“These games bore me, Scott,” Kurt said, landing nimbly on his feet. “Shall we move along now?”
Kurt explained quickly. He’d managed to shake the two Exemplars who’d been tailing him, but was sure that they’d be along any moment now. He could use the brief respite, though, as he was just about ’ported out.
Then he explained that, as he and the two had been playing their game of tag back and forth across this strange city, he had caught sight of a group of human prisoners being led down a ramp into some sort of subsurface chamber. It was only a short distance away from the reflecting pool where they now stood.
“That’ll be where Lee and the others are being held,” Scott said thoughtfully.
“My thinking exactly.” Kurt leaned over, resting his hands on his knees. “And I thought it best to fetch you and Peter before effecting a rescue, since I didn’t want you to feel left out.”
The barest hint of a smile lifted the comers of Scott’s mouth. “Very thoughtful of you.” He turned and, cupping his hands around his mouth, shouted. “Peter, it’s time to go!”
His combat with the thunderbolt having continued ceaseless since their arrival, Peter straightened, and regarded his opponent, a little wistfully.
“I regret that I’m forced to draw our contest to a close,” Peter said apologetically. “But I’m afraid I must be going.”
With that, he lunged forward, surprisingly fast, and caught the thunderbolt in a crushing bear hug, his arms pinned to his sides. Before the Exemplar could wriggle free, Peter walked to the edge of the pool, reared back and then flung the thunderbolt end over end through the air.
The thunderbolt splashed into the far end of the pool, and even though he thrashed mightily, quickly sank to the bottom.
“Let us go quickly, tovarisches,” Peter said, setting off toward Scott and Kurt at a jog. “He’ll take a moment or two to get out, but if we’re still here when he does I’m afraid our departure will be again delayed.”
Scott looked to Kurt, who only shrugged, and the three X-Men set off running.
They reached a broad courtyard. On the opposite side was the ramp down which Kurt had seen the prisoners being led. They had only to cross a distance of a hundred yards or so, and they could descend.
But there was a slight problem.
“Kurt,” Scott said through clenched teeth. “I don’t remember you mentioning anything about an army of Exemplar before.”
With a rakish smile, Kurt scratched his head. “I didn’t? I’m pretty sure I must have.”
Peter shook his head, his hands clenched in fists of steel. “I think I would have remembered that.”
Kurt glanced at Scott and winked. “There seems to be a bout of forgetfulness going around, meine Freunde. Why, first Scott forgot to point out our teleporting friend, and then only a short while later the existence of this horde of Exemplar between us and our goal completely slipped my mind.”
“This. Is not. Funny.” Scott’s jaw was clenched so tightly he could scarcely get the words out.
“Oh, you’re only saying that because you have no sense of humor.” Kurt gave a little salute, and grinning like one of his swashbuckling heroes, plunged into the fray. “Trust me,” he called over his shoulder, falling to blows with a green-skinned, four-armed Exemplar, “it’s hilariousl”
38
Vox Septimus was the hinge on which Lee’s escape plan turned. That, and a fair amount of luck.
Lee, her crewmen, and the inhibitor-collar-wearing mutants were all in position when next the door in the wall flowed open. The next few moments would tell whether Lee’s plan had any chance of success.
Clearly, though, Lee was in the catbird seat, as the first figure through the door, crystal rod in hand, was Vox Septimus. Behind him trooped a number of prisoners, most of whom seemed to be regular humans, men and women, except for one in a uniform of black and white, a haughty expression on his elfin features, even subdued as he was by the inhibitor collar. Lee recognized him as Northstar, the Quebecois hero and member of the Canadian super-team Alpha Flight. If Lee’s dim recollections were correct, his powers included flight and superspeed, both of which would come in handy, assuming that their escape plans advanced past the first stage.
It was time to see if Lee’s strategy would work. She motioned to the others, and took her position.
The tall Native American code-named Thunderbird had been tapped to play the role of the heavy He was the most physically imposing of all the mutant prisoners, and even through the miasma of the inhibitor collar, was able to work up a sufficiently convincing rage. Lee was sorry for the punishment he’d endure, if her plan were to succeed, but Thunderbird shrugged it off! It was worth it, he’d said, if they could regain their freedom.
Just as the last of the newly arrived prisoners was entering the chamber, and the pair of crystal-rod-wielding servitors in the rear crossed the threshold, Lee went into her act.
“Vox!” she shouted, rushing forward, hands out in an imploring gesture. “Help me! He’s gone crazy!”
Just then, on cue, Thunderbird lunged after her, teeth barred, hands out and grasping, bellowing with rage.
Lee scrambled to Vox Septimus’s side, and pointed at the charging mutant.
“He’s augmented, Vox, and he plans to kill us!”
There was a moment’s hesitation on Vox Septimus’s part, and for an instant Lee thought that her stratagem had failed. But then the servitor glanced at her, drew his mouth into a tight line, and turned back to face Thunderbird.
“Not this time, augment!” Vox Septimus snarled, surprisingly vicious, and then blinding white light shot from the tip of his crystal rod, lancing into Thunderbird.
Pinned by the white burst of energy, Thunderbird hurled back his head and howled.
Just then, the other mutant prisoners, who had arranged themselves in a wide arc around the opening, raced forward, screaming bloody murder and charging directly at the pair of servitors in the rear of the train.
Eyes wide, the servitors raised their crystal rods, just as Vox Septimus had done, and fired off bolts of white light at the attacking mutants.
Then Lee made her move.
She began by bringing her foot crashing down on Vox Septimus’s instep, the heel of her boot impacting with an audible crunch. Then, as Vox Septimus began to double over in pain, she brought her hands down in a two-handed chop, smashing into the servitor’s wrist. His grip on the crystal rod loosened, and the rod clattered to the floor.
Lee dove after it. On hands and knees, she scrambled for the crystal rod, and just as she wrapped her fingers around it and turned, Vox Septimus was standing over her. He looked down at Lee, a confused, betrayed expression on his face.
“I’m so sorry,” Lee managed, and then squeezed the crystal just as she’d seen the servitors do, and a bolt of white light lanced out, splashing into Vox Septimus’s face and chest.
Still on her back, Lee lifted on one elbow, and as Vox Septimus crashed to the floor, neck and face scorched, his eyes rolling back in his head, she fired off energy blasts in rapid succession. Her aim was no better than her control, but after a half-dozen blasts she’d managed to connect with both of the other servitors, who now lay writhing on the floor, alive, but just barely.
Lee climbed to her feet, as Paolo and the others helped the mutants to their feet. Those who, like Thunderbird, had been on the receiving end of one of the energy blasts, had a rougher time of it than the rest.
“Okay,” she said, dusting off her jeans. “Time for step two.”
Lee’s gamble had paid off She’d gathered, from her conversations with Vox Septimus, and from watching the way that he interacted with his fellow servitors, that he harbored some degree of resentment for the “augments,” those servitors who had been given special abilities. He’d also seemed to have developed some affection for or attachment to Lee herself The presence of terrestrial mutants in the prison chamber, whether their powers were inhibited or not, provided Lee the opp
ortunity to stage a little drama for Vox Septimus and see if she could use his resentments to her benefit.
It had all worked flawlessly, of course, going off without a hitch. So why did Lee feel so lousy? Sure, Vox Septimus had been happily leading Lee and her men to the slaughterhouse, along with countless other human prisoners, but he didn’t seem such a bad sort, for all of that. But in the end, it had come down to him or the prisoners, and Lee had know immediately what side she was on.
Still, she couldn’t help feeling sorry for the poor guy. From the look on his face when the energy blast had knocked him out, it was clear he just hadn’t seen it coming.
It took a bit of trial and error to work out how to remove the inhibitor collars, and Lee came very near to blowing off a few heads in the process. In the end, though, all seven mutant prisoners were free, slowly regaining their powers and abilities, leaving Lee, Frank and Paolo armed with the crystal rods previously wielded by their jailors. The mutants were still a bit dazed from the exertion of rousting themselves to action, and rested here and there, regaining their energy.
“Okay,” Lee said, turning and addressing the two dozen or two other prisoners, all of them regular men and women, with a few older children scattered here and there. “Here’s the deal. That door”—she pointed to the aperture in the silvery wall—“is open, but we have no idea how long it’s going to stay that way. So my friends and I are going out, and we aren’t coming back. The problem is, we also have no idea what sort of resistance we’re going to run into. The plan is to get off this island, however we can. But there’s a chance we won’t make it.” She paused, and took a deep breath before continuing. “But if we don’t make it, at least we can make things as difficult for these alien bastards as we can. No one invades my planet and gets away with it. Now,” she surveyed the crowd, swinging the crystal rod like a truncheon. “Who’s with me?”
To Lee’s very great surprise, every man, woman, and child leapt to their feet, ready to follow her into the jaws of danger.
I must have hung around Scott too much, she thought, with a tight smile. This hero stuff is wearing off on me.
“One side, woman,” said the mutant Northstar, shouldering past Lee. “I take orders from no one, and particularly not an American.”
Lee shrugged. “After you.”
They had found the landing beyond the entrance deserted, and no one in sight on any of the intersecting walkways or the ramps. Though Lee had no intention of becoming any kind of leader, most of the others had looked to her for direction, even the mutants. But, considering what they must have been through, and that most of them were little more than children themselves, Lee supposed it wasn’t that surprising.
But not Northstar. And not, apparently, Sunfire, after seeing the example of his Quebecois counterpart.
“Let it not be said that a son of Japan hides behind women’s skirts while a Canadiangaijin ranges ahead.” Sunfire raised his hands before him, and solar flames danced at his fingertips.
“Look,” Mirage said, hands on her hips, “I don’t care who’s walking in front, so long as we all get out of here. Or is that just too complicated for you muscle-brains to get?”
The Japanese and Quebecois heroes looked at each other, eyes narrowed, and then back at the young Native American woman. They shrugged in tandem. “It’s pointless to fight amongst ourselves,” Sunfire agreed. “There will doubtless be more than enough opponents to choose from above.”
He was not half wrong. As Lee and the others walked up the ramp into a large courtyard lit by the slanting light of the late afternoon sun, they found themselves in the midst of a pitched battle.
On the one side was a massed army of Exemplar, led by an imposing figure with skin the color of silver and flashing white eyes, from which optic beams lanced out, to devastating effect.
On the other side were three familiar figures, a blue-furred acrobat with four fingers and a prehensile tail, a towering man made of organic steel, and a lithe, muscled man with a yellow visor wrapped halfway around his head.
“Hey, Summers,” Lee shouted, firing a blast of white energy from her crystal rod, and rushing into the fray. “Looks like you could use some help!”
39
Logan didn’t need to wait for an engraved invitation. He was ready to attack now.
“Hold on there, cowboy,” Kitty said in a low voice, her hand on his elbow. “We might still be able to talk our way out of this.”
Logan snarled, the adamantium claws on the back of each hand glinting in the low light, but he remained motionless. For now.
Colonel Stuart, for her part, had her weapon drawn, aimed, and ready to fire. Her target, for the moment, was the strangely familiar human in the robes of golden light; but she was willing to change targets, and aim at the back of the secret agent, Raphael, if necessary.
“Greetings from Planet Earth,” Raphael said, sounding uneasily like a game show host. “You can call me Raphael. I’m pleased to inform you that I have been authorized by Her Majesty’s government to negotiate terms on behalf of all mankind.”
“What?” Kitty gaped.
“I smell a double cross,” Logan snarled.
‘You and me both, Mr. Logan,” Alysande answered, eyes narrowed. Raphael hadn’t breathed a word of any of this to her, and her briefing before leaving Earth, however rushed and abbreviated it might have been, had mentioned nothing whatsoever about negotiating “terms.” Was the Resource Control Executive playing a game even its shadowy masters in government knew nothing about?
“This one addresses the assembled,” sang the golden-robed human servant of the Kh’thon. “This one is not addressed.”
Alysande recognized him now. He was the same figure who’d addressed them on the beach of Julienne Cay, some thirty hours, and a lifetime, ago.
“Vox Tertius,” Kitty breathed, suggesting she had just recognized him as well.
“This one is Vox Prime, cell-sibling of the Vox some of you encountered on the planet below, this previous day. The thoughts of the Kh’thon are beyond your comprehension, and so the Collective will communicate its will to you through this one.”
“That’s splendid, lad,” Raphael swanned, stepping closer. “Now, if you could just inform your masters that I would like to offer them a deal on ...”
“Silence!” Vox Prime bellowed, his shout as pure and clear as the tolling of a bell.
“I mean no disrespect, of course,” Raphael said quickly, miming a quick bow from the waist. “But this offer does have a time limit, and if your masters don’t...”
Vox Prime turned his head, glancing to the nearest of the humans in the wings, who carried large, unlikely looking shapes that Alysande could only assume were armaments of some sort. “Guardians. Please do the necessary.”
Without warning, light, heat, and sound poured from both sides, belched from the ends of the strangely shaped crystalline weapons, engulfing Raphael completely. Then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over.
For the briefest instant, Alysande thought that Raphael had been completely unharmed. Then she realized that it was not the effects of the bright light on her vision, but that he really was wrapped into darkness. It was as though he, and he alone, were plunged into deep shadows. Then his shape began to shift, and Alysande realized her mistake. It wasn’t Raphael wrapped in darkness. It was a pillar of ashes in Raphael’s shape. But the pillar of ash could not maintain the form for long, and quickly disintegrated, collapsing to a pile on the floor. Raphael had been burnt, literally, to a crisp, and worse.
“Never could keep his mouth shut,” Logan said in a low voice.
Alysande shot him a hard glance, but for just an instant, keeping her attention on the one called Vox Prime, and more importantly on the weapon-wielding humans on either side.
But Vox Prime had not ordered another strike, only glanced up at the inhuman figures towering above him, in silent communion.
Only then did Alysande remember their presence. For several moments,
it was almost as if her unconscious mind had edited the grotesques out of her perceptions, finding them too unearthly and unsettling to perceive. But with her attention brought back to them, Alysande could not ignore them any longer. The towering, inhuman creatures were regarding her and the others closely, with senses beyond human understanding, and it seemed to Alysande that she and the others were being found wanting.
It was all Betsy could do to block out the telepathic voices of the Kh’thon. For all their immense power and ability, the aliens were incredibly undisciplined telepaths, broadcasting their thoughts widely, indiscriminately, rather than narrowcasting them directly to the recipient. As a result, a sensitive like Betsy had no choice but to “hear” the voices of the Kh’thon, resounding loudly in her head.
She winced, squeezing her eyes tight, and wished she was anywhere but here.
Kitty stared at the pile of black ash that had been the man called Raphael only moments before. She’d seen people die before, of course, more times than she chose to remember. But rarely were human lives dismissed as casually, as offhandedly, as Raphael’s had just been. The servitor Vox Prime had ordered Raphael’s execution as easily as one would bat away a fly, and with even less remorse.
“This one is given to explain the thoughts of the Kh’thonic Collective,” Vox Prime went on, heedless of the harsh stares and open hostility on the faces of Kitty and the others. “Since returning to the world you know as Earth, the Kh’thon have studied human civilization, such as it has developed. It is not known what fate befell the brethren of the Kh’thon, who in former days remained on Earth while those present left to roam the galaxies. But it is clear that in the absence of authority, the former servants of the Kh’thon have grown wild and uncontrolled. The Collective is especially surprised to find augmented humans on Earth.”
Kitty pursed her lips. For augmented, read “mutant. ” “In aeons past,” Vox Prime continued, “only the science of the Kh’thon had been able to trigger the expression of the randomizing element in the servitor race, whether at birth or in later life. Now, however, the feral humans of Earth have unlocked secrets beyond their kin, and such factors as cosmic rays, and gamma radiation, and the free radiation polluting the biosphere in the decades since humanity split the atom, have combined to produce spontaneous triggering of a nontrivial percentage of the population.”
The Return Page 19