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- ALEX WILDER
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- PRIMO FALCONE
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- SNAKESKIN
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- THE PRIDE
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- THE GIBBORIM
MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
Part I: Pride and Promise
By Hunter Lambright
The Vivarium, Residence of the Gibborim
The twelve-member Pride stood before their founders, the Gibborim, with looks of mixed fear and questioning across their various faces. Their attire was also mixed and colorful, some wearing suits while others wearing outlandish costumes. Each married couple wore matching outfits, except for the widow Janet Stein and her husband’s replacement—a man known as Cyanide—who had forced himself upon the group.
“Present the Soul and let the twenty-third Rite of Thunder commence!” exclaimed the lead Gibborim. Of the three so-called brothers, only he ever spoke.
Janet Stein, a humble—if frumpy-looking—woman, timidly held out the teal, glowing machine that contained the very soul of the girl who the Runaways had seen their parents kill the night they ran away. The lead Gibborim put his palm outward. The center of his hand emanated a shining, green glow that enveloped the box itself, causing it to levitate out of her hands and to his feet.
“Thank you,” said the Gibborim without a trace of gratitude. Before anyone else could speak up, however, he continued on. “There is another matter that we have yet to attend to at this Rite, and it is one that we must reach with considerable regret. I am speaking, of course, about your children.”
The Pride stood there in silence; they knew it would eventually reach this point. After their sloppiness at the most recent Rite of Blood, the Gibborim’s judgment was an inevitable, yet worrisome, fact of their lives.
“It is time they learn the truth.”
Twenty-Three Years Ago
“You’re sure this is the address?” asked a nervous Gene Hayes. The man had a demeanor most often attributed to a weasel, constantly looking around to see if he anyone was watching. He and his wife Alice walked casually between rows of warehouses located in the halfway to nowhere, somewhere near Death Valley.
Alice sighed. “Yes, honey.” She flicked back her hair in annoyance as they walked onwards, searching for the correct storage warehouse.
The pair of newlyweds had been shocked to receive among anti-mutant hate-mail and bills a mysterious envelope containing an address and an ominous message. For the Hayes, it simply contained ‘Meet Thursday at 2100 hours’ along with pictures and other blackmail. Quite simply, it was a threat to officially out the couple as mutants, including a stamped and signed letter to the William Stryker campaign. Alice had wanted to dismiss it as the latest in a long string of flame letters from suspicious neighbors, but Gene was more cautious.
And now, here they were.
“That one,” Alice said with certainty, pointing at the door of yet another cookie-cutter storage facility. Before Gene could go up to the door, Alice’s eyes glowed pink. The pink glow also surrounded the door handle, twisting the knob and pulling the door open upon the darkness inside.
“Ready?” she asked with a nervous smile. Gene nodded, sweat beads at his temple. Neither of them was ready for this. In the doorway, the pair paused, knowing this was the point of no return, but curiosity took its hold. As they stepped into the darkness, the blackness grew more infinite before lightening.
Gene gave off a very unmanly sound before his eyes glowed pink. “The atmosphere just changed, Alice. Either another much larger door opened in here, or—”
“You’re not in the warehouse anymore,” said another voice in the darkness. Silhouetted against a strange, pulsing glow were ten other heads grouped into five couples. “You’re in the same boat as we are.” As the man stepped closer, the Hayes could make out his dark-skinned features. “I’m Geoff Wilder.”
“Where are we?” asked Gene, panicking. “How do we get out?!”
“He should have clarified,” said another voice from the group. It was that of Frank Dean. “Same boat, no paddles. Someone knew how to get us all here, and they wanted us here for a reason.”
There was a sudden rush of air and a large, groaning, clanking sound that caused the twelve to turn their heads. “Is everyone seeing what I’m seeing?” asked Catherine Wilder.
Three monstrous beings stood where there had just been empty space. The light in the blank room now emanated from around them, and the lead giant of the trio commanded the attention and fear of all who stood before him.
The Gibborim paused, making sure he had gathered all of their gazes, before he opened his mouth to speak. “I am pleased to see you accepted our offer,” he said with an odd smirk. “Though you may not understand this yet, the fact that you stepped into this room has bound you to the ancient and sacred laws of the Pride—and your lives will never, ever be the same.”
The new Pride stood there in confusion as this information sank in. Finally, Geoff asked the one question that was on all of their minds. “So, what’s in it for us?”
There was a twinkle in the Gibborim’s eye as he prepared to answer. “You twelve would rule over the Holy City of Angels for twenty-five years with more power and wealth than you could ever imagine. Then, after those twenty-five years, the six who have served us best shall move on to our new paradise that we create from the remnants of this place.”
“And all we would require from you is one innocent soul a year. Is that price too high for twenty-five years of glory and eternity in paradise?”
The Vivarium, Now
Alex Wilder lay strapped to a metal dissection table, drenched in cold sweat. He had no idea what was going on in the chamber outside, and he couldn’t hear a word of the conversation his parents were having with the Gibborim.
It was probably better that way.
Instead, Alex was afraid for himself. His father had told Alex that he had to ‘cut a deal’ with these Gibborim creatures, but something told him that that fact didn’t bode well for him.
As his eyes darted around in a panicked frenzy, Alex memorized what little of the room he could see. White-washed walls, a table of sick-looking medical instruments, a vat of strange, pulsating liquid—all looked as if it had been pulled from a mad scientist’s lab.
Slowly, Alex heard an out-of-sight door open and close on squeaky hinges. He hummed and whistled to himself as Alex heard him pull on a pair of rubber gloves, snapping them tight against his skin.
Then the light above was blocked out as Alex’s vision was filled with the image of a bespectacled man with a chrome dome and a moustache. He wore a bright white lab coat that blended in with the rest of the room.
“Good evening, Alex,” said the man sinisterly, as he began to pick through the instruments at his disposal. “My name is Doctor Jonas Harrow, and tonight, you and I are going to be very good friends…”
Suddenly, there was a sharp pain in Alex’s arm as a hypodermic needle punctured his skin. The anesthetic within quickly began to take hold of Alex’s system, causing his vision to go blurry. He struggled to stay awake but the defeatist in him knew that, as helpless as he was awake, some things were better if they happened while he slept…
Eighteen Years Ago
Janet Stein stood at the counter in the Minorus’ kitchen. The mechanically-based couple and magically-inclined pair had oddly gravitated toward each other and become good friends.
“And you just won’t believe what Catherine thought of that!” laughed Tina Minoru, stirring together the batter of a second batch of peanut butter cookies.
Janet laughed along with her before pressing her hand to her stomach. “Ooh, wow, I’m hungry. Do you have anything else to eat?” she asked rather abruptly, despite the fact that they were already cooking their next snack.
“Yeah, uh, should be something in the pantry,” said Tina, pouring the batter onto the cookie sheet. “Are you all right?”
Janet didn’t answer for a few seconds. Tina could tell why it took her so long, though, when she emerged from the pantry with her mouth stuffed full of Cheezits and her hand deep in the box for another mouthful.
“I’m—Tina, I’m pregnant,” Janet said after she swallowed.
“What?!” Tina asked, dropping the mixing bowl to the counter in shock. “Janet, you and Victor know that we’re only going to be around for another twenty years! How do you plan on raising your child?”
“It’s okay,” said Janet, wiping orange powder from her lip. “Victor and I talked about it. If one of us gets a spot in the Gibborim’s version of paradise, then we’re giving it to our child.”
Tina nodded, using the moment she gained from licking the batter to let her chew the information over simultaneously. “It’s not a bad idea,” she finally said. “Robert and I have always wanted to have a little one around the house, and if we’re getting twenty-five years of paradise anyway…”
“There would only have to be a few rules about it,” said Janet thoughtfully. “We don’t tell our children about the Pride until they’re eighteen—and each couple can only have one. Otherwise, instead of fighting over whose kid gets into Paradise, we have to choose which kid gets in—and for a parent, I couldn’t even imagine trying to make a decision like that.”
Fifteen Years Ago
“PUSH! PUSH!” urged Geoff Wilder, standing in full medical gear at the Minorus’ hospital bed.
“C’mon, baby! You can do it!” Robert Minoru said, wincing in pain at his wife’s death grip on his hand. “Just a little more! Push a little harder! C’mon, now!”
Tina let out a monstrous, triumphant scream as the baby emerged from her womb. Geoff began to hold it up to show her when, suddenly, he stopped. The silence in the room was only permeated by Tina’s heavy breathing.
“What’s wrong?” Robert asked, his brows narrowing. Tina, on the other hand, began to realize exactly the problem. “WHY ISN’T MY BABY CRYING?!” she shrieked in sheer terror.
Without further need for encouragement, Geoff ran from the room into the adjoining one where he would normally have done the post-birth checks, etc. Now, he was in the fight for the baby’s very life.
Janet Stein walked into the room fearing the worst. Tina was still lying in the same position they had left her in, with Robert right next to her. Both were still in some level of shock from the realization that this had not been an easy childbirth.
Walking up to the fearful couple, the funeral was evident in her eyes. Tina looked up, a single tear streaking down her cheek at the look on her best friend’s face. “I’m sorry, Tina, but they thought it would be best if I was the one who told you. Your baby…he didn’t make it. Your son was stillborn…”
Tina bit her lip at the words. Robert, on the other hand, pushed the thoughts away. “How’s Nico?”
“Leslie and Catherine took Nico, Karolina, Chase, and Alex to the beach. They’ll be back around six or so,” Janet said. “If you want, I can bring Nico to you here.”
“I’d like that,” Robert said, nodding. “Please, excuse me.” As he left the room rather quickly, Janet thought she could hear him sniffling, and her heart cried out to help—but there was no way she could.
Some rules were never meant to be broken.
In the Stein’s laboratory, Geoff Wilder and Victor Stein met over the first prototype of a fire-producing glove that Stein called the ‘Fistigon’.
“Stupid name,” Geoff said, scratching his head. “Though I suppose it is better than the Firefist, or something like that.”
“Don’t dance around it,” Victor said, tinkering as he talked. “What did you do with the baby?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Wilder, averting his eyes.
“Yes, you do,” said Victor, putting down his screwdriver and lifting up his goggles. “Five children are born to the Pride, and the first time one of the couples has a second child, everything goes wrong? Smells like shit to me, and you are looking more and more like a bull every minute.”
“Don’t worry about the child,” said Geoff. “The boy is somewhere that his presence won’t mess up the grand plan. Once a year or two has passed, he’ll be out of our minds, and out of our way. I pity the man who tells the Minorus what we have done.”
“They shoot black magic at the messenger,” Victor said, going back to work on the Fistigons. “Your secret is safe with me—but have you modified their Abstract?”
“Frank’s on it as we speak,” Geoff said firmly. “Believe me. No one will ever know about this, because a house divided…”
He let the threat hang.
Victor chuckled. “A house divided falls? Our house may be divided, Wilder, but keep in mind—the Pride goes before the fall…”
The Stein Residence, Now
“Run, Matti! Run!” shouted Primo Falcone to his twin brother as he utilized his mutant power to keep away the police. After losing track of the Pride, the twins decided to track the kids down and, if need be, save them from their evil parents. Besides, after all they’d done for Primo, it was the least he could do.
Now, it didn’t look like that was such a good idea.
Green light surged from the tattoo on Primo’s back of a falcon, emerging around him as a gigantic bird of prey made of pure green energy. The bird bent down over the twins, protecting them from the spray of bullets that emerged from the policemen’s barrels.
Stumbling over the manicured lawn, Matti realized that the Pride must have sent the police to guard their houses while they went out to look for their children. If the Pride had control over the police, that explained why none had responded to the destruction of the strip club earlier.
“Did you get it?” Primo asked between breaths as he sprinted.
Matti nodded. “The coordinates. Some place underwater. I don’t know if this was worth it—the only way we’re going to reach it is if we find a submarine sometime soon.”
Primo’s falcon let out a screech as it flew over them. Without a second’s hesitation, the twins grasped onto its talons as it flew overhead, lifting them out of the line of fire. As his falcon lifted the twins over the air, Primo was suddenly struck with an idea.
“Hey, Matti,” he said over the rush of the wind. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but does your snake need to breathe?”
Their laughter was audible to the people on the street as the falcon changed course to take them out to sea.
The Vivarium
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” said Geoff firmly, taking his place again as the leader of the Pride. “They know enough already. We don’t need to tell them any more.”
“In fact, since we have control of our kids once more, it is our full intention to utilize our powers to mind-wipe this entire nightmare as soon as we got home,” said Alice. “There would be no point in giving them the full story and then turning around and wiping it away.”
“Then you are saying that you would rather not come clean? Admit old lies?” asked the lead Gibborim. “A house divided will fall, as I understand it.”
Geoff’s ears reddened at the thought. The words triggered memories that were at least fifteen years old. “That can come another time. A wise man told me once that the Pride will be long gone before it can fall.”
“I know. Where is he now?” the Gibborim said coldly.
“He’s…fallen.”
“Then perhaps it’s best that you not believe his wisdom.”
“May I talk this over with my Pride?” Geoff asked, ever the diplomat.
The Gibborim gave what constituted as a shrug. “Quickly. There is little time left before the Rite must be completed.”
Geoff turned to his friends and colleagues. “We need to decide, and we need to do it now. Do we tell them, or make them forget?”
“The decision’s the same as when we voted on it before,” Leslie said. “They get nothing out of us.”
“Agreed?”
In unison, the remaining eleven members of the original Pride said, “Agreed.” Cyanide, the only intruder on the group, said nothing.
“We will tell our children nothing at all,” Geoff said simply. “By the time they wake up tomorrow, they won’t know anything about what’s happened in the past few weeks.”
“Perhaps,” said the Gibborim. “Or perhaps not. What holds you back? Your children’s best interests? Or fear they will reject you?” He shook his head. “Your decision matters not. If you do not tell them, I will.”
He turned to the huddled group of children on the ground. “In the beginning…”
The Vivarium—the antechamber
The antechamber of the Vivarium was cold and empty. Like the inner chamber, the room was spacious for the sake of the Gibborim’s movement, but this room was more decorated than the other. Where plain, dark walls stood on the inside, cobblestone walls stood in the antechamber. The ground itself was made of smooth marble, and extending from the far wall of the room was a square pool that served as an access for submersibles and other underwater vehicles. On the side of the pool stood the Pride’s amphibious Leapfrog that they had used to access the Vivarium.
Suddenly, from the center of the pool burst two heads, gasping for breath. Matti and Primo Falcone breathed heavily for several seconds before Primo turned to his brother with a wide grin splayed across his face.
“I can’t believe we actually made it!” he said in excited relief.
Matti narrowed his eyebrows. “Thanks for the faith, Primo. Really. I mean it.”
“Ah, you know I didn’t mean it like that,” Primo said, swimming over to the edge of the pool. “C’mon, that was the easy part.”
Treading water in the center of the pool, Matti’s eyes suddenly grew wide in fear. He opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn’t find the words to describe something more frightening than anything he had ever seen in his life.
“What’s wrong?” Primo asked, looking at Matti in concern as he wrung the water from his shirt and shorts. A sudden realization came over him. “Oh, fuck. It’s right behind me, isn’t it?”
Matti fearfully stuttered. “G-guh…guh…guh…”
Primo turned to see a monstrous figure composed entirely of rocks. The automaton moved awkwardly as its glowing green eyes pulsed in anger at the intruders. It brought its fists up over his head.
“Golem,” Matti finally whispered, before the sentry brought its fists down toward Primo and the world came crashing down.
Main Chamber
“Don’t believe everything they say,” Geoff warned the children. “The Gibborim see things objectively—without the morals or motives behind the actions. No matter what, realize that we did everything we did for you.”
The Gibborim prepared to begin the tale of the Pride when it cocked its head to its side, as if a bug were buzzing in its ear. When its head straightened, there was a look of concern on the Gibborim’s face.
“There has been a change of plans. The antechamber has been invaded by an unknown party. We must end this now so that we may retreat and feed until next year,” he said gravely.
“End this?” asked Robert Minoru. “How do you mean?”
“Your children have been your downfall, Pride. There is a factor in your equation that is not working out, and so it has come that we must remove that variable. You have three minutes to say goodbye.”
Every person in the room, save Geoff Wilder, let off a string of angry protests. He merely accepted the verdict before turning to the Pride.
“We don’t have a choice,” Geoff said. “I say we use these three minutes to the best that we can. Tend to your children, or we will all regret this from now until our end.”
“I’m sorry it came to this, Nico,” said Tina Minoru, as she put her arms around her daughter, tears streaming down her face. “If we could have told you everything, we would have. I wish we had more time—with the truth—but we don’t. I’m going to miss you.” Robert merely stood back with his arms crossed over his face and a defiant look on his face.
Gene and Alice Hayes smothered their daughter with hugs, kisses, and tears before finally pulling away. The last thing Gene gave his daughter was a warning. “If ever there is any trouble where you’re going, your keyword is ‘philoprogenitiveness’, Molly. Don’t forget that.”
“I love you,” Molly whispered through her own tears.
Painful separations went between each parent and child pairing, save for the Wilders, Janet Stein, and Cyanide, whose children were not in the room. The Deans apologized to Karolina for not letting her know her true nature earlier in life, and the Yorkes admitted to their daughter that she wasn’t the pig-headed wench they had always told her she was. Then, they all separated and prepared for the end.
“We regret that it has to be this way,” said the lead Gibborim, holding out his hand. “But the time has come for—”
“No!” shouted Cyanide, the only outsider in the group. “They’re just kids! Why should you have to kill them?”
“You disagree with the Pride, I see, about the inevitability of our actions?” the Gibborim asked. “Then take your place with the children, ‘Cyanide’, and we shall test your mettle further.”
Before he could protest, the Hayes locked his arms and legs, forcing Cyanide over to where their children stood. They didn’t know who this man was or what he was doing in their Pride, but they did know that he showed up at the same time their lives had gone to hell, and for that he deserved to die.
“Now, the time has come. Consider this the end of all our problems,” said the Gibborim. “Three…two…one…”
BRAKKA-BRAKKA-BRAKKA!
Geoff and Catherine Wilder, Robert and Tina Minoru, Gene and Alice Hayes, Dale and Stacey Yorkes, and Janet Stein fell to the ground, their lifeblood pouring through various gunshot wounds. From the rafters of the room, black-clothed gunmen sprinted silently back to their posts.
“What the—?!”
“No!”
“Mom! Dad!”
The Runaways, having resigned themselves to their fate, stood up in shock and horror, rushing over to their dying parents. Atop the pile of bodies lay Geoff Wilder, who smiled as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
“Thank God…it’s over…” he whispered, before falling silent forever.
As the children gripped their dying parents’ bodies, the Gibborim suddenly went slack, as if their bodies had been controlled by an outside source. From behind them stepped a woman dressed in black spandex with metal wrist-straps, boots, and belts and a mysterious insignia upon the right side of her chest.
Holding a cassette player to her mouth, she spoke just loud enough for the children to hear her. “Midnight, August third, two-thousand and seven: Subjects one thru six and eight thru twelve have been disposed of. The Pride experiment has failed.”
There was definitely a point to be made with the Pride’s flashbacks. The sins of the fathers and mothers will be catching up to the Runaways very soon, and it’s going to strike home with Nico, as you can tell from the last of the flashbacks.
Also, the subplots of Alex and Dr. Harrow as well as Primo and Matti are going to be followed up on, too. I haven’t forgotten them yet. Quite frankly, they were the only Runaways to get any semblance of dialogue this issue.
If you didn’t read the last issue, you were totally screwed, which is also partially my fault, I’ll admit. Sorry about that. If you’re getting here and shouting “WTF?!” then you may wanna go check out #1-9 first.
Next issue is also going to be a flashback issue, featuring the reveal of who Cyanide really is, how Cyanide’s been doing all of this stuff behind everyone’s backs, and the revelation of what Dr. Harrow is doing to Alex!
Be here soon for Runaways #11: “Rats & Cyanide” (Minutes To Midnight Part 2)!
Hunter
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