Unstable

Chapter 14

Moving

Gabriel walked up to the gates, wondering if Fury knew about the warehouse that the stolen APC was housed in and what he was going to do to get SHIELD out of his fiscal affairs. He stopped as two cars pulled into view on the grass verges either side of the gate, neither of them were his silver Subaru, both were black sedans, Gabe figured one was a GM and the other looked German, possibly an Audi. Two people got out of the German sedan and approached the gate, Gabe recognised one of them instantly, Fury. Gabe opened the gate and raised a hand in a half-salute half-greeting.

"What can I do for you boss?" he asked as he walked out of the institute grounds, he looked through the windscreen of the other sedan, a Lincoln and waved to Agent Carter, she didn't seem too happy playing chauffer to…Gabriel couldn't see anyone in the back of the car.

"Actually Gabe, it's what I can do for you." Fury walked around the back of the car with his human shadow a half step behind him. "Freelancer McKinner, Agent Quatermain." He introduced the two who shook hands and professional-like nods. "Quatermain is one of my leading New York operatives, Gabriel, he has asked for your help on a small investigation he's heading up, I decided to introduce the two of you now so no misunderstandings could arise between his team and your controller." Gabriel took a overall look at Quatermain, he was taller than Gabriel and larger around the shoulders, black hair and brown eyes finished off a face that had professional written through, Gabriel doubted that Quatermain knew how to tell a joke.

"Okay, Let me know when you think you'll need me and I'll be on call." Gabriel said to Quatermain, he turned his attention to Fury before continuing. "Lyle told me my car was arriving around now."

"Yeah, I saw it." Quatermain interjected. "Looked horrible." Gabriel shrugged. Gabriel immediately recognised the voice as the task force leader from a week ago.

"I didn't buy it to aesthetically please me I bought it 'cause it was cheap and it would do everything I needed it to."

"Unfortunately Gabriel, a part of this job is image and having someone represent me and this organisation in a silver junk heap would be counter-productive and an embarrassment to SHIELD." Gabriel didn't speak. "So, I talked to the importer you used and convinced him to give us an appropriate vehicle for the same price." He handed Gabriel the keys to the Audi. "It's been upgraded inside and out with what we could without sacrificing performance and your gear is in the boot, Quatermain will fill you in from here." Fury nodded his goodbye and got into the Lincoln behind Carter, Quatermain beckoned Gabe to the boot of the Audi. He unlocked the trunk and shuffled over to the side so Gabriel could see Quatermain pull a switch that opened a hidden compartment beneath the boot. Inside the compartment were the usual items Gabe used on the job; uniform, lock picks set, wideband com-link, throwing knives, combat knife, short sword and a PDA, all in their individual cut-out niches. Along with his items were two extra's in their own niches, one looked like a blocky handgun and the other looked like a laser pointer. Quatermain pinched the laser pointer from its place along with the com-link, which he gave to Gabriel. Gabe fitted the com-link over his ear and adjusted the earpiece and mike. Quatermain turned the laser pointer on and pointed it at the Audis rear window; Gabe could hear the radio chatter from the CB.

"This is a laser-mike, it reads the vibrations from any surface and changes that into sound, the techno-weenies are lookin for a way to turn this into a reliable military local com-system. And this…" The agent replaced the laser-mike, picked up the gun and hefted it; it looked like it weighed a bit, underneath were four six-inch long battery packs in further recesses. "…This is a pulse-pistol, it fires a magnetic pulse that will stun an opponent for at least twenty minutes at ranges in excess of a hundred metres, it's entirely made of plastics and ceramics." He passed the weapon to Gabe; it was fairly heavy. "The weapon had a curious side effect against inorganic matter, it reduces weak materials like wood and glass to splinters and warps strong materials like metal." Gabriel put the gun back.

"It should come in useful." He pushed the switch back and watched the compartment become hidden again.

"I've placed the relevant files for this side job in your glove compartment along with a full list of what these gadgets can and can't do, I'll call you if I need you." Quatermain nodded a goodbye and handed Gabriel the keys and got in the front passenger seat of the Lincoln beside Carter. Gabriel walked around to the right side of the car and opened the door. He waved as the Lincoln drove by but didn't look up; he put the key in the ignition and started the car, he reversed the car and drove slowly down the drive, taking wide lines around the parked construction vehicles. He stopped at the garage doors and pulled out a garage door opener he had pulled of the van and continued down the ramp. He parked the sedan farther back from the lift doors so no one would have an excuse for looking in to the vehicle. Gabriel reached across the car and pulled out two brown file folders from the glove box before getting out and locking the car, he was back in the computer room in ten minutes quietly reading the mission file while the facial recognition program ran it's search.

The file was pretty sparse; it was filled mainly with photos all including the same costumed character. The first photo was of the target and a spandex wearing wrestler grappling with each other, the target was wearing an all over suit and mask in red and blue and the one after it, same guy, same costume but with black lines running across it and a black spider insignia across the chest. Description details on the target were painfully vague; it ran thus:

Target: Spider-man 'alias unknown'

Height: 5'11"

It ended there; no wonder Quatermain was having trouble.

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Hank was hunkered over a microscope looking at a sample of nanites as they slowly cannibalised each other.

"Hmmm." He said and pushed a button on a Dictaphone "The Nanites extend their run time by absorbing their weaker counterparts resources." He said into the Dictaphone "I presume this is what the nanites initially do to the host's tissue once they are extradited from the host's bio-electrical field, I surmise that this level of nano-technology runs on the human body's own electrical field and possibly enhances a hosts biology towards that particular end." Hank was concentrating hard and didn't hear the doors to the lab slide open or a young Native American boy walk up behind him.

"What are you looking at?" He asked, making Hank jump on his stool.

"Forge!" Hank exclaimed and got off of the stool to shake the boy's hand. "You made good time, here have a look at this." Hank motioned to the microscope. Forge sat down and leaned over the scope; he looked for a couple of seconds before raising his head and looking directly at Hank with a quizzical look.

"What are they?" he asked.

"The machines are called nanites, they bolster the human body and enhance it." Hank explained.

"Far out man, I looked into doing something like this before I zapped myself into the nth dimension." He lowered himself to the microscope once more. "Are they…eating each other?"

"That's a simple way of putting it." Hank said with a smile.

"So the nanites feed on each other, presumably to extend their life span but; why?" Forge asked aloud.

"You talk about them like they're alive."

"Well from a technical point of view; they are. They consume energy to survive towards a greater purpose, they have a limited lifespan and they can produce offspring of their own." Forge leaned back from the scope. "My one experiment was using a colony of three thousand of these things to build a hi-ball glass." He explained when Hank gave him a questioning look. "They got halfway before they ran out of power, my theory was that they ran out of energy and needed to create copies of themselves to follow their program." Hank pulled his now depleted sample of Gabriel's nanites.

"And it's this moment I tell you why I asked you here, I believe we might be able to add programs to these nanites that will spread among the original colony." Hank said and placed the test tube of nanites into a rack by the microscope.

"Any idea how you would reintroduce the reprogrammed nanites?" Forge asked as he grabbed the test tube and held it to the light; the powder had now turned to fog. "We're going to need a new sample."

"I'll have to look into that." Hank answered. "I'll see about the sample, I'm expecting Gabriel to visit in a few hours for a check up."

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Back in the computer room Gabriel was still leafing through the Spider-man file Quatermain had given him when the computer program finished it's search and displayed its results. Gabe closed the folder and clicked the first name on the screen: Sabretooth, known alias, Sabretooth. The SHIELD file ran like the rap sheet of a sociopath, there were at least seven counts of known murder and a suspected count leading into three figures. The next file was almost as bad: Remy LeBeau, known alias, Gambit. The file was filled with counts of petty theft, grand larceny and a few counts of assault and battery and one murder. The next was relatively small, a couple of arson charges on St. John Allerdyce aka Pyro. The last was the main one, but also the sparsest: Colossus, known alias, Piotr Nikolaievitch Rasputin. His file only consisted of a few notes, it had only been started a week ago but it did have a little information about his family; mother, father and older brother Mikhail, all dead, the only surviving members of the Rasputin family were Piotr and his sister Illyana, whereabouts unknown. Piotr never entered the country through any airports or harbours but was first seen in the US roughly three months ago in a grocery store, on his own, Illyana nowhere in sight. Gabriel pulled open a drawer and found a blotter and wrote down all the information in shorthand. He pulled his decoder and shut the PC off. He was back in front of Xavier's door within ten minutes.

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Two black vans meandered their way along Grey Maulkin lane, slowing but not stopping at the gates of the institute and then carried on up the tree-lined lane. Betsy, in the lead van, looked out of the passenger window at the partially constructed mansion.

"I remember coming to this place a few years ago, it reminded me of home." She said wistfully as the view of the mansion passed by the window, Qi, who was driving, glanced at her superior.

"You were here?" She asked.

"Yeah, Xavier was holding a fundraising event and my father, brother and myself were invited to attend." They rounded a slow bend away from the institute.

"So you've met the X-men?" Qi asked.

"No, they weren't around then, they were the point of the fundraising, well the concept of them really." Betsy paused "Xavier was careful about his selection of guests, he chose mutants mainly but there were one or two normal humans who were Xavier's benefactors since he started the institute." A break in the foliage on the right signified the entrance to another house along the road; the vans passed them, and the next two after that before they finally slowed down and turned into a paved drive of a house that was around half the size of Xavier's with two tall turrets in the north and south corners, The drive split into a long sweeping circle that passed by the front steps which the vans stopped by. Qi shut off the engine and unbuckled her seat belt.

"Why would Xavier have an institute built before he had students?" Qi asked as she dropped down from the high seat onto the tarmac. She walked around to the rear of the van, nodding to Tobias as he made his way out of the other vans drivers seat, and met Betsy at the back of the van.

"I didn't say he didn't have any students, just that the X-men weren't there." Betsy opened the rear doors of the van and beckoned Marlyn, Cadence and Tobias out.

"So he had students?" Qi asked as she picked up a metal case.

"Just the one that I saw." Betsy answered, picking up the twin of Qi's case. "A young girl Xavier had met in Afghanistan. Didn't catch her name." They hauled the cases up the stone stairs and through the oak front doors, inside the other members of STRIKE were depositing various boxes in several rooms, all the while looking around their new home.

"Very nice." Emma said out of sight in the dining room.

"Reminds me of the Outfit's receiving house." Marlyn noted from the kitchen "We'll have to head into town and get some supplies."

"Let's just get everything inside and set up first." Betsy answered. "Computers and surveillance gear in the study." She ordered. "The living room will be the down time area, likewise for the dining room and kitchen, decide amongst yourselves who gets which room. Tobias come with me, I'll show you the lookout."

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Gabriel opened the door to Xavier's office immediately after knocking, Logan was still in his seat but Ororo wasn't. Gabriel stood in front of Xavier's desk, off to the side so he could see Logan.

"I've pulled everything I could about this Colossus guy, it isn't much I'm afraid." He told the both of them. "His name's Piotr Nikolaievitch Rasputin. He's a Russian immigrant who's here illegally, Magneto's doing. His Parents and older brother are dead but he has a little sister, I think she's the weak link in his armour that Magneto's exploiting. We find Illyana and I reckon Piotr will defect from the Acolytes to join the X-men." He dropped the blotter on the desk for Xavier to review.

"He might just go back to Russia." Logan said after a moment.

"Without either a passport or a truckload of money, he's stuck here. Most smuggling operations are used to get people into the country, the ones Piotr would need are mainly used and run by organised crime, unaffiliated 'customers' would have to pay dearly for a ride out of America." Gabriel answered "It's the same with every western country." He added.

"What if he decides to separate himself and Illyana? Just make it by themselves?" Xavier asked.

"This isn't a professional opinion but I don't think that he would do that, I reckon he would accept any help going. It's just too risky otherwise." Gabriel paused for a moment. "The fact of the matter is that I don't have any idea what he will do once he's beyond Magneto's control." He sat down in Ororo's vacated seat and leaned back to get comfortable. "Regardless of how and why he's with Magneto we still need to consider him an enemy combatant, taking Magneto out of the picture could make him change his allegiance or it could do nothing to change his mind, we won't know until it happens." He shrugged.

"Well that was vague." Logan commented.

"I'm not a profiler Logan, I don't know what he'll do." He snapped. "All I can tell you is he has a sister, he was last seen in a grocery store upstate buying milk, eggs and cheese, he paid in cash, there's no evidence of him using a vehicle to arrive or leave and above all I know that his sister was not with him. These things I know beyond all doubt, given time I could tell you the store's name, who served him, what they talked about and whether he was given the right change. I could tell you if he was calm, nervous or angry by watching his body language on the tape and what he was going to do in that particular moment, beyond that I haven't got the faintest clue." The room was quiet for a second while the each thought on the problem. Finally Xavier spoke.

"I want the two of you to work on the problem, find Piotr's sister, free her and bring Colossus to our side." Gabriel and Logan nodded then left the professor in peace. Outside his office both adults looked at each other.

"Well this bites." Gabriel said finally and headed back to the communal room, Logan was by his side and answering him instantly.

"It's not gonna be easy that's for sure." Logan agreed.

"I mean it's damn near impossible to find two illegal immigrants in the whole of the state never mind the bloody country." Gabriel complained loudly. They stopped by the table where Morigan was beginning to stir.

"So?" Logan asked.

"So nothing." Gabriel said with a smile "This'll be a challenge." Morigan blinked her eyes sleepily in the bright light. "Morning hen." Morigan sent him a disgruntled feeling and a picture from a vampire film where Dracula burned in sunlight. Gabriel took his notebook and held it above Morigan, giving her a little respite from the lights. "Is that better?" He asked her. A feeling of satisfaction and gratitude flowed from the raven and into Gabriel. "I'm glad you're happy." He said then looked back at Logan, who was watching silently at the one-sided conversation.

"I thought that two telepaths talking psychically was weird but watching you treat that bird like she was a person really tops my weird list spook." He said; Morigan cawed harshly in reply.

"That's because she is, before I met her she was used in some sort of program that boosted her intelligence. Now I've come to think of her as my annoying little sister." Morigan croaked harshly. "See?" Gabriel picked up his shopping, causing Morigan to go rolling a little way across the steel top of the table. Gabe made his way up the stairs towards the lockers, Morigan righted herself and flapped over and landed on Gabe's shoulder. Logan watched him stop at the locker room door and look at the bird, Morigan didn't seem to get his message, even when Gabriel pointed and flicked the 'men's' sign. Gabe seemed to give up and enter the locker with Morigan on his shoulder. Logan shook his head and headed towards the lift.

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Tobias, Beta-2, laid down on the stone floor of the turret with a high-powered telescope resting on a tripod in front of him, pointed in a gap in the parapets outer wall. He took a quick peek through the eyepiece to check the target house then sat up against the wall and closed his eyes. After marvelling at the addition of a small turret on a New York state manor house Tobias immediately set the observation post up; a x500 magnification telescope with video, night vision and thermal functions and a radio.

He rubbed his eyes and rolled back onto his stomach once more and continued his surveillance. After hours of watching the construction crews slowly piece the mansion back together Tobias caught some movement by the garage, a blue minivan pulled out and rolled down the driveway towards the gate. Tobias grabbed the radio and pressed the call button.

"I see one blue minivan heading out the front door ma'am." He said in his crisp English accent.

"Is the principal driving?" Betsy asked immediately. Tobias focused on the front windscreen of the van, as it slowed down at the gate, inside was a white haired African-American woman.

"Negative, boss." He replied, "Driver matches the description of Ororo Munroe though. "Must be the school run or something." He added,

"Must be." She said, more to herself as she thought. "Continue surveillance Tobi."

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Gabriel pulled an olive green USMC t-shirt and turned around to pose for Morigan, who was perched on the coat-rack, Gabe was kitted out in the afore-mentioned t-shirt and night combat trousers, consisting of dark blues, greys and greens.

"What do you think?" he asked the raven. The bird bobbed her head. "I'm glad you approve." He said with a smile. He shut the locker door and beckoned to Morigan to jump on to his shoulder, which she did. "Let's go see what goodies Fury supplied us with, hey?"

Gabriel got out of the lift on the hanger floor and walked quickly to his car boot. He opened it and flicked the switch that opened the hidden compartment; Morigan hopped down from Gabe's shoulder and onto the lip of the boot and leaned in to peruse the contents. Gabe pulled out his uniform and draped it over his shoulder and reached back in for the com-link and laser-mic. A mechanical thump and whir as the garage and fake floor opened to let someone in. Gabriel grabbed his pulse pistol from it's recess and kept it by his waist, he grabbed his combat knife with his free hand, pushed the sheaths clip onto his belt and unsheathed the knife. He shushed Morigan when she made a little squeal of fear, despite Gabriel's occupation he had always made sure Morigan was nowhere near the action; loud noises frightened her and the possibility of death spiked her fear until she was in danger of hurting herself. Gabriel tried to ignore Morigan's panicked hopping around the boot and sent her calming thoughts but they didn't work, he'd never got the hang of sending his emotion back through their psychic link, on that point Morigan had him beaten hands down. It was a tense moment as he heard wheels head down the ramp. Gabriel felt Morigan's moment of panic before he saw the blue van round the corner of the ramp and head towards him. He dropped the knife and pistol back into the boot and, after picking Morigan up and depositing her back onto his shoulder, he pushed the boot closed and stepped away from it.

Gabriel walked towards the van with a hand raised in greeting as he saw Ororo and Amara's faces in the windscreen. The van was soon followed by Scott's red convertible. Gabriel tried to look as innocent as possible.

Scott and Jean got out of his convertible, neither laughing nor joking over the days events; Scott had been attacked by Duncan Matthews and a couple of his cronies and Jean had had her athletic reputation tarnished. On top of their lousy day the evening wasn't promising to get better, the PTA meeting was starting in a few hours and Logan was most likely going to call a training session on the institute grounds. They headed straight for the lift and squeezed in among the new mutants, Scott turned and caught Ororo and Gabriel talking, it looked innocent enough but Scott was finding it hard to trust the Brit. Jean jostled him out of his reverie.

"Let it go Scott, he's not doing anything wrong." She admonished him.

"That we know of." He replied, still watching Gabriel closely

"Hey Scott, Could you…?" Bobby tried to say from the back of the elevator

"He's done nothing but help us Scott, why can't you give him the benefit of the doubt?" She asked him.

"Jean could you…?"

"The only reason he's helped us so far Jean is because he's been paid to. What if someone pays him to…?" A look on Jean's face told him to stop that sentence dead. He pushed the button for the dorm level, the last glimpse of Gabriel he had was of him introducing his evil-looking bird to Ororo.

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WASHINGTON DC

The room wasn't what William Stryker thought it would be, instead of the monolithic marble hall he had thought the tribunal room would be it was a small office-like space with two tables and three chairs set at one end and a row of four chairs at the other, facing each other. At the table were the chiefs of staff for the Army and Navy and one extra general that he didn't recognise, he had sat on one of the opposite chairs and quietly recounted the events that had taken place in Area 51 under his command and the interrogation of the prisoner afterwards. The tribunal had waited for him to finish and talked amongst themselves as they came to a decision. Finally one of them, the Navy COS, spoke.

"Colonel Stryker, we brought you here to justify a few incidents that have happened since you were first stationed at Area 51." He said and picked up a remote that had been placed close to his right hand. He picked it up and pointed it at the screen behind him and pressed the play button. An image of a grey-scaled mutant flickered onto the screen, in the distance Pfc Kyle Denning was just about visible. It was the vivisection that Gabriel had witnessed on the screen as he talked with Stryker. The tape played for a few minutes, right up to the point where the unnamed mutants arm was shorn off at the shoulder, before the COS stopped it.

"Let me just list your sins on this one case Stryker, you had an innocent young American citizen kidnapped, poked, prodded and ripped apart. You denied him anaesthetic relief and you forced your marines to watch." He paused for a second. "I want you to tell us why we shouldn't have you court-martialled and executed." Stryker stood up.

"I was posted to Area 51 to investigate the mutant threat, I was merely following orders." The Army COS spoke next.

"Define 'investigate' for me colonel, and don't forget to add when and where murder comes under your definition." Stryker was silent. "Answer me colonel. Stryker temporarily looked flustered.

"I was merely taking the initiative in the war that is surely to come, mutants are a threat to our way of life." He said.

"Are you aware what the President's view is on the 'mutant threat'?" The unknown general asked him.

"I am aware of what the President said, Sir." He said bitterly.

"Then you understand the shitstorm this could bring down on all of us if word of this ever gets out." The navy COS said. Stryker tried to exude confidence as he spoke.

"I can assure you, Sir, that no one will ever find out about what happened in Area 51, my men are clean, sir. No one has any leverage on them." The navy COS pointed the remote at the screen once more and an image flickered into focus. Stryker's face paled. On the screen Stryker was conversing with one of the mutants who had entered his base, the one who had threatened him. The tableau began to play out in front of him

"I have a message from my employers colonel Stryker, quit now or we'll find some way to have you dishonourably discharged later down the line."

"Oh really?" Stryker asked on screen 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…" The tape paused.

"It's not your men we are worried about, Stryker." The army COS said meaningfully. "You've become a liability Stryker, so we have a very simple choice about what happens next, a court-marshal and then a very public trial or…"

"Or I resign my commission." Stryker finished. The unknown general nodded.

"So which are you going to choose Stryker?" Stryker stood to attention, saluted and then told the tribunal his decision.