X-Mans 11: Errbody Need Therapy

by D D

When an ape-like mutant terrorizes the bridge, Professor Z's team struggles to help him, while a mysterious houseguest manipulates their reality and dark pasts.

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comedy

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X-MansEverybody Needs Therapy Three days after Stormisha brought Frank to the ridge house, Scambit sat in the living room with his injured leg propped on a cushion, losing an argument with the television. “You just had the channel,” he told the little boy holding the remote. “I pushed back.” “Well, push forward.” The boy pressed another button. A woman selling cookware disappeared, replaced by a reporter shouting over traffic. Behind her, cars stood abandoned across the city’s largest suspension bridge. People ran between them carrying bags, children, and nothing at all. Scambit leaned forward. “Leave that.” The camera swung upward. Something blue was climbing the eastern tower. At first, the distance made it difficult to understand the size of him. Then his hand closed around a maintenance ladder, tearing several rungs loose as he hauled himself higher. His bare feet found purchase on the steel. Long dreadlocks hung across his face and whipped back when he looked toward the circling news helicopter. “Professor!” Z rolled out of the back room. Rougie came from the kitchen with a dish towel in her hands. By the time Reen appeared, the figure had reached the top of the tower. Monsta rose against the pale sky. His shirt was gone. Thick hair covered his broad blue chest and spread over shoulders that looked heavier than before. A dense beard hid his jaw, and his dreadlocks had grown into an untended curtain around it. He stood hunched, arms hanging low, then struck his chest with both fists. His roar came through the television a moment after his mouth opened. Rougie dropped the towel. “Oh, my God.” The reporter was saying something about a large, ape-like mutant. Scambit reached for the remote and turned her up. She described a damaged maintenance truck, a collision near the center lanes, and police struggling to evacuate motorists while the creature climbed above them. “His name Monsta,” Reen muttered. “Not creature.” Z watched another blow land against the enormous blue chest. That much physical change in days could not be ordinary growth. Something in Monsta’s body was still reacting to what had been done to him. “Reen. Nightwalka. Ice Tray. Cyrus. Rougie. Go now.” Cyrus was already fastening his visor. “What about the police?” “Get the people clear. Bring him down safely. Make them understand you’re there to help.” Reen took the van keys off their hook. “He don’t look interested in a conversation.” “Try one anyway,” Z said. Nightwalka appeared beside the front door in a brief curl of smoke. His ribs still hurt, but he no longer needed a hand against them whenever he moved. Ice Tray followed him, pulling on a jacket. Rougie paused beside Scambit’s chair. He caught her gloved hand. “Come back with everybody.” “That’s the plan.” He held on a moment longer, then let her go. The van’s engine started outside. On the television, Monsta crouched on the tower, watching the streets below like he was choosing somewhere to jump. * * * The news returned to the studio after the van left. Z remained in the living room while Scambit sent the little boy into the kitchen. A red banner moved beneath the anchor’s hands. “While emergency crews respond downtown, authorities have issued a separate warning concerning an escaped prisoner whose disappearance was not immediately disclosed to the public.” A photograph filled the screen. Z’s hand tightened on his chair. The man in the photograph was bald, his face bare, his expression flattened by the harsh light of an identification camera. No mustache softened his mouth. No jewelry, no smile. The name beneath him was Devin McTagg. Z knew that name. Fifteen years earlier, an eighteen-year-old Devin had murdered his father, a politician whose expensive suits and public promises had survived investigations that ruined poorer men. Several other people had died with him. The details released afterward had been brutal enough that newspapers warned readers before printing them. But Z had known the family before the murders. He had seen Claudette standing beside her husband at campaign events. He had read interviews he pretended were about education policy because her name appeared halfway down the page. In family photographs, her son grew from a little boy in an oversized blazer into a teenager who rarely smiled. Z had never stopped recognizing her face in a crowd. “McTagg was transferred to a specialized island detention facility following his conviction,” the anchor continued. “Officials now confirm that he escaped before the recent security review, although the exact date remains under investigation.” Scambit shifted in his chair. “You know him?” Z did not answer immediately. A car door shut outside. He looked through the front window as Stormisha came up the path carrying a grocery bag. Frank walked beside her with another bag tucked under his arm. He wore the black durag again. When she said something and he laughed, a gold tooth flashed near the side of his smile. Z looked back at the photograph. The eyes. The mouth beneath the mustache. Fifteen years of adulthood and a handful of small changes. He lowered the television volume. Stormisha pushed the door open with her hip. “Somebody take this before the bottom fall out.” Frank lifted the bag from her hand and carried both toward the kitchen. “Afternoon, Professor.” “Frank.” The man paused at the sound of his name. Z studied him openly. “Something wrong?” Stormisha asked. “They found Monsta. On the bridge.” Her smile vanished. She turned toward the television, but the screen had moved to a map of road closures. “Who went?” Z told her. She took out her phone, stopped herself from calling, then went to put the groceries away. Frank followed her. Z could have reached past the smile and searched. Instead, he kept his mind to himself. A resemblance was not proof, and he had spent too much of his life knowing what it meant to frighten someone simply by looking at them. He picked up his tablet and searched for the photograph again. * * * The eastern approach to the bridge was blocked by two police cars and a bus that had stopped at an angle across the road. Reen left the van beside a maintenance entrance. They continued on foot through people moving in the opposite direction. A woman in one shoe was crying into her phone. An older man kept pulling at a suitcase whose wheel had locked sideways. Above them, steel rang under an enormous weight. Monsta had begun climbing down. Cyrus stopped the others beside a concrete divider. “Give me room.” “He swings, I’m swinging back,” Reen said. “Let me speak first.” Nightwalka guided a family through the stalled cars while Rougie rose a few feet above the road to see where people were trapped. Ice Tray stayed beside the divider, watching a damaged bus farther ahead. Monsta dropped the final distance onto the roof of an empty sedan. The roof collapsed. Glass scattered across the pavement. Cyrus stepped into the open with both hands visible. “Monsta.” The blue head turned. Up close, the change was worse. Old blood had dried around Monsta’s knuckles. His beard was tangled against his chest, and strips of cloth clung to one leg. His shoulders remained raised as though he expected a blow from behind. “It’s Cyrus. We’ve been looking for you.” Monsta’s gaze traveled over the visor. He shifted sideways on the crushed car, putting the bridge tower behind him. “You’re out of the bunker,” Cyrus said. “Whatever they made you see, it’s over. You’re here with us.” There was no answer. Cyrus stopped several yards away. “The professor sent us. We can get you somewhere quiet.” Monsta’s lips drew back. A low sound rolled through his chest. “All right. We’ll stay here.” Cyrus lowered his hands slowly. “Nobody’s going to force you.” A police loudspeaker crackled behind the barricade. Monsta flinched at the amplified voice. Then he came off the car. Cyrus threw himself sideways as a blue fist struck the pavement where he had stood. Reen was already moving. He rolled his neck until it cracked, flexed both hands, and let his claws slide free. “Told you.” He hit Monsta from the side before the second blow reached Cyrus. The impact drove them against the divider. Reen caught a fist between his crossed forearms, claws pointed away from Monsta’s throat, and shoved upward. “Look at me, man!” Monsta caught him by the jacket and threw him across the hood of a taxi. Metal crumpled beneath Reen. His phone cracked against the windshield inside his pocket. He lay there long enough to blink, then sat up with glass sliding off his shoulders. “You need therapy, motherfucker.” Monsta charged again. * * * At the ridge house, a long cardboard box stood beside the hallway wall, blocking half the doorway into Jeanetta’s room. The delivery driver had left it inside that morning. A plain wooden crib was pictured on the side. Jeanetta had ordered it with money saved before the mansion fell, back when she had believed she knew which room her baby would sleep in. Now she stood beside the box measuring the doorway with her eyes. Scambit came along the hall on his crutch. “That yours?” “Unless you expecting.” He looked at the picture. “You want it moved?” “Just into the room. I’m not putting it together till somebody who can read instructions gets back.” “I can read.” “You argued with a pill bottle yesterday.” “It said take with food. I had a mint.” From the kitchen came Stormisha’s voice, patiently explaining to one of the children that he did not need to cut the crust off every slice of bread in the bag. Frank stood near the counter with a glass of water. Scambit leaned his crutch against the wall and tested his bad leg. Frank put down the glass. “Chill. You supposed to be on that?” “I can lift a box.” “I got it.” He stepped between Scambit and the crib before the argument could begin. Jeanetta backed into her room to show him where to put it. “Beside the dresser. Thank you.” Stormisha glanced out of the kitchen. “Look at you being useful.” Frank smiled at her over the box. Scambit retrieved his crutch. He disliked needing it more when someone had just reminded him why he did. * * * On the bridge, a delivery van began rolling backward with its driver still trapped inside. Ice Tray planted his feet, drew a breath, and blew across the road. Frost spread beneath the van’s rear wheels, thickening into a raised white ridge. The tires struck it and stopped. He bent forward, coughing once. “Somebody get him out before my lungs give up.” Nightwalka appeared beside the driver’s window. A moment later, both of them vanished, leaving the man’s seat belt hanging through an empty seat. Rougie flew above the center lanes. From there she could see Monsta forcing Reen backward toward a knot of stranded cars. Cyrus fired a narrow blast against the road beside Monsta’s foot, drawing his attention away from the people crouched behind a truck. “This way!” Cyrus shouted. Monsta tore a loose mirror from a car and hurled it at him. Rougie pulled off one glove. She came down behind Monsta with her bare hand extended toward his shoulder. One touch, a little strength drained away, enough to slow him without hurting him. She had done harder things frightened. He turned before her fingers reached him. His hand closed around her jacket and the upper part of her sleeve. For a second she hung in front of his face, close enough to see the panic inside his anger. “Monsta, it’s me.” He threw her. The bridge turned upside down. Rougie dropped past a road sign and caught the air just before her back struck the pavement. Her boots scraped sparks from a fallen piece of metal. She shot sideways between two cars and landed hard on one knee. Nightwalka appeared beside her. “Can you stand?” “I can fly.” She pushed herself up anyway. Across the lanes, Reen drove his claws through the edge of a loose steel panel Monsta had swung at him. The panel split. Monsta struck him with what remained. Reen hit the divider chest-first and dropped to one knee. He tried to draw a breath and could not quite finish it. Cyrus moved between them. “We are not your enemies!” Monsta stopped at the word, his head jerking toward the loudspeaker again. An officer was shouting for everyone to get down. He covered one ear. Rougie saw it. The flinch. The way he kept looking for something above him whenever the helicopter passed. “He scared,” she said. Reen spat blood onto the road. “So am I. He just threw me across a damn taxi.” “You know what I mean.” A child screamed behind them. Monsta looked toward the sound. A father was trying to pull his daughter out through a jammed rear door. She was still strapped into her booster seat, sobbing while he tugged at the belt. Cyrus spoke into the radio clipped to his collar, asking the officers to silence the loudspeaker. Then he pointed Nightwalka toward the car. Ice Tray sent another stream of frost across an empty lane, building a barrier between Monsta and the family. Monsta smashed through it, but the hesitation gave Nightwalka enough time to reach the child. Rougie rose again. This time she approached from the front. * * * Jeanetta’s bedroom smelled of new cardboard and the laundry detergent someone had donated with the children’s clothes. Frank set the box beside the dresser and straightened. The door had drifted mostly shut behind him, stopped by a shoe near the frame. “First baby?” he asked. Jeanetta rested a hand against her stomach. “That obvious?” “You keep checking.” “He been doing a lot.” Frank looked at her hand. “You know it’s a boy?” “Not yet. Just keep saying he.” From the kitchen, Stormisha laughed at something the little boy said. The sound made Jeanetta smile. “She seems happy,” Jeanetta said. “I try.” Frank stood between her and the narrow opening of the door. Something violet moved across his cheek, so faint she thought it was light from a passing car. Then the dresser was gone. Jeanetta blinked. Sunlight filled a kitchen she had never seen. A pot simmered on a stove. There were photographs on the refrigerator, held up by little colored magnets, and a school bag lay open on the table. Her stomach was flat. She touched it with both hands. “Mom?” A teenage boy stood near the refrigerator. He was taller than she expected, though she did not know why she expected anything. There was something of her own face around his eyes. He smiled, and she felt recognition before she could explain it. “You all right?” Jeanetta took a step toward him. “How old are you?” His smile faded. “Mom, stop.” The kitchen light dimmed. Somewhere beyond the window, people began shouting. He looked down at his hands. “I told you not to let them come.” The glass in the window trembled. Jeanetta reached for him, but the room seemed to lengthen between them. His face changed from confusion to fear. “Baby?” * * * Scambit stopped halfway down the hall. He had been going to ask whether Jeanetta wanted the packaging taken outside. Now he could hear her talking in a voice that did not belong to a conversation about furniture. “Jeanetta, you alright?” he called. No answer. A purple glow spilled through the narrow opening of her door. Scambit forgot his leg for one bad step. Pain shot up his thigh. He caught the frame with his free hand and shoved the door inward. The light vanished. Frank stood beside the crib box. For the smallest instant, Scambit thought the man’s face had no clear edges. Then there was only dark skin, a thin mustache, and an expression of mild surprise. Jeanetta staggered beside the bed. “Where am I?” Scambit reached her before she fell. She gripped his sleeve and looked around the room as though someone had moved the walls while she was asleep. “What year is it?” Frank frowned. “The year is 2026 and you at home. Everything okay?” Scambit looked at him. “What happened in here?” “I put the box down. She started acting confused.” “I asked her.” Jeanetta sat on the edge of the bed. Her hand moved to her stomach, then pressed harder when she felt its familiar curve. “There was a boy.” Frank glanced toward the hallway. “Want me to get Stormisha?” “I want you to give her some room,” Scambit said. For a moment the two men watched each other. Then Frank lifted his hands slightly and stepped around the crutch. Scambit waited until he was out before moving his chair into the doorway. “Take your time, cher,” he told Jeanetta. “I ain’t going nowhere.” * * * Rougie hovered just beyond Monsta’s reach, one hand bare at her side. “You know me.” His eyes followed her. He shifted his weight onto his knuckles. “You fixed the kitchen window after I broke it. Remember? Told me quit slamming stuff that ain’t done nothing to me.” His breathing stayed harsh. Behind her, Reen got to his feet. Cyrus put out an arm to hold him back. Rougie lowered herself until her boots touched the pavement. Monsta watched the movement. When she took one step, he lunged and caught her by the front of her jacket again. This time she put her palm against his wrist. Heat rushed into her arm. The bridge disappeared behind a flood of other things: a small house, hard sunlight, a radio opened on a workbench. A man turning at the sound of a truck. A gunshot that seemed to happen inside her own chest. Then copper rings. Screaming. The same faces dying again. Rougie gasped. Monsta’s grip loosened. His knees bent under the sudden drain, but she pulled her hand away before he could collapse. She stumbled back, carrying grief that had not belonged to her a moment earlier. “Omari,” she said. Monsta froze. It had been years since anyone had called him that. “Your cousin.” Rougie pressed her bare hand against her own chest. “The radio. I saw him holding it.” His mouth opened. No words came. “They kept making you see it.” Tears ran down her face before she could stop them. “Over and over.” The helicopter moved farther away. Without the loudspeaker, the bridge sounded suddenly smaller: engines running in empty cars, someone crying, broken glass beneath shoes. Monsta looked past her. Nightwalka stood beside the rescued girl and her father. The child had both arms around her father’s neck. When she saw Monsta watching, she hid her face. Monsta looked down at his bloodied hands. For a few seconds, nobody moved. Rougie took a breath. “Come with us.” He backed away. “We ain’t going to hurt you.” His gaze caught the torn front of her jacket, then the blood on Reen’s ruined shirt. He retreated another step and struck the crushed sedan with his heel. Cyrus lowered his hands. “There’s room. Just stay right there.” Monsta dropped onto all fours. He ran. His hands and feet struck the road in heavy, rapid beats. He vaulted an empty car, cleared the divider, and raced toward the far end of the bridge before anyone could cut him off. Rougie rose to follow. Below her, an unsecured car began sliding against the ice ridge with an elderly passenger still inside. Nightwalka had just vanished with someone else. She looked from the car to Monsta, then dropped back to help. By the time the passenger was safe, the blue figure had disappeared beyond the maintenance ramp. * * * At the ridge house, Frank stood by the front door while Stormisha found the jacket she had left on a chair. “You leaving already?” she asked. “Got something to handle. I’ll call you.” She handed him the jacket, searching his face. “Jeanetta okay?” “Think she got dizzy. Your boy in there with her.” Z looked up from his tablet. Frank kissed Stormisha near the doorway and nodded toward him. “Take care, Professor.” Z watched him leave. Through the window, he saw the car reverse and turn down the drive. “Stormisha. A moment.” She recognized the tone before she turned around. “What?” “You need to be careful bringing non-mutants into this house.” Her expression hardened. “He got a name.” “I know what you call him.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” Z set the tablet facedown. “We have children here who were held prisoner. Jeanetta is being hunted. Our home was destroyed. This is not a place to bring someone simply because you’ve had a few pleasant evenings together.” “He carried a crib, Z. He ain’t ask for the security codes.” “Does he know who lives here? What they can do? Where they came from?” “I don’t tell him everybody’s business.” “He does not need you to tell him everything to notice things.” She folded her arms. “So everybody get to need something from me, but the minute I got somebody doing something for me, it’s a problem.” Z’s face softened, though his voice did not. “You are allowed a life, Stormisha. I am asking you to protect the people sharing this one.” She looked toward the hallway. “I’m checking on Jeanetta.” He let her go. A moment later, Scambit appeared at the other end of the living room, leaning hard on his crutch. “Professor. We need to talk. Alone.” * * * The team gathered beneath the far bridge approach, beside a row of shuttered maintenance garages. Monsta had crossed a fenced drainage channel and vanished into the old freight yards. Rougie had searched from above while Cyrus got their van through the reopened service lane. All she found was another torn section of fence and places where the mud had been disturbed. Now she sat in the open van doorway with her head in her hands. “He wasn’t just seeing it,” she told Cyrus. “He thought he could change it. Save them this time. They kept giving him another chance and killing them again.” Ice Tray stood beside her with a bottle of water, taking careful sips. Nightwalka leaned against the van, exhausted from carrying frightened strangers through one short jump after another. Reen rolled his shoulders and drew a full breath. His ribs had already healed; only the blood and torn clothes remained. “He knew what you said.” Rougie nodded. “For a second.” “Then we got something,” Cyrus said. “We tell Z. Work out how to reach him without another bridge full of people.” Reen pulled his phone from his jacket. The screen had separated from the casing. He pressed the button twice, looked at the dead display, and put it away. Across the street, beyond the next intersection, a liquor-store sign hung over a narrow storefront. “Y’all go home without me, I need a drink. Tell Z I’m doing something important.” Cyrus stared at him. “We just spent an hour trying to stop our friend from tearing a bridge apart.” “Felt longer.” “Get in the van.” Reen had already started walking. Rougie lifted her head. “Reen.” He stopped. “Don’t disappear too.” His expression changed just enough that she saw it. “I know the way back.” He continued down the sidewalk, moving easily now. Cyrus watched until he reached the corner, then took out his phone to call Z. * * * Scambit shut the back-room door behind him. Z waited while he lowered himself into a chair. Through the wall came the ordinary kitchen sounds: a plate set down, a cupboard opening, a child asking for more juice. “Something happened when he was in there with Jeanetta,” Scambit said. He described the voice, the purple light, and Frank’s face changing so quickly he had almost doubted it. He described Jeanetta asking the year while she stood inside her own room. “Soon as I pushed that door open, it stopped.” Z turned his tablet over. Devin McTagg’s photograph filled the screen. “That’s him.” “You’re sure?” “Take off that little mustache. Take off the durag. That’s him.” Z closed his eyes for a moment, furious with himself for how little time his hesitation had required. “Stay with me,” he said. They found Jeanetta sitting on her bed with Stormisha beside her. The crib box stood untouched near the dresser. Jeanetta watched it while she spoke, as though something might still be hiding in the printed picture. Z stopped inside the room. “Tell me what you remember.” She looked at Stormisha, then back at him. “I was older. Not old, but older than now. I was in this kitchen, and there was a boy. A teenager.” “Did you recognize him?” “I never seen him before. But I knew him.” Her hand settled over her stomach. “He called me Mom.” Stormisha’s fingers tightened around hers. “I think he was my son,” Jeanetta said. “Something was happening outside. He got scared. The windows started shaking. Then Scambit was there and I was back here.” Z looked at the narrow doorway, then at the place where Frank had stood. “We have a big problem.” Stormisha stood. “What are you saying?” He showed her the photograph. “His name is Devin McTagg.” “No.” “He murdered his father and several other people fifteen years ago. He was confined on an island. Authorities have just admitted he escaped.” She shook her head, but her eyes remained on the photograph. “You think because he look like some man on TV...” “I saw the light,” Scambit said. “I was right there.” Z lowered the tablet. “The figure I saw through Monsta’s memories was purple. Whoever held him could replace what he saw with something he believed was real.” Jeanetta looked down at her stomach. “So that wasn’t my baby?” “We cannot trust that it was your future,” Z said. “It was something he made you experience.” Stormisha sat down slowly. For the first time, she thought about how often she had been alone with him. The motel. His car. The way he had listened while she talked about needing one good thing. Z’s phone rang. Cyrus. He answered immediately. “Where are you?” “Coming back. Monsta got away, but Rougie reached him for a moment. Reen went to...” “Is Reen with you?” “No. He walked to a liquor store near the bridge.” Z gripped the phone. “Turn around.” * * * Reen came out of the liquor store with a bottle in a brown paper bag and three dollars less change than he thought he deserved. The shop stood beneath old apartments near the bridge approach. A bus wheezed through the intersection. Across the road, someone was rolling down the metal shutter of a tire shop, and a helicopter remained a distant irritation above the river. He twisted the bottle cap beneath the paper. “You Reen?” A man stood beside a dark car at the curb. Black durag. Clean jacket. Thin mustache. Reen looked him over without taking his hand off the bottle. “Depends who’s asking. Who the hell are you?” “Frank. I’m seeing Stormisha.” Reen gave him another look. “No wonder she been all giddy lately.” Frank smiled. “She mentioned you.” “Hope she mentioned I’m busy.” “You need a ride? I was just up at the house.” Reen glanced down the street. His body had healed, but his patience hadn’t. A ride would save him the walk. “You got somewhere to be?” “Not right now.” “Then give me a minute.” Reen went around the side of the building, out of sight of the store’s front window. A narrow service passage ran between the liquor store and the closed tire shop next door. Broken pallets leaned against one wall. At the far end, a chain-link gate blocked the way to the next street. Frank followed as Reen took his first drink. “You fight him?” Frank asked. Reen lowered the bottle. “Fight who?” “Big guy on the bridge.” “You ask a lot of questions for somebody I just met.” The traffic noise seemed to thin. Reen looked toward the mouth of the passage. No one stood there. Frank remained a few steps away, watching him. “You always drink after a fight?” Reen turned back. Purple light moved beneath the man’s skin. “What the fuck...” An explosion threw him off his feet. He landed in mud with both ears ringing. The bottle was gone. Brick walls had become torn earth, and the bright afternoon had disappeared behind smoke. Gunfire cut across the ground above his head. Reen rolled into a shallow trench. Someone in a helmet stumbled past him and fell out of sight. Men were shouting over a heavy, repeating burst from somewhere beyond the smoke. He looked down. An old military uniform clung to his body, soaked through at the knees. Rough wool scratched his neck. Canvas straps crossed his chest, and mud packed the laces of boots he had not worn in decades. Another shell struck beyond the trench. Dirt rained against his helmet. He knew that sound. He knew the broken line of trees emerging through the smoke. Reen pressed himself against the trench wall, staring at a battlefield he remembered.

X-Mans 11: Errbody Need Therapy

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