Editor's Note: Just a word of warning: there are a few racial epithets listed here. Epithets are horrid things, to be sure, but they're hard to avoid when you're writing about hatred, and the nightmares it causes.... :/
Sinister Designs: Chapter 5
Katherine Pryde was strapped to the table, nude, in the darkened room. It wasn't so much that there was no light at all, but it was dim, and things were oddly indistinct. There was a hand behind her, a huge robotic thing that supported her head like some demented pillow, but whenever she tried to move it squeezed her neck until she could barely breathe. Phasing was out of the question. The men around her wore lab coats, but their faces were blurred, like digitized, unwilling participants on a reality show. Their scalpels looked like felt pens.
Oh God, this is a dream. This is a dream. Wake up.
The drew on her words that cut and left her bleeding. Cut places no one should even touch. Jewess whore. Mutant traitor. Kike. Yid. Marimé. Filth. Voices alternately shouted and whispered echoing nonsense in the shadowy void around her.
Wake up. Wake UP!
The huge armored hand behind her locked into place, and she was now on the cockpit of an amplifier suit, while the faceless ones continued their writing, burning through flesh into bone. She was being prepared as a pilot.
Wake UP, dammit!
She forced her eyes open, forced herself to awaken, forced herself to look at the lit table lamp by her bed. She couldn't yet move anything but her eyelids. She laid there on her side, the nightmare scrabbling at the back of her mind, trying to drag her once more into its depths, lulling her with the false promise of sleep. The room, her room, darkened momentarily as the vision tried to reassert itself. She kept her eyes open. In a few seconds, the darkness was gone.
She blinked and moved her arms. Those indistinct voices suddenly snapped into focus as she looked around the dorm room. Jubilee and Siryn were talking in urgent, low tones; something about who had more information. They hadn't noticed Kate was awake yet. The door to the room was open, the hall lit brightly, and people were running up and down its length.
"Kitty?" someone whispered behind her.
Kate turned quickly and looked back at Rosa, their newest student. She sat on her own bed, dressed in Artie's jeans and Rhane's slightly oversized cable sweater, her knees tucked to her chest. Shaking and scared out of her mind.
"Rosa?" Kitty asked groggily. "What's... what's going on?"
"Theresa, I told you you were talking too loud!" Jubilee whispered harshly.
"Just because I can shatter glass doesn't mean I don't know how to be quiet!" Siryn shot back.
"No, no, it's all right," Kate told them as she sat up. "I was having a nightmare anyway."
"The metal thing, it took Hank," Rosa whimpered, her eyes brimming with tears. "Is on television."
When Rosa first arrived, not two days ago, she couldn't speak a word of English. After a few private sessions with Professor Xavier, she was up to basic conversation. Kate remembered that Xavier was supposed to have done the same with a few other students, notably Piotr, but hearing about something after the fact and seeing the changes were two different things entirely.
"Metal thing?" Kate repeated, looking from Rosa to Jubilee to Siryn.
"One of those damned, bloody suits," Theresa said. "Attacked the lot of them at dinner. Took Nathan, Isidro, and Moira too."
"Rhane's having fits," Jubilee added. "She wants to go down there and start tracking them or something."
"Oh, Jeez, that's right," Kitty muttered as she swung her legs over the side of the bed. She noticed she was still in her clothes. "Moira's her godmother."
"Well, duh! She brought her to the institute last year herself!"
"What if it come here?" Rosa whispered in a choked voice. "What if it come for me again?"
Rosa was under so much stress that it was a wonder she wasn't "reverting" again. Kate reached out and gently grabbed Rosa's arm.
"Rosa, do you know what my power is?" Rosa shook her head, and Kitty continued, "I go through things like a ghost. And do you know what happens when I go through computers and electrical stuff?" Again, Rosa didn't know. "I kill them. I kill them deader than hell. That's why I'm always so careful around computers. I saw some of Hank and Scott's schematics on those suits. I know just where to go through them to cripple them. Okay?"
Rosa swallowed and nodded. At that instant, a flock of Jamies ran down the hall, each one stopping at a different doorway, including theirs.
"We got satellite photos," he panted. "They're on TV in the rec room."
Rosa gave a odd whine, and something moved under the sleeve in Kitty's grasp. Kitty looked back. That last bit of information must have done it: poor Rosa was changing.
Kitty held her breath. She'd often seen Rhane's transformation into a wolf, her face elongating into a muzzle, the fur blossoming onto her face and sweeping across her skin like a reddish-brown tide. Rosa's was similar, if with a far more disturbing result. One thing Rosa had over Rhane, though: when Rosa was finished, she could still wear clothing, even if the jeans just went down to her new "knees". Rhane was a bit more tricky: wolves and clothing didn't exactly mix.
Kitty looked back at Theresa and Jubilee, a pained grimace on her face. "Guys, I gotta get down there. Can you...?"
Theresa stepped in and gently guided Rosa off the bed. "C'mon, dearie, it's okay. You wanna come down with us?"
Kate didn't stay long enough to see the outcome: she left Jubilee and Siryn there as she phased through the bed down into the main hall. She slowed her descent just enough to avoid a broken ankle as she hit the hardwood floor running. The TV was on and blaring in the next room over.
"Again, a terrorist attack has happened in Washington DC, barely a mile from the White House. According to eyewitnesses, a large robot, standing anywhere between one and two stories high, popped out of a tractor-trailer and headed straight for the Jefferson-A Loews Hotel --"
Exactly where Hank was staying, Kate thought. Who the hell narked on them? Security should be tight as a drum!
She looked in the rec room. The boys must have learned about the news broadcast first, because they were all there, standing around the TV. The adults were all absent. Kitty "walked" up a few steps into the air and hovered near the ceiling for a better look. She was in luck: the newscasters chose that time to replay an overhead view of the battle. The amplifier suit was the exact same model as the ones that attacked the institute in March, and it was being peppered by a chain gun. Jamie was wrong, or these were different shots than what he had seen; those were much too low to be satellite photos, and the wrong angle besides. These had to be from someone's steady cam, maybe from the helicopter that was doing the shooting....
"You're seeing the view from the pilot of the Apache gunship as he fired on the unknown machine," the broadcaster said calmly. "Keep in mind the caliber of weapon being used, and note that the assailant is only suffering minor, cosmetic damage. The armor has been likened to that of an M1 Abrams...."
Makes an Abrams look like tin foil, Kitty thought. I've seen the metallurgical analysis. And where's Pete? Where's Bobby, Scott, even Kurt? Have they already gone? I didn't hear the Blackbird lift off....
The rest of the girls were thundering down the stairs, as well as a few more Jamies, one of which "winked out" as he passed under Kate. No one had noticed her up above them like that. Where were the teachers? Where were the Xmen?
She phased through the wall behind her. Maybe they were in the study. That was the easiest "war room" to get to. As she plunged through empty rooms and neared her goal, she could hear voices. Rhane's was the most shrill.
"Ye've got to take me with you!" she shouted. "I can track her! I can find her!"
"So can I, kiddo, and I'm bulletproof," Logan answered. "You ain't."
"Ye can't keep me out like this!"
Kitty stopped in the darkened hallway just outside the open door. Then she got on her hands and knees and peeked into the study, her head just a foot off the ground, hoping the lower position would keep her from being immediately spotted.
All the Xmen were there. All were in uniform. Every seat was taken, much of the floor was occupied, and Kurt, as usual, stuck to the ceiling like a big blue gecko. How he kept from getting dizzy with all his blood rushing to his head that way, Kitty would never know. Only Rhane and the professor were in "civilian" attire. The tension was too thick for a mere knife to cut. Cyclops was pacing around a small open spot on the floor. He always seemed to be pacing these days.
"Two minutes too late," he snarled, flexing his hands into fists. "Two damn minutes. Two more minutes, and we would have known about Nathan."
"Knew about Nathan"? What the hell? What was going on with Nathaniel? Unless.... No, he couldn't be... He'd known Hank and Moira for years. He couldn't be the informant....He wouldn't betray two close friends....
Iceman voiced the questions swirling around Katherine's mind. "What's happening with Nathan?"
"Turns out he and Mr. Sinister share an email address. And a whole shitload of other stuff," Logan growled.
White hot daggers went through Kate; through her heart, her lungs, her chest. Dear God, no. This couldn't be true....
"So he.. wasn't kidnapped with the rest of them?" Rogue asked, with slow, horrific realization in her voice.
"Can you say 'cover up' boys and girls? I knew you could."
"The whole thing was just a way for him to disappear before we blew the whistle," Cyclops added.
"They must have put all this into motion the second we started poking around in their systems," Storm said.
"Earlier," Xavier told her. "This must have been planned since they knew about Hank and Isidro's coming. That semi had been in the city for three days."
"Has Miss Angstrom been able to tell us anything else at all?" Kurt asked softly.
"Considering that she's undergoing emergency surgery, I doubt we'll hear anything for quite a while."
"At least we got one witness," Rogue muttered. "One who don't believe Magneto was behind it all."
"Where we going, prof?" Logan asked. "Say the word. We been ready all damn day."
"Ye've got to take me with you!" Rhane shouted again.
"Rhane! You aren't going and that's final!" Professor spoke sternly. "Even Scott isn't going! Someone has to guard the school!"
Colossus looked down at Cyclops with bewilderment. "You are not going?"
Cyclops whirled on Colossus. "You think I want to stay behind? You think I want to sit on my hands while God knows what happens to Hank? The fact is we can't leave this place undefended. You'll need Logan to track people down, Kurt to get them out of there, and Ororo to pilot the blackbird and take care of any high fliers." He poked Colossus in the chest. "And guess who gets to go toe-to-toe with those things? Especially if you meet another one with a forcefield?"
Cyclops looked down and away, forcing himself to something like a state of calm. For a second, Kitty swore he looked right at her. But the moment passed, and Cyclops didn't say a word about her.
"I'm the one who's mission replaceable, as far as skill and power goes," he said. "And I can take an enemy down before they get close to the school." He faced Iceman and Rogue. "And you guys are needed here, too. If I go down, you've got to take my power and keep shooting, Rogue. And Bobby--"
"You'd better rethink me not coming along," Iceman interrupted. "If we get to one of those labs, and we come across things like hydraulics, coolants for power plants -- maybe we just need to make the damn things slip up for a few feet."
"Bobby--"
"We're talking long range, untraceable, industrial sabotage!" Iceman exclaimed. "If we have to screw up the offices of FOH, and we don't want anyone to know we did it -- I've been practicing freezing anti-freeze, for God's sake! And the evidence will melt -- not even fingerprints!"
"I hate to say this, Scott, but Bobby has a point," Storm said. "If we want to 'gum up the works', he's going to be vital. Especially if we have to go somewhere that hides under a shroud of respectability."
"You think we'll have to take out Nathan's labs?" Logan asked.
"We might, but I doubt he's stupid enough to use them for this. Those photos...." Storm's voice caught. She swallowed and began again. "Those pictures were of small labs, not much larger than a portable classroom, and everything was bolted to the walls. You know what that says to me? Especially considering our 'friend's' habits of using semis?"
"Mobile labs," Kurt finished. "They could... they could be killing someone as they go down a highway, right next to a school bus. How do you track something like that down?"
Katherine scrambled back and leaned against the hallway. The Xmen were leaving on a mission to rescue Hank and the others. FOH was behind this. And Nathan was working for FOH. He was Mr. Sinister. Mister Goddamned "mutants are my lab rats" Sinister. Damn him. Kate's face flushed hot, her teeth clenched. Damn him! She'd read every theory that rat bastard put out! He'd earned two Nobel Peace Prizes! PEACE prizes! She idolized him! The world idolized him! And now.... Now he'd joined a bunch of hateful, vicious, ignorant pricks that wanted to maintain "genetic purity" at all costs. Maybe he was even leading them. The emails said he and Larry Trask were working together....
And she had idolized him. She sank through the floor, ashamed of the tears that welled in her eyes. In the study, the discussion went on.
"I was guessin' Cerebro," Rogue posed a tentative answer to Kurt's question. "Y'all found me with it two or three times."
"And if he ain't in the US anymore?" Logan asked. "Maybe he went back to Europe or Mexico or wherever he pulls this mad scientist crap?"
"No matter what, the Blackbird must be ready to go," Kurt said. "Cyclops, do you want me down there now?"
"I want everyone down there except Rhane and Rogue." He fixed Iceman with an unnerving, emotionless stare. "I don't like doing this, Bobby, but I like the idea of losing a tactical advantage even less. Don't you dare get killed on us."
"I just hope I don't run into my little brother," Iceman said quietly as he left the room. "It'd be just my luck to find he'd answered FOH's latest 'Soldiers of Purity' recruitment drive."
TBC....