He stepped out to meet them, leaving Phoenix to her work. The agents were numerous, but the cramped confines of the corridor worked to Iceman’s advantage. They had to approach him two at a time, and even if they aimed over each other’s shoulders, no more than four of them could shoot at once. He created a shield of ice for himself and crouched behind it, letting the nearest men expend valuable ammunition. Bullets whizzed around him, but he rebuilt the shield faster than they could chip it away.
With his enemies almost upon him, Iceman changed tack. He lashed out with a hail of ice darts. They weren’t sharp enough to penetrate the agents’ padded uniforms; nevertheless, they fell back, bringing up hands to protect their eye-slits. Bobby took the opportunity to repeat his earlier trick, applying a light frost to the metal floor beneath them. In these close quarters, it only took one agent to slip and fall, whereupon he brought down another six with him. The ranks of Iceman’s attackers collapsed in the middle.
He wondered how long it would take for Phoenix to wake the others. It occurred to him that he could buy some time by simply blocking the passageway with a glacier-but then, there didn’t seem to be another way out of this section. The X-Men would have to break through the barrier themselves to escape, and the Hellfire Club could amass forces on the far side in the meantime. Anyway, it felt good to take the offensive. Much as he pretended not to care, a part of him burnt resentfully at what Jean had revealed.
He had been the only X-Man to overcome Madelyne’s mind traps-and, secretly, he had felt quite proud of himself. Now he knew that he had only escaped because he had given himself the easiest task.
He set his jaw determinedly, and rained frozen stalactites upon the disoriented mercenaries.
“Scott!”
“Jean!” Cyclops turned, his face lighting up with hope at the sight of his wife behind him. He had been working on a fifth wall of ruby quartz crystal, beginning to feel that was no way out of here, but still driven on by his own stubborn insistence that, logically, there had to be. She had entered his scarlet-hued cell, the wall apparently peeling aside to allow her access. He strained to see through the gap behind her, but it seemed to open out onto a dark void. He frowned, and took an involuntary step away from her. “How did you get in here?”
“This place isn’t what it seems.”
“And what about you? Are you really my wife?”
“I can see why you’re confused, Scott. Madelyne has you doubting yourself, trapped in your own nightmares. But reach out to me. Feel my thoughts.”
Cyclops did so—and her warm, unmistakable presence rushed back into his mind, filling him with relief, joy and love. He ran towards her, and took her proffered hand.
“I can lead you out of here,” said Jean. “Everything will be clearer then.”
They ran into the void together.
Shaw sat behind his desk, his chin resting on his upturned knuckles. His eyes were closed, but he could still see the red glow of the emergency lighting through his eyelids. He was alone, as ultimately he always found himself, and his heart ached with the familiar sensation of impending defeat.
He didn’t even have to know the details of what had happened. The alarm itself was enough. The X-Men had to be free, which meant that his Black Rook had almost certainly been taken already. He hadn’t heard from Tessa since she had left to check up on his prison-ers-and even at full strength, the Inner Circle would have been outnumbered anyway.
The X-Men didn’t even have to win. The fight itself would probably be enough to destroy everything that Shaw had worked towards for months. Even if it wasn’t, if there was still enough of the Kree facility left for McCoy, Campbell and the others to synthesize their cure later, then it would be Xavier’s children who controlled it. Shaw drew in a deep breath, and let out a heavy sigh at the inevitability of it all.
There was only one thing left to do. He unlocked and pulled open the top drawer of his desk. Attached to the side of the drawer, inside, was a small, metal box. It opened like a Chinese puzzle box; Shaw applied pressure to various points on its surface in an exact sequence, until the lid sprang up.
Anybody who had ever seen an action movie, or read a comic book, could have guessed the purpose of the single red button that was thereby revealed.
He could set the timer running now. Hidden explosives would destroy the base, and return the island to the seabed from which his ally had raised it, in thirty minutes. That left him plenty of time to get away, taking Tessa and the other Lords Cardinal with him if possible.
With luck, at least some of the X-Men would be caught in the explosion. The important thing, however, was that they wouldn’t be able to take the fruits of his work away with them.
One touch of the red button. That was all it would take.
Then he thought about Moira MacTaggert. He thought about her determination that it was better to have no cure for the Legacy Virus than to have one exist in the hands of an enemy. He hadn’t been able to understand her attitude. Now he understood it only too well. Despite the situation, Shaw smiled to himself at the irony of his dilemma. He had more in common with the good doctor than he had thought.
The sounds of battle were approaching his small office. Shaw could hear the rhythmic chattering of his pawns’ machine guns, and the all too recognizable energy discharges of Cyclops’s optic blasts. It was time to make a decision, time to act.
Instead he sat alone in the gloom, deep in thought, listening as his dreams were tom apart around him.
His hand rested lightly on the red button, but he didn’t press it yet.
Every muscle in Cyclops’s body screamed that it was tired and sore. He made himself ignore the pain. He had been asleep for hours, but a part of his mind that he couldn’t control remembered his imaginary toils, and insisted that he ought to be exhausted.
An icy trickle of water ran down his back, and he wondered where it had come from.
The Hellfire Club’s agents were little threat individually, well trained though they were, but they seemed impossibly numerous. For each one that Cyclops brought down with a fist or a carefully gauged blast, two more appeared to replace him. However, the X-Men’s numbers were increasing too, as Phoenix woke her teammates one by one, and sent them to join the ongoing battle. Iceman, Cyclops and
Nightcrawler had already succeeded in beating their foes back to the stairs, and their progress only became quicker as their ranks were swelled, first by the addition of Storm and then by Wolverine.
Finally, Rogue came flying along the corridor, Phoenix running at her heels. Hank’s here, Jean told the others, linking them telepath-ically again. Now that we’re inside the Hellfire Club’s base, their psi-shielding isn’t as effective. I detected his thoughts a few minutes ago.
Where is he? asked Cyclops.
Above us. I’m still working on the precise location. I think I can sense Moira, too.
Looks like we hit the jackpot, opined Wolverine.
OK, people, Cyclops commanded, time is of the essence. We can’t let Shaw get away with his hostages—and we don’t know what else he might be preparing. We need to clear a way through his goons as efficiently as possible.
He had already gained a few steps up the staircase, but Hellfire Club agents at the next level were leaning over the railings, sighting along their rifles. They had a good vantage point; Cyclops fought to ensure that they couldn’t get a clear shot at him, through their allies. Then Storm took the matter into her hands. She flew straight up the stairwell, her cloak billowing behind her and confusing anyone who tried to get a bead on her. She manipulated the air itself, to snatch the snipers’ weapons from their grips.
Soon after that, the mercenaries surrendered the staircase, falling back and taking up new defensive positions on the topmost level of the base. I’ve got a fijc on Moira, reported Phoenix, as the X-Men climbed after them. She’s behind us-on the floor we’ve just passed. She’s guarded, but only by two people. The Hellfire Club seem more intent on keeping us away fro
m Hank. He’s just above us now. And he’s ivith the kidnapped geneticists.
I’ll go fetch Moira, offered Rogue. As she followed Jean’s telepathic directions, the rest of the X-Men closed with their foes again. The agents were hopelessly outmatched. They couldn’t even set up an effective ambush, thanks to Nightcrawler’s ability to teleport behind them, not to mention Wolverine’s willingness to simply run the gauntlet of their blazing machine guns, somehow reaching them unscathed. Still, for every second the heroes were delayed in'their quest to reach their captured teammate, Cyclops grew more worried.
He found himself grappling hand-to-hand with a small group of agents. Three of them held him from behind, and one pulled back his head so that he was staring at the ceiling and couldn’t aim his optic blasts. He kicked and struggled, determined to deprive them too of the chance to use their weapons against him. But tiredness crept up and threatened to overcome him, his head began to swim, and all the strength drained out of his limbs.
At first, he thought he was suffering a delayed reaction to his recent exertions. He concentrated on overcoming his physical shortcomings, on keeping control. Then he realized what was actually happening.
One of the agents had clamped a gloved hand onto his shoulder. Cyclops tried to dislodge it, but he was no longer strong enough. With a supreme effort, he twisted around and looked into the fervent eyes of his attacker. Despite the blank-faced mask, he knew without a doubt that he was being held by a disguised Trevor Fitzroy.
And that, courtesy of Fitzroy’s energy-draining powers, he had mere seconds to live.
He tried to operate his visor, to blast the young Lord Cardinal away from him, but he couldn’t even summon up the strength to close his fingers on the sensor. The world was growing dark, and it was all he could do to ciy out to Jean, in his mind, as his legs turned to jelly and the floor rushed up to meet his face.
For a moment, he was lost in a forest of red-booted feet, hardly able to keep his eyes open, his entire body feeling like lead, waiting for Fitzroy to sap the last iota of his life force from him. Then something yellow hurtled over his head, he heard the dull impact of one body hitting another, and one pair of red boots was propelled away from him. Blearily, he pieced together what must have happened: Wolverine had received his psychic distress call and tackled Fitzroy, knocking him away before he could finish off his target. Cyclops mouthed a silent prayer of gratitude for the blessing of teamwork as he blacked out.
He fought his way back to consciousness, seconds or minutes later, to find that he was still on the floor and still surrounded. Now, however, he recognized the feet of his teammates. In the midst of the battle, they had gathered around him to prevent their enemies from taking advantage of his condition.
Wh-where’s Fitzroy? he telesent to Jean. It was difficult even to form the words in his mind.
Wolverine dealt with him.
Is he... ?
Unconscious. Logan hit him before he could summon his bioarmor.
Satisfied, Cyclops moved to his next most pressing concern: I can’t move, Jean. Can you help me?
She sounded doubtful. I can boost your mental resilience. I can help you to ignore your weakness. But it won’t last long, Scott. I can’t affect your physical condition. Once the boost wears off, you’ll be dead on your feet.
That’s acceptable. Do it, Jean!
He felt the strength flowing back into his muscles, as Phoenix stooped down and lifted him. He tried not to think about the fact that his renewed vitality was only an illusion.
The ranks of the Hellfire Club’s agents were thinning out, and he smiled grimly. “We’re almost there, X-Men. Let’s mop up the last of these people and rescue our friend!”
The laboratory, like the rest of the complex, was washed in a dull shade of red, and that infernal klaxon alarm wouldn’t stop howling.
Hank McCoy was sitting on a lab stool, looking at the main screen of the Kree computer, trying in vain to memorize as much precious information as he could. His head was aching, his stomach was churning and he couldn’t bring the figures into focus. And, as the sounds of battle reached his ears, he knew that he had run out of time.
He got to his feet, and the world lurched around him. He couldn’t remember ever feeling more tired. He clutched at a lab bench for support. Rory Campbell stepped forward, hobbling on his crutch, and offered him a hand, but Hank waved it away. The other three geneticists sat quietly at the far side of the room, and watched him, tensely. Nobody spoke. They looked at their mutant colleague in a new light now. They were relying on him to do something, to save the project and their lives.
Hank had gone over what he had to say to the X-Men many, many times in his mind. He couldn’t get the words right.
And then the sounds of battle drew nearer, and the combatants finally spilled into the laboratory, just as Hank had always known they would.
The Hellfire Club’s agents came first, fighting a rearguard action. They spread across the room, taking up the most advantageous positions, scattering papers across the work surfaces and aiming machine guns at the doors. A second later, three more agents appeared in the doorway. It took Hank a moment to see that they were grappling with one of his teammates. Wolverine was almost invisible beneath their dark blue uniforms, but that soon changed. He hurled one of them away from him, tripped a second and grabbed the third, twisting him around so that, when the inevitable barrage of bullets came from inside the room, it was he who took the brunt of the attack. A line of red dots exploded across the agent’s back, and Hank felt sickened. The first death. How many more would there be?
He leapt up onto a bench, and shouted to Campbell and the others to take shelter. He waved his arms, and yelled hoarsely: “There’s no need for this violence! Do you hear me?”
Wolverine flew at another agent, kicking him in the head as he fired his gun. His shot went wild, and the Beast found himself dancing out of the way of his bullets, one of which ricocheted off a computer bank. Hank stifled a wail of dismay, as something fizzled and burned behind a control panel.
More people were pouring into the room: more Hellfire Club agents, more X-Men. Cyclops and Phoenix came last; Scott must have been injured, as he was leaning heavily against his wife’s shoulder—but he still lashed out gamely with his optic blasts. If Hank had ever imagined he could calm things down, then he knew better now. But he still had to tiy.
Iceman was thrown back against the bench on which he stood. Hank hopped down to the floor beside him, thinking that maybe he could get through to his friends one by one. “Bobby, we’ve got to bring a halt to this. Neither side can win, but we might all lose far more than you can know.”
His teammate threw him an uncertain look, but was distracted as a costumed mercenary came at him, using his empty machine-gun as a bludgeon. Iceman dodged, but took a crack to his shoulder. He retaliated with a barrage of ice darts. “I’ll do what I can, Hank," he promised, “but I think it’s these guys you need to be talking to.” And, with that, he hurled himself back into the fray.
Hank looked around desperately, and saw Moira MacTaggert arriving with Rogue. She might not have had the X-Men’s powers, nor the weapons of their adversaries, but she threw herself into the battle all the same, fighting hand-to-hand and managing to hold her own. Hank bounded towards her, handing off three Hellfire Club goons, and he pulled her to one side, to a position of relative safety. “Moira, you have to assist me. It’s imperative that we do not damage the equipment in this room.”
“Hank, we’ve already talked about this.”
He seized her by the shoulders, and stared urgently into her eyes. “You don’t understand.” The words came out as an anguished cry. “We’ve done it, Moira. We’ve found our cure—but this skirmish is jeopardizing our hopes of ever being able to employ it.”
Moira opened her mouth, but no words came out. She looked uncertain.
Hank pressed his advantage. “It doesn’t have to fall to the Hellfire Club to control it. The X-Men have t
he upper hand now. Assuming that Shaw is as keen to preserve this discovery as I am, then surely we can reach an accommodation.” He was aware of his own voice racing, its pitch becoming higher. “But only if we can stop this now!” And only, he thought, if Shaw hadn’t already taken drastic measures. Too many ifs.
Moira’s doubts were plain in her expression, but Hank could see that he had almost convinced her—to discuss the matter, at least. By now, though, the laboratoiy was in chaos, its floor almost invisible beneath a mass of undulating bodies. Even Campbell and the others had been dragged into the melee; Storm had taken it upon herself to protect them. Instinct told Hank to duck, just in time to avoid a spray of bullets. He heard a fragile piece of equipment breaking, and realized that the support of one friend wasn’t nearly enough. She was as helpless to stop this as he was.
That was when his gaze alighted upon somebody else: a new arrival, who had reached the doorway and halted there. It was Sebastian Shaw. And for once, he wasn’t smiling. He surveyed the chaos, lips set into a grim line. Then his eyes met Hank’s, and a flash of understanding passed between the two men.
Moira saw it too. “Hank, you can’t!” she whispered, but he was already making his way across the packed room. Shaw came to meet him, finding a path more easily. Whereas the Beast had to keep on his toes, ducking and dodging, twisting this way and that, forever alert for any attempt to attack him, Shaw strode almost casually, never losing sight of his target, and the crowd just seemed to part around him.
“We’ve got to stop this,” said Hank, as they met, and the Black King just nodded.
Then his eyes widened and became bloodshot, and, as much as he tried to control it, Hank could see that he was in agony.
A second later, he saw the reason.
“Jeannie, no!” Phoenix had appeared behind Shaw, her eyes a dangerous red. Her foe’s energy-absorbing powers couldn’t defend him against a mental attack. As his eyeballs started to roll back into his head, Hank leapt at his friend, took hold of her and shook her, breaking her concentration. Shaw, still staggered, breathed heavily and put a hand to his forehead. Phoenix looked at the Beast, quizzically.
The Legacy Quest Trilogy Page 23
