Sanctuary (24 page)

No, the Blob was mainly concerned because he didn't think he could capture them like Magneto had ordered. Sure, maybe he could keep them busy until the other Acolytes carne around, that was possible. But just as he didn't think they'd be able to defeat him without Professor X or Jean Grey, who might be able to get into his head, or Cyclops, who had once burned a hole in his body, he didn't think he could do much in return. If he could get his hands on any of them, why, he'd snap them like twigs. But they were all much faster than he was.

Storm's winds buffeted his body, but he did not even have to lean into the wind to stay upright. They started to whip around him like a tornado, and at first he thought she might be trying to lift him off the ground with it. Then it hit him—this was something she had tried in earlier fights. Well, actually, it had worked before. She was trying to cut him off from oxygen so he wouldn't be able to breath and he would just pass out.

Just before all air left him, Dukes inhaled deeply, filling his massive lungs. He'd be able to hold his breath like that for several minutes. That's all the time he had to do something, something that would let him win.

Fred Dukes knew he wasn't the smartest guy in the world. But he also knew a good idea when he had one. Rolling his eyes as if he was about to pass out, Dukes fell to the ground, sending a tremor through the street around them. As soon as Storm let up with her winds, he sank his fingers into the pavement and tore a huge chunk out of the street. Sitting up, he threw it at Storm with all his strength. The pavement broke apart in the air, and one piece did clip her arm, enough to distract her for a moment.

"All right, Beast, Wolverine, come on," the Blob taunted. "I'm ready for ya. I'm gonna take you guys down, then grab that Storm chippie and make like Kong. I'll be the Blob, the Eighth Wonder of the World!"

Suddenly, both the Beast and Wolverine stopped moving toward him. For a moment, Dukes didn't understand. Then he got it.

"Oh, no ..." he began, but it was too late. The X-Men were laughing at him.

"Why, thank you, Fred," the Beast said. "Without Iceman, we were going to have a decidedly difficult time finding Magneto. If I am not mistaken, and I do not believe that I am, you have just told us precisely where to look."

The Blob was flustered.

"Okay, maybe so, but you rubes still have to get by me, and you know from experience that nothing moves the Blob!" Dukes said, sure he could still pull it off. He'd blown it big, that was for sure, letting it slip where Magneto's headquarters were. But it wasn't over yet. Not by far.

"We don't have to move you, Fred," the Beast said.

"We don't even have to get by ya, bub," Wolverine added, lighting up a cigar that Dukes hadn't even seen him produce.

"What are you ..." he began to ask, then saw that the one called Bishop, who the Acolytes had said was from the future, if you could believe it, had slung his plasma rifle over his shoulder. He wasn't even aiming at the Blob anymore.

"Indeed, Mr. Dukes," Storm continued as she walked calmly to where the other X-Men stood. "In the past, you see, we have been forced to fight you to the finish because you were committing some crime, or endangering innocent lives. We were, obviously, after you."

"This time," the Beast continued for her, "you are . after us, as it were."

"That's right," Dukes said, still baffled by the X-Men's behavior. "So come on an' mix it up. I'll hand all you jerks your heads this time around."

"It ain't gonna happen, Dukes," Wolverine snarled. "See, we don't have to fight you. All we gotta do is make sure we're all faster than you. An' I seen you runnin', bubo No problem there."

"You gotta be kiddin'!" the Blob shouted, understanding suddenly what they were saying. "You've gotta stay an' fight me. I'm dangerous."

"True," Storm said. "But Magneto is our priority today."

The X-Men turned and started off in the direction of the Empire State Building, moving at a good clip. Though he knew he had no hope of keeping up with them if they started to really run, and he was resigned to the idea of failure yet again, Fred Dukes started to move after the X-Men as fast as he was able.

Which wasn't very fast at all. When he had gone half a block, they had gone two. He was so wound up in the chase, and in his disappointment, that he stopped paying attention to where he walked. His right foot landed on one of the eight by eight sewer gratings that ran along above the subway lines throughout Manhattan.

The grates were sturdy steel, but no match for eight hundred and fifty pounds, in motion and concentrated in the fourteen inches of flesh the Blob called a foot. The grating caved in, and Fred Dukes went with it, tumbling down into a darkened subway tunnel forty-seven feet below.

The only thing hurt was his pride.

The Blob looked up and down the darkened tracks. After a moment's consideration, he headed south, in the general direction of Magneto's headquarters, and hoped he'd find a subway station—and steps to the surface—before too long.

T
he open-air observation deck that circumscribed the top of the Empire State Building had been closed to the public for years. Too many children, and immature adults, had dropped things off the building from there. A nickel or quarter dropped from that height might kill a human being. Too risky, the authorities had apparently believed.

Magneto had opened the observation deck, made it the seat from which he would survey his domain. And it was a glorious view, without a doubt. Everything below was tiny, insignificant, which Magneto felt was appropriate given the gravity of the decisions that would be made from this. his new aerie. Decisions that were already being made.

It had begun to come together quite nicely. Mutant recruits were pouring in by the dozen, both from within the city and from around the country. Soon, he expected to receive the first foreign immigrants, and he would welcome them with open arms. Their international citizenship would be an example for the rest of the world, an example of how to live in peace. But the humans would not have time even to learn from it, since Magneto planned to rule the rest of the world before long.

When the sun had risen, Magneto's pulse had quickened .with the spreading of the light. Office buildings gleamed in the distance, light glinted off the surface of the Hudson River. The sky was perfectly clear and blue, the kind of summer day from which memories were made. Magneto could see much of the city from his perch, could see several of the Sentinels he had positioned to keep watch over the mutant sanctuary, their deep purple armor shining.

Though his dream had always been to improve the world for his fellow mutants, as selfless a goal as any man had pursued, still he felt the swell of pride in his chest. It was not completed yet. There was still so much to do, so many obstacles to overcome, but it had begun. It occurred to him that he would need a name for the place. Manhattan would most definitely not do. His space station was Avalon. Camelot or Shangri-La would be laughably trite. Still, something simple, direct, would be best.

Haven
. He could think of nothing more apropos.

Below, the many citizens of Haven were beginning to gather. The word was going out to the odd groupings that had sprung up around the city that there was to be an address by Magneto. By the emperor. He had wondered what kind of resistance there might be to his leadership. But, according to the Acolytes, other than some humans and, of course, the X-Men, there had been no open opposition. After all, there would be no Haven without Magneto.

Ah, but the X-Men. One of the obstacles he had been considering a moment earlier. Xavier's students were vast in number, and yet only a handful had appeared to oppose the foundation of Haven. Magneto was both puzzled and somewhat alarmed by this. What might Xavier have planned, he wondered. It was possible the small group sent in advance was merely a diversion, to mask a greater, more ingenious attack.

It did not seem likely, given how far Magneto had already progressed with his plans. Xavier would normally have made his move already. But then, Charles had been changing of late, becoming somewhat unpredictable. It made him a more dangerous opponent. Not that Magneto was concerned. Merely curious.

Still, though there were only a handful of X-Men on hand, Magneto had long since learned that even a single follower of Xavier's dream was enough to create serious problems. That was why they needed to be captured and made an example of as expediently as possible. The citizens of Haven needed to have their faith in Magneto bolstered by the realization that Xavier's chosen path could only lead to failure.

First, though, he needed to capture the X-Men.

Magneto breathed deeply of the air, despite the pollution that clogged it. Wind whipped his white hair across his eyes and he felt a bit of a chill, though it promised to be a very warm day. There was much to be done. But he did not feel as though he could move forward until the nuisance of the X-Men was eliminated.

The wind carried a sound to him, then, a chittering noise as though a swarm of locusts was about to descend. It lasted only a moment. Then the gossamer, three-dimensional image of Scanner flickered into existence directly in front of him, suspended in the air many hundreds of feet above the street.

"My lord," Scanner's projected image addressed him, performing a proper reverance with her hands to her forehead, then her lips, and finally her heart.

"Yes, Scanner, what news?" he asked.

"Mixed, I am afraid, lord," she answered. "The team you sent out eliminated Iceman, who appears to be dead. They then confronted the other four X-Men, but were soundly defeated. Inadvertently, the Blob revealed our location. The X-Men are on their way here, and will arrive within minutes. They are, of course, attempting to be inconspicuous in their approach, but we have little time before their attack."

"Excellent," Magneto said happily.

"My lord?" Scanner asked, and the puzzled expression on her face amused Magneto greatly.

"It is almost over, Scanner," he said. "Very soon, we will consolidate our gains, and move forward. And there won't be anybody to stop us."

"I am honored to play whatever small part I may in your grand design, lord," Scanner said proudly.

"Scanner, please ask Voght to gather up Unuscione and the others," he said. "Have those who are badly injured seek immediate attention, and assemble the others in the lobby. The X-Men will have a surprise waiting for them."

Scanner shimmered and disappeared, even as a smile of real pleasure spread across Magneto's features.

"I only wish I could see Xavier's face," he said. Then, for the first time in a long time, Magneto laughed.

• • •

"What the hell are we doing here, Kevin?" Trish Tilby asked, somewhat rhetorically.

Trish had worked with Kevin O'Leary a dozen times, maybe more. He'd always been a pro, no matter what kind of crisis they were trying to cover for the network. But this was another story entirely.

"Well, I don't know, Trish," Kevin said, a caustic tone to his voice. "You tell me. Are we doing our jobs, or just trying to stay alive?"

A little of both, was how Trish wanted to respond. But she figured Kevin was too on edge to be anything less than argumentative, perhaps even hostile, so she kept her thoughts to herself. They were, indeed, doing their jobs. In fact, there was no question that this was the biggest story either of them had ever covered, probably ever would cover. And from the inside, no less.

But that was also part of the problem. Though Trish had always been on the side of the angels where mutants were concerned, as liberal as they came, she had recently begun to wonder if there were not some truth to the argument that mutants, as a race, were dangerous to humanity. Now, with Magneto's latest triumph, she was certain of it.

Certainly mutants were the next step in human evolution, and therefore by their very existence threatened the human race. But it was more than that. In the here and now, mutants were hazardous to the world's health.

It shamed her that she would even consider punishing all mutants for the actions of a few, but the potential for death and destruction was just too high. If Magneto could be defeated, and the world recovered from this incident, there would be a host of politicians calling for mutant work camps, which Trish would find abhorrent. But there would also be calls for the forcible registration and tracking of all mutants, an idea that had been made law and repealed once before. She wasn't sure where she would stand on that issue.

Her uncertainty bothered her deeply. The X-Men, the Beast in particular, had trusted her. Though she and Hank were no longer involved romantically, the change in her philosophy that Magneto's actions had brought about made her feel as though she had betrayed them. Betrayed him. She had been their ally. Trish knew the X-Men were virtuous and necessary, and admired all that they stood for.

But they were constantly protecting humans from other mutants, essentially saving the world from themselves. Which only proved the danger they posed to humanity.