The X-Project

The Kanes come face to face with the man they've been looking for: Baron Zemo



"I think they used this same setup last time I was captured."

"Shut up, Dad." Garrison muttered. The two Kanes were side by side, manacled flat on a massive table which could be tilted forward up to ninety degrees. Garrison had tested his bonds, to discover that they had been designed with super strength in mind, and as hard as he pulled, he couldn't break them. Christian hadn't bothered, mostly waiting for what was coming. "Look, we need to get out of here fast or we're dead."

"I dare say. But we have a little time. Baron Zemo won't miss a chance to gloat." As if on cue, the door slid open and four guards walked in and took up station, as a man in a black Nazi-like uniform, and his face obscured by a purple bag and topped with an odd crown stepped into.

The tall figure stood ramrod still in the doorway for a long moment, almost posing for the prisoners. "Ah, Herr Kane. It is a pleasure to see you again I must say." Zemo's voice was as gravely as ever, although the harsh accent has eased with time. Still there was little left of the famous tenor that was once the wonder of Berlin's police society.

"Still running errands on behalf of you moribund Queen and country, Christian? And still failing miserably at it, I see." Zemo stroked the purple fabric covering his face in a satisfied, almost catty gesture. "How does it feel to be a discarded lackey of a second-rate once-Empire, now just a Yankee running dog? Must be hard to be forced into idleness and retirement."

He raised his hand as if struck by a sudden idea. "You know, I offer a comprehensive medical plan, and I am hiring. I could always use another butler." The German paused, tapping his fingers against Christian's restraints slowly. "On the other hand, I think not. I like to maintain a certain standard among my men."

"You know, Zemo, the best part about getting old was that you were dead. I'll have to rectify that again." Christian said, smiling. Despite the danger of their situation, he didn't seem worry. Garrison couldn't tell if it was arrogance, bravado, or senility behind his father's calm, but it seemed to annoy their captor. "After I stop whatever hare brained scheme you have in the works this time."

"Shut you filthy mouth, Kane!" The change was startling, the sardonic, phlegmatic, almost stereotypically German facade disappearing as if a discarded mask and giving way of unbridled rage. Zemo was almost spitting with fury as he towered over the table. "You myopic old man, with your pitiful ambitions that can't surpass some brainless bimbo! You have no conception of the world, of my true place in it, of my dreams! You have no capacity whatosoever to even comprehend what you meddling has cost me and through me - Humanity! I will see you dead here and now, Kane. DEAD! And you will die knowing that your pathetic fumblings cost you not only your life but those you have brought here with you!"

"You should let them go, Zemo. I'm the one you want."

Zemo's mood changed again in an uncannily abrupt switch, only rapid breathing betraying his recent outburst. He seemed almost amused as he circled the table, his fingers still tapping out the "Horst Wessel. "Oh, you do me an injustice, Christian? Why would I settle for your old carcass. Were I a man inclined to patience, no doubt the Mother Nature would do my work for me. Your liver alone will no doubt keep the medical community busy for years."

Zemo's gloved fingers brushed out the hair out of Garrison's eyes with an almost tender caress. " No. You will all die here. And I think, I will kill your son first. But, given our history together, I am going to do you favor, Kane. You will not have to outlive your child."
The guard walked over and touched a button. In front of them, a red light went on, and the table beneath them began to buzz slightly. While you couldn't tell with the bag in the way, Zemo was obviously very pleased.

The baron stepped back. "In case you are wondering - it is in fact getting slightly warmer. The table you are currently occupying are in effect a variation of a stove. Slow burn..." Zemo's voice dropped to a whisper as he stroked his disfigured face through the bag again. "The best kind."

His mood apparently swung again as he turned on the heel with Wehrmacht sharpness that the years could not rob from him, and headed for the door. "Love to stay and chat, but time is pressing. Not to worry - I shall treasure the video recording forever. Feel free to start screaming at any time." Zemo's laugh carried clearly even as his guards locked the door behind him.

"Well, we're pretty much fucked." Garrison said through clenched teeth. The table wasn't even warm yet, and that made the anticipation even worse. They be slowly burned alive in the most painful way possible, and even if his father had a laser watch or some other kind of outlandish escape tool, with two guards watching, they wouldn't get a chance to use it.

"It would appear that way. This is intolerable." Christian huffed, casting about for an escape, but finding it equally difficult to make any sort of plan out of what they had available.

"I knew it. The second you show up, my life goes to shit. Worse, now you've gotten the X-Men embroiled with that madman. You're supposed to be retired, Dad. Don't you think it's about time you stopped playing at this shit and acted your age?" Garrison said, angrily.

"My age? You mean sit around in front of the television and wait to die? Not all of us can simply go home at the end of the day after work, Garrison."

"You never even came home at the end of the year."

"I detect a rebuke. Is this what this is all about, Garrison? You're angry at me because of my job?" Christian said, hearing the anger in his voice.

"No Dad, I'm angry that running around the world in fancy cars and fucking other women was more important to you than your wife and family. Even when you were supposed to be running the show, you couldn't resist that thrill you got, and that took priority over us." Garrison's voice was climbing in volume. He'd had this conversation with his father in his head and thousand times, and now that it was happening, he couldn't stop the flood of angry words. "I got to grow up knowing that you'd rather be breaking into a foreign embassy or compromising a diplomat, even when you had people to do that for you, instead of being my father. I learned that lesson so well that I promised myself I was never going to be anything like you."

"Nonsense. You're a Kane, Garrison. I don't care how you want to hide it, but inside, I know exactly who you are, and you know it too." The steel was starting to get uncomfortably warm to the touch.

"You don't know me, Dad!" Garrison yelled back. "You haven't spent enough time to know me. Pete Wisdom spent more time with Vikks and I then you ever did.”

“You don’t call this spending time together?”

“Being fricasseed on the same table is not spending time together!” Garrison banged his head back against the table and jerked it back up again away from the heat.

“There were important things happening, son. Would you abandon the X-Men?”

“I don’t have a family! I didn’t leave my kids behind to do this! Or my wife.” Garrison tried to shift. Sweat ran down his face, and the table was starting to really burn his skin. “Remember leaving Mom behind?”

“Your mother understood a lot more than you give her credit for. She knew what needed to be done!” Christian said, for the first time raising his voice. “If you didn’t spend all your time running away from yourself, trying to fit the world into a neat little box that didn’t include anything remotely like me, you’d understand it too!”

“I am not like you!” Garrison twisted in his restraints, as if trying to look his father in the face. Thanks to his mutant abilities, Garrison was more flexible and agile than a human, and better able to ignore the pain of unnaturally extending his body. Which he did in order to trust his arm far enough into the restraints to hook his fingers around the one encasing his father’s right wrist and pull. Unlike his son, Christian’s bonds were for holding a normal person, and the steel bracket snapped under the preternatural strength.

The guards started forward, but Christian snatched the can of pepper spray which was ignored in Garrison jacket, although not forgotten by his father, and dosed both guards liberally with it before they were aware of the threat. Ignoring their screams, Christian threw the can with great accuracy, hitting the release button on the far console and springing them.

Before the guards could clear their vision, Garrison was moving, and dealt two hammering blows to them, knocking them unconscious. The elder Kane retrieved his jacket from the corner, and walked over to the computer.

“Well done, boy. They fell for the ruse completely.”

“What ruse?” Garrison said, but was ignored as Kane tapped commands into the computer. The retro-looking display began to bring up information, and a dot matrix printer in the corner sprung to life. “Hasn’t exactly caught up with the times, has he?”

“Dad, what is going on?”

“Zemo’s plans, my son. Whatever he’s got in mind, it appears there are some specific details he’s needed to re-assemble his old cronies to retrieve.” He pointed to the growing pile of paper. “Grab those, and let’s go find your friends and get the hell out of here.”

The rest of the X-Men find themselves in an equally devious prison to defeat.



It was a cell that looked like it had been designed by Frank Lloyd Wright under the orders of Ludwig the Mad. It was a low ceiling'ed steel oval, with a floor that looked like it was supposed to retract. One entire half of the cell was steel bars, staring into which was an orange garbed guard. They had been given a chilling demonstration of what would happen if they attempted to use their mutant powers while in the cell. An alarm had been activated by the power use, and the floor of the cell pulled away, and the entire cell was suffused with blasts of highly diffused super-cooled nitrogen for the entire duration that powers were active. They had frozen a dog in front of them, prior to shoving them into the cage.

"You know, I honestly haven't any idea what's worse," Marius muttered, staring at the back of the guard who was, frustratingly, standing well out of arms' length from the bars, "the thought that they'd waste what seemed to me a perfectly serviceable guard dog, or they keep a kennel on the premises solely for the purpose of demonstration. It speaks volumes to the mind headin' this operation. Anyone for odds on the Kanes bein' currently strapped to a table, lasers slowly inching towards delicate areas?" His tone belied the tightness in his chest. Marius remembered his last stint in captivity, and it had not been pleasant. The chatter was meaningless, but his mouth needed to be kept occupied lest it do something truly embarrassing, like scream. Letting it run gave it something to do whilst he reassured himself there was no need to panic; after all, this time, at least, he was with experienced X-Men.

"I am waiting for them to release the dogs, or the bees, or the dogs with bees in their mouths and whenever they open their mouths they shoot bees at you." Shiro felt much the same, though his personal terror was what Amora has in store for him. He and the others had probably been quite an embarrassment for her in Asgard, and she seemed like one to hold a grudge. "I can think of approximately seven ways to escape, but they all involve massive collateral damage to you all. Someone with a less destructive strategy may be a better alternative."

There was no such thing as an impossible situation. At least not one with as many variables as this one. If they had all been summarily killed, that would be one thing, but as long as they were alive, there was hope. Or so Ororo hoped.

"Listen to me," she said, gesturing for the others to come closer so that she could speak in a lower tone. "We will find a way out. We may be trapped but we are not helpless. Chi... Cupa... Marius, I want you to identify the threats we are facing. Sunfire, pose solutions - I do not care if they work as a whole, just think of how to counter each one individually. Adrienne, I have something for you to look at." Fishing into her pocket, the older woman gave them all a nod. "Go to it."

Focus. Right. "Well," Marius murmured as the redhead accepted the object, "settin' aside the retractable floor an' certain death, which, unless I am mistaken, are issues for my teammate to overcome, the most imminent threat would seem to be our jumpsuited sentry." He smiled pleasantly at his female commanding officer. "And if I know anything about convention, it's how one traditionally distracts the guards . . ."

* * *

"Right," said Marius, staring at the downed guard as the smoldering bars cooled to slag behind them, "for the first time in my life, I would like to tender a formal request that a thing never again be spoken of." He wiped at his own arms, shuddering. "I feel rather uncommonly filthy."

Ororo made a mental note to add to the entry in Marius's training file - 'willing to do whatever it takes in order to acheive an objective, no matter how questionable' - and gave the young man a sympathetic look. All that, and they still had to resort to crude bludgeoning. It was a shame.

Shiro followed them out of the cell. "The feeling is mutual," he muttered darkly. He pulled his gloves back on and tied his hair back again. "Where do we find Bond and Bond, Jr.? Is there a shark tank with a slowly lowering crane around here?"

"I knew I forgot to give the blueprints for the super-secret spybase we were to be brought to a look-over," Marius remarked, shrugging his jacket back on. He half-turned to look at Shiro and added, "Incidentally, pardon for the--" Marius waved vaguely, "hands."

"Shut the goddamn hell up."

"Boys, please." Ororo turned to Adrienne, giving the girl an encouraging look. "Ms. Frost, the next step is yours. We must find the security system, and quickly."

Shaken by everything that was happening, Adrienne pulled off a glove and wrapped her hand around the wire trimmings and keypad remnants Ororo had given her without a snarky comment about not being rushed. Thankfully, the security system of which she was holding a part was rather new, which meant her reading of the electronic object was quicker and much more direct than it would be if it had the long history of a piece of jewelry or something of the sort. The piece she was holding gave her a clear view of the security system as a whole, the layout of the building and, better yet, codes to the doors coming into her head as she viewed the system's installation. The psychometrist wished she could communicate what she was seeing as she was seeing it, or better yet, write out a map and a list of codes, but she could do neither while she was reading the object and now wasn't really the time to curse her lack of training. She transferred the object to her gloved hand to return to her senses but kept it readily available so she could read it again if she forgot a detail. "Door codes and a layout that'll take us to the security control room, all up here now," she announced to Ororo and the group, tapping her head and moving towards the door to key in the code that would open it. "'Just wish I knew what was on the other side of this door. Someone else can go through first."

Cautiously, Marius stuck his head into the hallway. This was immediately rewarded with a retort of gunfire and a bark in some vaguely Germanic language. Marius whipped his way back around the wall.

"Well, that solves the question of patrol," he remarked. "Unfortunately I doubt this lot'll fall for a classic uniform-swap, and at any rate we've only the one bloke here--"

In the hall there was a brief cackle, and then the unintelligible yet unmistakable tones of someone, against all convention, refraining from going alone into a room full of escaped prisoners and instead calling for backup.

"Our window of opportunity has suddenly become much smaller," Ororo said, over the growing sound of a whistling wind echoing past them in the hallway. It intensified until the entire corridor was howling, and only stopped when a heavy thud reverberated the walls. "Let us not waste a moment more of it."

Shiro followed wordlessly, his hands glowing faintly and ready to blast the first moving thing he saw. Which turned out to be three more armed guards running into the hall from the other end, thankfully following convention and being little more than plasma fodder. "That felt good."

Marius coughed a little at the stench of singed hair and synthetic fibres. This did not, however, prevent him from kicking a radio out of one the fallen's shaking hand. The man cried out in pain as the boy's boot smacked into skin that was already badly scorched. "Apologies, mate," the Australian said, not without sympathy, "but trust me, lay still an' it hurts less. Respect for the commitment, though." Despite the fact these same people had frozen something that might once have been named Rover, Marius found himself hoping the diligence wasn't because Zemo was the sort of employer whose idea of reprimand included a firing squad.

It was an intricate series of hallways they had to wind through, but with Adrienne's directions they carefully and quickly made their way towards the security center, where hopefully minimal resistance from the guards and a manipulation of the system would show them where to find both Kanes. Ororo was rather proud of the three young people with her - despite the strangeness of the situation they were all handling themselves quite well.

It turned out not to be an issue, since around the next turn, both of the Kanes were standing next to a security door. The elder Kane had the card access panel off, and was tinkering with the guts of the electronics while Garrison kept watch, and the look of relief on his face was open.

"Hey boss. We were just coming to rescue you, assuming my father can every get the door open like he says he can."

"Trade secrets, my son. Miss Munroe, what kept you?" Christian grinned back at them, and at that moment, there was a metallic sound and the door slid open. "Ah, excellent. That will do nicely."

"We got a hold of Zemo's plans. If you can believe it, the guy is building some kind of Doomsday device to hold the world hostage. Yeah, seriously, a Doomsday device. I'm hoping this is all just a bad dream after too many beers and Bond movie marathon." Garrison said, as his father stood up.

"Bond," Christian said with great seriousness. "was a twat. Shall we?"