Nanostorm Incorporate:
A lone figure sneaks through the corridor, stopped by a security laser net. The man grins and ricochets the lasers with a shining coin. A moment later, though, Gambit is surprised by armored, armed goons, who order him to freeze. They order him on the ground. Unimpressed, Gambit replies he can’t do that. He’s got business here. One of the goons calls him a cocky #*$%. There’s a reason for that, Gambit replies, holding up a card as his eyes begin to glow. He kinda holds all the cards. He charges it up and throws it in front of the men where it blows up, taking them out. Whistling, he enters the lab, only to finally get a well-secured small phial.
Elsewhere, Nightcrawler, Prestige and Kitty Pryde don’t find themselves very impressed by the villains they are facing and who just robbed a bank. Gotcha! Kitty announces. The other two point out the villains are still standing. Yeah, but c’mon, Kitty smirks. They are talking about the Serpent Society here. D-listers who bonded over a snake fetish. They are not D-listers! Anaconda shouts, charging at Kitty. She phases and he passes through her, knocking himself out. She was being generous, Kitty points out.
The three X-Men take out the villains with ridiculous ease. Rachel announces she is calling 911 to pick them up. Making friends with the police? Nightcrawler asks. Just showing them how they can be helpful, she points out.
In a forensic lab, Detective Mahoney asks Storm and Logan what they are doing here. Looking at the white, furred body, Storm points out the victim is a mutant. And they are the mutant police now? he asks. She shows him an XSE Marshal badge and asks if this will suffice. He didn’t think those XSE badges carry weight anymore.
What is the cause of death here? Logan changes the subject. Inability to fly after falling off a building, the detective deadpans. But it was this that drove him off. He shows them a bullet. 9mm sixty grain blended metal slug. That’s military grade ammo. Logan corrects him it actually ain’t. Not even the military is cleared to use these. Storm asks that surely the police tried to trace the buyer of such exotic ammunition. They got nowhere, Mahoney replies. The purchase was made off the dark net. But the M.O. fits three other victims in Jackson Heights, Brooklyn and the Bronx. All of them mutants.
A luxurious penthouse on the Upper East Side. Flanked by two bodyguards, a no-nonsense brunette greets Remy and introduces herself as Olivia Trask. Bolivar Trask’s granddaughter she adds, when Remy asks. Does he have the vial? Right here, Gambit replies and asks why she hired him to steal what looks like an empty vial. Olivia reveals it’s not empty. It contains hundreds of thousands nanites. Tiny robots. Self-replicating and smart swarm capable.
They can think? Remy asks skeptically. She said capable, Trask corrects him. They need an external AI to become artificially intelligent. Something tells him the granddaughter of the guy who invented Sentinels has a way or two of getting that AI, Remy supposes grimly.
She believes his fee was one hundred thousand, Trask replies matter-of-factly. Gambit replies she can keep the money. He took the job to see what that stuff was and who wanted it stolen. He figures she’s planning on making some new kind of Sentinels.
Nothing of the kind, Olivia replies surprisingly. There is no profit in killing muties. But military applications – if you can’t make money there, you’re an idiot.
He ain’t ever gonna get a better set-up line than that, Remy decides and fires kinetically charged objects at Trask and her men, who unfortunately open fire in return with laser guns. He grabs the vial but is then hit by a gun. The vial drops and shatters. Trask calls him an idiot. Lady messes with experimental nanotechnology and he’s the idiot, he mutters.
The nanite cloud moves towards a laptop. They can interact with computer systems, Trask reveals. Remy destroys the computer but it’s too late.
At the Xavier Institute, Colossus and Dr. Cecilia Reyes discuss their mysterious prisoner, the weird stranger from the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. He speaks in a language not even their translator technology can decipher.
Colossus explains that, since some of the Brotherhood members were under Mesmero’s control, the X-Men took him into custody as they weren’t sure in his case. Cecilia points out that, according to her readings, he is not a mutant.
During a Danger Room session, Magma asks Kitty what does she mean he’s not a mutant. Kitty explains that, according to Dr. Reyes, he is an extraterrestrial. She changes the subject: Anything Amara could tell them about the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (and Extraterrestrials) would help.
Blasting her robot foe, Magma replies she doesn’t remember anything… only Mesmero’s voice inside her head. Kitty sympathizes, but they are interrupted by Rachel, who tells Kitty it’s Gambit and it’s urgent.
Rachel takes both Remy and Kitty to the astral plane, shaping their surroundings to look like the Belle Epoque. Remy announces he is in a spot of trouble. He is in Manhattan and heard they are too these days. What trouble? Kitty asks. Remy supposes she’ll hear about it in a moment or two, while in the real world he is falling out of the building.
Rachel downloads the facts into Kitty’s mind. She asks how many people are in the building. Over 300, she is told. Rachel briefs the rest of the team and tells Remy to hang on, which he is doing literally.
The team quickly gets into the X-jet, while Logan and Storm are en route separately from their location. Rachel explains they are dealing with some kind of rogue nanotechnology here. Colossus asks how Nanotech goes rogue. Even the most advanced nanorootics do not have AI. Kitty is surprised he paid attention on those dates. Da, she was talking, he replies simply.
Rachel continues that the nanites got loose and hacked some Sentinel tech. KItty repeats they are dealing with nanobots merged with Sentinel tech.
Looking through Gambit’s eyes, Rachel announces it’s much worse: It seems the nanites have mutated.
Before Gambit stands a new kind of Sentinel.
