Chapter Two

Gemini was uncharacteristically silent for the duration of the helicopter journey down to the state of Florida, where her human family lived. She sat apart from the rest of us, staring out of the window at the ocean below, her thoughts clearly elsewhere. Was she remembering those awful days – weeks, months? – she had spent in that laboratory? Was she thinking about her family, and the humans who had hated her so much that they gave her away to be used as a lab rat? Was she thinking about how she was going to react on meeting them again? I didn't know, and I didn't feel comfortable interrupting her private thoughts, so I left her alone. If she wanted to talk about it, I was sure she would approach me. Unfortunately, given that Vertigo was preoccupied with flying the chopper and Recyclo was being his usual self, there was nobody for me talk to and the trip soon became boring. I could only fly over the sea for so long without becoming sick of it. I forced myself to focus. This mission was important. We had to find this geneticist Van Gaarde, and from there track down the Horsemen. Whatever they were trying to do, we could bet it wasn't going to be beneficial for us, and we had to keep a close eye on them at the very least. Perhaps our fight wasn't over after all. Had we defeated one enemy, only to discover another?

I wondered exactly why Pyro had chosen this particular group for this mission, given that it should prove to be no more than a fact-finding assignment. Gemini was an obvious choice, and Vertigo was the only one other than Pyro who could fly the helicopter, but Recyclo and I were without doubt the two strongest fighters the Brotherhood had – surely it would have been more sensible to keep us on the island as part of the group who were ready to face any attacks from the Horsemen? Surely Cassandra, as Gemini's closest friend, would have been a better choice to go with her, to comfort her while she remembered her terrible past? I shrugged. Pyro knew what he was doing. He was our leader, and he knew how best to utilise our strengths.

I must have dozed off at some point, or been unaware of the passage of time, as I was suddenly jolted into reality by Vertigo saying, "We're almost there. There's an abandoned industrial estate not far from where we're headed. I'm going to land there. Gem, I'm assuming you can take us directly to your – to where you used to live?"

She nodded, and her voice shook a little, "Yes."

"OK. Touching down now."

We concealed the helicopter as best we could, and set out towards the urban area we could see in the district. It took an hour or so until we reached the outskirts, and Gemini began looking around, presumably getting her bearings, trying to remember which route to take.

"We go this way, I think," she said, pointing along a narrow road on our left.

We passed other people, humans, as we went along, but none of them gave us more than a glance. To them we were clearly just another group of teenagers, three guys and a girl, out enjoying this beautiful summer day. If only they knew who we really were: the instruments of their destruction. I noticed Gemini looking intently at a building on our right, and I turned to see what it was. From the looks of things it had probably once been a town hall or suchlike, but now the words EMERGENCY PLAGUE CLINIC were printed above its front entrance. Through the windows I could make out the shapes of humans lying on beds, with other humans – presumably doctors and nurses – moving around, doing what they could for these people. It was useless. Why were they even trying? There was nothing they could do to stop our Plague. The X-Men had tried to save them, and had failed. These humans were doomed.

Somewhere inside of me I felt uncomfortable. I had never previously felt any qualms about our 'cleansing' of the human scum from the world, but then I had never had to see it first-hand like this before. Was it really right, what we were doing? Deep inside, part of me felt that it was wrong to kill these people, people who I had never met and over whom I could not judge whether they deserved to live or die. Was this justified? To save our species, was it right for us to indiscriminately wipe out these people? I wavered for a moment, then remembered what Pyro had said. Effectively it was them or us. If we didn't kill them, they would kill us. It wasn't nice, but it was the only option they gave us. If the humans hadn't been so bigoted about our kind, and had made an effort to accept us, maybe it wouldn't have come to this. It was a war, and the strongest, as they always would, were winning.

We left the clinic behind, and seemed to be moving faster now. Maybe Gemini was remembering the area better and plotting her route with more confidence. As we went on, we passed another group of humans: young girls about our age, wearing short skirts that barely covered anything, talking and laughing happily, giving Vertigo, Recyclo and myself an admiring glance or two as they went past. Once again the feelings of uncertainty rose inside me. These were just ordinary humans – ordinary girls – happily living their lives. They were probably no different from Gemini or Cassandra in many ways. They had done nothing wrong, nothing to deserve death, yet any one of them might be struck down tomorrow with the Plague we had created. I turned round briefly to watch them go, and I tried to force my doubts down. Casualties of war. That's what they were. They died along with those humans who deserved to. They were simply unfortunate enough to be in the way. We walked on, my conscience still troubling me, my thoughts still in turmoil, only vaguely aware of where we were going, concentrating only on following the others. Suddenly my thoughts were interrupted by a voice.

"Hey, what have we here?"

I looked up. Another group of humans, these ones guys slightly older than we were, were standing in front of us, their attention clearly focussed on Gemini. She was still wearing the little blue dress, and had obviously caught their interest. A quick glance around told me we must have wandered into one of the less pleasant areas of town. The guys, six or more, had moved to encircle us, and the one who appeared to be leader said, "Lookin' for some fun, baby?"

"You wish," Gemini snapped. "Get out of my way."

"I don't think so."

He turned his attention to the three of us, "You guys can scram. She's ours now."

"I don't think so," Vertigo said lazily, mocking the guy's accent.

Angrily the sub-creature pulled a switch-blade knife from somewhere on his person, and held it out, pointing towards Vertigo's throat, "Say that again, you little smart-ass! Go on, give me an excuse to slit you open!"

Recyclo moved like lightning, a blade appearing in his hand from nowhere, flicking through the air like a flash of light. The human's mouth opened as he tried to breathe, then his legs gave way and he fell to the ground, his hands clutching at the knife embedded in his windpipe. The other sub-creatures gaped in horror, frozen to the spot, and Recyclo merely looked at them through his unblinking, unfeeling grey eyes. With one accord, they turned and fled. Gemini spat down at the dead human.

"Scum!" she snarled. "They can't look at a girl's body without wanting to make her pregnant!"

"Let's go before we attract any more attention," said Vertigo, his hand in her back, gently guiding her forward.

Recyclo looked down remorselessly at the body of the man he had just killed, then he followed the others. I remained for a second or two, still plagued by my uncertainties. Could I have done that as easily as Recyclo had, just killed the human like that? Had the sub-creature done anything, besides being human, to deserve it? He had made clear his intentions to abuse Gemini, but did that give us the right to just kill him? Suddenly I was feeling less and less comfortable as we went on. It was easy to sit on the island, or anywhere else where there were no humans, and consign them to their doom without feeling guilty. It was another thing entirely to go out amongst them and feel the same. I shook my head. Forget it, Gladiator. You're not an X-Man, so don't start feeling sorry for the human scum. That one was going to die of the Plague soon enough anyway. Recyclo had done nothing except make it quicker and less painful. He had done it to protect Gemini, and that was the single most important thing we fought for: to protect mutant life. These kinds of humans, those who sought only to hurt others, these were the ones we sought to kill. By threatening the lives of others, they forfeited their own right to live. My uncertainties calmed, but not entirely tamed, I walked on.

Gemini definitely knew where she was going now, and as we turned left into a small cul-de-sac, she seemed to be heading for the house at the end of the street: a semi-detached building with a small but well tended garden in front. As we got closer, I could see two figures sitting on a rug in the garden, enjoying the sun. One was a young woman and one was a tiny baby, clearly mother and daughter. The young woman looked up when she heard our footsteps – her face triggered a sensation of recognition deep within my memory, but I couldn't quite place it – and she glanced at us with nothing more than a friendly smile. Then she stopped. Her eyes, centred on Gemini, began to widen and her mouth opened but no sound came out. Eventually she managed to gasp, "Alexandra? I thought you were – "

"Dead?" Gemini snapped. "I might as well be for what your mother did to me!"

"My mother? Our mother, you mean. Alex, what happened to you? She told me you died in an accident!"

Vertigo looked sideways at Gemini, "Alex?"

"That's what my human parents named me. I left it behind years ago. This is my sister – Melody."

This time it was my eyes that widened in recognition. I had thought this woman looked familiar. I had met her before, what seemed like long ago but was probably only a month, before I had joined the Brotherhood, before – before Marina had died. The human – Melody – was on her feet, holding her sleeping baby in one arm, her other hand reaching out to caress Gemini's face. Angrily my friend slapped it away, and snapped, "Don't pretend that you love me now! After you spent my entire childhood hating me!"

"Alex – I didn't – I never – "

"Shut up! Where's our mother? I need to speak to her."

"She's dead, Alex."

"Stop calling me that! My name is Gemini! Tell me where our mother is or we'll kill you!"

Melody gasped as a blade appeared literally from nowhere in Recyclo's hand. She held her baby close to her and swallowed nervously, "I told you, Alex – Gemini – she's dead. She died about a month ago in an accident at the harbour."

"Don't expect me to mourn her," Gemini spat.

"Why do you – why do you want to see her if you hate her so much?"

"I need to know how to get hold of the genetics researcher she sold me to."

"Sold you to?" the woman said in shock. "Alex, I never knew! I swear I never knew! I thought you were dead! If I'd known…"

"You hated me because I was a mutant!"

"I never hated you! I – I was just too scared to go against what Mom said! After Dad died, I – I…Alex, I don't hate mutants. A mutant saved my life once."

"Bullshit!"

"No, I'm telling the truth! It was before you were born. I don't know who he was, but he had gold eyes. That's the only thing I remember. That's how I knew he was a mutant."

My breath caught in my throat, but I said nothing. A mutant with gold eyes – that was my sister. No, wait – if it had happened before Gemini had been born, it must have been – it must have been my father. And she had said 'he' anyway. Melody went on nervously, "I – I'm sorry I can't give you what you came for, but you can come inside and look through Mom's old papers if you want. There might be something in there about this geneticist you mentioned. I've been so busy I've never had the chance to go through her stuff."

"All right," said Gemini. "Recyclo?"

He closed his hand, the knife disappearing. Melody breathed a sigh of relief, her body visibly relaxing. Vertigo and Recyclo were already heading towards the house, and Gemini went after them, ignoring her sister's attempts to speak to her further.

"Alex…" Melody pleaded. "Please, listen to me…I never hated you!"

Gemini wasn't listening, and she followed the guys inside the house.

"Do you remember me, Melody?" I asked her.

She turned, a little surprised, and looked at me fearfully, "I – I don't think so. Please, don't hurt me or my baby…"

"We met about a month ago," I said. "I was at the side of the road, looking for a lift, and you pulled over."

"I did?" she said doubtfully. "Now that you mention it – yes, I do remember you…Gary?"

That was the name I had once gone under, but I didn't bother to correct her.

"You didn't have her with you at the time," I said, pointing to the little baby in her arms.

"No, she was – she was with my husband. He died last week. He had the Plague."

"I'm sorry," I said automatically.

Was I? Was I really sorry? The Plague was our own creation, our method of cleansing humans from the face of the Earth. This woman's husband was dead because of it. It was our fault – my fault. Part of me didn't feel anything – he was only human, and he deserved death just as much as the rest of them. The humans had killed Marina and thus forfeited their right to life. But at the same time, part of me felt blotched with guilt. I had never really thought that the Plague might actually affect the life of somebody I knew, somebody who had gone out of their way to help me…somebody I cared about. This was crazy. How could I be feeling guilty about the death of a human? They were all the same, they were all responsible for Marina's death, not just Marina's death but the deaths of so many other mutants who had been killed simply because they were born different. All humans were the same, and all of them deserved to die. I was about to go and join the others inside the house when I realised the human, Melody, was crying.

"What's wrong?" I asked her.

She looked up at me, a single tear rolling down her cheek, "My – my baby."

"What about her?"

"She's got the Plague too."

I looked at the little baby again. It looked perfectly healthy, but presumably its mother knew otherwise. Melody sobbed, "She's infected, and I think I am too. We haven't got long and I – please, I don't know if there's anything you can do, but – I heard a rumour there are some mutants who can heal diseases like this. Please, if you know anybody like that – please take me to them."

She had obviously heard talk of the vaccine that the X-Men had created, that I had destroyed. I looked at the tiny baby again, and once more I felt guilty. This little one was doomed to die because of me, because of what I had done. It was human and they did deserve to die, but still…it was only a baby, so small, so helpless…so innocent. It had never done anything to hurt anyone, and had done nothing to deserve death. True, but couldn't the same be said of Marina? She had been murdered without just cause, so why was this any different? I owed these people nothing. Their lives meant nothing to me. I was about to turn and head for the house, when something made me stop. I couldn't do it. I couldn't just walk away and leave this tiny life to die, knowing that I could have helped her. I had to at least give the baby a chance to survive.

I said to the human mother, "Do you remember that time when you gave me a lift? You took me to the mutant school up in New York."

"Yeah, I remember. Hey, is Alex at that school with you?"

"Um – not exactly. Listen, go there as soon as you can. Ask for a man called Oculus."

"Oculus?"

"Yes. He's the one with the gold eyes who saved your life before. He can heal you and your daughter. Tell him – tell him Gladiator sent you."

She frowned, "I thought your name was Gary."

"Yes, it was. He'll know who I am. And he'll help you. I know he will."

"Won't you come with us?"

I shook my head, "I – I can't. I – just go there, OK? I can't really explain what's going on, but – I can't go to that school any more."

"Why not?"

How could I possibly explain it to her? How could I explain the X-Men/Brotherhood conflict to a human? She wouldn't understand. Most humans probably never imagined that there were divisions amongst mutants. They thought we were all on the same side. I didn't know how to tell her, so I simply replied, "I can't really talk about it. Just trust me. Go there."

"OK, then I'll head out as soon as you guys are done here," said Melody. "Are you sure you can't come with us?"

"Sorry."

She shrugged and gave me a brief smile. I could see that already her mood had changed, her depression and helplessness lifting, a tiny spark of hope flickering inside her heart. I couldn't even begin to imagine how she must have been feeling, knowing that she and her baby were dying, with nothing she could do about it. She must have been sitting here, forlornly preparing herself for whatever she believed came after death, hoping and praying for something, anything, that might take this terrible curse away from her and her child. And here I was, saving the life of a human. Well, not exactly. It was my father who would heal her of the sickness, but I was the one who had made it possible for her. I was still battling with my conscience, part of me insisting it was the right thing to do, part of me thinking I must have gone crazy to want to save the life of those were my enemies. I briefly considered reversing my decision – I could obliterate this woman and her baby with one burst of flame from my lungs – but no. Part of me wanted to do it – part of me suspected that Pyro would have told me to do it – but it didn't feel right. It felt like murder. It would mean killing somebody who had no chance of defending themselves. That was one thing I would never do. Fighting the X-Men, fighting the Horsemen, fighting armed humans was fine – they could fight back – but a defenceless mother and child were not acceptable targets in battle. I turned and headed inside the house.

I found Gemini and the other two in a room at the back, a filing cabinet open in front of them, each sifting through a pile of documents.

"This doesn't appear to be in any particular order," Recyclo was saying.

Gemini sighed, "It isn't. My human mother wasn't the most organised person ever born."

"Right, and you are," Vertigo retorted.

"Shut up. Hey, Gladiator – what took you so long?"

Nothing really, just saving the lives of a couple of humans, I thought to myself.

"Nothing," I said. "What are we doing?"

"Looking through these hordes of papers," she groaned. "There's more here than I thought there would be. Here, take these and see what you can find."

She dumped a large pile of documents in my arms, and I looked for somewhere to sit. Vertigo was at the only table; Recyclo was standing rigidly at the side of the room, his pile of papers sitting on the window sill; and Gemini sat on the floor with her bare legs tucked under her, leafing through a thick binder. I sat down beside her and began to read through my own pile.

"I don't think there's anything useful in my heap," said Vertigo. "It's mostly financial stuff: the mortgage for this house, loans, bank statements – it's so thrilling. Oh wait, here's some old school reports. Even more exciting."

"Bet there's nothing of mine in there," Gemini spat. "My mother probably threw out every piece of evidence that I ever existed, as soon as she – as soon as she got rid of me."

"Yeah, incidentally, what happened to you?" he asked. "Outside you mentioned something about being sold…"

"None of your damn business!" she snapped. "I have some very painful memories and we'll leave it at that! You'd only make fun of me if I told you!"

"I would, would I?"

"Of course you would! You can't take anything seriously! You ought to realise that not everybody has had it as easy as you!"

There was no hint of humour in Vertigo's tone now, "If you think I've had an easy life, you're way off the mark."

"Easier than mine!"

"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure."

Gemini frowned and her expression changed from anger to curiosity, "Why, what happened to you?"

"Sorry, I believe that's 'none of your damn business'."

She was getting angry again, but before the argument could escalate any further Recyclo stepped between them and placed a sheet of paper down on the table, "I think this is what we're looking for."

We stood to take a closer look.

"Contact details for one Dr Elias Van Gaarde," said Recyclo. "Looks as though he works in New York."

"I think that's where he was holding me, a lab in New York," Gemini added.

"The address is here."

Vertigo sighed, "It would happen. To come all the way down to Florida only to find out we should have been looking in New York all along. Ah well, I suppose it could've been Alaska or Hawaii or something."

"What now?" I said.

"Back to the island," Vertigo decided. "We'll contact Pyro en route. If he wants us to start looking for Van Gaarde straight away, we can make a detour."

Recyclo folded up the sheet of paper and slipped it inside his coat pocket. Only Recyclo would have a worn a jacket in this scorching hot weather, in this case a long black one that brushed the ground when he walked. Maybe he didn't feel the heat; I knew he didn't feel anything else.

Gemini's sister was still standing in the garden when we left. The baby was awake now, and it watched each of us with innocent curiosity as we came closer.

"Did you find what you wanted?" Melody asked.

Gemini ignored her, deliberately turning away and walking towards the street. The other two followed her, and I gave Melody and her baby a last glance as I walked past. She smiled at me, mouthing thank you and I smiled back, a little awkwardly. If she knew the truth, she wouldn't be thanking me for anything. I put it out of my mind. It didn't matter now. Pyro and the others need never know what I had just done.

"Yeah, that's about the size of it, boss. What? OK. Yeah, we're on it."

Vertigo switched off the communicator, and turned to the rest of us, "I told Pyro what we found. He wants us to head straight for Van Gaarde's lab and try to track the guy down."

"And then what?" I asked.

"Then I guess we call him again and ask what to do with Van Gaarde once we've got him."

"Kill him," said Gemini.

Vertigo shook his head, "We can't do that. He's got information we need."

"Fine. He tells us where to find the Horsemen, then I rip him apart."

"He's not a friend of yours, then?"

Gemini was about to snap back a retort, when she stopped, took a deep breath, and said, "You will never understand what I've been through, so I'm not even going to try and explain it to you. Nobody could ever understand what I've been through."

"Do not think you are the only one to have spent time in a laboratory."

This last came from Recyclo, who had not said a word since we left Florida, and we turned in surprise to look at him.

"You too?" she asked.

"I didn't say that."

"Is that why you're so – so, um…I mean – "

"So what?"

"I think 'emotionless' is the word she's looking for," Vertigo supplied.

Yeah. Better than 'weird' anyway. Recyclo did not reply, instead turning to look out of the window. We were flying over the ocean, and there was nothing to see but endless expanses of water; he was clearly signalling that his part in the conversation was over. Gemini looked at me, raised her eyebrows questioningly, and I shrugged. It was the very first chance we'd had to see inside the doorway that led to Recyclo's heart. As long as I'd known him that doorway had always been very firmly locked, but this was the first indication that it did indeed open. I glanced over at Vertigo, who was busy with the controls, changing our course to head for Van Gaarde's laboratory in New York.