: HOUSE OF CARDS :
PART THREE : CONSCIENCE
(8) - Poison -
Winter 2009
His name was Art Rogers.
He was of average height and average weight and average looks, a low level lab technician on the brand new Sentinel Mark 3 project, an average scientist of average intelligence, who was just about your usual average nobody.
It was strange then, that Irene had had an unusually clear vision of him being the very designer who would launch a new and ultimately deadly version of Sentinel on the world. The vision had been so clear, in fact, that it had led Mystique to take instant and decisive action.
It had been a warm and balmy day in mid-June that Rogue had gatecrashed the house party being held at his plush new Long Island apartment with the express purpose of stealing his most valuable notes on the Mark 3 project - notes that would ultimately lead to a new discovery in Sentinel technology that would consequently never be discovered.
There had been so many people there that Rogue had blended into the crowds fairly easily, although she had begun to think that maybe her choice of dress hadn't been appropriate, because a lot of men had ended up staring at her. It was the first time she'd worn a dress since her days with the X-Men, and she had been ill at ease wearing the simple yet slightly flirty red ensemble. Nevertheless, at the time she'd considered it one of the easiest assignments Mystique had ever handed to her. She'd managed to slip into Art Rogers' study with complete ease and without attracting anyone's attention.
Irene's vision had been very precise. The notebook she was looking for was small, made of black, bound leather, and had the initials 'S:M3' emblazoned in gold pen over the front. Rogue had only had misgivings when she'd stepped into the room and discovered that Art Rogers possessed a whole library of texts. She'd spent fifteen minutes rifling through the first few bookshelves with no success, when she'd heard footsteps in the corridor outside. She'd stayed very still. Surely no one would go into a boring old study during a party?
Unfortunately, the door had swung open before she had time to hide herself, and she'd been very much surprised to find the lank, unimposing frame of Art Rogers himself in the doorway, holding two jackets in his hand.
She'd been cornered, caught red-handed.
For some reason, she'd found herself saying: "Run out of cloakroom space, huh?"
He'd stared at her from behind suspicious brown eyes and asked: "Who are you?"
And suddenly the answer had appeared to her from out of nowhere and she'd known instinctively what to say. She'd smiled coyly, seductively, trailed a hand down the front of her red dress and said: "A gift from the guys back at the lab."
In every way, it had been the right thing to say. He'd looked over her once with growing enlightenment. Then he'd licked his lips.
"From the guys, huh?" he'd answered huskily, feigning casualness.
"A house-warming present," she'd agreed.
She thought he'd at least want to take some time for the matter sink in. She couldn't have been more wrong. Instead something had crossed his face, a dark smile she'd recognised instinctively; he'd thrown the coats aside and locked the door behind him, then looked back at her with something like expectancy in his eyes. It had been a cue that needed no articulation. She'd needed no other prompting. Unwilling, but unable to find any other way out, she'd gone to him, pressed herself against him, undone the top button of his shirt and purred: "Congratulations," in a tone she hadn't recognised.
Surprisingly and somewhat disturbingly, it was an act she had found she was able to perform to perfection. All the many men she'd absorbed told her exactly what they wanted from a woman, and when she'd raised her lips to kiss his, it had been perfunctory, fleeting. He hadn't wanted her kisses.
Instead he'd moved away from her, pushing all the clutter away from the desk to make room for her. At that moment something inside her had balked, disgust, repulsion; but she'd followed his lead anyway, lain back on the cold hard desk whilst he slipped a long-fingered hand under her dress and ran it crudely over her thigh, undoing his shirt with the other. It had taken an inhuman effort to keep the sultry expression on her face and not to push him away, but somehow she'd managed it. It was only when he'd finally leaned in to place his mouth on hers that she'd pulled, pulled with all the strength that she possessed.
Nothing had happened.
She'd pulled so hard and nothing had happened.
When it was finished he'd muttered his thanks, zipped up his pants and left her there in his study. She'd sat up, trembling, her mind numb, her body aching in a new and horrible way she hadn't been able to identify, that she hadn't wanted to.
It had been so incredibly easy, so incredibly repugnant, to turn a man into a fool.
Who had been the worse fool, she thought later?
Him or her?
When she'd got back and they'd sat in front of the incinerator watching the little black book burn, Forge had told her that the reason her absorption powers hadn't worked was probably down to the fact that the government was now outfitting all of its employees with the latest in nano-technology - mutant power disrupters, nanomachines that were injected straight into the bloodstream and that nullified the powers of any mutant in a ten-metre radius.
He'd heard rumours about it, but hadn't known it was already in use.
There had been a faintly admiring tone to his voice as he'd said it.
Rogue had sat there staring at the fire. For some reason she'd found herself thinking of Remy, and if there had been one person she would have gone to now, it would have been him - though she didn't know why. She didn't know him, didn't know where he was, didn't know if she'd ever meet him again, or if he gave a damn where she was. But if she could have gone to him and buried her face in his chest and wept, somehow it would have made it all better.
Perhaps.
Mystique had looked at her with a long, appraising stare, as if in some indeterminable way Rogue had proved herself, not only to Mystique, but to the cause itself.
The look had made Rogue physically sick.
That night was the first she'd spend an hour in the shower, and it would not be the last.
-oOo-
Months had passed since then.
Rogue stood in front of the mirror and twirled a lock of white hair absently round her right forefinger. The dress was strapless, elegant, gracefully contrived of virginal white satin, hugging her breasts and hips like a second skin. She looked beautiful, distinguished - she looked like a lady. Maybe three years ago she would have bought it without a second thought, even if it had bared enough skin to turn her into a lethal weapon - she would have bought it even then, taken it home and dressed up in it in the privacy of her own room, stood in front of the mirror and twirled around like a little girl first discovering her femininity.
She wouldn't buy it now. She had no one to wear it for, not even herself - there were only the men whose lives so sordidly intersected with her own. And she didn't want them to see her looking like this, looking like the woman she'd always hoped she would be.
She sighed, but something possessed her to stand a little longer and admire herself. From the cubicle next door, two young women were giggling, obviously finding their choice of garments amusing. There was something so nostalgic about the sound that Rogue found herself smiling slightly to herself. At least somewhere on the outside life was going on regardless; at least someone would still be laughing, even if it couldn't be her. Regretfully she unzipped the dress, hung it back on its hanger and slipped into her own plain clothes, still wordlessly admiring it every now and then. She hadn't known she could be tempted by such frivolities anymore.
When she was dressed she stepped outside the cubicle, taking the dress with her as if she didn't want to let it go. She was being ridiculous and she knew it, but she couldn't help it.
"Will you be taking that, ma'am?" asked the cheery salesgirl standing outside the changing rooms.
Rogue smiled apologetically and handed the dress back with a truly remorseful look on her face.
"Sorry, but Ah really don't think it's me," she said.
The women in the adjoining cubicle whispered something and giggled again as she left.
Rogue walked out onto the sidewalk and pulled the collar of her jacket up to shield her face from the wind. December was unfolding with brisk, Arctic winds that left people walking along the streets huddled into themselves. There was no time or strength left for talk. It was truly unsociable weather. Rogue didn't mind the weather so much; she minded the unsociability even less. She walked back towards base with the heaviness of expression that one wears when one is wreathed in their own thoughts. She was thinking that maybe she should have bought the dress after all - maybe it would've given her a reason to feel good about herself for a change.
It had been almost six months to the day since the incident with Art Rogers. In the aftermath of that event she'd gone through a crisis of sorts; a strange crisis of identity that even she had not been able to fully fathom.
The event had left her with one vital question: - if even her absorption powers were now useless, what weapon did she have left? And the answer had been staring her right in the face. What had happened with Art Rogers had been an accident, a terrible, horrible accident, but it had been a fortuitous one nonetheless. Fortuitous because it had uncovered the very last weapon left in her possession - her beauty, her looks, her mystery, her mystique.
She had a hold over men and it was a weapon that had uses of its own.
Nevertheless, it was one she took little joy from.
Now that absorbing her targets was almost always impossible, she had found herself using this weapon more and more. Sometimes flirting with her targets was enough; sometimes it was not and she would have to go further. It was disgusting and disturbing but not terribly difficult. It would have been more difficult if, that first time when she'd encountered Art Rogers, she had still been a virgin. If that had been the case she would not have been able to do what she did. But since it had not been the case, she was now able to create a certain detachment from her body and from the actual act itself - but it was only a limited form of detachment because she could never quite escape her body, just as she could never quite escape the psyches that still haunted her mind.
It was a strange and unpleasant form of irony that where once she had loathed her ability to absorb souls, she liked this newfound power over men even less.
She turned a corner, only to find that the next street was virtually empty. People were tired of fighting the wind and were escaping into cafés or diners or department stores, or jumping into their cars and heading towards the safety of home. The only other people on the sidewalk were two lovers, running in her direction, laughing, entwined together by a flimsy, fly-away scarf that was draped about both their shoulders in a futile attempt to ward off the cold.
She only just managed to dodge them as they raced past, chuckling conspiratorially between themselves in a fashion that she didn't think she would ever understand.
She wondered about Remy often these days. The first few months it had been relatively easy to forget him, but now that her circumstances were entirely different, she had found her mind drifting to him more and more often. Somehow, throughout the hard slog of all the intervening years between the dissolution of the X-Men and this very moment, nothing had felt more real to her than the one night she'd spent in his company. It had only been a momentary fling, a meaningless roll in the haystack; and yet compared to that one single event, everything else that had happened in the past three and a half years felt like somebody else's very bad nightmare.
Perhaps she had managed the inevitable and had finally disassociated herself from her own life, her own mind, and her own inner workings. It seemed an attractive plausibility except for the fact that she felt very much alive and very much conscious of everything going on around her, however vaguely and indistinctly.
Not that any of this particularly mattered. Not anymore. She had known the morning after she'd slept with Remy that he had changed her into a creature she barely knew, and maybe that was why she had difficulty recognising herself. Maybe that was why selling herself to other men wasn't terribly difficult. Maybe if Remy had decided to take responsibility for what he'd done to her, maybe if he'd given her some acknowledgement of his part to play in her corruption she would have been bothered. But he hadn't, and she wasn't.
If she had been bothered, she didn't think she'd be alive anymore.
She stopped abruptly in the doorway of a fancy patisserie and looked back over her shoulder. There wasn't a soul in sight, apart from the couple who were now far off in the distance, still giggling. She stood a moment, peering warily down the street before stirring herself and finally moving on.
It wasn't the first time she'd got the feeling she was being followed. It had happened once or twice before, on odd occasions over the past couple of months - but there had never been anyone there to prove that she was being tailed. Still, as she wandered down the street a little further, she stopped, feigning interest in the electronics display in a nearby shop window, turned, backtracked for several yards, and then unexpectedly turned off into an alleyway. Once there she began walking very quickly, making her way through the maze of interconnected paths, before exiting onto a totally different block altogether. It was only then that she felt she might have shaken off any potential tracker, imaginary or otherwise.
It hadn't escaped her notice either, that she was quite possibly becoming paranoid.
Maybe Ah am goin' mad after all…
She didn't think it mattered which path she chose to walk from now on. Whichever one she chose, all roads would inevitably lead back home.
-oOo-
When she arrived back at headquarters, the first person she encountered was Dom on his way to the kitchen.
"There you are," he remarked, the usual slow, indolent grin on his thickset face. "Raven's been having a fit wondering where you were."
"Ah was out," she replied curtly, shrugging off her duster and hanging it over a nearby peg. "What, ain't Ah allowed to have some time to myself anymore?"
"I ain't gotta problem with it," Dom shrugged. "But you know what Mystique gets like about her 'darling daughter'." His grin grew wider, showing an indomitable set of off-white teeth. "The mothering instinct in that woman is enough to scare off little children. I guess I can kinda understand why you decided to run off with Xavier's Brady Bunch."
"Ah did not 'run off' with them," Rogue retorted acidly, hands on hips. "Ah made a decision and Raven accepted it, even if she didn't approve of it. Sometimes Ah just think she needs to learn that Ah'm a grown woman and not a kid anymore," she muttered as a belligerent afterthought.
"Yeah, well, try telling her that to her face," Dom remarked with a distasteful smirk. "I'm sure as hell not gonna. Raven'd string me up from my ankles if I even said the slightest little thing about her precious widdle Roguey-Woguey."
"Gimme a break, Dom, it's not like Ah ask to be teacher's pet," she grumbled, brushing past him and into the kitchen.
"Well, could you at least suggest to her that St. John and I be given more interesting assignments?" he probed, following right behind her and flipping on the kettle switch while she poured herself a glass of water. "You always get all the exciting jobs. It ain't fair."
"Ah just do what Ah'm asked t' do," she answered stiffly, turning her back on him and lifting the glass to her lips.
"Yeah, but only for them, right?" he returned snidely. "For the X-Men. Don't deny it. Ever since you came back last year saying you'd found out some of them were still alive, everyone's known it. Even Raven knows it. You stick with us 'cos you think one day we'll be strong enough to break them free. Isn't that right?"
She stared at her face in the limpid pool of water, her mouth hard, her eyes pellucid and unblinking.
"So what if Ah am?" she muttered darkly.
The kettle had boiled, but he ignored it.
"C'mon, Rogue, they're a dead-loss," he reasoned, frustrated. "I think that fact was proved when old cueball was killed while he was preachin' love and peace to the frickin' military. Statics and mutants can't live in harmony, and his death proved that beyond doubt. Dammit, get a clue Rogue!"
She was bristling; the hairs on the back of her neck were actually standing on end.
"You have no right to talk about Xavier like that," she growled through gritted teeth, but he merely laughed dissonantly.
"Face it, Rogue, Xavier fucked up. The X-Men fucked up. That's why they're in concentration camps - if of course they are in camps at all, since you never did satisfactorily explain just how you came by that information. Is there any reason for that, Rogue?" She could feel him suddenly step up behind her, his face close to her ear as he added softly, menacingly: "Could it be you're still in contact with the X-Men?"
She could hardly believe how close to the mark he'd truly come. Before she could think she slammed the glass back onto the counter and rounded on him.
"How dare you insinuate -!"
"Why? Would it be so hard to believe? You survived, didn't you? So did Forge. Well, why not someone else?"
He was close, that expansive, sarcastic grin filling his face, and she glared at him, refusing to back down…
"If that was true," she hissed at him, bringing her face to within an inch of his, "Then Ah wouldn't be here right now, talkin' to you."
She whipped away from him, picking up her glass and walking towards the window, but he wouldn't back down.
"C'mon, Rogue, I'm telling you all this for your own good!" he continued irritably from behind her. "If you think you can live in some fantasy world where the X-Men are gonna come and save the day once again, you can forget it!"
"You don't know anythin' that could happen!" she yelled back breathlessly. "Not even Irene does, otherwise we'd be free from this fucked up anti-mutant dystopia we're livin' in right now!"
"Fuck the future!" he spat disdainfully. "What matters is the here and now! And here and now, the X-Men are either dead or incarcerated without a hope of ever breaking free! Xavier's ethos doesn't mean jack-shit in this world and you know it! The more you pretend it does, the crazier you're gonna get. And believe me, Rogue, with what Mystique's got planned for you, you're gonna be needin' your head, you're gonna be needin' all the balls you've got! Screw all this hippie bullshit you're still buying into!"
She swung round, her eyes blazing green fire.
"What d'you mean… what's Mystique's got planned for me!"
He faltered, his mouth opening and closing, before he finally finished: "Look, I'm doing you a favour. Forget the X-Men, forget Xavier and his crazy ideology and just think about the bigger picture for a second. It's dog eat dog out there and it's either kill or be killed. Rogue, for God's sakes just-"
"I think you've said quite enough, Dominic."
At the cool, deep and faintly irascible voice, the two turned to see none other than Raven standing in the doorway. Dominic went pale, putting up his hands in self-defence.
"Mystique, it isn't what you're thinking, I wasn't going to tell her…"
"Perhaps not," Raven raised an eyebrow archly. "But sooner or later your idiocy would have made things very clear to her indeed."
Dominic went from pale to very red. He dropped his hands.
"Sorry," he muttered churlishly. "But somebody needs to get it through to her that the X-Men are dead, Mystique. This ain't their world anymore."
"I'm sure Rogue is quite capable of making her own judgements," Raven informed him coldly, stepping over the threshold and into the kitchen. "In the meantime, I want you and St. John to make preparations for the new assignment. I will give Rogue a briefing on the role she is to play, not you. Now go."
For a moment, Dominic looked as if he was about to protest; but then he decided against it, and, passing a last glare in Rogue's direction, he left, shutting the kitchen door behind him. When his footsteps had died away, Raven gave Rogue that cold, penetrating stare that was usually enough to unnerve the stoutest of hearts; but Rogue was by now well used to it, and returned the stare unflinchingly.
"What did he mean?" she demanded hotly, her temper flaring as she met that frosty stare. "What have you got planned for me?"
"Where were you this afternoon?" Raven asked instead.
"It's none of your business!"
"You are my daughter and I wish to protect you," Raven persisted in the same flat, even tone. "Now tell me where you were."
She hated her, she hated her…
"Ah was in town, and Ah was shopping!" she spat fiercely.
"I see you didn't buy anything."
"Maybe Ah just wanted to see what Ah'd look like in a nice dress, even if Ah didn't have anyone to wear it for," she found herself shouting - she'd never planned to divulge anything so personal, but she was so angry she couldn't help it from spilling out. "Why? Is it a crime now or somethin'?"
"Of course not. But I ask merely because I don't want you to be endangered. You are precious to me, Rogue. Do you not understand that?"
Rogue pouted, her anger unwillingly tempered by Mystique's words. There was nothing motherly or affectionate about Raven at all, not in her looks or her actions, but she had her own brand of love, twisted though it was, and despite it all, Rogue knew that in her own perverse fashion, Mystique did love her.
"Ah took all the necessary precautions," she said in a lower voice. "You don't need to worry about me. Like you said, Ah'm a big girl now, Ah can make my own judgements. Or don't you trust me?"
Raven's gaze was clear, unwavering.
"I trust you, daughter," she returned mildly. "But nevertheless, Avalanche is right. You cling to Xavier's old teachings with a stubbornness that is quite unwarranted. Don't misunderstand me," she added quickly when Rogue was about to protest, "I don't blame you for this. When you awoke from your coma, it was as if you'd awoken from one world into another, entirely alien one. The world changed rapidly while you slept, and you never witnessed it. It is natural that you should find difficulty in letting go." She paused, walked to the table, drew up a chair and sat, indicating for Rogue to do the same. After a moment's hesitation, Rogue relented and did so.
"Nevertheless," Mystique continued gravely, "the world has changed, Rogue. Drastically. And one day, you will need to accept it fully. In the meantime, I need to know that you still believe in our cause. That you still believe in fighting for mutant freedom."
"You know Ah do," Rogue replied heatedly. "Do you think Ah could stand and watch the rest of mutantkind bein' treated like shit and do nothin'? Do you think Ah could sit still when the X-Men could be waitin' out there for someone to-"
"Forget about the X-Men for now," Raven interjected calmly. "It is enough to know that, if they are indeed still alive, and if they were free now, they too would be fighting against oppression as the Brotherhood now does. Agreed?"
Rogue nodded. That at least was certain, and yet somehow she felt that if the X-Men still existed, free and as a whole once more, things would still be different… But she couldn't pinpoint how.
"Before equality there has to be freedom," she murmured slowly, remembering something Xavier had once said. "If there is freedom to make a choice, all else can follow…"
"Yes," Mystique nodded. "Perhaps our ideals may differ, Rogue, in that you may believe in equality after freedom, and I may believe in mutant supremacy after freedom. Whatever the case, the material point is this - freedom must come first." She settled back in her chair and gazed at Rogue with clear, appraising eyes. "I'm glad that we can, at least, see eye to eye on this point, Rogue. It means that I don't have to worry so much about what I am going to ask you to do next."
"And what's that?" Rogue asked warily. Recently Raven's demands had become risky, and she had an inkling they were going to be riskier yet…
Raven, however, said nothing. Instead she reached inside her pocket and brought out a newspaper clipping, passing it to Rogue with a confidential air. It was a partially faded picture of a vaguely familiar man in military uniform, who was shaking hands with the President. He was a middle-aged man, in his fifties, with a bold brow and noble, distinguished features. His face was proud, almost lionine.
Rogue studied him a moment, frowning.
"General Kincaid…" she read the caption, recalling the name indistinctly, though she couldn't remember where she'd first heard it.
"Leader of an anti-mutant group called the Friends of Humanity," Raven informed her briskly. "He is an extremely influential man, and even has the ear of the President. He personally funds several anti-mutant agencies, but his brainchild - his baby, if you like - is the Friends of Humanity. It was founded at first to advocate 'racial purity' in all public sectors - education, employment, health, even in government. They started out merely as a small but vocal group, and over time it was their campaigning that brought anti-mutant feeling to the fore; and an anti-mutant government into power. In many ways, you could say that it was Kincaid's fault that the Xavier mansion was attacked on that day three years ago."
Rogue looked up sharply, an icy flame suddenly spurting to life in her chest; her throat had gone cold.
"Kincaid is an eloquent speaker," Raven continued matter-of-factly. "He managed to convince the President and his administration that the only way to deal with super-powered mutants was to use military force. He is a great supporter of Bolivar Trask's work, and many believe he spearheaded Ahab's Hound program. That man," and she indicated to the news clipping again, "is the reason why you and I are the way we are today."
Rogue swallowed and looked back down at the paper, at the noble, smiling face, so open, so fatherly somehow; someone to look up to, someone to believe in, someone to trust… And yet there was something about the lines on his face, the thinness of his mouth that suggested an expression of thinly veiled arrogance and contempt, as if his countenance could change from something benign to malignant in a second…
She raised her eyes to Mystique's again, asked quietly: "And the job Dom was talkin' about… The one you want me to do…?"
Raven nodded; her eyes glinted in the sunlight.
"Yes. Kill him."
-oOo-
A numbness seemed to take over Rogue. For the next couple of weeks, she spent every waking moment preparing and training for this assignment, this fateful task that seemed to weigh heavily upon her shoulders from the moment it was given to her.
She did not know why she agreed to it. She could very well have refused it - Mystique, after all, was more qualified for assassination attempts than she was. In fact, it was almost an unspoken rule that Raven take the assassination jobs - the kill was something she was a master in. However, Rogue sensed that this was a test; that Raven was testing both her mettle and her commitment to the cause. And Rogue had accepted it because in a way, in killing Kincaid she would be testing herself. The ultimate question was, what would she be willing to sacrifice in order to free her kind from the bonds of slavery? How far would she be willing to go? She had already crossed one boundary, in seducing her targets for her own ends; but could she kill them as well?
Could she kill in order to free those she loved most?
Would killing Kincaid have any direct bearing on freeing the X-Men at all, and if so, was their freedom worth the death of another, however corrupt he may be?
The days passed cold and dreary, windy and rainy; squalls blew over New York City with an almost unnatural force. And then, the day before the assignment was to begin, the rain stopped, the winds dissipated, and all fell silent. To Rogue, it gave the baleful impression of the calm before the storm.
The mission was to take place under cover of night; Rogue spent the daytime preparing her equipment, or idly pottering round base, trying to find an inner sense of equilibrium she did not possess. By evening, her stomach was churning listlessly; she dressed in her black bodysuit with the dignified reverence of the priest donning his vestments. When this was done, she unclasped the butterfly pendant from about her neck and dropped it inside the inner breast pocket of her suit - over time it had become more than just a good luck charm. To part with it was almost unthinkable, nothing short of sacrilegious to her. If she was ever going to die, she wanted that pendant with her. She was going to die with at least one part of the past with her, and even if she could never go back to that past, she was going to take it with her to the grave.
At last, she was ready.
When she got to the front door, Mystique was waiting. She said no word, made no sign of encouragement, but silently handed Rogue the gun that was to kill Kincaid. There was one full magazine in there, enough to kill him eight times over if such a thing were possible.
She hoped she would only have to use one of those bullets.
As she left, she looked back only once, and to her surprise she saw Irene hovering in the living room doorway, staring out at her with those blind eyes, giving the eerie sense of plumbing the depths of Rogue's soul. Irene never saw her off before missions, she never said goodbye - this had to be important…
A question was forming on Rogue's lips, unbidden…
Will Ah be comin' back?
But the question remained unspoken and thus forever unanswered.
Irene said nothing, not even goodbye, and a split second later Rogue had turned, stepped out into the yawning blackness of the night to face yet another unturned page in her destiny.
-oOo-