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The closer they got, the trickier Ororo's piloting became. She skimmed treetops when she had to and dropped beneath branches when she could. Helicopter pilots would have thought twice about some of her maneuvers. Jean seemed to be feeling around ahead of them with her telepathy, because every now and then she'd warn Ororo of an upcoming lookout to avoid or a patch of trees that was too dense to fly through.

Logan felt pretty useless, aside from his one piece of advice, but when they finally landed, he personally made sure that the stealth netting was perfect and that the internal systems were kept to a minimum. Perhaps no one else thought much of it, but if the children were going to stay with the jet, they needed as much help as they could get to avoid detection.

When he was done, he joined the rest of the group in the back of the jet. They'd used Stryker's stolen data from Mystique to construct a three-dimensional map of the base and had projected it as a hologram. After a few seconds of staring at it, Logan recognized an oval of land that had been stripped bare of trees. He'd been there only two days ago, thinking that the base was gone, along with any trace of his memories. Looking back, two days seemed like such a long time ago…

"Surface scans are cold," Ororo said with an air of authority that couldn't be ignored. Even Magneto and Sabretooth seemed to be giving her his undivided attention. "No electronic emissions, no power, no heat signatures, nothing. Obviously, we know different." She tapped the control keypad in front of her and the scene changed, showing a different perspective of the base. "That first image was a topographic representation of the area. This one" – she pointed to various points on the display – "is the spillway. See all the density changes in the terrain? They're tire tracks." Bobby, Rogue, Kurt and John were sitting in the passenger area.

Magneto stood on the other side of where they were, and Mystique was a little farther back and left.

"That's the entrance," Logan said.

Storm nodded. "Mm-hm." She hit a few more buttons and focused more on the spillway. Below the dam, it showed various shades of blue, whereas the surrounding landscape was white. "And this shows the depth of ice that's covering the ground." She hit another button. "Now, this is recent water activity."

"If we go in there, Stryker could flood the spillway," Jean translated from the co-pilot's seat in the cockpit.

Storm turned to Kurt. "Can you teleport inside?"

He shook his head in disappointment. "No. I have to be able to see vhere I'm going; othervise I could vind up inside a vall."

"I'll go," Logan said declared. Everyone turned to look at him. "I have a hunch that he'll want me alive."

"Wolverine," Magneto said, stepping forward toward him. "whoever goes into that dam needs to be able to operate the spillway mechanism. What do you intend to do? Scratch it with your claws?"

Logan advanced narrowed eyes. "I'll take my chances."

The look of humor on Magneto's face disappeared as quickly as it had come. "But I won't."

He turned to Mystique, and Storm also turned to her, catching on.

XX

On the jet, everyone else was monitoring their progress. "I'm in, Mystique said."

Storm turned to look at Logan who was standing behind her.

"She's good," he conceded.

"You have no idea,"Magneto said with a smirk.

As they headed for the ramp, Storm stopped Logan. "Hey," she said. Logan stopped and turned to look at her. "I never got the chance to thank you... about last night."

"It's okay, 'Ro," Logan said, being a gentlemen and letting her go forward.

"Let us help," John said. Though Marie and Bobby had been pretending that he didn't exist since the day before, they stood on either side of him now, nodding emphatically.

"You're not helping with anything! Not out in there. We need you here. If anything happens to us, activate the escape-and-evade flight sequence that's programmed into the autopilot. You know how. Don't touch any of the controls, on the ground or in the air. The autopilot will fly you home just fine."

"So you want us to abandon you?" he accused. "Then what?"

"You've all got superpowers," he said shortly. "Figure it out."

XX

It took a couple of minutes to reach the spillway doors. Storm's eyes clouded over with white as wind and lightning surrounded her. She shot a warning glare at Sabretooth, as lightning started to come out of her hair. She was a few inches off the ground when the doors finally opened and Logan could smell fear and hear the pulses of all of the troops spike. Logan smirked. Showtime!

XX

Magneto, strangely, knew exactly where they were going, and led the way down the various halls that were every bit as confusing as the ones in the basement of the X-Men mansion. They rounded a corner that seemed like so many others, but this time the hall wasn't empty. Guards snapped into action and immediately began firing. Magneto and Jean stood their ground, each throwing up an arm. Sabretooth launched himself forward, but Jean used her teke to hold him back. Now would not be a good time for a blood bath.

When the first few gunshots sounded, Logan and Storm, came out of the line of fire, with a few gusts of wind from Storm to keep the bullets away from them. Kurt just teleported.

Magneto waved a finger effortlessly and the metal door popped from its frame like a cork from a bottle. Inside, Mystique spun around in her chair, smiling widely at Magneto and giving him a heartfelt round of applause.

Magneto, Storm, and Logan stood in the doorway. Storm was standing just behind Magneto; Logan was on her right, slightly behind her shoulder, and Jean was standing next to Logan as she pushed the two soldiers she had to the wall. Sabretooth was also standing behind Magneto. much to Storm's dislike. The closeness between them made her feel claustrophobic. Storm and Magneto stepped in first.

"Have you found it?" he demanded, stepping first onto the platform where Mystique was. Kurt followed with Storm behind him, followed by Jean.

The blue mutant spun back around and hit a few buttons on the keyboard and pointed to one of the various monitors in front of them. "A large portion of energy has been diverted to this chamber." She tapped on one of the many screens to indicate a sector that had no video capability.

"Cerebro," Storm said.

"There it is," Magneto said.

"Can you shut it down from here?" Storm asked.

Mystique rolled her eyes. "No."

"Come," Magneto said to Mystique. "There's little time."

"Not without us," Jean said firmly.

Mystique hit a key, then she, Sabretooth and Magneto looked at each other.

"Oh my gosh," Storm said, stepping forward. "The children!" She turned to Kurt."Kurt, will you come with me?"

"Yes," Kurt replied.

"Where are they?" Storm asked Mystique.

"They're being held in a containment cell one level down."

"Alright, we'll get the children and meet you three at Cerebro."

"Okay," Jean replied. "I'll try to find Scott and the professor."

"Will you be alright without us?"

"Yeah," she replied, looking directly at Magneto. "I'll be fine."

Storm looked around, realizing someone was missing. "Where's Logan?"

"He's gone," Jean said quietly.

Magneto looked at Sabretooth, and Sabretooth nodded almost imperceptibly. But Storm didn't miss it; just got a dreaded feeling in the pit of her stomach.

XX

Magneto took Sabretooth aside. "Delay her as long as you can until we get Cerebro out of order."

Sabretooth smiled. Magneto saw this and frowned. "But don't kill her. Enough mutant blood has been spilled. And I don't feel like cleaning up your mess."





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