Sanctuary by Christopher Golden Read Free Book Online Page B

hell out of Manhattan, what have you got for me?"
    "Yes, well, first, Mr. President, I'd like to note that I don't believe either of those two options would work to begin with," Val said confidently. "Unless you're prepared to raze the city to the ground, forcing Magneto to simply find another to occupy, which would not solve the problem at all. The difficulty is the Sentinels. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we don't have the capacity to do limited, contained nuke strikes on one of them, never mind all of them simultaneously."
    The President didn't smile, and Val took a mental step backward, cautioning herself not to be smug. He definitely wasn't in the mood for smug.
    "Go on," he said, and Val nodded.
    "The only chance we have of ending this thing without either giving up Manhattan or absolutely destroying it in an all-out war, is to get the Sentinels' original programming back online," Val concluded.
    The President leaned back in his chair.
    "Now we're talking." he said. "What's the holdup?"
    "Well. sir," Val said, realizing the President didn't understand what she was getting at, "the only way we can do that is at the source. Somebody has to get inside the brain of the Alpha Sentinel, and change the programming from the computer core."
    "Wait just a minute," the President said sharply, getting angry again, this time at all of them. "You mean to tell me that there is no remote override capacity built into these monsters?"
    "No sir, there isn't," the Secretary spoke up, much to Val's relief. "It was thought that such an override would jeopardize the whole project. If anyone got hold of the code, they'd have been able to remotely hijack the whole Sentinel program."

    "Which they did anyway!" the President cried in exasperation. "Good God, you don't know how grateful I am that the previous administration put this project together. I sure as hell don't believe we can keep the damn robots' origins a secret. But if we can solve this peaceably, it'll be a hell of a coup.
    "So, Cooper," the President said, leaning toward her and resting his palms on his desk. "What do we do now? Obviously, we need to send a team in there, and we can't wait for X-Factor to get back from Genosha. Do we have anyone else with any experience with this kind of thing?"
    "Well, sir, that's another problem," Val said, mentally crossing her fingers as she waded into the most difficult part of her pitch. But she knew she had to succeed. It was the only way. Eventually, they'd all have to realize that.
    "Any human being directly approaching one of the Sentinels will be warned off," she said quickly. "And if they don't respond, they'll be incinerated."
    "Cooper!" Gyrich shouted, leaping to his feet as he realized what she was about to propose. "You can't be serious! Even you've got to see that these are the monsters responsible! We can't possibly trust—"
    Gyrich sputtered to a halt when he realized that the President and the Secretary were glaring at him in incredulous anger. He began to explain himself, but the President stopped him.
    "Mr. Gyrich," the President began calmly. "You sit your ass down in that seat, and you don't speak again until I ask you a question. And don't you ever raise your voice in the Oval Office again."
    Gyrich sat down hard and began to sulk.

    "Please proceed, Ms. Cooper."
    "Yes, sir, well, what I was about to say is that the only people who can get close enough to the Alpha Sentinel and distract it enough to get into the computer core are mutants. And with X-Factor unavailable, the only mutants we have any contact with that I know would be capable of the job, if anyone is, are the X-Men."
    The President rolled his eyes and cupped his forehead in his left hand as if massaging a headache.
    "Ms. Cooper," the Secretary said quickly, "don't you realize the public opinion regarding mutants at this time? The American people would be appalled to learn that we were working with mutants to overcome Magneto. The President would likely be accused