“You might be surprised,” she said. “Let them rescue the guys. The Genogoths don’t have to be involved at all.”

“Thanks to you, we already are. They know too much to be allowed to escape, Espeth, much less to risk their falling into government hands. It could be a disaster, the end of everything we’ve worked for—”

“—since the time of Darwin,” she sneered. “I know the speech. Black, do the right thing. Let them do what they came to do, or at least let them go. You’ll never catch them at this point anyway.”

“We know where they’re going, Espeth.”

“They don’t know where they’re going. I never told them where Sharpe’s base was.”

His eyes widened. He hadn’t expected this.

“They don’t know anything, really. Let them go.”

“I can’t do that, Espeth. They have to be captured, taken to a relocation center.” He studied her face. “Don’t look at me like that, Espeth. They weren’t involved at all until you brought them in. You’ve created this situation, now others must pay the price for your mistakes. I feel for your three friends who were taken, f really do, but this is for the greater good.”

He stood and turned to Leather. “I think she’s trying to throw us off their trail. They’ve gone west to bypass our search. Concentrate your people on a line north and south of Charlotte.” He glanced at Espeth. “You, are coming with me. Now."    ~    '    '

Espeth slowly stood.

Leather looked suspicious. “Where are you taking her?”

“I’m sending her back to Washington state,” he said firmly, “to the Abbey, for reeducation. Perhaps a few years of simple living, hard work, and meditation on the principles of the Genogoths can salvage her spirit. If not, at least she will be contained. Come on, Espeth, I’m going to have a plane waiting for you.”

She followed him reluctantly. Leather smiled evilly as she walked past. “We’ll get your little friends. Don’t you doubt it for a minute.”

She said nothing, and followed Black out to his car. Perhaps there would be an opportunity for escape later.

“Don’t look back,” Black said quietly as they approached the car. “The situation has changed.”

She climbed into the car with Black. She stared straight ahead, careful to maintain the unhappy expression on her face.

He started the car, backed out, and drove off up the highway. Only when they were several miles from the farmhouse, did he speak again. “The situation has changed radically in the last few hours. I had to put on a show for Leather. He’s building a power-base independent of my own, and he can’t be trusted.”

“I could have told you that,” she said sarcastically.

“That’s enough of that,” he said angrily. “The situation has changed, but you were still wrong in what you did.” He stared grimly at the road. “You remind me of myself when I was your age, Espeth, angry, headstrong, convinced that you can right all the world’s wrongs single-handedly. But some wrongs can’t be righted, some sacrifices must be made. That is the hard truth of what we do. The genes must survive, and nature doesn’t play favorites.”

She watched as they drove past a row of hothouses, some sort of agricultural station, tall stalks of corn growing under glass, never feeling the rain or the caress of a summer’s breeze. “If you really feel that way, why aren’t you putting me on that plane back to Seattle?”

“Who says I’m not?”

“I know you too well. Besides, you wouldn’t have thrown Leather off the trail if something wasn’t up. Something has changed. What?”

“I have to talk to your friends, meet with them. Perhaps I can negotiate some sort of settlement so that nobody else gets hurt. You can contact them?”

“I have a phone number.”

He plucked his phone from its pocket and handed it to her. “I know a place we can meet, someplace public and along their route. I’ll make a reservation for them at the hotel there.” “They’re short of money,” she said.

“It’ll be taken care of. Tell them that. Anything for their comfort.”

She looked at him.

“The phone won’t be traced. This isn’t a trap. You, me, and them. We’ll have a talk.”

She didn’t dial. “What happened? I won’t call unless you tell me.”

His frown deepened. “This morning a mutant under Genogoth protection was taken from his home in eastern Kentucky. He was hunted down and taken by three armored individuals who identified themselves as government agents.” He let that sink in for a moment. “The agents wore face masks, but judging from the physical descriptions, and the special abilities they demonstrated, we believe them to be your missing friends, Chill, Dog Pound, and Recall.”

Leather wandered onto the safehouse’s front porch and sat down in one of the old-fashioned metal lawn chairs. It squeaked under his weight, but it was surprisingly comfortable. A soft breeze blew through the trees that shaded the front yard and driveway. Birds chattered out their territorial disputes, and he could hear the faint sound of a tractor plowing a distant field.

By now, most of his forces were headed north to intercept the young mutants, and he knew he should get into his van and drive to join them, but something didn’t seem right. Oh, things seemed to be going well enough. Though he was disappointed that Black had failed to provoke a direct confrontation, he had bowed, at least a bit, to Leather’s demands. The traitor, Espeth, was in custody and would soon be sent where she could do the Genogoths no further harm.

', Still, something didn’t seem right. Black was old, but he was a fighter. Did he know something that Leather didn’t about the situation, or rather, was there something he didn’t want Leather to know?

Leather stood and locked the safehouse’s front door, then flipped the sequence of hidden switches that activated its intruder alarm and emergency self-destruct systems. That done, he climbed into his van and fished out his palmtop computer.

One of the Genogoths’ most valuable resources was a deep-cover operative known as “Visor.” Visor worked somewhere in the financial industry, and provided information to the Genogoths on banking and credit transactions. Black had recently charged him with locating all bank accounts, debit cards, and credit cards belonging to Espeth or any of the students of Xavier’s school, and further, informing them instantly of any transactions on those accounts. Unfortunately, Espeth seemed to have anticipated this, as none of their accounts had been accessed since the beginning of their flight from Massachusetts.

Leather had never met Visor, never even talked to him by phone. Visor could be reached only by an encrypted internet mailbox. That didn’t mean that Leather hadn’t made it a point to be in regular touch with Visor, or that he hadn’t had a chance to plumb the operative’s opinions on Black and various issues in dispute. Thus, he had a certain confidence that Visor would be receptive to what he was about to ask.

He opened the computer and began to finger a message into the little keyboard:

REQUEST YOU ACQUIRE, MONITOR, AND REPORT ACTIVITY OF ALL ACCOUNTS UNDER CONTROL OF BLACK. REPORT IMMEDIATELY, FOR MY EYES ONLY.

—LEATHER

He pushed the send key. He was just about to put the computer away when it beeped to notify him of incoming mail. He Iqoked at the screen and smiled.

REQUEST RECEIVED. ACCOUNTS IDENTIFIED AND MONITORED. STAND BY FOR CONFIDENTIAL REPORTS AS NECESSARY

-VISOR

He closed the computer and slipped it into a pocket inside his vest. He chuckled to himself. “Whatever you’re up to, Black, I’ll be keeping tabs on you.”

CHAPTER NINE

Angelo cranked the Xabago’s wheel sharply to the right as they wound their way around the third hairpin turn in the last five minutes. The wheels spun and bounced on the rutted clay of the road. “We are not,” he announced, “lost.”

Jubilee was sulking in the passenger seat. “We are very lost, Angelo.”

He laughed. “We can’t be lost, chic a, we don’t know where we’re going.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “We at least knew what direction we were going, and when Logan calls me back, we may know more.” She slumped in her seat. “Assuming if, like I think, she was blowing smoke when she said we’d never find the place.”

Monet came forward, an opened road atlas in her hand. She pointed at the map. “We don’t know where we are, Espinosa. I believe that is the definition of ‘lost.’ ”

An hour earlier, when Ev had spotted a pair of black trucks coming up behind them, they’d made a panic turn at the next exit and attempted to lose their pursuers by making a series of random turns onto back-roads. Actually, they’d never seen the trucks after they’d turned off, and everyone now agreed that it had probably been another false alarm.

He gave Monet an annoyed glance. “Give it a rest, M. You’re the navigator. We’ve got to be on that map somewhere.”

“I assure you,” she said coldly, “that this road is not on this map.”

He grinned. “Well, just pick one of those empty places, take one of your crayons, and draw one in. That’s where we’ll be.”

“I don’t do crayons.”

He waved her away. “Yeah, whatever.”

“Hey,” called Ev, who was still on look-out duty, “Monet or I could fly up and see if we can spot a highway from the air.”

Angelo snorted. “It was you, Mr. Eagle-Eye GI Joe, who got us in this fix in the first place.”

“I just call them as I see them. I didn’t tell you where to drive.”

Paige emerged from the bathroom and came forward to flop into the recliner. “Will you all just shut up? If I want to listen to this kind of bickering, I can just go home to my brothers and sisters.” She sighed. “It isn’t even all that far from here.”

“I’ll let you out,” cracked Angelo, “and you can walk it.”

“Shut up, Angelo.”

«J 99

' > “Shut up."

For once, everybody did. Jubilee stared out the window, Angelo focused on his driving, and Monet curled up on the couch with a calculus book. Paige had recently struggled through the same book herself, and she had the feeling that Monet was using it as light reading just to get her goat.

Well, it was working. Paige sulked in the recliner. Everyone was fighting, they didn’t know where they were going, and Jono was alone in the back, on a guilt-trip for having trusted Espeth. The phone rang. Paige looked at it and sighed. The last thing she wanted to do was give Emma or Sean another song and dance about how much trouble they weren’t in.

Jubilee leaned over the back of her seat. “It might be Wolvie!”

Paige put the phone to her ear. “Hello,” she said flatly. Then her eyes went wide. “It’s Espeth!” Then louder, “Jono, it’s Espeth!”

Angelo hit the brakes just as Jono came running forward. He tripped over Ev, who was swinging down from the crow’s nest, Ka-Zar-style, and overshot, almost landing in Angelo’s lap. Angelo nearly climbed over the top of him to get close enough to listen in.

“Okay,” said Paige into the phone, “talk. You definitely have everyone’s attention.”

Espeth looked out the window of Black’s car and watched the “Welcome to South Carolina” sign flash by. She turned and nodded to Black, to let him know she’d reached them. She sighed. This was hard enough without his listening in, but it had to be done.

“Let me talk to Jono,” she said.

There was a pause, then Paige came back on. “You know he talks telepathically. All he’d be able to do is listen.”

Espeth wasn't sure that it was true that Jono couldn’t use the telephone, but it made a good excuse for him not to talk to her. She couldn’t really blame him. “Paige, tell him I’m sorry. I was just trying to do what was best for everybody.”

“Yeah,” she said coldly, “so you say. So, did you just call to play the sympathy card, or do you have something of use for us? We’d kind of like to know where our friends are being held.”    ~

“I’ll tell you,” she said, “but not on the phone. In person. We need to meet.”

“Yeah,” said Paige, “so you can lead us into another of Black’s traps.”

“No,” she said, “so you can meet with Black. There’ve been some new developments, not good ones either. He wants to sit down with you and talk the situation out.”

“Trap,” said Paige, “trap.”

“Just you six, and the two of us. That’s all. Nobody else will even know.”

It was quiet. She probably had muted the phone and was conferring with the others. “We don’t believe you. Why should we?”

Black was looking at her out of the corner of his eye. “Hand me the phone,” he said.

She gave it to him.

“This is Black. You have my personal assurance that this will be a meeting on neutral ground. You will not be harmed or detained. I know of a location on 1-95 in South Carolina, just across the border. It’s very busy, very public. There’s a hotel there, and I’ve already reserved a suite for you. Espeth tells me that you’ve been living in difficult conditions the last few days. Surely a nap in a real bed seems attractive right now.” A pause. “No, it isn’t intended as a bribe, but whatever works. The situation for your friends is a good deal more complicated than it was only a day ago, as is my own. It is never the wish of a true Genogoth to see a mutant harmed. Please meet with me.”

A much longer pause. He smiled slightly. “Espeth has the information on our meeting place. I’ll put her on.”

Angelo stared at the information that Paige had written down. “Little Latveria?” He shook his head in puzzlement. “They want us to drive to Europe?”

“Not the real Latveria,” explained Paige, “Little Latveria. I’ve heard of it. Some kind of major tourist trap for people traveling from the northeast down to Florida. Should be lots of attractions, food, shops, a hotel, lots of people in and out all the time. The Genogoths wouldn’t dare risk doing anything there. It’s way too public.” She saw the look on Angelo’s face. “I thought we agreed. I told them we’d come.”

He smirked. “What if we just don’t show?”

Jubilee put her hand on the phone. “We could just wait until after Logan calls back. Maybe we don’t need her at all.” Paige shook her head. ‘They have other information that we need, and even if we do know where we’re going, there’s no saying we’ll get past the Genogoths without Espeth’s help. Maybe we can negotiate some kind of truce with Black.” She shrugged. “Even if it’s an ambush, we’d at least know where we stand.”

Monet was looking at the atlas, and had pinpointed the exit for Little Latveria. “An ambush, with a desperate fight against overwhelming odds. For ten minutes in a hot shower, I would gladly risk it.” She smiled just the tiniest bit. “Dibs,” she said.

“Little Latveria?” Leather stared at the e-mail on his tiny computer’s screen. According to the message he’d just received from Visor, Black had reserved an entire suite at Little Latveria’s Doomstad Hotel using one of his personal credit cards. He took another sip of bitter, diner coffee, waved away a waitress in a pink uniform who was trying to freshen his cup, and considered the implications.

He already knew that Black hadn’t put Espeth on a plane, as he’d indicated. That meant that she was likely part of his plan. If they intended to hide out from him, there was no reason for them to need an entire suite, or for him to reserve the room in advance by credit card. That suggested the possibility that he was reserving it for someone else.

- ,He pulled his phone out of his pocket and hit the speed-dialer. “Pull our people back to a circle ten miles around Little Latveria. Yes, that Little Latveria. Tell them to stay out of sight until I give the word. No helicopters. Warn them that they may see Black or Espeth, and possibly the Xavier mutants as well, but they are not to be seen or to make contact. Clear?” He listened to the phone for a moment. “I’ll be in Little Latveria, of course, waiting to spring the trap once everyone is safely inside.”

Sharpe reviewed the video and telemetry playback of the Hound mission for what must have been the tenth time that afternoon. From where he sat in the control room, he could see the three young mutants strapped into their monitoring chairs. The Hound armor had been removed, but each still wore a headband containing the mind control circuitry, the very circuitry that concerned Sharpe right now.

The door to the room slid open and Happersen stepped in. He smiled. “Reviewing yesterday’s success I see. The mission couldn’t have gone better could it? Not a glitch, and we have a new mutant subject to refine the process on.” Then he saw the expression on Sharpe’s face, and his own smile faded. “What’s wrong? The mission was a great success.”

Sharpe motioned him over. “Look at this.” The console in front of them had three large screens showing the view from a camera mounted in each of the Hound’s helmets. Below these, a smaller bank of screens showed the view from each of the cyberhounds, and several others located in the nose, sides, and tail of the helicopter. Below that, a row of intermediatesized screens showed columns of numbers and banks of graphs. These last could be configured to examine in detail any of the telemetry data that had been transmitted from the Hound armors, the cyberhounds, or sensors in the helicopter.

At the moment, all the displays were frozen. Happersen scanned the video screens. This was the moment of capture, when the mutant target had been trapped and frozen in a lake.

- * Sharpe moved his finger over a touch-pad and the displays began to move.

Happersen saw the amphibious mutant struggling against the ice. Sharpe had turned up the audio track.

“Let me go,” the mutant appeared agitated. “Mutants ain’t real, they’re only in the movies!”

As he did every time he saw that clip, Happersen chuckled. But Sharpe wasn’t pleased. “Did you see it?”

He shook his head. “See what?”

Sharpe rewound the recording, then ran it forward slowly. He pointed at a graph showing three lines, one purple, one red, one blue. As the mutant spoke, the lines spiked slightly, especially the blue one. “That,” said Sharpe, “is an emotional response. The mind control device should have completely shut down that part of their brains.”

Happersen studied the spikes. “The control systems are cross-linked at the command buss level. It could have just been a transient power spike. The cold might have cause it. At worst it was a moment of involuntary empathy that the system immediately compensated for. I don’t see it as a problem.”

“I can’t take that chance. One of the problems with Project Homegrown is that we were too lax in the mental control of our subjects. This situation is worse. These three were well connected in the mutant community. They will almost definitely be used against mutants they know, even close friends. There can be no trace of sympathy, no shred of mercy left in them.”

Happersen sighed. He pointed at a control. “We could turn up the BMP gain, but it’s dangerous. We could be risking brain damage in the subjects.”

Sharpe reached for the control without hesitation and pushed it up to near maximum. “Better that than losing control. These Hounds of ours, they have always been expendable.”

According to the story, immigrant businessman Peitor “Bubba” Vukcevich ran a once-popular truck stop that had been bypassed by the freeway. The good news for him was that an exit had been built only half a mile away. The bad news is that people weren’t inclined to get off the freeway and drive even that short distance. He had tried billboards, but with only limited success.

Then one morning, he picked up a copy of a Washington, D.C., paper left in his diner by a passing trucker. On the cover was a photo, taken by a stringer for the New York Daily Bugle, showing sometime Fantastic Four foe, Victor Von Doom. Doom was appearing at the United Nations for the first time in his role as the ruling Monarch of Latveria. Vukcevich had been struck by the fearsome armored figure draped in regal green robes, his gauntlet covered hand held high and outstretched, as though issuing a command that could not be refused.

Struck by inspiration, he immediately changed the name of his establishment, and showed the picture to the company who painted his billboards. Soon, the billboard closest to his exit was decorated with a huge cut-out of Doom in the same pose as the newspaper photograph. Next to it were the words, “Doom COMMANDS you to Exit here for LITTLE LATVERIA.”

The day the sign was completed, his business increased two hundred percent. Soon there were dozens of signs, all up and down 1-95 and spanning three states. He hired local women to sew Latverian peasant garb for all his employees. He added Latverian folk dishes and “Doomburgers” to the menu. Within months, the business had turned around enough for him to break ground on a new hotel. It would be a halfscale replica of Von Doom’s castle constructed from painted cinder-block rather than stone, for reasons of economy.

Gradually, he expanded, adding carnival rides, gift shops, more restaurants, fireworks stands, tee-shirt airbrushing, go-karts, and an assortment of other attractions. Business continued to grow. On the fifth anniversary of his original Doom billboard, he started his greatest project, a two-hundred foot 'tall statue of Doom himself, towering over the freeway and visible for miles in either direction. A spiral staircase climbed up through his leg and armored torso. For a small fee, visitors could climb to the top and gaze out through the holes in his fearsome mask. And even though there was nothing in particular to see, other than the air conditioners on the roofs of the buildings below and the freeway stretching long and straight to the horizon in each direction, on some days, the lines were a hundred people long.

“Howdy y’all,” said the man at the hotel desk, “all hail Doom.” He leaned forward and whispered. “That’s just part of the show, you know. We’re all good Americans here.”

“I'll bet you are,” said Paige, examining the painted faux stone and Styrofoam simulated open-beam interior decor. “You have a reservation in the name of Black?”

He checked his computer, and his eyes widened just a little. “Yes, Ma’am. Four-room suite, all paid for up front.” He looked at her. “You’re on some kind of school trip, it says?”

She nodded. “We’re headed for the Varsity Snipe Hunting

National Championship in Miami. Our coach was held up with car trouble, but he’ll be along.”

The man behind the desk looked concerned. “You’re minors? We have a policy about checking in unaccompanied minors—”

She waved at die computer. “As you said, it’s all paid for in advance, and our coach will be along.”

He looked unimpressed.

“For your trouble and understanding, why don’t you just put a hundred dollar tip for yourself on the bill. Just charge it to Coach Black’s card. Heck, make it two hundred.”

The man’s mouth fell open. “Uh—sure. I got no problem with that.”

She smiled as he handed her a key.

“Room 300,” he said. “Elevators up the hall there, past the Doombot Arcade. Can’t miss it. Nice rooms. Close to the Snack-O-Matic.”

In the course of capturing their two subjects in Seattle, Sharpe’s people had assembled a rather thick dossier on their habits and associations, particularly on a campus mutant organization called M.O.N.S.T.E.R., with which all three subjects had apparently been associated. Public reports were that the organization had shut down after a series of arsons and hate-group attacks. But not according to a report from the Shared Mutant Intelligence network, which distributed such information among government agencies. It had simply gone underground.

It was outside an enclave of M.O.N.S.T.E.R., a former frat-house in Seattle, where two of the subjects had been ambushed and captured, and where the two had been observed to spend much of their free time. The file also included information about other individuals who frequented the M.O.N.S.T.E.R. house. Most of them were confirmed human-normals associating with mutants for unknown reasons, some were unknowns, and several were confirmed mutants.

It was this last list that Sharpe flipped through on his computer screen. He picked one with whom the subject “Three-dog-night” had been seen on a number of occasions, a college sophomore named Peter Darcy, a.k.a. “Fourhand.” His obvious physical mutation was relatively minor as these things went. At the elbow each of his arms sprouted two forearms, each with a fully functional hand. Apparently the mutation extended to his brain and nervous system, allowing him to do separate, mechanically complex, tasks with each hand.

“He has a brilliant future as a watchmaker,” Sharpe muttered. But even for their Hound program, designed to exploit limited mutant powers, Sharpe wasn’t sure how they’d be able to use this one. He made a notation on the file, just for future reference: cull. There was one purpose, however, for which this “Fourhand” would be useful.

Sharpe routed their surveillance photographs and recordings into the Foxhole’s super-computers where they were processed and overlaid onto a virtual training target. He routed the target into a virtual training exercise for Three-dog-night, then stepped from his office, down the hall, and into the Hound control room.

Beyond the glass front wall, he could see the three Hounds, strapped into their chairs, virtual training visors over their eyes.

Happersen was already in the room. He seemed a little startled when Sharpe walked in. “I was just going over the bio-scans. There a few things I wanted you to look at.”

Sharpe slid into a chair at the console next to Happersen. “Later. I want to run a training exercise on Three-dog-night.”

“Now?”

“Now. You’ll find a target matrix already programmed into the system. Set up the environmental parameters, something the subject would be familiar with.” Sharpe hesitated. He wasn’t overly familiar with Seattle. “The Space Needle, observation deck. Is that in the standard library?”

Happersen checked, “Yes, sir.”

“Set it up.” While Happersen worked, Sharpe slipped on a headset with boom mike and patched in an audio channel. “Attention, Three-dog-night.”

“Yes, control.” The voice was flat and unemotional. “Prepare for training scenario. Target is being displayed for you now.” He sent pictures to the subject’s training display. “Do you recoenize the target?”

“No.”    '

Good. The memory blocks were working, at least on a conscious level. While the subject still had his memories from before the activation of the mind control device, he could no longer access them. Of course, the real test was yet to come. “Three-dog-night, this is the situation. You are in pursuit of a dangerous mutant. Your teammates have been incapacitated and you are alone. The target has been cornered in the Space Needle. Apprehend. Use any force necessary. Capture dead or alive. Understood?”

' '“Apprehend,” said the flat voice. “Dead or alive.”

Sharpe turned to Happersen. “Are you ready?”

Happersen nodded. “I’ve set it to nighttime, after hours, no bystanders.”

Shaipe nodded. “Good. Keep the scenario clean. All we care about is the target. Start program.”

The door opened with a click, and the Gen X crew filed into the suite. Angelo stopped to take in the fierce looking boar’s head mounted over the fake-stone fireplace with its plastic logs and electric flames. “Razorbackhe muttered, “why did it have to be Razorback?”

Razorback was a little-known super hero based in Arkansas, and possibly the world’s most obscure mutant hero. He’d come onto the kids’ radar screen the previous summer when he’d intercepted an assassin’s bullet intended for the President, and briefly become a media darling. It had annoyed them all that he’d become a celebrated hero precisely because he wasn’t widely known as a mutant. All that was obvious was that he was an ex-football hero with a silly costume, some gadgets, and a customized semi-truck called “the Big Pig.”

Thanks to Professor Xavier’s files, they’d all known differently. Razorback had a minor mutation that allowed him to instinctively operate any vehicle.

“What they don’t know won’t hurt them,” said Angelo, to nobody in particular. Other, better-known mutants like the X-Men had saved the world on a regular basis, and got only scorn and grief for their trouble. “From now on,” he said, “I’m telling people I fell into a vat of experimental skin cream or sumthin.”

Monet scooted past him, “Shower,” she said. “Hot. Mine. Now.” She vanished into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. It locked with a loud click.

Paige walked in and stared mournfully at the door. “Why do I feel like none of us are getting in there for a long time?” There was a whoop from the next room. “No prob,” called Ev, “there are more where that came from!”

' ■* Jubilee did a flying leap onto the nearest bed, bounced into the air, did a somersault, then landed sprawled on her back.

Jono was inspecting the small, free-standing wet bar. He pulled a spigot and watched as a stream of brown fluid came out.

Ev came out of the other room and strolled over to watch. “RC Cola on tap,” he said. “Figures.”

Jono released the tap. “Not that it does me much bloody good,” he said. “But I do like to smell a good root-beer every once in a while.”

Angelo walked around the room, inspecting the array of framed photos and newspaper clippings. A framed page from a guest register signed by Buford T. Hollis, indicating that he’d stayed here shortly after making the headlines last summer. The centerpiece of the collection was a painting of the man himself, a hulking individual in a leaf-grcen jumpsuit, yellow gloves and boots, and a boar’s head, not unlike the one in the other room, perched on his shoulders. The man’s wide, smiling face could be seen projecting from where the boar’s mouth would have been. He reached up and touched the painting. “Black velvet,” he said. “At least we’re consistent.”

Jubilee was looking at a brochure. “A truck stop that honors Doctor Doom, Razorback, and has a water ride themed around Monster Island.” She squinted at a picture. “They’ve got like, giant, talking monkey-pirates. That’s class.”

There was a knock at the door. Angelo threw the safety latch and opened the door enough to look out. “Well, well,” he said, peering around to see if their guests had brought additional company. Satisfied, he closed the door, threw back the latch, and opened it wide. Espeth stood at the door, along with a creepy looking beatnik that Angelo hadn’t seen before. He gestured them in dramatically. “So,” he said, “the prodigal daughter comes crawling back.”

The 1962 Volkswagen De Luxe microbus had twenty-one windows, which was Styx’s lucky number, and though it looked relatively stock, the engine, suspension, and running gear were transplanted from a Porsche roadster. It would cruise comfortably at a hundred miles per hour on the freeway, and could do a hundred and twenty in a pinch.

None of which was nearly as impressive as what was hidden behind those twenty-one, deeply-tinted windows. Though the equipment that Styx had installed in Leather’s command van was sophisticated, next to the gear in the Styx-wagon it looked like some kid’s science project. With the exception of a few exotic long-wave frequencies used by the military and S.H.I.E.L.D. he could tap into virtually any electromagnetic communication. The sunroof had been replaced with a elec-tronically-steerable, planar, satellite panel with a capacity of several gigabytes per second. A handy little black box installed in his multi-processor computer array quickly factored hundred digit primes. According to its supplier, it was of extraterrestrial origin, salvage from some race called the “Kree,” and had resisted all efforts at duplication, but it allowed him to crack virtually any code, scramble, or encryption at will.

All of which suited Styx. He liked to know things. He liked to know everything, though knowledge occasionally came at a price. Sometimes just knowing things wasn’t enough. Sometimes it begged him to act. and then it became a burden. This was one of those times.

As he pulled his van into the airport passenger pickup lane, he considered his options. For days, he had been monitoring the communications of his Genogoth superior. Leather. He knew what he was planning, what he said about Black. Styx had known Leather for several years now, and had met Black exactly once, a few days before. But he thought he was a good judge of character, and of course, Leather’s communications weren’t the only ones he’d been monitoring.

A tall man dressed in a cowboy hat, black jeans, and a rodeo shirt walked up to the passenger door. Despite the get-up, Styx’s eyes were immediately drawn to the silver slide on his bolo-string tie, one in the shape of the crossed helix. He’d never met Smokey Ashe before either, but his exploits from his younger days were the stuff of Genogoth legend. He defined bravery, honor, and devotion to duty.

Ashe tossed his bag between the front seats, took off his hat, and climbed into the bus. He put the hat in his lap and closed the door. “Appreciate you giving me a lift, Styx.”

Styx studied the man. Ordinarily, he’d have been full of questions about the jamming device he’d designed, and that Ashe had tended with the devotion of a lighthouse keeper. Why had it failed? How could it be fixed? Instead, he thought about Leather, Black, and the confrontation that was coming. Time to choose sides.

“Mr. Ashe, you’ve known Black for a long time, haven’t you?”

He bobbed his head, “Since our Rover days. Know him like a brother.”

“Well*” said Styx, “you have about five minutes to convince me that he’s worth saving.”

The Hound designated as Three-dog-night scanned the darkened interior of the observation deck. The way that it curved around the core of the Space Needle made it impossible, even with the advanced optics and sensors built into his helmet, to take in all at once. It was as though a dog had chased a squirrel onto a tree trunk, and the squirrel managed to hide by always being behind the tree.

Three-dog-night might have felt annoyance, if he were even capable of that emotion any more. But that, as with may other parts of his thought processes, had been suppressed, shut down. He knew only the cold logic of the hunt. There was a target, a dangerous target, one he had to bring down at all costs.

Surrounding the edge of the enclosed deck was a sweep of large windows. Beyond that, a curved outside deck open to the elements, and beyond that, the glittering skyline of Seattle and its environs. Towering skyscrapers clustered to the south, several rising above the once mighty Needle. A few large, black spots interrupted the rolling diamond carpet that was the, city, Lake Union to the east, the Ship Canal to the north, and to the west and northwest Puget Sound itself, a vast emptiness marked only by the lights of an occasional ferry boat or freighter.

Three-dog-night moved slowly, silently, the synthetic rubber treads on the bottom of his boots moving across the smooth floor without the slightest sound. He turned up the gain on his audio sensors. He could hear traffic moving on the streets, five-hundred and twenty feet below, the horns of ferry boats crossing the Sound, the roar of a float-plane lighting gently on the Lake Union. One by one he tuned out the sounds. Listening.

This would be much easier with the help of Bloodhound. But Bloodhound, he reminded himself, was down, a victim of the very mutant he sought out. All the more reason he had to move carefully, and when the opportunity presented itself, to take the target down hard.

A sound! Not a person, but a mechanical sound, automatic doors opening and closing. His mutant powers made him keenly sensitive to the temperature change of a sudden draft. Just ahead, someone had gone onto the outer deck.

He moved, not toward the sound, but away from it. Around the inner deck, a series of doors led to the outside. At each of these he hesitated, using his enhanced-mutant ability to freeze the door shut. Finally, after having traveled completely around the deck, he stepped through the one remaining door. This, he carefully froze shut from the outside.

An unseasonably warm breeze blew in from the Sound, and a gentle mist fell from the solid deck of clouds above. Again, Three-dog-night summoned his powers, but instead of focusing them, he let them spread out, chilling the molecules in the droplets, so that each one, as it touched a solid surface such as a deck or railing, turned instantly to ice.

He waited. The target was on the deck somewhere, even if it couldn’t be seen, even if it wasn’t moving. He waited. The decking at his feet was thick with ice crystals, the railings and supports beginning to glaze over. It was time.

Three-dog-night began to walk, quickly, steadily, around the observation deck. With each step, his power caused his foot to be frozen solidly into position, even as the ice under the other foot melted to allow it to move. It was only a matter of time now.

He heard a thud, a cry of pain, as someone fell. Around the curve of the deck he saw a man in a loose fitting peasant tunic struggling to regain his footing on the icy deck, his hands, all four of them, gripping the handle of one of the frozen doors.

The man looked up, his eyes wide and glittering with the reflected light of the city. His feet scrambled, like a cartoon character, but he found no purchase. He didn’t look dangerous, but Three-dog-night knew different. Perhaps this was exactly how he had lured in the others.

He moved purposefully forward, grabbed the man by his arm and the leg of his pants, and hoisted the struggling figure over his head. He turned. The railing loomed immediately ahead.

The man struggled weakly. He looked up. The face. The face.

Sharpe leaned forward in his seat. “What’s happening? Finish him.” He snapped on the communications channel to the Hound. “Finish him,” he shouted into the console mike.

The virtual Hound stood motionless on the screen. Sharpe punched up a biometric display and saw the blue line spiked and plateaued at a high level. He checked the controls.

“Happersen, did you turn this EMP gain back down?”

Happersen frowned. “I was concerned we’d damage the subject. I thought—”

“The subject!” He reached over and pushed the control up to full gain. “And never think.”

The face. The face. The—

Three-dog-night blinked, for a moment disoriented. Then everything became clear. “Target acquired. Dispatching subject with extreme prejudice.” With the incredible power his 'armor-boosted limbs now possessed, he threw the target through the safety fence. Wire and metal snapped, the target tumbled through the air and landed on one of the decorative spines that projected from the Space Needle like a crown of thorns.

The target slipped, held on with his fingers. One of the four hands slipped, then regained purchase. His legs and body swung as he tried to get enough momentum to swing a leg back up.

Three-dog-night pointed. Ice formed out of thin air, coating the spine, making tired fingers grow numb. One hand slipped. Then another. And another. Then the last.

The audio gain was still on maximum. He could hear the screams all the way down.

Then the impact.

“Target terminated.”

Leather pulled into one of the vast parking lots that surrounded Little Latveria. As a Genogoth hiding from another Genogoth, he’d gone to some effort to disguise himself by trading in his van for a teal-colored, rental Neon, and his signature black leathers for blue-jeans and a tie-dyed tee-shirt. He cruised the parking lot, and soon found Black’s Thunder-bird parked near the entrance of the Doomstadt Hotel.

That, by itself, was not damning. The truly damning evidence came when he circled around the complex, driving between the legs of the enormous statue of Dr. Doom, to the RV parking lot. There, almost hidden between two larger and more luxurious coaches, was the garishly decorated RV belonging to the fugitive mutant teenagers. He paused to study the plastic dome on the roof, the steer horns over the grill, and the red “X’s” spray painted on the nose and sides.

There could be no doubt. The mutants were here, Black had found them, and he had failed to call in the troops for the capture. He picked up his phone and dialed. “The target is confirmed. Black has gone traitor on us. Move in and surround the place. This time they’re not getting away.”

Espeth frowned at Angelo. “Don’t make this any more difficult than it already is, Espinosa.”

“Hey kids,” shouted Angelo from the door, “we got company.”

Jono and Ev were already there. Jubilee bounced off the bed and joined them. There was a muffled curse from the far bathroom. The door to the nearer one opened, and Monet emerged, dressed in the training uniform which she had been wearing under her street clothes, and combing her freshly washed hair. Jubilee glanced at her. “That was quick,” she said. “Super-speed,” replied Monet.

Another curse, and Paige emerged from the other room, her hair wet and matted. She gave Espeth the evil eye. “Your timing sucks,” she said.

Angelo eyed the older man with Espeth. “So this is your bad hombre, Black, huh?”

He nodded. “I am Black.”

“Yeah,” said Ev, “and I am Donny Osmond.”

Jono stepped between them. “Back off, mates. Let’s hear what he has to say.”

Black gestured at a stool in front of the bar. “Mind if I sit down?”

Angelo shrugged. “Yeah, I guess, but no RC Cola for you.” Black smiled slightly. “A sense of humor under fire. Espeth had told me about that. It’s a characteristic I admire. I’m afraid I’m not much of a humorist myself.”

Jubilee popped a bubble loudly. “You might try dressing in pastels sometime.” She plucked a sheet of pink gum off the tip of her nose and shoved it back into her mouth. “Does wonders for your disposition."

Black seemed to take an extreme interest in the suite’s decor as he scanned the various items on the walls. “He was one of ours, you know.”

Angelo looked at the portrait on the wall. “Pigback?” “Razorback.” Paige corrected.

“Whatever.” '

'“I prefer,” said Black, “his given name of Buford T. Hollis. He’s one of the little mutants.’’

Jubilee had walked up and was reading one of the clippings on the wall. “Says here he’s six-foot-six, and that’s without the pighead."

“By ‘little,’ " explained Black, “I mean the less powerful mutants, one without a large and visible power that would normally attract the likes of Xavier or Magneto, searching for soldiers in their respective armies.”

“Hey,” said Jubilee, “watch what you say about the Prof.” He looked at her. “It’s true, child. Look at yourselves. Xavier seeks out the powerful mutants, the ones who are most capable of taking care of themselves, ignoring those with lesser abilities. People like your friends Chill or Dog Pound are passed over.”'

Paige crossed her arms across her chest indignantly. “The professor can’t help every mutant individually, but he’s tried to help, build up organizations, get the word out.”

“Oh,” said Black, “he’s certainly ‘gotten the word out.’ Through the public antics of his X-Men, his X-Factor, and others, he’s fanned the flames of hate. Not in the way that, say,

Magneto has with his terrorist activities, but it’s a matter of degree, not kind. He has made life harder for all mutants, especially those without the power to care for themselves, those for which he will not take responsibility himself.” Angelo scowled, something his mutant skin made him exceptionally good at. There had to be some flaw in Black’s argument. He looked at the portrait again. “You say old Pig-back is one of your ‘little’ mutants, right?”

Black nodded. “His mutant abilities are minor and easily hidden. His rural upbringing made him an ideal vessel to safely pass on the so-called X-gene. We’d been watching him, without his knowledge of course, for years, even placed one of our people close to guard his safety. But then, despite our best efforts, he developed his obsession with becoming a so-called ‘super-hero.’ ”

Angelo found himself, for the first time, developing some -admiration for Razorback. “So, you’re saying he should have just stayed down on the farm, slopped hogs all his life, married his high-school sweetheart, and made lots of little X-babies?”

“Not in so many words, but—”

“Looks to me,” said Angelo, “like Mr. Razorback is a dude who can take care of himself, ‘big’ power or not. Seems like he’s just trying to do what he thinks is right, that maybe his dreams are a little big for the old farm, you know?” He pointed an accusative finger at Black. “So who are you to decide what he’s supposed to do with his life? Sounds to me, too, that you’re just as guilty of picking and choosing as anyone.”

Black looked uncomfortable. “I really didn’t come here to debate my life’s work. I came here because I care about your safety.”

Paige tapped her foot. “Or our genes ’ safety.’

“Is there a difference?”

“You can’t see it,” said Ev, who was looking out the window, “we sure can’t show it to you.”

“I came to try and convince you that this mission is a fool’s errand.”

Angelo chuckled sourly. “Stop with that sweet talk.”

“Your friends are lost to you. They’re being controlled, used to hunt other mutants. We’ve already lost one of our charges to them. I don’t want to lose you as well. At this point, I am willing to accept your vow that you will keep our existence secret, allow you to return to your school unmolested.” “My,” said Paige, icily, “what a generous offer.”

Black scowled. “It is much more magnanimous than you imagine. Historically, the Genogoths have maintained their secrecy at any cost. Any cost. I fear a dark time is coming, and I’m attempting to change with those times. The preservation of your genetic line is more important than anything, even our secrecy.”

Espeth looked desperate. “He means it. Maybe—” She chokcfl on her own words. “Maybe it would be better to leave them be. We’d only be making things worse, for you, for all mutants.”

Jono had been listening to the arguments quietly, but finally he stepped forward. “Espeth, bloody listen to yourself. Black says they’re being used to hunt other mutants, that they’ve already captured one. You think it will just stop there? You say they’ve already taken a mutant under your protection? You can’t protect one, what makes you think you can protect any of them.”

Paige nodded. “You know our buddy Recall. His ‘little’ power is to find things, people, near or far. We don’t know what the limits of his power are. I don’t think he knows himself. But if the bad-guys have harnessed that, then none of your ‘little’ mutants are safe, no matter how you hide them.” “I know those three,” said Ev. “If they can turn the ‘Mutant Musketeers’ against other mutants, then they can turn any mutant against any mutant. This could be just the trickle that starts the avalanche. It could make the Sentinels look like nothing.”

Jubilee popped another bubble. “What they said.”

Black said nothing, his skin more ashen than usual.

Espeth hung her head, chewing her lip. She shook her head sadly. “They’re right, Black. I’m sorry.” She stepped away from him, and stood with the rest.

Ev paced back to the window. “Uh-oh,” he said. “Black brought company.”

Black jumped off the stool. “What?”

“The parking lot down there is crawling with Genogoths.” “I didn’t authorize this,” said Black. “It must be Leather.” “Likely story,” said Angelo. Then he turned and nodded at Monet. “Good call on wearing the battle togs, by the way.” “You heard him,” called Paige. “Wear 'em if you got ’em.” “You, little man,” said Monet to Black, “are starting to annoy me.”    .

Sharpe removed the VR glasses and put them on the console. “Excellent simulation, Happersen. It almost redeems what happened earlier.” He massaged the bridge of his nose. Virtual reality always made the back of his eyes itch. His mood turned somber. “Don’t ever reverse my orders again. I may not have a uniform with stars on it any more, but don’t let that confuse you as to our relative positions here. We’re still soldiers, and these—” He pointed out through the glass at the two figures strapped into their chairs. “These subjects, they’re not people, they’re weapons. You don’t waste time wondering if a bullet is going to get a headache. Understood?”

Happersen nodded, then, after a moment, “Yes sirV’

Sharpe seemed marginally satisfied. “Now, we run this simulation again with the others. Then we go through the dossiers and find people closer to them and run it again. By the time we’re through, we’ll have them pitching their own grandmothers off a building without even blinking.”

“This,” said Black, looking out the hotel window, “was not supposed to happen.”

“Save it for your memoirs,” said Monet, who was helping Ev pile furniture in front of the doors.

“There’ll be people on the stairs and elevators,” said Espeth. “They may be in the halls already.”

“Well, duh,” said Ev, as he walked by carrying a dresser. “Does it look like we’re going out that way?”

Paige was leaning against the frame of the window, trying to see out without exposing herself. “There must be fifty of them that I can see,” she said, “but at least they don’t seem to be carrying guns.”

“Of course not,” said Black, indignantly.

She grunted. “Well, after one of your goons opened fire on Jono and I yesterday, I’m not going to take it for granted.” “What?” Black paced the length of the room. “That’s not possible.”

“Listen,” said Paige, “if I hadn’t been metaled up, I’d have a few holes for show-and-tell. I had some pretty impressive dents at the time though.”

“This,” said Black, “has gotten totally out of control. This is not what we do”

“Tell that,” said Jubilee, “to your buddies downstairs.” “What was it you were saying,” said Espeth, “about living with the consequences of your actions?”

Black scowled, motionless in the swarm of activity going on around him. “We’ll go out the window,” said Paige, “punch our way through to the Xabago, then improvise.”

“I can do like the amazing Spider-Boy,” said Angelo, demonstrating by “thwipping” his fingers out a few yards and then snapping them back again.

“Good,” replied Paige. “If M and Ev can lake down Jubilee and Jono, I’ll take care of myself.”

“I am not,” said Monet, “getting Jubilee cooties.”

“Then take Jono,” Paige snapped.

Espeth stepped forward. “What about me?”

“You’re not coming with us,” insisted Angelo.

She got in his face. “Face it, stretch, you need all the help you can get against that army.” She grabbed him by the waist. “So I guess I’m with you.”

Angelo groaned. “This is my worst nightmare.”

“Mine too,” she whispered in his ear.

“You sure you’re okay?” Jubilee had jumped on Ev’s back, like she was going for a pony ride. “Like, if you turn into metal or something, from this high up, you could crater really bad.”    “

“If you do,” said Monet, “I’m not digging you out.”

“Shut up,” said Paige, “and knock out the darned window.”

“The ’Goths have been holding back on you guys so far. This won’t be easy,” Espeth warned.

Angelo socked his fist into his other palm. “That’s okay, chica, ’cuz I think the homies and me are ready to cut loose too.”

“Wait,” said Black, trying to put himself in front of the window, “give me some time to work this out.”

“Too late, obsidian dude.” Monet pushed him aside and strong-armed the window. It shattered, and she kicked the frame clear of shards. She grabbed Jono by the hands. “Here we go,” she said, and swooped out the window, Jono suspended under her.

Jono was no sooner clear of the window than he started firing psi-bolts down into the parking lots, sending the Genogoths scattering for cover.

Ev whooped and dived out the window with Jubilee on his ' back.

Angelo stepped up to the window, stretched out the skin of his arm, and wrapped it around the top of a nearby light standard. He glanced over at Paige, who was busy ripping off her skin to reveal something smooth, red, and shiny underneath. “Hang on,” he said, “or not.” Then he and Espeth jumped out and swung down into the parking lot, bowling over a group of ’Goths.

Paige stood in the window-frame and looked down. More Genoths were running from all directions. The opening that Espeth and Angelo had opened was closing. They continued to fight valiantly as the mob closed in.

Paige stepped off into space, did a half roll, and landed on her back. There was a loud thump, like a hand-ball hitting the wall, and then she bounced twenty feet back into the air.

“Woo-hoo,” Angelo whooped as she arced over his head, adding to the confusion. “She’s rubber!”

Paige bounced several more times before a group of Genogoths managed to grab her and pull her down. She socked the nearest ’Goth on the jaw, sending him sprawling.

She grinned and hauled off on another one. They seemed shocked, and fell back as she flailed at them. Her grin widened. She didn’t know what they’d expected, but as anyone who’s ever played dodge-ball knows, rubber can hurt, and her solid-rubber fists were a lot harder than any ball.

Paige looked around. She couldn’t see Jubilee, but she could hear her fireworks exploding. There was an enormous moving pile of bodies that must have had either M or Ev under it. A group of ’Goths had managed to get the jump on Jono and were holding him face down in the gravel, but M (leaving, Ev, by elimination, as the bottom of the dogpile) was swooping down to the rescue.

Paige decked another ’Goth. One thing a house full of Kentuckian brothers had taught her, it was how to bareknuckle fight. The mob parted long enough for her to see Angelo. He had grabbed up a couple handfuls of parking lot gravel, wrapped each fingertip around a substantial chunk, and was using his extended hands like flails or bolos to drive back the mob.

Paige stumbled over a fallen Genogoth. It seemed like they were winning, but she suddenly realized they were no closer to the Xabago. The Genogoths were holding them back by sheer numbers, and more kept appearing.

She caught a glimpse of Black, standing in their window, yelling something, but nobody could hear over the roar of combat.

Then Monet swooped down in front of her. “Bad news,” she said. “Reinforcements coming.”

“Show me,” yelled Paige.

Monet grabbed her hands and lifted her above the crowd.

Paige looked at the road that connected the freeway interchange with Little Latveria. A line of black vehicles was starting to pull into the parking lot. She could see the beginning of it, but as she traced it over the overpass, down the ramp, and onto the freeway, she couldn’t see the end. She muttered a curse, also learned from her brothers.

At the lead of the vehicles was a black Volkswagen bus with some kind of speakers hastily lashed to the roof. Paige had just enough time to wonder what they were for, when the sound started. It was high, piercing, painfully loud. She grabbed her ears. So did everyone else, including the Genogoths.

The brawl came to an instant stop, as people grabbed their heads, doubled over with pain. Then the sound stopped.

The doors of the bus opened. An overweight hippie climbed out of the driver’s side, and a tall cowboy in black from the others. They both pulled off big “mouse ear” headphones.

The cowboy pulled a microphone on a cord from inside the van. “This here’s the cavalry,” his drawling voice boomed from the speakers. “Now break it up, or we’ll break it up for you.”    '

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Things change.

In short order, the Genogoths were running the hotel. The students of Xavier’s school were again their guests, in a new suite, this one without the broken window and with most of the furniture out in the middle of the floor, where it belonged.

Black, Leather, the Genogoth cowboy named Smokey Ashe, and a bunch of the elder Genogoths disappeared into a rented ballroom for a mysterious pow-wow that was still going on hours later.

' ■ Before all this could happen, of course, there had to be a cover story. Black and Paige had immediately gone to the manager’s office. Black had begun by waving wads of cash around seasoned with intense apologies for their little deception.

“We’re from Hollywood, baby. We didn’t want, like, to draw too much attention, you know? But we’re here to shoot an episode of Barbie the Dire Wraith Killer. You know it? Here,” he waved his hand at Paige, “meet Barbie. Give the man an autograph, darling.”

Ultimately his brush with “celebrity,” the offer to rent every vacant room in the hotel and all the meeting space at top rates, to repair the damage done by their over-enthusiastic stunt men, and to provide a generous gratuity in exchange for keeping their visit quiet, had combined to win the manager over.

Everyone seemed to be happy, except for Paige, who back at the suite complained, “Why did / have to be Barbie?”

“You’ve got to admit,” said Angelo, grinning, “that the resemblance is uncanny. If the light isn’t too good. And if you squint. And if you close one eye. And if you gouge the other eye out with a stick—”

Then, the hitting began. The cost of several feather pillows and a large tip for housekeeping were abruptly added to Black’s bill.

Hours passed, allowing time for long-hot-showers, naps, and small doses of gratuitous television viewing. A knock came at the door. It was Black and Espeth.

Jubilee ushered them in. Everyone gathered around to find out what was up.

“It’s done,” announced Black, “I am again firmly in control of the Genogoths.”

“What happened to the trouble guy,” asked Paige, “Leather or whatever?”

“He,” said Black, “and some of his followers, are being sent to a place where they can reconnect with the simple things and consider their errors and their true mission as Genogoths.”

'Monet looked at him. “Jimmy Hof fa was one of you, wasn’t he?”

Jubilee shook her head in puzzlement. “Jimmy WhofaT “What,” complained Angelo, “no hot irons? No guillotines? No iron maidens? No being drawn-and-quartered by four black Clydesdales? Man, you guys are a major disappointment.”

“We’re civilized, Mr. Epsinosa. We hold ourselves to higher standards, and I admit—mistakes have been made.” Angelo made a buzzing noise. “I’ll take ‘Understatements’ for a thousand, Alex.”

“I acknowledge,” he continued, “that this situation has spi-raled out of control, and that this was in part our fault. I also acknowledge that our long policy of passive protection of mutants may be inappropriate in this case. Clearly Sharpe’s hound program represents a special danger to the mutants we seek to protect, and something must be done.”

“Then,” said Paige, hopefully, “you agree that Chill, Recall and Pound have to be rescued.”

Black nodded grudgingly. “And this program has to be stopped if that’s even possible at this point. It isn’t going to be easy, but we’re prepared to put every resource at our disposal on the effort.”

“Sweet,” said Ev, “when do we get started?”

“I’ve put out the call, and every available Genogoth is already converging on the area. Rovers are scouting for a staging area near Sharpe’s base and gathering intelligence on how we can approach it. Unfortunately, I can’t spare anyone to escort you back to Massachusetts, but I trust you can find your own way.”

Ev waved his hand. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Can’t do that, Blackjack. Uh-uh.”

“Absolutely not,” said Paige.

Jono stepped forward. “We didn’t fight our way across six states and turn the Xabago into a bloody pretzel just so we could turn around and drive home before the action starts.”

' “I’m afraid,” said Black, “that isn’t open to discussion. This situation has placed too many mutants, including yourselves, at risk already. It’s intolerable. You will return home and we will see this matter through.”

“Look, Black,” Jono loomed over him, “we’re people, not your bleeding gene-banks-on-the-hoof. You don’t own us, and you don’t tell us what to do. We’re going, and we don’t need your permission.”

Black didn’t seem intimidated. “Need I remind you that you still don’t know the location of the hidden installation?” Jono glanced at Espeth.

She looked pained. “Look,” she said, “I advocated your side of things to the Junta, and I got them to agree to the rescue. That’s what you wanted, what we wanted, isn’t it? They’d never have changed their minds without what you’ve done.” Her eyes were almost desperate. “I’ll get them out, I swear it.”

Jono nodded. “Jubilee?”

Jubilee stepped forward, a big grin on her face. “Sorry, Blackhead, but I just got a phone call I’ve been waiting on. We’ve got, like, resources of our own, you know? So, nyah!”

“To be more exact,” said Paige, “we have a list of abandoned government installations that our buddy Sharpe was reportedly checking out before this whole project went down. Three of them are in North Carolina. Shouldn’t take us long to check ’em out. Heck, one-third chance we’ll be right the first time.”

Angelo tried to look confused. “But, how will we ever know which one? Oh!” He brightened. “That’s right! It’ll be the one swarming with Genogoths!”

Black was fuming. “Very well, it appears there’s nothing I can do to stop you from joining our effort. But we’ll do this our way, and you’ll join our operation. Agreed?”

Jono crossed his arms in front of him. “Fair enough. No sense tripping over each other’s feet.”

“And you,” he glared at Espeth, “are responsible for these—people. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an assault to plan.” He let himself out of the room.

Espeth grinned weakly. “Well,” she said, “here we are, together again.”

Sharpe was annoyed as he walked into the office of Sarah Namik, the Foxhole’s security officer. He didn’t bother to sit down, standing in the open doorway of the tiny, rock-walled space. “I don’t like being summoned by my subordinates, Namik, especially without explanation. We’re in the middle of a very intense series of capture simulations with the Hounds, and we’re evaluating the new subject for conversion as well. Fma busy man. If you have information of importance, you can bring it to me.”

She glanced up from the trio of computer display panels on her desk. “I’m a busy woman, too, Sharpe. Collecting data is my job, and the data all comes here, not to wherever you happen to be. Now, do you want to know what I’ve found, or not?”

He frowned, but grudgingly nodded.

“One of my jobs is to monitor news and intelligence sources from around the region looking for possible mutant activity or potential threats to the installation. I may have found both.”

“What? Where?”

“Fortunately, some distance away, a tourist Mecca called ‘Little Latveria,’ near the South Carolina border. Official reports are that there was disturbance there yesterday caused by a crew shooting a television show. Stunt people, pyrotechnics, and monster costumes were supposedly involved.’^ Sharpe’s eyes widened. “Mutants?”

“I have an eyewitness report of a woman jumping out of a window onto asphalt and bouncing thirty feet into the air. That’s quite a little ‘stunt.’ So, just to be sure, I sent out a helicopter to fly over the area with mutant detection equipment.” “And found—?”

“Nothing. However, there are indications that some sort of jamniihg device, like the one at Muddy Gap, may have been in use. It’s unfortunate that the jammer there self-destructed before we could examine it. We might be able to develop a counter-measure.” She leaned back in her chair. “The implications are alarming though. We may have multiple mutants operating in the region under some kind of detection cloak. Also, a large number of strangely dressed individuals were seen there as well. I have no reason to believe that they were mutants, but somebody has been setting up these jamming devices to protect mutants.”

Sharpe nodded. “Somebody organized, with the technical resources to pull something like this off. Somebody whose agenda would put them into direct conflict with our own. In one of our monitoring tapes, the subjects mentioned the possibility of rescue. We dismissed it, but—”

“I want to up the alert level, send out regular armed patrols.”

Sharpe shook his head. “That will only make us more visible. It’s time to run silent, run deep. No aircraft are to launch without my authorization. All personnel are confined to base until further notice. No outside patrols or maintenance crews. We have the best automated defenses money can buy and we’re burrowed into solid rock.” He chuckled. “If they can find us,” he said, “let them come.”

After a welcome, overnight stay in the Doomstad hotel, Generation X loaded up the Xabago and, with Espeth aboard, limped their way to the Genogoths’ staging area, an abandoned state maintenance yard somewhere west of Greenville.

By the time they pulled in, it was late afternoon, and the Genogoths were already well settled. The crushed-stone yards were full of vehicles ranging in size from Volkswagen Beetles to semi-trucks, tents were set up, and camp fires were burning.

A remarkable metamorphosis had taken place as well. Now it was rare to see the leathers, nose rings, and black turtlenecks they’d come to expect from the Genogoths. Black was still the color of the day, but now it was commando black, dark fatigues, combat boots, and web belts with hunting knives. The mood in the camp was efficient and businesslike.

They all piled out of their battered motorhome and took a stroll around the compound.

“These people,” said Paige, clearly impressed, “are loaded for bear.”

Ev nodded toward the main gate, where another caravan of vehicles were pulling in. “I thought there were lots of them at Little Latveria. They just keep coming.”

“Black is bringing in everyone he can,” explained Espeth. “We have people coming from back home in Washington, California, Mexico, Canada, even a few from Europe and South America. Whoever could get here quick.”

Angelo shook his head. “All these people, humans, out to protect mutants. I should be getting all Hallmark-warm-and-fuzzy-chick-flick-weepy. Instead, it just makes my skin crawl, and that’s saying a lot in my case.”

“Don’t be so quick to judge,” said Jono. “They mean well, even if we don’t agree with everything they stand for. Look at ’em. These blokes look ready to lay it all on the line for our buds.”

“They are,” said Espeth. “They’re ready to die for the cause if need be.”

“Let’s hope that won’t be necessary,” said Paige. ^s‘I’d hate to be beholdein.”

Near the center of the compound they came upon Leather’s confiscated van, now being used as a command post, and parked next to it, the Volkswagen van that had led the rescue charge at Little Latveria. Unlike most of the other Genogoths, its driver still wore his traditional garb. He sat at a folding table, staring through a magnifier at some tiny electronic device. He looked up as they approached and nodded.

“Guys,” said Espeth, “this is Styx. He’s cool.”

“Cool,” said Styx, “definitely cool. It’s a groove since we didn’t get introduced.”

Joho reached out and gave him a shake. “Thanks for coming to the rescue, yesterday. It was turning ugly.”

“My pleasure,” he said. He glanced over at Ev, who reached out to touch the support post in the middle of the bus’s windshield.

Ev grinned at him. “Phat Type 2, split-window, dude.” He glanced around at the little row of oblong portholes high on the sides. “Twenty-one windows. Definitely phat.”

“Ah,” said Styx, “a connoisseur. Another day, I’d give you a walk-around and show you what’s under the deck. No time right now though. Bummer. Glad you guys came by though. Saves me looking for you.” He picked up something about the size and shape of an aspirin pill, made of flesh-colored plastic. “Need to give each one of you guys one of these.”

Jubilee bent closer to examine it, puzzled.

“You put it in your ear,” he demonstrated. “It’s a radical little radio-com I designed. Wear it, and you’re plugged-in, tuned-in, tumed-on, and freaked out.” He handed each of them one. “Espeth will show you how to use them,” he said. “Then it’s official. Welcome to the Genogoth army!”

Sharpe lowered the VR glasses for a check, They lacked good intelligence on the interior of the Pacific University M.O.N.S.T.E.R. house, so the entire simulation was set outside. Still, it seemed effective enough. Mutants, dozens of them, scrambled around in terror as the three armored figures and their pack of cyberhounds circled, containing them like a flock of sheep.

One by one they were taken down, lassoed or netted by the new capture-weapons in the Hounds’ gauntlets. Immobilized, tagged, and put aside for pick-up. It was a model of efficiency, and it was going off without a hitch.

“Bloodhound,” Sharpe said into his headset mike, “torch the building.”

The Hound in red broke from the format and marched closer to the front of the house. He held up his right arm, and there was a whir and a click as the small rotary grenade , launcher on his wrist locked in an incendiary round. He aimed at a big window to the right of the front door. There was a muffled whoof the clattering of shattered glass, and then an explosion of flames behind the curtains. Bloodhound turned back to the job of rounding up mutants. As the flames spread, rapidly enveloping the building, he never looked back.

Sharpe removed the glasses and set them on the console. He’d seen enough. He looked over at Happersen and grinned. “Life is good.”

Generation X had changed into their fighting togs before accompanying Espeth on the scouting mission. She had scowled her disapproval when she’d first seen them. “I really should scare you up something black,” she said. “The dark red tights are okay, but all that yellow sticks out in the moonlight like a beacon.”

Angelo had dismissed her concerns. “Get over it, chica. You said yourself, Black doesn’t want us going anywhere near the place, just close enough to take a look.”

They all piled into a borrowed black (of course) Humvee and headed into the low, tree-covered, mountains. Their destination was not the base, but a nearby peak where they could get a look at it, and where other Genogoth patrols were already searching for a place to install a command post.

They waited for moonrise, then used its light, with some help from a night-vision scope, to make it up logging roads to the top. It was something of a disappointment. “It just looks like another mountain,” Angelo muttered. “I wouldn’t know there was anything there, if you hadn’t told me.” His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “This isn’t some wacko scheme to get us out of the way while Black hits the real base, is it?”

Espeth frowned. “Angelo, no! Here.” She handed him the night-vision binoculars. She pointed him down the slope. “See that? That’s the only direct access road. It winds up to a fortified tunnel entrance about five hundred feet below the summit. You can just see the top of the portal, that big concrete thing. The entrance road will be monitored, so no way in there. We’ll take logging roads in from other directions, then come in overland on foot.”

Angelo lowered the binoculars. “Where’s the rest of it?” “Underground, mostly, dug into the rock. There are some air shafts scattered around the upper slopes, what look like defensive installations of some kind, and a big camouflaged door that may be where they keep their helicopters and maybe other aircraft. We’re hoping there are some weak spots up there that we can exploit.”

Angelo looked at her, incredulously. “Hope? You don’t know how you’re going to get in?”

Espeth looked doubtful. “I know it looks like a hard egg,” she said, “but tomorrow night we have to find a way to crack it.”

The first movements of the attack started before dawn, as one by one the vehicles began to pack up and roll out of the staging area and move to forward positions closer to the Hound base. The movements would be spread out through the day, and the vehicles would take different routes, so as to avoid attracting the attention that a convoy would.

The Xabago left about noon. They might have departed earlier, except that Jono had trouble getting it started, and several hours of tinkering and cursing under the hood were necessary to get it operational.

' * Jono listened sadly to the motor once they finally got it cranked. “I tell you, this banger has about had it. It’s gone all duff on us.”

“Translation,” cracked Angelo, “we’ll be lucky to make it to Smash Mountain, much less back here, much less back to the school.”

“Well,” said Paige, “if it breaks down there, at least it’ll make it harder for Black to get rid of us.”

Jubilee grinned. “We could always have Monet push us home.”

Monet looked at her askance. “If any biological spare parts could be of use, Fd be glad to donate Jubilee’s.”

Angelo shook his head sadly. “It’s past that. I hope Leather-guy left his gun. We may have to shoot this thing.”

Namik leaned forward on her desk and turned one of her desk screens around to show Sharpe. It was a complex line graph, the meaning of which wasn’t obvious to “Him.” “The submarine metaphors you used earlier,” she explained, “are entirely appropriate. The automated detection network installed in the woods around the mountain is quite good, but I’ve never been

one to leave well-enough alone, and God knows there isn’t much else to do here. I’ve done some reading about submarines and passive sonar, and it gave me an idea. A few months ago, I had directional microphones installed on some of our exterior fixtures directed into the lowlands at the base of the mountain. It was cheap, didn’t involve putting hardware outside the inner perimeter, and I could bootleg capacity on some of the research computers to automate the monitoring.”

“You’re saying,” said Sharpe, “that you can hear someone out there?”

She shook her head. “Not exactly. I’m fairly certain that we have people moving around down there on foot. There have to be vehicles out there somewhere, but they’re keeping them at a distance. So far, we haven’t definitively heard anyone.”

Sharpe frowned, “But you said—”

“Let me explain. After a few weeks of recording data on the mikes, I was able to develop certain patterns in the natural sounds. When disturbed, some animals flee, make loud sounds, or both. Others become very quiet and try to hide. The passage of a human through the forest, even one moving very quietly, leaves a ‘fingerprint’ in the natural sounds.” She tapped a fingernail on the screen displaying the graph. “I was able to verify this by monitoring the movement of our own patrols and technicians, as well as the occasional hiker or hunter who strayed into our area.” She pursed her lips and took a deep breath. “There is a sizable force, on foot, surrounding the Foxhole. I think we can safely assume they’re hostile. If I could send out a helicopter or an ATV patrol, I could verify it.”

A complex wave of emotion crossed Sharpe’s face. He seemed almost pleased. “They’ve come,” he said. “I knew they would. They always come. Last time they caught me unawares, unprepared. Thanks to your excellent work, Namik, that won’t happen this time. Last time it cost me, dearly.” The comers of his mouth curled up into a slow smile. “But this time I’m ready. This time, they’ll pay.” He looked back at her. “No, my orders stand. We don’t provoke them, we don’t show our hand. Nothing short of an armored assault could dig us out of these tunnels. Let them come, and once they’re here, this whole mountain will blow up in their faces.”

Sharpe turned and marched off down the hall.

Namik returned her screen to its regular position. She would continue to follow Sharpe’s orders, running drills on the security personnel, verifying that all the automatic defenses were in full readiness, and waiting for the attack that now seemed inevitable.

But she would also have another agenda, one that served other masters, the men and women who had assigned Sharpe and the survivors of Project Homegrown to this isolated outpost. Sharpe’s mental stability had been in question for some time. Namik had been sent here as insurance, a plant to collect what data could be salvaged if the worst happened, and most importantly, to maintain full deniability. If necessary, Sharpe’s Hounds, this installation, and everyone in it, would be destroyed, and every trace of official sanction erased. Sharpe would be yet another madman in a hidden lair, working toward some ill-defined diabolical goals. Nobody would suspect a rogue government agency. It had happened often enough before.

The mechanisms were already in place, as fundamental to the construction of Foxhole as the air-conditioning or the plumbing. Namik had only to set them in motion.

Perhaps soon.

As the Xabago approached the area of the hidden installation, the radio earpieces they wore came to life. Espeth told them that the units were low power, short range, scrambled, and operated on frequencies adjacent to those used by common consumer-electronic devices. Even if someone did pick up the signals, they’d probably be mistaken for the garbled transmissions from someone’s malfunctioning cordless phone.

The Genogoths were nothing if not organized. A dispatcher routed them to a roadside parking area just off the main highway and offered to send a vehicle to shuttle them into the forward staging area. They declined, and asked for directions to Black’s command post. Then, in three trips, Monet and Ev ferried them in by air.

The command post was set up in a rocky notch facing out on the installation. Rope handrails, and camouflage netting had been placed over the exposed end of the notch during the night, providing a natural, and invisible, location to look directly down on the site. Lookouts with binoculars and spotter scopes were already stationed there.

Ten yards or so back from this was the command center, a cluster of folding tables and free-standing equipment. Styx, Smokey Ashe, and several other Genogoths they didn’t recognize, were operating communications equipment, consulting computers, or checking maps.

Black was there, leaning over a table on which he had

- spread a large topological map of the area. Jono, Espeth, and Paige went over to talk with him.

“I wish these maps were trustworthy,” he said to himself as much as them. “This has been a top-secret installation since at least the mid-60s, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the U.S. Geological Survey maps have been doctored. Most of the available satellite photos conveniently have gaps in this area. We don’t even know how much of the terrain we see out there is natural. It looks pristine from a distance, but—”

“So,” interrupted Jono, “what would you like us to do? Monet and Ev could fly down to scout for you, or maybe even get high enough to shoot some aerial photos for you.”

Black looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “What I’d like for you to do is stay here while my people make the assault on this Tloundbase.’ After the situation is contained, perhaps we can bring you in to help mop things up.”

Paige’s mouth fell open. “What? You said we’d be part of your operation.”

“You are. You and your friends are part of the reserve force. But I’m not about to put mutants in jeopardy on the front lines of such a potentially dangerous operation.”

“Bloody hell!” Jono glared at him. “We told you, Black, that we aren’t your bleeding livestock to push around.”

“Young man,” he said, careful to keep his voice level. “This is a large and carefully coordinated operation. Even if you were not mutants, I wouldn’t trust its success to a handful of untrained children.”

That was too much for Jono, who lunged forward. Only Paige’s intervention prevented a more personal confrontation. She stood in front of him, holding his shoulders, and gently pushed him back. “Listen, Jono, maybe he’s right. Not about us, but about what we should be doing here. We don’t know these guys, and they don’t know us. We’d just end up getting in each other’s way.”

His brow wrinkled as he considered her words, but he didn’t say anything.

“In any case,” she continued, “if they don’t want us there, then the worst thing we can do for our friends is to bull our way into the operation,”

“Espeth,” Black said. “Your situation is different on several counts, and it would seem that you have some need to redeem yourself among the Genogoths.” He pointed at the map. “We could use you in the first wave up the near flank.”

She grinned and nodded. “I’m so there.” Then she turned to Jono, her expression apologetic. “Sorry, Jono, I know you and your ‘mates’ would like to be there too. But I’m doing this for our friends. I’ll be fighting for all of you.”

“Yeah,” he said, “whatever.”

After Espeth departed for the front lines, the Generation Xers gathered on a rock outcropping overlooking the command area. The overall mood had the character of a wake.

“I am so bummed out,” said Jubilee. “I don’t like missing out on the fun.”

“Doesn’t look like fun,” said Jono, who perched on a rock facing away from the others, his knees drawn up in front of him. “It looks like war to me. These blokes look good, but they still aren’t carrying guns. I’ve got a bad feeling about it.”

Paige looked at him. “But—?”

“But, I’d rather be down there too. And I’m worried about Espeth. She’s like on to try n’ prove something, do something bloody stupid. Black is like, ‘hey, we need some cannon-fodder,’ and she’s right at the front of the queue with her hand up.”

Paige’s face was a mask, and she became very quiet.

“Hey, Jono, don’t sweat it,” said Jubilee. “She’s a survivor. I mean, none of us have killed her yet, and what are the odds of that?”

“Yeah.” Angelo laughed. “Nobody survives the ‘wrath of Monet.’ ”

Monet sat off to one side, inspecting her nails. “I like her. She’s interesting. It’s the rest of you that bore me to tears. I would like to break something right now though. That, or go back to the hotel. I never did get to try the Jacuzzi-tub.”

“Uh-huh,” said Angelo dryly. “Thanks for sharing.”

Styx and Smokey Ashe wandered over. Smokey tipped his hat to the girls. “Hear tell that Black told you young’uns to hold back with the reserves. Just came to express my sympathies.”

“What’s it to you?” Jubilee snapped.

“Black’s made me the new field commander for this little rodeo. Puts me a little closer to the action than you when the excitement starts, but me, I’d just as soon be the first one up the hill. Heard you got some friends in there. Well, I got me one too. Feller name of Catfish. Hope you can meet him when this is all over.”

Jubilee’s mouth contracted to a tight pucker, and she stared seriously down at her feet. “Didn’t know,” she said.

“I know it’s hard for you young’uns, that you’re riled at Black, but it’d be a great favor to me, my buddy Catfish, and to your three friends, if you’d do what he says and stay here. I’d feel a right bit better knowing you were watching our backs when we go up that hill.”

They all reluctantly agreed.

Smokey tipped his hat again. “I got to get down with the troops. Sun will be down soon, and we hit ’em when the moon comes up.”

He turned and left. Styx grinned, as though he’d suddenly materialized on the spot. “Listen,” he said, “I get the feeling that, sooner or later, you dudes are going to be going down there. I want you to be on the lookout for any of this stuff.” He pulled out a handful of six-inch sections of cable, in various sizes and colors and fanned them out for inspection. “You see any, call me in a hurry.”

Ev inspected it closely. “What is it? Are we going to steal their cable TV?”    '' “

Styx grinned. “Close. This is—*’

“Optical fiber,” said Monet, before he could finish. “Low-loss, full-spectrum, ultra-wide data-bandwidth, mil-spec/ S.H.LE.L.D.-spec.” Everyone looked at her and she shrugged. “Sometimes I read Aviation Week at the library. It’s more interesting than Vibe.”

“So,” continued Ev, “what do you want with this stuff?” “I’m a hacker,” he said, “but every wire coming out of this place is shut down tight. Find me a wire into the place, and you never know what might happen.”

Smokey Ashe lay on his belly watching the slow movements of the heavily camouflaged Genogoth commandos on the hillside above. They climbed carefully over where the tree-covered mountainside was broken by open rock. He waited until they had moved out of sight over the next rise before moving forward a few yards himself.

Something with too many legs had slipped inside his shirt and was now crawling across his bare back. He ignored it. In his ear, he could hear whispered radio traffic as the advance troops coordinated their work. Occasionally he would whisper a command or bit of encouragement, but mostly, they knew their jobs. Good thing, he thought, given that he hadn’t commanded a major field operation in nearly two decades. He hoped Black’s confidence in him wasn’t misplaced.

The widely distributed force moved up the slope an inch at a time. A massive frontal assault on an installation like this would never work. Even a direct hit with a nuke might not take out the lower levels.

Instead, they had mapped out the location of the ventilator shafts, and fed down hoses connected to nausea-gas bombs. As a nuclear-hardened installation, the ventilators would be designed to slam shut at the slightest sign of contamination, but the crush-proof hoses ran all the way to the bottom of the shaft, and would block any shutters or louvers slightly open, allowing a passage for the compressed gas.

If the Genogoths couldn’t open the Hound base’s doors from the outside, the natural thing to do was to get occupants to unlock them from the inside. Most of his people were stationed around the big hangar door. As the largest, highest, and best hidden opening in the installation, it was the logical door to open in order to expel the noxious gas. The timers on the bombs were set to go off at four a.m. The anti-mutant forces inside were in for a literal rude awakening.

Then he heard Espeth’s whispered voice in his ear. “Smokey, I just found some kind of seam in this rock outcropping my group is just passing. It seems artificial, 1 think we may have missed some—” Then a moment of silence. Suddenly her voice was loud, even yelling. “Darwin’s name!” Then things got worse.

“It’s quite clever,” said Namik to Sharpe. “Pressure-forced gas released deep in the system, bypassing all our safety systems. It might have worked too, if I hadn’t had enough warning to shut down the ventilators well before they got there. They have their hoses at what they think are the bottoms of the shafts. Actually they’re stopped at the closure of the number one safety louvers. We’re on internal oxygen now.”

Sharpe nodded. “Which gives us about a week before we have to worry about that particular problem. I don’t think we’ll need near that long.”

Namik’s hand hovered over a switch on her defensive panel. It was labeled automated defense turret master-safety, and below that there were three switch positions, standby, auto, and active. The switch was set at standby.

Sharpe watched the screen. Their camouflage was good. Even with the infrared cameras, he could barely see the figures crawling up the mountain. But he could see them. And if he could see them, so could the turrets.

Namik looked at him. “Now?”

He nodded. “Do it.”

She pushed the switch under her hand to active.

Espeth lay stretched out on a rock shelf, her fingers forced into the narrow gap at the base of the rock outcropping, trying to determine how deep it was, and if it was definitely as artificial as it seemed. It would be an embarrassment if it just turned out to be some natural cleft.

A jagged rock edge cut into her stomach. She was glad _vshe'd left the belly ring back at camp. If the piercing closed up, it would be the least of her problems. She tasted chalky' rock dust on her lips and some of it stung her left eye. She pushed her fingers deeper.

Suddenly the rock under her body began to vibrate, and the cleft she’d been probing parted with a snap and a high-pitched whine. Her hands slipped into empty space, then touched smooth, oiled, moving metal.

She said something loud and unintended, she didn’t know what. Then rolled back out of the way. She could see the whole outcropping rising up in the moonlight, like a sprouting mushroom, and under it something large and moving, something that rotated toward her. She saw the twin gun barrels, black against the sky just before the flash blinded her.

Black stood in the lookout at the end of the notch. Even with the night vision scope there wasn’t much to see. That should change once the gas grenades went off.

He heard someone walk up beside him. It was the English lad, Starsmore. “I trust your friends are getting some rest?”

“Most of ’em,” he said, his odd telepathic voice in Black’s mind. “I couldn’t sleep though, not with Espeth down there. Not even if this bloody operation is—Well, I’ve watched more exciting paint dry. Plus, I figured you’d like to know we were being good little muties and staying out of trouble.”

Black sighed. “It’s not like that. I wish I could make you understand.”

They both heard Espeth’s cry of alarm in their ear-set radios. Then the muzzle flashes started, in a belt around the mountain, about half-way up the slope, and behind most of the Genogoth forces, followed by dancing lines of tracer bullets, and the rattling roar of machine guns.

“Bloody hell!” Jono stared out into the night, trying to figure out what was happening.

He could hear the frantic calls on the radio, cries of the wounded, and requests for reinforcements. The Genogoths were pinned down and on the verge of being eaten alive. “Be careful,” he muttered to himself, “what you bleeding ask for.”

Espeth lay on her back, colored balls and streaks like one of Jubilee’s light shows still clouding her vision. She could see the gun turret above her transversing rapidly and firing in response to any movement or sound. She lay, almost literally, in its shadow, too close for the guns to tilt down and lock on her, a tiny umbrella of safety in a sea of hellish fire. She was fine, so long as she didn’t rise from the ground or move more than a few yards from her current position. Violate either of those two conditions however, and the guns would cut her in half in a millisecond.

Jono moved through the group, his carefully focused telepathic voice rousing his fellow Generation Xers without alerting anyone else in the area. Several of them, including Paige and Monet, hadn't been as asleep as he’d thought.

He explained, once they were all up, “The whole lot of them got ambushed by some kind of machine-gun turrets. There are wounded. Espeth—Well, she was the first one to sound the alarm. I don’t know what happened to her.”

Jubilee rubbed her eyes. “Did old Blackhead sign off on this?”    '

“What he don’t bloody know,” said Jono, “won’t hurt him. Why give him a chance to say ‘no’?”

“Good point,” said Jubilee.

“Do I get to break something now?” asked Monet.

“Ooooh, yeah,” said Angelo, “I think you do.”

Paige was pacing, in furious thought. “From what you’ve said, they’re pinned down up there. We need to punch a hole in those defenses so they have a line of retreat.”

Jono stepped forward. “I can blast them from a distance.” Paige frowned. “That makes sense, but using your power and keeping your head down is an oxymoron. Don’t get anything else blown off.”

“Point taken, luv.”

“I can fly him up,” said Monet.

" Paige nodded. “Ev can take one more up. I could do something bullet-proof.”

Jono’s eyes narrowed. “These are some pretty big bullets.” “I’ll go,” said Jubilee.

Angelo looked incredulous. “What? You’ll get killed.”

“No more than Jono will! This is just like a walk through the old Danger Room for me. I can handle it. And I’ll keep those turrets busy while the fly-guys shuttle the rest of you in.”

Paige studied Jubilee’s eyes for any sign of doubt. “Take her, Ev. Just don’t get shot on the way up, even if it means she has to climb the last bit herself.”

“I can handle it,” said Jubilee, confidently.

“I hope so,” said Paige.

Smokey wiped a streak of blood off his face. A near-miss had shattered a rock near his head, showering him with sharp fragments. He was grateful none of them had hit him in the eye. Unlike most of his troops, he was below the line of fire. If he was careful, he might be able to retreat down the slope. If he wanted to.

He cleared his throat and spit. He could see the flashes from turrets on either side of him. Ahead, a split between some rocks seemed to offer cover. He started to climb.

More flashes. He threw himself down before realizing that these were not tracers or muzzle flashes, but dancing ribbons and spheres of colored lights that swarmed up the hillside like a flock of fairies. The turrets all turned, locking on the rapidly moving lights, firing again and again. The bullets passed through the lights harmlessly.

He was still puzzling it out when something large and dark whooshed over his head, like an enormous owl swooping down on a field mouse. Then it was gone, and he was left to wonder if this was a good time to start being superstitious.

Monet chopped Jono off just below a ridge line, then turned back to go pick up Paige. Jono could see the flashes of the tur-rets'just above him. He climbed up the rocks, loose pebbles slipping under his boots as he climbed. Near the top, he paused, popped his head up for a quick peek, then back down again.

A moment later, a line of bullets ricocheted off the rocks just above him. He would have whistled if he’d been so equipped. He’d just caught a glimpse of the turret, a metal tower mounted with twin machine guns, a fake boulder sitting on top like a party hat, and it had still had time to lock on and take a shot at him.

He was guessing, guessing, that a full-force TK blast would disable the turret. Trouble was, he’d have only one chance at it, and he’d have to be fast. There’d be no time to duck if he missed, or if he didn’t have enough juice. “Don’t think,” he coached himself, “just do it. Use the bloody force, Luke.” Jono tugged down the wrappings over his face and chest. Flickering orange light from the energy that filled his body danced on the rock face. “Great,” he said, “I'm a blinking illuminated target. Oh, well.”

He braced his feet so he could pop-up like a Jack-in-the-box, silently counted to three, and then jumped.

Loud things happened.

Jubilee moved up the slope gesturing like a puppeteer operating marionettes. In fact, what she was doing wasn’t much different. The plasma constructs she controlled drew the fire from the nearby turrets. Every time a gun would swing toward her, she would draw it away with one of her little targets.

It was good for a laugh, but it was getting old, and she was getting tired of concentrating so hard. Keeping this many objects under such control was taking a lot out of her.

Not to say that she was otherwise straining her abilities. Fact was, Jubilee’s powers scared her. A lot. She’d once blown up an entire house, and since then she’d usually kept her plasma projections at the level of fireworks. But there were times when you just had to cut loose.

She crossed her arms over her head, left hand pointed right, right hand pointed left. She bit her lip until she tasted blood. It wasn’t the bullets that scared her.

A blast of plasma shot from each hand like a rocket, and they lanced toward the two nearest turrets.

Then the world seemed to explode.

Espeth climbed as far under the turret as she could. She knew that, if it retracted right now, she’d be squashed like an insect, but she had to find a weakness, some way of disabling the turret. It was dark down there, the turret and rock shell above blocking most of the moonlight. She tried to puzzle things out by the light of the strobe-like flashes, by touch without getting her fingers caught in the constantly moving mechanism.

Then she heard a shout. She rolled over in time to see someone running across the open ground toward her, saw' the turret spin above her head, was deafened by the report as the running figure was cut down, fell and lay still.

Espeth’s mouth was open in an unvoiced scream. Who?

The turret swung away, tracking for another target.

And the figure was up and sprinting toward her. The guns came round again. The figure ducked, the guns passing over his—no—her head.

She ducked, rolled into the recess under the turret next to Espeth. Espeth reached out to touch a hand, shockingly cold and metallic.

“Well, Espeth, darlin’,” said Paige, “fancy meeting you here.”

Smokey ducked behind a tree. Ahead of him he could see an open space, and in the middle of it, what looked like a girl, doing what almost looked like some kind of dance. It took a moment to register. Those mutant kids. Did Black actually send them in ?

Then the girl swung her arms and some instinct told him to cover his eyes. For a split second he saw the bones in his fingers, black outlines in red. When he uncovered his face, the two closest turrets were smoking ruins. He’d lost sight of the girl though. Then, to his right, another explosion, orange, not as bright, but with a force that he felt deep in his chest. Another turret fell silent.

No time to look for the girl now. “All forces,” he said to the radio, “we got breaks in the defenses on the west and northwest quadrants of the mountain. Fall back and regroup outside the fire zone. I repeat, fall back and regroup!”

Sharpe watched the red lights appear on the defense console. Namik gave him a look of concern.

Sharpe shook his head. “They’re just the outer defenses. They’re no closer to getting inside than they were two hours ago.”

“Do you want me to send out the defense drones?”

“Save them,” he smiled slightly, “there are mutants out there. This is just the opportunity I’ve been looking for to play my aces in the hole.”

Ev didn’t have as much confidence in his synched invulnerability as Monet did in hers, but he found that if he flew fast, low, and erratically enough, the turrets couldn’t quite get a lock on him. The near misses were getting unnerving though, and it was a great relief to fly into the zone cleared by the two exploding turrets. Around him. Genogoth commandos were scurrying down the mountain.

One, a muscular woman with close-cropped hair stopped and put a hand on his shoulder. “Get yourself to safety. Please.”

He shrugged her hand off and proceeded to climb up the slope. Those were Jubilee’s plasma balls. She had to be around here somewhere.

Something moved in a clump of bushes to his right. “Ev,” a voice said weakly. “Synch?”

“Jubilee?” He followed the voice. She was curled on her side in the bushes. He reached to help her up, and she threw her arms around him. She was trembling.

'“I think I did good, Ev.”

He nodded. “You did good.” He realized that he was supporting most of her weight.

“Could you take me out of here, Ev? Someplace where I can blow-chunks in peace?”

Paige hammered on the turret’s mechanisms with her metal fists, but other than making a sound like an anvil concert, it didn’t seem to be doing any good. “I could pound on this thing a week before doing any damage,” she grumbled.

Espeth pointed over at the next turret. “Notice how that one has a clear shot of us, but hasn’t taken it? I think they’re programmed not to shoot each other.”

Paige squinted up at the moving gun barrels. “I wonder how much force it would take to redirect the aim?” She reached up and grabbed the barrels as they swung by. The barrels were nearly red hot, but she barely noticed it through her metal skin. She felt the guns elevate to avoid pointing at the next turret, tried to pull them down. They resisted, moved a little, then lifted her weight off the ground. She grunted and dropped free.

She looked at Espeth. “How much do you weigh?”

“What

“Never mind. Let’s just hope it’s enough. Grab around my waist, and hold on for all you’re worth.”

The gun swung back in the other direction, tracers shooting out. Espeth grabbed her. Paige grabbed the guns. Felt them resist. Felt her body lifting. Something inside the mechanism slipped. She dropped. The next turret was blasted full of holes, something inside caused a small explosion, and the guns fell dead.

Paige kicked her feet in delight. “Whoo-hoo!” She rolled. There was another turret to the north. “Crawl over this way,” she said to Espeth, “we’ll do it again.”

“A couple yards of extra skin,” complained Angelo, as he ducked behind a boulder. “More area to put holes in is what it is'.”

Then there was a sound like a mallet striking metal. The whir of the turret’s mechanism became labored, then turned into a screech. Something snapped, and the shooting stopped.

Angelo cautiously poked his head over the rock. Monet stood in front of the turret, one of the two twisted gun barrels still in her hand. She let go of it, and the barrels swung down to the limit of their travel with a clang. She spun and did a spinning side-kick, smashing a panel above the barrels that seemed to be the tracking system. “That was refreshing,” she said. Then she squinted at him. “You make a good target, Angelo.”

He scrambled up the slope. “Thanks a bunch, chica. Thanks a bunch.” As he passed the disabled turret, a glint of something light-colored caught his eye. He turned back and peered inside the smashed sensor panel. “M, wait up. I got something here.”

There was a crack in the panel, too small to get his hand into, but he was easily able to snake his extended skin through the opening. He fished around blindly for a minute. “Ah!” He pulled the skin back out slowly and produced a bit of blue cable with a connector and a fragment of circuit board still hanging from the end. He carefully pulled, and was able to extract several yards of slack cable before it stopped moving. He held up the end of the wire and grinned. “Get Styx on the horn. We got Satan’s pay-per-view right here!”

Smokey looked up the slope as another turret went out. There was now a gaping hole in the defenses. There were wounded, but they were being pulled back for evacuation. Now that surprise was no longer an issue, the helicopters could be brought in to fly them to hospitals.

Around him, his troops were regrouping. There was an opportunity in front of them, and he was going to do what he could with it. But just in case. He spoke to his radio. “Black, this is Smokey. Listen, old son, principles are a good thing far as they’ll take you, but those kids just saved us from havin’ our fieads handed to us in our hats. We lost our element o’ surprise. We need some heavy firepower here, and we need it pronto.”

Jono crouched behind the rocks, ready to do his trick again. One, two, three, GO! He jumped up, and a millisecond before he let loose with his blast, saw the two people crouched under the turret. He fought back the blast. It was like swallowing a mouthful of bile, when he’d still had a mouth.

The turret’s guns swung around. He looked down the black center of the two barrels and saw death there.

Then the guns retracted. The turret began to lower back into the ground, and the two people underneath scrambled out just in time. Only when they were in the full moonlight did he recognize them. “Paige! Espeth!” He ran toward them as the turret settled into the ground, again looking like just another boulder.

“Hi, Jono.” But Paige was distracted. She stared at the rock. “Why do I think this isn’t a good thing?”

Then a wind kicked up around them. Espeth clutched at her exposed arms and shivered.

It started to snow.

Something low and dark rushed by, so quickly that Jono couldn’t quite focus on it, and then another. Glowing red eyes surveyed them from the shadows.

A movement up-slope caught his eye. Three figures were visible there, outlined against the sky. They wore some sort of armor, but the body types were eerily familiar,

“Oh, no,” said Espeth.

“I don’t think,” said Jono, “that it’s the Poweipuff Girls.”

•'.’■argots acquired,” said the voice of Bloodhound, “two I mutants, one human noncombatant.”

1 Sharpe grimaced. The training protocols had made the assumption that the Hounds would be collecting mutants from among innocent humans. He should have known that in a true war, nobody is an innocent bystander. He activated his headset mike. “Override authority Sharpe, Omega-zero. All humans not identified as Foxhole personnel are assumed to be hostile. Collection of humans is unnecessary. Eliminate threat only.”

¹ He turned off the mike and reviewed what he’d said. The Hounds weren’t robots. Verbal commands had to be carefully phrased and unambiguous.

There were three of them on the screen, and it was obvious which two were the mutants. One, a female, seemed to have a body made of living metal. The other, a male, had some kind of energy coming from his lower face. Or—Sharpe squinted and leaned toward the screens connected to the helmet cameras. Good Lord. Half his face was missing. Sharpe had seen things like that before, fighting in the South American jungles, but those people had had the good grace to lie down and die.

He activated the mike again. “Dispatch targets, but not too quickly. Use this as a training opportunity. Prioritize capturing the male. I want to see what makes him tick.”

The three armored figures stopped a dozen yards up-slope from Jono, Paige and Espeth. The closest of the three, in the purple, by the build had to be Dog Pound. Paige felt her stomach knot. Pound, despite his rather fearsome appearance, had to be one of the sweetest and most inoffensive guys she’d ever met. What had they done to him?

She stepped a little closer, careful not to make any threatening moves. “Pound, it’s me, Paige? Remember? I don’t want to hurt you, any of you. Please, fight whatever it is they’re doing.”

Pound just stood there. Then something smashed into the front of her body with a clang, throwing her back onto the ground, landing on top of her. The robot dog snapped at her throat viciously, the serration of its metal teeth rattling across her skin.

She struggled to throw the thing off, but something else grabbed her right wrist, then her left, then her legs. Teeth were sawing at her. She couldn’t stay in this form forever, and if she changed back now, she’d be cut into pieces before she had time to scream.

Smokey Ashe followed the charge back up the slope, an open run rather than a slow crawl. The Xavier kids had opened at least a temporary hole in the defenses. Smokey didn’t like charging into the unknown without a plan.

His people had demolition gear, but lacked heavy weapons. Still, Genogoths were nothing if not resourceful, and it was too good an opportunity to pass up. In a few hours, the turrets might be repaired or replaced with something else, and in less time the sun would be up, losing what advantage the little remaining darkness might offer.

He stopped for a moment to catch his breath. He wasn’t as young as he used to be. Then, ahead of him, he heard a cry of alarm, and another one. He didn’t see any defenses, didn’t hear any shots or explosions, but suddenly he saw people in front of him going down.

He dropped into a crouch, alert for danger, but the only unusual sound was a wet, greasy, crackling noise. Then he looked down. The ground under his feet was boiling. Or rather something was boiling out of it. Earthworms, grubs, larvae, maggots, soft slimy things by the thousands, the millions.

Slippery things. Suddenly he was falling, sliding down the steep mountainside. He tried to stop himself, and got only handfuls of slime for his trouble. He rolled, got half his face coated with slime and squirming things, saw that others were sliding down the mountain with him, until the odd tree or rock painfully stopped their progress.

He rolled again, trying to steer himself away from one of those sudden stops, and saw that this wouldn’t be a problem. He sailed over the ledge and saw the ground thirty feet below. Then he hit leaves, branches slowing his fall. He grabbed, slipped, grabbed again, twisted, fell, and landed solidly on the lower branch of a tree. He clenched his eyes tightly shut and wrapped his arms and legs around it, feeling the blessed loss of motion.

With luck, some of his ribs were still intact. With luck, there was some part of him unbruised, unscratched. With luck he’d have the taste of worm guts out of his mouth in a week or so. Then Smokey opened his eyes and knew that any luck he Had at the moment was bad.

The hawk sat on the limb only a yard from him. It contemplated him only a moment before trying to sink its talons in his face.

Angelo sprinted as fast as he could while holding his arms in front of him. The skin on his fingers shot out, wrapped around a low tree limb, and allowed him to swing up to safety just as the wild pigs squealed by underneath. He pulled himself tightly to the limb and listened to the earphone radio, not believing what he was hearing. He scrambled up onto the limb just as Monet came down to hover just out of the circling pig’s reach. “Did you see that? He asked her. “A flock of pigs just tried to kill me!”

“The correct collective noun for pigs is a ‘litter,’ not a flock. However these are wild pigs, and the proper collective for boars is a ‘drift,’ so I just don’t know which one applies.”

“Yeah, whatever. All I know is, hornet attacks, worms, coyotes, skunks, birds, either it’s sweeps week on FOX, or this is our buddy Dog Pound’s doing. He’s got that whole ‘animal telepathy’ thing going.”

Monet shook her head. “He’s never claimed any special ability to control animals, even one, much less something on this scale.”

Angelo looked down. “Hey, where’d the pigs go?”

Something snorted, something big.

A black paw the size of a dessert plate hit Monet in the stomach and slammed her to the ground.

Anglo yelped and climbed higher in the tree, as six-hundred pounds of angry black bear perched on M’s back.

As the snow fell around her and the cybernetic wolf pack tore at her, Paige reflected that it was all turning into some dreary Russian novel. At least for the moment, she was safe, if immobilized. If what she was hearing in her radio was any indication though. Pound’s influence extended far beyond the robot canines. He seemed to have an entire mountain packed with wildlife at his disposal.

She was more concerned about Jono, who was circling, trying to get a clear shot at the robots with one of his bioblasts, and not watching his own back.

As for Espeth, she was trying to appeal to the tall figure in blue armor that had to be Chill, and therefore the source of their sudden cold snap. Which was crazy. A few months ago, making a Sno-Kone would have been a taxing demonstration of Chill’s cold powers. How was he doing this? How was Pound commanding a forest full of animals? It didn’t make sense.

“Listen to me,” Espeth said, “it’s me, Chill. Me. You’ve got to snap out of it. You’ve got to stop this before somebody gets hurt. Before somebody hurts you.”

So intent was Espeth on Chill, that she didn't see the smallest of the three, Recall obviously, step up behind her. He put out his armored hand and pressed his fingers, almost gently, into her neck. She gasped, her eyes rolled back in her head, and she fell like a marionette with the strings cut.

Paige shoved a snarling robot out of the way to see what was happening. Obviously Recall’s location powers now extended to finding vulnerable spots, pressure points or nerves that could be disrupted with a touch.

Jono shouted and ran towards Espeth. Chill turned, lifted his arms, and a shimmering beam of what seemed to be pure cold shot out. Jono cried out, stumbled, and fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes, the energy in his chest dimming like-the coals of a dying fire.

Chill and Recall, no the two Hounds, grabbed his hands and feet and began to carry him away. There seemed to be nothing of their friends left in these armored terrors, and the very idea gave Paige shivers. What if they were beyond help ?