Norman noticed quite suddenly that his morning routine had changed in the
last week. He used to drink two cups of coffee, eat some kind of pastry,
and read the paper. Now he drank four cups of coffee and wondered whether
he was doing the right thing. Every day he would add another item to his
mental list of negative aspects of working for the colonel and then figure
out some way to rationalize it away. Mostly that involved telling himself
he was closer to governing the country than he had ever dreamed he would be
or deserved to be. But either way it wasn't making him any healthier; he
could feel his stomach lining starting to wear thin.
His cell phone's ring, the opening measures of Taps, startled him but it was a familiar kind of surprise. He pulled it out and with a deep sigh hit the button and lifted it to his ear.
"Norman, we need you here now." At least it was Ron Woo and not the colonel.
"What happened now?"
"He's got Montana."
There was no doubt that Norman was awake now. Looking at him you would think that he had drunk far too much coffee. "Montana? All of the united militia? The colonel has them?"
"Yep. That's why we need you here now."
Norman was ready to leave in approximately forty seconds. As he closed the door behind he spoke back into his cell. "So he has them completely?"
"Yes."
"How? It's unheard of! All of the militants?"
"It was Bennett and the girl."
"You can't be serious. The girl? He thinks he can threaten them into submission?"
"Not at all. He used her to show them what we're capable of. They were impressed. And there's nothing they want more than to clean out the Cities. The enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that."
Norman sighed again. He was driving now without really paying attention. Good thing there wasn't particularly much traffic in his neighborhood. "But are they any use? Do they have any planes or are they really just a bunch of rednecks with shotguns?"
"They have eight planes and a nice little stock of explosives. The colonel just sent Mariani to tally it."
"Will he..."
"I already told him to give you the numbers when he's got them."
"Thanks, Ron."
"There's more."
"Do I want to hear it?"
"No, but you have to."
"Yeah?"
"The colonel wants us to hit Westchester tomorrow."
"You're shitting me." That was exactly the kind of the thing colonel would order. Damn him, Norman was not going to get a wink of sleep.
"Unfortunately not. Did you hear the latest numbers on Xavier?"
"It was 120 last I heard."
"Now it's 150. I guess they've converted into a hospital."
"The colonel wants us to hit a hospital?" This morning was just getting better and better.
"The only ones there are mutants and irradiated humans. We'll be doing them a favor."
Norman wasn't quite so certain. It didn't do to think of the mutants as humans, of course, but it was so hard not to. He wished he had never seen Jason. It would be so much easier if he had had only the girl to think of when he thoughts about mutants. He would gladly kill her if he thought it was possible and that the colonel wouldn't have him shot.
"It's going to take most of our stock right now, I was thinking, but you're the man to ask on that one."
Norman brought his attention back to his conversation with Ron. "What? Oh, Westchester. Yeah, it will probably take 70% give or take of our present stocks. I'll need to know more about the offensive capabilities of the new inhabitants if you want a better estimate. I only know about Xavier's original following, nothing about this influx."
He let his mind wander a moment or two, then remembered that he was driving. He looked around carefully and found that there was not one other car in sight. "Why the hell couldn't we have stayed in San Francisco?"
Ron laughed. "I know what you mean. But it was an obvious target and we haven't nailed the terrorists yet. Tomorrow's mission will probably help that."
"We won't know whether we've got them or not unless another there's another attack."
"Can't be helped. We only have so many agents who are willing to risk radiation and mutants to infiltrate."
"I know. What about the colonel's plan to use Jason?" He hated to think about it, but that was probably the only way for them to get anything done in Westchester or among the mutants at all. And they were saying that mutants weren't affected by the radiation, so it would only be whoever brought him who'd be screwed. He would only have to worry about the other mutants, not that they were anything to sneeze at.
"He wants to save Jason for afterward. He thinks things will settle out after we take down Xavier and we can send Jason and the girl into the Cities to do some thorough reconnaissance." Ron chuckled. "If we're lucky she'll be killed and he'll come out okay – she's been trained to protect him with her life."
"He thinks the terrorists are hiding in the Cities?"
"It makes perfect sense, doesn't it? They're either mutants or they're dead. Now they have three whole cities to run around in."
"What do the colonel's sources say about another attack?"
"I don't think I've heard anything about it since you have. It could be anytime, anywhere. Or maybe their equipment's finished. Just don't take a vacation in Chicago or LA or any large city anytime soon."
"Damn it, we have to have some way to get some information. I don't think we should hit Westchester tomorrow."
"We've already tried to get information out of Xavier's group and came away with nothing. You can object but I doubt you'll change the colonel's mind."
"You're right. It's going to be a long night."
"Yeah. But look on the bright side: we're growing and pretty soon you'll have a whole staff of people to do your job."
"Don't even say something like that; you'll jinx me."
"Not getting superstitious in your old age, are you?" Ron sounded like he was in entirely too good a mood for the situation. Of course there was the issue of the Montana militias and he wasn't the one who would have to stay up all night, so Norman could understand it. That didn't make him feel any better, though.
"I'll see you in thirty. Oh, last thing: is she there?"
"The girl? Yeah, here and on the prowl."
"Figures."
................................................
"Joey, come on. You can reading their frigging minds! Tell us what's going on!" Fred Villanueva and Brian Rember had been bugging him all morning to tell them what the Professor was thinking and what all of the injured people were thinking. The only problem was that he couldn't bring himself to. They were just curious kids; they had no idea what they were asking for. He absolutely wished he didn't know anywhere near what he knew, but there was no explaining that to anybody, even his best friends at the Mansion.
"Go down there and ask them yourselves."
"Huh?" Brian seemed confused.
"Go to the library. There are a bunch of injured people there. Talk to them if you want to know."
"But you know they're trying to keep us from getting close to the sick people," objected Brian.
"The X-Men don't want them to hurt us," put in Fred. Then he glanced at Brian and added, "And they don't want us to freak them out any worse."
"Screw you," said Brian. He felt very self-conscious of his ram-style horns and right then it was painfully obvious to Joey.
"It's nothing personal."
"Look," said Joey, "there are people dying out there right now. This is no time for that crap."
"What do you mean there's people dying right now?" asked Brian.
"What don't you understand about that?" asked Joey, getting steadily madder and madder. "Outside the Mansion, right now, there are people fighting and destroying things and every once in a while someone dies. Why the hell do you think they restricted us so much right now? They don't want us kids to be in on that."
"Like what?" asked Brian. "What are their powers?"
"I bet the normal humans are just as bad as the mutants," mused Fred. He was exactly right. Besides the telepaths, he always knew the most of what was going on.
The back of Joey's head throbbed as if he had been hit with a large blunt object. Somebody else had just died. He put his hand to his head. Suddenly he felt the tears behind his eyes. He shook his head furiously, despite the echo ache; he would NOT cry.
"What happened?" asked Fred.
"Nothing."
All three of them were silent.
When the ache was gone and he was sure he wasn't going to cry he felt a little better. He took a couple of deep breaths and decided to find Jen, to see how she was doing and what she was thinking. He didn't know where she was so he spread his mental fingers and started to search.
Jen, Jen, Jen, Jen. He was quickly drawn to whoever was thinking that, like a kind of chant. He let himself a little into the guy's mind and didn't like what he found: Jen was dead and this man was crying over her. Joey felt himself go limp. Jen was dead? He felt like his head was going to explode. He wondered if he shouldn't pull out and never enter another mind again, but he couldn't bring himself not to check. Slowly, so slowly, he moved into the man's mind. It wasn't his Jen, not Jen Carmazzi. Terrible relief flooded him. The Jen who died was this man's friend and lover, Jen Graham. She was a mutant and the devil killed her. Joey felt his fear rising just reading that thought. The devil? It was a man, no more, but he was like nothing the man, Greg, had ever seen before, and Joey found himself agreeing. The man had had this look in his eyes, absolutely insane and totally violent. Greg had been sure he could see fire in those eyes. And wherever the man looked people had died. Mutants and humans both, just dead. He would hold out his arm and they would just freeze up, scream in agony, and fall to the ground, dead. That had been exactly what had happened to Jen. Greg didn't understand why it hadn't happened to him. Part of him wished it had. The worst thing was that Joey completely understood him. Anything to end the violence. And now, now that Greg was in middle of radiation sickness, he was starting to wish more and more that the devil had killed him along with Jen.
Someone shook him back to his own body. It was Brian. "Snap out of it."
"What did you just find out?" asked Fred. "You looked really scared."
"You shouldn't do that, you know," said Joey. "You shouldn't bring telepaths out just like you shouldn't wake up sleepwalkers. It's not quite as bad for us since we know how we got where we are but it can still be really disorienting."
"Sorry. But seriously, what did you see?"
"A dying man thinking about a dead woman."
Both of his friends were silent. Brian, Joey knew, couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. Fred understood and was regretting pushing Joey about the information. He didn't have to be able to read their minds to know that.
"Can anything be done?"
"No," said Joey solemnly. "He's dying of the same thing everybody's been dying of; the Professor and everybody have pretty much given up on finding a way to stop it at this point."
Some kind of blast laid Joey out on his back. It was a mental blast only but it was so strong that even Fred and Brian were looking a little woozy. He tried not to find out what it was but he couldn't help it; the emotions were just too powerful. There was an intruder in the Mansion, destroying it and killing people. Without having to check Joey knew it was the devil man Greg had come across. He felt the dying agony of two more people, students he knew.
"What the hell is going on?" screamed Fred.
It was enough to send Joey over the edge. He broke down sobbing. Another death, and another. He could feel it happening. The devil man was burning them from the inside out.
Suddenly, in the middle of the flood of terrible feelings, Joey felt a very strong sense of relief, followed by another. The devil man had made it to the library and had just killed two people in the final stages of radiation poisoning. He not-quite-consciously found Greg again and dipped into his mind. The devil man was very close to him, only eight feet or so. He had just killed two others and now he had turned to Greg. Greg looked forward to the feeling, and was gratified to find that in fact the devil man was extending his arm to kill him. Joey pulled out as fast as he possibly could, then curled up into fetal position with his arms clenched to his knees.
"We need a doctor or something!" yelled Brian.
"No," said Joey. "No doctor." He couldn't lose consciousness. If he did he would only dream about it. He had to think of something, had to think of a way to help. He had to think. But what could he do?
HELP ME. It was so strong, that plea. Where was it coming from? "Theona!"
"What's wrong with her?" demanded Brian.
"She's outside. Basketball courts." Brian was off and running before Joey could blink.
Now Fred looked terrified also. "Joey, you can't let him go out there! He can't go outside now!"
"But it's Theona," said Joey. If she died, Brian probably would, too, so he might as well try to help her.
"But Brian isn't strong enough!"
"Neither am I."
"I should've gone with him." Fred looked like he might cry.
"You couldn't; you're not ready to risk your life."
"Shut up." Fred was angry, but he was smart enough not to take it out on Joey, so the telepath didn't bother to take it any further.
"I wish I had the guts to go out there."
Fred looked at him sharply. "Don't tell me that. You don't say things like that."
Instead of thinking about that Joey thought about the devil man. He wondered what it would look like if he burst in on them. For some reason he felt like the devil man knew where he was, and was coming to get him. He extended his mental fingers out a little, looking for the devil man. He found the man, like he feared and expected, but rather than coming after Joey the man was going through his death throes of fear and rage. Joey pulled out and found the closest person to him, Mr. Summers. With his math teacher's thoughts open to him Joey found out that the devil man had been poisoned by one of the mutants he had killed and had just died. He also found out that the man had killed twenty or thirty people in the Mansion and had destroyed large sections of it, allowing other hostile mutants and humans to enter it. That was why Theona was outside now; some guy had knocked her right out where a wall had been. Now Mr. Summers was fighting these new intruders as fast as he could.
"What's happening now?" asked Fred. "How are Brian and Theona?"
Joey was afraid to look. "At least he's dead."
"What?" yelled Fred.
"The devil man, not Brian. The devil man's dead now."
"Who?"
Joey didn't answer, and instead lay down where he sat and closed his eyes. He couldn't remember ever being as tired as he was then. But he still couldn't sleep. He wondered whether it was possible for him to do anything. What about Jen? Could he do something for Jen?
It took him a long time to find her mind. It normally wasn't that hard – she had the loudest thoughts of everybody around – but now there was so much raw emotion in the air it was like trying to swim through mud. When he finally did find her he couldn't believe what he discovered: she had just left the Mansion. As he lay there she was running away from the Mansion at full speed. She wasn't even paying attention to the people all around her or where she was going.
"Jen!" It was already too late. She was already too far for him to be able to talk into her mind and even if he could she wouldn't stop, not now.
"What happened to her?" asked Fred. He didn't really care about the answer in this case; it was just an automatic request for more information.
"Nothing," was Joey's only response.
Fred curled up his legs and held onto them tightly, defeated. "Tell me something," he pled.
"There is nothing. There is nothing good. Anywhere. Everyone's dead. Brian and Theona are dead."
"What?" yelled Fred, and although this yell was less powerful it was only because Fred didn't have any energy left, not because he was any less emotional.
Joey didn't know whether they were dead or not, which probably meant that they weren't because he would have heard them before they died, but he couldn't really see how it mattered anymore. "I don't know."
"Did you see it, or not?"
"No."
"Well look!"
"I can't find them. Too much going on right now." Joey knew it was true even though he hadn't checked.
Fred started to cry. Joey had never heard seen him cry before.
................................................
"Stryker has become a true problem, hasn't he?" said Magneto.
"Shall we move before he attacks Xavier or after?" asked Mystique.
"Before. Tonight. Are you prepared?"
"Three of me, ready to move."
"And one of me. Let us show him how poorly thought out his little plans really were."
Mystique smiled, very much looking forward to it.
"Remember to leave the boy and his assistant to me."
"Of course."
"Charles is going to owe us a favor."
His cell phone's ring, the opening measures of Taps, startled him but it was a familiar kind of surprise. He pulled it out and with a deep sigh hit the button and lifted it to his ear.
"Norman, we need you here now." At least it was Ron Woo and not the colonel.
"What happened now?"
"He's got Montana."
There was no doubt that Norman was awake now. Looking at him you would think that he had drunk far too much coffee. "Montana? All of the united militia? The colonel has them?"
"Yep. That's why we need you here now."
Norman was ready to leave in approximately forty seconds. As he closed the door behind he spoke back into his cell. "So he has them completely?"
"Yes."
"How? It's unheard of! All of the militants?"
"It was Bennett and the girl."
"You can't be serious. The girl? He thinks he can threaten them into submission?"
"Not at all. He used her to show them what we're capable of. They were impressed. And there's nothing they want more than to clean out the Cities. The enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that."
Norman sighed again. He was driving now without really paying attention. Good thing there wasn't particularly much traffic in his neighborhood. "But are they any use? Do they have any planes or are they really just a bunch of rednecks with shotguns?"
"They have eight planes and a nice little stock of explosives. The colonel just sent Mariani to tally it."
"Will he..."
"I already told him to give you the numbers when he's got them."
"Thanks, Ron."
"There's more."
"Do I want to hear it?"
"No, but you have to."
"Yeah?"
"The colonel wants us to hit Westchester tomorrow."
"You're shitting me." That was exactly the kind of the thing colonel would order. Damn him, Norman was not going to get a wink of sleep.
"Unfortunately not. Did you hear the latest numbers on Xavier?"
"It was 120 last I heard."
"Now it's 150. I guess they've converted into a hospital."
"The colonel wants us to hit a hospital?" This morning was just getting better and better.
"The only ones there are mutants and irradiated humans. We'll be doing them a favor."
Norman wasn't quite so certain. It didn't do to think of the mutants as humans, of course, but it was so hard not to. He wished he had never seen Jason. It would be so much easier if he had had only the girl to think of when he thoughts about mutants. He would gladly kill her if he thought it was possible and that the colonel wouldn't have him shot.
"It's going to take most of our stock right now, I was thinking, but you're the man to ask on that one."
Norman brought his attention back to his conversation with Ron. "What? Oh, Westchester. Yeah, it will probably take 70% give or take of our present stocks. I'll need to know more about the offensive capabilities of the new inhabitants if you want a better estimate. I only know about Xavier's original following, nothing about this influx."
He let his mind wander a moment or two, then remembered that he was driving. He looked around carefully and found that there was not one other car in sight. "Why the hell couldn't we have stayed in San Francisco?"
Ron laughed. "I know what you mean. But it was an obvious target and we haven't nailed the terrorists yet. Tomorrow's mission will probably help that."
"We won't know whether we've got them or not unless another there's another attack."
"Can't be helped. We only have so many agents who are willing to risk radiation and mutants to infiltrate."
"I know. What about the colonel's plan to use Jason?" He hated to think about it, but that was probably the only way for them to get anything done in Westchester or among the mutants at all. And they were saying that mutants weren't affected by the radiation, so it would only be whoever brought him who'd be screwed. He would only have to worry about the other mutants, not that they were anything to sneeze at.
"He wants to save Jason for afterward. He thinks things will settle out after we take down Xavier and we can send Jason and the girl into the Cities to do some thorough reconnaissance." Ron chuckled. "If we're lucky she'll be killed and he'll come out okay – she's been trained to protect him with her life."
"He thinks the terrorists are hiding in the Cities?"
"It makes perfect sense, doesn't it? They're either mutants or they're dead. Now they have three whole cities to run around in."
"What do the colonel's sources say about another attack?"
"I don't think I've heard anything about it since you have. It could be anytime, anywhere. Or maybe their equipment's finished. Just don't take a vacation in Chicago or LA or any large city anytime soon."
"Damn it, we have to have some way to get some information. I don't think we should hit Westchester tomorrow."
"We've already tried to get information out of Xavier's group and came away with nothing. You can object but I doubt you'll change the colonel's mind."
"You're right. It's going to be a long night."
"Yeah. But look on the bright side: we're growing and pretty soon you'll have a whole staff of people to do your job."
"Don't even say something like that; you'll jinx me."
"Not getting superstitious in your old age, are you?" Ron sounded like he was in entirely too good a mood for the situation. Of course there was the issue of the Montana militias and he wasn't the one who would have to stay up all night, so Norman could understand it. That didn't make him feel any better, though.
"I'll see you in thirty. Oh, last thing: is she there?"
"The girl? Yeah, here and on the prowl."
"Figures."
................................................
"Joey, come on. You can reading their frigging minds! Tell us what's going on!" Fred Villanueva and Brian Rember had been bugging him all morning to tell them what the Professor was thinking and what all of the injured people were thinking. The only problem was that he couldn't bring himself to. They were just curious kids; they had no idea what they were asking for. He absolutely wished he didn't know anywhere near what he knew, but there was no explaining that to anybody, even his best friends at the Mansion.
"Go down there and ask them yourselves."
"Huh?" Brian seemed confused.
"Go to the library. There are a bunch of injured people there. Talk to them if you want to know."
"But you know they're trying to keep us from getting close to the sick people," objected Brian.
"The X-Men don't want them to hurt us," put in Fred. Then he glanced at Brian and added, "And they don't want us to freak them out any worse."
"Screw you," said Brian. He felt very self-conscious of his ram-style horns and right then it was painfully obvious to Joey.
"It's nothing personal."
"Look," said Joey, "there are people dying out there right now. This is no time for that crap."
"What do you mean there's people dying right now?" asked Brian.
"What don't you understand about that?" asked Joey, getting steadily madder and madder. "Outside the Mansion, right now, there are people fighting and destroying things and every once in a while someone dies. Why the hell do you think they restricted us so much right now? They don't want us kids to be in on that."
"Like what?" asked Brian. "What are their powers?"
"I bet the normal humans are just as bad as the mutants," mused Fred. He was exactly right. Besides the telepaths, he always knew the most of what was going on.
The back of Joey's head throbbed as if he had been hit with a large blunt object. Somebody else had just died. He put his hand to his head. Suddenly he felt the tears behind his eyes. He shook his head furiously, despite the echo ache; he would NOT cry.
"What happened?" asked Fred.
"Nothing."
All three of them were silent.
When the ache was gone and he was sure he wasn't going to cry he felt a little better. He took a couple of deep breaths and decided to find Jen, to see how she was doing and what she was thinking. He didn't know where she was so he spread his mental fingers and started to search.
Jen, Jen, Jen, Jen. He was quickly drawn to whoever was thinking that, like a kind of chant. He let himself a little into the guy's mind and didn't like what he found: Jen was dead and this man was crying over her. Joey felt himself go limp. Jen was dead? He felt like his head was going to explode. He wondered if he shouldn't pull out and never enter another mind again, but he couldn't bring himself not to check. Slowly, so slowly, he moved into the man's mind. It wasn't his Jen, not Jen Carmazzi. Terrible relief flooded him. The Jen who died was this man's friend and lover, Jen Graham. She was a mutant and the devil killed her. Joey felt his fear rising just reading that thought. The devil? It was a man, no more, but he was like nothing the man, Greg, had ever seen before, and Joey found himself agreeing. The man had had this look in his eyes, absolutely insane and totally violent. Greg had been sure he could see fire in those eyes. And wherever the man looked people had died. Mutants and humans both, just dead. He would hold out his arm and they would just freeze up, scream in agony, and fall to the ground, dead. That had been exactly what had happened to Jen. Greg didn't understand why it hadn't happened to him. Part of him wished it had. The worst thing was that Joey completely understood him. Anything to end the violence. And now, now that Greg was in middle of radiation sickness, he was starting to wish more and more that the devil had killed him along with Jen.
Someone shook him back to his own body. It was Brian. "Snap out of it."
"What did you just find out?" asked Fred. "You looked really scared."
"You shouldn't do that, you know," said Joey. "You shouldn't bring telepaths out just like you shouldn't wake up sleepwalkers. It's not quite as bad for us since we know how we got where we are but it can still be really disorienting."
"Sorry. But seriously, what did you see?"
"A dying man thinking about a dead woman."
Both of his friends were silent. Brian, Joey knew, couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. Fred understood and was regretting pushing Joey about the information. He didn't have to be able to read their minds to know that.
"Can anything be done?"
"No," said Joey solemnly. "He's dying of the same thing everybody's been dying of; the Professor and everybody have pretty much given up on finding a way to stop it at this point."
Some kind of blast laid Joey out on his back. It was a mental blast only but it was so strong that even Fred and Brian were looking a little woozy. He tried not to find out what it was but he couldn't help it; the emotions were just too powerful. There was an intruder in the Mansion, destroying it and killing people. Without having to check Joey knew it was the devil man Greg had come across. He felt the dying agony of two more people, students he knew.
"What the hell is going on?" screamed Fred.
It was enough to send Joey over the edge. He broke down sobbing. Another death, and another. He could feel it happening. The devil man was burning them from the inside out.
Suddenly, in the middle of the flood of terrible feelings, Joey felt a very strong sense of relief, followed by another. The devil man had made it to the library and had just killed two people in the final stages of radiation poisoning. He not-quite-consciously found Greg again and dipped into his mind. The devil man was very close to him, only eight feet or so. He had just killed two others and now he had turned to Greg. Greg looked forward to the feeling, and was gratified to find that in fact the devil man was extending his arm to kill him. Joey pulled out as fast as he possibly could, then curled up into fetal position with his arms clenched to his knees.
"We need a doctor or something!" yelled Brian.
"No," said Joey. "No doctor." He couldn't lose consciousness. If he did he would only dream about it. He had to think of something, had to think of a way to help. He had to think. But what could he do?
HELP ME. It was so strong, that plea. Where was it coming from? "Theona!"
"What's wrong with her?" demanded Brian.
"She's outside. Basketball courts." Brian was off and running before Joey could blink.
Now Fred looked terrified also. "Joey, you can't let him go out there! He can't go outside now!"
"But it's Theona," said Joey. If she died, Brian probably would, too, so he might as well try to help her.
"But Brian isn't strong enough!"
"Neither am I."
"I should've gone with him." Fred looked like he might cry.
"You couldn't; you're not ready to risk your life."
"Shut up." Fred was angry, but he was smart enough not to take it out on Joey, so the telepath didn't bother to take it any further.
"I wish I had the guts to go out there."
Fred looked at him sharply. "Don't tell me that. You don't say things like that."
Instead of thinking about that Joey thought about the devil man. He wondered what it would look like if he burst in on them. For some reason he felt like the devil man knew where he was, and was coming to get him. He extended his mental fingers out a little, looking for the devil man. He found the man, like he feared and expected, but rather than coming after Joey the man was going through his death throes of fear and rage. Joey pulled out and found the closest person to him, Mr. Summers. With his math teacher's thoughts open to him Joey found out that the devil man had been poisoned by one of the mutants he had killed and had just died. He also found out that the man had killed twenty or thirty people in the Mansion and had destroyed large sections of it, allowing other hostile mutants and humans to enter it. That was why Theona was outside now; some guy had knocked her right out where a wall had been. Now Mr. Summers was fighting these new intruders as fast as he could.
"What's happening now?" asked Fred. "How are Brian and Theona?"
Joey was afraid to look. "At least he's dead."
"What?" yelled Fred.
"The devil man, not Brian. The devil man's dead now."
"Who?"
Joey didn't answer, and instead lay down where he sat and closed his eyes. He couldn't remember ever being as tired as he was then. But he still couldn't sleep. He wondered whether it was possible for him to do anything. What about Jen? Could he do something for Jen?
It took him a long time to find her mind. It normally wasn't that hard – she had the loudest thoughts of everybody around – but now there was so much raw emotion in the air it was like trying to swim through mud. When he finally did find her he couldn't believe what he discovered: she had just left the Mansion. As he lay there she was running away from the Mansion at full speed. She wasn't even paying attention to the people all around her or where she was going.
"Jen!" It was already too late. She was already too far for him to be able to talk into her mind and even if he could she wouldn't stop, not now.
"What happened to her?" asked Fred. He didn't really care about the answer in this case; it was just an automatic request for more information.
"Nothing," was Joey's only response.
Fred curled up his legs and held onto them tightly, defeated. "Tell me something," he pled.
"There is nothing. There is nothing good. Anywhere. Everyone's dead. Brian and Theona are dead."
"What?" yelled Fred, and although this yell was less powerful it was only because Fred didn't have any energy left, not because he was any less emotional.
Joey didn't know whether they were dead or not, which probably meant that they weren't because he would have heard them before they died, but he couldn't really see how it mattered anymore. "I don't know."
"Did you see it, or not?"
"No."
"Well look!"
"I can't find them. Too much going on right now." Joey knew it was true even though he hadn't checked.
Fred started to cry. Joey had never heard seen him cry before.
................................................
"Stryker has become a true problem, hasn't he?" said Magneto.
"Shall we move before he attacks Xavier or after?" asked Mystique.
"Before. Tonight. Are you prepared?"
"Three of me, ready to move."
"And one of me. Let us show him how poorly thought out his little plans really were."
Mystique smiled, very much looking forward to it.
"Remember to leave the boy and his assistant to me."
"Of course."
"Charles is going to owe us a favor."