Church of Humanity Lawsuits Settled
Former CIA Operative Still Faces Criminal Charges
Washington DC- In a move that defied the expectations of even her own attorney, mutant ex-spy Kassandra Altheim insisted upon settling with the families of the eleven men she killed prior to ordering a raid on the Church of Humanity's compound outside of Butte, Montana, and two more who died shortly thereafter.
"This by no means qualifies as an admission of guilt," said attorney Jack White. "It was Miss Altheim's hope that settling out of court would simply save the families some additional heartache."
A spokesman for the victims' families had this to say: "We might believe that this gesture was motivated by remorse. But it could also be an attempt to buy justice. There can be no justice and no reasonable expectation of closure for these families and those of all the others lost in the raid until this woman is at the very least put away for good."
Closure? What closure? There was only moving from one stage of grief to the next. Even accepting the reality was a stage of grief, not the end of it. Beating the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants into pulp- some of them twice- brought her no closure after they murdered her father. When Magneto's evil inclination took an all-too-brief vacation during Kassandra's last year at the Institute, she saw how the crimes he'd committed tormented his restored conscience. She did not have closure then. If Magneto, Pyro, Mystique, and Sabretooth were all locked up for life or even executed, she would not have closure. Even if she had the twisted satisfaction of killing them herself. No. Justice might be done from time to time. Acceptance, yes. Hopefully even reconciliation and healing. But closure? Never in this reality. Expecting it would always be unreasonable. It was only a pipe dream entertained by people who either never suffered a tragic loss, or never cared enough to notice if they had. An empty word never used by people who really understand.
A lump formed in Kassandra's throat, and fat, hot tears splashed onto the afternoon newspaper that now shook in her hands.
"Kassandra?" A friendly hand rested itself upon her shoulder. "What's the matter? You look like you've been through-"
"Don't say it, Jack. But you're right. I'm not feeling very well at the moment."
Not feeling well? Jack was only vaguely familiar with what Kassandra's abilities were- just enough to know that "not feeling well" either meant she would feel fine in a second, or big trouble was on the way. "Well, I could arrange to postpone the hearing if you think it will help."
"Nein, danke. We need to get this over with."
"Your honor," said Fitzsimmons, "the people charge the defendant, Kassandra Altheim, with eleven counts of murder in the first degree, twenty one counts of murder in the second degree, two counts of first degree manslaughter, four counts of treason, and one count of burglary."
"And how does the defendant plead?"
"Not guilty on all charges, Your Honor," said Jack.
"Mr. White, is your client all right?" The Honorable Thelma Montgomery had tried young killers before, and was all too familiar with the scared, vulnerable kid act they could pull in court to get sympathy. What shocked her was how this accused traitor and mass murderer looked like she could almost get away with that. And she didn't try. But she did look like she was going to be sick.
"Let's get on with it," the girl said.
"Very well. What do the people recommend?"
"As Miss Altheim has friends and family in countries not likely to extradite, and given the magnitude of the charges and the fact that she is a mutant," said Fitzsimmons, "the people recommend that she be remanded to federal custody pending trial."
Judge Montgomery noticed the girl exchanging whispers with her attorney. "Mr. White, does the defense have anything to say?"
"We do, Your Honor," said Jack. "We have evidence in emails, phone records, surveillance, and eyewitness accounts that Miss Altheim had several times refused opportunities to flee to the Bahamas, or even to leave the country at all. She also had only just recently moved to her current address in McLean. And finally, she had told her sister that she intended to face justice. If she posed any flight risk at all, she would have been gone by now. Also, she does not have a criminal record outside of these allegations. There is no evidence that, regardless of her mutation, she poses any threat to the community."
Jack was interrupted by a flurry of frantic gestures and whispers from the girl, who was looking worse by the moment.
"Well, I think I've heard enough for now," said Judge Montgomery. "I'll take five minutes to consider. And Miss Altheim, I recommend you take that time to get some fresh air or a drink of water. I don't put up with people playing sick in my courtroom. I'm certainly not going to tolerate the real thing."
"Thank you, Your Honor," said Kassandra, as she got up, and bolted for the restroom.
And got there at just barely the right moment.
Sometimes, subconscious awareness of an imminent tragedy was all it took to pull her involuntarily out of time. And this was more than subconscious. She knew what was wrong the same way someone without the healing factor might notice a cerebral spinal headache. And it was almost as gut-wrenchingly, excruciatingly physical. She pulled off the power inhibitors the court had started making her wear.
And just like it was with the Adversary or the Marauders, Kassandra was immediately zeroed in on what was wrong. And she could not look away. But if there was any truth in what that repulsive man said, she was not powerless to prevent it, even from a restroom in Washington DC.
Now what was it he intended for her to do? Create a localized temporal warp field large enough to encompass the spatial rift the teleporters' combined powers were creating? She hadn't attempted anything of that magnitude since her own ill-fated encounter with the Adversary, but, theoretically speaking anyway, while it would cost her, she could do it. And from the convenience of where she was, at least as far as space was concerned, she could see events and manipulate time even on an uncharted and unfortunately named Atlantic island, where the dimensional boundaries seemed weakest. Slow time down within the confines of her field to give the army assembled on the other side of the rift the advantage of extratemporal speed? Not a chance, particularly with Logan, Jubilee, Iceman, Havok, Husk, and young Carter Ghazikhanian there. But she could try something similar.
She certainly couldn't do nothing. Already, the strain of combining their powers to hold open the spatial rift was taking a toll on the teleporters assembled on that island. Indeed, Mein Gott!- some appeared to be melting together. Just as if- how did Beast put it?- electrons were forced to orbit through the space within other atoms, to produce not a molecular bond nor nuclear fusion, but quite simply atoms sharing the same space at the same time. But of course, that was all academic in light of the grisly reality. The man apparently was being half-truthful. They were already dying. Her inaction could kill all of them. As, on the other hand, any mistake on her part could kill them and many, many others.
So she got to work. And it was actually harder for her to create localized fields and manipulate the flow of time than it was to stop it altogether. Though stopping time was hard physically, temporal manipulation took more control and concentrated effort. But within the dimensional rift, time would flow indeed at a different rate than on the rest of that island. She'd speed it up. And for just one critical heartbeat at the right moment, for any longer could endanger all but maybe Logan, she would stop time around the lines of everyone on the island, outside the rift, giving them every advantage she could, right… here it is…NOW!
The mutant who had for so long called himself Azazel that he and many others began to believe that was who he really was, claimed he knew the dimensional currents in his little pocket universe like he knew his own tail. But nothing he knew could account for why his army took so long to arm and assemble, and why it seemed his side of the portal was so slow in opening to let through anything other than a couple of bowshots. Except for maybe… he opened a dimensional window to look in on the time-rider. And saw her, or rather, what appeared to be two blurry images of her superimposed on each other, in that restroom, and yet somehow not exactly there. And looking simultaneously sickened and giddily intoxicated with anxiety and righteous fury. The rotten little sneak. She somehow knew exactly what he wanted of her, and was doing the exact opposite. He would just have to push the few of his children that had any strength left to hold the gateway open a bit longer. And then his mental control over them slipped. His strongest telepathic blast accomplished nothing. In came the X-Men.
And the dimensional portal was destroyed.
A clerk walked into the restroom. "Miss Altheim, the recess is up- oh my God!"
"Ich konnte sie… nicht alle retten…"
