Somehow, the idea that Magneto believed the world might come to accept his Mutant Empire was more chilling than the inevitable catastrophe that was guaranteed when he realized he was wrong.
“How about it, Val?” Archangel asked over the comm. “What’s the infrared say? This our boy?”
“Negative, Warren,” she said. “Let’s move on.”
As they headed for the Brooklyn Bridge, Warren started praying for luck once more. It was all they had.
* * *
The human resistance was growing. The relatively small group of somewhere between one and two hundred that Bobby Drake had gotten involved with had already hooked up with several others. It was a network of people who refused to kneel before Magneto. Some were bigots. Some had not been bigots before Magneto took over, but were gradually devolving into bigotry. But the majority were just people who didn’t want to give up without a fight.
Bobby had tagged along, helping out where he could, for most of the morning. In fact, it had been Gabi, one of the resistance fighters, who had confirmed for him that the X-Men were indeed being held inside the Empire State Building. He’d thought about it for quite some time before he realized that he had only one option.
Iceman was going to have to go in after them.
Of course, some of his new friends had offered to help. Gabi and her brother Michael had nearly forced themselves on him, and it had taken some effort to talk them out of it. After all, if the X-Men were the city’s best hope, it was in all their interests to break the rest of the team out. Still, they were new to this kind of thing. He’d been risking his neck for years, gone up against Magneto what seemed like dozens of times, and he was still around to talk about it.
Truth be told, once he’d thought about it, he stopped viewing himself as the X-Men’s resident clown. He was, in the end, the last X-Man. That was some incredible billing, and fulfilling the role would be a daunting task. Iceman didn’t know if he was capable of it, but he was certain of one thing:
If he couldn’t rescue the X-Men, it would only be because he himself had either become a captive, or had died in the effort.
A sobering thought. But Bobby had been having quite a few of those today.
Like most buildings of its size, the Empire State Building had several entrances to the lobby. Magneto’s own little Gestapo guarded the lobby as if it were Fort Knox, but Bobby knew that the majority of his experienced Acolytes would be off handling more important and immediate tasks throughout the city. In fact, in making a wide circuit of the building, he did not see a single mutant that he recognized. Iceman had assumed that Voght, or Unuscione, or even the Blob, would have been left in charge of the new recruits. But if there was a seasoned warrior among them, it wasn’t anyone he’d ever run across.
The lobby was a death trap. But as far as he could tell, little or no attention was being paid to an additional entrance, a service door that did not go into the lobby itself. He had to assume that it would be guarded on the inside, but there was no sentry posted outside the door. That would be his entry point.
Carefully avoiding the conspicuous sight lines of those mutants guarding the lobby, he made his way to the side of the building as quickly as possible. He hoped that anyone seeing him might mistake him for a New Yorker either brave or stupid enough to have come this close to ground zero.
Once at the door, however, he had to work fast. It was a heavy metal thing, probably foam core, and there were two deadbolts above the lock that was in the knob itself. No time for niceties, though. Icing up his right hand, he concentrated on freezing one side of the door frame and the locks. He didn’t ice the knob, however. He needed something to hold on to.
Fully human again, for his ice form did not give him any additional strength, Bobby wrapped a hand around the doorknob and yanked with all his might. With a crack, the brittle frozen metal of the deadbolts snapped and the door swung open in his hand.
There was only one guard. The mutant turned toward him in speechless surprise, jaw slack and eyes wide. Bobby didn’t know what his power was, but he knew the guy might call out an alarm any second. Like a batter going for a home run, Iceman swung his hands through the air. Mid-swing, the ice bat formed in his hands, and a second later, it connected with the guard’s skull.
The guy went down hard in a shower of ice shards, totally out. Iceman looked down at him, and couldn’t help but feel a little guilty.
“Sorry about that, rookie,” he said quietly. “But you bet on the wrong horse.”
A moment passed and Bobby heard nothing, no shouts or running footfalls. He was in, that was a start. Now he had to do his best to see that nobody knew he was in. There was nothing he could do about the ice on the floor. He would have to hope that it melted before anyone came by to check on or relieve the guard. There were larger problems.
First, of course, was the guard himself. He was out cold, though Bobby checked to make certain he was not seriously injured. It looked like he’d be out for a while. But that wasn’t the problem. Sure, he could be stashed in a stairwell or an air duct, but his absence could not go unnoticed for long, so Iceman would have to work fast. On the other hand, given the likelihood that a number of mutants who’d lined up to follow Magneto were already having second thoughts, the guard’s superiors would have to consider the possibility that he had gone AWOL.
Bobby crossed his fingers.
Then there was the door. He brushed the remnants of the shattered lock out onto the sidewalk and closed it. Relief spread through him when the door actually stayed closed. It was perfectly balanced, and didn’t hang open at all. If someone tugged on it, the cat would be out of the bag. But other than that, and the ice on the floor, he thought he’d be safe for a little while.
Nearby there was a maintenance closet. Inside, he found a mop and bucket, and a sink. Moving as fast as he could, he put some water in the bucket and left it with the mop leaning against a wall. If the ice melted, nobody would think twice about the water.
He called the service elevator, ready for anything when its doors slid open. There was nobody inside, so he pressed stop and opened the trapdoor in the ceiling. It took all his strength to shove the guard up through the hole—thank God he’d been working out—but he didn’t dare use his powers on the elevator. There’d be no way to cover it up.
With all of that taken care of, though, Bobby still had to deal with the biggest problem of all: finding the X-Men.
He stared at the service elevator for a moment, then smiled. It had given him an idea. He didn’t have much time, but without knowing where the X-Men were, he also didn’t have a lot of options. Bobby pressed the button to call the elevator again and the door slid open. He scanned the floor numbers. Most of Magneto’s operations would likely be clumped together in one section of the building—or at least, that was his logic. At random, he pressed twenty-three, then quickly pulled himself up through the trap door where the guard still lay unconscious.
As the floors ticked by, he looked at the welt that had risen on the guard’s forehead, already turning black and blue. The guy might have a concussion, if not something worse. It was regrettable, but at least Bobby figured he didn’t have to put the guard on ice. That could cause even more medical problems, not to mention giving him away once somebody noticed the cold water dripping down into the elevator from the melting ice.
Luck was with him. The elevator didn’t stop on any other floors. He held open the trapdoor slightly, enough to see through. When the doors slid open on twenty-three, he waited a few moments to see that there was nobody there. Then he hung his head down to look out into the hallway. He saw nothing but offices. Apparently empty offices. The door slid shut even as he swung down into the elevator, and he jabbed at the door open button quickly.
Bobby closed the trapdoor, and moved out onto the twenty-third floor, staying close to the wall. Every nerve was tingling, every muscle taut. He didn’t think he had ever been so tense.
Tempted to transform into Iceman, h
e resisted. If he was spotted, staying flesh and blood would hopefully give him some element of surprise and confusion over his enemies. Unless he ran into someone who knew what Bobby Drake looked like.
Magneto, for instance.
But he didn’t want to think about that.
Down the hall, he found the main elevator bank. He called the elevator and ducked into an office across from it. When he heard the ding of its arrival, he peeked out just as the doors slid open ... and quickly ducked back in. There were three people on the elevator, likely mutants he did not recognize.
The fourth try, he got an empty elevator. He scrambled up through the trapdoor, this one much smaller than the one on the service elevator, and lay down on top.
Alone in enemy headquarters, he considered what he was doing to be foolhardy at best, completely nuts more likely, and suicidal at worst. But there really wasn’t any other choice. He was an X-Man, and the X-Men took care of their own.
No matter what the risk.
The elevator began to move. Iceman lay still, listening, and hoped for the best.
• * •
On the vid-comm unit Magneto had set up in his makeshift office, the stem face of Exodus, as always, showed little emotional reaction to his master’s words. For without question, Magneto was the mysterious mutant’s master. Exodus had been in some kind of mutant hibernation before Magneto had reawakened him to become the shepherd of Avalon.
Magneto’s right hand, Exodus had been left behind on Avalon to continue that job. He was the being responsible for finding only the most powerful, most desirable mutants for relocation to Avalon, where they would make a contribution to the new society. Exodus was also the ferryman, like Charon on the river Styx, who brought those mutants to the space station, the last haven for mutantkind.
After this new Haven that Magneto was building on Earth, of course.
“You seem surprised,” Magneto said, though it was only because he was so familiar with Exodus that he could read such an emotion in the mutant’s motionless features.
“Dukes and Allerdyce were specifically excluded from Avalon,” Exodus explained. “It is somewhat surprising, yes, that you decided to recruit them for Haven.”
“Don’t be such a snob, Exodus,” Magneto said, half attempting humor, an effort he rarely made but which Exodus’s stone-faced manner inspired him to. “Pyro and the Blob might not be what we were looking for on Avalon, but Haven is a harsher environment, the testing ground, I suppose, for the final hierarchy of the Mutant Empire.
“In any case, as you know, all mutants are welcome here. It is a sanctuary. We don’t have the space or the supplies to make such a broad-minded offer regarding Avalon.”
After a brief silence, Exodus nodded.
“But it goes well?” he asked. “I would remind you, Lord Magneto, that you have but to call and I will be instantly at your side.”
“Actually,” Magneto said, leaning back in the leather chair he’d moved into his office, “it goes extremely well. Most of the Acolytes have been given different duties. We’ve a city and, eventually, an empire to run. These kinds of things are vital if we are to succeed. Even those you despise have been dispatched for one purpose or another.
‘ ‘The authorities that remain have wisely chosen to collaborate with us on the new regime. Even now, mutants and human police officers are beginning to implement the new laws I have put into place.”
“There is no resistance by the humans?” Exodus asked, obviously surprised. Magneto thought the change in his expression was refreshing.
“There is always resistance among the humans,” he responded. “I imagine there always will be. But it is nothing we cannot handle.”
“What of the X-Men?”
“Half of them are my prisoners already,” Magneto said. “The others are on the prowl. I’m sure, but there are a handful of them and many hundreds, soon maybe even thousands, of us. What can they do?
“No, Exodus,” Magneto said, shaking his head slightly. “I don’t think I’ll be needing you down here. If I do, of course I shall call for you. But for now, continue operating Avalon in my stead. That is all I ask.”
“As you command, my Emperor,” Exodus answered, the first time he had called Magneto by that title.
It felt right.
For most of his life, Cain Marko had equated kindness in any form with despicable weakness. As a child, he had felt his father’s hand more times than he could count. But the physical abuse wasn’t the worst part, not nearly. Far more painful were the harsh words, the hard looks, the utter and complete coldness of his father’s heart. Watching his stepmother quiver and his stepbrother Charles escape into his studies, Cain nurtured a terrible hatred for them that grew with each passing day.
They were weak. They deserved what they got. Cain vowed that he would be strong, that he would never shrink in fear from anyone or anything, never show weakness. But around his father, he couldn’t help himself.
Cain Marko became cruel. Not merely a bully, but a tyrant of the schoolyard, and even worse at home to his stepbrother, who somehow escaped the brunt of his father’s wrath.
By the time he discovered the mystical gemstone that transformed him into the Juggernaut, Cain Marko had already developed an inclination toward crime and a sadistic streak wide as the Grand Canyon. His exploits as the Juggernaut, and his career as a criminal, led him, eventually, to make the acquaintance of the man who would change his life.
Tom Cassidy—called “Black Tom” by Interpol, the X-Men, and anybody else who’d ever run into him—was the first person Cain had ever known who could be both ruthless and kind. His kindness to Cain was an awakening of sorts. He had been wrong, for most of his life, about something he had believed in as gospel. Kindness did not always equal weakness. Friendship was possible, even desirable, if one chose carefully.
Steadily, Cain had changed. He was still a criminal. He was still ruthless when it was necessary to get the job done. He still gave no quarter in battle, particularly with the X-Men. He still hated his stepbrother, Charles Xavier.
But the sadistic side of the Juggernaut began to erode. In those quiet moments when he was honest with himself, Cain realized that part of him was almost completely gone, and he
n
was glad. He might be an international fugitive, wanted in nearly every major nation in the world, but he was motivated by confidence, dignity, and greed, now, not pure hatred.
He was never completely certain the change was for the better, but it sure as hell felt like it.
Now this. Now he was going into battle side by side with the X-Men, the goody-two-shoes Boy Scouts he had always gone out of his way to trounce before. Yet, one of the reasons he had always hated them was because of the holier-than-thou crap they constantly spouted, the way they treated him like he was gum on the bottom of their shoe, the same way Charles had always treated him. He hated the way they made their offers of help seem a weakness on his part rather than on their own, so ... condescending, that was the word.
It infuriated him.
But today was different. After the short fight they’d had, which he had actually enjoyed, they had been almost respectful toward him. Sure, they’d jumped him without so much as a “heads up,” but, given the circumstances, he could understand that kind of overreaction. He didn’t really blame them.
So he walked down the middle of the street shoulder to shoulder with the X-Men, ready to take back the city, not because he cared about its people or aspired to be a hero in any way—he sure as hell didn’t—but because he was a human being and it was his world too. Magneto could kiss his butt, as far as Cain was concerned.
Truth be told, he thought it was pretty cool. Like something out of an old Western flick. Not to mention that the Grey woman and Rogue were both totally delicious-looking company. At the end of the day, he’d be just as happy to kick the crap out of the X-Men all over again, but for the moment....
And the very best part of all, the thing that
had clinched it for him, even beyond his determination not to bow to Magneto, was the fact that Charles Xavier, his hated stepbrother, was the founder and benefactor of the X-Men.
Knowing his precious soldiers were heading into battle side by side with the Juggernaut would really get under his skin. Cain loved that. Even if he and the X-Men got their heads
handed to them by the Sentinels, it would be worth it.
Far ahead, he could see the Empire State Building jutting up out of the jagged skyline, dwarfing anything around it. It wouldn’t be long now.
“Shouldn’t we be, I don’t know, a little less conspicuous at this point?” he asked. “I mean, the OK Corral has a kind of glamorous history to it, but the odds there were a little more even, y’know.”
“What are you saying, Juggernaut?” Cyclops asked.
“I guess what I want to know is, do you have a plan, or are we just going to waltz in and stomp heads until we end up getting stomped, then it’s game over?” the Juggernaut explained.
“Both,” Rogue said, and smiled.
“Huh?”
“We don’t stand a chance without the other X-Men, Cain,” Jean Grey said. “Even with you on our side. Now, if we can’t get them out, we’re going to have to go it alone. But that’s the last resort.”
“Has it occurred to you people that, if we don’t stand a chance of winning, we don’t stand a chance of getting in to free your buddies anyway?” Cain asked.
“Not true,” Cyclops said. “We have one chance. We lose.”
Cain stared at Scott Summers.
“You mean, like, on purpose?” he asked.
“You just said we didn’t have a chance of winning, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get in. If we’re going to lose anyway, let’s put that to our advantage,” Cyclops said.
Before the Juggernaut could protest, Jean spoke up.
“If they’re using inhibitor collars, which is highly likely, considering Magneto’s past tactics, that won’t work for you because you’re not a mutant. And since each collar is calibrated for the individual mutant, I can psionically confuse our captors so that we’re given the wrong collars,” she said.
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