Dismal Angel 2010 - Episode 10
Chapter 6: Cerebro's Revelation
The X-Men rushed down to the war room at once, and sat around the very large circular table, the Professor had not even arrived yet, nor Hank. Jean and Scott had been the first ones to arrive, and were already sitting looking concerned, Scott's expression grim as usual.
Rogue took a seat next to Jean, "Hank told you what he found out?" she asked.
"Yes," Jean nodded, but said no more, she leaned back in her chair folded her arms and waited patiently for the arrival of the Professor.
Kurt Wagner stepped in, "what's going on?" He asked tiredly, he looked as if he'd just woken up, his eyes bleary, fur dishevelled and his hair sticking up at one side of his head.
"Hank and the Professor have found out something," Jean replied to Hank.
Kurt took a seat beside Kitty, he brushed his hair from his eyes, "you been up all night?" he asked, noticing that her eyes were dark underneath and her face was a little paler than usual.
"More or less," Kitty glanced across the room towards where Piotr was sitting – which was on Rogue's left. She sighed and propped her elbows up on the table, rested her chin upon her palms and stared at him.
"How was your valentines day, by the way?" Kurt asked, just making conversation, he noted the look she was giving Piotr.
Kitty made a face and turned towards Kurt, "it sucked. Duh. I made Remy commit suicide – and alright, it wasn't really Remy but it COULD have been."
"Oh, right," Kurt bit into his bottom lip, "did I just do that thing where I've just put my foot into my mouth again?"
"More or less," Kitty shook her head in disbelief, "what is WITH you lately?"
"Nothing," Kurt shrugged.
The professor arrived in the room, Hank following suit.
"I'm glad you're all here," Professor Xavier said, moving across the room, he brushed his hand gently against Rogue's shoulder as he passed her. "You're all probably wondering why you've been called in here, or some of you may already know what the situation is. But I feel it is necessary to warn you about a possible threat that we may find ourselves…"
"What's going on?" Bobby yawned.
"Last night the Man we thought was Remy LeBeau threw himself off the balcony with a noose around his neck, his neck was instantly broken, and it wasn't until a later examination Rogue and myself discovered that the man down in that hospital wing is NOT Remy LeBeau," Hank stepped forward.
Bobby and Kurt looked at each other confusedly, then back to the Professor and Hank, "what…?" They both asked together.
"Upon further examination we discovered that this man is an exact replica of the real Remy LeBeau, through the most advanced genetic methods, someone physically made this man. Also I discovered a specific gene in the clone's DNA which would have promoted an advanced aging process meaning this clone might possibly not be even four months old yet maintains the appearance of a twenty-eight year old man. Chances are, had he survived, we would have seen him aging quickly over the next few weeks."
"So…if he's a clone, and barely four months old…how come he had the intelligence of a man Remy's age?" Kurt asked, "isn't that impossible?"
"Yes, it is," Hank stated, "and it bothered me a great deal and I was unable to come up with the solution to this until only twenty minutes ago…"
Rogue looked at Hank, "So…?"
" "Whilst I was examining the cadaver, I found a very faint scar hidden beneath his hair, the incision probably would have made upon the clone when he was an infant, and the accelerated growth gene also would have healed this up quite quickly – which is why we were unable to see the scar up until closer inspection," Hank explained.
Rogue nodded, "yeah, you told me that."
Hank smiled, "yes, but I need to bring the others up to speed," he insisted, "I decided to make my own incision and see what surgical work had been performed on the clone, and I found this," Hank held up a tiny plastic bag which contained a minute computer chip, "a memory chip…which myself and the Professor managed to connect to Cerebro," he explained, "By fooling the chip into convincing it that Cerebro was merely a brain we were able to access some of the information upon the chip…the information was coded – luckily with Cerebro's decipher tool we managed to gain some access into the information, but everything is still badly scrambled…"
"We burned it onto a DVD," The Professor interjected, he moved to the computer console, opened the DVD/CD rom slot and slipped the CD in carefully. Upon the large plasma screen that was panelled upon to the wall, images began to appear, scrambled, sometimes barely distinguishable and fuzzy, then at sections clear.
Rogue leaned forward, squinting at the fuzzy blinking images, they seemed very familiar, so familiar in fact, that when she saw a very fast flicker of image with her teary face staring back at her, she knew at once what these images were. "Oh my…God," she whispered, putting her hands to her mouth.
"The chip is more like a small hard drive, it contains all the information – and it is separated into two sections, one containing a large amount of memory data, and another containing the general information that the clone would need to think for itself…" The Professor explained.
Rogue spoke up, "But if he had Remy's memories in its hard drive…" she felt odd saying those words, "how come he couldn't remember us or recognise us?"
"Good question," Hank said, "he was recognising us, at least a little, you especially," he explained, "there's one possible explanation," Hank raised a small plastic bag containing the bullet Remy had been shot with within it, "this is the bullet the clone was shot with. When I was examining it I found out that upon impact this bullet would give off a strong electrical shock…this may have been what caused the memory chip to malfunction. It may be that whoever created the clone knew we would be looking for Remy, and wanted to keep us occupied and unsuspecting."
"Unsuspecting of what?" Kurt asked tiredly.
"Of realising that the Real Remy was the one who stole my research on cloning and the applying of the X-Gene. Whoever cloned Remy realised that cloning the mutant in question does not clone his powers as well, not without using the techniques of which I had discovered. My mutant research was based upon adding mutant DNA to spiders so that I could attempt to remove it and leave the mutant without power – a remedy for extremely dangerous mutants to save them from their own powers," Hank rubbed the back of his neck absently, looking at his friends with an expression of flustered embarrassment, "I had revealed during a conference in Washington that I was working on these theories, I can only imagine that whoever created the clone was at that conference."
"Wouldn't you be able to find a list of people who attended?" Bobby asked.
"I would, but of five hundred men and women it would be difficult to pinpoint our culprit," Hank stated calmly.
"It's worth a shot," Jean said, "I'll do that."
"Alright," The Professor said, "the next thing we need to focus on is that we may be in for trouble, whoever wanted that information would not want it for science, but for something far more disturbing."
"I don't like the chances of fighting off three thousand clones with mutant powers," Kitty shuddered, she could almost see it in her head.
"What do you think this cloning-guy will do next?" Bobby asked.
"I'm not sure," Professor Xavier replied, he glanced over to Piotr who looked a little preoccupied, "Piotr, what is it?"
Piotr's face went a little pink, "I…I do know of something that may be of relevance," he said softly, "My cousin Ivan has the ability to trace other mutants with his own power, and two years ago he was called upon by a mysterious man to trace Gambit…who was found later in Paris."
"What relevance is this to anything?" Bobby asked raising an eyebrow.
Piotr frowned a little, his cornflower blue eyes squinted at Bobby, "the man would not give Ivan his name – Ivan did not care either. This man could afford an exceptional amount of money for a simple trace – more than Ivan is usually paid," he explained, "and why the interest in Gambit? He is not exactly a powerful mutant…"
"I thought maybe it was for a specific robbery job," Kitty stated, "I mean Remy IS a thief and all."
"Maybe someone should check out if any major robberies were carried out around that time," Scott suggested, "if we can find a robbery around that time we can so trace up who suddenly came into money around that same time period, perhaps we can find out who that was and rule him out as the geneticist in question?" He asked.
Rogue glanced over to Scott, "but that DOESN'T rule this guy out, I mean if he's a geneticist he'd surely need funding for his work, right? What if that's what Remy's part in this was?"
"Right now everything is all in theory as we don't have much proof of what has gone outside of the information we already have," The Professor explained, "with the information so badly scrambled its hard to find out much more…"
Rogue stared towards the plasma screen again, watching the pictures flickering wildly, it reminded her vividly of the times she'd touched people and absorbed their thoughts, that jumble of nonsensical memories she'd temporarily latch on to during the transition.
A familiar image caught her eye, "rewind that!" she gasped.
Hank pressed a clawed finger against the rewind button and the DVD began to run backwards.
"Put it on slow…" Rogue pleaded, she stood up, gaping.
On slow motion, the image held itself to the screen much longer, long enough for the image of liquid silver to be seen sliding along a floor, pulsating and crawling its way along dirty tiles leaving no residue.
Bobby's mouth dropped a little, it looked vile, and obscene in some strange way, yet even he could not take his eyes off of the liquid silver pulsating puddle, "What…the fuck…is that…?"
In seconds, the image was gone, replaced by the flickering images blurred and pixellated, eventually, the images were gone, replaced by a green screen with black squares running across it, the DVD corrupted too much to continue giving more information.
"That's it…" Rogue whispered, "that's who we're looking for…"
(The End…or is it? Mwahahhaahahahahahahaha…mwahahahahahahah, mwahah. Thanks – as usual – to everyone who left lovely long reviews. Like I always say, its so much nicer to read some actual thoughts than the phrase "update soon or else", lol. I know the story is dragging on but hey, if it went too fast I'd leave out important details that might not make sense – well, I never make sense any way but that's besides the point. Aaaaaaah anyway, keep an eye out for episode 11.)