Victor Rosseau peered from behind the curtain. Beyond the stage, only a short distance away was a fraction of the global economy, each with an entourage of investors and board members who, with a stroke of a pen, could reshape the world.

Everything had to be perfect. He scanned the points itemized on his clipboard; the technical crew had completed their checks, the holographic projector was online, the teleprompter sync was functioning as normal, and their guests were standing by.

Beside him was a security officer in crisp (yet no less stylistically challenging) orange coveralls emblazoned with the Aegis International logo. Others like him were stationed on the opposite side of the stage, in the rafters, and at the exits. One can never take too many precautions, especially attending a man like his employer.

And then there was their guest, their centrepiece; slumped on a metal folding chair, half naked and shivering, even in the regulated air. He was no ordinary guest. Condensation glistened pebbled skin. The gills on his neck fluttered constantly. A young woman – his sister, Leah, whom Victor had only spoken to briefly – knelt beside him and squeezed his moist hand.

Victor tried his best to ignore them. They needed neither his revulsion or pity, and there were more pressing matters at hand.

His attention snapped to his boss the moment stepped from the dressing room. Henry Peter Gyrich, CEO of Aegis International, a rigid man made up of solid shapes, smoothed around the edges by slick hair and a designer suit. Victor caught his reflection in his glasses. 

“What do you think, Rousseau? Does the great reformer look ready for his close-up?”

Like Victor, Gyrich ignored the mutant waiting beside them, as though the anthropomorphic newt wasn’t something most people balked at. Then again, he wasn’t calling for the creature to be put in stocks and displayed in the city square, which was exactly the kind of thing people would imagine him doing.

Had he changed? The question was a splinter in Victor’s mind. Gyrich’s views were a matter of public, and often damning, record. Senate subcommittees. The Mutant Registration Act. The term “containment specialist”. For years, he’d wielded instruments of bureaucracy and fear, argued for control, for oversight, for gates and lists.

But few acknowledged the calculus of Gyrich’s thinking, especially in a world of chaos centred on mutants. But now, Gyrich was singing another tune. Victor had yet to decide whether it was more hopeful or insidious.

The announcer’s voice boomed through the hall. Victor stole a moment to straighten his boss’s tie. It wouldn’t do to send him out looking any less than immaculate.

A spark lit in Gyrich’s eyes. Not warmth; ambition. He turned to the sliver of light beaming between the curtains. 

“Let’s go change the world,” he said.

“Ladies and gentlemen. Please welcome to the stage the Chief Executive Officer of Aegis International, Mr Henry Peter Gyrich.”

He strode onto the stage, and offered himself to the roar of approval. Regardless of the obstacle, Gyrich never stayed down for long.

NEW WORLD DISORDER

PART I

By Miranda Sparks

Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean:

The storm had come from nowhere. One moment it was a greasy swell; the next a shrieking gale was trying to pry the ship’s cargo with cold, ghostly fingers. 

The Perseverance wasn’t built with grace in mind. She was a workhorse, a floating steel island, stacked high with containers in uneven colors. Leo’d spent ten years on her decks, and knew her shudders like they were his own. These groans, however, were new. They came from the deepest corners of the hull so loudly they vibrated through his boots. Suddenly, the ground tilted violently to starboard.

The captain’s voice crackled over the PA. “All hands to secure! Lashings failing at starboard!”

Leo was already scrambling against the salt spray, and so was his team. It wasn’t just the cargo at risk. A collapse also meant risk of capsizing, and most likely a death sentence  to go with it.

The deck may well have been a skating rink for all the slick. The wind pierced their eardrums like shrieking daggers. Waves crashed, prompting the still louder yawning of metal as the ship teetered back and forth. The starboard’s middle tier started to bow. Lashing rods as thick as a man’s wrist strained under the weight of four-story stacks of containers.

“Tighten those turnbuckles!” Leo roared, though his voice was lost in the gale. No matter. His men already knew.

He wrestled with a frozen latch. With the strength of eight behind him, he strained with every ounce, so much it seemed as though his arms would pop from its sockets. 

Then came the sound; the deep, shearing snap, like the breaking of a giant’s bone. Two forty-foot containers on the upper tier broke free. They teetered on the edge, almost seemed to flirt with gravity for a dangerous moment, then with what only needed to be the barest push from the wind started its topple.

Leo’s life flashed before his eyes. All the things he’d done, hadn’t done. Loves, losses, regrets. There was no time to run or shout. In moments he would be human soup. The storm would dilute his remains and wash him to sea. This was it. The end.

Then, in a display in defiance of physics itself, the containers stopped. Leo gawked as they hung in the air, suspended at odd angles just out of arm’s reach. The storm raged on. Time hadn’t actually frozen.

The impossible continued as the containers rolled back in a smooth motion, over and up, then clunked as they locked back in place. Were they dreaming? The rain slapped them across the face to remind them, no. 

Leo and his crew collected themselves and flew back into action. This time was a cinch to refit the lashing rods. They worked with frantic energy, securing the turnbuckles, double-checking every latch. In only a few minutes they were done.

Though the storm continued to churn, Leo was still. His heart thumped with an easing sense of alarm, but he’d room to reflect. His crewmates were statues, stunned. What they’d just experienced was no less than a miracle.

Lightning flashed again, and that’s when Leo saw it, in the sky, past the radar mast, the silhouette of a man against the clouds. When the lightning flashed again, the figure was gone.

Later in the mess they’d babble amongst themselves about freak physics, the rogue wave that lifted and reset the containers, and whatever other explanation they could conjure in order to convince themselves they hadn’t seen what they’d seen. That was what sailors did, after all; they told tall tales, bullshit stories. He’d never believed them before, but now he’d one of his own.

New York City:

Gyrich stepped into wall of applause. A sizable majority of his audience – corporate backers, tech journalists, military liaisons – rose in a standing ovation. Others, like the representatives from mutant rights groups and reporters from ‘fake news’ outlets, remained seated. Some clapped, but only out of politeness. 

He stood at the podium, and caught Victor’s eye through a gap in the curtain. Gyrich smiled a knowing smile. They’d been planning this moment for months.

The cheers subsided. Gyrich leaned into the microphone. “Thank you. Your passion is noted.” A few chuckled as he smirked. “Now, if we can- ”

“Murderer!”

A man ripped open his jacket to reveal the stenciled ‘MAGNETO WAS RIGHT’ shirt underneath. He shoved his way past the press pool, and cried out every epithet there was for a man like him. Spittle flew from his lips.

“How many mutants need to die before you crawl back to your hole?”

Gyrich’s smile remained fixed. He signaled the audience for patience as Aegis security converged on the protester. They grabbed him by the arms and secured his wrists. They weren’t slowed by the man’s kicking as they dragged him from the room. 

“Please, gentlemen,” Gyrich said with amusement, or perhaps pity. “He’s just afraid of the future. Show him the door, not a cell.” The crowd chuckled. The protester’s cries grew dimmer. Gyrich sighed with a shrug. “And what’s a discussion without a fervent counterpoint, hmm?” 

Another chuckle from the crowd.

His tone shifted with his posture. “My history is… controversial. Over decades I’ve been called many things; a hardliner. A fearmonger. A bigot. But the truth is more nuanced.” He paused. “All I am is a man with a question. In a world on the brink of chaos, where power can erupt in a child’s bedroom and level a city block, how do we keep our families safe?”

His voice softened, becoming almost paternal. “My advocacy for registration was never about hatred. I don’t hate mutants. Registration was – let’s call it ‘a desperate calculus’ – in response to an existential threat. It was to protect the innocent, both human and mutant, from the destructive potential of the few.”

He set his gaze on the skeptics in the room. They weren’t hard to determine. “I only act with the interests of the whole world in mind. And though some decisions may have been misguided, ultimately, I have no regrets.”

Somehow he became straighter, taller, more resolved. “Now we enter a new age, and a new age requires a new tack. This is why we’ve gathered today.”

Gyrich continued. “Some of you might be surprised to learn I even have mutant friends.” A soft chuckle rippled over the silence. “In fact, I’d like you to meet one of them. He’s been incredibly courageous. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Samuel.”

Victor placed a guiding hand on the newt-man’s shoulder and prompted him toward the stage. Samuel flinched, and his gills clamped shut. His sister clung to his webbed hand, and stepped out with head held high. She could be confident enough for the both of them.

The applause faded. It was the telltale sound of curiosity edged with discomfort. Gyrich beckoned the pair to centre stage. 

“And a round for Leah, Samuel’s sister. Her support has been vital.” 

Leah gave a brief smile. The applause was even briefer.

“Tell me, Samuel,” Gyrich began, “is it hard looking the way you do?”

Samuel stared at his long, webbed feet. “Yes, sir,” he muttered.

“And what do people say when they see you?”

His voice was louder, but still trembled. “They call me a freak… disgusting…”

Silence. Of course they called him that. Samuel was, by all definitions, a freak. He was, by all rational summation, disgusting. His family had wanted a baby, not a reptile.

Gyrich shook his head in a show of sympathy. “The activists, the purists, would tell Samuel he has the right to be himself. They preach pride in his condition. But what if Samuel doesn’t want to be like this? What if his dream is to be ordinary? Doesn’t he deserve a simple, human life?”

He pulled closer to the mutant than most would dare. “Samuel, today we give you that choice.” Gyrich turned back to the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the X-Cross System!”

Victor approached the stage with a device in hand; a sleek silver disc the size of a drink coaster with a contour on the underside. Samuel bent forward, allowing Victor to press the device to the base of his spine, just above his shorts. He flinched as miniscule teeth sank into his scales.

Samuel gasped and gripped his sister’s hand tighter. This was the moment of truth.

Ridgewood, New Jersey:

Some mutants could climb up walls. Others could jump over buildings. Some could even fly! But not Chloe. Her powers were stupid.

It was a day like any other. She walked home, shoulders hunched, and stepped over the cracks in the sidewalk. Stepping on cracks was bad luck, and she’d had enough of that. 

She never noticed the prickling warmth that danced across her scalp. It was always just there. The only time she did notice was when hair she’d gone to great pains to straighten stood on end. Sparks jumped like electric fleas, and made popping sounds as they did.

That’s all it was. A little static. Harmless, only good for making her brother yelp when he annoyed her. X-Men material she was not.

Chloe’s mutant ability might have been a joke, but the bike tires screeching to a halt weren’t.

“Hey, Sparky!”

Her stomach dropped. Chloe didn’t need to look. She knew the voices. Amanda, Kelsey, and Rhea, always barking like mean little dogs.

“Yeah, you! Mutie freak!” jeered Rhea.

She picked up her pace, and kept her eyes married to the path. Parents, teachers, counselors, had all told her to ignore them. The static intensified into a crawling burn. She wished she could ignore them.

They were on her before she could run. The three bikes blocked the sidewalk, one in front and two behind. Amanda, the pack leader, sneered at her.

“We saw you in the library today,” Amanda said, “making the computers freak out. I’ve got a science report due tomorrow. I lost it because of you.”

Chloe took a step back, but stopped when she hit the chain-link fence. She was trapped.

“I-it was an accident! I didn’t mean to.” 

“You never mean to,” Kelsey snarled. “You’re just a walking accident. A glitch.”

The static was thicker now, heavy. No, not heavy. More like it had a fullness to it that made her hairs prickle, so much they created a layer between her skin and her clothes. If she listened closely she could hear it hiss.

Arcs of what looked like lightning crawled up her fingers, just like they would on a Jacob’s Ladder. Chloe tried to back away in vain, and yipped when bare skin touched the chain link.

Rhea flinched. “Gross.”

Amanda inched closer. Her entourage tightened the circle.

Fear wrenched in Chloe’s chest. She wasn’t like a taser or anything. Her powers couldn’t stop them. Sweat rash burned more than whatever Chloe could dish out.

She clamped her eyes, and braced for a punch that never came. 

Instead a trio of shrieks flew into the air. When Chloe opened her eyes she was alone. The only evidence of her tormentors were the abandoned bikes laid on the pavement. It wasn’t until she heard their whines again that she spotted them on the other side of the fence – on the other side of the lot, even! – standing on the corrugated iron roof of a derelict building.

Chloe stared, mouth dry, just as helpless as she was before. This time, however, she was unable to help. The static under her coat eased. A few strands of her hair lowered their stance.

“Are you alright?” asked a stranger.

She craned her neck to a man with a cape standing on what had to be an invisible platform. Unless that man could fly, of course. Chloe had heard that some mutants could fly, but she’d never seen it in person. 

He was tall, handsome, and dressed in tights patterned with navy and white. On his chest was the symbol of a star as bright and gold as a new day. It shone in contrast to the square face obscured by the sun, yet she could still feel his clear eyes resting on her like a blanket of protection.

Chloe nodded dumbly. What else could she say?

“Good,” the man said. “I’ll let their parents know where they are. In the meantime, you should get somewhere safe.”

And with a rush of wind he was gone. That was that. No grand speeches, no goodbyes; a stoic avenger, there one minute and gone the next.

On the roof, Amanda started to cry, Rhea stared in shock, and Kelsey started to hyperventilate. Maybe Chloe should have felt bad, but she didn’t. This felt fair, like the universe was finally cutting her a break. It felt like justice.

She started on her journey again, and decided to keep the miracle to herself. She’d ignore it the same as she ignored the three bullies. Everyone had told her to ignore them, after all.

New York City:

Samuel shivered. Every eye was on him, waiting for something, anything. Except he wasn’t going to do anything; it was Mr Gyrich that made him the fulcrum of a global promise, and in doing so left him exposed.

Leah squeezed his hand. Mr Gyrich was more concerned with the hushed room.

“This X-Cross System,” he announced, “will benefit countless mutants across the world. Mutants just like Samuel.” He held a hand to the objections yet to be expressed. “Now, I want to remind every naysayer, activist and mutant ideologue, that engagement is strictly on a volunteer basis. This isn’t control. This is agency. Consent is key.”

He turned to the newt-man. “Samuel, are you ready for your life to change?”

Still trembling, Samuel nodded. Leah mouthed the words ‘I love you’, and he mouthed them back as well as a reptilian mouth would allow.

Gyrich lifted a remote from his pocket. There was no dramatic flourish, merely the press of a button.

The device hummed on Samuel’s back and resonated from neck to tail. He spasmed, though more in surprise than in pain. He didn’t seem to register the collective gasp as his skin began to ripple. The mottled, olive green texture smoothed and faded into an earthy brown. The gills at his neck sealed shut, while the joints of his amphibious legs straightened into something entirely human.

A moment ago, Samuel was a six foot newt. Now when he looked down he could see five slender fingers connected to each of his two hands, two dark arms, both covered in a fine layer of hair. Those fingers pulled back to trace his jawline, his nose – his human nose, with cartilage! – lips, more. 

Samuel sobbed. His sister sobbed. It didn’t matter how many people saw. They collapsed together with a relief they never thought would come.

The audience erupted. They didn’t yet understand what they had witnessed, as there had been mutant ‘cures’ before, but to see a life saved from the mutant burden was always worthy of applause.

“We’ve given this man his life back,” said Gyrich. The cheers continued. They were eating it up.

Finally, he placed a hand on Samuel’s shoulder. “Tell me, son. How do you feel?”

Through the tears, Samuel managed a breathless laugh. “I’m… I’m so happy! Thank you, Mr. Gyrich. Thank you!”

“No, Samuel. Thank you for your bravery.” 

More applause. More cheers. This was a message to the world, to mutants everywhere, that this was the will of the people. 

Gyrich gave Samuel’s shoulder a farewell pat. Victor led the now human man and his sister away from the crowd.

Silence settled once more. Gyrich stewed in the words he’d rehearsed countless times over the weeks. “Some of you are probably thinking you’ve seen this technology before. Power dampeners. Suppression collars.” He shook his head. “And perhaps you’re right to a degree, but let me assure you that the X-Cross System is a quantum leap beyond.”

He gestured to the opposite wing. “Sergeant Marcus. Could you join us on stage, please?”

The security officer who’d been waiting backstage marched into the spotlight. He halted beside the CEO, snapped to attention, stared hard into the distance, and gave a salute.

Gyrich returned the gesture. Victor stepped out again with the second X-Cross device in hand. He pressed it to the base of the officer’s spine. The metal teeth sank through the orange coveralls.

“You understand the parameters of this demonstration, Sergeant?” Gyrich asked.

The officer barked back. “Yes, sir!”

“Are you ready?”

“Ready, sir!”

Gyrich lifted the remote again and pressed the button.

Like something from a Kafka nightmare, Sergeant Marcus began to change. His uniform ill-fit the new shape of his elongating body. His skin pebbled and shifted into a shiny hue. His neck bulged with the flutter of gills, until he’d been replaced by something else, something like Samuel had been, part man and part newt.

The audience was once more stunned. Nobody could say for certain what they’d just seen, only that Gyrich had accomplished the remarkable.

Above the city:

He loomed over the Hudson, high enough to cavort with aircraft. In the thrum of the city it was the only place for quiet, especially for one with his senses. Far below, Manhattan was an ant colony three million strong, each with a voice that scratched the back of his mind. Though he wasn’t a telepath per se, surface thoughts skimmed past perception like fish racing with the current.

Then ‘the pull’ came; the metaphorical bite he was fishing for. It was by no means acute – it didn’t always point him toward people in need of saving – but what leads it gave him were always of substance.

It offered no sound, no image; only the certainty of danger. The hero lunged, and with a telekinetic push soared through the air toward it.

The applause was a cocktail of uncertainty; one part bewilderment, one part unease, two parts awe. Some clapped automatically, unsure of what else to do. For others it was the paradigm shift they’d been waiting for. 

Gyrich, stealing a knowing grin with his assistant offstage, pressed the button on the remote again. Sergeant Marcus shifted. It was time to wake from the mutant nightmare. His skin paled and smoothed, gills sealed, his posture straightened, and his limbs shortened to human proportion. In seconds he was as he’d begun, as though he’d never changed at all.

“How do you feel, Sergeant Marcus? A little rough around the gills?” 

The guard rolled his shoulders, and smirked. “No, sir. Right as rain, sir.”

Gyrich’s smile shone. “Good work, officer. You’re dismissed.” 

As Sergeant Marcus marched off stage, a holographic display hummed to life.

“You’ve seen the proof of concept,” he said. “Now let’s talk philosophy.” 

The slides shifted to models of disaster; a firefighter bending a blaze by will, a medic laying healing hands, and more.

“In my time I’ve witnessed a societal fracturing caused by mutant privilege. Activists will tell you it’s not their fault, that they were born that way, but when one segment of the population holds power – literal, world-altering power – the result is existential alarm for ordinary humans.

“But imagine a world where those abilities could be shared; search-and-rescue teams with access to aerokinesis, or seismic powers licensed for demolition, et cetera. The power remains with the mutants who can share their abilities, voluntarily, for fair market compensation.

“The X-Cross System doesn’t seek to punish mutant privilege,” he said. “It aims to democratize it, for both humans and mutants alike!”

Silence, but only for a moment. Then it broke in an eruption of cheers, unanimous in their fervor. Cameras flashed. Whistles pierced the air. Gyrich spread his arms wide, bathing in the adulation. His days as a regressive bureaucrat were behind him.

In the wings, Victor ‘s chest swelled with pride. This was it, the dream realized. They were going to change the world for the better. This was-

That’s when he saw him. A lone figure sat third row center. He wasn’t cheering. Victor barely had the chance to make sense of him before the man ripped his shirt and jacket open; he had even less time to remember protocol in the event of instigators with shifting flesh.

It bubbled with the consistency of tar and distended with yellow pustules that swelled across his chest, arms and face. A sickly glow illuminated from within the figure. The woman next to him didn’t have time to scream before one of the blisters burst over her, but the panic spread fast.

The acidic goop sprayed across his radius. The air filled with the stench of meat and a burning chemical tang. Their cries turned to agony, prompting a frenzy to push toward the walls of the convention center.

It was only a few steps, but Henry Peter Gyrich faltered. No matter how many times he saw it, was victim to it, the violence of mutants left him agape.

Victor lunged into the path of the half-naked horror sprinting toward the stage, and planted himself. He may not have been an effective barricade, but any time he could buy his boss was worth it, even if only a few seconds.

The man didn’t slow. A pustule-laden arm swatted Victor aside. The contact didn’t have to be hard to leave its mark as a sac burst across the young man’s forearm. The viscous substance made short work of his suit sleeve, then burned his arm as it did the fabric.

The mutant loomed, and stopped to drink in Gyrich’s terror. Gyrich’s vision marinated in the oozing, grotesque tapestry of quivering sores.

“Sic semper tyrannis, asshole!” he snarled.

It was as Gyrich caught the glint of the proverbial guillotine that a wind cut through the room. Just as he’d braced for death, the mutant vanished in a streak of blue and silver. A moment later his ears popped with the sudden shift in air pressure. What the hell just happened?

Before he could articulate the words the rugged costumed figure returned, cape billowing behind him. This man, this wannabe Avenger, dressed in the trappings of a cartoon hero, held out his arm and clutched the bubbling mutant with an unseen hand.

“Let me go! Let me finish it!” the assassin spat.

The hero’s focus narrowed with the same disciplined concern of a scout master. He spoke like one, too, telling him, “this isn’t the way, son.”

For a moment the panic abated. A hero stood among them. The danger appeared to be contained. Then the hero bristled. 

“Everybody back!”

It happened so fast. Gyrich would have missed it if his eyes weren’t married to the scene as the stranger tore through the rathers, dragging the mutant threat with him, followed by a blinding flash and a rumble that resonated through the floor. 

A suicide bomber? The mutants were getting more radical, not to mention desperate.

The costumed hero descended into a clearing in the middle of the convention floor, panting as he set down the viscous mound smoking in his telekinetic grip. Was it done? Was the thing dead?

Gyrich exhaled. All in all there’d been surprisingly little damage. Some chairs, the carpet and ceiling, a few burns, but no death; at least no human death. Compared to some of the carnage he’d seen this was a summer holiday.

Finally the hero eased, and stepped from the eeriness onto the stage. The sight of him, so tall and broad, with perfectly styled brunette hair and square jaw, made Victor’s heart skip. When the stranger turned his attention to Victor he almost forgot the searing pain on his forearm.

“You should take that shirt off,” he said.

Victor shook himself from his stupor. “Come again?”

The hero chuckled and cast his eyes away. “Your shirt. It’s contaminated. You’ll need to remove it, then run the wound under cold water. The paramedics should be here soon.”

“Oh… right.” 

Gyrich adjusted his tie, and with a lion tamer’s caution stepped forward. He appraised the hero, noting the goody-two-shoes image too hoaky to be ironic. Was he a mutant? Knowing Gyrich’s luck he was.

Regardless, best foot forward.

“Thanks for the save,” Gyrich said.

He offered a hand to the hero. The hero shook it, though his smile read as forced. Definitely a mutant, or a mutant sympathizer.

“So what do we call you? The costume needs some red if you want to be the new Captain America.”

“The name’s Justice,” the hero said. “I’m here to help.” It was clear from the twinkle in his crystal blue eyes that he meant it, too.

To be continued…

NEXT ISSUE: Justice has made his debut, but not everyone is happy about it. Meanwhile, things aren’t over for Gyrich. Can the bureaucrat survive being caught in a second round? Stay tuned to find out!