5

Logan knew he was no longer alone even before he opened the bathroom door, although he’d heard no footsteps, no opening and closing of his room door. Spider walking on the walls could explain the lack of footsteps, but even he couldn’t crush himself into such a small package he could squeeze himself in between cracks.

He braced himself for a fight as he looked out into the bedroom, only to find a man crouched in front of the t.v. cabinet, looking through the drawers. “No booze?” The man said, pained. “ Why don’t you stay in one of those good hotels, with the mini-bar and twenty dollar packets of honey roasted peanuts?”

Logan sighed, wondering if it was too late to start hitting his head against the wall. “Go away, Bob.”

Bob looked at him over his shoulder, grinning at him like it was all a big joke. “I just got here. Don’t I at least get a kiss first?”

Logan pointed at the door, remembered he didn’t come in that way, and gave up, throwing his hands up in frustration. “What the fuck do you want?”

“Well … “ he stood and turned to face him. “I think I want to ask you … “ He paused to clear his throat, and then suddenly snapped, “What the fuck is wrong with you?! What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?!”

He should have expected that. He sighed, and crossed his arms over his chest, not sure what else to do with them. It wasn’t like he could punch him ( successfully ). But then his eyes became riveted to the words on Bob’s t-shirt. “Sausage victim?”

“Don’t change the subject. What do you - “ Bob trailed off, and looked at him curiously, cocking his head to the side, as if trying to stare through his skull. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

He glared at him. “You came all this way to ask that? You’ve never heard of the phone?”

But Bob didn’t take the bait. He continued to stare at him in that off putting way, that made him feel like a specimen under the microscope. “You have a big blank spot in your mind.”

Logan rolled his eyes. “No fucking duh, Bob. I can’t remember shit.”

“No, that’s not what I mean,” he said, still looking straight through him. He then frowned, as if confronted with a puzzle he couldn’t solve. “Have you had any more dreams about that energy thing?”

Was there a connection between those two inquiries? If there was, he had completely missed it. “No.”

But Bob’s eyes widened in surprise. “Jean? You’ve dreamed of Jean? Whoa.”

“Whoa? Why whoa?”

“Just … you haven’t had a lot of dreams about her, have you?”

Why did he get the feeling that Bob had just hedged? What was he hiding? “No. Why is that notable?”

Bob shrugged, dodging the question. Definitely hedging. “I wonder if it was really Jean. Did it seem like it to you?”

That threw him. He considered what he could remember of the dream. “I’m … I don’t know. She was frustratingly cryptic, so in that respect she was more like you.”

Bob smirked, appreciating the joke. “I promise it wasn’t. I had dry cleaning to pick up this morning.”

Logan grunted an acknowledgement , but crossed the room to get his jacket, turning his back on him. Bob was just an added complication he didn’t need right now. “Just chew me out and make it quick. I got shit to do.”

“What kind of shit, Logan? I mean, you have no idea what you’re gonna do next.”

He glanced back at him and scowled. “Stay the fuck out of my head.”

“Can’t help it.”

“Yes you can,” he shot back, but knew instantly it wasn’t true. If Bob could help it, he probably would. But he could ignore it if he chose to. And that’s when he realized Bob could help him out in a major way.

“How so?”

Logan glowered at him. He hated it when he read ahead like that. “We have no idea where to find these discs that reference Armageddon. Can you find out? You seem to know everything, or at least where to find it.”

Bob shrugged, trying to be both humble and nonchalant at once, and only partially succeeding. “True enough. But why should I? What are your intentions?”

He stared at him, wondering if this was some deadpan joke. “What?”

“This is beyond revenge, isn’t it? You are aware that if they catch on to your little ruse, you’ll be in way over your head. I have no doubt you can take ‘em - well, not forcefield girl, unless you get lucky - but man - “

“It is not a ruse,” he insisted angrily, pulling on his jacket so violently he almost tore the sleeves off. “I intend to help them find and destroy this thing - whether they intend to destroy it or not. I’ll deal with the consequences whenever they occur.”

Bob continued to stare at him like he was made of glass, transparent for all the world. “What’s with you and Xia? Why haven’t you asked her - “

“What did I say about staying the fuck out of my head?!”

“ - oh.”

Logan didn’t like the sound of that “oh” - full of pity and understanding and acceptance, “You’re deliberately trying to piss me off, aren’t ya? What the fuck was that “oh” about?!”

Bob smiled thinly, looking like he was trying to swallow something that tasted bad. “Guilt, the great equalizer.”

“I do not feel guilty!” He snapped. “I haven’t done anything to feel guilty about!” Mentally, he added “Yet.” and knew he might as well have said it - Bob surely caught it anyways.

“This is exactly why you both need to stop dancing’ around the issue and just ask,” Bob said, obviously ignoring him. “Why are you feelin’ bad that you abandoned her to these people when it may not be that cut and dried? And guilt if you slept with her ‘cause you think she was too young? You don’t even know that you did sleep with her, let alone what the hell her age was at the time! Come on, man, ask her. Stop bein’ a dick. I know you’re scared - “

“I am not scared,” he spat, expecting to be ignored again.

Well, of course he was. Bob went on like he hadn’t said a thing. “ - but you’re the one who wanted to venture into your past. You knew from the outset it couldn’t all be good.”

“All be good? None of it is good!”

“Mariko.”

He winced, and felt that alien surge of rage again. What would it be like to punch his claws through Bob? Could you punch it through flesh that was really just energy transmogrified into a shell? “That wasn’t good, Bob. They fucking murdered her, and I … “

“Snapped?”

God, he wanted to kill him. “I killed every single fucking one of them. I’d have been better off not knowing.”

“Do you honestly believe that?”

He snorted in disbelief, trying to rein in his anger. “Yeah, I do. At least then maybe I could’ve pretended I wasn’t an adept killer before the Organization got ahold of me.”

Bob rolled his eyes, and threw up his hands like Logan was being the unreasonable one. “Good god, mate, have you ever given Prozac a whirl? I mean, if you’ve never had it before, it could work for a tick.”

“And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

He crossed his arms over his chest, and scowled at him, his cobalt eyes seemingly nailing him to the spot. “It means when a guy who is nigh invulnerable gets suicidally self-destructive, I get worried.”

“I am not - “ he began, but then just gave up. There was no arguing with Bob; he thought he knew everything, so fuck him. “Are you gonna help me or not?”

Bob arched an eyebrow, gazing at him like he had just asked him to clean the toilet with his head. But after a moment, he said, “I find out where these things are, I expect you to think about exactly what you’re doing.”

“You sayin' I haven’t?”

“I think there’s more going on here than you want to admit. Oh, by the way, Xavier’s feelin’ really betrayed over this.”

“Good, now he knows what it's like.”

“Fair enough.” He let his arms drop to his side, and took a deep breath, seemingly steeling himself for something bad. “If I find something out for you, I want you to step back and take a good, hard look at what you’re doin’ to yourself, okay?”

“Yeah, whatever.” Whatever it took to get him the fuck out of here.

Bob gave him that curious look anew. “What is it, Logan? C’mon.”

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and mentally counted to ten before answering. “Look, it’s not that I’m not … grateful for all your help, okay? You’ve done more for me than Xavier, and I appreciate that. But I want to figure this thing out for myself, okay? Other people muddle things - “

“And they can get hurt.” Bob interrupted.

He shrugged, wanting to get past that as quickly as possible. “Yeah. I gotta do this for myself, okay? If I get in over my head, I’ll call ya, okay?”

Bob nodded, but it seemed like he was humoring him. “Sure. I’ll see what I can find on the discs for ya. Sure you don’t want me to have a little chat with your friends? They’ll never remember it.”

“Thanks, but no thanks.” He knew it might be the smart thing to do, but right now he wanted to do this by himself, without others getting in the way or messing with his business. Was that so hard to understand?

Bob nodded, and said, “Just keep in mind we are generally our own worst enemies. And seriously - look into a mini-bar.” He gave him a Cheshire Cat grin, and just like it, he disappeared, although all at once. But he bet Bob could have disappeared in pieces if he had really wanted to.

Logan stared at the spot where he had been just a moment before, and wondered why he didn’t want Bob involved with this. He wanted to be left alone … but yet, here he was in a group. A group where he felt completely alone.

Hardly a new thing, was it?

He left his room, and headed down the narrow corridor, wondering where he could go from here. And why his whole life was a question he couldn’t hope to answer.

6

Scott found himself studying the Slurpee as it melted, in spite of the air conditioning. It was a Coke one, so it wasn’t a violently frightening artificial color, but still … a grainy pile of brown ice crystals. Hardly appetizing.

Still, it was more interesting than watching the people come and go inside the 7-11. It was mostly young men in shorts today, with a few young women and some older people stopping in for their pack of smokes. He knew he was in no position to talk, but damn it if most men didn’t have truly repulsive legs. There seemed to be two specific types: those with legs so skinny they were sticks, like bleached pencils with hair and blue veins like worms; then there were the types with legs so pudgy it looked like they had no knees, it was just a solid, puffy tube of meat from thigh to ankle.

Men just shouldn’t wear shorts. It was amazing any women consented to breed with them, if you thought about it. On the whole, they weren’t a very attractive package, were they?

Scott was tired of thinking about it; he was tired of thinking about anything except how he was going to get Logan and his Organization buddies. He didn’t like sitting here, feeling guilty about feeding Rogue a line of bullshit, while a turd brown Slurpee in a brightly colored cup melted slowly in his lap.He wasn’t sure if this was an incredibly lame attempt at cosmic justice, or proof that being a “hero” really wasn’t nearly as glamorous as people were often led to believe.

The passenger side door suddenly opened, and he was greeted with a flurry of activity and noise as Rogue clamored into the seat. “Sorry, it was hard getting away from Bobby and avoiding the Professor,” she said, letting a small leather backpack thud to the floorboards. “My Slurpee?”

He handed it over after she slammed the door needlessly hard, and she smiled and took the sweating cup with both hands. When he told her he needed something of Logan’s to find him, and that he would be parked in front of the 7-11, she asked him to get her a Coke Slurpee. Rather than balk - which he knew he should have done - he gave into her minor blackmail, figuring she’d buy his story easier if he capitulated. “Thanks,” she said, at least remembering to do that much. “Did you see if they had Moon Pies in there?”

“Huh?”

“Moon pies?” She eyed him like he was a complete idiot. “I can’t find them anywhere. It’s like there’s some kinda embargo preventing them from bein’ imported North of the Mason-Dixon line.”

“They’re bad for you anyways,” he said, glancing out his window so she didn’t catch him frowning. “Rot your teeth. So does Coke, by the way.”

From the way the silence lengthened, he guessed she was staring at him. Finally she scoffed, and asked, “Are you for real? C’mon, Scott, even you can’t be that anal.”

He snapped his head back around to glare at her, and when he did, she seemed to realize she probably shouldn’t have said that. She quickly looked away, sipping her drink as she glanced out the windshield, doing her best to look innocent. He considered chewing her out, but ah hell, why? The sooner she left, the better. “Did you find something?”

She nodded, putting her cup on the dashboard before reaching down to unzip the backpack. His first impulse was to grab the cup - the condensation ring it would surely leave on the leather would ruin it - but suddenly he realized how stupid that was. So he got cracks in his dashboard - so what? Jean was dead, and Logan had betrayed them. Did a dashboard really matter?

“Logan didn’t leave nothing - “ she began.

“Anything,” he automatically corrected.

“ - not even soap in the dish, ya know?” She went on, completely ignoring him. “He gives a new definition to travelin’ light, doesn’t he? I mean, I’ve done it, but I still need a change of clothes and my Walkman, for when I get bored. And let me tell you, when you’re tryin’ to hitch a ride, you get bored a lot.” She pulled an object out of the bag, and gave it to him with a slightly triumphant, slightly sarcastic, “Ta da.”

He looked down at the object in his hands. It was a book with what appeared to be a man swathed completely in chain-mail on the cover; perhaps it was simply the back of his head. “Beowulf?” He said in disbelief. “Isn’t this from the library?”

She shrugged as she grabbed the cup from the dashboard. “I guess. You said something he touched would do, right? That was sitting in the middle of his bed.”

“Why?”

She shrugged again, and he figured he got all the usable information out of her that he could. “Well, it wasn't his. You said it was from the library, right? Why would Logan take it with him?"

So murder yes for Logan, but thievery no. Surely there was a logic there, but it escaped him.

Rogue went on, her eyes bright with excitement. Maybe it was the caffeine and sugar, but she seemed to be in a chirpy mood today. "Isn't that, like, a poem?"

He wasn't sure what she was referring to at first. "Beowulf?”

"Yeah. I mean, it's a poem about a bunch of guys who defend a village and then go kill some creepy old lady in a cave, right?"

He stared at her openly. Were they talking about the same thing? "What?"

"I saw the movie version."

"The movie version?"

"The Thirteenth Warrior? There's this cool part where a guy's head gets lopped off, and blood just shoots up from where his head was - "

He scowled at her, wondering exactly what Storm had been teaching her. Well, no, probably not Ororo's fault - Rogue always seemed to do her own thing. She'd absorbed Logan too many times, that was the problem. "I don't think that was the movie version."

"Oh." She watched a man with pale pigeon legs go into the convenience store, sipping her melted drink, then said, "Why would Logan be readin' poetry?"

He shrugged. "I was about to ask you the same thing." Maybe he had a need for a paperweight. He put the book on the dashboard, and when his insistent look wasn't enough, he added, "Thank you, Marie, but shouldn't you be getting back?"

She shifted impatiently in the passenger seat. "I wanna come with."

"What? No."

"Oh, come on. I'm as bored as hell back at the school. And you know Logan will come back for me."

Did he know that? Then why did Logan leave in the first place? "If Xavier thinks it's too dangerous for me to go after them, there is no way in hell - "

"Please?" She tried her best pleading look.

He ignored it. " - when hell freezes over Marie." In a way, he had expected this. He just hoped the lie held, and that she had anticipated rejection.

"I can hold my own, you know," she grumbled, unhappy but accepting that ( whew ). "I'm not a child."

"Yes you are."

Her frown deepened, making her look older than she was. "Bob doesn't treat me like a child."

"Bob doesn't count. He's hardly a normal Human being."

"I know, that's what so cool about him."

He sighed heavily, wondering if Rogue would ever get over her attraction to so-called "bad boys". It wouldn't serve her well in life, powers or not. "I have to get going," he said, doing his best to sound polite.

Rogue made a dismissive noise, and reached for the door handle. "Yeah, well, say hello to Logan for me."

"I'll do that," he replied dryly. He wondered if blasting him into next week counted as a "hello".

She got out of the car, grabbing the now empty backpack off the floor and shouldering it, never losing the grip on her Slurpee cup. She glanced back in at him, and he was surprised to see a stern, almost motherly look on her face. "Now don't you do some smartass thing like try to hurt him," she warned. "You'll only piss him off. And Logan can't always control himself when he's pissed off."

She slammed the door before he could respond to that, and he watched her disappear into the 7-11, probably in search of her beloved Moon Pies.

Since when had Rogue gotten so smart?

7

Logan knew more accusations were flying his way, but he tuned them out as he scoured the traffic in the rear view mirror, looking for ... ah yes, there it was. Several cars back, and occasionally drifting over to the opposite lane, but there just wasn't enough traffic to conceal them.

" - friend is exactly?" Tom continued from the back of the van. "If you contacted Xavier - "

"I've told you a million times Xavier is no friend of mine," Logan snapped, hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly there was a danger he would snap it. "And shut the fuck up already - we gotta tail."

"What?" Xia asked, startled, glancing in the rearview. After a moment, her lips thinned to a grim line. "Black van."

Logan grunted an agreement. "Anybody know these streets?"

He was met with a resounding silence. Then, Spike asked, "Where are we again? Salem?"

Useless; utterly useless. "Okay, 'Plan B' then."

Logan took a sharp turn down a neighboring street, trying to maintain a normal speed and not give away that they were aware of the tail yet. There wasn't a lot of traffic, and the Organization might feel that the potential civilian casualty rate was low enough that they could simply open fire from a distance. Logan had to figure out a way to get a drop on them before they wised up that they had been made.

They were in a quiet downtown area, gentrified nearly to death, with Starbucks and convenience stores bracketing each block like sentinels on guard against less rarified invaders. It was still before the traditional lunch hour, so there wasn’t that many pedestrians on the sidewalks either.

“I can take ‘em,” Tom said from the back.

“And us as well,” Chameleon scoffed. “You can’t target a rift like that.”

He checked the speedometer: fifty two. And they were coming fast on another corner. If he was going to do this, it would have to be now. “Keep going for another two blocks,” he said, as he pressed down on the gas, giving it a little more speed.

“What?” Xi asked, looking puzzled. She was in the shotgun seat, and everyone else was in the back, mainly because she was the only one he trusted beside him, and the others didn’t really trust him either.

“Take the wheel,” he said, reaching for the door handle.

She lunged for the wheel before they could swerve completely out of control. It was a lucky thing it wasn’t raining yet. “What? Logan, what - “

But he didn’t bother to answer, he simply opened the door as they took the corner hard, and flung himself out the driver’s side door.

He instantly tucked into a roll as soon as he hit the pavement, tried to control it, but at those speeds the impact was still jarring, enough to give his brains a good rattling. He felt stinging as his skin was ripped, heard a different kind of tearing, and hoped it was just his clothes and nothing more.

He rolled up against the gutter hard, and scrambled to his feet, even as his consciousness continued to reel, and black spots exploded in front of his eyes. Still, he saw a six story building, and figured it would be good enough.

Ignoring the startled looks of a few witnesses, he darted to the small brick coffeehouse, popping his claws.

***

“They’ve speeded up,” Mack shouted over his shoulder, as he kept his eyes firmly on the road. A good thing, as he instantly had to swerve around a pedestrian. “Do you think we’ve been made?”

“How much are we talkin’ about?” Hanson shouted back. “Are they tryin’ to lose us?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, as he took the corner hard. The dark blue van - a converted Organization small transport with all the trackers removed - was at the head of the street, stopped for a light. The light turned green almost the second he looked at it, and they were on their way again. But they weren’t peeling away, and who stopped for traffic lights in the middle of a chase? So they couldn’t have known they were after them. Unless they wanted them to think that …

He hated hunting muties that used to belong to them; they knew too many of their tricks, and were in general far too savage. They had no qualms about killing anyone. Which was exactly why the unit in the back was already locked and loaded, just waiting for the signal. But Hanson hadn’t told him how they were going to take down Wolverine, who seemed pretty resilient to having lead pumped into him, and Atomic, who was impervious to everything once she had her field up. He said there were “contingencies” but he didn’t bother to add any more details. It made him wonder if they had these so called “contingencies” with them, or if it was simply to blow the gas tank and hope they fried with the rest
of them.

It was then that something hit the roof with a loud thud that bowed the metal in about an inch, followed closely by the three blades suddenly punching through, just inches from his head. “Fuck!” He shouted, jerking back from the blades and almost losing control of the van. “Wolverine on the roof!” Where the hell had he come from? The van was just up ahead; no one got out, and Wolverine wasn’t one of the ones who could fly.

The instant Wolverine started peeling the roof up like a pop-top, some douche bag ( possibly more ) opened fired, drowning out the sound of Hanson screaming, “Stop shooting! We’re bulletproof, assholes!” Which meant the bullets, rather than penetrating the roof that Wolverine had yet to rip off, were zipping around the transport like angry, super-sonic wasps. He felt the wind from one pass centimeters from his face before it bounced off the bulletproof windshield and zinged back towards its shooter. He heard a noise like someone punching a side of beef, and felt something wet hit the back of his neck. He didn’t dare turn around to look what had happened.

But he couldn’t anyways. He swerved the van to try and throw Wolverine off, but he did it too hard and lost control, and as the van jumped the curb and a wall filled his view, he stomped on the brakes and hoped they wouldn’t lock up.

Mack actually wasn’t sure if they had or they hadn‘t. The front end crunched violently against it, and the air bag exploded in his face as the vehicle came to a glass breaking, metal rending, jolting stop. Someone hit the seat hard as he slammed into the goddamn air bag, which he instantly started to punch down. Who knew they’d make these stupid things standard in even their vehicles?

There were some faint moans from the back, the rattle of equipment, and the whistle of wind through their sudden and voluminous sunroofs, but he didn’t see Wolverine through them, or his gleaming claw tips still in the dark metal. “Pack up,” Hanson barked, sounding a little shaky himself, but trying his best to bluff it away. “He’s out there - hard termination protocol.”

“Out there?” One of the conscious men replied. Mack didn’t know his name, and he didn’t much care. The new recruits were often just cannon fodder; there was no point in getting used to them in any respect. “He probably got launched onto the next block.”

Mack had been thinking that too. The momentum of velocity would have tossed him off the roof and most likely into ( if not through - he had about a hundred pounds of adamantium in him; that stuff was pretty dense ) the building. Even that would jar Wolverine for a little while - but only a little while.

He checked his side arm and pulled it as he opened his door and eased out, glancing up at the torn roof, just in case he was somehow still hanging on. It was possible … but the roof was too Swiss cheesed for him to hide anywhere on it. Now what had the briefing for Wolverine been? If you have to shoot, go for the face and head; a lucky shot might punch through his eyes and get through to his brain, or multiple hard impacts to the skull might take him out for a minute or two. Fire was a better weapon if you could find it, but they weren’t given flamethrowers, so what was he supposed to do, lob a Molitov cocktail at him? Knives were useless, and if you had to engage in hand to hand, you might as well just kill yourself and save you both some time. If Atomic was out here too, they were so doomed it wasn’t funny.

The back of the van opened up, and the troops able to walk got out, breaking out into hard termination formation …

Except for the sudden shouts and the random, staccato bursts of gunfire, which seemed to break up all semblance of order. He heard Hanson shouting for “convergence” before he went suddenly silent. They all went silent.. A body of one of the troops was tossed out into the street, still holding on to the shattered remains of his rifle. He couldn’t tell if he was simply unconscious or perfectly dead.

Oh fuck.

“I don’t want to fight,” Mack shouted, aiming his gun nervously towards the back of the van. He wasn’t an idiot. He wouldn’t survive a fight with all those muties, and certainly not with those bloodthirsty monsters Wolverine and Spider.

He stepped out from the side of the van, gun still raised, shaking like a newbie on his first mutie run, waiting for some mutie to show itself and try and kill him. That’s why, when he was grabbed from behind, he yelped and fired spastically, finger pulling automatically on the trigger before the gun was yanked from his hand and tossed away. “I thought you didn’t want to fight,” Wolverine snarled in his ear, tightening his grip around his throat.

Mack grabbed his forearm to try and take the pressure off his windpipe, but it was impossible; his arm felt like a steel ( adamantium ) cable. “I don’t wanna die,” he croaked, not bothering to add “and certainly not at the hands of a psychotic freak”, but that was probably implied.

“Don’t you?” He snarled, clearly enjoying this. “Then why are you following us?”

“Orders.”

He chuckled darkly. “Orders. It’s always orders. What a handy excuse for the cruel.” He jerked his arm back, pulling him briefly off his feet and even more briefly cutting off his air. “You know what I wanna do to you, soldier boy? I want to carve you up and spell out a message with your entrails. Do ya think your superiors will get the message then?”

He was serious, wasn’t he? Oh Christ. “Please don’t,” he gasped, almost sobbing.

It was then that he felt a sharp pain in his side, and heard water patter down to the pavement … except it wasn’t raining. He glanced down to see three of Logan’s claws sticking through him, just shy of his kidneys, and blood streaming down his claws to the asphalt. “You have no idea what I want to do to you, boy,” Wolverine growled in his ear, his breath hot and smelling of blood.

It was then Mack knew he was going to die.