Up she flew, then turned around for a better perspective on the battle, making certain to stay away from enemy flyers. And there they were. Together again at last.
Cyclops. Jean Grey. The Beast. Iceman. Bishop. Storm. Wolverine. And the wild card in the group, the Juggernaut. For the moment, these were the X-Men.
Despite the incredible odds against them, standing together, Rogue knew they had a chance. Better than a chance.
Off to the left, Harlan Kleinstock was blasting away at her gathered teammates, her friends. Her family. Rogue scowled and went after him with new confidence.
ELEVEN
THE melee at City Hall had gotten ugly. Ivan Skolnick had recognized the police commissioner, Wilson Ramos, immediately. Of course, when the man announced that he was there to arrest all those who were siding with Magneto, it had been almost amusing. To be sure, he had the greater numbers. But he didn’t have any mutants on his side. And one or two Alpha mutants, Skolnick had long since realized, made all the difference in the world.
When Funnel had attacked, exhaling a blast of energy that displaced anything in its path into some kind of otherworldly limbo, Skolnick had been forced to attack as well. He was in charge, after all. It wouldn’t do for his subordinates to be undermining his command.
But that was one of the many problems with this new world order, too many rebels. The only one anybody obeyed regularly was Magneto, and who knew where the hell he’d gotten off to. No, this was nothing like the hierarchy of command that Skolnick had learned as a military man. Nothing like commanding Special Ops Unit One.
Whom he’d betrayed.
SOU1 was his team. They had faith in him, followed his orders implicitly, the way any crack military squad must do. And he had turned on them. It had been for their own good, he thought, attempting with little success to reassure himself. It was true, though. They were better off as captives of Magneto than as corpses. Taking them down his way had been the best way.
But now, as he hit the rioting crowd with another blast of concentrated sonic energy, Skolnick realized that it had not been the best way. He was frightened, to be sure, of a world where mutants were hated and feared. He expected that one day he would be outed, despite the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy the government had adopted, and on that day, he would be forced to leave the military in shame. His family would ignore him. He would become an outcast. He didn’t want to live that way, and he could certainly understand how Magneto, and all the other mutants there in Haven, could have come to such a radical decision.
But he was a man first. A military man second. A mutant last. He had not taken the best way out of a tough situation, but the worst. He knew that now. He ought to have gone down with his team, if that was how it had to be. Now even if he turned on Magneto, he would be considered a traitor, court-martialed, dishonorably discharged, and revealed as a mutant. His team would turn their backs on him, without question.
Ivan Skolnick would be alone. He did not want to be alone. And yet, what was he, amid the anarchy of the fight before him, as policemen shot at their brothers-in-blue, as citizens of a city stormed the walls of their own seat of government? What was he, if not alone?
“Skolnick!” Steve Tyree, the man Magneto had appointed police commissioner, shouted at him. “Come on, you idiot. You’re the big mutie here, do something!”
Ivan snapped. Rounded on Tyree.
“Mutie?” he cried, marching toward Tyree, who backed off until Skolnick was screaming, spraying spittle into his face, with Tyree against the oaken doors of City Hall.
“Mutie!” he shouted again. “What was that little shared moment of righteousness that you and Magneto had going, Tyree? When he made the speech about bigotry? You were gonna bring the thunder down on the evil bigots with both hands, weren’t you? But you’re just as bad!”
Skolnick let go of Tyree, wiped his hands on his pants as if he’d gotten something nasty on them. He tried to turn his attention back to the battle, tried to ignore the officious little human, but Tyree pursued him.
“Who do you think you are?” Tyree demanded. “Mutants are a danger to society, not some social group that one is prejudiced against or not. If I live in a world where mutants are in control, I will do what I have to to get by. If that means I can enforce equality, all the better. I have worked for civil rights my whole life, defended the rights of women, stood up for gay marriages. My father was in D.C. when Dr. King made his ‘I have a dream’ speech, he marched on Montgomery.”
“He’d be disgusted if he could see you today,” Skolnick said. “Mutants are human beings, you imbecile. With emotions and insecurities, just like everyone else. They need help, not persecution.”
Skolnick slammed Tyree’s head against the wall, then just let go. He had expended his anger, at Tyree, and at himself. Now he felt only revulsion, and profound regret. He had made a terrible choice. The only questions now were what it would cost him, and if he could repair any of the damage.
Several bullets took chunks of brick out of the wall behind him. Skolnick didn’t even duck. If death was justice, he would accept it without complaint. But he hoped to be able to bring about a more effective justice.
“Got you in my sights, Ramos!” Funnel cried, and blew kisses at the police commissioner, the destructive power of his exhalation cutting through half a dozen men and women, ally and enemy alike, on its path toward Ramos. This time it was moving much faster, but Ramos knew what was happening now. He was no fool. He’d get out of the way.
Which did nothing for the people unfortunate enough to have been in Funnel’s firing line. The steps of City Hall got bloody very quickly. Cops loyal to Tyree and, as such, to Magneto, fired on those trying to take back the city.
“That’s it!” Skolnick shouted. “That’s it! No more!”
* * *
IN the Oval Office, the President of the United States sat slumped forward, elbows on his desk, face in his hands. He was at a loss. Completely and totally unable, in that moment, to make a solid decision as to how to proceed against Magneto.
Light was slowly leeching from the office, from the world, just as the life was being sucked from his political career. He glanced up through splayed fingers at the seal of his office on the marble floor. No lights were on in the office, and he could barely make out all but the most prominent features of the seal. Appropriate, he thought. It was disappearing with any chance he had of reelection.
If he did nothing, he was screwed. If he sent the troops in, a lot of them would die, and they had almost no chance of winning; in which case, he was screwed. If he nuked Manhattan, well, that one wasn’t hard to figure out. He was screwed no matter what tactic he chose.
Somebody knocked “shave and a haircut” on the oaken door of his office, but left off the “two bits.”
“Come in, Bob,” he said, and pressed a button under his desk that buzzed the door open.
The Director of Operation: Wideawake entered, looking just as haggard as the President felt.
“You want dinner?” the Director asked. “You haven’t eaten anything today, and it’s past six o’clock.”
“Couldn’t keep anything down, I don’t think,” the President replied.
The Director only nodded. He came all the way into the office, shutting the door behind him, and took one of the two large wood-and-leather chairs facing the President’s desk.
“So,” the Director said.
“So,” the President agreed, wholeheartedly.
“Want to hear what the polls have to say?” the Director asked.
“First I want to know how the X-Men are doing, what’s happening with Cooper, and if you’ve been able to keep Gyrich from going over the line.”
“My answer to all three is, I don’t know.”
“Not the answer I was hoping for,” the President said, with a calm that didn’t fool either of them.
“Magneto has completely jammed our satellite view of Manhattan,” the Director explained. “CNN, ABC, an
d MTV are broadcasting out of the MTV building in Times Square, and Magneto is letting that through. Publicity he wants, observation he doesn’t. Reports say there’s war, in midtown and downtown at City Hall. The X-Men are involved. That’s all we know. No word at all from Cooper.”
“I guess no news is good news on that front.”
“I’d have to agree,” the Director said. “Gyrich, on the other hand, is itching for a resolution.”
“He’s not alone,” the President said. “The whole country wants to know how this thing is going to turn out. Every idiot in the world thinks they know how to solve it. But none of them have to make the decision.”
“We can’t wait for the X-Men or for Cooper, sir,” the Director said.
“Now, just a—”
“No, listen. If Cooper succeeds, all it does is give us an edge. It doesn’t win the day, necessarily. The X-Men can’t do it alone. There are hundreds of mutants, maybe as many as a thousand, all lined up against what? Eight or ten X-Men? I don’t care how good they are, those are not workable odds.
“Then there are the polls. Graydon Creed may be sitting back and taking this all in, but the media knows he’s made noises about running against you next election. So they’re polling. You’re neck and neck, sir, and Creed hasn’t even announced. The polls also say why. They like Creed’s thinking on the mutant issue, and the Manhattan catastrophe. Between Creed and Senator Kelly, the world is looking for a swift solution, and punishment for Magneto and his followers.
“You can’t afford any of this,” the Director said. “I’m not saying you nuke the city. Not yet, anyway. But if you don’t give the order for full-scale invasion, somebody else may try to give it for you. You need this.”
The President shook his head, then swung his chair to gaze out the window at the White House lawn. For a moment, he regretted his rise to political power, considered the gradual change in the decision-making process he had undergone. Once he had done what he wanted to. Now, he was forced to do what he needed to.
“Do it,” he said, without turning around. “Full-scale attack, whatever it takes. Get that city back.”
“Yes, sir,” the Director said. “Should I warn them to be prepared for instant dust-off, in case we have to go with the nukes?”
Still looking out the window, the President shook his head. “We expect collateral damage and loss of life,” he said. “We can’t risk giving Magneto warning if it comes to that.”
The Director didn’t respond. The President heard the other man’s shoes click on the tile. The door opened and closed. When he was gone, the President ran his hands through his hair, turned to face his desk, and prayed silently.
* * *
HENRY Peter Gyrich had a headache. It wasn’t the explosions, the weapons fire, the shouting, the choppers slapping the air above. They made it worse, no doubt about that. But the headache was caused by bureaucracy, pure and simple.
“But, sir,” Gyrich pleaded, “Cooper’s little plan to fight fire with fire, to use mutants to defeat mutants, was bad enough before conflict erupted in earnest. Things have obviously changed now. We can’t just defend ourselves, we’ve got to go into this thing to the hilt, or we don’t have a chance in hell!”
On the tiny vid-comm screen in Gyrich’s trailer, the Director of Wideawake shook his head slowly and sighed.
“Gyrich,” he said, “if it were up to me, not only would we have gone in full force from the get-go, but my finger would be poised over the panic button, okay? But it’s not up to me. The President wants to avoid whatever collateral damage we can. That means giving Cooper more time, giving the X-Men more time. For now, we attack the Sentinels from remote points, but we do not invade. Are you clear on that, Gyrich? At this juncture, we do not invade!”
Gyrich massaged his temples, slowly at first, and then with more vigor. The headache wasn’t going away. It was getting worse.
“Gyrich?”
“My head’s going to explode.”
“Gyrich!” the Director snapped, and he looked up at the man’s stern features.
“Yes, sir, we’re clear,” Gyrich said. “But I don’t have to like it.”
“No,” the Director agreed. “No, you don’t.”
Gyrich clicked off the vid-comm and pushed back his chair. When he stepped out of the trailer, he noted how the afternoon had moved in, and the temperature had dropped quite a bit. In a way, he was disappointed. As far as he was concerned, hell was supposed to be hot.
In the distance, the shelling and plasma fire continued. Stinger missiles had been brought in, and even now a pair burned toward the face of the Sentinel that overlooked the Hudson River. Without turning its attention from its own attack on the troops massed on the riverbank, the Sentinel burned the Stingers out of the sky.
With an eye on the battle, Gyrich wandered into the no man’s land between the military and media camps, prepared to give a statement to the press, just to get them to stop hounding him for fifteen minutes. Halfway there, he passed Cooper’s trailer.
Charles Xavier sat in front of the trailer in his wheelchair, eyes closed as if he were resting, or asleep.
“Enjoying the show?” Gyrich asked.
Xavier didn’t move.
“Xavier?” Gyrich said, a bit louder, wondering if the man was all right. After all, he had never learned why Xavier was in a wheelchair. What if something was wrong with him?
“Professor Xavier?” he asked again.
The man’s eyes snapped open, looking directly at Gyrich. If he had been sleeping, Gyrich had never seen anybody wake up so thoroughly so quickly.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Gyrich?” Xavier asked.
“Sorry to have disturbed you, Xavier,” Gyrich said.
“Not at all,” Xavier answered. “Just a little meditation to keep alert. After all, none of us really got any sleep last night, did we?”
“No,” Gyrich said, “I don’t suppose we did.”
Though he shrugged it off, Gyrich found something eerie in what Xavier had termed his “meditation.” And the comment about sleepless nights had him wondering just what Xavier had been doing all night. Perhaps merely advising Cooper and the President, as he had originally explained. But perhaps something more as well. Gyrich wondered if he would ever know the answer to these questions. Though he was usually confident about such things, for some reason, he doubted he would.
“What was it you had asked?” Xavier inquired.
“Just if you were enjoying the show,” Gyrich explained, though the humor seemed to have gone out of the question now.
The two men, allies yet enemies, gazed across Exchange Place toward the scene of the battle. To Gyrich, it seemed less likely with each passing moment that the Sentinels would even be harmed by conventional weapons. He had seen the specs, he knew that was part of the robots’ design. But most things the Defense Department built didn’t function as well as they were supposed to. He silently cursed them for having hit a bull’s-eye with the Sentinels.
Another Stinger shot at the Sentinel’s chest was destroyed without any damage.
“No,” Xavier said finally, after Gyrich had given up waiting for an answer. “No, I’m not enjoying the show at all.”
Gyrich nodded slowly. For several minutes, he stood next to Xavier’s wheelchair, and the two men watched the conflict in silence.
* * *
XAVIER wanted Gyrich to go away. Val Cooper, Gambit, and Archangel had found the Alpha Sentinel. He had been monitoring their progress when Gyrich interrupted. He was still with Val, his subconscious mind tracking her and maintaining the illusion—for the Sentinel’s sake—that she was a mutant. But it was no simple feat to communicate with Gyrich while doing so. He wished he could simply tell the man that Cooper had found the Alpha unit. It would make all their lives easier. But Gyrich would want to know how Xavier had come by such knowledge. That would lead to disaster.
“I am quite drained by all of this, Mr. Gyrich,” Xavier said. “What can I
do for you?”
Gyrich narrowed his eyes a moment, obviously irked at Xavier’s dismissive tone. The Professor was not at all concerned. Gyrich was a dangerous man, but Charles Xavier could be a dangerous man, too, when he wished to be.
“I thought you would want to know,” Gyrich said grimly. “The President has ordered a full-scale incursion into Manhattan island. We go in thirty minutes.”
“What of the X-Men?” Xavier asked, astonished. “They were to have more time than—”
“Their time ran out when the Sentinels started killing us, Professor,” Gyrich replied. “I assumed you would realize that.”
Xavier frowned, took a calming breath, then turned back to Gyrich.
“You’d best hope that they succeed despite your foolishness, Mr. Gyrich,” Xavier said. “Otherwise, you’re going to have a lot of dead soldiers on your hands.”
“This is a war, Professor,” Gyrich said, without missing a beat. “I’m pleased that the President has started to think of it as one. Perhaps it is time for you to do the same.”
Though Gyrich seemed far more composed and more solemn than Xavier might have expected—he would have thought the man would be almost gleeful at this news—his air of superiority, his assumption of greater purpose, was intensely grating.
“It’s always been war for me, Mr. Gyrich,” Xavier said. “You have no idea.”
* * *
WHEN Trish had left the Empire State Building with Beast, Iceman, and the other X-Men Magneto had held captive, she had been stunned to find so little resistance to their escape. When they hit the street, they realized the reason. Every powered mutant among Magneto’s followers, and a good number who were not, were out in the street, attacking Cyclops and the others who had come on a belated rescue attempt.
“Thank you,” Hank had said, and Trish knew that meant they were about to part ways.
“For what?” Trish said. “All I did was get some people killed.”
“Don’t think that!” Hank had snapped. “Don’t ever think that! You did what you had to, the only thing you could do. Your friends knew what they were getting themselves into. I’ll always be grateful to you for laying it on the line for—for us.”
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