He had been interviewed by news organizations he never knew existed, by everyone and anyone with a camera and a microphone, and he had issued the same call for rational behavior, the same message of peace, each time. Frankly, he was becoming tired of being a spin doctor. And simply tired. It had been too long since Charles Xavier had rested. But his X-Men had not had any more sleep than he. Nor had Valerie Cooper. And so he went on. They all went on.
Xavier sensed Cooper’s approach a moment before she reached him, and turned to face her. He could see from the grim set of her jaw and the coldness of her eyes that she brought more bad news.
“What is it now, Val?” he asked, exasperated. “Are we officially at war yet?”
Cooper tilted her head to one side, regarding him with a surprised look.
“You don’t sound like yourself, Charles,” Val said. “You’re ruining the image I have of you as eternal optimist.”
Xavier offered a slight smile in appreciation, and nodded his head.
“You know, Val, that’s one of the biggest misconceptions about me,” he said. “I’m actually a terrible pessimist. I don’t believe that humans and mutants are such good souls that they can live in harmony simply because it is the best way to live. That just isn’t reality. I dream of a world where humans and mutants live in harmony, that much is true. But I know that if it happens, it will be because the alternative is so terrifying that we have no other real choice.”
Cooper was visibly stunned. Xavier understood her reaction. He was rarely so verbose without cause, and even more infrequently so bitter. But he found it difficult not to become bitter with the gleaming Sentinel just over his shoulder as an illustration of how close they already were to losing the dream. And maybe he had lied a bit. Maybe a part of him believed in the innate goodness of people, believed that peace could arise for its own sake. Even if that were true, a greater part of him had begun to grow cynical.
He didn’t like it one bit.
“What was it you wanted, Val?” Xavier asked, attempting with his demeanor to erase the previous minute. And failing.
“Well, to answer your question, we’re not at war yet,” Cooper answered, running a nervous hand through her blond hair. “But it’s getting close. I don’t have all the details, but apparently Gyrich did just as we suspected. He sent a team in.”
“And they failed,” Xavier observed.
“He just came out of a meeting with Colonel Tomko,” she continued. “They were on the line with the President and the Director of Wideawake, but they’ve cut me out of the loop. That means that they’re close, that they’re really considering going in full force. If Gyrich has his way, that’s just how they’ll do it.”
Xavier raised an eyebrow.
“I know what you want, Valerie, and I cannot do it. I won’t compromise myself like that.”
Cooper flushed, seemed about to speak and then bit back her words. After a moment, she turned to leave, then stopped with her back to Xavier.
“No!” she said finally, turning and angrily advancing on the Professor where he sat in his wheelchair. “I never thought I’d say this but I don’t think you understand exactly where we are, Professor. And with all you’ve done in this fight for harmony, with all you’ve sacrificed, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you’re being a very selfish man.”
“You forget yourself, Ms. Cooper,” Xavier said coldly.
“No, Charles,” she snapped. “I’m afraid it is you who forgets himself. Everything you have fought for, your entire life, and everything you believe in, is wrapped up in what you do today, right now, to resolve this crisis. If we can stop this without full-scale military assault, people will still hate mutants more because of what Magneto had done. But there will still be a battle to be fought, still a chance for your dream to come true.
“If we have a civil war here today, you will have lost that dream forever. The people will never forgive. Before you worry about compromising yourself, why don’t you think about what you are compromising by not using your every ability in this struggle.”
At that, Cooper turned and stormed away without a look back at Xavier. Charles flinched, not merely at the harshness of her tone, but at the ring of truth he suspected lay therein. Her words resonated within him. If they could avoid using military might, avoid Gyrich’s method of dealing with the situation, that would save lives. And Val’s description of the long-term effects, he was forced to admit, sounded accurate. If they could avoid military conflict, the public would remain split on the mutant question. There was still hope.
Without hope, they would be lost.
That was the deciding factor, then. Suddenly Xavier realized that, argue the issue as vehemently as he might have, he had never really had a choice in the matter.
Instantly, he let down the walls that kept the rest of the world’s thoughts from his own mind. Before the torrent of babbled words could flood into him, Xavier focused his psi power into a mental net, which he cast out over the people gathered in Exchange Place. He sifted through them like a prospector sifting for gold, but he sought something much darker: the mind of Henry Peter Gyrich. It took him only a moment to pinpoint it.
Xavier hesitated. What he was about to do was an invasion of privacy of the highest order. It violated every tenet of his belief system. There had been times he had entered the minds of others without their consent, but with few exceptions, it had always been done in the best interest of the violated party. That was not the case here. No, instead, Xavier was about to cast himself in the role of the common thief.
Though his mind was, quite literally, wandering, his eyes were still focused on the here and now, in case anyone should approach him. Slowly, he wheeled his chair around to stare across the river, for perhaps the hundredth time that day, at the Sentinel that stood there symbolizing everything he had fought for, and against.
He hesitated no longer. It was the only way. Xavier reached out to Gyrich’s mind with his psi power once again, and this time he entered. He would do his best not to give attention to anything but the information he specifically sought, but it would be difficult not to come away with anything else.
Then he hit a barrier, a psychic shield erected by some mercenary psi employed by the federal government to protect their top agents from precisely the kind of mind-theft Xavier was currently perpetrating. For most telepaths, it would have been enough. It might even have stopped Jean Grey. But Charles Xavier had the most powerful mind in the world. The mental barrier fell beneath the force of his probe in seconds.
Without desiring to, he began to get a much clearer picture of Gyrich as a person. As he had suspected, the man was not nearly the villain Cooper always painted him as. And yet, he was perhaps even more dangerous because he fought for what he believed to be right. Patriots were always more passionate than mercenaries. The greedy were never martyrs.
Pushing away everything but the information he had entered Gyrich’s mind to find, Xavier moved on. Several minutes passed, for the information was buried very deep. Finally, though, he discovered everything Gyrich knew about Operation: Wideawake. Xavier concentrated on the override codes for the Alpha Sentinel. With a last, fleeting, thought of regret, he extracted the codes.
Gyrich would never know they had been stolen.
* * *
“I don’t get it, Amelia,” Needle asked. “I mean, Wolverine is, like, this great tracker and stuff. How does Magneto expect us to find him in a city as big as this?”
Amelia Voght kept moving at a good clip, with Needle at her side and the Kleinstock brothers bringing up the rear. Senyaka was on point about twenty-five yards ahead.
Needle was new to the game, Voght realized. Not much more than a kid, really, a young woman whose genetic mutation had destroyed any hope she might have had of a normal life. Unlike Amelia, who could ‘pass’ for human without any trouble, Needle had changed far too much to ever be considered human again. Her mouth had distended slightly, and was filled with several rows of lo
ng, thin, razor sharp teeth like needles. They seemed to extend when she opened her mouth, and retract within the girl’s head when her mouth closed.
It was not an attractive mutation. She had been bitter, angry, despondent. Then Magneto had come along and shown her that the world had a place for her, that she was as good, no, better, than the humans who had ridiculed her. As part of her mutation, Needle had become more savage. But as Voght considered it, she wondered if that had been more of an environmental change than a genetic one.
In any case, she was the perfect recruit. In it one hundred percent, with nothing to lose and everything to gain. She also illustrated, for Amelia, one of the prime differences in the conflicting philosophies in the mutant community. Charles Xavier touted harmony between the two races. Magneto spoke of conquest. What Xavier would never understand was that, like abused children, mutants like Needle would never be able to rise completely above the past. They could forgive, if they had the heart for it, but they would never forget.
Harmony, for Needle, was out of the question. And if it was out of reach for some mutants, it was out of reach for them all.
“Amelia?” Needle asked tentatively.
“Sorry, I heard you,” Voght responded. “Just thinking for a moment. Back to Wolverine, though. What do you know about him?”
“He’s the best there is, and the meanest,” Needle said. “That’s what I’ve always heard.”
“And it’s true,” Voght agreed. “Which means that Wolverine isn’t afraid of us. Sure, with the five of us against him, he isn’t likely to win. But it’s possible. He’s not afraid of us at all.”
“I get it, but I don’t get why you’re so sure we’ll catch him,” Needle said. “We’re headed straight for the Lincoln Tunnel, as if he’d make a beeline for the closest escape without even trying to cover his tracks.”
“I’m betting that’s just what he’ll do,” Voght said. “Magneto was too, otherwise he never would have sent us out after him. That’s my point, exactly. He just isn’t afraid of us at all. He’s running, but not running scared. He’ll go for the quickest way out, because he wants to get reinforcements as quickly as possible.”
“Oh,” Needle said softly. “So he expects us to catch up with him?”
Voght smiled thinly, letting the irony of the hunt, the danger of it, seep through.
“Actually,” she said, “I expect he wants us to catch up with him. Magneto and the Sentinels are our ace in the hole. Out here, it’s just us. If Wolverine can take us down, it improves the odds when he makes it back with the cavalry, if there is a cavalry.”
Needle slowed a bit, prompting curses from the Kleinstocks.
“What is it?” Voght asked.
“Nothing, really,” Needle said unconvincingly. “It’s just that, all of a sudden, I’m not sure I want to catch up with him.”
“Ah,” Voght said. “Now you understand.”
They continued west for three more blocks, until Voght thought they might have gained some ground. The next time Senyaka looked back, she signaled him to stop. He waited for them to catch up, and Voght addressed the others.
“Here’s where it gets interesting,” she said. “We’re hunting one of the world’s foremost predators. We’d be safer staying together, but we don’t stand much of a chance of catching him that way. We’re going to have to split up, spread out …”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Needle hissed. Voght smiled.
“Harlan, two streets north, Sven one,” she ordered. “I’ll stick with this one. Needle one street south, Senyaka two. Move as fast as you can, but stick close to the buildings. Use whatever stealth you can muster, but not so much that you waste time. We’re just trying to spook him from the brush now, get him out in the open where we can take our best shot at him. If you see him before he sees you, find your nearest teammate. If you have to engage him, shout an alarm as loud as you’re able.
“If we do our job right, what we’re doing is herding him toward the tunnel, which is where he’s going anyway. We’ll narrow the field and take him long before he can get there. One way or another, we’ll stop him.”
“Yeah, I know just how to stop him,” Sven Kleinstock bragged, overflowing with machismo, and Voght was reminded why she felt such strong dislike for the Kleinstock brothers.
“Just follow orders,” she insisted. “You try to take Wolverine on by yourself, you’re going to find yourself sorely disappointed. In fact, you’re likely to find yourself dead. You’re no good to Magneto or to Haven with your throat cut. Understood?”
Senyaka and Needle nodded their assent, but the Kleinstocks looked at one another like mischievous schoolboys, then turned back to glare at Voght, eyes dimly unintelligent yet glaring with anger. If it ever came to a power struggle between herself and Unuscione, she knew which side the brothers would be on. She knew to watch her back. Voght counted herself fortunate that their loyalty to Magneto and their thirst for Wolverine’s blood were far more powerful than their opposition to her leadership.
But the Kleinstocks were fortunate as well.
Magneto would be very displeased if she were forced to teleport their heads away from their necks.
Which, now that it had occurred to her, did not sound all that bad.
SIXTEEN
AS many times as Hank McCoy had heard people refer to Times Square as garish, gaudy, or tacky, he had never once believed it himself. Certainly it called up many different images, of hit Broadway shows and darkened pornographic theatres, of Dick Clark on New Year’s Eve, and guys selling imitation Rolex watches for fifty dollars.
It was a spectacle, he couldn’t deny that. From the place on the platform where he was captive, on display for the gathered mutants, he could see it all. The Coca-Cola sign that had hung for years; the gigantic Sony TV screen; the Viacom building that housed MTV; the little glowing sign for Carmine’s, one of his favorite Italian restaurants. A neon nightmare, some might have called it, but Hank McCoy thought of it as the heart of America.
To him it represented the best and worst human society had to offer, built with the blood and sweat of democracy. That it could be so easily taken by a man who, no matter his intentions, was little more than a tyrant repulsed the Beast.
That tyrant stood several feet away in conference with some of his Acolytes as he prepared to address the gathered mutants. Hank could see the fervor in their faces, knew that Magneto would be preaching to the converted, that through his power they had been empowered to conquer and destroy. Perhaps it was hopeless, but he knew he had to try and provide a voice of opposition, of reason and logic, of humanity.
Even as he considered that obligation, he glanced to the edge of the platform, where Trish Tilby stood in front of a TV camera, doing her job. That’s what he kept telling himself, she was doing her job. She was free, not shackled in any way, and yet if Magneto wanted to keep her there, Trish would not have been able to escape. Hank tried to convince himself that was it, that Trish was a prisoner but not a captive, that Magneto had forced her to document his triumph. It made a strange sort of sense, knowing Magneto. And knowing Trish, if that were the case, she wouldn’t even try to escape. She’d rather stay and get the story.
On the other hand, it was also possible that she’d just waltzed in and asked Magneto for an exclusive. The Beast could easily see where Magneto would have said yes. Neither solution to the riddle of Trish’s presence was comforting.
In any case, he no longer had to worry about whether or not he was playing to the cameras. In one sense, he was. But he knew Magneto might very well edit out whatever he might say or do and Hank was determined to do it anyway. Someone had to stand up to Magneto. Someone had to speak the truth.
“Look around you!” he said, as loud as he was able without shouting, and with all the calm he could muster. “Look at the world you have driven to its knees, the society you have brought down. Maybe you’re proud of yourselves. Yes? Well, you should be ashamed!”
“What the he
ll is this?” Unuscione shouted as she, the other Acolytes, and Magneto spun to stare at the Beast in astonishment.
“Gag him!” Unuscione ordered, but Magneto held up a hand.
“I give the orders here, Unuscione, not you.” Magneto walked to where the Beast was restrained. He tilted his head to one side and looked at Hank curiously, with all the detached interest of a scientist. Hank knew the look well, it was one he had worn often enough. But that was in a laboratory. This was real life.
“Please, Dr. McCoy,” Magneto said, a warmth and smoothness in his voice that made him seem almost reasonable. “Do go on.”
The Beast’s tufted furry eyebrows rose, but he was not about to let the opportunity go to waste.
“I speak to you now because, more than most of my comrades, I know your pain,” he told the crowd. “Those of you who are too different to fit in, too different to hide in the throng of humanity. I know what it is to be called a freak. I know how it feels to be hounded, to have your life threatened simply because you were born different, because you look different.
“But we are not the first minority to be treated thus. The sad truth is, we are not likely to be the last. And all along, armed conflict has been a less effective tool than time, tolerance, and reason.”
“Ah, shut yer yap, ya furball!” the Blob shouted from the crowd, laughing at his own crassness.
“You should know what I’m talking about more than most, Fred,” he said. “You were a carny sideshow freak, a spectacle that so-called normal humans paid money to laugh at. The X-Men offered you a place beside us, a chance to work for peace and understanding between humans and mutants, and you rejected us. Just as you all are rejecting that brightest of all possible futures by standing here today.
“Eric Magnus Lehnsherr, the man you know as Magneto, is not an evil man, and that has ever been the greatest difficulty we have faced in battling him. It is easy to call him a hero or a martyr, because he is willing to sacrifice everything, has already sacrificed much, to offer a safe haven to mutants.”
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