“Mutation: it is the key to human evolution.”
When Ororo thought of Scott, or Jean, or as now, Charles, it was as though they were still with her, their words as fresh as if they’d just been spoken, the expressions making her believe they’d only just parted and would surely be seeing one another soon. Within her they were as alive as ever, and when reality reminded her that they weren’t, her response wasn’t what you’d expect. She didn’t feel at all sad. They were gone, but they’d never be forgotten.
A magnificent oak overlooked what was now called the Memorial Garden. When Ororo first arrived at the school she’d chosen it for her private place, an acknowledgment of far too many nights in her youth when she’d had to scramble for a branch to keep from becoming some four-footed beast’s dinner. This is where she often came to think, and to write, which never came easily.
She didn’t believe Charles would object to her borrowing some of his words for her own. It applied to the both of them.
“When I was young and foolish,” she spoke aloud, scribbling the words on her pad, “and feeling totally cast out from the world, I used to wonder if there were others like me, and dream of the future we might create.”
He couldn’t walk when he had recruited her, and never told any of them—except probably Jean—how he’d lost the use of his legs. True to form, he’d bought himself a Land Rover, fitted it for hands-only driving, and headed out across the savanna. He hadn’t gone alone, of course; Jean was by his side. Ororo wasn’t a very trusting soul, living in the shadow of Kilimanjaro and playing up local superstitions and legends to keep herself safe. She’d been learning the use of her powers by trial and error and inadvertently done far more harm than good, trying to help her own people by ending their drought only to cause an even worse one in the neighboring country. She believed Xavier’s words, but it was Jean’s smile that won her over. By the time they returned to Westchester, the two girls were the best of friends.
“Then,” Ororo continued writing, setting aside her reflections, “I actually encountered some, and aspects of that dream turned out not to be so pleasant.
“As with every era in human history—perhaps even natural history—good seems ever balanced by evil. The higher and more glorious the summit of our aspirations, the fouler and more insatiable the abyss we leave behind.
“That’s why Xavier’s has always been, and I shall hope and pray always remains, a school.
“While we X-Men exist to protect humanity from those who dwell in the abyss, this school is ever focused on the summit.
“Why humanity is fractured, why some have enhanced genes and others not, none of us can say. But that should not, must not, matter, for fundamentally we all come from the same stock. We are all born of this world, composed of the same raw materials as the cosmos itself. A potentially magnificent family of sentient beings.
“We strive because we must, that is reality. But why we strive must never be forgotten.”
Her eyes flicked across the three memorials: Xavier’s in the center, flanked by Scott and Jean. There were fresh flowers below each one.
“The yearnings—the hopes—that bind us together as a species must be greater and more lasting than the petty conflicts that drive us apart. We are all of us brothers and sisters, parents and children. And ultimately, the character of each and every person, and the deeds that flow from it, must matter more than the color of their skin, or the structure of their genome.
“That is our dream. This school, and we X-Men, exist to help make it a reality.”
“Not so bad,” commented a voice from right beside her. A sideways glance revealed Kitty, standing nonchalantly on empty air, her easy manner wholly belied by the hooded eyes that surveyed the three markers.
“I’m terrified,” Ororo remarked.
“You get the big office, Headmistress,” Kitty zinged quietly, “you get the headaches to go with.”
“I think I liked our lives better when we were semi-outlaws.”
“Everything changes, ’Ro. Ain’t evolution a bitch?”
Ororo cocked a disapproving eyebrow. Friends they might be and teammates as well, but they were also Head and student and certain proprieties had to be observed. Rules that were good enough for Charles Xavier were just as good for his first successor.
Kitty air-walked down a flight of invisible steps that brought her to the three cenotaphs. Ororo swung herself from her perch with a silent grace she’d learned when she was younger than Kitty, training to be a thief. For her, that outlaw past was more than a mere phrase.
“I miss them,” Kitty said simply.
Ororo draped an arm across the girl’s shoulders and pulled her close. “Me, too,” she replied, her voice going briefly husky. “Every day.”
“It has enabled us to evolve from a single-celled organism into the dominant species on the planet.”
Bells sounded throughout the great, old house, and the hallways of its lower two floors exploded with life and activity, as scores of young people made their way from class to class. The student population was double what it had been before Xavier’s death, and there was a deliberate mix now of mutant and sapien, as the school began to establish a reputation not only as the world’s foremost facility for the teaching and investigation of mutant abilities but as an academic institution in its own right.
“This process is slow, normally taking thousands and thousands of years.”
Hank McCoy sat perched over the teacher’s desk as the students filed in, hanging upside down from a trapeze bar installed by Nightcrawler. No one stared, as this was actually one of his more restrained poses.
On his desk, his laptop was open, its webcam oriented to pick him up where he was hanging. He wore a headset. None of the students could see the screen, which was just as well since he was finishing a conversation with the president.
“I appreciate the offer, sir,” he told David Cockrum, “but I truly believe that my place is here. For the present anyway, this is where I can do the most good.”
“I understand.” Then Cockrum broke his train of thought with a shake of the head. “Henry, for God’s sake, have pity on the rest of us. Do you have any notion of how disconcerting it is to talk to someone who’s hanging upside down?”
“You look perfectly fine to me, sir,” McCoy replied, blandly deadpan.
“Have it your own way, then. I’m taking your advice about Alicia Vargas. I’ll be sending her name up to the Senate for confirmation as the new Secretary of Mutant Affairs.”
“Couldn’t do better, sir.”
“Actually, I could, if the fella I have in mind weren’t so damn stubborn. Any time you want a job, Henry!”
“Due respect, sir, the government job I find myself fantasizing about isn’t really yours to give.”
Cockrum snorted. “Give a man his second term, will you? Be well, Henry.”
“Best to Paty, sir.”
“By the way,” the president said just before breaking contact, “a very young lady just walked through the wall behind you. Does that happen often?”
“Do you really want to know?”
Both men chuckled. The screen went dark. As McCoy twisted himself lithely to his chair, he noticed that Kitty had left something for him to look at: a fairly professional-looking poster, a head shot of her looking quite grown-up, below the words: ELECT CHICAGO’S PRYDE.
He cocked an eyebrow, and she returned a conspiratorial grin; evidently he wasn’t the only one harboring presidential fantasies.
“But every few hundred millennia…evolution leaps forward.”
Hank called the class to order, and set aside the text he’d originally intended using. With a wicked smile, he plucked up a well-read copy of Ethics, by Benedict de Spinoza.
“So long as a man imagines that he cannot do this or that,” McCoy read, his well-rounded, theatrical tones instantly quieting the room and gathering in everyone’s attention, “so long is he determined not to do it: and consequently, so long is it impossible to him that he should do it.” He paused a moment to let the words sink in. “So, class, how do we integrate such a philosophy into our modern world? What for us constitutes ‘impossible?’ Ms. Pryde, shall we start with you?”
“That is why I created a school for gifted youngsters…”
“Also in today’s news, spokesmen for Warren Worthington Jr. announced this morning that the last of their mutant clinics has been closed. Established only a few months ago to distribute what was trumpeted as a ‘cure’ for the so-called mutator gene that is present in a significant and growing segment of the global population, the clinics were the cause of considerable controversy during those early days. However, with Worthington’s subsequent acknowledgment and acceptance of his own son as a mutant, popular support and interest in that cure has substantially evaporated, as has the need for the clinics.”
“This world will continue long after we are all laid to rest. And while our bodies may be gone…our lessons are eternal.”
Bobby Drake rose quickly, a little clumsily, to his feet as Rogue slipped through the doorway into his room.
His smile was bright, hers as shy as ever.
“Hey,” he said in greeting. “I heard you went home to visit your folks.”
“Been so long,” she replied, with a nervous toss of the head, “I figured they’d forgot all about me.”
“No such luck?”
“Go figure.”
“Probably make a whole lot more sense when you’re in their shoes.”
“That’ll be the damn day.”
“So,” he began.
“So,” she echoed, making him wish he was back on Alcatraz going toe-to-toe with Pyro.
“Kitty wants to be president,” he told her brightly, grasping frantically for anything to use to make conversation. “She wants us to be her brain trust.”
Her look presented her thoughts on that score with painful eloquence.
“You don’t—” he began, but she cut him off.
“Got no doubts about her, sugar,” she said, allowing a lazy smile. “That’s a slam dunk. It’s this ‘brain trust’ thing that’s got me worried.”
“So,” he tried again, after a pause.
She took a breath, crossed a Rubicon, pulled her hands from behind her back.
Her sweater was long-sleeved, but she’d pushed the sleeves up to her elbow. She wore gloves.
“I’m sorry, Bobby,” she said, her Bayou accent much more pronounced, the way it always was when she was majorly stressed. “I…”
“Rogue,” he started, “Marie, it’s okay.”
She smiled softly, counterpointing it with a slightly acid look that came totally from the girl he loved. “I know,” she told him, with a slight subtext: dummy! “It’s what I wanted.”
She held out her hand and he took it.
And for the longest time, sitting side by side in the bay window that afforded one of the better views of the estate, that was all they did.
At the end of the long underground hallway was a door that was easily the size of a bank vault, more imposing than anything you’d find protecting the United States Gold Depository at Fort Knox.
As they approached, it slid silently open, to admit the seven of them—four girls, three boys—to another world. They stepped across the threshold into nighttime darkness and found themselves amidst the ruins of what had once been a city.
“Where’s the door?” one of the boys asked, and they all turned as one to behold the same bleak vista behind them as before. One of the girls stepped forward, arm outstretched, and looked perplexed when she encountered only empty air.
“Ain’t that easy,” Logan told them, flicking a thumb across the tip of his match to strike it alight and then setting the flame to the end of his cigar. He stood at the crest of a pile of rubble, dressed in X-Men combat leathers, as were Kitty and Colossus among the group below. The rest wore the standard training uniform of gold and indigo. The yellow was intense on purpose; the kids were supposed to be seen.
“Pryde,” he said, calling the roll, narrowing his eyes at the sight of Kitty’s uniform, with pants riding dangerously low and her bolero jacket cut high and tight, showing off her superbly toned dancer’s body to the best effect she could. Girl was putting way too much faith in her phasing power to keep her from getting in trouble; he’d have to find a way around that. “Rasputin.”
He moved on to the newbies, a pair of very long, very lean drinks of water, one of each sex, blond mountain boy from the coal-mining hollers of eastern Kentucky, and a raven-haired Cheyenne out of Wyoming. “Sam Guthrie, Danielle Moonstar.”
Dark-haired fella was next, hanging back in the shadows, playing with a couple of cards, surprisingly hard to see despite the Day-Glo design of his uniform. Logan sensed at first sight this “Gambit” would be trouble, which suited him just fine. “Remy LeBeau?” No spoken answer, just a curt nod of the head and the flash of eyes that glowed red in the darkness.
The last was a woman identified as Sage. Dark hair, dark eyes, a pair of marks falling from the outer corner of each eye that made it seem as though someone had tattooed a line of tears down her cheek, although in the light allowed them now they looked much more like blood. She held herself perfectly still, giving away nothing, the epitome of graceful control, and with a single glance she caused every hackle to rise on the back of Logan’s neck. Instantly, he revised his estimate of the class. The Cajun with the cards and the attitude would be trouble; this girl was dangerous.
He spared a glance up and behind him, over his shoulder at the observation blister mounted in the ceiling, sensing without seeing the presence of Ororo, overseeing his first training class. He knew she was smiling, enjoying every moment of his discomfiture, but also trusting him to do the job right.
“Okay, firstly, this isn’t a game. Anyone thinks different, go out back and sit a spell by the memorials. The world could be a nasty place before we came along; the presence of mutants, with powers, has just upped the ante into the stratosphere. Most of the kids upstairs, they’ll leave this place with a degree and a future, and that’ll pretty much be the end of it. Mutant or not, they’ll go on with their lives. You lot, you’re cut from a different cloth. Here’s where we see what you’re made of.”
He took a long, contemplative drag on his cigar. “It’s gonna seem like this is all about ducking and dodging, staying in line…
“…but what it’s really about is…being a part of something. Not just a team. More than that.”
He made a face, certain he could hear Ororo laughing at him. The quick look Sage split between him and the blister—which by rights she shouldn’t have been able to see—made him wonder if she could hear her, too. Definitely very dangerous.
“Anyway,” one last puff and he tossed the cigar aside, “I’m not one for speeches. Or theory. Around here, we pretty much learn by doing. So—let’s get started.”
And on that cue, all hell broke loose.
His favorite spot was atop Corona Heights, just above the Castro, where a natural outcrop of rock known as Arthur’s Seat afforded a truly magnificent view of San Francisco.
If he looked over his shoulder, he could see the red and white spidery tripod of the Sutro Tower, a gigantic communications mast that dominated the western heights, like some Martian invader out of H. G. Wells. Downtown and to the left the skyline was completely transformed by the Golden Gate that now linked the city with Alcatraz.
The disruption caused by the bridge’s removal had been nothing short of monumental, and commuter traffic patterns had proved to be the least of it. Canny entrepreneurs were already attempting to fill the breach with large, fast hydrofoil ferries, such as were used up north in Seattle and Vancouver; the problem was terminals, either in Tiburon and Sausalito or here in the city proper. Pedestrian passengers could be accommodated except that they needed somewhere to park over there and access to mass transit over here. Driving around the bay—from 101 to the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge that separated San Francisco Bay from San Pedro and then down Interstate 80 to the “Governor Norton” Bay Bridge—was certainly feasible, if you didn’t mind a twoor three-hour drive each way. Housing prices in Marin had crashed and both the mayor and the governor in Sacramento were shrieking for federal disaster relief. On talk radio and blogs, the trial balloon was being floated—with a vengeance—that since mutants had made the mess, they should bear the responsibility of cleaning it up.
How hard could it be? they speculated ad nauseum. After all, it took only one of them—albeit the self-styled Master of Magnetism—who was said to be no spring chicken either, to move the bridge in the first place. Surely a bunch of them could replace it, or at least make the rebuilding go more quickly and cheaply? Or, failing that, why not find Magneto himself and force him to make restitution? Sure, the X-Men claimed that he’d fallen victim to the Worthington Cure and had been permanently stripped of his powers, but aren’t the X-Men muties, too? How can we believe them? How can we trust them, really?
That was the argument, across airwaves and bandwidths, day in and day out, each side, mutant and sapien, yelling at the other without regard to logic or the slightest effort to consider the other opinions.
Someday, eventually, a new bridge would span the straits. In the meantime, the city and its people would cope, as they had a century ago after their equally famous earthquake. For now, though, they had a perfectly wonderful and unique new tourist attraction.
Sightings of actual mutants were still surprisingly rare, with every paparazzi and amateur with a long lens searching the sky for a shot of the newly christened Angel out for a flight. The fact that he was at school back east didn’t seem to faze them; they still kept a perpetual stakeout on the Worthington town house. Some of the more enterprising professionals had thought to sneak onto Xavier’s property in New York, for shots of the young man and any other muties they could find. They spent a night straight out of Blair Witch lost in the woods, and fled to the coast on the earliest flight, never to speak to anyone of what happened.
The only such photo to actually see print came from an amateur birder and made the cover of Audubon.
The world proceeded much as it always had.
The FBI had Magneto at the top of its Most Wanted list and every intelligence service in the world had the word out to find him. There were the usual chorus of rumors that he was dead, as well as those which maintained he’d never existed, that it was all a hoax perpetrated by the X-Men to make their reputation.
He enjoyed the stories immensely, dividing his thirst for news between the New York Times and the Economist. TV wasn’t for him; the drama was too harsh and the comedies weren’t terribly funny. Having endured so much of the reality, he had no stomach for pretend violence.
Hollywood went big budget on The Battle of Alcatraz, with one of Britain’s finest Shakespearean actors, a knight no less, tapped to play the role of Magneto. It was scheduled to premiere in San Francisco in May.
Somehow, he meant to find a way to see it.
He’d always been a careful man. He’d scattered his resources across the globe, so that regardless of whatever setbacks he encountered along the way, he’d be able to sustain himself and start again. This was the first time he’d had to do so without the use of his powers.
He had a job, working one of the trawlers that still pulled out of Fisherman’s Wharf every other week; he’d been “adopted” somewhat by Arcadia’s skipper, Aleytys Forrester. She cooked him meals, he taught her Greek. She asked him no questions, he told her no lies. In many respects, he was in the best physical shape of his life.
He was surprisingly at peace while he remained awake. His nights, of course, were haunted.
His custom was to nurse a large muffin—freshly baked, organic and obscenely delicious—and a tall cup of dark, rich coffee over a book, basking in the sun until the afternoon fog rolled down off the heights to shepherd him home.
Occasionally, though, in remembrance of happier days, he’d take a seat at the chess table down below the knob of Arthur’s Seat and play a game with Charles in his head. It wasn’t exactly kosher, playing both sides of the board, far too many draws, but it passed the time and kept his wits keen.
Very rarely, he’d pull a collection of bottle caps from the pocket of his pea coat and spread them out before him, pitting his improvised pieces against the ones supplied his adversary from his imagination. And he would stare at them with ferocious intensity, with all the still considerable will power he possessed, and try to make them move.
Today was such a day. And as with every such attempt since that fateful confrontation on the bridge, Magneto was disappointed.
A shadow fell over him and he glanced up from under lowered brow to see a woman of medium height, forty-something and quite handsome, dressed with careless style that told him she had the wealth to afford good clothes but little interest in appearing fashionable. What marked her most was an obvious intelligence.
He ignored her and hoped she’d go away. She didn’t take the hint.
“May I join you?” she asked, with an evident Scots burr.
He said nothing.
“I can help you,” she said.
Again, he said nothing, thinking that the fact that he was here should have made abundantly plain that he wanted no such help.
She set a business card on the table: MUIR ISLE RESEARCH CENTER; KINROSS, SCOTLAND. And beneath it: moira kinross mactaggart, director.
“And I pray y’can help me.” The slight hitch in her voice made plain that what she was asking was both intensely important and wholly personal.
“I’m at the Fairmont these next few days, for a conference. If y’wish, ring me on my mobile. If not, I’ll not bother y’again.”
She had a Highlander’s directness, of speech and manner, and a brilliance to match that of the two men she’d teamed with fresh out of University. The work she and Charles had done with him was groundbreaking; by rights, it should have won them all the Nobel Prize. But both men insisted she was the one to go to Stockholm, to be the public face of their joint researches. Her second Prize she’d won on her own.
“The next move is yours, Erik.”
He watched her all the way down the hill, until she turned the corner towards Market.
He tapped his fingers absently on the table in a random pattern. He thought about what she’d said, and how she’d acted and what they’d all once meant to one another. Lee was cooking cioppino tonight, from fish they’d caught with their own hands.
He couldn’t go back. That path had brought nothing but grief, to those he cared for, those who trusted him, to himself. This was better.
Magneto reached out to gather up his bottlecaps…
…and one of them trembled, ever so slightly, as if caught by a puff of breeze—except that the air had fallen completely still.
And then, just a little bit, it moved.