Chapter 11
Remy raised his bo staff a little higher. He spun it a hundred eighty degrees, then back, each movement fluid. He could feel the impacts as the ends of the staff connected with the little metal disks that whizzed around him. His powers were not being very cooperative today, so the intricate handwork and the interplay between himself, the staff and the projectiles was taking all of his attention. Still, it felt good. He was starting to feel like himself again-- Betsy's attack had had more of a physical impact on him than he liked to admit.
Something felt different. A glance at the end of the staff as it spun by showed two of the little disks imbedded in the metal. For a moment, he switched to a one-handed technique and drew a set of cards with the other hand. He scattered the charged cards widely to clear a short window then brought the end of the staff down sharply on the ground. The imbedded diskettes clattered to the floor. Remy brought the staff back up and continued his routine.
After a while, the timer beeped. The shower of flying disks ended. Remy wiped the sweat out of his eyes with the cuff of his coat and surveyed the wreckage. Hundreds of the little disks lay scattered across the floor, dented and mangled. He wasn't looking forward to sweeping them up.
De exciting life of an X-Man, he thought as he went to get the broom. Truth be told, there was a lot more hard work than glamour to being an X-Man. But he was beginning to discover that he liked the feel of hard work. Before joining the X-Men, Remy had never really worked for anything in his life. He had scraped and scrounged and fought on the streets of New Orleans to stay alive, but that was just survival. It wasn't something you felt good about, just something you did because the only alternative was death. And then in the Thieves Guild, he had learned to simply take whatever he wanted. There was a thrill, an exhilaration, to the pinch that still took his breath away, but it was always a short-lived sensation. A fix. Sabretooth's term "glow" often came to mind, which bothered Remy a lot.
But for the first time, really, Remy found satisfaction in what he was doing. It was hard work-- not just the long hours of training and the fighting, but the effort to understand the X-Men-- why they did the things they did-- so that he could be that way, too, instead of just following Storm's example. It was risking his life on the say-so of people he would have sneered at a couple of years earlier, and then risking his life for other people who probably wouldn't care-- and might not even know-- what he had done. And as completely insane as it all sounded when he spelled it out to himself, he was happier than he had ever been in his life. He was even happy to be sweeping little metal pieces off into the recycler, which, the part of him that was still a thief told him, was completely pathetic.
And although he was happy, he was also scared. The Witness' presence, even though it was just a hologram, frightened him to the very core of his soul. It meant that he, Remy, was important. The things he did mattered, and would make a difference in the future of the planet. And all Remy could think about was what would happen if he made the wrong choices. He'd been making irresponsible, selfish choices all his life, believing that they didn't affect anyone but himself. He couldn't delude himself into believing that any longer, and he did not want to be responsible for the fates of the millions of people on the planet. After hearing about the human-mutant war, he was only more convinced that, somehow, changing that future was going to fall squarely on him. He didn't feel adequate to the job. Saving the world was something for the Professor to do, or someone like Cyclops or Storm-- people who had adamantium in their spines and more courage than Remy had ever believed people could have. Not for street rats like him.
He put the broom away, looked over the room once again. It was more training than any real desire to make sure the floor was spotless. A thief should never leave any evidence of his presence.
An dat's what y' are, boy. Much as y' try t' be somet'ing else. He looked around at the metal walls, smooth silver interrupted occasionally by doors and protuberances that hid weapons of various sorts. Remy tried to imagine what it had looked like to Bishop when he had discovered the buried remains of the mansion. He turned partway around. The flat projection screen was behind that wall. That was where he would have seen Jean's message... her final call for help before the traitor murdered her. The thought of Jean-- who he had come to respect immensely-- dead, was disturbing.
"Computer," he voiced the thought quickly before courage deserted him, "run program Witness."
The familiar holographic shimmer became the Witness. Remy found himself once again staring into his own face, worn by nearly a century of passing time. The scary thing was he felt like he was looking at a stranger.
The Witness' eyebrows rose in interest as he registered his visitor's identity, but he said nothing, leaving Remy with the task of finding his voice and asking the questions that churned inside him.
"Is it-- is it really all goin' t' fall on me? Savin' de X-Men?"
The Witness was wearing a poker face that even Remy couldn't decipher. "Practically, yes," he answered.
"So what am I supposed t' do, so dat dey don' end up dead?"
The Witness shook his head. "Sorry. Can' tell y' dat."
Helpless anger hit Remy like a hammer blow. "Den how am I supposed t' know what t' do? Aren' y' here t' keep me from makin' de wrong choices?"
"Choices already been made, boy." The calm finality of the statement made Remy's breath freeze in his chest. "I'm here t' make sure y' pay de price."
"What price? I haven' done anyt'ing!" Remy's fingers itched for the feel of his cards, as if his mutant power could somehow destroy this image and erase the words. But he knew that his denial was hollow-- he had done too many things in the past to ever be innocent. The terrifying possibility loomed in his mind.
"It isn'... Sinister?" The name came out as a whisper.
The Witness' brows dipped in confusion, as if Remy had just made a right-angle turn and he hadn't quite caught up. Then his expression cleared.
"Sinister's plans never included de deaths o' more dan a few X-Men. Dead people don' have chillen, an' his cloning methods never were too reliable." The Witness had regained his perfect composure.
Now it was Remy's turn to be confused. "I don' understand."
"'Course not."
"Hey!" Remy wasn't certain whether he should be insulted or not.
"You don' understand," the Witness began severely, "because y' not supposed to. Dat's why de X-Men end up dead."
"But--?"
The Witness eyed him as if waiting to see what kind of a stupid question he would ask. Remy wasn't sure if what came out was a stupid question or not, but it was the only thing he could think about.
"How am I supposed t' know what I gotta understand?"
The Witness smiled, but Remy couldn't tell what kind of emotion fueled it. "You'll know when y' find somet'ing y' have t' trade y' life for."
"My life? Dis t'ing goin' t' get me killed?"
The Witness didn't answer. His expression was answer enough.
Cold, choking fear closed in on Remy. "Computer! End program." He stared at the empty space where the Witness had been. He was shaking.
#
Remy, what're y' doin'? he asked himself as he stared at the computer screen. He was in the danger room observation booth. The screen showed that he had access to the directory he wanted. No one had thought to put more than the ordinary protections on it. Of course, the X-Men were only thinking about someone trying to hack in from the outside. There were very few things in the computer system that all of the X-Men didn't have access to. Hank's and the Professor's research files were the first things that sprang to mind in that category. Like every other X-Man currently living in the mansion, Remy had the codes for all of the defense systems, tracking hardware, and all of the other interesting technology housed there.
Remy could easily access the directory holding the Witness' program. Before he could talk himself out of it, Remy deleted the program and the data files, then overwrote that section of memory with something else. That would make certain no one could retrieve it. He did the same with the log of his conversation with the Witness. Then he shut down the console and left. There were several other copies of the program. He was going to have to do some thieving to get to them.
The house was quiet. Cyclops and most of the blue team were out, checking into some trouble on the west coast. The others were either sleeping or off on their own business. The only person whose location Gambit didn't know was Bishop, but he ought to be out on the grounds somewhere. Using Cerebro to locate him would only make Bishop suspicious when he checked the logs later, and that was the last thing Remy wanted.
Not that that was going to make much difference, if Remy were willing to admit it to himself. Bishop would know it was him. Everyone else would at least suspect. And, honestly, what he was doing didn't make a whole lot of sense, even to him. He just felt like he had to do something, fight back somehow against the forces whose only interest seemed to be in getting him killed.
He had realized a while back that the Witness had set him up. Even if Elizabeth hadn't attacked him, the Professor would eventually have been talked into scanning him. Either that, or he would have had to leave and abandon everything that had meaning to him. Now the Witness seemed intent on getting him killed-- as if this were all some bizarre kind of suicide for reasons that Remy couldn't begin to fathom. Still, if killing him were all that there was to saving the X-Men, the Witness would simply have told Bishop who the traitor was, and Bishop would have blown him away the moment they met. That only made sense. But this cat and mouse game didn't make any sense. Remy didn't want to be caught up as a pawn in something he could neither understand nor control. His chances of survival, and hopefully the X-Men's as well, were better if he just worked this all out on his own.
That was what he kept telling himself, anyway, as he worked the lock on Hank's door. It was double-coded, with a numeric punch pad that was the bane of thieves everywhere. Luckily, Remy was better than most thieves. Punch pads were a pain, but not impossible. He opened the door and stepped into the airlock. The system for cycling through into the lab was automatic, so he stood still while the equipment scanned him and completed its decontamination routine. Caught in the airlock, he felt exposed and vulnerable. Eventually, the inner door slid open. Hank's lab was silent and dark except for the glow of dimmed monitors that showed the current status of some experiment or another. Pale lighting shone through the door leading to the Cray that backed up Cerebro when the computing requirements became too heavy. Lettering on the door's window read "Climate Contolled Area". Hank's experiments created a maze of delicate equipment, though Remy knew better than to touch any of that. He headed for the solitary computer terminal that sat like a squat white frog on Hank's desk.
The monitor hummed softly as it came to life, counterpoint to the whir of the cooling fan on the back of the drives. Remy went to work. He was a good hacker and knew what he was looking for, so it didn't take very long. He found both the original English and converted Shi'ar versions of the program and erased them. Incredibly organized man that Hank was, there were also backup disks. The CD's surfaces ran with liquid rainbows as the light caught them. Since they didn't have anything else stored on them, a flash of Gambit's power took care of those.
And that left the paper copies. That horrendous stack of pages they had written the original translation down on. Most of it had been lines and lines of numbers-- data files. Even Hank and the Professor would not have memorized all of that. He began searching through the desk, careful not to disturb anything. Finding nothing, he went on to the file cabinet, which was locked. It took him less than a second to spring the primitive device. The top drawer opened with a metal scrape. He flipped through the file folders with practiced ease, finding nothing. The file he wanted was in the bottom drawer, thoughtfully stored under the label "Witness". Remy pulled it out, closed the drawer and straightened. His knee popped as he stood, sounding deafening in the quiet lab. And on the heels of that noise came another-- the distinctive click and whine of Bishop's gun being readied.
"Hold it right there, LeBeau."
Remy froze, cursing himself for his inattention. He should have heard the airlock cycling. Bishop, he knew, had an itchy trigger finger.
He put on his best smile, though Bishop couldn't see it. "Wit a delivery like dat, Bishop, y' should be in de movies," he said.
Remy turned around slowly, hands raised. The file folder was still clenched in one of them. Bishop blocked the doorway, the pale night-lighting in the hallway giving him the appearance of a halo.
"What are you doing here?" The question was more of an accusation. Unfortunately, a rather legitimate one. Remy considered his alternatives. Bishop would be hard to bluff, and it wasn't like he wouldn't know what Remy had done eventually. So, perhaps the truth was in order. Bishop certainly wouldn't be expecting him to play straight.
"If y' gotta know, Bish, I'm erasin' de Witness. Y' want t' help?"
Bishop's eyes widened in surprise, and the tip of the gun muzzle quivered slightly. Remy noted it with a sense of triumph. He'd called that one right on. Bishop had no idea what to make of the friendly question.
"I don't think that's a decision you should be making, LeBeau," he finally answered. There was a heavy uncertainty in his voice.
"Why not?" Remy still had not moved. He didn't want to distract Bishop and break the moment. Bishop was normally too suspicious to fall for this little mental trick. It was about all Remy could do with his telepathic powers-- offensively, at least. He continued, keeping his tone light, "I figure I've got as much right t' mess wit him as he has t' mess wit me. 'Sides, I t'ought you'd want t' see him gone. He de one screwed y' life up, right?"
"Uh, yeah." Bishop's eyes had glazed a little, and his hand was more relaxed on the gun, though he still had it trained on Gambit.
Remy thought furiously. Charming women was so much easier. He still didn't have a clue how he was going to get Bishop to move out of the doorway.
"Dis file's all dat's left of him." Remy didn't move his hand, but glanced in the folder's direction to draw Bishop's attention to it. "Maybe y' wan' t' burn it y'self? Not as good as de real t'ing, o' course, but it'd feel good, eh?"
The aim of the weapon shifted slightly. Behind it, Bishop's expression darkened. Then a beam of energy lanced out of the gun, striking the file folder squarely in the middle. The bundle of papers exploded in Remy's hand. The high energy beam continued on past to strike the cabinet behind him. Remy hit the floor with a startled cry, burning papers raining down around him.
"Not in de lab, y' fool!" he yelled. A part of him was amazed. Bishop must really have hated the Witness for his little suggestion to trigger that kind of reaction. A red alarm light on the wall began to flash with the accompanying warning siren.
Bishop's own surprise turned into a roar of fury. "You tricked me! Traitor!"
Remy scrabbled for purchase and leapt away as another beam of energy struck the place where he'd been laying. He hit the ground behind one of the tables in the room and rolled to his feet. Mystifying equipment lined the table, filled with various fluids that dripped and burbled. He had a horrifying vision of what might happen if a blast shattered that delicate equipment-- Hank was working on the Legacy virus. Those little vials could very well be full of the stuff. Remy turned and ran straight for the wall beside the doorway, charged cards flying. He knew he was giving Bishop one clear shot at him, but that beat dying slow of the Legacy in Remy's book.
The cards hit the wall and blew a sizable hole through the metal. Remy felt a slicing pain as he dove through it and knew Bishop had tagged him somewhere. He hit the floor of the hallway in a cloud of smoke and hot metal fragments. The lights had come on in the hall in response to the alarm, but the smoke made everything hazy. Remy had barely gotten to his feet when something slammed into him, carrying him to the ground. He ducked the fist aimed at his face, taking a dizzying blow to the side of the head instead, and drove his own fist into Bishop's kidney. He was in a bad position with Bishop essentially on top of him, so the blow didn't have a whole lot of force behind it, but it was enough to win a grunt of pain. With the other hand, Remy grabbed Bishop's wrist, digging his thumb into the nerves to make him drop the gun. The weapon fired twice though Remy had no idea where the beams might have ended up. Bishop refused to let go of the gun and pulled their locked arms down far enough that he could bite Remy's hand. Remy let go with a yell and made a grab for the gun. He got his fingers on it just long enough to charge up a part of the barrel. It exploded with very little oomph, but at least it twisted the metal enough to make the weapon unusable. Bishop threw it away with a curse.
This was the kind of down-and-dirty street fighting Remy had grown up with, though it had been a while. He was at a serious disadvantage in both weight and reach, but he'd grown up with that, too. Oddly, he found himself loathe to pull a knife and put a quick end to the fight. It didn't seem right, even though Bishop was doing his level best to kill him.
Suddenly, there were more lights, and shouting. Arms wrapped around Remy from behind, dragging him away. Similar arms held Bishop. It took Remy a moment to realize that it was Beast's furry arms that held him in an unbreakable bear hug. The tight grip made the fresh burn on his ribs scream. Rogue and Warren held Bishop. The blue team must have gotten back, Remy thought. Scott was there, still in uniform, along with the other members of his team. The other X-Men were there, too, only in their pajamas. The professor was the last to arrive. His silk robe gleamed dully as the light struck it. There was no mistaking the anger in his face.
Remy felt a flash of shame. What was he going to tell the Professor? All of a sudden he felt like an idiot-- what in the world had made him think that destroying the Witness was going to make his life any better? It was just another one of those stupid decisions he'd made, with no thought of the consequences to himself or anyone else. Smoke roiled inside the lab, contained by a force field that had surrounded the room. Remy knew that meant he and Bishop had released something dangerous in there, and now Cerebro was acting to contain it. His stupidity could very well have just exposed every single one of the X-Men to the Legacy virus. The thought of Rogue or Storm dying of the horrible disease chased the last of Remy's defiance away.
The professor seemed to follow Gambit's thought pattern as he studied him. But when he spoke, his voice was rigid with suppressed anger. "Very well. I do not think I need to say anything at this point." Remy felt the blood drain from his face.
Then the professor turned to Bishop. "Would you care to explain what, exactly, is going on here?"
Even Bishop had the grace to look abashed. "Sir, I found Gambit in Hank's lab. He destroyed the Witness program."
The professor's eyebrow lifted. "I see. And this was worth demolishing Hank's lab-- months of valuable research?" The question was frighteningly mild.
Bishop didn't answer. He lowered his eyes a fraction and looked away. After a moment, the professor nodded to himself as if satisfied by that reaction. He turned his hoverchair and looked at Scott over his shoulder.
"Scott, Hank, come with me, please. We have a briefing to finish. I suggest the rest of you get some sleep. There is little that can be done here until Cerebro has scrubbed the atmosphere in the lab." Without a further word, he moved away. Beast released Remy completely and nodded to Scott. The two of them moved to follow the professor. Hank glanced at his lab only once as they passed the hole in the wall. His expression seemed to Remy to be one of hurt more than anger, as if he'd lost something precious. And, Remy reasoned, perhaps he had. Curing the Legacy virus meant a great deal to Hank. At heart he was a scientist, a doctor, and a healer. Not a soldier. Remy had just made it harder for him to do what he loved most.
The other X-Men dispersed quietly, until only Remy, Bishop and Ororo were left in the hall. The disappointment in her face was plain. It hurt even more than the professor's anger.
"I'm... sorry, 'Ro," Remy said. He didn't dare call her Stormy. Not now.
"You should be." Her words were flat, but her voice still held a hint of its usual warmth. She laid her hand on his arm. "When you are ready to talk about this, I am curious to know why you felt it necessary to erase the Witness." Her eyes held some sympathy, underlaid by steel. Remy had the feeling she would eventually demand answers if he did not volunteer them. He didn't know what to say. After a moment of silence, she turned to Bishop.
"Come. It is late." She led him, unprotesting, away. Remy was left standing in the hall, watching them leave. He hadn't felt so completely alone for a very long time.
