More Than the X Can See

Chapter 10

Author’s Note: //dialogue// = Duplicates talking

They appeared in front of the ruined Lobo Tech building and as the last one of them arrived, a duplicate Logan and Angel drove up the drive on his Harley and parked it. A duplicate Warren flew down and landed next to the Harley. The scene froze as they took it all in.

Logan walked over to himself and pressed a hand into his duplicate’s shoulder and encountered resistance just like he was touching a statue, “They’re solid. This ain’t an illusion.”

Scott reached out and touched the orange mesh fencing and tried to shake it. The fencing didn’t move under his touch. “You’re right,” he said.

“It’s like some sort of virtual reality or 3D environment,” Bobby said looking around in a circle.

“Charles?” Warren called out.

Charles, his voice booming like a roll of thunder, told them, “Angel will show you the information you need.”

“Damn! If I ever expected to hear the Voice of God, I think it’d sound like that!” Bobby said putting his hands over his ears.

“Don’t be blasphemous,” Kurt said.

“Well, what do you expect God to sound like?” Bobby asked him taking his hand down.

Kurt thought for a moment, “Just like that.”

“See?” Bobby looked around at the assembled group, “Am I right or am I right?”

“But I don’t think he’d sound like Charles,” Kurt added.

Bobby shrugged, “What if he does?” They both shuddered.

“Shut up you two,” Cable said, “The clock’s ticking and I need to get to San Francisco tonight. Where’s Angel?”

“Whoa!” Logan said backing up as Angel walked out of her duplicate. She was wearing her blue shirt and shorts while her frozen duplicate was in the denim jacket and jeans so the group was easily able to tell them apart. She put her arms around Logan’s neck and began to kiss him.

Embarrassed by the show of affection, Logan removed her arms and pulled away saying, “Not now, Darlin’.” He jerked his head at the assembled group and whispered, “Business before pleasure.”

Angel sighed and started to quickly head east down the block away from the Lobo Tech building and the main road. “Follow me!” she yelled over her shoulder as she passed the construction machines.

They followed her to the end of the block where she stopped on the sidewalk. “This is how the werewolves arrived,” she said once they had all gathered around her. She turned to the road and they noticed a car drive by at an incredible rate of speed. The trees and bushes seemed to animate as they flicked their branches and leaves back and forth. It was eerie with no sound.
Two large white work vans with darkened windows sped towards them then impossibly quickly pulled up to the curb next to them. Both vans had two men in the front of each van who then speedily exited and opened the back doors of the vans. Several more men jumped out of the back of the vans, too quickly to be humanly possible, and the new group gathered around one man. Everything slowed down to normal speed and the X-men could see the leader talking, but there wasn’t any sound. The group of men, except for the two van drivers, began to run towards the Lobo Tech building changing into wolf form as they went.

“Charles, freeze it,” Angel said. scenscene froze around the X-men.

“So, that’s how they got here,” Warren said in realization.

“It’s also how they disappeared so fast,” Logan added.

Cable walked over to the group of men, “Warren do you recognize any of these men?”

The X-men gathered around the frozen group and began looking at faces.

“He looks vaguely familiar,” Warren said pointing to the leader of the werewolves. “I don’t recognize anyone else.”

When no one recognized any of the other men, Angel told them, “Let’s head back into the Lobo Tech building.”

“This is actually quite interesting,” Hank said as he fell into step next to Angel. “I didn’t know you had such detail this far away.”

Angel chuckled, “You haven’t seen anything yet. There’s a reason why I’m having Charles freezing everything in place while we move around.”

“Oh?”

“Look ahead of us,” she said cryptically.

“Hey!” exclaimed Bobby pointing at the Lobo Tech building, “What’s wrong with that picture?”

All the X-men looked at the Lobo Tech building. The concrete exterior looked like it was made of gray frosted glass and the metal girders of the ruined building glowed brightly through in the fading light. As they walked, they noticed a similar affect on the objects around them getting more and more transparent, like stained glass, the closer they got to the Lobo Tech building. Every object made of metal glowed with light.

Angel answered Bobby’s question, “You’re seeing my spatial ability in action. The closer we get to myself, the more detail you’ll notice. Charles froze it right where I’m looking for metal sources.”

“Does it really glow like that?” Cable asked.

“If I’m looking for something specific and I find it, it’ll glow in my mind,” Angel replied. “It helps me to find things that I’m looking for.” She gave him an assessing look, the gray haired man who had asked the question was taller than her by a foot and was probably three times her weight, all muscle. He had a grown out military cut, was clean-shaven and wearing light khaki cargo pants with a darker khaki multi-pocket vest over a black t-shirt. He looked to be fifty if he was a day and carried himself like retired military, relaxed but you knew he’d get your back in a fight. “I’m guessing that you’re Cable.”

The man grunted in the affirmative and turned as Bobby walked forward towards the head of the group, pointing at Logan’s Harley, “Wow! Look at the bike!” The nearly all-metal motorcycle was suffused with light. “Next time I lose my keys,” Bobby said. “I’ll know who to ask to help me find them.” He turned and grinned at Angel who just rolled her eyes.

As the group entered the ruined Lobo Tech building, they noticed that not only did the girders glow, but also lumps and chunks of metal strewn along the floor and ceiling. There were faint glowing lines within the walls of the building.

Kurt pointed at one of them, “What’s this?”

“Electrical wiring,” Angel said and then she explained, “The more it glows, the more wires there are or were in that spot. Since I was looking for metal, those have to be melted or existing electrical or telephone wires.”

Hank walked over to the same spot as Kurt and ran his hand along the wall, “Fascinating. What else can you detect like this?”

“Whatever I’m looking for will glow, Hank, no matter what it is.”

Jean walked past them and raised her arm over her eyes as she entered a bright light, “I found Logan!”

The rest of the X-men hurried to her side and saw a blazing light coming off of the duplicate Logan’s skeleton as it leaned against the wall behind the duplicate Angel.

Hank ran forward to see the effect up close. Squinting his eyes against the light, he touched the copy, “The whole body is here, but I can see right through it to the metal.” He began to examine the fake Logan.

Logan walked up to himself and also began to look at his metal skeleton, “Always wondered what it looked like.”

The rest of the X-men also neared the duplicate Logan to stare at the glowing metal skeleton.

“It's like Halloween,” Bobby said. “Ghostly buildings and glowing skeletons.”

“Charles,” Angel said, “move it to where I’m looking for bone.”

Suddenly, the duplicate Warren who had been standing next to the duplicate Logan, also began to glow. His taller skeleton towered over the other, the bones in the folded wings looking like umbrella spokes.

“Oh, now that’s just plain macabre!” Kurt exclaimed looking at the skeletal duplicate Warren facing the skeletal duplicate Logan as they both leaned against the glass-like wall.

“Definitely Halloween!” Bobby laughed.

“Can we stay here for a while?” Hank asked.

“I’d rather not,” Cable said. He walked up to Angel, “Where are the sewers involved in this?”

She looked him in the eye and called out, “Charles, please run time forward naturally.”

The X-men jumped as the duplicate Warren asked, “Anything?”

“//Lots.//” The duplicate Angel said behind them, “//Bone fragments. You didn’t tell me anyone died here. Lots of twisted and melted metal; machinery of some sort. Bullets. Guns here and there, but they’re twisted and melted also. There’s a couple of rooms below this floor//,” the duplicate Angel pointed towards the street, “//with an underground corridor that leads off in that direction.//”

The duplicate Logan’s shoulder came off the wall and he tossed down the stub of his cigar, “//Where’s the entrance to these rooms?//”

“//Aren’t you going to put that out?//” the duplicate Angel asked turning to look at the cigar stub.

As they spoke, the duplicate men’s bodies flickered and began to show gradient levels of vision. First the X-men saw the men’s duplicates, as they normally appeared as if in a mirror, then their clothes faded revealing the items in their pockets and their actual naked physique.“Oh, dear,” Jean said and turned away.

The duplicates’ musculature and tendons were revealed as the skin seemed to disappear and then their interior organs and finally their skeletons were exposed. Then the process began all over again and kept on repeating.

“//The place already burnt down//,” the duplicate Logan said. “//Where’s the door?//”

The duplicate Angel pointed towards a corner of the building, “//Over there. It’s under a pile of furniture.//”

“Cool!” Bobby exclaimed looking around. “That weird melting affect is happening to everything!” The rest of the X-men looked around them and noticed the same thing. “Hey, Kurt, do you think we could duplicate this in the Danger Room? This would make a great Haunted House!”

“We’d have to tone down the nudity, but it’s feasible,” Kurt responded.

“Just skip the nudity and go straight from clothes to skinless. This would be great!”

“Please don’t,” Angel said seriously. “I don’t want to be reminded of these events.”

Kurt looked at Angel’s face, she looked very sad, “Bobby, maybe we should rethink your idea.”

Undaunted, Bobby said, “Well, if anything this is good source material.”

“//Like someone was trying to hide it?//” The duplicate Warren asked as he approached the duplicate Angel.

“//Yeah, it sort of feels pushed together, jumbled together//,” the duplicate Angel replied.

“Charles, please forward this until I’m near the storage room below and then freeze it,” Angel requested. “If you’ll follow me,” she said to the X-men, “this is where you will have your best clues as to what was really going on here.”

The duplicates sped up and disappeared down into the rooms below. Logan led the X-men to the hole in the floor and dropped down into it. One by one the others followed and when they were all down, Angel led them to the storage room. The duplicates were standing just beyond the doorway, frozen in place.

“This is what Charles said was the most important information,” she said as she led them into the last room on their right.

The light in the hallway illuminated part of the storage room, the rest of it was in a sort of half-light provided by Angel’s scanning ability and Charles. A table and chairs occupied the near corner of the room next to the door. Everything was in a stained glass-like gradient so that they could see the contents of the containers. Miscellaneous clothing, canned food, water bottles, candles, matches, blankets, towels and similar emergency supplies were in the first boxes near the doorway. Behind them, were boxes of electronic equipment and parts. Several round bellied containers of gas and kerosene sat on the floor next to them. Against the other wall sat eighteen wooden crates leaving enough space for a six feet walkway between the two piles leading to the end of the room.

Eight crates were full of what looked like plastic blocks and padding, six crates were full of more padding and thick brown tubes, two crates contained gas cans full of fuel also padded. The last two crates held various sized boxes that contained several different types of what looked to be high tech metal and plastic weapons. In the top of the last crate, sat two shoebox sized metal boxes with syringes, needles and several vials of liquid encased in foam padding.

“Charles and I discussed the contents of these crates. Because I will later actually walk past them, we were able to determine the chemical makeup of every item,” Angel told the X-men as she walked down the aisle and pointed to the various crates as she spoke. “The bricks are C4 explosive. The tubes are construction grade dynamite. The fuel in the gas cans is a variant form of rocket fuel, to be used as an accelerant per Charles. The boxes contain weapons, they’re broken down so I didn’t recognize them as such earlier.” She came to the last two crates, “Hank, Charles said you’d be most interested in the two small metal boxes that contain the syringes. I sensed that they contained blood plasma among other chemicals.”

“How close do you have to be to tell what an object is made from?” Cable asked.

“It depends on what’s between us. You saw how easy it was to find metal and bone earlier. If there is nothing between us I can tell the chemical makeup or even cellular structure of an object within ten feet, I can tell base material such as copper or nickel and distinguish bone from wood within fifty feet and I can tell the difference between animal, vegetable and mineral within a hundred feet but I can only get exterior information about objects by the time they’re two hundred feet from me.”

He asked her another question, “Would you be able to detect C4 or dynamite inside an office building.”

“Most office buildings are pretty large, I wouldn’t necessarily be able to detect it from outside, but if I walked around inside of it, sure. I’d even be able to draw you blueprints of the place.”

“You can make blueprints?”

“Architectural Design was one of my minors in college.”

“Can you come with us to San Francisco?”

“Hold it, Cable,” Scott ordered. “You’re not taking her with you.”

“Why not?” Cable asked him, “There may be similar caches just like this beneath or inside Warren’s downtown office buildings. The information I have is that they’re going to destroy several buildings in the downtown area using property owned by Worthington Enterprises. My informant told me that they’re not using car bombs or planes. In planning this type of operation they’ll require a lot of explosive product and it’s supposed to happen in the next few days. I’ve been trying to find the leader of this terrorist cell for six months, if we can locate the explosives before they’re detonated, I might be able to capture him and his goons and find out who’s been giving him his orders.”

Scott sighed and seemed torn in making a decision, “I really don’t want to put her in this type of situation so soon.”

“Scott,” Jean said, “She’s totally untrained. We don’t even know what she’s really capable of.”

“What do you mean?” Cable asked looking at Jean, “Warren explained earlier that she can scan and has a kinetic shield.”

“She also has some sort of kinetic blast,” Logan added. “Charles had her do a demonstration of her abilities earlier today,” Logan continued. “She knows what she’s doing. She just has control issues. All she needs is practice.”

“Cable, you don’t know what she’s been through.” Jean explained, taking Scott’s side in putting roadblocks up to stop them from taking her from the Institute. “She joined us five days ago, but she’s only been awake for two of those days. Later on, this place goes up in an explosion big enough to crack the sewer walls for hundreds of feet. Warren, Logan and Angel were right in the middle of it.”

“Excuse me,” Angel said loudly, drawing their attention, “Charles and I still have a few more things to show you.” She walked out of the room and down the hallway to the door leading to the sewer. “Some of the walls of these rooms are exceptionally thick, I think they new that they were going to be storing explosives here before or during construction.” She looked at the door, “Charles could you remove the door so we can get through?” The door disappeared and the X-men followed her into the sewers.

“I had Charles make some modifications to the sewers,” Angel explained as they started following her down the tunnel. “We decided it would make it easier to create this environment without sound for the most part or smell. I also had him make the sewage insubstantial. You can still see the slime and muck so you know what the place looked like without the slipping and sliding that we had to deal with in the real world.”

They walked for a short while until they came to a ladder going up to the surface. “Charles go ahead and run time forward please until the three of us are in this location.”

They were alone for a few moments and then there was a brief blur of movement. Suddenly the action slowed to regular speed and the duplicate Warren appeared next to the ladder. The duplicate Logan, covered in muck and blood, leaped onto the ladder and shot up it, grabbing the duplicate Angel’s leg as she tried to escape through the manhole cover above. The duplicate Angel kicked at the duplicate Logan, trying to get him to let her go. The duplicate Logan climbed up the ladder further, wrapped an arm about the duplicate Angel’s waist and, even as she struggled, he used his superior strength to pull her off the ladder. The scene froze with the dangling duplicate Angel’s horrified face looking down at the duplicate Warren and assembled X-men.

“Geesh, Logan,” Bobby commented, “You really know how to sweep a girl off her feet.”

“Charles did choose a rather dramatic moment to stop the action,” Hank seemed to agree, looking upwards.

Warren and Logan were looking at Angel who had her eyes closed. Logan walked over to Angel and put a hand on her back. He began, “Angel—”

She held up a hand, stopping him from saying anything and took a deep breath. She walked five feet further down the tunnel and stopped, turning around to face the X-men. “This was the farthest up the sewer tunnel that we got to,” she stated impassionately. “But, I could still detect further up the sewer tunnel. I had a nightmare earlier today and what I thought had been part of the … flavor text of the dream actually turned out to be my subconscious trying to tell me, or remind me, about another room I barely sensed further down the sewer line.”

The virtual reality environment that went further down the tunnel behind her changed becoming transparent and glass-like. They could see through the concrete walls into the dirt and rocks behind them and further away, they saw more concrete forming other sections of the tunnels. She turned to the strange display behind her and she spread her arms encompassing the entire changed view. “This is a closer depiction of how I see my environment through my scanning ability. Charles had some difficulty when he first entered my mind and I had to help him to comprehend the scanning data I receive. He said that the virtual reality environment is something that you are all very familiar with and it would be the easiest way for you to understand the events that occurred in White Plains.”

She pointed to an area in the far distance that appeared indistinct and fuzzy. The X-men moved forward craning their necks to see what she pointed at. They saw, amid the transparent walls of the tunnels, the distant shape of a rough walled room, inside of it there were several squares and rectangles before the image became so fuzzy the objects ran together and became totally incomprehensible. “There is a room here with several square and rectangular objects, I know you can’t tell from what you see here, but I believe some of those crates are the same size as those in the storage room under Lobo Tech. Charles said he would get me a map of the sewers in White Plains so I can mark where this room should be.”

Cable walked forward as if to investigate and bumped into what felt like the equivalent to a wall. He put his hand up and it slid against a surface he couldn’t see.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to go through the looking glass,” Bobby smirked. Cable turned around and glared at him.

“I asked Charles if he would show me the explosion since my memory of it is rather sporadic,” Angel said, moving on to the next topic and walking through the group, back the way they had come.

“It’s a form of mental self-preservation,” Jean informed her as she fell into step behind her. “Most people who endure major trauma to their systems have no idea what occurred.”

Angel nodded, and said over her shoulder, “I know. He also thinks it would be a good idea for Hank and the rest of you to see what happened.”

They were about thirty feet from the door into Lobo Tech when she stopped. “Because of the fighting and my running further up the tunnel,” she told them, “I didn’t know what the remaining six werewolves were doing. Charles and I found out that they removed some of the guns and explosives from the storage room, a laptop and most likely some important CD’s, computer disks and papers from one of the bedrooms. They also had time to set up the bomb.”

Angel looked up and down the tunnel before she continued, “Charles, can you start it up again right after I discover the bomb?”

Within seconds, all three of the duplicates ran out of the sewer door and began to run slower and slower as Charles slowed down the action so they could watch what had occurred during the explosion. The duplicate Angel, her face smeared with grime, having run several yards, turned around and raised both of her hands palm up, the duplicate Warren and Logan ahead of her and totally oblivious to her actions.

Suddenly, the sensitivity of the surrounding virtual reality behind the duplicate Angel became slightly fuzzy as a thick wall of force emerged in front of her in the sewer tunnel. They watched as the explosion slammed the sewer door into the tunnel wall directly across from it. Cracks ripped apart the tunnel walls and ceiling, a billowing ball of fire appeared through the doorway and expanded as it emerged into the sewers. Chunks of cement tore from the walls around the doorway and flew down the tunnel towards them. They were all able to gather around and watch the duplicate Angel grit her teeth, close her eyes and try to lean into her kinetic shield as the surging tide of fire and debris came towards her. Her shimmering wall repelled the initial wave, the largest chunks of debris rebounded and shot back the way they’d come. The fire pounding at the center of her shield turned back and headed the other way, but with another explosive concussion, more fire came behind it and eventually curved around and seemed to pick up the shield, pressing it into her and lifting her up into the air.

They unconsciously followed the duplicate Angel as they saw her fight to keep the shield between her and the explosion. A large white wingtip clearly emerged from behind her right hip as her body caught up with the duplicate Warren’s. She pressed into the wing and turned her head to the left as she realized she was hitting something behind her. The action slowed even further as both of Warren’s wings emerged from either side of her as her hips slammed into the left side of his back. Her right foot made contact with the back of Warren’s left knee and he lifted up twisting to the right. His wings began to engulf her and force her to twist with him. They hit the curved sewer wall together sideways. They watched as the duplicate Angel winced in pain as her whole body collapsed at an angle against Warren’s body and the wall.

The shield she had been holding in place disappeared and the watchers saw a nearly invisible ripple spread from her body and pass through them removing the fuzziness and giving back the clear virtual reality of the three-dimensional field of her scanning ability.

Logan saw his duplicate pressed against the wall, eyes closed and face in a grimace as his left arm tried to brace against the force of the blow as he slammed into the sewer tunnel. He said with a slight amount of amusement, “Now I know why my left arm hurt so damned much when I woke up.”

Behind them, the wall of fire, released from the confines of the shield, formed a convex pattern in the center as it was about to crash against the curving tunnel wall. Beyond and within the fire, they could see pieces of rock and sewage hovering in mid air, ready to pummel into the tunnel wall and the three mutants pressed against it.

“Oh, my!” Hank said as he focused his attention on the duplicate Warren and Angel. They were back to back with Warren’s arms raised up, his arms and the left side of his face pressing against the wall. Angel’s body covered half of Warren’s at a ninety-degree angle. Hank could see her face beginning to register horror as she realized what was happening to them. Her arms were flung out to the sides, her right wrist had actually broken through the top of Warren’s left wing from the force of the blast. Two streams of blood and several droplets splashed in midair on either side of her wrist and the two parts of the wing had started to fold around her hand. Her left arm had slammed against the wall. The real Angel stood stricken, her eyes wide and her mouth open as she watched herself and the progression of the terrible events.

His attention drawn by Hank’s cry, Cable walked over and leaned against the wall looking at how Warren and Angel were compressed against each other, “Hank, look at this, she’s breaking his bones.”

Movement slowed even more and at Cable’s comment, all the X-men and Angel approached the wall and watched as the edges of the duplicate Warren’s broken top rib bones and clavicle began to poke through the duplicate Angel’s left side puncturing her unprotected lower rib cage and abdominal area. It was appalling to see, but no one could turn away.

“Oh, God,” the real Angel gasped, a horrified look on her face. Logan and Jean looked at her and Logan began to make his way back over to her after they had all separated out to watch the explosion and it’s effects.

The duplicate Warren’s left arm wasn’t visible but his hand stuck out from behind the duplicate Angel’s neck. Angel’s pelvis and thighs burrowed into Warren’s back and hips, her lower legs and feet pressing against the tunnel wall. Angel’s head struck the wall and a halo of blood appeared behind her head as her skull cracked open. Everything dissolved to black.