Thus distanced from the melee, Hank began to disassemble the pyrotechnic device, using his claws to pry loose its plastic shielding and the screwdriver to disconnect the circuit boards within. The rocket had an onboard processor: Shaw and Magneto had spared no expense to ensure that the evening went with a bang, so to speak. It was a delicate task-he couldn’t afford to upset the rocket’s payload, nestled in its plastic heart—and not for the first time, the Beast cursed the big, clumsy hands that his mutant gene had given him.
He tried not to let the sound of gunfire distract him, even though he heard an awful lot of it. There was a limit to how many bullets his teammate could deflect until, exhausted, she failed to see one coming in time. Nevertheless, he also heard a satisfying number of male grunts and cries, and the smack of flesh against flesh, as Phoenix kept her foes off-balance and hurtling into each other. Even those who were able to reach her were doubtless learning that, for all her psionic prowess, she had not neglected her physical training.
It was when the agents stopped firing, Hank supposed, that he would have cause to worry.
He could see a test tube now, so small and slender. He threaded two of his clawed fingers through the workings of the rocket and gingerly took hold of it, willing himself not to tremble, not to place too much pressure on the fragile glass. The tube looked empty, but its invisible contents were deadly. He realized that he had begun to sweat. Holding his breath, he manipulated the tube until he had dislodged it from its molded cavity.
All he had to do now was draw it back toward him.
And then, a Hellfire Club agent came flying through the A-frame, splintering it. The rocket fell one way, and the Beast the other as a head cannoned into his stomach.
Sorry, came Jean’s abashed telepathic voice. Slip of the mind. No harm done, I hope?
Lying on his back, Hank felt the tube in his hand, and lifted it to his eyes. He felt as if his heart wouldn’t beat again until he had dared to look at it-but, miraculously, it was intact and still stoppered. Relief washed over him.
Until the fallen mercenary kicked his hand and sent the test tube flying out of it.
The Beast let out a horrified cry as it described an arc toward the edge of the roof. Pushing his muscles to their limit, he practically leapt into the air from a lying start, but the mercenary tripped him. Perhaps he didn’t know what he was doing. Or perhaps he thought that, if the trident firework couldn’t spread the Legacy Virus into the atmosphere, then at least it could be released at ground level. Perhaps he expected to gain Shaw’s approval for his quick thinking. Perhaps he would even be granted a measure of the vital cure.
In the end, the agent’s motives didn’t matter. It took the Beast a second to get past him—and that was a second too long.
He reached the parapet, looking out over the lights of the harbor. Closer to him, and two stories below, he saw the heads of Shaw’s guests-and the test tube, disappearing between them. Time seemed to have slowed down, the tube dropping in slow-motion; even so, there was no way to reach it before it shattered on the flagstones.
And then, incredibly, its fall was reversed. The tube sprang back up toward Hank as if attached to an elastic cord, and he reached for it, but it sailed past him and into Phoenix’s hand. She was standing at the parapet beside him, and she flashed him her radiant smile. Behind her, he saw that the last Hellfire Club mercenary had fallen.
And then, from below, he heard Cyclops’s voice: an agonized howl of “Noooo!”
The X-Men’s field leader was almost directly beneath the Beast, at the building’s French windows. His arms were spread out behind him, and his knees slightly bent as if something were restraining him. To one side of him was Sebastian Shaw; to the other was Lady Mastermind—it took Hank a moment to recognize her out of costume— with Storm lying unconscious at her feet. Clearly, she was the cause of Cyclops’s distress.
The Beast vaulted over the parapet without stopping to think twice. He slowed his descent with a somersault and made to land lightly on his feet. But he hit the ground an instant before he expected to, unprepared for the sudden impact, which jarred his bones and made him lose his footing. Later, when he had a moment to think, he would realize that Mastermind had seen him coming and cast an illusion, making him believe that the ground was further away than it was. Right now, he was just grateful not to have broken a leg. He was still trying to get his breath back when he became the target of ten or more party guests, emboldened by his fall. They leapt upon him, punching and kicking and spitting racial slurs. He kept his head covered with his hands until he saw a way through them. He propelled himself through one man’s legs, tripping him in the process and bringing down three more like dominoes.
While the Beast was still on his hands and knees, somebody hit him from behind with a walking cane. He winced and turned on the culprit, seizing the weapon on its next downward stroke and using it to pull himself to his feet before knocking it aside contemptuously. He was still a little shaky, but the mob were a lot less gung-ho now that their target was no longer on the ground. Hank bared his fangs, hoping to bluff them into keeping their distance. Two of his erstwhile attackers simply turned tail and fled.
And then, he felt an explosion inside his head, and before he knew it, he was on his knees again. It was a supreme effort to prop his eyes open, to keep himself from toppling onto his face. Somebody had invaded his mind.
And, looming over him, he saw her, a smile on her lips and a sadistic glint in her eye.
It was Tessa.
Shaw spun Cyclops around and punched him in the face. The X-Man staggered, looking bewildered as if he didn’t know where he was or what was happening to him. He was obviously still in Lady Mastermind’s thrall, trying to reconcile what he was feeling to what he could see and hear. Shaw punched him again, obviously relishing this show of force, and Cyclops went down.
Watching from above, Phoenix narrowed her eyes and formed a field of psycho-kinetic energy around the Black King, lifting him away from her husband. Now, it was his turn to be confused as his feet pedaled air and his arms waved helplessly, not knowing what to do to maintain his balance. By the time he was level with her, however, floating on the far side of the low parapet, he had adjusted to his situation. He clenched his fists and glared at Phoenix furiously, but there was nothing he could do.
“Why don’t you try your luck with someone who can fight back, you loathsome little man?” she snarled.
“Gladly, my dear,” he growled in return, “if you would only put me down.”
“I might just do that,” she said, “and faster than you expect.”
Shaw said something else, but Phoenix wasn’t paying attention. She was talking to Cyclops through their telepathic link. He was just getting to his feet, but Mastermind had him believing that he was surrounded by a dozen past and present members of Shaw’s Inner Circle. He raised his hands slowly, but Jean could read his thoughts as he worked out who was the weakest member, the one to target as he made his break.
Scott, listen to me! she urged him. Whatever you’re seeing, whatever you think is happening, I want you to fire a half-strength optic blast at ten o’clock . . . now!
He didn’t hesitate for a second. He snapped his head around to the ten o’clock position and unleashed the power of his eyes. A scarlet energy beam thudded into Lady Mastermind’s chest, taking her by surprise, and she was thrown backward to land in a crumpled heap.
Most of the guests had dispersed now, terrified as the violence had escalated, and Phoenix could hear police sirens approaching. She turned her attention to Tessa, but Storm had already woken, and a lightning bolt struck the ground beside the novice telepath. Startled, Tessa leapt back and lost her psi-grip on the relieved Beast. He jumped up and dispatched her with two quick blows, catching her as she fell and laying her down gently. As Storm carried Cyclops up to the roof, Hank scaled the building himself, finding toeholds in the window frames and brickwork.
By the time the police arrived, the fou
r X-Men had relocated to another dark rooftop, several blocks inland. Phoenix had dragged a reluctant Shaw along with them, and he scowled mutinously at each of them in turn as they encircled him.
“We’ve disarmed your bomb, Shaw,” said Phoenix triumphantly, displaying the seemingly empty test tube. “We’ll be taking this back home with us to dispose of it safely.”
He responded with a deliberate shrug. “There are many more.” “We should return to the Blackbird,” suggested Storm, “and contact Professor Xavier. He can send reserve teams to find and dismantle some of the other devices, while we deal with the ones nearest to here.” “You can’t possibly reach them all in time,” sneered Shaw.
“He’s right,” said Phoenix. “There’s less than twenty minutes to go before midnight.”
“But the time difference gives us an advantage,” said Cyclops. “The fireworks are meant to form a chain between Hellfire Clubs across the world, from east to west. The next one must be at the branch in Hong Kong. Midnight won’t strike there for another two hours. In the Blackbird, we could make that deadline with time to spare.”
“At the risk of dampening your optimism,” said the Beast, “the Hellfire Club also has headquarters elsewhere in that time zone: in Perth, in Western Australia.”
“And Hong Kong is Shaw’s home base,” said Phoenix gloomily. “He’s unlikely to have left it unguarded.” She glanced sharply at the Black King, but his face gave nothing away.
“We still have a chance,” insisted Cyclops. “Even if we can’t reach all the devices in time, we can deal with most of them.”
The Beast shook his head. “Regrettably, it would not ease our predicament. This particular strain of Legacy was engineered to be highly contagious. If a single capsule is released into the atmosphere, then the consequences will be no less certain, albeit slower to ensue, than if they all are. Unless the United Nations were both willing and able to place entire countries in quarantine, the infection would spread worldwide.”
“It hardly bears thinking about!” said Phoenix.
“And presumably,” said Storm, “even if we could reach all the devices in time, there’s nothing to stop Magneto from releasing the virus another way?”
“Indeed not,” said the Beast. “He would merely have to break open a capsule such as the one that Jeannie is cariying-and he could do so tomorrow if he wished, in any city that took his fancy. We would have robbed the Hellfire Club of its grandiose gesture, its macabre joke upon the world—and we might have slowed Magneto down—but no more than that.”
“Then there’s no other option,” said Cyclops. “We have to take back that cure. If Magneto doesn’t have sole possession of it, he can’t use it to blackmail anyone. Perhaps he’ll even forget this mad scheme altogether.”
The Beast looked at Shaw. “I don’t suppose he left a sample of the serum with you?” The Black King’s lips tightened into a thin line. “No,” sighed Hank, “I didn’t think that sounded like our old and trusting friend.”
“Shaw can still help us though,” said Cyclops.
Shaw raised a quizzical eyebrow. “And what makes you imagine I would want to? I think I know you well enough to dismiss any intimations of violence toward my person.”
“Nevertheless,” said Storm, “the X-Men could do a great deal of harm to your reputation, and to both the Hellfire Club and Shaw Industries, were we to put our minds to it.”
“But let’s skip the threats,” said Cyclops. “You’ll come to Genosha with us because you intended to turn on Magneto all along-and, whatever your plans were, we’ve put a spoke in your wheels. If you want to stop him now, you’ll have to do it our way.”
Shaw inclined his head slightly as if in agreement.
“What’s the plan?” asked Phoenix.
“We fly out in Shaw’s private jet: it’s almost as fast as the Blackbird, and it should get us into Genoshan airspace without being attacked. After that, we take everything Magneto can throw at us—and we get that cure from him, whatever we have to do. With any luck, our team on the ground might also have learned something we can use.” “We know that, when they arrived in Genosha last night, Magneto wasn’t present,” said the Beast thoughtfully, “Perhaps they were able to make some headway-or even discover the whereabouts of the cure—in his absence.”
“Perhaps,” said Cyclops grimly, “but I used my comm-set to contact the Blackbird’s onboard computer on the way over, and they haven’t radioed in. Until we hear otherwise, we have to assume that we’re on our own.”
Tessa had a headache, but the detective wouldn’t stop asking questions. She squirmed impatiently in Sebastian Shaw’s seat, behind his desk, as the thickset man with short, graying hair appeared to copy her every word into his notebook in tortuous longhand.
She had recovered consciousness just as the police cars and an ambulance had arrived, and she had immediately sent a telepathic instruction to the leader of Shaw’s squad of mercenaries to keep his men hidden. She had assured an anxious paramedic that she needed no treatment, driving home the message with a gentle mind-push when he had proved infuriatingly insistent. She was on the verge of resorting to such methods again,
“How many more times do we have to go through this, Sergeant Grace?” she sighed. “I don’t know where the mutants came from, and I don’t know what they had against the Hellfire Club, if anything. They appeared to be fighting each other; perhaps we simply got caught in the middle of an internecine squabble.”
The policeman nodded. “I can see that, Miss, er... Tessa, but I’m still worried about these reports from some of your guests that a . . .” He referred to his notes, slowly leafing back two pages. “. .. Sebastian Shaw—your employer—was carried away by one of these mutants.”
“I told you,” she said tersely, “I saw Mr. Shaw myself after the attack, and he was perfectly unharmed. Your men were already on the premises—I’m surprised you missed him.”
“I would still like to speak to him, Miss Tessa,” said Grace, “just to tie up my notes.”
“He had urgent business to attend to. He was forced to leave.” “At midnight?”
“The Hellfire Club is an international organization, Detective Sergeant. It is still morning in New York. I will ask Mr. Shaw to call in at your station as soon as he returns. In the meantime, he has authorized me to answer your questions.” Tessa got to her feet impatiently. “So, unless there is something else ... ?”
Grace remained stubbornly seated. “You must be able to contact Mr. Shaw?”
She was about to give him a tart answer when the door to the office opened, and Regan Wyngarde strode in. Tessa’s eyes widened in alarm at the sight of her, brazenly wearing her combat leathers-but the policeman smiled and stood to shake her hand.
“There will be no need for that, thank you, Tessa,” she said. “I have been able to reschedule my appointments. Under the circumstances, I thought it best.”
“Sebastian Shaw, I assume,” said Grace-and Tessa smiled to herself as she peered into his mind and saw the fiction that Lady Mastermind had created for him.
Grace asked a few more questions, and Tessa fed the answers to Lady Mastermind telepathically, ensuring that they tallied with her own-and, just as importantly, that they were short and to the point. She breathed a secret sigh of relief when Grace finally acceded to being escorted out of the building by the person whom he believed to be Sebastian Shaw. She had better things to worry about than an inquisitive policeman.
By now, Cyclops, Phoenix, Storm and the Beast were no doubt on their way to confront Magneto. She only hoped that they could stop him from committing an atrocity, and that their escape hadn’t hindered any plans on Shaw’s part to do likewise. Encouraged as she was, however, by this turn of events, she couldn’t help but wonder about one thing.
The X-Men, Tessa was sure, couldn’t have got free by themselves. So, if she hadn’t helped them—who had?
CHAPTER 12
N HIS fever-induced dream, Wolverine was fighting
for his life.
He was surrounded by his greatest foes: the feral killer known as Sabretooth; Lady Deathstrike, who had turned herself into a part-machine creature for the sole purpose of destroying him; Magneto, even. The list was endless. They came at him from all sides, punching, clawing, biting-and no matter how many times he hit them, how many times his claws sliced through their flesh, not one of them fell.
The reverse, however, also held true. He was battered and bloodied, his costume and the skin beneath it torn. One of his eyes was half-closed by a purple swelling and at least two of his ribs were broken. But Wolverine fought on.
Dimly, through a red haze, he recognized that the dream mirrored his immune system’s real-life struggle against the Legacy Virus-and the knowledge spurred him onward, doubling his determination to be the last man standing.
There was an animal inside the man called Logan, and sometimes it scared him. Sometimes, he felt he didn’t belong with the X-Men, couldn’t adhere to their simplistic moral code-but it was they who had helped him bring the animal under control. No matter how many times he had thrown their naive compassion back in their faces, they had not given up on him. Without them, he might have lost all reason by now, given in to his savage side. He had been there, and he didn’t want to live like that.
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