Leaving the Door Open

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

"Are you sure about this?"

"Absolutely. I have calculated everything, and the first domino is ready to tip. Everything will fall according to my plan."

"If this doesn't work, the backlash from the community will be extreme. After all, no one is supposed to be able to get out. Ever."

"Brighten up. Remember, nothing happens here that I do not notice because nothing here happens without my permission."

"Ha ha. Just know that if this goes wrong, and I end up cleaning up the mess, I'm coming after you."

"I won't be expecting you."

**********

Doktor Klaus Heidegger emerged from Felix "Flux" Fletcher's cell after the routine check up that was required by state law every month. Geryon had received his check up an hour or so ago. The surly Samoan didn't say much, but would only grunt or move his head in response to Klaus. It was paradise compared to the nonstop smart-alecky crap Flux slung at him from the moment he entered to the moment he left.

Klaus wondered if Flux would ever get bored of calling him "Picklepuss."

Klaus reached the armored door dividing the prison from the clinic.

"Hello, Intern," Klaus said. "Ah, Mister Lensherr, I see. Did you come to hand me your data?"

The Intern nodded and passed his supervisor a rather large envelope.

"Thank you, Lensherr. You may go get yourself a coffee. Please bear in mind the guard changes soon. Please do not be caught standing here in the next five minutes until the changing is complete."

The intern nodded and walked away at a brisk pace. It wasn't every day an intern at the Jozua Clinic got to fetch his own coffee.

[Jane]

Lensherr walked out of the clinic to the Starbucks across the street. This time of the morning it did a brisk business, and today was no exception. A tall, thin woman was in line in front of him, her clothing dark and utilitarian. She ordered a cup of joe, black, and stood to the side waiting for it.

Jane looked at the Jozua intern and made eye contact for a few seconds before taking a seat at a table by the wall with coffee.

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

Lensherr walked over to Jane as he sipped his coffee. "Like clockwork, every day, every week for a month," he said to her. "Five minutes for the entire guard to change. No more, no less."

He shrugged apologetically. "It's all you have. I'm afraid the good doctor doesn't allow for delays. I hope it helps."

[Jane]

"Of course it helps," Jane said quietly. "You've done well." He nodded, hesitated, and then walked off.

She plucked her phone from the front pocket of her Dickies and dialed a number. "Five minutes is the window." She clicked the phone shut and set it on the table, looking at it while she sipped her coffee.

[Vigilante]

Ginny grunted assent, hanging up and tossing her phone into the saddlebag of her Harley and swinging her leg over and down. Just another day, assisting terrorists for the greater good. Whatever the hell that was, anyway.

She walked along the sidewalk behind the Jozua Clinic, her footsteps clinking quietly as she paced out from the corner of the bundling. Moment of truth coming up fast. Either the information was good, the measurements precise and the area was clear beneath her... Or she was about to try rematerializing in the dirt twenty feet below. Ginny hesitated, checked her watch, then crossed herself and -

bamf

She was in a hallway lit with sickly fluorescent lights, a bright clear plexiglass looking box in front of her. The single occupant stood up abruptly at the sight of her, and she strode toward the door to his cell.

[Flux]

Flux heard the displacement of air and looked up, from where he'd been reading, then stood and moved quickly to the door of his cell, discarding the book on the floor. He didn't recognize the woman, but he was sure she was a mutant. Moreover, he could sense it: METAL! Not even Banner was so gorgeous and glorious as this stranger.

"The Brotherhood has finally seen fit to send someone," he sighed, straightening up as Ginny approached the door. "I always believed my Brothers and Sisters would aid me."

[Vigilante]

"Yeah, okay. Don't get all choked up." Ginny halted outside the locked door and stripped off her jacket, unwinding the heavy metal chain that she'd wound over her torso. She dangled it from her hand and then released it.

It never hit the floor, instead hovering in the air while the teenager stared at it. She cleared her throat, double checking her watch. "You have four minutes and ...twenty seconds before the guard is finished changing. You better get to work. They want you to get Geryon out, too, and whoever else you feel like bringing."

She turned on her heel and began pacing the distance back to her entrance point.

[Flux]

Flux hovered the chain with reverence. Beautiful. Long enough that he could divide it into lengths to wrap on his arms and legs with plenty left to wield as a weapon and chunk bits off for projectiles. Such a simple thing, but so elegant.

"Whoa, whoa, wait! What do you mean? You're not just gonna teleport us out?" He was indignant. All this time sitting here, wasting away, and now his freedom was so close. Just the barest flash of teleportation and he'd be gone in less than a second. And he's got to walk out? "What the hell!?"

[Vigilante]

She turned around to face him, his pale face getting a little red. Ginny shrugged into her jacket and said, "The Brotherhood wants you to prove yourself. They're still irked that you dragged their name into the 'bridge incident.'" She raised an eyebrow.

"So you get yourself and Geryon out. Or you can just stay in here, because this is all the help you're getting." She smiled. "And I will be back for Geryon, if you fail. Four minutes." And then she was gone, the scent of sulfur and a burst of purple smoke lingering in the hallway where she had been.

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

"So, let me get this straight. You're going to just let them out?"

"Naturally. But I won't make it too easy. They will still have only the window of opportunity I allow them. They will do exactly as we want. I have no reason to believe there will be any events occur outside of my plan."

"I hope so. Flux is one crafty little guy."

"Obnoxious, and creative with nicknames, perhaps. But crafty? You give him too much credit."

******************

Klaus sat in his office, watching the feeds for the prison on his computer monitor. "It is time. Open the prison doors, and proceed with changing the prison staff."

The head of security scowled at the computer screen. "Sir, it looks like Prisoner 1 has restricted materials."

"Then take them from him. You have the technology. Hurry, Captain, before they get away."

In the prison below, the two large doors labeled WARNING: DANGEROUS MUTANTS INCARCERATED BEYOND THIS POINT. PLEASE COMPLY WITH ALL SAFETY REGULATIONS BEFORE ENTERING began to swing open. The guards waiting inside the door lined up for inspection just as the guards getting ready to enter were lining up to do the same. In all there were ten of them: Two for each mutant in the prison, then two more for each security check point. That made two guards on Geryon, two on Flux, and six more for the three check points. With the shift changing, the number was double to twenty.

The warning siren filled the prison with noise. "Prison break, men! Assume your posts! Get down there and stop those mutants NOW!"

[Flux]

Flux sheared the chain into five lengths: one for each limb, and one to use for weaponry. First, to open the door. He repelled two lengths from two others, launching them into the air where they tangled about the giant wheel that locked his prison door. Then, carefully, he began to attract and repel those twisted chains from their brothers. It was a slow, tricky process; he had to make sure not to accidentally shoot his other three chains away. At last it opened, and Flux stepped through the door for the first time. Funny, he thought, that he had never been conscious when entering or exiting his own cell. He wrapped the chains around his calves and forearms, tying them on as best he could, then gathered up the remainder and sprinted down the hall as the sirens went off.

[The Brotherhood]

They weren't feeding Geryon enough. He liked to keep his weight above 360, with enough fat packed on his gigantic frame to quickly convert into bone and muscle should he need to regenerate an arm or sprout new ones. Losing weight had never been a problem for the gargantuan mutant - it was keeping it on when shrugging off bullets and knife wounds forced him to metabolize ten pounds in an afternoon.

And yet he was on the floor doing pushups, sets of fifty at a time, because he needed to keep his strength up and he was the only thing in his cell remotely heavy enough to give himself a workout. He'd taken to talking to the guards about their workout habits. Vinnie could bench 370. Spencer claimed he could power clean 400. It was cute, in a twisted sort of way.

The scream of the prison alarm interrupted Geryon's meditative rhythm, and he lifted himself to one knee, jumpsuit stained with sweat. Vinnie and Spence each laid a hand on their sidearms.

"Problem, guys?" Geryon said.

"Nothin' to worry about, fatass, just keep doing your thing," Vinnie grumbled.

Geryon lowered himself to the floor to resume his push-ups, but he kept an eye down the hall as Spence loaded a clip of nectar rounds into his pistol.

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

"We will be using all the standard anti-mutant technology, of course."

"If you built your prison better, those weapons wouldn't be necessary."

"Oh, please. Accidents can still happen, even if they are infinitesimally small. And in the event of a 'worst case scenario,'--the very scenario we are engineering--the community will be expecting us to use all the resources available to us to keep the criminal mutants contained. Relax, it's not like we're using these weapons on you."

************

The guards reached their posts and set up behind their cover, which was positioned on either side of the hallway. They slanted inward and i doing so created a funnel, which Klaus hoped would draw mutant prisoners into the middle of the hallway. Owing to Flux's powers, All the supporting walls consisted entirely of concrete. So were the barriers the guards were crouched behind. All Nectar rounds were made using plastic cartridges and needles. Only the guns themselves contained any metal. At each checkpoint, each guard had a panic button. That panic button would start up the emergency lockdown. In the event of lockdown, three foot thick blast doors lowered from the ceiling to seal off the prison. Each sealed chamber then vented all its oxygen--the trapped mutants and guards would suffocate to death.

To that end, Klaus ensured all his guards were die-hard mutant haters, who would gladly give their last breath to ending an especially dangerous segment of the mutant menace.

[Flux]

Flux waited just inside the door to the no-metal-zone, looking around the corner to the guards arrayed there. Somewhere down that hall was Geryon. Flux was determined to get him by any means necessary. He re-linked the chain using his powers, save the length coiled around his left arm, and repelled it along the floor, sliding it snakelike to where the guards crouched at the ready. Suddenly, the chain leapt up and snatched at one of the metal rifles flinging it up the hall to Flux. He picked it up swiftly and aimed, shooting at whichever exposed guard he could see.

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

"But what about your men? Sure they're racist, but is that really enough?"

"Of course not! I've tripled their hazard pay and severance packages to keep their families quiet. It's amusing how many housewives can literally kiss their husbands goodby when you flash six figure paychecks their way."

"That's horrible."

"That's American."

"Hey!"

"Oh, don't be so offended. It was only meant for humorous intent. Besides, aren't the things that are most true the most funny as well?"

"You got a tweaked sense of humor, you know that?"

"That's what they say behind my back."

**************

The guards picking on Geryon turned when they heard the rifle go off.

"What the--?"

They both fell. Bullets riddled their heads and torsos. Blood pooled underneath them.

Back in his office, Klaus raised an eyebrow at Flux's tactics. This data would provide him numerous research and development opportunities. Magnetizing the chains and guns, but not the bullets inside? If selective magnetism could be turned into technology, the applications could be limitless.

[Flux]

Flux double-check his rifle as the guards dropped in puddles of blood. Live rounds? Huh.

"I'm way too used to their plastic crap," he grumbled at himself. He shrugged lightly, putting the deaths out of his mind, and walked to Geryon's door. He put his hand on the metal door and yanked, ripping it off the hinges with magnetism.

"Broseidon!" Flux greeted jovially. "They put a surprisingly light guard on you for being as strong as you are." He reached out and magnetized the components of Geryon's collar, deactivating it to allow Geryon the satisfaction of removing the device himself. "Ready to go home?"

[The Brotherhood]

Geryon watched dispassionately as Vinnie and Spencer bucked against the bullet impacts and slid slowly to the floor. He greeted Flux with a shrug. "I'm on the good behavior list. You should try it sometime, man."

As soon as he felt the numbing influence of the collar give way, he reached up, clawed his fingers into the nylon extension straps, and ripped the hateful thing away. It shattered when he flung it against a concrete wall. Geryon took a deep breath and flexed, and a fresh pair of thick, corded arms burst through the sides of his orange jumpsuit with a wet crunch of bone and muscle. His generous gut disappeared, leaving him lean and solid. He reached down and picked up the dead guards' sidearms in two of his four hands.

"I'm ready when you are, Flux. We gettin' any support from the outside?"

[Flux]

"Hell to the naw," Flux grimaced, sticking his head out the door to check down the hall. He could just see the guards posted up waiting for them. It was going to be a tricky business to deal with them. Flux narrowed his eyes, focusing.

"Son of a bitch, there's metal in their guns," He magnetized them together into a useless heap in the center of the hall and moved from cover, opening fire and trusting his powers to protect him.

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

"So, just how easy are you making this?"

"There's just enough metal about to make Flux feel as big and strong as he thinks he is. But don't worry. My men won't be completely at his mercy."

"If things get too easy, he'll smell the trap."

"Too true. Unless his ego is as big as I surmise. Nevertheless, I never underestimate an opponent's capabilities."

"Don't try to sound like some general or prize fighter."

"Chess can be more cutthroat than any boxing match."

************

The guards felt their rifles leave their hands. "Push the panic button!"

The guards nearest the buttons pressed them as soon as their comrade gave the order. The large doors began to come down from the ceiling at what someone might call "Indiana Jones Speed." Fast, but not so fast someone in decent physical condition couldn't sprint under before they finished shutting.

The first door started to close, then the second shortly after that, followed by the third set furthest down the hall. Originally they were all supposed to shut at the same time: Klaus had them adjusted so each started a little later and a little slower than the first. Still, if the guards did their jobs, Flux and Geryon wouldn't make it to the second door.

"Melee, men! The batons aren't metal! He can't take them!" The four guards drew heavy clubs made of some sort of super-plastic developed by the Jozua Clinic labs. In the other hand, the guards held a handheld injection device that could deliver a powerful dosage of nectar to any mutant that got within grappling range.

Pinned down by Flux's stolen rifle, the men were forced to wait for the mutants to come to them. "Steady, men! At this rate, he'll run out of ammunition before he reaches us!"

[The Brotherhood]

"Shit."

Geryon wasn't sure what happened when those doors lowered all the way, but he was reasonably certain it would be unpleasant. He advanced behind Flux and added his own covering fire, and when he'd spent both magazines he bull-rushed the first guard with a roar.

The guard didn't bother with his baton, which would have been like swinging a ruler at a grizzly bear, and stabbed at Geryon's massive right hand with his bayonet-syringe thing. But Geryon windmilled his arm out of reach and then caught the guard's wrist with his other right hand. He drove the guard's arm into the concrete wall with a sickening crunch of bone, and the Nectar device fell harmlessly to the floor.

By the time the second guard closed in, Geryon had seized the first one by the legs and was wielding him like screaming, bloody blackjack. "Get a move on, Magnet Man!" he bellowed back at Flux.

[Flux]

"Hah! Magnet Man. Takes me back."

Flux swiped the butt of his borrowed gun across the chin of a guard as he closed in, shooting the next point-blank with his last bullets, and repelled the gun itself from his hands to smash in the nose of his third. He whipped off a length of chain and snapped it into a ring around one of Geryon's arms. "Fly, you fool!" Flux sprinted through the closing doors, sliding under the last as it closed to chest-height.

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

"This is all a game to you, isn't it?"

"Do I look to be in a gaming mood?"

"I don't know. You only seem to have the one facial expression."

"And which one would that be?"

"That self-possessed, full-of-it smirk. I could seriously knock that thing right off your face."

"Such anger issues. Perhaps you should join group therapy with Dr. Sumpter?"

"No way. Then I'd have to try to escape."

"So harsh. I only want to help you."

"And yet, I can never quite bring myself to believe you."

****************

The doors slammed shut behind the two mutants, sealing in the surviving guards. Just behind the doors, the sound of the gas injectors filling the rooms could be heard hissing doom.Klaus got up from his director's chair, straightened his lab coat, and headed for the elevators.

"Sir, where are you going?" The security chief asked him.

"Why, to convince these two lost sheep to go back to their pens."

"Sir, I don't recommend it. They hate you."

Klaus chuckled. "Of course they do! I built their prison! But have faith."

Klaus pressed the button for the elevator. It opened after only a short wait. Then the Jozua Clinic Director stepped inside and pressed the button for the ground floor.

"See to it that the other mutants aren't harmed. The only way the two jailbreakers can leave is through the lobby. Be sure they take no detours."

"Yes sir!"

Klaus stepped out of the elevator. They would be with him soon.

[The Brotherhood]

Down the corridor. Up the stairs to the first basement level. Through a hallway lined with offices, evidence closets, interrogation rooms, visitation, central processing. All the trappings of a "normal" prison were there, which was a laugh. Normal prisons didn't dope you up with experimental drugs, recruit prisoners for hits on other prisoners, or lock their own guards in a fucking gas chamber in the case of an escape. Geryon hoped they'd be coming back soon to send this place straight to hell.

The Samoan mutant put his shoulder down into the armored door that led into the prison lobby, puckering the metal surface and torquing the hinges. That weakened it enough so that Flux could rip the whole thing away with a metallic shriek. Only one obstacle still stood between the escapees and the ground floor.

Security bars had rammed down over the doors to the prison elevator. Flux made short work of those, and then Geryon battered in the elevator doors until they fell to the floor of the shaft.

"Hitch a ride, Flux."

With the kid clinging to his broad back, Geryon grabbed onto a thick length of cable and hauled both of them up arm over arm toward freedom.

[Flux]

Flux paused outside the evidence closets. He forced the door open and with a gesture of his hand brought out his old iron bands and costume. They were well-kept, all things considered, with only the faintest trace of corrosion. The uniform stank as though a cat had shat rotten eggs all over it. Flux supposed nobody would've been inclined to wash a criminal's uniform. Just down the hall, Geryon bashed the door, drawing Flux's gaze.

His Samoan brother gestured for him to come on. Flux looked back to the evidence locker and found a simple lighter, lifted off some poor bastard's person. Flux took it and put fire to the red-and-gray unitard, then tossed the flaming garment back into the locker and fit the door back. With that done, he tore the elevator door from its place to finish Geryon's work and took a firm grip on the Samoan's back, watching the shaft's distant ceiling come to him as his Brother made swift work of the climb. At the top floor Flux jumped back and magnetized himself to the wall, exerting magnetic force on the fresh door. Geryon swung himself like a pendulum and kicked it. The door flew inward as Geryon landed with a thump. Flux repelled himself over the crouching Samoan and landed somewhat quieter, floating the door with magnetism to keep it from crashing and alerting the guards to their progress.

"Right. Back in the clinic, now, yes? I've never even seen this part; I was sedated up to here when they brought me in to lock me up." He gestured with one hand to indicate the sky; he'd been blacked out for days upon arrival, and woke up to be told he was beginning his sixth day of imprisonment. "You lead for a bit, Brother. Wouldn't want us getting lost and making this harder than it needs to be."

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

"Wouldn't a loading dock or emergency exit be better?"

"They would allow the escapees to be more discrete, but why would they spend the time to look for these exits when there's a great big one with great big signs pointing the way?"

"But think--"

"I have! I guarantee you, they will not. Television and movies have done much to enhance the suspension of disbelief over these last few decades. The spectacle their escape will make is going to be, as they say, 'Epic.' They get the catharsis of escaping their jailers, and their organization gets to send the message they want conveyed to their so-called mundane inferiors. I promise, no one is going to look at this too closely."

*********************


Klaus stood in the lobby as calm and patiently as he would for someone who was due to arrive for an appointment at any minute. Personnel were stationed just outside the glass doors to politely turn away visitors with the excuse of "quarantine." A mixture of fear of disease and hatred of mutants would keep people clear. But they trusted Jozua Clinic. Klaus had seen the PR reports. Non-mutants adored the facility and the petite girl with the downy blonde hair that popped up on bus ads and billboards lately.

"Mrs. Jenkins," Klaus said to the woman at the front desk, "Please feel free to take the rest of the day off.

As she started to protest Klaus held up a finger. She stopped mid-word. It was the kind of power Klaus enjoyed. "No no. I insist. You have two minutes. No, you're not fired. Take the day off and enjoy the sunshine."

The woman, sensing danger was near, hurriedly gathered her purse, phone, and jacket, then bustled out the door as fast as her five-inch heels would allow.

Now it was just Klaus, the lobby chairs, and the mellow tones of smooth jazz.

"Magnetize the doors and windows, please," Klaus radioed to security.

A slight buzzing sound informed the doctor that the powerful magnets were sealing off the building. There it was. One last pitiful stand against two mutant criminals.

"Come to me," Klaus said.

[Flux]

"So, I'm thinking out the front is a bad idea," Geryon was saying. "Prolly lots of guards and shit. A back way would be better. Loading dock, emergency exit, whatever."

Flux wasn't paying attention. He was standing up straight, alert, looking around with his eyes at the sudden burst of magnetic activity that he could sense going on around him.

"Yeah, they wanna make a killing ground," Flux conjectured. "They might get it; tons of really strong-ass magnets just activated all over. I need to go see what they were. C'mon." Flux ran down the hall, stampeding for the nearest magnetic force he could sense. Rooms flew by, each equiped with monitors on stands, beds, sinks, and miles of tubes and wires. The ones with occupants were either strangely quiet...that feeling of something keeping silent rather than it being merely an empty room. Others gasped as the prison-orange figures flew by, some shrieked, others cursed defiant threats. Flux ignored all this. One room, however, was shouting incoherent babble. He skidded to a stop a few paces beyond and staggered as Geryon's bulk hit him. "Hang on, I think I heard a reference to us. Didn't you? I mean, besides the cursing and screaming."

[The Brotherhood]

Geryon rumbled to a halt. "What, are you nuts? We don't have time for visiting hours!"

[Andrea Kaine]

"The first shots fired in the unending war. Two bullets in the chamber. The hammer is falling. There will be thunder soon. Thunder. It's so loud, and it's getting closer!"

Andrea Kaine was in torment again, but whether it was the visions or the chaos in the clinic, Nurse Angelina Gutierrez couldn't tell. All she knew was the poor girl was writhing in her bed, damp with sweat and wracked with anguish, and there was nothing the matronly nurse could do about it.

Gutierrez gently stroked Andrea's hair with a large, callused hand. "Listen to me, dear, the clinic's in a lockdown," she said. "It'll be over soon, and you'll be safe, but you have to keep it down."

The florescent lights flickered above, and Andrea's glassy eyes darted across the ceiling. "One thousand one... one thousand two... one thousand three--"

Something crashed to the floor in the corridor outside, a metal door twisting off its hinges. "It's less than a mile away," Andrea said. "Do you hear them? The man of magnets and the giant with many arms. They'll be here in one thousand five... one thousand four... one thousand three..."

Gutierrez heard lumbering footsteps, and her heart pounded in her ears as she looked toward the wardroom door. It was locked, but that seemed like a paltry defense against mutant criminals, and she'd been around Andrea long enough that she never doubted the girl's predictions.

"They won't hurt you, nina," she said in a trembling voice. "I won't let them." She scooped up Andrea's hands in her own, enveloping them entirely, and began to pray.

[Flux]

The pins on the door's hinges fired out like bullets and Flux shoved the door in and propped it on the wall. "Man of Magnets," Flux echoed. "How're you so calm about it? Everyone else sees orange out their doors and windows and goes nuts. But you're just lying here, narrating, aren't you?" Flux's head tipped to the side and a little forward as he studied Andrea. The chains rattled on his limbs as he stepped inside. His voice was thoughtful and wondering. "What else do you have to say, Sister?"

[Andrea Kaine]

The stocky nurse threw herself across the bed, covering Andrea like a mother bird defending her nest. "No! You won't hurt her! I won't let you!"

[The Brotherhood]

Geryon stepped beside Flux, nearly filling up the room, and shoved Gutierrez aside with a careless swipe of his arm. She backpedaled and crashed against the wall, grabbing the swingarm on a bank of medical monitors to keep herself upright, and stared at the intruders with wide eyes full of terror.

"Who said anything about hurting her?" the Samoan mutant growled. "Looks like your lab rat friends have done enough of that."

[Andrea Kaine]

Andrea had gone still except for the rise and fall of her chest. If she noticed Nurse Gutierrez groaning as she slid down to the floor, she gave no indication. Her eyes were locked on Flux's with uncanny clarity.

"The body is a prison," she said. "But the mind is weak and cannot live without it. I talked to Rosanna Hughes sometimes, in her sleep. She didn't know it, but she was my friend. Thank you for helping her."

[Flux]

Flux's eyes widened by the smallest space as Andrea invoked Rosanna's name. He saw that girl's anguished face and terrifying body too often when he shut his eyes, heard her voice in the few moments of true quiet he experienced, and dreamt nightly of the horror they had shared in the hour he had spent trapped Below with her. Every so often, his mind would conjure fresh nightmares of her; of her body shrunk down, crawling down the hall screaming for mercy as he pressed to the back of his cell in terror, of being devoured by her all-consuming power. His eyes watered and itched and his throat stopped his voice. His diaphragm and stomach joined one another in mutiny and he dry heaved several times before he got it under control.

He could feel the nurse's confusion and Geryon's concern filtering into the quiet that followed Andrea's announcement. Andrea just laid there, staring at Flux, awaiting his reply. Flux stood shaking his head, willing himself not to blink.

"You're not welcome," he said at last. "She didn't have to die. If Heidegger hadn't gotten to her, she could be alive now." He clenched his fists and drew himself up, coping with his fear the way he always had: by replacing it with anger. "Thank me when we've avenged her. Come on, Geryon, we're going up front to meet Heidegger." Flux stalked from the room, gathering all the loose metal that he could to his body.

[Andrea Kaine]

Andrea's eyes did not follow Flux out of the room. They lost focus and rolled up toward the ceiling as she drifted away again.

"The Fox will play his part for the Everywhere Man. It won't be long now. The mother... the mother and child..."

Her eyes shuddered and closed, and with one sighing breath, Andrea was asleep.

[The Brotherhood]

Out in the corridor, Geryon laid a massive hand on Flux's shoulder. "Hey. Hey! What do you think you're doing? You know that's the way they want us to go!"

[Flux]

"Yeah, and it's the way I wanna go, too!" Flux shot back, whirling to fix hateful eyes on his Brother. "I'm going to go up there and in front of the doctors and guards and mutants and mundanes and God I'm gonna kill him. I'm gonna show 'em that he's not safe from us. The world has to see Heidegger bleed. They think he'll save them from us by removing our mutancy. Well fuck that and fuck him. I'm gonna hang him from the ceiling." Flux turned and marched on.

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

"If this goes wrong, I cannot help you."

"We have discussed that already. Could it be you actually care about me and my facility?"

"I care about it less than the Brotherhood does."

"And yet, you are asking me to put my facility on the line."

"If your so-called clinic goes down and the Brotherhood gets put away, then I call it killing two birds with one stone. And I will sleep well that night."

"What is it the interns say? 'Look out, we're dealing with a bad-ass over here?' Yes, I think that's the phrase. I will tell them what they want to hear, and then they will leave."

"So what are you going to tell them?"

"And ruin the surprise? I hardly think so."

**************

Klaus checked his watch. They were late. Odd. He activated his bluetooth and contacted the head of security. "Where are they?"

"In Kaine's room. The girl is apparently telling their futures."

Klaus rolled his eyes. Before he could comment further, his security chief was once again speaking. "Fletcher is headed your way. Geryon keeps insisting to find a back door, but it looks like whatever Kaine said has got Fletcher looking to wring your neck."

Klaus smirked. The plan was back on. He would have made a note to thank Andrea Kaine, but he was very confident serendipity was the true force behind this turn of events.

"All the same, I want all the exits charged with ten thousand volts. If it doesn't kill them, they will know they have to leave through the front door."

"Done"

"Very good. Send a small team to encourage Geryon to follow his hot-headed friend."

Klaus could hear the dimished voice of the chief ordering the security staff to start blocking off the corridors. "I want enough Nectar weapons on that hallway to make an entire city of mutants sick."

Within minutes the two jailbreakers could hear the heavy, ordered footfalls of well-trained security professionals approaching their position.

[The Brotherhood]

Geryon snorted, and then he charged in front of Flux like a bull elephant. He planted his palm in the younger mutant's chest with a force than nearly bowled him over.

"No!" he roared. "Damn it, Flux, this is the kind of bullshit that put you here in the first place! You're grandstanding! That ain't what we're here for!"

A column of boots pounded in a nearby stairwell. Their time was running out, but Geryon didn't budge.

"Listen, we'll come back and we'll put Heidegger and his stooges on ice. But not now, not without a plan. Now we need to--"

P-CHOK! P-CHOK!

Further up the hall, between the mutants and the utility entrances, a guard in body armor had leaned out from behind a corner and fired two rounds from his sidearm. Geryon reeled and crashed against the wall of Andrea's room, staring at the darts embedded in his left hand.

"Rrrraagh!"

Geryon focused on the tissue connecting his arm to his body, forcing his mutation to work backwards, and the limb began to atrophy and wither before the Nectar could flow back into the rest of his bloodstream. The arm was dessicated and purple by the time he grabbed it in his other hand, and with a wet shearing noise he tore it away and threw it to the floor, spraying the wall with a gout of blood. The diseased limb writhed like a decapitated snake as the Nectar forced its regenerative factor into overdrive, but without the support of Geryon's body it simply shriveled and died.

[Flux]

Flux jumped at the withering, useless limb on the floor as purpled, its skin rippling and muscle dwindling as it died without Geryon to sustain it. It reminded him too much of the two long tentacles that had menaced him Below. More needles peppered the hallway. Flux returned fire with the shrapnel he'd gathered, knocking needles out of the air and scattering guards to cover in the doorways of the hospital rooms. Flux pressed against the wall and avoided the barrage. "Who's grandstanding?" he finally retorted. "We can do this! They're so scared of us it's disgusting!" To prove the point, Flux sent a scattering of metal shreds at the guard hiding behind the nearest door. Flux magnetized the door shut and locked. "No sweat." Then he did it again. "You want a plan!? We move it up a bit at the time, take 'em out, then string up Heidegger by his neck. Happy!?"

[The Brotherhood]

He wasn't. Down to three arms, lacking the requisite calories to make any more, with Nectar-wielding mooks crowding them toward whatever snuff show Doc Heidegger was planning for them in the lobby. Because that was the only thing that could explain the guards cutting them off from the loading bays but leaving the path to the main entrance wide open.

But right now there didn't seem to be many options. Flux was hellbent on a showdown with Heidegger. Maybe the best Geryon could do was see that the kid made it through in one piece.

"Fine," he grunted. The massive mutant kicked the nearest wardroom door off its hinges, drawing a terrified shriek from the patient inside, but it was the door he was after. He gripped the slab of steel between two hands and, armed with a gun and a makeshift shield, advanced down the hallway at a lumber.

"Your plan, you call the shots."

[Flux]

Ya damn right was the thought that flickered through his head, but he didn't voice it. His hate was focused, not clouding his mind like it had normally. He stole one gun, jammed others, and cut down the token resistance they met on the way up front. As they approached the edge of the hall the place seemed to open up. There was more light coming in, but no sign of more guards. Flux motioned for Geryon to stop, and all was still. He reached out his magnetic power into the lobby to learn what metal awaited, and perhaps get the lay of the land without having to risk his head doing so.

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

Klaus looked with idle boredom at his wristwatch. He bought it just for this day. He looked at the watch's face and saw the little hands had stopped moving. The little gears that set the watch in motion had been magnetized.

Flux was finally here.

Klaus unfastened the watch's leather strap and let the thing hit the floor.

"Hello, Felix," the doctor called out. "You certainly are clever. You've managed to escape the prison--almost. The door is behind me. It's unlocked. I'm unarmed. Not one security officer is with me. They're all coming up behind you. I won't attempt to stop you. You've earned your escape. You are free to leave."

[Flux]

A metal chain spun through the air like a bolo, wrapping around the doctor's neck before it flew to meet the metal support beams that crossed the lobby's ceiling. Heidegger hung from his neck, strangling, and Flux stepped out with a look of cold fury on his face.

"Eat shit, Picklepuss. Can't wait to see your obituary attached to the story of our escape. C'mon, Geryon, we're out." The doors blew away into the street as he stepped through them and made his escape.

[The Brotherhood]

It was going to be that easy?

Geryon pivoted so he could keep his eyes on Heidegger as he passed by, but the doc just twisted on the length of chain like a man condemned while the front doorway of the lobby beckoned. For the first time in weeks, the three-armed mutant could feel the sticky heat of the Angelino afternoon, and there wasn't so much as a syringe-wielding orderly to oppose him.

And he hated it. Hated that Heidegger had handed it to them on a silver platter, and that Flux didn't even seem to give it a second thought. But freedom was freedom. If he had to choose between running into an open parking lot and charging back into the teeth of Jericho's hired goons... well, that wasn't a choice at all.

Geryon gave the doctor a lingering, accusing look, and then he lumbered off through the busted doorway into the open air after his brother.