Marvel Classic Novels--X-Men

by Christopher Golden

  With Lamarre and her brother trailing behind, Gabi continued up the sidewalk next to Miguelito. Their weapons were held at the ready, in case they should be set upon by Magneto’s forces, or human beings who had used Magneto’s conquest as an excuse for vandalism, theft, and chaos.

  They walked in silence for several blocks. Halfway down a side street, Miguelito stopped and pointed.

  “That’s it,” he said.

  “Who are we meeting here, man?” Lamarre asked.

  “What’s that, Lamarre, the fortieth time you’ve asked me that question?” Miguelito responded. “Well, you’re about to find out.”

  It was a bar, a slightly seedy-looking place that was far from being one of the trendy pickup bars that Gabi had frequented before the madness came to New York. This was a place for drinking, not a place for meeting people or socializing.

  A glowing window sign advertised Guinness stout, and above the door, a neon tube spelled out the words TOM’S TAPROOM.

  “Here?” she couldn’t stop herself from asking. “Our big powwow is in here?”

  “Where did you want to do it, Times Square?” Miguelito cracked, then pulled open the door to Tom’s Taproom and entered.

  They descended half a dozen steps and Gabi blinked several times, eyes struggling to adjust to the darkness of the bar. Dark wood, dim lighting, the eternal odors of old beer and cigarette smoke. The man behind the bar, a stout guy with gray hair but a young face, had one hand on the grip of a shotgun that lay on the oak bar.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “We’re not open for business.” “Hey, it’s us who should be sorry,” Miguelito said.

  “Though you are obviously back there ready to serve drinks to somebody, we’re not here to drink. We’re here to help.” The stout man’s eyes narrowed.

  “Miguel?” he asked.

  “Yeah, Tom, it’s me,” Miguelito answered.

  Tom smiled and came around the bar. Miguelito went over, allowed the Taproom’s owner to look him up and down, and then the two men did the last thing Gabi might have expected.

  They hugged.

  “God, it’s good to see you, kid,” Tom said. “Jesus, you grew up fast.”

  “Nah,” Miguelito said. “You just got old, Tommy.”

  Tom turned toward the murky-looking back room of the bar. Fluorescent light burned, and she was fairly certain there were a couple of pool tables back there.

  “Wilson, get on out here,” Tom shouted. “You’ve got visitors.”

  A man appeared from around a partition that screened much of the back room off from the rest of the bar. He was stocky and dangerous looking, Latino, and Gabi was certain she had seen him somewhere before.

  He wasn’t alone. One after another, men and women filed out after him. Gabi counted twelve of them in total, and several wore blue uniforms.

  “The cops?” Lamarre snarled. “What are you, nuts? You know Magneto’s got the cops workin’ for him.”

  “Not all the cops,” the man Tom had called Wilson said defensively.

  That’s when Gabi recognized him. Wilson Ramos, the police commissioner of New York City. She understood Lamarre’s anger and confusion. What were they doing there, with the police, with the commissioner, for God’s sake? They had been told that City Hall, that the entire city government, was now working with Magneto. That meant that …

  “You set us up?” Michael said softly, startling her.

  “No, man, it’s not like that at all,” Miguelito explained. “Then what is it like?” Gabi snapped.

  Lamarre was already backing toward the door. “This was supposed to be another resistance group, man, not Magneto’s pet human soldiers.”

  “If my little brother hadn’t warned me you’d be armed, I’d shoot you just for saying that,” Wilson Ramos said. “Now can we get down to business, or what? City Hall is under siege, but the resistance fighters there are unorganized and their numbers are dwindling. They need our help.”

  “Your little brother?” Gabi asked, astonished.

  Miguelito smiled.

  “I never used to tell people mi hermano was the Apple’s top cop,” he said. “Not that I was ashamed, but nobody would believe me. Now our differences don’t seem like such a big deal anymore.”

  He turned to Wilson.

  “Do they, Willie?”

  “Not at all, ’Ito,” Ramos said. “But don’t call me that, or I’ll have to shoot you.”

  “Seems to me you’re just itching to shoot someone,” Lamarre said, and Gabi could tell from his tone that he was still greatly suspicious.

  “Oh, yeah,” Wilson responded. “Problem is, the guy I want to shoot can’t be killed with bullets. So, if I can’t take Magneto out, I can sure as hell take City Hall and sweep out the collaborator trash like Maxine Perkins and Steve Tyree. I’ll shoot them if I have to.”

  Lamarre smiled.

  “When do we leave?” he asked.

  * * *

  MAGNETO hovered more than one thousand feet above ground, breathing air that was both thinner and more polluted than below. He could see the Empire State Building to the north and the World Trade Center to the south, with the Statue of Liberty beyond it in New York Harbor.

  As best he could, he surveyed the war around him, and realized that the military was not closing in at all, not as he had first believed. Indeed, while they were striking out at the Sentinels in a colossal waste of ammunition and losing soldiers to the massive robots’ return fire, they were not pressing the battle at all.

  Apparently, they were awaiting final orders from the American President. But what Magneto could not determine was exactly what they expected those orders to be.

  It was entirely possible that the President was simply being indecisive. But there were two other potential reasons for the military’s inaction, both of which concerned Magneto a great deal.

  The first, and most bothersome, was that Xavier might be telling the truth. The President might actually be considering thermonuclear attack. They could raze New York City to the ground, and then claim that Magneto himself had set off the nukes to keep the city from returning to American control.

  It seemed all too plausible. Even so, and despite the atrocities he had witnessed in his life, Magneto could not bring himself to believe that the leader of the most powerful nation in the world would knowingly murder hundreds of thousands of American citizens merely to save one city from conquest.

  The other option was that the President was waiting for something. Perhaps he and Xavier had cooked up a plan. But without the X-Men, what could they hope to accomplish? Even if all of the X-Men were free and in top form, there would be nothing they could do against hundreds of other mutants and a fleet of Sentinels.

  With an electric crackle, the gauzy image of the Acolyte Scanner shimmered into existence beside him. It was an odd thing to see, a ghostly female form standing in the middle of the sky without any apparent means of support. But then, Scanner wasn’t actually there at all.

  “You signaled for me, my Emperor?” Scanner inquired.

  “Order all units to await my word before becoming involved in this skirmish,” he said. “The war has not actually begun. It is still possible, I believe, to end this conflict without destroying the city. That would be my preference, since we all intend to live here.”

  Scanner offered a low bow, and flashed out of existence.

  Magneto wanted to think that the President was merely having a difficult time committing to a plan. The other two options were far less appealing.

  In any case, he had determined to refrain from attacking the military himself unless they directly assaulted him first, or until the President ordered an invasion or a nuclear attack.

  If he wanted Haven to still be standing when the conflict was over, Magneto knew he had to make his moves wisely.

  TEN

  ON the steps of City Hall, a swarm of humans wore away at the nerves and resolve of the combined mutant and human force responsible for the building’
s defense. Police officers loyal to the city government, to the recently promoted mayor, Maxine Perkins, and those simply loyal to the job of keeping the peace, tried to put down the revolt with a minimum of violence. But the patience of policemen, particularly in urban areas, was notoriously thin. And they were well armed.

  Side by side with the cops were Acolytes, mutant followers of Magneto, charged with forcing the remaining human populace to afford mutants the respect that was now required.

  Heads were cracked open like rotten tomatoes, citizens shot with rubber bullets—and some with the real thing as well. Ivan Skolnick tried desperately not to use his mutant powers, which he still despised. Yet others around him were not so prudish. Senyaka, one of Magneto’s Acolytes, lashed his agonizingly painful psionic whip at any human in range. It was a vicious scene.

  For a while, it seemed as though the human hordes were like the legendary Hydra: cut off one head and two more would take its place. But after a time, the flow appeared to dwindle.

  That was about the time the war started in earnest. Perhaps, Skolnick thought, the attackers realized all was lost, that their efforts meant nothing. Or perhaps they felt there were more important battles to be fought that day. In any case, Skolnick’ s troops, who were responsible for policing mutant-human relations, were thinning the crowd quite a bit.

  “We seem to be winning this part of the war, Major,” the usually taciturn Senyaka said at his side. “Since it appears the Emperor may have need of me elsewhere, I assume I can be confident in leaving you to your appointed duties?”

  “Absolutely,” Skolnick replied.

  Senyaka made short contact with someone via comm-link, and was immediately teleported from the defense of City Hall. Skolnick was very happy to see him go. The burning eyes behind that cowl had disturbed him, most especially with the way they flared whenever Senyaka’s psionic whip would wrap around a human limb or throat. As if he was leeching some kind of energy from them.

  Skolnick didn’t want to have to think about it. Nor did he want to think about Maxine Perkins, and the new police commissioner, the self-righteous Steven Tyree. He tried to turn it off, tried not to see the faces of men, women, and teenagers. The way he viewed it, they were all fighting for that magical place in every heart where a person’s hometown will always stay, perfectly preserved from childhood. Despite all its faults, New York inspired as much passion as any small town.

  He could not stand those faces, etched with fear and desperation. These people were merely defending their homes, defending the rights that the greatest nation on Earth had given them. Rights that Magneto had taken away. Skolnick was beginning to seriously wonder if he had made a grave error. All his life, Skolnick had wanted to be a soldier. He had become an extraordinary soldier, a credit to his family, a servant of the American ideal.

  Now he had betrayed all that. Yes, he was a mutant. Yes, there were hardships to be dealt with because of it. But hardships had been faced by those crusading for gender and race equality, and other “misfits” for centuries.

  Had Magneto gone too far?

  Bullets chipped brick behind Ivan Skolnick’s head, and he ducked, preparing to blast the shooter as quickly as possible. No time for self-recriminations, he thought. This was a war, and he a soldier.

  Question was, whose side was he really on? Even he wasn’t sure.

  * * *

  “SO much for the element of surprise, eh, Summers?” Cain Marko sneered.

  Cyclops knew the Juggernaut’s amusement was not feigned. Marko was happy the time for battle had arrived. It was the only thing the man had ever done well.

  In a way, though he was loath to admit it even to himself, Scott could relate.

  “Rogue,” he barked, “take down the giant. Marko, you’ve got Slab. I’m on Hairbag. Jean, rein the others in until we’re clear!”

  So I’m on crowd control now? Jean’s mental voice entered his head, even as Cyclops unleashed an optic blast that knocked Hairbag end over end into the woman with the octopus face.

  Scott didn’t respond. No need. He knew Jean was just picking on him. And she knew that she had not been relegated to mere crowd control, but given the most work to do. She had to keep a dozen-odd mutants busy all by herself, while the others took down the major players and then came to her assistance. He hated laying all that on her, but they didn’t seem to have much other choice.

  Not that things ever worked out the way he planned. His skill as a field leader was not even necessarily based on perfect execution of a plan, but on instinctive reaction to complications that might arise.

  Like now, for instance.

  Hairbag had untangled himself from the tentacles that extended from the forehead and cheeks of the tall woman he had landed on. Cursing her in a voice loud enough to be heard over shouts and cries of pain and anger, Hairbag leaped to his feet much faster than Cyclops might have expected. Rather than rush at him in attack, however, the spiky-haired mutant turned his back on X-Men and Acolyte alike. He bent over slightly, and as if some switch had been thrown, the hair on his back stood up straight and sharp.

  That’s when Cyclops understood. The “hair” on the stout mutant was not actually hair at all, but a deadly covering of porcupinelike quills. He could guess the rest.

  “X-Men!” he shouted. “Eyes on Hairbag!”

  Razor-tipped quills erupted from Hairbag’s back and flew toward them, as deadly as a hail of arrows. Juggernaut and Rogue wouldn’t be harmed, and if she had heard him shout, Jean could throw up a telekinetic shield. But Cyclops was on his own.

  With a quick optic blast, he tore through the blanket of quills flying toward him. In perfect synchronicity, he pulled up into an aerial somersault, deadly quills flashing past him. When he landed on his feet, Hairbag had already lifted his arms to attempt another attack with the quills jutting from the flesh of his shoulders.

  “Playing for keeps, now,” Cyclops mumbled to himself. He brought Hairbag down hard with an optic blast to the upper chest that knocked the mutant flat on the pavement. “You killed him!” octopus-face screamed. “You guys aren’t supposed to do that!”

  “No one’s supposed to do that,” Cyclops snapped, though he knew that Hairbag was far from dead.

  “Your turn!” the woman cried, and her tentacles reached out for him.

  No more conversation, Cyclops thought. War required only action. With utmost concentration, he focused his optic beam into a tight, narrow line, and blasted the woman the moment she moved into profile. The blast neatly sliced off two tentacles on the left side of her face, instantly cauterizing the wounds.

  Screaming in pain, she looked at Cyclops with agony etched in every line of her face.

  “Go away!” he snarled.

  She turned and ran.

  * * *

  “MAN,” the Juggernaut said in awe, “that was harsh. You guys aren’t fooling around this time, are you?”

  “The stakes have never been this high, Cain,” Jean Grey said beside him. “We’re doing what we have to do, that’s all. Doesn’t mean we enjoy it.”

  “Yeah? What about Wolverine?” Cain asked.

  Jean shot him a nasty glance and turned to face two feral mutants who were ganging up on her. Cain kept moving, unconcerned. Grey was one lady who could definitely take care of herself.

  To his left, Rogue was landing blow after blow on the face, head, chest, and back of the forty-foot giant who called himself Humongous. She didn’t seem to be faring all that well, and Cain figured he ought to lend a hand. First things first, though. He was working with the X-Men, and he knew firsthand that Scott Summers was an effective field commander. Summers wanted him to take down this big drooling moron called Slab. He could do that.

  Like Hairball, Slab had been one of Sinister’s Nasty Boys. Cain had heard of them, but never run into them before now. They didn’t seem like much. Slab was over seven feet tall, nearly bald, and ugly as a bulldog but without the charm.

  The Juggernaut moved, several mutan
ts tried to stop his progress. He laughed. Obviously, they either didn’t know who he was, or didn’t believe his publicity. Nothing stopped the Juggernaut. He brushed aside the thin black man with the scorpion tail, its stinger striking for his face but hitting only helmet.

  Then there was Slab.

  “Come on, flatscan,” Slab crowed. “Slab’s gonna pound your skull.”

  Cain nearly laughed out loud.

  “Man, I thought you looked stupid,” he said. “Turns out, you’re even dumber than you look! My rep says I ain’t the most intelligent guy in the world, but at least I don’t refer to myself in the third person.”

  “Don’t make fun of Slab, buddy,” Slab warned. “You’ll die slower if you do.”

  “Oh, shut up,” Cain said, and hammered Slab in the face with a massive fist that rocked his head back so far, Cain figured he’d given the guy whiplash.

  Slab grew. Then he hit back, hard. Cain wasn’t in motion, and the blow hurt him, sent him stumbling back several steps.

  “Every time you hit Slab, Slab gets stronger, hits back harder,” the mutant said. “Slab gets bigger. You can’t win.”

  “That’s the game, huh?” Cain replied. “Well, check this out, dog boy.”

  Cain launched himself at Slab, the Juggernaut steaming down on his enemy. He slammed into the mutant and lifted him off the ground, like a linebacker going for a hard tackle. But instead of knocking Slab down, the Juggernaut kept going. There was a massive financial office building just ahead, its walls constructed of thick granite blocks.

  The Juggernaut bent low, and rammed Slab, skull first, into the granite side of the building. The stone gave way, some of it crumbling in chunks to the sidewalk. Cain dropped Slab onto the debris.

  “You can’t hit me back harder if you’re unconscious,” he said.

  “Keep hitting me, little bug, and when you get tired I can squash you!” Humongous cried in delight.

  Rogue cracked him a good one in the left temple, and this time the forty-foot monstrosity actually yowled with pain and reached for his head. Rogue smiled. Good, she thought, it’s about time.