8

John felt like he did that one time he shotgunned a couple of beers and went on a roller coaster. His head was swirling, moving one way, while his stomach moved another way. To call it unpleasant was an understatement; there were no words for how awful it was.

His gut finally decided it had enough and tried to leave through his throat. He vomited, hot bile burning his throat, and his stomach spasmed until he didn't have anything left in him. Holy fuck, he hadn't barfed so much since he tried Everclear.

“You were always weak,” a cultured – and familiar – voice said.

John looked up and saw Magneto standing at the end of the hall, smirking down at him like an amusing new insect he'd just discovered in his shoe. “What the fuck is this?” he wondered aloud. It was another trick, like Tasha was a trick, although Mags wasn't dead. (Well, not to his knowledge.)

“Still slow on the uptake, boy? Who else could build a place like this? All metal, without doors? Did you learn nothing working for me?”

It was an illusion, it had to be, but ... he had a point. As long as it was all metal, Mags didn't need a door; he just created them and closed them up at will. “You were given the cure.”

“Which is temporary at best. We're all returning to normal. Well, abnormal. As we were meant to be.”

John forced himself up to a sitting position. He still felt like shit, but at least he knew he wasn't going to barf. “You wouldn't be here. Why the fuck would you be in Russia?”

“Exactly. Why would anyone look for me here? Strategy was never your strong suit.”

“Since when do you hide? Magneto would never hide in the farthest corner of the world.”

“There's a difference between hiding and regrouping, boy. But I don't expect you to know the difference.”

“What the fuck is this? Why are you being a dick to me?”

His gaze was witheringly cold, and very Magneto-like. If it was a hallucination, it was a detailed one. “You really are as stupid as I feared. Do you know why I made you my front line guard? Your power wasn't that special; Mystique was always better and more effective than you. I put you out front as a constant reminder to Charles of his failure. You were a taunt, and nothing more.”

“No.” That wasn't true. That couldn't be true. He told him he was a god amongst insects. “You told me I was special.”

“Oh yes. I use that line a lot.”

John was getting angry, and that made him feel stronger. He reached out to the nearby wall, and used it to help him stand up. “Bullshit. This is complete bullshit.”

“Is it? Those who overcompensate the most – those who try to seem hard or dangerous – are the weakest ones. You tried far too hard, boy. But I found it funny.”

“Bullshit! You're just pissed off that I went back to the X-Men!” Remembering the matches in his hand, he flicked the sulfur head of one with a fingernail, creating a spark, and he threw a fireball right at Magneto's face. No metal in flames.

It went right through him, and he smirked. “Mental projection. Or did you forget about the telepath?”

“Why did you just do that?” Nariko asked. “Who are you talking to?”

“If I see you, I'm gonna motherfucking kill you,” he told him. “I'll burn your face right off.”

Magneto continued to smirk at him. “You're free to try.” He then disappeared from existence, like he'd never been there at all.

“You sure as hell better not have been talking to me,” Nariko snapped.

He glanced down at her as she picked herself up off the floor, avoiding his puddle of puke. “No. I thought ...”

“Thought what?”

He considered telling her, then shook his head. “Nothing. C'mon, let's keep going.” If it was just a hallucination, then he was revealing something of himself by admitting that Magneto's praise and respect still meant something to him, even though they were on opposite sides once more. Goddamn it, why did it matter? He stopped being a bad guy, after all. If Mags opinion of him mattered that much, why did he go?

“But the sound's stopped,” she replied. “And the lights are out.”

John glanced up, and saw that they were. Son of a bitch. How did he miss that? “But Logan told us to go.” It was weak, but all he could think of. He wanted to leave this place now. If Magneto was here, they were screwed, as he could easily take out their two heavy hitters (Logan and Piotr). If it wasn't Mags doing, just some fucked up group of mutants, they were still probably screwed, because none of this made any sense. What could they want from them? They were like hamsters in a maze.

Hey, that was it: rodents in a maze. These fucks, whoever they were, were simply sadists. They were running them through their paces, seeing what they could do, but for no reason other than to torment them. They probably wanted nothing more from them than entertainment. Motherfuckers.

“We should really stick together,” she said, and headed back through the hole in the wall she'd made shortly before they both passed out.

Oh goddamn it! See, that's what a goody two-shoes did. It didn't speak well for him, did it?

It made him wonder why he wanted to be a hero in the first place.

The lowest level of the complex – well, Shaheen assumed it was – was a very strange place.

Machinery that was both vague and disturbing seem to reach from floor to ceiling. There were tiny walkways between clumps of awkward machines, the only concession to Human occupation. It was cold down here, in spite of the obvious heat that had been coming from the machines, and smelled like dust.

“Well, this is spooky,” Kitty said. Even though they had been separated for a couple of minutes, Kitty still seemed jazzed by the power boost. Sweat had beaded on her forehead, and was probably responsible for her shivering. “What the hell is all of this? Do you know?”

“I'm a doctor, not an engineer,” she said, looking at a couple of stacked up metal boxes that appeared to be connected by cables as thick as branches. The boxes looked a bit like an old vent hood, and something like a safe made of tin foil. “But a lot of this looked hastily cobbled together.”

“Which means ..?”

“Sweetheart, I have no idea.” She ran her finger along the edge of one of the metal boxes, and came away with a thick layer of dust on her fingertip. “But I can tell you no one's been down here for a while.”

“Really? You'd think someone would need to ... monitor this or something.”

“You'd think, wouldn't you?” Shaheen kept looking around, and she had no idea what she was looking for, although she felt there was an answer here that she just wasn't seeing.

“You're frowning.”

“Am I?”

“That usually means you know something the rest of us don't.”

“I know where the spleen is.”

Kitty rolled her eyes. “Now is so not the time to joke.”

“It wasn't a joke. Also, come to think of it, probably not accurate. Logan probably knows where the spleen is. His knowledge of anatomy is frightening.”

“I think it's because he stabs people.”

“I think so too. It's enough to give you the willies.”

She walked to the opposite end of the wide, long room, drawn by something she couldn't quite name. Once there, she put her hands on the wall, and felt what must have drawn her in. “Kitty, come here.”

“What?”

“Not all the power's off.”

“Huh?”

Kitty joined her, and put her hands up against the wall too. She opened her mouth to say something, perhaps that she felt nothing, but she closed it as she must have finally picked up the faint vibrations in the wall. She went partially intangible and stuck her head through. After a moment, she pulled back out. “Oh my god. You have to see this.”

Shaheen held out her hand, which Kitty took, and pulled them both through the wall, into another room. It was rectangular, but smaller and narrower than what Shaheen assumed was the main room. There was only one thing in this room, but it was huge. It was basically a torpedo/coffin shaped silver tablet, about eight feet long and six feet deep, and it hummed. “Is that a bomb?” Kitty asked, horrified.

It was embedded in the floor via a silver metal pedestal; it seemed to be melted down into one piece. There was a thin seam running along the entire length of the coffin, but it looked welded shut. “I don't know. I don't think so. Can you look inside?”

She seemed nervous, but she said, “I guess so,” and edged up to the torpedo. She just went partially intangible and put her face against it, peering inside cautiously. Was she afraid she'd set it off? Or maybe something would reach out and grab her?

She withdrew quickly and let out a small shriek, stumbling and falling on her ass as she became tangible again. “Oh holy shit!”

“What is it?”

Kitty stared at the torpedo as if it was going to come alive and attack her. “It's a head.”

“What?”

“A severed head.” She slapped a hand on her mouth, as if she was going to get sick.

A severed head in a torpedo tube? Well, wasn't that bizarre? What could it possibly mean?

By the time that they made their way back to the group, Logan was regaining consciousness. “Aw fuck,” he cursed, grabbing his head.

“You have a huge vocabulary,” John said. He was still shaken up by whatever it was he thought he saw, but he was trying to pretend he wasn't. It occurred to Nariko that John seemed to always be pretending in one way or another. How insecure did you have to be?

“Eat me, Pyro,” Logan said, sitting up. He then looked at them, and asked, “Didn't I tell you to go?”

“We did. But she wanted to come back.”

“The power's off,” she told him, pointing up at the ceiling where the lights were once on. “The noise has stopped. And frankly, we haven't the slightest idea where we're going.”

“Never stopped me before,” Logan muttered, dry washing his face.

“Who hit me?” Piotr asked, coming around himself.

“The ceiling,” Logan said, climbing to his feet.

Piotr looked up at him, considering that. “Explains a lot.”

“Think the sound overloaded shit or something?” John wondered.

Logan shook his head. “I doubt it. If they made the weapon, they could control it.” He paused, looked around, and said, “Kitty isn't back.”

Nariko felt guilty for not noticing until he mentioned it. “Oh. Hell. Do you think she's hurt? Or still looking for the Doctor?”

He rubbed the back of his neck, scowling at nothing. There was dried blood on his neck. “Maybe that's why the power shut down. Kitty and Shaheen went to find the source.”

“Could they do that?” John asked skeptically.

“Intangible, the sound probably wouldn't be effective on Kitty,” Logan replied. “I doubt she'd leave Shaheen to suffer.”

“Good point.”

Suddenly an alarm went off, and most of them jumped. “Well, not all the power's off,” John shouted, covering his ears.

Nariko sidled up to Logan, and asked, “What is this? A fire alarm?”

He scowled and shrugged. He didn't look happy. “This is bullshit. I'm fucking done with this.” Logan started stalking down the hall, and shouted, “Hey, you want me! Come and get me! Knock this shit off and face me, you fucking coward!”

“Oh, please don't taunt them,” Nariko said, aware she was being ignored.

The vibrations came back. But no, they were different this time, and even though the alarm cut out, the noise got louder. You could see actual ripples in the metal plating on the wall. In fact, that's what was moving, wasn't it? The walls were moving. Or at least the metal plating was.

“Holy shit,” John said, sounding genuinely scared. “It is him. Oh shit. Logan, don't, you can't fight him.”

“Can't fight who?”

“Magneto. It's Magneto. I thought it was a trick, but -”

“It is a trick,” he snapped. “I can smell Mags a mile away. He isn't here.”

“The air scrubbers -”

“Can't beat my fucking nose,” he interrupted. “In fact, the only people that have been here recently have been us. This place smells like baked dust and ozone, an air circulation system gone stale. This place is a fucking ghost town. So where the fuck are you hiding, assholes?!”

“That's not aimed at us, is it?” Kitty asked. Her head was poking up through the floor, just a few feet away from Logan. She saw the rattling plating, and asked, “Holy hell, what's causing that?”

“Magneto,” John said miserably.

“It's not Magneto,” Logan snapped. “What'cha found, darlin'?”

“Some really weird shit.” She grimaced at her own cursing, then continued. “Doctor Khoury wanted me to come get all of you. We found something, but we're not sure what to make of it. She said this was a house of horrors and that you – Logan – might be especially interested in it, but she didn't say why. I can't really imagine why, except it involves decapitation.”

Nariko stared at her in horror. “Doctor Khoury's been decapitated?”

“No! No. But someone has. I just don't know who.”

Logan sighed and crouched down, reaching his hand out towards Kitty. “Take me there, kid.”

Nariko wondered if this was voluntary. Because she wasn't sure she wanted to go see a severed head.