will1@earthling.net Postcards from A Circle of Hell by Phil Hartman DISCLAIMER: Most are Marvel's. Anyone I create are mine. It's all fiction. No money is being made off of this. NOTE: AU; set just after "Locke in a Summers Land," and in the same timeline; more of an interlude; in the overall timeline, Cecilia's imprisonment in Neverland takes place around the same time as Betsy's death and Cassandra's rise to power ... NOTE 2: Seriously - DARK stuff. Language, imagery, violence, unsettling intimations ... be forewarned. Also, Cecilia never faced drug addiction, nor the Neo, in this timeline. ---------------------------------------- 7/11/06: ---------------------------------------- I'm scratching this in the wall. With my fingernails. I was brought here this morning - wherever the hell here is - to someplace with a lot of robots, a lot MORE mutants, and a damper field. A few years ago, I would've been happy to be without my powers. They got me kicked out of my trauma-surgeon residency, when those damn Prime Sentinels blew into OMOM and blew my cover with it. And I ended up with the world's foremost team of mutant "freedom fighters." Oh, it wasn't as bad as it sounds; I eventually got a second chance to be a doctor, even a trauma surgeon. I had a little place in Salem Center where I was helping people, everyone - not just humans or just mutants. Granted, the trauma surgeon work was more helping to patch up my wounded "teammates," but still, I was helping people. I almost never had to deal with supervillains ... or run around in spandex. And at the end of the day, the frightening "boogeymen" of the X-Men - the stereotyped, fearful shadows Purity mock on their damned Web site - were a lot more human than the average person on the street. The terrible Cyclops? An uptight, almost-paralyzed, man, hiding behind his visor and only rarely opening up to even his friends, but also a deeply caring father of a big family. The man-eating Wolverine? An amnesiac, tortured, modern-day samurai with a protective streak and heart as big as any ER doctor. The weather-witch Storm? One of the damn funniest, warmest "sisters" a woman could ever ask for, and a lot kinder than she comes off in the field. The flame-haired, reborn time-and-again Psynergy? A friendly (and insanely fertile - SIX KIDS, Jean!?) momma and den mother, who's really the heart of the team and, IMO, overworked. The blue-furred Beast? Dios mio, McCoy, I miss you ... I got up this morning, determined to make "that call" - the one Jean, Ororo, Marie and Betsy all said I should get around to sooner than later. Then I felt this weird "buzz" in the prep room at my clinic, and then I felt what I thought was a bug-bite. And I woke up on an airplane, surrounded by other mutants, headed for God knows where. We were headed north, that much I could tell. But based on what little Maggott could tell me - something about a new Weapon X, wish I'd read the files more - it wasn't good. And it hasn't been. We were marched into a walled camp somewhere surrounded by these robot guards and armed soldiers, and our powers were useless. That Diamond Lil woman learned that the hard way, even if I couldn't've seen poor Leech strapped - without clothes? - into that antenna thing at the highest point of the camp. Anyone who would do that to a teenaged boy would be capable of anything, I remember thinking. Christ, was I blind. I got a green "m" on my hand, and was herded in to a barracks with other women, men and children. There's a *drain* in the floor, and crappy bunks, a leaky faucet - ONE leaky faucet - and the clank-clank of those damn robots outside. And they hauled Maggott and a bunch of other mutants off. The ones with red "m's". And Japheth acted like that'd be the last time we'd ever see each other ... Dios mio, help me ... ... has Magneto's B.S. been RIGHT all these years? -------------------------------------- 7/13/06: -------------------------------------- Mother of - I'm sorry; I have to take my time with this. They're *experimenting on us.* Well, not me - and I feel guilty over that, since these poor people are being dragged off by those damn robots. When they come back - if they come back - they're exhausted, with needle marks on their arms and legs and elsewhere ... ... and sometimes pieces missing. The human guards won't answer my questions, but sometimes they do bring medicines. And the food's improved, and there are more toilets, and a curtained-off shower area. And no one's taken the children away. Yet. I don't feel comfortable about that. Not when I've seen some of these people come back, and the shape they're in. God, Hank - hell, I'd take *Drake* - please, somebody find us soon ... -------------------------------- 7/14/06: -------------------------------- That - I fought ALONGSIDE her, for Christ's sake! BITCH! Backstabbing, HYPOCRITICAL - Breathe, Cecilia ... That little bitch. After what she went through - HER, of all people - as a child ... Marrow is a Weapon X assassin. MARROW. Angel made all these damn excuses for her attitude. She did save my ass a few times. And then she disappears, and for what's essentially a beauty treatment, the little hypocrite joins a black-ops program to experiment on and kill her fellow mutants. A *Morlock* joining with people who kill mutants. Some of the - well, "supervillains," I guess you'd call them - overheard the guards talking about Little Miss Calcium Hog, and they told me in exchange for me binding their wounds. (Our"hosts" let the "villains" fight, as long as nobody kills themselves. THAT duty falls to our jailers.) I want an answer, from that little traitor. How could she sell us out? How could she have been given her *life* back, after the Massacre, then throw it away as a murderess of her own kind. Heh. Listen to me ... "our kind." Storm spent months trying to get me to think about my "responsibility to our people," and I kept insisting that we were all human. "That is true, Cecilia. But do you stop being Puerto Rican when you use your powers? Or vice-versa?" Ororo once told me. I've had more time to think about that here, about the difference between human and mutant. But I still want to STRANGLE that little skank Marrow. --------------------------------- 7/15/06: --------------------------------- The pain of these people ... The hopelessness in the little kids' eyes is the worst. They're scared, and their parents are being hauled off, and nobody will tell them *why.* "We're mutants, not bad guys!" one boy cried to me tge other night. I never wanted kids, even before I ever knew I was a mutant. After Papa died in my arms, I thought being vulnerable and weak was something to push away. I took the whole "hot-blooded Latina" stereotype and added my grief and cynicism to defend myself against the assholes I encountered in school and medical school. Kids seemed like a vulnerability I couldn't afford - a distraction. And then I met the Summers family. It's funny; Jean's family basically dropped their Catholicism a generation ago (John and Elaine redefine the "open-minded baby-boomer hippie" stereotype), but Jean doesn't mind having six kids. I'd be nuts, even with her kids being relatively tolerable. (Rachel's got her mother's temper and the early-teenager attitude, but she's still better than most girls that age. Dios mio, when I think what I was like at 13 ...) And her little brothers and sister ... I've been dreaming of them, when I hold these poor kids in my arms and let them cry themselves to sleep. If I ever get out of here and catch the bastardos in charge of this place ... Wagner might want to be my confessor, even if he did marry Amanda. ---------------------------------- 7/16/06: ---------------------------------- Betsy. Dead. It was a few days ago; the guards laughed at me when they told me. Some psycho named Vargas *stabbed* her in Valencia - I TOLD Ororo not to go after those damn diaries! - and these damn guards made a "joke" out of her death. "Last Ride of the Buttfloss Brigade," they said. Bastards. Betsy Braddock was a genuinely decent woman - a little wild, definitely the "action junkie" she acted like, but a real friend. She could laugh at the absurdities of being an X-Man, and with Jean, she was one of my best friendson the team. She was real, even if she was British royalty. I can't write anymore right now. ----------------------------------------- 7/17/06: ----------------------------------------- Damnit. I never liked this - telepathy *still* freaks me out - but what the hell? Maybe I'll get lucky if I mentally "scream" loud enough. If Xavier or Jean - or maybe one of the Gen X kids or Karma - are listening, maybe I can get some help here. So - CAN ANYBODY HEAR ME!? ... ~Cecilia?~ ... Oh, great. Betsy. I'm hallucinating that a *dead woman* knows where we're at. Then the guards come racing in, and they look more pissed than usual, and that cyber-freak Kane is leading them. Maybe somebody *did* hear me? "Get up, mutant witch," Kane growls, and he grabs my arm. "Eat it, asshole," I growl - more of a low rumble, the food's sucked and the stress hasn't helped, but I'm gonna damn well make sure this pissant fuck knows I went down fighting - as I try to knee him in the groin. NOT a smart idea, since that codpiece feels like metal, and I think I broke my knee - - and his fingers tighten on my throat - - and then he *freezes.* I mean, block of ice - - well, it's about fucking TIME - ! --------------------------------------- Garrison Kane never felt the iceblock that shunted his systems into thermal shock shutdown. But, somewhere, he might've felt the slap to the remaining flesh of his face as he released Cecilia Reyes, and she fell into the waiting arms of Bobby Drake. "God, Cece - we didn't KNOW," Iceman moaned, letting Cecilia cling to him as Colossus, Wolverine, an ashen-faced Jubilee and a crowd of SHIELD agents moved to help the freed prisoners. "Those sonsabitches. Madison, Allen, get these people to the Helicarrier - Doc, you gonna be OK? Need to sit?" Logan asked, one hand on Jubilee's shoulder as she looked at Cecilia with renewed concern. "I've sat with dying or dead people for a week, Logan. I want to kick ass and take names," Cecilia snarled, smiling coldly when her psionoplasmic force field activated and Bobby released her. "Sorry, Drake." "No problem. Thank God Betsy's psi-trace found you guys - we had to use a SHIELD cloaked robot to free Leech, so we could -" Bobby said, helping Cecilia outside. "WHAT did you say? Those damn guards told me Betsy was killed!?" Cecilia gasped, turning to look at her former partner in X-Men field work. "She got better - Frank Richards brought her back to life," Bobby said, smiling weakly as Cecilia took a moment to enjoy the sunlight and smiled. "Thanks, all of you. I knew you'd come ... is ... is Maggott alive? And where's Marrow?" Cecilia asked, turning serious as she watched Weapon X troops being marched past, bound, by SHIELD agents toward a transport. The crestfallen looks she got from Logan, Piotr and Bobby, and Jubilee's tears, made Cecilia's heart sink. "We ... found one of his slugs. In the ... labs. It was dead. And Marrow ... got away," Logan said, his mournful tone turning bitter as he shifted uncomfortably. "She knifed Logan in a sensitive spot," Piotr explained, utterly serious despite the darkly humerous images coming to Cecilia's mind. She didn't say anything, however, and moved to hug Jubilee, who looked like she was about to break down. "I - this isn't supposed to *happen* today. This is Quebec, not Nazi Germany," Jubilee muttered, wiping her eyes as she walked to where Leech - in a blanket - was being tended to by SHIELD medics. "I know the feeling, kiddo," Cecilia muttered, looking at the captured Weapon X field agents, then at Logan. "And how're you holding up?" "Pissed. I took care of that bastard Colcord - old Weapon X guard who got funding from who knows where, and recruited a bunch of second-string mutant traitors to help hunt down and kill our kind. Brings back bad old memories," Logan grunted, following the other X-Men as they headed toward the Blackbird. "If you need to talk ...?" Cecilia just nodded, then followed them. "Maybe," she said. "Right now, I just want to get the hell out of here." --------------------------------------- tbc elsewhere ... ---------------------------------------