Chapter 35 – Abstraction
Thick sonorous tones rippled the air inside the Great Auditorium of Carnegie Hall. Jean held the hands of her friends Xi'an and Peter who were seated on either side. Their minds were linked telepathically. Jean sensed her consciousness converging with the thoughts of the other two. The different timbres of their imaginations flowed together and apart sympathetically with the vibrating strings of the viola, viola da gamba, and cello played by the musicians performing the Bach concerto on the stage.
Peter's deep affinity for the music intensified Jean and Xi'an's perception of the rapid pacing and resonant layering of the main melodic line upon itself. The soaring notes wove sonic forms so pristine and exquisite they inspired Jean to light their brains with arcing stellar flares and fusing nuclei.
Xi'an's inner voice articulated their collective rapture. This is true beauty – perfection, untainted by emotion. Pure love without desire. This is our essence… Self beyond self.
The three shared the sensation of floating up to the ceiling and then beyond the roof of the concert hall. As they sailed above the city, their discarded bodies with their attendant petty concerns shrank to the size of pinpoints.
Think what power you could wield from up here, Jean, said Xi'an while they rose past sparkling stratospheric clouds. Without that shell restricting you, bending your mind… Harmonics from the echoing chords made Xi'an's words shimmer.
We can control your power. Peter's thoughts reverberated through the low strains of the cello. Drifting in space, they were surrounded by stars pulsing to the concerto's insistent rhythm. Jean set her gaze upon the enormous burning mass of the Sun. Together.
The expressions of the directors remained suspended in various stages of shock.
"Dad!" Warren rushed from the conference table to his fallen father. The air stirred after him, sweeping papers and glossy reports across the burnished surface.
Worthington II lay in a heap by the presentation screen. His gulps for oxygen were interrupted by another gunshot. The bullet zinged by Angel's head, stinging the edge of his ear. Blood started to pool along the neck of his shirt.
Domino shouted, "Don't think I won't clip you, Angel!"
Warren turned and flared his wings. The primary feathers of his left appendage brushed the curtain covering the east wall window eight feet away.
Preceded by the barrels of two semi-automatic pistols, the lean woman moved forward. "You are one easy target to take down. I know just where to shoot…" Her pupils shifted from left to right as she scanned his wings, "The quick of the carpal joint. They'll never work again."
Warren gripped the head of the thirty-foot long conference table and threw it over as he lifted forty-five feet to the vault of the chamber. Briefcases and crystal water pitchers crashed around Domino and Avalanche while they and Carolyn Cheng and the security guards scurried to escape the careening furniture.
Before Domino could recover from the barrage, Angel arched downward and slammed her to the floor. Her sunglasses skittered into the corner. Pinning her legs with his knees, Warren banged her wrists against the shiny wood. "I'll take your guns."
A wave of kinetic energy rocked the surface beneath them. As the force thrust him aside, Warren caught a momentary glimpse of Avalanche's eyes rolling back into his skull. Domino bounced up, flipped the pistol in her right hand and hammered Angel's temple. His head rolled to the side; his splayed wings stilled.
Standing triumphant over two vanquished Worthingtons, Domino aimed her black-ringed stare at Giles Tareyton, who was cautiously approaching his heaving boss. "One more inch," she pointed one of her guns at his face, "and you're next, fancy guy." Her opposite arm extended the other weapon in a semi-circle. "I'll kill anyone that moves!"
"Just let me help him," Giles pleaded.
"Here's how you help him." Domino pressed the pistol tip to the exterior of Giles' breast pocket. "You got a phone in there?"
"Yes," Giles answered, sounding remarkably steady.
"I bet there's a pilot waiting around in a helicopter on the roof. Tell him to start the rotors. We're leaving."
Giles retrieved the device and spoke into it. "Trey. Prepare for departure… No, I don't know what caused the tremors… Just get the copter ready." He ended the call and asked Domino, "Sufficient?"
"Now pick him up," she ordered, gesturing towards the elder Worthington. Giles hesitated. "Don't worry," she added, "I hit him above the heart and avoided his lungs. He's only suffering from blood loss and mental trauma. He'll live, if you and he do what I say."
Giles raised Worthington II and held the older man in a standing position. "Sir, can you walk?"
A faint whisper came from the CEO, "Yes… I think…"
Domino reversed towards the entry doors, ushering Giles and Worthington out while maintaining her controlling surveillance of the remaining twelve conscious people in the room.
"Who told you about this meeting?" asked Giles.
"What?" For a fleeting instant Domino appeared confused. "Birdie over there," she answered loudly, indicating the comatose Angel. "But she was part of it." Domino switched her accusatory gaze to Carolyn Cheng.
"I…" Carolyn was about to protest her innocence but Domino interrupted her.
"Him too." She swung one gun to implicate Josh Gould. "Damn, he spilled everything!" Josh twitched but uttered nothing. "Actually, it was you, fancy guy," she said finally, focusing on Tareyton as they crossed the threshold. "You were the real spy." She stopped to wink at those left in the conference room. "Goodbye." She nodded to her mulleted associate. "Avalanche, say goodbye to these nice people."
The last thing Carolyn Cheng, Josh Gould, the eight directors and two security guards saw before Domino shut the doors was Avalanche's eyeballs turning inward. The space shook and the entryway collapsed. Large chunks of drywall and distorted steel supports sealed the conference room.
Jean Grey clapped and hollered "Bravo!" along with hundreds of fellow patrons at the conclusion of the performance. Her hands were her own again. She was suddenly jolted by pangs of fear and anger and pain. Where were these emotions coming from? Many in the audience were hurrying from their seats. Quickly Grey realized she was about to get stuck in a slow-moving mass of people exiting the theater. "Hey, let's leave," she proposed.
Peter and Xi'an flashed uneasy glances. "But they're going to do an encore," Peter objected.
"You're worried about the crowd." Xi'an relaxed her facial muscles to project an aura of calm. "Don't. We won't get crushed, we'll chill until most of them are gone, okay?" Xi'an offered Jean her palms. The viola da gamba player and the harpsichordist began a sonata.
Jean shook her head. "I have to go. You two can stay." She brushed past Xi'an and began weaving her way to the aisle.
"Jean, why are you in such a rush?" asked Peter when he and Xi'an caught up.
"I think something is happening," Jean responded, exiting onto Seventh Avenue.
They halted at the curb. "Something is always happening somewhere." Xi'an stroked Jean's sleeve. "You have to let things happen."
"Not this." Jean swiftly traversed 57th Street, followed by her friends.
Dust choked the thin strands of light that filtered into the ruined conference space from the edges of the curtain obscuring the panoramic window along the east wall. Carolyn Cheng dramatically tore the material aside, revealing the overcast sky and Central Park.
She heard a mixture of partial conversations – Josh Gould talking to emergency services in an attempt to revive the winged mutant son of the CEO; Halsley Woodhull instructing his wife how to locate various papers, account numbers, codes and keys in case he didn't survive his current predicament; and Toshio Ashida and Guy Spear ironing out succession plans with their vice presidents.
Carolyn was fairly confident no one would notice and, even less likely, listen in on her communication as she placed a call to a very exclusive number. "Steven, tell Trask we have a situation. Scenario 28. There were two – a female and a male, both young. She was in charge… I didn't recognize them. I heard the names 'Domino' and 'Avalanche.' How would I know whether or not they're Priority One? Giles never gave me access. You want to talk to him? Well, you can't; they grabbed him too, and they're taking the helicopter."
Josh had used his shirt to clean the blood from Warren's forehead and loosened his friend's tie and collar. "He's breathing," he said into the speaker of his phone as he searched Angel's neck for his carotid artery. "Okay, I'm counting the beats… one… two… Uh huh. All right, I'll check." Josh's thumb peeled back Warren's left eyelid.
Warren immediately grabbed Josh's hand and pushed it away from his now fully opened piercing blue eyes.
The sun emerged from the blanket of fog that had kept it cocooned all day. It fired Jean's red hair as she ran north on Broadway towards Columbus Circle. The immense Worthington Corporate Center dominated the cityscape. Peter and Xi'an had barely reached her when the traffic signal on 58th Street changed.
"Jean, stop. What are you doing?" asked Peter, breathlessly, while they were crossing.
"Where are you going?" Xi'an's placid demeanor had crumbled.
"There. I think."
Police vehicles and ambulances converged on Columbus Circle. Officers began shutting down vehicular traffic and erecting barricades to prevent pedestrians from approaching the Worthington complex. Peter glanced at Jean's adamantium vest; the straps were coming undone.
"Warren, you're okay!" cried Josh joyously.
Halsley Woodhull and Toshio Ashida paused mid-call to observe the restored Angel.
"Where's my dad?" Warren pulled in his wings and rose to his feet. He studied the pile of debris where the entrance doors had stood.
"The mutants took him and Giles." Josh was amazed at Warren's recovery. "They're leaving in the helicopter, probably taking off as we speak..." A thwacking noise above changed in amplitude.
Warren hurried to the window. Sunshine had dissolved the stratus veil. A glinting Buckman 507 dropped into view heading northeast over Central Park.
"Listen, you were out cold a second ago, Warren." Josh's brows ridged with worry. "You shouldn't be moving a whole lot…"
Angel picked up one of the steel frame conference chairs, smashed its base through the glass, and leapt through the jagged opening.
The fierce influx of wind pummeled the trapped executives and staff with bits of glass and insulation. "Steven," Carolyn gazed through protective fingers at Warren's receding form, "Worthington's son is going after them." Angel was gaining on the aircraft as it passed over the Park ball fields. "What? No, he's not in another copter. He jumped out the window. Of course he didn't fall. He's a mutant, with wings; he can fly. You didn't know? Have you spent the last month under a rock? All right, I suppose you have. The press calls him 'the Angel.'"
Within the passenger cabin of the Buckman helicopter, Lance Alvers curled in his seat, clutching his stomach with one hand and the Glock 9mm Domino had entrusted to him with the other. He was desperately trying to avoid seeing either the sun beaming above or the parkland shrinking below.
Sitting opposite, Giles Tareyton wrapped the exposed bleeding flesh of Worthington II's shoulder with a bandage from the in-flight first aid kit. The older man was fading in and out, but Tareyton appeared alert and unfazed. The gauze purpled with blood in seconds. Giles draped Worthington's suit jacket over the wound and continued to apply pressure through the fine wool.
While struggling to contain his heaving guts, Avalanche dropped the gun. The weapon thumped on the carpeted floor. Giles saw that Worthington had noticed the opportunity as well. Tareyton bent slowly and reached for the firearm.
The toe of a black leather boot came down on his fingers. Domino pushed the barrel of the gun she had in her hand into Giles' nose. "Are you gonna make me blow your head off?"
"What do you expect me to do?" asked Giles. "He let go of the gun."
Domino snatched the fallen pistol and used it to whack Lance across the face. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
Lance grabbed at his throbbing cheek and sat up rigidly; he was enraged. "You and Mystique both know I hate flying! Makes me sick… My powers don't even work up here."
"I'm not asking for an earthquake." Domino's sharpness cut through Avalanche's nausea. "If you want to live through this job, you better hold onto this." She placed the handle in his grip and centered the aperture on Giles' chest. "Fancy guy makes another move, fancy guy bites it."
She swung back into the forward section and shouted at the pilot, "You stick to the course I gave you! And speed the hell up. This thing can go 160 knots. What are we doing now? Twenty?" She scratched his stubbly jaw with her remaining hard-shelled Glock. "Don't think you aren't expendable. I can fly this thing, no problem." Just then the helicopter yawed forty degrees to the right. Domino fell into the pilot. She rapidly regained her footing and smacked him with her gun. "You want to die!"
"No! I didn't do that!" His knuckles were trembling. "Something's out there…"
"Don't get any ideas." Domino ducked into the passenger area. Lance was cowering by the right side exit clinging tenuously to the gun. Domino separated the pistol from his grasp, planted him in his seat and fastened the belt. She swayed casually as she turned to check on Giles and the CEO. Finding Worthington II secured and unconscious, she moved on to Tareyton. Holding the guns above her head, she kneeled on either side of Giles' lap and kissed him deeply. "Do you like my work?" she asked.
"I don't know yet," he answered. "I'll tell you when it's finished."
She lifted off him. "Watch things," she told Lance, who was glaring at her. She yanked open the exit door. The rush of air made Lance shield his face and snapped Giles' necktie. Domino wound one of the thick vinyl restraints around her right arm and leaned out. She spied Angel riding the skids of the aircraft.
He met her predatory stare. "Let me take my father!" he yelled over the wind shear.
"Get outta here!" She screamed while pointing her weapons.
The sunlight lit his eyes. His wings looked huge. "You're going to start a war!"
"I'm gonna shoot you down, you idiot! This time I'm aiming straight for your heart!"
"Domino, you can stop this! It's not too late…"
"That's my boy," cried Worthington II, who had awoken abruptly inside the vessel. "Here to save the goddamned da..." His words were broken by the sound of gunfire.
Two brass-colored projectiles, each approximately an inch long, were milliseconds away from shattering Warren's sternum and obliterating the left and right ventricles of his heart. There was no escape. He felt every muscle tense, bracing for the pain.
But the bullets stopped, centimeters from his chest, and hung, gleaming in mid-air. Some invisible force had suspended all motion - the wind had ceased and the blades of the helicopter's propeller were frozen.
"What the f**k? I can't move!" shouted a furious Domino as her pistols were pried from her fingers. "No!"
The guns flew out of her hands and hovered five feet away. The cartridges threatening Warren reversed direction and zoomed back into the cylinders that had fired them. The weapons exploded, splintering into hundreds of tiny metal and plastic pieces. Then the floating fragments disintegrated into specks of dust, which swirled into nothingness in the wake of a rising Jean Grey. She had dispensed with the adamantium flak jacket and wore simply a trim red sweater, black miniskirt and tights. Her scarlet tresses arced like surging currents in an angry sea.
"Oh god…" murmured Domino.
Jean sailed within a pinky length of Domino's paralyzed profile. "You have no idea." The gold streaks in Grey's green eyes sparked as she bore into the other woman's psyche. "You don't know the plan. How can you trust her?" Jean glided into the aircraft's interior.
Warren realized he could move his wings and flew by her side. "You're reading their minds?"
"Yes. I have to." Jean drifted over to Avalanche.
"Great. Jean Grey, teen queen of the X-Men." Lance's words cracked from his stone-still jaw.
"They told you absolutely nothing, Lance. I thought things would only get worse for you." Jean revolved to examine Giles and Warren Worthington II.
All strength had drained from the CEO. His papery skin was soaked with sweat. Each weak breath made him shudder. "Don't come nn near me… brain-sucker, fr-freak… Mm monster!" His trembling teeth shredded every third syllable.
Giles tried to look away. "You do not have the right to psychically violate Mr. Worthington or myself or any employee of the Worthington Corporation!"
"Warren, take your father." Jean touched Angel's wrist. "You have to get him to Metropolitan Hospital. They'll be waiting on the roof. They won't understand why exactly, but they'll be ready."
"I won't leave Giles." The older man failed to pat his assistant. "Won't let y-you… suck his mind dry…"
"Mr. Worthington, there is no human mind in your friend's head. Unlike you and everyone else, there's a void inside him. Which makes sense. Because he doesn't exist. He's not a person; he's just a persona." Jean caught Tareyton's focus with her stare and held him. "A disguise."
"Let me go!" the young man growled in an unfamiliar guttural voice.
"Stop her!" Worthington rasped. His wavering sight sought out his son. Angel didn't acknowledge him.
"The blankness is a smokescreen. The real mind is behind it. Show yourself!" Jean commanded.
"You can't make me…" The veins in Giles' throat bulged.
"I can. How deep do you want me to dig, Mystique?" Jean bent closer. "Want me to claw through your prefrontal cortex?"
"Noooahhh!" A howl transformed into a long low laugh as greenish-gray eyes paled to yellow, blond hair turned the color of blood, and a ruddy complexion darkened to shocking indigo. The twill wool suit vanished, leaving the CEO of the Worthington Corporation quivering next to a cackling, naked, blue, female mutant.
Jean sent sleep-inducing impulses through the older man's nervous system as she levitated his body into the arms of his son. "You must go," she urged Angel. She floated out the exit hatch.
Warren stopped at the grooved steel sill. "You want me to leave you with them? Alone? No way." Warren wondered if she sensed his readiness to sacrifice his father's safety for hers. I won't abandon you.
"He's going to die in minutes if you don't get him to the hospital." Hovering outside the helicopter, Jean spoke with unblinking certainty. "I don't need you to deal with Mystique. I've handled her before. And this is done." Jean telekinetically lifted the immobilized Domino and deposited her next to Lance. "I'm about to seal the cabin and deliver these guys to the MRD."
Mystique's demonic laughter continued. Angel guessed her intention was to disturb them. It was working, on him anyway. Jean's expression softened for a moment and then grew starkly serious. "Please, Warren. Go."
Warren looked down as he sprang from the helicopter carrying his limp, sedated parent. Directly beneath, the bronze head of the angel crowning the Bethesda Fountain, the guardian of the city's water supply, gleamed atop her outstretched metal wings. Tourists and regular New Yorkers surrounding the fountain were staring up at him and Jean and the static helicopter hanging in the sky.
He felt embarrassed by his wings – which he hadn't experienced for years. Did the people watching think he was some kind of heavenly protector? He was further from the true thing than the inanimate golden statue. He couldn't defend Jean if he gave his life trying, not from mutants like Mystique and Domino. Basically, he was a big, ridiculously easy target. Domino would have killed him, effortlessly, if Jean hadn't stopped the bullets. Grey was probably better off without him – one less worry.
As his shadow passed over the inverted conic tiers of the Guggenheim Museum, his sight shifted to the Metropolitan Hospital complex that occupied East 97th to 99th Street on Second Avenue. He was one minute away. Miniature white and blue-coated figures were wheeling equipment onto the roof. A reflection captured his attention – a white blip high in the atmosphere. The flicker approaching central Manhattan soon developed into a jet-shaped machine. The rate of its increasing size relative to the horizon could only be explained by extreme acceleration.
It was a Reaper. He was sure of it. He recalled Mystique in the guise of Giles Tareyton describing an omicron signal pulse with the capacity to "knock Jean Grey unconscious." Warren looked back; Jean was in the Sentinel's direct path.
He now interpreted Mystique's maniacal cackles minutes earlier as victorious crowing. She had played quite a game. Posing as Tareyton, she'd manipulated his father and Bolivar Trask, as well as the United States Military into producing a Sentinel streamlined to destroy her most hated enemies – Magneto, Ororo, Scott, and perhaps greatest of all, Jean. Rogue had told him how Jean had singlehandedly beaten Mystique to a mangled lump when she discovered the blue mutant on the verge of murdering an incapacitated Scott Summers.
Mystique's deceit must have also included keeping herself and her lieutenants off the Priority One list. Warren was convinced the rocketing Sentinel was currently pursuing a single objective: destroy Jean Grey.
Flying as fast as he could – without the burden of his father's body – it would take him two minutes minimum to return to Jean and the helicopter. The Reaper's present speed was likely in excess of Mach 1; it would have Grey in close range in thirty seconds or less. In twenty seconds, it would zoom past him, and possibly register his existence as being as significant as a flock of sparrows, even though he had in his care the CEO of the Worthington Corporation.
An idea, a way to save Jean flashed in his mind. If the Reaper wasn't programmed with any battle scenarios involving him, he could surprise it. He could grab hold of the fuselage before it got to Jean and maybe ride the thing down to the ground… And though carbon fiber and ceramic materials were enormously difficult to bend, a high shock impact could crack the stuff like eggshells. He could punch through its skin and tear out its computer brain.
There was just one obstacle: his dad's dead weight in his arms. The man's features were the color of plaster. His mouth was open, stuck in the midst of a cry. Was he still breathing? He might already be gone. Warren had three seconds to choose: drop the father he hated or let the girl he loved die.