“Don’t worry, darlin’,” she heard him say, again in that quiet, private voice that was for her alone, “it’s not mine.”
When their eyes met, she gave a start of surprise, her mouth forming a tiny O of amazement. She was so used to feeling residues of his own ferocious—and murderous—passions, she found it hard to believe when she saw reflected in his eyes an echo of the pain and misery she felt. And strangely, she found that reassuring. It made her feel better—to know that he wasn’t a monster after all. That man Stryker had called him an animal, had called him Wolverine instead of by name, but Rogue knew different.
His name was Logan. And he was human to the core.
Chapter
Eight
The mansion itself was the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The bulk of Xavier’s School was hidden below ground, in a complex that stretched deep into the earth and sprawled every which way beneath the estate, employing technology as revolutionary as the design of the Blackbird. The schematics of the power source alone made the physicists on Stryker’s analysis team weep with frustration. More than anything, they wanted to get their hands on this equipment, and none of them was happy to discover that their employer had other priorities.
A significant amount of space directly beneath the mansion was devoted to something Magneto referred to as the Danger Room. It was here that Xavier conducted the bulk of his explorations into the practical dynamics and limitations of the powers possessed by his students. Of equal significance, it was also where he trained his personal assault force, the X-Men.
Technicians began swarming through the building as soon as Lyman’s troops reported it secure, but they quickly found themselves frustrated by command protocols keyed to retinal and voice prints they didn’t possess and computer codes so deviously encrypted they couldn’t begin to make sense of them.
Stryker didn’t much care. To him, all that was of peripheral interest. As far as he was concerned, once his plan reached fruition, they could deconstruct the school and all of its tech at their leisure.
Under escort, he made his way down the main elevator to the uppermost level of the underground complex. Troopers with digital cameras recorded everything, to be downloaded into the main database once they returned to headquarters—more grist for the analysts’ mill. Chances were, this would leave them in pig heaven for years to come.
They passed a locker room, and Stryker paused a moment to finger one of the uniforms hanging there. Another marvel of structural engineering. The material looked and felt like leather; it fit like a biker’s speed suit, almost a second skin. But it was extraordinarily resilient, protecting the wearer from extremes of temperature and environment—snug in winter, cool in summer, dry in a monsoon—and, most practical of all in Stryker’s opinion, better than Kevlar as body armor. Projections suggested it could survive a point-blank round from a Barrett .50-caliber sniper gun, the most powerful rifle made, one small step below an actual cannon.
He turned away from the uniform as Lyman hurried up to join him, calling his name.
“Tunnels,” he reported to Stryker, standing briefly to attention and giving the older man a salute. “That’s where all the kids went. And damn well shielded, too, better than this!” He indicated the circular corridor around them, with its ergonomically cool colors and lighting, the epitome of sensible industrial engineering. “From the way targets kept popping off our scopes, the house must be riddled with them, the entire compound, too! We used a sonic imager to find some of the entrances, but there were deadfalls right inside, sealing the escape routes tight. From the way they booked out of here, they had to have practiced escape and evasion techniques. I don’t know if we can catch them at the exit points.”
“Very prudent of them. How many did you get, then?”
“Six, sir. What should we do with them?”
“Pack them up. We’ll decide later.”
As the two men spoke, they approached Stryker’s true destination, right at the end of this main hallway. It was a circular door that intentionally resembled the entrance to a bank vault, or to NORAD’s command center deep inside Cheyenne Mountain, built to protect the chamber within against any form of hostile incursion. Stryker doubted he had any tools in his arsenal, short of perhaps a baby nuke, capable of breaching this barrier. Fortunately, none were needed.
At his command, a pair of troopers stepped forward and set up the device they were carrying, placing it on a tripod in front of the doorway. To the right side of the door itself was a scanning plate, in which was embedded a multifaceted blue crystal, as pure a sapphire as any had ever seen. They set the lasing crosshairs dead center on the crystal, at the height of a tall man seated in a wheelchair.
The device was activated, the laser immediately refracting into a score of lesser beams that struck the crystal, replicating the retinal pattern they had recorded from Xavier’s own eye.
It only took a moment.
“Welcome, Professor,” said a gentle feminine voice with a hint of a highland Scots brogue. Stryker recognized it from Xavier’s primary dossier; it was his collaborator, fellow geneticist and onetime lover, Moira MacTaggart of Edinburgh University.
Without hesitation Stryker strode along the platform to Xavier’s console in the center of the great globe of a room. The others held back, just a little. To them, this was the heart of the darkness that was their enemy, the place where Xavier supposedly honed and worked his incredible powers. From here, so Magneto said, he could reach out to every mind on the planet. Stryker hoped that was true, hoped the old mutant wasn’t exaggerating. Because that made this room the key to his ultimate victory.
He reached out to the gleaming chrome helmet on its stand but couldn’t quite bring himself to touch it. This was Xavier’s toy; let the mutant mental play with it. Stryker would watch. “Take what you need, gentlemen,” he said as the soldiers entered Cerebro.
Saturday night. And Mitchell Laurio, creature of habit, was where he could be found every Saturday night he wasn’t working. Fourth stool from the end at the Dew Drop Inn. It wasn’t a great bar, but then he wasn’t a picky guy. It had televisions to spare and, if the cash was right, a fella could persuade one of the waitresses to join him in a booth and provide a semiprivate show. Most nights, the video choice was sports or sex, but for some reason the bartender had switched the TVs over to some damn news show where two mooks were blathering on about mutants, as if anyone in the world actually gave a rat’s ass about their opinion.
Laurio wasn’t aware he was speaking those sentiments aloud but wouldn’t have cared if he had realized it.
“. . . the Mutant Registration Act provides a sense of security similar to Megan’s Law,” said a middle-aged guy whose title card identified him as Sebastian Shaw, the latest tycoon turned politico. “A list of potentially dangerous mutants living in our communities.”
His counterpart was half his age and twice his size, and Laurio remembered him from college ball. An All-American who passed on a pro contract to go to Stanford for a doctorate, the first of a whole bunch, it turned out. His name was Henry McCoy. People magazine said he preferred Hank.
“Megan’s Law is a database of known felons, Mr. Shaw,” he responded heatedly, “not innocent people who haven’t committed any crime and may not even be likely to. It’s akin to registering every member of a religious or ethnic group in the nation, on the presumption that some of them may be terrorists.”
“Some might not consider that so bad an idea, McCoy.”
“Some, Sebastian,” McCoy shot back, “might consider America a better place than that.”
“A damn mutant almost killed the President!”
“A person, who happened to be a mutant, made the attempt, yes. If he was a Lutheran, would you automatically condemn every Lutheran in the land?”
“If the knife had said ‘Lutheran Rights Now,’ I’d damn sure consider it.”
“What people seem to forget is that mutation is evolution in action. In a sense, we’re all m
utants. If not for past mutations, for past evolution, chances are we’d all be sitting in trees, picking bugs from one another’s hair!”
“Goddamn it, Lou,” Laurio snarled, “turn that shit off. Bad enough I got the godfather of muties in my face the whole damn day long without I got this raining on my head after!”
“I’m sorry,” he heard a woman say behind him, in a voice that went down his spine like a shock, “it’s my fault. I asked Lou to turn the channel.”
He rolled his stool around and found himself facing a woman who put the dogs who usually haunted this place to shame. She was no stick-figure woman, he had no taste for that, she had curves on her and then some, big rack, cute butt, and a waist that made his hands ache to enfold her. She had some mileage to her, but she had a look to the eye, a quirk to the mouth, and a way of looking him up and down that told him she knew how to use it. Her lips were liquid scarlet, sassy, her eyes so deeply shadowed that all he could see were some glints reflecting the neon behind the bar, which gave them a weird yellow cast. She was blond, and taller than he usually liked, but he figured that was due to her stilt stilettos, and as she strode closer he had to admit he loved what those shoes did for her walk.
“You sound like a man with a lot on his mind”—she paused to sneak a peek at his badge—“Mr. Laurio.”
He smelled scotch on her breath and noted the half-full tumbler in her hand.
“I’m Grace,” she said.
He didn’t know what to say. Really, all he wanted to do was sit and stare. She let him. It was obvious that she enjoyed the attention.
“Want another beer, Mr. Laurio?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “Course you do.”
“Mitch,” he said. “My name’s Mitch.”
She gave him that dazzling smile again, shifting position beside him so that her skirt rode high enough on her thigh to flash some skin above the top of her stocking and her breasts brushed against his chest. She seemed to lose her balance just a little, forcing him to catch her with his arm suddenly tight around her waist, and she giggled like it was all a big joke and he laughed, too, because this was the kind of moment he only dreamed about.
He didn’t see what her free hand was doing behind him as she gathered the beer mug close, dropping a pair of white pills into the foam, where they quickly dissolved.
After a couple more beers, it took only the vaguest hint to propel him off his stool and into the ladies’ room. It wasn’t much different from the men’s room in layout and wasn’t much cleaner besides. As they stumbled over the threshold, Laurio tried to take a swallow of beer and grab a kiss on her lips all at the same time and failed in both. That made them both laugh, especially since most of the beer had landed on him. He was stinko, a lot more than was usual after a few beers, but he didn’t give it any thought.
“I never hooked up with anyone like you before,” he told her, making like the guys on TV.
“I know,” she said. “Your lucky night.”
She gave a little push, and he dropped onto a toilet seat.
“Kinda dirty, ain’t it,” he said.
“That’s the idea,” she replied, leaning forward to tease him with a glimpse of her breasts before squatting down in front of him. Her legs were splayed wide apart, but there were too many shadows, his eyes wouldn’t focus right, he couldn’t see enough to make it worthwhile. Then, as she unbuckled his belt, he gave up trying to look. Tonight was getting better and better.
“Velcro,” Grace muttered as she opened his pants. “Nice.”
“Bottoms up,” he toasted her, raising his beer high.
“I certainly hope so.”
She smiled one last time, and the last of his beer cascaded out of the mug and across his face and chest. His mouth was open, but he made no attempt to drink. He was way beyond that. As his head lolled back against the tile behind him, his pupils dilating to their limits, his suddenly nerveless arm dropped, the mug falling from useless fingers to shatter on the floor.
Grace pressed two fingers to his carotid pulse, satisfying herself it was firm and regular, then used the tips of her fingers to close his mouth and stop the beginnings of a snore. There was no sloppiness any longer to either manner or movement as she snapped the lock shut on the door behind her, then reached down to grab Laurio around the waist and flip the big man over so that his head was somewhere behind the bowl and his butt poked up in the air.
She opened her purse and removed a syringe, tapping the barrel with a lacquered forefinger to clear any air bubbles. It wouldn’t do to give the slug an embolism. She pulled down his boxers and pressed the plunger. As she did, the skin on her hand darkened to the same indigo shade as her nail polish. The transformation raced up her arm, across her body, which became longer and leaner, much less the kind of blowsy Reubens woman that Mitchell Laurio dreamed of in favor of someone much stronger and more sleekly muscular. Her hair became a dark autumnal russet shot through with midnight. Mystique bared teeth that were startlingly white against her blue-black skin and patted Laurio where she’d made the injection.
“Bottoms up, darling.” And then she was gone.
Lyman met Stryker en route from the landing pad.
“The men are nearly finished, sir,” he reported.
Stryker nodded approvingly. “Ahead of schedule,” he noted approvingly. “Strip down at source, transport, and reconstruction. I am very impressed, Mr. Lyman. The crews are to be commended.”
“You trained ’em, sir. They’re just following your lead.”
Stryker continued to nod. This was going better than he’d hoped. A good omen for what was to come, perhaps.
“How does it look?” he wondered.
“Flawless.”
They passed a reception cubicle where Lyman saw one of the troopers tending to the prisoner Cyclops, fastening a metal band over the mutant’s eyes.
“Good,” Stryker said, meaning both what Lyman had just told him and what he saw in the cubicle. “Now for the main event.”
When he woke, groggy and pummeled, as though every cell in his brain had been given its own personal, enthusiastic beating, Charles Xavier had no idea where he was. Far worse, he had no sense whatsoever of the thoughts around him. He couldn’t help a moment’s panic, finding himself imprisoned for the first time within the walls of his own skull. As a clinician he’d often used the term “headblind” to describe nontelepaths and had even fantasized about the sensation. Unfortunately it was like trying to imagine being dead; the act of imagination itself effectively invalidated the concept.
This was so much worse. He felt hollow and . . . alone. The background noise, the susurrus of other thoughts that was a constant presence and an occasional annoyance, was gone. His inner cries couldn’t even provoke an echo. He could only perceive the world from a single perspective, his own, and it was unbearable.
He was bound into his chair, his wrists tied with duct tape to the armrests. He felt a dull burning pressure around his head and thought of the torture instruments of the Inquisition. One—particularly nasty—was strapped around the skull and gradually tightened until the bone shattered. From how he felt, Xavier assumed that had long since happened. If he let his head loll forward, perhaps he’d see his brain flop out onto the floor. At least that final oblivion would be better—anything would be better—than the gnawing emptiness that was consuming him.
He tried to take refuge from his misery by taking inventory of the purely physical. He wasn’t in Mount Haven, that was a sure bet. The room was dark, as were some in the prison, but the walls were dank and pockmarked with age. The prison environment was strictly maintained; this was so chilly he was already starting to shiver, a damp cold that ate into his bones. This place had been abandoned long ago, and even though he could hear faint sounds of activity, it was clear to him that no one was planning a lengthy stay.
Reflexively, he stretched his thoughts toward the sounds outside. Big mistake. The Inquisition analogy suddenly took on an agonizing relevance as he felt
as if barbed spikes were being driven into him. The sleet storm of pain doubled him over, pulling a hoarse grunt from the pit of his belly. Worse had happened; he could smell and feel the consequences as his body lost all control, and the beginnings of tears burned his eyes at the loss of his dignity.
“I just had to see that work for myself,” said Stryker as he entered the room.
Xavier didn’t bother to respond at first. Better to take as much time as possible, to gather what few resources remained to him before facing his adversary. He worked his tongue around his mouth, tasting the familiar gunmetal taste of adrenaline, remembering another time and place where his telepathy had been no use to him. A wayward step on a jungle trail, the shock of a land mine that, fortunately, was on the other side of a tree. The encounter had won him a Purple Heart and taught him a valuable lesson: Just because it doesn’t have a brain doesn’t mean it can’t kill you.
Stryker was a patient man, especially when he was winning. He waited until Xavier was ready before continuing.
He hadn’t come alone. Standing in the doorway, obviously a bodyguard, was a lovely young woman of Asian extraction. Something about her gaze caught Xavier’s attention; there was animation in her eyes, but no sense of real life. She seemed awake, yet totally asleep.
“I call it the neural inhibitor,” Stryker continued. “The more you think, the more you hurt. And”—he tapped his own forehead—“it keeps you out of here.”
“William,” Xavier said, and he wasn’t surprised to how hard it was to speak even that single word. The inhibitor not only crippled his psychic functions but a degree of his basic cognitive ones as well.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t find you more . . . comfortable quarters,” Stryker said. “My old home here is about to undergo some rather major renovations. Much like yours.”
X-Men; X-Men 2 Page 31
