“Hisako?” He was clearly disoriented. “What did I—?”
Edward frowned, apparently putting back together the pieces of what he’d experienced. And then slow, dawning terror began to appear190 in his face. “Oh God. Oh no. My powers…oh God…”
Hisako knew. Deep down she knew, but was too appalled to say it out loud. Instead she said, “Wing? What’s wrong?” She prayed desperately that she was wrong, that it was something else entirely.
But she was right.
You know how they say, “Trust your instincts”? I’m pretty much the poster girl for that.
I can sense the density of the world around me, but damned if I know how I do it. Hank would probably call it a “secondary mutation.” A side effect of my ability to pass through solid objects. A subliminal way of knowing what I’m getting myself into.
So while the others are heading off in different directions, to search Benetech from top to bottom, I suddenly realize that the “bottom” of this place might not be what we think it is at all.
We’re in the subbasement. Below me should be nothing but foundation or earth. Yet I can sense more construction beneath my feet. Storage? Secret lab? Something else entirely? What is it and how can I get to it?
I could spend long minutes running around, trying to191 find an elevator. But I might wind up just wasting time, which I can’t afford to do since I don’t know how much time we have left. And besides—and I’m not proud of myself, but I smirk when I think this—that’s what Emma would have to do. I have a simpler way, and not only is it something she couldn’t do, but she wouldn’t have the nerve to try it along with me.
It’s a cheap and petty triumph, not to mention mostly in my own head. But I’ll take my wins where I can get them.
I sink up to my waist experimentally. There’s nothing beneath my feet except metal. It just keeps going down. Weird. I point commandingly at Lockheed. “You stay here and don’t eat anyone. I’m gonna check it out.”
Then I vanish into the floor and begin my descent.
Nothing but blackness all around me.
I’d never have been up for something like this when I was thirteen. And a half. At that point, when it came to using my powers, I still had on the training wheels. What I’m attempting now is the equivalent of ditching the training wheels, along with the front wheel, and effectively riding a unicycle while blindfolded. Back then I’d have been terrified to drift down into so much nothingness. I would’ve been afraid of losing focus and, thanks to that fear, would likely have done so. I would have become trapped, suffering the same horrible death I warned Emma about. Except it would have been me instead of her, which would truly have sucked.
Just briefly, I hear the faint buzz that means Emma is trying to talk to me inside my head. Then it fades, and192 quickly I’m out of range, because I’m descending that far that fast. In no time at all, I’m completely on my own. If something goes wrong, no one can reach me. No one can help me.
On the other hand, no Emma Frost, so, y’know…bonus.
I continue to drift, like someone in free fall in a low-gravity environment. There is no end in sight. There is nothing in sight.
Okay. Definitely weird.
Suddenly I feel the area beneath my feet starting to “thin out.” My secondary mutation, I guess, is informing me that my long, strange trip is nearly over.
I do a somersault so I can emerge head-first. Obviously I don’t remember my birth, but if I did, I’d probably be reliving it right about now.
I come out into an environment filled with red light. Maybe it’s a red-light district. Har de har—
Then I hit the floor.
Floor? This is a floor?
I don’t know what the hell it is. This is like nothing I’ve ever seen. Not metal so much as…I’m not sure what. There are strange patterns on the floor, on the wall. Squares but with rounded edges. It almost reminds me of the shell of a tortoise. There’s a dropoff to my left that seems to go on forever, spiraling away into darkness, and a pillar to my right that stretches up and back around itself. It all seems vaguely familiar, somehow…
193 Then I remember. It looks like footage I’ve seen taken with microscopic cameras. Film of the inside of human veins; that same kind of twisting and turning feeling, except that there’s no blood. There’s just me.
I suddenly feel like I’m some kind of microorganism. Is this not actually metal all around me, but something bio-organic? Am I inside some manner of living creature? I can’t say that’s a notion I’m too thrilled about, that I’m like a germ, inside of a host body. Especially since such intrusions don’t generally end well for the germs.
There are long corridors stretching out in either direction. I arbitrarily pick left and start walking, trying to get a better idea of what the hell I was phasing through. It felt…wrong. It’s not from this planet or any one I’ve been to. The molecular structure is…I hope it didn’t do any permanent damage, passing through me…
Drop it, Kitty. Job to do. Keep it together.
I run my fingers along the wall as I go. It feels warm, even faintly pulsing. My first instinct may have been correct: bio-organic. Maybe I should count myself lucky it hasn’t sent an alien version of white corpuscles to attack me.
Yet.
I hear voices. They sure sound like normal human voices, not alien ones. On the other hand, I’ve met aliens who sound more human than a lot of humans I know. So who knows for sure?
Peering out from around a corner, I see four guys armed194 with high-tech rifles. They look a lot like those rifles that Ord’s goons were shooting off back at the penthouse. The same rifles that Scott said were boosted from S.H.I.E.L.D., even though Fury said he had no idea how they’d gotten into someone else’s hands. I’m not sure if this thing is making more sense now, or less.
One of the men says, “Alpha Team has hostiles contained upstairs. No sign of breach, but we’re on red just in case.”
Crap. Crappity crappity crap. There’s only one group of “hostiles” they can possibly be talking about.
And suddenly I’m thirteen and a half again, the only person running around free while the rest of the X-Men have been captured. I’m alone. Everything’s resting on me.
Then I brush that aside. That was a long time ago. I’ve survived a hell of a lot and I’m still here and, oh right, I’ve also saved the rest of the team on any number of occasions. And if the “contained hostiles” means the rest of the X-Men, then it’s up to me to find the truth about this place. Four guards? I’ve squared off with Juggernauts, not to mention alien monsters that would make James Cameron and Ridley Scott wet themselves. Bring it on.
That’s when they say something that immediately grabs my attention:
“No one gets near the subject.”
And when the guard says it, he looks in the direction of, and points toward, another hallway. One just off to my right.195 He means it as a casual gesture, but he’s inadvertently guiding me right toward where I have to go.
It’s a door. A big honking door, like you’d see in front of a bank vault. It’s smooth, solid, with some sort of complex, alien-looking lock.
And inside that vault, there is apparently a “subject.” Someone these bozos don’t want any “hostiles” near. That means they’ve got something cooped up that would be of interest to the X-Men, and that’s right in my wheelhouse.
I’m a little out of practice on my ninja training, but it’s like falling off a bicycle or riding a log, whatever. You don’t forget.
They’re paying no attention, too caught up in their little conference to notice me. I run lightly down the hall toward the gigantic door.
Descending a hundred feet or more through solid whatever-it-was has taken a lot out of me. Otherwise I would just phase through the door. But I need a few minutes to rest, and I’m not sure I have a few minutes. Besides, the door might be tricked out with some manner of booby trap; a disruptive field, perhaps, that could scramble even my molecules.
But the lock? Alien or no, there’s not a lock I can’t pop.
I ease my hand into the lock, and seconds later I disrupt the electronic flow of the inner circuitry. I hear the sound of bolts disengaging. The door swings wide on hinges that are a bit louder than I’d like, but I try not to worry about that.
I go to the door and gaze in. Everything’s dark. There196 seems to be something huddling in there, but I can’t quite make it out…a large, vague shape.
A voice bellows from behind me. “We have a hostile!”
They must have heard the sounds the door made. “Drop her! Drop her!” And they open fire.
Just as that happens, I hear a noise from inside the room, an insanely familiar sound. A clacking like metal plates snapping into place, one atop another very quickly.
I know this sound.
Knew this sound.
Know this sound.
I’m so startled by it, I almost forget to phase through the bullets. They pass through my chest…
And they klink off something behind me.
Something metal.
I turn around.
And my mind nearly shuts down. The only part of it that’s still functioning is the part that’s reminding me to remain intangible.
There, gleaming red in the reflected light, is Peter Rasputin.
Is Colossus.
He’s nearly naked, clad only in red shorts. For a moment I think it’s some sort of statue; they made a statue of Colossus for some reason, maybe as a memorial, even though that makes zero sense. They hate mutants. They call us “hostiles.” Why would they make a statue of Colossus? But obviously197 they have, because it’s standing right there in front of me, and sure, it’s ridiculous, but it’s the only explanation because Colossus is dead, everyone knows he’s dead.
And then the statue’s head swivels and looks at me. Right at me, with a kind of vague surprise, as if it thinks it should know me but doesn’t.
The statue moves. It comes right at me, a barrage of bullets passing through me and striking it, bouncing off harmlessly. I always loved that an eternity ago, when I was thirteen and a half. Bullets would hit Wolverine, and he would stagger and stumble and then right himself and keep on going as his body healed, and he would boast about being unstoppable. Colossus…my Peter…he really was unstoppable. He would wade hip deep into any situation, and the bullets would just ricochet off him, occasionally even striking one of his attackers. He didn’t make a big noise about it. He just went about his business, getting it done, not even bothering to acknowledge the stuff they threw at him. A walking statue, a man of few words. Outside, impenetrable. Inside, a big softy.
And I can see myself pouring out my underage heart to him, telling him what I feel for him. He is telling me sadly that it would not be right. We live in a world filled with people who turn trust into betrayal, who prey on the innocent. And here was this gentle giant of a Russian letting me down as easily as he could. And I grew up, and his life ended, and now literally not a day goes by that I don’t think of him, imagine him alive, me holding him, me loving him and him198 me. Sometimes those imaginings seem so real that it’s tempting to just release reality altogether and surrender myself to fantasy.
And that’s apparently what’s happened. Too much mutant hatred, too much discord, apparently it’s all crashed down on me abruptly and without warning. (Okay, there was plenty of warning.) Because he’s here, and he cannot be here, so obviously I must have checked out. Or maybe one of those bullets somehow didn’t pass through me and lodged in my brain, and this is what they mean when they say your life passes before your eyes as you’re dying.
Colossus is passing before my eyes.
Colossus is coming right at my eyes.
Colossus is passing through my eyes. Through my phasing body as the bullets continue to blow past me, and then he’s behind me. I hear screaming, and weapons breaking, and more screaming, and bones crunching, and more screaming, and I still can’t move from where I’m standing. My hand comes up of its own accord, rests on my heart. He’s touched my heart, literally, as his upper body went through my chest.
Then I hear something hit the wall with an awful crunch, and a noise from a throat that sounds horrifyingly close to a death rattle.
It snaps me out of it, and I whisper, “Peter?”
He is in the process of shoving one of the guard’s heads against the wall. Cracks are spreading out from the impact199 point. He’s pushed this guy’s head against the wall with such force that he’s actually shattering the wall. God only knows what it’s doing to the man’s skull.
Their weapons lie scattered and broken all over the floor. One of the guards is running for his life.
Is the man Peter’s pounding on still alive? He seems to be, barely.
“Stop, Peter!” I call.
Peter pulls him away from the wall, leaving blood smears behind. He lifts the soldier up as if the man weighs nothing, which—to Peter—is pretty much the case. He lifts the man over his head and throws him with such force that it’s terrifying to see. The man collides with his fellow soldier, who’s trying to flee the scene, and they both go down. They sprawl in a heap on the floor, both unconscious, and Peter advances on them, ready to do more damage even though they’re helpless.
“Peter, stop!” I say again, this time more forcefully. I still don’t understand why or how this is happening, but it is, and I have to deal with the here and now. “You’ll kill them!”
He turns and looks right at me, and this time he seems to recognize me. The metal on his body dissolves, and the last doubt I had—my fear that this was some sort of robot—dissipates. It’s Peter, standing there in the flesh.
“Katya?” he whispers. That’s what he always called me, and my heart starts to truly beat for the first time in an age.
He sinks to his knees, as if he were praying. “Oh God.”200 His voice is still low, as filled with incredulity as is my entire mind. He looks unfocused, confused, broken, and he reaches out for me, his hands on my hips, then around my back. His muscled arms are warm and alive. “Finally…God…am I…God, please…
“…am I finally dead?”
Maybe he is.
Maybe we both actually are. But if this is what dead is like, it beats the hell out of the life I’ve been living lately.
