Blessed Are The Peacemakers: Everything Is Broken

[x-cyclops.livejournal.com]

Prime Minister Barath steals away his visiting consultants to show them a new program at one of Budapest's schools. They never make it to their destination.



Broken cutters, broken saws,
Broken buckles, broken laws,
Broken bodies, broken bones,
Broken voices on broken phones.
Take a deep breath, feel like you're chokin',
Everything is broken.


Scott decided that he very much preferred it when heads of state did not rub their hands together and stare at him with a strange sort of predatory glee. It made him nervous, oddly enough. The Prime Minister of Hungary might as well be wearing a sign saying 'I'm planning something', and given that they'd been expecting another round of meetings this morning, at the Ministry of Mutant Affairs this time, Barath's sudden arrival was a bit of a surprise. He sipped at his coffee to cover his reaction.

"So!" Barath boomed, dividing that gleeful look between the three of them. "You've all eaten breakfast, yes? I have a very busy morning planned. Very busy!"

Arching an eyebrow, Forge glanced to Scott and Ororo. The itinerary for the morning as originally scheduled seemed to have been very vague, and Barath's friendly exuberance seemed to indicate a purpose to that vagueness.

"I think we are ready for a full day," Ororo said carefully, suddenly imagining what a 'busy morning' might entail to the Hungarian Prime Minister. It wasn't entirely reassuring.

"Well, then. I think you should enjoy what I have to show you today," Barath went on happily. "It was one of my final projects as Minister of Mutant Affairs, and given your positions with Charles's school, I thought perhaps you would enjoy seeing it. And truthfully, I'd also appreciate your thoughts on certain aspects of the curriculum, of course..." He paused, finally noticing the way the three younger people were looking at him. His expression took on a slightly sheepish edge, but a smile tugged at his lips. "Well. There should be more opportunities for the exchange of ideas during this visit than simply the project that brought you here, no? And I thought perhaps you could all use a respite from the meetings."

Translation, some education-related project he wants to show off. Scott couldn't help smiling in return, though. It would probably be pretty interesting, when it came right down to it. He'd done some reading about mutant issues in Hungarian educational policy. "I think we could probably take a few hours?" he ventured, glancing at Ororo and Forge. There was also the whole courtesy thing, especially when your host was the leader of a country.

Forge glanced down to his PDA, checking both the battery life and the status of his Sudoku game. Finding both acceptable, he nodded. "I don't mind. Anything that falls into the category of not-meeting is a bonus."

"Well then, it seems we are all yours, Minister," Ororo added, giving the older man a warm smile. It was hard not to be caught up in his enthusiasm for his projects, and it was true that they had all grown a little weary of meetings already, no matter how ground-breaking and interesting the subject matter might've been. "Please, lead away."

"Wonderful!" Barath turned towards the door at a discreet knock, and Scott's eyes widened slightly at the sight of the tiny dark-haired woman who stepped in and gave the Prime Minister a deferential nod. There was a picture of her in the X-Men's files, and not for happy reasons.

"Ah! All is set, Ms. Callery?" Barath inquired happily, to all appearances quite pleased to see Gideon Faraday's former chief of security. Scott had to swallow very hard, more than once, before he could quite control his expression.

"Yes, Prime Minister. Although I do wish you'd reconsider this trip," Tanya Callery said, then seemed to remember there were three other people in the room and perhaps it would be best not to discuss security details in front of them. "Hello," she said with a brief, professional smile. But there might have been a brief spark of ironic humor in her eyes as she went on. "Callery. I'm with the Prime Minister's security detail."

Forge's eyebrows perked up. "Indeed," he said cheerfully. "Oh, I can tell this is already going to be better than sitting through a meeting." Subtly, however, his hand moved into his satchel as he spoke, gripping something inside while cautiously watching Scott and Ororo for their next move. While he'd never met Tanya Callery - or her late, unlamented employer, Gideon Faraday for that matter - his studies of old X-Men mission files and security files marked her as someone who'd stood toe to toe with the Juggernaut and managed to walk away.

Exchanging a glance with Scott, Ororo then put on a smile and her most pleasant expression and directed her words to Barath. "Well then, if we are all here... shall we go?" Because I would be loathe to wait around for any more surprise guests to show up.

---

"-even setting up an exchange program with St. Isabel's School, in Rio de Janeiro," Barath was saying happily. He had been talking steadily since they'd left the hotel, not even stopping to point out the various sights they were passing as the three-car convoy drove through the streets of Budapest. "That starts this summer. Do you all know of St. Isabel's?"

Scott coughed, remembering that mission to Rio two years ago. "Yes, actually." His eyes flickered to the window as Barath continued. The streets were very narrow in this part of the city. Part of the medieval town, most likely. Made him feel a little claustrophobic. Callery as well, to judge by the way she was frowning as she studied the buildings they passed. Paying particular attention to the roofs, Scott noticed, frowning as well.

"In any case," Barath said, finally seeming to run down, "that is more or less the sum of it. I thought perhaps I would speak to Charles, to see if he was interested in participating in this exchange as well."

Forge nodded absently as he looked out the window. The car in front of them, a slate-grey Maybach, turned right onto a thoroughfare as the motorcade continued. Six hundred eighty horsepower engine, twelve cylinders, reinforced transmission to compensate for ballistic armor... the details popped into his brain as he felt their identical car take the turn. While part of him felt comfortable in the well-protected luxury vehicle, he was literally unable to ignore the fact that he was, in effect, sitting inside an armored cocoon.

Tuning out the Prime Minister's conversation, he looked back to the streets, eyes glancing up the carved stone facades of the old buildings as they passed. Budapest was an odd mix of old and new to his eyes, the decades-old - and in some cases, centuries-old -buildings were interspersed with modern amenities such as ATMs, cell phone repeaters, high-explosive rocket launchers, internet cafes --

Wait a minute... It was hard to tell what happened first - even for those trained to notice these things, the shots rang out almost in tandem with the larger explosion that hit the last car in the motorcade with a heated punch. There were screams, and the reverberations that seemed amplified by the tall, stately buildings around them, and Ororo ducked behind the seat as the car slammed to a halt. It seemed only too clear what was happening, but without a better vantage point it was impossible to know just what the damages were yet.

Scott was facing the right way to see the fireball that was all that remained of the last car. But the first car wasn't moving either, although it looked intact. They had to get out of here, he thought, reaching out to pull Barath away from the window. These narrow streets were the next best thing to a shooting gallery.

Callery spared a whole half-second for a curse before she was snapping in Magyar to the driver, who was in the middle of an agitated response when more shots rang out. They penetrated the windshield, killing both the driver and the bodyguard in the other seat.

And the lead car still wasn't moving. Scott swore and flung the door open before Callery could react. "Forge!" he snapped. "Behind the wheel -I'll get to the lead car." They weren't getting out of here unless it moved.

Forge's eyes widened, looking at the bodies of the driver and passenger in the front of the car. Two men, less than twenty-four inches from him, had just been killed in as many seconds.

So that's how it's going to be, a voice in the back of his head said firmly. With a nod, he wrestled his way into the driver's seat, pushing the larger man's body over onto his companion with a grunt of regretful apology. With a sweep of his metal arm, he cleared shattered glass from the windshield and gripped the wheel. As his fingers curled around the leather-wrapped steering wheel, he let out a deep breath and closed his eyes.

When they opened, focused on the car in front of them, all fear was gone. His right hand hovered over the gearshift as his foot depressed the clutch to the floor and began depressing the accelerator, feeling the six-hundred-plus horsepower rev from the engine.

"Ready," he said under his breath. "I'm ready."

By now Ororo had used the free space in the back of the car to crawl over to Barath, relieved to see that he at least seemed unharmed. "Minister, are you hurt?" she asked in a low voice, slinging an arm over his back to keep him from rising.

Callery gave her a poisonous look, but manuevered herself to cover Barath from the other side. As she did so, she pulled out her radio, and started relaying information in Magyar rapidly.

"No, I don't believe so," Barath said, his voice as low as hers. There was more tension than fear in his expression, although he was looking rather gray as more shots rang out - though none of them seemed to be directed at their car.

The target was Scott, who found himself having to take a less-than-direct path to the lead car, so that he didn't get his head shot off. Once there, he grimaced at the sight of the three bullet-riddled bodies in the car - they were trying to box us in? Why? - but pushed the driver's body to the side, sliding in behind the wheel. A quick optic blast took out the shattered windshield. I hope to hell that this car is going to move-- It did. With a screech of tires, he pulled enough to the left to get the car going more or less straight down the narrow street again. They had to get out of here as soon as they could, and he floored the gas.

As soon as Scott's car began to move, Forge let up the clutch. All four wheels of the armored Maybach spun, gripping the pavement and rocketing the vehicle forward. With Scott's car leading the way, they rounded a narrow curve, tall buildings making visibility difficult.

"Come on come on come on!" Forge shouted, downshifting as the rear of the heavy vehicle fishtailed around another narrow turn, the occasional ping of a bullet off the armored roof making him flinch. "Who the hell designed these streets? Rabbits? You could barely get a bicycle down some of these - holy shit!"

Another spray of bullets cracked against the rear window, the glass going opaque with spiderweb cracks, but holding. With another curse, Forge glanced at the body of the driver and suddenly floored the gas. As he neared the next right turn, he slammed on the brake and dropped the gearshift into reverse, letting the momentum of the turn spin the car one hundred eighty degrees as his right hand shot over to the dead driver's coat, producing a clunky-looking automatic pistol. "Shoot at me? Are you mental?" he shouted, firing out the broken windshield as he continued the controlled spin.

His shots were not aimed at the unseen snipers, but rather at a nearby fireplug. One of the rounds managed to blast away the metal cap, sending a huge geyser of water fountaining into the sky as the Maybach finished its spin, pointing back in the original direction, the fountain behind them hopefully giving them some temporary cover.

Ororo wasn't quite sure which had been more frightening; the shots that had nearly penetrated the rear window or the sudden donut the armored car had done under Forge's madcap direction. It seemed his plan had worked for the moment, for though they could hear a few rounds being fired off by their pursuers nothing came close to hitting them.

But no sooner had they made another half-block's progress than more fire was incoming. Not bullets or rockets, this time, but a stream of fire that was far too controlled for the (admittedly absurd) possibility that someone on the roof was holding a flamethrower. It swept back and forth, raking down the whole length of Scott's car. As it approached the gas tank, Scott slammed on the brakes, throwing the car into a spin. But the pyrokinetic on the roof - had to be - corrected, and Scott swore. Before he could think too hard about what he was doing, he blasted the driver's side door open and jumped clear.

The car went another ten feet before it went up in a fireball. Bruised and battered, but all parts working and I can't believe I just did that, Scott rolled back to his feet, swearing as he saw the remains of his car blocking the road. Forge managed to stop in time, but it had them still trapped on yet another narrow street, and-

Limited options. Scott narrowed his eye in a particular way, and the deliberately focused optic blast smashed through the burning wreckage of the car, creating an exit route.

He did not, however, make a move towards the other car. If that was a pyrokinetic, there was no telling what his range was, or whether he could fly. Either way, the other mutant had to be distracted, and fast.

"GO!" he shouted at Forge as the younger man looked in his direction, and then turned towards the building where the stream of fire had come from. There was someone on the roof, radiance gathering around their clasped hands, and Scott gritted his teeth and let off another optic blast.

Dropping the car back into gear, Forge gunned the engine, shooting through the newly-cleared path. Sparks flew as the car bottomed out on a low curb, but then they were through the alley and for the moment, out of the line of fire.


Broken hands on broken ploughs,
Broken treaties, broken vows,
Broken pipes, broken tools,
People bending broken rules.
Hound dog howling, bull frog croaking,
Everything is broken.