Veterans' Affairs Medical Center; Houston
"You-!" Bishop said.
"Shut up!" Nima barked.
He grabbed Bishop's plasma shotgun.
"Move!" Asmara prodded Bishop up the stairs, her pistol digging into his skin.
"You're gonna fly us out of here, and you're gonna do it with a smile on your face if you don't want your little friend's neck snapped," Nima said.
Bishop flinched.
Jubilee!
Asmara struck the back of his head with the hilt of her gun.
Bishop dropped to a knee.
"Get up!" Nima shouted.
Bishop struggled to raise his head. Felt like trying to lift a car with his neck. His vision blurred. Hazy smears of purple swayed side to side atop the stairs.
Bishop blinked. His eyes fluttered until the streaks of purple converged.
Elizabeth. With two zombies behind her. Their leathery, blood stained arms wrapped around her throat.
"… Psylocke…!" Bishop said.
What about Ju-…
"Last chance! Move or she's dead!" Asmara gazed at the zombies.
Her hazel eyes glowed sunset-red.
On cue, the zombies tightened their grip. Betsy's bloodshot eyes bulged. Her face turned a deeper shade of purple than her tousled hair.
"Alright!" Bishop crawled to his feet.
The zombies marched backwards up the stairs, facing Bishop. He climbed each step. Psylocke's limp body dangled in front of him like a human carrot.
He hated himself for even thinking it, but every second he had to watch Betsy suffer, every second her breathing grew weaker and weaker, Bishop could only think of Jubilee.
She was unaccounted for.
Pain went away. Wounds healed.
Not knowing?
It was the worst kind of hurt. The kind that lasted. No matter how much time passed. In either direction.
He knew better than everyone else. He knew the ending. Sentinels. Camps. Genocide. And knowing the future made living in the past unbearable. Did his presence in this time change his future? Erase it? Delay it?
Or maybe trigger it?
So much had deviated already from the history he knew. Or at least the history he was taught. He just didn't know.
Sometimes it made him want to do nothing at all. Maybe if he didn't breathe, then things wouldn't be affected.
Then sometimes he'd want to take control of his destiny. Do what he felt was best for the future and hope, hope it made a difference. A lot of times life felt like someone put a blindfold on him then handed him a gun. Best he could hope for would be to not do anything.
Not knowing… the uncertainty ate away at him. Maggots of the soul. Festering.
Where was Jubilee? What happened?
Who was Nima talking about? His little friend? He assumed that was Jubilee. Had to be.
But all evidence pointed to Elizabeth. Did they have them both?
Did they already kill Jubilee? They only needed one person as leverage. Not two. It'd be poor strategy to hold Betsy and Jubilee.
She could've been expendable once they captured Elizabeth…
God willing, Jubilee was hiding somewhere. She might have seen those zombies coming and ran. Afraid to answer her communicator because it might give up her position.
Smart. Cowardly, but smart.
It was his fault.
He shouldn't have left her alone. Psylocke was right. Jubilee just doesn't have it in her to be like the rest of the team. She needed someone to look out for her.
And Bishop let her down. His stubbornness might cost her life.
They climbed to the roof. Zombies in front, dragging Psylocke. Nima and Asmara in back. With Bishop where he always seemed to be.
Caught in the middle.
Chilling rain and thunder blitzed the helipad. The heavy winds almost toppled Bishop. There were corpses piled around the tower doorway when they landed. Now those desecrated bodies were scattered around the helipad, no doubt from the whipping winds.
Bishop sneered and trudged through the furious storm toward the Blackbird.
Nima and Asmara followed and stared at the enormous jet.
"Look at this baby," Nima said.
"Air-rescuers, huh?" Asmara said.
"Where is the girl!" Bishop said.
"Heh. You might've hit him a little too hard, sis," Nima said.
"Here's the deal. Mr. Bishop. Fly us out of here. No tricks. No games. And once we're airborne, I'll shut off my zombies and let the girl go. If you hurry, you might have time to circle back to pick her up after you drop us off before the whole building is flooded," Asmara said.
"You don't have a choice. Either you do what we say. Or we all die together," Nima said.
Bishop didn't answer.
He frantically searched for a yellow trench coat among the corpses. His heart beat like a drumroll.
Finding her terrified him. Not finding her was even worse.
No sign of Jubilee. Her body could have been blown clear off the roof. She was just a little thing. Wind could've gotten under her and… She could be facedown, drifting among the rest of the dead.
"He's not going to do it… Look at his eyes…" Nima said.
"Fine, we'll take our chances flying ourselves." Asmara stared at her zombies.
They jerked to attention and wrenched Psylocke's neck like a wine cork.
"Stop it! I'll do it!" Bishop put his hands up in surrender.
"Smart. See, that wasn't so hard," Asmara said.
She held Bishop in her sights and inched toward the Blackbird door. She motioned Bishop over.
He kept his arms up and treaded slowly over the dead bodies toward the Blackbird. Nima walked six steps behind Bishop, never moving the plasma shotgun off Bishop's broad back.
"Easy… easy, big boy. No sudden moves," Nima said.
Bishop approached the Blackbird. Asmara pointed right between his eyes.
Nima traced Bishop's exact steps. Weaving over and around each dead body to the center of the helipad.
"Doing good, Mr. Bi-!" Nima stepped beside a corpse.
The lifeless body detonated like a landmine. A brilliant explosion of plasma fireworks launched Nima across the helipad. The thunderous force of the blast leveled Bishop to the ground like an earthquake.
"AAAARGGHH!" Nima screeched.
"Nima!" Asmara shielded her eyes from the sparks with her forearms.
The Blackbird door slid open.
Jubilee jumped out and throttled Asmara with two boots to the face.
"Leave my friends alone!" Jubilee shouted.
Asmara's head smacked against the pavement. Her gun bounced out of her hand. Her backpack spilled open. Dozens upon dozens of prescription bottles and pills tumbled out and rolled to the edge of the roof.
The zombies went limp. Psylocke dropped from their grasp and crumpled onto the rooftop.
"Watch out!" Jubilee looked at Betsy.
Psylocke quickly rolled away from the zombies.
Jubilee fired a radiant ball of plasma that blew the zombies ten feet back.
Asmara scurried behind Jubilee's back and reached for the pills.
"No!" Asmara shouted as the bottles rolled off the rooftop just past her fingertips.
Asmara turned and grabbed for the gun.
Jubilee snatched it from the blacktop.
"No." Jubilee removed the magazine.
Asmara collapsed on her back and rubbed the melon welt on her forehead.
. "…Ju-Jubilation?" Bishop said.
"Hey, take it easy, B." Jubilee rushed to his side.
"… That was your timed explosive…?" Bishop wiped the rain from his eyes.
"One of them. I planted like ten. Some of those zombie dweebs came after me in the Blackbird. I took 'em out and went to warn you guys, but they were all over the staircase. So I would lure a few up, plant a bomb. And boom! They're not too bright as far as zombies go," Jubilee said.
She helped Bishop to his feet.
"… I did not know you knew how to do that," Bishop said.
"Yeah, well, y'know, all that time I was Wondra or on Generation X, it's not like I ever had to fight for my life or anything," Jubilee said.
"… Good show, Jubilee," Psylocke wheezed.
"Please. The Last of Us was harder." Jubilee bounced Betsy's back.
"*Cough cough*… I'll take your word for it." Betsy gingerly stood up, gasping for air.
"Gotta say, purple really is your color. 'Specially in the face." Jubilee elbowed Betsy.
"… It's… it's a fashion statement." Betsy smiled.
"So what do we do with them, B?" Jubilee said.
"Let's find out…" Bishop turned to Asmara, "… What really happened here?"
"Please… it's not our faults…" Asmara broke into tears.
"Spill it lady," Jubilee said.
Betsy formed her psiblade and pointed right between Asmara's eyes.
"I'm a telepath. It's up to you if you don't want to be conscious when we get the truth," Betsy said.
"I'm telling the truth! I swear… it's not our fault! We didn't want any of this, and that's the honest to God truth. I've worked here as a pharm tech seven months now. You know how hard it was to find a job? I was unemployed almost a year after school…
Nima… my brother's a Vet. But they never did anything for him here after he came back. Just made him wait eight hours every time and gave him pain pills. Eventually he got addicted. What did they expect?
His cravings got bad. I… I didn't know how bad. I just knew he had been shot a few times over there. Who was I to tell him how much pain he was in?
Sometimes… when he couldn't wait or get in… I'd… I'd sneak him some medication. I thought I was helping. He's a veteran for God's sake! Why should he be treated like some bum off the street just to see a doctor? It was innocent enough at first.
Then one day… Nima told me he was in trouble. All the pills I'd been stealing turned out to not be for Nima. He was selling them.
And they wanted more. Always more. It got to the point where they wanted everything. A few weeks ago, they planned this big raid on the pharmacy. We had to help. If we didn't they'd turn us in for everything we stole. I worked too hard to lose my job… It was a pretty good plan. Simple and clean.
But the problem was that no one expected the flood. Or cared. We tried to cancel, but they thought we were just trying to back out. They set the day, and nothing, not the weather, not us, nothing was going to stop it from happening.
But it all went to hell. They come in and end up shooting a bunch of people because of all the chaos from the flood. And when they reach us in the pharmacy? Power's out. So the automated locks to the refrigerator and meds are sealed shut.
They still won't accept it's not meant to be. They go for the backup generator, turn it on, and they burn up in the electrical fire, along with pretty much everything else.
But with them gone, no one cared that Nima and I were innocent… We had to protect ourselves… So… we… started shooting.
Then we were the last ones left. We tried to get out, but the fire pinned us down, and that's when you came in… Please… you have to believe me… we were the victims," Asmara said.
"You killed all those patients. All those veterans. Your coworkers. And you're the victims?" Betsy said.
"… We knew who you were the second you blew through the door. I'm a mutant. Our cousins are mutants. We know you're the X-Men. You've never killed because you had to? Or someone made you or tricked you?" Asmara said.
Bishop looked away.
"You think I don't regret what we did? You want to know the truth? Before you came… God forgive me for saying this… but before you came, I was… I, I was hoping we would die in the fire. Then no one'd know. We'd just be two more bodies. No one'd have to know what we did. We could die and take the guilt with us. I could live with it if I was dead. Then we heard you guys and… and I looked at Nima and… I just wanted to live. I want to go home," Asmara said.
Jubilee glanced at Asmara's face. Sopping wet. But under the dirt marks and wet curtains of hair were a set of big, bright eyes and cherub cheeks.
Jubilee almost choked on her own saliva.
"Christ, B… She's just a baby…" Jubilee said.
She scooped up a pill bottle from a puddle on the roof.
"… Why the hell didn't you go for the gun first? You would've gotten away." Jubilee read the label on the bottle.
Asmara looked away.
"Because she's addicted too," Betsy said.
Jubilee walked over to Asmara. She handed her the bottle.
"Here. These are yours. Got your name on them," Jubilee said.
Betsy hauled Nima's unconscious body off the floor. Jubilee led Asmara into the Blackbird.
"We would've saved you. You know that. You didn't have to attack us. If you had just done nothing, you would've been better off," Bishop said.
"… I know…" Asmara whispered.
"So do we..." Betsy looked at Bishop.
He gazed at the grey sky. Somewhere hidden, buried behind the engorged, dark clouds was the sun. Reminded him of being a child. Staring at a sky filled with darkness. Hoping the sun was still there behind the sentinel skyline.
"… What was the point of it all, Psylocke?" Bishop took a deep breath, "… I suppose you were right. We shouldn't have come. We didn't save anyone," he said.
"I don't know about that, Lucas…" Betsy said.
Betsy pointed at Jubilee and Asmara inside the Blackbird. Jubilee carried handcuffs and approached Asmara.
Asmara put her wrists out. Willingly.
Jubilee paused.
A tear slipped from Asmara's puppy dog eyes.
Jubilee wrapped Asmara's hands in restraints.
"… Thank you," Asmara said.
Betsy turned to Bishop.
"… I agree with one thing you said. Not both," Betsy said.