Author's notes:
Unstable Chapter 3
Area 51
Gabriel was alone within the working areas of the Velocity, looking around at the electronics that ran the ship, he couldn't help it, he was a naturally curious person, and bored, very bored. Electronics was never something he was good at but he guessed that the one he was looking at was regulating the rotor speed and angle.
"Gabriel?" Fury beckoned in his ear. Gabriel placed a hand on the machine to steady himself as the Velocity banked.
"I hear you Fury, what's up?" Gabriel sat down on the steps up to the cockpit.
"I've got reports coming in from New York about a breach in security at a Marine base, that wouldn't happen to be you?" Gabe laughed.
"It wasn't me that set the alarm off, the jarheads are just a bit annoyed that the X-men took back what was rightfully there's." Gabriel felt the pressure in the hold change as they descended.
"How's it feel to be back in the field, Gabriel?" Fury asked, Gabriel frowned under the hood, which was beginning to itch.
"I feel like I've walked right into the middle of an argument, half way through, and managed to piss off both sides just by walking in." Gabriel took a breath. "Who am I kidding; I'm free and I'm working again. I'm bloody enjoying this."
"Glad to know." Gabriel pulled the nylon roll from his leg and unrolled it, inside was every piece of lock-picking equipment known to man. He took out the lock drill and inspected it. "I have an extra assignment for you Gabriel, I need you to get the base commander to back down, make him quit, I'll leave the method up to you."
"Okay colonel." He paused for a second and scratched at his neck underneath the hood. "Incidentally colonel, could you have your techno-weenies make me a hood out of some sort of breathable material, I'm sweating like a stuck pig in this suit."
"I'll have Lyle's department go to work on it immediately." Fury replied, Gabriel pushed the power button on the drill, it made satisfying whirr as it span.
"Cheers, Fury."
Up in the cockpit Mystique couldn't sit still, she was worried that behind her was a danger she hadn't accounted for, a problem that would escalate further down the line. Storm noticed her squirming.
"Problem?" she asked. Mystique snapped her head around and glowered at Storm.
"None of your damn business!" she snapped, Storm couldn't help but smile grimly.
"Have it your way." She said then concentrated on piloting the Velocity.
Gabriel rolled up the lock pick set and hooked it back onto his leg. He felt the VTOL bank once more but to stop instead of turn, they had arrived. The door opened behind him and Mystique walked down the step towards him. Gabe stood up and faced her; he didn't trust her enough to bare his back to her.
"Leave the weapons here, Shift." She ordered.
"Go to hell." He answered. "I don't go anywhere unarmed."
"Then keep the knives but drop the sword and gun." Her tone was hard, he knew he wouldn't win this one. "Do it or professor Xavier stays missing." She threatened. They stared daggers at each other for a few seconds before Gabriel sighed.
"Fine." He un-holstered his pistol, clicked the safety and threw it into one of the corners; he grabbed the sword scabbard just below the tsuba and pulled it through its loops and then chucked it on top the sidearm. He pulled his tazer round and placed it into the pistol holster. "Happy?" he asked her.
"It'll do." She replied tersely, any further conversation was stopped as the hold shook from the Velocity touching down on the ground. The X-men filed down and staggered to a halt behind Mystique.
"Is something wrong?" Storm asked.
"No." Mystique and Shift said together, with an equal amount of ice in their voices.
"Then shall we get on?" Storm suggested, beckoning to the main hatch of the chopper "We are here for a reason." She chided them when neither moved. Gabe gave in first. He stalked out of the Velocity and onto the arid surface of the Nevada desert. He could see Area 51 a half-mile away, he smiled, now that was how you set up a defensive perimeter; Around the base was every type of defensive measure that the US military could think up: Pillboxes with overlapping fields of fire, motion sensors on the fence and overlapping patrols of at least three grunts. He'd even bet there would be laser-grids and gas-jets and all kinds of freaky shit in the armoured corridors, Gabe smiled, he was actually going to have fun. And on top of that he found a flaw in the security net.
"Hmmm." Mystique mused beside him "This is going to be difficult." Gabe snorted. "What!" She demanded.
"I'm not going to say anything, you're in charge, you figure it out." Gabe sat down against a rock then pulled one of the spy droids from his utility vest and looked for an on switch, he couldn't find one.
"What are you doing?" Mystique asked him once she saw him fiddling with the little machine.
"I was hoping to get some intel with this thing, but I can't find the on switch so that idea's in the pisser." He kept on looking for the switch while Mystique kept an eye on the base.
"What's that?" a female voice asked behind him. He turned to see the youngest X-men member bending down and looking intently at the small spy robot in his hand.
"It's supposed to be an autonomous intelligence gathering bug but it won't start. For now it's just a piece of sophisticated junk." He looked her over, she was young, it was hard to imagine that Gabe had started out his current career at around her age, but she seemed capable enough. She held out her hand.
"May I?" Gabe handed her the bug silently and watched her go over it. "It's activated by a computer through a USB cable." She explained. "Have you got a computer with you?" Gabe fished out the PDA and handed her a USB cable he'd been supplied with. She connected it and had the little critter activated in minutes. "There you go." She said, Gabe smiled and accepted the PDA and bug.
"Thanks, uh…" Gabe had realised that he hadn't talked to her yet.
"Shadowcat." She answered his unanswered question.
"Shadowcat, right, cheers love." He programmed a search pattern into the bug then looked up at Mystique then at the PDA she was holding. "Could you give me the grid number for the western perimeter corner Mystique?" he asked her calmly. Mystique turned on him.
"Just who's in charge here!" she snapped, trying to regain some control.
"Funny." Gabe mused, "I was asking myself that same question." He waited a couple of seconds then asked, "Can you give me those coordinates please?" She relayed the grid numbers to him and he typed them in and set the bug on its way.
"So are you going to fill us all in on this plan of yours?" Gabe paused momentarily.
"Plan?" he asked "You wanted to lead this soiree, you come up with the bloody plan, I'm just gathering intelligence on the bases defences." Gabe looked down on the screen and watched the bugs camera view. It was a jittery fish-eye view of the fence and dog pens that were backed onto it. The dogs were unrecognisable through the spy-cam but two of them picked up the bug's movement. The one in the lead had to be the alpha male, as it came closer to the now hovering bug a white dash appeared over its muzzle, that was all Gabriel needed.
"That's our point of entry, there won't be any kind of sensors beyond surveillance cameras because the dogs would constantly set them off." He looked around at the young mutants and realised that they were listening to him, waiting for him to tell them what to do. "First we have to think about our escape, the Velocity's the best way I can think of so someone is gonna have to stay with it, preferably some one who knows how to pilot it." The group glanced at the only two X-men who were trained; Storm and Cyclops. Storm stepped forward.
"I'll stay." She replied.
"Thanks Storm, it looks like the best intrusion point is the dog pens situated in the western corner." He repeated "It's effectively a dead zone apart from the possibility of CCTV." He paused a second "Which could be tricky."
"Um, actually I can like, phase through the cameras and short them out." Kitty offered.
"They're most likely about twenty foot of the ground, how would you get up there?" Gabe asked.
"I could teleport her up there." Kurt answered.
"Excellent." Gabe said, smiling. "Now once we're inside we'll stay in two loose groups-"
"Aren't you forgetting about something?" Mystique asked him, she had a look on her face which suggested she knew something he didn't.
"Lessee: Entry point, surveillance and escape vector." He thought it over. "Nope, haven't left anything out yet, you got any suggestions?"
"How about the dogs that happen to be in the dog pens!" she asked, waving a hand in the direction of the base.
"They won't be a problem." He ignored her and got back to the plan he wasn't supposed to be making. "What we'll do is split into two groups, one to disable the security and surveillance measures and the other to rescue the captives; Scott, you lead the rescue team and take Jean, Nightcrawler and Avalanche with you. Shadowcat, Iceman, Mystique and myself will sort out the rest, questions?" Mystique waved the PDA in his face.
"Your plan won't work." She said.
"Really?" Gab asked "Why?"
"The laboratory building's automated security measures all run through a power box that's isolated from the bases security room it's too much for one team to take care of."
"Then we split the team further."
"Very well, but you will come with me and we'll disable the outside sensors for the rest to enter unannounced." Gabe shook his head.
"We don't need to, the dog pens-"
"Are full of dogs, it's my way or bust Shift." Gabe realised that he had to back down, show willingness to compromise.
"Okay we'll do it your way, choose your point of entry."
Mystique and Shift made their way closer to the western corner of Area 51 while the rest of the team waited by the barest patch of fence they could find and hid among the rocks as close to the fence as they dared and waited.
Mystique gave her temporary partner a condescending look as she appraised his entry point. He'd been absolutely adamant that they could easily slip in through the dog pens and she was inclined to believe him when they had got in close, there was no one nearby other than two dog handlers that were lazing in a guard hut not being particularly observant. The ten dogs were a different matter; they were alert and looking in her direction. They weren't barking or making any noise; it was almost like they were waiting for something. Shift tapped her on the shoulder and leaned in to whisper.
"I'm gonna go clear out a path for us, I'll signal when the coast is clear, got it?" she nodded and watched him half-run to the fence of the dog pen, crouch down and tap it, all the dogs whined, except the alpha male who stalked closer, head lowered and teeth bearing. It stopped right beside Shift and growled, the Brit leaned right next to the fence and stared into the dog's eyes. After five minutes of staring the dog lowered its head and backed away, Shift jumped the fence, taking care not to hurt himself on the barb-wire, and snuck through the dogs then jumped the next fence and sidled up to the guard hut. He turned and motioned for her to move. She turned into a raven and flew up to his position; changing back she smirked at him.
"Sure." He muttered "If your gonna do things the easy way." He pointed to the door and opened his hand then counted off the fingers in seconds, she nodded and he crawled around to the small window where he had seen one of the handlers leaning against it. He raised himself level with the window and waited for Mystique.
A knock at the door made both handlers stand up, Gabe smashed the glass of the window and grabbed the handler right in front of it around the neck, the other handler turned around and got a door kicked into his back; he was knocked out instantly, Gabe's handler choked into unconsciousness shortly after. Gabe extracted his arm from the window and walked around the hut and through the open door frame. Mystique was pulling the two handlers under the huts table.
"That won't do any good, as soon as they see the broken door the shit'll hit the fan." Mystique looked up at the broken window then turned back to Gabriel, as she did she changed into one of the guards.
"Maybe you should have thought of that before smashing the window." The voice was low and gruff.
"True." He conceded "True, I didn't have much time to think everything through." Gabriel pulled the other guard over and pulled out the tag from the collar, the uniform was two sizes too big. He'd have to sneak around some more till he found a fitting uniform. "Guess we'll have to do this the hard way." He said to himself. He looked up at Mystique "I guess you're leading the way from here." He said to her, she took the lead.
Mystique walked in plain view while Gabriel kept out of sight, always keeping at least seven steps behind her and not leaving the shadows before insuring the coast is clear. Their progress was slow but they arrived at the bases main security complex. Connected to the building was a hut similar to the one by the pens, luckily there was only one marine, one very alert marine. From their small hiding spot a few hundred yards from the building they watched as the guard checked everyone going in and out of the place.
"Great." Gabriel mused "It's gonna be a bitch getting in." he turned to Mystique "Any ideas?" she scowled.
"What are you implying?" she asked testily.
"Me? Nothing, nothing whatsoever." He replied.
"Good." She said firmly "the best way would be for me to distract him and you to take him out." Shift nodded.
"Good plan, I'll have to take a scenic route so give me twenty seconds then do whatever you have to." With that Gabe backed into the shadows and, with the sound of shifting air, was gone. Mystique waited in her kneeling position beside the flatbed truck and counted to twenty before standing up and straightening the uniform. She checked herself for anything that would give her away, finding none she marched straight for the security hut. The leather-neck in the booth saw her immediately but didn't do anything until she was right at the window, Mystique saluted quickly and took the clipboard she was handed and she made an act out of it, pretending the pen was out of ink.
"You got another?" she asked the marine, who nodded and reached into a draw beside him. Gabe dropped down behind him and kicked the draw shut, the marine was about to scream when Mystique grabbed him by the collar and slammed his head onto the sill of the window. Gabe pulled the marine to the floor and checked his pulse; it was strong and steady. Gabe pulled the guards key card from his belt and tossed it to Mystique. Gabe met her by the door and waited for her to slide the card through, hearing a buzzing tone he pushed the door open and looked in, the corridor was deserted.
"You take it from here." Gabriel said and hung back as she walked through, changing into the visage of the unconscious marine; again Gabe kept several steps behind her. Gabe watched her walk past other marines and none of them gave her a second glance, it reminded him of Paris. In the short months Gabriel had known Mystique, one thing had always stood out; she could fit in anywhere. It didn't matter where or who, she just looked like she belonged there, a skill Gabriel had never got the hang of, Gabe always thought it was one of the reason they'd…
He shook his to dispel the line of thinking, the hall right to the main security annex was clear and Mystique was out of sight; he snuck down it, keeping his back to the wall opposite the annex door. He heard someone inside sigh.
"What I do now?" Gabe heard a chair squeak as someone stood up, he had to get out of sight, looking up and down the corridor he saw no good places to hide, there was only one thing he could do. "Take over will ya?" Gabe jumped up and brushed the roof with his fingers, as if following a pattern, the rest of his body followed until he was laying on the roof as easily as if it was the floor, only difference being that Gabriel wouldn't have to concentrate so hard on lying on the floor, his brain hurt from the strain of completely inverting his centre of gravity. He watched as an overweight sergeant walked into the hall and back down the way Gabe had come. He dropped down to the floor and entered the annex; a circular wall of TV screens occupied the room with a computer terminal following the same contour, Mystique was already busy working on the security mainframe.
"Warn me next time, Will ya?" He said to Mystique, she had changed back to her natural form.
"It's not my problem if you can't keep up…Gabriel." She watched him closely, obviously waiting for him to react.
"I wondered when you were going to figure it out Raven." He pulled off the hood and stuffed it into a pocket and squinted in the light for a moment. Mystique looked Gabriel over, he had changed, grown from the boy she had fought beside and against four years ago, the piercing black eyes were the same but almost everything else about him had changed, she couldn't remember him having one scar on his face, let alone two.
"You've changed." She remarked and then got back to work.
"So have you Raven, I guess the white wasn't working for you, huh?" he leaned over her shoulder to watch her work. She typed in the command to shut off the fences sensor system. Pulled a radio off her belt and hit the call button
"All right, the sensors are down, move, now." She released the call button and turned to Gabriel. "Do you mind?" she asked.
"No, I don't." Gabriel activated his own radio "Velocity, start your pre-flight, I don't think this excursion will last more than twenty minutes."
"Understood." Storm replied, "Standing by." Gabe got the feeling she wasn't in the best of moods, Gabriel understood, when action was called for waiting was hardest thing to do.
"I'll see if I can track the kids' progress." He said and sat in the chair next to Mystiques, he began to punch in camera numbers, after a minute he got a good image, not of the X-men but of something equally important. Fury you sly bastard he thought, "You hold the fort here Mystique, I've got someone I need to talk to." Mystique looked up from here work.
"Who?" she asked, Gabriel flicked the screen he was looking at and she recognised the Bird-Colonel too.
"I should've known." She said with a grim smile, Gabriel agreed. He flipped through the camera views until he found the X-men then stood up and watched her get back to work.
"Iceman, third door in the next corridor, I'll switch off the motion sensors." Gabriel slapped the chair then leaned close.
"Later." He said and turned toward the door, then stood still, the fat guy was back.
"Hey, the captain said…" Gabriel grabbed him and slammed his forehead down hard on the sergeants nose then swung his elbow into the crippled guards temple, he was out like a light, and though Gabe's head hurt he knew deep down he was enjoying every sensation that came with his job.
"Weren't you going?" Mystique asked him.
"What? Oh yeah." He answered and pulled his hood back on.
"Then go." Gabe nodded and left, it was just then that the base hit full alert. "Oh smeg!" he shouted He heard Mystique run behind him. "Lab?"
"Lab." They took off at a full run.
They caught up with the X-men in the lab complex fairly easily, all the bases staff were by the hangers and were too busy to notice the pair running from building to building, they didn't seem too happy to see them.
"Mystique." Jean said; the venom in her voice was palpable.
"You three hold them off." She ordered, gesturing to Cyclops, Jean and Avalanche. "We'll get the prisoners, come with me. This way." Kurt and Gabriel followed in close pursuit until a split in the corridor.
"I'm headed this way!" He shouted and turned right towards the main office complex, almost running into Ice-man and Shadowcat.
"Shift! What the hell are you doing here?" Iceman asked him.
"I've got something that I need to take care of, head left down the hall, your friends are there, back them up." The kids nodded and rushed down the hall. Gabriel waited till they were out of sight then continued down the corridor, the colonel he was going to drop in on was someone he had history with; as did Mystique and almost every other mutant who Gabe had either fought alongside or with. The colonel had been a major factor in several secret wars concerning mutants, usually to do with their destruction. Gabriel had had the unfortunate honour to see the man at work; he was a brilliant military strategist and tactician and Gabe had learned a lot from him but mostly Gabe's stomach turned at the colonel's obvious glee at wiping out unarmed mutants, the man had issues.
The corridor opened out into a large oval room that was decked out to look like an autopsy room, inside was the colonel and his personal guard with their backs to him looking at a couple of T.V. screens. Gabe couldn't see what was on them but it couldn't have been good because the colonel hit one of the screens hard enough for Gabriel to hear the thunk. Gabriel walked slowly into the room, he saw several people in lab coats off to his right also with their backs to him. He kept walking, making no sound as he moved, getting closer to the colonel's armed guard.
"What the?" One of the scientists had turned and seen him, on cue everyone turned around and looked at the intruder. The bodyguard took one look and went for his sidearm; Gabe grabbed his arm and pushed him into the console. He drove his knee up into the guard's groin and after letting him double over Gabe smashed his elbow into the back of the guard's neck; he went down immediately.
Gabe turned back towards the colonel and un-holstered his tazer and stuck it into the colonel's gut.
"Everyone, leave." He said loudly, the scientists behind him left quickly. The Colonel began to move but Gabe poked him harshly in the gut. "Not you Colonel" He hooked his foot around a nearby stool and kicked it closer to the colonel "Sit." He ordered, keeping his voice level, despite the anger he was feeling being this close to him, and the fact that Gabriel now saw what was on the T.V. screens didn't help; A mutant lizard was on a slab, he had a Y-incision and a hacked off arm to boot.
"Do you have any idea who I am, son?" The colonel's voice had a slight southern draw attached to what Gabe surmised was a northern accent, most likely Washington or Oregon.
"Of course I do." Gabe answered "You're colonel William Stryker, former military cleric who transferred to extraterrestrial R and D around four years ago, specifically Mutant research." He paused for a second then nodded towards the screen. "Who's that?" Stryker didn't look at the screen.
"A mutant we picked up in the New York sweep." He answered.
"I didn't ask what he is I asked who he is." Gabe was finding it hard to be civil.
"We didn't bother to ask." Stryker replied, then leaned closer to Gabriel as if to get a better look at him. "I know you, don't I?" He added, He's quick Gabe thought.
"Where is he?" Gabe asked, ignoring Stryker's question.
"Two floors down behind the best security we have in place, you'll never get to him and besides that, he's dead, son." Gabe didn't need the colonel to tell him that, he could tell just by looking. Gabe sighed then refocused on the colonel.
"I have a message from my employers colonel Stryker, quit now or we'll find someway to have you dishonourably discharged later down the line." It was a bluff, a strong bluff, but a bluff just the same. Gabe ploughed through his memories of Stryker, everything he knew, and had heard, of the man.
"Oh really?" Stryker asked with a laugh "and what do you think you have on me."
"It's not up to me to tell you that but I could talk to the cops about two suspicious deaths around four, five years ago, just before you transferred." It was enough; Gabe looked into the colonel's eyes and saw guilt and anger. "That's just the tip of the iceberg Stryker, Quit, now." Gabe pulled the trigger on the tazer and electrocuted the colonel into unconsciousness, he pulled the cartridge that attached the electrodes to the tazer off and left it attached to Stryker. He holstered the weapon and ran out of the room.
Storm sat in the cockpit of the Velocity, fidgety and tense, she had completed the pre-flight as Shift had suggested, and then did it again, then again and again. She was going crazy just sitting there and waiting for something to happen.
All of a sudden the base was a hive of activity, alarms were sounding all over the base and she could see military personnel running towards the hangers. She started the engines and pushed the rotor speed up and dusted off, seconds before she heard Mystique over the radio.
"Storm, we're going to need pick up service, building five." She could hear the alarms in the background, as well as other voices. She pitched the VTOL forward towards the base.
"Storm, do a wide sweep and come in from the south, there's less chance of you getting tagged from that direction." Shift shouted over the radio, several loud noises made the speakers buzz loudly, almost drowning him out.
"I copy Shift." Storm pulled the nose up and banked the Velocity. She could already see people on the roof of building five and hoped that Shift's course change wouldn't complicate things.