Shadow of the Past Page 8

  Xavier heaved a sigh in his ionic energy confinment. Which anchorage? be asked himself. Which?

  And then it came to him.

  Scott had once told him that he iiked the first leg of a cruise to be the longest. Then, if there was a problem, he and Jean could always drop their anchor sooner than planned. On the other hand, if the last leg of a cruise was the longest and something went wrong, it could mean a protracted and tiresome trip home-a day that could stretch well into night.

  If the professor had divined his X-Men's itinerary accurately, the longest leg of their journey would be between Mount Misery Cove and Salem Center. And since this was to be the day they returned to the mansion, and it was still early in the morning, he would likely find them anchored among Mount Misery's sand dunes.

  There was no guarantee, of course. However, it was the best guess Xavier could make.

  Reaching deeper into the world of his origin, the mutant sent his tendril of thought flying in a southeasterly direction over the Long Island Sound. The sky above was pale and overcast, the crenelated water beneath it a dark blue embellished with wind-driven flecks of white.

  It took some time-how much, Xavier couldn't be sure-but he gradually left the hilly terrain of Westchester behind and began coming up fast on the opposite shore. Long Island looked to him like an immense sleeping dragon, the green of her well-kept lawns and stately conifers the beast's coat of scales and her sandy cliffs its vulnerable underbelly.

  He recognized the immense, miies-wide mouth of Hempstead Harbor on his right as he aimed for the shallow beach situated between Oak Neck Point and Rocky Point.

  Restricted to their sailboat, Scott and Jean would have had to circumnavigate the peninsula of Centre Island to get into the harbor. However, the professor was laboring under no such limitation. All he had to do was extend his tendril past the beach and the uplands behind it, and the shortcut would deposit him at his intended destination.

  Finally, he reached the harbor. But in the same instant, his hopes fell. The boat Scott and Jean had rehabiliated so painstakingly wasn't anchored anywhere in sight. For that matter, neither was any other boat. The place was completely and utterly empty.

  Xavier had to face the possibility that he had guessed wrong about the couple's whereabouts. However, his instincts told him not to give up yet. Maybe they had simpiy gotten underway already, spurred by the doppelganger's urgent summons.

  Yes, he thought. That's it.

  Embracing that possibility, the professor followed the course Scott and Jean would have been compelled to follow-south around Brickyard Point, east in the direction of Cove Neck, and then north toward Plum Point. After that, they would have had to work their way east into Oyster Bay, a route which would have given them access to the Sound.

  As Xavier came around Brickyard Point he started to ascend. After all, it was no more difficult for him to go up than to go forward. The professor's hope was that he would be able to spot their ship's sails if he reached a high enough altitude.

  This time, he wasn't disappointed. As Xavier approached the dense, overhanging clouds, he caught sight of a white speck on the moody expanse of Oyster Bay. Swooping like a hawk hungry for prey, his thought-tendril reached out for it.

  Homing in on the speck, the professor was gradually able to make out the bellied shape of the boat's sails, the dark blue of her hull... and eventually, two people standing at her wheel.

  SiflOOIS If IDE PfiSI

  One was a dark-haired man wearing a heavy brown sweater and khaki trousers, his eyes concealed behind what looked like a pair of red-tinted sunglasses. The other was an attractive woman in a green windbreaker, her long, red hair streaming behind her in the wind.

  Scott and Jean-both of them members of his original team, his original class of teenaged mutants, and therefore imperiled by Lucifer's machinations. Feeling a pang of frustration, Xavier moved his thought-tendril even closer. As he had earlier looked for purchase in Hank McCoy's brain, he now sought it in Jean Grey's.

  Again, he felt himself make a light, superficial connection. Again, he tried to dig deeper, to gain entry to an X-Man's consciousness.

  And again, he failed.

  No, the professor told himself. I cannot tolerate failure. Not here. Not now. Somehow, I will make Jean aware of me.

  With all his concentration, all his resolve and his mastery of psionics, he pounded on the woman's consciousness. He bludgeoned it with blow after blow, hoping to get her attention even for a moment.

  But he couldn't.

  Jean continued to gaze north toward the mouth of the bay, the glorious orange banner of her hair rippling on a gust of air. She seemed unperturbed, unsuspecting, if she had even an inkling that someone was trying to contact her, she didn't show it.

  Scott slipped an arm around her and she laid her head on his shoulder for a moment. Her only thoughts then were clearly of her husband, not a helpless prisoner of a dimension she had hardly even heard of.

  Exhausted, his strength at an end, Xavier slumped in his tight-fitting ionic bonds-and saw his thought-contact with

  MEI

  Earth's dimension severed. For the moment, at least, he had no choice but to admit defeat,

  it didn't matter that Jean was a telepath, he realized. Like Hank, she was too complex, too full of distractions to hear him calling her. Her mind was closed to him just like all the others'.

  After all it had taken to track down Scott and Jean, his effort had come to nothing. It was hardly the conclusion for which he had hoped. But that didn’t mean he was ready to throw in the towei. There had to be a way to beat Lucifer, he assured himself.

  All he had to do was find it.

  Scott Summers didn't like loose ends. He never had, even as a child. He liked finality, completeness, things he could depend on.

  Like his bride. Like the loyalty and affection of his friends. Like the old, stone mansion in which he and his teammates stood, listening to Professor X brief them on his disturbing findings.

  “The Andes?” Scott repeated, adjusting the yellow shoulder strap on his mostly dark blue uniform.

  "That's correct," said Professor X, who was sitting behind his desk. “Also, Central Africa and Antarctica."

  Warren grunted thoughtfully. “Then each of these places is the site of a Quistalian facility?"

  “Correct again,” said Xavier.

  “And you figured this out by tracking the Quistalians’ communications activity?" asked Jean, who had taken the time to change into her “working clothes" as well.

  The professor nodded. "I checked and rechecked the results. Rest assured they are reliable."

  "Of course," said Jean. "I didn't mean to suggest otherwise."

  "What do you want us to do?" Scott asked, getting to the point.

  After all, he was the field leader of this cadre of X-Men. In fact, he had been their field leader right from the beginning, the day they experienced their gut-wrenching baptism of fire against the powerful mutant marauder known as Magneto.

  Xavier was the intelligence behind this operation and always would be. But Scott was the efficient one, the one who never got rattled, the rock his teammates clung to in the confusion of a battle.

  "When you arrive at your first destination," the professor told them, "you'll identify and gain entry to the Quistalians' facility. Then you'll remove a critical component of their security system—one you may recognize from our earlier encounters with the aliens-and replace it with a device of my own invention,"

  "Replace it?" Bobby echoed.

  "Yes,” said Xavier. "My device is designed to broadcast a 'status quo' signal to the other Quistalian facilities. It should keep the aliens from suspecting our theft."

  Hank grinned, exposing his oversized lower canines. “Brilliant, Professor. Simply brilliant."

  Their mentor acknowledged the compliment with a subtle inclination of his head. "Finally, you're to bring the component back here."

  "So you can study it?" Warren asked, his
graceful white wings folding and unfolding reflexively.

  "And a good deal more," Xavier replied. "You see, I've designed a machine that will protect Earth from Quistalian invasion permanently. To build it, however, I'll require the security components from all three of the locations I have mentioned."

  "Permanently?" Jean repeated, a little surprised. "I've seldom heard you bristle with so much confidence, sir."

  "I have seldom been so confident," the professor told her. “However, we must move quickly. Now that we have uncovered the Quistalians' offensive, it would be a tragedy if we acted too late to prevent it."

  "Time and tide wait for no man," Hank noted cheerfully.

  “Indeed," said Xavier. He looked around the room, studying Scott's expression and then those of each of his teammates. “As always, you will find your destination programmed into the Blackbird's onboard computer. Good luck, all of you."

  "Thanks,'' said Bobby, already headed for the door.

  The others followed him out of the room, but Scott couldn't help hesitating for a moment. Standing there in front of the professor, he found himself searching the man’s face.

  "Is there something else?" he asked Xavier. "Something you haven't shared with us, sir?"

  The professor's brow furrowed and he shook his head. “No, Scott, there isn't. Why do you ask?"

  The X-Man shrugged. "You just seem ... I don't know. Distracted, I guess. But then, now that I think about it, I guess you've never really looked forward to dealing with the Quistalians."

  His mentor frowned slightly. "Again, Scott... good luck."

  It occurred to the younger man that he might have touched a nerve in Xavier-and in doing so, exceeded the bounds of their relationship. He nodded briskly. "Thank you, sir."

  Then he left the professor's office to join his teammates.

  SIA1IIIS PF lit PAST

  The energy duplicate watched the last of the five X-Men depart. Then, reaching out telekinetically, he swung the door to his office closed and allowed himself a smile.

  For a moment, it seemed the one called Scott had noticed something was wrong. In the end, however, whatever questions he might have had were laid to rest. And thanks to the imposter's shallow psi screen, which was more than strong enough to thwart a surface scan, Scott's wife Jean didn't suspect anything either.

  Soon, if all went well, the X-Men would succeed in their mission. They would bring him the Quistalian components he had asked for.

  But he wouldn't incorporate them into a device that would protect the Earth, as he had claimed. Instead, the doppelganger would use the components to engineer Lucifer's escape from the Nameless Dimension.

  Clearly, the mutants wouldn't be happy when they realized they had been duped into freeing one of the most powerful adversaries they had ever faced. No doubt, they would be rather cross.

  Fortunately for them, the duplicate reflected, they wouldn't have to live long with their regrets.

  lil

  arren Worthington III would have greatly preferred the cloud swept blue freedom of the heavens to the efficient but utilitarian interior of Professor X's private jet.

  But then, he was called Archangel for a reason. With his majestic 16-foot wingspan, he could soar to almost 30,000 feet of altitude, achieve horizontal speeds of 150 miles an hour and fly under his own power from the break of dawn until after dusk.

  Of course, even as powerful a flyer as Warren couldn't have outraced the professor's specially outfitted jet, especially on an hours-long trip like this one. However, he thought as he peered out a double-thick security window, that didn't keep him from yearning for the wide open spaces, and there was nothing wider or more open than the sky at 20,000 feet.

  "Thinking about ditching us?" Jean asked him.

  Warren turned to her, saw the smile on her face and smiled back. "These other jokers, sure," he said, jerking a thumb in the direction of Hank, Bobby and Scott "But you? Never."

  "Careful," said Scott from his forward position in the pilot's seat, his voice flat and distracted and thinned by the hum of the engines. "You'll make me jealous."

  “Uh oh," Warren gibed at him. "A sign of emotion. Next thing you know, you'll crack a smile and your face will fall apart."

  Scott's seriousness and intensity had long been sources of good-natured amusement to his teammates. That didn't mean they didn't love and respect him and value his services as their leader. If anything, their taunts were confirmations of how they felt about him.

  In this original group of X-Men, Warren reflected, you knew everything was all right when your teammates made fun of you. it was when they stopped that it was time to worry.

  "Another twenty-two minutes and we'll be in Columbian airspace," Hank announced, hovering over Scott's shoulder to scrutinize the instrument panel. He turned and grinned at the others, exposing the long, sharp teeth protruding from his lower jaw. "Of course, that's just a loose estimate."

  “Yeah, right," Bobby chuckled, rolling his eyes. “And Einstein was just a math teacher."

  They all laughed at that. Then, for a little while at least, silence reigned in the close quarters of the aircraft. But that wasn't an uncommon state of affairs by any means.

  Each X-Man was using that silence to gather himself, to prepare for the perils that might lie ahead. After all, their destination was a facility built by beings from another world.

  Though they had encountered Lucifer and his people's technology before, they couldn't say for sure what they would be up against. Even the professor couldn't tell them that.

  "You know," said Bobby as he leaned back in his seat, "even now, the thought of Lucifer gives me the creeps. ! mean, he was the guy who crippled Professor Xavier."

  "I know what you mean," Jean chimed in. "i remember thinking if he could do that to the professor, he could do it to anyone."

  Hank nodded. "I must admit, I was a wee bit intimidated myself in those days." He looked around the cabin at his teammates. “But then, I imagine we all were."

  “A lot's happened to us since then," Warren pointed out. "Both as individuals and as X-Men."

  "We'll be fine as long as we don't get cocky," Scott rejoined.

  "No need to worry about that," Warren assured him.

  After all, a member of their extended team-a guy whose codename was Thunderbird-had died on a mission no more dangerous than this one a few years earlier. When it began, he probably hadn't contemplated the possibility that he wouldn't be coming back.

  Warren, on the other hand, was eminently aware of that possibility. And though he couldn't read his friends' minds, he was sure that Scott, Jean, Hank and Bobby were, too. They had been playing this game too long for them not to understand how mortal they were ... powers or no powers.

  "Think we'll actually find some Quistalians in this place?" Bobby asked, breaking the silence.

  Hank shrugged. "According to Professor X, there wasn't any evidence of voice communications. But one never knows."

  "This one knows," Warren reminded them, indicating Jean with a tilt of his head. “Or she will, once we get close enough."

  Jean nodded. "I won’t necessarily be able to tell what they're thinking, but I'll certainly know if there's someone there."

  "Hey," said Bobby, "remember the first time we ran into Lucifer? That bash up in the Balkans?"

  Hank smiled a toothy smile. "How can I forget? The Avengers must have thought we had lost our minds.”

  Warren remembered it only too well. Having detected the Quistalians' activities in Europe, Professor X had gone ahead of the team to try to gather information on his own.

  What he found was an immense thermal bomb aimed at the North Pole-and attuned to Lucifer's heartbeat. If anything happened to the alien, the bomb would head for the Arctic and trigger an ecological disaster that would bury Earth's coastlines under a series of devastating tidal waves.

  As it turned out, the Avengers had realized something was awry in the Balkans as well-and arrived there at about the same t
ime as the X-Men. Naturally, they wanted to find Lucifer and stop him.

  But Xavier, who knew they had to keep the alien safe at any cost, ordered his fledgling team to stand in the Avengers' way. It wasn't easy going up against Thor, Captain America, Ironman, Giant-Man and the Wasp, arguably the most powerful assemblage of heroes on Earth. But the mutants kept their older, more experienced adversaries off-balance until the professor could subdue Lucifer safely.

  "I'll never forget the look on Thor's face when he heard Professor Xavier in his head," Jean said.

  Hank nodded. "Priceless. I thought his noble brow was going to explode."

  After Xavier had tendered the Thunder God an explanation, the Avengers had left the X-Men to their own devices, confident that they could handle the problem. Then, following their mentor's directions, the mutants had entered a cleft in a hillside and and descended into a subterranean chasm via some kind of super-advanced elevator.

  All except Warren, that is. As usual, he had preferred to spread his wings and fly down.

  “And that bomb in Lucifer's underground cavern,” said Bobby. “I've seen football stadiums that paled by comparison."

  "It was the super economy-size, all right," Warren agreed. He glanced at Scott, whose entire attention seemed focused on flying the plane. "But as I recall, we were more than a match for it."

  Actually, Scott and Professor X were the oniy ones who had been able to do anything about the bomb. Warren remembered circling the thing helplessly as he watched Xavier and his teammate spread themselves flat on the bomb's grey surface and press their faces against it.

  Anyway, that was how it looked, in reality, Xavier was mentally probing the device, seeking out its fuse even as it began to hum and throb to life. When the professor found what he was looking for, he told Scott exactly where to focus his optical beam-a narrow seam in the bomb's surface.

  A moment later, exhibiting the nerves of a safecracker, the X-Man called Cyclops found the fuse and sliced through it.