“Oh,” Needle said softly. “So he expects us to catch up with him?”
Voght smiled thinly, letting the irony of the hunt, the danger of it, seep through.
“Actually,” she said, “I expect he wants us to catch up with him. Magneto and the Sentinels are our ace in the hole. Out here, it’s just us. If Wolverine can take us down, it improves the odds when he makes it back with the cavalry, if there is a cavalry.”
Needle slowed a bit, prompting curses from the Kleinstocks.
“What is it?” Voght asked.
“Nothing, really,” Needle said unconvincingly. “It’s just that, all of a sudden, I’m not sure I want to catch up with him.”
“Ah,” Voght said. “Now you understand.”
They continued west for three more blocks, until Voght thought they might have gained some ground. The next time Senyaka looked back, she signaled him to stop. He waited for them to catch up, and Voght addressed the others.
“Here’s where it gets interesting,” she said. “We’re hunting one of the world’s foremost predators. We’d be safer staying together, but we don’t stand much of a chance of catching him that way. We’re going to have to split up, spread out...”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Needle hissed. Voght smiled.
“Harlan, two streets north, Sven one,” she ordered. “I’ll stick with this one. Needle one street south, Senyaka two. Move as fast as you can, but stick close to the buildings. Use whatever stealth you can muster, but not so much that you waste time. We’re just trying to spook him from the brush now, get him out in the open where we can take our best shot at him. If you see him before he sees you, find your nearest teammate. If you have to engage him, shout an alarm as loud as you’re able.
“If we do our job right, what we’re doing is herding him toward the tunnel, which is where he’s going anyway. We’ll narrow the field and take him long before he can get there. One way or another, we’ll stop him.” “Yeah, I know just how to stop him,” Sven Klein-stock bragged, overflowing with machismo, and Voght was reminded why she felt such strong dislike for the Kleinstock brothers.
“Just follow orders,” she insisted. “You try to take Wolverine on by yourself, you’re going to find yourself sorely disappointed. In fact, you’re likely to find yourself dead. You’re no good to Magneto or to Haven with your throat cut. Understood?”
Senyaka and Needle nodded their assent, but the Kleinstocks looked at one another like mischievous schoolboys, then turned back to glare at Voght, eyes dimly unintelligent yet glaring with anger. If it ever came to a power struggle between herself and Unus-cione, she knew which side the brothers would be on. She knew to watch her back. Voght counted herself fortunate that their loyalty to Magneto and their thirst for Wovlerine’s blood were far more powerful than their opposition to her leadership.
But the Kleinstocks were fortunate as well.
Magneto would be very displeased if she were forced to teleport their heads away from their necks.
Which, now that it had occurred to her, did not sound all that bad.
As many times as Hank McCoy had heard people refer to Times Square as garish, gaudy, or tacky, he had never once believed it himself. Certainly it called up many different images, of hit Broadway shows and darkened pornographic theatres, of Dick Clark on New Year’s Eve, and guys selling imitation Rolex watches for fifty dollars.
It was a spectacle, he couldn’t deny that. From the place on the platform where he was captive, on display for the gathered mutants, he could see it all. The Coca-Cola sign that had hung for years; the gigantic Sony TV screen; the Viacom building that housed MTV; the little glowing sign for Carmine’s, one of his favorite Italian restaurants. A neon nightmare, some might have called it, but Hank McCoy thought of it as the heart of America.
To him it represented the best and worst human society had to offer, built with the blood and sweat of democracy. That it could be so easily taken by a man who, no matter his intentions, was little more than a tyrant repulsed the Beast.
That tyrant stood several feet away in conference with some of his Acolytes as he prepared to address the gathered mutants. Hank could see the fervor in their faces, knew that Magneto would be preaching to the converted, that through his power they had been empowered to conquer and destroy. Perhaps it was hopeless, but he knew he had to try and provide a voice of opposition, of reason and logic, of humanity.
Even as he considered that obligation, he glanced to the edge of the platform, where Trish Tilby stood in front of a TV camera, doing her job. That’s what he kept telling himself, she was doing her job. She was free, not shackled in any way, and yet if Magneto wanted to keep her there, Trish would not have been able to escape. Hank tried to convince himself that was it, that Trish was a prisoner but not a captive, that Magneto had forced her to document his triumph. It made a strange sort of sense, knowing Magneto. And knowing Trish, if that were the case, she wouldn’t even try to escape. She’d rather stay and get the story.
On the other hand, it was also possible that she’d just waltzed in and asked Magneto for an exclusive. The Beast could easily see where Magneto would have said yes. Neither solution to the riddle of Trish’s presence was comforting.
In any case, he no longer had to worry about whether or not he was playing to the cameras. In one sense, he was. But he knew Magneto might very well edit out whatever he might say or do and Hank was determined to do it anyway. Someone had to stand up to Magneto. Someone had to speak the truth.
“Look around you!” he said, as loud as he was able without shouting, and with all the calm he could muster. “Look at the world you have driven to its knees, the society you have brought down. Maybe you’re proud of yourselves. Yes? Well, you should be ashamed!”
“What the hell is this?” Unuscione shouted as she, the other Acolytes, and Magneto spun to stare at the Beast in astonishment.
“Gag him!” Unuscione ordered, but Magneto held up a hand.
“I give the orders here, Unuscione, not you.”
Magneto walked to where the Beast was restrained.
He tilted his head to one side and looked at Hank curiously, with all the detached interest of a scientist. Hank knew the look well, it was one he had worn often enough. But that was in a laboratory. This was real life.
“Please, Dr. McCoy,” Magneto said, a warmth and smoothness in his voice that made him seem almost reasonable. “Do go on.”
The Beast’s tufted furry eyebrows rose, but he was not about to let the opportunity go to waste.
‘ ‘I speak to you now because, more than most of my comrades, I know your pain,” he told the crowd. “Those of you who are too different to fit in, too different to hide in the throng of humanity. I know what it is to be called a freak. I know how it feels to be hounded, to have your life threatened simply because you were bom different, because you look different.
“But we are not the first minority to be treated thus. The sad (ruth is, we are not likely to be the last. And all along, armed conflict has been a less effective tool than time, tolerance, and reason.”
“Ah, shut yer yap, ya furball!” the Blob shouted from the crowd, laughing at his own crassness.
“You should know what I’m talking about more than most, Fred,” he said. “You were a carny sideshow freak, a spectacle that so-called normal humans paid money to laugh at. The X-Men offered you a place beside us, a chance to work for peace and understanding between humans and mutants, and you rejected us. Just as you all are rejecting that brightest of all possible futures by standing here today.
‘ ‘Eric Magnus Lehnsherr, the man you know as Magneto, is not an evil man, and that has ever been the greatest difficulty we have faced in battling him. It is easy to call him a hero or a martyr, because he is willing to sacrifice everything, has already sacrificed much, to offer a safe haven to mutants.”
The Beast paused, allowing his words to sink in. The crowd was astonished at his endorsement of Magneto, very few, perhaps even none of them having previously had any understanding of the nature of the conflict between Magneto and the X-Men. He didn’t look at Trish, but he knew that she, too, would be taken aback by his words.
“How can you say that?” a woman called from the crowd. “You X-jerks have hounded him from the get-go.”
“Perhaps that is the way it seemed,” the Beast answered. “The truth is much more subtle. Magneto is of the philosophy that humans are inherently flawed and cannot be forgiven those flaws, that they must be subjugated in order for mutantkind to be free, even to prosper. What he leaves out of that equation every time is that, regardless of whatever mutations we have received, gifts or curses, we are all essentially human. We are equally flawed.
“Maybe the reason we hate humanity so much, aside from the pain we have felt, is that they constantly remind us of those flaws. They are our mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and friends. Like the American civil war, genetic warfare can only lead to the murder of your own loved ones. Are you prepared to do that? Even if your family has turned its back on you, are you prepared to take their lives in return?
“The X-Men have a vision, a dream. We believe that with time and effort, humans and mutants can learn to peacefully coexist.
“Through the actions Magneto has taken in the past twenty-four hours, he has endangered that dream. Further, he is doomed to failure.”
“Sez you!” a burly man in the crowd screamed angrily. “Why the hell should we listen to you? We got our own world now, our own homes! This is just the beginning.”
The Beast hung his head. He knew it was hopeless, but just as certainly, he knew he had to try. These people belonged for the first time in so many years, in a lifetime for some. They weren’t going to give that up. Humanity had wielded the power of majority over them for so long. Now that they had a taste of power, they would never surrender it.
“Humans are a dangerous animal,” the Beast said, not missing the irony of his words. “We—and I include all of us humans gathered here today—we guard what is ours jealously, become violent at the merest hint that it might be taken away. Like all animals, that includes territory. Throughout history there have been examples of humans destroying the land, through scorched earth or salting, that they were about to lose. Out of nothing but spite. If they could not protect it, they would destroy it.
“Don’t think that can’t happen here! Don’t think, even for a moment, that if you become a large enough threat, the world won’t turn around and decide to erase your little empire from the face of the Earth. If they decide to do that, Magneto cannot protect you. The Sentinels cannot protect you. You’ll be shadows on the wall, like the innocents slaughtered at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
Off to one side, Magneto began to applaud.
“Oh, well done, Dr. McCoy, but you’re beginning to rave now, so we’ll have to put an end to your little show,” he said. “I think the people have made up their minds.”
Magneto turned toward the crowd, displaying a showmanship the Beast would never have thought he had the patience for.
“Haven’t you?” Magneto asked them.
The crowd roared.
Defeated, the Beast lowered his gaze.
“My turn,” Magneto whispered by his ear, then stepped to the front of the platform and raised his arms.
When the crowd roared again, Hank could not help but be reminded of a charismatic little man whose mad vision had led to the murder of millions. It was sickeningly ironic that Magneto was a Jew whose family had fallen victim to the Nazis late in World War II. Just as abused children grow to become abusers, Magneto the victim had become Magneto the tyrant, prepared to sacrifice another race for the supremacy of his own.
“My people, my Acolytes,” he began, and they roared again. “I know many of you think we have already won. We have stolen the center of American business out from under humanity’s nose. We have stood up for ourselves, carved a home where mutants can not be discriminated against. We have a sanctuary.
“But a sanctuary is only the beginning, a haven is nothing more than a resting place. And we can rest, now, for a day or two, as the humans slowly realize that there is nothing they are able to do, or, if the Beast is to be believed, nothing they are willing to do to stop us. For most certainly, we can repel any but the most apocalyptic of attacks, and they would never sacrifice this entire city just to claim victory. That would be more foolish than even I believe them to be.
“So we allow them two or three days, respite ...”
Magneto paused then, and there was utter silence. The Beast could feel the excitement in the air, but it was more than that. He was horrified as he found the word he searched for. The way the crowd treated Magneto was more than reverence, it was worship. He glanced quickly at Trish, and saw that she and her cameraman were on the job, recording everything.
“Then we expand our borders!” Magneto cried.
The crowd went wild.
* • «
Bishop listened to Magneto rant, and the madman’s words froze his heart. He wanted nothing less than to rule the world, to ride herd over humanity and make them slaves. It was a fruitless endeavor, Bishop knew. It was destined to backfire, to create a world where the opposite was true. While Magneto was trying to free his people to live as equals in society, he was actually dooming them to suffer as slaves. For Bishop, that was reality.
A reality he could not allow to come to pass.
Magneto had created the restraints he wore specifically to hold the X-Men. He knew them all, knew their powers, well enough to calibrate the restrains specifically to prevent each of them from using their powers. But when Magneto had been closest to the X-Men, Bishop had still been living in the future. The two had never held a conversation, never really faced one another in battle. Magneto was aware of Bishop, certainly, and aware of his mutant power. But there had never been an opportunity for him to truly evaluate Bishop’s powers.
The restraints were calibrated for him, personally, and for his ability. But the energy field that was intended to block his power had not been calibrated correctly. Magneto knew that Bishop could absorb an energy blast directed at him, and re-channel it as his own weapon. But there was far more to Bishop’s power than that.
As the Beast spoke, and now, as Magneto droned on, outlining plans and responsibilities that Bishop vowed would never be fulfilled, he had siphoned energy from the very restraints meant to prevent him from using his power. Slowly, he drained the restraints on his hands and neck, absorbing the power into his every cell until he fairly shone with its radiance.
“Now, then, my friends,” Magneto crowed. “What say you?”
“All hail Magneto the Emperor!” screamed a near hysterical Unuscione from the platform where she looked at her Lord with adoring eyes.
“All hail Magneto the Emperor!” the crowd repeated, enthralled.
A light burst of energy shattered the restraints on Bishop’s hands, and he tore the metal ring from his neck with ease. Without a moment’s hesitation, and before anyone could shout a warning, he gathered up all the power he had absorbed. With a scream of rage, he let it loose in one concentrated burst.
“To hell with Magneto!” he screamed.
Magneto was buffeted by the blast, and actually knocked from his feet. When he spun to face Bishop, already rising from the platform, an infernal hatred raged in his eyes.
“Why must you X-Men always interfere?” he cried. “Don’t you know when you are beaten? It is over, Bishop. Over. I have won. Mutantkind has won a great victory today, and you should all be rejoicing. Instead, you make an unending nuisance of yourselves. I have kept you alive to witness my victory, in hopes that one day you, all of you honorable men and women, shall realize your errors and come ’round to the truth.”
Magneto floated above the platform in a sphere of magnetic energy. It pulsated with his every word, and hovered just before the spot where Bishop stood, already nearly deflated of energy, exhausted before the fight even began in earnest. He had given all he had, and Magneto had been more than up to the task.
“I begin to wonder whether I should make an exception in your case, man of tomorrow,” Magneto said. “Perhaps you should die after all.”
Bishop had little power in reserve, not enough to do more than further annoy Magneto. But he was not beaten. The X-Men were a team, after all. Where one could not claim victory, there were always others.
Tensing, he feinted to the left, and Magneto sent a bolt of magnetic force in that direction before he realized that Bishop had run to the right. Three steps and Bishop stood behind Storm. He reached up and grabbed her restraints, his hands erupting with the last vestiges of energy he had stored. The restraints fell away even as Bishop fell to the ground, weakened but searching for a weapon even then, searching for another way to fight.
Though it was entirely possible he would not need to fight at all.
Storm was free.
Those who loved her knew Storm as an eminently calm and reasonable woman. When she had lived as a goddess on the African plains, those who worshipped her had considered themselves lucky to be subjects of such a benevolent deity. But, like the weather she controlled, Ororo Munroe was capable of great peace, and of the mad, chaotic devastation of the storm.
The X-Men had welcomed Magneto into their lives and he had betrayed them. Now, he had taken his mad scheme much too far, and in its wake was the promise of death and destruction on a massive scale. He might well have ruined the future for all mutants. Before he brought the world to war, he had to be stopped.
Storm was aware of all of these things. But at the moment Bishop set her free, she was not conscious of them. Rather, she thought only of Magneto’s betrayal of her and her trust. Of being wrapped in that metallic shroud by a man who knew exactly, precisely what it would do to her psyche. She was vulnerable in that way, and Magneto had violated her as surely as if his attack had been more intimate, more physical.
“Magneto!” she screamed, bearing herself aloft on a chill, angry' wind.
Down came the storm.
Ororo did not concentrate. Instead, she allowed her righteous fury to tap into her mutant powers, channeling the energy of that anger into the atmosphere. In seconds, the sky darkened and it seemed as though dusk had come to Times Square. Thunder clouds, black and pregnant with moisture, were spontaneously generated above.
Lightning crashed down at her command, striking the platform nearly one hundred times in less than a minute. Fire broke out on the wooden dais, and in several places, it collapsed beneath the Acolytes. Storm saw Bishop, now bound once more, fall through to the pavement below. It barely registered.
“You must be stopped, Magneto!” she screamed between the whipcrack booms of thunder. “For the sake of us all!”
Far below where she floated amongst the clouds, which had now blocked the sun so thoroughly that it might have been midnight rather than noon, Storm could see Magneto and his Acolytes scrambling. She had created a cloud base low to the ground, effectively fogging in Times Square so that none of them could see more than ten feet in front of them. Fortunately, part of her mutant ability to control the weather had been enhanced perception in such cases.
“Find her!” Magneto shouted. “Kill her if you must!”
And so his true colors were revealed, Storm thought. For all his talk of “rehabilitating” the X-Men, he was just as happy to kill them in the end.
The thunder increased in intensity. No longer did it sound like a distant explosion. It was closer, a deep bass rumble that pounded the ears and buffeted the body as violently as the wind itself. Each thunderstrike was longer than the last, until it sounded as though the sky was being violently rent asunder. Storm brought her wrath down upon the crowd. She willed the black clouds to open wide, to pour out their wet burden onto the streets below. But when it fell, it fell not as rain, but as sleet and hail. Ice pelted Magneto’s followers, driving them from the street.
Finally, though she herself remained nearly immobile, held aloft by gentle winds at cross currents, Storm lashed out at Magneto’s hordes with the wind itself. Fifty, sixty, eighty mile-per-hour winds whipped through Times Square, and the pieces of the platform began to blow away. At one hundred and ten miles per hour, it began to tear itself even further apart. Those people not already inside were beginning to grab hold of things to keep themselves from blowing away. Some already had. Storm vowed that the only thing left standing in Times Square would be the Blob. Then she reconsidered. Perhaps, she thought, it was time to test Fred Dukes’ claim that there was nothing on Earth that could move him against his will.
The more destructive forms of precipitation did not reach her, but Storm allowed the rain to drench her entirely. Her hair hung, heavy with it, and partially across her face. With a toss of her head, Ororo whipped it away, sending a spray of water falling on its way with the rest. No longer did she control the storm, she had become the storm.
And she reveled in it.
* * «
Magneto was astounded. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined Storm capable of the power, the fury that now raged around him. Not only was his public address over, but if he was not able to stop her immediately, Storm might well be able to end the dream of Haven before it had ever truly begun. For the first time, Magneto wondered if Ororo Munroe was, after all, the most powerful of the X-Men.
■ ‘My Lord,” Unuscione cried, holding on to what remained of the platform with her exoskeleton, barely able to keep herself from being swept away by the winds. “What can I do? How can we kill this woman?”
“How, indeed?” Magneto said aloud, his words tom away by the wind. Just as he himself would have been carried away if not for the bubble of magnetic energy he had drawn around himself. He pondered Unuscione’s question, even as the Acolyte herself was pried loose by the storm and blown, cursing Storm all the while, across the street and through one of the huge windows of the Marriott Marquis, which had already been shattered by the wind.
Magneto knew the answer already, though. Despite his words, he did not want Storm dead. He had always had more respect for her than for most of her comrades, and this display only heightened that respect. Storm could be of great use to him in the future. Of course, if she forced his hand, well then he would have to kill her.
Still intent upon that train of thought, Magneto began to rise up through the fog, wind, and hail. The ball of magnetic energy that surrounded him glowed green and its surface steamed away the impact of any precipitation. He was surprised to find that it took far more effort than usual to keep his course and maintain the integrity of the force shield. The hurricane threatened at any moment to tear away his focus, to hurl him to the pavement, or into the side of a building or a billboard.
Several moments later, he broke through a low cloud and saw her there, at the eye of the storm. Magneto took a moment to admire how beautiful she appeared then, in all the glory of her mutant power. She was a shining example of the magnificence that was the genetic x-factor, the reason why humans must give way to mutant rule. There was a grandeur about her that took his breath away.
Then she saw him.
Immediately, Storm lashed out at Magneto with every ounce of her power. The tempest that had raged in and above the street now seemed to turn, like some predatory animal, and use him as its focus. Magneto was unprepared for its effect.
Hurricane force winds battered his force shield, and it vibrated under the attack. He poured everything into maintaining the shield, then began to muster up enough extra to launch a counterattack. In an instant, the shield was struck three times by lightning.
Magneto cried out in pain, entire body quivering as if he had been electrocuted, which, in some sense, he had. The shield lost its resolution, and he began to fall, whipped into some kind of aerial maelstrom by Storm’s power. The breath began to leave him.
“Command: seize alpha mutant designate Storm,” he said, wheezing the words into a comm unit on his gauntlet.
Then he felt himself snagged, almost grabbed by hands made of nothing but the gale. His helmet had long since blown off, and his white hair was now soaked with rain, his uniform drenched, and he shook his head to clear the momentary disorientation he had experienced.
Storm was beckoning him, drawing him toward her with the weather at her bidding. He saw her, finger pointed at him in accusation, or perhaps in some kind of mute command. Then he remembered the lightning, and wondered when it would strike. It was a novel moment, as Magneto wondered if he might actually die, if
Storm could bring the lightning down on him and stop his heart.
He had no desire to find out. In an instant, Magneto surrounded himself with yet another bubble of magnetic energy, stronger than before. When he used his mutant power, Magneto could tap into the electromagnetic field of the entire planet. Charles Xavier might have been the most powerful mind on Earth, but for sheer power and potential devastation, Magneto knew that he was unmatched. Every time he had faced the X-Men he had lost because of outside intervention, because he had been surprised, or because of his own, foolish hesitation. Surprise had been the only reason Storm had survived the current battle as long as she had.
Summoning his mutant power, drawing up magnetic energy like a fisherman drawing in his nets, Magneto reached out for Ororo Munroe. If she did not surrender, he would destroy her. As an example to other rebellious mutants, he would impale her on the same spire from which the well-known ball dropped on New Year’s Eve.
Magneto found himself saddened by the thought.
* * *
When Storm observed Magneto’s swift recovery, she was quick to realize that she had lost her advantage. Instantly, her rage dissipated, to be replaced by survival instincts and deftly honed battle acumen. He would summon all his strength for an attack now, she knew. There was every chance he had been serious in his order to kill her. She had never been successful in repelling one of his magnetic attacks, only in evading them.
But evasion was not going to be a possibility. She was already drained by the incredible amount of energy she had put into the storm. No, there had to be something ...
Then she had it. Ororo cursed herself for never having thought of it before. The perfect, perhaps the only, defense against Magneto that the X-Men had. It would have been far easier if Iceman had been with her, but they weren’t even certain what had happened to him. The Acolytes claimed that they had killed Bobby. Storm didn’t want to think about that. Nor did she have the time.
Magneto was mustering his strength, so Storm did the same. While he was, most probably, summoning all the power he could to destroy her, she enacted a desperate plan to save herself from that attack.
Diverting some of her attention from the storm, from her attack on Magneto, she drew all the moisture in the air around in front of her, using the wind to sculpt clouds that had not been there a moment earlier. The sky was clearing already, the sun breaking through and shining down. Many citizens of Magneto’s new empire crept from their hiding places or went to help one another up, tending to those wounded during the tempest.
Four feet from where she floated on the air, Storm created a blizzard from thin air. She concentrated her power on that spot, used the winds to whip up a circular motion, keeping as much of the generated snow from falling to the ground as possible. By the count of six, there was a gossamer layer of snow swirling together to form a weather wall between herself and Magneto.
At the count of seven, he reached out for her with his magnetic power. And he was rebuffed. Storm could barely make him out through the curtain of snow she had conjured, but she did not see him to sense his frustration. Like all the X-Men, Storm had received a college-level education at the Xavier Institute, once called Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. That education included the basic natural sciences. Electromagnetic energy was radiation. Snow absorbed radiation, such as the sun’s heat, like a sponge. The blizzard she had created assimilated and diffused Magneto’s blasts.
Try as he might, Magneto would not be able to break through the snow barrier as long as she could continue to generate it. The question was, which of them would become exhausted first? Ororo feared that she knew the answer. Just as she was attempting to determine her next move, she heard Magneto’s voice very faintly over the roar of the storm.
“...far more clever than... credit for...” she heard. . . nearly as clever .. . you thought...”
The last part, she heard clearly.
“Look up!” Magneto shouted.
Surprised by the tone of victory in his voice, Storm could not help but obey. She looked up, through the heavy blanket of snow and clouds that she had called down on the city in her wrath. Only then did she notice that the sun was no longer breaking through the clouds. But it was not her doing. Something else was blotting out the sky above her. Something huge.
The Sentinel’s eyes glowed red.
“Alpha mutant designate Storm, surrender now to avoid painful apprehension procedures,” the Sentinel commanded in its flat, emotionless voice.
Realizing she had lost, Storm attempted to retreat.
She did not get very far.
II ■ ■ jle have hope now, Charles, that is what is truly Ml important here, isn’t it?” Valerie Cooper
■ ■ asked.
Xavier still felt some of the revulsion that had crept into his psyche when he lowered himself to steal the Sentinel override command codes from Gyrich’s brain. The feeling lingered within him, never quite disappearing, the way the acrid odor of sulfur remained after a match had been extinguished.
“Indeed,” he answered at last. There was no reason for him to burden Cooper with his troubles. In any case, a woman of her pragmatism would not understand them.
“We do have a chance at this, now,” he agreed. “Perhaps the only chance we’ll get. Once I have communicated the override codes to the X-Men, and redirected them to find the Alpha Sentinel, we’ll have done all we can from here. What we need now is some visual cue to identify the Alpha Sentinel.”
“Of course,” Val said, a bit cynically. “That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Thing is, you’re not supposed to be able to identify the Alpha Sentinel. That would make things too convenient for someone, like us, who is trying to put the damn thing out of commission.”
. Xavier frowned. The X-Men certainly had their work cut out for them.
“If you’ll excuse me, now, Valerie,” he began.
“Do you want me to go?” she asked, very respectfully.
“Not at all,” Xavier answered. “Just bear with me. For a moment, it will seem as though it is I who have left.”
With that, Xavier cast his mind out over the island of
Manhattan. He concentrated on midtown and began moving south. With the millions of minds on the island, it would take a few moments longer than usual to identify the X-Men’s thought patterns. But, as he had once explained to Cyclops, mentally recognizing an individual mind was no more difficult than visually recognizing an individual face. In many ways, in fact, it was easier.
Professor Xavier had taught and trained the X-Men, some for many years. Some of the lessons he imparted to them had to do with the mind, and the protection of its secrets. Their thought patterns were as familiar to him as the faces of children he had never had. When he reached out with his psi power to scour the island in search of them, it was with the utmost confidence.
Indeed, he found them. One by one, he made contact with the X-Men. One by one, he found them unable to respond, or communicate in any way. They were unconscious, had somehow been sedated. At least, that was the case with Storm, Bishop, and the Beast. Iceman had been knocked unconscious, and was far from where the others were being held.
Held. The thought came to Xavier so easily, but he knew it was the only solution. The X-Men had been captured by Magneto, were his prisoners even now. Xavier could only thank God, in that moment, that they were still alive. As long as they lived, there was still hope. But it seemed, at that moment, a slim hope indeed.
Valerie must have noticed some disturbance on his face, for distantly Xavier heard her call to him.
“Charles, are you okay?” she asked.
He might have replied, but instead ignored her question. For there was one X-Man he had not yet found.
Xavier scanned the island again, searching frantically for Wolverine. He could imagine only two reasons why he might not be able to find Logan. The first, that he had already left Manhattan, did not seem very likely to Xavier. The second, that Logan was dead, he dared not seriously consider. Therefore, he reasoned, there must be a third.
Taking a deep breath, Xavier scanned again. If Wolverine had been part of the melee where his teammates had been captured, and had left the battle of his own volition, he would most certainly be making for the city limits, and reinforcements. Xavier knew Wolverine would choose the most direct route, through one of the tunnels. With great care, he reached out with his mind, as if slowly dragging a mental net over the area of the city between Times Square and the two tunnels.
Finally, Xavier sensed Logan’s mind. His psi-scan had not initially pinpointed Wolverine because the man had gone primal, had descended into the predatory persona that seemed to overcome him when stalking his prey.
Wolverine, he thought, and he could feel Logan’s instinctive response to the psi contact.
You got beautiful timin’, Chuck, Wolverine thought in return. Where were ya when we needed ya?
We have no time for such foolishness, Logan, Xavier chided, knowing that Wolverine’s jibe was insincere. The others have all been captured, as I’ll assume you know. Now that I am aware of your predicament, you don’t need to be concerned with calling in reinforcements. I’ll do what I can. In the meantime, you must find the Alpha Sentinel and reprogram it with the following override codes .. .
When Xavier was through communicating the codes, he could feel Wolverine’s anger and hesitation. He did not want to leave his friends in Magneto’s hands for any longer than necessary.
You can’t get them out by yourself, Xavier thought. Taking out the Sentinels is more important right now. You ’II just have to leave the other X-Men to me.
Instantly, contact was broken. Xavier’s eyes began to focus once more, and he saw Val Cooper staring at him, her curiosity etched in her face.
“The X-Men have been captured,” he said, and watched as Cooper sighed and buried her face in her hands. “Wolverine remains free and has begun the search for the Alpha unit.”
After a moment, Cooper looked up, her brows knitted with concern.
“Well, Charles, any ideas as to what the hell we do now? I’m fresh out, I’m afraid,” Valerie said gravely.
“I know,” Xavier answered. “I told Wolverine to leave rescuing the X-Men to me. But I’m not even sure where to start. He may very well be our only hope, now. One man against a city filled with humans who hate him, and mutants out to destroy him.”
“Of course,” Val said, trying to lighten the mood, “every day is like that for Wolverine.”
* * *
Amelia Voght did not want to see the X-Men killed. Not that she had any great love for Xavier’s puppies. Or any sympathy for them. But there was something about the purity of their optimism that she saw as valuable. Magneto clearly did not want them dead either, and that made her think that perhaps he had seen the same value in their continued existence. It also didn’t hurt when one considered that, if the X-Men could be convinced to support Magneto, they would not only have much greater firepower in their arsenal, but many other mutants who supported their efforts and not Magneto’s might come around. There might be thousands of mutants who would join the cause if the X-Men were among Magneto’s followers.
Not that Amelia thought there was a chance in hell of that ever happening. But still, she didn’t want to kill them. Not that she ever wanted to kill, but this was something else entirely. The purity of their efforts, sure, that was part of it. But maybe, just maybe, she had a soft spot still for Charles Xavier. And if the X-Men died, as far as Amelia was concerned, much of Xavier’s soul would die as well.
On the other hand, there was Wolverine.
He was different from the rest of the X-Men, somewhat less pure. He was more like her. The other Acolytes worshipped the ground Magneto walked on, thought of him as second on to God, infallible as the Pope—if you believed in that kind of thing. In their own way, they were pure as well. Though some of them, Amelia wouldn’t mind seeing killed. Ironic, sort of. She didn’t want the X-Men to die, but Unuscione? That was another story entirely.
But she and Wolverine were two of a kind. He didn’t really walk the path of righteousness that Xavier had laid out for the others. Wolverine was jaded, had seen too many battles, seen the inside of too many human beings, friends, lovers. Voght didn’t really know him, but she knew his dossier front to back, same way she did all the X-Men. Yes, Wolverine was different. He’d left the X-Men and returned several times, never completely satisfied with what Xavier had to offer. He was their friend, and loyal teammate, to be certain. But he knew the way the world worked was more complicated than either Magneto or Xavier had ever imagined.
Voght was the same. She chose to follow Magneto, but she knew full well that he was as fallible as the next man, and that she was the only one of his followers who was willing to point that out to him. Idly, she wondered if Charles Xavier, her old lover, had anyone around to do the same. She doubted it. In fact, in that way, she wondered if Xavier wasn’t even more of an insufferable egotist than Magneto.
Amelia Voght had seen more than most of the other Acolytes. She understood Magneto better than the rest, knew he was slightly mad, and followed him anyway. Was, in truth, even somewhat attracted to the man.
Of all of them, enemy or titular friend, however, Voght could only claim a real feeling of kinship for Wolverine. She wished she had been able to meet him under different circumstances, wished she was not given the responsibility of hunting him down. But that was the way it had come down, and now, despite the kinship she felt toward him, Wolverine had become the one X-Man she would not hesitate to kill. For a very simple reason.
He frightened her.
Voght would pit herself against any of the X-Men, or the Acolytes, against Xavier or Magneto if it came to that. She would not run from the Sentinels, or the U.S. Army, but the idea of hunting Wolverine had given her fits of trepidation she had not felt since childhood.
After all, this was not a normal human being. This was a savage animal, with human—or more than human— cunning. Unlike the other X-Men, he would not hesitate to kill if it became necessary. In fact, Wolverine’s dossier suggested that he had often reveled in killing.
She swallowed her fear. It would not do to have any of the other Acolytes know, or even sense it enough to speculate, that she was afraid of Wolverine. Her leadership, indeed even her life, might be in jeopardy because of it. Amelia stepped carefully, eyes and ears on alert, as though she were hunting the most vicious grizzly that urban forest had ever known. In many ways, she was.
Cautiously, Voght stepped from the shade of an Italian restaurant and quickly crossed the avenue in front of her. She had long since lost track of her precise location. A moment to check the street signs might be the moment she compromised her personal safety. Glancing north for Wolverine, she saw Harlan Kleinstock rushing across the street, and wondered if he were frightened as well. Or simply too stupid to be properly aware of the danger.
It didn’t seem right that it was day, that the sun shone so harsh upon her shoulders. It was too warm, too bright for that most dangerous game, the hunting of a human being.
There were several humans on the street ahead, speaking outside the glass doors of an old office building. After a few moments, one of them looked up, then motioned quickly to the others. In a heartbeat, they had retreated inside the building, and when Amelia passed the glass doors, she didn’t even see them inside.
There was a noise behind her, panting, the pad of bare feet, and Amelia spun around ready for a struggle to the death.
It was a dog. The mangy mutt stopped in its tracks, surprised by her quick movement, then gave her what passed for a canine dirty look and crossed to the other side of the street.
Enough of this foolishness, she told herself. By thinking so much about Wolverine, rather than about actually finding him, she might well be endangering herself further, leaving herself open to attack. She shook it off, looked up and down the street, and continued the hunt. • • *
As Bobby Drake began to wake, his first moment of awareness was consumed by pain. His head, his skull really, hurt so much that he did not dare even move for several moments. When he opened his eyes, sunlight forced them shut again, and he winced with the additional pain of the glare. It felt as though someone were trying to crush his skull like a walnut, that the thin shell would give way at any moment.
“Oh this sucks,” he muttered to himself.
Then he remembered it all. Colorado. Magneto. The Sentinels. Manhattan. Getting shanghaied by the Blob and his cronies. He had to get up, he knew, get moving and warn the rest of the X-Men. The temptation to just lie there and whimper was great, but Bobby quickly overcame it. He might have been the joker on the team, but he knew how to play when the stakes were high.
His eyes fluttered open again, and he held his forehead with his left hand, as if trying to hold it together, and began to sit up, blinking back the light. As he looked at the ceiling above him, the windows to his left, he realized suddenly that he’d been moved. He’d been outside after the attack.
“Oh, perfect,” he sighed. “The tastefully appointed dungeon of Magneto, Master of—”
“Not another move, Ice-Boy!” a male voice rasped. Bobby spun toward the harsh voice, wincing again at the pain in his head, and was startled at the number of people in the room with him. He’d thought himself alone, but there were eight or ten others, humans, in a semi-circle by the door. They were armed, several had guns, and none of them looked particularly friendly.
“That’s Iceman, buddy,” Bobby said, eyes narrowing as he glared at the man who’d spoken. “And you’d best get out of my way before somebody gets hurt. We’ve got a situation here, as if you didn’t know.”
“Oh,” the man said, smiling thinly. “We know. See, we’re not sure if you’re part of that situation or not. And until we are, you’re not going anywhere. You make one wrong move, and you’ll be nothing but ice chips. Maybe we’ll make margaritas out of you.”
Bobby considered the man’s words a moment, surveyed the weapons in the room, then let out a deep, relaxing breath.
“Come to think of it,” he said. “A margarita would taste pretty good right now.”
“I don’t think you’re funny,” the man growled, and thumbed the safety on his automatic pistol.
* * *
In the small office they had commandeered, Trish Tilby and Kevin O’Leary sat in silence. He had tried to get her to talk about what was bothering her, but Trish hadn’t been in any mood. And anyway, she wasn’t so sure she knew exactly what she was feeling.
Yes, mutants were a menace. Magneto had proven that.
Yes, she was getting the story of her life.
Yes, she wanted more than anything to live long enough to tell it.
But then there was Hank, and that put the whole situation in a new light. Hank McCoy was kind, brilliant, amusing, and above all, gentle. He was not, nor did Trish believe he ever could be, a menace. There should not only be a place for him in the world at large, but a prominent place. If not for his fur, for the obvious changes his mutant genetics had wrought upon his body, he was the kind of man who became a university president, or a presidential cabinet member.
Trish had no interest in rekindling a relationship with the Beast, but she still cared for him greatly. After watching him today, feeling the extraordinary guilt that overwhelmed her when his eyes fell on her, she knew that no story was worth allowing him to remain a captive. The world needed him. By extension, the world needed the X-Men.
She wanted to live, yes indeed. But Trish Tilby knew that she would not be able to live with herself if she did not at least try to help Hank and the others escape. Magneto frightened her. The thought of a world ruled by him frightened her even more.
The question was, what could she really do? After all, she was only human.
• * *
Harlan Kleinstock was getting impatient. The whole thing was stupid as far as he was concerned. They should have just hurried to the tunnel entrance, along
the quickest route, and waited for Wolverine there. As soon as they got back, he and Sven would have to have a talk with Unuscione about what to do with Amelia Voght. Not that Harlan had anything major against Voght, but she just wasn’t cut out to lead them. Harlan didn’t want to question the wisdom or the will of Lord Magneto, but hey, everybody made mistakes.
On the other hand, Harlan was enjoying the hunt. He seriously doubted Wolverine would be able to escape, and he and Sven had a score to settle. Blood stained the front of his tattered uniform from the superficial cuts Wolverine had given him. They wouldn’t kill him, or Sven, but they were humiliating. That called for payback.
On a lighter note, going after the little X-runt also gave him the opportunity to scope out some parts of the city he wasn’t real familiar with. Despite the pollution, which Magneto had already said he was going to do something about, the city smelled good. Mainly, it was the food. Harlan didn’t think there was anyplace in the world you could get food like you got in Manhattan. Indian, Thai, Chinese, French, Japanese, Italian, Greek, Mexican, Brazilian, Portuguese, Cajun, and plain old American, all within a few blocks of one another. Harlan Kleinstock loved to eat.
He took a deep breath, inhaling all the food smells along with whatever else the city had to offer. It was clear that the city was beginning to function again, and Harlan was almost lightheaded as he realized that he was one of its bosses. A car drove by when he was halfway down one block, and the human behind the wheel sped up and cowered inside, trying not to be noticed.
It felt good.
There was a Greek deli up ahead, on the left, and Harlan could smell the heady aroma of roasting lamb. The place was open for business. Harlan had to admire that. He stopped outside the deli and considered running inside, demanding a souvlaki, for nothing of course, and then continuing with the hunt. Voght would be pissed, and he knew it was not the most responsible thing to do, but...
Nah, he decided. He didn’t want to chance missing Wolverine.
For a moment, he stared through the plate glass window at the shabby tables and chairs, the sodas and juices lined up on the counter top, the dark-haired, white-aproned man who stared defiantly back from behind the counter. A smile spread across his face as it finally began to really sink in that, if he’d actually had the time, Harlan could have gone in there, taken what he wanted, done whatever he wanted. And nobody would be able to stop him.
“Sounds good,” he mumbled to himself, then resolved to finish Wolverine as quickly as possible and bring his brother back to this deli for lunch.
“Smells good, eh, bub?” a voice growled somewhere ... above him?
Harlan looked up just in time to see someone jumping down on him from the roof of the deli. He had no time to move, so he reacted instinctively, falling backwards and using both hands to fire at his attacker with a double bio-blast from his hands. Trashed by the blast, his opponent fell with a dull, wet thud on the pavement by Harlan’s feet. When he sat up, he was stunned to find his brother, Sven, lying on the pavement unconscious. His uniform was blackened by the bio-blast, and there were slashes on his chest where claws had criss-crossed to form an x-pattern hacked through clothing and flesh.
“Oh my God, Sven,” Harlan gasped.
He went to his brother and felt his pulse, which seemed fine. He tore away Sven’s tunic to get a better look at the slashes. They were not life-threatening. In fact, he had probably done more damage to Sven than Wolverine had.
There was a great, metal, clanking commotion from above, and Harlan’s fury was finally released.
“Wolverine!” he screamed, and leaped to his feet, ready to destroy the mutant who had made him hurt his own flesh and blood. Harlan looked up, determined to rip Wolverine apart.
That was when the air conditioner fell on his head.
The Kleinstock brothers lay on the pavement, side by side. Blood trickled from Harlan’s left ear.
* * *
Needle’s biggest mistake was that, passing a subway station entrance, she didn’t bother to turn around and look down the steps. When Wolverine pounced on her, she had no time to react. He drove her to the sidewalk and she wailed in agony as half a dozen of her needle teeth actually snapped as they hit the ground.
She tried to get up, but he slammed her face against the sidewalk again, keeping her from seeing him. That terrified Needle even more. She could feel his breath, hot on her neck as if he were going to tear her throat out with his teeth. Needle recognized the irony in that thought, but didn’t smile.
There was a wet click, then a chunk of cement hit her face as three adamantium claws buried themselves in the sidewalk just to the right of her face. Then his voice, little more than a growl.
“Far as I can tell, girl, your biggest sin right now is bein’ just plain dumb,” Wolverine whispered in her ear. “Magneto is playin’ big kid games, now. You don’t got the guts to play, you’d best get out now. Otherwise, I’ll have to show you what it means to lose.”
Then his weight was off her.
After a few moments, Needle began to believe that he was actually gone, that she was not going to die that day after all. She didn’t get up, though. She lay on the pavement for more than an hour before she even dared to stand. When, finally, she looked around to see that nobody was watching her but a grey tom cat, she began to walk toward the Lincoln Tunnel.
Her parents had been frightened of what she’d become, but they had never turned their backs on her. Maybe they’d let her have her old room back.
* • #
Wolverine padded silently across the top of a brown-stone, determined to take out the Acolytes stalking him before setting off in search of the Alpha Sentinel. The Kleinstocks were powerful, but they were also not very bright, which had made them easy targets. Needle was little more than a girl, feigning a ferocity that was not in her heart in order to survive among more dangerous predators. Logan had saved Senyaka and Voght for last. Each was more clever, more experienced, more dangerous than the rest of their comrades. Except perhaps for Unuscione, who was not part of their little hunting party.
Crouched low, he moved along the roof. While New York streets were so close together that most buildings backed up directly, and often connected, to their rear neighbor, that wasn’t always the case. Particularly with older structures. Wolverine grumbled quietly at the discovery that this was one such building. There was a gap of perhaps fifteen feet between the edge of the roof where he stood, and the building behind it. Which would not have been much of a problem were it not for the two-story drop that accompanied it.
Fifteen feet across, twenty or so down. There was no way in hell Wolverine was going to make that jump without making some noise. If Senyaka was close enough to hear the impact of his landing, Wolverine would have blown his cover. Not that he couldn’t take the cowled psi-punk without the benefit of surprise, but it would be easier if Senyaka didn’t have time to warn Voght.
“What the hell,” he growled, and shrugged.
Wolverine backed up fifteen paces, ran to the edge of the roof and dove out over the gap. Even as he arced through the air, pulled his legs up under him and executed a forward aerial roll, he caught the stench rising from decades of garbage that had been dumped between the two buildings. It was far from pleasant.
He came out of the roll with his feet angled toward the opposite roof. With the additional distance of the drop figured in, clearing the gap was no problem. Wolverine landed hard. His jaws clacked together as his feet touched down, and he allowed momentum to carry him into a somersault, then back to his feet. Crouched in defensive position, he listened intently for any reaction to the noise he’d made. When he heard nothing, he moved quickly to the edge of the roof and peered down to the street below.
Nothing. Scanning west, however, he quickly spotted Senyaka moving cautiously along the sidewalk, ducking in and out of alleys and doorways. From there, it was a simple matter to follow along the tops of the buildings until he came to the first small alley. Wolverine dropped down to the fire escape, moving quickly but quietly, and edged out onto the street perhaps twenty yards behind Senyaka.
The Acolyte never heard him coming.
Honor was everything to Wolverine. He had learned it well during his time in Japan. He had attacked Needle from behind in order to heighten the girl’s fear of him and drive her away. Senyaka was not an honorable opponent, but Wolverine would still not deliver a killing blow from behind. Which didn’t mean the claws were off limits. Not at all.
Snikt!
Wolverine’s claws slid from the adamantium sheaths inside his forearms with an audible click, and Senyaka was already turning when he ducked in and slashed the Acolyte’s rib cage under his left arm.
“Wolverine!” Senyaka said, grimacing in pain. “That's the last blood you’ll see, runt!”
A psionic whip shimmered into existence in Senyaka’s right hand, and he cracked it against the ground, sending up sparks. Wolverine could see that he’d already won, though. The way Senyaka held his left arm tight against his side, the fight was over before it had really begun. Which meant that Senyaka would never get to warn Amelia Voght that Logan was coming.
“You wouldn’t last an hour in the North country, bub,” Wolverine snarled.
Senyaka cracked the whip toward him, and Wolverine allowed it to wrap around his left arm. He grunted with the pain he’d known was coming, even as he slashed the psi-whip with the claws of his right hand. Senyaka howled.
“You’ve tried that trick before, boy,” Wolverine said. “You’d best start payin’ attention. I ain’t always gonna be here to show you these things.”
Senyaka was doubled over in pain, and when Wolverine approached, he looked up in fear. The look changed quickly to one of pleasure, of satisfaction. Logan thought it was a gag, the old look-behind-you trick, but then the wind shifted, and he caught a familiar scent coming up behind him.
He started to turn, ready to slash his attacker, but he was too late. Amelia Voght hit him high and hard, riding him down the street. Her hands grasped either side of his head, thumbs at his temples. She was faster than he’d expected. He started to bring his claws up, even as Senyaka’s newly remade psionic whip coiled around his throat, choking off his ah' supply and sending a current of agony running through him.
“Don’t even think it,” Voght barked, staring into Wolverine’s eyes as he struggled to cut her, “I feel even a pinprick from those claws and I will teleport your head right off your body.’ ’
Wolverine hesitated, claws just inches from Voght’s heart. He could kill her in a single beat of that heart, but there was no doubt she had the ability to take him with her.
Voght seemed to read his mind.
“Don’t think I won’t,” she said coldly, eyes locked on his.
And he knew she would.
[ '
Wolverine stared into Amelia Voght’s eyes, struggling to think of an escape despite the little oxygen reaching his brain. Senyaka’s whip coiled ever tighter around his neck. The animal in him wanted to struggle, to reach for the whip, to kick, to claw. But the human wanted to live.
His last cognitive thought was of how much he despised Amelia Voght.
Then Wolverine, the last, best hope for the X-Men, drifted into oblivion.
Scott Summers was breathing a hell of a lot easier now that they had entered Earth’s atmosphere. The battered Starjammer cruised through American airspace,. cloaked from radar detection but not from visual sightings. It would probably, Scott mused, result in dozens of UFO reports.
“Glad to be home?” Corsair asked.
“You’ve no idea,” Scott answered, and smiled.
“Oh, I think I do,” Corsair responded wistfully, and not for the first time, Scott had to wonder why his father did not simply return to Earth for good. One day, he hoped, they would be able to roam the Alaskan wilds around Scott’s grandparents’ home, fishing, camping, whatever a retired father might do with a son he’d never really known. One day.
“As for me,” Corsair continued, “I’m just glad to be alive.” '
He looked at Scott intensely for a moment, and Scott was tempted to turn away but did not.
“I mean it, son. Thank you for my life,” Corsair said. “And I thank you for mine,” Scott responded warmly. “Dad.”
A moment later Jean Grey rushed into the cabin. Her face was blanched white, her expression one of horror and disbelief.
“Jean?” Scott asked, even as he rushed to her side. “What is it?”
“I’ve been trying to contact the Professor telepathi-cally ever since we entered Earth’s atmosphere,” she said, the words tumbling out of her in a torrent. “I finally found him.”
Jean brought a hand to her face, then, letting out a long breath that seemed as much emotional strain as it was relief to be sharing the information.
“I don’t understand,” Scott urged. “What is it? Has something happened to the Professor?”
“I’m not sure I understand it all myself,” she said. “Somehow, someway, the worst has finally come to pass. Magneto has conquered Manhattan island. It’s overrun with mutants and Sentinels. And the other X-Men have already been captured.”
“Dear God,” Scott whispered.
“Ch’od!” Corsair yelled, jumping up and running to the cockpit. “Chart a new course. Get us to Manhattan as quickly as possible!”
Scott took Jean’s hands in his own, and held them tight.