X-Men Mission: Rubicon - Rescue

[x-forge.livejournal.com]

While the others make a distraction, three X-Men sneak inside for a rescue, and discover just who they're facing.



Following Marie as they worked around the still-motionless ventilation fan, Jim silently thanked Jan for her reconnaissance. Being linked for her exploration of the complex was vastly more useful than any number of blueprints. There were some size/perspective adjustments to keep in mind, but once they were in it should go quickly. Now all he needed to worry about was keeping his own temper.

Jim forced his shoulders to untense and turned to where Forge was waiting. "Besides the guards," he said without preamble, "there any security we'll have to worry about?"

Forge was crouched by the opening of a vent into the air system, his PDA wired into a nearby computer terminal as he was trying to access the facility's security systems. "They're pretty advanced here, but it looks like the facility itself doesn't have any inherent security. I'm trying to see what I can pull up... okay, clear shot straight through to their..."

He pushed his goggles up, a look of anger in his eyes. "I don't even know what to call it. Near as I can figure from these readouts, the kid in that lab is producing energy, and they're keeping him hopped up on Kick and using him like a battery. This is so many levels of wrong, man."

"So lets stop it," Marie said, pulling at her gloves. "Sooner rather than later. We just need to give the other team enough time to pull some of the guards off...and then we get this kid out, figure out who is and where he belongs, and get him back there. And maybe knock a few heads together on our way out."

Halfway through the last statement Jim's head had begun to tilt. After a few heartbeats the telepath turned to Marie. "They're starting."

Marie strode towards the lab without another word. A mutant being used for their powers against their will was too personal of a story for the Southerner. Perhaps she should have waited for Forge to mechanically pick the lock, but Rogue wasn't feeling much patience at the moment. The memories she'd been able to hold back at first were now flooding to the service, and she knew her anger would not fade until the child was safe.

"Ready?" she muttered to her teammates before kicking down the steel door before her, part of her hoping that the team's luck of running into no guards was about to change.

Forge nodded in time with Haller, a split-second before Marie's boot hit the door, knocking it flat. She was first in the door, and the "Clear" relayed through the telepathic switchboard was all the other two X-Men needed to know.

Rushing over to the large tank holding the young mutant, Forge had to gasp. It was exactly like Jan had described, a boy of maybe twelve or thirteen, breathing tubes and IV lines snaking around him as he floated in some kind of gel. "Probably an electroconductive buffer," Forge muttered out loud, running his hands over the tank's surface. "If he's emitting energy, the gel... has a piezoelectric structure, generating a charge, charge goes from tank to capacitors..."

He turned around, a look of mixed horror and disgust on his face. "They're using this kid as a battery. Fuck this."

Turning, he ignored the urge to slam his metal fist into the thick glass and began twisting valves and disconnecting cables. The tank bubbled and hissed as the viscous green gel began draining into a holding cylinder, overflowing and slopping onto the floor as the tank cracked open and the boy slumped forward into Forge's arms. Almost on autopilot, Forge's hands went to his throat, checking for a pulse as he tugged the breathing tube out of the unconscious boy's mouth.

"He's out like a light, I don't know for how long. Pulse and breathing are fine, though. He's safe to move."

"I'll take him," Jim said to the smaller man. "I can moniter him this way, and you're both better with your hands free in case we run into anything else." The anger boiling from the other two was almost a blessing. Its presence in his teammates created in him an opposite effect: the need to remain calm. The anger was there, but he could deal with it later.

As Jim lifted the boy into a fireman's carry, contact allowed him to understand the sleep to be a product of pure exhaustion -- likely brought about by the earlier powersurge. He adjusted the boy across his shoulders, then nodded his readiness to Marie. Whether it had been the regular supply of Kick or the quality of care involved Jim couldn't tell, but the boy himself weighed almost nothing.

As Marie stepped out of the room, she grinned. The team's luck had finally run out. Two guards had rounded the corner at almost the same time and began saying something in Portuguese. Marie didn't hesitate; she levitated slightly then propelled directly into the two men, each falling after her fists made contact. The initial surprise now wearing off, both guards rolled into defensive stances.

Forge glanced at the two guards, details jumping into his mind in a way that he was completely unaccustomed to when looking at a human body - they move like Haroun...

"Fuck me running," he breathed. "Reavers. Cyborgs wired to the gills. And packing some serious hardware."

The faint pressure of the psionic switchboard winked out like an extinguished light. The two guards were back-to-back now, weapons up and ready as one sighted on Marie and the other on the the group with the boy. Before either could get a word out, both their gun-arms shattered with a hideous sound that combined the snap of bone and compromised metal. And through it all, the keeper of Haller's anger hadn't moved a muscle.

"The ones that attacked the school?" Jack said, his tone unnervingly level against the shrieks. "You sure?"

Forge wiggled the fingers on his mechanical arm. "Where do you think I got this? I know the tech and -" he stopped to kick a gun away from one of the Reavers and then punt the downed mercenary in the face. "-and if these guys are here, that means this place has some serious shit going on. We need to get out of here fast."

"Then let's make an exit. Shortest distance between two points is a straight line," Marie said as she ripped the non-shattered arm off the closest Reaver. "Forge, what's the best way?"

Forge slid his goggles down, GPS readouts overlaying the building schematics, layered atop a complex thermographic readout with one giant bright red blob and three communicator signals.

"There," he pointed towards where the rest of the team was, outside the facility. "Two hundred meters, two interior and one exterior wall in the way. Nothing load-bearing, though."

The nearest wall exploded outwards, followed by two corresponding cracks further away. Jack turned to stare wordlessly at Marie, wearing an expression that conveyed an absolute lack of patience.

"Thanks," Marie said as she walked over to Haller and held out her arms for the young mutant. "Ah can probably fly out of here the fastest." The exchange only took a moment and Rogue cradled the young boy carefully in her arms, before speaking to her two teammates again. "So it'd probably be best if you two just, uh, held on. Don't think you can keep up otherwise."

Gulping down a sudden surge of nerves, Forge wrapped his arms around Rogue's waist tightly. "I should have brought a parachute I should have brought a parachute I should have brought a parachute..."

Jack looked at the slight woman and shook his head. "I'm 6'4 and you got not more room. I'll take myself." At her look the telekinetic gave her a thin smile. "I got it. Go on, your mark."

Forge barely heard whatever Marie said next as they launched into the air, soaring out of the facility and over the fence into the jungle. He could see the others running for the woodline to meet up with them - this "simple recon" mission had suddenly turned into something far more complex.