Chapter Nine: Strange Bed-Fellows
On the station above, Lockjaw initiated a restoration procedure.
The monitor showed Cable in the death throws. The picture began moving slower and slower until it finally stopped. Then it began to move backward.
"Computer" Lucas queried "What's happening?"
"The proper moment of seizure is being determined by reverse progression." It chirped happily.
Soon, Mystique in the guise of Nate Gray stood over Cable, the needle in hand.
Inch by inch she crept backwards and out the door. Then the frame froze again. And the surrounding equipment came to life. Pressure began to regulate as gauges and digital read outs determined details ranging from the curve of space within specific gravity and density to the pattern of Mystique's subtle personal scent as it precedes her down the hall.
And then, when the technologic carnival had reached it's peak, the screen flashed as though someone had taken a picture in that distant room below, and a subtle bell, like that of a five star hotel, accompanied the end of the hypnotic, automated dance of the machinery.
A single, round electronic chip slid down the front of the machine and spit itself out in to a small metal tray with an almost aluminum 'chink'.
"Computer?" Lucas prompted, holding the chip up to examine it closer.
"When the probability token is brought within range of it's situational statistic, limited dimensional differential constructs are formed from residual particles of discriminated linear variants."
"Ah!" Lucas mocked the computer as though that made it all clear and obvious. "So I have to bring this... token, there?"
"If you wish to initiate personal transport to the selected location, please affix the black band to your left wrist and key the red control." The wall whooshed open and revealed five oddly shaped (yet comfortable!) wristbands, each resting on it's own imitation wrist.
Lucas pulled one of the bands from the case and saw it's red indicator come to life.
"Here we go." He slipped it on, keyed the control and vanished.
"Traditional restructuring of this type is done by depositing the token remotely." The computer supplied out loud to no one in particular.
Lucas was sure it was the world that blinked and not him.
But here he was, watching Mystique leave Cable's room, hearing Cable cry out psychically, and he slipped in to the room.
The token flashed and momentarily blinded him.
He felt something touch his chest, and then he heard her speak.
"I can tell you're not supposed to be here." Mystique's voice smiled. "I know everyone who's supposed to be here."
Something touched his chest again, quickly.
"Why wont you die?" She asked, letting her one hand leap out and pierce his chest again, in the form of a thin steel blade.
This time, as she drew the blade out of his chest it touched his ribs.
"Oh, I've tasted that before!" She laughed wickedly.
Lucas' sight was returning, but he was still at a disadvantage.
"Is that why you're still alive?" She taunted "Did daddy give you a healing factor? Did it make you feel like a big boy?" And the knife thrust in again, only to become tendrils once inside is body. She wrapped herself around his ribs, and stretched herself out, worming her way through his internal organs, and spinning her self like sharpened clock-spring towards Lucas' spinal column.
"Didn't daddy warn you about girls like me?" She wrestled to restrain him "Oh, how could he? I never let him come home, did I?" She lashed out again, with the other hand, attempting to stab in through his neck "Too bad you..."
"Oh, Shut up!" Nate's voice came from behind as she was suddenly torn away from the struggle.
There Lucas saw Nate and Emma. Emma reached out with her mind and seized mystique mentally. Her body went stiff and catatonic before falling, rather directly, down.
"Nathan..." The quivering voice called from the bed.
"Cable." Nate leapt forward.
"Phase variance." Cable choked "The legacy cure could be modified by adjusting the phase variance."
"To what end?" Nate asked, taking Cable's hand.
"To restructure..." he began to cough violently and then ceased.
His light had gone out. But it would be enough, when local dimensional travelers would arrive here in roughly two years time, and carry the treatment across the spectrum to all manner of worlds where Cable had never contracted the disease.
Lucas keyed the retrieval key on his wristband.
"Oh, no you don't." Emma tackled him and pinned him to the ground. She was summoning all her mental disciplines and abilities. "What are you doing here?" She demanded.
"I live here." He replied almost noncommittally.
And with a glance over her shoulder she was caught flat. She let him up slowly and turned, almost completely away from him to look out the view port.
Below them hung the earth, or more appropriately, the earth's.
"What's wrong with it?" Emma asked.
"Nothing." Lucas supplied "It's the station that we're on. It's shifting along the dimensional spectrum."
"So the view changes along with it? "Emma watched in amazement, as the planet earth below seemed to flare in purple plasma, and shift whole continents and ice caps between flashes.
"Sure." Lucas felt the last of Mystique's damage pull uncomfortably closed. "Computer, activate intruder precaution number seven."
