"Jonny. Jonny, wake up." Kyle's voice was a hoarse whisper, accompanied by a rather hot, rank puff of breath against Jonny's ear. "Why?" Jonny mumbled, wrapping one arm around his head. "Tired." "New Subjects," Kyle hissed, still crouching protectively over his friend. "'cross the hall." Jonny blinked, and lifted his head, turning onto his stomach so he could rest his chin on his arms. All he could see was a bunch of guards moving around in the cell. "That's new. How many?" "Three." And then Kyle made a growling, grunting noise that was pure disgust. "All girls." That got Jonny to sit up, frowning. That was *bad*. The guards weren't allowed near him or Kyle because... not to put too fine a point on it... one of the things the scientests liked to test were what they politely called 'stool samples', and they got pissy if those were 'compromised'. He had a nasty suspicion that they wouldn't object at all except for that, which was why it was very bad for there to be girls here. Especially if they were young ones, like him and Kyle. "I can't see." Kyle nodded, and moved over to the bars, growling and baring his teeth at the guards, who were standing around and muttering to themselves. One of them turned around, and brandished his night-stick threateningly. "Shut up, dummy!" he snarled. Kyle rumbled a bit more. They all thought he was a halfwit, and Jonny knew he didn't like that. "Come on," one of the other guards said, over the growl, and he gave whatever was on the other side of them a nervous look. "We don't wanna be in here when that one wakes up." "Yeah." The third nodded grimly. He gave Kyle a hateful look. "She's probably just like the other one. All claws and no brains." Kyle snarled again, a bit louder, and kept it up until the guards vanished down the corridor. Then he made a satisfied noise. "Fuckwits," he muttered happily, and he and Jonny both leaned up to the bars and peered into the other cell. They couldn't see many details, but they could see enough to set *both* of them growling with helpless fury. The one closest to the bars was, very clearly, only a child, even if there were magenta markings on her grimy, baby-round face and strands of magenta hair spreading over the small body and tiny hands. There was another girl, next to her, but she was facing away from the bars, and all they could see was a mess of blond curls and a pale, slightly pointed ear. A third, older than either of them, was propped against one of the walls, brown hair streaked with white half-hiding her face, and her coverall - grey, like all the others - undone halfway to her waist. The guards had obviously sneaked a quick grope, if not worse. The only thing to say about THAT was at least they hadn't tried it with the youngest girl. Kyle, whose throat was obviously adapted for it, kept up a quiet, steady growling noise as they settled down next to the bars and waited for their fellow prisoners to wake up. Jonny's was a bit raw from the initial snarl, so he contented himself with muttering quiet curses on the guards, the scientists, their parents, and their progeny unto the tenth generation. He thought about including pets, but decided not to. Just in case THEY were the pets. * * * "Logan's definitely gone." Scott reported. "He's obviously been through the maps in my filing cabinet, and taken some." Xavier rubbed his eyes wearily and sighed. "I suspected as much." They'd spent most of the night calming hysterical students - most of them had been sure that the human hordes were coming to take them all away to be experimented on, and since they weren't sure that that was not, in some part, the case, the teachers had had trouble being suitably comforting. By the time they'd noticed the Corvette out the front, Logan (and presumably Creed with him) had been long gone. In Storm's Jeep, apparently. "Can you find them with Cerebro?" Jean asked hopefully. Xavier shook his head. "I've already tried that, I'm afraid," he said reluctantly. "I did find him, but I could not tell where he was. He is so consumed by fury at whoever did this that I could sense nothing but rage and bloodlust, and I was forced to retreat quickly lest I was drawn in myself." "Better safe than sorry, Professor," Jean said, touching the back of his hand gently. "Even if we have no idea where they are." For some reason, Ororo and Scott looked at each other and shook their heads. Jean bristled a bit. "He can't take that kind of risk!" she snapped. "Neither could I, even if I had enough training. He could end up in a fury identical to Wolverine's... and without his focus." She didn't need to say that there would be a risk not only to the teachers, but to the students as well, if Xavier lost that much of his control. "That isn't what we meant," Ororo said, lips quirking a little. "Am I the only one who heard Scott say that Logan stole some of his maps?" "Yes, but..." Xavier trailed off, and smiled ruefully. "Of course," he said wryly, looking at Scott, who, even at five in the morning after a sleepless night, was uncreased, unslumped, and had his hair under perfect control. "You file your maps, don't you? You know which ones are missing." Scott nodded, looking a tiny bit smug. Xavier couldn't blame him for that... Logan had probably headed for Scott's office knowing that he'd be able to find the right maps in moments, because they were all perfectly filed as well as up to date and in perfect condition. He would also have known that Scott would know, after one look, which file had been burglarized. A clue as to where they'd gone, obviously, since if Logan *hadn't* wanted them to know where he was going, he'd have simply gone and bought the maps he wanted on the way to wherever he was going. "Which maps did he take, Scott?" he asked hopefully. Scott shrugged, face falling a little. "Oregon. All of the maps I had." Xavier squashed an urge to roll his eyes and sigh theatrically. A clue, yes, but not a clear set of directions. "At least it's a place to start, I suppose." * * * "What're you stopping for?" Logan growled, lifting his head and looking around. He'd finally given up the wheel around seven that morning, and he'd been dozing in the passenger seat for... he checked the clock... about three hours. Not sleeping, really - not with Marie missing, and Creed close enough to pop his head off like the top of a beer bottle without even getting up - but dozing. Resting his body, if not his mind. "Get some petrol, get some food, and take a leak," Creed responded shortly, pulling into the small service-station. It was a shabby little place, out in the middle of nowhere, and that was good. Nobody to notice them, or remember. "You need to?" Logan nodded. He could hold it a long time if he had to, but the faded 'Gents' sign was pretty welcome. "Won't say no." It was strange how easily they were falling into the pattern of travelling together... they'd switched seats easily that morning, without more than a word or two, and now they didn't speak at all - they both made use of the men's room, then Creed went to fill up the tank while Logan picked out what food he could that didn't stink of chemicals or smell half-rotten. Without really thinking about it, he picked up a big six-litre container of spring water, and added it to the pile. Creed came in, grunted the price for the petrol, and went looking for something up the back of the store. Logan shrugged, watched the nervous kid behind the counter add the petrol to the price of the food and water, and tossed in a couple of packets of beef jerky before he paid for it all. He pocketed his wallet and looked around just in time to spot Creed, holding another container of spring water, reaching for the jerky. Logan looked at the stuff on the counter. Creed looked at the stuff on the counter. Giving Logan a very strange look, Creed dumped the water he'd been carrying, and picked up his share of the food to take it out to the car. Blinking a bit, Logan followed him. Neither of them commented - it's hard to find a macho way of saying 'hey, you like the stuff *I* like'. But they watched each other covertly for a while, and Logan started noticing stuff. They were both right-handed, but tended to eat and drink with the left hand to keep the right one free, just in case. They both kicked off their boots in the car to flex their feet. They both liked to have food where they could reach it, but rarely bothered about the water unless they were thirsty. They both, if Creed's frowns and shifts were anything to go by, tended to get a stiff neck and a sore tailbone if they spent too long sitting upright - one of the reasons Logan liked motorbikes so much. He could hunch forward and let his head drop a bit, which felt a lot better. He was driving when he noticed that, and he jerked his head towards the back seat. "You should sleep for a couple hours," he suggested, in an unusually mild tone. "Your turn again around midnight. Might as well get some shuteye first." Creed frowned, as if to protest, but then he nodded. "Might as well," he agreed. He was too big and bulky to just slide over the seat, but he moved fast enough that Logan had hardly pulled over when the back door slammed shut, and he could get back out on the road. He glanced in the rearview mirror, and caught a relieved expression on Creed's face as he sat sideways on the seat, hiking his knees up a bit and resting arms on knees, head on arms. His breathing smoothed out almost immediately, and Logan's lips twitched into a tiny smile as he put his eyes back in the road. He'd had worse travelling companions, he conceded privately. Better ones, too, but definitely some worse ones. That put him in mind of Marie, though... that nervous, stubborn little look she'd had sitting beside him when he'd first picked her up. It had been... what... eight, nine months ago? Tail end of winter in the mountains, spring everywhere else. Now winter was coming again, and he couldn't shake off the image of her standing alone in the snow, without him to stop the trailer and beckon her over... Creed listened to the soft growl and the shift in the engine noise as the car sped up a bit, and grinned into his folded arms. * * * It was a long time after they'd been dragged in that the girls started to wake up, and it was the youngest one who woke up first. She whimpered, sitting up and scrubbing at her eyes with small lavender fists, and then she looked around. She saw the cell, and the other girls still sprawled where they'd been dropped, the prison-grey coveralls and the bars. Before she could do more than crumple up her face and open her mouth to start crying, Jonny waved a hand to get her attention. "Hello," he said softly. The little girl sniffed, pushing tangled hair out of her eyes. "Hi," she whispered. Jonny smiled as reassuringly as he could. "I'm Jonny," he said, and poked the sleeping grey-and-blonde lump beside him. "And this is Kyle, when he's awake. Don't be scared of him, even if 'e does look a bit creepy." Kyle grunted and sat up, looking like a caveman with his long, lank hair and the beginnings of a beard. "Hi," he said, sniffing at her scent. For some bizarre reason, the little girl brightened considerably when she got a look at Kyle. "I'm Clarice," she said shyly. "And that's Annie..." she pointed to the blonde girl, "and that's Marie over there." Annie, having been poked a bit, seemed to wake up, and made a heart-rendingly pitiful noise. "Oogh..." Jonny shook his head, having heard that particular noise before, and gestured at Clarice. "There's a hole over there in the corner," he said urgently. "Get her over to it before she pukes." Clarice nodded, and moved surprisingly fast, grabbing the shoulders of her friend's coverall and throwing her small weight against the bigger girl's inertia. They made it over to the hole just in time and - since it was quite close to the third girl - the resulting disgusting noises at least managed to get her to wake up. "Wha... hey!" She slid pale hands up to yank the front of her coverall shut, looking around with startled suspicion. "What the... Clarice?" She looked surprised to see the younger girl. "I thought you and Annie were with Annie's dad." "We were. Then someone shot some darts into us, and then we were here." Clarice shrugged, and pointed across the hallway at Kyle and Jonny. "Maybe they know where here is." "Not a clue, luv, sorry." Jonny shook his head. "I've been here for... dunno. A while now. Kyle's been here longer." Kyle nodded, and gave Clarice and... what was the other one's name? Mary? Marie?... a thoughtful look. "Don't you feel sick?" Marie shook her head. "Nope. I've got a little headache, and I'm thirsty, but that's it." She was pretty, Jonny noticed a bit wistfully, and had traces of a soft Southern accent. Looked like she'd have a nice smile, too. Clarice patted Annie's back, and nodded. "I got a headache, too, and I'm a bit dizzy, but I don't wanna throw up," she agreed. "If this is what a hangover's like, I hope I never have one," the blonde girl moaned, still hanging over the hole. "I never felt this sick before." "Hit me the same way," Kyle volunteered. He shuffled a bit closer to the bars. Marie looked at him, and did a small doubletake. "I can see why," she murmured. Kyle frowned. "You can?" Annie gurgled a bit and sat up. "You can?" She turned around and looked at Kyle. Yellow eyes met yellow eyes, and they both blinked a bit. "Wow," Annie said mildly. "We look alike. Only your face is bonier than mine." From the tops of their blonde heads to the tips of their clawed toes, there WAS certainly a startling resemblance. Kyle was a bit bigger and bonier than Annie, and Annie still had baby-round cheeks and the disproportionately long limbs of a kid in the middle of a growth spurt, but... yes. Definitely a likeness. Jonny looked at them both for a while, then shrugged. "Interesting. Not much help, but interesting." Kyle and Annie both grinned fangy grins. "I dunno," Annie said modestly, inspecting her heavily clawed fingers. "I figure the two of us could... AIGH! I've been clipped!" Kyle looked mournfully at his own truncated claws. "They do that." Marie and Jonny's eyes met, and they both chuckled a little. "They ARE a lot alike," the older girl said ruefully, watching Annie shuffle off into a corner to mourn over her abused fingers. "Do you... have you guys thought up any way of getting outta here?" Please, please don't say it's impossible, her eyes begged. Because it's just starting to sink in that we're prisoners here and I really don't want to stay a prisoner. Jonny blinked. "We... no, not really. I mean, the plots you see on TV aren't likely t' work here, and neither of us are secret agents or nothin'..." Marie brightened a little. "Ah. Well, we have a bit of an advantage there." * * * Creed grunted, squinting a bit as he traced the line of the road with the very tip of one claw. "Y'think this is the best one?" he asked dubiously. "Me, I'da gone this way." He traced another route, more direct, but also more obvious. He didn't say that one reason he'd have taken the more obvious route was because it was easier to see, with eyes better adapted to a far off, moving target than a slip of printed paper right up close, but he suspected that Logan guessed. Logan wasn't getting all that close, either, and he was squinting a tiny bit at the map as they held it spread out on the hood of the Jeep. "That way's faster, yeah... but they'd be more likely to see us comin'." He shook his head. "And we don't wanna be spotted. Not that I mind a good scrap," he added hastily, as Creed's shaggy eyebrows went up a bit, "but they might hurt the girls if they think we're going to get to them." Creed thought about that, and nodded. "Might just cut their throats and be rid of all of us," he agreed. Logan twitched in a way that wasn't quite a flinch. Creed wasn't too happy with the idea, either. Annie and - increasingly - Clarice, belonged to *him*. They might get annoying sometimes, but they were *his*, and anybody who messed with his stuff got their entrails wrapped around their necks and lit on fire. Besides, they were about the only two people in the world who actually liked him, and that was sorta nice. "Back way it is." The runt gave him another one of his odd looks as they folded up the map and slid back into the car. Creed rolled his eyes a bit. He might be a psychopath, as humans reckoned it - he hadn't thought of himself as human in a long time, although he wasn't sure he bought Magneto's Homo Superior crap, either - but this was pretty much a job, a contract, and he knew how to be professional when it was necessary. He might get a bloodthirsty kick out of gutting and maiming, but he didn't do it twenty-four-seven. And picking fights with Logan... he was starting to think of the man by name, now... wasn't going to get anyone anywhere. He looked sideways, evaluating weary brown eyes, a deeply lined face, and hair that was going oddly tufty now that he wasn't bothering to comb it. He looked tired. "You should sleep," Creed grunted. "Yer no good to anyone if yer wiped out." "In a bit." Creed shrugged and nodded. He wasn't the man's keeper. Even if they *were* getting along better than he'd ever expected. It wasn't the chatty, cutesy, let's-all-be-friends shit the X-Men seemed to expect, mind you. Not Magneto's we-are-brothers-and-sisters-in-adversity schtick, either. More like... he searched his memory. More like the few times he'd taken contracts that meant he had to work with someone else, and the someone else was a pro. He'd kind of liked those times - working with someone else, yes, but someone who'd be where they were supposed to be and knew how to fit the way they worked around someone else's way, so everything was smooth and easy. Logan was like that; he knew what he was doing, and he knew that Creed knew what he was doing, and even if they didn't have much to say to each other, they'd get the job done all smooth and nice. There was a sort of satisfaction in that, Creed mused. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad. Unless the runt choked when it came to the killing. Then he'd probably have to waste him too, otherwise he'd spook back to the X-Men and they'd make trouble. It'd be a shame to have to kill Logan, though. They were getting along so well. * * * "I'm very disappointed, Professor Epstein," Nina Allejandro said unhappily. "Not only did we not get the two adults, we lost three of our operatives. And the others are all refusing to go out again." "Yes, well... I don't know why they're so upset." Epstein scowled. "Just because they have never suffered casualties until now is no reason to get all pouty. What do they think I'm paying them so much for? Snatching little girls out of parking lots?" "No stomach," Nina said firmly. "You'll have to be firm with them, Professor. Tell them that they can either go out after the adults, or they can fill in for them in our experiments." She smiled a bit nastily. "Of course, the reason we needed the adults with the healing factors is because they wouldn't otherwise survive, but..." Epstein brightened. "That's very good, Doctor Allejandro," he said admiringly. "Incentive!" "It's the key to enthusiasm in the workplace," Nina agreed. Epstein looked at the chart. "At least they picked up the power-duplicator and a spare one," he observed. "And the one from Vancouver is being brought in today, isn't he?" "This afternoon." Nina nodded. "He's older than the others, which is good. We can use him for those experiments which require specially designed equipment." She made a little pouty face. "The ones we have keep outgrowing it." "The penalty of working with the young and resilient." Professor Epstein smiled encouragingly, and took the liberty of giving her a little pat on the shoulder. "Never mind. Soon you'll have all the variety you want in our little subjects." Nina nodded, and returned the smile. "And there's so much to study," she said happily. "We'll be so far beyond the cutting edge we'll make the cutting edge look like a butter knife." That was what she loved about this job... she could study things nobody else could, go places that nobody else dared go, all because they were too chickenlivered realize that scientific advancement counted for much more than petty moral restrictions, and experiment on humans. Well, mutants, technically, but it was the same thing, really. * * * "Hey, look... another one." Annie whispered, out of consideration for Marie and Clarice, who were sleeping. Kyle nodded. He was leaned up against the bars, same as she was, and they'd been playing scissers-stones-paper to keep themselves amused. "Can you see anything?" he asked, also in a whisper. Jonny was asleep too, with his head on Kyle's leg. Annie pushed her face up against the bars, and craned to see. The newcomer was in a cell next to Jonny and Kyle's... by himself, too. That was interesting. "Not much," she whispered back. "He's definitely a guy, though. Older than us, too, but not too much. Marie's age, maybe." Kyle brightened a bit. "I guess this is good," he said hopefully. "I mean, they wouldn't bring in a whole new batch of subjects if they were just going to kill us all." "True," Annie whispered back. "The question is, are we going to wish they had?" Neither of them said any more after that. (end part six)
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