X-Men(tm) The Last Stand

by Chris Claremont

  But he had to believe there was another way. Or—if she was truly determined to go through with it, he would join her. Would he hate her for that, after? Would she come to resent him, in the belief that he hated her for it? Suppose things didn’t work out—what then?

  His head was splitting and his heart was pounding. He couldn’t think anymore. The more he tried to find a way out of this maze, the more tangled and crazy he got.

  In desperation, he had boiled it down to one immutable element: he loved Rogue. He would search until he found her. Everything else could wait until afterwards.

  As the crowd condensed more and more into an immovable crush, Bobby wished he was much taller.

  Then, he caught a familiar flash of emerald green exiting the clinic. He didn’t need to see her distinctive stripe to know it was her, just knowing the way she moved was enough.

  Yelling her name did no good. She had her head down, and he felt ice form around his heart at the thought she’d actually done it.

  But thinking of ice gave him an idea. If he couldn’t reach her with his voice, he’d deliver a message made of ice, writing her name between the buildings in great big letters.

  He lost sight of her and tried to bull his way forward, realizing that his brilliant idea wouldn’t be of much use if he put the signal up on the wrong street.

  Bobby was making decent headway—when he ran into Pyro.

  “Johnny?” he asked foolishly. “What are you doing here?”

  “What are you, popsicle?” Pyro sneered back at him, making it impossible for Bobby to believe they’d ever been buds. “Getting ‘cured’ so you can go home to mommy and daddy?”

  “Fuck you.”

  Pyro noticed Bobby still searching the crowd and snapped his fingers.

  “Oh, I get it. Looking for your girlfriend. Figures she’d be here.”

  You really are an asshole, Bobby thought. Without consciously realizing it, he’d clenched his fists, his power coating them with a sheen of ice.

  “Same old Bobby,” Pyro chuckled, and it wasn’t a compliment. Bobby wanted to wipe the smirk off the other mutant’s face but there were too many bystanders, packed too close around them. “Still scared of a fight.”

  Bobby heard the faint click of Pyro’s Zippo and saw a small ball of fire appear on the flattened palm of an out-held hand.

  Oh my God, he thought, and made a grab for his former roommate as Pyro headed for the clinic.

  “Stop!” he cried uselessly, knowing Pyro wouldn’t listen. “John, stop!”

  He caught at the other’s sleeve, but John sidestepped between some other people, breaking the hold and using them to block Bobby’s path while he worked his way closer to the building.

  Bobby heard him yell, as if this were a treat, “Fire in the hole!” and then, Pyro let loose a sphere of fire the size of a soccer ball, arcing it through the air like a goalie clearing the net. Perfect aim, right through a ground-floor window.

  It detonated like a bomb, flames punching out every door and window along that corner of the structure, casting forth a shockwave of blistering heat that knocked those nearest flat to the street and set the rest of the crowd to panicked, screaming flight.

  Bobby was among those dropped by the force of the explosion, and the only one to react properly. A score of people were burning, clothes ignited by the outrush of flames, and even as he started to move towards them, a series of sharp secondary blasts shattered windows on the upper floors, sending a cascade of glass shards towards the crowd like searing-hot shrapnel.

  His response was just as quick—he generated cocoons of ice to extinguish the folks who were burning, plus a wall to shield the rest from the flying glass. He could hear screams from inside the building. The fire had spread with fearful speed along the ground floor, covering the elevators and stairwells, trapping everyone who was upstairs. It was a low-rise building, the fire department could reach the upper windows and roof with their ladders—except that the blaze was growing too quickly. Pyro’s fireball was composed of superheated plasma of such intensity it created an instant firestorm inside the building. Quick as New York’s Bravest could possibly respond, even if it was only a matter of minutes, they’d likely find nothing but a gutted shell.

  Bobby iced the roof and worked his way down from there, intentionally keeping the coating thin enough that it would almost instantly melt. It wasn’t easy—he had to provide enough ice to create a constant deluge of water that would check the advance of the flames, enabling him to advance gradually upon the hyperhot core of the firestorm. Dumping ice directly on top of it would create a disaster all its own. The near-solar heat would flash the ice directly to steam, proving just as deadly to anyone it touched and doing nothing to eliminate the threat.

  At the same time, he created a pair of ice slides at the other end of the building, as far removed as possible from the fire itself, allowing those trapped a means to escape.

  His head quickly began to pound—he wasn’t used to this much exertion. The more ice he generated to douse the fire, the more it demanded. He felt like he was trying to fill an ocean by himself. The air around him grew tinder dry, and lashes of pain laid themselves across his back and chest as the effort of channeling atmospheric moisture through his body grew exponentially.

  Then, dimly, far off in the distance, he heard the grumble of thunder, and a gust of air swirled around him, as heavy with moisture as a fog. He remembered the phalanx of cameras—the day’s events were being carried by every local channel and the 24/7 national news feeds. When Pyro threw his bombshell, they must have gone live globally—which he’d bet his life was exactly what Magneto had planned. At the same time, though, it must have allowed Storm to see his predicament and realize what was needed. She’d upped the humidity in the air around him to the level of a tropical rain forest, giving him more than enough resources to finish the job.

  Even so, he was breathless and swaying on his feet a couple of minutes later, after it dawned on him that he’d turned the clinic building into an ice palace. He could sense no more hot spots within, and water that had been pouring from the shattered walls and windows in a flood had slowed to minor trickles. Bobby could hear sirens at last, although to him they seemed very far away. So did the people talking to him. He could see their lips moving, as the civilians in the crowd were pushed aside by reporters and police, coming together like a rugby scrum, equally determined to get to him.

  At the moment, though, he had eyes only for his creation, which he had to admit was quite a sight. The entire building was covered with ice sparkling blue-white in the sun, so brightly it must have been hard for people to look at without sunglasses. Bobby himself had long ago discovered he had no problem with either snow or ice glare. The slides at one end were complemented at the other by huge sculpted mounds that had been formed by the water plunging from the building. Closest to the walls, they resembled giant African termite hills, but as he looked up and out he saw them branch into more delicate arches and pillars, spires and ramps, with stalagmites reaching up from the street intersecting with stalactites dripping down from above. A nearby light-pole was linked to the building by artfully delicate strands of ice, as were some street signs, giving the impression that some crystalline spider had been busily at work on its latest web. The sun cast the scene in flashes of diamond brilliance, but also playfully mixed in prismatic bursts of color as the ice caught its rays and refracted them, creating a succession of microrainbows to complement the much larger one forming in the supersaturated air overhead.

  Another outcry from the crowd shattered his momentary reverie. A burst of fire was coursing through the air, as though from a flamethrower, to sear a symbol through the ice and into the brickface of the old tenement building: the Greek letter ©, for Omega, the last letter in their alphabet, used to represent the end of things.

  Bobby looked hard, tried to force his way towards the source of the fire, thinking he caught a glimpse of Pyro—but the crowd was too large and too s
pooked. Police and journalists were already pressing his way and with fire and rescue units converging on the scene from every direction, continuing any sort of effective pursuit was a forlorn hope.

  The gaggle of reporters barely got to throw a single question before their collective attention was distracted by an all-too-familiar voice booming from the speakers of a nearby radio. Waves and yells from one of the newsvans brought an instant audience, everyone pressing close enough for a view of Magneto’s face as he began his broadcast, addressing them with the formal gravity of the president from the Oval Office.

  “Today’s attack on your ‘cure’ was only our first salvo….” he informed the world.

  “So long as this so-called cure exists, our war will rage. Your cities will not be safe. Your streets will not be safe. You will not be safe.”

  Bobby shook his head in mingled misery and frustration, painfully aware of the looks that were being split between the man on the screen and himself by the people around him, noting how they began to edge away, clearing a definable space between themselves and the mutants.

  Over his shoulder, the mutants who’d come to the clinic were gathered around one of their own, who’d assumed the code name Broadband, as he generated a three-dimensional representation—plucked from the airwaves by his power—of what the rest were watching on their TV screens.

  Thankfully, the firemen, paramedics, and a number of the cops, led by Bishop and Charlotte Jones, hadn’t forgotten their responsibility to the injured. They finished triaging all who’d been hurt and sending them off to the hospital. If not for Bobby’s instant intervention, they would tell him a little later, the consequences would have been far more awful. Instead, thanks to him, there were only a comparative handful of third-degree burns; the rest of the casualties suffered more damage to their clothes than their persons.

  “You want a cure,” he watched Magneto say on Broadband’s life-sized generated image. “You will have it. A cure to all that ails you.” He didn’t much like the sound of that. But where Magneto was concerned, what the hell else was new?

  At the Mansion, Storm and Hank quietly joined other students and faculty in the common room to watch the same broadcast.

  “And to my fellow mutants,” Magneto concluded, “I make you this offer, and this warning: Join us or stay out of our way. Enough mutant blood has been spilled already.”

  That was it. Silence reigned for the first two or three seconds, before one of the younger kids stuck out his forked tongue and delivered a rousing Bronx cheer.

  He got the laugh he’d wanted—but only for a moment, before the broadcast switched over to the newsroom and began to present a series of reports from around the country. The incident in Lower Manhattan hadn’t been an isolated attack, but part of a coordinated group of simultaneous strikes throughout the nation. There’d been no X-Man present to protect those others and the results were ruin after gutted ruin, and a casualty list—including a body count—that made many watching weep.

  Visibly furious, the president switched off the Oval Office TV and hurled the remote into the depths of the nearest couch. He stood directly over the Great Seal and as he glared at the floor, he remembered what he’d long ago been told about the eagle. In time of peace, as now, its head faced to its right, towards the olive branches clasped in one great claw. In war, it turned the other way, towards the brace of arrows held in its left claw. If it weren’t for all the furniture in the way, he was more than ready to indulge in an irrational impulse to flip the damn thing over himself.

  He gave vent to his frustration. “Who in the name of all that’s holy does that mad, arrogant mutant sonofabitch think he is? Does he really want a war? Does he truly believe he can win? Or that the world that survives will be worth living in, for anyone?”

  “We’re trying hard to track him, sir,” came the response from Bolivar Tresk, along with Cockrum’s sudden, bitter, cynical thought, But that trick never works. “We’re working hard—”

  The president indicated the TV. “Yes, I see that.” He faced the much bigger man. “Work harder, Bolivar. We cannot allow this to continue. We cannot let him do this.”

  “Well then, sir, you know what needs to be done.”

  Cockrum stood before his desk, staring at the collection of files he’d been reading, all color-coded to indicate the highest level of security; even some of the men and women now in this room weren’t permitted to see them. He seriously considered the one marked “Sentinels,” then decided they were better held for another, darker day, praying as he did so that day would never come.

  Then again, he’d offered pretty much the same prayer about today.

  “Those weapons,” the president told Trask. “I want them commissioned. I want Worthington Labs secured. I want troops in front of every clinic. Magneto is not going to dictate terms to this White House, or infringe on the the rights of our people.”

  In the background, the press secretary scribbled notes furiously, collecting a couple of the president’s phrases to use later for sound bites.

  “Anyone who wants that cure gets it,” the president reiterated, indicating that he wanted to make sure this statement made print and airwaves. “We will protect every citizen, human or mutant, by any means necessary.”

  Within the hour, security was in place—either FBI SWAT teams working in conjunction with local law enforcement, or troops culled from the National Guard. It was a visually impressive show of force, but, as with displays in earlier emergencies, at airports and railroad stations, the public had very real doubts as to whether a determined attack could truly be prevented. Stopping guys with bombs was one thing, but stopping guys who could be bombs, or manifest who knows what other kind of mutant power, was something else entirely.

  Since New York held the greatest concentration of mutants east of the Mississippi, it was decided that the clinic here should reopen as soon as possible. The Manhattan location was a total loss, but Worthington had leased space across the river in Brooklyn: a building at the convergence of Atlantic, Flatbush and Fourth Avenues, with easy access to a half dozen subway and rail lines. The vulnerability of the location made the public security departments blanch, but the space hadn’t been chosen for its defensibility. Ease of access was the main consideration. They’d just have to deal.

  Antiterrorist sniper teams were deployed under cover of darkness to the surrounding rooftops and as they moved into position, their bosses began to breathe a little easier. The clinic was in the open, with high ground on every side. This gave the shooters a more than adequate series of overlapping “kill zones.” Press releases identified the boots on the ground as National Guard, but that was only partly right; the detail was a mix of the National Guard and army regulars. More to the point, all of them were combat-experienced veterans with significant experience in urban population control. They knew their job and they’d follow orders. They wouldn’t panic.

  As they moved into position, they exchanged their M16s for shotguns that fired nonlethal bullets and gas canisters for crowd dispersal. Each man was issued a hand weapon, plastic, with backup magazines sufficient to deal with a multitude.

  A secure perimeter was established around the clinic, with sandbags and fencing, and defined areas set aside for protestors, as well as for prospective patients.

  The protestors were first on the scene, yelling and screaming in an attempt to intimidate the patients. They were quickly joined by their rivals, who were for the cure, an assemblage that was mainly nonmutant sapiens, with a scattering of mutants. They seemed to have the numbers, although the anticure mob definitely had the volume. The patients and their escorts were, of course, stuck in the middle.

  Ororo had offered the services of the X-Men, and had very politely been rebuffed at every level of government, from the White House to City Hall. The help was appreciated, but the consensus was that the X-Men might provoke trouble more than forestall it. The subtext, unfortunately, which Ororo and Hank had recognized all too well, was that
the X-Men in particular, along with mutants in general, weren’t to be trusted. The team’s actions in the past, including Bobby’s the other day, didn’t matter. Better for all concerned that they stay clear and let the proper authorities handle things.

  Lucas Bishop was once more in charge of the NYPD contingent, with Charlotte Jones beside him. The seven-eight, a couple of blocks away on Bergen, was her home precinct, and Prospect Heights, her home, period. Her folks lived a little farther in the other direction, in Fort Greene, so this wasn’t just the job for her. This was very personal.

  The protestors surged forward, against the NYPD wooden sawhorses and the baton- and shield-carrying guardsmen who backed them up. A sergeant yelled at them through his bullhorn, “Everyone, please, get back!”

  Around Bishop and Charlotte, everyone moved into their proper position. In their earbugs, which tied them into the command net, the two bosses heard the status reports from all the sniper teams.

  “Perimeter secure,” came the report.

  “Good,” Bishop said. Then, into his own radio, repeated more loudly for the benefit of the troops nearby, “Let’s start letting them in!”

  A quartet of troopers, the biggest they could find, tucked the first clutch of mutants between them, like saplings amidst redwoods, and headed for the entrance. Watching, Charlotte remembered her dad telling her what it had been like as a boy, watching news reports from Little Rock, showing federal marshals escorting a little black girl into the first integrated school in the city, in the face of a mob of snarling, hate-filled faces spewing every cruel and hurtful catcall they could think of. She’d seen the Norman Rockwell painting as well, and hoped there was someone of equal talent and passion who could document this generation’s moment of grace and courage. She was glad she had the opportunity to stand amongst their defenders, as her heart ached to see more than a few she knew—some quite well—among the protestors.