To the north lay Hammer Bay, the island’s capital—a collection of gleaming marble buildings that served as both headquarters for the administrative offices of the Ministry of Health and medical research facility for Reichsminister Zola and his staff of gengineers. “Medical research,” however, didn’t quite accurately describe the sort of work performed within the antiseptic-white walls and polished glass; “experimentation” might be a better word.
Or even “butchery,” as Ororo knew first-hand. For it was here that Zola and his acolytes continued the sort of horrendous operations and biological tests begun by Mengele in the darkest days of World War II, and developed further in the decades following the notorious doctor’s passing by his most talented disciple. And it was also here that her mutant powers had been stripped away, at the brutal hands of human monsters that dared call themselves physicians. Ororo clamped her teeth together as a chill ran through her body, images of scalpels and clamps, demonic smiles and blood—Bright Lady, so much blood!—flashing before her eyes. It was a miracle she had survived the surgery, let alone the callous treatment of the guards and nurses as they bundled her weakened, scarred body aboard the last shuttle bound for the Sahara.
And now she was returning—for reasons she could not fathom, for tortures she had no doubt she would soon experience . . .
The jet touched down a few minutes later, on one of the landing pads that jutted out from the sides of the Ministry’s main building. A coterie of armed guards rushed out to meet the Lightning Force members—and their unwilling passenger—and stood at attention on both sides of the team, forming a corridor that led from the plane to a door at the far end of the platform. Ororo noticed how Nightcrawler tensed up as the guards approached—no doubt he momentarily feared that they were coming for him.
“The Minister is waiting for you in his apartments, Hauptmann Englande,” one of the soldiers said.
“Then, let us not keep him waiting a minute longer!” Englande replied. He nodded toward Ororo. “Bring the prisoner.” Without waiting to see if his command was obeyed—more likely confident that it would be—he set off for the end of the landing area, boot heels ringing against the metal surface.
Meggan attached a length of chain to Ororo’s collar, and gave it a sharp tug. The white-haired former skyrider stumbled forward, almost colliding with her captor, and fell to her knees. Meggan snarled, eyes shifting from pale blue to blood red, and yanked harder.
“Up, pig!” she roared. “Get up and walk!”
For the first time in her life, Ororo wondered what it might be like to kill someone, to have some measure of revenge against all those who had ever wronged her, all those who had treated her as filth, as a pariah, from the day she had been bom right up to this moment. And given the situation, there seemed no better target for her anger, for her blinding hatred, than the blond-haired witch happily trying to strangle her.
She repressed the urge to find out, though—this was neither the time nor the place for an attack; not with so many guns that could be leveled at her if she made the wrong move. There would be a time, however; Ororo was certain of that. All she had to do was wait long enough, and the Bright Lady would provide . ..
As she straggled to her feet and shuffled after Meggan, Ororo had to bite back a tiny laugh that threatened to bubble past her lips. Just a day ago, she had been consumed with thoughts of suicide, pining away for her lost powers. And yet, here, now, she had become focused on staying alive ... at least long enough to strike back at her captors.
Tilting her head down so her ghostly mane would hide her smile, Ororo followed Meggan into the building, making a mental list of all the possible ways in which the haughty shapeshifter could die by her hand.
She’d thought of more than twenty by the time they passed through the doorway.
The Mastrex was in a similar mood when she barged into the throne room of the Starlight Citadel. She was so consumed with rage, in fact, that she ignored protocol, shoving aside the guard standing watch in the hall when he moved to intercept her. Allowing von Doom the satisfaction of making her wait until he was ready to receive her was not on her agenda of things to do.
Wringing answers from him, however, was at the top of the list.
“Von Doom!” she roared, stomping up the main aisle. She noticed the throne was vacant of his slouching figure. “Where are you hiding? We need to talk!”
Her strident voice echoed around the immense chamber, the only reply a chittering laugh from the darkness around her; apparently,
Roma’s little shadow-pets found her outburst amusing. Given half a chance—and a Level-12 phosphorgun—she would have demonstrated to them in great, fiery detail that the Mastrex of the Empire of True Briton lacked a sense of humor.
A deep frown tugging at her features, Sat-yr-nin continued across the transept and came to a halt at the base of the steps leading to the throne. The lack of response puzzled her: given von Doom’s inflated sense of ego, he should have reacted immediately to her unannounced arrival—threatened her, tried to strike her, even ignored her in a bid to reestablish his superiority, to remind her of “her place.” Not that a small part of Sat-yr-nin wasn’t grateful he didn’t answer her challenge—while his armor still possessed circuitry from the medical wing’s multiphasic crystal accelerators, open displays of hostility toward the super-villain would probably be handled by a quick burst of lethal energy from his gauntlets.
And those gauntlets were the only functioning weapons in the entire citadel, Sat-yr-nin reminded herself, given the “state of grace” that enveloped this fortress, rendering all other devices useless. Perhaps, she considered, it was for the best that von Doom apparently wasn’t around to hear her outburst. . .
But where could he have wandered off to, then? It was unlikely he’d grown tired of sitting around the throne room and gone stalking the corridors outside; she would have been alerted to his activities by the security forces who thought she was the “real” Satumyne, instead of her more . . . foul-tempered counterpart. So, if he hadn’t left the throne room, then he must be somewhere in its depths; it wouldn’t surprise Sat-yr-nin to learn there were hidden rooms behind the walls, with passages leading to all points in the citadel. It was the sort of tactic she would have expected from Roma’s secretive father, Merlyn; she had done the same thing in the stronghold on her world. His offspring, however, would never have been so duplicitous—or so clever.
Sat-yr-nin turned in a slow circle, then set off toward a pulpit-like stmcture near the throne. As she moved across the chamber, a large chessboard floated out of the shadows to join her. Sat-yr-nin halted, and the board did likewise, hovering at chest height.
“Lost without your mistress, little toy?” she addressed it with a snarl. She didn’t expect an answer. From what she knew of Roma’s machinations, and Merlyn’s before her, the chessboard was primarily used by the Supreme Guardian to direct the lives of sentients at crucial junctures in the space/time continuum—games played by a pair of celestial beings who imagined themselves gods. The board fashioned pieces that resembled the unsuspecting “pawns,” and play began once father and daughter had chosen sides.
Not many pawns usually survived long enough to learn who had won the match.
The Mastrex studied the ivory and black onyx squares, and the few pieces standing on them. There were representations of Braddock and her winged lover, Worthington, in white, at one end of the board; at the other, black pieces that matched the features and costumes of the X-Men who had invaded her world and carted her away as their prisoner. She could have sworn there had been another piece in place of Worthington’s when she’d first entered Roma’s chamber, before von Doom attacked: a baldheaded man in a wheelchair. But it wasn’t there now, and Sat-yr-nin couldn’t be bothered with trying to work out how the board could have made such a substitution without direction.
Turning from the chessboard, she climbed the short set of steps, her gaze drawn to the almost hypnotic fashion in which the light
of the hundreds of scented candles decorating the platform glinted off polished crystal. This, in a way, was the true source of Roma’s—and, ultimately, von Doom’s—power: the life-forces of countless parallel universes, contained within slivers of quartz. Billions of worlds, countless billions upon billions of inhabitants, each just slightly out of synch with its counterpart so as to keep realities from literally colliding, each separated by a thin vibratory curtain that prevented two bodies, or two planets, from occupying the same position in Time and Space.
At least, that was what was supposed to be happening, to Sat-yr-nin’s understanding. But, based on a quick review of her alternate’s computer records, the harmonic curtains were now apparently decaying, the spaces between parallel worlds growing smaller with each passing hour. And von Doom himself was the cause of it all—or, rather, the Cosmic Cube he had cobbled together.
Her attention was drawn to one crystal in particular. Unlike those surrounding it, the surface of this sliver was darkened, as though covered with a thick layer of soot—from the inside. A fair number of its neighbors were showing similar discoloration. It didn’t take a Supreme Guardian to realize that the blackened quartz must be the source of the trouble—the “threat to the omniverse,” as Braddock had put it.
Earth 616. Home to von Doom, the X-Men, Captain Britain, and hundreds of other superpowered beings who, if they hadn’t already caused Sat-yr-nin grief at some point in the past, might very well do so in the future. But not if she ended the threat in a simple, direct manner . . .
Sat-yr-nin ran a shapely finger along the polished sliver, an unexpected smile lighting her features as a mild charge of electricity ran through her. Then, giggling softly, she plucked the crystal from its setting, and held it delicately between thumb and index finger.
“All it would take is a slight accident—” she released the crystal, then quickly caught it in her other hand, and laughed “—and the ‘threat’ would end ... along with so many bothersome lives ...”
She took a step back from the pulpit, attention focused on the darkened sliver—and suddenly lost her balance.
As she thudded to the floor, cursing the proverbial blue streak (a most un-Mastrex-like display of profanities), the crystal slipped from her hands and went skidding across the pulpit. Sat-yr-nin watched as the container for Universe 616 slid underneath a decorative iron grating, and into the darkness beyond.
In frustration, she pounded the floor, and yelped as her hand struck a piece of ivory—the very thing that had upset her balance. She picked it up and stared at its features: they were those of a man in a long coat and form-fitting costume, with unruly, shoulder-length hair. In one hand, he held a long staff; the other grasped a playing card between two fingers. Sat-yr-nin remembered the man it was based on quite well—he had used a similar playing card to detonate her stronghold’s armory during the X-Men’s final assault.
“Gambit,” he had called himself, in that annoying way that some costumed fools—von Doom among them—had of referring to themselves in the third person.
With a start, Sat-yr-nin glanced up to find the chessboard hovering beside her. Did the damnable thing follow Roma around this closely?
“Here!” she said, and slammed the figurine down on the board. “Now you have a third white piece. Why don’t you go somewhere and play a game against yourself?”
Rising to her feet, Sat-yr-nin dusted herself off and headed down the steps, renewing her search for her partner.
She never saw the blue-white crackle of electricity that surrounded the restored chess piece.
Remy Lebeau was just closing up his office for the night when the change came upon him.
He’d managed to survive another day without any further run-ins with Obergruppenflihrer Sharon Carter, had even succeeded in looking like he was actually doing work whenever she or one of her lackeys passed by. The search for the supply room pilferer was still an ongoing investigation, he assured her; it was only a matter of time before the thief was caught. It was the best he could offer, under the circumstances—surrendering himself and confessing that the missing items (staplers, paper hole-punchers, pens, pencils, note pads, even two laptop computers) could be found in the basement of his apartment building was not an option. Nor would he be able to explain just why he had felt compelled to “acquire” the supplies during the past few weeks—it was as much a mystery to him as it would be to any potential interrogator. Except Remy wouldn’t have to beat himself about the head and body to arrive at that answer.
All in all, then, it had been one of his better days—slow, dull, meaningless, but still better than having Carter slap him around while venting her frustrations about his slacker mentality. Maybe now he’d even work up the nerve to knock on the door of his neighbor across the hall, ask her out for drinks, or a cup of coffee.
Remy smiled awkwardly and shook his head—now he was going too far. Susan Storm was a beautiful woman, too good for a lowly spaceport clerk; she must have dozens of suitors lined up at her door every night. No, better to avoid the situation, rather than run the risk of rejection. Maybe some other night. ..
And then .. . it happened.
There was nothing subtle about it—no trembling of limbs, no pounding of his head or heart, no sense that something was about to befall him. One moment, he was reaching for the light switch by the door; the next, he was facedown on the linoleum tiles, groaning as consciousness slowly returned. He rolled onto his back, and opened his eyes.
Fluorescent lighting glinted off pupils so black they looked more like glassy portals than eyes—but then, it has long been said that the eyes are the windows to the soul.
In this case, they were the windows to one very special soul.
With some effort, Remy sat up. There was something different about him, though, beyond the unusual coloration of his eyes—a slyness in the way he looked around the room. An almost cat-like grace as he leapt to his feet. An almost comical expression as he came to an abrupt halt, confused by his surroundings.
“Dis sure don’ look like Heaven,” he muttered. “So, where d’hell did ol’ Gambit wind up dis time . . . ?”
HE WAS in hell. He knew that now, for nothing else could explain the nightmare in which he was living.
_ It was the stench of burning flesh that finally brought him to
his knees as he stumbled through the woods, the bile forcing its way up from his stomach and past his lips. In all his years since Auschwitz, Erik Lensherr had never forgotten the smell, or the crackling tone of the flames, or the ear-piercing screams that assailed his ears as the fire consumed the last of those still alive in the pit.
No, he had never forgotten them, but he had often prayed—if such an unrepentant terrorist as the man he had been before he touched the Cube had any right to call upon a deity for help—that, for a time, he could at least block the memories. Shut out the smells and sights and the sounds, if only for a little time.
Shut them out, just as he was praying he could do right now .. .
He had been assigned to a work detail at the crack of dawn, rousted from bed along with the one hundred or so other inmates he joined as they stumbled from the barracks. Marching in twos, they were prodded toward the farthest part of the camp, where an assortment of shovels, picks, and hammers had been assembled, then directed to proceed outside, beyond the fences.
The procession moved through the gates, under the watchful eye of the tower guards. Lensherr paid them no attention—his attention was focused on the wasteland that lay just past the confines of the camp.
What had once been a lush forest that towered over the rear of the camp had, over time, been bulldozed flat and transformed into a scarred, dead No Man’s Land, containing acre upon acre of irregularly shaped hillocks—too many to count. There was life to be found here, though: numerous displays of wildflowers that sprouted in clumps on and around some of the larger earthen bumps—colorful splashes of violet and red, blue and gold, that broke up the browns and grays and bla
cks of this manmade canvas.
On the edge of the forest, about two miles from the camp, they were told to start digging. Lensherr’s stomach had turned over, then, for he knew exactly what the purpose of their task was.
They were digging their own grave. Adding yet another hillock to the twisted landscape, as other groups of inmates had done before them.
He could tell by the expressions on the faces of the prisoners immediately around him that only some realized what they were doing; the rest were either too broken in spirit or too exhausted by their labors from the day before to give the work any consideration. It was an order, and they were there to simply carry it out.
A woman in her sixties had begun wailing, then, only to have the man beside her—her husband, perhaps—quietly beg her to fall silent before the situation grew worse. How that might be possible not even Lensherr could imagine, but he said nothing. What was there to say, after all? There could be no words of comfort here, no soothing phrases that sprung to mind that might ease their fears. They were going to die, and waxing poetic before it happened would be a waste of breath—a departure from old habits for someone like Magneto, who had never been short on words, but then much had changed since the Cosmic Cube came into his life. Maybe he was becoming wiser with age. An ironic situation, he considered, that such wisdom should come to him just as he was about to face Death.
And he had no doubt that this would be the final time. The mutant overlord had had many appointments scheduled with her since beginning his crusade to make Homo superior the dominant species on the planet, yet he had been lucky enough—or clever enough, in his opinion—to miss all of them. After a while, it had become almost standard operating procedure for him to find her waiting nearby as he battled the X-Men, or the Avengers, or countless other heroes and villains, all of whom would have cheered—privately, of course—if he hadn’t escaped from that exploding island stronghold, or avoided that solar eruption, or pried himself loose from some deathtrap or other; he felt the same way about them. But he had no mutant powers on this world to call upon to avoid her this time, only the strength of a body well into its seventies. And no matter how well-sculpted his musculature might be for someone his age, no matter how sharp his mind might still be, without his powers he was only a man.
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