|
Prologue
~~~~~~~~
"I
can't believe you haven't assigned anyone to this case file before now.
This is serious business."
"What
makes you think that we haven't?"
An
October evening, clear and brittle with the promise of snow.
Two
men stand on the steps of the Smithsonian, speaking in hushed voices as
tourists eddy past. It seems an oddly public place for to discuss such a
dangerous subject, but then again, who has time or the urge to eavesdrop
when the world-famous museum closes in an hour? A pair of stereotypical
"Men In Black" might have drawn curious stares, but somber
gentlemen in sensible grey suits are not an uncommon sight in Washington
DC.
The
taller of the two, an older man with iron-grey hair, finishes his
unhurried inspection of a sheaf of photos and hands them back.
"These
are new, aren't they." His tone is a statement, not a question.
A
flicker of unease shadows the younger man's expression for a moment.
"Uh,
yes, Mr. Carlton. Three days ago. A mostly-mutant commune down in
Tennessee." The photos, with their stark black-and-white imagery of
absolute carnage, disappear into an envelope which in turn almost
magically vanishes into an inner pocket. "It's not on as grand a
scale as the mid-Eighties massacre under New York, and one of the major
telltales is absent--"
"The
clawmarks."
"--uh,
yessir. But as you can see by the other indicators--"
"They're
back." The older man, Carlton, chews thoughtfully at his lip for a
moment. The wind now carries a chilly edge as the sun sinks into an
orange haze on the horizon. A scattering of Boy Scouts tear past up the
stone steps, ruffling the back of his overcoat. "I was under the
impression that they'd been...retired. Perhaps moved abroad. What with
their master's new 'pets.'"
The
younger man snorts in contempt. "Oh, right. The so-called 'Nasty
Boys'? Obviously a complete failure."
"I
know that," his contact replies with the first trace of impatience
in his voice. "Which is why your department should already have
been preparing for this! It's patently obvious that eventually these
monsters would be brought back in circulation. Despite their many
shortcomings, you must admit that they are certainly--" his lip
curls slightly in distaste "--efficient."
Carlton
pulls his coat tight against the encroaching night and turns away. To
the younger man's surprise he walks not away from the museum but towards
it. "Consider my people on the case. To borrow a worn-out cliche,
'we'll be in touch.'" He pauses and glances back over his shoulder,
down at his bemused contact, his expression unreadable in the gathering
twilight. "And I would suggest that you keep this information well
above X-Factor's clearance level. Our mutant allies tend to become, let
us say, 'unreasonable' when the Marauders are involved."
No
Way Up
A
tale of fire, frying pans, warped mirrors,
burned bridges, and shades of grey
Part One
Sometimes
I think I'm gonna drown
Cause everyone around's so hollow
I'm alone
Sometimes I think I'm going down
But no one makes a sound
They follow
And I'm alone
Yeah if I make it I'd be amazed
Just to find tomorrow
And if I make it I'm still alone
No more hope for better days
But if I could change
Then I'd really be amazed...
-- Amazed by the Offspring
>From
Review #184030-1282, circa January 1995, classified deep-black:
Interviewer:
So, tell us a little more about your relationship with the others.
Subject
184030: Again? Well, what about it?
Interviewer:
You didn't get along, did you?
Subject
184030: Oh yeah sure, sometimes we got along great. When we were out on
missions, on the trail, we were a TEAM. Team with a capital
"T," right? We knew what we were all doing, and we all knew
our place. It was the biggest rush in the world -- doing what we did
best, cleaning up the world a bit at a time. Maybe some of us never made
it through the mission or couldn't rack up the kills like the "big
guns," but as long as we did our bit in the beginning that was
okay. It was all part of the game. It was only afterwards, or between...
Interviewer:
(makes a inquisitive prompting gesture)
Subject
184030: (sighs) That was when it got...uncomfortable. Downright nasty,
even. Some of us got it rough for...well, for not being as
"macho" out on the job, I guess.
Interviewer:
You?
Subject
184030: (snorts derisively) What do YOU think?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
<Iceland...wolves..."the
wonders of electronics"...> She flicked through the worn
magazine, occasionally pausing to run her fingers down a tattered page.
The paper was still glossy, although the glue was disintegrating with
age; she had to be careful to hold it just so, the spine cupped in one
palm, to keep it from slithering apart.
She
dallied at one particularly beautiful photo, a two-page spread of green
valleys and misty peaks. She never could quite believe this one. That
much green, a rainbow placed just so...it couldn't be real. No place
like that could exist. No. It was a fake. It had to be. It made her want
to throw the magazine across the room, to scream and stamp her feet in
frustration. Yet she always paused on that page anyway, to run one
hesitant finger along one forested ridge and down the waterfall...
"Jesus
Christ, Vee, aren't you sick of that ratty ol' thing? Gimme here."
A hand fell heavily over her shoulder, grasping at her prize. She
reacted almost instinctively: a feral growl escaped her clenched teeth
as she pulled the magazine close to her belly -- "Leave me
ALONE!" -- and lashed out without moving a muscle. She glanced over
her shoulder just in time to see her tormentor reel back drunkenly, trip
over a broken chair, and crash into an ignomious heap.
When
the woman clawed back up onto her feet, she was seething with rage.
"How dare you...on ME...I'll..."
"Oh,
for cryin' out loud, give it a rest, wouldja?" The tired male voice
boomed out from the other side of the ruined room, where the rest of the
gang were involved in something which vaguely resembled poker.
"Leave her alone. There's nuttin' wrong with her tryin' ta get some
education."
"What's
wrong with readin' Hustler like the rest of us?" someone else
joshed. A chuckle ran around the table.
The
first speaker, a huge brutish mountain of a man wearing nothing more
than pants and metal bracers, grinned but didn't take his eyes off of
the situation brewing on the other side of the room. Momentarily
forgotten, a battered fan of cards crumpled in his huge hand.
"Damn, what's wrong with you? PMS again? Let it go already, Arc.
We're supposed ta be staying quiet."
The
woman hesitated. If it had been anyone else telling her to back off, she
would have probably told them to go do something anatomically impossible
involving a whifflebat and a live badger. However, the guy in question
was the only person in the room capable of actually folding her up like
a dishrag if he felt like it...
Therefore,
instead, for a long moment she exchanged a murderous glance with her
other female teammate, each sizing the other up: the young predator
curled protectively around her prized magazine, glaring up through a
curtain of particolored hair, her teeth bared in an unconscious snarl;
the Amazon towering over her with clenched fists, nails digging into her
palms...
The
moment stretched, wavered, and then passed. The tension collapsed as the
taller woman took one step back, favored her twisted ankle. "Didn't
think you were the type to hold with 'book-learnin',' Blockbuster,"
she taunted instead, turning back to the makeshift poker game.
The
behemoth shrugged neutrally. "It ain't my thing, naw, but I got no
problem with some'un else wantin' ta learn stuff."
"'Sides,
the gal's gotta be useful in more than one way, right?" one of the
others commented, a broad-shouldered man with a drooping moustache and a
malicious twinkle in his eye. He cocked his thumb at their teammate, who
was angrily attempting to ignore him in favor of her magazine.
"Seeing as she only ever lasts what, ten seconds in a fight? May as
well paint a bullseye on her forehead. 'Yo, X-Men! Here I am! Knock me
out, quick! Don't worry, I'm too rock-stupid to even THINK about
dodging!'"
A
coarse guffaw rippled around the table. Furious, Vertigo scrambled to
her feet and stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind her.
The blood pounding in her ears masked the next snide comment, but the
next burst of laughter rose loud and clear right through the thin wall.
She leaned back against the cool plaster and sucked in one deep breath
after another, forcibly regaining control over her temper.
Something
crinkled in her hand. She glanced down and swore softly, bitterly, under
her breath. In the course of her sweeping exit, all of the pages had
silently sifted right out of the ancient National Geographic. All she
had left was the cover.
She
pressed the back of her free hand against her forehead, eyes closed.
"GodDAMN it," she muttered. "GoddamndamnDAMN it!"
<Why do I put up with it? Why the HELL do I put up with it? The
ratbastard pack of jackals! One week it's all buddy-buddy, the next it's
like...like...>
Her
hand tightened on the empty cover, crushing the spine beyond repair. Her
eyes snapped open and she raised it to eye-level, frowning.
<It's
like that pack of wolves in the magazine,> she realized. <And I'm
the...what was it? The 'omega,' whatever that means. Yeah. The wolf
stuck at the fucking bottom. And now alla the sudden Arclight 'n'
Scalphunter think they're the alphas.>
She
felt a grin tugging at her lips at the pun which suddenly presented
itself. <Well, I always said that she was a royal bitch.>
There
was a tap-tap-tap on the door behind her, right next to her ear. She
pushed herself off of the warped wood and turned, backing away, fists
and teeth clenched. A moment later the door creaked open and a
slab-cheeked face peered out at her from somewhere near the ceiling.
"Hey there."
Vertigo
grunted wordlessly and turned away, folding her arms over her chest. She
heard the door close and the boards underfoot creaked ominously.
Something rustled by her shoulder -- she glanced over involuntarily. A
ragged sheaf of magazine pages. She caught herself reaching for them and
jerked her hand back, stuffing it under her other arm, turning her back.
"Don't need 'em."
"I
know. But you want 'em."
She
picked a stain on the far wall and scowled at it. "NO, I DON'T. Not
any more. They're ruined. It's ruined. It's just a stupid magazine
anyway. I can get another one."
"It's
the principle of the the thing, though, huh?" Blockbuster's
biggravelly voice was remarkably quiet, for once. Some of the dumb-hick
slurring he'd been putting on for laughs was gone; the slight German
accent he'd picked up as a young merc in Europe was more noticible.
She
whirled on him, lashing out at the nearest target. "What do you
care? Who put you up to this? I don't need your sympathy! Fuck off!
Leave me alone! I'll -- look, it's nothing. Nothing at all. The usual.
Who cares."
He
said nothing. The silence dragged out and began to unnerve her. To fill
the dead air, she started pacing and grumbling. "What the hell are
we doing in Paris anyway? What are we HERE for?"
"That's
not our business," Blockbuster rumbled. "So long as HE needs
us to kill sumthin' for him, that's good enough."
"Yeah
sure. 'Good enough.'" She stopped and poked him in the chest with
one finger. "We just settle for whatever he throws our way, don't
we? Isn't...isn't there anything else?"
"Hey,
what more do we need?" Then he squinted sharply down at her.
"Are you okay? Hold on, you ain't gettin' second thoughts, are
you?"
"No...!
Don't be ridiculous." She sighed heavily, suddenly dead serious.
"I'm just...I'm bored, okay? What else IS there, Mike? I
mean...there's more out there, right?"
Blockbuster
was taken aback. He studied his teammate carefully from his vantage
point about a foot above her unruly green-and-silver head. "Whaddya
mean? I don't get--"
"You
have a name. You had a family...well, parents at least. You WERE someone
else. Before Sinister. You remember...other things," she said
intensely.
"Uh?
A little. I guess." He shrugged, suddenly uneasy with the turn the
conversation was taking. He'd gotten out of the habit of thinking,
period. To suddenly be confronted with these questions from Vertigo, the
team's "know-nothing airhead"... "Vee, what's gotten into
you?"
She
retreated a step, her expression suddenly guarded. She turned away to
face the far wall again. "Nothing, I guess. Maybe I'm just homesick
or something. I dunno. Never mind."
Blockbuster
thought for a moment and then patted her carefully on the shoulder --
"carefully" in his case meaning "not quite enough to
knock her flat on her face." "Homesick, huh?" he asked
her with exaggerated cheerfulness. "No worries. We'll be back in
N'York within the week. Um...y'mind if I get back to the game now?"
he added rather lamely.
"Go
ahead," she replied, her tone wooden. Her hands had crept up to
clasp her elbows. Blockbuster hesitated, but this really wasn't his
forte. He gave her shoulder a clumsy squeeze and beat a retreat back
into the abandoned apartment...back to uncomplicated company, to crude
conversation that made sense.
"Homesick,
yeah," she murmured as the door creaked shut behind him. "But
not for New York."
*
* *
As
shadows fell over Paris with the passing of the sun, eight moreshadows
set forth like loosed hounds, ghosting through the alleys and back
lanes, casting about for their quarry. The sole reason that they'd been
brought overseas. The mutant who drew her power from death itself and
yet insisted upon pretending that she was just a poor sweet innocent
little victim. The woman who fancied herself too good and pure to dirty
her delicate little brown hands by associating with her fellow
"employees." The deserter...the traitor.
If
they found her, Threnody was going to learn a valuable lesson: once one
served Sinister, it was until death.
In
some cases, beyond.
Scalphunter
took the lead as always, directing the search with only the slightest of
gestures, his face creased by a deep frown. Though he had never
"officially" been elected leader of the Marauders, he was
nonetheless the undisputed boss in the field. As far as the others could
tell, he had no discernable mutant abilities...but his keen mind and the
fact that he could shoot out the eye of a sparrow at a hundred feet more
than made up for his lack of "flash."
By
unspoken agreement, Arclight followed close in Scalphunter's tracks like
a tall powerful silver-clad second self. Frankly, her new attachment to
their erstwhile leader helped to keep her temper somewhat in check.
Useful when the woman in question tended to punch out walls when she got
pissed off -- which, lately, was far too often.
Harpoon
and Riptide were the second unofficial team-within-a-
team for different reasons, and had been for some time. Oddly, the
silent Inuit hunter seemed to enjoy the company of the oftimes-mad human
tornado. Harpoon was quite welcome to him -- Riptide's bouts of rambling
blustering psychotic nigh-manic "cheerfulness" had a tendency
to get on the nerves. Just a week before, Blockbuster had given him a
concussion out of sheer irritation. And, come to think of it, the week
before that too.
Speaking
of Blockbuster, the behemoth currently stalked alone, away from his
comrades, ambling through broader streets without giving a damn who saw
him. He had an irritating tendency to "get lost" and show up
hours later smelling like beer and peanuts, but it was damn hard to
force a living tank to stay in line. Ah well. As long as he showed up
when it counted -- and he always did -- his teammates weren't going to
complain too much.
Scrambler
had recently acquired the same irksome habit of vanishing on
patrol...except that when HE disappeared, he returned smelling of far
more interesting things than food and alcohol. In fact, this time the
young Korean lothario had blatantly disappeared within a minute of
leaving the lair. They were in Paris, the so-called "City Of
Love"...so no one really expected him back until at least the next
afternoon. Or maybe the next afternoon after that. Scalphunter looked
ominously dark behind his drooping mustache, and Arclight had quite
clearly announced her intentions to thrash their errant teammate the
moment he stepped back over the lair's threshold.
Usually
Vertigo shadowed the team leader (leaders?), eagerly waiting for an
order to turn her disorienting power on a target. This time, however,
she'd felt the distinct chill from Arclight and had reluctantly fallen
back, taking to the other side of the street. She felt a little at loose
ends; she wasn't very good at making her own decisions in a fight. She'd
been drilled over and over, by master after master after master: Do As
You're Told. How would she know what to do if they did indeed locate
Threnody?
She
compromised by staying within sight of Scalphunter as he swept the
street with a handheld scanner, searching for any biological trace of
their little truant. She hoped that they would succeed in their search,
even though they all knew perfectly well that until Sinister narrowed
down the range they were looking for a needle in a haystack. It was just
good to be out and doing SOMETHING. She wasn't a killer, not per se --
she didn't have the strength or the training -- but she always took
great delight in making the kill easier for her teammates. In doing what
they wanted her to do and doing it well.
<Threnody
isn't very tough, she's not a real threat,> Vertigo thought
wistfully. Maybe this time she'd have a chance to assure the team's
victory without getting knocked out of the fray within the first few
minutes. Maybe this time she could do her master proud. She hated it
when she disappointed him. It seemed like she always disappointed him...
A
footstep cracked a dry leaf behind her and she glanced back, startled.
The familiar glitter of crystal reassured her that there was no threat;
she automatically returned her full attention to the field leader,
absently skirting a telephone pole.
"Hey,
Vee. Mind if I stick with you for the mo'?"
She
looked back again at her teammate, more startled than before. She'd
assumed that they'd crossed paths by coincidence and that he'd be gone a
moment later. No such luck; he was definitely dogging her footsteps.
<Strange...what could he possibly want?> "Uh, sure."
Prism
fell into step beside her, his glass body gleaming dully under the
streetlights. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the moon
reflected rainbow over and over again through his crystalline facets --
facets that could focus a flashlight into a killing laser. Facets that
could absorb ambient light and instantly flash-blind an entire room full
of enemies.
Facets
which were almost one hundred percent likely to get shattered into a
million fragments within a minute of battle.
Prism
was therefore the most-killed Marauder, if her count was correct, and he
always seemed a little...strange to her, because of it. Unreal. She
couldn't remember the last time he'd actually spoken to her.
His
sudden attention was throwing her a bit off-balance, and thus she
couldn't properly keep visual track of Scalphunter. One moment he was
there; the next he was gone, vanished into an alley while Arclight
ranged ahead. She paused and frowned, trying to see what was up, trying
to see if she was needed. Prism continued on for three more paces before
he circled back to her. "Something up?"
"I
don't kn--" Scalphunter emerged from the shadows and set off after
Arclight, his easy pace almost leonine over the pavement. "Mmm. No,
I suppose not." She eyed Prism. "Is there something you want?
Or did you just want to laugh at me some more? I heard you in there at
the poker game today, you know. Cackling like a hyena." She almost
spat the words as she set off again, not waiting for him
Was
it her imagination or had his expression shifted guiltily? With Prism,
simply because of what he was, it was hard to tell. The lanky man of
glass caught up with her a moment later. "Look, Vee--" his
voice dropped to a confidential murmur "--I wanted to say I'm
sorry, okay? It was either you or me. I'd rather they not be laughing at
me, y'know?"
She
drew in her breath to reply but then remembered that time last week when
Riptide had made some disparaging remarks about their amazingly
breakable comrade. Yes -- she'd giggled right along. She sighed. Well,
it HAD been funny at the time. "What's with the apology all of the
sudden?" she asked, still hostile. Changing the subject. "And
stop calling me 'Vee.' We're NOT friends."
"I'd
like to be."
That
stopped her dead in her tracks. She turned and stared at him,
open-mouthed. "What--?! I don't get it."
This
time she was sure of it: Prism looked distinctly anxious. "Vertigo,
c'mon. Can't you sense it? We're both odd men out. Odd man-and-woman
out, whatever. If something should happen, if it should happen
again..."
"Like
what? What are you getting at?"
"You
don't know?"
"No.
I don't."
He
sighed, starlight glinting through his clear faceted features. This was
the most she'd ever heard the strange mutant say at one time, and the
first time she'd ever seen such strange emotions in his face. Fear,
nervousness...even a touch of drawn weariness. Though she couldn't
imagine why.
"I
didn't want to say this but I have to," he said quietly but
intensely. "Listen. We have to stick together. The others don't
care about us, they're safe, but you and I...we have to look out for
each other. Because if we don't, we'll be the first ones to go."
A
chill ran down Vertigo's spine at his low, husky, obsessive words. Words
which were utter nonsense and gibberish as far as she could tell.
<Go? Go where?> She stepped back, and then back again. "Damn,
man, you're as crazy as Riptide."
"No,
no, I swear I'm not! Just think about it--"
Her
predicament was mercifully solved by a commotion ahead, across the
street. As she turned, she caught a faint burst of whistles.
Scalphunter's signal. No sign of their assigned prey, the pattern told
her, but he'd caught the trail of another mutant. Probably just a
runaway or a vagabond, judging by the part of town they were in. But
enough to provide a momentary diversion. If there was one thing the
Marauders enjoyed to the last man (or woman), it was taking the
occasional side-trip to clear out the genetrash. Only the strong would
survive. They'd proudly borne that credo since well before the
re-emergence of that upstart elitist Apocalypse, and no matter what
Sinister's orders it was the Marauders' mutual opinion that there was
always time for a little sport on the side.
<Only
the strong will survive...>
Something
about that clicked hazily with what Prism had said, but by the time
Vertigo turned back to him he was already loping across the street and
into Scalphunter's alley. She shrugged and set the thought aside and
followed, idly wondering who'd take the points for this diversionary
kill and not really caring one way or the other.
By
the time she got there it was too late anyhow.
Booted
feet planted in the pool of blood on either side of the pitifully small
body of the murdered mutant, Scalphunter waited until the entire team
assembled -- with the exception, of course, of Scrambler. The team
leader scowled but said evenly, "We're pulling in early for the
evening, folks. Just got word from the bossman than there's a lead
across town, but not a solid one. We'll have us a mission when he can
confirm the sighting. In the meantime...sorry folks, but we've gotta
report in for a brain-drain."
Riptide
groaned and kicked petulantly at a moldy blood-stained newspaper, but
the rest of the assassins merely rolled their eyes in bored acceptance
and faded back onto the streets in half-a-dozen different directions.
After
all, there were many paths leading to the heart of Sinister's web.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
>From
Review #184030-1282, circa January 1995, classified deep-black:
Interviewer:
Now this term you used in the last session: "brain-drain"...?
Subject
184030: Oh, that. I can't remember what Sinister called it. Some long
words strung together, something he did with those machines of his. We
did it every month or so, or right before a dangerous mission. It kept
the copies of our memories on-file pretty much up-to-date for the next
time we needed to be cloned, that's all that mattered.
Interviewer:
You sound reluctant to talk about it.
Subject
184030: I...can't we talk about something else?
Interviewer:
What about Sinister?
Subject
184030: (silence)
Interviewer:
How did you feel about him?
Subject
184030: ... Afraid.
Interviewer:
Why?
Subject
184030: Have you ever met him?
Interviewer:
Of course not.
Subject
184030: Then I can't explain it. He's...Sinister, okay?!
Interviewer:
Now, now, there's no need to get so upset.
Subject
184030: That's what YOU think.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
<There're
only two things I hate worse than this,> Vertigo thought abstractly
as the helmet settled over her head. <Three things, if you count
Arclight. Four, if you count...>
She
bit her lip. <Okay, so there's LOTS of things I hate. Let's just say
that I hate THIS and leave it at that.>
She
wriggled her shoulders back against the tilted stainless steel, but in
vain -- it was ice-cold and not likely to get any warmer, seeing as this
would only take about five minutes. As always. Five minutes of...of...
Well, she could never quite remember. The conscious mind was effectively
taken offline for the duration of the procedure. But she knew that
whatever it felt like, it always left her feeling like her brain had
been turned inside out. The others had no problems with the process, but
it left her dizzy and sick and retching.
The
word "ironic" came to mind.
Vertigo
looked up as HE swept by close enough to tickle her ankles with the
trailing edge of that ridiculous "cloak" he insisted on
wearing. <Ridiculous...?> Part of her cringed in horror that she'd
even dared think such an irreverent thought about HIM. He terrified her.
He'd always terrified her. Something about the way he spoke, every word
exact and icily final; the unhurried, regal manner in which he moved.
Sinister, the undisputed commander of killers who at first glance could
easily take him apart at the seams. Looks were deceptive.
Most
frightening of all, or so Vertigo firmly believed, was the way the man
always appeared to know exactly what was going on. The way he always
seemed to have calmly taken steps to be far, far ahead of anything that
could possibly happen... It was foolish of her, perhaps, because she
knew that he was far too judicious a man to waste his time in idly
tormenting his servants, but she always felt as if his post-mission
interrogations were merely a formality, a test of his pets' accuracy and
loyalty -- that he knew exactly what they were going to say before they
said it. That he could see right through her, directly into her doubts
and fears...
She
closed her eyes and tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry. When
she looked up again He was right there before her, too close, adjusting
the electrode at her brow, His sheet-white face furrowed in absent
concentration. He didn't seem to even be looking right at her -- a
blessing, perhaps. She hated being the focus of His attention...and
seeing as she was always one of the few Marauders to consistently return
alive from their more dangerous excursions, she'd had quite enough of
His cross-examinations to last a lifetime, thank you very much.
This
time, the Marauders' master hadn't bothered with a word of greeting or a
comment beyond a cursory complaint that they were two days late for the
monthly processing. <Good timing for us, actually,> she thought
wryly. <If Scalphunter wasn't so paranoid about 'losing more
experience than he has to,' we'd probably never show up for this at all.
Memory. Who needs it anyway? Nothing ever changes.>
Still,
though, it made life easier. Marauders didn't have a very promising life
expectancy rate. To maintain his little strikeforce and to remove the
fear of death which would have kept them from giving their all, Sinister
was often compelled to clone and reclone his
more..."accident-prone"...assassins. And for clones to be of
any use, why, they HAD to have the memories of their predecessors to
function properly, right? Right. And thus the frequent
"touch-up" sessions here, under the encephalosiphon. Adding
the latest mental "news" to the electronic caches of memory
and experience stored along with the vials of raw genetic material which
would someday become new Arclights, new Prisms, new Riptides.
New
Vertigos.
She
shivered slightly. Unlike the others, she didn't really relish the idea
of...
Unannounced,
the helmet crackled into life around her temples. Glaring white washed
across the insides of her eyelids, cutting her off in mid-thou
*
* *
Vertigo
never dreamed.
But
sometimes, as her mind was combed for information at the heart of
Sinister's web, sometimes she dreamed dreams that she would not remember
when she later awoke ill and miserable.
She
was not a very creative person, this she knew. When it came right down
to it, even she had to shamefully admit to herself that she simply did
not have the imagination to do more than follow orders. Therefore, these
"dreams" were not flights of fantasy; rather, they were chains
of vivid images roused from the depths of her mind by the merciless
mental probing, like thick mud stirred into clear water.
She
almost couldn't help it. The mere physical fact that she was strapped to
a tilted table, helpless and unhappy, a device humming about her ears,
her head pounding and her stomach wrenched into knots, connected
directly to the deepest core of her being.
Because
her first conscious memory was exactly the same...
END
OF CHAPTER
NEXT:
Come see what the comics don't show: the aftermath of a Marauder
mission. Ever wonder what it's like to come back from the dead? It's
standard operating procedure for these guys...well, for most of them...
No
Way Up
A
tale of fire, frying pans, warped mirrors,
burned bridges, and shades of grey
Part Two
Doesn't
matter what you see
Or intuit what you read
You can do it your own way...
If it's done just how I say
-- Eye Of The Beholder by Metallica
>From
Review #184030-1282, circa January 1995, classified deep-black:
Interviewer:
What did "death" mean to a Marauder
Subject
184030: Inconvenience. A loss of memory, 'cuz you'd only remember up to
your last brain-drain of course. A bad mark in the game.
Interviewer:
Game?
Subject
184030: I've already told you about that. Ask something new.
Interviewer:
All right then. How did YOU feel about it?
Subject
184030: Me? I don't know. It never happened to me.
Interviewer:
Never, Vertigo...?
Subject
184030: Oh, for crying out loud...no, NEVER! And for the last goddamn
time, don't call me by that name ever again!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Sight
returned in a lifting fog. She blinked slowly, stupidly, and only then
realized that her eyes had actually been open for some time. The world
had a murky, greenish cast to it, and she felt...well,
"strange" was an understatement. She seemed to be upright but
she could feel no weight on the soles of her feet, no pressure at her
back. Her scalp felt odd -- "light," almost -- and although
her arms were crooked at the elbows her hands hung weightless like a
kangaroo's paws, disenclined to obey gravity. There was a pressure
around her mouth and nose, but when she sluggishly tried to reach up and
touch it, her wrists encountered resistance. Yielding but
abrasive...loose canvas tethers, perhaps?
The
aborted movement sent a silvery cloud of hair swirling lazily forward to
hover, undulating, about her cheeks. And it was then, as she stared
incomprehendingly at this second flagrant dismissal of the law of
gravity, that it came to her.
Liquid.
She
was floating in a tank.
<Then
that means...oh, no. No.>
She
blinked but then something burned her opening eyes. Air! Distracted, she
hastily squeezed her eyes shut once more as the clear greenish goop sank
past her nose, past her chin, and continued to drop, draining away with
a soupy gurgle. Her weight increased as the liquid disappeared,
depositing her feet onto a coarse steel mesh. She staggered before she
managed to lock her wobbling knees into place. Thankfully, the air was
almost the same exact temperature as the fluid.
The
loose wrist straps were easy to shake off now that she had a better
sense of what was going on. And now that she had weight once more, she
found that there was indeed something strange about her face... Almost
without thinking, she reached up with both hands -- en route, her
knuckles banged painfully into glass. She hastily pulled them in closer
to her body and felt her way up a ribbed tube to the rubber-and-glass
contraption attached to her face. A breathing mask. It peeled off easily
once she found the catch under her chin. The moment she was free, she
drew a deep breath -- the thick, organic scent of the draining gel
promptly assaulted her nostrils and she gagged, wrinkling her nose in
distaste.
Vertigo
almost leapt into the air as something tugged sharply between her thighs
but then it was gone, too, slithering away through the mesh beneath her.
A catheter, she realized with a grimace. With one hand she scraped the
sodden hair from her face and tried to see, but the air still stung her
eyes after the soothing nutrient fluid. Therefore, she was forced to
simply stand, quiet and blind, as the glass tube emptied and then
retracted, rotating, into the groove around her feet.
Now
she could hear sounds: grunts, the plop-splat of wet feet striking
concrete, a shouted greeting, the meaty slap of a high-five, a rumbling
chuckle. Scalphunter and Harpoon were already deep into their
traditional heated betting match over who "took more of the
bastards down with 'em."
She
scrubbed repeatedly at her eyes until she could finally pry them open,
and she let out a low whistle as she looked about the lab. Almost the
entire motley crew was there, fresh out of the tubes. The only ones she
couldn't spot were Riptide and Prism.
<Just
about the entire team got taken down! Christ! I wish I could
remember...>
That
line of reason brought her mind slamming back down to the first coherent
thought that had crossed it after she'd woken up...the thought she'd
shied away from.
<If
I'm here...that means that *I died too.*>
She
found herself breathing in short pants, almost subconsciously shaking
her head in denial. With a burst of sheer will she forced herself to
stop. Only now did she notice the small details: the wrinkled skin at
her fingertips, the fact that her knuckles felt too tight as she
spasmodically clenched her hands. Her feet still smarted from the few
seconds she'd spent standing on the steel mesh; the cold of the concrete
floor was rapidly seeping through her soles into a bone-deep chill. This
body was new, fresh...artificial. No calluses. No creases. No scars.
Almost
in a panic, she sought back, trying to remember, but no matter how hard
she tried the last thing she could recall was the brain-drain: the
helmet and the lab. For a dizzy moment she thought that perhaps she'd
blocked out some terrible trauma...but then the truth became obvious. Of
COURSE that was the last thing she'd remember.
Her
mind was now the sum of what had been stored in Sinister's databanks.
The memory of anything which had happened after that final recording
session -- <how long? hours? days? weeks? months?!> -- was now
gone forever.
<Dead...someone
killed me...I DIED...>
<Dammit,
stop being such a CHILD! This is S.O.P. for a Marauder!>
But
the fact remained that alone of the Marauders, she'd never been
"killed" before. Knocked unconscious, half-drowned, concussed,
shot, blasted, singed, yes, but killed...? No... Wait. There HAD just
been that one time, way back right after she'd entered Sinister's
service...yes, of course. The Morlock hunt -- that time down in the
tunnels under New York when she'd been too young, too blindly obedient,
too "new" to really understand what had happened to her...
"They
got you too, huh honey?" Scrambler clapped her on the arm with a
wet smack, incidentally shattering her chain of thought, and favored her
with that lopsided grin of his. Thanks to the regenerative goo, the
handsome young Korean's normally "fashionably ruffled" haircut
was slicked close to his skull with the exception of one rooster-like
cowlick.
At
this oddly ludicrious sight, Vertigo couldn't help grinning back. She
briefly wondered if Arclight had ever caught him for that threatened
beating or if it still lay ahead in his future. She shook her head to
clear it of the lingering sluggishness and rediscovered how to use her
vocal cords. "Um...yeah. Yeah, I guess so. D'you know what happened
to us?"
He
gave her a condescending look which made her ears burn. "Duh! Naaah,
no more than you do. I guess the survivor'll fill us in." He jerked
his chin to her left; she glanced over and only then spotted Riptide
lounging against a door on the far wall. He was wearing battered civvies
rather than his "business" bodysuit; his haphazard lavender
hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and there was a definite smugness
to his half-smile.
Vertigo
knew that look; she'd worn it herself. He and several of the others kept
an ongoing tally of who'd survived the most missions.
Vertigo
had of course never been invited to join the contest -- either because
she wasn't really part of the cameraderie or because she would have won
by a huge margin, she wasn't sure which -- but she could hardly NOT know
the current score. This point in Riptide's favor would cancel out the
time Colossus had broken his neck down in the Morlock tunnels, putting
him once again even with Scalphunter ...and knocking Arclight out of the
tie.
Arclight.
As
Scrambler ambled off, Vertigo snapped her gaze back across the room.
Sure enough, Arclight was drawing her metal bodysuit back on with a
thunderous expression, refusing to look at or speak to her teammates.
She took matters of pride seriously. Absolutely seriously.
<After
all, it's not like she has any other hobbies,> Vertigo thought
snidely. She cast around until she found something resembling a towel
and began to rub the drying gel out of her hair and off of her skin,
still a little mentally off-balance. Still trying to see how she felt
about the fact that this wasn't her body. That this wasn't technically
HER. She'd practically forgotten the first time Sinister had been forced
to clone her anew, because at the time she hadn't truly comprehended
what had occurred.
This
time, however, it was a staggering thought.
Almost
masochistically, she probed for her feelings on the subject the way a
child pokes at the socket of a missing tooth. The initial stab of
irrational emotion had already died down. She felt a little numb.
<Should
that bother me? Should I care that I don't care as much as I should?>
she wondered as she absently fished an over-sized T-shirt out of the
nearest equipment locker and tugged it over her head.
Now THAT hurt. She hadn't allowed herself that thought for a long time
now...
She
shook herself out of that mental rut and stepped back just in time to
avoid being run down by Blockbuster and Scalphunter. Most of the rest of
the team had already congregated by the laboratory door, exchanging
taunts and gibes with Riptide. The "survivor," as Scrambler
had casually dubbed him, was heartily enjoying himself at the expense of
his teammates.
"Pity
I couldn't bring her in," he was now cheerfully informing
Scalphunter, "but hell, when someone's in that many pieces..."
"You're
saying that she took us ALL out? HER?! You've got to be kidding."
"Hey
hey, you're the ones who came home in doggie bags. Not me. Like I
said--"
"I
don't believe a word of it."
Arclight's
voice cut right through the macho chatter like a sluice of ice water.
Vertigo faded back as the tall woman stalked past, her muscles
tiger-lithe under her liquid-metal bodysuit, her gaze focused upon her
"lucky" teammate. The others gave ground, almost instinctively
leaving a clear space around Riptide. Their eyes glittered with
anticipation as they looked from one opponent to the other.
<Like
wolves again,> Vertigo reflected absently as she cautiously brought
up the rear, skirting around Arclight at a good two yards distance to
find a sidelong vantage point. <This could get interesting.>
Riptide
stood his ground, his stance light and easy on the balls of his feet,
his manic smile unwavering under Arclight's level glare. "Look, I
wasn't THERE for most of the fight -- we split up. She took the rest of
you guys out, I dunno how, but Sinister's gonna be PISSED. I mean, we're
talking about Threnody here! The chick wasn't exactly firing on all
cylinders, and she's no fighter..."
Arclight
merely eyed him as she would regard a cockroach. "And--?"
He
hesitated. "Well...it gets a bit murky there. Confused, like. With
Prism out of commish and the tunnels dark -- I had to take her down.
Hard." He slashed the air with his hands, grinning bloodthirstily.
"Chopped to bits."
Arclight
smiled. It wasn't a pretty smile. "And," she pointed out
softly but clearly, "you neglected to bring any of those 'pieces'
back as proof? If nothing else, you know that HE would have wanted the
genetic material for the banks."
Riptide
reddened. He pushed himself off of the wall and advanced a threatening
step, fists at his sides. "Are you accusing me of--"
"The
reason he didn't bring back any pieces," a cool satin voice cut
through, "is because oddly enough, there weren't any."
Vertigo
went cold. She gulped and edged aside. Her master stood towering behind
her, arms folded loosely over his armored chest. His face was utterly
devoid of expression but for the sardonic lift of one eyebrow.
To
his credit, Riptide held his ground. "S-sir, I told you the
truth--"
"I
know you did, Janos. I know you did. Unfortunately, it was an
over-simplified truth shot full of gaping holes that a child could see
through." Sinister's gaze did not waver from the unfortunate
Marauder.
"I
have conducted certain -- investigations -- through a confidential
Parisien contact, and I have come to the conclusion that our little
escapee received assistance in the form of another mutant. It would be
my assumption that whoever this person was, he or she has psionically
tampered with Riptide's mind, submerging the true memories of what
happened under Paris that evening."
His
piercing gaze now lifted to travel unhurriedly from Marauder to
Marauder. All of the assassins were forced to drop their eyes except for
Arclight, who practically blazed with pride as she met her master's
scrutiny head-on. Sinister paused but then smiled ever-so-slightly and
nodded to her -- the only praise he would bestow upon her for her flash
of cleverness. He then returned his attention to Riptide, pinning the
man like a bug with a single sharp look.
"Whoever
Threnody's rescuer may be," he continued with glacial aplomb,
"they are admirably thorough. It is likely that the only reason you
were allowed to live, Janos Quested, was to bear this false message to
me...to fool me into believing that Threnody is dead. To throw me off of
her scent, so to speak. I am insulted that our mystery psi believed me
so foolish as to fall for such a sloppy memory patch. I will, however,
require you to remain here in order to suitably extract the truth. It
may be...messy."
Riptide
was now pale and shaking, though with anger or fear Vertigo couldn't
tell.
Still
thoughtfully holding the "surviving" Marauder trapped with a
gimlet look, Sinister gestured dismissively to the man's teammates.
"The
rest of you are free to return to your 'lair' for the time being, as I
believe that I may have further need for you in this affair."
"What
about Prism?" Scalphunter spoke up, his voice a rasp of coarse
sandpaper after Sinister's cultured elocution. "If Rip was the only
survivor, then where's..."
Sinister
cut him off with a slight but sharp gesture. "Prism has proven one
too many times to be utterly useless in combat. He will not be rejoining
the team at any point in the foreseeable future. I'm afraid that if you
wish to have light on your underground strikes, you will have to carry
flashlights."
The
master geneticist sounded amused at his own rare flash of dry wit, but
only for a moment. He was dead serious once more as he added coldly,
"I will no longer tolerate dead wood. See that you all
remain...useful. Dismissed."
Sinister's
masked threat was addressed to the entire team, but a sudden rush of
fear twisted painfully in Vertigo's stomach. Suddenly Prism's paranoid
gibberish that other night out on the streets of Paris clicked into
perfect focus.
She
could swear that Sinister was now speaking solely to her.
END OF CHAPTER
NEXT:
Does Vertigo have the guts to make the biggest decision of her obedient
little life? What could possibly push her to that edge? And does she
really think that she'll get away with it...?
No
Way Up
A
tale of fire, frying pans, warped mirrors,
burned bridges, and shades of grey
Part
Three
I
need to wash myself again to hide all the dirt and pain
I'd be scared that there's nothing underneath
And who are my real friends?....
Am I sinking this low?
-- The Bends, Radiohead
>From
Review #184030-1282, circa January 1995, classified deep-black:
Interviewer:
You say that this idea never occurred to you before?
Subject
184030: No.
Interviewer:
But you didn't get along with your teammates, and Sinister scared you --
you missed your homeland and you weren't happy. Why didn't you ever
just...leave?
Subject
184030: Look. You don't understand, you CAN'T understand. It just plain
wasn't possible for me to think like that. It's like...like a kid who
gets beaten by their parents and bullied by their big brothers. Just a
little kid. They might have vague fantasies about running away, but to
really, seriously DO it? No way. Now me...I'd never even HEARD that
there was such a thing as "running away." I didn't know that
there was anything better. I'd never watched TV, never read a newspaper.
Hell, what was there to run away TO...? I didn't even have a childhood.
All I ever knew was my master, my teammates, and my orders. First
Brainchild, then Sinister. And now you. I had nothing else. I WAS
nothing else. Anyhow, it wasn't a living hell or anything, just
uncomfortable at times. The idea of leaving the team didn't even cross
my mind until you guys first suggested it.
Interviewer:
Would you go back now?
Subject
184030: I can't. And you know it.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
That
night, for the first time in what passed for her "life," she
woke up screaming.
Actually,
by the time the shriek was only halfway across her tongue Vertigo was
already bolt upright and wide-awake. She clapped both hands over her
mouth, biting the sound down to a short yelp, but the damage was done --
in the dim morning half-light the apartment came silently alive in a
bristle of weapons and muscle.
For
a moment she hoped that no one would have noticed that she--
Two
low, clear words in the darkness. "Vertigo, report."
<Shit.
No such luck.> Wide-eyed and flushed with embarrassment, she managed
to force her hands back to her sides and pasted a battle-ready
expression across her face. "Thought I heard something on the floor
below," she lied gruffly back as she slipped out of her nest of
mismatched blankets. There was a brief flurry of activity -- one of the
shadows scoped out the window and another checked the hall. Nothing, of
course.
"Could
be a bum, maybe a cat," Scrambler murmured, stifling a yawn. He
seemed quite unconcerned, not even bothering to throw off the sleeping
bag he'd burrowed under. "Maybe even just a board settling. C'mon,
guys, it's too early for this."
Vertigo
could almost feel the temperature in the room drop a few degrees as
Arclight and Scalphunter focused twin glares on their less-military
teammate. Harpoon was already out the door, presumably to check below.
Hoping for something to kill. Vertigo momentarily wished that Scrambler
had been right, because really, finding something to kill WOULD have put
the whole group in a more amiable mood.
"No
one was on watch. We didn't even SET one." Scalphunter sounded
distinctly disgusted with himself. "We, ladies and gentlemen, are
getting soft. Ript--Blockbuster, you're it."
The
huge shadow on the sofa shifted indignantly. "Hey--! You're the one
who wants a lookout, shouldn't YOU--"
"Can
it, Baer. I'm not in the mood." Scalphunter was now up and fully
dressed, oblivious to the bite of the pre-dawn chill. Across the room
metal glinted -- Arclight was silently finishing her own suit-up, as if
sharing his unspoken plan. They'd been doing that more and more often
lately, acting in wordless tandem, a team within the team. It
was...unnerving. "When Harpoon gets back, you can pass the buck to
him if you like. I don't care, just so long as one'a you sorry carcasses
stays awake at all times.
"And
before you can ask the next stupid question that's about to cross your
lips, yeah, I'm heading out for a few hours. Just plain 'out,' walking,
checking the perimeter. I'm not in the mood to go back to sleep after
this...but damned if I'm going to sit here cleaning my guns for the
millionth time and listening to Sung snore. GodDAMN, I need to find a
hobby. Stay put."
Without
a backward glance he stalked out of the room. Arclight was gone on his
heels a moment later.
Vertigo
released a lungful of air and gratefully rolled back over into her
bedding. She'd gone to sleep battle-ready, as she always did when
Sinister ordered them to stay on alert status; unfortunately, her
striped-and-swirled leotard wasn't much help against the cold which
seeped into the ruined building from all sides.
True
to Scalphunter's prediction, Kim "Scrambler" Sung was already
once again blissfully rumbling away from somewhere within his woolen
cocoon. For a lanky guy, he had a HELL of a rattle. Vertigo scowled and
curled up on her side. Between that racket and the dream...
"Dream."
A dream? But she didn't...
<I've
never seen anything in my sleep like that before. I'm not sick and I'm
not hallucinating. Therefore, it MUST have been a dream. Huh!
"Nightmare" is more like it.> Her heart was still uneasily
fluttering against her ribs.
She
stared blankly at an inside fold of blanket, half trying to recall the
details and half trying to shove them from her mind. The curious side
won out. Only moments later, she regretted it. A low moan rose in her
throat and she closed her eyes, hugging her knees to her chest. She
hadn't been dreaming, not in the strictest of senses. No, she'd
been...remembering. The writhing light streaming through her eyelids,
her joints twisting and warping, her spine realigning with a creak and a
pop that she could hear even over the sound of her own screams -- and
overlaying it all, driving those screams down into a tearing silence in
the back of her throat, the blinding molten sheeting agony as her skull
and her brain itself e-x-p-a-n-d-e-d...
"...don't
want to remember don't remember don't remember don't don't
don't..." Vertigo caught herself whispering aloud like a mantra,
rocking with her knees crushed painfully against her breasts. With a
gasp she released her deathgrip from around her shins and just about bit
her tongue off to shut herself up. Luckily, she'd been almost voiceless
in her moment of weakness...and Scrambler was, if possible, snoring even
louder than before. Incredible.
Suddenly
angry at herself for her lapse, Vertigo quietly slid out of the
blankets. Shivering in the grey light which was now streaming in through
the broken window, she rooted through the mess until she found a
servicable pair of sweatpants and a jacket two sizes too big for her.
Good enough.
"Whatchup to?"
Blockbuster.
She shrugged expressively, not turning to look at him. "I don't
know. Maybe Scalphunter had the right idea. A walk sounds like a good
idea." She hesitated, glancing out the window. The sun was almost
up. "Maybe it'd be nice to see Paris in the daytime. Aboveground.
Like...like a tourist or something."
"Vee..."
"I
mean, I-I could put my hair under the hood of this jacket, and it's not
as if I'd be the weirdest thing out there on the streets, and I'd be
back in an hour or so, really..."
"Vee!
C'mon! You don't have to get so defensive!"
"Um.
Sorry."
"Sheesh!
It's not like I'm gonna stop ya or anything. It's just not like you, to
wanna go wanderin' around a strange city. Especially when ya dunno when
The Big Guy's gonna want us on our toes."
"I
won't go far," she promised. However, she only had one leg stuck
awkwardly into the pants when the door banged open. Scalphunter and
Arclight were inside an instant later, trailed closely by Harpoon. The
Inuit looked sullen. The other two simply looked pointedly neutral.
"Up
on your feet, guys," Arclight snapped. She dug a toe under
Scrambler and kicked up hard enough to throw him sprawling from his warm
"nest." The young man rolled onto the hard wood floor with a
string of dire threats, but as he shook himself fully awake and realized
who he was up against he quickly shut up and hurried to obey.
Blockbuster
and Vertigo exchanged a glance. Blockbuster shrugged and looked away,
clearing his throat. "Hmm. Sounds like ya talked to the boss.
What's the word?"
"The
trail's gone cold and he is MAJOR-pissed. We're heading back to the
'States. In tubes." Scalphunter grinned sadistically. "And oh
yeah, I almost forgot," he drawled. "I hear there's going to
be more thinning in the ranks, if you know what I mean." His gaze
flicked impartially over the entire motley crew, but Arclight looked
straight at Vertigo and flashed her a quick cruel smile.
Vertigo
gulped, her stomach suddenly icing over again. The irrational little
fear which had gnawed at her for so long had just become a certainty.
And
right on the heels of this sudden cold knowledge a single brand-new
thought chattered through her mind. A monstrous, impossible, ridiculous,
unthinkable, unacceptable, traitorous, yet completely unavoidable
thought.
<I've
got to get out.>
*
* *
INTERLUDE:
"So
that's how it was. Hmm." Sinister resisted the urge to thoughtfully
tap his pen against his teeth, a bad habit he'd only acquired over the
course of the last few decades. He briefly considered the messy remains
of Riptide and decided that clean-up could come later.
He'd
been right to move quickly, using technology and intuition instead of
simply interrogating the unfortunate Marauder. Whoever had buried the
psychic implant in Riptide's mind had set it to literally explode if the
man gave even the slightest thought to the true events under the streets
of Paris the night before -- the night when almost the entire team had
been mysteriously decimated. Supposedly by Threnody. Sinister hadn't
believed the flimsy cover story for a moment, and he'd been right;
someone had tampered with Riptide's mind, planting false information to
throw the assassins and their master off of the renegade's tracks.
Unfortunately,
Sinister had had barely begun to pry out the truth before Riptide, never
known for his sparkling intelligence, had been unable to resist trying
to "see" the flashes of buried memory his master was
painstakingly extracting...
The
master geneticist brushed an overlooked chip of bone from his labcoat.
[Come on, supervillain or not, would YOU wear armor in a laboratory?
.-=K=-.]
He
regarded the mess smeared all down the previously white coat and then
shrugged and removed the coat entirely, dumping it into the incinerator
and consigning the broken-skulled body to the flames a moment later. A
new Riptide drifted mindlessly in a tube on the other side of the lab,
ready to be decanted, but Sinister wasn't really in the mood to deal
with him right now. It disturbed him that Threnody was still on the
loose, and with so powerful an ally -- for certainly this was a cover-up
to mask the fact that she had survived.
More
to the point, he was concerned about the fact that he had no idea who
had come to her assistance. The few flashes of true images that he'd
pried from the late Marauder's brain had been inconclusive.
Her rescuer was male, young, and wearing a bulky jacket, a terribly
sketchy description to begin with. Almost soon as the stranger had
entered the tunnels the team had started to self-destruct, starting with
Scrambler's foolhardy attempt to mess with the boy's powers.
Scalphunter's
artillery had gone haywire, destroying himself and several other
Marauders...and then Riptide himself had been seized by some sort of
external control, whipping into a deadly hail of shuriken which had
brutally cut down both of his female teammates.
That
last retrieved memory had been the most vivid, as if there was a genuine
emotion woven through it -- <Guilt? I didn't know Janos had that in
him,> Sinister mused idly as he meticulously washed his hands clean
of any remaining blood and brain matter -- but the others had been a
jumbled patchwork blurred by darkness and sloshing sewage. No clear
images of their enemy's face. Useless. No way to tell if the boy had
been a telekinetic, a magnetic, a mind-alterer, a reality-manipulator,
or something even more exotic.
In
addition to being a crude but powerful psi, apparently.
Sinister
shook his head. He felt no anger or disappointment in the Marauders'
poor performance, for they'd obviously been up against an unknown
alpha-level mutant whom even he himself would have found difficult to
subdue. What DID disappoint him was the fact that, once again, his
chosen assassins had shown absolutely no capacity for teamwork under
pressure. When the heat was on, they tended to panic and strike out at
their foes as individuals, almost taking turns, with no thought to how
they could combine forces to survive and perhaps actually succeed. They
were brute force, a blunt weapon. Not Sinister's style at all. Whatever
had possessed him to put together this unruly, haphazard pack of feral
dogs in the first place? What had inspired him to reclone them after
their first crushing defeat down in the Morlock Tunnels under Manhattan?
<The
same hidden streak of sloppiness that allowed me to hire the Nasty Boys,
apparently,> he chided himself, wincing at the memory. Sometimes he
became so caught up in his intricate long-term plans that perhaps, he
was forced to admit, just perhaps his short-term arrangements such as
assassination, acquisition, and security became a little...hasty.
For
a moment he briefly considered disbanding the Marauders completely. Let
their next mission be their last. Let them cut loose on the X-Men for
their final hurrah, as they'd long been champing at the bit to do so.
Close down the tubes, toss out the samples, and jump up and down on the
bubble-memory chips. It was tempting, all right.
But
very, very wasteful.
And
it there was one thing Nathaniel Essex was most certainly not, it was
wasteful.
Moving
across the lab to a computer terminal, Sinister called up a composite
file on his pet assassins and glanced through it perfunctorily, this
time not bothering to stop himself from picking up the nearest pen and
tapping it against one razor-sharp canine. He was too stubborn to let
the project go down the drain so easily. Perhaps he was looking at it
the wrong way. Culling Prism had seemed rash at the time, almost a
childish flash of temper, but in retrospect it was a good start.
"Perhaps...yes,"
he murmured aloud, pausing one screen and reading it again, more slowly.
<With an adjustment here and a complete restructuring there, the
right training here here and there...yes, it could work.>
<And
it's not as if I have anything else to do besides conducting dozens of
genetic tests, keeping my two-century planner on track, beginning some
serious research into Legacy, and perfecting ...her,> he thought
dryly, half-turning to regard the second tube next to Riptide's.
The
tube which held something which had merely been an idle project before,
but now looked as if it would fit perfectly into his new plan.
<Yes,
I do think this will work out after all.>
END
INTERLUDE
*
* *
She'd
done it a hundred times, it seemed. They all had. The
"uniforms" and equipment stowed away in a compartment under
the tube; the bodies went in the tubes themselves. The tube slid shut,
the wires and catheters snaked into place, the sedative feed activated,
and the lights went out until they were needed again. Actually, Vertigo
really didn't mind it at all, especially when Sinister used the method
to smuggle them overseas. She hated airline food, and she always got
seasick. Chalk up another mark in the "irony" column.
This
time, though, she was scared to death. This time, she was positive that
she would never wake up. And in the clarity of that fear she'd come up
with a plan. It wasn't a great plan, but it was the best option she had
if she wanted to get a headstart on her teammates...because they'd be
sent after her, certain as the sun rising.
No
one left the Marauders. No one.
She
waited until the tube closed, until the crate cut off the light.
Sinister
was wasting no time shipping his assassins home -- even as the breathing
mask dropped into place and the tubes began to coil around her wrists,
the entire contraption swayed underfoot and then tilted sharply back,
swinging her in the canvas harness and banging her into the glass. It
was cold against her bare skin and she winced.
A
sharp prick at her wrist alerted her as her distraction almost ruined
her plan. She nearly bit her tongue as she fumbled in the dark for the
IV, yanking it out of her vein before the sedative could pump into her
system. Then she tried to relax, counting the seconds. She had no idea
what to expect. That sting of the needle was usually the last thing that
registered before she woke up lying on an uncomfortable examination
couch with a new mission briefing echoing in her ears...
Vertigo
glanced down at a gurgling sound, and moaned as something swirled warm
and wet around her feet. The preserving gel. Of course.
By
the time the crate was set upright again long minutes later, the liquid
was up to her knees. By the time she decided that enough time had passed
for her to safely make her move, it was rising around her thighs. An
ominous numbness was creeping up her legs along with the gel.
<Anesthetic? Oh NO! Don't want to spend the whole trip conscious but
paralyzed. Can't go back now. It's now or never...>
With new determination, she reached up and shoved at the metal cap just
above her head. At first it wouldn't budge and she almost panicked, but
then she remembered how the glass had spiralled slightly as it rose into
place. She twisted her entire body, almost wrenching her back, trying to
unscrew the "lid" of the tube. To her relief it popped free
and fell to the side, taking the breathing mask and a tangle of
electrodes with it--
There
was a tremendous jerk and suddenly she was choking! The mask! It was
anchored to the cap of the tube by a mass of wiring! She clawed
frantically at the catch under her chin and freed herself, cursing her
stupidity and rubbing her wrenched neck as the cap clunked to the bottom
of the crate outside the tube.
The
anesthetic gel was lapping around her waist now and her knees felt like
water. She hurriedly pulled herself up in the harness, and managed to
jam one bare foot into the strap which had previously run between her
thighs. Straightening up on that one wobbly leg, she promptly bumped
into the plastic ceiling of the shipping crate. There wasn't enough
clearance to climb out of the tube, and when she heaved her shoulders up
at the crate it didn't budge an inch.
<Of
course. Like it WOULDN'T be securely fastened. Shit.>
She
leaned her chin on her folded arms on the edge of the tube and brooded
for a moment as the gel begun to rise above her ankles again. Then, with
a sigh, she did the only thing she could do.
She
began to bang methodically on the inside of the crate with one fist.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
END
OF CHAPTER
NEXT:
If you want to know who lets her out -- and what happens to them! --
come back for Part Four! Meanwhile, the government is closing in. All
they need is one little slip on the Marauders' part...and just who do
you think is on the verge of making the biggest "slip" of her
life?
No
Way Up
A
tale of fire, frying pans, warped mirrors,
burned bridges, and shades of grey
Part Four
"'Is
there any crime you haven't committed, Master Platime?' Ehlana asked
sternly.
"'Barratry, I think, your Majesty. Of course, I'm not sure what it
means, so I can't be entirely positive."
-- The Sapphire Rose by David Eddings
"The Doctor grinned. He reached out and touched Benny's nose. 'What
would I do without you?"
"'Get lonely,' Benny smiled back. 'And fail terribly.'"
-- Doctor Who: No Future by Paul Cornell
In
a small, crowded dark room somewhere in Virginia:
"Phillipa Sontag." The tip of the slender metal pointer tapped
the projection screen, on the picture of a woman in military fatigues
and a severe haircut. The next slide which snapped into place showed the
same woman, this time clad in shining metal and a sadistic smile.
"Now goes by the name 'Arclight.' One of our own failures, I'm
sorry to say. The details of her service to the United States are
classified, but everything else you need to know is included in your
briefing file."
The slide clicked over again. "Scalphunter. We know absolutely
nothing about this man, but he's a tactical genius and a crack shot,
possibly the most dangerous of the lot. He seems to be the brains of the
outfit, so make it a priority to take him out first if at all
possible."
Click. "Michael Baer. 'Blockbuster.' Mostly muscle. We do have
patchy records on his early terrorist career in West Germany -- he was
the only survivor of that 'Fists of Victory' debacle -- but he's an
American citizen."
Click. "Kim Sung. 'Scrambler.' No threat to human operatives unless
he's actually bothered to pick up some fighting moves."
Click. "On the other hand is Janos Quested, 'Riptide,' who is
arguably one of the most lethal of the Marauders. We have nothing on
these two men aside from their names and abilities. We're still tracking
leads."
Click. "The other three, Vertigo, Harpoon, and Prism, do not appear
to exist in any database we've been able to reference so far. It is
possible they're clones or genetic creations of some sort, but we can't
rule out any possibilities yet. Of the three, Harpoon has the craftiest
mind and is the one to watch out for. Vertigo is a non-combatant, and
Prism is notedly overconfident and can usually be picked off
early."
Click. Click. "There's a high probability that we no longer have
Malice or Sabretooth to contend with, but their files are included just
in case."
The humming slide projector died, leaving the room strangely quiet
except for the shift and murmur of human bodies. The man with the
pointer -- the same stone-calm grey-haired man who'd collected their
first solid lead not two days before on the weathered steps of the
Smithsonian in Washington DC -- turned to face his strike team in the
near darkness, his arms folded across his chest. Special Agent Carlton
was not a violent man, nor an irrational one; quite unlike the
stereotype of the modern government man, there was not a single
anti-mutant bone in his body. But if there was one thing that heated his
calm, rational blood, it was the name "Marauder." He'd been
dogging the trail of these brutal, bullying murderers for far too
long...
When it came to his "interest" in the elusive pack of
assassins that some said didn't even exist, even Carlton grudgingly used
the word "vendetta."
"That concludes the mission outline," he said crisply.
"You all have two hours to acquaint yourselves with the full
Marauder dossier.
"Everything you have heard in this room and everything you have
been assigned to read is classified red as per orders under the
Wideawake II Protocols. Lethal force is fully authorized should these
orders be activated...and trust me, people, I don't think you'll have
very long to wait this time.
"Dismissed."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
>From Review #184030-1282, circa January 1995, classified deep-black:
Subject 184030: I always felt different, you know.
Interviewer: Mmmm?
Subject 184030: Well, THEY had pasts, some of them at least.
Blockbuster, Arclight, Scalp, 'Poon...even Riptide, I think, though I
could quite never tell when he was serious and when he was ranting.
Anyhow, they didn't talk about it much but I knew that
they...remembered. Families, growing up, owning stuff other than weapons
and clothes, that kind of thing. Blockbuster...he'd tell me bits and
pieces sometimes. Just when he was bored, really, and they weren't
always very good stories, but I didn't mind listening. Oh sure, he had
his moments -- he'd get paranoid-mean sometimes, or start throwing
full-bore punches over some stupid insult, didn't care too much who or
what he hit, either -- but usually he wasn't too bad of a teammate.
Sinister actually trusted him more than some of the others, I think.
Interviewer: And why was that?
Subject 184030: Because he wasn't smart or anything, but he did exactly
what he was told. He didn't think too much, know what I mean? The others
all thought that Sinister liked Scalphunter the best, and maybe he did,
but when Sinister needed something simple done right, without questions
or creative thinking, it was always Mike. No one else noticed, but I
did.
Interviewer: Mike?
Subject 184030: <sigh> You know. Blockbuster.
Interviewer: You say that this "Mike" was the closest thing
you had to a friend. That he looked after you.
Subject 184030: Yeah right! "Felt sorry for me" is more like
it. It wasn't all the time, just sometimes, when he felt like it. But
when I really, really needed a hand, he was usually there. S'funny, now
that I think about it. Maybe he had a kid sister I reminded him of or
something. Maybe I pulled a thorn outta his paw at some point and didn't
know it. Maybe he just secretly wanted into my leotard. Who knows?
Interviewer: So you got along, at least.
Subject 184030: Hey, you're digging again. What's so interesting about
the fact that we "got along"?
Interviewer: <ahem!> Well, if you must know, none of this fits
with our psychological profile of Michael Baer. As far as we can tell,
the man is nothing but a brutal, slow-witted, cold-blooded killer.
Subject 184030: Of course he is. So what?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Vertigo's raised arm was getting numb, her hand felt like one great
bruise from pounding, the air was getting stale, and the gel had
levelled out at the top of the tube (and around her waist) when
something clunked against the side of the crate. She almost lost her
balance but grabbed the side of the tube and grimly hung on for dear
life as someone began to unclasp the catches on the outside.
Her heart was already somewhere down around her toes. She'd had plenty
of time to think, hunched over in the darkness, and her plan was looking
worse and worse by the minute. She'd be lucky if just one cargo handler
had come to investigate. More likely whoever had heard her had promptly
called in his supervisor. There could be a dozen dockhands out there
right now, more than she could ever hope to handle on her own...and of
course once they'd found her there'd be questions and investigations,
and they'd certainly want to pop open the other crates...
<Okay. Take deep breaths and focus. Whoever it is, you'll have to
knock 'em out FAST,> she told herself firmly. <Not that it'll do
much good. If I leave him alive, he'll talk; if I kill him, he won't go
missing for long, then they'll REALLY come after me. And of course it's
probably more than one anyway. Dammit...>
The plastic creaked and light flooded into the crate, along with a blast
of cold salty wind which instantly raised goosebumps all over her body.
Without thinking a moment longer, she squeezed her eyes shut against the
glare and slammed outward with her power. She heard a startled squawk;
the box rocked abruptly and there was a meaty thud outside. As quickly
as she could, she shoved the lid aside and pulled herself over the side
of the crate.
Unfortunately, her intention of a running escape was dashed when her
feet hit the deck. Her gel-numbed legs promptly folded up under her like
a marionette's wooden limbs and she landed hard on her butt -- right on
top of the downed dockworker. Who, by the sound of his groan, was
recovering rapidly from the pulse of disorientation. Snarling silently,
she summoned up the strength for another attack--
A wide hand closed around her wrist. "Vertigo! Vertigo, kid, cut it
out! For cryin' out loud, it's me!"
She blinked and paused at the familiar gravelly voice. "B-
Blockbuster...?"
"Yeah, that's the one." He pushed her off of his stomach and
clambered to his feet, pulling her up with him. "Geez, what
happened? The sedative not kick in or somethin'?"
"Uh...sorta...I...what are YOU doing here?!" Only now did it
register: her massive teammate was dressed in an equally huge but
surprisingly well-tailored jumpsuit, dull yellow with orange tabs and
emblazoned with bright symbols across the breast pocket and sleeve. The
metal bracers glinting dully from under his unbuttoned cuffs were all
that remained of his usual haphazard "killing" attire.
The second thing, which registered a bare half-second later as her
adrenaline rush faded away, was the fact that there was a salty,
nigh-frigid wind blowing. This did NOT agree with the fact that she was
nude and half-soaked.
Completely accustomed to seeing his teammates in that condition,
Blockbuster had other things on his mind. "Hold on, let's get you
out of sight before one of the regular guys comes around to check out
the commotion." He handed her a dirty towel (which she quickly
tried to wrap around herself), replaced and reclamped the great plastic
lid, and then ushered her past a row of crates identical to her own. All
were lashed securely into place with bright red labels on all sides.
Labels she couldn't read, of course.
He noticed her squinting up at them. "'Biological waste and
specimens,' that's what it says," he explained as he lowered her
down through a hatch -- out of the icy wind and piercing grey sunlight,
much to her relief. "As in 'nasty stuff from a hospital.' Keeps
even the nosiest of folks from pokin' around in 'em." He tapped the
badge over his heart.
"Me, I'm the 'hazmat official' who keeps an eye on 'em on the way
over. Pretty smart of Sinister, huh?"
"G-good thing," Vertigo agreed. Her teeth were belatedly
starting to chatter as the initial numb shock passed. When he let go of
her arms, her awakening feet went pins-and-needles -- she sat down
abruptly on the edge of what appeared to be a makeshift cot.
"K-k-kind of appropriate, too. The, the l-labels, I mean. Have you,
um, d-done this before?"
"Oh yah, sure, lots of times. Who do you think seals up the other
crates? Can't exactly seal up my own, y'know. An' hey, it's like a
vacation -- no work, no backbiting, no 'setting watches,' just me an' a
bunk an' a deck'a cards. You never noticed?"
"No. I was always in a crate at the time, remember?"
"Oh." There was a momentary silence. "You cold,
kid?"
Vertigo glared up at him, clutching the towel to her breasts and turning
a delicate shade of blue. "Y-yes!"
Blockbuster cast around carefully and then came up with a reasonably
intact blanket. He tossed it around her bare shoulders and grinned as
she promptly cocooned herself in it. "This should do until we
figure out what's wrong with your tube. Shouldn't take long -- those
things're pretty much foolproof. I mean hell, WE c'n be taught ta use 'em,
huh?"
Vertigo couldn't help it -- she smiled. Then she caught herself.
"Uh, would it be okay if I, er, y'know, didn'tgobackinthetube?"
she blurted quickly. "I mean, we get along well enough, and I
wouldn't mind keeping you company. I could use a 'vacation' from the
others, too. How long is the trip? And where ARE we, anyway?"
"We're aboard the Hanjin Hammer Bay, an' it's four days t'port in
the 'States." Blockbuster considered matters for a moment, stroking
his chin with one hammy hand. "I guess it WOULD be better'n playin'
solitaire for four days, an' you don't eat much..."
She sighed with relief. "You're great. Thanks, Mike."
"Any time, Vee."
She was quiet for a moment, clutching the blanket up around her ears.
Then she hesitantly asked, "Uh, Mike...?"
"Yeah?"
"There's...um...something else I need to ask you about. Promise you
won't get mad?"
Blockbuster grinned. "Eh, I could never get mad at you, kid. Spill
it."
"Well, I don't want to get you in trouble or anything, but it's
about when we get to the U.S..."
* * *
The Hanjin Hammer Bay arrived at the bustling Baltimore Seaport late on
a Monday evening after a completely uneventful four-day trans-Atlantic
journey. Unloading was scheduled to begin the next morning.
The next morning, two night watchmen were found dead just outside their
perimeter post, each apparently bludgeoned to death with a single blow
from a dull object. No witnesses and no murder weapon could be found.
The only clues found onsite after the initial hasty examination were
a) a few scattered fingerprints too big to possibly belong to any normal
human being, and
b) two sets of footprints, marked only by traces of blood: one huge set
marching stolidly away from the scene, back towards the docks; and one
small shoeless set, sprinting past the abandoned side gate and away from
the harbor.
Into Baltimore.
* * *
"Bingo. Carlton? We've got positive ID. Prints from that murder
scene in Maryland match one of our targets, as do the physical specs of
a suspect who went missing before the local law could round him up.
Along with the cargo he was guarding, according to the Haijin HB's
manifesto -- five 'medical' crates more than big enough to hold
bodies."
"Christ. That's much closer to DC than I like... All right. I think
this warrants a full alert. Initiate Project Safari. I want to know
where those crates went, and in the meantime I want downtown Baltimore
staked out and searched from top to bottom. Especially the inner harbor
district. Quietly."
Even faced with that seemingly insanely impossible task, the woman at
the computer didn't bat an eyelash. After all, this had been coming for
years. Her hands flew obediently over the keys and mouse, setting aside
the forensics report, typing in and firing out a single string of code
which would set in motion an entire slew of private e-mails and
re-assignments. All "quietly," of course.
The grey-haired man at her shoulder nodded absently in approval,
silently glad that he'd insisted upon holding the full Marauder briefing
the night before. There was certainly no time to update his people now.
He drummed his fingers against the high back of her chair, his brow
still creased with thought. "Make a note, Anna: I'll be overseeing
this matter in person. And while you're at it, pull that murder case out
of the locals' jurisdiction as of ten minutes ago."
"Yes, sir. What about the one already on the loose?"
John Carlton snorted lightly. "Unless they've changed their M.O.
and added someone or someTHING new to the team, there's only one
Marauder who could possibly fit into those little-girl footprints. If
they thought she'd be inconspicious enough to act as a forward scout,
they've screwed up royally this time. Maybe a woman with
green-and-silver hair down to her ass could blend into the California
crowd...but not here. Put out a public APB on the murdering bitch. We'll
pick her up her when the locals drag her in for us."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
END OF CHAPTER
NEXT:
On the loose in Baltimore, all Vertigo thinks she has to worry about is
her rumbling stomach and her vengeful ex-teammates. She's dead wrong.
No
Way Up
A
tale of fire, frying pans, warped mirrors,
burned bridges, and shades of grey
Part Five
And
what I used to think was me is just a fading memory
I looked him right in the eye and said "goodbye"
I was up above it...now i'm down in it...
-- down in it by nine inch nails
>From
Review #184030-2556, circa December 1997, classified deep-
black:
Subject 184030: There's something different about today. You're done
with me, aren't you? They need me for something.
Interviewer: You've shown remarkable progress...
Subject 184030: Bullshit! Don't talk down to me. I've proven that I can
play "pet assassin" and follow orders here just as well as I
could back under Sinister's command, and I'm more than ready to prove
it. I have been for months.
Interviewer: Well, we believe that--
Subject 184030: Don't interrupt, dammit, just let me finish for once. I
handled the last assignment perfectly, and they told me that my
"status" had been bumped up, but STILL you keep me here, like
a--a goddamn mental patient or something. Poking at me with the same
tired questions over and over when you're not running me through tests
and training and whatever else. What's so special that you've finally
decided to give me another shot at the outside? If you're not going to
let me out of here and give me the truth, at least give me a straight
answer about what you want me to do. Or I won't do it. Plain and simple.
Interviewer: So...you're determined to be difficult?
Subject 184030: Ohhh, this isn't difficult. Now...THIS...is difficult.
Interviewer: What--I--uhh!--
(At this point review session #2556 was terminated. Subject 184030 was
sedated and restrained; interviewer #46 was rushed to intensive care and
diagnosed with a massive heart attack, resulting in death within ten
minutes of onset despite full emergency procedures.)
(Regardless, Project Mirror will continue on schedule.)
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
All in all, it had been a pretty good day for Jack Andreas. He was
through with this semester's college finals, that nasty spat with his
girlfriend had finally blown over, and it had been a good night at work.
In fact, he was going to get a healthy tip for this particular delivery.
He leaned over the duct-taped passenger seat of his battered Toyota and
squinted up at the building to double-check the address. Yep, this was
the place all right. Some slavedriver of a Radio Shack boss was keeping
his employees up inhumanly late with inventory on a Wednesday
night...but at least he was keeping them fed.
Jack tucked the pizza carrier up under his arm, grabbed the additional
paper bags, and stepped out of his car, leaving the ignition running; it
was, after all, a safe neighborhood...
Two steps later, the dizziness hit him like a tornado, twisting his
senses upside down and his stomach inside out. He barely felt his knees
crack into the pavement as he fell, retching and gasping. Something
tugged at his delivery box -- he had enough presence of mind to fumble
out the little tube of mace on his keychain (he'd thought it was a lame
idea when his girlfriend had insisted that he take it!) and fire a spray
wildly in the general direction of his attacker. Then a foot connected
solidly with the side of his head, heel-first...and that was the end of
Jack Andreas' good night.
Oddly, his car was still purring at the curb when he came groggily to
ten minutes later, and his money pouch was quite untouched. All that was
missing was a package of Pizza! Pizza! and several batches of Crazy
Bread.
* * *
On the roof of a nearby trendy coffee shop, Vertigo sat hunched over
with the heels of her hands pressed into her watering eyes, taking deep
choking breaths as the agonizing burn of whatever the man had sprayed at
her finally died away in a ragged wash of tears. Her stomach was
settling out too, back into the dull empty ache which had dogged her for
two days now.
The instant she was able to take her hands away from her reddened eyes,
she tore into the box of pizza. Even in her hunger she had the presence
of mind to strip off the cheese and chuck it away -- the stuff always
made her ill, "lack-something-intolerant" Sinister had called
it -- and wolf down the delicious pepperoni first despite her now sore
throat. Almost the entire pizza was gone by the time she slowed down and
was curious enough to look into the fistful of paper bags she'd snagged
too.
<Looks like bread, smells like bread. Hmm. All right then.> Most
of that vanished too, leaving her thirsty but more content than she'd
been since parting company with Blockbuster at the port two days
earlier.
He'd been easier to convince that she'd thought. Not happy with her
decision to desert the team, but not about to stand in her way. He'd
been quiet for an entire day as if thinking about the subject in great
detail -- <of course, being who he is, he probably needed the whole
day to think about it,> she thought with a grin. Then he'd offered to
teach her how to play poker and it had been as if nothing had happened
between them.
Until three days later, when she'd made her move to escape. He'd loomed
out of the darkness, huge and disconcertingly silent, to crush the
skulls of those two guards in his bare hands before she'd even spotted
them. No words had been exchanged -- she understood instinctively that
it was the only and the last piece of help he could offer.
They hadn't exactly been friends (the word "friend" had never
been spoken aloud) but she felt more than a little uneasy when she
thought that the next time they met, he'd be her enemy.
Vertigo mentally sighed and shrugged, concentrating instead upon licking
buttery parmesan crumbs off of her fingers as she leaning back against a
brick accessway on the chilly rooftop -- one of many she'd haunted since
leaving the port, staying out of the alleys and definitely out of the
sewers. Her teammates, now out to kill her or drag her home to Sinister
for far worse? So be it. It wasn't like they'd ever been the fondest of
friends, anyhow. Let them try to find her. She might not be the greatest
Marauder in the world, but when she put her mind to it she could
obliterate her trail so well that even four Scalphunters wouldn't be
able to track her down.
She didn't know how she knew how to do that -- she just did. Something
bubbling up from the flat blankness before her "birth" at the
gnarled little hands of Brainchild, most likely. She didn't want to look
the gift horse in the mouth. She was just happy that for once she was
able to DO something.
Brainchild...now THERE was a name she hadn't thought of in years...
Sirens passed on the streets below, the flicker of their red-and-blue
strobes reflecting off of the windows on both sides of the street, their
kaleidoscope glitter bouncing up even to her third-story-level retreat.
It was the fourth police car to pass this way in the last hour. She'd
never really bothered to get a feel for life in the city, any city, and
so she didn't know if that was normal or not. She knew it was silly and
egotistical to think that it had anything to do with her, but if the
others were already out on the streets looking for her...
She shook her head, pulling her stolen sweater tighter around her
shoulders. No, they were more professional than that. They'd hit
quietly, when she least expected it...
<Great. Now I'm getting paranoid.> Suddenly she felt colder than
the night air warranted. She stood up, stuffing the leftover Crazy Bread
in the hip pocket of the stained sweat-pants Blockbuster had found for
her aboard the Hanjin Hammer Bay. <Time to get moving for real.
Somewhere, anywhere, just away. Far away.> She had a sinking feeling
that once again her so-called "plan" was far too simplistic to
be useful, but what could she do but try to...
Out of nowhere, light splashed over the rooftop in a brilliant white
flood and waves of wind beat around her like a hurricane. She
instinctively threw one arm over her still-raw eyes and shrank back
against the bricks as a helicopter roared overhead. <They're after
me! They found me! How did they find me?>
In a blind instantaneous panic she "lashed out" at the
helicopter even as she sprang to her feet and dove for the fire escape.
Behind her she heard the beat of the 'copter's rotors change pitch as it
veered off, swerving violently and barely missing the slightly taller
building to the west. The light swept away too, leaving her dazzled and
blind against the night, but she'd already grabbed the railing and swung
her feet onto the metal ladder, and she didn't need her sight to
scramble down towards the ground.
* * *
"...in airborne support of the ground units on the East Lexington
Street break-in when all occupants were hit by intense dizziness and
nausea -- pilot reports seeing a multicolored flash from ground-level.
Suspected mutant interference, one female suspect spotted. Do we pursue,
over?"
While the harried dispatcher dealt with the situation from Baltimore PD
HQ, giving a negative and directing the helicopter back to its initial
assignment, other listeners made careful note of the conversation. This
was exactly what they'd been waiting for, though they hadn't counted on
getting such a clear confirmation! Within ten minutes, that area would
be flooded with agents under the jurisdiction of Project Safari...
However, there were other agencies within the government with an
interest in the case. A personal interest. A flag flashed red on a
single computer, activating a pager across town and alerting someone
only a few streets away from the disturbance -- so close that the
helicopter in question thudded unsteadily past overhead even as the
pager beeped smugly on its beltloop.
The woman checked the little device and then looked up through
short-cropped green-and-silver bangs, allowing herself a triumphant
smile. "Ah. So THERE you are."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
END OF CHAPTER
NEXT:
Okay, so that was a short one. Who's our surprise mystery guest? Your
first guess may seem impossible, but hang onto it, because I'm just
getting started. Do you folks remember the Mutant Massacre? Oddly,
Vertigo DOESN'T...
No
Way Up
A
tale of fire, frying pans, warped mirrors,
burned bridges, and shades of grey
By Kelly Newcomb
(kielle@aol.com)
BRIEF DISCLAIMER: Marvel's characters belong to Marvel. PLEASE drop me a
note if ya like it or if you wanna archive it. :) Other than that, the
full disclaimer is attached to the prologue of this story.
~~~~~~~~
Part Six
~~~~~~~~
i'm getting edgy all the time
there's someone around me just a step behind
it's kinda scary, the shape i'm in
The walls are shakin' and they're closin' in
Too fast or a bit slow
I'm paranoid of people and it's starting to show
There's one guy that I can't shake
Over my shoulder is a big mistake...
-- Gotta Get Away by the Offspring
~~~~~~~~
INTERLUDE
Several years ago:
Masked by traffic and the incessant pounding beat of city life, the low
rolling rumble underfoot went almost completely unnoticed.
What followed right on the heels of that rumble, however, did not.
Completely without warning, flames roared up from every drain and sewer
in Manhattan, licking through the gaps in manhole covers and lighting
the paper trash in countless gutters with a rushing hiss. Cars skidded,
bicycles swerved frantically into traffic, and pedestrians stumbled and
cried out in shock. Here and there a pitch-daubed telephone pole lit up
like a candle, flickering briefly but merrily. On one corner an
old-fashioned newspaper stand went up in a fiery blaze, and at a bus
stop a child screamed as his too-curious hands were enveloped in a gust
of flames.
Then the fires died as suddenly as they'd appeared...except for the
burning gutters and the occasional unfortunate who found themselves
swatting out a smouldering coatsleeve or skirt.
As the city's pulse skipped a beat and then continued steadily onward to
the wailing tune of fire engines, a mixed pack of police officers and
FBI agents were forced back by the inferno which boiled up through the
open sewer accessway they'd approached not two seconds before. Several
men closest to the sudden blast of heat suffered severe burns and had to
be relegated to the squad cars to await an ambulance. When the pain
passed they would count their blessings, for a few moments later they
would have been within the tunnel itself...
Special Agent John Carlton swore under his breath as the flames guttered
and then vanished. The others held back, guns at the ready, wary of an
attack, while Carlton stepped forward and ran ginger fingers along the
inside of the great pipe. It had been slick with algae (and less
pleasant substances) when his team had traced the murderers' trail to
this very spot. Though it was now so hot to the touch that he had to
jerk his hand back almost immediately, his worst suspicions were
confirmed. In that intense but eeriely brief blast of heat, the curved
metal surface within the pipe had been charred utterly clean.
Which meant no trail to follow. No clues. Dead end.
He raised a hand slightly and a moment later his chief assistant Anna
Mayfaire was at his side. She was examining a handheld device, one of
the few toys that the United States had actually managed to coax from
special operative Forge when he was feeling cooperative enough to
actually honor his long-standing government contract. Lights danced
across the surface of the haphazard piece of equipment, and her forehead
creased in anxiety.
"That wasn't natural -- though I'd say from your expression that
you'd already guessed that," she murmured with a faint but distinct
British accent. With one hand she was carefully shielding the classified
device from the eyes of the local officers.
"Natural? Hardly. Too hot and too complete to be anything of the
sort," Carlton replied, just as quietly. His own people had now
regained command of the situation, cordoning off the pipe and preparing
to send in a new recon team. It was probably all moot now, but he let
them carry out their jobs. Thoroughness, pointless or not, would look
better on the report. "Perhaps a weapon of some sort was detonated
under the city, but on a hunch I'd say this was the work of one of our
super-powered pals."
"Sir, if I may comment--? This is FAR beyond the abilities of any
pyrokinetic on record."
"I know. Can you narrow it down?"
"Aside from the intense heat and the great quantity, the flames
read normal except for...yes, there's a faint trace, perhaps the
source...I'm cross-checking it with our records..." Mayfaire looked
up, even more perturbed than before. "One match, one hundred
percent. The power signature of the guiding energies -- it's definitely
Asgardian."
"I...see. Well. Looks like someone beat us to the 'bad guys.'
Again." Carlton's voice was utterly neutral but Mayfaire knew him
well enough to know when he was truly in a foul mood. Politely, she
backed away and moved off to triangulate the reading for the records.
Carlton tapped his chin thoughtfully, looking at but not truly seeing
the sewer pipe as the first brave squad moved warily in. There had been
a terrifyingly swift string of brutal murders in Manhattan on this muggy
summer night, murders that at first had seemed unrelated aside from one
tenuous connection: all of the victims were harmless second-rate
mutants, mostly drifters and homeless street people. Then, not an hour
ago, a bright young junior agent had made a jump of logic and it had all
abruptly snapped into clear focus. The brutal murders weren't the work
of a single killer but of a entire TEAM of killers, working together
towards the same unknown goal. Preying on the defenseless. Why or what
for, no one could say.
The trail and the blood-choked dying words of their latest victim had
led here...to the sewers. Where, if their now-dead informant had not
been hallucinating in her final moments, an entire previously unknown
"clan" of outcast mutants lay in danger of mass slaughter. If
they weren't dead already.
Which, between the elusive assassins and this underground firestorm,
seemed completely likely.
<So what we have here is a new pack of psychopaths, working in
tandem...with a VERY high probability they're mutants themselves judging
by the preliminary forensic reports on the bodies. Great. Just what New
York needs.>
Some of his compatriots had tried to deprioritize the assignment
("They're just killing their own kind," they
said..."Leave it to those new government muties," they said)
but allowing that kind of thinking to take root and letting this trail
get cold were two of the LAST things Carlton wanted. He'd taken a huge
risk already, pulling in so many resources for this particular
bug-hunt...
He sighed, raking a hand through his greying hair and then over his eyes
to rub the bridge of his nose. He had nothing against mutants himself --
in fact, his own wife could no longer pass for "human" on the
street -- but when they went bad, their potential for damage was so much
higher that a man would have to be a fool to take on a job tracking them
down on a regular basis.
The FBI agent smiled wryly to himself. <So call me a fool.>
He had been idly scuffing his shoe in the weeds on the gravel embankment
as he waited for the inevitable report of failure from the strike team.
Only now did something strike him as odd. The toe of his shoe was wet --
and it hadn't rained in Manhattan for two months.
He crouched down for a better look, touching the damp patch and bringing
it up to his eyes. In the glare of the squad cars' headlights, he could
definitely see the red smear on his fingertips.
Blood.
Quickly, Carlton unclipped the flashlight from his belt and cast around.
He only found a few more scattered drops on the gravel, not enough to
lay out a solid trail, but they were fresh and wet...
He twisted without straightening up, aiming the flashlight into the
darkness behind him. There was a chain-link fence not ten feet away,
with a shallow drainage ditch running parallel down to the street beyond
the squad cars. The beam of light played across something lying
motionless in the ditch: a silvery fan of hair, a green-swirled
shoulder...
Holding both the light and his gaze rock-steady, he called back, "Mayfaire?
Bring someone over here. Carefully. I think we may have a
survivor."
END INTERLUDE
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
A man shouted and a woman yelped indignantly as parcels went flying
across the pavement, but Vertigo paid no heed to the commotion in her
wake as she plowed headlong into the crowd with a profound sense of
relief. Relief, because she'd been forced to flee through two
practically deserted blocks of daytime businesses before reaching the
"safety" of the busier nightlife streets near what the
Baltimore locals called the Charles Center.
There was no sign of the helicopter, no wailing police sirens -- no sign
of any pursuit whatsoever. The skin between her shoulderblades finally
stopped crawling as she skidded to a halt and sagged heavily against a
telephone pole, letting humanity swirl past on both sides like a
protective curtain. She forced herself to breathe deeply as she clutched
her elbows, closing the open sweater. To her suddenly self-conscious
mind, the green-swirled leotard which stretched across her breasts felt
like a glowing target. She'd put off stealing more clothes because it
was tougher than it sounded; she wasn't quite down to digging in garbage
cans yet, and, let's face it, people didn't exactly go hanging their
wash out on clotheslines anymore.
It looked like she couldn't put anything off any longer. Only now did
the full impact of what she'd done hammer into her. This wasn't a game.
This time, if she screwed up, her death would be painful and permanent.
Permanent...forever...she couldn't even begin to grasp that concept. And
of course, that was only one possible outcome; living wasn't going to be
much easier. She closed her eyes and let out a long breath as she
realized that there was no way she could fit into the civilized world.
She had no skills. She had no background. Hell, she didn't even have a
name.
She glanced down at her mismatched, grimy makeshift clothing and smiled
wryly despite herself. <Well, with a bit more smeared dirt and a wool
hat, maybe I could pose as a mad old bag lady while I try to figure
things out...>
When Vertigo looked up, it was straight into the eyes of a police
officer.
On a balcony half a block away, the gleam of a streetlight flashed off
of the lenses of a pair of binoculars. Their focus slid across across
Vertigo's distinctively-colored hair and then snapped back, sharpening
and zooming. The woman holding the high-tech viewer allowed herself a
brief tight grin of triumph. "There you are!" she whispered,
reaching for the phone clipped to her belt.
Her hand froze and she frowned, squinting through the binoculars again.
<No. Wait. The way she's standing...too stiff...something doesn't
look right...>
Her magnified gaze refocused and then tracked across to the flat police
cap on the head of the person right in front of her target. Practically
eye-to-eye -- and reaching for something on his belt with the false
nonchalance of a hunter who doesn't want to spook potentially dangerous
prey.
"Dammit!" <Time to move already.>
The binoculars vanished silently into an inner pocket; a metal grating
vibrated under two swift footsteps and then the balcony was empty.
Though her heart leaped into her mouth, Vertigo bit the inside of her
cheek and forced herself to stay calm, telling herself that it didn't
mean anything, that the police officer was just doing his job. Maybe he
thought she was in some kind of trouble...she DID look pretty
out-of-breath and scared, she was certain. Or maybe he just wanted to
give her a warning about loitering, or about running around banging into
people, or something...
He was backing away, his eyes still locked with hers. He was raising a
walkie-talkie to his mouth. He was easing his hand onto the truncheon at
his belt.
For a moment she wondered if there was some way she could talk her way
out of this, but her traitorous mouth was completely dry and even the
vaguest semblance of a vocabulary had deserted her. With a low desperate
whimper, she whirled and fled back into the crowd.
She thought that she heard a shout behind her and she thrust ahead with
more determination than before, twisting and weaving like an eel through
the almost solid mass of humanity. A ripple of unease was rolling
through the throng as the word slowly spread that something was wrong,
that there was something foreign and dangerous using their bodies for
cover. In a few seconds there would be panic and she'd either be
trampled or left out in the open. She couldn't even use her power --
that would make matters worse!
She tried to look back but could see no sign of the policeman, which
didn't necessarily mean that he wasn't there, or that he hadn't called
in backup to cut her off. <Have to put more distance between us!>
She redoubled her efforts, trying to find a side way out of the crowd,
maybe an alley...
Vertigo swerved around a pregnant woman, only to trip over a stroller
which almost sent her sprawling. By now the herd was truly spooked; the
metal-tipped corner of a briefcase took her hard in the ribs as its
owner shoved past, driving her breath out in a painful whoof of air. As
she reeled sideways, completely disoriented, an hand closed on her
wrist. She wrenched free with a short inarticulate cry, finally cutting
loose with a shockwave of nausea that only increased the chaos around
her. But she finally saw an opening in the milling mass!
Gasping with relief, she ducked under the dark-suited man who'd
attempted to grab her, sprinting for that glimpse of open air. Her feet
and jaw jarred painfully as she ran right off of some kind of curb, but
she could see freedom in the form of a serviceway not ten meters away
across an clear intersection.
<What if they have guns? What if they shoot?> she thought in a
panic, suddenly realizing that she'd exchanged one danger for another:
the chance of being physically taken down for the chance of being picked
off by a bullet! She glanced back and caught sight of three more
officers converging on the area, and she could hear sirens fast
approaching from both directions.
<Well, there's no going back now.>
She gritted her teeth and tucked in her elbows and kept running, her
aching soles completely forgotten in the rush of adrenaline. <Duck
and dodge, don't give them a clear line of sight...they won't want to
fire and miss, not with this many people around...>
Four steps later she caught a broad yellow movement out of the corner of
her eye, and a blaring tumult assaulted her ears. Shocked, she caught
her toe under her foot and stumbled -- before she could even think about
reacting something rammed into her hard enough to lift her feet right
off of the ground. She had a dizzy spinning glimpse of headlights and
rusty chrome before she crumpled into something hard and the lights went
out.
"SHIT!" The woman ran hard on the balls of her feet like a
trained sprinter, binoculars banging against her hip in the inside
pocket of her jacket with every stride. When she hit the crowd she
didn't even slow down; instead, she plowed against the tide of fleeing
human cattle with one elbow in front of her like a wedge, further
clearing her path by lashing out indiscriminately with invisible bursts
of mental power.
People spun away from her on both sides gasping, clutching at their
throats or chests, but she paid them no heed.
She broke through the crowd just in time to see the taxi screech to a
halt a moment too late -- she caught sight of Vertigo just as the
Marauder was thrown against a parked car several yards away, obviously
knocked out cold the moment her head struck the car door hard enough to
leave a dent. Even as Vertigo's unconscious body slid to the asphalt,
however, her pursuer was at her side, crouching down and slapping
something onto her target's chest even as she tapped an identical device
looped around her own wrist.
In a shimmer, both women disappeared into thin air.
When the police took control of the chaotic intersection a moment later,
there was no evidence that either had ever existed.
In actuality, neither had ever left.
As confused and suspicious officers double-checked the area, covering
all exits and searching for clues as to their target's mysterious
"escape," the woman rested one palm on the parked car and let
out a huge soundless exhalation of relief. She glanced around to confirm
the situation and nodded to herself with satisfaction. The modified
image inducers were working perfectly; as far as anyone could tell,
there was nothing at the base of the parked car in question but a spot
of nondescript pavement.
They couldn't stay there for long, however. At any moment someone was
going to question the driver of the taxi who'd struck Vertigo, and
someone was inevitably going to walk over to that very spot to look for
evidence. There was blood on the door of the parked car, which was
unfortunately a clean well-maintained cream color and practically
showcased the new dent and the scarlet smear.
<Don't know if she can be moved,> she thought, checking Vertigo
quickly for pulse and then for signs of neck or back injuries. Not being
a doctor, she couldn't really be sure, but nothing seemed alarmingly
floppy... <Damn amateur! Was I ever that stupid? Bloody hell. Should
I move her? They want her alive...>
As a cop made the taxi driver step out of his vehicle and point out
where he'd last seen the girl who'd bounced off of his bumper, she made
her decision. <Well, it's either this or get both of us caught. Don't
you dare die on me, babe.> Carefully, she gathered Vertigo up in both
arms and edged away just as two cops strode over, treading on the very
place where she'd just been crouched down.
<Slowly...carefully...> Smoothly sidling around a business owner
who'd come out to see the show, she took one step at a time, not making
any sudden moves. Not for Vertigo's sake, but rather to allow the
straining image inducers to adjust to the changing scenery and maintain
a sharp match. The devices really weren't designed for this -- their
primary function was to create human facades for inhuman mutants -- but
more could be coaxed from them in an emergency, and they only had to
keep her cover until she could reach the nearest alley...
She had to make do with the deep recess of a shop entry, luckily one
that was temporarily out of business. With a grunt she set Vertigo's
limp body down on the pavement in the shadowed alcove, checking again to
make sure that she was still breathing. Other than some painful-looking
abrasions and the blood staining a stripe of fine silver hair at the
back of her head, she seemed to be in surprisingly good shape.
<Other than smelling like she hasn't showered in a week,> the
woman thought, wrinkling her nose fastidiously. <Lucky girl --
nothing broken, she'll live. Anyone else and she'd belong in a hospital
right now, considering what just happened to her. Sinister may have bad
taste in choosing his pets but he sure builds 'em to last,> she added
wryly as she settled back on her haunches. Keeping her eye on the
street, she pulled out her cellphone and dialed.
"You there? 'Kay. This is 184030. I have her. On East Baltimore
Street near the Charles North -- track the phone. And keep it low-key,
we're practically right in the middle of the action. The little moron
almost got her sorry ass caught."
A pause -- she listened, one eyebrow raised. "Carlton's after her
too? Christ, why didn't you tell me--? No. No. Yes, for cryin' out loud!
I'll stay on my toes. Out."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
END OF CHAPTER
NEXT: The plot thickens, eh? All shall be revealed next chapter, though
frankly I think I've already given you all the clues you need to make an
educated guess! :) And finally, the origin of Vertigo...not like you
ever wondered before, but if you've come this far in this particular
story then surely you're just the least little bit curious...
No
Way Up
A
tale of fire, frying pans, warped mirrors,
burned bridges, and shades of grey
By Kelly Newcomb
(kielle@aol.com)
BRIEF DISCLAIMER: Marvel's characters belong to Marvel. PLEASE drop me a
note if ya like it or if you wanna archive it. :) Other than that, the
full disclaimer is attached to the prologue of this story.
~~~~~~~~~~
Part Seven
~~~~~~~~~~
Do you trust what I trust?
Me, myself, and I
Penetrate the smokescreen
I see through the selfish lie...
-- Eye Of The Beholder by Metallica
~~~~~~~~~~
INTERLUDE
An indeterminate number of years ago...
She AWOKE to searing pain, pain in every cell of her body, in her very
bones, licking through her like cold fire. She tried to scream and then
realized that she'd actually been screaming for some time -- her throat
was so sore that she could only let out a strangled rasp. She tried to
struggle free only to find that her wrists and neck and ankles were
already scraped raw under unforgiving metal restraints.
She would have wondered how long she'd been fighting the agony...except
that she had no language or concept of time in which to express herself.
So she simply subsided, panting like a trapped animal, grateful merely
that the pain was ebbing into an aching soreness all over her body. Her
head was pounding, both with pain and the sudden influx of...thoughts?
Every effort to figure out what was happening to and around her felt
unfamiliar, sharp-edged -- like something entirely new.
She could hear gutteral sounds at the edge of her hearing, and she
tensed all over. Only the gangly, ugly Fall People made sounds like
that-- "Fall People"? Where had she gotten that term? That
wasn't what they were called...
She realized with a cold start that she was, indeed, thinking. In sounds
just like the ones she was hearing. What was going on? What had they
DONE to her?!
Now that she concentrated (which sent a fresh wake of pain ricocheting
between her temples) she found to her dumb astonishment that she could
understand the grunting, hissing noises. They were TALKING. She
listened, lagging a word or two behind as her newfound power of
cognition struggled mightily to match words to meaning. And succeeded.
"...should be a success," the one voice was saying. "And,
more to the point, she's from the same genetic pool as Equilibrius, so
there shouldn't be much adjustment necessary for you and the
others."
"But...a she?" This was a deep, heavy voice. As the writhing
light faded away from around her she chanced a peek from under her
eyelids and almost gasped at the size of the man. And...he had four
arms! An abomination!
"Bah. Male, female -- it's hard to tell with those dirty little
primates. At least she's still breathing after the process, unlike the
last two you brought in. Good enough for me. You'll survive, Barbarus."
The first voice was brittle and querulous, the voice of a man who
disdained speaking to his inferiors...yet one who saw no being as his
equal. "Unfortunately, I'll have to thoroughly study the readings
on this particular case and recalibrate the entire system before
attempting to upgrade another Mutate into our ranks... Gaza?"
Someone else was already moving into the room, heading straight for the
upright table she was strapped to. Another giant. She closed her eyes
tightly, playing possum, but not before she noticed his eyes were pure
white; his head did not track in response to his surroundings. Blind.
She swallowed hard, unnerved by that glimpse of empty stare. What kind
of place was this, that allowed monsters and the crippled to live...?
A cool hand brushed across her brow. "She seems unharmed, and
sentient. Probably awake, too." This voice was right above her
head, deep and unhurried and perhaps a little sad, but she could sense a
smile in his last sentence. The straps loosened--
With a defiant howl she propelled herself off of the cold metal,
scratching and clawing. She caught a tantalizing glimpse of an open door
not four meters away before the blind giant effortlessly pinned her arms
to her sides and set her feet not ungently on the stone floor.
"That's not going to work on a psi, child. And don't worry, you're
not the first one to feel that way about Brainchild's genetic
transformer," he said softly. To her dismay, he was still holding
her arms clamped down. Discarding the new bank of language which had
been forced into her head, she merely snarled eloquently in reply. She
could feel him chuckle against her half-bare back. The unpleasant voice
-- she glanced up and now saw that it was attached to a bearded,
weak-limbed little man with a repulsively swollen head -- called out,
"She's your responsibility for now, Gaza. See that she learns the
ropes, but don't give her the run of the Savage Land yet, you
understand? And find her something to wear before Lupo catches sight of
her."
<But what's wrong with what I--?> For the first time she glanced
down at her body...and nearly choked in horror. The rough fur tunic
which had always fit her strong, barrel-like body now hung limply over
the stretched frame of a pale, spindly, hairless...thing. Her knees were
grotesquely bowed inward -- by the Stones, they were actually TOUCHING
each other! And to view them at all, she had to lean slightly forward to
see over breasts the size of a nursing mother's.
Frozen with shock, she glanced sideways into a vague reflection on the
metal table from which she'd just been released. Wide sky-blue eyes,
eyes which meant blindness to the Swamp People to whom she'd been born,
stared back at her out of a narrow white face supported only by a
frighteningly fragile-looking neck. The entire apparition was topped off
by a high, flat forehead and surrounded by a ragged froth of
silver-green hair.
Even the tall, mohawked Fall People didn't look THIS horrible.
<W-what have they DONE to me...?>
Even as she realized that she could never go home to her people, she
found to her sick dismay that she no longer had a clear concept of
"home"...or of "her people." Primal thoughts and
memories which had dwelt comfortably in a small brain with a large
hindbrain were vanishing like morning mist into the chasms of a much
larger mind which was organized in neatly labelled "words" and
"facts" rather than in wordless "feelings" and
"concepts."
She barely noticed as the blind Gaza coaxed her into walking -- rather,
wobbling dangerously on stiff-kneed legs as she fought to come to terms
with her new elevated center of gravity -- and led her from Brainchild's
high-domed laboratory.
END INTERLUDE
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Vertigo was having that nightmare again: of the table and the light, of
the rapid wrenching restructuring of bone and muscle and the hideous
indescribable beyond-pain sensation of the expansion of her very skull
itself...
This time, she knew that it was no dream but, rather, an actual memory.
This time, she fought it.
<You're not really happening! You're over, you're done, you're gone!
You happened a long time ago and I--will--not--RELIVE--
YOU!!!>
The pain broke like water over a surfacing swimmer's head. She gasped,
flailing for consciousness, as other images kaleidoscoped past--
-- the lessons in teamwork and obedience drilled into her by the other
Savage Land Mutates, the endless watch for a godlike magnetic creator
who never returned --
-- her first real battle, her first taste of power and triumph, and
then her first defeat against Ka-Zar and that spider-guy and the mutants
she would later know as the X-Men --
-- a blank murky period of reversion to her original primitive state,
followed inevitably by the agonizing return to "human" form as
her genetic programming restabilized --
-- her first sight of Sinister, as he offered his gloved hand and the
world in exchange for her service in his new team of assassins --
-- the night she'd finally overheard the month-old news that the Savage
Land had been destroyed, the night she'd spent curled up in a lonely
bunk weeping at the memory of waterfalls and jungle sunsets --
Grimly, Vertigo shoved past the crowding memories, forcing them back
down. A shred of consciousness fluttered past and she grabbed onto it
for dear life, pulling herself hand over hand back into the real world.
She was first aware of cold concrete against her back. Then, as she
reflexively struggled to sit up, the pain rippled down her back and over
one hip and flared white-hot from the back of her head. She cried out
and clutched her throbbing skull as the world spun and rocked around
her.
When reality once more settled out into a queasy solidity around her,
she became aware of a steadying hand on her shoulder. Her stomach
spasmodically clenched into a hard knot as she looked up, tensed for a
fight.
Her first impression was relief. The woman was obviously not one of the
Marauders; judging by her nondescript jeans and the battered brown
bomber jacket, she was no police officer either -- although for a moment
she glimpsed the blue-steel butt of a most expensive revolver glinting
under the woman's arm.
Her second impression, as clear cobalt-blue eyes met clear cobalt-blue
eyes, was that she was looking into a mirror.
She jerked back, shaking the hand off of her arm. All she seemed to be
able to manage was a feeble, stupid "W-what--who...?"
The other woman sat back on her heels, politely keeping both of her
hands palm-up and in plain sight. On second impression the differences
were more apparent: her rescuer (?) looked slightly older, with a keen
clear wary look around her eyes that Vertigo was more accustomed to
seeing on Arclight's features. The woman's own green-
and-silver hair was cut to a short haphazard pageboy; most of it was
stuffed under a black woolen cap but for a few errant locks and a spray
of bangs.
"What do YOU think?" she said with a wry smile. "You tell
me."
Vertigo was unable to stop staring, though she knew that she must look
like a fool. Her aching bruises (<what happened to me?>) could be
shoved behind her curiosity for the moment. "I'd say that you're
me. Or--" it dawned "--you're another me. A clone. Did
Sinister...no, he didn't, did he? You're not his."
"Very good. No, I'm not, though I once was, just like you. I WAS
you." Vertigo felt a bit better when she noticed that her more
blase "twin" was obviously striving mightily to keep from
staring right back at her. "Now isn't the time, but just between
you and me I am going to want to know everything that happened after
I...left."
Vertigo blinked and tried to avoid asking the obvious. To her relief,
the woman sighed and added, "All right, the Cliff Notes version,
okay? I was the 'you' they lost in the Mutant Massacre."
"The what?"
"Oh yeah, that's right, how would you know...? That's what the
government called our...your strike on the Morlock tunnels way back in
the Eighties."
It was starting to make sense. "Oh. The time I died...the first
time, anyway."
"What? Oh, I see, that's how it would seem to you, wouldn't it?
Yes, that's exactly it. But I, you, whatever -- I didn't die. They
caught me." Her expression was studiously blank. "I've been
in...custody, ever since. Looks like Sinister just wrote me off and kept
going, huh?"
As she listened, Vertigo carefully leaned back against the storefront,
hissing between her teeth as the ripple of bruises down her back
shifted. Under the other's words she was silently appraising her
condition, preparing for the inevitable trouble. <Doesn't seem like
anything's broken -- I've taken worse in sparring matches with the guys.
Get it together, girl, get it under control...>
"Why are you telling me this? Did you escape--?" The look in
her other self's eyes told it all. "No. You didn't. But you're
here...so you're working for them, aren't you. The government."
A flat statement, not a question. The woman didn't bother to even
consider lying. She merely nodded, once.
"Uh...huh. So you didn't rescue me out of the goodness of your
heart, did you? I--owwww, dammit, what happened, anyway? There was a, a
noise..."
"You were hit by a taxi. Actually, the way you went running out
into the street, I'd say that YOU hit IT. Didn't anyone ever teach you
how to cross a street?" She continued without pause, changing
topics without giving Vertigo a chance to protest angrily. "Yeah,
you're right again. The people I work for...they'd like for you to work
for them too. Two assassins are better than one, you know -- and they
can train you pretty quickly, too, considering that they got all of that
trial-and-error stuff out of the way with me." There was a trace of
bitterness at that, smoothly hidden a moment later.
However, Vertigo caught it. She scowled as even as she wriggled in a
rather undignified manner, trying to ease the pressure on her sore
tailbone. "Sorry, but in case you hadn't noticed, I'm getting out
of the assassin business. 'Sides, I'm no good solo."
"That's what you think. If they could teach me, they can teach you.
You haven't even touched the true extent of your power, did you know
that? 'Vertigo' my ass!" Her "sister" tapped the side of
her own head knowingly. "What you -- what WE do is more than that,
as if it hasn't been obvious all these years! Whether you understand it
or not, to mess up the inner ear like we do involves screwing around
with nerve signals, body electricity, that sort of thing. Complicated
scientific stuff. All you and I need to know is that with some effort
and some focus, we can cause a stroke...trigger a seizure...stop a
heart."
She smiled again, this time a cold humorless smile. "Why else do
you think they're willing to hide us away from Carlton's taskforce, to
keep us out of the hands of the law? Why do you think they call me
Misfire?"
Vertigo was fascinated despite herself, eyes wide and her tumbling
thoughts hanging on to every word. <Is this true? Could *I* do
THAT?!> Her heart leapt with hope. <If I could do that I could
stop the rest of the Marauders in their tracks, single-handed. I could
escape for good.>
<But work for the GOVERNMENT...?! I don't think I like this...>
<And who the hell's 'Carlton'?>
Misfire was watching her face carefully, as if reading the war between
belief and doubt. "Hey, don't worry about it too much. The
decision's already been made for you."
"Oh has it," Vertigo said flatly. <That clinches it. I DO
NOT like this.>
Her doppleganger was checking her watch, careful to keep one eye on her
prisoner -- for that, Vertigo now understood, was exactly what she was
despite the lack of handcuffs. "Back-up's a little late, but you
really have no choice in the matter. The street is still swarming with
cops--" as if on cue, a police car cruised by at that very moment
with its lights silently flashing "--and if your life hasn't
changed drastically from when I was living it, I'll bet that your former
teammates are hot on your trail even as we speak."
Her voice softened a bit. "Really, it's not so bad. It's not like
going to prison; they ask a lot of stupid questions but the food is
great and the training facilities are something else. You'll finally
have real control over your powers -- over your LIFE. Isn't that what
you want? You ran away, didn't you?"
The last line hit Vertigo sidelong, surprising her. She nodded before
she could stop herself.
Something odd flickered in Misfire's eyes for just a moment.
"They've asked me why I didn't do that. Run away from Sinister, I
mean. Leave the Marauders," she explained very quietly. "I
told them that I didn't want to, I was too young, too dependent. That
even if I had wanted to leave, I was incapable of trying something like
that...that I was too weak-willed and obedient to even think of such a
thing. In an odd way, it's kinda nice to know that eventually I would
have...grown up...and figured it out on my own."
<It's now or never,> Vertigo thought tersely as a momentarily
deep-in-thought Misfire pushed off her wool cap and raked a hand through
her freed hair. Ignoring the stiffening soreness all down her body and
the fleeting thought that this woman could kill her with a thought, the
Marauder rolled forward and rammed into her captor, bowling her over
onto her back.
Vertigo had no intention of letting the woman get a good grip on her --
or focus her attention to scramble her nerves with her (<their?>)
power! When Misfire caught her arm and lunged up, obviously aiming to
flip her over and pin her down, Vertigo snarled and slapped her in the
face with a flare of her power. Her supremely confident doppleganger had
obviously not expected her weaker counterpart to attempt something so
simple -- caught totally off-guard, Misfire let go and crashed flat back
onto the pavement, disoriented and retching.
A brief, fleeting advantage; the desperate Marauder pounced upon it,
blindly grabbing for whatever she could steal from the assassin and then
single-mindedly clawing to her feet by way of the rough brick
storefront. Her fingertips were scraped raw in an instant, but an
instant was all she needed. One knee snapped into Misfire's chin on the
way up -- then her leg came back down, searching for purchase. She
stamped down without hesitation, her bare foot planting itself viciously
hard in the woman's solar plexus, finishing the job that her flash of
mutation-
induced nausea had began. Then her other foot hit pavement and she was
away!
Misfire rolled over onto her knees, hunched over double with her arms
wrapped around her ribs, gasping for breath as darkness surged around
the fringes of her vision. Her training was screaming at her to get up,
to DO something, but the bitch had nearly cracked her ribs with that
last...kick? No, she'd actually STOMPED on her!
<...aw bleeding christ...how humiliating...>
Sternly, Misfire ordered her panicking body to relax, forced the tight
muscles to unknot. By the time she could suck a decent amount of air in
over the protests of her abused diaphragm and the dizziness cleared, her
captive was nowhere in sight.
And neither, still, was her back-up.
<Perhaps the area's cordoned off,> she thought grimly, <maybe
Carlton's people have finally wised up to the game and headed them
off...or maybe they're just too chicken-shit to get in here to give me a
hand. DAMMIT! I don't believe this! They were probably still expecting
me to lug her back to the rendezvous point...> That had been the
FIRST plan, before she'd specifically requested for them to come meet up
with HER when she'd made contact. It would have been so simple -- just
play friendly, coax the new Vertigo into the van before she caught on...
<And they call ME the loose cannon.>
She reached for her belt only to find that her cellphone was gone.
Swearing like a sailor under her breath, Misfire staggered to her feet
and stared down the street, first one way and then the other. Nothing.
Not that she'd expected anything. She mused for a moment and then set
off in the direction that felt "right" to her. She was, after
all, tracking herself.
She had nothing against her other self, really. She would have done the
same in the girl's place -- probably worse. But if she ever wanted to
walk the streets as a free mutant again...
The government really had nothing on Misfire's previous life as
"Vertigo" to convict her of any crimes: no photos, no
fingerprints, no witnesses, not even any solid evidence that she'd ever
belonged to the Marauders. In fact, they barely had any proof that the
Marauders even existed, other than circumstantial telltales and the word
of a few "heroes" who were deemed outlaws themselves more
often than not. Only with the recent formation of the new X-Factor --
more specifically, the inclusion of Polaris, a former Marauder herself
-- had anyone been able to identify her positively at all.
However, even with Lorna Dane's vengefully detailed report now on
official record, nobody had ANY proof that "Vertigo" had ever
harmed anybody at all. In a way it was true, as she'd never actually
killed another living being with her own hands. Or, before the Program
had shown her how to "upgrade" her powers and coerced her into
serving as their own pet assassin, with her own so-called genetic gifts.
None of that mattered. From the moment that Special Agent John Carlton's
taskforce brought her in from the Morlock Tunnels and been promptly
forced to relinquish her into government custody, the law no longer
applied. She'd vanished through a loophole; "right down the
black-ops rabbit-hole, Alice m'dear," as her favorite training
coach had once joked, "straight into Spook Wonderland." She no
longer existed.
<Not that I ever really did to begin with.>
It wasn't a bad life, really. She didn't regret anything she'd done.
However, now that she'd had a taste of what lay beyond the Savage Land
and the all-consuming "teamwork" of the Marauders, she wanted
more.
And as long as she was the only "Vertigo" in the Program,
they'd never let her go...
Driven by sheer adrenaline, Vertigo didn't stop running until she was a
good two blocks away. By a miracle no one on the now sparsely populated
street looked in her direction; the image inducer still crookedly tagged
to her dirty sweater was functioning, but at the speed she was moving
its vain flickering efforts to camouflage her were worse than no cover
at all. She wasn't really aware of that part of her situation anyhow.
Only when she stopped to pant for air, doubled over and cursing the
racking pain which was now overriding her surge of survival-driven
energy, did she finally notice the small device. Fearing some trick of
Misfire's, she hastily yanked it off.
Next to her, something moved. She jumped and whirled, only to find that
the movement had been nothing more than her reflection in a restaurant
window as it...reappeared?
She cautiously clipped the inducer to her sweater once more, braced for
anything, ready to hurl the little chunk of hard plastic away at the
slightest sign of foul play. In the window, her image winked out.
Delighted, she flapped her hand in front of the glass; she could almost
see something, then. A jerky blur of waving arm. She thought for a
moment and then tried the same motion again, only far more slowly.
Nothing. No sign that she even existed.
Despite the situation, despite the fact that the Marauders, that Misfire
woman, someone named "Carlton," and half of the Baltimore PD
were out gunning for her hide, a grin spread slowly but surely across
her dirt-smudged face.
<Between whatever that thing is and what that Misfire creature said
about what I can do with my powers...> Still wearing that blissful
smile of satisfaction, she examined the OTHER two pieces of equipment
she'd managed to snatch from Misfire's jacket in passing. With a small
pleased sound, she possessively stuffed the more interesting of the two
devices into her waistband, under her sweater's trailing edge. <Not
to mention THIS little ace in the hole...yes, things are finally looking
up, I think.>
The second item she'd grabbed didn't seem as useful -- what the hell was
she supposed to do with a high-tech cellphone? -- but hell, when you
were in as deep a pit as she was, you didn't look a gift horse in the
mouth. With a shrug, she folded it up and jammed it into a pocket.
Bravado expended, Vertigo finally allowed herself to sag forehead-
first against the storefront. After a moment's thought, she then tried
to contort herself in such a way that she could touch-examine her aching
back and her scraped butt. Failing, she instead put her weight on her
right leg and gingerly probed her outer left thigh. Damn thing felt like
one giant bruise, and her knee had that shaky feeling it always did
after it was narrowly avoided being dislocated -- <must be where the
taxi hit me,> she surmised. She wasn't sure if she WANTED to touch
the back of her head yet. At least she wasn't seeing double. Her clothes
were a complete ruin, though.
She winced with embarrassment as she touched her aching ribs, right
where that goddamn clumsy businessman had hit her with his briefcase in
the crowd. <Scalphunter would laugh his ass off if he could see me
now...>
<Right after he blew my head off, anyway.>
She bit her lip. <Okay. Focus, woman. First things first, then. Can I
walk? Yeah, I'd better -- this is all going to be a real bitch when I
stiffen up. Keep moving, get as far out of this area as I can, then hole
up somewhere to rest...find some clean water...something to wear...and
something to eat.>
<I wonder if pizza places around here deliver this late at
night...?>
Vertigo wasn't usually much for foresight, but thanks to the countless
batterings she'd taken in practice sessions at the hands of her
teammates she was absolutely right this time about how she'd feel the
next day. When she woke up the next morning, curled up on her side in a
nest of discarded cloth and cardboard on the embankment under an
overpass, she was so stiff and sore that she couldn't uncurl or sit up.
Her back screamed if she even thought about trying to roll over, her
thigh felt terrible, and her knee was completely useless.
She groaned in utter misery and buried her head under a tattered blanket
-- then moaned again as the movement awoke a whole new throbbing in the
hot, tight lump on the back of her skull. <OooOOOooooo...god, at this
point, I almost wish the guys WOULD show up to put me out of my
misery,> she thought hazily, glad that she'd had enough brains to
fill up a discarded bottle with tap water before crawling into this new
bolthole. She clutched the heavy plastic bottle against the pit of her
stomach and tried to go back to sleep amid the rumble of traffic on the
concrete overhead.
It was going to be a long few days.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
END OF CHAPTER
NEXT:
T'ain't looking good at all for our so-called heroine, is it? Well, *I*
wanted to plunge right ahead with the story, but <sigh> let's face
it, after what I put her through she's going to HURT too much to move
for a bit. Hey, like Misfire noted, I let her off easy enough as it is!
Will one of Vertigo's myriad enemies catch up to her while she's
helpless, or will she survive to run again? You'll see. Is this story
actually going somewhere? You bet it is.
AUTHOR'S
NOTE: This one's for Sean Duggan. :)
No
Way Up
A
tale of fire, frying pans, warped mirrors,
burned bridges, and shades of grey
By Kelly Newcomb
(kielle@aol.com)
BRIEF DISCLAIMER: Marvel's characters belong to Marvel. PLEASE drop me a
note if ya like it or if you wanna archive it. :) Other than that, the
full disclaimer is attached to the prologue of this story.
~~~~~~~~~~
Part Eight
~~~~~~~~~~
Head over heels I've fit in before
Now I don't want to do it no more
I've held it all in with blood on my face
Built it up man so bad you can taste....
Head over heels I've fit in before
Now I don't want to do it no more
I just want to be who I want to be
Guess that's hard for others to see
-- Smash by the Offspring
~~~~~~~~~~
INTERLUDE
"You canNOT be serious, boss-man. The trail's probably ice-cold by
now, and you held us back for...that?!"
Sinister merely raised an eyebrow and stared icily at Arclight until the
woman averted her eyes, shifting nervously and wishing that she could
swallow the sassy comment of a moment before. The rest of the team was
gathered loosely in the sterile cavern of Sinister's east-coast lair,
itching to be out on the hunt. They knew that their quarry was loose in
Baltimore, lost and helpless. It should have been the work of a few
hours -- no, of a few MINUTES -- to pinpoint the treasonous little bitch
and bring her down like a pack of wolves on a fawn.
Instead, they were being detained here. Underground. Useless. And
getting more irritated by the hour, though only Arclight had the
temerity to voice it aloud. Briefly. Now she too stood tensely but
quietly, waiting for their master's explanation.
<And it had better be a good one,> most of them were thinking
sourly.
Satisfied that he had once again curbed his feral dogs to heel, Sinister
turned and beckoned to the focus of their discontent. The young woman
stepped forward immediately with the unquestioning obedience that he so
preferred, and as he faced the Marauders once more he set a surprisingly
gentle hand on her shoulder. The message was silent but clear: <She
is MINE and not to be harmed, is that understood?>
Aloud, he informed the gathering of assassins, "This is your new
teammate -- you may call her Maelstrom. She will be accompanying you on
your hunt for your former comrade." His cold gaze tracked from
Marauder to Marauder, silently cowing them one by one until he was
satisfied that he held their complete attention. He took his time.
"I understand your concerns, that this does not seem like the
appropriate time for you to be forced to acclimatize to working with a
new element. However, while I have tinkered extensively with her genetic
structure -- thereby widening the scope of her natural gifts and
increasing the performance levels of her physical form -- I assure you
that in many respects she is quite similar to her prototype."
"That's what we're afraid of," Scalphunter said, low but quite
venomously clear. "What's the point of this? She's no
Marauder." Behind him, the others grumbled a general agreement.
Sinister's expression did not change. Then again, it would have been
hard for a man to look more glacial than he already did at that moment,
majestic and utterly unforgiving in armor and a dark sweeping cloak.
"Before you forget yourselves, let me remind you that it is *I* who
decides who and who is not a Marauder. Not you. She IS your teammate
now. Get used to it.
"And I also wish to make it perfectly clear right now that young
Maelstrom here is YOUR personal responsibility now, Scalphunter. See to
it that, unlike your last two failures, she receives proper training and
conditioning to forestall any more sloppy 'accidents' in battle."
Scalphunter bristled at the implications. "But--"
The master geneticist waved his hand dismissingly. "Yes, yes, of
course, after your little bloodhunt. You are all under strict orders to
keep this little outing absolutely low-key, so I've arranged
transportation and an allowance for food to prevent another string of
messy robberies, but other than that you are on your own."
He paused as if finished but then added in a deceivingly offhand manner,
"Oh, yes, and in case I neglected to mention it, you are to bring
Vertigo back alive."
Every Marauder snapped up straight at that, protesting in a confused
angry babble. Sinister merely waited until he had silence once more,
which didn't take long under his razor-edged glare. Only then did he
continue, calmly, ignoring the sullen growling state of his audience.
"Let me make this perfectly clear, children," he ordered,
enunciating every syllable. "Until I can thoroughly examine, test,
and if necessary dissect your wayward teammate, I cannot be certain that
Vertigo's 'desertion' was NOT the result of psionic coercion. With that
in mind, the rest of you are all technically under observation. If you
lose any members of the team under mysterious circumstances, you are to
drop the hunt IMMEDIATELY and report back to me with all due haste.
Understood?"
This ultimatum was greeted by a ragged set of nods, grouchy "uh-
huhs," and sulky "yah sures." It would have to do.
Despite their indignation and their frustrated bloodlust, he was utterly
confident that he would, in the end, be obeyed. He always was.
"Well then. You are free to depart for Maryland. Go. But
Blockbuster -- a word with you first?"
The Marauders, including their newest addition, were already dashing out
of the room by the word "Maryland." For a few moments it
seemed as if Sinister's thinly veiled command had fallen upon deaf
ears...but then Blockbuster reluctantly lumbered back in. His massive
shoulders barely cleared the archway which was the only access to his
master's underground laboratory. "Yeah boss?"
Sinister was utterly expressionless. "About what happened at the
Baltimore Seaport...?"
The behemoth shrugged. "I already toldja, sir, I got to unloading
the crates an' when I turned around she was jus' gone. I woulda gone
after her but hell, I thought she'd just wandered off t'take a piss or
somethin', an' anyhow I knew you wouldn't want me ta leave the crates
all unguarded-like on the dock like that..."
"Yes, Michael, I know all of that." Sinister studied
Blockbuster's slab-sided face intently for what must have been the
twentieth time since his biggest lackey had reported in with four full
crates and one empty one. As always, the man's expression was a study in
stupid innocence. Sinister's eyes narrowed. He was almost positive that
he'd had something to do with...
But no. Not Blockbuster. The very idea was absurd.
He sighed inwardly and gestured toward the door. "Never mind. Go
join your team."
"Hey, Vertigo. Toss me those gloves, willya?"
While Sinister spoke to their biggest teammate, the rest of the
Marauders were already busy in the antechamber beyond the laboratory,
suiting up and stowing their gear for travel.
"Hey. Babe. I'm talking to you."
The voice held a definite sneer, the words specifically chosen to needle
her into doing something rash. The newest addition to the team sighed
under her breath but didn't reply as she finished stuffing a few things
into an overnight bag.
"Vertigo...are you deaf or or what?"
"My name," she said softly but clearly without turning around,
"is Maelstrom. I'd appreciate it if you'd keep that in mind."
"You look the same to me. Probably think the same, too. Ready to
run off or turn on us given the slightest chance. I don't think I like
the idea of having you behind me in the field."
Maelstrom gritted her teeth and turned to face Arclight, her fists
clenched. Truth be told, Arclight was right: as far as she could tell,
her every memory stretching back to the blank dead end that was her
"birth" told her that yes, she WAS Vertigo. However, the
moment she'd stepped from her tube her master had sat her down and
explained in plain English what he had done to this, her new body --
and, in the first sign of...kindness?...she could ever remember seeing
from Sinister, he'd actually taken the time to lay to rest her fears of
being replaced or abandoned. He'd given her new confidence, a new name,
and a new trust to live up to. As far as she was concerned, despite the
head full of memories that said otherwise, she was a new person.
The faster she could prove her new worth and lay her previous life to
rest, the better.
"I don't care what you think, Arclight," she said sharply,
secretly marvelling at her own newfound courage. "I'm not the
person you've obviously mistaken me for. I'm me. I know perfectly well
that you're planning to make my life hell from this point forward, and
yeah, normally I'd just duck my head and take it, right? Wrong. Not any
more. I'm not going to put up with this bullshit from you for the rest
of the mission. Or ever again."
"Ex...cuse me?" Arclight seemed to loom over her. For a moment
she'd looked surprised, but then the glint of emotion was gone, locked
behind a thundercloud expression and the shades she always wore. Her
eyes were thus masked, but Maelstrom could feel the glare like razors.
She didn't flinch. Out of the edges of her senses she could tell that
the rest of the room had fallen still and silent; the pack of wolves
scenting a brewing confrontation. "Is that a
challenge...Vertigo?"
"You're damn right it is, you overbearing bitch."
With a silent snarl, Arclight eased back a step and locked her hands
together, as if gaining room for a power strike. Instead of pounding her
hands into the ground and setting off her trademark shockwave, however,
she abruptly lunged forward, aiming that combined fist for the side of
Maelstrom's head in a "disciplinary cuff" which could shatter
concrete.
Maelstrom, however, had expected this bluff. She knew perfectly well
that Arclight wouldn't dare set off an earthtremor this close to
Sinister's laboratory. She was already ducking forward, rolling under
the blow and coming nimbly back up onto her feet behind her opponent. As
Arclight whirled, her hands apart now and one fist drawn back,
Maelstrom...merely narrowed her eyes.
Something crackled in the air, raising the hair on the backs of arms and
necks throughout the stone chamber. Arclight suddenly cried out and
stumbled, her face twisted in shock, and her momentum carried her
forward into a heavy undignified bellyflop. The rest of the Marauders
stared in open astonishment as Arclight fought down a whimper of pain
(<pain?!?>) and weakly tried to push herself up on her hands, but
her legs would not cooperate. Would not move.
Maelstrom had not budged from where she'd been standing. "That was
just a few major nerves in your back and hips, Sontag. And it's just
temporary. Next time I'll go for your heart," she said coldly, her
words falling one by one into the astounded silence. She glanced around
at the others, from Scalphunter to Riptide to Scrambler to Harpoon to
Blockbuster, who just moments before had ambled in from his
"interview" with their master. "I told her and I'll tell
you, and I won't repeat it again: I'm NOT Vertigo."
As she looked back down at Arclight she found that the downed Marauder
was staring up at her, struck completely speechless for the first time
she could ever recall. It was then that Maelstrom finally realized the
true extent of her new "self"...and it also occurred to her
just how far she could take this newfound status.
Without breaking eye contact with Arclight, she casually walked over to
stand at Scalphunter's side...right where Arclight usually stood.
The implications were clear. Maelstrom was certain that she could see an
incandescent fury flash into life behind Arclight's shades. With
exaggerated nonchalance, she looked away just in time to catch just the
smallest nod of amused approval from Scalphunter as he calmly announced
(as if nothing had happened), "All right, people, enough dawdling.
Let's move out."
END INTERLUDE
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Though overcast throughout the morning, the day had waxed bright and
surprisingly warm for Baltimore at that time of year. That, in turn, had
prompted her to take the chance of getting wet with only an old blanket
to dry off with afterward. Having to air-dry in the cool Maryland air
wasn't very appealing; however, she'd always been fairly hardy in
regards to cold and heat, and frankly, if she'd had to go another day
without a bath...
Not much of a bath, more of a dunk in an unguarded and VERY cold duck
pond, but it was better than nothing. It was good to feel human again.
Damp and chilly but contented in her leotard, Vertigo ruffled one
appraising hand through her makeshift clothes where they were spread
over the back of a park bench. Dry enough. She tugged them back on,
noticing a lingering scent but nothing more than she was used to when
out on the trail for a few days with the team.
Of the last four days, the first three had been awful. The stiff
soreness of her injuries had kept her nearly immobile under that
underpass for two days, trapping and her pitifully growling stomach in a
miasma of traffic fumes. When she'd finally been able to put weight on
her leg towards the end of the second day, she'd swallowed her
squeamishness and gone rummaging through trash cans for food. Luckily,
she'd hit the jackpot almost immediately, in the form of a
sausage-and-cheese chain store which threw out literally pounds of only
slightly defective food every night. The cheese was of no use to her,
but among the pile of paper refuse she'd found enough meat and even a
sealed carton of still-hot soup to banish the cramps from her empty
stomach. In fact, over the last two nights she'd felt rather well fed
indeed. And with the use of the "invisibility device" she'd
swiped from Misfire, she'd slept comfortably enough under a table at the
park without fear of being attacked or arrested in the night.
She couldn't believe her luck, and not just in regards to the food and
the "accommodations." Either she'd been fortunate enough to
shake her pursuers, or they'd given up. She liked the sound of the
latter...but she wasn't about to believe it. Not just yet.
Still, though, she felt better than she had in days.
She stretched lazily and then got up; still favoring her bruised leg,
she limped towards the border of the park. She was going to have to move
on soon, she knew. She didn't want to be out on the street, not after
what had nearly happened with the police and Misfire three days before,
but neither could she afford to stay in one place for long. She thought
longingly of the hot soup. Well, maybe one more night...
She took her time, wandering aimlessly through the little park; it was
after sunset by the time she cautiously joined the thin scattering of
humanity on the sidewalks, keeping her head low. She avoided contact of
any kind, and luckily for her no one was even remotely interested in
getting too close the "street person" she appeared to be.
<Maybe I should start muttering or carrying around a dead animal or
something, really spook the flatscans,> she thought mischieviously as
she slipped into the alley and crouched in the shadows behind a small
mountain of cardboard, waiting for one of the bored-looking maroon-aproned
salegirls to carry out the day's trash. Apparently they liked to try to
close up early; she didn't have long to wait.
Dinner thus secured, she ambled back to her grassy haunt at a casual
pace with a bag under her arm, chewing happily on a piece of
perfectly-good beef jerky. There was a confident lift to her step as she
crossed the curb into the park, secure in the knowledge that the place
was quite deserted after sundown...
Except tonight.
She stopped dead, staring as another slim female figure stepped out on
the grass several yards ahead of her. Even from behind and lit only by
starlight, the glimmer of silver-green hair was like a flashing neon
beacon to Vertigo's frightened eyes.
<Misfire!>
Before the brief thought completed its trek across her mind she'd
already ghosted to the side of the path, her limp forgotten, to place
the wide trunk of a tree squarely between her and the huntress. The bark
was rough and steadying against her suddenly hot cheek; she frowned an
instant later as she forced herself to calm down and think beyond "ohmigoditsherimdead!"
Something didn't match up...
She spared a heartbeat or two to examine the brief glimpse which had
been stamped into her mind by fear. Despite the telltale color, the
woman had long loose hair, not hacked short like Misfire's...and instead
of the distinctive bulk of jeans and a jacket, she'd been lithely
outlined by starlight, meaning that she'd been wearing a leotard. Just
like Vertigo's own.
<Of course. How stupid of me! That wasn't...>
Then it hit her.
<So...who WAS it...?!>
Only a moment had passed. She dared to peek out again, and was relieved
to see that she had not been spotted. The other woman, she now saw, was
carrying a good-sized brown paper sack in each hand. She passed close
enough to Vertigo's hiding place for the ex-Marauder to spot the
distinctive golden arches on the nearest bag...and to confirm that yes,
the young woman was an exact duplicate of herself. Even more so than
Misfire.
Vertigo's head was spinning. How...? What did this mean? What the hell--
She clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle a horrified moan as it all
fell into place. It was perfectly obvious. The girl WAS her. She was the
new Vertigo, the new clone, the new "official edition."
SINISTER HADN'T BEEN PLANNING TO TAKE HER OUT OF COMMISSION AFTER ALL.
Vertigo cursed herself bitterly, nails biting into her palms as she
leaned against the tree for support. Like the stupid cow she was, she'd
panicked and run -- abandoned her team, the man to whom she'd vowed her
life -- for no good reason.
The pain, the hunger, the fear, the humiliation...it'd all been for
nothing.
There was no going back, though. Not now. Not ever. She was still as
good as dead for desertion, nothing had really changed...it was the new
understanding that she'd dug her own grave that was making her pulse
pound dizzily in her temples and her eyes blur with hot tears.
<If SHE'S here,> she realized belatedly, <then the rest of them
are here too. They've tracked me down! If I hadn't left to find
dinner...>
<Calm down. Deep breath. Think, dammit.>
Judging by what their new "Vertigo" was carrying, the team had
obviously decided to break for eats -- Vertigo remembered being sent on
numerous identical fast-food runs during her years on the team, when
Scrambler couldn't be roused into doing it instead. Not that she'd never
really minded. She could even envision exactly what orders had been
stuffed inside those greasy bags; her teammates were nothing if not
predictable in their respective tastes. For a moment she entertained the
wild hope that she could use the time it took for them to eat, to put
enough distance behind herself to lose them...but then reality set back
in, hard and final. There was nowhere to go. If they were that close,
there was no escape.
A twig cracked in the underbrush, in the trees which lined the north
side of the park. Vertigo glanced out of her hiding place just in time
to see her new namesake freeze in the center of the grassy expanse. She,
too, was staring at the treeline.
"Mike...?" The girl's call was barely audible, worried, but
with an edge of surety as if she expected an affirmative answer. As if
she was fairly certain that her teammate was keeping an eye on her from
just out of sight. Vertigo couldn't help a small smile. Yeah, he'd had a
tendency to do that...come to think of it, so had Riptide, sometimes,
when the madman was in a rare "brotherly" mood...
Something flashed in the bushes. Her "younger" version out in
the meadow flinched, one hand flying to her belly. The paper bags
plumped to the ground at her feet, forgotten. From her hiding place,
Vertigo had a brief glimpse of the feathered fletching of a dart under
her otherself's hand just another one appeared in the girl's upper arm.
The clone cried out, half in surprise, half in rage, and an unsettling
tingle rippled through every nerve in Vertigo's body as her otherself
instinctively activated her power to lash out at her unseen enemy.
Behind her tree Vertigo gasped involuntarily at the strength of that
pulse, far above anything she could ever have summoned
herself...<what did Sinister DO to her?!>...
And then the girl sighed and collapsed to the grass in a boneless heap.
Her mystery attacker didn't waste any time. The bushes shifted almost
soundlessly and then out stepped the wary jacket-clad form of the real
Misfire.
From her hidden vantage point, Vertigo's eyes went almost impossibly
wide. She'd been far, far luckier than anyone in her situation deserved
to be. The Marauders weren't the only ones who'd pinpointed her location
with ease!
As she watched, holding her breath, Misfire loped across the meadow like
a hunting cat, pausing to peer intently in every direction before she
stooped to gather up her quarry. With the girl's limp body slung over
her shoulder, she hurried out of the park as swiftly as she had
appeared, this time heading for the street to the west. Right past
Vertigo. The ex-Marauder hastily pressed herself back against and then
around the tree as the government assassin raced past, bearing her
unconscious burden with ease, her pounding sneakers almost silent
despite the dusting of dead leaves over the path. In a moment she was
gone.
Hopefully for good.
Vertigo counted backwards from ten and then gustily released the breath
she'd been holding for who-knows-how-long. A wide silly smile of relief
was creeping unbidden onto her face. Yeah, okay, so she was still dead
meat when the Marauders caught up. But if Misfire thought that she'd
finally taken her down -- surely she'd mistaken the new clone for the
fugitive she'd attempted to capture on the street four days before! --
then at least that was one hound off of her trail...
Vertigo sobered abruptly, realizing that her surge of unthinking relief
was rather ridiculous. <Yeah, but at least that particular
"hound" would have let me live.>
She shrugged, starting to feel rather numb and fatalistic at this point
in the game. <Hell, maybe I can have one last good meal before I die
-- that's fair enough, isn't it?> she thought as she pushed herself
off of the tree and set resolutely out into the meadow. The bags of
cheap fast-food burgers still lay in the grass where their courier had
dropped them. She didn't bother to peek at the contents; she merely
picked them up and set off towards where she knew there was a fairly
secluded bench under cover of a stand of evergreen shrubs.
She didn't notice the tall shadow gliding across the grass behind her
until it was practically upon her.
At the last possible instant she felt a presence at her back and whirled
to find herself staring straight at a pair of sleekly-muscled arms -
- one bare, one armored -- which were in turn folded over a sickeningly
familiar metal-sheathed chest.
By all rights Vertigo should have struck then, struck hard, and then
seized that moment of distraction to run -- to cling, scratching and
clawing, to a last few precious seconds of life. However, the moment had
already passed...and anyway, there was nowhere to run. So instead,
Vertigo gulped and clenched her hands tight on the paper bags and looked
defiantly up into an unforgiving obsidian glare.
"And just where," Arclight said icily, "have YOU
been?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
END OF CHAPTER
NEXT: Whew! I promise, that's the clone limit -- no more than three
Vertigos per story. Yipe! Arclight! Which means that the rest of the
remaining Marauders aren't far behind. Gulp. Now what? Either something
really interesting is going to happen, or Part Nine is going to be
tragically short...
No
Way Up
A
tale of fire, frying pans, warped mirrors,
burned bridges, and shades of grey
By Kelly Newcomb
(kielle@aol.com)
BRIEF DISCLAIMER: Marvel's characters belong to Marvel. PLEASE drop me a
note if ya like it or if you wanna archive it. :) Other than that, the
full disclaimer is attached to the prologue of this story.
~~~~~~~~~
Part Nine
~~~~~~~~~
And if you're running blind / On a refueled mind
Better watch the time / And careful you don't go too far
Never burn the bridges before you
If you've burned the bridges behind
And never burn the one that you're walking upon
Or you're sure to hit the water, in time
Don't believe in expectations
Don't believe in shooting stars
And if you make a stand on a dead empty hand
Never let them see your cards...
-- New York City Don't Mean Nothing by Savatage
~~~~~~~~~
"And
just where," Arclight said icily, "have YOU been?"
For a long moment Vertigo stood frozen in terror, unable to think of a
word in defense. Then, slowly, it dawned upon her that Arclight should
simply have chopped her down from behind -- there was no "Marauder
code of honor" when it came to killing. Especially in the case of a
traitor. Especially when it came to the hot-tempered Arclight.
<Of course. She thinks I'm my other self! The one Misfire just
dragged off! She doesn't know--!>
With that realization she finally found her tongue, and the paper
crinkling in her hands gave her an out. "Who cares how long it
took? You wanna eat or what?" she retorted boldly, hefting the bags
of junkfood and shaking them in a rattle of loose fries. "I
appreciate the...concern...but there's no one following me. I made sure
of that -- s'why I'm a bit late, okay? Everything's cool."
Arclight scowled at her but then turned on one heel, stalking away
towards the heart of the park. Breathing a sigh of relief, Vertigo
hesitantly followed, dragging her feet and casting a longing glance over
her shoulder towards the leaf-shrouded lights of the city. <So much
for getting out of the Marauders,> she sighed inwardly. <At least
I know now that Sinister's not going to get rid of me any time
soon...>
<No. That's not true. The minute he figures out that I'm the one that
got away, not his new-and-improved version...or if the others figure it
out first...> She gulped hard at the thought. "What's with the
rags?" Arclight's sharp voice cut into her thoughts. With a start,
Vertigo glanced down at the patchwork of castoffs she was wearing over
her leotard for warmth and camouflage. <Shit! Of COURSE the other
Vertigo hadn't been walking around looking like a bag lady! Good thing I
washed up, at least...no way to explain away the smell...>
"Oh, this...? Just some old junk I picked up in an alley. I, uh,
didn't want to walk into the restaurant in just my costume," she
replied quickly, pleased at her own rapid thinking. Fear of imminent
death tended to sharpen her mind right up, it seemed!
Arclight glanced back at her without breaking her long stride. Her
expression was hard to read in the starlight. "Oh? Seems like a lot
of effort for a load of mcburgers."
Vertigo shrugged carelessly as they reached the Marauders' temporary
encampment -- the others were indistinct shapes lounging around a
childrens' wooden fort. "Ah well, it's best to be careful --
there's someone in the area looking for us, you know..."
She could have bitten her tongue off but it was too late.
"How do you know that?" Scalphunter. He loomed seemingly out
of nowhere, a massive weapon of some sort cradled in his broad sure
callused hands. Vertigo had to fight the suicidal impulse to simply drop
the bags and run.
<Think FAST, girl...>
"The, th, there was some old wino back in the alley where I found
these clothes," she blurted, fleetingly wishing that she believed
in something so she could pray to it. "He recognized me, or at
least my costume. Said that some guy named--" <what was that
name Misfire had mentioned?> "--uh, Carlton had been showing
pictures of us around the neighborhood. That's how he, the bum I mean,
that's how he knew who I was."
Scalphunter narrowed his eyes. "Mmm. And the bum--?"
"Dead now, of course," she said promptly. "Where do you
think I got the clothes?"
For a moment she didn't think he'd bought it. Then the team leader
hrumphed thoughtfully, deep in his throat "Why didn't you report
directly back with this information?"
<He bought it!> Her fight-or-flight tension drained away and she
actually managed a genuine grin. "And show up without the food?
Mike 'n' Rip would kill me."
"Speaking of," Riptide drawled behind her, "where the
hell IS Blockbuster?"
This time her backup was exactly where she'd expected it to be, and
Misfire allowed herself a broad smug grin. In retrospect, sitting
stubbornly on her ass for two days and refusing to release any details
of her encounter with the Marauder Vertigo until she was assured of full
cooperation from the Program's human secondary agents had been a good
idea after all.
The back doors of the van were swinging open even as she approached.
Without the slightest hesitation, she dumped the woman's limp body into
the orderlies' waiting arms; as she turned away they were already
strapping down and sedating their new acquisition. Misfire, however, was
more interested in heading towards the front of the plain gray vehicle.
She rapped on the driver's side door with one knuckle, and a moment
later a neatly-groomed young man poked his head out of the open window.
"Yes'm?" he asked politely.
Respect. God, she loved it. It was the one thing she'd never had in her
previous life as Vertigo, and certainly something she didn't get in the
"mental hospital" safehouse where they usually insisted on
keeping her between missions. Oh, they were polite enough, and painfully
cautious of her abilities even when she was wearing an inhibitor collar,
but that wasn't the same...
She beamed up at the driver, a genuine smile which gave her wide blue
eyes a momentary shimmer of false innocence. "Hey, Tran. Anything
from HQ or are they going to pull us in now?" Though she had a
special personal interest in capturing Vertigo, it wouldn't be
altogether unpleasant to finally get the chance to see if she could,
indeed, now take down any of the other Marauders...
Tran shook his head. He looked surprisingly young and fresh-
faced to be an agent, but she knew better: he'd been on one of her
previous "outings" as a sniper. A good one. Program agents,
mutant or human, were few in number and so they often had to double up
in their duties. "I think you've about wrapped this one up, ma'am.
I'm all for clearing out before her buddies show up."
"EX-buddies, remember, they want her ass worse than we do for
running out on them...but yeah, you're basically right. They're probably
around somewhere and it'd get pretty messy if they dropped in on
us." Misfire moved forward, planning to round the front of the
truck and claim shotgun, but then someone called her name from the back
of the vehicle.
"Misfire, ma'am? Er...we could use your help..." One of the
orderlies, if she remembered right. He sounded terrified but controlled
-
- not in immediate danger but far out of his depth. Without pausing to
wonder what was going on she was already striding back there, bracing
herself for anything, her power surging through her head like a tide and
bringing a metallic taste to the back of her throat...
When she reached the open van door three steps later, however, she
stopped in her tracks both physically and mentally.
"--the hell--?!"
One of the orderlies, a woman, was pressed up against on the other side
of the door. She looked frightened but unharmed. A quick glance
confirmed that the second medic was still safely inside the van, as was
Vertigo's insensate body.
Misfire stood perfectly still, staring up at the intruder in
disbelief, unconsciously poised for a fight for her life. Consciously,
she wasn't sure what to think. She hadn't seen him for years. And as it
was now apparant that he was making no move to rescue his captive
teammate, she had no idea what he wanted -- none at all.
It was the female orderly who broke the taut silence in a shaky voice.
"He, uh, he says that he wants to defect."
<Huh?!?>
"He"...was Blockbuster.
"Yeah, I've been thinkin'," the huge Marauder rumbled almost
genially. He was eying Misfire carefully from head to toe; his gaze then
lingered thoughtfully on her shoulder-cropped hair. The scrutiny made
her fight the urge to fidget.
"If YOU could leave, why not me?" he continued. "I mean,
sure, I have nuthin' against Sinister, but when I signed up it wasn't
f'r life or nuthin'. An' I'm startin' ta see that that's what HE thinks.
He thinks he owns me. Well, that ain't how I work. I've done this kinda
merc work before. An' I know a sour job when I see it. I'm out before he
decides ta scrap the whole Marauder thing. An' unlike with you, there's
not a damn thing they can do to stop me once they find out. Haw! I'd
like ta see 'em try."
Under his words, Misfire was thinking furiously. <"If you could
leave"...? I didn't leave, I was arrested! Kidnapped! Didn't they
know that? I thought Sinister knew everything! What is he talking
about...? Does he think I'm HER? Well then, if so, who does he think SHE
is--?>
She decided to piece it together later, when they were safely away from
the Marauders. Speaking of... "Where are the rest of the
team?"
"No worries, they're all still back at the camp. I jus' was
followin'
Maelstrom here--"
Misfire couldn't help shooting a sidelong glance at their green-and-
silver-haired prisoner. <MAELSTROM?! What the blue FUCK is going on
here?>
He was still speaking over her inner confusion. "An' when you
showed up, well..." He spread his hammy hands in a shrug. "Eh,
I missed you, kid. Think yer new employer c'n find room for a
muscleman?"
"I'm sure," she said. And suddenly she was surprised to find
that she was genuinely glad to see him -- and not on the other side of a
battle, either. <Not the mention the fact that my superiors will be
ecstatic! They don't get many willing recruits on the mutant side;
they'll probably treat him like a king, the lucky bastard.>
She relaxed and grinned and gestured courteously to the van, when the
orderlies had already anticipated her and were wedging themselves and
their "patient" up against one wall of the interior. "Hop
on in, buddy ol' pal."
Scalphunter was furious. Arclight was beyond fury. Scrambler and Harpoon
were thoughtfully silent and Riptide...well, he didn't seem to care,
really. But after searching for three hours, the facts were crystal
clear: Blockbuster had walked out of the park and simply...vanished.
Which meant that the mission had to be aborted. Immediately.
Frankly, Vertigo was more than happy to be taken off of the trail. After
all, it would have been awkward to have to accompany the team on a wild
goosechase in search of herself! Not to mention that it would have been
only a matter of time before someone caught on to the fact that she
wasn't who she was supposed to be -- someone, she now gathered, who
looked and thought just like her but was now going under the name of
"Maelstrom." And who, though of course she couldn't ask for
details, was definitely a few levels above her predecessor in terms of
power. Arclight had been surly but almost polite to her during the
search, and twice -- twice! -- Scalphunter had actually dropped back to
Vertigo's side and asked her opinion.
Vertigo shook her head. "And why," she added bitterly under
her breath, "didn't Sinister do whatever he did to her -- to ME --
years ago?"
The long ride home in the back of the rented van had been spent in an
unnervingly taut silence. Vertigo wasn't one hundred percent sure WHY
they were being forced back to base just because Mike had wandered
off...but everyone else seemed to be taking their orders for granted, so
of course she couldn't ask. What she WAS sure of was that the Marauders
had been very much looking forward to taking her down...hard.
She swallowed with a dry throat as the van finally pulled to a halt,
jostling her shoulder-to-shoulder with people who would cheerfully rip
her to bloody scraps the instant they figured out who she really was.
<It's only a matter of time now -- minutes maybe,> she thought,
biting her lip nervously as Harpoon shoved the back doors open and
climbed down. <Sinister won't be fooled for a moment.>
Schooling her features into the same expression of disgruntled
disinterest as the others, she jumped out of the van, almost stepping on
Scrambler's heels. The van was parked in a vaulted stone chamber, dimly
lit from an unseen source and crisscrossed with watery ditches which
smelled like clean rainwater rather than sewage. With a sinking
sensation she recognized their surroundings: they were back at
Sinister's main lair -- at least, the one he preferred this year.
She was the the second-to-last Marauder out of the vehicle. The instant
Riptide's feet hit concrete Sinister was there, appearing almost out of
nowhere, his arms folded and a glower darkening his normally impassive
expression. He was obviously not bothering to wait for his assassins to
drag their feet into his inner sanctum for the usual debriefing.
Vertigo sternly quelled the urge to cross her fingers. <This is NOT
good...>
"Blockbuster," their master said slowly, deliberately, almost
as if bemused. "How on God's green earth did you bloodcrazed fools
manage to misplace BLOCKBUSTER?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
END OF CHAPTER
NEXT: I would NOT want to be a Marauder right now. If Vertigo can get
through Sinister's initial team interrogation, can she really expect to
escape detection for long? She's really cornered, folks, but there might
be a slim chance of a way out...if she's brave enough and smart enough
to take it. Errr..."brave"? "Smart"? Vertigo--?! Uh
oh.
No
Way Up
A
tale of fire, frying pans, warped mirrors,
burned bridges, and shades of grey
By Kelly Newcomb
(kielle@aol.com)
BRIEF DISCLAIMER: Marvel's characters belong to Marvel. PLEASE drop me a
note if ya like it or if you wanna archive it. :) Other than that, the
full disclaimer is attached to the prologue of this story.
~~~~~~~~
Part Ten
~~~~~~~~
Master of puppets, I'm pulling your strings
Twisting your mind and smashing your dreams
Blinded by me, you can't see a thing
Just call my name 'cuz I'll hear you scream
Master, master...
-- Master Of Puppets, Metallica
~~~~~~~~
An
hour later, Vertigo was amazed to find herself still alive and
unscathed.
Sinister had been furious, of course -- he still was -- and even the
boldest of the Marauders had withered and squirmed under his scorching
rebuke. The subsequent lash of interrogation had left almost no Marauder
ungrilled...except for Vertigo.
(<Maelstrom, I'm supposed to be Maelstrom,> she had to keep
reminding herself.)
Oh, she'd had to field her share of questions, sure, but the level of
scrutiny she'd been placed under had been nowhere NEAR the third-
degree aimed at the others. Before, she might have attributed this to
the unhappy feeling that Sinister regarded her as he would a mildly
retarded child -- bright enough to send out to play with the "big
kids," maybe even useful in her own way, but certainly not mature
enough to be expected to bear any of the responsibility.
Now, though...
She hadn't missed the dirty looks slung in her direction by some of the
others. Jealous looks, she could almost say. It was then that she
realized that Sinister held this new "Maelstrom" version in a
far higher regard than the "old" Vertigo. Almost...trusted.
Though it intensified her hurt anger over the fact that her master had
never bothered to "upgrade" her before, the realization lifted
her heart just a bit. If she had more leeway as Maelstrom, maybe she
could bide her time and make a second break for it before the next
battle or the next brain-drain gave her secret away...
However, even as she was beginning to tentatively consider making a
second attempt at escape, her hopes were dashed to shards by Sinister's
final decision on the Blockbuster "problem."
"...should have done this before you were allowed to venture back
into the field," he had been saying as she'd belatedly tuned back
in to the stinging lecture which followed his barrage of questions.
"I will admit, perhaps this...incident is partially my fault for
being too lenient upon you. It was foolish of me to allow your personal,
uneducated opinions upon your own respective states of mind to sway my
judgment.
"I think it would be best, therefore, if I were to conduct full
mental
examinations upon each of you before any more of you suddenly develop
the urge to wander off on an unannounced sabbatical. You will remain
here until I summon you. Scalphunter, you are first. Accompany me if you
will."
That was a command, not an request. Sinister's tone was implacable and
his eyes flashed black fire as he pronounced his decision, and this time
none of the willful assassins dared to protest. Vertigo's heart sank.
<Well, there goes that.> For a moment she wistfully eyed the four
entrances to the Manhattan tunnels which ringed the chamber; then she
dragged her feet after the rest of the momentarily cowed Marauders.
Outside of the electronic door which led to Sinister's own living area
and laboratories was a raised traingular concete "platform"
about twenty feet across, one of four which ringed the huge
channel-crossed chamber. This particular quadrant was littered with
salvage -- old furniture, blankets, clothes, and dirty magazines -- to
serve as a temporary makeshift camp of sorts, used when the Marauders
weren't out on the road or passing a dull few months in the tubes. The
others were already propping up an old table and trying to put together
a full set of cards to pass the time. Feeling trapped and miserable,
Vertigo claimed a worn stuffed paisley chair at the farthest corner,
well away from her "teammates," and curled up in it to
concentrate on gnawing off one of the few remaining nails she hadn't
already bitten to the quick.
Ten minutes later Sinister emerged to round up Harpoon. Scalphunter did
not return. Neither did Harpoon when Riptide was called in for his
examination ten minutes after that. Knowing Sinister, that meant that
whatever he was doing to gather the information he wanted involved
something which required recuperation time. Vertigo gulped hard at the
thought -- if she hadn't already been at her "fear" limit she
would have been petrified merely by the thought of whatever procedure
lay in store for her beyond the laboratory door. Sinister could be
frighteningly subtle in his words and manner, but when it came to
medical procedures he was brutally direct and supremely unsympathetic...
Deep in thought, she almost leaped out of her skin as Scrambler
appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, to crouch down next to her chair.
He'd carelessly dropped one hand onto the overstuffed arm of the old
piece of furniture, close enough to her own arm to raise hairs all over
her skin. She withdrew it without trying to look anxious and met his
gaze unflinchingly. He was just staring up at her, saying nothing. It
was unnerving, to say the least.
"Well? What?" she snapped at last, frazzled to the breaking
point. "Have I grown a beard or something?"
He grinned, but his eyes did not smile. They were still tracking across
her face, looking for...something. "Nah, I'd expect THAT from
Arc." He jerked a thumb back at the other woman, who was now
boredly gathering up the cards and stuffing them into the nearest jacket
pocket. Of course, though, he'd cracked the impertinent joke far too
quietly for the temperamental killer to overhear.
"Y'know, there's something weird about you," he added almost
without pause, changing subjects with alarming speed before she could
come up with an appropriate reply. She was suddenly glad that he'd
already lowered his voice. "Something 'not-right.' And I finally
figured out what it is. Y'see, we've only known Maelstrom for a day or
so...but we've known Vertigo for years."
She went cold from head to toe, every muscle tensing rock-hard. <So
this is it, huh?> "What the hell are you implying?" she
hissed, unable to stop herself from chancing a glance over at Arclight.
"I'm not implying anything. I KNOW. If you're Maelstrom, you'd be
over there with us, trying to pretend that you're the new top dog on the
block."
"Oh, for crying out-- Look, I was carsick and I just felt like
getting in some rest before Sinister starts sticking probes into
me," she protested angrily.
Without warning he made a sudden move to touch her shoulder. She jerked
back, almost rolling out of the chair, and he grinned as he let his arm
fall back to his side. "There's not as much raw power in you as
there should be. I can tell."
"Look, this is ridiculous. I don't have to defend myself to you.
It's perfectly obvious: I AM Maelstrom."
"Oh yeah?" Scrambler spread his hands invitingly. "Come
on, then, prove it. Do something to me. I dare you."
Vertigo stared at him angrily but helplessly, at a complete loss. A
moment later he dropped both hands onto his knees with a flat smack.
"Uh huh. I thought so."
<So this really IS it,> her mind whispered fatalistically. Her
heart was pounding so loud that she was amazed that he couldn't hear it,
too. <Already. It's not fair...>
"So go on then, Sung, tell everyone," she snapped bitterly.
"What are you waiting for? I don't stand a chance and you know it.
Get it over with."
The Korean-American waved one hand dismissively. "Not yet."
"Oh sure, drag it out..."
"No, no, that's not my intention. If I tell the others, I won't
ever know. What made you do it, I mean."
"Run away?"
"Yep."
Vertigo sighed and examined her nails as if they were the most
fascinating things in the universe. "Look, you guys have it all
wrong," she muttered without looking up at him. "I wasn't
trying to betray you or Sinister. I just...I thought he was going to get
rid of me. Like Prism."
Scrambler sucked in a breath as if he was about to say something but
then he exhaled and gestured for her to continue. She sighed and finally
looked right into his eyes. "There really isn't much more to it
than that, okay? I didn't...I just didn't want to die, you know? Not
permanently."
"But you were wrong."
"No shit, Sherlock, I know that NOW!" She had to forcibly stop
herself from yelling, dragging her voice back down to a murmur. Arclight
was pacing restlessly along the edge of the concrete platform like a
caged tigress, but she did not appear to be moving within earshot. Yet.
"I panicked, okay?" Vertigo hissed, her whisper laced with
venomous disgust with her own faulty choices. "I'm sorry! I was
stupid!"
"Yeah, well, I was on the verge of doing the same exact
thing," Scrambler said very, very quietly.
Vertigo's train of thought was abruptly, violently derailed. Her eyes
went wide as she stared at him, momentarily at a loss for words.
"YOU--?! But...but you...the team needs you!"
He shrugged carelessly. "Sure, yeah, for only one thing, and I can
only do that if I can get in close and touch someone. At least you have
a distance attack -- you can hit several targets at once. But me...well,
my range pretty much makes me a one-target wonder. Prism and I, we'd
been talking about working together in battle to stay in one piece
longer. To 'up' our efficiency rating, like. He said he was going try to
convince you to join us..."
Though her view of the world was now reeling with the revelation that
someone had actually considered her valuable to the team, it was
starting to make a twisted kind of sense. "Uh...yes. Yes, he did
start to say something to me, the night before his last mission. In
Paris. Something that didn't make sense to me at the time, something
about 'sticking together'..."
Scrambler nodded. "Right. And then the next thing I knew, he
was...gone. It was a bit of a shock, Vee. I'd thought it was going to be
me first. After that... Well, before I could make up my mind about it,
we were decanted here in New York and you were missing." He flashed
her a quick lopsided grin. "And as you can guess, we've been kinda
busy ever since."
Vertigo didn't return the smile. She was watching his face carefully,
her pulse no longer a fight-or-flight thunder in her ears. "ARE you
going to tell the others about me?" she asked in a very small
voice.
He hesitated then shook his head. "No. No point, really. Unlike
some folks I could name, I'm not really big on killing teammates. You
haven't got much time left anyway."
"Yeah. Sinister."
They were both quiet for a minute. Vertigo wasn't sure what to make of
the whole conversation. Scrambler had rarely ever been actively cruel to
her, but they'd never really had anything in common, either -- at best,
he made her feel like a clumsy country mouse.
"Hey, Scrambler." That was Arclight's voice, slicing
unexpectedly into the uncomfortable silence. "Quit kissing up to
the new girl. Sinister's ready for you. Better get moving."
With a sigh, Scrambler pushed against his knees and rose from his crouch
beside Vertigo's chair. "Good luck," he said, even though they
both knew that the phrase was nothing more than two meaningless
words...that her luck had finally run out. "Don't worry about
Sinister getting it from me, about you being here I mean -- I seriously
doubt that he'll be looking for THAT particular piece of information in
my head, and I don't plan on volunteering it. I'm afraid that's all I
can do for you, though. If there's a hunt, I...well..." He spread
his hands helplessly. "You understand, right?"
She gave him a brief but genuine smile. "Yeah. Thanks."
"SOMETIME TODAY, SUNG!"
Scrambler winced at the sheer volume of the shout as it echoed and
reverberated around the stone chamber. "Yeah, yeah, Arc, keep your
panties on," he grumbled as he ambled off towards his appointment
with Sinister.
At a complete loss, Vertigo pulled her knees up to her chin and stared
steadfastly at the paisley pattern on the chair arm...
At her master's signal, Arclight sauntered casually into the inner
sanctum. Now all alone in the Marauders' haphazard outer living area,
Vertigo sat hunched up in a ball on her worn chair, nervously gnawing at
the shreds of one thumbnail. She was the last one. She was next. Unless
something went drastically wrong with Arclight -- and she seriously
doubted THAT was going to happen -- in ten or so minutes she, Vertigo,
would be called in by Sinister for a thorough mental examination, just
like the others...except that she'd fail. It was over. She was trapped.
There was nowhere else to go...
Or maybe there was.
It had taken every scrap of what little courage she thought she
possessed to run away the first time, and that had been the single
bravest act of her entire pointless life. In a way, though, she'd still
taken
the coward's path. She'd made her break for it when the others were
locked away, when Sinister had been hundreds of miles to the north.
If she tried to run now, it'd be quicker to just slit her wrists...but
not by much.
And yet...
<Either way, I'm dead,> she thought as she uncurled and rose to
her feet. <May as well go all-out and improve my chances with a
distraction...>
She felt surprisingly steady as she walked across the deserted
"camp" and picked up the sweater she'd worn during her brief
sojourn out in the real world. There were three hard objects wrapped up
in it, all three stolen from Misfire. It had been a real bitch to keep
them hidden from the other Marauders, but they trusted
"Maelstrom" -- <or were afraid of her, imagine that!> --
and she hadn't been searched in any way. Her luck had held.
Sitting back on her haunches and trying to keep a wary eye on all of the
exits to the stone chamber at once, Vertigo fished out the stolen
cellphone and flipped it open, noting with relief that after several
days lying idle it still held a charge. She was about to dial when her
fingers paused over the buttons. An idea had struck her -- <a
surprisingly good idea considering MY track record,> she admitted
ruefully. Instead of going with her first idea, therefore, she pushed
the redial button.
For a moment she was worried that the signal wouldn't make it out of the
underground lair, but luckily for her this particular phone hadn't been
designed with your average freeway-cruising businessman in mind. When
she cautiously put the phone to her ear there was no answer but there
was definitely someone there. Silent. Listening.
<Spooky government types,> she thought with a shrug. <Just do
it.>
"Hey, I dunno who you guys are," she stated confidentally,
"but I know you work with that Misfire chick, and I'll bet she's
told you all about me. Yeah, this is Vertigo, the real one. You might
want to know that if you trace this phone -- and I'm betting you can --
there's a whole nest of murderin' mutie Marauders down here. This isn't
a trap; I hate 'em just about as much as I bet you guys do. So come and
get 'em."
With a wicked grin, she hung up and dialed 911 and told the police the
exact same thing...plus explicit directions, both above- and below-
ground.
Then she yanked on a pair of hacked-off jeans, stuck her other stolen
"toy" in the waistband, clipped the imager to her leotard
collar, and took off running for the tunnels.
Somewhere in Virginia, in a room mostly lit by computer screens and
blinking electronic telltales, a woman sat up in surprise. She pressed
her headset closer to her ear as if that would make the message come in
clearer than it already was, but it was about as clear as daylight
anyhow.
"Sir? Excuse me, SIR--?"
"Yes, Mayfaire?"
She tapped in a command to store and rewind the message, then held her
headset out to her boss. "You're not going to believe what just we
just picked up from the police lines in New York..."
Twenty minutes later, when Maelstrom didn't answer his summons not once
but three times, Sinister set down his electronic clipboard with a gusty
sigh and strode towards the laboratory archway to handle the situation
himself. Perhaps she'd wandered off...she'd always been a bit flighty
that way. Something he should breed out of the next clone. Could a short
attention span be remedied genetically? It was a stretch of the
imagination, yes, but most of his best ideas started out that way...like
the mildly entertaining "metamorph-as-a-living-breeding-
creche" hobby he'd pursued for a while last year...or that useful
little boarding school he'd acquired in Oklahoma...
<Hmm. If nothing else, it'd be a distraction.> Making a mental
note of the new idea, Sinister set aside his equipment with an
exasperated sigh and strode out of his lab. A quick look around the mess
which served as the Marauders' temporary lair revealed two key details:
the somewhat expected lack of Maelstrom, and the completely unexpected
presence of a discarded cellphone.
His annoyance chilled into suspicion. He bent to pick up the phone, and
as he turned it over in his hand it was immediately apparant that this
was no ordinary piece of technology.
<Government issue. I...see.>
And with that, his suspicion hardened into certainty.
Less than one minute later the rest of his assassins were assembled once
more, clad in full battle gear. Scenting a spur-of-the-moment hunt, they
were curious and restless, but the thunderous look on Sinister's face
kept them respectfully silent. Something had the boss-man major-
pissed, as Riptide would have put it.
And it did not escape any of them that their newest teammate was
conspiciously absent.
Sinister glared sidelong at Arclight until she caught herself and wiped
the broad "I-told-you-so" smirk off of her face. Only then did
he inform them curtly, "It appears that we've had a breach of
security. We may be expecting visitors within the hour, I suspect. I
want you all out on perimeter alert. Nothing and nobody is to get
through, am I making myself perfectly clear?"
An assortment of nods and shuffles met this, as well as a few exchanged
glances. There were questions burning in their eyes but none had the
nerve to...
"Hey boss, where's Maelstrom?"
Sinister raised an eyebrow and regarded the Marauder who'd spoken so
insolently and yet was so completely casual under his master's sudden
scrutiny. Sinister resisted the urge to shake his head like an
exasperated father. Even HE couldn't predict Riptide.
<'Where's Maelstrom,' indeed...>
For a moment he considered lying to them. Then he decided that yes, he
WOULD lie to them. No point in having them go baying off on their grudge
hunt again, not when there was a possibility of leaving his base open to
discovery by the outside world. There was more than a good chance that
he'd lose all control over the motley pack of assassins if they knew
that they'd been infiltrated in the field by Vertigo, the very woman
they'd gone hunting for...
<Which means that I have not one but TWO missing Marauders to contend
with,> Sinister thought grimly. He was not stupid. The
government-issue phone had been all he'd needed to put two and two
together. It was obvious: the runaway Vertigo had found herself a new
employer, and she was more than eager to sell out her previous master
AND as many of her former teammates as she could to secure her new life.
And it had plainly been child's play for her to take the place of her
new doppleganger.
Sinister winced, unable to believe the gullibility of his Marauders.
<Damnation! Must I lean over their shoulders every second of every
day...?!>
Matters were rapidly clicking into place, and he didn't like the big
picture. Not one bit. The very thought of Maelstrom AND Blockbuster in
government custody -- his new masterpiece and the man who knew the inner
nuts-and-bolts of too many of his master's machinations... Quite
frankly, it made him want to grind his teeth together. He'd OWNED
Vertigo's absolute terrified loyalty, beyond a shadow of a doubt. Where
did he go wrong? What glitch had set in during the last cloning process
to make her go so far awry?
<No matter. No matter, now. Forget letting the Marauders track that
little turncoat down,> he thought darkly. If he had his way (and he
usually did), he would personally recapture Vertigo, flay her slowly,
and then break her neck with his bare hands.
"I am still completing my examination upon Maelstrom," he lied
smoothly. "She'll join you later. I need you out there NOW. Get
going." And in a dramatic skirl of cape Sinister turned on one heel
and stalked back regally into his sanctum sanctorum, brooking no further
questions.
The Marauders stayed right where they were for a few moments, waiting
with surprising patience until the tapping of Sinister's bootheels faded
away and a distant door hummed shut.
Then Scalphunter deliberately cocked his gun, a metallic beast fully
half the size of his torso, with a rachetting k-kKk-klick! that echoed
quite satisfactorily in the vaulted stone chamber. "So. Did any of
you guys buy that one?"
"Heh! You saw the look on his face when I said 'Maelstrom' -- I
thought he was gonna have an stroke!" Riptide gloated, elbowing
Harpoon in the ribs. The Inuit hunter glared at him but nodded in
agreement, as did Scrambler. Scrambler seemed a little distracted, but
then again that was normal for him and no one paid any heed to his
slightly delayed reaction.
"I KNEW something was wrong," Arclight growled. She was still
somewhat pale from her "examination," but of course it was
nothing that she couldn't handle. "I knew it! Ever since I met her
coming back from Mickie D's, back at that park in Baltimore. I couldn't
put my finger on it, an' I figured it was just 'cause I didn't have a
full handle on her yet. I'm thinking she's not so different from her old
self after all."
Scalphunter looked thoughtful at that and seemed about to say something,
but then he rubbed his chin and kept it to himself.
"I say screw guarding the perimeter -- Sinister's just tryin' to
keep us busy an' 'out of the way,'" Arclight spat viciously,
insulted. "It's obvious that the damn girl's run off just like the
last one, an' Sinny's just trying to cover his ass. He's a scientist,
he's living in a dream world. He doesn't know anything about the way a
team works. WE know what's good for the Marauders, not HIM."
She punched one fist forcefully into her other palm. "*I* say let's
bring her down and END this like we should have, right from the
beginning. New powers or NO new fucking powers. You all in?"
"Of course," Scrambler replied promptly. Harpoon nodded, and
Scalphunter snorted as if to say "you have to ask?" Riptide
merely grinned bloodthirstily from ear to ear, flipping a shuriken idly
from hand to hand. With a momentary blur of his power and a careless
flick of a finger, he sent the sharp flake of metal deep into the
nearest stone wall.
"So what are we waiting for?" he drawled.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
END OF CHAPTER
NEXT: Could this be rounding into a home stretch? I won't lie to you --
maybe! Come back for part eleven: Vertigo versus the Marauders (or
what's left of them, anyway)! Is this the end of our, er, heroine? Could
be. With THESE characters, all bets are off and there's no guarantees
until the final curtain...
No
Way Up
A
tale of fire, frying pans, warped mirrors,
burned bridges, and shades of grey
By Kelly Newcomb
(kielle@aol.com)
BRIEF DISCLAIMER: Marvel's characters belong to Marvel. PLEASE drop me a
note if ya like it or if you wanna archive it. :) Other than that, the
full disclaimer is attached to the prologue of this story.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Part Eleven
~~~~~~~~~~~
Well, the villain is the hero
And I'm torn, dirty, and mad...
-- We Got The Power by Lizzy Borden
~~~~~~~~~~~
Well,
like it or not, she had to admit it:
She was lost.
Vertigo paused to catch her breath, leaning back against a cold damp
wall with her hands on her knees. She cast a glare around the dark
chamber; the only scraps of light for as far as she could see streamed
in ribbons from a street grate some ten feet about her head. At least it
wasn't a wet night up aboveground -- if it had been raining, she'd be
running through oily waterfalls, on top of everything else.
She'd been fairly confident of her ability to get through the New York
sub-sewer system on her own, as she'd been through them many times with
the team. But there were miles of tunnels, and it was dark, and
somewhere in her hurry to put enough distance behind her she'd made a
crucial wrong turn.
<Guess the only thing to do is to keep moving,> she sighed to
herself. She had no idea how much time had passed, but it had been more
than enough time for her absence to be noticed...
Vertigo straightened up with a grunt but then paused, listening to some
distant scratch of debris on concrete. The last three times had been
false alarms, so she didn't tense up immediately. When the next sound
she heard was the click of metal on stone, however...
Without hesitation she whirled and ran -- well, she couldn't exactly run
in the near total darkness, not on damp concrete that could drop away
into a channel at any moment, but she certainly MOVED. With only spandex
and thin tough soles between her feet and the cold ground, she was able
to feel her way along as quietly as a cat, and her eyes were now well
adjusted to the echoing dimness. No more looking for a convenient way
out -- she was out of time. ANY way out of the sewers would do now. When
it came to being pursued by the Marauders, underground tunnels were a
deathtrap.
There! A glimpse out of the corner of her eye, a flash of darkness to
her right that wasn't quite the same texture as the darkness all around
her. She leaped over the water channel down the center of the tunnel and
thrust her hand forward and up, into the mismatched patch. She met no
resistance until her fingertips touched a rusty bar. An access! Quickly
(for she could swear that she'd just heard a whisper in the tunnels not
far away) she jumped up, bracing herself against the sides of the pipe.
It was a little slippery but before she lost her precarious grip she
lunged forward and caught two of the bars. None of them were loose or
missing (<nnnnoooo, because that would be convenient!> she
grumbled to herself) but she was pretty sure that if she really
wriggled, she could get through...
Not far away, Harpoon lifted his head and listened intently. For a
moment he'd heard something...something like the rattle of loosely
anchored iron. A grate, perhaps? Too far ahead to be a sound made any of
his teammates; although they were currently all out of his line of
sight, busy scouring the neighboring tunnels, he knew their patterns and
habits as well as he knew his own heartbeat.
Confident but with the wary silent tread of a well-armed man on the
trail of dangerous game, he changed direction, following that faint
sound. Within moments he came across the obvious trail of scuff-marks in
the dried scum which coated many of the tunnels. He crouched down for a
better look, and he thoughtfully ran one calloused finger around the
telltale outline of a small, practically bare foot.
The hunter allowed himself a grim smile then raised his hand to his lips
and let out a barely audible series of whistles.
< ~~Harpoon~~ / ~~Target located~~ / ~~Meet here~~ / ~~Harpoon~~ >
It would only be a matter of moments before the spread-out team
reconvened on his location.
Vertigo scrambled up the side of the concrete drainage ditch in one
determined rush, using her momentum to practically throw herself up the
steep incline. Only when she reached the top did she pause to catch her
breath, wrapping her arms around herself and wincing ruefully. She'd
squeezed through the bars, all right, but probably at the expense of a
cup size or two. And her injured leg, which was now a fine angry yellow
of fading taxi-induced bruises under her leotard, was throbbing
unhappily all over again.
She allowed herself a moment to favor her scrapes and then firmly shoved
the distraction away. Instead, she let her arms fall to her sides and
spared a few precious moments to survey her prospects. The ditch seemed
to mark the border of a vast expanse of grass, silent and unbroken save
for the occasional scattered tree. Behind her were streetlights and the
shifting concealing motion of humanity, but a high chain-link fence and
a roaringly busy stream of traffic lay between her and that comparative
safety...
Before she could decide properly, there was a clank of metal as someone
tested one of the iron bars of the grate below.
Her heart thudded up into the back of her throat. Without wasting a
moment longer, she whirled and took off sprinting across the damp
grass...away from the lights of New York City and straight into the
dark.
Impatiently, Scalphunter motioned Harpoon aside and blasted two of the
iron bars right out of their sockets. He didn't need Harpoon to confirm
that their prey had used this accessway to escape to the upper world;
now that they were in the right tunnel, the signs of her passage were as
obvious to his trained eye as they were to the Inuit hunter. He could
have kicked himself for not being the one to find the trail first.
he chided himself, only half-seriously.
Arclight had already boosted Scrambler up through the grate and was
jumping up after him, one hundred percent fixated upon their goal. This
close to the end of the hunt, both she and Riptide were practically
vibrating with ferocious energy. It was at times like this that
Scalphunter was glad that he could count on cooler heads like Scrambler
and Harpoon to prevail -- to keep matters quiet. The prey had led the
chase far closer to the fringes of the human world than he liked...
<Either the girl's running blind,> he thought as he holstered his
rifle and reached up for the smoking grate himself, <or she's got a
lot more guts than I gave her credit for.>
The footing was uneven in an oddly regular way...and ahead she could now
make out loose groupings of strangely-shaped protrusions. Tree stumps,
maybe? But why?
Vertigo finally spared a moment to look down just as her right foot
kicked straight through a withered bundle of flowers, scattering petals
over the grass. The dim starlight glinted off of small metal plaques set
every few feet. For a moment she frowned, wondering -- then she realized
that what lay ahead were actually rows of gravestones.
Which meant that she was in a cemetery, and that the plaques under her
flying feet marked more modern graves.
Vertigo snorted softly to herself as she ran, not wasting breath on
words. <Oh, lovely. How appropriate.> She strained her eyes,
trying to see the other side of the grassy expanse, but trees and
distance foiled her attempt to gauge the distance to safety. As she
passed the first of the knee-high stone markers at an alert jog, she was
forced to admit that the place looked huge, and she had no guarantee
that there was civilization on the far side.
She came across a driveway; the blacktop was still slightly warm
underfoot as she paused thoughtfully in the middle of the miniature
road. In one direction it wound away behind a stand of greenery, but in
the other direction it led straight to a rather Gothic brick building of
some kind. She fumbled for the right word and then she had it:
"mortuary." That building was a mortuary.
It meant very little to her.
After a brief moment of consideration she shrugged and lit out in that
direction. Either way, her trail would be much harder to pick up on the
asphalt; hopefully the Marauders would assume that she'd set off in the
other direction, towards civilization.
And it all else failed, the building would provide better cover than the
gravestones and the scattered trees.
Vertigo had barely reached the mortuary when the hair on the back of her
neck stood straight up. Without pausing to think, she threw herself
aside just as a crackling energy harpoon sliced past close enough to
sever a lock of her hair. The harpoon thudded into the ground several
yards ahead of her but she had already changed course again, hugging the
bushes at the side of the building and darting around the corner as a
second spear thunked into the bricks themselves.
Now that the moment of truth was upon her, she was mildly surprised to
find that she was no longer afraid. She was no longer thinking but,
rather, acting on pure adrenaline. Every second seemed slow and crystal
clear, and she suddenly knew exactly what they expected her to do: to
keep running, or to use the bushes as cover. So she didn't. Three steps
after she turned the corner she whirled and planted her feet and raised
her hands and summoned up her own inner strength.
When Harpoon and Riptide rounded the back of the mortuary they ran
straight into an invisible miasma of disorienting nausea.
Already spinning like a dervish in anticipation of the kill, Riptide
instead found himself swerving wildly aside, choking and completely out
of control. His tangled feet struck the steps of the mortuary's back
"porch" and his incredible momentum threw him head-first to
the stone landing with a sickeningly final crack.
However, Vertigo didn't have time to decide whether she felt elated or
regretful. To her dismay, she found that after a brief moment of obvious
dizziness Harpoon crouched low to regain his balance, shook his head,
and then glared directly up at her. In one swift fluid movement he
retrieved a harpoon haft from the quiver slung across his broad back.
<...oh no immune to my power of course after all those missions he's
built up a resistance to it oh my what now...?> She only had seconds
to act, and she certainly couldn't tackle him physically OR try to make
a break for it -- either way she'd be impaled and gutted before she
could take a step.
<Only one thing left to try,> she thought fleetingly, remembering
then what her other two selves could do. Remembering how deadly they
both could be. It was ironic, really; not only was she not a very good
person, and not only was she not the best Marauder, but she wasn't even
the best VERTIGO in existence! Pathetic. But if Misfire and Maelstrom
could do it, then why not her? If she really, REALLY tried...? They were
her, she was them -- triplets warped by their environments but
intrinsically the same person. Maybe she just hadn't pushed herself hard
enough before. Didn't many mutations manifest or mutate under stress?
She was certainly desperate enough now!
<Concentrate...focus...focus beyond the simple "strike,"
focus on the nerves themselves, summon up the strength, hurt him, STOP
him, come ON, you can do it...>
Nothing.
Her stomach sank like a stone.
She couldn't.
SHE COULDN'T DO IT.
Only a second or two had passed as these thoughts flickered across her
frantic mind. In Harpoon's hand a deadly energy blade now hummed into
life atop the metal butt of the lethal spear. Completely, hopelessly
cornered, she clenched her fists, preparing to...
Suddenly the harpoon blade flared so bright that the bushes cast stark
black shadows against the bricks and the nearest gravestones streamed
darkness across the grass. Harpoon barked out an inarticulate shout of
horror and desperately tried to drop his weapon, to hurl it away, but it
was too late: the pulsing glare suddenly _reversed flow_, channeling
back into his hand, up his arm--
Vertigo was forced to fling up one arm to shield her eyes from the
writhing brilliance as the hunter blazed incandescent with his own
deadly energy. There was a hoarse gurgling scream and then abrupt
silence, completely dark except for the afterimages dancing upon
Vertigo's retinas.
She blinked hard, edging back, struggling to regain her vision before
the others arrived in response to the commotion. As her sight returned
she found that she could see Harpoon's body lying twisted on the
driveway, still steaming gently into the cold night air.
And standing over him, grinning sheepishly from ear to ear, was
Scrambler.
<Of course. Amplify and reverse,> she thought wonderingly, staring
at him in complete amazement. <But...why? Does this mean...>
She cleared her throat. Her mouth felt almost too dry to speak.
"But...the hunt. I...I thought you said..."
He shrugged and looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Yeah, well, I,
uh, changed my mind on the spur of the moment. I'll probably REALLY
regret it later. Go on, get moving! I've only bought you a few moments.
The others went the other way, towards the main street, but they'll be
here any minute."
"Scr...Kim. Thank you." The team was down to almost nothing
and off on a false trail. Once more, she had a chance! Her heart lifted
for the first time in hours...
Then something moved behind Scrambler.
Soundlessly, Arclight stepped out of the night, moving right past the
young man before he realized that she was even there. Without breaking
stride or taking her eyes off of Vertigo, the tall woman lashed out with
a brutally indifferent backhand, connecting with the side of Scrambler's
head hard enough to fracture stone.
Bone crunched like eggshell. Lifted clean off of his feet by the force
of the almost careless blow, Scrambler was flung back several feet in a
spray of blood, landing in a limp heap half on the curb and half on the
grass.
He didn't move again.
"That's what we do to traitors," Arclight growled. Her eyes
were ablaze with hatred as she glared at Vertigo. "That's what we
should have done to you days ago. That's what I'm going to do to you
RIGHT NOW."
Vertigo resisted the urge to glance over at Scrambler's body in the
irrational hope that he was still breathing. <No time to think about
it!> her mind screamed at her. <SAVE YOURSELF!> Almost
unconsciously she fell into a wary mirror of Arclight's battle-ready
stance, and just in time -- the woman was already charging before her
last words had faded from the air. Obviously, she was not about to give
"Maelstrom" the moment of concentration she needed to trigger
off her own deadly powers.
Vertigo flung herself forward and down at the last second, letting the
lethal punch swish right over her head as she rolled and scrambled back
to her feet. It was a move she'd been thinking about using for a while,
and one that should have surprised Arclight.
To her horror, it didn't.
The hammer blow which fell across her shoulders wasn't quite enough to
break anything but it did sent her stumbling forward over Harpoon's
remains, driving the air out of her lungs and knocking her to her hands
and knees. On pure instinct, she jerked aside as a fist smashed down
where her head had been an instant before. Shards of concrete flew in
every direction as Arclight's hand smashed the curb of the driveway into
powder.
Vertigo yelped as one sharp chip of cement bulleted right into her calf,
but she was already back up on her feet as Arclight straightened up and
lunged for her with both hands, obviously intent upon wringing her out
like a rag. Vertigo threw herself back frantically along the curve of
the curb, windmilling for balance -- she barely managed to stumble to a
halt in time to avoid tripping over Scrambler's body.
She knew that she couldn't hold out much longer. She shouldn't have
lasted this long! If her luck held out, she gave herself three more
seconds, tops...
To her amazement, though, Arclight had stopped. Stopped dead, just out
of arms' reach. Just...staring at her. And there was something dawning
in her expression, around the expressionless shades which hid her eyes
even at night. Something which was not pleasant at all.
"You're not Maelstrom," she said flatly.
Vertigo didn't reply; she couldn't, not really, for she was too busy
gasping for air and seizing this brief unexpected respite to brace
herself for one last hurrah.
<I'd rather die here, quickly, than go back under Sinister's
machines,> she realized then, and she was amazed to find that it was
absolutely true. So she merely raised her chin defiantly, as if daring
the woman to finish her off.
Arclight was nodding slowly, as if to herself. "Of course...of
course, why didn't I see it before? You're Vertigo. And you've been
under my nose, RIGHT under all of our noses, for hours now. Do you have
any idea how badly I've been wanting to kill you? And now...now I have
that pleasure all to myself."
She broke into a sadistic grin and cracked all of her knuckles
deliberately, practically in Vertigo's face. "Go ahead, try your
little tricks on me. I'm too close now. You can't outrun me, and you
can't stop me." And she began to move forward...
<Well, what ELSE am I supposed to do?> Vertigo fumed inwardly,
gritting her teeth. It was hopeless, but she didn't plan to let Arclight
take her out without a fight. There wasn't much she could do; the woman
wouldn't feel even her strongest blow and would shrug off anything else
she could fling at her. So at a loss for anything else, Vertigo sighed
and drew herself up and one last time focused her pitiful power...
Which suddenly blasted through her every nerve like rushing water,
taking her breath away with a sheer singing surge of strength. It washed
away her surroundings and sluiced away her emotions, leaving her
completely calm. Time seemed to hover in place for a long moment.
Wonderingly, without any real thought, she closed her eyes to better
"see"; almost dreamily, she raised a hand. In her mind's eye
she grabbed and twisted...something. Hard.
When she jerked back to herself a moment (?) later and snapped her eyes
open in a near panic, Arclight was no longer standing in front of her.
Without stopping to wonder why, she looked down and was stunned then
exhilarated to find that she was staring at Arclight's contorted body.
<...it worked it worked I don't believe it oh it WORKED...>
The woman's face was drawn with agony and her hands were locked
claw-like at her chest and throat, and although her eyes were open she
was quite clearly dead.
She was also quite clearly NOT touching Vertigo's ankle.
But something was.
Vertigo almost bit her tongue in alarm as she whipped her gaze around.
Belatedly she recalled that she'd been backed up against the curb, right
smack against Scrambler's corpse...only perhaps he hadn't been quite as
dead as she'd thought. Although the entire right side of his face -- the
side that gleamed wetly up at her in the starlight -- was now a terrible
crushed ruin of bone and brain, somehow he'd managed to move one last
time.
The fingers of his right hand was loosely curled around the back of her
heel.
It was then that she finally understood where her sudden timely surge of
incredibly amplified power had come from.
Even as she whirled and dropped to her knees beside her dying teammate,
however, he let out one last small bubbling breath and was still. He
hadn't opened his eyes or said a single word. A pity...she would never
know if he'd made that final heroic effort to help her or simply to
avenge himself on the woman who'd killed him. Vertigo wasn't sure
whether she should be sorry for him or proud of him.
Either way, she'd won. She was in the clear now. She'd done it!
Almost wobbly with relief, Vertigo stood reluctantly up, dusting off her
hands and wincing at the spreading ache across her upper back from
Arclight's last blow. That chip of cement embedded in her lower leg
wasn't unbearable, but she really would have to dig it out as soon as
possible. She wondered if...
It was then that the ruby-red laser beam silently punched right through
her right shoulder from behind, instantly cauterizing the hole with a
hiss of vaporized blood.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
END OF CHAPTER
NEXT: At long last, the startling (well, *I* sure hope so) conclusion.
Heh. You'll have to read it and find out, won't you?
No
Way Up
A
tale of fire, frying pans, warped mirrors,
burned bridges, and shades of grey
By Kelly Newcomb
(kielle@aol.com)
BRIEF DISCLAIMER: Marvel's characters belong to Marvel. PLEASE drop me a
note if ya like it or if you wanna archive it. :) Other than that, the
full disclaimer is attached to the prologue of this story.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Part Twelve
~~~~~~~~~~~
Call off the attack 'cuz if you look deep
Dreams are nothing that I lack
And all I seek
A final chance to speak
And I would let the whole thing keep
If I could just sleep...
-- Sleep by Savatage
~~~~~~~~~~~
Vertigo
screamed in shock and surprise more than in pain. Before any vestige of
conscious thought could even begin to set in, she was already flinging
herself frantically backward to put the mortuary at her back.
Unfortunately, a second later agony flared through her laser-
pierced shoulder, sending fingers of sympathetic fire across her chest
and up the side of her neck. Her knees gave out and she sat down
abruptly on the ground, her back crashing into the well-trimmed bushes
which ringed the building. They were too thick for her to squirm into or
under. She was trapped.
When she looked up, Scalphunter was standing over her, rifle slung
casually over one brawny arm.
His expression was completely unreadable as he studied her from head to
toe, taking his time. She didn't bother saying anything either as she
clutched her shoulder and tried to stop gasping like a drowning fish. To
tell the truth, she was quite busy enough kicking herself for forgetting
about him -- or for letting herself believe for even an instant that the
master assassin would be distracted for long by a false lead.
<Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. And dead.>
"Well, Vertigo," he said at last. His voice was rough-edged
but measured, as always. "Yes, don't look so surprised. I believed
you for a while when you mentioned Carlton -- that spook's been a good
three steps behind us for years now -- but I figured out the truth when
you first went missing, back at the lair. I'll give you credit for a
damn good try. You really gave us a run for our money."
She blinked up at him, amazed. He was dead serious. He rarely bothered
to speak to a target. And he certainly never complimented one!
His expression was still unreadable but his voice was almost...gentle?
"In fact, I'd have to say that I'm actually kinda proud of you. I
always thought you had something better in you, kid. A pity it has to
end this way."
<...proud...of...me...?!> Vertigo swallowed hard and dared to
answer. "So why DOES it have to end this way? The only reason I ran
away was because I thought you guys wanted me dead. Because I was
useless. Now that I'm obviously NOT useless..." Her voice cracked
and she cursed herself silently. <Don't show weakness. Don't show
weakness!> "Well, why not let me come back? None of the others
will remember any of this once Sinister reclones 'em. I...we can start
over."
Scalphunter grunted thoughtfully and actually seemed to be considering
her logic. Then he regretfully shook his head. "No can do. The boss
never forgets. Speak of the devil, I really should bring you back to
Sinister, you know. He was quite put out by your desertion...he'd
probably just LOVE to find out what made you go rogue. You know that
that means, don't you?"
"Y-yeah. Sure. Vivisection."
"Right. And worse." The Marauders' leader hefted his gun
slightly, idly checking the setting with his fingertips and a glance.
"So consider this a mercy killing, because I think you've earned
the right to die cleanly rather than under the scalpel...or at
Arclight's hands, if you know what I mean. Fair enough?"
For a moment Vertigo almost gave in, almost hung her head and meekly
agreed. By Scalphunter's standards, he truly was affording her far more
mercy than she deserved. He was right. A clean death was the best she
could hope for, really. Even if by some miracle she DID manage to escape
from Scalphunter, there'd be yet another fresh-out-of-
the-tube royally-pissed-off team of Marauders hot on her trail by noon
tomorrow. She couldn't go on like this...she was so tired...
Her hand had fallen away from her throbbing shoulder and had come to
rest against something hard and cold at her side. Almost of their own
volition her fingers crept around it and gripped it tightly, as if
searching for something solid to cling to.
And then she realized that despite her near-paralyzing fear of
Sinister's retribution, she DID still want to take the risk of living.
"Sure, fair enough, I suppose...but that doesn't mean that I have
to like it," she replied quietly, stalling for a few more seconds.
She flicked a switch on the device which she'd jammed deep into her
pocket before leaving the lair. For a moment a new anxiety fluttered in
her mind: <Left-handed...I'll have to do it left-handed...AND
unbraced...>
She firmly pushed the doubt back down. <You'll only get one chance,
gal. Make it count.>
In answer to her weak protest, she could hear Scalphunter shrug. The
killing tools of his trade shifted with a faint metallic sound on the
belts which criss-crossed his broad-chested body. "Nobody likes to
die."
She took a deep breath and looked bravely up. "Yeah. You're right.
Absolutely right. I DON'T want to die. Thanks but no thanks."
And with that she raised the cobalt-steel revolver that she'd grabbed
(<so long ago>) from Misfire's shoulder-holster. And she aimed.
And, as Scalphunter's normally neutral eyes went wide and he began too
late to muscle his heavy rifle back up into position, she pulled the
trigger.
The recoil sent a powerful jolt through her abused body, painfully
jamming her hand and forcing her to drop the gun a moment later, but
although she didn't regularly use weapons she HAD been taught the basics
of handling firearms at an early point in her career as a Marauder. The
shot was true. Scalphunter went down like a felled ox, heavily, without
a sound; his rifle clattered across the pavement and rebounded slightly
off of the curb.
Then the night was truly silent. And she was truly safe. Unless Sinister
himself showed up, in which case she wasn't going to bother any more.
She simply didn't have any more tricks in her bag.
Now well beyond any attempt at elation, Vertigo tilted her head back and
wearily closed her eyes. She didn't really know if she could stand up at
that point, so she elected instead to remain right where she was for the
time being.
As an afterthought she activated the image inducer clipped to her
collar. She was fairly sure that there was no one else on her trail
right now, but she'd been wrong before and she'd paid the price. It
couldn't hurt to be sheltered by invisibility while she lay helpless.
Pity the thing didn't work well while she was moving...it would have
come in handy over the last ten minutes or so...
<Only about ten minutes? Feels kinda anti-climactic...>
<Anti-climactic?! What is WRONG with me? I just took out all, well,
almost all of the Marauders. They're DEAD. I'm ALIVE.>
<But was it worth it...?> something whispered fatalistically at
the back of her mind. Oh, they'd be back. Within hours or days, the
Marauders would be back. For as long as it suited Sinister, his pet
assassins were without number...but there was only one of her. (Only one
of her that counted in HER book, at least.) And she was in no shape to
keep running. Hell, at this point, she was barely in any kind of shape
to be walking.
Vertigo sighed and glanced around at the remains of the Marauders.
<Can't stay here. MOVE!> She exhorted her muscles to get working,
but now that the chase was concluded (<...can't believe I beat
them...>) her legs didn't want to obey her at all. Her knees seemed
to be terribly shaky and her fingers and toes were ice-cold and her eyes
felt hot and wet, but she gritted her teeth and absolutely refused to
give in to shock. To get her head back together, she took deep breaths
-- or at least she tried to. Instead, she found that she had to breathe
in short careful catches, as any attempt to actually fill her lungs
shifted her shoulder and hurt like a bitch. Hell, at least she was still
breathing.
Vertigo picked up the gun, clicked the safety back on, and stuffed it
into the pocket of her jeans shorts again. She relaxed completely to
fool her body into thinking that she was giving in to its insistant
demand for rest...then she abruptly dragged herself to her feet. For a
moment a painful pulse roared in her ears and shoulder, but then it
cleared and she was still standing. A good start. Now to get the hell
out of the cemetery, find somewhere to hole up, pray that her shoulder
didn't get too badly infected...
She took two steps forward before she heard it: a small rasp of breath,
between two of her own. She froze and stared about wildly, first
regarding the silent cemetery and then the bodies of her former
compatriots. It was then that she caught sight of the slight movement of
Scalphunter's chest, rising and falling in a shallow but steady series
of hitching breaths. He wasn't dead. She hadn't killed him after all.
<Should have known that it would take more than one bullet to stop
HIM,> she thought grimly, already drawing the revolver from her
pocket again. It was plain what she had to do, and she had to do it
quickly, before he had any more time to possibly regain consciousness.
After a wary few moments spent assuring herself that he wasn't playing
possum, she crouched awkwardly down to press the muzzle of the gun
squarely against his temple.
But then she paused. For a long moment she stayed there, staring down at
the injured killer, frowning slightly. Thinking hard.
Then with a sigh she stood up, stuffing the unused revolver back into
her shorts.
It wasn't that she suddenly felt any remorse for shooting a helpless
enemy in the head -- not at all. It was the realization that if she
killed Scalphunter, then none of the Marauders would remember this
night. None of them would remember that she, Vertigo, had beaten the
entire team, right down to the last man.
None of them would remember that she was worth something, after all.
Carefully, she skirted around Scalphunter's sprawled body and plodded
towards the grass. After a moment's consideration, however, she changed
her mind and headed back towards the mortuary. If there was a driveway,
it had to lead to a street, and in New York a street meant quiet
deserted alleys where she could go to ground.
It was then that the applause started...a lazily even chain of light
claps. The very sound was heavy with irony.
Vertigo closed her eyes in momentary pain and then turned slowly,
regarding the dark cemetery through tired blue eyes. She didn't even
bother to tense up this time. There was no point.
<Sinister.>
Sure enough, a shrouded figure now stepped from beneath the nearest
ornamental tree, cloak whisking across the close-cropped grass. He
deliberately clapped a few more times and...
Drained and resigned as she was, it took Vertigo this long to notice
several basic discrepancies. For one, she'd never known her master to
completely envelope himself in a simple long black cloak before -- he
was fond of his gleaming armor and his dramatic entrances. Secondly, the
black-gloved hands which were now reaching up to push back the cloak's
hood were definitely far more fine-boned than Sinister's own.
Thirdly, Sinister was at least a foot taller.
The figure's stern voice broke unexpectedly into her thoughts. "I'd
appreciate it if you would refrain from thinking that name in my
presence. If you do not cease and desist, I might just change my mind
about what I am about to offer you."
The ex-Marauder blinked. The voice confirmed that this was certainly NOT
Sinister: it was quite female, a precise husky contralto, silk over
steel. And as the hood slid back, a cascade of long straight red hair
gleamed in the first glow of the rising moon.
Vertigo knew this woman, though she'd never expected to see her again.
This woman was dangerous -- VERY dangerous. And she hated the Marauders
more than even the X-Men ever had.
Stiffly, she nodded to the other woman in recognition. "Madelyne."
"You remember me?"
Vertigo cleared her throat uncomfortably. It had been years, but she was
impossible to forget. <Like I'd forget Sinister's favorite pet
project? Like I'd forget nearly getting demolished by the X-Men when we
were sent to bring you back after you escaped from us that first
time?> She quickly squelched that thought, wary of the rogue
telekinetipath's temper. "Uh...yes. Um, look, there's no polite way
to say this, but--"
"--'Aren't you supposed to be dead,' you mean?" Madelyne Pryor
smiled humorlessly. As was already blatantly apparant, her telepathy
enabled her to gaze straight at Vertigo despite the makeshift
"invisibility" projected by the activated image inducer. And
although she was the mirror image of the sweet-tempered X-Woman Jean
Grey, there was something behind her intense luminescent green eyes
which gave Vertigo the screaming creeps. "I had some 'help' from a
young man you're familiar with yourself, I believe? Hmmm...no...I
suppose not."
Vertigo sighed. "Look, can you please just cut right through the
'gloating villainess' bit and get to the point? I've already had my fill
of that from Arclight. Either tell me what you want to tell me or get
whatever it is you have planned over with, okay? I'd had a REALLY bad
day."
Madelyne looked taken aback at that for a moment. Then she actually
chuckled -- a genuine, human chuckle -- and the stiff mannerisms fell
aside. "All right, then, since you insist. Here it is, pure and
simple: I have a proposition for you. I've recently joined a certain
organization--"
"Who?"
"I can't say until after you accept. You understand, of course?
Good, thank you. My point is, the former Qu...mmm, the previous 'holder
of my current status' is not one to take my 'intrusion' lightly. I need
to establish my own power base, and quickly. I need to have my own
people around me, people I can trust."
Frankly, Vertigo was more than a little skeptical...and more than a
little afraid that she wasn't going to make it through the conversation.
She tried to keep her posture casual and her breathing normal, but the
pain in her shoulder was becoming a serious distraction. She could
hardly pull in enough oxygen to think clearly. "Uh...huh. And you
think you can trust me?"
"Of course." Madelyne was absolutely serious. "I know
that you are admirably loyal when treated properly. I can get you the
medical attention you need -- do you seriously think that shoulder is
going to heal without massive infection? And I have more than enough
power to protect you from the Marauders AND--" she grimaced with
distaste "--
from HIM."
It WAS tempting. "All right, you have a few good points...but how
the hell did you find me?" Vertigo was proud of herself for keeping
her voice rock-steady. There were now red spots swimming at the edges of
her vision. <Hold it together. You've been hurt worse.>
Madelyne made a vague dismissive gesture with one hand. "Oh, my new
'employer' has his ways. And his contacts. Your phone call to the police
helped. Frankly, it sounded too interesting to pass up. Only three
people I know of have had the guts to turn their backs on Sinister. I'm
one. You're another. And you need me now. Tell me that I'm wrong."
Vertigo opened her mouth in automatic defiance and then discovered that
she couldn't deny it. She closed her mouth and shook her head mutely.
Madelyne sensed her victory close at hand. Her voice was at its sweetest
and most reasonable as she coaxed, "Come on, girl. Come with me.
I'll take you out of here, away from here. Serve me and you'll have a
future...serve us well and you'll be able control your own life. Just
reach out and take it..."
Vertigo's head was a spinning tumble of conflicting thoughts -- hope
versus suspicion, dreams versus memory, surrender versus a newfound
fierce independence. <It sounds good...it sounds like my only
chance...can I trust her...? This is a woman who almost handed the whole
freakin' WORLD over to a bunch of DEMONS just because she felt a little
neglected -- and would have killed her own kid to do it!>
<Ohhhh, but what other choice do I have?>
Madelyne simply stood quietly, watching her intently but holding her
peace; her shoulders were bare and her black cloak rippled clear down to
the grass. The cemetery was as quiet as death, gravestones now faintly
silvered by the crescent moon. Time waited.
Vertigo decided.
<Eh, what the hell. I just hope that this turns out to be the lesser
of two evils. And anyway, my feet are starting to get cold out here.>
The ex-Marauder set her jaw stubbornly and pressed one hand to her
shoulder -- she was just about at her limit, it felt like the entire arm
was about to fall off -- and stepped unsteadily forward to join the
Hellfire Club.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
END OF CHAPTER
NEXT:
The curtain has indeed gone down on our heroine, but the fat lady has
not yet sung. Come back for the epilogues, folks. Yes,
"epilogues," plural -- there are still a few loose ends to be
tied up. You might yet be surprised.
No
Way Up
A
tale of fire, frying pans, warped mirrors,
burned bridges, and shades of grey
By Kelly Newcomb
(kielle@aol.com)
BRIEF DISCLAIMER: Marvel's characters belong to Marvel. PLEASE drop me a
note if ya like it or if you wanna archive it. :) Other than that, the
full disclaimer is attached to the prologue of this story.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Two of my beta readers have pointed out to me that this
pair of "epilogues" are not strictly necessary, and they (the
readers in question) may be correct. However, I didn't feel like I'd
truly tied up all of the loose ends until I'd written them...so here
they are. Enjoy.
~~~~~~~~~
EPILOGUES
~~~~~~~~~
Feel no pain, but my life ain't easy
I know I'm my best friend
No one cares but I'm so much stronger
I'll fight till the end
To escape from the true false world
Undamaged destiny
Can't get caught in the endless circle...
-- Escape by Metallica
~~~~~~~~~
EPILOGUE
THE FIRST
Meanwhile:
The first clue Sinister had that his day had been shot all to hell
was, of course, the discarded cellphone.
The second clue was the creak and grind of crumbling mortar at the back
of his lab.
He had to admit later, grudgingly, that his unexpected visitors were
sneaky and clever and they knew their business. And they were far, FAR
faster than he would have given them credit for. He'd expected that
unfortunate phone call from Vertigo to have tied them up for at least
another hour, maybe two. However, even as he looked up from the last of
his evacuation preparations, the rear wall came down with a thunderous
crash and there were invaders in his lab. HIS LAB! And with a mere
sidelong glance he found that a similar stream of laughably serious
kevlar-clad commandos were staking out the entrance, too.
Sinister sighed and rolled his eyes heavenward, irritated but resigned.
<And I'd just finally arranged to have this location properly
air-conditioned, too.> With a flick of his wrist he primed the
explosives strategically placed around the premises and teleported away
to a suitable secondary lair.
At least, that was how it was supposed to work.
He was understandably more than irritated a few moments later to find
himself still standing in the middle of his distinctly un-blown-up main
laboratory. His irritation escalated towards outright annoyance as he
found himself at the center of a pugnacious ring of rifles. He snorted
to himself. As if bullets would...
...actually, those rifles didn't look QUITE standard...
Footsteps and the occasional echoing shout carried in from outside where
other soldiers were securing the tunnels, but inside the lab itself it
was very, very quiet. A grey-haired, grey-suited human man stepped
through the ring of aimed weapons. The geneticist merely eyed him
disdainfully. Quite definitely angry now, he tried to DO something, but
nothing happened. He began to experience the first faint stirrings of
something resembling astonishment
Were those fairly sophisticated power dampers that they'd set up at the
four corners of the room...?
he realized. His astonishment was becoming something more than a faint
stirring. <So who--? Ah. The government phone. Of course.>
"And you would be the so-called 'Mr. Sinister,' would you
not?" the man stated quite calmly, moving face-to-face with
Sinister. Without pausing for a reply, he added matter-of-factly,
"I've been wanting to meet you for quite some time; a shame your
assassins are out on the warpath, as they were our true target, but
nonetheless it's quite a pleasure to find you here at home. I'm FBI
Special Agent John Carlton, and you--" he held up a piece of paper
and a badge in one hand, "--are under arrest for crimes against
humanity."
Carlton then turned aside and remarked almost casually, "Cuff
him."
Sinister was so astonished at the man's suicidal audacity that he
couldn't come up with a suitable retort for several long moments. He
crossed his arms and drew himself up to his full imperious height and
opened his mouth...
There was a minor commotion at the door. Sinister could easily look over
the heads of the sea of human soldiers, and his eyes narrowed to see a
very familiar face at the head of a wedge of commandos in mostly-black
togs. She was tossing curt orders left and right, forcing Carlton's men
to clear a path for her people.
"So. You ARE working with the traitor Vertigo," he said icily
down at Carlton. The accusation in his remark cut through the room like
a whip crack.
The FBI agent was openly staring at the mutant woman. She'd stopped only
a few yards into the room and was now staring right back at him, her
orders dying on her lips.
"Actually," Carlton said, sounding slightly shaken, "I
haven't seen her for years...I thought she was in jail."
"And *I*," the woman retorted in a loud clear angry voice,
"am NOT Vertigo. Not any more. The name is Misfire...and I
obviously got here just a little too late." She insolently doffed
an imaginary cap to Carlton. "I guess he's all yours, John -- for
now. Nice to see you two again. Have fun."
And with that, she turned and swept regally out with her own squad in
tow.
<...Misfire...? I don't...but...WHO...?!> Sinister was so
astonished
at this new twist that he didn't even notice when they snapped on the
inhibitor cuffs.
Several days later:
In a nondescript apartment somewhere in America, the remaining members
of the failed team of petty crooks known collectively (and, most agreed,
rather ridiculously) as the Nasty Boys were lounging around a messy
living room in front of a television, taking in the afternoon football
game.
Frankly, Gorgeous George couldn't think of anything more stultifyingly
dull. So when the phone rang, he was right on it -- even if it was a
crank call or a sales pitch, it would SURELY be more interesting than
watching a bunch of heavily-padded pantywaists prance up and down a
field jumping up and down on each other at every opportunity.
"Hello? Yes? Uh huh. Uh...huh. You're kidding. Really? Oh. Um. So
what are we supposed to do about...uh huh. Errrr...yeah. I guess. Yeah,
I'm writing it down...okay, got it. Bye."
He hung up, slowly shaking his head in total disbelief. Then the full
humor of the situation struck him sidelong and he had to fight down a
serious case of the whooping giggles.
"Um...guys?" he shouted towards the front room. "You'll
never guess who that was on the phone."
"No, we won't," Slab growled, eyes glued to the screen,
"so tell us already."
George cleared his throat and tried to keep a straight face.
"That...was the boss."
NOW the others sat up and paid attention. The boss hadn't bothered to
contact them since their last crushingly humiliating defeat at the hands
of the government mutie team X-Factor. Some of their number were STILL
in custody.
Ruckus hastily hit the "mute" button on the remote.
"Really? Has he got a job for us?"
George couldn't contain his wide grin for a moment longer. "Naaah.
He got his pasty butt arrested and we're his 'one phone call.' He wants
us to either raise bail or break him out." He made little "quotemarks"
with his fingers. 'Or else.'"
The Nasty Boys exchanged a round of utterly dumbfounded glances.
Then they all had a good long laugh about it and turned the sound back
up on the football game.
EPILOGUE THE SECOND
A indeterminate number of months later:
The litter of paperweights and pens and in-boxes jumped en masse like a
living thing as the woman slammed her fists down onto the desk. "Dammit,
Niemand, you promised! I've held up my side of the bargain. Hell, I even
did BETTER than you asked! She's already three times as good as I am.
You can't lie to me, I was there for the training, remember? You. Don't.
Need me any more. And you don't have any legal way to hold me
here."
Niemand's face was impassive as he sat back in his leather chair,
unruffled by the irate agent's burst of temper. "Misfire, please.
Calm down. I was just about to say that you're absolutely right. Your
prodigy has far surpassed our wildest expectations, but while admittedly
most projections show that she WILL be able to shoulder the majority of
your responsibilities, the fact remains that she's only been with us for
a few months. She's raw, untested. We still need you--"
"Bullshit." Misfire spat the word, still leaning over the
director's desk. "I know that you have her slated for her first
field mission today. Nobody told me, no, but I've been there enough
times myself; I know the routine, I know the signs. After today you'll
have your proof that she's the best damn assassin you could possibly
want, and between her and Baer..."
She cut herself off and stood up straight, and when she spoke again her
demeanor was much more controlled. Almost contrite. "Look. I'm
sorry. You promised after the initial results when I brought her in that
this time you might actually consider letting me resign from the
Program. IF she worked out, you said. And as you already know, she's
been working out like a dream. But..."
When she hesitated, Niemand gestured magnanimously for her to continue.
She sighed and ran a hand through her short particolored hair.
"Well, I'm TRYING to be polite here, so pardon me for saying this,
but if you were in my shoes I think you'd be going crazy too. Because
I've been getting the royal runaround for two long months now, and
frankly I think that you had something to do with it. I'm a little
surprised that you let me in to see you today on so little notice.
Sir."
"I understand your...feelings about this situation," Niemand
said, quietly. Very quietly. She stiffened, sensing danger on the wind.
"And under normal circumstances I would be more than happy to
assist you with your request. But I'm afraid that this is NOT a normal
situation, and you are most certainly NOT a normal government employee.
We simply cannot let you return to the civilian sector. But if you are
unwilling to back down on this particular issue--"
Misfire's fists were clenched at her sides and her eyes were starting to
glow a faint green. "No. I'm not. Not this time."
"--Then you're right. We'll simply have to let you go. No hard
feelings, of course."
With his hands neatly interlaced on his desk before him, Niemand didn't
make a move or a gesture. However, she didn't have to look to know that
the pair of guards who had escorted her into the room were now raising
their decidedly non-ceremonial rifles.
<Trying to take me down -- I don't believe the nerve!> Misfire
contemptiously shoved backwards with a wave of her power, intent upon
shutting down every neuron in the two flatscans' bodies. The room was
completely without powerblockers or gas jets or sniper slots; this she'd
known before she'd agreed to meet him there. She was his best agent. He
trusted her. It was too easy. She'd simply take Niemand hostage and...
...and...
...something was <...what...?!> wrong...
It struck her somewhat incongruously then that you never noticed your
own pulse until you stopped having one.
One hand fluttered ineffectually to her chest; she fell heavily onto
both knees even as she tried to turn around. However, the world was
going dark around the edges of her vision with alarming swiftness; she
didn't even have a chance to cry out as she crumpled sideways onto the
rich maroon carpet, unable to move a muscle.
The last thing she managed to register before the blackness closed over
her head was the sight of Maelstrom standing in the doorway between the
two soldiers, her arms folded and her expression grimly satisfied.
And the last thing Misfire heard before her brain ground to a complete
halt was Niemand's impersonal voice:
"It's odd how such a good agent can be so slow on the uptake. She
already knew that no one leaves the Program...after all, she spent
enough time tracking down and killing those who tried...
"Agent Sennvik, please inform Command that Maelstrom's first
mission is a complete success."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.-= FINIS =-.
4-8-97
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A FEW NOTES ON THIS REPOST: I've received some lovely e-mail (though I
admit I'm curious what y'all think now that it's over!) and I've gotten
a strange impression through it all: that some of you seem to be under
the impression that NWU is just one of the many Marauder stories out
there. I'd like to set the record straight real quick, if I may: when I
wrote NWU, NO ONE had written ANY stories about the Marauders, with the
exception of a small handful which featured them as fairly
one-dimensional villains much in the same manner as Marvel has always
treated them. What I did here was something completely new...all other
Marauder-focused stories have appeared online since this was first
posted, quite a few as a direct result of NWU or my Marauders page (more
about that ina moment). At the risk of sounding like an egomaniac in
defense of my baby, NWU isn't just "part of the crowd" -- it
started it!
Also, as far as I know, there are only three other Vertigo stories in
existence: "Twists And Turns" by Tarot, my own "Full
Circle" (which I might post next as a bonus), and an adult-rated
NWU spin-off by Doctor Teeth which isn't even finished or online yet. To
everyone who's been saying that there's "lots of other Vertigo
stories": huh??? Where?!? I want 'em!!!
Last but not least: If you liked this story, I've got a treat for you! I
now maintain the Blood In The Gutter site, charming located in a cosy
little Spree nook at http://members.spree.com/kielle/access.htm. If I
may be so modest, it's THE premier site for Marauders information and
fanfic on the net! I've got some neat stuff, including a good story by a
known author for almost every single member of the team (though none
QUITE this epic!) -- stop on by if you're a) curious and b) have a
strong stomach. Mwahahahah! |
