It was a morning to write home about, the sun still hidden below the horizon as the helicopter skated along the crest of the fog layer that shrouded the hills and hollows of the Hudson Valley. To anyone watching, this was just another corporate helo, taking care of one of the many moguls and high-ranking politicos who made their home in this part of Westchester County and neighboring Connecticut.
They’d made a quick and uneventful flight from Alkali Lake to the coast, but the closer they came to their destination, the harder it was for Charles Xavier to mask his impatience. Or keep tight rein on the niggling sense of dread that wandered the outermost regions of his awareness, where he rarely went.
At Xavier’s mental direction, the pilot made a combat approach to the back lawn, swift and certain, popping over the surrounding trees and down to a safe landing in a matter of heartbeats.
Just as quickly, Cyclops helped Xavier from his seat and into his wheelchair. As Scott pushed him up the ramp to the terrace, Xavier had the pilot shut down the engines and then fall asleep.
Using telepathy, he’d been calling out to his students since they departed Alkali Lake, expanding his mental awareness as widely as possible in hopes of hearing an answer, no matter how faint. From Jean, at the very least, he should have received some response.
Now, at the mansion, he again felt that disquieting absence of contact.
“I don’t like this, Professor,” Scott said as they entered the foyer. He called out as loudly as he could, but all either man heard was the fading echo of their voices through the empty rooms and hallways. “Where is everyone?”
“See if you can locate the Blackbird, Scott,” Xavier told him. “Use the transponder, try to raise the onboard computer. Find some way to contact Jean and Storm. I’ll use Cerebro.”
With a nod, Scott took off down the corridor, while Xavier turned his chair toward the elevators that gave access to the mansion’s underground complex. It never occurred to him that Scott was violating protocol, not to mention common sense, by leaving him alone in a potentially hostile environment. And since he was resolutely ignoring that pernicious sense of dread that just wouldn’t quit, he never turned his head to see Scott vanish behind him into thin air.
The hallways underground were as empty as those above as the elevator doors opened and he rolled out onto the polished floor. Until his ears caught the sound of crying.
He did a slow pivot at the main junction, where the two sets of corridors came together in front of the elevator to form yet another of the ubiquitous Xs that popped up throughout the complex.
“It’s all right,” he called, wondering why he couldn’t pinpoint her location, either by sound or thought. “You can come out now.”
He found her hiding in a corner of the computer room on the main floor of the mansion. She was far younger than any mutant of his experience, not yet of middle-school age, with blond hair and blue eyes and a classic peaches-and-cream complexion. Her eyes were very large and wounded and brimming with tears, and she wore a nightgown.
“Are they gone?” she asked tremulously, and Xavier knew she meant Stryker’s invasion force. It didn’t bother him in the slightest that a violent invasion of his school had left it in pristine condition. That wasn’t important. Only this girl mattered, and his lost students.
“Yes,” he replied. “Where are all the others?”
She shrugged.
“Then I guess we’ll have to find them, won’t we?”
He held out his hand. She took it. Together, they moved down the hallway toward the vaultlike door that was the entrance to Cerebro.
Xavier stopped in front of the retinal scanner, and once it had confirmed his identity, Cerebro greeted him politely. “Welcome, Professor.”
The door cycled open, revealing the great spherical chamber beyond.
He smiled at the girl, she smiled back, but when he turned to wheel himself inside, she called out in a panic.
“Please don’t leave me!”
Her cry went through him like a knife! How could he be so unthinking, uncaring? What sort of teacher was he, to abandon a child—especially after the traumas she must have suffered?
“Don’t leave me,” she begged. “Please!”
“All right,” he said, projecting comfort and reassurance with his thoughts to complement the smile on his face, the gentle tone of his voice. “You can come inside.”
With a grateful smile of her own, so radiant it made Xavier’s heart sing, she followed close behind him.
He never looked back. He never saw the polished floor of home fade to cracked and filthy concrete, never saw the twisted nightmare shape of Mutant 143 keeping pace with the girl whose image he was projecting into Xavier’s mind or the pair of armed troopers standing with guns ready at the doorway, just in case.
Xavier thought he was free, but in truth he’d never left Alkali Lake. He was more a prisoner than ever, and for Jason Stryker, he was the best toy he’d ever have to play with. A mind of sublime grace, of infinite possibilities, that when he was done with it would be a wasteland.
This would be such fun.
Stryker had just reached Xavier’s location when he got a call from the demo team. They were ready. He was curt with them—they had their orders, what were they waiting for? Blow the door and slaughter that shape-changing bitch before she caused any more trouble.
The hallway was crowded with Lyman’s fire team, a reinforced squad of a dozen men, carrying automatic and heavy weapons. Given their equipment and position, they were a match for ten times their number and more.
“Mr. Lyman,” Stryker told his subordinate, “position your men.”
Leaving Lyman to do that job, trusting him to do it right, Stryker followed Xavier’s path into the hollow chamber, along the gantry extension to the circular platform at the end, which was a makeshift replica of the original back at Xavier’s.
The control console wasn’t pretty to look at, none of this was, but what mattered was that the stolen components all worked here precisely as they did in the true Cerebro chamber. Xavier sat in his proper place before the console, with 143 behind him and a little to the side. Neither mutant responded to Stryker’s presence, and that made the older man smile. The greatest mutant mind on earth was aware of nothing beyond what Stryker allowed. Charles Xavier, reduced to the level of a performing seal. It almost made Stryker laugh.
That would wait till later. He was here on business.
He leaned close to his son’s ear and whispered his instructions.
Xavier thought he heard something—damn that buzz in the back of his head, why wouldn’t it go away?—but thought nothing more of it as the girl touched his arm and whispered in his ear.
“Is it time to find our friends?”
Xavier’s heart leaped as though he had been empty and now had purpose. He’d never felt such glory, it was almost rhapsodic.
“Yes,” he said, and meant it with all his heart.
Stryker whispered to his son . . .
. . . and Mutant 143, through the image of the girl . . .
. . . whispered to Xavier.
“All of the mutants,” she asked. “Everywhere?”
“Oh, yes,” Xavier replied. Before him the path to fulfillment was laid out, as straight and clear as a highway. And yet . . .
Always “and yet.” Try as he might to embrace this wonderful moment, something kept holding him back, trying with ferocious persistence to pull him away. It refused to be ignored, it wouldn’t be denied.
Fortunately, the girl’s voice was stronger.
“Good,” she said.
“Good,” said Stryker, all to himself. He started to lay his hand on 143’s shoulder, came so close they almost touched—then pulled himself away and curled his fingers into a protective fist. For that moment, he had seen 143 not as a tool, a weapon in the fight to defend humanity, but as his son.
That was uncharacteristic of him. It was weak. Now, more than ever, that was an emotion he could not affor
d and would not countenance.
With military bearing and precision, Stryker turned on his heel and strode from the chamber. He didn’t look back. He would never have to see Mutant 143 again. The images of his son that he would keep with him would be from before, the mahogany-haired boy with round cheeks and a ready giggle who loved to ride on Daddy’s shoulders and who Stryker loved more than his own life.
The world that was, the world that should have been, but for Xavier and those like him. The world he would pay any price to restore.
If Jason knew any of this, he didn’t seem to care. What fascinated him was his new toy, and his mismatched eyes began to dilate and glow as he began to play.
Xavier finished his preparations and smiled at his companion.
“Just don’t move,” he warned the girl, speaking gently so as not to frighten her.
He donned the helmet, settling it comfortably on his head and himself comfortably in his chair.
The walls around him fell away, and just for a moment, as his perspective and perceptions expanded outward to encompass the chamber, he jumped. Because on the platform with him wasn’t a girl at all but the twisted horror that was Jason Stryker.
No, he was wrong. It was only the girl. Strange how he never noticed her eyes before. One green, the other blue. Almost hypnotic in their brilliance.
Around him appeared a holographic representation of the globe, just as he’d manifested for Logan only days before. He and the girl floated in its center, at the heart and core of the world.
He exhaled, and as his breath rushed from his body it was as if he’d separated into a million million versions of himself, racing through fire and stone and steel and concrete, through earth and water and air, to every point on the planet where a mutant could be found. And not just the active ones, the comparative few who had manifested their unique abilities or were on the cusp of doing so, but the latents as well. Every person who possessed the mutator pairings in their genome, even if it was only potential and unlikely to be activated for one or two generations yet to come, was revealed to him. He’d never dreamed there could be so many.
He found one sitting in a poker game in New Orleans, another wandering the Scots highlands picking heather to serve as a decoration at Moira MacTaggart’s dinner table; he found a spectacularly beautiful woman serving as a lifeguard on Bondi Beach and an ancient aborigine sitting cross-legged at the summit of Uluru, the sacred rock of his people. He found a young boy who looked like a bird and a quintet of ash-blond psychics who were perfect copies of one another yet wholly unrelated. He found telepaths and telekines, he found energy casters and others who absorbed energy as sustenance. He found mutants with strength, and mutants with skill, some who could fly or run like the wind or who made their home in the ocean. He found one who could fold herself flat as paper and another who could transform into any substance in the periodic table simply by tearing off her skin. He found some born to be predators, others who were prey, and a vast majority who hadn’t yet come to that crossroads.
He saw a world ready to tear itself apart, poised on the cusp of what was and what might yet be—and knew in that blinding flash of insight that in his hands lay the responsibility to manage that change, to help determine whether the future was one of bright and infinite possibilities or one where the planet was covered pole to pole with graves.
Each mutant was a scarlet candle against the darkness of forever—yet beside them glowed the golden candle of those who weren’t mutants, equally bright, equally to be cherished. They were inextricably bound, these children of Mother Earth, and Xavier found here the proof of what he’d always known in his heart, what he’d always been unable to present to Eric Lehnsherr, that you could not safeguard the one without protecting the other.
At his direction, Cerebro came fully on-line and up to speed, making its presence known with a deep and resonant hum that gradually increased in intensity.
Hearing that hum, Stryker allowed himself a smile. He laid his hand on Lyman’s shoulder.
“Guard this post, Mr. Lyman. That’s the order.”
“Yes, sir.”
“From this point on, kill anyone who approaches. Even if it’s me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“God bless you, men. God give us this day!”
Stryker returned Lyman’s salute as though they were on a parade ground at West Point, trooping the colors before the massed corps of cadets, did an about-face, and strode away, Yuriko marching alongside in cadence.
Lyman watched them until they were both swallowed in darkness, then turned back to his men, to review their positions and their ammo loads. This would be a bear fight, he knew, but this was also what he and his men had trained for. They’d be ready, come what may, and they would prevail.
The explosion caught Mystique by surprise: the demo team was quicker than she’d anticipated. The door buckled inward as if it had been punched by some monstrous fist, and her ears rang with the shock wave of the blast. She dove for the MP5 she’d set on the console. She had few illusions about her chances for survival, but she also had three full magazines and a couple of grenades. At the very least, she’d give Stryker’s bully boys a fight. She couldn’t help wishing to be a little more like Rogue, though, so that when she manifested another’s form and features, she also assumed their skills as well. Namely Wolverine’s. Now would be a nice time to possess the runt’s healing factor.
The first detonation didn’t do the trick, it just warped the door in its frame and slightly popped one of the hinges. Mystique wondered what would come next and assumed it wouldn’t be pretty. Any explosive strong enough to breach this door would create a blast effect capable of squishing every living thing inside the room to jelly. Cheerful.
Unexpectedly, the door started groaning as it was subjected to stresses well beyond its design tolerances. Like a cork from a bottle of heavily shaken champagne, it popped from its frame, outward into the corridor, to land against the opposite wall with a crash so resounding it shook this whole section of the complex.
She didn’t need to be told who was responsible, and when Magneto stepped over the threshold, she greeted him with a round of heartfelt and appreciative applause.
The demo team and the guards, Mystique saw when she peered outside, were safely in Jean Grey’s custody, squirming upside down in midair where her telekinesis was holding them. Their weapons, the young woman had separated into component parts and scattered. As Mystique watched, Jean tossed her prisoners against the wall. She didn’t do it so very hard, they couldn’t have been much hurt, but from the way they collapsed to the floor Mystique assumed she’d used her mental powers to render them unconscious.
She reentered the room to find Magneto staring at the console.
“Eric,” she said to greet him as she joined him by his side.
The look he gave her in return told her how glad he was to see her alive and unharmed.
“Have you found it?”
She called up the power grid on the main display.
“The hydroelectric net is still functional and has been reestablished by Stryker, with a large portion of it being diverted”—she pointed to one of the sectors of the complex, an area where she had no video capability—“to this chamber. It’s new construction.”
“My fault, I’m afraid,” Magneto conceded as the X-Men joined them. “Can you shut it down from here?” he asked Mystique.
“No.”
Logan held back, his attention caught by familiar figures on one of the active security screens: Stryker and Yuriko, both in a hurry. He opened his mouth to report the sighting, then reconsidered and tapped a location query into the system. He looked toward Jean, then back to the monitor, and his dilemma was obvious: Should he go for Stryker or stay with the X-Men? He owed Jean the world, but Xavier?
“Come,” Magneto said to Mystique. “We have little time.”
Jean blocked him. “Not without us.”
Mystique tapped the keyboard, and the kidnapped
students appeared once more on their respective monitors.
“My God,” Storm exclaimed, “the children! Kurt?” She didn’t need to ask any more than that; he knew what she wanted, and he answered with a nod.
“Will you be all right?” Storm asked Jean, who was staring straight at Mystique. Jean knew exactly what was happening here, that Magneto had a private agenda, that Mystique had acted to divide the X-Men’s forces and limit their ability to forestall his plan, whatever it was.
“Yeah,” she told her best friend. “I’ll be fine.” Because she had Wolverine as backup. “Logan?”
No answer.
“Where’s Logan?” Storm demanded when a look around the room and the hallway outside revealed no sign of him.
Jean had to confess to herself she wasn’t surprised, but there was disappointment in her voice as she replied, “He’s gone. We’ll have to manage without him.”
For Xavier, thanks to Cerebro, the psychic links he’d established with the world’s mutants were solid, had been from the first moment of contact. He’d never run Cerebro at such a level, nor stretched his power to such a degree, as much because of the risk to those he contacted as to himself. He knew already that the cost to himself when this session was over would be considerable, he already could feel the initial stages of what would be a killer of a migraine.
He’d done what had been asked of him, what he knew was necessary, yet he couldn’t bring himself to tell the little girl.
“That’s odd,” he temporized. “I can’t seem to focus on anyone.” That was true. With all the contacts he’d made, none had been with any of his missing X-Men or with his students. He knew they were out there, he just couldn’t see them—which bothered him, considering how clearly he could interface with all the others.
“Maybe you have to concentrate harder,” the girl suggested.
Xavier increased the gain, and the hum from Cerebro grew deeper and more intense.
“Wait,” Jean told her companions, holding out her hand to bring them to a stop. She, Magneto, and Mystique were deep inside the complex, a section that had been hollowed out of the rock right beneath the dam, which accounted for the dank air and never-ending seepage down the seams in the walls. She shut her eyes and concentrated a moment.
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