by Greg Cox
There were still plenty of firm yellow kernels left on the cob, but Rogue had lost her appetite. Can’t I ever get away from this garbage? She chucked the half-eaten ear of com into a dented metal trash bin, then followed the venomous rant to its point of origin: a portable booth staffed and sponsored, at least according to the banner running along its top, by the anti-mutant hate group who called themselves the Friends of Humanity.
Tee-shirts, pamphlets, buttons, bumper stickers, and posters adorned the booth and were also spread out on a tabletop facing the street. Rogue quickly scanned the slogans printed on the assorted paraphernalia, feeling her blood pressure rise with every malicious word she read:
MEN WERE CREATED EQUAL, NOT MUTANTS.
100 PERCENT HUMAN—AND PROUD OF IT.
REMEMBER THE ONSLAUGHT!
FIRST THE NEANDERTHALS,
NOW HOMO SAPIENS?
OPEN YOUR EYES—FOR HUMANITY’S SAKE. SECOND PLACE NEVER COUNTS IN EVOLUTION.
SUPPORT THE MUTANT REGISTRATION ACT.
Phony wanted posters sported slightly doctored news photos of Magneto, Apocalypse, Sauron, and even some of her fellow X-Men, especially the less human-looking ones like the Beast and Nightcrawler. (Granted, it wasn’t too hard to make Wolverine look scary.) Rogue was halfamused/half-disgusted to see a cartoonish artist’s rendering of herself that made her look like a horror movie vampire, complete with fangs and pointed ears.
No fair, she thought. I haven’t looked like that since the last time I tussled with Sabretooth. Besides, my hips
aren ’t nearly that big. ... On a deeper level, she felt tom between anger and nausea at the sight of the same old lies and insults being dished out once more. You’d think people would be fed up with this stuff by now.
The loudmouth manning the booth, a petition in one hand and a donation tin in the other, was hardly a prime specimen of ordinary humanity. Stuffed pretentiously into a three-piece suit that seemed one size too small for him, the man was red-faced and sweating, too full of simmering bigotry and resentment to possibly look at ease in his own skin.
“You there, miss,” he said, making eye contact with Rogue. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to be doing too much business right now; most everybody else looked more interested in snacking and shopping. “Would you like to support the Friends of Humanity?”
You’re no friend of mine, she thought, fuming. She knew she should just walk away, leave this prejudiced peabrain to stew in his own stinking bile, but it was too late for that now. She strode toward the booth, clenching her fists. Why should she be the only one whose afternoon was spoiled?
“You ever met a mutant?” she challenged him. The press of the crowd squeezed her forward until she was squeezed against the edge of the table, her face only inches away from the so-called Friend of Humanity. She rested her palm on a stack of folded tee-shirts, not worried all that much about getting excess butter all over them. “You ever got to know one?”
“That’s not necessary,” the man said smugly, appearing all too happy to have an audience at last, even a hostile one. “I know everything I need to know.” He put down his petition and waved a pamphlet in her face.
Heavy black letters advertised THE TRUTH ABOUT THE COMING GENE WAR. “The mutant menace is the greatest threat that humanity has ever faced. That’s a matter of fact. Every time a mutant is born, humanity as we know it comes a little closer to extinction.”
Right now that doesn’t sound like such a bad idea, Rogue thought. “You ever think that mutants are no different than anybody else, ’cept for a coupla extra powers or somethin’?” She glared at him with furious green eyes, and wondered if any other mutants, unknown to her, had come to the fair today, only to have this kind of senseless animosity thrown in their faces. She could just imagine how devastating this clown’s propaganda could be to some poor kid still coming to terms with his new abilities. I’ve been an X-Man for years now, and a mutant for even longer, and it still gets to me. “Some of the best people ah know are mutants.”
“Then you’re either naive or foolish,” the FoH declared. His pig-like eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Or one of them. ’ ’
“And what if ah was?” she shot back, seeing a hint of fear chip away at the man’s self-righteous demeanor. He stepped backward away from the table, his gaze darting from the woman in front of him to the vamp-like caricature of Rogue emblazoned on one of the tee-shirts up for sale.
At least, she acknowledged, giving the shocked hate merchant a conspiratorial wink, they got the white streak in my hair right.
“Get away from me!” the man said, his ruddy complexion going pale as recognition sunk in. He backed away from the table until he ran into the plastic tarp at the rear of the booth. “You don’t dare hurt me. We have
people everywhere. Friends in high places ...”
Tell me about it, she thought. Sometimes it seemed like half the federal budget was going to bankroll new Sentinel projects and mutant eradication schemes. Rogue was tempted to tear the flimsy booth apart with her (sort of) bare hands, then take off into the sky, giving this twolegged varmint the shock of his useless life, but, no, that would just confirm all his worst fantasies about berserk mutant monsters on the loose. Instead, she contented herself with wadding up the “Rogue” tee-shirt in her fist and hurling the offending garment at the cowering FoH with just a fraction of her superhuman strength.
The last thing she expected was for the shirt to come flying back at her.
Flapping its fabric like the wings of an albino bat, the white tee-shirt reversed course in midair and rocketed straight at Rogue, wrapping itself around her face. She reached up to pull it away only to discover that the shirts on the table had come alive as well, swaddling both her hands so that she could barely move her fingers. Blinded and disoriented, she flailed out with her arms—and heard one of the metal posts supporting the booth crumple before the force of her blow.
“Ah don’t believe this!” she tried to exclaim, but the fabric stretched across her face muffled her words. She felt more of the anti-mutant tee-shirts attack her all too literally, wrapping layer after layer of animated cotton and polyester around her head, cutting off her air.
I can’t breathe! she realized.
Shouts and screams from the crowd penetrated the cocoon engulfing her head.
“Watch out! She’s a mutant!” the Friend of Humanity hollered, like this was her fault or something.
One comer of the canopy over his booth sagged forward, bouncing harmlessly off the suffocating shroud of shirts that had thrown her into airless darkness. She tried to grab at the wrappings, but her hands might as well have been wearing padded boxing gloves for all the good they did her. She swung one arm down violently, hoping to shake off the clinging garments, but succeeded only in splitting the plywood tabletop right down the middle. Pamphlets and pins spilled onto the toes of her boots.
Careful there! she reminded herself, despite a growing sense of panic. Lashing out blindly like this, it would be too easy to injure some innocent fairgoer with her superstrength. I need room to cut loose.
Figuring the sky would be less crowded than the street, she flew straight upward, using her innate ability to defy gravity. Her abrupt take-off provoked another round of frightened gasps and shrieks from the teeming masses below. And still the obnoxious hate-monger manning the shattered booth wouldn’t give it a rest.
“Mutant freak!” he called out. “They’re everywhere, just like I said!”
I wish, Rogue thought. Frankly, she could use a little X-assistance right now. Although airborne, she still couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see. She wished desperately that Cyclops was close enough for her to grab onto; she wouldn’t mind borrowing his high-powered eyebeams for just a second or two, so she could blast her blindfolds to smithereens. Instead all she could do was paw uselessly at the enveloping hood with swaddled hands, while her lungs cried out for oxygen.
Even Ms. Marvel couldn’t survive without air, she thought, recalling th
e unlucky heroine from whom Rogue had stolen her invulnerability and strength. I’m blacking out....
Terrified pigeons, roosted atop and around Washington Square Arch, vacated the premises in a frantic flurry of wings, but Rogue was not awake to hear the panicky flapping. Unconscious, she plummeted to earth like a meteor, smashing through the top of the marble arch before carving out a crater, several feet deep, in the center of the park. The crater was still there, surrounded by smoking chunks of displaced pavement, when police arrived on the scene only minutes later. Shattered fragments of marble littered the ground beneath the broken monument, which now resembled two jagged pillars instead of an arch. Sculpted figures of George Washington, portrayed as both general and president, looked on in mute disapproval.
But Rogue was gone.
Chapter four
//A vengers Assemble!”
Mi Tlie hallowed battlecry came readily to Iron Man’s lips as he came within sight of Avengers Mansion, The crimson and golden sheen of his metallic armor glistened in the sunlight, reflecting the blue sky above him and the bustling city streets below, where excited pedestrians stopped in their tracks to stare and point at the armored Avenger as he soared by overhead. Micro-turbine jets in his boots propelled him over Fifth Avenue until he was directly above the venerable townhouse that had long served as headquarters for “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes,” as the tabloids loved to call the Avengers.
Beats “Earth’s Lousiest Losers,” he thought. As both a veteran super hero and, as billionaire Tony Stark, a successful businessman, he knew the value of good publicity. Even Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson, that inveterate campaigner against costumed vigilantes, seldom had a bad word to say about the Avengers.
The mansion was only a short flight away from Stark’s corporate offices in the Flatiron district; still, he wouldn’t have begrudged the trip even if he had needed to fly across half the state to get here.
I’ve made my fair share of mistakes over the years, he reflected, especially in my personal life, but one thing I can never regret is helping to found the Avengers.
The team had done a lot of good for humanity, including saving the entire planet on more occasions than he could recall. Iron Man looked forward to meeting again with his fellow heroes, even as he wondered what sort of crisis had inspired Captain America to call the team together today. Cap’s summons had not included any details.
Iron Man’s boots touched down on the reinforced concrete heliport nestled amid the Gothic spires of the mansion. Moving with surprising ease for a man wrapped from head to toe in a state-of-the-art suit of combat armor, he approached a doorway a few yards away. Concealed security devices, designed by Stark himself, scanned Iron Man discreetly, confirming his identity before permitting him entry to the mansion. He descended a short flight of wooden stairs to the top floor, where he was greeted by a balding, middle-aged man clad in a conservative, impeccably pressed tuxedo.
“Good afternoon, sir,” he said to Iron Man with an upper-class British accent, looking neither surprised nor intimidated by Iron Man’s robotic appearance. “Welcome back.”
“Thank you, Jarvis,” Iron Man replied. The butler had been an indispensable fixture of the old Stark family mansion since before Tony donated the house to the Avengers. Iron Man couldn’t imagine the mansion without him. “I hope I haven’t kept everyone waiting.”
“That seems unlikely, sir,” Edwin Jarvis assured him. He glanced at his brass pocketwatch. “I believe the others are just now gathering in the meeting room.”
Iron Man knew the way by heart, so he marched down a long, carpeted corridor lined with polished oak paneling and framed portraits of many of the Avengers’ most famous alumni, such as Hercules, Wonder Man, Tigra, and the notorious Black Widow.
Wonder what Natasha is up to these days? he wondered as his eyes, peering out through two slits in his gilded faceplate, fell upon the latter portrait; he hadn’t seen the Widow since that nasty clash with the Mandarin several weeks back. The thick olive carpeting absorbed the heavy tread of his iron boots until he came to a pair of sturdy double doors. His crimson gauntlet closed gently upon a crystal doorknob as he let himself in.
In contrast to the tasteful Old World elegance of the corridor outside, the meeting room looked like something out of a science-fiction movie. Banks of sophisticated computer circuitry and monitors covered the walls and ceiling, lighted control panels blinking on and off, while the room was dominated by a large chrome table, the top of which was emblazoned by a stylized capital “A.” Egg-shaped metal chairs, designed to support the weight of even the Hulk if necessary, surrounded the futuristic round table. Iron Man’s boots rang against the shining stainless-steel tiles beneath his feet as he crossed the room.
The chairs were all empty now, but not the room itself. Iron Man immediately recognized the imposing figure standing on the opposite side of the table, his athletic figure proudly wearing the red-white-and-blue colors of the nation he had served and protected for over fifty years. A single white star glittered upon his chest, surrounded by a shirt of bright blue chain mail. Vertical red and white stripes girded his waist while a symbolic eagle wing rose from each side of his blue cowl. Flared red gloves and boots completed the ensemble.
“Hello, Tony,” Captain America said warmly. “Thanks for coming on such short notice.”
“No problem,” Iron Man said. The vocalizer in his mouthpiece distorted his voice, giving him a forbidding, mechanical tone. He took advantage of the mansion’s privacy, protected by dozens of electronic countermeasures,
by unlocking the metallic seals at the base of his helmet. Removing the headpiece, he placed it gently on the surface of the table, revealing handsome features distinguished by a trim black mustache and beard. A face often seen on the cover of People magazine looked vaguely out of place atop Iron Man’s mechanized form.
That’s better, Tony thought. He breathed a sigh of relief—despite all the improvements he’d made to the suit’s ventilation and internal cooling systems, it still got a bit stuffy under the helmet. Besides, he had no secrets from Cap.
Captain America kept his own mask on, probably just from force of habit. Iron Man suspected that, after five decades of fighting for freedom, from the dark days of World War II through all the years since, Cap was more comfortable in uniform than out of it. His real name was Steve Rogers, Iron Man knew, but even his closest friends mostly thought of him as Cap. His proud stance and patriotic costume, from the A-for-America upon his brow right down to his bright red boots, had been an enduring national icon since before Tony Stark was even born. Cap’s circular metal shield, similarly adorned with the Stars and Stripes, rested on the table as well, only a few feet away from Iron Man’s helmet.
The tools of our trade, Iron Man thought.
He wiped the perspiration from his forehead and glanced around the room, wondering where the rest of the team was. As if in answer to his unspoken query, a spectral figure rose from the center of the table, passing through the solid tabletop, and the chromium floor below, like an insubstantial wraith.
Or Vision.
Translucent at first, so that Iron Man could spy a wall 39
of computer banks through the green-and-veilow body of the newcomer, the Vision emerged in his entirety a few inches above the Avengers insignia on the table, then drifted silently to one side and lowered himself into an empty chair. Once seated, he solidified quickly, effortlessly taking on mass and substance until he appeared just as tangible as Captain America and Iron Man. A voluminous yellow cape, that had previously floated about him like a phantasmal aura, settled upon his emerald shoulders.
“Forgive my delay,” he said, his voice as cold and unfeeling as the grave, “but I was engaged in routine maintenance of my thermoscopic receptor.”
Iron Man was not too startled by the Vision’s eerie arrival. He had grown accustomed to the synthetic Avenger’s tendency to pass through solid objects when convenient—a useful application of the Vision�
��s unique ability to control his artificial body’s density. It was just such an immaterial manifestation, he recalled, that had led their former colleague, the winsome Wasp, to christen the synthezoid “the Vision” in the first place.
A fitting name, he reflected.
If Iron Man, at least with his helmet in place, resembled a humanoid robot forged from gleaming steel, the Vision, in his solid state, looked more or less like a living mannequin sculpted out of plastic. A skintight sheet of green and yellow latex garbed his synthetic frame, except where his scarlet face peeked through, looking no more natural or organic than the statues in a wax museum. A polished golden gem resided in the center of his forehead, absorbing the solar energy that provided the Vision with his own artificial form of life. The mask-like face, slender and refined in its contours, was capable of expressing emotion, Iron Man knew, but seldom displayed that ability to any significant degree.
Especially since his marriage to Wanda broke up, Stark thought privately. These days, the Vision was even more icy and inhuman than he had been in years.
“Who else are we expecting?” Iron Man asked. He didn’t want to rush things, but there was a stack of paperwork waiting back on his alter ego’s desk. His executive assistant, Pepper Potts, could handle most of it if necessary, but Stark preferred to be a hands-on administrator whenever possible; he owed that to his numerous employees and stockholders. Avengers business took priority, though, as well it should. The fate of one company, even his own, hardly compared to the safety of the whole world.
“Just Wanda,” Cap informed him. “Hawkeye and Thor are both pursuing solo missions, while Firestar and Justice are attending a New Warriors reunion. That leaves only the Scarlet Witch on the duty roster.” He glanced at a digital chronometer mounted into the south wall, beneath a sizable viewscreen. The clock read 01:36:08 P.M. “I’m not sure what’s keeping her. So far, she hasn’t responded to any of my hails.”