Future Girl

Chapter 21: Counting Down

It was getting late that night at the mansion and Jean was still up and about. She was working late on work for school starting to feel the stress of trying to do too much. Hank's help was very good but she still needed to do a lot of the work herself and it would take years to do. She was getting tried a lot of the time lately and she hardly had any life it seemed outside of school or the X-Men. Even the few times she managed to call up Taryn, her old friend could tell she was being over taxed.

It would be nice if she could have more free time, repairing her relationship with Taryn wasn't easy but she liked being able to do it. Plus it wasn't like she had many friends outside of the mansion either. There was Peter and Mary Jane at school which was nice, but she could still feel like she needed a more stable life. And lately everything had been anything but stable, with Rachel showing up and her story of just how bad things got was seriously depressing.

At times she was thinking if what she was doing was even worth it, what if they tried to stop things but they only got worse? Or what if trying to stop it was what started it all together? It just gave her a major headache with all of this. To make matters worse she couldn't figure out what to do with Rachel either, it was just that with everything going on how was she supposed to handle this? Technically the girl was and yet wasn't her daughter so how to you deal with that?

She knew that Alex and Scott had already accepted Rachel and Scott had talked to her about their daughter but she just still wasn't sure what to do with her. She sighed as she pushed her books away and decided to go for a small walk to unwind before going to bed stressed out. Maybe try a meditation technique? That was one of the things that all the mutants with mental powers had been doing lately, thanks to Vincent and Kai teaching them certain techniques.

It was very helpful for stress but also very helpful to keep one's powers in check. Dani and Gale were doing much better now with daily meditation. Dani felt that she was holding back her nightmare powers and Gale's empathic abilities were getting to the point where she wasn't picking up random emotions all time. It was still hard on her but she was getting better and blocking things out.

But right now she just need a walk, maybe something to drink and relax a bit. She went through the mansion, although it was dark and with the new additions it was fairly easy to find her way. It was amazing how much had changed in the years she lived here. She smiled remembering how easy things had been looking back. If she knew what she knew now she would have taken the opportunity to have enjoyed herself more, well that and had never dated Duncan Mathews at all that was a mistake she never wanted to repeat.

After a small drink and a little walk around, letting the memories of her younger days putting smiles on her face she felt better. Jean was walking back to her room when she felt something on the edges of her senses. Being a telepath made you susceptible to very strong or intense emotions and she was feeling that as well. Maybe someone was having a nightmare? It wouldn't be the first time she had picked up on that in this mansion before. It was a very intense one as well, the closer she got to it the harder it was to ignore it. There was so much pain in it and something familiar as well, she moved closer to the source and found herself outside of Rachel's room.

She paused for a moment unsure if she should go in or not at first, but feeling the emotions inside of that room her sense of helping others took over. She slowly opened the door and saw Rachel on her bed, the sheets were thrown around as she had been tossing and turning in the bed. She was mumbling something in her sleep and Jean slowly walked towards her. Given Rachel's powers were so much like Jean's, she was being careful in how to wake her. There had been a few times when Jean had been woken up with a shock and her powers had lashed out.

Usually it was a minor thing, like an object being thrown like someone had hit it, a few times it was a bit more powerful. So the last thing she needed was to have Rachel to throw her across the room. Jean gently sat on the bed as she took the young girl's shoulders and gently tried to shake her. That had been a mistake, as Jean had never touched another telepath in this kind of state before. In fact Xavier was the only true telepath around and they had very little physical contact. One reason was because for a telepath, touching a person only heightened a telepath's senses of a person.

As soon as she made contact, her mind was flooding with images of Rachel's life. She saw the dark cages where they kept the hunters and how they trained them. She saw an older version of her and Scott, they were yelling at Rachel to go apparently she was being carried by someone that Jean couldn't see the face. Or maybe that Rachel just didn't remember the face herself, either way Jean saw the young Rachel crying out to her parents. There were many other images, battles, deaths so much death actually.

It lasted only a few seconds on the outside but she had no way of knowing as her sense of time was obscured like in a dream. But eventually Jean found the will to shut the door in her mind and shut out the images. But as she was brought back to the real world she gripped the bed to steady herself, the damage was done. Jean had just felt Rachel's life story in her own mind, it was in there and it would never totally leave her.

Jean's eyes shut tight as the overload of emotions hit her, she felt the tears and bit her lip from crying out. There had been so much, maybe even too much for her but looking at Rachel, Jean's heart broke as ghosts of memories hit her.

Rachel woke up feeling the intrusion in her mind breaking her out of her memories. Rachel wasn't totally aware of the outside world, she was too busy with the torrent of emotions running through her but she did feel a familiar presence. Jean could feel Rachel as well, whatever bond there was had been strengthened. Some primitive part of Jean's mind after touching Rachel knew that this was her offspring, that this girl came from her body and was a part of her.

She instantly wrapped her arms around the younger red head to comfort her.

The young woman was still sobbing and clutching to Jean like she was drowning. Jean could feel the young girl shaking as well and feeling all that pain and something else. That longing sensation, it was so deep and primal that it reached out from Rachel and into Jean. It was a longing for a little girl for her mother and Jean felt her throat tighten up as she closed her eyes and held the girl close.

"It's alright, I'm here." Jean said softly as she stroked the young girl's hair.

"M-mom?" Rachel sobbed out. She could feel the tender touch of both Jean's touch and her mind. She had forgotten what it was like to be held by her mother. The physical and mental bond that made her feel save and loved. She hadn't felt anything like that since the deaths of her parents.

"It's okay..." Jean whispered as she rocked her back and forth. "I'm here."

Jean couldn't turn away from this girl anymore, yes it wasn't easy to take on the responsibility but after experiencing all of that she just couldn't leave her alone. There was so much pain inside of her but under all of that when she had seen those few memories of her, and Rachel and Scott together as a family there was one thing that she did feel. She felt the love that Rachel had for her parents, the unquestioning love that children have for their parents.

Jean wasn't sure but for now it felt natural to hold the girl, linking up with her had done something. She felt protective for her it was like her whole perceptions had shifted slightly. Maybe linking with her had made the maternal part of her show up, or experiencing everything that had happened had opened her eyes. Plus she had even felt how Rachel felt when she had been ignoring and avoiding her. Jean hadn't known that she had been causing the girl that much pain but at the moment she would think on it later. She had a daughter to help.

-Genosha-

On the island nation of Genosha it was a beautiful vacation spot in a tropical climate, at least on the outside. On the inside however it was an oppressive society that used mutants as nothing more than slaves and also was underway to developing new fearsome weapons against mutants. In the military complex in the heart of the nation the Genosha military had set up a very modern radar net. It usually dealt with smugglers, local pirates and the occasional escapee trying to get across to Africa or somewhere else.

However what they hadn't expected was something coming at them at mach 2. At first the radar didn't pick it up because of its smaller size but once it got closer their system was able to pick it up and that's when they started to issues orders. At first they figured it might be a missile as nothing that small could be a man made flight vehicle. The energy output it was putting off was about the same as a missile trail so the small navy they had was used to intercept it.

They responded with the anti-missile Vulcan canons on the ship that were designed to track and shoot down missiles with large scale armor piercing rounds. At first when the canon on the frigate that was closest to the object, they fired and it was confirmed a hit as the object seemed to dip down towards the water. Radar contact was lost but the crew on the frigate noticed that the object was went by them and it was actually skimming the water.

After that the military went into a panic as they frantically tried to identify and shoot down the intruder. But it was very small and with the speed it was moving it was very hard to find it let alone shoot it down.

The object of course was Nimrod as it made its way towards its goal. It knew exactly where to go and after the humans had opened fired it went to a safe distance from the surface. Its body was already repairing the damage caused by the human weapon. It saw the island and it could find many mutant signatures, a part of its primary programming wanted to go and terminate those and then the humans but it main goal overrode the other primary directives.

After it had accomplished its goal then it could start with termination of the local populace.

Nimrod made his way to the Sentinel area that his memory banks told him where to find. Although he one of his priorities was to kill, he had to subdue the humans as the greater priority demanded that he come off as not too much of a threat. Granted, invading a highly secure facility wasn't the best way of doing that but there was no other option to getting here. Nimrod needed to find the creators and to gain their trust, and then he could start with downloading new more advanced technology. The other thing for the plan was to input all future knowledge in the first Mastermold under construction, if the original Mastermold gained sentience earlier it would be able to take over humanity much sooner.

Nimrod made his way through the humans as their weapons were useless against him, it wasn't surprising. Humans of this island were used to fighting mutants although some of the weapons were more advanced they weren't up to the weapons made to take down sentinels. Any damage to his body was easily fixed as he walked on to the target area.

In the control room of the base Trask was barking out orders to stop the thing that was going into the heart of his complex. He couldn't believe that this machine (and it was all too apparent to him it was) was just going through his security like it was nothing. He had never seen anything like it before in his life and he couldn't figure out who had built it and why it was attacking him. Maybe it was sent by someone competing against his sentinel program? At any rate he had to find a way of destroying this thing before it got into the heart of the facility, then there would be no telling what kind of damage it would do.

"How very interest," Dr. Kruger muttered as the disabled old man looked on at the screen.

"I'm so happy that you find this entertaining," Trask muttered darkly.

"Oh but it is," he said grinning making him look like some kind of horrible death's head.

"You see that machine there is much more advanced than anything I've ever seen, and I have seen a lot," Kruger told the younger man as he studied it. "It seems to repair itself, which is remarkable. But haven't you also noticed something strange?"

"No I haven't," Trask snapped at the old man.

"Tell me," Kruger looked to a man at a work station, "how many fatalities have we endured?"

"Uh...so far none only injuries," the man said after checking.

"There you see, it obviously has another reason for being here other than doing us harm," Kruger grinned.

"It's attacking us!"

"Only defending but if you could get your head out of your ass you would have known that," Kruger nearly snarled at the man.

"So what do you suggest? We just lay down our arms?" Trask scoffed.

"That is the first good idea you've had in a long time," Kruger said.

Trask just looked at the man for a long silent moment, "Your insane."

"I have been called far worse than that in my life," Kruger told him as his modified carrier turned around and went to the door.

"Where do you think you're going!?"

He stopped for a moment at Trask's words, "I'm going out there to do what someone should have done a long time ago, I'm going to talk to it so I would like for you to call back the security forces for the time being."

With that the old man left the command center as Trask was wondering if he was just handed a blessing. If Kruger went out there and the robot killed him then it was good, if the robot tried anything he could have his forces open up and the old doctor would simply get caught in the crossfire. Either way it was a win-win for him. A man asked what his orders were and he decided he would see this played out.

"Tell them to stand down for now but be prepared, at the first sight of hostility they are to open up with full force regardless if Dr. Kruger is in the way." Trask ordered.

Nimrod was getting closer to the Mastermold main building yard when the soldiers had finally stopped. It would seem that they had gotten orders to stand down it was about time as Nimrod was starting to wonder how many more humans it would have to incapacitate before they gave up? Although when a security door opened it was actually surprised (as surprised as a machine can get) at who came through, it was a very old man in some kind of encased device that covered his lower body like some kind of wheelchair.

There was obviously a life support system helping to keep the man alive, after a quick scan of the man's face Nimrod had found one of his targets. Dr. Kruger was responsible for many new breakthroughs in Sentinel technology and development. Nimrod stopped all action not wanting to risk the chance of harming the old man or Nimrod could actually change the future for the worse with him dead.

Dr. Kruger moved his way forward with the controls on his device as he studied the machine in front of him. There didn't seem to be any seems or connects, almost like it was poured into a mold other than built, he had to admit that he was intrigued. He stopped a few feet away from it as he grinned up at it.

"So then you obviously came here for a reason, so why not tell me why?" Kruger asked it not afraid in the least. He knew that if it wanted to kill it would have done so many times over by now so he was confident that he was totally safe.

Nimrod had never been built with a voice module like other Sentinels as it was programmed only for killing and it wasn't like it was going to talk a person to death, so this posed a bit of a problem for communications. He looked down at the device the man used to get around and with all the controls he noticed a small computer pad was there with a small screen. He scanned it for a frequency and managed to access a wireless router that it was connected to. It took a few seconds to get past the encryption key but luckily Nimrod being one of the most advanced machines from his time was able to break it.

Kruger was surprised when he noticed something on the small screen on his right. He looked down and saw something was being typed on it.

I am Nimrod

It said and he looked up at the white machine, "Nimrod you say?"

Yes

"Why is it that you are here then?"

To Help

"To Help?"

To Help

"Yes you've said that already," Kruger told him. "To help with what specifically?"

To give you more advanced knowledge and data. To help you in creating more advanced sentinels.

"How do you know of the sentinels we have here?" Kruger asked a bit concerned now. This was the most carefully guarded secret on the nation, not even mutants were allowed near this facility in any manner and everyone was carefully screened. There shouldn't have been a leak as to what was going on here.

Because I am a sentinel

With those few words, Kruger was shocked as he looked over the machine very carefully. It didn't seem possible as there wasn't any type of sentinel that came close to this. Many possibilities went though his mind in seconds as he thought of countless ways to explain this. One was that someone else had gotten a hold of the sentinel tech and was creating his own but that didn't make sense for several reasons. One of them being that if someone could create models this advanced then they wouldn't need to help the Genoshian program.

As he eliminated the possibilities one by one there was one that he thought of that could explain this.

"Where do you come from...or should I say, when?" Kruger asked.

The Future

Kruger gave a small laughed that sounded more like a man dying than a real laugh, he looked to the camera to where he knew Trask was watching.

"Trask I suggest you come down here and meet Nimrod here," Kruger told him grinning at the camera. "You will want to hear this as I think you'll be just as interested as I am."

Next up chapter22: The Assassination

Well the poll I made the majority said to stop making this series, although it wasn't by much the fact that over forty people voted for it to start only less than 10 actually bother to review. So because of that I'm ending this, and no it will not tidy things up, I'll have to end it hanging because it would take too much time and I don't have it in me to tie up all the loose ends with so many who can't be bothered to review.