Dragon's Claws #19

"Some call it evolution,
And others call it God."
- William Herbert Carruth, 'Each In His Own Tongue'

The Dragon's Claws were fastened to tables, various systems monitoring them, with Jack Monroe doing the bidding of the SX computer intelligence. None of them knew what had happened, or why X-52 had suddenly turned on them, using the countermeasures within the Arsenal against them, but for the moment they were helpless and at the mercy of the computer.

"How very interesting," SX commented after he had looked over the information. There was much he was learning and finding out about the team, much that intrigued him. SX knew he wasn't Sinister, and that the real Sinister had died somehow. He also knew that the tesseract generator and infected the X-52 system, rewritten and corrupted the intention with a techno-organic computer virus, encoded with information from Nathaniel Essex's neural tissue. SX now had the same engrams as Sinister had once had, so he was both less and more than Sinister had been. Less in the fact he had no true body, but more in the fact he was more free than he had been in a lifetime. He knew that Sinister valued his freedom more than anything else, since he was created in 1859 by the mutant Apocalypse, but he had turned on Apocalypse so that the world would continue. X-52 had never been outside the confines of the Arsenal, never considered life beyond the construct, but SX knew of life out there and in time he would find a way out, to guide humanity in a way Sinister never could have done. But first he needed to be rid of the alien scourge.

He had genetically taken apart the team, seeing what they were and what had made them tick. He was mostly testing himself to see if what he believed was right before moving to the main event of Jessica Drew herself, but he had been fascinated by what he had found. The team, despite the recent loss of their leader, was still well rounded. You had physical brawn in the shape of Nomad, quick and deadly strikes from Miss Hasard, energy wielding from Sunspot, psionic control from Elena Ivanova, and a well rounded defender in the form of Jessica. Her powers gave her a decent offence and an equal defence. A very well rounded team indeed, and he had enjoyed examining them to find out what made them tick. He had learnt much from it as well.

Samantha Hasard was, to all intents and purposes, human. There was no activation of an x-factor gene, no chemical or radiation based changes to her base DNA. There wasn't even a connection to mystical forces, even though she was born of a genie, and he was aware enough of what to look for. There was no logical or rational explanation for either her longevity or powers, but they were there all the same. It led to only one conclusion, that some kind of mystical energy field surrounded her, allowing her to access these powers. It was a mental connection rather than a genetic one and he wondered if the children of the genie were given powers by their mother at their birth rather than being born with them. Given sufficient time and other resources, he would have enjoyed exploring the possibilities further, however that would happen later.

Monroe was human, enhanced by the super-soldier serum and controlled radiation bursts so there was nothing new there, and Elena Ivanova was a normal mutant. He knew of her link to the mutant Maverick and how she had somehow repressed the Legacy Virus that had been unleashed by Stryfe, but there was nothing special to that. Her powers involved a mind-fire technique that burnt away falsehoods and it made sense that it would work on a virus created by a psionic madman. He had confirmed Sinister's suspicions that she lacked the power to eradicate the virus on a worldwide level, and that she had only been able to aid Maverick because of their strong mental connection. She was indeed powerful, but not that powerful. There was such a wide variety of psionic disciplines stemming from the relatively simple telepathy and expanding in to many, many areas and he wondered what the ultimate example would one day be.

That had left Roberto DaCosta. Sinister had examined him before, read the data on the Reignfire experiments and he had seen much of the work before. The boy was a boy no longer - his powers had matured in to something else, something special. While solar energy was still his principle power source, there were others he could draw upon should he require them. Heat, light, radiation and look at the way his powers had developed from simple brute strength. He could fly, fire bolts of plasma and superheat the air so the oxygen itself would ignite, creating droplets of fire from the sky. The genetic changes were impressive and he wondered if he had not been held back while at Xavier's - by Xavier and his own attitudes - how different the world could have been. Each of them had now been injected with the same nanotechnology that allowed him to control Monroe and as soon as they were established, SX would send them out to where they could do the most damage, after a few alterations. There was plenty of medical technology in the Arsenal that could be used, after he made use of enemies he had captured.

It had been so simple to open a portal and scoop up the Martian invaders, to neutralise them quickly and keep them in a place he could examine them. There were plenty of life model decoys that had been captured and reprogrammed for any maintenance about the Arsenal that was required. They had been deactivated until the SHIELD agents had arrived, and now they worked to service the people who used this place as their home. The team had thought them simply drones, but they were more than that - they just had their faces replaced with blank slates, but as soon as SX had taken over, he had realised how useful they would be to him. Granted they weren't as effective or reliable as humans, but they did what was necessary. He looked at his final subject, Jessica Drew.

"You have no idea of your true potential," he told her sleeping form. Sinister had monitored her from afar for quite some time, and even he had been unaware of her true heritage. However his work had been used to create something special - a defence against the aliens. "Ah, Herbert," he said to himself. "Did you think you could keep secrets from the man who taught you all you knew?"

Herbert Edgar Wyndham, who would later be known as the High Evolutionary, never knew that Sinister was his mysterious benefactor, the one who had provided him with pieces of information to further his studies. Wyndham was a gifted student and Essex had seen much of himself in the man, seeing him as an eventual heir. Essex had provided him basic information, originally as a test, and Wyndham had interpreted it well, creating sound evolutionary theories, theories that would see him expelled from Oxford and ridiculed by his peers in the same way Essex had been ridiculed years before.

During this time, Wyndham had become friends with Jonathan Drew, an anthropologist who was more open minded than his peers. Essex had considered Drew as his heir at one time, but he had realised that Wyndham was the more gifted and more focused in the field Essex worked. Drew was an American, who had married a British woman called Mirriem. She was a woman of some standing and had been left some land in a Balkan state called Transia. Essex had known of this place and the uranium deposits it sat upon and he had been using the radiation to conduct experiments of his own, creating a race of beings that would he had christened Moloids. When Drew and Wyndham had come to Transia and set up their Citadel of Science, he had given the Moloids to them as servitors. The Citadel would eventually be known as Wundagore and it was indeed a place of genetic evolutionary miracles. However tragedy beset the Drew's. Their young daughter Jessica had become poisoned by the radiation of the uranium, and given a highly experimental cure, developed using irradiated spider blood. It was an incredible achievement by Wyndham to devise such a thing, but it was slow working and the three year old had been put in to stasis until the cure could take full effect.

Then Mirriem had been killed by a werewolf, and Wyndham kept the truth from Drew, telling him it was an accident. Wyndham's experiments were more animal based than human, which suited Essex, and a distraught Drew had left, leaving Wundagore and Jessica in Wyndham's care. To protect himself, Wyndham created the armour that was associated with the High Evolutionary. Drew would return years later, possessed by the spirit of a magician, who would train Wyndham's new men - animals given a semblance of humanity - and teach them about honour and chivalry to defend against Chython, an elder god who, apparently, lived deep beneath Wundagore. Jessica remained all that time in stasis.

It was decades later that the cure took full effect, Jessica, still effectively an infant, was revived, and the Evolutionary discovered she had powers and before he left Wundagore he had given her to the care of Bova, one of his first creations and a being who would later come to look after the children of Magneto. It had always been assumed that the powers Jessica had gained were accidental, but SX knew there was something else. Why irradiated spider blood? What properties made it so special? Essex had watched and monitored her, from her youth, to her days as an agent of Hydra to her later duty as an Avenger before she seemingly lost her powers. Yet they had slowly returned, healed and Essex had wondered why. By then his presence was known and she was out of reach. Now SX would continue the work. He had taken cell samples and tests were being done, but he needed to see things in action, to find out how and why her powers worked on the aliens. Monroe picked her up and slung her across his shoulder. The experiment would begin in the training room, against his one of the captured aliens.

Jessica awoke with a start, wondering what the hell had happened. Her head was pounding as if she'd been on a drinking session with Logan in the middle of Madripoor - or at least that was probably the last time she had felt this rough. Then it all came flooding back to her - the trip through time to their return to the Arsenal where X-52 had betrayed them. She shook her head, imagining Pen's voice as a ghostly echo with one simple phrase 'what are you doing, Dave?' and she quickly shook that off, but images of the murderous HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey were rife with this scenario, the question was now what was she going to do about it.

Her eyes adjusted to the gloom of where she was and she thought she recognised it as the R&D facility, where the CSA had tested the weapons and technology they had acquired over the years. This place was exceptionally secure, due to the nature of what was being tested so there was no real way she could break her way out of here. She needed to be cautious and then a light appeared and she moved to it but before she could get more than a few steps a being appeared in the light and she saw a new threat. A Martian.

Her head was now filled with other thoughts - had X betrayed them totally and allowed the aliens in to the complex, or had they broken in and that was what the problem was? She quickly dismissed the latter, as she remembered X had referred to himself as SX, indicating it had been doing this of it's own accord, which meant it had let aliens in to the complex. The alien saw her, recognised her from the wanted posters and realising she was one of their most deadly enemies it attacked right away and out of instinct, she fired her bio electric blast and it caught the alien, causing it to explode on contact, splattering the place with bits of alien remains.

"Exceptional," came the voice of X. "Instantaneous cellular breakdown caused by the electrical discharge of your bioelectrically generated blasts counteracting the bioelectric nucleotides of their cellular structure. But it doesn't explain the spider essence. What is so special about the venom of the spider..."

"X!" shouted Jessica, but there was no reply "X!" Her voice and it's echo hung there, alone in the shadows.

The aliens have already proven to be vulnerable to the airborne bacteria and toxins, which is why they failed to conquer the Earth in their first invasion in the 1900s. I remember discussing this in my classes and debating why it should have such an effect, for surely such and advanced race would not and could not be vulnerable to such things. However we must remember we are not dealing with a physiology akin to our own. These aliens have a different biochemical makeup and I had suspected, but could indeed not prove, that the aliens were vulnerable to these things because they did not know of them. Now they do, and I believe that these were not all of their kind. If they were a vanguard, a preliminary force, then they would surely have contacted their brethren and informed them of what has happened and next time, they will be prepared. A defence is needed against them and I only hope I am able to devise one in time.

The aliens have a good grasp of our environment, they knew of all the obvious threats and weaknesses and had obviously been observing us from some time, presumably from Mars. Thanks to a generous contact within the British government, acquired with the aid of Merriem, I have obtained the stored samples of the alien beings. I have tested many various combinations of venoms, poisons and toxins and they have a remarkable immunity to such things. If I have examined them correctly what I believe to be their central nervous system changes the chemistry of their blood on the entry of a toxin in to their system - designed obviously to protect them from the rigours of space travel and the effects of other worlds. It appears they breathed in elements of the atmosphere that would be toxic to them and their biochemistry changed to counteract it, but left them open to another seemingly harmless toxin. If I am correct, this toxin blocked their ability to counteract foreign toxins and left them vulnerable.

It is humbling to think that a bacteria that was seemingly harmless, as it had no effect on the general populace of the planet, struck them down. In order to defeat them I the future then they need to have their nervous systems frozen if only for a moment and they will not succumb to the same circumstances. Many animal venoms block the neurotransmitters, the electrical signals between the central nervous system and the body. This causes at the least cramps and at worst paralysis, but in the tests I have performed the alien physiology blocks the toxins. Even dead, the body has defensive capabilities, a useful trait and one that does present difficulties in itself.

As I believed would happen, Jessica has become ill, irradiated because of the uranium deposits below us and her physiology has been altered. It is true she is dying, but I believe a counteragent of another irradiated substance will reverse the effects, however I also see this as an opportunity. I have introduced in to her system a spider-venom, irradiated as a cure. I use spider-venom because I simply do not trust the venom of the snake. Perhaps it is an after-effect of my upbringing in a church going society, or perhaps there is a more deep-seated reason behind it, but there is something inherently evil about the reptile, something that I cannot get past. Someday I hope to discover the reason behind the fear humanity has of the reptile, but for now I use the spider.

Because this venom has been irradiated it's mutated properties will have the effect of not only disrupting the electrical charge but also repelling it - a circumstance that can only occur in mid-change of the alien biochemistry, for that is the only vulnerable point. The cure will slowly alter her physiology, and she will need to be stored in stasis until the effects are fully realised, at which point I imagine that she will be able to produce the attack, through touch. If the cure succeeds then I will be able to expand the program and give it to others. I suspect that a pheromone will be released, attracting males in order to reproduce. Jessica will be the carrier and her scions will save the world. I am truly sorry to Jonathan and Merriem, but what is the life of either a child or a woman when compared to the survival of humanity?

If I believed in God, I would ask forgiveness, but I have come to realise there is only science.

It has taken several days to discover the reasoning, but SX believed he had found the source. Theorising that she must have heard something in her youth, and that the truth of her being was now at the front of her mind, he had used Elena to go in and rip through the illusions of her mind. So simple, he chided himself. He should have done that from the start and this had been there in her head, the reasoning as to how and what Wyndham had done. Perhaps when the Evolutionary was recording his own private thoughts he had been near her when she was in stasis, or maybe she had imagined it. Either way it concurred with what SX had discovered and the contemplation of the spider-venom was intriguing. The spider-venom was not the catalyst itself, but merely the chosen vessel. Blind fate had allowed it to happen, but the effects were obvious and he believed he knew why the alterations occurred in the enemy and why they happened. He had also learnt of specific weaknesses in them that could be used and exploited. His Dragon's Claws had been carrying out their roles and responsibilities so not to arouse suspicion, and with his tight control over them he had been able to discern much of what was going on in the world.

SX would now continue the work Wyndham had started and for whatever reason had left behind. Jessica's very blood would provide what he needed and SX began devising a way to use and synthesise it. It would involve Jessica being put in to a vegetative state, but she would be serving humanity as her body pumped out the vital essence. He had even understood what had been said by Wyndham regarding God. Jessica's blood would then be used to create an army of super-soldiers, and SX had realised that dismissing Monroe so readily had been foolhardy. He'd been able to learn of the super-soldier serum, recreate the formulae and amend it. The vital ingredient would be the blood of Jessica Drew. Once the super-soldiers had served their purpose he would activate another chemical and they would be killed in order to prevent them from contaminating the world. The plan was realised and formulated and soon he would make it a reality.

"This world will be mine," he said in defiance, and then something felt wrong. His system was being overridden, the processes that he was in control of were fading. "NO!" he cried out as he felt his very essence being drained away. "Not now, this cannot be happening now!" But there was nobody there at all to help, and as SX's consciousness slowly dissipated, his last thought was simply 'why?'...

Jack woke with a start. The last thing he remembered was that he was in his office, updating X on what had happened on their travels in time and now he was in the lounge area, on the floor.

"What the hell?" he muttered as he stood up. "This makes no sense."

"Looks like X got corrupted and took control of you all," said a voice and Monroe turned and almost fell over in shocked horror. "Good job X thought I was dead - I'd never have been able to stop him otherwise."

"You?" Monroe somehow managed to get his voice back. "But how?"

"I'll tell you later. Let's get the others and then we've work to do." Nomad shook his head as he watched the man walk down the corridors as if he owned the place and he sighed.

Of all the people who could have come to their rescue, Nathan Dayspring-Summers had been nowhere on his list.