Marvel Classic Novels--X-Men Read online

  Voght was in the front—where she belonged as field leader—despite the displeased grunts with which several of the others had greeted the news of her appointment. By her side was perhaps the most dangerous of the Acolytes, and the one most startled and chagrined by Magneto’s choice of Voght, Unuscione. With the psychic exoskeleton her mind constantly emitted to defend her body, she was untouchable. She was even more dangerous, however, because she could bend, shape, and extend that shell as she wished, using it to capture, crush, or pummel an enemy.

  They were young, yes. Magneto had seen too many young mutants lose their lives in this struggle. But they believed with all their hearts, and he could not have asked for a more dedicated team for this mission. He was proud to stand with them, though their near worship of him must ever keep him apart from them as well. All but Voght.

  “Amelia,” he said softly, “on your word.”

  Her eyes widened, the honor of command still taking her by surprise. Then she nodded almost imperceptibly, and barked out her orders.

  “Cargil, Javitz, on the point. Kleinstocks through the back. Senyaka and Unuscione on the flank and Milan with me. On my word, shields down and attack,” she snarled, then paused a moment.

  “Go!” Voght yelled.

  Alarms shattered the air as the shields dropped. They moved as one toward the small building. Previously concealed weapons stations began to fire a tightly woven pattern of plasma bolts and laser bursts across the field. Harlan Kleinstock took several out with a plasma blast from his hands before Magneto caused the rest to simply explode with nothing more than a dismissive gesture and a light electromagnetic pulse, generated on a specific wavelength.

  Javitz and Cargil didn’t bother knocking, choosing instead to simply crash through the front of the building. A heartbeat later, the Kleinstocks blew the rear wall out. As Voght and the others approached, Magneto held back, waiting to see what the next move would be. At the center of the nearly destroyed building was a massive, square, vault-like structure, perhaps eight feet wide, high and deep. To the right of the doors, which resembled those of an elevator, was a slot for a keycard and a keypad, which clearly implied a combination of some kind.

  “Milan,” Voght barked. “Open it.”

  Magneto was pleased. Most of the others would have simply smashed the vault, but there might be security or defense measures that could hold them up, or it might conceivably be tough enough to slow their advance just a little. Sometimes the light touch was the best way to proceed.

  Milan walked calmly to the door, his dark, angular features only intensifying the oddness of the arrowhead tattooed on his forehead, pointing down at the bridge of his nose. He reached out a gloved hand and lightly touched the keypad next to the door, but did not enter any numbers.

  “My friend,” Milan said to the computer. “I would be very grateful if you would let us inside.”

  There was a pause, and the mutant cocked his head as if listening to a ghostly voice none of the others could hear. After a moment, Milan spoke again.

  “Certainly,” he said. “I would be pleased to speak with you again when our business here is concluded. I know how lonely it must get.”

  With a rushing sound like the fall of a guillotine, the door slid open.

  “Thank you,” Milan said calmly, and moved into the shaft before addressing the others. “We will be taken to the main complex, but there will most certainly be guards waiting there for us.”

  “Good!” the Kleinstock brothers said in unison.

  The lift, a large, armored elevator, dropped rapidly down the shaft and came under fire the moment it appeared in the main complex area, though the guards doing the actual shooting must have known their plasma bursts would not penetrate the lift’s armored shell.

  When the doors opened, Magneto stepped forward, motioning for the Acolytes to wait a moment. The predetermined schedule and his own impatience demanded that not another moment be spared. He set up an e-m field around himself, which deflected the many shots that now assaulted him. At his most imperious, Magneto raised his arms as if conducting a symphony, and each of the guards—he counted an even dozen—jumped back as their firearms shattered in their hands.

  Unuscione was the first out of the elevator, in advance of Voght’s signal, and he made a mental note to punish her later for that transgression. With her psionic exoskeleton forming a huge battering ram, she reached out with her mind and slammed the woman who appeared to be captain of the guard into a low cement wall and held her there.

  “Listen up, flatscans!” Unuscione yelled. “As much as it pains us to say it, none of you have to die here today. All you have to do is leave, immediately and without a word, and you will live.”

  “You’re dealing with the U.S. Army here, mutant scum,” the captain croaked. “Withdraw now, or there’ll be hell to pay.”

  “Don’t you worry about us, G.I. Jill,” Unuscione said. “I’ve been paying that bill since the day I was born.”

  The green energy that formed Unuscione’s exoskeleton changed shape then, twisting, folding, and snapping the captain in two with a sickening crunch.

  “Die, you mutie freaks!” a soldier screamed as he leaped for Unuscione, singling her out for her actions even though his comrades stood frozen with fear and horror. Though her exoskeleton shielded Unuscione from any such attack, Cargil stepped forward, corn-rowed hair jingling with her movement, and slammed her fist into the soldier’s chest, shattering his ribcage. The man crumpled to the ground, wheezing in pain. He would not live out the hour.

  “Only thing worse than a flatscan,” Cargil sneered, “is a flatscan jarhead.”

  Magneto discouraged the use of such words as flatscan, a derogatory term which mutants had coined for those who did not show the essential x-factor that caused mutations on their genetic charts—in other words, “normal” humans. However, since the humans had chosen to make mutant the dirtiest of words, he could not bring himself to correct his Acolytes when they used such terms.

  Voght stepped forward into the aftermath of the violence and addressed the soldiers.

  “This facility and all of its contents are now the property of the lord Magneto. As you can plainly see, you have no hope of defeating, or even injuring us. For the duration of our visit here, you will be incarcerated. As long as you do not resist, you will survive,” she said, surprising Magneto, who had originally planned to simply expel the humans.

  “She said we could go!” one of the soldiers howled in complaint, pointing toward Unuscione.

  “That was before you decided to make our lives difficult,” Voght responded. “You’ve already taken up more time than you are worth. It would have been more expedient to kill you. Keep that in mind, and get the hell out of the way.”

  Magneto smiled. Unuscione had overstepped her bounds, had taken the aspect of field leader for herself, and this was Voght’s way of reestablishing her primacy without showing the enemy that there was any dissension in the Acolytes’ ranks. He was proud of her.

  “It’s not what you think,” Voght said as he approached, both of them watching the Kleinstocks herd the humans away. “I simply realized that it will be beneficial to keep our identity secret for as long as possible. If the military don’t know you are here, they won’t be as quick to reach a drastic decision like just nuking the whole place.”

  Magneto raised one eyebrow.

  “Very good, Amelia,” he said. “I often underestimate exactly how much they hate me.”

  “It isn’t the hate, Magneto,” she answered. “It’s the fear. Anyway, I imagine my test run is over with. Your turn to give orders again.”

  “My turn, Amelia?” he asked, eyes narrowing. “I always give the orders.”

  “As you say,” she answered, and bowed her head in earnest acknowledgment of her error.

  “Round up the engineers and whatever other personnel are present and put them in with the soldiers,” he instructed. “I’ll meet you in the silo.”

  Magne
to turned, his heels clicking on the cement floor and echoing through the chamber. He walked briskly, cape flying behind him, down the short hall that he knew led to what had once been an enormous nuclear silo. Now, it housed something far more dangerous. The silo doors were twenty feet high, the bare metal of their adamantium alloy gleaming dully in the false light. They were, of course, closed.

  Magneto’s stomach muscles tightened as he reached out with his heart, soul, and hands, with the complete and total mastery of the Earth’s magnetic fields that were his to command, and tore the doors from their frame with the echoing screech of a tanker striking an iceberg.

  A dozen more steps brought him into the silo. As he looked up, scanning the massive constructs that lined the sides of the silo, Magneto’s face lit up with pleasure. For the first time in a long time, he actually grinned. Each of them was one hundred feet tall, equipped with destructive technology decades ahead of anything else in the world, the deep purple metal of their bodies gleaming in the burst of light coming from the door Magneto had torn open.

  “Magnificent,” he said under his breath, to no one but himself. And maybe, to them, though he knew they couldn’t hear him.

  Not yet. But when the twenty killing machines in that silo were activated, they would hear him. And obey.

  Humanity would forever regret that they had created such monstrous robotic weapons as the Sentinels.

  ONE

  SMASHING through Earth’s atmosphere, the starship’s hull burst into flames. The planet’s gravity pulled them ever faster toward the surface and the pilots struggled to slow the craft. They knew they weren’t going to die. Dying was not an option. They had to reach their destination, one way or another. They had to survive to pass along the message.

  Once they had completed that task, should their injuries be sufficient to take their lives, then so be it. But first, they had to regain control and guide the ship to their target location.

  They had to reach the X-Men.

  * * *

  IT was a peaceful Sunday morning on the beautifully wooded grounds of the Xavier Institute in Salem Center, New York. Salem Center was a small community in affluent Westchester County, and Professor Charles Xavier, founder and president of the Xavier Institute, one of its most upstanding residents.

  Down at the lake that stretched across the center of his estate, Xavier’s comrades, most of them former students, prepared for a day of picnicking, swimming, volleyball, and other, more innovative sports. There was no reason, particularly, for the celebration. It was simply that the band of mutant heroes known as the X-Men found themselves a beautiful summer day without any crisis to attend to. Such an occasion was rare enough that they put all their energy into making the most of it.

  Cradling a decent-size watermelon on the tops of his thighs, Xavier gave one final shove of his wheelchair to get himself off the lawn and onto the wooden pier that jutted out into the lake. The gas grill was already on, and he caught a whiff of the tantalizing smell of hot Italian sausage, an especially spicy lamb and pepper blend that Remy LeBeau had picked up at a Greenwich Village butcher shop the day before.

  “Don’t do it, Hank!” Bobby Drake yelled from the end of the pier. Xavier looked up to see that Hank McCoy, called the Beast because of his extraordinary strength and agility—not to mention the dark blue-black fur that covered his body—was dangling Drake off the pier.

  Xavier’s first impulse was to interrupt the pair, to instruct Hank to put Bobby down. But it had been a long time since the two men had been his students. Hank was now a world-renowned biochemist (not to mention a former member of the Avengers in good standing). Bobby could stand a little more maturing, but that was their business now, not Charles Xavier’s.

  “My apologies, Bobby,” Hank said, the teasing obvious in his voice. “Was there something you desired to say to me? Some sort of repentance, perhaps?”

  “Not on your life, blue boy!” Bobby said in smug defiance. “And if you drop me, I’m not swimming all by my … hey!”

  Hank let go of Bobby’s legs, a grin showing the elongated canines in his powerful jaws. He seemed about to make another comment when, in an instant, a huge hook made of already melting ice shot up from below, snagged Hank around the waist and pulled him into the water. Just as suddenly, Bobby appeared next to the pier on a pillar of ice, his body completely covered with it. There was a reason, after all, that he was called the Iceman.

  “You two will never grow up,” Scott Summers said from behind the grill, where he was turning sausages and basting chicken breasts with his “Mad Dog” hot sauce. He tried to hide his amusement, ever the serious, mature field leader of the X-Men. But Charles knew Scott as if the man were his own son, had nearly raised him in his late teens, and right now Scott was doing his best not to laugh.

  When Hank pulled himself onto the pier, his blue fur soaked and sticking to his body, showing just how muscular he was, Scott did finally burst out laughing, along with the rest of them, Xavier included. It couldn’t be helped.

  “You know,” Hank said with a wry grin, “this isn’t the sort of thing a reputable scientist does on his days off. I’m growing too old for this roughhousing.”

  “Not too old, Hank, just too serious,” Warren Worthington said amicably, and Xavier was glad to hear him speak up. Warren had once been the high-flying Angel, his mutant genes gifting him with a set of beautiful white wings. When those wings had been destroyed, then amputated and replaced with deadly substitutes formed of bio-organic steel, Warren’s demeanor had changed drastically. Now called Archangel, he had only recently begun to emerge from the dark cloud these events had cast over him.

  “Look who’s talking about too serious!” Bobby cracked, and Warren smiled. Once he might have joined in their foolishness, but for now, Xavier thought a smile was better than nothing.

  “The more things change, eh, Charles?” a soft, beautiful voice said behind him. Xavier didn’t need to turn to identify her. If Scott Summers was his surrogate son, then Jean Grey was a surrogate daughter. Years ago they had all come to him as his students, learning to live as mutants in a world that hated and feared them, learning to use their mutant-born abilities, and of course, simply learning.

  “It’s always refreshing to note that some things never do, Jean,” Xavier said, as Jean took the watermelon from his lap and put it on one of the two long picnic tables. He watched her move, in that elegant way of hers, to where Scott stood over the barbecue. Her long red hair was pulled back in an intricate braid, and it swung to one side as she leaned in to kiss Scott, the man she had loved since the X-Men began.

  Though the rest of the team was certain to make their way to the pier shortly, for the moment he was alone with his five original students. The first mutants to bear the name X-Men! It was a family, his family, and like every other they had their squabbles. It had grown as well, members coming and going, numbers rising and falling. But no matter what the future held, no matter how many new names were added to the roster of the X-Men, there would always be something special between Xavier and these five. There was no question that he loved the others just as much, but there was a difference.

  Hank and Bobby were trying to get Warren into the water. Jean and Scott spoke softly, the sun reflecting off the ruby quartz glasses he had to wear to keep his mutant energy beams from bursting uncontrollably from his eyes. In the field, Scott wore a visor made of the same material, thus his codename, Cyclops.

  Xavier leaned back and took it all in, glad to have that moment with this group. The summer sun was warm on his face and his bald pate, countered by a fine breeze and the coolness of the lake. From somewhere on the estate, he smelled freshly mowed grass, even above the scents of the barbecue.

  He closed his eyes and, for a moment, Charles Xavier was truly able to remember what it had been like to be a boy. What it had been all about. Many claimed to remember, but those spontaneous moments when the past was there, just within reach, when all senses combined with the sense of
childhood self to remind you what it was like … those moments of clarity were extraordinarily rare, and sadly fleeting.

  But they felt wonderful. With all that he had experienced as an adult, Charles Xavier rarely had time to miss the innocence of his youth. Even when he did, it was usually accompanied by a wistful mood that was unlike him. This was different. This was a feeling of well-being he had not experienced in many years. Other than the day, the company, the memories, there was no tangible reason for it. That made it all the better.

  Five minutes later, when Storm, Rogue, Gambit, Wolverine, and Bishop had all arrived, he had reason to be proud and content all over again.

  When Rogue demanded a volleyball rematch to avenge the trouncing her team had been given the month before, the entire group was happy to oblige.

  After lunch, of course.

  * * *

  “WHAT do you mean, ‘out of bounds,’ Rogue?” Bishop growled.

  “Which word didn’t y’understand, sugar?” Rogue teased, her Southern accent adding a gentleness to her sarcasm that always made it much easier to withstand.

  “Our serve, I believe,” Storm said, a wry smile on her face as Rogue passed her the ball.

  Scott Summers smiled as well. All of the X-Men dealt with the pressures they lived under differently, and it always amazed him to see how those pressures had shaped their personalities. Over time, as Cyclops, the co-leader of the X-Men, Scott had come to know them all.

  Storm, with whom he shared leadership duties, was grand and as blustery as the weather she commanded in battle, yet in calmer times she was quiet, almost shy. Her chocolate skin and silk white hair combined with her regal manner to give her statuesque quality. A proud woman, she often seemed cold to those meeting her for the first time. In truth, though, Storm cared very deeply for those around her as well.

  Rogue was the polar opposite of Storm’s profound calm and control. Her auburn hair had a skunk trail down the center that added to her natural flamboyance. She was quick with a jab, physical or verbal, but nearly always in good humor. A humor that was, in truth, often a thin veil covering the pain she felt regarding her mutant abilities. Gifted with extraordinary strength and the ability to fly, not to mention being nearly invulnerable to harm, Rogue was one of the most powerful X-Men.