In many respects, she was lucky. Her genetic X-factor had manifested itself in the form of mental abilities—telepathy and telekinesis—and her outward appearance did not betray her nature, as it did the natures of many. She could have lived a normal life, at least some of the time—although there would always have been somebody out there, hating her for what she was and threatening to expose her secret. Instead, she had chosen a different path.
She had chosen to pursue a dream.
A long time ago, or so it seemed now, a man called Professor Charles Xavier gathered together a group of five young mutants, whom he christened the X-Men. Jean was one of those original five-as was Moira’s current lab partner, the missing Heniy McCoy-but many more came after them. Over time, the X-Men grew into an elite mutant cadre, who use their powers to protect a world that often seems to despise them. Their long-term goal is the peaceful integration of their kind into society. For now, however, they are forced to carry out their activities in secret, concealing their identities behind masks and code names.
Jean was wearing her costume at the moment: a body-hugging green bodysuit with a distinctive golden firebird motif to represent her chosen code name: Phoenix.
“Do you think he might be in trouble?” she asked.
“It crossed my mind,” admitted Moira. “But I decided to do a wee bit of poking around with my computer here, just in case. I found Hank’s name on an airline passenger list. He left Glasgow last night, changed planes at Newark and took an internal flight up to Boston.” “Boston!” repeated Jean, with the light of realization dawning in her green eyes.
“Aye, I thought that might set a few alarm bells ringing.”
“He’s heard about Newhill, then? About William Montgomery?” “BBC News 24 has been running the story over here.”
“It’s the funeral this morning,” recalled Jean. “You don’t think—?” “I think this death is the metaphorical straw that broke the camel’s back, Jean. I think it’s affected Hank more than he’ll admit. And I don’t think he should be left alone right now.”
Jean nodded in agreement. “I get the message. I’ll run a check with Cerebro, just to be sure. If Hank is in Newhill, then we’ll get somebody up there right away.”
“Thanks, Jean.”
Moira broke the connection, and silence descended around her again. She gulped down the last of her coffee, and yawned. She ached all over, and her brain felt fuzzy. She was in no condition, let alone mood, to go back to work now-especially knowing that she would have to start from scratch and find a whole new angle from which to tackle the problem of the Legacy Virus. That was why she had come here, back to her cottage. She needed-and deserved-a few hours’ proper sleep, in her own bed. Perhaps, by the time she woke again, there would be some good news about Hank.
She got to her feet, and headed for the stairs.
And, all of a sudden, there was somebody blocking her way. “What-?” she began. But there seemed no point in completing the question. The man was wearing a black ski mask, and he was pointing a heavy gun in her direction. A footfall sounded behind her, and Moira whirled around to find another man-taller than the first and painfully thin, but also armed and masked-emerging from her kitchen. They were professionals, she knew that. Had they not been, they could not have got within a hundred meters of this building without her security systems telling her about it.
“All right,” she said, in as stern a voice as she could muster, “what is this? What’s going on here?” Her gaze darted from one gun to the other, her muscles tensing, ready to respond if it looked like one of the intruders was even thinking of firing. Outmatched she might be, but Moira MacTaggert would go down fighting or not at all.
“What’s going on, Doctor MacTaggert,” said the thin man, in a voice that was calm and measured, and slightly hoarse, “is that we represent some people who wish to speak to you.”
“At gunpoint?”
“The guns are a precaution, nothing more. They fire a dart that will deliver a neural shock to your system, causing you to lose control of your bodily functions. It isn’t a pleasant experience, but if you stay very still, keep your hands where I can see them and do precisely as you are instructed, then you won’t need to find that out for yourself.” The thin man produced a small, black device. It resembled a mobile phone, but it only appeared to have one button. He pressed it, and returned the device to his pocket without ever looking at it.
“Who are you working for?” asked Moira. Neither of the two men answered her. “What happens next?” she ventured.
“You will be collected,” said the thin man. “But our employers have also asked us to ensure that you bring your files along with you.” ■ - - ~
“What files?”
“Please, Doctor MacTaggert, don’t tiy to play dumb. It doesn’t suit a woman of your obvious intelligence. You have been researching possible cures for the Legacy Virus. You keep hard copies of all your notes, and also back up the data onto rewritable DVDs. The disks will be quite adequate.”
“Oh, will they indeed?”
“I believe you keep them in this house. However, our search has failed to uncover them. I suspect you currently have them about your person.”
“And what makes you so interested in my work?”
“You’ll find out,” said the shorter man, gruffly, speaking for the first time.
The thin man gesticulated impatiently with his gun, and' Moira knew the conversation was over. She would get no more out of her captors for now. Perhaps they knew nothing more. Throughout the exchange, she had been watching them, looking for a chance to seize an advantage, to overpower them or simply to run. There hadn’t been one. Their eyes had remained upon her, unblinking. Their guns hadn’t wavered. As she had already noted, they were professionals.
She had no choice. With a sigh of resignation, she reached into her inside coat pocket and produced three DVDs. The bearded man stepped forward, eagerly. Moira’s stomach did a cartwheel as he snatched the precious disks from her. They were only the backup files, she told herself. But what if her unwanted visitors intended to destroy the originals too?
“And now,” said the thin man, with satisfaction, “we wait.”
Six thousand miles away, night had already fallen. In a sumptuously appointed office, the whirring of an overhead fan merged with the muted voices of revelers from the main ballroom at the front of the single-story building. A businessman sat in a plush chair, keeping his expression carefully neutral as he updated his latest ally on his progress.
“It is already done. The woman is on her way here.”
“Are you insane?” The businessman bristled. His ally’s voice was so heavily disguised by electronic filters that it sounded positively robotic. Even so, he managed to make his scorn quite audible. Likewise, his features had been digitally altered so that his image on the desktop computer-and to anyone who happened to intercept and unscramble his encrypted transmission-was unrecognizable. This being the case, the businessman wondered sourly why he had bothered to use a video link at all. He knew the answer well enough, though. The picture on the screen was an imposing one, despite—perhaps in part because of-its blacked-out features. His ally’s eyes, in contrast to the rest of his face, burnt brightly with contempt. The businessman could see through the fagade—he was not above manipulating images in such ways himself-and was determined not to be intimidated. It was no easy task, though. The businessman fancied himself one of the most powerful men on the planet, but he was talking to one of the few beings alive who actually worried him.
“The work was going too slowly,” he defended himself. “I took a decision.”
“Moira MacTaggert is a close associate of Charles Xavier’s. They were lovers!”
“I know that.”
“Then you should have appreciated the likely consequences of moving against her. Who do you intend to reveal our plans to next— perhaps Henry McCoy?”
“McCoy has returned to America. I waited until MacTaggert
was alone before I acted.”
“Do you think it makes a difference? Xavier’s children won’t rest until they fmd her.”
“I believe it’s a risk worth taking. Nobody alive knows as much about this disease as Doctor Moira MacTaggert. She has been working with it since it was first identified. She was the first baseline human being to contract it. We need her.”
“The X-Men will bring this project down around your ears, you
fool!” .....
“I daresay you’re right.” The businessman leaned back in his chair, affected a casual pose and returned his ally’s steely glare. “But I’m gambling that, by the time they do, it will have served its purpose. The cure for the Legacy Virus will be in our hands.”
THE LAST good-byes had been said. The family and closest friends of the dead man were casting handfuls of earth upon his coffin.
_His mother was weeping. Doctor Henry McCoy was relieved to
think it was almost all over. He wondered again what he was doing here.
There had been a good turnout. William Montgomery would have been gratified to imagine he had so many friends. But, from his inconspicuous position at the back of the crowd, Hank had overheard the buzz of a dozen muttered conversations. He knew that, despite the efforts of the guards on the gate, few of the onlookers were here for Montgomery’s sake. They were here for the spectacle. They were here because they thought it would make them part of a story that had put their small town on the map. They were here because it gave them an opportunity to share their worries and suspicions with like-minded neighbors. Hank had tried not to listen to their ignorant theories about why Montgomery might have died. But he had heard the word ‘mutant’ mentioned several times, always with distaste.
It made them feel better, of course. To fool themselves into thinking that the young man had somehow brought on his own fate. To convince themselves that it couldn’t happen to them.
It was only through the benefit of advanced technology that Hank himself could stand among them, without becoming a target for their unthinking prejudice. He dug his hands into his coat pocket and felt the stubby, metallic shape of the image inducer: the device that was casting a holographic field around him, to make him look like something he wasn’t.
Once upon a time, he had been able to pass for human without such help. Well, almost. He had been marked out by his stooped posture, his overdeveloped leg muscles and his oversized feet—but his superhuman strength and acrobatic prowess had compensated somewhat for the stigma that nature had attached to him at random. He had joined the X-Men and christened himself the Beast, as an ironic gesture towards those who had mocked him, but also as a reflection of his own deep fears, that his animal nature might one day subsume him. And he had dedicated himself to the science of genetics. He had studied his own abilities, seeking to understand the genetic mutation that had made him an outcast.
In so doing, he had taken an unwise gamble. He had ingested a serum that hadn’t been fully tested. He had unlocked the full potential of his remarkable genes—and, in so doing, he had turned himself into more of a physical freak than ever.
The voices of the crowd grew louder as they shuffled back to the cemetery gates, as if the end of the service had somehow drawn a line under the need for a respectful hush. Hank walked alone, tuning out their bigotry, looking for a way to escape. As soon as he was out on the sidewalk, he thought, he would turn left, walk back to the station and catch a train to the airport. He would leave this place and its troubles behind him.
He should never have come here.
He was halfway to the sidewalk when he realized that something was wrong. A knot of people was marching against the departing crowd, up the gravel path. Their faces were twisted by hatred, and they carried homemade placards daubed with misspelled slogans. Hank didn’t need to read them to know what they said. He had lived through this scenario too many times.
The protestors were fighting their way through the onlookers, towards the family, who had stayed behind to share a quiet moment by the graveside. The guards at the gate had been overpowered; they ran after the protestors, shouting angrily, unable to stop them. They were followed by the journalists and the cameramen, seizing this chance to get closer to the action, eager for an incident to report. One presenter ran backwards, speaking breathlessly into a pursuing camera, keeping the rest of the world updated. And the people who had already reached the gates were turning back, realizing that there was suddenly more to see.
The family saw the protestors coming, and read their placards. The younger members of the clan moved to confront the aggressors, their misery boiling over into anger. Montgomery’s mother burst into tears again. A hungry crowd closed in around the battleground, and
Hank found himself pushed to its front. He felt exposed, but he couldn’t get away.
“What are you doing here?” spat one of the family members. “We don’t want you here!”
“And we don’t want your kind in Newhill!” came the spiteful rejoinder.
“What ‘kind’? What are you talking about?”
“Mutants!”
“There ain’t no stinking muties in our family!”
“Oh yeah? Your brother just died of a mutant disease, didn’t he?” The young thug’s friends supported him with a roar of agreement. A similar cry went up from some of the spectators. They had been thinking the same thing, and this altercation gave them the chance to vent their fears, to demand answers. A chill ran up Hank’s spine. This was going to be ugly. And the presence of the cameras only made things worse. It incited the protestors to go further than they might otherwise have done, to put on a performance.
“If he wasn’t a mutie himself, he must’ve palled around with them!”
“Yeah, he must’ve been a mutie-lover!”
“Mutie-lover!”
“Your whole family are mutie-lovers!”
“How do we know Montgomery’s not gonna come crawling out of his grave, eh? You see it all the time on the news. These muties, they’re like super-villains. They never really die, do they? We ought to cut off his head and drive a stake through his heart or something!” “Yeah, stop him coming back.”
“Keep him from spreading his filthy mutant plague to our kids!” The insults kept coming, and the denials grew ever more heated. Soon enough, words turned to pushes, and pushes became punches. One of William Montgomery’s brothers grappled with one of the tormentors, and they toppled sideways into the crowd. The onlookers took sides. They aimed kicks and blows. Some tried to quell the violence by singling out the biggest agitators and bearing down upon them, but they only added to it. Others didn’t have the nerve to join in, so they shouted encouragement to one side or the other, adding fuel to a fire that was already threatening to burn way out of control. A small number tried to escape, but they found this easier said than done. In the space of a few seconds, a minor skirmish had erupted into a riot.
Hank had seen it all happen a thousand times before.
This was nothing to do with him. He told himself that as he kept his head down, avoided the fists flying around him and looked for a way out. This wasn’t his business.
But then, through the chaos, he caught sight of Mrs. Montgomery, sobbing onto the shoulder of the priest who had performed the funeral ceremony. And he wondered how things might have been different had he not wasted so many hours, made so many wrong guesses. If he could have cured the Legacy Virus in time to save this poor woman’s son.
He wondered how much of this was his fault.
And, with a sigh, he reached for the image inducer. He hesitated for only a second before he thumbed the switch to deactivate it. And suddenly, the true form of the Beast was revealed.
The reaction was as instantaneous as it was predictable. A collective gasp of horror went up, somebody screamed, and the crowd contracted as the people nearest to Hank struggled to get away from him. One woman fell over, slipped between the cracks in the throng and couldn’t get up again. Much as it hurt
him, the Beast couldn’t blame them for being frightened. A monster had just appeared among them. He remembered how he had felt upon first sight of his own newly mutated form, a lifetime ago. He remembered staring into a mirror, appalled at his own pointed ears and heavy brow and fangs. These features, combined with the blue fur—blue, of all colors!—which grew over his entire body, gave him the appearance of a malevolent werewolf from a dark fairytale.
His suit had disappeared, and he was clad only in a pair of stretchable trunks beneath his black overcoat, the only part of his disguise that had been real.
He would probably have caused a mass panic if he had stayed here. But that wasn’t what he had in mind at all.
The Beast took a standing leap, further into the air than most people alive could have managed. He brought his hands down onto the heads of two startled men who hadn’t been able to get away fast enough, using them to support himself as he swung the lower part of his body forward and somersaulted into the center of the fray. Some of the protestors, and some members of the Montgomery family, had been too caught up in fighting to see what was happening around them. They saw now. A blue-furred monster dropped into their midst, and, on a mad impulse, grabbed hold of the most vocal of the antimutant demonstrators and planted a big kiss on his lips. The youth tore himself away, spluttering and spitting, but the Beast’s momentary good humor faded at the sight of an elderly lady, who had produced a handkerchief and was breathing through it, her eyes alight with fear for her life. He was distracted, frozen, for less than a second, but it was long enough. Somebody leapt onto his back, scratching at his face and kicking and screaming. The Beast twisted around beneath his assailant, loosened the man’s grip and pitched him forward over his shoulders. Two more men rushed him, one from each side. He threw himself backwards, head over heels, and righted himself with a deft handspring as his would-be attackers collided with each other. But more and more people were becoming emboldened, wanting to take out their frustrations, and he couldn’t avoid them all. Their voices merged into a cacophony of hatred as they trampled each other in their haste to reach him. Enemies of a moment before had become allies. “How gratifying,” said the Beast, “to see that you all agree on one thing, at least.”
The Legacy Quest Trilogy Page 2
