Chapter 7
The rebels' airship approached the city borders which were protected from the outside world by the invisible barrier of the force field. Marcus and a few of his most trusted people took command on the captain's bridge. On account of the agreement with Callisto, the man agreed that one of mutants, Shola, also became a member of the commanding crew. Other strangers from the other world stayed outside, where they tried to make friends with Marcus' people, sometimes with a better and sometimes with a worse outcome. Valeria, black-haired girl belonging to the group which provoked the fight with Excalibur members in the camp, sat by the main console controlling the machine.
"Can we see something?" The bearded man asked, watching the screen hanged on the wall opposite to his armchair. There was nothing on it apart from moving strips of the noise.
"In a minute..." Valeria answered and, after a moment, an image from the bow camera of the vehicle appeared on the display.
"He have it! We'll have also data from sensors..." She announced stoping in half a sentence.
"What happened!?" Marcus asked.
"Look yourself." Valeria pressed some button on the console table. Map of surroundings appeared on the screen. It showed vehicles quickly approaching from the large city.
"Damn it! Call an alert!" The bearded man was irritated.
"What's going on?" Shola didn't understand all information coming to him from the screen.
"They're attacking us!"
One of the vehicles from the city, looking like Marcus' ship, but a little bit smaller in size, assumed position directly above the machine of rebels and targeted two energetic cannons at it. When balls of light hit the force field protecting the ship, everything on its deck was shaken.
"Will it withstand?" Marcus asked with an anxiety.
"Yes... at least for now. But we have another problem."
"What?"
"One of them start speeding up. It's rushing at us." The girl pointed at green spot on the radar's screen quickly approaching its center.
"What's going on here!?" Wicked asked entering the bridge. Hub and Freakshow appeared after her.
A moment later, Marcus' people, the black man and the blonde also joined them.
"They're attacking us." Shola replied. John didn't keep an eye on new arrivals. He was talking to the black-haired girl all the time.
"Kamikaze?"
" I think that it's something much worse."
The green and organically looking vehicle of the opponent hit the side of the ship. The entire deck was shaken, and electronic devices stopped working for a moment. Hub and Wicked were knocked over. Freakshow instinctively changed into the form of the wild beast with legs adhering to floor. The blonde also lost her balance, but her black friend caught her. In some other cabin of the ship, small Natalie fell off the bed on the floor. She started crying, and Mary ran to calm her.
"We lost force field!" Valeria announced with a terror. After a moment, he switched the screen to the view from the side camera. As it turned out, an organic insectoids' ship was stuck to the flying machine. Its peculiar construction impeded the flow of an energy in force field, deactivating it and making the ship completely defenceless. Manholes in the vehicle opened and soon many armed insect-warriors appeared on the deck of the rebel's flying machine.
"At least they won't be shooting at us."Valeria said seeing the numerous army of the opponent.
"But they can teleport commandos straight to our decks." Marcus sumed up.
At the same moment, aboard machine of the Chosen, inside white walls of the conveyor, the elite group of white-haired soldiers geared up for a teleport jump. When the commander gave orders, and the technician started the procedure of sending, something impeded the flow of the energy. Soldiers stayed on the spot. Nobody of people present could explain why the device which they had tested repeatedly before, broke in such an important moment. Meanwhile spherical aircraft soared above the vehicle of soldiers. There were only two people on its deck - an old, bearded man and the young woman with black hair - Almea.
"Are you ready?" The bearded man asked.
"Yes. It's remarkable, that you were able to hack their systems and to use their teleporter from a distance. I didn't know that it was possible."
"Everything is possible. More complex system, more ways to get inside it unnoticed. And now prepare, I will send you right away. Remember that this method works one-way. I will not be able to move you back."
"I know it. But I agreed to do this."
"End of chatting. All buffers are full." The old man announced to Almea and started the device on which she was standing. The body of the woman underwent the change into the energy and it was sent to one of cargo holds of the rebels' ship in this form. A moment later, the machine broke.
"Damn. Everything burnt." The old man swore.
"Hub! Teleport me outside! Quickly!" The bald black man shouted to his friend.
"What? There are a lot of these... bugs!"
"If you don't teleport me right away these bugs will come here!" He said.
"Wicked, Freakshow, help rebels defend the ship against the attack of commandos from the city." He added.
Hub fulfilled the order of her friend very unwillingly and teleported with him outside the aircraft. Both of them appeared on board of the machine. There blew a very strong wind and a deafening noise of engines of the rebels' vehicle and the assault ship of general Kanzar's commandos was heard. The girl spotted the green, organic insectoids' ship which stuck into the side of the flying machine of her new acquaintances. Dozens of soldiers resembling mantis emerged from the holes in its hull. Some of them were armed with rifles, other carried a strange equipment used probably to shot down the engines of the aircraft or make a large hole in its body.
"Listen, we'll do this way..." Shola told something his friend. She heard his words with an effort, because high, squeaky voice of insectoids talking to each other added to the noise of the wind and engines. Shola launched two telekinetic impulses towards the approaching wave of insects. Soldiers were hit and many of them fell off the board of the flying aircraft in the gulf of the old part of the city. After the attack by the black man assailants changed tactics. They dispersed over the entire deck to minimise losses in case of the next attack.
"Now!" Shola shouted to Hub. His telekinetic attack was much more powerful than the first one and directed at the ship of insectoids. The organic machine was thrown away from the hole in the board of Chosens' airship and started falling down. Hub had to conduct the most difficult teleportation in her life. She used her mutant abilities on the insect ship and moved it at the place where the attacking vehicle of rebels was hovering. Two machines collided, being seriously damaged. Living ship of insectoids was incapable of the flight, and vehicle of the white haired warriors kept the stable position with an effort and was gradually losing the altitude.
"Hub, you did it! Can you hear me!? You did it!" The black man was happy.
"We're coming back!" He added seeing approaching insectoids.
"Hub?" He asked surprised, when the girl didn't answer him. After a moment, it turned out that the girl had fainted.
"Damn it!" Shola was horrified. The last telekinetic attack weakened him very much. He wasn't sure whether he could made the energy wave intense enough to neutralize the group of armed insects coming at him from all around.
In the same time, on the small bridge of Marcus' aircraft the crew made last preparations to turn the force field on. Marcus stood behind the back of black-haired Valeria Richardson, who was working by the computer console. A few other people were in the room, Wicked, Freakshow and Marcus' group members, the blonde Alaina Meadows and the black man Trevor.
"Marcus, we must do it. We cannot wait any longer. If we don't activate the force field, the Chosen commandos from the second ship will start teleporting to our decks."
"I know about it..." John clenched fists.
"You cannot do it! They saved you! If not Shola and Hub, insects would get inside..." Wicked screamed.
"We must wait for them!" She added.
"Marcus, if we don't activate the force field there will be no time to reconfigure it and merge it with citiy's field. We will break against the barrier." Valeria spoke in a quiet voice. Alaina joined the conversation.
"How much time we need!?"
"Perhaps five minutes..." Valeria replied.
"Excellent! It'll be enough for a rescue operation! You're going with me!" The blonde pointed at Wicked and Freakshow.
"Where?" Mutant girl didn't understand what her new ally had wanted to do.
"Save your friends! We're going to the upper deck. Quickly!" She added. The black man obediently went behind her, and after a moment of thought, Wicked and Freakshow did the same.
"Wait... if you don't make it we'll activate the force field. Natalie is the most important." Marcus informed his subordinates.
"We will be a roast." Alaina sumed up leaving to the corridor. Duringthe walk to the upper deck, the group of rebels came into the armoury. There were rifles of different kind on the walls, probably stolen from some storehouse in the city of the Chosen.
"Take them. You will need them above." The black man took one of the biggest weapons, and then Wicked and Freakshow took little rifles off a shelf.
"They're energy weapon." Alaina informed adding:
"I hope that you're able to use them."
"I've never had something like that in my hands before." Black-haired girl admitted.
"That's ok. It's enough to aim them at the enemy rather than at me and press the trigger. I think that you're able to understand it."
"Alaina, we're going up." The black man growled, seeing that his friend started to tease the mutant from Callisto's group again.
Shola was hiding behind a steel structure sticking out of the deck of the flying ship. He tried to protect unconscious Hub, and simultaneously defend himself against insectoids' attacks. Alien beings also used top floor extensions of different kind as refuges and they were constanty firing energy rifles at the young mutant. The boy answered them with salvos of telekinetic field, but he had to limit their strength not to use his powers up entirely. Tearing out the living vehicle from the machine's hull tired him out very much. He was cornered by groups of insectoids from every side. Suddenly, the steel door in one of top floor extensions of the airship opened with a thud and at the same momen,t one of attackers hiding closeby was struck by a shot from energy cannon. His two companions were disorientated. They didn't know what killed their comrade, because their opponent was still hiding on the other side of deck. Trevor emerged the door and fired twice at surprised opponents. Insects were hit in heads and fell down inertly, gushing with a green blood.
"Shola! This way! Move quickly!" Wicked shouted to the boy. Remaining insectoids, seeing the appearance of new persons, immediately directed the fire at them.
"Shoot at them! Protect your friends!" Alaina shouted aiming at the direction of big praying mantes. Trevor also was ready for the shot, but at the other group of insectoids. A shooting began. Marcus' subordinates sent shower of energy bullets at their opponets. Young mutants also joined them to protect Shola's escape route. Their shots weren't accurate, but their frequency sufficed effectively to block the attack of the Collective soldiers. Shola picked Hub up, and quickly ran to the place where his acquaintances defended themselves, helping himself to fasten moves with bops of telekinesis against the floor. When he managed to reach doorway to the lower deck, he retreated with the others to the inside of the machine. Alaina immediately activated intercom in order to get in touch with the commanding bridge.
"Marcus! We're inside! Activate force field! I repeat, we're safe! Activate force field!" She shouted to the microphone. At the same moment the manhole opened again insectoid jumped inside. Freakshow turned into the wild beast with four hands resembling Hulk. The insect, surprised with the transformation, didn't defend himelf from a punch of the huge hand and was deafened.
Meanwhile on the bridge, Valeria was ready to start generators of force field. When Marcus gave the command, the girl immediately touched one of buttons on the steering console. The entire surface of the upper deck was surrounded by the invisible barrier. Insectoids, who had a bad luck to be aboard, were turned into steaming crackling in a blink of an eye, and their charred armours fell apart like a dust. The vehicle approached the barrier separating the last confines of the city from the desolate areas, hiding dangers known only to a few.
"We will merge in a half minute!" Valeria said not taking the eyesight away from the monitor. Marcus fixed his eyes on the large screen showing the view from the bow camera of the machine.
"Prepare for the blow!" He shouted simultaneously opening the communication channels in the entire airship.
"I'm synchronizing fields!" Valeria announced. When the shield protecting the vehicle touched the force field of the city, the flying machine was shaken. Things fell off shelves in rooms and corridors. Mary calmed Natalie terrified with an attack by warriors from the city. Shola protected Hub sleeping on the bed in a clinic. The black man stumbled, and unconscious insectoid carried by him fell down on the floor. Almea, hiding in warehouses unused by Marcus' people, was hit by the ceiling. Force fields surrounding the ship and the city embraced each other and after a moment changed into a one, big energy structure. The vehicle was threw outside the city's barrier as the barrier was a rubber membrane. Rebels were outside the border of metropolis they hated so much.
Kanzar watched all of this from the deck of his flying vehicle. He was furious, because after the airship crossed the city's barriers he lost the contact with Almea. He didn't even know whether she had been safely teleported inside the machine.
Erik lost a patience after many minutes of waiting for Kanzar's response. He was told that he was a guest, but he was treated like a prisoner all the time. The room in which he forcibly stayed blocked his abilities and now also normal communication with the outside world. Magneto decided to tear through thewalls and look around in surroundings without bodyguarding of the commander of New Tokyo defence forces. He sat down on the hemispherical chair, and after a moment, plunged into a deep meditation. His mind, carried by electromagnetic waves transmitted by the body tried to force its way through dampening materials and force fields. The man knew that he would not be able to use the plenitude of his powers, but in spite of it he decided to sense, in an almost nonmeasurable way, some magnetic external field and to use it as his target. At one point, disk-shaped aircraft piloted by two of Zeta Reticulians flew above the tower where he was being held prisoner. Its anti-gravity drive generated radiations of different kind, also the one which was needed by Magnus. The slight modification of parameters inside the column of the engine was enough to change the trajectory of the ship. The mistake was not registered by deck devices at first, but after a few minutes it became big enough that it changed the path of the vehicle, pointing it straight at Erik's prison. Pilots tried to recover the control over the machine, but it was already too late. Airship hit the tower, knocking the big hole out in it, simultaneously damaging generators of force field which were canceling Magnus' abilities. The destroyed ship of aliens stuck out of a huge rift in the wall, and one could see unconscious pilots through the hole in it. Magnus saw clouds moving on the blue sky above the wreck of the vehicle. Erik's body surrounded with a blue glow. Soon, Magneto was flying on the sky of metropolis. When he watched airships movement between residential towers, he noticed that many vehicles had flown in one direction, to the outside part of the city. Some of them looked like armoured vehicles carrying soldiers of the Collective. Magnus followed their track, destroying spherical monitoring droids interested in his presence. He reached the outskirts of the metropolis in a place where the fight of the rebels' ship with soldiers of the Chosen and insectoids had happened only a minute ago. The man looked at the Chosens' vehicle standing on one of destroyed buildings. The fire burnt in its engines and autonomous firefighting vehicles waiting for the permission to take a rescue operation hovered around it. Much below a wreck of the insectoids' vehicle lay, destroyed by the violent ejection from Marcus' ship and collision with the hard earth. Green insects ran around it trying to take all elements which were still suitable for a reuse. Bodies of insect aliens killed in an attempt to get to the flying machine of rebels were lying all around. Magneto spotted that the barrier separating the city from the rest of the world had become much stronger and visible almost as a glass dome enveloping all buildings in the vicinity. He approached it trying to understand the nature of the radiation which formed it. At the same moment, a soldier entered private Kanzar's room in the aircraft watching a rescue operation.
"General Kanzar, an anomaly appeared!" He informed his commander.
"What anomaly?" White-haired man asked unwillingly, being furious by the escape of rebels and loss of a contact with Almea who stayed on the other side of the energy barrier.
"Stranger from other world. He is here. He is floating in the vicinity of the barrier. He is emitting a strange electromagnetic radiation."
"Did he get out of his cell?" Kanzar got up, heading for the exit. He went to the bridge and the soldier ran behind him. Magneto examining the energy barrier around a city was shown on-screen.
"Are we supposed to neutralize him?" One of officers asked.
"No. I will take care of him." Kanzar answered.
"Personally. I am going to the lock. " He added. After a moment, he left outside and flew towards Erik.
"What here are you doing? How did you get here?" He asked.
"I was convinced that I was a guest here. And I have the same rights as every other resident of this city. Why was I shut in the cell without windows and doors?" Magnus answered with a question turning around.
"There was an attack of the rebels! You can see how much damage they caused! You were locked up for the safety! Protection systems worked."
"Or perhaps something happened here that should I not see? Something what you want to hide from me?"
"You had your chance to become a part of the Collective Awareness. Then you would find a reply to every question! You rejected it!"
"And therefore did I become a prisoner? Because a refusal of acceptance of the connection makes me a rebel, your enemy?"
"I don't have time for the conversation. Rebels killed many of my people. You will have to come back to your room and stop dealing with not yours matters."
"Perhaps I don't want to come back to the cell? Perhaps I want to leave this town? And look for the aid somewhere else. I don't believe that this is the only place in which people able to help me get back home live. Perhaps you will turned the barrier off, for a minute, so I can safely cross it."
"The city is surrounded by deserts full of mutants and armed rebels. Only madman would agree to deactivate the barrier and expose the city to attacks by these bloodthirsty monsters."
"Perhaps it does protects the city... but perhaps the barrier does not protect from threats from the outside, it is here to hold city dwellers inside the golden cage?" Erik provoked.
"That's enough, Erik. You will go with me voluntarily, or I will force you to do it. Look ahead, the commanding ship has enough strength to reduce one old man to ashes."
"Are you sure that this power belongs to you?" Magnus asked with a mocking smile on the face.
"What are you talking about?" Kanzar was surprised. Fear appeared in his eyes.
"Ask your crew, do they still have control over the vehicle?"
"What... ok." Long-haired man took out the communication device looking like a small, white pearl.
"Is everything all right aboard?" He asked.
"No... something is happening! The machine is ignoring us. Electronics went mad, and the manual control is blocked entirely! Something controls us."
Erik looked at the full of fear eyes of Chosens leader's.
"Okay! What do you want!" Kanzar said angrily.
"Take me to your leader. I want to meet the creator of the Collective."
Magnus and Kanzar stood before door to the black citadel of the leader of the Cosmic Collective.
The gate was located at the middle of the structure and was connected with one of city's administrative towers by the bridge. Above and below the level of the gate there were communications tracks for vehicles moving along sky-high motorways and for flying machines. Foundations of the building disappeared in the darkness of the fog settling at the foot of the city, and its peak touched clouds. The tower pulsated with a slow rhythmical move like muscles of the diaphragm pressing air to huge lungs.
"I contacted with the main command. It turned out that our Lord agreed to accept your visit, stranger from the other world. I am surprised, because your loyalty to our world was not confirmed and even something opposite actually happened. Nevertheless, if if this is a will of our leader..."
"Enough chatting. I want to meet this being. I must find my companions and get back home."
"All right. The gate will be opened. Remember to walk straight ahead and deviate nowhere. This place has a life of its own, even independent of will of our leader."
The great gate was opened, pulled by organic structures looking like large muscles. The man could come inside. After Magneto crossed the gate, it closed leaving him alone inside the building. Erik went along the corridor lightened up by sacks with phosphorescing living tissue hanging on the black wall. When he was in the heart of the building, he was convinced that he was inside large organism. Walls pulsed rhythmically with overlapping frequencies of breaths and the heartbeats of the being.
A noises of the air mass suck into the interior of complex and exhaled somewhere in the opposite direction and a gurgling of liquid nutritients flowing through veins and arteries on the walls were heard. Other sounds, much more difficult to decipher reached ears of the man also. When he entered one of chambers, he faced a huge statue in a black, organic armour looking like a large insect. The figure kneeled in the middle of the hangar and her huge and disproportionately long arms rested on the floor. Her head was small, covered with something resembling helmet with a gas mask. A closed gate was stuck in its chest. Erik realized that a spiral stairwell was leading to the door and decided to use it. When he crossed the black gate and entered the interior of the organic throne room, it turned out that he had appeared in the world apart. He was walking on a green grass and saw a sweep of meadows stretching out until the horizon, forests and a clear sky full of milk-white clouds. Erik guessed that was inside very sophisticated holographic projection, but the reality of sensual experiences surprised him. He approached the white verandah standing in the middle of the garden and noticed other person. There was a man with long, dark hair, dressed in a white suit. Magneto came closer, and the stranger greeted him with a smile.
"Welcome stranger from the other world. I waited for this meeting." He said.
Magnus remembered that he had already seen his face.
"I know you. I knew being such as you in my world. You are Beyonder..."
Two men very similar to each toher were walking along a muddy footpath surrounded by tall forest trees. They were dressed in workwear clothes, one of them carried an axe, and the other one had chainsaw. After a short time, they reacheda forest clearing, on which the tree intended to cut out grew. One of men geared himself up to use the chainsaw, but the second one stopped him. He looked around in search for an unwanted company.
"There is nobody here." He spoke.
"We can do it in our way." He added.
"Ok." The other one agreed. Men touched each other hands and a moment later their bodiesmerged into one organism. After the concrescence, one of brothers whose body lost all parts from the waist down, grew out of the second one's back. Mutants smiled hitting the trunk of th tree with the axe filled with the energy generated by their shared body. The blow was so mighty that the large tree broke as if it was a match and fell down on woody land.
"Let's do it." One of Kleinstocks said. In the same moment, the surroundings started to be covered with an unnaturally looking fog.
"What's this? Damn it!" One of brothers swore seeing as the fog was becaming thicker and thicker. Two silhouettes appeared. When Kleinstocks saw the ginger woman, they were surprised, but quickly recognised in her their friend from the group organised by the Magneto.
"Voght? What are you doing here?" Sven asked.
"How did you find us?" Harlan added.
"It me who found you." The bald man on a wheelchair spoke, when his body became completely material after transport by Amelia's teleportational fog.
"What is he doing here! You betrayed us!" Brothers were furious. Four hands of their joined body filled with an energy.
"Wait! Xavier is gathering our team! For Magneto! Magneto lives and needs our help!" The woman tried to calm Acolytes.
"We won't be talking with you! We will kill both you and this bald clown!"
"Sven! Harlan! Let me explain!" Amelia could see the fury of mutants and prepared for the defence.
"We have no time for it." Xavier whispered looking at the double man. His telepathy got through simultaneously to the interior of both minds. Brothers dropped their hands and obediently approached the ginger woman.
"Did Charles, what have you done?" Voght felt fear, seeing how easily her old beloved took control over the brothers, overcoming their double consciusness.
"Amelia, move us to the hospital. We'll rest a moment and then we'll set off for next Acolytes."
"Charles..." The woman wanted to talk with him, but his eyesight discouraged her.
"Well. But later we'll have to talk a lot." Body of ginger mutant turned into a fog and consumed everyone on the forest forest clearing.
In other place, inside a bar in a small city, there was a meeting of different kind. A few men surrounded the girl with short, brown hair sitting on the floor by a wall opposite the front door. They were armed into wooden boards with nails and knives. The girl looked at them with a terror. Bruises on her face betrayed that she had already been hit by them. She move her arm. Seeing her gesture, one of men went into a rage. He hit woman's hand with a board, hurting her to the blood.
"You thought that you could do to us what you did to John?! Never! There is too many of us, and you are only one!"
"John didn't wake up after what you had done, you witch! Therefore we must punish you!" The other regular of the bar, a black, bald man added.
"Leave me alone! I did nothing! I defended myself!"
"You don't have a right to defend yourself mutant carrion! We know who you were! We know who you are and we won't be killed by you and your kind!"
The girl leaned against the wall. When she passed the hand over wallpaper, she left the bloody track on it. The black man patted the thin old man with grey goatee beard.
"You did well doc. The thing you injected her, stopped her using devilish powers." He said, and then turned to mutant girl.
"You aren't so strong without your sparks, right?" He spat towards the girl. At the same moment the room was filled with cold, opaque and dense fog.
"What is going on happening here? What the fuck you smoked?" The bearded man with a knife said. Mutant woman cuddled up to the wall. She felt dizzy, and tranquilizer disturbed her mind more and more.
"Is somebody here? Appear!" The black man screamed when two human figures started forming in the fog. Charles Xavier and Amelia Voght were standing opposite the furious crowd of drunk provincial thugs. Young mutant woman watched as assailants attacking her freezed at a spot after a mental order of the bald man.
"Gianna? It is me, Amelia Voght. Do you remember me?" The ginger woman asked.
The girl looked at her former friend and smiled. Then she spotted Xavier. She became more serious and instinctively clenched fists in order to gather an electric charge.
"Why are you with him?" She asked.
"The professor seeks all of us, because he needs our help. We know that Magneto lives and we want to track him down."
"And why it concerns me?! I'm fed up of being a pawn in the game of others!" Gianna's explosive reaction surprised both Xavier and Amelia. Mutant girl leaned against the wall, trying to conceal the fact that she was weakened very much.
"I found a group of people same as me, I was pleased that they had taken me in, but later... they ordered me to kill! I tried also to look for your help, but you turned your back to me, don't you remember it?! When in the end I escaped from a continuous fight between people and mutants, I got a job... somebody remembered about who I had been in the past and then a hell broke out again! Even if they... will beat me up... it's still better than dressing a colorfull uniform again!"
Xavier looked at the girl with a cold eyesight. After a moment he turned his wheelchair around and moved towards the exit.
"What are you doing?" surprised Amelia asked.
"Let's get out of here. As soon as Book finds Sarah Ryall, you will have to teleport us again. Gianna clearly showed that she didn't want to be a part of our team. Earlier you were disgusted, when I forced Kleinstocks to the obedience against their will. Now I won't act in this way.
"But this time it's different! They will kill her, tear her to shreds!"
"You were trained to the fight, first by Magneto, and then by Exodus. A few ordinary people should not be a problem for her."
"But... they poisoned her with something... did you overlook how she looked? No Charles, I won't leave her in this place."
At the same time, people in the bar were freed from Xavier's telepathy. They were even more furious than before the unwanted break. They returned to oppressing Gianna immediately.
"What happened? I remember nothing."
"It was she! This witch messed with our head. She can even fry our brains!"
"Therefore we have to kill her! The sooner the better! And bury her so fat that they'll never find her."
"Try this, you rubbish!" The girl clenched fists. A fog turned up in the room again. Assailants started coughing and suffocating. They dropped their weaponry and very ran out of the bar, not looking at Xavier. Amelia concentrated the fog in one place, changing back into the human woman.
"Go with us Gianna. When we help you, you will decide whether you stay with us or not. They can come back and this time perhaps there won't be anybody who could rescue you."
Two women left the building, where Professor waited X ofr them. The man talk with young mutant. Amelia used her organic fog for teleportation again, this time moving all the way to the hospital in which Charles gathered Acolytes.
Amelia visited sleeping Carmella and Kleinstock brothers under the influence of Xavier's telepathy, still with joined bodies. The professor telepathically calmed Gianna thanks to which the girl could fall asleep and rest after a very stressing week. When Book turned up in his, provisionally prepared in one of medical rooms, study, it turned out that his rest would be very short.
"I managed to get a fix on Sarah Ryall." The plump woman in specs said.
"Really? I didn't expect that we would find her so quickly."
"Sarah didn't try to hide after Genosha's destruction. Thanks to my connecting with thousands of newspapers, both paper and electronic, I learnt about a strange ghost of a woman appearing in various places on the west coast. The girl has most often been seen in the vicinity of places associated with different persons working in computer companies developing modern, prototype technologies."
"Perhaps she came back to the terrorist activity from before the disintegration of Magneto's group?"
"At the beginning I thought so, but nothing was damaged or stolen after her visits."
"In that case why did she appear there?"
"I think that it's an espionage. Sarah works for one of companies and explois her ability to change into the energeric being to check what is happening at the competition. She turned up at newspapers, because she was careless and some watchmen or the cleaning lady saw her. What's more, her energy form causes disruptions in apparatus of different kind, cameras, computer systems. And everything is archived somewhere. For the ones who don't know what to look for, it's only a noise, but I'm able to find the repeating element in it. What is interesting, I found this element not only in places in which Scanner was seen, but also in the office of one of companies - called HalleR Software. And what's more it appeared many times."
"Probably the girl works for them."
"I also think so. And she dematerializes in one of their buildings. There is her sortie base."
"Thank you, Book. Hand over all addresses of this company on the West Coast to Amelia. We must recruit Scanner as soon as possible."
Meanwhile, a black-haired man entered spacious living room with a big couch, glass table and large TV set. The room was plunged in darkness, the only light came inside from lamp posts standing behind windows. The man tried to find a switch of the lamp, but stopped, instinctively sensing someone's presence.
"Sarah, is it you? Are you here?" He asked. He walked a few steps in the direction of the window. Then he stopped again.
"You aren't Sarah! How did you get here?!" He shouted. After a moment, he lost his balance and fainted falling down on the carpet. A tall man with long hair covered with a cape stood in the corner of the room. The darkness covered his face effectively, but rays from the lamp post falling on his betrayed the smile. After a short time, Sarah Ryall turned up in the dark room. The girl came out of the shower and was dressed only in an apple green towel. She looked all around trying to notice the figure of the owner of the home in which she lived. She noticed him lying on the floor.
"John! What happened?" She ran up to him and at the same moment she noticed the second person hiding in the shadows.
"You..." She whispered feeling a telepathic hug of the man tightening on her mind.