Disclaimer: Yada yada yada.... I wonder... If I get away without any real disclaimers for long enough, do I eventually get to own the X Men?
Well, I'm back after a long time. Hopefully you all haven't forgotten me. *smiles* Here's another chapter and I hope to hear back from you.
Chapter 13
Richard opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling above him, his vision blurred from sweat tricking into his eyes. He slowly sat up and looked around his house, and shuddered to realize there was no Logan. Dreams were not Richard's favorite past time anymore. The overhead light was indeed on and he couldn't remember if it was on when he went to bed or not. The bedside clock read quarter past seven, only fifteen minutes until the alarm would go off. Richard turned off the alarm and pulled the blankets off only to see a large wet spot in his shorts. Cursing under his breath Richard stood up and pulled them off, but the wet spot didn't feel like urine, it was drying making the shorts stiff like starch. It seemed unbelievable to Richard, but as far as his penis was concerned he had juts had a wet dream.
Holding his sweat and cum stained clothes Richard walked over to the washing machine and dropped them in. After scanning the house for the rest of his dirty laundry Richard started up the wash and had a quick shower. While Richard washed himself his mind returned to his dream. Logan was just the type of dream an author would put in with the vague hope of cheating a scare out of the reader. He could remember a novel he had written once where the author had the character fall asleep, only to wake up to find his kidnapper holding a shotgun to his face. It scared Richard at the time, but when the four line chapter ended with the hero staring into the barrel of the loaded shotgun as it was fired, only to wake up and find out it was a dream, Richard had always thought that was a cheap tactic ever since. But this was real life and the dream had scared the piss out of Richard. Or maybe it was cum. Richard put Logan away in his mind and thought of the dream that preceded that, the girl was familiar and Richard now knew that she was the same girl from his previous dream. Even still, he couldn't get his mind off the idea he had seen the girl somewhere in life before. Richard washed his groin and guessed her naked body did more for him than he was led to believe at the time. Suddenly, as if the current in his brain was just turned on Richard remembered where he had seen the girl before. He saw her at Xavier's school when he was being chased by Logan. She was standing by some trees and he could remember the unease he felt when he did see her, but at the time she wasn't linked to his dream. If Richard was dreaming of real people he hadn't met yet, then what would this mean? He still maintained in his own mind that dreams don't have prophetic powers, they're only subconcious voices screaming from the dark recesses of the mind.
But he could no longer deny that his mind had made an exact replica of the girl in the first dream before he had ever seen her, "No men allowed, and since you are here you must not be a man.". He must have seen her before, maybe he saw her on the street and his mind catalogued her for future reference. Richard rolled his eyes at that thought. He turned the shower off and toweled dried. He grabbed a clean shirt and jeans then put his shoulder harness on. He pushed a clip into his pistol and took an extra two. The brown leather jacket Richard had covered up the harness perfectly, but was too baggy to make access to the gun difficult. Richard loved that jacket. It was seven thirty, Richard had plenty of time to get to the warehouse. He decided he'd leave early and left his house.
The curb sat empty and the first thought that crossed Richard was that someone had stolen his car. He stood there and stared down the street, then an image came back to him, Logan standing behind the car, Richard could see him in the rearview mirror holding the remains of his muffler like a fish he just caught. The memories came back to Richard with an unpleasant feeling in his gut. He could remember deciding to buy a car by the end of the day, but at the time he didn't know he would have to make it to the warehouse. Taking a taxi there was out of the question, and the buses wouldn't get him there on time. Richard remembered a used car lot at the end of the road and decided he might as well go buy one now if it was still open.
Richard got there in five minutes and was pleased to see it was still open for another ten. He looked around the cars briefly then saw a Ford Tempo for two thousand dollars. A young man in a suit walked towards him.
"Hello sir, may I help you? You know we are closing..."
"I want this car." The salesman blinked then smiled his award winning smile.
"Well, then come with me and we'll get you all set up."
Fifteen minutes later Richard was driving a piece of shit with a tendancy to leak exhaust into the passenger compartment. The engine didn't sound much better than Richard's chevette after Logan stole the muffler and the steering wheel would sit at a strong angle to keep the car driving straight.
And all for only two thousand dollars, what a deal.
The car managed to make it to the warehouse in one piece, but Richard thought he heard a piece fall off at a speedbump, not like he could really tell since the engine sounded like there was a roaring lion sitting right beside him. Richard had to pull over and open all the windows in the car in a hope that the exhaust wouldn't kill him before he got to the warehouse.
The warehouse was actually a cluster of buildings at a dock used for industrial overseas shipements, and at night usually reserved for drug shipments. Tonight 'the supplier' had the rights. Richard knew the area by heart, when dealing with illegal materials, it always paid to know the in's and out's of wherever you were doing the transfer in case you got busted. the worst thing that could happen is to run into a dead end while being tailed by cops. There were no cops with a clue of what was going on at the dock that night, but there was someone who had an interest in what was happening, and trouble was coming Richard's way.
Richard parked his car and climbed out. He could see one figure standing by the dock smoking a cigarette, but he knew there were more. Glancing at the closest warehouse, Richard could see a rifle pointed at him through a rough cut window in the metal siding up on the second floor. Richard raised his hands and stepped away from his car into the open.
"Hey, it's just me. I had an accident and had to buy another car on real short notice. I'm alone." Richard called out looking at the man in the dock, but speaking more for the rifleman's comfort (well the one rifleman he could see at least).
A man walked out of an open door underneath the window and when the man passed under the light of a lamp Richard immediately recognized Larry.
"Jesus Christ Richard, you gave us all one hell of a scare when we saw that car. Why the hell are you driving a piece of shit like that for anyways?"
"Sorry man, it's just that the car got wrecked, then as soon as I got home I heard my order was in and I didn't have much time to pick up a new car before I had to come here."
"No problem. Come with me, we got your stuff." Larry lowered his voice even though Richard doubted anyone could hear them in the middle of the parking lot, "Listen, I heard about Magneto getting out of jail and did a bit of research on him. Noone knows where he lives but Kelley does, the guy running to be President."
Richard laughed, "I was thinking the same thing, go and ask him a few questions about his kidnapping."
"Yeah, but the thing is... it's a hell of a lot tougher to get near him now. There's an underground organization calling themselves the Friends of Humanity, and they aren't all that fond of Kelley's new stance on mutants."
"Friends of humanity? I've never heard of them."
"Yeah I know, they're super hush hush. They are extremists in the purist sense, dangerous people to be around. I know one and he's the meanest bastard I know, not too smart though. It won't be long before they start taking hits out on mutants themselves. Kelley's already afraid they might put a hit on him. Compared to the foh," Richard couldn't help but laugh at Larry's attempt to abbreviate the friends into a single syllable, "hey shut up and listen."
"Sorry." Richard was still smiling.
"Compared to the fo... the friends, the mutant registration act is small potatoes. I'd be scared of them myself if I was known to be a mutie sympathizer. I think they'd be able to find even Nemesis if they really tried."
"Fuck off, noone has that many connections. Nemesis could have them squashed. That man has contacts and hitmen running out of his asshole for a chance to work for him."
"Yeah I know, but the thing is, they have people in almost every walk of life watching for sympathizers. I've been watching them a few months and I think they're organizing a large scale massacre of sympathizers really soon. Eventually they will go public, but they want the major opposition out of the way first so they can brainwash the public."
The two men walked into the warehouse. A mist rolled in off the ocean and a light rain started to beat down on the docks. Larry looked outside, "Wasn't supposed to rain tonight, but oh well. I guess even the weathermen put their pants on one leg at a time."
Richard looked out across the water and an uneasy feeling settled into his gut. Normally he would trust his instincts that something was wrong, but this time he forced it away and focused on the deal. After all, even if someone did trail them in, Larry had the entire dock rigged up with surveillance equipment to pick up anything the authorities could throw at them. Noone suspected that there might me a more dangerous group of people after them, after Richard specifically.
Larry led Richard to a small card table and they sat down opposite each other. Richard could count a dozen men, fully armed with night vision attached to their helmets, watching through windows along the second story catwalk. There were undoubtedly more he couldn't see. Larry called over a man wearing a ski mask that made him look like a ninja, and told him to get Richard's shipment. The masked man darted off and Larry resumed talking.
"Listen, I'm not a mutie supporter, you know that, but I'm not a genocide freak either. Nothing wrong with what your doing, I mean business is business, but what these other guys are doing will put us all in danger. Right now noone cares about the occasional murder of mutants, the public will tend to look the other way. But these friends, they'll get a large crowd riled up ready to riot, and another crowd ready to defend the mutants with their lives. Nothing productive will result and we'll have to lay low because the law will have no choice but to commit extra resources to crimes against mutants. If Kelley manages to survive, I think he'll end up winning on the registration because there will be more people who believe it's better for everyone. That's what I think."
"This is a bitch of a thing." Richard was quite uneasy at this point. He couldn't help but look back at the door they came in through, it was closed now, but the mist wanted to bring back a memory, only once Richard thought he could see what his brain was trying to tell him, but the thought dissapeared back into the muck before he could put his finger on it. "Well I can't do anything about these yahoos right now, but I do need to get to Kelley. What can you tell me about his security?"
Larry smiled warmly at Richard and it brought up the image of the car salesman. This was Larry's award winning smile. "Listen, it's nearly impossible to get to him while he's anywhere away from his home, and he's living in a penthouse right now in Washington. It's strange, right after Kelley got back he moved away from his family to Washington DC and bought a home thirty stories up and doesn't seem to have any friends there. I've had some people watching him and he's been extremely reclusive. He's been very smart about it, since the media hasn't noticed, but I've noticed."
Richard leaned back in his chair and wondered what might be taking the masked man so long with his supplies. "Your darting around the subject, what can be done about the security?"
"I'm not darting around anything Richard, you have to catch him at his home in Washington. You don't even have to worry about running into his family there. But you I don't think you'll get in unnoticed. Foh is watching him too." Richard managed to stop a laugh and it came out as a half assed cough. "They've been watching him for a long time. Did you see the news report back when he was with his family and his daughter did that screwed up rubber man thing?"
Richard could remember what he was talking about, it was a FOX special on the politics about mutants and the proposed mutant registration. At the end of the show Kelley's daughter turned out to be a mutant, or so people were supposed to believe. The girls neck grew numerous inches and her arms stretched out towards her father like rubber. Kelley stared at her but she assured him she still loved him. There was a big stink on the news and the reporters at Fox swore that what we watched wasn't the intended footage. It was later proved the video was doctored and someone had replaced the last bit with this hoax while the beginning of the report was airing. The National Enquirer refused to believe it was a hoax though.
"Yeah I remember that. They did a pretty good job of editing his daughter into that clip of Kelley. But I could tell he was staring past her, and the graphics were a little blurry on her stretching parts." Richard did admire whoever put the clip togethor, and could understand why most of the public thought it could be real. It was put togethor very well.
"Yeah well that was when foh came about. They originally started to watch Kelley's back for more hoax's like that. They weren't so radical back then, only half a dozen people. But they've started watching Kelley himself ever since the report on his official opposition to mutant registration."
"What are you talking about? You say that as if the footage itself was important."
Larry nodded, "It is, did you see that one? The morning after Magneto caused all that damage to the Statue of Liberty with his bomb it was on the news right before they talked about the shit that went down at Liberty Island." Richard had to strain his mind to remember what he did the morning afterwards. He was at that coffee shop and he saw the footage of the statue, and of the X Men stepping off into oblivion. He must've just missed Kelley.
"No I clicked into the news right afterwards."
"Well listen, I was watching it and I saw something that was right. At first I figured it was a glitch on the TV, or maybe a reflection from Kelley's glasses into the camera. But I've been recording any news reports about mutants and I rewound this one because my mind couldn't place what was wrong. I was just curious at what the mistake was. When I went through again I saw Kelley's eyes change color."
Richard leaned forward again and put his hands on the table. "What? It must've been a glare from the camera. Red eye or something like that."
"No, I don't mean red eye or even the colored part of a man's eye, but both of his eyes turned yellow, even the whites, and held that until he blinked twice and they changed back."
"Your tv's fucked then. That doesn't happen."
"No way, I have the tape in my car because I wanted you to take it home and see it for yourself. Something is screwy with Senator Kelley and before you go to talk to him, you need to know as much about him as you can. I think something happened to him while he was with Magneto."
Neither of them spoke for what seemed to Richard like an hour. Richard was eager to see the video of Kelley. Larry looked around, "Where the hell is he? I sent him off for your shit ages ago."
Richard glanced around and realized that the masked man was nowhere in site. He last saw the fellow leave through the opposite door in the warehouse, he should've been back nearly fifteen minutes ago.
A man up on the second floor begain talking into his radio and Larry snatched up a walkie talkie from his belt.
"Sir, there's some sort of craft in the water, it floated in and we couldn't see it in the mist."
Richard's stomach lurched. He didn't need to know anymore to know who it was.
"Four subjects have stepped out onto land, but it's difficult to make them out in the fog. Shall I send someone to investigate?"
Richard spoke before Larry got a word out, "It's the X Men, they're the ones who stopped Magneto at Liberty Island. They're jet is invisible to surveillance, that's how they got here. They're after me."
Larry stared with his mouth open. "What the fuck are you talking about Richard?"
"Larry, we don't have time, get everyone out of here right away."
The radio crackled to life again. "Sir, they have spread out, two heading here and two more next door. Sir, we have been spotted and all four are converging on our location."
Larry spoke quickly, "Open fire, don't let them get in. I warn you all, they are mutants. I repeat, they are mutants. Fire at will!"
The sound of breaking glass and someone screamed from the second floor caused Richard to look up in time to see one of the gaurds fall backwards over the rail and hit the cement ground with a dull thud. Other gaurds opened fire, the muzzles of their rifles making bright flashes in the night. Two more gaurds ran to the front windows doubling the number of sentries and began to shoot outside. One after another, a red blast of energy broke through the glass. Two men were struck in the chest, stumbled back and fell over the rail landing on the ground with a thin trail of smoke rising from their bodies. The third and fourth hit the rail and fell forward onto the catwalk and the fifth was hit in the neck blasting his head clear off his body. The head flew back twenty feet then rolled, coming to a stop less than five feet away from Richard. Larry threw his chair back and ran for the opposite door and Richard stood to join him. The door leading to the danger zone was blasted open with another red light and he looked back in time to see a familiar face step into the dim light of the warehouse.
Well, I'm back after a long time. Hopefully you all haven't forgotten me. *smiles* Here's another chapter and I hope to hear back from you.
Chapter 13
Richard opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling above him, his vision blurred from sweat tricking into his eyes. He slowly sat up and looked around his house, and shuddered to realize there was no Logan. Dreams were not Richard's favorite past time anymore. The overhead light was indeed on and he couldn't remember if it was on when he went to bed or not. The bedside clock read quarter past seven, only fifteen minutes until the alarm would go off. Richard turned off the alarm and pulled the blankets off only to see a large wet spot in his shorts. Cursing under his breath Richard stood up and pulled them off, but the wet spot didn't feel like urine, it was drying making the shorts stiff like starch. It seemed unbelievable to Richard, but as far as his penis was concerned he had juts had a wet dream.
Holding his sweat and cum stained clothes Richard walked over to the washing machine and dropped them in. After scanning the house for the rest of his dirty laundry Richard started up the wash and had a quick shower. While Richard washed himself his mind returned to his dream. Logan was just the type of dream an author would put in with the vague hope of cheating a scare out of the reader. He could remember a novel he had written once where the author had the character fall asleep, only to wake up to find his kidnapper holding a shotgun to his face. It scared Richard at the time, but when the four line chapter ended with the hero staring into the barrel of the loaded shotgun as it was fired, only to wake up and find out it was a dream, Richard had always thought that was a cheap tactic ever since. But this was real life and the dream had scared the piss out of Richard. Or maybe it was cum. Richard put Logan away in his mind and thought of the dream that preceded that, the girl was familiar and Richard now knew that she was the same girl from his previous dream. Even still, he couldn't get his mind off the idea he had seen the girl somewhere in life before. Richard washed his groin and guessed her naked body did more for him than he was led to believe at the time. Suddenly, as if the current in his brain was just turned on Richard remembered where he had seen the girl before. He saw her at Xavier's school when he was being chased by Logan. She was standing by some trees and he could remember the unease he felt when he did see her, but at the time she wasn't linked to his dream. If Richard was dreaming of real people he hadn't met yet, then what would this mean? He still maintained in his own mind that dreams don't have prophetic powers, they're only subconcious voices screaming from the dark recesses of the mind.
But he could no longer deny that his mind had made an exact replica of the girl in the first dream before he had ever seen her, "No men allowed, and since you are here you must not be a man.". He must have seen her before, maybe he saw her on the street and his mind catalogued her for future reference. Richard rolled his eyes at that thought. He turned the shower off and toweled dried. He grabbed a clean shirt and jeans then put his shoulder harness on. He pushed a clip into his pistol and took an extra two. The brown leather jacket Richard had covered up the harness perfectly, but was too baggy to make access to the gun difficult. Richard loved that jacket. It was seven thirty, Richard had plenty of time to get to the warehouse. He decided he'd leave early and left his house.
The curb sat empty and the first thought that crossed Richard was that someone had stolen his car. He stood there and stared down the street, then an image came back to him, Logan standing behind the car, Richard could see him in the rearview mirror holding the remains of his muffler like a fish he just caught. The memories came back to Richard with an unpleasant feeling in his gut. He could remember deciding to buy a car by the end of the day, but at the time he didn't know he would have to make it to the warehouse. Taking a taxi there was out of the question, and the buses wouldn't get him there on time. Richard remembered a used car lot at the end of the road and decided he might as well go buy one now if it was still open.
Richard got there in five minutes and was pleased to see it was still open for another ten. He looked around the cars briefly then saw a Ford Tempo for two thousand dollars. A young man in a suit walked towards him.
"Hello sir, may I help you? You know we are closing..."
"I want this car." The salesman blinked then smiled his award winning smile.
"Well, then come with me and we'll get you all set up."
Fifteen minutes later Richard was driving a piece of shit with a tendancy to leak exhaust into the passenger compartment. The engine didn't sound much better than Richard's chevette after Logan stole the muffler and the steering wheel would sit at a strong angle to keep the car driving straight.
And all for only two thousand dollars, what a deal.
The car managed to make it to the warehouse in one piece, but Richard thought he heard a piece fall off at a speedbump, not like he could really tell since the engine sounded like there was a roaring lion sitting right beside him. Richard had to pull over and open all the windows in the car in a hope that the exhaust wouldn't kill him before he got to the warehouse.
The warehouse was actually a cluster of buildings at a dock used for industrial overseas shipements, and at night usually reserved for drug shipments. Tonight 'the supplier' had the rights. Richard knew the area by heart, when dealing with illegal materials, it always paid to know the in's and out's of wherever you were doing the transfer in case you got busted. the worst thing that could happen is to run into a dead end while being tailed by cops. There were no cops with a clue of what was going on at the dock that night, but there was someone who had an interest in what was happening, and trouble was coming Richard's way.
Richard parked his car and climbed out. He could see one figure standing by the dock smoking a cigarette, but he knew there were more. Glancing at the closest warehouse, Richard could see a rifle pointed at him through a rough cut window in the metal siding up on the second floor. Richard raised his hands and stepped away from his car into the open.
"Hey, it's just me. I had an accident and had to buy another car on real short notice. I'm alone." Richard called out looking at the man in the dock, but speaking more for the rifleman's comfort (well the one rifleman he could see at least).
A man walked out of an open door underneath the window and when the man passed under the light of a lamp Richard immediately recognized Larry.
"Jesus Christ Richard, you gave us all one hell of a scare when we saw that car. Why the hell are you driving a piece of shit like that for anyways?"
"Sorry man, it's just that the car got wrecked, then as soon as I got home I heard my order was in and I didn't have much time to pick up a new car before I had to come here."
"No problem. Come with me, we got your stuff." Larry lowered his voice even though Richard doubted anyone could hear them in the middle of the parking lot, "Listen, I heard about Magneto getting out of jail and did a bit of research on him. Noone knows where he lives but Kelley does, the guy running to be President."
Richard laughed, "I was thinking the same thing, go and ask him a few questions about his kidnapping."
"Yeah, but the thing is... it's a hell of a lot tougher to get near him now. There's an underground organization calling themselves the Friends of Humanity, and they aren't all that fond of Kelley's new stance on mutants."
"Friends of humanity? I've never heard of them."
"Yeah I know, they're super hush hush. They are extremists in the purist sense, dangerous people to be around. I know one and he's the meanest bastard I know, not too smart though. It won't be long before they start taking hits out on mutants themselves. Kelley's already afraid they might put a hit on him. Compared to the foh," Richard couldn't help but laugh at Larry's attempt to abbreviate the friends into a single syllable, "hey shut up and listen."
"Sorry." Richard was still smiling.
"Compared to the fo... the friends, the mutant registration act is small potatoes. I'd be scared of them myself if I was known to be a mutie sympathizer. I think they'd be able to find even Nemesis if they really tried."
"Fuck off, noone has that many connections. Nemesis could have them squashed. That man has contacts and hitmen running out of his asshole for a chance to work for him."
"Yeah I know, but the thing is, they have people in almost every walk of life watching for sympathizers. I've been watching them a few months and I think they're organizing a large scale massacre of sympathizers really soon. Eventually they will go public, but they want the major opposition out of the way first so they can brainwash the public."
The two men walked into the warehouse. A mist rolled in off the ocean and a light rain started to beat down on the docks. Larry looked outside, "Wasn't supposed to rain tonight, but oh well. I guess even the weathermen put their pants on one leg at a time."
Richard looked out across the water and an uneasy feeling settled into his gut. Normally he would trust his instincts that something was wrong, but this time he forced it away and focused on the deal. After all, even if someone did trail them in, Larry had the entire dock rigged up with surveillance equipment to pick up anything the authorities could throw at them. Noone suspected that there might me a more dangerous group of people after them, after Richard specifically.
Larry led Richard to a small card table and they sat down opposite each other. Richard could count a dozen men, fully armed with night vision attached to their helmets, watching through windows along the second story catwalk. There were undoubtedly more he couldn't see. Larry called over a man wearing a ski mask that made him look like a ninja, and told him to get Richard's shipment. The masked man darted off and Larry resumed talking.
"Listen, I'm not a mutie supporter, you know that, but I'm not a genocide freak either. Nothing wrong with what your doing, I mean business is business, but what these other guys are doing will put us all in danger. Right now noone cares about the occasional murder of mutants, the public will tend to look the other way. But these friends, they'll get a large crowd riled up ready to riot, and another crowd ready to defend the mutants with their lives. Nothing productive will result and we'll have to lay low because the law will have no choice but to commit extra resources to crimes against mutants. If Kelley manages to survive, I think he'll end up winning on the registration because there will be more people who believe it's better for everyone. That's what I think."
"This is a bitch of a thing." Richard was quite uneasy at this point. He couldn't help but look back at the door they came in through, it was closed now, but the mist wanted to bring back a memory, only once Richard thought he could see what his brain was trying to tell him, but the thought dissapeared back into the muck before he could put his finger on it. "Well I can't do anything about these yahoos right now, but I do need to get to Kelley. What can you tell me about his security?"
Larry smiled warmly at Richard and it brought up the image of the car salesman. This was Larry's award winning smile. "Listen, it's nearly impossible to get to him while he's anywhere away from his home, and he's living in a penthouse right now in Washington. It's strange, right after Kelley got back he moved away from his family to Washington DC and bought a home thirty stories up and doesn't seem to have any friends there. I've had some people watching him and he's been extremely reclusive. He's been very smart about it, since the media hasn't noticed, but I've noticed."
Richard leaned back in his chair and wondered what might be taking the masked man so long with his supplies. "Your darting around the subject, what can be done about the security?"
"I'm not darting around anything Richard, you have to catch him at his home in Washington. You don't even have to worry about running into his family there. But you I don't think you'll get in unnoticed. Foh is watching him too." Richard managed to stop a laugh and it came out as a half assed cough. "They've been watching him for a long time. Did you see the news report back when he was with his family and his daughter did that screwed up rubber man thing?"
Richard could remember what he was talking about, it was a FOX special on the politics about mutants and the proposed mutant registration. At the end of the show Kelley's daughter turned out to be a mutant, or so people were supposed to believe. The girls neck grew numerous inches and her arms stretched out towards her father like rubber. Kelley stared at her but she assured him she still loved him. There was a big stink on the news and the reporters at Fox swore that what we watched wasn't the intended footage. It was later proved the video was doctored and someone had replaced the last bit with this hoax while the beginning of the report was airing. The National Enquirer refused to believe it was a hoax though.
"Yeah I remember that. They did a pretty good job of editing his daughter into that clip of Kelley. But I could tell he was staring past her, and the graphics were a little blurry on her stretching parts." Richard did admire whoever put the clip togethor, and could understand why most of the public thought it could be real. It was put togethor very well.
"Yeah well that was when foh came about. They originally started to watch Kelley's back for more hoax's like that. They weren't so radical back then, only half a dozen people. But they've started watching Kelley himself ever since the report on his official opposition to mutant registration."
"What are you talking about? You say that as if the footage itself was important."
Larry nodded, "It is, did you see that one? The morning after Magneto caused all that damage to the Statue of Liberty with his bomb it was on the news right before they talked about the shit that went down at Liberty Island." Richard had to strain his mind to remember what he did the morning afterwards. He was at that coffee shop and he saw the footage of the statue, and of the X Men stepping off into oblivion. He must've just missed Kelley.
"No I clicked into the news right afterwards."
"Well listen, I was watching it and I saw something that was right. At first I figured it was a glitch on the TV, or maybe a reflection from Kelley's glasses into the camera. But I've been recording any news reports about mutants and I rewound this one because my mind couldn't place what was wrong. I was just curious at what the mistake was. When I went through again I saw Kelley's eyes change color."
Richard leaned forward again and put his hands on the table. "What? It must've been a glare from the camera. Red eye or something like that."
"No, I don't mean red eye or even the colored part of a man's eye, but both of his eyes turned yellow, even the whites, and held that until he blinked twice and they changed back."
"Your tv's fucked then. That doesn't happen."
"No way, I have the tape in my car because I wanted you to take it home and see it for yourself. Something is screwy with Senator Kelley and before you go to talk to him, you need to know as much about him as you can. I think something happened to him while he was with Magneto."
Neither of them spoke for what seemed to Richard like an hour. Richard was eager to see the video of Kelley. Larry looked around, "Where the hell is he? I sent him off for your shit ages ago."
Richard glanced around and realized that the masked man was nowhere in site. He last saw the fellow leave through the opposite door in the warehouse, he should've been back nearly fifteen minutes ago.
A man up on the second floor begain talking into his radio and Larry snatched up a walkie talkie from his belt.
"Sir, there's some sort of craft in the water, it floated in and we couldn't see it in the mist."
Richard's stomach lurched. He didn't need to know anymore to know who it was.
"Four subjects have stepped out onto land, but it's difficult to make them out in the fog. Shall I send someone to investigate?"
Richard spoke before Larry got a word out, "It's the X Men, they're the ones who stopped Magneto at Liberty Island. They're jet is invisible to surveillance, that's how they got here. They're after me."
Larry stared with his mouth open. "What the fuck are you talking about Richard?"
"Larry, we don't have time, get everyone out of here right away."
The radio crackled to life again. "Sir, they have spread out, two heading here and two more next door. Sir, we have been spotted and all four are converging on our location."
Larry spoke quickly, "Open fire, don't let them get in. I warn you all, they are mutants. I repeat, they are mutants. Fire at will!"
The sound of breaking glass and someone screamed from the second floor caused Richard to look up in time to see one of the gaurds fall backwards over the rail and hit the cement ground with a dull thud. Other gaurds opened fire, the muzzles of their rifles making bright flashes in the night. Two more gaurds ran to the front windows doubling the number of sentries and began to shoot outside. One after another, a red blast of energy broke through the glass. Two men were struck in the chest, stumbled back and fell over the rail landing on the ground with a thin trail of smoke rising from their bodies. The third and fourth hit the rail and fell forward onto the catwalk and the fifth was hit in the neck blasting his head clear off his body. The head flew back twenty feet then rolled, coming to a stop less than five feet away from Richard. Larry threw his chair back and ran for the opposite door and Richard stood to join him. The door leading to the danger zone was blasted open with another red light and he looked back in time to see a familiar face step into the dim light of the warehouse.
