6

For a small plane, it had an awful lot of room.

There were a couple of separate cabins, like rooms in a house, austere yet plush - a living contradiction. Logan went to 'rest up' in one of the smaller ones near the tail, while Marc and Tagawa worked out some last minute details, and they took off. Logan took one look at the tilting world beneath them as the plane rose higher about the almost pastoral outskirts of Montreal, and then closed the blue window shades before collapsing in one of the soft azure recliners.

What was wrong with him?  He knew he couldn’t be sick, but he almost felt like he might be.  And why was Tagawa starting to set off alarm bells in his head?  The guy had been nothing but a major help to him. He was not one of the bad guys. For that matter, just what - precisely - did he think he was doing?  He was going off to Hong Kong, guaranteed to get in a big, bloody, hard fight, just to get his mind off things.

God - he needed therapy. Where did an amnesiac killing machine mutant go for therapy?

“You can’t possibly be trying to create a dark little hidey hole in a fantabulous private jet,” Marcus exclaimed, entering the cabin. He started raising window blinds, letting in the bright, pale light of the sun seen through a filter of gauzy clouds. “Oh, here, the official stuff, if we need it.” Marc tossed what looked like a worn leather checkbook in his lap.

In fact, it was an extremely authentic looking passport, with several official looking authorization stamps
on it, and a small headshot of him - it looked like the same one Marc used for his photo i.d. when they went down to Santo Marco. This one made him a Canadian citizen named Logan Chase. “Chase? Aren’t you in a punny mood?” He remarked, shutting the passport and shoving it in his inner coat pocket.

“Come now.  A man of action like you deserves a big action name.  And I‘ve already taken Buck Plankchest.”

He knew he was trying to make him laugh, but he could barely manage an anemic smile. “Not Carstairs Mahoney?”

“That no good bastard only rents cars.” Marc stopped to open a panel that was set flush with the upper bulkhead, and after a moment, Nirvana started thudding out of hidden speakers around the cabin, although Marc - surely in deference to him - turned it down to an angry background purr.  He turned to look at him with that teeth baring, smart ass grin of his. “Can you tell I’ve been here before?”

“Where are the exits located, Steward Drury?” He wondered why Marc had picked this song, or if it was just coincidence. Currently, the chorus was ”If I die before I wake, hope I don’t come back the same”. It bothered Logan that he could identify with that.

Marc shrugged, and threw himself in a chair across from him. “Wherever the plane cracks open on impact.”

“Yer a hell of a steward.”

“Just tellin’ it like it is.”

“So...are we brothers again?”

“Naw, I figured that would be pushin’ it, considering we both work for the same private security firm.”

“Oh, we do? What is it?”

“Shrike Security.  I figured our slogan could be ‘For all your mad bastard security needs‘.”

This time, Logan did smirk. “If he was alive, Shrike’d be foaming at the mouth to think we’re using his code name as a cover.”

“He’d just be foamin’ at the mouth in general.  He seemed to be that kinda guy.”

“Mad bastard.”

“Yup.” Marc sighed, and said, “You wanna beer?  It’s gotta be five o’clock somewhere.”

“Sure, why not?”

“Great, go get me one too.” He gave him that Cheshire Cat grin again, and said, “I ain’t goin’ to get you one unless you tell me what’s wrong.”

“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?  Nothing’s wrong with me, ‘cept I can’t sleep for shit.”

“Yeah, that part I got.  But you look like shit too.  And not just in an “I can’t sleep for shit” way, but in a “beaten silly with a frozen mackerel” shit way.”

He just stared at him. “Frozen mackerel?”

“You have a problem with frozen fish?”

“Are you on drugs?”

Marc gave him a truly ugly look as he sank down deeper into his chair, his posture one of total ease and relaxation - which Logan knew he couldn’t trust. He took on a casual posture as camouflage for how alert and on edge he really was.  Marc was just too good, and Logan just knew him too well.  “Man, c’mon. How’ve things been since … well, shit, what do I pick?  Leonie’s death?  Yasha’s?  Virtual end of the world?”

What could he tell him that would make him go away?  “Angel told me the world almost ends on a regular basis. Most people just don’t know about it.”

“Angel’s a strange man. Vampire. Whatever. Look, don’t avoid the subject.”

“I’m not.” He sighed wearily. “I’m just tired, man.  I figure, if I keep movin’ I won’t have to think about it. And right now I don’t want to think about it, okay?”

“But all yer doin’ is thinking about it.”

“How the fuck do you know?  Are you a mind reader now?”

“I don’t have to be. The last time you wallowed, I had to pull your ass of some redneck booze pit in the middle of the vast Canadian nowhere.  I ain’t doin’ that again.”

“I never asked you to in the first place.” Tool’s “The Grudge” was now pounding through the speakers, and Logan wondered, slightly annoyed, if Marcus had put on a special “angst” mix tape.

“The thing about bein’ friends, Logan, is you don’t have to ask.  And look - we got hours before we touch down.  Hours. Hours and hours. In a confined space, in mid-air.  Do you know how crazy I could make you in that span of time?  Try and attack me, I give you a dose of venom, and make you sit there and take it for about an hour or so.  So, throw me a bone if you want me to go away and leave you alone. “

He glowered at him, aware it would do no good at all. “I hate you.”

“No you don’t. We’re brothers … most of the time. You’d better start talking, or I’m gonna recount my last major break up.  And I know you can’t wait to hear all the gory details.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Takes one to know one.” He sat forward, elbows on his knees, resting his chin in his hands in a posture of eager anticipation.

Logan shook his head and pulled back the blind over his window, glancing out at the clouds.  It was a white carpet on pale blue, and could have been wads of filmy cotton in front of a soundstage screen, if he squinted and tilted his head.  It was easier to look out there than to look across from him.  He knew Marc knew a little about this, but not all the details - or any. “Wanna know what’s bothering me now, Marc?  I had a wife, named Mariko, who was a member of a Yakuza crime family.  She tried to make it go legit, and I was her bodyguard. She was murdered by her family, who teamed up with their bitter rivals to do it, as they decided they didn’t want to go legit.  After she was killed, I … I hunted them all down.  I killed every single one I could find.  And this all happened before Weapon X gotta hold of me.” He let the blind shut again, and looked at Marcus, who kept his expression neutral, if not nearly blank. “Bob tried to make it easy for me, you know - all this stuff about temporary insanity and not bein’ in my right mind … although I think he was on to something there; how could I be in my right mind when I’m not sure I ever had one to begin with?  But, the truth is, I think I’ve always been a killer. Weapon X just made me a better one.”

Marc sat back, something in his posture expressing the horror he refused to show on his face. (Very funny - the singer of Tool was shouting at him to “Let go!”) After a moment, Marcus exhaled a long sigh, rubbing his hands on his knees as if to dry them, and finally said, “I’d have hunted them all down too; I‘ve told you as much.  No wonder you said you didn’t like the Yakuza.  Do - do you remember this?”

“No.  But Bob found records of it.  It seems the KGB had some interest in the Japanese underworld, and the incident ended up in their records.  They called it Bloody Friday.  Apparently I killed more Yakuza members in that one day than anyone else ever had, before and possibly since.  What an honor, huh?”

“I don’t think you’re a killer, bud.”

He snorted a sharp bark of a laugh. “Weren’t you paying attention?”

“Did you love her?”

That question briefly threw him. “I - I think - yeah. Yeah, I did.”  He almost said ‘More than my life itself’, but that was way too dramatic. Still, as far as he knew, she was all he wanted in life; nothing else came close.

Marc caught the hesitation, and canted his head at a curious angle. “You remember her?”

“No.  Just fragments . I have pieces of her that I can’t fit into a whole.  Random shards of memory that really don’t connect.”

“So you know you loved her.  And you know why you did what you did.”

He narrowed his eyes at him, feeling a surge of anger and despair that was chilling familiar.  Sometimes his mind seemed to mix them up; other times it seemed to be only waiting for something to lash out at. “I participated in one of Japan’s largest gangland killings - and I did it all by myself!  It explains nothing!”

“We all have limits; we all have a point where we snap.  That doesn’t make you equivalent to a psychopathic killer.  And, as the resident amoral guy, I think I know one when I see one.”

He knew Marcus was just trying to make him feel better, but he had no idea why.  He shouldn’t be made to feel better about this. “I fit the definition of a mass murderer, you know.”

“Yeah, well, technically, me too.”

“It’s different.”

“Is it really?  You’re acting like you woke up one day and decided to murder these guys in cold blood. We both know you didn’t.  And I can’t imagine what they must’ve done to you before they got to her. You know it must have been bad.”

He shook his head. “I don’t remember anything.”

“I know you’re torturing yourself over this, and you don’t need to. You can’t change what happened back then, nor do you even know the whole story.  Until you do, stop judging yourself so harshly.”

He stared at him in disbelief. “I'll never know the whole story - how could I?” ‘I’m afraid to remember’, he thought, but didn’t dare say it.

“Then why torture yourself over the unknown?  You got lots of known stuff to torture yourself about.” He flashed him that toothy, smart ass grin of his. ”Speaking of which... I got enough snazzy body armor for everybody, so if we’re goin’ into a situation that could end up all “Wild Bunch - Samurai Style”, I want you to wear some.”

He shook his head, vaguely relieved that the topic had been switched. “Don’t need it, and you know it.”

“You do need it. Yeah, bullets can’t kill you, but enough of  'em can put you down, and then you have to heal up.  Besides that, dude, they fucking hurt.  Why put yourself through that pain if you don’t need to?”

“ ‘Cause maybe it’s better to feel pain than to feel nothing at all.  At least then I know I’m still alive.”

Marc stared at him for a full minute, back ramrod straight. “Hokay.  When we get back to the States, remind me to give you the number of a good therapist. ‘Cause, man, no one as naturally scary as you should ever be this depressed.  I actually know one - a therapist - who‘s a mutant …”

“So you’re at least admitting I’m crazy.”

“Fuck you. Get out of the dark ages, man - no one thinks yer crazy if you see a headshrinker anymore. Hell, almost everyone needs ta check in with one now and then.  Besides, think how good it will be to talk to someone who doesn’t really know you, won’t care, and can’t call the cops on you.”

“It bothers me that you’re trying to talk me into therapy.”

“Fine, be that way.” He stood up, and for some reason, held his hands apart while tipping his head at him. “I think your chest is a wee bit narrower than mine.  Still, I’ll give you one of my flak jackets.”

“Narrower?” He scoffed. “You know how hard it is for me to get shirts that fit right?”

“Cry me a river, white boy,” he teased, then added bombastically, “Besides, I’m the ‘Merican here.  And nobody argues with America.  You’re just asking to get your pansy Canadian ass invaded, that‘s what you‘re doing.”

Logan shook his head and looked down at the carpet, finding it difficult not to smile.  Damn him. “Go away before I hit you.”

“Spoken like a true Mountie lover,” he chided sarcastically.  As he did in fact leave the cabin (thank God), he started singing along with the Foo Fighters song now caroming around the cabin, but he sang it like a lounge singer, clearly amusing himself.  At the door, he announced dramatically, “Don’t mess with the U.S., moose fucker!” and disappeared through the doorway.

Logan couldn’t help it - he burst out laughing.  And he knew that Marc meant for him to do just that.

The man was completely insane.  That’s probably why they got along so well.

 
7

Although, on the outside, the landscapers strived for beauty and warmth, they couldn’t conceal that this was clearly an institution.

Flowering lilacs of purple and yellow clung to the sides of the building, attempting to hide the “silent” security grid that rimmed the building, the sensor nodes that were the most visible part of the network looking like low garden lights that would never shed any visible illumination.  As she walked in, the overwhelmingly sickly sweet scent of the flowers threatened to give her a headache.  She sneezed twice, trying to rid the offending odor from her nasal passages.

She encountered no trouble whatsoever from the security or attending staff, as they were already acquainted with her. They thought her to be a government security official with what she felt was the preposterous name of Marilyn Wu, and she had the badge, pass, and security clearance to prove it,
of course.

But it was all bullshit.  Too bad they’d never know it.

Her heels clicked sharply on the cream tiled floor as she cleared the first security point, then the next, having only to flash her pass and wait for it to be scanned for approval before a nurse would release the lock on the inner door. She tried to ignore the smells of clinical disinfectants, laundry detergent, and piss, and suddenly longed for that lilac scent.

The funny thing was, they always knew Weapon X was the key to the botched Operation Underneath project, just not in the way it had played out.  Admittedly, the operation in British Columbia - after a very promising start - was an unmitigated disaster. He was getting a lot smarter about their tactics, making them all wonder about his memory regeneration rate.  How much did he remember, and should they be worried yet?  Projection models said he wouldn’t even regain half his lost memories for sixty eight years, but he seemed to be progressing much faster than anticipated.  The problem, she supposed, with computer modeling a healing factor as volatile and essentially unpredictable as his.

Weapon X’s trail was cold by the time they'd picked it up, and his erratic travel soon gave way to speculation on his mental health (which had always been extremely dubious - many blamed the fragility of his mind after his second mental breakdown (or was it third?) as the catalyst that had  led to the Alkali Lake disaster), although the pattern was easy to crack, and - in retrospect - so obvious, two people were demoted because of it: Weapon X was searching the graves of the patsies he killed long ago.

The general idea back then was to let the stupid thugs steal the prototype, and use them as a vector to introduce the nanites to the general populace.  But a chain of unfortunate coincidences - and bad weather - led to a collision somewhere in a nowhere mountain town: stupid, puny humans, against the wayward and brain-fucked Weapon X.  Even with the firearms, they'd never had a chance.

But they didn’t know they had actually run into Weapon X, not for a long time.  That backwater police chief bitch lied her fucking ass off in the official reports, and no one believed it - like she honestly could have taken them all out by herself when they were packing Organization weapons - but they'd had slightly bigger problems at the time.  First of all, why hadn’t the nanites spread out, at least among the hick cops? What had gone wrong there?

As it turned out, the experiment was a failure.  The nanites didn’t weaponize except under certain laboratory conditions that couldn’t be replicated in the field.  R and D should have known of that long before it was released, but someone probably made up a bunch of bullshit to cover their own ass and get a promotion.  Even though they were failures, the nanites still functioned at a basic level, as builders.  If any scientist or engineer somehow found one, they’d risk losing a huge technological edge; they had to find out what had become of the nanites, confirm they were in no danger of being discovered by someone smart enough to know what they had.

Years and years of waiting and investigation turned up the unfortunate connection to their prodigal son, and they couldn’t believe it.  What had they ever done to deserve luck that bad?

(Okay, okay, it was a rhetorical question.)

The final insult, though, was that not only did Weapon X have no fucking idea what they were after, but he'd come prepared for them.  No one was sure, even yet, how he had killed Ryan; his brain just seemed to implode, neurons burst as if they'd been tiny balloons subjected to a barrage of bullets. The theory was one of his telepath friends had hit him, but the only one they knew of that was powerful enough to do that - Xavier - wouldn’t. He was a goody two shoes from way back, and would never kill when he could simply stun.  Still, there was the pretty boy - now unofficially referred to as “Aussie Bob” in e-mails - who remained an unknown but lethal quantity - it was assumed he was responsible for the destruction of the base and personnel down in Mexico.  Had they not read the “Do not engage” memo put out after Reaper’s unfortunate transformation?

Then, Weapon X had eluded them ... until they found trail fragments.  He'd gotten help from someone, but it was not clear whom.  And it was absolutely humiliating that the dumb shit had figured out what became of the nanites before they did.

Okay, if his records could be believed, he hadn't always been the dumb shit he was now.  Back in his Canadian Intelligence days, he was something of a wonder: although records of his official education were spotty at best, not only was he a ludicrously efficient polyglot (that had to be some kind of secondary mutation, or related to a primary; it was unclear what the slightly enlarged portion of the “language” center of his brain could conceivably be related to), but he supposedly had a genius level I.Q - or, so test results in the 1930’s claimed. The test was considered a fluke - even then, no one could believe he was that smart - so they'd tested him again, and somehow he'd ended up scoring higher than he had before.

But that was before they started working on his brain, rebuilding it, fashioning it into something more useful to their purposes. As smart as he supposedly was, he had been unstable - he had a sharp temper that could surface at unusual times, seemed a tad paranoid (did he ever completely trust anyone? There was little sign of it - although that made him a perfect spy), and obviously concealed much about himself and his nebulous past.  There had been some speculation he’d had at least one nervous breakdown before he ended up in Intelligence. Wasn’t that always the way, though?  Genius I.Q. never equaled perfect; in fact, it usually guaranteed you were getting an “eccentric” asshole at the very least.

So, the former smart guy turned dumb, brain scrambled fuck figured out that one of the stupid junkie moguls must have ingested the nanites somehow.  Following his cold trail of logic, they discovered the empty grave of Cole Mullaney, a loser out of Kamloops who had nothing but an impressive juvenile record of vandalism and break-ins. The grave hadn’t been disturbed for some time, so it wasn’t likely Weapon X had removed the body; he wasn’t known for his finesse anyway.  The nanites were builders, and may have reverted to their base programming - could they “repair” a human completely?  Did they have a man living again due to the nanites, or were they simply keeping him going without technical life - a mechanoid zombie?  There was only one way to tell - find Cole Mullaney.

That was not as easy as finding his grave, but at least they figured it out sooner this time, and didn’t need Weapon X to lead them there.

Someone going by the name Cole Aldrich Mullaney had been arrested several years ago for shoplifting and scuffling with security guards in an outlet mall in Winnipeg.  But rather than be sent to jail, he was eventually committed to a psychiatric facility, as a psychological assessment determined him to be borderline psychotic - certainly delusional, probably schizophrenic.  He seemed to insist everything wasn’t real, that this was Hell, and no one was actually Human.  He also insisted he knew this because he was actually dead.  Because no family could be found, and he was judged to be legally incompetent, he ended up here, at this depressingly modern insane asylum (except they weren’t called that anymore - they probably had bullshit names like psychiatric recovery facilities or some such crap) in depressingly old fashioned Winnipeg.  Thanks to a combination of computer glitches and general ineptitude, no one had ever figured out that the Cole Mullaney here was one who had died in the middle of nowhere, unnoticed and not missed by anyone, over a decade ago.

They'd gotten access to his treatment records, and there were few shocks.  He was on some heavy anti-psychotic medications, but they didn’t seem to help him in the least; he still believed nothing mattered, because this was Hell.  Therapy was useless, as he was non-responsive when he wasn’t outright hostile.
It was noted he seemed to recover well from physical injuries, and his body often felt cold, although he himself was unaware of temperature, whether in himself or in the room.  Physically he seemed all right, but there was an usual phenomenon noted around him - delicate or unshielded electrical equipment could have sudden bursts of static, or fuzz out almost entirely until he went away.

They took this to mean the nanites were still functioning. Whether or not they had brought him back to life, or were simply keeping a corpse going, was still up for conjecture.  Some of the eggheads thought the nanites could have gotten his brain “running” again - perhaps not to high capacity - but, rather than giving him life again, were isntead simply precluding decay; meaning he was, in fact, a living dead man.  He just didn’t meet anyone’s accepted term for it.  But it was generally accepted that, whether he was living or dead, he would keel over in a matter of seconds if the nanites were removed.

According to the records of his death, Mullaney died due to a ‘high impact blunt trauma to the cranium’ - in other words, Weapon X had bashed his head in with the butt of his own rifle.  Considering a good portion of his skull was shattered (Weapon X was naturally strong, but even stronger when crazed), and he’d been cut open during the autopsy and had at least some of his brain matter leak out, if not be deliberately removed, it was impossible to guess how long it had taken the nanites to rebuild him. A year? Possibly more?  He could have been in his grave for up to five years before the nanites completely reanimated him, and he'd only been transferred to this facility seven and a half years ago.

Marilyn Wu was met by the officious Doctor James, a tall, slender, balding man with just enough remaining carrot red hair to make her think of that old scientist Muppet - what was his name?   Beaker? Doctor Beaker had been the staff head honcho she’d had the most contact with, and she got the disgusting impression that the oily fossil was attempting to flirt with her. After a greeting where he held on to her hand longer than necessary, he went on to tell her how Cole had been isolated in an interview room, per her request, and only lightly sedated.  The latter part disturbed him the most, as he felt it wasn’t wise for him to be in the same room with him when he was off his thorazine, but she assured him she would call for help the instant she thought she needed it.  She wouldn’t need it, though.  Cole might, however, if he wasn’t a good little boy.

Beaker put a hand on the small of her back as he led her to the isolation ward, and it took all her will to resist snapping his arm off at the elbow. Creepy letch - she bet he stole drugs for personal use at home, in lieu of an actual social life.  He’d probably been around crazy people so long he was crazy himself.  That often happened to the caretakers of the unhinged; it just wasn’t admitted to much.

The door sealed behind her with a heavy, pneumatic thunk as she entered the blindingly white room, where nothing but an unpainted wooden table - bolted to the ecru tiled floor -sat with two hard backed plastic chairs a color that could be described charitably as moldy lime.  Slumped in one chair was the pathetic idiot known as Cole Mullaney.

His skin tone was an unhealthy oatmeal color, but it was impossible to say if that came from spending most of his time inside a loony bin for seven years, or because maintaining correct pigmentation was low on the nanite’s priority list. His hair was a messy ruin, dark as chocolate pudding, looking as if - during his last visit to a barber - the wannabe stylist was not only legally blind and drunk, but also had a terrible case of the shakes. He was looking down at the floor, his back and shoulders rounded in a posture common to the utterly defeated and the hopelessly sedated, and the shapeless gray-green shirt he wore made it impossible to judge how heavy he was. According to his file, he should have been thirty eight, but she bet he probably hadn’t aged since he died - the nanites would probably consider that age a general template.

He did nothing as she came in - never looked up, never moved - even when she pulled back the empty chair, and its rubber capped legs made a sharp noise against the floor.  He was only doped up on lorazepam - he shouldn’t have been that out of it.

She pulled the surveillance blocker out of her pocket - it looked like a thick pen - and clicked it on before placing it on the table; it was specially shielded to be protected from unintentional electronic interference from the nanites. She waited for the tiny flash of green light, the all clear, before sitting down and starting her spiel. “Mister Mullaney, I’m Agent Marilyn Wu, I work with the Department of Defense -”

“Bullshit,” he mumbled, sounding half asleep. He finally looked up, and his face was technically young, although dark shadows ringed his eyes thickly, making him look not so much weary as dying on the vine; his blue eyes were glazed, but she wasn’t completely sure it was entirely due to the drugs. He looked like he had checked out long ago, and whatever was left behind was not thrilled about it.

She folded her hands together on the table top, and attempted to give him a reassuring smile.  She was certain it didn’t work. “You’re right, Cole.  It is bullshit.”

He blinked rapidly, looking at her with his head canted to the side, as if he was afraid he hadn’t heard her correctly. “What?”

“It’s complete bullshit. All of it; all of this.” She waved her hand at the walls, indicating the world outside this hermetically sealed coffin. “This is Hell.  But you broke the rules, Cole - you don’t tell the others  about it.  They think they’re still alive, still in control of their lives. You can’t spoil the joke.”

He continued to stare at her blankly, mouth slightly agape, suspicious barely registering in his eyes.  There wasn’t a single blemish, not a single remaining scar to show where Weapon X had terminally fractured his left orbit (eye socket), sending bone fragments into both his frontal and ethmoid sinus cavities and into the brain beyond, killing him almost instantly.  Weapon X was a very efficient killer, when he remembered his training. “Y-you’re playing me,” he said, although he sounded far from certain of that.  People tended to want to believe when you told them what they honestly wished to hear.

“Absolutely not - we’re done with that. You died sixteen years ago, in a British Columbia mountain town called Bear Creek.  A man you didn’t know - and probably never even suspected - grabbed your stolen rifle, and caved in your skull with it.  Do you remember?”  He started panting, making a strange noise that sounded like ‘huh huh’ as he remembered, and seemed to decide she must be on the level.  She didn’t want to give him too much time to dwell on it, so she went on, trying to press her advantage. “He was code named Wolverine - he’s a mutant, and a killer.  He’s finally been sent to Hell, and I’ve been sent by the “powers that be” here to make you an offer.”

He stared at her, hollow eyed and perhaps a little frightened. “Wh-what kind of offer?”

He'd been raised in a good Catholic household; she imagined he was still very superstitious at his core. “We’re very impressed by your tenacity, Cole. You do this favor for us - “kill” and otherwise torment
your killer, Wolverine - and we’ll let you leave.”

He considered that, staring blankly at the wall behind her. “But why?  Why should I do that?”

“Torment Wolverine? Well, to be quite honest, we don’t like him.  Even Hell has its limits.  And we think you’ve suffered enough for your crimes on Earth.  Don’t you think you have?  Consider him a parting gift to you.”

He continued to stare at the vast nothingness behind her, but she knew she had him.  There wasn’t much left to do, simply convince him that the Devil had imbued him with powers to recover from any injury, and that while it was Hell, it was in his best interest to avoid those who refused to believe this wasn’t Earth. He would be a malleable and cooperative terrorist, and, if they could outfit him correctly, more than a match for the recalcitrant and bullish Weapon X.

After all, how could you kill someone who was already dead?