The Ultimate X-Men

by Unknown Author

  The door slammed open and Logan strode in as if he owned the place, almost glowing with health and animal vitality. “Hi, Charley,” he interrupted, “hi, Bobby-boy. How’s tricks?”

  “I’m glad you’re back, Logan,” Xavier said. “I would like you to drive me down to town tomorrow. There’s a case starting at the Westchester County Courthouse I want to sit in on.”

  Bobby suppressed his anger at the change of subject, although he knew that Professor Xavier must have spotted the slight drop in temperature in the room.

  Logan’s eyes gleamed. “Somethin’ to do with mutants, huh? Warren been caught flyin’ past women’s bedrooms at night?”

  “Nothing like that,” the Professor said in his infuriatingly calm way. “Bobby has been called up for jury duty, and I want to see how things go.”

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  Bobby cursed silendy. He’d been hoping that the Professor wouldn’t tell anyone.

  Logan’s gaze flicked across to Bobby. “Weeeellll,” he drawled, “defectin’ to the enemy, eh, bub?”

  Bobby immediately felt his temper rise. “Hey, Canuck, this is my civic duty, if you don’t mind. At least I’ve got some feeling of moral responsibility!”

  “Well ain’t we on our high horse?” Logan switched his hunter’s gaze back to the Professor. “Somethin’ ’bout the way you’re talkin’ gives me the feelin’ there’s a problem, Charley.”

  Xavier nodded. “Your senses are as finely honed as ever, my friend. We were hoping that Bobby’s case would have nothing to do with mutants and he could sit on the jury with no conflict of interest. Unfortunately, during the empanelling process yesterday it became obvious that the accused was himself a mutant—a man named Arthur Streck. All the jurors were asked to declare whether or not they themselves were mutants. Bobby had to lie, of course, given that his powers and his identity as an X-Man are not widely known.”

  “I asked the Professor whether or not I should find another reason to get kicked off the jury,” Bobby interrupted. “After all, I can fake a cold better than anyone—but he said no.”

  “One juror did declare himself to be a mutant,” Xavier explained. “He was immediately excused. The reason given by the assistant district attorney was that a mutant would be automatically biased in favor of another mutant. I find this line of reasoning specious, and I wanted Bobby to remain on the jury so I can monitor how fair the deliberations are.”

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  Logan nodded. “Most all juries I ever came across were biased to the core,” he said. “So, what’s this Streck guy charged with, anyhow?”

  “First degree murder,” Bobby said.

  “Should you be tellin’ us this?” Logan frowned. “Ain’t you supposed to keep quiet ’bout what goes on in court?” The Professor looked a little discomfited. “Bobby is indeed bound by an oath not to discuss the case outside the courthouse, but I have persuaded him that his primary duty is to justice, rather than to the letter of the law.”

  “And besides,” Bobby added, “the case hasn’t actually started yet. The jury were sent home today while the judge considers points of law.”

  Logan considered. “Y’know, I think I will drive you down to the courthouse tomorrow, Prof. Might be interestin’.”

  Bobby sighed. This was exactly what he’d been hoping to avoid. It was bad enough having to be on a jury, worse having to lie about it, but to have Logan sitting there in the public gallery—that was almost too much to bear.

  Logan leaned back in his seat and hooked his hands behind his head, suppressing a smile as he felt the woman beside him shuffle surreptitiously farther away. He looked around the chamber, assessing it and the people within it. The oak-paneled room wasn’t grand, but it was trying very hard to be, like a hick cousin dressed up for a night at the opera. The people were the same—all the petty officials puffed up with their own self-importance. Making the most of a smalltown case that had suddenly made the big time.

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  Almost unconsciously, Logan had chosen a position that gave him a good view of the court proceedings while leaving a clear escape route to the door. Something about the silence in the chamber made him nervous. It was an expectant rather than a peaceful silence, charged up with all the things people weren’t saying.

  Xavier, sitting calmly beside him, had seemed to understand his motivation and hadn’t protested. Or maybe courtrooms made him as uncomfortable as they made Logan. There was certainly an animal edginess about this one. He could smell the ghoulish interest of the press gallery behind him, the animosity of the public, and the fidgety nervousness of the jury.

  Bobby didn’t look any happier than the rest. His usually amiable face was pinched and worried. He constantly ran his fingers through his sandy hair, while his eyes roved the courtroom, carefully avoiding those of Logan and the Professor. In fact, they setded most often on one of his fellow jurors: a stately dark-haired woman Logan judged to be way out of Bobby’s league—and Logan was an expert at these things. Bobby was looking at her when the assistant DA rose to make his opening statement, and at the squeal of the prosecutor’s chair he jerked his eyes away with a start. Logan gritted his teeth. Drake was acting so guilty you’d have thought he was the one on trial. Why didn’t he just wear a sign? MUTANT IN DISGUISE—PLEASE LYNCH.

  “Alan Wydell, a man with no few political ambitions,” Xavier said quietly, nodding toward the ADA.

  Logan studied the man. Medium height, middle-aged, paunchy—not much good in a fight, but could probably

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  talk himself out of one. “I guess winning this case wouldn’t hurt those ambitions none.”

  The Professor smiled very slightly, his expression then changing to a thoughtful frown as he gave his full attention to the prosecution’s opening remarks.

  “. . . heard a lot about the mutant menace. And maybe we’ve been told there isn’t such a thing. Well, if there isn’t a mutant menace, there sure as hellfire are mutant menaces, and this—” Wydell spun round dramatically to point at the defendant “—this is one of the worst of them. Five good family men, sons and fathers and brothers, have been killed. Torn to shreds by the savage claws of a freak of nature that some might say should never have been born. Murdered in cold blood by this—this man, Arthur Streck.”

  The emphasis didn’t escape Logan’s attention, and he felt anger surge within him at Wydell’s blatant manipulation of the court.

  Streck shifted uncomfortably, as if the scores of eyes resting on him exerted some real physical force. Logan’s scalp prickled with the fear he could sense emanating from the defendant. Fear and, even more strongly, anger. The press had dubbed Streck the Dinosaur Killer. His green-yellow scales fitted this image, but Logan was put in mind more of a cat. Streck’s frame was slender and looked agile. Flis face, beneath the scales, was narrow and intelligent. Beside him, the tip of a prehensile tail twitched its irritation. A cat, and not a tame one.

  The ADA had paused to stare at Streck, and Streck returned the stare full force, his lips drawn back in a sneer that was halfway to being a snarl. Wydell shifted away slightly, his expensive lawyer’s suit rumpling as the muscles

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  beneath it unconsciously tensed for action. All around the courtroom Logan could feel the same reaction repeated. The million-year-old fight-or-flight instinct of an animal confronted with a threat.

  “You may ask why we’re so sure we’ve found the right. . . man,” Wydell continued after a moment in his deep, reassuring voice. “Motive, opportunity, and method, ladies and gentlemen. Method—well, Mr. Streck couldn’t dispose of his murder weapons. He was born with them on the ends of his fingers. Opportunity, then. This creature was present at every single one of the crimes. And motivation. The accused, I guess you’ve probably noticed, is a mutant.” Wydell paused for a wave of laughter to sweep the court. “The victims were members of a group, the Friends of Humanity, which has b
een fighting for the rights of ordinary folks against the so-called mutant menace. Some time ago, there was an incident involving the victims and Arthur Streck’s sister. The victims were brought to trial—Streck claimed they’d assaulted her—but the jury thought otherwise and the case was dismissed.”

  There was a note in Wydell’s voice that suggested this was a cause of some satisfaction to him. Logan wondered if he’d prosecuted that case too. And how fair the trial had been if he had. Shifting to a more comfortable position, Logan settled down for a long and depressing day. Justice seemed about the last thing Xavier had brought him here to witness.

  Bobby pushed the remains of his lunch listlessly around his plate and sighed. It hardly seemed possible, but this was even worse than he’d imagined, what with the claustropho-

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  bic, clinical little room they’d shut the jury up in for their meal, the terrible quality of the meal itself, and the hushed antimutant conversations he could hear going on among his fellow jurors. But then, the prosecution case was so strong that even he thought Streck was guilty. The guy looked shifty, too, and this claim that he’d only been in the areas of the crimes because he’d signed up with a new agency specializing in mutants and he’d had job interviews near each crime was so obviously fraudulent that Bobby couldn’t believe Streck was trying it.

  So here he was, sitting in this miserable little room with a bunch of people he didn’t dare speak to. And there she was: the gorgeous Rachel Mostel. He was sure there must be all sorts of laws against having an affair with another juror, but he just couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off her. Most of the rest of the jury seemed to feel the same way. Trust him—unlucky at cards and unlucky in love.

  He felt himself blushing fiercely as he realized that she had noticed him noticing her. Worse, she was walking toward him. He looked down at the unlovely remains of his fried eggplant, and hurriedly shovelled in another mouthful.

  It was too late. His plate rattled as she sat down opposite him. “You’re Bobby, aren’t you?” God, her voice was as beautiful as the rest of her.

  He began to answer, realized he still had a mouthful of food, flushed again, and swallowed. “Yes, but my friends call me Mr. Drake.” She looked confused. “Joke,” he said, waving his fork at her and, to his horror, splashing some eggplant juice on her cream-colored blouse.

  She didn’t seem to notice. She smiled, and leaned fur-

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  ther toward him. He wondered if she could hear his heart pounding. “It’s such a waste of time, isn’t it?” she said softly.

  Bobby frowned. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “This trial. I mean, everyone knows he did it.”

  “Do they?” Bobby said uncomfortably. “Do you really think we should be discussing it?”

  “Why not?” said a gruff voice at his shoulder. Bobby twisted round to identify Joey, the jury’s foreman—a squat bulldog of a man with a nicotine-stained moustache. “We all think the same.” There were nods and grunts of assent from several of the other jury members who had begun to gather around. Most of them were staring at Rachel with something approaching awe in their eyes.

  Rachel smiled at them. “He’s a mutie,” she said sweetly. “As far as I’m concerned, they’re always guilty until proven innocent.”

  “Not much danger of that,” another juror interjected. The grunts of agreement were more forceful.

  Bobby felt about as out of place as a panda at a prayer meeting. “Don’t you think we should wait till we see the evidence ...,?” he began tentatively, trailing off as he felt Rachel’s huge green eyes focus on him. He was still looking into them when the bailiff summoned the jury back to the courtroom. Even after he sat down, they remained in his memory.

  The afternoon brought a parade of witnesses willing to testify that they’d seen Streck at the scenes of each crime. The forensic evidence, too, seemed pretty conclusive. Xavier projected a cautionary telepathic message—They’ve only proved the murders could have been committed using Streck’s

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  claws, not that they were—but Bobby thought he was grasping at straws. The pictures they showed the jury of the dismembered carcasses of the victims turned even his stomach, and he’d seen more death and pain in his lifetime than he cared to remember. He felt a shudder running through the jury, as if someone had just walked over all their graves.

  Unable to stop himself, he turned his eyes to Rachel. She was looking at one of the photos with shock and horror. Bobby felt a wave of understanding sweep over him. So she didn’t like mutants. So what? Would he like them if he didn’t happen to be one himself?

  The next photo they passed to the jury was of Streck’s sister. It was taken shortly after her assault, and Bobby winced at the contusions on her fragile body. But when the photo was passed on he sensed it evoking an altogether different kind of horror inside him. He glanced across at the picture again as the next juror held it. She was pretty frightening, he supposed: scaled and tailed like her brother. Was it any wonder people didn’t feel much sympathy for someone as freakish looking as she? And Bobby had seen— had fought—plenty of evil mutants in his time.

  But what about his fellow X-Men? They were okay, weren’t they? He’d had good times with them. They had helped him over problems in his life. They had saved his life too many times to count.

  Except that Wolverine was dangerous—too close to the animal within him to trust completely. And nobody really knew where Gambit came from, with his glowing red eyes. His demonic glowing red eyes.

  Bobby shook his head, telling himself this was an absurd

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  line of reasoning. But when the photo was passed back to him again, he couldn’t feel anything except disgust.

  Logan had chosen to wait in the narrow alley that ran beside the courtroom. The sun had sunk so low that its light didn’t penetrate there, and water dripped down the dank walls in premature twilight. There was no reason not to wait out front; he just felt more at home here. His natural habitat. Charley was snug back at the mansion, chauffeured home by Cyke. But Logan had picked up the “meeting Bobby and sniffing around” detail. Just his luck.

  There was Drake now, walking past the mouth of the alley. He was looking off to the left, so rapt he didn’t notice Logan saunter up beside him. It was that woman he was watching, the good-looking juror. He was virtually drooling over her. Logan studied her: mile-long legs, healthy from working out rather than hard work. There was no denying, she was easy on the eye. Logan realized he was staring at her too, heart racing faster than his car, as she brushed past Bobby, flicking him a quick come-hither smile.

  For a second, he didn’t want anything in life more than her. And then it was gone, and she was just another well-groomed frail. And he had that feeling running through his blood, that I-was-real-ill-but-now-I’m-well buzz that told him his healing factor had done some work. Dammit, Drake went and fell for a femme fatale. Worse, a super-powered femme fatale.

  He realized Bobby was about to walk off down the road after her. Sighing, he snaked out an arm and grabbed the scruff of his neck.

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  “What?” Bobby said irritably, halfheartedly trying to shake Logan off. His eyes never left the woman.

  “Snap out of it, bub,” Logan grated.

  Bobby jerked his head round. His face briefly contorted into an alien mask of anger, like a pet that had unexpectedly turned rabid. Then it was just Bobby again. “Logan! And there I was just about to call a cab.” As if he couldn’t help it, he returned his gaze to the retreating woman. “She’s something, isn’t she?” he said softly.

  Logan grunted. “I hear Hank says beauty’s in the eye of the beholder. Maybe he oughtta change it to smell.”

  “Is that some kind of joke I’m not getting?”

  “Depends how funny you think controlling folks’ feelings is.”

  “What?” Bobby snapped. “Ground control cal
ling Logan—what’s the matter with you, buddy?” His lake-blue eyes looked into Logan’s with genuine concern.

  “Let me put it so you can understand. She walks past here, I feel drawn to her real strong, my healing factor kicks in, and I don’t feel it no more. What does that sound like to you?”

  Bobby frowned. “You think she’s a mutant? Some kind of pheromone-control power like Spoor’s?” He laughed suddenly. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d heard the things she was saying about mutants!”

  “Yeah?”

  “All sorts of stuff in the courtroom. You know, the mutant menace spiel. She was mouthing off to all the other jurors. It was like some kind of Friends of Humanity meeting in there.” His expression became more thoughtful. “She was saying all these things, and they were all agreeing,

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  like they couldn’t help themselves ...” He looked after the retreating figure speculatively. A slight blush crept across his face. “I guess you think we should follow her, huh?”

  An hour later, and they’d toured just about every street and downtown alley there was. The rain had strengthened, and after they’d slipped away to get into X-Men uniforms, Logan almost hadn’t been able to pick up the trail again. It was dark now, too, dismal as only the fall could be. But they had found her, jittery and looking behind her every step, and now she seemed to have gotten wherever it was she was going.

  They were in an old part of town: derelict warehouses, big and ugly, and not much else. She’d slipped into one of the most run-down buildings. It looked just as deserted as the rest, but Logan could see light creeping out the edges of the blacked-out windows, and he could smell people in there. Lots of them.

  “She’s definitely up to something,” Bobby hissed.