Far outside of Grand Cache,it existed in its own snowy wasteland,all marked 'private property' (with various warnings of perils along with the standard 'trepssers will be prosecuted'-although Angel doubted they'd live long enough to be prosecuted) of the 'Greater Alberta Mining Corporation'-a mining corporation that didn't exist.But 'mutant death camp' sounded so ugly they had to name it something else.

They had taken the soldier's ATV,and from what Angel found under the front seat,it was obviously keyed in to some sort of automated system,because as he drove up to part of the twenty foot high,electrified chain and razor wire topped cyclone fence enclosing all of the area,another part of it fell away,mysteriously retracting into the snowy ground,revealing a path of rutted tire tracks in the rime frosted earth.

"We are so dead,"Angel muttered to himself,driving into the Big Empty,the secret gate raising behind them,locking them in.

"No,they are,"Naomi insisted,putting on the last of her armor."All we have to do is free Logan. He knows these bases,he can bring it down while I find my sister.You just help me keep the bastards off our backs."She held the bulbous black helmet in her hands,oxygen canister hanging down on her chin,both ready to be put on at a moment's notice.

The soldiers had adamantium/electrical body armor stashed in the back of the ATV,and that became part of the new,slightly more insane plan to infiltrate the base.Angel already had his armor on,helmet included,but he had thrown the oxygen unit out the window,as he didn't need it,and this suit was a tight enough fit as it was.

At least the man was so terrified Angel was able to talk her into not killing him after he spilled his guts about the location of the base and how to reach it from there.She agreed (grudgingly) to knocking them out and tying them up,and they left the hog tied soldiers in their stolen car, illegally parked in an alley behind a restaurant.They had probably been found by the authorities,but not the right ones (from their perspective).

But Angel knew this gambit would only take them so far."This is going to turn out like that thing in "Star Wars","he grumbled,following the turns in the makeshift road.It wound between dark stands of towering pines,the snow so bright in the light of the rising moon it looked almost blue.

"What?"

"You know,when Luke and Han dressed up as Stormtroopers to infiltrate the prison level?Their cover was blown because they didn't know the right codes.And I doubt we'll have the luck to live to a sequel."

She was quiet for a moment,shooting an odd look into the rearview mirror."You are a strange man,Angel."

He grimaced,even though she couldn't see it."I've been in L.A. too long."

The Big Empty base was situated close to the end of the two and a half mile long piece of snow blasted,scrub pine laced wilderness,and the silence of it all was almost startling.This was the middle of nowhere in a pseudo-Arctic landscape,and it wasn't hard to believe that no one ever heard or saw anything suspicious going on here.The nearest house was what,seven miles away? And that looked like a winter cabin,not the type populated year round.

The road wound down to what looked like an airplane hangar in camouflage tan taking up most of the central area.And while it looked unfenced and open,a quick glance through the infrared visor on the helmet confirmed a cat's cradle of crimson beams surrounding the grounds. Now how did they disable those?

"See what we have to get through?"He asked her as she put her helmet on,and he parked next to a similar ATV,and an Army truck that looked damn familiar.

She flipped down her visor and had a look."We get through or we don't-doesn't effect the basic plan."

He wished he had her confidence-but what was he worried about?He wasn't a mutant;there was nothing they could do to him.It was Naomi who had to worry.And Logan,if he was even capable of worrying right now.Angel had the sinking feeling worrying had been lost to him in a world of pain.

But Angel knew he was probably the only hope Logan,Naomi,and Maddy had of getting out of this torture chamber alive and intact.And he had no back up whatsoever.If he fucked this up, they were all doomed.

It occurred to him he really didn't like working under pressure as he got out of the car,and started trudging through the snow in his heavy armor towards the base,Naomi following right behind him.

He pushed himself up to a sitting position,snow melting beneath his hands,and wished he was surprised to find someone crouching beside him,but he wasn't-nothing seemed right,so everything was possible.

He couldn't see the face at all-he couldn't quite see anything:it was a blur of red and black leather,and a female scent beneath the stench of burning flesh and slagged metal."You always got yourself into impossible situations,"she said,and he realized it was the woman he sometimes heard in his head.He didn't know why he couldn't see her,but he supposed he didn't know what  he was supposed to see,and that did it somehow.Perception was all,and he had none.

"Karma,"he deadpanned,attempting to move his head,and instantly making himself so dizzy he thought he was falling back into the snow.

"You may actually have a point there,but you don't know it,"the woman said,grabbing his arm with a hand so bony it was almost skeletal."You know what they want,don't you?"

"They?"The word left a bitter taste in his mouth."No."

"You never have.Well,once,but it was no help at all."

"I'm not getting you,"he admitted,as she pulled him up to his unsteady feet.

Suddenly the snowy wasteland was replaced by a metal corridor,the ceiling low overhead and making him feel entombed.

"No one does,hon,"she replied,pulling him down the corridor towards a silver metal door.He wanted to resist,but he felt ephemeral,lighter than air,and helpless to do anything but follow. "They want to know what you know about Potter and Nielsen."

"Who?"

"That's what I thought,"she sighed,pulling him into the room.

He was able to stop,mainly because he felt like he had just walked straight into a Mac truck.
He knew this place.It was in his nightmares.

A laboratory,set up with so many unknown and sinister looking machines it could have been someone's experimental garage,the largest of which was what looked like an oversized aquarium on some sort of platform,with a metal rack suspended on the ceiling above it.He noted,with a certain dispassion,that the tank had green lights surrounding it.

He walked up to it,feeling like a zombie,and for no reason he could explain he put his hand inside the tank,feeling its slick,cool glass sides,and noticing once more the green lights on the outside.It was smaller than he remembered,but also paradoxically bigger:at times,it was a confining tomb,and at others times it was a million miles deep and wide.

"I died here,"he said,and he didn't know why.

"Melodrama aside,Logan,you can't let them get any further,"the woman said,coming to stand beside him.

"Who are you?"

"You never knew,so I can't say.But let's just say I was the second person to kill you.And I locked a lot of secrets in your head-things they never knew-and I don't want them getting out.So you have to put a stop to them.Is that understood?"

He could almost see the tank in green;he could almost feel metal tearing his flesh,the urge to scream ripping through his mind like a buzzsaw.He lashed out with his arm,unsheathing his claws at the last second,aiming for her chest.

He slashed through empty air,and saw the vague idea of a woman standing across the tank from him."That's why I always liked you,Logan."He could hear the gloating smile in her voice."You know how to cut to the chase."

"I am not your fucking vault,"he growled,anger making him feel more grounded and corporeal. "And I am not their fucking guinea pig."

"Tell them that,not me.You might also want to add Reveal was a no show.It didn't have a prayer of working,not with the technology they had then.Now might be a different story,but not then."

His head,once light as a cloud,started to hurt,and he felt unbalanced somehow,only partly disconnected,like an incomplete amputation.He sank to the floor before he collapsed,sitting with his back against the tank's platform,and felt nothing when she was there in a blink, crouching beside him."What?What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Ancient history,Logan.Sort of like you.But this might come back to haunt you."

"Everything haunts me,"he replied,and he had no idea why he said that.

He thought he felt her hand in his hair,but he didn't know for sure.Everything felt wrong,his body hurt,and he was so very tired."Hang in there,Logan-we can beat these clowns.Not all mutants are good,but not all of them are bad for the same reason."

"I'm not getting you again."

"You never will."He thought he felt dry lips brush his pounding forehead,and then he felt himself falling away into darkness,but at least it was warm there,and the pain ebbed away like an outgoing tide.

She was slightly more useless than Morpheus,but infuriating in the excuses she made for it.

It was bad enough that she blamed the drugs that should have helped retrieve some of Logan's memories,saying they were still giving him hallucinations,and then impounded the problem by suggesting there was 'something else' operating in Logan's head."Has he been  counter-programmed?"She asked,giving him an accusing look.

Wolverine was not truly a second personality-it was simply Logan stripped of any sense of morality,memory,and urge to find said memories.A personality so estranged from others he became a race of one,and didn't give a shit about any of the others.But it had been programming to a degree,and Omen had been instructed of that:still she insisted that was not what she was hitting.She insisted she was 'meeting resistance',a kind Logan was simply not capable of,and in that moment Kruger knew why she was a failure as a telepath.

She was probably protecting a fellow mutant;at the end of the day,you couldn't trust a mutie,no matter who was paying their bills.

Kruger rose from his desk and went to the sink in his office to wash off the ink on his hands,as red as blood but with a much more pleasant scent,and while holding his hands beneath the stream of nearly scalding hot water,Sanders came in,waving a fax like a battle flag."Ah fuckin' hell,Krug,we got us a shitload of problems."

"More?"It was starting to become routine."And don't call me Krug."

"I thought I'd do a little background check on Enigma,you know,just to make sure she didn't whammy a back door into his head-"

"Whammy?"Kruger interrupted impatiently.The man needed to go back to school and learn how to speak English.

Sanders ignored him."They ran a routine double check on her file,and guess what?Her DNA isn't hers."

"What do you mean her DNA isn't hers?"

"Enigma's DNA is a perfect match for an upper level clerical worker for the Org,who happens to look nothin' like her at all,so the evil twin theory is out."

Kruger turned off the taps and pulled a paper towel from  the dispenser on the wall,twisting to face Sanders as he dried his hands."You are getting to the point?I trust there is a point."

"They've been searching for records of her pre-Enigma identity,and can't find any.They think all the info that checked out the first time were plants-and that maybe she was a mutant."

For a moment,Kruger was stymied as to why he should actually care,until he remembered that Enigma was responsible for finally breaking down Logan and bringing the Wolverine personality to the fore.

Was that why she was successful?And why Shrike's gambit ultimately failed?

And why Omen was unsuccessful now?

("Has he been counter-programmed?")

Oh shit."Could she have been a telepath?"

Sanders shrugged helplessly."They're fucked if they know.They have no idea who she really was, but it sorta does explain why she decided to turn against the Org."

Kruger couldn't care less who she was,where her ultimate loyalties laid-all he cared about was if the cold,dead bitch was preventing him from accessing Logan's mind somehow.Could she have implanted something deep in his subconscious,some sort of....what,escape hatch?But why would she do that?

Unless Logan was some cog in a master plan that never came to fruition,because she blew herself up first...

While he was pondering the possibilities,a siren screamed to life,and red emergency lights began flashing.

"An intruder alert?"Sanders asked,looking astounded.

"I guess Electra finally showed up to play,"Kruger guessed,secretly glad she had finally shown her face.He would have hated to have been wrong.

But now it was time to take down the missing piece of the big mutant puzzle.

They entered the base through a glorified airlock,and any fears that it scanned DNA were put to rest when the inner door cycled open,revealing a metal walled entryway and a guard at the front desk.A young,solidly built man,he gave them a funny look as they came in."Why are you still in the armor?"He asked suspiciously,his small blue eyes rapidly scanning the both of them.

"We heard Wolverine was back,"Angel said.It was the only thing he could think of.

The guard snorted humorously."Don't worry;that freak's locked down tight.He ain't goin' anywhere."

The full face helmet limited peripheral vision so he couldn't see Naomi,but Angel was sure she had tensed up."We have orders to transport a Madalyn Deschanel.Where can we find her?"He went on,knowing this was where their cover just might fall apart.

"Madalyn Deschanel?"The guard said,clearly unfamiliar with the name,and he turned to his small flatscreen computer."Where is she supposed to go?"

Ah hell."Fire Lake,"Angel said,making up the best name he could.

"Fire Lake?"He repeated,even more dubious than before."Is that new?"

"Uh huh."

"Deschanel..."he muttered,scanning his screen,and that's when Angel saw it-a momentary hesitation,a slight widening of the eyes quickly stopped."Maybe it's on the next page.Is she a doctor?"He asked,lying very smoothly as his left hand moved slowly beneath the desk.

Angel didn't know if he was going for a weapon or an alarm button,but he didn't wait to find out-he lashed out a hand and slammed his palm flat against the young man's forehead.His eyes rolled up inside his head,and as he collapsed to the floor,Naomi vaulted one handed over the desk and looked at his computer."Where is she?"She muttered to herself,her voice muffled inside the helmet."Oh,here she is:L7C?What does that mean?"

"Where's Logan?"He asked,trying to look down both ends of the hall at once.They were too exposed here,and he knew anyone approaching probably wouldn't ask many questions.

"Lab seventeen,or cell four-b.Both are listed.But why isn't Maddy's location listed?Or is L7C some location shorthand?"

Before Angel could tell her he had no idea,a siren's scream ripped through the complex,and red lights began pulsing in strips set three feet apart on the side walls.

Oh,yes-he'd forgotten about surveillance cameras.

"Come on,let's move it,"he said needlessly,and as they decided to take the right branch of the hallway,which seemed to go deeper inside the base.The power died,plunging all into darkness,the sudden silence as deafening as any klaxon.

"I guess you were expected after all,"Angel noted,putting down his infrared visor.

"Fuck them,"she snarled,running ahead of him down the corridor.Angel hastily scrambled to keep up.

Much to his surprise,she ripped off the heavy gauntlets of the armor,and as a squad of armed commandos came around the opposite corner,bolts of blue electricity erupted from her hands and hit them like a wave of pure lightning that pretty much shorted out his infrared visor.

There were aborted shouts turned grunts of pain,and they were thrown back like matchsticks in a hurricane,their bodies thudding heavily to the floor as she moved on,not even pausing.

"Halt!"A voice shouted behind Angel,which was dead silly considering their body armor.Naomi still didn't pause,and Angel only turned into a spinning kick that took him in the head,sending the over eager soldier crashing into the wall before he rebounded off and sprawled on the floor.

Even without the visor,Angel could see pretty well in the dark-he was a vampire,after all-and farther down the hall,he could see another unit on its way-an armed squad in the same electricity absorbing/adamantium proof black armor they were wearing.Of course:they'd been prepared for Naomi.

And this felt like real trouble.

"Naomi,"he shouted,sprinting to catch up with her down the twisting metal corridors.

He didn't have to go far.The only hall there was to go down suddenly turned into a dead end,a steel wall having grown abruptly in the center of the corridor,and he arrived in time to see Naomi angrily hit it with her bare fist.

"Lab seventeen is this way,"she said,the frustration evident in her voice."Logan!Logan,can you hear me?!"She shouted,kicking the wall.But it was maybe a foot thick,and possibly adamantium;Angel really couldn't tell.

And there was no reply at all.

"Stand back,"she told him."Maybe I can blast a way through."

Angel heard the others and turned around as the armored commandos opened fire.

They were firing projectiles,but as they pinged off his armor,he realized they weren't bullets but little darts.

Too late he moved to protect Naomi,but he heard her hiss under her breath,and turned in time to see her pull one out of the back of her bare hand."Shit,"she snarled,looking back at the soldiers.Since they were in armor,she couldn't electrocute them.So she turned back to the wall,and said,"Stand back."

Angel decided to do better than that-he attacked the men.They were all in armor,so they were-theoretically-evenly matched,but Angel wasn't as slowed down by the heavy gear,and,in his own opinion,was a much better fighter.Also,to be fair,armor or not,he was stronger than a human.

He didn't care about style or form;he simply hit or kicked any helmeted face that came into his line of sight.One of them grabbed him from behind,but he simply slung him over his shoulder, using him to knock down two of his fellow soldiers,and Angel glanced back at Naomi in time to see her hit the floor.

It looked like she had scorched part of the wall,but had come nowhere near blasting through it.

And now he was going to have to make a tactical retreat somehow.But if they did manage to get out of here-an extremely dubious prospect at best-there'd never be any getting back in,and they could write off both Logan and Maddy.

Angel elbowed one man in the face and threw another into the wall before he heard a man say,quite loudly,"Do you really want to be held responsible for the death of her sister,Angel?"

He turned towards the sound of the man's voice,and saw him standing at the far end of the hall,holding a gun to the head of the woman he was holding before him like a human shield.She was tall and slender,her shoulder length hair as black as coal,but something about her ice blue eyes,now wild with fear,was familiar.They looked like Naomi's.

Yes,they had prepared for their arrival.

The man,bland faced and somewhat gaunt,like a specter given form in a black commando outfit,said in a strangely casual manner,"Take off your helmet and toss it aside.Then get down on your knees with your hands on your head,or I'll paint the walls with her brains.Do you think I'm bluffing?Or do you think she's immune to bullets?Should I prove it?"

"No,"Angel replied,feeling the anger fueled adrenaline surge through his veins.Life was so fucking cheap to these bastards.And although he never told Naomi,he sort of wondered if their taking of her sister was a contingency plan,a guarantee they'd get Naomi one way or another.In that case,they had won.For now.

He took off his helmet and tossed it aside hard enough to leave a dent in the wall and startle the few commandos still on their feet,then knelt down and put his hands behind his head,lacing his fingers together.

Two soldiers went at him then-one with an injection gun,the other with a paralyzer,both in the neck-so Angel was never sure which one got to him first before he lost consciousness.

She heard soft bleeps,the noises of machines at work,and she tried to peer through half lidded eyes to get an idea of where she was-and if she was alone.

The room was dimly lit,casting blue shadows across the floor and walls,with the only lights coming from a bank of processors (?) on the left hand side,and a computer screen near the center of the room.If this was some sort of cell,it was unlike any she'd ever even seen.

A shadow moved,and she heard the thud of footsteps on the floor."Electra,are you awake?"

She knew she'd been caught and frowned,opening her eyes all the way."That's not my name,"she said,and attempted to sit up,but had to stop and instantly lay still as the room seemed to pitch and yaw like a ship on a stormy sea."What the hell did you give me?"She tried to call up her powers-could she fuck these machines over-but it was like her body didn't even know how to do it anymore.

"It's an experimental drug,designed expressly to suppress your electrical powers,"the woman said.She had a smooth voice,so calm it was nearly gloating."So I'm afraid you're as unelectrical as a mundane now."

"Mundane?"

"Normal.Whatever you want to call the lesser humans."

"I see."The contempt in the woman's voice had been extraordinary,which would be strange for a soldier.Looking only with her eyes,not daring to move her head,she did her best to glance at the woman as she crossed to the center of the room and moved the chair in front of the computer so she could sit in it facing her.She was tall and slender,with black hair like a veil she swung behind her as she sat down.She was wearing black pants and a bright blue sweater that seemed to confirm she was not a soldier,but,strangely,she was also wearing suede gloves.A doctor?No sidearm or weapons were visible on her,and her face was in shadow."Who are you?"

"What?Dear sister,don't you know?It's me,Maddy."

"Is it really?"She replied dubiously,very carefully levering herself up into a sitting position. "What are we doing here together?And where are we?"

"I asked to be with you when you woke up.I haven't seen you for...well,ages."

Naomi couldn't help but notice she never answered the 'where are we' question."Where's Angel?"

The supposed Maddy sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth,and she could imagine her grimacing."Something went wrong when they subdued Angel-that was what you called him,yes?Why?He didn't even have rudimentary wings-"

"What went wrong?"She felt her stomach lurch in fear,wondering if the plan had just gotten blown to hell at the same time she got him killed.

"They're not really sure.They're thinking drug overdose,even though he didn't even get half the dose they gave Logan.All I know is he was dead,and attempts to revive him were unsuccessful. We'll have to wait for the autopsy for answers,I suppose."

Naomi digested that,feeling sick,until she remembered Angel was-if you believed him-technically dead when they entered the building.But they didn't know that.And supposedly he couldn't be killed by drugs,or anything other than wood or sunlight:so he was still 'alive',and the plan was on.

"Where's Logan?"She asked,hoping Angel was,in actuality,fine.

"Detoxing.The memory drugs they used didn't work,and it seems he may have been tainted in the past by an agent who was a rogue mutant,so they don't think he has any info that they can actually use."

"So what happens now?"

"We tear him back down to his basic programming.They figure whatever Enigma did,it didn't taint that."

Naomi had no idea who Enigma was,and she didn't care,as long as he/she/it hadn't hurt Logan. But it sounded like they were going to."We have to stop them."

"Why?"She asked,sounding genuinely curious."He's of more use to us this way."

"Fuck you,"she snapped,angry but still unable to move much."He's a human being,not your tool to use."

"He's better than human.He's one of us,dear sister."

"You're not my sister."

She sat back in the chair,making it squeak,and a sliver of the monitor's light illuminated her face."I am-Madalyn Amalie Deschanel,born April seventeenth a couple of years before you,to Paula and Pierre Deschanel of Montreal,Quebec.But nothing I say will convince you,will it?"

"No."

"Frankly,I'm surprised you found me.I thought I erased all traces of my existence after I left home to join the Organization."

She didn't believe her-she couldn't believe her-but she felt cold to the pit of her stomach."You erased..?Why?"

"Because that's what I do,sweetie.You're Electra,because you feed off electricity,"she said,sitting forward,resting her hands on her knees."And I know Logan better than you think you do.Because I'm Lethe,and I feed off memories."

The Commander leading her around consulted his headset,wrapped around his head like a wireless microphone,staring off into the distance as he listened to someone speaking through his earpiece."Logan's just made a break for it."

"Logan?Isn't that the guy I'm supposed to do?"She had hardly been with the Organization two days,yet they seemed to have lots of work for her.Doctor Marsh seemed to think she was going to go far in a short amount of time.But of course,that was the plan.

The Commander,a grey eyed man with a bristle brush type of hairdo,nodded."He's the heart of a new project,as well as a danger.He can't be allowed to escape."

"Oh,I'm sure,"she agreed,grabbing his paralyzer out of his belt holster and running down the corridor.

"Hey!"He shouted,but she ignored him as she pelted towards the main,high security prisoner's area.Her footsteps sounded too loud as they echoed through the metal corridors,but by that same token,she could hear someone on an intercept course.Logan?

She hid behind the corner of a connecting corridor,and just as she looked out,Logan seemed to notice her out of the corner of his eye.He spun towards her,and she knew,even with his hands still cuffed behind his back,he was going to strike her somehow.

But he hesitated.His angry green eyes widened when he realized he was looking at a fifteen year old girl,and Maddy almost laughed.Some soldier he was.The enemy could come in any shape and form.He'd have to learn that the hard way.

She flicked on the paralyzer and jabbed him right in the chest.

It let out an electrical snap,a flash of blue,and Logan's eyes grew even wider as he collapsed to the floor on his back,as helpless as a turtle on its shell.

He was still conscious,though-the fear in his eyes,the bewilderment,was so vivid it was almost palpable.