Criminal
Forge never responded well to authority. That was the source of all his troubles, really. First, that accident that got his left leg blown off. It pained him even now to look at it. The steel prosthetic he'd made for himself worked really well, but it also served as a constant reminder that he wasn't whole, and probably never would be again.
That little incident also caused MIT to drop him like a rock. They could accept a student whose disciplinary record was spotty at best --- Forge was brilliant enough for the university to overlook it --- but a felon? Forget about it. Goodbye and good luck, kid. Send us a postcard from whatever shit hole you land in.
Well, fuck 'em, Forge thought. Who needed an education when everything he needed to make it big was in his genes?
Too bad the industry's bigwigs didn't quite see it that way. None of them were willing to hire a kid with a record a mile long and a high school diploma as his only credential.
Fuck 'em, too, then. There was always work to be found for an enterprising young man with magic fingers and very few scruples. This was America, after all. And God bless America, because Forge did find a couple of well paying gigs. His employers weren't always pleasant people, but they were willing to reward his talents. His father would have been furious at him for turning out the way he did, but fortunately he wasn't around anymore for Forge to disappoint.
He had no illusions about what he was doing. He knew what the weapons and the technology he developed were being used for. Whenever his conscience started to sting him, he'd tell himself that if he wasn't doing this, somebody else would be. He was only filling a niche. And if that didn't work, he'd try to convince himself that he was in this life because he wanted his genius to be appreciated. His inventions were works of art: they begged to be built, and it would be an injustice to let them rot in his head.
Some days he believed it. Other days he tried not to think about it at all.
He still remembered when Mastermind first approached him. Some of the details were a little fuzzy now, but his memory of that day remained mostly intact.
He was bumming around Miami, living off the money he'd made from some shady paramilitary organization. He made it a point never to stick with one job too long. It was easier to get out that way. Getting out was oftentimes necessary, for a number of reasons. He still had several contacts he could count on to get him hired when the cash started to run out.
Mastermind was waiting in his rented apartment when he came back from lunch. Forge wasn't surprised to see a strange man sitting on his couch. It had happened to him too many times to count. Nevertheless, he approached the man warily, his hand straying almost innocuously to the waistband of his pants, where he kept an automatic pistol for emergency purposes.
He wasn't quite sure what to make of the guy. He didn't look like a hired gun --- not big enough, for one, and too relaxed for another. He didn't look a fellow tech guy either. He could be a potential client (he dressed well enough, though he must have been out of his mind to wear black when it was ninety degrees outside), except clients rarely met with him until the deal was struck between him and the client's negotiator.
"Hello, Forge." The visitor said his name with a flourish, as though expecting the young man to be impressed that he knew who he was.
"What do you want?" Forge asked.
"I've been sent here to offer you a place in Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants," the man answered. "You do know who Magneto is, don't you?"
Did this guy think he was a total moron? Of course he knew who Magneto was. Everyone knew about him and how the X-Men faked his death in Washington. The guy was supposed to be massing an army of mutants or something. Whether or not that was true, Magneto obviously had a good enough intelligence system to find him out. Forge had never hidden the fact that he was a mutant; he flaunted it in fact, daring his colleagues and employers to make a case out of it. Nevertheless, his work had been covert.
He briefly entertained the idea of joining Magneto, and then rejected it. He wasn't too fond of the human race, but he wasn't sure he hated them enough to get mixed up with Magneto and his Brotherhood. He didn't know enough about the man to understand his mind. That made him unpredictable to Forge, and a bit more dangerous than the gangsters, commandos and extremists he was used to dealing with.
"Tell him thanks, but no, thanks," Forge finally answered, which was a good deal more polite than his standard rejection of, "Tell your boss to go fuck himself."
The man must have seen that Forge hesitated, because he pressed on, saying,
"You do realize that the humans' time is over? Magneto's ushering in a new age, the age of Homo superior. Do you really want to be caught here with the flat scans when he wages his war on them?"
The guy talked like someone out of an apocalyptic sci-fi movie. Worse yet, every word sounded rehearsed. Forge was now thinking he'd have to resort to his typical response after all, when the guy added quickly,
"Magneto knows your potential, Forge. He also knows it's wasted on terrorists and mobsters. Why not give your gifts to a more noble cause?"
Talk about laying it on thick, Forge thought, smiling wryly.
"How much does it pay?" he asked.
The man blinked slowly. Obviously, he'd expected Forge to look at the proposition as an honor, not a job.
"You don't expect me to do this for free, do you?" Forge said incredulously.
"Of course not," the man said. His expression slowly changed from perplexed to amused. The corners of his mouth curled upward in a wolfish smile. "How do you feel about… Canada?"
Forge had said yes, of course. It was hard to turn down his very own country. When he started working on the machine to amplify Magneto's powers, he looked back on that sweltering afternoon in Miami and thought of it as the turning point in his life. A couple of months later, after the shit hit the fan and everything Magneto had planned fell apart, he realized he was right. He sure as hell didn't like the turn it took, though.
The Brotherhood was tried and convicted for terrorism and conspiracy, Forge among them. The government didn't give a damn that he had begun doubting his actions late in the game and that he actually regretted the destruction he'd helped cause, but they had taken an interest when they realized just what Forge was capable of. They offered him two choices that weren't really choices: to either serve life in a federal prison or work for the government.
Forge still detested authority, and the government was the worst authority of all, but he guessed putting up with them was preferable to rotting in prison. In a way, he understood how fitting it was. For seven years' worth of crimes, he was sentenced indefinitely to work for people he hated.
Fuck.