Now

The Volcano

By The Light of The Moon, I'm Comin' Home…"

The men on the dock went to and fro, lugging equipment, ordnance and supplies, preparing for an excursion that would take them nearly half-way around the world. Of this excursion they knew not what to expect, their orders had come in last night, -or rather, before many of them had decided to go to sleep, as time lost meaning in this place, below the sea, where they'd not seen sunlight or sky for days- that they were to embark on their greatest voyage yet, to Mongolia. They were given an option to step down or remain, and the crewmen, recognizing the prospect of adventure, chose the second, with very few exceptions.

" Howlin' All The Way, I'm Comin' Home…"

There were dozens and dozens of them, belonging to two separate crew. One formed predominantly from seamen who had once served in the Eastern Bloc navies, led by the battle-hardened naval Captain Ramius, while the other was composed to men who had been drifting through life when their captain found them; petty criminals, smugglers, deserting officers, idealists, exiles and men without countries. Their leader was a man of infamy and enigma. He was, depending on who you asked; a freedom fighter, a terrorist, a pioneer, a genius, an egomaniac, a champion of mankind, one of the last, if that.

He stood watching as his second mate Bill Shears drove a forklift loaded with crates of food into his Yellow Submarine, a duplicate of his Nautilus, one of a handful built under duress by German engineers kidnapped by a nemesis, all over a century ago. Salvaged, repaired and christened fifty years ago, sinced then upgraded with new bought, stolen or invented technology.

"On My Hands and Knees, I'm Comin' Home.

I Know When I've Been Beat, Yea, I'm Comin' Home…"

Nemo turned around to look at a young workman mopping the floor, he was thin, pale, and had messy brown hair, and could not have been a day over twenty-two.

"Young man? "

"By The Skin of My Teeth, I'm Com-… Huh?"

"I said would mind stopping your singing. "

"Sorry, Captain." apologized the workman sheepishly, "Didn't see you there, sir."

"It's fine… I was just trying to clear my head."

"Sorry.."

Nemo went back to watching the men on the dock, their paice had slowed, indicating that the were nearly done.

"What's your name, son?" Said Nemo, feeling that he might have offended the young man.

"Jake. I mean Jacob, but, well, everybody calls me Jake. So, uh, that's Jacob Grey."

"Are you mine or Captain Ramius'?"

"Yours, sir. I joined up a couple of months back, out of Mexico. Mister Shears picked me up."

"I see. So are you excited about going to Mongolia?"

"I might be, if I was. Mr. Shears said that I don't have the days, yet."

"Oh, well tell me, Jake, where are you from?"

"The states. Seattle."

"I meant your family, where does he hail from?"

"Funny you should mention that, he came from England, sometime in the fifties."

"What did he do?"

"He was in the Navy."

"Really?"

"Yep. Captain Daniel Grey, United States Navy."

"Right. Well, carry on, and I'm sorry you didn't get to come along."

"It's okay. " Said Jake with a smile, "Hey, maybe next time, huh?"

"Yes. Next time. Of course." Nemo said with a nod and a kind smile and walked away, heading toward the Yellow Submarine's gangplank, joined on his way by Naif al-Sheikh.

"I couldn't help hearing." al-Sheikh said, "You oddly seemed too interested in the boy."

"What if I told you that I'd saved that boy's great grandfather's life, a hundred and five years ago?"

"For some reason, I'm not too surprised. "

"Makes me think about how far I've come, or moved, rather. How long this cold war has lasted. Time to end it, once and for all."

"How IS it that you've moved so far? How exactly have you remained at your current age for a hundred year?"

"A story for another time, perhaps. Assuming we make it back."

"I never endevor anywhere with a mindset like that. I believe our plan is a solid plan, and our ace in a hole is something that will aid us greatly. If and when we succed, pivotal as our victory will be, there'll be lots of work to do. We will need to live through this."

"I suppose we do." said Nemo as he reached into his coat pocket, and pulled out three sealed envelopes, "But just in case, if I don't make it, please do pass these letters."

Naif looked at the names on the envelopes.

"Sax, Priest, and Collier.... I hesitate to point out that at lease one of these probably won't make it to their intended recipient."

"Priest was captured Eighty-Five days ago, his exectuion won't be until five more days. Don't count him out, I'd learned that lesson the hard way. If you do meet him again, he can tell you the story of my immoirtality."

"Alright."

"See you in Mongolia."

"What?" said al-Sheikh as he and Nemo stopped, at equal distances from the Red October and the Yellow Submarine, "No rousing speach?"

"'Once more unto the brach,' and all that? No, the men know what to expect, better to just get on with the voyage. Be seeing you."

Rome, Italy

"Five days." Said O'Brien, "After that, war's over or not, I'm getting back to Gotham."

Lucy and Shaun exchanged a silent look following their partner's remark. The three were seated around a wooden table in a hotel inn room, waiting for the fourth man.

"So did anyone find out what happened to Sayid?"

"According to Nemo he was spotted in Los Angeles a week after he left us." Said Shaun, "Someone recognized him from when he was one of those, what did they call them, the Oceanic Six. Anyway, he was being escorted to Guam by some sort of federal agent."

"Escorted? Why, what did he do?"

"Don't know. The airplane disappeared."

"What about Mona?"

A door at the end of the room opened with a creek, Robert Barnes walked in, two dossiers under his arm, looking older than he actually was, to a greater degree than he did before, he walked over to the table, speaking with his gravely voice,

"Good afternoon. Excuse me, I couldn't help but overhear you talking from the other room. O'Brien, this should just take around five days' time, if it takes any more time, I'm afraid you'll just have to man up and like it.

"I don't care what happened that ended you so-called minutemen, but you're all here now and I expect nothing more but total commitment. I'm not sure what kind of ship Mona Sax ran, but you can be sure it'll be different under me. I'm not a corporate hired-gun; I have over thirty years of experience in espionage and black ops. You'll do precisely as I say or so god help you. Got questions? I'll answer them. Got suggestions? If I'm in a good mood, I'll pretend like I give a shit, but don't get your hopes up."

None of the three expressed any thing in reaction to Barnes unprecedented display of impatient rudeness. They just listened, bewildered.

"The four of us are here for a specific assignment; to kill these two sons of bitches."

Barnes tossed the dossiers onto the table, allowing their loose content to spill out.

"Here, get a good look at Willem Robur and Peter Gruber, the directors of the Paris and Berlin branches of the League, respectively. This is them. We're going to kill them, no matter what it takes to do that."

Barnes took a pause to pour a glass of whisky and the continued, holding the glass close to his lips.

"The League's at Condition Red. Meaning, every branch director stays in his own Branch at all times. They don't even go home for the night. That, if you haven't noticed, makes assassinating them hard. Luckily, we know just how to light the fire that'll lure them out.

"I'm dying. Cancer. Don't look at me like you're sorry. I'm fifty-three years old, an age the three of you are too clumsy and naïve to reach. My family have believe me dead for four years, before that I was almost killed by my employers for developing a conscience. My efforts with this faction have largely brought me grief and pain; my successes were far apart and too bitter to be appreciated. All I want is to this one thing right, after that I can go to hell with a smile on my face."

Gotham City

Klinger and Szell stood looking at the CCTV screen that displayed the inside of Priest's cell. A few feet away from where Priest sat chained to his seat, a folding chair was placed, upon which sat a young man of twenty.

"Do you mind if I ask you a question, Doctor?"

"Go ahead."

"If what Priest has is so valuable, why didn't you use a psychic a long time ago?"

"If it were only that simple, Mr. Klinger. I'm afraid that psychic is a little different than most people think, it's nothing but a catch-all term referring to a wide range of abilities, mind-reading is one form of which, a very, very rare form. Xavier is the only one we have who can forcefully extract thoughts out of a given subject's mind; an amazing specimen, he is, a clone of a powerful mutant.

"Director Josephine wants this prisoner's presence here to remain a secret, and any use of Xavier would have attracted attention from the other departments. We had to bid our time with this."

"Okay, so now what do you do?"

"Now we finally break Priest." Said Szell as he pressed a button on a microphone attached to his lapel.

"Start by the benchmark questions; ask about his name and age."

"What's your name, and how old are you?" asked Xavier as he sat inside Priest's cell, his voice warm and hypnotic, and continued even though Priest had said nothing, "His name is Judas, and he is Three-Hundred and Thirty years old."

"Excellent, Xavier." Said Szell, and then said addressing Klinger, "This is information we already knew, naturally, but it helps make his mind easier to penetrate."

"He… He hates you, Doctor Szell. With every fiber of his being."

"Never mind him, Xavier." Said Szell, "Ask him where the opposition's secret base is."

"Where is your group's secret base located?" asked Xavier, "It's at the base of an inert volcano. He does not know on which island, or where this island is situated. And… Oh …"

"Yes? Xavier, what's gotten into you?"

"What animal… The things he'd do, Doctor Szell, if he ever got released… You must have him killed!"

"Xavier, calm down." Spoke Szell, as reassuringly as he was capable of sounding, "You still have a job to do."

"No!" cried Xavier, "You shouldn't have made her choose like that! It would have been better if you'd just killed them yourself! And him, the one in Alexandria! He'd changed, he'd left it all behind, but you let the child watch as you did it!"

"What in hell is going on?" asked Klinger.

"I don't know." Said Szell.

"YOU MONSTER!" cried Xavier in furious anger, standing up and looking into Priest's eyes, "YOU'RE A THING OF PURE EVIL! YOU'RE THE EXCREMENT OF HUMAN FAILURE!"

"Get out of my head, you freak!" Priest hissed, jerking at his restraints to no avail.

"That's it; we have to get him out of there." Said Klinger, slamming his hand down on a button on the control board, before rushing out and heading down the corridor.

"HOW COULD…" said Xavier and fell silent, and Szell's heart started racing.

"…No." mumbled Xavier.

"OUT!"

"Take it back." Xavier pleaded, staggering back until his back reached the wall, "You've got to take it back…. Please."

The door clanked open behind Xavier as tears began to well up in his eyes.

"The abyss… oh… merciful lord…"

The door swung open, and two guards entered, wasting no time to head for the panicking psychic.

"Finally! You took your goddamn time, dickwipes." Priest mumbled.

"Shut it, Priest."

"No!" said Xavier, pushing one guard away, pulling his sidearm out of its holster as he did so.

"It's too la-." Said Xavier, putting the gun to his temple and pulling the trigger.

The gunshot blared through the concrete cell. Klinger stopped to look in shock at Xavier's corpse that lay at his feet, next to the twitching guard whose jaw as shattered by the same bullet that killed Xavier upon its exit.

"Jesus Christ!" said the guard whose gun rested in Xavier's hand, "I.-I.."

"You allowed a civilian to seize your weapon." Said Klinger, "Now go get a medic or I'll make you eat it. NOW!"

The guard rushed out while Szell stepped in. The old man surveyed the macabre and unforeseeable turn of events that had taken place, and for the first time in years felt fear in its purest.

"Klinger, Szell," Priest said, not the least bit phased with what had just transpired, "I'm not sure what exactly just happened, but I think the joke's on you."

Next Chapter

Barnes and co spring into action, Mona returns, and Priest and Szell's battle of egos comes to a turning point when the White Angel of Auschwitz makes a desperate attempt to break Priest with just four days to extract useful information out of him.

R&R