Betrayal - REVIEW THIS STORY

Written by Valerie Jones
Last updated: 01/02/2007 02:01:11 AM

Chapter 29

Bishop settled himself on the remains of a fallen tree and stared at the tranquil water before him. He had taken a liking to the spot as a place to rest, to think. He and Storm had stopped to talk here during his first day at the mansion. He had been furious that the X-men were holding a lakeside picnic despite his claims that they would one day be betrayed by one of their own. He had, in fact, even accused Gambit of being the traitor, and everyone had ignored him.

Today, he was no longer so sure. The evidence still seemed to point to Gambit-- even more so if Star Company was involved. But he couldn't figure out the Cajun's game. He was beginning to think it just might be possible that Gambit didn't know any more about what was going on than he did. That didn't mean he didn't do it. Only that he was not yet involved. Bishop didn't for one second consider that Gambit might be innocent. The Witness had admitted to being there when the X-men were betrayed. "Knew it. . . Saw it. . . . What of it?" The Witness' words echoed in Bishop's mind. He had always thought he'd have another chance to ask him what he'd meant by that. Another chance to dig information out of a senile old shark that he now knew was anything but.

How much had the Witness used him? he wondered. He couldn't possibly have arranged the events that led to Bishop's travel to the current time, yet he seemed to have counted on exactly such an occurrence. And he had spent *years* planting that code in Bishop's mind. Was there more, perhaps? Was Bishop himself serving the Witness' plans without intending to?

Bishop tossed a small rock into the lake. It disappeared beneath the water's surface with barely a splash and sank quickly out of sight. Then he leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, chin in hand. What did Star Company have to do with it?

Memory drew Bishop back to his childhood. He was sixteen. The Witness had left on some kind of mystery errand, and he and Shard had decided to go snooping. Even they had never been allowed into the Witness' private suites, and they were curious why.

"You realize we are *dead* if he catches us." Shard leaned against the door frame, watching the hall.

Bishop continued to work on the lock. It had been a long time since he'd done anything like this. He'd refused to learn the "business" once he realized what that business really was. But he had learned a few things from the Witness before that, and the lock was more decorative than anything else, considering who lived there.

"Relax, sis," he answered her. "Archie says he won't be back `til late. We've got plenty of time. I just want to look around."

Shard didn't answer. The door opened with a whisper of wood on the heavy carpeting. The room beyond was dark. Bishop stepped inside and turned on the lights. Shard followed him, closing the door behind her.

The suite was luxuriously decorated, as Bishop had expected, but with far more taste. He had been expecting something cheaper, less refined. Like the decor of an upscale whorehouse. Instead, the room was oddly comfortable. A writing desk occupied one corner of the large main room, surrounded by bookshelves. The desk was teak, and glowed with a dark luster that testified to its quality. The bookshelves were wood as well, and stained the same dark color. A small couch and chairs formed a conversational group in another corner, their style Victorian. The chairs had their backs to a brick fireplace that dominated the far wall, but it was the painting hung above the mantle that drew Bishop's eye.

"You're drooling, bro." Shard stepped up behind him and studied the picture. "Guess she was something, though." It was the closest she would come to a compliment.

"Do you think he knew her?"

Shard shrugged. "If the rumors are true, he knew all of them." She wandered off to examine the rest of the suite, no longer interested in ghosts from the past. Bishop stared at the painting for a while longer.

Shard had gone through the room's other door, presumably into the bedroom. Bishop followed her. Unsurprisingly, the bedroom was dominated by a huge four-poster bed that looked soft enough to swallow a person whole. The bedspread was made of satin the color of midnight sky. Bishop trailed his fingers across it as he walked by. Shard was looking in the closet, her expression one of surprised approval.

"I wonder how old this stuff is," she said, pulling a shirt out to examine it. "I sure haven't seen the old man in anything like it. He always looks like a beggar."

"Yeah. One of the richest old geezers around, and he can't remember to wear decent clothes."

Shard's smile turned depreciating, matching her brother's tone.

"So where d'ya think he keeps the ragamuffin getups?"

Bishop shrugged. "The dresser, maybe?"

Together, they began to investigate the contents of the ornate bureau. Their caution had fled, both because they hadn't been discovered and out of their shared disgust with the Witness. But there was little of interest to be found. The bureau was filled with common items of clothing. The top drawer was more interesting, though. It was filled with junk. Bishop found a scattering of pre-war currency, loose rounds of ammunition from various types of weapons, old photographs and holopics of no one he recognized, and even a couple of pieces from a puzzle. At least it looked like they might belong to the same puzzle. There was also a stack of yellowed papers that Bishop took out to look at more closely. Shard sat opposite him, peering at the pages upside down. The papers were an assortment of essays-- possibly even first drafts-- written by Genesis himself. Bishop handled the pages with reverence. Genesis and Cable were the founding fathers of the mutant nation.

"Wow. These things ought to be in a museum." Bishop put the pages back in order. Shard just shrugged. She didn't share his love of history. She returned her interest to the bureau drawer while Bishop set the Genesis papers gently on the carpet beside him. After a moment, she sat back down. She held a wooden box in her hands. The top was inlaid with gold in an abstract pattern, and there was no lock. Shard set it down on the floor between them and lifted the lid.

Bishop stared in surprise. The little box was full of medals. From the war. One in particular caught his attention. It was given no more concern than any of the others, so the ribbon was badly wrinkled, but Bishop could tell that that was made of silk the moment he touched it. The simple emblem that hung from it, cast in silver, was an X enclosed in a circle-- the standard of the X-men. It was the highest honor Magneto could have bestowed on anyone in his army.

"I didn't know the old man was in the war," Shard said. She took the medal from Bishop. "And a hero, too."

"Don't bet on it, sis," Bishop told her. "He probably stole this stuff."

"Hmph. Maybe." She laid the medal out on the carpet where the X-men's sacred symbol flashed dully in the light.

Bishop dumped out the rest of the box's contents. There were several other medals and honors, a Colonel's rank insignia, and a collection of battle pins, each identifying a major engagement. Some of them Bishop recognized. Sioux Falls. Medan Plain. Manhattan. He couldn't imagine that the Witness might actually have been in all of those battles. He couldn't see the Witness as a soldier.

A piece of black cloth fluttered down on top of the pile. It looked like it had been ripped from a uniform, except for the color. It bore a simple insignia patch-- a black five-pointed star, outlined in gray. Part of the gray outline was darkened, and Bishop studied it until he realized that the stain was blood. When he rubbed his thumb across it, the blood flaked off in tiny black specks.

"An' jus' *what* do y' two t'ink y' doin'?" The Witness' voice was coldly furious. He stood in the bedroom doorway, power crackling around his hands.

The piece of cloth slid from Bishop's nerveless fingers. Shard had gone completely white, her eyes wide with guilty fear. They both stared at the Witness in silence. Bishop watched the energy glow that surrounded both of the Witness' hands. He had never actually seen him use his powers, but he had heard of what the man could do. The Witness had never punished them physically as children, and for the first time, Bishop was truly afraid of what the Witness might do to them.

"Get out!" the Witness rasped.

Bishop and Shard looked at each other, uncertain.

"Now!"

They scrambled to their feet and ran, ducking through the doorway, past the Witness, with the anticipation of a blow that never came. Bishop stopped running outside the doorway to the suite. Shard never even paused. He waited a moment, catching his breath, then peeked back into the room. Through the far doorway, he could see the Witness kneeling among the scattered items as if he were staring at the shattered remains of a precious sculpture. He held something clenched in one fist and stared at it with empty eyes. After a few moments, Bishop realized that it wasn't one of the medals the Witness had picked up, but that little piece of black cloth with the star patch.

It took him a while, but Bishop finally found the star insignia in the historical accounts of the mutant-human war. It was the insignia of something called Star Company, a mercenary band that had fought for the Consortium in various parts of Europe.

"Have you ever heard of Star Company?" he asked Micah the next day. Micah was his tutor. His, Shard's, and Shackle's. Micah was an old man, though not as old as the Witness. Bishop loved to sit and talk to him because he knew so many stories from the war, bits of trivia that weren't in the histories. He'd been there.

Micah's eyebrows rose. "Where did you hear of Star Company?"

There was an edge to his voice that Bishop recognized. It meant that he didn't much like the direction the conversation was headed. Usually, he only sounded that way when he was forced to deal with the dirtier side of the Witness' business dealings. Micah was something of a romantic, and intensely loyal to the Witness because of something that had happened between them when Micah was young. He didn't like to see his employer's failings.

"I found an insignia patch from a Star Company uniform in with some old junk that was left over from the war. I was curious how the Witness got it. I didn't even know he was in the war." It wasn't exactly a lie, Bishop told himself. What he said was all true, in essence. It just made the Witness sound better than Bishop believed. But that would make Micah more likely to answer the question.

Micah eyed him as if he might be thinking the same thing, but eventually he answered, "Your father never met Star Company during the war, as far as I know. Although, that might explain his actions." Micah's lips were pursed as he considered something.

"What actions?"

Micah returned his attention to the present. His gaze, when he looked at Bishop, was flat and as solemn as Bishop had ever seen him. "A little more than ten years after the war ended, your father had every single member of Star Company executed. He never gave any explanation."

Bishop stared at him in silence for several moments. "How do you know he did it?"

Micah's expression didn't change. "Because I led that raid." To Bishop's shocked expression he added, "I fought in the war, boy. I even met Magneto himself, once. You didn't think the Witness would entrust me with his children if I weren't a whole lot more than just a scholar, did you?"

Bishop stood and stretched, wincing. He was stiff from sitting in one position for so long. The sound of the water lapping against the bank seemed mournful now. He hadn't thought about Micah in years. Even now the memory was painful. When Micah had died, it was the first time Bishop really felt like he was losing a member of his family. He'd been too young to really understand when his parents were killed.

He began to retrace his route back to the mansion, but his mind remained wrapped in his musings. Mostly, he wondered if the Witness was anything like he had always thought. He'd learned so much about him lately, more than during his entire time living in the same house with the man. But the person he was seeing now wasn't anything like the man he grew up with, and he didn't know which was the real thing. If either of them was.

He wasn't entirely certain he believed the Witness' claim that he had had a part in establishing the mutant nation. But he couldn't deny the logic of it, and both Cable's and Forge's actions were well documented. Those parts of the story were true, at least. It was beginning to seem like the Witness had justifiable reasons for all of the despicable things he'd done. Star Company could well be just another example of that. If they were involved with the murders of the X-men, he could well understand the Witness seeking revenge. Of course, the Witness could also have had them killed to keep them from ever telling anyone what his real role was in the deaths of the X-men. . . . .

Bishop ground his teeth in frustration. There just weren't any answers! The Witness-- or Gambit, however you wanted to look at it-- could be the traitor or not, and the facts could support both arguments. Bishop had no idea how to decide which was the truth. And more striking than that was the fear that he might never know until it was too late.