Once the Hero Part 14

Chapter 58

Colonel Randolph Hodges felt his guts twist, feeling ill. It wasn’t suppose to be like this! He had ships down all over the place, and the carnage on the ground among his troopers was even worse. This far exceeded his worst-case scenario, and to make matters perfect, he’d totally lost command and control.

Comms were completely out because, impossibly, the ultra secured system was virused. All he had command of now was his own aircraft and the three ship special munitions flight with him.

His vantage point from above the battle told him his boys would succeed but the price would be high. The pride of ULTIMATE’s armed forces would be a spent unit afterwards. The biggest problem would be if their cover story would hold up in the face of such casualties.

Hell, he would be lucky to command a desk after this was over! On the other hand, Area 61’s boil would finally be lanced. Its abominable research into creating and empowering these gene-warped freaks ended forever. After it was gone, the world would be a safer place for the human race. Even his career, as much as it pained him, wasn’t too great a price to pay.

Signaling the special munitions flight, he directed his pilots to get into the fight. One of the advantages of his boys being in power armor was they had full NBC, nuclear, bio-hazard and chemical, weapons protection. Normally Area 61 would be protected from such weapons too, but the smart bomb bunker busters these three ships carried would take care of that. They could crack even those heavily shielded elevator shafts, letting the deadly cocktail of chemicals and bio-weapons in to do their business. Next, the radiological bombs would make this whole place too hot for any living creature for the next several hundred years.

As a finishing touch, if the freak was still alive, there was a special present just for Number Five of SRT-One. The special armor piercing munitions would crack even that mutant’s hide, letting the freak’s radioactive blood add to the contamination. It was fitting that the mu-tainted served humankind’s future with its death.

“Let’s do it!” the Colonel ordered, his troops going into the valley of death.

Courtney hugged herself, knowing the truth in her heart but so afraid of admitting it. She, Techie and James had reached the elevator that even now was ascending. However her thoughts were of the man they’d left down there all alone. She might be a blind and selfish bitch, but never a coward. Full of second thoughts, her telepathy reached for her patient.

“ Why hello there ,” he answered her. “ Are you three safe yet?”

Still denying that she knew the answer, she asked, “Why?”

“Why am I asking or why I misled you?” He asked for clarification.

Her silence told him which it was.

Capt. Blazzar replied, “All my life I’ve tried to do the right thing; for my brother; for my friends; and even for the world. What happened? I failed them all!”

“I turned into some kind of monster and killed the very ones I loved the most. All I remember are only flashes, but those along with no one wanting to tell me what happened, makes me certain it’s me who’s responsible.

“Val told me that it was Doc and La Dirty Feet that’s guilty, but it was still me who did the deed,” the teen sent to her full of anguish.

Courtney devoted her life to understanding how the human body and mind worked. Her doctorates in genetics and psychology, among others, were proof of her drive, but it wasn’t because of any desire to heal. She’d helped and aided many with her talents and knowledge but that was secondary to her control freak mania to manipulate those about her.

She, the master manipulator, met her match in Alan Glenn. Somehow he, with a deft touch any surgeon would envy, made her take a good hard look at herself. Over the past few weeks she found herself questioning everything that she once sought to achieve. Looking into that mirror, and seeing what was reflected therein, made her turn her face away.

Here, now, touching this young man who was in such pain, not only from his terminal injuries, but of his heart and soul, she saw just how far she’d fallen. Reaching out with her abilities again she looked not to heal his body, but his spirit.

Most importantly of all, she did it out of no other reason than compassion. That was something that only a few short weeks before would’ve been beyond her.

Without words, but a communication at a deeper level than she’d ever dared before, she showed him what his inner-most self looked like and that it was nothing to ashamed of. Next came what she knew of General Lafitte and what she’d scanned of Doctor McClellan. Of their willingness to sacrifice others for their own causes whether it be because of misguided nationalism or the altar of science. Not pulling any punches she gave him all she knew of Project Meridian. The fate of his teammates and what had happened since.

He took all that she gave him without incrimination or finger pointing. Then he asked about his sibling, Alan, who was now known as Val.

Courtney wished she knew more, but she hadn’t even known Val’s name until Techie told them. She showed him of her first meeting with Alan Glenn on a hot summer day in Charlotte. Of how he took a group of kids taken from their parents and helped, protected and nurtured them. His courage in facing down General Laramie with his ready wit and humor.

She showed Gus her own discovery of Alan’s hidden femininity when she object-read his battered racing jacket. In truth she’d never seen Val’s face but had only the impressions that Alan made upon her. Ones that had made her question her motivations and her life.

He then answered her question of why. He hadn’t lied but he did mislead her. His mutant power of energy manipulation was the only thing keeping him alive. However, Gus’s energy reserves were seriously depleted by his recent ordeals. The energy field could be recharged, but like a battery, a trickle of energy worked best. Gus could moderate nuclear reactions in a controlled setting but that was orders of magnitude different from trying to stop the out of control chain reaction that was a nuclear explosion.

It was remotely possible that he might’ve lasted long enough for her to remove all that shrapnel and begin healing, but the Bomb changed all of that. He was the only one that might be able to save all of those people topside, but he honestly doubted that it would change him back into Kiloton. Then, his own energy field was literally so overcharged that it’d gone into a kind of critical mass of its own causing him to transform. This time the heat and radiation would finish killing him long before that happened again.

Besides he was a hero and this was what heroes did.

Even timeless moments must end and Courtney opened her eyes to see Techie watching her speculatively. James was lost in his own thoughts worrying about his own survival.

Courtney found a tear rolling down her cheek and then another followed. Most women dreamed of finding their soul mate. The one man that more than any other fulfilled and complemented them, that knight in shining armor. Being a telepath she’d always scoffed at such silly notions. She knew what men were re ally like.

Gus Glenn wasn’t her soul mate or even the perfect match, but he was closer than any other she’d ever met. And he was going to die. There was nothing she could do that would change that. She felt such an irrational jealousy of that teenage girl, Kat. She’d died so many years before, but had called Gus hers and loved him.

Once she started, she couldn’t stop the tears from flowing; for herself and her wasted life. For Gus Glenn who could’ve been able to help her redeem herself and the life they might’ve had together.

Maggie wrapped her arms around the crying woman, trying to comfort her. She suspected something like this when she’d seen how intently Dr. Hathaway tried to save Val’s brother. The look in the woman doctor’s eyes when he’d urged them to flee confirmed that suspicion.

Smiling sadly, she knew all too well how quickly one of the Glenn boys could steal your heart. Even when one of them was really a girl. That’d so confused her when she’d first met Alan. Maggie had always known she was bisexual, leaning more towards other women rather than men. With this man, it was different with lust, love, and everything else all rolled into one. From their first meeting, what she felt defied everything she knew about herself. When Alan revealed Val to her, things began to make sense.

The more they found out about each other the more they found things they had in common. From the beginning, Maggie found Alan Glenn a complex person. Like an onion, the deeper you went, the more layers you found. For nearly twenty years she’d peeled away Val’s layers, and although frustrating at times, she never regretted one moment.

Holding the sobbing scientist, she’d never been more thankful she’d taken that chance. Her life might have many regrets yet in store for her, but not daring to open her heart to love wouldn’t be one of them.

Maggie’s heart ached for her own love, and the pain she knew was coming. Val had just found her brother and now he was going to die. Part of her wondered if things could get any worse, but was afraid to tempt fate any further. So much had happened in this one night, who knows what other bad news waited around the corner. They were trapped on top of a Bomb by the one group of people that would cheerfully kill them all without a second thought, out numbered hundreds to one and cut off from the outside world without any chance of calling for help. It did not look good.

The only positive thing she could see about this mess, is that in the long run, this would help their cause. Twenty years ago the writing was on the wall for anyone who cared to look. Sentiment even then was starting to rise against mutants. Now there were laws restricting and limiting their basic civil rights.

ULTIMATE turned from an international agency designed to keep mutants from being used by the world’s nations as weapons, to become Gestapo-like Sturmtruppen, enforcing those laws pushing mutants into 2nd class citizenship for the crime of being born different.

It was ironic that the very political forces that caused ULTIMATE to come into existence were the very ones that might save mutants now. Area 61 sure as hell wasn’t the only place on earth where research on mutants was still being conducted. The power Supra-humans represented was simply too great for any nation to ignore. It came down to National Security interests versus the fanatical human purists and supremacists.

How those fanatics must have crowed at what they thought was a golden opportunity to strike at those interests. Still it’d taken big brass ones to attack a not so secret US military base. The USA was still a superpower and wielded immense political influence.

For this to succeed, not one word of what really happened could get out. They had to make absolutely sure no one would be able to poke around here looking for clues to punch holes in their story. The arrogance was astounding but typical.

Maggie thought she might be able to make certain that the word got out no matter if she survived or not. No doubt ULTIMATE’s uber-fuhrers had a cover story prepared just in case things fell apart, but every little bit helped. Just curbing the mutant haters’ power for a few years would help, because every year there were more and more mutants being born.

Not that long ago, there weren’t even enough to count as a minority. They were just oddities like in some sideshow. That’d changed, and was still changing as mutants became more common. If you thought the minority demonstrations during the sixties were something, baby you ain’t seen nothing yet, Maggie promised herself.

“ But first things first ,” she thought as the elevator’s doors opened.

Gus Glenn laid his head back, concentrating on keeping calm. His breathing really didn’t matter at this point because he knew only his energy field was keeping him alive. If he wanted to last long enough to try and stop that Bomb, he needed to keep expenditures to a minimum.

The waiting was always the hard part. His studies here at Area 61, back when he was being groomed as the perfect little soldier, had gone over many accounts from conflicts spanning thousands of years. They all said the same thing. Waiting was the pits. His own experience as a teenage supra-hero taught him that much was a universal truth.

Pushing his thoughts away from that, he recalled his telepathic conversation with Dr. Hathaway. He too felt the attraction between them, but his heart still belonged to Kat. The perky minx who could get him to smile no matter how bad things got. Who was dead, he mourned. Dead because of him , along with everyone he had held dear, except for his brother who was now his sister.

Courtney Hathaway had helped him with his grief and guilt. He and his friends were ruthlessly used by their country. In spite of knowing that, it still hurt , and maybe him trying to be the hero one more time was his way of making things right.

However he couldn’t help thinking how Doug and Jeff would’ve reacted seeing his little brother Alan now. The dirt smudged face and battle scarred uniform she’d worn couldn’t disguise the fact his sister was all grown up as well as beautiful. Yeah, the guy’s mouths would’ve hit the ground. Not to mention Kat and Joyce would’ve gone nuts over their newest recruit to girlhood.

He knew he wasn’t suppose to know, but the girls had kidnapped his little brother from time to time for makeovers and fashion shows. He and the boys studiously ignored Alan’s absence as they got on with serious stuff like sports and the trouble teenage boys always got into.

Smiling at the memories, he felt someone come into the room.

The man had the scent of cigar smoke on his Air Force uniform, but even though haggard and older, Gus recognized him at once. “Hey, it’s Lt. Laramie,” he rasped.

The much older man growled back, “It’s General, Cadet Glenn.”

Gus had to smile again despite the pain. He could still pull this man’s chain, General or not. “Still sore I outranked you since I was Captain Blazzar, Lieutenant?”

A vein pulsed in the old man’s face. “You did not! It was a courtesy rank. You were a Cadet after you signed the papers enrolling in the Air Force.”

Still smiling Gus replied, “Only after you lied to me saying I was going to be kicked out of here as well as separated from my brother and friends if I didn’t.”

Pulling himself up straight, Laramie brought up the pistol he had in his fist. “I did what I had to do, to fulfill my duty. Just like I am now.”

His eyes on the gun, Gus rasped out, “You might want to hold off on that. I might be able to fizzle the Bomb down here.”

Lying-to-me-Laramie cocked the hammer of the pistol back, “Why? So you can turn back into that monster? I don’t think so!”

Gus knew he didn’t have the energy to spare to defend himself. “I don’t think that’s going to happen. No way I’ll be able absorb enough energy fast enough to reach that point before it kills me. Last time it only happened because my energy field was somehow overcharged from that last Zap by Doc, and went into critical mass myself.”

Holding the pistol steady Laramie asked, “Why would you do that, and why should I believe you?”

If it didn’t hurt so much to laugh, Gus would have, but he replied, “Because there’re people up there that are trapped and can’t get out. If this Bomb goes off they’re going to die.”

Fighting to get out his words, teen whispered, “I don’t lie, never have. You know that. After all, You gave me such a great example of what not to be.”

Showing every one of his years, the old man tiredly let his arm drop. “You don’t understand. You never did.” Taking a deep breath he let it out. “Save them if you can, but I warn you, if I see any sign you’re changing I won’t hesitate to put a bullet between your eyes. You understand Cadet?” he said, trying to regain his old bluster.

Closing his eyes in weariness and pain Gus breathed out, “Yes sir, four bags full. You do know that you’re a mite close to ground zero, right?”

Laramie may have grunted, but Gus knew the explosion was coming soon. He didn’t have any more time to waste arguing with Laramie of all people. Stretching out with his depleted powers, he began the meditation that helped him visualize a world invisible to most humans.

He could literally see the energy about him. Streams of electrons flowing through the wiring; heat radiating from the light fixtures, and down below them, the Bomb. Despite its shielding, he could sense above normal background radiation coming from it.

Gus considered for a moment of trying to mess with the electrical ‘web’ his sight showed supplying the Bomb. Deactivating the damn thing would be preferable. However he decided against it. Doc was just too damn tricky for him to risk it because as weak as he was, there would be only one shot at this. Better for him to use it against the one process Doc couldn’t influence once it’d begun.

He’d waited to the last minute because all he would be able to do was temporarily affect the particles, hoping to prevent a full critical chain reaction, turning it into what physicists called a ‘fizzle.’ Still releasing a hell of a lot of radiation and death, but falling short of a fission reaction.

In his tests, Doc Mac told him to see it like dominoes; one falls over knocking over two more, which makes four others fall. What he’d had done was push some of those dominoes out of the way so the falling one had nothing to hit. It sounded so easy, but there were millions of these particles suddenly flying about, sending billions more loose. He’d managed to disrupt the process in that test but it hadn’t been easy.

Now here he was, injured and dying, about to try it again. Gus Glenn wasn’t a quitter and in those last moments he gave all he had to give. More intuitively than consciously, he touched the radioactive materials and started trying to keep the energetic particles stable.

The amount of radiation the bomb emitted plummeted as he dampened the reactions. Then it detonated.

Pushing the pain away, Val didn’t dare put any weight on her leg for fear of it collapsing. Not being able to use her supra-speed on the ground was really going to cramp her style. She’d crashed through the shields on another of those damn saucers, taking it out, but one of the survivors blasted her leg, but good.

She’d found out the hard way that supra-fast running did not translate into supra-fast flight. She might not be all that slow in the air but it was a damn sight slower than the Mach 1 plus she could push with her boots on terra-firma.

What she did still have was Slow-Time, letting her make the most out of every last millisecond on the ground or in the air. Back during the invasion she hadn’t had this hard of a time with these things. Accelerating to supersonic, she’d used a contraption of Maggie’s to redirect her momentum from horizontal into the vertical. Zooming pass the defensive patrol of saucers, she went right through the shields of the bombardment ship. Once inside it’d been a turkey shoot. Grays just weren’t prepared to repel a boarding action.

Maggie by radio directed her where to go and what to wreck. It’d gotten a little hairy in places. However, she’d gotten clear before that big mother popped the great granddaddy of all circuit breakers and went down. All of their fighter-craft flying air cover dropped out of the sky when Big Mama bit the big one.

At the time, most people thought it was because they used some kind of broadcast power, but the real answer was simpler. The internal explosions killed a lot of the invaders. The aliens were telepathic and had that group mind thing going. Overloaded by a good portion of their group mind dying, the rest went comatose from the trauma. Maggie said it was much like the cascade effect of a power grid burning out once the mother-ship in orbit blew, starting the process.

The captured Grays were almost to the last, from the warrior caste. Losing their superior supporting brainpower from the rest of the group-mind, the warriors either stayed in a coma or became lone wolves. The latter were dangerous on a individual level but not a serious threat to humanity as a whole. Lacking the correct nutritional supplements, they too passed away after a year or so, unlike Ollie who’d learned how to formulate his own. All the invasion left behind were a lot folks grieving for their lost loved ones and loads of alien wrecks full of technology.

Dancing away from another volley of green destruction, she wished that ULTIMATE had been a little less quick to pirate the captured booty. Maybe they weren’t able to reliably duplicate it, but they sure as hell learned how to use it!

Pulling herself into a tight ball, she bounced off one passing SPAD’s shields, careening nearly out of control as her enemies came closer and closer to boxing her in. Her maneuverability had kept her alive so far, but the ULTIMATE pilots had numbers and faster machines. Listening to her Luck, she let gravity help her, diving straight down at the ground again.

Her friend Jeff Fortune was much better at riding the luck, as he called it, than she’d ever been. Perhaps it was just an unwillingness on her part to throw herself completely at the mercy of chance. Even still, she’d learned to listen to the song it sang even if she didn’t lose herself in it. For the last few minutes it’d sang of something momentous getting ready to happen. She was like a character in a movie being able to listen to the soundtrack as it foreshadowed some oncoming event.

Out of nowhere, she slammed into the Rocket as it zoomed in underneath her! The old silver and red paint job was scorched and burnt from all the near misses but the old machine was still giving ULTIMATE a run for their money. Val scrambled like crazy to keep from being thrown off, trying to use her own flight to link her to it.

In the pilot’s bubble, Ollie flung up a thumbs-up before sending them back into a near vertical corkscrewing climb. The pack of pursuing saucers dodged madly as Ollie manically charged through them, heading into the blue on the other side of the stormy clouds.

She could see her friend’s insane tactics bought them some time but looking down at the fighters, pulling hard turns and climbs of their own, she knew it wouldn’t be enough. The first SPADs were already climbing back onto their six.

Hanging on for dear life, as Ollie put on a dazzling show of acrobatics inspired as only running for your very life can, Val heard her Luck’s song nearing its end. Tears ran down her face inside her helmet, but suddenly splashed against the face plate as Ollie rolled The Rocket like a spinning top, throwing off the aim of more green energy beams lancing all about them.

There were just too many of them for an unarmed old rebuilt saucer and a wounded one armed, one legged woman, no matter how powerful she was. Knowing her end was upon her, Val gave herself at last to her Luck, sinking into Slow-Time as deep as she could. Just maybe Ollie would abandon this hopeless fight with her gone. Perhaps he could even save the kids she loved so much too.

Letting her talent guide her, she let herself slide almost off the edge, a bolt of Gray-made green lightning struck her but most of the power of the blow glanced off her screen. Looking behind them, she saw one SPAD that so caught her attention it seemed to almost have a spotlight upon it. In slow motion, it lined itself behind them, and she knew that this was the one. Turning to face Ollie in his bubble, Val smiled, sending off all of her love for the friendship they shared.

Even the speed of thought crawled, this deep into Slow-Time, as she felt his puzzlement and then his alarm. At her Luck’s cue, still smiling, she released her grip upon The Rocket and threw herself into the path of the emerald volley of death meant for her friend.

Ollie felt his heart skip a beat as he saw his friend shielding them with her body. Then he felt Val’s message. There were no words. Just the love and friendship they’d shared for so many years. At first he was confused by it, as he was busily trying to fight them free of the pack of vicious predators snapping at their heels.

Then his heart stopped altogether in horror when the Gray saw her slip free and fall into the oncoming blasts.

He slammed The Rocket into a hard bank, looking for signs of his friend. The pack of killers had split to the left and right, spiraling down after her, leaving only two to go after him. It was clear that Val was their target and they meant to make sure of her death.

He discarded one plan after another for rescuing her as the numbers told him the truth he refused to acknowledge. As a child he could do nothing, as his parents died in this very same saucer. Later, he was helpless to stop Gus from transforming into Kiloton and murdering his own friends. Even worse he, the telepath, was unable to help Jeff as he destroyed himself with guilt. Now it was happening again.

Big Mac over their interface queried, “ Ollie? There is nothing more we can do. We must think of the others.”

The grief-stricken Gray was about to reply when suddenly a huge ball of light erupted from the ground, racing upwards towards his friend! The Rocket’s gravitics went haywire and Ollie was abruptly fighting for control. A part of him noticed the ULTIMATE killers were even in more dire straits, as their pilots fought the same battle without the aid of his direct neuro-interface.

The gravitic anomaly unerringly homed in on Val’s falling body, impacting her in a blinding brilliant explosion of light.

“Ollie! ” A worried Big Mac warned, as their malfunctioning drive threw them across the sky, out of control .

The explosives crushed the fissionable material into a dense ball. What would had been a carefully calculated fireball designed to take out Area 61 was instead a much smaller one. The radiation and EMP of this bomb was enhanced to kill any life forms and wipe all forms of electronics within the base. That too was much reduced in part due to the nature of the Vaults themselves. Meant from the start to be the most secure storage possible for the most dangerous kinds of projects, they were built as strongly as possible. The only danger to them was the self-destruct device, whose yield was more than enough to take out the vaults and the rest of the base. At the much reduced explosive power caused by Gus Glenn, they were stout enough to contain much of the resultant damage.

The decades worth of accumulated dangerous devices as well as the fusion reactors were untouched by the fireball and so failed to add their power to the explosion. Although smoky and more than a little ‘hot’ from radioactivity, Area 61 survived.

The refugees trapped topside were thrown off their feet but otherwise unharmed. The same could not be said of General Robert Ulysses Laramie. He was vaporized by the still powerful atomic fizzle. Gus Glenn’s body was also flashed to steam, but even so, he almost survived as a disembodied energy field. Energy and matter are after all only different forms of each other.

Gus had estimated his chances of survival without taking into account his last exposure to the Z-Ray 9 and the abilities he’d received from Joyce. It wasn’t quite enough to transform him back into Kiloton but it gave him a few extra seconds the deceased General did not have.

Gus Glenn in his moments remembered how he’d felt when Joyce’s essence had come to him when she’d died. He’d experienced all her fear and pain as if it was his own. She’d been just a scared, frightened young girl, who he’d loved as his little sister. Knowing and feeling how she’d died enraged him to the point of madness.

Somehow he knew that Alan, Val now, would receive his essence now in the same way. He was certain he didn’t want his beloved younger sister to feel more pain or hurt. With all of his heart, he gathered all of the love and affection he felt and held it tight to him as his final gift to her. Unable to maintain a stable matrix, his energy field flickered and power roared out of him as he died.

Rather than cause yet another explosion, it was promptly sucked up into an indescribable vortex of inter-dimensional limitless potentials, as strange and dark matter swirled like batter in a cosmic mixing bowl. Like lightning drawn to a mountain top it flew, ignoring mere solid matter as inconsequential obstacles to Valentina Zarya Savitskaya.

Multi-dimensional energies raged as potentials and probabilities ran wild. Captain Blazzar’s energy powers and Sensation’s physical powerhouse abilities merged with the ones the person once known as Alan Glenn already carried; The Cat’s speed, acrobatics, and grace; The Sharpshooter’s heightened senses, hand eye coordination, and the precognition/recognition no one knew he had; Fortune’s Luck and probability control, as well as all of their mutant boosted physical characteristics. All of those were added to Alan’s own supra-speed, healing and physical prowess. Each and every one of them enhanced by Dr. McClellan’s Z-Ray, not once, but many times, making The Rocketeers some of the most formidable supra-metas of their time.

Last but not least was the young girl with no name. Saul Simpson’s clone of Elizabeth Tyree. A shadow made whole by the energies pumped into her by the Z-Ray, she’d died when the device’s full power had been turned upon her, striving to make her even more powerful. It was an attempt to make perhaps one of the most powerful mutants of her generation even more powerful. One that’d failed and the more powerful setting added her matrix to the mix along with the others.

All of that poured into the woman who had made many life changing choices during her life, the decision to be the woman her heart told her she was, the resolve to help others avoid the same fate as herself. But perhaps the most important choice of all was giving every last bit of herself to her Luck in order to save her friends and companions.

The most likely outcome was for her to simply cease to be. It was just too much for anyone, anything to handle. She would unravel like rotten cloth. The next possibility was to almost contain it and explode, dwarfing the one Kiloton had so recently caused. However all of that hadn’t reckoned on the probability-slaying power of Fortune. Valentina had at last surrendered to That-Which-Mangles-All-The-Odds. Then like the song said, Anything Goes.

The seven different patterns merged into one. No more would they be bits and parts, separate from her, but now one single archetype that is so much more than the sum of their beginnings. Her years of going back and forth between Alan and Val in a kind of pseudo-shape shifting gave her yet another gift. Now she really did possess the form changing talent, but unlike Billie, her choices of physical form were limited to mixing and matching those characteristics of her power donors.

All this happened as she fell to earth. The Gray-built drives powering the craft about her teetered near failure as the fabric of multidimensional space itself was disrupted by the event.

Still blazing with a corona of transformational energy, Valentina Zarya Savitskaya fell to the earth strangely gently, as the fading power warped the physical laws about her. As the last glimmers of that eccentric light vanished, she opened her eyes.

Val found herself in nearly a perfectly smooth circular depression that gleamed with a mirror’s perfection. Her armored black uniform was in torn tatters. The smell of ozone wafted about her as she blinked away her confusion. Pulling off her ruined helmet, she shook her head, trying to shake away her cobwebs. A wistful sadness filled her and she tried to remember why.

Memories not her own came to her. Of the activated nuke ticking away under their feet. Of her brother realizing that he couldn’t stop it, but might possibly be able to keep it from hurting others, like a soldier throwing himself on a grenade to save his comrades. The final gift of caring and love that he sent to her knowing he was going to die.

Tears welled up again. So much had happened in such a short time. It started as a tiny grain but grew in strength and power until it filled her to overflowing.

“My brother is dead!” Valentina Zarya Savitskaya screamed her grief to the stormy heavens.

Power flowed out of her, lifting her into the sky on a pillar of incandescent fire. Anger and sorrow tore out of her as she blazed like a new star. The storm clouds above her spontaneously vaporized, clearing a halo of crisp blue sky crowning her grief.

The saucers that’d so persistently hunted her came for her yet again. Wobbling in the air but stubbornly persistent, they opened fired. This time it was their blasts that splashed uselessly upon her defenses, unable to get past her blazing corona of fire.

A wave of her hand sent a scorching ball of super heated plasma at one, turning it into a flaming wreck. Fury filled her! They wanted to kill her? She would show them killing! The energy burning about her blazed white as she gathered even more power to her.

“Val, no!” A voice tried to reach her. “Don’t give in to your anger! Don’t make Gus’s mistake. Don’t let it control you!”

She shook her head, wanting only to hurt those who’d cause her pain.

“It’s Ollie, Val, ” he pleaded with her. “Please don’t do this!”

Val could see exactly how to do it. All she would have to do is twist the energy just like so.

Lost in her pain, she didn’t notice the flying object until it was almost right on top of her. In reflex she almost lashed out at it.

“Miss Val?” Lizzie asked worriedly. “Are you all right?” The little girl hovered in front of her.

The simple caring question made her stop doing something that would have harmed friend and foe alike. Oh Gawd she hurt . All these years, and now after finding her brother alive, she’d lost him forever. A whisper reminded her of the love Gus sent along with this latest quickening. He would always be with her.

Lizzie continued on. “I’ve been help’en stop the bullies from hurting anyone but there’re so many!”

“Val? ” Ollie asked mentally.

The grieving woman managed at last. “ I’m okay Ollie. I’m not about to go blowing up everything, but Lizzie has a point about these bullies of hers. If you would excuse me, I think she could use some help.”

Smiling wanly at the 6 year old, she replied, “I’m alright Lizzie, but you’re right about all those bullies. Why don’t you and I do something about that?”

The V-22c Tilt-rotor roared towards its targets. Turbulence from the unnatural weather jerked the lead ship around, as the flight of three specially armed dropships followed.

Colonel Randolph Hodges stared at his instruments as they counted down the range. His ground forces had forced the mutie scum back to the very gates of Area 61. The next step was for his special weapon birds to make their deliveries. The Bio-weapons and gas had to be put precisely on target due to the local weather conditions that damn mutant girl had stirred up. Being heavier than air, the deadly agents would sink down into this gene-tainted demon’s lair of traitors to the human race.

He wasn’t sure what had happened behind him when he’d lost contact with his SPAD interceptors. Their superior equipment let him have some contact but now he’d lost that to.

With a loud pop, an electrical shock threw him back into his seat, his panel died!

“No!” he yelled. He knew his career and reputation were going to be trashed because of this, but let it not be for nothing.

“Launch!” he commanded in panic.

His pilot yelled back at him. “We can’t! Everything is out. Power and both engines are dead! Brace for impact!”

It was an axiom that pilots never use the word crash. Auger in, impact zone, and every other word in the dictionary, but not crash. The crushing blow as his V-22c impacted knocked the breath right out of him.

Wiping the blood from a cut to his head away he staggered out of the wreck. It was too damn bad that he couldn’t wear a Peacemaker. Although a talented operator could do just about anything an unarmored man could in one, the fine dexterity necessary to use the Command, Communications and Control, C3, equipment was impossible. Not only for him but for his staff as well. If he’d been wearing a suit he wouldn’t have suffered a scratch. Up ahead, he saw a few hated mutants come out of their hole in the ground. They were looking skyward and so he followed their gaze.

A flying woman and a girl mu-tainted were sweeping across the battlefield. As they flew the woman sprayed crackling beams from her hands at his brave men in their machines. They didn’t explode or burst into flames but their war machines fell into useless heaps as they ceased working.

Another ‘NO’ echoed from deep in his soul. This couldn’t be happening. They’d come so close!

A choking sound made him turn around. His aide, Major Baka, had fallen, his face locked into a mask of pain as he suffocated.

Panicked the Colonel looked around him and saw to his horror that the special mission aircraft had all crashed around his. Oh my Gawd, the Bio-weapons! One of them must have gotten damaged in the crash. Turning, he made not three steps before he too fell, gasping for precious air. Then there was only darkness and the fate he’d earned.

Chapter 59Maggie practically ran up the short flight stairs to the surface. She’d left Dr. Hathaway behind in the bloody abattoir where the medics worked vainly to save as many lives as they could. The temporary ward was overrun with wounded airmen and other defenders

She recognized Katrina from Sanctuary, as the person who’d refused payment for the rings she and Val couldn’t wear in public. Now, that gifted artist laid with the doctors, fighting for her life.

Maggie passed Val’s young student Josh as he ran down the stairs, not recognizing her in his hurry. Her own heartbeat quickened in her concern for her love as the stench of battle hit her like a physical force. The smoke, blood, and death lay heavy even as the first drops of rain begin to fall.

Once again she tried text and voice, but Val didn’t answer. Fearing the worst, she tried The Rocket. “Ollie,” She radioed. “This is Maggie! Please respond.”

“Damn it!” She knew that mostly likely anything not line of sight would still be out, but she’d hoped that her own much tweaked system would be able to get through.

A little frantic she tried her last resort, her own weak telepathy. Maggie’s power was hell on wheels with machines but not so much with people. In her favor, she and Ollie had ‘spoken’ frequently mind to mind. She hoped that’d formed a link even her very modest talent could bridge.

“Ollie!”

“No need to yell,” he replied. “ We’re still a little busy out here.”

Maggie tried to control herself. “ Is Val all right? The idiots activated that damn Bomb. Gus managed to fizzle it, otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I don’t think he survived, but right after the explosion, gravity behaved really weirdly.”

Projecting calmness, Ollie sent back, “I surmised as much. That ‘weird event’ of yours was Val’s quickening. It manifesting disrupted The Continuum in more ways than I care to imagine. Val received her brother’s abilities as well as his last memories it appears. She’s aware of Gus’s death.”

She cut in, demanding, “But is she alright?”

Off to her right a pair of hulking Peacemaker suits moved, with their weapons at the ready. Touching each one, she shorted out the high-tech war machines' power systems. Frozen and helpless, the soldiers within popped the ‘hatch’ to escape their iron coffins.

“Thank you Maggie, ” Ollie said. “Those two were getting too close. I was concerned I was going to have to have to ask one of the others to intervene. Your and Val’s methods are to be preferred. There has been too much death today.”

Maggie knew that must mean her love was alright, but she needed to hear the words. “Ollie! Is Val okay?”

The Gray gave a mental sigh. “ It was a near thing. After her quickening, her grief pushed her into nearly making a terrible mistake. Fortunately for all of us, we have a certain six year old to thank.”

Looking at the burning wreckage of the battlefield, as she picked her way through the ruins, she replied, “Lizzie? What was she doing out in this?”

She could feel the sadness in Ollie’s reply. “Like any child, she wanted to help, and she got lost in the turmoil. One of the soldiers tried to help her get to safety but died in the attempt. Caught in the open, Lizzie discovered that most of these weapons could not hurt her. Val sometime ago gave her a talk about bullies and it seems she decided that was what ULTIMATE was.”

Maggie felt a lump in her throat, “Oh my Gawd, did she …”

Ollie smoothed her fears, “No, she flew through their aircraft, but didn’t directly kill anyone. I have no doubt however that some of those pilots died, regardless of how survivable those pilot stations are, when their aircraft went down.

“When Val’s transformation lit up the sky, Lizzie went to see what’d happened. Our dear friend was so lost in her grief she wouldn’t listen to my pleas. Of course, her attackers only made everything worse. Lizzie flew right into the middle of it and was able to help.”

Maggie’s own heart felt like it was breaking knowing the pain her love was suffering. “Where is she Ollie?”

She could sense the Gray’s sighing again. “Val and Lizzie are sweeping the area, neutralizing any remaining holdouts. Our friend is using it as a kind of therapy for Lizzie and I think it is good for them both.

“That’s what I have been doing, directing them to those who pose the greatest threat. Using Blazzar’s powers she’s damping the armor’s power supply, remarkable.”

Maggie breathed out seeing Ollie’s point. “Okay, I get the point you’re trying to make. I’ll give her some space. In the mean time I’ll play backstop, deal?”

Ollie sent back, “Deal. I know you are concerned about her, but they are helping each other. At the rate they are covering the area it will not be long in any case.

“Be careful out there. Their grenade launchers were armed with restraining foam and chemical agents. You have a group approaching 59 meters away at an azimuth 270 degrees.”

“Affirmative, 59 meters at 270,” she acknowledged. The sooner they finish this the sooner she gets to hold her love in her arms.

Billie climbed up the stairs, peering out cautiously. Peter, the guy with the force screen, was already outside. He sent Josh for Malak, Amanda and that big guy that could make plants grow. Something about containing some kind of toxic bad stuff from some of those crashed dropships.

Looking up, a huge fat drop of rain splashed on her face. At first just a few fell, but it was clear warning a downpour was on the way. Off in the distance she saw Val and Lizzie still flying around, blasting anyone still moving. Malak said their teacher was using something that shorted out everything it hit.

A few guys from those disabled powered armor suits managed to crawl out of them but they didn’t look in any shape to continue the fight. Not that there was anyone on their side in too much shape to fight either. Those guys with that woman in the gold armor, Number One, had really gotten badly hurt.

Billie had to turn her head from the still form of a marine who had fallen just a few yards away. There was no need to see if he was still alive. Not with that wound. Too many of the Air Force security cops were out here too. Nearly all who were still alive were wounded and downstairs being worked on by the doctors and nurses.

Billie wasn’t sure what she was feeling but she knew that these people had to pay for what they had done. Checking on her friends, they were concerned and worried over that crash. She was sure that she couldn’t be of much use helping with that. However, she could keep an eye on those guys down there.

Moving to a better spot to watch them, she called down to them. “This is over. Help whoever out there that need it, but if you try and start something, I will take you out,” she warned.

Hearing her demands they looked around for her. Hidden among the ruins, Billie was in a spot no normal human could manage, using her pliability power to make herself fit.

One of them, who looked to be a sergeant or an officer, took a gun from one of those suits. He turned, yelling to the others, “It’s not over, till it’s over! Move your asses!”

Billie sighed. Well she did warn them.

Much like many months before with Austin the butt head, her fist flashed out, catching the troublemaker square on the chin. With a dull thump he hit the ground, not knowing what had hit him. It’d happened so fast, most had seen only a glimpse of something rattlesnake fast striking out.

She stretched to another cranny. “Anyone else want a nap?” she asked.

Sapphira Heron wearily closed her eyes. Her HUD was a mass of flashing red and amber fault lights. Taking a deep breath, she hit the emergency sequence that safely shut down her overheating reactor. It's coolant system was shot and had been running only because of her command overrides.

Darkness filled her vision as her helm's seals cracked, hissing as she removed it. Lifting her face to the rain falling from the heavens, Sapphira hoped, wished, prayed that her sins of this morning could be washed away.

A short distance away, Joachim, Number Five no longer, sat on a chunk of broken rubble. A tired wave of a hand answered her unasked question if he was alright. Robert, for once without a smart-assed comment to make, simply stood cradling his injured arm in a makeshift sling.

Summoning her willpower, Sapphira struggled with her armor’s manual override. One particular area on her armor had taken a brutal beating as more than one of her attackers targeted it. Almost as if they thought it was a vulnerable spot. Weird, because that was the one location she’d reinforced more than any other.

Smiling, she wondered how that could’ve happened. Perhaps she needed to be more careful about leaving handwritten musings lying about. However while it may have saved her life, the damage had jammed her way out of her shot up armor.

“May I?” Someone asked.

Looking up she saw Peter, with his TK screening the falling rain, walking through the gathering puddles to her.

Her voice still hoarse from the battle, she whispered, “Please. Push here and turn ninety degrees counter clockwise.” Gesturing with her hands, she pointed out where.

Shielding her from the rain, he half jumped as her armor fell to pieces. She was left only in the hi-tech jumpsuit-like liner that leeched away sweat and moisture, keeping her relatively comfortable while dressed in steel.

“Don’t worry,” Sapphira told him. “It’s supposed to do that.” She paused. “But only once because no one will ever use my own work against me. Number One is no more. There is only me now, Sapphira Heron. A Greek without a country I‘m afraid. Somehow I don‘t think my former employer is going to let bygones be bygones.”

Stepping close to her, Peter said softy, “You’ll always be the Golden Amazon to me.

Surprising herself with a smile, Sapphira searched his face for why. “Really? I hope you don’t consider this our first date?”

Returning her soul searching expression, he smiled. “Not enough fireworks?”

Her eyebrows rose as she replied, “Oh ‘fireworks’ in abundance, but no, I don’t kiss on first dates.”

Reaching out his arms to her, he asked, “How about hugs?”

Stepping forward into his embrace Sapphira gave her answer.

A short distance away, Joachim nudged Robert, pointing out their boss’s indiscretion.

The short American raised his brow in a questioning invitation, looking at the two standing there as the rain touched them not.

The big German gave him a hard warning glare, but grinned when he realized his comrade was only clowning, again. Shaking his head, Joachim waved his arm, inviting his friend to proceed in front as they both walked away.

Together the two friends left the Russian and the Greek lost in their embrace.

Josh wearily climbed the stairs, wincing at the pain. If there was a spot that wasn’t hurting right now, he didn’t know where. Like everyone else he had cuts and bruises all over, but nothing that required serious care like some others.

The makeshift ward behind him was overflowing with those with much worse. He made himself ignore those white sheet covered forms whose numbers were slowly growing as time passed.

Putting that grim image away, he found Malak waiting for him, sheltered from the pouring rain with a haphazardly rigged awning. “Well we made it in one piece.” They gave each other a one armed grasped hug.

His uniform ripped and torn, in spite of the tough material it was made of, his friend replied, “Yeah, we did. Did you see any of the gang down there?” he asked, with an incline of his head towards the stairs.

Josh understood what Malak was really asking. “No. I don’t think any of our guys are down there. I saw Lizzie with Val, and the last time I saw your sister and Amanda they were fine. I don’t know about Billie. She was doing some pretty wild stuff there at the end. I think she and Maggie were helping to break up any last holdouts, but I haven’t seen either since all those other zoomie cops showed up.

Then he noticed Malik looking off into the distance. Turning about there were the girls, Amanda, Malak, and Billie, dodging the puddles and small streams. Malik’s blue protective screen flickered from the rain running off of it as she kept her companions dry.

Like everyone else they were dirty and disheveled. Josh had never seen such a welcomed sight. Ignoring his discomfort he greeted them with smiles, but his eyes were on Amanda. Hugging her somehow made all of his pains hurt less.

Suddenly they were all hugging each other. He hoped the rain and dirt hid his tears. They’d been through so much and yet they were all still alive!

His time down in that underground hell let him notice the increasing numbers of yet more zoomie soldiers and cops. Mixed with them were lots of beat to crap ULTIMATE guys who were carefully watched by the former.

Malak asked, thinking in a similar vein, “So what are you going to call yourself?”

At Josh’s questioning expression, his friend explained. “Like Ollie asked Teach before all the shooting started. A code name, you know? Hers is Capt. Vroom. To help protect our families and the rest of that superhero jive.”

Josh looked around at the terrible remains of the battle surrounding them. “A little late for that isn’t it?”

Billie got a thoughtful expression. “I don’t know about that. We’re all minors but something like this is going to get out. I’d rather be known by some code name instead of having my family get dragged into this.”

Not able to help himself, Josh asked, “So what are you going to call yourself, Elastic Chick?”

He blushed red at the hard stares from all three girls. “Okay! I’m sorry. Bad joke, alright?”

“Besides not wanting to get in trouble with Disney and their lawyers, that name does not work,” Billie replied. “I really don’t know. Descriptive names for someone with my powers can be really embarrassing, you know what I mean? Maybe one that doesn’t do that might work? How about you Malak since you brought it up?” she asked.

The black teen rubbed his chin. “You’re right about descriptive names, Billie. I was thinking something that would kinda tell about me but confuse the hell out of people all at once.”

“You know how my muscles and skin are like carbon fibers. Doc said something about my bones might be diamond-like from his scans. Well, ‘C’ is the chemical symbol for Carbon which is what all of those things are made of. So what do you think?” Malak asked, looking around.

Doubtfully Amanda answered, “You got the confusion part right. That’s it, just Cee?”

Everyone else but her and Billie broke up laughing. The two of them looked at each other wondering why?

That just made it worse as Josh went red-faced trying to breathe.

Malak managed to stop giggling. “You two really are white girls.” She punched her brother’s arm. “He’s being bad. Cee can mean badass in street speak.”

Ignoring their glares at him, Malik look pleased with himself. “Hey, it works,” he said, flexing an arm, posing.

Billie trying to forget looking so square, suggested, “Hey Josh how about Fadeout or Fade; both are movie making terms? You know, like because you can put pictures in people’s heads, like movies, but can also go invisible.”

Josh looked thoughtful. “That could work. I’ll think about it.”

"What about you Amanda?" He asked the girl in his arms.

Looking up at the storm above them and the rain running off of Malak’s screen, she replied, “I think Storm has already been taken. Marvel comics probably wouldn’t care for me using that one.”

Malak grinned. “I think you could bet on that.” She paused, watching the wind play with her friend’s hair. “How about something having to do with the winds? Isn’t there all kinds different of names for them, like Sirocco?”

Amanda replied smiling, “As long was you don’t call me Windy! But seriously that’s not bad. However, isn’t that a hot dry wind blowing from Africa? I tend to do the cold thing.”

Josh volunteered, “What about Mistral? I think that’s a cold wind.”

She turned her face up to his. Mistral, that’s French isn’t it? I think I like it.”

Malak nodded. “Oui!” Accusingly she cut Josh a glance. “I didn’t think you spent much time in class? Where did you learn that?”

The high school junior looked away. “Actually, I got good grades, it was Hathaway and this place I don’t like.”

Trying to change the subject he asked, “So what name are you thinking about Malak?”

She mimed thinking about it. “If you can do French, I’m doing German and take a page from my brother’s book. Magnetism is measured in Gausses after the German mathematician. So how about Gauss or a variant like Gaussia?”

Her friends nodded in approval.

Malik nudged Billie. “So, have you figured how not to get sued by Disney?”

The younger girl replied, “Nope, not yet. Most of the good shape-changer names have been taken. I do know that I don’t want to be called Polly anything!”

As one they made gentle fun of her.

“Poly Morph!”

“Poly Miss!”

“Poly Juicer”

“Poly-wants-a-cracker”

Josh rubbed his shoulder where Amanda hit him.

As the laughter died down Billie replied, “Maybe I’ll just use Flexible and leave it at that. If anyone else wants to shorten it to Flex then Marvel can go after them and not me!

Josh could only shake his head over how much Billie had changed. That shy sad boy just couldn’t be this giggling happy girl. Then her expression changed to the very picture of the cute amazed chick.

Following her eyes, he knew his own mouth must’ve been dropping open too. Floating towards them was this, well glowing globe, like right out of Glinda the good witch of the north. The bright sphere ignoring the hard rain and gusting winds gave the stormy morning an even more unreal feel.

He closed his mouth. As if surviving a nuke; fighting off an army and winning as well as now getting drenched by a tropical storm in the middle of the Mojave desert was the least bit normal.

Visible in the gleaming soap bubble were two figures, Val and Lizzie. Talk about unreal. Josh wasn’t sure how he felt about this latest gender bender revelation. He’d looked up to the ex-hero. The older man had a way about him that earned the teen’s respect.

As the bubble ‘popped,’ Billie for one had no problems with showing her feelings. “Val!” she squealed, running to the older woman, enveloping her in a hug.

Josh had only a brief meeting with ‘Val’ before their escape, but she was different now. Alan Glenn clearly had a presence about him, but this ‘Val’ put that to shame. Although, like them all, she was dirty and her supersuit clearly showed the rough usage from the morning’s events, there was a kind of perfection about her.

Noticing the rest of the group’s stare, she looked down at her worse for wear uniform. Smiling she asked Billie and Lizzie, “A little space please.”

A bloom of light later, the more familiar figure of their teacher stood before them. The torn black uniform was gone. Standing there in his customary jeans, t-shirt and of course that battered jacket of his, he held out his hands in a display of openness. With that old sideways grin of his, he said, “It’s still me. Well the old me anyways.”

That was enough for Amanda and Malak as they joined the two younger girls in welcoming their teacher back.

Josh glanced over at Malik, wondering how he was taking this.

Meeting his eye, the black teen shrugged mouthing, “Go with the flow dude.”

’ Why not? ,’ Josh asked himself. Compared to everything that’s happened to him in last year who am I to judge anyone else?”

Holding his students, Alan barely kept his tears away, “Thank Gawd you are all alright! I‘m sorry. I never wanted any of you to go through anything like this.”

Amanda looked him in the eye. “Don’t say that! You can’t save everyone. Sometimes you have to save yourself. That’s what you taught us. I can’t say I enjoyed any of this, but we didn’t start this, they did.”

Alan saw the haunted look in Malak’s eyes as well as those in the rest of his students. Somberly, little Lizzie held up her thumb. Perhaps the six year old understood and maybe she didn’t, but she’d still done her part in this mess.

Speaking up, Josh pointed out to him, “None of us wanted to be here, but without you this would’ve turned out a lot worse. You cared when no one else would. We were just guinea pigs to them. You made a difference.”

Alan sighed. “That’s all I ever wanted to do, Josh. Billie can tell you a little about how it feels when your own body doesn’t fit right. Even after I found out how to make it fit and found a place to hide from these people,” he said, inclining his head at the smoking ruins of the entrance to Area 61.

“I couldn’t forget the wrongs done to my brother and friends. We were a lot like you guys. All of us shared so much, they were all my brothers and sisters. Unable to put it aside, I became Alan Glenn again.” He waved his hands at the familiar form they knew.

Taking took off his jacket, Alan handed it to Josh. “Even though being like this is a kind of a pain and a discomfort, that I can’t really describe, I changed back to this. I wanted justice for what was done to us. For that I thought it was worth it trying to fit in, be normal, and what everyone expected.”

With his wry grin, he said, “You all know how well that worked out. The Senate Investigators slapped them all on the wrist, and the ones who did wrong used their ’Get-out-of-Jail-Free’ card.”

“I can’t say it was a mistake. If I hadn’t, I would never have met that special someone who means more to me than anything else,” Alan told them, looking past them at the tall woman in black walking towards them.

“Good things did happen and I did help a lot of people that needed it. And I met you guys who mean more to me than I can say. However, while it’s been fun, it hasn’t been real fun.”

“My secret is well and truly out of the closet. It’s time for Alan Glenn to fade away. Finally, it’s time for me, Valentina Zarya Savitskaya,” he said, his eyes meeting those of the love of his life in any form.

The bright flash of her change had everyone covering their eyes again. Val took a deep breath. She was herself again. Holding out her hand out for her jacket, she slipped it on over her torn supersuit. No longer feeling so exposed, she remarked, “I always liked this jacket even if it is a little big now. So what were you guys talking and laughing about before Lizzie and I dropped in?” she asked, hugging the young girl, who giggled.

Josh cleared his throat, “We were kicking around ideas for codenames. Seems pretty likely this is going to get out. Rather not have our families dragged into this or have this follow us around for the rest of our lives.”

“Oh I can assure you it’s going to get out,” Maggie said, joining them. “For twenty years the two of us have fought this silent war and now finally we have something they can’t cover up.”

Val saw Josh’s eyebrows rise as Maggie, her love, and she slipped their hands together. Still smiling, she replied, “I don’t think this frackus won the ‘war,’ but maybe it’ll wake people up to what’s happening. The ones that are responsible for this won’t feel the least bit guilty about anything except that they were caught.

Watching his friends’ expressions of disbelief, Josh blurted out, “You mean they’re going to get away with this?”

Val waved her hands, ‘yes and no.’ “If you mean Col. Hodges who commanded these ‘gentlemen,’ assuming he’s still alive, no. He’ll be barbequed, but good. However, if you want the sorry SOBs who are really responsible, I’m afraid the answer is yes.”

“They’ll do the old ’run silent, run deep’ routine until the public outcry blows over. Then it’s back to business as usual. Until that happens we do as much damage to their prestige and reputation as we can.”

Val exchanged a long moment looking into Maggie’s eyes. She knew her love was ready to settle down and live some of their dreams. “On the other hand, we just lost our anonymity. Like I said my secret is out, and I don’t think Maggie’s identity is any too safe either.”

Malak suggested, “So why don’t you feint too?”

Everyone looked at him, except for Lizzie.

A little uneasy at the attention, he explained, “Basic football tactics, you fade back and pull a little razzle dazzle to confuse the defensive line. Then you feint to make their linebackers and defensive backs commit themselves. If it all works, you have a hole in their defense you can run through.”

Seeing the girls’ confusion he tried to put it simpler. “If they are going to fade back, so do you, using some distraction so they’re looking in the wrong direction.”

Val gave him a teacher’s approving grin. “You know that’s not a half bad idea. Ever consider trying stage magic?”

Before he could answer a frustrated Lizzie flew up into Val’s arms. “If everyone is getting pretend names, I want one too!”

“So Princess, what do you want your name to be?” Val asked warmly, holding her pint sized savior. Only she and Ollie knew just how close she’d really been to losing it all.

Thinking hard Lizzie answered, “I don’t know yet.”

Squeezing her in a hug, Val replied, “Take all the time you need.”

“Unfortunately that is not true Valentina,” Peter said, picking his way towards them with a woman, in a gray bodysuit, that Val didn’t recognize.

“Time is the one thing we don’t have. More soldiers are on the way as we speak,” he warned.

Seeing everyone’s curious stares, the woman with him smiled, “I’m Sapphira Heron. I was the one in the gold armor,” she explained, holding her hand overhead to show she was taller then.

“I don’t think it’ll be of much use to you. I survived, my armor did not. However, I am very familiar with the V-22 and 33. With a little time I could get one back in the air. After all we have plenty of spare parts,” she said, inclining her head.

Peter shook his head. “I don’t think we have anywhere near enough time for that. We’ve fought one war this morning. I have no intentions of beginning one with the United States. Arghun hasn’t yet returned and I fear we have worn out our welcome. We need to see what our available resources are and consider our options.”

Sapphira spoke up, “Since I’ve already begun, I’ll continue. Bernardo my second is in serious condition as is Mariko. The only two of my team who are combat ready are Robert and Joachim. Unfortunately Bernardo was our Jack of all trades. His skills would have been most useful, however Robert’s might prove of use too since he has experience in taking what doesn’t belong to him.”

Peter shrugged. “We’re not in a lot better shape. Bob and Katrina are both also badly injured. Ivan is better, but at best is walking wounded. Arghun as you know still hasn’t reported back. I’m afraid that leaves only me,” he said, spreading his hands.

“I could carry a half-dozen or so with my telekinesis, but only for a relatively short distance. More importantly, I might be faster than the helicopters, but not the attack aircraft I’m sure are scrambling as we speak. I doubt we would be able to make it back to our base camp, but we have a rental van there.

Val looked at Josh, urging him that it was his turn. He blinked, surprised, but he looked questioningly at his friends. Lizzie held up her thumb. One by one they all did the same, chuckling at their youngest teammate.

“Hmmm… None of us are seriously hurt, but we are beat up. This was our second fight this morning. I don’t think we can help much in finding a way out, but Amanda could mess with the weather to buy us some more time.”

Josh paused, thinking. “But if she does that.” He waved his hand at the battlefield. “More of them are going to die because they won’t get the help they need. For that matter, a lot of the Zoomies downstairs are in a bad way too. The medical guys here are way over their heads.”

Feeling a little lame, he finished, “I don’t think that’ll help us in the long run.”

The older leaders nodded their heads. Val inclined hers too. “That’s a good point, Josh. This is bad, but we don’t want to make it any worse. There’s going to be a lot of finger pointing. We want to make sure it’s at the ones responsible.”

“Status Maggie?” Val asked.

The tall woman in black returned the smile. “We have a sedan hidden near enough to escape and evade to. That’ll work for five of us but won’t help the wounded.”

“However, I think I have a good rapport with Dr. Hathaway. I believe she’s ready to defect. If so, she could help us recover the rest of Max’s kids as well as assist with the wounded.”

She looked at Sapphira. “In a last ditch throw of the dice we could try and do what she suggested. Together we might be able to get a dropship back in the air relatively quickly. However, we would still have a problem. Fast they might be but not faster than the F-22s at Edwards. We would have to do some fancy flying heading south of the border. Plus we have the question of fuel. No way we could make Sanctuary without refueling multiple times. All in all I have to say is this isn’t good.”

“Your status Ollie?” Val inquired using Maggie’s radio.

His voder replied, “Like Ms. Heron, I can not offer much assistance to the group. The Rocket is lightly damaged. I would not recommend trans-atmospheric flight. However all our passengers and cargo are still intact which also means we don’t have any additional room.”

Val took another deep breath. She ‘splashed‘ a bit of Slow-time to compose her thoughts. “Okay my turn.”

“Like Josh’s crew, this was round two for me. I don’t have to tell you they’d been bad ones for me. Anyone who isn’t deaf and blind knows I’ve suffered a very personal loss today. I also know some of you are concerned about my mental state right now. That’s probably why no one has suggested I use my supra-speed to zip over and check on Arghun.”

“I’m not able to reach my full speed right now because my supersuit and equipment are a total loss. This jacket, I’m afraid, just won't take going supersonic. However, I still can get to the rendezvous site faster than anyone else with the exception of The Rocket. On the other hand, they might feel a little threatened by someone they don’t know. So let’s try this.”

“Maggie, you and Josh’s crew, do what you can to get Hathaway to cooperate with us. Get the rest of Max’s kids out and see what we need to do to move our wounded.”

“Peter, Sapphira you’re to find us a fixer upper transport that’s our best bet. That’ll also let you keep an eye on the military situation. Hopefully, I’ll be able to find Arghun and the Kusbegi,” Val explained.

Lizzie tugged gently on her jacket. “I wanna come with you.”

Val gave her young charge another hug. “That’s a really good idea. You still have your radio. We can keep in touch with that. Ollie I’m afraid that means you’re going to be busy playing switch board keeping this mishmash of communications going.”

He replied, “No problem, can do. Big Mac will handle the conventional radio and I will fill in with my telepathy. However I do have one question.”

“Sure Ollie,” she said, “What is it?”

“Is this Kusbegi search and rescue craft of Gray-built origins?” he asked. “If so, sensors have just picked up one landing nearby. I must say they’re quite stealthy in their approach.”

A very welcomed voice announced from the dreary morning rain. “And no one would believe me when I told them you held me in special regard!”

Drenched, bedraggled, and yet somehow moving with his same jaunty walk despite a limp, Arghun Bahadur had returned.

“Your pardon, for my lateness. I ran into some unexpected difficulties and the Kusbegi pilots were less than enthusiastic about changing their flight plans. They took some convincing.”

“However, we must hurry. There is an army on the way,” he reported.

Pyotr gently supported Arghun with his TK. “Never ever late my friend. Your timing is impeccable.”

Val projected a commanding presence for her little group. “Alright people, new plan. We need to come up with a way of getting our injured folks to the Kusbegi without every Tom, Dick and Harriet getting an eyeful that we’re violating American airspace.”

“Val, ” Ollie sent to her telepathically. “Your SAR transport is a Gray-built spacecraft, with a Gray gravity drive.”

Her eyes widened as the implications struck her. “Oh right! Sorry Ollie, I’m a bit slow this morning. You don’t have to hit me over the head again. I get it,” she sent back.

Addressing everyone looking at her curiously, “Okay, never mind I have a plan. Ollie you set the Buggy down next to where friend Arhgun has the Kusbegi hidden. Maggie and Sapphira, you two meet up with Ollie. He’ll show you what you’ll need to do.

“Pyotr and Arghun, how about you get aboard the Kusbegi and do some more convincing. Ollie and the girls are going to have to make a few modifications to their bird.”

The Kazakh smiled. “I doubt that will be necessary. My first argument was very persuasive.”

Her brother jovially slapped Arghun’s back. “And if not, I’m sure my Colonel’s tabs will help. It’s about time I got some use out of the things, Captain ,” he said with humor.

Val pretended being shocked. “Why Pyotr! I thought you were acting unofficially as my brother and as my brother this just might make up for that purple hair tint incident. You know the one I'm talking about,” she said crossly.

He turned to Arghun. “See! I told you. She never forgets.

His sister smirked. “We however don’t have anymore time for old times. I’ll take Josh and crew with me to talk to Hathaway. We’ll just have to manage without your rapport Maggie.”

Thinking about her brother, Gus, and his last memories, Val added, “I think I know what to say.”

Pyotr scooped up Maggie, Sapphira, and Arhgun in his TK, with the latter pointing the way to the Kusbegi. Josh and Malik lead the way for the rest back into Area 61.

Val lagging behind carried Lizzie. She wanted to use the sharp senses bestowed by her friend, Doug, to see how much time they had left. Somehow the thought of using those talents no longer bothered her as badly. As Ollie had told her, they were gifts passed on to her by those who loved her.

Lizzie whispered, “I know,” as she found what she was looking for.

The older woman asked, “What’s that Princess?”

Louder the little girl replied, “I know what I want my pretend name to be. Would it be okay if I went by the same one as your friend with the tiara?”

Val felt the sting of tears in her eyes. “You mean Sensation?”

Lizzie nodded slowly.

She felt herself smiling as she replied, “I think Joyce would be very happy you want to use it.”

“Well then, Sensation we have some kids to rescue! We must be cautious. You‘ll never find a more wretched pit of scum and villainy!”

Together they ventured back into Area 61.

ULTIMATE Inspector Philippe Imbert sighed as the true price of this night’s business came into sight. He had at last gotten the gate guards to listen to him even though it had meant he and his team giving up their weapons. That, he had expected. Gathering up every man and bit of medical gear he could find, they headed into the fire and thunder that filled the horizon.

Burning wrecks of aircraft littered the landscape as rain fell from those strange clouds that had rushed in from nowhere. Given the cost of blood and lives this night, this oddly warm rain made it seem as if the very heavens were weeping for the foolishness of men.

The Air Force Captain in charge had thankfully been willing to listen to his suggestions of pairing up Air Force personnel with the Inspector’s ULTIMATE agents. He hoped that would help keep the two groups who’d so recently been shooting at each other from more violence. In particular, at those who were only trying to help the survivors.

It was hot dangerous work, made even more so in the rain, with weapons and explosives still cooking off unpredictably. The UHABs own medics were doing what they could, but in their arrogance, no one had ever anticipated these sorts of casualties. Who in their right mind would order an attack against a desperate foe holed up in a formidable redoubt?

Philippe said a silent prayer for the dead as he crawled out from the wreck of yet another dropship. The state of the art assault ship was designed to give and take massive damage while keeping the crew as safe as possible. Having one engine and wing completely ripped away exceeded those expectations.

More American military had arrived, but so far he and his people had been allowed to continue their rescue efforts. Still curious about the fate of those he had chased for so long, he kept looking for clues.

The inspector found that enormous crater some distance away. Knowing Saul Simpson was released to Area 61’s custody helped him identify the body inside the fireball smoothed glassy pit.

Inquiries to those he aided only added to his list of unanswered questions. He had found that the defending mutants had been badly hurt and at least one had died. What baffled him was that, after the battle, apparently all 30 or 40 of them had marched into the old Rocketeers team vehicle, like a troop of clowns into a car only big enough for 6 or 8. More than a few of those were on stretchers but still they all somehow fit.

Perhaps he would never know the truth here. Sighing, he picked up his depleted medical bag. There were still more wounded to be attended to. It was going to be a long day.

Epilogue: Two years later more or lessSt. Viance France

Philippe Imbert, Inspector, retired, reflected back upon that day. Although it had seemed many more, only 86 had died. Several hundred more had been badly wounded out of the near two thousand who had been there. Others, like the commanding officer of Area 61 General Robert Laramie, were missing in action and presumed dead.

Dr. McClellan had survived and had once again disappeared from the public eye. No doubt in another facility still experimenting on the unwary. Dr. Hathaway had ended up taking sanctuary in Zolotoye-Yablochko along with what had been SRT-One.

Sapphira Heron, and other survivors of that group, provided recordings and ironclad proof that she and her team were attacked by ULTIMATE after refusing to obey an illegal order.

In the scandal that had followed, ULTIMATE claimed that the entire disaster was caused by the unstable Randolph Hodges, commander of the UHAB. Suspiciously to his detective mind, they had provided medical records that proved their assertion, along with paperwork saying he was in the process of being relieved of his command. They suggested that he had become aware of this and went off the deep end. Of course the senior appointed heads of ULTIMATE were forced to resign, but Philippe could not fail to note the permanent assistants were still in power.

He well knew where the real power was and that nothing had actually changed. This event dealt a huge blow to their prestige and put the entire organization under international scrutiny. Many nations were reviewing their relationship as well as the laws passed under their urging.

The United States stood by its cover story that Project Chiron was a pilot program for schooling increasing numbers of young mutants entering the educational system and was the only active program at Area 61 at the time. The only misdeed they admitted to was of one of their students entering spontaneous combustion precipitated by mutation syndrome, or ‘spontaneous mutant combustion‘, by the popular media (SMC).

That situation had been handled by the staff and faculty. The unfortunate student died of the condition but that was known to happen to manifesting mutants unable to contain all the power of their transformations. However the government representatives didn’t even try to explain how this one was powerful enough to knock out the power grid and communications of much of the western United States.

It had not taken a genius to work out that Captain Blazzar had returned and that was the cause of Project Meridian’s reactivation. The staff and students of Project Chiron had vanished for a time, voicing concerns about safety. Alan Glenn reappeared and testified as to the happenings of that night although he avoided answering any questions about that mysterious woman who had single handedly ended that battle.

The children were re-united with their parents, but it hadn’t escaped him how they eventually ended up overseas at school in Zolotoye-Yablochko being taught by Valentina Savitskaya and Margaret Carson.

As for himself, he retired to that picturesque chá¢teau he had dreamed of for so long. That retirement had not been as bad as he feared because he found himself called upon by those seeking his help. It seemed he had impressed more than a few people when he had given his testimony over the events of that day.

Now along with taking care of his roses, he spent several hours a day on his computer, doing his part in making the world a place for all humans; mutants as well as the old fashioned sort like himself.

So he could not have been more surprised while in his garden this morning upon seeing a rather familiar Mercedes C class sedan pulled up into his drive. Piling out was a trio of virtually identical little girls.

They were startling because two were black while the third was as fair and red headed as any Scot or Irish despite looking like identical triplets. The tall Margaret Carson smiled as she sorted them out while the shorter dark haired Valentina Savitskaya gracefully got out of the drivers’ seat. They spent a rather pleasant morning discussing, among other things, the events leading up to that fateful day.

He could see the pain still in her eyes, but every time she glanced at those three ragamuffins they softened into almost a smile. Finally Philippe simply asked, “Why come here? Why tell me of all people?”

Valentina laughed, “Sapphira was right when she told us you were an old rogue.”

She turned serious. “Perhaps because of your actions, that day wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. Also, because you know more of the story than anyone else. Maggie convinced me that someone else needed to know the whole story. Well as much as we know now after the fact. I don’t think anyone will ever know the whole story.”

He asked, “What should I do with this information you‘ve brought me?”

She reached out and touched his hand, “You’ve been making a difference. Your words has managed to reach ears that not only listen but who can change things. Some of us think that is a good thing. Perhaps you should write a book,” she said with a quirky smile.

Curious he replied, “I can see that, but why not let everyone know about this yourselves? Surely this would have more weight if it came from you?”

Leaning forward as if to share a secret, she confided, “You see we’re going on a journey and will be out of contact for quite a while.”

His old instincts woke. “A journey? Other than the one you’re on?”

Her eyes twinkled. “Oh yes! Somewhere far far away.”

Philippe got the feeling she wasn’t going to tell him any more so he asked something else that had been bothering him. “So just how did you get 40 some odd mutants out of Area 61 that morning with the entire attention of the world on you?”

She gave him a measuring stare, deciding what to tell him. He could see the click when she made her decision. “Peter, as a Colonel in the militia, had access to one of their Gray-built saucers modified for SAR work. It was to evac us out after they’d rescued me. That plan changed after Peter found out just how many needed to be flown to safety as well as the number needing medical care.

“However he didn’t dare bring it in close because none of us wanted Zolotoye-Yablochko officially involved in that mess, which would have happened if it had been seen and identified. You see, we know a secret. Gray saucers have a short range teleportation-like system onboard. It’s really more like a warp gate that takes advantage of the way their engines work. It lets them get away without building airlocks on their spacecraft and makes inter-personnel transfers a lot easier and faster.

“No one else has stumbled on this yet. We only found out about it by pure accident while at Area 61. Anyway, Maggie was able to re-activate the one on the Rocket and Peter’s SAR saucer,” she explained

His old face lit up as he understood how they did it. “You teleported them from the Rocketeers old transport to this other aircraft which kept out of sight, yes?”

She nodded as she took a drink of the wine he provided. “In an atmosphere it has really short range but it was enough. Josh’s illusion powers made certain no one looked in the wrong direction.”

The retire Inspector smiled. “Helped along by more than a little misdirection with that circus parade of yours. Classic misdirection, yes?”

The dark haired woman replied back with a smile, “But of course!”

“How do you ever keep up with them?” he asked, waving a hand at the three children Margaret Carson was herding back towards them.

Valentina gave a sideways grin. “It helps that I have the same powers they do. More importantly, I’m an adult and tests show that right now I’m actually more than able to keep up with them. However, as they grow, their abilities will too. I’m not even going to guess where Lizzie’s talent may top out after being zapped by Doc that last time.”

Philippe turned serious. “That man has hurt a lot of people.”

Her voice was as cold as ice. “That he has. One day he will be called on it.”

Then her smile returned. “Just make sure you get up early tomorrow and watch the news.”

His bushy gray eyebrows rose in question. “Do I dare ask what I should be looking for?”

She just grinned. “Trust me! You’ll know it when you see it. It’s going to be big!”

Pointing a finger at her, he accused, “You know the last time someone told me that, I ended up in the middle of nowhere with great big bombs going off!”

They all laughed as his guests got in their car.

Watching them drive away, he wondered just how big was big?

The next morning, Philippe shook his head as he watched televised coverage from the International Space Station of the colony ship leaving orbit. Just how had they managed to hide that ?

It was a stupendous achievement but part of him was disappointed. Rather than stay and confront the forces against them, they chose instead to flee. He supposed that he really couldn’t blame them. After all, the desire to protect loved ones from harm is strong.

Sighing he poured himself a cup but froze, thinking. Before his eyes was the marvelous spectacle of the giant vessel with the very obvious escort of powerful mutants and spacecraft. All the world’s attention was on them as they left Earth for another world.

He remembered all those years of chasing as cagey a pair as any in history. His own words came to him, “With these two everything is a deception!”

Philippe then recalled Valentina was taught by her adoptive father, a stage Illusionist. Who just happened to be the President of that departing colony ship. Perhaps they were leaving Earth for a new home, but then again maybe not!

In any case, he knew significant elements of humanity had a jaundiced view, if not a guarded joy, of their departure, in vehicles made only possible by their mu-tainted powers. He could only hope, in time, this event will be recognized as a human triumph that all of humanity could take pride in.

Lifting his morning coffee done right, he wished them Bon Voyage!

Turning his attention from the tele-operated chessboard, Doctor Albert McClellan’s eyebrows rose as he watched the coverage of the huge spacecraft leaving orbit. He’d known that city state of mutants had shot down several of the giant Gray bombardment vessels, but no one had gotten one flying again.

Well, almost no one, he amended. Early this morning, they began warning away all aircraft for a ‘civil defense’ exercise. Then when the monstrously sized ship rose out of that lake, they alerted everyone that they were headed to orbit. The swarm of smaller supporting saucers made it clear they were protecting their larger cousin.

He’d been keenly interested since some of those protectors were supras. Energia and her brood of ducklings were easy for him to identify.

“Alan, Alan, Alan,” the old scientist chuckled. He’d suspected years ago that Alan Glenn and Energia was one and the same. He had always known of the boy’s transgendered condition. A part of an experiment in itself, he wanted to see just how much pure naked desire for a specific change could affect the Z-Ray process.

The results were inconclusive. Alan received his desire but it could be because of inheriting Fortune’s reality altering power. Now Valentina, as she was known now, had all of The Rocketeers’ supra-abilities.

That was rather unfortunate but this wasn’t the first time a plan had failed nor would it be the last. Setting up Project Looking Glass to fail on schedule, and getting Meridian reactivated had taken some creative measures on his part.

“Ah the small-minded,” he mused. He had perfected the Z-Ray the first time and used it on himself. His then already prodigious intellect grew many times more. He saw the possibilities of shifting the quantum states giving one person’s supra-power to someone else, him.

The problem was that it caused the death of the donor and that presented all kinds of unwanted attention. However that was solved by working for a government desperately looking for some way of creating high order Supras.

It was perfect! He had a willing pool of volunteers lining up. It was just like shopping, letting him pick the ones he really wanted. Of course he did have to actually enhance a few as to not kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

Then another breakthrough! He could tune the quantum state so even after the volunteer had been enhanced, when death caught up with the subject, their powers would still come to him.

However, that Cuba business came up and interrupted everything. Nuclear war really didn’t worry him. He was in a nuke proof base the government had virtually given to him. Albert didn’t even have to worry about small details like security or keeping the location secret. That was all handled by the Air Force boys in blue.

He’d of course made plans for post-apocalypse America but nothing that couldn’t wait. However he decided he had to thicken the pot for his experiments to continue. The children selected for the first Meridian project were perfect. In hindsight, although the power to control probability and chance that Jeff Fuller possessed was enticing, its very unpredictability turned out to be a problem.

It was the Z-Ray Nine that was going to be machine that gave out the jackpot. He had studied Dr. Flagg and the process that turned the intellectual nerdy scientist into a muscled powerhouse. Altering the settings for Gus Glenn’s exposure, he’d been certain it would cause almost the same type of transformation.

The death of Joyce Sturm triggered the change into Kiloton, just as he’d expected. Where things hadn’t worked as desired, was that the resulting damage wasn’t anywhere as severe as he’d planned. Kiloton was supposed to get himself and all of The Rocketeers killed.

He learned that the power he received in each transfer was becoming less and less. Only if the new power was greater than what he already possessed was there any appreciable gain at all. A really huge exchange was needed. Z-Ray Nine turned the Rocketeers into a kind of Quantum damn. All of their abilities would gather and pool as each died until just one of them held all the powers of their entire team. Then when the last Rocketeer died all that power would come to him. That plan went to pieces and caught on the spot, he’d had to improvise. It took him years to recover the prestige wasted from that failure.

Other matters caught his attention and so he waited. Albert could be patient. One of his first donors, had the gift of near immortality. He’d known exactly what had happened to Alan, even though the youth’s ability to control those shifting quantum states was fascinating. To actually be able to pick and choose which one was active and even take on aspects of the deceased’s appearance! Those were elements he hadn’t anticipated. Although it was beyond him why the child refused to revel in the power that had become his, or rather, hers.

He’d hoped that depression would overwhelm this holder of the Golden Grail. However the youth stubbornly went on living. It’d been very clever of the child to hide in the Soviet Union. To his dismay, even there, Alan hadn’t managed to get herself killed. That was disappointing.

Tired of waiting, he’d set up this entire series of events. General Laramie, like his predecessors, was painfully easily to manipulate. As a bonus, having Saul Simpson and his clones to experiment upon was almost worth it in itself. All was going well until that intrusion .

That mutant woman was Alan Glenn’s lover and it was her presence that changed all the equations. He considered exposing her, but that would mean revealing that little alien too. The creature had been hanging around here all these years. His surveillance of the little fellow’s tinkering had proven useful and even earned him a patent or two. He wasn’t quite ready to give that up yet, and besides, he would have to explain how come the alien escaped detection for so long.

Observing them breaking into the vaults was very entertaining as well as informative. Deduction told Albert his own plans needed to be brought forward and had let Laramie have the petty pleasure of capturing Alan. Courtney Hathaway surprised him when she sabotaged the memory-wipe planned for Alan but that was okay. He’d made allowances for the mind-wipe failing.

Then more problems arose. That woman released Alan earlier than he’d calculated, and to make matters worse, Kiloton broke out of his prison prematurely. Then the monster failed to kill Alan just like he had 30 years before. To top it off, Saul Simpson died stopping the monster, ending any more energy clone research. It just went on and on.

Then The Wildfire Protocols were activated by more of that woman’s meddling. Unknown to anyone, that bomb never would have destroyed the base. He had carefully designed the bomb and the base for the desired illusion. The vaults would absorb and channel the damage away. After a quick cleaning, Albert would then have a secret base that no one would ever suspect. It was perfect.

But then Capt. Blazzar had come to save the day. Albert seriously considered intervening, but then Laramie had shown up weapon in hand. Did the overbearing idiot take care of that little problem? Noooo! Troublesome fools trying to be heroes.

Now the Air Force had surveyed the base and had seen just how little real damage was done. In a matter of weeks it would be back to business as usual. Of course his enhancement projects would be starting from scratch again. Alan and that woman made certain that all of Saul Simpson’s clones escaped with them.

Be that as it may, Albert McClellan hadn’t missed the look Alan Glenn gave him at the hearing investigating this entire mess. It was much the same as the one the angry young man had given him after being kicked out of Meridian. He’d seen the same look during those Senate hearings in the 80’s.

Alan Glenn wasn’t his friend and they both knew it. Perhaps in the long run this was for the best, he thought, watching the talking heads explain the transmissions from the giant spacecraft.

JIM: “In virtually every language known to man they are transmitting ‘Good Bye!’. In English, French and Russian are further explanations that they are Zolotoye-Yablochko’s colony ship on their way to Mars.”

BARBARA: “Thank you Jim. Most of our viewers know that Zolotoye-Yablochko is more popularly known as Mutant-stan. Since they are such a small nation, how can they afford to support such an effort? And just how big will this colony be? That is a huge ship!”

JIM: You’re right Barbara. There are many cities in the USA that are bigger than their entire nation. Wait a moment, more information is coming through.

JIM: Looking a little stunned, the talking head replied, “All of them.”

BARBARA: "What was that Jim?”

JIM: "All of them. It’s not an expedition. It’s a migration. Reports from Kazakhstan say they are all gone. Everything and Everyone. Gone to Mars."

Albert turned his attention away from the news. It was actually very clever. ULTIMATE’s political capital was as low as it’d been in years. No way could they attack the mutant migration on their way to the red planet. Although there’d been manned missions, colonies were still years away, if ever. Well, sooner than anyone would have believed possible it seemed.

Like the Soviets that’d built the secret mutant city years before, they were long thinkers and had no doubt been planning this for years. Of course that little Gray alien from here and that woman must had helped with any technical problems.

If the Gray vessel was fully operational, their colony should thrive. Mars would be perfect for them. Well within range of the vessel and a much better prospect than any of the other planets or gas giants’ moons.

Still such a mission would be full of danger and perils, and he could only hope that Alan Glenn would finally make a mistake and die . Then on the other hand, remembering that hate, perhaps she would come for him.

Smiling, he shifted into a form that made him look much older than he was. Picking up his un-needed glasses and lab coat, he complete his disguise. He could only hope that she would dare. Alan Glenn might have the powers of an entire team, but he’d been at this for a very long time. He had been collecting powers for more than 50 years.

Checking the monitor he made sure his room was clear. It wouldn't do for someone to see him teleporting in from his private and much more secure quarters. Sighing, he missed being able to spy on that little alien. It'd provided so many useful gadgets and toys.

A tone alerted him that his distant chess opponent had completed his move. Taking a moment to consider, he selected his response.

“Your move Professor Mortis,” he said.

Just call him Legion.

Fin