There is a room in our mind and, in that room, there are bugs. Big, black ones that tell you all the things you already know but can’t bear to hear. Everybody has a room like this, but Scott Summers’ is special. The man who was once closer to him than his father taught him to make the bugs go away, so he could use the room for other things. He mostly uses it to hide secrets but, sometimes, to keep his mind safe from prying minds, he hides his whole self there.
Right now, he finds himself locked inside, helplessly calling for Jean, while out in the cold his body is another’s to command. It climbs up the mountain, as do many others, all looking for some important missing thing.
Inside the hotel, a frustrated Jean Grey sits at the bar. The barkeeper offers her a white wine. Is this a white wine face? she asks annoyed, causing the barkeeper to offer her some akvavit instead. Another guest wonders why the place is so dead tonight.
While Jean downs her shot, a young man asks the barkeeper if she has seen his friend Nick, who is missing. He shows her a photo, but she last saw him with his friends.
Jean tells the barkeeper she is actually looking for a guy too. Brown hair, red glasses, morbid case of eldest-child-syndrome. Now the akvavit makes sense, the barkeeper jokes but adds she hasn’t seen him. It’s unusually quiet this night. As she pours Jean another drink, she figures he will be in the sauna. Next time she sees him, he will be lobster-red and five pounds lighter. Jean replies that she can find him if she really needs to, but she wants to respect his privacy. The two women drink.
In the meantime, Scott and many others are forced to walk up the mountain. He tries to reach Jean mentally, but he can’t, not while the voice that is driving him on has his mind in a vise.
He tries something else: he deliberately doesn’t look where he is stepping and eventually stumbles, which causes him to drop his glasses and fire an optic blast at the sky, a blast that is seen from the hotel.
Jean switches into her Phoenix outfit and follows the blast. She telepathically orders Scott to close his eyes. When he can’t, she telekinetically blocks the blast, then notices there is someone in his mind. Looking at the avalanche he caused, she sighs that they could have gone to Bali.
From behind her, a corpse-like being glowing with green energy asks Phoenix for help to find her…
