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Dear Nathan,
First off, sorry if this message is brief, but I’m a busy gal
these days. And I apologize again, but I can’t tell you just
what is keeping me so busy. You know I trust you, but it’s easier
for me if I keep my new life
private.
Yes, I said “new life”. I’ve found new responsibilities, and
I don’t have the time or the motivation to continue the crusade
against mutant prejudice. Hell, my “luck” power was taken from me
a few months back, so you could say
I’m not even a mutant anymore. Besides, we both know that
you were always the more compassionate of the two of us. It's
a worthy cause you’ve got, but it was never for me. I’m just
a trouble-maker, though you managed to mold me into a fighting machine
with a goal: freedom for mutants like us.
Now I have a new goal, and unlike the rest of my violent and
turbulent past, you can’t play a part in its fulfillment, because
you’re a noble warrior, and I’m...something else now. I’ve taken
a new name, I’ve moved house, and I’m
hoping to get a real job, as frightening as that sounds.
We’ll still see each other. You’re my only real friend, and as
sappy as it sounds, I’ll never just abandon you entirely. But for
now, and most likely forever, don’t call on me for your crusade,
because I can’t fight beside you any
longer.
Be careful out there, “Cable”.
Patricia Alcaraz (a.k.a. Dom)
---------------------------------------------------------------- Get your free email from AltaVista at http://altavista.iname.com
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MV1, the Vigilante Branch, and MARVEL FANFARE present:
by Sam Everett
June, Year Four
Patricia Alcaraz noted her total and readily handed twenty dollars in cash--always cash--to Mr. Laurel, the gingerly-aged, rosy-cheeked man behind the grocery store counter.
“Careful gettin’ home, Patty,” the grocier smiled as Patricia slid the brown sack of groceries off of the counter.
“Always, Mr. L!” she chimed in reply, with a wink, then turned toward the store’s exit.
As a rule, Patricia had always been wary of stability and the predictable, because those things had never existed in her former line of work. She thrived in her old vocation. And so little things, like her weekly run to Archie’s Super Market in her new home of Pleasantville, New York, were difficult to grow accustomed to, and even harder to enjoy.
Though in many ways she retained the attitude appropriate to her old life, she was learning. Changing. She had come to cherish Mr. Laurel’s cheery banter every week as much as she appreciated her neighbors’ curt waves in passing, or the security a simple dead bolt offered, or the warm embrace of her violet, fleece robe after dinner. These were all treasures because they represented real life, and real life made her new life a lot easier.
Once out of the store, she located her Ford Explorer past the lazy parade of Pleasantville locals and weekend visitors speckling the sidewalk. It was still there, in all its unassuming glory. Late model and luxurious, yes, but by no means comparable to some of the over-the-top transports in which Patricia used to roll. As she made her way to the car, its alarm cherped with the press of her keychain command (not that the alarm was needed in this town of seven-thousand placid people), and she reached for the passenger side door handle--
--but a firm hand on her brown trenchcoat and a familiar voice evoked a gasp as she instinctively dropped her grocery sack and took a preparatory stance, turning to face her sudden visitor.
Nathan. Cable.
“What the hell are you trying to do?” she snapped, attracting the attention of surprised passers-by. She was quick to let her guard down, however. Nathan’s appearance was unexpected--perhaps even unwanted--but he was a friend.
“Relax...Domino,” he said, as if he was proud that he had discovered her true identity.
She exhaled, trying to compose herself.
“I almost didn’t recognize you,” he continued in his low, modest voice. Domino could almost say the same of him, as she would forever envision Nathan towering in size, topped with crew-cut white hair, in his bulky battle armor, toting massive, futuristic rifles, fighting for the homo-superior as the outlaw mutant known as “Cable”. Today, however, in an effort to deflect attention, he sported a navy blue Yankees ball cap, thin-rimmed sunglasses (to hide the telltale marks of his mutant nature), a nylon Yankee jacket to match his hat, black slacks, and two-tone brown Timberland work boots. She would always find him attractive, in physique and more.
At that, she blushed. Did HER new look impress HIM? Or inside, was Nathan laughing at the absurdity of her real world disguise? Shedding her intrinsically exotic demeanor, she now tried to achieve the thirty-something American at-home mom look: bobbed hair, naturally black; make-up in light tones, reasonably applied over artificial skin tone still too pale to claim the ethnic heritage that the name “Alcaraz” implied, but appropriate enough for the wholesome, all-American identity she meant to assume; no jewelry, though if asked, she would claim to be the widow of a military husband killed in the Gulf War, reluctant to wear her wedding band for fear of the memories it would provoke; her dress was normally casual, but conservative, as she donned airy blouses, long, wavy, flowery skirts over pantyhose, and those God-awful pumps and high heels no doubt descended from feet-shrinking Chinese footwear entrepreneurs.
No, he couldn’t have found her attractive. She didn’t even find herself attractive. But her appearance suited her new role perfectly, and that was most important.
“How’d you find me here?” she asked.
“It wasn’t easy. You’ve covered your tracks well. But the internet is a beautiful thing,” Nathan smiled. “You’ve got some explaining to do,” he declared in his best Desi Arnez voice (which was really pretty bad) once the surrounding crowd of lookee-loos finally dispersed.
Domino snickered, but attempted to throw him off his determined explanation-quest by kneeling down and gathering the contents which had fallen out of her grocery sack and onto the sidewalk.
But he remained motionless. He wasn’t buying it.
“I suppose chivalry didn’t make a comeback in the future?” she murmered. He caved a bit by bending down beside her and returning the assorted items to the brown sack.
“You’ve got to answer me sometime,” he continued.
“I did. In my e-mail message. That was all I could tell you. That’s all I WILL tell you.”
“You can give up on The Dream just like that? After all the sweat and blood you’ve given? After all the progress we’ve made?”
“Yes,” she affirmed.
“No. You can’t.”
He shot a glare to make his words stick, and she could see past the tint of his sunglasses, and into scarred eyes that had seen the blood shed by eternal war, and the pain in the faces of loved ones, and the hope that a man and his Dream inspired. And perhaps even the potential in a young mercenary turned mutant freedom fighter. As she bit her lip, she knew he must have seen the guilt coursing through her. If only she could tell him why she had abandoned his fight.
“I know how much of your life you’ve put into Xavier’s Dream, Nathan, but you’ve never been through what I’m going through now. You can’t understand.”
The last of the groceries gathered, thank God, she eased toward the passenger door of the Explorer, pulling away from his stare.
“No, I can’t understand,” he said. “I can’t understand who, or what, would be able to separate a brave warrior from a fight she belongs in. From her destiny.”
Destiny. Her heart sank. But he couldn’t understand. He couldn’t understand.
“Whatever it is,” he continued, “it will give in, and like it or not, you will fight for The Dream again.”
“Goodbye, Nathan.” she worded awkwardly as she placed the grocery sack in the passenger seat of her car.
He shook his head and started past her. Then came back.
“You almost forgot your baby powder,” he grumbled. He shoved the blue, plastic container into her chest, then continued on his way.
Destiny.
He couldn’t understand.
Night.
Outside.
The Alcaraz residence.
Targeted. Spotlights and snipers.
Two choppers. Circling.
A dozen unmarked vehicles. Hitmen.
Countless goons. Well-equipt. Determined.
One unit. Twelve men. Ready.
Forty-four guns. Loaded.
Pleasantville. Not so pleasant.
Inside.
One woman. Patricia Alcaraz. Domino. Ready.
Four-hundred thirteen guns. Loaded.
Two shotguns in her arms. Cocked.
What would the neighbors think?
Before the front door. Ready. Ready to defend the Arsenal. Ready to defend Him.
She feels it. She remembers the feeling. Well.
Feels them. Approaching.
Door. Opens. Men enter.
Shotgun fires. They fire back. Shotgun fires. They scatter. Shotgun fires. They fall.
Clear.
Run down the hall. Up the stairs.
Blast. They’re here.
Cock.
Cock.
Cock.
Reload.
No shells.
Run down the hall.
Bathroom.
Shower.
Ceiling.
Into upstairs Arsenal.
Guns. Guns. Guns.
Down to Angela’s bedroom.
Agents.
Rattattattattattattattat!!!
Downstairs. Shooting.
Get to basement Arsenal. Get to Him.
Bad guys.
Defend the Arsenal.
Dead guys.
In Federal uniforms?
“What’s this?”
“Recruitment drive--”
Turn. Aim.
Val Cooper.
“--gone wrong.”
“You’re here for Him, I take it.”
“Him? We’re here for you, Domino.”
Three guns. Pointed. At her head.
Caught.
Why?
“She was trying to keep us out of this room. Who, or what, was she hiding?” Federal Agent Valerie Cooper asked, though she expected no answer from the dozens of armed FBI and ATF agents gathered about the massive Pleasantville, New York home-turned-warzone of the mutant outlaw called Domino; Val was their commander on this mission, after all, and so any information the agents possessed, SHE possessed first. Neither she nor her agents had a clue as to the contents behind the heavily secured hallway door twenty yards from the front entrance, where tonight’s bloody gunfight had ended. But she meant to know soon enough.
The bloodied bodies had been cleared out, and Domino had long since been detained and secured aboard a federal transport headed south to Virginia. But the mutant’s secrets remained in this estate--behind this door. “Him” was behind this door.
“Get the tools!” one of the agents ordered to his men outside of the house. Within moments, two agents rushed into the dissheveled house, carrying a portable, high-powered, ultrasonic cutting machine between them. Just a few moments more, and the welding and clamps and seals between the door and the doorway were disabled without a spark by the ultrasonic device. As the two men rushed the equipment out of the path of the door, half a dozen agents, Val included, readied their sidearms.
Domino was an infamous mercenary known for her prowess in battle, and in preparation. She was reputed to have possessed a strange mutant power that seemed to enable fate to shift her way, but she had never relied on it. Val had read the reports. The reports of the numerous unsuspecting enemies of Domino, on numerous occassions, losing limbs--and, more often than not, their lives--split-seconds after finding themselves snared in one of the merc’s elaborate booby-traps. Val had lost enough men tonight. Would “Him” take even more?
One brave soul swung the loose door from its place, letting it creep ajar as the other anxious agents glared into the expanding darkness of the doorway with intent, and somewhere behind their night vision goggles, fear. Val cautiously emerged from the tremoring troop of triggermen, her gun at arm’s length, her nerves frozen cold.
Through her goggles, black turned green, and she saw a concrete stairway past the darkness, and took each step slowly, listening for a sound to interrupt the click-clack of her boots and the chattering of her teeth. She was reluctantly trailed by six of her men.
A step, and this “closet” became a bunker. Another step, and this “bunker” became an awesome stockpile of illegal arms. And with each subsequent step, she gasped at the countless crates of handguns and automatic rifles and dozens of storage shelves brimming with hand-held, surface-to-air artillery, even gadgets that the FBI had not yet commissioned for their agents’ use.... Far more than the trophies obtained by militia nuts. Far more than any one ATF storage facility. The manifestation of a woman whose luck had run out, but whose knack for preparation would endure.
Hhhhmm.
A sound.
A scatch. Or a scrape.
No, a whimper. Someone was down here. “Him”?
From the relative safety of the stairway, she glanced around her to find the source of the moan. “Don’t make a move, or you will be fired upon,” Val warned into the pitch dark.
“I-I won’t.” a meek, unseen voice replied. It was a female voice, Val noted. Young. And scared. This couldn’t have been “Him”. It certainly wasn’t a threat.
Val started toward the far end of the room, from where the soft, shivering voice had echoed through the bunker. Her agents still followed. Beyond the crates and shelves, they found a young woman crouched in the corner of the bunker, her eyes nervously shifting between the imposing agents and the serenely bobbing toddler boy she held tightly over her shoulder.
“Him”.
Val holstered her sidearm at the pathetic sight of the girl who almost resembled Val herself, with her lean form, shoulder-length blonde hair and striking blue eyes. The other agents tamed their weapons a moment later. Then Val soothed, “Don’t worry. We won’t hurt you.”
The girl nodded.
“What’s your name? How old are you?”
“A-Angela. Angela C-Campbell. I’m s-seventeen.”
Val felt her heart melt and her eyes moisten at the girl’s helpless response. At the girl herself. At the whole damned thing. She struggled to ease her angered tremors and pressed a command on her utility belt, opening a channel through her headset microphone.
“Gyrich, the target has kids.” Sigh. “What the hell are we doing?”
