(The X-Men lost the war against the Sentinels. But once the killing starts is it possible to stop it? William Stryker has to face what he helped create with the aid of someone he never expected to see again.)
General William Stryker, Supreme Commander of the Humanity Alliance Army, listened intently as another series of explosions rocked the building.
"Getting closer," he said aloud to no one in particular since he was alone in what once had been a splendidly furnished office. Now it was bedraggled, showing only a few signs of its former glory. He looked around it and shook his head.
"Supreme Commander of the Humanity Alliance Army. What crap."
Once it meant something. Once it was the pinnacle of his ambition; something he dreamed about achieving. He would be the one responsible for leading mankind to its final victory over the hated mutants. There would be statues of him and stories told about his heroic leadership. Well so much for that.
Another blast shook the building. "Much closer," he commented. "It won't be long now."
How had this happened? The Sentinels had won the war for humanity or so he had thought. The last of the powerful mutants had been detected in a deserted monastery in the mountains of China and been crushed by a massive assault. It should have been over. With them gone any remaining sympathizers should have fallen in line. But that hadn't happened. Instead of things changing the war had just gone on.
It had been explained that now was the time to make sure that there would never be any more mutants. Fantastic new techniques had been developed by the researchers of Trask Industries that allowed them to pinpoint those whose genetic codes would bring forth mutant children or even grandchildren. So those individuals had to be purged.
Once that had been accomplished it was announced that further research had pinpointed genes that, while not mutant perhaps in themselves, would lead to abnormalities that might continue on to mutation. Then there had been the codes enacted defining all the undesirable characteristics that needed purging. Those never seemed to end.
By then not only had he lost his hatred for mutants he had lost any enthusiasm for the war. More than that he had begun to have his suspicions of just why this conflict was never-ending. But before he could do more than to begin to gather others who seemed to share his worries it had all become moot.
Only his being delayed en route to the weekly briefing he was expected to deliver to the ruling council that had controlled the Humanity Alliance since it had been formed had kept him from dying along with them when the Sentinels had attacked. And his delay had been of his own making. He had lost his taste for inventing upbeat reports that told of wonderful victories and tremendous advances when nothing had really been changing in years. But things had certainly then.
A hurried trip to Trask Industries and the secret labs that maintained and programmed the Sentinels had led to the discovery of another bloodbath. One of the few surviving scientists had told him that there must have been an error in the last program updating the machines' targets and now it appeared the guidelines for "normal humans" had been so tightly drawn that it was possible that no one alive could meet them.
The war had changed then. He had thrown all his energy and skills into leading humanity against the Sentinels. But it had been as futile as the mutants' fight against them had been. Defeat had followed after defeat again and again. There had been a desperate attempt to spread the survivors out into tiny pockets hidden as best as possible while the army fought more to keep the Sentinels busy rather than for victory. Maybe it would work. He prayed so. One of those pockets included his wife and sons.
And it wasn't even some variation of Skynet raining destruction upon mankind. The machines were only enforcing the orders that they had been programmed to do. Mankind was responsible for its own end.
"When?" he muttered. "When did it all go wrong?"
"When it started," an unfamiliar voice answered him.
He spun in his chair, his sidearm lifting to cover the figure standing in the doorway. The form was that of an aide whom he knew perfectly well had been killed in a skirmish with a Sentinel months before. Therefore there was no question who the new arrival was.
"I thought you were dead."
"Should be," the figure advanced and dropped into a chair beside his desk. There was the usual blur and Mystique resumed her normal appearance. Interestingly he realized he wasn't even bothered in the slightest anymore by how different she looked, even though that was more so than just about any other mutant.
She gestured at his hand. "Are you going to keep pointing that thing at me the rest of the day?"
"Force of habit." He returned the weapon to its holster. "So you were saying?"
"When a war was declared on a group of people who were condemned not for anything they had done but for who they were. It's an old ploy. Dictators and political parties have used it for centuries. It's been used to justify religious and civil pogroms for centuries. Hitler and Stalin were perhaps the perfect masters of the technique in recent times but it goes back much further than that of course. The Inquisition, Cromwellian Ireland, the Salem Witch Trials, the Ku Klux Klan, even Nero's Rome used it. But the objective was always the same."
"And what was that?" the fascinated General asked.
"Power."
"Just power? Not other reasons? Like saving the human race from extinction?"
"Maybe that was the original stated reason. Maybe even the people who started those hunts believed it to begin with. But that never lasts even if those in charge manage to convince themselves differently. After a while, no matter how noble the aims might have possibly been to start, the power takes over. Remember the words of John Dalberg-Acton."
"Who?" Stryker asked although he could feel the name resonating somewhere deep in his mind.
"John Dalberg-Acton, 7th Baronet Acton and 1st Baron Acton. 'All power corrupts..."
"... 'and absolute power corrupts absolutely'," the man finished.
"And it did. Maybe some believed in saving the human race at first. But the hysteria of the time dictated that the path to the top of the power chain meant being the most strident about the danger mutants posed and the harshness of the measures needed to stop them."
"Certainly," and the woman (Stryker found himself thinking of her a simply that, not first as a mutant) looked sad, and embarrassed, "some of us fanned the flames. Eric of course, but above all me." She looked at Stryker. "But I had slipped into Trask Industries and seen the files detailing, with graphic pictures, the experiments that had been performed on kidnapped mutants. I was angry. I was determined to stop him and of course, I made things worse. Without my attack the more rational members of Congress would have continued to respond negatively to his requests, pointing out we had been living, mostly, in secret and in peace among humans."
She sighed. "I suppose there is no point in saying 'I'm sorry', but I am. I should have listened to my brother."
"Your brother?"
"Adoptive brother. Charles Xavier, Professor X. He always said that there was a better way, a way that didn't include violence. But I wouldn't listen."
"Neither would I," admitted the General. "So, you were talking about the hysteria."
"As long as it could be maintained those in power would remain there. I suspect the inner circle had carefully read George Orwell's novel "1984" and used it. After all. 'no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it'. To stay in power they had to continue the idea of the mutant menace. So they created a perpetual war, similar to Oceania's war with Eurasia and then Eastasia in turn and back again. Never-ending. But since there were no outside enemies as in that book they had to be created. So the definition of 'normal human' tightened and tightened."
She looked weary, as weary as he was. "I doubt that they saw the ultimate end, that it would tighten until no one could meet it. But it did and here we are."
"Here we are."
The pair, so completely different and once so far apart in their aims and now almost the same, nearly the last of their kind. Finally, Stryker spoke as a new round of fighting started closer than before.
"Mystique?"
"Yes?"
"I'm sorry too."
"Thank you. I was hoping you would say that. And mean it and I believe that you do."
"Why?" All of a sudden something had changed in the room. He felt on edge, as though something was about to happen. Something monumental, although he had no idea what or even why he was feeling that.
"Because, although even a few months ago I would never have believed this, I think I can trust you. And that's going to be very important for both of us."
"Go on."
The woman rose from her chair and paced. "My husband, Hank McCoy, known popularly as 'Beast', was an incredibly brilliant man." A smile, sad but also at the same time warm, crossed her face. "When I met him my first words were 'So your mutation is what? You're super smart?'. Well, he was. By the time of the Washington incident he had developed a serum that masked the mutant genes. He had originally designed it to allow Charles to walk but then discovered its side effect. He used it during that fight to turn the Sentinels' attention away from him."
"A cure? But all of this could have been avoided if..."
"No!" The woman said sharply. "Not a cure. That would imply being a mutant was some sort of disease rather than an integal part of our DNA. It simply suppressed it, hid it and most of all it was only temporary. Besides, Trask and Trask Industries didn't want mutation to disappear, they wanted to harness it."
"Anyway. he worked on it constantly. He was able to use it to keep out of the way of the Sentinels while he tried to perfect it. Then it was too late, we were defeated. He nearly gave up in despair, would have if it were not for certain others. And then the Sentinels turned on humanity."
"Certain others?"
"You have established secret enclaves where a few remaining humans are hopeful hidden. They include your wife and children. Never mind how I know. But we have done the same and in one of those are Hank's and mine three children. Among others of course."
Stryker bolted out of his chair as the blue-skinned woman laid a rucksack on the table. She took out a bottle.
"This is half of the final serum my husband developed. Ironically he was at Trask Industries when the attack came there. He survived but was badly wounded. He managed to contact me and passed this on to me before he died. It's too late now to mass produce this, no facilities exist anymore that could. But this, in the proper dose, will mask anyone, human or mutant, from the Sentinals."
"And you are just giving this to us? To me? Why Mystique?" He looked in awe, and hunger, at the bottle.
"I'm not Mystique anymore. Call me Raven. That was my original name and I hope the one that shows my good side. Humans need to survive, not just mutants. After all, we have descended from you. Mutants are the children of humanity, like it or not." She laughed. "And probably neither of us do."
"Probably."
She handed him a chart. "This tells you dosage by weight and age. So as you wish but I suggest taking it to your refuges. Hank calculated how long it would need to last. The Sentinels aren't Skynet, they need human maintenance. Eventually, they will start breaking down. Our peoples need only to outlast them. Maybe a year, maybe three. No more than that."
Stryker nodded as he looked over the chart and calculated how much serum was in the bottle. He pressed a switch on his desk.
"Yes sir?" came a voice from the speaker.
"Please find Doctor Hadley as quickly as possible and send her to me. This is of the utmost importance."
The fighting was drawing nearer and nearer. In short order a young woman dressed in uniform out with a once white doctor's coat over it came in. She stopped and her eyes widened.
"No time for that now," Stryker instructed. "Pay attention. Raven?"
The mutant woman quickly ran through the use of the serum and STryker briefed her on the refuges. Once he was satisfied she understood the general spoke again.
"On top is a helo. The pilot there, Captain Hartwell will fly you to a nearby airbase where you two will transfer to a Stealth aircraft. He knows the locations of the refuges. Go to them. Innoculate as many as you can, including the two of you. Understood?"
"Yes sir."
The building shook. Violently this time. He turned towards Raven.
"They can carry you to your refuges as well," he offered.
"Thank you. William." He acknowledged the use of his first name and what it meant with a nod. "But the rest of the serum is already on the way to the mutant hideouts."
"Alright." He smiled and turned towards the other woman. "Go!" he commanded and the woman left.
"You're not going?"
"You didn't obviously," he pointed out. "But no. The serum needed to mask me could save two teens or three younger children, something I suspect you already have thought of."
"Yes."
The fighting was raging in the building now. The pair strained their ears and heard the helo get away. Both sighed in relief. Stryker drew his sidearm. Reversing it he handed it to Raven. Crossing the room he picked up a pulse rifle. He returned to stand beside her.
"Never thought," Raven slightly quoted "I would die standing side by side with a human."
Stryker grinned. "I loved Lord of the Rings too. And I NEVER thought I'd say this either. But how about side by side with a friend?"
Raven looked at him. "I could do that."
Then the Sentinels crashed into the room and the pair opened fire as they took their last stand.
(Four years later in a hidden valley tucked into a corner of the Sierra Nevadas.)
"Well I can't say it's official because there is no 'official' anything anymore," a young woman announced as she entered the dining hall annex that served as the meeting place for the elected leaders of the survivors' colony. A joint colony born after two separate refuges had been attacked before inoculations had been finished and the survivors from both had joined together. "But all reports we're getting say the same thing. The Sentinels are finished."
"It looks like we've made it," agreed the young man standing at the head of the table.
Although the news was anticipated there were still cheers from the others. Muted because the habits of the last years were going to be hard to shake off. The group made their way back outdoors where they stood in the rays of the rising sun.
"Your dad would be proud of you Bill," The woman said as she touched his arm. "You led us through it."
"As your mom would be," William Stryker, Jr smiled. He took her hand. "it's because of her that we had a chance at all Raven McCoy."
"Well, we do." She leaned her head against his shoulder. "So let's make the best of it and prove that we CAN learn from the mistakes of the past."
(The End)