Along the road that led back from Ellis Island and all the way into the city, Craig knew all traffic was being cleared. The cars were going to pour off this island far, far faster than they had come onto it. The evacuation procedures had been worked out to the last detail, practiced again and again. He just hoped it was going to be fast enough.
Across the water, the cloud of white light continued to spread.
Liberty Island
Logan finished cutting Storm loose and moved quickly to stand beside Cyclops and Jean. They were at the window, where they could see the torch above them. The white light was just as the professor had described it from the images in Senator Kelly’s mind. It was pouring out of the torch and spreading toward both Ellis Island and Manhattan.
“I’ve got to blast it,” Cyclops said.
“Not with Rogue still up there,” Logan responded. He turned to Storm. “I need you to lift me up there.”
“I can’t control wind like that,” she replied. “You could fly right over the torch.”
“If I don’t make it,” Logan said, “then Cyclops can blast the whole damn thing.” He turned to Cyclops. “You see another choice?”
Cyclops glanced up, then shook his head. “Try it.”
“In the opening,” Storm said, pointing to the hole Sabretooth had punched in the wall on his way out. “Keep your body flat until you’re ready to land. Then curl into a ball.”
“Gotcha,” Logan said.
Logan jumped up to where she had indicated, then turned. Storm’s eyes had gone pure white, and the wind was starting to come up around him. Jean and Cyclops moved back against the wall and hung on while Logan stood in the opening, gripping the edge, leaning into the wind.
Suddenly he felt himself being lifted by the air, so he let go. It was like floating on a fast river of water. One moment he was in the opening; the next he was out over the bay and heading upward.
Like a parachutist, he spread his arms and legs, trying to stay flat, trying to give some surface for Storm’s wind to work against.
And he was trying his best not to panic. He knew now that he really hated flying.
Above him, the torch and the white cloud of light were coming on fast.
He focused on his target. He was going to have to time this perfectly.
Just as he passed above the balcony that curved around the torch, he tucked into a tight ball, right over Magneto’s head.
The look on the old mutant’s face was priceless.
The wind stopped, and Logan’s speed and momentum sent him shooting directly at the machine.
There was Rogue. And there were the rings, spinning.
“Oh, shit!” he said.
Reacting instinctively, he extended his claws, and using them like a diver uses his hands to break the surface of the water, he went in.
The claws sheared through one of the rings, sending it careening off into the night air. He was moving fast enough that one of the other rings only took a nick out of one of his boots.
He hit the base of the machine and came up quickly, wrapping himself over Rogue, careful not to touch any of her bare skin, trying to protect her from any flying shards of metal.
Around him the machine continued to operate, but now it was off balance and one ring short. The entire thing started to shake as it built to full power, ripping itself apart at the same time.
Under him, Rogue jerked and twitched as the machine drained the life from her.
The white cloud of light had extended halfway to Ellis Island and was still spreading toward the city. He had to do something to stop it.
And to save Rogue.
Keeping her sheltered as best he could, he reached out with his claws and thrust them into the blur of rings that spun around him.
It was like sticking a finger into a high-speed fan.
Snap! His hand was smashed sideways as his claws sliced through another ring. Once again, his shoulder was wrenched out of its socket. New pain coursed through him, making him shout out in agony.
Now the machine around him was really tearing itself apart. The sound had changed from a humming into a massive roar, like a jet engine straining to shove a plane into the air.
Only this was one very sick engine.
The shaking was like being inside a giant blender. It was everything he could do just to hold on.
The remaining rings had lost all semblance of balance. Logan hoped fervently that the entire arm of the statue didn’t fall off. It hadn’t been designed to take anything like this, he was sure.
Then everything exploded around him.
The remaining rings on the massive machine tangled with a shriek of ripping and tearing metal. Then they blew outward, sending deadly fragments flashing across the bay. The air was filled with massive explosions, far louder than the fireworks had been.
The white light stalled, then just seemed to vanish. Soon it was as if it had never been there.
Logan’s ears were ringing, and his arms and hands hurt from holding on so tightly. He was cut in a dozen more places, and he doubted his shoulder was ever going to be the same.
But he was alive.
And the light had been stopped.
He climbed out of the wreckage and stepped to the balcony level. Nothing much was left of the torch of Lady Liberty.
Magneto stood there, his face crimson with anger and bleeding from a gash along his forehead. He stormed toward Logan. “You have ruined it!”
“That was the plan,” Logan said, bracing himself. “Just not yours.”
Magneto waved his arm, and a few small pieces of wreckage went flying at Logan. But nothing big.
“Feeling a little weak, huh?” Logan asked. He batted the small hunks of metal aside like annoying flies and stepped right up into the face of the old mutant.
“You just disgust me.”
Magneto’s eyes went round, as if he were suddenly very afraid for his own life. And that disgusted Logan even more.
With one hand he gripped the old man’s vest and lifted him in the air. Then he extended the claws on the other hand and reared back, holding his fist up in front of Magneto’s face, clearly ready to swing.
“Say good-bye,” Logan growled, his voice low and mean.
Then, just as he was about to run the man through, he retracted his claws and just decked the guy with the hardest punch he could throw.
Magneto’s head jerked around, his helmet flying off into space. The old mutant slumped to the surface of the statue, out cold.
Logan stood over him for a second, then shook his head. “That’s a lot less than you deserve.”
With a hard kick to Magneto’s side for good measure, Logan turned and moved back toward Rogue.
“Come on, kid,” Logan said as he dug her out of the wreckage. “Time to go home.”
Suddenly he realized that she wasn’t moving.
She wasn’t breathing.
She was gone, still strapped into the remains of Magneto’s machine.
“Oh, God, no,” he said.
He cut off the metal straps and let her slump into his lap.
She didn’t move.
How could this have happened?
How could he have failed?
He stared at her, then down at his own body. He was bleeding in a dozen places, and even with his regenerative powers, it was going to take him some time to heal. But that didn’t matter.
He looked out at the police boats streaming toward him from Ellis Island and from the city. And at the ring of helicopters hovering close around the island, waiting for the ground forces to get into position. There wasn’t much time.
Then he looked back into the face of young Rogue. She didn’t deserve to die like this. He had promised her he’d take care of her. And he had failed.
He took a deep breath. Storm floated up on a wind and landed on the platform next to Magneto’s body.
Maybe, just maybe, he hadn’t failed yet. Maybe there was enough left for one of them.
&nb
sp; He pulled off his gloves, reached down, and took Rogue’s face in his hands.
The shock jolted him, and he could feel his energy flowing into her.
On his chest, his wounds reopened, and his bleeding started to get much worse.
With his hands still holding the soft skin of her face, the blackness took him.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Liberty Island
Agent Downer climbed the last few stairs into the torn head of the Statue of Liberty. The evacuation of Ellis Island had gone fairly smoothly, all things considered, and now Liberty Island was also secure. What had happened here was going to take some time to figure out, if anyone would ever really know.
He had almost forty of New York’s finest dead, and a national treasure had been trashed. The only clue at all as to what had happened was a machine that lay in ruins where the statue’s torch used to be.
And an unconscious man.
Craig moved to the center of the room and stared down at the man. No one had touched him. Not until he got there. Those had been his orders.
He knelt down, being careful to not touch anything.
A hypo lay on the floor beside him.
Craig straightened up and took a deep breath, looking around. Hunks of metal lay everywhere. Some had been bent like noodles; others were sliced like cheese.
It would take a lot of talking to pin all this death and destruction on one man. He shook his head. It was a strange new world they were all living in, that was for sure. And things like this wouldn’t make his job any easier.
“Get him into a holding cell,” Craig ordered the men standing nearby. “And for God’s sake, don’t let him wake up until we get him into the right kind of place.”
Craig moved over to the window and looked across at Ellis Island. They had come very close tonight to a disaster, that much he did not doubt. That white cloud would have reached most of the world’s leaders before the evacuation could have been completed.
What the white cloud would have done to them was unknown, but Craig doubted it would have been anything good.
But who had saved them?
Who had saved the world tonight?
Someday, he hoped to know the answer to that question.
X-Men Mansion
The blackness seemed to swim, then it began taking on form, taking on shapes.
He organized the shapes, pushed the blackness into patterns, then searched for the light.
“This way, Professor,” a familiar voice said.
So he moved that way, organizing, shaping as he went.
“This way,” the voice said again.
He followed.
And after what seemed like a short time, in a place where time didn’t seem relevant at all, Professor Xavier saw a dot of light in the far distance.
“That’s right,” the voice said. “Go to the light.”
The light grew as he focused on it, until finally it surrounded him, flooding into his mind, his conscious thoughts. So he opened his eyes.
“Welcome back,” Jean said, smiling down at him.
Xavier let himself smile. He felt surprisingly refreshed, almost as if waking from a long nap.
“I knew you could make it,” Jean said.
“I had a good guide,” he answered, taking her hand and squeezing it. Then he remembered what had been going on when he went into Cerebro.
He looked up at her. “What happened?”
“We stopped Magneto,” Jean said, smiling. She stepped aside and looked over her shoulder. The professor could see Logan on the table across the lab, tubes running from his arms. “He’s not healing,” Jean said softly.
The professor nodded, then took a deep breath. “I think I have some catching up to do.”
“And resting,” Jean said.
“That, I’ve been doing,” he said. “I think I have enough energy for a story before my next nap.”
She laughed softly, wistfully, and pulled up a chair.
An hour later he knew it all.
An hour later he was prouder of his students than he ever could have imagined being.
Logan’s nightmare kept him, held him, like the straps holding him to the table.
The same events, over and over.
Strapped down, his skeleton drawn on his skin.
Lowered into the vat of fluid.
Scalpels cutting at him, over and over.
The pain.
Intense pain.
And then it would start again.
Until finally it changed.
As they lowered him into the vat, he tried to fight back, just as he always did, to attack those around him, even though he was tied down.
But a strong voice said, “Logan.”
A friendly voice.
A firm voice.
Logan looked up into the face of Professor Xavier.
“Logan, tell me what happened to you.”
So instead of being cut on this time, he broke the cycle.
Logan told the professor as much as he could, walking him through the nightmare like a guide.
And for the first time, he didn’t feel the pain.
Jean sat with Cyclops, Storm, and about two dozen of the older students in the large recreational room, staring at the large-screen television. Outside the weather was beautiful, the sun shining in the big windows, warming the space. Yet all of them, Jean included, were ignoring the weather for the moment. Instead they were watching the news. She knew that their entire future, maybe the world’s future, rested in no small part on what was happening today in the Senate.
“Quiet now,” Storm said to the kids as the anchorman came back on.
“Even after last week’s terrorist attack on the Statue of Liberty by suspected mutants, the outcome of the Senate vote just moments ago was fifty against, forty-nine in favor of the Mutant Registration Act. It has been defeated.”
Jean felt as if her heart were about to explode out of her chest.
Around her the children shouted and cheered and stamped their feet, hugging and even crying.
She thought she might cry, too, the relief was so great. She couldn’t believe the bill had been defeated. After what had happened at the Statue of Liberty, she had just assumed it would pass.
“Quiet!” Cyclops ordered. “Everybody quiet!”
The anchorman continued with his report. “Many feel that this narrow defeat was due, in large part, to the disappearance of Senator Robert Kelly, who until this last week, provided the loudest voice in the cry for mutant registration. No sign of Senator Kelly has yet been found. Police fear foul play.”
Jean stood, wiping her hands on her pants as if that would finally clean off the entire distasteful subject of mutant registration. She wished it would, but she knew, as did everyone in the room, that the attempt to control mutants was far from over.
With a glance at Rogue, standing near the window, Jean left the talking and cheering group and headed down to the medical lab. Rogue had come through everything just fine; the only outward sign of her ordeal was a streak of white hair.
But Logan wasn’t faring as well.
A minute later she was beside Logan’s bed in the medical lab. Having had a few sessions with the professor, he seemed to be resting easier.
She uncapped a new IV and started to put it into Logan’s arm.
Suddenly, just as had happened the first time she had treated him, Logan raised his hand up and grabbed her. But this time his touch was gentle, and he grasped her arm instead of her neck.
“Hey,” he said, opening his eyes to look at her.
“Hey, yourself,” she said, smiling down at him. “How are you feeling?”
“Fantastic,” he lied.
She laughed. Clearly he was in deep pain. But it was just like him to say he was fine.
She checked under one bandage on his arm. His wound was healing now, and healing quickly. It looked as if he was coming back.
“That was a brave thing you did for Rogue,” she said as
she replaced his bandage.
“Did it work?” he asked.
“She’s fine,” Jean said, holding his hand. “She took on a few of your more charming personality traits for a few days, but we lived through it.”
Jean leaned in close and whispered. “I think she’s a little taken with you.”
“Well,” he said, smiling, “you can tell her my heart belongs to someone else.”
Jean stared at him. There was no doubt the two of them shared a unique connection. And she admired him a great deal. But her love was with Scott.
“You know,” she said, “you and I—”
Logan smiled. “How’s Xavier doing?”
She laughed. He had let her off the hook.
“He’s good.”
“Good,” Logan said, and Jean could tell he actually meant it. Then he closed his eyes.
A moment later he was snoring.
Chapter Twenty-nine
X-Men Mansion
Professor Xavier rolled his chair up and activated the holographic map table as Logan watched, still amazed at the gadget. The images of rugged, tree-covered mountain ranges appeared. Logan could see the roads, the streams, the old fire burns. Every damned detail of the area.
Flatout amazing.
The two of them were alone in the big room, so Logan moved over to a position beside the professor, standing over the display.
Using the controls on the side of the machine, Xavier focused down on a high pass, and Logan followed the focus, feeling as if he knew the area, yet not remembering it at all.
“There is an abandoned military compound at Alkali Lake, in the Canadian Rocky Mountains,” Xavier said, pointing at the pass and a small lake that sat a distance off the main road. “It’s not far from where we found you. There’s not much left of it, but you may find some answers.”
Logan studied it for a moment, logging it all in his memory. Then he looked over at the professor. “Thank you.”
It seemed like such a small thing to say for what the professor had done for him. But at the moment it was just going to have to be enough.
“You’re welcome,” Xavier said, flicking the map off and rolling away from the now-empty table. “You know there’s always a place for you here.”
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