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“I hate this.”

“It’s fetching,” he insisted.

“I look like Radioactive Barbie.” She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, now devoid of all but one of the silver hoops that previously nested there.

“You look like someone who commands attention and respect,” he corrected her, but his silver eyes gleamed with pride. He straightened the collar of her coat and dusted it with the flat of his palm. She snorted, arching one tapered, chartreuse brow.

“Whoopee…”

“Come. There’s something I need to show you.” The past three weeks found them busier than Lorna could ever remember. She took smug satisfaction that she’d avoided going back to her old school, after the big basement party debacle. She was still unused to her surroundings in the heavily wooded thicket where they’d made their camp, but at least it was a little less rustic, thanks to her trainings with Erik, her mysterious savior.

He was almost okay, for an old guy.

~0~


She’d learned to love metal, her imagination brimming with new possibilities of what could be done with it every day. The past three weeks brought fewer episodes of her powers running on autopilot and living life as a walking magnet, and she learned to trust Erik a bit more and to accept his guidance, allowing him to channel her energy in tandem with his own powers. She joked that he was treating her like a Duracell.

Together they’d forged a shelter from the items abandoned by the campsite’s previous occupants. Lorna had run across several small, rusted syringes in the clearing, stooping to pick one up between finger and thumb and examine it in the morning light.

“Erik…look what I found. Did a bunch of junkies live here? Are we close to a meth lab?” His lips tightened at the sight of the needle, and his movements were clipped and abrupt as he strode over and plucked the syringe from her grasp.

“Don’t let the needle break your skin, my dear.” His voice was hard, and she wrinkled her brow in confusion.

“Well, duh. I don’t know where it’s been.” She gestured back to the clearing. “There’s a whole bunch of these. Seems weird that this place has been deserted since we got here.”

“I have a chore for you,” he suggested, and she crossed her arms petulantly at her questions being derailed so casually. “Gather these up. Don’t touch the tips.”

“Easy squeezy, lemon peasy,” she shrugged, and she stretched out her open hand toward the clearing. One by one, the syringes lifted themselves into the air, floating out from their hiding places and slowly landing in a heap by Lorna’s booted feet.

“What’re we gonna do with these?”

“Harvest what we can of what usable metal that’s left. You’re tired of sleeping outdoors, correct?” She blinked, then nodded, wondering what he had up his sleeve.

“First, we clean up the camp; then we glean out what we can use.” Lorna remembered back to an Earth Day cleanup and recycling drive that her school had participated in, but the most it had accomplished was raising a few hundred dollars toward the building improvement fund. Now she was seeing “recycling” taken to a whole new level, the results more direct.

Soda cans. Pen knives. An old money clip. Loose change. Housekeys. An old canteen. A whiskey flask. Tin camping pots, save the two that Erik said they could still use. A chain of abandoned dog tags. Scraps of tin foil. A few lengths of rusted chain. A hunting rifle that Lorna refused to touch, save while using her gift, the bullets still chambered within it. “This time, and this time alone, humans and their guns have their uses.”

They hadn’t stopped there. Lorna nearly gave herself a nosebleed, concentrating on the surrounding woods, divining the metals in the merest pebbles on the ground or from the silt lining the stream. It floated through the air on currents guided by her own hands, gathering like a sandstorm overhead. The air around her was a hazy, silvery blur as she communed with the ore fragments and minerals, in sync with them as she manipulated their atoms. It was a rush. Erik initially synched his returning gift with hers, the energy resonating through him like a conduit, but eventually he merely had to direct her where to search first, nodding with approval and a strange sense of pride.

She never would have believed it could be done, until she and Erik actually did it. She nicknamed their new domicile the Fortress of Solitude.

“I take it you’ve done this before?” she quipped, wiping away the beads of perspiration from her cheeks. Her hair was plastered to her forehead from her exertions, manipulating the lightweight beams of metal as Erik guided her to fuse them together using what he called a “mortis and tenon” technique to create a series of tabs and slots that interlinked.

“One of my more useful tricks.” He brought her a sandwich from their rations and handed it to her. She took a grateful bite, sinking her teeth into the thick layers of wheat bread, mustard, lettuce and turkey meat, not caring that it was sticking to the roof of her mouth.

“What is this place, Erik?”

“A refuge, for now.”

“A refuge. Riiiiiiiiighht. Man, I feel like Ralph Macchio’s character in the Karate Kid.” Lorna stomped over to a tree stump and tore off another chunk of her sandwich, pressing it into her mouth. “To learn karate, first must paint fence,” she mimicked, making Erik raise an eyebrow in her direction. “Here a clue, there a clue, everywhere a clue-clue. You never just give me a straight answer. It’s always this cryptic, dignified, just-follow-my-greatness mumbo-jumbo. It’s like…I feel like you’re gonna have me running around in a cult next.”

His laugh was rusty but resonant, throwing back his silver-topped head and showing surprisingly white, even teeth. He recovered himself and grinned at her, wiping the corner of his eye.

“Is that how I seem to you?”

“Yeah. Kinda.”

“I like to think of myself as a teacher. I was, once. I co-founded a school for young mutants such as yourself.”

“So why aren’t you there now?”

“My colleague and I had a difference in opinion and in our long-term goals for the school, and our vision of the future. He was a brilliant man,” he added wistfully. “We parted ways.”

“So, that thing with the Golden Gate bridge…was that part of your plan for the future?”

“I mentioned it before; I wanted to capture people’s attention. Humans persecuting mutants is something I will not suffer lightly.”

“Who were all those people with you when it happened?”

“I like to think of them as my students, in a way.”

“Students, huh? What were you teaching them?”

“How to take back what was theirs. To be proud of their gifts. Among other things.” He swept his arm out broadly, motioning toward the thicket. “We camped here for a time,” he explained.

“That’s how all this stuff got left behind?”

“Yes, it is.”

“So that’s why you brought me here? To join your little cult?” She threw the remark over her shoulder as she was working, missing the stiffness that crept into his spine.

“If you would show me more gratitude for releasing you from the prison where the humans held you, you would do well to watch your tongue, Lorna. I’m a patient man…to a point.” She turned to face him, pausing in her labors and biting her lip when she found herself staring up into his nostrils, which were flared like a bull’s. She hadn’t even heard him approach, so light were his steps.

“I’m just saying…” her voice trailed off. She couldn’t continue to meet his gaze, and she eventually looked away. Lean, withered fingers grasped her chin and tilted it back up.

“Take more accountability for the words that come out of your mouth. And don’t be so quick to judge me, child. There are many things you could learn from me.” He loosened and shifted his grip to cradle her face, caressing the stray locks of hair trapped between his palm and her cheek. Chastened, she resumed her work, stepping away from him.

“You were adopted.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Where did your adoptive parents find you?”

“Dunno. All I know is, they spent a bundle. It was an international adoption. I’m sixteen. Had my birthday in January,” she explained, as though that would suffice.

“You have no idea which country you hailed from?” He sounded disappointed. She shrugged.

“Somewhere in Germany. Tiny orphanage in some little village in the mountains. My mom went on sabbatical from her job to live over there for a year. Said she was a relief worker at an orphanage that had more abandoned children than they could afford to keep. I dunno why she bothered,” Lorna carped miserably. “She adopted me, just so she could send me away.”

“So you didn’t have a happy childhood?” Erik moved to the campfire to start a pot of hot chocolate, one of Lorna’s favorite rituals that they shared since she’d arrived.

“Eh. Not so much. Mom always died my hair. I hated the smell of that stuff. Boring old brown,” she grimaced. “What about you? Did you have a so-called ‘happy childhood’ with a white picket fence, a mom, a dad, and a dog?”

“It was stolen from me, when I was younger than you,” Erik mused, and Lorna was surprised to see him looking so forlorn and sad, pensively stirring the flames with a stick. That, he decided, was a story for another day. “Lorna?”

“Yeah?”

“Did your mother perchance mention the name of the village where you were adopted from?”

“Shoot…I dunno. Had a funky name. Sounded like something out of a science fiction novel or an RPG.”

“Pardon?”

“RPG. Role-playing game.”

“Ah,” Erik agreed, nodding, even though it still escaped him. Lorna snorted under breath, but she gifted him with a smile.

“Wonderland, or something…like a little hippie commune. Wunderkind. Wun…Wunga,” she paused thoughtfully, looking askance at him as though he was the one who had the answer.

It dawned on him, like a bucket of cold water splashing in his face.

“Wungadore,” he murmured, more to himself than to her.

“DUDE! That’s TOTALLY it,” she shrieked, smacking herself in the forehead and pointing at him. “I would’ve been up all night, wondering about that name!”

“Fancy that,” he replied, but he still looked thunderstruck. He poured them cocoa, serving it in some ceramic cups he’d purchased from a nearby surplus store, garbed in his street clothes and a concealing hat.

Magda.


~0~


“I don’t know what I have to get so dressed up for,” she complained to him, scowling as he handed her a small pair of black gloves. She donned them, adjusting them so the webbing between her fingers wasn’t so snug, and she untucked her St. Christopher medal so she’d at least have some jewelry to brighten up what she thought was a drab outfit.

“We’re making a special trip,” he announced cheerfully. “I hope you like to fly,” he added. She rocked back on her booted heels.

“There’s no way I’m gonna get on a plane. I have no ID, no social, no nothing. And I’m wanted,” she huffed, as though the fact had escaped him. She threw her hands up in defeat.

“You won’t have to,” he assured her. “Bundle up,” he suggested. “I don’t want you to catch a chill.” They strolled into the clearing, still bright with the mid-morning light, and he linked their hands.

“Don’t let go.” She felt his surge of power as he bore down with his free hand, giving them a gentle “push” and sending them aloft. Lorna felt the energy tickling her nerve endings and making her hair flutter on the breeze, almost resembling a halo as she matched Erik’s power with an answering wave of her own, boosting their propulsion to send them higher, flying faster as they coasted over the treetops. A bubble of laughter escaped her lips; she reveled in the feel of the air currents buoying them along within the magnetic field she’d created. Everything below them looked tiny. She met Erik’s gaze briefly, and she could tell from his smug expression that he felt the same.


~0~

The pain was too much. Icy fear rippled over her flesh, mingling with the perspiration from too many hours of taxing labor. Sweat soaked her long brown hair, plastering it around her face. Her skin was florid, and her lips twisted in a grimace with the contraction that bunched her abdomen into a hard knot. The baby kicked in protest at being disturbed from its nest, and she said a silent prayer as another scream was torn from her lips.

“She’s dilated and fully effaced.”

“We can already see the head! Baby’s bound to have a full head of hair,” encouraged the nurse, smiling genially despite her patient’s struggles, her fingers biting into the bed rails as she rasped out another gurgling cry. She reached out to swab Magda’s cheeks with a damp towel.

Her wrist was caught in an implacable steel grip. Desperate blue eyes pleaded with her.

“Don’t let him find me.”

“Relax; it’s all right, we’ll deliver this baby safe and sound,” she crooned back soothingly, but unease prickled and made the hairs on her arm stand on end.

“He’s a monster,” she insisted. “He can’t find us. If you would spare my baby…you won’t let him find me.” Another contraction followed quickly and furiously on the heels of the last, cresting to its peak and wrenching her nearly off the cot. She arched, and the readings on the baby’s heart monitor were erratic and shrill. Magda’s eyes suddenly rolled from blue to white, veins visible as she went into shock. She seized, spasms wracking her frame and twisting her body in unnatural contortions.

“Blessed Father!”

The half hour was a blur. Magda remembered pain, and darkness. Unwelcome images of flames licking up toward the sky and her own screams taunted her as she sought to find shelter within her own consciousness. They’d taken Anya from her.

They’d killed Erik, as surely as he’d killed them.

She felt a new pain, burning, cutting into her, as though someone were reaching inside to steal the last precious thing she possessed…and then there was nothing.

The nurse stood weeping silently behind her surgical mask, holding the small, wailing infant girl swaddled in a pink receiving blanket. Tiny fists flailed the air, protesting her entry into a world she already sensed would not welcome her with anything but more grief. She cradled her fragile charge and rocked her before taking her to the tiny exam table and scale to weigh her and clean her up.

She rubbed the baby’s skin down with a washcloth and plain, warm water, swabbing away the sticky fluids and traces of blood, rubbing some circulation into the tiny limbs. Her features were perfect; she held the promise of stunning beauty already, and appeared to take after her mother. It was a shame she’d never know her. She carefully ran the washcloth over her scalp, working away the stickiness matting her fine hair…

Her hand stilled, and the washcloth slithered from her grasp. She had to adjust the small lamp to better confirm what she was seeing. She still didn’t believe it.

The fair hair that she originally assumed was blonde, once free from the offending blood and mucus, was an eerie, pale shade of green.

“Doctor,” she murmured, not looking at him as the other attending physician’s assistants unplugged the monitors and detached the IVs from the body, finally at ease and tranquil in death. The elderly physician was still seated on the wheeled stool, making notations on the treatment record clipped to his board and looking the worse for wear. He looked up to meet her gaze, and it tugged him to his feet.

He crossed the small suite and peered down at the squalling baby.

“The child has no father.” It wasn’t phrased as a question. His voice was flinty and cold.

“She begged me not to let him know of the child,” she replied, still shaken, but re-wrapping the baby in the receiving blanket, knowing that the effort was futile, but that it was the least she could do. He rubbed his palms over his pants legs as if scrubbing them of the touch of the tiny baby and her shamed mother.

She was a pariah.

“She must be placed. There’s nothing more we can do for her here.”

“Please. You can’t. We can’t do that to her, for the love of God!”

“Take her to the nursery. It’s out of our hands.”

~0~

There just wasn’t enough beer in the world, he’d decided, repeating the same futile effort with his sixth. His teeth still weren’t numb yet, and the sting still stung.

He knew he should be back at the school, going over the files again with Blue, but all it took was catching the slightly spicy scent that Forge fucker seemed to wear like a rival male in the pack to make his blood boil. Ororo’s cat-that-got-the-cream smile wasn’t helping matters any. The tall, brown technical wizard was at ‘Ro’s beck and call, grinning, handing her things, bringing her lunch, and making Logan nauseous with his aw-shucks charm.

She wasn’t going out of her way to avoid Logan; he was doing fine with that for the both of them, all by his lonesome. He read her body language, still fluid and graceful, but more cautious and measured around him. Not afraid, but her guard was back up, higher than it had ever been before.

She’d kissed him like she couldn’t get enough of him before he left. So when the fuck had she decided she’d had enough?

“Am I gonna hafta pry yer scrawny ass off my barstool with a crow bar like last time?” Harry threatened good-naturedly, sliding Logan a small dish of honey roasted beer nuts.

“I dare ya ta try, see how much of yer hands ya come back with, let alone the crowbar, bub,” Logan snarled, but Harry simply chortled as he toweled dry a rack of beer mugs fresh out of the dishwasher of the Hideaway’s kitchen. Harry’s was a legend in its own right. An enormous, taxidermied grizzly bear nicknamed “Chewy” occupied a place of honor in the bar and grill’s front window, clad in an oversized New York Mets jersey and cap, despite the threatening grimace or outstretched claws forever frozen for prosperity. The interior was comfortably lit in a soft glow that enhanced the “beer goggles” affect of its patrons that sent them home from the bar with a Playmate and found them waking up with escapees from “Elimidate” the following morning. The tequila shooters were the dollar special of the night. Logan wasn’t in the mood for a quick buzz. “And who’re ya callin’ scrawny?”

“Yeah, yeah. All piss and vinegar tonight, sport. What’s her name?”

Logan rolled his eyes and grunted, staring into his half-empty beer mug as though it had all the answers.

“Shit. Got it that bad, huh?”

“There’s nothin’ goin’ on. Same old shit, different day. Thought I saw something there that wasn’t. It’s a done deal.”

“No it isn’t. You wouldn’t be here working your way through my Molson if it was a done deal. She put the hook in you.”

“Bullshit. I ain’t headed down that road again. I ain’t chasin’ a woman who’s already cozying up ta someone else. A guy’s only gotta bang his head against the same wall before it starts ta hurt like the dickens.”

“How d’you know she’s cozy with this other guy?”

“Walked in on ‘em. She was sampling his mouthwash.”

“Ooh. Ouch.” Harry turned to mix a Long Island that guaranteed a hangover and floated a cherry on top, tossing in a wussy red straw. A cute brunette sidled over to pay him, giving Logan her patented (and well practiced) “my roommate’s not home tonight” look, complete with a hair toss that flagged her immediately as too young and definitely high-maintenance. “So what about that other one you liked so much? The redhead?”

“She was taken. And that didn’t work out.” It chafed him to remember Jean’s soft smile, shining on her face, even while dying.

“You’re batting a thousand, my man. The single ones don’t get your blood pumping?”

“Ro ain’t got a ring on her finger,” Logan huffed. “She just started seein’ this guy. If ya can even call it that. Follows her around like she was leaving a bread crumb trail through the house.”

“Follows her, huh?”

“Like a puppy.” He downed the rest of his beer and popped some nuts into his mouth, chewing them dispassionately, barely feeling the crunchy fragments grinding between his teeth.

“So what’re you doing while he’s busy following her around?” Harry cocked a grizzled eyebrow at him. “Nice way to let the horse out of the corral, Logan. Close the gate, for God’s sake!”

“Ya think I don’t know that?”

“You’re not exactly proving me wrong. You said the redhead was engaged. I appreciate that one. Can’t keep slobbering over a woman who’s already spoken for; she’d as soon cheat on you as she would leave the man she’s already with. That’s asking for a kick in the balls. But has this new paragon of womanhood and ‘please, baby, PLEASE!’ given you the impression she feels the same way about you before this new guy stepped up?”

“She didn’t exactly say no when I kissed her. Back before I left on my road trip. Thought it might lead to somethin’ else. Don’t know what the fuck I was doin’. Just seemed like the thing t’do at the time.”

“You knew what you were doing. Testing the waters. Drinking the milk to see if it’s worth buying the cow. You’re not fooling anybody, guy. Can’t keep doing that.”

“Can’t keep doing what?” Logan sneered, scowling at Harry over the rim of his refilled beer mug.

“Playing cat and mouse. You don’t wanna get burned. Chances are, neither does she. I like you, Logan. You’re a decent man.” Logan snorted at him around a handful of beer nuts.

“You don’t come in here with that look of ‘walking wounded’ like some of the riff-raff that breezes into my bar. Trouble, piss and vinegar, sure, but you don’t let much knock you down. But I know you don’t stick around much, definitely not long enough to form any attachments. Tokyo, Madripoor, Ghana, Cairo, Alberta, Paris, Germany, LA…you’ll drift out of here tonight and have your bags packed tomorrow, without so much as a by-your-leave to anyone at that fancy school. Maybe a note to that fine woman who’s got you tied up in a knot, cleaning out my Molson.”

“I ain’t one fer leavin’ notes. Ya want fancy words, don’t expect ‘em from me.” Logan didn’t leave behind signs of himself. He only left people behind. He didn’t deny his friend’s words. Harry sighed and shook his head, rubbing a knot out of his nape.

“Logan. Listen. If you really feel anything for her, anything at all, don’t do this little dance. If she’s worth going after, then go after her. She meant something to you before this new guy barged in. This isn’t just a case of wanting a dump truck because some other kid’s playing with it, and not acting like he’s done with it yet. And just so you don’t think I’m giving my blessing to cut in on this other guy’s turf, if she seems like she’s really happy with him, back off. All the way off.” Harry leaned the heels of his hands against the bar and leaned forward, sincere, concerned walnut brown eyes staring him down. “Don’t keep walking straight into something you know is gonna kick your ass and leave you licking your wounds. And don’t pull her in after you.”

“Take care of my usual spot,” Logan nodded, and he reached into his leather jacket pocket and pulled out a roll of bills. He tossed them deftly to Harry, who caught them lefthanded, snatching them out of the air. He already knew the amount was more than enough to cover his tab and a hefty tip without counting it. Logan liked his quick exits more than most. His stride was even and long, not so much as a stagger to mar his steps. Harry watched his retreating back, sighing again over the tense, proud set of that back, a bulwark against the storm for anyone he cared about. The man wouldn’t be knocked down, he repeated to himself as he went back to his chores and drink orders that made themselves heard over the clamor.

Harry was about to be proven wrong.

A deafening buzz and a startling crack of sound was all Harry heard before Logan came crashing back through his bar’s front window in a shower of tinkling glass. “Chewy” was knocked off of his stand and looking the worse for wear, becoming a makeshift landing pad for Logan’s adamantium-laced body. Muttered curses were drowned out by the immediate screams and running footfalls as the entire crowd began flooding out the back door and into the alley. Harry was rooted to the spot, cold sweat breaking out over his skin as he watched his friend jerk himself to his feet, dusting off shards and cussing again over the tiny tears in his shirt and leather jacket. Blood streaks laced his flesh wherever it was exposed.

A man of medium height casually strode inside through the makeshift door Logan inadvertently made in the window, looking like he wanted to finish what he started. His movements were graceful and predatory, moving fluidly and ignoring the class crunching beneath his feet. He could have been any man off the street. Leather boots shod his feet. Unremarkable features, except black eyes that seemed a little too bright. Dark, short hair, shaved nearly to the scalp. His physique was wiry and rangy, with no discernible body fat. Cables of muscle laced his arms where his rolled-up sleeves revealed them. He gave Harry a chilling smile that sent him running back to the kitchen for his shotgun that he kept for special occasions.

It didn’t matter. He wanted Logan.

“Mutant 1010-616. Ident nomenclature Wolverine. Status, active. Action: Terminate.” His voice was expressionless, but he continued to smile with satisfaction. His eyes were cold, and he raised his outstretched hand before Logan could react. A small projectile was launched from his palm, his flesh opening and peeling back to reveal a metal chamber housing the bolo-web. It spread itself wide and snared him in coiled wire filaments that felt like steel and dug into him with sharp, serrated edges.

“FUCK!” Logan grimaced. SNIKT! He struggled and began to cut his way free, but it burned. His attacker reached up and tapped his “ or its “ chest and Logan heard a small, metallic click.

An electric current ran the entire length of the cables, burning him and running jagged fingers through every nerve ending of his body, wrenching ragged cries from his throat. His breathing rasped and stuttered as the pain continued its relentless onslaught, becoming undistinguishable from his urge to tear its source limb from limb. Spots of light throbbed behind his eyes even when they were shut.

He wouldn’t take his eyes off this fucker again.

The cables were stubborn, but they cleaved apart and landed in shreds with a few flicks of his claws. Logan bared his fangs and felt his hackles rise. He tasted copper as he lunged for the stranger, who was still looking fresh as a daisy.

He moved with precision, parrying Logan’s blows, seemingly reading each move before he made it and formulating countermeasures within fractions of a second. Logan ducked and feinted when the being seemed ready to hit him with another goodie from his arsenal. He leapt back before it could blast him with an dart tipped with a collapsible capsule of poisoned acid, shot from a cuff on his wrist that resembled a watch.

Someone had devoted themselves to the most minute details of making this thing, whatever it was, look and act like the average Joe.

“Halt, Mutant!”

“Halt this,” Logan hissed, arching back nimbly and avoiding another projectile dart. He recovered and lunged, chucking a heavy table straight at his head.

“SQWWARRRRKK!” The object connected with its target, but the being only wobbled to regain its balance, glaring at Logan and shaking it off. Logan had the momentary pleasure of watching the thing bleed. That, he crowed to himself, he could work with.

The torn flesh exposed gleaming bone underneath. He should have been lying on the ground, out of commission.

“Motherfucker,” Logan swore, watching in disbelief as his enhanced vision zoomed in on the tiny microfilaments that began knitting the flesh back together, like watching the incident happen in reverse. Logan watched the thing’s pupils dilate, revealing growing discs of white light illuminating the black irises, and he heard a small whirring sound that reminded him of a laser charging itself for “

SHRAKKOOOWWWWWW! He never knew what hit him. All he knew was that it didn’t tickle, and that Harry was gonna kill him for tearing up his bar.


~0~

Hank had no problem burning the midnight oil when it came to his experiments and sifting through the school’s data banks for anything that would help mutantkind’s safety and the preservation of their kind. Tonight was such a night. Twinkie wrappers and an empty cocoa cup that held mere dregs of brown syrup in the bottom cluttered the side table as he pored over the monitor in the Professor’s chamber, reviewing Cerebro’s latest findings.

The Dane girl was still on the move since the jail break reported on the news. Her power signature was stronger than before, and Henry changed his search criteria, measured the levels of her biorhythms, reaching the conclusion that her abilities were no longer nascent.

They were enhanced, fully functional, and in sync with a familiar power signature that was growing and easily detected now by Cerebro’s energy grid. According to the latest readings, she was airborne, and carried a passenger with her. Or was it the other way around?

He backed his wheeled chair away from the monitor briefly, rolling his burly shoulders and letting the joints in his neck pop and crack, groaning in relief.

He heard Ororo’s soft footsteps padding down the hall before she even turned the corner. His ears had never failed him before. She still moved like a thief. He welcomed her company, and from the sound of it, she was alone.

“Shouldn’t you be in bed, Henry?” she chided him.

“Hello, Kettle, this is Pot?” He rotated the chair slowly until he faced her, enjoying the quiet grace of her movements and the simple, midnight blue silk bathrobe she’d tied over her white pajamas. Her feet were bare, the polished nails winking up at him in the sparsely illuminated suite. Out of long habit, she strolled down the catwalk and moved his hand from his lap to make herself some room. She perched herself there, temerity and mischief shining in her eyes as she enveloped him in a hug that made him feel positively gooey.

“Flirt.”

“Is it working?”

“Never.” His leonine muzzle curled into a smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes.

“I’ll just have to try harder.”

“Forge might take exception to that.” She blew out an exasperated breath and balled up her slender knuckles, giving him a gentle noogie.

“Love me, love my friends,” she murmured. “That’s the rule. It’s a package deal.”

“At least you aren’t ignoring how he feels about you.”

“I was exaggerating, Henry.”

“He isn’t.” Henry’s grasp around her waist was gentle but firm as he lifted her from his lap, regretting the loss of her light weight and soft warmth. “He’s a remarkable man.”

“So you keep telling me. And he keeps proving it.”

Henry sighed raggedly, pinning her with a look of male bafflement reserved solely for moments like these.

“But?” he prodded.

“But nothing,” she countered. Henry was still leaning forward on his elbows, waiting for the explanation that was like pulling teeth to find. “He’s sweet. He’s funny. Brilliant. An excellent cook. He spends a lot of time with me, even when it feels like I don’t have any time. And he’s not bad looking.” The corner of her lips curled in a bashful little smile. Henry half-expected her to twirl her hair and gush “I think he LIKES me, likes me.”

“You don’t have to sell me on his virtues. I heartily approve. My stars and garters, Ororo, it’s not even like I have to approve! I’m not the one dating him.”

“Don’t think that isn’t a hysterical image dancing around in my head right now.”

“Stop it,” he quipped, standing to stretch, shaking himself like a majestic beast after a long graze and nap, even though Ororo knew he hadn’t yet slept. The clock in Charles’ study ready two AM before she made her way down in the elevator. Henry hazarded his next question with the proper decorum, even if it lacked discretion.

“Is Forge still here?”

“No, he already left some time ago,” she replied simply, head held high as she smoothed her hands over her robe needlessly, flattening phantom creases in the silk. “We took a walk in the park. I needed to go over some paperwork and update my syllabus for Sean’s classes and make sure that Kitty signed up for the SAT. I had too much on my plate for much else. Forge said he needed to run an errand before he turned in for the night, anyway, so it was just as well.” She retrieved Hank’s mug, staring into it with a hint of amusement. “Really, Henry! You’ll go into sugar shock.” She wadded up the Twinkie wrappers with a crinkle and chucked them into the wastebasket beside the console. “Don’t blame me if you have nightmares, eating this junk so late at night.”

“I needed the brain fuel.” He turned back to the monitors, halting her steps when he didn’t follow her toward the door. He clicked the display back on, re-opening the files. “More movement from the Dane girl, and she’s still with her accomplice. Look at these readings.” Ororo’s eyes flitted to the fluctuating energy bars onscreen, noticing that they were moving with the same frequency, glowing the same shade of blue with little variance.

“The energy signatures are almost identical,” she breathed. “Henry, is that…?”

“Magneto. I’d wager my aunt Matilda’s oatmeal cookie recipe on it. His status is fluctuating according to this, but active, nonetheless. I’ve been tracking it these past few weeks, but I wanted to be certain. The breakout from the 77th Precinct fed my suspicions. Who else would want to free a fledgling mutant from jail who’d caused so much damage?” Ororo took his place on the wheeled chair, feeling the blood drain from her head as her eyes remained glued to the screen. Henry relieved her of the cup; her fingers were cold and nerveless, and she heartily wished that Forge was there to add his own conjecture and interpretation of what she was seeing to the discussion.

And possibly, to hold her and make it go away.

Her voice had other ideas. “Where’s Logan, Henry?”

“Scan for him,” Henry suggested, closing out the file on the Dane girl and typing Logan’s name into the field. “Salem Center,” he rumbled. “Downtown…Harry’s Hideaway.”

“His favorite haunt,” she mused. She didn’t notice the funny look Henry gave her as she toggled through the different displays, bringing up a map of his location. A shining cursor marked with an “X” glowed and flashed where Logan was, in the center of the city block. A second light flickered onscreen beside Logan’s indicator, and gave Ororo pause. “What’s that?”

“You mean who’s that,” he corrected her, but his eyes narrowed as he entered in different commands. “Active mutants, unarchived, unmatched. Salem Center. Fifth Avenue and Smartship Way.” He punched enter.

“Goddess!”

“Oh, my stars and garters,” he agreed, and he felt the Twinkies he’d blithely consumed form a knotted stone in his gut. The screen spewed data detailing the new mutant’s biorhythms, along with a schematic of cybernetic implants whose technology looked eerily familiar.

His body was infused with adamantium. Not the efficient endoskeleton of their feral teammate. Cerebro detected the nannites and delicate, yet deadly cybernetic implants that replaced and enhanced its organs and nervous system. The capabilities of the implants practically made Logan’s inner armor obsolete.

“Wake Kitty. I’ll start the Blackbird.” Henry’s coffee mug sat abandoned on the console as Henry powered it off. Ororo’s robe was already flapping out behind her as she hurried out of the suite. Her heart was pounding in her ears, and icy fingers seemed to cut off her breath.

I’m coming, Logan.


~0~

Alberta, Canada; safehouse:

Erik hated making house calls without calling ahead first, but there was no help for it.

Their host would not likely welcome him and his companion with open arms. Firearms, perhaps. But that would prove futile. He chuckled as he reached out and used his magnetic field like pincers, working the screws to the heavy steel door out from the bolts. He flung the door away as though it weighed nothing, reveling in the flush of power coursing through his veins. Lorna stood behind him, nonplussed and shaking her head, making her green locks swing sway with the motion.

“Nice. More destruction. Who was this guy again?”

“He isn’t very nice.”

“So why’re we here again?”

“I need some information that will help us.”

“Help us do what?”

“Save our race.”

“Maybe I’m wrong on this one, but I don’t think he’s gonna feel like helping us if we tear his little hovel apart. He might actually like his hovel, didja ever think about that?” Lorna reached into her coat pocket and fished out a limp, depleted pack of gum. She popped two Trident sticks into her mouth and started cracking away. Erik sighed wearily and beckoned for her to follow.

“We really need to work on your manners, young lady.”

“So says the guy who blew off the door instead of just knocking.”

“For us, that was a knock, Lorna.” He wrinkled his nose at the faint stench of stale food and mold that permeated the foyer, before they even reached the living quarters or the laboratory that Erik knew lay beneath the complex. He cocked his ears and scanned the corridor with impatient eyes. The security cameras didn’t appear to be armed. There was no beam to be broken across the floor with their footfalls. No claxons.

Windsor was going soft in his old age, he marveled, if he hadn’t punched the panic button by now. Erik’s heart hadn’t grown any fonder with years of absence from the shrewd physicist and genegineer.

“Doesn’t look like anyone’s here,” Lorna sniffed.

“Don’t trust what you see.” She didn’t pull away when he reached for her hand and tucked it into his, drawing her protectively behind him. The gesture made her feel slightly better, but didn’t erase the unease rippling down her spine.

This place felt wrong. Unholy. She shivered as they headed past a tiny kitchenette.

The dishes were unwashed; flies hovered over the sink and the tang of rotting garbage made Lorna taste bile. She chewed her gum more furiously and was gently rebuffed when she offered Erik a piece. Her grunt of nauseated disgust landed on deaf ears as he sought out the elevator shaft to the sublevel.

The old passcode still worked. Erik’s near photographic memory hadn’t failed him after all this time. Lorna followed him meekly inside the car and felt her stomach dip as the doors slid shut with a slight squeal. It hummed to life and descended. The buttons on the pad still light themselves faintly as they descended three floors. From the outside, the safehouse looked deceptively tiny, Lorna realized.

They reached the floor they needed, and Erik stepped out first, still gripping Lorna’s hand snugly. The tails of his long coat swept gracefully behind him with a faint ripple as he took brisk steps toward the laboratory. Windsor practically lived there, surfacing only to attend to the necessities. The kitchenette was proof that he’d been immersed in work.

“I still don’t think he’s he-“

“Shush!” he whispered on a rasp, and Lorna’s mouth clapped shut. She jutted her chin impatiently while Erik keyed in another passcode on a worn, cracked button pad.

The stench that greeted him this time was chillingly familiar, one he hoped never to know again while he still drew breath. Lorna choked behind him and gasped in shock.

“Oh, my God…Erik, what is that? Can’t…stand it!” She doubled back into the hall, wresting her fingers from his grip and staggering into the hallway to cast up her accounts. He winced, but continued on, knowing she was better off not seeing the source of the miasma assailing their senses.

“My dear Robert,” he intoned carefully, slowly allowing the syllables to roll out of his mouth, “you haven’t changed a bit.” The corpse’s face was twisted in a mockery of a smile, the eyes sunken and gazing soullessly toward the ceiling. Erik still felt as though they were following him as he moved about the lab, not touching anything. He expanded his awareness of the metals in the suite, cataloguing any mineral-based substance Dr. Windsor had handled recently. There was a residue of gunpowder, almost redundant while the doctor’s hands still grasped the Colt .45 he’d used to shoot himself in the temple. His body was emaciated; Erik guessed he’d been slumped in his chair for roughly a week.

The console of his PC was powered off, dust collecting on the keys. The suite never saw sunlight, and the dust motes danced in the light of the full-spectrum bulb once Erik turned on the work lamp over the desk. Erik’s eyes grew accustomed to his dim surroundings, and a small, cream-colored rectangle laying in Dr. Windsor’s lap caught his eye.

His blood ran cold when he saw that the heavy stationery bore his own name on it, in the doctor’s familiar scrawl. He tore open the envelope and cursed his shaking hands.

I hope you enjoy the fruits of your own labors. Say goodbye to all that you know, and to all whom you hold dear, Lensherr.

Never wound what you can’t kill.

Erik’s attention was diverted briefly to the faint sobs drifting inside from the hallway. “It’s all right, child. Don’t come in. I need a few moments more.” He heard her collecting herself and the faint crunch of more gum being unwrapped and hastily chewed.

He turned on the PC, callously kicking the doctor’s wheeled chair aside, heedless of his body slumping further over the arm. More thick, coagulated blood stained the floor nearly black and left a grisly trail as Erik began typing in passwords and commands. Windsor was meticulous, and he was a creature of habit. No one was meant to see these sealed files after the Project disbanded. He’d assumed a different name, left his family, and was relocated to a safehouse with tighter security than the White House.

He was arrogant enough to have never changed the passwords. Erik shook his head and chuckled gamely, scanning the data and toggling through each frame with the arrow keys.

He downloaded what he needed onto a tiny flash drive from the file quaintly named “Precious Metal” that was stored in the Weapon X folder.

He and Robert had once joked about that filename over the water cooler.

“Good times; good times,” he murmured. He turned off the PC and turned to Windsor, silently saluting him with a gloved hand.

“Say hello to the next stage in evolution, Robert. Pity you couldn’t meet my daughter. She’s quite charming.” Despite the macabre scene that greeted him, Erik exited the suite whistling a jaunty tune, more for Lorna’s benefit than his own.

She was still shaken and pale, sitting with her back to the wall and her arms wrapped around her knees. She scrambled to her feet, babbling so quickly he couldn’t make out what she was trying to say.

“D-dead, and he’s just dead, blood, sogrossohmyGodwhydidyoubringmehereErikWHY? WHY! Please, please, please, let me out! LET ME OUT!” She was tugging on his lapels and hanging on him; her fingernails dug into his arms, making him grateful for the dense wool of his coat. Her eyes were bloodshot and glistening with tears, and it tore at him that she had to witness such horror at her tender age. He shrugged it off.

At her age, he’d survived worse during the course of war. As would she.

His words were low and soothing as he indulged her with a hug, something he hadn’t given anyone in longer than he could remember. He supported her as she walked on jelly legs toward the elevator and promised her fresh air and to never return to this place again.

He had what he needed.


~0~

Forge was roused from a sound sleep by the jangle of his cellular phone; he cursed himself for keeping it in his jacket pocket clear across the room, hanging over the upholstered chair in the corner of the tiny bedroom. He missed Aerie and its various comforts, particularly the Jacuzzi tub in his bedroom, but he was grateful that the Pentagon was footing the bill for his stay in the rented penthouse.

He wondered if Ororo was thinking about him. The faint scent of her perfume lingered on is clothing when she’d kissed him goodnight; the tactile memory of her fingertips caressing his cheek still remained, as well as how it felt to tighten his arms around her slender waist. Her cheeks were flushed when she broke away, pleading paperwork and a ruthless class schedule the next morning. Forge was left with the sight of her retreating back, the sway of her hips, that magnificent hair floating on an errant breeze, and a relentless hard-on. She was a merciless woman…

“They’d better be calling me to let me know I won the mega lottery. Great big check, balloons, and Ed McMahon at my front door,” he muttered in the dark, fumbling for his prosthetic. His leg occasionally throbbed with phantom pains that woke him at night, exploding artillery shells still ringing in his ears. The dreams wouldn’t leave him.

They tried to break him. They succeeded in making him rebuild himself better than before. His calling was clear for the first time in his adult life: Improving the lives of mutants and people who couldn’t easily live in society, by its usual rules and norms, one invention at a time.

He eased himself into his prosthetic limb, waiting for the interface to his nervous system to go online. He sighed in relief as the unit’s biofeedback stimulator soothed away the pain and made the muscle relax. Forge no longer relied on prescription pain control again after discovering that he had only to stimulate the correct nerves to release the correct endorphins and urge it to heal itself.

He strode across the room and dug inside his jacket for his mobile, snapping it open impatiently. “Forge,” he barked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, wondering who had the gall to ““

“Gyrich here. Hope I didn’t wake you.” He didn’t sound sorry. Forge stiffened and shook off the remaining stupor drawing him back to his warm sheets.

“What could you possibly have to tell me that won’t wait?”

“When you work for Uncle Sam, you’re on call 24-7.”

“I’m a contractor,” Forge reminded him dryly. “The National Security Council only has me on loan now. Being on the payroll doesn’t mean I’m on the clock.” He yawned gustily, listening to his joints settle and crack as he stretched. “I’m not taking my work home with me this time.”

“No rest for the wicked.” As usual, Gyrich’s voice lacked sympathy and humor. “When can we expect you to have finished your current project?”

“In roughly a week.” They didn’t need to know that he’d already finished the upgrades that he’d promised Hank; his emails to Gyrich’s office documented his reason for leaving Dallas as a “personal sabbatical and independent contract” in Westchester. “Has your staff gone over the files for the prototypes I created for you?”

“We’ve reviewed the blueprints. Nice work, by the way.”

“Well, shucks, Pete, you’re making me blush. Flattering this humble boy off the ranch!”

“We’ll let you know when we’ve finished the testing for those new implants. Homeland Security’s anxious to give it the greenlight.”

“You mean the FDA,” Forge drawled.

“Excuse me?”

“The FDA. We’re waiting on an approval for clinical trials to begin for their use as ‘smart prosthetics,” he pointed out. “Washington owes its veterans the best that they can give. And this is one of the best things we can give them.” He drummed his cybernetic fingers impatiently on the side table as he sat back in the chair. Henry Peter Gyrich was at the top of Forge’s shit list.

“The technology’s versatile. And Uncle Sam funded it. He can use it for whatever he wants. Give us a call when you get back to Dallas.” He rang off with no further salutation. Forge grumbled and slapped the phone shut, tossing it onto the side table. He returned to bed, but sleep eluded him.





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