A/N: Hello Slightly thanks for the review; you made me laugh…my mind went straight into the gutter when you stated that you thought he'd 'flash it at Sinister' *ahem* sorry. ;)
Anyway this chapter was an absolute monster to write….so many re-writes, so many bits that didn't fit…sigh….I apologise that it's a bit fragmented but things will come together really soon…and hey! The Garden's in it and you all wanted to see that, right? ;)
Chapter Twenty-five: Impression
2063 A.D.
They used to call this long, wide, empty stretch of broken concrete and asphalt a highway. He remembered his Grandmother telling him about gasoline guzzling 'cars' that used to clogged these roads back in the long distant past before the sky-ways opened up the sky to all sorts of freight.
Of course they couldn't travel the sky-ways; another skirmish had broken out in the aftermath of the failed Summers Rebellion and now the human forces were rounding up any mutants they could find and sending them to detention centres.
The young boy looked around him at the weed strangled 'highway' and the derelict brick buildings, like fallen mountains that still lined the dry, red desert on either side. There had been a city here once, he remembered Granny telling him that too. That city was gone now, except for the few broken down buildings still littering the flat horizon here and there. The boy shivered in the dry heat. Everything was covered with a patina of red dust and heat haze and he didn't like it.
He wished he could go home, but he didn't have one anymore. The city he used to live in wasn't safe for him and his sister anymore and Granny was dead. There was no one in the world left to take care of him now…no one except him.
The boy stared at the old man walking ahead of him with the aid of a metal staff. The old man had come out of nowhere just days before his grandmother had died; come and claimed them because no one else would. He had red eyes that seemed to burn right through everything he looked at and his smile made the eleven year old strangely angry; the man could have been a hundred years old or older, it seemed impossible to tell. There was something in his sharp boned, lined face that said he had seen more than the boy could ever imagine and none of it was good.
Lucas Bishop was scared but he would never, ever, admit it.
'Keep up pup, fall behind an' the Nimrod's can have you.'
Without turning around or stopping in his steady, slow drudge onwards the old man called behind him to Lucas. His sister Shard turned around to poke her tongue out at him; Shard had always been fearless and she now walked along right beside the strange old man.
Lucas gritted his teeth and hurried to catch up. He jumped over the litter of strange rusted metal hulks that he had no names for; metal skeletons of ancient redundant machines. He glared up at the man once he caught up. The old man bent over his staff a little as he walked and did not bother to look at Lucas at all.
The dry old white man wore strange clothes, like long drapes of black and grey and brown cloth that didn't look like any sort of clothing Lucas had ever seen before. His hands gripping his staff were thin and liver-spotted, the skin marked with scar tissue and the fingers gnarled with arthritis; how was an old white man supposed to protect them all from the Nimrod and Emplate patrols?
'Where are we going old man?' He demanded, tilting his head to glare up at the man. It was important that Lucas show this old guy exactly who was boss; no way he was putting his and Shard's safety in this dry old stick's hands.
The red on black eyes flicked sideways towards him, 'You'll see soon enough pup.'
'Don't call me that!' Lucas shouted abruptly, refusing to admit that the old man's eyes and sly smile scared him. To his further annoyance the old man's smirk grew even wider and he chuckled. That laughter grated on the last of Lucas's nerves. It was such a dry, rasping sound. The man shook his head, pure silver white hair slithering over his narrow, hunched shoulders.
'Ah pup, you remind me o' a femme I used to know when you say that.'
Lucas narrowed his eyes furiously as Shard giggled, 'Ooooh Lucas you hear that? You sound like a woman!'
His sister always called him by his first name, just as he called her Shard but the old man always called him 'Bishop', except when he called him 'pup'; Lucas wasn't sure which name he hated more.
Lucas Bishop clenched his fists at his sides tightly then and deliberately stopped walking. He darted a hand out around the old man to grab his sister and pull her to a halt too.
'I don't trust you and we're not going another step until you tell us where we're going!'
He yelled at the old man's back as he kept hobbling forward towards the shimmering towers and high rises of the distant new city in the far distance beyond this desert wasteland. Lucas knew the name of the city and knew it was under XSE command. If they could get there they would be safe – at least until the humans laid siege to the city as they had all the others he and Shard had taken refuge in over their lifetime.
'Lucas!' Shard tried to pull free of him but he wouldn't let her, 'Lucas we're supposed to trust him, Granny said so.'
'I don't care; I don't like him.'
The old man had stopped and turned to face them now; his expression was mild. He chuckled wheezingly again. 'If I tell you where we going, will you believe me?' He asked keenly, eyeing Lucas with obvious amusement.
Lucas glared, 'I don't believe a word you say,' he snapped out defiantly. The old man smiled hugely. His sallow, tight, and creased white skin pulling back from surprisingly strong teeth in a narrow face.
'Well den,' the old man cackled, the faint hint of a richer, warmer accent, something foreign and lost to time, brushing his words, 'There be no point in telling you anything, is there?' the old man leaned closer over his cane, 'If a body got no mind to believe, then every word they hear is nothing more than lies.'
The old man managed a surprisingly smooth pivot and turn on his heels before he started to walk forward again.
'You can follow if you want, chillen, or you can stay behind. I promised your Grandmere, God rest her soul in peace, that I take care o' you but I promise the two o' you nothing. You want to be alone in the world that your business – I won't stop you.'
'Wait Mr Lebeau sir!' Shard broke free of Lucas and ran after the old man.
'Shard!'
He yelled at her but it was too late, she had already caught up to the slow meandering old man and grasped hold of a flapping fold of his rag-like clothing. The old man looked down at her, features as sharp and keen as an ancient eagle. He reached out a hand and Shard cheerfully took hold of it.
The two continued on, the click of the old man's cane loud and piercing as it smacked down on the broken asphalt of the old, defunct highway. Lucas ground his teeth in silent anger for a moment before running to catch up yet again.
'I still don't trust you,' he told the old man once he had come abreast with him. The old white man nodded amiably as if he had heard that particularly statement a thousand times before.
'Fair enough pup,' he said sagely, 'Don't remember askin' you to trust me anyhow.'
Lucas rolled his jaw, teeth gnashing, 'For the last time old man where are we going?'
A sly smile was part answer, 'To the Jardin pup; I am takin' you to my Garden.'
New Orleans – sort of
Betsy Braddock blinked her eyes open and knew instantly that she was no longer in the mansion. She was on her hands and knees and under her flesh the rough concrete bit deep. She could smell the rank odours of spilled beer, vomit and urine and the gutter she had fallen into was overflowing with vile fluids. Pieces of brightly coloured confetti and shiny plastic beads sat upon the surface of that unspeakable slurry like diamonds in sludge.
Betsy lifted her head and looked around her; the streets of the city were crowded as she had remembered them being from the last time she had come to this harsh, cold and misleading place. Flurries of faceless, grey skinned and black garbed automatons stepped off the curb and waded through the gutters, spreading filth as they moved on through the warren of tightly packed alleys.
Betsy rose to her feet nervously the streets of this simulacrum of central New Orleans was familiar to her, she had seen it twice before, but she did not know why she was here now. This was Gambit's mindscape not her own.
The sky above her head as she looked up to orientate herself was a baleful, universal pulsing grey, a drab throbbing luminance that made her head ache and her sinuses sting. The wide swathe of the Avenue stretched down to the Mississippi waterfront in washed out shades of shadow and the crowds surged forward and backward like a faintly hostile tide.
Betsy knew that if she waded into those crowds she would be swallowed and drowned for good, forced into that endless, colourless, shapeless milieu forever. She had recognised that the crowds were one of the many traps in Gambit's mind the first time she had come here; one trap in a world of traps and hidden pit-falls.
She needed to get to the French Quarter that was one of the flashpoints in this mindscape and the place that she had found the Gambit avatar the first time she had waded into his mind after he work from his coma. Having made up her mind she moved on, keeping her head down and avoiding getting too close to the aimless shoals of shades populating the streets. Betsy could feel eyes watching her from every one of the thousands of dark corners in this place.
How had this happened? She wondered as she shouldered her way along the sidewalks. How had she ended up in this mindscape again just from trying to sever the fragment of Gambit's consciousness from Rogue's mind? Betsy jolted to a stop outside the black, opaque window of what would in the real world, have been an upscale fashion boutique, and braced herself against the wall.
Was that the secret? Had Rogue somehow absorbed one of Gambit's watchmen? Was that what the fragment was? If so that would explain why a perfect simulacrum of Gambit's mindscape existed at the root of the Gambit fragment in Rogue's mind.
Narrowing her eyes Betsy looked up at one of the few incongruous flashes of colour and vibrancy in this stark, hard, and unforgiving place. She frowned as her eyes focused on a large, neon lit sign, an old fashioned awning swinging from a grey wall: The Dead Man's Gambit.
Hmm, well that was certainly new. Betsy moved towards the building and discovered that it was an old movie theatre. The theatre's façade was ornate and fussy with an odd amalgam of nineteen fifties Americana and Art Deco design; the neon light from the sign, an almost blinding fuchsia, bled into the angry grey of the sky.
Betsy pondered the building sceptically from the outside; the banning heading, written in wonky red lettering proclaimed the firm for the day: The Life and Crimes of Remy Lebeau. A poster on the wall listed the showing times and pricing range in both French and English. Betsy's brow puckered in confusion. What was going on?
The first time Betsy had penetrated Gambit's defences and reached this mindscape she had not found any landmarks or entry points; all she had managed to discern before the Gambit avatar watchman had caught her was the whispers of pain, death and betrayal that slithered from every shadow. Those voices were a cacophony of malice; a thousand hissed half truths and slanderous allegations.
The second time she had smashed through his defences, Gambit himself had given her a way in albeit one that proved to be another trap; she had found herself aboard a riverboat casino where every game was Russian roulette, the house always won, and debts were paid in blood and shame. It had been all she could do to escape that hellish construct with her sanity intact and of course no sooner had she done so, then Rogue had tried to steal her memory of all she had managed to learn.
Therefore looking up at the Dead Man's Gambit theatrefrom the sidewalk she was less than willing to enter through the stained glass and brass doors until she knew what was going to greet her on the other side.
'Where are you Gambit – what game are you playing?' she demanded of the eerily soundless streets of the Quarter.
The crowds continued to mill hither and thither all around her, eyeless, lipless, featureless and androgynous. There was the occasional flash of lurid colour, like the spark of Gambit's bio-kinetic charge, breaking the heavy omnipresent greyness of the world, but she could not pick out any trace of a brown trench coat wearing man.
Betsy pursed her lips; she was an alpha class telepath, she didn't have to run this maze if she didn't wish it. She could rip this construct apart without breaking a sweat if she wanted to.
Her back straightened and she stopped cowering against the wall of the ominously named theatre; angry at her own weakness Betsy surged straight through the fast flowing stream of foot traffic filling the sidewalk, elbowing the faceless grey ghosts out of her way. She stepped out onto the road and prowled right through a speeding car that roared up out of nowhere and tried to mow her down.
'Nice try, Gambit.' She smirked and kept walking. She was the master here; he could only hurt her if she wished it. She had forgotten that the first two times and she would admit that for a non-psychic Gambit's mind was extraordinarily well fortified, but she would not forget it again.
Ignoring the obvious lure that was the Dead Man's Gambit Betsy fought against the stream of people pushing the other way down the sidewalk. Her destination was the deepest, darkest corner of Gambit's mindscape she could find. Betsy was convinced she would find the seedy truth this strangely depressed and cold cityscape hid only in the depths of the darkest shadow.
Head high and proud she prowled onward into the darkness that closed in around her like a river fog. She did not notice the lean man in the trench coat who watched her from the ticket booth of the theatre.
The Remy shade watched her go, cigarette dangling unlit from his bottom lip and bright smirk in place as he leaned back in his seat inside the ticket booth. He shook his head almost pityingly; some people just never learned. Ah well the femme would figure it out eventually.
Giving up on the stubborn telepath for the moment the shade turned back to the playbill he was writing out for an upcoming show-reel: The True Confessions of a Conman. He smiled pleased with the finished product. Yes, he would have to add this new feature to the revue; the punters would love it.
Leaving the booth the Remy shade entered the cosy depths of the theatre and moved off to prepare the screening room; Betsy would find her way back here eventually and he would have to have the movie ready for her.
'Walk a thousand miles in my footsteps,' the shade purred amusedly to himself as he prepared the old fashioned projector and file reel, 'an' you only ever gon' go backwards.'
He smirked letting his eyes dance over every resplendent corner of his theatre of sins. He wondered just how long it would take Betsy to figure out that all roads in this place led to the theatre and just how battered she was going to get figuring that out. There were a lot of nasty things in the shadows round here, after all.
The shade chuckled darkly as that thought took root. 'Enjoy de tour Betts; don' nobody deserve it more'n you.'
2009 – Beta-Star Facility
Bishop hesitated, drawn to an abrupt stop by what he saw as he rounded the corner of the sub-basement of the Beta-Star complex. His breath hissed out between his teeth.
'You!'
He reached for his gun and the killer for hire, Fatale, who had once tried to kill him on the orders of her creator, twisted around to stare at him. She was already battered from her encounter with Sinister and her hands were filled with the limp weight of her creator. The Dark Beast, gravely injured but alive, lay half covered by the rubble and debris that had hidden him from the inattentive Sinister.
'Oh shit,' Fatale dropped the dazed McCoy and shimmered into invisibility as Bishop opened fire on her.
2009 – Outside the Beta-Star Facility
The severed Sentinel head arced through the air, hurled as accurately as any of Gambit's cards. The world exploded into activity and multiple things happened at once.
'Goddess no!'
Instantly, before the projectile could reach the peak of its ascending arc two beams of energy hit the head dead on. Two ruby bands of light and power combined and pulverised the skull; Cyclops optic blast hit the skull dead centre at the same instant that Sinister all but incinerated the macabre object in turn.
Simultaneously Sabretooth leapt forward to block Wolverine's lunge for Gambit and Havok moved unobserved into position behind his brother. Polaris wrapped herself in a magnetic shield and closed her eyes in concentration.
Gambit stepped back and watched as the Sentinel head was reduced to nothing left but pulp and bone shards and a nasty, greasy stench of meat in the air in a matter of seconds. He had just enough time to fumble a fistful of cards into his good hand before an enraged Sinister turned on him.
'You will pay for this thief.' The words were barely decipherable; Sinister's speech was so maligned with incandescent fury.
Lorna opened her eyes, magnetic energy simmering all around her. Wolverine lashed out at Sabretooth with his claws and Phoenix pulled the two apart with her powers. Cyclops twisted snapped his eyes closed and willed himself to remain calm even as the hackles on the back of his neck rose. He knew that Alex was behind him; his brother's powers called to him.
Storm remained frozen in place; she could not tear her eyes from Gambit as he stood, silent and patient in the heart of the chaos he had unleashed. Iceman re-enforced his ice form and maintained his grip on his friend's arms; Warren Worthington, flushed with fury, resisted using his huge wing span to smack Iceman away from him, his eyes narrowed like a Hawk's and fixed on the traitorous thief.
All this happened in seconds; the greasy steam from the remains of the Sentinel head rose drowsily into the air as time struggled to keep up with all that was happening.
Sinister moved then and, faster than the eye could follow, caught Gambit around the throat lifting him off his feet by the neck and shaking the man like a rag-doll. The battered mutant did not attempt to break free and merely maintained his grip on the un-charged brace of cards in his unbroken hand.
'I will see you suffer for this trickery.' Sinister hissed throttling the thief.
Sabretooth stumbled back from Phoenix's telekinetic hold, raising his gorged arm to his lips and licking away the blood like a cat. Wolverine continued to fight Phoenix's hold. His instincts were screaming to him that Creed, Dane, and Lebeau had to be taken out and quickly. The three of them were more of a threat right not then Sinister.
'Leggo o' me Redd!' he snarled.
A hand touched Scott's shoulder, and his brother whispered in his ear, 'Get ready big bro.' Scott shuddered as he felt his brother's powers flow into his body from that one grip on his shoulder; his eyes, even clenched closed, began to simmer with energy.
'You fucking traitor,' Warren snarled, wings unfurling as he tore free of Iceman's restraining grip. The Archangel took wing but hesitated; he had more sense than to attack when Sinister had hold of Gambit.
Victor Creed shifted moving further back from both Sinister and the X-men; his body language was wary but a cruel smirk danced over his leonine head, 'Can't believe yer fell for that; the punk had yer all going with that Sentinel processin' crap.' He snickered.
'It was a trick?' Ororo's head jerked up from where she had been standing staring at the smeared and steaming remains of the severed head. She turned to stare at Gambit who had finally begun to struggle against Sinister's strangle-hold.
'Gotcha,' He croaked dangling helplessly from Sinister's arm and still laughing defiantly even facing his imminent demise. 'Can't…..uck….can' believe you fell for dat….ack…..trick….homme…figured you mos' o all got to know dat even a machine got to have a power source; a head wit' out somet'ing to power it just dead meat, non?…..ack.'
'You tricked us?' Iceman demanded building a snow ramp so that he could reach the same height that Warren hovered at. 'So the Sentinel didn't scan us? It was all just a bunch of bull; but why?'
Iceman kept one eye on Warren as he asked his question. He didn't like the look in his old friend's eyes. The last thing he needed was for Warren to kill Gambit and then go into an angst and guilt trip forever more.
'It was a trick; you tricked us all,' Ororo repeated dully and the sky grew black with the gathering tumult; the crackle of lightning and the thick static of thunder filled everyone's senses.
Alex squeezed his older brother's shoulder. 'Any minute now, Scottie, on my mark.' He whispered, anticipation dripping from his low tone as he carefully fed more power into Scott.
Scott sucked in a breath, 'Alex what the hell….?'
'Wait and see Scott; the coup de grace is coming.'
Time moved forward still, tripping over the seconds as the crescendo built; Polaris bit her lip and waited. The moment was almost upon them.
New Orleans - Sort of
It would take more than her current predicament to force Elizabeth Braddock to admit that she was quite completely lost. Frowning she looked about and all around her; the swarming crowds filling the Avenue and French Quarter had faded away like river mist and now she found herself with nothing but the squat ugly tenements of New Orleans less salubrious residences for company. The sense of grey, enervating emptiness was horribly pervasive.
She had been so sure that the key to finding the truth would be here in the quiet corners of his mind and yet this place felt empty and dead, even the insidious bodiless whispering voices had left her behind when she left the crowds of the quarter.
'What bloody game is this?' Angrily Betsy swept her long fine hair from her face. She reached out with her powers for any hidden watchers and heard only the psychic echo of her own call rebounding in her thoughts. She was about to turn back the way she came when something odd caught her eye.
A lone dandelion grew from a deep crack in the concrete sidewalk; the weed's bright yellow flowering head was almost garishly cheerful and bright in the black, grey, and lurid neon pink colour scheme of the rest of this mindscape. Betsy walked over and prodded the weed with the toe of her boot; she wondered why Gambit's psyche had gone to the effort of adding weeds to this study in urban decay and dystopia.
In a fit of pique, and to prove a point, Betsy Braddock stamped down on the cheerful little weed with the toe of her boot and crushed the flower with her heel. Petals and pollen smeared across the concrete like blood but Betsy did not notice. Angry and prideful she marched back towards the hive of activity in the French quarter. She did not turn back to view the tiny, but brutal, piece of destruction she had wrought.
The dandelion, shattered and crushed, reformed instantly like a dream and sprang back to resilient attention. Moment later a dozen more dandelion heads poked up from the deep fissure in the concrete sidewalk and a faint whisper of jasmine and honeysuckle wafted over from an abandoned corner. Unobserved and unheeded wild roses began to creep and wind around the rusted chain link of an old fence and a riot of crocuses burst into life in the cab of an abandoned pickup parked up in an old lot.
Self sufficient and silent the replica of Remy Lebeau's psyche did what it did best; it survived and it grew.
2063 A.D.
Lucas Bishop stood hand in hand with his sister Shard. He could feel his sister shaking as she convulsively gripped his hand all the more tightly. He could not drag his eyes away from the sights before him however to look at her.
'What is this place?' he finally found his voice.
The old man, who he had heard called 'Lebeau', and sometimes 'sir' and other times things that were much, much worse on their long journey to safety merely shook his head and smiled sitting down gratefully on a marvel carved bench under the shade of a venerable old tree.
'My Garden, pup, been growin' dis place longer den mos' folks been livin'.' He winked impishly and plucked an apple from a low hanging branch of the tree; scrubbing it clean using a fold of his dull drapery he held out the juicy green apple to Shard.
'Here 'p'tite, want a bite?' his smile was caustic and he cackled to himself in some private joke. 'This here be an apple from de tree o' knowledge, after all.' He added still laughing to himself. Lucas and Shard just stared at him.
The thick carpet of lush green grass under there feet was like nothing either child had ever seen before. The orchard they stood in was a wonder out of an old story book; the scent of apple blossom so sweet and strange that it made Shard cry. Fresh fruit and produce was something only the rich and human could afford most of the time and yet here, this old man had fruit enough to let it rot on the vine.
The old man pocketed the apple and idly stroked his long fingers over the long, sharp stems of the grass, leaning over to do so. 'Take a look around chillen,' he said absently strange accent growing thick in his distraction. 'Jus' be carefully,' he looked up and winked mischievously, 'dere be all kinds of t'ings in this here garden, an' some of them bite.'
Hesitantly at first and then with increasing curiosity the two children separated and went off on their own explorations. Even Lucas did not really believe that anything in this 'garden' would really hurt him; the old man Lebeau had taken care of them all this time, he was hardly likely to have done that just to harm them now.
Lucas could not put names to all the flowers, brushes, and trees that filled this indoor paradise. Walking through a narrow passage lined with roses he stopped to inhale their thick, heady aroma and was started by the buzzing of a real life Bee. Insects like flowers and greenery were a scarcity in Lucas' world of steel, polymer and processed food stuffs. The distant call of hidden bird song and the rustle of living creatures in the deep shadows of this subterranean wonderland alternatively startled and delighted Lucas. As he moved forward along the tunnel of roses a large and very uncharacteristic smile spread over his face. He had never seen anything so beautiful or wonderful.
'Hey Lucas come look at this!' Shard's voice rang out clear as a bell from just around a corner. Lucas started running, not recognising the lilt of surprise and eagerness in his sister's voice.
'Wow.' He skidded to a halt at the sight before him. Shard knelt balanced on the rim of a massive pink-veined white marble fountain, crystal clear water pattering down into a deep bowl, but that was not what held either child's attention riveted.
A very large bird stood between Lucas and Shard in the centre of the paved path. The bird had a tiny head covered in liquid shining bluish feathers and a large body in the same brilliant shade of blue and green. Still it was the long train of its tail feathers, insolently scraping across the floor behind the bird that were truly eye-catching, even furled as it was now.
'What is that thing?' Lucas asked as the big bird proudly walked on, head bobbing as it dragged its long tail behind it. Shard jumped down from the fountain and joined her brother as they both watched the bird waddle off into the emerald shadows of the garden.
'I think it's a Peacock,' Shard whispered excitedly, 'remember like that feather Granny used to keep in the vase back home?'
'Wow.' Lucas intoned once more. Shard caught his hand and tugged on his arm insistently.
'That wasn't what I wanted to show you - come over here!'
Pulling her older brother along with boundless energy Shard ran forward into a particularly dark part of the seemingly limitlessly huge secret garden deep under the desert floor. The two children ran through clouds of rose petals and falling blossom until finally they came to a dead halt.
Lucas froze in awe as he stood in the shadow of a huge pinnacle tower that rose up all the way into the echoing shadows of the garden's highest reaches. Cords of light in shades of sulphur orange, gold, pink and red writhed around and around the spindly tower like serpents. The whole structure rose from the lush gardens like a skeleton of blackened metal, striking up towards the long distant heaven like an accusation.
The X-Mansion Medlab
Threnody traced a finger down the shimmering web of the psi-dampening shield. 'Dr McCoy you must understand: Sinister's Garden is his life's work. It is everything; the Garden is more than just the nexus of his research: it is his research.'
Hank McCoy chewed on the end of his spectacles as he perched on the edge of Threnody's bed. 'Fascinating; we had long posited the hypothesis that there must be a central location that Sinister worked from – beyond the tesseract connected laboratory Gambit and I once discovered.'
Threnody sighed patiently, 'Sinister has many labs; the cloning lab you destroyed was only one of his many satellite lairs. It was never connected to the Garden; no Marauder has ever been to the Garden. Not even Gambit but then, he was never a Marauder; not truly,' she added quietly.
Threnody's attitude towards the Cajun was interesting and convoluted. There was a sense of kinship, in that they had both acted as Sinister's reluctant right hand, and also jealously for Gambit was favoured by Sinister and had resided with the X-men while Threnody had remained a barely tolerated slave.
'Almagordo is the key to reaching the Garden; but the only person with the power to access the Garden without Sinister's say so is Gambit. I don't know if he knows that though. Sinister wished that his Black Womb legacy be kept secret from him so that he could not rebel.'
'Black Womb legacy?' Hank heard a crunch and realised he had beaten clean through the ear piece of his spectacle. Embarrassed he swiftly laid the glasses aside. Threnody gave no hint that she had noticed however, her gaze abstracted. Hank cleared his throat. 'What is the Black Womb legacy?'
Threnody's eyes snapped back into focus and she looked up at Hank through the filmy curtain of the psi-dampener with sorrowful eyes, 'The Black Womb was many things. A woman once, a mother many times, a helpmeet for Sinister and a catspaw both; she gave her name to the genetic research she and Sinister spear-headed in the Almagordo.'
Hank felt like his head was swimming he struggled to keep up against the flow of information he did not understand, 'And this Almagordo project; you said it was a defunct nuclear research facility?'
Threnody shook her head and sighed once again fighting to explain things that to her had become the fabric of everyday life as Sinister's overlooked and mistreated lab assistant.
'That was just a cover the site never handled nuclear materials; in the fifties it was a chemical warfare research lab funded by the government.' Threnody looked keenly at Hank; her eyes older by far than her years. 'The government did not know what the managing directors Dr Milbury and Mueller really did in the bowels of the facility however; they did not know that it was not chemical weapons but mutant children that Mueller grew deep under the dust and rock of New Mexico.'
Hank frowned there were too many questions to hope to gain answers to at once. He had no choice but to stick to the most superficial as he gained a picture both twisted and cruel of what was truly going on. 'Mueller; I am aware of Sinister's various aliases but the name Mueller is unfamiliar to me.'
Threnody nodded calmly, 'Not many know of the Black Womb; I do not even know if she still lives. She was once Sinister's most valued assistant; the female progenitor of the Summers' line in the eighteen nineties and the mother of all Sinister's Black Womb children.'
Hank felt his blood drain, 'Sinister's children……you don't mean….?' Words failed him and he realised he did not want an answer. Threnody gave him one anyway; the least desirable answer imaginable.
'Yes,' she said gravely, 'Gambit carries the blood of Sinister in his veins. The Black Womb is his inheritance; and while a child of the Black Womb lives the Garden must prosper.'
2063 A.D.
'Double wow.' Lucas whispered half afraid as he craned his neck to look up into the glooming reaches of the towers heights.
'I know, and check out those coloured rope things - they have names on!'
Shard ran forward to the base of the tower and pointed to one of the thick, glowing cords of rainbow light that twinned like creeping ivy all around the tower. Lucas moved forward almost cautiously and peered at the cord his sister was pointing at. He stepped back swiftly, frightened.
'What is this thing?'
Shard was right, names were flashing through the cords like shoals of fast moving fish following a current. Even as the children watched over two dozen names flew past almost too fast to read and Lucas to catch hold of only a handful.
Drake Robert + Cecelia Reyes = Inez Drake + Simon Jorgson = Zadie Jorgson 2051A.D.
Frost Emma……..
McCoy Henry……..
Howlett James…………
A hand landing heavily on Lucas' shoulder and turning him physically away from the flow of names jerked Lucas out of his reverie with his heart leaping to his throat in fright.
The old man's jaded red eyes frowned down on him, 'Now pups, this is not for you to see. You not ready for this sort of knowledge yet.' Reaching beyond Lucas the old man Lebeau gently pulled the fascinated Shard from the cords. Taking one of their small hands in his the old man led them back to the Peacock and the fountain.
'You chillen can go where you wan' an' play with whatever you will,' he said tiredly sitting on the rim of the fountain and looking over as the Peacock started hooting evilly on the lawns. 'There be just one rule,' he said with a slight smile.
'What's that?' Shard asked curiously.
The old man's smile grew slightly larger. 'Ask no questions on what you see here,' He said simply, 'This here is the Garden; a billion secrets be hidden in here, every blade of grass and every flower stem got a story behind it.' The red eyes glittered madly, 'but they won' be tellin' no tales an' neither will I.'
'But…!' Lucas exploded in outrage, 'You can't mean that! I saw those names; I know some of those names! Robert Drake, Henry McCoy: they were X-men. They were original X-men!'
The old man gave him a long patient look, 'So what? They be long dead now, pup; dust an' bones alla them.' The smile turned hard and the eyes grew dead, 'Only exist in my chains now; just names and dates now.'
'Chains?' Shard walked over and gently touched the edge of the old man's sleeve, 'What do you mean?'
The old man sighed, 'What I say about questions, chile?'
He snorted sourly before either child could answer and shook his head before pointing back towards the hidden tower.
'Them coloured cords you been gawpin' at be the chains that bind me to my penance chillen; once upon a time I stolt this here Garden from the Devil hisself.' The old man sighed tiredly, 'Cost me ev'rything I once held dear, but I turned the Devil's Garden into a lil' piece o' heaven all the same.'
'And the chains?' Lucas found himself clutching at the old man's other hand as he began to move away from the fountain leading the children out of the Garden. Lebeau's ancient but sharp gaze raked over Lucas for a moment.
'You not a fool pup, you know that not'ing in this life come without a price to pay; won my freedom from the Devil an' cast him outta his Garden, oui, I done that.' The tired red eyes swept over his domain, his secret paradise.
'Still the price was a high one; every mutant that ever born an' live to die, I know their names, I record their lives, an' mourn their passin'.' The old man stopped as if accosted with sudden bone deep weariness, 'You can' kill the devil pup, only replace him; wish someone had been there to tell me that when I was a pup, mebbe then things would have worked out different.'
The old man drew himself together and fixed narrowed his red eyes on Lucas, 'Mark me on this one Bishop: I am the Witness; that is my punishment. The Garden must grow and I must be its caretaker, even if it did cost me my heart and soul in the bargain.'
Lucas stared and said nothing as that frightening red gaze released him finally. He walked with his sister and the old man Lebeau in silence to the elevator doors that would take them away from this most secret of all secrets. All the while Lucas could not help but feel that there was a reason he had been brought here; a reason the old man Lebeau had called himself the 'Witness'. It almost seemed like he wanted Lucas to remember all the nonsense he had just said.
What had he said: You can' kill the devil pup, only replace him; wish someone had been there to tell me that when I was a pup, mebbe then things would have worked out different. The old man had sounded so sad but how was Lucas supposed to stop something that had happened years and years before he was even born?
Still wrestling with the incomprehensible mystery that was the old man Lebeau Lucas couldn't help noticing as they passed something strange through the thick shadows of tree branches and trailing moss. He saw a door, huge and metallic, out of place in the organic splendour of the rest of the garden. He frowned and narrowed his eyes for a better look.
Scrawled across those huge ominous doors in black industrial script were perhaps the most unsettling words Lucas would ever read: BLACK WOMB LABORATORY.