The third-floor west-wing station was located right off the stairs. Unlike the station across from the recreation room and dining hall, this one was enclosed in glass and resembled an office space rather than a medical treatment area. The desk had room for only one nurse, but there was a door behind her, and Rogue could not tell if more people might be sitting on the other side. She doubted it; the hospital had too few staff for anyone to be idle for long.
"Can I help you, Jane?" asked the nurse. A thick brown braid covered her name tag. She made no move to leave the protection of her station.
"No," Rogue said, fighting her southern accent. "I'm just walking. Doctor... Dr. Maguire's been teaching me some techniques, stuff to calm me. I'm just trying it out."
The nurse gave her a thin smile. "That's nice. The doctor has made such progress with you and the others. Really, he's a miracle worker. We're so lucky he decided to come here."
Yes, terribly lucky. Rogue thought he might be working more than just miracles. So far, he seemed to be the only connection between the X-Men and their new bodies. Scott was right not to believe in coincidence.
"I heard Patty went crazy on someone," Rogue said. "I guess those techniques didn't work for her."
The nurse sighed, glancing at the first closed door outside the station. Rogue glanced at it, too. The lock looked standard; easy enough to break, with the right tool.
"It's such a shame," said the nurse. "Patty has been so calm lately. We thought for sure it would last after Dr. Maguire left. He did warn us, though. We should have listened more carefully."
Rogue said nothing, simply stepped up to the door and peered through the glass observation window. She saw a tiny plump body wrapped in a straitjacket, blond hair spreading wild over the white tile. If that was Patty, then she was either unconscious or pretending. Rogue did not feel lucky enough to place a bet.
"Please move away from there," said the nurse. She looked wary now, and Rogue did not miss the way her hand crept beneath the desk. Call button, no doubt. Rogue thought it strange that simply looking at Patty would be enough to make the nurse concerned, but she was not familiar with Jane's history. Could be she and this Patty had a fighting past, much like the one she supposedly had with "Renny."
Rogue shuffled backward toward the stairs. The nurse said, "Have you taken your meds today, Jane?"
"Yes," Rogue said, and then left, fast. The last thing she wanted was to get into a protracted conversation about medication, especially when she did not plan on taking any. The pills offered to her early that morning had met a quick end after being cheeked, then spit into her palm and tucked beneath her mattress. When that first nurse had unlocked her door, Rogue had not yet figured out what was happening, but she knew enough to recognize that her body was remarkably different—and that pills of any kind had to be a bad thing.
She heard shouts before she reached the dining hall, the crash of something large. She ran, dodging other patients who hovered in her way, trying to move fast in a body where her knee ached and her lungs labored for air.
What she found was a fight. None of the participants were familiar, though it was somewhat difficult to tell, given that a nurse was facedown on the floor with blood spreading around him, and the three laughing people kicking him had their backs to her. There was a terrible smell, like feces had been spread on the walls, and sure enough she saw dark stains—not on the walls, but on the floor, on the white uniforms of the nurses trying to reach their fallen colleague.
She forgot she did not have superpowers, or maybe it did not matter. She was closer to the fight than the nurses and she slammed her way through the crowd until she reached the smallest of the attackers. He did not see her coming and Rogue grabbed both his ears, twisting them, yanking backward with all her strength. The man screamed in pain, but Rogue did not let go. She twisted harder, and when his knees buckled, kicked the weakest one out from under him and rode him hard to the ground. Hit his head once against the floor, not holding back as she was accustomed to doing, because she was weak now, just human, and she needed all the strength these muscles could give her. She heard a satisfying crack, and the man went very still.
Rogue stood, muscles unaccustomedly sore. She never hurt this bad when fighting Magneto. She turned to go after another of the nurse's attackers and got slammed in the gut with a nightstick.
"Get down!" screamed a security guard, two words which Rogue dimly realized she had been hearing a lot of for the past minute or so. He hit her again and Rogue fell to her knees, trying to protect her head as he landed a third blow across her shoulders. Everyone near the fight, participant or not, was getting slugged into submission. The people in charge were too upset to differentiate between good and bad. Rogue huddled in a tight ball, waiting for another blow. It never came; the security guard had already moved on to someone else. The fight was dying down; the nurse's attackers were all on the ground, and several people cared for the injured employee.
A not-so-gentle hand touched Rogues back. She peered up into Suzy's face.
"Bad cards," she muttered, the colors of her gaze twirling like a pinwheel. Blood flecked her chin. "You're in a lot of trouble."
No kidding. She hurt bad. Stifling a groan, Rogue tried to stand. Her knee popped. If this was what getting old felt like, then she knew why people fought it, kicking and screaming.
She saw Scott and Kurt—or rather, their new bodies- edging close. They appeared concerned. She waggled her fingers at them and mouthed, "I'm okay."
"No," Suzy said, gazing down at the man lying so still at their feet. "You're not."
Rogue stared at her, and then studied that quiet body, the unmoving chest. A deep chill spread through her, accompanied by dread, horror.
"No," she murmured, bending down to feel the man's throat.
No, it's not possible, I'm not strong enough, I'm only human.
Human, maybe. But still strong enough to kill.
4
Security took Rogue away. Scott watched, un- able to do a thing to stop them. He and Kurt tried; they went to the supervising nurse, who happened to be Nurse Penn, to argue on her behalf. All they got for their trouble was a strange look and a simple, "I know what happened, I saw it all."
Scott was not comforted.
"Now what?" Kurt asked. "What will they do to her?"
Penn shrugged. "Jane will be locked up until the administrator has time to review the case. If they find she murdered that kid with deliberate intent, she'll probably be shipped off to the psychiatric ward of the state prison facility. Even if she's not found guilty, she'll probably be sent there. That woman is too dangerous for this place. Something you know all about, huh, Renny?"
Penn did not wait for an answer. He left them, walking quickly after the small group hauling away Rogue. The men who had started the fight lay on the ground in a drugged heap. A security guard prodded their ribs with his nightstick.
Scott and Kurt followed Nurse Penn. He never turned around to see if anyone watched him, which was good, because Scott did not want to explain why he and Renny, two of the most unlikely people to be interested in Jane's welfare, seemed so concerned.
He was glad Rogue did not fight them, and watched her straight back, her careful easy walk. They took her to the third floor, to a nurses' station where the woman at the desk looked at Rogue without much surprise. Scott and Kurt hung back in the stairwell, trying to listen as the hospital employees argued about where to put her. The station nurse wanted Rogue locked up in her own room, but the security guards—and Penn—thought there was too much furniture, too many resources to make a weapon, especially in her "current state."
The current state being that of a murderer. Never mind that she had acted to defend their colleague. Never mind that she was not fighting them now, but instead waited, unemotional and calm. A good act; Scott could not imagine what Rogue was feeling at the moment.
The security guards won the argument. The desk nurse said something muffled, and then Scott heard key
s, the rattle of a door. Velcro ripping.
"Let's go," Scott said to Kurt. "At least we know where she is now."
"Temporarily. I do not trust that she will be there for long."
"Then we need to find everyone fast and get the hell out of here." Once they escaped this place it was only a short run to the Blackbird, which they had left close by in a local park. Calling the Mansion from the jet would hopefully convince the people back home that they were not mere impostors.
Assuming, of course, that the jet was still there. If someone had their bodies, they also had access. The Blackbird opened its doors on spoken command of certain passwords, or if the internal sensors confirmed the physical identity of a permitted flyer. The idea of strangers in his jet made Scott sick. He did not want to think about it.
He and Kurt walked downstairs and sat at a table in the far comer of the recreation room, where they watched nurses continue to soothe the patients, who stared wide- eyed and groaning at the corpse still lying on the ground. Scott wanted to groan, too, but for a different reason.
"What did you discover about Maguire?" he asked Kurt.
"Not much. I found his office, but it was locked and I had nothing to open it with. The nurses, though, were quite helpful. According to them I have been in treatment with the doctor for quite some time, and am, er, less crazy now. Even, perhaps, functional. Though I cannot be all that functional, or else Rogue's former inhabitant would not be able to beat me so thoroughly."
"Former inhabitant," Scott mused. "So you think we're alone in these bodies?"
"What?"
"It's possible the original owners are still here inside us, suppressed by our own minds."
"I would rather not consider that," Kurt said. "I prefer to be solely responsible for my actions, rather than take the risk that there might be someone else with me, directing what I do."
"I did say suppressed."
"And I say that everything rises to the surface eventually."
He could not argue with that, nor did he want to. He, too, preferred the idea of being this body's sole occupant, but that raised the uncomfortable possibility that someone might be inhabiting his body, as well. A stranger, gazing out from his eyes, using his powers.
He mentioned this to Kurt, who turned so very solemn that Scott wished he had said nothing at all.
"I have thought of this," Kurt confessed, rubbing his chin against his clasped hands. "And I find that it disturbs me greatly. Strangers—especially the strangers we now reside in—using our powers and living our lives? I cannot imagine the trouble."
"I can," Scott said, "and it scares the hell out of me. Everything Professor Xavier built and that we supported could end in an instant given the wrong act, especially one that is done in our name."
"Ah, but we are jumping to conclusions. Without more information, we cannot know if this was an accident or deliberate, Maguire or someone else, if the switch was localized to us, or widespread. We are trying to walk on clouds right now, mein freund, and nothing good ever comes of that."
"Pessimist."
Kurt smiled. "Come, let us go and see if we can learn something new about this place."
So they walked, peering out windows where they saw barbed wire and chain-link fences; sliding doors with security checks and metal detectors; more nurses' stations surrounded in glass, where the walls were soft blue and cream.
The nurses and security guards put their backs to the walls when they passed; they did it subtly, without overt gestures of fear, but Scott felt it. Even little Mindy, who seemed to have a reputation of good behavior, fell under the same hospital safety procedure.
Don't turn your back, don't let down your guard.
They found the window where the patients got their meds, and some of those men and women were already lined up, waiting: trembling, shaking, muttering obscenities under their breath while rubbing their arms so hard, so fast, skin turned red. When the nurse at the window appeared with plastic cups of medicine and water, the entire line pressed forward, hungry.
Scott and Kurt walked away, fast, before anyone noticed them just standing there and forced something down their throats. Their fears were not unfounded; they passed men tied down in wheelchairs, struggling as nurses roughly pushed pills into their mouths.
"They do not separate the sexes here," Kurt pointed out. "I find that odd, and I must admit, dangerous."
"Maybe they only mix during the day. Or perhaps the patients don't have a record for sexual violence. That, or the men have been chemically castrated."
"Scott."
"Oh, um. Sorry."
Kurt coughed, glancing down at himself. "And Jeff? You said you were going to check on him. I forgot to ask you."
"There were too many people around his room for me to break in. I looked through the window, though. He's still unconscious." "Still?"
"I was in there last night. I picked the lock on my door and took a look around. Our Jeff, whoever he is, got in a fight with the nurses."
"Could it be Logan?"
"Maybe." Hopefully not Jean. He was not sure he could handle his wife looking like a man. A chemically castrated man, at that. Logan, on the other hand ...
"You're smiling," Kurt said. "Care to share?"
"Not particularly," Scott said. "Take me to Maguire's office."
Kurt led Scott down narrow halls into the most distant part of the first-floor wing. They passed only one nurse, and she had a familiar face.
"Well, isn't this cute." Nurse Palmer placed her back against the wall. "What are the two of you doing down here?"
"Going to see if the doctor is back," Kurt said, while Scott stared at the floor, demure as a little doll. "We miss him."
"He's not there, honey," she said.
"We miss him," Kurt said, with a wonderful whine in his voice that made him sound like a twelve-year-old boy. "Can we at least go wait by his door?"
She hesitated, and then sighed. "Sure, Renny. You and Mindy go wait for him. Stay out of trouble, though. I don't want to hear any stories."
"Of course," he murmured, and she shot him a hard look. Scott held his breath, but all she did was stand beside them, waiting, and he realized that she was not willing to turn her back on them.
Scott nudged Kurt and they shuffled down the hall, listening hard to the quiet as Nurse Palmer watched them leave. Only when they neared the end of the corridor did Scott hear footsteps. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Nurse Palmer disappear around a bend in the hall.
"Why do I feel as though that was a close call?" Kurt murmured.
"Because it was," Scott said, resisting the urge to run. He thought about Rogue and Jean and Logan, and knew they did not have much time at all, not if they wanted to remain together.
Maguire's office was at the end of the hall. There were two other offices besides his, but Scott and Kurt listened at the doors and heard nothing. Either everyone was on vacation, or the doctors only came in on certain days of the week.
Scott pulled the lock pick from his underwear, which made Kurt laugh. He unlocked the door and the two of them entered a small dark room where the air smelled like paper, coffee grounds, and the hint of something floral, like roses.
The desk faced the door. It had a neat surface, with small piles of files in one corner, and a tiny lamp in the other. The walls were bare—no books, no paintings, nothing at all that was personal. An antiquated computer sat on a small table; a close examination showed dust on the keyboard.
Kurt thumbed through the files. "There are only five people here. Guess who?"
Scott grunted. He was too short to peer over Kurt's shoulder, so he scooted the man aside and grabbed some paperwork.
"Mindy Chan," he read out loud. "Suffers from a debilitating social disorder, which manifests as ..."
"As what?" Kurt asked absently, reading his own chart.
"I can't function in normal society and I don't talk. Ever. But I think I already knew that."
"How terrifying for her to
be in this place, then." He flipped some pages. "My full name is Renfield Brooks, and according to this, I suffer from high anxiety brought on by acute agoraphobia."
"Being here must have been a nightmare for him."
Kurt shook his head. "I cannot imagine anyone voluntarily checking themselves into this institute."
"It doesn't have to be voluntary." Scott read through the rest of his file. "This makes mention of some improvements during private therapy sessions, but it doesn't say anything that would help us. No indication that Maguire was prepping Mindy for... I don't know what."
"Stealing souls, maybe?"
"That's a little dramatic."
"Really? And what about waking up naked in a body that is not your own, in a mental hospital where you are occasionally strangled by women and their bras?"
'That's just strange and unusual," Scott said. "Do we have an address and phone number for Maguire? Do we even have a phone?"
X-Men: Dark Mirror Page 4