X-Writers is a non-profit making organisation. Many of the 
characters and locations used in this story, and many of the plots 
referred to, are trademarks of Marvel and protected under
copyright.

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              X-Saviours    
             Issue 1 of 8   
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       The Island Of Dr Moreau.
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      Written by Andrew Wheeler.
	-- ---- --


 All over the world, people are suffering. All over the world there 
are people who need saving. This is the story of Genosha, the island 
with an accursed history; the island with an artificially high 
population of mutants, a population created by the machinations of 
Dr David Moreau and his otherworldly Mephistopheles, the Sugarman, 
who based his vile works on the atrocious designs of a sinister 
geneticist called Nathaniel Essex. Genosha had one of the strongest 
economies in the world, based on it's mutate slave industry. Now the 
slaves are free, and the nation is poor, and the citizens have been 
fighting a difficult and terrible war against each other and the state. 
The people of Genosha are suffering. The people need saving.

 On the edge of Genosha's capital city stands a hospital, St Saviours. 
It is where the mutates go to die when they catch the terrible plague 
known as the Legacy Virus. It is there that a group of scientists are 
convening to work together to beat the plague, to solve at least one 
of Genosha's many problems. Dr Michael Craner is from a wealthy and 
respectable Genoshan family. Dr Renee Majcomb is also Genoshan by birth, 
and comes from the opposite end of the social scale. Dr Alice Yeung is 
a researcher from Hong Kong, and has developed a strong dedication to 
the fight against Legacy. Dr Moira MacTaggart has very personal reasons 
for wanting the disease wiped out, for she is the first human victim. 
Finally, there is Dr Henry McCoy, and he is a mutant and a hero. 
Together, they intend to save the world.

	-- ---- --

	Doctor Michael Craner sat in the morning traffic tapping on 
the steering wheel and listening to the radio.

	"And there's congestion in Hammer Bay around the Stamford 
Circle area, so commuters are advised to stay clear," said the voice 
of the breakfast show DJ.

	"Thanks," said Craner wistfully.

	"But if you're already stuck out there somewhere, here's a 
little something to ease that frustration."

	Already the first chords of Gershwin were rolling out to fill 
the car. Summertime, and the living is easy. Anything but. In fact, 
Michael Craner knew that life in Genosha had not been easy for a very 
long time. For him it had been, maybe, when he'd been a kid. Seven 
years old, before David Moreau emerged as Genosha's first Genegineer, 
and the changes began to take place. Before Genosha became paradise 
for the ignorant, and hell for anyone with eyes to see and a conscience 
to feel. Seven years old and living in luxury on Connaught Hill with his 
beloved mother, whilst his father went off every day to attend important 
meetings at the Citadel and Government House. That was the idyllic life 
of the only child of one of the elite houses of Genosha. Well, now the 
paradise was lost. There was no ignoring the facts anymore. Genosha was 
rotten to the core. All the rats had been flushed out, and had left their 
sinking ship, but still the island showed no signs of a swift recovery.

	All the rats. Cameron Hodge had been deposed by the X-Men and 
his puppet president imprisoned for crimes against humanity. Genegineer 
Moreau, once thought dead, was now also safely locked away just outside 
Hammer Bay. Fabian Cortez had died in the sewers, Genegineer Ryan had 
been exposed as a traitor and incarcerated, Sugarman, Holocaust, 
Sinister; all of them were gone. It was time for the people to reclaim 
the nation. All they had to worry about now was disease, recession and 
terrorism.

	And the living was easy.

	People were beginning to shout from their car windows. What's 
the problem? Some of us do have work to do y'know? Come on, move it 
up there! Replies came back from all directions. I don't know, ask a 
Magistrate. God knows Anderson puts enough of them on the streets. I
 hear there's a bomb scare. Christ's sake, what now? When's it going to 
end? Bloody mutates.

	Craner raised his eyes to heaven, or at least to the roof of 
the car, where the sunroof had been in the old car, back when being a 
doctor at St Saviour's was like being handed a blank cheque from the 
treasury. Now he was in charge of St Saviours and he couldn't even 
afford to keep a cat at his apartment. Just as well since he never 
had time to sleep at home. Most nights were spent at the hospital, 
watching mutates die of Legacy. It was typical that on one of the few 
times he actually did decide to go home at night he should get stuck 
in traffic on the way back. Maybe he should just move in to St 
Saviours full time, like Alice and Renee. 

	Of course, it could be very different. He could have his own 
helicopter if he wanted it. He could have a cat too. The cat could 
have a helicopter if he felt the need. All he would have to do is 
accept President Anjou's offer to become the new Genegineer. He 
couldn't help feeling that Renee Majcomb was the better candidate, 
given all her political experience, but Anjou had said that was 
precisely why she was unacceptable. Thus it fell to him to decide 
whether or not he wanted to become one of the most important people 
in all of Genosha. Wealth, power, respect; what more could he want? 
So why couldn't he say yes?

	Then the traffic moved, but not forward. Somewhere up ahead 
along the street, a building exploded, tossing the cars into the air, 
ripping a new hole in the city. A plague of dust, a rain of glass; 
apocalypse in Hammer Bay. Or just another terrorist act. There were 
screams everywhere; people shattered by the impact, crushed by 
masonry, shredded by a thousand bursting windows.

	Craner's own window was a jigsaw. It hadn't collapsed in 
on him, and he wasn't about to wait for that to happen. He grabbed 
the medical kit from under his chair, piled out of the door, reached 
for the mobile from his pocket, and pressed the speed-dial button 
to reach the hospital. As he shouted above the noise of the awful 
cries to the first staff nurse to answer him, a man with blood 
streaming out from the glass splintered pits where moments ago his 
eyes had been came toppling towards him. A woman yelled out; "Abby! 
My little girl! Has anyone seen my little girl?". The skeleton of 
the bombed building began to topple down into the street. Craner 
cursed, screamed "just get here" into his telephone, then threw it 
to one side. There was too much to do.

	In his car Sarah Vaughan was still singing. "One of these 
mornings you're gonna rise up singing, then you'll spread your 
wings and take to the sky..."

	-- ---- --

	Doctor Alice Yeung very nearly dropped her danish pastry 
as seven Magistrates stormed past her. "Good God, where's the fire?" 
she asked.

	"Someone just blew up Stamford Circle," called back the last 
Magistrate, doing his duty, happy to oblige. He looked about eighteen, 
and bubbling with enthusiasm, though he surely couldn't be that young, 
not with that gun he was carrying. Alice stood in shock for a moment, 
tried to work out if she knew anyone near Stamford Circle, shook her 
head, then carried on towards the arrivals lobby.

	She stopped again and looked back at the racing law enforcers. 
Where were they going? Stamford Circle was in the heart of Hammer Bay, 
and Marmande Airport was two miles outside the city. Of course! 
Security checks. Well, it was bound to cause all sorts of problems 
which would hold her up and keep her away from where she could be of 
use. Genosha was like a well oiled machine. It had broken down years 
ago, but they still kept it well oiled.

	"Alice!"

	She span around and came face to face with Dr Henry McCoy, 
X-Man, Avenger, genius. "Hank!" She smiled and threw her arms around 
him. He inhaled sharply and drew her off. "Oh, sorry. That was stupid 
of me."

	"It's okay," said Hank, "The burns are healing up now. Anyway, 
the pain will go after a few tequilas. That is the tradition, right?"

	"Not at this time in the morning it isn't. Besides, we haven't 
the time. We have to negotiate our way past security and get ourselves 
to Mercy."

	"You mean St Saviours?"

	"Mercy is closer to where the bomb went off," explained Alice. 
"Get your bags, we have to move."

	"Bomb?"

	"Welcome back to Genosha."

 	-- ---- --

	"Caiman, speak to me!" screamed Ward, head of the Blackfriars 
Resistance, entrenched behind his desk in the dead and empty library, 
their headquarters in the ghetto. His feet were up on the desk, his 
left hand clenching a cigar, his right a telephone receiver. If Dr 
Majcomb had been there she might have observed that he looked for all 
the world like a newspaper editor from a fifties movie. 

	To his right sat his right hand man, the diminutive Pistol, 
with an earphone jammed in one ear and a Roddy Doyle novel open on his 
knee. "Tyburn is on line four," he announced.

	"Hold on Caiman," demanded Ward. Pistol reached across to the 
telephone and switched buttons. "Tyburn, speak to me my boy! Where are 
you?"

	"Where do you think? Stamford Circle, cordoning off dead 
bodies," replied the Magistrate. "I'm on an abandoned car phone. I 
thought you'd like to know who we think did this. It was the HGA."

	"Human Genoshan Army? There's a step up for those bastards. 
What did they bomb?"

	"Mutate family tracing agency. Set up by the Department for 
Mutate Affairs to help reunite separated mutates. Seems like a pretty 
vindictive target."

	"Heartless bastards in the HGA. So is this all confirmed?"

	"Totally unofficial, and you didn't get it from me. Gotta go. 
Have to start pretending we're in control of the situation." Tyburn 
hung up. Pistol reached over again and hit the button to put Caiman 
back on.

	"So Caiman, who's the Times going to blame this on?"

	Pistol frowned wearily and turned the page.

	-- ---- -- 

	Jenny Ransome used to be a fragile, gentle girl with a soft, 
gentle face and beautiful long brown hair. As she grew older she 
became a fragile, gentle young woman, but according to the Genoshan 
government of the time, that was a mistake. The gene-tests showed 
that she was a mutant, and like all mutants she was to be turned 
into a slave for the State, with no freedom of will, no freedom of 
identity, and no rights whatsoever. Her father had been in a position 
of some authority, and managed to cover this up, and another girl had 
died because of it, because ordinary humans could not survive the 
genemod process. Jenny had escaped, briefly. 

	In the end they tracked her down to Australia, where she 
was working with a pilot named Madelyne Pryor. The Press Gang brought 
them both to Genosha, and the X-Men followed, turning the country 
upside down. They were too late to save Jenny. They took that poor 
young woman and twisted her powers, so that where once she had been 
able to heal with her touch, now she had been given the strength 
to crush rocks and drive earth. All she wanted was to help, and 
they had made her into something that would destroy. She was no 
longer fragile or gentle. Her face and body were harder, more 
weathered, more brutal than before, and even her hair would not 
grow back to it's old length.

	Inside, however, she remained the same. Jenny Ransome who 
wanted to help. Now she was a member of the Coalition Government, 
a non-elected body that was supposed to be rebuilding the nation 
in it's time of crisis. They had very little support. If it were 
not for Chief Magistrate Anderson, using the full strength of her 
Magistrates to give the nation some illusion of stability, they 
might have no support at all. They were too inclined favour 
humans in the eyes of the mutants, and too inclined to favour 
mutants in the eyes of the humans. It seemed like an impossible 
task.

	All the same, Jenny felt she was very fortunate that in 
her position as joint Minister for Mutate Affairs with her human 
lover Philip Moreau she might actually make a real difference. 
There were mutates out there whose minds had been taken out from 
their own control, and whose skin would always bear those awful 
dehumanising numbers in the form of tattoos on their faces. 
Attempts to reverse genemod had only gone as far as to remove 
the vocal control programming, and still they remained branded, 
bonded, broken and violated, and worse, many of them feared they 
would never be able to have children and start families of their 
own. If equality was to be given to Genosha's mutate populace, the 
genemod process would have to be fully undone.

	For this reason she and Philip had come today to visit 
Philip's father, the first Genegineer, Dr David Moreau, back from 
the dead and a willing prisoner of the state. Jenny sat in the guest 
lobby at the Park Manor Long Term Holding Facility - a prison by any 
other name - watching pictures of rescue attempts and fire fighters 
at Stamford Circle. Philip returned to the room with a crash of fury, 
slamming the door hard against the wall.

	"The old bastard," he yelled. "He refuses to help."

	"Why?" asked Jenny, tearing herself away from the television.

	"He says he's already done too much to Genosha. He wants to 
rot quietly in his cell and never have to think about the outside 
world again." Philip sank into a chair and rested his head in his 
hands.

	"Don't sit down," said Jenny. "The president wants us back 
at Government House for an emergency session."

	"Great," muttered Philip. "More talk."

	-- ---- --

	Early the following morning. Dr Renee Majcomb had been the 
only senior staff member at St Saviours all night. She'd had a call 
from Alice and Michael around midday yesterday, telling her they 
would be staying at Mercy to help out. Fortunately, not too many 
people had been redirected to receive attention at St Saviours. They 
didn't have room. Besides, no-one likes to be sent out to a plague 
hospital.

	Renee stared at her sleepless complexion in the silver base 
of the bedpan in her hand. She couldn't remember ever having seen 
peace. Unlike Dr Craner she was not from a privileged family. She had 
grown up poor. She had struggled through medical school, and had almost 
been thrown out on a number of occasions for her activities as one of 
the more radical figures in student politics. Upon graduating in 
biogenetics and finding herself a "respectable" job, she still didn't 
quieten down. She joined the Bipartisans, an underground movement 
made up of scientists, lawyers, social workers and mutate rebels, 
such as the Blackfriars Resistance. The Bipartisans aimed to expose 
the inhuman activities of the Government, as soon as they could 
gather solid evidence. She did quite well within the organisation, 
rising to a position of some authority. She did well enough that 
they arrested her, more than a few times, and once even gave her 
the facial tattoos she still wore to this day, which labelled her 
as a political insurgent.

	Of course, things changed. They got a little better, when 
the X-Men did the Bipartisan's work for them and eliminated Hodge, 
but then things got a little worse, because not all the demons had 
been evicted. In the new atmosphere of open hostility between 
mutates and humans, the Bipartisans formed a Rebel Battalion, 
intending to use force to expose whatever horrors the Genoshan 
establishment might still be responsible for. In Renee's eyes this 
had seemed a good idea, especially when they had exposed the plague 
pits, where Genegineer Ryan and others had sent hundreds of Legacy 
infested mutants to die without treatment. Then the other groups got 
organised. The BRB wasn't the only freedom group on the streets, and 
not everyone had the same idea of freedom. The street warfare was 
ascending to new levels, and to Renee's shame, there was nothing 
she could do to persuade her people to withdraw. In the end she went 
to Ward at Blackfriars and he helped her flee to the States and seek 
help there in the fight against Legacy.

	Now she had come back to Genosha, not to be with the BRB in 
Prenova, but to join the St Saviours staff in the Roharte Hills 
outside Hammer Bay. It made her feel slightly middle aged. She wasn't 
quite the radical she had been in her youth. Then again, there was 
still that side of her that ached to march on Government House and 
throw the Conservatives out into the gutter. She still believed that 
actions spoke louder than words - and she would never get rid of 
those tattoos.	

	She heard a car horn beeping outside, and went to the nearest 
window. Doctors Craner, Yeung and McCoy were back at last. "Hello 
again Dr McCoy. I hear you've had a typical Genoshan reception." 

	"Brick dust, blood and plastic explosives," replied Hank. 
"I would have settled for a cup of tea."

	"Well, it kept him out of trouble," claimed Alice. "How 
were things here, Renee?"

	"Quiet, compared to what you've been through," said Renee.

	Hank passed his eyes across the tired building, aged beyond 
it's years. Several boarded windows, bullet holes in the masonry, a 
huge incendiary burn on the left side which he couldn't remember 
seeing before, and graffiti everywhere. "The only good mutie is a 
dead mutie", "Mutants are the plague, Legacy is the cure", "Legacy 
is God's punishment", and, above the main entrance, covering the 
St Saviours sign, was the legend "X-Men Go Home".

	"How long has that been there?" asked Hank. "There hasn't 
been an X-Man in Genosha for months."

	"That's how long it's been there," replied Craner. "Sorry. 
There's never any time to clean off the graffiti, and as soon as 
we do it all comes back."

	"Ah well," sighed Hank. "It can't be helped. Not on an 
empty stomach, anyway. What's the canteen serving this morning, 
Renee?"

	"How are you at cooking, Hank?" she replied.

	-- ---- --

	The Muir Island Research Facility, home and hearth and place 
of work for Dr Moira MacTaggart, Nobel prize winning geneticist, 
first human victim of Legacy, and maker of the worst coffee in the 
entire northern hemisphere - soon to be maker of the worst coffee 
in the entire southern hemisphere. As the members of British 
supergroup Excalibur enjoyed breakfast, Moira was packing for her 
big move.

	"Are you taking all your yellow jumpsuits with you, Moira?" 
asked Kate, poking her head around the half open bedroom door and 
knocking gently.

 	"Oh, come in Kate," sighed Moira as she searched the higher 
recesses of her wardrobe. "No, I dinnae think I'll need many of them 
in Genosha. Too hot a place in the summer for all that insulation."

	"How long will you be gone?" asked Kitty as she perched on 
the end of the bed and began taking a proprietorial interest in 
Moira's black bag of discarded clothing. "And do you really not 
want these leather boots?"

	"Oh, I see how it is," smiled Moira. "Ye've nae come to 
wish me well, ye've come to steal my cast offs. Go on, take them. 
They never much suited me anyway. And I can't rightly say how long 
I'll be gone. It's not going to be a quick fix, that's for sure. 
To be honest with you Kate, there's a good chance I won't ever be 
coming back."

	"You'll come back, Moira. I know you will."

	"I certainly hope so."

	Kate stood up to look out of Moira's window, towards the 
facility itself. "What's to happen with all of this whilst you're 
gone?" she asked.

	"I've been through all that with Kurt. The people here will 
keep it running. We owe that much to Charles. Still, all the serious 
work will be on Legacy, and we'll be dealing with all that at St 
Saviours."

	"What about the Acolyte? Carmella Unuscione?"

	"She's coming with me. She's stable enough to travel, and 
the Moonlight Flit is a smooth runner," claimed Moira. "I'd rather 
look after her myself. Her techno-organic infection is a serious 
condition, and I think the people in Genosha can better deal with 
it than can my people here. In the meantime, you just watch Douglock 
doesn't go infecting anyone else."

	"I'm sure he won't. He doesn't even understand how he came 
to infect Unuscione. He says his powers don't work that way," said 
Kate. She turned around and suddenly flung her arms around Moira. 
"I'm really going to miss you, y'know? It's not going to feel right, 
you not being here."

	"I know, Kate. I'm going to miss all of you as well. Still, 
'tis a far far better thing I do now than I have ever done before. 
None of us want a repeat of what happened to poor dear Illyana and 
the others. Now, go get Kurt to make sure the Flit is primed for my 
flight. I'm going to have to be out of here within the hour if I want 
to get to Hammer Bay by their lunchtime."

	Reluctantly, Kitty left the room. Moira walked over to where 
she had been standing, to her bedroom view along the coastline of the 
crescent island, towards the research facility, and gazed down at the 
cold waves crashing against the craggy rocks. This was home, and for 
all she knew she might never see it again.

	-- ---- --

	"She's on her way," claimed Dr Craner as he rushed into the 
ward where Alice Yeung was doing her rounds. "She'll be here any 
minute."

	"Who are you talking about?" asked Alice.

	"MacTaggart."

	"She can't be. She's not due to arrive until after lunch."

	"Alice, it is after lunch. Some of the patients in here are 
still eating theirs. What did you think that was? A late breakfast?"

	"Oh. Time flies when you're administering medication, as 
the old saying goes. Well look, I'm pretty busy up here. You go 
down to meet her, I'll say hello when I've a chance to catch up," 
said Alice. Craner stared at her in suspicious silence. "What?" she 
asked.

	"What year was it that you and your husband were tipped to 
win the Nobel prize?"

	"I can't remember," claimed Alice, focusing her attention 
on a patient's chart in her hand. 

	"And what year did MacTaggart win?"

	"I have no idea," said Alice distractedly. "Did she win one? 
I never follow these things."

	"Liar." Craner strode across the ward and grabbed Alice by 
the arm. He started to pull her away. 

	"Let me go!" complained Alice as she dropped the chart and 
tried to anchor herself by grabbing a metal bedstead, to the 
amusement of the patients in the ward. "I don't want to meet her. 
I'm busy. I've dropped my chart. Let me go."

	"Nurse, pick up that clipboard and prise Dr Yeung's 
fingers off that bedstead," ordered Craner. The nurse at the other 
end of the ward came over to oblige him.

	"Damn you, Michael, you can't make me do this," muttered 
Alice as she lost her grip and was dragged into the corridor. "You 
bastard! Let me go!"

	"That's no language for a lady."

	"I'm going to kill you!"

	"It's my hospital. You do what I tell you," he goaded 
mischievously. "Now, will you come peacefully or do I have to carry 
you?"

	"You'd break your back," claimed Alice. "Damn it, I'll come 
on my own." He released her arm, and at once she started to bolt off 
down the corridor. She ran straight into Jenny Ransome, and bounced 
back onto the floor. "Ow. Sorry Jen."

	"That's okay, I barely felt you," said Jenny, helping Alice 
to her feet. "Where were you headed in such a hurry anyway?"

	"You take her left arm and I'll take her right," grinned 
Michael. "She's refusing to come along and receive Dr MacTaggart."

	"Ah good, me too," said Jenny as the two of them started 
to march Alice towards the stairs. 

	"Bastards," muttered Alice. As they reached the lobby they 
met up with Dr Majcomb in conversation with Philip Moreau.

	"It looks like we may have reached a turning point," claimed 
Renee. "What with Dr McCoy arriving yesterday and Dr MacTaggart today, 
if ever there's going to be a cure for Legacy, here's where we'll find 
it."

	"Perhaps there will also be a chance that your combined 
talents could attempt to undo the genemod process as well," added 
Philip. "If I can't persuade my father to help, then I'm sure I can 
at least rely on all of you."

	"Of course," agreed Renee. "Incidentally, where is Dr McCoy?"

	-- ---- --

	Henry McCoy stood atop a ladder in front of the hospital doors, 
a bucket of paint removing solution hooked onto the side, and a fierce 
scrubbing brush in his hand. He had already wiped out most of the 
graffiti around the door, and now he was working on the "X-Men go home" 
over the top of the brass "St Saviours" sign. He'd managed to wipe out 
"Men go home" by the time he heard the hum of the Moonlight Flit coming 
in to land. He dropped the brush into the bucket and jumped down from 
the ladder. He was just peeling off his rubber gloves as the rest of 
the welcoming committee came outside to join him.

	"Here she is," said Hank.

	"Fabulous," muttered Alice.

	The sleek black medical jet touched down gently, and the 
ramp door descended. Dr Moira MacTaggart appeared out of the 
shadowy darkness.

	"I just love this machine," she said proudly. "Hello 
there Hank!"

	"Hello Moira. It's good to see you again."

	"Under much better circumstances than last time," agreed 
Moira. She clasped his hands and kissed him on the cheek. "Dr Majcomb, 
Mr Moreau, Miss Ransome, good to see you all again. And a pleasure to 
meet you, Dr Craner, Dr Yeung."

	"Pleasure's all mine," said Dr Craner warmly, shaking her hand.

	"Ma'am," whispered Yeung with a discreet curtsey. Craner 
kicked her in the shins. Alice scowled at him, then silently came 
forward to shake hands, before sinking to the back of the crowd 
again.

	"Well, I must say you're looking a fair bit more bonny 
than you were, Hank," claimed Moira. "This place looks much like 
I'd imagined it, though. Ah. So this is where we'll all be working, 
is it?" She cast her eyes over the fallen grace of what once had 
been a clinic for the wealthy elite of Genosha, and was now the 
farthest thing from it. Then she spotted the name above the door, 
and smiled. "Now there's a name I approve of," she said with a nod. 
They all turned to follow her eyes, and there, emblazoned for all to 
see in brass and spray paint, was a new name for the hospital;

	X-Saviours.

	-- ---- --
Next: Take a tour of the internal workings of Genosha with Dr Craner, 
and become a little better acquainted with our magnificent medical 
team, as we explore "The Body Politic".
	-- ---- --