This story is dedicated to the University of Kentucky Air Ambulance crew who lost their lives the night of June 14, 1999, in a tragic helicopter crash near Jackson, Kentucky. These four people were part of a team of dedicated, selfless individuals who work long hours to help people in need across the rural areas of Eastern Kentucky. While my colleagues and I did not get the opportunity to know them personally, we are acutely aware of the services they provided to this region, and they will be deeply missed by their extended family at the Julian Carroll airport.
All characters are copyright of Marvel Comics, and are being scripted here for entertainment purposes only. No monetary gain is intended from this venture.
Many thanks to my very patient beta readers, Alara, Jen, and BelaLeBeau!
Moira sipped the hot tea gingerly as she glanced out the window. "Ooo...that 's good," she whispered to herself. "One of life's finer pleasures, curling up on a rainy night with a riveting novel and a spot of tea." She flipped rapidly through the worn pages of "Brotherhood of the Rose," cursing herself for forgetting to use a simple bookmark. Finally, just as she had returned to the page she'd left off, there was a knock at the front door. "Goodness, who's out on a frightful night like this?"
As she peered through the glass, she was surprised to see who was there. She yanked the door open. "Lorna! What in heaven's name brings you here?" It didn't take a doctor to see that Polaris wasn't well. Aside from being sopping wet and shivering uncontrollably, she seemed to be almost hysterical.
"I- I- help me! The pain won't stop! The ringing...in my ears...my head...I..." Moira gasped and stepped forward just in time to catch Lorna before she collapsed at her door.
"Jamie! Rahne! I need your help!" Awkwardly, she attempted to drag the pale, emerald-haired mutant inside. Wolfsbane came bounding down the stairs first, on all fours and ready to fight. Quickly she realized there was no enemy to be found, and morphed back into her human form. Jamie, along with two of his dupes, peeked around the doorway at the top of the stairs, and seeing no immediate danger, all three of them came rushing down the stairs.
"Ach, Moira, what's goin' on? Ye scared us right have to death, y'know!"
"Come here! It's Lorna! I think she's going into shock!"
"Lorna's `ere?"
"Just hurry! Help me get her to the infirmary!"
"We've got her," Jamie and his dupes took hold of her, and the three of him easily carried the semiconscious Lorna to the lab.
Moira poured over the data as she shook her head at the video link. "I canna figure out what's wrong with her, Charles. She's complainin' of a terrible headache. And tha's only when she's conscious. I canna get her to keep any food down and Fzzztttt! Brrrrrzzzzttt..." "Moira? Are you there?"
"Ach! This damned weather has our comms on the fritz, I'm afraid. I'll have to get in touch with ya later! This storm is supposed to clear in a few hours. We'll ring you back when it does."
"All right. Please keep me appraised of any developments."
In another room down the hall, Jamie and Rahne looked at their former teammate sullenly. Rahne whispered softly, "Lorna, I know we didna get along too well in X-Factor, but I really hate seein' ya like this."
Jamie squeezed Lorna's hand gently. "The sooner we can get you out of here, Greeny, the sooner we get back to horsing around like we used to."
As Moira stepped in, they reluctantly got up to leave the doctor to her work.
Moira removed her glasses and rubbed her tired eyes. She was used to working on a problem for hours on end; she did that a lot with the Legacy Virus. "It sure would be nice if the answers would come a little easier every once in awhile." Just then, the doorbell rang, startling her. Moira climbed out of her chair and made her way to the intercom. "Hello?"
The intercom never answered. Moira heard the caller's voice in her mind instead. "It's me, Jean! I came to see how Lorna was doing."
"Oh, good! I'll be right there, Jean."
A short time later, Jean was standing next to Lorna, holding her hand. Polaris was still in a trance like state, occasionally moaning and mumbling incoherently. She looked like death warmed over. She was ghostly white and had lost an alarming amount of weight.
"Do you have any ideas about what it could be?" Moira asked, with more than a hint of desperation in her voice. "Because right now, I can't even hazard a guess."
"Oh God." A realization gripped Jean.... what if.... "Malice?" she thought aloud.
"But it couldn't be...Malice is dead...."
"Maybe she isn't. I'll damn well find out, though," she said, determined to find out what was slowly pulling Lorna from the land of the living. Jean put her fingertips to her forehead and searched for the evil entity's presence. A few moments, and a couple of Moira's fingernails later, she found nothing. "Not a trace of Malice in there. I didn't find any unusual presence, in fact. But Lorna's mind is spinning out of control. Her pulse is racing, she' s running a fever, and delirious. I can't imagine her body will be able to take this kind of punishment for much longer."
"Hey! Hey!" At that moment the Multiple Man came racing into the room, nearly tripping over one of his dupes. "There's something wrong in the communications room! Hurry!" The four of them rushed back to the comms room, where Rahne was awkwardly wielding a fire extinguisher, trying to put out the sparks streaming from one of the conduits coming out of the control panel. Moira grabbed the main circuit breaker on the side wall and forced it down. The sparks ceased, the room immediately grew dark, and emergency lighting bathed them all in an eerie crimson.
"Geez, Moira, what, did you forget to pay the phone bill again?" Jamie asked, and one of his doubles smacked him in the back of the head with his hat. "Shhhh!"
"I dinna do anything, Mum! I swear! I was trying to get a hold of Douglock when everything started to fritz out!"
"The communications equipment has been actin' up all week. At first I thought it was this North Sea cyclone interferin' with our signal, but it's cleared and things are still out of whack. I'll have to have Hank look at it when he gets back."
Over the next day and a half, Polaris continued to deteriorate. Her pulse, which had been extremely high when she'd arrived, slowed down drastically that afternoon. Now Lorna would do nothing but mumble every once-in-awhile, "...unh...two...three... ...unnnhh...two...three... ...unnggghhh!...two...three!" Her eerie chanting was driving Moira crazy and she couldn't concentrate any more. She wanted to do something for her, but she couldn't work on her patient without getting a little rest herself. So she retired to her quarters for some quiet and an attempt to sleep. She had just gotten into bed when the lights flickered, and went out. "It never rains, but it pours," she said before her drained mind let exhaustion take over.
Jean suddenly awoke in the guest bed, startled from a crazy dream. She could remember long periods of darkness, interrupted by sudden, intense flashes of light, almost like fireworks or lightning, so bright and burning that it would hurt. She also visualized the number "23" dancing through her head. How strange! Hadn't Moira mentioned that Lorna was chanting numbers before she'd fallen asleep? Jean tried to go back to sleep but found she couldn't. Instead, she decided to head to the lab. Through the windows, she could see Lorna lying there, with a glucose IV in her arm to give her nourishment. She 'd been out now for almost two days. It was a mystery. All the tests showed there was nothing physically wrong with her - no sign of a virus or any diseases that she knew of.
"Lorna, please, why can't you just get out of that bed?" Jean asked, frustrated. "What in the hell could be torturing you like this?"
At that moment, Jean got an idea. She got on a workstation. But instead of doing a medical search, she decided to go on a hunch.
Jean read through article after article, had surfed from page to page. Something out of the ordinary - some connection - was bound to turn up if she looked hard enough.. Suddenly, her eyes widened as she scanned down the page as she'd found what she was looking for, and cheered! "Eureka! I think I've got it!" Her mind called out to Moira, Jamie, and Rahne... "Get up! We may have figured out what's been keeping Lorna down!"
After a few moments, they came downstairs, bleary-eyed but excited to hear good news... "What is it?"
"Here, read this!" Jean turned the monitor toward the screen. It was a recent news article from one of New York's news tabloids.
SCIENTISTS FEAR DISRUPTIONS FROM SUN'S FLARING TEMPER
(Washington) - It may not be the Y2K bug that we should be worried about. Starting in July, the Earth will be bombarded by solar radiation, perhaps at levels unsurpassed in recent history.
The same star that keeps life on Earth possible may also be responsible for disrupting it over the next several months. Communications, electric service, and cable TV could all be affected. Sound familiar? It should. Mother Nature is about to start her sunspot cycle, an event that occurs every 11 years. Scientists do not yet know what causes our sun to flare up on a regular basis, but they are predicting this cycle to be one of the biggest yet.
These solar flares have the power of billions of atomic bombs, and throw off enormous amounts of gamma and X-ray energy. Billowing across the solar system, the radiation moves at millions of miles per hour. Earth's measly 98 million miles distance puts us directly in its path.
Ready to say your fond farewells and head for the shelter? Not to worry. Scientists say that humans aren't directly threatened. "The earth's magnetic field and its atmosphere protect us from these solar temper tantrums," said Joseph Stanwick, a researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Environmental Center in Boulder, Colorado. "But they sure do a number on the earth's electromagnetic environment," he added. "Cycle 23 is sure to be a doozy."
Record-keeping of these regular solar events began in 1755. The last such cycle, number 22, was in 1989. That year, a "geomagnetic storm" triggered over 200 power disruptions across North America alone. Satellites were knocked offline, and it caused millions of dollars in damage to the Salem nuclear plant in New Jersey.
Scientists are already preparing to research this event, so that we can prevent damage from future sunspot cycles. The solar flares will reach their peak intensity and frequency early next year, and are expected to end by January 2001.
Jamie spoke first. "All this just from a little extra dose of Vitamin D?"
"Yeah, and how come we've never heard of Magneto having this problem?" Rahne added.
"Actually, it makes sense, Moira said. "Remember, unlike Magneto, Lorna's still relatively new at manipulating her mutant powers. This kind of electromagnetic interference would be like sendin' a 40-amp current through a 20-amp fuse. Th' effects on the brain would eventually be devastatin'."
"So until Lorna learns ta control the interference, she's gonna be bedridden?"
"No, Rahne, I think I know someone who can help her. She's going to need a few days for treatment and recovery, though."
They all looked to Jean. "Jean, or should we call you Ms. Sherlock? I think you may have just saved Lorna's life!" Moira told her.
A couple days later, the five of them were sitting in the living room. Lorna was sipping hot tea, and her trembling hands were trying hard to keep the cup steady. "Don't worry about it," Moira assured her. "If you spill a wee couple drops it's nothing! You should see the mess these two make, tearing around the house reckless when the weather has been inclement for days on end." Everyone laughed, and Jamie stuck his tongue out at Rahne.
"I can't thank you all enough for your help. The agony I was in...it was...incredible. I felt like a lost ship in the Bermuda Triangle. I couldn' t get my bearing...kept having that spinning, queasy feeling. I was so nauseous, I can't remember the past two weeks."
"We're just glad you're okay," Jean said. "And it's a good thing the Professor knew how to get ahold of Forge."
"How is Forge, anyway?" Lorna asked, as she thought fondly of days gone by. "That's so like him to come out, fix me up with this thing, and leave without even seeing me." She pointed to the pack on her belt which was shielding her from the solar surges.
"Said he had another conference to attend to...you know how he is, ever-tryin' to convince the world that humans and mutants should just try to get along," Moira sighed.
"By the way, he wanted us to remind you that until they can ascertain either the strength of this sunspot cycle or the reliability of that pack, you are to stay inside. No fighting battles or saving the world."
"Oh great, thanks a lot, `mom'!" Jean smirked at Lorna's gibe.
"So, what are you going to do now?" Jamie wondered. "Stay inside for the next year? Talk to Coppertone about marketing SPF-2000 sunblock, specially formulated for cycle 23? Wear a lead suit of armor outside?"
She nodded to Moira. "The professor and Moira have discussed it with some researchers, and they think that it should not be too long before my body will develop a natural immunity to the electromagnetic fluctuations - `solar turbulence,' as I like to think of it. It won't be easy, though."
"Aboot as easy as getting used to riding a roller coaster...and one of those upside down ones, at that," Moira added. "Or, we may also be able to develop an inoculation that will temporarily diminish your sensitivity to sudden changes in the EM field. In the meantime, however, we'll study it and keep you safe here. We have a room already set up for you."
"Look at it this way," Jean added, "You can have your favorite Geophysics journals and papers sent here, and get caught up on some studying!"
"I guess that won't be so bad. It's been so busy, I've been neglecting my research for a long time."
"So, Lorna," Rahne asked, "if this happens every 11 years, how come you're still alive after the last sunspot cycle?"
Lorna laughed. "Gee, Rahne, how old do you think I am? The last sunspot cycle would have been when I was 14. That was long before my mutant powers had been triggered."
Moira looked at Jean. "One thing I can't figure out - how did you know where to look?"
"Well, I figured that you'd exhausted all the medical possibilities, things that would be attacking Polaris from the inside. So I figured I'd start looking from the outside-in."
"It's just really good to have my head clear again," Lorna said with a sigh of relief.
Jean stood up and hugged her longtime friend. "Well, hon, I'm glad to see you back on your feet again. But I must be getting back home. Scott will be burning down the kitchen if I don't return soon." Jean hugged the rest of them and put on her parka for the long flight back toward Anchorage.
As soon as Jean was out the door, Jamie popped his fist on the coffee table several times. "Monkey Pile on Rahne! C'mon Greeny! Help us out, here!" they all yelled.
Jean could just make out a fleeting call from Lorna as she flew west to the Atlantic... "Jean!! God, no! It's torture - don't leave me here with these two! What have you done?"
"Lorna, I have a feeling you're going to wish you'd stayed comatose by the time all this is over...ta ta!" she replied with a wink and a mischievous smile.
The End