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#2
FEB 09 |
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“Deadly Deals” Part Two
Previously: Havok briefed his team on a black market Phalanx deal involving Dark Beast, Mikhail Rasputin and Selene. Alex split his team into two groups; one in Moscow and one in Paris. While Havok’s team is moving in to meet Blind Faith’s contact, the team in Paris has found themselves face to face with Selene. And M is completely paralyzed.
Selene smiled at Marrow holding two of her wine bottles. “At least you have taste, my dear. Those are from before Napoleon’s day.”
Marrow smirked. “So you might have a problem if I drop them on the ground.”
The External’s smile vanished. “Do that and I’ll make your friend into a shriveled cornstalk.”
Shrugging, Marrow said, “I never really liked him anyway. You’d be doing me a favor.”
Abyss was barely able to speak over Selene’s grip. “Drop that and I’ll kick your—”
“Silence!” Selene said as her grip grew tighter. Abyss swore if he had bones she would have broken some. “You have not been spoken to.”
Marrow laughed. “You upworlders love to hear yourselves talk.”
Selene scowled at the woman. “You’ve trifled me--Ahh!!”
Five shurikens delivered by Shatterstar were flung right into Selene’s face and upper torso, sending her flying back into the nearest wall. Abyss dropped to the ground and Shatterstar shouted at him. “Attack her now!”
Styger’s chest split open like a fruit against the concrete. A swirling light appeared in the center of the cavity as a strong sucking sound filled the room. Abyss’ hole was trying to consume everything around it, even light and sound. A weakened Selene tried to find something to grip on, but she was too blinded by blood and pain. She gave a weak moan as her nails scraped against the linoleum floor and she was sucked into Abyss’ chest.
The black tendrils making up Abyss’s body closed up the dimensional vortex and he gave a sigh of relief. “That was too close, man.”
Marrow walked over to Abyss and helped him to his feet. “You should have been paying more attention.”
Nils didn’t like Marrow’s assessment, but she was right; he should have been more aware but M’s situation had taken so much of his attention that he never saw Selene sneak up on him. Honestly, he had never even expected the woman to show up. Why had she come back? he wondered.
“Where is Havok getting his intel from?”Abyss asked.
Marrow shrugged. “Beats me. It’s always reliable.”
“Why does it matter? Can we just go home?” M asked, her body still frozen in place with the black book in her hand.
Shatterstar covered M in the blanket and lifted her frozen body up over his shoulder. “All things considered I think we came out alright. We found some information and have a prisoner.”
“A loud one at that,” Abyss said. “I can hear her screaming. She’s not happy at all.”
“Good,” Marrow said patting him on his back. “She’ll kill you first.”
“I don’t know, love, I didn’t throw the ninja stars in her face,” Abyss laughed. “That was a pretty bomb move though. Had to hurt.”
Shatterstar made his way to the door being careful not to bang M up against anything. “Marrow gave me the opening. It was a smart move I simply took advantage of. We should make haste before a neighbor calls the authorities.”
Marrow scoffed. “French police? Leech could tear through those upworlders like moldy cake.”
Abyss shook a nasty image out of his head. “I really don’t want to know the source of that metaphor.”
Blind Faith walked into the Internet café with Havok and Pipeline keeping close behind him. Madrox had remained outside to make sure nothing suspicious started taking place; his abilities made it far easy for him to perform perimeter sweeps quickly. He was currently positioned in five different vantage points affording him a wide enough visual spread to pick up on any ambushes. Having gotten a clean reading thus far, Madrox spoke into his headset and said, “All clear so far, boss. I’ll keep you posted.”
Havok spoke into his headset quietly. “Roger that. Keep an eye out for the unusual.”
“Madrox find anything?” Pipeline asked. He always was stricken with some strange sense of nostalgia working with Havok again. For some time, the Genoshan had known his present leader as Magistrate Summers. They had worked together in keeping the peace, but Pipeline had come to realize it was an unjust peace.
“He didn’t find anything, which makes me worried. I don’t know a great deal about this country, but there is always a threat here. These people always think three and four steps ahead,” Havok replied.
Blind Faith looked back at Alex and smiled. “Have I given you that bad an impression of my country?”
“No, my friend. Just a realistic one,” Havok said. “Would this contact of yours have any reason to be ticked with you?”
“Not that I know of, but rivalries have a way of materializing when you’re not looking in Russia,” Blind Faith as he scanned the room in search of his informant. Seeing a large, bald man with an eagle tattoo on the back of his neck, Blind Faith tapped Havok on the shoulder and said, “That’s him. Hang back and I’ll go to talk to him. The further back the better.”
“Understood. First sign of trouble we’ll move in,” Havok said as he quickly turned away from Blind Faith and walked towards the entrance. A few eyes had cut suspicious looks at Havok and Pipeline, but they did their best not to return the stare. One wrong look could give them away and bring trouble their way they weren’t looking for.
Blind Faith tapped the large man on the shoulder as he was tapping away on the computer. The computer slob never looked up but Alexi knew he had the man’s attention. “It’s been a while, Dimtri. How’s the wife?”
The contact’s words were harsh. “Cut the small talk, Alexi. You disappear off the radar and all of a sudden pop up asking questions about Rasputin. Who are you running with? The mafia?”
Alexi gave a genial smile to keep people from listening in. Not like they wouldn’t try anyway. His country had become one that thrived off of information. “Hardly, old friend. The mafia couldn’t pay me enough. I have a different set of friends…ones you’d probably be better off not knowing about.”
“Told Rasputin’s boys it wasn’t the mafia.”
“So you did make contact? Did they agree to meet with me?”
For the first time, the informant picked his head up from the computer and pushed up his glasses. “Only after I gave them that thumb drive you sent me. Just what was on that thing?”
“A means to convince them of my intentions. Nothing more, nothing less. As before, it would probably be better for you if you didn’t know anything about it,” Blind Faith said.
“I heard them mention Savante Adel. He’s a black market dealer in high level stuff. What’s he got to do with anything?” the computer geek asked.
Blind Faith knew his curiosity was genuine, but just as fueled by a need to line his pockets. He cut down that idea quickly. “When is my meeting with Rasputin?”
The informant pulled a card from his pocket and slapped it in Alexi’s hand. “The information is all there, man. So when will I get my transfer?”
“Twenty thousand in US dollars will be in your account by the time I walk out of here. Consider this as a down payment of sorts. I’m going to need you again in the future. Keep your ears to the ground.”
Giving a fake salute, the contact said, “You got it. Just let me know and I’ll get it done, comrade.”
“Good. Glad to know you’re still reliable,” Blind Faith said.
“And glad to know you’re still alive. Tell your friends to try and look less suspicious the next time they break off from you, eh,” the fat man laughed, causing his double chin to jiggle.
“They’re new to the game; you’ll have to forgive them,” Blind Faith said as he stepped back from the contact. “Until we meet again.”
Agent X pulled his binoculars back and stepped away from the edge of the icy roof. “Four mutants identified, sir. Transferring binocular images into our mutant database.”
He pulled what looked like a miniature PDA from his belt and hovered it above the binoculars in his other hand. Red and blue lights beeped across the machine’s screen. When they finally came to a halt, Agent X read the screen and said, “Mutants identified as Havok, Multiple Man, Pipeline and Blind Faith.”
Agent X’s handler stepped forward and rubbed a furry hand across his chin. “An odd collection. They must be trying to make contact with Rasputin. Warn him I’m coming.”
“Sir? The computer has two of them identified as X-Men. Would they really help someone as heavily involved with criminal activities as Rasputin?”
“Two of Rasputin’s siblings served with the X-Men. Besides, Havok has a flair for doing things outside what’s expected of him. It stands completely to reason that they would work with him.”
Agent X nodded. He wasn’t entirely convinced, but he did not have the full breadth of the X-Men’s history at his disposal. Besides, his job was to protect and not to question. He would leave that to better minds to work out. “Do you want me to engage sir?”
“No. We follow them. I have a feeling that they will lead me right to Rasputin. Then we can begin aggressive negotiations.”
“Yes, sir,” Agent X said as he slid his computer console back onto his belt. “Computer, activate cloaking field.”
Agent X and his handler both became invisible against the Russian sky. “Sir, do you think we’ll need to call in back-up for this one?”
“No! She would have a field day with that. I have to handle this on my own.”
“Understood, sir.”
“You can stop saying sir around me! I created you with a personality. You can at least try to use it!”
Agent X laughed. “Sorry, Doc. It’s just that she says I need to be more professional. Been trying to get into the mode.”
“Well then do it around her. I need my soldiers to be able to hold a conversation.”
“You seem to be the only one at base who does. I swear if I get another dressing down—”
“That’s why I’ve placed you personally at my side. I created you to be a certain way and I don’t want you to suppress that.”
“Ok, Doc, then I got a question,” Agent X said as he cocked his gun unseen while descending the fire escape ladder.
“Ask.”
“Why did you stop with just me? I thought I was supposed to be a template for more soldiers?” Agent X said as he leaped off the ladder midway through it and landed on the ground without a sound.
His creator landed in a primate’s posture only a few feet behind him. “You were a template, but there are some modifications I want to make to ensure diversity. As a scientist, repetition of the experiment is the most boring part of the process for me.”
“So are you saying I’m imperfect?”
The creator gave a bestial laugh. “Hardly. I simply don’t like eating pizza everyday. She may like to have cookie cutter soldiers and I’ll give her a whole warm, gooey batch eventually. But as for me, my culinary tastes are a tad more sophisticated. I need excitement and flavor.”
Agent X looked slightly confused. “So are we talking about food or me?”
“I see I should have put more work into your creative centers.”
Doctor Reyes had spent a great deal of her time on Muir Island running through Moira McTaggert’s old notebooks, video tapes and recordings in an effort to understand herself and the mutant community better. As a medical doctor, Cecelia wasn’t able to comprehend much of the terminology littering McTaggert’s work, but what she could understand was brilliant. What remained of the woman’s work was not only helping her to better appreciate those in her care, but also her own unique mutant physiology. By pouring through McTaggert’s old work she was grasping for the first time why mutants were such an amazing step forward.
“Moira, you were taken away far too soon,” Cecelia said as she closed one of the geneticist’s many notebooks and took a sip of her hot chocolate.
If there was no other reason for Cecelia to appreciate the work done on Muir Island it was because it made her work easier. Moira’s massive research into the Legacy Virus ultimately delivered a cure even though it cost a friend his life. Reyes had had one memorable experience with the Legacy Virus back at her Harlem practice when Pyro had nearly brought the whole place down.
The doors to Cecelia’s newly operational office opened and Marrow walked in with her usual arrogant swagger. “Would love to have your job, Pretty Pretty. Get to sit in these cushy chairs sipping on juice all day.”
“Sarah, I don’t think you could sit down for anything past five minutes,” Cecelia said finishing off her hot chocolate. “So I assume the mission went well?”
Marrow gave a devilish smile. “We got ourselves a prisoner for Havok to play with.”
“It is beyond me why all of you are so enamored with that man.”
“Not a lot of people like me. I know I’m not easy to get along with. No one around here is. I thought having better control of my powers would make me happy. It didn’t. I’m happy here, fighting how I know how to fight,” Marrow said.
Sarah was always a confusing mess to Cecelia. The two of them had gotten off to a very rocky start and Marrow saw her as little more than a sack of useless meat. Then there were times like this when she exposed herself. Reyes was never really sure how to react in those moments.
“Well, when you put it like that I guess I can see why you like Havok. Xavier’s clean cut dream just isn’t made for some mutants, I guess.”
“My entire life has been one big fight; I don’t know how to do much else,” Marrow said and then as an insignificant afterthought added, “Oh and M is in the infirmary.”
“What?!” Cecelia exclaimed as she nearly jumped out of her chair. “You’re just telling me this? After we’ve been sitting here—”
“I don’t really care for that pretty pretty,” Marrow said. “She’s arrogant and got herself into trouble. Maybe she won’t turn her nose up at all of us anymore.”
Cecelia pushed past Marrow and walked out of the door. “I can’t believe you!”
Marrow laughed after Reyes was gone. The doctor had a fire in her and while Marrow had not seen it when they first met it became more apparent the more time you spent around her. Cecelia fitted more into Havok’s team than she cared to admit. They were all tumblers in their own way. Xavier’s new, clean way of doing things just didn’t suit them. It certainly didn’t work for Marrow. She had spent her life in the dark…coming into the light stopped making sense a long time ago.
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To Be Continued...
Next: In X-Force #3: Reyes does her best to help M and Havok meets with Mikhail.
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