Monet grinned just a little. “You should have a talk with Emma Frost some time. The White Queen has this ‘inner circle’ business down—”
Paige swatted at her. “Hush, Monet.”
Espeth smiled slyly. “I know all about Emma Frost’s past association with the inner circle of the notorious Hellfire Club. I know of Professor Charles Xavier and his X-Men as well. Would you like to hear about Sinister? Or the minions of Apocalypse, or the Morlock tunnel that your little friend Leech came from?” She looked at Paige again. “Or your mutant brother Sam, and his association with Xavier’s so-called new mutants, or the latter-day X-Factor?”
“That’s enough,” said Paige. “You’ve convinced us that you and your Genogoths are more than they seem. But you haven’t told us what they are.”
“Since the time of Darwin, we’ve been the sworn protectors of the X-gene.”
“I thought,” said Jubilee, “that was us.” She looked mockingly at Monet. “No, wait, that was when 1 was with the X-Men.”
Espeth sniffed. “That’s what they believe, but Xavier has never cared for the weak mutants, only the powerful ones he could use as soldiers in his cause. The X-gene is humanity’s genetic legacy, the next step in its evolution, and everyone who carries it is precious, not just the powerful ones. But Xavier, Magneto, Apocalypse, all of them are the same. They build their armies, fight their squabbles, all the while drawing attention and hatred to mutants.”
Paige crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot. “Well,” she said, “you’re certainly winning us over to your point of view.”
“I’m giving it to you straight.”
“But,” said Jono, “you said that the Musketeers were in trouble, and that the Genogoths weren’t going to help them.” Espeth licked her lips and looked away as though trying to reconcile the contradiction with herself. “The Genogoths believe that the preservation of the X-gene is more important than any one individual, that sometimes a few must be sacrificed for the greater good.”
“Selfish genes,” said Paige.
Angelo gave her a puzzled look.
“It’s a theory of how evolution works,” explained Monet, “that genes exist only to create other genes. They don’t care about individual organisms at all. They’re just machines for producing other genes. As long as some genes of a line survive, it doesn’t matter how many individuals die.”
“Meaning,” said Ev, “that the guys are too hot for them to rescue.”
' 'Espeth nodded reluctantly. ‘The government is involved, an anti-mutant arm of the government. That plus, as the result of your little excitement last summer, Recall ‘outted’ himself as a mutant on national radio, and has continued to appear on the radio since. That makes him one of the bad-guys as far as the Genogoths are concerned, and puts his friends Chill and Dog Pound on the expendable list by association.”
“Then what,” said Jono, “are you doing here if that’s what you believe? Let them rot.”
She swallowed. “Because—the Genogoths are wrong. This project, it’s vulnerable right now. Yes, it’s government, but it’s a black-project secret, practically outlaw. If something happens to it, the government will just sweep it all under the rug and forget about it, but if it succeeds, then all mutants are in danger. Especially the weak ones.”
Paige stared at her suspiciously. “You don’t sound very committed to the ideals of the Genogoths. How long have you been part of the inner-circle anyway?”
Espeth frowned, but didn’t answer.
Jono bent down to look her in the eyes. “Espeth?”
“Nearly a year.” She squirmed under their collected gaze. “Ten months. Almost ten and a half.”
Alvie Walton had worked at the Snow Valley Roxxon station for a long time now, and he’d seen more than his share of tourists over the years. He thought he’d seen it all, but the guy standing by his black sports car outside gave him the creeps.
As he ran the guy’s credit card through the machine, he tried to figure out exactly what caused the feeling. He peered through the dusty front window of the station. It wasn’t his black wrap-around sunglasses, or his black turtleneck and crisply creased black slacks, or the strange silver pendant he wore around his neck on a chain, a pendant that looked like a stepladder that somebody had put a twist in the middle of. It wasn’t the vintage black Jaguar he drove, or the thin, neatly trimmed goatee on his face. It wasn’t his height, which was average, or his build, which was solid but not overly muscular, or his hair which was short, black, and came to a widow’s peak in the middle of his high forehead.
Add up all the details, and he looked like one of those old jazz-type coffee shop guys. What were they called? Beatniks. The guy was maybe just old enough to be the genuine article too.
But there was something under that, some vibe, a feeling of danger and power. He remembered that movie about Patton and thought this guy had the same aura around him. He somehow, despite appearances, seemed more like a general than a beat poet.
The credit card machine beeped its approval. He glanced at the name on the card. “Black,” he said quietly. No first name, no initial. Just Black. Strange. He pulled the freshly printed receipt off the machine and walked it out to the guy.
The man took the receipt and was reaching for the credit card when Alvie pulled it away. “Black,” he said. “I’ve never seen a card with just one name before.”
“That’s my name.” He looked slightly annoyed as he plucked the card from Alvie’s fingers and tucked it into an Italian leather wallet. He seemed to be staring at Alvie, though he couldn’t tell for sure because of the glasses. It gave Alvie the willies.
“You seem to be a man,” said Black, “who notices things, things that are not his business.”
Alvie was caught by surprise. “No, not really—hey, just making conversation. Didn’t mean to—”
Black waved for silence. “That wasn’t a criticism. I’m looking for someone. A young lady not from around here. He produced a picture from somewhere, almost like magic, and handed it to Alvie.
The small snapshot showed a punk-looking girl with green hair. She was standing next to a tall boy of maybe nineteen or twenty, a boy with white hair. But, unlike hers, his didn’t seem to be dyed. They were smiling, and she was holding onto his arm as they posed.
Then it hit him. Green hair. How do you forget a thing like that? He’d seen her at the station a couple of days earlier, buying a bag of salted peanuts with what seemed like her last dollar. He eyed Black suspiciously. He wondered if she was young enough to be a runaway. Could this creep be what she was running from?
Black seemed impatient. “Have you seen her?”
“Why are you looking for her?”
“We’re—associates. We were supposed to meet at the Vermont ski areas to do some business, but she seems to have had car trouble. I found her car abandoned up the highway twenty miles or so. I thought perhaps she’d hitch-hiked into town.” Alvie considered. Parts of the story fit, but he wondered what kind of business they could be doing, and decided it wasn’t good. He tried to remember the details of the encounter. She’d asked questions too, something about that weird boarding school outside town. If that was the place she was looking for, she’d be there already. If she’d wanted to talk to him, she could have phoned. Alvie had spotted a cellular phone sitting on the front passenger seat. “Haven’t seen her. Sorry.”
Black handed the picture back. “Take another look.”
There was something folded under the picture. Alvie fanned it out to see the edge of a crisp one-hundred dollar bill. That was a lot of money for a guy who worked as a service station attendant. He looked at it for a moment, then pushed it back at Black. In a week the money would be spent, but a guilty conscience could last a long time. “Nope, haven’t seen her.”
Black tightened his lips and nodded. “Of course, thank you for your time.”
Alvie watched as Black climbed back into his car and drove away. Alvie wiped his ha
nds on a rag from his back pocket and strolled back into the office. On a whim, he pulled out the doodle-covered phone book from under the counter and opened it up. What was that school called? X something. Xavier’s That was it. But Snow Valley was a small town. There were no X’s listed, not one. “Must be unlisted,” he said to nobody in particular. It was a shame. He had the feeling that somebody would like to know this dude was coming.
Paige made herself a peanut butter and blackberry jam sandwich and sat down at the little table in the nook off the kitchen. The jam was in an unlabeled Mason jar, part of a care-package from her mamma in Kentucky. Like Mama didn’t have enough to do raising a house-full of kids by herself.
Still, Paige smacked her lips. The jam was sweet and tart, its flavor blended with the salty peanut butter. It tasted like home, and for just a moment she had the terrible urge to cry'. The she reached into her pocket and pulled out the letter she’d fetched from a shoebox under her bed. It was the last letter she’d gotten from Recall, dated two weeks prior. If what Espeth said was true, it must have been sent only days before his kidnapping.
She spread the computer printed sheet on the table and flattened it with the palm of her hand. She read.
Dear Paige and Guys,
I wish I could have come with Chill and the Pounder when they visited you guys at the school last month, but between night classes and a national radio talk-show, it’s a lot for a sixteen-year-old to handle, you know? Plus, Chill was here during his spring break, and he’s like the worst housekeeper in the world. Took me most of the week he was gone just to catch up the dishes. It’s probably a good thing he’s not here when school is in session, and I expect he’ll be moving out completely after graduation.
Until then, I guess I could afford to hire a housekeeper or something, but I’m socking the radio money ' away in a CD to pay for grad school. This radio business is too crazy. Literally overnight I went from student nobody with a lame mutant power, to national talk show cohost, and I could be a student nobody again just as fast if the ratings take a slip or some anti-mutant sponsor gets a bee in their bonnet. It’s been quite a ride though, and I owe it all to you and your Generation-X crew.
In a reckless moment that summer, Paige had gotten them all involved with an anti-mutant radio-talk-show host named Walt Norman. Through a series of misadventures, they’d all had a hand in saving Norman’s life from an on-air terrorist attack. In the aftermath, Recall had been given the chance to make an impassioned plea to a national audience for tolerance toward mutants. The network had liked the volatile chemistry of pairing the mutant Recall and the anti-mutant Norman, and had offered to let him share the mike on an ongoing basis.
Since then, Recall had been in regular touch. Though he’d apparently gotten over his crush on her, his friendship with her and the group had lingered on. Unfortunately, Paige had been a less than faithful correspondent, a fact that she now regretted.
She read on.
Hey, you know, I think I’m starting to put a dent in my bone-head cohost Walt. I used to say that he sure wasn’t a mutant, but he wasn’t a human either, but lately our on-air debates have changed lone, more fact and less rhetoric. We still don’t agree on anything, mind you, but hey, progress is progress.
Got to go. Air time in thirty minutes. See you on the radio.
Your Pal, Recall
She folded the letter and tucked it back in her pocket. She wondered if that ingrate Norman had even noticed that Recall was missing. Maybe he was relieved to have him gbne.
If she’d been listening to the show, she’d know, might even have realized weeks ago that something was wrong with Recall. After the trip, she’d listened to the “Walt and Recall” show every week, but after a while she’d slipped out of the habit. Life kept getting in the way, and Norman just infuriated her. Maybe Recall thought he was making some progress with the big parasite, but Paige just couldn’t listen to him. The urge to call in and tell him what a horse’s backside he was, was too strong, and it was exactly that urge that had gotten them in trouble last time.
If she'd had better control of her emotions, Recall wouldn’t have gotten on the radio and become a target. Basically, this was all her fault. She looked at the half-eaten sandwich and tossed it on the table.
The kitchen door opened and Angelo walked in, followed by the rest of Gen-X. Angelo headed immediately for the peanut butter and bread, with Jubilee right behind him. “Jubilee,” said Paige sternly, “stay out of Mamma’s jam.” Jubilee muttered under her breath as she and Angelo both
tried to shove butter knives into the peanut butter jar at the same time.
Jono was the last one through the door. He pulled the kitchen step-stool over and perched on the top step. “Okay, time for a war council. We’ve got to figure out what to do about this blinking mess.”
Jubilee and Angelo finished making their sandwiches and joined the rest of them around the table.
They all stared at each other.
Finally, Paige spoke. “I think it’s obvious. We call the X-Men. This is definitely a big-league problem.”
Jono shook his head. “We swore we wouldn’t tell anyone. That includes the X-Men, Emma, Sean, anybody. My take is we just go and do what needs to be done. We can bloody do it.”
Jubilee shook her head. “No way. This is an X-Men-class problem. I say we call them. Maybe they’ll let us tag along.” Monet looked at Jubilee and sniffed. “I vote against side-kick-girl.”
“Monet,” said Paige, “why?”
“Because I’m voting against sidekick-girl.”
Paige scowled at her. “That’s not much of a reason.”
“It’s my vote.”
Paige looked at Angelo. He shrugged and leaned back in his chair. “Look, I never signed on to be a super hero, and I’m not in favor of getting us grounded till the end of time either. Call in the bad mamma-jammas.”
Jono looked at Ev, seeking some sympathy in his eyes.
Ev squirmed in his seat and chewed at his bottom lip. “Our friends are in trouble, and I’m ready for action. We go.” “Bloody great,” said Jono, “it’s a hung jury. Looks like we fight it out or draw straws or something.”
“It’s a tie,” complained Paige, “because Monet is voting against Jubilee, no matter what. This is too important a decision for that kind of thinking.”
Jono’s eyes flashed anger. “Who are you to criticize somebody’s reasoning. Don’t you care about your mate Recall?” “Of course I care,” she snapped. “About all of them. That’s why I want to call in the X-Men. It’s the best thing we can do for them. Besides, how would we get to this secret lab? The X-Men can just fire-up a Blackbird and be there in half an hour. Are we all just going to pile into Sean’s Jeep?”
“The Xabago,” answered Jono without hesitation.
Paige blinked. The Xabago was one of the two motor homes they’d purchased for the summer’s trip. Emma and the female members of the team had traveled in a luxury motor coach, which had since been sold, but the guys had been allowed to pick their own vehicle. The Xabago was a hideous, tricked out camper with steer horns over the radiator, orange shag carpeting covering the interior, and a fighter plane’s bubble cockpit on the roof.
“Jono, the Xabago blew a head gasket eighty miles from home, and had to be towed here. It’s such a hunk of junk that Sean and Emma couldn’t even find anybody to buy it. It’s been rusting out behind the biosphere like a little slice of home.”
“We fixed it,” said Jono.
Paige frowned. “Who fixed it?”
“Ev, Angelo, and me,” explained Jono. “We’ve been tinkering with it for months.”
“I helped too,” injected Jubilee. “None of these guys even knew how to use a torque wrench.”
“She lies,” said Angelo.
“About helping,” asked Monet, “or the torque wrench?” Paige threw her hands up in frustration. “Everybody just shut up! This is important!” She waited for things to quiet down. “So, we have transpo
rtation, but that still doesn’t change the basic issues. We’re deadlocked, I say we call in the X-Men.”
Jono looked at her, his eyes intense. “You keep talking like that’s an alternative. We swore to keep the Genogoths’ secrets, and if we tell somebody about the Musketeers, they’re going to want to know where we got the information.” He tapped the side of his fist nervously against his knee. “Calling the X-Men isn’t an option. Either we do the job ourselves, or we let them rot.”
Black pulled into a park and found a shaded spot near a Civil War memorial. Through the trees, he could see a man in a heavy wool sweater throwing a flying disk for a dog, but otherwise, the area was deserted. He flipped open the scramble phone and dialed from memory. He never used the speed dial for security reasons.
The phone was answered on the second ring. “Night comes early,” he said, giving the current code phrase. Even a scrambled phone could fall into the wrong hands.
“No moon tonight,” said the voice on the other end, providing the countersign. “This is Leather.”
' “Black. I’m in Snow Valley, Massachusetts. She’s been here, I’m certain of it. If so, she’s undoubtedly at Xavier’s School.”
There was a pause from the other end, then, “She could compromise everything. Maybe she already has. Twenty years of staying off Xavier’s radar shot in a night. I told you she wasn’t ready for the Inner Circle.”
Black clenched his jaw slightly, for him, an extreme display of emotion. “Remember your place, Leather. You’re a field commander, but I’m the Vertex of the Circle, and I brought Espeth into the Circle myself. She’s worthy, but inadequately indoctrinated, and no one could have anticipated that she would be so severely tested so soon. But I still have faith in my choice. I don’t think she would casually compromise us to Xavier, not even for the lives of her friends.”
Generation X - Genogoths Page 3
