Chapter Fifteen: Frenzy
Lets hold hands on the porch swing under the moon
While the wind through the willows plays us a tune
We can lie on a blanket out back in the yard
And wish our future on a faraway star
You’ll feel the passion as time after time
I press your sweet lips to mine
We can dance to the radio right up til dawn
Til you drift off to dream in my arms
~Travis Tritt
Sydney, Australia
They wanted until night had fallen to make their move. Wolverine and Hank changed into their uniforms in the hotel while the girls did the same in the next room over. They were careful about the selection of their lodgings for their stay Down Under. The medical facility they were to burgle was just one block down the street.
The plan, as far as plans went, was so simple Logan was sure many of his students could pull it off. They would slip around the security system littering the outer areas, find a concealed spot and have Kitty hack into the building’s mainframe from inside. Once she killed the cameras and alarms, she planned to phase each of them through the walls, just in case there were alarms on the doors not hooked up to the main computer.
Inside, it was up to Hank and Kitten to locate anything of use, anything that incriminated Essex in the kidnappings while Dazzler and Wolverine provided security from wandering guards.
Simple.
So why did he have a tense, uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach?
When the girls knocked on the door, the strange quartet made their way out of the hotel by means of the fire escapes. They jogged down the nearly empty street, avoiding bouncing clubs and fornicating couples.
One particular couple caught Alison’s eye and she stopped, dead center of the alley they were crossing dressed in her uniform, to watch them. Logan rushed back to collect her.
“Is that even legal?” she asked with mischief in her eyes.
“Probably not,” he returned, smacking her bottom so she would catch up with the other two.
Essex Genetics Center was enormous. Logan blinked up at the high, electrified fences and polished windows that went up so far, just looking gave him a touch of vertigo. It reminded him, somewhat, of Muir Island. Huge, sterile, and completely uncomfortable.
“It ain’t a cabin in the woods,” he offered to Kitty when she glanced at him.
She smiled at him, then expertly slid her foot into Beast’s cupped hands. With agility to rival any ninja, Shadowcat back-flipped over the high fence. Hank’s boost gave her plenty of room to turn her slender body so that she landed on her feet.
Just like a kitten.
Logan snickered at his inside joke, grabbing Dazzler and indicating for Beast to move when the motion-sensitive camera swiveled their way. The three mutants melted into the shadows, remaining stock-still.
His preternatural hearing picked up Shadowcat’s light footsteps as she raced along the grounds. Her body melted, leaving a telltale whooshing sound behind when she phased into the building.
They could only wait now.
The earpiece he wore crackled several minutes later.
“I’m in the mainframe room. Damn, I’m good.” Kitty whispered for Logan’s ears alone.
“She’s in an’ she’s cocky,” Logan informed his companions.
He heard a keyboard clacking and waited for Kitty to pass on any information she found.
“This is a Unix system. Hello, update, please.”
“Focus, Shadowcat,” Wolverine snapped lowly. “Can you crack it?”
She snorted. “In ten seconds, this building will be my bitch.”
Apparently, Dazzler had picked that up, for she grabbed her sides and silently howled with mirth. Logan shot Beast a look, which was returned in an expression he interpreted as “We are surrounded by children.”
Nine seconds later, the electrified fence powered down. Dazzler and Beast were scrambling over it almost instantly while Logan ensured no one was watching. He contemplated scaling the fence, but stopped short of leaping onto the chain link.
Snikt!
Releasing already itching claws, he sliced himself a nice Wolverine-sized entrance. After he stepped through, he met both Dazzler and Beast’s annoyed gazes with a grin.
“What? Ya didn’t ask before ya went climbin’ over fences.”
They both gave him a disgusted sigh. Kitty appeared a moment later, walking through the wall as easily as most could waltz down a street. She gestured for Logan first. He took her hand and closed his eyes. Walking through solid matter had a rather creepy, unnatural feeling and the lack of sight always unnerved him. Inhaling deeply, he let Kitty lead him through the wall.
Popping out on the other side, he took several great gulps of air. Next time, Hank was going first.
Back on task, he crouched low, sniffing the computer room for any signs of danger. Two more whooshing noises behind him said that his teammates were with him.
“It’s clear.”
Kitty plopped back down in the computer chair, careful to not phase through the mechanical devices. The computer was colossal, covering nearly every inch of the room. Security monitors and speakers were plastered onto the wall. Kitty’s chair was situated with two others, in the large half-moon shape hollowed out for human bodies.
“Everything on the first fifty levels looks completely legit.” She reported as he fingers flew over the keys. How she managed to watch information coming through seven monitors, he would never know. “But on the fifty-second floor, everything’s blocked off, except the elevator.”
“That’s weird,” Alison said quietly.
“If they are working on clandestine projects here, I have little doubt we will find answers on that floor,” Beast said in his usual cultured tones.
“Can we get up there?” Logan questioned, leaning on the back of Kitty’s chair.
“Yeah,” she answered with a slight frown. “We can take the elevators “ I have all the camera systems down “ and I can bypass the security code from the elevator. But…”
“I felt that ‘but’ coming, did you?” Dazzler asked of no one in particular.
“There’s no telling if they have a separate computer system up there. I mean, it’s likely, but not for certain.” Shadowcat explained, turning to her friends.
“Cameras?” Wolverine grunted.
“Probably not, especially if it’s illegal.” She raised a brow at him. “If we stumble on any, just claw ‘em.” She meowed at him for emphasis.
Logan shook his head. They really were surrounded by children.
With that, the group followed Wolverine out of the main computer room. Because Kitty had easily memorized the building’s layout, he took whispered orders from her. They found the interior of the laboratory just as cold and impersonal as the outside. There were no pictures on the white walls, no names above doorways. Everything looked oddly fake. Even the scents of the place were unnatural. Something stronger than cleansers masked human scents. It was nerve-wracking.
They took the elevator up to the fifty-first floor, where Kitty asked them to stop it. Logan popped a claw to open the maintenance panel she required. The serious young woman blew brown bangs from her eyes and set to work on what looked like a nest of multicolored wires.
She worked fast and deemed the elevator moveable just twenty seconds after the panel was opened. Hank pushed the required button, taking them up to the next floor.
Wolverine stepped out of the way, letting Dazzler step inside. He could hear her CD player softly blasting into her ears before she raised both gloved hands. Short, bright bursts of light erupted in the room, giving off the strong, sickly scent of burning ozone. Any cameras would have a hard time seeing past those lights, even if her power didn’t short them out.
“Clear.” She called to them, motioning for her teammates to enter the facility.
Instantly, Wolverine wished he had stayed at home.
“Oh, my stars and garters.”
“Sweet Lord above.”
“Holy fuck.”
Beast, Shadowcat, and Dazzler were in no way ready for Wolverine’s reaction. He moved directly to the center of the room and turned in a slow, meaningful circle.
No matter what direction he turned in, he saw all the evidence he would ever need. Long rows of gray, metallic filing cabinets sectioned the room into something like a cornfield. It stretched, as far as he could tell, from one end of the floor to the other.
A nauseating turn of his stomach made Wolverine clench his belly, tempted to turn his stomach out on the pristine floors.
Instead, he glanced at the nearest cabinet and bolted down one of the rows.
It took only seconds for him to surmise what was inside. Each filing device bore a number, one eerily similar to what he found on Betsy and Ororo’s wrists in Alaska. He heard footsteps following him and soft, panicked calls of his name, but he ignored them.
Finally, he reached the one place he never wanted to be in. “Type: Elite” was written on a bold red sign above two rows of cabinets. Logan grabbed for Dazzler as she came closer and met her startled eyes.
“3480131.”
She looked confused.
“3480131.” Logan said again, slowly.
He grunted in satisfaction when Alison closed her eyes and repeated the number in her head several times. They split up, then, each taking a row and looking quickly at every impersonal sticker affixed to the filing drawers.
Without any thought to where Beast and Shadowcat had gone, he hastily checked each side of his designated row. It shocked him that there were so many. He had no idea there were scores of victims he didn’t know about.
“Wolvie!”
Hearing his bastardized name, Logan bolted for the end of the row, rounding it quickly and searching for Dazzler. He spotted her in the center of the makeshift hall, but the look on her youthful face sent his world into slow motion again.
Her words fell on deaf ears when he reached her. Logan glanced at the open drawer, finding Ororo’s number staring back at him. There were at least several dozen separate files on her. He took each of them from the drawer, handing them to a frightened Alison.
A neighboring cabinet also bore the number branded into his mind and he wrenched it open. Peering inside, his heart fell from his chest at the same time bezerker rage caused crimson to flood his vision. The world moved sharply into focus, his slow-motion vision gone in an instant.
When he removed a stack of videotapes from the drawer, tears ran unchecked down Alison’s cheeks.
“Don’t. Drop. Those.” He said to his companion in a growl that made his human side shiver.
She nodded mutely, following him when he trailed the scent of Beast and Shadowcat toward the southern end of the room. They were standing by a computer, which Kitty was saying took a very short time to download.
Wolverine didn’t care what they were downloading or why. He spotted a video player and swallowed thickly. Curiosity, they say, kills the cat. But Logan couldn’t resist. He wanted “ no needed “ to see what was on those tapes.
Heedless to Ali’s “Logan, don’t”, he handed Beast some of the tapes before cracking one unmarked black box open. He popped it into the player, flipping the button to play it.
At once, a wide monitor displayed the contents.
Kitty gasped, covering her mouth with both hands. Dazzler was sobbing, but he did not hear paper hit the floor. Beast was completely silent.
Logan could not take his eyes from the horror before him. On a flat, white examination table, was Ororo. The camera operator focused on her ashen face for scant seconds, but it was enough for the assembled mutants to see the haunted, vacant look in her eyes.
A pale man stepped up to the table, covered in surgical garb. Unfortunately for Nathaniel Essex, he had not yet covered his face with the protective mask.
“Subject number 3480131 Munroe, Ororo Type: Elite. Today we begin preparations for the ovum production.” said the man on the tape.
He covered his mouth and took a long scalpel from the nurse beside him. Logan was caught between the images before him and hazy, half-remembered nightmares of his own.
For several minutes, the X-Men watched as Ororo’s abdomen was opened. The doctors slipped long, torturous instruments inside of her, detailing the areas they scored in which to “capture” the eggs they would produce. She was motionless on the bed for a long time, which was something Logan was glad for.
No one on earth deserved these memories. It was better if she never, ever knew.
A beat later, the most terrible sound Logan would ever hear erupted from the screen. Ororo began to flail on the bed, her blood staining the nurses as they tried to restrain her. She was screaming, from the pain or violation, Logan was not sure. The sound was burned into his memory, more fuel for nightmares the he feared would never leave his mind.
“Turn it off!” Kitty screeched.
But Wolverine had overtaken Logan in a heartbeat. He screamed, with every ounce of rage, of despair, he could muster. Six long adamantium claws tore the flesh of his hands. The pain only spurred him on.
Beast tried to calm him, protectively moving the younger X-Men behind him. The animal was inconsolable, wanting only vengeance, only blood. Wolverine turned, slicing through the computer chair as easily as most could snap a toothpick. Kitty wept and Dazzler whimpered, but even their sounds of fear were not sufficient enough to drown out the feminine scream echoing in his mind.
“I’m gonna kill you, Sinister!” Wolverine snarled so loudly that it ricocheted in the cavernous room. “I’m gonna tear ya apart from the inside out!”
Wolverine raced from the screen, from the X-Men and down the hallways of cabinets. He wanted to tear it all apart with his bare hands. Nothing would make this right. What was done to her, to all of those women, was demonic on a level that would make the devil vomit.
Logan destroyed several filing cabinets before he ran out of room. Standing there, amid the clanging of metal meeting the tiled floor, the female weeping behind him and Beast’s placating tone, he snarled. Sharp eyes darted about, searching for something, anything else to tear apart.
His claws retracted. The beast fell silent and the man took over. Logan’s eyes narrowed on the sign above the entrance to a far corridor.
“Hank!”
~**~
Ororo whistled loudly, clapping her hands together on perfect beat with the music. Mary was beside her, laughing while she clapped along with her. They were rather far-gone in drink, lost in the smoke and music of Dottie’s.
Red-haired Kenny was on stage, guitar slung over his shoulder while he played several cover songs. Currently, he was belting out Mary’s favorite Brooks and Dunn tune. She and Ororo, half a bottle of whiskey vanished between them, were singing word for word while dancing in their chairs.
When a lanky stranger passing through Henry paused at the table, openly leering at Ororo, she smiled sweetly.
“Not interested.”
He frowned, but shrugged one shoulder as he passed the table.
She continued singing with Mary, watching as Kenny’s nimble fingers manipulated the guitar.
“Bartender asks me, say son what’ll it be? I wanna shot at that red head yonder lookin’ at me! The dance floor’s hoppin’ and it’s hotter than the Fourth of July!”
Mary and Ororo screamed the line in unison. Kenny grinned in their direction, winking to his fiancé. The girls glanced at one another, then kicked off their boots. Clasping their hands together, they took off for the dance floor. Falling in line with the others, they quickly caught the rhythm.
Ororo pulled up the hem of her long skirt, keeping beside Mary as they threw themselves into the line dance. Both girls were laughing merrily, even when they drunkenly stumbled. Storm crashed into the Sheriff, who gave her a long suffering, if slightly amused smirk.
The song ended, making Ororo and Mary stumble back toward the table. Dottie’s was packed to maximum capacity. A slow song Ororo knew was aimed at her darling friend drifted into the room as several pairs of dancers coupled together. Travis Tritt’s “Drift Off To Dream” began in Kenny’s melodic and masculine voice.
While Mary stared at her fiancé, adoration in her dark eyes, Ororo found herself smiling sadly. She wanted, so desperately, for Logan to be here now. If she looked to the dance floor, she could see him there, Stetson askew, holding his hand out to her. When she blinked, the image was blown away with the swirling smoke.
Alison had missed her flight, though Mary assured Storm that it was a quick X-Men mission and she would come soon enough. Ororo had wondered to herself if Logan was with her. Was he all right?
She told herself, more than once, that Wolverine would bring everyone home in one piece. His loyalty and overprotective nature always brought them all through.
“Mary?”
“Uh-huh?”
The girl had her chin in her palm, her elbow propped on the table beside the half-empty bottle of whiskey. In those lovely eyes was eternity, contentment so real Ororo thought she could reach out and hold it in her hand.
“How did you know Ken was the one?”
Her eyes closed and she swayed to the music. “He can listen to me ramble on for hours about the proper way to fold a napkin. I can sit perfectly still while he rants about improper aircraft care. He makes me so mad I could honestly murder him some nights, I swear. Other times, he’s so damn honest and tender, I think my heart can’t take it. Even when we fight, I can tell he loves me. I just know, ‘Roro. I’d crack the sky and bring down the Lights if he asked me to.”
Ororo blinked the tears from her eyes quickly. It was not every day Mary admitted how much Kenny touched her. Love was written all over her face now and Ororo realized she had seen that expression before.
That night she danced with Logan.
Her heart suddenly clenched. Far off, lost in the sound of Kenny’s voice, she thought she heard an enraged cry. Something inside of her snapped and she jumped out of her chair as though something had bit her.
“I have to go.”
Mary called her name, but Ororo rushed out of the bar, forgetting about her boots in the mad dash to get outside. She knocked a young woman over, stuttering an apology even as she bolted for the truck waiting in the parking lot.
The keys were still in the ignition. Ororo slammed the car door and roared the truck to life. Mary was in the entrance to the bar, confusion written all over her lovely face as Storm hit the gas. Her truck kicked up gravel and earth as she shot onto the highway.
She was crazy, she had to be. Whatever had kicked to life inside of her was undeniable, no matter how she tried to talk herself out of it. So many times, her resolve had worn down. She would find herself in the Anchorage airport, contemplating a ticket in the general direction of New York.
This time, though, she wouldn’t change her mind at the ticket counter. Ororo yanked the cellular phone from her glove compartment and punched in the airport’s number. When the ticket agent answered, she exhaled sharply.
“I need a direct flight from Anchorage to New York City. When?” she let a hollow laugh escape her lips. “Six months ago. No, I mean tomorrow. Tonight. Anything.”
She listened while the ticket agent punched in the information. A moment later the young man told her he had one seat on one flight that would leave Anchorage in four hours with a stop in Chicago.”
“Yes, hold that for me.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Ororo switched the phone off after giving the man her information. Tossing the slender plastic device onto the passenger seat, she pulled into her driveway.
Mary and Kenny had caught up with her two hours after she left the bar. Ororo, already running late, quickly explained that she was going to New York. To Logan. Kenny fell into her sofa, sighing dramatically. Mary squealed in that decibel only dolphins can hear, then hurried to help her friend pack.
Taking the young couple up on their offer to a ride to her little blue plane, she let Kenny take her single suitcase while Mary loaded the dogs up. Realizing she had forgotten something, Ororo rushed back into the house. She grabbed the photograph off of the freezer door and clutched it in a clammy palm.
The dogs were coming with her, already stowed with others in rented kennels. She worried for them, but the moment she said she was going to Logan, they went wild. There was no way she could leave them both behind.
It was insane, irrational, and completely unlike her. She was going to crawl back to Logan if she had to. What Mary and Kenny had she wanted with everything in her body. When she sent Logan back to the X-Men, the life she willingly abandoned, with him went her heart. Hope and contentment were wherever he was.
“Now boarding flight 813, Anchorage to Chicago rows 1 through 5.”
Ororo stood up, slinging her single overnight bag over one shoulder. Mary and Kenny had remained in Henry, giving her warm wishes as she took to the air in her private plane. She had to do the rest of this alone.
Terrified, of rejection, of being just a little too late, she swallowed hard. The ticket agent smiled when she handed him her boarding pass.
“Welcome to Alaskan Airlines, I hope you have a nice trip.”
“I truly hope so.”
The boarding ramp seemed enormous and tiny at the same time. It took every ounce of strength she had to take the first, fateful steps down it. Once she realized what she was doing, she stopped.
A bright smile erupted over her face and she raced down the walk.
~**~
14 hours and 38 minutes later
The cab driver must have been utterly perplexed by the woman who flagged him down at the airport. She was grinning, though the dark circles under her eyes said she’d had little sleep. She had two dogs with her, but promised they would not make a mess.
He drove her to Westchester, peeking at her in the rear view mirror to find her bouncing in her seat.
“Seein’ family or something?”
She beamed at him. “A man.”
“Ahh,” he smiled at her. “Boyfriend?”
“Love of my life, but I was too stupid to see it until last night. I am here to grovel, beg, and otherwise make an idiot out of myself until he forgives me.”
The driver’s eyes went wide. He glanced at this fare again, to find she was staring out of the windows as he pulled up to the address she had given him.
“Lucky man.”
“If he wants me, I am the lucky one.”
When the cab stopped, she bounded out of the door, her dogs in tow. She tossed the driver several bills, which more than covered the fare.
“Thank you.”
With that, she turned to the huge iron gates of what the sign said was a school. Shaking his head, confused and mildly amused, the cab driver pulled away. Ororo rushed to the gate, only after ensuring both Huskies were snapped onto their leashes. Once they saw the grounds, she was sure they would rush off to inspect it.
To her surprise, her code still worked on the gate.
Her courage had not failed her during the long flight, the layover in Chicago and it stayed with her as she reached the mansion’s massive front doors. It was summer now, so she only heard a few children laughing somewhere behind the house.
Without bothering to knock, she pushed one heavy door open and stuck her head inside.
“Logan?”
Silence.
Ororo took a moment to fashion a quick dog run by tying the handles of long leashes to the bike rack on the grass. Neither dog seemed fussed by it, so Storm walked fully into the house she had abandoned.
Sounds of teenage boys playing with video games “ well, she supposed they could have been adults “ went ignored as she moved through the foyer. Everything was exactly as she remembered it, down the smell of lunch drifting in from the kitchen.
“Logan?”
Though she could hear some of the students speak as they realized someone was in the mansion, she simply moved up the stairs. If she remembered correctly, Logan’s room was on the third floor of the east wing.
Marie and Bobby screamed when they saw her, but she brushed past them. Ororo’s old room was across from the one Logan had overtaken.
“Down two more,” Marie called. “He moved a while ago.”
Tossing a thank you over her shoulder, Ororo jogged the next two meters. Outside his door, she paused. If he was home, if he was with someone…she exhaled sharply. That was the price she would pay for being stubborn. She was going to tell him, come hell or high water.
“He is not there.”
Ororo stiffened instantly. Her eyes drifted closed. She had not even heard the whine of his wheelchair approach. Knowing him, he had placed himself there when he felt her coming. A telepath usually did things like that without thinking about it.
It took her an age to turn around. She had to force her body to move, to face the man she thought dead. Charles was in his wheelchair, dressed in a pressed gray suit. He looked older than she remembered, but in his eyes was the same benevolent smile she had come to adore.
“Ororo.”
“Charles.”
They stared at one another for a long time, neither making any attempt to speak. Ororo wanted to see Logan, Charles was a side effect. She had spared him no thought during the long flight, consumed with a million scenarios, things she wanted to say to the man she loved.
“I…”
“Don’t.” She stopped her former mentor. “I do not care how you survived or why you kept it from me. I was “ I am “ angry with you, but I cannot dwell on that now, Charles.”
“I understand,” he said quietly. “I wanted to say that I have missed you.”
His simple, honest words made Ororo rush to him. She kneeled, enveloping the man in a strong embrace. He returned it, rubbing her back slightly. When they pulled away, he cleared his throat quickly.
“As for the object of your search,” he offered, pointing to the door. “He is not here.”
Ororo frowned. “But he is on an X-Men mission.”
Charles said nothing.
Panic clutching at her heart, Ororo turned toward the door. “Charles, Alison told her friends that she was on a mission.”
“For all I know, they are. I was in Washington when they left. I located Beast, Shadowcat, Dazzler and Wolverine in Australia, but I am hesitant to contact them.”
Further confused, Ororo blinked at him. “Why?”
“Perhaps you should open that door. I believe it will answer several questions.”
She did not need to be told twice. In three steps, she grabbed the doorknob and pushed the bedroom door open. “By the Goddess.”
One trembling hand came up to her mouth. Though the room was clean, the walls were papered with pictures and notations. Ororo saw photographs of every victim of the kidnappings she knew of and scores more of those she did not. Slowly, reverently, she walked toward one of the walls.
Mixed in with tacked up photos and crime scene reports were Post-It notes. Many of them were simply notes that went with his “case”, but others, she noticed immediately, were personal. Two bore lyrics from that song she loved. Another commented on her humming skin. Yet another mentioned how her eyes lit up when she laughed.
Tears were close to the surface, even as Charles wheeled into the doorway.
“You, my dear girl, have become his life.” His voice was soft, soothing. “I have often worried that he was descending into madness. This case, this mystery, was consuming him.”
“I…I do not understand.” Her fingers lingered over a Post-It note that said, quite simply “I still want her”.
“I believe he located information on the man responsible for the abductions. His reluctance to tell me and the theft of the Blackbird…”
Turning sharply to Charles, she halted his words when he caught her laughing.
“He stole the Blackbird?”
Even the bald telepath had to smile. “Oh, yes.”
When she reached Logan’s file-laden desk, she gently ran her fingers over a stack of unopened mail. What had he discovered? Was he all right? When would he be home?
“I will leave you to get comfortable. Peter will care for your dogs.”
Charles closed the door behind him, leaving Ororo alone in Logan’s room. She could smell faint cigar smoke, the tang of something that belonged to her Wolverine alone. Charles said that Logan’s quest consumed him, but the notes on the walls spoke to her on a more personal level. He wanted vengeance, justice for her as he promised during the long nights in Alaska.
Deciding that she would keep to her promise, to ensure she told him what she needed to, Ororo curled up on Logan’s bed. The sheets were clean, which made her frown. The pillow did not smell of him, as she hoped.
She found a flannel shirt in a ball beside the bed and brought it to her face. Inhaling the scent of her love, she fell asleep surrounded by his things. When he came home, she would tell him everything she needed to.
