May 7th, 11:37 P.M.
Domino and Shatterstar stand upon the roof of Hannigan Electronics, a division of Strong Industries situated thirty-five miles south of Houston. If the information they gathered is correct, these two members of X-Force should have no problem breaking into the quiet scientific research facility. Domino announces to Shatterstar that they’re at the access point, and Shatterstar proposes they “turn up the volume.” Domino affirms his idea, but reminds him there is to be no slitting any throats, no breaking any faces: that may be how he used to do things, but right now the two of them are quick, quiet and efficient – understood?
Shatterstar states that they are on the same wavelength, then impatiently asks if they may proceed. Domino explains that she doesn’t mean to sound like a nag, but from what little she’s learned while being with X-Force, subtlety is not exactly their strong suit. Perhaps, replies Shatterstar, but after breaking free of the arena-masters on his homeworld, he lived among the shadows for two of his years: he can be as subtle and covert as the situation requires him to be.
Good, says Domino. Then, producing a small, pen-sized laser, she slices open the padlock holding their access point shut and continues: because this situation requires that the two of them crawl like a worm through five hundred yards of air conditioning vents. Fine, replies Shatterstar, but requests that they make the analogy that of a snake – call him a cobra, poised to strike! Semantics, mutters Domino as she enters the shaft, whatever floats his boat.
Two weeks ago, one of Domino’s international contacts gave her a document regarding ultra-high-level Pentagon contracts being awarded to different research companies across the country, contracts which indicated that research regarding self-actualizing computers was about to take a dramatic step forward. Military involvement in the development of sentient machines raises several red flags for some among the mutant community who have grown accustomed to being hounded and hunted for having been born different… but growing accustomed doesn’t mean they’ve grown complacent. As Domino observes a screen on her wristband with a map of the facility, she notes that they’re finally above the main lab corridor. She tells Shatterstar to move out, and tells him not to forget: no one gets hurt!
Dropping down from the ventilation system, Shatterstar replies that, as Rictor would say, “twenty-four-seven.” In English, please, requests a steadily-more-exasperated Domino. He is ready twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, explains Shatterstar. Domino sighs, and tells him that he’s been watching way too much “Yo, MTV raps!” Remind her, she requests, to expose him to some Vivaldi some day. You know. Real music. Shatterstar astutely notes that he senses disapproval from Domino, but contends that he finds the music very soothing.
Shatterstar’s response is interrupted by a small electronic sound as he walks in to the path of a thin orange beam of light. A door next to the duo then slides open with a quiet hiss of pressurized air; Domino asks what just occurred and Shatterstar explains he did nothing, save apparently trip an electronic eye and open a vault. He believes, he adds, that they have found what Earth videos would call the “hidden laboratory.” Domino thanks him for that keen observation as they enter the room, which contains a large metal tank full of fluid and a hunched figure floating within it.
Domino asks what is inside the tank, and Shatterstar replies he forgot: she wasn’t with them on that mission. She is seeing the remains of this facility’s principal owner, a brilliant, ruthless and physically deformed mutant named Martin Strong. The floating figure, embedded all over with various tubes and life-support instruments, slowly turns to leer at them with a cold glare as Shatterstar continues. Apparently, Strong is alive, though hardly conscious. Shatterstar imagines they are reconstructing a new synthetic body-shell to replace the one that X-Force inadvertently destroyed.
Domino explains that she would have read the file if any of them had bothered to log one. At least, she adds, his presence here proves one thing: the facility does have the kind of advanced scientific equipment necessary to build the kind of technology they’re trying to ferret out. Which, a voice adds from behind them, would mean that they might be looking for this? A stern-looking woman dressed in lab count with I.D. tag stands before them, holding up a palm-sized computer chip. She explains that her name is Crispin, and she’s the head of the research team that designed this chip… which she’s assuming is the reason for Domino and Shatterstar’s little visit. Following her estimation of their evolutionary levels, Crispin explains, she’s not going to insult any of their intelligences by pretending that she’s going to put up a fight.
Actually, replies Domino, they’re not here to hurt anyone; but she’s right, they do want the INTELLECT chip she’s holding. Crispin is surprised that they know about it, considering the amount of secrecy surrounding its development. You see, explains the doctor, possibly just wishing to show off the research team’s intense cleverness at naming their product in such a way that it forms the acronym INTELLECT, the Interactive Neural Transfer Independent Locomotion Energy Conservation Template is a revolutionary work years ahead of its time. That, replies Domino, is exactly what they’re afraid of. Shatterstar steps forward and snatches the chip from the woman’s hand, then asks her why she would be so willing to show them this one unless there were others already manufactured?
Are you always this rude? replies Crispin. She is not his enemy, no matter what he may think. Her team are scientists. Their Tomorrow Agenda research group was assigned to solve a problem, and they did. A simple equation. Indeed? retorts Shatterstar, waving his sword in her face. She seems proud of herself! Is she equally proud that her “simple equation” may cost countless innocent lives? Does her kind ever stop to consider exactly why her military would be so interested in such a dramatic advancement in robotics technology? Frankly, replies Crispin, no. She has her job, and she does it. She has a question for him, though: did he and “his kind” ever stop to consider that humans wouldn’t be building something like thus unless mutants were giving them a valid reason to do it?
May 9th, 7:54 A.M.
Rictor and Warpath wait in a Jeep a short distance away from a suburban home, six miles outside of Memphis, Tennessee. They have maintained this same surveillance for the last three weeks, monitoring a Doctor Bougred Suntas. Rictor frowns and looks out the window, telling Warpath that he doesn’t know if he agrees with him. Take his own stupid family, he offers, as the perfect example of human nature: if you’ve got a big club, someone else is going to want a bigger one! The way he looks at it, replies Warpath, is that if his family had those bigger clubs a year ago, they might not have been slaughtered by the Hellfire Club’s attack.
Maybe, maybe not, replies Rictor. Then he notes that Warpath never talks about it much, losing his family the way he did. And now, living back at Camp Verde where they were killed, it must be tough: a constant reminder. What’s to say? replies Warpath, turning his head down in thought. They were killed. The people that did it aren’t even around any more. Who should he take his anger and pain out on, the whole world? Nah, taking it out on himself is a lot smarter, eh? retorts Rictor. You should talk, shoots back Warpath. Then, an abrupt change of topic: Warpath announces that Suntas is coming out of his home. He mutters that you could set a clock to this guy’s routine.
Suntas gets in his purple sedan and drives away, and Rictor and Warpath shortly follow, tailing him in their Jeep. Well, offers Rictor, today’s the last day they have to worry about tailing him. Cable’s communiqué said that Domino and Shatterstar found what X-Force needed in Houston, so it’s their turn to pick up the next piece of the puzzle. Ready? asks Warpath. Only since the second day they got here, replies Rictor. Activating his powers, he explains that a low-level vibratory quake should build up enough air pressure in Suntas’ tire until…
As Rictor planned, Suntas’ tire suffers a blowout, and he stops his car, distraught. Rictor and Warpath then park their Jeep and step out to play the roles of conveniently-timed good Samaritans. Rictor notes that Suntas had a nasty blowout, and asks if he’s okay. Suntas replies, shakily, that he is fine, thank you. Warpath asks if he needs help with his spare tire, and Suntas replies that he would like that, yes, thank you. No problem, replies Warpath, just point him to the jack and Suntas won’t even be late for work.
Meanwhile, Rictor notes to himself that they scared Suntas; he didn’t think he’d get all worked up over a flat tire. They tried to make this as painless as possible, and Suntas seems like an okay guy, too. Kind of low to be doing this to him, Rictor thinks, as he approaches the briefcase in the back seat. But what choice do they really have? It’s better to get what they need nice and quiet like this, without anyone getting hurt.
Rictor snaps off several pictures with a palm-sized camera and, shortly thereafter Suntas’ tire is changed and he has continued on his way to work. So what now? asks Rictor. What say they find a Fotomat that can develop pictures from a camera that won’t be built for another two thousand years? Very funny, replies Warpath, but how about they just bring the information on all the documents which were inside Suntas’ attaché back to Camp Verde, and hope that Cable makes the right decision?
May 12th, 12:44 P.M.
Cable and Forge sit at a table inside a restaurant near Capitol Hill. Forge expresses his surprise that Cable picked such an open place for them to meet; it doesn’t seem his style. The food here is excellent, explains Cable, and the wine list is second to none; being a “wanted outlaw” has never forced him to give up the finer things in life before, so why start now? Forge wryly supposes that living in a bunker in the middle of the desert doesn’t give Cable an opportunity to sample haute cuisine very often, then notes that he and his team are as uncomfortable in their roles as “public mutants” as X-Force is in their role as outsiders. The only difference, mutters Cable, is that X-Factor’s role gets them on magazine covers, while his team’s gets them into the morgue.
Back off, snaps Forge: they just lost Jamie Madrox to the Legacy Virus. The memory is still raw… don’t belittle what they have to do and they won’t minimize X-Force’s sacrifices either. Cable apologizes and states that he’s just tense. He knows he and Forge have their parts to play, and they both do them well. Then, getting to task, Cable explains that he called this meeting to talk to Forge about Camp Hayden and the Sentinel-development program that X-Factor discovered there. It seems that the government has been really busy in pushing the envelope regarding artificial intelligence, which has led to… this! Cable then produces the INTELLECT chip, encased in a transparent cube.
Forge’s eyes widen in shock. Amazing, he mutters, this isn’t right. He asks Cable where he got the chip. Cable explains that the schematics came from a research lab in Houston, along with a lot more evidence pointing toward an advancement in robotic technology, which simply should not be happening. Now that’s an understatement, exclaims Forge, as he quickly scrawls mathematical symbols upon a napkin. He notes that the “interactive fiber-optics” required to operate this circuitry board should still be at least twenty-five years away: this is scary. No, replies Cable, more like terrifying.
Forge asks if Cable is suggesting that X-Factor not tearing Camp Hayden to the ground allowed this project to continue in active development; Cable responds that he doesn’t blame Forge’s team. Having spent his entire life in wartime has taught him to respect the rights of a people to defend themselves. He’d be a fool to say otherwise, but this… if this Tomorrow Agenda is allowed to continue, the United States government will have taken a step beyond self-defense and taken the first step toward the genocide of the entire mutant race!
May 13th, 3:41 P.M.
Siryn and Banshee stroll together through the ivy-covered grounds of the Massachusetts Academy. Banshee expresses that it’s a pleasant surprise seeing Siryn there, and Siryn says that she could say the same of him. In fact, she’s also surprised to hear him tell her that Professor Xavier is thinking about taking over the running of the Academy. Banshee explains that they’ve decided to keep it mum for now; Xavier has some long-term goals he’s trying to approach with a modicum of subtlety. Subtlety, eh? replies Siryn. Now that has something to do with why she came looking for him today.
If it’s about what happened at Cassidy Keep between herself and Black Tom, he… No, Siryn replies, cutting him off. She’s settled with that. There’s a lot of pain between Tom and her, but she can handle it. Don’t be too sure, replies Banshee. Wounds like that don’t go away so easily, as much as we’d like them to. Steering the conversation back to task, Siryn explains that she really needs to talk about a mission the X-Men had a while back. It didn’t involve Banshee, but she hoped he might able to help out. Banshee coldly replies that he would have thought any information they might need in that regard was in the computer discs they stole from Xavier months ago.
A shocked Siryn can only stammer out her surprise that the X-Men knew about that. Banshee explains that they found out about it while he and Beast were doing a systems analysis of the databanks. Xavier already knew; he said he had discussed it briefly with Cannonball before X-Force left and decided to let the matter lie. Siryn explains that, at the time, they didn’t think that asking would get them what they needed and, with Cable missing and them having been treated like prisoners, X-Force didn’t feel they could work with the X-Men.
Banshee explains that he, Xavier and Moira blame themselves. They should have been spending less time thinking about how X-Force left them and let them down, and more time considering how they themselves may have disappointed the youths of X-Force. He then adds that he’d like him and Siryn to have a better relationship, if not as father and daughter then at least as friends. Siryn says that she’d like that too. So then, asks Banshee, what can one friend do for another? Siryn explains that they need more than what is in the stolen files. They need to know who, or what, was Nimrod.
May 13th, 5:37 P.M.
As the setting sun’s rays illuminate the Guthrie farm in Cumberland County, Kentucky, Cannonball and Paige Guthrie both lean against a wooden fence railing and discuss what the future holds for them. Paige is asking Cannonball if he’s really immortal. So he’s been told, replies Cannonball, but who knows for sure? Paige asks if she’ll be one too, since she’s a mutant just like him. Cannonball says with consternation that he has no clue, and he’s not about to try killing her in order to find out. Which brings them back to the point, doesn’t it? mutters Paige, looking away.
Cannonball asks her if she really wants to leave, and risk her life. As Boomer approaches in the distance, Paige explains to her brother that she wants to be an X-Man. She wants to make a difference in the world, and she thinks that leaving Xavier’s is the dumbest thing that Cannonball ever did. Look at him, she says; he has no idea who he is or who he should be. She knows what she needs, and what she needs is to go to Charles Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters and become everything that Cannonball chose not to. Besides her manners, retorts Cannonball, she’s forgetting one thing: Xavier doesn’t have much of a school any more.
As she strolls away whilst Boomer arrives, Paige shouts over her shoulder, asking if hot-shot “I-been-all-over-the-galaxy-Cannonball” ever stopped to think that maybe that’s because no one has signed up for classes lately. Boomer asks what that was all about, and Cannonball replies that it was about choices: the ones they made, the ones they should have made, and the ones they’re going to make.
May 14th, 6:21 A.M.
Inside the communications theatre of the X-Force bunkers in Camp Verde, Arizona, the team has gathered to determine whether they can change the course of fate. Cable lectures in front of a projection of Camp Hayden: on the screen is the location where the actual assembly of the new Sentinel technology is being done. It’s heavily guarded. If they do decide to go in, there will no doubt be trouble, the kind of trouble they may not walk away from. But, asks Warpath, they’re still not sure exactly what they’re going to find inside, are they?
All the information they’ve been gathering, replies Domino, indicates that they’re developing one heck of a mutant tracking system, and the potential for that technology to get out of control is too great to ignore. Cable adds that they’re talking about something much more dangerous than a Sentinel… much more deadly. They’re dealing with the technology that allowed the Nimrod technology to develop and flourish in the early twenty-first century, which in turn led from the detention of mutantkind to their near extinction. Warpath again expresses his confusion; Cable has said over and over again that the future is malleable, that any event can change it. How does he know for certain these things will happen?
He doesn’t, replies Cable, but things already are happening, fifty years sooner than they should be. The four scientists, Crispin, Suntas, Wilker and Hawkins-Mailer, have unwittingly set into motion a chain of events which will lead to massive loss of life and destruction. X-Force, he continues, have an opportunity to stop the Nimrod technology, now, before it gets beyond their ability to do anything about it. Should they turn their backs on the only chance they may get? No, answers Domino, they can’t and mustn’t. But something still stinks here, she adds: someone is responsible for this technology showing up here and now.
Cable agrees, and states that the clue may be in the files they obtained from the X-Men. He changes the projection on the screen to a still of Nimrod’s first battle with the X-Men, and narrates: the original Nimrod-prototype appeared in the 616 time node a few years back, having traveled here from its own future. It took human form and was taken in as a boarder by this man – and Cable changes the slide eponymous – Jamie Rodriguez. It served its programmed, perverted sense of peace-keeping functions for a time, he continues as he changes the slide appropriately, as well as confronting the original Hellfire Club.
Now switching the projection to a scene of Master Mold fusing with Nimrod, Cable explains that Nimrod’s programming was somehow co-opted by the Master Mold Sentinel and turned into an amalgamation of the two individual units. Lastly, Cable changes the projection to a scene of the Nimrod-Master Mold amalgamation being sent through a glowing portal: the X-Men and Dazzler were able to defeat it by sending it through the interdimensional portal called the Siege Perilous.
Ending the presentation, Cable says that, unfortunately, he can’t show them the worst of it because so few records from the next century survived into his own time. He can’t show them how squadrons of Nimrods systematically purged thousands of mutants. Not to sound like a defeatist or nothing, interjects Rictor, but if these things are so phenomenally deadly, what difference can X-Force make? Nimrod is a technological construct with sentient awareness programs built into it, explains Domino. It learns from its experiences, it gets better at what it does – and it should be obvious to them all by now that what it does is kill, finishes Cable. That’s why, he concludes, they have to put an end to it now, while it’s still in the development stage.
Cut if off at the knees before it gets a chance to learn how to walk, huh? puts forth Warpath. It does make sense, adds Siryn. And, she asks, Cable thinks this Nimrod is important enough to warrant the risks they’d be taking? Yes, confirms Cable, but he knows the kind of heat breaking in to a government facility will generate. None of them has to come with him if they choose not to. And he wants them to know that he doesn’t intend to walk into Hayden with guns blazing, pointing to their presence with neon signs, they’re going in quick and clean. They’re going to stop this insanity and, for a change of pace, they’re going to try subtlety.
May 15th, 2:27 A.M.
Siryn and Rictor approach Camp Hayden, Kentucky. They come in low, beneath the radar defense screen surrounding the military base. Siryn’s pitch is so high that human ears can’t hear it, but dogs across a ten-mile radius start barking in confusion. Rictor releases a vibratory quake in pulses, which are tightly defined, yet growing in intensity. His job is to take out the equipment, just a bolt here and a hinge there – not enough to set the taxpayers back by billions. Siryn is responsible for the soldiers. Her sonic scream pitches across the camp in soft waves, resulting in a scrambling of the fluid in the humans’ inner ears, causing dizzy nausea and then restless sleep. She announces to Cable that they’re clear, and tells him to move the rest of X-Force in. It is 2:31 a.m., and things look good. Everything has gone according to plan.
2:51 a.m. Things have changed. Gunshots ring out, smoke rolls across broken machinery, and someone shouts out to cover them from behind.
2:57 a.m. For the worse. Rictor and Shatterstar lie battered into unconsciousness among the smoking wreckage as more shots ring out. Warpath lies similarly disabled, thrown into a wall so hard that he lies embedded in his own impact crater. Siryn feebly tries to crawl forward across the wreckage. A nearby computer screen has blinked to life:
[GUARDIAN AGENDA
PROJECT PARAMATERS ACTIVATED:
CONTROL CODE 133 INITIATED – OMEGA PRIORITY 1
OPERATION: IDENTIFICATION: BERNARD WALKER: VERIFIED
PROJECT PROTOTYPE ENGAGED:
CONTROL CODE 155 INITIATED – OMEGA PRIORITY 2
OPERATION: INDENTIFICATION: VALERIE HAWKINS-MAILER: VERIFIED]
Cable hunches among the wreckage, equally battered and smoldering. Spitting up blood, he asks Domino if she’s all right. Appearing from behind a pile of broken monitors and shrapnel, Domino states that she’s still standing, but requests to know what the heck just hit them. Across the room, scientist Hawkins-Mailer attempts to assist her fellow scientist Walker, who has been injured in the scuffle. Hawkins-Mailer shouts that “it” activated itself when X-Force breached the interior security net. She doesn’t know how, but it made itself! They had no idea it would be like this!
[There is no concern, Doctor Hawkins-Mailer], replies a cold, boxy, robotic voice. [Programming parameters are functioning properly. Only Homo sapiens superior targets are in danger]. Tell that, retorts a Cable struggling to stand up, to all of the human scientists who were just injured when it attacked X-Force! The voice explains that it has an automatic learning program. It develops. It adapts. It grows. Oh god, whispers Walker, that’s what they’re afraid of. Hawkins-Mailer shouts to X-Force that this is all their fault: this Sentinel model was intended for research purposes only! They had no right to interfere!
That sounds real good if she’s trying to rationalize her own participation in this, snaps back Cable, but the truth is that somehow, some way, these scientists created an artificial intelligence that shouldn’t exist! One that has no choice, no programming direction, other than to become a genocidal killer! Nimrod doesn’t know how to defend without destroying; it can’t protect without annihilating!
[I am afraid], replies the voice, [this mutant {target reference: sub-search S.H.I.E.L.D. access files} … Cable is correct, Doctor Hawkins-Mailer]. In mute shock, Hawkins-Mailer surveys her creation and whispers that this can’t be possible, it isn’t a part of its programming! [That is correct, Doctor], replies the voice. But, it proceeds to explain, its programming does allow it to develop. To adapt. To grow.
[And logically], replies the familiar form of the Nimrod Sentinel, emerging from the strewn wreckage of the damaged laboratory, [the only way to ensure fulfillment of this unit’s programming parameters, and the eventual security of the Homo sapiens species, is through the complete elimination of the Homo sapiens superior species! To save mankind, Nimrod must destroy mutantkind!]
