Episode One : Part Two
Lorna was still fuming when she got to her room at the living facilities at the Triskelion. She slammed the door shut behind her and leaned against the wall, right of the doorway. “I can’t believe X did this!” she muttered to herself.
The room couldn’t have been blander if it were just four gray walls and air. It was actually four gray walls, a bed with plain, neatly spread white sheets, a wooden dresser with little more than a deodorant and a hairbrush on it, and a wall closet.
A click of the door alerted her that Alex was entering. She remained silent as he walked over and sat on the bed. “I can’t believe X thinks he can trust Howlett. What’s worse is that he put him on the team!” said Lorna.
“I know. I'm not too keen on him either. Ask me, they ought to forcibly extract the truth from that guy. I won't forget what he did to us.” Alex replied.
They both had reasons not to trust the new teammate. Things that go back to before they even joined the agency.
Lorna walked over to Alex with an expression on her face so resolute that, at least at this point, it was evident that no one could be able to change her mind. “I'm leader and I don't want him on my team. That's the end of it.” she said.
A voice came from the doorway behind her, “He's not unlike you. Don't be too quick to judge.”
“You’re Magneto's kids. You chose to stand against him. So too was Howlett on his side with his father. So it took him a little longer to come to his senses, but he did. I trust him.” He said.
Lorna’s expression softened and she tried to get the man to see things from her perspective. “Forge, sweetheart, I don- . I just DONT trust him. It's just that... when we tried to get away from our father we tried to get him to be a part of our plan. He pretended to stand with us. Then he went back to Dad and sold us out.”
“He’s probably better for the team than any weapon I make.” said Forge. He walked over, gently put his arms around Lorna and pulled her into a tight hug. Forge and Lorna had been together since shortly after she joined the agency. He too was a part of the X-agents and has been through all the training, but he better served in studying and designing weaponry and tech for the team.
“And this is my cue. See you later sis.” said Alex.
“Do me a favour Alex.” said Lorna. “Check up on the twins.”
“Will do.” Alex replied.
As he left through the door Alex wondered about how Howlett joining the team must really be stressing Lorna. How could X do this to her and him? Though, he and his sister were always constantly bickering, disagreeing and fighting, they did care very much about each other. They’d been through a lot together and Alex never could stand to see her hurt in anyway.
He made his way down the white painted halls. The ceilings were low and the ambiance a cross between a hospital and an office. Not very homey, but this is where the agents called “home”, most of the time. The hallways took him to a double, swinging door with glass windows on each side. On the glass to the left the translucent white word “Juniors” was plastered. He went through into that hallway.
The first door he passed, to his right, was opened. It was a room similar to Lorna’s expect much better decorated and looking more like a bedroom somebody actually sleeps in. In it was a young man with bowl cut brown hair leaning against his dresser with Anole standing about an inch too close to him. The young man seemed to be trying to contain a gleeful smile while Anole hovered above him and saying something with one of the few expressions Alex has known him to make. Alex called this one the “I like” expression.
Alex scoffed and rolled his eyes as he passed them. “How old is that kid, sixteen?” he whispered, not quite to himself. Of, course, the X-agents weren’t much older. Alex, Lorna and Ali were all nineteen, Anole was twenty and Forge twenty two. Howlett would now be the youngest at seventeen.
The next door Alex encountered was to another room, this one painted pink. The TV was on and some cartoon was on it but the girls in the room weren’t watching. The two of them looked like the average thirteen year olds, playing with metal blocks that were levitating inside the room and giggling up a storm talking about God knows what.
One of the girls was a redhead and the other brunette. Fraternal twins.
“You Gals ok?” Alex asked with a light face and a charming smile.
“Yeah, Alex. We’re great.” Said the redhead while she sat on the carpet and focussed on the blocks.
“Wanna join us?” said the brunette. She was tactful and clumsily trying to climb and manoeuvre herself among the blocks.
“Nah, I’ll see you later. Got some stuff to do.” He said as he made his way pass the doors and continued along the hallway. He was glad to see the girls could still be... kids.
The next day the team were all in their conference room again, this time with Howlett present and seated. X stood at the front of the room at the head of the oval table, Lorna was still sitting in front of Alex close to the front on one side. She still appeared disgruntled at Howlett’s presence; so did Alex to a lesser extent. Howlett and Ali sat opposite them near the front while, as usual, Anole was at the far back end.
X took out what appeared to be an ordinary laser pointer device and pointed and pushed a small red button. A three dimensional hologram of the globe appeared at the center of the table. It then rotated and flattened as the hologram panned and zoomed to a pea shaped island far off the coast of the US and alone in the Pacific.
“The latest progress being made by Magneto is on an island called Savage Land. It was once populated by the Morlocks before they moved out into recognized political states. It is believed that he's constructing machines, sentinels to destroy all mutants.” said X in his usual calm tone.
Lorna seemed a little wary. “So this is just another factory bust.” she said. Apparently she wasn’t so convinced of the authenticity if the “intel”.
X continued, “Intel also cites that this is their last known base of operations.”
Lorna did a slight jump in her seat, suddenly realizing that this could mean that Magneto might actually still be present on the island. “So what are we waiting for?!” she said. Lorna, more than anyone else, wanted to bring in Magneto. In fact, it was all she worked at Agency X for.
“Don’t be so hasty Lorna. Magneto is not something you want to run into.” Ali interjected with her usual elegant comportment.
“We should know better than anyone. He's our DAD.” Alex added.
X took two steps closer to the team, peering at them sternly with his single, unpatched eye. “He’s right, Lorna.” he said. “They’re both right. You can’t take him lightly. You need to know as much as possible to prepare yourself before going in. I kept this info from you because I didn’t want to distract you from other missions while I gathered what information I could.”
It was a smart move X made keeping this from the team till now. Lorna would have lost focus on all the previous missions and it might have severely affected the team. She has always been a bit obsessed about finding, stopping and taking her father in. She would have spent even more sleepless nights researching and reviewing information, strategizing and probably even drilling Howlett, had she known about him.
“Well what we know so far is that his base is built into the ridges of the savage land hills. There are still some mutants living in the land but many don't go as far as the hills.” said X.
“Perfect cover, no one would expect Magneto to live on mutant-island.” said Ali.
“Even with Forge’s technology and Cipher’s abilities we can't take the craft too close to their HQ. So you'll have to land on the outskirts and make way by foot.” Continued X. “You have to treat this mission with the utmost delicacy. We absolutely cannot be sloppy. All directives must be followed to the T”
“Yes Commander.” said Lorna.
.............................
Hundred’s of miles away Magneto stood, in a purple suit with white pinstripes, peering through the widows of a control station. His hair was silver white and his face pale and ominous as a demon.
Below the station in a room big enough to fit a house, were rows and rows of androids. The androids were all identical and looked remarkably human, dark haired and blue eyes. Indeed these machines would shock the world when released.
“It's almost time, Logan. When we launch the sentinel programme our work will be one step closer to complete.” He said......... To be continued
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