The damned thing just kept getting up every time Logan knocked it down. Stubborn sonofagun. Various wounds staggered him, but he focused his energy on the creature who didn’t understand the meaning of the words “Not in this lifetime, bub!” Those damned eyes, black as obsidian and devoid of all human feeling flashed at him again, and Logan wondered what else he planned to throw at him.
His enhanced hearing caught the familiar but faint whoosh of exhaust; the Blackbird was cloaked, and landing nearby. The biggest and most stable building in the vicinity was the penthouse at Four Freedoms Plaza; no other tenement could withstand a landing by an SR-71 on its roof.
Storm was gonna be pissed. Staying out past the school’s so-called “curfew” was infraction enough. Destruction of public property? Kiss his adamantium-plated ass bye-bye.
The creature paused in its scan of Logan’s physiological damage. The mutant offender was still operating at 87% efficiency, and regaining physical cohesion and function between attacks by this defensive capture unit. Re-analyzing data. Adamantium fortifying 100.0% of bone mass. Healing abilities active. Tissue regeneration active. Scanning. Scanning…Resolution reached.
The target wasn’t immune to flame.
Logan charged him again, this time feinting to throw his opponent off-balance, even if it was just to borrow more time until the cavalry came to save the day. It was like fighting himself. Each kick, every jab of his fist, each slice of his claws was met with counter maneuvers that made him look like he was shadow-boxing in the middle of Harry’s. Overturned tables with splintered chairs littered the main lounge, running Logan’s tab into quadruple digits.
Damn thing didn’t even look winded.
“Stand down, Mutant 1010-616. Termination imminent.”
“Not while I’m still standin’, bub.” He knew he was asking for the mother of all migraines in the morning.
He grabbed the creature by the lapels of its shirt, still barely intact, and rammed his forehead directly into its nose. There was something to be said about adamantium.
It made one heck of a nice dent.
“SQQQWWAARRRRRRRKKK!”
“That’ll shut yer lyin’ mouth!” Logan grimaced, gritting his teeth as the thing staggered back.
He spoke too soon. Turned out Smiley didn’t come alone to the party.
“Regroup. Revise resolution. Termination imminent,” intoned a different voice, no less chilling for the fact that it was female. “Stand down, Mutant 1010-616.” He spun, claws poised to do some damage, and stared into the equally soulless eyes of…
…the same brunette who’d given him the eye while he was finishing his last beer.
“Sorry, Jail Bait, ya ain’t my type,” he sneered. She had just as many bells and whistles as Romeo, as she opened her mouth and emitted an ear-splitting sonar that left him hunched and screaming on the pavement. His nose bled from the onslaught of the vibrations that cut a fiery swath over his nerve endings and impaired his balance. Her lips twisted in a cruel mockery of a smile.
That was how Ororo, Henry and Kitty found him.
“Wolvie!” Kitty cried, air-walking, or air-sprinting toward him as fast as she could reach him. She grimaced in pain as she was caught in the waves of sonar, but managed her cellular cohesion enough to continue phasing, and she swiftly wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled them both underground.
He was still trembling and fighting not to tear his ears from their buds to stop the infernal ringing. “Damn,” he rasped miserably. “Hurts…like the dickens.” She’d phased them into a sewer tunnel, and they rested on a ledge, avoiding the smelly, fetid water. Kitty wrinkled her nose.
“Sorry. Best I could do.”
“Ain’t complainin’, Half-Pint. Doubt they’ll follow us down-“
THOOOOOOOOOMMM! Kitty covered his body with hers, making Logan curse at her foolishness, even though she’d phased them safely, letting the rubble and broken concrete pass harmlessly through them. Absurdly spike-heeled boots splashed down into the water as Logan’s erstwhile admirer leapt down through the hole she’d created in the roof of the tunnel.
“Mutant 1010-119. Ident nomenclature Pryde, Katherine. Status, active. Action: Terminate.”
“It’s called a codename, skank! Tell the whole world, why dontcha? My name’s Shadowcat! Don’t wear it out!” The creature grinned at Kitty, having a better sense of humor than her boyfriend overhead. She lunged at Kitty, not shy about going head to head, or hand to hand. Kitty stood fast while Logan caught his bearings. She feinted and ducked; Logan wanted to protest. Kitty was getting sloppy, relying too much on her phasing skills. She could selectively make her limbs solid to enable contact during combat, and she wasn’t shy about it. Logan heard the clang against the creature’s body, somewhere in her back as Kitty’s foot connected with her. He wondered how much of her was synthetic. And deadly.
He was eerily reminded of Deathstrike.
The creature reached for Kitty, who easily evaded her grab, but she saw a tiny vent open itself in her wrist, too late. A greenish nerve gas hissed out, quickly filling the narrow tunnel. Kitty didn’t assess the risk quickly enough to react. Her phased state didn’t protect her as the molecules of the nerve gas worked their way into her lungs. She had the immediate reaction of vomiting, breaking her concentration long enough for the creature to get the drop on her.
She was lifted up by the neck.
“NO!” Adrenaline pumped in his veins as he caught the horror glazing her eyes, her face clammy and pale from the creature’s unbreakable grip. He’d just have to break it for her.
His claws flew clean and true, slicing off the offending limb. Kitty tumbled into his arms as the creature turned and stared at the gaping wound. Blood mingled with microfilament circuitry oozed from her rotator cuff, and her eyes swung on them with something resembling shock. His healing factor would help him to recover, even though he already felt the gas stinging his corneas and burning his nasal passages. He had to get Pryde out of there.
“Initiating self-repair. Correction. Resolution evaluated; resolution in 2.09 seconds,” announced the creature. The severed limb remained inert, but the exposed wires began to realign themselves into an orderly mesh, effectively cauterizing the injury shut.
“Logan,” Kitty whispered hoarsely.
“I’ll get us outta here! STORM!” he bellowed.
“Hafta…phase…”
“Ya can barely talk,” he barked. “STOOOOOORRM!” Almost on cue, howling winds swept through the tunnel, heralding Ororo’s entry through the hole. Bits of rubble flew up and swirled around in a mini-cyclone.
“RO! The GAS! Ya can’t breathe this shit, darlin’! Get Shadowcat outta here! NOW!”
“Mutant 1010-025. Ident nomenclature Storm. Status, active. Class Four. Action: Terminate.” Ororo’s eyes flashed white as she cocked her head.
“I think not,” she assured her. A ball of lightning leapt from her hand and struck the creature dead-center in her chest, burning away her clothing.
“SQWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRK!”
“Take her, Storm!”
“What happened?”
“Take her the fuck outta here!” She gave him a look that promised a long-winded interrogation and several lashes with a wet noodle when they were back beneath the school’s roof. She cradled Kitty in her arms, alarmed at her pallor and how limp she felt, and she flew back up to the street in a rush of wind. Thunder rolled in the distance, and a steady, pelting rain materialized from nowhere. Kitty found the sight of Ororo’s glowing eyes and fearsome glare somehow comforting, despite the pain that wracked her body and seized her chest, squeezing her lungs within an iron grip. The rain felt cool against her cheeks and served the dual purpose of cleansing away the residue of the gas, but she wasn’t out of danger yet.
Hank was holding his own against the first creature, leading him on a merry chase as he leapt out of range of its various weapons. Cords of springy muscle coiled and sprung as Henry darted and feinted, narrowly avoiding a strangle web like the one Logan struggled to escape only minutes earlier. He was strong, but not bulletproof, and he didn’t want to risk getting close enough to see if his strength was enough to do it any real damage.
“Where’s Wolverine?”
“Down in the tunnel,” Ororo replied. “Is the scrambler ready?”
“Right here,” he assured her, tugging it loose from the belt pouch of his uniform. Ororo had ordered Henry a new combat suit in the customary black leather, cut generously for his tall, solid build. He still preferred to forgo the boots, since even a custom-designed pair left him feeling off-balance. So much of his dexterity was in his toes, allowing him an easy, graceful gait in spite of his enormous feet. He found shoes confining, and he was the only X-Man on the roster, he’d often joked, who wouldn’t die with his boots on.
The gleaming metallic strap felt lightweight in his massive hand, and he stroked it gently with his thumb as the creature sized him up. His ears perked up at the sounds of Logan’s claws and guttural cries of pain echoing up from the tunnel, and he knew there was no time for dithering.
He didn’t think, something that was taboo for one of the world’s most brilliant mutant minds. He just moved. He continued to lead the creature away from Storm, who was still attending to Kitty and stirring up spirals of wind that threatened to bloom into a full-blown tornado. He dodged small projectiles and darts and a beam of energy emitted from the creature’s eyes. His attacker’s expression was still cold and hard, but he was driven to follow the dictates of his programming. Henry bolted, lunging and leaping up and over the bumper of a large sedan, feeling the creature close in on him. On this third step, he backflipped cleanly and tucked, sticking a perfect landing right behind his pursuer.
He clapped the mnemonic scrambler over the thing’s forehead, startling it before he threw himself clear.
The cry the thing emitted was piercing and unholy in its suffering as its entire mainframe was disrupted, the connections to its nervous system being overwritten with commands to shut down.
Its scream was all too human. It would haunt Henry’s sleep.
It reeled and jerked, clasping its head between its hands. His face was an anguished grimace of disbelief, unable to fathom that it had been defeated by its prey. His body emitted stray bolts of glowing energy and fiery sparks, spasming and seizing as he finally tumbled to the ground.
The energy ebbed to a dull glow, and the creature lay nearly silent amidst the howling winds. Ororo was about to take Kitty back to the Blackbird when she heard a faint moan.
“Did we win?”
“Not if we don’t get you home, safe and sound, Kitten,” Ororo chided her. Her eyes welled with tears, even as she offered Kitty a shaky smile.
“Quit babying me,” she carped, “ and quit calling me that! Logan’s still down there, Storm, you can’t leave him down there alone with that thing!” She still struggled for breath.
“We need to get you back to the jet!”
“Wolvie needs me,” she insisted stubbornly. Ororo swore when Kitten phased from her arms and staggered forward toward Henry.
“SHADOWCAT! GODDESS, NO!”
Everything happened at once. A dull crack of crunching concrete and cables exploded up from the tunnel, and Logan was flung back up through the opening the second creature had created. His body was a gruesome jigsaw puzzle of torn flesh, his clothing in tatters, barely providing protection. He flew through the air as though he weighed nothing, a contradiction to his armor-plated bones and dense muscle tissue. He landed with a sickening slap. Blood oozed beneath him, creating a wide smear against the asphalt. Ororo’s heart stopped at the agony twisting his limbs and features, and rage bloomed in her belly.
The creature flew. Her body rose like an avenging angel through the gaping hole in the pavement, and she was quickly repairing her own systems, eyes gleaming red in the darkness, like a beacon. She hadn’t escaped the fury of Logan’s claws, giving Ororo a grim moment of satisfaction.
The lightning flowing out from Ororo’s fingertips was a rush. She spared the creature no quarter as it continued to advance forward to finish the job it began on the feral mutant; Ororo was having none of it. Blinding flashes of bluish-white light made her platinum hair whip around her face, uncharacteristically cruel and devoid of mercy.
If Logan died tonight, he would remember her this way, and that wasn’t what he wanted. ‘Ro wasn’t a killer, even if the creature only mimicked life as they knew it.
“Son…ofabitch,” he groaned from cracked lips as he struggled to rise, falling back when the throbbing in his head nearly blinded him, blurring his vision and making him weak. The nerve gas hadn’t worked its way out of his system, and his healing factor was still compensating for his loss of blood.
“Termination imminent,” the creature purred, driving forward with her hand raised to strike Logan again. Her body wavered and trembled, but still she maintained her balance. Ororo was straining at the raw energy she harnessed, barely holding the reins of her lightning without overloading her own body. Putting this storm to bed would not come without cost…
“You can’t have him,” she hissed.
“Beast?” Kitty beckoned to him hoarsely, as he knelt, rooted to the spot, witnessing Ororo’s fury. She stumbled over to his side, fear for Logan written on her face. He moved to drag Logan from harm’s way, but he was muttering curses and chanting something that sounded like “Not ‘Ro. Help her. Not like this. Don’t let her kill…” Kitty gingerly stroked Logan’s blood-drenched hair and suppressed a sob. Tears streaked the grime smudging her cheeks.
“Gotta help ‘Ro…”
“He’s in shock,” Henry roared over the din.
“It’s not working, Hank. We need the scrambler!”
“It won’t work; it needs another charge! We didn’t count on whatever that thing was having a partner. We need to take thing out some other way.”
“It’s not completely human,” Kitty shouted back. “Your scrambler disrupted its system,” she reasoned. He felt her slender hand gripping him with that strength she had left. “Henry, throw me at it!”
“Heavens, Shadowcat, have you taken leave of your senses?”
“Remember that happened last week when I accidentally phased through the burglar alarm on the front gate?” He stared at her, her plan and its implications dawning on him.
“Can you phase?” he asked gravely. She looked like death warmed over.
“We’ll find out in a minute.”
Henry only hesitated a moment. Ororo was keeping the creature busy.
Henry enveloped Kitty in his arms and bound forward; she phased him as he ran, still ducking Ororo’s stray blasts of lightning as they took out the front window of a consignment shop, spraying the street with shattered glass.
His muscles burned as he hoisted Kitty up onto his shoulder and gripped her hip with one hand, and her upper arm with the next. His aim had to be precise…
He flung her toward the creature, feeling the grab of her phasing power leaving him solid once more, and he sent up a silent, desperate prayer for his favorite student…
She flew through the creature, diving gracefully despite her weakened body. Years of dancing and gymnastics taught her how to move and how to fall without doing herself damage. She needed all of it now.
“SHADOWCAT!” Ororo screeched, stunned and outraged at the foolish sacrifice and hating herself for not stopping it. The lightning sizzled and ceased as she glided back to the ground.
The creature was lying on the ground beside Kitty, twitching and seizing and emitting sparks. Ororo nimbly sidestepped it and reached for Kitty with trembling hands.
“Kitten,” she whispered. “Bright Lady, help me!” She swept Kitty’s damp hair back from her face and peered down at her wan features and blue lips. Watery brown eyes met hers and filled with tears.
“*KAFF, KAARRRRGHHH!* You should…see the other guy,” she joked as Ororo scooped her up into her arms. Her grip was firm and strong as she turned to Henry.
“I have to prepare the jet,” she announced. “Rest,” she murmured to Kitty. On cue, her eyes drifted shut and she sighed into Ororo’s cloak. Her eyes glowed once more, and the storm around them died down to a dull murmur, the rain fading to a light shower. She wasn’t expecting Henry’s voice, speaking into a tiny mobile phone.
“Forge, we need you downtown. Over by Four Freedoms Plaza. You need to see this.” He kept nodding his head, scratching his furry head and kneading his neck. “There was a struggle. Logan was attacked. No, no. Ororo is all right. But again, there’s something you need to see.” He rang off the mobile and tucked it back into his belt pouch.
“Damn,” Logan groaned, his voice still a low gurgle. “Anybody…get the number of that truck?”
“Easy, man,” Henry admonished.
“Hurts,” he mumbled.
“I can imagine.”
“Feels like I went ten rounds with Mike Tyson and his lawnmower.”
“It’s just a scratch,” Henry humored him, but his thick, clawed fingers pressed gently into Logan’s neck, checking his pulse. It was steady, but his breathing was ragged. He watched in awe as the torn flesh around his scalp where it had been split began to slowly knit itself back together. “I’m taking you back to the Blackbird.”
“Don’t…strain yerself…Blue.” He grunted as he felt himself body shift, the change in position making him want to vomit. His head was still spinning, but in the back of his mind, he was impressed that Henry hefted him and carried him like a child back to bed. He fell in step alongside Ororo, whose strides were long and smooth despite her own burden.
“Ro,” Logan whispered. She paused long enough to peer down into his bruised face, his left eye swollen shut. Her gut clenched, and it was an act of will to cease the trembling of her chin. There was trust and relief for her radiating from his gaze. He was battered, but not broken.
“Rest,” she urged, repeating her injunction to Kitty. His fingers shook as he reached for her, and then his hand dropped limply as he passed out.
Not now, she scolded herself as she strapped Kitty onto a gurney in the Blackbird and bolted the harness in place, holding it immobile for takeoff. Oxygen hissed from the mask she slid over her charge’s face, the only sound in the jet’s cabin.
Henry’s voice was thoughtful. “Why did they come after Logan?”
“Why wouldn’t they?” Ororo sighed miserably. “Why not add one more reason for him to look over his shoulder? Charles wanted him to find shelter with us. To finally have some peace and some closure that he needs so badly, Henry. Someone took great pains to bend him to their will and to forge him into a weapon. The problem with weapons is often the person wielding it.”
“Someone didn’t learn from their mistakes. They were fortified with adamantium implants. From Cerebro’s readings they were mutants, and they were connected to a remote mainframe grid. We still don’t know where the signal came from.”
“So there could be more.”
“There could be many.”
“How will we trace the signal?”
“We ask the source. Get these two to the infirmary. Radio Piotr to meet you in the hangar. Forge and I will convene with you with our findings once I have the time to check the implants.” Henry sighed. “This’ll be a hell of a story to give to the coroner’s,” he muttered.
“There’s no help for it,” she replied as she continued to get Logan situated on the gurney, peeling off his ruined flannel shirt and fitting him with an oxygen mask. She fetched a thick blanket from the overhead compartment and tucked it around him tenderly. There was so much blood, even though the shallower cuts had already healed. The deeper wounds would need cleaning and careful observation throughout the night. Ororo was comforted by a low sigh that escaped Logan’s lips, and he seemed to lean into her touch as she stroked back his hair. “Put whatever spin on it that we need. The authorities will want to know as badly as we do where those implants came from, and who was responsible for damage to public property.”
“The X-Men might take the brunt of the blame.”
“They’ll live long enough to point the finger. We fight to give them that privilege, Henry.” She hugged him briefly, savoring his strength as she rubbed her cheek against his. His fur tickled her skin. She’d need to lean on him again before the night was over.
“I want that report.”
“See you at home.” He disembarked, and the ramp retracted, closing the hull as the engines screamed to life. He strode back to the man, or what was left of him, lying listlessly in the street. His eyes were blank, seeming to stare sightlessly up at the sky. Blood flowed freely from where wires and filaments interlaced through its tendons from the implants had torn free. Henry reached for his scrambler, meaning to remove it and to see how many of its components could be salvaged.
He nearly jumped out of his skin as the being’s hands spasmodically jerked to life. His wrist was captured within its grip, and its head flopped to the side as it stared him in the eye. Blood trickled from its mouth.
“10101010101010101010…” it squawked, struggling to hold Henry within its grip. Henry reached up with his free hand, already balled into a crushing fist to strike and put the thing out of its misery, but the thing’s next words stopped him cold. “H-help…me. Please…kill…meeeeeeee.” His body began to twitch, and the strange glow that lit his eyes dimmed and faded away as his pupils became visible, focusing on Henry’s face. “B-blue?” he murmured incredulously.
“One of my more charming traits, yes,” he replied with a huff. “Who sent you? Why did you go after Logan?”
“It…was the directive. The Project,” he moaned. His voice was raspy, but he wasn’t droning on in the eerie, mechanical mockery of a voice he’d used before. “Used us…to hunt down our own. P-prime. We were Prime. N-new an’ improved. Needed…soldiers. War…on mutants. NSC…”
“Who?”
“Nnnnghhh…council. Nassshnl…council. Urrrggh…” he grimaced, never releasing Henry, even though his grip weakened. Henry’s stomach rolled at the sight of human suffering, even for the being that did his level best to kill them.
“You let them use you. Twist you into this,” he accused.
“Help us. Said they’d help us,” he insisted, and a tear leaked down his gaunt, bloodless cheek. His pulse barely discernible, and Henry smelled the tang of death upon him; his flesh felt cold. “Fix me. Served my country. Wouldn’t…*KAAAARRGH!* wouldn’t let…mutants…serve with baselines. M-monster. Diff…different use for us. Protect. Humans.” His body trembled briefly. “Gyrich,” he rasped. Henry committed the name to memory. A moment later, the man gurgled one last, labored breath and expired. The faint, choppy hum emanating from his body finally drained away. He released Henry and his hand drooped to the ground, limp.
He had no sooner stood to recover his wits before he heard another, fainter moan from feminine lips. It pained him that he was more concerned about gathering more information than preserving what ember of life that yet remained in this second mutant, enhanced by technology that also controlled her and made her a puppet. A killer.
She was in worse shape. Kitty’s powers caused a massive shutdown of her components and their link to her organ’s systems. She was, quite literally, falling apart, filaments of the circuitry leaking out through her vessels and tendons, snaking out of her skull and mouth.
Henry respectfully removed his uniform’s jacket and laid it over her. A faint smile twisted her lips before she moaned in agony. She, too, no longer wore that eerie, robotic look of cruelty.
“M-more,” she whispered. “They made…more.”
“Who’s NSC?’ he inquired. Always believing in bedside manner, Henry reached for her hand, clasping it carefully within his palm.
“National Security Council,” she clarified for him, even though it took tremendous effort. “Gyrich,” she added, repeating the name the man had provided Henry with. “You want them…go…through him,” she advised. Her pulse was almost gone.
“Tell me something,” Henry murmured. “What’s your name, miss?”
“Took my name,” she choked. “N-not human. Not…anything. No…memmmmmmmmm…” Her head jerked and seized, and her hand flopped free from Henry’s in her final death rattle.
He would mourn her later, Henry promised himself, reaching down to close her eyes. He reached back into his belt pouch and produced his image inducer, a compact module meant for times like these. The sounds of ambulance sirens grew closer as he keyed in the physical specifications that he deemed suitable, and when the authorities arrived on the scene, he was a businessman in a Brooks Brothers suit, nearly identical to how he looked when he first graduated from the Institute. Forge arrived in a rented sedan and nearly ran past him in his zeal to get to the scene before it was roped off.
“Forge,” Henry rumbled. He whipped around to stare at him with disbelieving eyes, unsure of the source of Henry’s familiar baritone.
“Blue?” His eyes scanned the scene, and he spied the two bodies lying in the street with barely disguised horror and denial. It hadn’t been the first time he’d been confronted with the ugly reality of death on the battlefield and civilian casualties, but it didn’t get easier with repetition.
“Just making use of the upgrade you provided me with,” he explained simply, but his gaze was hard. “The best thing you can do for me right now, my friend, is explain two things.”
“Name them.”
“How the hell did your technology end up in these two mutants. And who in the name of heaven above is Gyrich.” Forge suddenly turned very, very pale and the palm of his remaining hand began to sweat.
He had a lot of explaining to do. None of it would help.
~0~
“Status,” Gyrich barked to the technician reading date from a roll of paper printing out from his console and punching in keystrokes at his monitor.
“Two units down. The mutant targets avoided capture and termination, sir.”
“Are the units salvageable?” One auburn brow rose above his transitional lenses.
“The implants are offline. No signal. The Prime units themselves aren’t responding.”
“I’ll take that as a no, then. How long til we release the next flank?”
“They’ve already been dispatched, sir.”
“Keep me posted, lieutenant,” he ordered crisply. He took his leave from the control booth and adjourned to the break room for a Danish.
He’d been waiting for this day ever since that bastard, Lensherr, popped back up on his radar after months of chasing his signature. He’d patched into Cerebro, technology wasted on that school of freaks, right under Forge’s nose. He scoffed at that cripple’s nerve…playing benefactor to that group of muties and offering them components paid by government funds. Granted, Forge was contributing his own labor and funds from his own firm, but he was still a government contractor. He didn’t sneeze without Gyrich and his people getting wind of it.
He sent a crew of “cleaners” on a recon to Windsor’s safehouse. The files were retrieved, and his fingerprints burned away with acid, his identification and other documents destroyed. Gyrich felt no qualms; they would have inevitably had to make Windsor disappear. He’d done them a favor. They torched the safehouse, setting off the pipe bombs and leaving no trace.
Gyrich sensed Lensherr had been there, even before his crew sent back the report that the files had been accessed and copied. They never found the letter Windsor left behind, but Gyrich still knew that the wily devil would show his face again when he was back in fighting form. Chickens come home to roost, he reasoned, biting into the flaky cream cheese-filled pastry.
~0~
“You should have brought me along, Ororo. Not Katya,” Piotr accused harshly. The tall Russian looked haggard, and his shoulders were bunched and knotted with tension as he sat vigil by Kitty’s bedside. His body was absurdly crammed into the rolling chair in the infirmary, and Kitty’s hand was dwarfed within his.
“I needed you here,” she replied, but she didn’t make any further effort to defend her choice.
“She’s not ready to be out in the field.”
“She’d be very angry to hear you say that. And I don’t think you really believe that, tovarisch,” she reminded him firmly. His lips tightened into a thin line. “She handled herself admirably. She factored in her ability to disrupt electrical systems when she phases herself through them.”
“Then how did this happen?”
“Nerve gas. The molecules dispersed so quickly that phasing didn’t help. She absorbed the vapors, and that broke her hold on her powers. It hit her hard.” He shuddered involuntarily and tightened his grip on Kitty’s hand, stroking her fingers tenderly. “She’ll pull through.”
“And then what? What if these things come back?”
“Now we know the risks. Henry created a scrambler that took down the other one and put him out of commission.”
“Him?” Piotr craned his neck around to stare at her as she moved about the suite. Ororo was still clad in her battle leathers, and blood stained her rubber gloves as she toiled over Logan and saw to his comfort. He lay bandaged and cleaned up, and she hooked him up to the monitors in Henry’s absence, knowing he would examine him once he returned. “You said it was a robot of some kind.”
“He was a mutant. Someone programmed him to hunt and kill his own kind; Henry believes that they were finishing their previous attempts to do the same to Logan before we ever found him.”
“Boszhe moi,” he breathed, scrubbing his face with his palm. “It never ends.”
“Charles warned us that that it might never end, my friend.”
“The cost is too great.” His voice cracked slightly, and he struggled to master his emotions. “She’s so young, Ororo. Katya’s life is just beginning. She deserves better than this.” Piotr was no stranger to loss. He’d lost his older brother in a freak accident while he was working to repair a satellite on a lunar mining expedition. He’s spent years helping his parents to eke out a living when Mikhail departed, only to lose his father as well to a heart attack. His mother was killed a month later in a random traffic accident when she’d gone to market; he thanked God that his baby sister, Illyana, had been staying with one of his aunts.
He wanted a better life for her. A safer world for mutants. He didn’t know what the future held for Illyana, or for Katya, if they didn’t continue to fight for Charles’ dream.
Kitty’s eyes flickered open and her chest expanded quickly, making her choke with the precious gulps of oxygen. She coughed weakly, and Piotr soothed her, hurrying to adjust her mask and adjust her bed. He propped her more comfortably and smoothed her hair that was spread out over the pillow.
“Hi,” she whispered.
“Hi, yourself,” he murmured back, and his soft blue eyes swam with relief and a sheen of tears. “Don’t scare me like that again, Katya.”
“Someone’s…gotta keep you on your toes, big guy,” she assured him, and the wink she gave him was almost saucy.
“Brat.” Ororo reached out and tweaked her bare toe from where it stuck out from the covers before she smoothed out Kitty’s blankets.
“Logan,” Kitty muttered, and her eyes flitted around the infirmary.
“He’s here,” Ororo assured her. “He’s resting.” Kitty fell back against the pillows and relaxed.
“You look tired,” Kitty remarked, even though her own eyes were drowsy, and Piotr looked knackered and stressed.
“I’ll manage,” she replied, even though she wanted nothing more than to have some time alone to care for her other patient. He still hadn’t woke up. She couldn’t rest until she heard his voice, and he opened those intense eyes.
You can’t have him. Her own words echoed in her mind. She’d been ready to kill, if she had to.
Again.
His voice stirred her from memories of blood staining her hands, of a dirty switchblade falling from trembling fingers into the dust.
“What…the flamin’…?”
“Logan,” she cried, and she rushed to his bedside, checking his vitals and crooning over him as his eyes slowly adjusted himself to the dim light and his surroundings.
“Ow,” he complained, wincing and grunting over various discomforts. He poked impatiently at an IV in the crease of his elbow. “Got me trussed up like a friggin’ turkey.” His hazel eyes settled on her face, and he let them drift over every inch, grateful she was standing over him, and that she wasn’t the one on the cot. There were smudges beneath her eyes from a lack of sleep. One glance at the wall clock told him it was shortly after dawn.
“Welcome back.”
“Some flamin’ welcome,” he nagged. Then he scowled. “Where’s Punkin’?”
“Here,” she called weakly to him. It hurt when he tried to crane his neck toward her voice, and Piotr crossed the suite to lean over him.
“I will take care of Katya.”
“She took good care of me,” he huffed. “Don’t mean I want her ta get ‘tween me an’ one of those fucking things again, mind you. Ya hear that, Kitty? Yer on timeout!” Ororo suppressed a giggle when Kitty stuck out her tongue at him.
“I saw that,” he growled, even though he hadn’t looked back over at her cot. “How long’ve I been out?”
“We made it home five hours ago. Henry’s not back yet. We can convene and go over his report once the children have returned to class.” She turned from him and went to the small refrigerator in the corner. His eyes followed the long, graceful line of her back and her slender legs striding along in those snug leather pants and boots. Her hair was loose and mussed, and she shucked her rubber gloves, chucking them into the disposal bin as she rinsed her hands in the sink. He heard the faint snap of the refrigerator door opening as she removed a can of soda; she popped it open and lifted it to his lips, letting them close around the straw she’d poked inside. He sucked in the needed moisture and groaned with relief. His throat was parched, and his mouth tasted like cotton.
Piotr tucked another blanket around Kitty and urged her to go back to sleep; her eyes wouldn’t stay open another minute, and he left the suite on silent feet after kissing her temple.
“Damn,” Logan muttered. “Bet he’s pissed.”
“Once Kitty has a clean bill of health, I know he’ll be ready to let me have it,” she shrugged.
“Can’t say I blame him,” he mumbled, and turned away from her when she attempted to give him more of his drink. She sighed and set it down on the bedside table. She busied herself with small tasks, filling a small tub with warm water and fetching several cotton washcloths. She set the tub on the table and wet a cloth, wringing it out and using it to sponge blood and grit from his thick hair. She gently pulled out bits of debris, and her fingers felt soothing against his scalp.
“Ya don’t hafta play Florence Nightingale.”
“Henry carried you onto the Blackbird. Humor me.” She cleansed more grit from his hands, and the warm rag refreshed him with her careful swipes and gentle caress. He fumbled beneath the covers, stretching his legs to get more comfortable. It struck him then that he was missing his shirt and jeans; the sheets felt cool against his skin. He still wore his boxers and socks.
She looked wan and was still ethereally beautiful, despite being disheveled. She’d removed her cloak and laid it over another wheeled chair, and her uniform was slightly unzipped, its weight stifling and binding until she could shower and change. The creamy caramel swells of her breasts burgeoned from their nest, her skin and platinum hair glowing under the dim lights. Her eyes were liquid sapphires, and full of worry.
“How’d ya know where ta find me?”
“Cerebro. Henry was up late, scanning for that mutant signature we found while you were gone. Instead, he found the one attacking you at Harry’s, and determined that the adamantium components in its body were similar to yours.”
“Shit. That’s why the damned thing was so hard ta take down.”
“Henry came up with a temporary solution. He and Forge worked on a mnemonic scrambler. It disrupted the creatures’ communication with whatever was sending it signals to attack us. It also broke down their neurological control of their own bodies, including how to use their mutant abilities. All of their physical functions ceased at once.”
“Why did that other one go kaput when Kitty phased through it?”
“Her powers work along the same principle. She can interrupt electrical signals.”
“Way ta go, Half-Pint,” he smirked. Her touch was addictive. The swelling around his eye had abated, even though the flesh was still bruised. He still reminded her of a prize fighter after ten rounds. She swabbed at a patch of dried blood matting a wisp of hair to his ear. It tickled, and the faint sensation rippled through his stomach.
She sensed his body’s reaction to the caress, and she withdrew her hands. The washcloth was chucked back into the tub, and she moved to empty it back into the sink.
He moved faster than she did, capturing her wrist in his grip. Her eyes followed the long line of his arm, traveling over his bare, tanned skin and its fine layer of dark hair, up along the crest of his shoulder, molded in lean muscle. Over his collarbones, and the cords of his thick neck. His fine chin and stubbled jaw. She couldn’t stop her eyes from drinking in the sight of that perfectly chiseled mouth with that sinful, tempting notch in his upper lip, or the long straight nose.
His eyes pinned her.
“Don’t go.”
“You need rest,” she reminded him feebly.
“Fuck rest,” he muttered. The tub landed back against the table with a faint splash. Her eyes dilated, and he felt the pulse in her wrist skip. He still felt weak as a kitten, but that still made him stronger than most people who survived what he had that night. He grunted under his breath as he tugged Ororo down to him, practically yanking her over the edge of the bedrail. She lost her balance and fell over him with a faint yelp. Long, calloused fingers threaded themselves into her hair as he leaned up to kiss that tempting mouth.
“Mmmmmmph!” The shock of his lips moving beneath hers, sliding over them and coaxing her to open for him stole her breath and dashed her composure to bits. She tried to regain her balance, but he held her snared against him, and with each struggle, her hands grazed his bare skin and sculpted muscle. Her fingertips didn’t listen to her, exploring the pulse in his throat and the line of his jaw as he tasted her.
This, he decided, was how he would have wanted to remember ‘Ro if it had been his last night on earth.
His kiss was hungry and insistent, just daring her to leave, and she answered the siren call of his lips, and the rasp of his velvety tongue wrapping around hers. She made sounds of protest, but they were muffled by the painstaking nibble of her lower lip between his teeth. His blunt fingertip traced a figure-eight over the crest of her cleavage, testing her softness, and she moaned at her body’s betrayal. Her nipples puckered and strained beneath her leathers, and her scent changed, to Logan’s delight, from one of overwhelming worry to that of arousal, undeniable and hot.
He squirmed in discomfort when she collapsed against his bad arm, still connected to the IV. The needle and the tape holding it still tugged painfully beneath her weight, and she scrambled off of him, thanking any goddess listening for a chance to compose herself and end the madness before things escalated…
Forge. He’s coming to brief me later today.
Her lips were still swollen, and she couldn’t stop herself before her tongue darted out to lick up the last taste of him. “Rest,” she ordered sternly before she reached again for the tub and darting away from his reach. She dumped its contents into the sink and discarded the cloths.
“Ro?” His voice stalled just before she could leave the suite. “Just one thing.”
“What might that be, Logan?”
“I ain’t ready ta leave the table yet. And I ain’t finished.” His eyes were hot, and she felt butterflies take flight in her stomach. The door swung shut after her with a click.
Logan sighed and fell back against the pillows, toying with his IV. He suppressed a bellow of pain as he tore back the adhesive strips, scowling at the angry red streaks they left behind. He eased the needle from his vein and flexed his arm, relieved when the tiny prick healed itself shut and proper blood flow was restored to his limb.
His eyes landed on the long black cloak lying across the chair, mere inches away from his bed. He lowered the bedrail and reached for it, enjoying its slippery heft as it slithered over the rail, tugging it over his lap. He buried his nose in its folds.
It still smelled like her. He extinguished the bedside lamp and burrowed under the cloak, wrapping himself in the memory of her kiss.
You can’t have him.
He definitely wasn’t finished.
~0~
Work equaled freedom. That empty promise kept Erik searching through the rubble every day. He stared into hollow eyes of men he’d known scant weeks. They’d held out hope, day after day, that their captors would keep their promise.
The metal called to him. His wasted fingers searched through pockets, finding minute treasures and keepsakes, laying them out in a collection tray.
He thought he could stop at serving on the Sommerkommando, helping the men who slaughtered his own family bury more of his kinsmen whom they’d felled. He wouldn’t sink further into madness. He would die before desecrating another man, woman or child’s body for the sake of stealing what bits of metal he could glean for a cause that wasn’t his.
The metal hummed, its buzz stirring him from his task of undressing the bodies, preparing them for cremation. He sensed the minute trace of gold, this time.
Threadlike filaments twined their way out from the cavity of the withered woman’s molar at Erik’s silent command, joining the other cursed fruits of his labor. Her eyes seemed to beseech him: Why? He reached down to gently close them and sent up a silent prayer.
He was nudged sharply by the stock of a bayonet. He didn’t meet his eyes, hooded and dark beneath his helmet as he was ordered in clipped tones to finish his forage. This one was special, the lieutenant reminded himself.
That was why he was still alive. He mistook Erik’s obedient silence and slumped posture for submission.
He’d underestimated a man who would eventually, literally, move mountains. He’d be among the last to ever make that mistake again.
Erik resumed his task. The metal whispered to him again, this time from an elderly man who reminded him sorely of his father, that last night on the prison train. He reverently slid the gold wedding ring from the withered finger and laid it on the tray.
Erik awoke with a start, a cold rash of sweat pricking his skin.
His eyes scanned his surroundings, following the sound of slumberous breathing to its source.
Lorna was curled up in her cot, thick blankets pulled over her head, barely covering her hair. Moonlight shone inside through the window in sharp slivers, illuminating her face. She reminded him so much of Magda. Her mannerisms, features, physical build, and those inquisitive eyes tugged at him. He wanted to question her endlessly and quench his thirst for her past, and the childhood he’s missed witnessing for so long. When did she lose her first tooth? When did she learn to ride a bicycle? He had no milestones to savor of Lorna. No photographs or keepsakes. No lock of hair, no hospital birth certificate, no framed baby footprints.
He rose and stretched, grunting at the discomfort it caused. His knees complained of rheumy joints and rebelled when he tried to straighten them and take a brief stroll to clear his thoughts.
There was a strong breeze rippling through the branches overhead, making them sway in a nocturnal dance. A flock of swallows chattered and took wing. The air smelled crisp, and he craved a cup of cocoa to warm his chilled hands.
Something felt wrong.
He heard footsteps crunching over dried leaves. He felt the call of metal, muted, as though it were embedded within something. The presence was familiar.
Wolverine. It felt like the Wolverine. He gestured and levitated the discarded lantern from behind their shelter and lit it with a bit of kindling leftover from the burned out embers of their campfire.
His eyes flitted into the brush. No one. He turned slowly, silently, barely drawing breath.
“Halt, Mutant 1010-952. Identification designate: Lensherr, Erik. Magneto. Status: Active. Class Five. Hostile mutate.” Glowing eyes illuminated a face devoid of compassion. “Termination imminent.”
“LORNA!” Before the creature could make a move, Erik harnessed his energy, synching himself with the metal implants he sensed within it.
He was right; it was adamantium.
“Let’s see what you’re made of, my fine friend,” he sneered, and with a thought, Erik tugged, and the creature flew forward toward him with a jerk. It had the temerity to look surprised.
“Halt, mutant! Cease your hostile actions!”
“Oh, I think not. I don’t appreciate unannounced guests.” Erik strained, the effort twisting his features as he lifted the creature off its feet, hovering mere inches off the ground. His struggles were for naught, however, since he couldn’t immobilize his limbs.
This was a different breed of soldier, Erik marveled, right before the creature aimed his palm in his direction and fired a projectile that hit him squarely in the chest.
It was a sedative dart. Dense plastic. He felt his legs wobble and collapse beneath him, and he dropped his attacker. The woods around him spun in a visual assault as he haggardly cried Lorna’s name.
She came running up behind him on light footsteps. “Erik! Oh, my God! Are you okay?”
“Unidentified mutant. Status, active. Processing. Processing,” droned the creature, and Lorna’s skin crawled at the mention of “mutant.” She bristled; Erik’s previous lectures that humanity wanted the destruction of those like them, who wielded powers they never asked for, suddenly rang true. She wrapped Erik protectively against her, cradling his silver-topped head.
“Process this,” she snapped, and with a quick wipe of her hand, she sent it careening away, like swatting a fly. She was rewarded by the sounds of its body slapping the branches, the sounds gradually dying away as she peered down into Erik’s face.
He looked gray around the mouth, his eyes watery and pleading with her.
“I…knew we would get along…splendidly,” he rasped, covering her hand with his limp one. “Take us from here,” he added.
“Where?” Her eyes reflected her uncertainty, but she wouldn’t question him any further. He was her savior. She had no one else.
“Up,” he replied simply, and they clasped hands more tightly. She hugged him to her, wrapping her arms as snugly around his torso as she could reach, and their shared field of energy buoyed them up. She followed his urging to head south, following the edge of the treeline toward the highway. Erik fingered the flash drive that created an awkward feeling lump in his pocket. That was the only thing of value that he possessed, aside from the young woman desperately fighting for his life. His heart swelled with pride.
Several kilometers away, the creature shook itself and rose, finishing its self-diagnostic and repairs.
The mainframe corrected its signal. The subject and the new mutant were headed south. Pursuit would be covert; offensive action was not necessary. Not yet.
The last remnants of human consciousness stirred inside the Prime Sentinel combat unit.
I’m not a monster.
~0~
Henry pored over the findings of his examination of the components they’d harvested from the Prime units; Ororo had the foresight to retrieve Henry in a staff vehicle, and Esme, one of the Stepford sisters, accompanied her. She created the illusion that the creatures were lying still on the ground, with chalk outlines being scrawled around their bodies. Forge and Hank used this diversion to extract the central processing unit, damaged but still salvageable from the base of the female Prime’s spinal cord.
Henry wanted to roar the injustice of it all to the sky. She’d been paraplegic. The implants that allowed her to fly also enabled her to walk. The perpetrators of this heinous manipulation lured her with the promise of a life of restored mobility.
The ride back to the school had been quiet, save for the blare of contemporary music Esme had chosen from the available radio stations. Forge followed them in his rented sedan, and Ororo was fuming, her knuckles whitening around the steering wheel.
Ororo padded into the lab in a pair of sensible black suede flats. She was showered and styled, wearing a conservative pair of chocolate brown slacks and a white cashmere sweater with three-quarter length sleeves. Her eyes were still exhausted, despite the cup of coffee she’d swallowed without really tasting it. She announced her entry to Henry’s laboratory by setting his mug on the table. She sidled up to him and watched him with cautious eyes.
“I’m afraid to ask what you’ve found, Henry.”
“You should be,” he agreed, and he didn’t attempt to smile. “The components match. The processor feeds from a remote signal, carried by a network of nannites, which Kitty disrupted when she phased through the Prime unit. The implants work in sync with the host subject’s biorhythms. The nannites practically replace the host’s nervous system. In short, the nannites function for it in tandem with the programming, relayed by the signal from the mainframe.”
“English?”
“Smart aleck,” he groused around a gulp of coffee. “The implant is like a symbiont. It enhances the physical strength of its host in return for the nannites having an environment to keep its network connected to the signal and the mainframe. Since the hosts are mutants, most like with healing capabilities or physical endurance like our resident Wolverine…”
“…they can withstand being implanted with adamantium,” she murmured. Her stomach had dropped into her shoes, and she tugged helplessly at her hair, knotting it at her nape in a gesture that Henry knew meant she was at a complete loss.
“They’re using our own kind to destroy us,” he added unnecessarily. “They’re fighting us with our own medicine, before we could attack again and destroy another Golden Gate Bridge or threaten baseline humans with extinction and succession. We’re all Magnetos in waiting,” he railed, throwing up his hands in defeat. “The actions of a few,” he sighed. “I hate this.”
“I know, Henry.” Slender arms embraced him from behind, her hold on him protective and sympathetic. Like Logan had before, Henry took quiet comfort in her scent and warmth, but he harbored no lustful intentions toward his favorite weather witch.
It would be like making out with his sister…
“Ororo, you won’t like what I’m about to tell you. Forge is on his way, but this can’t wait.” She released him and sat beside him on a rolling stool, leaning her elbows over her knees.
“Out with it, Henry.”
“The processor unit and the circuitry match the components Forge installed in Cerebro when he upgraded the interface.” The blood drained from her face, and Henry barely thunked his coffee mug on the table before she collapsed to the floor. She landed on her knees, and her face was a mask of horror. She gasped convulsively and grasped him, clinging to him like a life preserver. She couldn’t pull breath into her lungs. A field of static danced across her vision, and painful tingles worked their way along her jaw as she began to hyperventilate. Henry bristled at the roll of thunder overhead as she hung on him, her nails digging into the sleeve of his labcoat.
“He’s doomed us,” she whispered.
“Breathe, Ororo!” She wouldn’t stop trembling, and he heard her swallow convulsively, most likely around bile.
“I’ve doomed us,” she whispered. “Oh, Bright Lady! Henry, I’ve been such a fool! We allowed him into our home! He’s seen everything,” she cried. “Everything, Henry.”
“Calm down, Ororo. Look at me,” he ordered, helping her back up onto the stool when her legs wouldn’t support her. “We don’t know what Forge’s role was in the Prime units receiving those implants. He might not be the one we have to worry about.”
“No,” she promised. “I’m the one he needs to worry about.” She nodded to the components on the table. “Bring those with you to the briefing. I’ll be in my office. I also want to check on Logan.”
“He’s in the Danger Room,” Henry mentioned, watching her smooth her hands over her slacks and tuck her hair behind her ears. “Ororo, promise me you won’t confront Forge before hearing him out.”
“We gave him our trust. This is inexcusable.”
“Ororo…take a moment, for me. Think of how you would have felt in Forge’s shoes. If you’d seen live combat and survived it at great personal cost, wouldn’t you do anything you could to preserve peace and to serve the needs of your homeland once the smoke cleared?”
“I’ve survived war, Henry. I lost everything, but I never lived my life by the whim of those who took everything from me. Mutants are not the enemy. And I intend to remind Forge of that.” Her stride was brisk as she exited the lab.
“Heaven help him,” he breathed before reaching for the remainder of his coffee. He wouldn’t want to be in that poor bastard’s shoes.
~0~
It felt good to hit something. And to kick something. And to tear something to shreds.
“Say Uncle!” he grunted, feinting and ducking the advance of one of the Danger Room’s programmed bots that strongly resembled the Prime unit that smacked him through Harry’s window. He still felt guilty about leaving his bar in a shambles. Poor Chewy…
His claws cleaved through the bot like warm butter, and his muscles burned, but it was a good burn. He’d been at it since he woke up in an empty lab. Kitty was still slumbering when he crept out, and he’d smoothed her covers on his way out, draping Ororo’s cloak over her like a security blanket.
The shower soothed his muscles, and blood and grime swirled down the drain as he wiggled his toes. He leaned into the steaming spray and let the runnels of shampoo foam drizzle over his ears, wishing it would drown out the clamor from the street that he could still hear.
He wolfed down a piece of toast from the nearly empty breakfast platter in the kitchen and skirted around Marie’s questions and Bobby’s prying eyes.
He finished his workout, ending the program and straightening the hem of his tank before he retrieved his fresh flannel from the bleachers. He felt eyes watching him, and he craned his neck up toward the observation booth.
Ororo. She met his eyes and disappeared; he waited for her to enter the suite, but she never came. Logan took that as his cue to head upstairs. He took strange comfort in the fact that she’d sought him out.
He didn’t have time to ponder it when the mansion’s alarms sounded before he could even enter the elevator. Instead, he dashed up the back stairs, taking them two at a time.
He barreled through the back hallway to the main foyer, where Henry and Piotr we joining Ororo by the security monitors.
“We got a hostile?” Logan barked.
“We’ll know in a minute,” Piotr replied, and he adjusted the cameras to zoom in on the two people who were currently standing outside the gate.
Henry watched in awe as a young girl, who looked remarkably different from his first glance of her on Cerebro’s monitors, gestured toward the gate and bent apart its bars. A familiar, gaunt figure garbed in a long, plum-colored overcoat leaned against her for support. “Oh, my stars and garters!”
“Bright Lady!’
“Holy shit.” Without further preamble, he headed for the front door, jerking it open with a savage yank. His talk with ‘Ro would have to wait.
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