(London, UK)
Peter Wisdom has just used his powers and blasted a hole in David’s head. He says that shuffling a godlike übermutant off the mortal coil isn’t an experience he has had before. But it felt a bit too %&#*$ good. It’s just a pity he didn’t have a more supportive audience.
As David’s body lies on the floor, Wisdom turns to see the shocked astral projection of Blindfold. Wisdom says that if you want a characteristically poetic metaphor regarding mutant related interaction then to listen up. X-gene carriers are a lot like the chef’s special spicy selection down at the local curry house. The blander and more innocuous it looks when it first arrives, the more pain it will cause you later.
Enraged by what she has just seen, Blindfold lashes out at Wisdom with a psychic attack. She starts piercing him with psychic tendrils but he begs for her to wait. At this point in the proceedings, he was obligated to use his wildly famed skills of negotiation and reason. Wisdom manages to get Blindfold to stop attacking and to listen to him. Crouching on the floor, he tells her she knows David better than anyone. Does she really think Wisdom could plug him so easily? Pausing for a minute, Blindfold asks Wisdom if he means David “holodecked” them again and he says he does. With that, he uses his plasma knives and finds a swirling energy portal in the middle of the room.
Elsewhere, David is in the countryside with Alchemy. David is watching what Blindfold and Wisdom are doing through a viewing portal as he also mind controls Alchemy. Alchemy is using his powers on the ground and he tells David he could do with more juice.
Back in the bar, Wisdom steps through the illusionary portal to see the real world but he is suddenly thrown across the room and into a table. He sees a Fury standing over him and starts to panic. But Blindfold just watches calmly until Wisdom twigs that it is another of David’s illusions. He stands up and dusts himself down as he remembers what David can do. He continues on again but immediately stops which a shocked look on his face. Everyone he ever loved and lost is standing before him. Nightcrawler, Kitty, his mother, John the Skrull and even Maureen. Whatever you may say about David Haller, the kid knows loss.
A visibly shaken Wisdom kneels down and stutters that they should stay there for a while. Blindfold speaks up and tells David that it was low to do that. She says that she knows he can hear her and he is better than this.
At a football stadium, David is controlling Pixie as they stand on the stadium roof. As Pixie releases her hallucinogenic dust across the crowd, David tells Blindfold he just needed Wisdom out of the way. He tells Blindfold she would understand if she knew what he was trying to do. He gives in and asks Ruth if she wants to understand and with that Lila Cheney appears at the bar. Wisdom whispers to Blindfold and asks if it is real but she doesn’t know. Taking a swig of beer, Lila tells them David said something like this would happen, so she will fill them in on the plan.
David contacted a bunch of British mutants as he had some unfeasibly complicated scheme. They heard him out and agreed to get involved. Wisdom asks what the plan was and Lila tells him it was to wipe mutophobia Britain off the map. She sits down and leans back on the chair. People recognize her as Lila Cheney, the celebrity musical mutant. But she is just the glossy gift wrap and her real job is to record and present all the real good work the others are doing. The stuff David is lending them power to achieve.
Wisdom asks what good work she is talking about. She tells him David snuck Psylocke into the Ministry of Defence as he figured her psi-blade would work well on the military’s top brass. Pixie is ready to stir things up at a football cup-final day. Ninety-nine thousand beered up blokes are just itching for violence. Alchemy is on the Scottish border pouring a stream of rare-Earth elements the full length of the country. Chamber was smuggled into Sellafield Nuclear Plant an hour ago. She believes the phrase “explosive chain reaction” was mentioned. Liam, who can make things detonate by thinking about them, has gone to see the queen.
The country is a tinderbox of prejudice and witless over-reactions. David’s just providing the spark. Wisdom thinks about what she said for a few seconds and then dismisses it. Even if he thought David was capable of that much cooperation and focus, he knows the rest of them ain’t that sick. Wisdom says he knows David is gunning for President Abdi and all this is just a smokescreen. As David gets Liam ready to meet the queen, he hears Wisdom telepathically tell him he will have to do better than that. David tells Liam he has to go and that he should look the old dear in the eye.
(The Qortex Complex inside David’s brain)
Many of David’s lesser personalities are caged up again and the ones that are free are being used by David. He is levitating in the middle of the room with his needle tendrils jammed into some of their heads. He asks Tyrannix, his telepathic personality, what else they have to keep Wisdom busy. Tyrannix doesn’t answer and instead he points to the astral form of Blindfold, who has phased through one of the walls.
In the real world, Wisdom is being inundated with numerous illusions, including provocative women, the offer of drink, the belief he is Captain Ultra and even the fact he is in a comic book. But Wisdom sees through them all for what they are and he breaks the illusions with his knives. He yells out David’s name and finds himself in David’s mindscape. He sees Blindfold pulling David’s ear, coercing him into bringing Wisdom into his mind.
David turns back to what he was doing as Wisdom and Blindfold talk. Wisdom asks where they are and Blindfold replies that they are in David’s head but it looks different from the last time she was there. She can’t find the right words but a voice chips in and tells her it’s under control. Wisdom is a little taken aback that someone just talked to them in David’s head except that it wasn’t David. He also notes Blindfold’s stammer is gone.
They look down to see a pit with David’s biggest personalities roaming free inside. The voice says there are still some things that he can’t do. He’s not quite ready for the reality changers and the time-breakers. But the rest of them are his to use and exploit. They look to where the voice is coming from and see the gold-skinned Xavier personality trapped in a cell. Only he doesn’t look like Xavier anymore, he is more like his original rat-like form. Wisdom notes it looks a little like the Professor and asks if it is. Blindfold tells him it isn’t but the creature tells him he is. Wisdom asks what it all means and Blindfold replies that David is strong enough to do almost anything and she doesn’t know how to stop him.
The Xavier personality suddenly grabs Wisdom’s collar and pulls him to the cell bars. He whispers something in Wisdom’s ear and then lets him go. Wisdom thinks for a second and then mentions David’s mother. This gets David’s attention and Wisdom continues. He tells him he will make it his life’s work to tell his mum what a nasty, manipulative little *&#$ of a son she has. He then demands David sends him back to reality. David turns to Ruth but she tells him to do it. He reluctantly returns Wisdom’s mind back to his body.
Wisdom once again wakes up in a dazed state in the bar. David telepathically tells him that he will understand him and he also tells Blindfold she will forgive him too. Having escaped the lunatic’s mental landscape and its cast of freaks, brainmonsters and creepy glowing Xaviers, Wisdom runs out of the bar unleashing a torrent of swear words. He heads to the site of the anticipated crime with Blindfold’s astral projection in tow.
By the time he reaches Whithall, the demonstrations are even louder than ever. President Abdi and his group are walking down the street meeting and greeting some of the protesters. As policemen hold the protesters back behind the railings, Wisdom runs into the street. He shouts to the security officers that someone is going to take a pop at President Abdi. Call it intuition or the sneaky cynical suspicion of a paranoid bastard but he is also bang on the money.
Blindfold gets Wisdom’s attention and points towards David, who is stood amongst the crowd with a gun in his hand. Wisdom starts to gloat but, before he can finish, David tosses him the gun and tells him that he dropped it in the pub. Wisdom catches the gun but doesn’t understand what’s going on. Pointing to an overhead building, David tells him he thought he might need it. Wisdom looks to see a man in a baseball cap standing on a balcony and aiming a sniper rifle at President Abdi. The assailant lets off a shot as Wisdom returns fire. As he fires, Wisdom falls backwards and uses his powers to slice the gunman’s bullet in half, in mid-air. President Abdi and his procession stop and look at scene as the gunman falls from the balcony.
As the man lies injured on the ground, David calmly tells him that he is an Aqiri citizen and he has been listening to his mind for a few days now. He is gay and he has been persecuted his entire life. David asks him not to go too hard on him. Wisdom goes over to the man and arrests him. His attention is caught by someone asking him to smile and he looks up to see Lila Cheney taking a photo. A little way off, President Abdi chastises his superhero Al-Thahab Al-Aswad and the fact that he spent ten million dollars on him and it was Wisdom that saved his life.
As the security forces rush to the gunman, Wisdom asks Blindfold to bring him the man with the stupid hair. Blindfold begs Wisdom not to hurt him and David puts his hands in the air and surrenders unconditionally. Wisdom grabs David by the scruff of his shirt and demands to know what is going on.
Later on, Wisdom is in his office filing a report on the day’s events. David suddenly appears behind him and scares him. Wisdom grabs him by the collar and drags him out of the room, threatening him if he teleports out of his cell one more time. David says there is one thing he takes issue with and that’s the whole having done something wrong part. As Wisdom leads him down the stairs, David asks what he crime was. Wisdom replies that he misled and officer of the crown, compromised national security and conspired to damage the reputation of the UK. David turns to Blindfold, who has been observing the events and she tells Wisdom that he knows it’s not true as he has seen the broadcast.
The broadcast starts with Lila Cheney introducing herself to the camera. She apologizes for interrupting the regular scheduled programs and thanks to some unconventional equipment she is appearing on all TV’s around the world. She is here to tell everyone about Great Britain and some of its proudest citizens. She starts with Betsy Braddock, a home grown hero who is renowned for her deadly capabilities with a psi-blade. She spent her day with the nation’s heroes, cutting out the traumatic experiences gained from Afghanistan and Iraq. The TV cuts to Psylocke who is meeting with a bunch of war veterans. She tells the viewers it is nice to do something positive for a change.
The broadcast goes to Sellafield, where Chamber is setting off a controlled nuclear reaction using his face. Chamber says that if they have done their calculations right they will keep the grid fed for a fortnight and it won’t cost a penny. He says that it’s been fun spending the day not beating anyone up. Next, Pixie is standing outside Wembley Stadium as the fans of a football match exit. The cup-final has long been anticipated as the most violent event in the sporting calendar and yet another indictment of the thuggish British character. However, Pixie has used her hallucinogenic dust to calm down the supporters and now the fans of both sides are hugging and telling each other that they love one another.
Alchemy has been busy converting a 600 km corridor of brownfield land into a magnetic neodymium strip. Contractors are now bidding to start construction on a silent-running, supersonic train that connects the limits of the island. Elsewhere, Liam Connaughton, who is Northern Irish and vaguely republican shakes hands with the queen. Whilst he is able to generate explosions at a whim, he has chosen not to atomize his ideological enemies like most normal people. And the cream of the crumpet is MI:13’s Peter Wisdom. Simultaneously avoiding a national incident and demonstrating that Britain is better with mutants.
As David, Wisdom and Blindfold view the broadcast, David says that he did exactly what he set out to do. He wiped mutophobic Britain off the map. Wisdom bemoans David but Blindfold asks him to tell him about Aqiri. Wisdom reluctantly tells David there was a bloodless coup, as the Aqiri people have chosen a more progressive future thanks to Britain’s example. President Abdi is still sulking in his hotel across town. Wisdom adds that the new regime also wants to sign an oil deal too.
David tells Wisdom that it sounds like it turned out nice and Blindfold asks why he is still being kept there. As Wisdom guides David back into his cell, he tells her he isn’t. Wisdom sighs and says that they both know that David could smash his way out of there on a shaft of rainbows if he wanted too, but they know he won’t. David asks why he thinks that and Wisdom replies that he craves approval. Alls David wants is someone to pat him on the head and tell him well done and that they are proud. It just won’t be him and with that he pushes David through the door and into the cell.
Wisdom says that if he thinks he is ready for cozy team-ups and that he wants to work with others then he needs to start trusting them. He doesn’t get to play the rogue puppet-master. This became an international incident the second David forgot to respect him by sharing his plans. He was obligated to inform the authorities of his homeland due to regulations. David starts to stutter and asks Wisdom if he called her. Wisdom takes out a piece of paper with the Israeli flag on it. It is a telegram from the Israeli embassy. They are sending a car and an armed guard. Let’s see how proud mummy Haller is feeling towards her little international terrorist. Hearing the news, David sits on the floor in his cell with a worried look on his face.
