Chapter V: Post-Apocalyptic Earth
Chapter VI: The Spread of Askani Thought
Section 28: The Expulsion of the Techno-Organic Virus
And so begins another segment in the life of this mutant who no longer has a cause. Apocalypse is dead, this time for certain, and nothing can ever be the same. Cable decides to leave the X-Men in favor of pursuing his own course of action in the world. To be certain, he’s now adopted a more global stance, bodysliding from place to place. What follows are some of his most high-octane and arguably least interesting adventures to date, as Cable has severed all ties with that which has defined his character—save for two components: the Askani teachings and the techno-organic virus. And wouldn’t you know it, he’s set his sights on doing away with the virus as well! Following his war waged in Peru [a subject of the next section], Cable took time out of his hectic world calling to go to the beach, where he proceeded to meditate. What followed was a battle waged on a spiritual as well as a psionic level wherein Cable telepathically confronted the symbolic representation of his affliction while telekinetically tearing it from his body. The task, involving as it did physically a struggle on a cellular level, strained Cable to the brink.
When the conflict reached its peak, Cable expelled the virus from his system by vomiting it, embodied as it was in a techno-viral load, in a heap of non-living matter onto the beach. Relieved for the first time that he could remember, Cable’s abilities flared, unhindered, and he parted the waters that lay ahead of him. With his mind he molded the techno-viral load into a sphere and heaved it into the ocean. The burden was at last lifted (CABLE #100).
Cable chose not to use his abilities until he could do so safely (CABLE #101).
But this puts him above the level of such psi-talents as Stryfe and the X-Man. Stryfe, who never had the virus, was instead impeded in the use of his powers due to the fact that his teacher was a madwoman, Madame Sanctity. The X-Man, also, was never trained, and his mastery was not nearly complete, as his brashness blocked his learning, and so his power ate away at him and was projected to have killed him if not for the intervention of a more immediate death. Cable, on the other hand, does not suffer these conditions.
His ability should rival that of the Phoenix Force itself. Cable's first line of business was to settle the score of the Shining Path in Peru. The Shining Path was a communist operation operating in South America on behalf of the Peruvian people, but against their government. Its leader was Ernesto Sanz, and its adherents consisted to some degree of mutants. One woman, Inza, was an especially devoted mutant with the ability to teleport.
When Cable failed to prevent the group from extricating Sanz from prison, he engaged them in their camp. He was overwhelmed due to a flare-up with his techno-organic virus, and he was taken prisoner. While jailed, he imparted some of his Askani beliefs to Inza’s child, Phillipe. When Peruvian forces besieged the Shining Path, Cable made his escape.
Sanz, realizing that he couldn’t gain Peru through battle, took steps to “buy” it through the purchase of its debts. Cable returned and prevented them from achieving their ends (CABLE #s 97-100).
After addressing the techno-organic virus [above], Cable set out for Scopje, Macedonia, where he intervened in the conflict between the Ethnic Albanians and the Serbs. Dr. Yacoupi, working for Samir, the leader of these Ethnic Albanians, sought to clone his people in the hopes of boosting their population to levels that would overwhelm the Serbs’ majority. At the other end, the Macedonian government sought to manufacture a virus that would eradicate the Ethnic Albanians.
Cable destroyed the building in which the virus was being prepared. He took under his wing Viktoria, an Albanian-hating doctor who worked there, and imparted with her, as with Phillipe, some Askani messages. Though Cable did not employ the use of his powers at this time, they activated of their own volition when he was shot in the head; they restored him and dispensed his assailant without any conscious command by Cable. When he recovered, he was not aware of what transpired.
He and Viktoria set out to find the cloning facility. Cloaked as it was by a hologram, Cable’s eye, which somehow retained its techno-organic makeup (along with his left arm), was able to see through it with its infrared capabilities. Once inside, Cable used his amplified psi-powers to destroy it from within, leveling it along with a large portion of the mountainside where it was located (CABLE #s 101-104).
Stumbling upon a fight club in Brazil called the arena, where men and women paid in droves to watch on as young mutant children killed each other, Cable intervened in a match in order to persuade a combatant to use her powers more responsibly. Unwilling to part with the fame she’d gained, fans she’d attracted, and fortune she’d made, the combatant, Juliana, instead lashed out at Cable. Realizing that the girl could not be trusted to wield her violent powers, Cable, within the ring, endeavored to use his telepathy in order to shut down that portion of her brain that coordinated her mutant abilities. Underestimating the heightened concentration of his psi-powers following the expulsion of the techno-virus, he unknowingly erased the mind of not only Juliana, but also the minds of everyone in the audience that was in range of the mindblast. Unwilling to make matters worse by using his powers further, Cable fled the arena (CABLE #105).
In Kazakhstan, Cable avenged the death of a S.H.I.E.L.D. operative (CABLE #106).
Mr. Singapore, a wealthy and ambitious exploiter of human beings who designed to bring the world under his influence, offered Cable a position as world messiah if he would only throw in his lot with him. Beyond simply refusing, Cable demonstrated Singapore’s ignorance of who he was dealing with by rearranging the molecules of food in Singapore’s mouth into poison and depriving his lungs of oxygen. Cable copped one of the man’s helicopters and flew it deliberately into the heart of a thunderstorm. Unable to cope with the unlimited and overbearing scope of his psi-powers, he sought to kill himself. But even as the helicopter was struck by lightning, even as it exploded with Cable inside, even as Cable’s body fell limp into the ocean below him, his talents would not allow for his death. His telekinetic powers shielded him from the explosion and created an air pocket for him beneath the sea, all without any conscious effort from Nathan. No longer a living man, Cable was now a force, an energy, which could not be abated (CABLE #107).
Cable received an anonymous invitation to an Egyptian temple where he encountered time-displaced warriors from the past. When these harmless yet confused and outlandish men caused a bit of a ruckus with the Egyptian citizenry, Cable prevented them from getting themselves injured when one of them was threatened by a man with a gun. Nathan telepathically projected a piece of metal shrapnel from his mouth to shatter the gun. The metal, which he often now discards by way of his mouth, is actually the slowly deteriorating remnant of his techno-organic arm, which is in transition from a metallic composure to human flesh.
Once the crisis was averted, Cable met his host who’d summoned him to the temple. It was Blaquesmith—he had returned in order to establish contact with his friend and protégé. The two set out for Moscow, where Blaquesmith, much changed since the last time Cable spoke with him, assigned him a mission to locate a lost mutant child with curative abilities. No explanation was pending, yet Cable acceded to his mentor’s wishes. Blaquesmith, since his escape from the Dark Sisterhood, appeared to have become worldlier. Dyeing his hair (?) purple and acquiring a taste for women, Blaquesmith was no longer the ascetic Askani he once was…and yet, he spoke as cryptically as ever [[[[[He is not Blaquesmith at all, but an impostor]]]]] (SOLDIER X #s 1-2).
He tracked the mutant girl to Krasnaya Polyana, where she was residing in a church, her powers being exploited. At this point, Nathan was suffering from a profound mid-life crisis. Unsure of his place in the world (or if he even had one), he set out to save another. On his journey to deliver the girl, Magdalena, from harm’s way, Cable contended with her fanatical mother, the Armenian mob, Geo, a loser of a superhero, and the throngs of poor, afflicted men and women who had come seeking her healing. As Cable dealt with the former threats, the latter, the afflicted, forced Magdalena past her limits, killing her for their own needy benefits. Cable, finding her this way, held her in his soldier’s arms, familiar with this scenario, but with nothing he could otherwise do for her. His powers, having a life of their own now, commingled with Magdalena’s healing gift to rejuvenate her and deliver her from death. Cable, along with Magdalena, her father, and her priest, fled from their many adversaries to the confines of Saint Lenin (SOLDIER X #s 3-4).
When they had reached their destination and momentary safety, Cable came to realize the consequences of what had happened: Magdalena, who once possessed curative powers, now had only the touch of death. Seeking release from these bleak circumstances, Cable turned his focus to his enemies, who had followed them and were camped outside Saint Lenin’s walls. Cable fought Geo, who he unknowingly came to envy. Geo, a grotesque midget “hero,” had found a course in life—Cable was still searching. Cable and Geo resolved themselves to do some common good by retrieving Magdalena’s exploitative mother from the torturous hands of the Armenian mob, which held her captive. Going out to confront him, Cable was certain his telekinetic shields would allow no harm to befall him. This, however, he did not want. He resisted his powers, which had previously ruled him. He dropped his shield as he walked into the oncoming fire of the Armenian mob. He was shot repeatedly, feeling the penetration of each bullet, but his powers could still, at least, work to mend his flesh at a molecular level. Nathan needed to confront them while simultaneously discovering himself—and all on his “own terms.” He secured Magdalena’s mother, the both of them being in very bad shape, and he carried her back with him. The afflicted, vultures that had followed Magdalena even from the church, thronged the two in their distress. Having seen Cable perform the miracle of bringing their saint back from death, they believed that he, too, could heal them. They thrust their fingers into Cable’s bloody wounds as a means to access his curative powers. Finding that this did them no good, they denounced him and set out to kill him. Cable regretted that he would not be able, at the crowd’s mercy, to deliver the woman in his arms. Luckily, Geo threw himself into the fray, buying Nathan time to escape, but ensuring Geo’s death. Safe again, Cable reunited mother and daughter. The mother at last repented from abusing her daughter’s power, and she accepted the death that came along with Magdalena’s kiss of forgiveness. From all this, Cable also learned to accept that he is who he is (a throwback to his Askani tenet), a powerful madman out to save a hopeless world (SOLDIER X #s 5-6).
In Kashmir, Cable used his powers over molecular matter to transform a man into a winged creature, to transfigure another man’s hands into cave fungi, and to disperse another group of men through space. While there, he found “Blaquesmith,” who revealed his true identity as Nigel Novotny, a teacher at the Faculty of Communications, University of Calgary, who was recruited bt Jackie Singapore in order to persuade Cable to follow Singapore’s “agenda” to make him into “the messiah of the new millenium.” Cable considered the offer (CABLE #7).
Mister Sinister, under the identity of a Dr. Windsor working for Weapon X’s Neverland death camps, was smuggling mutants out for his own purposes (WEAPON X #5).
Bothered by the Director’s ability to abduct mutants from their homes under an anti-terrorism act, Cable formed an Underground group consisting of Blaquesmith, Domino, Maverick, and Meltdown with the intention of investigating the rumored Neverland, the destination of the abducted mutants (WEAPON X #6).
Cable discovered Garrison Kane’s involvement with the Weapon X Program through the Underground’s surveillance. He ordered Maverick and Domino to pursue Weapon X operatives Wildside and Reaper with the hope of uncovering a lead on the program. The operatives were captured and submitted to torture; unable to talk due to mental inhibitors, Cable was forced to gamble on his ability to control his unstable telepathic powers in order to remove the inhibitors and access the information he was after. Failing to control his abilities, he “fried their minds” instead. Their deaths were made moot by the sudden arrival of the Weapon X group at the Underground compound. Agent Jackson was leading a smaller group aiming to undermine and betray the Director.
Meanwhile, Garrison Kane was becoming more detached from humanity, spending all his time honing his robotic abilities against unfeeling robots. Sabretooth discovered Mister Sinister’s guise and blackmailed him into lending him his aid in order to escape the program.
Jackson led the Underground to the Weapon X facility and joined them in open rebellion. Cable learned the details about Neverland from the Director’s mind. When Cable’s judgment caused Kane to switch sides, he sacrificed himself for Cable to turn the tide of battle. Having won, the Underground was then itself defeated by Agent Jackson. Cable and his group were mindwiped by Dr. Windsor, as Jackson now wished to protect the program as long as he could now become its leader and director. Marrow then betrayed the program and escaped with the Underground. Marrow chose to keep Cable in the dark about Neverland (WEAPON X #s 7-13).
Possessed of the psionic entity Bogan, Rachel Summers was manipulated into confronting Storm’s group of X-Men. She was liberated from his control through the efforts of Rogue and Shadowcat when they invaded his mindscape and severed the psychic chains that were keeping her his pawn (X-TREME X-MEN #44).
At his Safehouse 14 in Switzerland, Cable recuperated with Professor Xavier while telepathically delegating the search for the virus to Irene Merryweather in New York and Hammer, employed in an unknown location. The following is an excerpt from the professor’s conversation with Cable, shedding greater light on his current condition, both physical and ideological:
XAVIER: You are at a personal crossroads, and that’s not a good time for your body to betray you.
Deadpool returned the virus to the One World Church, which was intent on using it to give everyone on the planet the same skin pigmentation—blue—in order to promote unity. They planned to transmit the virus worldwide by “piggybacking it on electrical transmissions.” Cable arrived to infiltrate this church. When he was initiated—and infected with the virus—he dropped the charade and revealed that he had come to co-opt the virus for his own agenda. Having himself been tricked, however, the church’s Prime Minister admitted that he foresaw this eventuality and had therefore infected Cable with a version of the virus that would block his powers and leave him vulnerable to Deadpool, now an inducted member of the church. Cable was also left to the mercy of his techno-organic virus, his older and more insidious enemy. After an extended altercation Cable, immobile and being killed by the techno-organic virus, convinced Deadpool to give him his blood, laden as it was with a healing factor capable of eliminating the Façade Virus and restoring Cable’s abilities.
Cable arrived at the Sunic headquarters in Singapore to “save the Façade Virus from small minds.” Having secured the virus, Cable proceeded to make a modification with regard to the preferred skin pigmentation, and he allowed the virus to be delivered the world over via light waves.
Having put his plans into action, Cable set about creating his own spacestation by reconfiguring telekinetically the pieces of the long-destroyed Graymalkin. In the process, he re-constructed his teleportation matrix and secreted a copy of the Professor in the former space station’s fusion core. Cable bodyslid to Irene Merryweather’s New York office, unaware that, since Cable was bonded genetically to Deadpool following their blood exchange, the two could only teleport together. Deadpool was therefore pulled along for the ride and, since Cable bodyslid “by one,” their two bodies materialized melded together. After they (literally) pulled themselves apart, Cable healed himself utilizing his telekinesis. Irene was depending on Deadpool to defeat him in his attempt to influence the world. However, Cable defeated Deadpool and used his powers to eradicate, world over, the Façade Virus, which he was controlling following its modification.
Cable, portrayed as a savior in the media, was now being opposed in his attempt to change the world by Deadpool, S.H.I.E.L.D., Hammer, Irene Merryweather, and the X-Men (CABLE AND DEADPOOL #s 3-6, 41).
While Cable focused his efforts toward global relief, Deadpool, among others such as the Cat, began stealing pieces of a device that could stop Cable in his bid to save the world. Deadpool managed to steal several pieces from the Cat, another thief.
Cable renamed the reconstructed Graymalkin Providence, and he admitted on board several thousand refugees. S.H.I.E.L.D. was skeptical to confront Cable, as most of the world’s population believed that he was doing nothing wrong; that Cable knew, telepathically, that this was what people wanted was further fuel for him to continue.
Deadpool consummated a brief association with the X-Men by donning an official uniform for their combined mission against Cable. A re-formed Six Pack in the meantime invaded Providence. Cable defeated the entire group—Domino, Bridge, Hammer, the Constrictor, Solo, and Anaconda. Following this, Cable appeared before world leaders and threatened to throw all of Earth’s weapons into the sun. The United States president launched, in response, a full-scale bombing on Providence. Cable used his psionic powers to shield it from any damage, but at great strain.
The X-Men, with Deadpool, next invaded Providence riding a pulse wave meant to scramble Cable’s powers for the duration of one minute. At the critical moment, Deadpool betrayed the X-Men to inform Cable of their attack; this was unnecessary, however, as Cable was already aware.
Here is another telling bit of dialogue, this time between Cable and his father, Cyclops:
CABLE: I planned a lot of this all along. Since the techno-organic virus came back into my system. The Façade Virus, [Deadpool’s] healing factor, turning people pink then “saving” them—knowing all of that would allow me to access my powers to the fullest of their abilities—that it would let me bring that world together against one common hope and one common enemy—and knowing that it would kill me.
While the X-Men fought a Cable-converted Six Pack aboard Providence, the Silver Surfer, enlisted by Reed Richards, arrived to stop Cable. Their battle caused untold catastrophe to their surroundings, but Cable worked to telekinetically repair the damage even as it was being made.
What follows is the third brief excerpt of important dialogue, this time taken from a conversation between Cable and the Silver Surfer:
CABLE: If I died saving them—then my sacrifice—their guilt—would serve as the catalyst to keeping them together! I did not turn myself into everything I’ve always stood against—make myself a god—just to come up short! You’re practically immortal—I don’t have that luxury! I’ve been from the future to the past and back again—but I’ve run out of time! Why are you doing this? Don’t you see how important this is to me?
The Silver Surfer, a being whose powers are on a cosmic scale, defeated Cable. Deadpool bodyslid himself and Cable to Safehouse 14, from where Cable lowered Providence into the Pacific Ocean, as it was up until then being supported by his telekinesis, and as the device that he had entrusted Deadpool to use on him would soon remove the parts of his brain that controlled his higher psionic functions (CABLE AND DEADPOOL #s 7-10).
The Six Pack went looking for Cable at the safehouse following the battle and Cable’s voluntary lobotomy. The remnants of Cable’s telepathy subconsciously captured each member of Bridge’s team within Cable’s mind; this was not intentional, but rather his still-reeling body’s self-defense mechanism.
Meanwhile, Deadpool stole a techno-organic alien embryo from the Advanced Idea Mechanics with the intention of using it to save Cable’s dying body. He enlisted the Fixer to prepare the embryo to be melded with Cable’s body. Although prepared to let go, to die, following his world-shattering actions and his final message to the world, Domino convinced him, while still within his mind, to fight on. The symbiote was merged and Cable was restored with reduced powers. The minds of the members of the Six Pack were returned to their respective bodies.
Cable, recovering, took up residence on Providence (CABLE AND DEADPOOL #s 11-12).
The Helix, genetically modified mutant-hunting humans from Cable's future, attacked he and Domino in the present. Cable connected their appearance to a plot to reawaken the Skornn and eliminate mutantkind today. He set off to retrieve the Five Fingers of Annihilation, the singular means to destroying the creature.
Having also recruited Caliban and Wolverine, Cable was again challenged by Spectre's faction, now being led by a new Stryfe and a re-formed Mutant Liberation Front. This Stryfe was in fact Domino from an alternate future, come to lend a hand. The MLF joined X-Force in confronting Skornn, only to be summarily defeated. In the ensuing battle, Meltdown killed the Helix while Cable's sacrifice was necessary to activate the Five Fingers and teleport away the Skornn (X-FORCE LIMITED SERIES #s 1-6).
Shadowcat and the White Queen set up a double-blind failsafe to hide Destiny’s diaries, even from a seasoned telepath (X-MEN #203).
John Sublime, the head of the Weapon Plus Program, hired Sabretooth to locate and subdue Mister Sinister, still posing as one Doctor Windsor and running a Center for Homo Superior Research and Medical Care through which he could obtain mutant specimens.
Phasing out his long-running agent, Scalphunter, Sinister countered Sabretooth's attack with Hans, one of a group of genetically-engineered mutants known as the Children. Endowed with flight, super-human strength, optic blasts, super speed, and healing factors, the Children successfully defeated Sabretooth, although Creed managed to prevail over Hans.
Sinister had incorporated into his "perfect" mutants the abilities common to the X-Men and, specifically, to the Summers and Grey bloodlines. In addition to optic blasts, they were imbued with telepathy, although they did not possess the training to use it. Exploiting this flaw, Sabretooth was able to overload the Children's minds through their telepathic sensitivity.
The way laid bare, Sublime then conducted business with Sinister. Obtaining the Children for his own purposes, as Sinister considered them failed experiments, Sublime gave Sinister in return information gathered by the Weapon X Program (WEAPON X #s 26-28).
Section 29: The World at Large
Section 30: The Underground
Section 31: The Chosen One's Assumption of a Messianic Role
Section 28: The Expulsion of the Techno-Organic Virus
It was something he rarely addressed. In the past, he’d reacted to its effects on several occasions, but never did he focus on overcoming this gift from Apocalypse that he’d had since his days as an infant: the techno-organic virus.
Section 29: The World at Large
This coverage is brief, but the specifics of the following events are secondary to the Askani undercurrent running beneath them.
Section 30: The Underground
Garrison Kane was promoted within the ranks of a reconstituted Weapon X Program. The Director, his employer, sought to sow enmity between Kane and Agent Jackson, his second-in-command (WEAPON X #1).
Section 31: The Chosen One’s Assumption of a Messianic Role
Cable began to investigate a virus being engineered at a company called Sunic Pharmacoepia. The virus, called the Façade Virus, could alter a person’s appearance. It was stolen from Sunic by a group of anarchists who used it on themselves. Unstable, it killed two of them. Using his heightened psionic powers, Cable learned enough about the virus from the dead anarchists to track the third anarchist and remove the virus before it could kill her. The use of his powers was very taxing; its burden allowed Deadpool, who was also after the virus, to shoot Cable in the head and steal the sample that he retrieved (CABLE AND DEADPOOL #s 1-2).
CABLE: You know--? Charles, I kept mental barriers around—
XAVIER: Which I have respected. But this…linking minds across oceans, telekinetically expediting your body’s healing process. Cable, is your body even capable of handling such power?
CABLE: I—I don’t know. For so long, the techno-organic virus kept my mutant powers in check…
XAVIER: And when you eradicated the virus from your body, your mutant abilities increased.
CABLE: Exponentially. But the virus has come back—I expected it would—it was imprinted into my DNA—though containing it now is…easy. The time I spent realizing my mutant potential more fully has made controlling the T-O almost an afterthought—like breathing. And that’s allowed my powers to expand further—which, ironically enough, my body won’t be able to withstand. But I didn’t ask to see you because I’m worried about my health. What I really want is advice on what I should do with my powers while I’m still able to control them.
XAVIER: I don’t understand.
CABLE: I encountered a group of anarchists in Frankfurt—kids, really…whining about society, the usual…but they got me wondering…should someone capable of so much do so blessed little? If anyone could understand that…impotence…it would be you. Charles Xavier, the most powerful mutant telepath on Earth—you wrestle with it every day, don’t you? And everything you’ve done—the X-Men, the school for mutants, the X-Corp set up all over the world to help people—is any of it enough?
XAVIER: No…it’s never enough. But it is a start. What would you propose doing? Taking everything apart and starting from the ground up? How very…apocalyptic…of you. But having the power to dismantle this flawed civilization, Nathan…is very different than having the right to—or the proper judgment to put its pieces back together. And never forget, should you make that decision, there would be no shortage of people…able and willing to stop you.
CABLE: Or die trying.
CYCLOPS: This is your last will and testament. Destroying the world?
CABLE: No, uniting it. Giving it a glimpse of how things could be better—a taste that will make them hungry for more—make them work for it…what better legacy for a son to leave his father?
CYCLOPS: Cable…Nathan…it’ll never work.
CABLE: Of course it will, Scott. Remember, I know the future.
CYCLOPS: Don’t play games with me. You know your future. That timeline was obliterated the second you killed Apocalypse!
CABLE: Unless I’m still here, which possibly means I know that Apocalypse isn’t dead.
CYCLOPS: He is. Isn’t he?
CABLE: Let me go through with this, Scott. Please. Just a little while longer.
CYCLOPS: Until the world blows itself up trying to stop you—or until you kill yourself?
CABLE: I know what I’m doing. Seriously. Absolutely. Completely. I can read your mind. I know you want to believe me. There’s nothing they can send that could scare me as much as facing you has.
SILVER SURFER: I see your passion. Passion begets hunger. Hunger consumes worlds. I will never allow another world to fall.
The man known as Jon Spectre, son of Cable's associate Adam Spectre from the Clan Askani, travelled to the present to seek Cannonball's assistance in combatting the Skornn. While Cable gathered old X-Force associates Warpath, Meltdown, and Shatterstar to his side, both Cannonball and Sunspot sided with Spectre due to issues of broken trust with Cable.