X-Men: Dark Mirror (27 page)

Troublesome, because all the scattered X-Men still on active duty relied totally on those cell phones to keep in touch with the school. Not that anyone would be making the effort, or even notice that something was wrong. A little busy signal, if you yourself were not having an emergency, was just an annoyance.

"Dude," Jubilee murmured, for the first time looking afraid. "They must think we're totally stupid not to notice something's going on. That, or they think they can take us."

"I do not know," Ororo said, deeply disturbed. "They have been keeping their own distance from us, except on those rare occasions when Scott thinks I have done something out of the ordinary and comes to check on me."

"I think Scott did that with me and Remy," Jubilee said.

Ororo stood and began pacing. To sit any longer felt claustrophobic, as though the desk in front of her already pinned her legs and the walls, those walls of her life, were settling down upon her shoulders, suffocating her.

"All right," she said. "So something is wrong with our teammates. They might, or might not, have been . . . taken over. Whoever this entity is, has done a good enough job insuring that they know enough to pass, at least superficially."

"Mebbe they know more than that," Remy said, solemn. "If they could fly the Blackbird
and
find—and rig—one of Hank's scramblers, then we got security issues. Files, contacts.... Cerebro."

"Cerebro's cool," Jubilee said, screwing the cap back on her polish. Both adults stared at her, waiting. She blew on her nails.

Remy coughed. "Ma
petite?"

"Yeah? Oh, I mean, I took care of it. First thing. 'Cause, you know, body snatchers and long-range psychic enhancers aren't a good combination."

Ororo had trouble speaking. "You ... took care of it?"

'Yes. You guys think I never learned anything when I was hanging out with Hank? Last time he tuned up Cerebro, he blabbed for like an
hour
on all the different weak spots in the wiring and casing and how it was going to take him at least a month to fix them." She grinned. "Heh. It's gonna take him longer now."

Remy planted a hard kiss on top of Jubilee's head. She batted him away. Ororo covered her mouth.

"Very good," she said. "Though I sincerely hope we are able to salvage whatever wreckage you left behind."

"Looks the same on the outside, and the inside is just missing some guts. If these jokers don't know enough to imitate Wolvie to the letter, they're not going to be able to fix Cerebro."

"If they wished to use it. Their purpose may be quite different."

"Sure, whatever. I just want to get the real deals back."

"Maybe they are already there, and simply cannot act. They can listen, but nothing more. Utterly suppressed."

Which was the preferred possibility, because anything else meant that their friends might be lost forever. Minds, after all, could not stay adrift in the wind and remain whole. At least, she did not think so. The X-Men, on occasion, defied logic in their ability to survive extraordinary circumstances.

"So, what? We try to break through to them?"

"Non," Remy said firmly. "
Petite
, I want you to stay away from Wolverine for a while. At least until we figure this out."

"Remy-"

"I'm serious." He glanced at Ororo. "Isn't there some event we're supposed to attend tomorrow?"

"A mutant-rights march in New York. I do not think we will be going."

"And Scott and the others?"

"I cannot say for certain, but they haven't left the Mansion since they returned. I would assume they will not leave tomorrow."

"Which means that what they want is here."

"So are we going to take them out?" Jubilee asked.

Ororo hesitated. "I would like to know more before we make any efforts to control them. It is possible there is no need for violence, that this is something that can be resolved through negotiation. Whatever 'this' is. I still feel quite confused by the situation."

"There's not much to be confused with," Remy said. "We have a problem. Mebbe we can't define the problem, but it's there, an' it looks exactly like five of the most powerful mutants on this planet."

"You think we're next?" Jubilee asked. "I mean, not that they'd go after me, 'cause I'm just a kid or whatever. But... I don't want to lose myself."

Ororo could not answer that. Remy, very gently, said, "I think they would've done that by now if they could,
ma petite.
An' I know I'm still me. Got every confidence in both of you, too."

For now,
Ororo thought.

There was nothing more to discuss. Remy and jubilee left the office, presumably to continue investigating on the sly. She was sorry to see them go; she worried for their safety. Hers, too. It was maddening, being unable to pinpoint anything concrete, a specific action that she could see with her own eyes that was wrong. Yes, the Blackbird had not been refueled, yes, the phones were
down—all
their phones—and yes, the behavior of their friends was . . . off. Ororo could not deceive herself. She was wearing a psychic dampener, after all, and had silently applauded Jubilee's foresight in breaking Cerebro. She avoided Scott and the others as much as they seemed to be avoiding her. All of them, dancing on eggshells, hoping the other side did not notice how much they really knew.

Which, when Ororo thought about all the wicked men and women they had dealt with in the past, did not seem very professional at all. Possession was a subtle art, but once employed, either continued to be subtle, flawless, or went to the other extreme: utterly radical behavior that screamed "wrong." None of that was present in this situation. If the X-Men had been possessed or replaced, they were dealing with an amateur, one who knew just

enough to be dangerous, but not in any way perfect.

For a moment, she thought about their students, if any one of them could be abusing his or her powers. The children were safely away in New York on a field trip to end all field trips, but they had still been present when the five team members left for Seattle—the assumption being that whatever had transpired to alter them had taken place during that trip.

Ororo squeezed shut her eyes. Her head ached. Air- fresh air—that was what she needed. Perhaps a walk would make her feel better, clear her head for inspiration.

She turned on the psychic dampener, a sticky little device that Remy had planted behind her ear. She was going to talk to him one of these days about where he found such things. The dampener—along with the rest of his toys—was far too advanced to belong to any place but the military or some highly specialized research lab . . . and no doubt actual mutants had been used to test the thing. Not that she was going to tear it off in protest.

Without the children around, the Mansion felt eerily quiet. It had been like this once before, in the years when the school had admitted only a select few, when it was less of a school than a front for clandestine activities. Sometimes Ororo missed those days, but she could not deny the joy she took in raising the next generation to be strong and educated and unafraid in the use of their abilities. Everyone had the potential for greatness. It was merely her job to make sure that the young people in her care took advantage of that, in the best ways possible.

So she walked the lonely halls, unable to shake the sensation of being watched, and left the house for bright sunshine, green grass, the buzz of bees and the thrush of hummingbirds, zipping through the garden. She passed the vegetable plots first—a school project, to teach the children the value of the food they ate. Ororo, having grown up hungry and in a country where famines were common, thought it important that no one take for granted the bounty set before them.

Of course, she herself had never been forced to grow her supper. What she needed, she stole. Which was easier and much more fun. Not very ethical, though, and she was trying to set a good example.

Past the vegetables, she entered a wild labyrinth of stone paths and overgrown flowers, bursting with fragrant blooms. Every now and then, Ororo stopped to pull moisture from the air, generating localized rain and mist to aid those plants whose leaves drooped, or curled up, brittle with thirst. She was quite intent on this—as well as the pleasure of being distracted—when she noticed movement from the corner of her eye.

Red hair shining in the sunlight. Ororo waved her hand and the rain cloud hanging above the petunias disappeared. She followed Jean.

She did not have to go far. She stopped on the edge of the garden and watched as Jean sat on a stone bench. Ororo's roses grew nearby; her Geminis and Red Rubies, the Blue Teas, Moonlight Maidens, the Bonny Bonnets and Isle Stars; formerly lovely and now drooping, petals shucking into the grass, stems flaccid like string.

Suspicious, suspicious—all her trouble had begun with the roses. Ororo was half convinced that if they had not begun dying, none of this, her problems with the other members of the team, would have taken place. The students would still be here, Jubilee would be getting into trouble of an entirely different sort, and the house would feel safe and normal.

Jean did not appear to notice Ororo's presence. She had a book in her hands, but sat too far away for a clear view of the title. She seemed, for the most part, to be enjoying the sun, the quiet solitude. Ororo wondered, once again, if she was overreacting. Surely this was not the action of someone possessed, or plotting harm?

And then, so slow she almost missed seeing it, she noticed her dying roses droop even more. All her roses, that shriveled decaying line of them, moving as one like a descending curtain, blossoms and stems sinking even lower, leaves curling up with a brittleness second only to shriveled mummy lips.

And there, in the center of that silent death, sat Jean with her book, and a very small smile on her face.

Long ago, while they were still alive, Jubilee's parents told her that every person in the world had three things they were good at. Three things all their own, however small, that no one could do better than them. Jubilee's mother, for example, could cook dumplings like no other, play mah-jongg like a gambling queen, and chew out her father like nobody's business. Jubilee missed her mom.

Jubilee, on the other hand, had a rotating list of her best three things—rotating because, heck, she was only fifteen and learning new stuff everyday. And besides, three was such a limiting number.

At the moment, number one was stealth. She could do stealth like the Invisible Woman—all whoa, that chick is gone. Number two on her list was sheer crazy stubbornness. When she wanted something, there wasn't a force on earth that could change her mind—except maybe Wolvie—which brought her to number three: She was the only person in the world who could reach that man when he went all "Grrr" and acted like an animal. Berserker rage? Not a problem. Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse? Easy.

Which meant that Remy, as much as she liked him, did not know anything about her and Wolverine, and there was no way, nohow, she was going to stay away from him if there was any possibility he was still in there, fighting for a way out.

She could do it. She could reach him. She tried not to think about Scott. Her powers of conviction, however strong and unearthly, were limited only to Wolvie, and until she got him back, she could not risk his impersonator—or controller—knowing that she was on to him. All she could do was be present, a focal point, and let her friend do the rest.

As long as he was in there, of course. Jubilee preferred the idea that he was. She did not want to think about the alternative. The alternative . .. hurt too much.

She found him in the gym, which seemed to be his new hangout of choice.

"Hey," Jubilee said, watching him watch himself as he did a set of biceps curls in front of the mirror.

"Hey," he said, not even sparing her a glance. She wandered over to the weight rack and picked out a twenty-pound barbell. Sat down beside Wolvie and began curling. She got tired after the first three, and had to lift the weight with both hands. That got his attention.

"You're puny," he said, and his voice seemed lighter than usual. No gruff growls, no deep-throated rumbles.

And he was calling her puny? Her?

Body-snatched,
she reminded herself, taking a deep breath.

She smiled and said, "I guess I need to work out more. I'm more of a gymnast, anyway."

He looked her over. 'Yeah, I can see that. You're skinny enough for it, I guess. Thought those kinds of girls were tough as steel, though. Twenty pounds shouldn't be any problem."

"We use a different kind of strength," she said, unlocking her jaw so she didn't grind her teeth right out of her gums.

"Whatever," he said. "You want to show me some moves?"

Anything to keep him interested. She took off her jacket and moved to the wide mat. Took a deep breath and then executed a series of jumps and somersaults that had the world spinning, her body feeling like it could fly.