Gifted

  With those last two words, as she screamed at the top of her lungs, Hisako’s energy field flashed into existence around her. She put all her resolve, all her focus, into her head and arms, strengthening the field around those parts of her. Her armored right fist whipped around, and she caught Ord in the stomach. It was a sloppy punch, unfocused, desperate, thrown by a young girl not yet fully trained in her abilities. It was, however, sufficient to send Ord flying backwards onto the floor.

  Wing stood frozen, despite Hisako’s urging that he get out of there as quickly as possible.

  She was completely enveloped in her psionic armor now, and she lunged toward Ord. “Congratulations,” he said, lashing out with his feet. His kick sent her crashing back into the wall, which shattered from the impact. “You startled me.”

  Then Ord rose, not so much standing up as uncoiling. “Now…boy,” he said, moving forward toward Wing.

  WING snapped out of his paralysis. A window hung open behind him. He threw himself backwards and out, and seconds later he was hurtling straight up into the night sky.

  His mind was racing, filled with confusion and humiliation. His first real call to battle, and in the face of a genuine opponent, Hisako had stepped up, while all he could manage to do was fly the coop.

  High in the air, he floated. “Hisako,” he said mournfully to himself. “What am I doing? I can’t just leave her there.” He couldn’t abandon her, he realized. He had to go back to face—

  And suddenly there was a rushing of air and a massive weight landed on his back. “I was talking to you, boy,” came the snarling voice of Ord.

  Wing desperately tried to pull away, but he had no chance. Ord effortlessly kept him right where he was, and Wing felt a stabbing pain in his back. A pain that he would remember for the rest of his life, however long or short that might be. A pain that spelled the beginning of the end.

  He shrieked in high-pitched agony, and then Ord whipped him around and stared into his face. “Now you will give them my message. That the mutant abomination will never be a threat to the Breakworld. That man was not meant to fly.”

  And with that pronouncement, he hurled Wing toward the ground.

  HISAKO hadn’t been knocked out, just stunned. Her psionic armor remained in place. Sitting up, she looked around frantically but saw no sign of Ord. He had me on the ropes; why didn’t he finish—?

  Then she heard a scream from outside and above.

  Seeing the window hanging open, she instantly put two and two together. She clambered through it, searching the skies desperately, and then she spotted him.

  Wing was plummeting like a fallen angel. He tumbled over and over, waving his arms frantically as if he could actually flap them. There was no sign of Ord anywhere; apparently he’d taken off.

  At that moment, Ord’s presence was the least of Hisako’s worries. She ran as fast as she could, the extra-long legs of her armor providing her with greater speed. But Wing was falling horribly fast, and she was terrified she wasn’t going to get to him.

  He screamed all the way down, the most horrible, soul-wrenching sound Hisako had ever heard. She tried to stretch her armor, make it even bigger, and then she was out of time and she leaped as far as she could. Twisting in midair, she landed flat on her back, praying she could cushion the fall.

  Wing crash-landed into her. Had she not been armored up, the impact would have crushed both of them. As it was, she felt nothing, but she heard a sickening crunch. Wing rebounded off her and would have struck the ground, but she managed to reach out with her huge armored arms and catch him.

  Then she was on her feet and running toward the school. She knew she shouldn’t move an accident victim, but she had no choice. The priority was getting him to the one person who could help him while he was still alive.

  She ran in through the side door, shouting, “Elixir! Elixir!” at the top of her lungs.

  He wasn’t around. The Stepford Cuckoos, however, were. The three slender blonde teens, clad in identical red bathrobes, all shared the same pale complexion of Emma Frost, but the cold cynicism that often seemed present in Emma’s eyes was absent from theirs. They tended to lean toward one another when they were seen together, which was most of the time. They really were indistinguishable; even their shoulder-length blonde hair was mussed in exactly the same manner. They gazed at Hisako with their usual detached curiosity.

  “Get Elixir down here,” Hisako ordered them.

  The Cuckoos nodded slightly in unison and closed their eyes. Seconds later there was a yelp from an upstairs bedroom, followed by a hurried thudding of feet. Elixir sprinted down the front stairs, bellowing, “Where do you three get off showing up in my dream—?”

  Then he stopped, his eyes widening as he saw Wing’s battered and broken body.

  Instantly Elixir was all business. “Lie him down on the couch,” he said, pointing to the den. “How the hell did this happen?”

  Hisako told him as quickly as she could. Elixir laid his hands on Wing, who was barely breathing. “Celeste, Mindee, Phoebe…get in touch with Miss Frost. Tell her to get back here; we’re under attack.”

  “He called himself Ord,” said Hisako. “At the moment, he’s gone.”

  Elixir nodded but added grimly, “And he could return any time, I take it?”

  “God, I hope not.”

  The three blonde girls—or the three-in-one, as they were often referred to—tilted their heads toward each other, communing together to focus their abilities. They spoke in such closely overlapping sentences that it was impossible to tell where one of their minds ended and the next one began. “She is far away, but we will do our best.”

  “Is…” Hisako was almost afraid to ask. “Is he going to be okay?”

  Elixir continued to pour his healing energy into Wing. “I want to get him stabilized enough so we can move him over to the infirmary. These are bad breaks, but I’m working on it. Your armor’s not exactly fluffy, Hisako.”

  “It was all so…so fast…if only I could have softened the armor to cushion his fall more.”

  “Don’t blame yourself. If you hadn’t caught him at all, he’d have been a fruit smoothie. You did great.”

  “I don’t feel great.”

  The Cuckoos suddenly spoke up, one to the next to the next continuously, together but separate. “We reached Miss Frost, but she has broken contact. Something is happening where she is./Something about Mister Summers./She’s horribly in love with him./Love is the stupidest thing I ever heard of./Her thoughts about him during class are often sweaty and inappropriate.”

  This was not what Hisako wanted or needed to hear. “Okay, you guys wanna stay with us here? Can you reach anyone else?”

  “Not at this distance. We have a special bond with—/What about Blindfold? Doesn’t she read—?”

  At that moment there was a low moan behind Hisako. She spun and saw, to her joy, that Edward was sitting up. He was bruised, but his limbs weren’t pointing in any unnatural directions and he didn’t appear to be bleeding, at least not externally.

  Elixir had removed his hands from Edward and was nodding in satisfaction. “He should be cool,” he said.

  “Wing! Are you hurt?”

  “Hisako?” He was clearly disoriented. “What did I—?”

  “That Ord guy knocked you out.”

  Edward frowned, apparently putting back together the pieces of what he’d experienced. And then slow, dawning terror began to appear in his face. “Oh God. Oh no. My powers…oh God…”

  Hisako knew. Deep down she knew, but was too appalled to say it out loud. Instead she said, “Wing? What’s wrong?” She prayed desperately that she was wrong, that it was something else entirely.

  But she was right.

  Looking up at her like a crippled sparrow, Wing whispered, “I’m cured.”

  You know how they say, “Trust your instincts”? I’m pretty much the poster girl for that.

  I can sense the density of the world around me, but damned i
f I know how I do it. Hank would probably call it a “secondary mutation.” A side effect of my ability to pass through solid objects. A subliminal way of knowing what I’m getting myself into.

  So while the others are heading off in different directions, to search Benetech from top to bottom, I suddenly realize that the “bottom” of this place might not be what we think it is at all.

  We’re in the subbasement. Below me should be nothing but foundation or earth. Yet I can sense more construction beneath my feet. Storage? Secret lab? Something else entirely? What is it and how can I get to it?

  I could spend long minutes running around, trying to find an elevator. But I might wind up just wasting time, which I can’t afford to do since I don’t know how much time we have left. And besides—and I’m not proud of myself, but I smirk when I think this—that’s what Emma would have to do. I have a simpler way, and not only is it something she couldn’t do, but she wouldn’t have the nerve to try it along with me.

  It’s a cheap and petty triumph, not to mention mostly in my own head. But I’ll take my wins where I can get them.

  I sink up to my waist experimentally. There’s nothing beneath my feet except metal. It just keeps going down. Weird. I point commandingly at Lockheed. “You stay here and don’t eat anyone. I’m gonna check it out.”

  Then I vanish into the floor and begin my descent.

  Nothing but blackness all around me.

  I’d never have been up for something like this when I was thirteen. And a half. At that point, when it came to using my powers, I still had on the training wheels. What I’m attempting now is the equivalent of ditching the training wheels, along with the front wheel, and effectively riding a unicycle while blindfolded. Back then I’d have been terrified to drift down into so much nothingness. I would’ve been afraid of losing focus and, thanks to that fear, would likely have done so. I would have become trapped, suffering the same horrible death I warned Emma about. Except it would have been me instead of her, which would truly have sucked.

  Just briefly, I hear the faint buzz that means Emma is trying to talk to me inside my head. Then it fades, and quickly I’m out of range, because I’m descending that far that fast. In no time at all, I’m completely on my own. If something goes wrong, no one can reach me. No one can help me.

  On the other hand, no Emma Frost, so, y’know…bonus.

  I continue to drift, like someone in free fall in a low-gravity environment. There is no end in sight. There is nothing in sight.

  Okay. Definitely weird.

  Suddenly I feel the area beneath my feet starting to “thin out.” My secondary mutation, I guess, is informing me that my long, strange trip is nearly over.

  I do a somersault so I can emerge head-first. Obviously I don’t remember my birth, but if I did, I’d probably be reliving it right about now.

  I come out into an environment filled with red light. Maybe it’s a red-light district. Har de har—

  Then I hit the floor.

  Floor? This is a floor?

  I don’t know what the hell it is. This is like nothing I’ve ever seen. Not metal so much as…I’m not sure what. There are strange patterns on the floor, on the wall. Squares but with rounded edges. It almost reminds me of the shell of a tortoise. There’s a dropoff to my left that seems to go on forever, spiraling away into darkness, and a pillar to my right that stretches up and back around itself. It all seems vaguely familiar, somehow…

  Then I remember. It looks like footage I’ve seen taken with microscopic cameras. Film of the inside of human veins; that same kind of twisting and turning feeling, except that there’s no blood. There’s just me.

  I suddenly feel like I’m some kind of microorganism. Is this not actually metal all around me, but something bio-organic? Am I inside some manner of living creature? I can’t say that’s a notion I’m too thrilled about, that I’m like a germ, inside of a host body. Especially since such intrusions don’t generally end well for the germs.

  There are long corridors stretching out in either direction. I arbitrarily pick left and start walking, trying to get a better idea of what the hell I was phasing through. It felt…wrong. It’s not from this planet or any one I’ve been to. The molecular structure is…I hope it didn’t do any permanent damage, passing through me…

  Drop it, Kitty. Job to do. Keep it together.

  I run my fingers along the wall as I go. It feels warm, even faintly pulsing. My first instinct may have been correct: bio-organic. Maybe I should count myself lucky it hasn’t sent an alien version of white corpuscles to attack me.

  Yet.

  I hear voices. They sure sound like normal human voices, not alien ones. On the other hand, I’ve met aliens who sound more human than a lot of humans I know. So who knows for sure?

  Peering out from around a corner, I see four guys armed with high-tech rifles. They look a lot like those rifles that Ord’s goons were shooting off back at the penthouse. The same rifles that Scott said were boosted from S.H.I.E.L.D., even though Fury said he had no idea how they’d gotten into someone else’s hands. I’m not sure if this thing is making more sense now, or less.

  One of the men says, “Alpha Team has hostiles contained upstairs. No sign of breach, but we’re on red just in case.”

  Crap. Crappity crappity crap. There’s only one group of “hostiles” they can possibly be talking about.

  And suddenly I’m thirteen and a half again, the only person running around free while the rest of the X-Men have been captured. I’m alone. Everything’s resting on me.

  Then I brush that aside. That was a long time ago. I’ve survived a hell of a lot and I’m still here and, oh right, I’ve also saved the rest of the team on any number of occasions. And if the “contained hostiles” means the rest of the X-Men, then it’s up to me to find the truth about this place. Four guards? I’ve squared off with Juggernauts, not to mention alien monsters that would make James Cameron and Ridley Scott wet themselves. Bring it on.

  That’s when they say something that immediately grabs my attention:

  “No one gets near the subject.”

  And when the guard says it, he looks in the direction of, and points toward, another hallway. One just off to my right. He means it as a casual gesture, but he’s inadvertently guiding me right toward where I have to go.

  It’s a door. A big honking door, like you’d see in front of a bank vault. It’s smooth, solid, with some sort of complex, alien-looking lock.

  And inside that vault, there is apparently a “subject.” Someone these bozos don’t want any “hostiles” near. That means they’ve got something cooped up that would be of interest to the X-Men, and that’s right in my wheelhouse.

  I’m a little out of practice on my ninja training, but it’s like falling off a bicycle or riding a log, whatever. You don’t forget.

  They’re paying no attention, too caught up in their little conference to notice me. I run lightly down the hall toward the gigantic door.

  Descending a hundred feet or more through solid whatever-it-was has taken a lot out of me. Otherwise I would just phase through the door. But I need a few minutes to rest, and I’m not sure I have a few minutes. Besides, the door might be tricked out with some manner of booby trap; a disruptive field, perhaps, that could scramble even my molecules.

  But the lock? Alien or no, there’s not a lock I can’t pop.

  I ease my hand into the lock, and seconds later I disrupt the electronic flow of the inner circuitry. I hear the sound of bolts disengaging. The door swings wide on hinges that are a bit louder than I’d like, but I try not to worry about that.

  I go to the door and gaze in. Everything’s dark. There seems to be something huddling in there, but I can’t quite make it out…a large, vague shape.

  A voice bellows from behind me. “We have a hostile!”

  They must have heard the sounds the door made. “Drop her! Drop her!” And they open fire.

  Just as that happens, I hear a noise from in
side the room, an insanely familiar sound. A clacking like metal plates snapping into place, one atop another very quickly.

  I know this sound.

  Knew this sound.

  Know this sound.

  I’m so startled by it, I almost forget to phase through the bullets. They pass through my chest…

  And they klink off something behind me.

  Something metal.

  I turn around.

  And my mind nearly shuts down. The only part of it that’s still functioning is the part that’s reminding me to remain intangible.

  There, gleaming red in the reflected light, is Peter Rasputin.

  Is Colossus.

  He’s nearly naked, clad only in red shorts. For a moment I think it’s some sort of statue; they made a statue of Colossus for some reason, maybe as a memorial, even though that makes zero sense. They hate mutants. They call us “hostiles.” Why would they make a statue of Colossus? But obviously they have, because it’s standing right there in front of me, and sure, it’s ridiculous, but it’s the only explanation because Colossus is dead, everyone knows he’s dead.

  And then the statue’s head swivels and looks at me. Right at me, with a kind of vague surprise, as if it thinks it should know me but doesn’t.

  The statue moves. It comes right at me, a barrage of bullets passing through me and striking it, bouncing off harmlessly. I always loved that an eternity ago, when I was thirteen and a half. Bullets would hit Wolverine, and he would stagger and stumble and then right himself and keep on going as his body healed, and he would boast about being unstoppable. Colossus…my Peter…he really was unstoppable. He would wade hip deep into any situation, and the bullets would just ricochet off him, occasionally even striking one of his attackers. He didn’t make a big noise about it. He just went about his business, getting it done, not even bothering to acknowledge the stuff they threw at him. A walking statue, a man of few words. Outside, impenetrable. Inside, a big softy.

  And I can see myself pouring out my underage heart to him, telling him what I feel for him. He is telling me sadly that it would not be right. We live in a world filled with people who turn trust into betrayal, who prey on the innocent. And here was this gentle giant of a Russian letting me down as easily as he could. And I grew up, and his life ended, and now literally not a day goes by that I don’t think of him, imagine him alive, me holding him, me loving him and him me. Sometimes those imaginings seem so real that it’s tempting to just release reality altogether and surrender myself to fantasy.