Chapter 5: Meanwhile…

In Summerduck, Tanya sat on the edge of her brother's bed, one of his pillows clutched to her chest. Her head hanging low, she cast a sorrowful glance at the room spread before her. As picky as Larry could be about the state of the house, his own room was suitably messy and cluttered for an eighteen-year-old boy: discarded clothing on the floor, posters for The Exorcist and The Stone Ciphers taped on the wall at odd angles, the desk with the stack of textbooks, various Post-It notes, and the laptop that hadn't been turned off yet. An unfinished World Literature paper was on screen, and when Tanya had made a move earlier to shut down the machine she had found she didn't have the heart to click the little red x at the top of the screen. She decided she'd let Larry turn it off himself when he came home.

When he comes home…

Tanya wiped her eyes. She hated tears, and the grief and vulnerability that came with them. Damn it. Damn everything.

There was a distant sound, someone knocking on the front door. Jumping up, Tanya peeked through the shades. The sky was dark and hazy, but she could see that there were no white vans or huddles of people outside. All the vultures that had been pecking at her door during the day were finally gone, and the single black SAAB parked in the street told her immediately who wanted to be let in. Tanya had locked herself inside, not even going to school, not wanting to have to face the reporters waiting in droves on her front lawn. The one time she had answered their pestering, it had been…unpleasant.

Abandoning the pillow that had given her some small comfort, Tanya left Larry's bedroom and marched down the stairs, not so much as paying a single glance at her father's closed door.

Once on the first floor, Tanya pulled back the chain lock and opened the door a crack, glaring at the person outside with bleary, bloodshot eyes. Her hands shook ever so slightly.

"You were on the evening news," Robert Chalmers said with a cross expression, pushing the door open and slamming it shut behind him. The harsh noise made the girl flinch.

Tanya ignored him. "Where is my brother?"

Chalmers shook his head, folding his arms over his chest. "You know, Tanya, these last few days have been difficult for both of us. But you would make this situation so much better—not for you and me, but for Larry as well—if you wouldn't make a scene in front of the mass media!"

"Oh, please! You weren't here—you didn't hear the things they said! How can you blame me for what I did?"

"Tanya, you threw your shoe at them!"

"And it made them leave!" she protested.

"You'll be lucky if that cameraman doesn't sue you, young lady." Chalmers frowned.

"They asked if Larry was—if he was involved with that…psycho!" She spit the last word out, no longer able to refer to the "psycho" in question as "Dad".

Chalmers replied in a gentler tone, "I know. With everything that's happened to your father…I'm having a hard time convincing the authorities that Larry wasn't involved in Bolivar's work and that he was kidnapped. The timing of all this is just so…" He furrowed his brow. "Forget a boy who is missing and may be hurt, everyone just wants to report on those damn mutants and that robot…!"

"Oh God…Larry didn't know…neither of us knew he was making a murder machine under Bayville! Now Larry's been taken by someone…or kil-" She choked, unable to say it. "It's been days! He needs help…and no one cares!"

Chalmers took a long, hard look at the fourteen-year-old girl standing in front of him and trying to hide her tears. Pale and disheveled, Tanya looked nothing like her usual vibrant self. Grief had hit her hard. And why wouldn't it? Chalmers thought. She's lost her father and her brother within a matter of days. If only I could grieve. If only I could feel anything other than…guilt.

Mr. Chalmers put his arms around the girl he had come to see as a niece, or a surrogate daughter. Words failed him at that painful moment.

"I could have waited!" Tanya wailed suddenly, pressing her face against his shoulder. "I begged him to pick us up…I could have waited for Jessica's mom to do it. I could have waited!"

"Tanya, don't you dare blame yourself for this," he told her sternly.

"Someone tampered with his car. Mrs. Kramer across the street heard tires screeching around the time Larry left. She looked out the window—saw smoke in that alley. Do they think this is some kid's prank? Do they? Larry needs help!"

"I know, I know."

Tanya pushed him away and began to pace in the living room. Her hands were shaking. Is this what a nervous breakdown feels like? she wondered.

"That psycho I have for a father is in jail, Larry's been kidnapped…It's like everything is out of control, crazy…what's happened to this family?"

If Chalmers had any answers, he kept them to himself.

-

In Area 51, Col. Wraith's mood had not improved. Stopping the rampaging Juggernaut from destroying the dam had turned the muties from public enemies to national heroes, and President McKenna had pardoned them fully. Trask was behind bars where he could be monitored or summoned if needed, and that was really the only thing that had gone according to plan. Trask's mutie spawn was still on the loose, and his escape had been one of the most embarrassing spectacles Wraith had ever been forced to take responsibility for. If the backup "cleanup crew" hadn't immediately arrived on the scene and removed the dead men, there would have been a media blitz with staggering consequences.

"Lawrence Trask was of course the killer," explained one of the forensic men that had examined the scene during the formal briefing. "His mutant ability has been reported to be clairvoyance, and he must have seen the attack in his mind and thus knew what to do in order to escape. He employed smoke canisters to take the men by surprise and then killed them with an Excalibur Point Blanc crossbow. He then made his escape, presumably in an unknown vehicle."

"A crossbow?" Wraith asked incredulously. "He killed my men with a frigging crossbow?"

"Yes, sir, though according to the records we uncovered, Lawrence Trask has had no formal training with that weapon, and there are no records of him purchasing it."

Wraith leaned forward, elbows on the black marble table, fingers locked in front of his face. He eyed the subordinates sitting opposite him and rasped, "This was supposed to be easy. Do you have any frigging idea how badly this could have exploded if our plan was exposed? The President of the United States practically kisses Charles Xavier's bald head and we get caught trying to swipe a mutie kid? I'm not talking hate crime bullshit here, you all understand, but a real honest-to-frigging-god catastrophe. Now who here wants to explain to me why no one expected a mutie to fight back?"

A bearded lieutenant cleared his throat for permission to speak. At Wraith's nod he gave his opinion on the matter. "With all due respect, Colonel, retaliation from Lawrence Trask was not something our men could not have expected. His phone call with his father was analyzed, and it was ruled that his mutant power, given how it was not offensive in nature, could not pose a threat to our operatives. And in the possibility that he did foresee our actions, he seemed too confused about his visions to make proper sense of them."

"Well, golly, Higgins, I'm sorry for yelling!" Wraith's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Do not make the same mistakes with this mutie freak again, or it won't be an unexpected attack from him you'll have to worry about! Understand me?"

-

In a small, temporary prison cell aboard one of the SHIELD organization's "flying fortresses," Bolivar Trask had given up pacing in favor of saving his energy for the interrogation he was to receive after landing. It was a cramped, tiny space, slightly bigger than a matchbox, with four reinforced steel walls and a small cot and a toilet; Trask imagined that lesser men would crack in SHIELD's capable hands.

Trask knew he was being monitored. SHIELD did not even try to hide the camera suspended from the high ceiling, but the prisoner was not giving them the pleasure of seeing him break down or tremble. Trask's face was stony, unreadable. He did a remarkable job of hiding the tempest of emotions raging inside of him.

Trask did show a faint glimmer of surprise, however, when the door to his cell unexpectedly opened. By his mental calculations, the flying fortress was not scheduled to reach its destination for another three hours. Three black-clad, armed guards signaled him to leave the cell and follow them.

Typical SHIELD overkill, Trask thought with disdain as his gaze fell on the automatic weapons his escorts carried. He was unarmed, and lacked the training of a soldier or a mutant's ungodly powers, so how the SHIELD superiors thought he would get past one armed guard and escape the heavily armed, maximum-security aircraft escaped him. He certainly didn't have a Sentinel hidden up his sleeve.

Colonel Michael Rossi waited for Trask in a debriefing room, and curtly told him to sit down. Trask hesitated for a microsecond, and felt the heavy hands of one of his escorts on his shoulders, pushing him into a seat. He glared at Rossi, who remained unfazed.

"How are we tonight, Bolivar?" Rossi asked with fake friendliness.

"I want to speak to my children," Trask stated firmly. His eyes remained fixed on the dark-haired colonel in front of him.

"You're forgetting where you are," said Rossi with a tight-lipped smile. "You're in SHIELD's hands now, Trask, and you don't get your one phone call."

"Then understand this," Trask replied, tone unchanging, "Without me, they have no caregiver. Their mother is dead. If you will not grant me my right to speak to them, I expect you to make efforts to see they are looked after."

Rossi's expression darkened. He had personal reasons for disliking Bolivar Trask, reasons that had nothing to do with a rampaging Sentinel or a crusade against Homo superior, and it irritated him severely that Trask thought he could make demands, even now. He had hoped to see him squirm.

"That's just it," Rossi said. "One of your children is missing."

There was a sharp, almost inaudible intake of breath from Trask. His eyes widened, and then narrowed. "What did you say?"

"Your son Lawrence was reported missing by Robert Chalmers four nights ago. He was supposed to pick his sister up from a local library, but never showed up. His car was still parked in front of his home, but there was no sign of him."

Trask said nothing.

Lawrence

"You wouldn't know anything about this, would you?"

Trask stiffened. "You're actually implying I hurt my son." It was not a question.

"No, no…of course not. But we do have reason to believe this wasn't the usual random act of violence or a teenage runaway case. Excellent timing, isn't it? You botch the Sentinel Project, and your son disappears. Your former employers may have had a hand in this. They play dirty, isn't that right?"

Trask said nothing. He thought of Wraith, he thought of his son, and he thought of wrapping his hands around Rossi's throat.

"I have no information to give you, Rossi," Trask spat. "Lawrence was not involved with the Sentinel Project. He didn't have anything to do with it. He's a child."

Rossi leaned forward, resting his elbows on the cold marble table. "Do you think that matters?"

The colonel gestured to one of the armed guards, and then dismissed Trask with a flippant wave of his hand. "That's all. We thought it would be…polite to inform our guest of honor of his family problem. Better you hear it from us than someone else, right?" He grinned at Trask, but then scowled just as quickly. The silently fuming prisoner was led out.

"Don't play games with that man, Mike," a computerized voice said once Trask was gone and the door was shut. Rossi pressed a small blue button on a panel on the tabletop, and spoke into it.

"What can I say, Nick? I want that bastard to fry."

"Don't get sloppy. Bolivar Trask is still dangerous, Sentinel at his beck-and-call or no. His missing kid just complicates things."

Rossi rubbed his eyelids. "You'll have a hard time convincing me Trask Junior is as innocent as his dad claims."

Nick Fury paused a moment on the other line. "Even though he's a mutant?"

Rossi gasped. "A mutant? That's some luck, eh? I wonder if that stony bastard would have cracked if I told him that."

"It's not a laughing matter. Our contact has informed us of the situation. If John Wraith and AEGIS are behind this, we've got trouble."

"What?" Rossi chuckled. "Don't tell me you think Wraith abducted the kid as payback for Trask screwing up and letting their precious prototype run amok in Bayville. It was probably a contractual obligation. Trask's mutie kid has an unfortunate accident, the Sentinel goes online."

Fury's patience was at an end. "Think whatever you want. There is something bigger at work here, that much I'm certain of. I'm willing to take a bet that Trask doesn't know about his son's recent…changes. You are not to tell him. Involving him any further in your personal vendetta will cost you. Fury out."

-

In Caldecott, Irene Adler sat awake in bed, a leather-bound book in her lap. Her eyes were focused on the blank sheets of paper as though she could truly see them, and her pen darted across the page.

She began to plot her next course of action.

-

In the same one-floor house, Larry was transfixed by the sight of his own blood. His hand had slipped while emptying the dishwasher and his palm had grazed the blade of a clean kitchen knife. Tiny crimson droplets fell on the white surface of the open dishwasher, staining it.

Larry didn't register the pain in his hand, though it was as sharp as the knife that had caused it. The blood, and the brief, startling shock, had acted as a trigger in his mutant brain, and Larry was suddenly not there. Mentally, he was no longer in the cramped kitchen, lingering over a knife and his injured hand.

"Destiny has dealt its hand. Do not interfere!"

Inside a temple hidden in the cliffs of Tibet, a ferocious battle takes place. Blows are dealt, pain is felt. Blood is shed. But in the end, everything lays in the hands of a single person—a rogue.

And one of her powerful hands is grabbed by the mummy, the living corpse. The rogue screams, helpless. She is a pawn, a victim, but above all else, the conduit through which he gains his power, and through her he rises.

Apocalypse rises.

Larry returned to the present slowly, shaking. It was the pain that awakened him fully; the blood from the slash had dripped down his fingers, creating a small red pool on the floor.

The nightmares had invaded the waking world.

"God…help me…" he whispered plaintively, before crumpling to the floor on his knees.

-

In Bayville, inside a chamber hidden below the surface of the earth, the device known as Cerebro detected and logged the mutant signature of Lawrence Trask.

Author's Notes: And there's part the fifth, showing what everyone else has been up to the last few days. Glad to write Tanya again. She's fun. (And yes, she's important too.) Next chapter: Guess who's in town? Yes, it's the chapter in this X-Men fic where the X-Men actually show up! (Gasp!) What will Rogue have to say about her foster mother's new houseguest?

Thanks for reading, all! Sandoz