Gifted

  “God, I love this school,” he said.

  There was a clatter of footsteps down the hallway. Moments later, Hisako Ichiki was sprinting toward him. Hisako had charmed him right from the get-go, mostly because she seemed reluctant to make any sort of eye contact. Whenever she spoke to him, she looked down at her shoes or off to the side. He didn’t know why he thought that was cute, but he did. She wasn’t exactly his type—he tended to lust after tall, willowy blondes, and the diminutive Japanese girl was hardly that. Not that he’d had any luck in the tall, willowy blonde department, but a guy could dream, couldn’t he? Currently his dreams tended to focus around the three identical blondes known collectively as the Stepford Cuckoos. He wasn’t sure what their deal was, except they were telepaths who tended to finish each other’s sentences, they looked a lot like teenage versions of Emma Frost, and there were rumors they were actually clones of her. Their names were Celeste, Mindee, and Phoebe, and he couldn’t tell any one apart from the other. He wondered if they were even able to operate separately from each other, which led him to think he had little to no chance with even one of them…

  But…maybe all three…?

  “Are you all right?” Hisako asked him. “You suddenly started sweating. A lot.”

  “Fine. I’m fine,” he said hurriedly.

  Edward and Hisako had first “connected” when the Sentinel-illusion had attacked them. While the other students were freaking out, Edward had gained elevation to try to figure out what was going on, and Hisako had surrounded herself with a kind of psionic body armor that Edward had subsequently told her was “totally sick.” This had concerned her until he’d explained that was a positive thing…like “ill.” At which point she had said it was no wonder she didn’t understand health-care debates in this country since she didn’t even understand the words anymore. He had laughed at that, and a friendship was born.

  He jabbed a thumb out the window toward the rapidly dwindling Blackbird and said, “Hey, check it out—”

  “Eddie, did you hear?” she said urgently.

  “How could I not hear?” he replied. “That thing makes one hellacious racket when it takes off…”

  “What?” She looked confused. “No, not that. I mean about the cure.”

  “What? They’re doing a concert in town?”

  “Not The Cure. The cure! A cure!”

  “You lost me. A cure for what?”

  “For us!”

  “Are we sick?”

  Her face darkened. “That’s what they’re saying. They’re talking about it downstairs. It’s on all the news channels. It’s on everything. Come on,” and she grabbed him by the wrist and yanked him literally off his feet. She pulled him like a blond-haired balloon, and he floated along behind her.

  Moments later he was sitting in front of the wide-screen television in the den, surrounded by dozens of other students. Learning that they were all ill. Learning that there was a cure for that illness. Learning that the mutant menace could finally be eliminated for all time.

  The news stations had all switched away from what was happening at the Chapman building. That ongoing story had been reduced to a tiny crawl of a headline across the bottom of the screen. After all, what did it matter what a handful of terrorists were doing to a bunch of the one percent in a fancy warehouse? This was a story about ending one of the greatest threats humanity had ever faced. Who cared about anything else?

  “WHAT do we see?” Cyclops asked.

  The conversation in the Blackbird had been minimal during the short flight into Manhattan. Everyone had been lost in their own thoughts. Cyclops was at the helm, while Beast’s fingers worked the scanning devices with surprising lightness.

  “Scanner’s reading about thirty-five warm bodies in the penthouse, six of them carrying something a lot warmer,” said Beast briskly.

  “Bombs?”

  “Or guns. State-of-the-Art-of-War.” Trust the Beast to make a pun off a still-popular text written centuries ago. He paused, then added, “Wasn’t S.H.I.E.L.D. developing some kind of thermal ordnance?”

  Wolverine stuck his head in, literally. “These clowns ain’t S.H.I.E.L.D.,” he said.

  Cyclops was willing to defer to Wolverine’s opinion on that. Wolverine had had far more interaction with the notoriously close-to-the-vest espionage organization, particularly its legendary eyepatched leader, Nick Fury. Wolverine tapped the thermal readout on the screen of Beast’s array. “Deployment’s amateur hour. Right flank’s wide open. That’s your entry point.”

  “Maybe,” Cyclops said guardedly, not wanting to commit to an attack plan until he was sure he had all the bases covered. They were on dangerous ground, after all, and not just from the gun-wielding lunatics. The problem with launching an assault in the public eye for the purpose of burnishing one’s image was that, if it all went south and the X-Men wound up with a few dozen corpses on their hands, they were the ones who were going to be blamed by Joe and Jane Average Citizen sitting in front of their TV screens. Not the bad guys. Them. “Our biggest question mark’s the hostages. If any of them get it in their heads to play hero, we could have a problem.”

  “The hostages,” Emma said, gazing down at the scene, “are flat on the ground praying or peeing.”

  Even Kitty seemed impressed. “You can read them from here?”

  “I don’t have to. This is Walter Langford’s annual fundraiser for the preservation of Victorian architecture. I know their type. Raised in privilege, unaccustomed to doing anything on their own. They might order their butlers and maids into a fight, but they won’t lift a finger to save themselves. They’re sheep.”

  “How do you know them so well?”

  “Because I used to be one of the shepherds,” Emma said, her mouth twitching slightly. “It’s the first year I’ve missed it.”

  “Then why ain’t’cha down there right now?” said Wolverine.

  She looked at him with cold amusement. “Apparently my invitation got lost in the mail.”

  He was quiet for a moment, then said, “Sucks when that happens.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Yeah. Missed the recent royal wedding because of it.”

  “The queen asked after you, if that’s any consolation,” Emma assured him.

  Beast ignored the sarcastic exchange. “Our biggest question isn’t the hostages or the men with the bright and beautiful weaponry. Our biggest question,” and he pointed toward a large blue circle in the middle of his screen, “is that.”

  “Who is that?” said Wolverine

  “The readings don’t line up with anything human or, for that matter, anything in our database. The question isn’t ‘who’ so much as ‘what.’”

  NINE

  HILLARY Masterson was terrified for her child.

  She didn’t know what her child looked like, or would sound like, or what its name would be, or even its gender. She hadn’t gone to the doctor yet, although she’d made an appointment.

  The only thing she knew for sure was that her baby needed to be born and grow up and cure cancer while running a successful presidential campaign and winning a Nobel Peace Prize for Everything.

  All this because Hillary had peed on a stick that morning, and when it had come up positive, her world had reoriented itself.

  She’d been overjoyed.

  She hadn’t told Brad yet. He’d been called away to a meeting in Tokyo the day before. So she was going to wait to tell him in person. She was anxious to see the look on his tanned, mustached face. He was such a sentimentalist, he probably wouldn’t know whether to laugh or cry and would likely wind up doing both.

  All of that had gone through her head that morning as she danced around the bedroom, tossing off her nightgown and pirouetting about, totally nude and filled with joy.

  The day had hurtled past her. She’d gone to the hairdresser to get spiffed up for Wally Langford’s bash that evening, and she thanked her lucky stars she’d taken the test that morning because she knew not to dri
nk that night. Which was a killer, because Wally didn’t skimp when it came to the quality of the liquor.

  Then Hillary had slithered into a floor-length green sheathe dress, the kind she wouldn’t be able to wear by her second trimester, but that was all right. It would be so last season within two months anyway.

  She’d gone to the party hoping she would be able to contain herself, because nobody, absolutely nobody could find out before Brad. Yet Rosa Lee Tepper eyed her most curiously when Hillary passed on a nice Bordeaux in favor of ginger ale, and wasn’t buying for a moment Hillary’s contention that she had an upset stomach. “You could be bleeding out your eyeballs and still not refuse a Bordeaux,” Rosa Lee said suspiciously. “What’s going on?”

  Please let there be a distraction right now, Hillary thought desperately.

  That was when the men had shown up. The horrible, swaggering, snarling, dangerous men, covered head to toe in black with masks on, wielding huge guns that they fired into the air, demanding that everybody hit the floor. Rich people, filthy rich people in their designer gowns and tailored suits, flopping down like fish, shaking in terror, mewling, pleading. People who could buy yachts with money out of petty cash were no braver in the face of these lethal men than the poorest of ditch diggers would have been. These people who thought they ruled the world because of who they were, as if their money made them more special than anyone else. It was hard to dwell on one’s position in society when that position was on the floor.

  Hillary had gotten her distraction. And now there was a great likelihood her baby was going to die before it ever had a chance to live.

  She lay on the floor, curled up in a fetal position that would provide as much protection for her child as possible. On some level it was a pointless exercise; if she were killed, it wasn’t as if they could save the infant. It existed as nothing more than a plus sign on a stick and in an extended imaginary life in Hillary’s head.

  The behemoth leader of the men who had broken into the party was standing dead center of the room. Hillary had no idea what to make of him. She’d read about horrible creatures like this: Some of them had been transformed by radiation, some of them came from the stars, and still others were actually born that way. “Mutants,” those ones were called. Fearsome, grotesque, corrupted and deformed shadows of human beings. There were rumors that anyone could be a mutant: “The Terror That Could Be Living Next Door,” one newspaper had put it. But she didn’t believe that. Certainly if they looked like the monstrosity terrorizing this group, they wouldn’t be allowed in any of the better neighborhoods.

  He was looking upward, this monster, as if he could see straight through the ceiling. “Hmmm,” he muttered. “A moth. A single moth would have made more noise touching down.” Then he raised his voice slightly, apparently to make sure his men heard him. “Company’s here.”

  “Bring ’em on, baby!” said one of his men. Another stroked his gun like a woman and declared, “We are locked and loaded. Heartbreakers and life takers, am I right?”

  “Oh, yeah!” shouted one of his pals.

  “Bring on the muties!”

  “Oh, yeah!”

  “Are you finished?” asked the monster.

  We’re going to die, Hillary said to herself, losing her final hope. Everything I read, everything I’ve heard, it’s all true. This monster is a mutant and other mutants are going to show up, and they’re going to kill us all, my baby…I should have told Rosa Lee. I should have shared it with someone…

  Her gaze shifted toward Rosa Lee, the woman whose curiosity had caused Hillary to wish, however inadvertently, for this nightmare that had descended upon them.

  Rosa Lee wasn’t there.

  That was the damnedest thing.

  Hillary could have sworn that Rosa Lee was lying directly across from her. There was no way she could have gotten out. Even the slightest movement would have been noticed, much less an all-out escape. Yet she was gone. How could that possibly—?

  The sudden chatter of gunfire caused Hillary to cry out and cover her ears, drawing her knees up even more tightly toward her stomach. No one heard her because everyone else was screaming as well, and combined with all of that were the howls of the masked man who was emptying his gun into the nearby windows. Glass shattered and fell everywhere. He was bellowing, “Thought I didn’t see you, huh! Thought you’d sneak by!”

  “Soldier!” shouted the strange, monstrous leader. Amazingly his voice soared above all of the shrieking and even the sounds of the bullets. The man in black stopped shooting. Hillary dared to peek out from under her arm and saw there was still a crazed look on his face, his blue eyes wide with fury, and…

  Wait a minute. What the hell—?

  Leon Brisbane was gone. And Candy Hardacy. And Rachel McClaren, and Hubert Perkins, and Walter himself. She wasn’t imagining it. The guests were disappearing.

  And the leader hadn’t noticed, distracted as he was by the crazed soldier who stood there with smoke wafting out the muzzle of the barrel. “Who,” said the monstrous leader, “are you talking to?”

  The masked man turned to the leader. The mask had large eyeholes cut out and a wide space for his mouth, so it was obvious he was looking at the leader with an air of incredulity.

  The masked man turned, looked at the shattered window, and then back to the leader. The demented fervor was dissipating from his face, like someone awakening from a walking dream. Even as he made the reply, it was clear he was realizing it made no sense whatsoever. “My, uh…my swim coach. I swore if I ever saw him…and I did…and he went flying right back through the window, just like I always imagined.”

  The answer was completely nonsensical. It was ridiculous. A figure from—what? High school? Had returned to torment him out of the blue? It was insane.

  Yet the leader didn’t seem the slightest bit disturbed about it. Instead he actually gave a little nod, as if this were the most natural thing in the world. “Miss Frost is here,” he announced, a name that meant nothing to Hillary. “Turn up your scramblers and keep her out of your heads. Go hot on weapons. This will happen fast.”

  What? What’s going to happen fast…?

  Suddenly a yellow-gloved hand clamped over Hillary’s mouth. She gasped in surprise but the hand muffled the sound, and suddenly she felt a bizarre tingling. The floor was starting to rise around her…

  No. No, she was sinking. Sinking into the floor. Then she was surrounded by blackness for maybe half a second.

  And then she was back out, out into the light, and she fell lightly into a room. It was an office by the looks of it, a big fancy office like the senior partner in a law firm might use. She thudded to the floor, landing on her rump.

  A young woman who couldn’t have been more than twenty stood there, clad in blue and yellow. She was pointing with urgency toward the door at the far end. “Get going. Use the stairs; the electrical systems may get knocked out. The others I rescued are already on their way out. Move it.”

  “Are…are you a mutant?”

  “Yes. Now go.” The young woman was actually starting to float up toward the ceiling again, as if walking on the very molecules of the air.

  And having no idea why, Hillary blurted out, “I’m pregnant.”

  The mutant girl stopped for a moment and stared.

  “I’m sorry,” said Hillary, “I…just wanted to tell someone.”

  With great gravity, the mutant girl said “Mazel tov.” Then she disappeared into the ceiling.

  Hunh. I wonder if all mutants are Jewish, she thought as she sprinted out of the room. It occurred to her that, if mutants could look like that, it was entirely possible that some of her neighbors were in fact mutants.

  Which was no longer such a threatening concept to her.

  Then she heard all hell break loose on the floor above. But she didn’t hang around to see it.

  THE soldier—the one who was positive that somehow he had just managed to shred his swimming coach—was still staring out the window w
hen the Beast swung through feet first, gripping firmly on to the edge of the roof overhead. The Beast’s blue-furred feet took the soldier solidly in the gut, driving him upward. He crashed into the tiled ceiling, knocking the air out of him, his head slamming hard into its surface. The Beast then swung back in the other direction, allowing the soldier to tumble to the floor.

  Another soldier turned and brought his gun around, ready to open fire on the fast-moving, animalistic mutant. He never got the opportunity. The wall next to him suddenly exploded, blown open by a powerful red force beam that nothing could have resisted. He was unconscious before he hit the ground.

  Cyclops stepped through. A third soldier, standing off to the right beyond the mutant leader’s peripheral vision, had a clear shot and took aim immediately. He was so focused on Cyclops that he didn’t see Emma Frost stride forward. On the outside, she was no longer mere flesh and blood. She had instead employed her secondary ability, which she typically favored when going into a combat situation: Her body had transformed into an organic form of glittering diamond. It provided her both a high degree of invulnerability and also increased strength. As casually as if she were hailing a taxi—something Emma would never be caught dead doing—she stuck out her left arm and clotheslined the soldier. The blow struck him across the throat and he coughed up blood as his rifle went flying.

  A fourth soldier didn’t know where to look first: left, right, in front of or behind him. While he was trying to make up his mind, Wolverine cut through the ceiling with his claws and crashed down from overhead. The soldier looked up, and then he wasn’t looking at anything. Wolverine had knocked him cold, an action for which he should have been grateful. Wolverine could just as easily have taken his head off.

  Meanwhile Kitty continued to pop up and down through the floor like a ghostly mutant Whac-a-mole, pulling one hostage after another to safety. There was still a handful of tuxedoed men remaining when the X-Men converged from all sides on the leader, who was essentially the eight hundred pound gorilla in the room. Kitty fully materialized in the room, hoping—praying—that the fight was more or less over. The X-Men had just dismantled all the black-clad guys within seconds. Certainly this one creature wasn’t going to try to stand alone against them.