Oh, not just the city itself, actually all of this part of the Alberta province - all the "prairie provinces", simply because they were just that: flat and oftentimes featureless, unless you counted fields and houses as "features". He didn't.

He never realized how accustomed he had grown to the mountains and the higher elevations, except when he came down at times like these. And as much as he hated the cold, he was used to it, and the safety it brought. The snow drove people inside, kept them from coming out, and only now did he realize that's what he liked about it;it was an added safety net, an extra bulwark against humanity. It was depressing to think that he was still trying to hide from the nameless threat he could sometimes feel breathing down his neck, but maybe he was just kidding himself to think he had ever gotten over it. Would it be the first time?

Finding the directions to Carnivale Outré was not hard - all he had to do was call information and tell them that he wanted an address to match with the number. The problem was it led him to one of the most depressed blocks within range of downtown Calgary; it would have been a slum if only people lived here, but it was mostly several blocks of abandoned buildings and small businesses barely hanging on, victims of the rocky economy, rotting like capitalism's beached whales dropped into the heart of the city. And his bad feeling was confirmed when the address led to a pay phone outside of an abandoned, boarded up storage facility, one of those places where you could rent what were essentially small sheds for months at a time. But no more, because it was shut down, a heavy padlock and chain hanging on the gate of the chain link fence where the entrance had once been. Logan wondered what would happen if he called the number, but he didn't have a cell phone, and there was no open business with a phone within sight of this particular phone.Still, there was something odd about the place, and he went up close to check it out.

The street was perfectly abandoned. He could hear cars out on the roads surrounding the place, but for the ten minutes he stood there waiting, none turned down here. Certainly he was the only pedestrian in sight.

He crossed the street, leaving the alley where he'd been hiding out, doing minor reconnaissance, but he got no sense of being watched, caught no scent of anyone else. He was starting to regret wearing all these layers; it wasn't hot per se, but he was overdressed. When he got back to his truck, he was getting rid of the flannel shirt.

The fence was maybe ten feet tall, counting the strings of barbed wire running across the top, and Logan knew he could just cut through the damn thing, but he didn't want to announce himself just yet. No, he - and the claws - had to be kept a surprise as long as possible. Of course, if Branson did warn them, surely he'd have babbled something about him having claws in his hand, but he just saw the one set. He wondered if he had mentioned he was impervious to bullets. Technically he wasn't, they just didn't do much to him, but Branson didn't know that either.

He took off his jacket and slung it up over the barbed wire, leather side down. He climbed the fence, which wasn't thrilled about his weight, but it held. As soon as he was over the covered barbed wire, he jumped down to the macadam on the other side, landing on his feet. He reached up, grabbed the sleeve of his jacket and yanked it down, shrugging it back on before he started walking towards the shut down buildings.

Was that all they had for security? Pathetic. Even Fidget could have handled that.

What was wrong here was now apparent. It was supposedly abandoned, right? Well, the scent of other people lingered in the air - lots of other people. A whole slew of people had passed through here, fairly recently too. A very busy abandoned site.

Heat seemed to be stored in the pavement, radiated up as he walked, and he was really regretting his clothing choice now. Maybe he should chuck the flannel and the undershirt for the time he stayed in Calgary.

All the scents seemed to concentrate and coalesce near the largest building,which had a sort of industrial strength padlock and cable chain cord holding its sliding door shut. He put his ear to the door, the metal hot and almost uncomfortable against his skin, but he heard nothing inside. He would swear he almost felt something under his feet, though, a thrum beneath the pavement.

Whatever was going on here, it probably didn't start until dark. Which meant he'd best come back then to get the majority of these fucks.

Maybe Purity had spread its poisoned roots to other places, but the tap root was here, and he knew that if the main root died, everything else did as well. Cut the head off, and the body would fall.

Man, that sounded good. He hoped he really got to put that cliché to use.

11

Not that it mattered. He let it ring ten times, then hung up - no answer, not even a distant click of a trace on the line. Maybe it too was a night only thing.

The CBC news droned for a while on the t.v. over the bar, and Logan was honestly stunned he wasn't featured - "Crazed mutant with bad hair goes on rampage in tiny mountain town. Footage at eleven." - but hey, maybe they were saving it for the six o'clock broadcast.

The bartender was a reasonably attractive woman, with long, curly reddish brown hair and a sturdy build, and he asked her for a phone book, although at the time he had no idea why. Then he found himself looking up Keans - he found what must have been Gordon parents, M. and D. Kean. Wasn't the address listed with the phone number the same as the one on the envelope?

He closed the book and gave it back to Hope ( he heard someone call her that ) as she walked by, and she paused to look him over. "New in town, huh?" Her blue eyes were so pale they were almost grey, and she was young enough that she still had a sprinkling of freckles across her cheek. He got a sense of interest from her, but she was too young, and he didn't really have the time anyways.

"Just passing through," he replied. "Ever heard of a place called Carnivale Outré?"

She frowned as she thought, a little crease forming between her brows. "No, I can't say I have. But I just moved here two months ago from Moosejaw, so I don't know everything there is know about the city yet."

"Military brat?" There was a major air base in Moosejaw - it was pretty much the only thing in Moosejaw.

She graced him with a delicate smile. "Good guess. Yeah, my parents are both military. I think they were a little disappointed I didn't up for the service."

"Well, some of us don't take orders well."

Her smile held steady, grew slightly. "You can say that again. Where are you from?"

He almost smiled. "Oh, everywhere and nowhere."

"Man of mystery, hmm?" She leaned forward, and conspiratorially whispered, "You know, I get off at eight. I could show you some of the more interesting parts of Calgary. There are some, I swear."

That did make him smile. What was it with him and women? He wasn't screamingly repulsive, but he also knew he wasn't exactly a pretty boy either. Not that he was looking a gift horse in the mouth, it was just it did strike him as curious sometimes. "I'd love to, darlin', but I'm afraid I have an appointment tonight. Can I get a rain check?"

She made a show of thinking about it, although the sly look she gave him was a bit of a giveaway. "Maybe. I guess we'll have to see if you behave yourself."

Just then a new customer came in, and she had to go serve him, leaving him smiling to himself. Maybe he didn't exactly get why women liked him, but he was certainly glad they did.

As it got later it got busier, so Hope didn't have much time to flirt with him, and as it was he was getting restless.He could only stay in one place - around the type of men who frequented these kind of bars - for so long, so he left Hope a generous tip and shoved off.

It wasn't night yet, but he had killed a few hours, so he decided to walk around and burn off some steam, see if he could find some trouble.

But apparently there was no trouble to be had in Calgary, beyond Purity, and they hadn't showed their ugly, inbred faces yet. They were probably waiting for the cover of darkness - like that would do them any good.

His aimless wanderings had taken him past a theater, and, seeing on the marquee that
the latest John Woo flick was showing, he decided to go see it. He was soon glad he did, because he hadn't laughed so hard in a long time.

It was just the plot and the actors supposedly doing the stunts. It looked like everyone in Hollywood had his healing factor and metal skeleton - who'd have thunk it? And since coherence obviously wasn't necessary to become a screenwriter, there was hope for him yet.

Humans.

He used to like John Woo too, back when he made films in Hong Kong, his "chop socky" days. He made violent films about violent people in a violent world. Bizarrely, he could relate to that; the mind boggled. No, they never really tried to be realistic, but they felt more realistic somehow. The images flashing across the screen at him now seemed as flat as they genuinely were, as inauthentic as Americanized versions of Chinese food, but far less appetizing.

He really did sound like a grouchy old coot sometimes, didn't he? But he couldn't be more than thirty something ... maybe. What if he wasn't? What if he was really fifty? Sixty? Even older? How would he know? And what could he do about it if he was?

It was another thing he decided not to think about it.

By the time he emerged from the theater, the sky was burnt orange, the sun setting far from his point of visibility, painting the clouds the color of persimmons. It was almost but not quite time, so he risked venturing into a fast food joint and getting a gut busting burger bomb. It smelled like they changed the grease trap recently - that was good.

He sat in a window booth and watched the sky cycle through all the shades of crimson, deepening into indigo. There were a few more cars on the street now, a few more people on the sidewalk, and he wondered if things were starting to hop at the supposed location of Carnivale Outré.

He found a pay phone outside a convenience store and called the number again. After the fifth ring, he heard the distinct click of a trace, and instantly hung up. Not that it mattered - it was a phone outside the Quick Stop, for Christ's sake. How did you trace one person here?

There was definitely more action on the neighboring streets, and by the time he turned on to Harvey street,where the Carnivale was supposedly located, he saw cars parked on the opposite side of the street, even though he saw no one the sidewalk.

He walked up to the fence surrounding the storage area, and saw that the gate was now open, the lock and chain now hanging on one side of the fence. He could smell more people, their perfume, deodorant, hairspray, cologne and cigarettes leaving an odor trail for him to follow.

And that was the problem - from no one to too many people in this short amount of time. Word must have started getting out about it. Shit.

Logan pushed the gate open and started across the cracked cement lot, aware now that the thrum beneath his feet was steady and rhythmic; did others feel about it? He had to open up his hearing to catch more than a feeling of it - music all right, loud and underground.

He followed the neon scent of people to the larger warehouse he'd discovered earlier, and this time - again - the lock was undone, although the door was not open. First he walked around the building, giving it a cursory visual inspection, but there was nothing unusual on the outside. They weren't as dumb as they seemed, then - it would all be inside.Made sense.

He had to slide the door aside, on its recessed track, and he was instantly assailed by music and the smell of too many people, and he had to batten down his own senses before venturing forth.

The floor was missing, and opened up into what seemed to be a nightclub, situated below the ground in what seemed like someone's basement, except a storage bunker wouldn't have a basement, and it was fucking huge.

Neon lights, red and blue, pulsed in time with the music, which he dimly recognized as White Zombie - "More Human Than Human". Oh, that was so fucking hilarious he had to remember to pencil in a laugh over that later.

A metal staircase led from the door down to the club, and while Logan knew this had to be violating about thirty safety codes, that was kind of the point, wasn't it? Underground clubs - in this case, literally - and raves didn't always take place in the safest locations. Which is why, if something went horribly wrong, no one would be terribly surprised.

As he went down the stairs, which trembled in time with the bass and didn't seem to care much for his weight ( yet another code violation ), he glanced up at the roof. The place was lit for atmosphere - which meant barely at all, and the strobes of neon sent lurid shadows chasing across every surface, but Logan was able to discern what looked like crossbeams.

Since when did a tin roof need crossbeams?

But not only was the ceiling poorly lit, these were just kids - kids mostly getting drunk and stoned out of their fucking minds, hoping to get laid or at least get a major buzz on. In the comfort of their own "kind".

Mutants.

12

As soon as he set foot on the concrete floor, also thrumming in time with the bass, the kids who saw him stared. He was by far the oldest person in the place, and they probably all wondered who invited their dad along. But some jailbait by the bar ( and yes, they had bothered to put one in - probably pulled out of a pub before it got sold and turned into a Tim Horton's ), a blonde who had two stubby white horns on the crown of her head and her Asian friend, who had no visible mutation save for pupils shaped like starbursts ( unless those were contacts ... but somehow he doubted that ), gave him appraising looks and friendly smiles. He didn't return either. And he thought Hope was too young for him? Shit, these girls could call him in ten years if they were still interested. Well, maybe not the blonde - blondes never really did much for him.

He found a free spot at the bar, and stood there looking it over. He'd picked a great spot, as just beneath the bar and to his left was a bottle of tonic water, in easy reach. Perfect.

The "bartender" ( actually he was probably just the guy watching the booze ) was a string bean of a guy, not much older than the kids. Was he a mutant? He was homely, with a long face and stringy looking blonde hair, but that just made him unpleasant to look at. "Got any vodka around here?" He shouted over the music.

Shit, ten bucks for a glass of vodka? Rip off artists. He gave him thirty bucks and bought the bottle. He shunned the glass and just broke the seal, helping himself to a swig of it straight from the bottle. He didn't like vodka much - it had no real taste, it just burned, but this stuff was pretty high proof, and that's what he was looking for.

There seemed to be a couple of doors, hidden in the painted shadows, and he could see men appearing beside them, closer to his age and manner of dress, and he knew the big bads had made him. Well, how could they not? He stood out like a Sikh at the Vatican. And surely they had been warned by Branson.

Logan glanced around casually as Rage Against The Machine kicked in ( they were trying to deafen him, weren't they? ), took another swig of the vodka, and then held it out over the end of the bar, within arm's reach of him. It was a simple matter of spilling out a large quantity of the stuff, until it dripped off the edge of the scarred wooden bar, and then he set the bottle aside, out of reach of the still growing puddle of booze.

He felt in his pocket for the book of matches he grabbed at the Quick Stop, and as he pulled out the book, he ripped off one of the matches, but didn't bother to "close cover before striking". There was a reason that dumb ass warning was on there.

As he lit it, he tossed the book and the match together. They hissed in midair as the match caught the entire book, causing a bright flare of yellow flame, and then the entire flaming ball landed in the puddle of vodka.

It went up with a muffled "whump", orange flames dancing up greedily as if they had just been waiting to be released, and just in case someone hadn't noticed it, he shouted, "Fire!"

The effect was immediate and just what he was counting on - people screamed and surged for the exit, and he hoped no one got trampled. But as long as they got the fuck out of here, he was happy.

He was reaching for the bottle of tonic water behind the bar when a Goth girl came up to him. In spite of her attempt to look like the personification of Death from that comic book, it was clear she was about sixteen, and Native American, quite possibly Cree ( which begged the question of what she was doing in a shithole like Calgary ). He grabbed her arm, and asked, "What the hell are you doin'?"

She looked a bit startled, but said, "I can help. I can become water." As if to prove that, he felt her arm become almost gelatinous in his grip. Now there was an odd mutation - she could be her own ammo in a water balloon fight.

"The fire ain't the problem," he whispered to her. "The bomb is."

Her dark eyes, ringed so thick with black eyeliner she almost looked like a raccoon, widened appreciably. He bet she was pretty under all that make up. "Bomb? You're kidding, right?"

"Don't ever be a hero, kid. They die way too young." He felt he was speaking from experience there, and he didn't know why. She just stared back at him, still stunned, so he added insistently, "Run."

For a moment she just stared at him, and he wasn't sure she was going to move, but finally she did, and he let go of her arm as she turned and ran back towards the stairs.

The place was pretty much cleared out by the time he grabbed the bottle of tonic water, and rather than open it and pour it out on the flames, he simply threw the bottle down hard in the center of the fire. Glass and water flew everywhere, essentially extinguishing the flames.

Of course he wasn't alone - the thugs had appeared now, the non-mutant architects, just like he knew they would. Right now there were six of them, most likely armed in spite of what Branson told them, and he wondered if there'd be more joining them.

Someone killed the music, and he shifted position, moving from his torn vinyl bar stool to an unburned portion of the bar. He held on to his vodka bottle, but didn't move to take a drink yet.

"So let me tell you a story," he said to the men, mostly casually and anonymously dressed. One was carrying a sub-machine gun on a strap around his shoulder, apparently subscribing to the quantity of bullets not quality theory. "You've probably heard it before. This kid - let's call him Gordon - discovered he was a mutant, and, a bit freaked out about it, ran away from home. So he hustles on the street - dangerous, but easy money, especially for someone as young as him - and one night he gets picked up by this older guy who's had too much to drink. This guy apparently gets chatty after blow jobs, and when a card falls out of his coat pocket, he tells Gordon all about it. A plan to wipe out mutants. But here's the thing - a beautiful plan; their first hit will be a place called Carnivale Outré. Underground club, they plan to get the word out in the "mutant circles", and when they get a full enough house - oops! Place collapses, kills everyone inside, a tragic accident. An accident that will be repeated, in various forms, wherever Purity takes root. Mutants would appear to blow themselves up while making bombs for their "terrorist group" next; various other unfortunate twists of fate would follow. Now, it can't wipe them all out yet, but hey, the only good mutant is a dead mutant, right? It's a start.

"Little did the pedophile know that he was bragging of this to a mutant." Logan took a swig of vodka, then continued as they continued to close in on him. "Now Gordon knew he had to tell someone, but he didn't know who. He had learned not to trust the cops, and that was a good thing, as there were some crooked cops in on this. But these dickheads found out that he knew, and he was one of "them" - remember to capitalize that, or add an exclamation point, like that old '50's film about the giant ants - and when the kid seemed to disappear, they sent out word along their network. It's not much of a network, but it does have some powerful players, namely cops. Where Gordon was headed - and whether he actually intended to tell anyone - is up in the air, as he's dead. But here's the real irony, boys. After killing him, and signing the work - which is, by the way, the most dumb ass thing you could do - the information fell into the hands of someone who could really hurt you.

"Gordon was no threat to you, and he never was. But he was a mutant, and he also knew one of you liked to get sucked off by little boys, so he had to be dealt with. Now you've got yourself a bigger problem, and I ain't gonna be gotten rid of as easily or neatly as Gordon. Also, I ain't tellin' no one - I'm shuttin' you down myself."

Finally the guy with the machine gun, who had a stocky build, a bullet shaped skull, and a haircut so severe it looked physically painful, sneered, "Yer fulla yourself, aren't ya mutie?"

"For good reason." He wondered if he was the one who kept a wife at home, but secretly had a thing for underage boys. That haircut seemed to scream psychological problems. "You ain't got what it takes to kill me - I'm not sure anyone does. Branson tell you his head shot did nothin' to me but knock me on my ass for a second? A lot of things knock me on my ass, but I have yet to meet something that can do it permanently. Although I'm willing to find it, believe me. I'm tired. I'm tired of you redneck fucks and your deeply fucked up world, but it seems I'm stuck here."

"We can fix that," Machine Gun promised.

Logan shook his head and smirked humorlessly. "Nah, ya can't. But let this homicidal  mutie fill you in on a couple things. Your plan is fatally flawed - all these so called "accidents" - even if you have cops manipulatin' the evidence - are going to strike someone as suspicious."

"Who cares?" A guy from the back chimed in. He was taller than Machine Gun, but five years younger and sixty pounds lighter. "They're just freaks - no one will give a fuck."

"True, except - and here's the real flaw - mutants. Do you think we're stupid? Bunches of us die and keep dyin' in so called "accidents", and we'll figure it out."

"So what?" Machine Gun snapped. Logan casually glanced over the men, wondering who had the detonator. He bet one of the cops. While they weren't in uniform, there were three here he judged to be cops simply from their build - Machine Gun was one of them.

"So what? Remember why you're so fuckin' terrified of us - 'cause we can do shit you can't, in some cases on a broad scale. Now I ain't one of the ones that can vaporize where you stand, I'm just one who can kill you all without breakin' a sweat. Maybe, if you get lucky, you'll be able to hurt me, but not for long, as that's my deal - I heal. I  am - as much as I hate to think about it - for all intents and purposes, as close to immortal as someone can probably get. So your worst will never be good enough to handle the likes o' me."

Machine Gun scoffed. "So you're the "man of steel", is that it?"

Logan gave him a savage grin, flashing his canines at him. "No, adamantium. Steel's for pussies."

They exchanged some uncomfortable glances, and Logan guessed they had no idea what adamantium was. Machine Gun hefted his Uzi up, bracing the stock against his shoulder and looking down the sight at him. "You think you scare us, you mutie freak bastard?"

"Oh no. You're far too stupid to be scared,you limp dicked wonders," he replied, and flung the vodka bottle at him.

It hit and exploded on the gun as he opened fire, and Logan let himself fall backwards behind the bar, hitting the floor on his back as the wood exploded into jagged fragments as the bullets ripped them apart.

He landed painfully on the souvenir he had taken from Branson - the Walther PPK, tucked in the back of his jeans. Worse than landing on your keys. He pulled it out and turned his head away to avoid the flying splinters ( he bet it hurt like fuck to get them in your eyes ) , and he realized that Machine Gun was cursing over the staccato cough of the gun. "Bastard fucking freak cocksucker," he growled, and Logan was pretty sure he got some glass in the face. Poor baby.

How did he feel about lead?

Logan rose up on his knees, feeling bullets tug at his clothes, and reached his arm over the bar, gun aimed at where he knew Machine Gun to still be. Even as bullets ripped into his arm, shoulder, and side, most bouncing off his metal skeleton. Sometimes the ricochet ripped through more muscle and skin, making it worse, but he knew if his bones could shatter bullets would put him in a far worse world of hurt.

With his first volley of shots he heard a hard grunt, and a wet noise like the Cree girl had come back and splattered herself on the floor in an attempt to make them slip, but he knew she wouldn't smell like blood.

Shots were still flying, but no longer Uzi shots, and it wasn't hard to guess why - judging from the stench, Machine Gun was bleeding demised. Although he knew it was a risky move, Logan jumped over the bar and faced the remaining gunmen, letting them see the bullets slam into his torso, rip open his cheek, and letting them see his skin heal up almost instantaneously beneath the torn fabric of his clothes.

"Come on!" He taunted, stalking towards them. He still had the Walther out, but now he was holding it muzzle down, not interested in a gun battle. "Think I was shitting you, you stupid fucks?! Waste your fuckin' ammo on me so I have an excuse to kill you!" Actually, he already had his reasons to kill them, but the pain of impact and healing was fueling his rage, and there were times when he got so angry that it felt good - like it was lava surging through his veins, not blood, and it brought on a sort of high, like the alcohol buzz he could only imagine since his system would never let him feel it. It was yet another thing that convinced him he was probably not completely sane, but right now he didn't care. Sanity had no place here.

The men were getting the picture now. Jaws dropped, some stopped firing, guns limp in their hands, and the one nearest a door reached for it. Fear was starting to fill the room, a strong undertone to the taste of cordite, and he wondered how many would wet their pants if he popped his claws right now.

Finally one of the more muscular guys, one of the ones he had mentally pegged as a cop, pulled something out of his coat pocket. It looked like nothing more than a black handle grip, maybe ripped off a kid's bike, but he held onto it so tightly the knuckles of his hand were turning white. "Freeze, freak, or I'll bring this place down on your fucking head!" The man shouted, almost shaking with fear.

Would he do it? Did he have the balls? Logan gave him a predatory grin, all teeth, and snapped, "I thought you'd never reveal yourself, you stupid piece of shit."

And then he lunged at him, wondering if the redneck had the cajones to press the trigger and kill them all.