A dark ruined place. A darker shape makes its way through the ruins: up and down, round and round, Darkness… buzzing. Stuck, trapped within the labyrinthine corridors of this infernal machine, the demonic figure wearing a Native American headdress complains. Suddenly, he sees light shining in from a hole above. He follows the light outside…
At that moment, in X-Force’s new HQ beneath the Northern Cheyenne reservation, Montana:
Forge groans as Dr. Nemesis pricks the back of his neck with a syringe. What the hell is he thinking? Forge shouts. He’s working here!
Nemesis reminds Forge that he insisted they test the neuro-synch before attempting to upload Cable’s precognitive visions. An unnecessary precaution, to be sure, but did he argue? No. Forge asked him to give it simple tasks. Well, what could be simpler than mapping Forge’s paint-by-numbers simpleton mindscape? If Forge is truly so incapable of multitasking that he can’t sit here and punch buttons while Nemesis forcibly mates his brain with a supercomputer… he supposes he can ask Boom Boom.
No dice, Frankenstein, Boom Boom announces as she enters the lab with two blazing guns. She catches his old lady gloves anywhere near her brain meats she‘ll ‘splode his mind into really smart head pudding! See? Nemesis tells Forge. His hands are tied.
Boom Boom turns to Forge, admitting she was in Cable’s room composing this note to him how setting fire to the Eiffel Tower wasn’t really her bad. And was like totes necessary as a distraction or whatever. Which made her start steaming on how unfair it is that he benched her and she sort of caved in the ceiling on his armory. Anyway, does he think he can help her glue these guys together before Cable gets back home… and yells a lot? Pleeease! she whines.
Forge shouts at them both to take their idiot clown show out of his face while he’s trying to work or he’s gonna fire up their new teleporter and use it to beam her head inside his %$&/! He turns back to the computer.
What did she say? Boom Boom asks Nemesis. He’s in a mood, he shrugs and asks her to come along help him map the inner workings of Forge’s brain. It’s an unremarkable thing. Shouldn’t take a minute.
Trying to run two ops at the same damn time while surrounded by—Forge mutters, then groans in pain, figuring he has a migraine.
The Reaver Base camp, in the Australian Outback:
He said she was getting a solo mission, Hope whines, Sneaking past a bunch of rookie Reavers to disarm a bomb would barely count as a mission, even without Forge scrambling their security system, she complains. While the junior Reavers are gathered partying around a bonfire. As it stands, there is zero difference between what she is doing and walking down the street.
He reminds her via comm. that they came her to yank the payload of that bunker buster so these geeks can’t drop it on a bunch of brand new mutants tomorrow afternoon. If it makes her feel better, think of it as a training mission. Training wheels mission, Hope scoffs. Baby borgheads are too fried to even see her. Just do the job, he tells her.
Hope calls out to the Reavers. When one of them looks at her, she hits him in the face. Quit screwing around, Cable orders as he watches through binoculars from a jeep a small distance away. He warns her that the real Reavers are no joke. She’s still got Bonebreaker to deal with before Skitch can crack them into that bomb. Or they‘ll have a problem when the rest of the big dogs get back with the beer.
Forge interjects they are pretty okay on time. He’s got eyes on the beer run and they are at least 30 minutes out. Shut up and let him teach, Cable orders.
Hope walks up to Bonebreaker and shoots him. Taking him into a death grip, she mocks that Dad was exaggerating about him. And they are gonna steal the bomb the Reavers stole back now? Sweet dreams.
She announces to Forge that she’s at the bomb. Now what? He tells her to drop the transmitter into place. The computer will kick through the security firewalls, then he can manually disarm it and walk her through it. By the time the Reavers get back with the beer, they’ll be on the road with the part of the bomb that makes it go boom.
Forge suddenly screams out in pain. When Hope asks what’s up, he tells her nothing. Head’s just killing him today. He’ll holler when the system has cracked the firewalls. Hope worries about him. Forge tells her to sit tight. He needs to check on Pete and Dom.
Trask Estate, mountain Safe House, outside Vail, Colorado. Forge tries to reach Domino, announcing the satellites aren’t giving him any visual. They’ve got a four minute window before he’ll have his hands full with Cable’s Reavers deal. He shouts her name when nobody replies.
Domino answers belatedly, getting up from behind a bush, half-naked. Annoyed, Forge asks about the situation. She and Colossus get dressed and he gently mocks her about being embarrassed.
Domino explains their GI’s are just about ready to breach the inner walls. They are sitting here, waiting for them to do it? Forge asks. Domino explains as soon as they do, they’ll pounce. They are killing him today, Forge sighs.
Dom tells him to cool his heels. Plan is Colossus makes with the punchy. She slips in and places the transmitter, then Forge works his magic. Ever occur to them that his magic only spreads so thin? No, she replies.
The mercs are getting ready as well. Domino and Colossus attack. Domino explains they just busted a big hole into one of the Trask family private vault. The upside of that is it’s probably full of sweet treasure. The downside is that those treasures are being guarded by a genocidal robot that blasts death rays out of its hands. While Colossus tears into them, Dom intends to take care of the Sentinel.
Inside, Forge asks her if she is in position. He needs that transmitter locked in the next five seconds.
She jumps atop the Sentinel and fixes the transmitter to its head. Now it’s his turn, she announces, but Forge doesn’t react.
In X-Force’s headquarters, he lies on the ground, unconscious and foaming at the mouth.
Elsewhere in X-Force’s headquarters, Boom Boom tries out the virtual reality brain. Walking through a tunnel, surrounded by machinery, she muses that she thought brains were all grey and squishy. Nemesis assures her that Forge’s brains are squishier than most. But this isn’t his brain, but his mind. They’ve mapped his mindscape, synced it with the computer and now explore a visual representation. They plan to do that to Cable to explore his premonitions.
Dr. Nemesis tries the helmet on himself and is surprised there is something else in there.
In Colorado, the Sentinel tears out of the vault.
In the Outback, Cable wonders what is taking so long.
Sitting atop an unconscious Bonebreaker, Hope figures Forge is still hacking the bomb code. Looking at the timer, she asks if she should be concerned that this thing is counting down. Cable springs into action and shouts at her to get away, realizing the bomb is still live. Hope realizes it’s too late. And the bomb explodes.
In the HQ, Nemesis and Boom Boom try to reach Forge. Nemesis doesn’t quite know what he saw. They open the door to see a strange demonic creature in Native American garb, the Adversary, standing in front of them.
