X-MEN.

DARK MIRROR.

a novel by Marjorie M. Liu.

To Kielle, who is missed by so manya" and to Amaranth, who will smile when she sees this.

1.

IN HER FIRST MOMENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS, BEFORE opening her eyes to the world and discovering such things as floors and walls and straitjackets, Jean Grey imagined she had died; that for all she had suffered in her life, all her terrible sacrifices, the final end would offer nothing but an eternity of suffocation, an unending crushing darkness spent in utter isolation.

Her mind was blind. She felt nothing. Heard nothing. Not even Scott. Cut off, like a blade had been dropped on her neck, separating life from thought, life from sensation, life froma"Scott?a"life.

The remembrance of flesh came to her slowly. She became aware of her legs, curled on a flat hard surface; her hands, tucked close and warm against a hard body. Her body, though it felt odd, unfamiliar. Not right Jean opened her eyes. She saw a cracked white wall decorated by the shadows of chicken wire. She smelled bleach, and beneath that scent, urine. She felt something sticky beneath her cheek. Her head was strangea"not just her mind, but her actual heada"and her hair rasped against her cheek. No silken strands, but rough, like stubble. Her mouth felt different, too; her teeth grated unevenly. Her jaw popped.

Jean could not move her arms. This concerned her until she realized she was not paralyzed. Her arms were simply restrained against her chest, bound tight within white sleeves that crisscrossed her body like an arcane corset. Again, she tried to reach out with her mind beyond the isolation of silent mental darknessa"Scott, where are you, what has happeneda"to find some trace of that living golden thread that was a thought, a presence, aa"I am not alonea"

As a child, alone was all Jean wanted to be. Alone in her head, alone in her heart, alone with no voices whispering incessantly of their fears and dreams and sins. Funny, how things could change. Her wishes had grown up.

Jean tried to roll into a sitting position. Slow, so slowa" her head throbbed, a wicked pain like she had been strucka"and she fought down nausea, swallowing hard. She had to get her feet back, get free and away, away to find the others. It did not matter where she was or who had done thisa"results, results are all that mattera"only that it could not be allowed to continue.

Scott will be looking for me.

Yes, if he could. Jean's last memory of her husband was his strong profile as he gazed up at the dilapidated brick facade of an old mental hospital, sagging on its foundations in a quiet neighborhood located beside the industrial hinterland between Tacoma and Seattle. Disturbing reports of rising mutant and human tensions had trickled in from the Northwest for weeks, but without anything specific enough to warrant a full investigationa" or interferencea"from the X-Men.

Until two days ago. Logan had learned through an old contact that mutants were being arrested on false charges and incarcerated in state mental hospitals. Serious accusations, with no real hard evidencea"except a name.

Belldonne. An inst.i.tute for the mentally ill, and a placea"according to Logan's contacta"where the X-Men would find incontrovertible evidence that mutants were being held against their will.

"And if it's true, then it ain't no holiday they're having," Logan had said. Because prison was bad enougha"but add doctors, the ominous specter of science, experimentation, and the scenario became much worse. Mutants, despite the law protecting them, were still easy fodder for overeager scientists who wanted nothing more than to see, in the flesh, the why and how of extreme mutation. Jean understood the fascination. She simply did not think it was an excuse for unscrupulous behavior.

The room was small. One window, covered in fine mesh. No furniture or cameras or anything at all that revealed the ident.i.ty of her captors. The door had a .small gla.s.s observation window set too high for Jean to see much but a s.n.a.t.c.h of ceiling.

She heard voices in the hall, soft, and then footsteps. Closer and closer until the doork.n.o.b rattled. Jean closed her eyes. She heard someone enter.

"He still out?" said a man. He had a rough voice, gritty like a hard smoker.

"Probably pretending," said another. Jean heard shoes scuff the floor. She peered through her lashes and saw black shoes and dark blue pants. Cologne tickled her nostrils.

"Hey," said the first man, nudging her ribs with his toe. "Hey, Jeff. You out?"

Quiet laughter. "Idiot. You actually expect him to say yes?"

The two men stood close together, relaxed and unafraid. Perfect. Jean shot out her legs and slammed her socked heels into a knee. She heard a very satisfying crunch, a sharp howl, and then she rolled left as the second man tried to subdue her. He was slowa"but then, so was Jean. Her body felt clumsy, unfamiliar; she barely managed to gather enough momentum to stand, and by that point, the mana"large, muscular, with a flat square facea"was too close for her to maneuver. She saw his fist speed toward her facea"was able to turn just slightlya" and got clipped hard enough to slam her into the wall. A low whuff of air escaped her throat, and the sound of that partial cry made her forget pain, capturea"everything but her voice.

A man's voice, slipped free from her throat. Deep, hoa.r.s.e, and horrifying. It had to be wrong, her imagination: The man with the broken kneecap howled, screaming so loud her own voice must have been drowned out, swallowed up, and yes, that was right, that had to be ita"

A strong hand grabbed her hair and crashed her forehead against the wall. Her skull rattled; sound pa.s.sed her lips, and still it was the same, an impossible rumbling baritone that was not her voice, not feminine in the slightest.

"Hold still," muttered the man, pinning her against the wall. "Jesus, Jeff."

"Who are you?" she asked, listening to herself speak. Chills rushed through her arms and she glanced down, seeing what she had taken for granted upon waking, never noticing, never paying any serious attention to the changes she felt in her body.

Not my body. Not my body.

No b.r.e.a.s.t.s, a thick waist, strong broad legs. The ends of black dreadlocks, hanging over her left shoulder.

Her captor did not answer. He was breathing too hard. His companion lay on the floor, m.u.f.fled screams puffing from between his clenched teeth. Jean heard footsteps outside the room: people running, drawn by the sounds of violence.

"Please," Jean said, listening to herself speak in a stranger's voice. She wanted to vomit. "Where am I?"

The man shook his head. "I thought you were getting better. No wonder Maguire wanted you restrained."

The door banged open. Three men entered; one of them held a nightstick, another had a syringe. She recognized their uniforms.

"Don't," Jean said, staring at the syringe. "I'm calm now. I'm better."

"Sorry." The man pushed her harder against the wall. "No one's going to take a risk on you now."

Jean struggled. Without her powers, she lived in a state of semi-unconsciousness. To take that one step fur- thera"againa"without knowing where the others werea" Scotta" or what had happened to put her in another person's body, was more than she could bear.

She was outnumbered and in a straitjacket. Perhaps the men showed surprise that the person they were accustomed to dealing with displayed sophisticated tricks in fighting them off, but they were tough and used to unruly patients. They subdued Jean. They subdued the man they called Jeff. And as Jean felt the sharp p.r.i.c.k of the syringe in the side of her neck, she silently called out to her husband, to her friends, to anyone who might be listening, and then, still fighting, felt herself borne down to the hard floor like a slippery fish, slipping swiftly through the curtain of darkness into a deeper unconscious.

2.

SCOTT SUMMERS WAS ACCUSTOMED TO DARKNESS. Voluntarily blind, he had long ago learned to curb any and all desire to open his eyes without the protection of his ruby quartz gla.s.ses. His was a killing strengtha"that fire, that sun-fed light in his eyes. People got hurt when he looked at them. People died.

A bad way to live for a man with a conscience. Easier to live life through ruby-quartz gla.s.ses and accept the darkness when required. Like now. He was not wearing his visor. Nothing at all covered his eyes. Bad. Very bad.

Scott touched his face, pressing fingertips against his eyelids, afraid to trust himself without that lingering pressure. He listened to the world around him. At first, silence. An unfamiliar quiet, without the kinds of noises one grew accustomed to in certain situations and locales. At home in Westchester, the insects sang like bells all through the dry summer, a constant clipped symphony outside his window through the day and night. Somewhere, too, there was always a familiar voice talking; laughter, maybe, or the distant rumble of a movie. Comfortable sounds, like family. Like Jean, breathing quietly beside him, her body warm.

Not here, though. Not now. He was cold and alone.

Scott mentally reached for his wife. She did not reach back. There was no golden thread flaring bright hot, no soft touch upon his heart. A complete disconnect, as though all those years spent linked together were nothing but fantasy, a fairy tale for a lonely man. It felt like Jean was dead.

Scott sat up. His head hurt. His heart hurt worse. As he moved, he noticed something strange about his body, something very disturbing. Something that he should have noticed right away, because such was the nature of his loss.

He was missing certain . . . parts. He also had some new ones. He touched them. His hands moved lower, still probing.

"Oh, G.o.d," Scott said, and his voice was high and sweet. He took a chance and opened his eyes. Nothing happened. He could see like a normal man, with normal colors, without explosions and beams of cutting light. He looked down and saw small white hands resting in a cotton pajama lap, hands that were attached to slender arms that rose, rose to a body that had ...

Scott stood up. He was in a small white room. No lights on, just nighttime shadows. There was a cot behind him, a spindly table on his right. No other furniture. One tall window, chicken wire hugging the gla.s.s. Very industrial. It reminded him of the orphanage where he had spent much of his youth.

Again, he forced himself to look down at his body.

No. This is not my body at all Not unless he had developed the ability to shape-shift into a woman. Which, considering everything he knew about himself, was highly unlikely.

So. Someone had done this to him, a separation of his physical and mental ident.i.ties. And if him, then what about the others? The last thing he remembered was standing in front of the Belldonne mental hospital with his teama"Jean, Logan, Rogue, and Kurta"all of them looking to him for the final word on their approach, their handling of intelligence that said mutants were being unfairly imprisoned in the building in front of them.

Yes, well.

Scott walked to the door. He had to stand on his toes to peer through the observation window. He could see only a small portion of the hall, which was empty, devoid of any decoration or color. Dimly lit, white and sterile. He tried the doork.n.o.b but it would not turn. Scott glanced around the room, looking for something he could turn into a lock pick. He came up empty, until he realized what he was wearing.

Scott took off his bra. He tried not to look at his b.r.e.a.s.t.sa"or rather, the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the strange woman he seemed to be inhabitinga"because that was wrong and impolite and ... G.o.d. So bizarre.

The bra had wires. He pried them both out, tucking one in the waistband of his underweara"no looking, no looking, you will get your own body backa"twisting the other into something resembling an actual tool. Scott was suddenly very grateful for all those long training sessions with Gambit, in which learning to pick a lock, to survive on nothing but a piece of wire and will, was essential to winning.

The lock was easy. Scott cracked open the door and held his breath, listening. Nothing but quiet. He slipped from the room into the empty hall, devoid of anything but doors. White floors, white cracked walls, cold and easy to clean. No security cameras. For a moment, the flickering fluorescent lighting hurt Scott's eyes. He rubbed at them, trying to cope with his new ability to see in color. What little there was, anyway.

Scott did not know where to go, only that he had to move, had to learn why he was here, how, what had happened to the rest of his teama"Jeana"then get out, run, make things right. Scott was good at making things right. You had to be, when you led the X-Men.

Somewhere distant, a man screamed. Startled, a cry of pain. Scott heard shouting. Careful, his feet small and covered only in thin white socks, he loped down the hall after those soundsa"and oh, it was strange moving in that body, that unfamiliar sh.e.l.l with its foreign muscles and rhythms and parts. He could not reconcile his mind to the loss of its physical home, had trouble staying focused on the now, when everything about him was strange and new.

Despite the turmoil ahead of him, the hall remained empty. It was a familiar emptiness, one he a.s.sociated with his youth. In places where the inhabitants lacked control over their own lives, nighttime meant lockdown, enforced rest. Easier for the graveyard shift, few in number and too underpaid to care about bathroom trips or nightmares.

You are not a child anymore. You are not in the orphanage.

No. He was in a mental hospital. Belldonne, if he was not mistaken. He had studied the blueprints of the place during the short flight to Seattle and it was easy for his mind to translate the two-dimensional lines, the pictures of halls and rooms and stairs, into something concrete, physical. When one had a power like hisa"creating light that could ricochet, bounce, reflecta"one learned very quickly how to visualize the reality of things.

And the reality of this inst.i.tution was exactly how he had envisioned the physical promise of the blueprint design. Which meant, except for not knowing what floor he was on, that he could easily get in and out of Belldonne. The bigger problem was that he did not know if the rest of his team was in here with him. Until he found out more, he could not afford to take the chance of leaving them behind.

And if you are the only one here? What if there is another persona"this womana"looking out through your eyes? Using your powers? Interacting with the others?

That would be bad. He wondered where his body was. He wondered where Jean was, if she was still herself and had noticed the change in his mind. If anyone could fix this, it would be her.

The hospital was not very big. Scott, still following the rumble of concerned voices, those cries of pain, finally drew near enough to hear actual words, like: "careful," and "get ready." A doork.n.o.b rattled and Scott peered around a corner in the hall to watch as three men entered a room.

He heard sounds of a strugglea"more shoutinga"and then, after several minutes, a deep quiet broken only by the sobs of a hurting man. Scott remained very still.

The door opened. Two men emerged, carrying another between them. Scott thought his leg might be broken: The injured man could not stop whimpering. Scott got ready to run, but the hospital employees moved down the hall in the opposite direction. The door opened again. Two more men emerged, one of them saying, "He's never been this violent. I thought Maguire was kidding us when he said to straitjacket him."

"He said the same thing to me about Mindy, that I should take precautions, that she might go wacko. Can you believe that?"

"Mindy?" He sounded shocked. "What the h.e.l.l?"

"Exactly. I didn't do it, either. Maguire doesn't know everything."

"He predicted Jeff. You should have heard him, too. He even talked different."

"Whatever. That shot'll keep him down until tomorrow. Let the day shift handle the rest of his s.h.i.t"

"Yeah," said the man, though he did not sound happy about it.

They left. Scott listened to the quiet footfalls fade into silence. The old hospital ticked and creaked around him; somewhere distant, another person cried out. A woman, this time. She sounded like she was having a nightmare. Maybe she would wake up on her own, maybe not Scott knew what that was like.

He peered around the corner at the door. The lights were off in this section of the hall; a money saver, to only light every other corridor. Hoping no one else would return, Scott left his hiding place. Exploring the hospital no longer seemed as important as the troublesome patient inside that room, because if he had been body-s.n.a.t.c.hed, then why not the rest of his team?

You're drawing too many conclusions. You need facts.

And he had one: The hospital employees had been surprised by the patient's behavior. Something about this "Jeff' was different, and though it might be nothing more than a chemical imbalance, Scott had to check it out. He could not take the chance that he might be pa.s.sing up a frienda"or his wife. He desperately hoped Jean was okay.

The door was locked, but he still had his little wire. He worked fast.

The room he entered was far bleaker than the one he had awakened in. There was no furniture, no comforts of any kind. In the middle of the cracked dirty floor lay a large man. Dark skin, dreadlocks. Straitjacket pulled tight. There was some blood at the corner of his mouth.

Scott crouched beside the limp figure, studying that face, wondering if this was stupid, how it could be possible that anyone he knew was trapped inside that body.

You re inside a woman, he reminded himself. It's possible.

Cautious, listening for any movement outside in the hall, Scott crouched beside the man. "Hey" he said, shaking that thick shoulder. "Hey ... Logan?"

Hey, nothing. Scott sighed. This was a dead end, at least until the mana"Jeffa"woke up. Until then, he had to keep moving, try to figure out why and how he was here. Maybe even fulfill the intent of his mission and discover if there were mutants being kept against their will.

Ha, ha. Funny.

Scott left the room with its sleeping man. He did not look back.

The thing about inst.i.tutions of any kinda"orphanage, nursing home, mental hospitala"was that the staff always gossiped about the individuals in their care. It was inevitable, the best catharsis available, and even though such discussions were discouraged so as to prevent any potential mean-spiritedness, Scott knew all too well that it was impossible to curb a tongue in need of wagging. As a child, he himself had been the focus of adult gossip, sometimes pleasanta"sometimes not. He knew how the game was played.

Which meant that just before dawn he returned to his room and waited for the staff to come check on him. It was difficult, but Scott was good at being patient, at waiting on moments. He had excellent control.

There was sunlight streaming through his window when the door finally rattled and a woman entered. She was short and plump, with a round dark face and squinting eyes. She gave the impression of being difficult, rough, but she smiled when she saw Scott and her voice was loud and cheerful as she said, "Good morning, Mindy. How did you sleep?"

Mindy. Scott remembered that name. He said, "I slept fine, thank you."

The woman's smile disappeared and she stared at him, unblinking. Scott thought, Oh no, and tried to look dumb.