Chapter four: Time to Go

The floor of Ultra's cell was a lot more comfortable than her metal cot so she decided to stay there long after the guards had continued on their rounds. Her usual doorman had been exchanged for a surly new one that she hadn't seen before. He didn't check on her as much which suited her just fine. It made her feel a little less like a goldfish lazing around its bowl.

As she sat there, so still like a statue with the cold eating deeper and deeper into her body, she began to worry about that look on Stryker's face when she had disabled Jason. He hadn't been able to keep the fear out of his expression and while at the time it had thrilled her, now she was beginning to get concerned. It wouldn't take a great deal for him to decide to vote her off the island forever and she feared that she may have tipped the balance.

Ultra remembered the first time someone had looked at her like that; it had been long ago, almost a lifetime past, when she had first encountered a girl who went by the name of Berserker. On first glance, the girl seemed pretty normal; long, flowing brown-black hair, hazel eyes and a deeply olive complexion. She had that cool exterior and raging, passionate core that betrayed her native Hawaiian heritage. She had the ability to control electrical currents, which was perfect for her group of cohorts considering they had taken to squatting in most of the places they lived in. Berserker also had the unusual habit of glowing in the dark, which was great if ever the lights went out or you found yourself in a place with no lights at all, but not so great when you walked in on her with her latest beau. Ultra had made that mistake a few times. She had long gotten out of the habit of knocking before entering a room.

Remembering that night brought Low's face to her mind. Then his long, rugged blonde hair and the powerful upper-body, and then the way they had felt lying together on the scorching cold concrete of the roof of that building. God, they had blazed hot together. He'd held her so tightly afterwards as if he never wanted to let her go. Then the assault on Alkalai Lake happened and everything changed.

Ultra felt that familiar ache in her chest and banished Low's presence from her mind. He was the reason she had gotten caught that night. Well, Berserker was the reason of course but Low hadn't helped.

The three of them had been laying the charges out in the eastern quarter of the facility when guards had come up on them. They had sprung from out of nowhere. Low was too far underground for his Elementor ability to be of any use; there was far too much concrete around and commanding water inside a dam would have been suicide. Berserker – Lilo – had turned her influence to the fluorescent tubes and had shocked the shit out of the guards but not in as subtle a way as Ultra had planned. She had immediately summoned her psychic abilities and had planned to fell them with a massive brain-shock blast but Lilo always had been the trigger-finger. Ultra's way would have preserved their stealth and would have enabled the mission to succeed, whereas Berserker had lived up to her namesake.

They hadn't had time to lay all the charges before they were interrupted and it had been too dangerous for them to continue so the three of them had immediately resorted to their evacuation plan. Muller and Trix were waiting at the perimeter for them, operating the coms, while Galleon, Sonny, Hail-Mary, Beth-Anne, Lupus and Kabil were deployed in various wings of the facility, trying to complete their mission. Lilo had rounded the corner first with Low following second. They hadn't a clue that a contingent of eighteen soldiers were bearing down on them until they were greeted with weapons fire. Lilo had, of course, pitched them into darkness by firing up her bolts but several bullets had strafed.

It was as if it all happened in slow-motion. Ultra was mostly shielded by the wall but Lilo and Low were both exposed. Before she could deflect the bullets, one of them hit Low in the shoulder and he went down. Lilo managed to avoid the onslaught, distracting the troops by baffling their retinas, but they were a man down and were therefore a lot slower. Before they could get Low to his feet, one girl under each arm, the rest of the soldiers had arrived and forced them to their knees.

Ultra remembered the eerie red glow of the emergency lighting and the way the soldiers parted reverently to let their commander through. He hadn't looked like much even then, dressed in plain black slacks and a thick, black corduroy jumper with the hint of a grey collar poking above the neck. He certainly didn't look military but he had that air of power about him, along with a whole lot else that Ultra didn't like. In her naivety, she thought she could take him down.

Stryker had scrutinised them for a moment, almost sneering at Low as he wheezed and huffed against the bullet in his shoulder. Then he had turned to his sergeant and had flicked a dismissive hand at his captives.

"They're no use to me. Get rid of them."

He started walking away but Ultra grabbed his attention. "You don't really want to authorise that."

Stryker turned very, very slowly with a sadistic grin on his face. "And why not?"

She had mirrored his smile as she leapt into action. The soldiers that were holding her to her knees were blasted to either side of the corridor, knocked out cold by the concrete walls. She disarmed the guard holding Low and knocked him unconscious with his own gun before doing the same to the guard with Lilo. Then she turned, readying a pulse that would have killed every guard in front of her, including Stryker, but was stopped by the blast from a tazer. Lilo had tried to rush to her aid but was kicked aside by a guard that had recovered too quickly.

As Ultra convulsed against the electric shocks, Stryker walked over to her and fondled her face with feigned affection. "My, you are a pretty thing for a mutant."

She was in half a mind to spit at him but couldn't summon the saliva. He bent closer to her and locked her in a cold-eyed gaze. He was just scrutinising her, taking every bit of her in, but his eyes told her a deeper story. Ultra never liked delving into people's heads but sometimes, even now, she couldn't help it. Stryker had been a little too open, too unguarded that day and she had seen the reason behind his sadism, and the reason why he hated mutants.

"You shouldn't be so insulting towards us considering..." she trailed off, her voice slowly steadying as the effects of the tazers wore off.

"Don't pretend to know anything about me," he sneered at her.

"I know a great deal," she answered as he stood up and started to walk away. "Especially about your son."

Stryker stopped dead, mid-step. "I don't have a son," he said without looking at her.

"You cannot deny him. He resides right here in this facility. You have designated him with a number but his name is Jason Stryker. You hoped that he could be cured of his abilities and took him to the Xavier school for help but he couldn't do anything. So you decided to experiment on and exploit him instead." Ultra paused for effect before adding, "And you call yourself a father."

"My son is dead," Stryker snarled over his shoulder.

"He's alive. You've silenced him for most of his life but he is very much alive."

The man whipped round, his eyes blazing fire and his mouth practically foaming. "My son is dead!"

"No William, your wife is dead but your son lives!"

In a single, deceptively athletic bound, Stryker was forcing his face into hers just as the resounding slap came from nowhere. Ultra's head jerked to the left, cracking the vertebrae in her neck. Stars exploded in her eyes and all she could hear past the blood pounding in her head was her attacker's heaving, panting breath. She was so stunned that she didn't digest his following words but they would haunt her in the months that followed.

"If you want to join your friends in the afterlife then keep goading me, little girl."

Ultra later learned that Sonny and Lupus had been gunned down, dead, when the mission had unravelled. The others were still alive but the fact that they had lost loyal comrades weighed heavily on her heart. It took a while for the news to sink in, far longer than her first memorable encounter with her tormentor had lasted.

As Ultra slowly turned her head back towards him, Stryker's eyes caught sight of something and they widened in a mixture of shock, surprise and greed. Her bottom lip had split from the force of his blow and was slowly trickling blood. One of the first abilities Ultra had noticed in herself was that of accelerated healing. It was probably her very first and earliest occurring ability because she had always healed instantly from cuts, bruises, knocks and scrapes as a child. But as the gash healed before his eyes, Stryker's shock scared her more than his violence.

"My God!" he gasped, dabbing at the blood with his finger. The blood remained but the cut was long gone in an instant. "It can't be!"

If a man could possibly have seen dollar signs it was in that one moment. Suddenly his disgusted expression changed and it was as if Ultra had become a commodity. Then she was commanded away. Soldiers dragged her to the cell that would become her home and abandoned her in the dark and in the cold. She had screamed herself hoarse trying to get someone to tell her what was going on. It was only afterwards that she would get to bargain for her friends' safety. She had traded her freedom for theirs, but the price was so much larger than that.

In the darkness of the cell, Ultra held her hands in front of her and released the adamantium claws that she had been cursed with; ten inches of solid, indestructible metal devised by Stryker and his scientists. That was the price she had paid.

Memories threatened to flood her. Memories about the process, the agony that followed and the aching realisation that her suffering would never end once she entered the training program all lingered on the fringes of her mind, demanding her attention. Ultra turned a blind eye to them all, placating them with the notion that one day she would deal with them. For now they had to be filed away so that she could focus her energy on more pressing matters – like how to get the fuck out of this place.

The only memory that she did allow passage was that about the Xavier school. That name was constantly at the forefront of Stryker's mind, as if it was the hub of his obsession with mutants. The fact that he had taken Jason there for help made Ultra wonder if perhaps this new facility would be able to help her. She would have worried about swapping one cell for another if her mind wasn't flooded with a kind of warmth and comfort when she mulled over the name. Xavier. Xavier. Charles Xavier. Something gentle, welcoming and nurturing existed in that place. Ultra felt her soul connect with it deeply and it ignited a yearning to seek solace there. She just hoped that it wouldn't turn out to be a fantasy concocted by a mind unhinged by pain and anguish.

Then something dark and evil hit her squarely in the psyche. Just at the moment that she was finding comfort, her existence was threatened again. This time Stryker was pissed, and this time she wasn't going to survive.

Closing her eyes, Ultra focused on every sound from the minutest ruffle of fabric to the patter of rats' feet in the spillway. In her mind she traversed the corridors of the facility until she reached Stryker's office. That was when his voice flooded her mind.

"Sergeant, you know what needs to be done."

"Surely there must be another way to control her, William. She is such an investment to us it would be stupid to jeopardise that." Ultra remembered that voice; it was one of the pansy-ass scientists that Stryker kept on-staff to develop new uses for the adamantium.

"What good is she as an investment if she cannot be controlled?" Stryker shouted, slamming his hands down on something solid. "Jason was our last option. She is too powerful and therefore too much of a liability. Sergeant, take your men and terminate her."

"The Wolverine was a success and could still be re-indoctrinated if he was located. Yuriko is living proof that under the proper conditions, your plan to build a team of super-mutants for military use could be a reality. Don't squander this opportunity; mutants with a healing ability are not easy to come by. For all we know, she could be the last."

"No. I have made my decision. Ultra will be executed tonight."

"William, I can't just stand by and let this happen!"

The deafening sound of two gunshots baffled her ears, startling her out of focus. Panting for breath, Ultra sent a prayer skyward for the scientist. He was only defending her because of the amount of money she represented, but his chivalry was rather flattering nonetheless.

This is it, she thought to herself. No turning back now.

It didn't take long for the soldiers to amass. Her sharp ears detected movement a few quadrants away. She could feel their intentions like sour lemon juice in the air. It seemed that now was the time to put all her training to good use.

Ultra calculated that they were about three minutes away. She faced the door, focussing unblinkingly on the thick, wrought metal door with the bars across the porthole that made her feel like a caged animal. She cracked her knuckles with a crunching, bone-popping echo. She was going to make damn certain that Stryker would regret ever giving her claws. Slowly, Ultra slipped into that other mental state that she had. It was like zoning out into a kind of meditation that allowed her to tap into any number of her abilities simultaneously. Ordinarily, she could do so at will but when her emotions were heightened or when the odds were stacked against her she needed a little extra focus. She felt the power come to the forefront of her being in a great surge. It had been a while since she felt in control of her fate. Stryker thought that he had the upper hand but he forgot that he was dealing with a mutant unlike any other. Tonight she was going to show him that he wasn't all that.

Ultra tried to arrange the cot like she was lying there sleeping as the soldiers drew nearer. It was an entry-level ploy but you couldn't beat a good old classic distraction. Then she shorted out the light.

The hydraulic doors at the far end of the corridor slid open with a hiss and she heard the guard outside her door scramble to attention. There were at least six soldiers marching along the Green Mile, all heavily armed. Their armoury included those strange tazers that had knocked her for six. Ultra definitely didn't want to tangle with those again.

She crouched in the corner beside the door. She was in a perfect position; small enough to squash in tightly but on the side that the door didn't block when it opened. The second the first gun was inserted through that portal, the bearer would meet his maker or get sent to the hell of legend.

This time the whole world fell silent. Staring death in the face was a very solitary exchange.

Ultra zoned out so that when the door eventually opened, it did so in the slowest motion her eyes could have registered. There was no plan apart from fight long and hard to get the hell out of this place. She wanted to put as much distance between her and Stryker as possible, if she couldn't kill him outright. It probably would have been far easier for her to shape-shift into a small animal or insect and just run right out through that open door but where was the fun in that? Ultra wanted to look at her reflection one day and be proud to say that she had fought her way out of the deepest circle of Hell. Yes, she was running but she would not be a coward about it. She would look her tormentors in the eye as she killed them and then she would seek salvation elsewhere. With her head held high.

The first soldier began to step cautiously into the room. Ultra couldn't hear anything besides her own heartbeat racing in her ears. He turned his weapon on the mound on the metal slab and levelled the muzzle to shoot. That was when Ultra pounced. Her claws sliced free and she lunged, swiping down on the soldier's arms. The gun fell to the floor, as did everything below his elbows. Before he could even register pain, she ducked in front of him as his comrades opened fire, tearing the cell apart with their bullets. She used his jerking, thrusting body as a human shield until they paused in their assault and then she shoved the body back through the door. Some of the soldiers scattered out of the way but some were distracted by bearing its weight. That was when Ultra launched herself out of her cell, legs, fists and claws flailing in the well-rehearsed martial arts style that Stryker and his team of instructors had indoctrinated her with. In a matter of seconds, she had cut down the contingent of men, painting the corridor in blood.

Then she simply turned and walked away. It would take several minutes for the carnage to be found but by then Ultra would be gone. With a simple electromagnetic pulse, she crippled the facility. They couldn't see her and they couldn't instruct their people. All she had to do was walk right through the front gates.

And that is precisely what she did.