“What’s wrong,” she announced in that tone of hers which suggested she was annoyed to have to be stating the obvious, “is that I can’t touch my boyfriend without killing him. Other than that, I’m wonderful.”
Wasn’t much he could say to that, considering it was mostly true. With tutelage and practice, she’d gained a measure of control over her ability to assimilate powers and psyches. She could do it much faster than before, as she’d proved with Colossus in the Danger Room, doing far less harm to her subjects in the process. But those were flash-hits, combat situations. Rogue borrowed a power for a specific reason and just as quickly gave it back again. Or—she’d touch a bad guy a bit longer to take him out of the fight. Her upper limit would allow her use of powers for twenty-four hours max, putting the guy she nailed out cold for the same length of time.
At the moment, though, Rogue had no need for her powers. Bobby was her guy. She didn’t want to just touch him for a fleeting, stolen second, she wanted the entire romance package. The kissing, the stroking, the hugging, the sex. She wanted all of him, but knew that if she tried, it would be the end of Bobby.
Rogue heard titters from a corner. She didn’t look because she knew the voices, but her eyes tightened to the dangerous, get-outta-my-way-bub glare she’d learned from Logan. Bobby looked and blushed. It was the Cuckoos, of course, blond triplets, Polo poster girls, telepaths. They dressed in white, following the style of their headmistress at the incredibly pricey Massachusetts Academy, and they loved to pry, perpetually trolling for any stray or wayward thought. Wicked sat in her usual corner, playing chess with one of her dead friends. She had a million of them, spirits at her beck and call, who would do her bidding, or could merge with her to add their raw strength to hers.
The school had grown since Rogue’s arrival, to the point where even this huge old house was threatening to burst at the seams. That’s why the Cuckoos were visiting. Xavier was considering an affiliation with the Massachusetts Academy, whose head, it turned out, was a fairly impressive telepath in her own right. The professor wanted to see what kind of students they recruited, and how well they played with others.
Thus far, Rogue hadn’t been impressed.
Bobby moved in front of her, apparently not ready to let the conversation drop. “That’s not fair,” he protested. “Have I put any pressure on you?”
No, she conceded, swearing that if she heard the slightest snicker from those fashionista wannabees, there’d be blood. You’ve been the perfect gentleman. It’s me who’s goin’ crazy.
But sadly, that wasn’t what she chose to say aloud.
“You think I can’t tell? You’re a guy, Bobby. There’s only one thing on your mind.”
This time, Bobby chose not to follow as Rogue moved around him and headed off. Better, he decided, to let her cool down and hope for a more rational conversation later.
He offered a wave and a hello to Scott as the bigger man strode past him, down the grand staircase to the foyer. Bobby was completely ignored, which wasn’t like Scott at all.
Bobby heard familiar voices—Logan calling “Hey, Scott!”—and snuck a peek over the gallery railing to see if anything was playing out downstairs.
As usual, Logan and Scott were about to have a testosterone throw-down. They couldn’t be in a room together for any amount of time without going mega-macho in each other’s face. The student body had a pool going, to see who’d eventually walk away in the end. Bobby always figured that was a waste of money, was sure the two men would one day work things out.
Listening now, though, he wasn’t quite so sure.
“They were looking for you downstairs,” Logan commented companionably, with just a hint of an edge in his voice to let Scott know this was serious. “You didn’t show.”
“What do you care?”
“I had to cover your ass, for starters!”
“I didn’t ask!”
“No,” Logan interrupted, calm in the face of Scott’s anger, “you didn’t. The professor did.” Fractional beat, to let the fact that he used Xavier’s title sink in. With Logan, it was invariably “Charley,” with the occasional “Chuck” when he wanted to get Xavier’s attention, not necessarily in a good way. Then: “I was just passing through.”
Scott didn’t bat an eye. “So? Pass through, Logan. It’s what you do best.”
Another beat, only a moment in real time, but it seemed to stretch like taffy to an almost unendurable length.
“Look, Scott, I know how you feel—”
This time Scott cut him off: “Don’t.”
“When Jean died—”
“I said, don’t!”
Watching from above, conscious now that he had company—the gallery was crowded with kids drawn by the commotion—Bobby wondered if he had been foolish to skip that pool.
Logan stepped in close, but when he reached out to Scott it was with an open hand.
“Maybe it’s time for us to move on.”
Scott didn’t give an inch.
“Not everybody heals as fast as you—bub!”
Logan watched as the great front doors of the Mansion closed behind Scott, listened to the sound of a bike engine being pushed to its limits and fading quickly into the distance, taking as much time as he needed to compose himself.
He knew he had an audience. With his eyes closed, by scent alone he could name them all. He jerked his head to indicate the show was over, and then found himself looking at Rogue, who’d rushed to the base of the stairs, probably to back him up in case he needed it.
She was only a kid the night she had crawled into his truck, in the ass-end of upper Canada, in Laughlin City, a dot of a prairie truck stop with dreams of grandeur. That journey together had ended with their introduction to the X-Men. Now she was a full-grown woman—and Logan knew that he’d found something that hurt her far worse than his claws ever could.
As Rogue stepped forward to offer a little comfort, perhaps only company over a beer, she didn’t need words to tell her that Logan still grieved for Jean.
He shook his head.
As Logan went his own way, impulse drew Rogue’s gaze up to the gallery, to the only person left watching—Bobby. And she knew that they must have had the same notions skittering across their thoughts: could either of them bear to be hurt so deeply? Could either of them bear to walk away?
It was a modest office block by federal standards, left over from a more decorative age, like the Old Executive Office Building and the Smithsonian. But what it lacked in modern aesthetics, or the practicalities of state-of-the-art internal data networking, it more than made up for in proximity to the one building in town that mattered. The one with the address 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The offices housed the youngest of the president’s cabinet departments. But the reason both for its importance and for its being treated as a bastard stepchild could be found on the official identification plaque out front: united states department of mutant affairs. As usual, despite the constant surveillance of CCTV cameras and patrols by the DC metro police and federal security, someone had still managed to tag the sign during the night, using spray paint to cover Affairs with the word Abominations.
The third-floor front suite, with a view of the White House, belonged to the secretary. Alicia Vargas—former Secret Service bodyguard to the previous president, now employed by DOMA as unofficial bodyguard and thoroughly official executive assistant to the secretary—strode down the elegant wood hallway and, with a pro forma knock, opened the door to her boss’s office.
The room was exquisitely furnished; whatever else you could say about Henry McCoy, DSC, PhD, he had excellent taste. At the moment, he was also hanging upside down from the suitably reinforced chandelier, thoroughly enjoying the latest issue of the Economist.
Alicia was a lovely woman, the kind you’d expect to be chairing a PTA meeting, with a remarkable knack for blending into a crowd. She was as professionally turned out as her boss, although her suit, while a quality design, was
off-the-rack, and his wholly bespoke Savile Row. The major difference was that hers was cut to hide the SIG Sauer automatic she still wore in a belt holster, while his suit was built around a six-foot, nearly three-hundred-pound, immensely athletic body completely covered in rich blue fur.
He had fangs, too—a mouthful. And claws that became quite evident when he neglected to keep his nails properly trimmed. He had a leonine mane of hair which was a discernibly darker hue than his body, swept elegantly back from a dramatic widow’s peak, as well as sweeping side whiskers that bore an uncanny resemblance to one of the major villains of a world-famous comic book. He could bench press twice his body weight without trying, had reflexes that were almost a match for Alicia’s—because she was a mutant too, just not quite so obvious a manifestation, thank God—and agility that could send the most madcap of monkeys back to school. He was, in fact, everything implied by the nickname he’d been given back in college—the Beast.
McCoy could also speak a score of languages fluently, was one of the more respected genetic anthropologists on the planet, a demon dancer, and apparently an even better lover. He enjoyed fine wines with his brother, the Jungian psychiatrist, preferred cooking to eating out because he was a better chef than most professionals, and had an unfortunate weakness for karaoke bars. His speaking voice was wonderful, but his singing tended to recall cats congregating on a backyard fence.
What endeared him most to Alicia, however, was the fact that he needed reading glasses. He wore a classic pair, perched on his rather dramatic nose.
McCoy raised an eyebrow over the spine of the magazine as she snared his jacket off the back of his chair.
“The White House called,” she told him. “They’ve moved up the meeting. Something to do with Bolivar Trask.”
“Hmnh” was Hank’s only comment as he flipped through a crisp, confined somersault to land on the floor with feline grace. He frowned as he slipped on his shoes—Alicia was the only one who ever saw those reactions, the only one he truly trusted—he’d much prefer to go barefoot. His feet were designed for it, not for being strapped in. But people were spooked enough by his appearance as it was; dressing respectably was the first, big—necessary—step towards winning their tolerance, if not their acceptance.
“Your car’s waiting downstairs,” she told him as he donned his jacket, taking a moment for their usual exit ritual as she smoothed the suit across his shoulders and straightened his tie.
Then, twitching her own suit jacket to make sure her gun was in ready reach, she followed him out the door.
Another surprise awaited Hank and Alicia when they checked in at the White House: the meeting originally scheduled for the Oval Office had been moved downstairs to the Situation Room. It was a small and select meeting: the president, his national security advisor, the director of the FBI, a pair of uniforms, one representing the Joint Chiefs, the other the National Security Council, and the secretary of Homeland Security, Bolivar Trask.
Big as Hank was, Trask matched him in every dimension, tall and broad and radiating the impression that he remained as powerful and dangerous now as he was in his youth. He’d come out of Detroit, served a career in Army Special Ops before confounding everyone when he turned in his papers and built a new life for himself in disaster management. Trask had barely made it out of high school, yet over the course of his two careers he had amassed more practical knowledge than a roomful of certified academics, possessing an eclectic mix of street smarts and on-the-job training. He was a brilliant manager, as gifted in the military and defense aspects of his department as the civil, and seemed soundly determined to protect the country both from natural disasters and terrorist threats.
“Sorry I’m late, Mr. President,” Hank apologized, as he strode into the darkened room. Display screens were already active, filling the wall at the far end of the room, where everyone at the table could easily see them.
President David Cockrum indicated the open chair to his left. “Have a seat, Henry. Sorry for catching you short, but things have been happening.”
Trask sat opposite McCoy, at the president’s right hand. From everyone’s body language, McCoy knew this was Bolivar’s briefing.
“Homeland Security was tracking Magneto…”
With that cue, surveillance images appeared on the display wall, showing a tall and handsome man of naturally aristocratic bearing. Sometime in the recent past, he must have grown a beard, neatly trimmed of course, which gave him the air of a Shakespearean warrior king in exile. A lion in winter, McCoy thought, with a pang of regret at the promise of brighter, younger days, and all that might have been.
Trask was speaking, using a laser pointer to highlight his bullet points with the appropriate image: “Homeland Security has been coordinating with all the relevant alphabet agencies—CIA, NSA, DIA—plus their counterparts overseas. As you can see, we got hits on him in Lisbon, Geneva, Montreal. NavSat lost him crossing the border. But we did get a consolation prize…”
Different screen now, the biggest in the array, with a crawl at the bottom to inform everyone that they were watching real-time streaming video. The setting was obviously an interrogation room of some sort, with a double-door security airlock and double-paned observation glass, suggesting something more appropriate to a biohazard containment facility than a standard lockup. There were two figures in view, interrogator and prisoner. No guards—that could be seen.
The object of all this attention lounged in a chair as though she owned the place, and hadn’t a care in the world. She was naked and flaunted a perfect body as proudly as any other woman would a new designer gown. Her skin was as blue as McCoy’s fur, her hair the color of blood, swept straight back from her forehead and face to end in an impossibly precise blunt cut at the base of her neck. Her body was decorated with ridges, down the arms, the breasts and belly and groin, with a scattering along her legs. Hank had always been curious whether they were decorative or had some functional value, and the scientist in his soul wondered, How hard would it be to get a cell sample? Her eyes were a gleaming chrome yellow, the same vibrant hue that van Gogh tried to capture in his paintings around the town of Arles: the flower called rape. They glowed in the dark, Hank knew, when the rest of her became effectively invisible. The way they flicked from camera to camera, the way she allowed herself the smallest of smiles, told Hank that the woman knew she was being broadcast, and probably who was watching.
She called herself Mystique. She’d been by Magneto’s side for almost as long as he had been in active opposition to Charles Xavier. No one had ever been able to fathom the precise nature of their relationship, beyond the obvious fact that she was utterly devoted to him and to his cause, and that Magneto cared for her as he did for few others in his life, past or present.
She was a metamorph, a shape-changer able to transform herself with a thought into any other human form she pleased. What they were viewing now was supposedly her default form; it was certainly the skin she was most comfortable wearing, the one she always returned to.
The main screen was complemented by an array of lesser display windows, showing different perspectives on the scene. Looking at the one aimed at her eyes, McCoy couldn’t shake the sense that she was looking right back at him through the lens. That she could actually see him.
With an inner wrench, he turned his attention back to Trask, who was still speaking.
“We picked her up breaking into the FDA, of all places.”
“Do you know who she was imitating?” the president asked in an aside to Hank. “Secretary Trask.”
That must have been a sight to behold, Hank thought, and almost as if he’d heard the comment aloud, Trask cued an archival shot of the scene in question, showing Mystique before, and then right after, the takedown. Hank looked from the man himself to the screen and back again—as did everyone else present. The match was flawless.
“Yes, sir,” Hank told the president. “She can do that.”
“Not anymore, she can’t,�
� Trask said with pardonable satisfaction. Smart as she may have been—and that reputation was as well-deserved as it was formidable—he had found a way to nail her: “We got her.”
“You think your walls can hold her, Bolivar?”
“We have some new walls, Henry,” came the reply, with the hint of an edge. Trask’s tone indicated that he thought Hank’s question was utterly foolish. What was the point of taking the woman if you didn’t have a means to keep her? “We’ll be a step ahead this time.”
Hank was about to press him on that point when Trask gestured with his remote and added sound to the streaming video from the interrogation room.
“Raven,” the agent with her said softly, and was ignored.
“Raven,” he repeated, “I’m talking to you.”
She flicked her eyes dismissively. “I don’t answer to my slave name.”
“It’s on your birth certificate, Raven Darkhölme. Or has he convinced you that you don’t have a family anymore?”
No one needed to be told which “he” was being referred to, but the question did provoke a response. Mystique swung around in her chair to face the agent. Her look promised mayhem. The interrogator took it in stride.
“My family tried to kill me, you pathetic meat-sack.”
“So now he’s your family?”
She sniffed, haughty as a queen, and half turned away, striking a glamour pose that flaunted her body to him and to the cameras.
McCoy heard a mutter from down the table: “My God, it’s like watching cable!”
The interrogator’s tone hardened.
“Are you playing games with me?”
She gave the agent a smile as overtly sexy as her pose, and then morphed into a mirror image of him.
“What makes you say that?”
“Is it worth it, all this, to protect him?”
“You really want to know where he is?” He didn’t need to reply. He didn’t have to, the answer went without saying. “All right then, I’ll tell you…”
X-Men(tm) The Last Stand Page 5
