As a child, she had been an orphan thief in Cairo, Egypt. The city was stifling, heat and humanity pressing in from all sides. Though the sky was blue above, she had never felt comfortable there. As a young woman, she had come into her mutant abilities and ventured out over the verdant African plains. The people of the plains called her Wind-Rider, and when she brought the rain, they began to call her goddess.
Goddess.
Soaring the skies by azure day and sable night, she grew into the role, became protective of her people. From a ragged, barely noticed street urchin, she had grown into the focus of an entire people. Yet still she was blind to the world and its problems, fortunate enough to be innocent. Until Charles Xavier arrived to recruit her. He opened her eyes, then, and try as she might, she had never been able to close them again. When Ororo became Storm, she started on a road that would give her a hard, jaded edge.
But inside she was still the little street thief. Inside she was still the Wind-Rider. Inside she was still the goddess of the plain. Still innocent. That was where she retreated with the flow of memories. Somewhere neither Magneto nor her claustrophobia could ever hurt her, at least until panic overwhelmed her again.
And just as she had arrived there, at a kind of tenuous peace, the metal sheet wrapped around her began to shriek as it was peeled away from her body. Harsh sunlight rushed in, and Storm lifted her hand—she was able to lift her hand!—to block out the sun. She blinked several times, trying to force her eyes to adjust. Someone was leaning over her, though she could not quite make out who. She didn’t have to. She knew his voice well enough.
“I’m so very sorry, Ororo,” Magneto said with apparent sincerity. “I know how terrible this must have been for you, but it was all I could think to do in order to expedite matters. I hope you understand.”
“You’ve made a grave error, Magneto,” she said, even as he lifted her from her premature tomb. “The world will not allow you to go on unchallenged. If you’d picked some deserted island, a frozen tundra or desert wasteland, perhaps they would not have bothered with you. But there’s no way you can simply appropriate one of the largest and most important cities in the world.”
“It’s just the beginning,” Magneto said proudly, and now she could see him clearly, white mane gleaming in the sunshine, looking as regal as he hoped to be.
“Restrain her,” he said.
After the time she’d spent confined, Storm was still somewhat disoriented and unable to focus quickly enough to defend herself. Before she even realized what was being done, metal alloy clamps had been placed over her hands and wrists, and a similar collar around her neck. The restraints not only held her body in check, but cut off access to her mutant ability. It was not the first time Magneto had used such technology on the X-Men, but Storm silently vowed that it would be the last.
“What are we now, Magneto, pets to keep you company?” she asked, and though her voice seethed with sarcasm, a part of her was sincere.
“Nothing of the kind,” he replied, feigning shock. “No, Ororo, though I hope one day you will be converts, for now you are witnesses to the creation of Haven, the mutant empire. And, of course, you will also serve as excellent teaching tools, examples to show that Magneto cannot be defeated. A kind of ornamentation if you will.”
“You are as vile as Wolverine has always insisted,” she spat.
“You’ll never know how sorry I am that you feel that way,” Magneto said gravely. “I hope one day you will see that I have offered you what Xavier never could, freedom. I offer you brotherhood, a homeland where you are loved and embraced instead of hated and feared. Today I am a terrible villain in your eyes. But mark my words, Ororo, there will come a day when you and all the X-Men will hail me as a hero.”
Storm breathed deeply, truly feeling her freedom from confinement for the first time, shaking off the terrors of her claustrophobia. She looked away from Magneto a moment, considering his words not for their value but for their delusion. It was a beautiful day, and Storm felt as if something had been stolen from her because she could not enjoy it.
“I want what you offer, Magneto,” she said honestly, looking once more at his face, into his steel gray eyes. “I want it more than I have ever yearned for anything.”
Magneto seemed surprised at first, and then pleased. Finally, his eyes narrowed. For he knew Storm, knew the X-Men, all too well.
“But the price you ask is far too high,” she continued. “I am not willing to sacrifice so much of what I believe. The ethical fight is, in many ways, far more important than the physical one. For the moment, you have won the latter. But the former you lost decades ago. Thus, in effect, you cannot win.”
A cloud seemed to pass over Magneto’s face. Ororo knew she had angered him with the truth, and it felt good.
“You are mistaken, Wind-Rider,” Magneto said, his animosity revealing itself. “Look around you, Storm. I have already won. It is over. Xavier’s dream has been defeated forevermore.”
Magneto spread his arms wide, and Storm turned fully around for the first time. She was astounded and appalled by what she saw. They stood on a thrown together platform, as if at a political rally, at the center of Times Square. Filling the street for blocks in every direction, packed tight shoulder to shoulder, were people. Magneto’s people. Mutants.
Storm saw many she recognized, but far more she did not.
“Goddess,” she whispered to herself. “Where have they all come from?”
“From fear, from hiding,” Magneto answered from behind her. “I have drawn them out of their terror, given them freedom, given them life. They have traveled here, are even now traveling here from around the world. They are the citizens of Haven. They are our long-suffering brothers and sisters, now vindicated. They are the hope for the future. Now do you see what I have done?”
Storm scanned the crowd, still stunned. There had to be many hundreds, perhaps a thousand already. And it was only the beginning. If Magneto was correct, there would soon be tens of thousands of mutants in Manhattan. At that point, it might be too late to reverse what the madman had begun.
To her left, Bishop and the Beast stood, trussed as she was, the object of ridicule from many in the audience. Several of the Marauders they had faced the night before were there. The Blob and Pyro were also in the crowd, but the Toad was nowhere in sight, apparently too badly wounded to appear. On stage near the X-Men were several of the Acolytes.
Where were the others? Storm wondered.
Then it hit her. Wolverine was not here. Magneto must have sent them out after him. That was when hope began to bloom in Storm’s heart. As long as Logan was free, she knew that victory was still within their grasp. Someway, somehow, they would find a way to stop Magneto’s mad dream before it tore the world apart.
* * *
THE Beast was despondent. Iceman had been ambushed, might even have been … but no, he dared not even think it. In any case, Bobby would be no help to them for the moment. Wolverine had escaped, but was likely to be heading out of Manhattan. Even if he made it, and found help, Hank wondered if Logan could make it back in time.
And after all, what help was there? The military would be of little or no assistance. Unless Scott and the others had returned from Hala, or X-Factor had made it back from Genosha in time, they were on their own. That was how he’d have to play it. He would have to assume they were on their own, that they could not expect help from any quarter.
The gears of his mind began to click, turning their predicament over, trying to find a way not only to escape, but to take Magneto out of play simultaneously. Hank did not expect to find an answer, but it was not in his nature to surrender. He was considered among the most brilliant minds the United States had produced in the twentieth century. He wasn’t going to give up just because some fascist mutants had tied his hands.
Searching for inspiration, he scanned the crowd, the street, the buildings around him. Inevitably, he thought of King Kong, who had scaled the building jus
t to find some private time with the woman he loved, and died for his trouble. Stupid ape. Granted, that was fiction, but unless you could fly, up was never an option for escape.
On the platform behind him, Storm and Magneto argued heatedly. Hank barely paid attention. To his right, Bishop stared out at the gathered mutants, his eyes glassed over with horror. He didn’t move, or speak a word. Bishop wasn’t going to be much help.
Hank looked to his left, checking to see which Acolytes were still there, what the odds were if he managed to get his restraints off. There seemed to be more of them every time he looked. With them were a man with a TV camera, and a slender woman with dark hair and …
“Trish?” he mumbled to himself in wonder.
Trish Tilby had been his girlfriend for a while, before it got to be too much for her. He wasn’t sure if it had been his constant disappearing act when he ran off with the X-Men, or if she just couldn’t handle going out with a mutant, but she had ended it. She claimed she still wanted to be friends, but Hank had heard that before.
Still, the Beast could not help it. He knew they had no future together, but he cared for Trish Tilby deeply. Probably always would.
The woman turned slightly, and Hank saw her in profile for the first time, the glare of the sun not obscuring her features. It was her! Trish. Immediately he assumed that Magneto had taken her captive, that she must have been covering the story and been discovered, along with her cameraman. Now Hank really needed to wrack his brain for a plan. Not only did the X-Men have to escape, and take down Magneto, but they had to get Trish and her friend out as well.
Magneto turned from Storm and stalked across the platform, directly toward Trish. The Beast tensed, planning to at least make a try for Magneto if he did anything to harm Trish. Instead, as soon as Magneto neared them, the cameraman focused his lens on the mutant terrorist and Trish began to ask Magneto questions. She was doing an interview, of all things!
It was almost impossible for Hank to believe. She was not a prisoner of Magneto’s, after all. She had the air of total professionalism about her, just a woman doing her job. It sickened him to even consider that she might be that callous.
Suddenly, Trish looked his way, as if Magneto had made mention of him and indicated that she should do so. She did not try to break loose of the guards, did not rail against Magneto or curse him. Just a pro, doing her job.
“Hank!” she finally saw him. “Hank, it’s me, Trish. Are you okay?”
Their eyes met across the platform, and Magneto turned slightly to observe the exchange. She seemed about to approach, to speak with him, to explain, but Magneto said something to her and she merely looked away. Then the Beast looked away as well. His mind continued to work on the question of victory, but part of him seemed to wander far away for a moment.
“No,” he said, softly enough that Trish could not possibly hear him. “No, I am most definitely not okay.”
That was when Bishop went ballistic.
* * *
DURING the battle with Magneto and his growing number of Acolytes, Bishop had lost consciousness. When he came to, he discovered that his enemies had used the intervening time wisely. He and the Beast were captive, each of them stretched out in a sort of pseudo-crucifixion on large steel struts, set up at cross angles to form, ironically, a huge “X.”
He found that his hands were bound with some kind of metal alloy restraints, and there was a metal collar around his neck that matched. There seemed to be an energy emanating from the restraints, but he could not seem to use his mutant power to absorb it. It finally occurred to him that this might be the hidden secondary, and more valuable, purpose of the restraints. Bishop could almost feel his power draining away.
They had lost.
A crowd of mutants had gathered to listen to Magneto speak. Bishop could see the fervor in their expressions, could feel the excitement in the air. Many of them, he knew, were noncombatant, nonviolent individuals who likely spent their lives trying to hide their genetic mutations. To them, Bishop realized, Magneto must have seemed like some kind of savior, a mutant messiah come down to free them from the hatred and humiliation, the fear and frustration of their lives.
Bishop understood, perhaps far better than the other X-Men. Though he came from a future where the X-Men were legends, where the ideals espoused by Charles Xavier had been perpetuated until they were almost religious doctrine. But like religious doctrine, they were seen by most average people as unattainable and unrealistic. In a world of violence, where self-preservation was the first order of business, harmony seemed as distant as judgment day.
It had been quite a shock for Bishop to be thrust back in time, to meet the X-Men and realize that Xavier’s dream had once seemed so very possible. Violence was part of their lives as well, but their cause was far greater than self-preservation. They had a different code of honor, different dreams, different attitudes. Bishop had adopted these as best he could. But he could never completely abandon the world he had grown up in.
Xavier’s dream meant hope, and the X-Men believed wholeheartedly in that dream. But Bishop came from a time of hopelessness. As he glanced at individual faces among the crowd, he knew he was seeing people who were experiencing the same epiphany he had upon traveling back in time. From a world of hopelessness, they had been given hope.
Though the X-Men were sworn to protect humanity, despite humanity’s obvious fear and hatred of mutants, these poor souls had no such noble goals. Magneto had offered them a home, a better life, a place where they might raise children to be proud of themselves and their heritage. If the cost of all that included war, included conquering humanity, well that was okay. What had humans ever done except ridicule them, hound them until they had to hide from the world?
Without question, there were many in the crowd, some he recognized and some he did not, whose motives were not so benevolent. Many mutants who now followed Magneto had been using their gifts for anarchy, power, and personal gain all along. This was just the latest step in their careers, as the X-Men had already seen with the Marauders.
But the others, those whose hearts were numbed by the world, whose minds had come alive at Magneto’s promise of sanctuary, Bishop could understand them. He could not blame them even a little for anything they did from that point on. But it was also those people that he knew he must appeal to. For despite his intentions, Magneto had likely put mutantkind on the road to armageddon. Bishop had lived in the shadow of that armageddon, and it was his duty to do all he could to prevent it.
“Listen, all of you!” he shouted, vying for their attention with whatever else was happening on the stage. “You must listen. I know that you have been greatly wronged, as have we all. But this is not the way to right those wrongs! By using the Sentinels to achieve his goals, Magneto may have doomed us all!”
Several dozen people, among the hundreds gathered, glanced toward him, then looked away just as quickly. They were ignoring him, unaware of the insight he had to offer, or simply uncaring. Which meant that Magneto had already won. The future that Bishop had vowed to prevent seemed, all at once, to be inevitable. It was not merely going to happen, it was happening. The Sentinels were already in use, and as soon as the government got them back under control, they would be turned on mutants the way their creator intended.
It was over.
“Noooooo!” Bishop screamed in despair. “Listen, I said! You all must listen to me! I have seen the future, I have lived it! Magneto cannot succeed! The Sentinels will be used to destroy him, to destroy the X-Men, to destroy you all! Don’t you understand what he’s done, what you’re doing? I know you only want freedom, but you are bringing about your own terrible destiny! You must fight him, you must show the world that mutants do not have to be feared! And then the Sentinels must be destroyed!”
There was silence for several moments. Somewhere, Bishop heard a bird singing. Overhead, cottony wisps were all that marred the perfect blue summer sky. It was warm enough already that he had begu
n to sweat in his heavy XSE uniform. His heart beat loudly in his ears as he sent a prayer up to a god he was not even sure existed, a hope, a dream, that these people would listen.
Someone in the crowd began to snicker, and one by one, the gathered mutants erupted in a deafening roar of laughter.
All the energy left Bishop. He went slack in his restraints, hanging from the clamps that held his hands. Desperately, he searched for some shred of hope to cling to, and found none.
For the first time, it occurred to him that the only hope of avoiding the catastrophic future might lie with the X-Men’ s greatest enemy. If Magneto were to triumph, were truly to conquer the world for mutants, Bishop’s future would never be.
Yet, who was to say if that future would be any brighter?
* * *
SURGICAL Ops Unit One had not reported in at the assigned time. Operation: Carthage was a failure. Gyrich had no idea what happened to his team, but it didn’t matter. They had been expendable from the beginning, but he had hoped they would be able to achieve their goal before they were decimated by the mutants gathered in New York.
Gyrich sighed. He did not relish the idea of a full-scale attack on Manhattan any more than the next guy; despite Val Cooper’s claims, he was no warmonger. Yet he was, above all, a realist. He was willing to make the tough decisions. He only wished they were his to make. Instead, he would have to begin in earnest his attempts to convince the Secretary and the President that there was no other way.
Every second that passed further jeopardized their chances of success.
There was a knock at his trailer door.
“Who is it?”
“Colonel Tomko, sir.”
Tomko. The same idiot soldier who’d screwed up the Colorado operation. If he’d done his job, none of this would have been happening. But the President did not see it that way. In fact, Gyrich thought the President might have assigned Tomko as some kind of reprimand directed at him, personally. Granted, the man had more experience with mutants than most officers. But …
Marvel Classic Novels--X-Men Page 47
