FOUR

Celia felt the beginnings of a migraine curl around her temples. Her back ached and he vision was blurred. Her whole body was crying out for her to surrender, at least for the night. She stifled a yawn and tried to re focus on the black and white photograph in front of her, but it was no use. Sleep was trying to claim her. She stood up and looked around her office. Document boxes were piled high everywhere she looked. Manila folders were stacked precariously in front of her; all demanding her immediate attention, but she could not stand anymore of it.

She was always the last one to leave her office, and the first one there in the morning when a big case was in the offing. She knew that every second counted when a case as big as this one landed in her lap. She realized almost sadly that she did not have to take this one on. Her colleague, Mike Derando, had offered to take it off her hands if she didn't feel up to it, and she felt almost offended by his offer of help. She had been assigned to it, and she would finish it. She didn't care if she had to cut short her planned holiday. Derando was a good man, and she could have used his assistance with this one, but he was caught up with an investigation in Switzerland now, and would not be home for six weeks.

Celia had received the passenger manifestos when she arrived back at the office a day after the crash. While the recovery of debris was taking a while, she thought she'd get a head start on the paperwork. There would be no serious investigation of the wreckage until it was all in a hangar and pieced back together like some macabre jigsaw puzzle. Her initial crash site investigation had yielded some interesting results, and she has been poring over the photographs taken at the scene when sleep tried to claim her. She picked up the photograph she had been scrutinizing and yawned again. Tiny cracks in one of the engines, all reaching like spindly fingers in the same direction; towards the cockpit. The explosion had come from the back, of that she was already certain, but studying these photographs, she could not work out what type of explosives was used. Usually, the type was obvious due to the distinct burn pattern on the metal, the stress fractures, and the sequence of the plane's disintegration, but this one would be more difficult to ascertain.

The black box flight recorder had not been recovered as yet, but this did not surprise her. The cockpit was almost intact, but after ploughing through those apartment blocks, there was no telling what was thrown where. The clean up for the town of Newhope would be massive and heart wrenching. She hoped she could wrap up this case and expedite their suffering. But her assertions to Morgan earlier that she was certain that a liquid propellant was used to aide the explosion was drying up before her eyes. She was no longer certain of anything. The fact that they had found no trace of the most commonly used liquid propellants on any piece of debris that they had recovered thus far, was a significant slap in the face to her theory. It could be argued that an explosion of this size would need liquid propellants, or some liquid agent, for the resulting conflagration to have caused such widespread damage, effectively dropping the plane out of the sky.

Her vertebrae clicked as she stretched. Her mind was trying to take every fact that was presented and bend it into the mould she's already set. She knew this would happen, in fact she warned herself against it when Morgan was telling her about his lost informant. The fact that the MLF had claimed responsibility did not necessarily make it so. There had been incidences before where an obscure terrorist group would claim responsibility for an explosion after seeing the news coverage and needing some exposure. They were chasing some measure of celebrity. Celia had never heard of the MLF before this, but others who had were taking the matter very seriously, especially those in the white house.

She gathered up some files and slid them into her briefcase before heading out of her office, snapping the lights off as she went. Too many times she had been caught asleep at her desk in the early mornings, so the idea of sleeping in her own bed was a novelty.

She made her way for the exit that led to the underground car park, and swiped her magnetic security pass to open the huge metal doors. They opened on a small elevator, which she rode to sub level three, and fished in her pockets for her car keys just as the elevator slid onto her level. She was not looking up when she walked out of the elevator and she did not see the young man with a baseball bat until he stepped out of the shadows in front of her and swung it at her head in a sweeping arc.

Bobby Drake woke up with a start. Something was wrong. He looked around his dorm room to find his roommates asleep. He consulted his bedside clock. The digital readout told him it was 7:30am. He pushed back the sheets and padded out into the hallway in his boxer shorts. The mansion was quiet, and there was no one about in the common room, which was odd for this time of morning. He scratched his head and ventured into the kitchen, where he found Logan, sitting alone and nursing a coffee. He relaxed a little and sat down opposite him. "Where is everyone else?" He asked.

Logan sighed and looked at Bobby over the rim of his coffee mug. "We're about to go on a mission," Logan responded. "Cyclops and Havok are making some repairs to the blackbird, Jean and Ororo are in the Danger Room and the Professor and Hank are making some upgrades to Cerebro."

Bobby frowned. "Who's Havok?"

"Cyclops' brother."

"But I though he was an orphan."

Logan shrugged. "He arrived with Hank last night. We're heading to Genosha."

"No way!"

Logan fixed Bobby with a frown. The awe in the boy's voice irritated him. "The professor agreed to take on a mission for the government. We're leaving tonight."

Bobby was clearly floored by this news. Since his display of courage and strength during Creed's attack, Xavier had been working closely with Bobby in readiness for him to become an X-Man. Bobby was the envy of all his classmates to be the youngest X-Man on the current roster. Logan knew that Bobby would want in on this mission, but the boy's lack of experience would not be useful to them. He had put forward his concerns to Xavier last night, and Xavier nodded his agreement. "I'll let Bobby know my decision in the morning," Xavier had said, and wheeled away.

Thus far, Xavier was still held up fixing Cerebro. Logan scratched his chin. "Maybe you should sit this one out, eh?"

Bobby frowned. "You don't want me on this mission?"

Logan sipped his coffee and chose his next words carefully. "There are certain factors we need to consider here. First is that you have barely finished your Danger Room training, and secondly, we are entering a war zone. We can't afford to risk bringing a new recruit along because we are gonna have our hands full just trying to survive ourselves."

"I know what the dangers are, Logan."

"No, I don't think you do.

Bobby pushed aside his chair violently, and skulked out of the room, full of rage at the injustice of the situation.

Alex stared at the control panel in front of him and tried to conceal his awe. The technology that the X-men possessed was light years ahead of what the armed services were even testing at this point in time. The Blackbird itself was sleek, flat and light. Its engines were a purr to the ears of any trained aviation mechanic. The craft itself could accommodate twenty people easily, and on board there were medical supplies and survival gear if the worst happened. Alex touched the control panel lightly, and looked back at his brother.

"This is a beautiful bird," He said quietly. "How many hours have you clocked in this thing?"

"Well over one hundred. Most of our missions require us to fly. We're all trained to fly the Blackbird."

Alex nodded. "Pretty sweet set up. Your own private jet."

Cyclops was underneath the control panel. He had been attempting to unscrew the underside of the thing to gain access to the control unit for the onboard computer. He had a feeling that it needed updating; the co-ordinates lately had been off. Not by much, but he didn't want to leave it to chance. Even a little bit wrong was enough to worry Scott Summers. "It belongs to the school," He said, rather curtly. "Everything here does. The Professor has invested a lot into his dream."

"And he set up the X-Men to… what?" Alex replied. "Enforce his dream?"

Scott sighed. He slid out from under the control panel and looked at his younger brother for the first time since he had arrived. Really looked at him. They were two unconnected people, really. They had grown up in different worlds. They may have spent their early childhoods together, but now neither man knew what to make of the other. Scott wiped his hands on a rag that hung from his belt. "Maybe Xavier's dream won't come to pass," he replied softly. "Maybe humans and mutants won't live in harmony. But all around the world, there are struggles for supremacy. Could you imagine what would happen if a mutant chose to enslave the human race, or if the mutant registration act ever passed? We fight for both sides."

Alex crossed his arms over his chest. "Xavier must be quite a man to have people flock to him and believe in something that much."

Scott nodded. "Don't you believe in the ideals you were taught?"

There was an air of hesitation that seemed to hum like a livewire. Alex looked at his brother for a long time, and there was a distant look in those blue eyes of his. "I don't know. I don't know if I believe much of anything anymore. I follow orders, and I believe I will do my best to carry out those orders. But do I believe in what I fight for?" Alex made an offhand gesture. "I'm paid to do a job. I believe in that."

There passed between the two men an undercurrent of antagonism. Scott's vehement belief that Xavier's dream was not a fable and Alex's glib interpretation of his station in life struck both brothers as foolish, though neither said it.

After a brief pause, Alex yawned loudly and began to walk towards the exit hatch set into floor of the cockpit. His boots clanged against the metal staircase and Cyclops could hear the footsteps receding down the long hallway which led from the hangar back to the mansion. He felt a pang of remorse that he had not been around to get to know his brother better. He felt even worse that he did not even like the man.

Xavier turned to Hank and looked into his old student's eyes. They had been working most of the night into the early morning to modify Cerebro, but after several false starts, and two aborted attempts at drawing a bead on Fabian Cortez, both men, who were not used to failure, had to give up and admit defeat. The very nature of Cerebro was the problem, Hank had theorised; it was designed with a two-fold purpose, and while Magneto and Xavier had both built the machine so that it could be easily upgraded when the technology was available, they had not considered that another species would be introduced in their lifetimes. When Cerebro was finished, the human world was still trying to grapple with the idea of sharing the planet with another-arguably superior-race.

That mankind was responsible for this latest mutation seemed ironic to Xavier.

"I don't see how we can go into Genosha without having a more exact idea of where Cortez is hiding," Hank said. He had long ago switched off his image inducer, which concealed the blue fur that covered his body. His glasses sat on his cat-like nose and he swiped them off with a huge hand. .

"Cerebro can at least pick up a faint signature," Xavier replied. "We know where to start. Beyond that we will have to trust in the instincts of our resident tracker."

Hank smiled. "Logan, you mean."

Xavier nodded. "His heightened sense of smell and the tracking abilities that were taught to him by an aboriginal man named Gateway. Logan doesn't remember much of his past before the weapon X program, but he remembers Gateway. He remembers the Australian outback. I think because it was a time of happiness for him."

"What else does he remember?"

"Bits and pieces, mostly," Xavier sighed. "He remembers a log cabin somewhere, where he spent his happiest times. I think the log cabin may be just a dream place for him, but the detail I see when I probe his mind…" Xavier's voice trailed off and he realized that Hank was still in the room. "There is still so much he doesn't know about himself. There is much that his mind has been blocked from remembering. Even my abilities cannot penetrate it. I think there is a reason for that."

Hank flipped a switch and the soft neon glow of Cerebro's lights blinked off. Hank walked alongside the professor and once they were outside, the metal door slid shut with a whisper of metal against metal. The huge Locks clicked into place and they continued walking up the long, tiled hallway until they reached the elevator that would take them to the mansion above. Hank was silent for the smooth ride up to the legitimate face of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. In his youth, Hank McCoy was an exuberant, cocky wordsmith who could talk at length on any subject while going through a backbreaking aerial display of acrobatics. He was popular among his fellow students at Xavier's, and it was widely assumed he would naturally become an X-Man when he graduated. But of all his students, Xavier knew that Hank did not believe he could achieve any real change by joining the team. So this beast devised a holographic image inducer to cover his mutation and walk freely amongst humans, and he would go on to become a world-renowned geneticist and scholar. The X-Men's loss was the world's gain.

But somewhere along the line, Hank McCoy stopped laughing. He was still partial to launching into long-winded monologues on everything from the world economic climate to the arguments for and against cloning, but his demeanour was no longer exuberant, or cocky. Lately, it had become subdued, dipping sometimes into almost sheer depression.

"Charles," Hank said as they re-entered the mansion proper, greeted by the red plush carpets and the smell of polish and faint antiseptic. "Do you think it might be wise to contact Magneto to…Help?" He stopped, clamping his mouth shut as if he were biting back his words. His catlike yellow eyes slid to Xavier, seeking confirmation that he had said the wrong thing.

Xavier smiled to indicate that it was quite all right. "If I knew how to contact him, I may have considered it," Xavier replied. "But wherever he is, he is not within reach. And I'm not entirely sure I could trust him."

Hank shrugged. "It was worth a shot." Hank considered Magneto's helping them as a debt repaid for Xavier's decision to break the Master of Magnetism out of his plastic prison a year ago. Magneto may have come to their rescue at the eleventh hour when Creed had attacked but in Hank's eyes, he owed them a lot more. It was by Xavier's decision alone that he was granted freedom.

"I don't think a mission like this would appeal to Erik," Xavier said dismissively, with the tone of one who had indeed considered such a possibility very much. "In fact, I know it would not. Our goal is to find a fellow mutant and bring him to the human authorities to face trial. Such a thing would be unspeakable." There was a bitter smile on Xavier's lips.

"I've been puzzling over the fact that Magneto would go into hiding after killing Creed," Hank said. "He had just done the world a service, in his eyes. It struck me as odd that he didn't capitalize on that glory and try to gather more supporters."

Xavier nodded but did not comment on Hank's musings. He had been searching for his old friend for most of the year that separated Graydon Creed's ill-fated attack on the school and the current events in Genosha. Magneto's disappearance was at once puzzling and infuriating. Xavier knew Magneto had gone into hiding for a reason.

"You do know," Hank continued. "That the government has in place a series of protocols in the event Magneto reappears and tries to finish what he started on Liberty Island. The U.N has also adopted a similar policy."

Xavier cocked an eyebrow. "They see him as a threat. It does not surprise me at all. If Erik really wanted to, he could destroy every weapon, every missile, and every safeguard…. He is far more dangerous than a hostile nation."

"But do you think such a measure would work?"

"No." Xavier's expression seemed to be almost one of regret. His old friend would not know a seconds peace if the government-or the X-Men-had their way. He would become a prisoner once again. Magneto had the powers of a god, and that's what scared the humans. "I think it would only serve as provocation."

Hank shuddered at the thought. He had played a hand in the defeat of the mutant registration bill proposed by the late Senator Kelly. The President had taken the extraordinary step to dismantle the bill shortly after winning office, despite vehement opposition to any real changes regarding mutant rights. While Hank considered this a defining moment in his political career, it was a moment when he realized that he was making a lot of enemies. Those same men were now spoiling for war. News of Magneto's escape had ignited the ashes of the defunct proposal to register every mutant living in the United States, and catalogue and monitor their powers. The proponents of the registration act cited Magneto's terrorism campaign, which culminated in a struggle with the X-men atop the Statue of Liberty. What else a similarly inclined mutant would be capable of unleashing did not bear contemplating, they said.

Hank could only hope that Magneto's actions did not make matters any worse for the world's mutant population.

Celia sat up slowly, feeling the firm, steady grip of a security guard. He knelt before her and gazed with a frown into her face. "Dr. Reece? Are you OK?"

Pain screamed at her from the back of her head and she gave the guard a sharp look. He was all of twenty two years old and his face bore the earnestness of his age. His long, pale face was handsome and shadowed by the bill of his hat. "I'll live," She said softly.

"Do you feel like you can walk?"

"He hit me over the head, he didn't kneecap me." Celia instantly regretted the tone of her voice. She laid a hand over Kent's and they stood up together. She felt a little woozy and she had to lean against him to get her bearings while the world swam. She had somehow lost one of her high heels, and she kicked off the other one to keep her balance.

"Did you see anything?" Kent asked.

She shook her head. "He just came up behind me and hit me with something hard, and I saw stars and went down."

They were walking back to the office when Celia turned around suddenly and slapped her forehead, drawing a quizzical look from Kent. "My briefcase, he must have taken it."

"You had it with you when you left the building?"

"As always," She nodded. "I never leave without it. I'm forever taking work home with me."

Kent nodded and smiled. He should have known that since he had watched her come and go from the building every day for the past year. "We'll have to call the police." Was all he said.

General Greenblatt sat back in his leather chair and picked up a folder that was placed on his desk by an aide. The huge chair creaked as he leaned forward and ashed his cigar in the crystal ashtray in front of him. Greenblatt was usually a man who followed policy and regulations dogmatically, and usually he would observe the President's no smoking policy, but old habits die hard. He closed the file and looked up at Robert Sanders, his personal assistant. Sanders was a prim, upright public servant who asked no difficult questions and saw to it that Greenblatt's every whim was carried out. He was also held the same aspirations for the coveted oval office as his boss, and he was willing to see to it that the good general was in a winning position after the impending Genoshian war.

"Why would Reynolds ask for McCoy's help?" He asked Sanders. He threw the file aside and a stack of black and white surveillance photos spilled out. Sanders stooped to pick them up and shuffled them back into order, then slipped them back into the folder.

"Perhaps the President is having second thoughts about sending troops in."

Greenblatt shook his head. "I don't think so. He has been painted into a corner on that score. The people want him to act, the media is baying for blood and he's under a lot of pressure from his own party faithful to go to war. It's not simply a matter of if. This conflict is inevitable."

"But what could McCoy do, realistically?" Sanders asked. "He is only an advisor. The only reason the President would be consulting with him before acting would be to make sure he's nice to the mutants at home while waging war on their kind overseas."

Greenblatt nodded. Sanders had a point. He was usually right about these things. Being locked out of the meeting between Reynolds and McCoy was an ego blow, to be sure, but it might not indicate that they were plotting something. Greenblatt knew the President's aversion to conflict was shared by the erstwhile Dr. McCoy, but there was nothing either of them could do to stop the impending war.

"I need to take something to the people," Greenblatt said after a short silence. "I need to show them that we as Americans must act to stop the brutality that the Genoshian people are suffering at the hands of those in power. I need images, I need evidence." Greenblatt's eyes flicked up to Sanders. "Can you arrange that for me, Robert?"

Robert Sanders puffed up like a peacock showing its feathers. "Certainly, sir."