“If that’s the way you feel,” the Blob sneered, then winced at the pain it caused. ‘ ‘But your career is over anyway, right now. I know why they call you the Juggernaut. Story says once you’re moving, you can’t be stopped. Well, try me, buddy. Nothing moves the Blob.”
For a moment, Cain flashed back to the schoolyard of his childhood, to the dozens of similar taunting challenges he’d received from kids, mostly older, who’d heard he was a tough guy, a bully, and wanted to build their own reputations by taking him down. That was when he was filled with rage and hatred, when he passed on the pain his father gave him to any loudmouth or wiseass weakling who crossed his path.
There was joy in it then, and he felt that old joy rising again, the sadistic pleasure he could take in hurting his opponents. But he brushed it away. It didn’t make him want to take the Blob down any less, but in his mind, attacking was a dismissive gesture. Not to cause pain, but to eliminate an obstacle. And the Blob was the ultimate obstacle.
The Juggernaut roared as he sprinted the distance between himself and the Blob. Just before they collided, the Blob seemed to lose his arrogant certainty, and he flinched slightly, to one side. Then Juggernaut slammed into him, at an angle, and spun away to the left. His head was ringing from the impact, but he turned to take another crack at the Blob.
Who was staring down at his feet. He’d been moved at least twelve inches, and there was no telling what might have happened, to both of them, if he hadn’t flinched at the end. The Blob was still holding his shattered cheek, and after a moment, his eyes rolled back in his head and he once again fell to the pavement.
This time, he did not get up.
“What do you know?” Juggernaut said. “Unconscious. Maybe a concussion from the impact.’’
As he passed the Blob walking back toward Jean Grey, his mean streak resurfaced, just for a moment, and he turned to glare at the huge mutant’s unconscious form.
“Loser,” he snarled, and kept walking.
“Oh, God!” Rogue shouted suddenly.
Jean and the Juggernaut turned together and ran to where Rogue stood, staring in horror at a pile of rocks on the pavement in front of her.
“Rogue,” Cyclops said in a hush as he approached from the other side. “What did you do?”
“I don’t...” Rogue began, then took a breath before continuing. “It wasn’t one’a my punches. I had just thrown him down. I was purposely tryin’ not to hit him hard ’cause I wasn’t real sure what he was made of. Then he turns around and rushes me, with all he’s got.
“I just stood my ground, Scott,” she said. “An’ he crashed into me an’ jus’—jus’ broke! I swear I didn’t mean to kill him.”
“You didn’t kill him, Rogue,” Cain said in real sympathy. “There wasn’t anything else you could have done. The man was just a fool.”
After a moment of silence, Cyclops said: “Well, there’s nothing to be done for it now. We’ve just got to move on and get as close to the Empire State as we can before we run into another group like this.”
“You’ve got to wonder how many there are,’’ Jean said.
“I’m trying not to think about it,” Scott replied.
The comment hit a nerve. Cain looked around and realized that the two tag-team wrestlers he’d seen originally were not there. Had not been there, in fact, since just after the fight began.
“We’d better hurry,” he said. “I think word is already on the way back to Magneto.”
The X-Men looked around. Scott and Rogue didn’t seem to notice anything. Maybe they hadn’t seen the two stout mutants. But Jean realized it right away. She had probably sensed them earlier.
“Hairbag and Slab,” she said.
“Those are their names?” the Juggernaut asked. “No wonder they hang around with the Blob.”
“They never did before,” Cyclops answered.
“Yeah,” Rogue said, looking back once more at the remains of the mutant who had, in effect, killed himself using Rogue as his weapon. “It’s a whole new world.”
Xavier and Magneto had been in a philosophical war over the future of the mutant race for decades, a war that had suddenly, explosively, entered reality. Magneto had the Sentinels, the Acolytes, hundreds of recently converted followers, and an entire city at his command.
All Charles Xavier had was hope.
Hope that the President of the United States would act with wisdom and caution. Hope that the world would not be irrevocably turned against mutants by Magneto’s actions. Hope that Val Cooper could take the Sentinels out of the fight. Hope that the X-Men’s small numbers were enough to achieve victory. And, finally, hope that victory would not come at too high a price.
There was one other thing that Xavier had, one other weapon in the war against Magneto’s twisted racist dreams of conquest. Power. Charles Xavier might well have been the most powerful mutant on Earth. His strict moral code governed the use of that power very closely. Yet always there were catastrophes that could be averted, wrongs that could be put right, should he decide to throw off the chains of that code and assert his full power. If it came to that, he believed he might be able to end the conflict himself, by altering the minds and thought patterns of all the combatants.
But that would be the most grievous, the most hideous, misuse of power, no matter how many lives might be saved. Even God gave his creations free will, and Charles Xavier knew that he was not God. Did not aspire to be God. His own power held responsibility enough.
Instead, he used his stature as a respected member of society to do as much damage control as possible. He would not allow himself to imagine Magneto victorious, and therefore he tried to prepare the world for Magneto’s downfall, tried to soften ahead of time the inevitable anti-mutant backlash.
Xavier was something of a celebrity, if you judged such things by how often a person made the news. Not like a sports star or a musician, an actor, or even a writer. Rather, he was a celebrity the way politicians and scientists became celebri
ties. They gained a certain status out of a sense of obligation— not because the majority of people really cared to hear about their actions and achievements, but because they felt they ought to care.
But never before had Charles experienced the kind of media feeding frenzy he had been subjected to in the past twenty-four hours. The sharks were tearing him apart, fighting for a piece, and it was his duty to oblige them, to utilize their need for his own purposes.
CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, WNN, E!, MTV, several local stations—and that was just the U.S. media—had all asked him to either be an interview subject or part of a debate. His main opponents in the latter were Senator Robert Kelly, whose own fear of mutants had been horribly detrimental to society, and wealthy independent politico and likely presidential candidate Graydon Creed. Strangely, however, Creed had all but disappeared from the media circus since the previous evening. Xavier suspected there was purpose behind his lack of visibility. The man knew that there would be backlash no matter what the outcome. Creed was likely preparing to take advantage of that backlash.
There were plenty of other names and faces on television— the networks were desperate to fill the tense hours with whatever spin doctors they could locate—but Creed’s absence meant that Xavier and Kelly were the most prominent among them. ABC had scored a coup by setting up a debate between the two men. Charles was not looking forward to it, but he could hardly back out of it. The opportunity was too great. Many viewers would ignore his words, but many others would not. There were still rational minds and understanding hearts in America. To believe otherwise was to admit that the struggle had all been for nothing. They’d already lost.
“Shouldn’t you be getting some sleep?”
Charles started slightly at the voice, then turned to see An-nelise Dwyer, the CNN anchor whom he’d become rather friendly with over the past few days, walking toward him. He turned his wheelchair to face her. Privately, he was surprised that she had been able to approach him wit
hout his sensing her first. He must really be tired.
“I’d love to, but these media vultures keep picking at my corpse,” he said with a grin.
“Tell me about it,” she said, rolling her eyes.
Teasing, flirting, silliness in general, these were things Charles did not normally allow himself to indulge in, leaving them instead to his X-Men, who were more than happy to oblige. Even so, and despite his relationship with Lilandra, he had found himself growing quite fond of Annelise. And now, lack of sleep was making him punchy.
“So,” Annelise continued, “I see you have a big date with the enemy.”
“It’s been one long nightmarish blind date with the enemy since this whole thing started,’ ’ Xavier responded.
Annelise laughed.
“I didn’t mean the media in general, Charles,” she said. “I meant my number-one enemy, ABC.”
“Ah.” Xavier nodded. “Yes, thrown to the wolves again.”
There was a silent moment, though he did not find it especially uncomfortable. The two of them merely regarded one another, each alone with their thoughts of the precipitous situation that surrounded them.
“When this is all over,” Annelise ventured, “I’d like to put business aside and take you to dinner some night. You game?”
Xavier was taken slightly aback. But only for a moment.
“Without question,” he answered. “But let’s talk about it again, as you say, when this is all over.”
* * *
Throughout the debate, Xavier had been impressed, even stunned, by the self control Senator Kelly maintained. The man was calm, rational, and, despite his feelings about mutants, eminently responsible in the way he presented his arguments. Clearly, this was a man who understood the power of his words, and the potential for panic inherent in the current predicament. Charles was very pleased that Graydon Creed had not chosen to participate in the debate. His favorite pastime seemed to be fomenting anarchy.
“In closing,” Senator Kelly declared, “I will say only this. Our forefathers stated—and we have been fighting about these words for two hundred years—that all of us were created equal. You may call me a bigot if you wish, but I am not quibbling over such superficial differences as race, creed, or gender. Indeed, all men and women were created equal, even if they have not been treated so.
“They were equal—until the advent of mutants. Mutants are not equal to the rest of humanity. They are greater. I do not say better, but greater. More powerful, and thus inherently more dangerous. For the good of the entire world, all mutants must be registered and monitored. Mutants who prove hostile to authority must be dealt with in the harshest possible manner.”
The weight of expectation fell on Charles then. The cameras, and the attention of every person in that makeshift studio, including Senator Kelly, was on him, awaiting a response.
‘ ‘Senator Kelly is an intelligent man, wisely concerned for the welfare of the American people, and the future his children and grandchildren will inherit,” Xavier began, playing to those millions already swayed by Kelly’s speech.
“After what we have seen Magneto and his followers do, we should all be concerned,” he continued. “We should all be afraid. But, I must say, no more afraid of mutant terrorism than we are of other terrorists. The men who set off a bomb in Oklahoma City, or New York’s World Trade Center, are also dangerous people, not because of whatever power or weapons they might have at their disposal, but because of the hatred in their hearts.
“Magneto and his followers have not merely proven hostile to authority, they have violently usurped it. I applaud whatever measures can be taken to end this standoff quickly, and to punish those responsible for it.
“But I will not stand by while the senator, in spite of all his wisdom, suggests that we withdraw the civil rights of all mutants. There are many people proficient with guns, or martial arts, many people with extraordinary financial power or great intellect, who could be considered more than equal to the rest of us. No one has suggested we take away the civil rights of those people, who might use their special abilities in ways that make them dangerous to the general public.
“Every American has the right to a certain amount of privacy, the right to freedom of speech, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These are not empty words, but the defining concepts of our nation. For them to work, they have to stand true for everyone.
“Yes, I implore you, punish criminals and terrorists, mutant or otherwise, to the full extent of the law. But protect the rights of innocent civilians who only want to live good, decent lives. These are your friends, your family, your neighbors, and you don’t even know it because they are terrified of being discovered. If there were some great conspiracy, if mutants were the . evil some claim, they would already rule the world. The majority of mutants wish for nothing more than to live in peace. “Whether that will happen is really up to you.”
There was silence for a moment after he’d finished. The commentator thanked Kelly and Xavier, and then signed off from the live broadcast. The moment the cameras were off, Senator Kelly crossed the short distance between the chair where he’d been seated and Xavier’s wheelchair. “Professor,” he said, by way of acknowledgment. “Senator,” Xavier answered, and after a pause added, “was there something you wanted?”
“Only ...” Kelly began, paused, and then began again. “Only to say that I know you’re right. But I believe in the old axiom that sometimes the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,” the senator said.
“Indeed?” Xavier asked, raising an eyebrow. “What you seem to have missed, Senator, is that mutants are part of the many you refer to. Part of the human race. It is you, and people like you, who are pushing them away, forcing them to splinter off, to see themselves as something else entirely. Perhaps that is your goal, but if so, you should ask yourself a question.
‘ ‘If you succeed in alienating mutants, making them feel as though they are another tribe, warring with so-called ‘normal’ humans, what happens when enough time passes so that mutants have become ‘the many,’ and ‘normal’ humans have become ‘the few’? What happens then, Senator?”
“I take your point,” Kelly answered.
“I pray that you do,” Xavier said.
“No matter what,” the senator finished, “I hope that this whole debacle is resolved quickly, and as painlessly as possible.”
Professor Xavier held up his hand. Surprise evident in his face, Kelly clasped it. They shook.
“That, at least, is something upon which we can agree,” Xavier said.
Once again, his thoughts returned to hope.
* • •
“I’m gettin’ a little tired o’ this sittin’ around crap,” Wolverine snarled.
“You’re not alone, old friend,” Storm said, “but it isn’t as if we are free to simply walk out and rejoin the fight. Not yet, at least.”
“Not for lack of trying,” Bishop said.
The Beast said nothing, his mind still rapidly creating and discarding plans for their escape. They had made several attempts already, all halfhearted at best. Nothing any of them had thus far contrived had had even a chance of success.
Each of them would be a formidable opponent, even without their mutant abilities. Bishop was a battle-hardened soldier, Wolverine a savage fighter without peer. Storm had spent quite a bit of time stripped of her mutant powers, and had become a hand-to-hand combatant of the first order. And the Beast’s greatest asset, his intellect, was not a mutation.
Unbound, they might have fought their way to freedom without any genetic gifts at all, but the same technology that had temporarily stolen those gifts also imprisoned them.
Hank thought of Trish once again, and wondered, for the first time, if telling her to stay away had been a mistake.
* * *
The Sentinel at the Brooklyn Bridge had turned out to be a drone. With Archangel flying above them, Gambit raced his stolen Harley up the ele
vated FDR Drive as fast as he dared, while Cooper held on to his chest with a painful grip. It was taking too much time. They only had to get to the Sentinels, and have Val take a look at them with the infrared scope she had on, but still it was too time consuming.
If the Alpha Sentinel was on the other side of the island, if they had to go all the way around Manhattan before they reached it... there just wasn’t enough time. Gambit could feel the ticking of their seven-hour time limit, could hear it as clearly as if a clock had been set next to his ear. Time was running out.
They were headed for the Williamsburg Bridge, just south of Houston Street and Alphabet City.
“Gambit, hold up!” Archangel’s voice erupted from the commlink they all wore. “Pull over a minute.”
“What de hell’s de problem now, ’Angel?” Gambit asked. * ‘We got no time for foolin’ ...”
“In the park, to your left,” Archangel replied.
Gambit looked, and didn’t see anything at first. Then Val tapped his shoulder and pointed to a group of people in the midst of a fight. At least a dozen people, maybe more, were beating on two or three others that he could barely see. Any other time, Gambit would naturally have interfered. But time was of the essence. He didn’t understand why Archangel was taking such an interest.
Until he saw that one of the people being attacked had large, leathery bat wings protruding from her back.
The Harley’s rear tire screeched and Gambit could smell burning rubber as he swung the bike into a stop. Val jumped off and Gambit laid the Harley down on its side as he ran for the guardrail of the elevated highway.
“Warren?” he said into the comm.
“Got it,” Archangel replied.
“Sorry, Val,” Gambit said without turning around. “We’ll just be a minute.”
Without hesitation, without slowing, he put one foot on the guardrail and dived over the edge. Warren grabbed him from behind. Without a word, they flew to where the three mutants were being beaten by the mob. Above the crowd, Archangel simply dropped Gambit.
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