Back to Gatefold#15 - "Civil Unrest - Part III"
|
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story may contain scenes of graphic violence and sexual situations. It is recommended for mature readers.
In Case You're Just Joining Us: In response to The Fallen Angels' kidnapping of the French prime minister, and Magneto's continued insistence that his country has nothing to do with the terrorists, France announced to the UN Security Council that it intended to declare war on Genosha. Meanwhile, Shatterstar has a run-in with some mercenaries who have been enlisted to help the magistrates free the country, and Sunspot is grievously injured by a bombing in Hammer Bay's commerce district. Oh, and Siena Blaze has her memory back...
"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President or any public official, save exactly to the degree he himself stands by the country."
- Theodore Roosevelt
"They began setting up yesterday," the young mercenary said in low tones from beside him. "The town was empty until then."
The extra-dimensional mutant warrior named Shatterstar rolled a dial on the binoculars pressed to his face and zoomed in on the small rural area two kilometers away. The binocs were a nice piece of hardware, and they clearly showed him the people moving through the otherwise empty streets of the hamlet called Lucien's Ford. Some were up on rooftops, others had disappeared indoors. Their actions were relaxed, there was the occasional burst of easy laughter as they worked. And even though Shatterstar didn't immediately recognize any of them, it was clear even from this distance that they were all mutants.
"They're rebuilding," Shatterstar said. "Getting the town ready to be occupied again."
"Yeah, that's what we decided too," Jesus Suarez said beside him. The young man was part of a group of mercenaries that called themselves the Harriers. Each of them had been members of the UN espionage agency SHIELD for a time, and all of them were extremely good at what they did. Jesus--also known as Ranger to his teammates--was a tracker and bush surveillance man. Shatterstar had nothing but respect for the man's skill...but he didn't like the tone in his voice as he took the field glasses back and said,
"We may have to put them all down."
"What?"
"Hardcase had us run a couple sims. We're pretty sure we can go in there and neutralize the workers before any of them can raise an alarm."
"Those are innocent mutants down there!" Shatterstar hissed.
Jesus gave him a look that might rightly have been translated as puh-leez. "'Look, man...this is war. You know about civilian casualties, you know that sometimes they're unavoidable."
Shatterstar gritted his teeth, feeling another piece of his soul rot and fall away. "There must be another way..."
"Not unless you can come up with another route for the evac trucks," Ranger said simply. "Most of the roads in the country are impassable, we were lucky to find a way from one end of the island to the other as it is. The trucks might fool a random passerby or even a security checkpoint, but a whole town?" Ranger shook his head. "We need to take the evacuees through that town, and those workers can't be there when we do it. It's too risky."
"Perhaps we could draw them away."
"If you've got any ideas on how to do that without tipping our hand, I'm sure Hardcase would love to hear 'em."
Shatterstar opened his mouth to reply, when a radio crackle came in over the earplugs they both wore. It was Warhawk, reporting in from his recon position at 7,000 feet.
"Ranger, are you watching this?" They could hear the low hum of the man's jetpack and the rush of wind in the background.
"Watching what, hermano?" Jesus asked, bringing the field glasses up again. But he saw what his fellow merc was talking about a moment later.
"Huh. Whattaya know." Jesus lowered the glasses and slid them to Shatterstar. "Looks like you got your wish, 'Star."
Shatterstar lifted the glasses and looked at the town. "They're leaving," he said.
"And without much notice too. See how they just left their tools lying around?" Jesus touched a finger to his earplug. "What's going on, 'Hawk? Did they make us?"
"I don't think so," came the reply. "I caught the tail end of a transmission from Hammer Bay, I think they got recalled for some reason."
Jesus and Shatterstar looked at each other. "So something's happening in the capital."
In silent mutual consent, the mercenary and the mutant began scooting back from the crest of the hill. Once they'd fallen back far enough to be invisible from the town, they got to their feet and hurried toward their vehicle. If something was happening in the capital, it might involve the magistrates they were trying to save. And if that was the case, the tiny hamlet of Lucien's Ford could wait for another time.
The commerce district of Hammer Bay was in flames as Siena Blaze dropped to the street that had run through its center. Or what was left of that street, anyway.
All around her, the cries of the injured rang out as those who were still able ran in all directions, trying to save who could be saved and douse what fires they could. Whoever had placed the bombs--and really, who else could it be but the ever-present magistrates?--had known what they were doing. There hadn't been more than a dozen explosions, but they had been positioned for maximum range and damage.
Siena Blaze stood in the center of this--her mind whole for the first time in months--and tried to feel some compassion for the bleeding victims and the panicked multitudes.
And she couldn't. The only thing she felt for sure was an intense, sexual excitement that started in her tingling groin and spread like a warm sluice of water up through her torso and to the terminus of her spine. She saw the flames and all she wanted to do was make them bigger...and maybe fuck one of these strong young mutants right in the middle of this broken street.
While chaos reigned around her, Siena Blaze began to laugh.
<"Let me out!"> the prime minister demanded, pounding on the door of his cell. <"Do not leave me here to die, you freakish--">
The lock clicked, and the PM took a quick, startled step backwards as it creaked open. A boy of maybe seventeen poked his head in. He was slight, but tall, and he wore thick-rimmed glasses over a startling tangle of spiked white hair. He offered the PM an uncertain smile, then stepped the rest of the way in and closed the door behind him.
"Bonjour," the boy said, extending a hand. "Je m'appelle Gomi. Parlez-vous anglais?"
Utterly nonplussed, the prime minister took the boy's hand and shook without thinking. "Yes. Yes, I speak English."
"Whew. Good thing, because I think you just heard the extent of my French."
"Who are you?" the PM demanded, some of his earlier rage coming back. "What do you intend to do with me?"
"I intend to talk with you," Gomi said. "The people who brought you here were mutants, but I'm not, and they thought you'd feel more comfortable talking to me."
"I have no intention of negotiating with terrorists."
Gomi rubbed the back of his neck. "Is that your final answer?"
The PM ignored this question. "What's going on out there? I heard explosions..."
"A little civil unrest," Gomi explained. "Nothing you need to concern yourself over."
"I am in Genosha, am I not? Magneto's forces have not yet managed to repress the last regime, have they?"
"Look...sir...I really think you want to reconsider your stance on France's proposed mutant registration act."
"Absolutely not!" the PM trumpeted.
"But sir..."
"I do not subscribe to the paranoid delusions of Americans like Trask and Kelly, but mutant abilities must be registered just like any other dangerous weapon."
"I see your point...but my associates and I are worried that registration is only going to be the first step. Next, you'll be passing legislation to okay constant surveillance on registered mutants. Then maybe you'll implant tracking chips in them, so you can always know where they are. Then, when that gets to be too much of a budgetary burden, you'll cut out the middle man and just throw them all into internment camps."
"Preposterous!"
"It is not, sir. And you know it."
The PM rolled his eyes. "Why am I having this discussion with you? I demand to see Magneto this moment! If he ordered me abducted, he can face me as one head of state to another."
"No one ever said Magneto ordered your abduction, sir. No one even said you were in Genosha. I'm the best you're going to get."
"Then this discussion is at an end."
Gomi nodded. "One more thing." He shoved a hand into his pants pocket and drew three glossy photographs out. He paused for a moment, looking at them in silence as if he wasn't quite ready to take the next step. Then, with a sigh, he handed them over.
The PM took them, puzzled--but then his face fell as he saw what he was holding.
"Your wife and two children," Gomi said. "Safe in their beds. We got into your home with no trouble, sir, even after your people put extra security around and in it. And we could have done more than take photographs. But we're hoping you'll see our way of thinking before that ever becomes necessary."
The prime minister had fallen back against the wall, staring at the pictures in one hand while his other hand clutched at his heart. "You monsters! How could--how could you do this? To your own kind!"
Gomi gave him a small, insincere smile and turned toward the door. "I'll be back tomorrow to talk some more, prime minister."
He closed the door behind him just as the prime minister's repertoire of English curses had run out, and he had begun to hurl obscenities in his native French instead.
Gomi didn't quite make it to the bathroom before the mystery meat he'd eaten in the commissary that morning boiled its way up his gullet and came streaming out of his mouth and nose.
He was coughing and spitting into a corner, vomit spattering his pants where he knelt, and sobbing quietly.
"Didn't know it was going to be like this," he said as he heard the soft scuttling sound of Bill the Lobster's approach.
Bill moved onto his leg and up the back of his shirt until he was perched on Gomi's shoulder. He clacked his pincher claw worriedly.
"I'll be fine," Gomi said, rising to his feet. "I knew I was going to have to do some bad things when Meltdown first asked me to come here. And I believe in this, I really do. I just have to get past this--"
Something hit the wall and ceiling of the corridor simultaneously, and Gomi was hurled backward from it. Bill described a blue arc through the air from Gomi's flailing shoulder to the floor several yards away. He landed on his back, but in a moment, he'd flipped back over and was scuttling back towards his friend.
Whatever had hit them had knocked the power out, and a fine gray dust sifted down from the ceiling, where an ominous crack had appeared. Red emergency lights went on up and down the hallway, and a new round of panicked cries came from the French prime minister's cell.
"Uh oh..." Gomi said, and then he got up and ran toward the exit.
The makeshift facility that had served as Hammer Bay's hospital since the destruction of the Mother of Hope facility was full to bursting with the screams and moans of the injured and dying.
Tabitha Smith had no idea what to do now that she was here. She looked uncertainly across the packed triage at her teammate, Rictor, who stood near the doorway supporting the near-comatose Roberto DaCosta.
"Hey," Tabby finally said, reaching out and grabbing a passing nurse by the arm. The nurse turned eyes that were exhausted and more than a little annoyed on her.
"This guy's hurt," Tabby said, jabbing a finger at Bobby. "He was hurt in the first bombing and--"
"You have noticed that everyone here is hurt, haven't you?"
Tabby blinked. "Well yeah, of course...but--"
"Then please take a seat and wait to be helped," the nurse replied. She was wearing sunglasses--strange, since the lighting was so muted in here--and they somehow managed to make the disdain in her glare all the more apparent. She turned away.
"Hey," Tabby said again, grabbing her arm before she could turn away. "Do you recognize me?"
The nurse looked her up and down. "No."
"My name is Tabitha. I'm one of Magneto's Fallen Angels. He--" She pointed at Bobby again "--is the leader of the Fallen Angels. I really think somebody ought to take a look at him. Right now."
Sighing, her sharp features twisting with this compromise, the nurse took two steps toward Rictor and Bobby, then lowered the sunglasses on her face.
Her eyes were bright green, with no pupils, and she looked Bobby over quickly with them. "Multiply fractured right arm, minor tearing in ligaments in neck, fairly serious concussion." She snapped the sunglasses back onto her face and said, "Follow me."
The three of them followed the woman past the triage and more deeply into the facility. The smell of blood and shit and exposed organs was worse back here, but at least there were fewer screams.
The nurse indicated a gurney, and Tabby and Rictor managed to hoist Bobby up onto it. Once he was settled, Tabby ran a hand over his forehead, kissed it, and looked at the nurse.
"Congratulations," the woman said bitterly, filling out a chart on her clipboard with angry, jabbing penstrokes. "Your friend just got put in line ahead of some people who needed our help more. Be sure to note to Lord Magneto how cooperative we were."
"Hey, listen--" Rictor began, but he was cut off by the sprinting approach of a doctor.
"Everybody up front!" the doctor was calling. "The Symkarian Embassy just got hit! More wounded are on the way!"
The nurse spun about without another word and ran back toward the triage. Two orderlies appeared as if out of nowhere and took possession of Bobby's gurney. Meltdown and Rictor shared a look as he was wheeled away.
"The embassy?" Rictor said. "Oh shit, Tabby we've got to get over there."
"Why? It's clear across town, and Chance took the shuttle back to the commerce district to help with--"
"But the embassy is where we stashed--"
But Meltdown's eyes had drifted away from Rictor. She was looking back in the direction the doctor had come from, deeper into the treatment area, and her eyes were narrowing dangerously.
"Tabs? What is--?"
"Kleinstock," she said simply, and then she began to move.
"Who?" Rictor looked around, and spotted Sven Kleinstock--one-half of the notorious Kleinstock brothers--standing near a bed at the back of the room. The man was a giant, but Tabitha, rail-thin and short as she was, marched right up to him as if she had solid plans to kick his ass into next week.
"Kleinstock!" she said again, drawing closer. Rictor jogged to keep up with her, and his heart sunk when Sven turned and watched their approach with a sneer. He started to say something monosyllabic, but Tabby cut him off. "Bobby told me what you did, you piece of shit!"
Rictor finally caught up to her and wrapped an arm around her middle before she could tackle the giant. Sven merely stood his ground and chuckled.
"What're you talking about, little girl?"
"Bobby was trapped underneath that rubble, and you walked right by him when he called for help! What's your problem, Kleinstock! Why can't you and your Acolyte buddies just get over it already!"
"Your friend was delirious, chickie. That never happened."
"The hell it didn't! You think Bobby would leave you buried under a ton of rock? That's not what we're supposed to be about here, you big dumb asshole! It's not our fault Magneto disbanded your stupid fucking cult!"
Kleinstock's eyes darkened, and he looked over her shoulder at Rictor. "Put a muzzle on your girlfriend, Ric."
Rictor might have replied, but he'd just realized that the bed Kleinstock was standing next to was occupied by Virgil Burnside, the Acolyte known as Chrome. Burnside's arm had been crushed nearly a week ago when several of the former Acolytes had picked a fight with Ric and Bobby, and Rictor was so surprised to see the man that he lost his already-tenuous grip on his teammate.
"Muzzle this!" she said, and thrust an arm toward the bigger man. A shaped plasma charge began to form in her palm, and Kleinstock's eyes went wide as he stepped backward.
"Tabby! No!" Rictor stepped forward and, in a show of agility that impressed even him, slapped Tabitha's arm upward at the elbow. The time bomb flipped into the air, and Ric blasted it with a seismic wave that slammed it through the air and through the glass window directly behind Kleinstock.
Rictor dragged Tabitha to the floor and watched as Kleinstock did the same just before the bomb erupted outside the building. It blew the remaining glass on the window back into the room, and rattled the entire structure.
"You crazy bitch!" Kleinstock bellowed, and made a grab for Tabitha's ankle as the patients in the room cried out in panic. The man's clumsy lunge came up short, and Rictor was already dragging Tabby to her feet, backpedaling at top speed toward the triage and the exit.
"Next time, Kleinstock!" Tabby was shouting, as nurses and orderlies came running to see what the trouble was. "Watch your ass!"
Rictor weaved through the bodies in the triage and slammed through the double doors and back into the open air. When they were clear of the building, and it became clear no one was following them, he turned, grabbed her by the shoulders, and shook her.
"What the hell is wrong with you? Do you have any--you could have killed all of us back there!"
Meltdown sighed petulantly, as if Rictor had just pointed out she could have spilled soda down the front of her shirt. "I know, I know. It's just--those bastards, they won't let us alone. I just want to...to...not have to watch my back so much, damnit! Fuck!" She shook free of Rictor's grip and moved a couple paces away, head down, hands on her hips. "They judge us...and they can't know what we gave up to be here, to be part of Magneto's cause."
"Okay, look...that in there? That was bullshit, Tabby. I've never seen you so careless with your powers. I thought Bobby was supposed to be the hothead."
"Yeah, well Bobby's out of commission right now."
Rictor ran a hand through his hair and looked at her in unhappy silence for a moment longer. Then he pointed west, into the commerce district, where smoke was still billowing from the wrecked buildings. "We need to get to the Symkarian Embassy. If it really has been hit, we may have a problem on our hands."
"Why? I mean, I know Magneto's going to have a fit, but--"
"The French Prime Minister is being held there, in one of the completed basements. Bobby and I put him there when we got back from Paris."
"Oh shit..."
"My thought exactly. Let's go."
"These trucks will save your lives…with a little luck and a whole lot of cooperation on your parts, that is."
More than a hundred men and women were gathered in one chamber of the massive network of tunnels hidden beneath the streets of Hammer Bay. At the moment, their attention was focused on an old mercenary in combat fatigues, standing on the bed of what looked like an ordinary military cargo truck. No one present knew the old man's real name, but his men called him Hardcase.
"You," he said, pointing to a young man standing near the front of the crowd. "Come on up here a minute."
The man did as he was asked, climbing nimbly up to stand in front of the old warrior under the camouflage canvas covering the truck bed. His dark features and hard eyes stood out in sharp contrast to Hardcase's benign, if watchful, expression.
"What's your name, pal?"
"Randall Stuart."
"Do me a favor, Randall. Walk to the other end of the bed there." Hardcase raised an arm and pointed toward where the bed of the truck met the reinforced cab.
Randall looked puzzled for a moment, then shrugged and turned to do as he'd been asked. The bed was about twenty feet deep, and Randall crossed only half of that before he jerked, and sprawled backward onto the bed.
There were some murmurs from the crowd, and Hardcase drew a tiny remote from out of his shirt pocket and pushed a button. The space in front of Randall flickered, and suddenly there was a hard plastic partition standing where one hadn't been before.
"Hologram," Hardcase explained, and pushed another button. The wall shimmered out of view again. "Thanks, Randall. You can step down now," he said, and ignored the ugly look the younger man gave him.
"You'll be packed into these trucks and moved in waves and at half-hour intervals starting first thing tomorrow morning. Waves will leave the launch site in the boats as soon as they reach it, and we should have all of you in the water by this time tomorrow."
A middle-aged woman raised her hand, and Hardcase pointed to her. "What do we do if we're discovered?" she asked.
Hardcase nodded. "A tough question, and I got a tough answer for you. You bend over and kiss your ass goodbye." The crowd exploded in discontented shouting. Hardcase put up his hands. "Listen to me, most of you will be armed, so you won't be completely helpless, but when it comes right down to it--" he leaned over and knocked on the partition that didn't appear to be there "--this is all that's standing between you and anybody on the road that wants to be nosy. If somebody sneezes at a bad time, or if somebody else sees that the truck's sitting a couple inches lower than it should...well, you're finished."
"You understand this doesn't exactly fill us with confidence," Randall sneered in a voice just loud enough to quiet the hubbub. He was still standing at the front of the crowd.
"My Harriers and I will be taking every precaution, and one of us will be accompanying you on every trip. But this is the best we got, son. Unless you have a better idea..."
Randall opened his mouth to reply, but another murmur ran through the crowd at that moment, drawing his attention away from Hardcase. He turned, and saw that two more people had entered the chamber at the back--Hardcase's subordinate, Ranger, and the mutant named Shatterstar.
Randall shut his mouth. Everyone was suddenly very quiet at the mutant's presence, and this didn't go unnoticed by Shatterstar as he crossed the room alongside Ranger.
"'Case, can we talk to you for a minute?" Ranger asked.
Hardcase nodded to the crowd, then hopped off the bed and followed the two new arrivals around the side of the truck. When they were alone near the cab, Ranger explained what they'd seen at Lucien's Ford.
"And there appears to be some sort of fighting going on in Hammer Bay," Shatterstar added. "We saw the smoke and heard the explosions as we were coming in. What exactly are the magistrates doing?"
"Not picking fights, if that's what you're asking," Hardcase grunted. "I don't know what the commotion is about topside, but Shotgun said he picked up something on the shortwave this morning about France declaring war on Magneto."
Shatterstar gaped at him. Hardcase shrugged.
"Whatever it is, it should cover our runs tomorrow. And that's all I'm concerned with."
"I have to go," Shatterstar said abruptly, turning away. "I have to get back to my friends."
Hardcase's hand fell on his shoulder. "No, son. I'm sorry, but we need you here."
"Genosha is at war! I agreed to help with the evacuation, and I've done so. Now remove your--"
"He's right, amigo," Ranger said. "If there's a group of people can take care of themselves in this world, it's Magneto and company. But we're all these people got."
Shatterstar wrenched his arm out of Hardcase's grip and moved toward the door without another word. Ranger started to follow him, but Hardcase put up a hand.
"Let him go. The last thing we need right now is somebody that doesn't want to be here. We'll just have to hope he doesn't give us up."
"Or interfere with that part of the plan we never got around to telling him about," Ranger added.
"Yeah, that too."
Shatterstar had made it to the enormous main hall of the underground complex, on his way to one of the pathways to the surface, when he heard the familiar cry. He turned.
A little girl was standing next to a shattered crate, tears streaming down her face, and leaning in front of her, one meaty hand wrapped around her arm, was Randall Stuart. Shatterstar recognized both of them immediately. The girl had spoken shyly to him days earlier, and the man, who was currently screaming in the wailing girl's face, was her father.
"What did I tell you? What did I tell you about getting under my fucking feet when I'm working, you worthless--"
Shatterstar paused, torn. It was obvious the man abused the girl frequently--'Star had already seen it happen once before, though Talib had stopped him from intervening then. The aged magistrate had argued that it wasn't Shatterstar's place to interfere in a parent's discipline.
But since he was on his way out the door anyway...
He spun around and moved quickly and deliberately across the floor toward the two. His peripheral vision caught the uncomfortable, averted gazes of the other magistrates, people who'd probably seen this performance time and time again. But he didn't care about them. At this moment the only one in his crosshairs was Randall Stuart.
Randall didn't see Shatterstar's approach from behind, and so he obligingly raised his free hand to slap his daughter just as the mutant reached him. Shatterstar grabbed the wrist, turned it, and yanked back all in one fluid motion.
Randall straightened immediately, releasing the girl's arm, and before he could even cry out, Shatterstar put a foot in the back of his knee. He went down easily.
"That is your child," Shatterstar hissed in his ear. "She assures your longevity in an uncertain world. How would you like to be bullied, friend? How do you like it?"
Randall could barely talk over the pain of his twisting arm, but he managed to choke out, "My...daughter! Stay...out of this...you freak!"
Shatterstar looked over the man's shoulder. Caroline stared back at him with wonder and a little fear, but she didn't look at all worried for her father. Shatterstar dropped her a wink and turned back to Randall.
"You will learn the proper respect for the bearer of your questionable bloodline. I will make sure of this. If I see you touch her with anything other than love again, I will break the bones in your hands until I'm satisfied that you can no longer hurt her with them. Do we understand each other?"
He punctuated this question with another tug on the man's arm. Randall nodded jerkily.
"Go then." He released the arm and lifted his foot from the man's knee. Randall pitched forward, then got shakily to his feet, rubbing his wrist. He gave Shatterstar a look of pure loathing, then turned a similar look on his daughter.
There was a sound of sliding metal, and now the point of one of Shatterstar's dual-pronged blades was at Randall's throat. "Don't make me repeat myself, magistrate."
Nodding, holding Shatterstar's eyes with his own, Randall backed off. When he'd retreated a dozen yards or so, he turned and walked away, his head high and his eyes daring any of the people who'd been watching to say anything. After a moment, he was lost in the crowd.
Shatterstar returned his sword to the special sheath fitted to his back. "Are you alright?" he asked the girl.
"Yes," she said immediately. Then, after a moment, she added, "You shouldn't have hurt my daddy."
"Sometimes that's the only way to get a point across."
"Not a very good lesson to teach a little girl though, is it?"
Shatterstar turned at the new voice, and found himself facing Henri Diesing. Shatterstar had met Henri the day he'd arrived here, and the young man had never displayed anything but unmasked contempt for him since. His anger was understandable--he'd lost both legs in a recent melee with Magneto's forces, and his younger brother had disappeared under mysterious circumstances around the same time. Now, wearing two crude wooden legs and propped up on his crutches besides, the magistrate seemed to be regarding the mutant for the first time.
"I suppose not," Shatterstar allowed after a moment.
Diesing looked in the direction Randall had disappeared in. "That was a good thing. Stuart's a thug and a bully, and I think none of us have done anything about him before because we're almost used to it by now."
Caroline pressed closer to Shatterstar, her lip beginning to tremble. The warrior was uncomfortable at the contact, and didn't immediately respond, so Diesing put a hand out and drew her to his own side. When he spoke next, his eyes were averted, and his teeth were clenched, as if his words took considerable physical effort.
"For what it's worth," he said, stroking Caroline's hair, "I don't think you had anything to do with Gerard's disappearance."
In Case You're Just Joining Us: In response to The Fallen Angels' kidnapping of the French prime minister, and Magneto's continued insistence that his country has nothing to do with the terrorists, France announced to the UN Security Council that it intended to declare war on Genosha. Meanwhile, Shatterstar has a run-in with some mercenaries who have been enlisted to help the magistrates free the country, and Sunspot is grievously injured by a bombing in Hammer Bay's commerce district. Oh, and Siena Blaze has her memory back...
"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President or any public official, save exactly to the degree he himself stands by the country."
- Theodore Roosevelt
"They began setting up yesterday," the young mercenary said in low tones from beside him. "The town was empty until then."
The extra-dimensional mutant warrior named Shatterstar rolled a dial on the binoculars pressed to his face and zoomed in on the small rural area two kilometers away. The binocs were a nice piece of hardware, and they clearly showed him the people moving through the otherwise empty streets of the hamlet called Lucien's Ford. Some were up on rooftops, others had disappeared indoors. Their actions were relaxed, there was the occasional burst of easy laughter as they worked. And even though Shatterstar didn't immediately recognize any of them, it was clear even from this distance that they were all mutants.
"They're rebuilding," Shatterstar said. "Getting the town ready to be occupied again."
"Yeah, that's what we decided too," Jesus Suarez said beside him. The young man was part of a group of mercenaries that called themselves the Harriers. Each of them had been members of the UN espionage agency SHIELD for a time, and all of them were extremely good at what they did. Jesus--also known as Ranger to his teammates--was a tracker and bush surveillance man. Shatterstar had nothing but respect for the man's skill...but he didn't like the tone in his voice as he took the field glasses back and said,
"We may have to put them all down."
"What?"
"Hardcase had us run a couple sims. We're pretty sure we can go in there and neutralize the workers before any of them can raise an alarm."
"Those are innocent mutants down there!" Shatterstar hissed.
Jesus gave him a look that might rightly have been translated as puh-leez. "'Look, man...this is war. You know about civilian casualties, you know that sometimes they're unavoidable."
Shatterstar gritted his teeth, feeling another piece of his soul rot and fall away. "There must be another way..."
"Not unless you can come up with another route for the evac trucks," Ranger said simply. "Most of the roads in the country are impassable, we were lucky to find a way from one end of the island to the other as it is. The trucks might fool a random passerby or even a security checkpoint, but a whole town?" Ranger shook his head. "We need to take the evacuees through that town, and those workers can't be there when we do it. It's too risky."
"Perhaps we could draw them away."
"If you've got any ideas on how to do that without tipping our hand, I'm sure Hardcase would love to hear 'em."
Shatterstar opened his mouth to reply, when a radio crackle came in over the earplugs they both wore. It was Warhawk, reporting in from his recon position at 7,000 feet.
"Ranger, are you watching this?" They could hear the low hum of the man's jetpack and the rush of wind in the background.
"Watching what, hermano?" Jesus asked, bringing the field glasses up again. But he saw what his fellow merc was talking about a moment later.
"Huh. Whattaya know." Jesus lowered the glasses and slid them to Shatterstar. "Looks like you got your wish, 'Star."
Shatterstar lifted the glasses and looked at the town. "They're leaving," he said.
"And without much notice too. See how they just left their tools lying around?" Jesus touched a finger to his earplug. "What's going on, 'Hawk? Did they make us?"
"I don't think so," came the reply. "I caught the tail end of a transmission from Hammer Bay, I think they got recalled for some reason."
Jesus and Shatterstar looked at each other. "So something's happening in the capital."
In silent mutual consent, the mercenary and the mutant began scooting back from the crest of the hill. Once they'd fallen back far enough to be invisible from the town, they got to their feet and hurried toward their vehicle. If something was happening in the capital, it might involve the magistrates they were trying to save. And if that was the case, the tiny hamlet of Lucien's Ford could wait for another time.
The commerce district of Hammer Bay was in flames as Siena Blaze dropped to the street that had run through its center. Or what was left of that street, anyway.
All around her, the cries of the injured rang out as those who were still able ran in all directions, trying to save who could be saved and douse what fires they could. Whoever had placed the bombs--and really, who else could it be but the ever-present magistrates?--had known what they were doing. There hadn't been more than a dozen explosions, but they had been positioned for maximum range and damage.
Siena Blaze stood in the center of this--her mind whole for the first time in months--and tried to feel some compassion for the bleeding victims and the panicked multitudes.
And she couldn't. The only thing she felt for sure was an intense, sexual excitement that started in her tingling groin and spread like a warm sluice of water up through her torso and to the terminus of her spine. She saw the flames and all she wanted to do was make them bigger...and maybe fuck one of these strong young mutants right in the middle of this broken street.
While chaos reigned around her, Siena Blaze began to laugh.
<"Let me out!"> the prime minister demanded, pounding on the door of his cell. <"Do not leave me here to die, you freakish--">
The lock clicked, and the PM took a quick, startled step backwards as it creaked open. A boy of maybe seventeen poked his head in. He was slight, but tall, and he wore thick-rimmed glasses over a startling tangle of spiked white hair. He offered the PM an uncertain smile, then stepped the rest of the way in and closed the door behind him.
"Bonjour," the boy said, extending a hand. "Je m'appelle Gomi. Parlez-vous anglais?"
Utterly nonplussed, the prime minister took the boy's hand and shook without thinking. "Yes. Yes, I speak English."
"Whew. Good thing, because I think you just heard the extent of my French."
"Who are you?" the PM demanded, some of his earlier rage coming back. "What do you intend to do with me?"
"I intend to talk with you," Gomi said. "The people who brought you here were mutants, but I'm not, and they thought you'd feel more comfortable talking to me."
"I have no intention of negotiating with terrorists."
Gomi rubbed the back of his neck. "Is that your final answer?"
The PM ignored this question. "What's going on out there? I heard explosions..."
"A little civil unrest," Gomi explained. "Nothing you need to concern yourself over."
"I am in Genosha, am I not? Magneto's forces have not yet managed to repress the last regime, have they?"
"Look...sir...I really think you want to reconsider your stance on France's proposed mutant registration act."
"Absolutely not!" the PM trumpeted.
"But sir..."
"I do not subscribe to the paranoid delusions of Americans like Trask and Kelly, but mutant abilities must be registered just like any other dangerous weapon."
"I see your point...but my associates and I are worried that registration is only going to be the first step. Next, you'll be passing legislation to okay constant surveillance on registered mutants. Then maybe you'll implant tracking chips in them, so you can always know where they are. Then, when that gets to be too much of a budgetary burden, you'll cut out the middle man and just throw them all into internment camps."
"Preposterous!"
"It is not, sir. And you know it."
The PM rolled his eyes. "Why am I having this discussion with you? I demand to see Magneto this moment! If he ordered me abducted, he can face me as one head of state to another."
"No one ever said Magneto ordered your abduction, sir. No one even said you were in Genosha. I'm the best you're going to get."
"Then this discussion is at an end."
Gomi nodded. "One more thing." He shoved a hand into his pants pocket and drew three glossy photographs out. He paused for a moment, looking at them in silence as if he wasn't quite ready to take the next step. Then, with a sigh, he handed them over.
The PM took them, puzzled--but then his face fell as he saw what he was holding.
"Your wife and two children," Gomi said. "Safe in their beds. We got into your home with no trouble, sir, even after your people put extra security around and in it. And we could have done more than take photographs. But we're hoping you'll see our way of thinking before that ever becomes necessary."
The prime minister had fallen back against the wall, staring at the pictures in one hand while his other hand clutched at his heart. "You monsters! How could--how could you do this? To your own kind!"
Gomi gave him a small, insincere smile and turned toward the door. "I'll be back tomorrow to talk some more, prime minister."
He closed the door behind him just as the prime minister's repertoire of English curses had run out, and he had begun to hurl obscenities in his native French instead.
Gomi didn't quite make it to the bathroom before the mystery meat he'd eaten in the commissary that morning boiled its way up his gullet and came streaming out of his mouth and nose.
He was coughing and spitting into a corner, vomit spattering his pants where he knelt, and sobbing quietly.
"Didn't know it was going to be like this," he said as he heard the soft scuttling sound of Bill the Lobster's approach.
Bill moved onto his leg and up the back of his shirt until he was perched on Gomi's shoulder. He clacked his pincher claw worriedly.
"I'll be fine," Gomi said, rising to his feet. "I knew I was going to have to do some bad things when Meltdown first asked me to come here. And I believe in this, I really do. I just have to get past this--"
Something hit the wall and ceiling of the corridor simultaneously, and Gomi was hurled backward from it. Bill described a blue arc through the air from Gomi's flailing shoulder to the floor several yards away. He landed on his back, but in a moment, he'd flipped back over and was scuttling back towards his friend.
Whatever had hit them had knocked the power out, and a fine gray dust sifted down from the ceiling, where an ominous crack had appeared. Red emergency lights went on up and down the hallway, and a new round of panicked cries came from the French prime minister's cell.
"Uh oh..." Gomi said, and then he got up and ran toward the exit.
The makeshift facility that had served as Hammer Bay's hospital since the destruction of the Mother of Hope facility was full to bursting with the screams and moans of the injured and dying.
Tabitha Smith had no idea what to do now that she was here. She looked uncertainly across the packed triage at her teammate, Rictor, who stood near the doorway supporting the near-comatose Roberto DaCosta.
"Hey," Tabby finally said, reaching out and grabbing a passing nurse by the arm. The nurse turned eyes that were exhausted and more than a little annoyed on her.
"This guy's hurt," Tabby said, jabbing a finger at Bobby. "He was hurt in the first bombing and--"
"You have noticed that everyone here is hurt, haven't you?"
Tabby blinked. "Well yeah, of course...but--"
"Then please take a seat and wait to be helped," the nurse replied. She was wearing sunglasses--strange, since the lighting was so muted in here--and they somehow managed to make the disdain in her glare all the more apparent. She turned away.
"Hey," Tabby said again, grabbing her arm before she could turn away. "Do you recognize me?"
The nurse looked her up and down. "No."
"My name is Tabitha. I'm one of Magneto's Fallen Angels. He--" She pointed at Bobby again "--is the leader of the Fallen Angels. I really think somebody ought to take a look at him. Right now."
Sighing, her sharp features twisting with this compromise, the nurse took two steps toward Rictor and Bobby, then lowered the sunglasses on her face.
Her eyes were bright green, with no pupils, and she looked Bobby over quickly with them. "Multiply fractured right arm, minor tearing in ligaments in neck, fairly serious concussion." She snapped the sunglasses back onto her face and said, "Follow me."
The three of them followed the woman past the triage and more deeply into the facility. The smell of blood and shit and exposed organs was worse back here, but at least there were fewer screams.
The nurse indicated a gurney, and Tabby and Rictor managed to hoist Bobby up onto it. Once he was settled, Tabby ran a hand over his forehead, kissed it, and looked at the nurse.
"Congratulations," the woman said bitterly, filling out a chart on her clipboard with angry, jabbing penstrokes. "Your friend just got put in line ahead of some people who needed our help more. Be sure to note to Lord Magneto how cooperative we were."
"Hey, listen--" Rictor began, but he was cut off by the sprinting approach of a doctor.
"Everybody up front!" the doctor was calling. "The Symkarian Embassy just got hit! More wounded are on the way!"
The nurse spun about without another word and ran back toward the triage. Two orderlies appeared as if out of nowhere and took possession of Bobby's gurney. Meltdown and Rictor shared a look as he was wheeled away.
"The embassy?" Rictor said. "Oh shit, Tabby we've got to get over there."
"Why? It's clear across town, and Chance took the shuttle back to the commerce district to help with--"
"But the embassy is where we stashed--"
But Meltdown's eyes had drifted away from Rictor. She was looking back in the direction the doctor had come from, deeper into the treatment area, and her eyes were narrowing dangerously.
"Tabs? What is--?"
"Kleinstock," she said simply, and then she began to move.
"Who?" Rictor looked around, and spotted Sven Kleinstock--one-half of the notorious Kleinstock brothers--standing near a bed at the back of the room. The man was a giant, but Tabitha, rail-thin and short as she was, marched right up to him as if she had solid plans to kick his ass into next week.
"Kleinstock!" she said again, drawing closer. Rictor jogged to keep up with her, and his heart sunk when Sven turned and watched their approach with a sneer. He started to say something monosyllabic, but Tabby cut him off. "Bobby told me what you did, you piece of shit!"
Rictor finally caught up to her and wrapped an arm around her middle before she could tackle the giant. Sven merely stood his ground and chuckled.
"What're you talking about, little girl?"
"Bobby was trapped underneath that rubble, and you walked right by him when he called for help! What's your problem, Kleinstock! Why can't you and your Acolyte buddies just get over it already!"
"Your friend was delirious, chickie. That never happened."
"The hell it didn't! You think Bobby would leave you buried under a ton of rock? That's not what we're supposed to be about here, you big dumb asshole! It's not our fault Magneto disbanded your stupid fucking cult!"
Kleinstock's eyes darkened, and he looked over her shoulder at Rictor. "Put a muzzle on your girlfriend, Ric."
Rictor might have replied, but he'd just realized that the bed Kleinstock was standing next to was occupied by Virgil Burnside, the Acolyte known as Chrome. Burnside's arm had been crushed nearly a week ago when several of the former Acolytes had picked a fight with Ric and Bobby, and Rictor was so surprised to see the man that he lost his already-tenuous grip on his teammate.
"Muzzle this!" she said, and thrust an arm toward the bigger man. A shaped plasma charge began to form in her palm, and Kleinstock's eyes went wide as he stepped backward.
"Tabby! No!" Rictor stepped forward and, in a show of agility that impressed even him, slapped Tabitha's arm upward at the elbow. The time bomb flipped into the air, and Ric blasted it with a seismic wave that slammed it through the air and through the glass window directly behind Kleinstock.
Rictor dragged Tabitha to the floor and watched as Kleinstock did the same just before the bomb erupted outside the building. It blew the remaining glass on the window back into the room, and rattled the entire structure.
"You crazy bitch!" Kleinstock bellowed, and made a grab for Tabitha's ankle as the patients in the room cried out in panic. The man's clumsy lunge came up short, and Rictor was already dragging Tabby to her feet, backpedaling at top speed toward the triage and the exit.
"Next time, Kleinstock!" Tabby was shouting, as nurses and orderlies came running to see what the trouble was. "Watch your ass!"
Rictor weaved through the bodies in the triage and slammed through the double doors and back into the open air. When they were clear of the building, and it became clear no one was following them, he turned, grabbed her by the shoulders, and shook her.
"What the hell is wrong with you? Do you have any--you could have killed all of us back there!"
Meltdown sighed petulantly, as if Rictor had just pointed out she could have spilled soda down the front of her shirt. "I know, I know. It's just--those bastards, they won't let us alone. I just want to...to...not have to watch my back so much, damnit! Fuck!" She shook free of Rictor's grip and moved a couple paces away, head down, hands on her hips. "They judge us...and they can't know what we gave up to be here, to be part of Magneto's cause."
"Okay, look...that in there? That was bullshit, Tabby. I've never seen you so careless with your powers. I thought Bobby was supposed to be the hothead."
"Yeah, well Bobby's out of commission right now."
Rictor ran a hand through his hair and looked at her in unhappy silence for a moment longer. Then he pointed west, into the commerce district, where smoke was still billowing from the wrecked buildings. "We need to get to the Symkarian Embassy. If it really has been hit, we may have a problem on our hands."
"Why? I mean, I know Magneto's going to have a fit, but--"
"The French Prime Minister is being held there, in one of the completed basements. Bobby and I put him there when we got back from Paris."
"Oh shit..."
"My thought exactly. Let's go."
"These trucks will save your lives…with a little luck and a whole lot of cooperation on your parts, that is."
More than a hundred men and women were gathered in one chamber of the massive network of tunnels hidden beneath the streets of Hammer Bay. At the moment, their attention was focused on an old mercenary in combat fatigues, standing on the bed of what looked like an ordinary military cargo truck. No one present knew the old man's real name, but his men called him Hardcase.
"You," he said, pointing to a young man standing near the front of the crowd. "Come on up here a minute."
The man did as he was asked, climbing nimbly up to stand in front of the old warrior under the camouflage canvas covering the truck bed. His dark features and hard eyes stood out in sharp contrast to Hardcase's benign, if watchful, expression.
"What's your name, pal?"
"Randall Stuart."
"Do me a favor, Randall. Walk to the other end of the bed there." Hardcase raised an arm and pointed toward where the bed of the truck met the reinforced cab.
Randall looked puzzled for a moment, then shrugged and turned to do as he'd been asked. The bed was about twenty feet deep, and Randall crossed only half of that before he jerked, and sprawled backward onto the bed.
There were some murmurs from the crowd, and Hardcase drew a tiny remote from out of his shirt pocket and pushed a button. The space in front of Randall flickered, and suddenly there was a hard plastic partition standing where one hadn't been before.
"Hologram," Hardcase explained, and pushed another button. The wall shimmered out of view again. "Thanks, Randall. You can step down now," he said, and ignored the ugly look the younger man gave him.
"You'll be packed into these trucks and moved in waves and at half-hour intervals starting first thing tomorrow morning. Waves will leave the launch site in the boats as soon as they reach it, and we should have all of you in the water by this time tomorrow."
A middle-aged woman raised her hand, and Hardcase pointed to her. "What do we do if we're discovered?" she asked.
Hardcase nodded. "A tough question, and I got a tough answer for you. You bend over and kiss your ass goodbye." The crowd exploded in discontented shouting. Hardcase put up his hands. "Listen to me, most of you will be armed, so you won't be completely helpless, but when it comes right down to it--" he leaned over and knocked on the partition that didn't appear to be there "--this is all that's standing between you and anybody on the road that wants to be nosy. If somebody sneezes at a bad time, or if somebody else sees that the truck's sitting a couple inches lower than it should...well, you're finished."
"You understand this doesn't exactly fill us with confidence," Randall sneered in a voice just loud enough to quiet the hubbub. He was still standing at the front of the crowd.
"My Harriers and I will be taking every precaution, and one of us will be accompanying you on every trip. But this is the best we got, son. Unless you have a better idea..."
Randall opened his mouth to reply, but another murmur ran through the crowd at that moment, drawing his attention away from Hardcase. He turned, and saw that two more people had entered the chamber at the back--Hardcase's subordinate, Ranger, and the mutant named Shatterstar.
Randall shut his mouth. Everyone was suddenly very quiet at the mutant's presence, and this didn't go unnoticed by Shatterstar as he crossed the room alongside Ranger.
"'Case, can we talk to you for a minute?" Ranger asked.
Hardcase nodded to the crowd, then hopped off the bed and followed the two new arrivals around the side of the truck. When they were alone near the cab, Ranger explained what they'd seen at Lucien's Ford.
"And there appears to be some sort of fighting going on in Hammer Bay," Shatterstar added. "We saw the smoke and heard the explosions as we were coming in. What exactly are the magistrates doing?"
"Not picking fights, if that's what you're asking," Hardcase grunted. "I don't know what the commotion is about topside, but Shotgun said he picked up something on the shortwave this morning about France declaring war on Magneto."
Shatterstar gaped at him. Hardcase shrugged.
"Whatever it is, it should cover our runs tomorrow. And that's all I'm concerned with."
"I have to go," Shatterstar said abruptly, turning away. "I have to get back to my friends."
Hardcase's hand fell on his shoulder. "No, son. I'm sorry, but we need you here."
"Genosha is at war! I agreed to help with the evacuation, and I've done so. Now remove your--"
"He's right, amigo," Ranger said. "If there's a group of people can take care of themselves in this world, it's Magneto and company. But we're all these people got."
Shatterstar wrenched his arm out of Hardcase's grip and moved toward the door without another word. Ranger started to follow him, but Hardcase put up a hand.
"Let him go. The last thing we need right now is somebody that doesn't want to be here. We'll just have to hope he doesn't give us up."
"Or interfere with that part of the plan we never got around to telling him about," Ranger added.
"Yeah, that too."
Shatterstar had made it to the enormous main hall of the underground complex, on his way to one of the pathways to the surface, when he heard the familiar cry. He turned.
A little girl was standing next to a shattered crate, tears streaming down her face, and leaning in front of her, one meaty hand wrapped around her arm, was Randall Stuart. Shatterstar recognized both of them immediately. The girl had spoken shyly to him days earlier, and the man, who was currently screaming in the wailing girl's face, was her father.
"What did I tell you? What did I tell you about getting under my fucking feet when I'm working, you worthless--"
Shatterstar paused, torn. It was obvious the man abused the girl frequently--'Star had already seen it happen once before, though Talib had stopped him from intervening then. The aged magistrate had argued that it wasn't Shatterstar's place to interfere in a parent's discipline.
But since he was on his way out the door anyway...
He spun around and moved quickly and deliberately across the floor toward the two. His peripheral vision caught the uncomfortable, averted gazes of the other magistrates, people who'd probably seen this performance time and time again. But he didn't care about them. At this moment the only one in his crosshairs was Randall Stuart.
Randall didn't see Shatterstar's approach from behind, and so he obligingly raised his free hand to slap his daughter just as the mutant reached him. Shatterstar grabbed the wrist, turned it, and yanked back all in one fluid motion.
Randall straightened immediately, releasing the girl's arm, and before he could even cry out, Shatterstar put a foot in the back of his knee. He went down easily.
"That is your child," Shatterstar hissed in his ear. "She assures your longevity in an uncertain world. How would you like to be bullied, friend? How do you like it?"
Randall could barely talk over the pain of his twisting arm, but he managed to choke out, "My...daughter! Stay...out of this...you freak!"
Shatterstar looked over the man's shoulder. Caroline stared back at him with wonder and a little fear, but she didn't look at all worried for her father. Shatterstar dropped her a wink and turned back to Randall.
"You will learn the proper respect for the bearer of your questionable bloodline. I will make sure of this. If I see you touch her with anything other than love again, I will break the bones in your hands until I'm satisfied that you can no longer hurt her with them. Do we understand each other?"
He punctuated this question with another tug on the man's arm. Randall nodded jerkily.
"Go then." He released the arm and lifted his foot from the man's knee. Randall pitched forward, then got shakily to his feet, rubbing his wrist. He gave Shatterstar a look of pure loathing, then turned a similar look on his daughter.
There was a sound of sliding metal, and now the point of one of Shatterstar's dual-pronged blades was at Randall's throat. "Don't make me repeat myself, magistrate."
Nodding, holding Shatterstar's eyes with his own, Randall backed off. When he'd retreated a dozen yards or so, he turned and walked away, his head high and his eyes daring any of the people who'd been watching to say anything. After a moment, he was lost in the crowd.
Shatterstar returned his sword to the special sheath fitted to his back. "Are you alright?" he asked the girl.
"Yes," she said immediately. Then, after a moment, she added, "You shouldn't have hurt my daddy."
"Sometimes that's the only way to get a point across."
"Not a very good lesson to teach a little girl though, is it?"
Shatterstar turned at the new voice, and found himself facing Henri Diesing. Shatterstar had met Henri the day he'd arrived here, and the young man had never displayed anything but unmasked contempt for him since. His anger was understandable--he'd lost both legs in a recent melee with Magneto's forces, and his younger brother had disappeared under mysterious circumstances around the same time. Now, wearing two crude wooden legs and propped up on his crutches besides, the magistrate seemed to be regarding the mutant for the first time.
"I suppose not," Shatterstar allowed after a moment.
Diesing looked in the direction Randall had disappeared in. "That was a good thing. Stuart's a thug and a bully, and I think none of us have done anything about him before because we're almost used to it by now."
Caroline pressed closer to Shatterstar, her lip beginning to tremble. The warrior was uncomfortable at the contact, and didn't immediately respond, so Diesing put a hand out and drew her to his own side. When he spoke next, his eyes were averted, and his teeth were clenched, as if his words took considerable physical effort.
"For what it's worth," he said, stroking Caroline's hair, "I don't think you had anything to do with Gerard's disappearance."