Chapter 38 – Me and the StairMaster
Snowbird, my sponsor, has stopped calling me. And my sponsees have step-work that needs to be read.
Planning to rob your supervisor is similar to planning your suicide.
At first you are like, no I am just playing around - I mean I am planning it, but not really "planning it."
The thoughts keep dancing and skipping in my head.
I cannot focus on anything else.
The absurdity of it.
It is preparing your mind for he insanity of what you are about to do. It is like a prime coating. I am rewriting over all of my old programing, all my sanity, all my recovery, by laying down a new path of logic revolving around breaking my friends trust. It is all very justifiable in my head. I am talking myself into a fight, talking myself into a crime, talking myself into this life.
I remember her opening safe behind her desk when I first got here.
Why am I doing this?
I am late for an appointment with a whole host of designers about expanding this base, my phone is ringing off the hook - just let this go Ororo.
I feel like I am a character in a Edgar Allan Poe story.
She knows.
Wanda knows that I am going to do this. She is expecting it. She manipulated me. They all lied to get me into this place to set me up for this eventual crime.
These pounding drumbeat thoughts echo in my head for weeks.
My paranoia is steadily climbing.
I play back all the non-verbal cues of Wanda influencing me into this moment.
Reality sets in for a moment:
If I break in - I am breaking her trust. Trust took time to establish.
This is not some carefree action or whim. This was years of building a relationship - to do something reckless. I am a representative of this organization I am not a superhero anymore; I do not use my powers any more. I am bigger than that.
I had a team of cadets for a few years.
I meditate, but I keep these newfound beliefs to myself. I do not tell my sponsor or my therapist. I start reading everyone's body language; convinced that they are in on it too. I am convinced that she has these letters and she is hiding this from me.
I check Wanda's phone records. She called Vision after talking to me.
Another thought hits me like a ton of bricks.
Shit I am pregnant.
If I do not do something now I will have to wait nine months. I cannot keep living like this.
Over dinner the silent tension between T'Challa, myself, and the things left unsaid between us is deafening. There is a canyon of distance between us. And I honestly could not care.
If I do this thing, things will be right. I know they will. They will return to normal. If I just do this one thing, then things will be fine and perfect.
Just a simple rationalization: let me just get on the other side of this thing. A small voice inside of me tries to rationalize it and talk me out of it. I am a good person. I have a good life. Why can't I let this go? Please let this go this feels wrong.
Why am I doing this? The days fly by and I do not even know what I am doing. I am just a cardboard cut out of myself. Going through some arbitrary motions.
I do not care.
It is in the past, but it rubs against me like some steel wool against me. In the daytime I feel distant from everyone. I distrust everyone, knowing in my heart of hearts that I will become pure enough to talk to people again once I do this. I will be worthy to be human. Until then -
I cannot communicate I feel distrust, but why?
Slowly or suddenly (depending how you look at things) there comes a frightening day, when the insanity clicks into place and I know, know in my deepest regions of my soul that I am going to go through with this.
There is no wavering. No question.
My goddess is gone and I make these Xavier letters my new goddess.
That switch in my brain goes from off to on.
I am uneasy. I cannot live until I do it.
Two missed calls from Snowbird.
I eat a large pizza instead.
I go to the gym. I work out past the point were I feel I am going to faint. I need to be clean. I need to be clean. Once I do this I will be clean.
Four-hour workout.
T'Challa called once.
He only just calls once.
But his message tugs at me, loads me with guilt, even though there is nothing in his message, but love and sincerity.
Biting my nails and cuticles start to bleed. I see pimples everywhere on me.
Next door I hear someone grunting and yelling as they are doing some weight lifting reps.
- Cage.
He is shocked and takes a step back as I enter.
Silence. I hear a screaming, siren sound of silence between us.
I rip my clothes in front of him and will claim rape unless he fucks the ever-loving shit out of me, right here and right now.
Twenty minutes later, give or take, I am back on the StairMaster again, ready for another four-hour work out. I do not want to think. Not for a second.
I decide somewhere in the third hour that I am going to be sick tomorrow from work. Maybe for the entire week.
I am going to be clean.
I need to be pure.
Pure.
With each step I am closer to purity.
Can't think.
Not worthy to think until - clean.
Once I am clean I am granted permission to think.
Am I -
Am I pregnant?
Am I pregnant?
I honestly can't remember…
Oh - the StairMaster just increased its resistance.
Chapter 39
T'Challa Journal Entry: October 2, 2021
I have not heard from my wife in weeks.
We promised that we would not engage the tracking system on either one of us. We would not be that kind of a couple.
We would be "old school," her words.
I talk to the guards at her office.
It is 5:12am.
They say she has not come in weeks either.
I leave, but as I do, I smell something, the wind carries her scent to me, but it is not just her, it is Cage, and Brock, and few others.
I look up and catch the wind in my face.
I smell them all. I look up.
Higher.
Higher.
And I see the sliver of a window - open.
The highest floor.
Wanda's window.
Race up stairs.
Security guards open Wanda's office door.
Darkness.
Even with the lights on - darkness.
She – it – this cloud of blackness with white eyes emanating from its center, pulls an entire safe from the wall -
- and flies away. Becoming darkness.
Where was my wife inside all of that?
Chapter 40
Wanda Journal Entry: October 15, 2021
All teleporters are dead to Ororo.
All her clearances have been revoked.
She is a prisoner on the loose, like she was seven years ago.
I never should have said that stuff about the X-men.
I was drunk.
I shouldn't drink.
I am late for the designers' meeting on expanding this facility. I am now doing catch-up duty with all of Ororo's work on top of mine. Vision and Pietro have been kind enough to help out in her absence. It will not be long before she makes herself known.
I walk up tunnels to get to my transporter. Hear a noise.
A door is busted.
I see Ororo hotwiring a transporter. Is she crazy?
"O, hon'. Really?"
She flashes her white eyes on me.
"Where are you going sweetie?"
"Need to get clean," she says, but I do not think she is talking to me.
She's talking to herself.
"I read the letters. Conspiracy. Lllll-iars. Ffff-akes."
Jeez she's talking like that character from that Tolkien book.
"Yeah, a real conspiracy hon', the Professor and Rogers thought you and T'Challa would make a cute couple. That's your Watergate."
"No you - you wanted me pregnant with his - his - his child for a secret purpose. Wanda and Rogers. You planned me. You tricked. Me. Tricksters."
"Jesus, you are a walking mess, worse then when I first found you. You lost your sobriety didn't you – in both programs?"
I probably should not have said that out loud, what I really wanted to say was: you sound just like Logan. You know that?
Jeez, is everything a conspiracy to you X-Men?
I try to salvage the situation with some old fashioned sincerity, "I pulled you in. And yes I hoped that something would happen between you and T'Challa, and I did not expect much with the Logan case. Is that so wrong? This is not a 60's Cold War spy film okay. This is not Manchurian Fucking Candidate; there is no Queen of Diamonds. There are just friends. I saw, Erik saw, Charles saw, we all saw greatness in you, we all love and loved you…we just wanted you happy."
She looks right at me. She blinks. I hope something I said would get through to her. Every word, every syllable was the goddamn truth. I never have been this completely honest to anyone. I love O. When I used my father's name, I felt something wet roll down my cheek.
She blinks again.
"I - "
"I need…," she struggles.
Via telepathy, Vision has been communicating with our security team and myself. Right now there is a small army behind the door along with T'Challa. Everyone sees what I am seeing.
Vision has been yelling at me. He wants me to get out of the way so they can storm in. T'Challa wants to go in, but Vision is talking him down saying that his personal relationship with the target compromises the mission.
O, unbuckles her belt in front of me.
"I need to be clean."
Lowers her zipper. Slides her pants off followed by her shirt. She is beginning to show a little bit.
"I need to be clean."
Tears begin rolling down my cheek, because of the madness that has gripped her. How did it get so bad so fast? She has no idea what harm she doing to the life inside of her.
Mentally she is gone.
"I need to be clean."
She stands naked in front of me. I see new scars, tattoos, and piercings she has newly acquired.
She is barred from any transporter access. What is she doing here? A room full of pipes.
"O, for G-d sakes put some clothes back on and let's talk," I plead.
"Clean." She opens a latch below her.
She is going to exit the base through its the sewage system. She's studied the plans, probably when she was looking over the renovations.
"O it doesn't have to be this way," I say.
T'Challa unable wait anymore, runs in.
Her attention moves from me to him. She looks through him as he runs like an animal possessed.
But in a fraction of a second she slithers into the pipe and disappears.
The smell from the human waste is unbelievable but she is swimming in it.
And he is in pursuit.
Security fortifies the perimeter.
Vision, still ordering commands via telepathy, enters the door and holds me.
"I failed her," is all I can think.
"Where is she going," I say to no one in particular.
"Isn't it obvious. She wants to get cleanse herself for all her recent transgressions and to prove that she is worthy to walk amongst us," Vision coldly replies in a Noam Chomsky kinda way like it is the most obvious thing in the world.
What could she do to win us back in her mind?
Who knows?
Vision replies to my thoughts, "It seems completely obvious to me - to kill Logan."