A TIME FOR RECKONING

By Rob Ballard

The briefing room…0847 hours

Just because mutants are the next step in evolution to homo sapiens doesn’t mean they don’t have ordinary, day to day problems. That is, if one could consider the issue of taking a risky hop to an alternate dimension to save a ex-lover who was believed to have died in an explosion while trying to rescue an insane man from the future to be ordinary.

“Forge, this is not the time, or the place to be discussing this.” The rest of the team remained wisely silent as X-Factor’s head honcho, a young woman by the name of Lorna Dane, and the team’s second in command, a Native American known as Forge, hotly debated an agenda item.

According to the large digital clock on the briefing room wall, Fixx noted, this debate had gone on…oh…about 42 minutes now without resolution. There didn’t appear to be an end in sight.

“The only one with a misplaced sense of time and space is you, Lorna! We have a budget meeting that we are required to attend. This could be X-Factor’s big break. But you’re going to go and blow it on some reality-hopping adventure to find an ex-lover who’s likely deceased?”

“Forge, I don’t know what the problem is, I’ve explained it to you a hundred times already. Alex is…”

Forge interrupted, continuing where she left off, “…a member of the team, yes, I know. But, if Havok is out there, and I must remind you, that’s a very big if, then can’t it wait until after the meeting? They’re all going to think that X-Factor isn’t your first priority! Maybe they’re right!”

Lorna seemed to digest Forge’s words carefully. Her eyes narrowed a little and she continued, a measured tone to her words. “Look, you know as well as I do that, as much as we hate it the government has a way of dictating our priorities. If I put this off, and we go to Val’s budget hearing, before it’s all over we’ll get called out to some other emergency, and never get a chance to try to save Alex. Then what? I put it off even further? I don’t think so!”

The others were beginning to finally show signs of restlessness, long having foreseen the inevitable impasse they’d reached. There were a couple of audible groans and sighs. Only Shard had the guts to actually speak up, though. “Look, why don’t we do this…Lorna, we all know how you feel about Alex. You go, look for him, search to your heart’s content and get him back if you can. But only after you brief Forge on everything he needs to know for the budget hearing. Give him all the numbers and paperwork and administrative garbage that goes along with any government entity, and let him sort through it. Forge, you’ll go to the meeting, acting in Lorna’s stead, representing the team. It’s nothing new for you, you’ve done it before, right?”

Forge and Lorna appeared shocked, to say nothing of the rest of the team. As the two considered the idea, Guido leaned over to his buddy Jamie and whispered loudly, “See, whad I tellya? That’s one smart kid!” Shard had a mind to make a comment about being called a “kid,” but decided against it. Instead she just smiled warmly and winked as she nodded her head.

“Works for me,” Lorna said dryly.

Forge wasn’t especially pleased with the idea, but it seemed a reasonable compromise, given the circumstances. “What about Val?”

“Let me handle Val. I’ll explain to her what’s going on without going into too much detail. You know her, the more she knows, the more she wants to micro-manage.”

“Hey, kiddo, let’s see you make it all the way to level 12, eh? Ha ha ha,” Jamie laughed ruthlessly at his young opponent. Trevor didn’t answer, he just concentrated even harder as he twisted and pulled at the controls, racing through rooms and collecting treasures as fast as he could. It was clear the two were having a great time.

DeeDee and Fixx were sitting on the couch, onlookers to the video adventure. “Jamie sure seems good with children,” DeeDee remarked.

“That’s because he is one,” Fixx laughed.

At that, Lorna and Forge filed in, Polaris in uniform and the others still in plainclothes. Eventually the others showed up, one by one. “Trevor, are you ready?” Lorna asked.

“Just a minute – uh…hang on…let me just get to this one last…awww…shooot!!” Trevor tossed the controls down. Jamie stuck out his tongue and made a teasing face at Trevor, who merely smirked back his own look. Both of them knew it was all in good fun, and smiled.

“All right Trevor, it’s time to use your power again, okay?”

“Sure, no problem,” the young boy told them in that confident tone that only pre-teens can have.

“I want you to send Lorna here to the place where your friend Scotty lives. She also has a friend there that she wants to meet up with.”

“Oh really? Wow, how do you know someone there?” Trevor asked, his curiosity piqued.

As the time had grown closer, Lorna had major butterflies about the possibility of seeing Alex alive again. It was tough not to get her hopes up. Certainly Trevor’s question didn’t help, and as a result, she chose to pass it off. “I can’t really explain it right now, Trevor, but once I get back, maybe you’ll get a chance to meet him.”

“Cool. The people in Otherworld rock!”

The fact that he had a name for wherever and whenever it was, was quite unsettling to Forge. “That reminds me, Lorna. I want to caution you, that there’s no way of knowing exactly what you’re going to find when you get there. It’s an alternate dimension – so the people you knowmay not be like the people you know here. And don’t forget what I told you about time paradoxes, and everything else. Just be careful, all right?”

“Of course. Aren’t I always?” Forge eyed her levelly and decided not to answer.

Suddenly Fixx spoke up. “…and with that, I’m gone. You all know how I feel about this reality warping stuff. Makes me ill.” Fixx wasn’t kidding; on the contrary, Trevor’s previous reality warping escapades, even the seemingly minor ones, made Fixx sick to her stomach. As much as she hated to, she left the room in the hopes that putting some distance between herself and Trevor might minimize the effect.

Trevor closed his eyes and seemed to concentrate, while the others waited quietly for what seemed like an interminably long time. Guido was about to make a remark when the room shifted violently. Or at least it seemed to. It was an instantaneous sensation that was gone as quickly as it came. So was Polaris.

“Whoa!” Shard exclaimed. That was wild!” The rest of them were holding on to whatever was anchored close by, and didn’t appear too thrilled about the ride they’d been given.

“Well, that’s that,” Jamie said. “Are you ready to take on the world, Forge?” It wasn’t until Jamie had finished his sentence that he realized the person he was speaking to wasn’t there, either.

“Uh-oh,” DeeDee said. “Houston, we have a problem…”

Sometime later…

RIIIIIIINNNNNGGGG! RIIIIIIIIIINNNNNGGGG! RIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNGGGGG!

“You get it,” Jamie said.

“Nope. You get it,” Jamie told him.

“I’m not getting it. I think you should get it!”

On the other end of the line, Doctor Valerie Cooper was beginning to lose her patience. Where the hell was X-Factor?! First Lorna had the nerve to say something had come up, and she wasn’t going to be there. Now she couldn’t get ahold of them at all!”

Guido Carosella lives his life in constant pain, caused by the unnatural enlargement of his muscle fibers from absorbing kinetic energy. Ordinarily he can hide it behind a happy-go-lucky ruse. In fact his infamous clowning around has even gotten him into trouble. When Guido’s patience is exhausted, however, it’s wise to stay out of his way.

They had all gathered in the team room for an emergency session. It only took about two minutes for the discussion to dissolve into a cacophony, echoing down the hall. From inside the room, itself, it was enough to give Guido an economy-sized headache.

Would you all please, PIPE DOWN!” Seeing as how they were all startled enough to nearly fall out of their chairs, everyone wisely complied. “Thank you,” he said, with no attempt to hide the anger from his voice. “The way I see it, first thing we gotta do is get one of ’em back. Doesn’t matter which, right?” Guido’s tone indicated it was a rhetorical question, but several of them nodded agreement anyway.

“Okay – has anyone even given thought to just asking Trevor to bring them back?”

“He’s out cold,” Shard answered. “I guess the strain of sending both of them was too much for him.”

“All right, what about waking him up? Fixx?”

“My sprites tell me he’s alive and well in his subconcious but they were not able to awaken him. This could be some protective measure his mutant gene has built in to prevent some sort of power overload.”

“Fine. So – no Lorna and no Forge. And we don’t have a clue how long this is gonna last?” The others shook their heads.

“Beautiful. Well, the meeting is at four today, and we’re going to have to choose who’s going to represent us at the hearing. Seeing as how you all have given me a splitting headache, I’d prefer this not to be a long and drawn out process. I vote for process of elimination.” The others mercifully agreed.

They worked their way around the table. “Jamie – you’re out, ’cause Val hates you,” Guido said with just the faintest trace of a grin. Jamie laughed and couldn’t disagree.

“DeeDee,” and before Guido could continue, she was already shaking her head no. “Too new, eh? No chance of disguising you as Polaris?” DeeDee shook her head. “I didn’t think so. Okay. Fixx?”

“I don’t think I’d be a good candidate for a test of the twentieth century bureaucratic process, seeing as how things are a little different in my time.”

“Okay. Shard…I don’t think so. No offense, hon, you’re a born leader – but I just don’t think that’s the kind of leadership we need right now. A bunch of stodgy old-timers from the hill aren’t going to have a lot of respect for a teenager, despite what you’ve done in the future.” Shard reluctantly agreed. “So, I guess that leaves…”

The rest of the team turned to look at Guido. With a sheepish grin on his face, he said, “Me? Oh no…”

When Lorna regained consciousness, at first she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten to – wherever the hell she was. She only knew that she had a sick feeling in her stomach and she wished it would go away. She was laying in the middle of an open field, probably not the safest place to be, she figured, considering the circumstances. It was getting dark, there was a large castle looming in the distance, and it looked as though the sky might open up at any minute in a downpour. The wind blew in fitful gusts. “Already this is shaping up to be a bad idea,” she thought to herself, and despite her Shi’ar designed uniform, she felt chilled.

“Glad to see you made it, this far, Greeny! Too bad you aren’t going to be here long enough to enjoy your stay.” The gruff voice called out from behind her as he raised an enormous arm that looked not too unlike an enormous bazooka.

“Is everything ready for the meeting with Doctor Cooper?” the man asked, straightening his tie and making sure his greying hair was in place.

The younger man pushed the glasses a little higher on the bridge of his nose as he studied his notes. “Doctor Cooper tells us that there has been a minor change. The leaders of the group are otherwise indisposed. We’ll not be meeting with the de facto leader of the group, but of one of the members, in her stead.”

“What?! You’ve gotta be kidding me!” The younger man nearly lost all his notecards but managed to rescue them before dumping them on the floor. He shot the older man a glance, but he merely shrugged it off.

“This is great!” the older man continued. “Perfect timing. Maybe this will work out after all!”

“Guido, I don’t know how much I can stress to you that we make a good impression on these guys. With that in mind, I want you to let me do the talking, okay?” Val eyed his suit coat carefully, then reached for another one to hand to him to replace it with.

“Gotcha Miz Cooper,” he said, taking the enormous coat and putting it on after handing the other back.

“Doctor.”

“What’s wrong, are you okay?”

“No, you idiot, I’m a doctor.”

“Really? I didn’t know. And here all along I thought you were one of those Washington Weenies.”

“I’m not a medical doctor, you fool. Doctor is my title. As in, doctorate.”

“Oh. Hey, d’you think they’re going to have hors d’oeuvres at this high-powered meeting? I may not have time for breakfast if they’re going to insist on having this meeting so early.”

Val slapped her forehead. She wasn’t sure if she was going to make it through this day alive. For that matter, she wasn’t sure Guido would make it through the day alive.

“Random! Am I glad to see you!”

The enormous grey man chomped down on his cigar. “Heh. There’s a new one. That wasn’t exactly the reaction I was expecting, but it doesn’t change anything. I don’t have to tell ya, yer coming with me, dead or alive.”

Lorna laughed genuinely at the cliche. “Random, quit kidding around. I know things were a little weird between us for awhile. But I need your help right now, to find Alex.”

“Lady, I don’t know who you think you are, and I don’t know who Alex is. But, the name’s ‘Chance,’ and the only reason I’m tellin’ ya that is so that you’ll know who it was that brought ya in.” With that, an enormous white blast erupted from his arm and smashed into the ground next to her. Before she could even react, the explosion knocked her flat on her butt once again.

Recent events had taught the Mistress of Magnetism a timely lesson that people weren’t always who you thought they were. Polaris remembered Forge’s warning, and before Random – or Chance, or whoever he claimed to be – could get another shot off, she threw up a magnetic shield to deflect it.

As soon as she did, she knew something wasn’t right. Sure, a bubble formed about a meter ahead of her, ready to deflect his energy blast. But the normally pale greenish-yellow bubble glowed an unusual shade of mauve, not her usual power signature. It also crackled and arced violently, also not typical of how her mutant power normally manifested itself.

Just as the mutant who called himself Chance was about to fire, she decided to cut and run. Lucky for her, because when he fired his next shot, it had no trouble penetrating the EM field meant to protect her from what would have been a lethal hit.

Inside the large briefing room in the Capitol Building, several conservatively dressed members of Congress sat there gathered around a large rectangular table watching the conclusion of Dr. Cooper’s presentation.

“Lights please.” The lights came on, and several of the members blinked their eyes. There was one in particular that stood out, though, because he was snoring lightly. Val tried to inconspicuously bounce a pencil off his forehead, but it was too late. The Senator sitting next to him was already gently shaking Guido to wake him.

Another attendee spoke up, “Perhaps his lackadaisical attitude regarding X-Factor indicates that our assistance isn’t needed?”

“Oh no, I can assure you, that’s not the case. Mr. Carosella was very nervous about this meeting, and consequently didn’t get much sleep last night. Unfortunately he didn’t have the time to prepare as…”

“As the real team leaders didn’t think this meeting was important enough to be here,” another asked accusingly.

Before Guido had a chance to say something in his own defense, another member of the budget committee spoke up from the head of the table. “Now, gentlemen, I don’t think we can possibly begin to understand the kind of responsibilities X-Factor has. All we can do is offer them ourunconditional support…”At those words, several other members of the committee looked at each other in shock as they mouthed “unconditional support?” to each other. He continued, unabated, “…and, as government employees, trust them to get the job done when the situation demands it.”

“But, Mister…”

“No, buts. Mutants have been doing a fine job of taking care of their own problems, and I don’t see any reason to change that. Nor do I see a need to get involved in business that isn’t ours. Don’t you agree, Doctor Cooper?”

Val and Guido were unable to hide their shock at this abrupt change in attitude. X-Factor had always operated under the closest government scrutiny, and more often then not, motivated by personal agendas. Now apparently they were being given carte blanche by the powers that be. Val’s head was spinning so fast, she almost forgot to answer the question before he repeated it.

“Well, ah, yes, Mister Chairperson. I feel that X-Factor has provided exemplary service in the past to get the job done. There have been a few difficulties in the past, but I think those were largely the result of…uncooperative…team members.” Val chose her words carefully, trying not to imply fault with anyone, even though her own strong dislike for the decision was well-known.

“Yes, I’m sure that with our support, you’ll do fine. Here’s a draft of my proposal, which I’m sure you’ll find agreeable.” He pushed the half-inch stack of paper across to Val and Guido.

Val was anxious to pour through the legalese. “Something has to be up,” she whispered to Guido, who merely grinned his boyish grin and shrugged.

“This is gonna hurt you a lot more’n it’s gonna hurt me, sweet cheeks,” chimed the voice from behind her. This Random doppleganger seemed like he meant business. Lorna thought back to her first encounter with Random, remembering that she had a fairly easy time dispatching him.

That was with her powers intact, she remembered ruefully. Now…well, now all she could do was create some useless fireworks displays, she told herself she tried to gather her thoughts. Luckily, she’d found some bushes for cover. Between her adversaries blasts, she could hear the patter of rain on the leaves. It was a good thing he didn’t seem to have any tracking devices on him.

The hulking bounty-hunter decided to fire a couple of shots into the berm, narrowly missing Lorna by only a few meters. “Looks like I’m running out of options,” she whispered to herself breathlessly. She almost thought about turning herself in, thinking that might give her an opportunity later on. Besides, all this running and hiding like this was a very humiliating way to go for someone who’s supposed to have all the ideas. As he took aim once again, the only thing she could think of was she was glad the other members of X-Factor weren’t going to be here to see this.

Suddenly, through the din of the now steady downpour, she heard a voice booming from across the moat. “Chance! You’ve got ten seconds to explain why the hell you’re in my front yard shooting at rabbits!”

At the sound of that voice, Lorna’s eyes went wide. It was Alex. It didn’t take his electromagnetic signature to tell her that. She jumped up from her hiding position and yelled, “Alex!!!”

Chance saw the green haired mutant spring from her foxhole. That was all he needed. He took aim and fired. The shot was a hair too slow, but it didn’t matter. The explosion behind her threw her to the ground, unconscious. Chance folded his arms and puffed on his cigar. “Guess that’s that,” he said smugly.

“What the,” Alex yelled into the downpour, suddenly feeling an intense dislike for people getting shot in his lawn. “Chance, I’ve gotta tell ya, you’ve pulled some outlandish stunts before, but you’ve crossed the line this time, buddy!” Then Alex did what he did best – gathered the power of the cosmos together and fired it at the mutant who had awakened him and Elektra from an otherwise restful sleep. The beam of energy, so bright it hurt to look at it, tore across the distance and narrowly missed Chance, but sent him scurrying away like a rat. “Damn coward. He’ll be back.”

A striking woman with a mane of brunette hair appeared behind him like a ghost, wrapping her long slender fingers around his muscular figure. “What was that all about?” she purred into his ear.

“Ah, just Chance making a racket again. I better go see who he’s bullying this time.” He turned and smiled at her.

“Hurry back,” she told him wistfully.

“One thing’s for sure, this Summer’s boy won’t have to be told twice…” With that, he was off and running across the lawn, the bridge over the moat that surrounded Bannerman’s castle, and finallyinto the open field beyond. There was no moon, and his eyes were still adjusting to the darkness. It wasn’t until he came up on the figure and saw her emerald tresses that he realized who it was that he had stumbled on.

As he rolled her over, he whispered into the rain-soaked night, “Oh, my God.”

NEXT: The clock is ticking at the remaining members of X-Factor struggle to get to the bottom of their employer’s change of heart. Plus, the reunion you’ve been waiting for! And, where the heck is Forge?