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“Target’s late, doll.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“Don’t apologize. Just tell me, there anywhere he goes after he leaves his gal’s place? It’s four-thirty in the morning--he was supposed to be here an--you breathin’ hard?”
“Um...no, sir.”
“Sounds like it. You know my policy on sex on the job--I’m the only one who’s allowed.”
“Sir, you know I’m engaged!”
“Yeah, yeah.... Just try to find out what’s takin’ this beatnik so long.”
Victor Creed sighed at his victim’s tardiness. He wasn’t a patient man, and he wasn’t big on this stakeout stuff. Still, he knew it was necessary if his ultimate goal was to be achieved.
That goal was why he had taken so many gut-for-hire jobs recently. That goal was why, this morning, he sat in Paul Paige’s favorite leather recliner, in Paul Paige’s darkened apartment (smelling of paint and as impossibly cluttered as any eccentric’s), on Paul Paige’s busy little artist’s street in Greenwich Village.
Someone wanted Paul Paige dead, and they were paying Creed a lot of money to see the burnt-out hippy’s stomach contents. Enough that Creed wouldn’t have to murder for money for a long time afterward; after this job, he’d be able to ENJOY his kills again. Just like the old days, when he’d slaughter a family, or decapitate a ten-year old girl, or kill one of Wolverine’s love interests.
Just to do it.
He couldn’t wait.
“Haley,” he anxiously growled into the headset that kept him in communication with his secretary (assassination was big business, and with costumed clowns like Deadpool, Bullseye, and Elektra to compete with, he had to increase his efficiency somehow. Plus, he was as adept at paperwork as he was the stakeout, so, sad as it was, young Haley was a necessity.).
No response from the other end.
“Hey, Haley!”
“Yes sir?”
“Where were you?”
“Bathroom, sir--downstairs,” came the soft, ever-nervous voice into Creed’s earpiece. “Uh, sir, I’ve been meaning to bring up the bathroom situation.”
“Don’t. You’re lucky I’m paying for an office for you to work in. Overhead’s too high for a place with bathroom facilities.”
“I understand, sir, but the people in the coffee shop downstairs are starting to wonder why I keep using their restroom. What if someone asks why I’m always down there. Who I work for?”
“Your problem,” Creed replied as he stood to check the front door’s peephole for the fifth time in as many minutes.
“What about my friends? A month is a long time to keep a secret, and last night, at the club, one of them started to get suspicious.”
“So tell ‘em the truth. Tell ‘em you punch numbers for a mutant hitman. I’m not worried about your twenty-something, clubbing, screw-their-way-to-the-top clique. What are they gonna do? Stab me with Calista Flockhart?”
“Point taken, sir. Just not ideal work conditions, that’s all.”
“But the job’s easy. You can’t argue with that. Part-time stuff for you. Is this job gonna pay for the engagement ring your deadbeat boyfriend can’t afford? Yes.”
“True.”
“I keep tellin’ you to dump that bum and give me a shot,” Creed said.
Haley giggled. “You know I would if I could, sir, but something tells me it wouldn’t last. You’re not really into the relationship scene.”
“How so?”
“I just know,” she replied.
“Heh. You know me better than you’ve got any right,” Creed replied. “You dig up any reason Paige could be takin’ so long? No amount of money’s worth all this waiting,” he whined in his bellowing, raspy voice as he started back toward the chair.
“Maybe he’s admiring the graffiti mural in the hallway outside his door,” Haley replied.
Creed’s eyes turned to slits, and his brow furrowed in confusion as he let out a creaky, bestial grumble; Haley had never even seen Paige’s place. “How could you know--?”
Before he could finish, the front door swung open with an uninvited boot’s force. Instinctively, he crouched into attack position, and waited for the visitor to enter before he’d pounce them.
Though the lithe, rifle-toting, female figure wore a bulky, ATF-issue gas mask, Creed recognized her sky blue skin, her wavy, fiery top, and through the mask’s foggy, glass visor, her hypnotic, glowing, yellow eyes--even the cocky, long-legged stride that brought her through the doorway and into his pestilent path.
Mystique.
“Well. Surprise, surprise,” he grinned, ready to strike at the curvaceous mutant standing opposite him, twenty feet away.
Mystique’s reply was just as devious.
“Surprise, surprise.”
With that, and before Creed could initiate his assault, Mystique fired a series of shots from her rifle. His heightened senses awakened, Creed noted that the rifle’s ammunition was not bullets, but rubber pellets. Three pounds each that, coupled with their velocity after being fired, struck with the force of a hundred and seventy pounds. Creed was momentarily stunned when he felt his weight involuntarily shift, and he found himself on his back, staring at the moonlit ceiling overhead.
In that moment, the pellets burst open, and his prone body was instantly shrouded in a brown, murky mist of toxic gas. No coughing. No struggling. The gas put him out immediately.
Mystique would pay for this.
He couldn’t wait...
MV1, the Vigilante Branch, and MARVEL FANFARE present:
by Sam Everett
June, Year Four
Agent Valerie Cooper wasn’t sure what was worse: a lunch date with Mystique, the mutant mercenary with a heart cold as Bobby Drake, or a lunch date with Henry Peter Gyrich, the government bureaucrat with a heart cold as...well, Bobby Drake. Ah, she knew the answer: lunch with both cold-hearted scamps was the worst. From that point, the only question was whether Lexington Avenue’s Elegante restaurant would remain standing after their meal.
Gyrich had managed some punctuality for this afternoon’s lunch meeting, and arrived without any sign of his usual entourage, save for the restaurant hostess who lead him to the table. That same punctuality could not be credited to Mystique, which Val regretted. She had hoped she could tune out the bickering between the mutant and the moron and enjoy her meal in as much peace as possible. Now, she was forced into small talk with the ever-unpleasant Gyrich. Henry Peter Gyrich, who saw under his nose a wine glass brimming with complementary water, and still it was half empty. Henry Peter Gyrich, who possessed no conscience, got paid to make people’s lives hell, and still he couldn’t enjoy it.
Yet, Val smiled upon seeing the man, for in recent weeks, it had become apparent that fate had caught up with him. And she had become aware that fate had a sense of justice--and a bad attitude to match--to which even Gyrich’s ego could not compare. Years of despicable behavior had paid off in the bureaucrat’s worst assignment ever: he, along with Val, had been charged with overseeing the government’s new mutant-based strike force. An endeavor failed too many times before, but, for some reason known not to Cooper--if anyone--Washington was willing to try it again.
The stakes must have been higher. Why else would their boss, Representative Mickey P. Primrose, threaten them with more than the termination of their job?--if this task force were to go bust, one of Coopers’ love ones would be murdered in cold blood by their own government. She would not even be told who the loved one would be in advance. Even the mutants in the task force, who would suffer the same consequences for failure as Val, were allowed to know whose life was on the line if they failed their agenda. However, Primrose took extra precautions with Cooper and Gyrich, for they had resources inside the government that the mutants would not, and could daringly use those resources against Primrose, their lone superior, in order to protect their beloveds. Thus, Cooper and Gyrich could not know who would be murdered for their failure.
Surprising? No. She worked for the government. She knew what they were capable of. Nonetheless, frustrating as hell, and she was scared. Scared of failure. She had been the government’s liaison to Freedom Force and X-Factor in the past--both failed mutant-hunting units. She had the experience. But with that experience came the knowledge that field missions could go wrong at any time. That fact, coupled with the natural fragility of life itself, made this the worst job she could have been assigned.
Her only consolation was that provided by fate. Fate, who was fed up with Gyrich’s virulent acts, and had assigned him the same task as Cooper. She wondered which of Gyrich’s friends or family would be targeted in the case of his failure, but she always came to the same conclusion: Gyrich could not possibly have any loved ones, so it was he who would be murdered as compensation. She liked that conclusion. She could almost forgive Fate for putting her in this situation.
Before her morbid, satisfying reverie could progress, Val noted the lanky, spectacled, business suit-clad, middle-aged woman being escorted toward their table. She recognized the woman as Raven Darkholme--Mystique’s mild-mannered alter-ego. After all, and blue-skinned mutant female couldn’t just walk into Elegante and tell the host that she had reserved a table.
Even before the pudgy, male host could seat Raven, Gyrich barked, “You’re late.”
Raven gave the host a warm, curt smile before he left, then ran her hands through her chestnut hair, which rested easily on her shoulders. “I had to sneak in a quick shower before I came,” she replied.
“Washington called about half an hour ago,” Val said. “It took a few hours to transport him, but Creed’s safely in their custody.”
“Good. I never want that job again,” Raven shook her head as she glanced over the beverage menu.
“Why? What went wrong?” Gyrich asked.
Raven held up her index finger. “Just a sec,” then she continued across the menu. Before she began again, she took pride in the reddening of Gyrich’s face. “I had to off his assistant. Took some trickery with the commlink between Sabretooth, but I got it done. She was a tiny little thing, but she put up a pretty good fight. I took a coffee mug right across my cheek. Right before I pumped two rounds into her head.”
Val shivered at the details. Raven took a morbid joy from THAT, too, and wanted more. “When I heard some gurgled breaths, I put two more into her chest. Then I took her form and stepped into the little ladies’ room to clean up. The rest is history.”
The waiter arrived and took their drink orders.
“And Creed was taken in by your masquerade?” Gyrich asked with as much sincerity as he was capable of. After all, Val mused, his life probably depended on the success of Mystique’s mission.
“I captured him, didn’t I?” Raven replied, visibly offended. “He asked a few questions right after I greased that tramp secretary of his, but he wasn’t suspicious. This time.”
“What do you mean?” Val asked.
“I don’t want to have to deal with Sabretooth that closely again. If you ever have to recapture him--and you probably will--send someone else.”
“Is the little mutant scared?” Gyrich sheepishly teased.
“I’ve got a history with him, Mister Gyrich. And he with me.”
“Surely he can’t stir up any...emotions in you,” Val confirmed.
“Of course not. But I’m a girl who likes her secrets. Vict--Sabretooth knows me better than most people, and he may be able to detect things in me that others can’t.”
“You’re not supposed to have secrets as long as you’re under our employment,” Gyrich said.
Raven smiled at his naiveté. She would always have secrets, of course. “Anyway, it’s not employment. It’s blackmail as long as you’ve got...you’ve got little Trevor in your crosshairs.” The waiter arrived with a 7-Up for Val, a cup of coffee for Gyrich (they were still on government hours), and a martini for Raven, who couldn’t offer the waiter the same warm smile she had earlier given the host--not with the mention of Trevor Chase still fresh on her lips.
Gyrich took a boisterous sip from his cup. Then, “Kid seemed pretty sick to me, anyway. Probably isn’t worth the bullet we’d put in his head if you screw up.”
Raven took her drink in hand, hunched in her seat, and gave Gyrich a searing glare, her golden eyes shining through her otherwise ordinary form. “I’m looking at you, Petey, and I’m thinking the exact same thing.”
Gyrich flushed a mouthful of water down his suddenly-dried throat--now, the glass was empty. Raven downed her martini a moment later, wiped her mouth, and stood from the table.
“Where are you going?” Val asked.
Raven looked mockingly at Gyrich when she said, “It’s a secret. I just needed a drink. I’m a busy gal. Places to be. You know.” With that, she walked away.
A smile stretched across Val’s face as she saw two twitching vanes wind along Gyrich’s forehead. Henry Peter Gyrich, who had arrived with a lion’s roar, and now whimpered after a mutant stare. Henry Peter Gyrich, who wouldn’t be able to keep down the order the waiter had arrived to take. Henry Peter Gyrich, who Mystique would visit in his worst nightmares, even if he never said so.
Fate was a beautiful ballerina. Packing an uzi.
...just had to get his hands on her.
Creed’s eyes shot back open, but this time, he was greeted not with the darkness of Paige’s musty apartment, but with a momentarily blinding, overhead, fluorescent light in a ten-by-ten feet, white-walled, sterile room. He struggled to open his eyes further. That gas had hit him hard.
Gradually, he was able to discern a clear barrier between the small room in which he was kept and an even smaller space on the other side, where three men in suits stood side by side, observing him. The bookends were similar in appearance: mid-thirties, black suits, red ties, polished Oxfords, thin-rimmed eyeglasses, well-groomed, square-jawed, stone-faced. The man in the middle was noticeably different, exuding a different kind of authority with his striped business jacket, white trousers that matched the interior of the room, shining, white, lizard skin boots, a diamond around each pinky, bubbling, rosy cheeks, beady, blue eyes--all accompanied by an intricately designed and utterly unnecessary walking stick, adorned with an emerald gem encased in a gold top. Don Corleone wasn’t dead; he’d just headed south to play ringmaster in the circus.
Creed’s glassy gaze soon saw past the men on the other side of the clear wall, and into his own reflection. He didn’t look the same anymore. His hair. Gone! These creeps had shaved his head while he was out! His fists clenched, and he tried to mouth an incensed threat, but only managed an embarrassing, pitiful moan.
With a southern drawl that made Creed’s hairy flesh crawl, the flashy old bugger in the middle chuckled at the mutant’s reaction. “You boys head on outside,” he directed the two men at his sides. “Mister Creed an’ I have a thing or two to discuss.”
Once the two men exited the room, the devilish old man continued with a mocking bow. “United States Representative Mickey P. Primrose, atcher service. From one civil servant to another, I bid thee howdy-do.”
Creed was still too dazed to stand or form words, but the troubled look on his face said enough.
“Yessir, yer workin’ for the gubment again, Mister Creed. Like it or not. Lemme explain.” Primrose crouched down to meet Creed, eye to glazed eye, secure behind the clear wall. “I understand y’aren’t so much in a position t’ask questions right now, so I’ll just lay it out for you: No matter how much the public comes t’trust you mutant folk, fact is, yer a threat. All’a ya. So it’s the nation’s duty t’protect its decent, NORMAL citizens from that threat. Turns out, best way t’do that is t’put you muties on our side, huntin’ yer own kind. It’s worked in the past--put y’all on a payroll an’ watch the freaks fly--but it never lasts. So, as the House Chairman of the Committee on Mutant Affairs, it’s mah job t’go about this premise at a new angle. ‘Stead of gettin’ paid, our mutant-huntin’ task force is gonna work for the lives of their loved ones. They blow a mission, we send some agents t’take out their family members or lovers. I like it. Makes things more interesting, don’tcha think?”
Though Creed had resigned to sitting leaned against the back wall of his cell, he had finally found the strength to speak. “Wish I’d thought of it. But you really think a ploy like that could keep me in line?”
“No siree. That’s why, if you screw up, we just cut out the middle man an’ kill YOU. Consequence of bein’ such a conniving bastard yer whole life, y’could say.”
“You aren’t a member of my fan club, are you, Primrose?” Creed quipped.
“Y’know, strike what I just said,” Primrose said after a moment’s thought. “Yer not completely abominable. There was a woman in yer life. Name of Mystique, right?”
“Bah! Me and her were just a fling. Fun while it lasted.”
“Hm...” Primrose nodded.
“Wasn’t love, though,” Creed continued.
“But you two had a little one some time ago, correct?”
“Yeah. Little Graydon Creed. ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ ‘An assassinated presidential candidate!’ Don’t hear that one much, eh?”
“All my kids are back in ‘bama sellin’ Chryslers,” Primrose smiled, almost sympathetically. “Yer boy’s murder had mah office workin’ overtime for month’s tryin’ t’find the...er...gunman.”
“What kind of gun turns a man to dust?” Creed chuckled. “You ever find the guy who did it?”
“’Fraid not,” Primrose sighed.
“Figures. My money’s on Mommy Dearest.”
“Our investigation didn’t find any evidence linkin’ Mystique t’Creed’s death. No more than any of her then-teammates in X-Factor.”
“Yeah, and one guy shot Kennedy,” Victor snorted. “Back to the issue: Who says I’m gonna work for ya? Sure, I can play along until you let me outta this cell, but then what? Then I play Slip’n’Slide with your entrails.”
Primrose shook his head at that indignation. “Yer head isn’t shaved cuz it looks good, cuz it don’t.”
“It’s growin’ on me.”
“While you were dreamin’ ‘bout livers and kidneys, I had our best guys makin’ you Y2K-compatible.”
“Lame joke,” Creed quipped. “New year’s a few months old now.”
“At any rate, now you’ve got an implant in yer skull that’ll fry yer brain like Gramma’s chitlin’s if we so desire.”
“You did that for little ol’ me?! I feel so bad. I didn’t get you anything. You guys have tried this sort of thing before, with nullifying collars and whatnot. Didn’t work then, and I can’t see how it’s going to work now. I’m a masochistic mutha, and I’ll gradually adapt to any pain you try to inflict.”
Primrose grinned proudly. “Not this kind of pain. Try it if you want. I’m just sayin’, don’t step outta line. Do as yer told, and everything’ll be hachoo sneeze, cool like the breeze, hear?” Primrose stood.
“That all?” Creed asked, unconvinced of the politician’s claim.
“For now,” he answered as he started out the door. “But there’ll be more later. Adios, amigo!”
Gently, the door closed, and Creed huffed in his holding pen. Hadn’t they learned that they couldn’t keep him in line? Hadn’t he made it clear when he sliced through an entire contingent of mutant hunters some months ago?* He’d show them he was impervious to their devices. Fists clenched. He charged for the barrier that blocked him from the door.
Within an inch of his goal, the room was illuminated with an electrical surge emanating from his head. And, once again, he went down.
An hour and a half later, Val Cooper and Henry Peter Gyrich arrived in the Washington D.C. office of Representative Primrose. During the flight to the capital from New York, the two agents had decided that Val would be the one to deliver the good news to Primrose. But, while this was certainly news Primrose would appreciate, Val was convinced that it wasn’t “good” at all.
“The unit has been fully assembled, sir,” she said, sitting in one of the two cushy chairs opposite of Primrose’s well-organized desk, the seat beside her occupied by Gyrich, who had worn a funny little grin ever since they had boarded the plane at La Guardia International Airport.
Primrose sported a jubilant smile as well, for a more obvious reason: mutants were about to be captured en masse, followed by how many votes for Primrose in the next election. “Good t’hear, Miss Cooper! I’ve got some news too! The Trojan Horse Treatment was a success. Creed’s officially our puppet, in the case that our strike force should try to rebel. With the push of a button, we can engage the little chip in his brain, and let the bloodfest begin, if it ever comes t’that!”
“Did the doctors say how he was holding up after the procedure?” Val asked, not out of concern for the mutant killer, but instead because she hoped for bad news. Maybe fate would look down on the beast as it had Gyrich.
“He’s doin’ fine. In fact, I just visited him a few hours ago, after the procedure.”
Val’s brow furrowed. “You...met with him, sir? I thought--”
“I know I told y’all that the muties ain’t supposed t’know ‘bout me, an’ that’s still the case. They should know that y’all are takin’ orders from someone when you oversee them, but they can’t know who that someone is. Let ‘em think it’s the Pope, or Doctor Doom, even! As long as they don’t know for sure, cuz then they’ll know who to eliminate when they want to ease their troubles for good. An’ I like breathin’.”
“Then why did you meet with Creed?” Gyrich asked.
“Cuz he’s a special case,” Primrose continued. “On the surface, he’s a member of the task force, but we all know he’s there to put down any possible rebellion. I wanna make him feel like part of the family, so he’ll be more willin’ to come through for us if we ever need him--Sonny Lord forbid that should ever happen.”
Val nodded to hide her disgust. Near-innocent mutants were being subjected to forced labor for the government while that very same government was siding with the likes of Victor Creed. Something wasn’t right.
“So let’s run it down, folks,” Primrose announced. “We’ve got the mercenary Domino in custody outside of Fall’s Edge after that installation’s destruction a few days ago. An’ her designate is?”
“Two of them, actually,” Gyrich answered. “We found she’s been boarding two children in her home in Pleasantville, New York. A teenager named Angela Campbell and an infant Domino refuses to name, but Campbell calls him Christopher. Last name unknown.”
“So, she screws up, we terminate ‘em both. Works for me,” Primrose said rather casually. “Next up is Lorna Dane, the mutant wench known as Polaris. We’ve got her t’blame for the big crater where Fall’s Edge used t’be.”
Gyrich’s lips tightened and strained at the mention of his failure to contain Polaris. “Wench indeed,” he mumbled. “Her designate is Alex Summers, also known as Havok.”
“These mutants sure can come up with some names,” Primrose noted. “’Cyclops’, ‘Havok’, ‘Polaris’.... Like they aren’t freakish enough. Who’s next?”
“Guido Carosella, who prefers ‘Strong Guy’ in the field,” Val said.
“See what I mean!” Primrose interjected.
“Designate’s Jamie Madrox--the Multiple Man from X-Force,” Val continued. “Then there’s Mystique, who has taken a strange, almost-motherly fascination with a dying boy named Trevor Chase. We still haven’t determined the boy’s illness, but we suspect possibly the Legacy Virus. At any rate, he’s her designate.”
“Let’s hope Mystique doesn’t fail us,” Primrose sighed. “Even I can’t bring myself t’kill a kid.”
“What about Domino?” Val asked. “Both of her designates are children as well.
“Yeah, her too,” Primrose added.
“The final member is Sabretooth,” Gyrich said, breaking the somber mood with his dull drone. “He’s got no designate. And that rounds out the latest version of X-Factor.”
At that, Primrose shot Gyrich an urgent glare. “Ah ah. We’ve discussed this before. This strike force is NOT X-Factor. It’s...nothin’. No headquarters. No group vehicle. No paycheck. No picnics or softball games. Nothin’ like that. We can’t give them anything t’rally around. Not even a shared group title, cuz if they can collectively identify with somethin’, it only encourages mutiny that much more. I’ll say it again: This is NOT X-Factor.”
Gyrich swallowed his humble pie. “My mistake.”
“An’ on that note,” Primrose said, standing from behind his desk, Gyrich doing the same as they cordially shook hands, “I really do appreciate yer help with all this, Agent Gyrich.”
“It’s been a pleasure.”
Confused as ever by this display of coordination, Val stood and wrapped her hands around her sides. “What’s this? What’s going on?”
“My job’s done here, toots,” Gyrich replied. “I was just assigned to bring the mutants in. You get to deal with them from here on out.”
“You conniving.... No, that can’t be. I can’t handle these six, uncooperative mutants by myself.”
“You won’t have to, Agent Cooper,” Primrose said as he touched a finger to the comm unit at his desk. “Let him in, Molly,” he spoke into the speaker.
All eyes turned to the door of the office, none more intently than Val’s. And for good reason, for when the door opened, it revealed a face all too familiar to her.
“Sh-Shawn?” she gasped.
“Sis?” was the man’s reply.
Fate. Cursed fate.
Manhattan. Later that night.
In her landing, Mystique’s boots rapped gracefully on the roof of the FoodWay supermarket as she retracted the white, feathery wings granted her by her mutant shape-changing power. Her breath came in heaving spurts, but she wasn’t tired--she had only flown fifteen or twenty feet upward. And her eyes, they lit the nighttime with an excitement unaccommodated by the siren-filled frenzy in the parking lot below.
“I thought we’d acquired the final player in this game when I captured Victor.” She grinned. “But I just found one more, and his name is Black Marvel.”