Cerebro

Once upon a time, deep beneath the Xavier School in Westchester County, there was a door.

Titanium, round, sealed with two different keys and — yes — a specific thought to open it. Behind that door was the most extraordinary machine anywhere on Earth.

Its name was Cerebro.

Professor X had built it with his dear friend Forge — a mutant engineer who could understand any machine the way some people understand music. Together they had worked for eighteen months: early mornings when the school was asleep, late nights when the stars were out, quiet weekends with soldering irons and quantum amplifiers and the patient kind of careful work that important things deserve.

Here is how Cerebro worked.

Professor X sat in the center of a spherical chamber forty feet across — white walls, curved ceiling, humming softly. He put on the chrome helmet at the center, connected by hundreds of fine wires to the walls. He closed his eyes.

And his mind — which already reached roughly one mile in every direction without any help — began to stretch.

Past the mansion. Past the Hudson River. Past the Westchester hills. Past New York City and the ocean and the far shore and the continent beyond, all the way around the world and back.

Every mutant mind on Earth.

Professor X once described it to Jean Grey as standing in a river made of thought. A billion minds flowing past. Among them, shining a little differently, the minds of mutants: bright, unusual, often frightened, often extraordinary.

He could feel a teenager in São Paulo, Brazil, staring at his hands because a fork had just pulled itself across the table toward him. Startled. Scared. Alone with something he did not understand.

He could hear a child in Cape Town, South Africa, who had woken up to find her skin turned the color of a clear winter sky, hiding in a closet, hoping no one would notice.

He found them. He noted them. He made plans. He had to be careful not to stay in Cerebro too long — forty minutes was the limit, after which the pressure left him exhausted for days. So he worked: find, locate, plan, rest, repeat.

One particular day, something went wrong.

The Hellfire Club — a group of villains who spent a great deal of energy trying to prevent Professor X from doing exactly what he was doing — had obtained a telepathic disruptor designed to scramble Cerebro's signal.

It fired.

KRRZZZZT.

Cold, disorienting static. The stars of mutant minds went fuzzy. The river of thought churned and broke apart.

Somewhere in Nevada, in a government facility, there were young mutants who needed to be found right now.

Professor X held on.

He did not panic. He narrowed. World — country — state — county — valley — road — building. Room by room. Mind by mind.

There. There. There. There. There. There.

Six young mutants. Sublevel two. Cells seven through twelve. Frightened. Intact. Waiting.

He opened his eyes.

"Cyclops," he said, perfectly steady, "building four, Nevada facility, sublevel two. Cells seven through twelve. Take the team now."

Cyclops walked out the door. Sixty seconds later the Blackbird was in the air. Every mutant was brought home safely.

Afterward, Forge came to Cerebro's chamber with a toolkit and a notebook of calculations. He had designed extra shielding for the neural interface — protection against future disruptions.

He laid it on the table and explained it carefully.

Charles listened. Then shook his head.

"It would reduce the range," he said.

Forge nodded. By about twelve percent.

"Then no," said Charles. "Twelve percent of the world is a very large number of people."

Forge looked at him for a long moment. Then he picked up his notebook.

"I knew you were going to say that," he said.

Charles smiled.

That night, before sleep, he thought about the six young mutants now resting safely in the school's guest rooms. Tomorrow he would have answers for all of their questions.

Somewhere in São Paulo a boy was learning to be careful around cutlery. Somewhere in Cape Town a girl had stopped hiding in the closet, because a letter had arrived from Westchester telling her she was not strange, she was gifted, and there was a place for her.

Charles Xavier slept. He slept very well.