Gathering his wits, Jarrett shook his head and stammered: “N-no,
sir.”
“Please do not lie to me,” said Shaw evenly. “You will only force me to hurt you, and I do not think either of us wants that.”
“I... I was just... the Savior instructed me to. . . .”
Shaw silenced the mutate with a raised hand. “You do not have to explain to me. Magneto does not trust me any more than I trust him. I would be surprised if it were not so. That is why I allowed him to believe that 1 was no longer in the building: to see what he would do. He has sent you to search for evidence of perfidy in my absence, yes?”
Jarrett swallowed and nodded. Shaw’s features softened a little in approval of his belated honesty. “Fate has not been kind to you, has it, Mr. Jarrett? To have swapped the oppression of one regime for another. ...”
“M-Magneto is the Savior of the mutates,” he objected automatically.
“Then how is it that you are still a slave?” asked Shaw harshly.
“No! I... I mean, I. . .”
“No? So, you will happily go to your Savior now and inform him of your failure?”
Jarrett bowed his head, his cheeks coloring. “If I must,” he mumbled.
“And you do not fear what he will do to you?” Jarrett didn’t speak, but he didn’t doubt that the Black King already knew the answer to his question. “Look at you,” said Shaw with contempt. “How old are you, Mr. Jarrett? Twenty-five? Thirty? A grown man, and yet you act like a child. You call another man your master; you crave his approval, and you are terrified of his wrath. You have no control over your own life. You are pathetic!”
Jarrett didn’t-couldn’t-disagree with him. He cringed as Shaw stood suddenly, expecting a blow to come at last. But Shaw just clasped his hands behind his back and walked slowly toward his bedroom. “I am tired,” he said languidly. “You are welcome to search my office while I rest, but you will find nothing. And Mr. Jarrett?” He had halted in the doorway, looking back over his shoulder with an unfathomable glint in his eye. “I think this unfortunate encounter should remain our secret, don’t you?”
Jarrett nodded eagerly, his heart overflowing with relief and gratitude even as his brain tried to work out the Black King’s motive for sparing him.
He conducted a thorough search of the office, awkward as it made him feel, always aware of the sound of Shaw’s measured breathing from the next room. He looked through every one of the files in the cabinet, and even booted up the laptop that he found in a desk drawer and searched for text documents on its hard drive. Jarrett had never used a computer before, but Magneto himself had taken him to one side on the plane and taught him what he needed to know. He had absorbed the lesson, speaking only when he had had to and stumbling over his words when he did. For the rest of the flight— and for most of last night, in his simple quarters elsewhere in the Hellfire Club building—he had pored over the scrap of paper on which he had noted down his instructions, memorizing them, not knowing why the Savior wished him to acquire this new skill but determined not to let him down.
He hovered in the doorway to the bedroom for a long moment Shaw was lying on his back on the bed, fully clothed in his velvet costume, a blackout mask over his eyes. His hands were clasped across his chest, which rose and fell rhythmically, but Jarrett couldn’t quite bring himself to believe that he was asleep.
He had been told to search both rooms of the suite, but he was afraid. Anyway, he insisted to himself, he was unlikely to find anything in the bedroom, and even less so to leave it alive if he did. But what if Magneto—the Savior, his master—asked him outright if he had followed his orders? Could Jarrett lie to him? He had no choice, he realized. He already knew that he couldn’t risk revealing the whole truth to him; what did one more detail matter?
He crept across the room as quietly as he could, and reached toward the ventilation duct. Then, he started at the unexpected sound of Shaw’s voice behind him. “You may as well leave by the door, Mr. Jarrett,” he rumbled, without moving. “I dismissed my sentries shortly after you entered the air-conditioning system.”
Raul Jarrett left the Black King’s suite as quickly as his legs would take him.
The sun had risen fully now, and Rogue was beginning to feel smothered by Genosha’s oppressive morning heat. She sat on the gentle slope of a grassy hill on the outskirts of Hammer Bay as she considered her next move, grateful for every stray breeze that came her way. Up close like this, the capital looked more squalid than ever. Every crumbling wall, every letter of obscene graffiti, every pile of rubble or scorch mark was exposed by the uncaring daylight. But there was life among the wreckage too: she could make out distant figures, erecting scaffolding around the most precarious buildings and removing refuse from the streets. The rebuilding work had begun here, as Magneto had promised.
Rogue had hoped that the other X-Men would find her. She had seen and heard nothing of them since the mutate attack in the forest. Perhaps they hadn’t escaped, or perhaps they had simply entered Hammer Bay from another direction. More than once, she had taken out her concealed communicator and looked at it. It was sturdy, and it still worked despite the punishment that had been meted out to it. But she herself had decreed that radio silence should be maintained if possible. She couldn’t risk having her position triangulated-or giving away her presence in Genosha if a comm-set had fallen into the wrong hands.
Rogue knew what she had to do now, whether she liked it or not. The X-Men had agreed when they had formulated their plans. She had to assume that Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Iceman had been killed or captured. The effects of the neuralyzer had worn off long ago, and she was only wasting time by waiting here, nursing a forlorn hope. She had to go on.
She had to penetrate Magneto’s command center alone.
CHAPTER 7
THE RISING sun had brought no light to the mutates’ underground home. However, at about eight o’clock, somebody had _ turned on the rest of the bulbs that were threaded through the cellars. Many of the mutates had stayed in bed anyway; others had risen and were reading old magazines or eating joylessly or sitting in comers with miserable expressions. A few-a pitiful few-had left to attend training schemes organized by the new government. A significant proportion of the remainder had gathered around the flickering screen of a battered television set, on which a black and white World War II movie was playing. The announcer had introduced it as “a reminder of what must never be allowed to happen again.” There was some conversation, but it was muted. These people were going through the motions of life, taking no pleasure from it.
Kurt had hoped to leave here before now, but Wolverine was still asleep. When he had visited him, he had been tossing and turning and there had been beads of sweat on his forehead. Kurt had prayed that another few hours in bed might allow his teammate’s body to do its work, or the fever to bum itself out, but this seemed increasingly unlikely.
He ought to have gone on alone, but how could he leave his best friend here? He would give it a little longer, he decided. He would talk to the mutates, find out more about what he could expect to find when he reached Hammer Bay.
He followed the most persistent voices to what appeared to be the final cellar in the row. Peering through the hole in the brick wall that led to it, he saw that the room was lit not by electricity but by aromatic, multicolored candles. Chairs had been set out in rows around a central aisle, which stretched from the entrance to a table draped in white cloth. Atop the table was a small golden sculpture, hexagonal with angular, stylized wings rising from each side of it. It took Kurt a few seconds to remember where he had seen the design before: a two-dimensional version of it adorned Magneto’s helmet.
A short queue of people straggled down the aisle. In front of the table, a mutate knelt with his head bowed and a plate held out in front of him. Kurt suppressed a shiver at the sight of the tall, sunkeneyed Priest, his bald head glimmering in the flickering light as he stepped forward and placed one large hand
on the mutate’s head. The mutate mumbled a prayer, which Kurt couldn’t hear, and the Priest reached behind the table and produced a thick slice of bread. He placed it on the plate, and the supplicant rose, genuflected and hurried away. The next person in line took his place.
Kurt stepped back from the hole to allow the mutate to pass him. He had only just realized how hungry he was, but he had no intention of joining the queue, of mouthing blasphemous prayers to an evil man-and a sworn enemy, at that—for his breakfast.
He followed the mutate to a comer in which a long table and some chairs had been set out, and where several people were eating in silence. He was pleased to see tin jugs of water and chipped mugs on the table, and he took a seat and drank gratefully.
He found himself sitting opposite a woman in her mid-thirties, with a round, ruddy face and prematurely gray hair, who was nurturing a baby. It was a pleasant surprise. Kurt had seen few youngsters in the cellars. He had deduced that, with no genegineer to detect and activate the latent mutant genes of the population, no new mutates were being created. And one of the crueler functions of the skinsuits was to prevent the existing ones from reproducing. Even before the Legacy epidemic, their race had been dying out. This woman had obviously rid herself of her suit when she had had the chance. He allowed himself a grin at the thought that, even in this subterranean gloom, life had found a way to flourish.
The woman saw his eyes upon her, and she smiled back at him.
“He’s a beautiful baby,” said Kurt. “What’s he called?”
“Magnus,” said the woman. “After our Savior.”
The grin faded from Kurt’s lips.
“I could feel His presence the day I knew that Magnus was growing inside me.” The woman’s eyes darkened. “His father was killed, you see-ambushed on his way to his new job at the refinery. He was helping to rebuild our country, but the humans wouldn’t allow him even that. But, by Magneto’s grace, a part of Michael lives on. Our
Savior will let no harm come to this one.” She kissed her baby softly on his forehead.
“So long as we prove ourselves worthy,” muttered a mutate beside Kurt, without looking up.
“Have yoii-have any of you-ever seen Magneto?” Kurt realized that he was starting along a dangerous path, but he couldn’t help himself.
The woman shook her head. “Only on our television. But He sees us, and He speaks to us. He promises our people a better world.” Kurt realized, with a sudden pang, that the mutates weren’t used to being shown any consideration, to being acknowledged at all.
“And we’ve seen His works,” added the man next to Kurt.
“He healed me when I tore my hide,” offered a woman from further down the table. Her mutation was more visible than most: her skin was gray and wrinkled, and a horn grew out of the center of her face. She looked like a baby rhinoceros given humanoid form.
Kurt took a second to process that information. “Through the Priest, you mean?” The rhinoceros woman nodded, looking at him as if it should have been obvious. He began to wish that he hadn’t drawn so much attention to himself. A few seconds ago, each of the diners had occupied his or her own private world; now, all eyes were focussed upon him, the stranger asking odd questions about their deity. He cleared his throat self-consciously, and said: “We didn’t have religious leaders back in Carrion Cove. How do you know... I mean, how does somebody get to become a priest?”
“Our Priest was chosen,” said the woman with the baby.
“He channels the blessed force of magnetism.”
“The Savior uses him as a conduit for his great powers.”
Kurt frowned. “Didn’t he have those abilities before Magneto came to Genosha?”
The mutates looked at him blankly, and Kurt wondered if it was wise to press the point. As it transpired, however, the choice was taken out of his hands. He heard a commotion from somewhere behind him. Voices were raised in anger, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying. Somebody cried out in pain, and the mutates at the table exchanged fearful glances.
It said something of the life that Kurt Wagner had lived that he hesitated before teleporting, asking himself what the reaction of those around him would be. He had to remind himself that everybody here had abilities like his own. Not one of them had commented on, or even looked twice at, his unusual features, although most of them could have passed for human themselves. Having rarely enjoyed such unquestioning acceptance, he felt a little ashamed that he had been so suspicious of the mutates’ motives in return.
But then, he materialized in the central cellar, and everything changed again.
As he had guessed, the noises had come from here. Only this cellar, and the one at the far end of the row away from the chapel, afforded access to street level: the other exits had been barricaded from this side. Two skinsuited mutates-a man and a woman, neither of whom Nightcrawler recognized-were being manhandled up the rickety steps by a much larger group. They weren’t being treated gently. The man screamed as one of his attackers poked a fmger into his ribs and triggered a visible discharge of energy. The woman shrank to a fraction of her original size, and there was a dangerous scramble to recapture her.
More mutates were pushing up the staircase from below, jeering and shouting insults. From across the cellar, others hurled cups and plates, whatever they could get their hands on. Kurt was horrified at the change that had come over these once placid people. He picked out one phrase amid the babble: “We don’t want your kind here!”
He intercepted a woman as she brandished a chair, placing restraining hands on her shoulders. “What’s going on here?” he cried. “They’re our kind-they’re mutates!”
“They can’t come in here!” she screamed in his face. “They’re unclean! Unclean!”
The door was slammed and bolted behind the would-be refugees, to a tangible outpouring of relief. The mutates were still agitated, chattering in loud voices, drowning each other out, and suddenly Nightcrawler felt very lonely in the middle of the crowd.
He wanted to ask the woman what she had meant by “unclean”-but he was dreadfully afraid that he knew the answer already.
Iceman had woken to electrical lighting too-but in his case, it was stark, white and clinical, bleeding through the doorway of his dormi-toiy. He had no way of telling the time, but he remembered staying awake until past dawn. The other beds were empty, and he suspected that most of the morning had passed.
He turned onto his back and stared at the ceiling, his brain picking up from where it had left off when exhaustion had claimed him at last, pondering his situation until it hurt.
His so-called rescuers had taken him to a tall building on the outskirts of their village. From the outside, it looked like just another abandoned warehouse. As Bobby had passed through its doors, however, he had felt the faint hum of machinery beneath his feet.
He had been taken through an airlock into an environment that was totally at odds with the world outside. A main atrium was packed from floor to high ceiling with consoles and computer banks at all levels, a system of ladders providing access to numerous raised workstations. Monitors relayed the output of hidden cameras positioned around the village, although Hendrickson had explained that many of these had been discovered and destroyed. Passages and staircases led off to personal quarters and who-knew-what else.
Of course, this had been a magistrates’ base: one of many secreted around the country to help keep Genosha’s precious peace. Its deceptive exterior had masked its function, and kept it hidden when riots had swept through the streets a few feet away.
“The magistrates took as much equipment as they could when they evacuated,” Hendrickson had explained, “but we’ve salvaged guns and combat suits and a few other useful items. The mutates may have their freakish powers, but we don’t have to be helpless against them.”
Bobby had had no intention of making small talk. After a few less than subtle yawns, he had been shown to a spare bunk, in which he had lain, feigning sleep an
d listening to the snores of the people around him, feeling surrounded. Eventually, when he had heard no sound from outside the room for over half an hour, he had got up, dressed hurriedly and slipped away.
The base had been built whole inside the warehouse: solid steel walls lay between Iceman and the boarded-up windows he had seen from the outside. He didn’t dare look too hard for another way out, and so he had eventually found himself back in the atrium. He had been disappointed, if not surprised, to find people at four of the workstations, and two sentries at the airlock door. He had not recognized any of them-the watch shift must have changed-but they had known who he was. He had claimed to be feeling restless, and they hadn’t seemed to mind him pacing the room and inspecting its contents.
The sentries held rifles, and heavy bolts were drawn across the white, circular door itself. Bobby’s powers had returned to him, but he hadn’t been sure how much good they would do him. He could have taken out the guards, but the door would have cost him precious time and he didn’t know what resources the people at the workstations had. More hi-tech weapons like their sonic sphere, perhaps? Even if he could have escaped, the alarm would have been raised and the humans would surely have come after him. They wouldn’t have let a ‘genejoke’ expose their presence here.
Bobby had hovered in the atrium for some time, looking and waiting for anything that might give him an advantage. Perhaps one of the guards would take a rest break? Perhaps something would happen to send all the watchmen scurrying outside again? But the night had dragged on uneventfully, and he had only become more tired. He had surrendered at last, consoling himself with the thought that he might get a better opportunity tomorrow when he was refreshed.
His hopes were confounded, however, as he returned to the atrium to find it buzzing with activity. There had to be at least forty people present, rushing this way and that, getting under each others’ feet. Two women had dismantled a blaster weapon of some sort; a pair of legs protruded from beneath one of the workstations; a crudely drawn map had been tacked to the wall, and a small group had gathered around it. Hendrickson was moving from monitor to monitor, taking reports and nodding to himself. Bobby glanced longingly at the door, but it was more out of reach than ever. He stood alone and tried to work out his next move, until a figure emerged from the confusion and approached him.
The Legacy Quest Trilogy Page 59
