Shadow of the Past Read online

  He wouldn't have minded the prospect of staying there and teaching genetics alongside his friend, in a place where the only threat to one's existence was the law of “publish or perish," and "cut-throat" meant only that one had to safeguard one's ideas from one's rivals.

  In a better, less violent universe, he might have entered that world and remained in it the rest of his life. He might have devoted his life to study and contemplation. Unfortunately, that wasn't what fate had had in store for Charles Xavier.

  He was born unlike normal human beings. And because of that, he had been compelled to follow a much more dangerous and difficult path than that of even the most determined academician.

  For a time, Xavier watched the scenery move past him. He found it soothing in a way, perhaps even therapeutic. But then, he so seldom allowed himself the luxury of doing nothing.

  “You okay, professor?" asked Bobby.

  Xavier realized he had been dozing with his eyes open. He turned to his companion. "I'm fine.”

  It was beginning to get dark, the professor noticed. In the west, beyond the sparsely dressed trees, the sun’s light was contracting into the promise of a particularly beautiful sunset.

  SHOWS OF HE PISE

  "Pity about your friend," Bobby said. "He was a heek of a teacher... even if I didn't understand half of what he was talking about."

  Xavier was surprised. “You attended Professor Saunders' lectures?"

  The younger man nodded. “A few."

  The professor grunted. “I wasn't aware that you had an interest in the sciences, Bobby.”

  His companion shrugged. “Well, you know, considering my... special circumstances, I guess you could say, I figured it wouldn't hurt to know something about genetics."

  Xavier nodded. "Yes. Yes, of course."

  He was so wrapped up in the intricate, the global and the impersonal that he sometimes missed simple logical connections between one mundane item and another. But now that he thought about it, it made perfect sense that Bobby Drake would want to learn about genetics.

  Like Xavier himself, Bobby was a mutant, a human born with a twist to his DNA. That twist gave him the power to turn into a human icicle—a literal Iceman-capable of drawing ambient moisture out of the air, freezing it and using it in a variety of applications.

  But then, all those who had been students at Xavier's school were mutants, a subspecies sorely in need of training and direction if it was to survive the hostility that had lately been directed toward it.

  It was this need that had drawn Xavier to the life he led. It was the knowledge that people like him, left to their own devices, might be destroyed by the hatred and paranoia of others-or worse, that they might turn their talents against mankind, justifying that paranoia.

  Too many, with names like Magneto and The Toad and

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  Unus, had done just that. They had seen in their mutant abilities a superiority that was both unfounded and dangerous. Mutants, Xavier believed, had to co-exist with the rest of mankind, using their special powers to build a peaceful and enlightened future for everyone.

  "Um, if you don't mind my asking ..." said Bobby, drawing the professor out of his reverie.

  "Yes?" Xavier responded.

  "That tall, darkhaired guy who didn't say anything ... that's Professor Saunders’ grandson, right?”

  "It is," Xavier confirmed.

  "What's wrong with him, exactly?" Bobby asked.

  The professor frowned and leaned back in his chair. “He was born with a brain defect—one that has cropped up from time to time in the Saunders bloodline. As a result, Jeffrey is incapable of processing information the way you and i do."

  “And his parents?" asked the younger man.

  "They died when the boy was three and a half,” Xavier explained. “In a collision with a man who had had too much to drink. Fortunately, Jeffrey was at home with a babysitter at the time.”

  Bobby looked at him. "That's a pretty sad story.”

  The professor nodded. “I wish there were something I could do for Jeffrey. However, even with all my resources, there's nothing I can do. For now, his problem is unbeatable."

  He recalled again the emotion he had seen in his friend's eyes the day they watched Jeffrey playing basketball. He remembered the pride Jeremiah Saunders had taken in his grandson's accomplishments.

  Now that he thought about it, Xavier had experienced that emotion himself on occasion.

  He had not raised any children of his own, but he taken

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  in a great many students over the years-and he had come to love them as if he were their father. What's more, the majority of them understood the depth of his affection for them. He didn't need to articulate it. It was simply understood.

  Perhaps it was the same way with Jeffrey and Jeremiah. He had never seen his friend display a great deal of affection for anyone, his grandson included. But Xavier was quite certain that that affection had existed.

  At any rate, Jeffrey seemed to think so. The professor had gleaned that insight during his brief contact with the young man's mind. Despite all that had gone wrong in his life, Jeffrey felt well-loved.

  Xavier glanced at a sign on the side of the road. It told him that Salem Center was only eight miles away. Closing his eyes, he massaged the bridge of his thin, patrician nose with a forefinger.

  In fifteen or twenty minutes, he estimated, he and Bobby would be back at the professor's school. He would return to his study and take a moment to put the loss of his friend from his mind.

  Then he would check his worldwide information network for appearances of previously unknown mutants. If he found such appearances, he would take steps to bring the mutants into his circle. If there weren't any appearances, he might actually get some sleep that night.

  If so, it would be a welcome rest indeed. And in the morning, Jeremiah Saunders' funeral behind him, Xavier would resume his normal life. That is, he reflected, as normal as life could ever get for the leader of the mutant team known as the X-Men.

  “Hey!" Bobby exclaimed suddenly.

  The professor opened his eyes and saw the look on his companion's face. It was unquestionably an expression of trepidation, caused by something Bobby had seen on the road ahead.

  Xavier turned and saw the cause of the younger man's surprise, caught in the van's high-beam headlights: two large, muscular figures clad head to toe in skintight silver costumes, standing right in the path of the professor's speeding vehicle.

  They didn't seem the least bit perturbed by the prospect of an impending collision. Far from it. It seemed they were expecting it-even looking forward to it.

  "Bobby!'' Xavier cried out.

  But the youth was already swerving to get around the figures. Though their garb and their attitude suggested they might be enemies, he couldn’t take a chance that it was just a fraternity prank.

  However, as soon as Bobby pulled the wheel to the left, the pair on the road moved as well. They blocked the van's way all over again, inviting it to plow into them or smash into a tree alongside the road.

  Bobby Drake had driven his share of fast cars. However, even an Indy 500 winner would have been running out of options at that point.

  Bobby muttered something beneath his breath and swerved again-this time to the right. But to the professor's chagrin, it didn't matter. The silver figures darted back to the other side of the road, obstructing their path every bit as effectively as before.

  By then, it was clear to Xavier that these weren't innocents. Using his power of telepathy, he communicated the observation to Bobby with lightning speed. It's time for a change of tactics, he advised.

  "Hold tight, sir!" the younger man exclaimed through clenched teeth. “We're going through them!"

  His fingers tightened on the steering wheel and his foot slammed down on the accelerator. A fraction of a second later, the van leapt forward like a wild beast prodded by an electrical charge.
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  Like the professor and Bobby themselves, their vehicle-discreetly marked with the name Xavier Institute for Higher Learning-was not at all what it appeared to be.

  Beneath its hood was a customized V-8, fuel-injected engine that could outrun almost anything on the road-even though it carried the extra weight of bullet-resistant glass in all of its windows and heavy-gauge steel plating on its specially reinforced body.

  With their silver garb, the figures in front of them reflected the van's high beams back into the professor's face. He flinched. Then the van was on top of the unmoving strangers, slamming into them at more than a hundred miles an hour.

  It was like plowing into the unyielding rock of a mountain. Xavier felt himself being thrown forward, only to be restrained by his shoulder harness and the passenger's side airbag that exploded from the compartment in front of him.

  A moment later, he felt the air around him turn frigid, as if a blast of arctic wind had invaded the van. Turning his head, he saw that Bobby had gone from normal-looking flesh and blood to the faceted, crystalline appearance of the mutant operative called Iceman.

  The plastic skin of the driver's side airbag froze solid on contact with Bobby's icy hide and shattered like rice paper under pressure from his hand. Then Bobby did the same thing to Xavier's airbag.

  The professor couldn't find the men in silver. The crash had transformed the windshield into a maze of fractured glass, almost impossible to see through. But it wasn't hard to imagine that they were still in the vicinity, taking up positions outside the van.

  Bobby glanced at Xavier, his eyes a glacial blue. "Are you all right?" he asked, icy vapors issuing from his mouth.

  "I’m uninjured," the professor told him.

  “And I'm going after those bozos," Bobby announced, a note of undisguised anger in his voice.

  Xavier didn't try to dissuade him, anger or no anger. Every one of his students had worked hard to prepare for situations like this one. Bobby Drake could handle himself as well as any of them.

  Unfortunately, the impact of the collision had jammed the driver's side door shut. But that was no obstacle for Iceman. Bobby simply covered the crack between door and jamb with a frigid hand and wedged increasing amounts of ice into the narrow opening.

  After a moment, the professor heard a high-pitched sound-the shriek of twisting metal-as the door began to open. Planting the heel of his foot against it, Bobby shoved it open the rest of the way and vaulted out of the van.

  Xavier unlatched his seat belt. Then he dragged himself through the doorway his X-Man had opened.

  It was only then, in the wan light of the moon and stars, that he got a decent look at his adversaries. They were a good deal bigger and more muscular than he had imagined at first glance, and their eyes blazed with a fierce white flame.

  But as powerful as their bodies were, their minds would likely be another story-and no one was as adept at breaking down a brain's defenses as the professor was. Laying himself down on a patch of grass, he cast a mental bolt at the nearer of his two enemies.

  To his surprise, nothing happened.

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  Strange, he thought Frowning, he turned to the other silver suit and tried the same thing.

  Still nothing.

  His mental assaults had felled some of the most determined and powerful minds on Earth. And yet, Xavier reflected, they seemed to have no effect on these two.

  He decided to change tacks-and launch a mental probe instead of a bolt. After all, he required information more than anything else right now. He needed to know what kind of being he was dealing with and how he had mustered the strength to resist a point-blank mental assault.

  That's when the professor received his second surprise in as many moments-because try as he might, he couldn't find an intelligence driving his adversary's actions. He couldn't even find a hint of an intelligence.

  Xavier wouldn't have been so shocked if an independent mind were there and it had been shielded from him. But that wasn't the case at all. The silver-suited figure was completely and utterly vacant. He was a puppet, a shell, propelled by someone else's will.

  But whose? That was the question, the professor asked himself. Meanwhile, Bobby Drake was hardly standing idle. As Xavier watched, he sent a blast of half-frozen slush at one of the silver-suited figures.

  "Try this on for size," Bobby announced rakishly. “It ought to make an ice cube like you feel right at home!"

  Their antagonist said nothing in response. He just stood there as Bobby's slush flowed around him and then hardened, enveloping him in its blisteringly cold embrace.

  Bobby didn't wait long to admire the results of his strategy. After all, the ice surrounding the silver-suit was thick enough to hold a fair-sized tank in check.

  Instead, he turned his attention to their other opponent, who had begun advancing on him with purposeful but unhurried strides. Creating an arsenal of big, rock-solid ice balls, the mutant sent them hurtling at the second silver-suit. They struck him hard, battering him, forcing him to pause in his progress ... but ultimately failing to incapacitate him.

  Suddenly, Xavier heard a sound like thunder crackling nearby. He turned and saw an aura of blue energy blazing about the silver-suit that Bobby had already immobilized. Hairline cracks began, to appear in their assailant's thick, icy shell. Then there was a flash of light and fragments of ice went hissing in every direction.

  The professor frowned in combined anger and concern. The first silver-suit was free. And like his partner, he was advancing on Bobby.

  Xavier didn't like the way the conflict was proceeding. He also didn't like the fact that the mastermind behind their opponents was unknown to him. It meant that he and his protege would have to do battle without knowing whom they were fighting—always a dangerous proposition.

  Bobby? h° called out telepathically, using his preferred method of communication in combat situations.

  His student cast a glance in his direction. Right here, Professor. You see the way that guy shrugged off my ice shell?

  I did indeed, thought Xavier. Quite possibly, he has an invisible force field at his disposal. If so, your ice never touched him.

  Bobby shook his head. Looks like these dudes have got more going for them than nifty costumes and big muscles.

  They also seem impervious to my mental bolts, the pro-

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  fessor told him. /4s far as I can ascertain, they have no minds of their own. They are being directed by an unseen intelligence.

  Bobby frowned. Not good. Not good at all.

  Then he stopped communicating and started battling again. Xavier took some small comfort in the knowledge that there were few who could fight as hard as Bobby could -few who could match his recklessness and his intensity.

  Unfortunately, the silver-suits proved to be more than Bobby could handle. When he hit them with a barrage of sliver-thin ice darts, the missiles bounced right off them, When he tried to root their feet to the ground in massive blocks of ice, it took them only a moment to shatter the blocks and resume their progress. And when he made the ground beneath them too slick to walk on, they still found traction.

  Bobby backed off until he was standing right in front of the professor. We've got a problem here, sir.

  Keep fighting, Xavier told him.

  He wished he could give his X-Man some assurance, some insight he could follow to victory. But he had nothing to give him. He could master and befuddle any human consciousness on Earth-but in the silver-suits, there was nothing for him to master.

  To that point, their enemies had seemed content to let the mutants take the offensive. Abruptly, that all changed.

  One of the silver-suits raised his hand, clenched it into a fist and pointed it at Bobby. Before either Xavier or his X-Man could do anything about it, a sun-bright energy burst exploded from their opponent's fist.

  Professor... ?came Bobby's thought.

  Then he was flung backwards like a ra
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  side of the van hard and slid to the ground. A moment later, his icy exterior began to melt like snowflakes on a warm window pane, exposing the very human-looking being beneath it.

  Xavier bit his lip. Bobby? he called out telepathically.

  There was no answer. Fortunately, Professor X's power allowed him to ascertain that the young man wasn't dead, just unconscious. But for all intents and purposes, he had been removed from the battle.

  And all the professor had been able to do was sit there in the moonlight and watch. As much as it galled him to acknowledge it, he was helpless against this kind of adversary.

  No doubt, the one behind this attack had anticipated that. In fact, he had counted on it.

  As Xavier entertained this thought, the silver-suit who had leveled Bobby swiveled his hand like a cannon on a hydraulically-operated turret. This time, he pointed his fist directly at Professor X.

  Helpless, Xavier thought again. Then came the blinding flash and the impact.

  The biggest surprise in Bobby Drake's mind when he came to was the fact that he was coming to at all.

  The mutant had felt certain, in that impossible-to-meas-ure instant of time between his recognition of the energy burst and his being struck by it, that he was a dead man; a bona fide, deep-fried corpse with all the trimmings.

  And if he did by some trick of fate live to see the world again, he would never have predicted that he would do so unimprisoned and unrestrained.

  Yet that was what happened.

  Bobby was lying on the grass beside the van where he had fallen, the stars blazing brightly in the dark open sky above him, his hands and feet unfettered. And even more miraculously, his super-powered attackers were gone without a trace.

  Then a possible explanation floated to the surface of his consciousness-one he wasn't at all thrilled about thinking. What if they had only been interested in Professor Xavier?

  He bolted to his feet and looked around. To his chagrin, he didn't see his mentor anywhere. "Professor X!" he shouted into the night.