Chapter Eleven: One Down

"I have a plan," Jacqueline said suddenly.

"What do you want us to do?" asked Chris.

"Just be ready to run when I tell you."

"That's the plan?"

"That's your part. Now shut up, I have to concentrate."

Jacqueline raised her arms, and used her power to lift both Chameleon and Inferno off the ground, raising them up and away from Mindstorm. The smaller girl looked almost bored and disinterested as she casually lifted her hands to bring them back down towards her. Jacqueline tensed her arms and her face became lined with concentration as she increased her power, pushing the twins back up into the air. Both of the brothers looked far from pleased at being yo-yoed around like this, and Inferno yelled down at Mindstorm, "Hey, get us down from here!"

Mindstorm shot a venomous glance at Jacqueline, and flexed both her arms to bring her power to maximum force. The twins were pulled back down to the ground once again. I knew Jacqueline didn't have the power to compete with Mindstorm, and I wasn't sure what her intention was. Once the twins were back down on the ground, they'd come to attack us, and all she would have done was waste her power. Or was she trying to get Mindstorm to waste her power as well? Would that work? Would the fight swing in our favour if both Jacqueline and Mindstorm used up their power? Possibly. It was risky though; for all we knew, Mindstorm could have limitless telekinetic energy.

Suddenly, Jacqueline lowered her hands, and cut off her power completely. In that moment her plan became clear to me. The twins, already being pulled down by Mindstorm and without Jacqueline's countering upward force, began to rocket towards the ground. A look of annoyance crossed Mindstorm's face, and she quickly lessened her power before the twins could be dashed to pieces on the concrete. She wasn't quite fast enough, and was knocked to the ground as both Chameleon and Inferno landed heavily on top of her. Chris gave a shout of laughter, "Nice one!"

"Now run!" Jacqueline cried.

The four of us turned away from our three furious enemies, still picking themselves up painfully, and fled down the street.

"Where are we going?" Chloe asked.

"Somewhere with a lot of animals!" Chris said. "That's the only place where we can be safe!"

"Like where?"

"I dunno…a zoo, a pet shop, a dog-lover's house! Anywhere!"

"Can't we hide somewhere?" she suggested.

Jacqueline shook her head, "No chance. Mindstorm would sense us a mile off. Neil, what's nearby that might be useful?"

I pushed my focus into the distance, and scanned the surrounding streets.

"Hey, we're in luck. There is a zoo, about a mile ahead. Can we get there before they catch us?"

"Easily," said Chris confidently. "Inferno's injured; Mindstorm and Chameleon are both short, so none of them are going to be very fast runners."

"Neither am I," Chloe panted, already out of breath, struggling to keep pace with the rest of us. "I don't think I can keep running all that way."

"You can do it," I told her. "When we get there, can we take them by surprise? Do they even know about your gift with animals?"

"Yes. Inferno saw me controlling those dogs in the subway station, remember?"

"Oh, that's right. Well, if they have any sense, they won't come near us. It'll give us a little bit of time to get ourselves together and think what we're going to do next."

"They're coming after us," Jacqueline said. "I can sense it. They're not far behind."

"After we reach the zoo, what are we going to do?" Chloe asked. "We can't stay there for ever. We'll have to go out and face them at some point. Can we stand up to them?"

Chris shrugged, "We're not more powerful than they are, if that's what you're asking. But we can still beat them. We just have to use a little bit of cunning, like Jacqueline did back there."

"It was a gamble but I thought it might work," said Jacqueline. "I guessed Mindstorm would assume that I was trying to prove I was more powerful than she was. She fell for it."

"Yeah. Let's hope we can trick her again in the future."

We managed to keep running until we reached the front gates of the zoo, where Chloe stopped, bent double and began breathing heavily, "I'm sorry…I'm just really tired…I'm not used to running so much…"

"Well, we're here now. We can take a rest," I said.

Jacqueline used her mind power to con our way inside without paying, and we entered the zoo. For the first time in what seemed like ages, I relaxed. We were safe here. With so many animals around, Chloe's gift made us practically invincible.

"Right," said Chris. "Neil, you keep an eye out. I'm going to go and see if I can find some food. I'm starving."

"Yeah, me too," said Chloe.

The three of them disappeared to find somewhere they could buy food, and I looked for a good place to watch out for our enemies. There was an empty wooden bench just outside one of the enclosures – which turned out to contain elephants – and I sat down to keep watch. Focusing my eyes beyond the gates, I could see down into the street which we had just come along. There was no sign of Mindstorm or the twins. Could they be sneaking round to another entrance? Could they have given up and gone home? I didn't know, and I decided the best option was just to keep watching the road ahead.

"You've got funny eyes. Are you a mutant?" came a voice from beside me, startling me.

I re-focused my eyes on what was around me, and turned to my right. A small blonde girl, maybe four or five years old, was sitting on the bench beside me, looking up at me, her eyes filled with innocent curiosity.

"Are you a mutant?" she repeated.

"Yes."

"My mommy said mutants are bad, and they kill people. Is that true?"

I thought about Xavier and his X-Men, and shook my head, "No, mutants don't kill people."

Then I thought about my father. And Chameleon. And Inferno and Mindstorm.

"Well, not all of them," I amended.

"Are some of them good?"

"Yes, some of us are good."

"Are you?"

"I'd like to think so."

A woman appeared by the girl's side, and took her by the hand, declaring, "Melody! What have I told you about talking to strangers? Come on, let's go."

"He's a mutant, Mommy!"

The woman looked at me in horror, and I returned her gaze through my gold-pupilled eyes. She knelt down to face her daughter and said, "Melody, listen to me very carefully. You must never talk to strangers. And you must never, ever talk to mutants. They're bad, and they're dangerous. Have you got that?"

"Yes, Mommy."

"Come on, let's find Daddy."

Casting a last fearful glance in my direction, the woman hurried her child away, and I stared at the ground, suddenly sad. The actions of certain mutants, like my father and his four, had prejudiced the general public against us, and we were almost universally hated and reviled as a result. The majority of us, who were as innocent and law-abiding as anybody else, were unfairly labelled with a tag of being a psychotic killer or a genetic freak, who couldn't be trusted to use our powers responsibly. I sighed heavily. As much as I agreed with Xavier's goal to unite humans and mutants in friendship, it seemed impossible. For every bit of good that the Professor and his friends did, an act of wrong by another mutant would bring back the old fears and prejudices that everyone held within them.

They had to be stopped. Those mutants who would use their powers to cause the suffering of others, they had to be stopped. My resolve strengthened, I vowed to do everything I could to promote good will between humanity and my own kind. My father and his four – Chameleon, Inferno, Mindstorm, and the one we had still to encounter – had to be stopped.

"Hey," came a voice from my left.

It was Chloe. She handed me a sandwich in a plastic packet, and said, "It's a bit late, but here's lunch."

"We don't have any money. How'd we get these?"

"I don't know. Chris and Jacqueline got them."

I was hungry enough that I didn't care how we'd got the sandwiches. It occurred to me that using our gifts to get out of paying for things was exactly the kind of thing I had just decided I was staunchly opposed to, but we were in such a desperate situation that I felt the ends justified the means. That was the problem with morals: they were fine until they came back to haunt you. Opening the packet of sandwiches, I began eating the first one, and looked up to focus my eyes back on the road outside the zoo.

"Any sign of – of them?" asked Chloe nervously.

"Nothing yet. Maybe they're waiting for us to make the next move."

"I'm scared, Neil. I don't think we can stand up to them. I think if we meet them again, they'll kill us."

My eyes were focused elsewhere, so I reached out with my hand until I felt hers, and gave it a squeeze, "Don't worry. Like Chris said, we just have to be cleverer than they are."

"Do you think the Professor will help us?"

"Maybe. But from what Jacqueline said back in the subway station, it seems as if he's got his own problems right now."

"I guess so. Hey, I was wondering. When this is over – if we can beat your dad – are we going back to the Professor's mansion?"

I shrugged, "Dunno. I'd like to. Whether or not he'd have us back is another matter."

"Yeah. Neil?"

"Mmm?"

"Do you love me? Are we going to stay together?"

"I hope so. And yes, I do love you."

"I love you too, but…"

"But what?"

"I just can't think about us making any kind of future together, when we could get killed at any moment by your father and the others."

I thought back to when we'd been in the facility in the Highlands, when I'd first met and spoken to my father, without even realising he was my father. What would I do if I met him again? Would I be able to face him, knowing what he'd done to me? How could a man do that to his own child? I'd been born normal, should never have been a mutant, but my father had changed that, and now I found myself fighting against him, to make sure he could never do the same to anybody else. We were all victims in a way: myself, the twins and Mindstorm. They'd been ordinary, innocent children before my father's experimentation on them. They too would never have become what they were if it hadn't been for his actions. I was going to reply to Chloe, when I saw movement.

"I've got something," I said, sitting upright. "It's Chameleon."

"On his own?"

"Seems to be. He's approaching the zoo. Damn, he's just camouflaged himself."

"Can you still see him?"

"Just about. Go and get Jacqueline. Inferno and Mindstorm may be approaching from a different route. She'll be able to sense them if they are."

I heard her get up and run off in search of Jacqueline, and I kept my attention on the reptilian mutant. Invisible to everyone bar myself, he climbed over the fence into the zoo, and I saw him looking up, scanning the area with his eyes. Eyes that were just like mine. He deactivated his camouflage and I could see his eyes, staring right back into my own. We looked at each other for a few moments, then he began running along the path towards me.

Chloe, Jacqueline and Chris appeared at my side.

"I can't sense anyone else," Jacqueline said. "Though it's possible Mindstorm is blocking my telepathy somehow."

"She can do that?"

"I don't know. Maybe. She's more powerful than I am."

"So what do we do about slime-boy?" Chris asked. "Shall I fight him? Do you want to use your telekinesis? Should we get Chloe to control some animals? Decisions, eh?"

"We've got to try to keep it as low-key as possible," said Jacqueline. "We don't want to attract police attention to ourselves, so a fistfight or an open display of telekinesis is out of the question."

"But if Chloe manipulates an animal, we can make it look as if the animal escaped," I said. "There won't be any obvious signs of mutant involvement."

"Right," said Chris.

"I don't know," said Chloe. "What kind of animal? I don't want any of them to get hurt."

Chris grinned, "Well, we are outside the elephant pen. You said it works best on mammals, right? There isn't much that can hurt an elephant."

"He's coming," I said. "He's close."

"All right," said Chris, jumping into action. "Jacqueline, you stay out of sight and get ready to open up the gate to the enclosure. Chloe, you get ready to control the elephants. Neil, you stay here and look conspicuous. I have a feeling it's you he's after. I'll stay out of sight and be ready to jump in, just in case things go horribly wrong."

"Hang on," said Jacqueline. "I can hear something."

"Huh?"

"Chameleon's having some kind of telepathic conversation. Mindstorm's yelling at him. Neil, can you hear it?"

I stretched out with my telepathic senses, and could vaguely hear a conversation going on inside Chameleon's head.

This is the last time I will tell you, Chameleon, came Mindstorm's voice, get back here now!

Shut up, Mindstorm, the reptilian thought, I'm sick of doing things your way. I can handle this lot easily.

No, you can't! Rosiçky's child is too powerful!

He's a prototype, woman, a failed prototype of me! I can take him! Now shut up and get out of my head!

She had obviously given up, as there was nothing more.

"He's acting on his own," Jacqueline said. "He must have left the other two behind somewhere."

"Perfect," Chris enthused. "Let's finish him while they're split up."

"He's almost here," I told them. "Places, everyone."

I sat alone on the wooden bench as Chameleon approached, his eyes narrowed at me, his body tensed and ready for action.

"Aw, have your little friends abandoned you?" he mocked. "Looks like it's just you and me."

"Lucky me."

"Shut up. I've still got to make you pay for back at the subway station. Get up!"

I remained seated.

"I said: get up!" he demanded.

From behind me came screams of terror, and I knew that our plan was in operation. Chameleon was distracted by the screams, perhaps hoping to witness somebody suffering, and he moved slightly away from me to see what was going on.

"There he is!" I heard Chloe's voice shouting. "Get him!"

Something grey and enormous appeared in the corner of my vision, and the elephant's trunk snaked out to grab Chameleon. The reptilian yelled in surprise, and struggled furiously to escape, but the pachyderm's grip was too strong.

"Get this off me!" he yelled.

I could see Chris, standing on the other side of the elephant from Chloe.

"Tell it to kill him!" he shouted.

"What? No!" Chloe said in shock. "I can't do that!"

"Chloe, do it! He'd kill you if he had the chance! We can't keep running forever! We have to finish them, and it starts with him!"

"No! I can't – I can't kill someone!"

"DO IT!!"

Stunned into action, Chloe shouted to the elephant, "Do it! Kill him!"

Then she screamed as she realised what she'd done. The elephant swung its trunk towards the wall, flattening Chameleon's skull against the bricks. It then dropped him to the ground, where he lay still, very clearly dead. Chloe stood with her mouth wide open in shock.

"Now get it back inside its pen! We have to get out of here!"

Without knowing what she was doing, Chloe told the excited elephant to go back inside its enclosure. Jacqueline must have closed the gate after it, as she came running round the corner, and stopped when she saw the dead form of Chameleon.

"You had to kill him, huh?"

"Yeah," said Chris. "Come on, we'd better go."

Screams rang in the air from all directions. People had probably witnessed what happened, and we hurried through the flowing crowds to the nearest exit. Slipping out unnoticed, we hurried along the street to a deserted corner, where we stopped.

"I can't sense Mindstorm or Inferno," said Jacqueline. "I think we're safe here."

"Chloe? Are you all right?" I asked.

"Of course I'm not all right!" she shrieked, turning to face Chris. "You made me use my power to get an animal to kill somebody!"

"I'd have done it myself, given the chance," he retorted. "Chloe, Chameleon was our enemy. He wasn't the kind of guy you could bargain with. He was a psychopath. We had to finish him."

"But I killed him! I – I can't live with that!"

"You're going to have to," he said bluntly. "How else did you think we were going to stop them? They weren't going to rest until they'd killed us."

"I know, but I – oh, I don't know what to think. Maybe you're right. I can't think any more. My mind's gone blank."

"You're in shock," I said.

"I guess."

Jacqueline looked up, "I can sense Inferno. He's close."

"Alone?"

"I think so. He's gone crazy. He must have realised Chameleon's dead. He's just running around flaming anything he can see. We've got to stop him before he kills somebody."

"Where is he?"

"This way."

We hurried back along the street to the zoo gates, then ran along the outside of the fence, to where a crowd was still hurrying away from the zoo park. Then I could see Inferno. Standing on his own in the middle of a terrified, milling crowd, breathing fire in all directions, screaming incoherently, driven mad by the death of his twin.

"Keep an eye out for Mindstorm," said Jacqueline. "Chris, let's stop him."

Inferno looked up and saw their approach.

"You," he hissed. "You killed my brother! I'll kill you!"

He turned to breathe fire at three or four random people who were fleeing past him. Fortunately none of them was hurt. Jacqueline raised her hand, and lifted Inferno into the air, where he couldn't flame anybody else. He flailed wildly and cursed at her, struggling uselessly against her power.

"Jacqueline! I see Mindstorm!" I yelled.

The small telepath was across the street, and lifting her hand to pull Inferno's crazed form over towards her, setting him down on the floor. The two of them looked across the street at us, then Mindstorm swept her arm to the side angrily, using her power to dislodge the top floor of the building beside us.

"Look out!" I yelled, grabbing Chloe and pulling the two of us to a safe distance. Chris and Jacqueline escaped the falling rubble, and we turned to see Mindstorm, dragging Inferno behind her, hurrying out of sight.

"They're running!" Chris exclaimed. "They must reckon we're too much for two of them!"

"Do we go after them?" asked Chloe.

"Absolutely. If we can cut them off before they reach their base, we've got them, and Neil's dad will only have one left."

He made to go after them, but I grabbed his arm and stopped him.

"Hang on," I said. "Something's wrong. Somebody's trapped under the rubble. When that building fell, they must have been caught underneath."

"I can sense somebody too," said Jacqueline. "A human. A child. Over here somewhere."

We hurried over to where a woman was frantically searching through the fallen remains of the top floor of the building.

"Melody!" she shrieked, and I realised it was the mother of the little girl I'd spoken to in the zoo.

She saw us come towards her, and screamed, "Mutants! Get away from me!"

We ignored her, and Jacqueline pointed towards a section of the ground, "There. She's there."

Chris and I picked our way over the rubble until I could sense the girl's presence strongly, and we began lifting aside the rocks. It was impossible that the child could still be alive – wasn't it? Yet I could still sense her. Flinging aside pieces of debris, I could hear the girl crying.

"She's still alive!" I said.

We unearthed another layer of the rubble, and found the child. Curled in a foetal position, she was partially shielded by a large wooden door that had fallen over her, protecting her from the worst of the rubble.

"Is she hurt?" said Chris, as we lifted the door away.

"I don't think so. She seems OK."

The girl's mother pushed us aside and lifted her child into her arms, sobbing with relief and kissing her daughter's forehead. Then she looked at me with a strange expression, halfway between gratitude and repulsion, "You're mutants –but thank you."

She hurried away, and Chris wiped the sweat from his brow, "Well, I guess that's us done our bit for human-mutant relations."

"I thought you didn't care about humans," I told him. "I thought you said they could look after themselves."

"Did I?"

"You did. Yet here you were, risking your life to save that little girl. The building might have collapsed further on top of us."

"I know. It never occurred to me. It was the right thing to do."

"Then perhaps you see why Xavier and his people feel the way they do?" I said. "Even if it seems like a hopeless struggle, they do it because it's right."

"Yeah…I suppose it does make more sense now. But hell, let's talk about that later. We've got to get after Inferno and Mindstorm. And hey. Just between the two of us, I think Mindstorm's cute. Don't you?"

"Hadn't occurred to me. When a woman's trying to kill you, her appearance generally becomes irrelevant."

"Maybe to you," he grinned. "Come on, let's go."