Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters, except for those I invent. I invented a character named Marie. I realize that is the real name of Rogue, but I will always refer to Rogue/Marie as Rogue, and Marie/Marie as Marie. No infringement is intended.
D.C. is also a character I invented. For details, see "D.C. and the CN Tower." chapters one through five.
"OK, what do we do now?"
The question had been asked by Sheila. She was still panting slightly, and who could blame her? She had just helped start twelve F-5 tornadoes. All military personal had been blown out of the area. The only living things around where some trees, a few wild animals, and a couple thousand mutants.
They were all filing out of the prison complex, some of them cheering. The battle had been won, and most everybody was wondering what they should do.
"First, we take a look in the good old control building." DC started to walk toward it.
The whole building was pretty trashed up. When everybody inside it had panicked a lot of equipment had been destroyed. This however was no problem. It seemed all the important information had been saved in giant supercomputers located in the basement, where only a precious few were ever allowed. It was protected by an array of security systems, but somebody switched off the power generator and they all shut down.
"And besides," reasoned Sheila, "Who'd be alerted to our presence if the alarms did go off?"
However, the information itself was not very telling. There was nothing in the supercomputers that DC didn't know and hadn't told everybody else. The main reason they had bothered at all to look for these computers was to find the location of the other three mutant prison camps. The info DC had gave only a vague description of where they were, one near Salt Lake City, one near Phoenix, and the last near Denver. Even these blurry descriptions confused DC, Professor X, and pretty much everybody else. Why were they so close together? Why is were they less then 500 miles from each other and this one on the other side of the country?
"Perhaps the military gave these vague descriptions in order to throw us off if we ever escaped."
"Hmm. That is a possibility Hank."
"I think it's more then a possibility Professor. He's most likely right. Why would this prison complex need to know the exact position of the other complexes? They're too smart for that. They knew that if we got out, at least some of the escapees would try to find the other complexes."
DC looked thoughtfully at Sheila.
"But how would they know someone like me would get into their computer systems and find out about the other complexes?"
"The military had no idea what sort of powers the mutants they captured would have. Therefore they reasoned that if the prisoners somehow did get out, they should throw them off the trail with false information. That's why I think Hank's suggestion is most likely right."
"And if Hank and Sheila are right, it could take weeks or even months to locate the other complexes."
"How would we find them?"
"Spy satellites?"
"I don't know, sounds intense. Maybe DC could-!"
"Look, we can worry about this a little later. Right now we have a couple thousand people out there who are fugitives from the law and have no idea where to go. I'd say it's time we start figuring out what to do with them before we start trying to free a few thousand more mutants."
The next day, it was all settled. DC, Marie, Jean-Pierre, and Storm would destroy the control building and the prison complex. Everybody else would head north until a power line was found, then DC would transfer them all into Canada and then they could go wherever they wanted. Professor X volunteered to take all the children and try to reunite them with their parents or whatever, which turned out to be a very hard thing to do as there were about 600 of them, ranging from six to eighteen. Most would call their parents in Canada and arrange to meet with them somewhere there. All the rest would be enrolling in Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. About half of the children wanted to go to directly to the school, so the its membership shot from 98 to 437.
A few kids gasped when they saw DC, and he knew exactly why.
Everybody started to trudge north. A few fights had broken out over what should be done, with ideas ranging from mass suicide to attacking Westchester. But all of them had been stopped as gently as possible, so the community of mutants started their journey with just two new smoking craters.
When DC blew up the main supports of the prison complex and Jean-Pierre created a small earthquake, the ground for hundreds of meters around sank over one hundred feet. It reminded DC of part in that Jackie Chan movie "Operation Condor" (or something like that) when a huge underground military base in the Sahara blows up and the sand dunes caved in.
After about three hours of climbing up the slope of the mountain where the prison complex was located, someone found high voltage power lines that crossed the mountain. DC began sending people through 100 at a time. It would take a little while.
After about five hours, the last of the adults were through and on their way to Canada. DC had sent everybody to different cities in Canada, ranging from Montreal, Quebec to Teshin, Yukon Territory. He thought it would alarm the Canadians if 1400 people suddenly started appearing out of a street lamp in one location. Now, only the children were left.
"The mansion I told you about in the first chapter, I mean, that night before we got captured is in the outskirts of Regina, Saskatchewan."
"All right Professor, but are you sure there's enough room for 600 kids?"
"DC, you haven't seen this mansion yet."
"Right."
And off they went. DC scanned the area making sure nobody was being left behind. Then he disappeared into the power line. But instead of going north, he turned south. He had an idea on how to get the exact locations of the last three complexes. He headed for the mansion in Westchester. He had to get something from there. Something he needed if he were to step foot in New York City ever again.
The old mansion was swarming with cops. If DC had had to go out of the power lines to get it, he would have been caught immediately.
But he didn't. A policewoman was gathering evidence in his former room. When her back was turned Exhibit G-28 suddenly vanished into thin air.
It was a headband. It had tiny beads on the thin wire that was arranged in this order: blue, green, red, yellow, white, gray, and black. At the center, with two sapphires on each side, was a star made from a blue type of diamond, a very rare form.
DC came out under the Manhattan approach to the Brooklyn Bridge. He looked around for a while, then found a manhole covering. It had a star on it that looked exactly like the one on DC's headband. He paused a moment, made sure no one was around, and slipped the priceless headband on his head like a tiara. The blue diamond star came to rest on the center of his forehead.
He slipped the manhole covering off, and climbed down the ladder inside. When his feet hit the ground, he reached for the wall, searching for a switch. When he found it and clicked it on, pale blue lights came on, lighting up the tunnel. He had put the manhole covering back on, so no natural daylight came from above. The tunnel was about the size of a normal subway tunnel that holds only one train at a time. He set off down it.
At the first turn he bumped into a girl with brown hair who was about 16 and wearing a tight shirt and jean shorts. She wore a headband like his except it had no blue or green beads on it, and a red square rested in the center of her forehead.
"Hey! Watch it buddy, or I'll have you…"
She looked up at his forehead and gasped. She snapped to attention and lowered her head.
"I'm so sorry blue ultimate. I did not mean what I said."
She looked at the ground as she spoke, and DC saw drops of sweat drip off her face and hit her white sneakers.
"It's all right red champion."
She looked up with a surprised look in her eyes.
"You will not be downgraded for a simple mistake like this. Where are you going in such a hurry?"
"To guard the entrance. All the greens are occupied right now and they've started to ask reds to do some of their work."
"Why is there nobody there right now?"
"The green who was there had to run off somewhere. He sent a black to get me."
"Well, go along then. If I hear you were doing a good job at a green's job I will seriously consider upgrading you."
She started walked around the corner without looking back at him, but he heard her whoop of joy when she was a little further down.
He continued along, seeing some people, mainly kids, pass him, looking at his blue star and lowering their heads as he went by, then started whispering if a friend was with them. They were all on patrol. After about thirty minutes of walking, some uphill, some downhill, the tunnel suddenly opened up to reveal an abandoned subway station built 60 years ago. It was filled with chattering people, all wearing headbands like DC's but with varying color. DC saw at once there were no ultimates in the room, for everyone hushed when they saw the blue glittering diamond on his forehead. As he walked forward, they all shrank back, gaping at him.
Newcomers had only black beads on their headbands, with a straight black line on their foreheads. An upgrade from that was gray and black beads, with a gray rectangle. Upgrade from that, white was added with an octagon. Then yellow was added with a hexagon, then red added with a square, then green with a triangle, and finally blue, the highest level, with the star, which was the only one made from gems. Few people ever made it above red.
DC walked to the former ticket booth, which had been converted to the check in. The glass window was missing.
A girl inside, maybe 19, looked up at him from a computer. She was a green, and this job was part of her program of upgrading to blue. Everyone who made it to green eventually became a blue. Each green was given an important job. If they did it perfectly for six months, they received the headbands with the star on it.
She immediately recognized him, and stood up quickly, standing to attention and saluting him.
"Welcome back Aquarius. There are currently two blue ultimates in the lounge, Intelligence and Carpathia."
"Thank you Amazon. Last time I saw you, you were only a yellow."
"I got upgraded soon after you disappeared. I saved a blue from the police and that's how I made it to green. Instead of six months I only had to complete four months at this job. I have only one week to go."
"Congratulations Amazon! I look forward to you joining the blues."
"Thank you Aquarius."
DC gave her an honor shake. She looked very pleased at this.
DC walked around to the back of the check in, where some dark stairs led to some double doors. Just before he went down he saw everybody clamoring over to the check in, asking Amazon what it was like being treated like an equal by a blue.
He passed through the doors, into a lounge that had a HDTV, pool table, bar, and two supercomputers. Two other people were there, watching something on the TV. One of them turned, and when DC saw it was the guy he was looking for, walked forward and stopped by the couch facing the TV.
"Aquarius! I haven't seen you for so long!"
"I had to clear out of town for a while Intelligence. I was hoping you could help me."
"Anything for you buddy."
"You hear about the MRA being passed?"
"Yeah. Everybody in the gang had to take shelter up there in the common room. Did you see them all? They keep on coming. Last time I heard, there were about 900 members up there. But a couple hundred members are missing. All the blues got together and when you didn't show up we figured you'd been captured because we knew as soon as you heard about it you'd come running back here to help with the evacuation.."
"Yeah, I was captured. They were holding every mutant in fifteen states in this prison complex, but we all escaped and everybody that was there is in Canada now. You know that Xavier guy we learned about just before I disappeared? The one we thought was merely a rumor?"
"Yeah."
"He's real. I've been staying at his school for mutants."
"Finally! Someone to work with! Do you think he'd consent to helping us set up a smuggling operation to get all our members out of the US? We're having trouble getting members out of New York, and the blues in Washington, Oklahoma City, Salt Lake City, LA and San Diego called for help yesterday.
"I'm more then sure he'll want to help. But before we do that, I need to tell you something else. There are three more prison complexes where they're holding mutants. I need you to find out where they are."
"No problem. I've got a lot more connections then I did when you hightailed it out of town. By this time tomorrow, I'll be able to tell you where they are down to the square nanometer."
Hahahahahahahaha! I bet you never thought I would take this route! Bwahahahahahahahaha!!! For those who don't know, a namometer is a billionth of a meter.