Excerpt from Review #184030-1282
Circa January 1995, classified deep-black:

Interviewer: So, tell us a little more about your relationship with the others.
Subject 184030: Again? Well, what about it?
Interviewer: You didn't get along, did you?
Subject 184030: Oh yeah sure, sometimes we got along great. When we
were out on missions, on the trail, we were a TEAM. Team with a capital "T,"
right? We knew what we were all doing, and we all knew our place. It was
the biggest rush in the world -- doing what we did best, cleaning up the world
a bit at a time. Maybe some of us never made it through the mission or couldn't
rack up the kills like the "big guns," but as long as we did our bit in the beginning
that was okay. It was all part of the game. It was only afterwards, or between...
Interviewer: (makes a inquisitive prompting gesture)
Subject 184030: (sighs) That was when it got...uncomfortable. Downright
nasty, even. Some of us got it rough for...well, for not being as "macho" out on
the job, I guess.
Interviewer: You?
Subject 184030: (snorts derisively) What do YOU think?

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Iceland...wolves..."the wonders of electronics"... She flicked through the worn magazine, occasionally pausing to run her fingers down a tattered page. The paper was still glossy, although the glue was disintegrating with age; she had to be careful to hold it just so, the spine cupped in one palm, to keep it from slithering apart.

She dallied at one particularly beautiful photo, a two-page spread of green valleys and misty peaks. She never could quite believe this one. That much green, a rainbow placed just so...it couldn't be real. No place like that could exist. No. It was a fake. It had to be. It made her want to throw the magazine across the room, to scream and stamp her feet in frustration. Yet she always paused on that page anyway, to run one hesitant finger along one forested ridge and down the waterfall...

"Jesus Christ, Vee, aren't you sick of that ratty ol' thing? Gimme here." A hand fell heavily over her shoulder, grasping at her prize. She reacted almost instinctively: a feral growl escaped her clenched teeth as she pulled the magazine close to her belly -- "Leave me ALONE!" -- and lashed out without moving a muscle. She glanced over her shoulder just in time to see her tormentor reel back drunkenly, trip over a broken chair, and crash into an ignomious heap.

When the woman clawed back up onto her feet, she was seething with rage. "How dare you...on ME...I'll..."

"Oh, for cryin' out loud, give it a rest, wouldja?" The tired male voice boomed out from the other side of the ruined room, where the rest of the gang were involved in something which vaguely resembled poker. "Leave her alone. There's nuttin' wrong with her tryin' ta get some education."

"What's wrong with readin' Hustler like the rest of us?" someone else joshed. A chuckle ran around the table.

The first speaker, a huge brutish mountain of a man wearing nothing more than pants and metal bracers, grinned but didn't take his eyes off of the situation brewing on the other side of the room. Momentarily forgotten, a battered fan of cards crumpled in his huge hand. "Damn, what's wrong with you? PMS again? Let it go already, Arc. We're supposed ta be staying quiet."

The woman hesitated. If it had been anyone else telling her to back off, she would have probably told them to go do something anatomically impossible involving a whifflebat and a live badger. However, the guy in question was the only person in the room capable of actually folding her up like a dishrag if he felt like it...

Therefore, instead, for a long moment she exchanged a murderous glance with her other female teammate, each sizing the other up: the young predator curled protectively around her prized magazine, glaring up through a curtain of particolored hair, her teeth bared in an unconscious snarl; the Amazon towering over her with clenched fists, nails digging into her palms...

The moment stretched, wavered, and then passed. The tension collapsed as the taller woman took one step back, favored her twisted ankle. "Didn't think you were the type to hold with 'book-learnin',' Blockbuster," she taunted instead, turning back to the makeshift poker game.

The behemoth shrugged neutrally. "It ain't my thing, naw, but I got no problem with some'un else wantin' ta learn stuff."

"'Sides, the gal's gotta be useful in more than one way, right?" one of the others commented, a broad-shouldered man with a drooping moustache and a malicious twinkle in his eye. He cocked his thumb at their teammate, who was angrily attempting to ignore him in favor of her magazine. "Seeing as she only ever lasts what, ten seconds in a fight? May as well paint a bullseye on her forehead. 'Yo, X-Men! Here I am! Knock me out, quick! Don't worry, I'm too rock-stupid to even THINK about dodging!'"

A coarse guffaw rippled around the table. Furious, Vertigo scrambled to her feet and stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind her. The blood pounding in her ears masked the next snide comment, but the next burst of laughter rose loud and clear right through the thin wall. She leaned back against the cool plaster and sucked in one deep breath after another, forcibly regaining control over her temper.

Something crinkled in her hand. She glanced down and swore softly, bitterly, under her breath. In the course of her sweeping exit, all of the pages had silently sifted right out of the ancient National Geographic. All she had left was the cover.

She pressed the back of her free hand against her forehead, eyes closed. "GodDAMN it," she muttered. "GoddamndamnDAMN it!" Why do I put up with it? Why the HELL do I put up with it? The ratbastard pack of jackals! One week it's all buddy-buddy, the next it's like...like...

Her hand tightened on the empty cover, crushing the spine beyond repair. Her eyes snapped open and she raised it to eye-level, frowning. It's like that pack of wolves in the magazine, she realized. And I'm the...what was it? The 'omega,' whatever that means. Yeah. The wolf stuck at the fucking bottom. And now alla the sudden Arclight 'n' Scalphunter think they're the alphas.

She felt a grin tugging at her lips at the pun which suddenly presented itself. Well, I always said that she was a royal bitch.

There was a tap-tap-tap on the door behind her, right next to her ear. She pushed herself off of the warped wood and turned, backing away, fists and teeth clenched. A moment later the door creaked open and a slab-cheeked face peered out at her from somewhere near the ceiling. "Hey there."

Vertigo grunted wordlessly and turned away, folding her arms over her chest. She heard the door close and the boards underfoot creaked ominously. Something rustled by her shoulder -- she glanced over involuntarily. A ragged sheaf of magazine pages. She caught herself reaching for them and jerked her hand back, stuffing it under her other arm, turning her back. "Don't need 'em."

"I know. But you want 'em."

She picked a stain on the far wall and scowled at it. "NO, I DON'T. Not any more. They're ruined. It's ruined. It's just a stupid magazine anyway. I can get another one."

"It's the principle of the the thing, though, huh?" Blockbuster's big gravelly voice was remarkably quiet, for once. Some of the dumb-hick slurring he'd been putting on for laughs was gone; the slight German accent he'd picked up as a young merc in Europe was more noticible.

She whirled on him, lashing out at the nearest target. "What do you care? Who put you up to this? I don't need your sympathy! Fuck off! Leave me alone! I'll -- look, it's nothing. Nothing at all. The usual. Who cares."

He said nothing. The silence dragged out and began to unnerve her. To fill the dead air, she started pacing and grumbling. "What the hell are we doing in Paris anyway? What are we HERE for?"

"That's not our business," Blockbuster rumbled. "So long as HE needs us to kill sumthin' for him, that's good enough."

"Yeah sure. 'Good enough.'" She stopped and poked him in the chest with one finger. "We just settle for whatever he throws our way, don't we? Isn't...isn't there anything else?"

"Hey, what more do we need?" Then he squinted sharply down at her. "Are you okay? Hold on, you ain't gettin' second thoughts, are you?"

"No...! Don't be ridiculous." She sighed heavily, suddenly dead serious. "I'm just...I'm bored, okay? What else IS there, Mike? I mean...there's more out there, right?"

Blockbuster was taken aback. He studied his teammate carefully from his vantage point about a foot above her unruly green-and-silver head. "Whaddya mean? I don't get--"

"You have a name. You had a family...well, parents at least. You WERE someone else. Before Sinister. You remember...other things," she said intensely.

"Uh? A little. I guess." He shrugged, suddenly uneasy with the turn the conversation was taking. He'd gotten out of the habit of thinking, period. To suddenly be confronted with these questions from Vertigo, the team's "know-nothing airhead"... "Vee, what's gotten into you?"

She retreated a step, her expression suddenly guarded. She turned away to face the far wall again. "Nothing, I guess. Maybe I'm just homesick or something. I dunno. Never mind."

Blockbuster thought for a moment and then patted her carefully on the shoulder -- "carefully" in his case meaning "not quite enough to knock her flat on her face." "Homesick, huh?" he asked her with exaggerated cheerfulness. "No worries. We'll be back in N'York within the week. Um...y'mind if I get back to the game now?" he added rather lamely.

"Go ahead," she replied, her tone wooden. Her hands had crept up to clasp her elbows. Blockbuster hesitated, but this really wasn't his forte. He gave her shoulder a clumsy squeeze and beat a retreat back into the abandoned apartment...back to uncomplicated company, to crude conversation that made sense.

"Homesick, yeah," she murmured as the door creaked shut behind him. "But not for New York."

As shadows fell over Paris with the passing of the sun, eight more shadows set forth like loosed hounds, ghosting through the alleys and back lanes, casting about for their quarry. The sole reason that they'd been brought overseas. The mutant who drew her power from death itself and yet insisted upon pretending that she was just a poor sweet innocent little victim. The woman who fancied herself too good and pure to dirty her delicate little brown hands by associating with her fellow "employees." The deserter...the traitor.

If they found her, Threnody was going to learn a valuable lesson: once one served Sinister, it was until death.

In some cases, beyond.

Scalphunter took the lead as always, directing the search with only the slightest of gestures, his face creased by a deep frown. Though he had never "officially" been elected leader of the Marauders, he was nonetheless the undisputed boss in the field. As far as the others could tell, he had no discernable mutant abilities...but his keen mind and the fact that he could shoot out the eye of a sparrow at a hundred feet more than made up for his lack of "flash."

By unspoken agreement, Arclight followed close in Scalphunter's tracks like a tall powerful silver-clad second self. Frankly, her new attachment to their erstwhile leader helped to keep her temper somewhat in check. Useful when the woman in question tended to punch out walls when she got pissed off -- which, lately, was far too often.

Harpoon and Riptide were the second unofficial team-within-a-team for different reasons, and had been for some time. Oddly, the silent Inuit hunter seemed to enjoy the company of the oftimes-mad human tornado. Harpoon was quite welcome to him -- Riptide's bouts of rambling blustering psychotic nigh-manic "cheerfulness" had a tendency to get on the nerves. Just a week before, Blockbuster had given him a concussion out of sheer irritation. And, come to think of it, the week before that too.

Speaking of Blockbuster, the behemoth currently stalked alone, away from his comrades, ambling through broader streets without giving a damn who saw him. He had an irritating tendency to "get lost" and show up hours later smelling like beer and peanuts, but it was damn hard to force a living tank to stay in line. Ah well. As long as he showed up when it counted -- and he always did -- his teammates weren't going to complain too much.

Scrambler had recently acquired the same irksome habit of vanishing on patrol...except that when HE disappeared, he returned smelling of far more interesting things than food and alcohol. In fact, this time the young Korean lothario had blatantly disappeared within a minute of leaving the lair. They were in Paris, the so-called "City Of Love"...so no one really expected him back until at least the next afternoon. Or maybe the next afternoon after that. Scalphunter looked ominously dark behind his drooping mustache, and Arclight had quite clearly announced her intentions to thrash their errant teammate the moment he stepped back over the lair's threshold.

Usually Vertigo shadowed the team leader (leaders?), eagerly waiting for an order to turn her disorienting power on a target. This time, however, she'd felt the distinct chill from Arclight and had reluctantly fallen back, taking to the other side of the street. She felt a little at loose ends; she wasn't very good at making her own decisions in a fight. She'd been drilled over and over, by master after master after master: Do As You're Told. How would she know what to do if they did indeed locate Threnody?

She compromised by staying within sight of Scalphunter as he swept the street with a handheld scanner, searching for any biological trace of their little truant. She hoped that they would succeed in their search, even though they all knew perfectly well that until Sinister narrowed down the range they were looking for a needle in a haystack. It was just good to be out and doing SOMETHING. She wasn't a killer, not per se -- she didn't have the strength or the training -- but she always took great delight in making the kill easier for her teammates. In doing what they wanted her to do and doing it well.

Threnody isn't very tough, she's not a real threat, Vertigo thought wistfully. Maybe this time she'd have a chance to assure the team's victory without getting knocked out of the fray within the first few minutes. Maybe this time she could do her master proud. She hated it when she disappointed him. It seemed like she always disappointed him...

A footstep cracked a dry leaf behind her and she glanced back, startled. The familiar glitter of crystal reassured her that there was no threat; she automatically returned her full attention to the field leader, absently skirting a telephone pole.

"Hey, Vee. Mind if I stick with you for the mo'?"

She looked back again at her teammate, more startled than before. She'd assumed that they'd crossed paths by coincidence and that he'd be gone a moment later. No such luck; he was definitely dogging her footsteps. Strange...what could he possibly want? "Uh, sure."

Prism fell into step beside her, his glass body gleaming dully under the streetlights. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the moon reflected rainbow over and over again through his crystalline facets -- facets that could focus a flashlight into a killing laser. Facets that could absorb ambient light and instantly flash-blind an entire room full of enemies.

Facets which were almost one hundred percent likely to get shattered into a million fragments within a minute of battle.

Prism was therefore the most-killed Marauder, if her count was correct, and he always seemed a little...strange to her, because of it. Unreal. She couldn't remember the last time he'd actually spoken to her.

His sudden attention was throwing her a bit off-balance, and thus she couldn't properly keep visual track of Scalphunter. One moment he was there; the next he was gone, vanished into an alley while Arclight ranged ahead. She paused and frowned, trying to see what was up, trying to see if she was needed. Prism continued on for three more paces before he circled back to her. "Something up?"

"I don't kn--" Scalphunter emerged from the shadows and set off after Arclight, his easy pace almost leonine over the pavement. "Mmm. No, I suppose not." She eyed Prism. "Is there something you want? Or did you just want to laugh at me some more? I heard you in there at the poker game today, you know. Cackling like a hyena." She almost spat the words as she set off again, not waiting for him

Was it her imagination or had his expression shifted guiltily? With Prism, simply because of what he was, it was hard to tell. The lanky man of glass caught up with her a moment later. "Look, Vee--" his voice dropped to a confidential murmur "--I wanted to say I'm sorry, okay? It was either you or me. I'd rather they not be laughing at me, y'know?"

She drew in her breath to reply but then remembered that time last week when Riptide had made some disparaging remarks about their amazingly breakable comrade. Yes -- she'd giggled right along. She sighed. Well, it HAD been funny at the time. "What's with the apology all of the sudden?" she asked, still hostile. Changing the subject. "And stop calling me 'Vee.' We're NOT friends."

"I'd like to be."

That stopped her dead in her tracks. She turned and stared at him, open-mouthed. "What--?! I don't get it."

This time she was sure of it: Prism looked distinctly anxious. "Vertigo, c'mon. Can't you sense it? We're both odd men out. Odd man-and-woman out, whatever. If something should happen, if it should happen again..."

"Like what? What are you getting at?"

"You don't know?"

"No. I don't."

He sighed, starlight glinting through his clear faceted features. This was the most she'd ever heard the strange mutant say at one time, and the first time she'd ever seen such strange emotions in his face. Fear, nervousness...even a touch of drawn weariness. Though she couldn't imagine why.

"I didn't want to say this but I have to," he said quietly but intensely. "Listen. We have to stick together. The others don't care about us, they're safe, but you and I...we have to look out for each other. Because if we don't, we'll be the first ones to go."

A chill ran down Vertigo's spine at his low, husky, obsessive words. Words which were utter nonsense and gibberish as far as she could tell. Go? Go where? She stepped back, and then back again. "Damn, man, you're as crazy as Riptide."

"No, no, I swear I'm not! Just think about it--"

Her predicament was mercifully solved by a commotion ahead, across the street. As she turned, she caught a faint burst of whistles. Scalphunter's signal. No sign of their assigned prey, the pattern told her, but he'd caught the trail of another mutant. Probably just a runaway or a vagabond, judging by the part of town they were in. But enough to provide a momentary diversion. If there was one thing the Marauders enjoyed to the last man (or woman), it was taking the occasional side-trip to clear out the genetrash. Only the strong would survive. They'd proudly borne that credo since well before the re-emergence of that upstart elitist Apocalypse, and no matter what Sinister's orders it was the Marauders' mutual opinion that there was always time for a little sport on the side.

Only the strong will survive...

Something about that clicked hazily with what Prism had said, but by the time Vertigo turned back to him he was already loping across the street and into Scalphunter's alley. She shrugged and set the thought aside and followed, idly wondering who'd take the points for this diversionary kill and not really caring one way or the other.

By the time she got there it was too late anyhow.

Booted feet planted in the pool of blood on either side of the pitifully small body of the murdered mutant, Scalphunter waited until the entire team assembled -- with the exception, of course, of Scrambler. The team leader scowled but said evenly, "We're pulling in early for the evening, folks. Just got word from the bossman than there's a lead across town, but not a solid one. We'll have us a mission when he can confirm the sighting. In the meantime...sorry folks, but we've gotta report in for a brain-drain."

Riptide groaned and kicked petulantly at a moldy blood-stained newspaper, but the rest of the assassins merely rolled their eyes in bored acceptance and faded back onto the streets in half-a-dozen different directions.

After all, there were many paths leading to the heart of Sinister's web.

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Excerpt from Review #184030-1282
Circa January 1995, classified deep-black:

Interviewer: Now this term you used in the last session: "brain-drain"...?
Subject 184030: Oh, that. I can't remember what Sinister called it.
Some long words strung together, something he did with those machines
of his. We did it every month or so, or right before a dangerous mission.
It kept the copies of our memories on-file pretty much up-to-date for the
next time we needed o be cloned, that's all that mattered.
Interviewer: You sound reluctant to talk about it.
Subject 184030: I...can't we talk about something else?
Interviewer: What about Sinister?
Subject 184030: (silence)
Interviewer: How did you feel about him?
Subject 184030: ... Afraid.
Interviewer: Why?
Subject 184030: Have you ever met him?
Interviewer: Of course not.
Subject 184030: Then I can't explain it. He's...Sinister, okay?!
Interviewer: Now, now, there's no need to get so upset.
Subject 184030: That's what YOU think.

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There're only two things I hate worse than this, Vertigo thought abstractly as the helmet settled over her head. Three things, if you count Arclight. Four, if you count...

She bit her lip. Okay, so there's LOTS of things I hate. Let's just say that I hate THIS and leave it at that.

She wriggled her shoulders back against the tilted stainless steel, but in vain -- it was ice-cold and not likely to get any warmer, seeing as this would only take about five minutes. As always. Five minutes of...of... Well, she could never quite remember. The conscious mind was effectively taken offline for the duration of the procedure. But she knew that whatever it felt like, it always left her feeling like her brain had been turned inside out. The others had no problems with the process, but it left her dizzy and sick and retching.

The word "ironic" came to mind.

Vertigo looked up as HE swept by close enough to tickle her ankles with the trailing edge of that ridiculous "cloak" he insisted on wearing. Ridiculous...? Part of her cringed in horror that she'd even dared think such an irreverent thought about HIM. He terrified her. He'd always terrified her. Something about the way he spoke, every word exact and icily final; the unhurried, regal manner in which he moved. Sinister, the undisputed commander of killers who at first glance could easily take him apart at the seams. Looks were deceptive.

Most frightening of all, or so Vertigo firmly believed, was the way the man always appeared to know exactly what was going on. The way he always seemed to have calmly taken steps to be far, far ahead of anything that could possibly happen... It was foolish of her, perhaps, because she knew that he was far too judicious a man to waste his time in idly tormenting his servants, but she always felt as if his post-mission interrogations were merely a formality, a test of his pets' accuracy and loyalty -- that he knew exactly what they were going to say before they said it. That he could see right through her, directly into her doubts and fears...

She closed her eyes and tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry. When she looked up again He was right there before her, too close, adjusting the electrode at her brow, His sheet-white face furrowed in absent concentration. He didn't seem to even be looking right at her -- a blessing, perhaps. She hated being the focus of His attention...and seeing as she was always one of the few Marauders to consistently return alive from their more dangerous excursions, she'd had quite enough of His cross-examinations to last a lifetime, thank you very much.

This time, the Marauders' master hadn't bothered with a word of greeting or a comment beyond a cursory complaint that they were two days late for the monthly processing. Good timing for us, actually, she thought wryly. If Scalphunter wasn't so paranoid about 'losing more experience than he has to,' we'd probably never show up for this at all. Memory. Who needs it anyway? Nothing ever changes.

Still, though, it made life easier. Marauders didn't have a very promising life expectancy rate. To maintain his little strikeforce and to remove the fear of death which would have kept them from giving their all, Sinister was often compelled to clone and reclone his more..."accident-prone"...assassins. And for clones to be of any use, why, they HAD to have the memories of their predecessors to function properly, right? Right. And thus the frequent "touch-up" sessions here, under the encephalosiphon. Adding the latest mental "news" to the electronic caches of memory and experience stored along with the vials of raw genetic material which would someday become new Arclights, new Prisms, new Riptides.

New Vertigos.

She shivered slightly. Unlike the others, she didn't really relish the idea of...

Unannounced, the helmet crackled into life around her temples. Glaring white washed across the insides of her eyelids, cutting her off in mid-thou

Vertigo never dreamed.

But sometimes, as her mind was combed for information at the heart of Sinister's web, sometimes she dreamed dreams that she would not remember when she later awoke ill and miserable.

She was not a very creative person, this she knew. When it came right down to it, even she had to shamefully admit to herself that she simply did not have the imagination to do more than follow orders. Therefore, these "dreams" were not flights of fantasy; rather, they were chains of vivid images roused from the depths of her mind by the merciless mental probing, like thick mud stirred into clear water.

She almost couldn't help it. The mere physical fact that she was strapped to a tilted table, helpless and unhappy, a device humming about her ears, her head pounding and her stomach wrenched into knots, connected directly to the deepest core of her being.

Because her first conscious memory was exactly the same...