“Always assuming,” said Doctor Henry McCoy, “that he could have improvised a refrigeration system. The super-cell could not have thrived long in an environment of room temperature.” To an outsider, the cultured voice might have sounded incongruous, coming as it did from the lips of a blue-furred creature with a heavy brow, pointed ears and fangs, who wore only a pair of stretchable blue trunks. However, Hank’s monstrous form was belied by his calm, analytical nature; he had been a respected scientist longer than he had been a Beast.
“There was ice on the floor,” recalled Xavier. “I saw it in Rogue’s memories.” Rogue suppressed a shiver at this reminder that she had allowed a visitor into her mind. She had known Professor X for a long time, and she trusted him, but the veiy notion of sharing her most private thoughts still freaked her out a little.
She wondered if he knew that she had been thinking of Joseph.
“Mea culpa,” said Bobby Drake, holding up a hand. “Selene sent two fire demons against us, remember? I hurled a lot of ice at them.” Bobby was a young man with mousy brown hair, clad in a formfit-ting, two-tone blue costume with red “X” logos on the shoulder and belt buckle. In combat, that costume disappeared beneath the hard, translucent shell of the incomparable Iceman. Even now, Bobby was keeping his hands occupied by condensing ice cubes out of the air and juggling absent-mindedly with them.
“It makes sense,” said Cyclops. “Too much sense for my liking.” He counted off points on his yellow-gloved fingers. “Shaw tried to find a cure for the Legacy Virus using Kree technology. We know he had a partner in that endeavor; somebody who raised a Kree island from the seabed for him. And thanks to the White Queen, we also know that, three weeks after we thought the cure lost, Shaw is working on another secret project with none other than Magneto. I think all those facts could be connected.”
“And now,” said Wolverine, “we got a pretty good idea how.” He clenched his fist, and three claws popped out of the back of his hand with a soft snikt sound. The claws, like his skeleton, were sheathed in adamantium, the hardest known metal. Wolverine’s yellow and dark blue costume, with extensions jutting out of his mask like long ears, combined with his restless nature to lend him the semblance of a rare breed of wild animal. He also had an animal’s enhanced senses and awareness, and an accelerated healing factor, which allowed him to enter any combat hard and fast without undue concern for the consequences.
“Precisely,” said Xavier. “That is why I gathered you all here. The eight of you were present when the cure was supposedly destroyed. By searching your memories, I was hoping to prove that Shaw couldn’t have taken it after all. Unfortunately, there appears to be a very real possibility that he did.”
“And if he did take it,” said Rogue, “then Magneto has it now too.”
Her statement was greeted by a reflective silence. A month ago, some of the X-Men might not have been able to imagine how even their most dangerous mutant foe could do much harm with a serum designed to save lives. Since then, however, they had seen New York City enslaved. And Magneto was a far more ruthless opponent than Selene. His goal was nothing less than the total subjugation of the human race by its evolutionary successors.
Once, not such a long time ago, Rogue had met a young man called Joseph. They had come to care for each other; given more time, they could have fallen in love. The irony of it was that Joseph had been cloned from Magneto’s DNA. He had had Magneto’s personality, but he had not shared his memories of a lifetime of persecution. He did not remember the death camps and gas chambers of World War II, nor the mutant-hunting Sentinels of more recent years. He had been a good man. But unfortunately, good men sometimes die.
Wolverine finally spoke up. “Then we’ve got us a second chance,” he growled. “People are crying out for that cure, and now we know where we can find it.”
“It may not be that simple,” said Storm. Before Xavier had found her, Ororo Munroe had been worshipped as a goddess in the rainforests of her native Kenya. It was easy to see why. Apart from her mastery over the elements, she retained a regal poise and a confident grace, and her flowing white hair—held back from her forehead by a black headband-still marked her out as something different, something exotic. Sometimes, Rogue fancied that she could see the lightning itself in Storm’s eyes.
“Ororo’s right,” said Phoenix, brushing her long red hair off the shoulders of her combat suit. Like Xavier, Jean Grey was a telepath. But more important—and much more powerful—were her telekinetic (or TK) abilities. On occasion, Phoenix’s telekinetic powers had seemed limitless, uncontrollable, and had worried even her teammates. What kept them in check was Jean’s infinite compassion. “Magneto’s rule of Genosha is recognized by the United Nations,” she said. “We can’t just storm in there and take the cure from him by force, much as we’d like to.” Cyclops, her husband, flashed her a tiny smile.
“So you say,” muttered Wolverine under his breath.
“We’d be in violation of international law, Logan!” said Cyclops tersely.
“Maybe,” said Nightcrawler quietly, “but how many lives might we save as a consequence?” Like Hank McCoy, Kurt Wagner’s personality and appearance presented a sharp contrast. His particular mutant gene had played a cruel trick on this gentle, religious soul by making him resemble a shadowy demon out of folklore. His skin was indigo blue with a texture like velvet, his eyes a luminous yellow, and his long, prehensile tail came to a wicked barb. As if in compensation for being thus marked out, he had the power to teleport from place to place. For a time, he had found a promising niche as a circus performer-part freak, part acrobat-in his native Germany. Having ultimately been hounded out of his home, however, he had found a new one here.
“It’s worth remembering,” said Phoenix, “that Genosha has a Legacy epidemic. Its people are dying by the hundreds.”
“Which is half the reason the UN handed the place over to Maggie,” added Iceman. “They thought it’d keep him busy and out of their hair for a while.”
“Yeah,” said Rogue, “that and the fact that he was threatening to destroy the whole world if he didn’t get his way.”
“And I said at the time it was a mistake,” grumbled Wolverine. “Magneto wants power. You give him some, he’ll come back for more every time.”
“Give him some credit, though,” persisted Phoenix. “He has the mutates’ best interests at heart, unlike the old government. I know it seems unlikely, but perhaps he only wants the Legacy cure for humanitarian reasons?”
“So, what do you think will happen when he has an army of healthy mutates under his command?” asked Wolverine. “They already look to him as some kind of savior.”
“Would you rather see those mutates die, mein freund?” asked Nightcrawler.
“Nevertheless,” said Cyclops, “Wolverine has a point. At the very least, I would feel much happier if we could know what Magneto’s plans are.”
“Law or no law,” said Rogue, “don’t we have a right to that cure? Shaw couldn’t have developed it without the Beast’s help. The deal was that we’d share it.”
“And Shaw welched,” said Iceman. “Big surprise!”
“Then perhaps we should take our grievance to Shaw himself,” suggested Storm, “confront him with what we have deduced.” Rogue recalled that Ororo had seemed to reach an understanding of sorts with the Black King when last they had met. She wondered if that newly forged relationship could work to the X-Men’s advantage.
“And you think he’ll just put his hands up to everything?” sneered Wolverine.
“Whatever his reaction,” said the Beast, “we have good reason to believe that Shaw is engaged in nefarious activities of some description. Our evidence of Magneto’s involvement is circumstantial at best. Our most logical course is to question Shaw in the first instance.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed,” said Wolverine, “Frost and Hellstrom already tried that.”
“Magneto is the greater threat here,” said Nightcrawler.
“We can’t just ignore him.”
“I’m inclined to agree,” said Xavier, his considered words bringing the discussion to a halt. He held his fingers together in front of his lips, and his eyes were hooded. He always seemed like this when Magneto was mentioned: subdued, as if he had resigned himself to fighting this battle over and over again for the rest of his days.
“According to our information,” the Professor continued, “Shaw is planning a worldwide Hellfire Club party on the night of the solstice—tomorrow night. I think it’s reasonable to assume that his plans, whatever they are, will reach fruition then.”
“Which doesn’t leave us much time,” said Phoenix.
“Quite. I think we need two teams: one to confront Shaw in the hope that this can be ended quickly, and the other to investigate the situation in Genosha—in case it can’t.”
“Rogue has been to Genosha more recently than any of us,” offered Cyclops.
Rogue nodded, thinking about Joseph again. He had sacrificed his life to save the world that Magneto had imperiled—but when she had flown to Genosha alone in search of its new ruler, it had not been for revenge. She had hoped to find Joseph again, buried somewhere in the heart of his corrupted template. She had hoped to redeem a tortured soul. Perhaps she had been naive, but she had wanted to believe that such a thing was possible. After all, she had found redemption with the X-Men herself: Xavier had accepted her into his team, his family, despite her past misdemeanors.
“The place is a mess,” she reported. “Everything the Genoshans built with mutate slave labor has been torn apart—and thanks to the Legacy epidemic, they’ve hardly started to put the pieces back together. As Wolvie said, the mutates have welcomed the new order with open arms, but the baseline humans can’t get away from the island fast enough-those who haven’t decided to stay and slug it out, that is. The war might be over according to Magneto, but some of his ‘loyal subjects’ haven’t realized it yet.”
“Could you lead a team of four into the country undetected?” asked Xavier.
“Shouldn’t be a problem. I flew right in there a month or so back without anyone noticing.”
“Magneto might have beefed up his security since then,” Wolverine pointed out.
“There’s no way of knowing,” said Cyclops, “not with news from inside the country as scarce as it is.”
“Be careful,” advised Xavier sternly. “I would rather not spark an international incident if we can help it. Your task for the present is simply to reconnoiter.”
“Understood,” said Rogue.
“Take Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Iceman with you,” said Cyclops. “Storm and the Beast have had the most contact with Shaw recently, so they’ll accompany Phoenix and me to the Hellfire Club in Hong Kong.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” said Rogue with forced levity, trying to ignore the fact that her heart was heavy at the thought of this mission.
She had to forget the past, she knew that. She had to deal with Magneto as he was now, as she had always known him: as an implacable foe. She had to accept what she had discovered when she had confronted him at last, when she had stolen his soul and looked into his innermost being.
She had to forget the man that he could have been—because that man was long since dead.
CHAPTER 3
^NCE, HAMMER Bay had been lauded for its dynamic, forward-thinking architecture. The Genoshan government had had the old buildings tom down and replaced by the latest designs, their angles rounded and their lines softened. The skyline had been a wondrous sight, majestic, almost natural. The insides of its buildings, like the streets, had been clean and welcoming, fitted with every modern convenience. Everything had been built to a plan, each structure complementing those around it perfectly. No compromises had been made, no corners cut for the sake of expediency or cost. Government officials had received award after award, taking the podium at a string of international events with modest smiles and enterprising words that everybody wanted to hear.
A few people had wondered how Genosha had become so prosperous, how it had achieved so much in so short a time. Some had even suspected that the country had hidden resources. But nobody had asked too many questions. Not until it was too late.
Now, Hammer Bay’s award-winning buildings were broken. Some had been gutted or felled, and there were noticeable gaps in the meticulously sculpted skyline. From Wolverine’s vantage point, a few miles off-shore, the city resembled a mined castle. Lights still shone from its windows, but they were relatively few now. Smoke billowed from more than one street, and the night sky was washed in angry shades of red.
He sniffed the air, scowling at the acrid smell of burning. It was faint-so faint that he wondered if the others, without the benefit of his enhanced senses, could detect it. They certainly couldn’t have caught the scent of the man who was flying out of the city toward them under his own power-although they might have seen him by now, a black shape growing and detaching itself from the darkness.
“Incoming,” he muttered.
Iceman’s knuckles tightened on the side of the small powered boat as the figure reached them. He was wearing a green uniform festooned with holsters and ammunition belts, but the top of a yellow skinsuit was still visible around his neck. His face was concealed by a dark blue gas mask into which was set a filtered speaking grille and a reflective eyepiece. A green cap was pulled down over this.
“Never thought I’d see a mutate in magistrates’ clothing,” grumbled Wolverine.
The mutate’s size and demeanor betrayed the fact that he was a boy, no more than fourteen or fifteen years old—but Wolverine knew better than to underestimate him. Not only did he cany a rifle, but there was no telling what other powers he might possess.
The boy hovered about ten feet above the boat, glaring at each of its occupants in turn. “You have invaded Genoshan territorial waters.” He was trying to sound menacing, but his voice hadn’t broken yet. “Turn back now or suffer the consequences!”
Nightcrawler responded with a stream of his native German, of which Wolverine only understood the occasional word. A natural actor, Kurt played the part of the bewildered tourist well. Of course, his appearance would have given the game away had it not been for his image inducer. The device cast a holographic field around him, which made him look like a tail, wiry man with a pencil-thin moustache. The rest of the X-Men didn’t need such aids to hide their mutant natures, although they had eschewed their usual colorful costumes for less conspicuous attire. Wolverine wore a light khaki shirt and shorts to keep him cool in the heat of the near-equatorial day. He had also donned a sombrero hat, which he tipped back to regard the mutate with a quizzically raised eyebrow.
Rogue joined in the protestations of innocence. “Come on sugar, can’t you give us a break? We’re just trying to take in some of the sights here.” Even in this climate, she had wrapped herself in a red, hooded jogger top for safety.
“A five-mile exclusion zone is in force around our island.”
“Well, we didn’t know that,” complained Iceman.
“I do not believe your story,” said the mutate boy. “We have turned away many journalists from our shores. We will not be spied upon.”
Rogue glanced at Wolverine, then looked back at the mutate with a wiy grin. “OK, sugar, you caught us. We just wanted to get a bit of
footage for the evening news, you know? But if you feel so strongly about it, we’ll just mosey on back to where we came from.”
The mutate gave her a curt nod, then folded his arms and remained in his hovering position. Evidently, he was waiting for her to cany out her promise.
Reluctantly, Rogue gunned the outboard engine and steered the boat around until it was pointing in the direction of Madagascar, from which it had been hired. As it cut a white trail across the calm surface of the Indian Ocean, the mutate watched it go, a silent sentry. It wasn’t until Hammer Bay was little more than a dot on the horizon that Wolverine, with his sharp eyes, saw the boy tur
n and fly back to his concealed guard post at last.
Rogue killed the motor again, and let the boat drift. “Looks like you were right,” she sighed. “Magneto’s closed his borders. This is going to be trickier than I’d hoped.”
“He can’t have mutates watching the entire coastline, surely?” said Iceman.
“Probably not,” said Wolverine, “and from what I’ve heard, he’s as keen to keep Genosha’s non-mutant population in as he is to keep the rest of the world out. His troops have got to be over-stretched!”
“Nevertheless,” said Nightcrawler, “that leaves us with a problem. How do we find the weak points in his surveillance from five miles away?”
“I have an idea,” said Rogue, “but I’m not sure any of us are going to like it.”
They took the boat in a wide arc around the distant lights of the city before silencing the engine again and breaking out the oars. They approached the island as quietly as they could; Nightcrawler scanned it through binoculars and guided them toward what looked like a secluded nook. He was alert for any sign of movement, any indication that they had been sighted again.
The X-Men’s plane-a Lockheed Blackbird souped up with alien technology—had brought them to East Africa in record-shattering time, but Kurt felt as if it had already been a long day. The time difference was probably to blame. Genosha was nine hours ahead of New York: his body thought it was mid-afternoon, but his senses insisted that it was midnight.
In this part of the world, he thought with a chill, it was the twenty-first of December already. Further east, the sun was on the verge of dawning. The Hellfire Club’s solstice celebrations would be underway in as little as fourteen hours.
Wolverine stopped rowing. “I think this is as close as we can safely get,” he said.
“See anywhere we can use?” asked Rogue.
Nightcrawler squinted through the binoculars, trying to make out shapes in the darkness. Fortunately, his night vision was excellent. “I’m looking at a cliff face with a small copse on top,” he reported. “It’s just a few miles from Hammer Bay—and I can’t see any guards.”
The Legacy Quest Trilogy Page 52