Part II
Minisinoo
Standing in my room -- the only place I have any privacy -- I hang up the phone, absolutely certain that I've just told Scott the truth. I hate Wolverine and view this as an excellent opportunity to talk Erik into finally getting rid of the animal. Tucking my phone in a voluminous pocket on my cargo pants, I head out to find Lucifer. Around Genosha, I keep my natural form and wear clothes -- like anyone else. Dominic's room is across from mine and his door is open. He glances up as I practically explode from my doorway. "What's up?" he calls.
I don't really want to talk to Dominic, but I'm mad enough to spill the beans in my rage. "I just got word that Creed is attacking children!"Dominic blinks. "Huh?"
"A young girl. He attacked a pair of mutant siblings and ran off with the girl! What's he going to do next?""Oh! He got the little bitch finally!"
I'm stunned. For three breaths, I just stand there and stare. Then caution takes over -- that sly skill that's served me so well. "Ah -- I didn't realize he was under orders. You know how he is."Thankfully, Dominic is too dim to ask how I got word in the first place. "Oh, yeah. While you were playing Kelly's aide, Creed was sent up to Canada to fetch this kid. The X-Farts interfered. He's been watching their mansion, hoping for another chance. I guess he finally got her."
I keep my face carefully blank, but inside, I struggle with the news. That's why Wolverine wasn't present for Kelly's transformation. It hadn't had anything to do with Erik excluding him on purpose. If anything, I was the one excluded. Why hadn't they told me about this? It wasn't like Erik to keep key Brotherhood missions from me, even if they didn't involve me -- especially not when Dominic knew! "What do we want her for? Is she joining us? It'd be nice to have another girl around."Dominic leans back on his bed, hands behind his head so that I have a good view of biceps and pecs flexing under his tight little shirt. "She won't be around long, I'm afraid."
"Why?""Her power sucks the life out of you -- and takes your powers with it. Erik figures he can give her enough of his to run that damn machine."
And it all clicks together in my head, making horrible sense -- yet before I can respond in any way, Raven teleports right into the room. She seems startled to see me there. "Dominic! Jean?" Then her attention snaps back to business. "Kelly escaped.""How? Wasn't he locked in a cell?"
"It seems his new mutation lets him become as supple as a jellyfish. How appropriate for a politician. He slipped right through the cage bars and fell into the water before we could catch him." It's clear she's furious."What're we supposed to do?" Dominic asks. He doesn't like Raven; she's old, as old as Erik, and he finds her ugly. My form, however inhuman, he'll accept because he thinks it sexy, and I could be any fantasy he desires. Raven is just blue and furry with three fingers on each hand and a tail. And pointed teeth. "I could whip up a storm for you," he goes on, "but it wouldn't catch Mighty Jellyfish Man. And Jean here can do a lot of things, but I've never seen her morph into a shark."
I roll my eyes and turn my attention to Raven. "Shall we go talk to Erik?" My mind is still reeling, but the crisis provides a convenient distraction. I have to know if Erik really sanctioned the taking of that girl -- and I want to know where she is.Erik is in his office. It's a plain room with a table, a computer, and a window that overlooks the bay. It's always too dim in here for me, but now, it suits my thoughts. "Do you want me to go after Kelly?" I ask as soon as I walk through the door.
He glances up, almost languidly, and speaks with a smile. "No, I don't think that necessary. We've seen that the machine works. If he survives to reach the shore, it can't hurt us. He doesn't know anything critical, and we'll have a new friend in the Senate. I sincerely doubt he'll vote for a bill that will require him to 'expose' himself.""He might try to pretend he's not a mutant," Dominic says as he enters behind me.
"Then we'll expose him, if he does," Raven explains, bamfing in.I'm watching Erik, because he's watching me too benignly, yet with too much interest. Lucifer no longer trusts me, it's clear -- I'm sleeping with the enemy. Yet I'm the one who feels betrayed.
I wonder if he's probed my mind since I entered. I don't think so, and I've been careful not to project, but he could read me, if I give him cause. "All right," I say now, meekly enough. "Do you want Victor, Dominic and me to begin disassembling the machine for transport?""You and Dominic can handle it. Raven will go with you, to supervise."
And to keep watch on me, no doubt. Nothing is said about Wolverine.It's a tedious process and I have to watch myself to avoid giving away the fact that I know I'm being observed. While we work, I think. First, I need to know if my suspicions are really true, but all the evidence is pointing that way, from Erik's reassurances earlier that he had no intention of sacrificing himself, to the straps on the machine's chair and helmet. Those are meant to restrain an unwilling sacrifice.
I wonder, too, about the efficacy of the whole plan. Moral issues aside, is this girl powerful and skilled enough to take Erik's place? Lucifer can make the necessary changes to human DNA, but can this untrained girl? I'm not a scientist, and don't understand how the machine works. I also don't understand enough about the girl's power . . . and wonder if the others do, either. Was this a fool's enterprise from its inception?In any case, I need to make sure his plans haven't changed and we're still taking the machine to Liberty Island. It's the only place close enough for the field to reach Ellis Island, but far enough away to have a level of security we can manage with just the five of us. And I'm crucial. I'm the one who'll get them in unnoticed. Raven could teleport in, even teleport the rest of us in one at a time, but she couldn't bring down the security screen long enough to get the machine inside and not trip alarms. They need someone to sit in the security room who won't raise eyebrows. They need me.
But can I do this now? Knowing what I know, can I still do this? It isn't just about changing world leaders into mutants. They haven't asked this girl if she's willing to be a sacrificial lamb. Maybe Erik plans to ask, but what if she says 'no'? And she probably will. They're going to put her in that chair anyway. It has straps.It's Ororo who comes to fetch me. I'm back in Xavier's office, waiting (hoping) for Jean to contact me again with news -- prove Ro and Logan wrong in their suspicions. But she hasn't, and I'm worried, though the fact that she hasn't feels like a backhanded confirmation of my trust. If she really had been lying, she'd have waited a decent amount of time, then called with something placating. The fact it's been five hours suggests she's honestly trying to find out something. But now Ororo opens the door and motions for me to come; her movements are abrupt and it's clear it's urgent. She's already hurrying down the hallway to the elevator by the time I emerge and catch up to her. A raised eyebrow is enough to elicit a half-laugh. "You'll never believe who's our newest guest in the sub-basement." Then she takes control of the elevator and sends us down at dizzying speed. I grab the walls, hoping my stomach will eventually catch up. When we've reached the sub-basement, the door swishes open and she ushers me towards the medbay.
I stop dead in the doorway. "Senator Kelly?" I say aloud.
He's lying on one of the beds while Hank works over him. He doesn't appear to be wearing anything but the bedsheet and his glance flicks to me. "Summers? What are you doing here?"I don't want to speak aloud further, and moving into the room, sign, I sometimes do work for Xavier's Institute. He was my professor at Columbia. Almost automatically, Hank translates as I pull up a stool and seat myself. Kelly looks bad -- unnaturally pale so that blue veins show under skin that's slick with perspiration -- and Hank's expression is grim. Something is seriously wrong. I sign, Tell me what happened, and while I'm sure Kelly doesn't know ASL, the meaning is clear enough. He begins to speak, a haunted expression on his face.
As I listen to his story, I'm not sure what I feel. I've never before heard from one of Jean's victims -- and he is a victim. If I feel little love for the man, I'm chilled by what he's suffered, and wonder what happened to the aide whose place she stole. Is the real Gyrich still alive, or did she just do away with him? I'm not sure I can bear to know.As for the Twilight Zone experience of his captivity . . . I can't decide if this is perverse poetic justice or a horrible violation -- or both. Kelly is now what he detests most . . . a mutant. We're not what you think, I sign, when he's finished. Hank translates. Not all of us are like Lucifer . . . or agree with his methods.
"But you are dangerous."Some are. And some non-mutants hold up convenience stores at gunpoint. Does that mean I assume you do?
Kelly ignores that, his face turning apoplectic purple "There has to be some way to reverse this! Lucifer did it; he has to reverse it! It's not fair!"I resist rolling my eyes. The senator sounds remarkably like he's six instead of forty-six. None of us asked to be mutants. I tilt my head and ask -- aloud, "Why are you here?"
"Where else could I go? Not to a hospital, I'd be . . . " he trails off, as if only now realizing what he was going to say.". . . treated like a mutant?" Hank finishes for him.
"I'm not a real mutant," Kelly says, stubborn in his denial."I'll be able to say more about that once I've finished running tests," Hank tells him, then heads off towards the back of the lab where his centrifuge is spinning, already working on the process of producing a DNA sample for sequencing -- Kelly's, no doubt. I follow while Ororo steps in to speak more with Kelly. I notice the boy Piotr is no longer in the main lab. Hank must have put him in a private room.
What do you think of this twist? I sign."That Erik Lehnsherr should get this year's Mad Scientist award? Does he really believe that turning Kelly into a mutant will stop that bill?"
I doubt it. And I cross my arms, frowning. There's more to this. I just wish I could figure out the 'more,' and I need to talk to Jean again. We're rapidly approaching a place in our relationship where 'Don't ask, don't tell' no longer works. Sneaking into private meetings on Capitol Hill and lifting personal memos is one thing, but impersonating an aide and helping to abduct and abuse a U.S. senator is a hundred times more serious. I don't care what kind of rat the man is, it doesn't justify what they've done.Hank is speaking again, softly, "There's something seriously wrong with Kelly, Scott. I can't tell what yet, but I've never seen a mutant manifestation like this. Mutants usually can't control their powers immediately, but Kelly's transformation seems worse than usual . . . unstable somehow.
I glance at him in inquiry but he just shrugs. "I can't say more yet." He gestures to the centrifuge. "Wait till I can sequence the sample. It'll take the rest of the day, though. Is the professor headed back soon?"Yes. They had a mid-afternoon meeting they didn't want to cancel, but they're probably on the way to the airport now. I hesitate, add, I haven't heard back from Jean. Ro and Logan think she was lying to me, but if she was lying, she'd have called by now. She said Wolverine wasn't acting with Erik's approval. Maybe she's telling the truth and he was lying.
"Could be. Or it could be that Lucifer's keeping the truth from her. Did you think of that, Scott?"She's like his daughter.
His blue eyes are piercing. "And sometimes fathers try to protect their daughters from the things they do of which they know their children won't approve." He sighs and sits down on a stool, but can't quite look me in the face. "I'm not the skeptic Ro and Logan are, and I don't believe you'd fall for a woman you believed immoral. But Scott, you're playing with fire and we both know it."My lips thin and I turn away before I say something I'll regret, leaving the medbay. I'm barely back above ground when my phone buzzes against my side. I rip it off and flip it open.
"I need to make a trial run."
Erik glances up at me. "A trial run?""Before tomorrow night," I explain, pretending impatience. "You know I like to insert early when I can -- when it's important. This is too important to screw up, Erik."
He nods. I'm not behaving unexpectedly, so his suspicions aren't triggered. "Very well. Take Dominic with you.""Huh?"
"Not into Liberty; I mean simply for coming and going. As you say, this is too important to risk. I don't want to risk you, my dear."Meaning he doesn't dare leave me unmonitored. But it doesn't matter if Dominic trails me to and from as long as I have time on Liberty Island alone. "Sure. But we won't be back till after midnight. I need to sit the guy's whole shift."
"Naturally. The machine is already prepared for the transport. We're not pressed for time."Half an hour later, Dominic and I are headed landward, then make our way to the Queens' apartment of the guard I'm to replace. Dominic has created an unexpected lunchtime downpour so that coats and umbrellas give us extra cover as we slip into the building and up the stairs. A pulse of confined lightning from Zeus' finger to the alarm system fries it and we have no problem entering the guard's apartment. He was the obvious choice -- he lives alone and keeps to himself at work. I morph into his sister, and when I enter, he's sitting at his dining table, eating a sandwich, already dressed for work. "Lottie!" he says, clearly surprised but not suspicious, and that few seconds is all I'd normally need, but before I can cross the room to knock him out, Zeus enters behind me and blasts him. He convulses with muscle contractions and fan-like burn patterns feather even blacker across his dark skin while blood streams out of his ears from burst eardrums. His eyeballs literally steam as does the perspiration on his skin. There's a sweet stink of burnt human flesh and he's very, very dead.
I'm so angry I can barely speak. Spinning on Dominic, I snap, "Could you possibly have been any more dramatic -- or noisy? Idiot! There was no reason to kill him!"He just shrugs. "It wasn't that loud, and dead men tell no tales. You get ready, I'll take care of this." He gestures to the body and heads into the bathroom to turn on the shower, then comes back for the body, which he strips and drags after him, dumping it in the tub with one arm hanging out, as if reaching for something. Finding a radio, he takes that into the bathroom, too, but failed to check if there's a plug close enough for one to reasonably believe a radio (still plugged in) could have fallen into the shower accidentally.
I'm in my new form by the time he emerges, frustrated. "Hoisted on your own petard?" I ask."Shut the fuck up."
"It wouldn't have fooled a coroner anyway.""I said shut the fuck up!"
"Fine." I rise and head out. Yesterday, I might have been furious at the unnecessary risk. But today? All I care about is that he was kept busy long enough he didn't notice me shift my very real phone from one mutated form's 'purse' into the 'pocket' of another. "Let's go."We head out together, traveling back to the Liberty Island ferry, though we part company before I reach it. I know he's following me, so I do nothing. I'll be free of him soon.
Once I've reached the island and have checked in for my guard's shift, I head up to the security room where I await my chance at break time, then escape to the relative privacy of an employee exit 'to have a smoke.' Hunkering down in the lee of the mudroom, I pull out my phone. I don't have long, but the first time I try to call, there's no response. "This user is temporarily out of range.""Dammit!" I mutter, hanging up. I wait five minutes, then call again, and this time, there's an answer in my text box.
Hello?I don't have time to explain, I enter, but have your X-Team at Liberty Island tomorrow night. They'll find your girl there.
What did the Brotherhood do to Robert Kelly, Bluebell?I blink at the screen and swallow hard. How did you know about that?
He's here. He came here, when he escaped. What did Erik do to him?Changed him at a molecular level. Erik plans to change every person on Ellis Island tomorrow, but he's going to use your girl in place of himself to power his machine. Cypher, I know we don't always agree on how to bring about change, but that child didn't volunteer for this, and if Lucifer's machine won't kill the diplomats, it will kill her. I can't get to her, don't even know where they're holding her. They don't trust me anymore. But if your X-Team makes it to Liberty, maybe they can save her.
Get out of there. Leave. Come to Westchester. Help us.I can't. If I run now, they'll change their plans completely. They don't trust me, but they still need me, so they're keeping me involved and watching me. I won't be able to contact you again. Get your people out here tomorrow night. You've got to trust me.
I want to.Please, Scott. I've never lied to you, have I? I haven't always told you the full truth -- but I've never lied. You've got to trust me now.
All right. The cursor blinks while he pauses, then adds, Please be careful. I love you.I love you, too. And I'm always careful. I end the call, close the phone, then fling it into the bay.
I'm telling Ororo what Jean just told me -- arguing with Ro, actually -- when Logan bursts into Xavier's office. "There's been an accident!"
"What?" Ro is half out of her chair."Not here. Warren's plane, with the professor."
My heart kicks hard in my chest and he reads our faces. "They ain't dead," he assures us. "But it is serious. Something happened to an engine during taxi and the whole damn plane spun outta control. It was still on the ground, but it smashed a wing into an embankment and tossed around everybody onboard, even with seatbelts. War's all bruised up, but basically okay. The professor, though, something smacked him in the head -- a tray or whatnot. They took him to Shady Grove Adventist Hospital, which is near Montgomery County Airpark.""But he is all right otherwise?" Ro asks.
"That's what Warren says.""How remarkably convenient." Ro turns to glare at me. "Can you tell me Erik had nothing to do with that?"
I drop my head into my hands and pull at my hair, then look up, signing roughly, I'm sure he did! It doesn't change anything. We know where they'll be tomorrow. You intercept them. We stop this."What's he sayin'?" Logan asks her.
Her lips are thin, her hands on her hips. The late afternoon light walks across the floor and her high-heel shoes. "He has heard back from Jean Grey.""Yeah -- and?"
"You have to take the X-Team to Liberty Island tomorrow night," I explain aloud, before Ro can speak. "What Erik did to Kelly? He's planning to do the same to the diplomats on Ellis Island tomorrow." I have the satisfaction of seeing Logan drop his jaw. "But he's planning to use Ilyana instead of himself. Between what Jean said and what Kelly told us earlier, it sounds as if this machine he's built will likely kill the person powering it. So Erik plans to transfer his power to Ilyana and use her instead. If the team can get to Liberty in time, they can stop him.""Assuming it is not a trap," Polaris says.
Frustrated, I breathe out. "Ro, it's not a trap. It makes too damn much sense. Weird sense, but Brotherhood sense, and we've got proof of this machine in our own sub-basement infirmary.""Why would Jean tell you all this?" Logan asks, blunt as usual.
"Because she didn't bargain on Erik using a scapegoat. She has limits, dammit. That machine won't kill the diplomats, but it'll kill the girl."Hank has entered on the tail end of my comment even as Logan shrugs, and it strikes me that Logan may understand this better than Ro, or Hank. Our Sabretooth has done things he regretted but felt necessarily, yet -- like Jean -- he has limits, places his honor won't let him go.
"Actually," Hank says now, "Lucifer's machine will kill any non-mutant it affects."All of us stare at him and he raises those oversized hands. "I seem to have missed most of the discussion, but I have troubling news. Although still awaiting the full results of the DNA sequencing, my preliminary tests and my observation of Senator Kelly suggests that the changes affected by Erik Lehnsherr's machine are impermanent. And fatal." He slumps into a chair in Xavier's office. "Kelly's very cell structure is breaking down, returning to its molecular components. And I don't think it's related to Kelly's particular mutation." His expression is grave as he studies all of us. "If Kelly survives the night, I shall be surprised."
"Shit," Logan mutters as Ororo rubs her forehead. I wonder if Erik Lehnsherr knows his machine doesn't function right, and if he'd care if he did know? Surely he didn't intend this. What's the use of altering DNA in the world's diplomats if they all die within forty-eight hours?"So," I say, "now we have two motivations. It's about more than just saving Ilyana."
"I am still unconvinced that Jean Grey isn't setting us up," Ororo tells me. "It is too convenient. Send us to one place to be eliminated, while they make their strike from another locale. The fact that we have some confirmation of their ultimate plan only baits the trap more sweetly."There's a paranoid logic to what she says, but I shake my head. Interestingly, so does Logan. "That scenario assumes too much," I tell her. "Jean didn't know Kelly came here. She was surprised. And there really aren't many, if any, other places the Brotherhood could put this machine that's close enough to Ellis Island. Now that we know their objective, Liberty really is the logical launching point. Plus -- she's never lied to me, Ro. Never."
"To your knowledge.""Never," I repeat stubbornly. "We've had a policy of refusing to talk rather than to lie. It's been . . . It's been key -- and more even for her than for me. So much of Jean's job involves deception; when she find someone she trusts, she avoids lying at all."
"I have my doubts --""Cub speaks fair," Logan interrupts. "I c'understand. When you do this kinda work, you got lines in the sand, and you don't cross 'em." The two of us hold gazes a moment; I nod faintly in thanks. "She gonna help us?" he asks.
"I don't know," I answer honestly. "She won't stop you. She may help in small ways, if she can. More than that, I can't say. They're watching her. She said she's no longer trusted." My lips thin. "No doubt because of our relationship. But she is needed. I'm not sure how long Erik planned to keep her in the dark about the girl." Or what he planned to say or do when she finally found out. He must have known she wouldn't approve, but he wouldn't kill her, would he?I think about Charles, in a hospital in Washington. It sobers me. Erik will do whatever he thinks he has to do. "So, the X-Team goes to Liberty tomorrow," I tell them.
"I have not yet agreed," Ororo reminds me.I meet her eyes. "In the professor's absence, I decide our general course of action, and I say we go after Ilyana. Maybe it is a trap, but it's also the best lead we've got. What else would you have us do, Ro?"
She looks away. "I don't know. But I don't like it." She stands. "Come on, Sabretooth. We've got planning to do.""Call Warren, cub," Logan tells me on the way out.
"Warren?" Hank asks, and I fill him in about the accident. "Erik wants to be sure that the professor cannot reach Cerebro," Hank says.Or he just wants him dead, I sign, vicious in my anger.
"Had he wanted him dead, I suspect he would have timed his bomb -- or whatever it was -- to explode once the plane was in the air.""Maybe," I say, and head out.
I should've been born in Missouri. I'm a 'show me' kinda gal, and I had to know for sure, had to see for myself, before I turned my coat completely. I had to find this girl. It's not that I doubted Scott. But even after all the evidence, I couldn't quite believe -- didn't want to believe -- that Erik would do this. I still wanted to think Wolverine had acted on his own.
My initial plan, naive though it was, had involved simply walking into the cellblock to look, but I find Wolverine standing guard. "What're you doin' here?" he demands.Trying on a combination of innocence and irritation, I reply, "I came to see the cell Kelly got out of."
He just snorts and crosses his arms, and I remember his keener-than-human senses. He must smell my nervousness, though he wouldn't necessarily know what was causing it. Unlike Erik, he's not a mind reader. "What are you doing here?" I demand, thinking to go on the offense and distract him."None'a your business," he replies.
"What do you mean it's none of my business?" I'm indignant.He's amused. "Just what I said. Now get lost 'fore I tell Erik you was snooping around."
"Go to hell, Wolverine.""Already there, kid. Or ain't you thought about who's running this joint?"
Annoyed, and still loyal enough to be insulted on Erik's behalf, I leave. Unfortunately, all I've learned is that Wolverine doesn't want me in the cellblock area. That still doesn't mean Erik's involved, despite Wolverine's threat of telling Erik that I was snooping.But even Wolverines must eat. So I wait for the changing of the guard. It comes at mid-morning the day of the Ellis Island Summit, and I really should be sleeping in preparation for that evening's excitement, but I have to know. Dominic takes Creed's place guarding the cells. That makes it harder for me to think it's just Wolverine's pet project, but Dominic isn't long on wits. He might believe whatever Wolverine told him.
I don't come as myself this time. I morph into Erik, instead, and I want Dominic to stop me as I approach. I hope to hear his voice stutter out some excuse, proving that they don't want Erik here either, proving that he doesn't know, didn't sanction this . . .But Zeus just stands a little straighter and tries a half-assed salute. It crushes my last hope, and I hadn't realized, until that moment, just how much stock I'd placed in that hope because I'd built it on what I thought I knew about that man to whom I'd devoted my life. I hadn't wanted to believe that Erik could kill an innocent -- but now, I have no choice. And I feel kicked in the gut.
I also realize that I have no idea what cell the girl is in. Some have an open front, but some don't. I pause, and hope I'm not giving myself away when I ask, "Which cell? I haven't visited her yet."To my relief, Dominic doesn't question, just hops to my assistance, opening the first cell so I can enter. The girl is inside. She looks up and then presses against the far wall, clearly terrified. So young. "Thank you, Zeus," I say, and shut the door in his face. It's solid. He can't see inside. Turning back to the frightened girl, I smile.
And I change. Her little bow-mouth falls open in surprise and I raise a finger to my lips, almost tip-toeing across the floor to sit beside her. She's pale and very blond with light blue eyes like Scott's. She's also covered almost head to toe in clothing, but still shivers. I don't think it's with cold. Looking at her, my final choice is made. I entered the Brotherhood to protect children like this, build a world for them where they'd be cared for, not feared as I was -- and I haven't fallen so far yet that I can justify killing this one in the hopes that others will be saved. Maybe if I knew, if I could see the future like Scott's friend . . . but I can't. I'm not even convinced this plan of theirs will work; she could die for nothing. "How are you?" I whisper.She blinks and replies with, "Ya ne ponimaju. Ya ne govor'u po-anglijski."
Oh, shit. This never occurred to me, that she can't understand English, and I wish desperately for Scott, or at least his gift. I don't even know what language she's speaking, though it sounds rough and guttural enough to be German or something Slavic. Pointing to me chest, I whisper, "Jean."She understands that much and points to her own chest. "Ilyana."
Laying a hand on her shoulder, I ask, "Okay?" and indicate her body. I need to know that Creed hasn't hurt her. She nods that she's okay, then points to the door. She wants to know if she can go out. I sigh and shake my head, reaching out to stroke her hair but she pulls away, looking terrified. "No hurt," I tell her, but she still won't let me touch her, and I remember what Dominic said about her power -- she drains others -- and I realize she's not afraid of me, but for me.Speaking in English, although I know she can't understand, I say, "It's going to be okay. I'll get you out of here. Or something. But I'd better go before they suspect." I morph back into Erik and she watches, wide-eyed. Then I lay a finger on my lips again, saying "Shhh," and then pinch my lips shut, to show she shouldn't tell anyone I've been there. I hope she gets it. She nods. Smiling, I pat her on her well-covered shoulder.
Then I go out. Dominic is still there and he gives that same, stupid mock-salute again. I just raise an eyebrow and stalk past. It's enormously dangerous for me to pretend to be Erik himself but it was the only way I could know for sure, and all I can do is hope that Dominic and Wolverine have changed places when Erik finally does come.It's almost time for me to depart for Liberty and I go back upstairs, adopting my borrowed form for the night. Stopping by my room one last time, I glance inside. I doubt I'll be seeing it again, whatever happens, but there's nothing here I really want to save. So I check in with Raven before leaving; she's in Erik's office. I have no idea where Erik is. I hope not in the cells. "It's time," I say. I mean a lot of things.
She barely looks up, waving me out. "See you tonight, Mystique.""Tonight, Lilith," I reply, and walking out the door to the boat dock, I let my form ripple like a shrug.
I'm Brotherhood no more.When the door to my bedroom slams open without so much as a knock -- not that I'd have heard a knock -- I sense the movement and look around. It's Ororo. "Senator Kelly is dead," she says. Rising from where I'd been bent over Thutmose's food bowl, I nod, lips thin. Feeding the cat seems like such a horribly mundane thing to have been doing while another man died, but that's mortality for you. The sun rises and sets, people (and animals) eat and shit and copulate. Some die. Life goes on, brutal and blunt and wonderful in its simplicity. Ro tells me what Kelly said in his final moments. She'd been on medbay duty. Sick as Kelly was, I hadn't wanted him left alone. Partly, my decision had stemmed from kindness; whatever he'd been and done in life, no one deserves to die alone. But I'd learned a thing or two from Jean about paranoia, as well, and if he were desperate enough, and hated us enough -- and was alone long enough -- he might get into some kind of mischief before the end. So one of the adults had stayed in the medbay at all times. Ro says he suddenly called out, "Is somebody there?" "I'm here," she'd told him, approaching. Apparently he was already blind by that point. I can't imagine being blind, even in my final moments. Perhaps it's the bias of a deaf man, but not seeing must be terrifying.
"Please don't leave me," he'd said. "I don't want to be alone."
"I won't leave you," she'd replied, gripping his hand."Do you hate normal people?" he'd asked.
"Sometimes.""Why?"
"I suppose . . . I am afraid of them.""Well, I think you've got one less person to be afraid of."
And then, she says, he simply disintegrated right before her eyes, his whole body collapsing into its component parts -- of which the bulk was water. No dust-to-dust here; we'll clean up Kelly with a mop. She ran immediately to report.Now, I glance at my clock; it's late morning, and I've been counting the hours -- not towards Kelly's death, but towards tonight's rendezvous. One I can't attend. So much rides on this mission and I have to wait in the mansion with the kids, and keep my fingers crossed. It's not that I don't trust Ro -- I do, implicitly -- but I hate feeling useless. Is this what the professor feels every time the team goes out? It's probably a good thing I moved to Washington. I wonder where Jean is, if she's safe. "We've got to stop this," I say aloud.
"Yes," Ro replies simply.They're right on time, Lilith, Zeus, and the Wolverine. I've been pretending to work while growing increasingly nervous. After this many years, I'm not usually nervous on a job, but I've never played 'double agent' before, either. Yet I'm not sure that's a fair description. I may have left the Brotherhood, but I'm not one of Charles Xavier's X-Team. I don't know whose side I'm on now; I'm as indeterminate as my form I've made sure I'm the one monitoring the supply gate when the Brotherhood boat arrives. On the screen, I watch it dock. I suppose I could trigger the alarms and let them be caught right now . . . except they wouldn't be caught. Lilith can teleport to safety, and there's not a police unit out there who can stop Wolverine on a rampage. Human security might manage to hold Zeus, but only if they knocked him out before he called down the lightning. Lucifer isn't here yet anyway, so there's no point in blowing the whistle; they'll have to be halted by people who are capable of it -- and that's not Liberty Island security.
So everything goes exactly the way it's supposed to, the way we planned. They enter and subdue all the security downstairs at the close of the sightseeing day. Up in the main security room, I subdue the rest; they don't even know what hit them. Tying them up, I dump them in a closet, though I suspect the guards below won't be so lucky. I will kill at need, but only at need, and if humans slaughter our kind without compunction, that doesn't mean I'll lower myself to their level. "They're just humans," Raven had said to me once, and I'd replied, "So are my parents."
"You're going to have to pick a side, Jean," she'd told me. "And the humans aren't on yours.""I can be on the side of mutants without hating every human," I'd retorted.
Raven might have answered that, but Erik had stepped in. "Let's not fight among ourselves. It's undignified."Later, Raven had caught me alone, whispering, "You think your parents are proud of their mutant daughter? That they love you? Then why do they always insist that you take a human form when you visit them?" And her words had cut because I couldn't entirely refute them. "You're such a naive child," she'd gone on, stroking my hair almost like a mother. "I have no idea why Erik puts up with you." And she'd bamfed away.
I wonder now if it was Raven who poisoned Erik against me. Lilith tolerates no rival, especially not another woman, even if she's just a daughter. And it's Raven who teleports now into the main security room to fetch me. "All clear," she says."Excellent," I reply and, as soon as she turns her back, I hit her hard from behind. She doesn't even have time to cry out. First, I administer a little shot that will keep her under for hours, then put her in the closet with the guards. I can't afford to have the real Raven wake prematurely.
I was wrong earlier. I do have a side, and my true mission hasn't changed. I joined Erik because I want to make the world a safer place for mutant children -- and I'm leaving him for that same reason. "I chose my side," I whisper into the ear of the unconscious form in the closet. Then morphing into her form, I remove the communicator from her wrist and snap it onto mine, departing to join Zeus as he prepares the disguised mini-Cerebra to be lifted up all the way to the statue's torch, where our version will replace theirs. Fortunately, Wolverine isn't with him. I can change my form but I can't change my scent, and the further I stay from Creed, the better. "Where's Jean?" Dominic asks. "Wasn't she supposed to come help?""I told her to stay there. Someone needs to keep monitoring the place."
"Why?"I turn to glare at him with Raven's gold eyes. "Because, you idiot, someone could still interrupt us. Better safe than sorry."
"Oh."That was easy, I think. Now, if only Erik can be fooled so well when he arrives.
"But why can't I go? She's my sister!"
I would have laughed if his face weren't so earnest. The kid was flat on his back in the medbay, still weak from blood loss, not to mention the puncture wounds in his shoulder, yet he wanted to go on a dangerous mission? Piotr, I jot on my pad, I understand she's your sister, but you're not in any shape to fight. I didn't explain that we probably wouldn't have let him go even if he were able. We weren't in the habit of throwing kids into combat, although unlike most of the students here, Piotr was nineteen and technically an adult."She's my sister!"
I know. But you're seriously wounded."Everybody gets to go but me!"
That stings. I write, Nyet, Piotr, 'everybody' doesn't. I'm deaf, and moreover, I don't have an offensive or defensive power. I'm a liability in a situation like this. I'm staying behind, too.He blushes a little, saying, "Oh." He's not entirely placated, but things have been put in perspective for him.
Rising, I head out, finding Logan and Hank already in the hallway leading to the hangar. Even after so long, the sight of them in uniform while I remain in civilian clothes bothers me. Unlike Xavier, I can't monitor missions from Cerebro, participating at least vicariously.Ro exists the women's locker as I approach. "Be careful," I tell them, needlessly. Logan growls and turns away, heading for the hangar, but Ro and Hank nod. They understand what I don't say -- that I want to be with them. With a pat on my shoulder, Hank follows Logan, leaving Ro and I alone.
She watches me. "Have you heard more from Jean Grey?""No. She told me she wouldn't be able to contact me again."
"Scott, how much will she help us?" It was the same question Logan had asked earlier."Like I said, I don't know. She won't stop you. How much she'll be able to help -- your guess is as good as mine." I pause, then add, "Bring her back, if she'll come. She can't return to them now." Ro's lips thin and I know what she's thinking. "She's not our enemy, Polaris. Having a difference of opinion on methodology doesn't automatically make her our enemy. Life choices aren't all either-or, like the poles on a magnet."
"If I get a chance, I'll ask her," Ro concedes. "But Scott, if she fights us, we'll fight back. Maybe you can afford to see more than one side in a conflict, but in combat, you stop them or they stop you. This isn't a debate we're going to."Annoyed, I turn on my heel, deliberately giving her my back to show the conversation is over. "Words are needed, too, Polaris," I call. "Wars don't end with the last shot. They end with a treaty."
I don't know if she tries to answer. One advantage of being deaf is that you can get the last word in an argument, or at least pretend to.Feedback always welcome.