X-Men: The Last Stand (14 page)

He faced a modified Level Four extreme biohazard containment module, four meters by six, and three high. Every surface—walls, floor and ceiling—was painted white. One of the long walls was dominated by a mirror, constructed of transparent plastic that was stronger than steel in every respect. This was Hank’s vantage point, allowing him an unrestricted view of the room. As per protocol, the environment was kept at negative pressure—lower than the ambient pressure outside—so that in case of any breach, air would naturally flow
into
the room, thereby containing any stray bugs and preventing contamination of the installation outside.

A door at the rear of the room led to the bathroom, where the walls were opaque, giving the illusion of privacy. But there were a score of minicams here, too, and the mirror was two-way glass. Every surface was sterile. There wasn’t a spec of wayward dust to be seen. On the outer door was etched the
M
trefoil, for mutant biohazard.

It could have been a lab. It could have been a hospital room. It was a little bit of both.

Most of all, though, it belonged to a child.

Pretty much a normal boy, too, as far as Hank could tell, if the toys and the mess were any indication. Shelves had been provided, and bins for storage, but the kid used the floor instead. Books were strewn haphazardly about the place. No computer, just a desk with a keyboard and a screen, both connected to I/O ports in the wall. He was linked into the project network, so Dr. Rao could see what interested him and, if necessary, how the behavior modification was progressing and whether she needed to tweak it.

The flat-screen monitor was big enough to double as the room’s TV. Jimmy was using it for video games, perched cross-legged on the end of the bed. He was working his thumbs to distraction as he blew the living daylights out of cars, trucks, pedestrians and just about an entire Cali city. He stole a muscle car and headed for the border—where, unknown to him, monsters awaited.

As Kavita described the action, and Hank followed along on a convenient monitor outside, he couldn’t help wondering if the boy had any awareness of how close he was to
real
monsters.

“You know, Dr. McCoy,” Kavita began, as they watched the play, “I wrote my thesis on your theory of genetic recombination.” Behind them a nurse in a modified biohazard suit entered the airlock.

Jimmy was on the cusp of adolescence, but had not one hair on his head. He wore a white Houston Astros jersey and a pair of white boarder shorts, and white sneakers.

Hank indicated Jimmy. “I never had a subject quite like this….” He paused, thoughtful. “What’s the lasting effect of the boy’s power?” Hank asked.

Kavita shook her head. “None.” She pursed her lips, “He can only suppress the mutant gene within a limited range.”

“I’ve heard some of the staff refer to him by a nickname,” Hank noted, straightening to his full, imposing height. Kavita clearly wasn’t happy about this observation.

“I’ve made my feelings clear, but occasionally these things take on a life of their own. I suppose it must have been much the same concerning your own soubriquet.”

“That’s why I brought it up.” He’d never liked being called “Beast,” even by friends meaning it as a complement.

“The staff are firmly instructed to never call him ‘Leech’ to his face, or where he can hear.”

Hank looked Kavita directly in the eyes. “And you really think he’ll never know?”

She looked at her watch. “I should head into the city, Dr. McCoy. If we’re quite finished here, I have many appointments.”

Hank nodded. “I’m done here.”

As he turned to go, it seemed as though his movement attracted Jimmy’s attention, which of course should have been impossible, since there was no way for the boy to know he was there. Jimmy grinned, and Hank allowed a small smile in return, even though the boy couldn’t see it. His mind was racing with possibilities, both good and bad, and he half wished the boy would wander over, and bring Hank within the activation threshold of his power. The scientist in him was fascinated to discover how the gene-neutralizing process would work on him. The man in him wondered what he would look like now, without the effects of his mutation. Was he handsome, was he aging under the blue fur? Would he like the boy he was when the mutation took effect? He couldn’t remember what it had been like to appear “normal.” He didn’t even look at old photos anymore.

But Jimmy could bring that boy in Hank back to life.

For as long as they stayed close.

Worthington’s “cure” would make the reversion permanent. Now, that was an interesting development.

“Is Secretary McCoy going to be a problem?” asked Worthington Jr. a few hours later, in his office atop the San Francisco lab facility. A few stories below, a line of mutants stretched around the block. The street was cordoned off, with a group of SFPD squad cars forming a barrier right down the middle. Across the road, almost as many mutants gathered, as vehemently opposed to what Worthington had to offer as the others were desperate to partake.

Kavita Rao shrugged. “Hard to say. His political views seem somewhat at odds with his…personal issues.”

“I imagine we’ll be seeing more of that.”

“Quite.”

He leaned forward until his forehead touched the glass, trying to direct his line of sight as close to the base of the building as possible.

“I never really imagined there’d be so…
many,
” he said at last.

“Does it matter?”

“It makes one…think. It’s one thing to consider the mutator gene an aberrant quirk in the human genome—but to see it in such a broad spectrum of the general populace….”

“There is no consistency to the manifestations, either in terms of who possesses the gene or the power they manifest. If this were indicative of some species-wide evolution, we would see a common element.”

“The only-pizza scenario.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Basically, you throw pizzas at the ceiling, to see which one sticks.”

“Which would tell you what, pray tell?”

“Metaphor for the creative process, pizzas as ideas, that sort of thing.”

“I stand with Einstein, thank you. God does not play dice with the Universe, nor does he throw pizzas.”

Worthington certainly hoped so, but he also had to confess that the notion appealed to him. He used to think of God as having a sense of whimsy.

Until he saw how his son was changing. Then he’d decided he’d be better off without a God at all.

“Mr. Worthington, sir,” announced a technician. “He’s arrived.”

Train of thought almost prompted Worthington Jr. to ask if the technician was referencing the Almighty. But he shunted the notion aside and said instead, “Good. Bring him in.”

Rao touched his arm. “Are you sure you want to start with him?”

“I think it’s important, yes.”

She pulled on surgical gloves and selected an appropriate vial and syringe from the tray.

Two orderlies brought in Worthington’s only child, his son—his heir.

Warren had wholly fulfilled the promise of his youth, with a face and form that belonged on a movie poster—a leading man capable of breaking every heart alive, and jump-starting a few that weren’t. Tall and lean as ever, with hair a burnished gold swept messily back from his face, he was more handsome than a young Brad Pitt. He wore an overcoat, and there was a strange hump between his shoulders that made the coat ride up tremendously. To call the hump a deformity wasn’t right, because he carried himself far too easily, so Worthington could only hope that people assumed his son was wearing some kind of backpack underneath.

It was clear he didn’t want to be there. He wasn’t fighting the orderlies, but he wasn’t cooperating either, and they had to gently but firmly pull him forward to face his father.

“Hello, Warren,” Kavita said brightly. She was ignored; if that bothered her, she gave no sign.

“You okay, son?” Worthington asked, like a man biting a bullet, or a boy slugging down medicine. He got a shallow nod in return, from a son that seemed unsure how to answer. “Did you sleep all right?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“You know I’m proud of you, for doing this.”

Warren took off his overcoat, revealing an open shirt, and underneath, a complex leather harness reminiscent of a straightjacket, only the young man’s arms were completely unrestrained.

“The transformation can be a little jarring,” Kavita cautioned. Sweat popped on Warren’s brow, suggesting that wasn’t an altogether helpful thing to say.

“Dad,” Warren asked pleadingly, the sheer desperation in his tone catching his father’s heartstrings, taking him back to the nights he’d sat with his boy after lights-out, staying with him until he fell asleep to protect him from the monsters under the bed. “Dad,” Warren repeated with more intensity, displaying more overt fright. “Can we…can we…talk about this a second?”

Worthington took his son’s hand. “We talked about it, son. We agreed. It will all be over soon.”

But Warren wouldn’t stop squirming. Things got worse as he tried to wriggle his way loose from the orderlies, from his father.

“Wait,” he demanded. “Just
wait
a minute!”

Worthington Jr. tried his “dad” voice: “Warren, calm down!”

“I…no…I can’t do this!”

“Just relax, son,” Worthington Jr. tried in a more placating tone. The orderlies were having an increasingly harder time holding on.

The young man’s struggles had loosened the harness to the point where Warren could actively strain against it. The orderlies were built for the job—they looked a match for pro linemen, twice Warren’s size and change in every which way.

But he shrugged them off as if they weighed nothing, and they smacked against the walls of the spacious office.

He showed no interest in the guards as he tore at his shirt, yanking it open to the sound of popping buttons. He flexed his chest with a great outcry…

…and the industrial-grade belting leather shredded like tissue paper, reminding Worthington Jr. of an article he’d read when he was younger about the wings of large birds. The wings of a goose propel that great bird through the sky for thousands of miles. A swan’s wing, that thing of poetic beauty, can break a man’s arm.

How much more powerful then, those of a man, capable of lifting him from the ground and hurling him through the air? How strong were the muscles required to sustain that flight?

Beholding his son, Worthington Jr. couldn’t help but think of the flights of angels he’d seen depicted in catechism class, and of all the representations of doomed Icarus.

The fantasy paled in comparison to the reality.

Warren’s wings stretched twice his height and more, tip-to-tip across a back that suddenly seemed much broader and indecently muscled than his father remembered. They were a pristine white that was almost radiant. The orderlies were so dumbstruck with the incandescent beauty of the man and the moment that they almost forgot their purpose.

“Warren,” the father tried when words came back to him, “it’s a better life we offer. It’s what we all want!”

Looking down at his father, Warren replied with a harsh and unforgiving scream:
“No!”

The orderlies had withdrawn to the doorway once Warren’s wings had opened, and they’d summoned reinforcements. There was no escape that way.

“It’s what
you
want!” Warren yelled. Seeing guards in a phalanx at the door, he ducked towards the windows.

“Warren,
don’t,
” cried his father.
“No!”

And just like that, with a resounding crash, he was gone.

On the street below, warning cries rose from the crowd as they scrambled for protection, covering their heads as the broken glass came raining down. Some instinctively used their powers—telekinesis for deflection, and invulnerability of all shapes and sizes to cover themselves and those around them.

Only a few actually saw what happened, and most of them didn’t believe it. Afterward, they would certainly be reluctant to tell. Just because they were mutants, too—and a few resembled the next best thing to a gila monster crossed with a Mack truck—didn’t make them all that eager to boast that they’d seen a bona fide
angel
soaring over San Francisco.