X-Men: The Last Stand (25 page)

Even so, he was breathless and swaying on his feet a couple of minutes later, after it dawned on him that he’d turned the clinic building into an ice palace. He could sense no more hot spots within, and water that had been pouring from the shattered walls and windows in a flood had slowed to minor trickles. Bobby could hear sirens at last, although to him they seemed very far away. So did the people talking to him. He could see their lips moving, as the civilians in the crowd were pushed aside by reporters and police, coming together like a rugby scrum, equally determined to get to him.

At the moment, though, he had eyes only for his creation, which he had to admit was quite a sight. The entire building was covered with ice sparkling blue-white in the sun, so brightly it must have been hard for people to look at without sunglasses. Bobby himself had long ago discovered he had no problem with either snow or ice glare. The slides at one end were complemented at the other by huge sculpted mounds that had been formed by the water plunging from the building. Closest to the walls, they resembled giant African termite hills, but as he looked up and out he saw them branch into more delicate arches and pillars, spires and ramps, with stalagmites reaching up from the street intersecting with stalactites dripping down from above. A nearby light-pole was linked to the building by artfully delicate strands of ice, as were some street signs, giving the impression that some crystalline spider had been busily at work on its latest web. The sun cast the scene in flashes of diamond brilliance, but also playfully mixed in prismatic bursts of color as the ice caught its rays and refracted them, creating a succession of microrainbows to complement the much larger one forming in the supersaturated air overhead.

Another outcry from the crowd shattered his momentary reverie. A burst of fire was coursing through the air, as though from a flamethrower, to sear a symbol through the ice and into the brickface of the old tenement building: the Greek letter
^©
, for Omega, the last letter in their alphabet, used to represent the end of things.

Bobby looked hard, tried to force his way towards the source of the fire, thinking he caught a glimpse of Pyro—but the crowd was too large and too spooked. Police and journalists were already pressing his way and with fire and rescue units converging on the scene from every direction, continuing any sort of effective pursuit was a forlorn hope.

The gaggle of reporters barely got to throw a single question before their collective attention was distracted by an all-too-familiar voice booming from the speakers of a nearby radio. Waves and yells from one of the newsvans brought an instant audience, everyone pressing close enough for a view of Magneto’s face as he began his broadcast, addressing them with the formal gravity of the president from the Oval Office.

“Today’s attack on your ‘cure’ was only our first salvo….” he informed the world.

“So long as this so-called cure exists, our war will rage. Your cities will not be safe. Your streets will not be safe.
You
will not be safe.”

Bobby shook his head in mingled misery and frustration, painfully aware of the looks that were being split between the man on the screen and himself by the people around him, noting how they began to edge away, clearing a definable space between themselves and the mutants.

Over his shoulder, the mutants who’d come to the clinic were gathered around one of their own, who’d assumed the code name Broadband, as he generated a three-dimensional representation—plucked from the airwaves by his power—of what the rest were watching on their TV screens.

Thankfully, the firemen, paramedics, and a number of the cops, led by Bishop and Charlotte Jones, hadn’t forgotten their responsibility to the injured. They finished triaging all who’d been hurt and sending them off to the hospital. If not for Bobby’s instant intervention, they would tell him a little later, the consequences would have been far more awful. Instead, thanks to him, there were only a comparative handful of third-degree burns; the rest of the casualties suffered more damage to their clothes than their persons.

“You want a cure,” he watched Magneto say on Broadband’s life-sized generated image. “You will have it. A cure to
all
that ails you.” He didn’t much like the sound of that. But where Magneto was concerned, what the hell else was new?

At the Mansion, Storm and Hank quietly joined other students and faculty in the common room to watch the same broadcast.

“And to my fellow mutants,” Magneto concluded, “I make you this offer, and this warning: Join us or stay out of our way. Enough mutant blood has been spilled already.”

That was it. Silence reigned for the first two or three seconds, before one of the younger kids stuck out his forked tongue and delivered a rousing Bronx cheer.

He got the laugh he’d wanted—but only for a moment, before the broadcast switched over to the newsroom and began to present a series of reports from around the country. The incident in Lower Manhattan hadn’t been an isolated attack, but part of a coordinated group of simultaneous strikes throughout the nation. There’d been no X-Man present to protect those others and the results were ruin after gutted ruin, and a casualty list—including a body count—that made many watching weep.

Visibly furious, the president switched off the Oval Office TV and hurled the remote into the depths of the nearest couch. He stood directly over the Great Seal and as he glared at the floor, he remembered what he’d long ago been told about the eagle. In time of peace, as now, its head faced to its right, towards the olive branches clasped in one great claw. In war, it turned the other way, towards the brace of arrows held in its left claw. If it weren’t for all the furniture in the way, he was more than ready to indulge in an irrational impulse to flip the damn thing over himself.

He gave vent to his frustration. “Who in the name of all that’s holy does that mad, arrogant mutant sonofabitch think he
is
? Does he really want a
war
? Does he truly believe he can
win
? Or that the world that survives will be worth living in, for
anyone
?”

“We’re trying hard to track him, sir,” came the response from Bolivar Tresk, along with Cockrum’s sudden, bitter, cynical thought,
But that trick
never
works.
“We’re working hard—”

The president indicated the TV. “Yes, I see that.” He faced the much bigger man. “Work harder, Bolivar. We cannot allow this to continue. We cannot let him do this.”

“Well then, sir, you know what needs to be done.”

Cockrum stood before his desk, staring at the collection of files he’d been reading, all color-coded to indicate the highest level of security; even some of the men and women now in this room weren’t permitted to see them. He seriously considered the one marked “Sentinels,” then decided they were better held for another, darker day, praying as he did so that day would never come.

Then again, he’d offered pretty much the same prayer about today.

“Those weapons,” the president told Trask. “I want them commissioned. I want Worthington Labs secured. I want troops in front of every clinic. Magneto is not going to dictate terms to this White House, or infringe on the the rights of our people.”

In the background, the press secretary scribbled notes furiously, collecting a couple of the president’s phrases to use later for sound bites.

“Anyone who wants that cure gets it,” the president reiterated, indicating that he wanted to make sure
this
statement made print and airwaves. “We will protect every citizen, human
or
mutant, by any means necessary.”

Within the hour, security was in place—either FBI SWAT teams working in conjunction with local law enforcement, or troops culled from the National Guard. It was a visually impressive show of force, but, as with displays in earlier emergencies, at airports and railroad stations, the public had very real doubts as to whether a determined attack could truly be prevented. Stopping guys with bombs was one thing, but stopping guys who could
be
bombs, or manifest who knows what other kind of mutant power, was something else entirely.

Since New York held the greatest concentration of mutants east of the Mississippi, it was decided that the clinic here should reopen as soon as possible. The Manhattan location was a total loss, but Worthington had leased space across the river in Brooklyn: a building at the convergence of Atlantic, Flatbush and Fourth Avenues, with easy access to a half dozen subway and rail lines. The vulnerability of the location made the public security departments blanch, but the space hadn’t been chosen for its defensibility. Ease of access was the main consideration. They’d just have to deal.

Antiterrorist sniper teams were deployed under cover of darkness to the surrounding rooftops and as they moved into position, their bosses began to breathe a little easier. The clinic was in the open, with high ground on every side. This gave the shooters a more than adequate series of overlapping “kill zones.” Press releases identified the boots on the ground as National Guard, but that was only partly right; the detail was a mix of the National Guard and army regulars. More to the point, all of them were combat-experienced veterans with significant experience in urban population control. They knew their job and they’d follow orders. They wouldn’t panic.

As they moved into position, they exchanged their M16s for shotguns that fired nonlethal bullets and gas canisters for crowd dispersal. Each man was issued a hand weapon, plastic, with backup magazines sufficient to deal with a multitude.

A secure perimeter was established around the clinic, with sandbags and fencing, and defined areas set aside for protestors, as well as for prospective patients.

The protestors were first on the scene, yelling and screaming in an attempt to intimidate the patients. They were quickly joined by their rivals, who were for the cure, an assemblage that was mainly nonmutant sapiens, with a scattering of mutants. They seemed to have the numbers, although the anticure mob definitely had the volume. The patients and their escorts were, of course, stuck in the middle.

Ororo had offered the services of the X-Men, and had very politely been rebuffed at every level of government, from the White House to City Hall. The help was appreciated, but the consensus was that the X-Men might provoke trouble more than forestall it. The subtext, unfortunately, which Ororo and Hank had recognized all too well, was that the X-Men in particular, along with mutants in general, weren’t to be trusted. The team’s actions in the past, including Bobby’s the other day, didn’t matter. Better for all concerned that they stay clear and let the proper authorities handle things.