Chapter 52
First thing Sarah notices about Laura that even when given a choice what to wear her daughter chooses black. Black top, black pants, black boots.
She's going to have to work at making her daughter realise there are other colours.
Second thing Sarah notices is that upon entering the room they've been given Laura sets about rearranging it.
"Laura. What are you doing?" she has to ask.
"Setting the furniture to give maximum protection and deny any attacker a clean shot through either the window or the door. They can also provide cover for us to hide behind," Laura states blandly.
"You mean a sniper?" Sarah queries what Laura means.
"Yes."
"Is that why you closed the curtains?"
"Yes. That limits them down to infra-red sights."
"Laura...you don't have to do that any more," Sarah tries to make her see.
Laura pauses for a moment and blinks. "I have penetrated this place's defences. They are not that good."
"Yes but few people are as good as you."
"True," Laura says and if it were anyone else that would sound like boasting but for Laura it is simply stating fact. "But there are a few," she argues that as a reason for what she is doing.
Sarah sighs and sits on the bed. "Laura, come here," she pats down the space next to her.
Laura does what she is told and sits.
"What I was meaning is that that life is over for us now."
Laura looks at her mother, clearly not understanding.
Sarah sighs again. "But then again I can't just expect you to stop doing what was drummed into you can I," she realises. All those years of brainwashing...it'll take years to undo it if it can ever be truly undone.
Laura sits in silence. She is never the one who initiates conversations.
"So what were you doing while I was talking to Professor Xavier?" Sarah wonders.
"My sisters were helping me choose new clothes," Laura states.
"Sisters?" Sarah queries the plural.
"Domino and Rogue were products of the Weapon X progenation experiment and share DNA with Logan. Therefore that make them my sisters. Is that not correct?"
"I...uh...yes," Sarah confirms. "Yes it is. I just haven't let all that sink in yet," she mentions. She knew of the progenation project conducted by Weapon X. She just never expected to have any of them enter her life. She looks at her daughter. Wow, Laura has sisters...possibly brothers even. She never considered siblings...
Siblings?
Oh dear God. How could she forget?
Sarah has a sister. Debbie...and she has her own daughter. Megan...who is Laura's cousin.
God, Sarah hasn't spoken to her sister in years.
She wonders...
Is what Laura needs a normal life?
It was her wish expressed in that letter that they could have that together.
This place...this Institute...is not what Laura and she needs. They need to be away from any sort of limelight. Hidden in the mundane of normality.
Sarah wonders if Debbie would put them up. She and her sister have bridges to mend...or more accurately Sarah needs to mend them. She pulled away from her sister like she did with her father. Shut her emotions off, was rather cold. Debbie rightly got sick of it.
Funny how the years working for HYDRA of all places had reawakened her emotions, her desire to reattach to her sister.
Sarah reaches up and brushes Laura's hair back. "Is your hair longer?" she asks, suddenly realising it seems to be.
"I have not cut it since we last saw each other," Laura answers that.
"We're getting it cut," Sarah decides.
"Why?"
"Well for starters if it's too long won't it get in your eyes? Seems to me that's not helpful in a critical situation now is it?"
Laura supposes not.
Sarah leans over and kisses the top of Laura's head. "Tomorrow...tomorrow we'll start living," she vows. Vows that she won't ruin this second chance she's been given.
The deepest, darkest sub-level beneath the mansion. One of the ones that is only partly built so while it is supported you can still see the surrounding rock visible. That is where you find the Professor, Logan and Domino moving through this morning.
"Dr Kinney indicated to me this morning that she is thinking of moving to San Francisco to be with her sister," Charles is telling Domino and Logan the gist of the conversation he had this morning with the former HYDRA doctor.
Both frown...almost identically.
"Is that wise?" Dom asks.
"Yeah, the kid is a long way from being right, Chuck," Logan agrees with Domino.
"Yet what's the alternative? Are we really comfortable in having Dr Kinney around? You don't trust her," Charles points out what he knows to be true.
"She hasn't earned any sort of trust yet," Dom argues.
"Perhaps...but there's also the basic fact my Institute is not a prison. If she wants to leave, knowing the risks, she can. If Laura wishes to go with her then she can. The woman is her mother."
"What about us? We're her family too. Don't we get a say," Dom argues further, not happy at seeing Laura just leave.
"Do you or Logan really want to start a custody battle over this?" Charles asks, though God only knows what sort of courtroom you settle a dispute over a clone created by a terrorist organisation in. "And if it comes down to a fight which side will Laura pick? And you must remember this, in these sort of battles too often parents forget the most important thing is the child...which brings me back to where I started. If Laura wants to leave are you going to force her to stay? No, I don't think so. What I recommend is that you talk to her and see what she thinks."
"You've got to stop making sense Chuck," Logan grumbles.
Charles smiles unapologetically as the 3 reach their destination. A rapidly equipped new storage facility. Inside, lining the walls the serum Dr Rice created that saved Sarah Kinney's life. Logan, Dom and Clark decided that this was the sort of thing SHIELD shouldn't get their hands on. They hid it away before Fury had showed up at that HYDRA base using the same transport Rice himself had been planning on using to take what he deemed his goods away. The irony, huh.
And at the far end of the room is Clark along with Forge and Beast finishing installing the new independent power system for the 3 glass spheres with the tiny embryos within.
"Where have you been?" Dom asks Clark, having not see him since yesterday.
"Hiding," Clark admits honestly.
"From?"
"The girl with the bloodhound nose. She would smell me out instantly," he explains. Laura would smell he was Superman so has instead been focusing his efforts on this. That and Clark has just preferred to be down here, mostly alone as he tries to absorb all that happened. It was a lot of dark and terrible stuff he doesn't usually have to deal with where it's not as easy or clear cut what the right or wrong choices were.
"Oh," Dom gets it.
"So what's the report Hank?" Charles asks.
"The 3 embryos are in perfect stasis," Hank reports.
Clark sighs. "I'm sorry," he apologises.
"It wasn't your fault Clark," Hank excuses him. "You didn't know that power line you used to disable Omega Red and Deadpool was what fed Rice's lab."
It isn't making Clark feel better. Once the power went out the spheres began to shut down and the embryos within died. All but 3 of them Clark was just about able to save. That means 24 little lives on his conscious to add to the one when his mother lost the baby. He hates his life some days. It would be another reason he's been down here. The only tiny scrap of hope and redemption for himself he can hang onto is saving these 3 so he's been putting all his efforts and energies into helping set this up.
"So what do we do with them?" Logan wants to know. They're copies of Laura, 3 clones of him essentially as well.
"That is the question," Charles concedes because it was no simple question and had no simple answer.
"To bring them to term would require a surrogate mother as things stand," Hank points out. "I don't know what this Dr Rice was planning." And frankly Hank doesn't care to. Sounds like an abominable human being from what Clark was saying. "I don't know if he had some sort of artificial womb or whatever but we don't have that technology available to us and even if we did, think about it. In several months we would have 3 baby girls and that needs a lot of consideration what world we're bringing them into. Like any child it needs thought."
Logan couldn't even begin to think about it. What the hell do they do with them?
"How long can they remain in stasis like this?" Dom wonders.
"Virtually indefinitely at the moment," Forge pipes in with. He had been sworn to absolutely secrecy over this...and he thinks he gets why. It was a very complicated mess.
"So there is no rush to make a decision today," Charles summarises.
"Are you mad at me?" Clark asks them.
"No, kid," Logan says truthfully. "It wasn't your fault." And if Clark hadn't inadvertently cut the power they'd be dealing with 27 of them right now...and that's even more mind-boggling. In truth Logan isn't certain he would have allowed any of them to live. They're...they were created to be weapons...but they are here and now they have to deal with it. Weapon X...god how he wishes he could burn every last bit of it from the Earth.
"We don't tell this to Dr Kinney or Laura right?" Dom queries.
"No," Charles decides, basically reinforcing the decision the 3 had made back at the HYDRA base.
They chose to keep the truth from Dr Kinney and Laura about the full scale of what Rice had done. It seemed like a good idea at the time because they didn't, and still don't, know who Sarah Kinney really is. Nor could they be sure how Laura would react. They were being cautious.
"What of the serum, Hank?" Charles is curious about.
"Ah, that. Well apart from knowing it was derived from Laura's blood I haven't gotten further along in analysing it. I need more time," he requests.
"Take all the time you need," Charles permits. There is no rush. Course there is a deep moral dilemma with this serum considering where it came from. That and they don't even know if there are any long term consequences of using it. The question of ever using it is one Charles will need to think long and hard on.
"Well if there is any good news I guess it's finally understanding why Logan's claws can cut me," Clark adds in.
"We do?" Logan queries.
"Boy you don't listen do you," Clark jokily criticises. "Rice said it. About adamantium. It's an alloy partly made from meteor rock similar to kryptonite. It must have come from Krypton's star system at some point, either brought deliberately or like with my ship and the meteor shower perhaps it got accidentally dragged here in the wake of a ship, perhaps during one of my people's visits to Earth in the past. Essentially adamantium is a form of kryptonite, a Kryptonian alloy at the very least."
"Fascinating," Beast remarks as he considers that. It's just like the saying goes, you learn something new everyday.
In the end Sarah does make the choice to leave. She spoke to her sister...a really long talk where they sorted out a lot of issues between them.
Enough issues that Debbie did in fact permit Sarah and Laura to come stay with her.
Sarah is really hopeful that she and Debbie can fully reconcile. Plus it'll be good for Laura to meet her cousin.
So that leads to her and Laura standing outside the mansion, waiting for a taxi, their few possessions in hand and new false identities provided by Professor Xavier.
"Sure this is what you want to do, kid?" Logan asks his daughter as he waits with them outside the mansion.
Laura growls, a slightly higher pitched version of Logan's. "I am not a kid. How many times do I have to say it?" she asks, annoyed.
Logan smirks. "I'll keep saying it until it's not true."
Laura scowls. Again it looks just like Logan's scowl.
"Oh ignore him," Dom advises. "But answer his question. Is this what you want?" she asks, emphasising the point she wants to know this is Laura's choice and not Dr Kinney's. They had already had this conversation, following the Professor's advice and asking what it was Laura wanted but Dom doesn't want her to go and so has to ask again.
"I want to be with my mother," Laura says...out of some feeling she doesn't understand. It relates to the fact she killed her mother and now she has another chance.
Dom sighs and smiles sadly. She had hoped, somehow, she could talk Laura out of it. "Ok. If that's what you want," she accepts. "But you'll keep in touch, right?"
"Keep in touch?" Laura questions what that means.
"Phone occasionally and lets us know you're ok," Logan clarifies.
"Oh," Laura says. "If you want me to."
"Very much so," Dom expresses her feelings.
Laura looks at them. Her father and her sister and feels something. "I think I will...miss you? Is that correct?"
Dom and Logan smile at her.
"Yeah, that's correct," Logan tells her.
The taxi shows up.
Charles addresses Dr Kinney one last time. "This is goodbye I believe."
"Yes," Sarah confirms. "But thank you," she says gratefully.
"For?"
"Letting us stay. Giving us a choice," she explains and for someone who has had little freedom in her life to make choices this last decade and a half it means a lot.
"Everyone here is here by choice," Charles points out. "I will say one thing. I know you're an accomplished doctor but we don't really know the long term effects of this serum that was used to revive you. If you have any problems at all contact us and we'll do what we can to help."
"I will. It's a shame the rest of it was destroyed," Sarah laments as a scientist wishing to understand.
Charles smiles a smile that hides the lie they told. They told her the serum was all destroyed by a random power overload and explosion and never mentioned at all the embryos. "Sadly it was a very uncontrolled situation you were all in," he tells the lie of sharing her disappointment.
Something flickers over Sarah's face as she recalls everything that brought her to this place. She takes a breath. "Come Laura," she says and her daughter does so, slipping into the taxi both, which then drives off.
Dom waves sadly. "I still don't think this is the best idea just letting them leave," she repeats her earlier concerns.
"Either option would have provided obstacles to overcome," Charles argues back to that. "Remember what Clark was saying about Laura picking up his scent. How would we have coped with that?"
Logan does feel sad actually. It's like a small piece of him leaving. On the other hand... "She needs a normal life," he believes. After everything she has endured normality would be the best thing for her. "If she can get it we should support whatever choice she makes."
"Aw, you sentimental sap you," Dom coos, teasing him.
Logan snorts. "It's more she couldn't possibly get a normal life around here...especially with you," he smirks.
Dom frowns. "Hey!" she objects to that.
Logan chuckles as he walks off.
"What did he mean by that?!" Dom asks the Professor in ire.
"I couldn't possibly comment," Charles avoids answering the question.
Dom gives him the evil eye before sighing. "You know there is a lot of stuff I regret but did I do right back at the HYDRA base?" she asks.
Charles can sense there are things eating at her. "In regards to what? Finding pleasure at Stryker's fate? Not getting your revenge when you had the chance? Saving Dr Rice?"
"All of them."
"Revenge is a dark path, Domino. It will leave you a bitter dark shadow of the person you truly are. It is one to be avoided," Charles advises her with the benefit of experience, having seen what vengeance turned Erik into. "And as for Dr Rice, you did give him your word. His life if he helped save Dr Kinney. Without your word what are you?"
Domino sighs again. "I still think I regret saving him," she mutters.
Elsewhere...
Zander Rice found himself sat at a table in a small plain room, dressed in a prison uniform. This...this not how he imagined this ending. Being thrown into some SHIELD prison.
He knew he shouldn't have trusted those freaks...even if he was rather short of options at the time. He's alive but of course SHIELD arrested him and those freaks just let him be taken...and above all else he swears Domino will pay for shooting him. Utter bitch!
Course he has to get out of here first...which isn't looking too likely at all. Working for HYDRA is considered treason. You know the penalty for that?
The door opens and in walks a heavy set woman with dark skin, dressed in a business suit. She sits down opposite him, without fear of being in the same room as him and starts to read a file she brought in with her. Now perhaps Zander will find out why he was brought here.
"Zander Rice," she states his name, her voice having a certain harshness and iron will to it. She looks up into his eyes and Zander can see a cold, hard gaze fixed on him. "I've been reading your debrief," she states, which is what is in her hands currently.
"Interesting read?" Zander quips.
She doesn't answer that directly. "I have a job offer for you," she says instead.
Zander folds his arms across his chest. "Really. Do tell?"
"Don't play smart with me, Rice," she dismisses his attempts at levity. "I don't like the way this meeting ends you leave this room in a body bag," she promises. "And trust me your death certificate will say suicide."
Zander is starting to get a better read on this woman. Definitely government. That's the only way she could be here at all and offer him a job and make her threats. Black ops stuff probably. A hard woman who probably chewed and spat out everyone who got in her way. A woman not to fuck with. "You mentioned a job offer," he returns to that.
The woman hands over another file from under his own and slides it across the table.
Zander picks it up and reads it. It's an outlay for a secret operations team.
"I require a doctor. Specifically one with your unique skills," she says, answering his questions before he asked them; Why is she showing him this? Why is she here? Why was he brought here?
"Can I ask a question?" he asks for permission, feeling that would be the wisest choice.
"Go on," she permits him.
"Specifically what is it you need from me and what do I get out of it?"
"That's 2 questions," she points out.
Zander shrugs.
She lets it slide and answers the 2nd question. "Right now you are facing life without any possibility of parole, Rice. However, work for me and every successful mission will get you a reduction in your sentence. Live long enough and you may even get a Presidential Pardon," she tells him what she has to offer.
Now Zander must admit that's tempting. It's a way out. "What is it you need from me you can't get from someone else?" he asks the 1st question in a slightly different way because there had to be a reason she came to him.
"Your regenerative serum you claimed to make, although none of it was found at the HYDRA base."
Zander chuckles sarcastically. "Those sneaky little X-Men," he figures out what they've done. He also now understands why this woman has come to him.
"Don't care," the woman states. "But I know you were trying to peddle it, Rice which means you were probably showing it off which means you have a secret supply of it hidden in a different location. Not to mention you can just make more of it."
"A limited supply," he cautions. "And it's not that simple that I can conjure up more. It was derived from X-23's blood. Without either her or Weapon X's blood I can't make more."
"You leave that concern to me," she tells him.
Zander arches an eyebrow. Interesting. He turns his gaze back to the proposal in the file. "I can see why you would want my serum with the sort of missions proposed here. Rather than Task Force X you should probably just call it the Suicide Squad."
"That's not what we're calling it," she assures him. "So what's your answer. In or out?"
Life in prison, possibly being 'suicided' off or working for some sort of shadowy organisation it seems are his options. At least the last one has some possibility of freedom at the end of it. "Very well," he agrees.
The woman stands and takes her files back before heading for the door and knocking. The guard outside opens it.
"Do I least get to know the name of the person I shall be working for?" Zander wonders.
The woman pauses and gives him a chilling stare even Madame Hydra couldn't match. "Amanda Waller."
Yet another secret place...
On a bed, hooked up to many a medical instrument is the rather battered but still alive figure of Viper being attended to by many HYDRA doctors.
One of them speaks to someone unseen. "Her condition is critical but stable. It's amazing they were able to retrieve her still alive," he remarks about how they(as in HYDRA) found Viper in the wreckage of her craft just barely hanging on to life and brought her here to receive treatment, all under the noses of SHIELD.
"Vill she remain alive?" a male voice with a strong German accent wants to know, spoken from the shadows.
"I believe she will live, Mein Herr but she will retain deep physical scars. Do you want to have me try and repair them?" the doctor wonders.
"Nein. Leave zhem," he commands before explaining why. "It vill be a reminder for her of vhat heroes do."
"As you wish, Mein Herr," the doctor simply obeys.
A new feminine voice speaks with a British accent, again she is currently unseen as well. "So where does that leave the battle of control for HYDRA?" she asks the unseen man.
"It means instead of merely sweeping one piece from zhe board we can now bring it to our side," the man states.
"Recondition her mind?"
"Indeed, my dear Arachne."
The woman, known only to most as Arachne(most of the people who have ever known her real name are dead, sometimes at her own hand), steps from the shadows into the light next to the bed. She is an athletic woman with long curly dark hair and piercing green eyes, dressed in a green jacket, green pants with yellow boots and a yellow belt. Her eyes are covered by a pair of glasses with yellow tinged lenses. On her jacket is a stylised spider design with the head an upside down yellow triangle and the body a yellow diamond. She looks the helpless form of Viper over dispassionately.
Arachne looks back into the shadow. "Hail HYDRA. Immortal HYDRA. Cut off one head and two more will rise to take its place," she chants the motto.
"Or vone shall return from zhe dead to reclaim vhat vas his, vhat he alone founded from a glorious dream," the man states as he emerges from the shadows dressed completely in a black Nazi-esque uniform with the octopus symbol of HYDRA where the swastika would normally be. However that is not the most remarkable thing about him. It's his head. It's as if you are looking at a Red Skull.
Author's Note: I've done a lot of re-reading of X-23's history for writing this and one of her first stories after escaping the Facility(and killing her mother) is that she goes to stay with her aunt and cousin for awhile and the more I thought of where I was heading with not killing Sarah Kinney the more I realised it made more sense the two wouldn't stay at the Institute and would go be with their family. It was Sarah's genuine wish that she and Laura start trying to have a normal life in the comics. It also made it easier for Clark not to have to deal with yet another bloodhound nose. Why 3 clones survived? Wolverine and the X-Men cartoon where in the future Logan's hanging around with 3 X-23 clones is where I got it from. Now what to do with them is an entirely different question. And I've it in my head for a long time that adamantium is a form of kryptonite, hence why it can cut Clark. Totally ripped the idea of the meteor bit off the Wolverine Origins movie. A serum that brings people back from the dead. Where else was this heading but to Waller and her Suicide Squad. I decided to choose classic Waller rather than the slimmed down version of her we get currently. And oh yes, Cap's mortal enemy is here too. As for his female associate; spider-themed woman who started as a HYDRA agent...I know you can get it. Thanks to everyone who wrote reviews. Next up; Apocalypse enacts his final plans for the world and for Clark in Ascension.
