A Captain Scarlet/X-Men Multiverse Story by Caroline Smith

Paul Metcalfe was running.

Running for his life.

Running from a past he couldn’t remember.

He battled through the ice-storm; the wind a shrieking demon that tore at his unprotected skin, the freezing pellets stinging his eyes. He shivered, ploughing upwards on the slope, out of the natural amphitheatre that surrounded his underground prison, not daring to look back, hoping that the elements would prove enough to deter his pursuers.

On and on he trudged, half-naked and knee deep in the snow, his body hurting in so many places he could no longer distinguish individual pain. Several times he lost his footing, until at last he stumbled and fell face first into the snow.

He closed his eyes. The vague recollections of escape from some horror pirouetted around his tired brain. He could see the blood and torn flesh, hear the curdling screams – the slashing and ripping; pain – his – theirs; everything a blur, mingled and confused. He huddled his arms against his body, teeth chattering, limbs shaking, his core temperature dropping dangerously as he continued to lie within the frozen snow.

It would be so easy to sleep, to end the nightmare…

And then, the wind dropped. In that instant, his sensitive ears detected the distant, yet unmistakable sound of voices. Shouting, insistent voices…

No.

His eyes snapped open, his innate instinct for survival taking over once again. He dragged himself to his feet, fear making him ungainly in his haste, and stumbled on. Through the swirling blizzard he could make out the dark mass of something looming up in the distance; he began to see the outlines of ridges and peaks.

The mountains.

He could die in their frozen heights, or he could die here. For him there was only one course of action. He smeared a hand over his rimed face, panting with the exertion as his exhausted legs pumped beyond the ability of most human beings. The adrenaline surged through his system, willing his tormented body on. Up into the untamed reaches he went, leaving his pursuers far behind.

Keep going.

Ordinary men would have been dead by now, but Paul Metcalfe was no ordinary human being. A mutant gene within his body bestowed a remarkable healing ability on him, giving him almost inexhaustible stores of energy and powers of recovery against injury. Even as the frostbite took hold of his extremities, his regenerative system was working hard against it.

By nightfall he had cleared a low summit and the track spiralled downwards again, towards a black mass of forest. He willed himself to reach it, hoping he had done enough to shake off his pursuers until he could find some sleep. Fatigue was taking a toll on his retro-metabolic system and he worried that if he didn’t find shelter soon it might truly fail him altogether. Downwards he trudged within the demon fury of the storm, until finally, after what seemed like forever, he reached the forest.

Within it there was some respite from the ice and the wind. Deeper and deeper inside he went, until finally, he was unable to go another step. He barely managed to scramble up one tall lodgepole pine, its scrubby bark providing enough of a foothold for his agile feet until he found a large branch where he could huddle in its velvet depths. He took deep gulping breaths, his heart still hammering in his ribcage. He realised he was totally exhausted, driven to the edge of sanity, and he closed his eyes again, revelling in the pause from his flight. He felt the tree sway in the wind, heard the wind howling against the uppermost branches, lulling him like a baby in a cradle. He couldn’t feel the pain in his extremities any more, and he wondered if his healing factor would break down under the onslaught of stress and fatigue.

It doesn’t matter; he thought idly, within the haze of pain, it doesn’t matter any more…

Too exhausted to make sense of anything else at this point, he dozed off into fitful sleep. He had no idea how long he sat in that dream-like state, but at some point his mind was assailed by images so terrifying that he jerked awake, shuddering into reality. He heard his voice cracking in a hoarse scream, his heart thumped against his ribcage and he felt the slickness of oily sweat coating his body. He clung to the trunk as if it was the only thing between him and insanity.

His mind was awash with these images, all jumbled together. He tried desperately to hold onto them – as if they might help him make some sense of his predicament, but like any dream or nightmare, they faded into insubstantiality the more he tried to recall it. When his shakes subsided, and his mind cleared a little, two things remained, like an echo: The first was a ghostly after-image; dominated by the colour green; a sickly, phosphorescent colour that filled him with a cold blind terror; second, the sound of a woman’s voice, sounding strangely as if she was echoing deep in the dark labyrinth of his mind. Absurdly, he had the impression that whoever belonged to that voice was screaming, as terrified as he was.

He lay there, breathing deeply, trying to calm himself, and trying to come to terms with what was happening to him. In this semi-tranquil state he suddenly realised that he had no memories of the time before his headlong dash into the wilderness. Panicked, he tried to recall everyday people and events that most people would call instantly to mind: his parents, siblings, lovers, friends, colleagues.

Nothing.

Parents, schooldays, vacations; career, births, marriages, and deaths; the happy and sad punctuations of life.

Not a thing, only a dim shadowy darkness where memories should be.

He rubbed his throat, and felt something cold and hard. He pulled it up over his head and stared at the chain culminating in a metal tag, dulled with age. He squinted at the word inscribed onto the surface.

Wolverine.

He shook his head. The name made no sense to him. And yet, he was sure the tag was his, and had been for a long, long time. He slowly returned the chain to its place around his neck and turned his attention to his hands, staring at the solid knuckles, where faint indentations lay between the ridges. He gently focused his mind, and with a slow, wet, tearing sound, sharp glinting metal points broke through the skin, through the indentations, longer and longer, until they emerged fully; nine-inch claws. He stared at his hands again, and flinched as a door flew open in his mind, a flash of memory slashing through it, terrifying: these very same claws scything through flesh and metal and plastic and fibre.

My name is Paul Metcalfe…but Wolverine is my other name.

Then the door slammed shut again before anything else could get out.

His claws retracted, involuntarily, but the gashes remained open, taking too long to close. He felt weak, drained of energy. He threw his face into his hands, close to tears, and despised that weakness. There were obviously a few shreds of memory left to him, coupled with the certain knowledge that something awful had happened to him – a knowledge made real because of the metal claws.

And in his mind, another thought burned. Burned like fire. He had to stay away from them, whoever they were; the men who had chased him in the snow, running from the terror. For, he was sure, that if they caught him, the nightmare would continue. He shook his head fiercely. He wasn’t going to let that happen, and they weren’t going to break him. He’d find a way to elude them and recover the past that had he had been denied. He whispered this thought like a mantra until it lulled him into blessed unconsciousness.

By grey dawn he had cleared the edge of the forest and came upon a frozen lake. The storm was abating and he knew he was going to be an easier target, especially out in the open. He grimaced as he glanced down at himself. Dressed in only a vest and battered jeans, ripped and stained with blood and God knows what else, he didn’t need a mirror to know that the sight he presented would make anyone believe he was some criminal on the run; and for all I know, he thought sourly, I am. Hitching a ride from even the most hardened trucker might prove difficult; and the last thing he wanted was to attract unwarranted attention.

Several long trudging hours later he squinted at the city limits sign of Whitefish. A little further along the road he saw several houses. More like shacks really, however, one of them had a line of washing strung out in the back-yard. He moved closer to the house and his sensitive hearing picked up the sounds of a tele-viewer. He scouted alongside the rear of the house, and peered into the cramped kitchen. His eyes roamed the chipped painted units, the sink stacked full of dirty crockery, and gleamed, when on the countertop he saw a flat carton containing the remains of a giant-sized pizza. He tried the back door – unlocked. Minutes later, he was in the wood beyond the house, dressed in an almost-dry plaid woollen shirt and jeans, and wolfing down the cold pizza like a ravenous beast.

Professor Charles Gray sat at almost the highest point of the public gallery in the huge World Government Senate Assembly Hall situated at the heart of Unity City, Bermuda. Apart from his titanium-alloy streamlined wheelchair, there was nothing untoward about the silver-haired craggily handsome man that hinted at the fact he possessed one of the most powerful minds on the planet. For this former professor emeritus of genetics at Harvard, and now, the headmaster of a school for ‘gifted children’ in Winchester, Massachusetts, was a mutant.

From his vantage point he could see the room where it swept down into a bowl-like amphitheatre: the inner circle for the appointed senators of the world government, three outer circles for other member state representatives and the remainder for members of the public. The phrase ‘public’ had an ironic connotation, given the level of security they were required to pass through in order to view the proceedings. For, in this brave new world of 2068, with its tenets of unity and compromise amongst the majority of the nations of the world, there still remained splits and divisions on any number of issues.

And no issue was more divisive than the question of what to do with the seemingly inexorable rise in the world’s population of people who were being born with extra-ordinary abilities. World Senator John Roberts from the USA had embarked on a campaign (some used the word ‘crusade’) to stem the rising tide of these ‘mutants’, as he called them. The name he coined was eagerly pounced on by the world’s press and was used in a pejorative manner to refer to all people who displayed physical and mental capabilities different to the so-called ‘norm’. Roberts’ stance was that the ordinary citizens of the world deserved to be protected from what he saw as a potential threat to their safety and security.

His proposal, now being considered by a World Senate committee, of which he was also a member, was this: that anyone over the age of nine years old exhibiting extraordinary powers would be tested for genetic mutation. If they were positive they would be registered on a new global database created and maintained by the World Intelligence Network. The proposal was highly explosive, dredging up uncomfortable memories of past attempts in mankind’s history to control sections of society deemed to be different; practices that many members of the World Government had believed would be discarded in their new world order. But it seemed that nothing on this earth was new, most especially a fear of the unknown, and previously tolerant factions in the government were becoming concerned at the rise of mutant-kind, seeing them as a threat to normal humans.

Gray had long suspected that his former post-doctorial colleague at Harvard, Doctor Antonio Giadello, might break the fragile pact the two men had reached over their joint-research into mutant behaviour, and the discovery of the X-factor gene. Gray had hoped to keep these findings confidential, fearing that the knowledge could be used inimically against those who possessed the gene, however Giadello thought differently. Publicly, Gray affected no further interest in the subject, intending to pursue the research privately; however it seemed inevitable that his former colleague had found a way to capitalize on some of that knowledge to the detriment of mutant-kind.

It was known that the World President himself, James Younger, was not in favour of the proposal, however, personal preferences, even those of the most powerful man in the world, did not count. What mattered was the vote of the committee; and they would cast their decision after listening to the arguments for and against. Today was the turn of interested members of the public, which was why Gray was here, listening, like all the other individuals in this auditorium bursting at the seams, and the millions of people across the globe watching via live satellite transmission, for the first speaker to address the committee. He watched a young woman rise from her seat at the front and cross over to the podium, her long flame-red hair a shimmering beacon under the glare of the suspensor lights, and he felt rather like a fond father watching his daughter go onstage for her first play, with a mixture of admiration and trepidation.

Dianne Simms had been born into a long-established aristocratic family in England. However, she was the first, and perhaps only, member of that distinguished lineage to exhibit the talents of telepathy and telekinesis. Cerebro was nothing but a pile of neuro-circuits and potential programs when her own particular trauma activated the mutant gene within her body; but her cry of pain was so mind-shattering Gray ‘heard’ it three thousand miles away. Since then, she had studied at his school, honing both her academic and psionic abilities, and he very much hoped that one day those talents would even rival those of his own.

Dianne stood on the dais in the centre of the huge chamber and looked up at the myriad eyes of her audience – eyes that seemed to bore into her. She swallowed briefly, adjusted the tiny microphone on her classically-cut Verdain suit and raised her chin slightly, a self-imposed gesture of a confidence she didn’t feel. Get on with it, she thought, as she waited for the signal to begin her presentation.

The chairman of the committee was Linda Nolan, the World Senate representative for the United Kingdom, and a veteran of the Lunar and Martian space missions. She peered at Dianne over her pince-nez spectacles and then glanced down at her personal view-screen on the desk.

“Ms Simms. Would you care to go ahead?”

At last.

“Thank you, Senator.”

With only the briefest of glances at her data-pad, she raised her head to focus on Linda Nolan, who was seated at the centre of the large curving table where the ten members of the committee sat. She took one deep breath, just to steady herself, and then spoke up. Her voice rang clearly out into the hall, courtesy of its perfect acoustics.

“Mutants. That’s what these human beings are being called. Through no fault of their own, they are labelled, stereotyped, and categorised. But they are just human, and have desires and wishes like any one of us: to go to school, get a job, get married, have children; to do all of these things without fear or prejudice.”

“Many members of the public may not be aware that these people possess something called the X-factor gene. This gene is what causes so-called ‘mutancy’. It’s like any other gene within our bodies, like those that result in exceptional musical, artistic, or physical ability. It lies dormant within the body of certain individuals for many years; until some event, usually traumatic in nature, activates it, generally around puberty. Why the gene is triggered by extreme stress isn’t well-known, although studies are on-going by various –”

“Well, that is all very interesting, Ms Simms, but none of it is really the point,” Senator John Roberts interrupted her in his brusque voice, “What this committee needs to know is whether there is a threat posed by the existence of these mutants in our society. That is the real issue here.”

Dianne had studiously avoided looking at him despite the fact he had been impossible to miss on Linda Nolan’s right. He sat tall and heavy-set behind the desk, his solid features crowned by a head of thick, dark hair liberally streaked with grey. His eyes bored into hers with the studiousness of a raptor. His words caused a ripple of conversation around the hall and Dianne felt her mouth dry up.

Damn him, she thought, for his interruption. He was deliberately trying to rattle her; Charles had warned her of it before she took the stand. She returned Roberts’ gaze, stubbornly refusing to be cowed by the man.

Linda Nolan banged her electronic gavel. “Quiet, please,” her commanding voice rang out into the hall. The sudden buzz of conversation trickled to a halt.

“Please continue, Ms Simms,” she said, when silence reigned once again.

“As I was saying, these X-factor gene mutations are triggered at puberty, to children sometimes as young as nine years of age. I would like the committee to consider, is it a humane thing they are suggesting, to brand children of that age as outcasts of society? That is why this vote is dangerous; it seeks to incite prejudice – a form of racial hatred against these innocent people; whereas what we should be doing is trying to understand what has brought about this phenomenon, so we can deal with it in a rational, humane manner.”

“We’re hardly talking punishment, Ms Simms,” Roberts cut in again. “We are simply talking about registration, after all. But since you are so keen on telling us how noble and perfect these mutants are, perhaps you would like to explain why some of them use their so called genetic abilities to the detriment of society, such as the man who robbed a bank in San Diego the other day, using his – tongue?”

There were mutters of disgust from the audience at this. Dianne swallowed. “No one was hurt. And there will always be individuals who use brute force to get what they want, that doesn’t mean we have to label the entire human race.”

“Oh, come now, Ms Simms. Let’s not juggle with words. There is a difference between someone who brandishes a knife and someone who can kill with their mind. Or someone who can melt cars with a wave of their hands.”

“And you think that registering them will prevent that? Don’t you think it’s more likely to create more problems than you think it will solve? If I remember my history apartheid didn’t work very well either.”

Roberts didn’t reply. There was a faint murmuring within the tiered rows of the galleries again.

“Ms. Simms, what is your current occupation?”

Dianne felt her heart jump at his unanticipated line of questioning. Where was he going with this? She glanced around the committee desk, and saw the expectant faces, all waiting for her answer.

“I’m a teacher.”

Roberts nodded, and a glib smile slowly appeared on his face.

“A teacher,” he echoed; and waited for a few theatrical seconds to let this reply sink in to his listeners.

“That’s what I said,” Dianne said, feeling her confidence dissolve under Roberts’ cutting gaze. The man was an arrogant ass, and she tried vainly to keep her composure knowing Gray was sitting in the gallery and relying on her to keep focused on the presentation. She felt his whisper-soft touch in her mind, lending her strength and support.

“And do you teach mutants?”

Dianne licked suddenly dry lips.

“Sometimes.”

“And what sort of things do your mutants get taught?”

“Things any student needs to learn; maths, science, history. I happen to teach them law and sociology. I teach them respect for the law; although quite frankly, they find it difficult to find respect for institutions that are prepared to so blatantly remove their fundamental rights.”

“And you wouldn’t happen to be teaching them to use their powers as well?”

“Senator, I protest, this line of questioning is entirely peripheral to my presentation to the committee.”

Roberts’ eyes narrowed and his voice grew louder, “Oh is it indeed, Ms Simms? I beg to differ.” He stood up, raked his gaze slowly around the amphitheatre, and then back to Dianne. He spoke directly to her, but she wasn’t fooled. His words were for everyone in the Senate Chamber and the listening millions beyond it.

“We all know how easy it is to be blinded by science, and that statistics can be made to shore up theories. What does it matter how this all happened – or even why? No the truly important thing is, do we dare to let it continue unfettered without some sort of control? We’re all in some way subject to controls from our birth, we are all required to be immunised, that information is kept on databases, we all have identity cards, to allow us to pass through national borders; so tell me, why is this any different? If mutants have nothing to hide, then why are they so resistant to this proposal?”

Dianne became aware of the myriad waves of empathic emotions sweeping around the chamber and the galleries. She knew then that she had lost them. Roberts had turned her argument around and twisted it for his own ends.

“I put it to you and all other supporters of these mutants – these ‘activations’ as you so curiously call it, are creating a super-race which could be a serious risk to the security of our member nations!”

Senate representatives huddled and conferred, adding to the sudden eruption of noise. Roberts took advantage of the dissent he had sown and wrested the last vestiges of control of the meeting from Linda Nolan. He stood up and gazed around the audience present, addressing them now, not Dianne. All eyes were riveted upon him, as, like a cunning magician, he held them in his spell.

“We are dealing with a ticking time bomb here, and if the World Government does not take control, then they are being extremely short-sighted, not to say foolish, and I’m sure the ordinary citizens of our world will be in agreement with me.”

At these words, people in the public gallery started nodding heads and clapping in support of Roberts’ comments.

Charles Gray sat above them, and felt saddened but not entirely surprised by the response from the Senate Committee. He had hoped that some sense of justice and rationality would prevail, but it seemed that many of the committee members, and Senator Roberts in particular, did not really want to listen to pro-arguments. He was proud of his former student, she was holding up well in difficult circumstances, but the situation did seem somewhat hopeless.

As the voices of dissent grew louder in the public gallery, he frowned and looked around him. They were drowning out any chance of Dianne pleading her case any further. He mentally shook his head in frustration and suddenly his eye caught a darkly-clad figure getting up from his seat in the public gallery about thirty feet away from where Gray sat. The man started to walk up one of the ramp ways towards the exit.

Gray’s breath caught in his throat with recognition.

In haste, he activated the controls on his state-of-the-art motorized wheelchair and followed the figure up the ramp out of the hall. As he motored into the corridor that ran parallel to the public gallery, he had to blink in the sudden glare from the sunlight streaming through the broad curving view-panes. He stopped for a moment to gaze beyond them, at the heart-stopping view of the spires and towers of the densely packed metropolis zigzagging all the way to down to the cerulean sea.

He dragged his eyes back to the corridor and frowned. The figure he followed had disappeared from sight. He wondered if he could have been mistaken about whom he thought it was. After all, it had been dark in the hall; the departing figure could just as easily been someone else. He shrugged. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking on my part, he thought. He activated his chair to return to the chamber when he heard footsteps approaching from his rear. Inexplicably, the hairs rose on the nape of his neck.

“So, Charles, you still think they’re going to let us live our lives without interference, that we can all live together in glorious harmony?”

Gray whirled his chair around with a sharp intake of breath. He had never expected to hear that eerily familiar voice again after so many years. He stared at him, the pale features contrasting with the mesmerizing eyes – eyes so dark as to be almost the same colour as the dark overcoat he wore.

Turner spread his hands, indicating the senate chamber to his left, the source of his disgust. “Well, as you can evidently see from this farce – it’s not working.”

“Conrad. It’s been a long time.”

“So it has. Seven years if I’m not mistaken.” A ghost of a smile played around Conrad Turner’s thin lips. “Which, of course, I never am.”

Gray felt time stand still as he searched the face of the man he had once regarded as the younger sibling he had been denied. He saw how the intervening years had changed Conrad. The man wore his bitterness like an implacable mask –the lines as deep as the hostility he saw burning in his dark eyes. Turner’s mouth curved in a cynical smile, as if it were he that was the telepath and could see the memories dredged up through time flickering through Gray’s mind.

“You’ve not lost your arrogance, that much I can see,” Gray said with an almost imperceptible sigh.

“Arrogant.” Turner laughed as if it was a good joke, but the sound swiftly turned contemptuous. “I say you’re egotistical, for still believing that your way of peaceful negotiation has any hope of succeeding. They fear and despise us… and this so-called joke of registration is only the beginning. Men like Roberts will not stop at something so simple. We’re being herded like cattle, and your young woman’s speech was pathetically ineffective.”

“I didn’t see you on the podium, Conrad, trying to make a difference. You could add your voice to ours.”

“And a lot of good that would do. They’ve no intention of listening. They never did, despite all our best efforts. See where this has led us?”

“Where have you been all those years – what have you been doing?”

“Oh, much the same as same as you… studying, researching, preparing, for - war.”

“I’ve seen enough to sicken the soul, or have you forgotten that?”

Turner’s laugh again echoed in the corridor, yet his dark eyes flashed with cold fire. “You’re only fooling yourself. You huddle with your young mutants in that mansion of yours and hone their skills for combat. How dare you accuse me of double standards? You’re a fool, Charles. I see now that you have always been one. I was just too blind to see it in the beginning. It’s our time now; these humans have had their day and if they do not stand aside for homo superior then they are destined to perish like the dinosaurs that they are. They say they fear us, but they don’t truly know the meaning of the word. I propose to enlighten them. And I warn you, if you’re not with me, then you’re against me. I will not hesitate to stop you - or your precious X-Men - if you get in my way.”

Gray felt his mouth dry up. “What do you intend to do?”

“You will see, Charles, you will see.”

He turned on his heel and walked sharply away back along the corridor, his dark overcoat billowing behind him.

Gray listened to the fading echo of footsteps, a curtain of foreboding descending upon him. He remained motionless for a while, his face impassive, but his ice-blue eyes betrayed his inner turmoil.

He had just been offered the chair of Professor of Genetics at Harvard when Conrad Turner had joined the research staff. The young man he had known then had a brilliant mind, his all-encompassing love of science the one thing that brought a semblance of joy to that emotionless exterior, the legacy of a tragic childhood. He had entered Gray’s life at a point where the older man had been suffering the heartbreak of bereavement, and the two became closer when they discovered, quite by chance, that they were both mutants. That knowledge had fuelled their mutual ambition: to discover the genetic make-up of the new mutants in their midst. And Gray shared his own particular dream with Conrad – one that saw a future where those born different could still co-exist peacefully with their non-mutant siblings.

But it wasn’t to last. The atmosphere of uncertainty and mistrust in a world beginning to suspect the existence of mutants drove a wedge between them. Gray continued to be determined to find a peaceful way to co-exist with humanity. Turner on the other hand became ever more bitter and more antagonistic to the human race until, at last, one day he stormed out of Gray’s life.

Until now.

After all these years, Conrad Turner, pseudonym – Magneto – had reappeared.

As Dianne left the domed building and walked down the steps at the main entrance, she saw the large crowd gathered outside. Amongst them were journalists and members of the public, many of whom were waving placards. She saw a few in support of the mutant cause, but most of them displayed slogans that were at best distasteful, at worst downright soul-destroying. As she started to walk down the steps, feeling a nervousness she tried to hide, several of the journalists surged forward and she found herself bombarded by questions and microphones jabbing into her face.

“What’s your angle on this, Ms Simms, why are you in support of the mutant cause?”

“Don’t you think that Senator Roberts is right, and these folks are a threat to the security of the world?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t have anything more to say than I said at the hearing, please allow me to pass,” she said, as she tried to move past them.

The crowd was starting to show signs of unrest and Dianne tried to shut out the waves of their hostility, so palpable they made her feel ill.

“Muties! They wanna take over the planet!”

“Think they’re better than us!”

She struggled through the press of journalists, feeling suffocated by their stupid questions.

Where is the Professor? She thought in alarm.

Panic overtook her; she wanted to be far away from here. Suddenly from the back of the mob, someone threw a drinks can, aiming it directly at Dianne. It sailed over the heads of the crowd. Distracted by the pounding surf of their emotions, she lost control of her mind for a fraction of a second, and she reacted – instinctively. Her arm flew out in front of her face to protect herself.

The can hovered in the air inches above her head.

She swallowed hard as she heard the deathly hush descend on the gathering for a few breathless seconds. Then as people recovered from the shock there was a shout from someone in the crowd.

“She’s a stinking mutie too!”

The can dropped to the ground with a clatter and bounced down the steps. There was more chanting, and more shouting, the insults more strident, more hateful. Dianne fled down the steps, tears almost pricking her eyes as she tried to drown out the thought-waves emanating from the practically hysterical mob behind her.

<Charles, where are you?> she sent her telepathic summons to him, unable to stem the emotion behind it. She heard his answering reply in her head, and she made her way to one of the lesser side entrances of the huge building.

Every so often she glanced behind her, but saw no one bother to pursue her. They were most probably waiting to catch Roberts or the members of the committee as they left. When she arrived at the side-door she saw Gray waiting there for her in his wheelchair, and his eyes were sympathetic.

“I shouldn’t have done it; used my telekinesis,” she said.

“It was a normal reaction; don’t be so hard on yourself.”

Her hair swung as she shook her head, dismissing his comment. “No, I still can’t control my powers as well as I’d like. I made a mess of things; betrayed your trust in me, and possibly exposed the school by my actions. Maybe Rick was right; maybe you should have been out there addressing them, not me.”

Gray leaned across to grip her wrist. “Stop this, Dianne. I doubt I would have fared any better. Now, let’s get back to Winchester, we can’t do anymore here.”

Alpha-Red was not amused. Three weeks had come and gone, and their missing subject had remained firmly elusive. It was time to get another update from his deputy at the operations unit in the snow-bound wastes of the Canadian-Montana border. This situation was untenable, given that it was almost impossible for him to be at the base in person to oversee the operation himself. Resigning himself, he carried out his usual precautions, scanning his spacious office for listening devices, before scrambling the number connecting him with the base.

There were few people even at the highest level in the military of the World Government who were aware of this highly secret operation, and he was determined that it should stay that way. The small highly-covert unit had been assembled to engage terrorism in North America in the early 21^st century. Now, part of its purpose had been re-engineered to take pre-emptive strike action against what Alpha-Red saw as the newest form of threat to the stability of the world, that of the rise in mutant-kind. They were engaged with a program code-named Weapon-Red, but at the culmination of all their work, disaster had struck. Weapon-Red had escaped. And all the firepower and muscle at their disposal had been unable to contain him.

“This is Alpha-Red, have you anything to report concerning the whereabouts of Weapon-Red?”

There was a beat pause before his second-in-command, Major Reeves said, “No, Sir, nothing yet I’m afraid.”

Alpha-Red kept his voice low. “This isn’t what I wanted to hear. How many teams do you have out there looking for him?

“Red-one, and Blue one and two.”

“How can one man elude you?”

“Well, sir, he does have military operations experience. He was one of the best, in fact, probably the best, and the memory wipe hasn’t removed any of his skill-set or genetic capabilities. It goes without saying he’s going to be able to hide his tracks. And it’s a big continent out there, he could be anywhere and we have limited manpower. ”

“Does he still have the implant trigger?”

“Yes, but unfortunately we were unable to activate it properly before he escaped. We think there’s some residual imprinting from the Traumatic Shock Imprint controller so that if he is exposed to a high threat situation it could trigger off the subcutaneous device.”

“Good God man, you can’t be serious!”

“I’m afraid so, sir, it’s our only hope of tracking him I’m afraid – and of course – ”

“What?”

“If he does respond to the latent programming, he won’t be under our control – ”

“So he could be an extreme danger to the men?”

“Extreme is putting it mildly, sir. Remember the mess he left here when he escaped?”

Alpha-Red remembered. One dead and another six injured, two still on the critical list, not to mention shredded machinery that neared the nine hundred thousand dollar mark to replace.

“He could react like a cornered animal under extreme pressure,” Reeves was saying to him.

Alpha-Red pursed his lips. “Do we have any idea of where he is?”

There was another pregnant pause. “No, we lost the trail a few days ago.”

Alpha-Red snorted derisively. “Unbelievable! We have the technology to create a superhuman fighting machine – and then we go and lose him. Get another two teams out there, I want to see some results and soon!”

“But sir, what about the operation in Bereznik?”

“That’ll have to wait, Apprehending Weapon-Red is absolutely our top priority, and he cannot – I repeat – cannot be allowed to fall into the wrong hands. That would spell disaster. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yessir, absolutely. I’ll arrange for the other teams to be on it right away.”

“And we can only pray that the damn device activates…”

And God help anyone who happens to be in the vicinity when – if – that happens, Alpha-Red thought. He closed the line and sat back in his leather chair, making a steeple of fingers to his chin. His brows knit together as he thought of alternative scenarios, possible outcomes. Weapon-Red was a loose cannon, and these imbeciles didn’t seem to have a clue how to go about retrieving him. If things didn’t improve, he might have to go to plan B.

In the leafy suburbs of the smart New England town of Winchester, Massachusetts, stood the huge mansion belonging to Charles Gray. Some people might have thought it odd that an Englishman was in-residence at one of the state’s finest houses, but in fact it had been bequeathed to him as a beloved son-in-law by the wealthy Ellis family on the occasion of his marriage to their daughter Anne. Gray had met the beautiful and brilliant young woman at Harvard, and she had pursued him with a devotion that dissolved his naturally taciturn exterior. The English ex-war-hero had been welcomed into the family; an addition of hope, since their daughter was the last of their illustrious line. Sadly, the anticipated heirs did not materialise and if that insult was not enough, tragedy struck when Anne contracted an incurable cancer after many years of happy marriage. Grief-stricken after her death, Gray decided to convert the mansion into a school for mutant children, in particular those unfortunates that had been orphaned. He couldn’t have any of his own, so he was determined to do the next best thing.

The casual observer, who drove past the ancient stone wall hidden by oaks and maples, and up the long winding gravel path, to the imposing building, would never suspect at the secrets within. Ivy grew rampant against the walls, softening the harsh stonework and everywhere the lead glass windows spoke of an older, gentler time. It had been built in the late nineteenth century and retained many of the original features, however, some things had changed to satisfy mid-twenty-first century living. The old stables had been converted into garages for the many cars and motorcycles, and the house’s ancestors would have thought witchcraft had been practiced had they been able to sneak a look in the extensive basement.

The mansion was mostly in darkness; uncharacteristically quiet, as most of its younger occupants were tucked up safely in their beds. Light flickered into the darkened hallway from the communal lounge and the quiet drone of the tele-viewer indicated at least some of the occupants were still awake even at this late hour. Two men sat oversized burgundy-leather armchairs, watching a re-hash of the mutant registration hearings that day in Unity City.

The shorter and stockier of the two was Dr. Edward Wilkie, and the smudged not-quite-so-white lab-coat he permanently wore strained at the seams as he shifted his powerful body within the confines of the chair. His hands could easily crush the life from a full grown horse and he could scale the walls of the mansion like a monkey on speed if the inclination had ever taken him. But those hands were more disposed to sew a delicate suture or prepare micro-cultures, and he far preferred to spend his time in the company of cryo-chromatographs and particle-analysers.

The other was Richard Fraser. His shades looked like three hundred dollar Orion Aviators, except they were made of wafer-thin ruby quartz, and cost nearer to twenty-thousand dollars, and they were the only things that stood between the jelly of his eyes and punching six-inch-wide holes in anything he looked at. When Charles Gray found him, he had retreated into his own blind world, and it took some persuasion to make him return with him to the mansion in Winchester. Gray’s story of genetics and mutation sounded far-fetched even to someone who had molten eyeballs, but when he and Edward Wilkie presented him with the glasses that allowed him to see again, it was as if he’d been given a second chance to live.

Rick hunched forward, staring at the footage of the young woman being booed by the mob at the foot of the World Senate steps. A muscle ticked in his aquiline jaw as he glanced from the screen to his chronometer.

“That’s about the twentieth time you’ve done that in the last five minutes,” Edward said.

“They should have been back by now.”

“Maybe they got stuck in traffic from the airport, the weather was bad in-bound.”

Rick shifted again, restless. “I should have gone with her.”

Edward snorted. “She’s with Charles; there isn’t much he couldn’t cope with, you worry too much.”

Rick’s retort died as his attention was caught by a familiar sound just outside the lounge. He jumped to his feet just as the door opened, and Gray and Dianne entered. He felt his tension drain out and crossed the floor in three long strides to embrace her. She hugged him back and waved at Edward.

“Hi, babe,” Rick said, “We thought we’d wait up for you.” He gestured at the screen with the remote to mute the sound. “Well, I guess things didn’t go that well – we just saw the news.”

Gray gave a short sigh. “You have a gift for understatement, Rick. Such is the way of things I’m afraid. And, just to make matters even more complicated, I met someone at the Senate building who I hadn’t seen in a long time. Conrad Turner, Magneto.”

Rick’s eyebrows lifted over his glasses, “What did he have to say for himself?”

Gray’s face grew sombre. “Sadly, nothing that made me feel comfortable about the future.”

“That’s a cryptic comment,” Edward added.

Gray shook his head wearily. “He is quite incensed at this registration business. I see what it has wrought in him, though. I have no idea what he’s been up to since we last met, but what left nothing to my imagination was his stance against the non-mutant society. He practically threatened me if I stood in his way.”

“Of what?” Rick said.

“He didn’t feel it necessary to divulge it at the time – more’s the pity.”

“He was probably just yanking your chain, he’s just sore at you; I mean, what can one guy do anyway, even if he does have the power he does?”

“Never underestimate him, Rick,” Gray replied, sharper than he had intended.

Rick shrugged. Neither he nor Edward had been around during the argument that had finally sundered the friendship between the two men, but they never saw Turner from that time, and Gray never mentioned it. Truth be told, Rick didn’t miss the guy at all, from the few times he’d been to the mansion, he and Gray seemed to be mostly arguing about the latter’s vision of the future, saying it was nothing but a naïve fantasy, and bound to come to disaster.

“Where’s everyone?” Dianne asked, looking around her.

“Brad and I sent all the kids packing to bed early,” Rick said. “Didn’t want them listening to all this stuff, they were starting to get upset by it all. And I guess it’s late enough that Juliette wanted to get her beauty sleep.”

“Yes, it’s been a long day,” Gray said. “I think I’ll turn in for the night as well. Try not to dwell on today’s events, Dianne; you did the best you could under the circumstances.”

“Thanks, I appreciate that.”

“Goodnight, then. Sleep well, all of you.”

“Sure, you too, sir,” Rick echoed as Gray swivelled his chair to exit the lounge. They heard the whirr of his wheelchair as the only sound in the silence as he made his way down the corridor to his quarters.

Edward scratched his head and yawned, more forcefully than Gray had. “I think I’ll go do the same, I want to be up early to conduct a few experiments. Don’t stay up too late.”

Rick shook his head with a wry smile, as Edward disappeared after Gray, then turning back to Dianne to study her more carefully, noticing the faint lines of stress around her eyes. He might only be able to see the world in a limited spectrum of colour behind those ruby lenses, but his vision was one-hundred-and-twenty-percent perfect.

“You’re upset, babe, and I don’t blame you. I saw what happened, on the TV. Those stupid – ” he bit back his curse. “Want to tell me about it?”

She shook her head. “Not really, I’d honestly rather like to forget it. It wasn’t very pleasant.”

He regarded her for a moment. “You didn’t have to go on your own, you know.”

“I know,” she said with a sigh. “But you can’t be watching over me every minute of the day.”

He kissed her cheek and smiled lop-sidedly at her. “Hey, I don’t see why not, I am your slave, Lady Simms, your every wish is my command – well, in private anyway,” he added as an afterthought, waggling his eyebrows.

She wrinkled her nose at him. “You know fine well I’m not Lady Simms, I’m Lady Dianne, or I would be if I cared a jot,” she said, acquiescing to his attempt at levity. “All these years with me and you still haven’t cottoned on to the British peerage yet.”

He pulled her close to him and nuzzled her neck. “Not if I live till I’m ninety. However, I do know I’m a lucky guy, having a gorgeous young thing like you chucking it all to live with a boring old physics teacher on this side of the Atlantic.”

“You’re not old,” she said.

He nipped her this time, gently. “Cheek,” he whispered.

She pulled away, one hand flying to her mouth to stifle a yawn.

“You are dead beat, babe,” he said with a frown. He slung an arm around her shoulders, propelling her out of the lounge. “C’mon, let’s get you to bed.”

They ambled up into the sleeping wing where they shared a large suite. Gray had finally offered it to them after he – and the others – had finally tired of pretending they didn’t notice the two of them sneaking in and out of one another’s rooms.

He popped his head out of the bathroom to see her sitting on the edge of the bed, her head half turned away from him, exposing her profile in the muted light of their bed-lamps. He paused for a moment, seeing her bottom lip slightly protruding in that girlish pout when she was thinking too hard, like now. And then she rolled her head, obviously trying to relieve the tension in her neck and shoulders; legacy of the too-long day and its disturbing events. He threw the towel back across the hot-rail and crossed the room in several strides.

“Here, let me,” he said, pulling her gently towards him. He massaged his fingers deep into her shoulders, kneading out the knots of stress.

“Mmm,” she murmured, “that’s nice.” She leant closer to him, closing her eyes to his ministrations. At last, she stretched her neck and brought her chin down to her chest, as if luxuriating in the feel of his hands on her. When her silky red hair fell forward, baring the curve of her neck, he couldn’t resist dropping a gentle kiss on her skin. She trembled involuntarily at the gesture, and then turned slightly to him. She was upset all right, he thought, and he swore he saw dark clouds swirling within the blue of her eyes.

“Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?” he tried again.

She chewed her bottom lip. “Didn’t you see it? On the tele-viewer?”

“Yeah, I did, I was worried about you.” He instantly regretted saying it. “Sorry, force of habit,” he added quickly.

She stroked his cheek, and the soft touch of her finger against the roughness of his skin made him shiver. “Well, love,” she replied, the flicker of annoyance altering into a wan smile, “I suppose there are worse things to be.”

They stared at one another for a long minute. He saw her eyes defocus, knew she was picking up on his drifting thoughts. And he knew damn well he shouldn’t be thinking such thoughts, so late at night, with her looking so tired; but he couldn’t help it. She had that effect on him, despite their years together. She reached out a hand to touch his glasses, and he automatically grabbed at her wrist, gently pulling it away.

“You don’t know how much I want to see your face. All of it,” she said.

“Dianne,” he said with a faint sigh, and not for the first time did he curse the X-gene mutancy that made him have to be so damn careful, twenty-four hours a day.

“Sometimes I hate these things,” she said.

His jaw tightened, as did his grip on her wrist. “And you think I don’t? You know it’s too dangerous. If I lost control, even for a second, I’d kill you.”

Her lip went into a pout again, and he thought she was going to cry on him. “C’mere,” he said, his voice going rough with emotion. He felt her hair tickle his cheek, and then he felt her lips slide along his cheek to find his mouth, and she was up close against him, soft and willowy against his own hard angles. He closed his eyes, felt the heat rise in him as the kiss drew them on. He was the first to break it, and they were both breathless.

“Dianne, I don’t want –”

She put two slender fingers on his lips. “Shh – I need to wash this day away. Make me forget, please?”

Moments later they were rocking together, skin to skin. But then, she gave a little whimper and he flinched. She was too tense, too tight. “I’ll hurt you,” he said, pulling back suddenly to scan her face; she was still pale, her eyes screwed up.

“I don’t care,” she said, through her teeth, and she thrust against him with such force the decision was no longer his to make. But there was desperation in her movements, as if she wanted to find oblivion in the mindlessness of sex. It bothered him, as if he was making love to someone who looked like her, and yet felt like someone totally different.

“Let it out, babe, let it go,” he whispered against her ear.

And, as if he had uttered some magic words, all the anger and tension seemed to crystallise inside of her; and then suddenly she clung to him, gripping his arms as if her soul was fracturing, and he felt her hot tears wet his cheek. And then, she melted warm and fluid against him; and her body fused with his, moving into the old, familiar rhythm, until she gave a little cry at last – and he followed her – losing himself to the night. Afterwards, they lay, clinging to one another, damp with perspiration, and he felt her breathing slow, until she drifted off to sleep, and it wasn’t a long time before he felt himself float off, his body locked together with hers against the world that hated and feared them.