chaos engine trilogy

by Unknown Author

  “And yet, he did ultimately find a way—his greatest dream has been a reality for the past five years,” Finckley stated. “Mutants no longer have to live in secret, as was the case when the institute first opened its doors; they now live in the open, as equals of mankind. In fact, we humans have willingly embraced your people—‘Homo superior,’ as Lensherr has called your race—with open arms ever since ‘The Morning of Unity,’ as it’s come to be known.” He turned back to Jean. “So, with that in mind, in an enlightened society such as we now have, do you find it’s still necessary to have such a place as the institute, which is solely devoted to working with gen-active children—or even to open other branches—when there are school programs already in place around the world that have also been set up to help them come to terms with their powers? What makes yours so special?”

  “Well, Archer,” Jean replied, “I think you should remember that, if it hadn’t been for the Lensherr Institute, those very programs you mentioned would never have been created in the first place. I hate to sound like a walking promotional brochure, but the Lensherr Institute has always been at the forefront of gen-active training—we have the best facilities, the best faculty, and the friendliest environment. And, since most of our staff have powers of their own, we have a better understanding than non-gen-actives of how chaotic life can seem during the stages of early development.” She smiled. “You could say that ours is still the ruler by which all other schools are measured.” She leaned forward, her voice dropping in volume just enough to make Finckley— and the audience, hopefully—“prick up their ears,” as the saying went, and pay more attention to her words. “You see, Archer, despite the ‘enlightened society’ we live in, kids are still kids, and children can be very cruel with their comments, even if they’re meant to be in jest.” Her smile faded, lips drawing together in a thin line. “I can’t tell you how many times I’d been called a ‘gene-joke’ by the time I got into college.”

  “I imagine it made growing up all that more difficult,” Finckley commented.

  Jean’s right eyebrow arched dramatically. “Archer, if you think having your first period is a traumatic experience for a young woman, try waking up in the middle of the night to find you’re floating three feet above the bed, and every object in the room is orbiting you like you’re the sun.” She snorted. “No, growing up wasn’t difficult—it was sheer hell.”

  Finckley nodded, trying to look sympathetic, and failing miserably. “That’s why the work we do at the institute is so important,” Jean continued. “We help the students through those tough times, and encourage them to celebrate their differences from Homo sapiens. Our race has made great contributions to the world, and it’s always been important—not just for Scott and myself, but the entire staff—to constantly remind our young men and women that they’re the ones who are going to be shaping the world in the future, and they’re the ones who are expected to carry on the legacy of Erik Lensherr when the rest of us are sitting around, playing mah jong, down at the retirement home.” She smiled, eyes sparkling. “And that, getting back to your original question, is what makes our school so special.”

  Finckley flashed a brief smile, clearly pleased with her answer. Thank God for that, Jean thought. “Now, getting back to the formation of the school,” he said. “Did the idea for that come around the same time Lensherr decided to reach out to help people like himself, or was that a by-product of his work in the mutants’ rights movement?”

  It was Scott who answered. ” ‘Mutant’ is such an outdated term, Archer. We prefer to think of ourselves as ‘genetically gifted.’ ‘Children of the Atom,’ as it were.” He smiled. “Actually, the word ‘mutant’ didn’t really come into vogue until the late 1950s, when Hollywood filmmakers latched onto it and turned it into a buzzword.” He sighed dramatically. “We’re still trying to live down the ‘Metaluna Mutant’ from This Island Earth.”

  Jean laughed softly—it was a joke Scott often used during interviews—and glanced toward their host. Finckley merely smiled tightly and nodded; obviously, he’d heard it before, and didn’t find it all that amusing. The laughter quickly died in her throat.

  “Ummm . . . getting back to the point. . .” she continued, breaking the awkward silence. “When Erik first began exhibiting his powers of magnetism—just after puberty—he’d never heard of the word ‘mutant’; there were so few of them at the time, no one knew exactly what they should be called—” she grimaced “—other than ‘freaks’ or ‘monsters.’ What he did know was that he was different, but he saw it as a blessing, not a curse. And once he learned there were others in the world like him—once he knew that he wasn’t alone any more—it gave him back the sense of hope for the future he thought had been beaten out of him by his captors during the war.”

  “So, what would you consider to be the ultimate turning point in your mentor’s life?” Finckley asked. “What was it that made him the man he is today?”

  Scott. . . ? Jean telepathically said to her husband, cueing him to jump in with an answer as she reached for a mug of water near her chair. The image of a ventriloquist taking a drink while still speaking through a dummy briefly flashed through her mind, and she had to fight down the laugh that threatened to bubble up through her lips.

  “Well, in the early 1960s, with the civil rights movement in full swing,” Scott explained, “Erik found the ‘something’ he’d been looking for. While watching the evening news one night in 1963, he saw a replay of Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and his eyes were suddenly opened. There, right in front of him, was proof positive of the power that one man with a dream could possess.” A brief smile flickered at the edges of Scott’s lips. “Erik says he wept that night because he was so moved by Dr. King’s words— each and every syllable struck a chord deep within his soul. And having felt the power of that message, he wanted the same opportunities for himself—for his family. So, with Magda’s support, he dedicated his life to his own dream: of the genetically gifted co-existing peacefully with man, no longer afraid to hide their special talents, but rather accepted by society as equals.”

  “And he thought he could best do that job wearing tights and a cape and calling himself ‘Magneto’?” Finckley asked incredulously.

  Scott chuckled softly and shrugged. “Well, you never know where inspiration is going to come from. You see, one day back in the late 1950s, Erik had taken Magda to the movies, and he saw how enthusiastically the audience responded to newsreels of Captain America and Bucky in action during the war—the image stuck in his mind. That, combined with the success of a comic book featuring another ‘mystery man’—as super heroes were called in those days—who wore tights and a cape, made him realize that, perhaps, the best way to get people’s attention was to be as—”

  “In-their-face?” Finckley interjected.

  Scott smiled. “I was going to say ‘as flamboyant as possible,’ but, yes, ‘in-their-face’ is just as good.” He shrugged. “Whatever you want to call it, it worked—Erik got their attention.”

  “In spades, some would say,” Finckley replied. “He wasn’t exactly greeted with open arms by the public when he made his first appearance, was he?”

  Scott’s easy smile dissipated, and he nodded morosely. “Unfortunately, it’s human nature, Archer—people always react poorly at first to anything different; anything they don’t understand.”

  “Anything that could be potentially dangerous,” Finckley added. “Not knowing what to make of a magnetically-powered mu—‘genetically gifted’ person showing up out of the blue—”

  “As I said, an unfortunate example of human nature,” Scott quickly interjected.

  “—and the fact that superpowered beings hadn’t been seen since the close of World War II—”

  “—which he felt would only help create the kind of impact he wanted to make—”

  “—in addition to Lensherr’s less than . . . tolerant reaction to the jeers
of a lunchtime crowd in the middle of Times Square on the first day he wore his costume—”

  “—a crowd that tried to silence his message—”

  “—and the way in which he lashed out with his powers against the police officers arriving on the scene—”

  “—who had their guns drawn when they approached—”

  “—then I think you can understand how ‘Magneto’ originally wound up being classified as a criminal by law enforcement agencies around the globe,” Finckley concluded.

  “And Dr. King and Malcolm X and Ghandi were all considered dangerous troublemakers by their enemies, too.” Scott waved a hand at his host, dismissing Finckley’s argument. “It’s all a matter of perspective, Archer—perspective, and the petty fears of those unwilling to really listen to the message. But, as you and everyone watching this program well know, Erik overcame those obstacles and gained the respect of the world’s leaders—they listened, and they understood.” He leaned forward, jabbing the end of an index finger against Finckley’s desk to emphasize his point. “The bottom line is that, without Erik Lensherr, this world would never have achieved the level of peace we enjoy today.”

  Finckley shrugged. “Well, there’s no denying that, despite his initial setbacks, Lensherr has accomplished quite a lot since he first went public forty years ago—”

  “Archer, the man has eliminated hatred and intolerance across the planet—in our lifetime!” Scott shot back. “There are no more wars, no more deaths, no more senseless shows of force caused by petty differences. But, even more, he’s helped change the very shape of the world— there are forests growing where there once were deserts; freedom where there’d been oppression; lawfulness where there’d been chaos. Most importantly, through his efforts, both Homo sapiens and Homo superior have learned to co-exist, without fear, without mistrust, working together to better the Earth—not just for generations to come, but for right now.” Slowly, he smiled and shook his head. “After all that— after the life of every man, woman, and child on this planet had been changed forever by the power of one man’s dream—is it any wonder we made him our emperor?”

  His point made, Scott fell silent and slowly moved back in his seat, then looked to Jean. Beaming with pride, she reached out and patted his arm in a congratulatory manner; after all, it wasn’t every day that Archer Finckley was beaten at his own game.

  Finckley grunted, clearly conceding the argument. “I think it’s time we took some calls,” he mumbled, quickly changing the subject. He glared at his stage manager, who stood to one side of the camera that was trained on the sour-faced host. Above the camera, a TelePrompTer flashed the location of the first person calling the station. “Hello, Saskatoon. You’re on the air . . .”

  “Well, there’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back. . .” Jean muttered one hour later, relieved to have finally escaped the hot studio lights and even hotter glare of their host.

  All in all, it hadn’t turned out to be anywhere close to the traumatic event she’d been expecting, since she and Scott had continued to hold up their end of the interview, even managing to sneak in a plug or two for interested parents to get more information by either calling the institute’s toll-free number (1-800-gen-pride) or by logging on to its Internet Web site (www.childrenoftheatom.com); and, much to her surprise, Finckley had concluded the show with an open invitation for them to come back another evening. A gracious move, and one Scott was sure to follow-up on, but one that Jean felt she could, hopefully, decline. Let her run the school and have Ororo or Rogue make the next appearance, she figured; they’ve always been better at this Public Relations stuff, anyway.

  Right now, though, the only thing Jean was interested in was a warm bath, some scented candles, and a cup of jasmine tea to soothe her frazzled nerves. And a massage—definitely a massage. If there was one thing that had convinced her that marrying Scott Summers was a good idea, it was the fact he had great hands, and an incredible knack for loosening up the tightest knots.

  But all of that would have to wait, much to Jean’s growing annoyance. Standing outside the side entrance of WSLP-TV, from which Viewpoints was broadcast, she and Scott huddled under a gold-trimmed, maroon-colored awning, trying to stay dry. Just beyond the protective canopy, rain was falling in a heavy, perpendicular downpour, turning the intersection of Tenth Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street in Manhattan into the closest approximation Jean had ever seen to the canals of Venice, Italy. All four street corners had disappeared beneath a small lake caused by backed-up sewer drains, and the streams it created stretched toward every point on the compass. Walking anywhere was completely out of the question, since the rushing waters looked more than capable of grabbing a careless pedestrian in an under-current and sweeping them into the Hudson River, which flowed just a few blocks to the west.

  And there wasn’t a taxi cab to be seen—an unfortunate, though quite typical, situation for New Yorkers to find themselves in on a dark and stormy night.

  “I thought Ororo guaranteed a clear evening,” Jean said, watching a bolt of lightning rip across the darkened sky; the resounding boom of its thunder two seconds later rattled windows and set off what seemed to be every car alarm in the neighborhood. She sighed. “Well, that’ll teach me to trust a weather goddess. Wouldn’t surprise me if she caused it in the first place so she could water her plants properly.” She glanced at Scott, and jerked a thumb toward the downpour. “What do you think—should we chance it?”

  Scott, however, seemed to be in his own little world. He laughed heartily and turned to face his wife. “Did you see what happened back there, honey?” he asked, motioning toward the studio. “I walked right into the lion’s den, and I’m still alive to talk about it!”

  Jean smiled. “I know. I was there, remember?” She pointed a warning finger at him. “But don’t let it go to your head, ‘Slim.’ You caught Finckley on a bad night—even without scanning his thoughts, I could tell he was trying his best not to say anything derogatory about Erik; it’d be like badmouthing the Pope. And being that overly cautious threw him off his game.” Jean’s eyes went wide. “Believe me, hon, if you ever saw the replay of the show where he tore Strom Thurman apart over budget cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts, you’d realize just how lucky you were in there.” She shook her head. “No, if Finckley had been running on all cylinders, he would’ve found a way to chew your butt right off.” Leaning back, she peered around her husband, and smiled. “Well, maybe he did get a little piece of it. . .”

  An eyebrow rose above the ruby quartz lenses of Scott’s sunglasses. “Is that so?”

  Jean nodded, still staring at her husband’s posterior. “Mm-hmm.

  Must’ve happened when you got a little heated over him questioning the need for the Children of the Atom Museum that’s opening in Paris next week—you did come off as a little too fawning over Erik.” She shrugged. “But it’s hardly noticeable.”

  “You can see it,” Scott noted.

  Grinning broadly, Jean turned to look at him in the eye. “Honey, I’m your wife. There isn’t an inch of that butt I’m not familiar with— who else would know what to look for?” Her eyes narrowed. “And if there’s an answer to that question other than ‘my mom,’ I don’t want to hear it.”

  Scott grunted and folded his arms across his chest. “I notice he didn’t chew any of yours off,” he said with mock indignation.

  “That’s because I’m the cute one, ” Jean replied, green eyes sparkling with mirth. “You think people would still respect the great Archer Finckley tomorrow morning if he’d been seen knoshing on a redheaded school marm tonight?” She patted her hips. “Besides, my butt’s so small, it’d only be an appetizer for him.” She glanced at Scott. “It is small, isn’t it?”

  “Of course, it is,” he quickly replied. As Scott had learned early in life, there were certain questions that arose in any given relationship—it made no difference whether it was human or mutant—that, when lobbed like grenades by the femal
e half of the couple, had to be expertly defused with fast, straightforward, and always positive answers; there were no alternatives if the participants wished to remain happy together. And in this particular relationship, with the love of his life literally able to read his mind, Scott knew how easily he could be caught in a lie—and how dangerous would be the repercussions.

  Truly, hell hath no fury like a telepath/telekinetic who can hurl a roomful of furniture at you when she’s provoked, and, at the same time, give you a migraine headache while you’re busy trying to dodge the chest-of-drawers.

  “Speaking of appetizers . . .” he said, changing the subject.

  Jean laughed, all too aware of his ploy. “My husband—the master of the segue.”

  “Speaking of appetizers...” Scott continued, clearly choosing to ignore her comment, “. . . I’m starving. How about you?”

  Jean’s stomach responded on her behalf, rumbling ominously. The redheaded telepath laughed. In point of fact, she hadn’t had anything to eat that day, beyond a buttered, cinnamon/raisin bagel and a large espresso in the morning; her nervousness over the impending interview had made her too nauseated to contemplate eating anything else... well, except for that handful of Hershey’s Kisses she’d found in the bottom right-hand desk drawer in her office. A girl’s gotta have her chocolate fix, she’d told herself, even if she’s about to get her head handed to her, and soon the ink blotter had been covered with discarded silver wrappings. But now, looking back on her time in the studio, Jean was amazed that her stomach hadn’t voiced its protest earlier. Now, there would have been something for Finckley to seize on!