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Dead Ahead
The light sings to him. Softly, at first, but ever so clearly. So comforting. Until another, more familiar refrain intrudes. Just a whisper, no words… from the dark. The story of Nate Grey is not yet told. He’s not finished here. His life has barely begun. Code-named “X-Man”, his psyche floats through the air, towards the light. It takes all of his formidable strength and only the merest effort of his will to stop drifting for one short moment - looking back at this world, this Earth, that has so recently become his own. Nate senses this growing bond, more deeply than he actually knows it. Thought escapes him just now. He reaches out to the light, and moves towards it. Feeling is all. Other forces pull at young Nate again, inviting illumination. Of course, other forces have always pulled at this powerful boy on the brink of being a man. And Nate Grey goes his own way, nonetheless.
At that moment, Alex “Havok” Summers and Fatale of the Brotherhood of Mutants are in an industrial building, green gas radiates from a piles of boxes and crates where Nate’s body lies motionless. ‘Can’t touch him, Fatale…’ Alex warns his mysterious teammate, pointing out that the electro-plasma screens work both ways, keeping the gas in and them out. Alex supposes that the screens must have triggered automatically as soon as the canisters were blasted open, which means bio-evac protocols are in full swing. Alex explains that they need to reach the vault’s purifiers, rework the systems to allow personal access to the hot zone before it’s too late. ‘Too late already!’ Fatale declares, reminding Havok that Coldsnap-9 is lethal. ‘End of discussion’ she tells him. Havok pulls the doors closed, while Fatale continues ‘The little hero made his decision, his noble sacrifice… let him die with it’.
‘No. He’s just a teenager, Fatale. Just another kid with more power than he knows what to do with’ Havok points out as he and Fatale run down a corridor. A hatch at the end of it begins to close. Havok adds that just because Grey chose not to hitch up with the Brotherhood to join their dream-scheme to make the world a better place for man and mutant both, no holds barred, doesn’t justify a death sentence. X-Man couldn’t stomach even the remotest possibility of what they might do with a chemical weapon as dangerous as Coldsnap-9, a deadly gas that was as much his as theirs really, considering the fact that they tricked him into stealing it from Canadian intelligence. ‘Hardly a capital offense’ Havok decides as he and Fatale leap through the closing hatch.
Suddenly, a hologram of their teammate the Dark Beast appears. ‘Unfortunately, it appears unavoidable at this stage’ the diabolical scientist remarks. ‘Dark Beast?’ Havok gasps. ‘No one regrets young Nate’s foolish release of the gas, more than myself, I assure you… but my research on the Coldsnap lab-samples has proven it every bit as terminally toxic as its reputation’ he explains. The Dark Beast adds that, as such, the bio-hazard lock-down is also irreversible. Havok and Fatale leap through the hologram of the Dark Beast, while Havok calls out ‘If you’re saying what I think you’re saying “teammate”…’ Havok’s voice trails off. ‘He is’ Fatale declares as another panel slams closed behind Havok and Fatale, who must made it to safety.
Via the hologram, the Dark Beast announces that it is over - Grey’s bio-readings have dropped off the vault’s sensors. He reports that he is preparing Aurora and the others for relocation even as they speak. ‘Better safe than sorry, I always say - I do hope we see you there’ the Dark Beast tells Alex and Fatale. Havok sees the safety-seal panel up ahead opening out onto the rest of the tunnels slamming shut already. ‘If I get my hands on something more than a holo-relay of that son of a -’ Alex begins. Fatale tells him that she is still trapped out from the cargo-transfer yesterday, but energy starts to surround them, as Fatale teleports herself and Havok away. Fatale tells him that she will lead him to the Dark Beast’s other lairs next, and then he can decide exactly where this big, bad Brotherhood goes from here. ‘But Nate Grey is way beyond our help now’ Fatale remarks.
Nate’s body lies sealed off, but the gas has subsided from all but one of the crates, where it continues to trickle out. In this cold, dark, abandoned hole, far beneath the streets of New York City, nothing stirs. Nate’s body simply lays there, unmoving, and darkness surrounds him.
While less than half-a-mile up, and just over four miles to the north, in the equally still and quiet basement morgue of Bronx County Hospital, long after hours. No staff are about, and the morgue is quiet and silent - until one of the doors lining the wall creaks open. The label on the tray says “Jane Doe” - and a mysterious shadow escapes into the night. The merest shade of a woman at first, what’s left of one who will never walk alone again. Wailing silent but surely in her wake, echoing for all the dead to hear. More doors open, and more trays holding the dead emerge from the wall.
‘We gotta talk -’ Nate’s spirit calls out as he looks down at his motionless body below. ‘Proud of yourself Nate? Wasting the last charge of that electro-stat gauntlet on the canisters - taking the brunt of the poisons yourself - was this the only solution?’ Nate asks. He wonders about his so-called psi-powers, the telekinesis that is finally come back to him bit by bit, or even the telepathy they usually rely so heavily on. ‘You ever even consider faking it first this time, casting some kind of illusion to get out of here alive - with the stupid gas - before taking the easy way out?’ he asks himself. The spirit of Nate Grey gets angry, ‘SERIOUSLY, boy!’ he shouts at his motionless body, then kicks himself. ‘Get up already!’ he calls out. Nate’s motionless body suddenly opens his eyes. ‘Who..?’ he utters.
‘Who else? The one you trust. The only one you trust’ Nate’s spirit tells his body. ‘Where…’ Nate’s body utters, weakly. ‘Right here. In our head, in our heart… same difference’ Nate’s spirit replies, touching his own bare chest. ‘But it looks like they vault - exactly like the Brotherhood’s underground vault - where I’m dying’ Nate’s body remarks. ‘Some things never change, chum. As usual, as always, the only point that really exists for here and now…we’ve never had any place for yesterday’s, you know, never made any room for tomorrows’ Nate’s spirit remarks, leaning closely into his body. He continues, ‘Maybe it was our accelerated aging process, spending more months in a nutrient-capsule than out of it…no real time for traditional emotional development, that’s for sure. And not too many bonding or attachment opportunities that we’d want to dwell on now’ he points out, while his body listens intently.
Nate’s spirit suggests that perhaps it was just the futureless world they were born into - a world already lost to one mad mutant’s subjugation of all mankind - human and mutant both. ‘Don’t suppose the cause really matters all that much now, though, as long as we could never imagine a hope for tomorrow…’ Nate’s soul begins, before the ghost - or psychic projection of Threnody appears, leaning over Nate’s body ‘There ain’t any’ she begins. ‘Threnody? You came back for me?’ Nate’s body asks, while his spirit squats down nearby and watches. ‘A long way, too’ Threnody replies. ‘Doubt you’d believe how far, tell you the truth. But I had to. I love you, I miss you, I want you -  need you - more than ever now…’ Threnody tells him, ‘Death becomes you, baby’ she adds. Nate doesn’t respond. ‘Suppose I can wait, Natey…’ Threnody utters quietly.
‘But not forever’ a new voice calls out. ‘It - it can’t be -’ Nate utters nervously, as his body turns and sees the Forge of his homeworld, the Age of Apocalypse. ‘You and Terry and the rest of the troupe - the rest of our whole, broken, battered world - you - you’re all gone. If it’s really you, now - here with me…then I must be…must be…’ he utters, before beginning to cry. ‘Dead, Nathan’ Forge tells him. Forge tells Nate that he is sorry, that respiration ceased over a minute ago and circulation shut down shortly after that. ‘It’s just this brain of yours that never knows when to quit’ he explains. ‘Wait…don’t go Forge. You’re my last hope!’ Nate’s body calls out.
Another “ghost” appears before Nate’s body, this time, Madelyne Pryor. She kicks his slumped over body, ‘The selfsame Madelyne Pryor you recreated out of nothing at all - clone of your alternate mother, and either your best friend or the worst enemy you’re ever going to know’ she tells him. Nate’s right eye opens and looks at her, as she tells him that she is his hope for tomorrow, living proof that you can come out the other side of death. She kicks his body again, and he falls flat on his face, blood trickling from his nose. Threnody, Madelyne and Forge vanish, leaving Nate’s own spirit standing over his body.
‘Help me…’ he utters. ‘Forget about it, pal’ his spirit replies. ‘Not how it works. Never was, never will be. We help strangers, sure - risk everything for them, even - but not ourselves. Not when it counts’. Nate’s body tries to crawl towards his spirit, who explains that they have never been responsible for what is killing them, true, for the poisonous Coldsnap, or the fatal flaw in their own design - all these blistering, burning energies that one mortal body was never meant to wield.
Nate’s spirit continues, pointing out that they have never done anything much about it, either - they started turning to others recently, trying hard to trust again. ‘Threnody was the first to reopen that door, I suspect. Then Peter Parker, and Dr McTaggert, and even Summers and his wretched Brotherhood’. Nate’s spirit moves in closer to his body, ‘Right church, Nate…wrong pew’ he tells his motionless body. ‘You and I - together, heart and soul - have the most powerful mind on tow words. That much we’ve never doubted’. Suddenly, Nate’s body moves, his hand reaches up and grabs his spirit, ‘And if it can be the death of us…then it can also be our salvation’ Nate’s spirit calls out. There is a massive explosion in the tunnel, ripping upwards, as Nate’s body and soul are reunited as one.
The powerful young mutant flies out of the crater that is all that remains of the tunnel. His clothing in tatters, he picks up no telepathic reading of any injured or dead in the fallout. He realizes that this train yard where he has emerged is as empty as the abandoned tunnels where the Brotherhood reside. ‘Sheer luck I suspect’ he thinks to himself. ‘One minute, I’m dead - but not quite done, I guess. The next, my telekinetics are back in full-force, out of nowhere -’ suddenly, he stops mid-flight and falls to the ground below, landing with a WHUD. ‘Or not’ Nate mutters.
Nate walks with his head hanging, through a park where people are out enjoying the day. They turn to him, ‘It’s him!’ someone utters. ‘From Hoppy, who heard bout him from the bouncer’s bother at the Avenue C after hours’ another person remarks. ‘Fancies himself a local oracle or something, telling fortunes and all -’ another man utters. ‘He’s back! But what happened to him?’ a woman wonders. Nate tells himself that Washington Square Park is so crowded, all hours - day and night. But he is so tired, he can’t make it the rest of the way to Soho, to the loft. He heads into a thick area of trees and bushes, and huddles down, curled up, he cannot seem to get warm, his head is ringing louder and louder, pounding - but he smiles, for he is alive. ‘To spite myself, of course. Just to prove I could take what “I” wouldn’t give’ he tells himself. He has figured that much out, at least, but knows it is not enough to get him through the night.
As Nate passes out, three women - a blonde, a redhead and one with dark hair appear, under a bright light. ‘Jam…?’ the one with dark hair asks, holding a large knife. All three women wear shades over their eyes and have exposed midriffs. The blonde woman leans down and touches Nate on the head. ‘It’s him’ she confirms, then there is blackness.
Meantime, in Soho, ‘GREY?’ a voice calls out as dark shadows emerge around inside Nate’s loft in the dead of the night. A small figure appears, ‘Take way more that four locks and an alarm system to keep out one of the Abomination’s forgotten, chump…and you got a lot worse still coming, Roust is here to tell ya!’ Roust calls out, wide-eyed, he is searching for Nate, and senses someone or something moving among the shadows. ‘C’mon out o’de shadows already - I know yer in here - I heard all dat slithering around a second ago…’ Roust cries, but gets no answer.


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Coming Home
New York City, mid-summer. ‘Rama rama rama rama’ utters a woman as she runs her slender hand across a man’s bare chest, down towards his chiseled stomach. She holds a crystal by a string as candles light up the darkened room. ‘Enough of this arelady. Rise and shine time, kiddies - wakey, wakey - it’s almost dark!’ another woman in the room declares, while Nate Grey a.k.a. X-Man starts to stir on the couch as the women stand over him. Nate - also known as X-Man - knows he is from an alternate Earth, apparently long long now, at least, he is pretty sure. He wonders who the girls are - a redhead, a blonde and a woman with dark hair. They all wear shades over their eyes and have exposed midriffs. The redheaded woman kneels at Nate’s side, he has no clue who they are, as the last thing he recalls is passing out in Washington Square Park, after somehow surviving the Brotherhood’s chemical weapon stash - but barely, and then some vague image of these three coming out of the dark, almost like a dream.
The woman with dark hair moves in front of her redheaded companion and calls her Bux, telling her that she has done wonders for the kid’s aching soul, but that a bod like this, in this shape, rates some hands-on attention already. She presses her hands against his shoulder, and cracks some bones back into place, causing Nate to scream. ‘Bad dream. Bad, bad, bad dream’ Nate thinks to himself. But it is slowly getting better. The blonde sits at his side now and runs her hand across his forehead. Nate supposes that his shoulder must have dislocated when his telekinesis crashed again, dropping him to the pavement hard. His arm is throbbing worse than ever now, but he is out of the clutches of the cold-hands-with-no-bedside-manner, at least.
Nate fells as though he has been sleeping in and out of consciousness. He hopes that he can just wake up this time, before slipping back, when suddenly, he hears a psychic plea for help in his mind: ‘You have to help them’ the commanding voice declares. ‘Operation Zero Tolerance is rolling, coming down hard on mutants and mutant-related targets worldwide’. The voice announces that he psi-warned John and Elaine Grey, insisted the get the kids out of the house upstate before Bastion could strike - but now he has them all on the run now. ‘Cable? Get out of my head, old man… hurts too much already…and the X-Men are your problem, not mine -’ X-Man begins to reply, before Cable tells him that this is not about the X-Men.
Cable shows X-Man a psychic projection of John Grey and his grandchildren, twins Joey and Gailyn, the nephew and niece of Jean Grey, and tells X-Man that someone has to protect the children, which is why he sent the Greys to Nate’s place. Nate sees Joey holding a teddy bear, and decides that it is one, almost like one, he recognized from so long ago, from some lost memory of his own childhood - but tells himself that it is impossible. ‘All right, Cable. For Jean’ Nate replies, before warning Cable not to try this ever again. Cable reports that the X-Men are on the move, as fast and as far away from all their innocent families as possible.
Nate remembers now - he remembers it all. Nate has been on this couch almost a week now, trying to pull his mind and body back together. Cable’s “call” came a couple of days ago, maybe more, but Nate has been so feverish that he lost consciousness after Cable ended the telepathic call, giving the Greys more than enough time to reach Soho.
At that moment, at Nate’s loft in Soho, two Prime Sentinels have invaded, and confront Roust, who has made his way here. ‘Ulp’ Roust utters as one of the Prime Sentinels demands ‘Where are the pre-potentials, child? Where are Joseph and Gailyn Bailey?’ Another of the Prime Sentinels adds that the Grey children are mutant pre-potentials with epsilon-beta class, and are of blood-clan of X-Men designate Marvel Girl / Phoenix, whose location is unknown. ‘Seek and capture protocols in operation’ the first Prime Sentinel declares, as Roust begins to run, ‘Don’t know what youse two attitudes-in-a-can are babbling about!’ he exclaims, adding that he doesn’t want to know. Roust explains that he only came knocking to warn the geek that lives here about a mutual problem that they have, some serious danger that is coming his way soon. ’But I’m betting he’s not gonna be much help to anyone by the time yer finished with him!’ Roust exclaims, telling the Prime Sentinels that he will catch them later, as he continues to run, fear in his eyes. ‘Okay?’ Roust tells the Prime Sentinels.
‘No. It is not okay’ one of the Prime Sentinels replies as both of them fire energies towards Roust, destroying the floor, and knocking him backwards - but before he falls through the floor, ‘Hold on son - hold on - I’ve got you!’ a voice calls out as a hand reaches out and grabs Roust. ‘But -’ Roust calls out, as John Grey pulls him to safety, while his grandchildren, Gailyn and Joey watch from the doorway. ‘Gran’pa… look!’ Gailyn calls out, as the Prime Sentinels turn their attention on the children. ‘Priority targets registered: Bailey, Joseph and Gailyn’ one of the Prime Sentinels declares. John tells the children to get out of here, to run, like their lives depend on it. He slams the door to the loft behind himself, but the Primne Sentinels blast it open.
John is knocked over in the explosion, ‘Sweet Lord above… they shredded the door like tissue!’ he tells himself. ‘Whatever they are - I can’t stop them’ he realizes as the two Prime Sentinels stand over him. ‘Grey, John, secondary quarry… contained’ one of the Prime Sentinels announces, picking John up. ‘How?’ John utters, to which one of the Prime Sentinels replies ‘Considering the obvious extent of the Zero Tolerance surveillance surrounding Cable at the time - and the psi-sensitive resources exclusive to project-leader Bastion, it was unwise of your mutant grand-spawn to attempt a private communication, telepathically or otherwise’. The Prime Sentinel informs John Grey that mutants, and their breeders, if necessary, will be expunged. ‘We will have the pre-potentials and the other - the unknown active also contacted by Cable - the one who dwells here - with your help...or over your dead body -’ the Prime Sentinel warns John, before it suddenly collapses, dropping John to the floor.
John clutches his throat, ‘Option three. “None of the above”!’ a voice calls out - it’s X-Man. He has found some clothes and as energy swirls around his hand, declares that there is always an option three. ‘You. You’re the protection that Nathan promised…’ John declares as Nate helps him up. ‘We’ll see about that. But my best shop ain’t what it used to be, Mister Grey -’ Nate begins, as he and John exit the loft, while the Prime Sentinel completes a self-diagnostic and starts initiating its repair-matrix. ‘- So let’s hustle it already’ Nate declares as he helps John down a flight of stairs. John tells Nate that he appreciates the last minute rescue, before Nate interrupts, asking where the rest of the family is. John explains that his wife is still waiting at the hotel, like he told her too, just to be safe, but that the youngsters took off with another child, a boy whom he has never seen before, who was about to be murdered by those walking tanks.
‘Sentinels. Prime Sentinels, from what I understand from Cable’ Nate explains, while John adds that the kids couldn’t have gotten far before that second robot went after them. ‘Got ‘em!’ Nate announces as he uses his psychic powers to track the kids, deciding that they are smart, all three of them, who are hiding in a storage room somewhere. Nate tells John that the kids are hiding in the once place that might generate enough interference to block out electrical scanning, for a short while, but not for long. ‘I’m, going after them’ he reports as he and John enter an alleyway. ‘You’re selling it, all right, but I’m not buying. Lousy shape you’re in. I’m not about to leave my grandkids to…I don’t even know your name, son’ John points out. ‘Nate. Nate Grey’ the young hero reveals. ‘Grey?’ John utters, quietly. ‘See to their grandmother, John. Please’ Nate replies, before taking flight, announcing that he will bring Joey and Gailyn back to him. ‘I swear!’ he calls back.
Nate tells himself that John is Jean’s father, and Jean’s clone was Cable’s mother. ‘I’m not Cable. Not much, anyway. It’s just about the children. Someone has to protect the children’ he decides, as he lands near the storage room. The kids all scream, but he opens the door, and Roust looks up at him. ‘YOU?!’ Roust shouts. Nate tells the children that they will have to save the introductions for later, as he has to get them to safety - but just then, ‘Too late, mutant!’ the second Prime Sentinel declares as it bursts into the room. The Prime Sentinel states that even the electrical cross-currents of this maintenance shaft could not long conceal the pre-potentials from its sensors. ‘All abor, boys and girls! Nate Grey express, pulling out to - to where?’ Nate wonders as he picks up his “cousins” and Roust climbs onto his back, as he takes flight.
Nate tells himself that John was right - he is still running on empty, way below empty, even. He flies across the darkened city, lights of buildings shinning while the moon glows over them. ‘Second t’ the right…and straight on till morning!’ Gailyn sings, smiling. Nate decides that what he has is going to have to be enough - for someone has to protect the children. The Prime Sentinel gathers itself down below, scans the spectrums - visual, sub-visual, thermal, sonic, sub-sonic and bio-kinetic, but the echo feedback it receives is negative.
Meantime, in Hong Kong, the sun shines down as a redheaded woman stands on a balcony. Blood drops from her nose onto her hand. She knows Nate is in trouble - she can feel it in the “blood” that runs through her veins. She reminds herself that Nate is a genetic duplicate of Cable, a younger version of the exact some man from a divergent reality. ‘And Cable is my son. My son. Nathan Christopher. I am not just Jean Grey’s clone. I’m Madelyne Pryor, the one and only. Not so much resurrected from the dead… as reborn. By mistake’ she tells herself while looking at the blood on her hand. ‘Nate’s mistake… but that’s all in the past’. She realizes that now, with Zero Tolerance breathing down everyone’s necks, her last hope for survival turns out to be none other than Sebastian Shaw and the newly forming Inner Circle of his Hellfire Club. Solemnly, Madelyne decides that here, in Hong Kong, the current capital of change, she can finally look to tomorrow, and forget about Nate Grey - for now.
Back in New York, Nate and the kids take rest under a pier. Nate tells himself that there is nowhere to go from here. He knows he could take the kids to those girls who found him, the down-towners who took him in, but he doesn’t really know anything about them. He doesn’t want to involve more innocent humans, anyway. He knows that Xavier’s mansion was under siege, last he saw, and he is suddenly sorry to say he never paid much attention to where the Professor keeps his other little dollhouses. He wonders if his best bet is to smuggle them all across to Muir Island, across the Atlantic - but the one problem is, he is about to throw up, then pass out, and thro up again. Suddenly, his thoughts are interrupted by Roust, who introduces himself. Roust supposes that Nate doesn’t remember, but they ran into each other a few months back, down in the last lair of the Abomination’s place in the tunnels.
Joey and Gailyn snuggle up to Nate, with Joey uttering ‘Mamamamamama’. Roust continues, adding that there is this other member of the Forgotten, a wacko named Jack with a wicked taste for blood and a serious mad on. Telepathically, X-Man tells Roust to be quiet, pointing out that the other two are scared enough already. Nate realizes that the kids are verging on hysteria, feeding on each other’s fears, calling for their dead mother. He can sonically shield them from the Sentinels’ tracking sensors, easy, but he has no idea how to quiet Joey and Gailyn without messing with their minds - and decides that is way too risky at their age and in their state. Roust tells Nate that he is out of here. ‘Just don’t say I didn’t try to warn you-’ he begins to say, before looking up outside the pier they are under, ‘Uh-oh’ he utters. ‘They’re coming’ Nate declares telepathically. Gailyn asks where her grandma and grandpa are, to which Nate assures her that it is okay, and explains that he is distant family. Nate tells Joey that he has to be brave for his sister, and for his grandma and grandpa - and his aunt Jean. ‘And your bear Nate remarks, handing Gailyn the stuffed toy.
The Prime Sentinel stands on the edge of the pier. Nate cringes and thinks to himself that it worked - he didn’t give the kids the bear, he simply created an illusion of the toy that Joey dropped back on the roof. At least it has calmed them both - just in the nick of time. A small trick, but all he has left. Nate starts to burn up, even worse than ever, his head is pounding, and they are trapped with water behind them - and that thing up there in front of them. The Prime Sentinel lands on the pier, and blasts a hole in it. ‘Joseph and Gailyn Bailey. Stand down and surrender’ the Prime Sentinel orders. ‘Mutant X bio-signature locked and loaded. Proceeding encounter logged, operating parameters reformatted. Keyed to supra-psionic field defenses… stand down and surrender’ the Prime Sentinel instructs. Nate realizes that contact with his powers back at the loft makes this Prime Sentinel immune to them now.
Any other time, he would make his foe prove that point, but under the circumstances, in his condition, pinned with the kids between the two Prime Sentinels, he decides to go for the easy mark. ‘Surrender’ the second Prime Sentinel calls out as it arrives. ‘Lethal acquisition mode: sanctioned…’ the first Prime Sentinel states, while Nate recalls that the second Prime Sentinel was never exposed to his powers directly, so it is still defenseless against them. He decides that it is easy enough to dip into this robot’s head and take psionic control and use it - but Nate quickly discovers that the Prime Sentinel is human. Reworked and rewired somehow, but he is a human being under all that hardware. ‘There’s a man in there - a blameless man, for all I know’ Nate decides, while realizing that the children are still in danger - so it is no contest.
Nate’s powers flare, but both Prime Sentinels launch an attack on the area where he, and the three children are standing. There is an explosion, and everyone falls into the water. ‘Priority pre-potentials Joseph and Gailyn Bailey, human renegade, Roust, Mutant X…exterminated!’ one of the Prime Sentinels announces. The other Prime Sentinel states that their mission is executed, and they need to return to base-command for immediate systems debriefing. The other reports that retrieval teams are in transit. Nate gets out of the water and looks up at the Sentinels, before falling back into the water.
Meantime, at base-command in New Mexico, Bastion takes off his cybernetic helmet linking him to the Prime Sentinels and decides that it is unfortunate - the loss of human life, especially, but that the children had to be dealt with, one way or another. He boasts that he will see the potential threat of the Grey bloodline eradicated once and for all, no threat to the future of mankind proper any longer, even if history itself may never know his name, or the sacrifices he makes in theirs. ‘But this Mutant X was another matter entirely’ he decides, referring to Nate. Bastion knows that his ambient energies alone were threatening to overload the Zero-Tolerance mainframes, long distance, no less. ‘Could it be, could it possibly be…could he have been the Otherseed?’ Bastion wonders.
Shortly, Nate and the Bailey children meet up with John and Elaine Grey in an alleyway. ‘Children should be relatively safe, least as long as those sons o-’ he begins, before Elaine cuts him off. ‘As long as Zero Tolerance thinks they’re dead, I was saying’ John remarks, before announcing that they will be staying on the move, just in case, until they “hear” from Jean. John offers Nate to come with them. ‘What I saw today, son, I half-suspect we have more in common than…’ he starts to say, before Nate announces that he cannot. He explains that he may have been able to muster up his telekinetic shields again when he needed them, to save the kids, but that the rest was still an illusion. Nate assures the Greys that he is on the road to recovery, but that he is still not there yet.
‘And now that Zero Tolerance knows of my existence…’ his voice trails off, before Elaine embraces him and thanks him. ‘I was just wishing I could’ve thanked that other young boy as well. The one who skedaddled after he helped Joey pull Nate here out of the water while Gailyn was calling us’ Elaine remarks. ‘Elaine…’ John calls out. The Greys and the their grandchildren get into a car, and drive off, while Nate watches them go. He wonders about the Roust kid - he does remember roust from the tunnels, watching from the shadows when he fought the Abomination. Nate wonders what Roust was trying to say about some other danger, some other trouble he was here to warn him about….?


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The Last Innocent Mind
The wreckage of a modest family farmhouse in rural West Virginia. A storm rages, it has been for what seems like hours. Rain pours down, the staccato pounding of the rain and shrieking of the winds shallow up all sound, and the booming thunder echoes off into forever. But over all of the elemental fury, he can hear the plaintive cry of one young boy, who crawls away from the smoldering home, through the rain-soaked ground. ‘Please… help me…’ the boy cries out. Nate Grey, strange visitor from an alternate time line, and the world’s most powerful mutant telepath, hovers over the boy, suddenly unsure of the identity of the frightened child before him, or unsure of why he is here. Unsure, he suddenly realizes, of how he got to this place. But uncertainty has never before stopped “X-Man” from recognizing an innocent in need of aid. ‘Don’t worry, kid. I’m here now. Everything’s okay’ Nate assures him.
Nate drops down beside the frightened boy and asks him what happened, and who did this. The boy reaches out for Nate and tells him that it was the bad people - the ones with the powers, they killed his parents. ‘Now they’re coming back for me! You’ve got to stop them! They’ll kill me, too! They will!’ he pleads.
Nate picks the boy up and tells him to shush, and to calm down, that no one is going to hurt him now that he is here. Nate looks around and asks who the “bad people” are, when suddenly, a voice calls out ‘I believe the lad is referring to us, Tovarish!’ and Nate is suddenly confronted by demonic looking versions of Wolverine, Storm, Colossus and Nightcrawler. ‘No… it can’t be… they look like the X-Men!’ Nate gasps. Storm orders Nate to surrender the child to them, as this matter does not concern him. ‘Listen to the lady, bub. I guarantee you don’t want any piece of us’ Wolverine warns X-Man.
‘You hard of hearing, Grey? I said hand the kid over, or get a taste of what’s coming to him!’ Wolverine warns X-Man, who simply holds the child closer and tells Wolverine to back off. ‘You’re not getting your meat hooks anywhere near this -’ Nate begins, before Wolverine’s claws scratch his side. ‘Sorry, bub. With me, one warning’s all ya get’ Logan snarls. ‘Noooo!’ the boy screams.
Reality:
Suddenly, Nate wakes up, wide-eyed, he sits up in his bed at the loft and realizes it was the dream again - the same one he has had every night for a week. ‘I guess telepaths can have nightmares sometimes… but this is just too weird’ Nate thinks to himself. Nate gets out of bed and stands around his messy room, wearing just his boxer shorts. He rubs the back of his head, unable to figure out why his recurring nightmare centers around some blond-haired kid that he has never met before, or why the dream always ends  with the boy being threatened by the X-Men.
‘At least I think they’re the X-Men - I’ve never seen those costumes before’ Nate realizes, while wondering if he could be more than just a dream - that if someone is trying to tell him something, maybe send some sort of warning? He puts some jeans and a sweater on and realizes that that doesn’t even make sense - even though he didn’t leave things with the X-Men on the best of terms, he can’t imagine they would harm an innocent kid. Nate reminds himself that on the world he comes from, the X -Men stood for helping people and fighting injustice. He wonders if that could all be a ruse on this world - after what happened with Charles Xavier, the whole Onslaught mess, he doesn’t know who to trust anymore.
Nate decides that he needs some fresh air, and putting on a jacket, he heads to Washington Square Park, in the heart of New York’s Greenwich Village, which plays host on any given day to an eclectic crowd of city dwellers and tourists alike. It used to provide both a refuge and a sense of purpose for Nate, who had been using his psi-talents to help people in need that he encountered here. Now it seems to hold nothing but memories and might-have-beens. Sitting on a park bench while people go about their business, Nate wishes that there was someone he could talk to about the dream - and everything else that has happened lately. Nate knows that he could find Peter - Spider-Man - but he feels weird going to him with his problems all the time when Peter has plenty of his own. He recalls that Threnody was always there for him, but now she has gone, perhaps with good reason.
Nate remembers the girls who found him after his run-in with the Brotherhood, he doesn’t know much about them, but hopes he can find them again. He never thought he would be almost wishing for some trouble to start, anything to distract him from all this. He gets his wish when to teens on skateboards move towards an older man carrying his grocery shopping, and knock him over. ‘Yo, yo, old man! Coming through!’ one of the kids calls out. ‘Move it, man! Make room! World’s for the fast!’ the other declares. The old man falls to the ground, ‘’I don’t believe those kids are just zooming away!’ Nate tells himself, while worried that the old man could be hurt. Going over to the old man, Nate sometimes wonders if this world is really more civilized than his own. ‘Sir, are you all right?’ he calls out. ‘Uh, excuse me, son?’ the old man calls out. ‘I said are you all right?’ Nate asks, raising his voice.
With his shopping scattered around him, the old man replies that he thinks he is, adding that his hearing isn’t what it used to be, and that he didn’t hear those kids coming. ‘That’s no excuse for their rudeness!’ Nate replies as he helps the old man pick up his groceries. The old man thanks Nate and remarks that the world could use a few more like him. Nate looks at the old man’s newspaper, ‘Son? Something caught your eye?’ he asks. ‘This article -’ Nate begins as he looks at a photo of the boy from his dreams. ‘Now I know something odd is going on here!’ Nate tells himself, while reading the article, discovers that it mentions an orphanage in Clairton, West Virginia, and he hopes that he can find the place.
Sometime later, Nate enters a police station, and tells the officers that he is here for some information about the orphanage explosion and the boy who survived. ‘Oh, y’ are now, are, yuh?’ one of the officers replies. The other tells him that everything he and the rest of the public needs to know was in the papers today. ‘No, you don’t understand…’ Nate begins, but the first officer tells him that he doesn’t look like no local, dressed in his leather coat with that freaky skunk-stripe in his hair. ‘With what went on in Clairton a few years back, we’re a mite suspicious of outsiders’ he explains. Nate doesn’t know what the officer is referring to, but realizes that this approach is getting him nowhere, so it looks like a bit of telepathic influencing is called for, so they will see what they want to see.
Nate uses his telepathic abilities to make the men see him as a local, hoping that they will tell him what he wants to hear. ‘The boy’s mah nephew. Ah need to find out whut happened to ‘im!’ Nate claims. ‘Shucks, why didn’t yuh just say so?’ one of the officers replies. The officer explains that the kid is a John Doe, and reveals that a farmer named Jeb Hodges was driving back from wheeling one night a few weeks ago.
Flashback images narrated by police officer:
Jeb found the boy wandering a back road in a daze, with no identification and no idea how he got there - no memory even of his own name. Jeb brought the boy to the station, and the officers tried the usual channels to locate his family, but there wasn’t any to be found, and the kid himself was no help in the search, so he was taken to the local orphanage, where the staff called in some psychologists from the area to work with him, to find what left him in the state he was in. They found something disturbing - whereas half the time the boy was quiet, introverted, practically catatonic, the other half, he snapped into his other personality - ranting and cursing, as if the Devil himself was possessing him.
Present:
Pouring a cup of coffee, the officer informs Nate that a few days ago, the orphanage blows up, and no one can determine the cause. He adds that twenty-one children are dead, plus all the staff, yet somehow, this kid survives without a scratch. ‘I’m just a county sheriff, I never signed on for any of this “X-Files” stuff! Thought Clairton was done with it years ago!’ he exclaims. Nate asks where the boy is now, to which the sheriff asks him if he didn’t read the paper, explaining that he was sent to some special hospital in New York State. Nate asks for directions, and to the orphanage.
Shortly, Nate has returned to his true appearance, and telekinetically lowers himself down toward the ruins of the orphanage. It looks just like it did in his dream. He is overwhelmed by the psychic traces of pain and terror. ‘All those kids…’ he tells himself, while knowing that he has to concentrate and use his psi-talent, ‘What did Threnody call it, psychometry?’ he reminds himself, on this wreckage to get a “reading” on what exactly happened here. Simply by touching a piece of the rubble, Nate’s incredible power enables him to “see” the horrifying tableau of a few past days. He sees the boy, while everything around him is burning, protected inside some sort of force field. Nate supposes that the boy is a mutant, a psi, just like him, which would explain how he sent Nate that psychic message. He wonders if the boy could have been the target, the explosion set by some anti-mutant hate group, and decides that the only way he is going to find out, is from the kid himself.
Shortly, Nate arrives a the Institute for Abnormal Psychology, Upper Lake, New York. He approaches the building, as it looks like the place the sheriff described, and decides that it is better he maintains a mental illusion for consistency’s sake. He knocks on a door, and a woman asks ‘Can I help you, sir?’ Nate disguises himself as an elderly man and tells her that Sheriff Stone back in Clairton referred him here, explaining that he is here about John Doe, the kid from the orphanage. ‘Ah yes, the Sheriff told me to expect you’ the woman replies, before introducing herself as Doctor Hunsinger. She leads Nate down a corridor as he asks her what is wrong with his nephew. Doctor Hunsinger explains that to put it in broad terms, he is suffering from a form of multiple personality disorder. She adds that she has found at least two distinct personalities manifesting themselves during their sessions.
Doctor Hunsinger adds that multiple personality disorders aren’t nearly as common as some trashy talk shows would have people believe, and that, in fact, they are quite rare, but that when they do occur, they can usually be traced back to some major trauma, child abuse or something on that order. As she opens a door to the room where the boy is being kept, she reveals that she hasn’t been able to get the boy to shed any light on the cause, that all she has seen are two opposite personalities - one is every bit the scared, needy young boy as he appears to be, and the other is a vicious, hateful sociopath who needs to be physically restrained from hurting himself and others. ‘It’s him!’ Nate thinks to himself as he sees the boy sitting on a bed in a dimly-lit room.
Doctor Hunsinger remarks that she has honestly no idea what goes through the boy’s head when he sits there like this, alone in the dark, oblivious to everyone around him. ‘And I don’t mind telling you, sir… it kind of creeps me out’ she adds. Nate crouches down beside the bed, ‘Poor kid, the power he must possess…and it’s all out of his control. I know how he feels’ Nate thinks to himself. ‘Nate? Is that you?’ the boy calls out, turning, he smiles, ‘It is! You came! Like my dream said you would!’ the boy exclaims. Nate appears as his usual self to the boy, and tells him that he is, and everything will be okay now. He asks the doctor if she could excuse them for a few moments. ‘Sure’ she replies, while Nate makes a psychic connection with the boy, hating that he had to mentally push the doctor into leaving, he soon detects that the boy’s core personality has been splintered.
Nate realizes that he may be the only one who can put it back together. He knows he is no expert at using his powers this way, like Charles Xavier is, but Xavier is de-powered. ‘It’s time for an astral tour of the boy’s mindscape!’ Nate decides as he enters
Flashback images shown inside the boy’s mind:
Nate enters the boy’s mind, and sees images flash before him. It is like nothing he expected. He realizes that he is on some barren, dying, alien planet, and watching the launch of a space ship on a reconnaissance mission to Earth. The boy’s memories tell Nate that it is an advanced scout for an invasion force. This ship got separated from the rest, in the backwoods of a sleepy little town called Clairton, West Virginia Nate sees the pilot emerge from the ship, an alien shape-shifter - one of the race of ruthless conquerors known as the Dire Wraiths!
Nate realizes that this Wraith is different, cut out from his race, the Wraith decides to forsake their ways and live life as a human being. He morphs into a human form, a farmer named Jacob Marks. The memories start to flow faster, as “Jacob Marks” does the unthinkable - falls in love with a human woman named Marjorie Seaton, they marry, and Marjorie gives birth to a child - this child, the one whose mind Nate is in. And now, Nate knows his name - Jimmy. Jimmy Marks. The memories continue on fast-forward, and Nate rides the tide. He sees young Jimmy being tutored in the black arts by the Dire Wraith elders who’d set up shop in Clairton, and then he artificially aged his mother to the brink of death in seconds - and, using his awakening powers to impale his alien father on a telekinetically-hurled pitchfork.
‘The boy killed his own parents!’ Nate sees now the X-Men again, going after the child like in his dream - they have seen him for what he truly is - a threat to all life on Earth - they have seen his true face, his true form. ‘Do I dare… to see…?’ Nate asks himself, before screaming ‘Noooo!’
Present / reality:
The psychic link is broken, ‘What… have I done? What have I… unleashed?’ Nate asks himself. ‘Awww, what’s the matter, Nate? Didn’t you enjoy your little trip through my head? Are you scared of me now, Nate?’ Jimmy Marks asks, grinning wickedly, his eyes glow red and he starts to transform, his voice changing, ‘Indeed, human. You should be. Your misguided efforts have succeeded…in reintegrating my true, core personality’ the Dire Wraith declares as its true form takes over. ‘Not the weak, simpering human-child, Jimmy Marks… but the first mutant progeny mof a human being and a Dire Wraith… the one your kind calls…HYBRID!’
Nate frowns as Hybrid tells him that he played easily into his hands, and states that after his last encounter with his arch nemesis, the Spaceknight Rom, his atoms were scattered to the wind - explaining that his incomparable mental powers pulled them back together, but that the strain left his brain addled, and his body trapped in his weak human form. ‘All I required was a powerful telepath to draw together the fragments of his psyche, and you fit the bill perfectly’ Hybrid remarks. ‘So that explosion at the orphanage - was your subconscious mind and buried powers trying to break free! You murdering monster!’ Nate shouts as he slams Hybrid back with a surge of energy. ‘It’s my fault you’re free - and it’s my responsibility to put you down!’ Nate declares as Hybrid bursts through the outer wall, taking flight before he hit’s the ground below.
Nate flies out of the hole in the wall, and asks Hybrid why he sought him out. Hybrid explains that both Xavier and the girl Jean Grey have encountered his psi-patterns before, so they would not have been fooled by his dream-sendings. ‘In you, I found the perfect dupe - a stranger to this world, blindly altruistic, easily swayed by my imagined “plight”!’ Hybrid declares, using his power to lift spiked fence posts from the ground, and hurl them towards Nate, telling him that now his usefulness is at an end, and thus, ends his life. Some of the spiked posts strike the brick wall, while Nate throws up a telekinetic force field to block the others. Nate realises that Hybrid is not fazed by the psi-blast that he is using to attack the alien with. ‘You’ll have to do better than that, Hybrid You won’t butcher me the same way you did your father, you abomination!’ Nate swears.
Nate sees some powerlines nearby and decides that they could be useful. He flies towards them, but Hybrid follows. ‘Trying to appeal to my human side, are you, “X-Man”? You waste your breath!’ Hybrid calls out, stating that he is neither human nor Dire Wraith, but a new breed of being - superior to both. He boasts that this misbegotten planet will soon tremble before his power. ‘Not today, it won’t!’ Nate replies as he telekinetically rips some of the power lines out, and wraps them around Hybrid: ‘I’m betting a few thousand volts of juice will take some of the fight out of you!’ Nate declares, but Hybrid calls him a fool and tells Nate that this childish ploy merely delays his inevitable end. Hybrid manages to put his hand on Nate’s face and boasts that he is beyond harm by any paltry invention of man, and that the current from the electrical cables merely feeds his rage.
‘I’ve seen into your mind, youngling. I know that your own mutant power is killing you - that every time you use it brings you closer to the grave!’ Hybrid declares, while suggesting that Nate should thank him, as he was never destined to see old age, and now Hybrid will grant him that gift, albeit for the last moments of his worthless life. Nate goes wide-eyed, and feels his body aging, weakening by the second. Nate knows that he can’t die this way, that he can’t let Hybrid do this. ‘Let GO!’ Nate shouts, slamming Hybrid to the ground with telekinetic fury. Nate drops to the ground, and thinks to himself that the trip through Hybrid’s mind was so horrifying, so alien, and now, his cold, clammy touch. He as never fought anyone who filled him with such revulsion. ‘Pull yourself together, Nate, you’ve got him off-balance, press your advantage’ the young hero tries to encourage himself.
‘Get up, Hybrid. Let’s find out who truly has the superior mind!’ Nate challenges the Dire Wraith. Hybrid gets to his feet and just laughs at Nate, ‘You amuse me’ he remarks, adding that there are few things more pathetic than a frightened little boy attempting to prove himself a man. ‘Now taste the psi-power that once held the entire X-Men at bay!’ Hybrid blasts as he prepares to attack Nate once more. ‘Frightened little boy? My God, that’s the answer -’ Nate begins to tell himself, before being knocked aside when the Dire Wraith causes the wall behind him to explode. Nate realizes that this might be his opportunity, though. The Dire Wraith picks Nate up by his jacket collar, ‘Where are the defiant words now, Nate Grey?’ Hybrid asks, but gets no response.
Hybrid picks Nate up, asking him where is the incredible power that drew them together and set him free. ‘It would seem I have already overwhelmed the young fool. He is no longer a threat’ Hybrid decides, realizing that it is time to dispose of Nate and begin in earnest his campaign of conquest. ’You, then, Nate, will be the first casualty as I expunge the blight of humanity from this world!’ Hybrid announces. However, in the labyrinthine corridors of Hybrid’s mind,  Nate Grey’s astral form attempts to put the lie to the alien horror’s words. As his astral form makes his way through the alien’s mind, Nate tells himself that he doesn’t want to be here, as Hybrid’s mind is the most frightening place he has ever experienced, but a moment ago, he realized that Hybrid’s dominant personality is pure evil - but he knows that he wasn’t always this way before the Wraith elders came.
Because, there was an innocent boy named Jimmy Marks, and Nate decides that even if a trace of that remains, he can use it against Hybrid. Suddenly, in the darkness of Hybrid’s mind, alone, in the darkest reaches of his subconscious. ‘The question is, can I forgive myself…for what I need to do?’ Nate wonders, before calling out to Jimmy, asking him if he can hear him. At the same time, Hybrid realizes what Nate is doing, ‘So, you are inside my mind, stripling! Very clever!’ Hybrid declares, but tells Nate that ultimately, a wasted effort, for this time his aging touch will bring Nate’s body past the point of death, and his mind shall perish with it. Suddenly, though, Hybrid cries out in pain, ‘What?’ he gasps, clutching his head. ‘Nate, is that you?’ young Jimmy’s voice calls out. ‘No! Curse you! You’re trying to reawaken my human persona! I refuse to yield control!’ Hybrid declares.
Inside Hybrid’s mind, Nate’s astral form kneels down beside Jimmy, and tells him not to be frightened, that he is here to help him come out of the dark. ‘I’m scared…I’ve been here so long’ Jimmy replies. Nate tells Jimmy that he is scared as well, but suggests that together they can be brace, be strong. ‘Together, Jimmy… we can win’ Rain begins to fall and Hybrid steps back, as Nate regains consciousness. ‘You hapless fool!’ Hybrid calls out, asking Nate if he has faced the truth - the Jimmy Marks is no more, that there is only Hybrid. ‘Guess you’re right, ugly. “Jimmy” was gone a long time ago’ Nate points out, before revealing that his essence now resides within him.
‘All the innocence, the innate goodness, the humanity - the stuff that’s anathema to a creature like you - is feeding my power! I’ve seen the child at the core of you, Hybrid - and I’m not afraid of you anymore!’ Nate shouts, unleashing a fury of energy, that tears Hybrid apart, reducing him to a pile of alien ashes on the ground. Nate stands solemnly over Hybrid’s remains, the rain continues to pour down. There is no trace of Hybrid’s psi-patterns, but that doesn’t mean much, for if he reassembled his body before, he can probably do it again. ‘But next time I’ll be ready for him’ Nate tells himself.
Washington Square Park, the following day, as an unusually somber Nate Grey once again sits alone. He rests his head on his hands and supposes that there was no other way, for whatever innocence Hybrid had within him was lost when the Wraith elders found him. ‘So why do I feel like I offered the last vestige of humanity within him a chance at redemption…even though I knew there was no hope?’ Nate asks himself, deciding that in the final analysis, he and Hybrid weren’t that different - they both both had a chance at a normal childhood taken away from them. Two men walk past, one carrying a stereo on his shoulder, where an announcer can be heard stating that people in Upstate New York, are still baffled by the disappearance of an unnamed orphgn child after being visited by a reputed relative.
The report continues, stating that eyewitnesses claim to have seen a battle between a young costumed man and a semi-human monster soon after the child’s visitor arrived. ‘Rumors persist that mutants are involved in these strange circumstances’ the report concludes. Nearby, a young boy calls out to his father, asking him if it is true, that mutants are bad like the radio said. ‘Daddy, they scare me’ the boy adds. The boy’s father tells him not to believe everything he hears, as sometimes appearances can fool them. ‘If we’re not careful, I’d like to think that most of them are just like you or me’ he tells his son. Nate watches and thinks to himself ‘Listen to your dad, kid. Maybe if enough of you follow that advice, your world won’t turn into mine’. Nate decides that there is always hope, hope for the future, hope that you can hold on to your innocence a little longer than Jimmy Marks and he did. ‘I hope there’s still a place in this world for innocence. I really do’.


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

[Assistant]
Catching up From Behind
Peace is an illusion. A fragile fantasy, at best. The slightest ripple reveals the lie… disturbed, distorted. Just ask Jack. Peace escapes Jack. He currently sits on the edge of a fountain in Washington Square Park. Pieces alone remain. Pieces of his memory, his mind, his reason - his reasons. Hidden right out in the open, overlooked by these New Yorkers darking enough to brace the night of this bright city, all that is left of Jack is skin and bones. And blood. His withered body is hunched over, hidden under a long coat, his hands dripping in blood which pools into the fountain, while people just walk past him. His silent tears are heard by none - except, in a strangely colourful church nearly a half-mile north, by a young man named Nate Grey - X-Man. He is a young mutant from another world, another reality, gifted with psionic power and potential beyond belief and beyond control.
‘Sobbing, sounds like from… from… inside my head? So short… so sharp… sharper…’ Nate thinks to himself, before touching his head, struggling to stand up, until a woman with dark hair and shades over her eyes goes over to him, ‘Hang on, Vaquero… I gotcha’ she tells him, helping him to stand in the middle of a busy night club where Nate is on the middle of the dance floor with her and a redhead woman. ‘It’s only been a couple of weeks since we rest that shoulder, you know. And that was the least of your problems when we first found you’ she reminds him, adding that he was dehydrated, starving and exhausted. The woman adds that she gets the feeling that he hasn’t exactly laid low since cutting out on her and her girls since then. Nate calls the woman with dark hair Marita and tells her that he is fine, still a little tired, but that this is exactly what he was looking for tonight - a chance to recharge from ground level for a chance, maybe even figure out some way to thank the three of them for raking him in.
As other young people dance, Marita tells Nate that she knows a few more private places where he could start, but before she can continue, Nate interrupts her, telling Marita that he would love a drink. ‘No, I said -’ Marita begins, before Nate adds ‘Right over there at the bar…’ and calls out to the blonde member of the trio, Jam, as he, Marita and the redhead, Bux, make their way to the bar. ‘Is that…’ one of the people on the dance floor wonders as Nate walks past them. ‘You think…?’ another asks. ‘Three more, on the way’ Jam replies as she orders more drinks. Bux declares that she could hardly believe it when Nate showed up on their doorstep this afternoon, looking to make some real connections, no doubt. ‘I mean, because of what I do for a living and all, astral aura readings just now, but my tantric energies are due for a shift any day, I’m, told - Bux rambles on, declaring that she had been into Nate since he first showed up at the Park, building a reputation and talking to anyone who listened, and listening to everyone who talked.
Bux points out that they heard a lot more about Nate than they ever actually saw of him, especially with that loser he had running interference in the crowd. ‘Threnody’ Nate declares. ‘Whateva. Where is the trash these days, wonder boy?’ Bux asks. Nate replies that he doesn’t know, and adds that he could try to find out, and he hasn’t decided not to yet, but that he is afraid he already got the answer he asked for. The girls all look at Nate, their shades covering their eyes, while Bux announces that the buzz on the street had Nate and Threnody bunking together somewhere down in Soho. ‘Word was you and she were -’ Bux begins, before Nate interrupts, ‘Close’ he declares. ‘Closer than I knew. Closer than I knew I was capable of, for that matter…least until I laid out an ultimatum - demanded a trust I wasn’t willing or able to return yet myself - and Thren took me up on it’ he explains.
Solemnly, Nate reveals that the last he saw of Threnody was in the Bronx, in a graveyard where he picked up on Madelyn’s psi-echo, before he found Maddie power-tripping in Switzerland and watched her go ballistic on Jean. ‘Right, then… who’s a “Madelyne”?’ Jam asks, confused.
One of the bartenders hands Nate a drink, telling him that it is from the blonde down the end. ‘Something about you, her and a hot, hot breakfast’ the bar tender remarks. ‘How sweet’ Marita frowns, while Nate smiles and the blonde and raises his drink to her. ‘Why don’t I start carving up the bacon right here and -’ Marita begins as she storms towards the blonde, but Bux and Jam hold her back, ‘She’s yer parole officer!’ Bux points out. ‘So… you new around here?’ the bartender asks Nate.
Meanwhile, at Washington Square: ‘Heeey, Grey! You out dere somewhere, chumley, anywhere? Grey-di-lay-e-oo?’ the young boy called Roust calls out from where he has climbed a lamppost, to gain a better view. Some people walking past look up at him, puzzled, while Roust realizes that there is still nothing, nowhere. He wonders if perhaps he shouldn’t have taken off like he did after they saved those other kids from the Sentinels together, and all - until he was sure that Grey had heard his warning, and was absolutely convinced Nate understood the terrible threat that has followed him upground, from the last lair of the Abomination’s forgotten. ‘From the last place I ever saw my brother alive’ Roust reminds himself.
Roust decides that he is never going back to that weird loft of Grey’s in Soho, that’s for sure, what with the freaky sounds and shadows where he got ambushed by those Zero Tolerance robots in the first place. Roust tells himself that now that the witch hunt is over, according to all of the newspapers he has seen, he had to come out of hiding again, to force Grey to listen to him before it is too late. ‘Force the big guy to do something, if I have to. About the problem he started -’ Roust begins to tell himself, when suddenly, the lamp post begins to shake, and Roust looks down, to see a police officer who is banging his baton against the post and tells Roust to quit disturbing the peace and get down from there. ‘I’m just looking for -’ Roust begins, but the officer tells him that the local fortune-teller won’t be back on his beat, not after the warning he gave him last month. ‘Not if he knows what’s good for him, anyway’ the officer adds, while telling Roust that the same goes for him. ‘There was some trouble around here earlier tonight, a hot dog vendor found right near this spot. In pieces’ the officer reveals.
Roust drops to the ground, ‘That’s all I needed to hear, big blue…I’m outta here!’ he exclaims as he rushes off into the bushes. ‘Got that right’ the officer remarks, before carrying on down the path, spinning his baton as he goes. He smiles, pleased with himself, ‘Another problem successfully solved by Officer Quintin B Grimes, protector of the park’ he boasts. ‘Sergeant Quintin B Grimes, defender of all downtown, once I get my mitts on the son-of-a-butcher working my grounds’ he decides. Grimes knows that the public hasn’t connected the other bodies yet - the homeless couple that turned up on Sunday, or the firebug that jumped bail last week. ‘But Captain B Grimes, future Chief of Police for the entire metropolitan area, is on the case’ he thinks to himself.
‘Special advisor to law enforcement agencies across the nation, crusading network, consultant of tomorrow and…’ Grimes thinks to himself, when suddenly, he hears a rustling in the bushes. ‘He touched you’ a thin man in a cloak declares as he emerges from the bushes. Grimes reaches for his gun, but falls to his knees… ‘Yes’ he thinks to himself, as the figure looms over him, before he cries out. Shortly, a crowd of park-goers have gathered, ‘Oh my G-’ one of them begins. ‘Call the cops’ another suggests. ‘Ambulance’ someone else declares. ‘Was a cop’ another points out. ‘Too late’. ‘Another one’. ‘Another…?’
Back at the nightclub, the Limelight, a live band is playing on stage, including Jam, while Nate has returned to the dance floor with Marita and Bux. ‘How show, guys! Music’s pumping, club’s rocking…the band’s got this crowd eating out of the palms of their hands!’ Nate smiles. Bux explains that Jam has been gigging with the Shilohs for a couple of months now, just for shots like this to showcase her own material - all originals, written before she met up with she and Marita. ‘Catching up from behind just like the blind leading the blind’ the singer of the Shilohs. ‘Let the man dance, Bux’ Marita calls out, while telling Nate that he has got the moves down smooth, all right, all the tracks and grooves, but that he has to feet it, ride it, and trust it.
A look of concern comes over Nate’s face as he tells himself that trust is not what he does best. He can read the minds of everyone in this room, pluck all the latest dance steps straight out of their heads with just a thought - but it is another matter entirely to try and live them. Nate decides that sometimes he thinks the place he felt most comfortable was the circus troupe he travelled with back home. The singer continues to sing: ‘On a long road back to a home I never known finally, catching up from behind just like the blind leading the blind’, while Nate recalls that the troupe taught him more about being the center of attention than really relating one on one to people his own age. ‘The sobbing’s back. Nobody else hears it, obviously. Nobody else could hear anything over this volume, but it sounds louder than ever to -’ Nate thinks to himself, before Marita presses her back against Nate’s, ‘Feel the beat, Nino, trust the heat - trust me - you got dance in your pants!’ she grins.
The lead singer speaks to everyone in the night club now, telling them that they have a genuine celebrity out on the floor - a mystery man whose talking they have all been talking about - and a chance for their own, little taste of that sweet, silver tongue. ‘Hands up for local legend and rabble-rouser, Washington Square’s own golden boy…Nate Grey!’ he declares. The spotlight falls on the wide-eyed Nate, ‘Rabble-rouser?’ he asks. ‘Kick it, kid’ Marita smiles, pushing Nate towards the stage. ‘Okay, then…what the heck!’ Nate exclaims as he climbs onto the stage, and everyone chants his name. Nate sings along with the lead singer, ‘Started out as a dream, woke up all alone, on a long road back, to a home I never known, finally catching up from behind, just like the blind leading the blind, just like the blind leading the blind’.
They continue, ‘Stopped to wait and ee but you were way of me, around the bend, don’t know when I started running, never saw it coming, looked around to gind out, someone to remind you, where we’ve been, slowing to a crawl, so slow I tend to stall making time for you to come around again, finally catching up from behind just like the blind - leading the blind. Catching up from behind just like the blind leading the blind…’. ‘Rita?’ Bux calls out to Marita who is fixated on Nate as he sings and moves about on stage.
At the same time, outside, young Roust stands before the bouncers. ‘34’ he tells them. ‘Nope’ one of them replies. ‘22, with a pituitary problem, okay? But I don’t like to talk about it’ Roust declares. ‘Nope’ the bouncer tells him. ‘Medicine for my cousin’ Roust claims. ‘Nope’ the bounder replies again. ‘Oh, I’m with the band’ Roust exclaims. ‘Oh, if you’re with the band -’ the other bouncer begins to say, but the first declares ‘Nope’ once more. Roust turns and walks away, as the bouncer tells him to come back when his pituitary thing clears up though. ‘Bite me’ Roust calls back. He is annoyed that he finally gets a lead from some “hopper” across town, bragging about clubbing here with Grey, and now he can’t get to him because he is underage. ‘His precious park’s becoming a bloodbath…while it’s great whitening hope parties on inside’ Roust thinks to himself, walking past an alleyway, he doesn’t see the shadow of a hooded figure.
Back inside, Nate jumps off the stage, ‘Serious, serious rush!’ he tells Marita and Bux. ‘Been on stage once or twice before, I’m guessing’ Marita remarks. ‘Not singing like that’ Nate replies, adding that he isn’t sure what came over him up there, really, as it felt like he got swept up in the wave, until he tried riding it, like she was saying about the dancing and all - riding with it. ‘Fresh tune’ someone calls out. ‘Where’d I hear’ another begins. ‘Knew all the words’ someone points out. ‘Whole house did’ someone else remarks. ‘Just kept taking me higher an-’ another declares, while Marita’s parole officer walks over and wraps her arms around Nate’s shoulders, ‘You and I have a few things I common that just might shock your socks off, hotshot’ she declares. ‘I’ve heard that before’ Nate replies. The blonde woman tells him that she could buy him another soda water, if he doesn’t believe her, and tell him all about them right here. ‘Or take you home and show you exactly what I’m -’ she whispers into Nate’s ear, while Marita and Bux look on, unimpressed. ‘She’s your parole officer, she’s your parole officer, she’s your parole officer…’ Bux mutters over and over. Nate smiles as the blonde woman continues to whisper into his ear. Nate looks up at Jam who is still on the stage, then smiles at the blonde woman who tells him ‘If you think that might be the best way to prevent any hard feelings’. ‘I…’ Nate continues to smile.
Peace is a state of mind. ‘Magilla and his gorilla around front appear to have the ground floor covered from every which way - including the sewers I like to call home’ Roust thinks to himself as he climbs a fire-escape ladder up the side of the club, deciding that it is time to start broadening his horizons. He doesn’t see the strange figure lurking in the alleyway. Peace of mind is just a state of grace. Just ask Jack. He remembers something of the boy - of another orphan, too, a twin called Joust, and a friend named Cole, confused and scared, a victim of the voice in his head since late childhood.
Just pieces, really. ‘She’s your parole officer’ Bux tells Marita back inside the club. ‘He better not even be thinking what I think he’s thinking…’ Marita snaps. At the same time, Roust has made his way inside, and rests on a ledge near the ceiling, while Nate tells himself to not even think about it, when suddenly, he hearts the sobbing again, even louder now, internally and closer somehow - but he still can’t pinpoint the external source. Roust was able to get in through the roof next door which led to a ventilation shaft, now he just has to figure out a way for Grey to see him before those bouncers do. The cloaked figure appears behind Roust. It is Jack Knife. He suddenly recalls from the sharp jagged edges of his memory - pieces - and he knows that Roust has to die.
The memory appears in Jack’s mind, once, they fought to live, Roust, Joust, Cole and a girl named Watts, scavenging the garbage of the city’s back-alleys, taking meals and shelter where they found it. Cole heard more and more voices unfortunately, more and more often. ‘Wouldn’t wanna be one. Can’t fight City Hall, not from here’ Jack recalls  saying, but his friends always took care of him. The voices spoke louder and louder, as well, each and every day. Jack Knife reaches out for Roust, he remembers the voices spoke in more and more languages about more and more things he understood less and less about. ‘Not if you don’t love her. How do I know without seeing how it fits. I told ya, told ya, told ya, write it down first. Don’t eat the fist’ he remembers saying. This drove young Jack further and further from the world he walked. But his friends took care of him, as Watts beckoned him to go underground.
They led him to the lair of the Forgotten, a haven of sorts for those without hope. The voices never stopped, true enough, but there was hot food to be hunted for, in abundance, underground, clean rags to wear and no weather to speak of. A dream of peace, if nothing else - until the Abomination brought her there, brought her back to the sanctuary they had shared once before. But he came after her - Nate Grey - came after Threnody. The loudest voice of all, echoing back from everything, everywhere, blowing it all to pieces. Jack Knife eyes go wider, and suddenly, one of the clubbers down below calls out ‘Look! Up on high! Is that the byrd?’ to which someone asks ‘Larry Byrd?’
And, before Jack Knife can grab Roust, Nate flies up and takes the boy, ‘Excuse me, pal. You looking for this?’ Nate calls out, while Roust sees Jack Knife and tells Grey to get outta here, as it is him, one that he has been trying to warn him about. ‘The psycho that slaughtered my brother and so many others down below - Jack Cole!’ Roust exclaims.
‘Jack Knife now, little Roust! Now and forever… thanks to the other mind in your very midst! The outcast of a world that never should have been, this Nate Grey is an insult to all realities!’ Jack Knife announces telepathically, while shards of energy dart about him. Jack Knife declares that Nate Grey is a danger to all of them, mutants and humans alike, and once he is finally dead at his feet, returned to the nether that spawned him, he will be able to do the same for every other lost soul he has already touched and tainted in this cursed hellhole. ‘Across the whole, cursed planet, if necessary…’ Jack Knife declares while Nate looks at him with concern, and Jam, Marita, Bux and the other night clubbers stare up in shock .
Meanwhile, in the lost lair, piles and piles of bodies lay on top of one another. A woman sitting in the shadows rests atop them. Her eyes glow in the darkness, ‘Hunger…’ she utters, as some of the bodies are not actually dead, and reach out to her, ‘Me! ME! Me! ME!’ they cry as they beg for her….


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

[Assistant]
Blood Will Tell
Something’s in the air tonight. An electricity charged tension that these first sheets of autumn rain have done little to dampen. Night like this, city like New York, anything can happen. Lightning crackles in the sky as the rain beats down. At the Limelight, a particularly trendy club, frequented by more out-of-towners than down towners every day, this barely-converted church is still considered the place to be. But not tonight, as night clubbers race out of the exit, ‘Freaks!’ someone shouts. ‘Flying freaks!’ another declares. ‘Flying #^&*%^ freaks!’ two exclaim at the same time.
Something is in the air tonight, as Nate Grey a.k.a. X-Man hovers in the air above the once-packed dance floor, holding the frightened boy called Roust, while a skinny man in tattered clothes and a hooded cloak hovers nearby, ‘I’m called Jack Knife!’ he declares, before calling out to Roust, telling him that thanks to the other mind in his very midst, outcast of a world that never should have been, this Nate Grey is an insult to all realities - a danger to them all - mutants and humans alike and that once he is finally dead at his feet, returned to the nether that spawned him, he will be able to do the same for Roust and every other lost soul Grey has already touched in this tainted and cursed hellhole - across the whole cursed planet if necessary. ‘Listen to me, Grey, listen - ya can’t stop this psycho. I swear! Ya can’t! Ya just gotta get us both outta here before -’ Roust begins, but Jack Knife tells him to save his breath, as it is the last he will ever draw, and from his fingers, energy-knives appear, which he extends lunging through the air towards the young hero and Roust.
‘No’ Nate declares as he throws up a telekinetic force field. He is a mutant, some say the ultimate mutant, born with powers and abilities far beyond those of any mortal man. Powers of the mind, wielded at the speed of thought. Outcast of a world too like our own, a world that failed to survive its own bigotry and prejudice… young Nate never faced a force on this Earth that could penetrate his fully-formed psionic shields. Until now. ‘Whoa!’ Nate gasps as the deranged Jack Knife slices through the force field with seeming ease. ‘HEEEYY?!’ Roust calls out as Nate drops him, and he falls to the dance floor below. He is a child of the streets, on the run from the bloodthirsty Jack Knife for weeks now. He lands in the arms of the blonde Jam, who along with her friends Marita and Bux, they are daughters of the night, looking for life in all the wrongs places. ‘Shut up kid, we gotcha’ Jam tells him as she catches Roust. Until this moment at least, these four shared nothing but a mutual… friend.
Nate sees that Roust is with the girls and tells himself that he is in good hands. He looks at his own hands and sees that Jack’s powers have cut him. ‘Everyone out! NOW!’ Nate calls out to the rest of the night clubbers below. ‘This way, personas - move!’ Marita urges everyone, encouraging them to get out of the night club. ‘MOVE!’ she shouts. Up above again, ‘Too many to touch by one, to trace your taint directly. Best to just kill them all here and now, x-ile…let last Heaven sort the dumb from the damned!’ Jack Knife calls out as he starts sending shards of energy town towards the remaining night clubbers, striking them, they cry out in pain. Nate realizes that they are psi-knives, exploding from Jack’s head which tears into the crowd.
Given that his telekinesis have already proved painfully ineffective against Jack’s attacks, Nate decides to take it straight to the source, instead, and flies towards the strange man, and slams his first against him. Jack is just a wild card. He grits his teeth, his blood-red eyes glare at Nate, and he telepathically declares ‘You’re right, of course, atrocity. Thank you for reminding me… first thing FIRST!’ as he slams Nate backwards, causing the young hero to crash into the ground. ‘Doesn’t make any sense…how could Jack be “immune” to my powers, I mean, while I‘m totally wide open to his every move?’ Nate asks himself, deciding that he cant take the time to deal with Jack until everyone else is out of harm’s way.
Nate looks around and sees that there are still hundreds trapped in the club, and from what he is picking up telepathically, mobbing the doors all at once. All he can do is follow Marita’s lead, as she smashes a window open - and he does the same, telekinetically shattering the stained-glass windows throughout the club, sending glass shards smashing to the dance floor. Jack Knife suddenly appears behind Nate, ‘Nicely done, chaos-bringer’ he tells Nate, adding that pulverizing the glass back to harmless sand buys a few more precious seconds of freedom for the contaminated…and condemned. ‘Who are you…what are you?’ Nate asks. ‘Something you can no longer touch’ Jack Knife replies, calling Nate a “mind worm”. ‘Inside or out…something you can no longer damage and destroy with or without a thought!’ Jack Knife tells Nate that all he had to do was ask, but no matter how he slices and dices it, or how he dishes it out - the truth hurts.
Flashback images, narrated by Jack Knife:
Jack Cole was homeless, hungry and talking back to voices that only he could hear, until a few friends of his - Roust and Joust and Watts, somehow hooked them up with the Abomination, finding them a place with his underground Forgotten - peace. If Jack had known then that the “voices” in his head were from others like himself, other low-level telepaths equally unaware of their mutations, might have made all the difference if he had been able to understand that he wasn’t so much crazy as confused - just the victim of a truly open mind, really - until Nate Grey came along, crashing the Abomination’s private party, throwing down over some old flame of his called Threnody.
Jack doubts that Nate even noticed him there, cowering in the background with the rest of the Forgotten - but he couldn’t miss Nate, there on the battlefield, larger than life. ‘Our eyes met in an unguarded moment, my mind unwittingly reached out to yours and…it felt like it had shattered to pieces’. Jack Knife recalls that Nate pretended to lose to the Abomination, simple as that, and the game was over - for the players at least, and for the death-drenched girl, Threnody, and her rutting stags who left without ever looking back. ‘But not for the pawns. Jack Cole was gone. Only Jack Knife remained’ Jack declares. He was broken in mind and spirit, and eventually lashed out at everyone around him, leaving them bloody messes.
Present:
Jack’s memories are like razors, tearing through Nate’s brain as the young hero realizes that his foe is totally insane. It was Jack that slaughtered them all - every single one of those lost, lonely people who touched Nate, who even saw him. ‘And he blames me. But for what, exactly?’ Nate asks himself. ‘For catalyzing his own latent powers, somehow…without even knowing it myself?’ ate wonders if he has bought the last of the bystanders enough time to evacuate the building, but it looks like he needs a few more seconds to clear his head. However, Jack doesn’t give up, ‘I am what you made me, Nate Grey…’ Jack calls out. ‘Like Madelyne. Madelyne Pryor. A dead woman reborn, from nothing more than my own stray thoughts’ Nate tells himself, wide-eyed.
Jack holds the inside of his cloak up, revealing a pattern of different pieces of cloth sewn together. ‘And these your victims! You are a cancer of the mind - an infectious virus among us - and I will see all traces of you erased from our reality…before you can poison a single other soul!’ Jack declares as he flies upwards, while Nate is shocked, ‘Everyone? Everyone I’ve ever come in contact with. And everyone they’ve ever come in contact with? Unless I stop this lunatic, here and now…’ he realizes. Outside, Jam, Marita and Bux look into the club, ‘Nate?’ Marita calls out. ‘What is he doing in -’ Bux begins ‘Once and for all’ Nate thinks to himself, when suddenly, everyone runs for their life, further away from the old church, as it collapses around them, and they stare in shock.
However, amongst the rain that beats down and the dust that rises from the rubble, Nate appears, inside a telekinetic bubble that has protected him from the fallout of his own implosion. He scans the rest of ground zero, no sign of any of the other survivors. ‘If I was forced to kill Jack to stop him…’ Nate thinks to himself, before Jack’s psychic voice exclaims ‘I will not die, psi-snake’ as his form materializes before Nate, ‘I will not abandon countless other innocents to the fate you sealed for me…to the blinding vision of the eyes you open, the psyche-shattering sights and sounds and smells of all the senses you expose!’
Jack Knife boasts that he is their only hope, now, their one last chance to perish free of Nate’s wicked, wicked whispers. The crowd that has remained nearby watch in awe. ‘Uh-oh’ one of them remarks. ‘Shimmering into focus over there, like a…’ another begins. ‘Like some kind of…’ another suggests. ‘Ghost’ someone concludes. ‘I been trying to tell ya - to tell Grey - nothing stops him…nothing!’ Roust exclaims as he remains with Marita, Jam and Bux, who suddenly screams at Nate to look behind himself. Too late, ‘I AM DIVINE INTERVENTION!’ Jack Knife booms as he attacks Nate at close range, slamming his strange energies into Nate, who screams as he is propelled through the air, and crashes into a bus across the road.
However, Bux’s warning did give Nate enough time to erect some forward shields to deflect the impact of his landing, although passengers start rushing out of the bus in fright. ‘Hurry it up!’ someone calls out. ‘C’mon already, c’mon!’ another shouts, while Nate is grateful that the bus took the brunt of the landing, but he telekinetically holds it back, not wanting to let a ton and a half of steel topple over on the people still getting out of the bus. ‘He touched you’ Jack Knife calls out as he approaches the scared Bux. Nate sees this, and knows that Bux is in danger simply because she called out to him. Thankfully, considering the nature of his powers and all, psionic generated by thought, not action, he is not exactly limited to one thing at a time, and using his formidable power, he hurls a car towards Jack Knife.
However, Jack Knife turns the car into shrapnel, and boasts that it is all the ammunition he needs to purge the impure. But as the shrapnel is shot towards the civilians, Nate uses his own power to sweep the civilians and make them fall down flat, causing the shrapnel to fling into the nearby buildings. ‘Too close’ Nate remarks, while Marita, Bux and Jam go over to him. ‘What is he? Bux asks as Jack Knife strides towards them. However, Nate causes the ground in front of Jack Knife to explode, but the lunatic tells him that telekinetically igniting subterranean gas-mains only endanger the people he pretends to protect. More civilians start to run in panic as the gas mains erupt in additional locations, while Jack Knife declares that this proves Nate to be every bit the threat he knows him to be.
‘You broke me months ago. Twisted me, inside out, maybe beyond repair’ Jack Knife declares as he walks through the flames caused by the erupting gas mains. ‘Made me into something you can’t hurt ever again’ Jack Knife snarls. ‘I…I’m dead’ a wide-eyed Nate thinks to himself as the rain continues to pour. He tells himself that Jack is relentless, a machine - a killing machine that won’t be stopped. Suddenly, Nate sees an electrical cable, and telekinetically latches onto it, wrapping it around Jack. ‘Power-cables from beneath the street now?’ Jack calls out, while Nate tells himself that Jack’s brain is the machine. ‘These will no more hold me than the -’ Jack Knife begins, before a bolt of lightning strikes him, and he screams. ‘An organic computer, effectively running on electricity… as vulnerable as any mind to an overload of electrical energies’ Nate thinks to himself.
Nate looks exhausted, and sees that Jack is alive, he is breathing, but that his head, for lack of a better term, is completely short-circuited. Nate picks up Jack’s limp body, ‘Here but for a thin veil of sanity I go…’ he thinks to himself as he carries Jack’s body towards the crowd. ‘Thought you told me you were tired, hombre’ Marita calls out as she Jam, Bux, Roust and others gather around. ‘I forgot’ Nate replies, as blood trickles from his nose. Marita asks Nate if he knows what just happened here. ‘What we saw - what we all saw’ Jam begins. ‘Sparks’ several others call out. ‘Shooting outta his head!’ someone declares. ‘Lightning’ another exclaims. ‘Out of thin air’ someone points out. ‘Flying!’ ‘Glowing eye!’ Suddenly, sirens sound, and a voice calls out ‘Nobody move!’
Several police officers have arrived on scene, ‘You - in the leathers - put your hands up and surrender!’ one of them orders Nate, while telling everyone else to back away slowly, out of the line of fire. But Nate holds up Jack’s body and tells the officers that this man needs help. He makes his way towards some paramedics who have also arrived on scene, ‘More help than I can offer’ he explains. One of the medics examines Jack, ’Second-degree burns over the upper torso, pulse dipping radically, no retinal response…’ and instructs his colleague to set the tourniquet around the shoulder, while the EMS is already prepping the emergency room. ‘He needs life support, stat!’ one of them declares. Marita stands beside Nate as the officers all ready their guns, cocking the triggers.
‘And we don’t need to repeat yourselves again, punk!’ one of them calls out. ‘You’re coming down to the station-house with us, right now…’ another begins, but the bar tender from the Limelight rushes forward in front of Nate, ‘He saved my life, officer!’ he calls out. ‘And mine!’ another woman declares. ‘Mine, too!’ someone else shouts. ‘Ditto!’ another exclaims. ‘Same here!’ two people tell the officers. ‘What they said!’ others agree as more and more people gather around Nate. ‘Nate Grey saved all our lives, blue-boys…and it looks like he ain’t going nowhere he don’t want to!’ Roust exclaims as the rain continues to beat down, and the officers lower their weapons. Something is in the air tonight. An electricity, a charged tension, quite different from the energy of the earlier evening. And, even if young Nate doesn’t know it yet - every crackling erg belongs to him….