Xavier walked into the meeting room and stopped as he saw Marko standing near his chair. They were the first to arrive for the scheduled meeting, and from the look on the stocky man's face, his news couldn't be good. "I thought I told you I didn't want to see you in this room." Charles said as he sat down.
"I know sir, but you see, we have a problem." Frost raised an eyebrow as she sat down in her chair next to Xavier.
"And what problem is that?" She asked, her manicured nails tapping on the long mahogany table impatiently.
"Well…see, we have intruders."
"Have." Charles repeated slowly.
"Yes sir. See… we don't know who it is." Marko said, sweat almost pouring off of him.
"Why not? Just look at the damn surveillance equipment. It cost us about a million dollars."
"I know. But the surveillance is out."
"Out."
"Yes sir."
"And why is that?" Patience was waning, and Charles started to see blood. Be calm, and back down…he didn't want to kill anyone, not yet.
"We had another problem. Someone hacked into the mainframe, and we can't get the computers back online." Emma rolled her eyes and stood up.
"Oh for goodness sakes. Let me handle this." She pushed past a flustered Marko, whose head seemed to want to explode from the glare Xavier was giving him. He followed Ms. Frost out the room, breathing easier as soon as he reached the hall.
*
"Um…more people are coming. I thought they had their meetings on Wednesday. It's still Tuesday." Cable asked, watching an old Arab man get helped out of a limo. Other people were arriving, but everyone bowed as they reached him. "Looks like the head honcho."
"So it seems. I don't like this. Maybe they should just scrap it." Polaris said, watching the surveillance too.
"They're in too deep. It's now or never. Who knows what could happen if they abandon the mission now." Silver Samurai said, chewing on a chopstick.
"Maybe they should pull back. One room is filling up quickly. It must be where they hold the meetings." Bishop chuckled. "Someone installed a sensor that will tell if someone is in the chair or not. Two are not there, but everyone else is."
"Come on Psylocke. Have you reached position yet?" Angel asked, almost glued to Bishop's terminal, watching the three green dots of light move.
*
"Not as of yet. It's a labyrinth down here." Psylocke said as they crossed an open door. Storm peeked in and checked the small screen on her wrist. Almost one in the morning. They had to be quick. She smiled slightly, reshouldering the bomb. She had it and the switch, just the way she wanted it.
*
"Here it is ma'am." Marko said quickly.
"I know jackass. Just open the door." Emma looked at him expectantly until he opened the door for her. She stepped in and blinked. "What happened here?" Shrapnel was embedded in the walls, computers ripped to shreds and someone on the floor, groaning. Emma lifted her white leather boots daintily, stepping over a half melted motherboard and stopped.
Kitty was on her stomach, a large piece of computer monitor lodged in her back. Her eyes were filled with pain, and her breathing was shallow and ragged. Marko ran around Frost and knelt at the young woman's side. "Kitty? Oh man, I'll go get help." He stood and started to run out of the room when Emma easily clothes-lined him.
Marko landed on his back, gasping for breath as his large hand grabbed at his throat, feeling as if a band were constricting his breathing. He looked at Frost in confusion as he laid there. "No, I want you to go to my limo and get my computer. Don't touch anything else." She watched him stand.
"What about Kitty? Doesn't she need medical attention?" Cain asked, voice raspy.
"I'll take care of Kitty. Go." She watched him leave and walked over to Kitty's prone body. Pulling up a chair she sat beside her and looked down at her. Kitty could only stare at her boots as she crossed her legs. "You know, you were always Charles' favorite. I can't stand competition, so I wipe them out. You do know if you had asked for help the situation wouldn't have progressed so far? I'm sure you do. That was your shortcoming. Thinking you was better than me."
Emma stood up and stretched, then leaned down. "Too bad it had to end this way. I wanted to poison you in your sleep." She quickly flipped the girl around and slammed her on her back, causing the piece of computer glass inside of her to slam all the way through, coming out through her chest. Kitty looked at it briefly before her eyes rolled up in the back of her head.
Marko came into the room and handed Frost her laptop, and she stepped away so he could see the body. He stared blankly at it, surprised she would do that to one of their own. "Pull her out into the hallway. I need this place to work." Without another look back she sat down at the least mangled desk and started to work.
*
"Damn."
"What?"
"I was able to find the roster for the meeting. Seems everyone has assigned seats according to importance." Silver Samurai said, calling up more information. "I'm sending the list to everyone. You'll choke at some of the names, but two aren't there. Frost and Xavier."
"Wonder where they could be." Cable sniffed, spinning in his chair slowly. An emergency window popped up. Unexpected guest. "What the… it can't be." Everyone got similar messages, shocked.
"It's the White Queen." Angel said, disbelief and slight awe in his voice.
"But I though she was dead." Shard said, skeptical.
"So did I." Polaris frowned, moving a pile of hair out of her face as she nudged her sleeping husband. He blinked and lifted his head from her lap, looking bleary eyed at his terminal. Iceman was awake in a minute.
"You've got to be shittin' me."
"Sorry, but this is real." Bishop crossed his large arms in front of him.
"Well what should we do?"
"What can we do? We don't know what she wants to do. It's her move now."
*
"Like riding a bicycle." Emma smiled as she stretched. She knew an invasion this organized would happen one day, so she built a backdoor onto the base matrix. Only she knew it existed, and it was neatly camouflaged on an innocent C drive. She looked up as Charles walked in.
"So, we have an infestation problem as well?"
"Nothing I can't handle." She said offhandedly.
"I saw Kitty."
"Tell her I said hi." Charles rolled his eyes.
"Was that necessary?"
"Yes." Emma tapped a few keys and cocked her head. "Well well well. Three unauthorized people are in the building. Heading for the sanctum."
"I'll take care of it. Get them out of our system. They can't find our files."
"Of course not." The White Queen smiled and dived into cyberspace.
*
"People are coming!" Cannonball said as he came back to his computer. "Storm, they're one hall over."
"Okay. We've heard them." She eased the book bag down and all three went on the defensive. They were armed. Wolverine hated to give up his tactical advantage, but he pulled out two ak47s and opened fire.
So many men, and they were mowed down quickly. Psylocke brought out her pump action rifle, blowing large holes in the men that came around the corner. Storm, with the skill of a markswoman, kept firing until no more moved, no more came. She was breathing heavy, her hand shaking.
"Storm, lets go." Psylocke put on the bomb and stepped over the bodies. Wolverine took her arm and pried the gun out of Storm's still shaking hand. She blinked as if she was coming out of a dream.
"This isn't the way I pictured it."
"I know darlin'. Lets go." She nodded and they moved to catch up.
*
"Going down." White Queen furiously tapped out commands on her computer, angered that the culprits, yes, she found out it was more than one, were evading her sensors. Fine, she'd blow up their computers. She wouldn't be able to find them later, but they'd learn a lesson. She hit ENTER and sat back, a large smile on her face.
*
"What in the hell?" Cannonball's computer sizzled and died in front of him. "Oh shit…" He slapped it, hoping it would power up again, but it was useless. "Guys, I'm out." Glad Shard installed anti explosion measures in his computer.
Cable saw the emergency screen blink, and knowing what was coming, shut down his own computer. Just in time. He already smelled the reek of burnt metal. "Damn it. Me too!"
"Quickly people! Disengage and link up." Bishop barked as Forge and Angel ran back into the room, carrying one of Forge's new inventions, a multi screened device that allowed many terminals to link up via various ports. The computer, which was nicknamed Bertha for some obscure reason, permitted many laptops to work with one power source while maintaining their separate tasks. It was used when extra security was needed, as well as an insurance policy, for the hard drive was faster, the combined strength of all five formidable computers and their masters.
"Bishop, you and I can take offense, Lorna, you and Bobby take defense. Watch our back, I hear she's a whiz with viral worms." Shard said as she put her shield in place.
"Guys, I'm gone too." Gateway sadly shut down his computer and sat back, slightly angered he couldn't participate any further.
"And I as well." Silver Samurai fanned his computer, which was dead, cursing in a steady stream of Japanese.
"Kind of colorful, aren't you Silver?" Lorna kidded as she connected her computer.
"You know Japanese?" She smiled.
"A little."
"Are we ready people?" Bishop looked around and got affirmative nods. "Alrighty then. Lorna and Bobby, go on the defense, Shard, you and I have offense. Restrict yourself to non revolving logic bombs, and untraceable worms, and please have the sense to use self evolving viruses. Nothing should stay in the hard drive, and everyone be careful."
*
"We're close." Psylocke said as she stopped. Wolverine wrinkled his nose and sniffed.
"What?" Storm asked, watching him.
"I smell really expensive cologne. Someone's here with us." He growled involuntarily as someone stepped out of the shadows.
"Very good." Charles said condescendingly, clapping slightly. "Do you know where you are?"
"Hell." Storm spat, watching him warily.
"Oh yes, but right on the other side of that hall in front of you, the sanctum which you seek is in your grasp."
"Why are you telling us this bub?" Wolverine asked, suspicious, hand on the handle of his gun.
"Because, it isn't in my best interest to stop you."
*
"What in the… she's backed down." Bishop said with surprise as all firewalls and safeguards disintegrated, leaving a wide window for them to wreak havoc. He caught the startled look of Iceman as he took advantage in the sudden laxity of security.
"I don't care why. Shut down the lights, all security, and lock the doors. Can we still track them?" Forge asked, dividing his attention to all four screens.
"Doing it, and yes, they're still there." Bishop pointed quickly to the small window working in real time in the corner of his computer screen. Three blips were stationary, together.
"What are they doing?" Angel asked, confused.
"Dunno."
*
Emma looked at her watch and turned off her computer. The plan was working perfectly. The surveillance that tracked the progress of her "holding off" of the intruders recorded her heroic efforts to keep them at bay, when in actuality it was easy to plant what evidence she wanted. She looked up as the lights went off, standing and running out of the room as the door swung fast to shut. Putting on her night vision goggles, she proceeded to follow Xavier's signal.
*
"Ah, there we are. I'm sure you have prepared yourself for this possibility." The three didn't say anything as they placed their goggles on their faces. "Good. I like the people I'm talking to be able to see me."
"What do you want?" Wolverine asked, wanting to place a bullet in his head, but knowing that the information would help them more. Psychotic people tended to talk quite a bit of their plans.
"Didn't you realize we used you from the beginning?" Storm's jaw hardened as she saw Charles look at her.
"What do you mean?" She asked carefully.
"We had to plant just the right amount of corporate distrust in you. We engineered your whole environment, and it drove you to be suspicious enough to download the serum from the master computer and go on the run. Everything went to plan. Well almost everything." He stopped and looked past them. "Ah, there you are dear."
"Yes, did I miss anything?" Emma smiled as she walked past the others to take Charles' hand.
"Nothing to worry about. So how goes everything on the cyberspace front?"
"Perfectly. Your friends have now effectively shut down most of our systems, locking the major players in our organization in the sanctum." Emma smiled. "You'll be the leader after their bodies are recovered."
"This was an elaborate ploy to get you into power?" Psylocke asked in disbelief. "You killed them?"
"No, they'll be rescued, but the leader, Shadow Royale, will die from a massive heart attack. The men and women left will have to pledge their allegiance to me. The passive age of the Illuminated Society is over. We will own the planet."
*
"Shadow Royale… why does that sound familiar?" Lorna asked as they watched Bishop's screen.
"Shadow Royale… The Shadow King. Remember, the guy was supposed to be dead. One of the most evil people known to history. He gave the order to have over five hundred pregnant women rounded up from various villages in the Middle East and taken to a compound. Their husbands, trying to defend them, were killed, and all the children were too. Then the women were tortured, mutilated and killed, all because they lived above a huge reservoir of crude oil ." A general horror settled in the room, and Shard shook her head. "Kind of tells you what kind of people would follow after a man like that."
*
"So you're going to use us to do your dirty work?" Psylocke asked, quite conscious of the bomb she had on her back.
"Oh, such a crass way of saying it. We're just delegating responsibility." Emma smiled.
"So what happens to us. Something tells me you're not going to let us go." Wolverine brought out his weapon and fired. Xavier ducked and retaliated, the bullet slamming the night vision specs from Logan's head. The women scattered from the gunfire, Storm grabbing Wolverine and pulling him to safety.
Psylocke rushed Xavier and threw a sharp kick to his head, taking off his goggles, causing them to clatter to the floor. His indignant roar echoed through the area, and the White Queen jumped on Psylock's back.
Logan was kneeling on the ground, searching for one of the fallen goggles as Storm ripped Emma away from Betsy and threw her on the ground. Emma struck back and slammed the heel of her shoe on the back of her head, causing her to drop to the ground and roll against the wall, landing on a pair of the goggles.
She picked them and threw them, hitting Wolverine in the back of the head. He picked them up and quickly dodged the shot sent by Xavier, blindly. Storm kneed the White Queen in the abdomen harshly, hearing the air slam from her lungs as she let her drop. Adjusting her glasses she saw Psylocke take out the bomb and place it on a wall. Wolverine and Xavier were slinging it out on the other side of the room, the slaps of flesh against cheek and stomach ricocheted off of the walls as White Queen and Storm traded blows.
"Are you done? What's that noise?" Angel's voice came over her headset anxiously, distracting her slightly from her wiring.
"We're just a little busy love." She said, biting her wire cutters as she held two wires together, splicing them.
"I can figure, you're trackers are moving around fast, but in the same area."
"They're-" She was cut off by the boot of Ororo slamming into the wall beside her head. "In a bit of a tiff. Don't worry, we'll be back soon. Planting the bomb now." Betsy put her fingers to the wall and concentrated, feeling the vibration that comes from a lot of people talking in a small room. She smiled and backed away, her work done.
Emma screamed as she connected her foot with the side of Storm's ribs, but feeling the sting of the jab on her neck. It was getting harder to breathe, and she was slowing down. Sheer determination was pushing her on.
"We've got to get out of here." Psylocke said quietly into her headset, watching Storm and Wolverine react. "It's planted, which one of you have the trigger?"
"I do." Storm gritted as she deflected another blow. "What's the yield?"
"An eighteenth of a gigaton." Wolverine's eyes opened wide as he punched Xavier one last time. The older man fell to the ground, groaning, but not rising again. He looked over and saw Storm slam Emma into the wall, delivering a knock out punch as well. The quiet was deafening.
"Let's go." Psylocke rushed past them, and they all ran down the hall, looking for a way out.
"An exit would be nice!" Storm said, coming to locked doors.
"Gateway is out! And the doors are locked on their own…I don't think we can open it." Bishop said quietly as he furiously tapped. His sister and friends were almost pounding on their keyboards, trying to cajole the safety of their friends out of it. Angel and Forge were sweating it out beside them, silent to ensure they wouldn't distract the vital work.
"We're going to get you out sweetie." Angel said, intense worry evident on his face. Psylocke smiled as they ran.
"There was never any doubt." The headset went dead, and Betsey frowned, looking at the others, who stopped in shock at the lack of sound.
"Dead air? What's going on?" Logan asked, tapping the side of his apparatus.
"Not dead air, a hampering shield. Damn. Something's active near here. We need to get out." Ororo said, readjusting her load. "Good thing we took these from those two, or they could disable the bomb." She looked at Logan, who was peering up in the ceiling. "What is it?"
"A trap door into the vents."
"So? Who's to say that the door isn't electronically wired as well?" Betsey frowned, sweat on her brow.
"Who's to say it isn't?" Logan held out his arms as Ororo dropped the goggles in them as she ran down to the end of the corridor. After a few quick steps she threw herself into tight backflips, catapulting to her feet and springing back on her hands, using her upper body to fling herself high into the air. Her feet hit the ceiling, breaking open the trap door. It was old and dilapidated, clearly forgotten as the matrix was pasted over the building.
"Bingo!" Betsy sang as she ran to the wall, running up the side and into the vent. Storm followed her, then Logan, pulling the lid closed again.
"Which way?" He hissed, not minding the view of Ororo's posterior as they moved along. They stopped abruptly and Logan's face came in contact with the tight leather. Ororo laughed and scooted forward.
"I don't know. Gateway or Bishop would be talking about now…" Betsy sighed and rolled her eyes.
"Wait…do you guys feel that?" Ororo asked, stilling herself.
"No, what is it?"
"Air."
"We're in a vent."
"No, I smell outside in the air…we're close to ground." Ororo felt the hair that had come out of her braid brush against her face. The strands were moving behind her. "Straight ahead."
*
"What happened." Xavier asked thickly, his jaw hurting horribly. He groaned and shifted, gasping as he realized he had a broken rib.
"We got our asses kicked, what did you think? And they took our goggles!" Emma said breathlessly, trying to stop the pitch black room from spinning.
"Damn. We need to go. I don't want to be around when we let them out. I knew she was a wimp. She couldn't even kill me." Xavier laughed.
*
"Are we far enough?" Logan panted as they ran full sprint through the woods. All three of them could run a three minute mile, and they had been running for almost ten.
"Yes." Ororo turned around, and found she could see the compound still. "It will blow everything up?"
"Everything." Betsey reassured her, taking her hand. Ororo pushed the button, and the ground moved beneath them. As they watched, all of the above ground structures collapsed helplessly. An explosion erupted from the split earth, smelling of oil and machinery.
"Rest in peace Jean, Erik."
*
Ororo walked out of the courtroom, mentally, emotionally, and physically drained. The fifth straight week of her testimony alone, and she started to dread the oppressive court room. Her heels clicked against the stone steps, and she relished the breeze that blew through her skirt as she closed her eyes. "Whatcha thinking about?"
"Disappearing. Just vanishing off of the face of the earth. I wonder if anyone would miss me."
"I would, for one. Could I come with you?" Ororo smiled and turned to Logan.
"I don't know. You're not particularly likeable."
"Well damn. I guess I won't give you the rest of my life."
"Well, maybe an arraignment could be made." She laughed and kissed him.
"Now that's better. Don't you want to get out before the vultures get here?" Ororo turned as she heard the pounding feet against the pavement. "Too late." Reporters rushed them yet again, and they both plastered on a tolerant smile.
"Mrs. McLean, what do you think of the allegations of your involvement of the destruction of the Laughlin Compound?" A nameless reporter asked.
"They're not true. I've testified on that subject for a whole week, and that has never come to light. I am innocent of everything but fleeing for my life."
"Mr. McLean, in lieu of your recent marriage to your wife, how do you feel about losing your job in the FBI?" Logan's jaw hardened, but he answered the question.
"The FBI protects itself, even at the expense of one of it's own. The government's cracking down on the agency, and so they let me go. But that's another time in my life, and I'm glad it's over." He put his arm around Ororo's waist and led her away from the throng of people, towards a late model BMW. They got in and it sped away.
"Thanks guys." Ororo said as they moved along. Warren shrugged as Betsy smiled back at them.
"Not a problem. Those guys can definitely get on your nerves." She looked out the window as the scenery changed. Without another word she passed back a small laptop, a scene frozen on its screen.
"What's this?" Logan asked, taking it and pressing play.
"You'll see." The picture played out, a balding man stepping out of a limo, going into an ancient castle in Europe. The man was unmistakable, and Ororo tensed. The little movie froze again, a total facial shot with chilling clarity. Charles Xavier stared back at the anonymous camera.
"It never ends." He said, his voice filled with bitter shock.
"That it doesn't." Ororo looked down sadly as she placed her hand on her stomach, hoping to feel the small life growing within her. Would she and her family ever be safe?