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Provide a full summary of the comic book.

[Assistant]
Guns and Poses
They are even more nervous watching the mysterious young woman slowly slip the mask from her face than they were during the entire life-and-death struggle involving the assassination game known as the Younghunt, which they barely survived only a few hours ago. They, collectively, are young mutants, all born with incredible powers and abilities; some have used those gifts as members of the outlaw band called X-Force, while other friends and former allies present here have removed themselves from the ongoing war between man and mutantkind. They all, however, stand tensely watching Danielle Moonstar, a friend they thought lost to them forever, who has now apparently returned as a potential enemy!
As Moonstar begins to peel the mask off her face, she asks what it is exactly that they’re all holding their breath waiting to see. Horrible, hideous scars etched across her face? Or maybe she’ll take the mask off and look like their pal, Cable. Rictor, Boomer, Cannonball and Karma say nothing as Moonstar finishes removing the mask: it is Danielle, she’s back. Moonstar is home again, returned from her stay on Asgard, the extra-dimensional home of the Norse gods.
Surprised? she asks. No tentacles coming out of her face or nothing! Their happiness, though, is tempered by the fact that she has chosen to estrange herself from her friends and, for some unknown and unknowable reason, taken up with the terrorist organization known as the Mutant Liberation Front! Not even, she carries on, one measly pimple to show for everything she’s gone through.
Dani, replies Rictor, to tell the truth, just speaking for himself: he would have been a lot more satisfied if she was scarred or something like that. At least that might have given them an explanation as to why she’s joined the MLF and attacked her friends! But, he continues, seeing her like this, she’s normal; it just doesn’t make any sense! Ric, replies Moonstar, pulling her mask back on, she hates to tell him, but none of them is “normal,” and she has her reasons for working with the MLF right now, just like they all their reasons for the choices they’ve made in the past. Yeah, retorts Boomer, but none of them has signed on with a bunch of borderline maniacs and murderers, either. Don’t, shoots back Moonstar, play holier-than-thou with her, Boom Boom. Uhm, explains Boomer, she’s called Boomer now.
Whatever, mutters Moonstar. The point is that each and every one of them has questioned, to some extent, the directions their lives have taken: Sam, he knows it’s true, he’s an immortal mutant now, an External, and he’s totally torn apart by that knowledge; Boom Boo… Boomer, she’s been looking for a place to call home since Moonstar first met her, and she still hasn’t found it. Rictor, he’s been hiding behind the tough-guy act for so long that he’s buried his insecurities and doubts so deep that they’re like a festering cancer now; and Karma, well, Xi’an, not to insult her or anything, but for years now her method of making decisions has been by completely avoiding them. So, concludes Moonstar, by using her own friends as a guide-post, how “wrong” is her decision not to contact or join them?
Dani, says Cannonball, listen, he’s not going to stand there preaching to her about the differences between their side of the coin and the MLF’s, because they’re fairly obvious, but she at least could have told them she came back, that she was safe. Doesn’t she owe her friends a little more consideration than sending that message out on the receiving end of a psychic arrow? Moonstar quips that, to be honest, it was X-Force who attacked the MLF, not the other way around. After the MLF kidnapped a government official! protests Cannonball, telling her not to play verbal games here.
Moonstar replies that she doesn’t play games, and she is still their friend; if she wasn’t, she wouldn’t have come to help out when she learned the Upstarts were trying to hunt them down. She has her reasons for doing what she’s doing, and if their friendship ever meant anything, he’d trust her, and stay out of her way. She doesn’t want to be forced to fight them again. They’ve all changed, she continues; in some ways for the better, as in their ability to control their powers. She asks Cannonball to remember how awkward he was in the beginning, and to look at himself now! And look at her, her powers mutated further, manifesting psionic plasma bolts at her whim.
Life is change, she states. As mutants they’re physical evidence of that fact, but sometimes they change for the worse, too. And that, she concludes, is the price they pay for being adults now. As kids back at Xavier’s they could go to the Croton Falls Mall or a dance at Central High and pray that no one knew they were secretly “mutie freaks.” Things… life… has gotten just a bit more complicated, and she’s just doing what she has to do. They’re just going to have to accept that. Cannonball guesses that they don’t have much of a choice, do they? Of course they do, replies Moonstar: they can let her walk or they can force her to stay. Like he said, replies Cannonball as Moonstar strolls out of the room, not much of a choice at all.
As Moonstar exits the room, and possibly their lives forever, Shatterstar strides in. Approaching Rictor, he states that he does not mean to interrupt their conversation, but there is something he has to show him on the television. Shatty, replies a sullen Rictor, now is not exactly a good time to play some new video game he found in the cabinets, okay? Yo creo, amigo, que te vas a querer ver lo que yo tengo mostrarte… por que pertenece a tu familia replies Shatterstar. Startled, Rictor replies with a What? He has to show him something on TV, about his family? And how did he learn to speak Spanish? Shatterstar replies that it was by watching television, of course. He thought it would allow them to communicate, if necessary, in ways that others would not understand, be it their enemies in the midst of battle or their friends when the topics of conversation are of a highly personal nature. Finally, he suggests that Rictor come quickly; he may not like what he sees.
The kitchen of Shinobi Shaw’s Swiss chalet (say that ten times fast). Having seen the New Warriors leave, Cable and Domino now face some slightly difficult choices regarding a rather difficult young woman: Paige Guthrie, says Cable to the girl in question as he prepares a sandwich from the supplies in Shaw’s kitchen, the two of them need to talk. He knows how hard it is to make the right choice at her age –
Not to be rude, Mr. Cable, interjects Paige, but he’s as subtle as an anvil. After everything they all just went through – the Upstarts and the Gamesmaster and everything she just saw – he expects her to go back to the old Guthrie farm, pretty as he pleases? She doesn’t think so, sir. Perhaps, replies Domino, it’s because of everything that just happened that they’d prefer she did go home. Miss Domino, ma’am, retorts Paige as she pulls the lettuce out of the half of sandwich Cable made for her, she knows as well as Paige does that she has to start learning how to use these mutant powers she has! Or would they rather the proposition she made come true, and the Gamesmaster or Stryfe or any one of them were responsible for developing her into what they wanted?
Chewing a large bite of his sandwich, Cable notes that Paige’s point is well made, and her implications about as subtle as his. It’s just that, quite frankly, he doesn’t know if he has the equipment or the disposition to properly train her. Whoever said, Paige shoots back at him, anything about her wanting Cable to do it, sir? Uhm, no offense meant, she clarifies, but she was talking about Charles Xavier!
The mountainside chalet’s massive recreation room. Before a truly gargantuan home theatre system stand Rictor and Shatterstar, watching a news broadcast in Spanish: … en Guadalajara. Y todavia no tenemos informacion hasta la condicion del sospechado vendedor de municiones Gonzalo Richter… You recorded this off a Mexican channel? inquires Rictor to Shatterstar. Yes, he replies, because he believes in developing a world view. She’s saying, explains Rictor, that his uncle was injured in a gunfight with the police. They don’t have any information on his medical condition yet. There’s more, states Shatterstar, and Rictor tells him to show it.
…tambien implicado y herido en los disparos con la policia es el hijo de Gonzalo, Omar Domingo, veintidos años… Mi primo, responds Rictor, his cousin, Omar: he was hurt too? Can’t say he’s surprised, continues Rictor, seeing how Omar got into the family business. And that being the business of? inquires Shatterstar. Selling death, replies Rictor, selling guns. Turning off the television, Shatterstar asks if they are the only members of Rictor’s family still alive. Huh? replies Rictor, oh geez, no. He’s got enough cousins, aunts, and uncles to clog up El Palabero futbol stadium. His mom’s still living in ‘Jara too, he guesses; it’s been a few years since he left home.
Shatterstar is surprised that Rictor’s “maternal biological unit” is still alive. He had merely assumed, since he knew Rictor’s father was dead, that his mother was too deceased. Technically, Rictor clarifies, she’s his stepmother but, hey, he adds, how much do any of us really know about each other? Leaning against the huge TV screen, he adds that he doesn’t know jack about Shatterstar’s mother or father, and he only just told him a couple weeks ago that he has some “wife” waiting for him back on Mojoworld!
Shatterstar replies that he has no parents, save for a fertilization chamber. If Rictor wanted to know, all he had to do was ask. And maybe, adds Shatterstar, it is the facts regarding his birth which cause him not to judge Rictor, but merely to wonder how he himself would react at a time like this if he were in the same position. Then, confused, Shatterstar asks if what happened between Rictor and his family in Mexico was really so awful that he can be so callously dismissive of the turmoil they’re enduring. In a word? replies Rictor. Yeah, maybe it was…
Rictor’s thoughts then drift back to what should be a more innocent time in his life, but sadly was not. A very young Rictor and his father sit in a filthy, dilapidated jail cell. He asks his father if this is what he expected them to do to them when they came down to Costa Rica; his father responds that no, hijito, this is not what he was expecting, and Louis Alejandro Richter is not to be treated in such a disrespectful manner. Spitting, his father asks whom these people think they are dealing with, anyway? A bunch of lackeys is all they are. You’ll see, Julio, he tells Rictor, when these idiots report back to their boss and realize what a mistake they have made, they will let them out and smother them with apologies and wine. He assures the young Rictor that he’ll see what kind of weight his father’s name carries all over Latin America!
Later. Under a shimmering afternoon sun, a group of men stand around a crate, along with Rictor and his father, who is now dressed in a business suit. One of the men offers his sincerest apologies to Señor Richter for having detained his son and him for so many days. It was, he explains, an oversight of most accidental nature. He forgot to tell la policia that they were coming, and he was in Rio on… business… while they were being… so mistreated; but Richter did bring the merchandise with him, correct? Rictor’s father responds that he is a professional merchant, Señor Esteban: the goods are in the crate. Esteban responds that he expected no less of Richter as his men pry the crate open with a crowbar. Inside are several submachine guns, which the young Rictor kneels down to get a better look at.
Mira, Louis! exclaims Esteban, telling Rictor’s father to look at how curious his boy is about what Richter delivers to him! Picking up one of the guns, Esteban weighs it in his hand, noting it has a nice heft – and ammunition too, si? He is very pleased, he tells Louis Richter. Then, turning to Rictor, Esteban tells him to take a good look, niño. Pointing the gun at Rictor’s face, he asks him if he sees any light at the end of this tunnel? Hope so, smirks Esteban, since he’s staring down the barrel of his own future. Rictor, back in the present day, quickly pushes the memory away. It was bad, he says, if you were a little kid and all. Then, a look of grim determination crossing his face, he tells Shatterstar that he doesn’t want to go back home, but he knows he has to…
Just outside the chalet, in the snow-swept woods surrounding the retreat. X-Force’s Siryn and Warpath watch uneasily as a relationship crumbles before their eyes: Magma, fully aflame with the activation of her mutant powers, quarrels tersely with Empath, who is clad in a heavy jacket and equally upset. Empath exclaims that he can’t believe Alison would do this to him! Do what? shouts back Magma. All she’s doing is deciding to live her own life again! She has to know who or what she is: Amara Aquilla, daughter of a secret lost Roman city, or a volcanic mutant named Magma, or Alison Crestmere, a British child who was kidnapped several years ago and had her life destroyed by the sorceress Selene!
There’s nothing more, continues Magma, that can be done for her in the resettlement camp outside of Nova Roma. Cooling down her powers and returning to human form, Magma explains that she has to find her real parents and see if there is any way for her to find some kind of balance in her life again. But Alison, protests Empath, what they had together…!
Was a lie, finishes Magma in frustration. He used his mind-controlling abilities to make her, and everyone else in Nova Roma, continue to believe in a lie, which never should have existed! That life, like the lies between them, is over! Stepping forward, Warpath places a hand on Empath’s shoulder and tells him he’s sorry. He knows how hard that Empath tried to use his powers in the right way, to help the Nova Romans. Listen, offers Warpath, if he wants to hang with X-Force, maybe they can help him. Help him do what, Proudstar? shoots back Empath. Run around the world like fools, getting into pointless battles for the sake of their poor, pitiful fellow mutantkind? No, he thinks not. A de la Rocha is quite above such things!  I leave you all, calls Empath over his shoulder as he trudges off aimlessly into the surrounding mountains. But know this, he adds: Magma was his last hope for redemption, and now that she has been lost, it makes him wonder why he even tried!
Siryn insists that they can’t just let him go like that, but Warpath asks if that’s really true. Can’t they? The man has a right to do what he pleases, and right now he’s got a lot of pain to deal with. Magma, watching Empath go, explains that she is sorry for him, they must know that. But she couldn’t – It’s okay, interrupts Warpath, they understand. If she wants, they’ll drop her off in England when they leave the chalet; maybe they can help her get started in her search for her family. Magma says that she would like that. She could use some support: to be honest, she is really quite frightened of going home again…
Guadalajara, Mexico, fourteen hours later. Rictor, Cable, and Domino stand in Rictor’s old neighborhood, with Cable and Domino dressed like tourists to try to remain inconspicuous (chalk-white skin or glowing yellow eye notwithstanding). This is it, speaks Rictor, this is his family’s house. He tells Cable and Domino that they can wait out there. He’s glad they came and all, but… Cable tells him he understands: Rictor’s family has a certain amount of history with Cable’s face. But they both know that it was his clone, Stryfe, who was responsible for the death of Rictor’s father, right? Rictor asks Cable how he could forget? Listen, he tells them, they better hang for a second; chances are his family’s going to see his face and kick him right back out on the street.
Rictor pauses, drawing in a quick breath. He’s nervous. He’s always tried to be so cocky, tried so hard to hide all the things he was so insecure about. As he knocks on the door, he hears the sound of his knuckles rapping out like the rumble of a distant earthquake. A pause. Then, the door begins to open to the sound of ¿Quien es –? Si es un periodista, puedes ir a… aya. Another pause, as the woman takes a moment to look at the face before her. Then, with shock, she quietly exclaims: ¿Julio? It’s not a reporter, replies Rictor, it’s only him, mommasita.
Repeating his name again, Rictor’s step-mother rushes forward to embrace him, and then shouts back toward the house for everyone to come out: Julio is home! Yes, momma, says Rictor quietly, he’s home again. Inside, relatives of all shapes, sizes, and ages, male and female, gather about in the living room. Rictor’s stomach twists into knots as he sees his family again: cousins, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters. Some of them are thrilled to see him, others less so.
In the three years since he left them, though, very little has changed, and they are still his family, for good and for bad. Rictor’s stepmother asks him why he came back; did he hear about his uncle Gonzalo and his cousin Omar? He did, replies Rictor, and he thought, well, he thought he should try to be there, for her, and the family. It’s just, he ran away because he couldn’t be a part of what the family does. Lord knows he doesn’t want to see any of them hurt, but he… Rictor swallows. He doesn’t feel bad about what happened. In fact, he’s glad.
Later, outside, Domino notes that it’s been half an hour; it must be going pretty well. Cable’s response is a distracted Hmmm. Domino states that he always gets so distant when family matters come up. Well excuse me, retorts Cable, but he’s had a complicated family life; she knows that. Domino replies that she does, but you’d think that with what he’s learned, with Scott Summers and Jean Grey getting married, that he’d lighten up a bit. Cable mutters that he’s trying, but their conversation is interrupted by a shout of Aya, asesino! Cable mutters a displeased Hummm.
One of Rictor’s family, wielding a handgun, shouts to Cable that he’s got nerve coming there! He remembers that face! He tells Cable that he killed his Uncle Louis, man, and la familia Richter always pays back its debts! With this he fires upon Cable, who grimly retorts that from what he understands, pal, if that were the case Julio’s father would never have been killed in the first place. Either way, he wasn’t the one who did it. Cable then easily absorbs the bullet into the false-flesh over his left arm, and it drops harmlessly into his palm. And it won’t be this man’s little peashooter, continues Cable, that gets revenge! Holding the smoldering shell, Cable asks the man if he wants this bullet back.
Watching this transpire through a window in the residence alongside the rest of his family, Rictor mutters an aah, no. Someone asks if he has come back, cousin? Has the devil returned for more Richter blood? No! exclaims Rictor, it’s not what they think; this isn’t the man who killed his father… Rictor then remembers back to his youth again, looking out the same window, as he murmured Es un Tiburon…
A shark, he had called him. Outside, Stryfe, clad in civilian clothing and thus appearing identical to Cable, is surrounded by members of young Rictor’s family, who are all firing guns upon him uselessly. Rictor remembers that he had just seen the movie Jaws, and so a shark was the scariest thing he could think of. The animal was laughing as bullets bounced off of him. It was the most terrifying sight Rictor had ever seen. All the men in the front yard, shooting: maybe they were too stupid to be as frightened as Rictor was.
But then again, thinks Rictor, he was learning, as he got older, that there was as little a shortage of stupidity in the family as there were guns. A young Omar turns from the window, making a gun with his fingers, and says that they should be out there, Hooly, shooting away! Rictor replies that he doesn’t know, it looks like bullets ain’t gonnna settle this one. Rictor then remembers that outside, “the shark” moved forward, no longer laughing, just burning with anger, and brimming with bizarre powers that left him speechless with awe. Stryfe sends all the men flying away from him with one massive telekinetic push, then strides forward to Rictor’s father, who has been knocked to the ground.
Louis Alejandro Richter, bellows Stryfe, you have lied to me! No, Señor Stryfe! replies the desperate Richter, trying to crawl away. He explains he had no choice, la policia were poking around, he had to move the merchandise quickly; Stryfe was two weeks late and he could not reach him no matter how he tried, so he sold the materials to Hydra at a loss just to be rid of them. Stryfe, unmoved, states that Richter has reneged on their agreement. He does not wish to see harm befall Richter’s entire family for his own personal indiscretions, but someone must pay. As Stryfe gets closer, Richter whispers “no” and clutches his firearm, then tells Stryfe to stay back and aims the weapon. He fires, and the bullet ricochets off of Stryfe’s telekinetic shield and kills Richter cleanly through a hole in his forehead.
Rictor remembers his father’s death this way, and now the years melt away and he sees it happening all over again. Stupid, pathetic people, willing to risk their lives… over what? Misguided vengeance? Or worse still, a twisted, warped sense of family honor? Honor among thieves? Gun dealers, whose every ring of the cash register means something, man or animal, may die. Outside, while Rictor struggles with his own thoughts, Cable and Domino have been surrounded by gun-toting members of Rictor’s family. Cable notes that this could get ugly. For them, Domino corrects. Then Rictor steps out, screaming That is enough! and unleashing a massive seismic shockwave into the ground outside his family’s residence, flinging everyone about like rag dolls, thrusting up blocks of sidewalk, and shattering foundations and windows.
Domino asks if Rictor is okay, and Rictor says he will be once he gets away from here. Pero, Julio… somos familia! comes his stepmother’s hurt entreaty. Rictor tells her that he knows they’re family, mommasita, but he hates everything they all stand for. He hates Poppa for doing what he did, and maybe, just maybe, he hates the rest of them even more for following in his dad’s footsteps! But more, he continues, than all of that, he hates what she did to her own son, because look at him: he sold his soul to become everything he didn’t want to become. As this has all taken place in Spanish, Cable offers a tentative Ric? to try to understand what’s going on.
Rictor asks Cable if he knew that when he was a kid, all he wanted to do was read books and escape from this life his family led? He used to remake his father into one of the heroes he read about, because he wanted him to be better than he was, because maybe that would mean he was better, too. But look at him now, Rictor speaks of himself, is he really all that different from his father? Cable tells him he is, more than he knows. Maybe, replies Rictor, he hopes so. Then, as they leave his family and crying stepmother behind, he tells Cable and Domino that he’d like to make one last stop before they go home…
An hour later, at the Guadalajara Hospital. Lying in his hospital bed, Rictor’s cousin Omar expresses his surprise that Rictor came home just to see him. He asks if Rictor has heard anything about Omar’s father; la policia won’t tell him a thing. It’s not good, replies Rictor: they don’t think he’s going to make it. Ay, mi poppa… hijos de… says Omar quietly; he then tells Rictor to smuggle him in a gun or two: he’ll shoot his way out! Leaning in to speak to his cousin, Rictor negates this idea, and tells his cousin that he’s going to prison, where he belongs. Traitor! calls Omar, shaking his fist, as Rictor turns to leave the hospital room. Is he too good for his own family now? Is that it? No, Omar, that’s not it, replies Rictor. He’s not too good for all of them… but he’s trying to be.
Trying to be, thinks Rictor as he strolls into the hospital’s parking lot, but how does he do that? How does he do that as a young man, whose very thought could do more damage than every gun his family has ever sold combined? He can’t leave X-Force; they’re his family now, which is pretty sad, he knows; he can’t really change the way they operate, either: they’re fighting a war, and to win any war, you need weapons. But can’t he choose what kind of weapon he’s going to be?
Beside him, two young boys rush about play-fighting, their hands shaped into guns. Pow! Pow! Henrique estas muerto! shouts one of them. No, me pegaste! Pchoo! Pchoo! shouts the other. Rictor grabs this one’s wrist, terrifying the boy, and tells him No more of that. He tells the boy to take his hand shaped like a gun, put his chin on his thumb and his finger on his temple, and think about doing something else. He knows it sounds stupid, but the best weapon the kid has is the one between his ears. He tells him to start using it now, and it’ll end up helping him a lot more than a gun can. From now on, Rictor calls from the rental car as he, Cable, and Domino pull away, that’s gonna be his new weapon: his brain. Make it yours too, he tells the kid, then closes the car door.
Pchoo! shouts the boy, shooting his finger-gun at their receding vehicle.


[User]
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Provide a full summary of the comic book.

[Assistant]
Beg Tomorrow
May 7th, 11:37 P.M.
Domino and Shatterstar stand upon the roof of Hannigan Electronics, a division of Strong Industries situated thirty-five miles south of Houston. If the information they gathered is correct, these two members of X-Force should have no problem breaking into the quiet scientific research facility. Domino announces to Shatterstar that they’re at the access point, and Shatterstar proposes they “turn up the volume.” Domino affirms his idea, but reminds him there is to be no slitting any throats, no breaking any faces: that may be how he used to do things, but right now the two of them are quick, quiet and efficient – understood?
Shatterstar states that they are on the same wavelength, then impatiently asks if they may proceed. Domino explains that she doesn’t mean to sound like a nag, but from what little she’s learned while being with X-Force, subtlety is not exactly their strong suit. Perhaps, replies Shatterstar, but after breaking free of the arena-masters on his homeworld, he lived among the shadows for two of his years: he can be as subtle and covert as the situation requires him to be.
Good, says Domino. Then, producing a small, pen-sized laser, she slices open the padlock holding their access point shut and continues: because this situation requires that the two of them crawl like a worm through five hundred yards of air conditioning vents. Fine, replies Shatterstar, but requests that they make the analogy that of a snake – call him a cobra, poised to strike! Semantics, mutters Domino as she enters the shaft, whatever floats his boat.
Two weeks ago, one of Domino’s international contacts gave her a document regarding ultra-high-level Pentagon contracts being awarded to different research companies across the country, contracts which indicated that research regarding self-actualizing computers was about to take a dramatic step forward. Military involvement in the development of sentient machines raises several red flags for some among the mutant community who have grown accustomed to being hounded and hunted for having been born different… but growing accustomed doesn’t mean they’ve grown complacent. As Domino observes a screen on her wristband with a map of the facility, she notes that they’re finally above the main lab corridor. She tells Shatterstar to move out, and tells him not to forget: no one gets hurt!
Dropping down from the ventilation system, Shatterstar replies that, as Rictor would say, “twenty-four-seven.” In English, please, requests a steadily-more-exasperated Domino. He is ready twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, explains Shatterstar. Domino sighs, and tells him that he’s been watching way too much “Yo, MTV raps!” Remind her, she requests, to expose him to some Vivaldi some day. You know. Real music. Shatterstar astutely notes that he senses disapproval from Domino, but contends that he finds the music very soothing.
Shatterstar’s response is interrupted by a small electronic sound as he walks in to the path of a thin orange beam of light. A door next to the duo then slides open with a quiet hiss of pressurized air; Domino asks what just occurred and Shatterstar explains he did nothing, save apparently trip an electronic eye and open a vault. He believes, he adds, that they have found what Earth videos would call the “hidden laboratory.” Domino thanks him for that keen observation as they enter the room, which contains a large metal tank full of fluid and a hunched figure floating within it.
Domino asks what is inside the tank, and Shatterstar replies he forgot: she wasn’t with them on that mission. She is seeing the remains of this facility’s principal owner, a brilliant, ruthless and physically deformed mutant named Martin Strong. The floating figure, embedded all over with various tubes and life-support instruments, slowly turns to leer at them with a cold glare as Shatterstar continues. Apparently, Strong is alive, though hardly conscious. Shatterstar imagines they are reconstructing a new synthetic body-shell to replace the one that X-Force inadvertently destroyed.
Domino explains that she would have read the file if any of them had bothered to log one. At least, she adds, his presence here proves one thing: the facility does have the kind of advanced scientific equipment necessary to build the kind of technology they’re trying to ferret out. Which, a voice adds from behind them, would mean that they might be looking for this? A stern-looking woman dressed in lab count with I.D. tag stands before them, holding up a palm-sized computer chip. She explains that her name is Crispin, and she’s the head of the research team that designed this chip… which she’s assuming is the reason for Domino and Shatterstar’s little visit. Following her estimation of their evolutionary levels, Crispin explains, she’s not going to insult any of their intelligences by pretending that she’s going to put up a fight.
Actually, replies Domino, they’re not here to hurt anyone; but she’s right, they do want the INTELLECT chip she’s holding. Crispin is surprised that they know about it, considering the amount of secrecy surrounding its development. You see, explains the doctor, possibly just wishing to show off the research team’s intense cleverness at naming their product in such a way that it forms the acronym INTELLECT, the Interactive Neural Transfer Independent Locomotion Energy Conservation Template is a revolutionary work years ahead of its time. That, replies Domino, is exactly what they’re afraid of. Shatterstar steps forward and snatches the chip from the woman’s hand, then asks her why she would be so willing to show them this one unless there were others already manufactured?
Are you always this rude? replies Crispin. She is not his enemy, no matter what he may think. Her team are scientists. Their Tomorrow Agenda research group was assigned to solve a problem, and they did. A simple equation. Indeed? retorts Shatterstar, waving his sword in her face. She seems proud of herself! Is she equally proud that her “simple equation” may cost countless innocent lives? Does her kind ever stop to consider exactly why her military would be so interested in such a dramatic advancement in robotics technology? Frankly, replies Crispin, no. She has her job, and she does it. She has a question for him, though: did he and “his kind” ever stop to consider that humans wouldn’t be building something like thus unless mutants were giving them a valid reason to do it?
May 9th, 7:54 A.M.
Rictor and Warpath wait in a Jeep a short distance away from a suburban home, six miles outside of Memphis, Tennessee. They have maintained this same surveillance for the last three weeks, monitoring a Doctor Bougred Suntas. Rictor frowns and looks out the window, telling Warpath that he doesn’t know if he agrees with him. Take his own stupid family, he offers, as the perfect example of human nature: if you’ve got a big club, someone else is going to want a bigger one! The way he looks at it, replies Warpath, is that if his family had those bigger clubs a year ago, they might not have been slaughtered by the Hellfire Club’s attack.
Maybe, maybe not, replies Rictor. Then he notes that Warpath never talks about it much, losing his family the way he did. And now, living back at Camp Verde where they were killed, it must be tough: a constant reminder. What’s to say? replies Warpath, turning his head down in thought. They were killed. The people that did it aren’t even around any more. Who should he take his anger and pain out on, the whole world? Nah, taking it out on himself is a lot smarter, eh? retorts Rictor. You should talk, shoots back Warpath. Then, an abrupt change of topic: Warpath announces that Suntas is coming out of his home. He mutters that you could set a clock to this guy’s routine.
Suntas gets in his purple sedan and drives away, and Rictor and Warpath shortly follow, tailing him in their Jeep. Well, offers Rictor, today’s the last day they have to worry about tailing him. Cable’s communiqué said that Domino and Shatterstar found what X-Force needed in Houston, so it’s their turn to pick up the next piece of the puzzle. Ready? asks Warpath. Only since the second day they got here, replies Rictor. Activating his powers, he explains that a low-level vibratory quake should build up enough air pressure in Suntas’ tire until…
As Rictor planned, Suntas’ tire suffers a blowout, and he stops his car, distraught. Rictor and Warpath then park their Jeep and step out to play the roles of conveniently-timed good Samaritans. Rictor notes that Suntas had a nasty blowout, and asks if he’s okay. Suntas replies, shakily, that he is fine, thank you. Warpath asks if he needs help with his spare tire, and Suntas replies that he would like that, yes, thank you. No problem, replies Warpath, just point him to the jack and Suntas won’t even be late for work.
Meanwhile, Rictor notes to himself that they scared Suntas; he didn’t think he’d get all worked up over a flat tire. They tried to make this as painless as possible, and Suntas seems like an okay guy, too. Kind of low to be doing this to him, Rictor thinks, as he approaches the briefcase in the back seat. But what choice do they really have? It’s better to get what they need nice and quiet like this, without anyone getting hurt.
Rictor snaps off several pictures with a palm-sized camera and, shortly thereafter Suntas’ tire is changed and he has continued on his way to work. So what now? asks Rictor. What say they find a Fotomat that can develop pictures from a camera that won’t be built for another two thousand years? Very funny, replies Warpath, but how about they just bring the information on all the documents which were inside Suntas’ attaché back to Camp Verde, and hope that Cable makes the right decision?
May 12th, 12:44 P.M.
Cable and Forge sit at a table inside a restaurant near Capitol Hill. Forge expresses his surprise that Cable picked such an open place for them to meet; it doesn’t seem his style. The food here is excellent, explains Cable, and the wine list is second to none; being a “wanted outlaw” has never forced him to give up the finer things in life before, so why start now? Forge wryly supposes that living in a bunker in the middle of the desert doesn’t give Cable an opportunity to sample haute cuisine very often, then notes that he and his team are as uncomfortable in their roles as “public mutants” as X-Force is in their role as outsiders. The only difference, mutters Cable, is that X-Factor’s role gets them on magazine covers, while his team’s gets them into the morgue.
Back off, snaps Forge: they just lost Jamie Madrox to the Legacy Virus. The memory is still raw… don’t belittle what they have to do and they won’t minimize X-Force’s sacrifices either. Cable apologizes and states that he’s just tense. He knows he and Forge have their parts to play, and they both do them well. Then, getting to task, Cable explains that he called this meeting to talk to Forge about Camp Hayden and the Sentinel-development program that X-Factor discovered there. It seems that the government has been really busy in pushing the envelope regarding artificial intelligence, which has led to… this! Cable then produces the INTELLECT chip, encased in a transparent cube.
Forge’s eyes widen in shock. Amazing, he mutters, this isn’t right. He asks Cable where he got the chip. Cable explains that the schematics came from a research lab in Houston, along with a lot more evidence pointing toward an advancement in robotic technology, which simply should not be happening. Now that’s an understatement, exclaims Forge, as he quickly scrawls mathematical symbols upon a napkin. He notes that the “interactive fiber-optics” required to operate this circuitry board should still be at least twenty-five years away: this is scary. No, replies Cable, more like terrifying.
Forge asks if Cable is suggesting that X-Factor not tearing Camp Hayden to the ground allowed this project to continue in active development; Cable responds that he doesn’t blame Forge’s team. Having spent his entire life in wartime has taught him to respect the rights of a people to defend themselves. He’d be a fool to say otherwise, but this… if this Tomorrow Agenda is allowed to continue, the United States government will have taken a step beyond self-defense and taken the first step toward the genocide of the entire mutant race!
May 13th, 3:41 P.M.
Siryn and Banshee stroll together through the ivy-covered grounds of the Massachusetts Academy. Banshee expresses that it’s a pleasant surprise seeing Siryn there, and Siryn says that she could say the same of him. In fact, she’s also surprised to hear him tell her that Professor Xavier is thinking about taking over the running of the Academy. Banshee explains that they’ve decided to keep it mum for now; Xavier has some long-term goals he’s trying to approach with a modicum of subtlety. Subtlety, eh? replies Siryn. Now that has something to do with why she came looking for him today.
If it’s about what happened at Cassidy Keep between herself and Black Tom, he… No, Siryn replies, cutting him off. She’s settled with that. There’s a lot of pain between Tom and her, but she can handle it. Don’t be too sure, replies Banshee. Wounds like that don’t go away so easily, as much as we’d like them to. Steering the conversation back to task, Siryn explains that she really needs to talk about a mission the X-Men had a while back. It didn’t involve Banshee, but she hoped he might able to help out. Banshee coldly replies that he would have thought any information they might need in that regard was in the computer discs they stole from Xavier months ago.
A shocked Siryn can only stammer out her surprise that the X-Men knew about that. Banshee explains that they found out about it while he and Beast were doing a systems analysis of the databanks. Xavier already knew; he said he had discussed it briefly with Cannonball before X-Force left and decided to let the matter lie. Siryn explains that, at the time, they didn’t think that asking would get them what they needed and, with Cable missing and them having been treated like prisoners, X-Force didn’t feel they could work with the X-Men.
Banshee explains that he, Xavier and Moira blame themselves. They should have been spending less time thinking about how X-Force left them and let them down, and more time considering how they themselves may have disappointed the youths of X-Force. He then adds that he’d like him and Siryn to have a better relationship, if not as father and daughter then at least as friends. Siryn says that she’d like that too. So then, asks Banshee, what can one friend do for another? Siryn explains that they need more than what is in the stolen files. They need to know who, or what, was Nimrod.
May 13th, 5:37 P.M.
As the setting sun’s rays illuminate the Guthrie farm in Cumberland County, Kentucky, Cannonball and Paige Guthrie both lean against a wooden fence railing and discuss what the future holds for them. Paige is asking Cannonball if he’s really immortal. So he’s been told, replies Cannonball, but who knows for sure? Paige asks if she’ll be one too, since she’s a mutant just like him. Cannonball says with consternation that he has no clue, and he’s not about to try killing her in order to find out. Which brings them back to the point, doesn’t it? mutters Paige, looking away.
Cannonball asks her if she really wants to leave, and risk her life. As Boomer approaches in the distance, Paige explains to her brother that she wants to be an X-Man. She wants to make a difference in the world, and she thinks that leaving Xavier’s is the dumbest thing that Cannonball ever did. Look at him, she says; he has no idea who he is or who he should be. She knows what she needs, and what she needs is to go to Charles Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters and become everything that Cannonball chose not to. Besides her manners, retorts Cannonball, she’s forgetting one thing: Xavier doesn’t have much of a school any more.
As she strolls away whilst Boomer arrives, Paige shouts over her shoulder, asking if hot-shot “I-been-all-over-the-galaxy-Cannonball” ever stopped to think that maybe that’s because no one has signed up for classes lately. Boomer asks what that was all about, and Cannonball replies that it was about choices: the ones they made, the ones they should have made, and the ones they’re going to make.
May 14th, 6:21 A.M.
Inside the communications theatre of the X-Force bunkers in Camp Verde, Arizona, the team has gathered to determine whether they can change the course of fate. Cable lectures in front of a projection of Camp Hayden: on the screen is the location where the actual assembly of the new Sentinel technology is being done. It’s heavily guarded. If they do decide to go in, there will no doubt be trouble, the kind of trouble they may not walk away from. But, asks Warpath, they’re still not sure exactly what they’re going to find inside, are they?
All the information they’ve been gathering, replies Domino, indicates that they’re developing one heck of a mutant tracking system, and the potential for that technology to get out of control is too great to ignore. Cable adds that they’re talking about something much more dangerous than a Sentinel… much more deadly. They’re dealing with the technology that allowed the Nimrod technology to develop and flourish in the early twenty-first century, which in turn led from the detention of mutantkind to their near extinction.  Warpath again expresses his confusion; Cable has said over and over again that the future is malleable, that any event can change it. How does he know for certain these things will happen?
He doesn’t, replies Cable, but things already are happening, fifty years sooner than they should be. The four scientists, Crispin, Suntas, Wilker and Hawkins-Mailer, have unwittingly set into motion a chain of events which will lead to massive loss of life and destruction. X-Force, he continues, have an opportunity to stop the Nimrod technology, now, before it gets beyond their ability to do anything about it. Should they turn their backs on the only chance they may get? No, answers Domino, they can’t and mustn’t. But something still stinks here, she adds: someone is responsible for this technology showing up here and now.
Cable agrees, and states that the clue may be in the files they obtained from the X-Men. He changes the projection on the screen to a still of Nimrod’s first battle with the X-Men, and narrates: the original Nimrod-prototype appeared in the 616 time node a few years back, having traveled here from its own future. It took human form and was taken in as a boarder by this man – and Cable changes the slide eponymous – Jamie Rodriguez. It served its programmed, perverted sense of peace-keeping functions for a time, he continues as he changes the slide appropriately, as well as confronting the original Hellfire Club.
Now switching the projection to a scene of Master Mold fusing with Nimrod, Cable explains that Nimrod’s programming was somehow co-opted by the Master Mold Sentinel and turned into an amalgamation of the two individual units. Lastly, Cable changes the projection to a scene of the Nimrod-Master Mold amalgamation being sent through a glowing portal: the X-Men and Dazzler were able to defeat it by sending it through the interdimensional portal called the Siege Perilous.
Ending the presentation, Cable says that, unfortunately, he can’t show them the worst of it because so few records from the next century survived into his own time. He can’t show them how squadrons of Nimrods systematically purged thousands of mutants. Not to sound like a defeatist or nothing, interjects Rictor, but if these things are so phenomenally deadly, what difference can X-Force make? Nimrod is a technological construct with sentient awareness programs built into it, explains Domino. It learns from its experiences, it gets better at what it does – and it should be obvious to them all by now that what it does is kill, finishes Cable. That’s why, he concludes, they have to put an end to it now, while it’s still in the development stage.
Cut if off at the knees before it gets a chance to learn how to walk, huh? puts forth Warpath. It does make sense, adds Siryn. And, she asks, Cable thinks this Nimrod is important enough to warrant the risks they’d be taking? Yes, confirms Cable, but he knows the kind of heat breaking in to a government facility will generate. None of them has to come with him if they choose not to. And he wants them to know that he doesn’t intend to walk into Hayden with guns blazing, pointing to their presence with neon signs, they’re going in quick and clean. They’re going to stop this insanity and, for a change of pace, they’re going to try subtlety.
May 15th, 2:27 A.M.
Siryn and Rictor approach Camp Hayden, Kentucky. They come in low, beneath the radar defense screen surrounding the military base. Siryn’s pitch is so high that human ears can’t hear it, but dogs across a ten-mile radius start barking in confusion. Rictor releases a vibratory quake in pulses, which are tightly defined, yet growing in intensity. His job is to take out the equipment, just a bolt here and a hinge there – not enough to set the taxpayers back by billions. Siryn is responsible for the soldiers. Her sonic scream pitches across the camp in soft waves, resulting in a scrambling of the fluid in the humans’ inner ears, causing dizzy nausea and then restless sleep. She announces to Cable that they’re clear, and tells him to move the rest of X-Force in. It is 2:31 a.m., and things look good. Everything has gone according to plan.
2:51 a.m. Things have changed. Gunshots ring out, smoke rolls across broken machinery, and someone shouts out to cover them from behind.
2:57 a.m. For the worse. Rictor and Shatterstar lie battered into unconsciousness among the smoking wreckage as more shots ring out. Warpath lies similarly disabled, thrown into a wall so hard that he lies embedded in his own impact crater. Siryn feebly tries to crawl forward across the wreckage. A nearby computer screen has blinked to life:
[GUARDIAN AGENDA
PROJECT PARAMATERS ACTIVATED:
CONTROL CODE 133 INITIATED – OMEGA PRIORITY 1
OPERATION: IDENTIFICATION: BERNARD WALKER: VERIFIED
PROJECT PROTOTYPE ENGAGED:
CONTROL CODE 155 INITIATED – OMEGA PRIORITY 2
OPERATION: INDENTIFICATION: VALERIE HAWKINS-MAILER: VERIFIED]
Cable hunches among the wreckage, equally battered and smoldering. Spitting up blood, he asks Domino if she’s all right. Appearing from behind a pile of broken monitors and shrapnel, Domino states that she’s still standing, but requests to know what the heck just hit them. Across the room, scientist Hawkins-Mailer attempts to assist her fellow scientist Walker, who has been injured in the scuffle. Hawkins-Mailer shouts that “it” activated itself when X-Force breached the interior security net. She doesn’t know how, but it made itself! They had no idea it would be like this!
[There is no concern, Doctor Hawkins-Mailer], replies a cold, boxy, robotic voice. [Programming parameters are functioning properly. Only Homo sapiens superior targets are in danger]. Tell that, retorts a Cable struggling to stand up, to all of the human scientists who were just injured when it attacked X-Force! The voice explains that it has an automatic learning program. It develops. It adapts. It grows. Oh god, whispers Walker, that’s what they’re afraid of. Hawkins-Mailer shouts to X-Force that this is all their fault: this Sentinel model was intended for research purposes only! They had no right to interfere!
That sounds real good if she’s trying to rationalize her own participation in this, snaps back Cable, but the truth is that somehow, some way, these scientists created an artificial intelligence that shouldn’t exist! One that has no choice, no programming direction, other than to become a genocidal killer! Nimrod doesn’t know how to defend without destroying; it can’t protect without annihilating!
[I am afraid], replies the voice, [this mutant {target reference: sub-search S.H.I.E.L.D. access files} … Cable is correct, Doctor Hawkins-Mailer]. In mute shock, Hawkins-Mailer surveys her creation and whispers that this can’t be possible, it isn’t a part of its programming! [That is correct, Doctor], replies the voice. But, it proceeds to explain, its programming does allow it to develop. To adapt. To grow.
[And logically], replies the familiar form of the Nimrod Sentinel, emerging from the strewn wreckage of the damaged laboratory, [the only way to ensure fulfillment of this unit’s programming parameters, and the eventual security of the Homo sapiens species, is through the complete elimination of the Homo sapiens superior species! To save mankind, Nimrod must destroy mutantkind!]


[User]
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Provide a full summary of the comic book.

[Assistant]
Genocidal Tendencies
Cape Hayden, Kentucky: a base for covert military research and development. X-Force came here quietly, hoping to purge – with a minimum of attention – the development of an advanced and potentially deadly robotics technology. Cable and Domino are now the only members left standing. They have come to realize two flaws in their strategy: one, their team never seems to accomplish anything with any degree of subtlety, and two, the robotics technology they came to eliminate was more advanced than they expected!
As the reconstructed Nimrod Sentinel looms over them, Domino asks Cable if he’s holding up okay, to which he responds that he is, barely. Nimrod interjects to explain that he fully advises surrender as their only logical option. Cable and Domino instead opt to flee, scattering through the remnants of the laboratory area, which X-Force’s battle with Nimrod has so trashed. Nimrod responds by firing off a series of small metallic spheres, which home in on Cable. As Cable leaps through the air, announcing that he is in no kind of mood for this, the spheres reach him and detonate with a massive explosion, sending him to the floor in a defeated and smoldering heap.
Domino, enraged, informs Nimrod that it’s time he saw some mutants fight back, and fires off some potshots in his general direction. Meanwhile, Valerie Hawkins-Mailer, co-director of the Guardian Agenda research team that has recreated Nimrod, expresses her shock at what is occurring: they didn’t install the weapons systems that Nimrod is deploying! She demands Nimrod tell her how he is doing this; the programming core they created for him did not include instructions for him to give birth to himself or to process and actuate weaponry which they’ve never even heard of! Nimrod politely explains that he is not proceeding with the programming she installed into his matrix core; he simply stated he is proceeding with his programming.
In the background, the same type of spherical drones which took down Cable have attempted to home in on Domino. They fail and miss, exploding harmlessly behind her. Nimrod is shocked: this result is not logical. MIAD systems are designed to use a tracked target’s mutagenic signature against itself! Domino requests that Nimrod take a wild guess as to what happens when his target’s powers are to naturally have things fall into place for them? Nimrod protests, as he continues to uselessly fire weapon system after weapon system at Domino, that this is not a mutagenic ability for which actions and reactions can be logically anticipated.
Nimrod then determines that his inability to properly predict the actions of this mutant target may necessitate extreme actions to be undertaken in order for the target to be nullified. He releases a whirling blade from his wrist and then continues to pursue Domino. As Domino leaps clear of Nimrod’s fist, the blade that Nimrod released hits a nearby pipe and releases a burst of hot steam, which stuns Domino. She falls to the ground.
Nimrod advances toward her menacingly, explaining that a viable means of positive interdiction has been discovered. Domino’s mutagenic power enabled her to avoid his perceived initial assault, but it did not serve to successfully prevent Nimrod from accessing his true target: the steam pipes in front of her. Weakly crawling away, Domino mutters that Nimrod is such a sneaky robot, isn’t he?
In the distance, Cable, barely breathing, can only watch helplessly as Nimrod closes in on the weakened Domino. In a burst of desperation, he uses a flash of telekinetic power to twist the ruptured pipe toward Nimrod just as the robot releases a plasma burst. Nimrod is incinerated. And then continues walking forward, barely scratched. Domino announces to Cable, past the smoking and sizzling robot, her thanks: that bought her an extra three seconds of life! How will she ever use them all wisely? move it! Nimrod gloomily replies that Shatterstar has simply provided him with another genetic miscreant to eliminate.
Across the lab, the recovering Dr. Walker explains that X-Force won’t hold out much longer, and brute force won’t be able to stop Nimrod. Dr. Hawkins-Mailer asks how else he proposes to stop an unstoppable killing machine? Back in the heat of battle, Shatterstar again manages to slash open Nimrod’s armor, this time at a knee joint. Announcing his success to Domino, she replies that she’s duly impressed, then tells him to clear out as she slaps an explosive into Nimrod’s open “wound.” The explosion is rather larger than she was expecting, and both Domino and Shatterstar – along with a fair deal of rubble – are tossed about violently.
Recovering, Shatterstar asks Domino if she is unhurt. She replies that, no, she is not unhurt! And from the looks of it, neither is Hopalong Cassidy. She is referring to Nimrod, who is now down a leg but still standing by propping himself against some wreckage. After explaining that he finds Domino’s cultural allusions confusing, he notes that the damage these two have caused to his system operations are not sufficient for them to elude him much longer. While this may be accurate, it proves irrelevant, as a full-force sonic scream tears into Nimrod and further decommissions him. The battered Rictor, Siryn, and Warpath stand behind the semi-destroyed robot; Rictor announces that this is about as much as the three of them are going to be able do, considering they’re a walking pile of broken bones.
At the still-functional computer terminals of the lab, Dr. Hawkins-Mailer announces to Cable that she estimates about ten minutes in their favor before Nimrod’s self-repair system is completed. She explains that Dr. Walker and she can try to access Nimrod’s database from their computer system. But, adds Dr. Walker, be warned: he may have evolved to such a degree as to prevent them from accomplishing that! Producing a strange protrusion from his techno-organic arm, Cable tells Walker to just find the “door” to their little “project,” and leave him to find the key. Cable then interfaces with the computer and announces that he’s going to try to use his very out-of-practice telepathy to take the three of them on a trip into the astral plane of Nimrod’s artificial intelligence.
For an instant, there is nothingness; then there is everything within nothingness; and then out of that all, the three minds reclaim their sense of self… inside Nimrod’s mind. Dr. Hawkins-Mailer finds it amazing; Nimrod has sentient awareness: it can think! But can it comprehend? In answer to this, Nimrod’s swirling psyche begins to take form before them, announcing that it was capable enough to have created itself: it comprehended the concept of self-preservation. During its first tenure in this temporal node, in its original body, it downloaded a self-awareness program into the military cybernet; a sleeper virus which awaited the opportunity to access a Sentinel development program which it could use to recreate itself.
Dr. Hawkins-Mailer exclaims that Nimrod shouldn’t even be there. They’re not ready to build something like him. That, interjects Cable, is exactly what brought X-Force here. How could a technology that won’t be developed for decades exist here and now without upsetting the balance of time? Cable then asks in confusion what Nimrod is doing to him, as his techno-organic arm begins to stretch and contort in a haphazard manner. Nimrod replies that he is doing nothing; Cable’s techno-organic mesh is interacting with Nimrod’s neural net. Cable is proving his point against himself: he, bearing technology from two thousand years in the future, has illogically involved himself in the proceedings of this time-node, as well.
Cable tells Nimrod to back off: Nimrod is denying his own programming, his own “destiny,” while Cable is fulfilling his. Nimrod requests that Cable declare his reasoning for this statement. Cable argues that Nimrod claims his programming is to save human beings from the threat of mutants. His own logic dictates that the most efficient way to accomplish that is to eliminate all mutants. But he’s not supposed to be doing that there! He was created in a world which had witnessed humans and mutants killing each other for over twenty-five years! Millions were already dead before his programming even came online!
Therefore, replies Nimrod, those millions can be saved by acting now, in anticipation of future strife. No! replies Cable. Millions more will die if Nimrod precipitates full-scale mutant warfare before it happened in his timeline. Dr. Hawkins-Mailer asks Nimrod to run the statistical data necessary to approximate what the casualty figures would be like if a Nimrod Hunter unit had existed sixty years earlier. Nimrod complies and begins to process the numbers, hacking into Project: Wideawake’s files on identified and suspected mutants, correlating locations and population census data…
[Sanctioning the targets X-Force would anticipate the loss of one hundred thirty seven non-combatants complemented by seventy-seven injuries.]
[New Delhi: Comcast, Exelite Organization: 75,655]
[Salem Center: X-Men: tactical warhead: 233,174]
[Novosibirsk: Darkstar, Blind Faith: 44,998]
[Russia: General Dispersal Program: 1.4 million]
[Westmorris: Firestar, New York vicinity extrapolation: 2.7 million]
[Muir Island: Excalibur: 2]
[Orbital parameters: Avalon: irreparable damage to atmosphere: anticipated casualties, incalculable]
Calculating the numbers, Nimrod begins to suspect the futility of its existence. It is unable to find a sense of purpose or reason for being in the face of data. Outside the astral plane, in the middle of combat with the still-standing members of X-Force, Nimrod abruptly shudders to a halt. Warpath exclaims in disbelief that it… just stopped? Tapping Nimrod’s armor, Shatterstar expresses his disappointment that it occurred just as they were getting a good workout. Domino suspects that they had very little to do with it, and Cable, reappearing with the scientists, explains that they all had a little discussion.
Pardon his reluctance to cheer this victory, begins Shatterstar, but are they saying that the machine shut itself down because they asked it? Not quite, replies Dr. Hawkins-Mailer. More, they showed it a better way to achieve its goals. And that would be? asks an incredulous Shatterstar. By letting humans and mutants work at succeeding in their need to coexist, rather than to foment further divisions between them, replies Dr. Hawkins-Mailer.
She then opens a panel on Nimrod and removes a rectangular, hard-drive-like device. Explaining that this is Nimrod’s central neural net, she says that without it the robot is a glorified Pentagon paperweight. She states that the scientists at Cape Hayden will keep the robot, study its alloys and defensive systems, but Cable and his crew get the network. Humans, she announces, deserve the chance to protect themselves, and mutants deserve the chance to defend themselves. Cable reluctantly agrees, being in little position to do otherwise. Domino suggests that X-Force exit, because the security guards will be waking up soon. Dr. Hawkins-Mailer agrees, and explains that she’ll tell security the truth: the Sentinel prototype went out of control and was stopped by the very people it was designed to eliminate.
Meanwhile: the Guthrie Farm in Cumberland County, Kentucky. Cannonball and Boomer sit among Cannonball’s family in the kitchen of the farmhouse, idly chatting over breakfast. Their banter is interrupted by a knock at the door. Josh Guthrie goes to answer it, only to find himself greeted by some very severe-looking men. Gideon announces his greetings to the human, and then tells him that, if he values his life, he will tell his brother that the Externals are here.


[User]
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Provide a full summary of the comic book.

[Assistant]
The Young and the Restless
A man with long black hair, clad in blue garments with a tattered blue cloak trailing his movements, cuts through a horde of Mongolian warriors with both sword and energy blasts. His face bears strange blue markings, and he utterly destroys any who attempt to oppose him. Amid this setting, the External known as Saul begins to narrate his memories: it was the middle of the twelfth century, if memory serves him. The blue-clad man came alone from somewhere in Egypt, his name preceding his arrival even as far away from there as the Mongolian steppes were. En Sabah Nur had come! The apocalypse was here!
This tidal wave of fury and destruction rolled over the Ho-Lan Shan Mountains, endured the ravages of the Ordos Desert, and waded through Saul’s warriors like a primal force of nature. This barbaric journey was undertaken, this much blood was spilled, all for the express purpose of meeting with Saul. En Sabah Nur asks Saul if he is the one who claims to be an immortal magician, the one named Garbha-Hsien. Nur asks if the rumors are true that Saul’s magics are such as to cause legions to scurry in fright from a mere wisp of a man such as himself.
Saul’s ancient self replies that if power invites fear, his very existence is an open invitation to all who know of him. Really? asks Nur. He questions whether Saul is really so certain that a force may not exist which is more fit for survival than he. Then Nur asks Saul to show him this incredible power of his, to make Nur afraid of him; if Saul does so, perhaps his “immortal life” shall be extended to the rising of tomorrow’s sun.
Outside, Saul levitates himself into the air and asks Nur if he is, then, to perform parlor tricks for Nur’s amusement; if this is what is required to meet with his arrogant approval. Nur is impressed, noting that the “dismissal of this world’s shackles” is something which not even he is capable of. Saul floats up the mountainside, asking that the Egyptian come with him and allow him to show why he has chosen to reside where he did after several lifetimes of nomadic existence.
This last statement catches Nur’s attention, and he asks whether Saul truly is like him, a “forever-walker.” Saul replies that his feet have trod times beyond Nur’s imagining. But, he continues, allow him to show why even ones such as he, and indeed most especially one such as Nur, must always be willing to put their abilities within the proper sense of perspective. Stab their eyes, mutters Nur at the sight before him.
Amid the snowfields of the high mountains, a massive alien ship stretches high into the sky like a monolithic gray citadel. Saul explains that, on that day, for the first time in his already long life, En Sabah Nur gazed upon something more powerful than he was. As it had done for Saul fifty years before that day, when his tribe had first found the strange “chariot from the stars,” the construct both humbled and humiliated Nur.
Saul, during that moment in the past, then speaks to Nur, explaining that, in the time he has studied this marvel, in all it has taught him, one lesson stands out most glaringly: the fact that even eternal beings such as they shall always find something more to learn about. Perhaps, concedes Nur, he is right. Nur then continues, explaining that the homily well applies to him, but he is afraid – referring to Saul – that this celestial body has nothing more to teach him, because on this day – with this he plunges his sword into Saul’s back – his life ends!
The sword ripped through his back, narrates Saul, and he watched it come out from the front of his chest. Then Nur walked away, never, in his arrogance, wondering exactly why it was that beings such as they had lived for so long. In his memory, Saul collapses backwards, a pool of his own blood forming against the crisp white snow, and Nur stalks away toward the citadel-ship. The wound Saul received, he explains, was great, but not mortal… not to an External anyway. Words failed, in a gurgle of his own blood, to escape his lips as he watched Nur disappear inside the wondrous craft, whose secrets were denied to Saul for so long and were now for another to decipher.
Ceasing his reminiscence, Saul explains in the present that he learned a very valuable lesson that day, centuries gone by. He learned that there will always be someone on this earth more cunning, more ruthless, and more powerful than he. It is something which many among “their” exclusive, though dwindling, club of immortal mutants still refuse to acknowledge. He wanted to teach that lesson today to one in particular among his audience… Samuel Guthrie, Cannonball.
Duh, chimes in Boomer. She, Cannonball, and Saul, along with Gideon, sit around a campfire near the Guthrie residence in Kentucky. In the distance stands Absalom, brooding and removed.
Hush, replies Cannonball to Boomer before continuing to address Saul. He was taught, explains Cannonball, long before he was told he was an External, that he wasn’t better than anyone else on God’s Earth. And Apocalypse… Saul says he’s an External, but he isn’t like the rest of them, he’s… sort of mechanical, isn’t he? Saul replies that he told them he saw En Sabah Nur walk into the celestial star-vessel on that day; he never said he saw Apocalypse walk out. Gideon explains that En Sabah Nur found his own path to power, and Saul learned his life would take quite a different direction. They have all been taught that lesson at one point in their lives. Sam notes that, obviously, the Externals didn’t come to his family farm just to tell them that. Gideon agrees; they didn’t.
Enough, screams Absalom, having approached the gathering. This dance of avoidance bores him, he complains, and asks that they tell their newest ascendant why they have come here to seek an audience. Why, he asks, do they step lightly all around the little fool? Is it because he remains a mystery to them? Well, he adds haughtily, he’s never seen Candra or Selene come to the gatherings and they’ve never treated them this kindly. Grabbing Cannonball by the shirt and hefting him into the air, Absalom asks why they keep humoring this brat of Xavier’s. Is it because they think they need him? Is that it?
Hurling Cannonball against a nearby tree, Absalom continues: is it because two of them, Nicodemus and Burke, have already died from this damnable pox of mutants? Tearing open his shirt, Absalom reveals a chest scarred with familiar purplish lesions. And soon, he continues, they will add his name to the list of Legacy virus victims, won’t they? But he’s not going to see his long life end on some sod farm in a dredge-of-a-hole like this, he screams as he grabs Boomer by her hair, just because “Sammy-boy” would rather spend his days in blissful ignorance with this eyeblink of a sow!
Hey, buddy, retorts Boomer, the eyeblink has a name: it’s Boomer, on account of these cool explosive plasma bombs she can make. At that, she explodes one of said plasma bombs into Absalom’s face, causing him to release her and reel back. He then calls her a fool as sharp, grayish protrusions begin to erupt out from his skin, tearing apart his coat completely. Bellowing, he explains that he may be ill, his life may be drawing to unfair close, but he refuses to be treated like some commoner. Not even by an “eyeblink” whose mutant potential is as great as Boomer’s. Stepping forward and putting his blast field up, Cannonball asks about himself – does Absalom care to give him a shot?
No, states Gideon, restraining him, he does not. Absalom, says Gideon, apologizes to Cannonball and his friend. His actions notwithstanding, they did not come there to fight. No, concedes Absalom, they did not. Forgive his outburst, he asks; staring death in the face for the first time in so very long has left him a tad high-strung. You see, continues Saul, they have all faced death once before and managed to triumph over it. It is the defining moment for an External, the moment of transmutation into something more. But this virus represents the unknown for them, a challenge to their sense of self. It is the inevitable end to their existence.
We were born, explains Cannonball, and we’ll all die. That’s just the way it is. He accepted that long ago when his father died, then Doug Ramsey, and then Illyana a few months ago. But for some of us, counters Absalom, death was just the beginning, a continuation of a very torturous, wasteful way of existing. Absalom begins to remember back, as Saul did, to an important time in his life.
The last century was drawing to a close, and he had come to a small town in Wyoming, on the run from about six sheriffs in as many states. He was a thief and a killer, and his life was going to end on the twisting end of a hangman’s noose. Two days there, he ran into an old man; once, when he was younger, the man had been a legend. Absalom challenged the legend to a duel, for he was young and the man’s best days were gone, and he wanted to best a legend. The old man said no, smiled, and walked away… so Absalom shot him in the back. That’s not, he muses, the way a man like Caleb Hammer was meant to die. But how could someone like Absalom, who didn’t even know how a man was supposed to live, or understand how he cheapened it further by cowardly murder?
He was caught by the townspeople and put to the noose before a gathered crowd. He remembers the feeling of the breath slipping out of his lungs as his feet were dropped out from under him, and he wondered what kind of a special place would be reserved for him in Hell. Then something happened, for the first time: his powers manifested themselves. Bone-like spikes erupted out of his body. A noose was no longer a fearful thing, and he was free. In his memory, the townspeople scatter in terror as he drops down from the hangman’s platform, unharmed.
It was, adds Absalom, 1896 in Wyoming, so they can well imagine how the good townsfolk reacted to everything they were seeing: guns were immediately drawn from coats, and Absalom was slain in a hail of bullets. There he was; he’d gone from staring death down, to feeling a life inside him like he’d never felt before, to being shot down like a rabid dog in the street. As he died, recalls Absalom, he thought, “If only I could do it all over again, then I’d do it right, I’d make something useful out of myself.” Two days later, he woke up inside a wooden coffin behind a funeral parlor. He was no longer dead, and he took advantage of this unexpected deliverance and quit the village under the light of the moon. And, he concludes, he never went back to being the man he was… but he was never strong enough to become the man he wanted to be.
Reaching into the fire unharmed, Saul pulls out a burning piece of wood and contemplatively examines it. For Absalom, he says, death was the defining moment of his life. He has allowed the sad, pitiable self-awareness he gained on that day to prevent him from ever becoming anything more or less than he had been before the moment of change. So, asks Cannonball indignantly, is he supposed to feel sorry for him? A self-confessed murderer? Looking at all of them, hearing what they have to say… it doesn’t particularly make him feel he needs or wants to be a part of their “club.” He’s only twenty years old and it seems to him that he’s done more with his life, learning and growing, trying and failing, than any of the Externals have done over the course of countless centuries!
Do not, replies Gideon with carefully restrained menace, belittle all they have brought to the eternal puzzle. Nicodemus brought wisdom, Burke fortitude, Saul provides patience, Crule ferocity, Absalom despair, Candra and Selene add guile and corruption, he himself provides opportunity, and Cannonball, their newest ascendant… to him they come for hope.
Meanwhile. Camp Verde, Arizona, the current location of X-Force’s base. Somewhere amid the high bluffs and cliffs sits Warpath, alone in the quiet night, wondering: is this enough for him, to just endure? Shouldn’t there be more? Shouldn’t there be a change? These thoughts are echoed somewhere below, in one of the camp houses, by Cable and Domino. Domino relaxes, naked in a crude Jacuzzi, while Cable stands nearby in T-shirt and shorts, negotiating with her. Domino asks if Cable is sure he wants to go through with this. He replies that he doesn’t think they really have much of a choice… does she?
X-Force has outgrown Camp Verde, he expresses, in more ways than one. Well, replies Domino, they have narrowed the new site proposals down to a few possibilities… and now he wants her to get out of this nice, warm, scented Jacuzzi to go check those sites out? Cable admits that it’s terribly selfish, but requests that she look at it this way: if her search pans out, she won’t have the desert dust and grime to put up with anymore… because X-Force will have a new base of operations!
Meanwhile still. The South Bronx, New York. A little slice of heaven on Earth… if despair, poverty, misery, and madness is someone’s idea of paradise. A homeless bum sifts through the wreckage of an old apartment complex. He finds a barricaded opening and begins to tug off the wooden obstruction as rats scurry away; finally, he breaks off enough pieces to peer inside, and the sight is sufficient to elicit a surprised scream from the man.
Shortly thereafter, the phone rings at the desk of the 44th precinct’s Detective Hidalgo; he answers and asks the voice on the other end, “Bernie,” what he has for him. Bernie replies that a body was found an hour ago, pretty soupy; been dead for about four years. They’re pulling the dental now, but his gut tells him they got a match. Hidalgo says that he thinks so too. After all this time, he adds, pulling a file folder off his desk labeled “Callasantos,” he thinks they may be able to finally nail those two sisters for the murder of their family.
The Guthrie farm, Kentucky. Cannonball is confused by Gideon’s claims that the Externals need him to give them hope. Gideon explains that they all bring something to the tapestry of the infinite. Each of them is a thread, which winds through the fabric. Okay, enough with the metaphors, cuts in Boomer, warning Gideon not to try to play nice with her and Cannonball after all this time. They haven’t forgotten what Gideon did to their pal, Sunspot, killing his father, or how Gideon kidnapped her in order to force Cannonball to join their “yahoo bunch.”
How saucy, replies Gideon. He never came there to make amends, as Boomer seems to perceive it, he states. Indeed, he made the decision long ago about seizing the opportunity of the new, gaining power through the accumulation of wealth and control. You see, he says, he was a deckhand aboard the Pinta as it sailed with Columbus across the Atlantic Ocean five hundred years ago. He was dying of scurvy, a horrible disease, he notes; your teeth loosen, your gums swell, and the bleeding… oh, so much bleeding. And to think, all that suffering, all for the lack of a few limes and lemons.
But enough of that, he says. Weak and wasted, he was dumped into the hold with his other shipmates who had also taken ill. He has no idea how long he laid there, but he knows that somewhere during the night he died. Then, where there had been nothing but the darkness, there was suddenly light. He arose, alive once more, and everything had changed. Surrounded by the human decay, he found himself invigorated by the renewal of his ascendancy and gazed out upon the landing parties; the ships had reached the shores of the New World. It was a land of change; it beckoned with the promise of change, while Europe spoke to him only of decay. He vowed to the Virgin that day to make the most of this change that had been given him. He lived through the centuries, watching the formation of the new continent, becoming a part of the very fabric on which this nation was founded. He thrived in the New World.
You see, he concludes, on that day he saw a world for the taking. He knows, he adds, in his more introspective moments, that such avarice is not the most noble of building blocks to start from, but they have served him well over time. In what way? asks Cannonball. He observes that Gideon is rich in money, maybe power, but it seems to him that he’s poor where it counts most: he hasn’t got any heart or soul. They all say they want hope from him, but it’s obvious that whatever he may have to give, none of them understands the meaning of the word. Absalom interjects: before Burke died, he used his precognitive skills to foretell many things. The Virus took him unawares, but still he tried to see things beyond. In his fevered dreams, he saw Cannonball as the architect of their salvation. They don’t know how, or why, or even what role Cannonball will truly play, but within him, or perhaps within one close to him, lies the key to curing the Legacy Virus.
Staring down at his father’s grave, Cannonball says that he doesn’t know what to say; he doesn’t see how he has anything to do with the Virus. He’s no doctor or scientist, but he thinks their precog got something mixed up there. The Lord, he goes on, never meant for us to live forever, but what Stryfe did was cruel. His virus is meant to murder them all before the natural course of events. It just seems to him that the Externals were given something special, a chance to make a difference, and all they did with it… was nothing. Now, they get the first real challenge of their lives, and they’re all acting like frightened children, coming to people they’ve tried to kill…
In a rage, Absalom steps forward, shouting: how dare he? Presumptuous, arrogant… how dare he judge them? Gideon puts his arm forward to try to restrain Absalom, requesting he try to&mdash But he is interrupted as Abasalom asks him what he should try to do, control himself? In response to this suggestion, he grabs Gideon and bowls him over before continuing his tirade: why? How can Cannonball judge him until he has walked through lifetimes in his shoes? Absalom addresses Cannonball, asking him to watch the decades pass by, to stop caring about life and death, and then wake up staring death in the face. Then, once he realizes that his life was nothing but a series of missed opportunities, then he can tell him who’s a frightened child!
So what, shouts back Cannonball, does he want out of him? To absolve him of his sins? He wishes he could, but he doesn’t have that kind of power. Seems to him that no earthly power does. Absalom says that he wants to live, but if that choice is denied to him. If he is to die, then he wants the chance to have someone mourn his passing. As Absalom collapses to the ground in despair, Cannonball approaches him, stating that he was taught that the loss of any life is worth mourning, and when his father died he mourned hard. He mourned, he guesses, the loss of possibilities more than anything else. We mourn the things that could have been, and never can be now.
Absalom whispers that he knows, and begins to cry as a crackle of energy starts to release from his body, rapidly erupting into a massive storm as his mutant powers go haywire in one final burst: the death knell of the Legacy virus. He doesn’t scream, though, because he knows, somewhere inside him, that his life and his death are not worth shouting over. Cannonball places up his blast field to protect the remainder of the gathering as Boomer asks if there’s anything they can do to help Absalom. Cannonball replies that he doesn’t know, and he wishes he did; the least he can do is protect them.
Finally, the storm of energy seeping from Absalom’s body subsides and he collapses to the ground, smoldering. Cannonball is shocked to observe that Absalom is still breathing, which Gideon finds “fascinating.” He truly did not think that Absalom would have such a strong will to live. As Gideon hefts up the unconscious body of Absalom, Cannonball makes him a guarantee: if all of the Externals do more with what they have, whether it be an hour, a day, or a century, then when the time comes, if the time comes, where he might be able to help save their lives, then he’ll do everything he can to see that happen. Gideon muses that “everything he can,” in Cannonball’s case, is quite a bit more than most anyone else has to offer.
The Externals, announces Gideon, accept Cannonball at his word. But before they go, he is curious… what has been Cannonball’s defining moment, when his purpose was made clear to him? Cannonball replies that he’d like to think that maybe it hasn’t happened yet; it gives him something to strive for. Gideon contemplates this and bids Cannonball and Boomer farewell. The Externals take their leave.
In the remaining moonlight, as the campfire dies down, Boomer states that her head hurts from thinking so much. Then she adds that she was wrong to be so scared of Cannonball being immortal; it doesn’t matter whether he lives forever or one more day, does it? No, replies Cannonball, it really doesn’t. They exchange vows of love for each other and then kiss. Boomer asks “what now,” and Cannonball replies that they go back to Camp Verde, sit with their friends, talk with them, laugh with them. They live day by day and fight the good fight, because who else will? As dumb as it sounds, he concludes, they try to make the world a better place for their having spent time on it. Boomer replies that when she hears it coming from him, it doesn’t sound dumb at all.


[User]
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Provide a full summary of the comic book.

[Assistant]
Letting Go
Late in the night, hot winds sweep across the Arizona desert and the Camp Verde Apache reservation within it. Hidden beneath the sands lies X-Force’s bunker headquarters and cautiously making her way through these tunnels is Domino. She has come to the realization that, according to her handheld scanner, whatever “was here” has since gone to the surface. She elects to pursue, emerging into the night air.
Domino has spent the last week scouting out potential locations for X-Force’s new headquarters, and returned an hour ago to find the bunker abandoned and completely drained of power, all internal systems off-line. Flashes of electrical fire had apparently charred the walls; something had come and just as quickly gone. The question in her mind, as she cautiously begins to navigate the maze of canyons and rocky corridors surrounding the Camp Verde base, is just who – or what – it was.
Domino receives her answer, however, when a voice calls out her name and begs for assistance. Glancing up in confusion, Domino witnesses a metallic, humanoid being descending upon her from above, announcing it is “seriously spazzing out” as it falls. Domino barely manages to dodge out of the way in time, prompting the humanoid-robot to claim this is odd: from his angle of descent he had anticipated he would have landed directly on top of her, causing substantial injuries. Domino flippantly notes that things tend to go her way, and then requests that the being explain who he is or she’ll begin doing some “plasma tracer dental work” on him – assuming he has teeth, that is.
Why Beatrice, replies the being, he has known the pleasure of her company for years, although she did not officially make his acquaintance until quite recently; and if the face isn’t familiar, he hopes the voice is! At this, Domino finally pieces the clues together, and steps back in shock: it’s Professor?! But, she continues, that’s not possible! Indeed it is, he corrects her, and he would prefer to be called Prosh. Before he can continue, however, he notes that he may require some physical assistance returning to the bunker, for it seems he has finally drained his storage cells completely dry of his remaining power. At this, Prosh falls unconscious.
Later, Prosh “wakes up,” immediately finding himself surrounded by X-Force, who have all returned to the bunker in the interim of his mechanical “sleep.” Cable asks Prosh to tell them just what is going on. Prosh expresses his pleasure at seeing all of them, and then assumes, from their presence, that things went well against the Phalanx. His own unexpected encounter with one of them there in the bunker complex, he explains, has left him in a rather interesting position. He then asks how long he has been inactive, and Warpath explains it has been about seventy-eight hours. Cannonball explains that Domino dragged Prosh back here and plugged him into the “secondary fusion generators,” and he’s been feeding off the bunker’s power supply ever since.
Boomer asks Prosh how he came to possess his body, and he replies that the exact details are a bit confusing to him. He can, however, activate the bunker security cameras to play back the Phalanx attack which led to his current condition. Prosh snaps his fingers, and a nearby projector activates, playing back the data he narrates: an agent of the Phalanx came to Camp Verde, assumedly looking to assimilate or destroy X-Force, but upon trying to break into their computer system encountered the Professor. The Phalanx’s form was completely disintegrated, lost to the overwhelming flow of information within the Professor’s neural network, and this somehow led to the utter destruction of that particular Phalanx and the Professor gaining a corporeal body.
Prosh suddenly found himself able to see from his own eyes, taste the air, smell the desert flowers, and run. He supposes he found that most enjoyable of all, because he ran too long and too far, losing power and nearly his newfound life as well, until Beatrice found him. Beatrice? asks Boomer. Not another word, glares Domino. She then questions whether they can really trust Prosh, considering all they just went through with the Phalanx. Cable tells her to stand down, because there’s as much a chance of Prosh being a threat to them as there is of him time-traveling. Cannonball confusedly notes that he thought Cable could do that. Prosh points out that that was before Graymalkin was lost and the time-displacement core taken off-line. He then floats toward Cable and steals his cup of coffee.
As Cable shoots him a sour look, Prosh asks him what he’s looking at: for years, Cable’s told Prosh that he makes coffee “worth killing for,” and now that he finally has a mouth, he wants to see what all the fuss is about. This leads to banter about coffee until Warpath interrupts to ask Shatterstar why he isn’t hanging out with the rest of them. Shatterstar replies that he does not wish to rain on anyone’s charade, but he has been monitoring Prosh’s energy intake. Cable invites Shatterstar, by all means, to “rain on their charade” and tell them what he’s found. Actually, replies Shatterstar, nothing. That’s what’s so strange about all this: the equipment should be registering the output drainage, but he’s getting a flatline reading. Perhaps, he ventures, Prosh’s presence is somehow interfering with the diagnostic equipment?
No, replies Cable tersely, that can’t be. Shatterstar must be reading it wrong. When did he become an expert in fusion energy systems? Prosh requests that Cable please not speak on subjects he knows nothing about. Five hours after he first taught Shatterstar to play chess, explains Prosh, he never won another game against the lad, so his intelligence should not be belittled. After some more chatter amongst the team, the mysterious energy issue is forgotten about and Cable states that, speaking for everyone present, it’s a pleasure to welcome Prosh to X-Force. Prosh clarifies that, though he has always considered himself a part of the family there, the pleasure is entirely his.
Several days pass and, for a chance of pace, it’s a relaxing time for X-Force. Prosh quickly becomes a focal point of warmth and friendship among the disparate members of the team. Early in the morning, Domino looks on from a distance while the rest of the team plays American football with Prosh. From the shadows, Cable notes that she doesn’t have to keep avoiding them because of him. Domino replies that she knows, but they were lied to enough by someone wearing her face when Vanessa impersonated her that she’d rather not give them any reasons to mistrust her now.
He doesn’t want her to lie for him, explains Cable, but he doesn’t want them to know yet, either. He wants them all, especially Prosh, to enjoy the fun they’ve been having. Even if it kills him? asks Domino. Well, replies Cable, at least until they find some hard evidence that Prosh’s new life really does have something to do with what’s happened to him. At this point, Cable steps forward into the light, revealing his techno-organic half to be mutating out of control, growing layers of strange, spiky distortions. Domino expresses her concern that this is going to tear Cable apart if it keeps up.
Later that evening, Rictor approaches Shatterstar, who is examining various pieces of X-Force’s technology, and asks why he skipped out on dinner. Rictor explains it was his turn to cook, but the temperature gauge on the oven was shot and he didn’t know it. He tells Shatterstar that he should have seen the look on Cannonball’s face when he bit into the chicken. Shatterstar replies that he imagines it was quite comical. When Rictor asks what Shatterstar is up to, he explains that the “remote selector” is not operating properly, and he has been trying to fix it for over an hour.
He then explains that he has performed a complete diagnostic on all of their communications systems, and he has not liked what he has uncovered. Rictor observes that, according to the readouts, something is broadcasting a frequency which is scrambling all of their electromagnetic systems. Shatterstar adds that a perpetual haze of static incursion has begun to affect everything in the bunkers, which runs on any kind of energy. And, he adds, he is afraid that he has also gone a long way toward identifying the source… and it confirms his initial suspicions from days ago.
The next morning, inside the hangar bay, Cannonball and Warpath are perplexed by the discovery that the IPAC is covered with distorted, spiky metal protrusions. Cannonball notes that they better find Cable and tell him that the IPAC is growing big metal zits; Warpath notes that this is a sound idea, if they can find him. No one has seen Cable since yesterday morning, and Domino only said that he was having a really bad hair day. Cannonball replies that, either way, they have to find out what, or who, is responsible for this.
Sometime later, a shocked Prosh, in private audience with Cable and Domino, is informed that it is him! Yes, explains Cable, it is him, as much as he didn’t want it to be true. The energy signatures that Prosh subsists on, the transmissions that run through him like blood, are disrupting everything in the bunker, including Cable’s techno-organic mesh. Prosh concludes that if his very existence has been doing this to Cable, then the solution, logically, is that he cease to exist. No! shouts a frustrated Cable; Prosh just found life, real life, for the first time, and he won’t be the reason for taking it from him. Prosh complains that he cannot live while Cable suffers, and asks what else can be done to stop this. Domino replies that she doesn’t know, but she thinks it’s time they got everyone in on this.
Later still, all of X-Force is gathered in the medical lab around the barely-conscious Cable. Prosh rants that this is all because of him; he has corrupted everything they’ve tried to build there. He comes to the conclusion that he has to disintegrate himself, try to purge the Phalanx’s form from his neural network, which is linked to all the systems in the bunker. Shatterstar points out that doing so would end Prosh’s physical life; that which he seeks to purge is also responsible for having given him this present form. Cable offers that there has to be a better solution than that, a way for Prosh to live and for all of them to live too. What’s killing Cable is keeping Prosh alive; so, offers Cable, what about saving him at the same time Prosh saves himself? Why not take everything here with him and leave?
Prosh objects that this would mean Cable losing all of his equipment and most of the data network, but Cable replies that these are just things; they used to matter to him, when that was all he had, but people matter more to him now. Prosh’s next objection is that if he leaves, he would never be able to see them again. Cannonball counters that Prosh would still be alive, out there somewhere among the stars. Prosh admits that it would be wonderful to be soaring through the cosmos again. He then informs Warpath that to do this would require him to severely disrupt the foundations of Camp Verde: not just the bunker complex, but many of the buildings above-ground would need to be co-opted into his mass to properly prepare his form for interstellar travel. Warpath explains that his people’s burial ground is a mile southeast of the bunkers, and that’s the only place he asks be left untouched.
Prosh begins to say his goodbyes, explaining that he will miss them all, especially Cable. He has watched over him since he was a lad, and he has seen him struggle through a life of such loss, sadness, and tragedy that a lesser man would have been crushed long ago. Cable informs Prosh that he is the best friend he has ever had.
Even later, as the twilight sun begins to set, X-Force stands a far distance away from Camp Verde, overlooking their base. The ground begins to tremble, and then fracture. Domino notes that it’s working. Cable’s techno-organic mesh is stabilizing. Cable remarks that, the further he gets from Prosh, the better he looks… but that doesn’t make him feel any better. Then the ground under the base explodes, and a fantastic starship, with Prosh anchored to the prow, ascends into the sky and then curves into the upper atmosphere. And then the sound and the flames are gone, and all that remains of Camp Verde is a patchwork of smoldering craters.
Domino asks Cable if he’s going to be okay, and he replies that he is. Cable internally reflects on the fact that the Professor’s hollow, computerized voice has been there for him throughout his entire life, and always helped him through his hardest decisions. Now, it has almost come full-circle, as in their final moments together they served to give each other hope.
Cable then announces aloud that Prosh helped teach him that he is, and always was, more than metal… he’s blood too, and he has blood again, a family of sorts, a life. He’d like them, X-Force, all of them, to start living that life. Surveying the smoldering wreckage of their old home, Cannonball and the rest are prompted to state that this philosophy is fine by them, but… where are they going to go to do it?
Funny they should ask, replies Domino…