The Game of Empires - REVIEW THIS STORY

Written by Valerie Jones
Last updated: 02/13/2010 03:54:13 PM

Chapter 2

"Jean?" She felt more than heard the question as it came across her psychic link. "Jean, what’s wrong?"

With a start, Jean refocused on the reality around her. She glanced up at her husband, but could not meet his gaze. She didn’t know what to tell him. She could not even define for herself what disturbed her. Without a word, she rose from the table and walked over to stare out the window. She wrapped her arms about her waist, feeling chilled, as the light snow continued to dust down outside.

A moment later, arms wrapped around her from behind, engulfing her in a warm embrace. Jean sighed and leaned into her husband.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Scott asked.

Jean stared at the snow. "I don’t know what to tell you," she finally admitted. "I can’t stop thinking about Onslaught."

"Onslaught?" Scott sounded surprised. In his very orderly, defined way, she knew, Scott had already come to terms with the experience and then filed everything away as a part of the past. He would not drag it out again in his own mind unless something in the present pointed in that direction.

She, on the other hand, still had nightmares. "We missed something, Scott." She pulled one arm free of his hug and gestured toward the window and far-distant Westchester. "I don’t know where or how... or even what. But I know we missed something important. Something about Onslaught -- " She paused, frightened by the implications of what she was thinking. "--about Onslaught and Charles."

Scott turned her around to face him, his expression shading toward alarm. "What do you mean?"

Jean shook her head again, feeling helpless. "I don’t know. When Onslaught attacked me, he went into my head. Deep into my head." She looked away from Scott’s face as she spoke. She did not like to admit how violated she felt. "He was trying to get past all of my emotional defenses so that he could hurt me as much as possible." That was when he had shown her all of Charles’ ugliest secrets, including some very inappropriate feelings toward Jean herself. At the time, she had felt almost overwhelmed with horror and a sense of betrayal. But with the passing of time, she had been able to look past what Onslaught had been trying to show her, to what was really there.

"While he was showing me all those things, I was able to watch him. I think I saw a lot more than I could have ever seen from the outside." Recently, she had been going over the memories, hoping that by doing so she would see how Onslaught had taken something that perhaps really existed in Charles, but then had amplified and twisted it into the horrible things he had poured into her mind. But she had found no reassurance. Only the instinctive fearful certainty that if she looked deep enough, she would find a reality worse than the fiction.

She shook her head in frustration. "There’s just... something there that I’m not seeing."

Scott squeezed her shoulders. "Easy, honey. You’ll find whatever it is."

Encouraged by his confidence, Jean summoned a small smile. "I hope so."

He drew her into a hug. "Maybe you should try not to think about it so much. Let your subconscious work on it for a while."

Jean did her best to push the thoughts away. She knew she was making herself miserable. "Is that your way of telling me to lighten up?"

She could feel his smile. "Something like that."

Behind them, Scott’s grandparents had watched the conversation in silence. But now, Jean heard the clink of silverware as they resumed their meal.

"Scott, Jean. Your dinner is getting cold," his grandmother said, and Jean felt some of the tension running out of her. Westchester, the X-Men, and all of those problems were a very long way away from them here. The least she could do was enjoy this interlude of peace rather than inviting more trouble into her life.

"We’re coming," she said, and slipped her hand into Scott’s as they turned back toward the table.

Remy LeBeau crouched in the mottled shadows, a penlight gripped in his teeth. The fine beam illuminated a portion of the circuit board in front of him, as well as the tips of his fingers as he spliced the wires with casual ease. Not that what he was doing was easy. Not by a long stretch. This, after all, was a private estate in the Caymans, where money laundering was the main source of income and anyone who had lots of money did not come by it legally. The security was good.

He grinned in the darkness. ’Course, I’m better. He twisted the last pair of wires together and cautiously replaced the access panel. His attention was tuned to the yard around him, and he listened with both his ears and his mutant powers for signs of trouble. The dogs were on the far side of the house, still distracted by the scent of the dead rabbit Remy had left just beyond the fence.

After one last sweep of the yard, he straightened, backed up a step and then vaulted to the low hanging tiled roof of the garage. His landing made only the faintest crunching noise as the red tiles absorbed his weight. He balanced delicately there at the edge, testing the security of his perch. The Spanish roof was a tremendous natural defense against thieves because the slippery tiles came loose very easily, often cascading down in long rows to shatter on the ground below. Remy checked each step as he crept across the roof toward a second story window in the main part of the house, and arrived in silence.

Adrenaline pumped through him as he went to work on the remote alarm circuit on the window. He was thoroughly exposed here. The guards were clustered at the gate, but they did wander sometimes, and if one happened to look around at the wrong time they would spot him easily. The bizarre thing was that he really didn’t care.

He circumvented the alarm and raised the window, then slid quietly inside. He crouched beside the window as he studied the room. The glassy eyes of a twelve point buck stared down at him from over the empty fireplace. A fat recliner sat in front of the fireplace, covered by a tarp whose edges did not quite reach the floor. There was nothing else in the small room, and as far as Remy could tell, it served no purpose except as a place for the owner of the house to sit and stare at his dead deer.

Shaking his head, Remy padded silently across the room. He paused at the door to listen, then opened it a crack and peered through. As expected, the hall was dark. He was fairly certain that this portion of the house was unused, which was why he had entered there. Boldly he stepped out into the hall and made his way toward the master bedroom. The owner of the house would be out doing laps in the pool, as was his habit, and, as far as Remy knew, the misses was still with her boyfriend. He expected to have all the time he needed.

The master bedroom was dark. Remy pulled the curtains closed, then turned on the computer sitting on the desk and settled in front of it. His current employer had given him some useful information about the security on the machine itself, and hacking in proved to be little challenge. He hooked up the CD burner he’d brought with him, then sat back as the long list of files began to download.

It was both exhilarating and nerve-wracking to simply sit there and watch the meaningless names scroll by. He could have gotten up and checked on the guards outside, checked the hall, but he didn’t. He needed the adrenaline high. Needed to push his risk factor, which was why he was taking a dangerous pinch like this one.

Gotta live on de adrenaline, ‘cause it’s de only t’ing dat lets me know I’m still alive. His lips twisted sourly. The problem was that it just wasn’t enough anymore. He was risking his life to make a pinch, but that was all. Just his life. And his life didn’t weigh very heavily on anyone’s scale these days. Got too used t’ bein’ a hero. Now, there were no weighty consequences to whether he succeeded or failed. The fate of the Earth didn’t hang in the balance, nor did the lives of people he cared about-- or even people he didn’t particularly care about. What he did now really didn’t matter on the grand scale he had become used to. But, he was a thief, and it was the only thing he knew how to do.

So here I am. The download finished and Remy quickly slipped the disk into his coat and put the burner away. He shut the machine down and walked to the door, opening it just a slice to look out. Unfortunately, he did so at the exact moment that one of the roving guards turned the corner. Their gazes locked, despite the shadows that enveloped Remy, and then the guard launched himself toward the bedroom door, drawing his gun.

Remy barely had time to jump back as the man barreled through the door. He danced aside and then lashed out with a spin kick before the other had time to find him. The guard crashed into a table beside the door, sending the bowl of daffodils there tumbling to the floor in a shower of petals and broken glass. Still doubled over against the edge of the hardwood table, the guard pointed his automatic pistol at Remy and fired.

Remy’s spatial sense tracked the bullets as he dove beneath them, rolling toward the window. The lead storm followed him, demolishing the computer and shattering a large mirror on the wall, as Remy put his arms up and leapt headfirst through the window. He landed on his shoulder and rolled, but immediately felt the tiles give way beneath him. Helpless in the grip of gravity, he slid off the edge of the roof and dropped into the yard below. Floodlights came on suddenly all around him, and the sounds of men shouting filled the air. Remy turned and sprinted for the fence.

Renee woke with a start and sat up. Kneeling beside the fireplace, Shala looked up in alarm then ducked her head when she saw that Renee was all right. Shala was one of the slaves, a shy girl of fifteen or so who brought Renee clothes to wear and drew her bath and set the fire each night. So far, Renee had been able to understand nothing from her except her name. Her only language appeared to be Egyptian, which Renee could not speak, but even so, they had developed a kind of friendship.

Shala rattled off a question in her reedy voice. Renee smiled and pulled the bed covers aside. "If that has anything to do with breakfast, then the answer is yes. I’m starved." Whatever disease possessed Apocalypse, it was tenacious. Renee’s powers were having an effect, but only slowly, and each session left her feeling utterly drained. She hadn’t figured out how to read the water clocks yet, so she couldn’t tell how her new routine compared with the norms of day and night outside the mountain, but she had the feeling that she was sleeping in eighteen to twenty-four hour stretches most of the time.

Renee stood and stretched, curling her toes in the heavy wool rug. The sheepskin was deliciously soft, and rather than step off onto the cold stone of the floor, Renee simply sat down where she was. Shala brought clothes to her after a moment and Renee changed into them. In her first few days there, Renee and Shala had engaged in a running battle over what was a servant’s job, and what Renee could do for herself. Renee was pretty certain she’d lost the contest, and now did not protest when Shala brought her clothes to her, or braided her hair, or served her spiced tea. Renee was simply grateful for the girl’s presence in this otherwise forbidding place.

One by one, Renee slipped on her anklets. The slim gold circles jangled together musically as she shook them. Shala smiled in approval and donned a pair of silk gloves as she moved around behind her. Renee flipped the corner of her diaphanous skirt out of the slave girl’s way, and then crossed her legs and settled in to let Shala work on her hair. It had to take at least an hour, every morning, to comb out Renee’s waist length hair and then pull it up in intricate braided loops wrapped with gold cloth and ribbons. Renee didn’t understand why she had to be dressed up like a harem princess every time she left her room, but Shala was adamant, and the guard outside the door would not let her out without Shala’s approval. It gave Renee the chills to think that Apocalypse might have ordered it, but he had said almost nothing to her since that first night.

Renee stood when her hair was finished and walked over to the mirror that was suspended in a stone frame carved out of the wall itself. She admired her reflection for a moment, marveling at how different she looked with her hair pulled back, and her red-on-black eyes clearly displayed for all to see. She had gotten so used to trying to hide her mutancy that it was startling to see herself this way. Finally, she turned to Shala and rubbed her stomach. "Breakfast?"

Shala nodded and went to the door. Renee followed her through it, nodding self-consciously to the cat-man who fell in behind her. The guard betrayed no expression, and Renee wasn’t certain what kind of feelings he might be capable of. There were a dozen or more of his kind there in Apocalypse’s palace, all of them as emotionless as this one. She didn’t know if it was because of the rigidity of their faces or perhaps something else, but she had never seen a reaction of any kind from them.

Ozymandias was already seated at the table when Renee arrived. She had seen him only rarely as he hurried about on some business of Apocalypse’s or another. He stood hurriedly and bowed to her. Renee paused, then quickly moved around the table to a place opposite him. She had not been offered gloves of any sort since her arrival, and her dress had only a pretense of sleeves. It left her feeling both nervous and exposed.

A young boy came forward to hold her chair as Renee sat. Ozymandias followed suit. He appeared to be in the middle of a meal, and Renee eyed his plate with interest.

"What is that?" She recognized very little of what she ate these days, and most of the time she didn’t question. It was generally good-- certainly a far cry better than standing in the bread lines. Ozymandias spoke English as well as Russian, and Renee was eager for intelligible conversation.

Ozymandias glanced at his plate, surprised. "Boar, I believe. With dates and oranges." He seemed nonplused by the prospect of a companion. Renee had the feeling he hadn’t had anyone to talk to for a very long time.

"Is it dinnertime, then? I just woke up." It was an inane thing to say, Renee thought, but she didn’t mind using the opportunity to remind the old man of how isolated she was here. Moscow was miserable this time of year, but at least she had been able to see the sky.

Ozymandias didn’t answer as the boy returned and set a cup filled with some kind of steaming broth in front of Renee. She picked it up eagerly and breathed in the rich scent.

"Apocalypse wanted me to ask if there is anything you need to make you more comfortable."

Renee stared at him over the rim of her cup for a moment, then carefully set the beautifully painted piece down. A nervous shiver crept down her spine, and she shoved away the thoughts that came immediately to mind. She didn’t want to go back to that dark place, not even in a memory.

"My staff," she said on impulse. The bo staff she had inherited from her father had disappeared along with her Russian clothing, and no one had been either willing or able to tell her what had become of it. "And a place to practice."

Ozymandias looked doubtful. "I will ask. But I don’t think he will approve. It is... inappropriate for a woman of status."

Renee deliberately jangled her ankle bracelets. "Is that what I am?"

Ozymandias noted the censure in her voice and his eyes narrowed slightly. "Yes, child, you are." Then his expression relaxed. "Our customs are ancient, so perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that you don’t understand. You are a treasured guest here, Healer, and for as long as you are with us, you will be treated accordingly."

"Oh." Abashed, Renee dropped her gaze. "Then, could I go outside sometime?"

Ozymandias’ expression was oddly sympathetic. "That is not allowed."

Renee nodded without looking at him. She hadn’t really believed that she had any freedom here, but it was still hard to accept. The Shadow King had taught her just how fragile a thing freedom was, and now she knew for certain that hers was again shattered.

She stood up from the table. "Excuse me. I’m not hungry anymore." She felt Ozymandias’ gaze tracking her as she walked out of the room, but he did not try to stop her.