If only she could
understand those vague and symbolic drawings…
Cocoons, phoenixes,
shadows, each symbol as personal to Irene as Rogue's own inner machinations
were to herself. All mutually
incomprehensible. It was better that she
accept that she would never truly understand the motivations of her
foster-parents, and that to do so would probably be dangerous. If she was going to die, she was going to be
a slave to no one, especially not those accursed Diaries.
And so, for a
while, she put all thought of them aside.
It was not hard to
switch her mind off after a hard day's work.
She had little time for leisure, and by the time her training sessions
had finished she was too tired to do anything except trudge upstairs to her
bed. And even then she found little
respite. For many nights on end she
would lie awake until the small hours, staring up at the ceiling and listening
to the screams of those she had absorbed, screams that railed against her mind,
that fought to be freed. Sometimes she slept,
only to wake later sweating and weeping, her own screams joining the cacophony
in her head. Often she would not know
where she was, until she would hear the light tread of slippered footsteps
outside her door, the soft tap-tapping of a mahogany cane. Irene was about, wandering and
listening. Rogue would turn and bury
herself under the covers, press her face into the pillow and try to convince
herself it was all a dream, that the screams, the memories, the psyches, the
Brotherhood were all a horrible, lingering dream.
No. It was no dream. She would hear the tapping of the mahogany
cane come to a standstill outside her door, feel the presence of Irene as
surely as if she had stood by her bedside and placed a mouldering hand on her
shoulder.
But there would be
no comfort from her demons, nor from Irene.
After a few minutes
she would hear the tap-tapping again, fading off into the distance,
disappearing only behind the baleful creaking of Irene's bedroom door.
*
Winter crept a
little closer, on spindly hands and feet - the day of Raven's mission began to
approach, filling her with an anxious, gnawing restiveness. Whatever Irene or the Diaries had in store
for her that day, it was making its presence known in a quiet, lingering dread
that left her lying in bed most evenings with a listlessness she hadn't known
before.
At last the day
came; Mystique's briefing was a formality she could have done without, but
beggars couldn’t be choosers and so she said nothing whilst she changed into
her black, leather bodysuit and Raven talked at her.
“Forge has provided you with the tools you are
to use on this mission,” she said, indicating to the various contraptions laid
out on the bed. “I think you'll find them useful, Rogue. Take good care of them.”
There were a great
many things that Mystique admired in the solitary Forge, or so Rogue had
noticed, and his mutant ability to make anything he put his mind to was one of
them.
“Don’t worry,” she
replied firmly, going to the bed and clipping the various gadgets and gizmos to
her utility belt. “Forge and Ah ran through them the other day, like you asked
us to. Ah can fire those retractable
rope do-hickeys better than Ah can use chopsticks.”
Mystique looked
sceptical, but Rogue ignored her, going to the mirror and tying back her hair
into a rather severe ponytail. The last
thing she needed was for her hair to get in the way of the job. She regarded herself in the glass with a
slight frown. Her own reflection
perplexed her. She rarely looked in the
mirror these days. It was like looking
at herself from a new perspective, from outside
of herself, as though the creature she saw in the mirror was more alien than her.
But there was no time to mull over such things. She dropped her hands and quickly tugged the
zipper up over her neck. She'd
consciously neglected to take off her pendant, and she didn’t want Mystique to
notice. If anything was going into
battle with her, it was that necklace.
She grimaced. If Raven knew she'd
have a fit.
“I heard you had a
talk with Irene,” Mystique noted airily from behind her, not quite done with
the conversation, or, Rogue suspected, with listening to her own voice
speak. She frowned.
“That was weeks
ago.” She half turned. “What did she say?”
“That you looked in
the Diaries.” Raven's tone was slightly accusing.
“So?”
“They're not for
you to look at,” Raven returned peremptorily.
“Well sorry, but Ah
figured that since you two are the ones sendin' me out to mah so-called
destiny, Ah had a right to know what
it is y'all are sendin' me out to.”
“Your impertinence
is wasted on me, Rogue,” Raven replied coolly.
“Like Ah care,”
Rogue muttered rebelliously.
There was a short
silence, an almost glacial one; Rogue busied herself with rearranging the
things in her belt, hoping Mystique would get the message and back off.
“I know why you're
doing this, Rogue,” Mystique spoke at last.
“Do you?” Rogue snapped hotly. “What'd
you do - look it up in the Diaries?”
This time Raven
refused to take the bait.
“You're doing this
for your own entirely selfish reasons,” she continued flatly. “To prove you are
still an 'X-Man', am I right?”
Rogue said
nothing. She wanted to goad her
foster-mother, she wanted to get her own back.
She wanted to say that Irene had told her that the X-Men still had a
part to play in all this, however nonsensical it sounded; that perhaps she was the only one left to play that
role, and that that was her part in
this whole deranged prophecy. But to
have said so would have been to admit that she believed in it, and so she kept
quiet.
Raven stared
pensively at her reflection for what felt like a very long time. Then she stood, laid a hand on her shoulder,
and said:
“It's time you
stopped clinging, Rogue. Even if the
X-Men are still alive, you have
changed, inexorably; what wickedness has been done to you can never be undone,
not now. Why don’t you accept what you
are? Why don’t you accept that you've
changed?”
Rogue stared at the
floor; after a moment she stepped aside, letting Raven's hand slip from her
shoulders.
“Maybe Ah have accepted it,” she murmured
bitterly, shucking on her jacket. “Maybe Ah'm doin' what Ah'm doin' now because
Ah have nothin' left to lose but my own integrity and a whole bunch o' useless
mem'ries.”
She was ready. She walked to the door, but as she reached it
Mystique stopped her.
“Have you ever
loved anyone, Rogue?” she asked. There
was an odd note to her voice. At the
words Rogue stopped, but did not turn.
“No. Ah never loved anyone. And even if Ah did, it wouldn’t matter. He'd be dead now anyway.”
You see, there really is nothin' left to
fight for, so stop pretendin' there is, Mystique.
She opened the door
and slammed it shut behind her.
*
The thickset guy at
the door was gaping.
Men often did that,
when they looked at her. The only
exception was the men closest to her, the men in the Brotherhood. Forge was more enamoured with bits of metal,
St. John despised her, and as far as she knew, Dominic Petros had never had any
stirrings in his life. Perhaps it was
just as well, because she'd never been comfortable with the way men ogled
her. Especially now that they could
touch her.
“Ah'm the
maintenance crew,” she told the man brightly in her best magnolias accent.
“Ah've been called out t' see to the air vents in Sector C.”
She flashed the
fake ID card Dom had prepared for her for the second time, but the security
guard was too busy looking at her chest to notice, even though the hideous
yellow overalls did her no favours at all.
Lucky for me Ah decided to wear my trusty push-up
bra today…
“There must be some
mistake, miss,” he drawled thickly, his eyes still otherwise occupied. “The
only problem we have with those vents are the rats. Besides, ain't it a bit late for us to be
calling out maintenance?”
“Well, someone was obviously
gettin' complaints about it over in Head Office,” she replied, the false smile
still plastered on her face, “because they rang up, and Ah was the lucky gal
that got sent out. It's mah first week
on the job,” she added in a more conversational, honeyed tone, “and Ah keep on
drawin' the short straw, if'n yah know what Ah mean.”
She leaned against
the doorjamb, put a hand on her hip and showed him her teeth. He could only smile rather dazedly in return.
“Well, lady, if
it's a bother to you, then you might as well save yourself the trouble. We'll call in the exterminators tomorrow…”
“Uh-uh, no can do,
sugah.” Her countenance changed from dazzling to doleful in a trice. “Ah gotta
make a report when Ah get back. Ah'm on
probation the first month, yah see - gotta make an impression on the boss, or
they're gonna cut me loose. Think yah
could let me in and have a peek at your vents, just for the sake of
appearances, hon?”
By this point she
got the impression he would've let her have a peek at his anything if she'd
asked, and so she wasn’t surprised when he grinned slowly and held the door
open a little wider for her.
“Sure thing,
honey. But I'm kinda busy right now…” He
indicated to a small TV at the back of the office, which was fuzzily displaying
a heated game of football. “D'you think you could let yourself out when you're
done?”
“Sure,” she nodded.
“No problem.”
She lifted her
toolbox and slipped inside. The office
was dingy and cramped, and she suspected that she was the most exciting thing the
security guard had seen in months.
“Sector C's on the
left outside the office,” the man explained, already sitting back down in front
of his game. “Just follow the signs and you won't miss it.”
“Thanks,” she
replied, and slipped out into the adjoining corridor.
She wandered as far
into Sector C as was necessary, before sliding into a nearby storeroom and
setting down her box of tools. Then she
set about relieving herself of the horrible yellow outfit and stuffing it in a
cupboard, which looked as if it hadn't been used in years. She blew a loose lock of hair out of her face
and bent over the toolbox. All that
running around in two sets of clothing had made her hot. She unzipped the top of her bodysuit to cool
herself off, then opened up the toolbox.
Inside was the gun Forge had neatly packed away for her that morning.
Rogue unpacked the
gun and put it together with an almost loving sensation that was quite
unnatural to her. Using guns of any sort
had never been in her nature, but any invention Forge made was an invariable
work of art, and she couldn’t help but appreciate this particular
contraption. Besides, this was a gun
with a difference, and wouldn’t be used to shoot any individual person.
If anyone gave her
any grief, they'd be on receiving end of her mutant powers.
Rogue grimaced and
slipped the gun in the holster at her belt.
Then she rummaged inside the toolbox, finally finding the neat set of
blueprints Dom had procured for her; she unfolded it and laid it out on the
floor, trying to pinpoint her position.
There were three
distinct parts to the building. The
factory, which took up the east portion.
A weapons testing facility, which took up the west. And a large storage plant, which housed the
approved and finished products in a separate, highly defended north wing.
Her target was the
latter.
Rogue folded up the
map and stuffed it into her jacket pocket.
She closed the toolbox, stood up, and shunted it into a corner with her
foot.
Time t' rock an' roll.
She exited the room
quietly, closing the door softly behind her, making sure that the corridor was
empty. There was nothing but the humming
drone of the overhead lights, the walls of sickly off-white, everything
standard government issue, claustrophobic, stale, sterile.
Just like every darn factory anyone'll ever
see… S'like walkin' through a labyrinth.
Lucky this place is sign-posted.
She set off in the vague direction of north. Even luckier Ah have a map.
To all intents and
purposes, the place was dead. There was
the odd security guard she had to dodge, but on the whole security was rather
lax. She didn’t mind particularly - it
made her job all the easier. It wasn’t
long before she found herself outside the storage facility and facing her first
real obstacle of the evening.
The warehouse door,
made of metre thick titanium, was something not even Forge's gadgets and gizmos
could break through.
Rogue pulled at her
lower lip with her teeth and hovered uncertainly by the door.
Ah just need to get in there and get to those
Sentinel parts…
Footsteps sounded
in a nearby corridor and she scooted back into a nearby niche just as an armed
Trask Technologies security guard rounded the corner and began to walk in the
direction of her hiding place. She
watched him advance with a growing sense of trepidation. The way into the storage facility was
effectively barred, and tempting as it was to prove both Mystique and Irene
wrong, an innate sense of pride refused to let her walk out empty-handed.
She bit her lip
hard and closed her eyes. The man was
drawing nearer, an opportunity presenting itself to her with every tread of his
footsteps, unfolding little by little and as he walked past suddenly she knew…
The leather gloves
were off her hands in a trice. A second
later she was whipping out of her hole, reaching for him from behind, her
fingers grasping the contours of a craggy and unfamiliar face… An instinctive
moment of horror pulsed through her but it was too late now…
And she pulled… …
…Swear I could've heard something up there
in the air vents… Must be rats… The number of times I've complained to Groover
about the fuckin' rats and still he doesn’t bother getting the fuckin'
exterminator in… But who the hell am I
to complain, I'm just Trask Technologies' freakin' dogsbody round here and my
job's already on the line… Mandy's gonna kill me if we can't afford to get
Frank into grad school next year… I was meant to have done better than this by
now, I was meant to have my own studio and be making music, but I'm still here
in this fuckin' building day in, day out, with these godforsaken rats, and just
what the hell IS making that sound up there anyway?… …
She came to a
minute or so later, crouched back inside the niche panting heavily; the guard
she'd absorbed was lying in crumpled heap in the middle of the corridor only
several feet away. She shuddered and
shucked the gloves back over her fingers.
This man's psyche was noisy and stubborn - it took her a while of
focused effort to shake off the last vestiges of his personality and before she
was finally able to step back out into the passageway. The upside was that a little of his burly
strength had been conferred onto her; she hoisted him over onto her shoulder
with little difficulty and carried him cautiously back down the adjoining
corridor.
There are lockers back near Sector C… They
should be out of the way of any bomb blasts… Ah'll just leave him in there…
There ain't no way Ah'm gonna let anyone get killed on mah watch.
She grimaced.
Mah stars and garters, wouldn't Xavier be proud.
Once she'd safely
ensconced the man inside a nearby locker, she stood a moment to draw upon the
well of memories she'd stolen from him, carefully analysing and picking details
in the way Mystique had so diligently taught her. Diving into the stream of psyches was always
a dangerous business - their querulous, often aggressive nature could easily
have dragged her under with the threat of no return. But Mystique's training had been formidable,
and within seconds Rogue had obtained all the information she needed. The annexed Sentinel parts storage facility
was indeed locked by a titanium door that she had little hope of breaking
through. But there was a hatch on the roof
that was used both for maintenance purposes and for goods brought in and out by
helicopter, one that wasn’t so rigorously fortified…
If Ah could get up there…
She paused
momentarily, hearing the faint sound of scuffling in the air vents above
her. She looked up, smirking.
Looks like there really are rats in here…
She turned and made
her way back towards the exit.
Looks like Ah'm one of them.
The night was still
and silent, but for the indistinct wail of sirens from somewhere over the
horizon.
Rogue padded
alongside the building, keeping inside the inky comfort of its shadows, her
ears pricked and her eyes peeled for any sign of presence. Already the guard's memories were starting to
leave her, each image she recalled becoming more blurred and hazier than the
last. A sense of acute urgency filled
her, lest she forget the precise minutiae of what she was looking for; she
quickened her pace, the soles of her boots slapping a little too loudly on
tarmac. It was something of a relief
when, finally, she rounded a corner and found herself at the back of what
appeared to be the storehouse; she pressed her back up against the wall of
stark, grey, ugly architecture, catching her breath slightly.
And there was the
ladder, exactly where his trusty memories had told her it would be.
She cast a quick
look over her shoulder.
The coast was
clear.
Quickly she heaved
herself up onto the first rung and scaled the ladder, fluid as the widow
spider. Once she'd reached the top she
launched herself up onto the ledge, crouched down low and surveyed her
surroundings.
Clear.
She edged her way
towards the corrugated metal hatch that led down into the factory's main
storage room, slapped her back against the adjoining wall.
Clear.
She swung round,
flipping the gun out of the holster at her side and aiming it at the padlock on
the hatch.
Thik.
The silenced bullet
shattered the lock, and she wasted no time in kneeling down to hoist up the
door, which gave with an ominously loud series of rumblings and clankings. All she could do was inch it open as carefully
as possible, her teeth set so hard it was painful. Then, finally, the hatch was fully open. She peered down the gaping hole and into the
storage room.
It was a
thirty-foot drop into the centre of the dimly lit warehouse, which was piled
high with industrial metal crates. In
each were vital components of Trask's Mark 2 Sentinels, the most effective
mass-produced mutant killing machines in existence. Rogue peered down over the ledge, gauging the
length of the fall.
Land on the nearest pile of crates… Should
give me a good enough shot at the others… Maybe twenty feet at the most… Okay…
With the supple,
unequalled grace of the gazelle, she sprang from her ledge and into the space
below, turning a perfect three hundred and sixty degrees mid-air and landing
with a resonant thunk, crouched, atop
the nearest stockpile of crates.
Glad t' know all that trainin' in the Danger
Room is still somewhere in there…
She swallowed on
the memories, standing slowly.
Time t' get to work, Roguey.
She flipped out her
gun again, ejected the magazine and slipped it into her utility belt, before
producing and loading Forge's bombs one by one.
Five chances… Better not fuck up.
She was enjoying
this too much. For the first time since
she'd woken up from that godforsaken coma she felt the buzz of simply being alive. It was dangerous, to have a reason to live,
however ruthless, however cold - but she'd have to run with it now. Armed, she aimed the weapon at the pile of
crates furthest from her, pressed the trigger.
Forge's bomb arched across the room and attached itself to the side of
one of the crates with a reverberating thud.
As soon as it was fastened to its host, it automatically primed itself,
the red light in the centre of its spider-like frame flashing intermittently.
They worked.
Holy shit, Ah really am gonna blow this
freakin' place to holy hell…
In deploying the
first bomb she had crossed an invisible barrier, and after that it wasn’t so
hard to deploy the rest, methodically and systematically; a stillness had
fallen over her, a calm repose. What she
was doing now, it wasn’t so much terrorism as it was protecting her own people,
her own kind; she was doing mutantkind a service, this was a badge to wear with
pride. No casualties, no fatalities -
her conscience could rest at ease. It
was the perfect crime.
One, two, three,
four, five. Within a minute she'd
planted all the bombs and it was time to mosey on out. She had five minutes to go before the place
was blown to smithereens - she didn’t even need to think anymore. With a detachment she had not known she
possessed, she reached inside her belt, brought out another contraption, fixed
it into the muzzle of the gun, and aimed at the open hatch above her.
Fire.
A clawed arm shot
out, trailing a length of prehensile rope behind it; it flew out the hatch,
arched slightly, and embedded itself in the roof. Rogue tested the strength and tension of the
rope, and satisfied, began to shimmy up it with all the nimbleness she could
tease out of her limbs.
Tick tock, tick tock.
She'd never been so
acutely aware of the time, and despite the calm that had till now kept her
emotions in check, her pulse began a steady ascent, her breath was getting
heavier, and sweat was beginning to bead on her forehead.
Shit…
She must have been
within a foot of the hatch when she felt something give in the necklace round
her neck, and she paused, catching herself, waiting with bated breath as she
felt the chain uncoil itself… begin to slip out of her neckline…
She reached out a
hand, instinctively going to catch it, but the movement jarred the rope, and
she swayed precariously, jolting the broken necklace out of her neckline… A
thin streak of silver, plummeting to the floor, and she grasped for it again
with her heart pounding in her head, the rope swinging dangerously back and
forth…
Clink.
Swaying atop the
rope, with only a foot or so between her and freedom, Rogue looked down and saw
it, lying in an elegant pool some thirty feet below her, shimmering faintly in
the semi-darkness. She looked up. She looked down. Indecision tore at her.
Leave it, go, and
your life remains unchanged. Drop down,
get it, and risk death.
Each bomb is timed to detonate in 5 minutes…
She was cutting it
fine, so fine… It was ludicrous that she should go back for something so trivial,
and for those few precious seconds she fought violently with herself… Because
it was only a thing, it couldn’t
speak to her, there was nothing it could intimate to her that she did not know
already.
But it was what it
represented. It was what she felt when
she held it in her hands.
It was the last
thing in her possession that linked her to the life she had left behind.
She couldn’t leave
it behind.
And suddenly she was
letting go, she was sliding back down the rope faster than lightning, defying
all logic, all reason, denying every rational thought screaming through her
brain, telling her that this was madness, this was suicide…
She dropped back
into the ticking time bomb, and suddenly she realised…
She wasn’t afraid
of death anymore.
The feeling she
got, going back into a death trap of her own making, was pure
exhilaration. Joy mixed with dread, a
sense that for the first time in months she was truly alive, she was flying in
the face of death and she didn’t care if it took her anymore, because nothing
was precious to her but that pendant, and if she didn’t have it she would have
nothing, no heart, no purpose, no reason to carry on living…
Death would be
freedom.
She jumped clear of
the rope, not caring that her escape route was now completely out of
reach. All that mattered was that puddle
of white gold on the floor and as soon as she landed, heavy and ungainly, she
pounced on it, grasped it in one gloved hand.
She was still
alive! The bombs hadn't gone off!
How long she had
left she wasn’t sure.
But she was alive,
and now there was a reason to carry on living…
She didn’t even
think. She was running before she knew
it, running to the only possible escape route she now possessed, the row of
windows that lined the facing wall, and it was lousy cover, glass was always lousy cover… All she could hear
was the laboured internal sound of her own breathing as she pounded back
towards her exit with a speed and agility she felt sure she'd never possessed
before. And there was a window, and she
was never going to make it in time, and even if she did she wouldn’t even be
clear enough of the building to avoid the blast… …
But her survival
instinct had kicked in now, it was either do or die, do or die…
The window frame
careened in and out of her range of vision, swaying to and fro, just out of
reach. And then, abruptly, there was a
stillness in the air; such a silence she had never known before, hanging about
her as if the earth itself could sense the impending impact, was readying
itself for it…
With all the force
of will she possessed, she hurled herself at that window.
Behind her, the air
pulled inwards, a sharp, tangible tug and…
KA-BOOM!
Glass splintering
around her, the sweet smell of fresh air, her body curling instinctively,
hitting the ground, rolling…
The stillness had
erupted into an almighty, unholy sound that left her ears ringing. For a few seconds, all her senses switched
off; it was as if the world itself had shattered, as if everything - even
herself, even time - had dissolved into mere molecules, and something flashed
before her eyes, that day at the mansion, of hearing the screams and the
gunshots and searching for him before
feeling the explosion in her back, before feeling herself split apart into
atoms before plunging into the blackness… and
everything had begun, and everything had ended…
She was caught in
an acute awareness that this event and that event were somehow inextricably
linked. Yet there seemed to be no connection between time and her
movements. One moment she was on the
floor, the next she was running, running blindly, her vision clouded, her ears
still ringing from the blast. And then
there was colour, blotches of red and orange and white whizzing past her at top
speed… Fireballs and shrapnel…
The factory was churning
out everything it had at her, chunks of metal and masonry were sailing above
her head and landing in twisted, burning heaps all about her in a deadly
rainfall and…
Something grazed
her right arm, sharp and stinging as a pinprick, and her mind was screaming at
her, the only thing she could hear…
Duck and roll!
She ducked and
rolled.
Rolled right
through the gravel and hit the perimeter fence headfirst.
Get out, get out, get out… Get the fuck
out…!
Scrambling up that
fence was like climbing Everest but the adrenaline was pumping too hard, her
muscles were working with manic fluidity and somehow she managed it, she had
reached the top and was practically free falling out onto the other side.
By this time her
sense of hearing had partially returned and behind her she could hear the
deafening roars of the other bombs she had planted going off. She paid them no heed. Again she ran, stopping only when there was
sufficient cover to lie low and reassess the situation.
She ducked quickly
into the alleyway between two buildings and crouched, shivering, against the
damp and drooling brick wall.
Screams, sirens,
the thudding of footsteps, lights twisting out on the street like the whirling,
coruscating colours of a kaleidoscope.
She curled into the
shadows like a wounded bird coming to nest, opened her gloved hand. Wonder of wonders, the butterfly pendant was
still there, ensconced tightly inside her palm.
At the sight of it her breathing eased.
She had taken a gamble, she had risked everything she had and she'd
survived…
A peculiar sense of
triumph flooded her.
She was alive. She had cheated death for nothing, for
everything…
She tucked the
pendant swiftly into her belt pocket. It
was too dangerous to stay, she didn’t have time to gloat over her small,
strange victory. She had to get back to
base point, collect her things and move on out.
And she had to do it without attracting attention.
Her breathing now
regulated, she stood and propped herself up against the mouldy brick wall.
It was only then
that she realised it.
Her right arm, the
arm that had clasped the pendant so tightly, was wounded. The pain crashed over her in a wave, stealing
her breath away again, making her dizzy.
There was a gash in the upper arm of her leather jacket, a large slash
that was already oozing blood. Lodged
inside the wound was a fair-sized splinter of shrapnel, half-embedded under the
skin.
Shit…
She stood for a
moment, leaning against the wall, eyes closed with her left hand cradling her
injured arm protectively. For a long
while the pain was almost unbearable and she could barely stand straight with
the agony. It was a few minutes before
it had subsided enough for her to see properly.
It was now or
never. She had to go, while she could
still make it.
Clutching onto her
arm, she slipped out of her hiding place and walked east.
*
It was an effort
not to run. Her whole body was screaming
for her to do as the crowds where doing, to race for the nearest cover, but she
simply couldn’t, she had to get to base point… And the pain in her arm was
radiating, warm and sharp, throughout her body, making her belly ache and her
head swim. She'd been stupid, so stupid…
she was never going to make it…Her vision was blurring, she could barely see,
her nostrils were burning, ash was flitting over her eyes and she couldn’t see… …
God, please don’t let me faint, Ah can't
afford to lose control, not now, please…
A rain of ash was
flittering over the city. Rogue stumbled
down the street, clutching her arm - even though this pained her, it was
essential she stem any bleeding. The
jostling of the panic-stricken crowd made it almost impossible to keep from
jarring the injury - several times along her allotted path she thought she
would pass out.
And then, there it
was, the prearranged back alley, marked by the distorted red cross that had
been painted, slapdash, on the side of an old dumpster. At the mere sight of that crooked red cross
her survival instinct kicked in again with a vengeance. Somehow she managed to stagger the few steps
towards the alleyway before gratefully sliding in. The crowd was in too much of a frenzy for
anyone to notice.
Rogue edged her way
further and further down the alley, until the shouts and screams and the
klaxons and sirens were muffled by the tall, sepulchral concrete buildings that
hemmed her in. About ten yards into the alley, there was another dumpster
marked clumsily with the red cross.
Rogue stopped in front of it to catch her breath. Her vision was clearing now; the pain in her
arm had settled somewhat, but her limbs were still like jelly. She had to ignore it. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she
levered herself up into the dumpster and began to scavenge around inside the
mounds of fetid, rotting rubbish.
It was several
minutes before she found her pack of supplies.
By the time she had
climbed out of the dumpster, her breathing was laboured. She made no conscious
effort to stop shaking now as she peeled off her jacket and examined her
arm. It was bleeding freely, and the
piece of shrapnel was still lodged inside it.
Rogue bit her lip. She'd have to
extract that now, by herself, or risk blood poisoning.
The first aid kit
in her pack was very basic - the only available sharp tool was a pair of
scissors, and it would have to do. She
wasn’t squeamish about these kinds of things and never had been, but
nevertheless, gouging that sliver of metal out of her own right arm was a more
difficult and finicky operation than she'd anticipated. The pain was so intense that her vision began
to blur again, and she could barely see what she was doing. But at last, it was out - she threw the shard
of metal aside, heard it clatter to the floor some way down the alley. It took a few more minutes for her to ease
her breathing, and when she had done so she produced some fresh bandages from
her kit. Having only her left arm free
made tying them even more awkward than extracting the shrapnel - after five
minutes she was brimming with frustration. She couldn't do this, she didn’t
want to, she didn’t even care if she bled to death…
“Urgh!”
She threw the
bandage aside fiercely, her eyes burning.
Suddenly, inexplicably, she wanted to cry. She'd done it. She'd done exactly what those Diaries were
supposed to have told her to do. She'd
betrayed Xavier, the X-Men, herself. And
there had been no point. No
vengeance. No pride. No victory.
Not even death. Nothing had
changed. All she felt inside was a
hollow, aching emptiness. Whatever she
had sought to prove in doing this, she'd hadn't succeeded. She'd failed.
She'd failed.
In the background,
the klaxons were still wailing, red and blue lights were streaking past her
little hideout, blithely unaware of her presence. The atmosphere was still thick with the scent
and texture of burning, a texture that stuck to the insides of her throat and
made her cough, but something inside her flared suddenly, a memory…
Even in the face of oppression, Rogue,
mutants are still human. We all eat,
breathe and sleep, do we not? We all
share the same dreams, the same hopes, the same feelings as the baseline
humans. Of course, we may hate just as
they hate us; but by the same token we are capable of love just as much as they
are. Have hope, Rogue. As long as we share the same aspirations, as
long as we share the same emotions and have the same ideals, we can never lose
the dream for harmony…
Yes - Xavier was
right, he had always been right. She
wasn't going to give up, she was going to chase down this dream as ardently as
he had chased his… Even if it meant sticking with all this Brotherhood bullshit
in the meantime…
She gritted her
teeth, picked up the bandage, and knotted it over her injured arm with more
force than had been necessary. Pain
would be her penance. Every day until
the moment there was peace, it would be her penance. She made no sound, shed no tear. From now on, all her suffering would be in
silence. It would be her sacrifice for
the dream, for Xavier's dream.
She was feeling a
little better now. She remained
crouching by the wall for a couple more minutes to catch her breath, then stood
on firmer legs. Her eyesight had
cleared, though she was now filled with an overwhelming tiredness. Tending to her wounds had taken more energy
than she had bargained for, energy that she would need to return to
headquarters.
It was done, it was
over. She could leave.
She turned to pick
up her bag, heard a sound, started.
And suddenly,
through the mist of soot and ash that now permeated the city, there he was,
leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, staring at her.
Gambit.
* * * * *
Go to Chapter 4
: Go to Chapter 6