“Supreme Guardian . . .” Satumyne began. Roma quickly raised a hand to quiet her before she could continue her protest.
“To honor that dream, Professor, I shall not change my decision,” Roma said. “Your X-Men shall have all the time remaining to them— but not a moment longer. Not even I am willing to further jeopardize the structure of all reality for such noble beings as your students. Four days—and then I shall have to, as you mortals say, ‘take matters into my own hands.’ ” She glanced at Satumyne. “There shall be no further entreaties for reconsideration of my judgment until then.”
Her Whyness choked down whatever she had been about to say, nodded once in curt acknowledgment, and remained silent.
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Xavier said gratefully. “You will not regret this decision.”
“I pray that you are right, Charles Xavier,” Roma said solemnly. “For if I have chosen wrongly, yours is not the only dimension that will suffer from my poor judgment...”
It was a dream come true.
Standing on the roof of the Von Doom Center for the Performing Arts—a building formerly dedicated to the memory of the late U.S. president John F. Kennedy, long before the rise of the Empire—Betsy Braddock pinched herself to make sure she wasn’t still napping onboard Warren’s private Lear jet; the sharp, brief pain on the flesh of her forearm proved that she was wide awake. She really was in Washington, she really was gazing out on the spectacle that was the world’s capitol at night, she really was a scheduled performer for the anniversary gala in honor of the Emperor.
But if this really is a dream, and pinching myself is just part of that dream, she thought happily, then I don’t ever want to be awakened. . .
Around her, a party was being held in honor of the performers— champagne flowed, caviar was consumed, and the air was filled with the strains of a string quartet performing classical music; Betsy had recognized one piece as a Max Bruch composition for violin. But there was more to the celebration than just good food and good music. With Warren at her side, Betsy had even had the opportunity to meet some of her idols in the entertainment industry; as to be expected, some were gracious, some were pompous, and some were surprisingly uncomfortable with their celebrity. Everyone, though, seemed determined to make an impression with their carefully-chosen attire—the women wearing expensive gowns, the men in tuxedos—and Betsy was no exception, wearing sparkling gold jewelry and a black, full-length silk dress. Her lavender hair billowing in the slight breeze coming off the Potomac River behind her, she gazed at the lights of Washington, D.C. and smiled like a little girl on Christmas Day, eager to open all the wonderful presents laid out beneath the tree.
“Some view, huh?” Warren asked, wrapping his arms around her waist, and resting his chin on her shoulder. Betsy turned around to face him.
“I like this one better,” she said, gazing into his eyes.
Warren chuckled. “You sure know how to stroke a guy’s ego, you know that?” Betsy smiled. “So, how did rehearsals go?”
“A little awkward,” she admitted. “I’m not used to the acoustics of a place as big as the Concert Hall—that thing is huge!” She paused. “It’s a little daunting, too. I mean, I know I’m in the show, but still . . . to step out on that stage and realize that this is all really happening .. . that I’m actually going to sing for the Emperor . ..”
“And how about the headaches?” Warren asked, clearly concerned. “Still having those?”
Betsy nodded hesitantly. “But they’re not as bad now,” she lied. “It’s probably just nerves—once the show actually starts, I’ll be fine. It’s just getting there that’s driving me half-mad.”
Warren eyed her suspiciously, but didn’t press the matter.
Unable to make eye contact with him any longer, Betsy turned around and rested her head against his chest, then clasped her arms around his. For all the clichd, stiff-upper-lip British exterior she was maintaining around her one true love, she began to wonder just how long she could keep her secret from Warren. Although the remainder of the night when Arcade had left his congratulatory phone message had passed quietly—meaning she had been spared any more attacks by thoughts not her own, and did not suffer from further visions of the Minister of Entertainment acting like some melodramatic movie villain—the “voices” had returned the next day, when she had stepped from the apartment complex to buy some groceries. By concentrating almost to the point of causing a migraine headache, she had been able to block a majority of the thoughts of her fellow shoppers, but she had still returned to the apartment as quickly as possible, fearful that she might lose control at any moment. Since then, Betsy had continued to work on suppressing her mind-reading abilities, often times relying on her musical talents, repeating song lyrics in her head to “shout down” the voices; it had, surprisingly enough, worked wonders to quiet the intrusive thoughts, but if she had to listen to one more rendition of Englebert Humperdinck’s “After the Loving” ...
This party was a test of sorts for her: if she could block out as much of the psychic chatter being generated by the hundred-odd people around her—including the thoughts she was starting to pick up from Warren—then there was some hope that she’d be able to get through her performance, when the Concert Hall below her would be filled with close to a thousand of the Emperor’s most famous (and most fawning) subjects and ever-watchful security personnel.
“Some view,” she finally said, gazing out at the Washington skyline. Wordlessly, Warren tilted his head downward, to eye her plunging neckline.
“I like this one better,” he commented.
Betsy laughed. She didn’t need to read his mind to know what he was thinking....
“You can’t be serious about this,” Mystique said.
“Oh, but I am, Raven,” Magneto replied. “Quite serious.”
Shaking her head in disbelief, Mystique looked around the hotel room in which had gathered the mutants who had answered the call of their master—men and women who shared the dream of destroying Victor von Doom and placing their lord in the seat of power. A lofty goal, and one Mystique shared, but she wasn’t all that certain that these were the people who could bring that dream to reality ...
Lounging on a loveseat was Scanner—a blond-haired woman in her early twenties, bright-eyed and eager to show her leader that her bioelectrical powers would make quick work of his enemies in a fight. Seated beside her, Unuscione, on the other hand, was dark of hair and mood, forever angry at the world; her talent was in the creation of psychokinetic forcefields that operated on both defensive and offensive levels—an appropriate power, for someone used to keeping people at arm’s length. Vindaloo, munching on a stick of beef jerky as he leaned against a table, was a lanky, dark-skinned Indian, his waist-length black hair tied in a loose ponytail; his was the power to emit a gel-like liquid from his hands that he could turn into napalm-like blasts. Mellencamp was a broad-shouldered, lizard-like mutant, his scaly hide gleaming as though polished, his snake-like tongue drilling through the apple he was noisily chewing at the moment. Sitting next to him on a couch, trying to ignore her comrade’s grotesque eating habits, was Amanda Voght, a quiet, dark-haired woman with the ability to turn herself into mist—a useful talent, when one required a fogscreen to move about undetected. Rounding out the group were Magneto’s son, Pietro; the sycophantic Cortez; and Forge, who was fiddling around with the innards of the lone television in the room, making who-knew-what out of its wires and circuits.
And seated in the center of the room, looking incredibly regal in his crimson-and-purple costume, his battle helmet polished until it gleamed, was Magneto, Master of Magnetism. Their leader. Their god.
An eclectic gathering of mutants, to be sure, but one that could give even the deadliest Hunters of the Empire a good drubbing.
Still...
“Let me see if I have this straight,” Mystique said. “You want us to break into Psi Division Headquarters, of all places, and rescue a bunch of melonheads stupi
d enough to have gotten themselves caught and interrogated by Doom’s psychic stormtroopers.”
Magneto nodded. “That is the plan.”
“That’s not a plan—that’s suicide!" Mystique objected. “Absolute suicide! Who’s to say they’ll be of any use to us after a day of having every thought in their heads ripped out and put under a microscope?” She shook her head. “I know you want to rub your superiority in Doom’s face, Magnus, but I thought the idea was to do that at the celebration, in front of a live audience. We shouldn’t be doing anything that would tip our hand this early, like blundering through a spur-of-the-moment rescue of people you don’t even know! Doom doesn’t even know you’re in the country—we should use that to our advantage. Our best bet is to keep a low profile, make all the necessary preparations, and then catch him unaware. The party is in two days. We don’t have all that much time to get ready, you know.”
“You did not seem so reluctant to carry out the mission when my father first presented it,” Pietro said.
“That was before your friend in D.C. told us where they were being held!” Mystique replied. She looked around at her fellow conspirators. “None of you have the slightest idea of what I’m talking about, do you?”
The blank stares she received more than answered her question.
“Look, this isn’t like Valhalla Mountain,” she explained, “where hopping into the trunk of someone’s car automatically gets you past their defense grid. And it’s not The Vault.” She snorted. “I’ve walked in and out of that place a dozen times without being detected. But Psi Division?” She shook her head. “That’s just insane. Its security measures alone make the White House look like it’s being protected by two sharp sticks and a rubber band. And do you know why it’s insane to attack it? Because the damned mentos can tell when somebody’s going to strike, even before the first stages of a plan have been implemented.” She looked around at the group. “Do you know how dangerous it is for us to even be this close to the compound? If it wasn’t for the psi-screens Forge and I set up in this room, we would’ve had Hunters and Guardsmen banging down the doors already!”
The acolytes glanced at one another, then gazed toward their leader for guidance.
Mystique grunted in frustration; she wasn’t getting anywhere by playing to the audience. She turned to Magneto. “Please don’t do this, Erik. Remember Paris, when you tried to devise a similar attack against Doom, and tipped your hand too soon? Remember the lives it cost you—Drake, Dane, Neophyte, Kath, Callis—”
“Are you done, Raven?” Magneto asked. His eyes shone with unbridled anger from within the shadows of his helmet.
Mystique’s golden eyes narrowed, and her lips pulled back in a snarl; clearly, her arguments had fallen on deaf ears. “Yes, ” she replied through gritted teeth.
“Good,” Magneto said curtly. “Then please be seated.”
Mystique stomped over to the couch and sat down hard at one end, forcing Voght and Mellencamp to move side; then, she folded her arms across her chest and glowered silently at their leader.
“Thank you,” Magneto said. He rose to his feet and looked around the room, making brief eye contact with each of his acolytes. “My friends, for all her histrionics, Raven is correct: this is a dangerous mission—though far from being as suicidal as she makes it sound.” “That’s your opinion,” Mystique muttered under her breath. Magneto chose to ignore her. “However, it is my firm belief that these people who were captured by the Psi Division—people who appear to be mutants like you and I—may hold the key to victory for our cause. It is apparent that they share our opposition of von Doom and, based on the information provided to us by Pietro’s contact, we now know that one member of that group—a young woman called ‘Phoenix’—could be the most powerful psi-talent in the world, which makes her feared even by von Doom’s scurrilous Thought Police. Adding her talents alone to our ranks would make us impregnable to anything the Empire might throw at us; adding her fellow members’ abilities would make us unstoppable.” He paused. “I know I am asking much of you. Failure on our part could result in losing our chance to strike at von Doom—” he glanced at Mystique “—or, yes, even death. If any of you wish to back out, do so now—there will be no feelings of enmity toward you, by either myself, or any member of our group.
“But know this: What I plan to do this night is something I would not hesitate to do for any of you—for any of our kind.
“It is a risk I am willing to take ... for The Dream.”
The mutant overlord stood silently as each of the acolytes looked at one another, each searching the other’s eyes for a sign that would indicate a lack of faith in their savior. Yet, not even Mystique seemed ready to back out now.
It was Scanner who finally spoke for them all.
“Dread lord,” she said without hesitation, “how may we serve you?”
14
HE HADN’T told them anything, much to his captors’ dismay.
In the darkness of his cell, Nightcrawler lay curled in a fetal
_ position on a broken-down cot, trying his best to ignore the painful
throbbing in his palms. The bleeding had stopped some time ago, but the burning sensation hadn’t lessened at all—he could still feel the superheated metal of Wilhelmina’s knives piercing his flesh, still remember the way in which she had used her telepathic powers to increase the level of pain he felt by a factor of ten, and still prevent him from passing out.
It had been the longest four hours of his life.
Despite the damage to his hands, Kurt believed he could still consider himself lucky—the blades hadn’t sliced through any nerves. “Lucky,” of course, was a relative term in this hellhole: lucky to still have the use of his hands; lucky that he hadn’t bled out as he was dragged through the halls to this cell after his interrogation; lucky to still be alive.
It was a momentary respite; he knew that. The Psi Division was waiting for the pain to wear away at his resolve, waiting for it to slowly bore through the psychic defenses that had withstood even the worst physical and mental punishment he had ever endured. When they felt he had been sufficiently weakened, he would be dragged back to the interrogation room, and the process would begin again.
He wasn’t sure if he could survive a second round of questioning.
Staring into the darkness, Kurt wondered how his friends were holding up to the torture. During the trip to his cell, he thought he had seen Rogue being dragged from another room, eyes wide with horror, yet seeing nothing. Then, one of the guards had told him to mind his own business, and a metal club came crashing down onto the back of his head; he awoke on the cot.
And what of the others? Where were they in this madhouse? Were they even still alive?
Kurt angrily shook his head. Giving into despair would do him no good. He had to believe there was a way to endure; had to believe that an opportunity for escape would present itself soon, before time ran out for everyone in this dimension. Right now, faith in such intangibles was the only thing keeping him sane.
What is it that Paul the Apostle says in the Bible? he thought, then nodded in remembrance. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. ”
Ignoring the pain, Kurt clasped his hands together and began hoping for a sign.
The soft rapping on his chamber door came five minutes later.
She was alive—that was the only thing of which she was certain.
Slowly, Jean Grey opened her eyes. She was still strapped into the torturous Cerebrum Scanner, still gagged—but still strong enough mentally to have held off the psychic probing of the facility’s best agents, right up to the moment before the tenth level of electroshock treatments had smashed her down into darkness.
Much to her surprise, she discovered that she was alone. Viper and Tyboldt were gone; more than likely, they had departed after failing to revive her. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t come back, though, eager for another chance to break her.
&
nbsp; The door suddenly opened, and Jean had to fight the urge to cry out in panic. But it wasn’t Viper, this time—rather, it was a statuesque African-American woman in her twenties who stepped into the room. She was wearing a lab coat and a simple gray dress, and carrying a small metal tray; on the tray were a small bottle of colorless liquid, and a syringe. Behind the woman walked a guard; the man was in his thirties, sandy-haired and deeply tanned, with a scowl seemingly etched onto his face. He swept the room with the automatic rifle he carried as he entered, then brought its muzzle to bear on the phoenix emblem on Jean’s chest.
“That’s right—keep an eye on her,” the woman said mockingly to him. “She looks like she’s about to bust out of that chair any minute now.” With a soft snicker, she placed the tray on an arm of Jean’s chair.
“Yeah, well, you techies might think it’s pretty funny,” the guard shot back, “but I heard one of these freaks broke out of his restraints and ripped up a few of your people earlier today. Bet you wouldn’t be laughin’ if some guy with Ginsu knives cornin’ outta his hands was cornin’ after you.”
“Ginsu knives, eh?” the technician asked. She picked up the syringe and the bottle. “Does that mean he can cut through an ordinary person, yet his blades are still fine enough to slice a tomato?” She chuckled at her own joke.
Jean’s eyes widened as she watched the woman sink the needle into the bottle, pull back the plunger, and start to fill the barrel of the hypodermic.
“What’s that stuff?” the guard asked.
“Phenobarbital,” the woman replied, tapping the side of the needle with a finger to remove any air bubbles. “It’s a sedative.”
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