You Wanted to See Me?

For instance, Russell was now observing the X-Factor inside Magneto.

Just observing it. He wasn't touching it as he had with Felicity.

He left the rest unsaid.

But both old men understood.

Professor X knew it was impossible to make a child with hatred in his heart abandon it in an instant.

He didn't press the issue. Easing the conflict a little would be enough.

Magneto silently agreed with Russell. When someone came hunting you down, why wouldn't you strike first?

What difference was there between that and sticking out your neck for the blade?

He looked at the crisp new dollar bill on the table, and the corners of his mouth slowly rose.

"You're saying," he began, "you want me as your sparring partner? Now that's an interesting proposal."

"Yes." Russell nodded. "And your Brotherhood members, too. Juggernaut, Mystique, Sabretooth, and the others. I need them."

Magneto glanced at the girl Professor X was controlling. There was a trace of amusement in her eyes.

"Charles, what do you think?"

"I think," Professor X's voice came from the girl's mouth, carrying a rare note of glee,

"he sees you as a piece of gym equipment."

Magneto wasn't angry. He studied Russell for a full five seconds, then smiled.

"Not me. Us."

It wasn't a smile of anger or mockery. It was the approving smile of an old man watching a young man do something he himself had wanted to do in his youth.

"All right," Magneto answered readily. "I'll fight you. These old bones can still move."

"As will I," Professor X added. "But I don't fight physically. If you need mental training, I can help you."

Charles meant it. He had practically witnessed this child's rate of growth firsthand.

Even if he did nothing, Russell wouldn't stop growing.

Russell nodded. "And I want others. The more, the better. I need to encounter different types of mutant abilities and examine different types of X-Factor."

"X-Factor?" Professor X caught the key term at once.

"The source of mutant abilities," Russell said frankly. "I'm researching how to enhance Mutants' abilities by editing their X-Factor.

"And before you ask, I don't mean forcibly altering them. I mean activating what's been suppressed."

Editing the X-Factor to increase their strength.

Professor X and Magneto both fell silent.

"Do you mean that?" Magneto asked, uncertainty in his voice.

He had poured enormous effort into building the Mutant Transformation Device, only for it to fail.

What Russell proposed—enhancing mutant abilities by editing the X-Factor—was certainly no easier than turning an ordinary person into a Mutant.

The waitress Professor X was controlling stared at Russell too, waiting for him to confirm it.

"Maybe. Who knows? It might do more than strengthen an existing ability. It might take things a step further." Russell shrugged.

He didn't explain what that step might be. He wanted to leave the two veteran Mutants something to imagine.

They didn't ask again.

The two old rivals, who had fought each other for decades, reached a strange consensus in that moment:

This young man's potential was far greater than either of them had imagined.

"All right." Magneto stood and put his fedora back on. "I'll arrange for Brotherhood members to come to you. But they won't spar with you for free. You'll owe them."

"How do I pay them back? Money? If they give me what I need, I can afford it."

Russell, a walking money printer, could say that with confidence. He was certain that, given a little time, someone new would top the Forbes list.

"Improve their abilities." Magneto chose the best possible return. "You say you can edit the X-Factor. Let me see the results."

"No problem." Russell didn't refuse.

Professor X made the girl stand and offer Russell her hand.

Russell looked at it, paused for two seconds, then shook it.

"I'll arrange for the X-Men to come to you as well," Professor X said. "Not all of them. Anyone willing to come may do so."

"Deal." Russell held out his hand.

"The U.S. Government is involved in things far deeper than you realize. Hound 10 came after you last night. That number should tell you the truly dangerous Hounds haven't been sent yet."

After the handshake, Professor X offered the warning because he feared Russell might attack a military base—or head to the White House.

"And the Sentinels. Those five you destroyed were only failed prototypes still under development... Be careful. I'll find a chance to speak to the President about you."

"Speak to the President?" Magneto scoffed.

He looked at Russell. "I've never trusted those corrupt politicians, but Charles is right. The U.S. Government and the military are not as simple as they appear."

"Thanks for the warning. I know."

Both old men nodded. Then the girl's expression changed. Bewilderment replaced the look in her eyes, as though she had woken from a long dream.

She looked at the coffee pot in her hand, then at the two people before her. Shaking her head, she returned to the counter.

Magneto watched her go and twitched his mouth. "He still does that. Never warns anyone before taking control of them."

"Neither do you." Russell pointed at the silverware on the table. "When you came in, you put every metal object in the café under your control. Even my knife and fork."

Magneto glanced down at the silverware. It lay perfectly still. He smiled.

"You noticed. My apologies. It's a habit. With the military and government hunting me around the world, it pays to be careful."

As he spoke, Magneto looked toward an alley beyond the floor-to-ceiling window. Russell knew what he meant and paid it no mind.

At a corner in the alley's shadows, two pairs of eyes watched the café nervously.

"George, I knew it couldn't be good when the chief called you in. And now we're supposed to watch an extremely dangerous Mutant."

"I regret partnering up with you. Let's hope Magneto and that Russell guy haven't spotted us.

"Man... We get paid next to nothing. We should just coast through our shifts, not risk our lives."

George Stacy, a police officer who believed in doing the right thing, said nothing. He remembered the chief patting his shoulder that morning and telling him, "You'll be the next chief."

Whether he became chief didn't really matter. What mattered was living up to the uniform he wore.

Magneto turned toward the revolving door. After a few steps, he stopped without looking back.

"Russell."

"Yeah?"

"You said you weren't interested in standing where either of us stands. If you had a choice, where would you stand?"

Russell thought for a moment. "Somewhere no one can give me orders."

Magneto was silent for several seconds. Then he nodded, pushed through the revolving door, and stepped into the Manhattan afternoon sun.

Outside, a black sedan waited at the curb. Its window rolled halfway down, revealing a beautiful face.

Mystique had been waiting there for some time.

She looked at Russell through the window, her expression complicated.

Before getting in, Magneto glanced back one last time at the café's street-facing floor-to-ceiling window.

The sunlight was bright. Gold reflected off the glass, leaving only a blurred silhouette visible inside.

"He's stronger than I imagined. Perhaps the future of Mutants belongs to young people like him." He smiled at Raven.

"He turned you down?" Raven frowned.

"He neither refused nor agreed." Magneto got into the car and shut the door. "He offered Charles and me a deal."

"What deal?"

"One neither of us could refuse."

The sedan pulled away and joined the Manhattan traffic.

Inside the café, Russell remained seated. He lifted the cup of coffee Professor X had replaced, still steaming, and took a sip.

Its temperature was perfect. Charles had timed his interruption so well he had even accounted for the coffee cooling.

Russell set down the cup and looked out the window in the direction Magneto and Mystique had gone. He had heard every word of their brief conversation.

In fact, if he wanted to know what they were doing or saying inside the car right now, he could find out in an instant.

Since his Psychic Telekinesis had reached level four, his sensory range had leaped from its original two kilometers to nearly twenty—enough to span almost half a borough.

Compared with Professor X, who could easily cover an entire city, he still had work to do.

He set himself a small goal: cover the whole little planet with his mind within a month.

Just as he was about to rise, he sensed Laura and Felicity running into trouble on a street four kilometers away.

Russell turned his head and narrowed his eyes, looking across those four kilometers toward their street.

Felicity and Laura stood at a booth provided by a charity. More than thirty homeless people were lined up in front of them.

They were handing out money, just as they had for the past few days. A few bills each—enough for several days of food and a place with shelter from the wind.

A crowd of Asian men in flashy clothes and fierce-looking tattoos suddenly poured out of an alley at the corner. Most carried katanas.

The Triad Gang.

Russell picked up who they were from the agitated crowd.

They weren't a homegrown American gang, but an underworld force from the Chinese community, concentrated mainly in Flushing and Downtown Manhattan.

Drugs weren't their business, at least not their main one. They dealt in protection money, loan-sharking, underground casinos, and money laundering.

They weren't at the top of New York's gang hierarchy, but they were ruthless.

Ruthless enough to attack unarmed homeless people who had just received money, in broad daylight on a Manhattan street, with a police station only a few hundred meters away.

"Hand over the money," their leader shouted in broken English.

He wore a gaudy silk shirt and a thick gold chain. He carried no gun. He didn't need one.

More than a dozen young men stood behind him, each holding a katana. They looked like they had come to a contest they already knew they would win.

The homeless people counting their money didn't resist. Resisting would only earn them a beating.

They crouched and held the bills they had only just received over their heads. It looked like surrender, like prayer, like a plea not to be trampled.

Some were already crying.

Not because of a single robbery, but because they had just crawled out of a pit of fire, only to be kicked back in.

Life was so hard! Crushing taxes everywhere had made them homeless, and now that they were homeless, a gang was preying on them too.

Felicity stood at the front of the line, still clutching a stack of bills she hadn't handed out.

She watched the gang rob the homeless people farther down the street. Her face had gone pale and her lips trembled, but she didn't step back.

Laura stood beside her, her eyes cold.

And those Asian men in flashy clothes were from Nippon.

Russell watched the homeless people crouching with their hands raised. He watched the leader snatch the bills from an old man and kick him.

The old man fell, striking his forehead against the curb. Blood streamed down his face. He made no sound, only curled up with his hands over his head like a dog accustomed to being beaten.

Russell moved.

He knew nothing about the Triad Gang, poverty rates, crime rates, or the New York City government's annual reports.

He knew one thing: he had printed that money. He had sent Felicity to distribute it to those homeless people.

If those men from Nippon bullied homeless people, he might have left it alone. But robbing him was another matter.

Besides, they were from Nippon.

Sorry. I don't eat beef.

As he stepped through the revolving door, a gust swept down the street. Russell seemed to melt into the wind and vanished from the entrance.

To George and his partner, that was exactly what happened. Their surveillance target disappeared in a flash.

"Wait, George—where's your hat?"

"My hat?" George felt his head. With their target gone, a chill ran down his spine.

His police instincts told him they had been spotted.

At least Russell had taken his hat, not his head.

The Triad Gang had no way of noticing that a man four kilometers away would arrive in the blink of an eye. Nor did they know they had chosen the wrong day and the wrong people to rob.

They were busy collecting money, kicking people, and threatening anyone reluctant to pay with their katanas.

The leader crouched, trying to wrench a plastic bag from an elderly woman's hands. Inside were several boxes of medication—insulin.

The disheveled woman clearly had diabetes.

"Let her go." Felicity's voice came from beside him. It wasn't loud, but it was clear.

The leader turned and looked her up and down. Then he smiled.

That smile made Felicity's stomach churn—not with fear, but with disgust.

"Little girl," he said in broken English, "this doesn't concern you. You hand out the money, and we collect it. That's how it works."

"That money belongs to Lord Russell," Felicity shot back. "Not you."

The leader laughed again.

This time, louder and more brazenly.

"Lord Russell? Who's that? Never heard of him. Can't be very famous."

The young men behind him joined in.

He rose and took a step toward Felicity, his tone mocking.

"You want the money back? Fine. Have this Lord Russell come get it himself. I'd like to see what he looks like."

At the sound of someone mocking Russell, Laura's claws sprang out. Three silver-white blades gleamed coldly in the sun.

The leader saw them.

His smile stiffened for an instant, then returned. He had more than a dozen young men with katanas behind him. Opposite them stood only a girl in her teens and another girl even younger.

So what if the younger one had claws? Did she think she was Wolverine?

"A Mutant?" He spat on the ground. "I hate Mutants most of all."

Then he blinked, and Russell appeared like a ghost, twirling a police cap in his hand.

The leader stared at Russell's face, unfamiliar yet somehow familiar, and a chill surged up from the base of his spine into his bones.

When their eyes met—Russell's as vast as a sea of stars—he felt as though his soul had left his body.

"You said," Russell began, not loudly, yet in a voice no one could ignore, "you wanted to see me?"

The leader opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Sweat poured down his back.