Behind her words was the unspoken implication: I won’t let you feel guilty about being cured while I’m still dying.
“But the data from the Kree computer... it’s ...”
“Lost, yes-but we still have our memories, Hank. I learned a lot beneath that island, and I’m sure you did too. I’ve got a dozen new ideas to try out-and as soon as you’re up and about again, I expect you to come out to Muir Island and help me.”
Hank grinned and, miraculously, he felt some of the pain and frustration of the past two weeks draining away. “You can count on it, Doctor MacTaggert,” he said.
A weaiy Jean Grey returned home at last, to the building that was presently known as the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, in the small Westchester town of Salem Center. Even as she stepped into the hallway, however, she heard raised voices coming from the direction of the lounge. Cyclops and Wolverine were at loggerheads, as usual. She hesitated at the lounge door and listened. It had been a long couple of days. She was tired, and she didn’t know if she had the spirit to mediate between her husband and her friend again.
“You were taking one hell of a risk!” said Cyclops.
“Depends how much value you place on Selene’s life,” came Wolverine’s curt response. “Me, I wouldn’t give you a plugged nickel for it.”
“She could have been a valuable hostage against Blackheart.” “Turns out she was more use to us dead, though, doesn’t it?” Jean nodded to herself as she understood what the row was about. Wolverine had murdered the future Selene in cold blood. Regardless of how things had turned out, it wasn’t in Scott Summers’ nature to let such an action pass without comment.
“And what if you’d been wrong? What if killing her hadn’t reversed the effects of the spell? What if we’d had to live with the consequences?”
“I wasn’t wrong-and that’s what burns you, isn’t it Summers! Your poor liberal conscience can’t cope with the fact that taking out Selene was the right thing to do.”
“What ‘bums me,’ Logan, is that you acted against my explicit orders.”
“I saw a chance. I took it.”
“You should have discussed it with me first.”
“Oh yeah, sure. And we’d have been standing in the wreckage of Manhattan right now, still yakking about Selene’s human rights with half our team lying dead around us.”
“Or we might have found a better way to resolve the situation.” A door opened on the upper floor, and Rogue’s voice drifted down the staircase: “Bathroom’s free!” Cyclops and Wolverine continued to argue, apparently not having heard her. It didn’t take Jean long to convince herself that it would serve them both right if she left them to it and jumped the queue. A hot bath and a long sleep, that was what she needed.
She stifled a deep yawn and fought to keep her eyes open as she climbed the stairs. Cyclops's muffled voice followed her. “You went too far, Logan. You took a gamble. Next time, you might not be so lucky.”
“And next time,” returned Wolverine, “you might not have someone around to do what has to be done for you. The whole world could suffer for your squeamishness.”
Jean found the familiar rhythms of the exchange oddly comforting. She knew that nothing would be resolved today. Scott and Logan would each remain as intractable as the other.
And she smiled to herself as she realized that she would have it no other way.
The helicopter had transported Shaw and Tessa to an airfield, where they and their pilot had transferred to a private Hellfire Club jet for the long flight back to Hong Kong Island. The plush quarters at the rear of the plane contained a freezer cabinet, into which Shaw had placed the vial of blood. It would have to be analyzed to confirm that the vital super-cell was still present, but he was fairly confident that he had succeeded beyond his own expectations.
He had procured the Legacy Virus cure for himself, and neither the X-Men nor Selene even knew that he had it. Not only that but, during her brief contact with Storm’s mind, Tessa had discerned that
Shaw’s enemies believed the cure lost altogether. It was his and his alone.
For once, however, he could not turn his thoughts to the future. They were mired in the past, and specifically in he cold cemetery where he had come face to face with his destiny.
He couldn’t close his eyes, because when he did he found himself back there, standing over Donald Pierce’s corpse, the barrel of a gun pointed at his head. He felt his muscles tensing as time seemed to stop. His gaze was riveted upon the finger of his future self as he watched it closing inexorably around the trigger. He acted a microsecond before he heard the retort, his heart hammering against his chest as he leapt beneath the deadly pellet. He broke out in a cold sweat of relief as he realized that, against all odds, he had survived. He pushed his tired and weakened legs as hard as he could to propel himself at his attacker before he could let off another shot. He didn’t quite make it, but the second pellet missed too, and Shaw felt the soft brush of the White-or rather, the Black-Knight’s jacket against his shoulder.
The momentum of his charge had been sapped, of course, but he had expected as much. He wrapped his arms around his future self s torso, looped a foot around his leg and stole his footing. The two Shaws fell onto the hard ground and rolled over and over, locked together, each fighting to end up atop the other. But the present-day Shaw had exhausted his strength on Pierce and Deathstrike, while his other self was fresh and fully charged.
He ended up on his back, his opponent sitting on his chest and pinning his arms down with his knees. The future Shaw had dropped his gun during the struggle, but his hands were around his younger self s throat, his thumbs pressing down with unbearable force. There was no kinetic energy involved in this type of attack, nothing for Shaw to leech off. In his enervated state, he could only wait for the pressure on his windpipe to suffocate him.
“I don’t expect you to believe this,” said his future self through gritted teeth, “but I’m doing this for your-for our-own good. I’m saving you.”
“From... what?” croaked Shaw. He had managed to tear one hand free from beneath his attacker’s knee, and he used it in a futile attempt to unfurl the fingers that were choking him.
“Yourself.”
“I’ve told you, I won’t... become you!” The very idea that he could have anything in common with this spineless, wretched creature revolted him.
“You will. You won’t be able to help yourself. It starts with a small compromise. You can tell yourself you’re biding your time, serving the Black Queen only until you see an opportunity to depose her. But the days turn into weeks and the weeks into months and years, and the opportunity never arises. And with each day, you’re forced to make another small compromise, to abase yourself further and further until there is nothing you would not do in the name of self-preservation. And then, one day, you’ll realize that you are no longer biding your time, no longer playing a part; this has become your life. You are a cowering slave, eking out a pitiful existence in squalor and misery and there is no way back for you.”
“I’d ... rather... die,” spat Shaw with all the venom he could muster.
“I know,” said his future self-and the haunted look in his eyes was enough to make Shaw cease his struggles for a moment.
“Do you think,” continued the unmasked White Knight, “that every time I look in a mirror, I don’t see what you are seeing now? I used to have such dreams. I used to believe the future would be mine. Now, my only dream is to destroy the past. I disgust myself!”
“Not... as much as ... you disgust me ...” Shaw freed his other hand, and his fingertips brushed against something on the ground beside him. Something heavy and metallic. It had to be the gun. He reached for it, his muscles straining, but he couldn’t quite get a grip on it.
“I used to be a successful businessman,” his future self lamented. “I used to command respect. That’s how I want the world to remember me; not like this. Never like this.”
Shaw felt th
e pressure on his windpipe lessening as his would-be killer’s resolve was eroded by self-pity. He seized his chance. He pushed at the elder Shaw’s chin with the heels of both hands and forced his head back. He squirmed beneath the weight of his opponent’s body, thus unbalanced; he brought up his knees and managed to shift himself a valuable inch to the right before the grip on his throat was reasserted. His future selfs face was a mask of insane hatred that must surely have been mirrored in Shaw’s own determined expression.
He wasn’t prepared to die like this.
He reached for the gun again, and this time he was close enough to pick it up.
The elder Shaw relinquished his hold and blanched as his younger self interposed the weapon between them. The weapon that had been designed to kill him.
Shaw’s throat was burning and he couldn’t speak, but he didn’t need words to convey his intentions. His attacker scrambled to his feet and backed away nervously. Shaw stood too and followed him slowly, his eyes narrowed, his lips set into a grim line and the gun leveled unwaveringly at his future self. The elder Shaw came to a halt as he backed into the wooden marker of his son’s grave and almost toppled backwards over it.
“You can’t do it,” he insisted in a breathless whisper. “If you kill me now, you’ll end up here yourself. It will happen, one day.”
It was the worst thing he could have said.
Shaw opened his eyes with a start. The image of his own death was too stark, too disturbing. But he couldn’t so easily dismiss the expression of horror on the face of his distorted reflection as the tiny pellet had exploded at his chest, splaying itself across his soiled white waistcoat. He hadn’t even tried to tear it off, knowing that it was already too late, that the deadly nanites were already digging their way into his flesh.
The scream had come a second later, the elder Shaw doubling up as he fell to his knees, his arms clutched around his stomach in agony. Then his head had snapped backwards, his spine arching until it had seemed as if it must break. Tears had leaked from his wild, madly staring eyes and drool from his mouth as he had fallen onto his side and twitched like a swatted insect. The scream had tailed off into a throaty whine, but it had not stopped.
Shaw feared that, in his mind, the scream would never stop.
After he had killed himself, he had staggered away through the headstones and been violently and repeatedly sick. He had sat on the hard ground with his knees up to his chest, staring at nothing. He had lost track of time, but at least an hour had passed before he had been able to return, before he had stooped beside the cold corpse of his future self and begun to strip his white clothes from him with trembling hands.
It had been an arduous and gruesome task, but by now Shaw had rediscovered his resolve. He had known what he had to do. He had sworn to himself that this future would never come to pass, that he would fight it until the last breath in his body. He would take on Fate itself, and he would win.
He had busted open a dilapidated janitor’s shed in the comer of the cemetery grounds, and found tools within. He had laid his victim to rest a few feet above his son. But before he had refilled the grave, before he had cast that first shovel full of soil, he had hesitated. He had taken a final look down at the image of his own face, pale and lined but at peace at last. And he had wondered if he had given his future self what he had wanted after all.
Perhaps the elder Shaw had missed with those pellets on purpose. Perhaps he hadn’t really wanted to kill his past self, but rather to galvanize him, to renew his sense of purpose. For all his talk of predestination, perhaps he had hoped that the course of his life could be changed after all. Or perhaps that was just what Shaw wanted to believe now.
The aircraft gave a sudden shake as a loud clunk reverberated around its hull. It could just have been turbulence, but it paid to be cautious-and in any case, Shaw was glad of the distraction. He levered himself out of his comfortable seat and made his way forward to the cabin. He never reached it.
The door in front of him was flung open, and a horribly familiar figure barred his path. Standing behind the new arrival, Tessa gave her employer a helpless, apologetic shrug.
The man was taller than Shaw, and his bulky costume made him appear larger and more imposing still. He was dressed in regal colors of red and purple, and a cloak of the latter hue swept down from his shoulders. A red metal helmet encased his head but left his features visible. His face bore the lines of age and the deeper scars of experience, but his eyes burnt with a zealous and dangerous white fire.
This was the man with whom Shaw had forged a reluctant alliance; the man who had raised an island from the seabed for him and helped to finance his research into a Legacy cure; the man with whom he had had no intention of sharing his spoils. He had known that this meeting was inevitable, but he had not expected it to happen so soon. He hadn’t expected his so-called partner to board his plane in mid-flight and confront him like this.
“I believe you have something for me,” said Magneto.
He didn’t wait for an answer. Without taking his eyes off Shaw, he extended a purple-gloved hand to point across the compartment. Magnetic forces crackled around the freezer cabinet in the corner, and its metal lid sprang up with such force that it almost flew off its hinges. The precious vial rose up from within, and sailed through the air into Magneto’s grasp. The vial itself was made of glass, and it took Shaw a moment to deduce that the master of magnetism had controlled the iron in the Beast’s blood itself to summon it to him.
“Very well done, Shaw.” Magneto sounded as if he were congratulating a particularly dim pupil who had finally got a piece of work right. “You have redeemed your mistakes; you have outwitted both Selene and the X-Men.” A smile softened his sharp features, but his eyes burnt no less intensely. “I was beginning to wonder if you had it in you.”
With each condescending word, Shaw’s hatred for his unwanted ally grew deeper. He wanted to hit him, to take the hard-earned cure back from him, to wipe the smile from his face. But he held himself back. Magneto’s physical power was too great. It would take cunning and careful planning to outmaneuver him. Fortunately, Shaw knew how to be patient. His time would come.
He forced a polite smile as he showed his guest to a seat—but once Magneto’s back was turned to him, the smile fell away and he breathed in deeply to suppress his building anger.
And that was when he made the mistake of closing his eyes again.
Again, he saw the wretched figure that he had once become. He saw the pain, the regret and, worst of all, the weakness in his future selfs eyes, and he could hear his voice. It rang in his ears and vibrated around his skull.
“It starts with a small compromise. ”
When Shaw opened his eyes again, Magneto was filling a chair, his arms and legs spread confidently across the cushions. He had removed his helmet to reveal a head of steely gray hair, and he was directing an equally steely stare at his host. Shaw fixed his smile onto his lips again and said, “Perhaps you would care for a drink?”
Magneto shook his head. “We have much to discuss.” He returned the vial to the freezer cabinet with a wave of his hand, and settled back in his seat.
“We have the power to cure the Legacy Virus,” he said. “Now, at last, we can put the next stage of my plan into operation.”
TO BE CONCLUDED
X-MEr
THE LEGACY QUEST TRILOGY: BOOK 3
CHAPTER 1
HE BLACK King of Hong Kong stood in his rooftop garden and surveyed his domain.
The landscape of this small island had changed a great deal in the four and a half decades of the King’s lifetime. Its trees now jostled for position with towering constructs of glass and concrete, some of the tallest skyscrapers outside of New York City. But at night, in Sebastian Shaw’s eyes, it remained one of the most beautiful places in the world.
T
He had spent a lot of time up here recently, in the pagoda atop the wide, single-story Hellfire Club building, just gazing o
ut over the lights of Hong Kong Island and thinking.
He fancied he had much in common with Hong Kong. On the outside, he too was a mixture of the old and the new. His company, Shaw Industries, had made him rich by remaining on the cutting edge of technology. As a Lord Cardinal of the Hellfire Club’s Inner Circle, however, he clad himself in old-fashioned finery. Currently, he was wearing a maroon smoking jacket and cummerbund, gray breeches and a white silk shirt and cravat. His black hair was tied back into a ponytail, secured by a red bow. This “uniform” may have appeared idiosyncratic, but it symbolized his organization’s allegiance to the morals of a bygone era. The Hellfire Club had been birthed in England in the latter half of the eighteenth century, at a time when-in Shaw’s view—a man’s ambition had been limited only by his strength and determination to succeed. Today, great men had to contend with a multitude of strictures placed upon them by the less able and jealous.
Despite this, Shaw—like Hong Kong—had built himself from humble beginnings into a significant political and economic force. Through the Hellfire Club, he pulled the strings of businessmen and government officials alike. But, like Hong Kong, he had seen a lot of changes recently-and not all of them had been for the better.
Something alerted him to the presence of an intruder in his garden. He wasn’t sure what it was; it hadn’t been a sight or a sound. But Shaw hadn’t lived this long without developing an instinct for such things. He turned slowly, a composed expression fixed upon his face, one eyebrow raised in mild query. He would not give a potential foe the satisfaction of seeing him disconcerted. He did not bother to disguise his distaste, however, when he laid eyes upon the mutant sorceress known as Selene.
She hadn’t deigned to visit him in person, of course. “Sebastian, my dear,” she purred, her thin red lips twisting into a mocking grin on her pale face, “I am beginning to get the impression that you are trying to avoid me. You won’t return my calls; I have been forced to send my astral form over eight thousand miles to get your attention.”
The Legacy Quest Trilogy Page 49