APOCALYPSE NEXT Chapter 8 WAYDOWN This is the time when I'm most at ease... focused. The smallest targets are magnified until I can't miss and all I hear is me heart beatin'. My hot knives burn the air toward the murderous bastard, turnin' the final seconds of 'is life into an ugly mirage. He was firin' energy blasts from 'is right arm, which looked like a three barreled cannon, killin' friend and foe alike... Now 'e falls to the floor, 'is neck a cauterized stump... "Rainin' outside... was comin up a cloud last night... It's upon me now... cold cold rain in my eyes... " Wot? Wolverine is speakin'... never heard him speak but I know it's him. "I don't remember my mother... except for my implanted mothers, them I remember... all o' them, each written into my mem'ry every time I was to be implanted with a brand new servin' o' Mission Parameters Specific Memory Induction/Inculcation Sets--" At first it sounds as if it's comin' from the public address -- that ugly voice, like the sound of blackest violence... "--Which is to say that whenever they needed me ta' have a lifetime of preparin' myself for a specific mission they'd scramble up my mind an' rewrite me a new lifetime... a new mother for me..." A few questions come to mind, but I am more involved, at the moment, with the immediate business of keepin' meself alive. The helicarrier is under attack, apparently at all levels. Explosions, all around... The deck is lurchin'... Hard to stay balanced, walkin' in blood... first I thought I'd cut me feet on some glass... it wos the floor... the whole floor. "Have I finally defined who I am? Have the blinders been removed? Is this who Ah was meant ta be? NO!" Fuckin' hell, ya bastard! Take your loud bollocks an' go cry in somebody else's head! "Nothin's changed but my attitude... you're all worthless an' weak... it is up to me to school you... " "Pete!" Kitty, runnin' toward me, stoppin' those she can and phasin' through those that may slow her down too much... She sees a large reptilian tear the spine out of a crewman, she phases through him, bringin' his skeleton with her... but she doesnt see the freak that is comin' up behind her. "After we liberated Tibet from China, the Lama wanted to arrange with us for his return... Fuck You! Shouldn't 'ahve left your people to languish in inhuman bondage so you could play party clown to Richard Gere." "They're all mine now, mutant and human alike... the newly free..." I try to warn Kitty, but an obese Arab moves in front of me and blocks her from my sight... I push foreward, a hot knife pointed toward 'is chest, an' 'e breaks apart like -- surrounded by five little versions of 'imself -- like little midget wrestlers... One finger for each... That's done... "Our numbers grow every day... y'all want so much to kill yourselves... I will help... I will force war on all of you... you will all come to know war and, in the end... you who survive will never want to kill again... " Wolverine's rant is drivin' me to distraction. I find Kitty and her pursuer... 'e's tall, like a man on stilts, his back bent forward to avoid the ceilin'. A plasma whip flails from 'is eyes, turnin the bulkheads to slag. "What happens to you when you see that reality is only just a sketch on rice paper? I'll tell ya... you see no consequences to your actions... you read Burroughs and... Nothing Is Real, Everything Is Permitted... It's all, just... stuff... I don't know... " "His name is DragonEyes, Pete." DragonEyes is lashin' 'is plasma whip at Kitty. I let them run past me and I put a hot knife in 'is knee. 'e falls, wailin' pain, and a hot knife behind the eyes turns off the fire. Kitty reaches me, and we watch 'is body begin to glow -- Without the eyes, the plasma had no way to expend itself. 'is body melts the deck beneath it and starts to burn its way out of the helicarrier. Floor and ceilin' are fast becomin' walls... We're goin' down! Shite! Kitty hands me a backpack and takes me hand... "Hold your breath when we go through walls!" Kitty. "WOT?" We phase, and the helicarrier tumbles all around us as we fall through on our way out. "We have no barriers... don't bother to lock your doors." The helicarrier is bein' gutted from inside as it falls toward the ocean. It's dark under this storm... In the distance, a small cluster of lights: Madripoor... It's a warm rain.