Twenty-seven minutes in, the green-skinned kid's group exploded into argument. A boy made entirely of water stormed away from her team. Another group sat in stubborn silence, arms crossed.
"Time," Logan called.
The room settled. Only two groups had reached consensus—ours and a trio of kids I didn't recognize.
"Alright. Results." Logan pointed at the other successful group. "What'd you choose?"
"Option A," their leader said confidently. "Guaranteed success. Minimize long-term casualties."
"And your secret objectives?"
The kid hesitated. "We... didn't share them."
"So how'd you reach unanimous agreement?"
"I convinced them Option A was correct."
Logan's expression hardened. "You mean you bullied them into agreeing." He looked at the other two, who wouldn't meet his eyes. "That ain't consensus. That's dominance."
The leader flushed. Logan turned to us.
"Your group. Tell the class what you did different."
I stood. "We shared our secret objectives. Full transparency."
"Even though the instructions said not to?"
"The instructions said the objectives stay private unless we choose to reveal them. We chose."
Logan's mouth quirked. "Keep going."
"We had conflicting goals. No way to satisfy everyone's objective and reach consensus. So we prioritized—" I paused, choosing words carefully. "—the objective that aligned with who we want to be."
"Meaning?"
Laura stood beside me. "We chose the option where we didn't guarantee killing someone. Even if it means risking failure."
Spice rose as well, Sophie's voice steady. "Because that's what people do, try to save everyone even when the math says it's impossible."
The classroom went quiet.
Logan let it sit for a long moment. Then: "Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin didn't agree on jack shit. Different economic systems, different post-war goals, different visions for Europe's future. But they found one thing they could agree on—defeating Nazi Germany mattered more than their individual objectives."
He wrote on the board: Common ground requires sacrifice.
"Negotiation ain't about getting everything you want. It's about figuring out what you're willing to give up to reach agreement with people you don't trust, don't like, and don't understand." Logan's eyes swept the room. "You're gonna spend your lives negotiating. With each other, with humans, with enemies who want you dead. The skill that keeps you alive ain't combat—it's finding common ground when everything says it's impossible."
The bell rang.
Students filed out, but this time without the careful distance. A pink haired girl with dragonfly-wings nodded at Spice. The green-skinned kid met my eyes for half a second.
Small changes. But changes nonetheless.
In the hallway, I walked between Spice and Laura, less tense then she'd been an hour ago.
"That was—" Spice started, then stopped as different personalities competed for words. Finally, Celeste's tentative voice: "—actually kind of okay."
Laura nodded.
"Agreed."
Beast's Quantum Biophysics followed. The classroom looked like a laboratory had turned into a makeshift lecture hall—periodic table murals, 3D molecular models, and enough scientific equipment to stock a research facility.
Dr. Henry McCoy stood at the front, blue-furred and professorial, adjusting his glasses. "Good morning! Today we begin with a fundamental question: what is causality at the quantum level?"
He wrote on the board: Does observation collapse the wave function, or does measurement merely reveal predetermined states?
I felt Laura's confusion without looking at her. Spice leaned forward, Irma's more analytical voice murmuring, "Schrödinger's cat paradox..."
Beast gestured enthusiastically. "The Copenhagen interpretation suggests reality exists in superposition until observed. But does that hold at macro scales? Or are we bound by hidden variables we simply cannot perceive?"
My hand moved before I thought about it—an unfamiliar impulse. Beast's eyes brightened. "Mr. Doe! Your thoughts?"
I stood, not use to proactively drawing attention—
"Both interpretations assume causality flows forward," I said. "Observation affecting outcome, or predetermined variables determining result. But quantum entanglement suggests non-local connections. If two particles share information instantaneously across distance, causality becomes... networked. Not linear."
Beast's grin widened. "Precisely! The causal structure of spacetime may be far more complex than our intuitive understanding suggests." He scribbled equations on the board. "Einstein called it 'spooky action at a distance.' But what if distance itself is the illusion? What if causal relationships exist independent of spatial separation?"
I saw it—not with my eyes, but with my second sense. The causal threas connecting everything in this room. Beast's enthusiasm causing students to lean forward. A girl's question triggering his explanation. My answer creating new pathways of understanding.
Threads tangling, diverging, converging.
"Causal networks," I said quietly. "Every action creating multiple potential outcomes. Every observation collapsing some possibilities while opening others."
"Yes!" Beast practically bounced. "You grasp it intuitively! Tell me, what's your mutation? Enhanced cognitive processing?"
I hesitated. Laura's eyes found mine, warning, support, trust bundled into one look.
"String manipulation," I said carefully. "But it extends beyond physical matter. I can... perceive connections. Cause and effect relationships."
Beast froze. Then his expression shifted to wonder. "You can see causal threads? Directly observe the quantum information exchange?"
"Not quantum exactly. Macro-level causality. Decisions leading to outcomes. Events triggering consequences."
"Extraordinary." Beast grabbed a notebook, scribbling frantically. "The philosophical implications alone—free will versus determinism, the nature of choice—" He looked up. "We must discuss this further. After class?"
I nodded, feeling Laura's tension beside me. Spice's five personalities watched with varying degrees of interest—Sophie calculating advantages, Phoebe assessing threats, Irma fascinated by the science, Celeste worried about exposure, Esme already planning how to weaponize this information.
The rest of class blurred, with Beast explaining quantum entanglement, other students taking notes, me trying to reconcile my ingrained secrecy with this strange new world where sharing abilities earned enthusiasm instead of punishment.
When the bell rang, Beast caught my arm. "Adrian. That offer stands. Your unique perspective could revolutionize our understanding of causality. Perhaps even consciousness itself."
"I'll think about it," I said.
Laura waited in the hallway. "You okay?"
"Uncertain." I watched students flow around us. "Sharing tactical advantages contradicts my training."
"We're not in the Facility anymore." She said it like reminding herself. "Maybe here, hiding everything makes us weaker."
Spice joined us, Esme's sly voice emerging. "Or maybe showing all your cards is just stupid."
Sophie immediately countered, "Strategic transparency builds trust. We need allies."
"We need to not be dissected by overly curious scientists," Phoebe snapped back.
I watched the argument play out across one face—expressions shifting, vocal tones changing, a five-way debate in one body.
"Xavier's Philosophy class next," Laura said, checking the schedule.
I nodded. "This should be interesting."