Back to GatefoldIssue #3 by D. Golightly
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“DOWN TO BUSINESS”
“We have a lot of work to do.”
Zero followed the woman named Natasha down the corridor and thrown a maze of turns, taking them deeper and deeper in the complex. The headquarters of the Resistance seemed to be akin to a bunker since it was so recessed into the bedrock of the otherwise ruined city. He had lost track of where they were headed.
“What kind of work?” he asked.
“First, take off that headdress.” Natasha paused at a doorway and keyed in several commands, causing the door to open after several bolts slid out of the way. “We have a lot to talk about, too.”
He did as he was ordered, sliding the black hood and google off of his face. His thick red beard scratched at his cheeks, but he resisted the urge to raise his hand up to satisfy the need.
“We’re the Resistance,” Natasha said. “We’re the only group still standing that has opposed Apocalypse, and as you can imagine, he’s determined to make us dead.”
“The Marauders.”
Natasha nodded. “Those psychopaths led by Avalanche are under orders to shoot first and never even bother asking questions later. For the last two years we’ve held our ground, and before that we moved our base of operations every other week because of the pressure they were putting on us.”
They entered an L-shaped room that had several kiosks with various knick-knacks on display. A few held trinkets, like a locket or key ring. Others had picture frames of families. The majority held bits of clothing, such as a tattered hat, scarf, jacket, or pieces of what could be a uniform.
“The fallen,” Natasha said. “These people gave their lives to stop Apocalypse. I can honestly say that even though they died, if it meant reaching our goal they would all gladly do it again.”
Zero scrutinized the items on the kiosks. He picked up a bracelet with a small button extending out over where the palm would be. He pressed it, but nothing happed, and he returned it to the small pedestal. Natasha had already moved on, gazing over the materials herself.
Her eyes skimmed over the memories displayed before them and he heard her take short breathes as she obviously relived certain experiences. A torn shirt with a white skull emblazoned across the chest seemed to hold particular interest to her, but after another heartbeat she closed her eyes and led him to the end of the room.
Around the turn in the room there was a single kiosk set aside from the rest. Resting atop the display was a lone item: a yellow visor with a long red lens that would have covered both eyes.
“This belonged to our leader,” Natasha said. “He saved almost everyone you’ll meet here today. It was his mission to reach our goal and stop Apocalypse.”
“How did he die?”
“Avalanche dropped a building on him. It took use three days to dig out his corpse.”
Zero closed his mouth and swallowed. He didn’t understand any of this. To him this was all new, but to Natasha this was her life. This was all real and these people had fought beside her the way soldiers depend on each other for survival.
After another moment of silence, he finally said, “You mentioned your goal twice now. What are you trying to do here?”
“Trying to find you.”
Natasha led him out through the rear entrance to the room and down a spiral staircase. He briefly wondered what the facility had been before the Resistance had taken up residence here, which made him think about the complex he had awoken in merely a few hours ago. Had there been a more organized, funded Resistance prior to Natasha’s crew coming here?
At the bottom of the staircase was yet another door, into which Natasha inputted another long command code. The bolts slid back, the door opened, and they entered the nerve center of the Resistance.
A row of computer banks that looked just as ragged as the ones in the room he had been reborn in lined two of the four walls, managed by several aggravated people speaking in hushed tones. When they entered the room fell silent.
In the middle of the room was a hologram display that projected a framework head over two people that had turned to watch them enter.
“Natasha,” the floating wire head said. “Is this him?”
“Hello, Forge,” she replied. “Yes, we believe it is.”
“Take him to Mother,” he said. “I’m not putting all of our resources into another one of your charity cases.”
“Thank you, Forge,” she replied coldly. She nodded to one of the people standing at the base of the projector. “Gomi, would you?”
The blonde-haired young man smirked and flipped a switch, cutting off the connection and causing Forge’s facsimile to blink out of existence. The woman beside him, another blonde, but very stout and well-built, shared his smile.
“He’s not wrong,” the blond woman said. “We’ve been down this path before.”
“Forge has his own priorities and concerns,” Natasha said. “I have mine. He’s not here on the front line like we are, so it’s easy for him to displace hope and just be concerned about the numbers.”
“Those numbers are what keep us alive.”
“No, I keep us alive.” Natasha turned to face Zero. “This is Alphonsus Lefszycic, codename Gomi, and Carol Danvers, codename Pilot. They are the joint second in command officers of the Resistance.”
“When you say it like that it sounds so sexy,” Gomi said.
Natasha fixed him with a glare. “Ignore him,” she said to Zero without looking over her shoulder at him. “Gomi is just repressed. If you need something and I’m not around, however, these two are the people you need to see.”
“Are you sure about this, ‘Tash?” Pilot asked.
She ignored the question, instead motioning for Zero to follow her around the console toward another side door. The complex just seemed to go on and on, mile after mile, as if there was no end to the facility. Was it connected to the place he had awoken? It seemed like the construction was similar: reinforced concrete with white-painted steel support beams throughout.
They walked swiftly passed the rest of the crew working within the confines of the so-called War Room, all of them pausing in their work to stare at Zero and Natasha as they went by.
Just before exiting, a familiar face popped through, literally through, the wall beside the doorway.
“Hey,” the soft-spoken voice said.
“Shit!” Natasha exclaimed. She stepped back and her hand instinctively went to her side where a sidearm was strapped. Once she recognized the face, however, she relaxed. “Dammit, Kitty. You can’t phase through things around here, especially in this room. You know how you affect electronics.”
“Sorry,” she said with a shrug. “I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just that…well, Mother asked me to come with you guys.”
Natasha blinked. The stalwart soldier was obviously unnerved. “Oh? That’s…odd. I wasn’t aware. Alright. Come with us, but don’t phase around the corners to get ahead of me.”
The trio walked in silence the rest of the way. After several more twists in their path they came upon a huge, oval-shaped door that had been smashed into what looked like the building’s foundations. The massive metal door had no hinges and Zero couldn’t see how it could even open. It was layered, with thicker oval rings building within the overall door, forming a sort of cone shape if you looked at it from the side.
At the center of the outermost layer, which was no more wide than a single person of average height, was a control panel. It glowed a soft emerald light and a single command prompt blinked, awaiting them to input some sort of command; presumably to open the door.
Natasha stopped at the doorway and turned to face Zero, saying nothing. Kitty did the same. Zero blinked and looked from one woman, and then to the other.
“Are you expecting me to do something?” Zero asked, a little more coldly than he probably should have said.
“You need to—”
“Sorry! Sorry! That’s my fault!”
A spherical robot descended from overhead, jettisoning out of a tube made to fit it’s unique size. Zero immediately recognized it as HERB, the confusing and floating computer that had thrust him into this world feet first.
Natasha whirled on HERB once it had descended to their eye level. “You didn’t inform him of anything before you sent him to us?”
“His version of sending me to you involved shoving me out the door and in front of the Marauders,” Zero said.
Natasha’s gaze bore into the hovering robot. “Should I have Gomi run a system check on you?” she inquired.
“No!” HERB responded urgently. “It was my understanding that I was to bring the Failsafe to you upon immediate discovery.”
“Why do you keep calling me that?” Zero asked. “Dammit, someone has to start telling me something!”
Natasha raised a hand toward HERB, silencing the robot, although its motors continued to spin internally in frustration. She shared a quick look with Kitty and then turned back to face Zero.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “Just let the door scan your retina and then go inside. You’ll get the majority of your answers in there.”
“From this Mother person,” Zero added.
Natasha nodded and stepped aside, pushing HERB out of the way despite some beeping protests. Kitty phased back into the wall out of habit, but Zero noticed that when her intangible hand brushed against the oval door that it stopped melding with the solid matter.
“What’s this door made of?” Zero asked.
“Something called Nth metal,” Kitty said as she glanced at her hand. She pulled it back, looking embarrassed. “It’s not from this dimension. It was the best protective measure we could think of for this place.”
“For protecting Mother.”
“Yes. She’s very important to our cause. To your cause.” Kitty slinked back into the wall until only her face stuck out to watch them.
Zero pulled in a deep breath and then bent down until his eyes were level with the green screen. Something clicked from within the door and a beam blinked into existence, scanning Zero’s right eyes. The prompt spit out something in a language that Zero wasn’t privy to understand, and then metal began to grind against metal as the door started the process of opening.
The protruding oval ring started to seep back into the next tier, and once the edges were flush, the seams completely vanished. Large bolts behind the door could be heard sliding between the door and the wall, the shriek of metal mostly deafened from the wall itself.
Once the oval-shaped door was completely flat, with the rings all absorbed, it begin to slide upward into the ceiling.
“The entire room is encased in the Nth metal,” Natasha explained. “This is the only way to get in to see her.”
“Are you coming in?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Not at first. She’ll need to speak with you privately. Go head. It’s okay.”
He sensed genuine honesty in her voice and for whatever reason, perhaps his complete lack of understanding, he trusted her. Zero stepped forward and entered a stark white room that was completely devoid of color, furniture, or anything else.
..other than a red-haired woman sitting in a hanging chair that extended down from the veiling. The metal arm supporting the chase was a gray metal, juxtaposing the otherwise pure room. It supported her weight just fine, even though she couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds.
She was very thin, with gorgeous flowing red hair that cascaded over her shoulders. In fact, her hair seemed to make up more of her person than her actual body. Her eyes and forehead were hidden by a visor that was held in place by the same arm that upheld her chair, but her mouth, nose, and cheekbones were visible.
As soon as his eyes locked onto her, Zero was thrown into an abrupt seizure.
In his mind’s eye he saw the woman, more toned and built from muscle, standing in the middle of a field that was so green that the grass almost glowed. Her arms were extending toward him, ushering him to come to her.
He saw himself, his stance aggressive, and he tried to assault her. They spared, and within seconds the fight was over, and he was flat on his back, feeling the soft grass prickle his back, arms, and neck.
Then he opened his eyes and he saw the woman as she was in the white room, leaning over him thanks to the supporting chair. He blinked several times and then sat up, and in reaction the arm controlling her chair pulled her back slightly.
“Hello, Nathan,” she said calmly.
“I…what? Who are you? What just happened to me?”
“That was an implanted training session you recalled from your subconscious mind,” she replied gently. “I expect that you’ve been experiencing them since you awakened recently?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“Because I’m the one that implanted them.”
Her chair slid backward in the air, allowing him more space to stand up again. He felt refreshed, unlike the previous episodes he had undergone. The seizure had been horrifying, but now it was like nothing had happened at all. He felt awake and alert.
“I twisted your recall ability slightly,” she continued once he was on his feet again. “That should not happen again, and I apologize for not correcting that oversight when I first programmed your mind.”
“Programmed my mind?” he blurted out. “You mean you created my memories? Do you know who I am? You called me—”
“Nathan, yes.” She reached up to slide the visor aside, and in reaction to her movements, the light dimmed in the white room. Her hands moved slowly and in broken spasms, like an elderly woman desperately trying to regain motor control, even though she looked so young. “That’s what I named you.”
Once her visor was removed he saw deep blue eyes that mirrored his own. A stab of recognition went through him as his mind yet again recalled certain implanted memories, but this time without the painful side effect.
“My name is Jean Summers,” she stated. “I was tasked with creating you and giving you the skills that the Resistance would need in a last attempt to topple Apocalypse’s control. You have fighting prowess unlike the most seasoned of warriors; your understanding of modern technology is only rivaled by a genius-level intellect; your conditioning is stalwart with the endurance needed to achieve your goals.”
“Nathan…my name is Nathan. Since you’re my creator, am I Nathan Summers?”
She chuckled. “Yes, I suppose you could consider yourself my son. Most people that come to this facility have taken to calling me Mother. I suppose for you it’s a little more literal. We called you Nathan because…well, if I ever had a son I had planned to call him Nathan.”
“We?”
“Yes, there was a group of us,” she continued. “Your development as our final weapon—”
“A failsafe.”
She hesitated. “Yes, a failsafe…I oversaw your mental regimen, implanting fixed memories of training, and basic conditioning. Several others took care of the biomechanics as well as physical oversight.”
“You’re saying I was built and programmed like a machine. A killing machine.”
“Basically, yes. An organic machine designed to excel at one goal: kill Apocalypse.”
Zero took a step backward. His eyes narrowed as he tried to take everything in and he suddenly saw this woman as an enemy. She had all the earmarks of one: establishing basic communication and trust without actually conceding anything, making an argument based on fact rather than assumption, and issuing methods of control. She was essentially telling him what he was expected to do, without giving him an option.
Then it donned on him that he did not have an option. If this was truly what he was created for, and he had seen firsthand what the Marauders were like, then why wouldn’t he agree to these assertions?
Apocalypse had seemingly created a world of chaos, a world of death and destruction. If he was the so-called Failsafe, then they had extinguished all other options. He really was their last chance at survival and a future worth living.
“Why now?” he asked. “Why did I wake up now?”
Mother hesitated. “I’m not sure,” she finally admitted. “You were thought lost, the complex where you were developed was buried and our records were expunged by the Marauders. That was seven years ago and we lacked the excavation equipment and manpower needed to find you. We assumed that you were dead.”
“And yet here I am,” Zero shot back. “Forgotten and tossed away, right? HERB found me. He didn’t give up.”
Mother cringed slightly. “HERB is only one of dozens of robots that monitored our facilities years ago. It is only following its programming.”
“I’ve got another question for you,” he stated. “Why was I designated as Zero? Where there others? Was I just the first?”
“Yes, there were several others. You were the only one that survived the mental implementation process, due to the way your brain was constructed. The others…well, did not take kindly to the programming.”
“Meaning?”
“They went insane and tried to kill us.”
“Mother,” Natasha said from behind them. Zero turned to see her, Kitty, and HERB in the doorway, although they had not stepped into the white room. “Pilot is issuing a proximity alert. The Marauders are here. We need to get moving.”
“Where are we going?” Zero asked.
“To collect the only weapon that we believe can kill Apocalypse,” Mother replied. The visor slid back into place, hiding her delicate eyes from his gaze. “The brain of Professor Charles Xavier.”
TO BE CONTINUED...
“We have a lot of work to do.”
Zero followed the woman named Natasha down the corridor and thrown a maze of turns, taking them deeper and deeper in the complex. The headquarters of the Resistance seemed to be akin to a bunker since it was so recessed into the bedrock of the otherwise ruined city. He had lost track of where they were headed.
“What kind of work?” he asked.
“First, take off that headdress.” Natasha paused at a doorway and keyed in several commands, causing the door to open after several bolts slid out of the way. “We have a lot to talk about, too.”
He did as he was ordered, sliding the black hood and google off of his face. His thick red beard scratched at his cheeks, but he resisted the urge to raise his hand up to satisfy the need.
“We’re the Resistance,” Natasha said. “We’re the only group still standing that has opposed Apocalypse, and as you can imagine, he’s determined to make us dead.”
“The Marauders.”
Natasha nodded. “Those psychopaths led by Avalanche are under orders to shoot first and never even bother asking questions later. For the last two years we’ve held our ground, and before that we moved our base of operations every other week because of the pressure they were putting on us.”
They entered an L-shaped room that had several kiosks with various knick-knacks on display. A few held trinkets, like a locket or key ring. Others had picture frames of families. The majority held bits of clothing, such as a tattered hat, scarf, jacket, or pieces of what could be a uniform.
“The fallen,” Natasha said. “These people gave their lives to stop Apocalypse. I can honestly say that even though they died, if it meant reaching our goal they would all gladly do it again.”
Zero scrutinized the items on the kiosks. He picked up a bracelet with a small button extending out over where the palm would be. He pressed it, but nothing happed, and he returned it to the small pedestal. Natasha had already moved on, gazing over the materials herself.
Her eyes skimmed over the memories displayed before them and he heard her take short breathes as she obviously relived certain experiences. A torn shirt with a white skull emblazoned across the chest seemed to hold particular interest to her, but after another heartbeat she closed her eyes and led him to the end of the room.
Around the turn in the room there was a single kiosk set aside from the rest. Resting atop the display was a lone item: a yellow visor with a long red lens that would have covered both eyes.
“This belonged to our leader,” Natasha said. “He saved almost everyone you’ll meet here today. It was his mission to reach our goal and stop Apocalypse.”
“How did he die?”
“Avalanche dropped a building on him. It took use three days to dig out his corpse.”
Zero closed his mouth and swallowed. He didn’t understand any of this. To him this was all new, but to Natasha this was her life. This was all real and these people had fought beside her the way soldiers depend on each other for survival.
After another moment of silence, he finally said, “You mentioned your goal twice now. What are you trying to do here?”
“Trying to find you.”
Natasha led him out through the rear entrance to the room and down a spiral staircase. He briefly wondered what the facility had been before the Resistance had taken up residence here, which made him think about the complex he had awoken in merely a few hours ago. Had there been a more organized, funded Resistance prior to Natasha’s crew coming here?
At the bottom of the staircase was yet another door, into which Natasha inputted another long command code. The bolts slid back, the door opened, and they entered the nerve center of the Resistance.
A row of computer banks that looked just as ragged as the ones in the room he had been reborn in lined two of the four walls, managed by several aggravated people speaking in hushed tones. When they entered the room fell silent.
In the middle of the room was a hologram display that projected a framework head over two people that had turned to watch them enter.
“Natasha,” the floating wire head said. “Is this him?”
“Hello, Forge,” she replied. “Yes, we believe it is.”
“Take him to Mother,” he said. “I’m not putting all of our resources into another one of your charity cases.”
“Thank you, Forge,” she replied coldly. She nodded to one of the people standing at the base of the projector. “Gomi, would you?”
The blonde-haired young man smirked and flipped a switch, cutting off the connection and causing Forge’s facsimile to blink out of existence. The woman beside him, another blonde, but very stout and well-built, shared his smile.
“He’s not wrong,” the blond woman said. “We’ve been down this path before.”
“Forge has his own priorities and concerns,” Natasha said. “I have mine. He’s not here on the front line like we are, so it’s easy for him to displace hope and just be concerned about the numbers.”
“Those numbers are what keep us alive.”
“No, I keep us alive.” Natasha turned to face Zero. “This is Alphonsus Lefszycic, codename Gomi, and Carol Danvers, codename Pilot. They are the joint second in command officers of the Resistance.”
“When you say it like that it sounds so sexy,” Gomi said.
Natasha fixed him with a glare. “Ignore him,” she said to Zero without looking over her shoulder at him. “Gomi is just repressed. If you need something and I’m not around, however, these two are the people you need to see.”
“Are you sure about this, ‘Tash?” Pilot asked.
She ignored the question, instead motioning for Zero to follow her around the console toward another side door. The complex just seemed to go on and on, mile after mile, as if there was no end to the facility. Was it connected to the place he had awoken? It seemed like the construction was similar: reinforced concrete with white-painted steel support beams throughout.
They walked swiftly passed the rest of the crew working within the confines of the so-called War Room, all of them pausing in their work to stare at Zero and Natasha as they went by.
Just before exiting, a familiar face popped through, literally through, the wall beside the doorway.
“Hey,” the soft-spoken voice said.
“Shit!” Natasha exclaimed. She stepped back and her hand instinctively went to her side where a sidearm was strapped. Once she recognized the face, however, she relaxed. “Dammit, Kitty. You can’t phase through things around here, especially in this room. You know how you affect electronics.”
“Sorry,” she said with a shrug. “I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just that…well, Mother asked me to come with you guys.”
Natasha blinked. The stalwart soldier was obviously unnerved. “Oh? That’s…odd. I wasn’t aware. Alright. Come with us, but don’t phase around the corners to get ahead of me.”
The trio walked in silence the rest of the way. After several more twists in their path they came upon a huge, oval-shaped door that had been smashed into what looked like the building’s foundations. The massive metal door had no hinges and Zero couldn’t see how it could even open. It was layered, with thicker oval rings building within the overall door, forming a sort of cone shape if you looked at it from the side.
At the center of the outermost layer, which was no more wide than a single person of average height, was a control panel. It glowed a soft emerald light and a single command prompt blinked, awaiting them to input some sort of command; presumably to open the door.
Natasha stopped at the doorway and turned to face Zero, saying nothing. Kitty did the same. Zero blinked and looked from one woman, and then to the other.
“Are you expecting me to do something?” Zero asked, a little more coldly than he probably should have said.
“You need to—”
“Sorry! Sorry! That’s my fault!”
A spherical robot descended from overhead, jettisoning out of a tube made to fit it’s unique size. Zero immediately recognized it as HERB, the confusing and floating computer that had thrust him into this world feet first.
Natasha whirled on HERB once it had descended to their eye level. “You didn’t inform him of anything before you sent him to us?”
“His version of sending me to you involved shoving me out the door and in front of the Marauders,” Zero said.
Natasha’s gaze bore into the hovering robot. “Should I have Gomi run a system check on you?” she inquired.
“No!” HERB responded urgently. “It was my understanding that I was to bring the Failsafe to you upon immediate discovery.”
“Why do you keep calling me that?” Zero asked. “Dammit, someone has to start telling me something!”
Natasha raised a hand toward HERB, silencing the robot, although its motors continued to spin internally in frustration. She shared a quick look with Kitty and then turned back to face Zero.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “Just let the door scan your retina and then go inside. You’ll get the majority of your answers in there.”
“From this Mother person,” Zero added.
Natasha nodded and stepped aside, pushing HERB out of the way despite some beeping protests. Kitty phased back into the wall out of habit, but Zero noticed that when her intangible hand brushed against the oval door that it stopped melding with the solid matter.
“What’s this door made of?” Zero asked.
“Something called Nth metal,” Kitty said as she glanced at her hand. She pulled it back, looking embarrassed. “It’s not from this dimension. It was the best protective measure we could think of for this place.”
“For protecting Mother.”
“Yes. She’s very important to our cause. To your cause.” Kitty slinked back into the wall until only her face stuck out to watch them.
Zero pulled in a deep breath and then bent down until his eyes were level with the green screen. Something clicked from within the door and a beam blinked into existence, scanning Zero’s right eyes. The prompt spit out something in a language that Zero wasn’t privy to understand, and then metal began to grind against metal as the door started the process of opening.
The protruding oval ring started to seep back into the next tier, and once the edges were flush, the seams completely vanished. Large bolts behind the door could be heard sliding between the door and the wall, the shriek of metal mostly deafened from the wall itself.
Once the oval-shaped door was completely flat, with the rings all absorbed, it begin to slide upward into the ceiling.
“The entire room is encased in the Nth metal,” Natasha explained. “This is the only way to get in to see her.”
“Are you coming in?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Not at first. She’ll need to speak with you privately. Go head. It’s okay.”
He sensed genuine honesty in her voice and for whatever reason, perhaps his complete lack of understanding, he trusted her. Zero stepped forward and entered a stark white room that was completely devoid of color, furniture, or anything else.
..other than a red-haired woman sitting in a hanging chair that extended down from the veiling. The metal arm supporting the chase was a gray metal, juxtaposing the otherwise pure room. It supported her weight just fine, even though she couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds.
She was very thin, with gorgeous flowing red hair that cascaded over her shoulders. In fact, her hair seemed to make up more of her person than her actual body. Her eyes and forehead were hidden by a visor that was held in place by the same arm that upheld her chair, but her mouth, nose, and cheekbones were visible.
As soon as his eyes locked onto her, Zero was thrown into an abrupt seizure.
In his mind’s eye he saw the woman, more toned and built from muscle, standing in the middle of a field that was so green that the grass almost glowed. Her arms were extending toward him, ushering him to come to her.
He saw himself, his stance aggressive, and he tried to assault her. They spared, and within seconds the fight was over, and he was flat on his back, feeling the soft grass prickle his back, arms, and neck.
Then he opened his eyes and he saw the woman as she was in the white room, leaning over him thanks to the supporting chair. He blinked several times and then sat up, and in reaction the arm controlling her chair pulled her back slightly.
“Hello, Nathan,” she said calmly.
“I…what? Who are you? What just happened to me?”
“That was an implanted training session you recalled from your subconscious mind,” she replied gently. “I expect that you’ve been experiencing them since you awakened recently?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“Because I’m the one that implanted them.”
Her chair slid backward in the air, allowing him more space to stand up again. He felt refreshed, unlike the previous episodes he had undergone. The seizure had been horrifying, but now it was like nothing had happened at all. He felt awake and alert.
“I twisted your recall ability slightly,” she continued once he was on his feet again. “That should not happen again, and I apologize for not correcting that oversight when I first programmed your mind.”
“Programmed my mind?” he blurted out. “You mean you created my memories? Do you know who I am? You called me—”
“Nathan, yes.” She reached up to slide the visor aside, and in reaction to her movements, the light dimmed in the white room. Her hands moved slowly and in broken spasms, like an elderly woman desperately trying to regain motor control, even though she looked so young. “That’s what I named you.”
Once her visor was removed he saw deep blue eyes that mirrored his own. A stab of recognition went through him as his mind yet again recalled certain implanted memories, but this time without the painful side effect.
“My name is Jean Summers,” she stated. “I was tasked with creating you and giving you the skills that the Resistance would need in a last attempt to topple Apocalypse’s control. You have fighting prowess unlike the most seasoned of warriors; your understanding of modern technology is only rivaled by a genius-level intellect; your conditioning is stalwart with the endurance needed to achieve your goals.”
“Nathan…my name is Nathan. Since you’re my creator, am I Nathan Summers?”
She chuckled. “Yes, I suppose you could consider yourself my son. Most people that come to this facility have taken to calling me Mother. I suppose for you it’s a little more literal. We called you Nathan because…well, if I ever had a son I had planned to call him Nathan.”
“We?”
“Yes, there was a group of us,” she continued. “Your development as our final weapon—”
“A failsafe.”
She hesitated. “Yes, a failsafe…I oversaw your mental regimen, implanting fixed memories of training, and basic conditioning. Several others took care of the biomechanics as well as physical oversight.”
“You’re saying I was built and programmed like a machine. A killing machine.”
“Basically, yes. An organic machine designed to excel at one goal: kill Apocalypse.”
Zero took a step backward. His eyes narrowed as he tried to take everything in and he suddenly saw this woman as an enemy. She had all the earmarks of one: establishing basic communication and trust without actually conceding anything, making an argument based on fact rather than assumption, and issuing methods of control. She was essentially telling him what he was expected to do, without giving him an option.
Then it donned on him that he did not have an option. If this was truly what he was created for, and he had seen firsthand what the Marauders were like, then why wouldn’t he agree to these assertions?
Apocalypse had seemingly created a world of chaos, a world of death and destruction. If he was the so-called Failsafe, then they had extinguished all other options. He really was their last chance at survival and a future worth living.
“Why now?” he asked. “Why did I wake up now?”
Mother hesitated. “I’m not sure,” she finally admitted. “You were thought lost, the complex where you were developed was buried and our records were expunged by the Marauders. That was seven years ago and we lacked the excavation equipment and manpower needed to find you. We assumed that you were dead.”
“And yet here I am,” Zero shot back. “Forgotten and tossed away, right? HERB found me. He didn’t give up.”
Mother cringed slightly. “HERB is only one of dozens of robots that monitored our facilities years ago. It is only following its programming.”
“I’ve got another question for you,” he stated. “Why was I designated as Zero? Where there others? Was I just the first?”
“Yes, there were several others. You were the only one that survived the mental implementation process, due to the way your brain was constructed. The others…well, did not take kindly to the programming.”
“Meaning?”
“They went insane and tried to kill us.”
“Mother,” Natasha said from behind them. Zero turned to see her, Kitty, and HERB in the doorway, although they had not stepped into the white room. “Pilot is issuing a proximity alert. The Marauders are here. We need to get moving.”
“Where are we going?” Zero asked.
“To collect the only weapon that we believe can kill Apocalypse,” Mother replied. The visor slid back into place, hiding her delicate eyes from his gaze. “The brain of Professor Charles Xavier.”
TO BE CONTINUED...