Hero: Tiger By The Tail [3/5]

Manufactured by Benway

That evening, he wrote down all that he could recall about Solomon-Barr disease. He raged at himself as he wrote, wondering why he had raced back to the house without making a copy. The disease was essentially a stroke, held in check by some kind of telepathic immune response that attempted to rebuild the mind around the parts of the brain that had died. If the injury was small in scale, the brain would rebuild itself with no ill effects beyond a very bad headache. Otherwise, the telepathic immune response could trigger the formation of waste products that would overwhelm parts of the immune system and cause damage to the kidneys, liver, and bone marrow. In the alpha or semi-stable state, there was a kind of equilibrium that produced either a slow decay or a slow recovery. If the patient were placed into an isolated environment (undefined), a telepath who was telekinetic and a trained surgeon could produce a recovery in 90% of all patients. If the patient engaged in strenuous telepathic ability (undefined), the immune response could go wild, causing further brain damage and possible death due to liver failure, kidney failure, or gross liquefaction of brain tissue. In this beta state, the patient could not enforce standard projective or receptive telepathic barriers (undefined), and death could occur without warning. Apart from telepathic surgery, the treatment appeared to be isolation from sensory stimulation, refraining from high-level telepathy (undefined), and a high protein diet. Raw liver and fresh leafy vegetables were recommended as emergency treatments. The book recommended that the patient's temperature and blood pressure be taken hourly, and that all bodily orifices be examined for signs of unusual discharges (undefined). It also recommended bloodwork and the administration of steroids every six hours (impossible).

He set down his pen and closed his eyes. It was too much. He had no idea where the nearest hospital was where she might find treatment, and also had no doubts that treatment would end with her in custody or worse. He had found a sphygmomanometer and a stethoscope, covered with dust in the bottom of the bathroom cabinet, as well as a thermometer. He would have to count on Madrox being able to line something up. They couldn't count on serendipity forever. He found a pen and a ruler and began making up a table to keep track of her vital signs.

*****

The next day, he drove to a food market just over the state line in Indiana. After picking up more liver and vegetables, he called the contact number. Madrox answered on the first ring.

"How is she?" said Madrox.

"Light fever," he said. "She said she thought she was in the beta state last night."

"Is that the good one?" asked Madrox.

"No," he said.

"Shit," said Madrox.

There was a long silence.

"She needs help," he said. "Some kind of surgery."

"I know that," said Madrox. "Problem is, they didn't find a body. They're looking for her."

"Can you do it outside a hospital?" he asked.

"No," said Madrox. "And you can't go to just any hospital, either."

"Then what can we do?" he said.

"Keep her stable until tomorrow, then meet me at any restaurant just north of Xenia on US 68," said Madrox. "Park in front. I'll look for your car."

Madrox hung up. He kicked furiously at some gravel. A passing middle-aged man told him to leave the gravel alone.

*****

The rest of the day quickly slipped into a routine. He prepared food and cleaned up afterwards. He helped Lee when she had to go to the bathroom. Lee handled the feeding and took her temperature and blood pressure. Artie watched television. By six, he realized that he hadn't said more than ten words to the three of them all day.

He made sure that he was waiting when Lee came back downstairs after her evening meal.

"Anything new?" he asked.

"No," said Lee.

"Her temperature the same?" he asked.

"Yes," said Lee. "Go see for yourself?"

"I trust you," he said, flushing.

"Don't understand why she didn't ask me to do this stuff before you came," said Lee.

"SB can lead to minor derangement," he lied.

"Wasn't on your list," said Lee.

"Forgot," he said.

"Sure," said Lee.

"Look, what about Artie?" he said.

"What about Artie?" said Lee.

"He's watched TV all day," he said.

"Yes," said Lee.

"Is that normal?" he asked.

"Yes," said Lee. "Things as they are."

"What does that mean?" he asked.

"Doesn't have a lot to say," said Lee. "Might have noticed that."

"Yeah, amazingly I did," he said.

"Just lost half his friends," said Lee. "Knows you helped do it."

"Thanks for telling him," he said. "Doesn't seem to be affecting you as much."

"Seen worse," said Lee.

"Worse," he said.

"Yes," said Lee.

"Your parents?" he said.

"Never knew them," said Lee. "Got raised in a hole. All of Lee's real family got killed in the hole."

"What I did," he said.

"No," said Lee. "Different hole."

"Shit," he said.

"Yes," said Lee, leaving the room to join Artie in front of the television.

*****

Late that night, he took her temperature for the third time. Artie and Lee were still beside the TV downstairs, but had fallen asleep in each other's arms. Their real bodies were smaller than what the enhancers projected, so they looked as if they had partially melted into each other. For some odd reason this reminded him of the story of Sambo that he'd heard as a kid at the Minot library, so he didn't look at them for long.

Emma had barely awakened when he slipped the thermometer into her mouth. He looked around the white room, illuminated by the tiny lamp on the floor beside her pillow. He checked his watch. It was 4 am. He leant back against the wall and closed his eyes for a moment.

He was playing a game, the one that had the rotating thing that James Bond played in casinos, except that there were people in the slots where the ball should have fallen. He/she knew them. They were screaming. He/she couldn't move. There was another figure there, in the centre, glowing and babbling in a voice like that the one the English guy in Die Hard had. The figure reached out and touched a screaming girl who he/she thought was the most beautiful of all and the girl spasmed and corrupted and disintegrated and then all the other children spasmed and corrupted and liquefied and she/he screamed and screamed and screamed and he/she was in the middle, eating and eating and eating and the hunger that was so much he/she had to go to sleep so she/he was in bed face forced into the pillow that hadn't been washed white pillow dark as night warm thing too large not there hurts hurts HURTS-

"Daddy!" they screamed.

His heart was pounding. His mouth was full of blood. He spat it out. He was in the white room. His spit landed on her cheek, cream-colored. She coughed weekly and spat blood.

"What's that?" he said, pointing.

"Blood and glass and mercury," she said. "Didn't anyone ever tell you not to put a thermometer in the mouth of someone who's asleep?"

She spat. There were little ovoids of shimmering silvery metal in among the blood.

"Better wipe that up," she said.

"What the fuck-" he said.

"Welcome to my nightmare," she said.

"It was your dream?" he said.

"Can't ever escape the past," she said. "You dreamed about your dead twice last night."

"I did?" he said.

"Yes," she said, spitting out a bit more glass. "You won't any more, though. Get an electronic thermometer tomorrow."

"Someone did that to you," he said.

"He was drunk," she said.

"Shit," he said.

"He only did it the once," she said as he wondered how many times. "Then they sent me to a mental hospital for kids and it happened every night."

"Couldn't you tell-" he said.

"I did," she said. "The psychiatrist I told buggered me on his couch. I had to escape to get away."

"That's terrible," he said.

"Yes," she said. "It is terrible."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Go fuck yourself," she said.

"What?" he said.

"Fuck you and fuck your pity," she said. "That's the only reason those shits didn't throw me to the government and the vault. They felt sorry for me, so they set it up so I could go through losing them again."

"I don't-" he said.

"Fuck off," she said.

"I've got to do your blood pressure," he said.

"Get Lee to do it," she said. "He's coming up right now."

He met Lee on the stairs. Lee glared at him but said nothing.

*****

He drove to the meet early in the morning. He stopped at a Denny's, just north of Xenia. He had been waiting for over twenty minutes for a seat in the half-empty restaurant when Madrox arrived in an Explorer. They were seated five minutes later at the McDonalds across the highway.

"It's all coming apart," said Madrox, who looked like he hadn't slept all night. "We think there's a mole in our organization. Either that or they got someone to talk. We have to get her out of the country."

"How?" he said.

"Can't fly her out, they're watching the airports, and there's spot-checks on the Interstates," said Madrox. "The ACLU is going nuts, but the Army and the Air Force have the press on their side. You've got to get her to a rendezvous near Chicago. We can get a driver to meet you there, get them out to Canada."

"Haven't you guys got spaceships and shit?" he asked.

"We had some," he said. "You guys blew half of them up."

"I'm really getting sick of this 'you guys' shit," he snarled. "My guys are back in that house riding my ass about it all the fucking time."

"She's a hard one to deal with," said Madrox, trying to suppress a grin.

"Fuck, yeah," he said. "So why not a spaceship?"

"All committed to other tasks," said Madrox.

"So how are we supposed to get her there?" he said. "They won't fit in the Corolla."

"In the Explorer," said Madrox, pushing the keys across. "The car's been reported stolen, anyhow. Some of your neighbours back in Chillicothe reported a black man driving off in it."

"So I'm supposed to drive her to Chicago," he said.

"Valparaiso," said Madrox. "Maps are inside."

"You trust me to do this," he said.

"We don't have anyone else who's been telepathically vetted more recently than you," said Madrox. "Hell, I'd do it myself if I wasn't so overextended. If there's more than 32 of me walking around, some of them can get lost."

"Shit," he said.

"You're doing fine," said Madrox. "You pull this off and you'll have done something ten times more heroic than anything you've done so far."

"Sure," he said.

"Nobody ever said being a hero was ever easy," said Madrox.

"That's what they said in basic training," he said.

"They're right about some things," said Madrox.

"One thing," he said.

"Shoot," said Madrox. "Sorry."

"Who made it?" he said. "From the farm."

"Why?" said Madrox.

"She doesn't know," he said.

"I can't tell you everything I know," he said. "We haven't gotten everyone to safety yet."

"Anything," he said.

"Moonstar, Proudstar, and Sinclair made it out," said Madrox. "We don't know what happened to MacTaggert or Edna McCoy. All three Braddocks disappeared. Sam Guthrie we don't know. Paige and Angelo made it, da Costa we think got captured. Lee and Starsmore didn't make it. Starsmore's the one you shot. Worthington got taken out by a missile. McCoy got out, Celia got out, most of me got out."

"Xavier?" he had no idea of where the name had come from.

"Wasn't even there," said Madrox.

"Cassidy?" he said, as the image of a man in a cable-knit came to him.

"You took his room in Chillicothe," said Madrox.

He remembered the man in bandages who had to be helped to the car on the day that he'd arrived.

"It wasn't as bad as it looked," said Madrox.

"Relative to what?" he said.

"Paige Guthrie or Hank McCoy," he said. "Paige lost a leg below the knee."

"Bobby Drake," he said, wondering where that name had come from.

"Made it," said Madrox.

He felt relief flow through him.

"Jean Grey?" he said.

He had to look away from the answer written in anguish across Madrox's silent face, but deep inside something warmed to the news.

*****

They were on the road by 10. He had Artie and Lee clean the house as best they could, while he helped Emma prepare for the trip. She tried to walk to the car, but stumbled halfway there and he had to carry her. She was remarkably heavy.

"Muscle mass," she told him. "It's denser than fat."

The Explorer was equipped with everything they needed including medical diagnostic equipment, travel food, DeLorme atlases of all relevant states, a rackful of CDs for the sound system, and a new set of passports. There was even a pair of GameBoys and 20 or so cartridges for Artie and Lee.

She fell asleep almost immediately as he drove out the driveway. As they drove through Logansport six hours later, she awoke and asked him a question.

"Why do you speak that way?" she asked.

"Speak which way?" he asked.

"Like the people in Fargo did," she said.

"You mean the movie," he said.

"Yes," she said.

"Why don't you read my mind and find out?" he said.

"I've been trying," she said.

"And?" he said.

"I don't understand," she said. "It's not like reading a book."

"It's the way we all talk," he said. "My sisters, me, everyone in Minot."

"But you're not like everyone in Minot," she said.

"No," he said. "So what you really want to know is why I don't talk like a nigger."

"Yes," she said.

"Because I don't know how to," he said. "Never heard much of that growing up. My mom came from Jamaica. She went to high school somewhere in Canada, hated it and met my dad after she moved to Syracuse. He was in the Air Force. His folks were northern, they didn't speak like niggers either."

"And you don't want to," she said.

"Why should I?" he said.

"Your sister Catherine does," she said.

"Catherine does a lot of things," he said, gripping the wheel very tightly.

"You didn't get angry when Eliza became pregnant," she said.

"That was different," he said.

"Neither of them knew who-", she said.

"I know that, but Eliza was older," he said.

"You threw a chair," she said.

"I got upset," he said.

"Not something that happens often is it?" she said.

"No," he hissed, staring straight ahead down the highway.

"When she was born, you asked your mother if she'd bought Catherine at McCrory's," she said. "You asked if she could be returned."

He stamped on the brake and swerved onto the shoulder.

"I was four years old," he said.

"She's a beautiful young woman," she said.

"What the fuck is your point?" he said.

"Feeling attracted to your sister is natural," she said.

He stared at her. Tiny sparks seemed to start bursting across the blood-red fog that descended across his vision. He threw open the door without looking. A loud blare came from the horn of a swerving car. He stepped out into the road without looking and shut the door but somehow it slammed. He walked away from the car, along the shoulder. The fog gradually lifted. From somewhere behind, he heard a door open. He looked back and saw Lee jump out. He turned his back and increased his pace. The road sloped down, and soon he was in a small hollow out of sight of the Explorer. There was corn on both sides of the road. There were no other cars in sight. He picked up a large rock and threw it as hard as he could into the field. He picked up another and threw it. Then another. He picked up a handful of gravel and began to throw it, pebble by pebble, into the stalks. He looked up and saw Lee standing at the top of the hollow, hesitating. He threw another pebble into the corn, then a few more as Lee made his way towards him.

"Can't let her get to you," said Lee.

He threw another rock.

"Good woman, not nice," said Lee.

"No shit," he said, throwing another pebble.

"You never touched your sister," Lee stated.

"I _know_ I never did, just like I know my father never did the things to me that I can't stop thinking about now," he said. "Don't believe me, do you?"

"I do," said Lee.

"Why?" he said. "Why should you believe me when I fucking killed all your friends?"

"Instinct," said Lee. "Getting the same thoughts, ridiculous. No orifice there, no genitals that anyone's ever been able to find. Couldn't do those things if I tried. Still remember doing them. Artie, too."

"They're from her?" he said.

"No projective telepathic barriers," said Lee.

"Artie," he said, dropping the rest of the pebbles.

"Doesn't understand," said Lee. "She can't stop it. Games and the TV distract him."

"Oh man," he said.

"Don't bother asking her to apologize," said Lee.

"Come on," he said.

"It was a long walk for me from the truck," said Lee.

He picked Lee up, trying not to cringe when he did so.

"Thank you," said Lee.

At the truck, Artie was waiting. The image of all four of them in the car appeared in front of him.

"Yeah, sure," he said.

When he climbed back into the driver's seat, he tried not to look at her. She seemed to be asleep again. He tried to remember whether or not it was possible for someone to weep in their sleep.

*****

Outside Valparaiso, he found the mailbox in front of the abandoned house on the country back road. There was no car there to meet him. Instead, there was an envelope that had GO THROUGH CHICAGO NOW NO INTERSTATES CROSS BRIDGES IN CITIES OPEN ENVELOPE IN AURORA ON OTHER SIDE OF RIVER written across it. He didn't bother to wake Emma up to tell her. No-one stopped them or followed them as far as he could tell. In Aurora, he crossed the river by the casino. Once he'd crossed it, he stopped in the parking lot of a motel on the western edge of town and opened the envelope.

If you're reading this, you're safe for the moment, it said. It told him that the network had been hit again by an FBI counter-terrorist operation, and the driver who was to have met them had gone underground. It told him to head for Canada, not through Detroit of Buffalo but instead through the Manitoba/North Dakota border. It told him to drive during the day so as to avoid spot checks at night. It told him to expect no help before he arrived at the Fort Gary United Church in Winnipeg. It told him not to use the credit cards, but instead to use the $3000 in cash hidden under the spare tire. It was signed JM 1101.

He rented two motel rooms. He set up Artie and Lee in a room at the far end of the motel, and told them not to stay up too late watching TV. He returned to the other room with the special medikit from out of the truck. She hadn't said a word to him since the afternoon.

"Bloodwork," he said.

He opened the kit. There was a needle there. He didn't know how to draw blood. He found a paper with instructions, but she took the kit from him while he was reading them. She took a length of rubber hose out of it. She pulled up the sleeve of her sweatshirt and wrapped the hose around her biceps. Holding one end of the hose with her teeth, she put a slipknot into it and tightened it. She gripped the kit in that hand while she prepared the needle with the other. As the veins came up, she tapped them expertly and then slid the needle into one of them with a quick, efficient gesture. The glass vacuum cylinder attached to the needle began to fill with blood. He winced.

"It's no big thing," she said.

"Never liked needles," he said.

She snorted.

"Bandage," she said, withdrawing the needle and connecting the blood-filled cylinder to the medikit.

He undid a bandage and put it over the hole. It turned dark with blood. She looked at the analyzer and frowned.

"Platelets a bit low," she said. "Otherwise normal. I'm still in alpha."

"Why did you do that?" he asked.

"Do what?" she said, lightly.

"Push me," he said. "Back in the truck."

"I was just testing your limits," she said.

"Why?" he said. "You knew what I was thinking after I pulled over."

"You were thinking of picking me up by my neck and smashing my face into the dashboard," she said.

"You know I'd never do that to my sister," he said.

"I know," she said. "I also hoped that you wouldn't attack me."

"Hoped?" he said.

"Hard to be certain," she said.

"But what would you do if I had?" he said. "Kill me? Just wait for them to come and pick you up by the side of the road?"

"But you didn't," she said.

"You are one crazy-" he said, losing the word. "Woman."

"Bitch," she said. "You wanted to say bitch."

"I don't like that word," she said.

"You are one self-righteous little prig, you know that?" she said. "I'd almost think you were Canadian."

"Fuck," he said. "Lee said you were good but not nice. Would it kill you to be nice? I'm only trying to save your fucking life."

"You don't understand me," she said. "You think I'm good."

"Well, yeah," he said. "Looking after those kids. Surviving all that."

She started to smile. It was worse than the burned thing, rising from the floor. He started to recoil, then froze, unable to move. The smile became something even worse.

"Good?" she whispered.

He sat down. He didn't want to.

"Remember the dream?" she said. "Daddy buggered me first, then he found the right spot, then he sent me to Silver Hill. I already told you about that. I didn't tell you that they buggered me through all nine months of my pregnancy. They got rid of it. Daddy sent it to an orphanage in Switzerland, then he died and left all his money to it. He even named it. It hates me. I hated it."

He tried to say something. She didn't let him.

"I escaped after they backed off my thorazine during the delivery," she said. "I wandered out of the grounds. I didn't know what to do. I'd never looked after myself, never even made a meal for myself. I got picked up by a pimp. He raped me and put me to work. He showed me all about heroin. As you can see, I've got some experience with needles. I did it in the arm until I noticed it was killing business. Then I started on my feet. I hate it when people look at my feet."

She undid the hose from her arm and put it away in the medikit.

"You don't have to worry about AIDS," she said. "I didn't catch it from a john by sheer dumb luck. I didn't get it from a needle because I always used clean kit. I used my own needles and didn't share with the other losers because I didn't want any nigger blood in me."

He felt the strength leave his limbs, but still could not move.

"I got arrested and crash detoxed," she said. "The heroin stopped me from reading minds. They all came in. They sent me to another mental hospital. Some guy in a wheelchair came to see me, he could read minds. When he left, I could tell what he thought. He was one of the few who didn't want to fuck me. Useless. That's what he thought. I was useless. Fucking bastard."

She bent over and put her head between her knees. She sat up a moment later, eyes full of tears.

"Another man came to see me," she said. "He wanted to fuck me, but he didn't think I was useless. He got me into a detox program, and had me given some proper psychosurgery. They taught me to put the barriers in. He taught me things. He made me into what I am today. He made me strong, like he was."

"Xavier?" he said, still unable to move.

"I'm leaking," she said. "No, Xavier was the one who left me to rot. I'm talking about Sebastian Shaw. Shaw Industries. He helped me start Frost International."

"Emma Frost," he said thinking of the woman in the white leather suit who was seen at the glamorous movie premieres on Entertainment Tonight. A woman who spoke to presidents. The woman who had taken Wall Street.

"Taken is right," she said. "I built that company on 5 years worth of the best insider information I could get. I made it into the Forbes 500 and it was never enough. Never enough money. I spent more than twice what your mother will earn in her life on dinner for 12, once, just so I could seduce a man who I thought I loved. He turned out to be a British agent, and I had to kill him. Poor James."

She wrapped her arms around herself, tightly. He found that he could move slightly, with effort.

"Once, Sebastian and I started a war," she said. "We wanted an oil concession off the coast of Africa, and the president of the little shithole concerned decided not to let us have it because dealing with white folks didn't fit in with his idea of socialism, which as far I could see mostly consisted of using the works of Stalin to fabricate excuses for killing his enemies. We found the chief of the second biggest tribe in the country, or what was left of it, in Paris. I offered him my cunt, my mouth, and my asshole for a night if he would take the country and give us the concessions. He goes off and starts a civil war that only gets mentioned in the New York times on page A19 because of the then-unusual habit he had of identifying members of the president's tribe by hacking their hands off. He won after over 70 thousand people lost their lives. I gave him his evening telepathically, then slit his throat with a broken magnum of Moet and Chandon. His successor gave us the concession and we used the money to buy the Massachusetts Academy."

"The school that Artie and Lee went to," he said.

"Yes," she said. "They did. We needed meat, mutant meat for soldiers. Surrogates. Pawns. Shaw gave them to me to play with. I did play with them. I have a kink, you see. It's not a common one in women. I like to fuck children. Well, not children really. From first body hair until maybe 15, 16. Both kinds."

"No," he said.

She looked at him, staring straight at him with ice cold eyes.

"Yes," she said. "Whether they wanted me to or not. I didn't give them a choice. Did you know I loved them, too? I thought I was doing them a favour, all my children, showing them how bad it could be, stripping them down to the essential part that would survive. That was my excuse. I never leashed my desires, not until Christina. She was one of my first. I liked to use a whip on her. She took it so well, or so I thought. Then, one day, she mindcalled me and when I linked I saw the quad coming up so very fast, a moment before the rope went taut and wrenched her head clean off. She'd called me in mid-leap from the tower."

"You've had this before," he said. "The disease."

"Oh no," she said with a small, breathless chuckle. "I was lucky that time. All I knew was that I had become my father. I swore never to do it again. Never to anyone under the age of 18. I found my daughter. I went to see her. She was almost the very image of Christina, and she hated me as much. I bought her the best of clothes, which she tore apart. I bought her the best of psychiatric help, and she stabbed one and seduced the other. She's tried to kill me twice and probably will try again, if I live."

"Lee," he said.

She snorted.

"You've got to be kidding," she said.

"The wheel with those kids in it," he said. "In our dream."

"The wheel," she whispered. "A madman killed them all, all my little loves. He killed them in front of me and I suppose I went a little bit mad. Xavier found me and promised me vengeance. Eventually, I had it. They never trusted me, of course. They made me a deal. If I swore never to touch another person under the age of 20, they'd let me get my vengeance and keep my businesses and my school. If I did touch another child, they'd cut me. Cut me off. Cut my connection to the world."

"Kill you," he said.

"Worse," she said.

"Make you a vegetable," he said.

"If only," she said. "No, in a cut your mind stays alive but the connection to the body is gone. You can't move, not even your eyes. You breathe through a tube. You shit and piss through tubes. You stare at a white ceiling or a television screen set to whatever the nurses think you want to see for the rest of your life. That was the choice. They needed me. Xavier needed me to run a school for young mutants."

"You kept your word," he said.

"That sadistic fuck," she said. "It was like locking a kid in a candy store for a week with water and unleavened bread and the warning that if he even touches a candy he'll get his tongue cut out. He knew what he was doing. He needed a telepath, and he knew I'd do anything to protect any kids I had in my care. I kept my word. He even gave me a man to fuck, to watch over me. We tried once. Disaster. He still won't come within 6 feet of me. I killed all of his illusions."

"He's alive," he said.

"Who?" she said. "Oh. Oh God."

"I hate you," he said.

"So I'm not a good person," she said.

"No," he said.

Her grip released him.

"You-" he said.

"Bitch," she said, smiling.

He slept in the SUV, as he didn't want the kids to see what was burning within him.

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