“How long ago was this?” Logan asked.
The professor smiled. “More years ago than I care to think about. As the years went by and our numbers increased, so did the prejudice and fear of ordinary humans. Our world changed, and Eric changed with it. He believed that humanity would never accept us, that a war between mutants and humans was inevitable. He was angry, vengeful. That’s when he became Magneto.”
“And you could no longer stay with him?” Logan asked.
“Exactly,” the professor said, clearly still sad about it despite all the years. He moved on, toward the stables and the garage. “I opened this school, a place where mutants could be safe from persecution. This is a place where they could not only learn to focus their powers, but also learn that mankind is not evil. Just uninformed.”
“You still didn’t answer my question,” Logan said. “Why all this hardware?”
The professor continued. “There are mutants out there with incredible power, Logan. I knew that a day would come when some of them might use that power against the rest of humanity. And that if there was no one to challenge them, humanity’s days would end.”
“So you are the challenge,” Logan said, nodding.
“Evil men succeed when good men do nothing,” the professor said. “A famous quote that Eric taught me once.”
Logan nodded again. This was a much, much bigger operation than he had first thought. It was going to be great to get out of here and let them fight all their good fights for as long as they wanted.
“Now,” Professor Xavier said, turning his chair back toward the hallway. “If you wouldn’t mind, Dr. Grey would like to examine you.”
Logan laughed. Having Dr. Grey do anything to him was just about his idea of heaven.
The East Coast—Above Washington, DC
Senator Kelly hung up the phone and sat back in the soft chair of the helicopter, staring out the window at the ground flashing past. The drone of the motors faded to background noise in the extraordinarily luxurious interior. Kelly loved traveling like this. He considered it one of the God-given rights of his job. And he used his rights as often as he felt he needed, which was often.
He stared at the phone. That call with the president had gone almost exactly as he had expected. Sometimes things went well, sometimes they went poorly, and other times they just didn’t go at all.
“Well,” Guyrich said, “what was his opinion?”
Kelly shrugged and leaned forward to pour himself another glass of scotch. “He’s the president of the United States. He doesn’t have an opinion. He smiles, he waves, he shakes hands.”
“Isn’t that what you do, sir?” Guyrich asked.
Kelly shot his aide a sharp look across the table, then put the scotch bottle back between them. Guyrich had been acting strange lately. If he didn’t shape up, Kelly would have to have a talk with him about his attitude. The last thing Kelly needed right now was a problem with his staff.
“Well,” Kelly said, leaning back and sipping, enjoying the smooth taste of the expensive scotch, “this time it’s not up to him. It’s up to me and Congress.”
“Have you thought about a demonstration of some kind?” Guyrich asked. “Maybe use the UN Summit to our advantage. The whole world will be watching.”
“I’m only interested in Americans,” Kelly said, his voice harsher than he intended. He caught himself. “Let the rest of the world deal with mutants in any damn way they please. Besides, only Americans can vote for me.”
He laughed and took another sip, then decided to go on. “This is the sort of problem that liberals just beg you to ignore, until it crawls up and bites them in the ass. And guys like us are left to clean it up.”
He stared into the eyes of his aide. “You know, this situation, these mutants, are the reason people like me exist.”
Kelly glanced out the window as the helicopter crossed out over the cold, dark gray waters of the Atlantic. They weren’t supposed to be over water on this flight, especially not the ocean.
“Hey, where the hell are we?”
Kelly glanced back at his aide, waiting for an answer. Instead he witnessed a horror story. Right before his eyes, Guyrich was changing. His face was shifting, his clothes seeming to draw inward, until finally, where Guyrich had been sitting, Kelly found a beautiful woman covered completely in iridescent blue scales. She had solid yellow eyes that made her look more like a cat than a human.
She just smiled, and said nothing.
It took a moment for Senator Kelly’s mind to register what he had just seen. Then he realized that he was facing a mutant. A mutant who had been posing as his aide.
Instantly he jumped for the cockpit door.
But the blue woman was faster. A lot faster. As he moved past her, she planted a solid kick to his stomach.
The air rushed out and he doubled over, sliding toward the door. As quick as he could, he climbed back to his feet and yanked open the cockpit door.
“Pilot! Help!”
The pilot leered at him through grotesque features. A long tongue flicked briefly at him.
The copilot seat was empty.
It shouldn’t be empty, he thought frantically. There are always two pilots on these flights.
Kelly turned back to the blue woman, who was standing behind him.
She took a step toward him, and he swung at her. He wasn’t going to let any damned mutant take him without a fight.
It was as if he were moving in slow motion. She caught his hand and hit him five or six times with kicks and punches before he could even fall down.
He coughed, trying to catch his breath as he lay face-down on the carpet-covered floor. Suddenly strong hands grabbed him and flipped him over on his back. The blue face and yellow eyes came right down over him like a nightmare that he couldn’t seem to wake up from.
“You know,” the blue woman said, “people like you are the reason I was afraid to go to school as a child.”
She stood and kicked him solidly in his stomach, forcing what little was left of his breath out of him.
He worked to breathe, choking and coughing as he stared up at her through water-filled eyes.
She started to turn away, then, almost as an afterthought, she raised a foot and brought it down solidly on the side of his head.
Merciful blackness took him almost instantly.
It would be hours before he awoke. And then he would be very sorry he did.
Chapter Eight
X-Men Mansion
Jean leaned against the edge of the doorway of Logan’s room and watched, smiling, as he took down the pictures from the walls and put them in drawers. The two of them had talked off and on, through his medical examination and then through the entire dinner. She had then offered to show him his room, and he had gladly accepted. Any excuse to spend more time with Dr. Jean Grey was just fine with him.
“So why do so many mutants end up coming through here?” Logan asked as he slammed a drawer shut.
“Most mutants leave pretty ugly situations behind them,” Jean said. “People find out what you are, so a lot of mutants have to start out with a new identity. We not only help them with their control of their powers, we help them with the new identities and starting new lives, as well.”
Logan nodded, sorting through the clothes someone had put on his bed. They all looked as if they would fit, but some he just wouldn’t be caught dead in.
“So,” Logan said, turning to face her. “You move things with your mind?”
“It’s called telekinesis,” she said.
“Right,” Logan said. “You move stuff with your mind. Anything else?”
“I also have some telepathic abilities.”
Logan stared at her suspiciously. “You mean like the professor?”
She shook her head. “My telepathy is nowhere near as powerful as Professor Xavier’s. But sometimes, if I make a strong connection.”
“So,” Logan said, noting her obvious discomfort as she revealed things
about herself. “Why are you just plain old Jean Grey?”
“What do you mean?”
“You couldn’t think of some cute mutant nickname? Seems that just about everyone else has one.”
She laughed. “Honestly, I haven’t chosen one yet.”
He pushed the pile of clothes he liked into the middle of the bed and sat down, feeling the unaccustomed softness under him. “How about Mrs. Cyclops. You guys are a couple, right?”
Again, she laughed and nodded.
“He seems kinda tense,” Logan commented, “for a woman like you.”
“Oh,” she said, smiling, “is that so?”
“Seems that way to me,” Logan said.
“When Professor Xavier found Scott, he hadn’t opened his eyes in two months. Awake, asleep, not at all in two months.”
“Why?” Logan asked. “Didn’t like what he was seeing?”
“No,” Jean said. “Even with his visor, it’s very hard for him to control the energy that comes from his eyes. Without the visor, if he opened his eyes, he could easily punch through a mountain as simply as you could crush a beer can. He has to be in control every minute of every day.”
Logan nodded. She and the professor had been right. Everyone here had a curse of one sort or another. He stared at her as the silence between them grew slightly uncomfortable. On the perfect skin of her neck he could see the bruises left from where he had grabbed her earlier.
“Sorry about that,” he said.
“Sorry about what?”
He shrugged. “If I hurt you. Earlier. Sorry.”
She paused, smiling, and reached out to touch him. As she did, her head jerked back, her face pale. There had been a clear connection between them for a moment there, albeit an unexpected one. Clearly she had gotten something from his mind.
“What did you see?” He fought to keep from reacting to the unexpected intrusion.
She took a deep breath and let it slowly out. What she had seen had shocked her in some fashion or another. He waited until she gathered herself.
Finally she said, “Just images. And pain. Lots of pain. What happened to you?”
“Bad things, darlin’,” he said. “Bad things.”
“Don’t you think it’s past your bedtime, Logan?” Cyclops said as he stepped into the doorway and stood beside Jean. “Or do you want Jean to tell you a story?”
Logan snorted. “I bet she’s got a few you haven’t heard.”
Jean sighed and shot Cyclops a look of frustration. “Let me know when you two start butting antlers. I’ll get my camera.”
She turned and left, clearly flustered by what she had seen in Logan’s mind. And, Logan guessed, because Cyclops had stuck his nose in where it didn’t belong.
Logan stared at Cyclops and, despite the visor, it was plain he was staring back.
“You gonna tell me to stay away from your girl?” Logan asked, sneering at Cyclops.
“If I had to do that,” Cyclops said, “she wouldn’t be my girl.”
Cyclops stepped into the room. Logan stayed on the bed, not moving, but ready to if something warranted it.
“Rogue said you were like an animal in that bar,” Cyclops said. “I think she meant it as a compliment. She was very impressed. But fighting humans is very different from taking on mutants. Especially Magneto.”
“You’ve fought him, have you?” Logan asked.
“We haven’t had to resort to that,” Cyclops said. “Yet.”
Logan laughed. “You’re prepping for a war, and I’m not convinced you could handle yourself in a heated discussion. I’m guessing I’m the only one here who’s seen any real combat.”
“And when was that?” Cyclops asked.
Logan just stared. He wasn’t about to go over what little he remembered with this wet-nosed kid. “Previously.”
“Don’t like to talk about your past, huh?”
“Got it in one,” Logan said. “Especially to you.”
“It just must kill you that I saved your life,” Cyclops said.
Logan only snorted. He actually hadn’t given it much thought, but he wasn’t going to bait the kid with that.
Cyclops laughed. “Don’t worry. It won’t happen again.”
Logan only shrugged.
Cyclops turned and headed for the door. There he stopped and looked back. “And Logan,” Cyclops said, his face hard and very intense. “Stay away from my girl.”
With that Cyclops moved off down the hall, leaving Logan to sit on his bed and smile.
Jean Grey stood in the laboratory in front of the light board, staring at the X rays posted there. To one side sat Professor Xavier, and behind him stood Cyclops and Storm. All of them were in their comfortable clothes. Storm had even had to get dressed to come down, because this gathering was later than normal.
But when Jean had left Logan, she had still been too wired to sleep, so she’d gone back to her lab to finish reviewing his physical exam results. What she had found had caused her to call the others immediately.
While they were on the way, she had taken the time to gather herself, calm herself. She didn’t want to admit—or show—how much that flash of mental contact had bothered her. Especially to Scott. He was having enough trouble with her even talking to Logan.
The X rays on the light board showed different angles of Logan’s skeleton, from the skull down to his fingers and toes. It looked more like a creation of a Deco architect than something natural, that was for sure. Much of the skeleton was streamlined, refined in many strange ways. Clearly manufactured.
And the claws running from the back of his arms down to his knuckles looked downright mean. The design was brilliant, allowing them to work based purely on muscle control.
Even after an hour of studying the X rays, she still couldn’t believe what she was seeing. When the others arrived, she started by pointing out the bones, bright white on the X ray, then glanced at the professor. “The metal is an alloy called adamantium.”
“You’re kidding,” Cyclops said.
“I didn’t think that was possible,” the professor said, staring at the X rays, his features calm as always.
“I didn’t either,” Jean said. “Until today, I thought adamantium to be a myth. Impenetrable, unbreakable. Supposedly indestructible.” She pointed at the white on the X rays. “But all that is adamantium.”
“How in the world did anyone even work it into shapes?” Storm asked.
Jean just shook her head. “I’ve no idea. But it’s been surgically grafted to his entire skeleton. Even around his joints and over his skull.”
“Amazing,” Cyclops said.
“How could he have survived a procedure like that?” Storm asked.
“His mutation,” Jean said, glancing at the professor to make sure she was on the right track. “Logan has uncharted regenerative capability, which enables him to heal rapidly. This also makes his age impossible to determine. For all we know, he could very well be older than you, Professor.”
Xavier smiled.
Cyclops laughed, then asked, “Any idea who did this to him? Or why?”
The professor was about to answer, but Jean jumped in ahead of him, basing her answer on her last conversation with Logan, and the mental connection they had shared. “He doesn’t know. Nor does he remember anything about his life before the operation happened. But he remembers the pain.”
Professor Xavier stared at her for a moment, clearly surprised that she knew what she did. Then he sighed. “This is something I’ve feared all along: experimentation on mutants. It’s not entirely unheard-of, but I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
The idea that Logan had been the subject of someone’s inhuman experiment upset Jean more than she wanted to admit.
“So,” Cyclops said, staring at Jean for an instant before glancing at the professor, “what do you think Magneto wants with him?”
The professor pointed at the X rays on the wall. “I’m not entirely sure it’s him that Magnet
o wants.”
“The adamantium?” Storm asked.
The professor didn’t answer.
Jean knew he didn’t have to.
Chapter Nine
X-Men Mansion
Jean slowly, and as quietly as she could, went about her normal bedtime routine. As always this late at night, the mansion around her was quiet.
Scott was already in bed, lying on his back as he always did, his visor secured to the back of his head so that it wouldn’t accidentally come off in his sleep.
She couldn’t tell if he was sleeping or not, so she simply slipped into bed beside him and turned off the lights. It had been a very strange day. Much had changed. And she was still unsettled with her glimpse into Logan’s mind, and worried about Scott’s jealousy of him. That wasn’t like Scott at all.
In the dark, Scott’s visor was glowing softly. It dimmed slightly once when he blinked. He was awake.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I hate him,” Scott said.
“Why?” Jean asked, startled at Scott’s blunt reply.
“The way he looks at you,” Scott said. “His eyes. I just don’t trust him.”
She smiled and curled up against him, putting her head on his chest. “You know I love you, Scott,” she said. “And you should trust me.”
She kissed him, and after that, there just wasn’t much to be said.
Outside, in the hallway, Rogue walked quietly, trying not to wake anyone. She had on her nightgown and the body stocking that protected others from her.
She had tossed and turned for the past hour, thinking about the day, worrying about the future and what Storm had told her.
There was no cure for being a mutant. Her only options were acceptance and control.
She had so wanted a cure.
She had held out hope since leaving home that she someday might find one.
That dream had been shattered, and she was more afraid than she had ever been, even when on the road with the truckers. But now she was afraid of the future, of what it held for her.
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