Ororo’s feet followed her nose downstairs to the kitchen, making her mentally shrug that she hadn’t slept past her alarm, and that it was her turn to make breakfast. She rounded the corner and found Hank at the pine butcher block cooking island, enjoying his morning cup of coffee over an issue of The New Yorker. He greeted her arrival with a leonine smirk.
“Someone beat you to the punch.”
“It smells…mmmmmm. Did you do this?” she inquired, peering into a skillet that still held a savory medley of potatoes, ground sausage, mushrooms, and other goodies, a smaller pan of refried beans, bowls of grated cheese and diced tomato with cilantro, and a depleted platter of scrambled eggs on the sideboard, sitting next to a warming dish of tortillas.
“Not my particular specialty,” Hank admitted, even though his eggs Benedict was nothing to sneeze at. “Our guest did the honors. Forge is an early riser.”
“So am I,” she argued defensively, before stopping herself. Hank raised an eyebrow over his mug before taking another sip of the potent brew. “That doesn’t smell like the coffee we usually use.”
“It isn’t. Get some before I finish the pot,” he warned. His threat was justified; she realized it as she poured herself the remains, using her favorite light blue Justice League mug that she won on eBay. She took an experimental sip and smiled.
“Wow.”
“Even ground his own beans.”
“I might not need much more prodding to keep him if he keeps this up.”
“Does this mean you’ll give him a chance, instead of a swift bum’s rush out the front door by the seat of his pants?”
“Sure would appreciate it, ma’am,” rumbled a Texas-flavored drawl behind her, nearly making her drop her mug. She set it down gently before facing him, returning his gentle smile.
“Hank didn’t exaggerate your talents. And neither did you.”
“Help yourself.” His smile widened. “Love the mug.”
“Everyone needs a hero.”
“You folks aren’t ‘everybody.’”
“You didn’t have any growing up that you admired?” He leaned back against the empty counter beside the stove and pondered that a moment.
“There weren’t too many that grabbed me back then. I was more of a Star Trek man. Thing is, there was no way Scotty could have beamed anyone up in that tiny little containment field without his passengers losing cellular cohesion. Too unstable, and it would have to be keyed to everyone’s genetic structure. Their ship couldn’t even chart half of the planets they encountered or the species that inhabited them most of the time.”
“Did you ever notice how they never arrived on the planet equipped for a hostile atmosphere? No pressurized suits? No jetpacks? No oxygen? Just ‘we mean you no harm, all phasers set on stun?’” Hank chimed in eagerly.
“And every alien species automatically spoke English!” Ororo crowed, warming to the subject, selecting a plate from the cabinet and loading it with Forge’s breakfast offerings.
“And let’s not forget, all of them were anatomically compatible,” Forge quipped, wiggling his eyebrows. “Now…sixty-four dollar question of the day: Picard or Kirk?”
“Neither. Janeway,” she answered simply.
“ENNNHHHHH!” Forge buzzed, cupping his hands around his mouth. Hank chuckled under his breath. “Janeway doesn’t count.”
“Because she was a girl?” Ororo challenged.
“No. Just on principle. She was always trying to get everyone home to Earth. What was the point? The original series had everyone trying to ‘boldly go where no man had been before.’”
“Yes, but with so many uncharted planets, how could they prove that no man…or that no WOMAN…had been there before?”
“Here we go,” Hank sighed. They’d run this gauntlet before.
“More often than not, there was always some mind control plot afoot. Anyone who came before them ended up slaves to some mind-sucking nether beast in the bowels of the planet that they worshipped as a god. Or, it was sentient computer.”
“Kirk managed to save the day, save the girl, kiss the girl, and to never lose more than an ensign or two on his away missions. And he went on ALL of his away missions.”
“Please! Every other episode had Bones checking his tricorder, looking up and announcing, ‘He’s dead, Jim.’ One or two ensigns, my foot. That should tell you never to ensign on any Enterprise ship with Kirk at the helm!”
“Hey, don’t knock Bones and his tricorder!”
“Always did admire all of those functions in such a tiny module,” Hank agreed. Ororo folded her arms and shot him a “whose side are you on?” look. “What?” he pleaded, holding his furry palms out wide.
“Janeway was a decent captain. She went by ‘sir.’ She didn’t just run around in a cheerleader’s outfit and end up as a damsel in distress.”
“Troi was a strong woman.”
“Not in season one,” she countered. “And she ran around in a cheerleading outfit. Followed by lopsided cleavage and huge hair.”
“What? She was the ship’s counselor. She had to look approachable.” Forge’s smile was wicked. Ororo rolled her eyes, then made a sound of approval as she bit into the breakfast burrito she’d built from his ingredients.
“Am I the only one who liked Sisko?” Hank muttered.
“Floating space station. Boring opening theme music. And he always sounded like he was reading Shakespeare. First two seasons sucked.” Kitty made no bones about eavesdropping as she phased her way down through the ceiling. Ororo was impressed, noting that Forge remained both calm and amused as opposed to startled the way most people were at Shadowcat’s entry. “Oooooh, I want some,” she whined, eyeing the offerings on the stove. She tweaked a bit of sausage from the pan and popped it into her mouth.
“Fingers, Kitten! Use the spatula,” Ororo nagged. “And introduce yourself to our guest.”
“Kitten, huh? Hank said you’re the school’s other gearhead,” Forge grinned, extending his gloved hand. She shook it enthusiastically, practically pumping his arm off.
“Dude, just wait til you see the routines I wrote for the Danger Room last week! They totally rock! Are you working here now? Are you gonna teach the mechanics class? Are you single?” She launched question after question at him as she heaped her plate high.
“Kitten!” Ororo scolded, wishing she were standing close enough to pinch her into silence. Kitty smiled sheepishly and shrugged her narrow shoulders.
“Right. I’ll get out.” She made her way toward the door that led to the dining room before tossing back, “Sisko was the only captain crazy enough to bring his family on board. Don’t forget Jake!”
“Touché,” Henry retorted, cocking his forefinger at her as she departed.
“Spock was a better second in command,” Forge recovered, getting back to the discussion at hand. “Paris was a smooth talker and a ladies’ man…something I’m not averse to, mind you…but he was always getting into trouble. So was Ryker. Spock never let his emotions get in the way. Just calm, cool and collected ‘Mr. Logic.’”
“Until he went through that whole ‘pon far’ thing when they discovered he had a wife. Logic doesn’t trump hormones.”
“O-HOOOOOO! Spurned! Ice-cold,” Forge cried, palming his heart as though she had wounded him. “But Spock wasn’t a hostage as often as Paris or Ryker.”
“Gads; Ryker was ALWAYS a hostage,” Henry agreed in disgust, snorting into his coffee.
“Not much of a second in command.” Forge’s voice was silky with this pronouncement. Ororo made shooing motions with her hands. “And Paris was a weenie.”
“Fine,” she huffed. “But Janeway wasn’t.” She mopped up the last of her salsa and beans with a scrap of tortilla and tucked it into her mouth before depositing her plate in the sink. “She was a real captain’s captain. She even answered to ‘sir’ like the other three.”
“Just like you and Cerebro,” Forge reminded her. Ororo cocked a snowy brow in his direction. He just smiled, enjoying the way she looked in her teacher’s garb. She’d chosen a simple ice-blue wrap dress that fell to just above the knee and a pair of low-heeled taupe pumps. Three-quarter length sleeves and a modest v-neck revealed only glimpses of her caramel skin that glowed in the morning light of the spacious kitchen. Her hair was pulled back into low ponytail, held back with a polished tortoiseshell hair clip.
“If you like.”
“I do.” Amusement and admiration still winked back at her from his dark eyes. She cleared her throat. Henry rattled the pages of his magazine at her, giving her a moment to recover her wits.
Forge was making that difficult. He wore jeans as easily as Logan did, like a second skin. A simple black tee stretched itself over lean, taut muscles; he was built sparely, not unlike Scott. Her first impression had been correct the day before. And Scott would have probably liked the friendly inventor very much.
She missed Scott’s pro-Kirk tirades, too.
“How long will you be here today?”
“Long enough to go back over some of the data I retrieved yesterday, and to install some of the new components I fiddled with last night.”
“Fiddled with?”
“It’s what I do.”
“I’ll finish up here,” Henry announced. “I’ll meet you two downstairs, but don’t start without me,” he admonished, reaching for the apron hanging on the peg next to Forge’s fleece-lined denim jacket.
“After you, mon capitan.” Forge ushered her through the door with a silly little bow.
“Stinker.” She swept out in a swish of ice-blue acetate and Lycra blend, supple calves flashing with her lengthy, swinging stride.
“I have class in a half-hour,” she injected, punching the basement floor key as they entered the elevator.
“This won’t take that long. I just need your security clearance to get inside.”
“Hank has personnel clearance, too.”
“I’d like it if you could be present for the upgrades whenever possible,” he suggested.
“All right.” Why argue the point?
He followed her from the elevator, wishing they could linger there a moment to better enjoy the faint little scent of sandalwood that was easier to pick out in close quarters. He’d noticed that Ororo was calm and relaxed in the kitchen setting, but tensed up almost indiscernibly in tighter confines, almost leaping into the hallway once they reached it.
She allowed the Cerebro security interface to scan her optical data, surprised when Forge reached for her hand to pull her back up onto her feet. His grip was firm and easy, sending a fuzzy little prickle over her flesh, but she released him quickly, skin still warmed from his touch.
“Thank you.”
“No, thank you,” he countered, again letting her precede him into the chamber.
He moved around confidently once inside, turning on the interface and console without difficulty and scanning through the database, this time more quickly than he had yesterday.
“I don’t know whether to be relieved or worried that this is second nature to you.”
“I’m the not the one you need to be worried about. Or to hide anything from,” he murmured.
“That’s what they all say.”
“I’m not ‘they.’”
“Your credentials say otherwise. Now,” she announced briskly, smoothing the skirt of her dress with her palms,” what are these components you mentioned earlier?”
“I think you’ll like this.” He reached into his pocket and extracted a small case, slimmer than a wallet.
“That’s it?” she blurted incredulously.
“Hold your horses!” He flicked it open with a tiny release clasp on the side, and Ororo leaned in closer, smoothing back a lock of hair that drifted loose from her clip as she studied the tiny components that resembled tiny, rectangular plugs, laced with filaments of microcircuitry. “Good things come in small packages, didn’t anyone ever teach you that?”
“This is something you ‘fiddled with’? Just last night?”
“Yup.”
“What’s it made from?”
“Similar to what I used for my prosthesis,” he shrugged, practically crooning the words to the modules he was currently handling with “kid glove” precision. “Are you familiar with nannites, Ororo?”
“Henry’s mentioned them briefly. Interactive circuitry, said to mimic the human nervous system and its pathways. They communicate with each other using similar signals. They fire in the same patterns as synapses and neurons do, from what I’ve read.”
“Give the lady a gold star,” Forge chuckled. “Henry’s only mentioned them briefly, you say?”
“I’ve known him for a long time. I appreciate his quirks, and he reciprocates.”
“Do your quirks include a love of genetics?”
“Only if the discussion is held over a good cup of hot cocoa. Snickerdoodles don’t hurt, either.”
“Snickerdoodles…right.”
“How will you install them?”
“They practically install themselves,” Forge replied, fine with the fact that they were getting back to business. He slid open the console’s cover after unscrewing the bolts, and he opened the small faceplate housing the wires and ports. “You’re gonna get a kick out of this.” She watched him press a small button on the first nannite plug, and much like his prosthesis had done before, this module slowly fed a slender, thread-fine probe into the ports, bypassing the wiring as it communicated with the console in a series of low-pitched beeps. The web of circuitry over its casing began to glow, and to Ororo, seemed to take on a life of its own. Multiple filaments slowly eased their way from the module, wending their way to their nesting places instinctively, like offspring feeding from its mother.
“Forge,” Ororo breathed. “That’s…that’s impossible. That didn’t just-“ She hushed herself, merely letting her lips cease their movement as the entire module eased itself like quicksilver and rolled from Forge’s palm. It shifted and warped, changing shape until it flattened itself into a more compatible plug to fit the smallest, oblong port inside on the left. The port’s small, blue blinking light momentarily slowed, glowing steadily until its rhythm was matched by a new light on the nannite plug.
Two blue lights blinked in a matching rhythm back at Ororo, who now knelt carefully beside Forge with rapt attention.
“That’s not fair,” Henry grumbled from the doorway. “I said don’t start without me.”
“We’re not done yet, Blue,” Forge assured him, craning his neck around to greet him and make room. “You can do the honors with the next one.” He held the case out to Henry, who took it reverently, holding it carefully in his furry palm.
“Magnificent. I’d expect no less from you, my friend.”
“Knock yourself out.”
Henry made himself comfortable, with Ororo moving aside to allow him to nimbly drop to a crouch beside Forge and lean in toward the console. They continued to tinker, and Henry ran off at the mouth, clearly enjoying himself as he peppered Forge with questions and theories.
As they worked, Ororo paced the ramp leading to the Professor’s previous perch in his sanctorum, feeling the walls seems to hum with life again, even though his presence and the warmth of his psychic energy was absent. In his way, Charles was the lifeblood of the school and pulsed through its veins, surrounding them all like a blanket. Ororo missed the sound of his voice and his pear-shaped vowels and enunciation when he spoke, the contemplative way his intelligent blue eyes used to study her, quiet humor dancing in their depths.
“It won’t be the same without him,” she mused to herself.
“It works,” Henry declared, as though he had only half heard her. He stood up and brushed his hands off with enthusiastically. “What next?”
“Test it,” Forge offered. Hank reached for the helmet, but he stopped him. “No need for the headgear. It operates in sync with DNA now, rather than psychic energy. Place your hands on this touch screen,” he said, nodding to it. Henry obediently laid his palm against it, letting it warm beneath his touch.
[Greetings, Dr. McCoy.]
“Oh, my stars and garters,” he breathed, and his face lit up like a kid with a new toy.
“Type in a city. It’s very user-friendly.”
“Like Google Earth?”
“Ohhhhhhhh, MUCH better than that.”
“Westchester County,” Ororo intoned, doing her best to sound bored just to confound him. Forge smirked. Henry tapped in the location and then scrolled through the menu of prompts that surfaced onscreen as soon as he began typing:
Scan mutants in database
Scan for new mutants in this city
Scan for mutants not found in database
Scan for *key in specifics*___
“Mutants not found in this database, Westchester County,” Ororo recited, and Henry’s fingers automatically began typing again, keeping up easily with her thoughts. “Newly discovered. Status, active.”
“That’s a tall order,” Henry muttered.
“No it isn’t,” Forge shot back. “Let her rip.” Henry hit enter.
The chamber continued to thrum, the sound growing in volume and resonance, and soon a list of about a half a dozen names unfolded themselves one after the other, rippling like falling dominoes. Henry selected the first with a tap of his clawed finger.
[Mutant. Active. Gamma level, class four. Female…]
True to its original programming, Cerebro offered them a visual image of the subject in question, creating a three-dimensional hologram of a girl who looked to be about Kitty’s age, seated on a narrow cot and chewing her nails. She was waiflike and slender and garbed in black, and her expression was miserable. Afraid, Ororo recognized, like she’d been abandoned.
“Where is she?” Ororo inquired, reading the display on the console.
“Westchester County…77th Precinct?” Henry’s voice rose on a doubtful note. “Oh, my.”
“She’s incarcerated? Why?”
“We don’t know until we ask,” Forge answered simply. “That doesn’t mean we’ll like the reason. Nor that we can just waltz inside and tell them “let her out, because we said so.” She could have actually committed a crime, Ororo.”
“Or, she might not have.” Her voice was calm. “Sometimes we acquire students who have run away from home.”
“This one looks like a rebel,” Forge pointed out. “I like her hair.”
“So do I,” Henry sniffed. “I’d like to keep tabs on her, Ororo. I’m saving her profile where I can find it again.” He entered her signature, along with cryptic notes under the filename “DANE,LORNA” once he’d successfully identified her.
“What are her abilities?”
“They’re psionic in nature. They tend to stay dormant longer, according to this, her powers manifested about six months ago…she’s sixteen. And a Capricorn,” he noted, making Ororo smile. “They tend to be moody and pragmatic.”
“Is she a telepath?”
“Hmmmmm…no. Not quite. She’s an elemental. Not unlike you. Controls inert matter, according to this display,” he said, toggling through the screens of genetic data that resembled several bar graphs of moving cells. “The shorter wavelength is typical in someone who has a more active power that they wield, as opposed to mine, like we discussed, my dear, where ‘I am my power.’ Your own power is psionic in nature as well, Ororo, even though you might not realize it.”
“I never think about it. I just…use it. It is what it is. I’m connected to everything, Henry. Anything that floats through the atmosphere on a current or a wave.”
“In a sense, so is she. It’s fascinating, she has interesting…traits.” His voice died off as he continued to read the data.
“Do we have another weather witch?” Forge drawled playfully, curious about the thunderstruck look on Henry’s face. Henry continued to toggle through screen after screen, scanning it at quickly as he could absorb the information.
“No.” He pointed to the display again. “We have another Magneto.”
Downtown Salem Center:
Erik adjusted the lapels of his deep plum trenchcoat, shivering against the chill in the air while he watched the six o’clock news on a dozen different television screens displayed in the appliance store window. He seldom felt the cold before his powers were disrupted, having availed himself previously of his ability to envelop himself in a magnetic shield that protected him from the elements, as well as being able to speed up the flow of his own blood as necessary to generate more body warmth. He mourned the loss of such a simple, yet useful luxury. “A god among insects” he’d pronounced, once, upon witnessing that young upstart John’s trick with the open flame dancing in his hand.
Eric shuddered that he’d fallen so far, crawling among the ants. Slowly, with a faint movement of his gloved hand, he willed the volume knob on the largest set to turn itself up a few notches, and he strained toward the window to hear it.
“…this is Manoli Wetherell, bringing you the latest update to a disturbing robbery that happened in Westchester County’s garment district, mere blocks from where I’m standing here, at the Stark Industries headquarters. Workers at a convenience store and gas mart reported being robbed by two armed men, and that one of the gunmen took a young girl as hostage right after emptying the cash register and stealing various other items from the mart. He described them as two men of average height, wearing ski masks, and the girl as being in her mid-teens.
Area policemen received the call at about 7:01PM that there was a Dodge Dart weaving in and out of traffic and creating a threat to other vehicles, driven by two men who appeared to be attempting to restrain a third passenger; the police report included that they witnessed a young woman matching the missing girl’s description in the back of the Dart, struggling to make contact with anyone outside the car. Their pursuit of the vehicle took them just a few blocks shy of the off-ramp that would have taken them onto highway five when the car suddenly rolled and veered off the street, crashing through the window of a closed pawn shop. Witnesses at the scene cited that prior to the crash, the doors of the Dart appeared to have been PUSHED out from the frame, almost as though they were blown off. The passenger inside was last reported in stable condition and was taken to Westchester County General Hospital…”
The screen flashed brief banners across the bottom of the broadcast about the story that was already being aired, citing This just in: Teenager identified as 16-year-old Lorna Dane from Westchester County. Police holding teen in custody after verifying her parent’s call that she ran away from her home after an attempt on her father’s life. Mother suspects daughter may possess mutant gene and abilities…
Erik’s eyes widened, and a flush of excitement jolted through him from his scalp to his toes, making his hair feel as though it were standing on end. He felt almost giddy.
He strained for more of the news, wanting so badly to shush a mother pushing her toddler closer to the window in an umbrella stroller. The child was screeching at the top of her lungs for the televisions to be turned to some godawful program called the Teletubbies. He smothered a groan, returning the mother’s hapless smile with one of his own that didn’t reach his silver eyes.
“We’ve received further details from Westchester County PD about the crash. The armed gunmen who were killed as a result of their crash into the pawn shop were thrown free from the vehicle. Police efforts to restrain their hostage, Lorna Dane, were initially unsuccessful, and they had to use blunt force. She was reported as having thrown one of the attending officers at the scene by merely aiming her hand at him, not even touching him!” The newswoman squinted as though not believing the text running across the teleprompter. “Without even touching him, Neal?” Erik smirked at the look of astonishment on her face when it was confirmed. “Various items in the store, according to witnesses, FLEW through the air as though they were flung. More details at eleven. Neal, back to you.” Erik turned away from the window, ignoring the commercial for denture cream that followed and inwardly enjoying the mother’s plight when her daughter continued to scream and point at the store window for her program.
His Anya had never behaved like that. Ever.
Ever since Erik flew back to the East Coast after leaving Aleytys, he’d had an almost incurable case of itchy feet. He couldn’t explain if it was nostalgia for easier times that he’d had when he and Charles were peers, both recently graduated from Oxford, or if there was just something about seeing Liberty Island again that sang in his blood. Would it look the same to him, now that he was a baseline. An insignificant. A nobody.
He’d miss Aleytys. He’d miss the harbor at Pier 39 and the taste of fresh chowder and listening to Paolo’s deplorable music on their fishing rig at dawn every morning. Something was tugging him, pulling him back. He imagined Charles gazing at him everywhere he turned. He mourned him, even as he shook his fist at him: Look at what happened to you, Charles, when you attempted to control one of your own!
He’d have given anything for his oldest friend to have never shown up at the Grey’s household that day. It was inevitable. Charles had to save everyone; it was simply the way his mind, and his heart, worked. Nothing else but complete redemption would do. Even for him, self-proclaimed master of magnetism…
“Ach…who the hell am I fooling?” Erik muttered to himself. Master…in the end, they’d all run scurrying away from him and his cause like rats from a sinking ship.
Yet it was nearly impossible for him to stay away from here. He didn’t know where he was going yet, despite having traveled hundreds of miles.
His stomach decided the next destination, growling audibly at him as he was about to pass an outdoor café. The wafting odors of pasta and balsamic vinegar enticed him, and he made himself comfortable at a table facing the street so he could enjoy the diversity of the country’s favorite “melting pot”. How many among them, he wondered, were still mutants?
He could count at least one. Lorna, they’d said her name was. Lorna Dane.
~0~
Magda couldn’t count how many miles she’d traveled within the confines of the evening train. She’d sworn she’d never set foot on the car of one again after her first night in Auschwitz, huddled together with the frightened faces of men and women she’d had no opportunity to become acquainted with as they were herded off like cattle.
She steeled herself, fighting back motion sickness and nausea as it lurched into motion again from the last stop. She nibbled the napkin full of dry, tasteless crackers, struggling to hold something down…
This pregnancy was nothing like Anya’s. This child twisted and kicked, causing her swollen abdomen to grow taut, her muscles bunching with a fledgling contraction. It could be false, she reasoned. She laughed mirthlessly to herself, deciding that the child already had its father’s temper…
She dropped the crackers back into the napkin from nerveless fingers, her hands trembling as she covered her mouth to choke back sobs. He couldn’t find her. Not after what he’d DONE.
She’d lived each moment silently as since That Night, as she called it in the back of her mind. Flames licked up at the starless sky in her dreams, and she still heard Anya crying out…every night it ended the same. Every night…
They’d taken Erik away from her, and left her with a monster.
~0~
Erik winced at the sting of lemon juice seeping into a minute paper cut he’d earned himself while flipping through an edition of The Daily Bugle as he squeezed some into his cup of herbal tea. One more discomfort to nag him atop a growing heap. A room at the new tower of Four Freedoms Plaza appealed to him; he’d already withdrawn more funds from his overseas accounts held under the alias of Erich Magnusson, wisely keeping his assets in multiple commodities and vehicles. Now, in every sense of the word, he could retire. It was laughable.
The headlines of the tabloid-format newsprint screamed “Spider-Man Unmasked!” The editorial spanned three columns before the jumpline directing him to page seven, but he was more interested in the coverage given the pawn shop crash and the status and whereabouts of the Dane girl.
They’d already processed her as a prisoner. Her mug shot showed a girl in her mid-teens, wearing a deplorable amount of makeup. The black-and-white picture was given less priority than the enormous photograph of the garishly costumed young man standing at a crowded podium in full color above it.
“Haven’t people in this town got anything better to read?” he murmured wryly, shaking his head as he took another sip of his tea, some New Age blend of white tea leaves and chamomile.
77th Precinct, the article read. Still awaiting transfer to local juvenile detention center. Parents not found for comment.
He peered back at her picture, noticing the runnels of ruined eye makeup streaking her cheeks, the outlandish hair and fingernails holding her identification plate.
She looked lonely.
Erik planned to remedy that.
~0~
Logan winced at the scalding he gave his tongue as he took too large a gulp of the hot tea, nearly dropping the practical Corelle ware cup back onto its saucer.
“What the hell is this shit? Some New Age herbal crap?”
“It’s chamomile. Sleepy Time tea. Goes better with the cookies than beer,” Heather reasoned.
“The hell it does! I’m tellin’ ya, Mac, somewhere between here an’ the altar, ya misplaced yer stones, drinkin’ this crap!”
“She hid the beer,” Mac admitted, crunching savagely into one of Heather’s famous butter cookies for emphasis.
“Likely story,” Logan snorted.
“You’ve got a healing factor, Logan. Same can’t be said for Big Mac, here. I’m not up for another round of you two caterwauling ‘I’ve Got Friends in Low Places’ until the neighbors spray you with a hose like the last time.”
“What’s wrong with Garth?” Mac complained helplessly.
“No song deserves such foul treatment. No beer,” Heather insisted. Logan made a silent vow to himself to tiptoe downstairs after both Hudsons retired to bed. “So Mac showed you the files?”
“Yeah. Saw ‘em,” he grumbled. He shoved away the cup of tea before retreating behind his “Wolverine” mask. Heather sighed.
“Not all of the team members involved in the Weapon X project were attending the laboratory that day, Logan. We know that much from names we retrieved from Personnel in their records on that date.” He didn’t have to ask which day she was talking about.
“No sense in putting all of your eggs in one basket,” Mac huffed, stretching his clasped hands in front of him in a vertebrae-cracking yawn.
“They knew,” Logan growled. “Sons a’bitches knew I’d come out of it, ready fer a scrap after what they did ta me.”
“They knew who you were going in. You’re one of a kind, Logan.” Heather laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. His muscle was rounded, bulky and rock-solid beneath his soft flannel shirt.
She chose not to feel rebuffed when he covered her hand with his and lifted it off, releasing her.
It wasn’t her fault. She just wasn’t ‘Ro.
“I ain’t gonna be one of a kind fer long,” he replied. “I mean, how…does anyone wanna tell me HOW, on God’s green earth someone’d do this again? It’s like it ain’t enough fer me ta be a mutant. I’m a weapon. A loaded gun.” SNIKT…Heather winced.
“Not in the house, bub,” Mac muttered sharply, nonplussed. SNAKT!
“You’re a man, Logan. A good man. They couldn’t take that away from you. Look at the life you have now.” She shot him a grin that shaved five years from her face, blue eyes dancing behind her reading glasses. “Who’d have thought you’d be living at a school?”
“Shit…not me,” he admitted, chuckling. “They’ve even got this crazy training room instead of just making the kids take gym class. Scooter named it the Danger Room!”
“Scooter? What kinda names do you guys come up with at that place?” Mac roared, slapping his knee.
“Henh…yeah,” he muttered, letting his mask finally drop. “He didn’t like One-Eye any better.”
“He didn’t, huh?” Mac caught the slight droop of Logan’s shoulders and the way he raked his fingers through that rough-and-tumble hair. Past tense.
“He was a good man. Ya woulda liked him,” he offered. “Guy even had a thing for redheads. Just as pussy-whipped, too.” Heather made a noise of shocked outrage, and Logan ducked when she flicked the dish towel at the back of his head.
“A-herm…man, that tea messed up my throat “ cough*ASSHOLE*cough ““
“Beer might chase that away. Might even grow some hair on yer stones.”
“How did you lose him?” Heather finished her own tea and took another cookie.
“Alkali. It was an accident. He went to retrieve Jeannie. That was his sweetheart. Ya heard about what happened at Alcatraz. Saw those weird weather patterns over the reservoir? He was gone; I could barely track where his scent ended. Like someone just wiped him away. Never woulda figured someone could go out like that til I saw her kill the Professor.” Logan stared into his teacup. “That’s why we’ve got a school. Keep stuff like that from happenin’, hopefully. Keep those kids from being turned into weapons, if we’re lucky. If we can get to ‘em on time.”
“It’s when the Strykers of the world strike first and beat you to the punch that you end up with collateral damage.” Heather leaned over Mac’s shoulders and kissed the top of his head.
“So Mac…about these personnel records. What else have you got?”
“We’ll retrieve them tomorrow,” Mac promised. “Doesn’t mean you’re any closer to pay dirt. Weapon X isn’t calling the shots where you’re concerned anymore, Logan. We’ve got talented people working for us now.” Logan knew it wasn’t a hollow boast.
“It ain’t about ‘em callin’ the shots, Mac. This can’t happen again. It can’t,” Logan emphasized quietly. “Cuz if it does, folks are gonna keep turnin’ up dead.”
~0~
Lorna leaned back against her cell’s unyielding concrete wall, staring at the toes of her sneakers. The sounds of the surrounding holding tank in her ears faded down to a dull roar.
All she could hear were the metals. Calling out to her. Reaching out to her with cold fingers.
Her parents answered on the third day that she called. Her mother refused to speak with her.
“I’m scared, Daddy,” she crooned plaintively into the receiver. “I want to come h-home.”
“We can’t handle your problem by ourselves, Lorna. This is bigger than what your mom and I can do for you,” Mark explained, and his voice sounded resigned. “We haven’t stopped loving you.”
“Then please…let me come home!”
“We can’t. It’s a risk, Lorna “ you don’t understand. Everything that happened ended up on the news. In the papers. It’s…it’s not just that you ran away anymore. They saw what you did.”
“I didn’t mean it!”
“Lorna…you’re a mutant. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Daddy.” Her voice cracked.
“We can’t do anything for you. I’m so sorry. You need help we can’t give you. Your mother canceled the registration and your spot at the boarding school. You’ll need to come to the hearing next Wednesday. Our attorney’s recommending the juvenile detention center as an alternative to a higher security prison.”
“Juvy,” she sneered, letting her tears drop onto her shirt as she twisted the phone cord.
“They…they have ways of helping kids in trouble. Of holding their powers in check. It might help you if ““
“That’s a load of crap, and you know it,” she snapped. “It’s my lige. You’re just gonna stand by and let them do this to me? Just like those people did with the Cure?”
“Goodbye, Lorna,” he told her, his voice breaking as he hung up. She wanted to hurl the receiver against the wall, even pull the phone from its moorings.
She placidly cradled the receiver before being escorted back to her cell.
Time ticked by so slowly she didn’t bother to watch the clock anymore. She toyed with the St. Christopher medal and tried to focus on the footfalls of the officers and social workers pacing down the corridor. Anything was better than hearing the metal calling to her.
At the front reception desk, Erik was practicing one of his less frequently used talents, knowing Charles would be absolutely appalled if he were alive to witness it.
Bullshitting. It was an art form.
“I’m here to file a missing person report,” he murmured, affecting a tremor in his slender, chapped hands, making them seem even more fragile. “Can you help me find my wife?”
“Oh, sir…we have a different department for that, you don’t want “ “
“Magda! Magda, darling! I “ they won’t tell me where you went! I’m ready for lunch, Magda! I bought you licorice!” His normally lyrical, resonant bass became querulous and peevish.
“Sir, if you’ll just tell me your name?” She rifled uselessly through the stack of unprocessed APBs on top of her inbox, wondering if anyone reported an old man missing matching HIS description.
Naturally the officers came out to see what the hold-up was at the receptionist desk. An elegantly attired but flummoxed looking elderly man was sending her into a dither.
He needed to speak with their captain, they said. He was led inside gently by the elbow to a spacious desk and handed a cup of coffee.
The captain listened to his pleas and reasoning that law enforcement wasn’t the same as it was in his day. They took down three false addresses from the last three homes he’d resided in over the past five years.
Or was it ten?
And could he use the gentleman’s rest room?
Next stop: The forensics artist. Erik described Magda to a tee, detailing her so clearly that there was no way in heaven she could be mistaken for about ten different elderly women feeding birds in Central Park.
And could he have some water? He was really quite parched.
Three officers down the hallway heard his rambling account of how much they reminded him of the son he never had.
Erik continued a steady stream of nonsense, drinking in his surroundings like a sponge. By the time he’d been there an hour, the entire precinct knew that Magda’s favorite flowers were lilacs…
…and he pocketed a tazer lifted from the captain’s overcoat, shoving it deeply within the folds of his coat.
“Oh, Magda, how could you leave me like this?” he insisted, mustering tears. The receptionist whispered that he didn’t smell like alcohol, until Erik began singing old battle hymns and Souza marches in a garbled melody, with little regard to tone, pitch, or volume.
Just as they escorted him to the drunk tank, Erik jabbed his tazer into their chests. He whistled jauntily as he lilted the badge and shield from the pocket of the taller of the two, clipping it atop his lapel.
No one questioned him as he moved steadily down the next corridor on light, quick feet.
Lorna greeted the newest set of footsteps with a scowl and a snarled “whaddaYOUwant?”
“Young people these days,” Erik lamented, shaking his head as he remained within the shadows. “No one teaches any basic manners in the schools or the home anymore.” Lorna only saw silvery hair and cool slate-gray eyes glinting out from beneath a wool cap.
“What’s it to you, old man?”
“You can win more bees with honey, my dear. And you’ll be a much nicer traveling companion, I trust.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” she huffed with renewed bravado.
“Child, come with me, and you can go wherever you want,” he chuckled, finally drawing closer and resting his hands against the cool bars. His intake of breath was sharp and seemed to catch in this throat.
Despite the remnants of horrid makeup, Magda’s blue eyes stared back at him from a piquantly beautiful face.
His lips seemed to move by themselves, speaking as though he were watching the scene unfold as a spectator. “Tell me something. When you touch these bars…what do you feel?”
“What, are you nuts, old man? What do you think I-“
“Hush! ENOUGH! I don’t want arguments, just a simple answer to my question.” She swallowed thickly and found herself faltering beneath his gaze.
“It…it pulses. It has a pulse. Movement. It breathes,” she muttered. Lorna scowled again as girls in neighboring cells jeered at them both, crying “MUTIE!” just because they’d already heard the news secondhand.
“It’s living,” Erik agreed. “Take my hand,” he ordered.
“No,” she tsked, shrinking away, but his next words gave her pause.”
“It even speaks to you when you stop to listen. You can make it do anything.” He gently raised his hand and Lorna felt the faint tug of Ali’s St. Christopher medal pulling at her neck.
It was floating, pointing toward her cell door. Her lips quivered and her eyes grew wide.
“You don’t belong here. They can only hold you here if you let them, child.” He reached for her hand.
She grasped it through the bars, craving human contact so much that she wept.
“You know what to do,” he assured her.
The bars groaned and warped, tugging themselves and bending apart like soft taffy. A chorus of shrieking cries and “holy SHIT!” resounded from the corridor as Lorna linked arms with him, just as a pair of officers burst through the security door.
Raw power coursed through Lorna’s veins, fortifying Erik’s strength and giving him a heady rush.
He aimed the tazer and shocked the guard.
“Now what?”
“Up.” One word barked imperiously as he held tightly to her arm. He concentrated, siphoning her power and pressing downward with his hand, as though to repel the ground.
They were buoyed up, and Lorna reacted instinctively, throwing a magnetic force bubble around them as they burse through the roof, showering the precinct floor with rubble.
Magneto had given his newest protégée the first of many valuable lessons, namely how to make a memorable exit.
[Reviews - 109]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story |
Chapter or Story |
Chapter or Story |
Has been viewed 2124 times
- Text Size +
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story | Chapter or Story | Chapter or Story | - Text Size +
You must login () to review.
