Chapter 8: Escape
Amanda woke screaming.
She'd never thought anything could hurt this much; the only thing that even came close was the transformation she had undergone due to the virus, and she'd thought that was the worst pain she could ever experience.
She was wrong.
She felt a needle in her arm, and soon a wonderful numbness spread out from the injection, dulling the pain a bit. Not taking it away entirely, but at least she could stop screaming and figure out where she was now.
She was lying face-down on a bed, her wrists tied to the headboard, her feet tied to the foot. It was better than where she was before, she thought, and began to struggle a bit, trying to find slack in her bonds so she could escape.
Someone walked around to the top of the bed, and she twisted, trying to see who it was. "Help me," she tried to say, but it came out as a harsh croak.
Bruce squatted down in front of her. "Hello, my dear," he said. Amanda yanked back on her bonds, trying to get herself free. Bruce laughed. "You're not going anywhere, Amanda," he said, sitting down on the bed beside her. He studied the raw gashes on her back, then reached out and touched one of them, stroking a finger lightly down the exposed, cauterized skin. Amanda howled in anguish, struggling, until he took his hand away. "Does that feel better, my dear? Yes? Well, unless you want me to touch you there again, tell me where the virus was discovered."
Amanda shook her head numbly. Bruce touched her burned flesh again.
He did it again, and again, and again. Finally, unable to take the pain anymore, she told him. "It was discovered in the rainforest, in Brazil. A tepui is kind of like a plateau, like something you'd see in the Grand Canyon, or somewhere like that. A tableland. It would have been formed by a gradual erosion of soil which finally left a plateau that would be difficult, if not impossible, to ascend or descend. Any animals or plants living on there would have become trapped there, and eventually over a long period of time would have followed a different evolutionary path. That means that the flora and fauna of the tepui would be unique to that plateau only. A similar plateau only a short distance away would have an entirely different ecosystem. That's where the algae containing this virus was discovered. The algae was named for the man who discovered it, and I've been calling the virus Maxwell's virus, informally."
"Exact location, my dear," he said, applying pressure to her back again. She screamed and screamed, then finally gave in. In a harsh whisper, she gave him the latitude and longitude of the tepui.
He sat back, satisfied, and picked up one of her tears, examining the rainbow crystal. "See, dear, that was all you had to do," he said. "You just had to tell me where you found it."
"What are you going to do?" Amanda asked in a voice barely above a whisper.
"I'm going to destroy it. From what you told me, the species of flora and fauna on a tepui are unique, and found nowhere else, so if I destroy it, pollute the pond and burn the algae on top of it, then no one will have access to it any more. Your mutie freak friends won't have any more samples from which to make a serum to infect the rest of us." He held the crystal up to the light. "You know, Amanda, this is really pretty. I wonder what I might be able to sell it for. Maybe if there's a practical use for it I'll keep you alive--" He paused, as if listening, and then suddenly sprang off into the darkness, leaving her alone.
* * *
It wasn't really necessary to take the Blackbird out. The FOH headquarters were only thirty minutes away from the mansion.
Hank brought it up, but Xavier shook his head as they waited for the others to arrive. Scott and Jean were out in the city enjoying some time off together; Ororo, Rogue, Remy, and Betsy were off doing the weekly grocery shopping. Xavier was doing the preflight inspection in the observation room outside the Blackbird's hangar while Hank paced uneasily beside him. "Charles, I can go myself," he started to say for the tenth time, but Xavier interrupted him.
"Hank, you are one of the X-Men. What concerns you concerns all of us. We have all grown quite attached to Amanda in the time she has been here; just because she is not one of us does not mean that we should not help her if she is in trouble. And if she has been captured by the Friends of Humanity, you will need help getting her out of their hands, because, while they may be human, they have weapons and numbers against us."
"We could go in the van…" Hanks said, but Charles shook his head again.
"Again, no," he said firmly. "If Amanda is hurt and needs medical attention, the van will not have sufficient room or equipment to care for her injuries. I would hope that we would find her in reasonably good condition; however, should your dream prove to be true, she will need your help and that of the Shi'ar medical equipment." He sat back in his wheelchair, looking uneasy. "Hank, I wish I could tell you that Amanda is all right. However, the Friends of Humanity are fanatically devoted to their cause, and that devotion could lead then to commit acts that most of us can't even dream of. Look at the Holocaust. There are times when I fear that at the rate humanity is going, there will be a second Holocaust, only this time it will not be racial minorities, it will be mutants. And that possibility makes me very much afraid."
Hank sighed. "I have often thought the same thing, Charles, but right now I find that my mind is completely focused on rescuing Amanda. What say we save the discussion for later?"
"Yes. If I am not mistaken, then, the others are coming." Xavier turned as Hank started to run out to the hangar. "Hank…"
Hank paused. "Yes?"
There were a million different things Xavier wanted to say to prepare Hank for the shock he was almost certain Hank was going to confront, but he settled for a simple, "Good luck." The two words, however brief, carried with them the weight of Xavier's feelings.
Hank paused for a moment, searching for something to say, then nodded and went out.
Everyone was uncharacteristically silent as they got in. Scott took the pilot's seat, Ororo took the co-pilot's chair, and everyone else got strapped into his or hers accustomed seat. Hank was drumming his fingers on the armrest of his seat, in nervous agitation, and didn't even realize he was doing it until Jean reached over and touched his hand. He looked up at her, in apology, and she smiled gently, sending him warm feelings of calm and reassurance, and said, "Hank. I'm sure she'll be all right. Maybe it was just a dream."
"Do you really believe that, Jean?" he asked.
She hesitated. "No," she finally said, her voice sounding worried. "Neither Amanda nor you are telepathic, so what transpired between you is not mutant power based. It's something else, something much deeper. I have no doubt that in some way, when she was in trouble she reached out to you, and that was what you saw. I hope I'm wrong; I hope we get there and find her whole and unharmed, but I'm not counting on it." She finished quietly, "I'm sorry, Hank."
He said nothing, returning his gaze to the window as the Blackbird cleared its hangar and made a wide, graceful turn back toward the city.
The FOH headquarters were massively built, a squat, ugly red brick structure that dominated the buildings around it. Scott had no trouble finding the place; when its founder had the building built, a large helipad had been built on the roof, and its design stood out like a bull's-eye. Hank thanked the Blackbird's designers silently for designing the plane with vertical landing capability as he unbuckled his seatbelt.
There was a hail of gunfire as the loading hatch of the blackbird opened. Ororo quickly created a thick fog inside the compartment, obscuring the disembarking X-Men and momentarily confusing the FOH. They stopped firing, confused for a moment, then raised their guns uncertainly to their shoulders again. Not long, but it was enough.
Jean's telekinetic shield prevented the bullets from reaching the 'ground crew' as Ororo's fog obscured and prevented the waiting FOH soldiers from taking out any of the 'sky crew': Warren, Ororo, and Rogue surveyed the scene from under cover of the fog, then attacked. Flying high above the rooftop, they swung out over the city in an arc, coming down behind the unprepared soldiers.
Rogue yanked the gun out of one soldier's hand, using it to club the side of his head. He went down, unconscious, and she dropped the gun in disgust, brushing her hands off, as Warren scooped a man up by the back of his jacket and flew off with him. He dropped the man onto a scaffolding attached to a nearby building, then flew back to pick up the next man, dropping him onto the same scaffolding. One man turned and tried to shoot him, but Warren banked, swerving neatly out of the way, and yanked the gun away from the man. Ororo picked three men up off the rooftop and spun them around in a whirlwind until they were dizzy, and then dropped them as she struck another man with a mini-thunderbolt.
Scott's optic beams, meanwhile, were frying the guns aimed at him and the rest of the ground bound X-Men. One soldier yelped as his weapon became too hot to handle; then watched in disbelief as the gun became a melted puddle of slag on the rooftop. Protected by Jean's telekinetic shield, Remy grinned devilishly as he walked up to another man and grabbed the barrel of the rifle in his hand. He widened his eyes so that the man could get a good look at his eyes, red pupils on black irises, and the man quaked for a second in terror. Remy channeled his kinetic energy into the weapon and exploded it. The man's eyes rolled up into his head and he passed out in terror. Remy grinned. "Sleep tight, homme," he grinned, and turned back to the fight.
There wasn't much of the fight left. Men wearing the FOH uniform were running toward the door in the rooftop, pounding on it futilely as they tried to get in, and away from the X-Men. Remy grinned. While he was playing with his victim, he had seen the door open, and a man poked his head out. He must have realized that the FOH were going to be on the losing end, because he'd quickly withdrawn his head. Presumably he'd also locked the door behind him, trying to stop the X-Men's advance into the FOH headquarters.
As if locks had ever kept the X-Men out of anywhere.
Hank grabbed the front of one man's jacket. "Where is she?" he snarled. The man started at him, unable to say a word. Jean ruthlessly probed his mind, causing him to crumple to his knees and hold his head as she rummaged through his brain, plucking the knowledge she wanted out of his head. "Phoenix," Hank said as she stumbled a bit.
She held out a hand in a 'stop' gesture, shook her head once as if to clear it, and said, "Downstairs. Third floor."
Scott said quickly, "Storm, Angel, stay here. Guard these men. See that they don't try to follow us, and be ready for a quick takeoff. Gambit; get the lock on that door."
Remy placed a hand on the lock, and the others backed up cautiously as the door began to glow red. In a matter of seconds, it blew apart, metal shards flying everywhere. Jean just barely had time to get a teke shield in place to protect them all from flying debris, but it went down quick enough as she and Scott took point going down the dark stairwell.
Logan sniffed, and growled. "I smell Garrett," he growled.
Hank and Jubilee blinked. "He's here?" Jubilee was annoyed. "I thought we warned that skunk to stay away from Amanda!" She shook her head. "Obviously he needs another reminder!"
Ahead of them, they heard pounding footsteps. Unable to see who it was, Jean nevertheless threw a shield across the hallway in front of the running figure, and there was a muttered 'oomph' as whoever it was ran into the invisible barrier. He was standing in front of it, searching for a way out when Hank grabbed the back of the jacket and turned him around.
It was Jason Frank, the current leader of New York's branch of the Friends of Humanity. "Where are they?" Hank growled at him, blue fur bristling in anger. Everyone stood discretely back. Hank didn't get mad often; he was a fairly level-headed, even-tempered guy. But when he did get angry, the havoc he could wreak on anything around him rivaled Logan's propensity for damage.
Hank shook the man so hard his teeth rattled. "Where are they?"
Jason Frank's eyes nearly bugged out of his head. "D-d-downstairs." He whispered through a mouth gone dry in terror. "It wasn't my idea! It was Bruce's! He didn't want anyone to say he's polluted himself with a mutie freak, so he wanted her changed so she wouldn't look like gene-trash and…" Hank smashed a fist into Frank's face, cutting off the man's words as he dropped the unconscious body to the floor.
"Bruce!" Jubilee suddenly called out, running ahead of them to pursue a figure that had come racing out of a door almost all the way down the hall. "Bruce, I swear I'm going to kill you--" but the man was racing down the stairs, too far ahead of them and too fast for them to catch them. Hank didn't bother; he turned to the door Bruce had come out of and pushed it open.
Amanda lay there, on a hard, tiny, uncomfortable cot, her ankles lashed to the end, her arms tied to each of its upper corners. She was nude, except for a sheet that was pulled halfway up her legs, and she was unconscious, or…worse…Hank crossed the room in two great bounds, snapping the chain that held her wrist shackles to the cot's metal frame, and released her legs. He bent over her back, trying desperately to hold back tears as he saw the blackened, scorched flesh sluggishly oozing blood where her wings used to be. "Amanda," he whispered, "Oh, Amanda, what did they do to you?"
He didn't realize he was crying until her hand came up weakly to touch the damp track on his face. "Hank," she whispered, in a voice that barely sounded like her own, it was coming from a throat almost ruined by screaming. "Oh, God, Hank…"
He stared down at her, his face filled with disbelief. "Amanda? You're alive?"
"Barely," she whispered. "Hank….oh, Hank, they…they took my wings, Hank…I'll never fly again…I'm not pretty Hank…do you still love me?"
He hugged her body to him, not caring anymore that tears were streaming down his face, not caring that the rest of the X-Men were watching. Amanda was alive, she had survived this incredible ordeal, and he swore that no one would ever hurt his beloved Amanda again. "I love you," he whispered as he stared at the blackened holes in her back, "I don't care if you have wings or not, I'll always love you."
"I love you, too." Amanda struggled up to a sitting position, whimpering a little as the gashes in her back oozed a little. Hank grabbed the sheet off the floor, gave it a cursory glance to see that it was clean, and draped it gingerly over her shoulders. Her legs shook as she tried to stand, from hunger, pain, exhaustion, and dehydration, and he slid an arm under her knees and picked her up. She slung one of her arms over his shoulder, the other hanging down limply, and he figured it must be dislocated by the position of the bones under her skin.
"Let's go home," he said to her gently.