rank.”. . . , i'. .
Jubilee frowned down at him from the top-gun seat. “Angelo, you can be so gross.”
Everett emerged from the bathroom. ''Mv shirts are all clean.”
“I know your shirts are all clean, Ev.” Jubilee’s voice took on an approving tone.
Angelo mocked her in a high, annoying falsetto. “I know your shirts are all clean, Ev.” His voice returned to normal. “You’re a traitor to your gender,” he said, taking a big bite of the granola bar. He made a big show of sulking up toward the front and fell heavily into the passenger-side seat.
Next to him, Jono was fumbling with the radio. “1 don’t think we can get Norman out here. Just as well. I’m sick of the blighter.”
Paige walked over, climbed up on the framework that supported the top-gun seat, and stood next to Jubilee, surveying the scenery around the picnic area where they were parked. “It’s nice to know there are still a few places Norman can’t touch.”
There was a knock at the door, and at Everett’s invitation, Recall led the rest of the M.O.N.S.T.E.R. musketeers in. “Sorry we’re late. We spotted a grizzly bear by the side of the road, and the Pounder had to try talking with it.”
Monet took a pillow off her head and sat up from where she’d been napping on the couch. “What did it say?”
Dog Pound blushed. “ ‘I’m hungry.’ ”
Chill and Recall chortled. Chill raised his hands over his head, wrists turned down in an imitation of a standing bear. “As I recall it was more like—” he raised and deepened his voice “—‘I’m hungry!’ ” Both of them broke into giggles.
Pound looked sheepish. “That’s the problem with talking to animals. Most of them aren’t interested in what you have to say, they don’t have much interesting to say themselves, and half the time, when they do have something to say, it isn’t something you want to hear.”
Paige stepped down from the observation bubble. “So, you don’t like animals?”
He looked surprised. “No, I love animals. I’m studying to be a vet. That’s the one place I figure my power will be really
useful. If you’re observant, most animals are pretty good at telling you what they want you to know, but the one thing they really have trouble with is telling you where it hurts. It’s someplace I can make a difference.”
Jubilee smiled and nodded approvingly. “Hey, that’s pretty cool. You’re all right, Dog Pound.”
He practically glowed. “Thanks, Jubilee,” He sat down on the floor near the door. Chill lighted on the arm of the couch.
Recall knelt next to Paige’s chair. “I was listening to you yesterday. You’re getting better.”
Paige shook her head. ‘ ‘Norman is still running me around like a whipped dog.” She nodded apologetically at Pound. “No offense.” .
“Sure,” said Recall, “he’s got the home field advantage, but you’re getting on the air most every day. You’ve got the ear of millions of people and you’ve got the chance to win them over, to show them that mutants are just people the same as anyone else.”
She chewed her thumbnail. “Why don’t you call them, Recall? You’re trained to do this kind of thing.”
He considered. “Because I’m not the one who had the courage to take a chance and get themselves on the air. You’re the one they want to hear now. The chances of me getting on would be one in a million, but with you, every call is a sure thing. You can’t waste that opportunity. I know you. You wouldn’t want to.”
“No/’ she admitted. “It’s a shame I can’t get on today. I suppose I could just call the number anyway.”
Recall shook his head. “You don’t want to call without knowing the context the show puts you in. Ignorance of that would be giving Norman a big club to use against you. Better just to skip today.”
Jono turned around in the driver’s seat and picked up a map off the floor. “You know, if we could find some more altitude, we might be able to pull in a station with Norman on it. We’ve got some time yet.” He studied the map, then tapped it with his finger. ‘ ‘This lookout might be the ticket, and I think I can get us there by airtime.”
Paige examined the map skeptically.
Recall shrugged. “Worth a try.”
Jono spun around and cranked the Xabago. “Let’s go, then.”
Pound jumped up in a panic and wrestled the sticky door open. “I can’t leave the car here!”
Chill leaned out the door after him and yelled, “Meet us there!” Then he leaned back and pulled the door closed.
Jono gunned the RV out of the picnic area and onto the main road. To his amazement, it was empty in their direction, though cars were lined up bumper to bumper on the other side.
“Da bomb,” exclaimed Jubilee from the top-gun seat. “There’s a moose in the road a few hundred yards back, and traffic is stopped!”
Recall stood between the front seats, looking eagerly out through the windshield. “Let’s get while the getting’s good.” Jono roared down the empty road, uncertain when they’d hit typical park traffic again. Then they heard the siren.
Jono looked in the side mirror. “Bloody hell.” He slowed. Paige found herself looking at Angelo, who had just balled up his granola bar wrapper and thrown it behind the couch. “Image inducers,” she said.
Angelo blinked. “Image—?” He suddenly turned around and started pawing through the clutter behind the couch. ‘ ‘One of them is back here somewhere, I think.”
Paige jumped up, wondering if she should help.
As the Xabago pulled to a stop, Recall pushed Angelo aside, lifted a cushion, and handed him an image inducer.
Paige looked at him. She could see a ranger car through the back window, lights flashing, and a ranger walking up the driver side of the vehicle. “Quick. Where’s the other one?” Recall had a puzzled look on his face; “Missoula?”
Skin had snapped on the inducer and suddenly looked, from the nose up, anyhow, like Jono’s twin brother. “Dios! That rest room at Denny’s!”
Paige saw the ranger standing outside Jono’s window. “Too late now,” she whispered harshly.
Jono slowly rolled down his window. ‘ ‘Is there a problem, Constable?”
The ranger was tall and muscular. Square-jawed, he looked at Jono from behind silvered aviator’s glasses, and his expression said that he’d take no guff. The nameplate on his uniform read timmons. “Ranger, not Constable. May I see your license and registration, please?”
Jono took the registration from its holder above the sun-visor, and took out his Massachusetts license. Thanks to some strings pulled by Professor Xavier and a sympathetic clerk, the picture on the license had been computer altered to match his image inducer hologram, the hologram that now disguised Angelo rather than Jono.
“You know you were going ten over the limit back there.” “Sorry. Open road and all that. Went to my head.”
The ranger studied the license, then Jono’s face. “The scarf. Mind pulling that down for me? I take it you aren’t planning on robbing the stage today?”
Jono blinked. “No, sir. I don’t even know where it is.” “Then please pull down the scarf.”
“I’d bloody rather not, if it’s just the same. Sir.”
The ranger slowly reached down and unsnapped the flap on his holster. “Now.”
Paige pushed past Recall. She leaned down to the window, smiling as disarmingly as she could at the ranger. “Sir, I’m Paige Guthrie, and I can explain. You see, Jono had a terrible accident since that picture was taken. His face is—scarred, and he’s very sensitive about it. Actually, his doctor, his therapist, said showing it to someone against his will could be very traumatic. Bad. Doctor’s orders. Understand?”
There was a tense moment, then the officer took his hand away from his gun, and slowly removed his glasses. Paige could see that he was staring at the M.O.N.S.T.E.R. pin on her collar. He stepped back and studied the “Xabago” logo on the side of the RV. He pointed at it. “This X, it wouldn’t have someth
ing to do with Professor Charles Xavier, would it?”
The kids all looked at each other in surprise.
Paige smiled. “Most of us are students from Xavier’s School in Massachusetts.” She gestured toward the back of the RV. “Our friends are from Washington state.”
The ranger looked at Jono again. “I’d guess you’re a mutant, then.”
Jono just looked at him for a minute, then nodded.
Paige considered a moment before adding, “We’re all mutants, officer. We didn’t mean any harm.”
The ranger smiled broadly and stuck his hand through the window, offering it to Paige. “Michael Timmons, alumnus of the University of Colorado Springs chapter. I didn’t know there were any M.O.N.S.T.E.R.s left, but it figures that the Professor would keep it alive, if anyone could.”
Paige shook his hand.
Chill put on his best pledge-drive smile and stepped forward. ‘Tm president of the Western Pacific University chapter. Pleased to meet you. If you don’t mind my asking, are you a mutant too?”
Timmons laughed. “Not me, but my favorite cousin is. When she turned thirteen she developed telekinesis. After the exorcist didn’t work, they almost put her in an institution. That’s when the Professor contacted us. He was able to help her, and I was a convert for life. Any friend of the Professor’s is a friend of mine.” He looked at his ticket book, then flipped it closed. “Listen, Jonothan, you be a little more cautious in the future, okay?”
Jono nodded.
‘ ‘But that said, I was supposed to be off duty fifteen minutes ago anyway.” He smiled in at them hopefully. “How’s about you young folks let me show you my Yellowstone?”
As usual, the lights in the small office belonging to “Trent McComb” were on well into the evening. Inside, the Expatriate looked over the schedule for the next day’s broadcast with little enthusiasm. Over the past few years, he had quietly assigned most of his off-air work for the program to others, intervening directly only when it served his purposes or was necessary to avoid suspicion.
Unfortunately, Norman’s recently increased scrutiny of his activities made this one of those times. It was lamentable, just when there were so many other things to coordinate, so many things to do, and time was so limited. Sometimes the strain of his double life was almost unendurable.
He had heard rumors in the underworld that many of America’s so-called super heroes maintained secret identities apart from their costumed personas. He imagined that, like him, they needed to move about without detection, to gain access to information and resources not their own.
Probably they were not much different from him, working secretly and outside the law on their own private agendas. He couldn’t imagine that anyone could wield such power without some ultimately selfish intent. He wondered for a moment how so many of them had so successfully fooled the public. But then, he knew better than anyone how the media could manipulate public perceptions.
Secret identities? He wondered if the concept was more than utilitarian. Did these so-called heroes secretly have homes and families, pretend to be mere mortals? It was an audacious concept, but plausible. He wondered if the X-Men possessed secret identities. Did the hated invader Wolverine go home to a wife and children? Hi, honey, I'm home. Hard, day toppling the Genoshan government. What’s for dinner?
He looked down to discover that the schedule had somehow been crumpled and shredded in his straining fist. He tossed the paper aside in disgust and looked at the radio sitting on his desk. Perhaps he could not find out where they lived, but they would have neighbors, friends, employers, business associates, and beyond that a billion genetically untainted humans to root them out and crush them by sheer numbers.
It was through the radio that the Expatriate would rally those masses, call them to arms, leave the X-Men and all American mutants with no safe haven and no place to hide. He would drive them into the sea, just as they had driven him from his beloved island homeland.
He heard his latch click and watched as the door swung slowly open. Walt Norman stood in the doorway dressed in an expensively tailored black dinner suit. He was smiling unpleasantly, and leaned against the door frame sloppily, as though slightly drunk. “Working hard, Trent? Good. You work very hard and maybe I’ll let you stay for a while.” He reached into his pocket and took out a folded white envelope, which he threw onto the desk.
The Expatriate looked at the envelope. “What’s this?”
“Ratings, my boy. Ratings. Going through the roof since that girl started to call. I just had dinner with the network president. I’m the golden boy right now, Trent, the king of the airwaves, back on top where I belong.” He chuckled. “They’re talking a new book deal, maybe a weekly show on cable. Maybe a late-night talk show. I can do no wrong.” The smile faded. “And just in case there was ever any doubt about who was in charge around here, Trent, I could crush you like a bug.” He turned, closing the door after him. “Have a good night.”
The Expatriate watched the closed door for a long time, the patterns of light and darkness in the bubbled glass window, the false name visible in mirror image through the glass. There was a fully loaded Beretta Model 92 automatic pistol hidden in a stationery box in his bottom-right desk drawer. With a single phone call he could have Norman shot, stabbed, strangled, burned, blown up, or skinned alive—none of which, he reminded himself, would serve his purpose in any way.
He had to put his personal feelings aside in favor of the big picture, though that was becoming an increasingly difficult thing to do. He needed to talk to a friend, and there were few people in the world who could claim that honor of him. He picked up the phone and dialed Ivan,
It was answered on the third ring. From sounds in the background, he could tell that Ivan was in a moving car.
“Expatriate? I am sorry, but I have not had time to check what progress has been made on the voice box modifications. I didn’t expect you to call until tomorrow. I did, however, pass along the latest batch of voice sample recordings.” “That isn’t why I called, Ivan. I simply needed to talk.” “Ah, that idiot Norman again?”
“How did you know?”
Laughter from the phone. “Of all the sacrifices you make for our cause, tolerating that buffoon is the most unenviable.” “Some days this charade becomes unbearable, pretending to be an American, pretending to be Norman’s toady. It was easier when we were mercenaries in South America. It’s easier to take out your aggressions with an assault rifle in your hands, and a ready supply of paid targets to kill.”
‘ ‘Easier, but less profitable. This smuggling and arms dealing operation would not have been possible without The Walt Norman Show’s resources. We have toll-free numbers, web sites, fax networks, voice mail, all courtesy of your American radio clown. It’s the perfect cover.”
“We’re growing past the point where we need those resources. I’ve been thinking we should set up our own network anyway, as a failsafe. Phones, computers, these are only a matter of money, and we have that now. As for the cover, well, that’s still useful for as long as we can keep it. But I can’t help worrying, especially given Norman’s recent unpredictability. If something were to happen to the show right now, our organization would fall apart like wet tissue paper.” “That would indeed be a wise precaution, but any alternative would deprive you of the pleasure of making things difficult for the American mutants. We are much alike, you and I, good soldiers of our respective countries, caught up in political turmoil that was no fault of our own, exiles seeking only justice against the American meddlers—and a little profit to lighten our day. That my country was the Soviet Union, and that yours is Genosha is only a matter of details.” “Perhaps you should be running this operation, Ivan, not I.” . ■
A chuckle from the phone. “While I have my skills, I have neither the imagination, nor the fire in my gut. The Soviet Union is dead and will never return. The men of power who killed it are dead or dying themselves. My demons shriveled with my country. I wish to bed
evil the Americans, but it is only sport for me.
“Your X-Men are very much alive, your Genosha perhaps not beyond redemption. This is what drives you. That is what will drive us both to greatness. I bow to the fire in your spirit, my friend. Nothing can stand before it. Norman is only a gnat, one we will swat soon enough.”
“It can't happen too soon, Ivan.”
“I am counting the days, my friend.”
CHAPTER TEN
“Caller: See, now that’s why, here in Springfield, they’ve taken over the library board.
“Norman: Who’s taken over the library board?
“Caller: Mutants!
“Norman: You’re sure they’re mutants?
“Caller: Sure as I can be. They’re trying to put their kind of books in the library, where kids can see them.
“Norman: What kind of books?
“Caller: Genetics, evolution, trash like that.”
—excerpt from The Walt Norman Show
Though Paige had regained the nerve to call Norman’s radio program, she had lacked the opportunity since they were sidetracked by Ranger Timmons. Sean and Emma had no other appointments in Montana, and Sean had decided to start riding in the Xabago to spell off on the driving, hoping to make better time.
At Paige’s quiet insistence, they hadn’t tuned in to Norman, even by accident. Angelo, at least, was cheerful about the whole thing. 4 ‘We got the Xabago,” he told her, 4 ‘because the sound system rocked, and I was starting to think we’d spend the whole trip listening to AM talkazoids.”
The system did rock, too, at a greater volume than Paige had expected to get away with, given the presence of an adult. An unexpected side effect of Sean’s sonic powers seemed to be an immunity to loud music played at any volume, even if he didn’t always approve of their choice of bands.
Jubilee eventually retreated to the comfort of the larger RV to get some quiet time, Angelo decided to take a nap on the couch, and Jono ensconsed himself in the small bedroom in the back of the Xabago. Even Everett, back in the top-gun seat, appeared to be napping. Monet was curled up in the re-cliner, studiously working on what appeared to be a Smokey Bear coloring book.
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