinion of me is even lower that that of yourself. It hurts me, Miriam. Really, it does."

"You'd be surprised by the depth of my disdain for other people."

"Well, you're not going anywhere for a couple of days, at the least, so mind telling Uncle Quinn all about it?" he smirked, pulling up a chair. "Because it seems like you've got a lot of anger boiling up inside."

"People are going to notice that I'm gone..." she says, though the thought is too depressing for her to sound even remotely convincing.

"Are they, though? I mean, you just got permission to walk around at night. Presumably, that's where you are when you're not in your dorm room, and it's not like anyone else is allowed to go check.

But then, you have such great friendships, I'm sure someone will come to your aid. Great friends like...hrm, remind me again?"

"Yes, great, you figured out I don't have any friends. You want to take a shot at my lack of a lovelife or familiy next? You already mocked my condition so go ahead, let me have it."

"Well, you're the one that brought it up," Quinn said. "You enjoy hurting yourself, don't you?"

"Tremendous insight, really, bravo."

"Well, we do always respect those who do our work for us. I mean, if the campus was filled with Miriams, we'd just have to sit back and wait. You'd provide yourselves all the stress we could ever possibly want. Instead, we're forced to rearrange class schedules and break up roommates and generally make a nuisance of ourselves. It's tiring, and frankly, not fun for anyone involved.

...Well, maybe Zandra."

"Why would you want to stress students out more? Did you crawl through from that stupid mirror dimension?"

"Stress amplifies and isolates X-Gene performance. It's often a factor in mutations activating originally; secondary mutations emerging, and the like. We know so little about how stress effects these things, but the knowledge we gain is invaluable."

"At our expense!"

"In the short term, yes. In the long term, though, great benefits await.

This is also why Lippencott has been so keen on helping the students in any other ways he can. Securing Chase's freedom. Hooking Tosh up with a major manufacturing concern. Sending Will to space. A little pain now, a lot of gain later."

"Nobody asked for this. I didn't want my power to get stronger and I sure as hell don't need any more pain. You're playing with peoples' lives and you don't give a damn what it does to them..."

"With fine enough control, we could dampen those powers, too. I would think Little Miss No Sunshine might find that potentially interesting...

But, no, this is for the general good, and was a long time in preparation, from my understanding."

"I don't care. I'm not your lab animal!"

"I prefer the term 'lovely assistant'. You know, have to stick with the theme."

"Great. You're delusional." she frowns, then takes a deep breath and screams at the top of her lungs.

"Help! Somebody!"

Quinn took out his magic wand (not a euphemism!) and smacked it against the cage, rattling it.

"C'mon, don't be that way."

"What? Acting like the prisoner I apparently am?"

"Hey! Anybody!"

Quinn sighed, and went over to a desk, pulling out one of the Calming Rays.

"Now, you may not have been aware that this has different settings. Calming seemed like a good general purpose one, but emotions are emotions, you know?"

"Fuck you." she says, staring down the ray. She briefly considers using the spike again but frankly, she does not care for the pain and it'd just delay the inevitable.

Quinn adjusted a dial on the back of the device and fired.

To Miriam, it was like all her nerve-endings were on fire, all at once, pain wracking through her body as the red light shone over her body. Like sticking her hand on a hot stove, only all over and constantly. It felt like a hell of a lot longer than the three-second blast Quinn fired at her.

Miriam collapses to the floor of the cage. She wasn't sure what she'd braced herself for but it wasn't this. Her immediate reaction, once the red blur recedes from her vision, dies on her lips at the thought of getting hit by that again.

"This for the greater good too...?" she whimpers.

"Well, the greater good of you not yelling and waking the dead? Yes, I'd say so.

I'd prefer to not have to use that again, Miriam. But if you don't tell me the truth, my hands are somewhat tied."

"You really don't... have to do that again..." She may not be able to become out of breath, but her muscles still shake. It'd be so easy to just tell him the truth. Really, what does she have to gain except more of this. If it was just Leo she'd be feeding to the wolves maybe she would, as much as she hates herself for it. But worse probably awaits Will if they find out he's not a hundred percent loyal. Not to mention the people actively resisting.

Bloody guilt.

Bloody Resistance.

Bloody...

"...I already told you I don't know why it didn't work on me."

"Well, that just means we'll have to run some more tests, because this is something that's important for all of us to figure out. Science waits for no man or mouse, and we have a wonderful little Guinea Rabbit to test these things out on, don't we?"

"You're a monster... But thanks. I feel much better about my own failures now..."

"You're the vampire, remember? Blood-sucking parasite? I mean, you've treated better worse, and for what? Not for science; not for anyone's gain but your own."

"Do I deserves this? Probably. But that's not your decision to make, no matter what you tell yourself to help you sleep at night..."

"Well, again, you're the one who stuck your nose into this. If you had waited just a little bit longer, it would have all been over, and everyone would have been just fine. But instead, you decided to be a little detective.

I would have thought Lippencott talking to you would have helped you come to our side."

"Telling that you guys are too sketchy even for me." she coughs out a laugh.

"Well, maybe you're just not as forward-thinking as Willy. I would have thought he would have wooed you on one of those midnight strolls of yours, but then, I guess that ship sailed when you destroyed his mind, yes?"

"You're not going to break me down any further than I already am. Advantage of sitting at the bottom of the well I dug myself, I suppose."

Quinn sat, thoughtfully. "Y'know, maybe you're right. I should really go follow Lippencott's strategy and see if I can help you, shouldn't I?"

"I think I'll pass on your 'help."

"No, no, no, that won't do at all. Let's really dig down and figure out what makes Miriam Bell tick. What drives you to push everyone away, to hurt before you get hurt?"

"Come closer and I'll show you..."

"I'm pretty sure if I do that, you're going to turn my mind to goo, right?"

"Pretty much, yeah."