Siege

by Christopher Golden

  Yet in the war of philosophies that he had waged with Charles Xavier for so many years, Magneto had never wanted to be proven right.

  The Acolyte called Milan, whose mind communicated directly with technology, sat in silence at the command station-the main computer terminal linked to the installation and the Sentinels. His chin lay slumped down onto his chest, the goggles that covered his eyes hardwired into the terminal through a jack at his left temple. His mind was in cyberspace, the ultimate in virtual reality, and Magneto wondered, idly, what would happen if Milan were simply unplugged.

  Which would, of course, never happen. Magneto would not allow it.

  "It's chilling, don't you think?" a voice echoed inside the control center, and it took Magneto a moment to realize it was an audio link, piped into the room from the silo below. Senyaka and Unuscione were there, on guard, in anticipation of more soldiers arriving; and they would arrive, eventually. Senyaka had asked the question.

  "What is?" Unuscione answered, her tone betraying the arrogance that was her deepest flaw.

  "Being here, among them," Senyaka answered, clearly not as sure of himself now. Magneto watched the cowled man turn from Unuscione, and walk deeper into the silo, looking up at the Sentinels towering over him like an ancient forest.

  "We've come to take these weapons for ourselves," Senyaka said. "But they have proven deadly in the past, to mutants. Knowing that the sole purpose of their creation was the destruction of our kind ... Unuscione, as strange as it sounds, though not a spark of life or intelligence exists in them at the moment, I feel as though they are watching me. Biding their time. It is chilling."

  Unuscione uttered a low, dismissive chuckle. Had it been anyone else, Magneto knew the woman would have spoken her thoughts aloud, said the word that was no doubt in her mind, the word coward. But Senyaka was as dangerous, as uncontrollable in his way as she was. If they were to battle, Magneto would have to step in. He could not afford to lose them both.

  The Lord of the Acolytes looked up at the motionless faces of the Sentinels, the smooth metal surfaces, the slitted sockets inside which sensor eyes lay dormant. Dormant, yes perhaps, but Magneto discovered that Senyaka was right. It felt as if the murderous robots were watching him. The effect was quite chilling indeed. The silo was a ghost town, a place of death. The effect was even eerier with Milan slumped, corpse-like, in his chair.

  The feeling, Magneto finally decided, was neither completely unpleasant, nor inappropriate.

  Voght appeared suddenly in the open doorway behind him, and Magneto motioned her forward, glad of her company.

  "All the humans have been corralled, Magneto," she reported. "Javitz and the Kleinstocks are watching over them, and Cargil has gone topside to keep watch."

  "Thank you, Amelia," he answered. "You may be at your leisure until reinforcements arrive. Everything seems under control."

  Voght nodded, then walked quietly to the long window overlooking the silo. All was quiet below once more, Senyaka's attempts at communication rebuffed by Unuscione's harshness. Years before, Unuscione's father, known as Unus the Untouchable, had been one of Magneto's followers as well. The man's mutant powers had eventually killed him, leaving the young woman terribly bitter. One day, Magneto hoped she would end her grief. For her sake, and that of the other Acolytes.

  "Maybe it's not my place," Voght said, turning Magneto abruptly from his thoughts, "but I would imagine the programming for the Sentinels, for the entire base, would be buried in complex encryptions and decoy files. And once we're there, you'll have to reprogram the mecha-Godzilla rejects out there yourself. Even with Milan's abilities, we could be here days."

  Magneto raised an eyebrow, a bemused smile lifting one side of his face. "Your point?" he asked.

  "I don't know about you, but I don't guess there's much by way of pizza delivery way out here," Voght said with a shrug. "I guess I just wonder what we're all going to eat."

  "My dear Amelia, you must have faith," Magneto said. "I'm sure there is enough to eat in whatever sanitized galley the American government calls a kitchen to feed us for today. That will be long enough."

  He could see that Voght still did not understand, and though he was loath to explain himself to his Acolytes, he found himself making increasingly frequent exceptions for Amelia. She had become, strangely, his confidant.

  "You have been involved with the politics of mutantkind longer than most of the other Acolytes, even those older than yourself," Magneto began. "Surely, you remember a group of wealthy, power hungry mutants called the Hellfire Club?"

  "Of course," Voght said. "But what has that got to ... ?"

  "The Hellfire Club was ruled by an inner circle," Magneto interrupted. "Their ranks were fashioned after pieces on a chess board, and there came a time when they were lacking a White King."

  Voght's eyes widened with surprise. "You?" she asked. ''I'd no idea."

  "It was a short-lived relationship but, as you will soon realize, a fruitful one. Though the Black King, a mutant named Sebastian Shaw, always struck me as a braggart and a fool, he spent most of his time making allies. He was a politician, not a leader; there is a vast difference. He wanted me on his side, and so took me into his confidence. That Shaw was a mutant was not publicly known. In fact, his military industrial empire was inextricably tied to the federal government. Profoundly."

  "Operation: Wideawake," Voght realized aloud, and Magneto nodded.

  "The single time Shaw took me into his confidence," he said. "He had buried a secondary program into the Sentinels, which could be accessed and activated with the use of a single password: empire. Once Milan has befriended the main computer and has found the backdoor into the Sentinel command program, that code word will give me total control of the Alpha Sentinel, and through it, the entire fleet."

  Magneto walked to where Milan still slumped at a rapidly changing computer screen, laid a hand on the unconscious mutant's shoulder and knelt to watch the binary numbers flashing by. When he looked back at Voght, his smile was triumphant.

  "If your stomach is growling, Amelia, feel free to scout us up some breakfast. But trust me, we won't need to worry about dinner."

  Voght returned his smile, and Magneto felt just a single moment of the calm he hoped all mutants would be allowed once they were provided with a haven from humanity's yoke.

  • • •

  Soles slapping the marble floor, muscles tense, Valerie Cooper tried not to let her anxiety show as she hurried toward the Secretary's office. Even in times of crisis, when her expertise or her team was needed, it was rare for the 'boss' to request a face to face. Either her team, the government sanctioned mutant strike force called X-Factor, to which she was attached as federal liaison, had completely blown their diplomatic mission in Genosha, or something worse had happened.

  Though at the moment, she couldn't think of any thing worse than that. Particularly since she'd only just arrived in her office when the call from the Secretary's aide came. She hadn't even been able to gulp down a cup of the godawful mud that was passed off as coffee to government employees. She was, suffice to say, somewhat on edge.

  Opening the heavy oak door, she crossed the carpet of the impeccably decorated outer office and was waved in by the Secretary's secretary, the mere thought of which confounded her. Valerie Cooper had never been a morning person.

  "Ah, Ms. Cooper," the Secretary said in his perfunctory manner, motioning for her to close the door behind her. "I believe you two know each other?"

  Two? Val was so relieved by the lack of hostility in the Secretary's voice, which of course meant X-Factor hadn't screwed up after all, that she'd barely acknowledged the presence of the third person in the room. Now, however, as the stiff-looking, auburn-haired man turned toward her, his face was marred by an incredulity and disgust that she knew was but a mirror of her own.

  "Gyrich!" she said in revulsion.

  "What the hell is she doing here?" the man, Henry Peter Gyrich, snapped in anger.


  "You forget yourself, Mr. Gyrich," the Secretary said, and Val wanted to warn the older man to be careful. Gyrich might answer to him for the moment, but he had many powerful, invisible friends in the intelligence community. Through all her dealings with him, Val had yet to find a single commendable thing to say about Gyrich, except perhaps that he was a snappy dresser. The man was a master manipulator who used every assignment, public or clandestine, to further his personal agenda.

  "My apologies, Mr. Secretary," Gyrich soothed. "I just didn't expect to see Ms. Cooper here. This is omega-level clearance subject matter after all."

  "Valerie has omega-level clearance, Henry," the Secretary said, admonition in his tone. "Please do sit down, Valerie, we have much to discuss."

  "Thank you, sir," she said. When she took her seat to Gyrich's left, he glared at her silently before turning his attention back to the Secretary. His frustration gave her great pleasure.

  "Earlier this morning," the Secretary began, "we failed to receive a report from one of our sensitive facilities. Communication has yet to be established. We must assume a security breach, and I look to both of you to counsel me regarding immediate action on this crisis. The facility in question is the Colorado base of Operation: Wideawake."

  "No!" Gyrich gasped in astonishment.

  "It's never over, is it?" Valerie said softly, shaking her head.

  "What's that?" the Secretary asked.

  "We're going to destroy each other, aren't we, sir? Mutants and humans, I mean. It just doesn't end," Val sighed.

  "It's your job, Cooper, to see that it does end. And soon. Now, my first inclination, of course, would be to send in X-Factor ... "

  "Oh, perfect!" Gyrich exploded. "The mutie freaks have found a way to take off-line our number one defense against their plans to dominate humanity, and you want to send them reinforcements! That's beautiful!"

  "That will be enough, Gyrich!" the Secretary shouted, his booming voice rattling picture frames on the office walls. "Another outburst like that and you will be relieved of your responsibilities pertaining to Wideawake. Are we clear?"

  Gyrich's eyes hardened. Val wanted to tell the Secretary he'd just made a dangerous enemy, but she didn't dare.

  "Yes, sir," Gyrich said slowly. "But I would recommend that you not allow my vehemence to disguise the truth of the words."

  "Mr. Secretary," Val said, ignoring Gyrich, "Mr. Gyrich has never been very good at covering up his bigotry, or the personal agenda he has had for becoming involved with Wideawake. His comments about X-Factor, government operatives themselves, make it clear that he is not rational on the subject of mutants."

  "Enough of this, both of you," the Secretary snapped, losing his patience. "If I didn't know Henry was less than clear-headed on this subject, I wouldn't have called you in as consultant on this, Val. I am the Director of Wideawake, after all. Now, can we just get down to business, please?

  "Henry, if you'd been a little patient, I'd have informed you that X-Factor is on a diplomatic mission in Genosha, and so are unavailable for at least the next four days to help with the Colorado situation. Therefore, I have already made the decision to send troops in to recapture the facility, if it has, indeed, been breached. And we have no reason to think it has not. The question is, do either of you have any idea ... any reasonable idea, who might have been capable of and interested in finding and capturing this facility?"

  Val could see Gyrich struggling with the question. She knew he probably had dozens of suggestions, hundreds even, but few of them with any valid reasoning. Unfortunately, she had the same problem. There were too many possibilities, though fewer than Gyrich imagined.

  "Sir," she said finally, as Gyrich studied her intently, "might I suggest you contact Professor Charles Xavier for his input as well. His expertise might have ... "

  "Come on, Cooper," Gyrich hissed. "That mutie lover would be number one on my list. He's been in deep with the freaks since day one."

  "You know, Gyrich,' Val said wistfully, "I can honestly say I've never met anyone as paranoid as you."

  "That will be all," the Secretary said quietly. He stood and walked around his desk, then folded his arms across his chest.

  "Henry, the troops are already mobilized. Once they have arrived, they will be under your command. Valerie will be your consultant, and you will consult with her. That's an order. She will make regular reports to me, and will include any objections she has to your course of action.

  "In the meantime, Val," he said thoughtfully. "I seem to recall Professor Xavier was instrumental in helping to set up X-Factor. It couldn't hurt to at least get his opinion, especially once we find out exactly what kind of fox has snuck into the henhouse."

  Together, Val and Gyrich rose and walked from the Secretary's office. Gyrich even held the door for her on the way out. Once in the hall, however, he spun on her, his face etched with fury.

  "Stay out of my face, Cooper," he growled. "And maybe, just maybe, you'll still have a job in D.C. when this is allover."

  Val Cooper smiled sweetly.

  "You don't seem to get it, Henry," she said pleasantly. "The Secretary has just given me license to put my claws into you deep. And I plan to."

  The smile left her face then, and was replaced by a hatred even more pure in its way than Gyrich's. "You'll excuse me, now," she said with a withering look. "I have an important call to make."

  • • •

  Moving through the partially collapsed shell of an old tenement building, Gambit at his side, Hank McCoy did his best to keep his mind on the situation at hand. He felt a certain distress as he realized that, despite his years of training and combat as the Beast, he still was not completely able to shut out other concerns.

  Perhaps, though, he was exaggerating the problem. Despite the smell of fire-blackened beams, the shattered glass and torn carpet that decorated the floor and the flickering of fluorescent lights that reminded him of the New York City morgue, everything around them was false. It was a cybernetic and holographic construct, created by computer intelligence using advanced Shi'ar technology that had been a gift to Professor Xavier from his lover, the Shi'ar empress Lilandra Neramani.

  Nothing they were seeing was, technically speaking, 'real.' But that did not mean that he and Gambit were not in danger. Otherwise, they could not have called the place the Danger Room. Still, as merciless as the computer could be, depending on the level of difficulty the program was set to, it could never be truly devious. That took humanity. So from time to time, instead of the X-Men facing the Danger Room, they used it to stage their own war games, facing one another.

  The Beast was paired with Gambit because they were unused to working together. The opposing 'team' was chosen for the same reason. And the game? A simple one, really, one every child knew: Capture the Flag. They had already found the flag, but that was only half

  the contest. The other half was getting it out of the tenement. The opposing team would, of course, try to stop them.

  The startlingly red kerchief was impossible to miss against the deep blue of the Beast's fur, where he had tied it around his wrist. That was one of the rules, too. It had to be prominently displayed, rather like painting a bullseye on your forehead. Hank motioned for Gambit to take the point, then fell in behind him as they stepped around a large hole that looked as though it had been left behind when a stairwell had collapsed. There was no exit that way.

  At the end of the hall, past several darkened doorways that might well have sheltered Cyclops or Rogue, there was a large window with jagged glass like fangs jutting from its frame. That would be their exit, Hank decided. Even if he had to climb down the outside of the structure with Gambit under one arm.

  "Cover the doors," he whispered. "I'm going for the window."

  Gambit nodded. With the deftness of a magician, the Cajun fanned half a deck of playing cards out in his left hand. Hank hadn't even seen him reach inside his coat for them. Then five others appeared in his right hand, a royal flush, Hank sa
w, and wondered if it could be a coincidence. Gambit's powers allowed him to give any object an energy charge that would cause it to explode on contact. In his hands, then, even playing cards could be deadly.

  Cards held before him like the lethal weapons they could become, Gambit began to run down the hall with a whispery footfall that the Beast envied. Hank was right behind him, not even attempting stealth as he rushed for the shattered window. He expected an attack from one of the doors, or from above, but the faster he moved the better.

  Incredibly, Gambit reached the end of the hall unmolested, then turned to guard Hank's back. The Beast slammed his palms against the floor and thrust himself, feet first, out the window.

  "This is way too ... " he began, but then all the breath was knocked from his lungs as Rogue flew at him, fists slamming into his belly. She'd been waiting for him outside, an option he hadn't even considered! Maybe his mind was elsewhere after all.

  Rogue drove him halfway back along the hall then slammed him into the floor.

  "You weren't goin' to say, easy, were you, sugar?" she said with a laugh as she yanked the kerchief from Hank's wrist. "Don't go gettin' cocky on us, ya hear."

  Though Rogue and the Beast were fairly evenly matched in the strength department, they each had their advantages over the other. Hank was far more agile, and faster. Rogue, on the other hand, could fly. Neither would be much help in such closed quarters. But before Hank could even regain his footing to go after Rogue, an explosive royal flush knocked her off her feet.

  They rose at the same time, and Rogue dove at Gambit with a disgusted scowl on her face. The Cajun dodged her attack and slammed his right elbow into the back of her head. Before she could move he was sitting on top of her stomach like a schoolyard bully. He held a playing card, charged and glowing, half an inch from her left eye.