Chapter 9: Magneto's Agenda
They drove for what seemed like hours and hours. Amanda was tired, exhausted, and her pain medication had worn off some time ago. Her arm was killing her.
She gave a soft moan, and Hank looked at her in the rear-view mirror, since she was sitting in the seat directly behind him. "Amanda, are you all right?"
She started to nod, then thought better of it as the knife pricked her throat again. "My arm hurts," she said quietly. "But I'm all right. Hank, who are the Acolytes?"
Since Neophyte didn't seem to be averse to their talking, Hank filled her in. "The Acolytes are Magneto's followers. Magneto, whose real name is Erik Lehnsherr, was a friend of Charles Xavier's, quite a long time ago. They parted ways over a difference of opinion; Erik believes that there will be a war between humans and mutants, and that mutants will gain the upper hand. Charles, on the other hand, believes that mutants and humans can eventually learn to live together peacefully.
"Just as Charles has us, the X-Men, Magneto has a group of followers called the Acolytes. They embrace Magneto's belief that the war is coming. I believe that when Magneto hears about this virus you have discovered he will try to get you to develop it so that he can infect every human on earth with it."
"That's terrible!" Amanda exclaimed. "Mutation…or not…should be a matter of personal choice or fate, not a matter of engineering or force. To force a mutation on every person on the planet…Hank, it's a violation of all the basic human rights--"
Neophyte ran an arm across her throat from behind, choking off her words as he cut off her air. She gagged, clawing helplessly at the strong arm across her throat. Hank said desperately, "Neophyte, stop it. She was simply expressing her opinion; you don't have to choke her! Stop it!"
Stars swam in Amanda's vision, and she was almost unconscious when Neophyte released her and replaced his arm with the knife. She sank back into the seat, gasping. "Human rights," Neophyte snapped. "What about 'mutant rights'? Your kind don't much care about mutant rights, do you? Not on Genosha. Not in restaurants that mutants aren't allowed to patronize, apartment buildings that won't let you live there if you're a mutant, restrooms and public transportations we aren't allowed to use, and all those other forms of discrimination against us mutants that your stupid kind impose. Don't talk to me about 'human' rights, flatscan!"
"But this isn't the way to protest it," Amanda said. "And what you're doing now, kidnapping me, isn't the way to show us that those rules shouldn't be imposed. Rather, actions like kidnapping, destruction of public property, murder, and assault just reinforce the unreasoning hatred that some humans have for mutants. But not all of us humans are like that; just as not all mutants are bad."
"Shut up," Neophyte snarled. "Stop driving, Beast. Pull over." He opened the van door, wrestled Amanda out, leaving her crutches inside the van, and then gestured to the boxes of notes and the virus samples. "Get those, Beast," he said. "And no funny stuff. I still got your girl."
It was dark outside, moonless and starless. Amanda shivered as a chill wind whipped through her thin jacket. She hadn't dressed at the mansion for the cold, and Neophyte hadn't given her a chance to put on a coat. She had a dim impression of a tall building in front of her, but the darkness made distinguishing details impossible. A door opened, and Amanda stopped shivering as a blast of warm air bathed her cold body before Neophyte dragged her into the building and the door clicked shut behind them. Hank walked in ahead of them, carrying the two boxes of notes and her virus samples, moving carefully and making no sudden moves.
The hallway suddenly opened out into a large living room. Amanda looked around her, taking in her surroundings. The room was occupied by several people, mutants all, from the way they looked. There was a huge chair before the fireplace, and a figure sat in it.
"Ah, Neophyte," said a smooth, cultured voice from the depths of the chair as its occupant turned around. "So nice of you to join us. Who are your guests?" The chair completed its easy turn, and Amanda stared at the man in front of her.
He looked completely normal, to her relief, because the green demon-like figure in the corner was making her feel distinctly nervous. Hank said to her quietly, "Magneto."
So this was Magneto. Amanda studied him as he studied her. This was the man she had heard mentioned on TV sometimes as the most dangerous mutant on the planet. He held an air of dignity around him like the cloak of a king, even sitting, and it seemed vaguely familiar. Then Amanda realized where she'd seen that before; it was the same regal bearing, the same dignity, that Charles Xavier himself had. But this man also carried with him an aura of danger.
"This is the human who lives in the apartment beside me, Lord," Neophyte said, bending low in a bow. "The human that I mentioned had been seeing the X-Men's Beast. I overheard them talking in the hall about a discovery she has made, Lord, and I believed that you should hear of it."
"What is this discovery that I should find so interesting?" Magneto said, rising out of his chair and walking over in front of Amanda. Neophyte started to say something, but Magneto cut him off. "Not you. I want to hear it from her."
Amanda stood silent and defiant in front of him, refusing to answer. He was taller than herself, by a good head, but she wasn't about to let that intimidate her.
He narrowed his eyes. "Foolish child," he said. "You can't hope to defy me. Answer the question."
Amanda stayed silent.
He held a hand in front of him, opened his fingers, and looked down at the brace on her leg. Amanda gasped as the aluminum pieces tightened around the still-healing limb, but made no other move.
Magneto curled his fingers a little tighter. The metal pieces tightened further. When she didn't answer, he balled his fist.
Amanda screamed and dropped to the floor, crying in pain as the pieces of metal dug deep into her leg. Blood stained the leg of her borrowed jeans. "Stop," she sobbed out, fumbling for the Velcro straps. "Please stop…ow…" she was nearly incoherent from pain.
He bent the metal rods back outward, out of her leg, and she curled up there on the floor, whimpering. Hank dropped the boxes and samples, and tried to rush to her side, but Magneto waved a hand, and two of the other mutants in the room came forward. Sven and Harlan Kleinstock each grabbed one of Hank's arms.
"Amelia," he said, never taking his eyes off Amanda where she lay on the floor before him, "Bring the cage." Amelia lowered a metal cage down from the ceiling above, and opened its door. "Beast," he said to Hank, "Get in."
Hank made no movement toward the cage. Magneto studied Amanda thoughtfully, then made a fist again. The metal brace dug into Amanda's leg again, and she screamed in pain. "I shall continue this until you obey, Beast," Magneto said coldly. Hank stood still a moment more, hesitant, then stepped into the cage. Amelia closed the door and engaged the electronic lock. An electric forcefield sprang into existence between the bars.
He knelt in front of Amanda, took her chin in his hand, and tilted her face up to his. "My dear, I don't want to hurt you unless I have to, but I will have my questions answered. What have you discovered?"
Amanda dropped her eyes and refused to speak.
Magneto stepped back, looked at her, at the cage with Hank in it, then raised a hand. The cage, incredibly, began to shrink, folding in on itself and its occupant. Amanda stared disbelievingly as Hank curled into a ball inside the cage, trying to keep the electrified cage from touching his skin, but it was inevitable, and Amanda flinched as she heard Hank scream and smelled the sizzle of burning fur.
"Stop it!" She cried, unable to bear the sound of Hank's howls of pain. "Stop it! The discovery…it's a virus that codes for the mutant gene in carrier cells and triggers rapid forced mutations." The bars moved away from Hank's body, and Amanda stared anguished at the dark scorch marks in his fur.
Magneto smiled. "All you had to do was answer my question," he said cheerfully. "Now answer the rest of my questions, or I hurt your lover again." He had seen the looks Amanda and Hank had given each other; he had few doubts as to the nature of their relationship. "First; who are you?"
"Dr. Amanda Greene," Amanda said, staring at the floor. She had to answer him; she would do anything to keep from having to hear Hank scream like that.
"Explain your research to me," he said, sitting fluidly down in his chair.
Amanda told him everything, concentrating on the words so that she couldn't feel the pain in her leg. Her pant leg was soaked with her blood from the metal pieces of her braces digging into her flesh. Magneto was silent until she finished.
"Come with me," he said. Amanda pulled herself to her feet and limped painfully across the room to the door he was holding open in the far side of the room. She walked in.
It was set up like a laboratory. A sparse one, compared to Bruce's and even Xavier's, but a lab nonetheless. It had everything she needed just to extract the virus, though testing it would require something a bit better equipped. Magneto had the other Acolytes bring in her samples and her notes, and said, "Extract more of this virus. I want to see it in action."
Amanda sighed and set to work. She opened the plastic bag with the algae in it and put a few pieces of the primitive lifeform in a test tube, then checked the nearby shelves for the necessary chemicals. She added some to the test tube, added water, then began to shake it briskly.
The acids ate through and dissolved the algae from around the virus, leaving the virus behind. Amanda drained off the liquid, leaving a thick yellowish precipitate in the bottom of the test tube, and handed it to Magneto.
"This is it?" he said quietly. She nodded.
"I was trying to find out how to change what the virus does," she said absently as she found a pair of scissors and cut away the wet pant leg. She examined the cuts and gashes on her skin, and Magneto broke off his study of the virus to look at her leg. He saw the barely healed cuts and bruises. "What happened?" he asked her.
Amanda eyed him. "A couple of mutant haters beat me up when they saw me out with Hank," she snapped. "Not that I see how it's your business."
Magneto sat down on the edge of the table and watched as she used a damp paper towel to wipe away the blood. "My dear, don't you see? That's why I do this. If I can cause mutations in every other human, then there won't be any more 'humans' and 'mutants'. We'll all be mutants. And they will have to accept us once we all are no longer different."
Amanda snapped, "No, you see. You listen. I've discovered that there are three types of humans; mutants, regular humans, and carriers. A carrier is someone who has the X-factor in his or her blood, but it is not in sufficient quantity, and has not been activated, to transform them to the level of mutant. There is no way to tell a carrier and a normal human together. My ex-fiance tried this on a sample of mutant blood, a sample of human blood, and a sample of carrier blood.
"In the mutant blood, it had very little effect. All the virus did was destroy the few normal cells in the sample. In the carrier sample, the virus forced the X-factor into prominence, activated whatever mutation was coded into the gene, and destroyed the normal cells. But when I exposed the normal cells to the virus, it destroyed everything in the sample. The cells all died. Don't you understand? If you expose a normal human to the virus, it will kill them. And there's no way to tell who is normal and who isn't unless you test a sample of the individual's blood beforehand!"
Magneto studied the yellowish precipitate in the bottom of the test tube. "I can live with the deaths of a few humans," he said casually. "It's all for the greater good."
Amanda slammed her hand down on the table. "Whose good? Yours? The carriers? It's certainly not good for the normal humans. Mutants represent only a small portion of the population, Magneto. It's been estimated that at least sixty percent of the humans on Earth are normal, and thirty percent are mutants. Carriers make up the rest of the population. Are you willing to sacrifice sixty percent of Earth's population in order to make the other forty percent of us the same?" she shook her head. "You're a lunatic." She marched out into the main room. "You got the virus; now let Hank go."
"How do I know you haven't tampered with it and given me an inert virus?" Magneto asked innocently, opening a drawer. From where she was standing, she couldn't see him pulling a syringe from the drawer. He put the tip of the syringe in the test tube, filled it half full of the yellow gel-like substance, and hid it in the hands he clasped loosely behind his back.
Amanda rolled her eyes. "You have the man I love captive. As if I would try anything while I knew you could still hurt him." Her voice took on an edge of desperation as she stood under the cage that was holding Hank. "Let him go," she pleaded with him. "Please. He's hurt; you burned him. He needs help. Let me help him, please. I promise I'm not going to try to escape."
Magneto hesitated, then signaled to Voght. Amelia disengaged the forcefield and the lock, and Amanda immediately pulled open the door and reached inside for Hank. He dragged himself out, wincing as his scorched arm brushed against the bar of the cage coming out, and Amanda knelt beside him on the floor and hugged him, once, briefly, tightly. Then she held up the damp lab towel she'd brought in from the makeshift lab and pressed it against the burn on his arm. He hissed a breath in through his teeth, and then sighed as the cold did its work and eased the pain.
Magneto approached her. Engrossed, she didn't turn around until it was too late.
He grabbed her arm and jabbed the needle deep into the muscle.
Amanda cried out and stumbled back, the movement of her body pulling the needle out of her arm. She stared at the tiny drop of blood on her arm, then at Magneto, and screamed at him, "You bastard!"
The door blew open.
Storm, Cyclops, Wolverine, Jubilee, Phoenix, Gambit, Rogue, Psylocke, and Warren stood in the doorway. They stopped just long enough to see who was inside, and sprang into action.
Rogue ran at Cargill, and the two women traded blows. Rogue had superhuman strength and endurance; so did her opponent. They were more or less evenly matched. Jubilee slipped into Scanner's mind, telepathically knocking him out, then turned her attention to Amelia, keeping the redhead off-balance by assaulting her both telepathically and physically, bombarding her with plasma bursts, distracting her from transubstantiating.
Senyaka's energy whip flared out, in Wolverine's direction. The snarling mutant met the snaky lash head on, his claws slicing through the length every time Senyaka sent it his way. Beside him, Psylocke was throwing psychic bolts at Spoor, preventing him from downing the X-Men with his pheromones. Phoenix and Unuscione were locked in a deadly battle, Phoenix with her telekinetics against Unuscione's psionic exoskeleton. Scott was busy with his optic beams, blasting the Kleinstock brothers apart, into separate walls, while Storm kept Magneto off balance with the winds whirling him around in its grip.
"Warren!" Scott barked as he continued firing between the two Kleinstocks. "Get Hank and Amanda out to the Blackbird, now!"
"I can walk, my friend," Hank said, grabbing the two boxes of notes and the packet of samples. "Take Amanda. She appears to not be feeling well."
Amanda barely noticed when Warren picked her up and flew her out to the Blackbird. She was flushing alternately cold and hot, and the spot where she had been injected was throbbing and swelling. Hank bent over her, strapping her down to a seat in the Blackbird as he checked her over. He barely noticed when the other X-Men came running up the boarding ramp and took their seats, Scott and Ororo heading for the controls.
Disoriented from the spinning Storm had subjected him to, Magneto arrived at the door just in time to see the Blackbird take off into the lightening sky.