Back to Gatefold#7 by D. Golightly
July 2017 |
"Power - Part One of Two"
Somewhere over Glazov, Russia
“Can I touch it?”
Abigail Brand smacked the chalk-white hand of the shapeshifter known as Morph away from her emerald locks. “If I have to say it again, I’m going to cut it off next time,” she replied.
Morph sheepishly retracted his hand, playfully rubbing the fingers as if they were sore. He had been fascinated by the green hair of his traveling companion, and even though she had changed seats in the helicopter twice he was still persistent. He said, “But then how will I caress you, my dear?”
“Who said it would be your hand that I chop off?”
Across the passenger section in the belly of the modified Sikorsky CH-37 Mojave heavy-lift helicopter, Daken let out a soft chuckle. It was the first sound that he had made since they had taken off from Moscow. Their trip across the Atlantic had been spent learning about the area and their target. It wasn’t until they had touched down in Moscow and then switch to the chopper that the hodgepodge team had any type of downtime in their long travels.
The chopper, a leftover cold war relic, had been retrofitted for their needs. It was mostly used for tourists now, but the XSE* had commissioned it for this special mission. The pilot, former Spetsnaz, had been more than happy to take their money and keep quiet. In exchange for a handsome sum he agreed to transport the six mutant operatives to Glazov.
* [X-Factor Sanction Enforcement]
Abigail eyed Daken over her emerald shades that matched her flamboyant hair. “I suppose you encourage his childishness?” she asked. “You think it’s cute, or it breaks the ice, or some other juxtaposition to keeping your focus on the job at hand?”
Daken was busy putting his sniper rifle back together for the third time. He didn’t even look up when he said, “Actually, I’d rather kick him out in Siberia.”
“We aren’t going that far north, otherwise I’d be inclined to agree.” She broke her gaze, but was surprised to find that she did so reluctantly.
Morph made several gasps of shock, but failed to illicit the response he was looking for. Instead, he turned to their team’s other recently acquired teammate, Shard. The dark-skinned woman flicked the stray blonde hairs out of eyes as she flipped through a few dossiers they had brought with them, choosing to ignore the rest of her travel companions.
Abigail seemed like your typical uptight government agent to Morph. She was cold, calculated, and interested in getting the job done. He respected her, but didn’t particularly like her. Shard had actually laughed at a few of his jokes prior to takeoff, but seemed to purposely keep her distance. It was like she didn’t want to get to know any of them more than she had to, not because she was impersonal, but because she didn’t need to. Morph couldn’t decide if she just wanted to keep things professional or if there was another reason behind her limited interactions.
Working alone in the field for so long, under the direct guidance of Charles Xavier himself, had left Morph with a certain level of reluctance when taking on new teammates. He had no trouble with authority; in fact he welcomed someone else taking operational responsibility. He just didn’t trust them.
Shard looked up from her manila folder to see Morph making love-struck eyes at her, complete with his chin perched atop both hands. “Help you with something?” she asked.
A black beret formed on the top of his head, along with a pencil mustache over his upper lip. “Pardon moi,” he replied in an over-the-top French accent. “Was I staring? Sometimes I just can’t help myself when something so beautiful crosses my path.”
“Give it a rest, Morph,” Cypher said from the other side of Shard. He leaned forward in his seat so that he could catch the shapeshifter’s attention. “We know you’re bored, but can you at least try and act like you belong here?”
“Zis iz an outrage!” he said, and stood up to shake his finger excitedly. “Ma petit lu fromage!”
Morph stormed off and vanished behind the curtain leading into the cockpit. The others watched him leave and then looked back at Cypher for an explanation. After a long moment, he finally admitted, “That was just gibberish. He wasn’t actually speaking French.”
Xorn, who sat beside Daken and opposite Cypher and the two XSE agents, shook her head. Her bulky metal helmet hid her facial expressions, but her sentiment was obvious. “I will never understand that one,” she muttered. “And I’m from another dimension.”
Abigail leaned forward the same as Cypher, nodding at him. “You speak all sorts of languages, right?” she asked. “You’re an omnilinguist?”
“Yeah. Spoken language, nonverbal cues, body language, computer programming…my mutant ability makes them all second nature to me.”
“Interesting. I speak a few alien languages myself. Havok said you’re abilities have been augmented since your resurrection.”
Cypher failed at hiding the surprised look on his face. He sat back, wondering just how much Havok had been studying him since recruiting him to the Mutant Response Team. He knew that he had undergone changes since being ‘dead,’ most noticeably the techno-organic replacement appendage. His powers had always been passive and unobtrusive, but since coming back, there were new aspects to them that he didn’t fully understand yet. He was concerned not only that Havok had taken notice, but that he was discussing it with someone from the XSE.
“Not so much augmented as fine-tuned,” he finally replied.
Brand seemed to accept his comment and she sat back, crossing her arms over her chest. Cypher couldn’t help but think that teaming up with the XSE, while beneficial from a legal standpoint given the international aspects of this mission, could be problematic for him. He wanted to get a handle on whatever had happened to him, and he wanted to do it without the government watching him.
The entire alliance was uneasy. Daken had been outspoken about taking on government agents as soon as they had entered the Archive, their pseudo-headquarters. Xorn was apprehensive about the new faces, and although she wouldn’t say it aloud, both Havok and Cypher knew it was because she felt a greater risk of exposure.
Havok, who had brokered the liaison in the first place, had to remain State-side to take care of some issues at the X-Men’s mansion estate. As they flew deeper into Russia, following TransGenics’ mutant trafficking trail that they had recently uncovered,* Cypher was wishing that Havok had been able to shuffle things around so that he could come and take over as field leader.
* [X-Factor #5]
“What’s your story?” Brand asked, nodding toward Xorn. “Daken is an assassin with a warrant on his head. Cypher is the golden boy. Morph is the asshole. Havok didn’t give us much to go on where you’re concerned.”
“Golden boy?” Cypher muttered with a raised eyebrow.
“My story,” Xorn replied, “is need-to-know. And I don’t need you to know.”
Shard looked up from her file, saying, “We have clearance.”
“We have god-level clearance,” Brand added.
Xorn, known to a select few as Lorna Summers, was apprehensive about revealing too much about herself. Not only had her experience at the shipyard, in which she had been forced to vaporized a seriously powerful mutant,* rattled her, but she was more cautious than ever that someone from her home dimension was looking for her. The man in the orange bodysuit, a guard in the shipping container apparently, had more power than most mutants dream of.
* [XF #5 again]
“Too bad I’m atheist,” Xorn shot back.
Daken snapped a magazine into place on his rifle. The sudden noise cut through the tension and all eyes were pulled toward him. “The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us. Charles Darwin said that.”
“So, you’re what, agnostic then?” Brand asked.
“Whether or not you are cleared to know about us is irrelevant, because ultimately you only know what we tell you. But since I’m nothing but an assassin with a warrant on my head, take what I say with a grain of salt.”
Brand scoffed and elbowed Shard beside her. She said, “From what I’ve read about you, make that a pillar of salt. Tell me something, Daken…how do you justify all the people you’ve murdered? Huh? What about the family in Madripor you butchered?”
Daken set the rifle down and ran a hand through his Mohawk. He leaned back against the vibrating cabin wall and said, “What makes you think they didn’t deserve it?”
George S. Patton stepped out from the cockpit, complete with a combat helmet and a decorated chest full of medals pinned to a Class A U.S. Army uniform. He snapped his heels together, flicked a riding crop against his thigh, and shouted, “We are three minutes out from the drop zone! Get your gear, maggots, and remember: success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom!”
Shard turned to Cypher. “Is he always like this on a mission?” she asked.
Cypher sighed. “Unfortunately. Knock it off, Morph.”
“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity!”
Brand stood up and pulled a pair of weapons from their holsters on both of her thighs, checking them. “What did you guys do, take a class on how to be as annoying as possible?” she said. She muttered to herself, “Honestly, this is the most unprofessional…
“A pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood!” Patton said with enough fury that his face turned red.
Cypher stood up and began checking his own rucksack. He smacked the military icon on the back of his head, knocking off his helmet and revealing his bald head. “Quit quoting Patton and get ready.”
Flesh rearranged itself at a mental command, dissolving the war hero and leaving behind the expressionless face of Morph. He feigned being hurt and said, “Oh, so Runs-With-Scissors over there gets to throw out quotes and I don’t?”
“I’m not Indian,” Daken replied.
“You’re not anything,” Morph said. He turned back to Cypher. “C’mon, Master Chief! Let’s go kick some mutant-experimenting jerk’s butt!”
As Shard joined the others in collecting their gear, she turned to Brand and said, “I think we drew the short straw when accepting this assignment.”
# # # # # # # # # #
Sokolov Pharmaceutical Compliance Center
Shell company owned by TransGenics, LLC
Six kilometers inside Glazov border
What Shard had prized the most about joining the XSE was the structure. The struggle between mutants and the rest of humanity was largely one without constraints. She appreciated that the XSE had the international purview to actually hold people accountable for their criminal actions regarding mutants.
Being a part of the XSE meant training, accountability, and due diligence. She was no longer the youthful hothead that wanted to world to answer for the wrongs brought against both her and her people. That was more Brand’s modus operandi. She enjoyed being what amounted to a mutant cop, and when paired with Brand, it seemed like they fell into the stereotypical roles of good mutant cop, bad mutant cop.
Which was why she remained mostly silent during the trip. She didn’t know anything about Havok’s Mutant Response Team other than it was sanctioned, but preemptively disavowed. That meant the XSE was in charge here, which also meant that the structure she had come to appreciate could be put into play.
Brand had divided them up into two squads whose members’ power and skill sets would complement one another. Brand, Cypher, and Daken would be approaching the building from the East while Shard, Xorn, and Morph would approach from the West.
Russia’s Federation Council had very limited information to share with the XSE regarding the Sokolov Pharmaceutical Compliance Center. Whether that was due to an actual lack of knowledge or purposeful withholding, they couldn’t be sure. What they did know from their encounter with hostile mutant soldiers and tracing the shipping manifests they had found in the dock yard was that TransGenics was sending mutants they had experimented on to this location. A quick look through the limited financial information available on Sokolov revealed it as a shell company owned by TransGenics, LLC, a privately-held genetic research corporation.
The building itself was only four floors tall. The property was enclosed by chain link fence with barbed wire strung along the top. Only one road led to the building, which was monitored by a guard station at the fence line. A rolling gate granted access to whoever made it by the guard station. Direct access to the building included a main entrance, three emergency exits, and a loading dock with two garage doors.
Outside of the fence line was mostly underbrush and open ground before heavier foliage on the West and North sides, or cross roads and other businesses on the East and South sides. Brand’s team were positioned between two other buildings to start their approach.
Shard was happy to come in from the tree line on the West of the building, and especially happy about being paired with Xorn. The woman intrigued her. Morph, in her opinion, was baggage, but at least he was capable according to his file.
“In position,” Shard said after tapping her communication piece in her ear.
“Copy that,” Brand said from her opposing vector. “Moving in.”
Due to the incredible power that the mutants under TransGenics’ corporate thumb possessed, simply knocking on the front door was not going to work. Under cover of night, they needed to get into the facility, collect as much intelligence as possible, and then retreat to plan their next steps. Then arrests could be made and the horrible genetic experimentation could stop.
Shard approached the chain link fence with Morph a step behind her and Xorn hovering over beside them both. She knelt down once she reached the fence and nodded to Xorn.
The eye sockets of Xorn’s eerie helmet began to glow iridescent blue. The fence bent toward her, but held in place by its anchoring poles. A few sparks splashed out at them, and then the fence fell back down, as if exhausted.
“I overloaded the generator feeding power into the fence,” Xorn said. “It’s no longer electrified. Go ahead.”
Shard nodded again and concentrated. She collected a few of the ambient light particles and created a solid pink light-based construct in her hand, as sharp as any physical knife. With a quick slash she cut a gap in the fence and pushed her body through. The tossed the energy knife and allowed it to fade away. On the other side she pulled the fence back so Morph and Xorn could come through as well. While Xorn could have easily electromagnetically lifted them all over, due to the clan destine nature of their operation it seemed like a bad idea. Nothing would bring security over faster than some lighter-than-air intruders.
Since the guard station was positioned more closely to their side of the building, Morph would take control of it while Shard and Xorn continued inside. Shard watched as Morph shapeshifted his body to replicate one of the guards and then hustled off to the station. He had started to whine that all they seemed to think he was good for was pretending to be cheap security guards, but had to admit that he was the best suited for the task at hand. Coming up to the station from inside the compound would keep the target personnel off their guard, meaning he could incapacitate them more easily.
Once Morph had left, Shard turned to Xorn and said, “Ready?”
Xorn nodded and raised her arms. Her eye sockets took on their signature hue again and then burst in a flutter of sparks. Shard looked back at the building and saw that the lights had all flipped off at once. Xorn’s electromagnetic pulse had done its work and shut the facility down.
Undoubtedly, a back-up generator would take over in a moment, but the temporary confusion would allow both teams to get up close to the building, as well as provide an excuse for Morph’s version of a guard to approach the station unexpectedly.
Both women covered the ground quickly and hugged the wall beside the loading dock. Shard looked around eagerly, expecting the lights to all come back on in short order, but nothing happened.
“Odd,” she murmured. “What are the chances that an international conglomerate like TransGenics didn’t put in a generator?”
“I’m seeing several grids funneling power into the complex below ground level,” Xorn said as she glanced around the dirt and grass around them. “I don’t see any service interruption. Something’s not right.”
“You mean they’re choosing not to turn the power back on?” Shard asked.
Brand’s voice cut in over their earpieces, saying, “Cypher and I are in position, with Daken having taken higher ground. I’m breaching the East emergency exit now before the alarms are reactivated.”
Shard’s eyes went wide. “No!” she said. “Wait, it’s—”
KRA-KOOM!
A spiral of green energy rocketed up into the evening sky, pushing Morph up and over the building, and off beyond the tree line. His body flailed as the pure physical energy catapulted him beyond Shard’s sight. The trail of intense concussion energy originated from the guard station, which was now nothing more than a few slats of vinyl and a few splinters of wood.
Xorn instantly leapt into the air and forced a magnetic bubble around herself. No sooner had she reached three feet off the ground then a wave of red radiation encapsulated her and smashed down onto her body. Another wave, and then another and another continuously splashed down on Xorn, crushing her against the compacted ground.
Shard whipped around to see a dark man standing just a dozen feet away. He wore an orange bodysuit just like the report had said that the rogue mutant from the shipyard had worn, and his eyes were red and opaque. She unleashed a volley of condensed energy from her fists, but another wave of radiation had risen up between her and the newcomer, dispersing her attacks.
He waved his arm and another wave washed over Shard, knocking her down. Her skin felt like it was on fire. If he was from the same stock as the assailant at the shipyard, she was beginning to understand how the Mutant Response Team had such a difficult time taking that one down.
“Do yourself a favor and stay down,” he told her. “You can throw all the fancy light shows you want; I’ll just absorb it.”
Palms extended, he began pumping out a lighter shade of radiation that pressed against both Shard and Xorn, pinning them to the ground. Shard tried to fight her way free, but it seemed like every movement of muscle was countered by tons of pressure being induced by the field of radiation. She heard someone approach and thought for a moment that Brand or one of the others could be coming to her rescue, but instead she saw a blonde woman wearing a white, tight-fitting green bodysuit over to the man in the orange bodysuit.
“Devon! They sent the shape-shifter to take the guard post,” she said. “Just like he said they would.”
Devon nodded and smiled. “The boss did his homework. Alright, Karen. Let’s wrap these two up and join the others.”
How could she have been so stupid as to have walked straight into a trap? If she lived through this, Shard was going to have to put up with hours of procedural revisions and extension tactics training because of this huge mistake. They had assumed that TransGenics didn’t know they were coming, but in hindsight, how could they not? After hijacking the shipment meant for this very facility, it was obvious that Havok’s team would come here.
They should have been better prepared. They shouldn’t have tried to be covert about this operation – with the full authorization of the XSE, they could have waltzed in the front door and publically taken control of the facility. Instead, they had tried to take advantage of an element of surprise that was never theirs to begin with.
With another wave of his hand, Devon wrapped up both Shard and Xorn in their own globes of pinkish radiation. Trapped within, neither one could use their powers escape and were forced to roll along beside their captors.
They approached the building to see three other strangers, each wearing a colorful outfit, standing over Abigail Brand and Cypher. Both Brand and Cypher were on their knees, their hands handing low and being suppressed by the same pink radiation, only the field was being generated by one of the other captors.
“Nice work, crew,” Devon said as they came closer. “Easy pickings as far as I’m concerned. I don’t see what Hector had so much trouble with back in the States.”
“Yes,” replied the shortest of the three captors. He was barley four feet tall. “But perhaps, just to make sure—”
“I already told you, Mark,” a muscular man standing directly behind the kneeling Brand said. His long hair was pulled back tightly against his scalp and he wore the same orange bodysuit as Devon. “Calli has them. Mess them up too much and the Professor will depower you for sure.”
“Aaron is correct,” a curvy woman standing behind Cypher added, the one who was suppressing Cypher and Brand. “My gravity field is keeping them down. There is no need to physically harm them further.” She smiled at the long-haired blonde. “No more than Aaron already has, anyway.”
Even though Shard was incapacitated, she could still take stock of their captors. They had seen them coming from a mile away. The one called Karen had been lying in wait for Morph, who had been thrown miles away from the facility. Devon had taken both her and Xorn down like they were novices, and meanwhile, Mark, Aaron, and the woman Calli seemed to have an equally simple time taking down Cypher and Brand.
The three males all wore the same orange bodysuits and the two females wore the same green versions. They were uniformed, coordinated, and very powerful. Possibly deadly. They all had similar power sets, perhaps even identical ones. She wondered what made them so connected.
“The Professor?” Mark shot back. “Guys, when are you going to get with the program? We’re stable and we can just take whatever we want now. He’s an old man, and yeah, he’s smart as hell, but he can’t possible take away my powers.”
They were close enough to the front entrance of the facility to hear it open. The double-doors both spread outward and a man wearing what looked like a solid gold exoskeleton stepped through, his armored feet smacking against the cement pathway. His entire body was concealed beneath the gold armor, except for his face, which was worn from both age and experience. Behind his eyes was a deadly cunning that only those that had lived through true trauma possessed.
Each of the five people in bodysuits froze and turned to face him, almost like trained soldiers, however neither Devon or Calli dropped their suppression fields.
“But take them I shall, Mr. Kilgore,” he said. He clasped his hands behind his back and stalked forward, stopping between the collected mutants. He looked first as the kneeling Brand and Cypher, and then to the incapacitated Shard and Xorn. “As powerful as I’ve made you, Mark Kilgore, surely you can understand that every mutant has limits. Take these XSE agents for example: powerful in their own right and highly trained, yet they are nothing but toys to men like me.”
He pivoted to look at Mark directly. “It’s true that I’ve greatly enhanced your limits, but there are other limits beyond the mere physical,” he continued. “For example…the limits of family, Mr. Kilgore. Such as your family. Such as…little Sarah, is it?”
Mark hung his head slightly. “Yes, Professor,” he replied.
“I thought so.” The Professor looked up at Devon and said, “Is this all of them?”
Devon traded a quick glance with Karen. “We believe so, Professor,” he replied. “But we’ll perform a perimeter check to be sure.”
The Professor nodded and looked down at Brand. “Abigail Brand of the X-Factor Sanction Enforcement, correct? Yes, I know who you are. The hair gives it away. These others, however…I’m not familiar with. Other XSE agents, no doubt. I’m curious, Abigail: exactly how much do you know about my operation here?”
Brand struggled against the suppressive radiation, and her hands even ignited in a gout of blue flame briefly, but ultimately Calli’s field was too powerful for her to overcome. The Professor, seeing this, motioned to Calli to relax slightly, allowing Brand to sit up straighter and look the Professor in the eye, but not enough to be released.
She said, “I know that you’re experimenting on mutants. I know that you’ve violated dozens of federal and international trade laws. I know that you’re a piece of garbage who I’m going to enjoy ripping out of that suit when I get free.”
The Professor scoffed and couldn’t help smiling. “Indeed! Yes, indeed. Violating laws…perhaps. But am I criminal? Not in this country. Putin’s Russia is quite a remarkable thing! I’ll pay a few fines, I’m sure, but for Professor Power, the lone board member of TransGenics, LLC, this is easily overcome.”
Shard would have flinched had she been able to move. Anthony Power was a name she knew well. A former advisor to the President of the United States of America, Power had positioned himself to guide at least two world-domination initiatives that she knew of. Now he had surfaced again, apparently at the head of an international company that specialized in genetic research and had augmented mutants as soldiers.
“You won’t get away with this,” Brand blurted out before Calli suppressed her back down again.
Professor Power turned away, laughing. “How cliché! Bring them inside. I’m sure the science team will be happy I’ve brought them fresh mutants to dissect and study.”
They complied, hailing Cypher, Brand, Xorn, and Shard toward the main entrance. Shard continued to struggle, but found it difficult to even blink her eyes, let along break free from the intense radiation and gravity field. She was powerless and being taken into the lion’s den. Morph was gone; possibly dead.
But where the hell was Daken?
Next issue: Daken tears it up! ‘Nuff said.
“Can I touch it?”
Abigail Brand smacked the chalk-white hand of the shapeshifter known as Morph away from her emerald locks. “If I have to say it again, I’m going to cut it off next time,” she replied.
Morph sheepishly retracted his hand, playfully rubbing the fingers as if they were sore. He had been fascinated by the green hair of his traveling companion, and even though she had changed seats in the helicopter twice he was still persistent. He said, “But then how will I caress you, my dear?”
“Who said it would be your hand that I chop off?”
Across the passenger section in the belly of the modified Sikorsky CH-37 Mojave heavy-lift helicopter, Daken let out a soft chuckle. It was the first sound that he had made since they had taken off from Moscow. Their trip across the Atlantic had been spent learning about the area and their target. It wasn’t until they had touched down in Moscow and then switch to the chopper that the hodgepodge team had any type of downtime in their long travels.
The chopper, a leftover cold war relic, had been retrofitted for their needs. It was mostly used for tourists now, but the XSE* had commissioned it for this special mission. The pilot, former Spetsnaz, had been more than happy to take their money and keep quiet. In exchange for a handsome sum he agreed to transport the six mutant operatives to Glazov.
* [X-Factor Sanction Enforcement]
Abigail eyed Daken over her emerald shades that matched her flamboyant hair. “I suppose you encourage his childishness?” she asked. “You think it’s cute, or it breaks the ice, or some other juxtaposition to keeping your focus on the job at hand?”
Daken was busy putting his sniper rifle back together for the third time. He didn’t even look up when he said, “Actually, I’d rather kick him out in Siberia.”
“We aren’t going that far north, otherwise I’d be inclined to agree.” She broke her gaze, but was surprised to find that she did so reluctantly.
Morph made several gasps of shock, but failed to illicit the response he was looking for. Instead, he turned to their team’s other recently acquired teammate, Shard. The dark-skinned woman flicked the stray blonde hairs out of eyes as she flipped through a few dossiers they had brought with them, choosing to ignore the rest of her travel companions.
Abigail seemed like your typical uptight government agent to Morph. She was cold, calculated, and interested in getting the job done. He respected her, but didn’t particularly like her. Shard had actually laughed at a few of his jokes prior to takeoff, but seemed to purposely keep her distance. It was like she didn’t want to get to know any of them more than she had to, not because she was impersonal, but because she didn’t need to. Morph couldn’t decide if she just wanted to keep things professional or if there was another reason behind her limited interactions.
Working alone in the field for so long, under the direct guidance of Charles Xavier himself, had left Morph with a certain level of reluctance when taking on new teammates. He had no trouble with authority; in fact he welcomed someone else taking operational responsibility. He just didn’t trust them.
Shard looked up from her manila folder to see Morph making love-struck eyes at her, complete with his chin perched atop both hands. “Help you with something?” she asked.
A black beret formed on the top of his head, along with a pencil mustache over his upper lip. “Pardon moi,” he replied in an over-the-top French accent. “Was I staring? Sometimes I just can’t help myself when something so beautiful crosses my path.”
“Give it a rest, Morph,” Cypher said from the other side of Shard. He leaned forward in his seat so that he could catch the shapeshifter’s attention. “We know you’re bored, but can you at least try and act like you belong here?”
“Zis iz an outrage!” he said, and stood up to shake his finger excitedly. “Ma petit lu fromage!”
Morph stormed off and vanished behind the curtain leading into the cockpit. The others watched him leave and then looked back at Cypher for an explanation. After a long moment, he finally admitted, “That was just gibberish. He wasn’t actually speaking French.”
Xorn, who sat beside Daken and opposite Cypher and the two XSE agents, shook her head. Her bulky metal helmet hid her facial expressions, but her sentiment was obvious. “I will never understand that one,” she muttered. “And I’m from another dimension.”
Abigail leaned forward the same as Cypher, nodding at him. “You speak all sorts of languages, right?” she asked. “You’re an omnilinguist?”
“Yeah. Spoken language, nonverbal cues, body language, computer programming…my mutant ability makes them all second nature to me.”
“Interesting. I speak a few alien languages myself. Havok said you’re abilities have been augmented since your resurrection.”
Cypher failed at hiding the surprised look on his face. He sat back, wondering just how much Havok had been studying him since recruiting him to the Mutant Response Team. He knew that he had undergone changes since being ‘dead,’ most noticeably the techno-organic replacement appendage. His powers had always been passive and unobtrusive, but since coming back, there were new aspects to them that he didn’t fully understand yet. He was concerned not only that Havok had taken notice, but that he was discussing it with someone from the XSE.
“Not so much augmented as fine-tuned,” he finally replied.
Brand seemed to accept his comment and she sat back, crossing her arms over her chest. Cypher couldn’t help but think that teaming up with the XSE, while beneficial from a legal standpoint given the international aspects of this mission, could be problematic for him. He wanted to get a handle on whatever had happened to him, and he wanted to do it without the government watching him.
The entire alliance was uneasy. Daken had been outspoken about taking on government agents as soon as they had entered the Archive, their pseudo-headquarters. Xorn was apprehensive about the new faces, and although she wouldn’t say it aloud, both Havok and Cypher knew it was because she felt a greater risk of exposure.
Havok, who had brokered the liaison in the first place, had to remain State-side to take care of some issues at the X-Men’s mansion estate. As they flew deeper into Russia, following TransGenics’ mutant trafficking trail that they had recently uncovered,* Cypher was wishing that Havok had been able to shuffle things around so that he could come and take over as field leader.
* [X-Factor #5]
“What’s your story?” Brand asked, nodding toward Xorn. “Daken is an assassin with a warrant on his head. Cypher is the golden boy. Morph is the asshole. Havok didn’t give us much to go on where you’re concerned.”
“Golden boy?” Cypher muttered with a raised eyebrow.
“My story,” Xorn replied, “is need-to-know. And I don’t need you to know.”
Shard looked up from her file, saying, “We have clearance.”
“We have god-level clearance,” Brand added.
Xorn, known to a select few as Lorna Summers, was apprehensive about revealing too much about herself. Not only had her experience at the shipyard, in which she had been forced to vaporized a seriously powerful mutant,* rattled her, but she was more cautious than ever that someone from her home dimension was looking for her. The man in the orange bodysuit, a guard in the shipping container apparently, had more power than most mutants dream of.
* [XF #5 again]
“Too bad I’m atheist,” Xorn shot back.
Daken snapped a magazine into place on his rifle. The sudden noise cut through the tension and all eyes were pulled toward him. “The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us. Charles Darwin said that.”
“So, you’re what, agnostic then?” Brand asked.
“Whether or not you are cleared to know about us is irrelevant, because ultimately you only know what we tell you. But since I’m nothing but an assassin with a warrant on my head, take what I say with a grain of salt.”
Brand scoffed and elbowed Shard beside her. She said, “From what I’ve read about you, make that a pillar of salt. Tell me something, Daken…how do you justify all the people you’ve murdered? Huh? What about the family in Madripor you butchered?”
Daken set the rifle down and ran a hand through his Mohawk. He leaned back against the vibrating cabin wall and said, “What makes you think they didn’t deserve it?”
George S. Patton stepped out from the cockpit, complete with a combat helmet and a decorated chest full of medals pinned to a Class A U.S. Army uniform. He snapped his heels together, flicked a riding crop against his thigh, and shouted, “We are three minutes out from the drop zone! Get your gear, maggots, and remember: success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom!”
Shard turned to Cypher. “Is he always like this on a mission?” she asked.
Cypher sighed. “Unfortunately. Knock it off, Morph.”
“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity!”
Brand stood up and pulled a pair of weapons from their holsters on both of her thighs, checking them. “What did you guys do, take a class on how to be as annoying as possible?” she said. She muttered to herself, “Honestly, this is the most unprofessional…
“A pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood!” Patton said with enough fury that his face turned red.
Cypher stood up and began checking his own rucksack. He smacked the military icon on the back of his head, knocking off his helmet and revealing his bald head. “Quit quoting Patton and get ready.”
Flesh rearranged itself at a mental command, dissolving the war hero and leaving behind the expressionless face of Morph. He feigned being hurt and said, “Oh, so Runs-With-Scissors over there gets to throw out quotes and I don’t?”
“I’m not Indian,” Daken replied.
“You’re not anything,” Morph said. He turned back to Cypher. “C’mon, Master Chief! Let’s go kick some mutant-experimenting jerk’s butt!”
As Shard joined the others in collecting their gear, she turned to Brand and said, “I think we drew the short straw when accepting this assignment.”
# # # # # # # # # #
Sokolov Pharmaceutical Compliance Center
Shell company owned by TransGenics, LLC
Six kilometers inside Glazov border
What Shard had prized the most about joining the XSE was the structure. The struggle between mutants and the rest of humanity was largely one without constraints. She appreciated that the XSE had the international purview to actually hold people accountable for their criminal actions regarding mutants.
Being a part of the XSE meant training, accountability, and due diligence. She was no longer the youthful hothead that wanted to world to answer for the wrongs brought against both her and her people. That was more Brand’s modus operandi. She enjoyed being what amounted to a mutant cop, and when paired with Brand, it seemed like they fell into the stereotypical roles of good mutant cop, bad mutant cop.
Which was why she remained mostly silent during the trip. She didn’t know anything about Havok’s Mutant Response Team other than it was sanctioned, but preemptively disavowed. That meant the XSE was in charge here, which also meant that the structure she had come to appreciate could be put into play.
Brand had divided them up into two squads whose members’ power and skill sets would complement one another. Brand, Cypher, and Daken would be approaching the building from the East while Shard, Xorn, and Morph would approach from the West.
Russia’s Federation Council had very limited information to share with the XSE regarding the Sokolov Pharmaceutical Compliance Center. Whether that was due to an actual lack of knowledge or purposeful withholding, they couldn’t be sure. What they did know from their encounter with hostile mutant soldiers and tracing the shipping manifests they had found in the dock yard was that TransGenics was sending mutants they had experimented on to this location. A quick look through the limited financial information available on Sokolov revealed it as a shell company owned by TransGenics, LLC, a privately-held genetic research corporation.
The building itself was only four floors tall. The property was enclosed by chain link fence with barbed wire strung along the top. Only one road led to the building, which was monitored by a guard station at the fence line. A rolling gate granted access to whoever made it by the guard station. Direct access to the building included a main entrance, three emergency exits, and a loading dock with two garage doors.
Outside of the fence line was mostly underbrush and open ground before heavier foliage on the West and North sides, or cross roads and other businesses on the East and South sides. Brand’s team were positioned between two other buildings to start their approach.
Shard was happy to come in from the tree line on the West of the building, and especially happy about being paired with Xorn. The woman intrigued her. Morph, in her opinion, was baggage, but at least he was capable according to his file.
“In position,” Shard said after tapping her communication piece in her ear.
“Copy that,” Brand said from her opposing vector. “Moving in.”
Due to the incredible power that the mutants under TransGenics’ corporate thumb possessed, simply knocking on the front door was not going to work. Under cover of night, they needed to get into the facility, collect as much intelligence as possible, and then retreat to plan their next steps. Then arrests could be made and the horrible genetic experimentation could stop.
Shard approached the chain link fence with Morph a step behind her and Xorn hovering over beside them both. She knelt down once she reached the fence and nodded to Xorn.
The eye sockets of Xorn’s eerie helmet began to glow iridescent blue. The fence bent toward her, but held in place by its anchoring poles. A few sparks splashed out at them, and then the fence fell back down, as if exhausted.
“I overloaded the generator feeding power into the fence,” Xorn said. “It’s no longer electrified. Go ahead.”
Shard nodded again and concentrated. She collected a few of the ambient light particles and created a solid pink light-based construct in her hand, as sharp as any physical knife. With a quick slash she cut a gap in the fence and pushed her body through. The tossed the energy knife and allowed it to fade away. On the other side she pulled the fence back so Morph and Xorn could come through as well. While Xorn could have easily electromagnetically lifted them all over, due to the clan destine nature of their operation it seemed like a bad idea. Nothing would bring security over faster than some lighter-than-air intruders.
Since the guard station was positioned more closely to their side of the building, Morph would take control of it while Shard and Xorn continued inside. Shard watched as Morph shapeshifted his body to replicate one of the guards and then hustled off to the station. He had started to whine that all they seemed to think he was good for was pretending to be cheap security guards, but had to admit that he was the best suited for the task at hand. Coming up to the station from inside the compound would keep the target personnel off their guard, meaning he could incapacitate them more easily.
Once Morph had left, Shard turned to Xorn and said, “Ready?”
Xorn nodded and raised her arms. Her eye sockets took on their signature hue again and then burst in a flutter of sparks. Shard looked back at the building and saw that the lights had all flipped off at once. Xorn’s electromagnetic pulse had done its work and shut the facility down.
Undoubtedly, a back-up generator would take over in a moment, but the temporary confusion would allow both teams to get up close to the building, as well as provide an excuse for Morph’s version of a guard to approach the station unexpectedly.
Both women covered the ground quickly and hugged the wall beside the loading dock. Shard looked around eagerly, expecting the lights to all come back on in short order, but nothing happened.
“Odd,” she murmured. “What are the chances that an international conglomerate like TransGenics didn’t put in a generator?”
“I’m seeing several grids funneling power into the complex below ground level,” Xorn said as she glanced around the dirt and grass around them. “I don’t see any service interruption. Something’s not right.”
“You mean they’re choosing not to turn the power back on?” Shard asked.
Brand’s voice cut in over their earpieces, saying, “Cypher and I are in position, with Daken having taken higher ground. I’m breaching the East emergency exit now before the alarms are reactivated.”
Shard’s eyes went wide. “No!” she said. “Wait, it’s—”
KRA-KOOM!
A spiral of green energy rocketed up into the evening sky, pushing Morph up and over the building, and off beyond the tree line. His body flailed as the pure physical energy catapulted him beyond Shard’s sight. The trail of intense concussion energy originated from the guard station, which was now nothing more than a few slats of vinyl and a few splinters of wood.
Xorn instantly leapt into the air and forced a magnetic bubble around herself. No sooner had she reached three feet off the ground then a wave of red radiation encapsulated her and smashed down onto her body. Another wave, and then another and another continuously splashed down on Xorn, crushing her against the compacted ground.
Shard whipped around to see a dark man standing just a dozen feet away. He wore an orange bodysuit just like the report had said that the rogue mutant from the shipyard had worn, and his eyes were red and opaque. She unleashed a volley of condensed energy from her fists, but another wave of radiation had risen up between her and the newcomer, dispersing her attacks.
He waved his arm and another wave washed over Shard, knocking her down. Her skin felt like it was on fire. If he was from the same stock as the assailant at the shipyard, she was beginning to understand how the Mutant Response Team had such a difficult time taking that one down.
“Do yourself a favor and stay down,” he told her. “You can throw all the fancy light shows you want; I’ll just absorb it.”
Palms extended, he began pumping out a lighter shade of radiation that pressed against both Shard and Xorn, pinning them to the ground. Shard tried to fight her way free, but it seemed like every movement of muscle was countered by tons of pressure being induced by the field of radiation. She heard someone approach and thought for a moment that Brand or one of the others could be coming to her rescue, but instead she saw a blonde woman wearing a white, tight-fitting green bodysuit over to the man in the orange bodysuit.
“Devon! They sent the shape-shifter to take the guard post,” she said. “Just like he said they would.”
Devon nodded and smiled. “The boss did his homework. Alright, Karen. Let’s wrap these two up and join the others.”
How could she have been so stupid as to have walked straight into a trap? If she lived through this, Shard was going to have to put up with hours of procedural revisions and extension tactics training because of this huge mistake. They had assumed that TransGenics didn’t know they were coming, but in hindsight, how could they not? After hijacking the shipment meant for this very facility, it was obvious that Havok’s team would come here.
They should have been better prepared. They shouldn’t have tried to be covert about this operation – with the full authorization of the XSE, they could have waltzed in the front door and publically taken control of the facility. Instead, they had tried to take advantage of an element of surprise that was never theirs to begin with.
With another wave of his hand, Devon wrapped up both Shard and Xorn in their own globes of pinkish radiation. Trapped within, neither one could use their powers escape and were forced to roll along beside their captors.
They approached the building to see three other strangers, each wearing a colorful outfit, standing over Abigail Brand and Cypher. Both Brand and Cypher were on their knees, their hands handing low and being suppressed by the same pink radiation, only the field was being generated by one of the other captors.
“Nice work, crew,” Devon said as they came closer. “Easy pickings as far as I’m concerned. I don’t see what Hector had so much trouble with back in the States.”
“Yes,” replied the shortest of the three captors. He was barley four feet tall. “But perhaps, just to make sure—”
“I already told you, Mark,” a muscular man standing directly behind the kneeling Brand said. His long hair was pulled back tightly against his scalp and he wore the same orange bodysuit as Devon. “Calli has them. Mess them up too much and the Professor will depower you for sure.”
“Aaron is correct,” a curvy woman standing behind Cypher added, the one who was suppressing Cypher and Brand. “My gravity field is keeping them down. There is no need to physically harm them further.” She smiled at the long-haired blonde. “No more than Aaron already has, anyway.”
Even though Shard was incapacitated, she could still take stock of their captors. They had seen them coming from a mile away. The one called Karen had been lying in wait for Morph, who had been thrown miles away from the facility. Devon had taken both her and Xorn down like they were novices, and meanwhile, Mark, Aaron, and the woman Calli seemed to have an equally simple time taking down Cypher and Brand.
The three males all wore the same orange bodysuits and the two females wore the same green versions. They were uniformed, coordinated, and very powerful. Possibly deadly. They all had similar power sets, perhaps even identical ones. She wondered what made them so connected.
“The Professor?” Mark shot back. “Guys, when are you going to get with the program? We’re stable and we can just take whatever we want now. He’s an old man, and yeah, he’s smart as hell, but he can’t possible take away my powers.”
They were close enough to the front entrance of the facility to hear it open. The double-doors both spread outward and a man wearing what looked like a solid gold exoskeleton stepped through, his armored feet smacking against the cement pathway. His entire body was concealed beneath the gold armor, except for his face, which was worn from both age and experience. Behind his eyes was a deadly cunning that only those that had lived through true trauma possessed.
Each of the five people in bodysuits froze and turned to face him, almost like trained soldiers, however neither Devon or Calli dropped their suppression fields.
“But take them I shall, Mr. Kilgore,” he said. He clasped his hands behind his back and stalked forward, stopping between the collected mutants. He looked first as the kneeling Brand and Cypher, and then to the incapacitated Shard and Xorn. “As powerful as I’ve made you, Mark Kilgore, surely you can understand that every mutant has limits. Take these XSE agents for example: powerful in their own right and highly trained, yet they are nothing but toys to men like me.”
He pivoted to look at Mark directly. “It’s true that I’ve greatly enhanced your limits, but there are other limits beyond the mere physical,” he continued. “For example…the limits of family, Mr. Kilgore. Such as your family. Such as…little Sarah, is it?”
Mark hung his head slightly. “Yes, Professor,” he replied.
“I thought so.” The Professor looked up at Devon and said, “Is this all of them?”
Devon traded a quick glance with Karen. “We believe so, Professor,” he replied. “But we’ll perform a perimeter check to be sure.”
The Professor nodded and looked down at Brand. “Abigail Brand of the X-Factor Sanction Enforcement, correct? Yes, I know who you are. The hair gives it away. These others, however…I’m not familiar with. Other XSE agents, no doubt. I’m curious, Abigail: exactly how much do you know about my operation here?”
Brand struggled against the suppressive radiation, and her hands even ignited in a gout of blue flame briefly, but ultimately Calli’s field was too powerful for her to overcome. The Professor, seeing this, motioned to Calli to relax slightly, allowing Brand to sit up straighter and look the Professor in the eye, but not enough to be released.
She said, “I know that you’re experimenting on mutants. I know that you’ve violated dozens of federal and international trade laws. I know that you’re a piece of garbage who I’m going to enjoy ripping out of that suit when I get free.”
The Professor scoffed and couldn’t help smiling. “Indeed! Yes, indeed. Violating laws…perhaps. But am I criminal? Not in this country. Putin’s Russia is quite a remarkable thing! I’ll pay a few fines, I’m sure, but for Professor Power, the lone board member of TransGenics, LLC, this is easily overcome.”
Shard would have flinched had she been able to move. Anthony Power was a name she knew well. A former advisor to the President of the United States of America, Power had positioned himself to guide at least two world-domination initiatives that she knew of. Now he had surfaced again, apparently at the head of an international company that specialized in genetic research and had augmented mutants as soldiers.
“You won’t get away with this,” Brand blurted out before Calli suppressed her back down again.
Professor Power turned away, laughing. “How cliché! Bring them inside. I’m sure the science team will be happy I’ve brought them fresh mutants to dissect and study.”
They complied, hailing Cypher, Brand, Xorn, and Shard toward the main entrance. Shard continued to struggle, but found it difficult to even blink her eyes, let along break free from the intense radiation and gravity field. She was powerless and being taken into the lion’s den. Morph was gone; possibly dead.
But where the hell was Daken?
Next issue: Daken tears it up! ‘Nuff said.