Bob teleported them into a metal lined antechamber looking out onto a hallway where one of the connecting corridors was in flames, and there were a couple of guys - unconscious and dead - laying further down the hall. Shadows moved furtively along the walls and floors, fire making them seem like living things. Sounds of sporadic gunfire soon gave way to the crackling voices of flame, which was now the main source of light in the blacked out bunker, and the smoke was mainly being pulled through the air recirculators in here. It meant none of them were in danger of asphyxiation, but the fire continued to spread, as the sprinkler system had been damaged.

Logan was ready for anyone, but since Bob was with him he never got the chance to fight. As soon as a group of black clad soldiers - obviously on a Helga and Marcus hunt - got a glimpse of them, Logan barely had time to pop his claws before Bob told them, quietly and simply: "Run."

They turned en masse and fled like scared rabbits. "You take some of the fun out of this, ya know?" Logan pointed out crossly, although, in all honesty, the urge to fight had been ripped out of him. He was tired, he was depressed, he wanted a beer and a smoke ( well, not this kind of smoke ), and he was quite torn over whether he wanted answers or not. He knew now he would never like them.

Bob just shrugged, not letting it kill his buzz. "Hel tells me that all the time."

Just out of curiosity, he asked, "Could you make me normal too?"

"Oh sure, but you'd last all of five minutes."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're too accustomed to taking your healing factor for granted. You'd walk straight into a bullet or a train or a bus, and only later - if there was a later - would it occur to you that you can't do that anymore."

"I would not!" he insisted, then paused. ""Okay, maybe."

"Maybe my ass," he replied, and gave him that cheesy grin. "I know you."

He probably did - that was the scary thing.

Marcus and Helga were not hard to find, even over the overwhelming smells of burning metal and rendering flesh - they were in what looked like the main computer core, which must have had its own separate power source since everything was still working in here.

"Wow, you guys are done already?" Helga asked, pushing up the faceplate of a black helmet she must have stolen from one of the soldiers. It had a melted scar on the right side, possibly left by a stream of falling sparks.

"Wasn't a lot to do," Bob lied, and filled them in on what happened with Reaper. Marcus was standing at one of the computer consoles, and had what looked like a portal zip drive plugged into an access port - he was attempting to copy their files. But from what looked like a reverse cascade of information flashing past on the screen, the info was disappearing even as he worked frantically to save it. His fingers darted over the keyboards so fast they were a blur, but from the extremely colorful twelve letter words he was muttering, Logan guessed he was losing the battle.

"How could you wipe out of all of his satellites?" Helga asked, referring to Vasely's other selves.

"Oh, no worries. The unusual psychic energy I was picking up was the link between him and his other clusters - you could say they used a special psychic frequency. I just rode the frequency and told them they didn't exist. Game over."

"You're a scary dude, you know that?" Marcus said, before resuming his quiet cursing at the computer screen. Logan watched the information, trying to catch of it what he could before it disappeared forever.

Bob just laughed. "You haven't seen my Gene Loves Jezebel impersonation yet."

"Computer files self - destruct?" Logan asked Marcus, although it seemed like a silly question.

"Yea. Motherfucking files have some kind of built - in destruction sequence. I'm trying to override, pause, something, but this cocksucking thing is bulletproof." He said, in a louder voice, "Hey Bob, can you work your mojo on computers?"

"Not exactly, but I'm pretty good. What's the problem?" Before Marcus could answer, Bob came over and had a peek over his shoulder. "Shit, cascade failure. How long has this been goin' on?"

"About five minutes."

"Shit." Bob moved to a neighboring keyboard, but Logan had guessed from his grim expression that there was nothing much he could do.

Logan could nothing but stand back and watch - he doubted he was very good with computers ( like he knew anything for sure )- and he heard the last few alarms going off inside the complex. Finally someone had set off the total evacuation signal, or maybe it was just the computer - either way, it was finally letting loose, and if he wasn't concentrating on trying to read everything flashing past on the screen in the blink of an eye, he would have laughed. Talk about a day late and a dollar short.

Noticing his scrutiny in the reflection of the screen, Marcus said, "It's encrypted, so - "

"No it's not, " Logan corrected him. "It's in Zulu."

"Beg your pardon?"

"Zulu - or a phonetic form of it."

"Why the hell would it be in fuckin' Zulu man?"

"Do you speak it?"

Marcus dipped his head, as if that was fair enough. "But you can read it?"

Well, that was obvious, wasn't it? Still, the belated idea that he was sent a chill through him. "It seems almost familiar somehow ..."

And that was when he caught some familiar English words in mid erase, and he knew they were only in English because there was no Zulu approximations for them: Weapon x, and Wolverine. Right beside each other, as if referential ... as if they meant the same damn thing. The chill he felt a moment before seemed to fill him, travel all the way down to his toes. Information was flashing by on the screen, taking a straight shot into oblivion, but it became blurs of light with no meaning; words combined into strings of random letters, visual white noise.

"If the world is falling down, then it may as well crash with me," Bob sang, as if commenting on the klaxons echoing throughout the steel halls.

"You know, if you actually speak fucking Zulu, I'm quittin'," Marcus said, but his voice seemed distant. "I bet people from Zululand - or whatever the fuck it's called - don't even speak Zulu anymore. How the fuck would you know how to do that?! That ain't superhuman, that's super freaky."

"And not in a Rick James way," Bob said, with unnatural cheeriness.

"You really think you're funny, don't you Mad Max?"

Bob laughed - that sounded distant too. "I'm a riot. But a failing riot; this viral self - destruct is a fucking nightmare. I can't save anything."

Marcus grunted in agreement. "I don't think I got anything either. This fucking sucks."

What had Marcus said back at his place in Baltimore? Weapon X was "some ultra hush hush super weapon project" that  "seemed to freak a lot of people out", and yet "ended in disaster". Maybe it did work for a while, and something went wrong - him. He went wrong. He was a weapon and he malfunctioned.

No wonder Static brought the Reaper problem to him. He was made to cull the herd of the "rogue" mutants, right? He was immune to his neural "spores" or whatever the fuck they were, and it was his job to take out the mutants who were no longer of use to them. He was not nor had ever been a person - he was just a thing, a tool, an extremely literal loose cannon. He was their pet.

He was their killer. And it was all he was ever good for.

"Old man, you really oughta zap us out of here before the place comes down around our ears," Helga said, sounding as distant as everyone else.

He watched Marcus pull the zip drive and put it in the pocket of his jacket. "Yeah, we should book while it's still an option."

"Ready to go?" Bob chirped. He then added, more soberly, "Logan?"

He touched him, and the millisecond his skin made contact with his shoulder he jerked away from him, not sure how he didn't pop his claws. he wanted to - he wanted everyone to be as far away from him as humanly possible. "Just get us the fuck out of here," he snapped, not daring to look anyone in the eye.

He knew they all knew something was wrong, but only Bob was the danger here; Bob and his way of knowing everything everyone thought.*If you can hear me now, back the fuck off, and don't say a word,* he thought angrily. *I mean it*

He didn't really know if Bob heard him or not, but he did say, "Everyone hold on to your garters," and then Cypher fell away around them.

But Logan didn't check to see where they had materialized, nor did he care. No matter where they were, it changed nothing.

He was a ticking time bomb, and he didn't know how he could trust himself around anyone ever again.

16

As he opened a desk drawer and started pulling papers out of it, dumping it all on the floor. "Is it true what they've said?" Spike asked, only for confirmation. It seemed too bizarre to be true.

Reaper looked up, sweaty and pallid. "According to the lab, yes. But I don't believe it. That - that can't happen."

The rain outside gave the light filtering in through the window a grey tinge, as if Reaper's disheveled state and mood had somehow bled into the outside world.

"Wolverine escaped, found you, and now suddenly you're a frail?" That didn't make sense on so many levels it was hard to pick one.

Reaper had moved on to the second drawer, and Spike wondered if he even knew what he was looking for. Probably not. "It can't be true, it can't be," he muttered, sending several computer disks crashing to the smoke blue carpet.

"How did it happen? Wolverine couldn't have done this - no one I know could have done this! What happened?" When he showed no sign of acknowledging him, he said in his sternest tone of voice: "Adam, who did this?"

"The pretty boy, the pretty boy!" He snapped, glaring at him. His brown hair was all mussed, standing up at all angles, like he'd just rolled out of bed, but Spike doubted he would ever sleep again. Someone had just made him the enemy. "He did this ... he told me I was, and he did this!"

"Pretty boy?" It took him a moment to remember who that referred to. "Logan's associate? The one we can't trace?"

"Do you know of another one?" He replied sourly, pulling the lower drawer as far out as the construction of the desk allowed.

"You remember meeting him?" That was a bit of a first. "Is there anything you can recall about him? Anything that could help us find him?" Rain pelted against the window like hail, and he wasn't sure he heard him. "Adam?"

"He has an Australian accent so thick you could stand a knife up in it," he said impatiently. "Is that what you wanted?"

"Yes, that's a help." Australian, huh? And a reality warper - someone who could alter reality simply by wishing it so. He'd heard of mutants that powerful, but had never met one. And that was undoubtedly a good thing, considering what had just happened to Reaper. "What are you looking for?"

"I thought I had a back up ... I was sure I had something," he muttered, searching frantically for something that clearly no longer existed.

"Adam, calm down," he told him, walking over and embracing him in a solid bear hug.

He stiffened instantly, and asked, "What the fuck are you doing?"

"You looked like you needed a hug," Spike explained, and just as Reaper relaxed just a fraction, Spike transformed.

Much to his embarrassment, he was, in effect, the Human version of a porcupine - under his skin was dozens upon dozens of bone hard black spikes (although they were made from the same type of enamel as teeth, and were not bone). ranging in size and density. The smallest, thinnest ones were on his hands, face, neck, and feet; the thickest, longest ones were centered around his chest and back. Those were as thick as a railroad spike (hence his code name) and eight inches long. They were now sticking through Reaper's back, and the blood dripping from them was patterning on the carpet, as if the roof had just sprung a leak and was letting the rain in. Reaper was making wet gasping noise, like he was trying to speak, but with spikes through his lungs and piercing his neck, talking was a bit of an impossibility. "Did you think we wouldn't find out?" Spike hissed savagely in his ear, feeling Reaper's warm blood soak through his shirt. "Did you think we'd let you do that to us?"

It was amazing that Reaper was so arrogant he thought they wouldn't find out what he was willing to do to his supposed mutant brothers; it was equally amazing he thought they'd just lay back and take it.

He retracted his spikes and let go of Reaper, who collapsed face first to the carpet, leaking blood out of dozens of holes in his newly frail body. The mundane Human Reaper didn't exist for much longer; he died with a wheeze so soft, Spike could barely hear it over the rain thundering on the roof.

Spike gazed down at him, and almost felt sorry for him. Static had seemed crazy to outsource this to the rogue, crazy Wolverine, but obviously she had been smarter than all of them; he had been her partner often enough, they should have trusted she knew exactly what he could find a way to do.

As he left the office, he made a mental note to get their Australian operatives on a pretty boy hunt, but with the caveat that he was a hostile on the "do not approach" list - how did you apprehend a reality warper? Especially one as powerful as Wolverine's "friend"? He knew the only way would be to fight fire with fire - one reality warper against another, but they didn't have a warper ... yet.

But it was all just a matter of time, wasn't it?

17

On the surface it seemed like a pleasant enough run down dive, but since when did places like these have Beth Orton on their jukebox? Bizarre - redneck alcoholics with a taste for sensitive singer - songwriters? Well, honestly, stranger things had happened. Rarely, but hey - it was a fucked up world. And at least it wasn't Jewel.

He was on beer number three, trying to determine if that speck of cigarette ash on the bottom of the glass was on the inside or the outside, when the door opened for the first time in about twenty minutes, letting in a welcome blast of fresh, cool air. One of the two drunks at the opposite end of the bar - who had been becoming more loose and obnoxious with each passing second - attempted to whistle, failed, and just decided to catcall. "Hey baby, why don't cha come on over?"

He knew by scent it was Jean before he looked towards her. She grimaced at him, possibly because she just realized she was the only woman in the place, save for the bartender, who looked like a former ( male ) Marine and had a knife tattoo on her neck. Logan knew if he could smell the difference, he may have initial mistaken her for a man.

"Don't sit by him, baby, he's ugly," drunk guy said, and his two friends laughed. Suddenly drunk guy fell off his barstool and hit the wood paneled floor with a resounding thud, and his friends laughed so hard Logan expected them to piss themselves any second.

As she sat on the stool beside him, he muttered, "Nice shove."

"Who, me?" She lied, with an innocent smile. "I never touched him."

"Uh huh." He glanced casually towards the door. "No One Eye?"

"I didn't want a scene."

He looked at his beer, and wondered if he should bother taking a sip or not. It wasn't very good to begin with.

Jean was dressed conservatively, but casual for her - a two toned baseball t - shirt of heather grey with contrast blue sleeves and collar, and loose black cargo pants that worked with the worn sneakers she wore, but not with the long black trenchcoat she wore over it all; it was just too classy for this joint. But he bet she had been trying to dress to fit in. "Do you always hide in places this depressing?"

"I'm not hidin'. And yeah." He shoved the beer aside, deciding the glass was way to dirty to drink from, even for him. "I told Xavier not to find me."

"He didn't. Bob did."

Logan groaned and hid his face in his hands. That was so much worse, on so many levels. "Tell me he's not here."

"He's not. But he wanted me to tell you if you don't talk to me, you're going to have to talk to him."

He dry washed his face and wondered if there was any way out of this. "Talk about what, exactly?"

"He said you were thinking about going away for a while. As in years."

"Yeah well, what's wrong with that?"

"Logan - what happened?"

He sighed heavily, and realized that Bob had trapped him. The bastard was just too good at it. "Nothin' - you know what happened. We tracked down Mr. Mutant Virus guy, Bob made him human and freed everyone he infected, whether they were aware of it or not. End of story."

"No it's not," she insisted quietly. "Bob and Xavier both said a telepath was messing with your mind when they captured you, and Bob said you saw something at Base Cypher that disturbed you."

"Yeah well, Bob should mind his own fuckin' business, shouldn't he?" He'd already paid for his drink, so there was nothing stopping him from getting up and storming out of the bar, which is exactly what he did.

But of course Jean followed - what else was she going to do? "Hey baby, why's you got to go?" One of the drunk guys shouted as she slammed open the door, hot on his heels.

"Since when does Bob ever mind his own business?" She pointed out, joining him in the parking lot.

It was night, but not late; the stars will still coming out slowly, one by one, as if a veil was being pulled away in slow motion, and the sky was still more blue than black where it met the horizon. The temperature had dropped precipitously though - he could already see his breath reduced to white vapor before him. He turned to face her, wondering what he could possibly say that would make her go away. "Fine, never, but you don't need to join in, okay?"

She shivered in the cold and drew the trenchcoat tightly around her, letting her long hair fall around her face to keep it warm. "I just don't want you to start hiding again."

"Hiding again? What the fuck does that mean?"

"Hiding from the world."

He scoffed and shook his head. "I wish I could hide from the fucking world, Jean, but the hell of it is wherever I go, there it is."

"You know what I -"

Still shaking his head, he turned away. "I am not having this conversation."

"Fifteen years, Logan. My god, you can't - "

"Goodbye, Jean," he snapped, straddling his motorcycle. He just started it when she put one of her hands over his on the throttle, and said, "You know, if I don't want you to leave, you're not going anywhere."

He glared up at her, thinking of and instantly discarding a million cutting things he could say to her. He might make her mad, but he wouldn't necessarily get her to go away. He threw up his hands in disgust, and said, "What? What do you want me to say? That I'll call every week? That'll I'll write when I get work?"

"I want you to trust someone, Logan. Not because you have to, like Bob, but because you want to."

He let his hands fall loosely to his thighs, and wondered if there'd ever be a day when he didn't regret not walking away from Xavier's when he had the chance."I have trusted people Jean, and they've trusted me. Do you know where these people are now? They're long dead, and sometimes I swear I can still smell their blood on my hands. Marcus almost joined them, so I'm done, I'm out. It's for everyone's good."

"Marcus is fine."

"Because of Bob, my own personal Jesus. I know he doesn't remember, but he took a fatal gunshot wound to the chest - the last time I saw him, he was half past dead. If you guys had shown up instead of Bob, he'd be rotting in the ground right now."

She sighed as if he was being difficult, her breath a white cloud that diffused in the air before him. "But that didn't happen."

"No, it did - Bob just reversed it. Don't split hairs with me." He remembered a dream he'd had just the other night, brief but weird: he dreamed of Elena, standing in an endless expanse of snow, holding a heavy black gun. He figured she was back only because he had been in Montana, however briefly, but the more he thought about it, the more he wondered if that was the only reason. She was looking flushed and shiny with sweat, in spite of shivering ( although he couldn't say if it was due to her illness, the cold, or both ),wearing the shirt of his that she died in. "Sometimes this is the only choice you can make," she said, and brought the gun barrel up to her head and pulled the trigger. He only woke up after he got to see her skull collapse inward, after the bullet blew out so much of her brain and cranium the skull lost all integrity. He loved his morbid mind - he had never wanted to see that. But he got her message loud and clear - he only wished that choice hadn't been taken away from him too. And he was glad Jean wasn't so powerful a telepath that she could see that image floating across his mind, or find the fact that last night he actually stood on a high bridge over the Saint Lawrence River and wondered if he could drown. He doubted it - did they drown him in that tank? Or was that a false memory? "I'm tired. Can't you people just let me have a few days by myself?"

"A few days? Logan, it's been two weeks now." She gave him a concerned look, brow furrowing as her impatience gave way to concern. "You really lost track of time, didn't you?"

"No - it was an expression." Wow, had it really been two weeks? All days and nights seemed to blur into one another after a while, especially if you were under no obligation to pay attention. "Look, I'm sure you mean well, but I need to be by myself right now."

"You're always by yourself. Has it ever helped?"

"Yeah, it has. Will you go now?"