To Raise a Tempest: Ch 4

Disclaimer in Ch 1

The chambers stretch on for further than their eyes can see,
Psykeye realizes as her own eyes compensate to afford her a clearer
view, layers folding in and out of other layers, through each other
in ways which seemingly defy the laws of gravity...

Vidscreens monitoring world events and metahuman activities down to
seemingly insignificant individuals, a thousand voices echoing in
their ears, and at the centre of it all: in a calm, somewhat
bemused state was a single woman who is a living part of an immense
machine, reminding Hank of the Great Machine from his favourite sci
fi series: Babylon 5. Various tubes and wires connect her to it,
maintaining her bodily needs and functions that it can't sustain on
its own.

She is an old woman, older than their questionable mentor, older
than that mentor's greatest foe, the Master of Magnetism. She seems
to spun from gossamer, a fragile shell of something far greater.

And she speaks: not with a shout, nor a whisper, but a soft echo in
their minds.

|Finally. You have come.| she said, |Psykeye, I know...you others
are unknown to  me. But tell me, did anyone notise that overriding
the release on the tesseract.. without the proper access codes was
going to trigger internal security?|

Remy looked around, "Uuuuhhh, no. No one mentioned that...anybody
know what a  tesseract is?"

Phoenix shook her fiery tresses out of her face as she began to
levitate through the open chamber, <Don't know, Gambit... And right
now, I really don't care. Hear that?? We're about to have company!>

Liz danced between small anti-grav platforms like stepping stones,
with the mouthy Cajun behind her, a violet eyebrow raised, [Move
where, Redd?]

<Good question!> the telekinetic muttered, looking at the hovering
security drones <There's a lot of those little guys...and they sure
don't look too friendly!>

The Coda psychic spun the thief out of the way as one of the drones
powered up and zapped the "stepping stone" he'd been crouched on a
moment before, [Get behind Redd... Her forcefield can take the
brunt of their attack!]

The companion to the first drone tried to buzz them, and futilely
fired it's plasma beam at Phoenix's forcefield, the energy bouncing
off the faint golden shell as Remy tried to shrug of nearly getting
his tail feathers singed.

"Well, dat was real unimpressive," he grumbled as they watched
another pair suddenly collide, and turn to so much slag, courtesy
of a third.

<What happened to them, Psykeye?> the telekinetic asked, doing a
visual sweep of  their immediate area, her golden eyes missing
little.

[And there he is, right on time..] she replied with a smile as
Beast bounced down from a platform above them, a gleeful expression
plastered on his azure mug.

"Why, I happened to them, my dear celestial avatar," he explained,
holding up a hand full of singed wires, "All one needed was a basic
understanding of the casual relationship required of interactive
reality planes...as they pertain, of course, to shared-energy
wavelength transmissions through a conductive spatial conduit...."

Psykeye rolled her violet eyes and laughed, shaking her head, [In
other words, luv, he pulled the plug on the bloody things!]

The acrobatic azure scientist swept a courtly bow to the Coda
warrior, and the aged prophetess ensconced in the "Great Machine",
"And t'was my pleasure, m'lady. Now, doesn't this high tech
spelunking far outweigh sulking at the Institute all-the-live-long
day?  And howdy to you, too, dear Madame!"

Liz smiled at her friends, and to the old woman, [I'm both
pleased..and relieved..I must confess, a bit surprised to see you
so lucid... No offense meant, of course.]

|And none taken, my dear,| she replied, |When we first met, I was
rather a head case, wasn't I? Confined to life support, and
withdrawn into my own world... I want you to know, my dear, dear
child, that going with Dr. Essex was the best thing that could have
happened to me. He was able to stabelise the deterioration of my
body, and during the last few months, I've learned to handle the
depressions that caused me to become so autistic...|

Psykeye Looked with her Sight-gift, and ran a telepathic scan over
her former mentor, [But look at you, Madame! I mean, you're hooked
up like a componant of this..thing. That can't be beneficent for
you?]

|But it is, dear child,| the old seeress replied, a tinge of
contentment in her mind voice, |I am one with this device, and it
cares for this broken shell that can't trapped me. It has set me
free. I am able to scan the world, I can touch computer systems,
and I can touch minds in a way that has never been done before. I
am also tapped into Sinister's data systems. I have learned so
much...since I've been set free...about the world, and what I've
missed...about the world, about history, about science...about
everything, even you!|

Cable had hung back appraising the situation, but he also was quite
familiar with Sinister and the mad-scientist's methodology,
[Knowledge IS power, Madame, but men like Sinister don't just give
that away...]

Madame's mindvoice became more animated as she gently chided the
"young" cyborg, |Oh, but he doesn't know what I've been doing, lad.
He is barely ever in this installation! He just pops in and out of
his tesseract doorways, goes through the information compiled for
him, mumbles to himself about life and death, bloodlines and
eugenics..then he just leaves again!|

Psykeye looked from Beast to Cable and back to Madame, [And this
ability to access this pocket dimensional tesseract
chamber-explains, at the very least, Sinister's ability to
ostensibly pop up anywhere. But, who truly knows what danger hides,
Madame, within something as vast and as unknown as this place is?? 
I've thought about you, and worried quite a bit over the ESPer
Corps' decision to allow "Dr. Essex" to remove you from the SHIELD
facility.]

The old psychic's mind touch was a gentle, reassuring caress to her
one-time student, |I know, and knowing that "Dr. Essex" and your
foe, Sinister are one in the same is rather hard for you to
reconcile, isn't it?|

The Coda nodded quietly, reflecting on the past for a moment,
[Seeing you here, and doing so well, rather uplifts my spirits--but
it beggars the question: Why do you stay? ]

Madame's mental touch again, became more luminous as she regarded
her former protTgT, |My dearest Elisabeth, you are sweet... but
isn't this a better life than the one I had? I'm helping myself,
and helping others too... putting resources into the hands of the
people who need it most!|

Phoenix hovered around the machine, running a hand sensor over the
array the venerable psychic was connected into, listening to the
mental conversation, <Sinister isn't in this to help anyone but
himself, Madame. I suspect that he's using you, just as he has so
many others.>

|Aye. But I, in turn am using him,| the woman in the machine
replied, a cryptic note in her mindvoice as she seemed unaware, or
unconcerned in the telekinetic's data gathering.

Cable's eyes narrowed as he studied the setup, and looked around
the immense pocket dimension, [It isn't that simple, lady. Believe
me, I know. Once he gets his claws into you, a simple "adieu" when
you're ready to part ways isn't in the cards. It becomes one debt
after another, and the price paid is the bleeding of your soul.
It's the price my mother paid...]

Remy's dark head snapped up, his eyes glowing ferally in the dim
light, as the cyber-merc's observation struck a chord with
something he'd once heard of his association with a certain Coda
Sister, *bleedin' o' your soul... where you heard *that* line
b'fore, remy?*

A pointed reply issued forth from Madame, |I appreciate your
concern, Cable, quite truthfully, I do. And, you will understand
that I am even more aware of what Sinister is really all about in
one second... Computer. Override security release: Sub-sector
Three. Chamber Twenty-five... Behold the scope of Sinister!|

|Override access complete.| the mainframe  replied.

Yet another portal opened before them, the floating "stepping
stones" lead down into a true tesseract, where the laws of physics
were twisted and warped in every conceivable way. It was veritable
hive, with storage compartments listing names of myriad figures
from the history of earth and other worlds and dimensions. 

Names like A. Lincoln, M. Fillmore, M. Hawk. T. Roosevelt, H.
Himler, A. Hitler, M.L. King, J. Grey, B. Xavier, A. Oppenheimer.
Elsewhere, M. Munroe, J. Kennedy-Onasis, H. Ford, E. Frost, K.
Creed, W. Churchill, T. Edison.. and the list went on.

"oh my stars and garters..." Hank muttered as his eyes widened to
resemble fine Wedgwood saucers, "it's a storage facility!!"

He began wandering thru the facility, levitating with Phoenix to
reach names logged higher on the walls than he could see, "Storage
for what though... Historical data? no...the labels... This is
genetic material, isn't it, Madame? This must be Sinister's
"library" for keeping the DNA samples he's culled--from all these
people?? This is cloning material!!"

Liz stuck to the "stepping stones", running her fingers along the
surfaces, dredging up psycho-metric impressions as she now stood
'upside down' to Cable and Gambit, [Yes, of course. This would
explain much about how the Marauders, whom the X-Forces fought over
the years, and killed during the Morlock Massacre, and the Inferno,
kept coming back to fight another day! It also explains the
presence of the partially viable Riptide we saw earlier...]

|Are you certain?| Madame interjected, |Did you say "Riptide"? 
No.. that's not possible. I have online access to all the internal
systems here... the cloning chambers haven't been used in months...
There must have been a malfunction.. but how?|

Liz's head snapped up as she seemed to be listening to something
other than the current thread of conversation. Her violet eyes
narrowed as the Coda warrior reached for her sword and moved a bit
away from the others, in search of some unseen thing.

Phoenix lowered Hank back to the "stepping stones" as he approached
the central column where the old woman was suspended, his face
taking on a contemplative expression, "I assure you, Madame:
Psykeye, Gambit, Phoenix and Cable encountered a version of Riptide
in the upper levels, the malfunction explains the clone's
lobotomized and degenerated condition...but it makes one wonder,
are you as "in control" as you might have thought?"

Madame's mindvoice became more urgent, |You don't understand, my
dear Beast, Sinister's cloning tanks were designed in *pairs*!! IF
a Riptide was created, that means its matrix partner was also born
to half-life!|