CHAPTER TWELVE
Cable stood in the middle of the street, letting people walk past him. A few people shot him angry looks for standing in the way but most just ignored him. He found the experience somewhat uncomfortable. He had barely been out of Sinister's base before and had certainly never seen so many people. And if Sinister was right, all of them were his enemies.
"Are you lost, mister?"
For a moment, Cable looked around, unable to pinpoint the source of the voice. Then it occurred to him to look down. A small boy was looking up at him, a quizzical expression on his face.
"No,"Cable replied. "I am just…looking."
The boy looked up and down the street, as though trying to work out the focus of Cable's attention. "But there's nothing here."
Cable was confused. "There is much here."
"But nothing exciting."
Cable nodded in understanding. "It depends what you have seen before."
"Thomas!" A woman, apparently the child's mother, came pushing through the crowd and grabbed the boy by the hand. "What have I told you about wandering off? And about talking to strange men?"
Cable felt anger rising inside him. Here was the hatred that Sinister spoke of, the foolish ignorance that made these people their enemy. "I would not have hurt him,"he told the woman irritably.
The woman smiled at him. "Of course not, but he doesn't know that. And there are some people who would hurt him."
Cable nodded. Obviously the woman didn't know who he was. "You mean mutants."
The woman looked surprised. "Well, I suppose some mutants might want to hurt him but I'm sure not all of them do." She put an arm round the boy's shoulder and led him away.
It suddenly occurred to Cable that he was going to hurt the boy. That if Sinister succeeded, everyone in this street would die.
Professor Xavier stood in the Cerebro chamber, Beast and Colossus by his side. He turned to Beast. "Are you ready?"
Beast nodded. "I trust you're skilled enough to make sure it doesn't hurt."
Xavier closed his eyes and concentrated hard for a moment. Then he opened them again. "Thank you."
"What was that?"Colossus asked.
"I need to find Sinister,"Xavier explained. "But having never encountered him, I would have been unable to recognise his psyche. I scanned the memory of him in Beast's mind for that purpose."
"I see,"Colossus replied, even though he didn't quite.
Xavier took his place in front of the machine. "Let's all see, shall we?"
Storm tore the paper out of the teleprinter in the office and showed it to Wolverine and Siryn. "Are we sure this is for real?"Wolverine asked once he'd scanned its contents.
"I don't know,"Storm replied. "But we need to check it out anyway."
"We should tell the Professor,"Siryn suggested.
At that moment, Xavier, Beast and Colossus came running up. "We've found him,"Xavier announced. "He's in an abandon..."
"…abandoned warehouse on the edge of town,"Wolverine and Storm joined in.
Xavier looked bemused. "Well, I realise it's not the most original of bases…"
"It's more than that,"Storm answered, handing him the sheet.
Xavier looked over the paper. "What does it say?"Colossus asked.
"It says it's from a friend,"Xavier replied. "It says that Sinister is planning to release a virus that will kill everyone, both mutants and ordinary humans, except for the selected few he believes are needed to create a new master race. It says that we only have hours to prevent it being released or nothing can stop it."
"If what you say about the warehouse is true, maybe the rest of it is,"Storm suggested.
"We need to get down there,"Wolverine agreed.
Xavier nodded. "All right. The six of us." He waited until they were heading for the door before adding, "And Leech."
All five heads whipped round to look at him in shock. "He's just a kid,"Storm protested.
"He's fifteen. He's had all the X-Men training and field experience. And with so many X-Men unavailable, we may need an edge."
Storm gently brought the X-Jet in to land. "We're about two hundred metres from the target,"she pronounced.
"Gives us a decent run up,"Wolverine noted.
"I'm looking forward to pounding the streets,"Colossus agreed.
Siryn had sat down next to Leech and was watching him closely. She remembered the first time they'd both seen action, when the two of them and Jubilee had volunteered to accompany Rogue in reinforcing the battle against Apocalypse. If anything, he seemed more nervous now than he had then. "Are you all right?"she asked quietly.
Leech nodded. "Yeah." He grinned uneasily. "I'll probably be all right once people are trying to kill me."
"Storm, if you would?"Xavier invited.
Storm nodded and stood up to face the group. "All right, we need to move in quickly but stealthily. If Sinister's set up any surprises for us, we need to be ready. Logan and I will take point, followed by the Professor, Siryn and Jimmy, with Colossus and Beast bringing up the rear." She looked around to see if there were any objections but only received a series of nods. "Let's go."
The X-Men jumped down from the jet and headed towards their objective. But as they did so, a stealth plane similar to the X-Jet landed in front of them, about fifty metres away. The ramp descended and Havok, Multiple Man, Strong Guy and Wolfsbane emerged. "Go home, X-Men,"Havok instructed.
Wolverine flexed his claws. "Looks like Sinister's sent a welcome committee."
"I don't think so,"Beast mused.
"Neither do I,"Xavier agreed. He pushed his way to the front of the group. "May I ask who you are?"
"We met before,"Havok reminded him. "I'm…"
"No." Xavier gestured to the group. "I mean…who you all are."
Havok hesitated. "We're X-Factor,"he said at last. "We're a government-sponsored mutant team, set up to deal with threats like this."
Wolverine snorted. "So now they're recruiting mutants to hunt mutants."
"We're not hunting anyone,"Wolfsbane protested.
"We don't want to hurt you,"Strong Guy added.
"But we will, if you get in our way,"Havok insisted. "This is our job, not yours."
"So how did you find this place?"Storm demanded.
Havok looked embarrassed. "We followed you."
Siryn gestured to Multiple Man. "Warren and Kitty said they caught him robbing a bank."
"I was stopping that bank robbery,"Multiple Man corrected. "You X-Men got in the way."
"Which is why we can't let you get involved now,"Havok added.
Professor Xavier had remained silent for a while. "You were recruited by Henry Peter Guyrich?"he asked.
Havok looked surprised. "Yes,"he admitted reluctantly. "How did you know?"
"Your names were all attached to a certain reference,"Beast explained.
"So we know your real names,"Xavier concluded. His eyes flicked over Multiple Man, Strong Guy and Wolfsbane. "James Madrox, Guido Carosella, Rahne Sinclair…" Finally he looked at Havok. "…and Alex Summers."
There was silence for a moment. "Summers?"Storm repeated.
"What of it?"Havok asked.
Xavier slowly approached him. "Your parents were killed in a car accident when you were a young boy. You grew up in an orphanage. And I'm not sure if anyone ever told you that you had an older brother. He was placed in foster care but when his…differences became obvious, I took custody of him. His name was Scott. He was the first of my X-Men. I always meant to find you, to bring the two of you back together. I'm sorry I didn't do that." He was standing in front of Havok now, looking him in the eye. "I don't know what Guyrich's told you, Alex. Probably a lot about duty, about governmental control. About how the task of combatting mutant threats can't be left in the hands of unreliable private groups. There's some truth in that. But these people here are the closest thing your brother had to family. Your brother believed in mutants co-operating with other humans. You have the ability to be a symbol, to show the doubters that mutants are on their side. Not just to be the blunt tool, the unquestioning soldier, that Guyrich would have you be. Let us help you. X-Men and X-Factor together against Sinister."
Havok looked at him for a long time and then nodded.
Storm turned to the other X-Men. "Time to let Sinister know we're here."