The five muties weren’t something out of a Graphic Fantasy. Those
guys always looked like they worked out with a Pressurizer. One,
a Swede, was in pretty good shape. The others were normal, one
approaching geekweight, another already there.
“Hansen,” said the Swede, offering his hand. “Mass control,
limited area. Pleased to meet you.”
I took it and shook it. “Roger Black. Doublepleased.”
Another was small, AfroIndian, and looked a bit nervous.
“Webworm,” he said, not offering his hand.
I nodded. “What do you do?”
“Wait’ll you see it,” said Noel. “The lady here, we call Pierce.”
“You can call me Millie,” she said, smiling.
The fourth, who was medium height and balding, said, “I’m Spooky.”
“That’s your name?”
“My code, yessir.”
“That only leaves you, sport,” I said to the fifth. “What’s your
handle?”
“Combo,” said Combo, who looked like he did his tanning at midnight.
I looked at the crew. They might not be the ancient heroes
Wolverine, Cyclops, Colossus, and Phoenix, but I’m sure even Chuck
Xavier had his problems back when. “Gents, we have a
situation. Tonight, we’re either going to make history, or be it.”
“Or both,” reminded Noel.
“Exactly. Here’s what we have to do.”
-M-
The setup, as I’ve indicated, was in Pre75. It was mobile.
We tracked the most likely suspect, and Satellite Survey put a heat-spy
ray on it to confirm. It was a big Cleaning Clara, the massive
hovertruck that skims a few feet over streets, parks, and any other
surface that pays for cleaning, refurbishing, resurfacing, and even
replanting the ground underneath it. This one was very large, the
width of a four-lane and the length of a city block. Planar hid a
little too much in plain, or plane, sight. But it had been
effective.
Rael’s boy’s had been notified, and they’d sent word to the govs.
But Planar still had his Breakdown, and he still had Karen and
Pam. Not to mention my Neut. Because of the first of these,
the govs were willing to give us first chance at it. Call it our
personal Cape Citadel.
The Clara was cleaning a stretch of 41st St. in the Pre. It
wasn’t the busiest commercial area, mainly devoted to small biz and
eating places, just aft of residential. I hoped most of the
passerbys were plants. That meant they’d have word enough to
clear the area when we hit, and to get those not in the know the hell
out of the way. Regardless, it was time.
“Think they know we’re coming?” said Millie.
“I would,” said Noel.
I nodded. The five of us were waiting in the back of a transport
hoverer. “Ten seconds we’ve got. Just remember,
gentlemen. You were Wanted before. You’re about to be
heroes. NOW.”
I opened the back of the transport and latched onto the Clara, using a
handheld tractor projector to anchor it to the street. They’d
detected it and were trying to ascend, but so far they couldn’t make
it. My unit was piling out of the truck and making for the Clara
at doublespeed. I was fast enough to be in the middle of them.
Pierce led out and, like her name advertised, she used her powers to
cut a hole right thru the hull of the Clara. It was circular and
the sides of it, beyond the field of her power, were red-hot and
dripping metal. We were headed for it, but Noel barked out,
“Plane in the hole!”
Planar knew what we were doing.
“Web,” I said.
The kid known as Webworm went in front and lifted his hands. It
was more a focusing thing. I couldn’t see what he was doing,
anymore than I could see Planar’s plane of force blocking the
doorway. But I did know what the kid could do. He pushed
his tendrils of mind-force, like a web, into the plane that Planar had
constructed, infiltrating it, burrowing into it, ruining its
integrity. Then he flexed, mentally.
The plane shattered like a water glass dropped twenty stories. I
think the feedback hurt Planar. At least, he didn’t seem to have
constructed another one in its place.
“Hit ‘em!” I think I said it first, maybe Noel said it second.
The seven of us shoved our way into the Clara, and battle was joined.
Three Magnusites were there to intercept us. One was
Corner. I pointed him out to my troops. If he got a chance
at us, we could find ourselves across the street, or merged with it,
possibly. Luckily, I didn’t have to give directions. Spooky
knew what to do.
None of the three knew to look away from him, and I’m not sure it would
have worked if they had.
Spooky’s power was to transfer terrorstuff not unlike what Noel had
earlier experienced into the brain of an opponent. The trio of
Magnusites, all of them dressed in workmen’s uniforms and all of them
near the steering mech of the Clara, individually screamed.
Corner, sadly, used his power on himself. Well, most of himself,
anyway. Parts of his legs and all of his feet were left in the
Clara. After a second, they fell over.
The other two, whatever their powers, were too busy being afraid to use
them. That meant that I could get in the game at last. I
had a large stash of narcopatches on hand, which turned out to be a lot
more reliable than hitting them over the head with something and a lot
less nasty than shooting them. A quick slap on the neck with one
of those babies and each of the two went to their knees, then on their
faces.
The objectives were to find Planar and his two captives. There
wasn’t that much space for them to be held, even in the Clara. We
discovered that, as a wall of force started pushing the lot of us up
towards the front of the craft. Webworm tried to work his magic
again, but Planar, wherever he was, seemed to be prepared for it.
So, luckily, was Noel.
“Combo,” he said.
True to his name, Combo linked hands and minds with Pierce and
Webworm. His power was to effect a fusion of abilities between
two or more mutants. Now, Web’s power to send tendrils through
Planar’s plane was backed up by Millie’s force of sheer
penetration. The plane burst. The pressure was off.
I heard a scream from the other end of the Clara. No question
about Planar feeling the feedback from that one.
Web and Pierce shattered the locked metal door between us and the rest
of the craft as easily as they had Planar’s plane. “Guards!” Noel
yelled. He’d been scanning the rest of the craft, and Planar
wasn’t able to keep up his screens with what we’d been doing to him.
I leaped on the backs of the three who’d blasted the door, arms
outstretched, and got them down on the floor. Gunbursts traced
the air they’d been occupying an instant before. Noel, Spooky,
and Hansen hugged the freaking walls. Spooky caught a ricochet in
the arm and cried out. I cursed, but didn’t have time to do
anything else than that for him.
Karen and Pam were somewhere up ahead and I was ready to play it with
guns if I had to, to get to them.
There were four other Magnusites between us and their leader, all
armed, all standing within the big chamber among dispensers of
surfacing material, grass seed, fertilizer, and cleaning
material. They were still firing.
Hansen whirled into the doorway and gestured meaningfully with both
hands.
The masses of all four guys increased exponentially, as did their
guns. The weapons turned out to be too hard to hold, and they
clunked to the floor an instant before their bodies did. You
could see the flooring material starting to give under them. They
were having difficulty breathing. About that, I wasn’t overly
concerned. We patched all four to sleep.
“Trap between,” warned Noel. “Death field in front of the next
chamber, five inches out.”
The field was made up of harmonics which, when activated, were not
guaranteed to be healthful to anything in the vicinity. Web and
Pierce took care of them. I could tell the exertion was getting
to them. But for my money, they were performing as well as the
ancient X-Men.
The voice of Planar didn’t need any amplification to get through the
door. “Breach this last barrier, Black, and the first thing you
will see is your lover oozing from below the door.”
Breakdown. He had it, and he had both of the girls. That
was all I needed to know. Noel was tying up Spooky’s wounded
arm. He looked to me, and the others mostly looked to him. I held
up my hand to still them all.
“I’m not interested in coming in there, Planar,” I said, standing near
enough to the door to be sure I was heard. “I’m into you coming
out here to me.”
A long pause.
“Mr. Black. You are to be commended for your resourcefulness in
finding me, in overcoming my men, and in bagging me in my lair.
But I am not prepared to surrender. My own remains will join with
those with me, instead.”
“That’s not what I’m offering here,” I said.
“Please explain.”
“You have some demands to make of the government.”
“Indeed.”
“How would you like some help?”
There was another long pause before the door schussed into its
slot. Kathy and Pam, both of them looking scared as first-time
free-fallers, hustled out of the room beyond and into my arms.
Noel and the crew still stood by. That was just how I wanted it.
Kathy was sobbing and burying her head in my chest and I didn’t blame
her a bit. Her kid had hold of my leg. I comforted them
both as well as I could, silently, but I still had business to do.
In another few seconds, my business partner came through the
door. He looked tired, and he had a large container under his
arm. I didn’t have to guess what it held.
“Mr. Black,” he said, “I have to have taken leave of my sanity.”
“On the contrary,” I said. “It’s going to be the sanest thing you’ve
ever done. And by the way, where’s my Neut?”
Rael Casey and his men, of course, had assembled outside with enough
firepower to dust the Clara and all of us in it, if they had to.
After a few minutes, we opened the front doorway and sent Kathy and Pam
out first, followed by Spooky, his arm in a makeshift sling. I
wasn’t trusting Rael and company not to open up on the craft if there
were just mutants in it. Really, trusting him while I was inside
it was probably putting a lot of weight on our relationship. But
it paid off.
Kathy, bundled off by the cops as soon as she and her daughter hit the
street, managed to get a message to Rael. I wanted him to come
inside the Clara. To Noel, I had said that it’d probably take him
about ten minutes to quit swearing and manage it. I overestimated
by about a minute and a half.
I had my Neut back in hand and, from his look, I estimated that if I
had to use it on anyone, it was probably going to be Rael.
“What’s this about?” he managed to say, approximately.
We were all sitting together, Magnusites, Xaverites, and me.
Planar was still holding his can of Breakdown.
“This is Planar,” I said. “He represents the Magnusite / Xavierite
Coalition.”
“What?”
“He’d like to offer the government the formula for Breakdown in
exchange for negotiations.”
“WHAT?”
“On the other hand, he could have his men dump a few loads of it in the
water supplies of this city, Detroit, New Orleans, Dallas, and Los
Angeles,” I said. “Sorry, Rael. Could you get us a seat
with the governor?”
-M-
And that, of course, was the way it started.
What had begun as a terrorist incident ended up as a recruitment.
The national military got the deadliest biological weapon in existence,
plus a corps of mutant soldiers to help them keep what peace remained
among nations.
The negotiations were somewhat protracted, and not without rancor in
the press and elsewhere. Still, the mutants had one hell of a
negotiating point. Also, the coalition between Planar’s and
Noel’s forces had raised the political consciousness of both
sides. All involved knew that, if balked, the mutants might make
another war on the humans, and it would definitely be messier this time
than last. Both from the standpoint of having Breakdown to
deploy, and that both factions of mutants were on the same side.
It wasn’t easy. Integration never is. But, while there were
factions of mutants that were opposed to it, and humans as well (just
as there were in the days of Xavier and Magnus), there was also a
strong united counterforce of mutants and, however reluctant at first,
humans to deal with them. They dealt with them.
Within ten years, humanity, especially Americans, saw the benefits of
living with mutants instead of trying to eliminate them.
Along with that came much hand-wringing and guilt for what had been
done to them, much recrimination from mutants interested in
capitalizing on flatline guilt for political gain, and much backlashing
from humans who were tired of kowtowing to uppity muties. We had
to get through all that. We managed. It had been done
before.
Before I had to take another mutantcy test, it was suspended. I
never took another one and I never found out if my marks would have
gone North or not. If I have any mutant abilities, they’re a
mystery to me.
In the wake of the case, Kathy and I got married. That should
come as no surprise. Though Planar’s image was considerably
rehabilitated, she never thought well of him. I don’t blame her,
though I could deal with him well.
Noel got elected to a Senate office, eventually, and served as well as
most. He wasn’t the first mutant legislator and certainly
wouldn’t be the last.
So we were back to mutie and human heroes and villains, just like in
the 20th / 21st Centuries. Something had to be done with the
Hunters.
Most of us became cops or detectives. A few joined the
service. Me, I became a private investigator until I decided I
liked the police pension plan better. Eventually, after Rael
died, I got his job.
There are a lot more stories to tell, even ones the kids don’t beg me
for at bedtime. Right now, I’m looking at retirement, and a few
publishers have approached me for my memoirs. This is as close as
I’ve gotten to a start on them.
Maybe it’ll sell.
If not, we’ll see about writing others.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, my wife has just informed me that the
granddaughter’s talent of levitation is making a mess of the playroom.
