12

The smell of ozone was pretty much the only giveaway that Zehra was turning on the juice, until the destruction began.

As the launched missile came screaming towards them, Zehra just waved her hand and it seemed to turn in mid-air, as supple as a fish swimming under water, and boomeranged right back towards the tank that had fired it. The explosion was massive, and the tank was vaporized, with bits of shrapnel being the only proof that it had once existed.

The other tanks made grinding noises as they seemed to stop against their will, and Logan saw an opportunity to lighten Zehra's psychic load. “Okay everybody, free for all,” he said. “Attack at will.” There was no real people in them, so there was no reason everybody couldn't go nuts.

Logan popped his claws and ran for the closest tank, swiping at the cannon and lopping off part of the barrel. His instinct was to jump up on top and heave open the hatch, crashing in on the men inside, but there were no men inside, and if there were, they were nothing but illusions. Not worth the time. He also had to resist the urge to slice the treads, which would keep the tank from going anywhere, but they weren't going anywhere anyways.

Kitty ran through a tank and disappeared, and then the tank began to sink, as if in quicksand. Kitty pulled the tank down (because, intangible, it weighed no more than she did, which is to say not at all) until its treads were just barely visible about the ground, and she rose out of the snow beside it. Piotr grabbed the barrel of the buried tank's cannon and proceeded to bend it, making the metal screech as he bent the turret into a useless Allen wrench kind of shape.

Nariko used her power on another tank, melting a hole in it so John could blast the inside with fire, melting wires and burning up anyone who was stuck in it. “From tank to toaster oven,” he shouted mockingly.

Logan cut the other tank, sending metal flying, and John just started to light the other tanks up, probably because he was bored. Now they were flaming wreckage, useless hunks of scrap that could have passed for a modern art installation. How long had that taken them? Under five minutes, definitely. Awesome. He now had a guarantee his team could destroy tanks in record time. He wanted to see Storm top that.

The ground started to shake in deep, thunderous booms, so hard and deep that Logan stumbled, and Kitty actually fell on her ass. (She was tangible, so she didn't disappear through the snow.) Far on the horizon, shrouded by mist and clouds, was something huge. Massively huge. Godzilla sized.

Right now it was a dark, vague shape the size of a skyscraper, but it had a some dark lines shooting off from it, but when they moved, they seemed to be not lines but tentacles. What the hell ..?

“It's unleashing Monster Island on us?” Kitty asked, as Logan helped her back up to her feet.

He shrugged. “The tanks weren't much of a hardship. It's gotta do something.”

“Let's shut this down,” Shaheen said to Zehra, staring at the side of her face. Shaheen had that look of intense concentration on her face, the one that usually meant that she was using her power boost, and Logan felt his stomach twist in anxiety as he realized she was boosting Zehra. That just didn't sound good.

“Everybody, back off!” he ordered, having no idea if Zehra could control her powers amped up. She could barely control them at normal strength at the best of times. He didn't need to say it twice.

The deep thuds continued, but there was a sudden noise, a huge crack, like a glacier shearing off the face of an ice shelf, and the illusion disappeared with a boom as great and deep as any of the previous tremors. In fact it was louder; Logan felt a sharp pain in his head as at least one of his eardrums popped, and he stumbled as the lights went out and he could feel a wave of what could only have been energy turning metal to shrapnel.

The snow and the ominous silhouette gave way to a grey, almost warehouse style roof and wall, which now had a huge hole in it, big enough to taxi an aircraft through, although what detritus that was around was little bigger than picnic refuse (it wasn't so much knocked through than vaporized). Logan could feel cold air coming out of it, as well as smell the crisp, familiar scent of snow. The hole revealed nothing but blackness that soon resolved into a dark outer wall that brought to mind a type of emergency bulkhead or perhaps old radiation shielding. It wasn't quite impervious to Siberian winters.

“Stop already,” Zehra said, grabbing her head. She still smelled strongly of static.

Shaheen rubbed her eyes as she turned away. “I have.”

“Somebody knock me out,” Zehra said. “I'm gonna lose it.”

“No you're not,” Shaheen insisted in her calm, all knowing doctor voice. “Rein it back. You're in control.”

Positive reinforcement didn't seem to be working. “No I'm not! I'm losing it!” Static electricity crackled like distance hail pelting metal, and the ozone scent was almost overwhelming.

Piotr looked over at Logan helplessly, as if asking tacitly if he should knock her out, if he even could (did Piotr have that kind of temperament? He didn't seem to ...) but Shaheen made it a moot point. She sighed heavily, as if Zehra had disappointed her, and pulled out what looked like an epi-pen, which were usually full of epinephrine for allergic reactions. But it must not have been, as Shaheen jabbed Zehra in the neck with it, and after a couple of seconds, she swayed on her feet and collapsed, but Shaheen caught her before she hit the ground.

“What's that?” Kitty asked, as Logan went over and took the unconscious Zehra from Shaheen.

“Ativan, an anti-convulsant drug sometimes used on people who just freak out beyond all reason. I thought I should carry some in case Zehra had a seizure.”

“Good call,” Logan said.

“I'm freezing my balls off,” John complained, hugging himself for warmth. “Does this mean we finally found a way out of here?”

“I'd think so.” There was no crates around, no lights; it was a large empty room. Not only was the illusion gone, but Logan was fairly certain that the Central Brain got vaporized along with the back wall. Looking back, the doors were now visible again. In fact, Nariko had melted one, and only the bottom half was visible. “Kitty, go scout ahead, see where the closest exit point is. Piotr, come take Zehra, I have to go back to Taras.”

Piotr remained metal – maybe because he wasn't sure the danger was over, maybe because it was to keep from getting cold – but he took Zehra and looked at him with suspicion. “You gonna rescue him?”

“I'm fulfilling my obligation,” he told him honestly. It told him nothing, but hey, they could argue about that later.

He took off down the empty rooms, following the trail back towards the crazy head room, and wondered why he felt a little sick about it. Why, he didn't know. He wouldn't want to live as a head in a box.

Once he got back to the room, he knocked on the coffin/prison, and said, in Russian, “I think you know we did it. You want to change your mind?”

Just like that he was snapped back into Taras's mindscape, which was now nothing but a barren office with a single broken down desk chair. He was looking out the soaped up, dirty window, his back to him. “I didn't think you'd come back.”

“We made a deal.”

“Yes, but you're Weapon X. You're my enemy.”

“I don't make promises I don't intend to keep.”

“The noble savage. Quaint. It's nice to know someone keeps their word.”

Was he trying to be insulting so doing this would be easier? “Look, I know a guy with a nearly unlimited power set. If anybody could get you a body again, or some equivalent, it's gonna be him.”

Taras turned and gave him a curious look. “Did you just think he's a god? You did!”

“His powers are god like,” he replied, aware that Bob could never be explained away like that, not if you actually knew all that he had done. He was still a bit shocked that the Organization actually tried to explain him away that easily, but at least they had the modicum of sense to list him as untouchable and to be avoided at all costs. “He might be able to help.”

Taras shook his head. “I should be dead. I am kinda dead. Your teek totally killed the power supply, so I'll be dead fairly soon anyways. How powerful is that girl? How is her brain not leaking out her ears?”

“Well, that's a good question. It sort of is.”

“Do her a favor and kill her before she gets as bad as me.”

“We're trying to help her. Killing isn't the only option.”

“Wow. What happened to you, Weapon X?”

“The name's Logan, and I'm not an assassin anymore.”

He smiled in a bitter, crooked way. “Once an assassin, always an assassin. Blood doesn't wash that easily. Believe me, I know. Oh, speaking of which, there are some people in cold storage. Some of your people might be there, I don't know, the Central Brain must have done that. I never archived anyone.”

“Why did it do that?”

He shrugged. “So there was always people? I've no idea. And thanks for the offer, but no thanks.”

Just like that, Logan was back in his body, sprawled on the cold floor. The temperature was dropping rapidly; Zehra must have taken out the back up power, like Taras claimed. Surely Shaheen's power boost must have helped, but the fact that she'd almost achieved a Phoenix like telekinetic display was unsettling. Even more unsettling was the fact that any more like that would probably kill her. What were they going to do with her? Well, at least he could guarantee she wouldn't end up a head in a box – obviously she had no healing factor.

He popped his claws and drove them through the adamantium lined coffin with difficulty, finally punching through and pulling across, hitting the wires first. The second time, he knew he hit flesh, and he kept hitting flesh until blood and pulped tissue slicked his claws. Once your brains got diced, that was pretty much it for you, or so he'd always hoped. It's why he told Marcus if he ever went back over to the other side, if he ever went nuts or got seriously mindfucked, he was to shoot him in the eye with a specialty bullet: maybe adamantium, but “cop killer” or even your standard hollow point would do it. Puree his brains, and he would probably be dead for good. He'd only told Marcus because he was the only man he trusted to know when it was time to pull the trigger and able to take the shot.

Or, again, so he hoped. Even if he was left a brain dead vegetable, at least he couldn't be out there hurting anyone. He and Zehra did have that in common, they were both time bombs, but her trigger was easier to get to.

Taras had dumped the location of “cold storage” into his brain, so he knew where it was and set off, but he caught a familiar scent and paused. “Why aren't you with the kids?”

“Piotr and I picked and rendezvous point, and I left them with him. They're gonna listen to the big Russian guy in Russia, trust me,” Shaheen said, coming through the doorway, hunched into her coat. Logan had already started adapting to the cold. “He wanted you to kill him, didn't he?”

“Would you want to live as a head in a box?”

She shook her head. “I could have offered an Ativan overdose, but hey, healing factor. Wouldn't have worked. Besides, does he – did he have blood circulation?”

Logan shrugged helplessly. “No clue. He wasn't sure how he was surviving either. But c'mon, you can help me. There's some people who might still be alive in a sub-level. Maybe you can help me tell.”

“The people we were looking for?”

“Maybe. He didn't know.”

She followed him, trusting him to know the way, and they'd traveled what seemed like a half a mile of corridors before she said, “You know, this has been the weirdest and fucking scariest thing I've ever done in my entire life, and I grew up in Algeria.”

“Sorry.” He'd had worse, but that was probably patently obvious to everyone by now.

“What? No. It was fucking great man. I'm really going to enjoy playing Bones to your Kirk.”

“Oh god, do I hafta be Kirk?”

“Damn it, Logan, I'm a Doctor, not a casting director.”

He shook his head and smirked, trying not to laugh. Maybe there was hope for all of them yet.

Logan found the plane easily.

Once his nose adapted to the sharp scent of snow and earth, it was easy to make out the faint traces of oil and polymers that exuded from the jet. The only problem was it was night going on to the grey-blue half light of early dawn, and the cold, which had been unbelievable before, had moved on to impossible. He couldn't even break the crust of the ice with his footsteps; it wasn't so much like concrete than marble now, something too hard to crumble.

He got the kids back before any of them suffered any permanent effects from the cold, but it was pretty close. He had to tell Storm the X gear could take cold and very cold, but Siberia cold was where it all started to fail. At least John got everyone warmed up pretty quickly, finally proving useful.

They were going to have to fly back to rescue the people, three of which were the group they were looking for, and two others who were probably villagers or maybe hunters who stumbled into the wrong patch of Siberian wilderness. They had been in some form of stasis that was now failing due to the fact that the power was dead, and moving them wasn't going to be easy, although Piotr in metal form could lift a lot (which was helpful). Shaheen thought they may need medical attention, though, so the decision was made to fly to Omsk and get them help there. Logan and Piotr decided they were going to try and come off as members of some secret government unit so no questions would be asked. (Piotr didn't know if he could actually do it, so Logan told him to leave all the bluffing up to him; Pete was just going to stand behind him looking mean and inscrutable, which he could do. He was to say nothing but yes or no and never look anyone in the eye, just to further puzzle and intimidate people. This led Piotr to asking him how often he'd done something like this, which Logan could only shrug at, but he got a sense he'd done it enough to know just what would push people's buttons and unsettle them.)

Once at the hospital, after convincing the staff that it was best not to ask any questions of the freaky dude and his overly muscled companion, he contacted Storm and let her know how it all went. She listened without comment, and then asked, “Is this a joke?”

“No. That's what happened.”

“A psychic head in a box?”

“It's a weird world.”

“What the hell was it? I mean the ... maze.”

“Calling me – Weapon X – his enemy tipped the game. It was obviously some kind of training base built by the Russian version of the Organization. But the AI became way too sophisticated, and then they bio-grafted it into Taras, adding up to complete madness. The machine knew its priority, which was to train soldiers, so when it ran out of soldiers – presumably they escaped or most likely died in training sims that had become too real – it made sure to use its technology to get them. I think there was some kind of rudimentary teleportation system, although the energy used must have been immense, and it seemed to knock people out in the course of transport. There's a lot of impressive technology there, much worth stealing.”

“So why didn't the Russians shut it down?”

“They couldn't. The problem was the technology was so impressive, and the psychic and the AI both so fucking nuts it stopped taking outside orders. The only way in was to get captured.”

“And to be captured was to die.”

“Exactly. Although the Central Brain started putting some people into storage, probably because getting genuine people was harder and harder. This is the middle of fucking nowhere, which was probably why the Russian authorities were content to just leave it running. As long as they stayed away from the area, none of them would be hurt.”

“They let innocent people get killed. That's unconscionable.”

“Yeah, but think of it as the Org with Russian accents, and you get it. Collateral damage; of no concern, and a statistical inevitability.”

She made a noise of disgust. He was sitting in the jet's cockpit, all alone since he let the kids go out to a nearby market, with Shaheen playing chaperon. Piotr was still at the hospital, glowering silently at staff who got jumpy around him and had no problem believing he was some kind of government thug. “So the psychic energy surge?”

“Probably Taras, possibly fighting off another telekinetic. I got the sense he fought one recently, although nowhere near as strong as Zehra, whom he admitted was in a different level. When Shaheen boosted her, we were luckily she didn't take out the entire base.”

“Is she all right?”

“She's still sleeping off the Ativan. Shaheen says we hafta give her a couple more hours.”

“What do you think? Is she trainable?”

“She's gotta 'tude, but she was key here. The problem is her seizures. She's powerful, but I really think that's going to kill her before she ever gets it totally under control.”

She sighed heavily. “That's what I'm afraid of. Should we try and pull her off the line?”

“Does that stop her from using her powers?”

“No.”

“Okay. So ... where does that leave us?”

“Hell if I know, Logan. Do you think you can reach her?”

He considered that as he looked out the windscreen at the city beyond the airstrip. A glassy grey glimpse of the water was just visible at the horizon. “I have a shot. Will I accomplish it? No idea. But I'm willing to keep trying.”

It was still weird to be the leader of his own team, especially since he had two known troublemakers – John and Zehra – on it. But you know, it wasn't that bad; it was a lot better than he thought it would be.

Oh god – maybe he really was getting old.

The End