34

Once, when she was a girl, Lee Forrester had gone with her mom and dad to the stockyards. It was during the All-Florida Championship Rodeo in Arcadia. In later years, looking back on it, she could never quite understand why her parents had opted to take their precocious daughter on a road trip halfway to Tampa, to attend a rodeo, of all things. But in all the years that followed, Lee had never been able to forget the image of the stockyards, of the cattle herded into pens, seeming either resigned to their fates or else so numb from fear and shock as to make no difference. They lowed, on occasion, dispiritedly, but put up no active resistance.

That was how it was in the prison to which Lee and her crew had been brought. Though instead of cattle, placidly awaiting their fate, these were men and women, some of them super-heroes.

This would not do.

Lee approached the three Xavier students first. Even though she’d never met them, they would, at least, have friends in common.

Magneto had told her about these three, and their classmates. She couldn’t remember their names, but she could remember their code names. And, on reflection, she supposed that in the world in which superheroes moved, that was as it should be.

One, the slight Scots girl with the bright red hair, whose somewhat mousy appearance did not hint at the fire she carried within, went by the code name of Wolfsbane. Though one would never guess it to look at her in this guise, this young girl possessed the ability to turn into a full-grown wolf able to stop at transitional states along the way: a werewolf.

Another, a normally angry young Brazilian, with dark skin and short, wavy black hair, went by the code name of Sunspot. Though at five feet tall he was only a couple of inches taller than the red-haired Scots girl, this intense young man was capable of storing solar energy for long periods of time, and then converting it into superhuman levels of physical strength.

Finally, there was the determined Native American girl, who accessorized the yellow-and-black Xavier uniform with a silver-and-turquoise belt and fringed moccasin boots, who answered to the code name Mirage. This resourceful young woman, the oldest of the three, possessed the uncanny ability of creating lifelike three-dimensional images drawn from the minds of herself and others.

At the moment, though, none of the three appeared particularly fiery, or angry, or determined. Each seemed just as listless as all the other prisoners who wore the silver collars, like cattle resigned to their fates.

It was up to Lee to change all that.

None of the three resisted as Lee dragged them together to a fairly empty space at the side of the chamber. The room into which they had all been ushered, which had already held some dozen or more regular men and women, was large, the walls, floor, and ceiling featureless and unbroken. Once they had been ushered through the aperture in the wall, the silvery material of the wall had flowed back over the opening, sealing it up. But, more importantly, the prisoners had been left alone, without any manner of guard.

It was possible that their captors were watching, even now, whether through some sort of hidden cameras or perhaps through a section of the wall that could act like a two-way mirror. But for the moment, Lee had to assume that they’d been left to their own devices, at least until their captors once more had a use for them, or until they arrived with more prisoners.

If Lee was able to set her plan in motion, though, the prisoners would be ready when the door opened once more.

Next, Lee approached the Japanese hero, Sunfire. He sat slumped against the curved wall, his eyes on the middle distance, his mouth hanging slightly open. Neither she nor any of the Xavier students had met Sunfire before, but she had seen footage of him a few years before, from his first appearance in Manhattan, to his later action as the national hero of Japan. Sunfire’s mutant ability was to ionize matter into superheated plasma, like the flames on the surface of the sun itself. This plasma could be fired in bolts at will, or used to create heated air currents around his body, allowing him to fly. Both were powers that, if Lee’s plan were to come to fruition, would prove useful.

Finally, Lee approached the two students from the Massachusetts Academy, the Hellions. Xavier’s students were helpful in identifying who the two were, and what their capacities were.

One, a young Arab of Moroccan origins, was codenamed Jetstream. He possessed the ability to produce large amounts of energy, which he used to propel himself through the air like a rocket.

The other, a tall Native American, went by the code name Thunderbird. His abilities were simply stated, and easily understood. He was very fast, and very, very strong.

It was clear that there was animosity between the Xavier students and their rivals from the Massachusetts Academy, though Lee could not fail to notice the significant glances that Mirage and Thunderbird exchanged, even in their subdued states. Lee could not say whether there was a history between the two, or whether both simply wished that there were.

Now that she’d been able to get the attention of the six mutants, she gathered them together, along with her crewmen, and outlined her plan.

35

As they wended their way through the corridors and chambers of the Fathership, it seemed to Kitty less like an interstellar space craft, and more like some unearthly, foreboding catacombs, as though they were not hanging in space between the Earth and her moon, but instead deep underground in a network of tombs and oubliettes. The atmosphere, though breathable, was oppressive, and from time to time Kitty would shiver as a chill ran down her spine.

Kitty realized she’d felt this way before. Some time ago, and far away, when she walked through narrow streets and felt an inescapable chill in her bones, though the tropical sun was high and shining overhead.

“This is just like that city in the Bermuda Triangle,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Dis,” Betsy said, not turning around.

“What?” Kitty glanced over at the telepath, confused.

“The name of the city is Dis.” Betsy slowed, and turned to meet Kitty’s gaze. “Another fact I pulled from the memories of our Exemplar prisoner. Dis was one of seven major Kh’thon cities, scattered around the globe.

If the Kh’thon and their servants are successful, they plan to restore the other six as well.” She paused, and then added, “Once they’ve razed all human civilization to the ground, of course.”

“Naturally,” Kitty said.

“Another one up ahead, Bets,” Logan said, his voice low and even. He pointed a gloved finger at the turn in the corridor up ahead, where a green-robed servitor was just rounding the comer, carrying some sort of large tray in his hands.

“Already ‘heard’ him coming.” Betsy smiled, and tapped her left temple. “He won’t see or hear us.” “Marvelous,” Raphael said admiringly, looking at Betsy as though she were a choice cut of lamb hanging in a butcher’s window. “What I wouldn’t give for a few of you in my employ. ”

“No, thank you, Mr. Raphael,” Betsy answered, a slight sneer curling her lip. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t approve of the work requirements.” She paused, then added, icily, “Or of management.”

Kitty cracked a smile. She wouldn’t want to work for the spook, either. At the same time, she could understand why Raphael found the notion so appealing. Though the Fathership seemed almost deserted, by their standard, from time to time they came upon one of the Kh’thon’s servitors, whether singly or in some groups. When they did, with little apparent effort Betsy was able to cloud the servitors’ minds, creating a mental “blind spot” that prevented them from noticing the interlopers. It was the next best thing to being invisible, without the awkward business of not being able to see your hand in front of your face.

“Are you quite certain you know where we’re going?” Colonel Stuart eyed the passing servitor warily, fingers wrapped tightly around the grip of her automatic pistol.

“More or less,” Betsy replied.

The servitor continued by, oblivious to Kitty and the others passing just a few feet away, heading in the opposite direction.

“I don’t like this,” Colonel Stuart answered, jaw set. “I don’t like this ship, this plan, or this whole bloody circumstance. Something is ... wrong.”

“Hey, it gives me the creeps, too,” Kitty objected, “but don’t take it out on Betsy.”

“Nah, she’s right, kiddo.” Logan was walking a few yards ahead, taking point. “Somethin’ ain’t normal in this joint. Smells are all mixed up”—he reached out a brushed a hand against the dark, oily material of the nearest wall and his finger tips came away wet—“and there’s some kinda weird buzz right on the edge of hearing. Making me queasy.”

“It’s not auditory,” Betsy said, eyes on the middle distance. “That buzz you’re perceiving—it’s psionic. Your brain just doesn’t know how to classify the input.” “What is it?” Kitty asked.

“A sense of wrongness.” Betsy closed her eyes momentarily, looking pained.

‘Yes, that’s it precisely.” Raphael snapped his fingers, his expression excited, as though Betsy had just answered a trivia question he’d been struggling to answer himself “A wrongness.”

“What is it?” Colonel Stuart asked.

“It’s the presence of the Kh’thon themselves, I believe.” Betsy opened her eyes, and turned to look at the others. “They communicate on telepathic wavelengths, and what we’re picking up is the psychic spillover of their conversations. But since they’re operating so far beyond the normal range of human mentation, it comes across to us as a kind of static.” She winced, and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Just be glad none of you has any sort of aptitude for psionics. What you’re getting is just a mild vibration of the ether. I assure you that the full impact of the interference is”—she blinked rapidly, and grimaced—“considerably more noisome.”

“Come along, then.” Colonel Stuart pushed ahead, and continued up the corridor. “No reason to spend a single moment on this hellish ship beyond what is absolutely necessary.”

This can’t possibly be right.

Alysande stared at the strange, pulsating thing before them, willing herself not to be sick all over the floor.

Not possibly right at all.

“This is it,” Betsy said, seeming to take the whole thing in stride.

“It’s ... it’s just... it’s a ...” Alysande’s tongue felt thick in her mouth, and she had trouble forming a thought.

Logan stood to one side, eyes scanning the entrance through which they’d come, and the valvelike doorways on the opposite sides of the room. He glanced over his shoulder at the thing, his expression one of supreme disinterest. “It’s a brain.”

“Eh,” Kitty said with a shrug. “I’ve seen bigger.” Alysande was sure they were having her on, playing a little joke at her expense, but she couldn’t muster the concentration to object. Her every energy, at the moment, was devoted to regarding the pulsating thing before her with commingled fascination and horror.

“Fascinating.” Raphael stepped closer, and reached a tentative hand out, as though to touch the thing. Then, remembering himself at the last minute, he blushed, like an art lover so overcome they almost laid hands on a masterpiece in a museum. Holding his hands behind his back, he leaned in close, bringing his nose within inches of the things subtly vibrating surface. “It’s organic, clearly, but there appear to be technological elements incorporated into the design as well.”

The thing looked precisely like what it was: a gigantic brain. It was almost five feet tall, a little more in diameter, roughly spherical with irregular pits and prominences here and there. Bits of metal and crystal were everywhere, protruding from the dark, fleshy surface, or just visible below it. The worst of it, though, Alysande was convinced, was the arrhythmic pulsations that shook the brain from time to time, like a bowl of gelatin set to quivering by passing footsteps.

“It’s an immense, artificial brain,” Betsy explained, stepping forward to stand beside Raphael just short of the thing, “an amalgam of technology and organics.” “And this is the dingus that controls the fleet’s defenses?” Logan asked.

“Down to the smallest cannon,” Betsy answered.

Kitty walked the perimeter of the giant brain, her expression thoughtful. “Is it... alive?”

“In a sense.” Betsy stretched out her hands, holding them with palms only inches from the brain’s surface. “It has a kind of sentience, though perhaps not like you or I would understand the term. I suppose you could say that it is aware and leave it at that.”

“Is it aware of us?” Alysande’s mouth felt dry, and she tightened her grip on the pistol.

Betsy shook her head. “No. It’s funny, really. Its ‘senses’ come from countless points on the hundreds of ships of the fleet, but it can’t ‘see’ this room at all.”

“So we’re in its blind spot, then,” Kitty said.

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Just like the slaves in the hallways.” Kitty rubbed her lip for a moment, and then looked up, her eyes meeting Betsy’s. “Could you do to it what you did to them?”

“How do you mean?” Betsy cocked her head to one side, perplexed.

“Well,” Kitty answered, “just like you clouded the minds of those slaves, could you kinda ... I don’t know... hypnotize the brain into thinking its defenses are active, while shutting them down at the same time.” Betsy thought for a moment. “I suppose that it’s possible.”

Alysande nodded, and glanced at the young American girl with burgeoning admiration. “Then the Kh’thon wouldn’t know that they were vulnerable until after the Sentinels had struck.”

“That’s what I’m hoping.” Kitty gave a slight smile.

“Well,” Logan said. He turned around and popped a single blade from the back of his right hand. “I’d planned on bein’ a bit more hands-on, but that works, too, I guess.”

“Whatever we do,” Alysande said impatiently, “we should do quickly and be gone. I don’t relish the notion of being onboard when those Sentinels arrive. Assuming, of course, that your friends are able to hold up their end of this bargain.”

Kitty put her hands on her hips, her chin held high. “Don’t worry about our friends, colonel.” She grinned slyly, and pointed with her chin to the far side of the room. “Might be better to worry about your own, eh?” Alysande turned to see Raphael poking around at a mix of organics and crystals on the far chamber wall. The spy stopped, glancing up to see the attention suddenly turned on him, and shrugged. “Just thought I’d see what could be seen. No harm done.”

Alysande narrowed her eyes. “Don’t. Touch. Anything.” Then she turned her attention back to Betsy. “Ms. Braddock, are you ready to begin?”

Betsy, her hands still held with their palms facing the brain’s surface, her eyes closed, took a deep breath and sighed. Then she opened her eyes with a slight smile. “Begin? Darling, I’m nearly through.”

Betsy turned her attention away from the others, and back to the enormous brain. She closed her eyes again, and reached out with her thoughts, brushing against the cool, alien intellect of the enormous organ.

It was unsettling, the brain that controlled the fleet’s defenses. Just as its corporeal self was constructed of organic material intermixed with metal and crystal, so too did its consciousness seem an uneasy blend of mind and machine. The brain’s thoughts were simple but quick, rarely rising above the level of awareness one would find in a house pet, but processing more sensory input than Betsy could sort through in a lifetime.

As she became gradually more at ease touching minds with the consciousness of the Fathership brain, Betsy began to recognize something almost like a personality, in amongst the metallic protocols and crystalline thoughts. Something simple but devoted, quick to anger but eager to please.

You’re a fierce guard dog on the outside, Betsy thought, but nothing but a cuddly puppy on the inside, aren’t you?

She reached out with her mind, her thoughts fluttering against the brain’s consciousness.

Good boy, she sent to the brain in wordless concept-images. You just want approval, don’t you? Well, we’U see what we can do about that.

Moments passed, and then Betsy pulled her hands back, in a motion that wasted no energy, and opened her eyes once more.

“Okay,” she said, turning to the others, the strain only slightly audible in her tone. “I should be able to keep the brain occupied a while, but we shouldn’t waste any time.”

“What did you do?” Kitty asked.

“Would you believe that I’m tickling its belly, and keeping it distracted from its watchdog duties?”

“That makes about as much sense as anything in this place,” Logan snarled. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

“Can’t go that way,” Logan said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder and heading back the way they’d come.

“Um, but isn’t the landing bay that direction?” Kitty asked, pointing farther up the corridor.

Logan had been scouting ahead, making sure their route was clear.

“Yep,” Logan said simply. “But that deserted intersection up ahead ain’t so deserted anymore.” He glanced over at Betsy. “You’ve got some pretty impressive mojo, Bets, but I’m guessin’ that even you can’t keep the Fathership’s brain buffaloed and still cloud the perceptions of a few dozen servitors at the same time.”

Betsy recoiled a fraction, her hand flying protectively to her throat. “Um, no, I’d rather not try, thank you.”

“Then we can’t go that way.” With that, Logan continued walking down the corridor, heading to the next juncture.

They were halfway to the landing bay when everything went horribly wrong.

Using the memories she’d gleaned from their Exemplar prisoner as a guide, Betsy had directed the group along an alternate route. This path, however, required them to make use of a kind of elevator, a roughly spherically shaped chamber that descended from one level to the next.

“I don’t like it,” Logan said warily. “Enclosed space,

no way out, nowhere to run if this thing goes somewhere we don’t like.”

“Yeah,” Kitty said with a half-hearted shrug, “but what are you gonna do? This is the only ‘lift’ in sight, and we don’t know how long it’ll take to make a circuit and come back this way.”

“Are there not any stairs?” Alysande asked. Though she was loathe to admit they shared anything in common, the diminutive Canadian’s concerns were her own. “Our options would improve immeasurably on a stairway.”

“No, I’m afraid not.” Betsy shook her head. “It’s this or the rush-hour pedestrian traffic back that way.” She jerked her head back indicating the way they’d come.

Raphael stepped forward, and examined the walls of the chamber. They appeared to be made out of some highly durable, completely transparent material. “A glass elevator,” he mused. “I believe I read about that in a story, once upon a time.”

“I read it too,” Kitty said, shouldering past him, “but unless you think we’re more likely to find a giant peach somewhere around here that’ll get us back home, this is our only way back to the ship. So move it or lose it.” Raphael treated her to a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, and followed her in. Betsy went next, followed by Alysande. Logan lingered for a moment outside.

“I still don’t like it,” he said, shaking his head. Then he gritted his teeth and stepped onboard.

The door, so transparent and clear that it was almost invisible, slid shut behind him, and the chamber began to sink through the floor.

“Woof!” Kitty doubled over, her hands on her knees. “Wasn’t expecting that. ” She looked down through the transparent floor of the mobile room.

Where before they had been on the solid, and opaque floor of the ship’s deck, now the lift was descending through a vast, cavernous space. It seemed to extend in all directions, apparently limitless, crisscrossed with a network of walkways, ramps, and landings.

The transparent lift, which seemed to be following a vertical track identical to the horizontal walkways that skeined the open space, was rapidly descending toward a wide, gray plain below them.

“First floor, coming up,” Betsy said cheerfully. “Ladies’ sundries, jewelry, electronics, and long-way-round to the landing bay.”

Visible straight down below their feet, the gray floor rose up to greet them, an aperture irising open just as they reached it, just large enough for them to pass through.

And that was when everything had gone wrong.

The door to the lift flowed open, and Kitty phased, instinctively, for all the good it would do her.

There, in the wide open space before them, towered seven inhuman figures, each stranger and more grotesque than the last. They were each a hundred feet tall if they were an inch, looking like a cross between a man, an octopus, a Thai dinner, and a nightmare.

“Um, hi?” Kitty gave a little half-hearted wave.

“Friends,” Betsy said, her voice level but strained, “meet the Kh’thonic Collective.”

As Kitty’s eyes adapted to the gloom, she noticed in addition to the seven inhuman creatures before them a human wearing robes that appeared to be made out of golden light, while in the wings more human shapes lingered, hefting what appeared to be strange, alien weaponry.

“You bitch,” Colonel Stuart said, wheeling on Betsy. ‘You set us up?”

“What?!” Betsy’s mouth gaped, and her eyes went wide. “What possible benefit could there be in it for me to do so?”

“I don’t know,” Colonel Stuart snarled. ‘You tell me.”

“Ladies,” Raphael said behind his hand, his eyes on the Kh’thon, whom he then flashed with a careful smile before continuing. “This is neither the time nor the place for bickering.”

“I gotta say, I agree with Raph on this one.” Logan popped his claws with a snikt, and gave a feral grin. “Now’s the time for scrapping.”

“I’ll have to disagree, friend,” Raphael said, and stepped out of the lift. Arms held wide, he began walking toward the Kh’thon, a broad smile on his face. “Now is the time to negotiate.”

36

Doug Ramsey was caught in the middle. It was the same old story, really. Scylla and Charybdis, a rock and a hard place, the devil and the deep blue sea. Or, in this particular instance, two giant, feral Sentinels, one of them shaped like a humungous snake with arms, the other like an impossibly enormous spider. And both of them programmed to kill all mutants.

Which, considering that Doug and his two companions definitely fell under the umbrella of “all mutants,” was not exactly welcome news.

To make matters worse, though, more Sentinels were arriving by the moment. Some were small, no more than a few inches long, other as tall as Rogue or taller, but all of them feral, all of them adapted along strange paths of evolution and chance, each design more outlandish than the last.

“Okay, boys,” Rogue said, swatting at a winged Sentinel no bigger than the mosquitoes whose shape it had adopted. She sized up the competition. “I figure I can handle Charlotte the Sentinel over there”—she pointed to the giant spider—“but that’ll leave the snake without a dance partner.”

Hank, who’d already tacked his glasses into his shirt pocket, cracked his knuckles like a concert pianist limbering up for a performance, and shucked off his shoes. “I believe I can address that concern, my dear lady. Though my preference is always for matters cerebral, I’ve had my fair share of experience in the corporeal realms as well.”

Rogue flashed him a lopsided grin, and then glanced over at Doug.

“That means it’s up t’ you, boy,” she said.

“Yes.” Hank glanced his direction. “If you can get the central computer up and running, there should be a way to override the Sentinels’ command protocols.” “Erm, sure?” Doug managed a weak smile. “It’ll be a piece of cake, right?” He winced, hoping that neither of them noticed how his voice cracked like a kid about to be booted from the boys’ choir, but if they had noticed, they gave no sign of it.

“’Atta boy,” Rogue said, and punched him lightly on the upper arm. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, I believe we’re keepin’ our hosts waitin’.”

With that, Rogue spun on her heel, and launched into the air like a missile, aiming for the towering spider Sentinel.

“After you, my dear.” Hank doffed an imaginary hat, and crouched low, collecting energy in his legs like coiled springs. Then, in one fluid motion, he exploded into the air, twisting around in midleap so that he hit the nearest wall feetfirst, then pushing off and rebounding straight at the snake Sentinel, his arms held wide, enormous hands open and grasping. The snake

Sentinel fired round after round from its arm-mounted weapons, but Hank’s movements were too quick and erratic for any of them to strike home.

Which left Doug swatting away minuscule mosquito ’bots, while in the shadows scavenger Sentinels and lower-ranking predators eyed him hungrily. Swallowing hard, and hiking the strap of his leather satchel higher on his shoulder, he set off into the gloomy depths of the facility.

Only minutes after first being told that he was a mutant, Doug had been asked to establish a meaningful dialogue with a potentially hostile extraterrestrial. He’d been sleeping, before that, so this came as a pretty rude wake-up call. A short while after that, he’d found himself halfway across the galaxy, on a megastructure called a Dyson sphere, where he had to decipher the controls of an ancient stargate to prevent the complete destruction of Earth. He’d even traveled to Asgard, the otherdimensional home of the Norse gods.

And yet, none of that led Doug to expect that he’d one day be standing inside a giant robot head, as big as the capitol dome in Washington, D.C. Much less on a hovering platform, hundreds of feet above the ground.

Tricking the floating platform into carrying him up from the factory floor had been the easy part. It had its own independent operating system, requiring a simple security authorization code to unlock all of its features. It had taken Doug only a matter of moments to convince the platform that he was a fully authorized repair technician, put the platform’s operating core in a diagnostic mode, disable all of its onboard security procedures, and then slave the command system to his voice-print. When he was through, the platform would take him wherever Doug wanted with nothing but a word, his own high-tech flying carpet.

Which he would need, since a brief survey of the area suggested that the Master Mold’s operator core— the central computer that could regulate all of the factories processes, and remotely operate any Sentinels, whatever the make and model, whatever the distance— was located high overhead, inside the hollow “head” of the Master Mold itself It was fitting, Doug supposed. After all, the operator core was the facility’s “brain,” and isn’t that where a brain was supposed to be found?

Once he had the floating platform on a leash, as it were, it was time to take it out for a walk.

“Platform,” Doug said, stepping onto the middle of the disc, keeping careful hold on his satchel. “Elevate.”

With a whispered hum, the platform began to rise up in the air, buoyed by some variety of suspensor fields whose functioning was far beyond Doug’s kin.

What do I know? Doug ruminated, feeling butterflies in his stomach, and trying not to look down. I’m a software guy. Floaty-disc tech? That’s hardware.

Gradually picking up speed, the platform rose higher and higher, remaining so perfectly level that, if Doug had closed his eyes, the only way he’d have known they were in motion at all would have been the whisper of wind on his cheek as the air rushed past.

But Doug wasn’t about to close his eyes. Heck, he was afraid even to blink for fear that he’d miss the moment when he’d have to tell the platform to stop and they’d careen into the ceiling above at high speed.

The ceiling that, at the moment, was approaching fast.

“P-platform,” Doug said, breathlessly. “Stop. Stop! Stop!”

The flying platform stopped, with only inches separating the top of Doug’s head from the massive array of computational equpment above him.

“Um, thanks?” Doug let out a ragged sigh of relief Far in front of him was a broad, gently curving purple wall. He slowly turned his head, peering over his shoulder, and was so startled he almost tumbled off the platform.

“Cripes!”

It took a moment for Doug to understand what was before him. His first instinct had been that it was an enormous, expressionless face staring right at him. Which was, while impossible, no less terrifying.

Gradually, though, he realized what he was seeing. It was like one of those optical illusions, where one looks at the inside of a plaster cast made of a human face. Seen from just the right angle, the inside of a face cast looks like the outside of a face, not concave but convex. It had something to do with the way the human brain processed the visual imagery, or played with expectations, or closure, or something like that. Whatever the case, it meant that a face in reverse looked just like the face itself, and vice versa.

Which meant, of course, that the Master Mold wasn’t staring at him. Its expressionless gaze was still directed out over the Ecuadorian jungle at the volcano of Tungurahua. What Doug was seeing was the hollow interior of that foreboding, emotionless visage.

And above him, a massive bulk of gray cylinders connected by snaking conduits and cables, was the Master Mold’s sleeping brain.

“Time to wake up.”

Doug reached into his satchel, and pulled out his portable computer. He squatted down and, opening the LCD, laid the computer on his knees. With a familiarly reassuring chiming noise, the computer woke up from suspend.

“Okay, darlin’,” he said, patting the computer’s case affectionately, “time to go to work.”

Balancing the computer on his knees, Doug reached into his satchel and pulled out a coil of cabling. One end was a standard connector, while the other was a kind of oversize alligator clip, with long, sharp, serrated “teeth.”

“Platform. Elevate six inches and stop.”

With a quiet hum, the platform raised up. Doug plugged the cable’s connector into his computer.

“Okay, now where is ... ?” Doug squinted up at the conduits and cabling of the operator core, now just within arm’s reach. The light was dim, so he pulled a small flashlight from his satchel, and played its beam across the snarl of massive electronics. “Ah, there it is.”

Keeping careful hold of the computer, he straightened and, with the cable in hand, reached out and clamped its alligator clip end onto a particular conduit overhead. The long serrated teeth of the clip bit deep into the conduit, and when Doug pulled his hand away the cable held firmly in place.

“Now, Mr. Master Mold.” Doug smiled, fingers flying over the computer’s keyboard. “Let’s talk shall we?”

Elsewhere in the factory, things were not going so well.

At some point along the way, Hank and Rogue had switched partners, he taking on the spider Sentinel, she taking on the snake. Then Rogue had managed to wrap the snake in knots, and force fed the Sentinel its own guns.

Then Hank had managed to trip the spider up, getting it tangled in its own legs, careering into a wall at speed, knocking out its own sensory mechanism.

Which seemed, for a moment, like a good start.

But then the two X-Men had discovered, to their dismay, that the spider and snake did not represent the apex of the Sentinel evolutionary ladder, but were at least one or two rungs down.

Higher on the Sentinel food chain was—

“A giant gorilla?” Rogue said in disbelief “Ya gotta be kiddin’ me ...”

“Oh my stars and garters.” Hank gaped, eyes wide.

It was taller than a typical Sentinel model, perhaps one hundred thirty to one hundred fifty feet tall, but its habit of walking on its knuckles made it seem deceptively short. Its forearms were massive and lengthened, while its legs were short but powerful. It was topped by the familiar Sentinel headpiece, but there was something strange about the lower half of the expressionless Sentinel face.

“Uh, Hank... ?” Rogue began, but before she could finish her thought, the lower half of the gorilla Sentinel’s face swung open, jaw distending, revealing a row of laser cannons. These roared to life, spitting out thick beams of pure energy, lancing toward the two X-Men.

Hank danced out of the way just in time, the leading edge of one of the laser blasts singeing the side of his face, his right sleeve smoldering. Rogue had the ability to move faster, but her reflexes were not as highly attuned as Hank’s, and so she was caught by a direct hit, the blast impacting on her chest and knocking her backward off her feet. If not for her near-invulnerability, she’d have been incinerated on the spot. As it was, the breath was knocked from her, and she fell with a thud to the hard concrete floor, stars dancing in her eyes.

“Ouch.”

Hank rushed to her side, and helped her to her feet while the gorilla Sentinel recharged its mouth lasers.

“I believe, Rogue, that we have met the top predator of the Sentinel world. One can scarcely imagine anything preying on that.”

Just then, a kind of distorted, electronic roar sounded from somewhere in the factory, followed by a deafening thud, then another, then another. Footsteps, and approaching fast.

“I wish you hadn’t of said that, Hank,” Rogue said, shaking her head wearily.

Another Sentinel lurched into view, equally as big as the gorilla. But where the gorilla Sentinel had long arms and short legs, this one had tiny, almost vestigial arms, but massive, powerful legs. The torso extended into a kind of tail, which the Sentinel used to maintain balance, and its oversize headpiece was segmented, the lower half swinging open to reveal a set of wicked pin-cerlike grabbing mechanisms.

Hank looked at it, wide-eyed with amazement. “It’s ... it’s ...”

“It’s a blamed dinosaur, Hank.” Rogue let out a ragged sigh.

“Could it be some kind of convergent evolution?” Hank absently pulled his glasses from his pocket, and setting them on his nose peered up at the approaching Sentinel in wonderment. “Morphologically it’s ... well, it’s a T. rex. Which is not impossible, however implausible. But how would ... ?”

“I think you’ll have to puzzle it out later,” Rogue said, and grabbing hold of Hank’s arm lifted him up into the air just as the massive pincer jaws of the dinosaur Sentinel smashed into the space they’d just vacated. “Looks like Rex here is hungry.”

“Just remarkable.”

For a moment, it looked like the gorilla and the dinosaur might turn on each other instead, but whatever strange evolutionary paths their command protocols had taken, apparently the imperative to eradicate mutants still took precedence.

Carrying Hank under her arm like a football, Rogue zipped from one side of the cavernous space to the other, managing to keep ahead of the laser blasts from the gorilla Sentinel and the massive jaws of the dinosaur ... but just barely.

“I don’t know about you, Hank but I’m bushed. Don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to keep this up.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t worry about that,” said a voice behind them.

They turned, and saw Doug standing atop a flying platform, floating in midair.

“T. rex and Kong, huh?” Doug nodded approvingly. “Cool.”

The dinosaur roared, and the gorilla swung around, bringing its mouth cannons to bear.

“Doug, look out!” Hank shouted.

Dougjust smiled, and raised his hand.

“Stop,” he said simply, and the Sentinels ground to a halt, frozen like statues.

“Um, Doug?” Hank said uneasily. “Am I to take it that you’ve established communication with the Master Mold?”

Doug smiled more broadly. He reached into his satchel and pulled out a cellular phone.

“You could say we’ve established communication.”

Rogue zipped over and landed gracefully on the flying platform. She released her hold on Hank who straightened his shirt, fussily.

“Doug, you’re my hero,” she said with a grin. “I’d kiss ya . . . if, you know, it wouldn’t mean suckin’ the life outta you and stealin’ your powers and memories. Those blamed Sentinels dang near had my number.”

“Aw.” Doug shuffled his feet, blushing. “It wasn’t anything, really.”

“So have you convinced the Master Mold to activate all the decommissioned Sentinels?” Hank asked eagerly.

“Well,” Doug answered, prevaricating, “we may have run into a teensy-weensy problem ...”

37

Scott and the others weren’t dead yet, but it wasn’t from lack of trying.

“I’ve got an idea, Kurt, why not try to teleport us into a vat of molten iron next time? That might be quicker.”

“I’ll forgive that comment, Herr Summers, because I know you are trying to make a small joke, and I can’t hold your complete lack of a sense of humor against you.”

“Tovarisches,” Peter grunted, as an Exemplar pounded into his organic steel frame with a force that could have shattered mountains. “Perhaps now ... is not. .. the best time.”

Kurt sighed dramatically. “You should be grateful we brought Peter along, Scott.” He leapt six feet in the air, just narrowly missing the latest sweeping attack by the superspeedster Exemplar, a yellow-clad blur of movement almost too fast to see. “After all, he’s the only one of us more humor-impaired than you.”

Scott, to Kurt’s surprise, managed a small grin, and fired an optic blast at the Exemplar wearing the dark cloak, who maddeningly went invisible and intangible

just as the beam reached him, phasing back into visible corporeality only after it passed harmlessly through.

The fourth member of the Exemplar quartet whose amusements their sudden teleportation into the alien city had interrupted was a short distance away, watching the combat with a detached expression. On his forehead was some sort of red gem, though whether it was decorative or served a purpose—a weapon, perhaps?— Scott couldn’t say, since the ruby, as Scott thought of him, had yet to make a move.

“This is getting us nowhere,” Kurt said, lunging to one side, catching a glancing blow as the yellow-clad speedster zipped by again. “We need to think of a new plan.”

Scott fired an optic blast at the ruby Exemplar, who promptly disappeared. For an instant, he assumed that this was another phantom, another able to phase invisible and intangible, but in the blink of an eye the ruby reappeared on the far side of the pool, in the same posture and pose.

A teleporter, Scott realized. That gave him an idea. “Kurt, you up to teleporting, yet?”

Rebounding off the wall, wrapping his prehensile tail around one of the outstretched stone tentacles of the giant inhuman statue and swinging to the far side, Kurt scratched his head thoughtfully. “I think so. Why?” “The shield’s bound to be back up,” Scott answered, not chancing a glance at the remote on his belt, “but you should be able to scout out a path for us through the city. Feel like giving it a shot?”

Kurt, hanging head down, just out of the speedster’s reach, crossed his legs, as casually as if he were perched

on a park bench, and shrugged. “Why not, Mein Freund. I’ll be back in a moment.”

Bamf.

Scott glanced over, and saw that as soon as Kurt had ’ported, the ruby Exemplar had likewise disappeared. If the ruby was a teleporter, as Scott surmised, then Kurt’s little scouting mission would serve a dual purpose. He’d be able to scout out a path for them, possibly even finding the prisoners themselves, but he’d also be leading the ruby teleporter on a merry chase.

Of course, Scott thought with a slight smile, it might have been better if I’d actually told Kurt that part of the plan.

Scott almost felt as if he’d made a joke. Well, if so, Kurt would only have himself to blame.

“Verdammt, Scott!”

Kurt leapt into the air, lashing out with a kick that connected with the yellow blur of the speedster. Then, just as the ruby-wearing Exemplar teleported above him, ready to grab hold of Kurt with a telekinetic fist, Kurt ’ported away.

And somehow our four-to-three odds, Kurt thought, have turned into two-to-one odds against me alone. I do hope Peter and Scott appreciate this gift I’ve given them.

Kurt had not been bom yesterday. He’d seen Scott glance at the ruby Exemplar across the pool, and had seen the ruby teleport a short distance moments before. So when Scott had asked Kurt to scout ahead, he’d had a fairly good idea that a secondary objective would be to lure one of their foes away, for a brief while at least, on a wild-goose chase.

What Scott had failed to take into consideration, and Kurt had been too overconfident to consider, was that the yellow-clad speedster had clearly taken some sort of personal dislike to the furry blue elf, and that in addition to the ruby teleporting after him when Kurt bamfed away, the speedster would likewise come and hunt him down. And so now, while trying to find a path through the city, or better yet locate the prisoners they sought themselves, Kurt was forced to contend with, not one, but two Exemplars out for his blood.

To which he could only repeat, “Verdammt, Scott!”

In the years since he’d left the family farm in Siberia, Peter Rasputin had traded blows with aliens, gods, and monsters, with giant robots, cyborgs, and Mandroids, with heroes, villains, and friends. And none of them, to the best of his recollection, had hurt quite so much as this thrice-damned Exemplar.

Hairless, like all the servants of the Kh’thon, this one wore skin-tight vestments of silver and blue, with a stylized thunderbolt emblazoned on the chest. Much shorter than Peter, he was only an inch or so taller than Scott, but easily twice as wide, thickly muscled with a disproportionately large upper body. His massive arms, like pistons, swung back and forth, his large fists like jackhammers pounding into Peter again and again and again.

Not that Peter wasn’t giving as good as he got. For every blow that the thunderbolt Exemplar struck, Peter responded with one of his own. Their battle carried them from one end of the long reflecting pool to the other and back again.

By the white wolf, but he’s a tough one.

Even in his armored form, the punishment Peter’s body was taking had begun to take its toll. Still, he was grateful, knowing that had he been on the receiving end of even one of the thunderbolt’s blows while in his flesh-and-blood form his body would likely hive been liquidized.

Peter was reminded of the last time he’d gone toe-to-toe with an opponent as strong and as tough as this one. It had been on the moon, years before, facing off against Gladiator, the leader of the alien Imperial Guard. It did not escape Peter’s notice that, on that occasion it had been the other combatant who had been the victor, not Peter.

Ofcourse, a buildingfell on me, so it was hardly a fair fight.

Peter hoped that, assuming he could keep from being buried under falling masonry this time, he might come out the winner.

But he wasn’t willing to place any bets on his chances just yet.

Scott, meanwhile, was finding out just how frustrating it could be to fight an opponent one could neither see nor touch.

“Kitty could learn a thing or two from you, friend,” Scott said, firing another optic blast, only to see it pass through empty air as the phantom disappeared, then reappeared a few feet away.

He considered trying the same shotgun approach that Hank had suggested he use against the Capo of the Judgment’s Watch Cohort in Manhattan, but a brief attempt proved fruitless, as the phantom simply went intangible and breezed through the randomly placed blasts.

“Arrant of the Lightning Factor Cohort is no friend to you, degenerate,” the phantom said, his voice high and reedy, “but I’ll happily teach you and yours a lesson in subjugation.”

With that the phantom surged forward, his dark cloak flapping behind him, moving directly toward Scott.

Scott had spent too much time training Kitty in the Danger Room to underestimate the destructive capabilities of someone able to pass through solid matter. If this phantom was able to bring other objects along with him, he could very well phase Scott halfway through solid rock and then leave him there. And Scott knew from experience that any object, or person, that suddenly returned to solidity inside another object fared none too well.

Of course, if the phantom’s powers worked anything like Kitty’s, he would have to lay hands on Scott before taking him anywhere. Which mean that Scott’s optic blasts would be of much less use in this instance than plain old hand-to-hand combat.

Which was fine with Scott. It had been a while since he got a workout.

Sure enough, as the phantom got closer, he grabbed for Scott, hands outstretched. Scott, falling back on years of martial arts training, blocked the grab, ducking down and under the phantom’s arms and stepping to one side. Scott lashed out, hoping to land a punch to the phantom’s side, but at the last instant the phantom went invisible and intangible.

Scott danced away, and an instant later the phantom returned to visible corporeality, and came by for another pass.

This time Scott tried a different approach, meeting the phantom head-on, shoulder forward, hoping to plow into the phantom’s midriff and knock the air from him.

The phantom, taking a defensive posture, went intangible just as Scott barreled through the space he’d previously occupied.

Scott’s momentum carried him forward a few yards, and when he spun around, he saw the phantom holding his ground, eyeing him wearily. From the crisp outline of his shadow, Scott could tell the phantom was solid, and Scott assumed that he was planning his next move.

Bamf.

Kurt teleported in immediately behind the phantom, and before the Exemplar could react, clodded him across the back of the head with a two-handed blow. The phantom, rendered senseless, fell to the ground.

“These games bore me, Scott,” Kurt said, landing nimbly on his feet. “Shall we move along now?”

Kurt explained quickly. He’d managed to shake the two Exemplars who’d been tailing him, but was sure that they’d be along any moment now. He could use the brief respite, though, as he was just about ’ported out.

Then he explained that, as he and the two had been playing their game of tag back and forth across this strange city, he had caught sight of a group of human prisoners being led down a ramp into some sort of subsurface chamber. It was only a short distance away from the reflecting pool where they now stood.

“That’ll be where Lee and the others are being held,” Scott said thoughtfully.

“My thinking exactly.” Kurt leaned over, resting his hands on his knees. “And I thought it best to fetch you and Peter before effecting a rescue, since I didn’t want you to feel left out.”

The barest hint of a smile lifted the comers of Scott’s mouth. “Very thoughtful of you.” He turned and, cupping his hands around his mouth, shouted. “Peter, it’s time to go!”

His combat with the thunderbolt having continued ceaseless since their arrival, Peter straightened, and regarded his opponent, a little wistfully.

“I regret that I’m forced to draw our contest to a close,” Peter said apologetically. “But I’m afraid I must be going.”

With that, he lunged forward, surprisingly fast, and caught the thunderbolt in a crushing bear hug, his arms pinned to his sides. Before the Exemplar could wriggle free, Peter walked to the edge of the pool, reared back and then flung the thunderbolt end over end through the air.

The thunderbolt splashed into the far end of the pool, and even though he thrashed mightily, quickly sank to the bottom.

“Let us go quickly, tovarisches,” Peter said, setting off toward Scott and Kurt at a jog. “He’ll take a moment or two to get out, but if we’re still here when he does I’m afraid our departure will be again delayed.”

Scott looked to Kurt, who only shrugged, and the three X-Men set off running.

They reached a broad courtyard. On the opposite side was the ramp down which Kurt had seen the prisoners being led. They had only to cross a distance of a hundred yards or so, and they could descend.

But there was a slight problem.

“Kurt,” Scott said through clenched teeth. “I don’t remember you mentioning anything about an army of Exemplar before.”

With a rakish smile, Kurt scratched his head. “I didn’t? I’m pretty sure I must have.”

Peter shook his head, his hands clenched in fists of steel. “I think I would have remembered that.”

Kurt glanced at Scott and winked. “There seems to be a bout of forgetfulness going around, meine Freunde. Why, first Scott forgot to point out our teleporting friend, and then only a short while later the existence of this horde of Exemplar between us and our goal completely slipped my mind.”

“This. Is not. Funny.” Scott’s jaw was clenched so tightly he could scarcely get the words out.

“Oh, you’re only saying that because you have no sense of humor.” Kurt gave a little salute, and grinning like one of his swashbuckling heroes, plunged into the fray. “Trust me,” he called over his shoulder, falling to blows with a green-skinned, four-armed Exemplar, “it’s hilariousl”

38

Vox Septimus was the hinge on which Lee’s escape plan turned. That, and a fair amount of luck.

Lee, her crewmen, and the inhibitor-collar-wearing mutants were all in position when next the door in the wall flowed open. The next few moments would tell whether Lee’s plan had any chance of success.

Clearly, though, Lee was in the catbird seat, as the first figure through the door, crystal rod in hand, was Vox Septimus. Behind him trooped a number of prisoners, most of whom seemed to be regular humans, men and women, except for one in a uniform of black and white, a haughty expression on his elfin features, even subdued as he was by the inhibitor collar. Lee recognized him as Northstar, the Quebecois hero and member of the Canadian super-team Alpha Flight. If Lee’s dim recollections were correct, his powers included flight and superspeed, both of which would come in handy, assuming that their escape plans advanced past the first stage.

It was time to see if Lee’s strategy would work. She motioned to the others, and took her position.

The tall Native American code-named Thunderbird had been tapped to play the role of the heavy He was the most physically imposing of all the mutant prisoners, and even through the miasma of the inhibitor collar, was able to work up a sufficiently convincing rage. Lee was sorry for the punishment he’d endure, if her plan were to succeed, but Thunderbird shrugged it off! It was worth it, he’d said, if they could regain their freedom.

Just as the last of the newly arrived prisoners was entering the chamber, and the pair of crystal-rod-wielding servitors in the rear crossed the threshold, Lee went into her act.

“Vox!” she shouted, rushing forward, hands out in an imploring gesture. “Help me! He’s gone crazy!”

Just then, on cue, Thunderbird lunged after her, teeth barred, hands out and grasping, bellowing with rage.

Lee scrambled to Vox Septimus’s side, and pointed at the charging mutant.

“He’s augmented, Vox, and he plans to kill us!”

There was a moment’s hesitation on Vox Septimus’s part, and for an instant Lee thought that her stratagem had failed. But then the servitor glanced at her, drew his mouth into a tight line, and turned back to face Thunderbird.

“Not this time, augment!” Vox Septimus snarled, surprisingly vicious, and then blinding white light shot from the tip of his crystal rod, lancing into Thunderbird.

Pinned by the white burst of energy, Thunderbird hurled back his head and howled.

Just then, the other mutant prisoners, who had arranged themselves in a wide arc around the opening, raced forward, screaming bloody murder and charging directly at the pair of servitors in the rear of the train.

Eyes wide, the servitors raised their crystal rods, just as Vox Septimus had done, and fired off bolts of white light at the attacking mutants.

Then Lee made her move.

She began by bringing her foot crashing down on Vox Septimus’s instep, the heel of her boot impacting with an audible crunch. Then, as Vox Septimus began to double over in pain, she brought her hands down in a two-handed chop, smashing into the servitor’s wrist. His grip on the crystal rod loosened, and the rod clattered to the floor.

Lee dove after it. On hands and knees, she scrambled for the crystal rod, and just as she wrapped her fingers around it and turned, Vox Septimus was standing over her. He looked down at Lee, a confused, betrayed expression on his face.

“I’m so sorry,” Lee managed, and then squeezed the crystal just as she’d seen the servitors do, and a bolt of white light lanced out, splashing into Vox Septimus’s face and chest.

Still on her back, Lee lifted on one elbow, and as Vox Septimus crashed to the floor, neck and face scorched, his eyes rolling back in his head, she fired off energy blasts in rapid succession. Her aim was no better than her control, but after a half-dozen blasts she’d managed to connect with both of the other servitors, who now lay writhing on the floor, alive, but just barely.

Lee climbed to her feet, as Paolo and the others helped the mutants to their feet. Those who, like Thunderbird, had been on the receiving end of one of the energy blasts, had a rougher time of it than the rest.

“Okay,” she said, dusting off her jeans. “Time for step two.”

Lee’s gamble had paid off She’d gathered, from her conversations with Vox Septimus, and from watching the way that he interacted with his fellow servitors, that he harbored some degree of resentment for the “augments,” those servitors who had been given special abilities. He’d also seemed to have developed some affection for or attachment to Lee herself The presence of terrestrial mutants in the prison chamber, whether their powers were inhibited or not, provided Lee the opportunity to stage a little drama for Vox Septimus and see if she could use his resentments to her benefit.

It had all worked flawlessly, of course, going off without a hitch. So why did Lee feel so lousy? Sure, Vox Septimus had been happily leading Lee and her men to the slaughterhouse, along with countless other human prisoners, but he didn’t seem such a bad sort, for all of that. But in the end, it had come down to him or the prisoners, and Lee had know immediately what side she was on.

Still, she couldn’t help feeling sorry for the poor guy. From the look on his face when the energy blast had knocked him out, it was clear he just hadn’t seen it coming.

It took a bit of trial and error to work out how to remove the inhibitor collars, and Lee came very near to blowing off a few heads in the process. In the end, though, all seven mutant prisoners were free, slowly regaining their powers and abilities, leaving Lee, Frank and Paolo armed with the crystal rods previously wielded by their jailors. The mutants were still a bit dazed from the exertion of rousting themselves to action, and rested here and there, regaining their energy.

“Okay,” Lee said, turning and addressing the two dozen or two other prisoners, all of them regular men and women, with a few older children scattered here and there. “Here’s the deal. That door”—she pointed to the aperture in the silvery wall—“is open, but we have no idea how long it’s going to stay that way. So my friends and I are going out, and we aren’t coming back. The problem is, we also have no idea what sort of resistance we’re going to run into. The plan is to get off this island, however we can. But there’s a chance we won’t make it.” She paused, and took a deep breath before continuing. “But if we don’t make it, at least we can make things as difficult for these alien bastards as we can. No one invades my planet and gets away with it. Now,” she surveyed the crowd, swinging the crystal rod like a truncheon. “Who’s with me?”

To Lee’s very great surprise, every man, woman, and child leapt to their feet, ready to follow her into the jaws of danger.

I must have hung around Scott too much, she thought, with a tight smile. This hero stuff is wearing off on me.

“One side, woman,” said the mutant Northstar, shouldering past Lee. “I take orders from no one, and particularly not an American.”

Lee shrugged. “After you.”

They had found the landing beyond the entrance deserted, and no one in sight on any of the intersecting walkways or the ramps. Though Lee had no intention of becoming any kind of leader, most of the others had looked to her for direction, even the mutants. But, considering what they must have been through, and that most of them were little more than children themselves, Lee supposed it wasn’t that surprising.

But not Northstar. And not, apparently, Sunfire, after seeing the example of his Quebecois counterpart.

“Let it not be said that a son of Japan hides behind women’s skirts while a Canadiangaijin ranges ahead.” Sunfire raised his hands before him, and solar flames danced at his fingertips.

“Look,” Mirage said, hands on her hips, “I don’t care who’s walking in front, so long as we all get out of here. Or is that just too complicated for you muscle-brains to get?”

The Japanese and Quebecois heroes looked at each other, eyes narrowed, and then back at the young Native American woman. They shrugged in tandem. “It’s pointless to fight amongst ourselves,” Sunfire agreed. “There will doubtless be more than enough opponents to choose from above.”

He was not half wrong. As Lee and the others walked up the ramp into a large courtyard lit by the slanting light of the late afternoon sun, they found themselves in the midst of a pitched battle.

On the one side was a massed army of Exemplar, led by an imposing figure with skin the color of silver and flashing white eyes, from which optic beams lanced out, to devastating effect.

On the other side were three familiar figures, a blue-furred acrobat with four fingers and a prehensile tail, a towering man made of organic steel, and a lithe, muscled man with a yellow visor wrapped halfway around his head.

“Hey, Summers,” Lee shouted, firing a blast of white energy from her crystal rod, and rushing into the fray. “Looks like you could use some help!”

39

Logan didn’t need to wait for an engraved invitation. He was ready to attack now.

“Hold on there, cowboy,” Kitty said in a low voice, her hand on his elbow. “We might still be able to talk our way out of this.”

Logan snarled, the adamantium claws on the back of each hand glinting in the low light, but he remained motionless. For now.

Colonel Stuart, for her part, had her weapon drawn, aimed, and ready to fire. Her target, for the moment, was the strangely familiar human in the robes of golden light; but she was willing to change targets, and aim at the back of the secret agent, Raphael, if necessary.

“Greetings from Planet Earth,” Raphael said, sounding uneasily like a game show host. “You can call me Raphael. I’m pleased to inform you that I have been authorized by Her Majesty’s government to negotiate terms on behalf of all mankind.”

“What?” Kitty gaped.

“I smell a double cross,” Logan snarled.

‘You and me both, Mr. Logan,” Alysande answered, eyes narrowed. Raphael hadn’t breathed a word of any of this to her, and her briefing before leaving Earth, however rushed and abbreviated it might have been, had mentioned nothing whatsoever about negotiating “terms.” Was the Resource Control Executive playing a game even its shadowy masters in government knew nothing about?

“This one addresses the assembled,” sang the golden-robed human servant of the Kh’thon. “This one is not addressed.”

Alysande recognized him now. He was the same figure who’d addressed them on the beach of Julienne Cay, some thirty hours, and a lifetime, ago.

“Vox Tertius,” Kitty breathed, suggesting she had just recognized him as well.

“This one is Vox Prime, cell-sibling of the Vox some of you encountered on the planet below, this previous day. The thoughts of the Kh’thon are beyond your comprehension, and so the Collective will communicate its will to you through this one.”

“That’s splendid, lad,” Raphael swanned, stepping closer. “Now, if you could just inform your masters that I would like to offer them a deal on ...”

“Silence!” Vox Prime bellowed, his shout as pure and clear as the tolling of a bell.

“I mean no disrespect, of course,” Raphael said quickly, miming a quick bow from the waist. “But this offer does have a time limit, and if your masters don’t...”

Vox Prime turned his head, glancing to the nearest of the humans in the wings, who carried large, unlikely looking shapes that Alysande could only assume were armaments of some sort. “Guardians. Please do the necessary.”

Without warning, light, heat, and sound poured from both sides, belched from the ends of the strangely shaped crystalline weapons, engulfing Raphael completely. Then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over.

For the briefest instant, Alysande thought that Raphael had been completely unharmed. Then she realized that it was not the effects of the bright light on her vision, but that he really was wrapped into darkness. It was as though he, and he alone, were plunged into deep shadows. Then his shape began to shift, and Alysande realized her mistake. It wasn’t Raphael wrapped in darkness. It was a pillar of ashes in Raphael’s shape. But the pillar of ash could not maintain the form for long, and quickly disintegrated, collapsing to a pile on the floor. Raphael had been burnt, literally, to a crisp, and worse.

“Never could keep his mouth shut,” Logan said in a low voice.

Alysande shot him a hard glance, but for just an instant, keeping her attention on the one called Vox Prime, and more importantly on the weapon-wielding humans on either side.

But Vox Prime had not ordered another strike, only glanced up at the inhuman figures towering above him, in silent communion.

Only then did Alysande remember their presence. For several moments, it was almost as if her unconscious mind had edited the grotesques out of her perceptions, finding them too unearthly and unsettling to perceive. But with her attention brought back to them, Alysande could not ignore them any longer. The towering, inhuman creatures were regarding her and the others closely, with senses beyond human understanding, and it seemed to Alysande that she and the others were being found wanting.

It was all Betsy could do to block out the telepathic voices of the Kh’thon. For all their immense power and ability, the aliens were incredibly undisciplined telepaths, broadcasting their thoughts widely, indiscriminately, rather than narrowcasting them directly to the recipient. As a result, a sensitive like Betsy had no choice but to “hear” the voices of the Kh’thon, resounding loudly in her head.

She winced, squeezing her eyes tight, and wished she was anywhere but here.

Kitty stared at the pile of black ash that had been the man called Raphael only moments before. She’d seen people die before, of course, more times than she chose to remember. But rarely were human lives dismissed as casually, as offhandedly, as Raphael’s had just been. The servitor Vox Prime had ordered Raphael’s execution as easily as one would bat away a fly, and with even less remorse.

“This one is given to explain the thoughts of the Kh’thonic Collective,” Vox Prime went on, heedless of the harsh stares and open hostility on the faces of Kitty and the others. “Since returning to the world you know as Earth, the Kh’thon have studied human civilization, such as it has developed. It is not known what fate befell the brethren of the Kh’thon, who in former days remained on Earth while those present left to roam the galaxies. But it is clear that in the absence of authority, the former servants of the Kh’thon have grown wild and uncontrolled. The Collective is especially surprised to find augmented humans on Earth.”

Kitty pursed her lips. For augmented, read “mutant. ” “In aeons past,” Vox Prime continued, “only the science of the Kh’thon had been able to trigger the expression of the randomizing element in the servitor race, whether at birth or in later life. Now, however, the feral humans of Earth have unlocked secrets beyond their kin, and such factors as cosmic rays, and gamma radiation, and the free radiation polluting the biosphere in the decades since humanity split the atom, have combined to produce spontaneous triggering of a nontrivial percentage of the population.”

Cosmic rays? Kitty thought. Like those that gave the Fantastic Four their powers? And gamma radiation, like that which gave birth to the Hulk? Is this clown saying that all of those are mutations deriving from the same “randomizing element”—the X-gene—that gave me and the other mutants our abilities?

“The Kh’thonic Collective has reason to worry that, without supervision, augmented humans could one day pose a threat to the other civilized cultures of the galaxy, not least of which are the Kh’thon themselves. Certainly, recent history suggests that mutants, as you call yourselves, even present a danger to the civilizations of Earth itself.”

“Yeah?” Logan said, taking a step forward, but not too close. “So what are you gonna do about it, then?”

“This one?” Vox Prime pointed to himself confused. “This one does nothing.” He then turned slightly to one side, and glanced up with a worshipful expression at the inhuman creatures towering over him. “Our masters in the Collective, however, are inclined to eradicate humanity all together, wiping clean the face of the Earth, and starting over with a fresh crop of servants.”

“Alright,” Alysande barked, and took three long strides forward. “This has gone on quite long enough.”

Vox Prime was silent for a long, terrifying moment, and Alysande stiffened, half-expecting to be burned to ashes. When she wasn’t, she straightened, and plowed on ahead.

“Look, you lot.” She pointed a stern finger at the towering alien figures, ignoring Vox Prime entirely. “Forget what this pile of ashes told you. I am the legitimate representative of the British crown, and I’m here to tell you that we reject your claim to Earth and its inhabitants, full stop. No negotiating, no quibbling. This is our planet, not yours.”

Alysande glanced back at the trio of mutants behind her. Logan, spoiling for a fight, was kept in place only by Kitty’s hand on his shoulder.

“Oh, sure,” Alysande continued, turning back to the Kh’thon, “you think you’ve got concerns about unsupervised mutants? Well, chappy, just try living with them and see howyou feel. But it’s none of your blasted business. If the mutants are a problem, then they’re humanity’s problem to sort out. Not yours. Even if everything you say is true, you and your lot gave up any claim on the Earth or its inhabitants when you buggered off millions of years ago, so don’t come swanning around now like you own the place, demanding all the back rent. It’s our planet, and we’ll defend it, so why don’t you just bugger off and let us be?”

For a long moment, no one moved, and not a word was said. Vox Prime looked up at the seven monsters towering over him, and Alysande felt strangely nauseated, unbalanced. She remembered the “buzz” that Betsy Braddock had mentioned, the psychic spillover of the telepathic conversations of the Kh’thon, and realized that the aliens must be communicating with one another at a level beyond her perception or comprehension.

At last, Vox Prime smiled, nodded, and turned his attention back to Alysande and the others.

“The Collective has considered your suggestion, degenerate, and rejected it. They will not be buggering off, now or ever. Judgment will be carried out, immediately.”

40

“What do you mean, problem?”

Doug, Hank, and Rogue were standing at the center of the facility, the head of the Master Mold towering high overhead.

“Yeah, Doug, I’m with Hank. Seems to me that we’re not gummin’ up the teeth of a giant dino-bot, so I’m guessin’ that you got the computer to listen to you, at least, right?”

Doug glanced up at the mass of conduits, cables, and equipment that lined the inside of the Master Mold’s “skull.”

“Well, I was able to use my portable computer to hack into the Master Mold’s user interface, and while it was still in a suspend cycle I installed a radio frequency transceiver. Then I just had to prep it to receive vocal commands, do a bit of fiddling with its recognition protocols, and we were good to go. More or less.”

He held up his cellular phone, almost as though it were a consolation prize.

“But now we can talk to the Master Mold over the phone. That’s something, at least, right?”

Doug pressed a number on the cellular phone’s keypad, and a voice buzzed from the phone’s tinny loudspeaker.

“MasterMold online and awaiting instruction.”

“So you c’n just tell it what ta do and it’ll do it?” “Um, no, not exactly,” Doug said, sheepishly. “That’s the problem. See, I was able to hack the recognition protocols, so that the Master Mold and all the local sentinels won’t be able to detect the X-gene in our DNA They think we’re human. That’s why they’re not attacking us anymore.”

“Their protocols call for them to defend human life,” Hank said, his tone suggesting he was remembering something long ago and far away.

“Exactly.” Doug nodded enthusiastically. Then he added, less so, “But we still can’t give them any instructions.”

“Why not?” Rogue asked.

“Because we’re not Bolivar Trask” Hank answered. Doug looked at Hank impressed. ‘Yeah, that’s it exactly. Or a genetic relative, at least. Even as weird as these Sentinels look this is a Mark I Master Mold, the original Bolivar Trask model. The Cadillac of mutant-killing machines. And it has all of Trask’s original security protocols still running.” He glanced at the giant head high above them, and slumped his shoulders, defeated. “It’ll take orders from a Trask and only a Trask” “Wait a blamed minute,” Rogue said, her tone disbelieving. ‘You’re saying that you’re smart enough to trick this thing into thinking you, me, and him are human, but you can’t make it think we’re one human in particular?”

A blush rose in Doug’s cheek, and he averted his eyes. “I... I just...” He shook his head. “No, I can’t.” Then, after taking a quick, deep breath, he looked up, defensive and perhaps a touch defiant. “But it’s not my fault. It isn’t! Without a sample of Trask DNA to use as a model, I’ve got no idea what kind of spoof to input.” Hank rubbed his bottom lip thoughtfully. “But wouldn’t there be a record of Trask’s genetic makeup on file? The Master Mold has to be using something as a basis of comparison, right?”

Doug nodded. “Yeah, I tried that. And found it. But it’s got 256-bit encryption on it. There’s no way we could crack it in time.” He looked from Hank to Rogue and back again. “Not unless one of you has suddenly developed the mutant ability to guess decryption keys at random.” “No,” Hank said, impatient but somewhat strained, like a teacher trying to lead a student to a troublesome answer. “But if you know where the Trask DNA is stored in the system, couldn’t you simply replace that file with a sample you do have, and then use that as your mask?” Doug’s eyes brightened, and his mouth opened wide. “Hey!” He snapped his fingers. “I could. It’d be kind of backwards, but it could work.” He smiled, and then added, “Heck, I could use mine.”

Doug punched in a series of numbers on the cellular phone, and then began speaking into the mic, his voice barely above a whisper.

Rogue shook her head, her brows knit. “I don’t follow” “Well,” Hank said, professorially, “since Doug doesn’t have the information he needs to convince the Master Mold that he is Bolivar Trask, he’s instead going

to overwrite the file copy of Trask DNA, essentially convincing the Master Mold that its creator was Doug Ramsey all along.”

Doug had the phone cradled between his shoulder and ear, fishing in his leather satchel for something.

“Yeah,” he said, glancing over at Hank and Rogue. “It won’t hold for long, though. The next time the Master Mold does its schedule system restore, it’ll overwrite any of my temporary edits and the Trask DNA file will be back in place.”

“It doesn’t have to work forever,” Hank said. “Just so long as it works long enough.”

Doug finished up rattling off a sequence of base pairs into the phone, and then said, “Execute.”

“I don’t like the sounds a’ that.”

Hank reached over and patted Rogue’s shoulder, an avuncular gesture.

“Master Mold,” Doug said into the phone, raising his voice and glancing overhead. “Identify.”

A long moment of excruciating silence followed. “Vocal identification: Trask. Prime command protocols search: online: Running protocols: stop. Preserve Trask DNA ” Doug looked over to Hank and Rogue and smiled broadly. “Folks, I think we’re in business.”

“Well,” Hank said, sounding for all the world like a proud father. “What are you waiting for?”

Doug smiled, and shifted the cellphone to his other ear. He held up a finger, asking the others to hold on, and flashed them a sly grin.

“Master Mold?” he said. “I’ve got a little assignment for you.”

41

“Hey, Forrester, aren’t I supposed to be rescuing you?” “Ah, you know me, Scott, I’ve never been very good at living up to other people’s expectations.”

Scott chanced a quick glance and a smile, then fired off an optic blast at a tall, thin Exemplar with bat wings and huge fangs. Lee, who’d fought her way through the melee and was now standing at his side, countered with a torrent of white light from her crystal rod, hitting an Exemplar with arms like a fiddler crab, sending him spinning back out of reach.

“You know, Lee,” Scott said out of the side of his mouth, while he sighted on another target, “most damsels in distress wait patiently in their dungeons, and don’t come rushing to their rescuer’s aid with their own personal army in tow.”

“What, these guys?” Lee pointed to the seven mutant newcomers, who were hungrily laying into their former captors. “I thought they were with you.”

Scott laughed—actually laughed—and spared a brief instant to look her way. With her crystal weapon in hand, hair flying behind her in a blond nimbus, she looked like some kind of Valkyrie, like a warrior princess. He felt a quick pang, one he’d not felt since he’d seen her last. It had been a long, long time ago, before he’d gone to Anchorage and all that had come after, but suddenly it felt like only moments had passed.

“It’s good to see you, Lee,” he said.

Lee glanced his way, a wry expression twisting her lip. “Was that sentiment? From the man of stone himself? Somebody pinch me...”

An Exemplar with the head of a man and the body of a tiger lunged at them, and Lee barely managed to repel him with a well-placed blast from her crystal rod.

“Lee, I’m sorry I never...”

From the opposite side, a flying Exemplar who seemed to be sheathed in blue flames threw a fireball in their direction, which would have impacted with the side of Scott’s head had Lee not pulled him aside at the last instant.

“Apologize later, Scott.” Lee wore a weary smile, but her tone was grim. “Assuming we live that long.”

The melee was not long contained in the courtyard, however enormous it was, and soon ranged all over the alien city In the shadow of immense, inhuman statuary, grotesques from out of prehistory, man and mutant fought side by side against the army of Exemplar.

Eventually, at least...

“Watch it, Paolo!” Frank shouted, and inexpertly fired a blast from the crystal rod that, though clumsily aimed, was still well placed enough to fend off the Exemplar who was preparing to decapitate his fellow crewman from the trawler Arcadia.

“Watch it yoursel’, Frank,” Paolo replied, and with his crystal rod in a two-handed grip sent a burst of light lancing toward another of the Exemplar.

The efficacy of the crystal rod bursts seemed to vacillate widely, but were still proof enough to keep the Exemplar at bay, even if none were incapacitated for long.

“Aw, heck!” Frank raised his weapon, sighting it past Paolo’s shoulder. “There’s another’n.”

“Hey!” Paolo lunged forward, shouldering Frank’s weapon away, sending the burst firing harmlessly into the open air.

“What’s the big idea, Paolo?!”

“Ya blamed wharf rat.” Paolo grabbed Frank’s arm and dragged him near, and pointed in the direction Frank had been firing. “That’n’s on our side.”

Frank sneered. “Yeah? Well he’s got blue fur and a blasted tail, so’s far as I’m concerned, he ain’t on no side a mine.”

Bamf

Without warning, Kurt Wagner teleported within arms reach. Frank’s eyes widened with fear, but Paolo remained calm and steady.

“Good hearing.” Kurt twanged one of his pointed ears. He inclined his head toward Paolo. “My thanks for deflecting your friend’s shot.”

“He’s no friend a mine,” Paolo answered. “He’s just part a the crew. But he’s a blamed idiot.”

Frank narrowed his eyes, regarding Kurt suspiciously.

“Well, your fellow crewman seems not to like my appearance.”

Paolo just shrugged.

“And does my having blue fur and a tail not bother you?”

Paolo cocked his head to one side and pursed his lips thoughtfully. ^lcWell, does my bein’ an old drunk bother you?”

Kurt smiled slightly, and shook his head.

“Well,” Paolo answered, and turned back to face the enemy. “I don’t figure we’ll have a problem, then.”

Kurt smiled more broadly. He gave Frank a jaunty little salute, and with a bamf teleported back into the fray.

“I don’t know, Paolo ...”

“Shut up and shoot, Frank.”

Elsewhere in the raging melee, friends were reunited, however briefly, and acquaintances became cocombatants.

Peter Rasputin hurled one opponent out of his way, and turned to find himself facing a tiny green hummingbird hovering in midair before him. He was startled, set aback at seeing something so delicate, so beautiful, in such strange, forbidding environs. Then, in the blink of an eye, the tiny hummingbird was gone, and an enormous green elephant towered over him instead, verdant tusks aimed directly at his steel heart.

“Perdao, ” said a voice at Peter’s elbow, and a diminutive figure who seemed cloaked entirely in shadow stepped into view. The shadowy figure grabbed hold of the elephant by the trunk, and with surprising ease yanked the elephant off its feet. Though no more than five feet tall, the shadowy figure, around whom little motes of black seemed to dance like crackling energy, sent the elephant hurling through the air. In midair, the elephant shape-shifted into a small bat, but its flapping wings were unable to overcome its inertia and it slammed into a wall with a sickening splat.

“Sunspot?” Peter said, recognition dawning.

“Sorry to steal your sparring partner,” Sunspot said, eyes white in a jet black face. The young mutant, one of the new class at the Xavier school, had the mutant ability to convert sunlight into tremendous strength; while using his powers, his body absorbed all frequencies of light with one hundred percent efficiency, making him appear completely black. “I have been caged, and have some aggression to work out, clearly.”

Peter smiled. “I take no offense, tovarisch. Come.” He laid an arm across Sunspot’s shoulders. “Allow me to introduce you to an Exemplar upon whom you might vent your frustrations. He has a thunderbolt on his clothing, and can take an impressive amount of damage.”

On and on the battle raged, as day turned to evening. Combatants shifted from one side of the alien city to the other, exchanging opponents, altering tactics. Flickering here and there, like fleeting mirages glimpsed from the corner of one’s eye, a streak of black-and-white and one of yellow appeared, for the briefest instant, then blurred into invisibility, only to appear hundreds of feet away in the next instant, only to vanish again. The Canadian hero Northstar and the yellow-clad Exemplar speedster engaged in battle, moving so much faster than the rest of the combatants that they occupied a reference and a battlefield all their own.

Wolfsbane, the Scots werewolf, faced off against the lithe, blue-furred acrobat with long bony talons growing from her fingertips. They cut and slashed, each bearing the marks of the other’s attacks, but neither yielding ground for long, snapping and snarling like wild animals vying for the same territory.

Thunderbird, the Native American Hellion, found his considerable strength and endurance put to the test when he went toe-to-toe with a woman who appeared to be made of solid stone, like a massive statute of granite towering ten feet tall, but surprisingly fast in her movements and attacks, for all of that.

Others of the escaped prisoners took more defensive postures. Mirage, the Xavier student and member of the Cheyenne nation, used her mutant ability to create convincing three-dimensional illusions to help protect the innocent and injured, those human prisoners who hadn’t the strength or will to fight, or the mutants who needed time to rest or recuperate from their injuries. By projecting an illusion of a wall where none existed, she was able to shield these from harm, at least temporarily.

And Jetstream, the Moroccan Hellion, used his power of flight to ferry injured combatants from the field, when necessary, taking them behind Mirage’s walls of illusion and tending to their injuries as best he was able.

And on the battle raged.

As the Sun dipped lower in the sky, Scott and Lee still fought side by side, trying to find some way of transporting the freed prisoners from the island.

“The dome’s still active,” Scott said, firing an optic blast upward as an experiment, and watching it deflect harmlessly off the coruscating field of energy that blanketed the city.

“If we could get it down, we could fit some of the prisoners on the Arcadia.” Lee grimaced, a thought suddenly occurring to her. “Assuming, of course, that these bastards haven’t sunk her.”

Scott found time to give her a ragged smile. “I haven’t seen any sign of it. But then, I haven’t seen any wreckage, either, so there’s still a chance.”

Lee fired off a blast of energy from her crystal rod, and grunted. “Damn. I loved that boat.”

Scott shrugged, and fired an optic blast at an airborne Exemplar, and then at another. “Well, it’s a moot point for the time being, since we can’t lower the dome. Not without knowing where it’s controlled from.” He glanced at Lee, hope flashing briefly across his features. “I don’t suppose you passed a helpful sign along the way reading ‘Dome Off Switch,’ did you? Preferably hanging over a big red button?”

Lee chuckled, shaking her head. “No, I think . . .” Before she could say another word, a pair of white-hot beams lanced between them, kicking up plumes of dust and debris. They staggered back to either side, singed.

“Degenerate!”

Scott looked up to see the silver-skinned figure of Invictus Prime hovering in midair over them, arms outstretched. “You vex your betters, and I would hold you to account.”

Lee raised an eyebrow, and out of the corner of her mouth said, “Friend of yours, Scott?”

Scott’s jaw clenched, and his mouth drew into a tight line. “We’ve met.”

Lee shook her head, chuckling ruefully. “Scott, Scott, Scott. I can’t take you anywhere, can I?”