But that was before the Legacy Virus. That was before the mutate population of Genosha had been targeted again, and this time they had had nobody to rebel against.
“How are you feeling?”
Jarrett felt a cool hand on his forehead, and his eyes flickered open. He blinked uncomprehendingly. He was in a clean, well-lit room. It wasn’t large-but at the public hospital, an area of this size would have held at least five beds, not just one. Standing beside him was a slender young woman with short blonde hair. Genosha’s former slaves no longer wore their numbers, but her purple skinsuit betrayed her nature nonetheless. Some mutates had been quick to shed the symbols of their servitude, despite the long and difficult operation involved. Others, like Jarrett himself, had decided to wait until an easier way to reverse the bonding process had been found. Once the Legacy epidemic had begun to soak up their country’s resources, of course, they had had no choice in the matter.
There had been a movement toward reclaiming the skinsuits as a symbol of racial pride. Many people still wore them openly, and kept their heads bald, proclaiming their identities to the world. They were mutates: no longer something lower than the common herd of humanity, but something better.
“I’m Jenny Ransome,” said the woman, and Jarrett felt his eyes widening. He recognized her name. She was the chancellor of the new government; the government formed by the man who had been heralded as his country’s savior. She must have known what he was thinking, because she smiled and said: “I was a nurse before the war. You’re in safe hands.”
“I can’t... feel anything. . . .” he murmured.
The woman frowned. “Nothing at all?”
“I mean ... no pain ... it doesn’t hurt any more. . . Jarrett’s tone was full of wonder. He felt strange. Empty, somehow, and numb. He flexed his fingers and toes, and was pleased to find that his body was the right shape. In recent weeks, as the virus had progressed and stolen his control over his powers, his limbs had lengthened and become weaker, and he had been unable to pull them back together. By the time he had been taken into the hospital, even standing had been beyond him. He had lain across the gumey like a tangle of overtensed elastic.
Jenny Ransome smiled again. “We tried a new treatment. We injected a special type of cell into your bloodstream. It fought off the Legacy Virus and reversed the damage it had done within a matter of hours.”
“You mean I’m ... cured?” He hardly dared voice the hope. “The virus won’t come back?”
“It’s too early to be sure,” said Jenny, “but the indications are positive. Very positive indeed. Raul—your name is Raul, isn’t it?-there’s somebody here who wants to see you.”
Jarrett couldn’t imagine who she might be talking about. He had no close friends. During his years of enslavement, he had been forbidden to speak with other human beings unless spoken to, and he had known his fellow mutates only by their numbers. Since his liberation, he had enjoyed a certain kinship with those who shared his situation—but, like many of them, he had needed time to build up his confidence. The virus had denied him that time.
He thought about his family. He didn’t know if they had survived the war or not. They had been forced to disown him, but perhaps they had not forgotten him after all. He wondered if he would still recognize them.
A tall, cloaked figure strode confidently into the room, and Jarrett’s heart leapt into his throat. This was the last person he had expected to see, especially here, especially taking an interest in him. For a second, he thought he was dreaming. Perhaps the virus had claimed him after all, and this was some form of fever-induced hallucination?
“Mr. Raul Jarrett, I presume?” said Magneto.
Raul nodded nervously. His jaw was working, but his throat had seized up and he was unable to talk. Magneto looked every inch a king, clad in royal colors of red and purple. His hair was gray, and his face lined by age and bitter experience-but as he towered over the room’s single bed, Jarrett saw that his eyes were steely with resolve. Beneath one arm, he held the metal helmet that had become such a potent symbol to the people of Genosha. Resembling a gladiator’s headgear of old, it indicated that Magneto was not afraid to fight for his beliefs—indeed, that he would make a formidable opponent.
Raul Jarrett had never seen this man in person before, but he had heard much about him. Magneto was a mutant himself, the master of magnetism. He was Genosha’s new ruler, and reputedly the hope of the mutate race. In recent days, however, Jarrett had come to doubt this. Believing himself on the verge of death, he had cursed this so-called Savior, this man who had offered only false hope. Now, he felt as if his troubles had been but a test of faith, and he feared that Magneto could look into his soul or read his mind and see that he had failed.
“M-my liege ..he managed to croak.
“You look as if your condition has improved. I trust you are feeling well?”
The nurse, Jenny, came to his aid. “Mr. Jarrett is feeling much better, Your Eminence. I still have a few tests to run, but he appears to be in perfect health.”
“Thank you, Jennifer.” The ghost of a smile softened Magneto’s features. Belatedly, Jarrett wondered if he should get out of his bed and kneel, but the Savior did not seem to require it. “You, Mr. Jarrett,” he said, “are privileged. You are the first of our people to receive the Legacy cure. Now that I am assured of its effectiveness, we will begin mass production. Genosha will be rid of this pestilence at last.”
The Savior turned abruptly, his purple cloak billowing out behind him. As he marched back to the door, he said: “Let Mr. Jarrett rest now, Jennifer. Bring him to me tomorrow.”
Jarrett’s breath caught in his throat. He realized now where he had to be: in Hammer Bay, inside the former magistrate base that Magneto had converted into his command center. But what was he doing here? Why had he, of all the dying mutates, been singled out? What could the Savior want with somebody like him?
“Los Angeles and Madrid both report that preparations are complete.” Shaw had asked Tessa to update him on the day’s events; she stood before his desk and recited the details from memoiy, but he was hardly listening to her. He was thinking about Magneto, the man who had taken over his life. He was thinking about a future in which he had seen himself crushed beneath the heel of a despotic ruler, and he was trying to convince himself that it would not happen again. “Scribe has been in touch from the London branch,” continued Tessa, “asking questions. I dealt with her. And apparently, Selene has paid a visit to the White Bishop of Boston, but he could tell her nothing. Sebastian?”
Realizing that his assistant was staring at him, Shaw refocused his attention upon her.
“There are no urgent matters to attend to,” she said. “Would you prefer to do this tomorrow?”
He nodded wearily, his chin still cradled in his hands. “Thank you, Tessa.”
She turned to leave, but he stopped her by speaking her name again. “Would I be right to assume,” he said in a low, silken voice, settling back into his seat, “that you allowed Miss Frost to take some information from my mind earlier?”
It was rarely possible to read Tessa’s feelings; she knew how to retain her composure in the most trying of circumstances. She had learned that from him. But Shaw’s question caught her unawares, and there was no mistaking the fear that flickered across her features.
“Sir?” She frowned as if she hadn’t understood him.
“You don’t have to play games with me, Tessa,” said Shaw. “I am not angry with you. I merely need to know exactly what it is that our enemies have learned.”
“I... I apologize if I overstepped the mark,” said Tessa, “but it was clear to me that you are not happy with your partner’s plans for the Legacy cure. I thought that, if somebody else could deal with him.. .
“So, Frost and Hellstrom are aware of Magneto’s involvement in my plans.”
“But no more than that, sir, I swear.”
Shaw nodded. “Very well, Tessa. You may leave me now.”
She stared at him uncertainly for a moment, before she did as she was bidden. .
Alone now, Shaw closed his tired eyes and sighed heavily. When he had accused his assistant of betraying him, he had only halfexpected to be proved right. He had long thought of Tessa as his most loyal servant. He had trusted her, and Sebastian Shaw’s trust was not lightly given. But his trip to the future had taught him something about her too.
He could not trust anybody now.
Frost would undoubtedly contact Xavier and his followers. After all Shaw’s efforts to remove the X-Men from the board, they would rejoin the game. He ought to have been irritated about that-but a part of him suspected that, whatever Tessa’s motives, she had made the right move.
Thanks to the X-Men’s renewed involvement, Shaw might yet claim a victory after all.
CHAPTER I
THE X-MAN known only as Rogue was standing in the underground throne room of Selene, the Black Queen of the New York branch of the Hellfire Club,
When last she had been here, she hadn’t had much time to take in her surroundings. She had been too busy fighting for her life against Selene’s demonic cohort, Blackheart. He was looming over her now, a granite hand poised to kill her. His gigantic body almost filled the room, and his eyes burnt in the darkness of his face. He wanted the prize that Rogue was clutching to her chest: the glass container in which was stored the blood of a friend.
Last time, she had been rooted to the spot as Blackheart had manipulated her emotions, increasing her fear of him. This time, it was different.
This time, Rogue could leave her body and move-and the demon, trapped in her past, could do nothing to stop her. She could safely ignore him, and explore her memory of these events, taking in features of the room that had not fully registered with her before. She peered into shadowy alcoves and inspected the frozen flames of black candles. Some areas were bluriy—she had not seen everything-but she was amazed at the level of detail that her subconscious mind had stored.
She found what—or rather, who—she was looking for behind the ornate golden throne. Sebastian Shaw, a longtime foe of the X-Men but their ally against Selene, had taken cover here. He wore a green combat suit, and squatted on his haunches. He was keeping out of sight, but there was no fear in his expression. His eyes were alert and calculating.
“We were right,” said Rogue aloud, in her broad Southern drawl. “Shaw’s here. I mean, he was here. He must have stayed behind when the others took the fight with the Black Queen upstairs. I must have caught a glimpse of him. I can’t believe I didn’t remember it before.”
You had a lot on your mind, Rogue, said the reassuring voice of her mentor inside her head. It was through the telepathic powers of Professor Charles Xavier that she was able to revisit her recent experiences like this.
“Ain’t that the truth!” she said ruefully, glancing back at her own body as it cowered before its attacker. It felt weird to see it from this perspective, to look into its terrified eyes and at the distinctive white stripe in its long brown hair as if they belonged to somebody else. She remembered how she had felt in that time-stopped moment of three weeks ago, and she shivered.
The Rogue of the past was dressed, like the insubstantial Rogue of the present, the costume covered her entire body but for her head-and its hood could always be pulled up too, should she have need of the additional protection.
Rogue was a mutant, part of a tiny vanguard of the next generation of humanity, born with special abilities-but she had come to see her particular power as a curse. Whenever she touched another person, skin to skin, she absorbed his or her memories and physical characteristics. It was a process over which her control had lessened with time. The bodysuit protected her from accidental contact. It also marked her out as a member of the X-Men: a team of mutants who had banded together for the common good of their kind, and of the world, and yet were perceived as outlaws by a frightened, distrustful public.
The X-Men existed to pursue the dream of Xavier, their founder: a dream of a future in which humans and mutants lived together in peace. Not everybody shared their goal, however. Some mutants believed that homo sapiens superior were the dominant species of Earth, destined to replace the lesser homo sapiens, and that they should be treated as such. Others used their powers for personal gain, caring nothing about the wider implications.
Sebastian Shaw fell into the latter camp. His greed had set into motion the chain of events that had ended here. He had bent the considerable resources of the Hellfire Club-and of his own company, Shaw Industries—into an effort to find a cure for the deadly Legacy Virus; not for the benefit of its mostly mutant victims but for the political and financial power that would accrue to the sole possessor of such a cure. Selene’s ambitions, on the other hand, had been more extreme. She had intended to use the cure to blackmail mutants into serving her. The X-Men had spent some time in a possible future in which she had already made Manhattan Island her own, and they had been determined to avert it.
Everything had come to a head in this room. The cure had existed, for a short time, in the bloodstream of one of Rogue’s teammates, the mutant known as the Beast. Selene had kidnapped him and brought him here to exsanguinate him; the X-Men had halted the process just in time to save his life. As Phoenix had rushed the Beast to a hospital, and the rest of the team had engaged Selene in combat, Rogue had gone back for his blood and the precious super-cell that it contained. Blackheart had cut off her escape. She had managed to get past him, barely, but she had lost the cure in the process.
She looked at the glass container now with a wistful sigh, wishing that she could pluck it from her past selfs arms, prevent it from shattering against her chest as it was destined to do. But all this was just a memory, after all: she could not change what had already happened.
“I don’t understand, though,” she said. “I’ve got the container now. There’s no way Shaw could have got his hands on it before... you know. ...”
Clearly, mused Xavier, his plan was to take the cure for himself Rogue was startled to find the Professor standing beside her, wearing the same light gray suit that he had been wearing in the conference room, his brow furrowed into a frown. Xavier’s physical body was confined to a hi-tech hoverchair, and Rogue still wasn’t used to the fact that its limitations didn’t extend to his psychic form. But perhaps you foiled his plans when you retrieved it. It could be that he was forced to flee empty-handed, after all.
“You think we’re barking up the wrong tree here?”
Unless we are missing something.
“We must be!” said Rogue, setting her lips into a determined pout. “Let’s try moving forward again, just a little at a time. There has to be something. ...”
The image of herself came to life in a series of slow, jerky movements, like the picture on a videotape played in slow motion. It tensed itself, preparing to spring past Blackheart, to make its ill-fated bid for freedom. She had to tear her eyes away from it. She glared at Shaw, and muttered to herself, “What are you thinking? What are you planning?”
She turned, and the answer struck her between the eyes, almost literally.
A dark red globule was hanging in the air in front of her. No, not hanging; as more time inched by, Rogue realized that the globule was moving, describing a ponderous arc. She flinched from it, expecting it to hit her until she remembered that she was not really here. She followed its sluggish progress until it splattered against the Black Queen’s throne in a silent explosion, which took several seconds to play itself out. And then she retraced its trajectory, and saw where it must have come from.
The Beast had been held in an alcove, hanging upright, attached to the wall by a mass of organic tendrils that had burrowed into his veins and begun to drain the blood from his body. Rogue had tom him free, with Phoenix’s help. But now, as more seconds passed like minutes, she saw that the tendrils were still alive, still twitching and writhing. Another droplet of blood appeared at the ragged end of a flap
ping tentacle, and as she watched, fascinated, it grew larger and more bulbous until it was finally shaken free.
“That’s it!” she cried in triumph. “I know how he did it.”
Professor Xavier nodded sagely, and the throne room faded around them, leaving only a black void. But this too soon dispersed, and Rogue found herself back home.
It took her a moment to readjust to her surroundings, familiar though they were. In contrast to the candlelit gloom of Selene’s inner sanctum, the morning sun streamed through the windows of the venerable old mansion that was known to the outside world as the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning. Set back into its own grounds at the top end of a rarely traveled lane in the quiet Westchester town of Salem Center, the building attracted a minimum of attention. Few people suspected its true purpose.
“Our hunch was correct, then? Shaw could have taken the cure?” The words were spoken by the X-Men’s field leader, Cyclops. His tone was grim, his expression equally so. A golden visor with a single red lens concealed his eyes, and made him seem even less approachable. Rogue knew, however, that he didn’t wear it by choice. Like her, Scott Summers had little control over his mutant ability; the visor’s lens was made from ruby quartz, the only material capable of keeping his devastating optic blasts in check.
At the head of the long conference table, Xavier opened his eyes and lifted his head as if waking from a light doze. “Rogue’s memories do appear to confirm our suspicions,” he said.
Rogue explained what she had seen. “Friend Shaw only had to wait until he was alone in that room. He could have squeezed the last drop of Hank’s blood out of one of those tentacle things and made a run for it.”
The Legacy Quest Trilogy Page 51
