X-Mans 17: It Still Ain’t Over Yet?!

by D D

The X-Mans must battle Apocalypto to rescue a child from his trap, but the cost of the escape might be the life of their fiercest warrior.

Comic Book

comedy

Translate this story

Manuscript

42 scenes

X-MansIt Still Ain’t Over Yet?! The Afterborn stepped out of the elevator with its blaster already rising. Reen drove his claws through the weapon and into the hand holding it. The discharge struck the ceiling. Before the soldier could turn, he pulled it forward and cut across its throat. It fell against him, heavier than a man its size should have been. Another waited behind it. “Gorge. Down.” Gorge dropped beside the service console. Reen shoved the first body into the elevator, caught the second soldier against the rear wall, and put his claws through its chest. It kept trying to raise its blaster until he twisted his wrist. The elevator doors struck a boot and opened again. Across the gallery, Stormisha stood rigid beside Devin’s sealed cell. Her eyes followed Reen, but the rest of her obeyed Apocalypto’s last command. Gorge tried to rise. His knees would not straighten. “Still ain’t working?” Reen asked. “My legs? No.” “Meant the gun.” A distant crash rolled through the ceiling. Reen looked up, listening. Too many sets of feet moved through the tower to count. Some carried the hurried rhythm of frightened men. The Afterborn kept one pace, whether stepping over a body or turning toward a scream. He had seen soldiers do terrible things before. He preferred the ones who had to decide. “In the workshop. On the alignment cradle.” Reen looked into the lift. Beyond its occupants, the floor indicator still showed the workshop level. Gorge caught his sleeve before he could step inside. “His left wrist. The transmitter’s under the skin. My gun can interrupt the signal, but you’ll have seconds to destroy the source.” “And if I miss?” “Don’t.” Reen wiped his claws against the dead soldier’s uniform. “Finally. Instructions I understand.” Gorge leaned back against the console. The diagnostic strip showed the transmitter pulsing above them, issuing orders while the tower tried to decide which doors should remain locked. Every new command traveled through the same source. He could draw the whole arrangement from memory now. Understanding it had not made him less afraid. Reen glanced at Stormisha. “Don’t go nowhere.” Her eyes narrowed. “Real funny.” He stepped into the lift. As the doors closed, she watched the blood on his shirt, already dried around wounds that no longer existed. She had grown used to seeing him walk away from damage that should have stopped anyone else. She would remember that later. * * * Monsta dragged the last of the broken shield across the stairwell entrance. A blast struck it before he could let go, throwing sparks against his forearms. Behind him, Lady Longnails knelt beside Jugga-knot. She had stopped calling his name. One of his hands lay open against the floor, palm turned upward as though he had set something down and meant to pick it up again. Magnetrick crouched beside her. “We have to move him.” She looked at him without answering. Another shot hit the doorway. “Out of the doorway,” he said. “We need room.” Metal fastenings tightened gently across Jugga-knot’s armor. Magnetrick lifted him clear while Lady Longnails supported his head. They carried him into an empty holding room, away from the stairwell. Hothead lay beneath a blanket on the opposite bed. Ice Tray sat where Monsta had placed him, frozen upright with blood drying between his fingers. His eyes moved toward the blanket. He could not turn his head. Z wheeled into the room and stopped where Ice Tray could see him. “Look toward the door,” he said. “That is where we’re going.” Ice Tray’s eyes stayed on the blanket. “I know you can hear me. When this command releases you, you move with us. We cannot stay here.” The muscles along Ice Tray’s jaw tightened. Z waited until his gaze shifted, then turned his chair toward the corridor. In the corridor, Misty had one arm around Nightwalka’s locked shoulders. Rougie pulled a supply cart across the open doorway while Monsta braced the damaged stairwell shutter. Scambit stood motionless beside the wall, glaring at his own feet. Magnetrick looked from one bed to the other. Then he stood. “Look at them,” he said. Lady Longnails lifted her head. Misty turned from her son. Across the doorway, Rougie glanced back without taking her hands from the cart. “Be angry. Every one of you. Use it. We still have people to get out of this tower, and the man who did this is still breathing.” He looked once more toward the beds. “We do not give him the rest of us.” A blaster discharge struck the stairwell shutter. The metal glowed through the crack beneath it. “Rougie. Help Monsta hold that entrance.” “Where you going?” “To find out why the rest of us are still standing here.” He stepped into the corridor. Lady Longnails rose after him, but he held up one hand. “Stay with them. If that entrance fails, get everyone toward the gallery.” She looked back at Jugga-knot’s open hand. “And them?” Magnetrick’s eyes followed hers. For a moment, his fingers closed as though he could lift the entire room and take it with him. “We may have to leave them.” The words cost him more than the lift had. Lady Longnails drew the blanket over Jugga-knot’s shoulder. Then she went to the doorway and extended her claws. “Then go make it worth something.” * * * Cyrus heard the nursery door shake before the access window cleared. Jeanetta stood on the other side, one palm spread over the inner lock. Her son was crying beyond it. Farther inside the chamber, a glass partition enclosed Diabolical and his machine. Apocalypto was no longer beside him. Cyrus struck the outer door. “Jeanetta. Look at me.” She turned. Red light moved across her eyes. “I’m not leaving without him,” he said. For a moment she only watched him. Then she crossed the room and pressed the release beside the outer door. Cyrus stepped inside before she could change her mind. “Don’t come near my son.” “He’s my son too.” “Then get that door open.” The nursery occupied one end of the outer room. Through its window Cyrus could see the cradle, the blanket, the small fist opening above it. The controls beside the handle were dead. A faint shimmer ran through the frame. He glanced toward the partition. Diabolical sat beyond it, metal bands pressed against his temples, watching them over the edge of his console. “The nursery’s protected,” Diabolical said through a speaker. “Breaking that door would be very unwise.” “Open it,” Cyrus said. Jeanetta reached for the lock again. The shimmer brightened before her hand touched it. Inside, the cradle rocked. She drew back. Diabolical adjusted something beside his chair. Jeanetta stiffened. Her fingers curled against her palm. Cyrus saw her fighting to hold them there instead of raising them toward him. “He keeps getting in,” she whispered. She could feel the machine reach for the part of her that was afraid. It did not tell her to strike Cyrus outright. It offered a picture instead: his hands empty while someone carried her baby away. Then another, his face turned from a cradle that had gone silent. She knew his face. She knew the way he looked at their son. Knowing did not stop the fear from arriving. Jeanetta forced her hand against her own thigh. “Don’t let me hurt you.” Cyrus moved between her and the partition. “Look at me. Stay here with me.” Behind the glass, Diabolical studied the nursery feed. Then his expression changed with the satisfaction of a man remembering a tool he had not yet used. “Perhaps we’ve been asking the wrong member of this family.” * * * The workshop smelled of scorched insulation. Reen stepped over the soldier he had thrown from the lift and crossed to the alignment cradle. Gorge’s gun lay beneath a suspended diagnostic arm. He tore the arm aside, freed the weapon, and dragged its harness over his shoulder. A small screen on the stock asked for an operator. “Somebody pissed off,” he told it. The screen did not accept that. A shape moved between the assembly frames. Reen lowered the gun just as a blaster shot struck the diagnostic arm above him. Hot fragments rained across his shoulders. He rolled beneath the workbench, dragging the weapon with him, and felt the next shot burn a groove through the floor. The Afterborn advanced without calling for help. Reen waited until its boots filled the gap beneath the bench. He drove his claws up through the sole of one foot and pulled. The soldier struck the table hard enough to overturn it. The blaster slid away. Reen crawled over the fallen metal and finished the fight before the soldier could reach it. Then he lifted Gorge’s gun again. A shallow hole smoked through the harness near his shoulder. “Better still work,” he muttered. Behind the window, the unfinished bodies remained suspended in their frames. Their open hands stirred faintly in the disturbed air. He looked away before one of them could open its eyes. He took the stairs back to the gallery. Gorge’s eyes widened at the broken mounting bracket still hanging from the barrel. “Did you rip it off the cradle?” “Wasn’t carrying the table too.” Gorge could move his hands, though his legs remained locked. Reen lowered the gun across his lap. With a diagnostic strip and two quick adjustments, Gorge brought the screen to life. Stormisha watched from beside the cell. “Can you get this shit out my head?” “Not from here,” Gorge said. “But I can stop it receiving orders.” The service lift opened behind them. Magnetrick stepped over the dead soldier in its doorway. His gaze moved to the gun, then to Gorge’s hands. “This is Gorge,” Reen said. “He built it.” “Magnetrick.” He gave the engineer a brief nod. “Tell me.” Gorge showed him the moving pulse on the screen. “Apocalypto carries the transmitter in his arm. He’s on the command balcony above the workshop. This will interrupt it long enough for Reen to cut it out.” “Why not destroy it with the shot?” “Because it’s connected to living tissue. The weapon was built to disrupt Zolari systems without destroying the equipment around them. I’ve changed its output, but I can’t promise it will burn the whole device away.” Gorge pointed to the stock. “The first pulse releases the prisoners from his active command. If he repairs the connection before we destroy it, he gets them back.” Magnetrick studied the readout. The moving light looked too small to hold so many people still. “And the soldiers?” “Separate network. They’ll keep fighting.” Magnetrick looked at the gun’s metal housing. “I can get you there.” “And get his arm still?” Reen asked. For the first time since Jugga-knot and Hothead fell, Magnetrick’s face showed something other than grief. “Yes.” * * * Diabolical opened the nursery’s speaker channel. Cyrus heard the change first: a soft click, then the same voice speaking with a tenderness that made his stomach tighten. “You hear her, little one? That’s your mother. She’s frightened.” The words came through the room speakers. Beneath them, Jeanetta felt another presence move away from her thoughts and toward the nursery. She looked sharply at Diabolical. “Leave him alone.” He did not look up. “Your father brought those people here. They want to take you away. But you’re stronger than they are.” Cyrus moved toward the partition. Diabolical’s fingers settled over two controls. On the monitor beside him, pale lines branched around the image of the cradle. He was speaking aloud, but the machine carried something else with the words: fear, pictures, the suggestion of hands reaching to hurt the woman whose voice the baby knew. Jeanetta felt the edge of one false image. Cyrus standing above her. Light burning from his eyes. “No,” she said. “That’s not real.” Diabolical increased the connection. “Kill your father first. Your mother will come running. Then you can finish them both.” Cyrus stopped at the glass. “You’re so... sinister.” Diabolical’s hand paused above the console. His eyes narrowed slightly, considering the word. “Nah.” He returned to the controls. On the nursery feed, X-Boy’s hand closed around the blanket. Diabolical sent the false images again, altering them when the child did not respond. Jeanetta recoiling. Cyrus reaching into the cradle. A stranger’s arms replacing his mother’s. There were no words the baby needed to understand. The machine carried the threat as a feeling, wrapping it around familiar faces. “Push him away,” Diabolical murmured. “You can make him stop.” Cyrus heard every word through the speaker. He looked at Jeanetta, but her eyes were fixed on the nursery glass. “Don’t listen to him, son,” he said. His voice sounded small against the room’s hum. He raised it. “You hear me? That’s your mother right there. We’re both right here.” Diabolical adjusted the gain. Cyrus’s voice faded from the nursery speaker. The baby could still hear Jeanetta through the door. Cyrus drew back his shoulders, aiming toward the empty strip of floor behind the partition. Diabolical touched another switch. A protective field flickered across the glass. “Go ahead,” he said. “Let’s see which of us reaches the child first.” Cyrus held his fire. The angle was wrong. Diabolical sat beyond the protected glass, but the nursery shared the wall at his left. A wide blast could send debris through the baby’s room. A narrow one would only strike the field, while Diabolical had a direct connection to the child. He had never hated being made to wait so much. Jeanetta pressed both palms against the nursery window. “Baby. Listen to me.” Her son had stopped crying. * * * The command balcony hung above the workshop behind a wall of glass. Apocalypto stood at its center, watching his soldiers advance through the tower. His left arm rested near a bank of controls. On one screen, the holding corridor shutter bowed beneath another blaster shot. The freight lift reached the balcony’s lower landing. Reen stood behind Gorge, supporting him beneath the arms. Magnetrick waited out of sight beside the lift shaft, helmet on. The plan had taken six sentences. None of them liked how much depended on the seventh. Pretend he still owns you. Gorge lifted his head toward the camera. “Your weapon’s ready.” Apocalypto turned. Reen let his face settle into the empty obedience he had practiced in the cells. The balcony door opened. “Bring it.” Reen walked Gorge inside. Apocalypto did not notice that only one of them needed the command. Gorge leaned against the workbench while Reen fitted the gun’s harness across his back. Its weight settled against his shoulders. He guided the barrel under his right arm, keeping it lowered. “Show me.” “It needs a command signal to calibrate against,” Gorge said. “Use the wrist control.” Apocalypto raised his arm. Gorge set his thumb against the trigger. Apocalypto noticed the angle of the barrel. “What are you—” Gorge fired. The shot struck the transmitter beneath the skin. A white pulse crawled across Apocalypto’s wrist. His fingers opened violently, and every display on the balcony flashed the same warning. In the holding corridor, Nightwalka’s knees gave way. Misty caught him. Scambit stumbled forward, swore, and reached for the wall with a hand he had chosen to move. Ice Tray turned his head toward the covered bed. The last command had lost its grip. Ice Tray stood too quickly and caught the bedframe. Z moved toward the door, giving him a direction to follow. “Keep moving,” the professor said. “Stay close.” Ice Tray looked at the covered shape once. Then he picked up the jacket folded beside it and followed Z into the corridor. Outside, Nightwalka caught Misty’s wrist. “Everybody back.” They vanished before a shot tore through the place where they had stood. A moment later he returned for Scambit. Behind them, Rougie lifted the supply cart and hurled it into the stairwell opening, buying Monsta enough time to withdraw. Lady Longnails backed away last. Her claws scraped the floor as she passed the holding room. She did not go inside again. At the next junction, an Afterborn stepped between them and the transfer passage. Rougie caught the first shot against a torn door panel she held in front of her. The impact spun the panel from her hands. Monsta drove his shoulder into the soldier before it could fire again. They struck the opposite wall together. The blaster slid between their feet, still connected to the soldier by a strap. Lady Longnails cut the strap. Scambit kicked the weapon away. It skidded beneath a bench and discharged into the base of the wall. “Okay,” he said. “Don’t kick them.” The soldier closed both hands around Monsta’s neck. Monsta braced one foot against the wall and tore it loose, then drove it backward into the checkpoint frame. Lady Longnails reached the exposed joint beneath its chin. When it stopped fighting, Monsta let it fall. Another appeared beyond the junction. Nightwalka touched Z’s shoulder and vanished with him. Misty seized Ice Tray’s arm as Rougie swept low across the passage, forcing the soldier’s aim upward. Its shot passed over their heads and burst against the ceiling. Nightwalka returned before the debris hit the floor. This time he took Ice Tray. Then Scambit. Each jump carried them only as far as the gallery checkpoint, but it was enough. Z counted them as they arrived. When Lady Longnails appeared last, he looked past her for Monsta. A moment later the big man came through the side door with Rougie beside him. She had a new scorch mark across her sleeve. He had lost one shoe. “Everybody?” she asked. Z counted again. Everyone who could still leave. Apocalypto swung toward Gorge. Metal from the doorframe wrapped his left forearm and wrenched it outward. Magnetrick stepped through the opening, teeth clenched. “Reen.” The claws went in beneath the burning transmitter. Apocalypto struck Reen across the face with his free hand. Reen hit the bench, caught its edge, and came back before the torn skin along his jaw had finished closing. Gorge fired again. Apocalypto’s arm spasmed inside Magnetrick’s grip. Reen drove both sets of claws through the damaged assembly and pulled apart. Wires, metal, and blood struck the floor. The warning screens went dark. Apocalypto stared at the wreckage beneath his wrist. For the first time, Gorge saw him hesitate. Then Apocalypto looked at Reen. The hesitation ended. “You.” Reen pulled his claws free of the ruined transmitter. His own blood mixed with Apocalypto’s along the blades. “Yeah. Me.” * * * The nursery lights dimmed. Diabolical leaned forward inside the machine. He had expected a small, unguarded mind. A place without language, without defenses. Instead, something looked back. The false image of Cyrus broke apart. Beneath it was Jeanetta’s voice, familiar through walls, sleep, hunger, the whole short history of being alive. Baby. Listen to me. X-Boy opened his eyes. The cradle rails bent outward. Jeanetta stepped back from the window as her son grew beneath the blanket. His legs extended. His hands opened against the mattress, larger with every breath. He sat up with the startled balance of a child discovering a body he had not occupied a moment before. He looked about six years old. Diabolical tried to withdraw. The machine would not let him. The connection he had forced open now carried power in the other direction. A contact snapped against his temple. He reached for the release, but the console buckled beneath his hand. A sharp pulse traveled through the nursery frame. The containment field vanished. Locking bars shot back inside the door. Jeanetta pulled it open. Her son rose from the cradle wrapped in the blanket, feet hanging above the floor. He flew toward her awkwardly, one shoulder striking the doorframe before she caught him. She held him with both arms. Behind the partition, Diabolical screamed. The machine folded around its own supports. Light burst through the seams. Jeanetta turned her body over her son as the console split and the glass partition shuddered in its frame. Then the room fell quiet. The pressure inside her head was gone. X-Boy clung to her. His breathing came fast against her neck. Growing had given him reach and strength; it had not taught him what to do with either. Cyrus looked at the child in her arms. For one stunned second, father and son stared at each other. “Cyrus,” Jeanetta said. Diabolical was moving. * * * Apocalypto tore the metal from his arm and threw Magnetrick into the balcony rail. Reen lunged. His claws struck Apocalypto’s chest armor and carved three deep channels before a band of force caught him around the waist. His feet left the floor. Apocalypto raised his damaged hand. “Stop.” Reen drove one arm forward, trying to reach him. There was no signal left to carry the order, but the force tightening around his body did not need one. “Let him go,” Gorge said. He brought the gun around. Apocalypto struck its barrel with a sweep of his free hand. The shot tore into the ceiling. Magnetrick rose from the bent rail, blood at the corner of his mouth. Pieces of the workbench ripped free and flew toward Apocalypto. A second band of force caught them in midair. Reen tried to draw a breath. The pressure narrowed around his chest. Bone shifted with a sound Gorge heard across the room. Reen’s mouth opened, but whatever he meant to say became blood. Magnetrick pulled at the metal plating on Apocalypto’s torso, dragging him half a step sideways. The strain shook the balcony supports. Apocalypto turned and drove Reen into the reinforced wall. The impact broke the panel behind him. He held Reen there and struck him with a concentrated burst of force. The torn shirt vanished beneath a spreading wound across his chest. Another burst hit before the first damage could close. “Enough!” Gorge shouted. Apocalypto released him. Reen fell to the floor beside the bench. His claws dragged across the metal, then stopped. Magnetrick tore a plate from the wall and drove it between them. A third burst struck it hard enough to fold it around the bench. He pulled Gorge behind the damaged cover as a blaster shot punched through the balcony door. An Afterborn stepped inside. Another followed it from the lift. They fired toward Magnetrick, pinning him beside Reen’s body. Apocalypto backed toward a private passage. “Broteus.” He touched the channel at his collar. No answer. “Diabolical.” Only static returned. He opened the containment feed. Water pressed against the glass. Devin’s body hung motionless beneath the surface. Apocalypto’s mouth tightened. He switched to the operating chamber. * * * Diabolical dragged himself out from beneath the broken metal bands. Blood ran from one ear. He pulled a narrow instrument from the side of the chair and pointed it toward Jeanetta. “Give him to me.” Cyrus stepped between them. The field protecting the partition had died with the machine. He fired once, low and controlled. Glass burst inward across the empty floor on Diabolical’s side. Diabolical staggered back, shielding his face. “You don’t understand what he is.” “I understand what you told him to do.” Jeanetta carried X-Boy into the nursery and put her hand over his eyes. A red glow gathered along her fingers, shielding the doorway. Diabolical glanced toward them. Cyrus saw the decision form before the man moved. “You’ve fucked with the wrong family.” The blast struck Diabolical in the chest and drove him against the ruined machine. Metal crumpled behind him. The instrument fell from his hand. Cyrus stopped firing. Diabolical slid to the floor and did not move again. Cyrus stood over him long enough to know it was finished. Then he turned toward the nursery. Jeanetta lowered her hand from their son’s face. X-Boy looked from her to Cyrus. “Mom?” Her eyes filled before she could answer. “I’m here.” Cyrus crossed the room. When she reached for him, he put his arms around both of them. X-Boy shifted between them. His feet brushed the floor, then lifted again as though he had forgotten which direction his weight belonged. Cyrus steadied him beneath one arm. “Easy.” The boy looked down, startled by the length of his own legs. He tucked them beneath the blanket. Jeanetta gathered the loose fabric around him and found a fastener on a nursery wrap to keep it in place. “Can you stand?” she asked. He tried. One foot touched the floor. The other hovered an inch above it. Cyrus crouched in front of him and offered his hand. X-Boy watched him. Somewhere in the child’s frightened expression, Cyrus could see the false pictures Diabolical had planted still trying to find a place. “I’m not going to hurt you.” Jeanetta put her hand over Cyrus’s, letting their son see them together. The boy reached out. His fingers closed too tightly. Cyrus hid the flinch until Jeanetta gently loosened them. “That’s enough,” she told X-Boy. “You don’t have to squeeze so hard.” He looked ashamed without knowing the word for it. Cyrus shook his head. “You’re okay. We’ll figure it out.” Beyond the broken partition, a warning light began to flash. They all looked toward it. Jeanetta lifted their son before the alarm could frighten him again. “Let’s get out of here.” * * * On the balcony screen, Diabolical lay dead beside the machine. Apocalypto stared at him. The boy was no longer in the cradle. Jeanetta was no longer beneath Diabolical’s control. Broteus was dead. The transmitter in his arm had become a wound he could not command away. Behind the workbench, Magnetrick ripped a blaster from an Afterborn’s hands and crushed its housing. The soldier kept coming. Gorge fired into its chest at close range and knocked it back through the doorway. Reen had not moved. Apocalypto stepped through the private door and sealed it. He did not wait to see whether his soldiers won. The passage carried him toward the upper hangar. With his uninjured hand, he opened a command channel separate from the ruined implant network. “All flight crews. Launch.” Across the tower, docking clamps released from stolen Zolari ships. Afterborn abandoned some corridors and turned toward the hangar lifts. Others remained at their posts, still firing on the people trying to get past them. Apocalypto reached the flight deck as the crown doors opened. He boarded the lead craft without looking back. * * * Nightwalka appeared in the gallery with Misty beside him. His first breath after the jump ended in a laugh he could not quite control. “Still got it.” “Good,” Misty said. “Use it.” He began taking people out of the exposed corridor while Rougie and Monsta held the retreating soldiers away. Scambit collected a fallen blaster, examined its unfamiliar controls, and decided to keep his finger well away from them until he knew what they did. The service lift returned with its doors buckled inward. Magnetrick came out first, pulling a torn section of balcony panel behind him. Reen lay on it. Gorge followed, one hand pressed over his own shaking wrist. Stormisha stopped halfway across the gallery. “Reen?” He did not answer. Magnetrick lowered the panel. Z wheeled close enough to see the wound across Reen’s chest. The edges remained open. Blood soaked through the torn fabric beneath him. Z touched his temple. For an instant there was something, faint and distant. Then it slipped beyond his reach. “He heals,” Scambit said. Nobody contradicted him. Monsta crouched and waited for Reen to breathe. His broad hand hovered above the ruined shirt before settling against Reen’s neck. Gorge watched the wound. He had seen the man’s jaw close around broken bone only minutes earlier. Now he counted seconds and nothing changed. “Apocalypto?” Z asked. “He left,” Magnetrick said. “Upper passage. The hangar.” Z looked toward the lift indicators. Every upper car was climbing. “Then we have to follow.” Monsta gathered Reen into his arms. The claws had withdrawn, but his hands hung loose. “Mi have yuh, bredren,” he said. He stood carefully. No one put a blanket over Reen’s face. Stormisha stood near the service console. When Gorge approached, she glanced at the gun strapped across his back. “You really finished that big-ass thing.” “Mostly.” “Mostly?” “The mounting bracket was already damaged.” He looked toward the lift where Monsta waited with Reen. Stormisha followed his gaze. “Of course it was,” she said quietly. Gorge stopped beside her while Magnetrick checked the route to the hangar. He did not ask about Devin. She watched Monsta carry Reen toward the lift, then looked at the small cut above Gorge’s eyebrow. “When you went up there,” she said, “I couldn’t move. Couldn’t even follow.” “I know.” “I ain’t doing that again.” He looked at the gun harness biting into his shoulder. “Neither am I.” For a moment she held his gaze. Neither had anything useful to say about the blood on the floor. “You good?” “I can move my legs. I’m trying not to ask for too much at once.” She gave a short laugh. It left her looking surprised. Z called Gorge toward the communications console. He started to turn, but Stormisha caught his hand. “Wait.” She drew him back and kissed him. For a moment his hand hovered beside her shoulder. Then it settled there, light enough for her to step away whenever she wanted. When she did, neither of them spoke immediately. Scambit looked up from the stolen blaster. “Damn. Mine don’t do that.” “Keep playing with it,” Stormisha said. “Maybe it’ll kiss you.” Gorge smiled despite himself. She squeezed his hand once before letting him go. * * * Cyrus found the others at the gallery’s upper checkpoint. Jeanetta walked beside him carrying a boy wrapped in a nursery blanket. Conversation stopped along the corridor. Scambit looked at the child, then at Cyrus. “That the baby?” Jeanetta nodded. He opened his mouth, looked again, and shut it. “Okay.” Z approached slowly. X-Boy tucked his face against his mother’s shoulder, watching the professor with one eye. “Diabolical?” Z asked. “Dead,” Cyrus said. Z held his gaze. Then he looked at Jeanetta. “Can you still hear him?” She shook her head. “No.” Nobody asked Cyrus to explain himself. Ice Tray stood near the checkpoint carrying Hothead’s folded jacket. Lady Longnails waited beside him. She stopped when she saw Jeanetta’s son, but her expression did not change enough to become surprise. Then Jeanetta saw Reen in Monsta’s arms. Her hand tightened against the blanket around X-Boy. “What happened?” “Apocalypto,” Gorge said. She took a step forward. Cyrus reached Reen first, touching his shoulder as though he expected the man to shrug him away. The shoulder stayed limp. “Why ain’t he healing?” “We don’t know,” Z said. A launch warning sounded above them. The floor trembled beneath the first departing ship. Lady Longnails looked toward the passage back to the holding rooms. “Hothead and Jugga-knot are still down there.” Magnetrick stood beside the lift controls. He did not pretend the decision was easy. “We leave them.” Ice Tray gripped the jacket against his chest. “Those ships aren’t leaving empty,” Magnetrick continued. “Every minute we spend going back is another minute we give him.” Lady Longnails looked at Reen. Z followed her gaze. “There may still be a chance for him,” he said. “We take it while we can.” She swallowed, then turned toward the lift. Magnetrick faced the others. “Keep that anger. Take it with you. When we reach him, make him feel every bit of it.” Monsta stepped into the car with Reen. Ice Tray followed, holding the jacket in both hands. Nobody went back to the holding rooms. * * * The hangar doors were still open when they reached the crown. Cold air swept across the deck. Beyond the opening, the last stolen ships were turning away from the desert. Their formation tightened around a larger craft at the front. Gorge crossed to an unoccupied transport. He recognized the hull before he touched it. Beneath Apocalypto’s paint, an Orukai registry mark remained stamped beside the hatch. He opened the pilot’s panel. “Can you fly it?” Rougie asked. “Yes.” “You sound sure.” “This one I worked on.” Scambit looked through the open hatch at two rows of narrow seats, then moved aside to let Monsta carry Reen aboard. He followed without a joke. Gorge powered the console while Monsta laid Reen across the rear bench. Misty found a medical locker beside the hatch and brought its contents to Cyrus. A small light blinked above the communications panel. His distress signal had repeated through the tower network, but there was still no answer. He left the channel open. Z remained at the edge of the flight deck, one hand on his wheel. He followed the departing ships until he understood the course they were taking. Beyond the desert, the night brightened along the horizon. Streets. Bridges. Windows crowded with people who had not heard the tower’s alarms. “They’re going to the city. We have to stop them.” Jeanetta stepped beside him with X-Boy asleep against her shoulder. His hand rested beneath her chin. A few hours earlier it had been small enough to curl around one finger. She watched the lead ship disappear into the haze. Behind her, Gorge worked through the launch sequence. A warning sounded before he could finish the start sequence. The transport remained connected to the tower’s launch system. Apocalypto’s departing ship had locked every craft he had not taken with him. Gorge pulled the panel beneath the controls open. Monsta came forward from the rear bench and crouched beside him. He watched a small relay close each time Gorge tried the release. “Tower keep sending it power,” he said. “You bridge that now, it just lock again.” Gorge checked the circuit diagram on the screen. “You’re right. Isolate that feed. I’ll reconnect the local control.” Monsta fitted his fingers around the narrow coupling and twisted it free without disturbing the contacts beside it. The relay opened and stayed open. “Ready, bredren.” Gorge reached beneath the panel. This time the controls responded. Behind him, the hangar lift began descending toward the workshop. “Company,” Rougie said. Lady Longnails crossed to its doors. Magnetrick raised a length of loading rail and drove it through the mechanism. The lift stopped, but a blaster discharge burned through one door from inside. “How long?” he asked. Gorge bridged the local contacts while Monsta held the disconnected feed clear. The warning changed pitch. “Longer if you keep asking.” Stormisha stood at the hatch, watching the damaged lift. Air gathered around her hands, lifting loose straps from the deck. When the doors forced themselves apart, she sent the current through the gap. The first soldier struck the rear wall of the car. A second fired blindly into the hangar ceiling. “Gorge.” “I heard.” The launch lock disappeared from the screen. Monsta secured the loose coupling inside its housing, and Gorge closed the panel and brought the engines online. Magnetrick folded the loading rail across the lift opening. Jeanetta carried X-Boy aboard. Rougie took Z’s ramp from beside the hatch and pulled it inside as he wheeled after her. “Go,” she told Stormisha. They backed into the transport together. A shot struck the deck outside, close enough to throw fragments against the hatch. Gorge released the docking clamps. The lift doors tore free just as the transport rose. * * * Jeanetta sat near the front of the passenger compartment with X-Boy asleep against her. Across the aisle, the others had gathered around Reen. Cyrus knelt beside the rear bench, holding fresh dressings while Misty worked. Jeanetta watched his hands. Magnetrick stopped beside the empty seat across from her. “Would you rather be alone?” She looked up, surprised that he had asked. “No.” He sat. For a while neither spoke. The engines vibrated through the floor beneath their feet. X-Boy stirred, and Jeanetta tucked the blanket closer beneath his chin. “I remember it,” she said. Magnetrick waited. “Hurting Cyrus. At the hospital. Down in the corridor.” She looked toward the rear bench again. “I remember wanting him out of my way. I knew his face, and I still...” Her voice stopped. “You were being manipulated.” “I know what he did to me. That don’t make it feel like somebody else’s hands.” Magnetrick rested his forearms on his knees. He looked at the child rather than offering her an answer before she had finished. “He’s trying to keep Reen alive,” she said. “I almost killed him, and he’s back there helping somebody else.” “He came for you too.” “I know.” She brushed a curl away from X-Boy’s forehead. He had not had that much hair when she carried him into the tower. “I don’t even know what my son’s gonna look like when he wakes up.” Magnetrick’s expression softened. “You don’t have to know everything tonight.” Outside the small window, one of the stolen ships crossed a gap in the clouds. Jeanetta followed it until it disappeared. “When we catch him, I need to do something.” “You have a choice.” She looked back at him. “You owe no one a demonstration of strength, Jeanetta. Not after what happened in that room. If you decide to stay beside your son, the rest of us can fight.” “Since when you start telling people not to fight?” “I said you had a choice.” For the first time, a faint smile reached her mouth. It disappeared quickly, but he had seen it. She looked down at X-Boy. His fingers had found the edge of her sleeve in his sleep. “I’m tired of somebody deciding what I’m supposed to be afraid of.” Magnetrick nodded. “Then let the next decision be yours.” At the rear of the cabin, Cyrus asked Misty for another dressing. Jeanetta started to rise, then stopped when her son shifted against her. Magnetrick stood. “I’ll take it.” She watched him cross the narrow aisle and open the medical locker. When he returned past her seat, she touched his wrist. “Thank you.” He inclined his head and carried the packet to Cyrus. * * * Cyrus knelt beside the rear bench as the tower fell away beneath them. Misty had cut the ruined shirt aside and covered the wound with dressings from the locker. Blood darkened them almost immediately. She pressed fresh material over it while Cyrus held Reen’s shoulder steady through the turn. He had seen Reen stabbed, shot, thrown through things that should have broken him in half. He had watched him complain about the clothes afterward. Now the silence felt wrong. Cyrus bent close, searching for the small movement of a breath. “Come on.” Nothing. Across the aisle, Jeanetta sat with X-Boy tucked against her. The child watched Cyrus’s hands, then looked at the blood on the floor. She turned him gently toward her shoulder. Monsta braced himself beside the hatch. Ice Tray sat opposite him with the jacket in his lap. Lady Longnails stared through the small window until the tower disappeared behind the engine housing. Cyrus put his hand over Reen’s. He had spent too long waiting for a reason to dislike the man. The drinking. The arguments. The way he entered a room already prepared to make it worse. He would have taken any of it now. “Stay with us, Reen.” The transport climbed. Ahead, the stolen ships held their course toward the city. Cyrus kept his hand where it was. Reen did not answer.

X-Mans 17: It Still Ain’t Over Yet?!

Manuscript

Comments(0)

How would you like to enjoy stories?