Chapter 5:Visiting Friends

"Welcome to the future..."

-Magneto 2000

Godspeed ran her hands down her long arms and felt the weakness of them. She felt nothing but weakness—the wind, the thunder, the rain…it was all gone. It was as if the breath from her body had been replaced with a poison that still allowed her to remain alive, though her mind and body wished for death—desired it, even.

It was not enough that they had stripped her of her powers, her core, her essence—not enough that her closest and dearest comrades considered her a traitor—what made all of this even more humiliating was that they hadn't even caged or restrained her in any way, so sure were they that she would not consider escape without her powers.

And they were right.

She became aware of footsteps approaching from behind, and turned to face whoever it was that came to question her now.

Sky stood face to face with her, but Godspeed saw nothing in her bearing even remotely reminiscent of the anger and fury that she had shown before. Now that they were alone together, Godspeed not only sensed, but saw, fear.

Sky tilted her chin slightly higher, establishing her position of authority, in an attempt to mask her apprehension. "Human," she said, and the word rolled over her tongue, like an unpleasant aftertaste, "tell me where it is."

"Where what is?" Godspeed asked. In her heart, she was glad—the plan had worked, and her betrayal had not been for nothing. Magneto had been smuggled out of his hiding place successfully—only that could be what Sky was referring to.

Godspeed had long ago deduced that Sky was a member of this mysterious Brotherhood. In fact, she had been sure that Sky was in a position of some importance within it. This new interrogation confirmed her suspicions.

"Tell me where it is."

Godspeed walked away from her, but Sky flew towards her and held her still. "Tell me!"

Godspeed felt Sky's fingers digging into her arm, almost drawing blood. How weak she was! "Sky," she said softly, "why did you hide it?"

Sky's gripped tightened. "You did take it!"

"Obviously, I did not."

Sky considered this, and let her go. "You're disgusting," she exclaimed, "you orchestrated this entire battle—you fought your own people!"

"What does it matter?" Godspeed sighed. "At least there's a chance now—for all of this to end. Even it means my life. I am tired."

Sky slapped her, hard and swift, across the face. "There will never be peace, Godspeed!" she yelled. "You had no right to take him for your own perverted purposes! He was to be awakened at the appointed time and rise to glory, with the chosen few at his side, to become leader once again, with the less fit only existing to serve him! That was my destiny!" She hit Godspeed again, and kicked her in the side. "If I had lived, I would have been at his right hand! And we would have had power, true power, over the hearts of mutants!" She burst into hot angry tears, hitting Godspeed once, twice, three times more. "You took away my destiny!"

Godspeed rolled away from Sky's kicks and slaps, stood upright and felt something like a stab in her side where Sky had kicked her. Despite the pain, she managed to get in one good punch, breaking Sky's nose, before the other woman employed her powers and her rage to subjugate her at last.

Magneto was dressed in a pair of black slacks and a blue button-down. He seemed taller in this new garb, than he had wrapped up in a sheet, and Daytripper thought that that made sense. He paced, often crossing his arms and tapping his fingers contemplatively against them. Fellswoop, Tymah and the others were re-considering their next move. As much as they wanted to acquiesce to Magneto's request to find the mutant named Pyro, getting in and out of Elemental territory was not as easy as they had first assumed.

Even though Tymah's involvement in the operation was not known, namely the faux-battle, the smuggling of Magneto, etcetera, her position among the Elementals was shaky at best. They probably assumed she was dead and if she were to miraculously appear once again, and on the other side of town, suspicions could be raised. Besides, Sensor mutants would surely be on guard against future Animalis invasion, and they would notice any new mutant, especially a class four, specifically Magneto, appearing in Elemental territory.

Their best and safest bet seemed to be to send Daytripper to find the mutant and bring him back here, but even that was tentative.

At first, Magneto insisted on being present at these conversations and debates. After two days of deliberation, however, it seemed he had grown restless. Daytripper couldn't blame him. As for himself, he was not invited to the negotiations, which was all right with him—he would do what they asked, no matter what, as long as he had he could serve Magneto.

Magneto's wandering eyes came to a stop on Daytripper, who had been staring, and upon being noticed, immediately looked away. Magneto approached him. "You sit there and stare and I can't figure out what your purpose is here."

He smiled sheepishly. "Well, I'm just here to do what I'm told," he said affably.

"What you're told?" Magneto repeated. Daytripper nodded. He considered this. "You know," he said after a moment's musing, "they won't let me go outside. You couldn't possibly help me with that, could you?"

Daytripper smiled and then frowned. "I don't know. Well…if it's safe, I don't know. It's not that I don't want to, it's just…" he trailed off. The other man looked disappointed, and Daytripper could not bear that. The Sensor Shield covered the surrounding forest, he had been told, and besides, no one was looking for him, and definitely not for Magneto. "Alright," he answered, "just, be warned. People say teleporting via someone else is nauseating."

"I've done it before, son," Magneto assured him.

Daytripper got up and tentatively reached for Magneto's shoulder. He touched it, and the two of them moved through time and space, appearing in a forest on the other side. When they reached it, Magneto shook his head, as if to shake away the sense of teleportation. He held on to Daytripper's shoulder for a moment and then, recovered, let go. He walked out a ways into the forest, taking deep breaths through his nose. He opened his arms slightly and dropped to the ground onto to his knees.

At first, Daytripper thought he had hurt himself. He seemed to have. He wrapped his arms around himself, and rocked back and forth, all the while staring up at the whistling tree tops. Daytripper walked briskly towards him. "Are you alright?" he asked desperately. Leave it to him to have killed the man that had survived fifty years in a tube!

"Yes, yes, I'm alright!" Magneto chastised. He still hugged himself, and he still rocked. And now, up close, Daytripper could see that he was crying. Not terribly so, it was more like his eyes were watering—they weren't red or glassy…they just wept. It was a calm, graceful kind of crying, without any shame or fear of being seen crying. Even in this, Magneto showed great dignity and grace. How strange.

Daytripper said nothing more. He sat on the ground away from Magneto, and looked away from him, so that he could weep in peace. After a while, the other man spoke. "It's strange," he began, "I don't remember being in stasis. I cannot feel how much time has gone by, though I know it has. And yet, being out here, I feel as if I haven't seen the sky in a hundred years."

He turned his head towards Daytripper. "I must seem ancient to you," he commented quietly.

Daytripper smiled. "It's not that," he said, "it's just…there aren't a lot of people getting past the age of forty these days."

"How old are you?"

"Nineteen."

Magneto nodded. "Nineteen. When I was nineteen, I had a job mining coal in West Virginia, which probably doesn't exist anymore." He stood up. "I had survived the war, the camp, a trip across the Atlantic, I knew I had awesome power—and I was mining coal."

Daytripper frowned. "Which war?"

"The Second World War. I came here in nineteen-forty-nine."

He leaned forward, thinking hard. "Forty-nine, forty-nine…I don't know about that war," he said finally.

Magneto frowned, then shrugged. "It was a human war. The surviving humans might remember it, though they seemed to have already forgotten it even while survivors of it were still in great numbers. I think I might have forgotten it, too, at some point. And now, mutants know nothing at all about it."

"Tell me about it," Daytripper said suddenly.

Magneto leaned on the ground and raised himself off of it. He walked forward and seemed to want Daytripper to follow, and he did. When he got to Magneto's side, the other man turned to him and said, "I think the world is a place where peace is impossible. What do you think?"

Daytripper stopped. It was such a direct, clear-cut question, that it stopped him in his tracks. Few people cared about his opinions, he had given up hope that they ever would. Yet here was Magneto, a god among mutants, caring earnestly what his thoughts were, wanting to know them. It took him a moment, but at last he spoke. "I think you're right," he said, slowly, thinking as he spoke, "but I also think that our job is probably to make the best of whatever little peace we can find…I mean, finding happiness wherever we can and trying to preserve it. There will always be conflict, but I think that all creatures share a potential to live together and, if we think real hard and want it badly enough, tolerate each other."

It seemed for a moment that this was not a satisfactory answer to Magneto. But unexpectedly, he smiled, a slow, satisfied smile. He reached out and put his hand on Daytripper's shoulder. "You're a wise man," he said.

A door opened behind them, on the ground, and Tymah walked towards them. "We've made a decision," she said, giving Daytripper a quick angry glance. He shrugged.

"What's the plan?" Magneto asked.

"I've convinced them to go forward with our original plan. Daytripper, myself and you will transport to the South District, where I think the mutant Pyro is located. If we don't find him within a single hour, we will transport back."

Magneto smirked. "You're giving me an hour to find my sanity?"

Tymah faltered. "I…hadn't exactly thought of it like that, but…yes…I suppose so."

"Very well. It will have to do."

She looked around and said, "Alright. You should come inside now. I don't think it's safe for you to be out here."

"My dear," Magneto said, "I've been trapped in a box for fifty years. I really need to stretch my legs."

Tymah inhaled deeply, and resignedly. "Very well," she said. "Sir." She nodded her head respectfully, turned and went back inside.

Magneto watched her go and then, turned towards Daytripper. "She likes you," he said grinning.

Daytripper's eyes widened. "Does she?"

Magneto clasped his arms behind his back soberly and did not answer.

It was like an apocalypse had occurred here, and no one living there realized it.

People moved about as if they could not see the destruction around them. They walked or flew over huge chunks of concrete, piles of cinders, and timber and steel, as if these objects were simply cracks in the sidewalk, people in their paths.

They did not notice or did not care about the three new mutants who walked about the place, with their faces drawn, all speech faculties silenced. They walked past them, and did not give them a second glance. If Magneto had stood upon one of these piles of rubble and proclaimed himself the Messiah, he doubted whether he would have received a different response.

Tymah led the way, raising herself above the ground to avoid the rubble. Magneto preferred to walk, though he did not know why. They reached a building that had remained, remarkably, in tact and entered it.

A mutant was sitting idle on the steps, tossing a ball of water from hand to hand. When he was spoken to, the water collapsed in the palm of his hand, and was absorbed in the hand, as if the skin were a sponge.

"A mutant called Pyro, old, he live here?" Tymah questioned.

The boy nodded.

"Where?" said Tymah.

"You a weather-worker?" said the boy.

"Yes."

"Make it rain, I'll tell you."

The rain started immediately, along with a roll of thunder.

"No lighting!" said the boy. The thunder stopped.

"Now?" said Tymah.

He smiled, as if the sound of the rain gave him the most peculiar pleasure. "Upstairs, second door on the left," he said and slipped past them, towards the door.

When he had gone, Magneto, who had watched him leave, turned back towards Tymah. "Well?" she said. "Shall we?"

He nodded and they mounted the stairs. It was only one flight, but the stairs seemed to just continue on and on and never stop. His legs felt heavy and his whole body likewise.

They came suddenly to a door and then another. Tymah knocked and a woman answered. Magneto could hear two voices inside, but only one of the voices, the female voice, answered. The woman was not old, but neither was she young. She looked worn out, but a steady sort of woman, who would be just as ready to welcome the people at her door as she would be to shoot them, depending on the situation.

"Is there a mutant called Pyro here?" asked Tymah.

The woman peered closely at her. "Weather worker," she said. Tymah nodded. "I can tell your kind a mile away."

She said nothing more. Tymah waited, but the woman only looked at her. "Have we come to the wrong door?" she asked at last.

"I don't think so."

Again the woman stopped speaking. She looked now at Magneto, and then at Daytripper. But she did not move or invite them in. "May we speak with him?" Tymah asked, a note of exasperation in her voice.

The woman squinted her eyes. "Should I let them in?" she asked. At first Magneto thought that this question had been directed at Tymah. The woman had looked at her when she'd asked it. It was not until a voice from inside revealed that the question had been put to the other occupant of that sordid apartment.

"Who is it?" said the aged male voice.

"A weather worker, a metal worker and a teleporter."

A weak laugh was her response. "That sounds like the beginning of a bad joke," said the voice. "Let them in."

Tymah went in first, and Magneto allowed Daytripper to go ahead of him. The apartment was dark, dingy and smelled like food. It was not dirty, but it was not clean. The shadowy darkness did not help and the lack of any electrical light only amplified its surly appearance.

Magneto saw a man at the end of the room. He was sitting in chair. He was an old man of eighty or so. He was thin, unhealthily so, emaciated. One of his eyes was cloudy and gray and his hands, resting on the arms of the chair, revealed thin white veins. He seemed to be sitting in the only shaft of light in the entire apartment, while Magneto, Daytripper and Tymah stood in the shadows.

"And you are?" said the old man.

Tymah introduced herself. "I am Tymah, class three, weather worker. Are you the mutant called Pyro?"

The old man turned his head and answered bitterly, "There used to be a mutant called Pyro that lived here."

"And you're not him?" Tymah asked.

"No," said this man.

Tymah turned towards Magneto. "I'm sorry, sir," she said, "we were given the wrong information."

"I can give him a message," said the old man. "Who should I say it's from?"

"I can't tell you that," said Tymah, "it's a secret."

"What's the message?"

Magneto, his heart full of disappointment, and something like fear, said, "Tell him that Eric was here. And that he wished to speak to him."

The old man's hand flew to his chest. The woman who had answered the door rushed to him. She held his shoulders as he forced himself to his feet. "Oh God! I'm dying now!" he cried, though his voice never went above a whisper, "I'm dying now!"

"No, no," said the woman, "sit down! You're fine!"

"Who are you? Who's voice is that?!"

"What voice, dear?" said the woman.

"Who spoke just now! Who spoke?"

"That man there!" she cried, desperately trying to sit him back in his chair. "The metal worker!"

These words solaced him somewhat. "Metal worker?" he repeated. "You can see him? He's there!"

"Yes, dear, yes!" she said. "Right there! By the door!"

The old man took a tenuous step towards them. Magneto's hands shook and his heart beat like it would burst. Up close, the old man looked older and his thinness was terrifyingly skeletal. He walked up to Magneto, closed the gray cloudy eye and peered at him closely with the less cloudy one. "Are you sure I'm not dead?" he asked the woman.

"You here, as far as I can tell," she answered. "Alive."

His breath grew faster and his voice shook. "How?" he demanded. "How are you alive?!"

Magneto's hands fell to his sides, his mouth dropped open and he thought he might faint. Of course, nearly sixty years gone by—of course he would be older—but so old? So…so close to death! "Pyro?" he whispered. "Is it you?"

The sound of his voice, more than his physical appearance, seemed convince Pyro that he was real, and in the room. He reached out and almost touched Magneto's chest, but stopped just short of doing so. "What the hell is going on?" he asked. "Tell me what the hell is going on."

Fathom wakened suddenly. She hadn't meant to fall asleep. She stretched, slapping her cheeks to revive herself. Sensors had been kept up around the clock, on all sides of the territory and she was sick of it! Nearly four days had gone by and no sign of further Animalis invasion had been sited, sensed or predicted. And yet, Himmel insisted on them keeping twenty-four hour surveillance. Damn that mutant!

With Godspeed's betrayal and Sky's unreliability, Himmel had been voted temporary Commander of the Animalis forces, despite the fact that he was only a class three, until a more suitable commander could be appointed. He had more military experience than anyone on the council, and the only living class fours were younger than twenty. Any decision Himmel made had to go through the council first, but besides that technicality, Himmel had all the powers of a Full Commander.

Fathom spat onto the ground at the thought. Such a mutant to be Full Commander! A class three! What would be next!

She crossed her arms huffily, and turned her mind towards what had awakened her. It had not been a sound, it had been a smell. What smell? She scratched behind her ears and yawned. What was the smell?

It was like rain…no…like heat…not, idiot! It was cold! Cold like…steel. Yes! "Steel…metal…" she said to herself. She sniffed the air. The smell was not here. Not a smell, then. A Sense. She had sensed metal, not smelled it.

She stretched out her powers to locate the source. The sense had been strong, strong enough to fool her mind into thinking it had physically smelled something, when it had not. A class four metal worker. Yes…there it was. She saw the South District in her mind, sensed the metal. What class four metal worker would be in South District? And why?

Then, she smelt sulfur, close to the metal worker. And then…rain! She opened her eyes wide and leapt out of her seat so fast it toppled over with her in it. She cursed herself for a fool, then got up off the floor and raced faster than fast calling out to Himmel, and attracting the attention of anyone nearby.

One of the ones nearby happened to be Commander Sky, who, with speedy alacrity, apprehended Fathom and bid her be quiet. "What are you shouting about?" Sky demanded.

Breathless, Fathom pointed in no particular direction. "Tymah! I've found Tymah! She's in the South District with a teleporter I don't recognize and a class four metal worker!"

Sky's eyes widened and her head tilted suspiciously. "A metal worker?" she repeated.

"A Class four! In the South District!" Fathom said, as she tried to break free of Sky's relentless grasp. "I have to tell the Commander!"

"I'll tell him!" Sky said icily. "Go back to your station!"

Fathom's face fell. "I've been sitting there all day!" she moaned.

Sky released her with a shove. "Station!" she demanded.

Fathom smoothed her rumpled shirt and without a word, turned from Sky and walked back down the hall, dragging her feet. Along the way, she convinced herself that she did not care the slightest bit about this mysterious metal worker, or why Tymah, whom they had supposed dead after the battle, should have miraculously been resurrected in the South District four days later. No, why should she care? This was not her war! These were not her people!

She decided, with the utmost sincerity, that despite the fact that she was paid to survey constantly, she was tired and it was time to take a serious nap. She deserved that much. And when she arrived back at her station, she mentally cursed Commander Sky, lay down on the floor and did just that.