Sanctuary (30 page)

"Hey, X-Men!" Warren cried back to the cabin. "Hang on, back there! The ride's about to get a whole lot worse!" Turning back to Corsair, he asked, "Can I give you back the stick now?"

"Nope," Corsair responded, punching up some data on the command control display. "You're going to have to pilot us until we're into blue skies,Warren. The only way we're going to be able to do this is if I turn the VTOL retros on and off and on and off in sequence, timed perfectly, otherwise we'll be tom apart for sure."

Archangel was silent.

"Can I count on you, 'Angel?" Corsair asked. "Come on, now. We're going to die here!"

"Do it," Warren said.

"Hang on," Corsair whispered, and flipped a toggle switch on the console.

Archangel shouted in agony as his head whipped forward once again, this time with much more force. He felt the harness cutting into his flesh and all the air rushed from his body. The hull of the
Starjammer
shrieked with the pressure and for a moment he pictured it simply shattering to pieces and all of its passengers being blown out into space.

Corsair was so far forward in Ch'od's harness that he was nearly pinned to the console. He flipped the toggle switch again and they were slammed back into their seats so hard that Archangel felt his wings embed themselves in the soft leathery material.

"Again!" Corsair shouted, and turned on the retros.

They were all thrown forward once more as the ship fought its own momentum. But this time wasn't quite as traumatic. Half a dozen times Corsair fired the retros, and each time the ship slowed even more.

"Life support systems at 70 percent, heat shields suffering only 46 percent capacity," Archangel happily reported. "Corsair, I think you did it. I think we're going to be okay."

"Huh," Corsair grunted in response. "Hepzibah did it, saved us all, and she doesn't even know it."

"We're all right!" Warren shouted, and he could hear the others cheering in the cabin.

Then the
Starjammer
broke through a layer of clouds into blue sky.

The X-Men were home.

"W
hat about that deli?" Lamarre asked.

Gabriela rolled her eyes.

"What's the matter with you, Lamarre?" she asked. "Most of the stuff in there is fresh, or already cooked. What's it gonna last, a few days maybe? Let somebody else worry about tonight's dinner, we're looking for non-perishables, long-term stuff. Cans, boxes, frozen foods if we can get that damn cooler working. What we don't need is sushi and Caesar salad!"

"Hey Gabi, just chill okay? We're all doing the best we can under the circumstances," Michael said, and the entire hunting party fell into silence.

Magneto had ordered humans to either bow to the new order or evacuate the city. For Gabriela Frigerio and her brother Michael, neither option had been acceptable. So they had created a third. They had stuffed what they could of their vital belongings and some food from the kitchenette in Michael's apartment, and gone underground. Via the subway, they had descended into a new world where they could set up a resistance to Magneto's rule.

It wasn't long before they realized that they weren't the only humans either brave or foolish enough to flout the will of the new "emperor." A short Puerto Rican man they all called Miguelito had become their de facto leader. He and Lamarre had been two of the first people Gabi and Michael had run into. Though their instincts told them to run, Gabriela had insisted they work together. That was the only way they had a chance of making any real stand against the mutant onslaught.

There were well over one hundred of them now. They'd split up into groups and gone above ground to gather what supplies they could find. Now was the best time, before the new regime was firmly entrenched, before the humans who had stayed had the courage enough to return to their businesses. Gabriela wasn't comfortable with looting, but at least they were looting for a reason, unlike the anarchist idiots they had already seen too much of.

It was a gorgeous day, by Manhattan standards, but its beauty was marred not only by the sudden outbreak of genetic war, but by the smashed shop windows, the burning buildings, and the shattered glass, garbage, abandoned cars, and abandoned lives that littered the streets.

Gabriela's group consisted of herself, her brother Michael, Lamarre, and a recently married couple named Steve and Joyce, who mostly kept to themselves. They'd been sent on a food run, maybe the most important job they'd ever undertake. Gabi wasn't about to let them screw it up.

"Look," she said. "There's a little market a few blocks from here. Let's hit that, then if we get the cooler working, we'll come back topside and hit a steak house or something, take all the frozen meat back. How's that sound?"

Everyone seemed to agree that was a sound plan, even Lamarre, whom Gabriela had taken an instant dislike to when they had first met. He seemed to want to turn everything into a military exercise out of one bad movie or another. The man had obviously watched way too much cable in his life. He had a couch potato body, which was too bad because Gabi thought he had a handsome face. He was no Denzel, but then, who was?

"Hey, Gabi, check this out," Michael said, overexcited about something, as usual. He was a handsome guy, her brother. Auburn hair and hazel eyes, chiseled features. And he was her twin. Strange thing was, though she was happy to think of him as handsome, she would never allow that she herself was equally attractive. "Poor self image," he'd always tell her. She'd retort that it was easy to see how her esteem had dropped so low when the only man who ever told her she was pretty with any amount of sincerity was her brother.

He never had an answer for that, except "Move out of Manhattan." As if you couldn't have a real life or real relationship in the city. Maybe he'd been right. But it looked like it was going to be too late to find out.

"What is it?" she asked, her attitude tempered by her obvious fondness for her brother.

"It's a guy," Michael said. "Hurt. Maybe dead."

Gabriela picked up her pace, and the others did so as well. They reached the spot where Michael stood, and on the other side of a badly banged up Cutlass, they saw him.

He was young, that's the first thing that Gabriela noticed. Not a kid, but young just the same. Early twenties at most. Maybe younger, maybe younger than she was even. He had brown hair, and through the smear of blood on his cheek and forehead, she thought he might actually be pretty good looking.

And he sure wasn't dead. Gabi had noticed right away that his chest was rising and falling, that he was breathing. It was just like Michael to overdramatize. But then, in their current situation, Gabriela had to wonder if it was possible to be too dramatic.

The guy lay on the ground in a large pool of water. In fact, the whole street seemed dotted with puddles and, in the distance, she thought she could see some kind of ice sculpture. He wore a very tight fitting uniform of light and dark blue, and she couldn't help but notice what good physical condition he was in. Beyond that, she wondered what the uniform meant, if it was some military thing, if he was part of a team sent in to reclaim the island for America.

"What's he wearing?" she asked.

"Some kind of uniform," Joyce said, and she was surprised that the other woman in their group had spoken at all.

"I can see that," Gabi responded, somewhat testily. "But what is it?"

"You're all fools," Lamarre said, pushing past them to stand by the injured man. "You don't recognize that insignia?"

He pointed at the unconscious man's belt, where a black 'X' on a field of red was affixed. Then Lamarre did something that astonished Gabi. He pulled a pistol from a holster under his arm and aimed the gun at the injured man's head.

"Lamarre, what the hell do you think you're doing?" she asked.

Lamarre looked at her, then back at the man on the pavement, and Gabriela thought he was deciding whether to explain himself before shooting the poor man. Finally, Lamarre looked up again.

"He's a mutie," Lamarre sneered. "One of the X-Men. That's what that thing on his belt stands for, X-Men."

Lamarre knelt and touched his hand to the puddle of water around the prone man, and pulled his fingers back quickly.

"It's gotta be near on ninety," Lamarre said, standing up again. "That water's cold still. This has gotta be Iceman."

He smiled at her, and Gabriela felt a chill in her bones.

"We finally bagged one," Lamarre said with perverse glee. "One of Magneto's mutie crew. An' I'd say it's time to ice the Iceman."

He pointed the pistol at Iceman's face. Part of Gabriela wanted to turn away, to hide from the violence, from the reality that had reared up around them. But another part of her knew that the only solution, the only way to survive in that new world, was to act. She stepped forward and batted Lamarre's hand away.

"Girl, what the hell you think you ..." he started, but she got up in his face, waving a finger at him.

"No killing!" she said. "I mean that, Lamarre. That's not what we're here for. If it's us or them, fine, but this guy needs help .more than we do right now. You want to leave him here, fine, but we don't kill him. We've got no way of knowing if he's who you say or not, nothing but your opinion. And I'm not going to be accomplice to some murder just because you've seen
Red Dawn
one too many times."

"You're starting to get on my nerves," Lamarre said in a low, angry voice.

"Good, then we're even," Gabi snapped, unwilling to be frightened off. "Now, let's take a vote on what to do with your Iceman, here. Killing isn't an option. Then do we leave him or bring him back and let Miguelito decide what's to be done."

"Let's bring him back to Miguelito," Lamarre said happily. "He's only going to tell me to kill the mutie anyway."

"I think we should leave him," Steve said. "If he's a mutant, all we'll be doing is bringing them right into our headquarters. It's suicide."

"There are a hundred of us, Steve," Joyce said. "And what if he's really injured? He could die because of us. I don't want to live like that."

"I agree," Michael said. "Let's take him back to the tunnels."

"Do it then," Gabi said. "Who gets to carry him?"

"I'll take him," Michael said. "He doesn't look too heavy."

And, apparently, he was not. Michael, who tipped the scales at more than two hundred twenty pounds and was over six feet tall, lifted the smaller man, mutant, whatever he was, over his shoulder with relative ease.

"Steve, Joyce, you two hit that market and then rendezvous with us," Gabriela said. "We'll see what's to be done about this Iceman character."

"I hope you know what you're doing," Lamarre said disparagingly as she fell into step with her brother.

"Yeah," she agreed. "Me too."

• • •

It was already mid-morning, and despite the psychic barriers he had placed in his own mind, Charles Xavier could not shut out the overwhelming sense of imminent catastrophe that enveloped all of Exchange Place. Whatever was going to happen, the gathered civilians, media, and military all believed it would happen today. There was an all-encompassing feeling of dread, as if the thousands of people crowded into the area were collectively holding their breath.

It might have been calm before the storm, Xavier thought grimly, but the sky became awfully dark. All of which was little more than metaphor. The sun was beating hot upon the pavement and the people, its heat only slightly diminished by the light breeze off the Hudson River. It should have been a glorious day, but it was devoid of pleasure.

He had been interviewed by news organizations he never knew existed, by everyone and anyone with a camera and a microphone, and he had issued the same call for rational behavior, the same message of peace, each time. Frankly, he was becoming tired of being a spin doctor. And simply tired. It had been too long since Charles Xavier had rested. But his X-Men had not had any more sleep than he. Nor had Valerie Cooper. And so he went on. They all went on.

Xavier sensed Cooper's approach a moment before she reached him, and turned to face her. He could see from the grim set of her jaw and the coldness of her eyes that she brought more bad news.

"What is it now, Val?" he asked, exasperated. "Are we officially at war yet?"

Cooper tilted her head to one side, regarding him with a surprised look.

"You don't sound like yourself, Charles," Val said. "You're ruining the image I have of you as eternal optimist."

Xavier offered a slight smile in appreciation, and nodded his head.

"You know, Val, that's one of the biggest misconceptions about me," he said. ''I'm actually a terrible pessimist. I don't believe that humans and mutants are such good souls that they can live in harmony simply because it is the best way to live. That just isn't reality. I dream of a world where humans and mutants live in harmony, that much is true. But I know that if it happens, it will be because the alternative is so terrifying that we have no other real choice."

Cooper was visibly stunned. Xavier understood her reaction. He was rarely so verbose without cause, and even more infrequently so bitter. But he found it difficult not to become bitter with the gleaming Sentinel just over his shoulder as an illustration of how close they already were to losing the dream. And maybe he had lied a bit. Maybe a part of him believed in the innate goodness of people, believed that peace could arise for its own sake. Even if that were true, a greater part of him had begun to grow cynical.