CH: 10
The dull thud of the silenced rifle echoed off the metal trashcans and dumpsters of the street below, few could recognize such a sophisticated weapon's signature, there was no need for silent attacks on this street, any silence needed was assured by the unspoken code that ensured no one would ever hear or see anything. Those who did recognize the sound knew that it was time to move their affairs elsewhere. But the sound also served another purpose, like a sprinter in the blocks the gun shot released him, and Remy's internal clock started ticking.
'Merde, Merde, Merde.'
His trained fingers began to expertly disassemble his weapon, he quickly stowed it away and began to remove all evidence of his presence from the room.
'Five minutes tops, mebbe less, gotta get down der an finish de job, he gon' wake up soon 'nough, even wolvie couldn't keep him down fo' too long an' he put a claw right through his head.'
Good, the room was sterile, even close scrutiny would reveal no signs of his presence. He slung his coat over his W&B uniform that he had been outfitted with, he felt the familiar weight of his bo-staff in the inside pocket, and the unfamiliar weight of his newly acquired combat knife, a weapon that he hardly wanted but that he knew would be required to finish the job.
Once last quick scan of the room to ensure clean-up was complete, he grabbed his gear and made his way to the exit.
'Four minutes easy, look like ya might jus' pull dis one off homme'
As he was about to open the door when the four members of his team he thought he had left behind burst through the door. They saw the room and his weapon already put away, they immediately knew.
"Shit Gambit! You were supposed to wait for us!"
'Fuck! Dis ain' good.'
"Relax fox, he ain' dead yet, jus' close, if we don' get down der right now though he gon' be long gone by de time we do, we need to get these restraints on him ASAP D'accord?"
'He gon' blow my cover as soon as he wake up, I gotta find a way an make sure he don' talk or dis job gon' be over fo' it starts.'
"O.k. lets get down there and lock this one down guys."
"Here fox, you take de restraints an' take care of it, der was a witness down on de street dat I gotta take care of, I'll meet you back at de landin' strip."
"Fine, make sure you dump the body somewhere they wont find it until were gone."
"D'accord homme, I see you in a while."
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"Is he awake?"
"Yes Mr. Trask, his vital readings are all indicative that he is fully conscious."
"Give him a shot of epinephrine; I want to make sure that he is fully aware of the situation."
The Doctor fumbled through the various instruments of torture that were strewn about the cart that had been wheeled in for this particular session. Pulling out the syringe she injected its contents into the IV bag that hung at Xavier's side, the steady beep of his heart monitor sped up.
"Professor? Professor Xavier, I know you are in there somewhere. You are proving to be quite resilient to our tactics. It is rare that I make a personal appearance with one of our subjects but you are quite important to our project."
Xavier didn't acknowledge the presence of Trask, in fact he had not moved of his own volition in sometime now.
"You do realize that you could save yourself this unnecessary pain by just cooperating don't you?"
Nothing.
"Very well then professor, it is a shame that after we are through there will be nothing left of your great mind to salvage. You will break of course; it is only a matter of time. I suppose that you believe your X-men will come for you, I could only hope so, it will save me the trouble of hunting them down myself".
Trask though he saw a spark in Xavier's eye, some glint of recognition in response to his threat on the X-men. But Xavier only sat there, unmoving. He continued, reveling in the sound of his own voice.
"You see Professor, you have a valuable talent, and I have a need for that talent. Somehow when you hook into that machine of yours you are able to locate any mutant on the planet, which is a very useful skill to me. Do you know how time consuming and expensive it is to hire mercenaries to track these mutants down? Your Cerebro unit was difficult to reproduce in its entirety but we have a reasonable facsimile, what I cannot reproduce is your ability. New equipment that has been developed is quite successful at hiding the signatures of mutants, they have managed to completely fool my sensors, but they cannot hide from your physic ability can they? Once you are broken we will have control of your mind, you will work for me one way or the other, it makes no difference."
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As he walked down the dark abandoned street he reached into his pocked to retrieve his vibrating PDS,
Gambit: Target secure, heading back to rendezvous point, estimated time of departure 1 hour. Take care of the witness and report back. –Fox
He sat down at the bus stop bench and tried to steady his shaking hand. Of course there was no witness, none that would matter anyways; he just needed to buy himself some time to figure out a game plan. Luckily the firm was very thorough in its research, the restraints for Creed included a built in sedative delivery system that packed enough punch to put an elephant down for a few days. But what was he going to do when Creed woke up? He would smell Remy's scent sooner or later, it was unavoidable, and when he did he would let anyone and everyone know who he was, his cover as Jean Paul Gautreau would be blown wide open, he dropped his head into his hands in frustration.
'Homme, you coulda used any name in dis world and ya give dem de one dat everyone know you by, soon as dat animal yell Gambit dey gonna know an dis heist is goin' right down de shitter.'
Creed wasn't dead yet but damn it if he didn't try to make it happen. He had every intent of finishing him off before he was interrupted. Oddly enough though, the man who could torture himself for things that were completely out of his control felt almost no remorse at all, what little he did feel was directed at his failure to eliminate Creed. He felt a little lighter, as if justice was being served. If law enforcement were able to capture him and hold him for long enough he would almost certainly get the death penalty. Remy was just expediting the process a little.
It was odd to him; he started out only wanting to further his reputation as a thief. But this job had suddenly evolved into something more, he was no longer only interested in filling this contract. There were questions here that needed to be answered, about the job he was working and about his involvement in it. First and foremost Creed had to die, that was a certainty, he would not leave with the item until he was certain that Creed could no longer harm another innocent in this world. Second, what was this facility doing? Did he want to be responsible for whatever tortures they were inflicting upon mutants? He doubted that many of the "subjects" that they held had done anything to deserve the treatment that they were getting, if he stood by and did nothing it would be the same as contributing to their situations. But what could he do about it? One nagging unavoidable solution weighed in the back of his mind, there was one resource that he knew could help these people, but he was not yet ready to face them. It would be selfish to attempt to do it himself and fail, dooming the victims to a hopeless existence, if he was compromised then they truly were lost. Maybe their was a way to get them an anonymous message after he had escaped, either way he was going to have to hurry, time was running out and with his new self imposed additional objective of eliminating Creed he would have to coordinate the events perfectly.
He pulled out his PDS and typed in the confirmation,
Fox: Witness eliminated, I am en-route to rendezvous. –Gambit
He made his way down the street searching for a safer location that would allow him to hail a cab back to the landing strip. He reached into his pocket for his cigarettes and felt the familiar pack of cards that were almost a distant memory to him. It had been so long since he had used them, he had gotten so far away from who he once was.
Something behind him caught his attention; he turned around to find the bench that he had been sitting on glowing a bright shade of pink,
'What de fuck?'
He almost made it two steps before the forces that pushed the bench to its molecular limit finally released, and the concussion of the blast took him from his feet and sent him hurdling through the air.
He had time for one thought before he met the pavement that was rushing toward him.
'Merde, not again.'
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The compelling feeling to have the wind rushing around his body was too hard to resist, he had to fulfill the need of flight, the need to feel free from the bonds of the earth. But even as he soared through the air his desire was not quenched, something was missing from the action, like an addiction that needed to be sated there was something more to be satisfied, but he could not think of what.
'What is this calling, something is pulling me but I can't figure out what it is'.
Frustrated and curious, Warren did the only thing he could think of; he followed the mysterious pull in the direction that it took him, like a beacon calling him he flew west.
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"Has anyone seen Marrow?"
He held the sigh in that he felt like releasing; this team was getting harder and harder to lead. Wasn't this supposed to get easier over time? People were starting to take off with no notice and rarely told anyone where they were going, how were they supposed to carry on with the dream if no one even cared anymore?
These thoughts and more were becoming common to Scott Summers lately; it seemed to him that few of his teammates were as committed as they once were. He couldn't blame then entirely, after all that had happened to them he sometimes felt the same way, he just couldn't let it show. He had toyed with the idea of giving them all some time off, but he was worried that he would have trouble brining some of them back.
He thought of Wolverine, oddly he was one that he knew would come back, eventually, like he always did. He was more worried about those like Rogue, who would no doubt take off looking for Remy and not return until she found him, and if she did she might not come back at all, he doubted that Remy wanted to see any of them ever again as it were. And then there was Warren, who was becoming more and more distant as of late, the team's decision to go after Gambit obviously hadn't helped his disposition any, speaking of Warren he was another wayward X-man that he was having trouble locating, where were these people disappearing too?
"I haven't seen her sugah, she ain't been around since I got back from seein my motha."
"Wonderful, just what I need, a confused and pissed off mutant teenage terrorist with an attitude that's gone missing".
"I'm sure she'll turn up, she's probably just down in tha tunnels or somthin."
"Maybe your right, have you seen Logan? I need to speak with him."
"He's in tha War Room yellin at the communicator screen."
"Thanks Rogue."
Scott made his way to the War Room, before he was even 50 ft from the door he could hear Wolverine yelling. He opened the door and found the source of his aggravation up on the communicator screen, Col. Nick Fury.
"What the hell do ya mean ya can't tell me nothin' more! This is bullshit and you know it Fury!"
"You have to understand that I do have obligations that go beyond any favors that you might think I owe you Wolverine, this information is classified, you'll have to accept my word that the proper government agencies are handling the situation."
"And what you hafta understand is that I don't give a rats ass about your classified info or your government agencies, I need this info, If I don't get it from you then I'm gunna hafta get it somewhere else, and I don't think you want me barkin' up that tree!"
"I've already told you everything I'm at liberty to disclose, I'd strongly advise you to keep the X-men out of this one, it's out of your league."
"Bub, you don't have a clue what league were in."
"Be that as it may, I believe this conversation is over, Fury out."
Before Wolverine could let out another retort the view screen returned to blackness, leaving only questions for the on looking Summers. Without turning around and still staring at the view screen Logan verbally expressed his aggravation.
"Can ya believe this shit Cyke?"
"I'm taking it that you didn't get much information from Fury on Trask?"
"Oh no, got plenty of info, just none of it worth a damn."
"Such as?"
"It seems that our boy Trask was workin' a top level project that had some questionable backin' from a couple government agencies."
"What kind of project?"
"That's what the jerk wouldn't tell me, just that it involves Trask".
"You don't think that he's trying to bring back the sentinels do you?"
"That's one thing he made perfectly clear, this ain't got nothin' to do with the sentinels. He musta known that if we thought it did we'd tear this country apart lookin' for em."
"Do you have any other sources of information that you can tap?"
"Ya I got a few, some lower level guys that might be on surveillance, I'll see what I can dig up. Right now I gotta follow up on a lead on Gumbo."
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She awoke in darkness, she tried to move her hand to rub the blurriness from her eyes but found her mobility impaired by leather straps that held her to the table. She began to work a bone fragment loose from her wrist, luckily it protruded at an angle that would allow her to work through the tough leather.
She heard footsteps down the hall and quickly feinted sleep, when no one came she continued her work, tediously working inch by inch until she had one arm free. She quickly loosened the rest of the straps that were holding her down and slid off the table.
She picked up the tattered remains of her clothes off of the floor beside her, Sinister had felt in necessary to completely disrobe her in order to leave feeling as vulnerable and humiliated as possible, but he only served to heighten her anger.
She had no time to sort through the feelings that were starting to overcome her, she knew from Sinister's words that Lebeau was in danger, but what did she care what happened to him? Wouldn't his demise bring some closure to her life? She would have liked to be the one to deliver the sentence of death, but if she had to let someone else kill him then so be it; her primary objective was to get out of this situation alive.
As she was moving down the dark hallway she began to devise a plan as to how she would contact the X-men to warn them about Sinister's plans for Lebeau. She halted for a moment to consider this, did she really want to warn them? She had thought that nothing would please her more than to see him dead, but now she began to wonder about her own feelings. She was confused at her own thoughts; perhaps she wanted Lebeau to live if only to speak with him, to get some sort of history about what had actually happened. No one had been able to tell her for sure except Sinister, and he only revealed what he wanted her to hear. Lebeau would be able to explain exactly what had happened to her people that day. As she turned the corner a hand grabbed her by the back of her neck and flung her back down the length of the hall. She skittered across the floor, bone spurs snapping off in sickening crunches as they left a trail of blood the further she slid. As she began to rise she received help to her feet in the form of Sinister slamming her pinned against the wall by her throat. As she began to loose consciousness he saw the annoyed look on his face.
"It seems that you will prove troublesome to me if I keep you here, I will have to move you to a facility that is more adequate to keep you from providing me with distraction."
A tesseract opened up behind them and he stepped through, dragging her behind him. When they emerged on the other side she found that her conditions had not improved, he unceremoniously threw her against the wall, farthest away from a door that provided a sliver of light entering through a crack in the bottom. Sinister turned to leave, stepped through the door and slammed it behind him. He was greeted on the other side,
"Oh, good afternoon Mr. Trask, I didn't know you were down here, are you here to see subject X?"
"Yes, I believe that I will pay the good professor a visit this afternoon, it seems that it is time to speed up his treatment."
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