that some can’t help but bubble over and cause tragedies. Nobody is safe anymore, remember Patty Hearst getting kidnapped or Tony Stark being shot. Society can no longer afford to let people be abused, persecuted, or ignored, or even feel that they are; the stakes, the consequences are way too high. We all need every available hand we can get—you, if you’re not busy and give a damn about your world—and we need you immediately. Every act of our lives is either a step toward the achievevment. of all our hopes and dreams or a step back toward the stupidity and self-pity that can destroy us. Any single act of love and hope may be the grain that tips the scale toward survival, and any single act of cruelty or injustice may be the scale that tips the balance the other way. We need to start working together to prevent those tragedies and make the world a better place, a happier place, one where no one feels jealous or slighted because somebody else is rich and I’m not, someone else has a home and I don’t, someone hurt my friend so I’ll kill him.
„ Utopia or oblivion is the only choice we have left. We have to take responsibility' for our own actions, instead of blaming it on the other guy.
We were talking about religion before and how mutations fit into all of it. Kurt Vonnegut said, “A great swindle of our time is the assumption that science has made religion obsolete.” I really believe that. There is nothing in science that contradicts the works of mercy recommended by St. Thomas Aquinas—teaching the ignorant, consoling the sad, bearing with the oppresive and troublesome, feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, visiting prisoners and the sick, and praying for us all. We all need you—on the side of the angels.
Finckley: On the side of the angels?
Worthington: Precisely. On the side of the angels. Finckley: I can’t think of a better note to go out on. Thank you for coming on the show tonight, Warren.
Worthington: Thank you for having me here, I really enjoyed myself.
Finckley: Join us here tomorrow night, when our guest on the show will be New York District Attorney Blake Tower. Does the high-profile DA plan on throwing his hat in the ring for Mayor of New York? Tune in tomorrow and find out. See you then. Thank you for watching, good night.
jenn Saint-Jolin & Tammy Lynne Dunn
Illustration by James W. Fry
11 r- Jerome Watkins took a deep breath in a vain attempt I I to calm his racing heart. The pipette in his hand held lr the latest strain of the bacteria he’d spent his entire professional life developing, ready for its greatest and final test.
Maybe I really have it this time, he thought. All those years of research and study, all those compromises I made, and it comes down to this moment.
He carefully transferred the contents of the pipette into a petri dish containing a small plastic block, and took a deliberate step backward to observe the effects. Arms crossed, he nervously sucked his lower lip into his mouth and began chewing on it absentmindedly, waiting.
He didn’t wait long. In less than a minute, the square began to dissolve. Tiny streams of fluorescent green plastic goop became miniature rivers, and within two minutes, the block was gone. Were it not for the half ounce or so of green liquid the consistency of milk, one would never have know'n the block had been there.
Suppressing his desire to cheer and dance, Dr. Watkins allowed himself only a brief smile of joy and relief before turning to the computer to enter the test data and begin the modeling for the next stage of the experiment.
“I knew it could work,” he told himself. “And no matter what else may happen, these bacteria will solve so many landfill problems. The ecological benefits are well worth-risking the other outcome. And the other won’t happen. No sane person would let it happen. They won’t. They couldn’t.”
Without warning, the laboratory door burst open and
two strangers stormed into the room. Startled, Watkins jumped out of his chair and moved protectively toward the experimental area.
“Who are you? What do you want here?” he cried.
Baring his teeth in a feral grin, the one who resembled an olive-furred baboon replied, “Not much. Just your life’s work, flatscan.”
The creature had to be a mutant, since he used the derogatory term many mutants used for “normal” humans. He moved slowly and steadily towards Watkins, the dank scent of rotting mushrooms intensifying the nearer he came. Watkins moaned softly as the world around him began to swim. Erratic, brightly colored circles of light rotated around his head, making him dizzy. He felt a wave of nausea crash over him, and he clutched the edge of the lab counter, desperately fighting to stay upright.
He lost the battle and sank to his knees, retching helplessly. The nausea completely enveloped him, making him unable to think or speak. He vaguely saw the other mutant, the one who looked like a bedwarfed giant with mechanical arms, working the computer and transferring disk after disk of files. He fought for speech, forcing out each word between waves of nausea.
“You . . . can’t. . . do . . . this. Mustn’t. The . . . danger.” His voice trailed off again as he emptied the contents of his stomach onto the floor.
“Too late, flatscan,” the mutant at the computer sneered as he gathered up the disks he’d copied.
The last thing Watkins saw before he finally succumbed to blessed unconsciousness was a small cyclone of papers from his desk formed as the cool summer breeze blew in
from the lab door left open in the haste of the mutants’ exit.
Dr. Hank McCoy muttered to himself in frustration as he looked at the latest column of figures from his test data. The member of the X-Men team known as the Beast would seem so close to finding a cure for the Legacy Virus, only to see his hopes turn to despair. Stryfe, the villain who had originally engineered the virus, had anticipated all the major routes a scientist would take in trying to construct a cure. He sighed heavily.
“Discouraged, Hank?” Storm asked as she quietly entered the room.
“Indeed, I’m afraid that I am, Ororo. It’s times like this that I know exactly what Keats meant when he said, ‘There is not a fiercer hell than the failure in a great object.’ ”
“I have another problem for you, my friend. Turn on the TV, Channel 7. There’s something you need to see.” When the image settled, Beast saw a mutant of obvious Slavic origin, large boned, but squat. The arms with which he was gesticulating emphatically were mechanical, and he had the wild-eyed fanatical expression Hank had come to associate with the Acolytes, the fanatic followers of Magneto, who shared drat villain’s desire for mutant conquest of the world.
“That’s Katu, isn’t it?” he asked.
Storm nodded. “Turn it up. You need to hear what he’s saying to understand our newest problem.”
Once the volume was up, they could hear Katu in midsentence. “. . . you flatscans have no choice but to give in to our demands if you wish your society to remain intact.
We have obtained and duplicated one of your biological weapons, a bacterium that consumes plastic. We’ve placed the bacterium, in sufficient quantity to destroy your so-called civilization, in a bomb located for ideal worldwide dispersal. The bomb will be detonated within three days if our demands are not met.
“First, all mutants currendy held against their will are to be released immediately to the Acolytes. We will no longer permit you to torture and experiment with our brothers and sisters.
“Secondly, all human occupants of the northwestern states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana in the United States of America are to be evacuated and relocated. The states will be turned over to the Acolytes for the formation of a mutant nation.”
Katu looked up from his notes and faced the cameras direcdy. “We know you will not submit to these demands. We also know you will underestimate the amount of destruction these bacteria can cause. Your financial structures will crumble as your computer disks and tapes are destroyed. Your vehicles and construction equipment will be inoperable. Your factories will require complete overhauls before they will be able to produce again. Millions will fall ill or die because crucial medical supplies are stored in plastic containers. Once the bacteria have contaminated your water supplies, those humans with plastic in their bodies— such as pacemakers—will flood and overwhelm your hospitals. How many millions will be killed or injured in the inevitable riots and panic, do you think? There is no aspect of your lives that will remain as it was.”
Katu smiled. That the smile was genuine neither Beast
nor Storm doubted for a moment. It was an unscripted, sincere expression of enjoyment, and it sent chills down the spines of both X-Men.
“We will laugh and celebrate as your society falls. Then we shall build our society—a mutant society—out of your ashes. It’s been well over a century since Darwin first described to you the process of evolution, and you still have failed to grasp even its simplest principles. Now you’ll see it in action.”
Bishop strode into the room as Katu’s final words cast a deeper pall over the two X-Men. “It’s being continually broadcast via satellite all over the world. I see no reason to believe he’s lying to us, although we’ve found no record of such a bacterium.”
Beast breathed out a deep sigh and spoke slowly. “Oh, my stars and garters. He’s not lying.”
Startled, Bishop stared at Beast. “What? How do you know?”
Beast made his way over to the conference table, sat down, and gestured to the others to join him. “About two years ago, a Dr. Jerome Watkins consulted with me on the production of just this type of bacteria. I wasn’t able to commit to working with him full-time on the project, but I have helped him with a few problems he’s encountered here and there. The bacterium was being created to reduce plastic waste materials.”
“Is it possible that Watkins was secredy working for the Acolytes on this project?” Storm queried.
“I don’t think so, Ororo. First, Watkins has been working for the U.S. government for the past decade doing environmental research. I checked his credentials most
thoroughly before I agreed to do any consulting work for him. He’s a good man. Secondly, I don’t think the Acolytes would ever consider working with a human,” Beast turned to Bishop, who nodded.
“Such an alliance would be most uncharacteristic of the Acolytes/' Bishop agreed. “It’s much more likely that they got wind of the project somehow and decided to turn it to their own ends.”
“No matter how the situation has developed, though,” Beast stated, “we must find a way to stop it.”
Storm looked thoughtful for a moment. “Then the question is how the Acolytes obtained the bacterium, assuming it is the same one, and if it is the same, where is Dr. Watkins now, and does he know how to stop it?”
Beast walked over to the communications console and had it dial Watkins’s home and lab. There was no response at either location. “Jerome worked out of a lab in Dallas. I’ll fly down diere and see if I can locate him. Maybe he has some answers for us.”
Storm nodded and glanced over at Bishop. “Good. In the meantime, Bishop and I can try to trace the Acolytes to their newest base of operations. If our deadline is only three days away, we don’t have much time.”
In just a few hours, Beast stood outside the open door to Watkins’s laboratory. Alert, not knowing what to expect, he cautiously made his way toward the observation window of the main room, where he saw what appeared to be the wreckage of an experiment. He was mentally taking notes on the extent of the destruction when a faint, low moan sent him toward the storage cabinets.
“Dr. Watkins? Jerome? Is that you?”
Hearing another moan, McCoy used his superhuman strength to pull the storage cabinet out of the way. There, in a space he would have thought too small to hide anyone, sat Watkins. Curled up in a fetal position, he shook with convulsions, occasionally giving voice to the pitiful moans that had led Beast to him. He turned his face toward Beast, who had extended a hand to him, and instantly recoiled.
“No! No! Just leave me alone!” he begged. “You already got what you came for.”
“Jerome, it’s me,” McCoy said kindly. “Hank McCoy. You know me. I’m here to help you.”
“H-H-Hank?” Watkins asked, and blinked several times, as if trying to clear his vision. This time when Beast extended his hand, it was accepted. Watkins tried to stay upright, but leaned heavily on Beast as he launched into an explanation of what had happened.
“I was entering the final data on the bacterium when two mutants burst into the room. They took everything . . . the research data, the samples . . . everything.” He looked at Beast, his eyes clouded and anguished. “I tried to stop them, Hank. But one of them . . . he . . . he . . .” Watkins broke off his sentence and began sobbing softly. “I thought vou were another one of them.”
Beast laid a comforting hand on Watkins’s shoulder and pressed it gently. “I know this is hard for you, Jerome, but you have to tell me everything. What did he do?”
“He used some kind of hallucinogenic power on me. I’ve never felt such a thing in my life. Pain, nausea, dizziness ... I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything as they
stole my life’s work!” Watkins began sobbing again. “They took everything.”
Beast gripped Watkins’s arm and helped him into a chair. “Jerome, let me dress your wound, and then you must come back with me to the Xavier Institute. Right away.”
When Watkins started to protest, Beast held up a hand to silence him. “Hear me out before you decline, if you please. The men who stole your research are members of a group called the Acolytes. They have taken the materials and research stolen from you and have somehow modified it into a bomb.” He saw Watkins blanche but did not stop. “The Acolytes have taken the bomb and have placed it in an unknown location where it will disperse the bacterium around the entire globe. They have threatened to detonate the device should their demands not be met within seventy-two hours.” Briefly, he recounted the Acolyte demands.
“Oh, Lord,” Watkins groaned. “No government would ever agree to those conditions.” His voice became resigned. “And that mutant, Katu, could well be right. The destructive power of this organism . . . human society will be hardest hit by the damage. Mutants will be able to use their abilities to work around the more obvious difficulties.” “And no doubt they’ve been planning this for some time,” Beast added drily, “and so are prepared for the devastation they intend to wreak upon humanity. The only chance we have is to develop a counteragent and find the device before it is detonated. My teammates are working on that end even as we speak.”
“They took all my notes on the bacterium, but I should
be able to reconstruct it from memory; I’ve been working with the same agent for months now.”
Beast helped Watkins to stand. “We’ll use the Institute lab. My friends will be waiting for us. Besides, you won’t get better health care in any hospital, and I’m afraid you really need it.”
Thousands of miles away, Storm and Bishop had tracked down the last known location of Katu and the Earth-stationed Acolytes, deep in the Great Sandy Desert of Australia. Although the buildings appeared deserted, Bishop took no chances as he entered the main building. Plasma rifle at the ready, he entered quietly, Storm close behind him. The room was empty except for some furniture and a few pieces of scrap paper, left behind when the Acolytes closed down shop. Storm picked up a loosely wadded piece of paper from one corner and spread it open on one of the desks.
“Bishop, look at this. An aviation weather report. If I’m reading this correctly, the Acolytes were getting weather conditions and information on the area surrounding the Bahamas.” She pointed to a faint penciled circle on the sheet. “It appears that they were especially interested in the conditions around Cat Island.”
“Good. That’s somewhere for us to start. And look at this.” He held out a sheet of paper he’d recovered from one of the other desks. “Evidence that the Acolytes have the bacterium Hank told us about. It’s a printout of some test results. Look at the header: Project XFS1147, Chief Researcher, Dr. Jerome Watkins.”
“We’ve found what we came for,” Storm said. “Let’s go back and see if Hank was able to locate WTatkins.”
When Bishop and Storm arrived back at the Institute, they found Beast and WTatkins hard at work in the laboratory.
“Who is this person?” Bishop demanded as he eyed Watkins with obvious mistrust.
“Storm, Bishop, may I present to you Dr. Jerome Watkins, the researcher I told you about earlier,” Beast replied.
Bishop’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “The doctor responsible for creating the bacterium the Acolytes are going to use to try and destroy us all?”
Before Beast could confirm the query, Bishop crossed the room, taking Watkins by the lapels and shoving his back against a wall. “How much did the Acolytes pay you?” he demanded.
Watkins struggled ineffectually against Bishop’s iron grip. “Nothing. I wasn’t working for them, I swear it!” His voice came out high, with a note of panic, and he looked pleadingly at Beast. “Get him off of me, Hank, please!” Storm laid her hand over one of Bishop’s. “Let him go, Bishop. I believe he’s telling the truth.”
Beast nodded his agreement. “He came here of his own free will to help me try to find a containing agent.”
Bishop let go of Watkins and stepped back a few paces but still glared at the small man in suspicion. “I don’t like his being in the mansion. How do you know he isn’t just pretending to help you—that he’s not really leading you in the wrong direction? How are we to know that we can trust him?” He crossed his arms in front of him as if daring Watkins to prove him wrong.
Ever practical, Beast replied, “How are we to know that we can’t? I think I would know if I were being led down the proverbial primrose path, Bishop. Besides, this is the best place for us to work. Surely you are aware of that.”
Bishop relaxed his stance somewhat and moved a few steps farther away from Watkins. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the papers he and Storm had taken from the deserted Acolyte hideout, handing them to Beast. “From all indications, we believe them to be heading to the Bahamas with the bacterial bomb.”
Beast scanned the papers quickly. “We know they have the bacterium, we think we know where they’re taking it. Now Jerome and I must work hard to find a neutralizing agent before they decide to detonate the bomb.”
Storm moved toward the door. “You and Dr. Watkins keep working, Hank. Bishop and I will fly to the Caribbean and check out Cat Island.”
Beast nodded as he turned to continue his lab work. “That would seem the most logical way to proceed. We’ll keep you informed as to our progress.”
Beast and Watkins had little success. When their latest experiment failed, Watkins pounded the table in frustration. “We’ve tried everything I know to do, Hank. I’m all out of ideas.” Watkins removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, “I should never have gotten involved in this project in the first place. I knew what could happen. No matter what they said, or how much money they gave me for research, I should have known better. It’s not worth the consequences.” He paused and closed his eyes for a moment. - ‘Nothing could be worth that price.”
Beast’s furry blue brow wrinkled in confusion. “What consequences are you talking about, Jerome?”
Watkins blinked rapidly and nervously cleared his throat several times before answering. “The bacterium can do more damage than I’ve told you, Hank.”
“How? Tell me, Jerome. You need to tell me everything.” McCoy’s voice was low, almost soothing, as he sensed Watkins’s fear.
“When the government found out, on its completion, how successful the bacterium was going to be, they commissioned me to make certain ‘improvements’ on it. Purely hypothetical, they said. Just in case. They told me to turn it into a biological weapon—one never to be used, but available for possible use against cybernetic soldiers. That’s a definite concern in this day and age.” Watkins took a deep breath before continuing, and when he spoke, his voice was shaky. “The reproductive rate is phenomenal. It’s highly resistant to conventional antibacterial agents. It maintains integrity when absorbed through the skin or by consumption of contaminated food or water. Frankly, it would be virtually impossible for a society to contain it if released. ’ ’ Beast made a soft, strangled sound of protest. “Jerome, did you stop to think what the consequences of the use of an agent like that would be? Of the millions of innocent lives that would be lost in the panic as their society was destroyed? Noncombatant lives?”
“I didn’t let myself think about it, Hank. I told myself that it would never come to that, that no sane government would ever unleash such a monstrosity. I told myself that the benefits of the bacterium—the ecological benefits—outweighed all other considerations. With modifications, it can
still be used as I originally designed it. I told myself that it was all in the name of research.” Watkins covered his face with his hands, letting self-pity overwhelm him. “I suppose the truth of the matter was that I didn’t want to know what they were going to do with it. I was going to take the additional research funds they promised to give me when this project was finished and go away someplace where I wouldn’t have to deal with the consequences of my creation.”
Both men were silent for several minutes before resuming their work.
To all appearances, Cat Island was picture-postcard perfect. “This is the last place I’d suspect of having a devastating biological weapon on it. It’s almost annoyingly beautiful,” Bishop said sternly.
Storm extended her hands and felt the warm summer tropical breeze flow through her fingers as a wind current gently first lifted, then deposited her on the ground next to Bishop. “The air circulation pattern is unique here. Should the bacteria be released, the wind currents would quickly carry it to all corners of the globe. I seriously doubt any area would remain unaffected for long.”
Bishop started walking up the beach from where they’d landed the Blackbird. “I say we start searching for the Acolyte base. It won’t take long, considering how small this island is.”
“I agree,” Storm replied, “but I caution you not to take any action until we hear from Hank and Dr. Watkins. We cannot risk the Acolytes releasing the bacterium until we have an antidote. The danger is too great.”
For a moment it looked as if Bishop was going to argue the point, but eventually he nodded his agreement and they set off together in search of the enemy. Within a short time they came upon a small bungalow about a mile inland from the X-Men’s landing point on the beach. Storm and Bishop ducked into the cover of the pine wood forest as the Acolytes Katu and Spoor emerged from the bungalow and sprawled out on the sand just outside the door.
“Let’s take them,” Bishop hissed to Storm. “Then we can make them tell us where the bomb is.”
Storm shook her head. “That is too risky. Even if they told us the location of the bomb, it may have a failsafe or dead-man switch on it that they could activate before we could reach it. We cannot risk detonation. I will stay here and watch these two while you search for the bomb.”
After a moment’s silence, Bishop nodded his agreement and headed farther inland, while Storm sat and patiently kept watch over the two Acolytes.
Back at the Institute, Beast and Watkins had re-created the plastic-devouring bacterium, but were having little luck producing a counteragent. Watkins piped a dab of liquid onto a slide treated with the bacterium and looked into the microscope. He shouted and gestured excitedly to Beast, motioning for him to come take a look. “I think we’ve finally hit something here, Hank!”
Seconds later, Beast pulled back and shook his head. “We’re closer, but the agent only slowed the bacteria down. It became active again.”
“We were so close,” Watkins sighed, and cursed under his breath. “But slowing it down isn’t enough. I gave it a
high reproductive rate, so we need to slow it down, yes, but then we need something to move in for the kill.”
“Two different agents,” Beast mused. “Maybe we should try to engineer a virus within these growth-slowing bacteria. As the plastic-converting bacteria consume the slowing agent, the virus w?ould be released.”
Hours later, Watkins wratched, bleary eyed, as Beast performed the final test on their latest offering. Both scientists held their breath as they waited to see what would happen. Thirty seconds . . . one minute . . . two minutes . . . five minutes . . . there was still no sign of activity from the plastic-consuming bacteria after the initial introduction of the counteragent. Then they saw the color change that marked the deterioration of the plastic consumer, and began to breathe again.
Beast extended his hand, and Watkins took it. As they shook hands on their victory, Beast was already turning to the next phase of the job—creating a large enough quantity to counter the bomb. “W'e’ve got just under a day. Even with accelerants, it will be difficult to produce sufficient counteragent and get it to Cat Island. Let us hope we will have enough time.”
“Hank, I want to ask a favor.”
Beast glanced tow7ard Watkins, mildly surprised. “What is it, Jerome?”
“I want to go with you to the island.” He held up a hand as Beast began to protest. “I have to see this thing through to the finish, Hank. I’m responsible for this situation; I started it with my research. I have to be there, to make sure that the bacteria is truly destroyed.” He looked ready to plead his case and was slightly surprised when Beast
did no more than nod his head in agreement. Not knowing what to say, Watkins started gathering the materials they needed to begin creating the new batch of counteragent.
“The United States government, and the goverments of the world, will not give in to demands made by terrorist groups. I’m here to assure you all that the country’s best scientists are now close to a breakthrough which will enable us to counteract any bacteria that the Acolytes might unleash. It is just a matter of time before—”
From behind the bushes screening the path in front of the bungalow, Storm watched as Katu reached over and switched off the portable radio on the patio table in front of him.
“Fools!” Katu shouted. “Do they really think they have a chance of stopping the destruction this will unleash? These are the last whimpers of humanity.” He stood up and began to pace back and forth along the path, pausing just a few feet from Storm without noticing her presence.
“Let them whine,” Spoor replied. “Their days are numbered, and they know it.”
Storm started slightly as she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned to see Bishop directly behind her. A few feet behind him were Beast and Dr. Watkins. Watkins held a large vial in his hands. They retreated out of hearing distance of the bungalow.
“We managed to produce a counteragent for the bacterium, but we had no time for testing on a large scale,” Beast told Storm and Bishop. “I can’t promise that it will work.”
“Now,” Storm said quietly, “all we have to do is find
the bomb and disarm it. If everything goes well, we won’t need the counteragent. Good work, Beast. You, too, Doctor.”
“I’ve searched over the entire island, and there’s no sign of the bomb,” Bishop pointed out. “It’s possible the device is inside the bungalow, but to get to it, we’ll have to go through those two.” Bishop nodded in Katu and Spoor’s direction.
“I have noticed that either Spoor or Katu is with the radio at all times. They have not left it alone for a moment. Now, that could be because they want to keep listening in case their demands are met, but I wonder...” Storm mused.
“An intriguing possibility, Storm,” Beast said.
“We’ll check out the radio as well as the bungalow,” Bishop decided.
“Jerome, you are not equipped or trained to battle with these two,” Beast said not unkindly. “For your own safety, please stay hidden here until we have secured the area. Your part is done.”
“Since our powers share some similarities, I will deal with Katu,” Storm decided. “Spoor and the bomb are up to you two. Are we ready?”
After receiving the nods of agreement, Storm launched herself into the air, propelled by the island winds that were hers to command. Pushed by the gathering winds, the clouds gathered behind her and began to darken.
As soon as he caught sight of Storm, Katu spat out an oath and gathered his powers in opposition. Where Storm controlled specific elements of nature, Katu produced atmospheric anomalies that countered them. Within seconds,
the winds around the island raged, and sand from the nearby beach flayed their skin, while the heavens opened up to pelt them with freezing rains. When Storm called forth thunderstorms, Katu countered with a change in the pressure system to push the storm back. The two were so evenly matched that it was obvious that the victor}' would go to the one who held off exhaustion the longer.
Taking advantage of his distraction as he watched the battle, Bishop stepped into the clearing in front of Spoor, planting his feet and levelling his plasma rifle at his enemy. “Where is the bomb, Acolyte?” he demanded.
A sly smile came to Spoor’s face. “Ah, X-Man. Come to save the human race, have you?” He cackled. “It’s too late. They have only minutes left before the bomb detonates and puts an end to their tyranny over mutants.”
“Using violence to end violence, are you?” Beast leapt into the clearing in front of the bungalow. “Rarely have those tactics succeeded, and never without tremendous cost to all the parties involved.”
Spoor looked from one to another and backed away a few steps. “W7e gave them their chance. They chose not to take it. On their heads be it. ’ ’ Without warning, he rushed toward Beast, releasing his hallucinogenic pheromones at full strength.
Even the Beast’s phenomenal agility did not enable him to dodge the pheremones, and he crashed to the ground, holding first his head, then his stomach, as waves of sharp pain cascaded over him. Knife after hallucinatory knife stabbed him, and each slice felt as real as if it had been made with cold steel. He lay there, helpless, but struggling to get up and fight back.
When he saw that Beast had fallen to the pheromones, Bishop ran to the pair and stepped between them. Bishop’s own involuntary powers reflected the Acolyte’s pheromones back upon himself, with quick results. The Acolyte fell to the ground, screaming, the visions in his head taking control of him, immobilizing him as effectively as he had Beast.
Bishop picked up the now-helpless Spoor and looked at his fellow X-Man. “I can handle him. You help Storm.” He strained to be heard above the roaring winds of Storm and Katu’s battle.
Beast rose to his feet, the effects of the pheromones quickly wearing off. A few quick hops brought him behind Katu. The Acolyte was completely focused on his intense battle with Storm and didn’t even notice the Beast until the X-Man delivered a quick blow to the back of the head. The Inuit mutant fell unconscious and the Beast carried him into the bungalow.
Exhausted, Storm drifted back to the ground, landed, and trailed Beast into the building, followed in turn by Watkins. Bishop deposited Spoor in the room off the main entrance and stepped aside to let Beast enter with Katu. Both Acolytes were unconscious and likely to remain that way for some time.
Leaving their foes in the cottage, they walked back out onto the patio. The radio was still on the table.
It was Storm who first noticed the clock on the stereo. “Look! That’s not the time! It’s counting down.”
Watkins handed Beast the vial of counteragent. “We have to be ready to release this should the need arise.”
Bishop turned to Watkins. ‘ ‘You can stand over there in
the doorway and keep an eye on those two while we try to defuse the bomb.”
Watkins was surprised. “Stand guard over them? Me?” Bishop nodded. “Just watch them carefully and let us know when they start to wake up.”
Beast moved into place to dispense the counteragent should that be required. Still weakened from her stalemate with Katu, Storm steeled herself to contain the expelled bacteria should the bomb accidentally detonate during the disarming process. Watkins could feel the tension in the air as Bishop removed the radio casing, carefully placing it to one side.
Uncovered, the bomb proved to be an intricate series of multicolored wires in elaborate and confusing combinations. Slowly, Bishop snipped one wire after another. Wire cutters poised over the final series of connections, he stopped and whistled softly. “Tricky litde fiends. Thorough too,” he muttered under his breath. “They almost fooled me. They’ve connected a second trigger mechanism, but it’s very subtle.”
“Should we be worrying?” Beast asked.
Bishop shook his head. “Not yet. It’s just going to take a little longer for me to disarm.”
Distracted from his watch by Bishop’s difficulties, Watkins failed to notice Spoor’s stirring in the room behind him. Without warning, he felt a flood of heat surround him and smelled smoke. He felt the flames charring his skin, and in a blind panic to escape the blaze, ran full speed toward the ocean—straight at Bishop, who was engrossed in the delicate process of disarming the second trigger. “Jerome, what are you doing?” Beast cried out. He leapt
forward in a desperate attempt to intercept Watkins, but was too late.
With one sweep of his arm as he tried to force his way to perceived safety, Watkins brushed the wire cutters in Bishop’s hand against the trigger mechanism. In the brief seconds before the explosion, Spoor lost consciousness again, and Watkins and Bishop were face to face, eye to eye.
Bishop stared in horror at the man before him, then saw something he didn’t expect. He saw true sorrow reflected in Watkins’s eyes. The shame of being responsible for the bacterium’s creation plain on his face, Watkins turned away in the last moments and threw himself over the bomb.
The explosion threw Watkins in one direction and Bishop in another. Storm reacted immediately, gathering the bacteria in a funnel of wind and fighting to contain them. “Quickly, Hank! Release the counteragent!” she yelled over the force of the wind.
Beast released the stopper on the vial and fed it into the wind funnel, watching its light color mix with the darker shades of the consumer bacteria. He turned and saw Bishop rise, slightly shaken, but unharmed. Not that the bomb would have harmed him in any case; Bishop’s power allowed him to absorb any energy he was hit with. But Watkins had no way of knowing that.
The Beast ran to Watkins then, who lay still on the ground.
“H-h-help me, Hank,” the scientist managed to cough out. Gently, Beast helped Watkins to sit up.
They all watched anxiously as Storm fought to contain the mixture of destruction and hope, her limbs drooping
slightly as her strength began to flag. Fearing the worst, they watched the plastic-consuming bacteria begin to make their mark on the patio furniture, which, as the umbrella and table began to dissolve and small puddles of goo filled the seats of the chairs, began to resemble a Dali painting.
Storm’s strength completely depleted, she collapsed on the ground, releasing the swirling cloud of bacteria. No longer artificially contained, the cloud dispersed out into the island’s natural wind pattern. Bishop went to Storm’s side, raising her to her feet and letting her lean on him as they walked toward the Acolytes’ transport. Beast picked up the injured Watkins, ci'adling him as a child, and followed the other X-Men down the path to learn if the world as they knew it would continue.
The Acolyte plane was on the far side of the bungalow, and as they watched, the wings began to droop towards the ground as the compound dissolved. Soon half the wing was melting, hanging limply in the air. They held their breath and waited.
Seconds passed, and then minutes, the silence broken only by Watkins’ strangled breathing, but there was no further deterioration of the plane.
“It worked, Hank.” Watkins’s voice came out garbled, his breathing heavy and labored. “We were able to stop it.” Beast looked down at the man in his arms. “That we did, friend.”
Watkins grasped Beast’s furred hand, squeezing it tightly. “We made a good team.”
Beast nodded once and watched as Watkins' eyes slowly closed and his breathing slowed. “Jerome?”
Then the sounds of breathing stopped. Dr. Jerome Wat-
kins was still and silent, his goal accomplished and his conscience, if not cleared, then relieved, as he let himself slip away.
Beast took a deep breath and lifted the body of his friend and colleague, preparing to carry him out to the beach to the Blackbird.
“You ruined our best chance for a mutant society this day, X-Men,” Katu’s voiced boomed out from behind them, more sorrow than anger in his words. “You could have let the bacteria do its job. It would have given us freedom!” Beast looked back only once. He stared at Katu for a moment, then down at Watkins’s body in his arms. “I would not pay this price for your ‘freedom.’ It would bring no peace, only violence, hatred, sorrow, and regret. There will be no true freedom until we can work together.”
With that, the X-Men moved toward the beach.
“What about the Acolytes?” Bishop asked. “What shall we do with them?”
“Leave them,” said Beast. “They have to live with themselves. And they have ‘nothing to look backward to with pride, and nothing to look forward to with hope.’ ” “Shakespeare?” Storm asked.
“Robert Frost,” Beast replied as they walked away.
Three days later, Beast sat alone in his laboratory, reading over a new medical journal when he glanced up at the video monitor. On the screen Graydon Creed, the leader of the mutant-hating Friends of Humanity, pounded a small wooden podium like a crazed evangelist. His mouth worked furiously, and out of a sense of morbid curiosity, Beast turned up the volume.
“I tell you people, without mutants and their kind we would not be subjected to threats like the one we had last week. We would not need to live in fear of one of their plagues robbing us of our future, like a thief in the night. We would not have to constantly guard ourselves against this evil if the government would put them into forced labor isolation centers, as we have repeatedly advocated. If I am elected to office, I will write a bill that places all mutants in a controlled environment, so as to keep our country safe for the American people—for humans.”
Beast shut off the monitor, unable to listen to any more of the venomous speech. For a moment he felt a pang of sorrow that so many humans saw things in the same light as Creed. Then he remembered Jerome Watkins and his sacrifice. Until the fresh summer breeze of change did come, Watkins’s sacrifice would give him hope and faith that change was possible.
Illustration by Rick Leonardi & Terry Austin
All of this happened, give or take.
The sun was shining and a brisk wind blew marshmallow clouds across its face, painting the suburbs in light/shadow/light, giving everything a shutterbox effect.
There were the hypnotic drones of electric lawn-mowers, and the smell of freshly cut grass and timothy hung sweetly on the air. A radio in the dash of a ’65 Mustang that a shade-tree mechanic was restoring proclaimed the good news that the Cincinnati Reds were winning the first game of a scheduled double-header against the Pirates.
A bird perched on the rim of a stone birdbath in the Beckers’ front yard; he dipped his bill into the cool, clear water and tipped his head back, allowing the water to trickle down his throat. Afterward, refreshed, he trilled an unbroken string of notes. Somewhere down the neatly manicured block, in a tree in a yard bordered by just-cropped shrubbery and a newly painted white picket fence, another bird answered.
There was a steady whip and whir of a lawn sprinkler, and, in someone’s backyard, on an orderly red brick patio, hamburgers and hot dogs cooked over an open grill.
The sun broke from behind the last of the clouds and its light on the water of the backyard pond looked like scattered coins.
It was one of those rare and perfect days, thought Rogue, that couldn’t go any farther toward proving God’s existence than if He had left His fingerprints all over everything.
Rogue looked away from the window' set above the kitchen sink and adjusted the flow of water from the faucet.
She was scrubbing and peeling potatoes, starting to get things ready for tonight’s dinner. She had already put the rack of lamb in the Dutch oven and basted it once with a mint sauce she had made, but she would need Remy’s help if she was going to have supper ready, the table set, and have a hot, relaxing bath before the guests arrived.
Behind her, the Frigidaire clunked as it proudly made another ice cube and started cheerily on making another, not content to rest too long upon its laurels.
At the thought of Remy, she glanced at the drain board of the double sink and the simple gold ring sitting there, where she had put it when she started supper. Apart from these rare times, she had not taken it from her hand since that day when, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, Remy had placed it there.
“We’ve had the worse and we’ve had the poorer,” she spoke to the sun-washed, airy kitchens, “now we have the better and richer to look forward to.”
She was pulled from her reverie by the crack of a softball against a bat and the cheers of children. She looked out the window just in time to see Remy waving the runner on to second. He was always involved with the neighborhood kids in some fashion, refereeing them in a game of touch football or coaching them in a game of softball. He was surprisingly at home with children—the kid in him, Rogue supposed. She didn’t mind him spending his Saturday afternoons with them, since it seemed most of the other parents were too busy for them, but she absolutely drew the line at his trying to teach them to gamble.
“Life’s a big gamble,” he had said trying to sweet-talk his way around her when she put her foot down. “Don’
think so? Then how come half of ‘life’ is made up of ‘if’? ~ ' Hey, why you t’ink life is but a dream?”
Rogue had laughed and responded, “I can play that one, too, swamp rat. ‘God is love, love is blind, Ray Charles is blind, therefore, Ray Charles is God.’ ”
“He is God!” Remy replied then. “Ray an’ Charlie Parker.”
“Head for home! Head for home!” Remy now shouted at the runner. The boy crossed the plate to the sound of cheers, just a split second ahead of the ball.
“Remy!” Rogue called from the opened back door. “Time f’you t’head home too, lover.”
Remy smiled and waved at her across the vacant lot. “Right dere, petite filleV' He said something else to the children and started jogging for the house. The sun, sailing toward the west where clouds waited to devour it, threw Remy’s shadow out long behind him, like a small, frightened child racing to catch up.
“Forks on de left or de right?”
But Rogue didn’t hear him. She was too busy checking the last of the arrangements. For the hundredth time.
“Sweet—forks—left or right?”
“That’s fine,” she answered distractedly.
“We havin’ red wine or white wit’ de elephant?” “Nowy’bein’ silly; y’know we ate the last of the elephant weeks ago.”
“Ah, so you are in dere somewhere!”
“Sorry, sugar. I just want everything to go all right tonight.”
Remy set the silverware aside and stepped around the
dining room table to where Rogue stood, rearranging the fresh-cut flowers in the centerpiece. For the hundredth time.
“Everyt’ing be fine, chere. We’ve had plenty o’ parties.”
She smiled crookedly and corrected him. “We’ve been to plenty of parties, Remy. This is the first one we ever gave.”
“Every day a party in de Big Easy,” he said, taking her hand, feeling the warmth of her flesh next to his. “Every day a party if you live to de fullest.” And he nestled his cheek to hers, closing his eyes and slow-dancing to a music only he could hear. God, perhaps, or Bird. Or Mingus. “Po’ darlin’. Want so bad for us to fit in. Want so bad for us to be normal.”
“Is that so wrong?”
He looked at her and she could feel it then, building between them: a spark, an ember, slowly building, rising, threatening to catch their whole world ablaze.
“You already fit in, chere, where it matters most. In LeBeau’s eternal heart.”
He kissed her then and was still kissing her when the doorbell rang. Their guests had to wait a few minutes on the porch, and dinner was slightly dry, but Rogue found she somehow didn’t mind.
Scott and Jean Summers owned the mock-Tudor style house next door to Rogue and Remy; they had lived in the neighborhood for quite awhile before the LeBeaus, and naturally took them under their wing. It turned out they had all attended, at various times, the same exclusive school for gifted individuals, and that only helped to cement the blocks of
their friendship. Jean once asked Rogue how she had gotten that name, and Rogue replied, “M’mom’s like that.” That offhanded comment had sealed their fate and they were inseparable companions thereafter. Scott and Remy, two men unaccustomed to expressing their emotions, maintained a guarded but solid acquaintanceship, partly based on their mutual love of cooking. Remy had to admire a man who could go back for seconds on his four-alarm crawfish bisque. “Dat about de bravest t’ing Remy ever seen anyone ever do, mon ami,” LeBeau had said, only half-jokingly, and Scott had nearly smiled.
The Summerses often entertained, inviting Remy and Rogue over when they did, and they knew a wide assortment of people: Bobby Drake, a CPA frozen in the past, with a glacial heart that couldn’t be moved or warmed by all the lights of Christmas, it seemed; Henry McCoy, an obsessively brilliant but apish biophysicist who hid his insecurities behind a constant barrage of big words; Warren Worthington III, a foppish millionaire who tried to show the world he deserved his enormous wealth by giving vast fortunes away to charity and who tried to show he deserved love by being with a different girl every week.
All of them, it seemed to Rogue, were the walking wounded, all suffering some ancient, buried tragedy with an impossible grace and nobility.
But tonight, ah, tonight the Summerses had brought with them Logan, an odd, bestial, frightening, earthy, hugely lusty man who ate his meal ravenously, attacking it with his bare hands and issuing barely human grunts as he gnawed and tore the meat from the bone.
“Dat a man who know how t’grab life by de t’roat!”
Remy exclaimed admiringly. “You grab ’im one for Remy, eh?”
“Grab ’im yourself, bub,” Logan replied around a mouthful of food, grease, and blood running down his chin. “I got some throat-wringin’ o’ my own t’do.”
Rogue started to laugh, needed to laugh very badly—he reminded her of the Tasmanian Devil from the old Bugs Bunny cartoons, all teeth and claws and appetite—but then their eyes met—locked like magnets slamming together— and Rogue felt herself deflate like a pricked balloon. He smiled, a smile that never quite reached the eyes, and she had the feeling that it was her throat he had grabbed, and he was grinding her to bone and blood and paste.
“Where on earth did y’ever find him?”
“Who? Logan?” Jean asked. She was helping Rogue clear the decimated table. “Friend of Scott’s. Met him in the Canadian woods. Don’t really know much about him.” She shrugged dismissively. “I think he might have been in some sort of intelligence outfit—maybe part of some top-secret experiment. He’s odd, but he’s harmless—if you’re on his good side.”
“Where’s that? Couple hundred miles away?”
Jean laughed and saw then that Rogue was serious; she was deeply disturbed by Logan.
“Sweetheart, I wouldn’t let him come around my house if he wasn’t harmless. We wouldn’t have brought him here. You know me; I’ve always been good at reading people.” Rogue touched Logan’s plate, littered with picked bones like a miniature desert, and shuddered. She quickly dropped the plate into the pile, as if touching it too long
would cause an empathy to form, somehow contaminate her, taint her, make her like him.
“And I can read you too,” Jean said, tipping Rogue’s chin up with her finger, forcing Rogue to look at her, look her in the eyes. “There’s something else at work here, something more than just feeling uncomfortable around Logan. Is it anything you want to talk to me about?”
“It’s nothin’, it’s . . . When you find the man you love, how come the honeymoon doesn’t last f’rever?”
Jean traced her finger along the contours of Rogue’s high cheekbones, a sister comforting her sibling, a mother soothing her child. “Welcome to marriage, phase two,” she said.
“Does it have t’be that way?” Rogue asked, and there was something like terror in her voice.
And now it was Jean’s turn to look away. “You wouldn’t be normal if it weren’t,” she said. “This wouldn’t be real life.”
“Well, like th’man says, ‘reality bites.’ ”
“It can,” Jean agreed, with her words at least, but not her voice. “It cuts and bites and tears, this life, but take heart. It only gets better.”
“You and Scott—y’all seem so happy... what’s y’ secret?”
Jean considered this for a long moment before answering. “Well, Scott’s my world—but he’s not my whole world, you understand? That’s too big a burden to put on him— or anyone.”
Rogue thought about that while Jean finished busing the table. There were greasy, bloody fingerprints on the table-
cloth where Logan had sat. He would never take the place of a strolling violinist at dinner, that was for sure.
“I’ll help you with dessert,” Jean offered.
“What about kids?”
“I guess—but, if it’s all the same to you, I think I’d rather have cake and coffee.”
Rogue looked puzzled, then exploded with laughter, the first honest laugh Jean had heard from her all night.
In the den, lushly paneled and appointed with built-in bookcases containing many folios and first editions, and one wall comprised of a giant screen television, the latest stereo equipment and shelves bowed in the middle from the weight of jazz, blues, R&B, and rock CDs and vinyl, a room largely given over to the intellectual and emotional, Logan was holding court over Sazerac and cigars (Scott had neither), regaling the other men with his bawdy jokes and impossible exploits.
He had told them of hunting leopards with the Maharaja of Mysore and his subsequent dalliance with the emperor’s harem and barely escaping detection by the guards, of his time in Japan, and sailing from Nice to Morocco through a freak storm that nearly sank his small ship, and of owning a bar in Madripoor.
As Rogue and Jean entered the den bearing a tray of satsuma cake and coffee, Logan was in the middle of his tale of running with the bulls in Pamplona. He had been doing well, he said, until the man in front of him slipped on the wet cobblestones and Logan fell over him. The first of the bulls rolled over them both like a wave of hooves and horns. To save himself, Logan said, he grabbed on to the bull’s underside and held on for a mad, miles-long run through
the streets of Spain. “It was that, or get trampled by Spain’s supply o’ toros.”
“That sounds like a lot o’ bull,” commented Rogue, a wry smile creasing the corners of her mouth, and everyone, even Scott, laughed.
“Good one, gal,” Logan said, puffing deeply on his smelly cigar. He took the dessert plate Rogue offered, surreptitiously stroking her finger with his. She withdrew as if she had just thrust her hand into a sack of squirming snakes and maggots. “You got a funny girl there, Gumbo. You better w'atch somebody doesn’t take ’er away from you.”
‘‘How ’bout it, chfre? Was it worth it?”
Rogue paused in the brushing of her hair, watching Remy in the mirror of the vanity. “Yeah, I think so.”
Remy laughed. “Dat Logan, he a character, don’ you t’ink? De stories he tell, chere, you wouldn’t believe. He stop jus’ shy o’ claimin’ credit for advisin’ God on dat sun in da mornin’, moon at night t’ing. He want Scott an’ Remy t’go huntin’ wit’ him sometime, get in touch wit’ our ‘hairy homme.’ ”
Irrational fear squeezed her heart with icy, skeletal fingers. “I don’t want you to go,” she said hurriedly, breathlessly.
''Qjioi?”
“I don’t like him, Remy. There’s somethin’ about him, he makes me feel so—” {alive) “—afraid. Please . . . promise me . . . stay away from him.”
“You serious?”
He saw she was.
“Okay. I promise.”
She seemed to relax, visibly, and returned to brushing her hair. Remy stood behind her, watching her silently, like a ghost. “Is dat all? All dat’s bothering you, I mean?”
That was a good question, the only one. Was that all that was bothering her? Really?
No. No, she couldn’t honestly say it was. But how could she tell him that, although she loved him more than ever, more than anyone or anything, something had begun to feel wrong between them? Something she herself would be hard pressed to name, other than to say he wasn’t the man she had met and fallen in love with. Some vital, elemental spark had seemingly gone out of him and somehow ended up in Logan.
And could she honestly say it was only Logan whom she didn’t trust?
Was there any reason the honeymoon couldn’t last forever?
But that wouldn’t be normal. Jean had told her so. It wouldn’t be real life, and, in real life, things change. People change.
“ Chere? Somet’in’ else botherin’ you?”
The look on his face, so like a lost little boy, and she felt love for him well up from the bottom of her heart and soul and spread out and engulf the both of them.
“Nothin’ as bad as all that, sugar,” she said with a barely contained enthusiasm. “I just wanted to wait till the right time t’tell you—I’m pregnant!”
Remy’s jaw dropped and his mouth worked without forming words. He tried again and did marginally better this time.
“Remy a daddy? How? When? How long you known, gal?” ‘
“I just found out m’self.”
Remy moved to her, where she sat on the seat before the vanity, took the golden brush from her hand and set it aside.
“A baby, chere,” he said softly, wonderingly, in awe of this oldest everyday miracle of all. “Remy a daddy.” This time it was not a question, but joyful declaration. He held Rogue to him and she thought she felt the warm salt of a tear on her exposed neck and shoulder.
“It best be a girl, fille, so it get her mama’s beauty. Double Remy’s joy.”
“Double or nothin’, huh?”
“Remy bet on worse odds,” he said, and something else occurred to him then. “Hey, but what you ain’t tol’ LeBeau is when? When de baby due?”
“Well...” She smiled enigmatically, and when he looked at her again, he wondered how he had not noticed her enormous girth before. Was he that blind? “As a matter of fact...” she said.
“Push harder! Push!”
“I am pushin’!”
“You squeezin’ Remy’s hand kind o’ hard, chere—”
“As bad as this hurts—y’lucky—y’hand is all I’m squeezin’!”
“There’s the head! Doctor Xavier, there’s—”
“Remy can see the head, cherel It. . . it. . . oh!” “Somebody revive that man and get him out of the way.”
* * *
“I tell you, it was Remy’s low blood sugar ...”
But nobody was paying any attention to the proud father; all eyes were on the mother and the small tenant who had just been evicted from his tiny amniotic apartment, reclining in their hospital bed. Through the unrolling of the day, Rogue had had several visitors, her own mother, Raven Darkholme, first among them. She had given her pronouncement that the baby—a boy—was “good—he doesn’t look a thing like his father and, mercifully, nothing like his uncle.” After her visit, Rogue assured Remy that was simply her mother’s way of expressing her approval.
“What she say ’bout Remy wrhen you marry him, den?” “Oh she really expressed her approval then,” Rogue answered, and they both laughed.
There had been others, and Scott and Jean had been by twice. On their second visit, Rogue and Remy asked them to be the baby’s godparents.
The day nurse, Ororo, brought Charlie (they had decided to name the baby Charles because he looked like Xavier—bald and serious) in for his afternoon feeding. Ororo was Rogue’s favorite of the nurses because she was like a grace note in the discordance of the hospital.
“He’s such a good baby,” Ororo said, smiling. “So perfect. He never cries, even when he’s hungry or wet. What’s your secret?”
“No secret,” offered Remy. “He got perfect parents. Don’ you know7 we ain’t human?”
Rogue shivered, then. The baby was perfect. Remy was almost giddy. Her mother was pleased. Even the nurse admired their happiness. So why wasn’t she content?
A shaft of late-afternoon sunlight angled through the window and fell on the family tree, painting everything in the room the color of fool’s gold.
She returned home with the baby. Her crusades were little ones, waged against grass and chocolate stains, dingy floors, and balancing the checkbook. Day after meaningless day blew past with the bland uniformity of sand.
She was dusting the gilt-framed portrait of Remy, Charlie, and herself when the doorbell rang. She returned the photograph to its place on the piano and answered the door. She was expecting it to be Jean, dropping by with the new Crichton book she’d promised to lend her, but her heart gave a wild, surging leap, banging against her ribs like a wild bird in a cage when she saw her caller was— “Logan?”
He was wearing a black tank top, exposing his hirsute arms and shoulders, his back and chest. He was leaning easily against the door frame, never taking his eyes from Rogue.
“Remy—” she started, and had to back up and try again. “Remy, he ain’t here.”
“I didn’t come t’see Gumbo boy,” he answered. “I came t’see you. T’give you whatcha need.”
She told herself that she should slam the door in his face, but she didn’t move a muscle.
“I can smell it on you, darlin’. Smell the disappointment an’ frustration an’—”
Whispering, she finished, “Yearnin’.”
“Got it in one,” he answered with a feral grin. “You’re yearnin’ for the wild side. For a man.”
“I—I already got a man.”
“You,” he said, lighting a cigar, “got a watered down copy of a man.”
He stepped closer and she could smell the beer on his breath, the stale cigars the stink of sweat: the smell of life. She could feel these scents enfolding her and at the same time, felt her senses expanding outward like ripples in a pond. She became aware of the sound of her own excited breathing, the sound of the blood drums pounding out a Charlie Watts solo in her ears; she could feel the weight of the air on her skin, the bead of sweat behind her left ear; she could see the slow dance of the dust motes in the late afternoon sun and the lazy flight of the honeybee in her front yard, and the individual leaves of grass, all part of some great, cosmic puzzle.
Logan moved closer to kiss her.
“Don’t worry, darlin’. I’m the best there is that at what I do.”
Again she told herself she should do something. Again she didn’t move a muscle, but allowed him to move close enough to kiss her.
“Dat’s not what Remy hear!” the Cajun said, striking Logan a staggering blow from behind with his softball bat. Logan spun around in one fluid motion, swinging with his claws at the same time Remy brought his bat up. The blades buried themselves deep in the soft ash and Remy wrenched the staff away, declawing Logan in the same movement.
Unluckily, Logan didn’t need the claws to be an animal, and his blocky right fist looped in and landed solidly on Remy’s nose, mashing it flat against his face. Remy used the move to trap Logan’s arm under his left arm, and simulta-
neously brought up his leg to strike Logan repeatedly in the side of the head and neck.
By this point, both men were snarling, growiing, wordless creatures, rolling on the floor, punching, kicking, biting. Remy slammed Logan’s head into the piano leg, over and over, making the keyboard issue a crazy, jangling chord than hung in the air forever. The family portrait slipped down the side of the Steinway and smashed on the floor.
Rogue had, in some secret room of her heart, wanted to have two men fight over her, but not like this. It was impossible to tell where one man began and the other left off with the cutting and growiing and biting, and so Rogue did the only sane and sensible thing she could—she laughed.
She laughed so hard that tears streamed down her cheeks and prismed her vision, and she had to force herself to stop laughing long enough to say, “End program.”
And at her command, the walls and furniture of the home dissolved around her, replaced by the bulwarks of the mansion’s Danger Room, cold and gray and uniform. Nothing comforting there, other than its familiarity.
“Who writes y’dialogue?” Rogue asked the men, as fragile and translucent as figures carved from soap bubbles. “Some love-starved little girl?” They didn’t answer as they vanished with a cold, hard snap, but then, there was no need. She wrote their dialogue, their life-scripts, with the help of the incredible alien computer of the Xavier Institute, a gift from the empress of a society whose technology far outstripped Earth’s. She had been trying to pretend to have a normal life through the holographic images of the Danger Room, had been hoping to lose herself, if only for
a moment, in the fantasy, to achieve some manner of epiphany. She had the computer program images of her teammates, but without powers, extrapolate how they might have been if they weren’t all mutants—if they were normal.
But neither she nor the alien computer had a true idea of what normal was. As a result, whenever the program got too tricky to navigate—too real or humdrum—she simply fast-forwarded over that particular glitch into a new scene or situation.
She had hoped for a chance to realize her dream of being able to touch and hold and love Remy, something she could not do with anyone thanks to her mutant power that forced her to absorb the powers and memories of anyone she made flesh-to-flesh contact with. But she felt only the more empty and cheated for her efforts. What good were dreams if you could only hold them in your sleep?
Although the Danger Room could replicate perfecdy feel and texture, even though it could create images that looked and sounded and behaved like the originals, it couldn’t capture the little things, the burning passions and buried hurts that made the people real and unique and alive. The memories were real; it was just that the events never happened, and the fire and humor she loved about. Remy simply couldn’t be captured by a holographic construct.
Even if she couldn’t touch the man she loved in this reality, in this imperfect world, at least it was Remy.
It was impossible to guess whether she would ever get her powers under control to the point of having a normal life, but it was worth hoping she would.
After all, half of “life” is made up of “if,” and sometimes, in the end, hope is all we really have.
“And all we need,” she said with a firm voice to that quiet room. “If life was perfect, if life was easy, we’d never dream, an’ it was a dream that built this mansion.”
She set a smile on her face, squared her shoulders, and left the room without a backward glance.
Illustration by Dave Cockrum & John Nyberg
Tawfiq Badr’s expression as he tumbled through the hot Egyptian air told the whole story. Yes, he’d been a pickpocket for a very long time. Yes, he’d honed the surreptitious art to an exacting science, here in the controlled mayhem of Cairo’s bustling open-air market. Yes, he’d had his fair share of close scrapes and run-ins with the local authorities.
And, no, he’d never had a victim literally blow him off his feet.
But that’s exactly what was happening. To Tawfiq, the two American women had looked like easy prey—or at least the younger one had: a pale, spoiled, overdressed, and complaining teenager lugging far too many suitcases through the tightly packed bazaar. Her companion—a tall, serene and confident-looking white-haired black woman wearing a sensible khaki outfit—seemed much more at home in this pungent sea of human motion. But even if the African Amazon saw him snatch the girl’s wallet, what could she do against a wily, seasoned professional like Tawfiq?
The answer, apparently, was that she could cause motion in the very air, summoning a hot desert wind of such force that it lifted and tumbled Tawfiq as if he were a feather caught in a sirocco. The wallet he had just purloined from the girl’s garish yellow overcoat dropped from his own pocket and onto the dusty ground—as did four other wallets he had lifted earlier that afternoon.
“Freakin’ animals!” the pale girl snapped, dropping her suitcases and rushing over to retrieve her wallet, as Tawfiq landed in a dusty heap about ten feet away. “I hate this place already, Storm!” she complained to her companion,
who was already striding purposefully toward the shaken pickpocket.
With scores of slack-jawed Egyptian dealers and international tourists looking on in disbelief, “Storm” grabbed the man by the coat and easily lifted him to his feet. Tawfiq looked into her eyes, and saw that her blue irises had completely disappeared, forcing him to stare at an eerie, allwhite gaze that chilled his soul. “Who do you work for?” she asked him in perfect Egyptian Arabic. ‘‘El-Gibar?”
“N-no,” Tawfiq stammered in his native language, feeling the hackles on his neck involuntarily rise—almost as if electricity were being pumped into him by the very touch of the woman. “Don’t work for anyone, not for a long time—”
“Well, if you see Achmed,” she interrupted Tawfiq, inexplicably smiling now, “tell him I said hello. He’ll know who you mean,’ ’ she added, releasing her grip on the pickpocket’s collar. Dazed, Tawfiq instinctively backed away from her, his eyeballs darting around the immediate area for signs of police—then he fled, expertly disappearing into the crowd of flesh within seconds.
Storm sighed as she walked back toward her companion, who was now standing there, with five wrallets in her hands. “I’d forgotten how much I miss this place, Jubilee,” Storm told her in English, with an ironic smirk,
“Yeah, cool home turf, Storm,” Jubilation Lee answered with a snort, pocketing her own wallet and eyeing the other four. “Makes Sarajevo look like Disney World, y’know? Maybe if we’re lucky, the local Mickey Mouse’ll stop by and beat the crap out of us.”
Smiling, Storm retrieved their luggage. “I know this isn’t the easiest or safest route to our hotel from the airport,” she admitted, “but I couldn’t pass up the chance to take a walk through my old stomping grounds.”
“You mean ‘old stealing grounds,’ ” Jubilee grumbled, buttoning her wallet pocket shut. “I know you grew up around here, used to be a pickpocket yourself—heck, /used to be a packrat hangin’ out in Hollywood Mall, I know what it’s like—but this place is just nasty!”
“You get used to it, Jubilee—people are remarkably adaptable creatures,” Storm answered, taking the four extra wallets from her dark-haired companion and swapping them for a couple of suitcases. “We’ll return these wallets to the authorities when we get to the hotel.”
“What about the smell?” Jubilee asked, wrinkling her nose as she and Storm moved farther into the bazaar. “Do you get used to that? And how about the flies? And the sweat? And the camels spitting? Yeccch! And every guy lookin’ at you like you’re on sale? And what about. . .” Jubilee’s ceaseless complaining faded into the recesses of Storm’s consciousness, as feelings of nostalgia once again overwhelmed her. It didn’t seem like very long ago that five-year-old Ororo Munroe, the Manhattan-born daughter of an American photojournalist and a Kenyan princess, had found herself orphaned on these rough streets of Cairo.
She remembered being taken in by Egyptian master thief Achmed el-Gibar, who had a whole troop of children who stole for him. Ororo quickly became his prize pupil, and within a year, she was considered by el-Gibar (and, more importantly, by the police) to be the most accomplished juvenile thief and pickpocket in all of Cairo.
Seven years of Ororo’s life—nearly her entire childhood—were spent this way, in this place. Lifting wallets, darting into and out of crowds, picking locks, duping tourists—it wasn’t a bad life for a child who had known little else. But when she was twelve years old, Ororo suddenly felt a strong desire to go south, to seek out her African ancestors.
Leaving Cairo and her life of petty crime behind, young Ororo trekked across the Sahara on foot. It took her nearly a year to reach the Serengeti Plain, home of her mother’s tribe. And during that long journey, Ororo’s womanhood blossomed—as did her uncanny ability7 to control the weather.
Upon rejoining the tribes of her mother’s youth near the base of Mount Kilimanjaro, Ororo learned that she and her mother, N’Dare, were descended from a line of African witch-priestesses that could be traced back to the dawn of humanity. All the women in this line of descent had white hair, blue eyes, and the potential for magical abilities.
Ororo’s newfound power to control the weather, however, was neither magical nor mystical. Rather, it was the byproduct of a random mutation of her DNA. Like so many others, Ororo was a mutant, a member, not of homo sapiens, but of the newly emerging subgenus homo superior.
Ororo used her weather-altering abilities to help several local Kenyan tribes in times of need. In return, they worshipped her as a goddess. Money, theft, conflict, fear—all these things became little more than fading memories to her. More contented than she had ever been, Ororo spent much of her young adulthood fully enjoying the life of a deity7. Indeed, who wouldn’t?
Then came the day Professor Charles Xavier came to Ororo’s African home and persuaded her to use her mutant powers to benefit all humanity. Xavier, a mutant himself, had used his telepathic abilities, technological expertise, and diplomatic skills to found the X-Men—a group of mutant heroes whose mission was to find and protect emerging young mutants from prejudiced humans, and to educate the mutants in the proper control and use of their powers, so that they would be a danger neither to themselves nor anyone else.
Ororo agreed to accompany Xavier back to her native New York. There she was given the code name “Storm” and enlisted in the X-Men. Over the years, she and her teammates had many adventures, and saved the lives of countless humans and mutants. Eventually, the X-Men lineup grew, changed, and split into subteams. The latest spin-off team was called Generation X, a group of younger mutants under the tutelage of Sean Cassidy and Emma Frost. It was to this latest X-team that the mutant firecracker Jubilation Lee was assigned.
“. . . not like I exactly asked to come along, y’know,” Jubilee’s still-whining voice penetrated Storm’s reminiscenses, as the two women emerged from the far side of the bazaar and turned toward the Corniche, Cairo’s traffic-clogged main avenue. “ ‘It’ll be good for you to get away for a few days,’ ’’Jubilee quoted Emma Frost, while doing a passable impersonation of the blonde leader’s icy tone,
“ Aye, ’t’will at that, darlin’, good experience f’r ya,’ ” Jubilee continued her solo conversation, now imitating Cassidy’s thick Irish brogue. Then, switching to her own Valley Girl singsong accent: “Yeah, like I can’t figure out that you
and die rest of Gen X just want this spaz out of your hair for a few days. Not too obvious ...”
“Jubilee, stop acting like Oliver Stone,” Storm chided her gently. “There’s no conspiracy here,”
Jubilee’s eyebrows shot up in mock surprise. “Whoa, reality check—was that a semihip pop-culture reference? From you?”
“See? I have been in America too long.” Storm smiled. She could see their hotel in the distance, not more than ten blocks away. “Almost there now, Jubilation.”
“Jubilation is right” Jubilee grumbled, hoisting her bags to a more comfortable position, blowing sweat-drenched hair out of her eyes, and pressing on. “Can’t believe we didn’t get a taxi, had to hoof it right through Body Odor Central, get my wallet picked, you showin’ off your powers, swear I never should’ve let myself get talked into . .
Storm found herself tuning Jubilee out again, as the sights of the Corniche evoked other, more recent—and more disturbing—memories. The previous week, Storm had received a letter from her childhood pickpocket friend Alia Taymur. Years earlier, the two girls had been semiregular partners in crime; one would cause a distraction, while the other picked the tourists’ pockets clean. Both had escaped the life of crime before it consumed them. Storm had graduated first to goddess, then to full-fledged heroine. Alia had gone back to school and become a prominent Egyptian mathematician.
But the letter Storm had received via Federal Express wasn’t from a dignified, reserved mathematician, it was from the frightened little girl Ororo remembered from her childhood. Ororo, please come back to Cairo. Meet me at our old secret
cache, next Friday at 9 p.m. I need your help. I can’t do this alone —Alia
The thirty-story Cairo International Hotel loomed large above Storm and Jubilee as they approached its revolving doors. “You see, Jubilee?” Ororo said. “We survived.”
“Aces,” Jubilee moaned, limping up the steps while stubbornly refusing to let the bellboy help her with her luggage. “Now, if we can only find a toilet I don’t have to hover over . . .”
It would be wrong to say he saw them enter the city, check into the hotel, unpack their bags. Or that he saw them at all.
No, he simply sensed two new variables entering the equation; strange attractors invisibly pulling the data in a new direction. He felt the numbers changing, the future shifting. Everything is numbers, he reminded himself. Reality is math. Nothing is random. There are no accidents.
Damian Sharpe breathed shallowly, blinked sweat from his eyes, and tried to stay focused on his meditation. But standard perception of reality kept penetrating. It was too small in here, not at all comfortable.
Of course it’s uncomfortable, he nearly blurted to himself It’s a damn tomb!
He blinked again, found himself coming out of the trance. The candles had burned about halfway down, and outside the sunlight was fading fast. Staying in his cross-legged yoga position, Sharpe looked down at the ancient Egyptian tomb’s stone floor. Carefully arranged around him were the nine artifacts he’d worked so long and hard to gather. Six years of scamming university research grants, tracking down talismans, translating ancient glyphs, learning incantations, studying chaos theory . . .