BLACK AIR RISING

Part I: Let’s Face The Music and Dance

By David Wheatley

“Bloody hell,” said Alistaire Stuart as he looked out at the sea of people in the conference room of the Inter-Regional Taskforce headquarters. There was a vast amount of journalists, paparazzi, commentators and other types out there waiting for the press conference that Excalibur had called less than twenty-four hours earlier. Super-hero teams rarely made statements to the press about anything, unless they were making an apology for some act of devastation.

In the old days, it was common practice when the Avengers had new members, or a sub-team, but these days they kept themselves to themselves. The press was not often thought of as friends and in the UK a conference call such as this was unheard of. Which, Alistaire thought, maybe why there were so many out there.

“Hmm,” answered Douglas Fairbanks-Mountbatten, the Commander of the IRT, speaking through a wired up jaw. Pete Wisdom has smashed his head against the bar of a pub several times and in doing so had broken the man’s cheekbone. It hurt like hell, and he had promised to get the man, as he couldn’t press charges as there were no witnesses and Wisdom had an alibi of being at a wedding. However he had been expecting him to be present at the press conference, but Pete was the only member of the team not present for the conference, as he was looking for his sister Romany and their father, whose name he couldn’t remember.

The former – Fairbanks-Mountbatten’s current love – had gone missing while working for WHO and the latter had gone after her. Both were missing and neither WHO nor the IRT had been able to find them. Pete Wisdom, however, believed he would do better. He knew them better than the others, he had the contacts and connections plus he was prepared to cross the line to get information.

“Sorry,” said Alistaire. “Forgot you can’t really talk.” He looked to the side of the small stage area and saw that the team were standing there, waiting for his signal. It was almost time, and WHO and the IRT had spent hours sorting this out, setting this up and making certain that people were here. Brian had said it was important to everyone and wouldn’t say any more than that, which had perked the interest of everyone involved. Now it was time and he spoke to the microphone on his lapel. “Full house, Brian. You’re good to go.”

“Thanks, Alistaire,” came the reply from the microphone and the lights in the room dimmed as Excalibur came on to the raised platform in full uniform and sat down behind the desk that was there. Captain Britain, Meggan, Kylun, Mastermind were all there, the picture of them displayed on a large screen behind them, and the world’s press watched in anticipation.

Pete Wisdom knew about the Press Conference. Brian had asked him to be there and a quick glance at his watch told him he ought to be there with them, however he had work to do. This wasn’t a job for Excalibur; this was a job for Pete Wisdom. He’d delayed himself by two days when he’d gone back to the manor to stop Sabretooth and he’d already been behind then. It had taken him the best part of three weeks to get this far and now he had managed to catch up to where he thought they were at.

“Sorry, Brian,” said Pete as he lit up a cigarette in the small sewer chambers underneath the streets of London. He was quite close to IRT headquarters from where he was, but this was family. He may not have had much contact with them, but they were family and whoever messed with them would answer to him. This was not the smartest way to get in to the Millennium Dome on the banks of the Thames but it would get him there in secret. The thing with the Dome was it kept losing money and needed to be topped up by government payouts every now and then, and Pete had never figured out why.

Granted the location wasn’t ideal but it had been marketed, and pushed and everything so it shouldn’t have needed bailing out so often. It was then he discovered that a large proportion of the funds were being diverted elsewhere within the Dome and he’d spent long enough in the spy game to know when there was something covert going on. The Government would take the flak for mismanagement of the Dome, but that was small change compared to whatever was going on.

It had taken research at WHO to piece together what he could, because some things were not in his league. The type of occult happenings that had been going on down by the Thames in recent months was more Romany’s department. What he had seen had shocked him in a way few could know, especially after what he’d seen and done on Otherworld and it had snapped him out of his malaise. Sat-Yr-Nine had been a cow and if he hadn’t killed her, then someone else would have done.

He wasn’t proud of it, but there were a lot of things he wasn’t proud of and no two-bit witch would mess with his head and make him feel guilt for something he’d gotten over feeling guilty for a long time ago. He’d had a long talk with Kitty about it at the wedding after she asked him why he hadn’t been there at first and he’d explained what had happened and what had been done to him. She’d helped him to a certain extent, and it was good to know they were still friends, even if there was a pain in his heart when he was with her that would never go away.

Then he had seen the corpses. This had been specialised work, occult details, with things he knew he didn’t like. The bodies had been drained of the vital fluids and were dry and desiccated. They were also missing their eyes, hearts and tongues. Then there were the symbols carved on their chests and the fact that the empty cavities glowed in the dark with a reddish blue hue.

What it meant, Wisdom didn’t know, but there was no chance it was anything good. It was like an episode of Millennium only worse, he’d thought which was when he twigged on the idea of the Dome. The locations of the bodies were all relatively close to the Dome, in terms of where the currents of the Thames would drag them. He knew enough from his days with Black Air to know the flows of the River Thames, as he’d had to arrange some clean-up crews for his own handiwork, and Black Air needed to know where the body would end up, or at least the relative area.

As soon as he had that thought about Black Air, it seemed that they had to be involved. They had turned up as soon as he knew that his family was in trouble, and they had warned him about Sabretooth. They had done it not to help but to get him out of the way and he cursed himself for being such a fool. They’d played him and with his head messed by Sat-Yr-Nine, they’d played him with ease. If they’d played him, they knew he’d be back. If they knew he’d back, they knew what he’d find, if they knew what he’d find then he would be expected.

That was another reason he didn’t want to involve Excalibur and he had spent a good week or so making sure he went in the wrong direction to where the trail led. He didn’t know if it would throw Black Air off his trail but he had to try. At the same time he made sure that the information he needed to keep him on the trail was still coming his way and he spent several days in Switzerland, searching for clues and such. To get what he was after he used a computer connection in SHIELD’s headquarters in Geneva getting what information they had on the Dome. Black Air had provided him with many cover identities, and there were others he’d created on the basis of those, just in case.

It hadn’t been a wasted trip, as he’d run in to a young man on secondment to Geneva from the Helicarrier by the name of Rigby Fallon. He was a gentleman that Wisdom had been meaning to look up for a while. Pete managed to trick him in to going down a dark alley and promptly knocked seven bells out of him. Arrogant little bastard hadn’t put up much of a fight, and Wisdom shook his head as he left him in the alley, thinking SHIELD agents weren’t as good as they used to be and he knew he would never be able to use the identity of ‘Kasey Schnieder’ ever again. It was a small price to pay to get the information he needed and to give Fallon a good kicking.

However, while in Geneva he had learned more than he had bargained on. Which was why he was here now, and he just hoped he wasn’t too late.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” said Brian in to the microphone on the desk, the muscles of his jaw highlighted underneath the headpiece of the Captain Britain uniform. His eyes were hidden under the solid white eyepieces and it made him look all the more commanding under the lights. Camera’s flashed and microphones were pointed at him, as he looked from left to right, seeing who was there. There were logos from the BBC, Sky, CNN, and others, but those were the three most prominent ones he knew of, and indeed the whole world would be watching this. The sheer amount of people watching this would be staggering, but it was the right thing to do. They had discussed it as team and the decision was made.

“As you will all be aware, the difficulties between mutants and regular human beings have escalated over the years. There are fears of mutants that are well grounded thanks to the actions of such men as Magneto, Exodus, Apocalypse. The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Onslaught, Proteus. These are names that come up again and again as beings actively using their powers and abilities to dominate. The problem is for the actions of a handful the whole are condemned. The minority tar people but it is not just that which scares people, but the fact that beings like that can live among you undetected.”

The cameras clicked and people shuffled about as Brian took a sip of water and calmed himself down, letting the words resonate in the minds of everyone.

“Such is the reason that the X-Men are feared and, in some cases, hated. They hide behind masks and preach of unity between the two branches of humanity. The hiding of identities, the keeping of secrets is not the way to do things. We can never integrate if we do not mingle and stop hiding, either behind masks or fear of reaction. People – be they black, white, gay, straight, mutant, non-mutant – must come from behind the barriers they create.”

The power and authority in his voice made Meggan feel proud of her husband in a way that few would understand. Brian’s decision to open the debate of whether they should do this based on Martinique’s suggestion, showed that he was a better leader than he suspected. In the old days he would have charged in blindly, one way or the other, but things had changed. The team had changed, the world had changed and Brian had grown emotionally and become the man he had always been destined to be. He was Captain Britain and today he would use the name, the symbolism, and the very icon of the man to change things forever.

“I can see from some of the looks of some of the people here that they are wondering how I can say this, when I do exactly that, as do many of the members of the team. We have been called the Queen’s X-Men in the past but to the people of the UK we are heroes. We do what we can for the people, yet is it enough? The X-Men fight not only to defend the world from evil mutants, but also to promote unity between us all. The UK is more tolerant than the United States, however there are problems. There is fear, there is hatred, there is suspicion and we do nothing to quench that fire. Until now.”

Brian’s hands went up to his mask, unclipping the headpiece from the rest of the uniform and removed it, freeing his face to the world.

“I may be Captain Britain, but I am also a man. A man named Brian Braddock. I will no longer hide who I am from the world, because they are one and the same, not individual identities.” He nodded to Meggan.

“I have no identity to reveal, however my name is Meggan Braddock, known to the people as Meggan. Yet, the form you see me in now is not what I truly look like.” Her body began to twinkle as the threads of order began to change and revealed her true aspect, to the gasps of the people. “This is my true face,” she said. “As Brian said, no more hiding. I once said to a dear friend I would wear that face because that was who I chose to be. We do not get a choice in who or what we are and so this the face I will wear for the rest of my life.”

“My name is Colin McKay,” said Kylun. “Kylun is the name given to me by the people who adopted me when I went missing from my real family. My parents are the dearest people I have to me and I want them to be proud of me. No more disguising myself or pretending to be something I am not. I am a warrior, and I have promised to defend this country and world as a member of Excalibur. To do that I need the trust of the people and I could not be trusted while I was shrouded in mystery.”

“My name is Martinique Jason, and I use the codename Mastermind in deference to my father – Jason Wyngarde, who was the original Mastermind, and member of Magneto’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, who died from the Legacy Virus at Muir Isle a few years ago.” The gasps from the audience were a lot more audible. “I have not been snow white in my past, I have used my powers for my own gain and I have been a party to things I will regret the rest of my life. Excalibur have made me a part of their family, they respect my opinions and beliefs, in the knowledge that everyone makes mistakes. I am working to restore pride to the family name.”

“The missing member of the team is Peter Wisdom,” announced Brian, as Pete’s picture cam up on the screen behind them. “Peter has had a career as an espionage agent, has worked for and with WHO and the IRT and has proven himself to be a fine gentleman, who I would and have trusted with my life. Peter cannot be here today as he has family commitments to attend to.” Brian knew what was going on with Romany and his father, Harold. He had hoped Peter would show and though he was disappointed, he understood.

“Only through being open can we start to make changes. If the world is to become more trusting, more tolerant, then the falling of so-called secret identities should be dropped. The arguments for protecting your families, your friends is well founded but if the people of the world know who they are, then they can be protected not just by those with powers, but by the strength of the common good. Starting today, let us put an end to the fear.”

He let the words sink in, and then he looked at the others, knowing this was an important moment. “Now we’ll take questions.” He pointed at the BBC reporter. “Yes, Martin?”

Wisdom made his way through the sewers until he found the place he wanted. Above him was a grille and he pushed up as hard as he could and the thing didn’t budge.

“Bollocks,” he grunted and fired up a couple of hot knives at it, which cut through the edges and loosened it. He wrapped his hands in his coat and pushed up again. The heat had made the grille expand, but it had made it more pliable and he managed to get through it, though he ruined his coat in the process. Then he fired the hot knives down and pushed himself up through the grille, steam pouring up as his mutant powers hit the water.

“Now if I was going to set something up, I’d set it up towards the centre of this thing,” he said, as he looked through the bowels of the Dome, a place neither the public nor the directors of the Project knew about. There were special significances about the day and the time as he’d learnt from the SHIELD records. It was the high feast of some kind of all powerful demon force and the corpses were thought to be some kind of sacrifice to the demon, except they couldn’t quite figure out what the runes that had been etched on the bodies meant, though apparently Romany had.

He kept moving through the depths of the building until he came upon a pit, heading down towards the depths of the planet.

“Now I bet that’s not in the original design,” he said as he stood back, looking at the steam coming up from it. He’d been with Black Air long enough to know that it was mystic in nature.

“About bloody time you showed up,” came a harsh voice from the other side of the pit and Pete peered up through the steam to where a figure was bound to the wall, smiling at the voice.

“You useless old git,” said Pete as he looked up at his father. “Even with two bloody arms you’d have made a pigs ear of this.”

“As touching as this reunion is,” came the voice of Romany who was bound to the wall about three feet to the left of her father, “Pete you have to do something about this.”

“I’ve been here two bleedin’ seconds and all I get is nag, nag, nag.” Pete fired up his hot knives. “I’ll have you down in a moment,” he said.

“No!” came a voice he didn’t recognise. “Pour those things in to the walls, bring the whole place down.

“Huh?” he said, looking up above him. About three feet from Romany’s left was another old woman.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Gracie Gamble, and if you value this reality you’ll bring the place down on us all, bury it and then the world will be safe.” There was a fourth voice, and she sounded a really snotty cow to Pete and her voice just ticked him off.

“Who do you think you are?” he asked. “You’re tied to the wall, so don’t give me orders…” Then he stopped as he realised they were bound three feet from each other, at equidistant parts of the circle. He knew this was a mystic thing when he saw it properly and he knew whoever they were, they were right. It needed doing and he saw the look in his father’s eyes. He saw the look in his sister’s eyes. He heard the snotty cow’s shrill voice in his ears.

“GET ON WITH IT!”

“Damn,” said Pete quietly and fired off his hot knives, feeling a pain in the back of his neck as he did so. Then the hot knives faded away to nothing before they connected to anything. “What the hell?” he asked turning round, only to be met with a fist.

“Threadgold,” said Pete, picking himself up from the floor. “Right, you’re taking your teeth home in a bag, sunshine.” Then there was a loud crack amd even though he turned as soon as he heard the shot, his shoulder still exploded in a world of pain as the bullet clipped his arm and knocked him to the floor again.

“So predictable, Wisdom,” said Scicluna as she stepped from the shadows, the gun still in her hand. “Put all the pieces in the right place and you came running.”

“What’s going on?” said Pete, holding his arm, putting pressure on it.

“Simple,” said Threadgold, pulling a small dart from Pete’s neck, which he realised was an inhibitor dart. “You’re about to lose everything you hold dear.”

NEXT ISSUE: Things go from bad to worse for Pete as Black Air make a move that’s been a long time in the works. Can Excalibur come to the rescue in time, or is there another super-team with a vested interest in the outcome of this? Five’ll get you ten there’s a guest appearance coming!