X-Men

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  He stopped, hands on his hips, daring her to say something. She had never seen him like this before. His visor was almost a bright red. Luckily he knew perfectly how to contain his power, especially during times like this. The alternative would be disastrous.

  “You want to talk about it?” she asked, keeping her voice low so they wouldn’t awake anyone in the rooms nearby.

  “Not really,” he said.

  “Jealous of Logan, huh?” she asked, taking a chance.

  Her words seemed to snap his head back as if she’d hit him.

  “So,” she said, pushing, “someone in your past had a problem with jealousy, huh?”

  “None of your damn business,” Scott said, keeping his voice low, but very cold and forceful. “And I’m not jealous. I just hate how Logan puts everything we’ve worked for at risk.”

  “So,” Storm said, “what would you do? Throw him out on the street like—”

  “Yes,” Scott said, adjusting his visor. “I would. He’s hurt Jean, and now Rogue.”

  “He didn’t mean to,” Storm countered.

  “You tell yourself whatever you want,” Cyclops said, “but the truth is this: We have a school here, filled with children. We’re not ready to deal with this sort of—”

  Now he had gotten her angry. And he wasn’t going to get away with it. “Scott, this has nothing to do with the children, and you know it.”

  Cyclops shook his head, the strength in her words surprising him.

  “Frankly,” Storm said, pressing on and giving him no chance to say anything, “I am amazed that you would even put the children between yourself and the truth.”

  “You really think this is about Jean?” Cyclops said.

  “Yes, I do,” Storm said.

  Cyclops took a deep breath and stared at her. His voice was still low and cold, and downright mean. “Jean can do whatever she wants. I am not in charge of her and have no desire to be in charge of her. How dare you even imply that I am.”

  At that, he turned and walked toward his and Jean’s room.

  “Scott, for God’s sake . . .”

  He stopped and looked back at her. “You saw what happened, Storm. Whatever else I may feel personally doesn’t matter. Magneto is coming. And people are going to die.”

  With that, he stepped into his room. His door closed with a solid thump.

  Storm forced herself to take a few deep breaths. That hadn’t been productive. She and Scott had had discussions in the past, and disagreements, but never an argument like this one.

  She glanced back at Logan’s door. Maybe Scott was right. Logan was hurting them in many, many ways. And this argument was just a small example.

  What would be next? Who would be next?

  Jean stood behind Professor Xavier, a good number of feet back from Logan’s bed. The professor had said he was going to try to wake Logan up, to check if he was all right. He had told Scott to leave and had asked her to stay as backup. Clearly Scott hadn’t liked that.

  She would deal with one problem at a time.

  “Ready?” the professor asked.

  “When you are,” she said.

  You are perfectly safe now.

  The professor was allowing her to hear what he was thinking.

  Logan stirred and moaned, twisting on his bed like a child in the throes of a bad dream.

  I want you to stay calm, and tell me if you understand what I’m saying.

  Logan opened his eyes slowly and again moaned, reaching up and touching his head.

  Do you understand me?

  “Would you get the hell out of my head, cue ball!” Logan snarled.

  Jean laughed, relieved. She could tell that the professor was also very pleased.

  “Well,” Professor Xavier said out loud, “I’d say you are recovering nicely.”

  The professor moved up closer to the bed, and Jean moved over and sat at the foot.

  “How’s Rogue? Is she okay? And what did she do to me?” Logan asked, holding his head. “I feel as if I’ve been on a ten-day bender.”

  “She borrowed your power,” Jean said.

  “Pardon me?” Logan responded, blinking at her. It was as if he was trying to focus his eyes.

  “Rogue is like a conductor,” the professor explained. “Any physical contact can cause unconsciousness, seizures, and even death to the one she touches.”

  “Not a fun mutation,” Logan said. “And I’ve seen it at work before.”

  “It is not,” the professor agreed. “With mutants, she’s able to take on their gifts for a short time.”

  “In this case,” Jean said, “your ability to heal.”

  “Well,” Logan said, still holding his head with one hand, as if it might just fall apart if he let go. “It felt like she almost killed me.”

  “If she had held on any longer,” the professor said, “she might have.”

  The professor glanced over at Jean, then back at Logan. “You should get some sleep now.”

  The professor turned and wheeled his chair out into the hallway. Jean stood and moved to stand beside Logan where he lay on the bed. “You need something, you shout.”

  Logan took her hand. His own hand was rough, hard, yet part of her didn’t want him to let go.

  “You know,” he said, “I’d sleep better if you stayed with me.”

  She laughed and pulled away. “Somehow I doubt that, Logan.”

  “Yeah, so do I,” Logan admitted.

  “Good night, Logan,” she said as she pulled his door closed.

  She took a deep breath to settle her nerves, then headed for her room. Now all she had to do was get Scott calmed down and just maybe she could get some sleep. Maybe.

  Chapter Eleven

  Magneto’s Headquarters

  Senator Kelly sat on the floor against the cold stone, wondering what to do, where to go, what was going to happen to him next.

  He couldn’t believe how much had changed in the last twelve hours. It almost seemed like a lifetime ago that he had climbed into the government helicopter, enjoying the fruits of his position. His public image had been rising in the polls, and the Mutant Registration Act was going to garner him a lot more free air time before it was finished.

  Now this mutant—this Magneto—had done something to him. Something horrible that Kelly couldn’t quite figure out yet. But he knew his body had changed. He could feel it. He seemed to be sweating all the time, even though he wasn’t hot at all.

  He stood and moved over to the cell’s only window. The entire cell, including the window, had been cut out of the rock cliff face. Thick bars were implanted in the stone. The bars were just set close enough that when he leaned forward to stare at the ocean pounding on the rocks far below, he couldn’t get his head through.

  The door to the cell was set in the opposite wall, and it was also barred. The path to his cell wound around a far cliff wall, to a long walkway that was now retracted, leaving the cell without an exit.

  He tried to think, make himself understand that he was being held hostage. He had to be thinking all the time; he had to stay on his toes, keep Magneto and his other mutant friends always wary of him. And he also had to find out what the machine had done to him.

  He glanced down at his pants, and the shirt under his jacket. They were wet. His skin was wet. Yet he felt all right. Just tired. What was Magneto doing to him?

  Why?

  He tugged on one of the window’s bars, then another, hoping that one of them might be loose. They weren’t, and he knew he could never chip the base of one of them out of the stone—certainly not in time to help.

  And even if he did somehow manage it, where would he go?

  He pushed his face between two bars in frustration, desperately trying to look out and down, to see what lay below.

  Suddenly it felt as if his skull cracked and got smaller. His head went a little farther between the bars.

  He yanked back, shocked. He grabbed his head on both sides, feeling to see if somet
hing was wrong. If he had hurt himself.

  What in the hell had just happened?

  He could feel his head slowly expand back out in his hands, until it was a normal shape again.

  “Okay,” Kelly said aloud, his heart pounding, his breath coming in pants as he fought to keep himself under control. “There has to be a perfectly logical explanation.”

  He couldn’t think of one.

  He stepped back up to the bars and once again carefully leaned his head between two of them, letting the cold steel rub his forehead just outside his eyes.

  Nothing.

  Water dripped off his head. His hands. Everywhere. He leaned a little harder against the bars.

  This time he could feel his head sort of scrunch up.

  He pushed harder and harder, expecting it to hurt at any moment, until his head was halfway through the bars, with the steel rubbing both his ears. The process had made a loud crunching sound in his ears, and he could feel the motion, but it didn’t seem painful at all.

  He yanked back again, leaving wet marks on the bars.

  Quickly his head returned to its normal size like a balloon filling with air.

  He was losing his mind!

  This couldn’t be happening to him!

  He kicked off his shoes and pulled off his soaked socks. Both shoes had standing water in them. Without the shoes he walked around the cell, trying to think, his bare feet leaving wet footprints on the rock floor.

  Nothing made sense. Magneto had kidnapped him and had done something to him.

  That much was clear.

  But how could his head scrunch down enough to get between those bars, yet not hurt him?

  Suddenly, across the gap outside the main door, Kelly heard footsteps on the stone. Someone was coming up the path to his cell.

  He moved back over to the window. Then, out of pure desperation, he leaned forward and pressed his head between the bars.

  It went more easily this time, and before he knew it, his head was through. Below he could see the water pounding the rocks. The fall would kill him, he was sure. But he had to get out of the cell, give himself some more time before Magneto took him.

  Kelly turned his shoulder and, with both hands on the stone ledge, tried to pull his body through.

  For an instant it wouldn’t fit, then he heard the crunching as his shoulders and his rib cage collapsed, and he pulled himself through the small opening between the bars. He was halfway there.

  Far, far below, the crashing waves shoved water into the air. There was a slight ledge just under the windowsill that seemed to go around the cliff for a short distance.

  He pulled his hips through the small opening, feeling the bones smash down, then feeling them expand back to normal size as soon as the pressure was off.

  This wasn’t really happening to him.

  From the pathway, he heard the extension ramp start across toward his cell door. He didn’t have any more time. With speed born of desperation, he turned around on the rock windowsill and lowered himself down to the thin ledge. He’d never done anything like this before. His heart was pounding so hard he thought it was going to burst out of his chest.

  He had read where people in stressful situations often did things they would never dream of doing under normal conditions. Well, this certainly qualified.

  As the ramp stopped, the sound rang through the cell so loudly it made Kelly freeze. Then, as the lock clicked, Kelly tried to move to his right along the thin rock ledge, grasping for any handhold to get himself away from the window. But with his fingers and hands so wet, it felt as if he were holding on to a wall of ice.

  “How are we feeling, Senator?” Magneto asked as the cell door swung open with a clank. “Advanced, I hope? Senator?”

  There was a very long pause. Kelly tried to hold his breath, hoping they wouldn’t look out here.

  Suddenly, over his head, the steel bars of the window were ripped inward, pulled out of the stone as if it were putty.

  A moment later Magneto stuck his head out and smiled. “Senator, did you actually squeeze through these bars? That is very impressive.”

  Kelly was barely holding on. His hands were wet, his feet slick on the stone. “What have you done to me?” he croaked.

  “Senator,” Magneto said, “this is pointless. Where would you go? Who would take you in now that you are one of us?”

  Kelly couldn’t believe what he had just heard. Magneto had referred to him as one of them.

  A mutant!

  Then, in a flash, he understood.

  “You changed me into a mutant?” Kelly asked in horror.

  Magneto smiled. “Of course. What did you think I was doing to you?”

  Then Magneto moved back out of the window and Kelly heard him say, as if in a faraway dream, “Sabretooth, get the senator off that ledge.”

  A moment later an ugly face thrust out the window, and a clawlike hand reached for him.

  Kelly, at that moment, no longer cared. He had become his worst nightmare. He had become the very thing that he hated most.

  He pushed back away from the stone even as Sabretooth grabbed his hand and coat.

  But Kelly felt his hand crunch down into something so small and slick that Sabretooth couldn’t hold on.

  And then, looking back into the face of the monster with yellow hair, Kelly fell toward the water below.

  It was a very, very long fall.

  Chapter Twelve

  X-Men Mansion

  This time the nightmare didn’t carry Logan all the way down into the pain and the cutting. He came awake, almost wide awake, staring at the ceiling. He had been sweating, and the sheets were soaking wet. It took him a moment to remember exactly where he was.

  Then he remembered.

  Remembered what had happened last night with Rogue.

  Remembered the feeling of death.

  A noise snapped his head toward the door. A strange-looking kid was peeking inside. His eyes grew wide when he saw Logan turn. The kid made a little squeaking noise that sounded like “Sorry,” and then ducked out, pulling the door shut behind him.

  Logan laughed. Then he rubbed his face and head, hard, trying to shake the sensations, the memory of what had happened with Rogue. And what he had felt when she touched him.

  Then he realized he didn’t want to lose that memory. In fact, it just might be one of the more important things that had ever happened to him.

  For the next thirty minutes he lay there, thinking.

  Remembering.

  Even though she wasn’t hungry, Rogue had a small tray of food: a sandwich, a banana, and some milk. The day had turned beautiful, almost springlike in its warmth. Four of the other kids, including Kitty, were sitting on a stone wall above the garden, eating and talking. She knew, after how all the kids had treated her this morning, that she didn’t dare try to go sit with them.

  Or with anyone else for that matter. She was back to being alone. As alone as she had been hitchhiking. And for the same reason. Her curse.

  Her problem.

  Or as they called it here, her power.

  She walked past the group on the wall, looking for a place to sit in the garden. But no space was open. Behind her she could hear a few of the kids whispering loudly. She knew they were whispering about her.

  She moved out of the garden and toward the basketball court. Some of the older kids were playing a pickup game. Jubilee stood to one side with four others. She looked up and saw Rogue, then turned away, making it very clear that Rogue couldn’t join them.

  Yesterday they had all been so friendly. Today they hated her. Feared her. Just as her friends and family at home had feared her.

  Rogue moved away from the game, down a path leading into the woods. There she found a small stone bench and sat, putting the tray beside her. She could feel the tears trying to come up, but she wouldn’t let them.

  “Get a grip!” she said firmly to herself. She had been alone before; she could be alone again. She knew she w
asn’t going to be cured. She had better get used to this, and do it now.

  “Rogue?”

  She spun around to see Bobby moving up the path through the trees toward her. She turned back to her food, pretending to be interested in it.

  “Rogue,” Bobby said, “what did you do?”

  He had stopped and was actually talking to her. The first one all day.

  “I didn’t mean to touch him,” Rogue said. Her resolve slipped, and the tears started to come. “I didn’t know what to do.”

  “They’re saying you steal other mutants’ powers,” Bobby said, standing a few feet away, as if she had some terrible disease.

  “That’s not true,” Rogue said. “I mean, not really—”

  “You don’t ever use your power against another mutant,” Bobby said forcefully. Accusingly.

  “But I had no choice,” she said weakly. She knew she had had a choice. She could have died. And at the moment, she knew that that would have been the better choice.

  “If I were you,” Bobby said, stepping away even farther, “I’d get myself out of here.”

  She looked up at the fear in his eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the students are all freaked,” he said. “So am I. And Professor Xavier is furious. I don’t know what he’ll do with you. I just think it would be easier for you on your own.”

  Rogue just couldn’t stop the tears now. She sat there sobbing as Bobby slowly backed away.

  “Rogue,” Bobby said before he turned. “You really should go.”

  He turned his back on her and walked toward the sounds of the basketball game. The kids there were laughing and shouting and having fun.

  She knew that that wasn’t going to be something she would ever be allowed to do again. Just as she had done at home, she had to leave. For her own best interests, and for everyone around her.

  She forced herself to stop crying. She couldn’t afford to cry anymore.

  She picked up the banana and put it in her pocket. Then she took a large bite out of the sandwich, even though she still wasn’t hungry. No telling when she would get anything to eat again.

  Then she stood, and without a look back, headed down the path into the woods, drinking the milk as she walked.