When a cure is found to treat mutations, lines are drawn amongst the X-Men, led by Professor Charles Xavier, and the Brotherhood, a band of powerful mutants organized under Xavier's former ally, Magneto.

The story of Commander Van Albert of the Taran republic makes a quite entertaining sermon. Once indirectly responsible for the loss of a civilian liner in a battle in which he defeated a larger enemy ship, he was cleared by a board of inquiry but still has nightmares, and his superiors no longer trust him. Is that the only reason why, after he is seriously injured in preventing an assassination, he is promoted with honors and retired? Anyway, he signs on with a small foundation that turns out to possess many hidden assets.

If he had only answered that last phone call from the World Trade Center . . . Minutes before two jumbo jets changed U.S. history, New York police officer Austin Finley ignored the call from his brother, who’d been bugging him for days. Trying to live with his one regret causes hatred and bitterness to consume Austin, and when counselor Mercy Samara recommends desk duty, Austin resigns. Haunted by her own memories of 9/11, Mercy takes a job as a school counselor in Baltimore. When Austin, now an EMT, responds to an emergency at Mercy’s school, both are stunned and wary.