She had not completely disabled all the security measures when she had raided his secret computer files, so he knew what she was doing, but sadly the agents who responded first - while immune to her static bursts - were not immune to her physical prowess. You'd think a woman nearing fifty would be soft and slow, but that applied only to Mundanes - or, as he preferred to call them, Frails.

At the opposite end of that extreme was Wolverine. You'd think a man well over one hundred years old would be bed ridden, incontinent, and falling to pieces by now, but his power left him virtually ageless. Yet how much of a threat was he now?

He already knew what Spike was going to say when he came into his office, so fidgety he was almost vibrating. "I saw the security tapes," Reaper told him. "She didn't make it to the school. Are you going to tell me she got the disks to Wolverine anyways?"

The young Indian man nodded, hands clasped nervously in front of him. He was a tall but reed thin guy with a baby face, who looked about a hundred pounds soaking wet, and about as threatening as a hangnail. But his mutation was actually quite lethal, and he was a great operative; trustworthy too, as his ambition collided with his hatred of the Frails. "Go to time index twelve oh seventeen on the tape," he said, nodding his head towards the small video monitor on his desk.

Reaper did, rewinding it until the security tape - from a parking garage opposite the street where the fancy clothing store that Static died in was located - showed that time index in the upper left corner. The tape had barely started running when there was a sudden white out on the tape, a line of distortion that caused the camera to briefly snow. "One of Static's bursts," Reaper sighed, sitting back in his chair. It creaked like the springs were rusty. "I assume that was done in shock after the microexplosive was detonated."

"So did everyone else, but you must have forgotten a little curiosity of her powers: she can - could - "feel" telepaths with her static burst. She liked to call it "sonar" - she knew when she hit a target and could "feel" the "bounce back". That's what she did, and that's why she went there."

"There was a telepath in the store?"

His lips twisted, and he glanced down at the floor as if afraid to look him in the eyes. "Not just any telepath."

It was lovely how things generally went from bad to worse. Static's sudden urge to go "rogue" had made the Frails in the Org nervous; he couldn't have them doing a purge of the mutants therein until he was ready. "Surely not Xavier."

"Jean Grey."

Bad enough. "Could Static have lived long enough to give her the disks?"

"We believe she did. She and her friend even took Static's body back with them."

He shook his head. Incompetence or shoddy emergency planning, or both? At least the microdetonator managed to function, in spite of her powers. "Did the magnetic pulse work? Do we know?"

Spike couldn't decide whether to shrug or shake his head, so he did both. "They believe she was caught in the field radius, but how much damage was done to the disks is impossible to say until we have our hands on them."

He had no idea she was such a bitch. Well, she was defending Wolverine until the end, even after he'd gone rogue ( and left a huge body count in his wake ) - he should have let that be his clue. "I want a tracker on Wolverine as of an hour ago," he told him, scowling sourly. How did this turn into such a huge fucking mess? "His abilities are known, so let's get someone who can skirt them."

Spike thought about it, and it made him look like a grade schooler pondering an algebra equation. "Oracle?"

He nodded. "Good enough." The C.I.A. would call her - if they ever actually had any - a "remote viewer"; she could simply think about where or who she wanted to see, and she would see it instantly in her mind. Even with his noted sensitivity to surveillance, Wolverine would be unlikely to pick her up, or - worst case scenario - know what it meant.

He was lucky to know what anything meant. Did he even know how to tie his shoes? He'd had the telepathic equivalent of a cluster fuck; it was amazing he could speak and walk at the same time. But there was no way in hell he'd know what any of this meant, not with Static dead.  He tapped his fingers on the desk, and noted he needed another manicure - the nails were growing out again. "Have a strike team standing by, but no move is to be made as of yet. What Wolverine does will determine what we do next."

Spike nodded, and even though he hesitated, he took his leave without another word. He was a good subordinate; it was a shame he'd probably miss all the fun.

And as far as he was concerned, everything was still on schedule. No nosy dead bitch or old hairy freak was going to stop him now.

***

Baltimore, Maryland

It wasn't a proper apartment more than it was a loft, a converted warehouse in the bad part of town that split its streets between run down tenements and artist's digs, although it was apparent that the poor but trendy side was losing big time. Maybe that's why he could get away with playing his music so loud.

At the doorway into the apartment, he found a reinforced steel door, and an intercom system that listed everyone who lived there and in what apartment, with call buttons beside their names. Number two had a grimy name inset - P. Smythe - but all the rest were blank, until you reached number six, where the plate wasn't a name, but the words " Don't bother asking". Yep, that was his guy.

He pressed the call button, and held it down a long time, figuring he'd barely be able to hear it over the grinding thud of Metallica's "Creeping Death" ( frankly, the song title should have given it away, shouldn't it have ). After a minute, the intercom crackled to life, and over the singer shouting "Die by my hand!", he barely heard, "Who the fuck is it?"

"It's the fuck me," he answered combatively, then added, "Logan."

"Fuck! Wolvie! What dump truck dragged you here?" He answered, and sounded both surprised and pleased to have him drop by. "Come on up!"

The door buzzed, and Logan grabbed the door handle as it popped open, grimacing at the silly nickname. Did he call him Scorpy? Maybe he should, see how he liked it.

He went up a cold, austere metal and cement staircase that just barely smelled of pee, following the music.
It was painfully overwhelming by the time he reached the top floor, but then again, Marcus was standing in the open doorway of his loft, waiting for him. "Wow - I was expecting you to be covered in blood," he teased, grinning like a happy wolf.

Marcus - also known as Scorpion - was barefoot and shirtless, wearing only a pair of faded jeans that looked like they'd been dragged behind a truck for a cross country trip, with sleek black welding goggles over his eyes to protect them from painful daylight, and a small gold scorpion dangling from his right earlobe. He had a beer bottle in his right hand, but he didn't smell like he'd been drinking for long.

Logan smirked at him, and said, "Do you think I'd only show up if I needed help?"

"I know I would," he admitted, continuing to give him that shit eating grin. He stepped back to allow him inside, and said, "Beer you?"

"Sure." He came in, cringing at the volume, and immediately headed for the stereo.

The front room of the loft was dominated by the entertainment system - a stereo system bigger than a compact car, a big screen t.v. that looked like a drive in screen as seen from the fifteenth row back. Otherwise the place was remarkably empty, save for a red leather couch, a violently green Persian throw rug, heavy burgundy curtains pulled across the large window overlooking the block ( fingers of light still bled in though the gaps, which probably explained the goggles ), and a "kitchenette" consisting of a mini - fridge, a microwave, and a huge bar. While Marcus got him a beer, he turned off the stereo. The silence rushed in like a river. "Oh, sorry, forgot about your ears," he said, tossing him a bottle from across the room.

He easily caught it. "You did not, asshole. You just wanted to see if I'd put up with it."

He flashed him that toothy grin, and said, "Okay, you caught me. So what bad news brings you here? And how'd you find me, anyways?"

The beer Marcus had tossed him was an imported British stout. It was funny to have it cold, but even he could taste the serious alcohol kick this thing had. He didn't know what to do with the bottle cap, so he flipped it towards Marcus, who stepped aside so it could hit the hardwood floor. He didn't want it, obviously. "Xavier has this machine that allows him to find mutants - he found you for me. What the fuck are you doin' in Baltimore?"

"It's my East Coast base. It's affordable."

"Says the guy with the two thousand dollar stereo system."

Marcus sat on his couch and continued to grin, even as he took a swig of his beer. "Gotta have your priorities in order."

Logan shrugged - well, it was a kick ass system - and sat on the opposite arm of the sofa. This was one of the neatest bachelor apartments he had ever been in, but the sparse furnishings probably helped. Because the ceiling was so high, the sounds in here had the faintest echo, but he doubted anyone with normal level  hearing could catch it. "Look, somethin' weird happened today, and I thought you might be able to help me."

He shrugged one of his large shoulders. Without a shirt on, you could see that Marcus had a huge barrel chest and thick arms that a professional weightlifter would give his left nut for ( assuming they had any nuts left after the steroids ), but Logan doubted he spent all of his days pumping iron. He didn't even see a weight set in here. So his mutations were poisoned fingernails, infrared vision, and super strength? Well hell, was he one to talk? "I'll do my best. Shoot."

He told him about Sloane and the disks, and pulled out of his pocket the laminated but strangely generic  i.d. tag and copies of the disks. "Hope you have a computer," he added, putting the disks on the sofa.

Marcus scoffed. "In this day and age? Who doesn't?" He got up from the sofa, putting his beer on the floor, and went into his bedroom to get it.

"So how did you afford all this shit anyways?" He asked. None of his business, but he was curious. He couldn't have a day job, could he?

"I've been doin' some merc work here and there," he replied, voice echoing from the bedroom.

"Merc? As in mercenary - soldier for hire?" Knowing him, it made perfect sense. Also, it explained why the entire loft smelled of gun oil. "So why aren't you in South America or Africa or Eastern Europe or something?"

"Why? They don't have Jack In The Boxes there, that's why," he said, the smile evidence in his voice. He came out grinning, carrying a laptop in a black case, feet slapping loudly on the floor.

"This is going to turn into an obscene joke involving "Jack sauce", isn't it?"

"Oh man, what a way to blow my punchline," he mock complained, taking a seat on the couch. He popped open the case, revealing a sleek, powerful looking laptop with a peripheral disk drive and some other gadgets that he had no clue about. As he booted it up, he told him seriously, "I'm picky about the jobs I'll do, and I'm the best, so I can ask my own price. Really, it's an easy gig, intermittent. You should join me, Logan. We answer to no one but ourselves, and it's so fucking easy, man. Most of these cats are ready for anything but mutants. And you and me? Come on, we make a great team. If any asshole does manage to get close enough for hand to hand, they're so dead they might as well be carryin' their tombstones on their backs. Who can stop us?"

He knew he had a point, and it must have been the easiest money in the world. And yet, it held zero appeal. "I really don't like fightin' other people's battles."

Marcus smirked, raising an eyebrow at him. He still kept his brown head shaved, and even in the half light, it gleamed as much as the Professor's pate did. "But you're still with the Xavier crew, huh?"

"Sometimes those battles are mine."

The corner of his mouth quirked up, like he thought that was a poor answer at best, and Logan took a deep swig of his beer, knowing that was true. But he didn't know what to say.

As the computer hummed to life, and Marcus inserted the first disk, he said, "Well, I guess Jean's reasonably hot for a chick with no ass, but come on, you could get a dozen somewhere else. I mean, I'd date you in a hot second if you were a brother."

He couldn't help but laugh."Racist. I thought all of us mutants were supposed to brothers, or whatever the fuck. And Jean has an ass."

"Maybe if you got ultra sharp vision like yours, yeah," he deadpanned, making Logan chuckle again. He barely knew Marcus and yet he missed him, and now he knew why. He didn't make the moral judgments that seemed to be de rigueur over at Xavier's - there was no pretense with him. He was just one of the guys, and he didn't fuck around, he threw it all on the table. He was a breath of fresh air.

He was the coolest bisexual mutant mercenary he had ever known. And most likely, the only.

The corrupted data started filling the screen - there was nothing new there - but as it did, Marcus picked up Sloane's bland i.d. tag and studied it, cocking his head. "Doesn't this have the same numerical pattern as your dog tags? Three numbers, two, then three again?"

He stared at it, and realized he was absolutely right. Why hadn't that occurred to him before? Maybe because he was too busy looking at the name, not the numbers. "So this isn't so much an i.d. as a modern dog tag, is that what you're sayin'?"

"Somethin' like that, yeah." he then turned his glance to the screen, idly handing the tag to him, and said, "Siberia?"

So Logan had to fill him in on that, even though he didn't want to, but Marcus just listened and nodded, with almost no reaction at all. That made him feel better, and he didn't know why. "Bob had him, huh? So he couldn't lie?"

"Right."

He just nodded, and then said, "I don't get Bob. I mean, how cool would it be to make people do whatever you want, and believe whatever you want them to believe? He could own the entire fucking world by now - we could all be prayin' at his altars nightly. So why does he remain under the radar? He could own the radar."

Logan shook his head, glad Marcus decided to take that tack. It was easier to talk about Bob than what may or may not have happened in Siberia. "Bob's ... weird. He doesn't want to be worshiped; he doesn't want the world."

"Then what does he want?"

He had to shake his head again. "I've got no fucking idea. If I could answer that, I might actually understand him."

Marcus just nodded and looked back at the screen. After staring at it for a moment, he pointed to a sequence of numbers that started filling a column. "I recognize those - they're military ordinance serial numbers."

His heart skipped a beat, and he wasn't sure why. "For what? What kind of ordinance?"

He just shook his head, clasping his hands beneath his chin. "I can't say off hand. But those numbers together there - 2006 - usually indicates classified material. To have something in your twenty means to have it in your line of sight; so combined with oh six, it means "eyes only" - only people with a security clearance of six or above can see it or know it, and six is pretty fucking high."

Even though he was having minor, inexplicable pains in his gut, he was very glad he had brought this to him. "So this is military?"

"It's connected to the military ... but these Org bastards could have adopted their code. It might make it easier for them to hide."

"Lost in all the Armed Forces paperwork?"

"Bingo. This is almost beyond Black Ops. Too bad there's no shade deeper than black, 'cause they'd be it." He finished downloading the information to his computer, and ejected the first disk. He then slipped in the second, and they both waited in silence as it loaded up.

More scrambled words, more scrambled code. Logan had barely even scanned it, as he was too eager to leave the mansion, but it looked even worse off than the first disk. "Somebody toasted these, didn't they?" Marcus commented.

"Toasted?"

"I have a built in analyzer, and it's showing damage due to magnetic exposure."

"Huh. Well I know Magneto's still in prison."

"Coulda got hit with a pulse or something. Magneto ain't the only thing that can throw magnetism around. Whoa."

"What?"

Marcus touched the screen where several jumbled words made up an incoherent sentence. "I've seen this before." Logan looked. The line he was pointing at read: if the and series once but and the is weapon x if is it detained to point condition when. His fingertip was beneath weapon x.

"What does that mean?" For some reason, Logan's heart not only skipped a beat but seemed to launch itself straight into his throat. But why? It meant nothing to him.

"No fuckin' clue - some ultra hush hush super weapon project I found a reference to in a shredded, blacked out memo at the remains of an old base down in Mexico. "Weapon X" - I don't know if it's plain old X or Roman numeral ten - seemed to freak a lot of people out, but from what little I've pieced together, it ended in disaster."

"What kind of disaster?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I'm not sure if it worked for a while and then exploded, or never worked in the first place, but if anyone knows about it, they're dead or just too terrified to open their mouths."

"Shit." He had the oddest feeling this should mean something to him, but it didn't, just like Sloane didn't. He took another swig of his beer and tried to think, but was no more successful than usual. "Ever discover a connection to Siberia?"

Marcus shook his head, combing the data with greater intensity this time. His shoulders hunched as he leaned forward, and he got the feeling this had fed into one of his personal mysteries. He probably knew more about the Organization than even Bob, and that was saying something. "No. No connection to anything. It's just a code word that would probably freak out the right people, if I ever found anyone who knew something about it."

That was a little less than encouraging. "What do you think this all means?"

Marcus had to think about that for a long moment. "I think these were top secret files, probably related to your time with the Org. But I bet you guessed that yourself."

"Files that got destroyed."

"Not completely. There's gotta be some hint that will lead us to the next logical step."

Logan sighed and leaned back, closing his eyes. His whole life seemed to be logical progression from one clue to another, and yet ultimately it never added up to much. Again, like him.

"Oh hey - speak of the devil," Marcus said.

He opened his eyes and looked at the screen, but saw nothing but more jumbles of letters and numbers, his past reduced to digital garbage. Maybe that was for the best - maybe there was nothing worth remembering. ( Beyond Mariko. ) "What?"

"I just saw the word Shadowcaster."

"That's two words."

"Normally. But smushed into one it's the code name of a former secret base in Montana."

He wished he knew how to take pronouncements like that. "You been there?"

"Sort of. It was the dead of winter, and clearly the trail was cold - the base had been destroyed long before - so I just sorta blew it off, figuring I'd come back to it when it all wasn't knee deep in snow."

"Did you?"

"Not yet." He glanced at him. "Up for a trip to Montana?"

He shrugged. "Don't have much choice in the matter, do I? Do you think we'll find anything?"

Marcus started downloading the second disk, and gave him another variety of his shit eating grin, this one more sly than anything else. "Fuck if I know, man. But it's a place to start, ain't it?"

Logan could only nod; it was at least something to go on, even if it was a dead end. Another dead end trip in a dead end life.

Man, he really had to lay off the British beer.

7

Marcus Drury, a/k/a Scorpion, was the worst possible person Wolverine could have gone to, at least from their perspective. He was known to be a snooper, but all the intell they had suggested he hadn't found anything useful or worthwhile. Obviously they had been wrong.

Thanks to a telepath, he was able to eavesdrop on Oracle's "vision", and Reaper was glad that he did. It had been very enlightening.

And how funny was it when Scorpion mentioned Weapon X, and Logan just stared at him like he had no idea what it was? Priceless. He wondered how Scorpion would react if he knew he was talking to it.

There had been an attempt to recruit Scorpion some time ago, but Shrike had gotten closer than anyone to succeeding; Scorpion was just too slippery, too paranoid, and too tough as a target. He'd spent most of his life underground - ironic, considering he was a military brat - and there was some evidence to support that his parents helped hide him from scrutiny. No wonder he was so familiar with military ordinance and weapons; he was born into that world.

And now, with Wolverine, he was going to Shadowcaster.

He shook his head as he looked out the window, down at the concrete courtyard, where the filtered sunlight seemed to highlight the monochromatic grey, and even made the water spilling from the circular fountain in the center seem flat and dull, like recycled grey water run off. He could see the reflection of Spike in the pane of glass, waiting for his orders.

"I want a larger strike team assembled for a hard target termination."

The dark young man seemed to do the slightest of double takes. "Terminating Wolverine is pretty damn hard, sir."

"Oh, I know. It's Scorpion I want terminated," he explained. There was no way he was mouthing the cliché "he knows too much", but he clearly did. If he ever connected the dots of his scattershot information, they'd be in trouble. "I want Logan captured. He wants to know about his past, does he? Let's show him a bit."

Spike - what was his real name? Sanjay? He knew once, but he couldn't remember now, as it had been so long since he bothered to use it - cocked his head and stared at him curiously. "What do you mean?"

"Don't worry, it won't be of any use to him, or at all enlightening." It would also keep him out of his hair while he set things in motion; Wolverine was a distraction he didn't need, even if he was at a loss as to what was actually going on. "Do we have a teleporter on stand by?"

"A couple. Why?"

"Activate the one closest to Shadowcaster. I want them to bring in the strike team after Wolverine and Scorpion have arrived at the at the target."

"After?"

"Wolverine could smell a team in waiting, and Scorpion could pick up their heat signatures. A traditional ambush will not work with them, so we ambush them in an untraditional way. Do we have any of that adamantium body armor from Canada?"

Spike shifted his weight nervously from one foot to the other, but the bad news was worse than he thought. "That program was suspended for retooling."

"What the hell for?"

"Apparently the suits were so uncomfortable and had such poor ventilation soldiers often passed out after twenty minutes or so. Also, they were very heavy and restricted movement and vision, and several soldiers fell very ill from what seemed to be adamantium poisoning - "

He turned back and glared at him in disbelief. "Are you saying health and safety shut it down?"

Spike nodded, trying not to meet his gaze. "That's about the size of it."

He snorted disdainfully and looked back out at the dreary quad, where even the maples and poplars lining the outer fringes of the courtyard looked anemic and sad, as if slowly dying from a wasting disease. Maybe they were; everything would eventually. "Load them up with all the body armor we have, as Scorpion's known for his heavy weaponry, but remind them that physical combat with either is unwise. Scorpion's touch is poisonous and he has had full combat training; and Wolverine is a living, breathing killing machine, just like we made him. They must pick them off from a distance. and the first one to bring Wolverine down  gets a bonus." The irony that that stupid fuck was walking around with a hundred pounds of adamantium in him and their guys couldn't even wear fifty pounds of the stuff without getting ill was bitter and far from amusing.

Spike bowed ever so slightly, hands clasped behind his band, and pivoted smoothly on his heels to go, as quiet as a breeze. You had to love that in an aide - obedience and silence.

But before he was out the door, he added, "Send Delirium with the team."

He saw Spike's reflection in the glass pause, stare at him with his deep brown eyes wide and shocked. "Delirium? Sir,she's not - "

"I wasn't asking for opinions, Spike. Send her with the team. She knows what she has to do." And she did; she was insane, but not so crazy he couldn't get through to her.

Spike nodded and turned away, but he had a look on his face suggesting he didn't like this turn of events.

So fucking what?

***

Still, Marcus seemed to know what he was doing at the controls, so he left him to fly the small plane as he went in the back, ostensibly to check on their "supplies", as Marc euphemistically called them ( well, obviously it had been his plane for a little while - there was a footlocker full of weaponry here ). But he sat on the floor ( the plane was so small he could only stand up near the front portion of the plane; it narrowed dramatically near the tail ) staring at a cell phone that Marc said would work up here as long as
the signal light on its side was green. It was still, so he supposed he had too make a choice. Be a chickenshit, or not be a chickenshit? "Whether 'tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of fucking assholes, or make a goddamn phone call," he muttered to himself, although he wasn't nearly as amused by his Shakespearian revision as he thought he might be.

"What?" Marcus shouted from the cabin. These small planes were noisier than he thought - or maybe it was just this plane.

"Just talkin' to myself."

"The second sign of insanity."

"I thought it was the first."

"No, talking to your toaster and expecting an answer is the first," Marcus said, adjusting the headphones on his ears; they fit funny due to his wraparound goggles. He was listening to air traffic, just to see if they were "expected", or about to encounter any resistance. From the air? Logan didn't think it likely, but Marcus was like that, so if it made him happy, fine.

"I bet you do that a lot," he replied sarcastically.

"Nope. Don't own a toaster. Nasty creatures."

Logan shook his head, and snorted a small laugh. Marcus was insane, but he figured that gave them an edge. He then looked down at the phone in his hands, and figured fuck it - what was a phone call? He punched up the number and waited, aware that the signal was going to be shitty even if he could get a connection from here.

The phone rang three times - sounding like a bell heard from the bottom of a very deep well in the midst of a hurricane - and then a tinny female voice said, "Damn it, Logan, where are you?"

He thought only Xavier could know who was on the phone before he picked it up. "In the air."

"I'm serious." Jean replied icily.

"So am I. Can't you tell by the shitty connection? I'm on a plane."

"A plane? To where?"

"Uh, Montana. Listen, before we get cut off, I just want you to know Marcus thinks there's an abandoned  base there, Shadowcaster, that might have a connection to the disks."

"Just you and Marcus are going?"

"Don't worry, we can take care of ourselves. But if you don't hear from us in .... hey Marcus, where the hell are we now?"

"It's so flat, empty and white down there - my guess is we're over a Dakota," he replied cheerfully.

"Six hours,"he guessed, listening to the static rise and fall on the line like a distant tide. Static ... why was that name familiar to him? "Then maybe you guys can run a check or somethin'. I'm callin' Bob too, so maybe you can touch base with him first."

"Is he in any shape?"

Logan had been wondering that himself. "I think Bob is Bob, and he always does what you don't expect him to do."

There was a beat of silence, and  only the static told him the connection was still open. "That's true. I still don't like this. You could be going into a trap."

"I know," he sighed. "But I hafta go."

She sighed, although it was almost lost in all the interference. He was pretty sure he heard her mutter, "Men."

He read off the phone number on the cell so she could call him in case they recovered something new off the disks, and she said, "I wish you wouldn't do this."

"I know." In a strange way, he wished he wouldn't do this too, but he had to find out if anything was there. Parts of his past had to exist somewhere; it couldn't all be gone.

"Oh, and if you ever punch Scott again, I'll hit you with a telekinetic blast so hard you'll wake up in the middle of next week."

He told 'Clops he was better off siccing his girlfriend on him - this proved it. "He started it," he replied, aware it sounded lame even though it was true. "Besides, I didn't hit him that hard ... I could've busted his jaw, but I didn't, did I?"

"And you want me to give you credit for that?" She replied bitterly.

He rolled his eyes, and ran a hand through his hair. Maybe taking care of old One Eye made her feel useful. "Listen, connection's breaking up - " No it wasn't, no more than usual, but he was done with this conversation. " - I'll call you when I can."

"Logan - " she said, and he had a feeling she knew he was lying about the phone line. But she let it go. "Be careful. We're here to help if you need us, all right?"

"Yeah, got it." He didn't know what else to say, so he simply cut the connection.

"And you want this woman for what, Logan? Prove a point? Tweak visor face?" Marcus asked.

"Please shut up and fly," he snapped, punching up Bob's number.

"Mister Sensitive," he replied, clearly amused by him.

The phone rang five times, and then a machine kicked in, but rather than Bob's usual flippant message, it was Helga's voice that greeted him this time. "Look, we're on vacation, the old man needed a break whether he was willing to admit it or not. We're checkin' messages, so if it's important, we'll get back to ya. You know the drill, so, whatever." He held the phone away, in case he got the air horn in place of the beep, but this time there was a gong with a slow, resonant fade. Very soothing. Must have been Bob's idea, because he couldn't imagine Helga ever going for quiet and peaceful.