CABLE: Page 6 of 11

Publication Date: 9th Apr 2018
Written By: Peter Luzifer and Monolith.
Image Work: Peter Luzifer and Gremlin.
Biography

BIOGRAPHY - Page 6

Retreating into the bottle for months at his safehouse in Alaska, Cable only returned to once again "fight the good fight" when Domino alerted him to the rising of a new Weapon X Program. Mutants across the country were been taken away for questioning in the middle of the night, and never heard from again. Rumors were flying about a hidden concentration camp for mutants known as Neverland.

Organizing a core unit of Domino, Meltdown, Blaquesmith and a new Maverick, Cable then went to the people, establishing an Underground network of informants and spies to gather data on the Program and determine the extent of their crimes. Nathan was sorely disturbed when he learned that one of the Director's right-hand men was his old mercenary partner, Garrison Kane. While consolidating their plan to take down the Program, Cable and the Underground received a hand of support from a surprising source. Brent Jackson, second-in-command of Weapon X, approached Cable to help bring down the Director and he had convinced nearly half of the active agents to join him. With the assistance of Jackson's men, the Underground breached the Weapon X Program and confronted the Director and his few remaining loyal operatives. Battling through waves of android Boxbots and his own former friend, Kane, Cable confronted the Director and pulled the secrets of Neverland from his mind. Disgusted, Nate was prepared to execute Colcord then and there, and the Weapon X Program was seemingly moments from being dismantled, until Jackson turned on them and pumped a computerized pulse through Cable's brain, turning his telepathy into a weapon which leveled the entire group.

Jackson then assumed control of the Program himself and used his scientists to mentally condition Cable and the Underground into forgetting all they had learned during the raid. He would have used them as lab rats then, except that Weapon X operative Marrow absconded with Cable and the others for her own purposes. When Nathan woke up, she took advantage of his suggestible state and convinced him that the Weapon X compound had exploded, killing the Director, Jackson and all the rest, and that Neverland had been a hoax. Marrow also arranged to take full control of the Underground network after telling Cable she would take care of "dismantling" the various cells still in activation around the country. Nathan and his core group then parted ways, believing their mission completed and none the wiser that the Weapon X Program lived on. [Weapon X (2nd series) #6-13]

In the weeks that followed, the techno-organic virus returned in Nate's system, having been too tightly bonded to his DNA to ever truly be gone. And yet, Cable's powers and his control over them had grown so much that inhibiting the virus now took up only the smallest fraction of his psychic power, barely limiting him at all. In fact, his powers were growing too strong and Cable recognized that sometime soon they would become too much for his body to contain, killing him. He began to ponder what sort of legacy he could leave the world... how to truly use his awesome power in the best possible way before it (and he) were gone.

In the meantime, it came to his attention that a bio-weapon called the facade virus was being developed at Sunic Labs in Germany. When he learned they planned to begin testing the virus on humans, Cable stepped in to commandeer and destroy the virus, only to run into the merc-with-a-mouth known as Deadpool, who was looking to acquire the virus for another interested party. Cable managed to get a sample of the virus by extracting it from the body of an infected person on a molecular level. This was exhausting, however, and gave Deadpool the chance to get the drop on him and retrieve the virus sample. After recovering, Nate tracked Deadpool to France where his employers, the One World Church, planned on reprogramming the facade virus for the unique purpose of turning everyone on Earth blue... in order to eliminate differences by skin color and supposedly bring the world one step closer to unity.

Despite their basically laudable goals, Cable decided to steal the virus back from them. However, the Church's leader infected Nate with a version of the virus that was specially-tailored to block access to his mutant abilities. This allowed the techno-organic virus to run wild in his system again, and the conflict of the two viruses was killing Nate. Deadpool had also been infected with the facade virus and, despite his healing factor's best efforts, his molecular structure became unstable and he began to melt. As the two of them lay dying, Cable telekinetically managed to absorb Deadpool's mostly liquefied mass into his body, processing Wade's healing factor in order to purge their combined cells of facade, and then basically vomiting Deadpool's share of genetic material out through his throat. Nathan's T-O infection reverted back to his control, and Wilson's healing factor effectively re-integrated his cellular structure back into solid, humanoid substance. As a side effect, Cable maintained a fraction of Deadpool's healing factor. [Cable & Deadpool #1-5]

Nate tracked the Church's leader and commandeered his plan for the purposes of implementing his own "end game.” After indeed using the virus to change the appearance of everyone on the planet, Cable turned around and publicly rid the world of the virus, using Irene Merryweather's position at the Daily Bugle to launch himself into the public eye as a "savior."  With Deadpool's healing factor making his techno-organic virus less than moot, Nathan's powers were operating at a near-cosmic peak. In order to bring his message of enlightenment to the world before he died, Cable telepathically immersed himself in the thought waves of the planet, effectively looking directly into the minds of the people... all people. He also used his telekinesis to gather up the pieces of his former space station, Graymalkin, and reconstruct it into perfect working order, including his teleportation matrix and thus restoring his bodyslide capacity. At this point, he learned of a glitch in his plans, though - passing Deadpool through his system linked the two men at a genetic level, and so any attempt to bodyslide would automatically carry both men. Either man could invoke "Bodyslide by Two" to teleport themselves from their current location to another one on the planet, snatching up the other from whatever third location they were at so that they materialized together. If they forgot their condition and simply said "Bodyslide by One," both men would still reappear at the new location, only fused together at a molecular level. They would have to physically tear themselves apart from one another, and rely on their shared healing factor to keep them alive afterwards.

Despite this notable handicap, Cable continued with his plan to save the world from itself. He performed dramatic acts, such as bringing water to the Sahara and stopping deforestation in the Amazon, to personally stopped hundreds of murders and thousands of car accidents each day, and even dedicated two hours a day to doing nothing but soothing the pain of all critically ill people on the planet. He also transformed Graymalkin into "Providence," an island nation situated 40 miles off the coast of Tahiti and opening its borders to thousands of people from all over the world. Needless to say, his actions made all people and governments invested in the current state of affairs on the globe very, very nervous. SHIELD even assembled a new Six Pack to serve as a special task force against Cable, including Domino and G.W. Bridge. After a short battle, though, Nate was able to convince Domino and most of the rest of the Pack to work with him instead of against him. He then directly addressed the leaders of the world for the first time since beginning his new mission, and gave them an ultimatum: 48 hours to dismantle their arsenals, or he would do it for them by throwing every one of those weapons into the sun.

Interested in stopping Cable from getting out-of-hand, the X-Men hired Deadpool to assemble the fragmented pieces of a device which they hoped could bring Cable down if it came to that. Wade and the X-Men then initiated an assault on Providence before Cable's deadline was up,  but Deadpool ended up turning against the X-Men in the hopes that Nate could actually achieve what he was setting out to do. In a surprise turn, Cable not only knew about their plans already but had been counting on Deadpool to use the device on him. Nathan proved the X-Men were no threat to him, but his plans was interrupted by SHIELD's last remaining failsafe - they placed a call to the Fantastic Four, who asked the Silver Surfer himself for help. Cable and the Surfer engaged in an extended battle that carried them back and forth across the surface of the world, leading to Cable's cybernetic arm being atomized and accelerating the deterioration of Nate's body, thanks to his power. As he lay on the brink of death, Cable completed his "last will and testament," telepathically opening the minds of everyone on Earth to each other, if only for an instant, to give them a glimpse at what a unified world future could be like one day. He then had Deadpool activate the device he had assembled, effectively using his teleportation matrix to lobotomize himself, removing the portions of his brain that allowed him to access his super-advanced powers. This allowed him to cheat the death he had foreseen for himself months ago, but at a price. Reduced to a vegetative state in his Switzerland safehouse, Nate was basically braindead. [Cable & Deadpool #6-10]

However, he was relying on Deadpool of all people to make him healthy again. In order to regenerate the destroyed portions of Cable's chest and his lost arm, Wade acquired a techno-organic Phalanx embryo from A.I.M. and hired the Fixer to introduce it safely into Cable's system.  The problem being, it was always Cable's psi-powers that kept the original virus in control, and now those abilities were all but extinguished. Instead, Nate had to mentally program the embryo to act like a symbiote, joining peacefully with his system so that it replaced his damaged and lost anatomy without any threat of spreading further through his body. He succeeded, and wound up with 200 lbs. of techno-organic metal permanently fused into his left arm and chest. It was still a tremendous ordeal on top of everything else, though, and Nathan retreated to Providence for an extended period of rest and recuperation, among the thousands of immigrants who had flocked to the island both before and after his resurrection. While Cable allowed himself to heal, an administrative body was established for Providence with Irene Merryweather as his Chief of Staff, the time-lost Prester John in charge of Religious Studies, and Johann Kriek, formerly of Interpol, as his Head of Security. [Cable & Deadpool #11-14]

During his rehabilitation, Nathan received signs that the ancient evil known as the Skornn would be rising again, and he began taking steps to deal with that. He gathered some of his former X-Force pupils together and acquired a sword known as the Five Fingers of Annihilation, the only weapon which could kill the Skornn. When the Helix, genetically-engineered warriors from the Askani future, were successful in awakening the long dead creature, which sustained itself by eating the flesh of mutants, Cable and his allies engaged it in Manhattan. They were joined in battle by Deadpool, Wolverine and scattered members of the Mutant Liberation Front and the Fantastic Four . However, even after two hours of conflict, the Skornn still stood and many of Cable's forces had fallen. With nothing left to use against the creature, Cable resorted to the sacrifice he knew had been coming. Shedding his own blood with the Five Fingers of Annihilation, he unleashed the stored energy of ancient mutants stored within it by Celestial technology and joined his own essence with the act in order to cast him and the Skornn throughout time and space. [X-Force (2nd series) #1-6] Cable effectively died, with portions of his living essence cast across alternate worlds by his final act displacing the Skornn.

Thanks to Deadpool's genetic link with Cable, however, X-Force and the mutant inventor Forge were able to work up a teleportation harness that, in combination with the body-sliding equipment, allowed Deadpool and his allies to visit each alternate world where a portion of Cable had touched down, accumulating it inside the harness. While they were traveling, though, the Scarlet Witch remade existence on their homeworld into the House of M,  and Cable was reincarnated as an infant who had been created in seclusion by Sinister. Believing himself to be in yet another alternate reality, Deadpool was still determined to keep the mad geneticist from control baby Nate's destiny, but Sinister managed to restrain the mercenary. Extracting a cellular sample, he administered a dosage of Deadpool's own genetic material to the baby, reasoning that it would allow young Nathan to accelerate to adulthood in a matter of days. Wade managed to break free and get a hold of the child, and ended up attempting to bodyslide out of the House of M, just as the Scarlet Witch second reality wave was undoing all her changes. As a result, Deadpool and the baby "skipped" over the warping effect and returned to the regular Earth-616 with Cable still as an infant rapidly growing into manhood. He regained the full version of his life and memories thanks to the psychic essence Forge's harness had gathered while Deadpool was bodysliding, and his powers were fully restored too because of his death and rebirth.

However, Cable was now faced with a hard choice - Deadpool's mental state was rapidly deteriorating beyond even its normal chaos and it would require telepathic and telekinetic manipulations at a cellular level to fix this damage – and Cable was well aware that using his powers at his present pre-pubescent age for such a task would once again burn out his powers. Nevertheless, Cable exerted his powers to the utmost and successfully repaired Wade's mind. [Cable & Deadpool #15-19]

To compensate for his powerloss, Cable began working towards acquiring substitutions for his telepathy and telekinesis. He became involved with Gareb Bashur, the Black Box, a mutant sensitive to electronic signals who was attempting to use a processing program called the Dominus Objective to organize the data he could receive, making him the ultimate information broker. After a series of conflicts involving various parties attempting to acquire the  Objective, Cable made a deal with Bashur and made him a part of his administration on Providence. In return, Nate hooked himself directly into the Dominus Objective, enabling him to more-or-less duplicate his telepathy by accessing the endless amounts of electronic data in the worldwide Infonet, as opposed to the actual thoughts of others on the astral plane. He then hired Deadpool to steal the designs for the Cone of Silence, a gravimetric force field in development which the world governments were planning to eventually use on Providence, trapping it behind an impenetrable barrier. Instead, Cable miniaturized the principle, adopting a personal body suit that allowed him to project the gravimetric sheath in ways almost identical to his lost telekinesis. [Cable & Deadpool #22-25]

The governments of Earth weren't very happy that Nathan was up and about again, however, and in truth he gave them little reason to be. What's worse is that even some of his closest friends began to doubt what Cable was doing in the name of his "long-term perspective." He deliberately engineered the resurrection of Apocalypse, in the hopes that the Eternal One would serve as a rallying force for Earth's remaining mutants after over 90% of all mutants had lost their powers. [Cable & Deadpool #26-27] Nathan even overthrew the tyrannical dictator of the country Rumekistan, only to assume control over the nation himself. He totally lost Domino's trust after that last one, and it hurt Nate deeply to realize it. [Cable & Deadpool #28-29]