He recognized the young woman called Debs from last night. What he hadn’t realized then, in the darkness, was how attractive she was. Her heart-shaped face was framed by buoyant brown-black hair shaped into a bob, and her eyes were blue and friendly. Her expression was open and guileless-deceptively so, Bobby felt sure.
“Morning,” she said cheerfully. “Had any breakfast yet?” Bobby hadn’t, and he couldn’t deny that he was hungry. Debs offered to take him to the mess. “We don’t have much, I’m afraid,” she confided, “but I’m sure we can find you a tin of something.”
The square tables and benches in the mess were empty, but Debs stayed with Bobby as he heated up baked beans on an electric hob in the kitchen alcove. To his discomfort, she kept asking questions. He answered with as few words as possible, careful not to betray his contempt for everything she stood for, hoping that she would get the hint and leave him alone. Lying awkwardly, he claimed to have worked as a foreman at the mines outside Hammer Bay until he was driven out of his home by mutates. He had meant to say “genejokes,” but he hadn’t been able to spit out the insult. He felt as if he were being tested, like his every word was subject to the utmost scrutiny.
“No wonder you wanted out,” said Debs, spooning powdered milk into two cups of instant coffee. “Magneto talks a lot about mutant rights, but what about basic human rights? That’s what I want to know.”
“The mutates had it bad for a long time,” said Bobby. It was all he could do to keep his tone civil. “They were treated like slaves.”
He regretted the words as soon as he had spoken them. He expected Debs to issue a sharp retort, to denounce him as a traitor to his kind, to summon her colleagues. Instead, she said: “I know. But does that mean we all deserve to have to live like this?”
“Mr. Wagner.”
Something about the Priest’s baritone voice gave Nightcrawler an unnatural chill. He turned, and looked up into the tall man’s intense blue eyes. The Priest’s thin lips were set into a grim line. Crooking a long finger to indicate that the X-Man should follow him, he strode away, apparently confident of his obedience. Kurt’s first thought was that the Priest had been told about his conversation at breakfast, that his suspicions had been aroused. With a quick glance back at the sleeping Wolverine, he crossed his fingers behind his back and followed. He felt even colder as he was led into the chapel area, trying to avert his eyes from the winged sculpture atop the makeshift altar.
The Priest indicated that he should take a seat at the front of the room. He remained standing himself so that he now towered over Kurt, glaring down at him hawk-like from behind his protruding nose. “Are you not a religious man, Mr. Wagner? Do you not believe?”
Kurt started. “As it happens, my friend, my faith is the most important thing in my life.”
The Priest raised an eyebrow. “And yet, we did not see you at prayer this morning.”
Kurt swallowed hard. He wanted to tell this man, this false prophet, exactly what he thought of him. As far as he could see, the Priest had taken advantage of the mutates’ vulnerability, inducting them into his false church when they had been confused and disoriented. He had used their need to believe in a higher power to manipulate them, to set himself up above them. But his power over them was undeniable, and Kurt couldn’t challenge it; not while Wolverine still needed his bed here. “At Carrion Cove,” he said instead, “our prayers were a private matter, conducted away from the ears of our oppressors.”
The Priest held his gaze for a long, nerve-wracking moment before he accepted his story with a solemn nod. “We are proud of our faith here, Mr. Wagner, and we will not be persecuted for it. We gather again at six-thirty to give thanks to our Lord and pray for a better day tomorrow. We can expect to see you there?” His words had the inflection of a question but the tone of an instruction.
Kurt’s only answer was a tight smile, but fortunately this appeared to suffice. With any luck, he and Logan would be long gone before the service began. He felt bad enough that he was effectively denying his own God, if not explicitly then at least by omission. He couldn’t have joined in a prayer to Magneto, he just couldn’t: the words would have choked him.
The Priest pulled back a chair and sat beside him, now adopting an almost conspiratorial manner. “I visited the infirmary again earlier. The condition of your travelling companion is, I fear, not improving. He may need more help than we can give him.”
“I thought the power of Magneto flowed through you,” said Kurt brazenly.
The Priest’s eyes flashed. “But some are not deemed worthy to receive it.”
“Logan is a good man!” the X-Man insisted, containing his anger.
“As you claim to be yourself—and yet you have lied to us.”
Kurt narrowed his eyes and tried not to show how worried he was. “How so?”
“You claimed your friend was injured by humans. His wound, however, could only have been inflicted by an animal-or by a man with the characteristics of one.”
Kurt nodded and sighed. “We were attacked by mutates,” he admitted.
“Where?” asked the Priest sharply.
He thought quickly. “I don’t know the name of the village. A few miles to the east of here. They looked like a band of scavengers. They thought we were stealing their food. We couldn’t reason with them. We ran.”
The Priest shook his head sadly. “It pains me to hear of brother mutates living in such conditions. I can only pray to our Savior that he will end their troubles soon...” Then his expression hardened. “This does not explain why you deceived us!”
“We’d been on the run for days. We didn’t know who we could trust.”
The Priest’s eyes bore into Kurt. It seemed that, with each lie, he became more reluctant to believe the outsider. But he hadn’t been able to trip him up. Yet. “Your friend does not wear a skinsuit,” he observed, casting his eye slowly up and down Kurt’s holographic costume as if he could see it for the illusion it was.
“He had the bonding process reversed as soon as he was able.”
“A brave decision. I understand the operation is not without its risks.”
“Logan is a brave man, and proud. He refused to wear the clothes of a slave for any longer than he had to.”
“And with what abilities has Mr. Logan been blessed?” “Enhanced senses—and he can extend claws from the backs of his hands.”
“Claws—like those of the mutate who wounded him.”
Kurt nodded. He didn’t know where this was going, but he had his suspicions.
“Only I am beginning to fear that his attacker did more than simply wound him,” said the Priest. “He is feverish.”
“He may have blood poisoning—or his wound may have become infected.”
“And there is a rattle in his chest.”
“As I said, we have been on the run for days. We have hardly slept. It is a miracle that we have not both come down with colds.” “Hmm.” The Priest cradled his chin in one large hand, and nodded thoughtfully to himself. Then, finally, he got to his feet and smoothed down his white robes. Kurt took this as a cue to stand too; he was anxious to get out of here. “I will pray for your friend,” promised the Priest. “I trust you will do the same. Our Lord may yet choose to bestow His favor upon him.”
He turned away, then, and Kurt sensed that the audience was over. He scurried back down the aisle, trying not to make his haste too evident. He was brought up short by the Priest’s booming voice behind him. “Until this evening, then, Mr. Wagner.”
Kurt didn’t answer. He forced himself to start walking again, although he could almost feel the Priest’s hawk eyes burning into his back.
It was with some relief that he finally put a cellar wall between himself and his inquisitor. The sensation didn’t last, however: he had too much else to worry about.
He had guessed the reason for the Priest’s questions as soon as he had asked about Wolverine’s abilities. He had been looking for evidence to support what
he suspected. It hadn’t been hard for Kurt to deduce as much, given that he was beginning to share the same awful suspicion himself. That was why he had not mentioned Logan’s healing factor. He hadn’t wanted the Priest to know that, whatever was wrong with his friend, it was having a direct effect upon his mutant gene. He hadn’t wanted him to know just how serious the situation was. He thought he had succeeded in throwing him off the scent for now, but he knew that he had gained only a temporaiy respite.
And he knew that, if his fears about Wolverine’s condition proved well grounded, then the reaction of the Priest would be the least of his problems.
“So, what’s all the activity about?” asked Bobby, pushing his tin plate away from him. He felt much better with hot food inside him, and he had been talking to Debs for long enough to feel that he could slip a few important questions into the conversation. It was time he found out more about what was going on around him, started working on an escape plan.
Debs sat across the wooden table from him, sipping her coffee. “Preparations. We found a nest of mutates in the village a few days ago. Hendrickson wants to take it out-tonight.”
Bobby’s stomach sank, and he almost wished he hadn’t asked. His distaste must have shown, because Debs leaned forward and said: “You don’t seem too happy about that.”
Fumblingly, he tried to retrieve the situation. “I don’t see how it’s going to solve anything.” For good measure, he added: “Haven’t we lived through enough violence?”
Debs accepted that with a shrug. “Sometimes, we don’t have a choice.”
“You could stop,” he said pointedly.
She shook her head. “You don’t understand. We’ve lost four people to these particular mutates in the past week. I don’t like it any more than you do, but it’s kill or be killed!”
“That’s what your friend said last night,” said Bobby, staring morosely into his cup.
“She was right. You’ve seen it for yourself, Bobby. You don’t think those GUMPs were trying to take you alive, do you? They’d already turned you back from the border, but they still came after you. They wanted blood!” That wasn’t entirely true, but Bobby couldn’t argue the point without giving himself away. “And they’re just the acceptable face of Magneto’s army: at least he keeps them under some measure of control. The ones you really have to watch out for are the terrorists and the street gangs, the ones who harbor a grudge against all humans. They’d see us all dead just because our genes are a little different to theirs!”
Bobby stared at her, speechless. He had heard that bitter sentiment expressed many times in his life, but never by a non-mutant.
Debs let out a weary sigh. “I suppose I was stupid. I should have run like all my friends did when the United Nations sold us out to Magneto. But Genosha is my home, damn it. I’d sat tight through the civil war and I was just beginning to feel comfortable here again. I even thought that a new ruler might improve things for everyone. I thought Magneto might actually care about making peace between the two races. Pretty naive, huh?”
“What happened?” asked Bobby.
“They took my job first. I was a data processor, and I was good at it—but my company was forced to employ mutate labor, and I was laid off. I mean, I know we need to get more mutates into employment, but don’t I have a right to earn a living too? Magneto says he’s keeping humans in Genosha for our skills—but as soon as one of his own kind can be trained to replace us, we’re thrown onto the scrap heap!”
“You couldn’t find another job?”
“As a street sweeper, maybe. Or a refuse collector or an office cleaner.”
“All the work the mutates used to do,” said Bobby.
Debs smiled wryly, his implication not lost on her. “I know they have good reason to hate some of us. When I think of what the genegineer and his people did to them ...”
“But we all turned a blind eye to it.”
“I know,” said Debs, “but you must remember what it was like before the uprising. The mutates, they were just.. .just there, you know? We used to walk past them in the street and not pay a second thought to them. We didn’t ask ourselves if they were happy, because to us they had no emotions. They weren’t... weren’t real people!”
“Because their minds had been tampered with!” protested Bobby.
“We know that now, yes,” said Debs, “but at the time, we thought they were just... well, bom that way. As if they’d been put on Earth to serve us. I remember, we used to have a maid call at our house regularly. I saw her three times a week for the first eighteen years of my life, and I don’t remember ever once saying a word to her. And I feel ashamed of that now, of course I do, but it’s just... it’s just how we were brought up, isn’t it? It’s how we were told the world worked, what we were led to believe. It wasn’t our fault!”
Bobby could have argued the point, but he felt he had said too much already. Fortunately, Debs showed no sign of becoming suspicious. She seemed to believe that his concerns were bom of nothing more than liberal guilt. A guilt that she apparently shared.
Perhaps he had misjudged her. Perhaps she was a good person after all, her only crime one of inaction. He couldn’t blame her for that: had circumstances been different, had Bobby Drake had a choice, then he too might well have kept his head down and lived a normal life. He certainly wouldn’t have volunteered to become a target in a war between species.
He shook his head firmly. He wouldn’t let himself be won over like this. No matter how good a sob story Debs gave him, only one thing mattered. “I still don’t see why anyone has to die,” he said. “No matter what the ... the mutates have done to me, I’m not about to march out into the street and slaughter the first one I see. I just can’t do it!”
“I’ll second that!” said Debs with feeling.
He blinked at her, confused. In turn, she peered at him questioningly, then her face softened into a broad smile. “I knew you were worried about something! You thought we expected you to go out and fight tonight?”
“You don’t?”
“Of course not! Oh, Hendrickson will ask you-and he won’t be too pleased when you turn him down—but I won’t be going, and nor will about half the people in this base.”
“So, what are you even doing here?” asked Bobby.
“I was turfed out of my home.”
“By mutates?”
“By the government. I had too much space for one person, apparently, so they moved in a mutate family from the old settlement zone. Oh, they found me another place to stay: a bed in a flophouse, sharing a dorm with three other women. It wasn’t exactly in the most up and coming area, if you know what I mean. I went to sleep every night scared that I wouldn’t wake up again. When I heard about this place ... well, it seemed like it was my best hope of staying alive. So, you see, we’re in the same boat, you and me.”
“Are we?” Bobby persisted. “I’m not sure I could put up with what Hendrickson’s doing.”
Debs grimaced. “I know, I know, I’m ‘turning a blind eye’ again. But he and the others say they’re only fighting in self-defense, and I wouldn’t know how to stop them even if I was sure it was the right thing to do. And I don’t know v/hat is the right thing to do any more.”
Bobby felt he ought to have responded to that-but he was disconcerted to find that he couldn’t think of a word to say.
“How are you feeling now, mein freund?”
Wolverine was getting used to seeing Nightcrawler looming over him: his concerned face seemed to greet him eveiy time he woke up. “Better’n I was,” he mumbled. It was a lie. He felt as if he had the mother of all colds, his muscles ached and all he wanted to do was sleep. The gash in his side still burnt as if his blood had turned to acid.
Kurt wasn’t fooled by Logan’s bravado, but he gave him some water and made the usual reassuring small talk. He told him he was safe, that he just had to rest a little more, and promised him that he would be up and around, back in the bad guys’ faces, in no ti
me.
Wolverine interrupted him. “Are we alone?” he asked. He didn’t have the strength to lift his head from the pillow and see for himself.
Kurt glanced around. “We have as much privacy as we will find here, I suspect.”
“Have to tell you something.” It was hard for Wolverine to say the words, and not only because his throat felt like sandpaper. “Been doing some thinking, and I reckon I know what... what’s wrong with me.”
The light in Kurt’s eyes dimmed, and Logan guessed that he too had been harboring unvoiced suspicions. Wolverine had always been a realist, never one to fool himself. He had to face this. So, why then did it seem so much more difficult than any fight he had been in?
“When that... that mutate woman... when she scratched me....” He took a deep breath. “She did a lot more just tear my skin.”
Kurt nodded gloomily. “You think she infected you.”
“And not just any infection.”
“We don’t know that, Logan,” insisted Kurt. “Until we can get you to a proper medical facility and run some tests . . .”
Logan shook his head grimly. “It all fits,” he said. “The cold-like symptoms, the fact that my mutant gene’s packing up on me-and let’s face it, elf, what’s the most common bug doing the rounds in Genosha at the moment?”
Nightcrawler lowered his eyes and stuck out his lower lip sullenly. Wolverine could tell that he didn’t want to believe it, but he had no choice.
“Maybe it was just bad luck,” mused Logan. “Her blood mingled with mine. Or maybe that was her power-to cultivate the virus and transmit it to others. Maybe the old genegineer gave her that ability... a way to keep the other mutates in line. . . .”
The Legacy Quest Trilogy Page 60
