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© 2020 MARVEL
First published by Aconyte Books in 2020
ISBN 978 1 83908 058 6
Ebook ISBN 978 1 83908 059 3
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Cover art by Anastasia Bulgakova
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For Sarah, fellow Spice Girl
and super hero fanatic.
Chapter 1
Loud screams jolted Christopher Muse out of a deep and dreamless sleep. He jerked upright, his heart pounding with the realization that something new and horrible threatened the students of the New Charles Xavier School. Adrenaline flooded his limbs. As an X-Men trainee, he needed to help, even though he’d much rather hide in some dark corner and let the instructors take care of it. But he couldn’t abandon his fellow students when they were screeching like that. He tried to leap out of bed, got tangled in the fuzzy blanket he’d brought when he moved here from his college dorm room, and fell into a disjointed heap on the floor.
Fear washed over him as he struggled to orient himself. His limbs were still heavy with sleep, his mind groggy. The overhead lights flicked on, buzzing as they spilled their incandescent light over the small room. Christopher threw his forearm up to shield his eyes, but it did no good. The move had effectively blinded him, leaving him helpless against whomever had chosen to attack them this time.
Not for the first time, he questioned his decision to leave college to join the new mutant school. The offer had been a no-brainer at first. The manifestation of his powers had been a bit traumatic, what with getting arrested and all, so when Cyclops and his team had shown up to help, he’d accepted gladly. He’d leaped at the chance to join the new school as a member of its inaugural class. If he was going to be completely honest, he’d never been very cool. He was the president of the board game club, favored suits and costume pieces as opposed to normal clothes, and got straight As without much effort. Joining the X-Men had seemed like his chance to finally belong after years of being the last guy picked for the team. For once, he’d been first, and he’d been proud of that.
Now he’d likely be killed by something he couldn’t even see, because little spots danced in front of his eyes, and he couldn’t hear it either, because of all that infernal screaming. Maybe Magik had opened up another portal to Limbo. The screaming hadn’t stopped, and it sounded awfully rhythmic now that he really listened…
He flailed around, extricating himself from the blanket, and sat up. But instead of the expected portal to the netherworld, he only saw his roommate, David Bond, also known as Hijack, perched on the edge of his bed, snickering uncontrollably.
David had only joined the school a few nights earlier. At first, Christopher had looked forward to having a roommate despite the tiny space. He’d hoped for someone he could talk to, because sometimes he felt a bit out of his comfort zone. But David wasn’t a “talk things out” kind of guy. He was older – maybe mid-twenties – with a neatly trimmed goatee and an impeccable sense of street style. Because he had a few years on the rest of the college-aged students, he carried himself with an air of massive superiority on an average day. Now he looked so full of himself that he might burst.
“Man, I thought you were gonna wet yourself,” David crowed, rocking back and forth. “That was the funniest thing I’ve seen in ages!”
“What is that awful noise?” Christopher demanded.
“Don’t insult my music, dude. This is Ashes on the Breeze. It’s a screamo band out of Chicago. They’ll be the next big thing for sure. By this time next year, there’s gonna be a screamo category for all the major music awards. I’ll bet you on it.”
Christopher winced. “It sounds like someone’s killing a small woodland animal. Please turn it down. I think my ears are bleeding.”
“I listen to music every morning. It’s bad enough that I had to leave my apartment to live at this dump; there’s no reason I should have to give up my tunes too.”
“Hey, the school isn’t… that bad.”
Christopher lied through his teeth, and they both knew it. He’d seen pictures of the old Xavier Institute. The mansion, with its lush green lawn and wood paneled hallways. The tennis courts. The hangar underneath the basketball hoop, where the X-Jet would emerge to take the mutants on their missions. But now Professor X was gone, and the school had split in two. Wolverine ran the Jean Grey School at the mansion, and Cyclops ran the New Charles Xavier School at this converted military installation. Some of the other students claimed that Wolverine had gotten his Adamantium skeleton here. Christopher wasn’t sure about that, but someone had definitely done experiments in this building. The kind that weren’t exactly on the up-and-up, if you asked him. After spending a little time in the place, he thought Cyclops got the raw end of the deal on the location front.
It certainly hadn’t been the kind of school he’d expected when he’d said yes. Mysterious machinery cluttered the corners and filled the unused rooms. The whole place was grungy and dank, with a claustrophobic lack of windows. All of the doors had key card readers, half of which no longer worked. Some of the painted cinder block walls had actual bullet holes in them. He had one over his bed, and he stared at it at night. It didn’t do much for his dreams.
“You know, you wouldn’t be so grumpy in the morning if you didn’t stay up half the night reading,” David said.
“It’s not my fault that I can’t sleep,” Christopher replied defensively. “If you don’t like that, you can shove it.”
The moment the words left his mouth, he knew he shouldn’t have said them. After all, he and David had to live and work together as a part of a very small team. But the screamo music pounded at his head after only a few hours of rest, and the past few weeks had been so stressful. He spent every day secretly worried he might die, or be hauled off to some other dimension where he might die, or that one of his new friends might die, and he’d be
powerless to stop all of these things from happening.
Because with every passing day, he’d started to wonder if he had it in him to be a member of the X-Men. They all had astonishing mutant abilities that made them useful in a fight. Wolverine had his Adamantium claws and his healing factor. Storm could summon lightning and fog and wind. Cyclops could cut through steel and rock with his powerful optic blast. He couldn’t compete. After all, what could he do? Christopher was a healer. He patched up the real heroes after they killed the bad guys, and nothing more.
The pressure had grated on him more and more with each passing day, and now, with David pushing his buttons, he’d snapped. Some teammate he was, picking fights with his fellow mutants. At this rate he’d end up getting kicked out, and then where would he go? He couldn’t go back to school. He’d probably end up getting arrested again the moment he showed up on campus.
“You think I should shove it, huh?” David snapped. “Maybe I will. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll take that old decommissioned jet out there and shove it right down your throat. What do you think about that?”
Christopher leaped to his feet, and David flew up a second later. The two of them went chest to chest. They were pretty evenly matched in size, although David had a streetwise vibe that suggested he knew how to carry himself in a fight. For a moment, it felt like one was inevitable. Christopher avoided them whenever he could, but he’d been in enough of them that he’d square up if he had to. But then he thought about what Cyclops would say, and about what he would do after he got expelled. He couldn’t go back to the university, and he wouldn’t go home. He didn’t know if his mom would let him in if he did. He had no other options, which meant that no matter how much David angered him, he had to hold onto his temper.
“Look.” He swallowed hard, trying to calm himself. “I’m not like you, Hijack. I can’t just get into a helicopter and make it do what I want, and I’m supposed to fly today. And that means that I’ve got to read the damned manual.”
“You’re right. You’re not like me, kid. I’m useful.”
For a moment, they stared at each other. Christopher clenched his hands so hard that his amber skin went bloodless at the knuckles. He wanted to hit David so badly. He could do it too, and then heal him afterwards. Cyclops couldn’t punish him then, not without evidence, right? But he wouldn’t let David make him sink so low. He might not be useful, but he still had standards.
His lower lip trembled as he said, “Low blow, man.”
David let all of his breath out in a whoosh as he sat back down on his bed, running his hands through his hair. He looked ashamed.
“You’re right. Damn. I’m sorry. I really shouldn’t have said that. Especially after you pulled our beans out of the fire in Limbo. People would have died if you hadn’t been there,” he said.
Christopher shrugged.
“I’m just…” David appeared to struggle for words. “I don’t like this. None of it. This place bites. The food is awful; there’s no cell service, and there’s nothing to do around here other than freeze in the snow and hunt caribou or some crap. But I can’t go home. I’m stuck here, and it sucks, and there isn’t a damned thing I can do about it.”
“Me either.”
David finally turned down the music on his boom box, leaving Christopher’s ears ringing in the sudden quiet. The two of them sat there for a long moment, awkwardness settling over them like a blanket. Just for something to do, Christopher made his bed neatly and tidied his things. The organization of his side of the room sat in stark contrast to the chaos on David’s, but he wasn’t about to complain about it. Not now. As he pulled the blanket tight and tucked it in, David’s voice split the silence once more.
“I would never drop a plane on you. I hope you know that,” he said.
When Christopher looked at David over his shoulder, they both grinned a little.
“That’s very reassuring. Thanks,” said Christopher.
“Don’t mention it.”
“You know, you like loud music. I like quiet. There are a lot of empty rooms left in this wing. There’s no reason we should have to double up if this roommate thing isn’t working. No hard feelings,” Christopher offered.
David took a long hard look at him and finally nodded. “Yeah, I agree. I get the whole idea behind it. Nothing wrong with trying to encourage us to make friends, but if it’s causing more harm than good, it’s probably better that we split up so we don’t end up hating each other. I can move out, since you’ve been here longer.”
“Thanks. I think it would be for the best. I’ll help you move your things later, if you want.”
“That would be cool.”
David held out his hand, and after a moment, Christopher shook it.
“You know, I had you pegged all wrong,” said David.
“Yeah?”
“When we first met, I took one look at the suit and the goggles, and I thought you were gonna be some kind of weirdo. But you turned out to be a pretty cool cat.”
Christopher glanced at the closet, where his suit and tie hung at the ready. A set of steampunk goggles dangled from the hanger, the light glinting off the coppery metal. He’d gotten plenty of flak over the years for his style, and he’d become tired of explaining the reasoning behind it, so he just shrugged.
“You’re pretty cool yourself.” His teeth flashed in a grin he tried valiantly to suppress. “Although I can’t say much for your taste in music.”
Before he could even attempt to dodge, a pillow flew across the room, hitting him in the face.
•••
A short time later, Christopher walked down the hallway towards the showers. He wore his fluffy robe, a thin towel hung over his shoulders. A small plastic bag held his clothes and a bottle of shampoo sat tucked in the crook of his elbow. Back at college, he’d had a full caddy of shower supplies, but here, he didn’t even have shower shoes. At least if he caught some kind of foot fungus, he could cure it himself.
How sad was it that the best use for his mutant powers was to cure fungal infections caused by the dingy tile? At the end of the day, Hijack had been right. He could control cop cars and jets, and what could Christopher do? Keep your feet from peeling. He had to admit what he’d been slowly beginning to suspect: he didn’t belong here. He would never be a true X-Man. The best he could hope for was to be the one who stayed behind in the jet or at the school, waiting to mop up after the real heroes did the difficult work. It was still an important task, but deep down inside he wished he could have gotten a different mutation. Super speed, maybe, or the strength to punch through a wall. Something useful.
Sighing, Christopher trudged into the boys’ showers. He carefully hung his suit and goggles from the rusty hook outside the stall, brushing a bit of dust off one sleeve. From a young age, his mother had dressed him up, no matter what the weather. It might be 90 degrees out, and he’d be in shirtsleeves playing basketball. But she’d insisted that the dress clothes might save him one day. She’d said a Black dreadlocked boy in a backwards ball cap might be a hoodlum, but one in a suit could be anything else. He thought people would see what they wanted to, but he’d followed her instructions anyway, and now he felt naked in regular clothes. The suit and the goggles were all a part of his armor against the world, and he needed them more than ever now.
He stepped into the shower, trying to ignore the unidentifiable stains in the corners. When he turned on the water, it came out ice cold, making him yelp. He just couldn’t catch a break. He could only hope that the day would get better, because otherwise, he had no idea what he would do. He didn’t want to drop out, but he wondered if he would have a choice.
Chapter 2
Eva Bell dimly became aware of someone screaming, but it was way too early to do anything about it. She put her head under her pillow and tried to drift back off to sleep instead. Luck wasn’t on her side. The screaming continued
for a good fifteen minutes, accompanied by a pounding backbeat. Someone in the dorms was playing their music at full volume. When she’d left Australia and moved to the States to join the New Xavier School, she hadn’t expected the change to come with quite so much noise.
She sat up blearily, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, and pounded on the wall. The music continued on unabated. She considered marching next door to tell them to knock it off, but that would require putting on pants, and she wasn’t quite ready to take such a drastic step. Eva had never been much of a morning person, and she’d been having trouble sleeping. Nightmares. These days, waking up usually took her a good hour and somewhere around three cups of strong coffee.
So she leaned back against the wall, and the cinder blocks vibrated underneath her head with the force of the rhythmic screaming that emitted from Christopher and David’s room. It had been so quiet up until the past couple of days when David had moved in. Now all hell had broken loose. Hopefully not literally, but Eva wasn’t willing to place bets on that.
For a moment, she considered the possibility that the noise might not be music. It could be a portal to Hell, or something even worse than that, but she didn’t think so. If it had been, she figured that someone would have called for help by now. The school had been massively disorganized when they’d arrived, but things had become much better. They’d established a class schedule and bought toothpaste and everything. The thought of toothpaste made her realize how slimy her mouth felt, and she picked up her watch to check the time.
She was so late for class that it wasn’t even funny. A striped coverlet was neatly stretched over the other bed in the room, its occupant nowhere to be found. Her new roomie, a young, time-traveling Jean Grey, had already left for the day without bothering to wake her. Had she even slept? Eva didn’t know whether to be worried or annoyed.
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