Gifted (12 page)

“My ‘contribution’ is yet to come. In the meantime, the mutants will pay for what they did to my face.”

Yes, because you were such a hot commodity on date nights before that happened
. “The dragon did it to your face,” she corrected him. “The dragon isn’t a mutant. He’s an alien, like you. Try to get it straight.” Ord glowered at her with his one visible eye. “Your anger is a liability. You should keep it in check.”

Then an armored hand clamped down on her shoulder, jolting her. “One day, Doctor Rao, you will see my anger.”

She fought a wave of nausea that threatened to incapacitate her. His touch was vile. Part of her wanted to scream for Henry to return and stop this creature from ever laying a hand on her again. But she’d been speaking the truth when she’d said Henry was long gone.

She pulled her shoulder away from Ord. He could have held on to it, but instead he released it, apparently feeling he’d proven his point. “You are a pawn, my esteemed Doctor Rao,” he said, “in a grand scheme. You could not comprehend its scope.”

“Then I won’t try,” she said carelessly. She walked over to the observation window and looked down upon Tildie, sleeping, devoid of nightmares. “I have more important concerns.”

130
 

EDWARD
Tancredi didn’t know he was going to punch Jay Guthrie in the face until he did it.

Jay was in the den, watching the
News at Noon
. Of course, the news people were talking about the cure.

Jay was a fairly quiet individual, the same as Edward. He tended to keep to himself and seemed a bit uncomfortable with people. His hair was a disarrayed mass of red, and on his back he sported huge reddish-brown wings that he kept enfolded around his upper body when he was sitting. The wings, and the power of flight they provided him, prompted his code name of “Icarus.” They all had code names. Edward’s was “Wing,” which somehow seemed more appropriate to Jay’s look than his own. Indeed, Hisako had suggested that Edward change his code name to “Float,” but he’d disagreed, convinced he’d be subjected to endless ice-cream jokes.

Jay glanced up at him and said, “Eddie, Eddie, Eddie Tancredi,” which prompted Edward to think he might as well have gone with “Float” after all, if people were going to find something related to his
131
name to kid him about. Jay nodded toward the TV. “Check it out.”

Edward walked in and saw, on the screen, footage of a long line of mutants standing outside the Benetech labs. Crowd-control barricades had been set up, forming the mutants into lines, the most massive lines Edward had seen since the last time he’d attended the San Diego Comic-Con. Some of the mutants looked relatively “normal.” The others had their mutations on the outside, an array of people with scaled skin, a walrus face, bodies of various colors. A rainbow coalition.

The newscaster was saying, “Hundreds of alleged mutants are lined up outside the Benetech labs demanding this ‘cure,’ with more showing up every hour. A Benetech spokesman says that with the proposal to expedite the FDA approvals stalled in committee due to opposition from the formidable Senator Kelly, it will be weeks before they can even begin a federal approval process for the serum…”

Edward watched the way Jay was staring at the television. He saw a longing in Jay’s face that made his gut twist in disgust. He picked up the remote and shut it off, causing Jay to snap his head around and look at him in irritation. “Dude, what the hell…?”

“You’re going to do it, aren’t you?”

“I haven’t even thought about it…”

“Yeah, you have. I can tell.”

“What are you, psychic now, too?” Jay got up from the chair and started to walk out, but Edward stepped in front of him. “Come on, dude, move…”

“Be honest,” said Edward challengingly.

Jay was about to brush him aside again, but then he stopped and looked defiantly at the shorter Edward. “Okay, fine. I’ve been thinking
132
about it. Okay? I’ve been thinking about nothing but.”

“And you’d give up this?” Edward began to float, the simplest manifestation of his abilities. “You’d give up this…all this…”

“No, but maybe I’d give up all this,” and he extended his wings, knocking over an empty bottle of soda. “You think this is what I wanted from my life? I had it all planned, man. I was gonna be in a band. I wanted singing to be my life. When I begged my mother to get me guitar lessons at age six—when I was practicing until my fingers bled—do you really think I was planning to sprout wings and have my life go completely off track?”

“It didn’t go off track! This
is
the track, and you’re having the ride of your life.”

“Says you! The way it is now, the only way I get to be a famous singer is in some alternate universe where there’s no more mutants. Instead I’m stuck in this one, and it sucks! I’ll probably wind up dead before I’m twenty!”

“I just…” Edward shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re going to turn into one of those lemmings, sending the wrong message…”

“What’s the ‘wrong message?’ What the hell are you talking ab—”

“That it’s okay! That it’s okay to just…just stick a needle in someone’s arm and make them into something they’re not!
This
is what you are!” and he grabbed one of Jay’s wings.

Jay reflexively yanked it clear. He thumped his chest and said, “No! This is what I am! In here! But when people look at me they just see a bunch of feathers on my back!” His voice rose in anger. “And if I decide I want to get rid of them, then that’s my choice! Okay, you little jerk?” He tried to move past him, and Edward’s fist flew as if by its own accord.
133
He hit Jay squarely in the face, splitting his lip. Jay put his hand to his mouth, and it came away with blood.

He lunged at Edward and missed clean as Edward vaulted straight up, out of reach. But then Jay opened his mouth, filling the room with high-powered sonics. Edward clapped his hands to his ears, his focus gone, and the moment he was on the ground, Jay was upon him. He slammed Edward to the floor and tried to punch him in the face. Edward raised his forearms to absorb the blows.

The sounds of battle were bringing other students running, and Edward was seized with a desperation to get out from under the pounding he was taking from Jay. That desperation translated into fury. He grabbed the bottle that had fallen off the table by the neck and brought it up and around, banging it into the side of Jay’s head. Edward didn’t have much upper-body strength, so it was hardly a lethal blow, but it was sufficient to dislodge him. He tumbled back. Edward scrambled to his feet and hauled Jay up with one hand, which was easy to do since Jay’s bones were fairly light.

Had he been thinking ahead—had he indeed had any serious combat training—Edward would have realized the flaw in that tactic. If he’d kept Jay on his back, Jay’s wings would have been pinned and useless. As it was, because he was upright, Jay’s wings were freed. They began to flap with great ferocity, propelling the two of them toward a picture window. Just as other students arrived on the scene, Edward and Jay smashed through the window.

On television and in the movies, people crashed through windows and quickly bounded to their feet, surrounded by broken glass but ready for more fighting. The reality, Edward learned, was very different.
134
He and Jay lay dazed on the ground, outside the building. Jay’s wings had actually absorbed much of the impact, but it was still enough to rattle both their brains. And the glass was sharp. Both of them had cuts and gashes on their faces and upper arms, and rips in their shirts.

They lay there amid the shattered glass, gasping for air. It was an effort for both of them to stand. The world swirled around Edward as he tried to focus. Through lips that were already swelling up, he said thickly, “You…are
such
a
tool…
”

Even though the world was still spinning from his point of view, Edward began to rise off the ground. “Come up here and say that.”

“You got it.” Jay’s wings started to flap. Edward immediately covered his eyes as little bits of glass flew in all directions. Jay backed up, shaking the last of the glass from his feathers. Then he suddenly angled downward, dive-bombing toward Edward.

They were still only a couple feet off the ground, and Edward started to rise to meet the charge. Abruptly something grabbed him around the ankle and yanked hard. He was helpless to resist as he was slammed to the ground with even more force than when he’d crashed through the window.

Logan looked down at Edward with great annoyance.

Jay tried to brake, but he had too much speed going downward. Without even deigning to look in his direction, Logan swung his palm back, catching Jay across the face. Had Logan made the move at full speed, it would have crushed Jay’s skull. As it was, the strength of the Adamantium skeleton inside Logan’s hand was sufficient to knock Jay to one side. Spiraling at an angle, he ricocheted off the side of the building and rolled to a stop two feet away from Edward.

135
There was silence for a moment. Then Logan said in obvious disgust, “I’d ask what this was all about if I gave a crap. You’re both idiots.”

Jay hung his head, but Edward still had enough spirit in him to say, “Right, because getting into fights…you’d never do anything like that.”

Logan reached down and picked up one of the largest shards of glass. Without a word he slid it across his forearm, leaving a vicious trail of blood. He held the arm up to Edward’s face. Edward felt a little sick, seeing such a nasty gash so close up.

Within seconds it had healed over completely. There wasn’t the slightest hint of any damage.

“Can you do that?” said Logan. Edward shook his head. “Then shut up.”

“Yessir,” said Edward.

“Get your asses to the infirmary…”

“No need.” One of the other students, Josh Foley, was climbing out the window. His skin was golden; even his tousled hair shared the same color. If he’d been bald, he’d have looked like an Oscar statue come to life. He dropped to the ground and walked quickly over to them. He put one hand on Edward’s arm and another on Jay’s.

It took Josh a full minute to cause the gashes in their skin and all other damage to melt away, just as Wolverine’s injuries had vanished.

“Handy,” said Logan. “What do they call you again?”

“Elixir,” Josh said. He sounded a bit dubious. “I’m not wild about it. I was hoping for something like,” and he held up a hand and said dramatically, “Messiah.” Then he paused when he saw Logan’s face. “Too much?”

“Just a little.” Logan turned to Jay and chucked a thumb toward
136
the mansion. “You, in there. You, the wingless wonder: over there. Stay there until someone comes for you.” He pointed toward a bench situated some distance away in the garden. “I don’t want the two of you in the same place until you’ve had a chance to cool off. Understood?”

“Yessir,” Edward said once more.

He rose up off the ground and took one last defiant look at Jay. “This is who we are,” he said, and then glided across the way to the bench.

He was still sitting there when Kitty Pryde plopped down onto the seat next to him. He glanced at her. She smiled. He didn’t smile back.

“So I understand we had a problem a bit earlier,” said Kitty.

He shrugged.

“Ah, the teenage shrug,” she said. “I know it well. Done it myself more than once.”

“You say that like you’re so much older than me,” retorted Edward. “You’re not, y’know. Only a few years.”

“It’s not the years, honey. It’s the mileage.” When he didn’t reply, she said, “
Raiders of the Lost Ark
.”

“I know. I get it.”

“Good. But I don’t get why you’re suddenly throwing down with Icarus. You want to fill me in on that?”

He didn’t answer immediately. He stared off into the sky, imagining himself there, his arms spread wide, the wind in his face, the feeling of complete and utter freedom. It was incomparable. Who in their right mind would even think of giving that up, of becoming less than they were?

He continued the stream of consciousness into actual words, not
137
caring that he wasn’t directly answering Kitty’s question. “First time I landed, I broke both my legs.”

She nodded, not interrupting him.

“I kinda just assumed if I was flying, I was invulnerable, too. Which is, uhm…not actually that bright,” he admitted sheepishly. “But you know…they sometimes go together and yeah, then I was freaked out for a while, just freaked by the whole concept. It was
unnatural
. But when I got good at it…when I
got
it, I mean…

“
Flying
. Jeez…

“When you’re flying, the world goes away. It makes everything else…smaller…and sort of okay, too. It’s the most important feeling. I can’t lose that.”

“So that’s what this is about? You think you’re going to be forced to give up your power?”

“Among other things.”

“Okay, well that’s just not gonna happen.”

He looked at her as if noticing her for the first time. “It’s not?”

“Wing,” she said patiently, “just ’cause someone goes on TV and says they have a ‘cure for mutation,’ that doesn’t mean it’s true. And even if it is…nobody’s gonna force it on you. Mutants are a community. We’re a people, and there’s no way anybody can make us become what
they
want. We stick together…you’ll see. We’re stronger than this.”

He did nothing to keep the incredulity from his face or voice. “Miss Pryde…are you a freaking idiot?”

She scowled. Which wasn’t that big a deal. Logan scowls, you worry he’s going to gut you. Kitty Pryde scowls, and it’s almost kinda cute.

“Ex-
cuse
me?” she said. “I’m not thrilled about your tone or your
138
word choice—”

“Miss Pryde, we got people gunning for us with a serum that castrates us, and you’re worrying about my word choice?
Really?
” He shook his head, trying to find a way to get through to her, desperate to convey his concerns. “Look…I told you what it was like to fly. So there’s Jay, and he must have the same feelings I do about flying. He
has
to. There’s no way he couldn’t. But he was willing to just toss it all away. I mean…if it’s a mutant whose power is that he has red flaky skin that itches all the time, and it keeps falling off and regrowing and he’s in actual, physical pain 24/7, then okay, yeah, I get it. Then it’s like a cure for your own personal hell. Fine. No one in his right mind could have a problem with that. But there’s Jay, and there’s others too, I know it, I’ve heard them talking about it. I mean, I know it was a hologram, but that Sentinel crashing through…Jeez. You’re training us to survive in a world where giant robots and evil mutants are going to try and kill us. How many others of us are gonna say, ‘Screw that. I’m just gonna be normal, and then those things won’t be out to kill us anymore.’”