An hour later, Vertigo was amazed to find herself still alive and unscathed.

Sinister had been furious, of course -- he still was -- and even the boldest of the Marauders had withered and squirmed under his scorching rebuke. The subsequent lash of interrogation had left almost no Marauder ungrilled...except for Vertigo.

(Maelstrom, I'm supposed to be Maelstrom, she had to keep reminding herself.)

Oh, she'd had to field her share of questions, sure, but the level of scrutiny she'd been placed under had been nowhere NEAR the third-degree aimed at the others. Before, she might have attributed this to the unhappy feeling that Sinister regarded her as he would a mildly retarded child -- bright enough to send out to play with the "big kids," maybe even useful in her own way, but certainly not mature enough to be expected to bear any of the responsibility.

Now, though...

She hadn't missed the dirty looks slung in her direction by some of the others. Jealous looks, she could almost say. It was then that she realized that Sinister held this new "Maelstrom" version in a far higher regard than the "old" Vertigo. Almost...trusted. Though it intensified her hurt anger over the fact that her master had never bothered to "upgrade" her before, the realization lifted her heart just a bit. If she had more leeway as Maelstrom, maybe she could bide her time and make a second break for it before the next battle or the next brain-drain gave her secret away...

However, even as she was beginning to tentatively consider making a second attempt at escape, her hopes were dashed to shards by Sinister's final decision on the Blockbuster "problem."

"...should have done this before you were allowed to venture back into the field," he had been saying as she'd belatedly tuned back in to the stinging lecture which followed his barrage of questions. "I will admit, perhaps this...incident is partially my fault for being too lenient upon you. It was foolish of me to allow your personal, uneducated opinions upon your own respective states of mind to sway my judgment.

"I think it would be best, therefore, if I were to conduct full mental examinations upon each of you before any more of you suddenly develop the urge to wander off on an unannounced sabbatical. You will remain here until I summon you. Scalphunter, you are first. Accompany me if you will."

That was a command, not an request. Sinister's tone was implacable and his eyes flashed black fire as he pronounced his decision, and this time none of the willful assassins dared to protest. Vertigo's heart sank. Well, there goes that. For a moment she wistfully eyed the four entrances to the Manhattan tunnels which ringed the chamber; then she dragged her feet after the rest of the momentarily cowed Marauders.

Outside of the electronic door which led to Sinister's own living area and laboratories was a raised traingular concete "platform" about twenty feet across, one of four which ringed the huge channel-crossed chamber. This particular quadrant was littered with salvage -- old furniture, blankets, clothes, and dirty magazines -- to serve as a temporary makeshift camp of sorts, used when the Marauders weren't out on the road or passing a dull few months in the tubes. The others were already propping up an old table and trying to put together a full set of cards to pass the time. Feeling trapped and miserable, Vertigo claimed a worn stuffed paisley chair at the farthest corner, well away from her "teammates," and curled up in it to concentrate on gnawing off one of the few remaining nails she hadn't already bitten to the quick.

Ten minutes later Sinister emerged to round up Harpoon. Scalphunter did not return. Neither did Harpoon when Riptide was called in for his examination ten minutes after that. Knowing Sinister, that meant that whatever he was doing to gather the information he wanted involved something which required recuperation time. Vertigo gulped hard at the thought -- if she hadn't already been at her "fear" limit she would have been petrified merely by the thought of whatever procedure lay in store for her beyond the laboratory door. Sinister could be frighteningly subtle in his words and manner, but when it came to medical procedures he was brutally direct and supremely unsympathetic...

Deep in thought, she almost leaped out of her skin as Scrambler appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, to crouch down next to her chair. He'd carelessly dropped one hand onto the overstuffed arm of the old piece of furniture, close enough to her own arm to raise hairs all over her skin. She withdrew it without trying to look anxious and met his gaze unflinchingly. He was just staring up at her, saying nothing. It was unnerving, to say the least.

"Well? What?" she snapped at last, frazzled to the breaking point. "Have I grown a beard or something?"

He grinned, but his eyes did not smile. They were still tracking across her face, looking for...something. "Nah, I'd expect THAT from Arc." He jerked a thumb back at the other woman, who was now boredly gathering up the cards and stuffing them into the nearest jacket pocket. Of course, though, he'd cracked the impertinent joke far too quietly for the temperamental killer to overhear.

"Y'know, there's something weird about you," he added almost without pause, changing subjects with alarming speed before she could come up with an appropriate reply. She was suddenly glad that he'd already lowered his voice. "Something 'not-right.' And I finally figured out what it is. Y'see, we've only known Maelstrom for a day or so...but we've known Vertigo for years."

She went cold from head to toe, every muscle tensing rock-hard. So this is it, huh? "What the hell are you implying?" she hissed, unable to stop herself from chancing a glance over at Arclight.

"I'm not implying anything. I KNOW. If you're Maelstrom, you'd be over there with us, trying to pretend that you're the new top dog on the block."

"Oh, for crying out-- Look, I was carsick and I just felt like getting in some rest before Sinister starts sticking probes into me," she protested angrily.

Without warning he made a sudden move to touch her shoulder. She jerked back, almost rolling out of the chair, and he grinned as he let his arm fall back to his side. "There's not as much raw power in you as there should be. I can tell."

"Look, this is ridiculous. I don't have to defend myself to you. It's perfectly obvious: I AM Maelstrom."

"Oh yeah?" Scrambler spread his hands invitingly. "Come on, then, prove it. Do something to me. I dare you."

Vertigo stared at him angrily but helplessly, at a complete loss. A moment later he dropped both hands onto his knees with a flat smack. "Uh huh. I thought so."

So this really IS it, her mind whispered fatalistically. Her heart was pounding so loud that she was amazed that he couldn't hear it, too. Already. It's not fair...

"So go on then, Sung, tell everyone," she snapped bitterly. "What are you waiting for? I don't stand a chance and you know it. Get it over with."

The Korean-American waved one hand dismissively. "Not yet."

"Oh sure, drag it out..."

"No, no, that's not my intention. If I tell the others, I won't ever know. What made you do it, I mean."

"Run away?"

"Yep."

Vertigo sighed and examined her nails as if they were the most fascinating things in the universe. "Look, you guys have it all wrong," she muttered without looking up at him. "I wasn't trying to betray you or Sinister. I just...I thought he was going to get rid of me. Like Prism."

Scrambler sucked in a breath as if he was about to say something but then he exhaled and gestured for her to continue. She sighed and finally looked right into his eyes. "There really isn't much more to it than that, okay? I didn't...I just didn't want to die, you know? Not permanently."

"But you were wrong."

"No shit, Sherlock, I know that NOW!" She had to forcibly stop herself from yelling, dragging her voice back down to a murmur. Arclight was pacing restlessly along the edge of the concrete platform like a caged tigress, but she did not appear to be moving within earshot. Yet. "I panicked, okay?" Vertigo hissed, her whisper laced with venomous disgust with her own faulty choices. "I'm sorry! I was stupid!"

"Yeah, well, I was on the verge of doing the same exact thing," Scrambler said very, very quietly.

Vertigo's train of thought was abruptly, violently derailed. Her eyes went wide as she stared at him, momentarily at a loss for words. "YOU--?! But...but you...the team needs you!"

He shrugged carelessly. "Sure, yeah, for only one thing, and I can only do that if I can get in close and touch someone. At least you have a distance attack -- you can hit several targets at once. But me...well, my range pretty much makes me a one-target wonder. Prism and I, we'd been talking about working together in battle to stay in one piece longer. To 'up' our efficiency rating, like. He said he was going try to convince you to join us..."

Though her view of the world was now reeling with the revelation that someone had actually considered her valuable to the team, it was starting to make a twisted kind of sense. "Uh...yes. Yes, he did start to say something to me, the night before his last mission. In Paris. Something that didn't make sense to me at the time, something about 'sticking together'..."

Scrambler nodded. "Right. And then the next thing I knew, he was...gone. It was a bit of a shock, Vee. I'd thought it was going to be me first. After that... Well, before I could make up my mind about it, we were decanted here in New York and you were missing." He flashed her a quick lopsided grin. "And as you can guess, we've been kinda busy ever since."

Vertigo didn't return the smile. She was watching his face carefully, her pulse no longer a fight-or-flight thunder in her ears. "ARE you going to tell the others about me?" she asked in a very small voice.

He hesitated then shook his head. "No. No point, really. Unlike some folks I could name, I'm not really big on killing teammates. You haven't got much time left anyway."

"Yeah. Sinister."

They were both quiet for a minute. Vertigo wasn't sure what to make of the whole conversation. Scrambler had rarely ever been actively cruel to her, but they'd never really had anything in common, either -- at best, he made her feel like a clumsy country mouse.

"Hey, Scrambler." That was Arclight's voice, slicing unexpectedly into the uncomfortable silence. "Quit kissing up to the new girl. Sinister's ready for you. Better get moving."

With a sigh, Scrambler pushed against his knees and rose from his crouch beside Vertigo's chair. "Good luck," he said, even though they both knew that the phrase was nothing more than two meaningless words...that her luck had finally run out. "Don't worry about Sinister getting it from me, about you being here I mean -- I seriously doubt that he'll be looking for THAT particular piece of information in my head, and I don't plan on volunteering it. I'm afraid that's all I can do for you, though. If there's a hunt, I...well..." He spread his hands helplessly. "You understand, right?"

She gave him a brief but genuine smile. "Yeah. Thanks."

"SOMETIME TODAY, SUNG!"

Scrambler winced at the sheer volume of the shout as it echoed and reverberated around the stone chamber. "Yeah, yeah, Arc, keep your panties on," he grumbled as he ambled off towards his appointment with Sinister.

At a complete loss, Vertigo pulled her knees up to her chin and stared steadfastly at the paisley pattern on the chair arm...

At her master's signal, Arclight sauntered casually into the inner sanctum. Now all alone in the Marauders' haphazard outer living area, Vertigo sat hunched up in a ball on her worn chair, nervously gnawing at the shreds of one thumbnail. She was the last one. She was next. Unless something went drastically wrong with Arclight -- and she seriously doubted THAT was going to happen -- in ten or so minutes she, Vertigo, would be called in by Sinister for a thorough mental examination, just like the others...except that she'd fail. It was over. She was trapped. There was nowhere else to go...

Or maybe there was.

It had taken every scrap of what little courage she thought she possessed to run away the first time, and that had been the single bravest act of her entire pointless life. In a way, though, she'd still taken the coward's path. She'd made her break for it when the others were locked away, when Sinister had been hundreds of miles to the north.

If she tried to run now, it'd be quicker to just slit her wrists...but not by much.

And yet...

Either way, I'm dead, she thought as she uncurled and rose to her feet. May as well go all-out and improve my chances with a distraction...

She felt surprisingly steady as she walked across the deserted "camp" and picked up the sweater she'd worn during her brief sojourn out in the real world. There were three hard objects wrapped up in it, all three stolen from Misfire. It had been a real bitch to keep them hidden from the other Marauders, but they trusted "Maelstrom" -- or were afraid of her, imagine that! -- and she hadn't been searched in any way. Her luck had held.

Sitting back on her haunches and trying to keep a wary eye on all of the exits to the stone chamber at once, Vertigo fished out the stolen cellphone and flipped it open, noting with relief that after several days lying idle it still held a charge. She was about to dial when her fingers paused over the buttons. An idea had struck her -- a surprisingly good idea considering MY track record, she admitted ruefully. Instead of going with her first idea, therefore, she pushed the redial button.

For a moment she was worried that the signal wouldn't make it out of the underground lair, but luckily for her this particular phone hadn't been designed with your average freeway-cruising businessman in mind. When she cautiously put the phone to her ear there was no answer but there was definitely someone there. Silent. Listening.

Spooky government types, she thought with a shrug. Just do it.

"Hey, I dunno who you guys are," she stated confidentally, "but I know you work with that Misfire chick, and I'll bet she's told you all about me. Yeah, this is Vertigo, the real one. You might want to know that if you trace this phone -- and I'm betting you can -- there's a whole nest of murderin' mutie Marauders down here. This isn't a trap; I hate 'em just about as much as I bet you guys do. So come and get 'em."

With a wicked grin, she hung up and dialed 911 and told the police the exact same thing...plus explicit directions, both above- and below-ground.

Then she yanked on a pair of hacked-off jeans, stuck her other stolen "toy" in the waistband, clipped the imager to her leotard collar, and took off running for the tunnels.

Somewhere in Virginia, in a room mostly lit by computer screens and blinking electronic telltales, a woman sat up in surprise. She pressed her headset closer to her ear as if that would make the message come in clearer than it already was, but it was about as clear as daylight anyhow.

"Sir? Excuse me, SIR--?"

"Yes, Mayfaire?"

She tapped in a command to store and rewind the message, then held her headset out to her boss. "You're not going to believe what just we just picked up from the police lines in New York..."

Twenty minutes later, when Maelstrom didn't answer his summons not once but three times, Sinister set down his electronic clipboard with a gusty sigh and strode towards the laboratory archway to handle the situation himself. Perhaps she'd wandered off...she'd always been a bit flighty that way. Something he should breed out of the next clone. Could a short attention span be remedied genetically? It was a stretch of the imagination, yes, but most of his best ideas started out that way...like the mildly entertaining "metamorph-as-a-living-breeding-creche" hobby he'd pursued for a while last year...or that useful little boarding school he'd acquired in Oklahoma...

Hmm. If nothing else, it'd be a distraction. Making a mental note of the new idea, Sinister set aside his equipment with an exasperated sigh and strode out of his lab.

A quick look around the mess which served as the Marauders' temporary lair revealed two key details: the somewhat expected lack of Maelstrom, and the completely unexpected presence of a discarded cellphone.

His annoyance chilled into suspicion. He bent to pick up the phone, and as he turned it over in his hand it was immediately apparant that this was no ordinary piece of technology.

Government issue. I...see.

And with that, his suspicion hardened into certainty.

Less than one minute later the rest of his assassins were assembled once more, clad in full battle gear. Scenting a spur-of-the-moment hunt, they were curious and restless, but the thunderous look on Sinister's face kept them respectfully silent. Something had the boss-man major-pissed, as Riptide would have put it.

And it did not escape any of them that their newest teammate was conspiciously absent.

Sinister glared sidelong at Arclight until she caught herself and wiped the broad "I-told-you-so" smirk off of her face. Only then did he inform them curtly, "It appears that we've had a breach of security. We may be expecting visitors within the hour, I suspect. I want you all out on perimeter alert. Nothing and nobody is to get through, am I making myself perfectly clear?"

An assortment of nods and shuffles met this, as well as a few exchanged glances. There were questions burning in their eyes but none had the nerve to...

"Hey boss, where's Maelstrom?"

Sinister raised an eyebrow and regarded the Marauder who'd spoken so insolently and yet was so completely casual under his master's sudden scrutiny. Sinister resisted the urge to shake his head like an exasperated father. Even HE couldn't predict Riptide.

'Where's Maelstrom,' indeed...

For a moment he considered lying to them. Then he decided that yes, he WOULD lie to them. No point in having them go baying off on their grudge hunt again, not when there was a possibility of leaving his base open to discovery by the outside world. There was more than a good chance that he'd lose all control over the motley pack of assassins if they knew that they'd been infiltrated in the field by Vertigo, the very woman they'd gone hunting for...

Which means that I have not one but TWO missing Marauders to contend with, Sinister thought grimly. He was not stupid. The government-issue phone had been all he'd needed to put two and two together. It was obvious: the runaway Vertigo had found herself a new employer, and she was more than eager to sell out her previous master AND as many of her former teammates as she could to secure her new life.

And it had plainly been child's play for her to take the place of her new doppleganger.

Sinister winced, unable to believe the gullibility of his Marauders. Damnation! Must I lean over their shoulders every second of every day...?!

Matters were rapidly clicking into place, and he didn't like the big picture. Not one bit. The very thought of Maelstrom AND Blockbuster in government custody -- his new masterpiece and the man who knew the inner nuts-and-bolts of too many of his master's machinations... Quite frankly, it made him want to grind his teeth together. He'd OWNED Vertigo's absolute terrified loyalty, beyond a shadow of a doubt. Where did he go wrong? What glitch had set in during the last cloning process to make her go so far awry?

No matter. No matter, now. Forget letting the Marauders track that little turncoat down, he thought darkly. If he had his way (and he usually did), he would personally recapture Vertigo, flay her slowly, and then break her neck with his bare hands.

"I am still completing my examination upon Maelstrom," he lied smoothly. "She'll join you later. I need you out there NOW. Get going." And in a dramatic skirl of cape Sinister turned on one heel and stalked back regally into his sanctum sanctorum, brooking no further questions.

The Marauders stayed right where they were for a few moments, waiting with surprising patience until the tapping of Sinister's bootheels faded away and a distant door hummed shut.

Then Scalphunter deliberately cocked his gun, a metallic beast fully half the size of his torso, with a rachetting k-kKk-klick! that echoed quite satisfactorily in the vaulted stone chamber. "So. Did any of you guys buy that one?"

"Heh! You saw the look on his face when I said 'Maelstrom' -- I thought he was gonna have an stroke!" Riptide gloated, elbowing Harpoon in the ribs. The Inuit hunter glared at him but nodded in agreement, as did Scrambler. Scrambler seemed a little distracted, but then again that was normal for him and no one paid any heed to his slightly delayed reaction.

"I KNEW something was wrong," Arclight growled. She was still somewhat pale from her "examination," but of course it was nothing that she couldn't handle. "I knew it! Ever since I met her coming back from Mickie D's, back at that park in Baltimore. I couldn't put my finger on it, an' I figured it was just 'cause I didn't have a full handle on her yet. I'm thinking she's not so different from her old self after all."

Scalphunter looked thoughtful at that and seemed about to say something, but then he rubbed his chin and kept it to himself.

"I say screw guarding the perimeter -- Sinister's just tryin' to keep us busy an' 'out of the way,'" Arclight spat viciously, insulted. "It's obvious that the damn girl's run off just like the last one, an' Sinny's just trying to cover his ass. He's a scientist, he's living in a dream world. He doesn't know anything about the way a team works. WE know what's good for the Marauders, not HIM."

She punched one fist forcefully into her other palm. "*I* say let's bring her down and END this like we should have, right from the beginning. New powers or NO new fucking powers. You all in?"

"Of course," Scrambler replied promptly. Harpoon nodded, and Scalphunter snorted as if to say "you have to ask?" Riptide merely grinned bloodthirstily from ear to ear, flipping a shuriken idly from hand to hand. With a momentary blur of his power and a careless flick of a finger, he sent the sharp flake of metal deep into the nearest stone wall.

"So what are we waiting for?" he drawled.

NEXT: Could this be rounding into a home stretch? I won't lie to you -- maybe! Come back for part eleven: Vertigo versus the Marauders (or what's left of them, anyway)! Is this the end of our, er, heroine? Could be. With THESE characters, all bets are off and there's no guarantees until the final curtain...