Illustrations by Rick Leonardi and Terry Austin
BYRON PREISS MULTIMEDIA COMPANY, INC. NEW YORK
BERKLEY BOULEVARD BOOKS, NEW YORK
Manhattan island was coming back to life. It had, however, been resurrected as a vastly different entity. It was the middle of the week, but gone were the hordes of worker bees rubbing shoulders and elbows as they filtered in and out of offices. There were still plenty of people, but now there was breathing space as well. Estimates differed, but at least eighty percent of the island’s human population had left their homes and most of their belongings in a mad dash for freedom.
The subway was dead on the tracks. There simply were not enough employees left to run it safely. On the street, the occasional city bus, private car, and enterprising cab navigated the now-abandoned skyscraper canyons. No more traffic. Vendors still toiled on corners throughout the city, though far fewer than the day before.
As the afternoon wore on, many shops, restaurants, delis, and small businesses opened their doors. After all, there were a lot of new customers. Mostly mutants.
The mutant known as Magneto, whose control over the Earth’s magnetic field made him one of the most powerful beings alive, had declared Manhattan island a sanctuary for mutants. Magneto then declared the island a sovereign nation, and rechristened it “Haven.” With the aid of his Acolytes, and an army of colossal pseudosentient robots called Sentinels, he then went about enforcing those declarations.
With the humans gone, and sanctuary assured, mutants poured in from across the country. The flood of genetically enhanced immigrants had not even begun to ebb. From around the world they came, and once they had gathered their strength into one place, Magneto would begin to enlarge his Mutant Empire. The tendrils of his power would spread across the globe.
For now, however, it was enough for him to watch the afternoon shadows stretch across the city. In less than a day, he had transformed one of the most important cities on Earth so that it conformed with his vision: a planet where mutants were the masters and humans were servants. It was the only way for mutants to survive human prejudices.
From the observation platform at the top of the Empire State Building, Magneto looked down upon his Mutant Empire and his heart swelled with triumph, happiness, and pride. The sun forced his slate-gray eyes into a squint, the wind whipped his silver-white hair across his forehead, and Magneto smiled.
It was a beginning.
* * *
Wolverine’s return to consciousness was accompanied by a great deal of pain. He was not unfamiliar with pain. In fact, over the course of his long life, pain and Wolverine had become quite intimate. What surprised him, even as his eyelids strained to rise, was that the pain was there at all. He knew he had been unconscious for some time, likely several hours at least. Whatever wounds he had sustained should long since have been remedied by his mutant healing factor. They hadn’t.
“Rise and shine, Logan,” a deep, familiar voice said, just to his left. “Perhaps where intellect has proven ineffectual in providing a method of escape, righteous anger may yet prevail.”
His eyes finally opened, but it took a moment for Wolverine to focus on the face behind the voice. No matter. It could only be one man. Hank McCoy, the Beast. One of the founding members of the X-Men. As Hank’s blue-furred face gradually came into focus, Wolverine’s mind seemed to clear just a bit. Of course he had not healed, he finally realized. He was wearing one of Magneto’s inhibitor collars, a device specifically designed to negate the genetic x-factor that gave mutants their special abilities.
“’Lo, Hank,” he managed to grunt, then cleared his throat. “What’s the situation?”
“Bleak, I fear,” the Beast responded, and gestured past Wolverine.
Logan turned to find that Storm and Bishop were still unconscious. The four of them had finally tracked Magneto and confronted him, intending to put an end to his “Mutant Empire” there and then. But things had gone terribly wrong. The X-Men had always faced difficult, sometimes impossible,
odds. But four against a cityful of mutants was more than even they had been equipped to handle.
Now they hung suspended by their arms, legs, and torsos by clamps and cables forged of an adamantium alloy he had never seen before. Wolverine wondered how long the Beast had been awake, trying to work out a solution to their dilemma. He hoped Storm and Bishop would come to shortly, for a number of reasons—not the least of which was that he wanted to be certain that Storm, his old friend and the team’s field leader, was not badly injured.
“We’ve languished in this fabricated dungeon for several hours. It’s midaftemoon, if I have made an accurate calculation,” Hank elaborated. “How Magneto contrived to deploy this equipment so promptly is anybody’s guess, but I suppose it indicates precisely how well prepared for the X-Men he truly was.
‘ ‘Plainly, we are in either the basement or another sublevel of the Empire State Building, where Magneto has established his headquarters. Storm and Bishop are breathing fine, and ought to awaken presently. Otherwise, you’ll all have to stop calling me ‘Doctor’ McCoy.”
“What about you, Hank?” Wolverine said. “How are you feelin’?”
“Better than you, by all appearances,” the Beast said, feigning a levity he clearly did not feel. “Although, if I could devise a plan of action, I would undoubtedly feel far better. It doesn’t help to know that elsewhere in this structure, Trish Tilby is collaborating with the enemy.”
Wolverine didn’t respond to that. Over the years he had learned when it was better to say nothing. After a moment, however, he sensed that there was something else bothering the Beast, something haunting him even more painfully than the seeming betrayal by his old flame, Trish Tilby.
“Hank?” Logan asked.
The Beast hesitated.
“It’s Bobby,” he said after a moment. “If Magneto and company are to be believed, Iceman is dead.”
Wolverine’s entire body began to grow cold and still. His lip curled back from his pointed incisors and his nostrils flared. Logan glanced around again at the apparatus within which they had been imprisoned, then turned his head to face Hank once more.
“We’ve got to figure a way out o’ here,” he growled. “We’ll find Bobby, Hank. Don’t give that a second thought. We’ll find him, and we’ll take Magneto down hard, once and for all.”
* * *
Along a hallway lined with windows looking down on Haven, Amelia Voght walked with pride, excitement in her every step. It was really happening. Magneto and the Acolytes, Amelia chief among them, had forced the world to begin a fascinating metamorphosis. In her secret heart, she had always imagined that, once they conquered Manhattan, the island would be completely devoid of humans. Which would have been both triumph and failure. Yes, they would have their own government and security. But Magneto’s intention had always been for mutants to rule humanity, not destroy it. Voght had privately doubted it was possible.
On this day she changed her mind.
Manhattan had been transformed into Haven, and there were still many humans in the city; humans prepared to live under whatever terms Magneto might dictate. Voght knew it was only a beginning, that fifteen percent would not be enough if the Mutant Empire were to spread across the globe. But when they began to see the inevitability of Magneto’s rule, the other eighty-five percent would realize that obedience and death were their only options.
Of course, Haven was not yet secure. The United States was still on the fence, trying to decide what course of action to take. The only concern Amelia had was the potential for a nuclear strike. If they could sneak nukes in, catch Magneto unaware, the humans might actually destroy Haven. Aside from that, Voght figured they had it all wrapped up. And, after all, no matter what the threat, there was going to be an awful lot of resistance to the idea of turning Manhattan into Hiroshima.
At the end of the hall was a small reception area. Warm pastel-colored couches matched the prints that hung on the walls. Vertical blinds filtered out the glare of the afternoon sun, and nearly half a dozen potted plants drooped lazily, likely thirsting for the water which fortune had denied them that day.
Three men and a woman waited for her there. One of the men, an aging Latino, paced expectantly. Voght thought he must be the police commissioner, Wilson Ramos. The other two men, one white and one black, sat on a pale blue couch, whispering and gesturing frantically to each other. The woman stood, hands clasped behind her back, looking through the vertical blinds at the city, and the Hudson River beyond.
“Deputy Mayor Perkins?” Voght asked.
The woman turned to face her, and Voght was surprised at how unruffled she looked. Maxine Perkins looked great for a woman who was, at the very least, in her early forties. More importantly, despite the stress she was under—the mayor had abandoned his city without a thought; exit, stage left—Perkins managed to look more angry than frightened.
“That’s me,” she said. “Where’s Magneto?”
Voght smiled.
“Something funny?” Perkins asked, herself not amused.
‘ ‘Most people would not be so eager to encounter our new ruler,” she said.
“Can’t imagine why that would be,” Deputy Mayor Perkins responded. “He’s always so willing to compromise.”
This time, Amelia laughed. This might actually turn out to be entertaining, she thought.
“My name is Amelia Voght,” she said. “I suppose you could call me Magneto’s lieutenant—or deputy, if you prefer. Now, if you are prepared, I will take you to him.”
“Um,” one of the men on the couch mumbled, as they all stood to follow her, ‘‘what do we call him?”
“Magneto,” she said. “Lord Magneto. Mr. Lehnsherr. I don’t know, really. I don’t think he’s taken on a title of leadership yet.”
“I have a few things to call him,” Commissioner Ramos hissed.
Voght stopped in her tracks, forcing the others to do the same behind her. She sighed and turned to face Ramos.
“Mr. Ramos, I say this as pleasantly as I can,” she began. “You would do well to remember that, as of this day, Magneto is the only law this island knows. He is not in favor of the death penalty, but that does not mean he does not see its uses.”
Ramos blanched, and said nothing more as they approached the massive oaken doors of the office Magneto was using as a meeting room. It was not nearly magnificent enough for the position he now held, at least not in Amelia’s opinion, but it would do for now. The two other men, who Voght assumed were city officials under the deputy mayor’s control, followed along in silence.
Before they reached the office, they passed a small conference room where Unuscione and several other Acolytes were working on a running census of Haven’s mutant population. New arrivals were processed quickly, then asked to be patient as abandoned homes were found for them. Those with real power, particularly Alpha-level mutants, were moved into the Empire State Building temporarily and became novitiate Acolytes.
Unuscione stood in the doorway, a sneer of disgust on her face as Voght passed.
“Playing receptionist today, are we, Amelia?” Unuscione said. “That’s appropriate.”
Voght did not reply. Still, she knew that the final confrontation between herself and Carmela Unuscione could not be put off much longer.
Arriving at the office, Voght rapped twice, hard, on the oaken door, then pushed it open and stood back for the visitors to enter. Magneto stood with his back, to them, a pose indicating how paltry was his concern that they might offer some threat. In one comer, Major Ivan Skolnick, the American operative who had revealed himself to be a mutant when he defected to their cause, stood vigilantly by.
Magneto turned, resplendent in his regal purple-and-crimson uniform and flowing cape. Without the helmet he wore during battle, his silver-white hair fell around his shoulders. He looked benevolently upon the newcomers and lifted his arms in welcome.
“Come in,” he said. “Please, sit, make yourselves comfortable.”
“Why are we here?” Maxine Perkins asked.
“Ah, a woman with little patience for small talk or courtesies,” Magneto said, beaming at her appreciatively. “Excellent.”
Voght was a bit surprised, both at Perkins’s audacity and Magneto’s amiable reaction. But the world had changed, hadn’t that been what she’d been thinking minutes ago? Indeed. It was changing by the moment.
“Still,” Magneto said, still smiling at his guests, “please do sit. We’ll all be more comfortable that way.”
The four officials settled into comfortable chairs arranged in front of the massive mahogany desk. Magneto stepped behind the desk, but did not sit. Instead, he leaned over it, palms on its gleaming wooden surface, and welcomed them warmly once again.
“I’ve invited you here because my sources indicate that Ms. Perkins and Mr. Ramos are the highest-ranking officials left in the city. I assume you other gentlemen are on Ms. Perkins’s staff?” Magneto asked, and the pair nodded. “Good; time to get down to business, then. You all need to know how I wish this city to be run, now that I am its sole authority.”
Voght could see from their reactions that Magneto’s directness, and the truth of it, was a bitter pill for his audience to swallow. All but Ramos covered it well, but even he said nothing. Magneto’s reputation was frightening enough, but his presence was significantly more imposing.
“First, Ms. Perkins,” he began. “Since the mayor of this fair city has left, and you had the fortitude to remain, I appoint you the mayor of Haven’s human population. You will continue to be responsible for the welfare of those of your people who have decided not to leave their homes. Answerable, of course, to me. You will work directly with my civic administrator, Major Skolnick, who will help me to outline the relationship between humans and mutants in Haven. For now, you may want to think of it as a class system, with all mutants as the nobility, or ruling class.”
The new mayor of Haven raised an eyebrow and touched a hand to her chin, apparently thinking hard about her new job description. She glanced at Skolnick before looking back at Magneto.
‘‘You may appoint these others to whatever administrative position you wish. Keep in mind, however, that the faults this island had before I came to power will be eliminated. No more drags. No more violent crime. We will clean up Haven, both literally and figuratively. Corruption will be a thing of the past.” •
“How can you say that?” Maxine Perkins asked. “Corruption is inevitable in any system. Entropy rules.”
“No, Ms. Perkins,” Magneto snarled, “/rule. The corrupt are always cowardly as well. Therefore, reason dictates that the corrupt have fled Haven. And I will not countenance further corruption. In my ranks, or among your populace.”
“I suppose you expect me to enforce your laws,” Commissioner Ramos said, no longer able to heed his own better instincts.
“That doesn’t sit well with you, I can see,” Magneto said. Voght watched—fascinated as always by his unconscious ability to command absolute attention—as Magneto finally sat in the high leather chair behind the mahogany desk. He leaned back with his hands tightly gripping the arms of the chair.
“Mayor Perkins asked why she was here, Commissioner Ramos,” Magneto reminded. “Somehow, I sense that you have your own ideas about why you are here.”
“Oh, yeah,” Ramos said, and Voght winced in anticipation of Magneto’s eventual response.
Ramos stood and approached the desk, poking a finger in Magneto’s general direction.
“I came here to tell you that I didn’t stay behind to become your lapdog. I’m going to enforce the laws of this city, no matter who breaks them. New York’s Finest are not going to be turned into your private army,” Ramos said, nearly shouting.
Magneto smiled.
* ‘Why, Mr. Ramos, I already have a private army. I don’t need New York’s Finest, and I most certainly don’t need you,” the mutant emperor said, lifting his hands in a gesture that indicated both amusement and dismissal.
He turned to Voght. “Amelia, would you mind?”
With a thought, Amelia Voght made Wilson Ramos disappear. With an electric crackle, he vanished from the room. Voght formed a mental picture of the pavement in front of the Empire State Building, and teleported Ramos there. If it had been up to her, she might well have simply teleported him out the window and let the others watch him fall. She was not a hardened killer, but she knew the value of an example. Still, Magneto would have been specific if he’d wanted the man dead. Her lord rarely sanctioned homicide. Much to the other Acolytes’ disappointment.
“Good God!” one of the new mayor’s previously silent minions shouted, standing and gawking in astonishment at the vacuum that had previously been occupied by an apparently suicidal police commissioner.
‘ ‘Is there some problem?’ ’ Major Skolnick asked the man from his post.
Voght started; she had nearly forgotten Skolnick was in the room. That kind of an attention lapse could cost her her life one of these days, and she chided herself for it.
“No,” the man stuttered. “No problem. None whatsoever.”
“So, what do you expect of the police?” Mayor Perkins asked, as if nothing of concern had taken place.
Voght was more than a little impressed with the woman.
“The Acolytes, my elite mutant force, will police Haven’s mutant population. They will also be tasked with enforcing my more radical mandates, including the elimination of drugs from the island,” Magneto explained. “The human police officers will also deal with those mandates. Otherwise, they will simply enforce my laws, as Mr. Ramos described it.”
“Which are?” Perkins pressed.
* ‘Full employment, a fair wage, no homelessness, nor hunger, nor corruption. In essence, no crime. Courtesy. I want Haven to be an example to the world, so society knows what to expect when we begin our expansion. Haven is still the center of the Western world. We’re going to improve it.”
Magneto paused, and looked at the three people gathered in his makeshift office, apparently awaiting some kind of response. Voght was surprised when the black man stood, his demeanor grave.
“Mr. Lehnsherr,” he began, “my name is Steven Tyree. If you’re sincere about your goals, I’d like that commissioner’s job.”
Magneto raised an eyebrow. Voght wondered if he was as surprised as she that the man, who had seemed so tentative, had suddenly become so forward.
“Then, Mr. Tyree, you shall have it,” Magneto agreed. “For as long as you fulfill your responsibilities. ”
Tyree sat back down, but not next to his still-unnamed associate. Voght understood. The man, whose name she still did not know, would not be welcome in the new administration. That much was obvious.
“You may go. Major Skolnick will be in contact with both of you sometime tomorrow,” Magneto said, not even acknowledging the unnamed man.
As far as Voght was concerned, the man was just lucky to be leaving of his own volition rather than via her teleportation. She knew she wouldn’t see him again. In fact, even as he turned for the door, she had almost forgotten his face.
Not Steve Tyree’s face, though. He was handsome, for a human, and she admired his guts.
“Oh, Mr. Tyree, one final law we need to get straight,” Magneto said.
Tyree regarded him warily, but said nothing.
“Bigotry will not be tolerated,” Magneto said. “Bigots are to be dealt with most—harshly.”
“You’re the boss,” Tyree said, and turned to go.
Voght was no longer smiling. First as a Jew, then as a mutant, Magneto had been persecuted his entire life. As a boy he had lost his family to bigotry. That loss, that persecution, had defined his life, had led, in a fashion, to the foundation of Haven.
But Voght was forced to wonder what Magneto would say if she pointed out that some of the Acolytes, the Kleinstock brothers and Unuscione chief among them, were rabid bigots in their own right. She doubted he would order them “dealt with.”
But a woman could dream.
■
Corsair was anxious. He was the leader of the Starjammers, and the captain of their ship, and it pained him to wonder if she was so badly damaged that he might never pilot her into space again. First things first, though: he had to drop off his passengers and then land safely before they could even think about repairs.
Behind him, Corsair’s son, Scott Summers—who was called Cyclops when he led the X-Men into battle—appeared in the open hatchway.
‘ ‘Corsair?’ ’
“It better be good news, Scott,” he grumbled. “I’ve had just about all I can take of the other kind.”
“Good news for the X-Men, actually,” Scott said, looking a little sheepish. “It’s a bit selfish to be worried about this right now, but we were able to get the Star jammer's cloaking system working again. That way, when you go to land her at the Xavier Institute, the military won’t be able to connect you with the Professor.”
Corsair could tell that Scott was uncomfortable making the X-Men’s secrecy a priority, and he could understand why. As leader of the Starjammers, Corsair had already suffered far more than the X-Men on this journey. True, Gambit had been injured, but Corsair’s entire crew had been hurt at one point or another. Raza, Ch’od, and Hepzibah, who was also his lover, all were in the main cabin, strapped to med-units. His beloved ship was barely flying. It was a lot to take.
But then, the other Starjammers had been injured rescuing Corsair himself from execution. The X-Men were in this predicament because they had gone on that mission. And the entire Earth, the world of Corsair’s birth, was now in jeopardy from Magneto, something that might not have happened if the team had been at full strength when Magneto first tried to hijack the Sentinels.
No, Corsair couldn’t hold Scott’s priorities against him. Beyond the other circumstances, he knew that his son was not concerned for himself, but for Charles Xavier, the man who had founded the X-Men, the man who was the heart and soul
and dreaming mind of the world’s mutant population.
“All right, listen,” Corsair said. “You guys are going to have to bail out over Jersey City. I’m afraid you won’t be getting any help from the Staijammers on this one. I’m going to get this ship back to Westchester and nursemaid my crew back to health, and maybe then we can stitch her together. I’m sorry, Scott. I wish I could be there to back you up.”
“Your team needs you, Dad,” Scott said warmly.
There was a moment of silence, as the two men reflected on their relationship, which was almost defined by long-term separation and individual effort. Still, they were alike in many ways. Often that similarity brought them into conflict, yet just as often it was a reason to rejoice.
“Whoa,” Corsair said, as an unwelcome thought entered his mind. “You’re so worried about protecting Charles Xavier’s secrets, what about explaining how the X-Men came to know of the situation in the first place, and how this ship contacted Val Cooper so she could give the word not to blow us out of the sky?”
Xavier and the X-Men’s Jean Grey were both telepaths. The communication had been mind to mind, but that would be difficult to explain to the proper authorities without revealing that Xavier was a mutant, which was, to Corsair’s way of thinking, one of the best kept secrets on Earth.
“Hey,” Scott said with a shrug, “the army doesn’t know our radio doesn’t work. I won’t tell if you won’t.”
Corsair smiled. It really was as simple as that. He needn’t have been worried. But Scott was his son, after all. Worrying was a parent’s job.
“Jersey City coming up,” he said, after a glance out of the cockpit. “Better get your team ready to go.”
Corsair took another look at Scott. It occurred to him that what was happening in Manhattan might really be the end. The odds were stacked incredibly high against the X-Men. It was conceivable that they might lose.
On the other hand, the odds seemed never to be in the X-Men’s favor. It was something else the team shared with the Staijammers, other than the fact that both were led by a man
named Summers. No, Corsair wasn’t going to think about losing Scott.
During another moment of awkward silence, the two men, who had never been comfortable with expressions of affection, embraced warmly.
“You be careful,” Corsair said. “Otherwise, who’s gonna pull my butt out of the fire next time someone wants to execute me?”
“You’re right,” Scott answered. “Nobody else would bother. I guess I’ve got to survive this thing.”
The two men smiled and in that moment, Corsair finally saw the resemblance others had always noticed between himself and his son. It made him proud.
* * *
“Let’s go, people,” Cyclops snapped as he entered the main cabin. “ETA in about three minutes. Let’s not tax this old ship any more than is necessary.”
The years had given the X-Men an instinctive rhythm of teamwork. In almost any combination, they moved together like a family of aerialists, there to catch one another in a pinch, always a heartbeat away from that fatal fall. This particular combination had functioned well, Cyclops felt. He had worked with Jean Grey and Warren Worthington III since the first days of the X-Men. With Rogue and Gambit added to the mix, they had made a formidable team.
Scott only hoped they were up to the task ahead of them. The odds were, to say the least, daunting.
You’re worried, Jean’s telepathic “voice” said, inside Scott’s mind. That disturbs me.
“I’m always worried,” he said aloud.
She walked across the cabin toward him, her smile a comfort as always. She wore the blue-and-gold uniform she had recently adopted, and it fit her snugly, flattering her. Even as the thought crossed his mind, Jean’s smile widened. They shared a psychic rapport that put them in almost constant telepathic contact. Nothing was hidden between them. Not even the momentary whimsy that reminded him how long it had been since they’d had time alone together.
“Like an old married couple, aren’t we?” Jean asked.
“I don’t know about ‘old’,” Scott responded, granting her a rare smile. “But I get your point, and you’re right. Something always comes up, doesn’t it?”
“Let’s make each other a promise,” Jean said softly, sliding her arms around him and pulling him to her. “If we get out of this one with our skins, it’s time for a long vacation.”
“Hawaii?” he asked.
“Just what I was thinking,” she said.
“Funny how I knew that.”
Jean gave him a quick kiss, and they turned to face the rest of the team. Warren’s biometallic wings, which earned him the codename Archangel, spread out behind him. His uniform had been damaged during their rescue of Corsair, and through the slashes, blue skin could be seen. His hair and eyebrows were bright blond, and it was a stark contrast to the sky-blue hue of his face. Scott could still not get used to it.
Rogue wore green and gold, as usual. Her auburn hair, skunk-streaked with white, tumbled around her shoulders in a way that was inevitably fetching. Still, Scott felt more protective of her than anything else. The woman had been through a lot. He wondered what was going to come of her burgeoning relationship with Gambit.
His real name was Remy LeBeau, but unlike most of the others, Scott still called him Gambit. He wasn’t completely comfortable with the Cajun, not yet. On the other hand, Gambit was invaluable in a conflict. Even now, he had donned the floor-length brown duster that almost always covered his uniform. His eyes shone with a weird reddish energy, and even his most genuine smile was not without a trace of sarcasm.
“Good to see you’ve fully recovered, Gambit,” Scott said.
“Cajuns are hard to kill, mon ami,” Gambit replied with that slanted smile.
“Time to put that to the test,” Archangel said.
Scott took one last look around at the injured Starjammers, laid out on medislabs in the cabin. He wished the X-Men could have done more, but Corsair and his crew were on their own. The future of the world was hanging in the balance. The X-Men were needed.
“Let’s hit it,” Scott said, and moved toward the back of the ship, where the airlock doors were already wide open to the sky.
The Starjammer skimmed along about five hundred feet above Jersey City. Without a moment’s hesitation, Scott stepped to the open doorway and hurled himself out into the sky over the city. Without a parachute. In the distance, he could see the massive camp set up on the Jersey side of the Hudson River by the military, the press, and relief services. That was their destination.
He fell for several seconds more, his hands in the air above him. Cyclops didn’t even look up when Archangel grabbed his outstretched wrists, slowing his descent and moving him toward the encampment in Exchange Place. The move had not been discussed beforehand, but it had been executed so many times that Scott never for a moment considered the danger inherent in such a jump.
Slightly above him, Rogue carried Gambit with her as she flew, a simple feat for a woman of such extraordinary power. Jean Grey floated twenty yards behind the rest of the team, held aloft by a crackling telekinetic energy field. She could have carried them all, if necessary. But it wasn’t necessary, and Scott wanted her to conserve her power for the battle ahead.
Several moments later, Jean took the lead and, wordlessly, the X-Men followed. She was in telepathic contact with Professor Xavier, and led them toward him. Hundreds of cameras swung toward the sky when the first cries went up. They had been spotted. The military had been notified of their imminent arrival, but several of the officers and grunts swung their weapons skyward.
Scott, they can barely contain themselves, Jean said tele-pathically. The hatred is flowing from them in waves. I feel like I might be sick.
You’re okay, Jean. I know it’s hard, but try to ignore it.
I’d hate us, too, if I were one of them. It doesn ’t matter that we’re here to help.
There was no response. In truth, Scott had not expected one. The situation was grim, there was little argument about that.
A moment later he spotted Professor Xavier, sitting in his wheelchair, waiting for them to arrive. By his side stood Valerie Cooper, the government agent in charge of X-Factor, the federally sanctioned mutant team lead by Scott’s brother Alex.
As the X-Men touched down, Cyclops made the first move, a signal that the others followed. Rather than even acknowledge Charles Xavier at first, Cyclops approached Cooper directly. For the benefit of the cameras, and the federal agents who were watching their arrival closely, it was imperative that their contact appear to be Val Cooper.
“Cyclops, thank God you’re all finally here, and all right,” Cooper said. “I’d been concerned for your safety, given the dangers of your last mission.”
Scott caught a glance between Jean and the Professor, and realized they were conversing telepathically. He probably could have eavesdropped, given his rapport with Jean, but that wasn’t his style. Besides, he was playing for the audience now.
“We’re all lucky to have survived,” Scott replied. “Now we’ve got this fiasco to deal with. Out of the frying pan, I guess.”
“Indeed,” Cooper said. “I’m not sure if you know Professor Charles Xavier.”
Cooper gestured to the Professor, and Cyclops exchanged pleasantries with the man. It was strange. Xavier was like a father to him in ways Corsair had never been. The charade made both men uncomfortable, and the rest of the team as well, Scott thought.
“Care to give us an update?” he asked, though he was certain Jean had already gotten the latest information through her psionic conversation with Professor Xavier.
“Magneto seems to be going about his business,” Cooper began. “Mutants are pouring into Manhattan from just about every comer. The army has skirmished with some of them,
attempting to keep them from joining Magneto’s ‘empire.’ Mutants going into Manhattan are considered terrorists.” “Dat don’t include us, ouiT’ Gambit asked.
“Excluding the X-Men, yes, of course,” Cooper responded. “While Magneto seems, at the moment, to be consolidating his power in Manhattan, we have no doubt that his plans are much broader. We’ve got to stop him here, or we might not be able to stop him at all. As more mutants arrive, his strength is increased dramatically.”
“I don’t guess he needs more mutants,” Rogue said. “With all them Sentinels, and the Acolytes he has, he was pretty near unbeatable already.”
“Any news of the rest of the team?” Archangel asked. Cooper and Xavier looked at each other. Scott understood the look. Most of what they knew was from the Professor’s psi abilities. The other X-Men had been captured by Magneto, they knew that. Iceman’s whereabouts were still something of a mystery. The media knew they’d been captured from the video that had already come out of the city.
“Nothing new,” Cooper said. “You five are all we’ve got.”
“So, Valerie,” Jean said, “are you going to tell us your plan sometime soon?”
There was a long moment where nobody spoke. Helicopters chopped the air above, the drone of many voices and the crackle of radios surrounded them. Cyclops saw that a nearby camera operator seemed to have focused on him, and wished he didn’t have to wear the ruby quartz visor that controlled his optic beams, so that he might pull off an annoyed glare. That was one of the problems with having his eyes covered— it cut down on what you could communicate with a look.
“Mademoiselle,” Gambit said, breaking the silence, “you don’ got to tell us dis t’ing is pretty near suicide. Just us five little mutants gon’ go up against a whole cityful. Dat’s what we do. Let’s just get on with it now. The longer we wait, de harder it’s goin’ to be.”
“You’re right, on all counts,” Cooper said. “So here it is. The only way we’re going to win this thing is to take the
Sentinels out of the picture. As long as Magneto can call them in, you guys haven’t got a chance in hell.”
“How do we do that?” Jean asked.
“Two teams. One goes after Magneto and the other X-Men. The other hunts down the Alpha Sentinel, gets into its command center, and reprograms it with Magneto as priority target,” Cooper explained.
“So the odds go from hopeless to worse than hopeless,” Rogue said. “I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”
“She’s right,” Scott said, finally speaking up. “It’s the only way. We need to take the Alpha Sentinel down and keep Magneto distracted at the same time. The only problem I see in this whole plan, and it’s a big one, is how we’re expected to reprogram the Sentinel with anything like expediency.” “You don’t have to, Cyclops,” Professor Xavier said, and the X-Men looked at their mentor, who had been silent during the discussion.
“Ms. Cooper will be accompanying the team searching for the Alpha Sentinel,” Xavier said.
“Wait a minute,” Archangel said, a confused look crossing his features, “I thought the Sentinels had been programmed not to let humans near the city.”
“We’ve worked it out, Mr. Worthington,” Cooper said. Cyclops was about to request further details, particularly about the division of the team for the dual mission to come, but he never got his next question out. Instead, what little privacy they had was breached by the arrival of Henry Peter Gyrich, the man who had been ostensibly in charge of Operation: Wideawake when the Sentinels were stolen.
Gyrich was a bigot. Hated mutants. Hated paranormal humans of all kinds. Hated a lot of things, as far as Cyclops could tell. He was the proverbial snake in the grass, the kind of man the government didn’t want to admit it employed. A necessary evil, some would say. As far as Cyclops was concerned, Gyrich was just another egomaniac trying to impress his own agenda on a world spinning out of control. _
“Ah, the prodigal mutants return,” Gyrich said as he approached.
He didn’t even try to hide his sneer. The sun glinted off his mirrored glasses and lit up his red hair like fire. The effect wasn’t at all flattering.
“Do you have news, Mr. Gyrich?” Cooper asked. “If not, I would ask that you remove yourself from this discussion. This is my operation here, and, frankly, you’re not welcome,”
Cyclops was surprised by the undisguised hatred and anger in Cooper’s voice and entire manner. Gyrich, however, did not seem taken aback in the least. Apparently, the crisis had stripped bare the lines of tension that had always existed between the two.
“Don’t worry, Cooper, this won’t take long,” Gyrich said with a smirk.
He turned slightly, to address them all. Scott, who considered himself level headed to the point of boredom at times, felt a nearly irrational hatred of Gyrich growing in him. The man’s smugness was intolerable.
“Say your piece, Gyrich,” he said. “Then why don’t you let us mutants get on with the job you normal folks can’t seem to handle on your own?”
Cooper stared at him, mouth open slightly. Professor Xavier raised one eyebrow. Jean, Gambit, Rogue, and Warren all looked on in stunned silence. All of them were taken aback by his words, and not without reason. Cyclops had always left the attitude to Gambit, or Wolverine, or Bishop, even Warren from time to time. But he was angry now, and a little bitter. He wanted to be with Corsair, making sure his father was all right. Instead, he and the X-Men were once again putting their lives on the line for a society, the majority of whom would have spit on them if they got close enough.
Scott Summers, the quiet one, the stable one, was on the verge of losing his cool. Cooper, Xavier, the other X-Men, were all surprised. But when Cyclops turned to look at Gyrich, he found that the man was not surprised at all. Rather, there was a smile of perverse pleasure on his face. He had riled the leader of the X-Men, and he was happy about it.
Scott felt so stupid he wanted to punch Gyrich, but that would only make matters worse. It was completely unlike him, but he supposed, given the extraordinary crisis at hand, extraordinary reactions would be the order of the day.
“Just because I’m a nice guy, Cyclops,” Gyrich said, “I’ll get right to the point. The Director of Operation: Wideawake has asked me to pass along this information to you, otherwise I would not have put you even at the bottom of my need-to-know list.”
Cooper visibly stiffened. Scott assumed she was irritated that Wideawake’s Director had not communicated Gyrich’s message directly to her. He himself was annoyed that Cooper would allow such petty concerns as her competition with Gyrich to distract her at such a perilous time.
“In my opinion,” Gyrich said, “a full military assault is the only way to end Magneto’s terrorist occupation of Manhattan. Sadly, the President does not agree. He has faith in Ms. Cooper’s opinion. She has faith in mutants, specifically the X-Men. In any case, he has agreed that your interdiction may proceed.”
“That’s news?” Cooper asked.
“I’m not finished,” Gyrich said, biting off the words with snapping teeth, which finally revealed the extent of his disdain for the woman.
“The President has also ordered the joint armed forces assembled around Manhattan to a full alert. On his word, they are to invade and retake Manhattan island,” Gyrich said.
“What?” Professor Xavier asked, astounded. “No simple military assault will be sufficient to destroy the Sentinels, you know as much from your participation in Operation: Wideawake. Not to mention that Magneto has destroyed entire armies before, and will not shrink from doing so again. What you suggest is madness!”
“De hell wit’ dat!” Gambit said. “What about de X-Men? De President, he wants us to waltz right into Magneto’s home base, and den he gon’ to start bombing us all to hell? Je suis desole, but non. (m ne me plait pas.”
Gyrich glared at Gambit for half a second.
“You’re in America, X-Man,” Gyrich said with a sneer. “Speak English not French.”
“I was bom in America, me,” Gambit said angrily. ‘‘But I’m a Cajun. I speak Cajun, English, French, Creole, but me, maybe I got another language you understand better, eh?” Cyclops saw that Gambit was extracting a playing card from his right pocket. Explosive energy sparked from his hand to the card and back, and the card began to glow.
“Put it away, Gambit,” Cyclops ordered.
Through it all, Professor Xavier said nothing. He would normally have been the one to command Gambit to stand down, to step away from the brewing conflict, but if Gyrich ever knew Xavier’s secret, God help them all,
Gambit complied.
“Anytime you want to try me, mutant,” Gyrich said with a show of bravado that was not entirely convincing.
“You didn’t let me finish, once again,” he continued. “The military is holding back for the moment. If you can pull off your mission, there will be no invasion force. But there is a time limit. If you have not defeated Magneto in seven hours, the command will be given.”
“Seven hours?” Jean exclaimed. “Why that’s out—” “Seven hours,” Gyrich snapped. “And enough of this argument. I don’t think you really have time for redundant and useless debate, do you?”
On that, the X-Men were forced to agree.
Gyrich turned to go.
“What happens if the X-Men fail, and the military cannot take Manhattan back?” Professor Xavier asked, as the redhaired man was walking away.
Gyrich turned back, daylight sparking diamonds off his mirrored sunglasses. The smile on his face then was as genuine and uninhibited as any Scott had ever seen on the man.
“It’s a simple equation really,” Gyrich said. “America does not bargain with terrorists. America will not allow one of its most important cities to fall into terrorist hands. If the military can’t pull it off on their own, well, put two and two together, Xavier.”
Xavier blanched. Scott felt the blood run from his own face as well.
2<t
“By God, you can’t be serious,” the Professor said. “There are hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps a million, still in that city! No president would take that many lives just to keep the city out of Magneto’s hands.”
“Even if he wasn’t concerned for the people,” Archangel added, “the American public would vilify him.”
“If they knew what had been done, of course they would,” Gyrich agreed. “But if such an atrocity as you describe— which I did not even suggest, by the way—were to take place, well, you can be certain the press would portray it as a terrorist plot that backfired with catastrophic results. It would be seen to.” ‘
“Lord help us, you’re a monster,” Rogue said softly. “You all are. Maybe Magneto has the right idea.”
Gyrich had turned to leave once more but was stopped in his tracks by Rogue’s words.
“Just what I expected of your kind,” he said. “I told the President you’d end up defecting to the other side.”
The animosity between Gyrich and the rest of the force gathered on that spot was tangible, powerful. Gyrich looked at his watch.
“Six hours and forty-nine minutes now,” he said. “You’d probably better get going.”
“When we get back, Gyrich,” Cooper said, “you and I are going to have a long chat.”
“I highly doubt that,” Gyrich answered, then turned and had disappeared into the throng of reporters before Cyclops could even conceive of a retort.
“Okay, Valerie,” Scott said, as soon as Gyrich was out of earshot. “How do you want to split the team?”
Howard Chin had leased the three-story building on East Forty-fourth Street for seventeen years. He and his family lived on the second and third floors. The first was Howard’s Deli, a storefront delicatessen that had always gotten a lot of business from local customers. There were many companies nearby, and MTV only two blocks away. To get to Grand Central Station or vice versa, commuters had to pass by his storefront window.
Until a couple days earlier, he’d done an excellent business. Made a hell of a living. He’d had no problem putting his daughter, Naomi, through school at the prestigious Marymount up in Westchester. She was going to Fordham Law now, and he was footing that bill too. Gladly. He loved his little deli, his regular customers, waking up at four a.m. to prepare the shop for business. But that life wasn’t for everyone. And it sure wasn’t for Naomi. She was going to be a lawyer. He’d never been as proud.
Then Magneto and the mutants came, and the city fell apart. It was a catastrophe. Howard had closed the deli when the Sentinels first appeared over the city, but it killed him to do so. The more he thought of it, the more he realized that he couldn’t leave. He’d been in the same spot for seventeen years. Magneto promised that life would go on within the new administration. Lucinda Chin had thought her husband more than a little crazy at first. But at six o’clock in the morning, she had finally relented, agreeing to wait and see what developed.
Howard opened the deli ninety minutes late. Fifteen minutes later, the first customer had come in. There hadn’t been many. Most of the people still in the city weren’t yet brave enough to venture out. But there were a few. And he knew there would be more.
It would be okay. After all, his landlord was a cowardly sort, and probably had already left Manhattan. He expected to renegotiate his lease very soon. The big problem was going to be getting fresh stock in. He had no idea when the conflict would be over and his deliveries would start coming again.
n
There would be no trucks that day, however. Of that he was certain.
Lucinda was still upstairs doing laundry, he thought, when the bell above the door jingled. Howard looked up and was pleased to see a whole group this time. A woman and four men. He smiled at them, but they didn’t smile back.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing,” the small Latino in the front asked.
“Pardon me?” Howard responded, raising an eyebrow. These people made him nervous.
“He asked what you thought you were doing?” an overweight black man snapped, coming quickly across the deli and crowding Howard where he stood organizing the salad bar.
“Get out of my shop,” Howard answered. “I don’t know what you want, but if you’re not a paying customer, you can go now.”
“Are you just stupid, or haven’t you seen the news, looked outside your own door?” the woman, who might have been barely out of her teens, asked incredulously.
“Enough of that,” said a guy in the back. This one was clean cut, an All-American kind of look, though he wore a gray duster coat like something out of postmodernist cowboy films, which Howard loved. He wished he had a jacket like that.
But now was not the time. Now, he only wanted these people out of his store.
“If you’re going to rob me, I’m quite outnumbered,” Howard said. “You might as well go on with your business.”
“We’re not here to rob you, sir,” said the All-American. “These people want to know why you’re cooperating with Magneto.’ ’
Howard didn’t get it.
“Cooperating?” he asked, shaking his head. “Who’s cooperating? I’ve never seen Magneto. Don’t know as I’ve ever seen a mutant, really, except for that Blob guy years ago at a carnival, before I’d ever even heard of mutants. I’m just running my business. I’m not going to let this ... occupation send me running scared.”
“That’s admirable Mr. ...?”■ the woman began.
“Chin,” he said.
“Mr. Chin. I’m Gabi Frigerio.”
She introduced the others. The man who had yet to speak was her brother, Michael, the biggest and most powerful looking of the bunch. The Latino was called Miguelito, and the heavy fellow Lamarre.
“We have moved underground, sir,” Gabi continued. “None of us was willing to leave the city, either, but we’re also not willing to live as an oppressed people. Don’t you understand what it means, what Magneto has done?”
Howard still didn’t get it.
“He’s declared himself emperor, buddy,” Michael said, finally speaking up. “That means whatever he says goes. No voting.”
“I never voted anyway,” Howard said with a shrug. “I mean, how bad can it be? I was never rich, never expected to be. As long as I have my deli, and life goes on, what’s the difference?”
“You’ll see the difference when the muties come in and roust you and there isn’t a freakin’ thing you can do about it. They can do anything they want and you can’t even look ’em in the eye,” Lamarre said.
“Hey, Lamarre, watch it,” the all-American said, glaring at Lamarre ominously.
“You might as well be a serf, or a slave,” Gabi said. “In World War II, they shot French people who collaborated with the German army.”
“So you’re going to shoot me?” Howard asked, having no trouble believing he might be shot, but astonished at the reason behind it.
“No,” Miguelito said after a moment. “We don’t work that way, Mr. Chin. That’s what the mutants might do, for a kick. But not us.”
“Last night, Magneto’s Acolytes and other mutants were responsible for at least three dozen murders in this city,” Michael said.
“I didn’t hear that,” Howard said, raising an eyebrow.
“The MTV offices have been set up as some kind of guerilla outpost. A lot of reporters are working from there, from different papers and networks. They expect to be brought down at any time, but for now, they’re dealing the news straight from the top of the deck,” Gabi explained.
“Wow,” Howard said, for he could think of no other response. “A lot of those guys are my customers. I should probably bring them some coffee, bagels, or something.”
“You just don’t get it!” Lamarre snapped at him again. “This is a war, man!”
“Not for me,” Howard said, insulted that the man thought he was too stupid to understand them. “I’m forty-seven years old, friend. This shop is all I’ve got. If the army can’t stop Magneto, then I expect I’ll be paying my taxes to him next year.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Chin,” Drake said. “Magneto’s going down. But it won’t be the army who takes him out of the game.”
“Who, then?” Howard asked. “I’m happy to help you people any way I can if I can be sure Magneto’s people won’t be sticking around. If they do, eventually they’ll get around to destroying you and me and this deli, once they know I’ve been helping you. How can you be sure he’ll be gone? Who’s strong enough to beat him, and those huge robots, and all the other mutants he’s got gathered up?”
“The X-Men,” Drake said. “The X-Men will take him down.”
“The X-Men have been captured,” Howard said, exasperated. “They’ve already lost.”
“Four X-Men were captured,” Drake said. “There’s plenty more where that came from.”
Howard Chin watched in awe as Drake’s entire body turned to ice. Only that gray duster didn’t freeze.
Howard shivered, staring at Drake. He knew who the man was now, of course. Everyone had read about the X-Men. Drake had to be Iceman. Suddenly Howard had begun to believe everything would be all right after all.
“Who wants coffee?” he offered.
• * *
“So, Caroline, what exactly is your mutant power, anyway?” Kevin O’Leary asked.
“Um, well, see, it’s nothing special really,” the attractive girl with the gun in her hand answered. “I’m not, like, an Alpha or anything.”
“Alpha?”
“Yeah, that’s what the Acolytes call a really powerful mutant,” Caroline said.
“So what do you do?” Kevin asked again.
“If I concentrate, okay, my skin gives off these chemicals that are like a, whadayacall, a sedative. I make people sleepy, but, see, I haven’t quite been able to actually force anyone to go to sleep. Not yet, anyway,” she answered, not meeting his eyes, reddening slightly at her embarrassment over having such relatively ineffective mutant abilities.
“Hey,” Kevin said warmly, his charisma working overtime, “I think that’s a cool power. You could probably be a great hypnotist, take Vegas by storm. You could make a bundle helping insomniacs too.”
“Yeah,” Caroline said, offering a shy smile. “I guess. But it doesn’t do much good in a fight.”
“Are you kidding me?” Kevin said incredulously. “I can’t believe Magneto doesn’t have you at his side all the time. Come on! Anybody wants to attack, you can slow them down enough so they don’t have a chance. I’d say that’s pretty useful.” . .
“You think so?” Caroline asked hopefully.
Kevin kept piling it on. As Trish Tilby watched, she began to feel bad for the girl, perhaps seventeen or eighteen and none too bright, who’d been assigned to guard them. Magneto obviously thought of them as low risk, and with good reason. They were there by choice, covering the takeover of Manhattan, and if he wanted to keep them there, they wouldn’t be able to run far.
On the other hand, Magneto would certainly not want her speaking with or, God forbid, helping the X-Men to escape.
A possibility that he must suspect, given that Dr. Henry McCoy, the Beast, was her ex-boyfriend. Trish and Hank were stiil friendly, and she respected him immensely, still cared for him a lot. She wouldn’t see him imprisoned if there was anything she could do about it.
That’s what they were about to find out.
“Speaking of sleepy,” she said, startling Caroline slightly, “I’m going to try getting some rest. It’s going to be a long night, more than likely, with meetings and all.”
“We’ll try to be quiet,” Kevin responded, and smiled at Caroline again. He patted her hand lightly, as if sharing a joke, and she beamed. Trish felt guilty, taking advantage of the poor girl like that. Kevin was charming and handsome and the more he worked on the girl, the more Trish had to wonder how often he’d ambushed a woman with the same tactics in real life, and then blown her off. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
She lay down, listening to Kevin whispering to the girl. It was more intimate, and he would have had to move closer to her. It had been obvious since the moment Caroline pulled guard duty that she was attracted to Kevin. Now they just had to see if they could take advantage of the fact.
“Really?” Caroline hissed in a stage whisper. “That’s awful. I’d hate that.”
Kevin whispered some more.
“I don’t know,” Caroline answered. “I could get in big trouble.”
More whispering. This time, Trish caught a few words that sounded like “if it was you.” After a few moments, Caroline stood up and walked over to the spot where Trish lay on a bunch of throw pillows from office sofas.
“Trish?” Caroline asked. “You asleep?”
“Hmm?” Trish answered, feigning the classic half-asleep disorientation.
“Is that Beast guy really your boyfriend?” she asked.
Trish opened her eyes wide, stretched her neck, then sighed deeply.
“Yeah,” she lied. “We haven’t seen each other in a while,
but he is my boyfriend. Why do you ask? Are you surprised?” “You love him, huh?” Caroline persisted, not answering Trish’s question.
Trish allowed her concern for Hank, the real pain that was there, to spread across her face.
“Yeah, I do,” she said, and this time she wasn’t lying. She might not be in love with Hank McCoy anymore, but she definitely still loved him.
Caroline looked deep in thought. Though she knew it was uncharitable, Trish couldn’t help thinking that anytime she seemed to concentrate, the girl looked as though she were in pain.
“Okay, look,” Caroline finally said. “I feel bad for you, okay? I think I can understand how bad you feel, how much it sucks. There’s a major risk involved here, but if you promise you won’t try anything, won’t do anything crazy, I’ll see what I can do to get you in to see the blue guy.”
“See Hank?” Trish asked, all excited and hopeful. “Oh, Caroline, my God, do you think you could do that?”
Caroline smiled, reaching back and taking Kevin’s hand in her own.
“Yeah,” she answered. “I’m pretty sure we can pull it off. Just don’t say nothin’ to anyone. Else we’re all in trouble.” “You’re the best, lady,” Kevin said, and kissed Caroline on the head.
“Hey, a girl’s got to be able to be with her man,” Caroline said, shrugging off the compliment though it was clear she reveled in it. “And it’s not like you guys are really the enemy, right? I mean, in a way, you’re working with Magneto, same as any of us. Working for a better world.”
“Absolutely,” Trish agreed, but she felt awful, not only that they were manipulating an innocent girl, but that the same girl actually thought Trish and Kevin could ever be on Magneto’s side.
“So, what do we have to do?” Trish asked, hoping she didn’t seem too pushy, wary of the possiblity that Caroline might get skittish and back off.
“Can I trust you here for a couple of minutes by yourselves?” she asked.
“Please!” Kevin protested. “Even if we wanted to leave, where would we go?”
Caroline giggled. “I guess you’re right,” she said.
She disappeared through the door, gun bolstered at her back. A few minutes later, she returned with a huge grin on her face.
“The guards were both exhausted. I didn’t force them to sleep, can’t do that yet, like I said. But it didn’t take much to nudge them toward it. Now, let’s hope I can keep them asleep while you talk to your Beast-man,” Caroline said excitedly. “Ooh, it’s so romantic.”
“Kev, you’ll have to stay here,” she added with regret. “I don’t think I can cover for all of us. Just don’t go anywhere, okay? They might shoot me or something.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he reassured her. And funny thing was, at the moment, Trish believed him. She wondered if Kevin might not actually be taking a liking to the free-spirited mutant girl.
“All right, then,” Caroline said. “Let’s go.”
Caroline led Trish to the stairwell. Since she was supposed to be guarding Trish anyway, nobody looked twice at them. Once at the stairs, she waited to see that nobody was looking, and they started down.
“I took the elevator, but I didn’t think we should risk that with you,” the girl explained.
“Good idea,” Trish agreed. “Listen, thank you so much for doing this. Hank and I both owe you,”
“He was so excited to know you were coming,” Caroline said, and Trish’s eyes widened.
“You talked to him?” she asked, surprised Hank hadn’t blown the story.
“Oh, yeah,” Caroline said enthusiastically. “He misses you, too, big time. I had to make sure you were telling the truth. He loves you, Trish. No question. You’re pretty lucky too. Up close, that blue fur is kind of sexy.”
Trish smiled with pleasure and relief. Her feelings and her plans were getting way too complicated for her own good. Obviously, he’d been smart enough to go along with the story' she’d told Caroline. Maybe some of those feelings were for real, for both of them, but she’d hurt Hank McCoy, and Trish didn’t figure he’d forgotten that just yet.
Caroline had said something while Trish was musing on the subject of human-mutant relations, hers in particular.
“I’m sorry?”
“I said it must tick you off when other women flirt with him,” Caroline repeated.
“You get used to it,” Trish said with a shrug, and they continued down the stairs, Caroline babbling on about this boyfriend or that and how badly they had treated her.
Suddenly, it didn’t seem quite so harmless the way Trish and Kevin had been taking advantage of the girl. She hoped she could repay Caroline somehow, or at the very least that she could avoid getting the girl in too much trouble. Sure, she was one of Magneto’s mutant fascists, but Trish figured Caroline wouldn’t have known ideology from physiology. In fact, the more she talked about her boyfriends, it seemed that the girl felt the two were one and the same.
The basement was a long, long way down. Like anyone whose career placed her in the public eye, the pressures of celebrity forced Trish to keep herself in shape. Despite that, and the fact that they were going downstairs, her legs were tired in no time. She had no faith in her ability to make the climb back up with any haste if the need arose.
Finally, they reached an anonymous steel door crossed with a long red bar. Printed on the bar was a warning that an alarm would sound if the door was opened. It was for emergency use only. Apparently, it had been disconnected since Magneto had taken over, because Caroline pushed it open without a glance, and the expected wail of alarm bells did not come.
They traveled more corridors than Trish thought ought to be in a basement, even for a building the size of the Empire State. Finally, Caroline hugged the cement wall as they neared a turn in the hall, and Trish followed suit. For a moment, she felt foolish. It was like she was seven years old again, playing army with her brother and his friends.
Their version of army had been different, though. The Cold War was still on, but they weren’t fighting the Soviets, they were fighting a pack of werewolves. They took turns being the werewolves because, even though the army always won, the werewolves were cooler. Only, Trish never got a turn to play werewolf. She was just a girl, and girls weren’t strong and mean and nasty enough, or so her brother Billy always said.
To hell with him, she thought now. If Billy had been there, with Magneto’s band of super-human terrorists lurking about, he’d have lost control of his bladder the same way he did in the fifth-grade spelling bee. Trish smiled at the memory. Telling that story—or threatening to—had been her favorite weapon when they were kids.
Still, she had to wonder where her brother was now. In a way, she wished he were there. She had always felt better facing the werewolves when the two of them were soldiers together. And though he’d never admitted it, she’d known he felt the same way.
Caroline peered around the comer carefully, her brow furrowed as if she were concentrating. It occurred to Trish that she very probably was concentrating, attempting to make sure that the guard she’d turned her forced-narcolepsy mutant power on had stayed under her spell. A moment later, she stepped out into the open, motioning for Trish to stay put. She took several steps down the hall, out of Trish’s sight.
In that moment, Trish became afraid. Afraid it had all been a setup, that Magneto was testing her loyalty. Afraid that Caroline would be captured, that they would all be executed—for the Acolytes were notoriously fond of executions. Afraid that she had gotten herself into something she had no hope of extricating herself from, and was proceeding to get in deeper and deeper as the moments ticked past. And, finally, afraid that she would be able to do nothing for the X-Men. That Hank would soon be dead.
No matter what had passed between them, the idea that
Hank might die filled her with a terrible dread unlike anything she had ever experienced. He was the most unique individual she had ever encountered, a fact that had little or nothing to do with his status as a mutant. His intelligence, his humor, his gallantry—she treasured them all, as friend or lover.
Caroline whistled, low and short, and Trish responded by popping out into the hallway. A bald, stocky man in leather sat on a chair, his head back against the wall and his mouth open in a silent snore. Beyond him, Caroline held open another steel door, and beckoned rapidly with her left hand. Trish rushed down the hallway, and turned into the room where the X-Men were being held captive.
She didn’t know Bishop well, though she certainly knew who he was. It was her business to know such things. She had known Storm and Wolverine for years, by reputation and personally. Then there was Hank. As Trish looked at his face, at the concern etched there, she worried that he might think her a traitor now. He was captive, she was free, within limits, to do as she pleased. That meant reporting the story as accurately as Magneto would allow. She feared Hank would brand her a collaborator. So, for a moment, she could think of nothing to say except...
“Hank.”
“Trish,” he said, an amused acknowledgement that begged her to continue, to lead the conversation. This was, after all, her show. Caroline was standing by, expecting to witness the drama of lovers reunited, of a woman weeping for her doomed man.
“Oh, God, Hank!” Trish said in a grateful rush, then hurried to where he hung suspended from the techno setup on the wall.
Even as she moved to him, embraced his blue, furry form— though he was unable to return the embrace—Trish was marveling at the technology and wondering how the hell she might be able to break the X-Men out of their restraints. She knew one thing, it wasn’t going to happen right then. She held out hope that Hank might be able to direct her.
“I missed you, darling,” he said, and she couldn’t help but notice the trace of irony in his voice. He had missed her. Just as, in her way, she had missed him. But she didn’t want to mistake a crisis for a reunion.
“Caroline, could Hank and I just have one final moment to ourselves?” she said, trying not to be too dramatic, though the girl probably expected something out of a soap opera. ‘ ‘It might be our last chance.”
“What about them?” Caroline asked, pointing to the other three X-Men with a quizzical look.
“It isn’t as if we can go anywhere,” Bishop said angrily, and though Trish winced at the thought that he might alienate Caroline, she was glad his anger was unchecked. It was good for realism.
“We will respect the Beast’s right to privacy as much as we are able, though we cannot leave the room,” Storm said, her voice confident and reassuring as always.
“Besides,” Wolverine growled cynically, “we’re like family” ......
After a moment of uncertainty, Caroline turned and left. Trish thought the girl looked a little disappointed that she was going to miss what she obviously considered the best part. Tough.
“You’re placing yourself in tremendous peril, just being here,” Hank said when Caroline had gone.
“So what if they catch me?” Trish asked. “They put me down here with you. I might as well be restrained, for the amount of freedom Kevin and I are allowed.”
“We appreciate the effort, Ms. Tilby,” Storm said, “but the Beast is right. You are a single, human woman. Despite your formidable will, you are weaponless in a city filled with powerful mutants who range from legitimately evil to sadly misled, all at Magneto’s command. With all due respect, what do you hope to accomplish?”
Trish knew that Storm was right. It pissed her off.
“Let me get this straight,” she said, her voice rising just a touch, not enough to alert Caroline that anything but a sweet reunion was happening inside that room. “You think I’m just going to keep doing my job while the four of you rot down here, waiting for Magneto to decide on a whim to execute you? I don’t think so.”
Trish glared at Storm, then at the others. Hank was last. He said nothing.
“Ms. Tilby,” Bishop began, “while your intentions are honorable, putting yourself in unnecessary jeopardy would
be—”
“Unnecessary?” she snapped. “The only way it would be unnecessary would be if you all had figured out a way to escape without my help. I assume you haven’t, given that you’re still here. Now, if you can honestly say that each of you would not do the same in my position, I’ll go back to my little cage and not bother you again. But if you’re just treating me like I’m useless because I’m human, you’re just as bigoted as Graydon Creed and the rest of them. As anyone who ever thought someone couldn’t do a job because of their race or gender.”
Storm raised an eyebrow and lifted her chin slightly, a motion that gave her an incredibly haughty appearance. Bishop appeared to consider her words. Hank’s expression had not changed.
“She’s right, Ororo,” Wolverine said quietly. “Any one o’ us would do the same.”
The Beast began to smile.
“What the hell is so funny, Hank?” Trish demanded.
“Not a thing, my dear,” he answered, still smiling warmly. “It just occurred to me how elated I am that you are on our side in this conflict. I would loathe having you as an opponent.”
Despite herself, Trish had to smile at that. She detailed everything she had gleaned about Magneto’s operation and plans from her observations. Sadly, she feared very little of it was helpful, but she was as thorough as possible.
“Do you imagine you might arrange to visit us again?” he asked her.
“Might be tough, but probably,” she answered.
“Excellent,” Hank said. “Whatever else you discover between now and then will doubtless prove invaluable. If you
can contrive a strategy for our emancipation, pass it on then.”
“But..Trish began, and then kept silent. She didn’t know what she could say. At the moment, she didn’t know how she might be able to free the X-Men. All she did know was that she would not stop trying.
“Otherwise,” Hank continued, favoring her with a look of crushing benevolence, “we will simply incorporate you into our deliberations of potential liberation schemes.”
“But...” she said again.
“Please, Trish,” Hank said, his voice urgent, for they both knew Caroline would not stay in the hall forever. “Be content with the knowledge that you have our trust and faith. We shall all endeavor to do what we are able.”
The door opened as Trish was about to protest once more. Caroline hissed that the guard would not sleep much longer. Apparently her control over her powers was as limited as she had feared.
Trish moved to embrace Hank once again. She looked into his eyes, so familiar, so intimate in memory.
“I love you, Hank,” Trish said.
“And I you, my dear,” he responded.
For a moment, they were transported back in time to the day, months earlier, when they had first exchanged such promises. Vows so easily broken.
Trish turned and rushed from the room, partially feigning the appearance of being overcome with emotion. But only partially. She was fleeing, as well, from the moment itself. She and Hank were through. She knew that. But a part of her wanted to forget, wanted to go back.
If there was one thing Trish Tilby knew, there was ever and only one direction in which time flowed. It wasn’t so much forward, it seemed to her, as it was away from the past.
Yet, despite what was in the past, and their current situation, she knew she wanted Hank to be in her life in some fashion for as long as he was willing. They had shared too much to drift away from each other, to sacrifice their friendship on the altar of broken romance.
One way or another, Trish was determined, the X-Men would be free.