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when I was younger, like you
this whole world was younger too
we set it spinning, hand in hand
me and a young man
but now you see what he’s become…
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ten. there are ten things you need to know
On paper, it was an excellent plan.
(There was, after all, only one moving part.)
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nine. we are outgunned, outmanned
A year after Cuba, the Brotherhood of Mutants had been reduced to just Magneto and Mystique.
Its ranks, never numerous, had been worn down by human prejudices and the CIA’s efforts. Of the original members, Azazel and Angel were ambushed and killed in July 1963, while Janos and Emma soon left after that, citing a difference of opinion. That left only the two of them, Magneto and Mystique, to carry on the struggle for their fearful or indifferent kindred.
The humans had them outnumbered; the Brotherhood was wildly understrength and entirely lacking in the diversity of gifts needed to wage a proper war. The prospect of revolution, once within Magneto’s grasp, receded every day as mutants left them. A Brotherhood comprised of only two mutants might survive, but there would be no victory, only the lingering and inevitable defeat, and then the total collapse of their cause and the eradication of their kind. They needed another strategy, one that would circumvent the government’s strategy of wearing them down and shatter the status quo beyond repair.
Their plan, in the end, was born out of desperation as much as inspiration.
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eight. we gotta make an all-out stand
There were rumors that the president was a mutant.
Kennedy had never made any statements about the mutant issue, though the CIA under his administration sent out agents to hunt and kill mutants. Sometimes the members of the Brotherhood wondered: did Kennedy keep his silence out of ignorance or fear, or was he merely biding his time? What kind of powers might Kennedy have, if he had them at all? Why had he done nothing to help his fellow mutants? What could he do for their cause in the future, should he decide to act?
(What might he do, if his hand were forced?)
The Brotherhood was never able to substantiate those rumors beyond the paranoid ravings of pro-human bigots, but those ravings, at least, were easily verified. What started out as whispers about the president became flyers and rallies and open accusations of treason. Ravings solidified into speeches and plans and increasingly ambitious plots, and accusations of treason became plans for assassination. Over the spring and summer of ’63, as the Brotherhood’s ranks fell, its remaining members did what they could to stem the flow of vitriol at its source. But one human replaced another; the hate would not be stopped so easily.
They could not let Kennedy die. The Brotherhood was hardly in the habit of protecting human politicians, but to let the humans kill their president would be a defeat. And Kennedy was the mutants’ president, not because of his dubious fellow mutant nature, but merely because of his ongoing silence on the issue. It was a thin tie of loyalty, but stopping an assassination would be enough to create an obligation. And an obligation could so easily become an opportunity…
So. Save the president’s life in public, and that would be several birds with one stone. In ensuring the goodwill of the president, they would demonstrate their own, a simultaneous statement of power and intention. But why wait for the humans to make the first move — why should the mutant cause be subject to them yet again — when the Brotherhood could co-opt the murder attempt?
Why wait, indeed, when they could instead stage the whole thing themselves?
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seven. I’m gonna need a right-hand man
Mystique bore the greater share of the burden. Both she and Magneto had been networking with various radical political movements, using his connections and knowledge from his previous career, but Mystique’s gift of transformation proved itself the real key to all of their future plans. It began as a tool for infiltration: there was a limit to the information shared with an unfamiliar face, but a familiar one opened so many more doors. Imitation then led to instigation. As Mystique’s confidence in her skills grew, they no longer needed to limit themselves to passive association, but could take a more active role in directing affairs.
That formed the template for their plan. Open war, their previous course of action, had not brought about the results they desired, so it was time to try something else. Even Charles would surely approve: their new plan, besides being faster, had the additional distinction of causing fewer deaths than their previous one, though inevitably there would still a few sacrifices to the cause. How ironic that violence would, in the end, not be the answer.
Magneto had been very lucky when recruiting: he had found the best possible mutant (all but one) to join him. His Brotherhood had only one other member, but no one else could play the role needed now. Two was all that was needed; two faces were enough. Mystique would take on the visage of the enemy and use it to their ends, then slip away unknown once her task was done.
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six. looking to the world like a man on a mission
Magneto, by contrast, had been cast as the future public face of mutantkind. He needed only to stop a bullet, and then make a speech or two after to ensure their motives weren't misunderstood. None of this should be particularly difficult for him.
(After all, he had so much recent experience—)
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five. a soldier with a marksman's ability
Both Magneto and Mystique were very aware that they would get only one shot at this. The perfect confluence of circumstances that they had architected would only occur once.
So they rehearsed, constantly and endlessly, to ensure that nothing could go wrong at the crucial point. Whenever Mystique was back from her infiltration missions and wearing her own face, they trained. Mystique fired a gun, and then Magneto redirected it: countless drills and innumerable repetitions until Magneto could redirect more than one bullet simultaneously, blindfolded and without any warning.
The ghost of Cuba hung over them, inescapable and undeniable. Magneto had learned caution when deflecting bullets: it wasn't enough to simply spin them off.
(Now he never neglects to consider where the trajectory of those bullets will end—)
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four. the sun is in my eyes, I am almost giddy
The long-awaited day in November dawns wet and rainy, hardly the glorious beginning of the new mutant age that they’d envisioned. It clears up soon enough, and Mystique and Magneto continue on as planned. Truth be told, they would have gone through with it, rain or shine, as long as they had enough visibility, but —
(Perhaps they should have taken this as a sign.)
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three. we move under cover and we move as one
The time comes for the two of them to get into position. Mystique is in disguise, hidden by the window of a carefully selected building, and Magneto stands strategically on a grassy hill to the northwest.
They’re using earpieces for communication and coordination. It’s too bad Emma is gone, and that their efforts to find her again for this mission weren't successful. Both Magneto and Mystique object on principle to the mental invasion of privacy, but she would have provided perfect and absolute mission synchronization. She had helped considerably on previous Brotherhood missions; she would have been useful here.
(They don’t talk about the other telepath they know who could have helped.)
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two. summon all the courage you require, then count
There’s someone watching him through the assembly of a camera, he can feel it. History, thinks Magneto. He’s being uncharacteristically self-indulgent, but the occasion certainly warrants it. Let this moment be witnessed — that’s what they’re here for, after all.
Archimedes once said that if given a fulcrum, he could move the earth; Magneto will replicate that feat by moving something much smaller. This is the redemption of what he did in Cuba. He dares not hope for Charles’ forgiveness, not yet, not so soon, but he’ll see this, the world will see this, and at last they’ll all understand.
(“We’re going to do this,” says Mystique through the earpiece. “You’ll move the bullet on the count of three. Ready? One—”)
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eins. we have one shot to live another day
Here’s a secret: Erik felt the bullet that killed his mother.
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zwei. death, imagined so much it feels more like a memory
Not with any of the five human senses, of course, and not clearly enough to be able to move it — that came later — but he felt it, a bright streak of metal that rushed by him in an ever-accelerating path before it came to a final, sickening stop.
The sensation is seared onto the back of his eyelids. In the months that followed, during his time as Schmidt’s plaything, he felt it every time he closed his eyes. He’s since replayed the memory countless times and it’s never lost its visceral power, even as it was joined by other deaths and other regrets, none but one as strong as the first.
Move the coin, Schmidt said, but never mind the coin. If only Erik had caught that bullet destined for his mother and redirected its killing power to a far more deserving target — if he’d killed Schmidt then, he would have saved his mother and spared himself all the decades of misery that followed. But how could he have, when he was just a child who had never seen a gun fired before?
Now, though — Erik is a child no longer, and now he knows what it takes to move a bullet. He’s familiar with how to adjust its path and deal with its momentum; he knows how it feels when a bullet strikes its target (the way it parts flesh until it strikes bone as the merciless sun bears down; how silence echoes for an empty moment before the screaming begins). He’s practiced incessantly for this moment and rehearsed it in his mind’s eye innumerable times. He needs only to make it real.
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drei. we cannot let a stray gunshot give us away
Erik moves the bullet.
(the bullet bends and —)
The bullet strikes true.
he said he’d shelter us
he said he’d harbor me
he said we’d soldier on and then
the war would bring us peace
we’re gonna count to three
and then we’ll raise our heads, singing
one, two, is it true
is it true what he said?