THE DAY THE WORLD WENT AWAY

Part III

By Chris Munn

You know what makes me hate being a mutant?

It’s not the fact that we’re ‘hated and feared, blah blah blah’, or that mutants are the single most targeted group now when it comes to hate crimes. I don’t care about the fact that there are evil mutants, hell-bent on bending the world to their Nazi domination views. I also don’t care about the reverse of that, with the mutants ‘fighting for the dream!’ of peaceful coexistence with humanity. As far as I’m concerned, I already coexist with humanity pretty peacefully.

No, what I hate the most about being a mutant is, well…being around other mutants.

Sure, sure, birds of a feather flock together and all that, and I’m sure in most cases mutants are relieved to have a place where they can fit in…where they can be accepted…where their powers and deformities are looked upon as the norm. But what about those mutants who aren’t freaks, monsters, or societal rejects? What about the ones who like being with humans?

When I was a kid, back in St. Louis, my mother used to tell me something (almost, it seemed, on a daily basis). “Everett Thomas,” she’d say, “it’s not for you to judge what makes people inferior. That’s not for any man to do.” And I believed her, living that philosophy every day of my life while growing up. I don’t look down on the mutants that might not be appealing to the eye because I know they’re just like me.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop them from looking down on me.

From all outside appearances, I’m the standard in normality. My mutant ability is to key into the genetic signature of other mutants, effectively copying their X-gene and pasting it over my own. In layman terms, if I meet a mutant that can fire eyebeams, then I can fire eyebeams. If I meet one that can read minds, I can read minds. I think you get the picture by now. The only discernable side effect is the rainbow colored aura that emits from my body when I trigger the ability, but hey…compared to having a third eye or horns, that ain’t so bad.

In the eyes of those other, freakish mutants, though…well, it makes me the freak. I’m the outcast because I look normal, if you can believe that. Of course, none of my friends would ever say that to my face, but I can tell what they’re thinking every time they look at me. I don’t have six feet of distended skin, I’m not a walking radioactive isotope, and I didn’t blow a gaping hole in my face by using my powers. So there’s just a tiny bit of animosity on their part, I’m sure.

But, just like everything else in my life, I’ve learned to suck it up and deal with it, smiling all the way. If I can learn to accept having freaks for friends, they can accept me as well.

Right?

“I remembered something.”

The man known only as Adam glanced up from the computer screen on his desk, giving impatient acknowledgement to the young woman standing at the entrance to his office. Monet St. Croix rubbed a hand over her shoulder as she waited for a reply, showing a timid side of herself that she very rarely expressed. After an awkward moment, Adam put on a smile. “I’m sorry?”

“I remembered something,” the Algerian reiterated, “something important.”

“Do come in and tell me about it, child,” he replied, motioning for her to enter the office and sit.

Monet crossed the room, taking a seat in front of the man’s desk. “I have two younger sisters,” she began, “and the last I heard before my…death…was that they had taken gravely ill.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Adam offered, though his indifferent tone made her question his sincerity.

“I need to know, Adam,” she continued. “I need to know if my sisters are here.”

“So…you an’ Monet, huh? Ain’t that just a bit outta left field?”

Everett Thomas sighed at the comment. “I don’t think it’s really any of your business, ‘mate’.”

Jon Starsmore, cigarette clinched in the corner of his smirking mouth, could only shrug. “I jus’ calls ’em as I sees ’em, squire. ‘Sides, I don’t blame you a bit…gel’s fine as fine can get.”

Choosing to ignore his friend’s statement, Everett halted their walk down the empty hallway, gesturing at a doorway a few feet away. “There it is,” he said, “the Arrival Room. You know, I don’t think we should be doing this.”

“Keep yer fuckin’ voice down,” Jon whispered, looking over his shoulder to make sure they were alone, “what, you don’t think Adam has this whole place bugged? He probably has little cameras submerged in all the toilets…we’re living in Voyeur Dorm, mate.”

“Good point,” Everett whispered in return, slowly inching toward the door to the Arrival Room, “but what if we get caught?”

“We’re already dead,” Jon answered with a smirk, “what can they do to us that’s worse than that?”

“Damn you and your logic,” Everett finally admitted, reaching for the electronic keypad that served as the way of admittance to the room. The moment he placed his fingers on the pad, an ear-piercing siren screamed forth from every point in the facility. Both men jumped backward, covering their ears against the onslaught of the alarms. Jon scowled at his teammate.

“What the fuck did you do, man?”

Nathaniel Essex was not pleased. Hunched over the computer keyboard, he strained through burning eyes to read what was on the screen in front of him. With a sigh, he removed his glasses, rubbing his eyes with thumb and forefinger. “I’ll never get used to wearing these damn things again,” he muttered, begrudgingly placing the glasses back on his face.

“Doctor Essex…” a shaky voice said, seemingly from out of mid-air, “please…please help me…”

Essex turned quickly, jumping from his seat with as much mobility as a middle-aged scientist could muster. Looking around the room, he saw no one…was one of Adam’s damnable disciples invisible, and he’d just never noticed? Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of something that should not be happening. Pouring from the air vent in the wall, near the ceiling, was a barely visible cloud of gas.

“…help…me…”

A barely visible cloud of gas that could talk, Essex surmised. Cautiously circling around the cloud, which impossibly did not disperse into the air of the room but instead kept a semi-collected state, the scientist cleared his throat and spoke. “I care not for intruders, my intangible friend,” Essex stated, keeping his distance, “and I care even less for spies, if that is what you are.”

Slowly, painfully, the cloud begin to take a familiar shape. Molded in billows of smoke, the form of a woman emerged, the sculpted mouth again forming the words, “Help me…”

“Guthrie?” The name hit him like a hammer to the face as he suddenly realized just who the person before him was. Walking over to a large tank in the corner of the room, he removed a hose and pointed it at the ghostly girl. “Hold that form for as long as you possibly can,” he advised, turning a nozzle on the end of the hose, “this may be quite uncomfortable.”

A pressurized spray of ice-cold liquid erupted from the hose, the nitrogen hitting Paige’s wraith-like form and solidifying almost immediately. The liquid nitrogen mixed with the gas molecules that made up her body, creating a solid statue of frozen agony in the middle of the lab. Turning off the hose and then dropping it to the floor, Essex reached to a nearby table and picked up a most unlikely scientific tool.

Raising the sledge hammer, he swung it sideways, connecting with furious force against the frozen block of woman. The ice shattered upon impact, and a very shocked and surprised Paige Guthrie hit hard against the wall behind her, broken free of the shell surrounding her. Essex, leaning on the handle of the hammer, panted slightly. “I can’t believe that actually worked…”

Paige, naked and wet, freezing from the cold, could barely speak. “Doctor,” she stammered out, “something…something bad happened. Had to get away…get away quickly, but couldn’t figure out how to turn…couldn’t figure out how to get back to normal.”

“It’s because you took on a non-corporeal form for the first time, my dear girl,” Essex explained, tossing a towel in her direction, “though I can’t fathom what could have went so wrong that you had to take such extreme measures. All you had to do was find out where the Ferguson girl was being held.”

“I got caught,” Paige said, drying herself off with the towel as she spoke, “and I had to kill one of the guards.”

The man once known as Sinister paused after hearing his assistant’s statement, but any reply was quickly drowned out by a blaring of sirens, causing both of them to cover their ears in surprise.

Adam smiled warmly at the young woman before him, placing a comforting hand on top of hers. “My child, I assure you…were your sisters here among us, you would have been the first to know. Nothing warms my heart more than seeing a family reunited after a horrible separation.”

Monet exhaled in relief, the tense nervousness that had accompanied her ever since the memory of her sisters returned being soothed away by the bearded man’s words. “Please,” Adam offered, leading her by the hand over to his side of the desk, “sit here in my lap and tell me what else concerns you.”

Hesitantly, Monet placed herself on the man’s lap, drawing her legs up to his side as she positioned herself. Curled nearly into the fetal position, the girl put her head on Adam’s chest, allowing him to softly stroke her long, dark hair. “I feel so alone here,” she whispered, “like something terrible is happening to my family, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“You need comfort, my child,” Adam advised, rubbing his unoccupied hand down the Algerian’s leg, “and it is a father’s responsibility to love all his children, don’t you think?” He could feel Monet move her head against his chest in a nodding motion, a barely audible cooing sound coming from her mouth. A faint light began to glow above Adam’s head, eclipsed only by the brighter pulse of light emitting steadily from his eyes. “The Author of Life wants your love,” he stated. Acting almost as if by command, Monet slid down off the chair, taking position beneath his desk.

Suddenly, the alarm claxons blared to life, breaking the serenity of the moment. Monet hit her head on the top of the desk, the result of the alarms breaking her concentration. Adam closed his eyes, attempting not to lose himself in anger. “Oh, what now?” he muttered.

It shouldn’t have been possible, but somehow the alarms were being drowned out…by screams. Jon and Everett could only look each other in mute confusion as the alarms finally began to die down, while the screams coming from the Arrival Room continued. Not really knowing why he was doing it, Everett reached for the keypad to unlock the door. “What’s the god damn combination?” he asked aloud, mentally asking his mother to forgive him for taking the Lord’s name in vain.

“One-eight-three-two-two-two,” Jon stated matter-of-factly from behind, “I read it from ol’ Doug-boy’s head.”

“Remind me never to keep secrets from you,” Everett commented as he punched in the code. Both he and Jon took several steps backward as the steel door slid open, revealing a room bathed in nothing but red emergency lighting. Slowly, they advanced inside, taking note of the bodies strewn throughout the large room. Everett bent down, examining one of the dead men, pointing out to his teammate the deep cuts slashed into the body. Looking up, they saw the irreparably damaged machinery that made the Arrival Room operable, demolished in whatever struggle had happened inside.

Out of nowhere, a loud growling noise came from the corner of the darkened room. With a nod from Everett, Jon raised his hand into the air, palm extended outward. The flesh of his palm bubbled and then exploded, a jet stream of psionic flame bursting forth to provide both illumination and, if necessary, protection. What they saw in the light of Jon’s flame show caused them both to grow very weak in the knees. “Oh, jaysis,” Jon muttered, “not him.”

Bathed in infernal rays of red and orange light hunched a man both youths had met in their previous lives, an X-Man that had inspired in them equal amounts of respect and terror. His naked body coated in the blood of the men that had overseen his arrival in Wonderland, the man known only as Logan leered at the boys with the eyes of a wild animal, scraping his claws together as his regressed mind attempted to understand the situation.

“Omigod,” Everett whispered, “it’s Wolverine.”

Suddenly, the feral Canadian man lunged forward, pouncing toward the two men. Jon, who was standing in front of Everett, attempted to backpedal, but found himself bumping into his friend. Wolverine’s claws stabbed forward, ripping straight through Jon’s midsection. Starsmore didn’t even have time to scream before Logan ripped his arm free, tearing his claws up through the boy’s shoulder near his neck. Jon fell in a heap, billows of flame erupting from the wounds the former X-Man had caused him. Letting another growl escape his lips, Wolverine turned toward the frightened Everett Thomas.

“Ev!” Jon shouted from the floor, turning over onto his back. “Get down!” Logan turned back toward his victim, having thought he was dead, and instead saw the explosion of fire and energy that ignited from Starsmore’s chest. The energy blast collided hard with Wolverine’s body, sending him careening through the wall of the Arrival Room and out into the hallway.

“Jon, oh hell, what did he do to you?” Everett asked hysterically as he crawled over to his friend.

“Oh, fuck; oh, fuck; oh, bloody fuck,” was all Jon kept repeating as he attempted to contain the psionic energy that continued to flare from his wounds. “Ev, I can fix meself, but it won’t be pretty. Get out of here, I’ll be fine,” he said, turning his head toward Everett. Despite not being convinced of his friend’s sincerity, the Thomas boy pushed himself to his feet and turned back toward the hole Wolverine had made upon his exit.

In the hallway outside, the Wonderland security force had finally arrived…and Wolverine was tearing them to pieces. Everett watched as the carnage unfolded, fascinated at finally getting to see one of Logan’s much-fabled ‘berserker rages’ in real life. With several dead men lying on the ground around him, the Wolverine let loose an animalistic howl, his head thrown back as if he were a wolf.

“Enough of this,” Everett said to himself as he stepped into the hall, facing the blood-thirsty X-Man he’d once thought of as a teacher. A rainbow-colored halo surrounded the black man’s body, causing him to nearly double in muscle mass. “Always wondered if you really were as good as everyone said,” Everett said, wincing as three spires of bone burst from his knuckles on each hand. Raising the claws at the already advancing Wolverine, the younger man smirked.

“Let’s throw down…”

“Just what is going on here?” Adam asked as he strode confidently toward the scene of chaos, Doug Ramsey following closely behind.

“The newest arrival, sir,” Doug said with a shaky voice, “it’s Wolverine.”

“Bah,” Adam replied, “and I take it he’s dispatched the security force in the Arrival Room?”

“That’s affirmative,” Ramsey stated, “but there’s somebody keeping him contained…sir, it’s the Thomas boy.”

Adam said nothing in return as he continued deeper into the apocalyptic scene, eventually stopping a few feet away from the ferocious battle going on before him. Doug, cowering behind his leader, whimpered slightly. “Lord, aren’t you going to stop this?”

Adam smiled maliciously. “All in due time…”

Everett was outmatched, no doubt about it. Despite being in full control of his mental processes, he just couldn’t match the ferocity of his opponent. Wolverine had already hacked and slashed his way across Thomas’ torso, and the boy couldn’t help but shudder when he felt the wounds sealing up as soon as they were inflicted.

A healing factor was a many blessed thing, indeed.

But, at best, the two were at a stalemate. Neither could make much headway against the other, and the loop of violence inflicted and healed continued ad nauseum. Finally, however, Logan gained the upper hand. Burrowing both sets of claws into Everett’s shoulders, he successfully pinned the inexperienced mutant against the wall. Everett was going to die – again – and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

“Logan!” a voice rang out through the disorder, causing Wolverine to whip his gaze back over his shoulder.

“Oh, thank Jesus,” Everett mumbled as he saw Adam striding toward them, hand outstretched. With a disgustingly wet snap, Logan dislodged his claws from Thomas’ shoulders, dropping him to the floor.

“We mean you no harm here, Logan,” Adam continued as he walked ever closer to the feral killing machine, “you’re among friends.” Wolverine stood transfixed before the creator of Wonderland, raising neither hand in offense. Reaching a point directly in front of Logan, Adam moved his hand slowly forward. Softly, he stroked a finger across Logan’s forehead, sparking a blinding flare of light against his skin. Logan blinked several times in rapid succession, as if he were coming out of a daze.

“Logan…” Adam asked, “Are you well?”

“I don’t…what’s goin’ on?” Wolverine asked in total confusion, placing his face in his hand.

“Worry not, my son,” Adam consoled, “all will be explained when you awaken.” Logan looked up, just in time to see the bearded-man’s fist coming at his face. Another flare of energy erupted upon Adam connecting with Logan’s jaw, and the Wolverine crumpled against the wall, knocked into unconsciousness.

“How…how did you do that?” Everett asked from his position on the floor, his wounds near fully healed.

“Such questions are not to be asked,” the voice of Dr. Essex snapped as he emerged through the smoke, followed by Doug and several other members of the Wonderland staff. Crouching down over the wounded youth, Essex shook his head in disbelief of Everett’s stupidity in attempting to subdue Wolverine. “Adam, I shall take this one and the Starsmore lad into my care. They both need more assistance than is evident, this I assure you.”

Motioning a dismissal with a wave of his hand, Adam showed no outward concern for the injured men, his attention focused solely on the unconscious X-Man lying beneath him.

By the time he arrived at Essex’s private chambers, Everett was nearly back to top form. A mighty blessed thing indeed, that healing factor. Having long been removed from Wolverine’s side, the extra mass he had gained was now shed, returning him to his normal stature. Despite this, he assisted the doctor in placing the wounded Jon Starsmore atop a medical table.

“Healing your protective shell will be a draining process,” Essex began, pushing his spectacles back up the bridge of his nose, “but a quick one.”

“I think it’s already started, truthfully telling,” Jon mumbled, holding up his hand to examine the rapidly healing hole in his palm. Essex nodded affirmatively and then turned back toward Everett.

“He shall be fine in an hour or so,” the scientist stated, “but I couldn’t have hoped for a better opportunity to speak with you both. We can talk freely in this room, as I have removed all electronic surveillance equipment that Adam had installed.” Turning toward a small intercom on the wall, he pressed a button and spoke. “You may come out now, my dear.”

“Well, I’ll be an uncle’s monkey,” Jon rambled out as a familiar person emerged from a side room. Paige Guthrie smiled meekly as she approached her former friends, giving them both a little wave of her hand as a greeting.

“Now, as you may have realized,” Essex began, “things in Adam’s Wonderland are not as altruistic as they may seem. I’m leaving this damned place, and if you three assist me without question then I will expedite you as well. Adam believes that only he holds the key to resurrection, but Miss Guthrie and I have discovered an alternate means.”

“Which is…?” Everett asked, unsure of whether he should trust the speaker or not.

“One of your number is a teleporter,” the doctor continued, “Clarice Ferguson.”

“Tha’ bassard!” Jon exclaimed, his speech garbled by the effect of his shell’s healing.

“Adam told us that she lived through the explosion that killed us,” Everett explained, “said you did, too, Paige.”

“The overlord incarcerates teleporters,” Essex stated, “because he fears them. Ferguson is our way home, children…we need only free her first.”

“Then let’s go get her, pick up Monet along the way…” Everett cracked his knuckles “…and get the hell out of dodge.”

“Miss Guthrie and I will be seeing to that,” Essex said with a slight grin, “for you two I have a different task. You’ve heard mention of the Amalgamation Chamber, correct?”

Everett nodded, though remained silent.

“The price for your freedom is thus,” the doctor explained. “Break into the Chamber and steal the information within, by placing them on discs. I’m unsure if we can return with material possessions, but I won’t fail due to lack of trying.”

“And let me guess,” Jon interrupted, sitting up from the table, his wounds almost fully healed, “if we get caught, yer name’s not t’ be mentioned?”

“Good to know you’re able to read between the lines, Jon,” Paige answered, speaking for the first time since her entrance, “and Everett…you can’t tell Monet about this.”

“Why not?” Everett asked in surprise.

“Adam has successfully burrowed his persuasive hooks into her,” Essex said with little to no remorse in his tone, “so she’s a liability. We cannot trust her now, this I know.”

“Fine, whatever,” Jon said as he scooted himself off the table, “grab me some fresh clothes, and let’s go do this shite.”

“Ag, have you ever wondered just what’s behind this door?”

Callisto, the one-eyed former leader of the Morlocks, simply scowled as a reply. Japheth, his two bio-mechanical slugs writhing playfully at his feet, simply shrugged. Every attempt at conversation he’d initiated had been shot down by the older woman, causing him to say almost anything in order to get a reaction.

“You smell that?” Callisto asked, the first time Japheth had actually heard her voice, as she sniffed the air.

“Smell what?” he asked, confused.

“Intruders,” she hissed, removing a knife from her belt. Before either of the guards could react, however, a flick of a psionic switch shut down their minds, sending them into unconscious oblivion.

“Bloody stupid accent on that guy,” Jon said as he stepped forward, his mental abilities having masked his and Everett’s presence until they had been ready to strike. Both men looked up at the place they’d been asked to enter.

The Amalgamation Chamber. Engraved into the steel door, the words seemed to impose a feeling of threat, a feeling of ill-ease…a feeling of disdain that made Everett shudder against his will. Punching in the code that Essex had provided for them, he and Jon both entered stealthily. Inside the Chamber was possibly the largest computer system either had seen, dwarfing the size of the biggest Cray computer ever made.

“Stick in that disc,” Jon insisted as Everett sat down at one of the terminals, “and let’s get out of ‘ere.”

“Hold on, man,” Everett said, punching letters on the keyboard, “Essex wants this information pretty badly, and that makes me curious as to what exactly this place is about.”

“Yeah, well, don’t make me remind you what happened to that fucking cat when curiosity got involved,” Jon commented. Ignoring his friend, Everett punched up commands, eventually making his way to the index database of the Chamber’s systems.

“My God…” he gasped while reading. “Jon, this machine…it’s a catalogue of mutants. The names on here, there’s thousands, probably more…David Haller, Joseph Magnus, Irene Adler, En Sabah Nur…it’s like a who’s-who of mutant bad asses.”

“So what?” Jon asked, taking position behind Everett, reading the screen over his shoulder.

“This Amalgamation Chamber,” the African American read in disbelief, “it breaks down mutant DNA and stores it in this machine. Everything that made these mutants people have been stripped down to their basic core strands and stored here…it’s like they’re taking this stuff and doing recombinant DNA mixing.”

“I repeat: so fuckin’ what?”

Everett closed his eyes and sighed. “It means that after these mutants died, Adam had them absolutely destroyed, just so he could play God with their mutations. He’s creatingmutants and sending them to back to Earth!”

“Well, just save the shite and let’s get outta here,” Jon said, moving toward the door, “b’fore they do that t’ us.”

“We can’t do that, man,” Everett stated, “because I think I just figured out who Doctor Nathanial Essex really is.”

John shook his head impatiently, not appreciating Thomas’ dramatic pause.

“Sinister.”

Jon stopped moving, the realization finally hitting him. “Oh, fuck that,” he finally said, his hand going for the door’s OPEN switch. The steel opening slid open, and Jonothon’s eagerness to leave was met by a speeding fist that punched him squarely in the face. He careened backward into the Chamber, causing Everett to spin the chair around and jump forward. The attacker’s hand thrust forward, clutching tightly around his throat. With inhuman strength, the individual spun Thomas around, lifting him off the ground and slamming him hard into the nearest wall.

“You…” he choked out, finally seeing the face of his assailant.

“Hello, dear,” Monet said, blowing him a kiss. “Adam says you’re being naughty…”

NEXT ISSUE: Has Monet truly fallen under the spell of Adam? Will she go through with thoroughly kicking the crap out of Jon and Everett? Could Sinister be planning something…sinister? Am I ever gonna get back to Clarice and Illyana Rasputin? You bet your sweet bippy! Well, on at least one or two of those, anyway.

I’m The Best There Is At What I Do, Except Dyin’… I Suck At That

First things first…Ryan K. is my boy. He’s a great writer, a great editor, and an all around great guy. But man, that Wolverine death scene he did in Uncanny X-Men sucked BIG TIME. I, myself, am an admitted Wolverine fan, and to me that death just didn’t capture how the baddest mutant on the block should’ve checked out. So, in this issue and the next two, expect to get what I think should be Logan’s final moment here at Marvel Omega. Love it or hate it, at least you’ll be able to say, “Wolvie died on panel.”

And look, this issue wasn’t as late as #2 was!