Flying west from New York had gained them a few-more hours of daylight. The sun had not yet set behind the Canadian Rockies, casting a twilight glow over the snow. Nevertheless, Captain America, behind the wheel of the SnoCoach, switched on the vehicle’s headlights, the better
to watch out for treacherous cracks and crevices in the ice. Unwilling to risk the Blackbird by landing upon ice of uncertain stability, Cyclops had parked the X-Men’s aircraft several miles away in Jasper National Park. He envied the ease with which Cap’s Avengers I.D. had allowed them to commandeer the tourist coach for the rest of their journey.
If the X-Men tried that, they’d probably sic a pack of Mounties on us, Cyclops mused. Working alongside the Avengers felt like traveling first-class instead of steerage, with all the special privileges and amenities that entailed.
The third member of their party, the Vision, flew on ahead of them, searching for a hidden entrance to the Leader’s buried city. Dr. Banner had provided the android Avenger with a specific set of coordinates, but Cyclops was impressed that the Vision could navigate at all amidst this glacial desolation, even with the looming presence of Mount Athabasca to use as a landmark. Contemplating their surroundings from the heated interior of the coach, it was easy to imagine that they were at the South Pole instead, approaching the cavernous tunnels that led to the Savage Land.
I hope Jean is okay, Cyclops thought, taking a moment to think about his absent wife. He reminded himself that Phoenix was perfectly capable of defending herself from any irate dinosaurs or cavemen.
The snowbound landscape outside also reminded him of Iceman, currently menaced by Sentinels in Scotland, along with Moira and Nightcrawler. Had Storm and her team come to their rescue yet? Muir Island was so many time zones away that Cyclops found it hard to calculate when the Avengers’ quinjet would have delivered its reinforcements to the island.
“Almost there,” Captain America announced from the driver’s, seat, interrupting the X-Man’s calculations. The
SnoCoach came to a halt somewhere astride the Athabasca Glacier, a few yards away from a deep crevasse that stretched across their path for at least a mile or so. From where Cyclops was sitting, this gap in the ice looked no different from any of a dozen others they had passed. Could they be sure this was the right place?
Pulling on fleece-filled parkas over their respective uniforms, Cap and Cyclops disembarked from the bus and trudged through the snow to the edge of the ravine, where the Vision patiently waited for them. Cyclops could not help noticing that the immaterial synthezoid left no tracks in the snow, unlike him and Captain America. “According to Dr. Banner,” the Vision reported, “the entrance to Freehold lies through this trail, ingeniously camouflaged as a natural fault in the glacier. A preliminary reconnaissance indicates that the crevasse is indeed reinforced with artificial support beams constructed of super-hard translucent plastic.”
“Good work,” Captain America said to his teammate. His hot breath fogged the frigid air. With no room beneath his parka for his shield, Cap carried the concave steel discus in his right hand.
Cyclops peered over the edge of the ravine. He spied a sloping pathway starting at about a hundred feet below the surface of the icefield. Good thing Storm joined the expedition to Scotland instead, he reflected; her claustrophobia would have made this trek difficult for her. The idea of dropping down into that deep fissure gave him the creeps and he didn’t have any particular problem with enclosed spaces. I just hope the Vision is right about those concealed support beams. I wouldn’t want this thing closing up on me before we find the Leader’s former residence, he thought.
“Let me go first,” he volunteered. Cybernetic controls
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in his visor lifted the ruby quartz lens just a fraction, and he used his eyebeams with careful precision, chiseling out a series of handholds and footholds in the icy wall of the crevasse. Once that task was finished, he stepped over the edge of the ravine and swiftly climbed down to the top of the inclined pathway.
Not quite as nimbly as the Beast, perhaps, he graded himself, but good enough, I guess.
“Watch your step,” he called to Captain America as the Star-Spangled Avenger began his own descent, tossing his shield to the Vision before starting down. “It’s slippery down here.”
It was cold, too. Flanked by rising walls of ice that seemed to suck the heat from his body, Cyclops rubbed his hands together. Despite his yellow gloves, his fingertips were already starting to feel as numb as his toes. He pulled the hood of the parka over his ears, and found himself hoping that the Leader’s so-called city came complete with central heating. Captain America dropped lightly onto the ice behind Cyclops, then signaled the Vision to throw him the shield, which he caught one-handed on the first try.
The Vision had no need for a parka, of course, nor for Cyclops’ improvised ladder. He merely floated silently to the floor of the ravine. ‘ ‘The frozen surface of the pathway indeed appears conducive to slips and other mishaps,” he confirmed upon landing. He increased his mass so that his yellow boots sank deeply into the packed ice and snow. “I recommend that you both walk in my footsteps to avoid accidents.’ ’
Stepping into the android’s deep tracks proved a good idea, and the trio of heroes descended the slope much faster and less precariously than they might have otherwise. The trail soon led, however, to an apparent dead end: a sheer wall of blue ice stretching nearly five hundred feet above their heads.
Now what? Cyclops wondered, growing increasingly cold and impatient. I hope we don't find Rogue and Wanda frozen in a glacier somewhere. Rogue might be invulnerable enough to survive such an ordeal, but he had his doubts about the Scarlet Witch.
“Vision?” Captain America asked.
The synthezoid required no further instruction. Turning intangible once more, he passed through the solid ice, disappearing from sight. Mere seconds later, he reemerged from the face of the frozen wall. “Dr. Banner’s directions were correct,” he reported. “There is an artificial tunnel continuing downward beyond this camouflaged barrier, which consists of a layer of real ice over a glazed plastic gate. By my estimation, the entire barrier is approximately 15.62 inches thick.”
“Sounds like we’ve come to the right place,” Cap said. ‘ ‘In theory, there should be some sort of concealed locking mechanism, unless the whole operation is automated, in which case the gate may be waiting for a verbal password.” He glanced over his shoulder at the way they’d came. “The Leader certainly didn’t make it easy for people to find their way here.”
“When you have access to trans-mat technology,” Cyclops pointed out, “you don’t really need a driveway or front door. Besides, I imagine he didn’t want to encourage visitors.” He stepped ahead of the two Avengers. “Let me ring the doorbell.”
Crimson energy poured from eyes, merging to form a single beam that smashed through fifteen-plus inches of reinforced ice and plastic like an incandescent battering ram. Stepping beside him, the Vision added his own thermo-scopic beams to the endeavor, melting away any chunks of ice that collapsed onto the path before them. The combination of extreme heat and concussive force quickly exposed the man-made tunnel beyond. Cyclops stepped off the slick surface at the bottom of the crevasse and onto a paved walkway that sloped away into the distance. A dusting of snow fell upon his hood and shoulders as he passed beneath the blasted entrance of the tunnel. Overhead lights, perhaps activated by pressure-sensitive pads in the pavement, came on automatically.
Stealth, they had all decided on the way to the icefield, was not an issue here. If the Leader was as near-omniscient as his reputation would have it, then he doubtless already knew they were here. And if, against all expectations, he really was dead, then he wasn’t likely to object to their forced entiy.
While the Vision soared above their heads, just beneath the curved ceiling of the tunnel, Cap and Cyclops jogged downhill, pacing each other. The further they descended, the warmer the tunnel became and soon t
he two heroes gratefully discarded their'parkas, although Captain America kept his shield at hand rather than strap it onto his back. Like Cyclops, he obviously wanted to be ready for anything.
By the time they reached the end of the tunnel, Cyclops guessed that they were well below the icefield. He was surprised therefore when he ran out from beneath the overhanging ceiling and saw a clear night sky above him.
How is that possible? he wondered; they had to be hundreds of feet below the glacier at this point. He could tell by Captain America’s startled expression that the veteran Avenger was puzzled as well.
Closer inspection, however, revealed that the starry indigo sky was nothing more than a fraud, an elaborate and highly realistic simulation, complete with shining crescent moon, installed upon the underside of an immense, citysized dome.
Shades of The Truman Show, Cyclops thought; Jean had dragged him to that movie on one of her periodic campaigns to get him to relax. Like Jim Carrey, he felt as though he had just stepped onto the world’s largest sound-stage. The illusion was convincing enough that it might even have fooled Storm’s claustrophobia.
Beneath the phony sky, a shimmering city rose toward the purely decorative stars. Cyclops spotted skyscrapers, monorails, even what appeared to be a full-sized cathedral, adorned with lavish stained-glass windows. Streetlights, posted at regular intervals, supplemented the cool radiance of the counterfeit stars and moon. The path through the tunnel opened out onto a main thoroughfare that led to the very heart of the city: an open plaza spread out around a central fountain. Sparkling water, no doubt melted from the glacier above, sprayed fifty feet in the air, then cascaded down into a foaming pool surrounded by low marble steps. No litter or graffiti marred the pristine and elegant design of the plaza, nor any other visible part of the city. The streets and buildings were all spotless and in good repair. At first glance, the entire city looked remarkably clean, civilized—and empty?
“Where are all the people?” Cap asked, voicing the same question that Cyclops was silently asking. According to Banner, Freehold was populated by hundreds of refugees from the outside world, many of them suffering from cancer or radiation poisoning. Cyclops had to assume that the Leader had possessed his own nefarious reasons for creating this haven; still, he could think of worse places to live. In some ways, Freehold reminded Cyclops of Avalon, the orbital sanctuary Magneto created for his mutant followers. Like Avalon, Freehold seemed proof that even the most ambitious and power-hungry of would-be conquerors could sometimes create an oasis of peace and beauty, no matter how unworthy their intentions.
“Listen,” Captain America said. “I hear something, 1 think. An alert—about us.’ ’
Cyclops heard it, too, but not with his ears. The announcement came not from any conventional loudspeaker, but via some manner of telepathic public address system. He heard an unfamiliar voice inside his head, the same way he had so often communicated with Jean or Professor X.
“Attention, citizens of Freehold,” the voice commanded. “Strangers from the outside world have entered our city, but there is no cause for alarm. All non-powered citizens are requested to stay indoors until further notice. The Riot Squad is on the way.”
“Correct that,” a younger voice declared, the old-fashioned way. “The Riot Squad is here!”
Cyclops turned toward the source of the second voice. Four unusual figures stood between the three heroes and the fountain plaza, having apparently materialized out of thin air, thanks to the Leader’s trans-mat beams. Three of the newcomers bore the unmistakable evidence of gamma mutation: complexions and tresses colored in varying shades of green. The fourth was a black man, whose entire body seemed encased in a craggy block of brownish-gray stone, so that only his face could be seen through an aperture in the levitating boulder. He hovered in his granite shell a few feet above the marble steps leading down into the plaza.
That has to be Rock, Cyclops deduced without too much difficulty. Banner had briefed the X-Men and the Avengers on the so-called Riot Squad, Freehold’s own team of superpowered defenders, created by the Leader through the ruthless expedient of exploding a stolen gamma bomb in the middle of a small city in Arizona. Thousands had died, but a select few had survived, endowed with a variety of gamma-spawned traits and abilities; those lucky (?) survivors had been recruited by the Leader to fight for Freehold against such foes as the Hulk. According to Banner, the Riot Squad’s powers were not to be underestimated.
“We mean you no harm,” Captain America insisted, lowering his shield. “All we want is information.”
“Is that why you smashed your way in here?” challenged the same young man who had spoken earlier, whom Cyclops identified as Hotshot. He looked like he couldn’t be more than nineteen years old, tops, and wore a dark purple uniform identical in hue to his two nonpetrified teammates. His pale green hair, a few shades lighter than his jade-colored skin, was neatly cut above his ears. His youthful appearance and brash attitude reminded Cyclops of the X-Men’s earliest days, when they were just a bunch of overenthusiastic kids. He even looks a bit like Bobby did then, Cyclops thought, minus the ice, that is.
“We don’t much care for uninvited visitors here in Freehold. They’ve never brought us anything but trouble,” said Hotshot.
“I don’t know, Lou,” said the attractive young woman at his side. She looked even less mature than Hotshot, which might be why she called herself Jailbait. Cyclops shook his head as he remembered her unlikely appellation; super hero codenames just aren’t what they used to be, he thought.
Dark green tresses, the color of tropical ferns, fell to her shoulders, while her purple uniform could have passed for a supermodel’s swimsuit. “Maybe you shouldn’t be talking to him like that. I mean, it’s Captain America,” she said, breathing the name in an awestruck hush.
Hotshot was considerably less impressed by Cap’s status as a living legend. “So what?” he countered bitterly. “Captain America, the Avengers, the Fantastic Four.. . none of them stopped the Leader from nuking Middletown, killing all our friends and family—and turning us into freaks.” He glared at Cap angrily, as if daring the Avenger to refute his accusation. “We’re not Americans anymore, Jess. We have a new home, Freehold, and we’re not about to let anybody walk all over us again!” Hotshot eyed them skeptically. “Besides, how do we even know that he is Captain America? Probably just another Hydra trick; they want to steal our technology again, force us to work for them.”
Sounds like these kids have seen some rough times, Cyclops thought. It was a pointed reminder that branded-at-birth mutants weren’t the only people whom life had dealt a tough hand. He decided to let Captain America continue as the spokesman for their joint expedition; despite Hotshot’s hostility, Cap still presented a more trustworthy appearance than either a fire-eyed mutant outlaw or a spooky android.
“I sympathize with your loss,” Captain America said gently. “What happened to Middletown was a terrible tragedy. But you have to believe me when I tell you that we wouldn’t disturb you or your city unless it was a matter of life and death.” He held his shield at his side, in a nonthreatening fashion. “We come in peace, I promise you that.”
The fourth and final member of the Riot Squad answered Cap not with verbal threats or accusations, but with a deep-throated roar like a bull gorilla’s. Ogress, as she was now known, was the biggest woman Cyclops had ever seen, if she could still be called a woman. She was taller than the Hulk or Colossus, and her gigantic muscles bulged with power and menace. Tufts of shaggy emerald fur bristled along her arms, and her misshapen face made her look like the Missing Link; beady green eyes glowered from beneath sloping brows, while her prognathous jaw was crammed with oversized yellow incisors. Lacking anything resembling a neck, her elephantine skull merged with her massive shoulders, which strained the overstressed fabric of her king-sized purple uniform. Her matted, unkempt mane looked like it hadn’t been combed since the day she first came to Freehold.
According to Banner,
this grotesque, growling giantess had once been a polished and articulate attorney. If so, Cyclops observed, little trace of that prior existence remained in the Ogress that now faced them across the deserted thoroughfare. That poor woman, he thought; her monstrous transformation made Banner’s look like a makeover.
“Maybe we don’t care about your stupid problems,” Rock said harshly, a mean-spirited sneer upon his face. Unlike his teammates, he had not been caught in the gamma blast that destroyed Middletown; instead, Samuel John La Roquette was a disgraced former college professor and Hulkbuster, whom the Leader had surgically modified through his own insidious super-science. He had thrown his lot in with the Riot Squad even before the Leader was presumed dead. “You may be big shot super-heroes up top, but down here we’re bigger than the Avengers and the Fantastic Four put together, and, like Hotshot said, we don’t stand for surprise visits.”
Jagged spikes, like stalactites, sprouted suddenly from the great stony mass enclosing Rock, demonstrating his Leader-given ability to control the shape of his granite shell. Before Captain America could argue the heroes’ case any further, Rock charged the heroic Avenger, scooting over the pavement like some sort of mineralogical hovercraft, his foot-long spikes aimed straight at Cap.
“Wait!” Jailbait called out. “Maybe this isn’t a good idea!” Her words held little sway over her less peaceable teammates, however, as both Hotshot and Ogress took Rock’s preemptive strike as their signal to rush into battle. “Oh, drat!” the green-skinned teenager cursed and bit her lip. She hurried after her comrades, apparently giving in to the inevitable.
Cyclops knew just how she felt. Here we go again, he thought, pinpointing Rock with his visor. Another clash of titans. Another senseless fight. . .
Captain America brought up his shield just in time to avoid being impaled upon Rock’s spiky exterior. The shield, composed of an unbreakable alloy unlike any on Earth, blunted the jagged points of the spikes, but the force of the human boulder’s charge knocked Cap flat on his back. “Stop this!” he called out as he fell, stubbornly determined to prevent any unnecessary violence. “We don’t have to fight each other.”
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