CHAPTER 3: AND TIME… OH TIME

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find that ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

~Time, Pink Floyd


Present Day, the year 2011

The Blackbird flew north, filled almost beyond capacity with passengers.

The doctor hadn't wanted to let them go of course, wed to his medical nobility as he was, but a moment and a thought from Madelyne had abolished that notion, and a moment more had erased the minds of every human in the room even as she'd steadied Magnus' heartbeat.

There was a day when that would have bothered Rogue, when manipulating the minds and actions of defenseless humans would have offended her on so deep a level that it would have shaken her to the core of her soul.

Today was not that day. In fact, it hadn't been that day in about seven years.

Oh, she wanted peace; had striven for it on a level that most of the X-Men barely understood, that her foster mother would never have understood at all. But in the years following the apocalypse, she had watched as the turmoil grew, watched as the humans so bent on saving this world had turned away every single offer of mutant help, downplaying any role mutants might have had the slow return to world order. Their capacity for stupidity was overwhelming, and though she cared for their future, linked as it was with mutant-kind's, she was not beyond seeing them for the short-sighted beings they were.

They were idiots, almost to the man. And woman.

And they couldn't have possibly understood what she proposed now. What her teammates had so willingly accepted almost the instant the idea had left her lips.

She was playing God. Worst of all, she was going to use her own children to do it. And she didn't care.

She wondered, briefly, who was the greater in matters of stupidity; her own teammates, or the humans of the world.

At least the humans would have tried to stop her.


* * * * * * * * * * * *

"Patient stabilizing," Renaldo said with something like relief.

Dr. Hayes watched as the body below her ceased its convulsions and lay still within its casing made of glass and oily liquid. Eyelids fluttered, then slid slowly shut, sinking back into unconsciousness, and she heaved a sigh of relief.

She wanted this to end soon. Robots were one thing, but she was tired of playing God with organic beings, no matter what it might have meant to the world. The stress was like a cracked and splintered line within her heart, dividing her in two halves, and she'd just as soon be whole, without the disembodied, intercom voice that haunted her every waking moment and most of her nightmares.

And still, part of her chuckled bitterly, wondering that she thought she could ever be free of this. That she could ever be free of him. And the other part of her knew just as well that she could, and would. As soon as this was all over.

Just one more, and then I'll quit, her mind spoke up, mocking and sly.

The Doctor shifted, uncomfortable on her perch as the voice penetrated her thoughts, and she frowned.

Perhaps she'd join a convent, just to be sure.

Not that that meant she'd ever get to heaven. But it would be enough to satisfy her.

Maybe.


* * * * * * * * * * * *

"Mom?" Irinee' whispered in the darkness of the Blackbird's cabin. The word seemed loud as it broke the pall of tense silence that lay like a blanket over them all.

Rogue's voice spoke in her mind through the psionic link that seemed to be formed more by birth and blood than effort.

"Yeah, shugah, it's me."

She could sense her brother's mental presence even more clearly than her mother's—was always aware of him on a low level. She could tell he had heard, and that he was listening, just as frightened and expectant as she felt.

"How are ya'll holdin' up?"

"Okay. Mom… How do you plan on doing this?"

"Irinee', Ah want you and your brother to listen to me very carefully."

She did.

Irinee cast a sidelong glance at her brother, saw the frightened but stern set of his face as he met her eyes. She swallowed and gathered her courage. "Mom, I don't know if we can do this."

"Of course you can, shugah. With Madelyne's experience to help guide ya'll, it should be a snap."

"But what if--"

"We'll deal with the 'what if's' as they happen, shug. Just hang in there."

Irinee' nodded, the mental transference of agreement reaching her mother. A moment later, Rogue's presence retreated.

"She's lost it." Jean-Luc's voice in her mind, finally speaking up now that their mother was gone.

"She's worried about losing Magnus."

"What about losing us?"

"I don't know. I don't think she's thinking about it right now."

"I don't think she cares."

Irinee' said nothing, just stared down at her lap and focused very carefully on not letting her brother feel how worried she was.

She was terrified that he might be right.


* * * * * * * * * * * *

The past, the year 2004

Some researcher's believed that time was linear; a line that traveled forward and only forward. Others believed that time was simply another dimension, a continuum of space-time, and as such, could be traversed. But neither of those theories took into account the existence of alternate realities.

The actuality of time, as Nimrod II understood it, was that it existed in a myriad of possibilities, side by side and sometimes overlapping, divergent timelines springing into being with each passing second; every decision made, every action taken. Somewhere in the omniverse, there was a unique thread of time for each, single possibility that existed. Time--like the concept of love that humans so enjoyed singing about--was everywhere, alive in every action. Just as butterfly wings could give birth to hurricanes, a split-second could spawn entire worlds.

In a sense, timelines divided and multiplied like the cells of a living organism, and like the cells of any organism, some were stronger than others. Some were mutated, hardly resembling what they had evolved from. It depended on the severity of the changed moment, the ramifications. Timelines that diverged and changed based on what someone chose for breakfast, for instance, had a way of running themselves out and dissolving, or re-merging with the original. Other timelines, such as ones where important world figures were killed, mutated into something much stronger. The larger the event, the stronger the timeline. But if the mutation were too severe, changing too quickly all at once, it would collapse and die like any living cell.

Also, time flowed faster in some places, slower in others, depending on the amount of mass involved. This could occur even within a single timeline. Such that things he hadn't even done here yet could have already created changes or divergences in the future.

The simple fact of his being here created ripples of change that his creators either didn't comprehend or didn't care about. He didn't care either. His programming was simple, succinct and to the point. Simple parameters that they thought a machine could carry out with little or no trouble. For all that he was a machine that was intelligent and capable of learning, he did not possess the reasoning factors of a human brain, nor did he care to. Such things were… primitive.

As such, when his secondary directive kicked in, he never questioned it. His secondary mission was to prevent the timeline from being altered beyond his primary directive. Of course, his creators had probably never taken into account that his secondary directive might be awoken by another mutant, or that his prevention of allowing them the chance to alter the timeline might result in massive changes.

Not being built for such reasoning, neither did he.

It took him less than an hour to find a computer link. He calculated his trajectory in accordance with how far the line could carry him.

Far enough.


* * * * * * * * * * * *

The journey, for him, was simple. For a human to understand, it would have taken countless equations and chalkboard upon chalkboard of mathematics for it to make sense, but Nimrod II simply flowed with information exchange that pumped along in all its primal zeroes and ones. They did not attempt to communicate with him; tiny pieces of information that were only imbued with the purpose of reaching their proper place, but he understood them instantly, saw all that they carried. Security codes and alarms, documents of secrecy, mundane email. He saw all these things and recognized them in an instant, and was just as quickly bored by them. They offered nothing he did not already know.

Time took on a different aspect in that place, and he could only move as quickly as the digital information around him. It was a slow process that would have been painful were he not possessed of the patience born only to a machine.

He flowed onward.


* * * * * * * * * * * *

Kitty Pryde sat before the laptop she'd recently appropriated, and heaved a sigh as she opened the case. She'd left the X-Men only a day ago, and already she felt disconnected, solitary, a creature as uneasy in her own presence as mouse in the shadow of an owl.

The monitor flared to life and she waited for the operating system to load, impatient with the straggling software of the "real world". She hadn't really wanted to part with the little money she'd carried, and the pawn shop owner had been even less eager to sell the clunky dinosaur of a laptop to her at the price she'd demanded, but she needed something to connect her to the world. She could have just taken one of the X-Men's laptops, but she'd worried that they might be able to track her with it somehow, and she wasn't ready to face them just yet.

There was one thing she had taken. A relatively new piece of technology for the time it had been developed. The "real world" hadn't done much in the way of technology since the apocalypse of summer of 1997, but it had developed wireless capability just before shutting down. With any luck, the card she'd just installed would do its work, and she'd be able to access all the information she desired—including the X-Men databases.

She didn't want to be part of their world right now—indeed, she felt she couldn't be in the face of all the losses she had suffered; Nightcrawler, Illyana, Lockheed, all the others—but she still wanted to connect to them somehow. To know that she wasn't as lost as she felt.

The desktop opened and she smiled, pulled up a prompt, and went to work.


* * * * * * * * * * * *

Nimrod II paused in his travel.

New point of exit detected.

He went toward it.


* * * * * * * * * * * *

Hello, government systems, Kitty thought with a smile as information appeared before her eyes. There might not be any internet anymore, but you could always count on the government to keep its closed networks running. At least here she could get some kind of glimpse of what was happening in the world, and it was a hell of a lot easier than hacking into the X-Men's systems, which she'd helped design, herself.

Still operating underground, she thought, as she scrolled through. But soon enough they'll get themselves together, and then we'll have to deal with…

Whoa. What the hell is THAT?

The information on her screen dissolved into scrambled characters that kept flickering and changing as if the network were convulsing.

Did they upgrade their security systems?

She typed in a command with frantic fingers that sang over the low buttons of the keyboard.

Nothing.

What the fu--?

The thought was cut short as the laptop seemed to explode in her hands. Without even thinking she let go and phased, shorting out the motherboard in the process as her fingers passed through it.

Shit. Great. That's just what I—

Something was happening.

The laptop split apart with a shrieking sound and the sharp scent of burning copper. That, in and of itself wouldn't have bothered her so much as what happened next.

Between the small, rectangular pieces of copper interlaced green, something was… emerging. Metal flowed from the laptop like silver blood in every direction, moving like mercury as it flowed together in a neat, collective pool.

She stared, eyes wide with disbelief, body frozen in place despite its phased state, and watched as the metal pool began to rise, reforming itself, changing… becoming.

Long legs formed first, their liquid silver shell hardening into place, and though their shape was humanoid, it was far from human. Sharp contours snapped into place as the thing reformed itself, torso building upward in a rapid frenzy of groin, chest and shoulder. Arms lengthened from seeming nothingness, and they ended in fully formed hands that somehow mocked the basic capability of humans. The head formed last, shooting into existence with a suddenness that left her dazed. Ominous red eyes lit with twin fire, and she felt a shiver down the length of her incorporeal spine as it spoke aloud.

Nimrod II has arrived. All systems online. Assessing possible damage.

Nimrod II? She thought, her eyes going wide. I've never seen anything like that outside of Terminator II.

Interrupt: Mutant threat detected. Scanning for identity—found. Subject mutant Kitty Pryde, Ariel, Sprite, Shadowcat. Employing defense systems.

"Not a chance in the world, Johnny 5," she hissed, eyes narrowing to slits. "Never gonna happen," she proclaimed as she pushed herself from the ground toward him with sheer force of will, her body still phased. "One touch of my hand and you're just so much useless jun--"

Her hand passed through him, mind thinking to short circuit his systems and shut him down. And then she felt it, a tingling like fire through every nerve in her body, synapses firing in useless, random bursts.

It had never been like this. Even the deteriorating properties of Harpoon's energy harpoons hadn't hurt like this. The pain was like white fire through her mind, turning her body into a singing conflagration of singed flesh and flash-fried nerves.

Unable to hold her concentration, Kitty threw back her head and screamed, still burning even as her body solidified into being.


* * * * * * * * * * * *

Present Day

The Blackbird touched down, and it was Logan, of all people, who approached her first.

"We're here, Rogue." A pause, and then a tilt of that feral, animalistic head. "You ready?" And though his face might have been cast in that of a ferocious animal, his eyes shone down at her with dark, bleak humanity.

"Ah'm ready."


* * * * * * * * * * * *

It took Polaris considerable effort, but at last she forced the doors open and they moved inside.

They entered the room, and it was just as Rogue remembered it. Silent, empty and still save the background hum of functioning machinery. Somehow she'd almost expected not to find it this way. To come here and find only blackness and taunting shadow, the thin hope of her dreams dried up in the dust upon the corrugated metal floor. But it was here. Everything was still here.

Cool blue light cast eerie shadows over her face, though she did not know it, and she moved through the dim light as if one in a trance.

She peeled the long, black silk glove from her hand as she approached the center of the room, and pressed trembling fingers against the cylindrical glass. Beneath her hand drifted a lost face, its features cast in dim blue light that trickled between the spread of her fingers. Its features, lost to time, came into focus with vibrant clarity, a hundred memories fired in her mind at its sight.

"Poor, dear, boy," she whispered, voice soft as she leaned her forehead to the glass. She could feel the cool of its unforgiving surface, the thrumming of machinery that rumbled through the phosphorescent liquid inside. She stood there for a long moment in silence, ignoring the wires that twisted within and without the cylinder like the limbs of some mutant tree.

"Think you could take a little longer?" Madelyne asked, her voice striking the silence like the fangs of a cobra into flesh. Sweat beaded on her forehead with the strain of exertion that she was under. Keeping Magnus' heart beating was tricky enough, but levitating him here on top of that had taken nearly all of her reserves. Not that she would ever admit it.

Rogue snapped from her trance, turning bright green eyes upon those that matched her in ire if not in spirit.

She said not a word as she approached Magnus' frail form, and only her eyes betrayed the depth of sorrow that she felt. Long, bare fingers shook as they stretched, touching the tender skin of his temple.

Within his living coma, the Master of Magnetism stirred, and moaned.

"Just a few more minutes, shugah," Rogue promised. And then she closed her eyes, focused her natural mutant ability to the breadth of her fingertips against his skin, and pulled.

* * * * * * * * * * * *


The Past

Smoke trailed from Kitty's mouth in wispy, gray curls like the ebb and flow of life from her fragile form. She could see its shape as it passed before her eyes, and if her body hadn't already told her that she'd been fried from the inside out, if her blood weren't boiling like a living thing in her veins, she might have cried.

Perhaps she was crying anyway. She couldn't feel it—couldn't tell.

Threat eliminated, Nimrod II proclaimed. Returning to second directive. Tracking anomaly—anomaly found.

Kitty writhed on the ground in pain, her body in agony as Nimrod's words passed her ears, unintelligible between the screaming of her burnt nerve-endings and seared organs. She coughed, a great gout of blood spilling from between her lips, and moaned in whimpering understanding.

And somehow, her brain still functioned.

I'm dying… dying… and the X-Men don't even know where I am and oh—Piotr. I wish I'd had the chance to tell you…

Anomaly located within solar system. Employing anti-gravity units, Nimrod II reported to the silent building.

Kitty was only dimly aware of the robot's escape, its departure noted more by the rush of air as it shot through the ceiling rather than the actual sight or sound. Her vision was dimming, moving from cloudy gray to deep black.

Piotr, she thought, clinging to his name and holding, her heart aching with more than the love for him she felt. A bolt of sudden pain ran the length of her form, and she stiffened, crying out. Her skin felt… wrong. Misshapen and burnt though it was, it seemed she could feel the nerve endings trying to respond, trying to re-grow themselves and repair.

The shock sent her brain deeper into darkness, and she let it close around her. Anything, if only to be rid of this excruciating pain, to be free of her guilt and the love she still felt that tethered her here. She'd been through enough; had had enough. Death was almost a welcome release, despite the primitive yammering in her brain that she had to save herself—must do something.

The world collapsed into a dark tunnel and she felt herself being pulled along its length, pulled further from her tortured body and sorrowful thoughts. Whatever lay at its end, she was ready. Had been ready for a long, long time.

She went, grateful and gracious, her awareness fading to dim resonance, the sparks of her mind flickering to embers and dying out. And ahead, at the end of the tunnel—

There was light. So bright and pure that she stood for a moment in awe, suddenly reminded again of her mortal form and all that she left behind. It gave her pause, but not enough, for the light, itself, seemed to sing with joy and possibility.

Her spirit trembled, then moved forward to meet with destiny.


* * * * * * * * * * * *

Present Day

In the bowels of a citadel perched atop the world, Rogue threw back her head and screamed, memory and power flooding through her and breaking down every wall and failsafe she had erected in her own mind.

"Something is wrong!" Storm shouted, and then the scream cut off as abruptly as if Rogue's head had been severed from her body.

"No," Rogue contradicted, breathless with a deep voice that was an amalgam of her light southern lilt and Magnus' deep alto.

"On the contrary," she went on, green eyes flashing like wild animals in the half-light.

"We are just fine."


* * * * * * * * * * * *

The Past

The white light intensified as Kitty neared it, and she shook with the promise it gave.

Kitty… spoke a voice from within the light, like a reception to welcome her home.

She went to the voice eagerly, recognizing it. She had come home at last. Had found the place where she could be one and be happy with those who had passed before her and, oh, it was magnificent, the purity of that light, the familiar tones of the voice that spoke. She was home. At long last, she was—

The face that greeted her was sad, despite its pale, otherworldly beauty, and in the set of those bright, despairing eyes, she suddenly found herself again.

This wasn't heaven. This was something else entirely.

"I'm dying," she whispered.

"I know." That sad face, with eyes too old for the youthful features that housed them, smiled with irony. "But you called out with love, and I can save you."

Kitty felt her soul clench, and closed her non-existent eyes against the pain. She was ready for death, wasn't she?

Wasn't she?

"It's up to you," the voice spoke, and though its tones were laced with sorrow she could barely fathom, she understood.

"No. I'm not done yet. I don't want to be done. Piotr…"

"May be forgotten. May be lost with the time that only I can heal you. Do you still wish it?"

"I… yes…" she whispered and gave herself over entirely.

"Come then, Katya. Come with me, though I know not what it will mean."

"Come," Illyana spoke, her voice pained and solemn.