Chapter 6 - End (!)
As much work as Lumen had put into the batteries project, Kid hadn’t seen one schematic of what the inside of the Sentinel recharging stations would look like. She had been told what to expect - none of it had come to fruition so far - but apparently it would’ve been too much to expect a simple blueprint.
Kid strapped another roll of explosives to base of a construction arm and stood up, dusting her hands on the black jeans. Two at the bottom, two at the top, the same at every arm at every location. Understanding how the Sentinels recharged had been her first mission on entering the first facility. That was 3 days ago, now. The computer systems in each had shown her not only how these arms had been converted to attach to these robots, but also the locations of every one. She had overprepared; she wouldn’t need half the artillery rounds she brought with her.
Of course, 3 days to her in this state had been seconds at most to all the guards with green lights blinking from the back of their necks, to all the Sentinels, and even to Lumen. He was tucked safely away in VaughnCurren HQ. Don’t want the boss messing up his hair.
She checked the map she had drawn on a napkin. This was the last battery station she knew about. She had just finished the last arm inside the ring of coffee-stain. Four more left.
Lumen capped the syringe and dropped it back in its bag. In just that action, Kid was probably already finished with half the batteries. If she wasn’t, well, she wasn’t. There were always casualties in war. He left the conference room, intent on wrapping this up quickly.
The only thing that still bothered him was the one called Trace. Oh, Lumen knew that some mutants didn’t have a role in the resistance, and Trace was one of them. Kid had always been the goal since the two of them suddenly dropped by, and that had required playing a part she needed. The abusive superiority figure. Trace’s departure itself was a drop in the bucket. But he had left in a huff after seeing Lumen - well, after seeing him in that part. And angry people did stupid things. Like give S.H.I.E.L.D. valuable information. Damn but Lumen wished he knew where that guy had gone.
He walked into the LIFE chamber, his home away from home. The silver metal walls seemed plated like ancient armor, all layered on top of each other and spiraling to the center of the domed ceiling. That point stood square above the promethean table now on the floor, the table that practically had Lumen’s back print on it. The ceiling was typically open on a sunny day like today, with Lumen strapped and raised to gather and direct light. Not today.
People at computers at desks surrounded the room, all facing the wall. Certain mutants, certain powers may have been key to pulling this off, but techies were just as important to any good resistance.
“Cut the power” he said to no one in particular.
A voice responded, he didn’t care whose. “Cutting power, entry in 5…4…3…”
Lumen’s shoulders relaxed. The rest should be a walk in the park.
“Battery facilities are depowered, computer entry is secure.”
“Go to it boys.” Lumen didn’t need to elaborate any more than that. They would already be downloading schematics, locations, data, anything and everything they could get their hands on. They were tapped into the robots’ own network now. Nothing would stop them. As an added bonus, the power outage would make sure any Sentinels recharging would be stuck to whatever was connecting them to electricity. If Kid had done her job right, they’d be taking down over 50 Sentinels with this. Three birds with one stone.
“Blow the rounds.”
Nobody asked him if he had heard from Kid, if she had planted all the bombs. No one cared if she had come out of her time-stupor. If she was in the VaughnCurren building, or if she was still at that final battery, her standard issue black turtleneck caught in the hinges of a construction arm. Not one of those so necessary techies thought for a moment that Kid was tugging at the sleeve, staring at the round she had just placed, the detonator sitting on top of it, blinking red.
In the distance, Lumen heard an explosion.
Kitty felt another stone wall pass through her phased body even though she didn’t see it. Her head was permanently cocked behind her, keeping an eye out for Nimrod. This had been a bad idea, thinking they could do here what they couldn’t in Canada. What they couldn’t do to save Rachel. She’s probably dead by…when is now, again? No one had ever been able to stop Nimrod, just delay him. She kept running.
The Tower Of Babel - that was where Kitty had decided they should bring the fight - was nearing outward completion but still was empty inside. Hallways twisted in every direction, making it impossible to see even a few feet ahead. The walls all looked the same to Kitty, except the outside walls which were marked with small arrow slits, slightly taller than her forearm and hardly noticeable at the rate she was running, tucked in various alcoves. Each floor had no pattern, but there was a common thread. All of the halls spiraled towards the center of the tower, so that running along what seemed to be only one straight path, you reach the core of the tower seven or eight times before you were retracing your steps.
And retrace her steps she had, multiple times. This had been a bad idea.
The booming sounds continued behind her. Walls being torn like single sheets of paper as Nimrod advanced, half a foot off the ground. More empty rooms, more empty halls, more twists and turns, and more running. She heard Gambit’s screams behind her, and wasn’t sure who was chasing who.
She had reached an outside hallway, and decided it was time to change course, to at least give Gambit a chance. Jumping and throwing her foot into an arrow loop she began to climb the rough edge of the stone, counting her blessings that work inside the tower had barely begun. She herself had a little work in levitation, phasing herself above air particles, and it would have to be enough. The chill passed through her head as she emerged in another empty room.
This floor would be the same, she knew, and no more help against Nimrod, but it gave her a chance to think. He was slower moving vertically, if only marginally. It gave Gambit a chance to throw a few more cards. What good are they going to do? She stood on the very ground she had emerged from. Nimrod would be there in seconds, and she was getting tired.
More explosions, and Gambit’s screams again. There was laughter in his voice, which meant at least that Nimrod was ignoring him. Which cut both ways. Everything beneath her began to shake. She couldn’t keep dodging down hallways forever. Something had to give.
She phased, and dropped through the floor below her, passing right into Nimrod. Energy flowed into her for the split second that she was merged with the mutant hunter. Everything was alive - the grit on the beige stone, the dust on Gambit’s hair below her as he stared up in shock, the bubbles of saliva on his tongue as his jaw fell open, the breeze coming through the small arrow loop and wrapping itself around her intangible feet. It pulsed, and she wanted to throw up every meal she had ever eaten. She wanted to stay there indefinitely. And as soon as it pulsed, it was over.
One more floor she fell through - she wanted to send Nimrod on a chase, not break her legs - and hit the floor with a grunt. From the outside, it was a straight cylinder of a tower. But now, there were no balistrarias, no slits in the walls, no enticing blue noon sky outside. Nothing to indicate she was in an outer hallway. And for all she knew, she wasn’t.
Quickly to her feet, she took off, phasing as fast as she could to break the line of sight from where Nimrod would descend. She made so many sudden turns, phased into so many other hallways, she wasn’t sure where she was anymore - she couldn’t have said if she was right back where she started, right underneath the ton of metal above. She dared not stand still though. More darting, more phasing, anything to keep him on the move. If she was supposed to be the rabbit, she’d give that damn piece of tin a hunt to remember. I’m starting to sound like Logan.
As soon as she thought it, she burst into another room that should have been like any other. Except there was furniture. A roughly cut gray stone slap in the shape of a circle was propped up against a wall, as though it had been wheeled in and left there to be set somewhere else later. Against it lay a single plain chair, wooden and high backed with an X-pattern to support the user. Small sphere finials decorated the top of the back, and the arms scrolled slowly down the side. And a large ruby, nearly as big as Kitty’s palm, gleamed in the center back. This was not the first time during this time-traveling trip that her attention in history class at the Xavier institute would pay off.
The walls began to crumble from the ceiling, bits not well connected falling off. Nimrod was breaking through somewhere. Kitty ran to the chair and saw the inscription circling the ruby.
Hwa swá á sóm hreddan se béodfæt, béon sum rídend of þes mót.
Ac tó he hwa béon wana, þes siege sóm béon pleoh.
She remembered enough of Medieval history to know this confirmed it. To know that Nimrod had made a timestop somewhere in King Arthur’s Court for this. “Who soever shall recover the grail, be granted knighthood before us. But to he who has not, this Seat shall be Peril.” The X-Men had dealt with a ruby called the Siege Perilous before. In his rash attempt to shield himself, Nimrod may have given her exactly what she needed.
Tehn looked up at Tower of Babel, reaching towards the heavens high above this city, as foreign to him as his it was to his new friends. There had been noises coming from inside, and stones occasionally falling from the façade. The workers had evacuated, claiming spirits had possessed the Tower, or screaming that God did not want them to reach His domain, but Tehn knew. A loud explosion, and everyone who had been briskly clearing the scene or pretending to ignore the tower looked up in awe, but Tehn was not surprised. This was the end of the Hunter’s tyranny. This would be the end of Nimrod.
Midway up the tower but still a few dozen stories high, the walls blew out. It seemed as if the tower itself did not know what to do, now that all of its support was gone. Like testing the waters, the top of the tower lowered itself to fill the gap that had been left. And as one huge rush, the entire tower fell on itself, creating a quickly advancing dust cloud. Others around him ran; Tehn welcomed it. It filled his pores with freedom, and in the mass confusion and blinding sands, he lifted himself off the ground to feel the air all around him.
***
Fitzroy had flown to Genosha ahead of time to witness the carnage. He had run a very real risk that the Sentinels would only kill Trask’s son, and left the rest to chance. In the confusion, if nothing else work, it would take a gun to the temple to kill Donald Pierce. This should be worth more than a measly point.
He knew that Shinobi was getting tossed easy targets - his dad, his lover, probably his butler next - while he was stuck killing someone on an island half a world away. Living in a military compound. And working with the men who had created the Sentinels, the bane of every mutant’s existence. But the winner of the Gamesmaster’s game had a whole lot to look forward to, and the losers had only death, so here he was, in the middle of the jungle, waiting.
Three days ago he had been in New York City, remarking on the passing of summer, the shorter days and the chill at night. Maybe it was the chill of what he was about to do. Walk into the lion’s den and hope to emerge unscathed. But emerge he did, and if it wasn’t with a promise of attack, it was with enough that Fitzroy expected something. Now, he was stuck in the humidity and clinging heat, with a pair of binoculars and a backpack. This was not Fitzroy’s idea of a vacation.
The air stuck to him like honey, and it took more effort than it should have to raise the binoculars to his face. To check the entrance to the compound. Again. He’d done this all day, and he wasn’t quite sure why. He wasn’t planning to sneak in. This wasn’t a stealth assassination. This was the end of the Friends of Humanity, once and for all. The end game that he had set into motion.
As though on a cue, the whirring of fifty jet engines screamed through the skies above. The Sentinels had come to meet their makers.
***
Trace was the only one in the gallery sitting down; most of the New Yorkers that had come to see paintings did so quickly. They wanted culture, but they didn’t want to appreciate it. They all walked right up against the paintings, put their noses against them, glanced at the artist’s name to the right or left, and then moved on to the next painting. But it was noon, and Trace had been here for hours staring at one painting. A stylized hammer and sickle, red and black, on a plain white canvas. He twisted his pencil in his fingers mindless, his pad resting on one knee. Painting was something he could never do.
He heard a woman’s scream, just one short burst and then nothing else. He glanced outside, through the floor to ceiling glass windows exposing the gallery to the world, expecting some kid to sprint by purse in hand, but none did. And no one seemed to have noticed the scream. A flash of light in the corner of his eye caught his attention, but when he turned, whatever had made it was gone.
He was just getting restless. Flipping through the pad to make sure he had enough money drawn for wherever he was going, shoved it and the pencil into his pocket and walked out onto the street. Magneto was in this city somewhere. He could feel the energy in the air.
***
It had been almost two weeks since that man in New York Public Library had tried to kill her, but Gwynne still refused to leave the apartment. The Healer brought her groceries and essentials. Rogue was out again because she felt the need to scout. Gwynne could tell that all the time spent flying made Rogue even more dependent on the outdoors, not less, and that their tiny shared apartment was only making it worse. But if Gwynne wasn’t comfortable, at least she was safe. She had her tea, her daytime television, and stacks of reading to do on Rogue’s case. The more she read, the more she ended up confused.
She had found a spot nestled up against the window on their couch/daybed/only seating option where she did all of her reading. Her arm could reach the coffee table with ease, and the TV sat catty-corner to her, prattling on with recipes she’d never try to make. It was comfortable, and life at a law firm had certainly made her used to a routine.
A woman’s scream came from outside her window. She looked outside, afraid some mutant had been caught by a Sentinel or S.H.I.E.L.D. officer, afraid more that it was Rogue, but she didn’t see anything. Most people hadn’t even seemed to notice. It was just a single scream, nothing came after that, nothing that she could hear. She hadn’t used her powers since reaching the city, and she didn’t dare start now, not for something that didn’t concern you.
Her stomach heaved, and the room began to whirl around her. She dropped her mug, and was vaguely aware of it spilling all over important papers, but she couldn’t do a thing to stop it. The room went dark, and the last thing she saw was a giant bird, almost made of fire, burned in her eyes.
***
The safest hiding place for Larry Trask had been the New York sewers, thanks to whomever had killed the mutants living down here. No mutant was stupid enough to come to the city - as long as he had his medallion, hiding among the Sentinels made the most sense. But the smell was starting to get to him. Fuck that bitch, whoever she was. She had ruined everything. Yeah he had shot her, but ever since then he had been on the lam. What was the point of having Mr. Bolivar Trask as a father if you had to fucking hide?
A woman’s scream echoed down the sewers, but he could tell it was far enough away not to be a concern. Yet. His fist instinctively tightened around the medallion. There was a sudden rumbling above.
Larry had to jump to avoid the crashing purple fist digging through the tunnel ceiling. But as soon as he saw it, he knew that running was no longer an option. The game was over.
“LARRY TRASK. YOU HAVE BEEN IDENTIFIED AS A MUTANT. SURRENDER OR BE TERMINATED.”