The homeless camp in Down Acres:
What happens now? Samuel asks the SHIELD agents, who tell him that depends. Local authorities aren’t going to let them stay here. That option’s off the table. There are shelters. Social service will evaluate what’s in the best interest of the children. But he can help himself.
Helplessly, Samuel replies he doesn’t know where he went. They’d have to ask the men he attacked. Looking at the corpses, Agent Haines points out. They aren’t going to get much out of them. The man he aided… Magneto… is a wanted terrorist.
Samuels stammers he only gave him soup. If he could help them, he would! Smoothly, Agent Haines replies they feel the same way. They may have additional questions. In the meantime, an officer will be along to help him in moving off-site. But this is their home! he babbles.
Nighttime:
He is not the man he once was, Magneto muses, having reached the complex. Once, he would have ripped this structure from the ground and cast it into space. Now he must use more conventional means to achieve his goals.
He opens a small hole in the fence to let him through, then reknits it. He takes out the alert and sneaks into the building where he opens the elevator door. He glides down the elevator shaft, aware that the complex spreads deep.
At the bottom, he crawls through an airshaft and peers outside into a lab, where he sees people being changed into makeshift Sentinels. Messy, he judges. Derivative of other lethal technologies. The inbred cousins of the Omega Sentinels. But engines of murder just the same. They’ve fought and defeated these machines so often they forget how dangerous they can be. Until they remind them…
Flashback:
He remembers the destruction of Genosha at the hand of Sentinels. Genosha was meant to be a sanctuary. A nation of mutants living together in peace under his rule. Sixteen million mutants were massacred in a single attack. What was meant to be a safe haven became a mass grave.
Present:
Because he blinked. He forgot for even a fleeting moment how deadly Sentinels and humankind can be. How many times did he warn Charles of making the same mistake?
He follows the airshaft. He sends a magnetic pulse through the facility, mapping his path and determining how far he must burrow to uncover the truth.
Dozens of governments around the world fund Sentinel research. But those proto-Sentinels are recreated by a private facility. Not only must they be stopped but he must find out who they are. Damn! he swears, sensing a huge Sentinel below him.
In a lab, a woman with glasses stands in front of three Omega Sentinels in the making and thanks them for their sacrifice. It will not be in vain, she promises as she turns to a computer screen.
She’s wrong, Magneto announces and reveals himself. Everything she’s doing, toying with the lives of mutants and humans alike… from what he’s seen… it’s all been an act of vanity.
She runs toward the alarm button. He hits her with a metallic object before she can reach it. What she’s doing here is finished, he announces.
The three Omega Sentinels activate and sense his mutant presence. One attacks with a tentacle, wounding him. Magneto impales him with a metal spear.
Don’t hurt her! the scientist pleads. Magneto confronts her, once the Sentinels are destroyed. He asks her name. Doctor Elizabeth Alain, she replies. She’s the project leader. So she’s in charge, he interrupts. Excellent. She’s the perfect person to help him. Horrified, she refuses. He can’t make her! He assures her he can, using this. He shows her a paper clip…
Soon, she obediently walks along a corridor followed by him. He asks what her agenda is. Why build Sentinels? Two Omega Sentinels run into them and identify Magneto.
Dr. Alain screams in pain as he moves the paperclip under her skin up her arm and she uses the override code to stop the Sentinels. He mocks it must shame her, her ideals cast aside so she can avoid discomfort. Admittedly, after she’s inflicted such misery on his people, even he finds it distasteful how quickly she rolled over.
Through a window, he looks down into a busy all and asks what this is. This is what they are working towards, she replies. They don’t want to harm mutants. They have no interest in genocide. They only want to be left alone. Those attacks… the mutants who were killed… those were oversights. One of their test subjects… Colton Hendry… slipped away. They should have worked harder to retrieve him. She understands that and is sorry. This is meant to be a peaceful refuge for humans… for those who fear mutants. Once the facility is complete, they will be protected.
Again, Magneto’s mind flashes back to the Sentinels’ massacre of Genosha.
When they discovered the decommissioned Mastermold, when they were directed to it, they knew they could create guardians to defend them if mutants wanted to ruin what they built. The Sentinels are only meant for protection. They don’t want to attack mutants!
Magneto remarks places such as this have protocols to enact, should something go wrong. Things have gone terribly wrong, so get to work, he orders. She sits down in front of the computers, insisting this is a refuge for humans. Where they couldn’t harm mutant and mutants couldn’t harm them. Is that so terrible?
Magneto remembers the dead on Genosha.
She refuses to do this. They’ve made mistakes but he can’t force her to demolish everything!
He drives the paperclip upward, killing her. He’s heard enough. He presses the right buttons to begin the complex’s self-destruction. The Master Mold terminates itself.
Magneto heads outside. Once he could have ripped the entire structure from the earth, sent it hurtling into space. Now it took a few strokes on a keyboard.
Still he wonders if he acted rashly. Not in destroying this mockery. He will not suffer such insults. But his anger and indignation might have gotten the better of him. He should have done more to find out which hand guided these cretins to the Master Mold’s resting place. But he’ll find them just the same. And no threat of death, no promise of salvation will spare them…
