But he had noticed in Leather a tendency to overkill that he found disturbing. A certain ruthlessness was necessary to the job, but it was important not to lose sight of the greater goals.
There was a moment of silence on the radio. “That limits our options, Black.”
“Options are always limited. It’s only a matter of degree. We need to interrogate the mutants to learn what they know and who they may have told. We hope to contain the situation, but first we have to learn if it can be contained. In any case, I’m hopeful that they can be salvaged somehow. There are methods of inducing amnesia, or they might be relocated to a containment camp so that we can maintain their genetic stock.” “It places my people at risk, Black.”
“That risk is the duty of any Genogoth, Leather. You have your orders. Now, move in when ready.”
Jono sat in the driver’s seat of the Xabago, listening to the motor rumble. The air smelled strongly of soot and diesel exhaust, but powerful fans in the roof of the garage kept them from becoming a real danger. “I wish,” he said idly, “that we had some kind of diversion.”
The door opened, and Espeth climbed into the motor-home. “They’re out there. As I expected, the motor noise has caused them to become careless.”
Angelo raised an eyebrow. “So, what’s the word?”
Espeth looked grim. “Not good. They’ll charge the vehicle before we get off the grounds, and they’ve undoubtedly got a roadblock planned.”
Paige and Monet looked at each other, and for once, seemed to be on the same wavelength.
“Earlier,” said Paige, “you said something about the Xabago being an aircraft.”
“How much,” said Monet, “do you think the Xabago weighs?”
Ev nodded. “Maybe too much for one, but maybe not too much for two.”
“Never mind that,” said Jubilee, “has anybody seen my skates?”
Leather lay on his belly in a ditch at the bottom of the driveway. It had taken him more than an hour to creep this close to the school without being seen. If he twisted and looked back over his left shoulder, he could just make out one of their people sitting on a platform attached to the trunk of a tree, thirty feet in the air, and pointing a sensitive microphone at the garage.
“Activity,” said the voice in his ear, a voice he knew was being transmitted from the watcher in the tree.
Leather watched the garage intently as one of the big doors rolled up with a motorized whir. The motor noise was louder now, but he could see only darkness inside the door. Then something small and yellow, rolling out of the darkness and down the driveway. A girl in a yellow raincoat, A girl on skates. A girl on skates.
'‘‘Something’s wrong,” he said into his radio. “We may have misjudged the situation.”
“The girl is identified as Jubilation Lee,” said the voice from the tree, “mutant plasma/energy caster of great reported potential, but limited ability. Threat factor is minimal.”
The girl rolled slowly down the gentle slope of the driveway, seemingly unaware of any danger. Then she bent sharply forward, placed her palms on the ground, and went into a graceful handstand. The bottom of her coat fell down around her shoulders. Leather noticed that her hands were placed over a large crack in the sidewalk, as though it had somehow been her target. None of it made any sense.
The girl continued her handstand for several more seconds, then tucked and rolled, ending in a sitting position with her knees raised. She wore red tinted glasses, but he could swear she was looking right at him. He pushed himself farther down into the ditch.
Then the ground began to rumble, and the soil around him seemed to boil with glowing streamers of plasma, coming out of the ground like earthworms after a heavy rain. The girl. She had done this somehow, sending the plasma into the ground during her handstand, then guiding it underground. There was a bang, like a gunshot next to his ear, and the streamers began to explode all around them.
Despite himself, Leather jumped to a crouch as one of the streamers exploded inches from his face. It took him a moment to regain his composure, at which point he realized two things. First, he had exposed himself to anyone watching from the school compound. Second, the other door of the garage was open, and a bizarre looking camper van of some kind was advancing down the driveway.
Furious at himself for become distracted, he held his microphone up and shouted, “They’re on the move by vehicle! All units inside the perimeter attack! I want a roadblock by the inner gate! Go! Go!”
Jono sat in the driver’s seat of the Xabago, Paige in the passenger seat to his right. Espeth stood behind them, looking anxiously out the windshield. One moment, the grounds and driveway in front of them were empty, then a virtual carnival of Genogoths boiled from every possible hiding place converging on their position. Farther down the driveway, Jono saw a large, black pickup and an equally black SUV appear from either side of the decorative gate, sliding to a stop nose to nose, blocking the drive.
He felt strangely calm.
He turned to Paige. “Tell me, luv, ever see the film Flub-berT
“No,” she said, “but I saw The Absent-Minded Professor
“Never heard of it,” he said.
As the Xabago rolled past, Jubilee jumped up onto her skates and skated furiously after it. She had almost caught it, her hand reaching for the roof-access ladder above the back bumper, when a bearded young Genogoth, head down, charged out of the shrubbery next to the drive headed directly for her.
She swerved, jumped, hit him on the head with her skate and rolled right down his spine. She used the increased height to spring herself into a flip that took her clear over a woman in biking leathers. Jubilee hit the ground rolling, but she was headed away from the Xabago. She jumped, changing direction in the process, pumping all-out to catch up with it.
Then a man in a sniper’s camouflage suit popped out of the landscaping and grabbed her around the ankles. She went down hard on the concrete, thanking whoever had put the dorky-looking knee and elbow pads onto their training uniforms.
Then there were more, and more, grabbing her arms and legs, holding her up like a puppet, unable to get leverage. She watched as the Xabago rolled away.
Leather watched the camper roll past. It wouldn’t get far with the road-block just ahead of it, and he could see a group of about a dozen people who seemed to have the skating girl well in hand. She struggled, showing no evidence of her mutant powers. Perhaps she had exhausted herself creating the impressive diversionary display.
He stepped up to look at the girl who had humiliated him. She was beaten now, fear marking her Asian features. “Put her down,” he ordered.
His people holding her lowered her feet to the ground, but continued to grip her arms. Despite appearances, she had exhibited the strength, grace, and speed of a professional athlete. But now she was humbled, like a cheetah in a cage, struggling only weakly.
Suddenly, one of the people in the group pointed behind him and shouted. He turned and realized something was wrong, though he couldn’t immediately tell what. Then he saw the front of the camper lift off the ground as though by an invisible jack. Then the rear. To his horror, it passed just beyond the reach of the group assembled on the driveway to intercept it. Underneath the frame he could see two of the mutant teens, flying, carrying the motor-home, literally on their backs.
It was thirty feet off the ground as it passed over the roadblock. Below, he saw Black’s small sports car slipping between the bumpers of the stopped vehicles. Black was here to witness his humiliation, and they were getting away!
At least they had the girl. “Your friends,” he said, “are leaving without you. Or was that the plan all along? Self sacrifice is a noble impulse when not wasted.’’ He reached his fingers under her chin and gently raised her eyes to meet his. “Perhaps we can use you as bait.”
The girl looked shocked. “You can’t do that!”
He chuckled. “What’s to stop us, little mutant?”
Suddenly her e
xpression changed, from supposed terror to a broad smile, and the knot in Leather’s stomach told him that somehow he’d just been had.
“Because,” she said, “to do that, you’d have to keep me.” She gestured upwards with her eyes and whispered, “Incoming”, ,
He turned. The sun was suddenly blotted out by the Xabago, angling down out of the sky exactly like a hunting hawk, if hawks weighed six thousand pounds and were made of corrugated metal. As he dived for the ground, he heard more of the mutant girl’s fireworks, saw her break free and start running. He hit, rolled, saw the vehicle swoop by just above him, saw the side door open and a young man with putty-gray skin lean out.
Angelo gripped a towel bar under the Xabago’s sink with the extended skin of his right toes, then leaned out the door. The Xabago was tilted nose-down at about a forty-five degree angle. Things were shifting noisily inside all the cabinets and closets. Somewhere he heard glass breaking, and the frame of the vehicle itself groaned ominously. Things rolled down the center aisle of the vehicle from front to rear. He oofed as a rolling duffel bag hit him in the belly.
“Thank the Blessed Mother,” he whispered, “that we didn’t have time to fill the water bed.”
Below him, he saw the Genogoths ducking for cover, saw
Jubilee using her fireworks to blast herself free of her captors. He stretched out the skin of his left arm forming a huge caricature of his normal hand. Jubilee flashed by below, and he caught her like a baseball in a catcher’s mitt.
Leather watched as the flying motor-home lifted away, the girl dangling underneath. Enraged, he reached into the hidden pocket under his vest and drew the automatic pistol hidden there. A press of a stud, and the extended barrel and pop-up site of the S.H.I.E.L.D. covert-ops model snapped into position. He squinted, drew a bead on the rear of the flying vehicle. He held his breath, felt his own pulse. For a moment, nothing existed but him and the target. He squeezed off a round, heard the slug hit metal.
A powerful hand grabbed his wrist, pushed the gun up, away from the target, then expertly twisted it from his hand. Hg shook his injured fingers and turned to face his attacker. Black.
He grunted and wedged the skin of his other foot between the stove and the kitchen cabinets. “Have you gained weight, chicaT'
Jubilee looked up from where she dangled. “Just watch where you put your fingers, smart-guy!”
“Did someone,” yelled Ev from under the vehicle, “hear a shot?”
Angelo ducked his head down, looked under the Xabago. “You’re imagining things,” he called, then turned to wink at Monet. “Word up, pretty lady?”
She scowled at him. “This thing is getting heavy. I hope somebody has a plan.”
Jubilee was climbing up his extended arm, hand over hand. He pulled his head back and yelled toward the cab, “Does anyone know where we’re going?”
Espeth ran back to give him and Jubilee a hand. “Head for the river,” she yelled. “If we cross it before we land, it’s twenty miles by road for them to catch up.”
“She said—” started Angelo.
“I heard,” said Monet. The Xabago turned slowly toward the river.
“Does anyone,” yelled Ev, “smell gas?”
“It wasn’t me,” replied Angelo.
“Not that kind,” he said.
Jubilee was crawling up over Angelo’s shoulder, and Espeth was pulling her inside. “You’re just being paranoid,” he called.
Then the propane tank on the back of the Xabago burst into flame.
Black flicked the clip from Leather’s pistol with his thumb. He put it in one pocket of his black sports-coat, clicked the barrel and sight to their closed positions, then put the gun in another. “You could have hit one of the mutants,” he said. “If you'd hit one of the flying ones, you might have killed them all.” '
Leather watched the motor-home, girl still dangling beneath, as it vanished beyond the tree-line. The truck and van that had formed the roadblock were already rolling out in pursuit. “I was aiming for their fuel tank. They can’t get far that way. I thought if I could disable their vehicle—”
Black got directly in his face. “That was a stupid move, Leather. I don’t want any more mistakes like that.”
Leather growled. “If you hadn’t tied our hands, they might never have gotten away!”
“Our duty,” said Black, coldly, “is to protect the X-gene whenever possible. Remember that.” He turned and trotted back to his car, to join the pursuit.
Leather glared after him. “Don’t worry,” he said under his breath, “I have a long memory.”
Angelo gave Paige a questioning look as she pushed past him into the open doorway. “Hold your breath,” she said, “and give me a boost up.” She ripped a hunk of skin away from her shoulder, revealing a gray, shiny, fibrous material underneath. “Asbestos,” she said.
Angelo’s eyes went wide. He held his breath, cupped his hands for her to step into, and hoisted her up over the top of the door.
Black tried to drive the Jag on the twisting forest roads and read the map at the same time. As the tires squealed around a curve and the map tried to refold itself, it was one of those rare times that he wished he’d availed himself of the full-time aide that his position in the Genogoths afforded him.
The feeling would pass. Getting close to people was only trouble. People were only trouble, as Leather had proved today. Black preferred to travel alone. He would have done the whole job alone if he could, but it was far too much for one man, or even one generation.
The map flopped open again, and the road straightened again. Espeth and the escaped mutant children were headed for the river. He needed to know where the closest crossing was. His finger traced a blue line on the map, glancing up to steer the car back into the middle of the road.
He groaned. The closest bridge was almost back to Snow Valley, miles in the wrong direction. A horn sounded, and he looked up and swerved just in time to avoid running head-on into a red pick-up truck.
“Leather,” he said into his radio mike, “how long till we get a ’copter on-scene?”
Silence. Then, “We don’t have any in the area. Xavier’s people are known for their fast jets. Nobody expected them to attempt escape in—Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”
Black bristled. “We’re going to lose them,” he growled into the radio. The trees parted. He leaned over the wheel and looked up. His eyes went wide. “Then, perhaps not,” he said. He kept the flying vehicle in sight for only a moment, but long enough to see the flames.
He turned off the transmitter, cursed under his breath, and pressed the accelerator.
Paige Guthrie climbed across the roof hand-over hand, ripping off chunks of skin as she moved. She wasn’t sure if the synthetic asbestos she’d turned her body into was as toxic as the real thing, but she hadn’t wanted to take chances inside. She only hoped it was as flame resistant.
The wind whipped past as she swung herself over the back of the Xabago and climbed down the ladder. Asbestos was a rock, basically, and she was strong in this form. That helped. She was also heavy. That didn’t. Treetops flew by under her feet.
To her relief, the flame was still limited to the tank, and hadn't spread to the rear of the vehicle. She could see where a bullet had nicked the tank, causing a tiny fracture which jetted gas and flame. The bad news was, there was plenty of gas in the tank, enough to turn it into a bomb at any moment.
She climbed down onto the rear bumper. Blue flames jetted over her belly as she slid past the tank. It tickled. Once she was on the other side of the tank, she could see that it was held into its bracket by a metal strap, and there was a buckle holding it closed.
She reached in, flame playing through her fingers and making it hard to see. She shifted her grip on the frame of the back window, and gasped as she almost lost it. Her asbestos fingers were slippery.
She pulled at the buckle which was rusted and layered with paint. At first it wouldn’t budge, then it came open with a snap.
The strap sprang open. The tank fell out of the bracket. It hung from the copper tubing that connected the tank to the Xabago, spinning. The jet of flame played over the thin, corrugated metal of the vehicle, blistering paint like a blowtorch. In moments it might cut through.
She kicked at the tank. It turned, more flames against the vehicle. Again. Something on top of the tank snapped. There was a loud hiss, and flame enveloped her.
She kicked blindly. Another snap, and the tank fell free.
Then her fingers slipped completely from their handhold.
Black rounded another curve and the road paralleled the river. He tried to catch some glimpse of their escaped quarry, looking up just in time to see something like a flaming comet coming straight at him.
Instinctively he reached for the door handle, and rolled from the car.
Impact. Pain. Spinning. Noise. A terrible heat.
Then he stopped, lying in wet grass along a ditch. He heard the roar of flames, and, after stopping just long enough to make sure that nothing major seemed to be broken, sat up. He watched as his car coasted off the road and rolled down the embankment into the river, already a burned-out hulk before it hit the water.
Sharpe studied the young man slumped in the examination chair, the harsh overhead spotlight casting dark shadows on his unconscious face. As Sharpe watched, a technician stepped between them, adjusted an arm-mounted remote scanner, nodded at Sharpe, and then slipped back into the shadows at the edge of the room. Sharpe leaned closer. The boy didn’t look dangerous. He was the youngest of the three, with what seemed, on the surface, to be the least useful mutant ability.
Sharpe stood and removed a small headset which he clipped over his right ear. He smiled. Appearances could be deceiving. “Status,” he said almost inaudibly. Sensors in the headset picked up the minute sounds conducted through the bones in his head and transmitted them to the next room, where half-a-dozen technicians invisibly monitored the session.
Generation X - Genogoths Page 6