X-Men 2
Page 35
“If I did, sir,” Xavier told him, “we wouldn’t be here talking.”
McKenna flipped through the dossiers, speed-reading enough to make him sag atop the desk, resting his full weight, plus that of the office, plus that of the world, on hands and shoulders. Atlas had nothing on him when it came to bearing burdens.
“I’ve never . . . I’ve never seen this information.”
“I know,” Xavier said quietly.
McKenna glared up at him from lowered brows.
“But I don’t respond well to threats.”
“This is not a threat, Mr. President, of any kind. This is an offer.” He rolled forward in his chair and indicated the bust of John Kennedy. “I remember those days, as you do, and the fear that came with them, that through no fault or action of our own, the world would end. It wouldn’t even be a matter of someone’s choice. It could just as easily happen as a mistake.”
McKenna nodded, thinking of how he’d helped his father dig a bomb shelter in the backyard and how utterly futile that shelter would have been if the worst came about.
“You and I, Mr. President,” Xavier continued, “and the people we represent have had a taste of our own version of doomsday. How close did we all come to the abyss? And what have we learned from that terrible experience? John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev found a way to lay the foundation for a lasting peace between their two nations—or at least a way to lessen the possibility of outright war. Can we not try to do the same?
“I realize”—he indicated the files Stryker had provided—“you may have information about me. About my school. About our people. Grown mutants like me, like the X-Men, like . . . Magneto, are but a comparative handful. Most mutants are children, and what are children but the promise of the future made flesh? What shall we promise our posterity, sir? A world based on hate and fear, whose ultimate outcome is a genetic Civil War that will likely be the death of us all? Or can we find a better way?
“I’m willing to trust you, Mr. President, if you’re willing to return the favor.
“As we both have seen firsthand, there are forces in this world, mutant and nonmutant alike, who believe that a war is coming. That it is inevitable. You’ll see from these files how diligently some have worked over the years to start one.
“If we wish to preserve the peace, to guarantee our posterity, we must work together. Do you understand?”
McKenna looked at his chief of staff. The pitcher was empty, the flow of water reduced to a trickle of drops. Larry was such a fashion plate, he was sure to go totally berserk when he discovered his sodden trousers and ruined shoes.
Then he looked back at Alicia Vargas. There was such a look of longing, and apprehension, in her eyes that—as father and grandfather both—he wanted to take her in his arms and reassure her that there really was no bogeyman in the world, nothing she need ever fear, save as Franklin Roosevelt warned, fear itself.
“Yes,” the President said, after a long pause for thought. “I think I do.”
He held out his hand across the desk, and from his chair, Xavier took it. He had a strong grip with calluses that told McKenna that, like himself, here was a man who liked to work with his hands. Clearly the man was a good teacher, and George McKenna hoped he wasn’t too old and too set in his ways to learn.
“I’m glad,” Xavier told him. “We are here to stay, Mr. President. The next move is yours.”
McKenna nodded—and wasn’t surprised to see, when he looked up a moment later, that Xavier and his X-Men were gone.
He turned to the window and saw that the storm was passing. Just as in the “Pastoral” sequence of Disney’s original Fantasia, the gods of thunder and lightning, having had their fun, were moving on, leaving a bright and beautiful day in their wake. He wondered which of Xavier’s—what had he called them?—X-Men was responsible, and for no reason he could articulate, fixed on the image of the black woman, Ororo Munroe, tall as he was, with the most incredible blue eyes and hair of burnished silver.
Alicia coughed, ever so gently.
Larry Abrahms yowled with fury, just as McKenna expected, which made the President smile.
Immediately in the room, there was a ripple of surprise and agitation. As far as anyone else was concerned, the President had been making his speech and then—presto!—suddenly he was standing where he’d been sitting, and everything was in a small kind of chaos.
McKenna took his seat and waited for a semblance of order to be restored, a matter of some hurried and small-voiced exchanges between the camera crew and whoever was handling the network feeds. The commentators and anchors had evidently been vamping like crazy since the signal was lost.
Nobody noticed the new pile of folders on the desk, and as McKenna took his chair, awaiting his cue to continue, he looked from one to the other.
The stage manager held up five fingers, then quickly folded them one by one into a fist. At the last, the red light above the camera blinked on again, and the Oval Office was once more live and broadcasting.
At first George McKenna didn’t say a word, a silence that began to make those watching start to feel distinctly nervous, unaware that he was marshaling thoughts and arguments and rewriting frantically in his head. Nobody understood the quirky, self-deprecating smile he made, or the look that accompanied it toward the bust of Lincoln. Nobody, save perhaps Charles Xavier, caught the wayward thought that came to him then: At least you had a train ride and the back of an envelope handy when you wrote the Gettysburg Address; me, I’ve got to wing this! Extempore and live to the whole damn country !
But he had no doubts. He knew now what he wanted to say, and as with all such moments, this was something best said from the heart and from the soul.
Taking the files Xavier had given him, McKenna placed them on top of Stryker’s and, looking straight into the camera, and into the homes and offices of the American people and, he prayed, especially into their hearts, the President of the United States began to speak.
Along Pennsylvania Avenue, tourists and locals began hesitantly to venture once more out of doors, commenting to one another about the downpour and collectively grumping about the miserable state of weather forecasting.
A family from Utah gathered on the grass of Lafayette Square for what they figured was a spectacular Kodak moment, with the White House as a backdrop and not another pedestrian in sight to mar the photo. Dad gave everyone their cue, they all said, “Cheeeeese,” with grins galore, he clicked the shutter . . .
. . . and nobody moved. Not here, not anywhere within a radius of blocks. Flags flapped in the crisp autumn breeze, fountains burbled, birds fluttered through the air. All the mechanical elements of life in the nation’s capital functioned as they were supposed to. But none of the people noticed.
Then, apparently out of nowhere, a sleek ebony aircraft rose into the sky from the helicopter landing stage on the South Lawn of the White House. The Blackbird held position for a moment above the executive mansion, then rocketed silently away.
In its wake, Washington woke up and continued with the normal course of what had started as a normal day. Only a few would ever know the truth, of how a handful of heroes had stood between the world and those who would leave it a wasteland, of how their struggle would inspire a leader to achieve greatness and an immortality all his own, to rival those of the predecessors he so admired.
Decent people, striving to do the right thing. That’s all it takes to save the world.
Some call themselves human, others mutant.
And some of those mutants are the X-Men.
Thanks to them, their world has a future.
With their help, that future may be glorious indeed.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, for coming up with the concept in the first place; to Len Wein & Dave Cockrum, for revamping it and then handing over the writing reins to a young punk who probably didn’t know any better; to Louise Simonson & Brent Eric Anderson, for “God Loves, Man Kills”;
to Eleanor Wood, for reasons that need no explanation; to Betsy Mitchell, for having faith; and Steve Saffel, for keeping both book and writer superbly on-track. Sometimes, it takes a “village” to write a book, and for that I am extremely grateful.
Also available from Del Rey Books:
X-MEN by Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith
SPIDER-MAN by Peter David
HULK by Peter David
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Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group
TM & copyright © 2003 by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.
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X-MEN character likenesses: TM and copyright © 2003 by Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.
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e-ISBN 0-345-46197-5
v1.0
eBook Info
Title:
X-MEN 2
Creator:
Chris Claremont
Format:
OEB
Identifier:
Clar_0345461975
Language:
en
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Also available from Del Rey Books
Copyright