chaos engine trilogy

by Unknown Author

  She quickly lowered her gaze so she wouldn’t have to look at it. Let him speak his mind, and then leave, you stupid git—get out before something happens. Something you ’11 regret.

  “Look, Elisabeth,” he said, “I know this long-distance relationship has been hard on both of us, what with you spending half the year in New Zealand and me shuttling between our places here and in the States, but I thought we could always work things out. If there’s a problem, if there’s something I’ve done that makes you think you need somebody else in your life, then tell me what it is. I don’t want us to break up—I just want to make it right.”

  He gently placed a hand under her chin and tilted it up, then moved forward to kiss her. For a second—just for a second—she wavered in her resolve .. . but it was enough time for her to finally give in to the temptation.

  His lips brushed against hers, and a pleasant surge of electricity raced through her body, prickling her skin. She shivered slightly, feeling her defenses start to crumble ... yet she did nothing to stop it from happening.

  A fake ... he’s just a fake ... her mind called out, but she wasn’t listening anymore. She dropped the bag, wrapped her arms around him, and pulled him close, losing herself in the smell of his skin, thrilling to the touch of his hands as he ran his fingertips down the length of her spine. It all felt so right, and she just wanted—so desperately needed— the pain to end.

  But then the memory

  wings fluttering helplessly, his handsome features stretched tight as searing pain wracked his body, the odor of burnt flesh in her nostrils

  flashed brightly across her mind’s eye, and she pulled back.

  “N-no, this is wrong . ..” she whispered. She pushed him away, roughly, and he fell back, staggering for a moment before he regained his balance.

  “What are you talking about, Elisabeth?” Worthington demanded. “What’s wrong?” His eyes flashed with anger. “You’re my wife, damn it—”

  “I’m not your wife!” Betsy roared. “And you’re just a lie!”

  She was angry now—more at her own actions than by anything he had done—and hurt, and wanted to do nothing more than blindly lash out at the monster who had compounded her suffering, who had used his damnable wishbox to trivialize the death of the only man she had ever truly loved. Unfortunately, that monster wasn’t available . . . but she was willing to settle for the next best thing.

  Unbidden, her right hand suddenly began to glow with rose-colored energy—instinctively, she’d called forth her psi-blade. Her eyes seemed to blaze with the same energy as she menacingly closed on her prey.

  Worthington backed away; his eyes sparkled with the growing light of fear. Maybe he was coming to the realization that the woman advancing on him really wasn 7 his wife.

  “What the hell is that?” he asked, his voice a few octaves higher, and pointed to the foot-long dagger.

  “My wrath, ” she said coldly—and plunged the blade into his skull.

  She found herself standing on a beach on a hot summer day.

  The sky was ablaze with color as the sun set in the west; looking toward the east, Betsy could see stars twinkling brightly against a midnight blue curtain. Judging by the fact that the constellations were different here than those she normally saw above the lights of New York, she came to the conclusion that she was in the Southern Hemisphere.

  She remembered this place, but not as a psychic construct floating around in someone’s mind. It was an actual island, owned by Warren, that was located in the Bismarck Sea, about one hundred miles off the coast of New Guinea. She’d been here with her beau, a year or so past, along with Bobby Drake and his non-mutant girlfriend of the moment— a pretty, blond-haired artist named Cindy Appleton. The quartet had traveled there to unwind after a particularly grueling battle the X-Men had fought against one of the group’s oldest enemies: Kukulcan, an ancient Mayan deity. Warren was bruised and battered from taking the brunt of one of the sun god’s solar bolts—at one point, he’d commented that he ached so badly that even his hair hurt. Betsy’s soothing ministrations, however, made him soon forget all about his pains ...

  A low moan caught her attention, and she looked down to find the “other” Worthington lying face-down in the golden sand. Planting a stockinged foot firmly against his rib cage, she pushed hard, rolling him onto his back so he could breathe. It wouldn’t do to have him suffocate while she was inside his mind. The last thing she needed after the horrors she’d recently experienced was to be trapped inside the subconscious of a dead man.

  Betsy gazed at her surroundings. Out on the ocean, a pair of dolphins leapt from the water, playing tag in the turquoise waters. Behind her, palm trees swayed in the gentle Pacific breezes, the broad leaves rattling softly with a sound like sails unfurling. Beyond the trees, rising majestically above the island, was Mt. Pindalayo, a dormant volcano she had tried to climb a number of times during the brief vacation. She’d given up after twisting her right knee on the third attempt, and had grudgingly settled for a quick trip to the top courtesy of Air Worthington.

  Everything here was just as she remembered it—except that Warren wasn’t with her now to enjoy the view.

  Forcing herself to ignore the prostrate form spread out by her feet, Betsy started walking toward the jungle, knowing that any answers she sought would be found there, in the depths of Worthington’s subconscious.

  The path through the jungle wasn’t a real path, of course—it was merely a representation of a psychic conduit that allowed her easy access to Worthington’s memories; the further she traveled along it, the more information she’d be able to gather. If she wanted, she could even interact with those memories, and peel back their layers to discover what really lay at the heart of this creation that had been formed by Magneto’s black sense of humor. For now, though, she settled for simply playing observer, glancing from side to side at a brief scene here, a childhood fantasy there, with all the mild interest of someone strolling through the Central Park Zoo on a pleasant Sunday afternoon.

  As she continued her journey, however, mild interest quickly grew to open-mouthed astonishment. She was shocked—and a tad frightened, she had to admit—by how so many of Worthington’s memories were the same as Warren’s. The night he’d coaxed her into singing at the Starlight Room in New York. Their first moonlit flight above the city, arms wrapped around one another, chasing the stars as they flitted across the night sky. Vacations in Rio de Janeiro, in Switzerland, in Venice. That wild, passionate night in New Orleans when he’d finally admitted his love for her.

  But how could this be possible? If Worthington and everyone else on the planet were just constructs of Magneto’s mind, then how could this version of Warren possess memories that Lensherr would never have been privy to? Was the Cosmic Cube so powerful it could even reconstruct the thought patterns of a dead man?

  Unfortunately, she couldn’t find any answers to her questions—not in Worthington’s mind, at least.

  Betsy shook her head; this was getting her nowhere. It was obvious that Worthington didn’t know anything else about Magneto beyond what the rest of the world had been duped into believing. As much as she hated to admit it, this detour from her mission had only succeeded in accomplishing one goal: killing a few hours before she had to face the mutant overlord. She’d been a fool to put herself through all this trouble—all this misery. It was time to move on.

  But then, just as she prepared to withdraw from Worthington’s subconscious and return to her own body, she felt the presence of another mind, and a familiar voice called out to her from the darkness:

  Betts? Betsy? Is that you?

  Her breath caught in her throat. No—it couldn’t be, she told herself. He was gone, and no matter how much she wished otherwise, there was nothing she could do to bring him back. It had to be some part of Worthington’s mind, another memory she’d stumbled across. It would be best to ignore it; better to go now, before she caused herself any more grief by poking around where sh
e didn’t belong. She’d be an utter fool to remain here a moment longer.

  So why, then, did she find herself venturing further into the jungle, into the shadowy depths of Worthington’s mind, hoping to find the source of that voice ... ?

  14

  ii

  HE FIRST sensation Saturnyne had was of being cold and wet.

  Her feet were numb, for some inexplicable reason. The chill spread to her ankles, then up along her legs. It was around that

  moment that she also lost all feeling in her fingertips.

  She struggled to open her eyes, but it turned out to be a difficult task—her body refused to respond to her mental commands. No real surprise there, she thought dimly—she’d been going nonstop almost from the moment the Cube-created anomaly began to warp reality in Dimension 616. If she were her body, she wouldn’t want to get up, either. . .

  But then why did she feel so blasted cold? And something else: hadn’t she been in the process of responding to some sort of alert in the citadel?

  The numbness continued to spread; she couldn’t feel anything below her waist or elbows now. Cold this intense should have made her joints ache, but she couldn’t feel those, either. Had she gotten out of bed in the middle of the night and passed out on the bathroom floor?

  Slowly, the heavy eyelids began to rise, and she was able to catch brief, hazy glimpses of her surroundings through gummy, crust-covered lashes:

  A dark area—a room of some sort?

  Colored lights twinkling like stars.

  A flash of white moving across the darkness.

  Her mind fought hard to process the information provided by her eyes, but her thinking was all muzzy; if only she weren’t so cold . . .

  She vaguely remembered a hand over her mouth, the stab of something sharp penetrating her neck—then nothing.

  No, there was more. A woman. There’d been a woman in her quarters—one with snow-white hair like hers; a face like hers. A mirror image. An evil twin.

  Sat-yr-nin.

  That psychopathic little git from Earth 794. She was the one who’d been in her quarters, wearing her clothes, her jewelry—

  Her identity?

  But, wait a moment. Wasn’t Sat-yr-nin supposed to be locked away in the bowels of the citadel? Of course, she was—Her Whyness had seen to that herself, supervising her insane double’s placement in the stasis chamber shortly after the X-Men had captured her. Roma had been uncomfortable with the idea of putting the Mastrex to death, no matter how severe her crimes against humanity might have been; all life was sacred to the Supreme Guardian.

  There were days, Satumyne had thought darkly at the time, when she missed having Merlyn in charge. A right buzzard he might be, a schemer, a liar, and a callous manipulator, but at least he understood the need for swift, decisive actions—like summary justice. If only Roma could be a little more cold-hearted, like her father . . .

  Nevertheless, the Mastrex of Earth 794 had been sealed away, hopefully forever—or at least until Roma saw the light of reason, and had her atoms scattered across the length and breadth of the omniverse. But if Sat-yr-nin had been in Her Whyness’ rooms just a short while ago, then obviously she had escaped. And if she was now wandering about the citadel, impersonating the Omniversal Majestrix, then where, in turn was the real Majestrix .. . ?

  Satumyne’s eyes snapped open, a sudden adrenaline surge providing her with the strength she needed to throw off the lingering effects of the sedative. She was in a crystalline tube, medical sensors attached to various points on her head and body. She went to touch the glass, but found herself unable to move her arms. Or her legs, for that matter.

  Forcing her head to tilt downward, she saw a viscous, azure liquid filling the enclosure from a hole in the bottom of the tube. The level of fluid had already risen above chest level, and as it climbed higher, more and more of her body became numb. It took her a moment to realize what was happening.

  Suspension fluid, her mind told her. You ’re in the stasis chamber. Being cryo-sealed.

  “Mitras, no!” she cried. Panicked, she looked through the crystal wall, to find a sour-faced, balding man in a white laboratory coat watching her.

  A doctor, she thought. He’s a doctor—but if he’s a doctor, then why isn’t he trying to help me? Doesn’t he know who I am?

  Of course, he did, she realized with growing horror. Because he was the one who had drugged her; the one who had freed Sat-yr-nin; the one who was working with von Doom.

  Stanton, she thought hazily as the cold seized her around the collarbone, digging its wintry talons into her flesh. His name. . . is. .. Stanton . . .

  It was getting harder to think clearly—her mind was closing down, her heart stopping, the flow of blood to her brain inching to a halt. All she could focus on was the chill that had seized her body—the icy fist that held her immobile in her crystal coffin, its grip tightening to such a degree that each remaining breath felt like shards of broken glass were being scraped against the back of her throat. She was cold ... so very cold . . .

  She opened her mouth wide, to scream one last time in defiance—

  And then the thick, blue liquid was flowing down her throat, filling her lungs, and a numbing rime closed over her thoughts.

  Stanton watched with a sense of relief as the suspension fluid reached the top of the tube, and Saturnyne’s vital signs settled down to normal— well, normal for cryo-sleep, that is. It had been a close call, transporting her to the stasis chamber before the sedative wore off; the job might have gone easier, and much faster, if von Doom hadn’t abandoned him to go off on his own.

  “Doom is no man’s lackey,” he had said in that annoyingly imperious tone of his. “It is your plan, Stanton—see it through to its conclusion. I, meanwhile, have more important matters to which I must attend.” Then, turning on his heel without waiting for a response, he’d exited Satumyne’s suite, leaving the dour physician to the task of dragging an unconscious Majestrix back through the service tunnels they’d used to gain access to her quarters.

  The return trip to the stasis chamber had taken twice as long to travel, since Satumyne was nothing but dead weight in his arms, and he’d had to hide from citadel security patrols at least a half-dozen times. Nevertheless, his supposition had been correct: no one had thought to check on Sat-yr-nin, so focused were they all on locating von Doom. The bodies, the broken doors—they were all still there when he arrived with his charge, all lying exactly as they had been when he, von Doom, and Sat-yr-nin had departed for the upper levels. He’d just managed to bundle the insensate Majestrix into the crystalline holding cylinder as the first soft moans of returning consciousness escaped her lips.

  Stanton leaned back against the monitoring station, and used the sleeve of his coat to wipe away the perspiration that had accumulated on his bare scalp. He was a doctor, not a dock worker—he wasn’t built for all this heavy lifting. His back ached, his head pounded, his arms felt like lead ingots; there were moments when it hurt just to breathe. As shapely as the Majestrix was, one hundred and fifteen pounds was still one hundred and fifteen pounds, whether on Earth or the citadel, and carrying all that weight up and down access ladders, through service tunnels, and across numerous corridors had certainly taken its toll on him. All he wanted to do right now was collapse into bed and sleep for a week. But then an image of von Doom floated before his bleary eyes, and Stanton was quickly reminded of the armored fist that had crushed the skull of the elderly counterpart from Earth 892; of the splash of blood and bone that had turned the white bedding a disturbing crimson hue; and of von Doom’s ominous comment about the expendability of his pawns. Perhaps it might be better to stay awake and keep busy ...

  Still, Stanton’s plan had worked to perfection ... so far. Satumyne was alive, her alternate was moving freely about the citadel, and no one was the wiser. And, as long as von Doom didn’t tip their hand too soon, the masquerade could continue undetected.

  Stanton smiled. Could the Chief Physicia
n have done anything this masterful? Highly unlikely—the man could barely dress himself properly. Such precise planning could only have been accomplished by someone possessing a great mind—an intellect so vast it staggered the imaginations of lesser beings. An intellect like the one that resided in the mind of one Henry P. Stanton.

  Now, he just had to put that intellect to use, and think of something to do with all the bodies outside, before anyone took notice ...

  With a heavy sigh, Stanton pushed off from the monitoring station, and headed for the outer chamber, his back already complaining. Behind him, Satumyne floated in azure tranquillity, her beautiful features twisted grotesquely with fear, her mouth locked in a scream that would never be heard ...

  “How’s the head, Professor?” Jean Grey asked. It was clear from her tone of voice that she didn’t really care one way or the other about any ill effects he might be suffering from her psi-bolt.

  “Oh, much better,” Xavier replied politely. It was true—now that the phenobarbital had worn off, and Jean had taken to trusting the neural inhibitor to keep his mental powers in check, rather than continue rooting around in his memories, he almost felt like his normal self. “Thank you for asking. And yours?”

  Jean started, then eyed him suspiciously. The Professor could almost hear the wheels turning in her head—was he using some telepathic ability he’d managed to hide from her scans? If so, another psi-bolt might be in order . . .

  “I’ve noticed you’ve been wincing in pain a great deal since we landed in Orly, and you’ve taken to consuming aspirins as though they were after-dinner mints,” he explained quickly, and smiled. “You don’t have to be a telepath to recognize the signs of a headache.”

  Jean grunted, and turned her seat around to face the road.

  Xavier sighed. It looked like nothing he could say or do would be able to break through Magneto’s control. Jean had seemed to be the obvious choice among the X-Men for him to try and bond with, given their closeness in the past, but that had turned out to be the wrong assumption—if anything, she was probably the one most able to resist his attempts at rekindling their friendship, since she already knew his true intentions. Scott was even more difficult to reach—his devotion to Magneto bordered on fanaticism. As for Kurt and Rogue, while their personalities were essentially the same as always, they tended to remain silent in his presence, preferring instead to simply glare at him with undisguised hatred and loathing.