They're not mine, and I don't make a brass cent from them. Sad but true. If

you want to sue me, be forewarned my most valuable possession is my party of

hard-ass adventurers in Icewind Dale! And they're well-armed! ^.~

****

A MATTER OF PRYDE

PART 10

‘TAKING STOCK’

Wincing, Sabrina stretched out a leg to try and loosen the tight, sore

muscles of her calves and thighs. The chains binding her hands and feet made

it hard to sleep in any comfortable position, and her muscles had cramped up

overnight. If she were to escape them, even if only by committing suicide,

she had to be ready to capitalise on any mistake the rebels might make. She

could not afford to be stiff; her reaction-time had to be perfect.

She broke off a chunk of stale bread and chewed absently on it. Before she

could do anything else, she had to get herself out of this cell - a

difficult task in itself. Like the rest of the rebel base, it was part of

the sewers that had once served New York. The stone walls were old, but

there was no way she could break through them with her superstrength

inhibited. There were no openings in them, other than a few, little

airvents, which would have proved tight even for the rats and cockroaches

that ran around the sewers. The only way into and out of the cell was

through the electronic door, and that was only opened when someone came to

see her, either to interrogate her or to bring her food and water. However,

if that were her only chance, she would just have to find a way of taking

it.

Her eyes automatically went to the cupboards set into the wall, showing that

the room doubled as storage space. In at least one of them were medical

supplies - Sabrina remembered that much from the rebbel leader’s visit, when

he had fixed up her bruised and battered face. That meant swabs, hydrogen

peroxide, suture needles, saline solution . . . . Suture needles? Sabrina

smiled thinnly to herself. Bingo, baby.

She had found her means of escape.

***

“Damn that woman! Why is she stubborn?” Remy LeBeau muttered, as he pushed

open the heavy door to the Training Room.

The room was empty, and he raised an eyebrow in surprise. He had thought

Mystique was holding a training session with her team here, and had hurried

across from the holding-cell to check on them. He wanted to see what Pryde

was capable of doing. She claimed to be the alpha supersoldier, the

prototype for a line of cyborgs engineered for fighting, and he wanted to

know exactly what that meant for them. After years of fighting sentinels,

did they have to adapt to fighting a new threat? More importantly, could

they?

Suddenly, he noticed there was fresh blood on the floor, red against the

brown mats, and he wondered with a momentary thrill of fear what had

happened. Had Unuscione’s misgivings about Pryde been right? Had she been a

plant by the Emissary and had she attacked somebody? Then, he shrugged it

off. If it had been serious, someone would have informed him about it. Drake

had probably just got a bloody nose again, and had insisted on being rushed

to sickbay.

“I’ll check up on him later,” he told himself, squaring up to the punching

bag that hung limply from the ceiling, “Meantime, I need some therapy.”

Experimentally, he jabbed at it with a left, followed by a right.

"One two. One two. One two," he muttered under his breath as he punctuated

each number with a blow, "Stubborn, no good femme."

It had been a while since someone had gotten under his skin like Sabrina

had, countering his most cherished beliefs with nothing more than

propaganda. He had hoped he would be able to get through to her and at times

it had seemed like he had almost succeeded, but he had not counted on the

extent of MPF brainwashing. He was not sure that his words would ever be

enough to undo the influence of her years of training. Worse, he was not

sure what he was going to do about her. He could not keep her in a cell

indefinitely, any more than he could release her back onto the streets or

bring himself to kill her. He thumped the punching-bag all the harder.

Then, there was the matter of the Contact. Since Sabrina had tried to

infiltrate the base in his form, he had to be in MPF custody. He was

probably being held in the big, concrete prison on their base for

interrogation, if he had not been executed on arrival. He would ask Mystique

to verify he still lived, and to find a way of breaking him out of the jail.

She had been an MPF soldier before she had defected to the rebellion; she

would be the only one capable of bringing them both back alive.

Finally, there was the problem of Unuscione . . .Feet dancing, he peppered

the punch-bag with a series of right crosses, followed by a left. Her

evident interest in him was unsettling - Remy never was sure whether she

wanted him under her in bed or under her control, although he suspected it

was both. Again, he regretted sleeping with her in the black and hopeless

time after Callisto had been murdered.

He stopped, sweat pouring down his face, his shirt soaking wet. More than

ever, he wished that Callisto were still alive and with him. He needed her

wise advice, her unique brand of common-sense, her direct and brutal

honesty.

"I miss ya, chere," he whispered, turning away from the punching bag.

When his parents had died, when he had only been seventeen and scared, he

had found a new home and a new family with her. They had been best friends,

lovers, comrades-in-arms. He had loved her with all that had been left of

his shattered heart, but the Emissary had taken her away from him as well.

She had been executed in public as a traitor, and buried in an unmarked

grave. It was then that Remy leBeau had learnt how meaningless love was - it

could not protect you or the person for whom you cared.

Tears rose in his eyes and he rubbed them away viciously with the back of

his hand. He needed to stay focussed, especially now when everything had

become critical, especially now that he knew he was beginning to care too

much again . . . .

****

The tunnels were dark and welcoming. Kitty Pryde ran down one of the many

convoluted passageways, not caring where she was going, only that it was

away from the rebel base. Her programming ran too deep, was written into the

very deepest parts of her soul. She could never be free from her past. She

collapsed to the floor, panting with exhaustion, pressing her hot cheeks

against the cool, damp stone. Tears streamed freely down her face from her

one organic eye; her other one, manufactured to the exact design

specifications of Dr. Essex, was dry.

She heard footsteps coming up behind her, and she scrambled back to her

feet. No matter how exhausted she was, she had to keep running. After what

had happened to Drake, she couldn’t let anyone get near her. She couldn’t

trust herself not to attack them, when her actions were not her own to

control.

“Stop, Pryde,” Mystique sounded tired, “You know I can stop you with a

command, but I don’t want to do that.”

Slowly, Pryde turned to face the other woman. Raven was standing a little

way away from her, her arms folded across her chest. Sweat glistened on her

forehead, and darkened her combat fatigues. She was breathing heavily.

“Your programming kicked back in, didn’t it?”

Biting her bottom lip, she nodded her head miserably, “It did. It shouldn’t

have, but it did.”

“Why?” Raven took a step closer to her, “Why shouldn’t it have?”

“There’s a chip in my brain that controls that sort of response. I paid a

backstreet surgeon a ton of money to have it disabled. He said it was too

deeply embedded in my brain for him to remove it without killing me, but he

said he could short it,” her hand went to her head to trace the thin ridge

of scar-tissue beneath her short, spiky hair, “I thought it worked. But I

was damn stupid to believe that I could ever be free from them.”

“Could the chip have repaired itself?”

“Yes . . . yes, it could have! It did!” she exclaimed in sudden horror, “My

systems are self-repairing, but only when I’m seriously injured, and . . . .

Shit, I know when it happened. How could I have been so stupid? My arm fixed

itself when those Sentinels blasted it to slag. My chip must have fixed

itself at the same time.”

Mystique nodded, her face expressionless, “In that case, we need to put it

out of commission again. I think it’s time to introduce you to another

member of the rebellion. His name is Milan . . . .”

*

TBC

*