X-Mans

by D D

Professor Z’s dysfunctional team of heroes must save the city from Magnetrick, only to discover their victory helped the villain complete his secret plan.

Comic Book

comedy

020

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X-MansPart One: Respect the Property At nine seventeen on Monday morning, Professor Z discovered that somebody had used the mansion's emergency credit card to purchase a seafood tower and a hotel room with a ceiling mirror. He sat at the head of the dining table, his bald, dark-brown head shining beneath a chandelier that had been missing four crystals since Thursday. His motorized wheelchair had chrome rims, quilted leather, and a horn loud enough to scatter pigeons across three zip codes. At the moment, his thumb rested on that horn like a threat. “This card,” he said, holding it up, “is for emergencies.” Reen leaned back in his chair. He was a compact, broad-shouldered Black man with thick sideburns, a battered leather vest, and the peaceful confidence of somebody whose liver regularly rebuilt itself. A bottle stood beside his breakfast. His breakfast was another bottle. “Depends on what was happening in that room.” Professor Z stared at him. Reen stared back for approximately two seconds before becoming interested in the ceiling. Across the table, Cyrus adjusted the collar of his pale-blue polo. His slacks had a crease sharp enough to discourage touching. A ruby visor concealed his eyes, but everything below it expressed disappointment. He had arrived with an agenda, a pen, and seven copies of a revised household agreement. Six copies were currently serving as placemats. Jeanetta floated a jar of frosting toward her pickles. Copper curls brushed her brown cheeks, and her pregnant stomach pressed against the table. She caught Cyrus watching and raised an eyebrow. He returned to his notes. The dining-room doors flew open. Stormisha swept inside wearing a white jumpsuit, silver boots, and a floor-length cape that collected two unpaid bills from the carpet. Her brown skin glowed; her white hair fell in a perfect sheet down her back. A tiny thundercloud accompanied her, raining exclusively on Rougie, who followed with a satin scarf clamped over her head. “Turn that shit off,” Rougie snapped. “Give me my earrings.” “They in your ears!” Stormisha touched one. The cloud evaporated. “Well, why you come in defensive?” Professor Z sounded the horn. Everybody jumped except Rasta Monsta, who was crouched beside an open wall panel, repairing the thermostat with one enormous blue hand and eating a breakfast sandwich with the other. Muscles strained his sleeveless shirt. Thick dreadlocks spilled from beneath a red, gold, and green knitted beanie. He was the only person in the room large enough to accidentally lean through a wall, and the only one qualified to repair it afterward. “I assembled a team of extraordinary mutants,” Professor Z began, “to protect this city.” He looked at the frosting jar, the liquor, and the copy of his household agreement stuck to Stormisha's boot. “Somehow every last one of y'all need therapy and a security deposit.” A spoon rose off the table. Jeanetta frowned. “That ain't me.” The spoon shot through the window. Every fork followed. Then the chandelier ripped out of the ceiling, dragged its wiring across the plaster, and hurled itself through the same opening. Cyrus ducked. Reen's chair tipped backward. Monsta caught the collapsing wall panel before it crushed his sandwich. Silence settled over the room. Outside, car alarms began to scream. Professor Z inspected the ruined ceiling. A little dust landed on his head. “Cyrus,” he said quietly. “Put the meeting down as adjourned.” * * * The front gates were folding themselves into a throne. Beyond them, brake rotors, street signs, shopping carts, and somebody's barbecue grill circled a tall Black man in a burgundy cape. He wore polished boots, heavy rings, and a sculpted metal helmet that made his head resemble an expensive appliance. A gold M decorated his chest. “Magnetrick,” Professor Z said. Reen squinted. “Ain't that the dude you fell out with over the fundraiser?” Magnetrick raised one hand. The mansion's crooked sign tore loose, hovered over the drive, and turned until everyone could read it: Z'S INSTITUTE FOR EXCEPTIONAL PEOPLE. Underneath, somebody had added AND REEN in permanent marker. Cyrus stepped forward with his palms visible. “If there is a grievance, we are prepared to discuss it in a controlled setting.” A steel gatepost wrapped around his ankles and planted him face-first in a shrub. Reen laughed. “Control that setting.” Three metal claws slid from each fist with a clean, ugly scrape. His expression sharpened, and for a second he looked like somebody worth being afraid of. Magnetrick flicked a finger. Reen shot sideways and stuck to the institute's sign, arms spread, boots dangling four feet above the grass. His claws remained extended. “Motherfucker,” he said with genuine surprise. Professor Z closed his eyes. Telepathic pressure gathered in the air, making everybody's teeth ache. Magnetrick tapped his helmet. “Insulated. You won't be rummaging through my thoughts today.” “Your thoughts used to fit on a bumper sticker. I doubt you've expanded.” The front steps split apart. An iron water main ripped out of the lawn and pointed at the porch. Before it could strike, Jeanetta lifted her hand. Pipe and earth stopped in midair, inches from Cyrus, who had finally extracted himself from the shrub. “Y'all are not doing this over my head,” she said. Rougie pulled off one glove and moved along the porch rail. Magnetrick noticed. He sent a patio table spinning toward her; Monsta caught it against his chest with a boom, set it down, and looked mournfully at the sandwich flattened beneath one blue palm. “Now yuh being personal.” But the attack had only been cover. Beneath the house, something crashed. A squat silver cylinder burst through the basement doors and sailed into Magnetrick's waiting hand. Monsta's beanie slipped as he looked up. “Di field regulator.” Professor Z's expression changed. Magnetrick saw it and smiled. “Six o'clock. Municipal Plaza. Tell the mayor the city can purchase its freedom for twenty million dollars.” He drew the floating scrap around himself. A moment later, the entire mass surged above the houses and vanished behind the apartment towers. The water main dropped. Jeanetta guided it gently to the grass. Reen fell from the sign, landed on his back, and lay still. Z stared into the wrecked basement. Their regulator had been designed to absorb dangerous mutant power surges. In Magnetrick’s hands, it could amplify them. “Everybody inside,” he said. “Right now.” * * * The command center had monitors, reinforced walls, two drying wigs, and an air fryer nobody admitted owning. Monsta brought up a city map. “Him take di regulator to Municipal Plaza, him can connect to di tram substation underneath. Dat spreads him magnetic field along di whole network.” On the display, red lines branched across the city. Hospitals. Apartment buildings. Elevated tracks. “He could stop the trains,” Cyrus said. “Or pull dem off di rails.” Reen stopped rolling the bottle cap between his fingers. “We evacuate the plaza,” Z said. “We recover the regulator. Reen, your metal skeleton makes you a target. You stay with me until we disable the field.” Jeanetta lowered herself onto a stool. Cyrus immediately appeared with a cushion. Reen reached for it at the same time, and the two men stood there holding opposite ends. The cushion vanished from their hands and settled behind Jeanetta's back. She stared at them. “Neither one of y'all getting a trophy for furniture.” Rougie leaned against the table, grinning. “Y'all fighting over a cushion. That baby ain't even here yet.” A monitor rattled against the wall. “Keep playing,” Jeanetta said. Cyrus looked down at his notes. Reen suddenly found something fascinating in his pocket. Neither knew what the other had been to Jeanetta, exactly. Both knew enough to hate the possibilities. Jeanetta knew her own calendar, remembered two separate weekends, and was waiting for a test instead of a committee hearing. “And before anybody asks,” Professor Z said, “my powers are not a paternity laboratory. I can hear you guessing. That's all any of you do.” Jeanetta pointed at him. “Thank you.” “Now can we prevent the city from being folded in half?” Monsta opened a drawer and removed a small black clamp. He explained that attached to the regulator's control ring, it would force the device to discharge into the substation's emergency ground. Someone would have to hold the ring still while Cyrus cut the main feed. Remove the helmet, and Z could stop Magnetrick from interfering. Rougie accepted the clamp. “Get me close. I'll borrow his hands.” By four thirty, they had removed their jewelry and boarded the institute’s white passenger van. X-MANS was painted on both sides. Cyrus had objected to the grammar. Nobody had cared. * * * Municipal Plaza looked like the city had shaken its pockets out. Coins drifted above the pavement. Bicycles clung to streetlights. Three abandoned police cars stood upright on their bumpers, flashing blue into the afternoon. At the center, Magnetrick waited on a platform assembled from parking meters and courthouse railings. Behind him, the regulator pulsed inside an arch of thick cables. Cyrus parked beyond the barricade. Monsta climbed out carrying a ceramic toolbox. Professor Z remained by the van with Reen. His chair's custom metalwork made the plaza dangerous for him too, but his mind could reach across it. He closed his eyes and linked the team. His voice appeared inside six heads at once. “Check.” Cyrus advanced through the plaza with Monsta on his left. Rougie slipped behind an overturned maintenance cart. In their heads, Z counted the movements of frightened people still sheltering inside nearby stores. “Seventeen in the pharmacy. Four in the bakery. A little boy under the kiosk. Jeanetta, to your right.” She saw a small sneaker beneath a shuttered newspaper stand and hurried toward it. Magnetrick spread his arms. “At last. The professor sends his little rescue committee.” Cyrus stopped beside a cracked fountain. “Release the transit network. Allow these people to leave.” Then the plaza clock struck five. An elevated tram screamed around the curve beyond the courthouse and stopped halfway across the open span. Sparks poured from its wheels. Inside, passengers slammed against the windows. Cyrus touched his earpiece by habit, although Z was already in his head. “He said six.” Professor Z's reply was grim. “He's always been unreliable.” Magnetrick closed his fist. The tram's front carriage began to tilt. * * * Jeanetta felt the weight hit her mind before she raised both hands. The carriage stopped tipping. Glass cracked along its windows. Beneath the kiosk, the little boy crawled toward her, crying silently. She lowered one hand long enough to send the maintenance cart sliding between him and the plaza, then directed him toward the paramedics. “Run to the lady in green, baby. Don't look up.” He ran. Above her, forty tons of tram shuddered. “Cyrus,” she said. Her voice had lost every trace of playfulness. “I need y'all to hurry.” Cyrus opened his visor a fraction. A narrow red beam cut across the platform, slicing a support beneath Magnetrick's right foot. The villain stumbled. Monsta charged, blue shoulders low, and hit the base like a wrecking ball. The platform burst apart. Magnetrick rose clear of it, carried by a disc of steel. A parking meter whipped toward Monsta's head. He ducked; it smashed through the fountain and sent water roaring over the tiles. “Rougie, now,” Z said. She came over the wrecked platform barehanded. Her fingertips caught Magnetrick's ankle. For half a second, the plaza went still. Then every coin in the air rushed toward Rougie. “Aw, shit.” She threw her arms over her face. Quarters bounced off the maintenance cart, nickels buried themselves in the pavement, and a parking meter struck her borrowed field with a sound like a gong. Magnetrick kicked free, his face briefly gray from the drain. Rougie staggered, feeling a thousand pieces of metal tug at her nerves. “Don't pull everything,” Monsta shouted. “Choose one ting!” She chose his helmet. It shifted an inch. Magnetrick clamped both hands over it with an outraged expression. “You little thief!” “You stole our basement, bitch!” Stormisha brought the wind down hard. She kept it high enough to sweep shards away from the people fleeing the bakery, but a dozen loose signs tore free and joined the storm. Magnetrick caught them, flattened them into a single steel sheet, and sent it skimming toward Jeanetta. Reen saw the sheet before anybody else did. He had been told to stay. But Jeanetta stood under a falling train with both hands occupied. He ran. “Reen!” Z barked. The sheet hit him square in the chest just as he reached her. It carried him across the pavement and pinned him to the kiosk. His breath left in one violent grunt. Jeanetta turned, and the tram lurched. “Eyes up!” he wheezed. “I got this.” He absolutely did not have it. Magnetrick flicked his wrist, and the metal inside Reen's body locked him against the flattened sheet. He couldn't even bend his knees. “Every time,” Magnetrick said. “Such an obliging skeleton.” Reen tasted blood. Beyond the villain, Monsta was crawling toward the regulator while Cyrus kept the loose debris from crushing him. Rougie was on one knee, struggling to hold a narrow corridor open through the flying metal. They needed a few seconds. Reen spat red onto the tiles and grinned. “Yo helmet crooked.” Magnetrick ignored him. “And your cape caught in your ass.” A bench slammed into the kiosk beside Reen's head. “There he go. Sensitive.” Magnetrick turned fully toward him. The pressure in Reen's chest doubled, and something cracked that would have to heal later. But Monsta reached the machine. He attached Rougie's clamp, which she had slid across the wet tiles to him. The control ring began to rotate against its jaws. “Need it still!” he called. Rougie stretched both hands toward the ring. Her stolen power caught it. Every muscle in her arms shook. Across the plaza, Cyrus lined up his shot. A news drone drifted directly into the path. “Move,” he said. “Move your fucking drone!” The drone jerked upward. Cyrus fired. A clean red line severed the main cable, and the regulator flashed white. Then the tram dropped another foot. Jeanetta cried out and caught it again. Blood trickled from her nose. Monsta looked beneath the platform. A second cable ran through the wreckage, clamped to an emergency service box. “Him bypass di main feed!” Magnetrick laughed, breathing hard. The coins around Rougie began to tremble away from her. Her borrowed strength was fading. In another moment, he would have all of it back. Professor Z looked from Jeanetta to the service box. His wheelchair's control panel blinked under his hand. He opened the side compartment. Inside lay the polymer transport chair Monsta had built for emergencies. Z had complained that it looked like airport furniture. Now he unfolded it with practiced movements and transferred across, leaving his chrome throne beside the van. “Reen,” Z said into the link. “When his grip loosens, grab the helmet.” * * * Z rolled into the plaza in the plain little chair, pushing hard. The front wheels rattled over broken glass. Magnetrick saw him coming and smiled as if somebody had finally brought dessert. Behind Z, his empty motorized wheelchair accelerated across the plaza. He operated its remote with his thumb, steering around the fountain. Chrome flashed. Speakers crackled awake. Magnetrick lifted his hand toward the beautiful, expensive machine. Z hit the horn. The blast bounced off the courthouse. Startled, Magnetrick pulled the chair straight toward himself. Exactly where Z wanted it. “Cyrus. The second cable.” Cyrus turned. Magnetrick reached to stop him, but the chair struck the steel disc under his boots. Monsta sprang up from the regulator and seized the disc's edge. A blue arm thicker than Magnetrick's waist drove it sideways. The villain lost his balance. The hold on Reen loosened. Reen pulled one hand free, claws scraping sparks down the sheet. With his other, he grabbed the helmet's trailing strap as Magnetrick stumbled within reach. “Come up out that air fryer.” He yanked. The helmet came off with a sharp pop. Magnetrick's eyes widened. Professor Z entered his mind before he could draw another breath. There was no speech, no grand contest of wills. Z found the command holding the metal aloft and smothered it. Magnetrick stood frozen, furious inside his own head. The plaza fell. Stormisha caught what she could in a furious updraft. Coins struck the ground like rain. Rougie dragged a fallen officer beneath the fountain's stone rim as a bicycle crashed where his head had been. Reen dropped to his knees, coughing, still clutching the helmet. Cyrus cut the second cable. Monsta slammed the regulator's grounding lever down with both hands. Light shot along the emergency line and vanished beneath the pavement. The red pulse inside the cylinder faded to black. At the elevated track, Jeanetta lowered the front carriage until its wheels settled onto the rails. Stormisha brought her wind beneath the tilted rear, guiding it level. Inch by inch, the tram came to rest. Jeanetta let her arms fall. For a moment she simply stood there, breathing. Then her knees softened, and Cyrus caught her before she hit the ground. “Easy,” he said. All the careful formality had left his voice. “I've got you.” She gripped his shirt. “If you tell me I should've stayed home, I'm throwing you in that fountain.” “I was going to ask whether you wanted to sit down.” “Then say that.” He helped her onto an intact bench. Reen limped over, his torn vest hanging open, and silently handed her a bottle of water he'd taken from a paramedic. She looked between them. “See? Both of y'all can be useful without making it weird.” Neither answered. It seemed safer. Across the plaza, Magnetrick sank to the ground as Z released him into a dazed stupor. Monsta fitted his wrists with a ceramic restraint. The police approached cautiously, stepping around what remained of their cars. Then the tram passengers began cheering. It started with one woman at an open window. Others joined her, waving and shouting. The little boy from the kiosk stood beside a paramedic, jumping up and down with both arms raised. “X-Mans!” he yelled. * * * By nine that evening, the mansion smelled of takeout chicken and scorched wiring. Monsta had returned the regulator to its basement charging cradle. Jeanetta sat on the couch with her feet up. The paramedics had checked her after the rescue, and she had promised to follow up with her own doctor. For now she wanted food, quiet, and everybody to stop looking at her stomach like it might provide an announcement. Professor Z wheeled in using the transport chair. Somebody had stuck a chrome hubcap on one side with duct tape. He looked at it, looked at the team, and chose to preserve his remaining energy. “We saved forty-three people on that tram,” he said. “And more in the plaza. You did good work.” For once, nobody had a smart remark. Then he announced training at eight, and everybody started complaining. Over their complaints, the doorbell rang. Cyrus answered the door. A courier handed him a padded envelope, obtained a signature, and hurried away. Inside the envelope was a small metal plaque. PROPERTY OF MAGNETRICK. Underneath, in smaller lettering: THANK YOU FOR RETURNING MY REGULATOR TO ITS CHARGING STATION. From the basement came a low electronic chime. Monsta's head lifted. Everybody froze. Professor Z stared at the plaque for one long, exhausted second. Then he turned his chair toward the basement. “Reen.” “Yeah?” “Bring the bottle.”

X-Mans

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