After dinner, Henry made an excuse about checking on the children staying at the Tribeca apartment and headed out again.
He did indeed stop by to check on them first.
With Colossus, Kitty Pryde, and several other older students looking after everyone, along with the veteran X-Man Quicksilver, the children's emotions were relatively calm.
Henry gave the older students one piece of advice: find out about each child's family and parents.
If their parents already knew their child was a mutant and were willing to accept them, then, depending on the circumstances, they could send those children home rather than making them stay here.
Whether they could return to Professor X's mutant school afterward would depend on whether Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters could reopen.
Henry didn't dare guarantee that events in this world would develop exactly as he remembered them.
As for children whose family situations were uncertain, or whose parents couldn't accept the fact that their child was a mutant—in other words, children who had effectively already been abandoned by their families—they shouldn't be sent home.
Sending them back would only cause them further harm.
It would hurt both the children and their parents.
Mutant students like Colossus, who had left their homeland to live here, would naturally remain.
They would stay until Professor X dealt with his own problems and summoned everyone back.
Whether that would actually happen, however, was something nobody seemed particularly confident about.
If the school really was gone for good, they'd have to make other arrangements.
The only adult they could really rely on was Quicksilver, who had been away from active X-Men operations for quite some time.
Even when they asked him questions, this unreliable middle-aged man somehow managed to give them the impression that he couldn't be relied upon.
So for now, everyone could only take things one step at a time.
Henry certainly wasn't going to take full responsibility for these children.
Even if he wanted to shoulder that burden, the children's attitudes had subtly made it clear that they didn't particularly welcome his involvement.
He wasn't one of the trusted teachers and mentors from the school.
Henry had no intention of changing that fact.
His main reason for coming here today was to find the troublesome Quicksilver.
The two grabbed a couple of beers and climbed the stairs to the rooftop to talk.
"Whew. Finally got those little troublemakers settled down. When Professor X called me at first, I thought it would be something simple.
"Turns out, whenever that old bastard is involved, nothing is ever simple."
Henry really wanted to throw those words right back at Quicksilver.
In the end, he decided against it and asked about something else.
"The main reason I came looking for you was to ask whether you noticed anything unusual on your way here."
"Anything unusual?"
Henry took a sip of beer and organized his thoughts before speaking.
"The people who drove those kids out of the school don't seem to have made any follow-up moves.
"Do you think they have another plan, or have they already set a trap?
"For example, there could be a mole among the children.
"Other than the police coming by once to check on us, nobody else has shown up here. That doesn't seem right."
Quicksilver nodded at first, then shook his head.
"Unless Mystique has joined the military, there shouldn't be anything wrong with those kids.
"I've never seen another mutant like her who can turn into someone else without leaving any obvious flaws.
"But I have noticed what you're talking about.
"At first, I was worried the military would come after us. But now it seems like nobody cares about us at all.
"I guess they don't dare make too much trouble in a major city.
"This isn't some remote place like Westchester County. And there are reporters everywhere—those creatures everyone loves to hate.
"If what the military did ends up in the news, they'd have an even bigger headache.
"What do you think? Should we expose this ourselves?"
Henry frowned.
"The U.S. military, huh? You people really have gotten yourselves into a troublesome situation.
"But I don't recommend exposing this voluntarily.
"This is a valuable bargaining chip. Once you use it, it's gone.
"Professor X may be someone I don't particularly like, but he's probably very good at handling this sort of thing. Ask his opinion.
"Unless he's already finished, in which case the rest of you can only worry about protecting yourselves.
"And if the people who attacked the school really were the U.S. military, that means the U.S. government itself is currently untrustworthy from your perspective.
"In that case, why would they care about a few reporters?
"They could openly seize a group of children in broad daylight.
"All they'd need would be the FBI—or some other government agency—to provide a vague official explanation, followed by threats involving classified information, prosecution, or whatever else they could use.
"How many reporters do you think would refuse to cooperate?"
Criminals had to hide what they did.
If a government wanted to do something questionable, it could simply change the law and make the action legal, then carry it out openly.
Why would it need to hide?
There might even be people standing on the sidelines cheering while certain atrocities took place right in front of them.
Quicksilver, who understood the way the U.S. government operated, suddenly froze.
"Ah. Right.
"When you put it that way, the fact that they haven't come after us is actually kind of strange."
"Could it be that their real objective isn't to use the attempted assassination of the President as an excuse to launch a massive hunt for mutant fugitives?"
Henry was deliberately planting the idea in Quicksilver's mind.
At the same time, he was trying to confirm whether his own memories from before he traveled through time were still accurate.
According to the movie's plot, William Stryker's ultimate objective was actually to obtain the components of the brainwave amplifier in the X-Men's base.
He intended to use those components to complete the brainwave amplifier he was constructing at a certain dam facility.
His plan was to have Professor X operate it and, under the influence of Mastermind, use the amplifier to kill every mutant in the world.
But if that was all he wanted to accomplish, why not simply bring the mind-controlled Professor X to the X-Men's base and use the original brainwave amplifier?
Why go to the trouble of stealing its components?
That suggested the two brainwave amplifiers must have some differences.
And because the military couldn't manufacture some of the critical components themselves, they had no choice but to seize the ones from the X-Men's base.
Henry couldn't determine how the two brainwave amplifiers differed without seeing their designs.
But he could be certain of one thing.
Once the military obtained the critical components, they should return to their own base and prepare to wipe out the world's mutants in one fell swoop.
If they were capable of carrying out something like that, capturing the mutant children who had escaped to Manhattan might no longer be particularly important.
Hearing Henry's question, Quicksilver actually put some thought into it for once.
He couldn't make sense of it.
"What do you think the military's objective is?"
Without concrete evidence, Henry decided to play it safe.
He would plant the seed without revealing information he couldn't substantiate.
"I don't know either. I just think the situation is strange.
"Have you managed to contact Professor X or any of the other X-Men?"
Quicksilver answered honestly.
"I can't get through to Professor X.
"But those old guys like keeping secrets. Not being able to reach them isn't unusual.
"I did manage to contact the people who took the Blackbird out on a mission. It was Ororo.
"They found Kurt, but they haven't been able to contact the base, so they don't dare return yet.
"I told them what happened here. They're trying to contact Wolverine, who didn't make it back with the main group.
"They'll probably meet up with him first and then come rescue the others.
"After all, we didn't manage to save every child. A few of them still ended up in the military's hands."
Henry stared at the man in front of him, one eye seemingly larger than the other.
"You're not going with them?"
"I hate that kind of life, all the fighting and killing.
"And they move too slowly. Having to coordinate with everyone else is a pain.
"So under normal circumstances, unless something particularly serious happens, I can't be bothered to show up.
"The others can handle it anyway."
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