Miki brought the pitcher over and refilled Logan’s glass before going off to get their food; Logan waited until Miki was gone to gulp down his new glass. When she came back, she left the plates on the center of the table, trusting Lily to sort it out, so she didn’t have to spend anymore time near the freaky guy. Lily pulled the saucer of toast towards herself, then nudged the omelet plate towards him.

After initial wariness and sniffing (what was with the sniffing? Did he have a sinus problem?), she watched as he inhaled the omelet, hardly chewing. She pushed her saucer of toast over towards him, and dumped fake cream tubs and sugar packets in her coffee. If he was starving, shouldn’t his face be sunken in more? Should he be scrawnier? He certainly shouldn’t have the stamina to cover dozens of miles in thigh deep snow. If you didn’t notice his empty eyes, you’d think he looked to be in far too good of shape to have been as bad off as he was. Curious.

After he had completely cleaned the plate, he noticed the saucer of toast. “I don’t feel like it,” she told him. “And I hate for food to go to waste.”

He only had to consider it a moment before wolfing down the toast as well. She almost joked, “Not on Atkins, huh?” but didn’t, as he wouldn’t get it. She considered ordering him something else, but considering how much he’d had to eat, and the fact that he’d had an entire pitcher of water, he was risking illness later as it was. “How long has it been since you had a hot meal?” She wondered.

He looked at her oddly, as if it had never occurred to him before. “I don’t know.”

“Have you had one since winter started?”

He needed a moment to process the idea of winter. “No.”

“What about water? How much have you had to drink?”

He shrugged. “I have snow when I need it.”

“Snow?” She repeated, trying to grasp the concept of a man hiking through it, in thin air and killing temperatures, occasionally taking up handfuls of clean snow (at least she hoped it was clean) whenever he was thirsty. She felt cold just thinking about it. How the fuck had he done that? “Do you know how far you’ve traveled?”

He shrugged again, and she noticed his eyes were brighter - the food was already doing him some good. “Just as far as the next cabin.”

Odd how he had a knack for picking cabins that hadn’t been occupied in a while. She also noticed his hands were uncut, un-calloused, and wondered what he used to hit the mirrors. There was a little blood on some of the shards. Could he have kicked them with bare feet? Some were kind of high up, but it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. “You’ve traveled a lot more than that. Do you know how long you’ve been doing this?”

He studied her warily, like it was a trick question. His eyes shifted to watch someone who just came in the door. “I dunno. A while.”

“Would a couple of months surprise you?”

Again the shrug, as he poured the last of the water into his glass. “No.”

She wondered if he knew what the time span of a month was.

The man who had just come in was trying to ask Miki a question in English that wasn’t just broken, but completely shattered. He was a slender Asian man, and while she had met enough of the immigrants who washed up on Canada’s shore to know the sound of the Japanese language and one variation of Chinese (apparently there were several sub-languages, possibly just to make everyone else feel stupider), she didn’t recognize the dialect this man occasionally lapsed into.

Her guess was he was lost, and she figured the least she could do was try and help him, even if she didn’t speak the language. Han’s parents were from Hong Kong. Even if he didn’t speak the language, maybe he could tell her what the guy was speaking.

Then the guy said something in his own language, except he seemed to be throwing his voice.

Lily turned, shocked, to find it was Logan speaking.

The Asian man turned, and proceeded to have a two minute conversation with Logan in the unknown language. Logan didn’t have to think about the words like he had to with English; it seemed to come out with an ease suggesting it was his native tongue.

The Asian man gave him a polite smile and what she assumed was a thank you, and left the diner. Everyone was now staring at Logan like a new arm had sprung from his forehead, and he seemed oblivious until he finished his water. After slowly looking around, he looked back at her. “What?”

“What language was that?”

He looked at her curiously. “Huh?”

Lily realized he didn’t know he was speaking a different language at the same time he realized he had just spoken another language, with more fluency than English. She wondered is he even knew what language it was he spoke.

Logan’s eyes widened, until he looked like a deer in the headlights. He tensed and bolted up, running out of the diner like his pants were on fire. She had slid out of the booth, but by that time he was a distant memory - shit, he was fast.

“What the hell was that about?” Miki asked, looking wide eyed and torn between fear and irritation.

Lily tried to group the evidence together in her mind. He had been living hand to mouth in cabins for months, starving, verging on dehydration, with no knowledge of who he was, and barely able to converse or get along in society. But in spite of all this, he appeared very healthy, with a stamina almost inhuman, and an apparent fluency in one Asian language, although even he wasn’t sure what it was. He was also pretty damn fast. None of this added up; none of it made sense. And that didn’t even include the corpse at Briar’s Corner.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I intend to find out.”

6

 
British Columbia - Present Day

Logan watched as Detective Brent Ellison shelled peanuts and made a little pile of them on a napkin.

It wasn’t so much a decent bar as a sort of cigar bar, an upscale nightclub for those who made over fifty thou a year and wanted a nice, quiet place to decompress after a hard day crushing peons and running the world. He didn’t think Ellison could afford to be here, so he figured there was another reason that he couldn’t even begin to guess. Real fancy ass place to have peanuts in shells in the bowls.

They sat in a penumbra of shadow in the back, Brent with a Scotch he had yet to drink, Logan had a pilsner glass of one of the cheaper fancy beers, half empty. He figured Ellison - was he a Detective? Did it fucking matter? - was nervous and needed something to do with his hands, so he rolled the peanuts across the polished hardwood table, cracking the shells and shedding the thin inner skin. But he had yet to eat a single one; he just denuded them, and placed them on his napkin, perhaps attempting to make a goober pyramid.

“What happened to her?” Logan asked, once he was finished telling him what he wanted to hear. The place was naturally dark, but in the way that polished wood and burgundies and golds always were; the place didn’t just smell, like privilege, but radiated it like radiation from a nuclear waste dump. It wasn’t seedy; it was studied, a calculated pose, an attempt at fusty, upper crust coziness. And safe, he slowly realized. Anyone who saw them here wouldn’t recognize either of them, and they wouldn’t really care about the clearly low life scumbags. And, there was little possibility the killer would see them together.

Once he was done denuding his twelfth peanut, he added it to his little sacrificial pile, and said, “It didn’t make sense, you know. She wasn’t on duty, she wasn’t in uniform, she was just done checking her post office box at the junction. And she just collapsed - boom. The initial thought was heart attack or aneurysm, you know? But then they found blood on the back of her neck … “ he paused, and using his forefinger and thumb, flicked one of the peanuts off the table. Logan heard it hit the far wall and click across the floor; it was unlikely anyone else noticed. “They found a kind of dart in the back of her neck, buried really deep, as thin as a needle. They think it was poisoned, but toxicology has been unable to identify what the hell it is.”

“That’s too much finesse for a dumb fuck like Stoff and his crew,” Logan pointed out.

Ellison’s blue eyes assessed him coldly. “You’re a profiler now?”

Logan sighed heavily, annoyed but not really wanting to get into it with him. If they were going to do this properly, they couldn’t be constantly taking the piss out of each other. “I’m a low life scumbag, remember? I know how they work. Look, think about it - who the fuck would go to the trouble of learning to aim and use a fucking blow gun when you can just go over the border, pick up a nine millimeter, and bust a cap in her ass the very same day? You know as well as I do that that makes no sense. It doesn’t connect to Stoff’s M.O. either.”

“M.O.? Been watching a lot of cop shows, eh?”

“Are you gonna stop that?”

“What?” He sent another peanut flying.

“Assume I’m an idiot. I know how I was last time … but I’m not that way anymore, okay? I’ve … recovered, kinda. All right?”

Ellison scrutinized him, and said, “Okay - then what the fuck were you? Military intelligence? Deranged logger? And what the hell is your name anyways?”

He had to ask him all the hard questions, didn’t he? “I’m still Logan. But I was … yeah, I guess military intelligence - oxymoron though it is - sums it up best.”

The cop continued to stare right through him, like he didn’t believe him. “Oh really?  How come nobody ever copped to you? How come we never found anyone who recognized you or knew anything about you?”

He wasn’t sure how to answer that, if indeed he should. After trying to figure out a way to put it that wouldn’t lead to more questions (impossible), he finally said, “I’m … the thing that shouldn’t be.”

Ellison looked like he was about to make a snaky remark, but he thought better of it. He didn’t know he was a mutant, did he?  Did Lily ever tell him?  His look sobered slightly, and he asked quietly, “What did they do to you?”

Logan shook his head, finding it hard not to chuckle for some reason. Maybe because it would have been easier to ask what they hadn’t done to him. “I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you.”

The cop stared at him for a long moment, but shook his head and glanced away towards the bar. “Maybe I should call Monie. Let her know one of her wacky theories panned out.”

He had no idea who Monie was, so he didn’t say anything.

Ellison flicked another peanut across the floor - Logan was starting to get the idea he was just being a smart ass by messing up their pretty floor - then asked, “So what was that language you spoke?”

Logan had no idea what he was talking about, but then realized he must have meant in the diner. It was so long ago he could barely remember it; it seemed like it happened to someone else. “Korean.”

“Why do you speak fluent Korean?  Stationed there?”

“I speak a lot of things of things fluently .”

“Why? Were you a translator or something?”

Logan shrugged. “Something like that.” Possibly; it would explain a lot.

“Damn. I wish you told us that years ago; I’d have won a bet.”

He didn’t want to know, and besides, they had wandered way off topic. “Why do you think Lily’s death is connected to Stoff?  Poison darts were never his thing, was it?”

Ellison sat back, making his padded chair creak like the timbers on a pirate ship. He reached into his coat pocket, and said, “It was what was left at the scene. There was no evidence beyond the dart in her neck, but there was her mail. It didn’t appear she’d had a chance to look at it yet, so he missed his chance to rub it in.” He pulled out two sheets of paper and unfolded them before sliding them across the table towards him.

They were scans, pretty high quality. The first page showed the front of a postcard, from Banff National Park, showing a cabin that looked very much like the one that night, and the second sheet of paper showed what was written on the back in carefully printed script: “If you hadn’t interfered then, you wouldn’t be dead right now.” It was signed - with obvious sarcasm - “John Doe“.

“Seems obvious to me,” Ellison said as soon as he was sure he had read it, flicking another peanut. It sounded like it pinged off a glass, and somebody looked around that time. Ellison spread another napkin over his pile of peanuts, hiding it from view. He was a real smart ass. “I’m glad she missed it.”

“The card wasn’t for her,” he said, sliding the papers back across the table. “It was for us. They knew her routine, they planned her assassination out in advance. This was to rub our noses in it, not hers.”

Ellison didn’t dispute that, leading Logan to believe he had come to the same conclusion. As he refolded the paper and tucked it away, Logan impatiently tapped his fingers on the table. “This still doesn’t make sense - why now? And why in this way? Stoff was just a bargain basement wannabe gangster. I believe people can hold grudges this long, but it’s giving him a lot of credit for organization that I’m not sure he deserves, especially since the fuck died before this could go off.”

“His associates could have carried on with -”

“What associates?” Logan interrupted. “There’s a reason Stoff was the only one believed to have escaped that night. Or was there someone else? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

He shook his head, looking weary and defeated. In an odd way, the burnished, shadowy lighting made him look older, when most of the time it worked the opposite way. “No. All the know associates I could find were just fellow junkies and ex-cons, none with a history or an ability that would suggest this. They were mostly low level fuck ups, no violent history. When I mentioned that a cop was killed, one of ‘em almost wet his pants at the idea, he was so fucking scared. He knew you got nailed to the wall for a cop killing. But it has to be connected, Logan; this has to be his doing. If not Stoff, who else? As you said yourself, he‘s the only one that got away.”

“That we know of.”

“There was never any evidence otherwise.”

Logan grunted, not finding that very convincing, but hell, what could he do? And where could he start? The only evidence they had was the dart, and that had turned out useless.

Well, useless from a cop perspective. “Can you get me the dart?”

Ellison’s head jerked back, as if Logan had just kicked him under the table. “Whoa. That’s in evidence,
I can’t -”

“What do you mean you can’t? You just told me shit no civilian should know. I can take that dart and get it analyzed by top of the line equipment; shit you cops won’t have for decades. And I can get it quick too.”

“How?” Logan just raised an eyebrow and stared at him hard. The cop got it and rolled his eyes dramatically. “Okay, fine, you’d have to kill me if you told me, Mister Military Intelligence Man. But even if you can find out what it is, it won’t be admissible as evidence in court.”

Logan shook his head, and couldn’t suppress the smirk. “We are not having this conversation ‘cause you’re gonna arrest the guy who did it. Tell yourself whatever you want, but I think we both know why we’re here.”

His expression soured, and something in it seemed on the verge of a wholesale shut down. “I’m not a vigilante.”

“Neither am I. But ask yourself this, Ellison - if you by some bizarre twist of fate find this guy, can you legally nail him? Unless you find the blow gun or whatever loaded with the exact same kind of dart in his possession, do you think you have any of getting him for this?  It’s been two months; if you guys had anything worth a shit, you should have been able to move on this by now.  We are not having this conversation because you think I can help with this investigation; we are having this conversation because I’m all you’ve got.” Ellison sat back, crossing his arms over his chest, frowning.  But he had yet to deny a single thing. “Sometimes there are crimes so well financed, so well orchestrated, that they escape, that the victims fall through the cracks. And I know that ‘cause I was one of them, as much as I don’t like to think about it. But I can fight back for the others, and I will, because I can, and someone has to do it.  If you wanna sit it out when the time comes, by all means do.  Just don’t get in my way.”

The cop studied him for a long time. “You’re not really sane, are you?”

He just shrugged and grabbed his beer. “I’m close enough to pass.”

Ellison watched him as he gulped down the rest of his drink, and then nodded, as if that was good enough. “If I can smuggle out the dart, what then?”

“Just leave it to me. I’ll get it back to you with analysis as soon as possible.”

The cop sighed and unfurled his arms, pulling the napkin off the peanuts and lining up his next target. “And this is courtesy of the military-industrial complex?”

“Nope - the green stuff that really makes the world go ‘round.”

Ellison quirked up an eyebrow at that. “You have money?”

“No, but I know people who do.”

Logan just hoped he could live up to his promise. He supposed he could find a way, one way or another, but maybe the Ganesha fetish still had a little power left in it after all.

****

Scott tried to remember the last time he was this angry, and couldn’t.

And when was the last time he got in a big screaming fight with Ororo?  He wasn’t sure he ever had.  But what kind of excuse was that - she didn’t tell him about seeing Jean because she wasn’t sure it was her? Bullshit!  He was not a child, and he didn’t need protection.

Xavier had said something like that as well - that Jean ‘wasn’t herself”, and seemed to go off on a “power corrupts” tangent that Scott had no patience for.  Did he even hear what he was saying?  He was talking about Jean like she was … like she was Bob or something, completely drunk on power.  Jean wasn’t like that, and he knew it; Jean could never be “corrupted by power” or whatever the hell he was going on about.  Jean was the smartest woman he knew, and she was the not the type to get swept up by such things, and he couldn’t believe the Professor, of all people, was suggesting she had been, or that she couldn’t handle her power or emotions.  It felt like betrayal.  He expected it from Logan, because Logan lied as a matter of course: he didn’t trust anyone, and it showed.  But the Professor, and Storm ..?  What the hell had gotten into them? Did whatever Bob and his goddamn demonic friends did here at the mansion have side effects that he'd casually forgot to mention? ‘Oh, by the way, everyone will lose their minds. Tough cookies, mate.’

He went and beat up the heavy bag in the gym for a while, on the theory that it would make him feel better. But it didn’t; all it gave him was sore arms, and a sticky, sweaty feeling down his back. Storm tried to talk to him again, but he wasn’t ready to talk to her, and he made that absolutely clear. He was still so furious and …. hell, he didn’t know what the other feelings were exactly, except they left him feeling vaguely ill, and wishing he could crawl out of his skin.

He was tired of pacing the halls, and he was tired of being pent up in his (their) room. He figured he should go driving; sometimes driving at inadvisable speeds made him feel better, for reasons he couldn’t explain. But Logan had run off with his motorcycle (again!), so he was stuck with a car, which was honestly okay - it was raining anyways.  He did wonder if he should come back at all if he bothered to leave.  If they were going to say such things about Jean -

- (and she had dumped him) -

- did he have a reason to return?  Would they even want him here?

He restlessly jingled the car keys in his hand as he walked down the hall toward the main elevator, the one that would take him straight down to the garage, so he didn’t have to risk falling into the Professor’s sense radius (he’d already warned him he was in no mood for a discussion, telepathic or otherwise, and he seemed to be respecting that for now, but he didn’t want to run the risk of new contact).  He saw papers spilled on the floor, fallen off a side table, and scowled, wondering which kid had done that and not bothered to pick it up.  He could have just left it for someone else to pick up … but oh damn it.

Picking it up, he realized it wasn’t paper but the daily mail call, and since there was so much and several slick covered magazines at the bottom of the pile (oh hey, his latest Car and Driver magazine had come in), some of the mail at the top had slid off.  One of the items was a large manila envelope for Logan, and just reading the name made him sigh.  Nothing that had anything to do with Logan was ever good.

Well, an envelope was too small for an entire head, unless someone pounded it flat with a steamroller. Maybe someone had sent him an ear perhaps?  Or just a scalp?  Both anger and a morbid curiosity at what horror could be lurking inside made Scott rip open the envelope and dump the contents out onto
the floor.

He was both surprised and disappointed to find it was only papers.  But not just any papers; old ones that smelled of must and age, so much so that he sneezed as he crouched to gather them up. Now he felt guilty for opening Logan’s mail - but how was he to know it wasn’t something nasty? It was last time, wasn’t it?

Picking them up, he noticed the first documents were missives in a foreign language. One he recognized as French, and he was reasonably sure the other was a Norse language of some kind - Swedish, Dutch, Swiss - but he couldn’t say for certain.  Did Logan even know how to read Dutch?  (Oh, what was he thinking?  He had some kind of creepy language thing going on; maybe it was some kind of odd secondary mutation: healing factor, bad hair, complete language comprehension.)

Then, picking up the last of the papers, being very careful not to tear the really fragile ones (was that Russian? Maybe he should see if Piotr could read that one … ), he noticed a photograph.  It was so old it was yellowed and starting to curl at the edges, and he saw writing on the back, in English this time, but so faded it took him a moment to read it in the dim light.  But it was gibberish, words that made no sense strung together as they were- Limey, Bear, Eagle, Igor, Thrush, Ace, Red, Gimp, Hornet, Lingo.

He turned the photo over, and studied the picture; someone had written a faded “The End!” in the top margin of the photo.  They were just men, some with strange insignias on their jackets, and there was a wanted poster displayed on the back wall of the room they were in … something about the French Resistance, if he read the large, bolded words correctly.  What the hell was this?  This couldn’t possibly
be from the ‘40’s, could it?  It had to be a joke.

But while you could print photos of anyone anywhere, it was difficult to convincingly age a photograph without damaging it. Just as he was wondering why someone would send an ancient Polaroid to Logan, he noticed the man in the back, the one in the jacket with the Canadian flag on the shoulder, turning away from the camera …

“Holy shit,” he exclaimed, unable to keep it in.  That couldn’t be Logan - it couldn’t be.

Could it?

He examined it from several angles, trying to see where it had been Photoshop-ed in, and then tried to figure out if it was just a guy who looked quite a bit like Logan; that was a possibility.  Maybe Logan had an extremely older brother, or maybe - god forbid - this was his father.  The hair looked a little different … a little … not all that much, really. He just didn’t have the sideburns, and the “peaks” of his hair had been smooshed down a bit.

Shit - this was Logan.  Logan looking thirty back in the 1940’s.  Unlike now, when he looked … well, thirty. Christ.

He quickly shoved the papers back in the torn envelope, and found his anger had been forgotten for the moment.

Wait until the Professor got a load of this.