by Greg Cox
Clad in an eye-catching crimson costume, his face concealed behind a stylized mask that made him resemble some exotic Asian demon, Sunfire directed intense blasts of heat and flame at hard-pressed S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, who were forced to fall back before the thermal onslaught, despite the fire-resistant Beta Cloth (type C) in their uniforms. The Japanese mutant kept up the offensive, discharging his fusillade from both hands.
I don’t get it, Fury thought. He could feel the heat from Sunfire’s blasts even from a distance. Yoshida usually sticks pretty close to his homeland. What’s he doing here?
Standing beside Sunfire, mouth wide open beneath a mop of unruly orange hair, the Irish mutant codenamed Banshee added his own powerful sonic screams to their joint assault. Although less visible than his compatriot’s flashy fireworks, Banshee’s wails were no less effective; stricken security officers threw their hands over their ears, letting go of their automatic rifles and high-tech ray guns even as the weapons vibrated to pieces within their grips. So tightly focused was the sonic bombardment that Fury and his reinforcements, approaching the fray at a right angle, barely heard more than a faint, high-pitched whine. Banshee’s green-and-yellow costume contrasted dramatically with Sunfire’s own crimson garb, making the regulation blue of the besieged S.H.I.E.L.D. agents even more uniform and interchangeable by comparison. Crinkly wrinkles around the Irishman’s merry green eyes hinted at the fortyish mutant’s age. Striped black-and-yellow wings hanging beneath Banshee’s arms reminded Fury that, like Sunfire, the shrieking Irishman was fully capable of taking flight if necessary.
This is crazy, Fury thought, taking aim with his .45 while filling his free hand with a palm-sized fragmentation bomb from a pouch on his belt. Sean Cassidy is an ex-Interpol agent, for pete’s sakes! What the devil is he thinking? Deciding to try the stun-bomb before resorting to deadly force, out of respect for Cassidy’s roots in law enforcement, he hurled the bomb with all his strength, aiming it straight between Sunfire and Banshee. That should knock them off their feet, he thought, counting down to the expected detonation. “Three, two, one…”
A wall of solid ice formed in the grenade’s path, blocking its downward arc and freezing the bomb in mid-air a heartbeat before it exploded. Fury did not have to look far to find the source of the unexpected arctic fortification—sliding forward on a swiftly-forming sheet of frictionless white ice, Iceman, his entire body seemingly sculpted from translucent blue ice, joined Banshee and Sunfire at the front line of the conflict. More ice spraying from his fingertips like water, the refrigerated X-Man defended his fellow invaders with a shield that rose in front of Sunfire and Banshee, and from behind which the other mutants continued to direct destructive volleys of sound and flame. Fury was impressed that Iceman could construct and maintain his miniature glaciers even in the presence of Sunfire’s volcanic combustion.
He just keeps pouring it on, Fury noted. He could feel the very air around him growing arid and more parched as Iceman leeched all available moisture out of the atmosphere to construct his dense, frigid barricade. Fury swallowed repeatedly to keep his throat from drying up while a trickle of blood leaked from his nostrils.
“Never did like air conditioning,” he muttered to himself as he removed a thermite grenade from his belt and threw it at the wall of ice. “This ought to heat things up a bit.”
Right on target, the bomb flew toward the instantly-erected snow fort—until an invisible force seized hold of the grenade and flung it back at Fury and the rest.
What the hey? Fury thought, jaw dropping in surprise only a second before battle-honed reflexes kicked in and sent him diving for safety. His palms and elbows skidded across the floor as he hit the ground.
“Incoming!” he warned Val and the other agents, squeezing his eye shut to spare it from the blinding flash he knew was coming. “Duck and cover!”
A white-hot explosion of heat and light went off less than two yards from where Fury landed, giving one side of his face a bad case of sunburn. Nick scrambled to his feet and opened his eye. His toasted profile stung like blazes.
That was a close one, he realized. The thermite charge had scorched the metal floor where Fury had stood only a moment before. Someone is playing for keeps.
But who? None of the X-Men he’d identified so far were reported to have that sort of telekinetic power. Peering past the three men apparently leading the assault, he spotted a striking, red-haired woman in a gleaming green-and-gold costume. A metallic gold sash clung to her hips while a generous cloud of carmine-colored curls billowed about her head, as though held aloft by the same unseen force that had snatched the firebomb in its flight. Her blue eyes glowed with psionic energy.
Figures, Fury thought, immediately I.D.ing the woman as Jean Grey, alias Marvel Girl or Phoenix or whatever she was calling herself these days. S.H.I.E.L.D. had a file on her two inches thick, including her various clones, doubles, and counterparts, even documenting one lady, also codenamed Phoenix, who was alleged to be her full-grown daughter from an alternate future!
I knew there was a reason I hated getting mixed up in this mutant stuff, Fury groused silently.
“Everyone in one piece?” he asked hastily, glancing over his shoulder to see Val and the two or three nearest agents rising to their feet. To his relief, none of them looked seriously harmed by the boomeranging grenade, although the Countess’s elegant features seemed a little redder than usual and his nose detected something that smelled suspiciously like burnt hair.
“We’re fine,” she assured him, reasonably unruffled by their recent brush with incineration. She cradled a .30-caliber automatic machine pistol against her chest. Her keen eyes fixed on the sturdy airlock that was clearly the X-Men’s objective, no admittance, a lighted sign above the doorway read, level 2 clearance required. “What do you think they’re after, Nick?”
“Heck if I know,” Fury admitted. It was the bane of his existence that, no matter how hard he tried to stay on top of things, S.H.I.E.L.D. was simply too big and multi-purposed for any one man to keep track of, especially if he wasn’t a scientist. For all he knew, any number of experiment research projects could be going on behind those polished titanium doors. Whatever it could be, it was obvious the X-Men wanted it, and Fury didn’t think that a little thing like a lack of the proper security clearance was going to slow them down one bit.
That’s our job, he thought, hefting his Colt.
Mindful of Banshee’s acoustic powers, he took a pair of protective ear plugs from his supply belt and quickly inserted them into his auditory canals, then signaled Val and the others to do the same. The plugs couldn’t protect them completely from the mutant’s sonic barrage, he knew, but it might give them a moment’s advantage.
Better than nothing, I guess.
The mutant boarding party made swift progress toward the laboratory entrance, Iceman’s protective wall of frozen moisture advancing ahead of them while protecting them on both sides as well, forming a horseshoe of solid ice at least a foot thick at its weakest points. Sunfire kept the X-Men moving forward by melting away the ice directly in front of them even as Iceman spread more ice further ahead. By now, the first wave of defenders had been thoroughly routed, forced to abandon their positions by the relentless force of Sunfire and Banshee’s dual blitzkrieg. Those agents still standing helped carry their wounded colleagues to safety as Fury fearlessly led his own team into the breach, ducking his head beneath streams of flame while firing repeated clips of ammo over the top of the icy wall.
To his chagrin, he glimpsed the bullets melting into molten lead as soon as they came within proximity of Sunfire’s incandescent, super-heated aura. A hail of gunfire dissolved into a rain of liquid metal that produced rising tendrils of steam, the melted ammo tunneling through Iceman’s impromptu stockade.
That’s no good, Fury realized, wincing at the timbre of Banshee’s incessant wail. Even through his regulation earplugs, designed to muffle the impact of both explosions and gunfights, the eerie siren wa
s enough to set all his nerves on edge and bring on a killer headache. Trickles of blood leaked from his ears. Time to change tactics.
He emptied the clip of his .45 into the oncoming ice wall, blasting gaps and fissures in the frost-covered barrier that refilled almost instantly, then he switched to the .5mm plasma projector in his side holster. The beam of ionized particles produced by the blaster proved more effective against the mutants’ advance than conventional gunfire, reducing solid ice to vapor. The wall of ice receded faster than Iceman could replenish the X-Men’s defenses, leaving the invaders semi-exposed.
Following his lead, Val, Lee, and the others abandoned their various firearms in favor of plasma blasters. Banshee was forced to vary the pitch and volume of his sonic output, altering the nature of the wail from a weapon to a protective force field, shielding him from the unleashed power of the energy weapons. Composed of standing sound waves, the force barrier was invisible, but Fury could see the plasma blasts swerve around it. Sunfire reeled before the surging plasma, dropping onto one knee before retreating behind Banshee and his sonic shield, joining Jean Grey who had already drawn back to put more distance between her and the plasma barrage, but not before Fury spotted the symbol spread out upon her chest: a golden silhouette of a bird in flight.
Phoenix it is, he deduced.
Streams of hot ions rippled around her, diverted by a telekinetic forcefield that he could have sworn resembled a bird. The flame-like glow in her eyes grew bright enough to hide the natural color of her pupils, giving her face an eerie appearance. Telekinetically-tossed red tresses seethed like the serpentine crown of an enraged gorgon. Only Iceman appeared to go on the offensive, showering the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents with a cannonade of icy hail even as the crystalline planes of the X-Man’s frozen body began to melt away, streaming down his frame to puddle at his feet.
“Take that, you human popsicle!” Fury growled, ignoring the stinging impact of the hail against his exposed face, grateful that the 9-ply Kevlar in his uniform spared him the worst of the hailstorm. He kept squeezing the trigger of his blaster, encouraged by the beam’s punitive effect. Val and the others formed a defensive phalanx around him, the agents in the back firing over the heads of Fury and the frontmost fighters.
That’s the ticket, he thought. Looks like we’re starting to turn this thing around.
Then, without warning, he felt his own gun try to tear itself free from his grip. The weapon seemed possessed of its own will, twisting and bucking with surprising strength. Nor was his the only blaster that had suddenly decided to make a break for it; out of the corner of his eye, he saw Schwartz’s weapon fly from the baffled agent’s hand. More blasters joined in the exodus, levitating across the open test area until they came within range of Sunfire’s incendiary blasts, which reduced the runaway ray guns to molten metal in seconds, shooting them out of the air like so many flying ducks. It took all of Fury’s strenuous efforts to keep his own blaster from committing mechanical suicide by joining its slagged counterparts in a lemming-like leap to destruction. The knuckles of his right hand turned white where he squeezed tightly upon the grip and trigger, while his left hand pushed down hard on the muzzle of the blaster to keep it from tilting upward against his will.
“No way, X-Gal,” he grunted, recognizing Jean Grey’s telekinetic prowess at work. Forget his cold, dead body—the only way anyone was prying his gun out of his hand was by vaporizing him down to the last atom.
I hope Chuck Heston appreciates this. He bet the N.R.A. had never worried about guns that tried to liberate themselves from their legal owners.
Gritting his teeth so tightly that he could have flattened a penny between his molars, while the fingers around his blaster felt like they were ready to break off, Fury kept assailing the X-Men with a cascade of hot plasma, even as doubts about the whole blasted setup began to simmer at the back of his mind.
Something’s not right here, he realized, besides the obvious. An X-Men team consisting of Sunfire, Banshee, Iceman, and Phoenix? That didn’t gibe with his most recent intel. Sure, the X-Men, like most super-squads, changed their roster more often than a major league baseball team, but this lineup sounded more fishy than most. According to reliable sources. Banshee was semi-retired these days, running some private school in Massachusetts, while Sunfire hadn’t been an active member of the team for years. This was like a “Greatest Hits” version of the X-Men, put together out of personnel plucked from various eras in the team’s colorful history.
A fine time to stage a class reunion. Fury thought. If that’s what this really is.
Frankly, he was starting to have his doubts.
Any suspicions he might have been forming, however, were driven out of his head by the startling arrival of another intruder. Propelled by an impressive pair of blue metallic wings, the newcomer swooped through the gap in the ceiling and flew over the heads of his mutant cohorts to carry the fight back to Fury and his agents. The new combatant’s skin and costume were as blue as his artificial wings, with only his light blonde hair providing any relief from his sleek, monochromatic appearance.
Archangel, Fury recognized at once, worried less about the winged mutant’s fashion sense than the glint of the overlapping, razor-sharp blades that feathered the underside of Archangel’s powerful pinions. Wait a sec, he objected silently. I thought Worthington had grown a new pair of organic wings—fluffy white feathers and all…?
Belying Fury’s doubts, based on meticulous and extensive intelligence on all known parahuman principals and their associates, Archangel unleashed a volley of knife-edged flechettes that shot forth from his wings to strike at the S.H.I.E.L.D. forces with merciless accuracy. To Nick’s right, a flechette struck Agent Plummer in the shoulder, slicing through the reinforced Kevlar and Beta Cloth like they were tissue paper. More than simply a sharpened blade, the flechette imparted a taser-like shock to the unlucky agent’s nervous system. Plummer convulsed once, his eyes rolling up until only the whites were visible, then collapsed onto the metal floor like a sack of potatoes. All around him, Fury heard agents crying out, then hitting the ground hard.
Whatever we’re protecting, he thought bitterly, I hope it’s worth it.
“Nick! Watch out!” The Countess threw herself in front of Fury, just in time to take a flechette right below her ribs. She spasmed for only a second before mercifully crumpling to the floor, landing in a heap in front of Fury’s feet.
Blast it, Val, he thought, you didn’t have to do that.
Now the last man standing, he tried to raise up his gunsight, to take out the airborne hooligan who had decked Val and the others, but his blaster still fought against his control, spurred on by the telekinetic mojo of Phoenix. He couldn’t bring the weapon up fast enough to stop Archangel from releasing another salvo of flechettes, which whistled through the air toward Fury and the others.
The first blade struck him in the thigh, slashing through flesh and fabric like a scalpel, and carrying a bio-electric charge that raced through Fury’s body. Every hair on his body stood on end, and he bit down on his tongue so hard he drew blood.
Metal wings again? Fury thought in the instant before losing consciousness. Something doesn’t add up…
The blaster was still clutched in his fist when his body dropped onto the floor of Deck Four.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“THE operations went off smoothly, as you foretold.”
“Of course. With my exceptional mental faculties, it was child’s play to anticipate our subjects’ movements and prepare appropriate receptions.”
“If you say so, but do not neglect my own contributions to the success of our endeavor. The subjects could not have been so easily captured if not for the special training and talents of my lieutenants.”
“Naturally. I by no means intended to discount the efforts of you and your followers. Our newly-forged alliance has already yielded positive results, in the form of our three unwilling visitors…”
* * *
LO
GAN awoke to find himself immersed in one of his least favorite memories. Or so it first seemed.
Metal restraints held him fast within what looked like the bottom half of a futuristic sarcophagus, inclined at a forty-five degree angle from the floor. Electrodes and sensors were affixed to his forehead, throat, chest, and other junctures on his body. Hypodermic needles speared his skin, threading the veins and arteries underneath. Electrical cables coiled around matching I.V. lines that snaked over the sides of the steel coffin to disappear beyond his confined field of vision. As is, the wall-sized mirror facing him showed him far more of his captive state than he would have liked: trussed up like a mummy inside the metal coffin, multicolored cables swathing him in place of dusty bandages. He had no doubt that, on the other side of the mirror, peering through a sheet of one-way glass, the unknown parties responsible for his captivity were monitoring him at this very moment.
Just like before. That lab in Canada, so many years ago. The experiments. The pain…
Triggered by the memories, a feral rage rose within him, threatening to swamp his hard-won rationality. A blood-red haze swam before his eyes. Jagged teeth gnashed together. Steel claws erupted from clenched fists, but clamps upon his wrists prevented him from tearing apart the apparatus that trapped him. Additional clamps held down his legs and neck.
“Gotta stay in control,” he whispered to himself, holding back the bestial roar building in his throat. Can’t let the animal get loose…
It wasn’t easy, though. Feverish, distorted memories of being trapped once before, of being poked and prodded like a lab animal, of being forcibly altered and made even less human than he had been before, flared within his mind, urging him to strike out blindly, unchain the raging beast at the core of his soul.
