Liberty & Justice for All
Page 17
“I’m worried about leaving you with Graydon,” Christopher said bluntly. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. I’ve seen what you can do in the Danger Room, not to mention in Limbo. But he’s never liked mutants, and I’d be worried about leaving either one of us alone with him. I’d be more comfortable if you let me take the risk. My mutation makes me harder to kill, if it comes down to it.”
She kissed him on the cheek, surprising them both.
“You’re sweet. I’m not particularly close with my brother, but I’ve got his back no matter what, because he’s family. You remind me of him. Half the time, I want to kick you in the head, and the other half the time, I’d shank someone if they looked at you funny,” she said.
“Thanks, I think?”
“You’re welcome. But I’m still staying. This makes the most sense, and you know it.”
He scowled. “I don’t like it. I know he’s gotten nice all of a sudden, but that doesn’t just happen. People don’t change like that.”
“I know. Either something changed him, or he’s acting.” She caught his eye. “I’m not a complete idiot, you know. Maybe I bounce around like a manic pixie dream girl half the time, but I have a head on my shoulders, and occasionally I even use it. I got high marks in my first and only semester at uni, you know.”
“Heaven forbid.”
“Right?” She grinned, but it faded quickly. “I’m going to try and talk to him, and then I’ll bubble him and the Box together. You should try talking to Sabretooth too. There’s a lot going on here that they’re not telling us. We’re not going to get anything from them unless we divide and conquer.”
“I don’t like it. It’s risky.”
“I’m sorry, but you did sign up for the X-Men. I think you’re gonna have to get used to risk.”
“I’m the healer. I stay behind on the X-Jet with the rest of the support personnel, and after the big guns go in and do the real work, I come in and I mop up. You know how this goes,” he scoffed.
“After the events of this morning, if you try to tell me that you haven’t earned your X, I will laugh right in your face, Christopher Muse. And then I’ll get Sabretooth to do it. And I bet he has bad breath.”
“Hey!” Sabretooth yelled, confirming her suspicions. “I heard that!”
“But I’m right,” she insisted.
“Yeah, yeah. If you’re done having your moment, can we go now?” he asked, approaching them. “That tree is going to fall over if we don’t do something about the Box.”
They eyed the tree. They’d only been talking for a few minutes, and it had already died. The circle of death had spread beyond the tree, creeping another ten feet or so up the grass. Eva marched back to the table and gestured to Graydon. He stood, clutching the bag containing the artifact.
“OK,” she said, “let’s do this.”
Chapter 21
Sabretooth scouted out Eva and Graydon’s hiding spot. Although the park was huge, it didn’t offer many options when it came to heavily wooded areas, but he still insisted on scoping out the territory for potential danger. At first, Eva thought the whole thing a waste of time, but then Sabretooth dismissed the first stand of trees as unsuitable after a single deep inhalation.
“What’s wrong with it?” she demanded, eager to get moving.
“Decomp,” said Sabretooth.
“What?”
“There’s a dead dog over there. Big one. I can smell it from here. You want to deal with it when it gets up and wants a treat?” Sabretooth snapped.
He seemed extra grumpy all of a sudden, and it worried her. She knew he was hiding things from them. She might be a newbie, but she hadn’t been born yesterday. Sabretooth had acquired the Box for a reason. He and Graydon were working together for a reason. She had her suspicions, but she hadn’t quite put all the pieces together in a way that made sense yet.
“No. Sorry,” she said, placating him.
“Good. Now let me scout out the next one and quit nagging me about it, will ya?”
None of them nagged as he evaluated and discarded the next two options as not providing sufficient cover and being too close to the park entrance. Finally, they found an option that satisfied even Sabretooth’s exacting standards. The deep copse of trees provided heavy cover, with few walking trails. Sabretooth smelled no traces of major predators, and after he’d spent a little time in the area, he scared off any smaller animals. He didn’t smell any recent bodies, although any wilderness would have plenty of bones buried deep in the dirt. Eva would need to keep the Box contained to avoid raising them.
Before Christopher and Sabretooth left, she bubbled the Box. Christopher kept an eye on Graydon as she did so, just in case the bubble harmed him in some way. Graydon swayed as the translucent bubble popped into existence, but otherwise he didn’t react.
Christopher grabbed him by the elbow.
“You OK?” he asked.
“I can tell the difference,” Graydon admitted. “I feel tired now. Like I’ve just run a long race. But I can deal with that. You two can go now.”
“You sure?” Sabretooth asked gruffly.
“Yeah.”
Graydon sank down to the leafy ground, leaning against the trunk of a convenient tree. After a moment, Eva sank down next to him. The other two mutants hesitated, exchanging glances.
“I guess we should go,” he said.
“You be safe,” Sabretooth ordered.
“Don’t worry about us,” Eva said staunchly.
They left.
It took some time before the crunching sound of their footfalls faded in the distance. Eva and Graydon sat in silence. She didn’t know what to say. If she’d been stuck here with Christopher, she would have chatted easily, but Graydon didn’t encourage easy speech. Something about him made her want to clam up, but she needed to get him talking. Too bad she didn’t know how. He certainly seemed different from the man who’d preached mutant genocide, but as she’d told Christopher, she knew not to take that at face value.
“I thought they were never going to leave,” he said wearily.
She snorted. “Yeah. I haven’t known him very long, but I’ve noticed that Christopher likes to talk everything through three times before he does it. He’s a planner.”
“That’s not a bad person to have on your side. Planning saves lives.”
She nodded, and once again they fell silent. She watched him out of the corner of her eye, alert for signs of weakness or duplicity.
“I’m not going to fall apart,” he said with obvious annoyance. “Or explode. You can relax.”
“Sorry. I’m annoying when I babysit too. I hover. Which may explain why I was rarely brought back a second time.”
“Caring too much may be a character flaw, but it’s better than caring too little. I’ve been accused of that many a time.”
“You don’t seem like the demonstrative type,” she admitted.
“No, I never have been. I’m more the go-getter. And you’re the idealist, yes?”
She hitched a shoulder. “I sure was when I got to the school, but I’m not sure how long that’ll last. You can only see your childhood heroes get taken down a peg so many times before you have to reevaluate those tendencies, you know?”
He chuffed in amusement. “Things never go the way we dreamed they would when we were young, do they?”
“Nope. I’d demand my money back, but I don’t know who to ask.”
She said it lightly, but it wasn’t a joke. Out of all of the people in the world to confide these thoughts to – thoughts she’d never spoken aloud to anyone – Graydon Creed wouldn’t have been at the top of the list. But he seemed different now. He no longer overflowed with anger and showmanship. She reminded herself that she still needed to exercise caution, but she had to admit that she wanted this to be real. She didn’t want to bubble him when
there was still a chance that they could truly work things out. She wanted to believe that he could see the error of his ways.
When she’d urged Christopher to use this opportunity to probe for information, she hadn’t exactly expected success. But now that Sabretooth had gone, Graydon truly seemed like a different person. One she might even grow to like. She really hoped he didn’t leap up and try to kill her, because it would really ruin the moment. She snorted at the thought.
“What?” He lifted his head slightly to look at her.
“I hope you don’t try to kill me while the others are gone, because I’m actually starting to like you a little,” she said honestly.
He chuckled, settling back down into place.
“I won’t say I haven’t thought about it, but I’m too tired,” he responded, yawning. “Maybe after I have a nap.”
“Don’t you dare go to sleep!” she demanded, bolting upright once again to check on him.
His eyes were still open. They looked up at her with bemusement.
“Why not?” he asked.
“Because it might be dangerous?” she asked.
“That’s for concussions, I think.”
“No, you idiot. I can’t look in every direction at once. If someone decides to attack us, and you’re catching up on your beauty sleep, they’ll walk right up to us.”
“That’s not a bad point, I suppose. Although I resent the implication that I need beauty sleep.”
He sat up and settled himself against the tree again. She returned to her spot, facing the other way. But now that she’d moved, she couldn’t get comfortable. No matter how she arranged herself, bark poked her in the back. If she shifted to avoid it, stones poked her painfully in the hips. She huffed in annoyance, settling herself for what felt like the millionth time.
“Hey, Eva?” asked Graydon.
“What?” she snapped.
“Speaking of getting attacked…?”
She sighed, prying a stone out of the ground and throwing it out of the way. It nearly pinged off the time bubble. “Yeah?”
“I think there’s something moving out there.”
She froze. Her eyes roamed the trees but found nothing.
“Where?” she whispered.
He pointed.
For a moment, she didn’t see anything no matter how hard she strained. Then, the light through the trees glinted off something moving through the underbrush. Something metal. She swore under her breath. This could mean nothing good. Sabretooth had reported no trails through that area, and a normal hiker wouldn’t make such an effort to go unnoticed.
She swallowed against the lump growing in her throat. Retreat or stand their ground? If they ran, she would either have to lead their pursuers to Christopher and Sabretooth or risk not being able to find them later. She didn’t like either of those options, but she didn’t like fighting unseen opponents on her own, either. It scared the crap out of her.
Graydon waited calmly, looking to her for leadership despite the fact that he must have had quite a few years on her. But he trusted her call. Maybe she should too. She thought about how scared she’d been in Limbo, and how once the Stepford Triplets had helped her overcome her fear, she’d been able to stand strong against Dormammu’s faceless hordes. She thought about the look of terror on Christopher’s face when Emma Frost had plunged that knife into her chest. But they’d done the job despite their feelings, and she would do this one too.
“Can you climb a tree?” she asked Graydon quietly. “I’d like to hide you away safe.”
He frowned. “I can climb one, but I won’t.” So much for following her lead. “You can’t expect me to just sit here. I think there’s more than one of them out there, and if we take them on one at a time, we’re weaker. I intend to survive today. It’s a bad call.”
She swallowed hot words of protest, Christopher’s warning about him ringing in her ears. Graydon seemed to read her mind. He sighed, a bit of his old haughty attitude creeping back into his expression.
“If I wanted to do you harm, I would have excused myself to take a leak and let them sneak up on you,” he said. “Don’t think I didn’t consider it. But again, it’s a numbers game. We’re safer together for the moment.”
After a moment’s consideration, she nodded. But she couldn’t help asking one corollary question.
“Why do you hate us so much?” she blurted.
He blinked. “I…”
She shook her head. There wasn’t time for it, no matter how badly she wanted to know. Over his shoulder, she saw them moving through the trees: two figures in shades of metallic purple, their robotic bodies moving with a surprising fluidity given their automated origins.
Sentinels.
She wasn’t surprised. After all, they’d already been at the Grace once that day, so they either had some beef with Sabretooth or interest in the Box. Maybe both. More than anything, she wondered what had taken them so long to return. Then she marveled at the fact that, while she was afraid at the prospect of facing them, she felt a bit calmer at the onset of each battle. The fear still lingered, but she was able to control it better, setting it to the side while she took care of business.
Based on what she could see through the underbrush, these were different from the Sentinels that she’d seen when they were picking up the other students. Cyclops had explained that there were many different generations of the mutant-killing robot line, each with its own features and capabilities. These Sentinels looked a little boxier than the ones she’d seen before, their lines a bit more angular. She hoped that meant that these were older models with fewer features, like their X-Copter, and that they’d be a bit easier to dispatch. It would be nice to have some luck on their side for once.
She and Graydon ducked behind the tree, and she eyed the Box, still encased in the time bubble. She was actually rather proud of that bubble. It had held for a while and was still going strong, but it would pop sometime soon. She had to assume that the Sentinels would immediately lock in on the Box when that happened. It could serve as a good distraction if they timed it right, and she murmured this suggestion to Graydon.
“Not a bad idea,” he responded. “Allow me to elaborate…”
•••
When the time bubble popped and the Box fell to the ground, the Sentinels began to stomp through the trees, making a beeline for the artifact without any concern for the wildlife they trampled en route. Eva bubbled one of them, allowing the second to close in as they’d planned. As it drew closer, she picked up the Box and tossed it to Graydon. It wasn’t the perfect spiral that he’d thrown earlier; she didn’t know how to do that. But she’d played plenty of softball, and she had good aim. He caught it easily, and the Sentinel’s head swiveled to follow the Box. As they’d hoped, the robot didn’t take aim at him, not wanting to risk damage to the precious artifact. Instead, it tromped in his direction, intending to capture and kill.
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The Sentinel spoke in an emotionless monotone all the more threatening for its lack of humanity. It would kill them both and not suffer a single moment of regret over the action. It was what it had been built for, after all.
With its massive stride, it closed the ground quickly. Graydon did his best to evade it, darting in and out of the trees. Now that the Box was out of the bubble, his strength had started to return, but Eva worried that it wouldn’t be enough. Her heart beat in her throat. The killer robot closed in on him as she watched, wondering if she should abandon the plan and freeze it before it was too late. It was one thing to suggest maneuvering the Sentinels into position to shoot each other, but another one to sit idly by while Graydon risked his life to make it happen. If he died, she’d never forgive herself. Regardless of his flaws, he deserved a chance at redemption.
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br /> The Sentinel reached toward him, and Graydon leaped out of the way. Metal fingers snagged on the dingy fabric of the jumpsuit.
“No!” Eva exclaimed, taking an involuntary step forward.
But there was nothing she could do now. The Sentinel stood so close to Graydon that she wouldn’t be able to freeze it without catching him too. That would only delay the inevitable. She clenched her hands, digging her nails into her palms, as Graydon threw himself forward. The jumpsuit ripped free. She felt her limbs go limp with relief. He clutched the Box, scrambled to his feet, and ran for the tree line.
The angles were perfect. She had to act. She’d been practicing her time bubbles, but never with the precision she needed at this moment. But she would make it work. She grabbed onto the bubble that held the second Sentinel and twisted with her mind. It popped, releasing the metal monster. It completed its step and halted in confusion as it registered the new locations of the Box and the mutants.
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