First Team

by Robbie MacNiven

  The crypts themselves were a low, dank space beneath the east transept, a collection of old stone tombs laced with cobwebs and heavy with dust. There was nothing down here but old bones and spiders, and no light except for the thin illumination coming down through a barred grate in one corner that Vic assumed looked out at street level. It was too small to fit through, so Vic just stood with Cipher in the tiny strip of daylight and waited for the crypt’s ceiling to come crashing down on them both.

  Ci looked exhausted. The wound in her arm was bad, and her eyes unfocused. Vic hugged her tightly.

  “You should get out of here,” he told her over the thunder of grinding, shifting stone above. “There’s no reason for you to stay now.”

  “No,” she said simply.

  “Then at least phase. Then you won’t be crushed.”

  “No,” she repeated.

  “Why not? There’s no purpose in all of us dying.”

  “Because I always get out,” Cipher said, her voice dull. “I always survive when others don’t, and I’m tired of it. I want to stay with you. No more hiding this time.”

  Vic didn’t know what to say, so he simply clung on as the Church of the Seven Virtues collapsed around them. Something dug into his side where he was hugging Ci. He delved into the pocket and found the little rubber dinosaur.

  “Oh look,” he said, holding it up in front of Cipher as part of the ceiling across the crypt collapsed, crushing a tomb slab beneath it. “My lucky dino.”

  Cipher burst out laughing, though there were tears in her eyes.

  “You have a lucky toy dinosaur,” she said. “Of course you do.”

  “I used to think I was one,” Vic said. “I was devastated when I found out they were extinct. I was scared I was the last one.”

  Ci laughed again, the sound strangely pure and carefree in the trembling depths.

  Gradually, the thunder quieted. The tremors eased. Vic held his breath, looking up at the crypt’s brick arches, still expecting an abrupt cave-in to end their existence in an instant. It seemed impossible that they’d survived.

  “Is it over?” he dared whisper, looking wide-eyed at Cipher. Her response was just as pressing.

  “Did Santo and Jonas survive?”

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Graymalkin remembered his father. In life he had not been a large man, neither tall nor broad, but he had possessed the fearsome, rangy strength of someone who had labored hard with his hands all his life. In Graymalkin’s nightmares however, he always appeared huge, his frame almost as vast as his hatred. He would strike Graymalkin, his pox-scarred face riven with a wild and unreasoning fury.

  “Devil,” he had screamed at him, stinking breath and spittle hitting his face. “You’re not my son! You’re a devil!”

  Graymalkin cried out, bringing his arms up to shield himself. Mercifully, the blows ceased. Darkness enclosed him. For a while he thought he could hear the dull scrape and thud of a shovel, beating the earth above him. Then silence, more profound and lasting than any he had ever known, or ever would know again.

  He reached out, trembling. His fingers met something cold and firm. It shifted. At first the motion alarmed him, but it also brought back a memory. Rock. Sandstone. The church, coming down around him, a scene of total annihilation. He had survived though, shielded by Santo, protected by that living rock.

  And there, buried beneath the rubble of the east transept, he was in complete and utter darkness.

  He felt his powers surge. He was no longer afraid. For a few brief, precious seconds, he couldn’t even remember his father’s face.

  He became the darkness, melding with it, raw energy cast in the form of inky blackness. The stone around him started to vibrate and shift. The blackness bled over and around the rock, rising up out of that stone tomb.

  Darkness was coming, and now its power was absolute.

  •••

  Xodus swore as he struggled to right himself, flinging the hem of his torn and dusty robes to one side.

  Briefly, he had thought he was about to meet the divine. He’d been advancing in the midst of the faithful, preparing to finally cut down the mutant scum who still, somehow, refused to accept their fate. Then the whole church had started to shake, and the east transept had begun to collapse.

  He’d barely gotten clear of the cascading masonry, scrambling back to where the walls still stood. The pyre which he had lit had been extinguished by the blizzard of dust and stone that had exploded from the collapse. Many of the faithful had been crushed with it.

  Xodus hauled himself up, struggling to breathe or see in his mask. Around him the surviving faithful were doing likewise, moaning and dazed in the grim silence following the collapse. Where once the east transept stood, only a wall of rubble remained, sealing it off from the rest of the church. As Xodus struggled to focus, the stones seemed to stir. It took him a while to realize that it wasn’t the masonry itself that was moving. Something oozed out of the wall of debris, a strange, inky blackness that appeared to be coalescing in the gloom of the dust-shrouded crossing. With a jolt, Xodus recognized what it was. The shadow demon was returning.

  “Fire,” Xodus shouted, grasping around for support from the faithful. “I need fire! Light!”

  He looked desperately over at the pyre. Part of the kindling stack had collapsed, the fire extinguished, but the central stake remained standing, the prisoner still lashed to it. He turned his gaze up to the dome overhead. Sunlight shone there, like the promise of salvation, a final, slender ray that pierced the gloom and fell just before the apse and altar. Xodus stumbled towards it, but even as he did so it grew thinner and weaker. Then it was gone, blinking from existence just before he could get to it, plunging the interior of the church into darkness.

  “No,” he shouted. “No! Do not abandon me!”

  He heard the sound of rocks tumbling as something burst free from the east transept. It was coming. The screams started.

  The darkness lived. It shifted around Xodus, wrapping him up in its suffocating folds. He lashed out blindly, staggering. Where was his sword? He’d dropped the broken hilt. He needed a weapon. No, he needed to get out. He tried to pray, but he could not.

  The prisoner. That was the key. They would not risk harming the man they had captured, Borkowski. If he had him, he could escape. He just had to get to the pyre.

  He fumbled his way through the all-consuming blackness. Several of the faithful strayed into his path and were thrust aside. They wailed. A few who still had their weapons fired, the little bursts of light swiftly snuffed out as the sound of the gunfire rolled aimlessly around what remained of the church’s interior. Xodus snarled, his heart racing, body slicked with sweat. The demon would not take him. It could not.

  He reached the flank of the pyre, feeling brittle charred wood beneath his fingers. Panting, he began to climb, struggling onto the wooden platform where the stake still stood. He fumbled around it, breath wheezing through his golden mask’s filters. He found the ends of the cords used to tie the prisoner. They were loose. Cut. Borkowski was gone.

  Xodus moaned in fear and dismay. A splitting sound disturbed the church, a heavy, laden crack. It sounded like more stonework giving way. It continued to spread and grow, rising once more to the furious thunder of falling masonry and splitting stone. The whole church began to come down now, unable to support its aged weight any longer.

  He tried to clamber back down from the pyre, but the cords snagged him, and he tripped, sending him sprawling across the wooden board. He made it back up onto his knees just in time to hear the splitting noise coming from directly overhead. He looked up.

  As the remains of the dome caved in and crushed him, Prophet Xodus screamed. After a lifetime of judging and punishing others, he’d only just realized that he was about to face a judgment of his own.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Al
l was dust and silence. Vic approached the entrance to the crypt tentatively, as though one wrong foot might bring the whole structure tumbling down. He peered up the narrow stairway that led up to the church interior. His eyes strained in the dark. As he’d feared, it was completely walled off with debris. They were trapped.

  “You should go,” Vic said to Ci, returning to her beneath the grate that led out onto the street. “Find out if there’s still anyone up there.”

  Before she could reply a second round of tremors shook the crypt. They both froze, Vic convinced the whole ceiling was about to come down. Gradually, though, everything faded back into the silence. Vic dared to breathe again and realized how thirsty he was. Everything ached. He just wanted to lie down and sleep.

  “I won’t be long,” Cipher said, but again she was interrupted. Both of them looked up as a fist materialized at the grate facing out onto the street. It tore open the iron bars, then punched the gap wider with a few, shuddering blows. A voice followed, one that Vic recognized.

  “Come out, lizard boy.”

  Vic surged to his feet, his pain and exhaustion evaporating. Cipher phased and flew straight up through the wall as Vic leapt and grasped onto the sides of the broken grate with his heavy right arm, heaving himself up and through it.

  He blinked in the last of the evening’s sunlight. He was out on the street next to the church. What would once have been a wall next to him was now rubble – where the church had stood, only ruins remained, a great pile of broken stone and debris, still shifting and settling. Dust from the collapse coated everything in the street, and cracks decorated the walls of the neighboring buildings. People were visible at the far end of the street, hanging back and staring. More were gathering.

  Vic barely took in any of it – his attention was on the figures in front of him. Santo smiled down at him. His former roommate was battered and broken, but he was still standing, unbowed. Next to him was Graymalkin, looking relieved and covered head-to-toe in dust. As Vic got to his feet he stepped aside, revealing the third member of the group.

  “Hello, son,” Dan Borkowski said with a smile.

  Vic flung himself at his father, latching onto him and almost carrying them both over onto the ground. Dan laughed as he returned the embrace.

  “Thank you,” Vic said, crying into his dad’s shoulder. He didn’t know why those were the words that came to him, but he found himself saying them again and again as he clutched him, his grip shaking. “Thank you. Thank you.”

  “It’s OK, Vic,” Dan hushed him, patting his back. “I’ve got you, kid.”

  Vic eventually let go, sniffing, feeling abruptly self-conscious. He wiped away tears and took a step back, looking his dad up and down. He was as dusty as the rest of them, scratched in a few places, and his shirt and jeans were torn, but he looked otherwise unharmed.

  “Gray got you out in one piece then?” Vic asked him.

  “I don’t remember much,” Dan admitted. “I think I was carried out. There was darkness and a lot of screaming.”

  “Sounds about right,” Vic laughed. “I’m only sorry it took us so long.”

  “In Fairbury you said you’d come back for me,” Dan replied. “I never once doubted you would.”

  Vic hugged him again, feeling every second of pain, uncertainty and torment from the past few weeks drain away. He closed his eyes and let the newfound sense of peace settle within him, before letting go once more and looking at his friends.

  Cipher materialized next to Gray. Vic had never seen her smiling so broadly. He approached Graymalkin and gave him a huge hug. “Thank you for getting him out,” he said. “Thank you to all of you. I’d have never managed this on my own. You’ve all given me so much. I don’t deserve it.”

  “What’re friends for?” Santo rumbled.

  “What’s family for?” Graymalkin corrected as Vic finally let go of him.

  “We’re glad we could help,” Cipher said. “More than that. It felt right. It felt like… finally I’ve done some good in my life. Something really worthwhile.”

  “I am experiencing similar feelings,” Graymalkin said. “Though I cannot help but wonder why this struggle was necessary in the first place? What did the businessman Lobe wish to achieve by capturing you and tormenting us?”

  “He wanted to replicate mutant powers with a serum he could mass-market,” Vic said darkly. “And my DNA is apparently ideal for production. I think perhaps we should ask him a bit more in person.”

  “He used your own powers against you?” Cipher wondered, a look of horror crossing her face. Vic understood why – he wouldn’t like to imagine what the maniac could’ve achieved if he’d been able to replicate Ci’s abilities.

  “This explains why they were kidnapping mutants,” Rockslide said, a note of disgust in his voice. “They must have tested and tortured dozens, maybe hundreds.”

  “You defeated him in the belfry?” Graymalkin asked.

  “Punched him right out of it. He still had a good amount of my power though, so I suspect he survived.”

  “If so, he could have gone anywhere,” Cipher said. “Even if he was badly injured, he’s had time to make his escape. We’d have to search every street in a two-mile radius, at least, and it’s getting dark.”

  “Actually, I can take you straight to him,” Vic said with a satisfied smirk.

  “How?” Cipher asked. Vic’s smirk became a grin.

  “You were able to use your communicator to track mine, weren’t you Ci?”

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Lobe gritted his teeth and paused, leaning against the wall of the grocery shop by the intersection. His ankle, chest and back were in agony. He looked down at his broken leg, drew in a breath, and staggered a few more paces along the street, wincing as his fractured ribs grated.

  Blast, it hurt. He would make that little green reptilian pay! He would give back every ounce of pain a hundredfold! Just as soon as he had more serum. He’d hoped the injection would last longer. Without it, admittedly, he wouldn’t have survived the fall from the bell tower. There were still side-effects that he guessed would continue for a few hours yet – his tongue was still flexible, and parts of his body would occasionally ripple and shift, unbidden. Neither were particularly useful right now. He needed a ride out of this miserable sinkhole corner of Brooklyn, and then he needed to see a good Sublime Corp doctor.

  He paused to check his phone, fighting the pain suffusing his body. He’d already demanded extraction. Where the hell was it? He should’ve had at least one vehicle standing by, he now realized. Maybe even a helicopter. In all honesty, it had never occurred to him that he’d need one. None of this was supposed to be happening.

  He put the phone away and carried on, limping heavily. He tried to shut out the pain. In truth it was secondary to the shame of failure. It wasn’t over, though. He’d gotten out, that was what mattered. All this was just a long, agonizing learning curve. He’d get the boy yet, and if not him, some other mutant. There were others on the list, less optimal, but viable all the same.

  He stopped once more, leaning against a lamp post as a single vehicle rounded the corner and slowed down in the gathering gloom. Finally, he thought as he took in the glossy black van, one of the unmarked transports used by Sublime Corp subsidiaries for dirty work. He waved angrily at the driver behind his tinted window as the vehicle pulled up beside him, the headlights making him squint.

  “Unlock the backdoor, you idiot,” he snapped. There was a whine as the window rolled down, revealing the driver. He wasn’t one of the suited spooks Lobe had been expecting. He looked to be in his forties, with ruffled hair and a ragged shirt, covered in fine grit.

  “Think you’ve got the wrong vehicle, mister,” the man said. Lobe had long enough to recognize him – Dan Borkowski – before a blow struck him on the side of his distended skull, flinging him down onto the sidewalk. He cri
ed out in pain trying to roll away from his attacker.

  “Going somewhere, Lobe?” Vic asked, crouching over him with a boyish grin.

  “Get away,” Lobe hissed. “Leave me be!”

  “We already asked you for the same courtesy,” Vic answered, wagging a finger at him. “Rude, Mr Lobe, rude. Do to others as you would have done to you.”

  Lobe lashed out with his tongue, grunting as he wrapped it around Vic’s left wrist. The kid’s eyes widened for a moment.

  “Ew,” he exclaimed, taking hold of the slimy length with his thick right fist and holding it firmly in place, not allowing Lobe to draw it back. “Someone really needs to teach you when it’s appropriate to use that thing.”

  Lobe tried to answer but couldn’t, wincing as Vic kept a hold of his tongue. Tears filled his eyes as he heard the slam of car doors, and more figures loomed over him – the rock creature, the shadow thing and the invisible girl, that horrible little team of pretend X-Men.

  Vic began to laugh, his friends grinning. He was still laughing as the first sirens became audible in the distance.

  Epilogue

  Vic woke up slowly and found himself looking at sunlight beaming through his curtains. He yawned and stretched, feeling the soft sheets around him, the deep pillow underneath. The urge to sink back into it and doze off again was almost too much. He could smell pancakes cooking downstairs though. The enticing scent triggered a memory. He twisted in the bed to check the calendar on the wall and let out an exclamation of dismay.

  Today was the day. He’d gotten his dates all wrong. Since moving into Mrs Templeton’s house the days had all seemed to blur together, as they always did when it was the holidays and the tyranny of work schedules, class times, and essay deadlines fell away for a time. He scrambled out of bed and got dressed, struggling to find the right clothes in the unfamiliar bedroom.

  It had been two weeks since the Borkowskis had accepted Mrs Templeton’s invitation to live in her home while they got their new place sorted. Vic’s old teacher had been insistent – her husband had passed away, her children were grown, so she could use the company. Vic, Dan, and Martha were more than happy to oblige. After what had happened to them, the Templeton household, with its shaggy rugs, pristine bathroom, and quilt blankets, had felt like a familiar slice of heaven.