Red America

Part Thirteen: Bringing A Knife Out To A Gunfight

Kitty felt a shiver running down her spine as the woman in the Red Army uniform spoke. There seemed to be a cold, icy determination about her, which seemed to say that she knew exactly how to proceed despite her being outnumbered and outgunned. All she had was the small Soviet pistol, and that was at least three bullets down from a full clip already after her casual murder of Sam. Nowhere near enough for her to take on a squad of rebels by herself, in any case – and yet she still oozed confidence. Perhaps, Kitty supposed, that had something to do with the Soviet soldiers massing outside the glass that closed her in with the rebels, but that alone wasn't enough for her to be so sure of herself.

I don't like this…

"Nothing to say, Logan?" the woman said, raising an eyebrow. "I'd have thought you'd be happy to see me again. After all, we shared so many things, didn't we?"

"We shared jack shit, lady," Logan snarled. "You got my friends killed, and you're gonna die for it." His claws snickered from between his knuckles with a wet rasp of bone against flesh, and Kitty could see his squat, powerful legs tensing for an explosive burst of movement. The woman simply stood and folded her arms, looking totally unconcerned.

"Go ahead, Logan," she said. "I dare you."

Logan growled deep in his throat, and flung himself at the woman – or rather, he tried to fling himself at her, but instead found himself rooted to the spot, his bloody claws slipping back inside his forearms as he did so. Confused, he tried to pull himself away from where he stood, with little success. "Shoot her," he snarled. "Shoot her! She's doin' this! She –" He fell silent then, his mouth falling prey to the same invisible force as the rest of his body.

Kitty didn't need to be told twice. Going for her pistols, she pulled them up and locked her fingers on the triggers… but nothing happened. She tried to fire, but her body wouldn't listen. Every time she tried to move, she felt nothing but a dull buzz as her brain tried uselessly to re-establish contact with her muscles. What the hell is going on here? Seeing her confusion, the woman smiled, and Kitty felt her blood freeze.

"You can't move, little girl, because I am not allowing it. My telepathy is disrupting your brain's access to your muscles, and until I let go, every one of you will stay exactly where you are." She threw her pistol away across the room, where it skittered through the puddle of blood and meat that was still spreading outwards from Sam Guthrie's ruined skull, leaving a smear of red on the pristine floor. Taking her cap off her head, she threw that away as well, and pulled at the band securing her hair, freeing the long tresses in a dazzling blonde cascade. Then she shrugged herself out of her greatcoat, letting that fall to the ground with a heavy thump. Underneath it, Kitty was surprised to see she was clad only in a standard-issue undershirt and combat fatigues – but that paled alongside what she saw lay on the woman's sleekly-muscled arms.

Scars.

Dozens of them, criss-crossed by more scars like tally marks carved in blood, lay along the entire length of both her arms, from the shoulder to the wrist. The woman noticed Kitty looking at her neatly-sliced flesh, and smiled that awful, liquid-nitrogen smile again. "Like what you see?" she remarked matter-of-factly. "Every one of these scars is a kill I made myself." Then she stepped forwards and locked her gaze with Kitty, enjoying Kitty's sense of gut-wrenching fear as she did so. "Do you understand me? I have killed more people than you'll ever be able to count, little girl, and you and your kin are no different to me than animals waiting to be slaughtered." She reached down to her belt and pulled out a vicious-looking combat knife that was easily the length of Kitty's forearm, examining the blade almost absently as she continued "The only real question here is how long I let you survive." She leaned closer to Kitty, poising the point of her blade inches away from Kitty's cheek. "I could put this through your eyes and then cut your face off in slices, and you wouldn't even be able to stop me. I could kill your friends, one after the other, and then let you bleed out through your stomach. I could let them watch me butcher you and paint myself in your blood." She leaned closer to Kitty, brushing the knife ever-so-gently against the skin of her throat, gleefully enjoying the way that Kitty's eyes widened even further and a strangled moan escaped from between her frozen lips. "I could do all of that, little girl… but I'm not going to. No, what you and I are going to do now is far more interesting than that." She pressed the tip of her blade against Kitty's cheek and, with a whisper of movement, took a tiny slice out of the skin, a trickle of blood slipping from the wound. Then, without another word, she simply waved her hand and Kitty's artificially-tensed muscles suddenly relaxed, sending her own pistols clattering to the ground. She staggered, struggling for a moment to keep her balance, and then looked up. The woman was simply standing ready, her weapon raised and its oversized blade glittering evilly. "It's been too long since I bested an enemy in open combat," she said, anticipation shining in her violet eyes. "Come on. Provide me with some sport." Kitty suddenly felt her right hand moving awkwardly towards one of the combat knives at her belt, her fingers grasping slackly at the weapon's handle.

Okay. If that's the way you want to play it, you murdering bitch…

Tightening her grip on her knife, Kitty lunged at the woman, the blade whispering within an inch or so of her side. The woman twisted away, blocking the blow with her own blade and sending a shower of sparks to the floor, where they caused the spreading bloody puddle to hiss and bubble softly. Kitty neatly pirouetted outside of the woman's range, flipping her knife from one hand to the other in order to block a return stroke from her opponent, more sparks flying as the two razor-keen cutting edges clashed again. For a single priceless instant, Kitty saw that the woman's reach was over-extended, her knife only giving her so much protection, so she quickly unsheathed another blade from her belt, ducked inside her opponent's guard and slashed at her face, taking a thin line of skin out of the woman's cheek to mirror the wound on her own. The woman screeched in pain and then retreated back a few paces, touching the fingers of her free hand to her bloodied face for a second or two – and then Kitty was stunned to see her smiling broadly as they continued to circle around like panthers, looking for more openings in each other's defences.

"You get that one for free," she laughed, her violet eyes crackling dangerously. "You won't get any more chances." Then she twirled her blade around in her hand and lashed out at Kitty's left shoulder. Instinctively, Kitty tried to phase, but instead of the knife passing harmlessly through her skin, it stabbed deep into her flesh and scraped the surface of the bone within. Kitty screamed and staggered backwards, the knife's serrated edges tearing more jagged wounds as it slid out of her body and causing her to drop the second knife she'd been carrying. The woman watched, amused, as Kitty struggled to stay upright, blood pouring down her arm, a stunned expression on her face. "Surprised? You don't think I'd fight a girl who can walk through walls without making you as solid as I am, do you? Oh yes – I know who you are, Katherine Pryde. I know what you're capable of."

Kitty felt her stomach churn in horror. How could this woman possibly know who she was?

"I'm this city's overseer, Katherine – it's my job to know everything that goes on," the woman replied without missing a beat, as if Kitty had spoken aloud. She aimed an arcing blow towards Kitty's left thigh, which Kitty only barely managed to block, dragging her knife downwards through air that felt like treacle in order to deflect the point of her opponent's weapon sideways.

"Why?" Kitty gasped, still feeling the after-effects of the wound in her shoulder. "Why did you come here?" She was getting dizzy and nauseous from the unexpected pain, and she was sure that that meant nothing good. "What did we ever do to you?"

"You continued your decadent capitalist lifestyle, naturally," the woman jeered. "Do you know how much better your life would be if you embraced us? There would be no more fighting, no more needless death – but no, you Americans always have to prevail, because you know best." The woman spat contemptuously at Kitty's feet, her lip curled in a sneer. "One finger up your nose and another glued to the remote control. That's your American Dream, isn't it?"

"We care about freedom!" Kitty retorted, swinging her knife wildly so as to lure the woman closer. She wasn't sure it would work, but she was gratified when her opponent took the bait and she was able to unload a punch with her injured arm. It impacted against the woman's cheek and sent her staggering away momentarily, although Kitty was sure from the moment the blow hit that she had probably done more damage to herself than her opponent. She howled as the wounded arm protested violently, but still managed to keep herself upright.

The woman shook her head clear of the brief disorientation the punch had caused, and sneered again. "Freedom? What do you Americans know about freedom? All you want is to be slaves to money and religion. If that's what you call freedom, girl, you can keep it."

"I'll take that over not even being able to think what I want," Kitty snarled, and tried a couple of searching jabs at the woman's mid-section with her dagger. Both times the woman deflected the blade away, and then she followed that up with a kick from her booted foot to the side of Kitty's thigh, folding Kitty's leg under her and making her fall awkwardly to the floor. She sprawled into the blood and grime, feeling its cloying stickiness coating her skin almost instantly and spitting out the metallic, iron tang as it splashed against her lips. Kitty felt her gorge rise as she did so, but she didn't have time to indulge it as she had to twist and block a downward slash by the other woman, rolling aside quickly and forcing a bit of breathing space between her and her opponent. As she did so, she felt a hard, cold metal object hitting her in the ribs, and realised that she had fallen on top of the woman's own Russian Army pistol. Knowing that she had only one opportunity to press this incredible advantage, she grasped the weapon with her right hand, quickly twisted over and aimed the gun right at the woman's heart before she could even register what was happening.

Then she fired.

In the instant between hearing the click of the trigger and the sound of the gun firing, she had just enough time to see the woman's face drain of colour, and then disappear in a cloud of acrid purple smoke that smelt of sulphur. The bullet that would have smashed through her ribcage and pulped her heart instead continued on into one of the front windows of the building, sending cracks spider-webbing crazily across its pristine surface, and Kitty felt a stab of disappointment that she hadn't been able to get such a high-profile kill.

Time to get out of here, she decided, and looked around to where her squad-mates had been standing frozen. Relief echoed throughout her body as she saw that they were all starting to move again, and weren't still frozen into one position. Still, that didn't exactly mean they were all safe just yet – they still had to get past the Soviet troops gathered outside the building. Soviet troops that, from what Kitty could see, were rapidly getting ready to move in and kill them all. She hoped that because the others were starting to move, she could use her powers again as well. Well, there's only one way to find out, Kit…

"Grab onto me!" she cried out, after she'd picked up and retrieved her weapons. "We're getting outta here!" Quickly, Hank, Cecilia, Madrox, Logan and Val made a human chain – but not before Madrox had banged his hand against the wall and created five more dupes, who stayed separate. "Jamie?" Kitty asked, confused. "What are you doing?"

"We got a bag full of plastique sitting here, Kit," the first Madrox dupe replied. "I figure not using it would be a waste."

"But you need more than one person to blow up this much of this shit," the second added.

"So we're gonna do it for you," said the third, fourth and fifth dupes.

"It's gonna hurt like a bitch, but it'll be worth it," the original Madrox said, completing what his sidekicks said. "You guys better do this right." He flipped his first dupe some detonator caps and let the rest of them start scurrying around the lobby, placing the soft, pliable explosive at key points. "Maximum damage, minimum risk." Then he nodded at Kitty, and finished "Now we can get out of here."

Kitty nodded in response, and swallowed. Then she concentrated hard, and cautiously pushed herself out of phase with the rest of the world, carrying her friends with her as she went. It felt good to feel the world go immaterial around her again, and the pain in her left shoulder almost seemed to disappear as it did so. "Hold on, guys," she whispered, and moved out into the firing line of the Soviet troops, the daisy-chain of rebels totally immune to their bullets. Over to her right, Kitty could see the woman she'd just been fighting. Apparently the movement from inside the building to outside had been too quick for her, and she was unable to stand as blood ran slowly from her ears and nose. That explains a lot, Kitty thought, feeling not a bit upset, and she moved through the blizzard of hot lead towards the sealed manhole about three hundred feet in front of her. Twisting her body as much as she could, she unleashed a spray of bullets from her own rifle. It was wildly inaccurate, and didn't hit much of anything – but it made her feel better, anyway. She kept running, keeping Madrox's hand firmly clasped in her own, and risked a look back at the building. The Russian troops were being held back by a carpet of lead from Jamie's dupes, who'd each multiplied a dozen times over, creating duplicates of their weapons and ammunition along with each new Jamie. She was just about to turn her head back towards the manhole cover when she felt the ground tremble violently as the plastique from the bag exploded, shredding the front windows in billows of orange-red flame, and punching gaping holes in the infrastructure. Madrox staggered, blood beginning to pour from his nose as he did so, but Kitty made sure that she kept hold of his hand.

Cecilia wasn't so lucky, though, and the chain of rebels was broken for the briefest instant. Bullets knocked Logan to the ground as he instinctively threw himself in front of Val and Hank, sending him sprawling in a spray of blood and bone chips. Quickly, Kitty went solid again just so that Cecilia, still clutching Hank's pale fingers, could grab Madrox's hand again. Madrox, meanwhile, stomped his booted foot on the cracked tarmac and produced a screen of dupes to shield himself and his comrades from enemy fire, but Logan wasn't fast enough to get back onto the chain. "Go!" he yelled. "I'll be fine!"

"No way, man," Madrox mumbled through bloodied lips, and directed his dupes to stand alongside Logan, firing their rifles again and again. Every time one of them got hit, he grunted in pain and his footsteps got a little slower, but Kitty made sure to keep him upright – and as soon as Logan got reattached to the chain, she set off back to the manhole as quickly as she could. When she got to it, she saw that it was, predictably, welded closed, rigged with dozens of explosive charges and had barbed wire strung around it like Christmas decorations.

"Okay," she said, taking a deep breath. "Everybody hold tight."

And then she jumped down through the manhole cover.

She watched wires, lumps of explosive and knots of booby-trapped pipes float by as she ghosted down to the sewer floor, and she risked a glance above herself to see whether everyone had made it through with her. Astonished, she saw that they were all relatively intact – even if Madrox was still looking close to collapse. She saw her feet were coming close to the stinking floor of the pipe and went solid, enjoying the curse from Logan as he hit the fetid, inky water's surface with a splash. Above ground, she could hear the satisfyingly solid thump of secondary explosions cooking off like popcorn, which she supposed meant that an ammo store in the Empire State had been touched off by the plastique, or one of the fires that were snaking their way through the building. Good. Fuck 'em, she thought sourly, her finger tightening around the trigger of her rifle.

"Everybody stay sharp," she said, stating the obvious just to make herself feel better. "Russkies'll probably be down here soon, so keep an eye out." Then she nodded at Logan and Val. "Any idea where we can go from here that's gonna be safe for more than a few hours?"

"No," Val replied, flatly. "The Ivans probably have all our old bases occupied by now."

"Then we find some new ones," Cecilia said. "Down, but not out, right?"

"Right," Logan agreed. "I'll check with Lorna, see if she can't let us stay with her a while." Then he turned to look Kitty in the eye. "You did good, kid. Maybe I'll let you seduce one of the regional governors after all."

Kitty laughed briefly, more out of relief than anything else. "Shut up, old man."

Logan smiled a rough, jagged smile, and moved towards the front of the group. "I'll take point," he said, popping both sets of claws. "Let's get outta here. We gotta show the Ivans they ain't won this city yet, not by a long shot."

The rebel squad began to move off, and as it did so, Kitty lingered behind a little in order to help Madrox keep up. "You did a very brave thing back there, you know," she said matter-of-factly.

"Yeah," Madrox agreed, grunting in remembered pain. "I'm paying for it now, too."

"Don't worry," Kitty said, patting his hand with her own. "I'll make sure you get a reward when we find somewhere to rest tonight." Gently, she grasped his collar and guided his mouth onto hers for a moment. The release of tension came like a lightning bolt down her spine, and she almost felt her knees folding again. And once again, the pain in her shoulder seemed to disappear. "You're a good guy, Jamie. I'm glad you didn't get killed."

"So am I," Madrox replied. "So do I get kisses like that after every death-defying mission, or what?"

Kitty slapped his arm with the back of her hand. "Oh, shut up, you idiot…"

Comrade-Colonel Elisabeth Braddock had been to Washington DC before, but she had never been quite so uneasy as she was now. The White House, from where the Soviet forces were directed nationally, loomed in front of her like a hanging judge. She still felt a nasty buzz at the rear of her head – an after-effect of the teleportation effect, she'd been told – but she hoped that that would be the worst she suffered today. Flanked on either side by heavily-armed soldiers, she was led through winding corridors until she was standing in front of the doors to the Oval Office.

"Thank you, Lieutenant Marko," she said to the huge, brutish man on her right. His sandy red hair was cut close to his scalp, and a dagger-scar snaked down one side of his face, and Elisabeth could have sworn he was smiling as she turned. Perhaps he'd seen too many senior officers be dragged out of the office and thrown to the Alaskan wolves not to be amused by the simple prospect of such an event, she thought with a sickening sensation of foreboding coiling in the pit of her stomach. She pushed open the door to the office and stepped quickly inside, saluting the man sat at the desk with a quick, efficient gesture. Whatever was going to happen here, she decided that she would at least face it with a little bit of her martial dignity intact.

"Ah, Comrade-Colonel Braddock," the man behind the desk said, saluting her in return after putting down his pen and settling back into his seat. His coal-black eyes fixed on her, and Elisabeth felt the sinking feeling worsening as he did so.

"Comrade-General Lehnsherr," she said, trying to keep a shiver out of her voice. "You asked to see me, sir?"

General Lehnsherr nodded. "I have been sent a report by yourself, detailing the destruction and heavy damage of several key parts of the Empire State Building base by rebel insurgents. Is that correct?"

"Yes, sir." Elisabeth nodded.

"And I also note that KGB operative Major Jean Grey was killed in the incident. Is that also correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"You also had at least two rebel leaders in your custody, and you allowed them to be rescued by their comrades."

"Yes, sir." Just shoot me and get it over with, Elisabeth found herself thinking sourly.

"You also crippled the New York rebel movement for the foreseeable future, and managed a major breakthrough for our military."

"Sir?" Elisabeth was puzzled. "What… what breakthrough?"

"The man called James Logan was a rapid healer, was he not?" General Lehnsherr said. "Your head researcher Doctor MacTaggert managed to isolate the healing factor in his blood and was in the process of replicating it at the time of her laboratory's destruction. Doctor MacTaggert contacted me after the incident and passed on some of the notes she had managed to take with her when your forces removed her from the front line. There was more than enough information in those notes to begin mass-producing the healing enzyme for our soldiers. And since the New York rebel movement is currently in ruins, with their bases and weapons largely under our control, I'd say that the positives in this situation far outweigh the negatives, wouldn't you?" He shrugged, offering her a disarming smile that she didn't find reassuring in the slightest. "The KGB officer's death is of no consequence, if that's what you're concerned about. I have plenty of those." He sat back in his sear and opened a drawer in his desk, pulling out a heavily-annotated map of North and South America and unfolding it onto the desk's surface so that it was facing Elisabeth. Tapping an area of it with a gloved fingertip, he said "Do you know what is happening in California at the moment?"

"There have been violent uprisings against our government there for the past six months," Elisabeth began, reciting the SAFN broadcasts almost from memory, "and the Soviet forces are overstretched almost to breaking point. Reinforcements are necessary, before it becomes a full-scale guerrilla conflict."

"Exactly," General Lehnsherr replied, pointing his finger at her for emphasis. "Our soldiers could benefit from strong leadership on the battlefield. A position there has recently become open for a new Commissar." He waited until realisation dawned on Elisabeth's face, and then reached into another drawer and handed her a bundle of papers. "Here are your new orders, Commissar-Colonel Braddock – good hunting. Dismissed." He stood and saluted her, and Elisabeth returned it with a crisp salute of her own. She turned on one heel then, and marched out of the general's office with a renewed sense of purpose.

Good hunting indeed…

End.