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#5
OCT 12 |
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“New Start”
XSE HQ
Miami, Florida
“You have really managed to piss a lot of people off, Morales.”
Alisande normally felt in control in her own office, but being stared down by Director George Washington Bridge had a way of making you feel like an ant must feel when a piece of glass is being held over it on a sunny day. He had come in person to address the many swift changes that had occurred in her organization since the Weapon X attack. She knew this was going to be a dressing down and she had those damn mutants to blame for it.
“Everything I have done has been in the service of this organization, Director Bridge.” Alisande truly believed that. She had never wanted this job, but if she was going to be made to deal with it then it would be on her own terms. She would be damned before she let a group of mutants see her career ended. “I am being asked to work with extremely volatile individuals in extremely volatile conditions.”
“A number of your agents had to be reassigned because they refused to work with you anymore. Your media liaison quit on you and not to mention you locked up agents without any sound reason. If there’s anyone who is volatile it is you, Agent Morales.”
Bridge laid out every accusation as if it were fact without considering the circumstances behind each statement. She had thought that Bridge was a man of action like herself, but it seemed he had just become another bureaucrat. Alisande’s hands tightened on the edges of her glass desk. “The agents that were reassigned were incompetent and incapable of dealing with real leadership. They’ve spent too much time being coddled by that crippled freak–”
“That’s enough!” Bridge shouted. Alisande was sure the entire hall had heard him. “Xavier and I might not always see eye to eye, but he’s a damn good man and you are not going to degrade him like that.”
“He’s dangerous and so is every other mutant out there.”
“There are as many dangerous normal people as there are mutants, but I’m not here to argue gene politics with you, Morales. I’m here to deliver a message.”
Alisande Morales stiffened in her seat. If he was going to take her job then she would have been fired already so it could only mean she was being reprimanded. But the question was how harsh a punishment was she going to be dealt? “I’m all ears sir.”
“Command isn’t happy with the series of rash decisions you made after the Weapon X attack. It has caused an unnecessary loss in key personnel. So know you’re skating on very thin ice and another incident this serious will find you shuffling at a desk for the rest of your career. I hope that is plainly understood?”
“It is, Director Bridge.”
“Good. Now, you have a new squad that’s pretty stable for the most part so don’t go and piss them off.” Bridge slid a manila folder to Alisande. “Here’s their first mission.”
Alisande looked over the file that Bridge handed her and with every sentence she got further into it the more in disbelief she was. “Don’t you think this is a bit outside of X.S.E.’s field of expertise?”
“Possibly.” Bridge’s word was laced with so much disdain that Alisande could practically smell it coming out of his pores. “You pissed off a lot of mutants, and Charles Xavier has a lot of pull. If we’re going to keep him on board with this program we’re going to have to show him we mean it. And rescuing Illyana Rasputin would go a long way to doing that.”
“Why can’t Xavier’s people do this? Don’t my people have more and better things to do?”
“Xavier’s people have full agendas, so you can say that X.S.E. was volunteered for this. As I just made clear, you pissed him and his friends off. We’re trying to repair that relationship. So you better not screw this up, Morales, or you might be out on your ass anyway.”
“Yes, sir. We’ll find the girl.”
“You’re damn straight you will. You’ll find her because she’s going to be the last member of your squad.” Bridge turned and walked out of the door, knowing he had just thrown Alisande a curveball that was sure to drive the bigot up the wall.
Three Hours Later
Husk walked into Wisdom’s office and right into a plume of smoke. She waved her hands through it and, after a brief coughing fit, said, “You hear about–”
“Rasputin. Yep, Morales sent me an email ten minutes ago about it, luv. You sound pretty eager to hop to it?” Wisdom put out his cigarette in an ashtray close to his laptop and ran a hand through his disheveled black hair.
“Illyana was my brother’s friend and a friend to a lot of other people. I think rescuing her might be the first genuinely good thing we’ve done since joining this operation.” Husk didn’t say it but she needed something good and worthwhile in her life, something to focus on and block out the images of Synch’s dead body in her mind.
“From what I heard, luv, the broad had a mean streak and gave plenty of reasons for you to be scared of her. If she really is alive, I’m not entirely sure she’s worth saving, especially if she’s going to have to be someone the rest of us have to work with. This woman has been trapped in a hellish dimension for who knows how long. That has got to royally feck with a bloke’s mind, don’t you think?”
Husk knew that all of Wisdom’s points and, a few months ago, she would have agreed with every one of them. But she was beginning to fray at the seams ever since confronting the zombified Synch that Cassandra Nova referred to as Weapon Mu. Paige needed to believe that a woman as broken and twisted as Illyana could be healed…because if she could be healed of her wound then it was possible that Paige could get past what she had experienced. She would know that she could be more than the person who murdered one of her best friends.
Husk put her hands on Wisdom’s desk and leaned forward into his nonchalant gaze. “Even if everything you’re saying is one hundred percent true, that girl still doesn’t deserve to be trapped in somewhere like Limbo.”
“She’s been there all this time. Maybe she’s pretty comfortable there.” Husk frowned and Wisdom smiled. Paige had a feeling that he enjoyed knowing he had pissed someone off. “Look, it’s not like I get a kick out of imagining a kid growing up in what might as well be Hell, but I just think we might be pulling a rattlesnake out of its nest.”
Jesse saw Husk walk out of Wisdom’s office and quickly approached her, trying a bit to hide his eagerness at seeing her. “Hey, Paige. So, Wisdom give up anything about our mission?”
Husk smiled up at the man. He liked seeing that smile and wanted to make sure he saw it as often as possible. It made his heart feel like it had floated out of his chest. That’s how he knew that he must really feel something for the girl because, any other time, a statement that gushy would have made him cringe.
“That’s what I like about you, Jesse, you’re not afraid to ask questions and get information. But no, Wisdom didn’t give anything up. Just did his usual trash talking routine. That man loves to rile people up.”
“It’s his bread and butter. So what do you know about Illyana?”
Husk folded her arms across her chest as the two started to walk down the hall. The air conditioning was on full blast and the entire building was about ten degrees colder than it needed to be. “She was my brother’s friend, but she was trained by a demon to use dark magic. She’s powerful as hell and kind of scary.”
“And yet you want to go in and save her. Why?”
Husk lied. “Because she’s my brother’s friend and he’s lost enough of them. If I can help bring one back to him, I think that would be a mighty good thing.”
Bedlam smiled. “Can’t argue with that. Wish me and my brother were actually close.”
“Any luck in tracking him down?”
“Some, but I don’t really think I should say here,” Bedlam pointed up at the various surveillance cameras in the room. “They’re listening.”
“Yea, well then, I’m pretty sure Alisande knows every single nasty comment I’ve made about her…and that’s a reason to be happy,” Husk laughed.
“Indeed it is. I’m surprised you didn’t book it with Madrox and Rahne.”
“I wasn’t going to let that bimbo run me out of town. That would give her too much satisfaction.” Husk shook her head gently. “No way. She’s going to have to put up with me and I intend to give her hell for as long as I’m here.”
“I was hoping for a bit more than a rescue mission,” Warpath said, ripping a piece out of his medium rare steak. It was one of seven slabs of beef stacked up on his plate and he really considered it a light meal. His mutant abilities pushed his metabolism to a point where he had to eat large amounts of food to maintain peak performance. In any other scenario, the Apache would be morbidly obese.
Sunspot was more than used to his friend’s eating habits, but the rest of the XSE personnel looked on in awe. The what and how of Warpath’s appetite had a way of making someone feel like less of a man. Sunspot’s Panini to Warpath’s steaks made him feel incredibly small, but while Warpath’s powers required him to eat more, Sunspot’s meant he could eat less. Solar energy was capable of keeping his body on an even keel.
“It’s just not just a rescue mission – Illyana was our friend.” Sunspot wondered if he was saying that because he was supposed to or because he actually felt that way. He wouldn’t want anyone to live in a place like Limbo. It was a terrible place full of evil that had forever scarred Illyana. He honestly had been scared of her on more than one occasion. Part of him wondered if they were making a mistake in rescuing her.
“Your friend, not mine. I barely knew her and all I do know isn’t good. Xavier is making a mistake in pulling strings to send us after her.”
“You’ve never trusted the Professor much anyway.”
“Can you sit here and tell me you entirely trust him?”
Sunspot knew the source of Warpath’s resentment. “The Professor is a man. Not a perfect man, but he’s a better man than either of us.”
Warpath chuckled, his board shoulders rising and falling. “This is all just one big chess game to him. He might have you fooled but I’m not. Us rescuing Illyana is just so he can have one more piece to play with.”
“Then why are you here? I thought you had gotten past your whole hating Xavier bull?” Sunspot felt more defensive of Xavier than he ever had in the past, but recently Roberto had worked with the man. He saw Xavier’s passion for the people under him. The man had given up a normal life for the plight of mutants everywhere; that sacrifice alone was worthy of respect.
“I’m good at hitting things, and when you hang with Xavier’s crowd you always end up getting to hit plenty. So I’m right in my element here.”
“Then you shouldn’t have a problem getting Illyana. Limbo has no shortage of things to hit.” Sunspot remembered his encounters with the hellish dimension and all the horrors that resided within it.
“I never said I had a problem getting her. I just don’t have any illusion about why I’m doing it.” Warpath bit into another steak and squirted out juice that struck Sunspot’s shirt. The Apache shrugged at his indigent friend and kept eating.
“This shirt cost a thousand dollars!”
Wisdom waited at the edge of the hangar pad flanked by two guards on each side. In the distance he spotted the helicopter moving closer and closer to their location. Of all the new squad members he was going to have to deal with, the man on the helicopter was going to give him the most grief. Wisdom halfway believed that Morales had went out of her way to build a squad intended to piss him off. It wouldn’t be the first purposely hateful action by the woman.
Eventually the silver and black helicopter could be heard and seen. Wisdom’s trench coat billowed wildly from the wind effect created by the vehicle. Plastered on one side of the helicopter was the official emblem of the Sans Zanibar Ministry of Defense; a panther’s face in the middle of a blazing sun. He waited impatiently for the helicopter to touch down. He secretly hoped the vehicle would just experience catastrophic engine failure or something that would make him never have to lay eyes on the man in the dressed up helicopter.
The wishes of Wisdom were not to be acknowledged by the universe today because the helicopter did land and the man inside it would live to pester the hell out of him. He waited with growing annoyance to the see the man who was going to make his life an aggravation. Finally, he stepped out of the helicopter and all Wisdom saw was a political relic trying his best to stay relevant. Walking forward, Wisdom gave the African a curt nod. “Baraka.”
The man frowned. “I didn’t think Interpol would be stupid enough to put you in this position.”
Wisdom looked at each of the XSE personnel present and shrugged. “It does help to be a devastatingly charming bloke. And they trust my skill.”
“As do I.” Baraka took a few steps forward closer to Wisdom because the helicopter was beginning the noisy process of lifting off. “But do they trust you?”
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To Be Continued...
Next: In X.S.E. #6: Who comes to help XSE get to Limbo?
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