Disclaimer: The X-Men and related characters are the property of Marvel Comics and are used without permission. This is a non-profit making work of fan-fiction.
Prelude – By the Pricking of my Thumbs
A lawyer in Tennessee, a housewife in Birmingham, an amateur painter in Madrid: the last was dead within twenty-four hours of the first. All were murdered for something as trivial as a unique combination of amino acids in their DNA.
* * *
Hal Davison loved trains. He had loved them ever since the day, at the age of three and a half, his uncle had taken him to see a still operational steam locomotive. Even today, now twenty-nine, the sight could take his breath away; then he had been a bundle of words, of exclamations, of laughter, expressions of delight all tumbling over one another in the rush to escape his tiny frame. That very evening he had told his parents that he would grow up to be a train driver. ‘That’s nice,’ they said, and then spent the next few years doing their utmost to make sure it did not happen. Hal had changed too, working hard to get the best grades he could and getting a place studying law at Harvard. He graduated third in his class.
Still, his passion for trains never died, merely waned slightly, and he was glad to be travelling on one now. He was trying to decide whether or not to accept a particular case – not that his bank balance gave him much choice – and was visiting the defendant’s family to help him make up his mind. He did not want to go; this was a case he really wanted to avoid, but the potential rewards were too tempting. And if he had to go then at least he could travel in style.
He sighed around the biro clenched in his teeth and put the newspaper to one side. The crossword could wait. Instead, he leant back into the soft fabric of the seat and enjoyed the scenery rolling past. He was in a small first-class compartment. It was designed to fit six, but he was alone and glad of it. There were times when Hal could be extremely gregarious, but he also appreciated the chance for solitude.
There was a knock at the door and then it slid open to reveal the uniformed figure of the guard. Hal started fumbling for his ticket.
‘Don’t bother,’ the guard said. Rather than a ticket stamp, he was carrying an old-fashioned metal device for punching actual holes into the flimsy card. To Hal’s eyes it seemed unusually large and heavy.
‘You think you’re so superior, don’t you,’ the guard purred, advancing ever closer. ‘You and you kind. You think being different makes you special, but you’re wrong. It just makes you a mistake to be eliminated.’
A horrible thought surged forward in Hal’s mind. ‘You’re doing this…because I’m black?’
The guard tipped back his head and laughed. ‘Black, white, red, yellow, blue, green…it’s all the same to me. What’s outside doesn’t make you special, it’s what’s inside that counts. I’ve seen the colour of your genes, freak, and they run red with innocent blood.’
As Hal glimpsed the ticket punch descend he realised that he was going to die without ever really understanding why.
* * *
Gayle Corbett was not particularly well liked. She could always find fault in anything and everything – usually her neighbours, she snapped at the children roller-blading down the street, she sprayed cats with water from her garden-hose to dislodge them from her lawn. Her husband, Nigel, worked as much overtime as was available to avoid her scathing tongue. She was tolerated as a member of the community, but that was about all. Those very same neighbours that she complained about so vociferously used to say that she would get her comeuppance eventually.
Still, everyone was stunned when the firebomb gutted her house. Nigel, Gayle and Christopher (her parakeet) choked to death on the smoke while they slept.
* * *
Colin Blakeney, an English student who had taken a sabbatical to tour Europe and paint its more famous sites, was found suspended from the window of his hotel by his bed sheets. His neck had been broken. Across his chest, in dark red oil paint, someone had scrawled a single word: MUTIE.
* * *
Dallas, Texas.
The screech of tyres. The smell of warm rubber. The chill of the wind in her face and the strength of her lover’s body in her arms. These are the things Paige Guthrie feels as the motorcycle rockets through the empty streets. Almost empty – Jonothon has to swerve violently to avoid the drunk who has tottered off the sidewalk and into the road. The man in front of her on the bike – Jonothon Evan Starsmore – does not speak during their manic race through the city. The strong silent type, the definitive Mr Tall, Dark and Leathers is horribly disfigured and wrapped from noise to groin in dark bandages. He is also the most important person in Paige Guthrie’s life.
She found herself holding him even tighter as Jono turned the bike through ninety degrees almost on a dime and careened over the sidewalk and down a short flight of steps into a narrow alleyway. She need not worry about crushing the air out of him – Jonothon did not breathe. Jono’s crazy driving had thrown off their pursuers for a moment. Paige noticed the wail of police sirens receding as they sped away, the flitter being unable to follow them through the narrow gap. The Kentucky girl risked a look up. The bulky police airship was still circling above, its spotlights illuminating the ground below, but thankfully it was scanning an area some distance away.
At a substantially slower pace, Jono began to trace a path back towards the centre of the city. He managed to guide them away from any further police patrols, able to guess where they were. It could have been luck or perhaps it was something else entirely.
‘You might want to change into something more comfortable, luv,’ Jono suggested. His voice was a contradiction, hollow and resonating. At once strong and rich, but also echoey and without substance. It came from everywhere and from nowhere. It was a mystery and thus well suited to the speaker.
Paige nodded and let go of him. Even though she trusted Jonothon to keep the bike steady while she changed, Paige could not help gripping the machine just that little bit more tightly between her legs as she reached for the skin at the nape of her neck. She flexed the muscles of her back at the same moment she pulled with her fingers and her sweater rose up and over her head, its seams splitting as it did so. The moving garment took Paige’s skin with it, lifting it up off her back like the peel of an onion. As she carelessly discarded the sweater behind her, Paige’s back was criss-crossed by patches of pure white skin next to something darker revealed underneath.
Kicking off her trainers, Paige reached forward and put one blackened hand on Jonothon’s shoulder. Putting pressure on that hand, she lifted her behind from the bike and tugged free her jeans. The skin of her legs ripped away with a sound not unlike the crunching of dry leaves underfoot. The layer beneath was rough and dark, the colour and texture of stone. Underwear disappeared next – she had a layer of stone to protect her modesty, bra and knickers over that just looked silly.
She was left with a head of flesh surmounting a stone statue. She leaned forward and pressed her still moist lips to Jono’s hair. Then she dug into her cheek with long fingernails and tore her face away. Her honey-blonde hair came away in a single piece, like a wig, revealing a row of stalagmites beneath, running down her scalp like a Mohawk. She cracked her stone knuckles.
‘Showtime,’ she whispered.
The bike picked up speed. Paige could hear sirens in the distance, but that was okay – it was all part of the plan. Jono reached back and handed her a utility belt.
‘Get ready,’ he said.
The bike turned, curving through 180 degrees and coming to a complete stop. Paige leapt off and hurled herself into the nearest building, the glass doors of the skyscraper shattering as her shoulder impacted with them. She sprinted into the foyer and towards the fire stairs, not daring to look back. She could hear the squeal of tyres as Jono sped away, leading the police far from their objective.
Paige did not dare stop – it was only a matter of time before the cops arrived to investigate. She finally halted her climb at the fourteenth floor. She guessed that she had about two minutes before the building was swarming with police. That did not matter, her target was not in this building, but she would rather not be here when they arrived. Working quickly, she found an unlocked office overlooking the street. The window was locked, but she made short work of that with a set of skeleton keys from the belt Jonothon had handed her. She removed another item, one that looked a bit like a miniature harpoon gun, and aimed it at the building opposite. She fired and the piton embedded itself in the masonry, trailing a cable back to the gun still in Paige’s hands.
She stepped on to the window-ledge, still clasping the gun, and then leapt into space.
The cord went taut as she slammed into the side of the building. Her left shoulder hurt like hell; she suspected that the sudden stop had dislocated it. A normal person would have gone splat on the building like a fly on a car windscreen, but Paige was a mutant, a mutant who currently wore a skin of granite. The impact had still hurt, though.
She could hear more police sirens approaching. She had to work fast. She pressed a stud on the butt of the gun and the cable started to retract, hauling her upwards towards the piton. A second press of the stud halted her climb as she passed the twelfth storey window. She reached down to remove another gadget from her belt. The pain in her injured shoulder was incredible, but she had to block it out, had to focus on the task at hand. She took the glasscutter and swiftly opened a hole in the window large enough to put her hand through. She reached in, only to discover that the window was locked.
She took a couple of deep breaths and tried not to panic. Calmly, she swapped the glasscutter for the skeleton keys. She tried to ignore the sound of the sirens as she set to work. She would have to do this on touch alone. She got it on the third try.
By the time the police rounded the corner, Paige had vanished.
Paige’s first stop was two flights down – the file room. In her stone form her strength was enhanced and she used that now to tear open the filing cabinets and spew their contents across the floor. She removed from her belt a device that looked like a small aerosol can. Removing the top, she threw it into the room and sprinted for the stairs. Behind her, the room was consumed by flames.
The main computer room was on the level above. She inserted a CD-ROM into the drive of the main server to bypass any passwords. Her fingers danced across the keyboard as she scanned the contents of the harddrive. Thousands of files, the identities of mutants, both officially registered or otherwise. Genesis had been right, but these days that was hardly a surprise. Paige sometimes wondered where he got his information from, but there was no time for second thoughts now. Any doubts she may have had vanished when she saw those files. Most mutants only wanted to live normal lives like everyone else. They deserved to have that chance.
Paige swapped CDs and began to download a virus that would completely purge the system of all its data.
There was a noise beyond the door and Paige instinctively ducked down behind the desk. A white-haired security guard charged into the room, gun at the ready. Unable to see anyone he bent over the active computer terminal. It was just possible he would know how to abort the program and Paige could not allow that.
‘Howdy, y’all,’ she said, standing up with her arms crossed over her chest.
The guard fired. And again. Three shots in all.
Each bullet ricocheted off Paige’s ultra-dense skin, though the impacts stung.
In two strides she had reached the guard and she decked him with one blow. It was harsh, but she was in a hurry. The virus had finished its work so she popped the disk and prepared to leave.
The sound froze her in the doorway. It was the sound of flesh and bone being rewoven, off metal being grafted onto living tissue. She turned to regard the man she had felled. He was being transformed. Complex nanotechs were restructuring his body, turning him into something much more then human…and much less. A little more than a decade ago the first Prime Sentinels were produced. Sleeper agents, unaware of their own programming until in the presence of an alpha or beta level mutant. Then the nanotechs would activate, augmenting them, wiping away their personalities and turning them into a new breed of mutant-killing machines. The Prime Sentinel Programme was reactivated following the Africa debacle to accompany new mutant registration legislation. It was Paige’s job, as a member of the mutant underground, to oppose this legislation by whatever means necessary.
None of which information was going to help her against the black and purple cyborg lumbering towards her. Actually, lumbering was unfair; as it adapted to its new body it was getting noticeably faster. Paige dived forwards, executing a forward roll that took her right across the room. The sentinel whirled shards of plasma wrapped metal bursting from its fingertips. Paige cowered behind a desk. Unlike the guard’s bullets, these would certainly go right through her. Paige doubted she could win this fight, the sentinel was designed to adapt to the mutants it faced, but she knew that she could not just hide forever. She had to buy herself time to escape.
The desk was screwed to the floor, but the bolts came away with ease as Paige wrenched it upwards. She hurled it directly at the Prime Sentinel, preparing to dash past it and on to freedom. The Sentinel caught the desk one-handed and hurled it right back at her. Paige dived to the floor and the desk sailed over her and threw the window. Its eyes lit up and another desk burst into flame. Its gaze swept the room, searching for Paige and igniting whatever object it settled on.
Paige charged. At a distance the sentinel had the advantage. Her only hope was to tackle it in close-quarters. Her dive knocked the cyborg to the floor, but Paige immediately regretted her move. The sentinel was several times stronger than she was and soon had her pinned beneath him, her throat locked in a chokehold she could feel even beneath her granite exterior. The world started to go black, her vision narrowing. She thought she could hear ringing in her ears.
She grabbed for the cyborg’s eyes with her left hand and it flinched. Clearly it was still a bit too human. The movement gave her a chance to twist and execute a judo throw, hurling the sentinel out of the shattered window. At the last moment, the sentinel grabbed her ankle, dragging her with him. They tumbled across the office floor and Paige managed to grab onto the window ledge. She hung suspended from her dislocated shoulder eleven storeys above the ground with a killer cyborg dangling from her leg.
Then she heard the engines, the squealing tyres and saw a familiar face looking down at her from the window. Or rather, half a face.
‘Don’t move,’ Jonothon said. He reached for his bandages and tore then away, revealing a raging cauldron of energy contained within his midsection. Reaching deep within himself, he let loose, allowing the plasma like energy to roll down Paige’s back and strike the sentinel full in the face. Its grip slackened and Paige kicked it with her free foot again and again. Finally, its fingers slipped and it fell. Paige did not look.
Jono reached down to haul her in. She had taken quite a battering and white flesh was beginning to peak through cracks in her granite armour. Jono put his jacket around her shoulders and lifted the motorcycle back up onto its wheels. Paige noticed that the ringing in her head had not gone away.
‘My fault,’ Jono explained. ‘I didn’t have time to disable the alarms before I burst in here. Come on, we’d better hurry. The cops are already arriving.’
Paige slid behind him onto the bike. ‘Jono, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but if the cops are already here then how are we going to get out?’
Jonothon eased the bike into the elevator and pressed the button for the roof. ‘Didn’t you ever see the move?’ he returned.
The wind bit into her as the elevator doors opened and she pulled Jono’s jacket tight. Her flesh was tingling, the sign of approaching change, but she did not want to shed her skin just yet. Jono circled the roof looking for something. Then he stopped the bike in the roof’s centre.
‘Hold on tight,’ he instructed.
Gunning the engine he pushed the bike forward and out over the edge of the roof. Paige had to bite her lower lip to stop herself from screaming as they sailed out over empty space with not even a cord to catch them.
Then it was over as they splashed down into a rooftop swimming pool of a neighbouring building.
Jono was already swimming for the side and Paige dutifully followed him. She felt a bullet whizz past her head and could see armed police on the roof they had just escaped from.
‘So what now, lover?’ she asked. She immediately regretted her petulant tone, but she was having a rough night.
‘Taki,’ Jono called, ‘now would be a good time.’
Paige watched in amazement as the water tower on top of the roof unfolded itself, and then reshaped like origami to become a sleek jet.
‘All aboard!’ a voice cried out and the pair did not hesitate. The jet was in the sky before the hatch closed.
‘Did you do it?’ asked the Asian in the pilot’s seat. Paige nodded, too breathless to speak.
‘There’s a room in the back if you want to get changed,’ Taki continued. ‘There’s spare clothes in there too.’ Paige nodded her thanks and left. Taki seemed to be considering something. ‘Listen, Jono,’ he said at last, ‘I’ve got to make a detour to throw off those police ships so its going to be a long flight. If you and Paige wanted to…erm…relax together, I wouldn’t tell anyone.’
‘Thanks, Taki,’ Jono replied, ‘I owe you.’
Then he left the cockpit to find Paige.
* * *
Los Angeles, California
Once, not so long ago, she would have been able to taste the pollution smog even from all the way up here. Now that transport has been upgraded and factories have moved out of the population centres, the air is clean and fresh. To someone who grew up in California with all its sights, sounds and smells, it seems wrong somehow. The place has changed like she herself has. Perhaps one of the changes is for the better; she is sure the other is not.
It is a warm night and she is glad of it. It means that she does not have to wear her coat. The coat is a symbol of her former life. Thinking of that time only makes her current state seem all the more wretched. She rubs her bare arms to get the circulation going again, feeling a sudden chill despite the heat. Time to forget about the past and focus on what is left of the present.
There, almost directly below her. More violence, more cruelty. Human beings attacking anything they see as different. She has campaigned to change this for so many years, but still it is the same old story. Nothing changes. It is enough to make her want to just step of the roof and end it all.
She plummets, falling towards the ground at an ever-increasing rate. The welcoming arms of the abyss reach out to claim her and, as she has done so many times before, she wishes she could let them. But she has a responsibility. A responsibility to help those who were not gifted with the ability to help themselves. And so, at the very last moment, she turns away from blissful oblivion.
Sparks erupt from her fingertips. Plasma discharges are forced downwards like the discharge of a rocket, slowing her descent and she lands in a graceful crouch, long black hair trailing behind her.
There are two of them, nothing more than your average thugs, couldn’t get a good time the usual way so they’ve decided to take it. The victim is young, blonde – could be pretty if she had a chance to clean herself up. Next to her a baby is crying. Probably a single mom, couldn’t pay the rent so the landlord kicked her out. Owns nothing but the clothes she wears and doesn’t know how to find the local shelter. I’ll see her on her way once I’ve dealt with the chuckle brothers here.
‘Well, lookee here,’ says one, ‘must be our lucky day. A little Chinese to take away. You just wait your turn and we’ll show you a good time, sweets.’
She spins, her boot catching the speaker in the throat. Before he hits the ground she has already tripped his friend.
The first thug has drawn a knife from his belt. ‘Alright, lady, you wanna play rough, I’ll get rough with you. An’ you can bet I’ll enjoy it more than-,’
She does not wait to hear any more garbage. As soon as he rises to his feet she jabs her index and little fingers into his eyes before delivering a knee to his groin, putting an end to any pleasure plans he may have had for tonight.
His companion is more wary. ‘Wh-who are you?’ he asks.
‘I’m Vertigo,’ she replies. ‘I’m your worst nightmare.’
The thug reaches for a length of pipe abandoned in the gutter, but Vertigo stamps on his fingers before he can move more than a few inches. Then she backs away from her two opponents and raises her hands. The last thing either of them sees before losing consciousness is an expanse of coloured light.
Jubilation Lee scooped up the baby in her arms, rocking it gently, assuring it the trouble was over. As it quieted, she helped its mother to her feet.
‘Th-thank you,’ the woman stammered. ‘You saved me.’
Lee shrugged. With her free hand she removed her sunglasses. They protected her identity but did not exactly inspire trust in others.
‘My name’s Jubilation Lee,’ she began, ‘Jubilee to my friends, Vertigo to my enemies. Do you have a place to stay for the night?’
The woman shook her head. ‘Ever since Mac – that’s my boyfriend – walked out I haven’t had enough money to pay the rent. Our landlord evicted us last night.’
Jubilee nodded understandingly. ‘I thought as much. Listen, there’s a shelter quite near here where you can both stay until you find somewhere better. I’ll show you the way if you like?’
‘Yes, I’d…like that. Thank you…Jubilee.’
Jubilee smiled. It was not often that she got the chance. ‘I’m supposed to be helping out in the kitchen, anyway,’ she replied. ‘I can come back and deal with these two later.’
* * *
When the two thugs awoke, they found themselves suspended by a slender wire from the roof of a seven-storey building. They screamed for help until their throats were raw and their voices all but gone, but as Jubilee knew all too well, friendly faces were a rarity in this part of town.
* * *
Westchester, New York.
‘Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust,’ Father Bowen intoned, standing at the open grave. It was raining, a light summer shower. Father Bowen took a handful of earth and threw it into the grave. It scattered across the coffin of Professor Charles Xavier.
The service began to break up as each of the mourners went to the grave to pay his or her own respects in private. Charles Xavier was a man deserving of respect. Kate Pryde watched them, acknowledging familiar faces. It was a shame that few of his students could be here, but the events of the past five years prevented it. Still, if they were not here in person, she was sure that they were here in spirit. She was surprised that Lilandra had not come, however. She would have thought that, despite her duties as Empress, she would have made the effort to attend her lover’s funeral.
She could see the Summers going to the grave to pay their respects. Alex and Lorna had flown all the way from Genosha to be here. Unlike the others, they could hide behind diplomatic immunity. Scott was kneeling by the grave, talking to its occupant in a low voice, making his final goodbye. He had lost the most. To the others, Xavier had been their mentor, their guide through a troubled world. But for Scott he had been more than that. He had taken on the role of father figure for a troubled orphan afraid to look at another human being. It had not always been the smoothest of relationships, but despite everything they had continued to support each other in the furtherance of the Dream.
Jean was dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief beneath her black veil. Xavier had been a part of her life from an early age, too. Beside Jean, eyes hidden behind dark glasses, was her daughter Annie. She did not seem as distressed as the others, but then she had barely known the professor. Annie turned to look directly at Kate and the older woman shivered. There was something about that kid…
Kate followed the Summers party back into the mansion where a buffet was being served for the mourners. She was not particularly hungry, but felt that it would be impolite not to eat something so she went to one of the tables anyway. She almost jumped when she saw Scott behind her. She had not noticed him creeping up on her.
‘It was a good service,’ Kate told him. ‘The professor would have approved.’
‘Thank you,’ Scott said. ‘Father Bowen is a good speaker. It was good of you to come.’
Kate tried a smile. ‘I would have come anyway. You didn’t have to insist upon it.’
‘Yes, well…’ Scott began. ‘Could we talk in private. It’s a bit delicate.’
‘Sure,’ Kitty agreed, bemused and allowed Scott to lead her out of the main hall and into the professor’s study. What used to be the professor’s study.
‘It’s odd, but whenever I come in here I keep expecting to see him at that desk same as always,’ Scott said. ‘I don’t know what we’re going to do without him.’
‘He wouldn’t want us dwelling on the past,’ Kate replied. ‘He’d want us to move on. That’s what it was always about, making a better future.’
‘Yes, it was,’ Scott agreed. Distractedly, he picked up a paperweight and turned it over in his hands. ‘I need your help, Kitty.’
‘Why?’ Kate asked. ‘What’s happened?’
‘He’s come back,’ Scott said.
Kate’s blood ran cold.