Gifted

  That statement was enough to rouse the interest of those reporters who had thought this was just going to be some sort of dry recitation, a topic they’d have to labor mightily to make interesting to their readership. Immediately they started to pepper her with questions, which she found somewhat irritating since obviously she had only just begun explaining the facts of the matter to them. She raised her hands to quiet them, and they responded.

  “I’m going to show you some video footage now,” she said slowly, carefully, as if explaining things to idiots…which, to some degree, they were. “I am warning you now, it is very graphic in nature, and it is only by the merest happenstance that we have it in our possession. This footage was shot for a television program called Patrol, in which a videographer is sent on ride-alongs with police officers. The purpose of the program is to show policemen performing their normal, everyday duties. To convey to the viewership how patrols are oftentimes extended tours of boredom, punctuated by occasional unexpected violence. Not to sound melodramatic, but this particular evening, the officers got much more than they bargained for.”

  The remote control for the video, already set up, was on her podium right where it was supposed to be. She picked it up and activated it. “These particular officers are Raymond Hoyt, whom you’ll see on the right, and Lazlo Richards at the wheel.”

  The screen flared to life. Officer Hoyt was turned around in the driver’s seat, addressing the camera. “We get reports from neighbors all the time. Couple screaming at each other…usually they’ve had a few drinks. They need to calm down. That’s what we’re there to accomplish. But they see us and it just, you know…it can be inflammatory. The uniform. Always gotta compensate. Defuse.”

  A house was now visible through the windshield of the car. Richards spoke up without looking into the camera. “Domestics, they’re the worst. You never know what you’re going to be walking into. Might be a power couple who both had a bad day at the office and all you need to do is talk them down.” Richards continued talking as they climbed out of the car, his back still to the camera. “On the other hand, could be, y’know, a guy with a rap sheet a mile long who’s packing, and suddenly you’re in a firefight…”

  They approached the front door, the unseen cameraman still sitting in the car. Suddenly there was a horrifying scream. High-pitched, female, and this wasn’t simply the sound of a woman being threatened by a brutal husband. This was someone who knew that she was facing something—not someone—that was going to kill her in a matter of seconds. The sort of terrifying sound that seared itself into the brains of the listeners and would remain there until their dying day.

  “God,” Richards said.

  Hoyt shoved at the front door to no avail and bellowed, “Back door! Now!”

  They tore around the side of the building while the cameraman was still stumbling to get out of the vehicle. Then he was running, the camera bouncing slightly in the grand tradition of cinema verite. He came around the rear of the house to find the back door wide open, and then there was another scream, a man this time, sounding just as terrified as the female had been. If anyone watching the video had thought the husband was about to murder his wife, they now knew there was far more than a simple homicide involved.

  For just a heartbeat, the camera’s point of view didn’t move. It was clear that the cameraman was hesitating. There was something terrible going on in that house, something that was more than the cameraman was expecting or prepared to deal with, and he was taking a moment to screw up his nerve sufficiently to go inside. Then he finally managed to do so, and the camera point of view followed in the wake of the cops.

  Kavita watched with finely honed impassivity. She wasn’t bothering to look at the screen. Instead she was watching the news people, seeing them react, bracing themselves for whatever was about to happen. It was clearly going to be really, really bad.

  She was very glad she had thought to present Tildie with the videogame device and earphones. Glancing offstage, she saw that it was serving the girl’s needs perfectly. Tildie was peacefully playing the game, her earphones blocking out Kavita’s video presentation so the girl wouldn’t have to be subjected to it again. Nothing was going to be helped if Tildie became a sobbing mess on stage while the visual details of that horrible night were being played out in front of her. The screams, the sounds of tearing flesh, crunching bones, and people in their death throes…why in God’s name should she be forced to relive that in excruciating detail?

  Then came the collective gasp as what some would call the money shot appeared on the screen. The cameraman had emerged onto the second floor, pushing open a bedroom door that opened on to hell. Richards stood there, his gun pointed but his hands shaking. A corpse, barely recognizable as a woman, lay shredded on a queen-sized bed, while a man—presumably her husband—was being held against a wall, blood cascading down behind him. On the opposite wall was the cop that Kavita had identified as Officer Hoyt. He was similarly pinned, and the creature that was holding them both…

  It was a monster beyond nightmares, beyond horrifying. And the thing that was most surreal of all was that right in the middle of the creature, just sort of floating there, was a little girl. Her eyes were closed, her face covered in shadows, her nightgown drenched in blood.

  The image froze.

  “That’s all there is,” Kavita said calmly. “All that’s directly applicable, anyway. I doubt that footage of the cameraman running in the opposite direction while screaming a string of profanities would be terribly useful.”

  There was a deathly silence then. Clearly the people in the room weren’t quite sure what they had just seen.

  She turned off the screen, and then made eye contact with Feist and nodded slightly. Without drawing attention to himself, he quietly moved offstage to get Tildie. As he did so, Kavita said, “A child’s mutant power usually presents itself at puberty. This was not the case for Tildie Soames. Her ability to manifest her own nightmares cost the lives of her parents as well as Officer Hoyt. She understands—at least now—that this was not her fault. I would appreciate all of you understanding that as well.”

  Feist escorted a clearly nervous Tildie out onto the stage. She watched the press people warily, and they seemed no less wary of her. Kavita supposed they couldn’t be blamed for this, considering what she had just shown them. But she was determined not to let any of this suspicion undermine Tildie’s state of mind.

  “This brave child,” said Kavita, “offered to work with us, under the supervision of her guardians and government health agencies, to test Benetech’s new treatment.” She put out a hand to Tildie, who came straight to her and, instead of taking the hand, wrapped her arms around Kavita’s waist without ever taking her nervous eyes off the cameras. “In the coming months, she will make herself available to genetic teams from every nation to prove what we now conclusively know.” She stroked the child’s head lovingly. “The mutant strain can be eliminated, safely and irreversibly. There is such a thing as a second chance.”

  EIGHT

  “…AND although information is scattered and conflicting, we have been able to determine this much: A group of machine-gun-wielding masked gunmen, varying in reports from five to ten in number, have taken over the penthouse of the Chapman Building, where an annual charity party is being hosted by noted patron of the arts Walter Langford. The gunmen attacked the party at approximately 8 p.m. Eastern. Shots were fired, and although it is uncertain whether anyone has been killed, we do know that many are still alive and being held hostage. It is unknown at this time why the hostages have been taken or whether there are to be ransom demands. The Department of Homeland Security has determined that this may well be a terrorist attack, and currently the FBI has cordoned off a four-block radius. We will be carrying further details live—”

  He stands in the middle of the room, the terror-filled faces of his hostages looking up at him. He is watching the news report via the small phone device in his palm, the one that he has ta
ken away from one of the petrified people, and now his huge, armored hand closes around it and crunches it effortlessly. He wipes the bits of destroyed phone off his hands and stares at the people with red eyes. The unhealthy green pallor of his skin, the absence of a nose, the strange piece of metal running across the middle of his face, all combine to tell the hostages that he is not of this world.

  Either that or an evil mutant.

  His men are all too human, and reveling in the violence. They seemed to have enjoyed firing their weapons in the air, shouting at everyone to get down on the floor, warning them that they’d be happy to put bullets into the brains of anyone who defies them. Idiots, the lot of them, but useful idiots.

  Now there is deathly silence as everyone waits for him to speak.

  “No doubt you’re wondering what it is we want,” he says, his voice soft but accompanied by a deep rumbling, like a slowly moving avalanche. “Your money. Your daughters. Your flesh, peeled and roasted. Maybe we’re fanatics. Or maybe…we’re just bored.

  “In point of fact…I’m not going to tell you. Not yet. But trust me:

  “You’ll know it when you see it.”

  Calm before the storm. That’s what this feels like.

  I try not to look at Emma as we both change out of our clothes. Although with her, it’s hard to tell when she’s dressed and undressed; there’s so little difference.

  I know we’re both women. I know we’re both mutants. But as we change in total quiet, sometimes I find it hard to believe that we’re even the same species.

  The costume is waiting for me in my locker. I hold it up. It’s not bad, actually. Not as bad as I thought it would be. I like the combination of blue and yellow. It’s old-school, in every sense.

  I dress quickly, because being naked in front of Emma Frost makes me feel incredibly vulnerable. I zip up the front, snap shut the belt, pull on the boots. There’s no mirrors in here, but what I can see looks pretty damned nice.

  I turn around. Emma is sporting one of her standard, slutted-up white outfits. How come she doesn’t have to wear a new team costume? What, she’s not good enough to be one of us?

  Then I realize: no. She’s not. And I’m actually fine with that. Scott’s trying to take this team in a particular direction, and if she wants to stand alone, like the cheese, separating herself from the rest of us, then that’s aces.

  THE Beast carefully placed his glasses in their case and clicked it shut. He remembered Emma’s comment about how the glasses completely concealed his true identity. She’d been speaking facetiously, of course, but there was something to that. He really did feel like a totally different person when he was wearing them. Refined, cultured, intelligent…the person he truly was inside. It was so easy to overlook that when one stared at him. Inside he was Henry McCoy.

  On the outside…

  On the outside, the best-case scenarios had snickering students referring to him behind his back as Grover, another blue furry monster. He wanted to see that as a term of endearment, perhaps. Really, who didn’t love Grover? Certainly it was better than Elmo, that insufferably squeaky-voiced, pronoun-challenged red furry sock.

  But then there were the others, which pretty much included anyone who didn’t live in the mansion.

  Scott doesn’t know what he’s asking of me, Hank thought grimly as he closed the locker door. He has no clue. Asking me to endure the stares, the flinching, the people turning away. The people who think I’m contagious; if I breathe on them, they might turn into me.

  Although…there was that little girl…

  He remembered the time he’d been in Washington, D.C., called in to meet with a senator who was quite the advanced thinker. The senator wanted to propose an amendment that would make assaulting a mutant an official hate crime. Beating up on a mutant, no matter how harmless he or she might be, currently got you lauded by all your pals. Under the new amendment, you’d be looking at not only jail time for assault and battery, but also additional time for selecting a mutant as your target. The senator wanted Hank’s scientific input as to the nature of mutation in general.

  So Hank had met with him, answered all his questions, and aided him in framing the language so that if heroes such as the X-Men were battling an evil mutant who was involved in hatching some scheme, they wouldn’t themselves be subject to legal penalties.

  “We’re going to change the face of the law with this,” the senator had said. After leaving his office, Hank had gone to a park and just sat there, enjoying the sun. Then he’d looked down as a pig-tailed little girl, not more than two years old, wandered up to him, and—looking up at him with round, amazed eyes—cooed, “Kitty!” Apparently she had mistaken him for the large blue-furred protagonist from Monsters, Inc. The child’s mother came running up, terrified, but all Hank did was laugh heartily and tell the child he’d say “hi” to Mike Wazowski for her. She promptly threw her arms around his leg and said, “kitty” once more. A furred hand that could rip an enemy to shreds patted her gently on the head, and the mother looked both relieved and fascinated. Hank chatted with her for a minute or two, and it turned out she was a neurobiologist who was familiar with his name. When they had to leave, the little girl waved and the mother said, “Pleasure meeting you.”

  He’d wanted to sob with joy. Such a simple thing: Pleasure meeting you. It had meant the world to him.

  That had been a good day. That had been a very good day.

  Three weeks later the senator had proposed the amendment on the floor of the Senate. Usually, no one watched C-Span. This time everyone did. The video went viral. Pundits from both sides pummeled the senator relentlessly for weeks. The bill died in committee, and the following year, with his opposition playing the video in an endless loop of commercials and tagging him as being “soft on the mutant menace,” he was voted out of office by the largest margin in state history. A third-party candidate, who asserted that he was running because Martians had told him to, actually polled higher.

  Hank had gotten uncharacteristically drunk that night, watching the returns as they came in. He hadn’t gone on to pick a fight with anyone; he was a quiet drunk. He just sat there smoldering.

  The entire business had taught Hank the danger of hope.

  Yet now Scott was suggesting they throw themselves into the hellhole of public opinion of their own free will. Try to change the perception of mutants in the eyes of people who—Hank couldn’t help but note—could still throw rocks and bricks at them or maybe string one of them up, without having it considered a hate crime. Because to many, the only good mutant remained a dead mutant, and the law was okay with that.

  He crouched for a moment, overwhelmed by the possibility that this was an exercise in hubris at its worst, thinking that a handful of mutants could possibly shift public opinion about their kind. It was absurd. How could anyone with a logical mind think the citizenry as a whole would ever see him, in particular, as anything other than a dangerous furry monster, a berserk gorilla wandering in their midst?

  And that was when the words of Margaret Mead, noted anthropologist, sprang into his mind unbidden.

  Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

  He took one last look at his glasses case, said, “This one’s for you, Maggie,” closed the locker door, and headed out.

  WOLVERINE sat in his room, staring at the new costume.

  And staring at it.

  And staring at it.

  “Yeah, okay,” he said, and put it on. Once he had done so, he popped his claws once to make sure that the sheathes on his gloves were lined up. Then he pulled on the mask, muttered, “I gotta be outta my mind,” and headed down to the landing bay.

  CYCLOPS was already in the landing bay when they arrived. The Blackbird was likewise waiting for them, displaying exactly as much emotion as Cyclops was. He looked them up and down once, and the only reason they knew that—since they had no clear view of his eyes??
?was that his head tilted slightly.

  “Time to make nice with the public, eh, Summers?”

  “We have to do more than that, Logan,” Cyclops said firmly, with the confidence of a true zealot. Like something out of The Right Stuff, his teammates walked on either side of him as he headed toward the Blackbird. “We have to astonish them.”

  Minutes later the Blackbird launched into the night air.

  EDWARD Tancredi despised his name, because his nickname “Eddie” rhymed with his last name. He was a slender, blond-haired young man who tended to walk with an extremely light footfall. It was a tendency he’d developed since his mutant power, the ability to fly, had first manifested. Originally he had thought that in this school where so many bizarre and interesting powers existed, simply being able to take wing wouldn’t seem like such a big deal. But on the first day, when he’d soared over the top of the school to get a better feel for the lay of the place, he’d seen so many land-bound students looking up at him with clear envy that he’d felt better about it. If nothing else, in real-world terms, never having to worry about traffic jams for the rest of his life was a pretty sweet deal.

  And when he’d seen a portrait of the original X-Men in a place of honor, and saw a guy with wings in the forefront, it had even made him feel a kinship to the school’s founders.

  As a result, he’d come to conclude that flight was totally the power that all the baddest of the good guys had.

  Edward was walking down a hallway when the glass of a nearby window began to rattle. He stopped and looked out, squinting into the darkening sky, and then he saw it: the Blackbird, heading off into the night, the X-Men inside doubtless planning to go head-to-head with the forces of whatever.