~~~
Chapter 8
~~~
Nathaniel Essex knew his day was looking up. It hadn't started out that way but it was steadily getting better. Having to travel to the Xavier Estate in person had been neither the highlight of the afternoon nor the greatest of ideas--and trusting that Rankin idiot had been an even worse one. There was big news, he had said. Too big for of any type of communications. Calvin hadn't actually betrayed him--he was too smart to try that--but the man did need to be taught what was important and what was not. It was a lesson--Essex smirked as he heard the screams--he was learning right now. Calvin would be released soon. After all, he had played a big part in why Nathaniel's day was so bright. Having new genetic material to research and catalogue and play with would make even the bleakest day bright. And it wasn't just one person's either. Oh no, there were two of them.
The blue one--Henry McCoy--wasn't all that useful, at least by genetic standards. Essex already had a small sample from him from his first tangle with the students of Xavier and physical mutations were easily come by anyway. Agility and strength as a combination were slightly more difficult to find, but McCoy was more useful to him as a person than genetic fodder. He was one of the original students of Xavier and, if it ever came to it, the ideal bait.
It was the other one, however, --the woman, Cecilia Reyes--that really piqued Nathaniel's interest. Force fields were a very rare mutation. According to his records, the most thorough and detailed in the entire world, there hadn't been a force field wielder in over a decade--since Unus died in the eighties. And Nathaniel had never been able to get his hands on Unus, not even for a DNA sample, and that made having Cecilia in his possession all the more special. A mutation like this, new and unexplored, the possibilities were incredible. There was so much this woman could do if she ever dared delve deep into her potential--and it was a potential he was more than happy to help her obtain.
At the moment she was still unconscious, and would remain so until he chose otherwise. The last thing he wanted was a patient up and moving around while he was trying to work. Her cells, her genes, her DNA--it was all right there, like an open book to him. He could read it and he could write it, changing it as he wished. While he lacked the knowledge and tools necessary to create an entire person from scratch, once he had a person to work with there was no limit to what he could do. His computers monitored her as he worked but it was the scanners--of his own invention, mind you--that really administered the changes he made. Head to toe on her it ran and, as he entered his information and his will altered her genetic structure as it went. The process was painfully slow. A single scan down the body could take an hour, if not more. Altering genetic makeup was no quick job; it required the absolute precision only a laser could obtain. A change in the wrong place could have disastrous results, but a tweak here would enhance her power levels. A . . . that was new. Expected, but new. He was used to finding that little bit that made it different each time he worked with a mutation, and now he had found it for this one. What it did he was not completely sure, but the geneticist wasn't above a stab in the dark. And whatever he did could always be undone. It would take more time, but it could be undone.
At the sound of a sharp crack, Essex whirled around. His latest specimen was still unconscious but she no longer lay on the table. Rather she lay above it, surrounded on all sides by a glowing layer of light. The crack had been her restraints snapping as her force field expanded through them. Nothing Essex tried on the computer could fix this. Nothing, not even the highest power beam, could get through the field to work. He almost began to swear but then realized that there was, in fact, a solution. It would just take time. Once the woman woke up she would get her field back under control and back down herself, and then he was back in business. The sedatives would wear off and then all would be good. Nathaniel called in one of his employees, a surly young woman who fancied to call herself Domino, to take Cecilia back to the cells. Yes, it was only a matter of time and time was something he had.
~~~
Scott gathered what remained of his team and instructed them to meet in his office. Along with them he brought three of the older, more trusted students. Those that had the most control over their gifts and could be the most helpful to their cause. One of these was young Paige Guthrie. The metamorph was the closest thing to a doctor they had around, and she had a level head on her shoulders. That was something Scott had been grateful for as she treated his shoulder without question. Bobby Drake was another he had to enlist. Despite all appearances to the contrary, the kid was able to keep his cool under pressure and hold his own in a fight. His long-distance power capabilities would be useful as well. The last of the students Scott picked was their resident technological genius, Kitty Pryde. On the surface she was an ordinary, shallow ditz but she could always tell when it was time to be serious. Also, her skills in phasing, computers, and strategy were too good to pass up. The team was completely by Logan, Kurt, and Theresa--the last still holding the remnants of an ice pack to her skull. Scott waited silently for them to all file in and find a spot to sit before he spoke. "I have quite a lot to tell the six of you," he started. "And I would appreciate it if all questions could be held until I'm finished, otherwise I may not be able to get it all out and time is of the essence. Is that understood?" Silent nods all around, and so he began.
"First things first. Kitty, Paige, Bobby--this is Miss Cassidy. Theresa. She's new, as if you couldn't tell, and she'll be joining us as both a team member and a teacher. While we're in the field you may call her Siryn. Logan may be new to you as well, he was here a few months ago but only for a couple of days. He will be known as Wolverine. Mr. Wagner, Kurt, is Nightcrawler and I am Cyclops. I've heard the three of you tossing around names for yourselves--Shadowcat, Husk, and Iceman, correct? Once we decide on a course of action and leave the school grounds these are the names we will go by. The Xavier School has not yet been connected with the X-Men and I'd like to keep it that way.
"Now we all need to know what each other can do. My optic blasts are common knowledge. My visor controls them. Kurt is a teleporter, with some limitations. Carrying one or two extra people is a strain, and also restricts his range. Logan has a very rapid healing factor, faster than even Sarah's. He also has a metal skeleton and three claws in each hand. Theresa has sound-related powers, a sonic scream if you will. How exactly she uses it I'll leave to her to explain. Kitty can phase, that is allow the molecules of her body to pass through the molecules of something else. Phasing through electronics causes a disruption in the signals. Phasing someone else is something she's working on. Paige is a metamorph; she changes form by tearing away the husk of the old one. She can become any material imaginable, although anything heavier than steel is a struggle. Bobby can create ice and water out of the moisture in the air, and can manipulate it any way he chooses. Shields, slides, projectiles, and the like.
"On to current events around here. As Kurt, Logan, and Theresa know, we had Sabretooth in the building earlier this afternoon. He was heavily sedated and a threat to no one--we just had some information we needed from him. He escaped, however, when a friend of his broke him out through teleportation. I was shot in the process, an accident, a misunderstanding between me and his friend. I doubt they'll be back, but if any one sees him I need you to find me immediately. Sees him or his friend--a girl not much younger than you three. You'll recognize her as not from here, she had pink skin, red hair, and white eyes. Around sixteen or so. Keep an eye out for those too, and spread the message around to John, Rogue, Jubilee, Sydney and Piotr. Keep information about Sabretooth away from the younger children, though. I don't want them to be worked up when they're perfectly safe here.
"And now the most important business of the afternoon. A man by the name of Dr. Nathaniel Essex has come up again. Kitty, Paige, Bobby--I doubt you three have heard of him, as Kurt is the only one in this room who would remember him. Dr. McCoy and Miss Monroe were here at the time as well. This was a bit less than fifteen years ago, when the school was first established. Dr. Essex was a world-renowned geneticist but no one could figure out how he knew what he knew. Then he started coming around here, granting full scholarships to his own school to anyone who would take them. He had everything in order, he contacted parents, he put together files, he had it all planned out. Within a month we were getting phone calls from distraught mothers and fathers wondering why their children hadn't contacted them. We investigated--and after much searching discovered that there was no school. He was using the children as live specimens to research and experiment on. We got the kids back, shut him down, and humiliated him in front of the world. By 'we', I mean Kurt, Henry, Ororo and their fellow students and teachers--Dani Moonstar, Jonothan Starsmore, Shiro Yashida, Tessa Niles, Neal Sharra, and Davis Cameron.
"Essex--or Sinister, as he seems to have deemed himself--has returned. Calvin Rankin, whom you knew, was in fact a spy sent by him to infiltrate the school and report back what he found. Dr. McCoy, Dr. Reyes, and Miss Cassidy stumbled across this and when Essex fled the scene he took our two doctors with him. We don't know where his base is. We don't know who he has working for him. About all we do know is that they were taken about forty-eight minutes ago.
"So tell me, team, what do we do?"
~~~
Hank had no idea how long he's been sitting here. Hours, it'd seemed. He'd woken up in this place with a horrible throbbing in the back of his skull and lain still for several minutes before he'd been able to finally get up. It was an immaculately clean place, he noted, a cell but still very clean. None of that dank and dreary stuff the movies tried to show. No, the whole thing was as sterile as a hospital room--and about that aesthetically pleasing. A shelf-like bed, glaring artificial lights, a commode in the corner. No window. The entire front wall of the cell was open, and criss-crossed with glowing red beams that served as bars. What their effect would be if he touched them was unknown to him, but not something he wanted to find out. There was no gap big enough for a cat to fit through, much less him.
But he could see out.
Sounds began to echo down the hall and Hank sprang immediately to see what was happening. From where he stood he could peer out and see three figures advancing towards him. As they came closer he could more clearly make out their forms. One was a man, dressed from head to toe in a red and black bodysuit. The other was a woman, dark-haired and with some sort of black marking around one eye. The third figure, the one being dragged along by the first two, was still indiscernible as it was completely encased in a yellow glow. Yellow glow. Hank began to process that information. A yellow glow could only mean one person he could think of.
And indeed it was. As they neared even further Hank could see through the glow and to the person. Cecilia's eyes were closed, her head dropping forward, her long braids trailing limply over her shoulders. Her arms were slung over the shoulders of her carriers and her feet dragged loosely behind her. She was quite obviously unconscious. The trio headed towards him, then stopped, and the man reached to unlock the cell across the corridor. "No, wait!" Hank called to him.
The three turned as a unit. The man was the one to speak. "Yes?"
"You can put her in here, with me," Hank continued, pointing behind him to his own cell. "We take up that much less space that way. More simple to deal with." They didn't seem to care. Clean up was probably the job of some other unfortunate lackey. "And . . . and I wish to be here for her, when she awakens." Still no reaction. They were going to make him say it. "Please?" There, the last of his dignity, gone. But for Cecilia, he would do anything.
This time it was the woman who spoke. She turned to her partner, a wicked smirk on her face. "Well, Wade, what do you think?" He merely shrugged, his expression impassive and unreadable beneath his mask. "It'll piss off Essex, and that's enough for me." She hefted Cecilia's arm further onto her shoulders as she worked to get a better grip. The force field did not was to be held on to. "So you sit in the back and don't turn around until you hear the door shut. You get your way, ugly, and we get to hear her scream when she wakes up."
Hank bit back an equally nasty comment, deciding that it was better to play along for now. As long as he didn't act out they wouldn't take Cecilia. Wouldn't try to take her--while he was around they weren't going to lay another finger on her. He heard a dull thud and immediately spun around, barely noticing as the door slammed shut and a key twisted cruelly in the lock. Cecilia lay crumpled on the floor, on her side with one arm stretched out under her head and the other slumped over her body. Her eyes were closed and her face was bare as her glasses rattled around on the inside of her force field somewhere near her feet. Hank found himself wondering trivial things like when they had fallen off, then realized he should concentrate on the bigger problems. Like what had happened. What was wrong. He had never seen her with her field up like this--but she had told him about a time when something like this had happened. When her force field first emerged it had been uncontrollable, always up, and certainly not a pleasant experience. He doubted now would be any different so he might as well make her as comfortable as possible. Hank leaned down to pick her up, cradling her gently against him and setting her down on the makeshift bed. The pillow he pushed beneath her head to keep her neck level and, even through it would do no good neither would it do harm, he covered her with the blanket. The force field was still very much alive, glowing on all sides and pushing everything away. Knowing there was nothing else he could do, Hank sat down on the ground by her head, his back against the wall, and waited for her to wake up.
~~~
It wouldn't be too much longer now.
Nathaniel watched the screen closely, observing the entire situation through the eyes of his security cameras. Ordinarily he would have punished Domino and Deadpool for putting two prisoners together like that. Separation was good--it kept plans for escape from happing. However, even if Reyes felt no compulsion to fix her current problem, McCoy was certain to urge her to try. Make things move much more quickly, that would, and then he could get back to business.
By now the X-Men would have figured it out. Essex had never felt more like an idiot than when he realized he he'd left the redhead behind and it was too late to go back and nab her. She'd have told the whole story of course, and he didn't even know who she was. Well, he hadn't at the time but now he did. Her name was Theresa Cassidy. She was the twenty-seven-year old daughter of the widower Sean Cassidy. Their powers were identical; both possessing something nicknames a sonic scream. She had just arrived at the mansion, as Calvin knew nothing save her name and her ability.
Ah, Calvin. The man was off nursing his wounds somewhere. The infiltration of the mansion had been a stroke of genius. The X-Men had never gone up against Calvin Rankin, they had never heard of Calvin Rankin. He was the ideal spy. All Essex had needed was a way to get past the telepaths, and that required another telepath. He had gone through all his records to find one and come up severely lacking. Charles Xavier, Jean Grey, and Betsy Braddock were already affiliated with the mansion. Emma Frost was long since employed by the government. Dani Moonstar and Jason Wyngarde were both merely illusionists, and both had ties to Xavier. Essex was running dangerously low on options when by chance he ran across an uncatalogued stowaway from Egypt, a young man who called himself Amahl Farouk. The defenses he created inside Calvin's mind had been so incredible because they were not really defenses at all. If anyone tried to probe Calvin's brain, the thoughts they found would be so utterly mundane that they wouldn't bother to check any deeper, deeming it unnecessary. Until Calvin's little screw-up, it had worked perfectly. Still, with just a few changes here and there Essex would get what he wanted.
He always did.