Just Because You're Paranoid (Part One)

My skills of persuasion weren't particularly my strong point. There were only a handful of people I figured I could convince on my best day that something was wrong. If I couldn't get them to realize that I was dead serious and wasn't crazy, I might as well pack it in and wait for the worst to happen.

My friends would never let me down. You can always count on your friends.

"I think you're nuts," Eddie said right to my face, "It's the Danger Room. It can't hurt us."

Oh, forget that count on your friends crap. To hell with everything. The only person you can count on is yourself. We live and die alone.

I looked around between the amassed members of the Paladins. We had all met up by the lake near the back of the school in between classes during a down period. I had wanted to talk. Now I was regretting it. Everyone was looking at me like I was stupid. Even Ruth, which was doubly impressive because she was wearing a blindfold and had precognitive abilities. Couldn't she look into the future and see I was right? God, I couldn't wait for her to learn how to control that. It would make a lot of things so much easier.

No benefit of the doubt, Ruthie? She was still drinking a slushie that I had bought her when we'd gone past the cafeteria.

"Why is it so hard for people to believe that their shit can malfunction?" I said with a tight grit to my teeth, "Your laptop can crash for no reason. Your smartphone can screw up out of the blue. Why can't the Danger Room?"

Skepticism was the word of the day. Eddie had it in spades, "Your laptop won't plot your murder."

"I'm pretty sure it would if it could," I said back, "I've seen your browser history. Deplorable," The middle finger was language that most of us were fluent in. Eddie proved it by using it right then against me.

"Bel... it's just... a scary thought," Hisako said, trying to reason with me to talk my mood down, "It's unbelievable. If that thing was really alive, it could make all of our worst nightmares come true whenever it wanted. I'm talking the worst stuff you can imagine. That thing has files on different planets and planes of existence... all kinds of villains and terrorist groups..."

Eddie tried to wrap his head around what I was saying. I could see it on his face. It was just something that he didn't want to consider as a possibility. I'm sure he wasn't the only one, "If the Danger Room was a thing that could make its own decisions, and it really was pissed at us-."

He didn't need to finish. It was a pretty scary thought to be trapped in that thing. I had a feeling that what it had made me go through was just it warming up.

Yeah. What I dealt with was nothing. It was just flexing its muscles on me, giving them a test. I was just one kid. If it could kill me on its own, I wouldn't have survived even what it had done to me. Iron Man could kill me by himself, probably.

"I'm gonna fucking smash it," I said out of the blue, getting everyone's undivided attention. Everyone reacted with a start. Poor Ruthie even got brain-freeze from drinking her slushie too fast, "I'm gonna find the central computer and blow it the fuck up."

Eddie jumped up and started pacing around, his steps steadily growing more frantic as he moved, "You... haha... that's such a bad idea," He said, stopping right in front of me to grab my shoulders, "The squad competitions are coming up. They're using the Danger Room for the most important parts of that. You'll automatically put yourself on the shit list for everyone in this school if you destroy it. Students, teachers, X-Men that just hang around. Everyone."

"-It's a fall you can't come back from," Hisako picked up where Eddie left off. She was much calmer about it, but I could see her fingertips drumming off of the outside of her crossed arms, "No one will want anything to do with you, ever again. You'll be a pariah, if you're lucky."

"-And that's if they don't kick you out." Eddie added.

"-Which would be bad," A look of appalled shock came over Hisako's face as she regarded me distastefully, "God help me, I've actually gotten used to having you around."

"Love you too, boo," I shot back lethargically, getting a snort from the girl. Now wasn't the time for the back and forth banter between us that I loved so much, "I know I'm right. I just can't prove it without someone getting killed. That someone not being me," Because it wouldn't pull the same shit on me twice.

Eventually, Ruth spoke up after being silent for most of my story and our conversation, "She believes you," She said quietly, "You are not lying. No, you are not. But... she cannot see anything that would help."

"Of course you believe him. You always take Bellamy's side," Eddie said, shooting a sideways glance at Ruth, who just shrugged in return, "Look, none of this matters. We have to go back in there. This is our chance," He was dead serious as he turned back to me, "With you on the team... we can actually move up; stop being near the bottom of the rankings. We can actually start moving toward being X-Men. Even if the Danger Room is on the fritz, if we're good enough, we can handle it, right? X-Men deal with this kind of stuff all of the time!"

I wanted to say that we aren't X-Men. We were just trainees.

But I wasn't bitch-made. I didn't want to run scared from a fucking room. Eddie wanted to be an X-Man more than I did. It was one of the only things he got gravely serious over, but that didn't mean I didn't want to prove myself. I had a lot of power. I knew that I did. I could feel when I was using it that there was so much more I could do, but what I was already doing could be so destructive by itself...

I wanted to learn how to use it the right way, and I wanted it to go to good use.

Here and now though, I didn't know what to do.