Operation Zero Tolerance

What the blind Man saw

Summary

  As part of the ongoing Operation Zero Tolerance, the X-Men who escaped (Wolverine, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Cannonball, and Storm) encounters a camp in the middle of the nowhere that consists of many old trailer homes. There, they meet a guy named Mustang. Logan senses how Mustang wasn't totally human, and Mustang reveals all the constructive surgery that he's had. He, like most of the other people in this camp, were benefiting from treatments being offered by a professor in a nearby clinic who was helping them replace defective body parts in exchange for artificial limbs. Mustang goes on to say how the professor had gave him and all the other people in the camp a purpose for going on living: a hope that their life won't have to be outcasts because of disabilities. After a quick scan of his mind by Jean to verify that he did not have any sense of betrayal within, they have dinner by a campfire. Even though he was blind, Mustang senses that they were mutants given how he knew Logan had checked out that half of himself was prosthetic, how he had felt Jean's mind probe, and how Storm had called up a wind out of nowhere in the calm desert to cover their footprints.

  Later on, we learn more about how Mustang came to be as he is now: how he used to be a stunt driver until one day, during an air show, his plane's engine blew and as the plane plummaged towards a crowd full of children, he didn't eject in order to steer the plane to a safer place, and as a result, he suffered much injuries and is now what he is today.

  Much later, while everyone was sleeping, Logan sneaks out of the camp to investigate something. Although he couldn't see, Mustang could hear how Logan had left.

  That morning, the X-men had to tell Mustang what Logan discovered. Using Jean's telepathy powers, Mustang was able to see and experience what Logan saw during that night at the clinic. He sees how the clinic was surrounded by a laser fence. Also, an oncoming truck that was going into the clinic contains prosthetic skulls, eyeballs, and various limbs of the human body within. Mustang, at first, was overjoyed at the vision because knowing this, he might be able to regain his vision and fly again. Then Jean shows him in his minds about the new prime sentinels: how they were soul-less beings whose main purpose was to hunt down mutants, and that this professor was in charge of using people like Mustang and transforming them with these prosthetic items to become "sleeper agents", that, when activated, would override the human consciousness and be part of those sentinels being used in Operation: Zero Tolerance.

  Just then, Cannonball discovers an approaching aircraft and sentinels. Mustang offers to hide them in an underground bunker. Overhead, the aircraft flies by with Bastion in it. Bastion asks his man whether that camp has been searched or not, and the man replies how that area was a holding facility for sleeper units, and how he doubted that the X-Men would be dumb enough to go there.

  Back down at the camp, Mustang was trying to convince a few fellow campmembers about what the true purpose of the clinics was, and even tells them that if they didn't believe him, he could ask the mutants themselves.

  Back in the plane, after detecting a previously uncharted atmospheric disturbance, Bastion sends the activation codes down to the camp where the X-Men were to activate the sleeper units so that they would be morphed into a full sentinel once contacting a mutant signature.

  Elsewhere, Senator Kelly makes a tough choice about whether to continue with Operation: Zero Tolerance or not. After much thinking, he decides to shut down Zero Tolerance, and will obtain the help of S.H.I.E.L.D. to carry out the shutdown.