Enigma saw why on the news.

The target was indeed killed.His wife appeared to be very distraught about it when she was interviewed by the reporters.

She had rented the room next to Wolverine's,so she went to it to field the inevitable call from Vector about this,and grew increasingly nervous as the call never came.

Wolverine was too valuable to destroy-they had invested a lot of money and time in him,and they had yet to find anyone quite as resilient or indestructable as he was.But what would become of her pet project?They couldn't let him continue on as he was doing now.

Unexpectedly,there was a knock at the door,and she grabbed her gun in the pocket of her new coat as she asked warily through the door,"What?"

"Vector Prime has been initiated,"a somewhat bored male voice answered.

The code:it was someone from the Organization.Shit-if they sent someone in person,things were really bad.Reluctantly,she unlocked the door and let them come in,but she kept her hand on her hidden gun.You could never be too careful.

She recognized the tall,sepulchral figure of Overseer as he came in the door,and knew Wolverine was in deeper shit than she ever would have guessed.

The gaunt,fish eyed man shut the door behind him,and gave her a look far too cold to be called a glare."Wolverine failed."

"The main target was-"

"Wolverine failed,"he interrupted,his voice as emotionless as a synthetic one you'd get from a computer."Wolverine does not fail.Even when he had to allow himself to be captured to gain access to the Shadow Base,he fought his way through thirty seven armed soldiers to retrieve the needed codes;he even tracked down and killed an extra sixteen just for the sheer hell of it.This was an easy op,and he bungled it."

She remembered the Shadow Base operation,one of his first as Wolverine.Once they reached the drop point,a scan showed a single living person in the entire two acre vicinity,and that was,of course,Wolverine.He wiped them out in less than an hour,proving the Organization's faith in him was well placed.He was a killing machine...as long as Dreamland work.Sadly,it looked as if its time had come and gone."Main target was eradicated,"she pointed out again,this time successfully.

But he didn't care."Irrelevant.There were two targets,and he let one get past him."

Or let them go,she thought,and knew that had to be what happened.The new dose of Dreamland was not enough;too little,too late.His conscience had reasserted itself,and he couldn't kill her.She had won the battle for control of his mind,but with his body's amazing regenerative (and adaptive) capabilities,Logan had ultimately won the war.Well,she had to give him credit;he was a formidable opponent."Relapse was inevitable.I told Vector it wouldn't hold indefinitely."

"Failure was not predicted this soon,"he said in his funereal monotone."If you'd like a small chance at redemption,here it is."He took something out of his coat pocket and tossed it to her.

She caught it with one hand,and knew what the ampule of pale blue liquid was before she even looked at the markings on the otherwise generic white label:Dreamland.

But the dosage was lethal times six.

"You can't be serious,"she said,letting her hand fall to her side,ampule held firmly in her palm.

"This dose should have some effect,yes?"

"Oh,you bet-it'll render him brain dead.You'll fry every fucking synapse he has,asshole!"She spat,disgusted by his stupidity."And where the hell did you get this?Dreamland comes from my lab only."

Overseer gave her a rather condescending look,his thin lips quirking up in what probably passed for a smile."You knew that couldn't last forever,Enigma."

It was then what exactly he said hit her:a chance at redemption.Son of a bitch-she was going to take the fall for Wolverine's mistake.And in the Organization,falls were short,sharp,and hard...and,needless to say,permanent.And,by trying to usurp her lab (and Dreamland),they were taking away the only bargaining chip she had.She was doomed,and only because Wolverine was too valuable to throw away.

She nodded,resigned to her brutal fate,and brought her hand up to look at the ampule of Dreamland once more.

As she did,she pulled the trigger on the gun hidden in her coat.

Along with the built in silencer,the shot amounted to little more than a loud pop,and her aim was true-straight through Overseer's theoretical heart.

He had time to gape at her in wide eyed horror,gurgling for breath as blood gushed out the small,pencil sized hole in his chest,and then he collapsed to his knees before falling on his face on the carpet,as dead as he always looked.

She glanced down at the hole in her jacket,frowning.And she'd just bought it.

Wolverine burst in,inadvertently shoving Overseer's body aside as threw open the door,claws sprung and ready to go.But when he saw her,he stopped,confused,and then sniffed the air.He followed the scent of blood to the body behind the door.

"What..?"He began,confused.He looked between her and the body,his dark wet hair flopping in his eyes.

"He tried to kill me,"she told him,and it wasn't completely a lie:she was doomed the moment Overseer came in the door.Killing him really didn't make her any more doomed.

Wolverine was fully dressed,but his clothes clung to him mercilessly,suggesting he'd dressed in a hurry.Maybe he heard her voice raised-god knows these walls were cardboard thin-and assumed trouble.So,Logan was winning,but hadn't obliterated Wolverine yet.

Good.

"We have a final mission,Wolverine,and success is imperative."

He glanced down at the carpet and swallowed hard,his Adam's apple bobbing unsteadily in his throat."Enigma,I'm not sure-"

"You don't have to kill anyone,at least in theory,"she interrupted,not giving him a chance to apologize or whatever the hell he was going to do.He looked up sharply,and she could see the surprise in his eyes.Didn't he guess that she would figure it out?"We simply have to destroy a biological weapons laboratory."

"We?"He repeated dubiously."Since when do handlers come on missions?"

"I wasn't always a handler,Wolverine.It takes an assassin to know one.And the lab in question is mine."With that,she dropped the ampule of Dreamland-probably the last one in existence,if everything went according to plan-on the floor,and ground it into the threadbare shit brown carpet with the heel of her boot.

If the Organization thought they were going to screw her over and steal her greatest project, they had a hard lesson to learn.

And,much to her shock,she found she was more than happy to shove that lesson all the way down their throats.

She would sleep when she was dead.

Wolverine was slowly but surely coming apart at the seams as the Dreamland continued to wear off,although Wolverine wasn't completely gone yet.She was glad;she was going to need him now.

She carefully drove the twisty roads that led them deeper into the dense pine forest,the sun setting on the unseen horizon turning the sky an angry orange red that made the trees into sharp black spires.Shadows pooled beneath the overhanging branches,making excellent hiding places,but the Organization would never be so crass or obvious.

"I know this place,"Wolverine said,staring at the trees as she drove past them.

"We're not far from the first staging area."

"The what?"

She shook her head."Forget it.No,don't bother-you will."

Out of the corner of her eye,she saw him turn his head sharply to glare at her,but she kept her eyes on winding ribbon or concrete before them,not bothering to look his way.

"What do you mean?"

"It doesn't matter,Wolverine."

"That's not my name,"he said,and seemed stunned by what had fallen out of his mouth."It's not my name.What is my name?"

"I don't know."She lied,pulling the car off the road and into what appeared to be just another patch of forest.Except the practiced eye would noticed the underbrush was cleared away,the ground unusually flat,and all lower branches trimmed off.

"What is your name?"He asked.

"You know it-Enigma."

"I mean your real name."He persisted.The stubborn man in the chair was definitely coming back now.

"I don't know either."Although it was a lie too,she didn't really care about her real name anymore; when she joined the Organization,it ceased to matter.Like most of her life.

She brought the car to a stop beneath a lowering Ponderosa pine,within obstructed view of the lab's razor wire fence."So why do they call you Enigma?"He continued,relentless,as if she was prey he was stalking.

She smirked,amused by his persistence.Maybe,if he survived all this,he could eventually be the worst thorn in the side the Organization ever had.She rather hoped that was true."Because nobody gets me."She pointed out the window,towards the fragment of fence gleaming in the dying sun,and told him,"They've illegally infiltrated my lab.I expect the presence of agents to be quite heavy,and resistance to be formidable.All I need to do is get inside the complex.Can I count on you to get me inside?"

He looked straight into her eyes,and she noticed the oddest thing:one of his eyes was half green,the iris slowly,inexorably changing from the blue,the color diffusing like a drop of dye in water."I can get you in.But what are you going to do inside?"

She tried to smile,but never quite managed it."Destroy my life's work.It's fitting somehow that I do it."

"What are you doing with a lab anyways?"

This time,she did smile."Hey,I can't give away all my secrets,can I?I wouldn't be Enigma then,would I?"

She got out of the car,and after a moment,Wolverine followed.

Wolverine was still alive and functioning-rather than scale the fence,he simply slashed an opening in it,bringing out freaked guards who quickly got their asses kicked.A small but clear alarm began to sound,echoing off the wall of trees as she carefully climbed the back fence,where there was a small snip in the razor wire,allowing her to avoid it unharmed,save for a few snags on her jacket.
She wanted to sneak in through a back entrance,but knew they'd all be covered.Instead,she ripped the metal mesh off a window on the side of the small complex,and easily lifted it up,allowing her to sneak into her own place like a burglar.

The dull cinderblock bunker exterior gave no hint to the modern,stainless steel interior,which had the unfortunate effect of amplifying sounds,although it made cleaning spilled blood a breeze.She waited quietly in the supply closet-for that's what it was,its stale air pungent with the scent of chemical sterilizers and suspension mediums-until she heard a huge noise like a steamroller smashing through the front of the building,followed by a man's scream that was more like the roar of an enraged beast,and reverberated through the halls like a waking nightmare.One of the stupid fucks guarding the place had probably hurt Wolverine somehow,and all that did was piss him off.But it would probably throw him into a berserker rage,which meant they'd have this place cleaned out even sooner than she expected.

After she heard rapid footsteps recede down the hall,she dared to emerge from the closet,and started creeping down the dull silver corridor towards the central lab.

Enigma always knew the Organization might try and co-opt her lab if her experiments ever panned out,so she had prepared for that contingency,although they didn't know that.They continued to underestimate her and her abilities,and that was going to cost them dearly.

As she came around the bend in the hall,she saw two guards standing sentry,their backs to her:obviously they were told to hold the line from a rear guard attack.She almost felt sorry for the stupid son of a bitches.

She withdrew her handgun from her pocket and smashed the butt of it across the first soldier's head,making him hit the floor hard enough to audibly crack a bone.His friend turned,rifle out,but she shoved the gun muzzle back,making the butt slam him in the stomach,and as he doubled over,she snap kicked him in the face,breaking his nose on impact.He didn't dive more than he simply crumpled to the floor in a heap,but she held on to his rifle and pulled it out of his limp hands,pocketing her handgun once more.

If they wanted to even try and get out of here alive,they were going to need some serious firepower.

His rage was a pure and frightening thing;it seemed to fill him like a molten white light,and he heard nothing in his ears but a drone,like his skull was full of angry bees,and it seemed to narrow his vision like a rifle's scope as he lashed out as the stupid men tried futilely to beat him into submission.

They screamed as their fists smashed into unyielding metal hiding beneath his flesh and his claws raked their chests,their faces,the smell of their blood and the taste of his own in his mouth spurring him on as he kicked out,crushing someone's sternum with a single blow as he cleared a path down the long steel corridor.He could hear moans and sobs behind him,indicating some form of life,and he spun on his heels to take them out...

And suddenly stopped.There was no point in killing them;they wouldn't be crawling to their feet and coming after him any time soon.But it was hard to fight back the roiling tide of rage that threatened to overwhelm him,filling his head with an angry roar of rushing blood,but he somehow fought it back and continued down the hall,searching for Enigma.

He came across the bodies of two guards-unconscious and bleeding,not quite dead yet-and went on,finding three more bodies of soldiers,although they had been shot,and were very,very dead.Well,she had claimed to be an assassin...

Passing a sealed room,he heard a voice,and paused to listen."...second team now.Yes it's a fucking emergency!She brought Wolverine with her!No,I don't know how,but he's decimated the first team!Deploy Beta now!"

He shouldered open the door,and the man inside,standing beside a metal desk and shouting desperately into the phone,jumped,dropping the receiver as he scrabbled for the sidearm he wore on his hip.

Wolverine (what was his name..?) gave him a feral grin,holding his clawless hands out as he approached the young soldier,who now stunk of fear."Do you really think one team will be enough?I mean,I'm only one guy..."

The soldier pulled his gun,and Wolverine swung his hand,claws popping out in midair and slicing the barrel off the military issue automatic pistol.The soldier,desperate,kicked out,but Wolverine caught his leg and yanked him forward.He lost his balance and fell backwards,hitting his head hard on the corner of the desk,knocking himself out.

Wolverine shrugged and dropped his leg,heading back out the door.Sometimes it was just too easy.

But he felt so strange;disconnected,as if all of this was happening to someone else,and he was viewing it all from down a long tunnel inside his own mind.The rage was ebbing away,the void being filled with utter confusion:who was he?And what the hell was he really doing?

He wondered why he was helping her.The idea of screwing over the Organization was very appealing,but he had a sneaking feeling she had done something awful to him.Of course,all he could remember was her sleeping with him,which was not awful,but it was her way of asserting more control over him....now where the hell had that thought come from?

Wolverine had no idea who he was,who Enigma really was,why he was going along with this,or why the holes in his mind were suddenly gaping,memories he was sure he possessed being torn apart in a dark whirlwind of unknown origin,making him feel more than disoriented-he felt completely lost.But until he knew better,he was going to continue doing what he did best:kick people's asses.

Finally,another trio of fallen soldiers led him to a large interior laboratory,surely the heart of the complex,and another dead man was just inside the doorway,the contents of his skull slowly leaking out onto the white tiled floor.

He stepped over him,and headed towards Enigma,who seemed to be busy wiring something beneath a table.She glanced up at him over the barrel of a gun,but she quickly put it down and went back to work."Great job,Wolverine.Can you play lookout for a second?I'm almost done."

He turned towards the door,but with great reluctance.A small part of him,buried in the recesses of his mind,felt he should kill her,but he didn't know why.But he was still convinced she was far from the semi-benevolent person she was now trying to pass herself off as."What are you doing?"

"Preparing to blow this dump,"she replied casually,and he caught a whiff of something pungent enough to make his eyes water-rocket fuel?Something highly combustible.She was making an incendiary bomb?Well,that would do it.A high temperature burn would guarantee destruction of everything here,even if they were able to extinguish the fire quickly.

"You had that stuff here,"he thought aloud,aware she hadn't brought anything with her save for her gun.

"What's the first rule,Wolverine?"She asked,just like a teacher.

"Prepare for all contingencies."

"Exactly.I prepared to be screwed over at some point,and damn if I wasn't right."

He had a feeling he had been screwed over a lot more,but he kept that unfinished thought to himself.

"And if you remember only one thing I ever taught you,let it be this:always keep going.A moving target is harder to hit."

"Not for me."He drawled.

"Or for me either.But we are the rare exceptions,sweetheart."

The 'sweetheart' comment made him glance towards her.but he figured out it was an almost maternal endearment;she wasn't that much older then him,was she?He'd swear she was younger.As she finished connecting the detonator to the explosives,he asked,"What's Beta team?"

"What do you mean?"

"I found a guy on a phone,shouting that they needed to deploy Beta team because of me."

"Shit."She slid out from beneath the table and jumped to her feet,wiping her hands on the side of her jeans."That would be a mutant retrieval squad.Let's go."

It was then a hollow boom echoed through the lab,coming from the front and radiating outward,the noise washing over them like a sudden squall."Goddamn it,"she cursed."They're here. Quick,let's try and get out the way I came in."

"What?"He asked,as she raced past him out the door.He quickly followed,only to nearly smash into her back.He smelled them and turned,claws shooting out as he did,but he saw for himself they were surrounded with over a dozen men in dark brown and green forest camouflage uniforms, either holding high powered automatic rifles,big versions of paralyzers,or something that looked sort of looked like short,wide barreled spearguns.

"One move,Wolverine,and I'll use this,"the man closest to him said,aiming down the barrel of the weird ass gun.

He snorted derisively."I'm supposed to be afraid of a speargun?"

"It shoots out a tanglewire net,made of adamantium fibers,"Enigma said,her voice admiringly flat and calm."Not only will you not be able to cut through it,but it will shred you to ribbons."

"Oh,since when were you such a spoilsport,Enigma?"A man of average height and icy blue eyes said,leveling a normal rifle at her chest.He recognized him,just barely-Vector.

"Since you decided to take my project away from me,"she replied coolly."And I suggest you let us leave,or I'll kill us all."She held up her right hand,which was closed into a fist.He could just barely see what looked like a red switch beneath her thumb.

Rifles clicked and leveled at her,but she just smiled."Yes,boys,shoot me.Go ahead."

Vector gestured for them to wait as he gave her a nasty look,and Wolverine figured it out:dead man's switch.If she let go of the switch,or eased the pressure ever so slightly,it would trigger the detonator and blow them all to hell.

Well,for all she was or wasn't,Wolverine had to hand it to her.She thought of everything.

He could see in Vector's eyes the instant decision to grab Enigma's hand-if he could keep pressure on it,it wouldn't go off even if she released it-but she saw it too and moved her fist back towards him,saying,"Wolverine."

He knew what she wanted him to do,and he did it instantly:retracting his claws,he turned towards her and wrapped his hand over hers on the detonator."Come on,volunteers to strong arm him line up on the left,"Enigma taunted,her voice still as level as always.

The molten hatred in Vector's eyes was enough to make him smile.

"Clear a path,and don't interfere,"she told him."Or we all die together.And I really wouldn't try and defuse it.Any interference at all,and we have an early Fourth of July."

"You are a bitch,"Vector growled.

Enigma gave him a cold,razor blade smile."That's why they hired me."

With great reluctance,Vector gestured for the soldiers to stand down and move aside,his features twisting in disgust.

They began moving slowly down the stainless steel corridor,Enigma first with him shadowing her,still holding her hand and the detonator.The soldiers followed,guns and paralyzers raised,pacing them,frustration evident on all their faces.

As they went towards the rear exit,Vector started talking to him."Do you know what she is,Wolverine?A former terrorist.A murderer."

"I don't care,"he snapped,not even bothering to look back at him.He really didn't care. The eyes of all those soliders upon him made him itch between the shoulder blades,and he really wanted to tell them to knock it the fuck off,but he doubted it would work.

"She's your torturer,Wolverine,"Vector said,and the accusation seemed to send a cold shock of fear through his heart.

"Oh yes,I put that adamantium skeleton in you all by myself,"she replied sarcastically. But he noticed she hadn't exactly denied the accusation.

Still,it didn't matter right now.He didn't see how they'd get out of this alive,and he didn't know if that was exactly a bad thing.He didn't want to die-he didn't think he did-but he instinctively knew ending up back in these people's custody was a fate worse than death.

Somehow they made it outside;the sky was a molten orange,casting large black shadows into the open courtyard,almost but not quite hiding the extra soldiers arrayed around them,waiting for them in the darkness.

"You can let go now,"she whispered to him,her breath coming out is white,vaporous clouds as the temperature plunged rapidly,promising an early frost.

He studied her face,wondering why-was she that confident they wouldn't make a grab for it?Maybe she was counting on his reflexes being fast enough to prevent such a thing.Something inside him told him he couldn't trust her;he could never trust her.But he assumed she had a plan to get them out,since she seemed to have prepared for every other contingency,and carefully removed his hand from hers.

"I'm sorry you'll survive,"she said,and let go of the detenator.

The explosion was instantaneous,a roaring wall of force and heat that seemed to throw him at half the speed of light,the sudden violent shove blacking out his vision but doing little to the rest of his consciousness.He felt himself falling through the air,felt the violent impact with a tree branch (or trunk?) that snapped in half on impact and did little to slow his forward moment as he hit the ground hard,rolling across jagged rocks that tore at his clothes and his flesh like knives before he finally came to a stop,laying face down on the cool,hard ground,and finally had a welcome moment of peace.

But only a moment.

It all returned to him in a flush of heat and noise,and when he opened his eyes,he thought maybe he had been out longer than he thought,as the darkness was almost total.But when he shoved himself up to a sitting position,his entire body aching as he continued to heal from what felt like a thousand blows,he saw the thick black smoke from the burning remains of the lab was blanketing the sky,creating a false night.He had been thrown clear,about thirty feet away,and as he staggered to his feet,he noticed all the bodies around him,cast aside like broken dolls.A few may have still been breathing,but he didn't bother to check;they'd be dead soon enough.

Some of the bodies close to the lab were burning,some already charred black from the high temperature of the incendiary bomb,which had probably vaporized whatever poor bastards were inside at the time of detonation.But at least it had been a quick death.

Still,the scent of burning flesh and rendered fat was cloying,almost nauseating,nearly overpowering the smoldering chemical scent of the lab,from which gouts of flame as tall as two story houses continued to vomit up towards the blackened sky.They cast shadows that jittered across the ground like scared animals,and allowed him to see Enigma,laying on the ground barely five feet from him.

She was laying on her side,one leg bent at an unnatural angle,and as he approached her,he saw a gleaming white fragment of bone jutting through her skin near her elbow;he wasn't sure she was still alive until he kneeled beside her and put his hand on her throat.He felt her pulse jumping beneath her skin,her heartbeat increasingly irratic as the space between shallow breaths seemed to lengthen-she was dying.Since it didn't matter,he propped her up,her head resting on his knees, and said,"Enigma.Enigma,can you hear me?"

Her eyes fluttered open weakly,and she coughed up blood that oozed down her chin as she looked up at him,although he was relatively certain she couldn't focus on him.Maybe he should say something profound,or even kind,but nothing came to mind.He said the only thing that popped into his aching head:"Who am I?"

He was aware some of the movement at the edge of his vision wasn't just flame cast shadows,but soldiers who had been a sufficient distance away from the blast to have not been harmed.But he didn't care,and wouldn't care until he had an answer.

He thought he wouldn't get one as she closed her eyes again,but then she said,in a long,exhaled breath:"Logan."

Something hit him in the back.Sharp as an arrow,it sent a current through his body and he tasted electricity in his mouth before he pitched face first onto the ground,trying to move but unable to as men surrounded him and his body felt like lead,refusing to obey even the meagerest commands.

But even as his consciousness spiraled back down into darkness,he clung to the one thing he knew was his,that they could never take away from him again.

Logan-his name was Logan.

PRESENT DAY

As soon as the man lead him to an elevator in the underground parking garage,he knew something was wrong.What the hell were those smells?Something in his mind branded them inhuman,but if they weren't human,what the hell were they?Some weird ass mutants then,who just didn't smell very human anymore.