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Learning to Fly
Folks say the one thing certain in life is change. Folks say lots of things, actually…but that statement is as true as any. Change is always coming…and it never stops.
A school bell rings, and kids start to enter the buildings. Two kids hang back, round the corner of one of the buildings. ‘You think it’s cool to -’ one of them begins. ‘Shhh…wait a second man. Let the rest of ‘em get back to class’ the second declares, while asking the third what he is in much a hurry for, anyway? Looking over to the playground, they see a boy sitting on the top of some jungle gym equipment. ‘He ain’t going anywhere’ the second kid declares. They walk over to the playground once all the other kids are gone, and the first kid asks the second why he is wasting his time with this. ‘I got detention all this week. Now I’m cutting out and I’m gonna get it all next week, too!’ he exclaims, calling his friend Toby. Toby calls the first boy Billy, and tells him that this will be worth it. ‘You’ll see’ he adds, when suddenly he calls out to the kid on the jungle gym: ‘Hey! Freakshow! How you doing today, freakshow? I brought somebody to meet you. Say hello, freakshow…come on’ Toby taunts.
‘Hello’ the boy on the jungle gym replies. ‘Yeah…and I want you to show him what you shown me’ Toby orders. The boy on the jungle gym remarks that his name is Kevin, while Billy starts moving around on the grass, telling Toby that he has to see this. ‘He starts in with the flapping and the breathing and then -’ he exclaims excitedly, but Billy tells Toby to shut up as he looks up at Kevin. ‘Is that what you do?’ he asks him. ‘Sometimes’ Kevin replies, seemingly anxious. ‘Forget this…’ Billy mutters as he turns and starts to walk away. Toby races after him and asks where he is going, to which Billy mutters ‘Ah, he ain’t nothing but a nothing. You’re crazy, Toby’. Billy adds, pointing out that this is San Francisco, and they don’t have those kind of people here. But as they carry on walking, Toby tells Billy to hold on. ‘You hear -’ he begins, as there is a loud SWOOP, and as they fall to the ground, they look up, and see Kevin hovering over them. ‘Holy…’ Billy utters. ‘I told you, man!’ Toby exclaims.
‘I’ve seen a lot of change in my day. You learn how to deal with it however you can. Sometimes I wish I could fly…I’ve always wondered what it feels like. The wind in your face. The rush. Being a mutant’s a curse, sure. And saving a world that hates us is the cross we bear, but still…if you gotta have powers’ Tabitha Smith a.k.a. Meltdown thinks to herself as she looks up to the sky, watching her teammate Sam “Cannonball” Guthrie blast across the night time sky in spectacular display. She has been watching him for the last half hour or so, and decides that he always looks so alive up there. The only way she can describe it is beautiful. Seated on a grassy bank, Tabitha is supposed to keep an eye on the time, make sure nobody gets a good enough look and starts reporting some “rocket man” soaring over San Francisco.
‘No matter how often we try and save the world. They still hate us for what we are’ Tabitha reminds herself, ‘But then, the more things change…’ she adds, deciding to keep her eyes on Sam, when suddenly, he seemingly explodes up in the sky. The world suddenly goes crazy. ‘Sam…?’ Tabitha calls out as she gets to her feet, but Sam is too high up. She knows something is wrong. ‘We call him “Cannonball” because he can propel himself though the air like one - or he could, anyway’ Tabitha reminds herself as she sees Sam suddenly fall down from the sky, so high up, plummeting to the bay below. He lands with a mighty splash, and there is nothing Meltdown can do. ‘Sam’s hurt…don’t know what happened out there…just use your powers, Tabitha…form a time bomb…’ the young mutant tells herself.
She creates a ball of plasma, using it as a signal flare, hoping to get some help -but her time bomb suddenly fizzes out. Tabitha stands at the edge of the cliff, looking down into the bay, the water is choppy and uneven. ‘SAMMMMM!’ she screams - but no one is listening. ‘You know that feeling? When you just…you’re screaming as loud as you can. But you’re the only one that hears it?’ she tells herself. Her powers don’t work. Sam’s powers don’t work. And she has to do something - so she suddenly dives head-first into the dangerous waters below. She tries to keep swimming, but the waters throw her about. Suddenly, there is a loud noise. ‘What the -?’ Tabby calls out as she is blinded by a light on the water - a harbor patrol boat has approached her, and its lights are scanning the waters. ‘H…how…?’ Tabitha wonders. She bobs in the water for a few seconds that take forever to pass, then Sam is removed from the water in front of her - he is limp and very, very unable to fly. Tabitha hangs her head and wonders what has happened to them.
At a hospital, a doctor is paged, as various hospital staff go about their important duties. ‘We got one more on his way - multiple lacerations to his chest and -’ a nurse calls out as they wheel another patient around on a bed. ‘In there’ someone exclaims, pointing to another room. The nurse remarks that it is a hot one tonight, and ER is full. ‘You bring ‘em here, he goes in there’ she adds. Sitting in the waiting room, Tabitha can’t think straight, it is so loud. It smells so clean that it burns. ‘I hate hospitals’ she thinks to herself, Suddenly, ‘TABITHA!’ someone calls out. Tabitha looks up to see her teammate Danielle Moonstar kneeling beside her. ‘We got here as quick as we could. What happened?’ Dani enquires. Tabby explains that she was just watching Sam fly up there, and then he wasn’t anymore, and there wasn’t anything she could do.
Two other members of X-Force, James Proudstar and Jesse Aaronson a.k.a. Bedlam enter the waiting room. ‘How is he?’ James asks. ‘He…he was so high up in the sky…and I…’ Tabitha utters. ‘Is he all right?’ James asks urgently. ‘James, please…’ Dani calls out, while telling Tabitha that it is all right. ‘Talk to me’ she asks her. Tabitha raises a hand as if she was creating a time-bomb and exclaims ‘No! It…it’s not okay! I tried to do something. Call for help - anything! And I wiggled my fingers…and nothing came out’ she explains. James informs Tabitha that last night, he tried to take out the trash all at once, and almost pulled his arm out of its socket. ‘There’s something wrong with all of our powers’ he announces. ‘We don’t know what it is yet. But we’ll find out’ he assures her. ‘I watched him fall, Jimmy…I watched him…’ Tabitha utters, burying her face into James’s shoulder. ‘Still a Proudstar, though no longer as strong’ Tabitha thinks to herself, while wondering what happened to Sam, what happened to them all.
‘My whole life they’ve teased me. “Kevin’s too small” they’d say. “Kevin’s too weak”!’ Kevin thinks to himself as he stands on the top of the jungle gym at school. Other kids gather around. ‘What’s taking so long?’ someone complains. ‘We don’t got all day, man!’ another declares. ‘You said he was gonna do it, Toby’ someone mutters. ‘Aw, he can’t do it - just a freak, anyway’ someone cruelly calls out, while Toby assures his fellow students that he has seen him. ‘C’mon, Kevin…you gonna do it or not?’ Billy calls out. ‘Yeah, freakshow Show ‘em like you shown us!’ Toby shouts. Kevin smiles, he can do this, they want him to do this. Toby smacks Billy, who asks him what he did that for. Toby tells Billy not to call Kevin a freakshow. ‘He’s gonna do it again’ he adds.
‘Heh…we found him, you know’ Billy tells the other students. Kevin raises his arms high, ‘I’ve got powers and they don’t. I can do this. I’ll show them. I’ll show them all’ he thinks to himself as he steps forward, ready to fly off the jungle gym - but, instead, he just falls to the ground, flat on his face, with a loud WHUMP! ‘Ohhhh…’ Kevin mutters, while the kids just stare at him, before they begin to disperse. ‘Yo, Toby…this ain’t cool, man. I mean…we say him do it, right?’ Billy remarks. ‘Freakshow busted mother…I ain’t seen nothing, man’ another kid calls out. Kevin looks up, and one other student remains standing over him. ‘Um…Kevin? Are you okay?’ the girl asks. ‘Huh? Oh…hi, Patty…no…no, I’m not okay’ Kevin replies. Patty just frowns.
The next morning, at the San Francisco headquarters of X-Force, Dani looks in the mirror, touching her face, she tells James that she looks the same, but feels so different. James tells Dani that he has felt different all his life, and that this is nothing quite as comforting. ‘How often have you just woken up in the morning up in the morning and, just for a second, you forgot what you were?’ Dani asks James. ‘Then it hits you, you know? You see that big “X” on your belt…or you realize you’re late for training while the other kids are on their way to homeroom’ Dani adds. The young mutant continues, asking James how many times in his life has he wished he was normal. ‘And how naïve do you feel for thinking it could ever be as simple as that?’ Dani asks.
Sitting on a couch nearby, Bedlam calls out ‘So…I’m sorry…you call him the High What’s-A-Nary…?’, to which Dani corrects him, ‘The High Evolutionary, Jesse. He’s a genetic tinkered. Now he’s tinkering with mutants’ she explains that it is the same all over - the X-Men, Generation X - mutants have been robbed of their powers. Jesse sighs and mutters that he would love to call this a blessing in disguise. ‘Ah, don’t look at me like that…I know it ain’t that simple’ he tells his teammates, before asking them ‘What now?’ James tells him that they wait. ‘And we hope…for Sam. Not to mention Tabitha’ Dani adds.
‘They’re wondering where I am. I know they are’ Tabitha thinks to herself as she walks through a park. She knows she should be home with the others, wondering what has gone wrong with them, wondering what comes next. But she can’t. be inside there right now. ‘Got to just…walk, I don’t know’ Tabitha tells herself. She doesn’t want to think about it - no Sam. No X-Force. No mutants. Suddenly, there is a loud WHUMP!, and Tabitha stops in her tracks, turning to a park bench, where Kevin is standing on top of, ‘Don’t think about it…just…just close your eyes…’ the boy tells himself. He holds his arms out at each side, ‘That’s it…you’re a superstar, Kevin…and they love you. ‘Cause you can…’ he tells himself, but as he attempts to fly, he just falls flat on his face, creating another loud WHUMP! sound.
‘Um…having trouble?’ Tabitha asks as she goes over to Kevin, who looks up at her, ‘W-what?’ he utters. ‘Are you…having some kind of trouble? I noticed you jumped off that bench there, and…well, I don’t know…it looked like a problem’ she remarks. Kevin just tells her to leave him alone. ‘You got it, boss’ Tabitha replies as she walks off, thinking to herself that he is a cute kid, the bizarre bench-jumping thing notwithstanding, but she has other things to worry about. ‘Last thing I need is somebody else’s problems’ she tells herself, when suddenly, she hears another WHUMP! Tabitha turns back to the boy, who has started sobbing, ‘I did it, though…I can too fly!’ he exclaims. Tabitha sits down on the park bench, the boy sits at the other end of it, saying nothing. ‘What am I doing here?’ Tabitha wonders, when suddenly the boy declares ‘I can do it, you know’. ‘Fly?’ Tabitha asks him. ‘Yeah…’ he replies.
‘This is not going where I think it is…’ an anguished Tabitha tells herself. Kevin explains that it just started - one day he fell out of a tree, but he didn’t fall. ‘I just…did it’ he remarks, standing up on the bench, he explains that he kept doing it, and the kids who used to think he was a nothing started thinking he might be a something - all because he could fly. ‘Until yesterday, anyway…’ he adds. ‘You said…yesterday, didn’t you?’ Tabitha asks. ‘Yeah…’ Kevin replies. ‘Oy…’ Tabitha mutters, before informing Kevin that she knows he is not going to believe what she is saying, but that if he could do “special stuff” then come yesterday he couldn’t anymore, he is better off. ‘What do you know about it?’ Kevin snaps. Tabitha explains that she knows being “special” isn’t all it has cracked up to be, and that he should be thankful if he never flies again. Kevin frowns and runs off, ‘I can fly…’ he declares. ‘Well, this could have gone better’ Tabitha thinks to herself, unaware that she and Kevin are being watched from the bushes nearby. ‘And I’ll make them pay attention to me! I can…I can!’ Kevin exclaims as he rushes off down the street.
The next day, at a tall water tower, Kevin stands at the bottom of a ladder to the tower, as Billy, Toby and other kids begin to gather around. ‘So…what’s going on?’ Billy asks. ‘Aw, man…you didn’t hear? Freakshow comes in this morning acting all hard and tough, saying we shouldn’t of laughed at him or nothing…and that he’s gonna show us all’ Toby explains, watching as Kevin climbs up the ladder, and steps on to the platform near the top of the tower.
Walking through the park once more, Tabitha has her head hanging low, and hands behind her back, despite the fact that Sam woke up today, and the doctors say he is going to be fine. ‘They don’t know the half of it. Another day and we’re all still “normal”…so how come I still can’t enjoy this?’ Tabitha wonders, when suddenly, ‘HEY!’ a voice calls out, and Tabitha turns around, to see the girl, Patty, rushing towards her. ‘You gotta come quick!’ Patty huffs, out of breath. ‘I saw you with him yesterday…and I didn’t know where else to turn…’ she explains, announcing that he is going to do something stupid, but the other kids won’t say anything, they want him to, ‘And he won’t listen to me!’ she exclaims. ‘Who? Who’s going to do something stupid…?’ Tabitha asks, raising her eyes when Patti tells her that it is Kevin.
‘Gee…two days ago I was a somebody’ Kevin thinks to himself, looking down from the platform. ‘And then my power went away. But I can hear them down there…calling my name, looking at me. I won’t be afraid’ Kevin tells himself. ‘Ah…he ain’t gonna do it. Why we wasting our time?’ Billy asks, while Toby calls out to him, telling him that he can do this. ‘Heh…we believe in you…’ he jokes. Suddenly, ‘KEVIN!’ Tabitha screams as she rushes forward towards the tower, pushing through various kids. Patty follows her, but Tabitha finds that the crowd doesn’t want to move. ‘The powers don’t work anymore, but they’re still turning out to see the freak’ Tabitha thinks to herself. ‘The more things change…’ she adds, before calling up to Kevin, telling him to stay right there. ‘I…’ Kevin begins, looking down to the ground below. Tabitha begins to climb up the ladder, and she tells Kevin that he doesn’t have to be special, not for them.
‘How do you know what it’s like?’ Kevin asks, holding onto the side of the tower. Tabitha reaches the platform and informs the boy that her friend used to be able to fly, and then his powers went away and he hurt himself, really bad. ‘What…what was his name?’ Kevin asks. Hanging her head, Tabby replies ‘Sam…’ before telling Kevin that there is so much that he doesn’t know about what he is. ‘Aw, to heck with this!’ Billy mutters, throwing his arms into the air, the kids begin to disperse below. ‘How much do you think they’ll like you, Kevin…once they realize how much better than them you are?’ Tabitha asks the confused boy. ‘I…no’ Kevin replies, raising one foot over the edge to step out. ‘You don’t know what it’s like…they came here to see me…and I can’t let them down!’ Kevin exclaims.
‘KEVIN!’ Tabitha screams. ‘You have no idea what I know!’ she shouts, reaching out, she only has one chance. Kevin lets out a gasp as he steps off - the kind you can hardly hear, but it tells Tabitha that he would take this back if he could. He’s lucky, though. Tabitha was here - this time, as her hand latches onto his pants, she saves him from plummeting to possible doom. The kids who hung around look up, deprived of the show they came for. Tabitha tries not to hate them, and using all her strength, she manages to pull Kevin back to the ledge, and all her guts not to cry along with him. Kevin mutters something about being sorry, before running of.
Life remains “normal” for the next couple of days. Tabitha doesn’t think any of the team had any idea it would be this hard. At night in the park, ‘Sometimes…I wish I could fly, you know. Just…take off, get the heck outta dodge and just…’ she tells Sam, who has his hands on Tabitha’s shoulders. ‘Ah know, Tab…ah know…’ Sam replies, while Tabitha asks Sam to hold her. They stand beneath the stars, quietly, considering how being normal isn’t all it has cracked up to be, and wondering what “change” the future may bring.
At the same time, Kevin sits on the jungle gym at school, frowning, and stares up to the stars….


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[Assistant]
Games Without Frontiers, part two
Science City 53, somewhere in Russia, where X-Force - Pete Wisdom, Sam “Cannonball” Guthrie, Tabitha “Meltdown” Smith, Jesse “Bedlam” Aaronson and James Proudstar - have successfully completed the fist part of a black ops mission. Meltdown and Proudstar remove their jackets, exposing their scant black leather costumes underneath, while, in the next room, Pete Wisdom lights a cigarette, and asks Major Valentina Rychenko if he has this straight: ‘Cuckoo was a facet of the US intelligence community, right?’ to which the Russian major replies ‘The shadow of the CIA, if you like’ and explains that when the Office of Scientific Intelligence turned into the CIA, a chunk of OSI became Cuckoo. Valentina continues, revealing that it was an intelligence office devoted to analysing, advising on and reacting to what they termed “unusual threats”.
As they sit in an office, Valentina tells Wisdom that Cuckoo liked their math, and their games, that they were a hawkish, spooky unit who saw suffering and pain in terms of numbers and tables. She puts a video tape on to play, ‘Roll tape’ she remarks, and various images of Dr Niles Roman, Cuckoo’s only known administrator appear on screen. Valentina tells Wisdom that Niles Roman loved his games, that he quietly conducted scientific experiments with stolen or derived technologies that agencies with ten times Cuckoo’s resources never knew about. She adds that they were experiments the scope and strangeness of which weren’t seen again on Earth until Reed Richards started work. ‘Experiments the ugliness and horror of which hadn’t been seen since Josef Mengele’ Valentina adds, revealing that in 1954 the tried killing him twice.
Further images appear, with Niles Roman’s appearance somewhat changed, Valentina explains that Niles Roman survived, Cuckoo repaired him, only he was never the same again. ‘His next setback wasn’t until some time later…’ Valentina adds.
Back in the adjoining room, ‘I’m bored. Bored. Bored…bored…bored…bored!’ Tabitha exclaims over and over, before calling out ‘Hey, Jimmy’. Proudstar turns to her ‘Hm?’ he asks. ‘You bored?’ Tabitha exclaims. Smiling. James replies that he isn’t, and points out that he hasn’t stuffed himself full of sugar and caffeine since they got here. ‘Sacrilege! Chocolate and coffee are essential food groups!’ Meltdown announces, before walking over to Sam, ‘Talk to me!’ she demands, asking him if the “old folks” are still talking in there. ‘And then some’ Sam replies, reaching up, he stretches his arms, remarking that once you hit thirty, a switch gets flipped in your head, turns everyone into their dads, just yapping away. ‘I could seriously do without turning into my dad, thanks’ Tabby mutters, before telling Sam that today was weird. ‘Which part? The attack of the killer Borg-steaks, or the exploding meat finale?’ Sam asks. ‘The part where Mr W was giving orders and you were giving it “yessuh”!’ Tabby smirks, pointing out that Sam is their leader, and that cute as he is, Wisdom is just supposed to be advising, or so she thought.
‘Uh-huh. So you thought’ Sam replies, before telling Tabitha to listen to him - because not listening is her problem. ‘You’ve flipped your switch!’ Tabby exclaims, crossing her arms. ‘Not funny. You’ve seen me and Pete talking, do you know what about? Strategy!’ Sam explains, adding that the moves from earlier - “death from above” and Jesse as an EMP bomb. ‘I wrote them!’ Sam reveals. ‘I didn’t know’ Tabitha replies, staring straight ahead. ‘Cause you don’t listen’ Sam points out, adding that it helps to have someone on the edge of it all, giving an overview, calling the beats. ”
 ‘And that’s my job’ Wisdom points out as he walks up to Sam and Tabitha, who gets a fright and lets out a scream. ‘That and teaching you how to make the best of what you’ve got’ Wisdom adds, before making his way to the exit, ‘To our black helicopter, my X-Men! To San Francisco! Good food! Good drink! Loose culture! Women!’ he shouts, as he starts to sing.
Elsewhere, in a dark office, a computer suddenly receives a signal, and a long thin piece of paper starts being pushed out of a machine, while on a monitor, the following appears: “San Francisco installation active. This station no longer in use. Forwarding”.
‘My God’ a voice utters inside an architecturally-designed house, wedged between two cliff-faces, calls out. ‘What is it, Ford?’ a man in a wheelchair, gazing out the window asks. ‘Your computer, Sir. It’s just received a message from First Station’ Ford announces. ‘We abandoned First Station in the Sixties, Ford’ comes the reply. Ford explains that he knows, but that the switching system would have been left open. ‘Show men’ the other man orders, extending an odd hand, he takes some files that Ford hands him. He smiles, his scaly-face excited as he reads the papers. ‘Incredible. The San Francisco bioreactor has finally triggered’ he exclaims, stating that they must go to California at once.
‘Okay. A genuine black op’s helicopter we can cope with. But where did you get a hypersonic jet from, Mr W?’ Tabitha asks as the jet speeds across the sky. ‘Ask no questions, I’ll tell you no lies’ Wisdom replies, puffing on a cigarette, he tells the younger mutants not to get too comfy, as they will be landing at an old spook show airstrip that he knows of, and they can drive into town from there. ‘I have a place we can use. You’ll like it’ Wisdom tells the team, smiling as he reveals that San Francisco Cuckoo operated out of it. ‘You sneaky English - I knew you agreed to San Francisco way too easily!’ Bedlam exclaims. Wisdom reclines in his chair and tells Jesse to take it easy, as he is about to tell them all a story. ‘See, back in the Fifties, certain suits in the yankee intel hierarchy became fascinated by drugs’ he begins, adding that it wasn’t about a war on drugs, but a war with drugs, particularly their  effect on the American public.
Wisdom continues, explaining that this led inexorably to the CIA releasing a quantity of lab pure lysergic acid diethylamide, otherwise known as LSD gas, off the Golden Gate Bridge. ‘My God! They tested it on people?’ Cannonball asks, shocked. ‘Not quite. This being the mighty CIA, they didn’t check the weather reports first’ Wisdom replies, revealing that their very expensive sack of trips was blown straight out to sea, the most they achieved was to expand the consciousness of a bunch of terminally confused fish. ‘So, what’s it all mean?’ Tabitha asks. ‘Sam?’ Wisdom calls out, and Sam announces that it means that experimenting on its people was deemed legally permissible by stateside intel. ‘That and the San Francisco CIA station was remarkably corrupt and stupid’ Wisdom adds. ‘Stupid enough that they collaborated with Cuckoo on several occasions, including undisclosed ops actually in the city of San Francisco, which is partly why we’re setting up shop there’ he explains. Wisdom smiles and announces that is him done, and that he needs some sleep now. ‘We’re touching down in thirty minutes. Has everyone been to the bathroom?’ he asks.
San Francisco, a glorious sunny day, people are going about their business, walking through the city, near the famous bridge. Suddenly, a man has explosive fire-like energy burst from his abdomen, ‘AGHHN!” he calls out in pain, before he starts to bleed. People gather around him, ‘It’s okay, I’m a doctor!’ a woman announces as she rushes forward to assist him. ‘Let me-’ she begins, putting a hand on his shoulder, but more explosives burst forth from his neck. ‘What’s going on? What’s happening?’ the man exclaims, as energies leap upwards, bounce off a street lamp, and then onto nearby vehicles. Suddenly, another woman screams, and drops to her knees.
‘Is she sick?’ a passer-by calls out, but huge spikes burst from the woman’s back, her face stretches and her eyes bulge out, yellow. ‘GRIIIEEE!’ she screams as she crawls around on the ground, before leaping up and lashing out at someone. ‘Hurts. It hurts…IT HURTS!’ another man declares as fire bursts from his head, and engulfs half a dozen people in front of him. Another strange occurrence happens when a young person bursts through a car roof in a watery form, and soars upwards on a spout of water, screaming for their mother, they then smash into the side of an apartment block.
Shortly, in a vehicle, Tabby asks Wisdom how he got to be a big bad secret agent if he never learned to drive. ‘That’s what girlfriends are for, petal’ Wisdom replies, while Bedlam drives the vehicle. He adds that British intel isn’t James Bond, apart from all the beautiful women who wanted to sleep with him, anyway. ‘Riiiight’ Tabitha mutters. Wisdom flicks some ash from his cigarette out of the window, and tells X-Force that half the kids in the underground evil-villain bases across the planet look like him.’ Talking of which, we should be in ours in a bit. You’ll like this -’ he begins, when suddenly, the hood of the car pops up, and energy flares about. ‘I’m losing it -’ Bedlam announces as the car swerves into another vehicle, then teeters on the edge of a cliff-face!


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Provide a full summary of the comic book.

[Assistant]
Games Without Frontiers, part one
Six months ago, aboard the freighter known as the Sulya, which makes its way across dark waters on an even darker night. At the bar aboard the vessel, British mutant Pete Wisdom leans against the counter. ‘Never seen anyone in here with an eye patch before’ the woman behind the bar smiles, leaning towards Wisdom. ‘I kind of like it…it’s so…manly’ another woman in a revealing outfit exclaims as she smiles at Pete, who smiles back. ‘Oh, poor you. How did it happen?’ a third woman asks, leaning against a cigarette dispensing machine. ‘Well, I tell you. I’m never going to bloody Dagestan on a wet Wednesday again’ Pete replies. Leaving the bar, Pete steps out onto the deck. ‘Hello, Mr Wisdom’ a voice calls out from the shadows. ‘Alistaire Stuart’ Pete replies.
Lightning his cigarette, Pete remarks that he hasn’t seen Alistaire since Black Air ran its terminal phase in London. ‘Did you go off to run the office that replaced it?’ Pete enquires. ‘The Department, yes’ Alistaire confirms. Pete then asks him what the head of the Department, with personal helicopters and jets and all that, is doing on the Harwich ferry? ‘Waiting to have a word with you, Mr Wisdom’ Alistaire reveals. ‘I’m all ears, Ally, old son. Call me Pete’ Wisdom replies. Alistaire realizes that Wisdom is up to something. ‘I don’t like it’ he remarks. Pete smirks at Alistaire and asks ‘Little me? I’m what you might call semi-retired. No intel. No X-Teams. Just a nice bungalow in Cornwall and an old woman who comes in to wash me every second Thursday’.
Alistaire is unimpressed and frowns, ‘You’re still full of it, I see’ he remarks, before asking how the eye is. Pete flips up his eye patch and smiles, ‘Sound. This is the eye patch of love. Best thing I ever invested in. Gives me the mutant power of being horribly sexy’ he jokes, before realizing that Alistaire is not here for tips on how to pick up girls. Alistaire reveals that he knows all about Dagestan. ‘You’ve since been spotted in Genosha, Tokyo, Helsinki and Washington DC’ Alistaire points out. Pete explains that Dagestan was a misunderstanding. ‘And I like to travel a lot. So?’ he adds, telling Alistaire that if he had been born in the scrag-end of London instead of some country pile with a silver spoon in his mouth, he would want to spend some time away from home, too.
‘Don’t you like England, Mr Wisdom? That’s the English shoreline out there, good old Essex…’ Alistaire points out. Still calling Alistaire “Ally”, Wisdom tells him that he doesn’t particularly like anywhere. ‘Everywhere I go, there’s secrets and lies and other nasty things that get up my nose. I mean, bloody Essex. You know what’s just up the toad from Harwich?’ Wisdom replies. ‘An old government nuclear bunker. It’s a tourist attraction, now’ Alistaire tells Wisdom, who replies ‘Right. And east of that on the coast, is British intel’s primary dissection lab’. ‘Excuse me?’ Alistaire asks. Wisdom explains that it was part of the Easy Tiger program, where Martians were dissected in 1899, kicking off a century of cutting up aliens for fun and profit. ‘Black Air used it to dissect the Warpies. Remember them? Poor little buggers mutated by all that reality-structure damage’ Wisdom remarks, before suggesting that Alistaire does remember the Warpies, as he helped rescue a lot of them from some bad guy. ‘Didn’t you?’ Wisdom asks.
Alistaire offers no response, so Wisdom declares that one would think someone who saved defenseless mutant children and now runs Britain’s key paranormal response office would be aware of where they died, and shut it down. ‘In fact, you’d think that person would be aware of what still goes on there’ Wisdom remarks. Alistaire stares straight ahead. ‘Wouldn’t you?’ Wisdom remarks, before asking Alistaire what the time is. ‘Midnight’ Alistaire responds, looking at his watch, when suddenly, up ahead on the shoreline, there is an explosion which lights up the night. ‘Ooops. Dissection lab go boom’ Wisdom remarks. Shocked, Alistaire tells Wisdom that was a terrorist act. ‘Was it really? Wonder why’ Wisdom replies.
Wisdom turns to Alistaire and exclaims ‘Maybe it’s because you people - the world intel community - are not behaving properly. You are perpetrating disgusting crimes against humanity - and I am personally offended by the crimes against mutant humanity, which are committed with abandon’. Alistaire looks worried, while Wisdom warns him that there are a lot of people just like him out there in the dark. ‘And we’re keeping an eye on you’ he tells Alistaire.
Today, a large helicopter darts about in the air. ‘Major?’ the pilot calls out to a woman, who slams a radio transmitter against the wall,’ Moscow will give us nothing!’ she exclaims. ‘But they have to - you told them - they know what’s loose in 53?’ another member of the chopper crew asks. The woman hangs her head and explains that Moscow still says Science City 53 does not officially exist, even aa decade after communism fell. ‘So how can we be seen to commit forces to a place that it not on any maps?’ she asks, before telling Pilot Korolyev to make another sweep and to watch for ground-to-air attack. The woman hangs her head and tells the crew that they will remain on standby and watch them swarm and grow until everyone in the city is dead. ‘Then, everyone in the province and so on until someone notices - or until we’re all dead’.
Down below, in Science City 53, as it is known, trapped in a room, over a dozen humans are backed into a corner, as a horde of horrid creatures move towards them.
Back aboard the chopper, ‘Valentina? Do you copy?’ a voice calls out over the transmitter. ‘Who is this?’ the major asks, speaking into the transmitter. ‘Pete Wisdom. You called for help. The old Spooks network’ Wisdom replies. ‘That was barely twelve hours ago! When the spore first went critical’ Valentina exclaims. In another chopper nearby, Wisdom explains that someone owed him a favor and he has brought friends. ‘Do you have a containment op in process?’ he asks. ‘We have nothing!’ Valentina exclaims, so Wisdom asks her what they are dealing with. ‘meatspore storm troopers’ Valentine replies, explaining that one might call them cellular automata, robot soldiers that just happen to be made out of meant and blood. ‘Two functions; to kill, and to build more of themselves’ she adds.
Valentina informs Wisdom that they are not alive in any true sense, as they have no mind, just a flesh carrier medium, brain tissue wrapped around a simple computer processor. She explains that they stole the process from Cuckoo, an American intelligence office, in 1953, but in 1961, Science City 53 was redirected into other research. ‘And something set it off’ Wisdom guesses, before asking Valentina if she has any idea what it was. Valentina explains that all the Cuckoo innovations seem strangely unstable, despite their improvement of the processes involved. ‘They were a good thirty years ahead of their time, but still…can you help?’ she asks.
Wisdom smiles, and radios to his team: ‘Pete Wisdom to all points. Let’s bring this one home. Sam, death from above’ he orders. Outside the chopper, Sam Guthrie a.k.a. Cannonball, sporting a large oversized jacket, short cropped hair and “goatee” style, responds via his earpiece, ‘Hard in where the concentration is, at dead center: understood’, while Wisdom replies that he has been thinking, ‘Maybe you should start calling me Professor W’.
Back in the chopper, Wisdom turns around, where the rest of X-Force, all dressed in new black leather costumes, are waiting for instructions - Jesse Aaronson a.k.a. Bedlam, Tabitha Smith a.k.a. Meltdown, and James Proudstar watch Wisdom, ‘Tabby precious, when we’re in close enough, you’re ground assault. Jim, you’re Jesse’s delivery system. Sam’s cleaning a hot zone - drop him in it. Speaking of which…where are you, country boy? Time’s wasting!’ Wisdom radios to Cannonball, who is blasting downwards through the sky, towards Science City 53. ‘I hear you boss. Incoming!’ Cannonball replies, while the meatspore storm trooper creatures look up and see Cannonball - but an instant later, Sam forces himself down to the facility, the impact of his landing resulting in shockwaves ripping through the old buildings, and the meatspore storm troopers.
‘Death from above, huh? No fooling’ Jesse remarks as he clings to Proudstar’s back, as the super-strong mutant leaps from the chopper, and lands them both safely on the ground, where Cannonball is waiting for them. ‘We aim to please’ Sam jokes, before asking Jesse which way he is headed. Jesse replies that he will work from here, and that Pete wants the rest of them to scout the perimeter by thirds and recon for survivors, if any. ‘Done’ Sam replies, and as he and Proudstar take off, Jesse contacts Wisdom, telling him that once Tabby is down, he should evac the chopper to minimum distance, as he is going to lay down a serious electronic disruption field. ‘Give it ten seconds then large it some, my son’ Wisdom replies, telling him to push the monsters back and save those that need saving. ‘Everyone copy?’ Wisdom asks, while Tabby drops from the low-flying chopper down to the ground. ‘Hmm, I just love that accent of yours’ she tells Wisdom via the communication device, and as she casts a plasma time bomb towards one of the storm troopers.
Wisdom tells Tabby to concentrate and to remember what he taught her. ‘Sharpen your focus on the plasma bombs you generate, make them hard and bright in your mind’ - Tabitha does so, and her powers emerge unlike they have ever done so before - as streams and darts of plasma energy, which she directs towards her foes. Wisdom smiles and tells Meltdown that he is impressed. ‘Nice one, treasure’ he adds, before announcing to the team that the hard word is given. A large storm trooper moves towards a child, who looks up, scared - until Proudstar smashes the meatspore storm trooper backwards, fists pummelling the creature, blood flies everywhere.
Meltdown continues to release her power like never before, while Cannonball scouts the area. Wisdom reports to Bedlam that they are all clear. ‘Understood’ Bedlam replies, as he unleashes his mutant power, which flows outwards, electrical energies covering the storm troopers, and shattering them in a mass effort. Wisdom smiles, ‘And that’s a wrap. Take me down, pilot’ Wisdom orders. ‘Where now, my X-Men?’ Wisdom asks as X-Force gather around him once his chopper landed. Another chopper hovers nearby, and Cannonball tells Wisdom that they need to go to San Francisco, ‘We got real comfortable there last year’ he reveals. ‘San Francisco it is’ Wisdom agrees, to which Meltdown tells him that he can’t smoke in Californian bars now. ‘Hmm…let’s go to Morocco’ Wisdom suggests. ‘You said San Francisco!’ Meltdown declares. ‘I lied’ Wisdom smiles.
Meltdown rushes over to Wisdom, but he holds his hands up and assures them all they will go to San Francisco - but not yet. ‘Here it comes…’ Meltdown smirks. ‘Isn’t this what you all really signed up for? You wanted a real job, real purpose. This is it’ he tells X-Force, lighting another cigarette. ‘What was it you said to me, Jesse? Forget Xavier’s fairy-dust bull about integration? Let’s show ‘em by example that we know what’s right?’ Wisdom asks. He tells the young adults that this is the underside of the world right here, a dark place of secret histories, alternative truths and unknown crimes against humanity. ‘Isn’t it time someone policed it - showed ‘em all that we do the jobs worth doing?’ Wisdom asks, stating that this job ain’t done yet. ‘I want to know what Cuckoo was, why it designed a spore that clones meat robots at factory speed’.
Suddenly, a voice calls out ‘We still have the archives, or did before the spore erupted’, and Wisdom turns to see Valentina standing before him. ‘Provided it’s still intact, all the data we have is yours’ she tells Wisdom, who asks if that will cause trouble in Moscow.  ‘We owe you’ the major replies. ‘You saved the day like good westerners. Either we pay in information or you invoice the Duma for many rubbles they don’t have. Trust me. They will love us for this’ she remarks, putting her arms around Wisdom, who replies ‘That’s my girl. Pretty as a penny and sharp as a razor as always’, before Valentina looks at Wisdom’s leg, and realizes that he is propped up with a cane. ‘Your poor leg…’ she remarks. Wisdom replies that he gets by.
Later, in San Francisco, the streets are busy as people go about their business. A woman suddenly convulses, and blood starts trickling from her nose. ‘Whu…what?’ she wonders, before looking up at a man in a suit who walks past, her eyes glow, and she leaps up and attacks him, breaking his neck. ‘Oh my…did you see that?’ someone calls out. ‘Get offa him, you crazy -’ another passer by exclaims, as they pull the woman away. ‘Let…GO!’ she screams, releasing beams of energy from her eyes, which knock over a nearby tram. The woman falls to the ground and people back away from her. ‘Hu…help me…’ she calls out as blood begins to pool around her…


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[Assistant]
Games Without Frontiers, part three
A chopper flies above the city of San Francisco. ‘Closing on San Francisco. ETA in seven minutes, Dr Roman’ someone inside the chopper announces. He looks out of the window and mutters ‘God, this murk. I’d forgotten about it’ he adds. His face partly hidden behind a cloak, the strange-looking Dr Niles Roman tells his companion, Ford, that he knows, and that is why he has always liked the city. ‘Murky. Foggy. Easy to hide things here…to conceal a multitude of sins’ he grins wickedly, while down below, part of the city is in flames.
Nearby, a black jeep containing five certain mutants hangs perilously on the edge of a cliff after falling off the road. ‘Everyone okay?’ someone calls out. ‘Fine, except whoever owns the hand on my thigh, better move it or lose it!’ Tabitha “Meltdown” Smith exclaims. Someone quickly apologizes, while Pete Wisdom tells the kids that he has had enough chit-chat and asks someone to open the door - an instant later, James Proudstar uses his incredible strength to kick the door off with ease, sending it flying into the air. The mutants begin to climb out of the car, and Wisdom exclaims ‘I said open…open! Not kick the bloody thing into orbit! This was a rental!’ he exclaims. Wisdom adds that this is what comes of X-Force being brought up by super heroes. ‘Next time, engage brain before flexing muscles!’ he adds.
Meltdown turns to Jesse Aaronson a.k.a. Bedlam and asks him he if flunked driver’s education, or what. Bedlam responds that the electrics just freaked, like they hit the edge of an EMP wave, or something. Standing up towards the busy road, Sam “Cannonball” Guthrie looks concerned, and tells his team that they better come take a look at this. Traffic is backed up for miles, and the young mutants approach some of the drivers, only to find that they are all unconscious. ‘What happened here? They’re out cold’ Meltdown remarks. ‘All of them!’ Bedlam agrees as he checks another car. Pete looks over towards the city and exclaims that they have to get there right now. ‘James, Sam - you’re carrying the rest of us’ he orders. ‘Flying. Me. I still can’t believe it’ Proudstar remarks as he grabs Wisdom, who replies ‘Take it from me, Jim old son. I’m not done with you all yet. The best is yet to come’ he adds. Cannonball picks up Meltdown and blasts skyward, while Wisdom jokes’ Now, to the skies, my X-Men!’
In the city, ‘They’re coming! They’re coming!’ someone exclaims as civilians converge together down an alleyway, only to find that it is a dead end. Suddenly, ‘No more running, no more time, no more life’ a voice calls out. ‘Dead…end’ the voice adds, as three people are seemingly linked together, and other civilians suddenly glow green, before they are engulfed in energy.
Approaching the city, ‘Look at this. We at war?’ Bedlam asks as he clings to Proudstar’s back. Holding his cane with an axe-like head, Wisdom replies’ Yeah. A war planned forty years ago. This is what Valentina was afraid of. When the meatspores activated’. Suddenly, a burst of energy is fired at the mutants, nearly striking Wisdom. ‘OH BLOODY -’ Wisdom shouts, before the energy streak is revealed to be attacked to something - or someone - flying past them. ‘What’s that?’ Proudstar asks. ‘Trouble’ Wisdom replies, ordering Proudstar to get them out of the air, and fast. The strange creature opens its eyes, and releases beams of energy. ‘Close. Nest time, he’s on us!’ Cannonball exclaims as he dodges the blast. ‘Not if he can’t see!’ Meltdown exclaims as she releases a stream of plasma energy , which engulfs the creature, who shrieks in agony.
Cannonball congratulates Meltdown on her good thinking, and asks Bedlam to release a neural EMP flare, like Pete showed him. Bedlam does as requested, and the energies surround the creature. ‘This’s so cool Don’t know why I never thought of it before’ Bedlam remarks, adding that his mind is an electromagnetic field. ‘I just mess it around some and… ‘ he begins, before the creature releases more energy from its eyes. ‘It’s convulsing! Firing wild!’ Proudstar declares, unable to pull Wisdom to safety, as one of the energy beams strikes his leg. ‘You filthy piece of -’ Meltdown begins, firing another charge of plasma at the creature, which shrieks in agony once more, while Wisdom asks to be taken down, gently.
At that moment, the chopper containing Dr Niles Roman lands, and Ford helps Niles out of the chopper. ‘Is the old observation suite intact?’ Niles Roman enquires. Ford confirms that it is, and Niles orders him to take him there. They enter, and monitors depict the events taking place in San Francisco. ‘Excellent! Are we getting it all? Are we recording everything? The cameras and sensors have been in place for decades. They may have perished -’ Niles exclaims, but Ford assures him that everything is working perfectly, and helps him to a chair. ‘Please be seated -’ Ford asks, but Niles shrugs him off, ‘Get off me, man. I’m not a cripple!’ he exclaims. He pulls his cloak back, revealing his disfigured form, and smiles. ‘Wonderful. How wonderful and beautiful it is. Every aspect of this moment. Monsters hunting humans, being recorded for posterity’. He reaches out to the monitors and raises his arms as he watches the civilians in danger. ‘My war. My lovely war’ he declares.
On a street, Cannonball and Meltdown help Wisdom to walk, with Meltdown suggesting they get him to a hospital, but Wisdom announces that he doesn’t trust doctors - never did and never will. He adds that he isn’t bleeding, as the wound has been cauterized. Wisdom tells X-Force to shush, as he has to get his bearings, before pointing down an alleyway. ‘Down there’ he orders. They walk down the alleyway to a door. Wisdom sticks his finger nail in the keyhole, and the door swings open. Wisdom explains that a couple of his mates cracked this place a few years ago, but they couldn’t erase the DNA lock to stop the previous owners entering, so they inserted new codes instead, to let the likes of him in here.
X-Force make their way through the warehouse complex and into a room which Wisdom states is a SHIELD observation post, an invisible surveillance ghost web, tuned into the city - naughty and illegal. He adds that congress got wise, so SHIELD had to abandon it. ‘Lucky for us, cause we’re going to be making a lot of use of it today’ he explains, adding that this place is a window on a war game, one someone’s fighting with live ammunition - the same someone whose crap they went up against in Russia.
Shown with some flashback images, narrated by Wisdom in the present:
Wisdom begins to tell X-Force what he knows, explaining that back in the 1950’s, ‘Ancient history, I know. But try to stay awake’ he suggests, an intel outfit was sanctioned to study and extrapolate ways of reacting to a perceived mutant threat, and that it was called Cuckoo and run by Dr Niles Roman, an authentic nutter scientist. Wisdom explains that Cuckoo’s primary aim was to make projections on a theoretical mutant / human ground war, but the problem was, there were too many variables, and they needed hard data to work from - so they decided to make some. Wisdom informs X-Force that Cuckoo built a bioreactor, an engine that beamed signals into nearby mutant genomes, causing them to mutate fast and furious, and that it fired specific chemical triggers in the brain.
‘So it made latents into full mutants like us?’ Meltdown enquires. But Wisdom explains that it made them into full mutants obsessed with killing humans, to enforce a genetic imperative - survival of the fittest. ‘Without that last trigger boosting their aggression centers, Roman wouldn’t get what he desired - data on an inter-species war fought over the idea that mutants wanted to seize control’ Wisdom explains. ‘Get them before they get you. Old man’s thinking paranoid’ Bedlam remarks. Wisdom continues, explaining that at the eleventh hour, Washington realized a small, contained civil war just to see what happened was not a vote winner. He adds that Cuckoo’s permission to test was rescinded, and they were ordered to destroy the device.
Roman was disgusted, but not defeated, and his tame CIA team in San Francisco were seconded to supervise the dismantling. ‘A lie’ Wisdom announces, revealing that the team set the bioreactor to standby, equipped with a slowly degrading lock on the activation mechanism and buried it under San Francisco.
Present:
Wisdom flicks his cigarette away and states that sooner or later, Cuckoo would get its data, that it is happening right now. He explains that Valentina’s team figured it would fire in several pulses to affect the widest number of people before going to phase 2. Sam supposes that they must have been at the edge of the last pulse, and Wisdom agrees, and points out that as full mutants, if they got any further, they would probably be butchering people and laughing. James asks what the plan is, and Wisdom reveals that he will liaise with Russia, get as much information as he can, as the bioreactor is the key. He looks at a monitor showing some of the changed civilians in the city, and Wisdom points out that they are enslaved to it, that it is still feeding hate into their brains. He exclaims ‘I need you to find the bioreactor, my X-Men. Find it and kill it…now!’
X-Force depart, and Wisdom stays in touch via com-link. Meltdown, Cannonball, Proudstar and Bedlam stand together as Wisdom tells them that they are in a city of hate, and that those not dead or hiding are monsters and will try to kill them. ‘Be gentle with them…if you can‘. He adds that they are on their own, with no back up, no cavalry. ‘Don’t take risks. Destroy the device. Stop the war’ he tells them. ‘Understood, Mr W’ Cannonball responds, before telling X-Force that they heard them, and it is time to roll. Leaning backwards in his chair, his injured leg raised, Wisdom has another cigarette in his hand and watches the monitors, ‘Just you and me, children’ he remarks. ‘Saving the world. From itself’.


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Games Without Frontiers, part four
San Francisco, where the young mutants of X-Force - Sam “Cannonball” Guthrie, Tabitha “Meltdown” Smith, James Proudstar and Jesse “Bedlam” Aaronson survey the death and destruction of the secret war that is playing out. Via communication link, their new team leader, Pete Wisdom asks Cannonball how everything is looking out on the ground. ‘Pretty darn bad, Sir’ Cannonball replies, adding that he has never seen anything like it. ‘The bodies…the smell…it’s like…’, but Wisdom tells him that he understands, and to keep a clear head. ‘Understood’ Cannonball replies, before pointing out that whatever happened here, they missed it, and asks Wisdom if he can point them to somewhere they can do some good.
Watching via monitors placed around the city, Wisdom observes the situation and tells Sam to give him a second as he needs to pull the rest of the ghost-sensors online. He touches buttons on a touch-screen monitor, and more cameras around the city fire up. Wisdom reports that all eyes are wide open across the city. ‘Stand-by for new orders’ he tells X-Force.
Meantime, at another facility hidden within San Francisco, the deformed Dr Niles Roman scowls from under his hood, ‘Blast you, Ford! I thought you said the systems here were still fully functional!’ he tells his companion, who replies that they should be, and that he ran a full diagnostics shortly after they arrived. He then reports that they are operating within 97% capacity. As pictures of mutated civilians around the city appear on screen, Niles mutters that the pictures are weak, the signal diluted. ‘Do you think someone else could be piggy-backing on our cameras, splitting the signal?’ he asks. Ford replies that it is easy to check, as he can back-trace the signal, ‘Biting the hand that feeds them so to speak’ Ford adds, before telling Dr Roman that it is almost like the old times. Dr Roman smirks, ‘Ah yes, technology, murder and information…the good old days’.
Inside the base where Wisdom has set-up headquarters, the British mutant uses his “hot-knives” to light another cigarette, and tells X-Force that the sensors show they are near to Greebo Central, which means the bioreactor is close by. ‘Find the device and kill it. If we’re lucky that’s all it’ll take to deactivate the genome wild cards’ Wisdom explains, adding that there is a problem, for the closer they get, the denser the population of enforced mutants will be - all baying for their blood. ‘Figures’ Proudstar mutters as he slides down some debris, while Cannonball blasts through the air. ‘We’re mutants too. We’re they going after us?’ Bedlam enquires. ‘Duh! Because we’re not slaves to the bio-signal like they are’ Meltdown mutters, as the transformed civilians emerge on the hills nearby.
Meltdown turns to the unfortunates and releases a stream of plasma energy, ‘Which means we’re going to have to play nasty’ Meltdown adds, keeping the transformed people at bay. Cannonball asks Proudstar if he thinks he can take them down without killing them all. ‘No sweat’ Proudstar replies, adding that he has been wanting to try something Wisdom suggested. ‘Go. Cause trouble’ Cannonball tells him, and Warpath rushes forward at super speed, while Bedlam tells Meltdown that he has a problem with this - fighting good people gone bad, through no fault of their own, while releasing a burst of energy to keep them back. ‘I’ll remind you of that when they’re eating your liver’ Meltdown tells her teammate, before pointing out that James is coming their way. And he does, the force of his speed knocking the civilians backwards.
Proudstar picks up a piece of wood that caught on fire, possibly thanks to Meltdown’s plasma beams, and he runs with it through the transformed civilians, scaring them and forcing them backwards as he takes them all down by slamming the plasma-charged wood against them. ‘And the crowd goes wild’ Proudstar jokes. ‘The crows was already wild. You just beat them to a pulp’ Bedlam smiles. ‘Showy. Very showy’ Meltdown remarks, while Cannonball points out that it worked, but that they aren’t done yet.
Back at the observatory, Ford announces that he has it, that he has tapped into whoever is pirating their signal. ‘Hah! It’s SHIELD!’ Niles remarks. ‘Of all people, their riders on our cameras’ he adds, deciding that it is especially interesting since SHIELD no longer has a crewed presence here, and realizes that it is because this isn’t SHIELD, that someone else must be using their facility. When one of the monitors suddenly shows images of X-Force in action, Roman exclaims ‘It’s these people. Whoever’s running the pirate relay is also running them!’
As the battle continues while X-Force moves on, and Cannonball radios Wisdom, asking him if they are any closer to the source yet. Wisdom reports that they are almost there, and that he is bearing down on the signal emergence point. He announces that he will have the exact location locked down any time now. Bedlam alerts Cannonball to a problem, motioning to where several non-transformed civilians are being closed in on. They’ve got maybe three minutes, max!’ Bedlam exclaims, while the civilians holed up near a store fire guns at the approaching mutates. ‘Copy that. Listen up, everyone, here’s the plan…’ Cannonball announces via the communicators. As Cannonball blasts skyward, he tells Proudstar to divide and conquer, to hit the freaks hard and bust them out to take the core. He orders Meltdown to drive the mutates towards Bedlam. ‘Me, but…’ the ever-apprehensive Bedlam calls back. ’No buts, no time’ Cannonball replies as he blasts downwards, right into the mutates, pointing out that the trapped people are depending on them. ‘I need a neural EMP blast. Get hot!’ Cannonball orders.
Meltdown makes her way down towards the civilians, and several police officers are there. ‘Don’t know who you are or where you came from, Miss. But you’re sure a sight for sore eyes’ one of them remarks. ‘Aw, shucks, officer. I bet you say that to all the plasma-wielding mutant girls’ Meltdown replies as she releases a massive wave of plasma towards the mutates, sending them back towards Beldam, who charges up a burst of energy, ‘I can do this…just gotta hold it together for a few seconds’ Bedlam tells himself. He manages to control his power, and Cannonball drops down beside him, congratulating him on good work, as the mutates collapse under Bedlam’s power. Jesse tells Sam that he took a heck of a gamble, pointing out that in training, he normally only managed one EMP flare every couple of hours, that it is not like using his normal power, that it is risky.
‘Taking risks is why we’re here. It comes with that X you’re wearing’ Sam replies. Jesse just frowns, while Wisdom reports that he has the bioreactor’s location, but the problem is, there is something big an ugly sitting on it. Observing the strange creature, Wisdom sees that it appears to have no legs, but four arms. A round blob-like body, and a large, gaping mouth. Wisdom adds that what is really creeping him out, is that the creature looks like a woman he snogged at a Pistols’’ gig in 1975. ‘Say again? I didn’t catch all that. Who’re the Pistols?’ Cannonball asks, pressing the communication device against his ear, before Bedlam alerts him to where the air is clearing around the civilians Beldam hit with the EMP burst - and the civilians have reverted to normal - naked, but normal.
Bedlam informs Wisdom of the interesting development, and informs them that the neural EMP changed them back to normal. Pete replies that this makes sense, as Jesse’s burst would have purged their short term memory, including the bioreactor’s hold over them. Wisdom adds that their brains are no longer in any condition to receive or comprehend the signal from it. ‘Pity we can’t just wave Jesse over the city’ Sam smiles, to which Bedlam warns him that he would come back and haunt him for a million years. Wisdom explains that it would only be a temporary fix, as they would still need to take out the device. ‘So let’s get moving, shall we?’ he asks, adding that they will know when they are there. ‘Trust me. Like I said, it’s not a pretty sight’.
Wisdom supposes that several people must have merged when the bioreactor detonated. ‘This is what you’re fighting against, boys and girls. This is what it turns Jo Public into’ Wisdom states, getting a closer look of the unfortunate. ‘The longer we wait, the more people die’ Cannonball adds. ‘Right…’ Wisdom agrees, and informs the young mutants that the reactor is at least three hundred feet below that “creature”. ‘It’s your call. Hard choices time, old son’ Wisdom tells Sam, who replies that he understands. Cannonball turns to his teammates and instructs Meltdown and Proudstar to get Bedlam as close in as he can, then Bedlam has to stretch that neural flare of his top the limit, getting those people alive and clear before Cannonball strikes. ‘Before?’ Meltdown asks. ‘I’ve got to dig down three hundred feet. And we’re out of time. That thing’ll do its level best to kill me if it can’ Sam explains as he blasts into the air.
‘So death from above, huh?’ Tabitha calls out as she watches Sam fly higher. ‘Be fast, Tabitha’ Sam replies, before telling her that he loves her. ‘You…you…’ Tabitha mutters, before turning to Jesse and James and shouting ‘You heard the man. We’ve got two minutes minimum. Let’s go!’ But, suddenly, the unfortunate humans who were bonded to form the creature rises from the ground. ‘We’ve been made already! That pile of snot must have mutant precog talents along with everything else!’ Meltdown exclaims, before turning to Bedlam, who replies that there is no nee to get closer, that he just needs it kept busy. ‘Busy? Hey, I’m actually breaking a sweat here, y’know’ Meltdown mutters as she fires a plasma stream towards the “creature”. Deciding that this will only work by getting up close and personal, Bedlam lunges at the creature and places a neural-charged hand on it. His power spreads around the “creature”, and it separates, freeing the civilians from their unfortunate state.
‘Whoa’ Bedlam mutters as he falls back, amongst the naked people. Proudstar tells Meltdown and Bedlam that they have to move everyone one of the way, and now, as they have incoming. He begins to drag some of the civilians away, ‘Fire in the hole!’ Proudstar exclaims as Cannonball’s “death from above” tactic sends Sam bursting down through the ground, far enough so that he finds the bioreactor. ‘Yes! Yes! What a rush’ Cannonball exclaims, before he begins to destroy the bioreactor, ‘Game over O’Hara…game over!’ he shouts.
‘Amen to that’ Wisdom agrees back at the SHIELD base, when suddenly, he realizes someone is standing behind him - it’s Niles Roman and Ford. ‘I don’t know or care who or what you are, Sir. But you have ruined something I waited a long time to see’ Niles tells him, raising a gun he points it at Wisdom ‘Your mutant filth children I can deal with another time. But you, Sir - you do not survive this insult’ Niles Roman grins wickedly.
Later, X-Force are happy as they return to the SHIELD base, ‘And you, barking orders like you’re Nick Fury or something’ James tells Sam, who suggests that he could borrow Wisdom’s eye patch of love and look the part. ‘What d’you say, Professor W?’ Jesse asks as they enter the office where Wisdom had set up - only to find his body lying on the floor. Their joy turns to horror, as Sam calls out to Wisdom, and gets no response….


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Shockwaves, part 1: Murder Ballads
A plaque is fixed to the ground at a cemetery. The name “Peter Winston Wisdom” is stamped into it, with a quote “Stuff This for a Lark”. Leaves blow around, and a priest stands over the grave, ‘And so we commit his body to the ground, in the sure and certain hope of his resurrection into everlasting light…ashes to ashes…dust to dust. Amen’ the priest concludes, throwing some dirt onto the casket.
Four young people approach the priest, and Sam “Cannonball” Guthrie thanks them for a fine service. Sam and Jesse Aaronson a.k.a. Bedlam are dressed in black suits. James Proudstar wears a grey suit, and Tabitha “Meltdown” Smith is clad in a white outfit with a long coat. The priest remarks that these things are always so much harder on the living. ‘The dead have it easy, they’ve passed on to a better place…the hardest part of those left behind is simply getting on with my life. You are friends. Be strong for each other’.
The young heroes collectively known as X-Force watch the priest leave, before Tabitha breaks the silence: ‘They didn’t come…not a single one. Not Nightcrawler, Colossus, Dr MacTaggert. Any of them from his time with Excalibur…nothing’ she exclaims, annoyed. Jesse tells Tabitha that she knows how this works, and points out that this isn’t your average occupation. ‘Maybe they were…busy?’ he suggests. ‘Busy? The guy’s dead, Jess! How busy can they be?’ she shouts, while Sam tells her to let it go. ‘No!’ Tabitha replies. ‘At least she could’ve made it. She and Mr W had a history together! Little cow’s pride in more than just name alone!’ Tab exclaims, referring to Shadowcat a.k.a. Kitty Pryde.
Sam puts his arms around Tabitha and tells her to let all go. But Tab replies that it isn’t far. ‘He smoked and swore and smelled weird but I miss him!’ she sulks. Sam suggests that Jesse might be right, they could all be busy. ‘We’re outta the loop now. We’ve no way of knowing what’s happening with the others. If they didn’t show, then they had their reasons’ he adds. James tells his teammates that he hates to be the one to bring this up, and asks ‘What if they weren’t busy? We’re outsiders now, remember?’ He asks what if they all turned their back on X-Force, all of them. ‘Maybe they’re sending us a message’ he wonders. But Jesse tells James that he is wrong, that is too cold. They wouldn’t do that to us. ‘What about his friends and family - they were no-shows too’ he adds.
Sam reveals that Pete once told him that spies and spooks like him spend their lives in the shadows, convincing folks that they’re not there. ‘So when they’re gone no one notices. After all, who’s gonna mourn a ghost?’ he asks. ‘We will’ Tabitha remarks. The boys look away from each other, seemingly lost, while Tabitha points out that Mr W brought them together, made them something more than they were, showed them that they could change things. ‘He’d want us to carry on. We’re all we have now. We need each other’ Tabitha tells them. Sam looks at her, while Jesse and James remain silent, until Jesse finally breaks the silence, ‘Breakfast?’ he asks. ‘Sounds good’ James replies. Tabitha smiles and exclaims that she wants chocolate and coffee in a big bowl with a straw.
Sam tells Jesse to dig deep, as he is paying. ‘No way, I paid last time!’ Jesse complains. ‘That was me, after Tab’ James points out. Tabitha tells Jesse to dust off his bucks, because she is starving, when suddenly, a car pulls up nearby. ‘Hey, check this out. Late arrivals…bit late arrivals’ Sam remarks as an elderly woman is escorted to Wisdom’s grave by three burly men. ‘Son of a…’ Sam begins, while the woman kneels beside the open grave, and strikes a match against Wisdom’s coffin to light a cigarette. Sam frowns and prepares to walk over to her, but the men step in front of him: ‘Leave it chummy. You don’t wanna mess with that. Not today’ one of them tells him, before the woman starts to walk back to her car.
‘Who was that?’ Tabitha asks, when, suddenly, ‘Her name’s Romany Wisdom…she’s his sister’ announces a former member of X-Force, who steps out of the shadows. ‘Domino!’ someone gasps at seeing their friend. ‘I know this is a bad time, but we need to talk’ Domino announces.
Flashback, six months ago, takes place between X-Force (1st series) #101 and #102:
‘Hit me!’ Domino orders inside a warehouse in a run-down area of San Francisco. Five young mutants step out of the shadows, only to get thrown back there one by one: ‘Clumsy!’ Domino shouts as she knocks Dani Moonstar backwards. ‘sloppy!’ she tells Proudstar as she leaps on him. ‘Slow!’ she exclaims, easily dodging Cannonball. ‘Dumb!’ Domino shouts. ‘Pathetic!’ she mocks as her teammates all fall to the ground. She tells them to get up, front and center, as they are going to go again, right now. ‘You’re kidding! For a training exercise this kinda hurts, y’know!’ Meltdown complains. ‘Good. Because when it stops hurting, you’re doing it right. We don’t quit till then!’ Domino replies.
Domino tells her younger teammates that she is not playing games here. ‘Duh!’ Meltdown mutters. Domino continues, pointing out that when the High Evolutionary stripped the powers off every mutant on the planet, it was a wake-up call, as it made her realize how vulnerable and exposed X-Force has become, relying solely on their mutant talents. She points out that they are in danger of becoming complacent, and that could kill them. ‘I’ve a lifetime’s worth of martial skills to fall back on, you don’t. You’ve some unarmed combat training, but it’s not enough. It’s time to go back to basics’ Domino announces, while Sam, Dani, Tabby, James and Jesse just stare at her, unimpressed. Suddenly, a voice coming from the door calls out ‘Here endeth the first lesson!’ It’s Pete Wisdom, who smiles and approaches X-Force, ‘Pop the kettle on, Domino, love. I’m spitting feathers!’ Wisdom announces.
‘Better than spitting tooth. What do you want, Wisdom?’ Domino asks, unimpressed. Wisdom smiles and replies that he is collecting for the mutant boy scouts of America. ‘I hear you’ve got a couple to spare?’ he remarks. ‘Again. Why?’ Domino replies, ignoring his flippant comments. Hands in his pockets, Wisdom casually replies that he was invited. ‘Invited…’ Domino begins, once more, unimpressed. Looking at Bedlam, Cannonball announces ‘Uh, we…asked him, actually’. Bedlam reveals that after the Genosha incident, he and Sam contacted Pete, that they talked, and liked what they heard. ‘We want him to run his offer by the others’ Bedlam announces.
‘What offer?’ Domino asks, frowning at Wisdom, who replies ‘You’re a merc. I’m a spook. We both know how the world works - our world. Full of secrets, lies and strange deaths. Where crimes and injustices are perpetrated on mutant kind by types that’ll never be brought to book’ Wisdom tells Domino, adding that the ghost people who run the shadow world think they are immune from justice. ‘I want to show them otherwise’ he reveals. Domino pauses, remaining silent for some time, before remarking that she sees where this is going. ‘No way!’ she shouts. Wisdom tells Domino to look at them, pointing out that they are not kids, and that she can’t keep them from the truth.
Cannonball steps forward and tells Domino that, with respect, it is not her choice. ‘Yeah, it’s ours. All of ours. How could you do this without asking us first?’ Danielle snaps at Sam. Jesse frowns and points out that they are asking her now. Sam tells Dani that she must know herself they have been drifting without a real purpose for far too long, and that that their time in Genosha bought it home, hard. Sam tells his teammates that they are always reacting instead of acting, that the show up when the damage is being done instead of ensuring that it never happens in the first place. ‘The time we waste costs lives. I can’t live with that’ he declares.
Bedlam remarks that Professor Xavier’s dream of mutant integration is a fine one, but that is all it is - a dream. ‘How can you say that?’ Moonstar asks, bothered. ‘Cause it’s the truth and you know it!’ Bedlam replies. Sam tells them to calm down, as he didn’t want it to go like this. Sam tells Dani to ask herself what good they are really doing anyone. ‘We want a normal life but face it, we ain’t normal. So let’s use that…Mister W’ Sam declares, turning to Wisdom, who looks at Proudstar and Meltdown and announces ‘This is the deal. Throw in with me, I’ll give you the opportunity to make a difference’. He tells X-Force that he knows scary stuff, that he knows the black ops world, and how to make it work for them. ‘I’ll teach you new ways to add depth and dexterity to your powers. Make better use of them to make a better world’ Wisdom announces. Lighting a cigarette, Wisdom tells X-Force that the choice is theirs.
Dani looks at Sam and Jesse as they cross over to stand with Wisdom. ‘James, you can’t be serious!’ Dani calls out to Proudstar he follows Meltdown towards the others. James tells his friend that he is sorry, but that the others are right. ‘You know they are’ he points out. ’Okay, I agree but this isn’t the way!’ Dani declares. Domino hangs her head and tells Dani to forget about it, as there is nothing more to be said. Dani starts crying, while Domino turns to Wisdom and clenching her fist, warns him that if any one of them gets hurt, or worse, because of his misplaced idealism, she will find whatever rock he is hiding under and tear out his heart. ‘Fair enough’ Wisdom smiles.
‘That’s it? We all just walk away?’ Dani asks. ‘Like the man said. It’s their choice’ Domino points out, putting a comforting hand on Dani’s shoulder. But Dani is too upset, and she rushes over to Wisdom as he and her friends start to leave the warehouse. Dani grabs Wisdom by his shoulder and pulls him back, ’This is your fault, you’ve torn us apart!’ she exclaims. ’What about us? What about X-Force?’ Dani demands to know. Sam, Tabitha, James and Jesse all turn to look at Dani as Wisdom motions back at them, and replies ’You’re looking at it’.
Present:
‘Talk about twisting the knife. That was harsh’ someone remarks as the young mutants sit in a booth at a coffee house. ‘Classic Wisdom though. Hugh Grant he wasn’t’ Domino points out, before asking the others if they have heard from Dani and if she is okay. No one responds, until James asks ‘Haven’t you spoken to her?’ Domino replies that she hasn’t, and reveals that she dropped out of sight for a while, ‘I don’t really know what happened to me’ she tells her former teammates, adding that one minute she is out trying to clear her head and think things through after Wisdom’s bombshell, and the next, she is possessed by some creep named Aentaros, one of the Undying, and trying to kill Cable. ‘And another guy called Shire…I think’ Domino reveals.
‘Whoa!’ Tabitha exclaims, before Domino announces that the rest is still a blur, but that when she got back to China Basin, everyone had packed up and gone. Sam reveals that he heard Dani was moonlighting with the X-Men. ‘But we haven’t talked since…well, you know’ his voice trails off. Domino replies that she knows, but that was then, and this is now. ‘Time to cut to the chase. I need your help’ Domino explains. ‘You’ve got it’ James assures her, to which Domino suggests they hear her out first, and reveals that she is in trouble, that she is marked and being hunted. ‘And to be honest, I’m scared’. This surprises the young mutants: ‘Scared…’ Sam asks. ‘…You?’ Bedlam enquires. ‘You’re joking!’ a wide-eyed Tabitha smiles. ‘Do I look like I’m joking? It’s not a feeling I relish, believe me’ Domino replies. Sam asks her what is up, Domino explains that after everything fell apart, she didn’t know where to go, what to do, so she drifted back into the freelance circuit again, needing money, badly.
Flashback, narrated by Domino in the present:
Domino informs X-Force that one of those jobs was working for a nasty piece of slime she knows named Vogel, who ran a trigger agency in Morocco, and he offered her a high bounty contract working with a bunch of others in New Delhi. She explains that a Swiss multinational was being targeted by a terrorist faction who figured their foreign investment was a form of was a form of economic imperialism.
Along with several mercenaries, they began a covert operation, and Domino tells X-Force that maybe the terrorists were right, but that they were bombing public places with semtex explosives packed with glass and plastic shards that don’t show up on hospital x-rays, which didn’t win her sympathy. Domino and the mercenaries found the terrorists and took them down, but it wasn’t until after that, when their troubles really began.
Domino explains that when their fees weren’t transferred into their accounts, it looked liked Vogel was trying to scam them, so she and the mercenaries went to set him straight. But, someone else beat them to the draw with what looked like a single high-velocity shot to the head. However, Domino felt that something wasn’t right, for Vogel was locked inside his office from the inside, the window were still intact and no impact damage anywhere from the round that killed him. ‘The whole thing set alarm bells ringing’ she tells her friends.
Domino explains that the mercenaries tore the place apart looking for their money, when the truth suddenly dawned on her. One of the mercenary’s chest suddenly exploded, and Domino knew for certain - the trajectory of the shot came from outside, but the window hadn’t shattered - there had been no gunshot because the killer didn’t need one - just his talent and a clear line of sight. Domino explains that she was lucky that the mercenary got in the way, for she knows she was the intended target. Indeed, a man stood on the rooftop of a nearby building, and Domino explains that his name is Marcus Tsung, and that he possesses the mutant gene for murder….


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Provide a full summary of the comic book.

[Assistant]
Shockwaves, part 2: Murder Ballads part 2
Pete Wisdom is dead. Shot in the head while his protégés - the outlaw band of young mutants known as X-Force - were saving San Francisco from the ravages of a mutagenic bio-engine. They are James Proudstar, Tabitha “Meltdown” Smith, Sam “Cannonball” Guthrie and Jesse “Bedlam” Aaronson. Wisdom had shown them a new path, a new way to use their powers to bring justice and retribution to those who would persecute their kind. A new way to building a better world, one that cost Wisdom his life. Now, an old face has returned - Domino, former friend, former leader, former mentor, running scared with a price on her head and no one else to turn to be the pupils who abandoned her.
Flashback, Six Months Ago:
Nevada, inside a small facility which has a wire fence surrounding it, the words “Nevada Stockade: Trespassers will be met with lethal force” on a sign attached to the fence. Inside, Pete Wisdom sits at a control station, smoking as usual, and calls out ‘Alright, boys and girls, you’ve got your shiny new togs. We’ve run through all the theory. Now it’s time for the practical. Are you ready to play?’ he calls out, while the four members of X-Force, clad in their new leather costumes, stand in a large, seemingly empty room. ‘We’re ready. Let’s go’ Cannonball reports. Wisdom smirks as he tells the young mutants that there is one thing he forgot to mention: ‘This may look like a Danger Room, but it isn’t, there are no safety protocols for starters!’ he adds, as several panels in the floor whirl open, and large robots emerge from under the floor.
Wisdom reveals that this is a mothballed Hulkbuster base, so these robots were designed to subdue police and even terminate the Hulk, if need be. ‘They mean business…so should you. Have fun!’ Wisdom exclaims. ‘Oh, crap!’ Meltdown mutters, while Proudstar tells his friends to get their game on and move, as he rushes towards one of the massive robots. ‘MOVE IT!’ Proudstar shouts, smashing one of the robots with his impressive strength. Cannonball calls out ‘Attack pattern Sparta’ and orders Proudstar to shield Meltdown, while instructing Bedlam to release an EMP wave, with a broad dispersal yield. ‘I’ll run field overview’ Cannonball announces. ‘Copy that’ Bedlam replies, as he concentrates hard. Proudstar covers Meltdown and Cannonball blasts overhead, while in the control booth, Wisdom watches his team, and continues to speak to them via the communicator. He tells Bedlam ‘You can do it. Concentrate…you can do it…think it and it’ll happen’ he exclaims. An instant later, Bedlam releases his electrical energy, taking out several of the robots.
‘Good work, Jess. I reckon a 70% kill. The rest must be EMP shielded’ Cannonball reports as he blasts overhead, while telling Meltdown to get front and center, as he wants plasma bombs, hard and sharp, to take out their sensors. ‘I’m on it’ Meltdown replies as she moves towards some of the robots, while Cannonball tells Proudstar to stand by for a strafing run pick up. Cannonball blasts down to grab Proudstar, and as he pulls him into the air asks ‘Uhh, brother, are you putting on weight?’ to which James exclaims ‘Hey, I’m just big-boned is all!’ before Sam reminds him of all the cherry choc chip ice cream that he has been eating.
Meltdown looks at her hands, frowning, she tells her self ‘Okay, I can do this. Time to get hot…’, while Wisdom watches intently, ‘Remember what I told you, visualize - sharpen your focus on the plasma - make the light a weapon’ he tells her. ‘…feel the burn!’ Meltdown declares as he plasma manifests no in the form of time-bombs, but in several beams, which strike a robot and take it out. Up above, ‘Ready?’ Cannonball asks Proudstar, who replies ‘Nope, but let’s do it anyway’. ‘YeeeHAAAH!’ Cannonball exclaims as he blasts downwards, and drops Proudstar out of his arms, ‘Incoming!’ Proudstar exclaims as he drops onto several robots. Cannonball orders Meltdown and Bedlam to move in, but Wisdom interrupts, and overrides Cannonball’s order. ‘The three of you stand down’ he orders them. ‘Say again?’ Bedlam asks, confused.
‘Don’t play the muppet with me, Jesse. You heard. I’ve taken James off your com loop, too…he’s on his own’ Wisdom announces. Proudstar finds himself back up against a corner, several robots closing in on him, one of which releases tentacles, wrapping around Proudstar’s waist and arms. ‘I know what you’re doing’ Cannonball tells Wisdom as he flies up to the control booth. ‘Then you know it’s for his own good’ Wisdom replies, stubbing out another cigarette. Cannonball frowns and remarks that those machines are built to take down the Hulk. ‘Physiologically, James is the nearest thing we’ve got to him’ Cannonball adds, while pointing out that the machines may be more than a match for him, that they could cause him some serious harm. ‘They could even kill him’ Cannonball adds.
‘Then he knows what he has to do’ Wisdom replies. Bedlam and Meltdown look at each other, while Proudstar, his costume torn apart, struggles against the robots, and calls out ‘I could really use a hand here’, but Wisdom tells him that it isn’t coming, that he will have to help himself. ‘You know what I mean’ Wisdom adds, but Proudstar replies that he can’t, that he has tried, but it just doesn’t happen. ‘Then make it happen!’ Wisdom tells him. Wisdom remarks that when the High Evolutionary messed with everyone’s mutant powers, it rebooted their genome, so they now have complete access to all their capabilities, not just their limited ones. ‘So stop playing the big girl’s blouse and fly!’ Wisdom orders. ‘I CAN’T!’ Proudstar shouts as one of the robots clamps its hand down on his face. Wisdom touches his ear piece and speaks loudly into his mic, telling James that he can and will, because if doesn’t, then he will personally come down there and kick James into orbit. ‘I…’ Proudstar utters, when suddenly, he bursts up skyward, through the robots, and right out of the facility.
‘Big girl’s blouse, moi?’ Proudstar asks as he flies higher into the air. ‘I guess when you gotta go, you gotta go’ Bedlam mutters. Wisdom lights another cigarette, inhales it, then remarks ‘That’s my boy’.
Present:
‘This’s kind of…interesting’ Domino remarks as she and X-Force enter a room in an apartment building in San Francisco. She adds that she read about this in “Homes and Gardens” and calls it dumpster chic. ‘Hah! Hah! Why don’t you say “I told you so” and get it over with?’ Meltdown suggests frowning. ‘Is that what you want?’ Domino asks her. ‘That’s enough!’ Cannonball orders, holding his hands up. He points out that when Pete was murdered, their security was compromised, they had to move fast and go underground. ‘Cool view for underground’ Domino remarks, gazing out over the sprawling city.
X-Force are wearing formal wear still, and sitting down at a table, Jesse reveals that Tab went online and hacked databases, found them somewhere central, but secure, where they could hole up. He explains that this was a new office for a Pacific Rim Bank that suddenly went belly up, and everything got snarled in red tape - construction is abandoned until the courts sort it out. ‘It’s not gonna happen anytime soon’ Jesse adds. ‘Tabby hacked a database? Our Tabby, the one with the memory of a goldfish?’ Domino asks, surprised, quickly turning around and adding ‘No offense’. Frowning and with an icy infliction, Tab replies ‘None taken. You’ve been out of the loop too long, you’re old news. A lot of things have changed. Us especially’.
Making some coffee, James tells Domino that aside from enhancing their mutant powers, Pete taught them other skills, ways to survive outside of the system, live off their own resources. ‘You mean he’s turned you into mutant survivalists!’ Domino exclaims. Cannonball informs Domino that they stopped the city from becoming a mutant army that would have slaughtered every non-mutant on the West Coast, to which Domino asks how many died in the process - hundreds? Thousands?, causing Sam to get to his feet, ‘I don’t know. All we knew was that we had to get the job done’ he tells her. Tabby puts a hand on her hips and exclaims ‘Hey, you weren’t there! You didn’t see what was happening. So either put up or shut up’, before reminding Domino that she came to them for help.
Domino hangs her head and replies ‘You’re right…I’m sorry. You’re old enough to know your own minds’. Moving on, Jesse asks Domino to tell them about Tsung, and what they are dealing with. Domino reveals that after she dodge his virtual bullets in New Delhi, she dropped off the world, tried to find out who or why someone would set Tsung onto her. She explains that she dug up all she could on him - primary lesson of warfare being know your enemy. ‘What I did find were whispers, rumors and half truths. An enigma shrouded in a mystery’ Domino adds, announcing that Tsung was born in the far east, the son of a Hungarian physicist and a Chinese witch-woman, and that his power manifested early, that he used it to build a criminal empire spanning parts of China, India and Russia - mostly drugs, and prescribed nuclear technology.
Domino continues, remarking that there is a story that the Hand attempted to recruit him, and they don’t usually take no for an answer. Tsung returned their emissary, served with saffron rice and rose tea, and the Hand never bothered him again. Domino tells X-Force that she also heard that to test himself, Tsung would order bull elephants be pumped full of a potent cocktail of narcotics to make them stronger, faster and totally insane, and he would kill them - not with a virtual bullet, but with his bare hands. ‘Then one day he was gone. Walked out on his empire and never seen again’ Domino reveals.
‘These could all be lies or all be true. I heard so many contradicting stories about him, it’s impossible to sort fact from fiction’ Domino remarks, adding that, either way, it is an effective smoke screen, the only certainty is he is looking for something. James asks Domino if she has any idea what, to which she replies ‘Me’. ‘What makes you so special?’ Meltdown enquires. ‘I don’t know. Maybe the fact that he’s killed me once already!’ Domino replies. ‘Oh…’ Meltdown frowns.
Meantime, in California, an aeroplane lands on a dirt runway. Several cars are parked, as men in suits wait. The passenger entry / exit door on the plane is lowered, and the body of the stewardess falls onto the stairs. Marcus Tsung stands over her, before walking out of the jet, to where one of the men approaches him, extending a hand, he welcomes Tsung to the United States. ‘On behalf of my government and my employer, I am authorized to extend you every courtesy’ Tsung does not shake the man’s hand, but he does thank him, and walks with him towards one of the cars, bare foot, as he wears no shoes. ‘Tell me, do your men here also know my name?’ Tsung asks. ‘Yes, Sir’ the official replies.
‘Pity’ Tsung remarks as he raises a hand, and something flies towards them. ‘Sir?’ the official enquires. The object lands amongst the other men, and explodes, killing them. ‘Unfortunately, my mission here is of such secrecy, that I must kill everyone present…I’m sure you understand’ Tsung remarks. The official looks shocked, before falling to the ground, a pool of blood forming around him. ‘Thank you for your cooperation’ Tsung remarks, before walking off to the remaining car, his bare feet leaving bloody footprints in the sand. Suddenly, one of the officials who survived reaches for a weapon, but Tsung hears them, and spins around ‘Americans!’ he exclaims, firing a gun, which causes the jet to explode, engulfing everything around it - except for Tsung, who speeds away in the car….