Strange Things Done In The Midnight Sun: Part Two
Cable had been quite serious about the helicopter, it turned out. Alex wasn't really surprised; based on the relative distances and the nature of the terrain, it was the only logical way to get where they were going with any kind of speed. Their pilot, a slender Inuit woman with intense dark eyes and a definite air of competence - Cable had tersely introduced her to Alex as Aleqa - hadn't said a word beyond 'Hello' since they'd met her at the airfield. Alex figured she was too busy concentrating on her job, and frankly, he was perfectly content to let her do so. Crashing into an iceberg would certainly be an unfortunate end to this little sojourn of theirs.
Cable was sitting opposite him, checking his gear. He seemed to have lost his taste for very big guns, Alex noted. Then again, smaller models or not, he did have six of them--no, seven, Alex corrected himself as Cable pulled another out of his boot. Seven. Nice lucky number seven--
Alex blinked as Cable reversed his grip on the gun and offered it to him. "No thanks," he said, wishing he hadn't accepted the headset that let them communicate over the noise of the helicopter. Maybe if he hadn't, he could have gotten away with looking cute and bewildered. Who, me? What would I want with a gun? Then again, that would probably work better when the other person wasn't a telepath.
Cable gave him a disgusted look. "Take it," he said, his voice sounding harsher than usual as it echoed in Alex's earpiece. "Just in case." Alex hesitated for a moment, but then gave a philosophical shrug and accepted the weapon. He supposed it couldn't hurt to have something in case using his powers wasn't an option.
Examining the gun, Alex found himself a bit baffled by it. It was alarmingly light, and very obviously not technology from this century. He opened his mouth to ask Cable if there was anything he should know about the gun - buttons NOT to push, and so forth - but Cable gave him an even more contemptuous look that froze the words on his lips.
"You point and shoot," he said irritably. "It's not hard."
Alex gave him a deadpan look. "I actually had that part figured out," he said, studying Cable thoughtfully. Someone was definitely in a bad mood. Alex assumed it had to do with his presence, at least in part. *I wonder why he didn't just try and slip away without me--*
"I didn't want you calling in the cavalry," Cable said, sounding aggravated. "Trust me, if I'd been able to keep you from doing that, you'd have had the hotel room all to yourself when you woke up this morning."
If he'd been able? So much for that threat yesterday about 'convincing' me he just had weird taste in vacation spots. Alex frowned, opening his mouth to ask just what the hell he meant by that, but Cable went on curtly.
"You're clear on what we're doing?"
It was a deliberate change of subject, but Alex decided to let him get away with it. For now. "Pretty much. We go in quiet. You ransack their lab, do illegal things to their computer, and then we make as much of a mess as possible on the way out," Alex said. The plan was rather rudimentary, but Cable seemed confident enough, especially in his ability to get past their security systems. Thirty-eighth century technology was a hell of a rabbit to be able to pull out of one's hat, Alex supposed. "I still want to know what exactly you're after."
"And I still think you're under the mistaken impression that curiosity is a virtue," Cable shot back, reholstering his guns. "You promised no questions."
"No questions about your methods, I meant. I have little to no faith in your intentions, so pardon me if I don't really want to go into this completely blind."
Cable gave him one of those tight, 'fuck-you' sort of smiles. "We don't always get what we want, Alex. I didn't want you along, remember?"
Alex shrugged with a nonchalance he didn't really feel. "Fine. But if you being close-mouthed gets me killed, I'm going to come back and haunt you."
"I have dead people talking to me on a regular basis. Trust me, I'll cope." Cable sighed and then let his head fall back against the seat, his eyes going unfocused as he stared out the window.
"You all right?" Alex ventured, noticing how tired he looked. The hostile expression had sort of disguised the fatigue. "You didn't sleep much last night."
"No, I didn't. Hard to sleep when someone's lying there thinking suspicious thoughts at you all night."
Alex opened his mouth again, then closed it, feeling vaguely sheepish. Guilty as charged, so there wasn't much he could say to that.
***
He was ridiculously out of shape, Alex decided, trying to catch his breath. Too much time spent between dimensions or something, not that he should be making excuses. He definitely needed to stop panting. It was too quiet out here; if there was someone sentry-like wandering around on the glacier too, they'd probably be able to hear him huffing and puffing a mile away. Although Cable would probably have said something if they had company, he supposed.
Then again, Cable was somewhat occupied at the moment, fiddling with the television remote-sized gadget he'd claimed would fool the perimeter sensors into overlooking them while they waltzed down into the compound. Something was obviously wrong, because he had been at it for nearly ten minutes, and a delay that long hadn't been in the plan. They should have been down there sneaking around by now.
When Cable started to swear under his breath, Alex decided that he had to ask. "Problem?" he said quietly, blinking when Cable smacked the poor little thing a couple of times.
"It doesn't like the cold."
"You didn't think of that before you brought it to Greenland?"
Cable looked up at him, and the aurora was bright enough again tonight that Alex had no trouble at all seeing the malevolent look he was getting. "Most of my technology was designed to work in the desert. Sometimes the modifications don't work as well as they should." He smacked the device again and it gave a whirring sound, the lights on the front starting to blink in a pattern instead of randomly. "That's better," he said, planting it in the snow beside him and rising to his feet. "They're jammed. We've got fifteen minutes."
The last leg of their impromptu hike wasn't any more pleasant than the first few kilometers had been. Glaciers were interesting places, and Alex might have enjoyed this if it had been daylight and he hadn't been trying to follow Cable, who was moving entirely too fast for a man his size. He had stopped counting how many times he'd nearly taken a header into another crevasse, and was focusing instead on following exactly in Cable's footsteps, since the other man didn't seem to be having that problem. Better night vision, maybe. Although I wouldn't be surprised if he's setting this pace just to see if I won't give up and let him go on without me--
The compound was quiet--too quiet, as the cliche went. A little cluster of huts and other prefab buildings, it looked very much like a simple arctic research station. There was a guard tower, but it appeared to be empty, which Alex didn't like. If this was a Weapon X facility, he would have expected at least some of the security to be visible.
They made their way down into the heart of the compound, moving from building to building, taking advantage of the cover each provided. Cable was picking up the pace, and Alex debated suggesting that they slow down a little. Being enthusiastic about your objective was one thing, but rushing wasn't good. Slow and steady won the race a lot more often than fast and reckless--
Cable whirled on him suddenly as Alex came up behind him, and it took a fair amount of self-control not to yelp as his nephew grabbed him by the front of the parka. "Would you stop?" Cable hissed, sounding thoroughly frustrated. His eye was glowing fiercely, but Alex thought that this probably wasn't a good time to point out how inconspicuous that wasn't.
"Stop what?" he whispered instead, honestly not sure what he could be doing that was bad enough to make Cable start snarling at him about it in the middle of the compound full of bad guys that they were trying to infiltrate 'quietly'.
"Babbling! I'm trying to listen." Cable let go of him and took an unsteady step backwards, almost reeling against the side of the building.
Alex's stomach lurched and he grabbed Cable's arm, steadying him. "What is it?" he asked urgently, remembering to keep his voice low. He peered up anxiously at him, trying to decipher his expression in the dimness. He actually looks like he's in pain--
Cable squeezed his eyes shut, his breathing going measured and deep. "Nothing," he murmured after a few minutes, his expression clearing. "I'm fine." He opened his eyes and gestured at one of the smaller huts across from where they were now. "That's our ingress. Stay here while I check it out."
He's fine, I'm fine, we're all fucking fine, Alex thought inanely, watching him go. I should have told him to stick his stubborn streak where the sun didn't shine and called Westchester anyway. He saw Cable stop in front of the hut door and pull out a pen-shaped instrument of some sort, some sort of scanner to judge by the way he was waving it around. He seemed to have a gadget for every purpose, Alex thought. He would make a very good thief, I guess. Hell, he probably has at some point in the past. Now there's a thought: my nephew, the six foot eight, three hundred and fifty pound cat burglar--
Cable looked back in his direction, giving the all-clear gesture. Alex took a deep breath and started over at a jog, hoping that he wasn't going to regret not finding the nearest blunt instrument and using it on that overly thick skull. He suspected that doing so and dragging Cable back to the helicopter might have been a better option, even if it would have involved, well, dragging Cable back to the helicopter--
BOOOOMMMM!!!!
Coughing, Alex pushed himself up out of the snowbank where he'd landed. So much for going in quiet-- he thought dazedly, looking around and spotting Cable sprawled in another snowbank about twenty feet away. The little hut was in ruins, but there was no smoke, no fire, and Alex had the disconcerting impression that the explosion had been a distinctive golden color. Weird--very weird, actually, but he could puzzle over it later.
Struggling to his feet, he started to stagger over to Cable, who still hadn't moved. He was halfway there when the compound's floodlights came on and a shot rang out, biting into the ground at Alex's feet. He rocked backwards, nearly falling over as his balance chose that moment to try and desert him again.
"Freeze!" someone shouted from the guard tower, which was obviously not as empty as it had looked a few minutes ago. Maybe the guy had been inside grabbing a cup of coffee or something. Alex could hardly blame him if that was the case. "I said freeze! Hands above your head!"
"Already quite frozen, thank you very much," Alex muttered, and fired off a blast at the guard tower's base, disintegrating one of its supporting legs. It toppled, and Alex didn't wait to see if the person up there jumped clear or not. He started running in Cable's direction, but hadn't gone more than a few steps when the door to another of the prefab buildings crashed open and another man with a rifle was standing there.
He fired first, before Alex could let off a blast to discourage him, and this time it wasn't a warning shot. Vest or no vest, the impact of the bullet was like being kicked in the chest, and Alex staggered and fell, gasping for air.
At that point, reinforcements started to boil up out of the building like--angry ants or some such thing. He was too busy trying to breathe to think of the proper image. Still wheezing, he was just beginning to push himself back up out of the snow when some particularly bold soldier ran right up to him.
The last thing Alex saw was the butt of a rifle coming at his head.
***
The first thing he noticed as he regained consciousness was that he had a monumental headache. Sort of like several hangovers at once, really. Alex raised his head, blinking blearily around at the room. There wasn't much to see: no windows, one very sturdy-looking door, nothing at all in the way of decor. Not a good sign. He'd been in rooms like this before, and those occasions had rarely been pleasant.
As he continued to take stock of his current circumstances, he realized that while he was sitting in a chair rather than hanging from the ceiling or anything similarly unpleasant, his hands were cuffed behind his back and he had an inhibitor collar on. All very not-good things, although he supposed it could be worse. He was alone, which disturbed him. Cable could very well be in a similar room next door. Alex just wished that he knew, one way or the other.
The door opened and Alex forced himself to focus on sizing up the man who entered. He was middle-aged but fit-looking, and although he wasn't in uniform, Alex would have wagered the bank account that he probably no longer had in this reality (being dead and all) that this was the base commander. He certainly carried himself like he was military, and the air of authority was unmistakable.
"Welcome back, Mr. Summers," the newcomer said pleasantly enough. Alex decided that he would have preferred threats, or at least questions right off the bat. At least then he would have been sure where he stood. "You're looking reasonably well for a dead man."
Alex managed a thin smile. "So I've been told," he said and coughed, trying to clear his throat. It gave him another moment to study the man, who was beginning to look vaguely familiar the longer Alex thought about it. "Have we met?" he ventured, searching his memory and coming up with nothing.
The man shrugged. "Once or twice in meetings while you were with X-Factor," he said diffidently. "But I don't believe we were ever formally introduced."
"Ah. You must have been one of the little people sitting in the back." His comment got a raised eyebrow in response, but Alex went on as blithely as he could manage. "So what am I doing here? Don't get me wrong, I'm glad your people out there didn't just shoot me in the head and leave me for the local wildlife, but that does leave me wondering what you want."
"We weren't expecting you, obviously," the man said calmly, and Alex realized that this wasn't someone who was going to be unsettled by a little witty banter. Drat. "Your presence complicates the situation, but we're not adverse to putting you on a plane and sending you home. Or somewhere else, if you prefer."
"I see," Alex lied. This was unexpected. Also a little suspicious; he doubted the offer was being made out of regard for his service with X-Factor. "That's unusually accommodating of you. Before I leap at the opportunity, though, I'd really like to know what you want in return."
The man didn't bat an eye. "Cable," he said simply. "You aren't the person we expected to be sitting in this room, Mr. Summers."
Alex managed to limit his reaction to a tight smile. Shouting 'Woo-hoo!' wouldn't have done much to help his position here, although it was awfully tempting. If Cable had managed to avoid getting caught, his own situation looked a lot better than it had a minute ago. Nathan might not like him much, but Alex didn't think he'd leave him here.
"This was a set-up, wasn't it?" he asked, magnanimously deciding to forgive his nephew for running off and leaving him to face the music. *Well, assuming he does come back for me, of course.* "The door was rigged somehow."
"A psionic trip mine," was the casual answer. "He used his telekinesis to manipulate the lock on the door and set it off, just as we expected."
"Nasty," Alex said, and meant it. He had some familiarity with anti-psi technology, and a mine like that was meant to injure, as well as incapacitate. "So why the trap? What's he done to piss you people off so badly?"
He wasn't really expecting an answer to that, but surprisingly, he got one. "I don't know where you've been for the last year or so, Mr. Summers," the man said, regarding him thoughtfully, "but Cable has apparently cut his ties with the X-Men completely. He's been involving himself in various regional conflicts, interfering with some very sensitive black projects."
"Let me guess--yours?" Alex said dryly.
"Recently, yes. Some of what he's done elsewhere has been to our advantage, although I'm sure that wasn't his intention. But he didn't recognize when it was time to draw the line. Our operations have suffered, and we can't allow that to continue."
"Sounds like the Cable I know," Alex said with a sigh, wincing as he tried to move his head from side to side. Typical, that the truth of the situation beat out all the worse-case scenarios he had entertained before getting on the helicopter. He was insufficiently pessimistic, that was the problem. "So what did you use as a lure to get him here?"
"That's not important," the man said, a little more sharply. His patience wasn't infinite, then. "I'm assuming he'll come to rescue you, so I suppose the easiest thing to do would be to wait. Nevertheless, I would like to know what sort of fall-back plan the two of you had."
"None at all, actually," Alex said brightly, but doubted he was going to have much luck convincing this man of that. Something told him this was about to turn into one of those highly awkward situations where he got interrogated for information that didn't actually exist. "We were flying by the seat of our pants. I didn't like it, but he's a hard man to argue with."
The man frowned, clearly not liking that answer. "We were expecting him to come alone. Why are you here? You've rarely worked with him in the past, despite your shared affiliations."
Alex shrugged. "I was in the neighborhood." He decided not to try and explain the family responsibility angle. No need to jettison his last shreds of credibility.
"He won't show up with further reinforcements?"
Alex doubted that there were any reinforcements close enough to be useful, even if Cable had been inclined to call in the cavalry. "I had to twist his arm to get me to come along," he said with perfect honesty.
His interlocutor was beginning to look frustrated. "What base of operations is he operating from here in Greenland?"
"Very nice hotel. Great room service."
"Mr. Summers, I'm not sure I believe you."
"That's too bad, considering that every word I'm telling you is the truth."
The man shook his head and glanced up at the far corner of the room, giving a deliberate nod. Alex looked back over his shoulder, with some difficulty - to say that his neck was stiff would be the understatement of the century - and spotted a small, blinking red light. A camera, he supposed.
"I hope that's the case," the man said, turning back to him. "But I'm afraid I'm going to have to make sure you have nothing else you need to tell me."
The door opened again, and Alex's eyes widened at the sight of the familiar figure standing in the doorway. Oh, shit. Apparently he'd misplaced his luck between dimensions, not just his common sense.
"Well, if it isn't everyone's favorite Wolverine-wannabe," he said with as much mock geniality as he could muster as Sabertooth moved forward into the room, smirking at him. "How've you been, Creed?" This clinched it; he should have stayed in his nice, warm bed at the hotel and let Cable do whatever the hell he wanted. Once he got out of this, he was going to embark on a nice, long stretch of minding his own damned business.
"A lighter interrogation style than your usual if you please, Victor," the man who'd been questioning him said as he started towards the door. "I have a number of acquaintances who would probably like the opportunity to put Mr. Summers back to work once this is resolved."
Alex snorted. "The words 'hell', 'freezing' and 'over' come to mind, pal." There were a number of things he'd like to do now that he was back in his home dimension, but re-entering government service certainly wasn't one of them.
"We'll see, won't we?"
The door clanged shut behind him with an unsettling note of finality, and Alex eyed Creed, who was still smirking. "Don't suppose we could stick to reminiscing about the good old days?"
The smirk broadened, showing an alarming number of Creed's pointed teeth. "I wouldn't get your hopes up, Summers."
"Can't blame a man for trying." Alex took a deep breath and let it out on a sigh. And the day just keeps going downhill--
***
Creed's fist slammed into his midsection and Alex fell over, trying to remember how to breathe. He didn't get much of a chance to contemplate the problem. Creed immediately hauled him back to his feet, grinning down at him.
"Come on, Havok," he said cheerfully. He sounded like he was having the time of his life. Alex supposed that in Creed's warped mind, beating the shit out of him was somehow personally satisfying, even under these circumstances. "This isn't any fun if you keep falling over."
"If I didn't have a collar on," Alex wheezed, "your ass would so be toast at the minute, you psychopath." Even losing the handcuffs would have helped, but Creed wasn't the type to play fair.
"Yeah, yeah." Creed slammed him back against the wall, hard enough to rattle his teeth. "So where's Cable? I'm getting tired of asking."
"How the fuck would I know?" Maybe it was about time to come up with a believable lie, though, and not just for his own sake. Some creative misdirection might buy Cable some time, too. He should have thought of that sooner. It was probably the concussion. "But I've got to say, it doesn't speak well for your friends that they didn't manage to grab him while he was lying unconscious in that snowbank. Did Weapon X get sloppy while I was away?"
Creed only snorted. "One more time, Summers," he said, releasing his grip on the front of Alex's shirt. Alex leaned back against the wall, wondering why Creed was giving him the chance to catch his breath. "And think hard, boy. Because if you keep bullshitting me, I'll have to start slicing you up."
Alex laughed, or tried to; his ribs hurt too much. "I was wondering when we'd get to that," he said unsteadily, trying to gather his thoughts. "You must be mellowing in your old age, giving me the option--"
The light went down, plunging them into complete darkness, and Alex froze. A little voice at the back of his mind abruptly piped up, telling him to take his chances and try headbutting Creed or something, but no sooner had his common sense reasserted itself than the emergency lights came on, bathing the room in a crimson glow. Creed was grinning, looking pleased as punch by this latest turn of events.
"If I had to guess, I'd say this all just became academic," he said, giving Alex a mock-regretful look. "Guess we don't need you as bait anymore, then. I'd just kill you, but I don't feel like listening to the colonel whine at me." He backhanded Alex casually, sending him crashing back to the floor, and stalked from the room.
Alex coughed, spitting blood, and slowly sat up, bracing himself against the wall behind him. I get back home, and forty-eight hours later, Victor Creed's using me as a punching bag, he thought dizzily. I hate my life. Nothing felt broken, except maybe a couple of ribs, but he was going to be sore for a while. By his standards, Creed had been restrained, but that wasn't saying much.
The emergency lights flickered as the floor shuddered, and Alex figured he was fairly safe in interpreting the muffled booming noise that accompanied it as an explosion. If Cable was breaking into the base to retrieve him, there would be explosions. That was a given. Alex tried to laugh again, but wound up coughing instead. He only hoped Nathan would be careful. These people probably had a few more tricks up their sleeves.
More explosions, two in close succession. The whole building shivered, a light rain of plaster dust cascading down from the ceiling. Alex flinched, but concentrated on shouting 'I'm here!' at the top of his mental lungs rather than worrying about what he'd do if the roof caved in.
The noises from outside were beginning to sound like full-pitched battle when the door flew open again. Alex's heart sank as the man who'd been questioning him - Creed's colonel, he assumed - came in, a gun in his hand and two soldiers following him.
"Hello again," Alex greeted him as flippantly as he dared. "You look a little flustered."
The colonel wasn't in the mood to play this time, apparently. "Get him up," he said brusquely to the two soldiers. They came over and hauled Alex back to his feet, roughly enough that Alex had to bite back a groan of pain. "We'll have to use him to buy ourselves some time."
"Planning to hold a gun to my head to get him to surrender?" Alex gritted out, managing a tight smile. "Hate to tell you, but he's not that fond of me--"
#Alex, duck,# a familiar voice snapped in his mind, and Alex moved instantly, his sudden resistance taking the two soldiers so much by surprise that he was able to wrench himself free and dive for the floor, just in time. The door - and most of the wall - exploded inwards, spraying debris across the room. One of the soldiers caught the brunt of the blast and went down hard, but the other one and the colonel managed to stay on their feet. They started firing immediately into the haze of smoke and dust, but neither got off more than a couple of shots before they both just dropped, as if something had smashed them to the ground.
The source of the 'something' strode forward out of the haze, a faint golden glow surrounding him. "Alex," Cable greeted him almost casually, although he at least had the grace to sound out of breath as he came over and knelt at Alex's side. "Good to see you can do as you're told."
"Yeah, right. What took you so long?" Alex asked, coughing on the dust and trying not to grind his teeth from the pain. He'd landed badly, and something had popped in his left shoulder.
"I figured I needed to be a little more careful about walking into the trap the second time," Cable said, giving him an odd, unsteady smile. "Hold still," he said, reaching out and laying one hand on Alex's cuffs and the other on the collar. Both snapped open, and Alex took a deep, relieved breath that turned into a curse as he tried to move his left arm.
"Thanks," he said wearily as Cable helped him up.
"Don't mention it," Cable said, blinking down at him as if he were having trouble focusing. "Your shoulder's dislocated," he said, probing at it gently.
"No shit, Sherlock--" Alex started and then yelped as Cable popped his shoulder back into place with one practiced move. "Fuck! Warn a guy, will you?"
"Why, so you could have told me not to do it?" Cable asked, sounding a little more like his usual sardonic self. He looked Alex up and down for a moment longer, as if assuring himself that he was relatively intact, and then went over to the colonel, who was beginning to stir. "Here I am," he said more darkly, staring down at the man. "But you were counting on me being in a collar and restraints when we had this conversation, weren't you?"
"We ought to get out of here," Alex said, rubbing at his shoulder. "Creed's here, and much as I'd like to blast him a few times just on principle, he's a complication we don't really need at this point."
"In a minute, Alex," Cable said calmly, grabbing the front of the colonel's shirt and pulling him back to his feet. "Was there any truth to it, or was it all part of the trap?" he asked the man, his voice entirely too level. "I want an answer. Now."
The colonel coughed, spitting blood. "Why don't you just read my mind and find out for yourself?" he growled.
"Wrong answer," Alex muttered, feeling vaguely sorry for the man as the glow around Cable brightened. The colonel sagged in his grip, his eyes rolling up into his head, and Alex took an uncertain step forward as the man started to twitch spasmodically. "Cable, be careful," he said sharply.
Cable didn't so much as look at him, and the colonel's twitching started to turn into full-blown convulsions as Alex watched. When he started to bleed from the eyes, Alex decided he had to do something, even if he got TK-whacked through the opposite wall for it.
"Nathan!" he snapped, grabbing Cable's arm. "If you don't want to kill him, knock it off!"
Cable jerked away from him, dropping the colonel, who proceeded to curl up in a fetal ball on the floor. Alex gave him a quick look to make sure he was still breathing, and then turned his attention to Cable, who looked more than a little shaky himself.
"It's true," he said before Alex could ask him what the hell was going on. He swallowed visibly, wiping a trickle of blood away from his nose. "I was hoping it wasn't--"
"What's true?" He wasn't going to put up with an evasive answer this time, Alex decided grimly, and was pleasantly surprised when Cable didn't even try.
"They're using the T-O virus specimens SHIELD carved out of me a couple of years ago," Cable said, his shocked expression melting away, replaced by an angry flush. "They're altering it, infecting experimental subjects. How could they be so stupid?" He looked down at the colonel as if he was debating whether or not to kick the unconscious man in the head a few times.
"No wonder you were so gung-ho about this," Alex murmured. But then, the best traps generally had the best bait. "Are they doing it here?"
Cable hesitated for a moment, his gaze going distant as if he was reviewing what he'd gotten from the colonel's mind. "No. Back in the States."
"Then do we need to be here?"
Cable sighed, rubbing at his forehead. "Don't be so reasonable," he said, pulling out one of his guns. "You sound too much like Scott."
"Now, there's no need to be insulting." Alex gestured at the door. "After you, since I have no idea where the hell I'm going."
"Back to the LZ," Cable said. "Aleqa's waiting--" Two shots rang out from behind him and he stumbled, going to his knees.
Alex whirled and saw that one of the other soldiers had come to and was firing from a prone position. The gun shifted in his direction, but Alex gritted his teeth and let off a blast at the ground right in front of the soldier. The man fell back, singed and unconscious, and Alex went over to Cable, who was already starting to get back up.
"Where are you hit?" he asked urgently.
Cable muttered something unintelligible under his breath. "One hit the vest," he said, his breathing labored. "The other's not too bad."
The other bullet had hit him in the upper arm and gone right through, although judging by the position of it, it had probably hit the bone on the way. "Sloppy," Alex said disapprovingly and then blinked as the bleeding promptly started to slow. Well, there was a novel use for telekinesis. "You're a telepath, remember? People aren't supposed to get away with trying to shoot you in the back."
"Take your lecture and go flonq yourself with it," Cable grated, but didn't protest or try to pull away as Alex helped him back to his feet.
"The truth hurts, doesn't it?"
Cable glared at him, switching the gun to his good hand and heading for the door. "Are you concussed, or just enjoying yourself?"
"Definitely the former," Alex muttered, and followed him.
***
If he never saw another glacier again, it would be too soon. Actually, Alex thought a bit dizzily, he was going to swear off ice in general, at least for a while. His ribs hurt badly enough that he was having real difficulty breathing, but he knew they had to keep up this pace. The compound was in ruins--Cable had been extravagant with his telekinesis on the way in, and Alex had taken out the intact vehicles on the way out, but there would surely be pursuit at some point, even if it was on foot. Weapon X had put all this effort in trapping Cable, and Alex doubted they were going to let him get away this easily.
He staggered, nearly falling as he struggled up a steep ice slope. Cable reached out with his good arm and steadied him. "I shouldn't have dragged you into this," he said, sounding almost as exhausted as Alex felt. "I'd apologize, if I made a habit of doing that--"
"You didn't drag, remember? I insisted," Alex said, still gasping for air. "How much farther?"
"Another two kilometers, maybe." Cable shook his head, and it was some small comfort to Alex to hear him breathing just as heavily as he was. "This isn't going to work. I need--" He stopped in his tracks suddenly, looking around. "Someone's following us," he said, the tension level in his voice rising sharply. "Can't tell who."
"Shit," Alex said, remembering how much trouble telepaths had reading Logan. "It's got to be Creed." They hadn't seen any signs of him as they'd been leaving the compound. In retrospect, that probably hadn't been a good sign.
"He's close," Cable muttered. "Can't pin him down, though--"
"Never mind," Alex growled. At this point, he really had no desire to tangle with Creed again. Getting out of here as fast as possible was their best option. "Let's go. Unless you want to wait around for him?"
"Going is good," Cable said with an edgy, breathless little laugh, and started to scramble up the slope again.
"Glad you agree."
They ran onwards, and as Alex's eyes continued to adjust to the aurora-lit darkness, he realized that he did recognize their path. That was the stretch I wound up sliding down on my ass. And oh, here's the ice bridge I didn't think was going to take Cable's weight--
Maybe fifteen minutes later, they were clambering through a virtual forest of seracs when Cable stopped again, his head whipping from side to side. Before Alex could react, Creed erupted from between two of the ice towers and slammed into Cable. The two of them tumbled back down the incline, twisting and grappling with one another even as their fall became less and less controlled. Alex followed more carefully, swearing when he couldn't get a clear shot.
The downward progress of the two men was abruptly stopped by another of the seracs. Unfortunately, Cable was the one who hit it first - head-first from the looks of it, too - and Alex swore more vehemently as Creed moved, struggling up to his knees, and Nathan didn't.
"Hey!" Alex roared. "Guess who's not wearing a collar this time, asshole?" He fired at Creed, deliberately aiming a little off-target, so he wouldn't catch Cable in the blast.
As a result, it didn't do much damage, but it was enough to get the desired reaction. Creed leapt to his feet and charged up the incline at Alex, snarling all kinds of thoroughly unpleasant things. Perfect, Alex thought, smiling tightly. "I did warn you, Vic," he murmured, waiting until Creed had crossed half the distance between them before he let off another blast, this one at the base of one of the seracs.
The immense piece of ice toppled sideways, and Creed didn't have the chance to do more than look up at it before it fell on him, smashing him to the ground. Alex gritted his teeth and did the same with the serac on the other side, just for good measure. He doubted this was enough to kill Creed, but surely it would keep him down for a while. Even after his healing factor did its work, he'd still have to dig himself out.
Alex took as deep a breath as he could manage and started to make his way down to Cable. He slid the last ten feet on his ass again, but there was no one watching so he decided not to fret about his dignity. "Hey," he said breathlessly, staggering over to Cable just in time to see the other man's eyes fluttering open. "You all right?" he asked, giving him a once-over. Cable didn't appear too much worse for wear for his little tumble, save for a nasty-looking scalp wound. "So what's with trying to break the glacier with your head, idiot? I thought head injuries were your father's stock in trade."
"Creed," Cable muttered dazedly, struggling to sit up, and Alex steadied him.
"Brought some of the seracs down on him," he said, just a little giddy with relief that Cable had decided to return to the land of the conscious. Trying to carry him back to the helicopter would have been really awkward. "It should keep him off our backs for a while, but we need to get going, don't you think?"
Cable groaned as Alex pulled him back to his feet. "What took you so long, anyway?" he grumbled petulantly, leaning on him heavily for support.
Alex grinned wildly. He couldn't help himself; it was probably the concussion. "Well, you were sort of in the way."
"Right." Cable glared at the collapsed seracs hiding Creed from view, and Alex swore, nearly jumping out of his skin as the ground beneath their feet started to shake. The whole area around Creed caved in, more of the seracs tumbling downwards.
All right, so maybe he's not getting out of there for a good long while-- Alex gave Cable a skeptical look. "If you had that much telekinesis to spare, why didn't you just toss Creed back to the compound or something?"
"Trouble focusing," Cable said almost absently, swaying a little on his feet. "You don't want to know how close I came to taking your head off when I was getting that collar off you."
Alex was still processing that rather unpalatable image when the noise of a helicopter broke the eerie quiet that had followed Cable's little glacier-quake. "I thought I blew up their helicopters," Alex protested, knowing he was whining and not caring. He scanned the sky, half-prepared to blast the aircraft whenever it came into sight.
Cable reached out and grabbed his wrist. "Don't," he said wearily. "It's just Aleqa. Guess she got tired of waiting for us."
"Oh, good," Alex said with a sigh. "Personal initiative is such a wonderful thing."
to be concluded...
[FOOTER]