X-Men: Dark Mirror (9 page)

Cyke, and he promised me some illegal antimutant activity. Besides, a body-snatching trap? Wouldn't there be easier ways to take us down, other than drag us all the way out here on some false lead?
Especially
for the person strong enough to do this?" He pointed at his breasts.

"I don't have all the answers, Logan, but this," and he pointed at his own breasts, "is an indication that something went horribly wrong when we came here, and I
don't think it was an accident.
The one thing all of our new bodies have in common is that they shared the same doctor, a man named Jonas Maguire. He took quite an interest in us."

"And the false imprisonment of mutants?" Jean asked.

"I haven't seen anything to support that," Scott said. "The one mutant we have met seems to believe she
should
be here, and I don't think anyone is compelling her to feel that way. I don't think anyone
could."

"I agree." Rogue shook her head. "Suzy is crazy."

"Crazy enough to know we were impostors," Scott said. "And crazy enough to help us."

"I trust my source," Logan said again. "Besides, you seem to be implying that this Maguire had something to do with our situation. I'll buy that. He might be a mutant, or he could have orchestrated hiring one to gun us out of our bodies.
But
, how could some doctor arrange to set up the kinds of rumors that got us out here in the first place?"

"He didn't have to make up the general stuff," Rogue said. "We did find pockets of mutant and human tension inside the city."

"And he's a doctor. All he has to do is talk long enough, and someone will eventually spread the story."

"I still don't like it," Logan said.

"You never like anything," Scott said. "And right now, I'm less concerned with details. We need to get out of here."

"Stage one of that plan has been completed," Kurt said. "Now we must make a run for it."

Not something he looked forward to, but at the moment, it was all they could do. Stuck inside the bodies of strangers, without any real rights or resources ...

Kurt sighed, wondering once again if he had gone soft. So many in the world, mutant and human alike, suffered indignities at the hands of others. His situation was no worse, and at least he had friends with him. At least he still knew who he was, even if the flesh was different.

It was a very small comfort.

Fifteen minutes until full dark. They decided
to wait Logan, unable to sit still, immediately crept back up the stairs to listen at the second-floor door. He did not hear anything. Did not smell anything. He had no idea if that mutant woman had kept her promise and still watched this door. He felt like someone had plugged up his nose and ears, and while he missed his claws—that fine ability to slice and dice—it was those two lost senses that bothered him the most.

Ain't no use moping over things you can't change. Just be glad you're still alive and make the best of it

Because the alternative meant a long slow rot in this godforsaken hole and he would rather die trying to escape than stay here one more minute. The hospital stirred up memories, what few he had, and none of them were pleasant.

He did not hear an alarm, but as he stood with his ear pressed to the door and pretended he was still a whole man—without breasts—he heard the distant slam of a door and the sound of running. A muffled shout, more pounding feet, bangs and thumps—a very loud "damn"— and then, finally, a shuffling noise just beyond his door and the sense that, yes, someone had been standing there all along. Logan wished he had something to make a barricade with. His thick skull would probably do the trick.

He crept back down the stairs. The old laundry room was so dark by this time he had trouble seeing. He ran into a tall solid body and said, "Jeannie?"

"Yes, Logan." Her voice was quiet, solemn. The others were gathered below the window. Scott had his fist wrapped in one of the canvas sacks.

"Game's up," he told her, and everyone stopped and looked at him.

"They've begun looking for us?" Scott asked.

"Yup."

"Lovely," Jean said.

Logan frowned and gestured at the window. "You going to fit through there, darlin'?"

"I'll make it. It's better than staying here."

"Yeah," he said, wondering what her new body smelled like. "How do you like being a man?"

"I'm discovering that it's the same as being a woman, except for certain anatomical differences."

"You'll have to get Scott to educate you on the finer points."

"I suppose," she said, but her voice was dull. Logan fumbled in the dark for her hand. Her new skin was rough, the touch masculine, but he forced himself to think of the woman inside and found it was not so difficult

"Hey," he said. "Any tips for me?"

That brought a moment of soft laughter. "Have you tried going to the bathroom yet?"

"No."

"Ask me that question after you do." She stepped toward the others and Logan was forced to let go of her hand. He watched Jean touch Scott's slender shoulder— the blackmail opportunity of a lifetime—and she said, "Let me break the window."

"No," Scott said. Logan grinned. The X-Men's team leader barely cleared five feet and his hands were small and delicate.

"Go on, Cyke," he said. "Be the woman in the relationship."

Rogue coughed. Jean shot him a venomous glare. "You don't have a healing factor, mister. Watch what you say."

"Sure thing," he said.

"Jean," Scott began, but she blew out her breath and snatched a sheet of canvas from the floor. Wrapping up her hand, she pushed Scott out of the way with a not-so- gentle nudge and slammed her fist through the glass. Logan bit back another smile. He loved a woman who knew how to use her hands.

Jean cleared the glass away, shoving canvas out the window and covering the broken glass so that it was safe to climb out into the hospital's yard. She tried to be quiet, but it bothered Logan that her work was all he could hear, that there was nothing else, no layered sensations like he usually encountered: sounds upon sounds, blanketed upon one another so that his mind had to peel back and taste each individual mark of man or beast or object.

His hearing, however, was still good enough to catch a muffled angry shout.

"What was that?" Rogue asked, and Logan cracked open the door to peer into the darkness of the stairwell. Far above him he heard hinges creak, and then Suzy began raising hell with her voice.

Logan shut the door and leaned against it. "We need to go.
Now."

"They shouldn't have found us this fast," Scott muttered.

"They haven't found us yet," Jean said, and grabbed Scott's arm. "Up you go, sweetheart."

"No," he said, but Jean grabbed her husband under his arms and lifted him up to the window. Scott did not fight her, but Logan saw the conflict on his scrunched-up face: embarrassment, anger, worry. He scrabbled through the window and Logan heard glass crunch beneath the canvas.

Jean gestured at Logan. "Come on. Smallest ones go first."

Logan heard a scuffling sound behind the door, followed by a quick attempt to push it open. Logan threw himself backward, digging his heels into the ground, bracing the door shut. Fists banged against metal, and he felt the vibrations through his body.

"I could use some help here," he growled.

Rogue slammed her shoulder against the door and said, "Go on now. I'll hold this."

"You and what army?"

"Logan!" Jean barked. She already had Kurt pushed halfway through the window. Rogue gasped as the door slammed hard against her body, opening; Logan stumbled. He turned and saw flashlight beams streak the darkness; the outline of a hand and head—

—and then the door opened even farther and three men pushed through. Logan threw himself amongst them, fists out, kicking and punching. He bit an ear, tasted blood. Someone grabbed his waist and pulled hard; he heard shouting, Jean's deep voice, the high yell of the man bleeding into Logan s mouth.

Rogue grabbed the man holding Logan and threw herself backward. Logan was carried with them both, but the nurse released him before they hit the ground and he rolled right up against another nurse, who grappled with Jean. Logan slammed his heels against the man's knees. He cried out, falling, and Jean moved with his head in her hands and she slammed him into the floor. Above her, Kurt scrambled down from the window, Scott hanging after him.

There was one man left. Logan felt air move against his neck and he turned just in time to see the nurse swing a flashlight at his knees. Kurt pushed him out of the way but moved too slow; he took the blow and his gasp seemed like the clearest most ringing sound Logan had heard since waking up in this place.

Logan threw himself on the nurse, wresting away the flashlight with a cool catch of his wrist. Several blows later—fast and brutal and infinitely satisfying—the man went still. Logan stared down at that slack face, breathing so hard he thought his lungs might burst.

"Kurt," he growled. "You okay?"

"Ja,"
he whispered, but his voice was strained. Logan stood up. The rest of the team, seen in the reflection of the flashlights, looked unharmed.

"Jean," Scott said, hoarse. The upper half of his body hung precariously through the window.

"I'm fine," she said, taking two long strides to the doors and shutting them. She grabbed Logan's wrist as she returned to the window, dragging him with her. She gave him no time to protest, simply grabbed him under his arms and pushed him up to the window. It was a weird sensation, being hauled off his feet that way. Scott pulled him past the edge of the concrete holding wall into the grass.

Kurt was next, hissing only once as he passed through the window. Logan and Scott helped him crawl onto the grass. Rogue appeared behind him, though she had a harder time squeezing through. Breathing hard, casting nervous glances around the darkened yard, they waited for Jean. She did not come through the window.

"Jean!" Scott whispered. She did not say anything, but Logan heard large objects moving, along with some thumping sounds. He imagined her barricading the door with bodies.

Her dark hands finally appeared, grappling for a hold on the cement. Everyone reached down and pulled, struggling to get her through the window.

"Come on," Logan muttered, grunting as he searched for a better hold on Jean's body. She gasped, wriggling hard. Behind her, distant, Logan thought he heard shouting.

"They're coming," she gasped, and then screwed up her face as she writhed her way through the small opening and threw herself onto the grass. Logan and Scott grabbed her wrists and began running even before she completely had her feet under her. Logan heard a muffled shout from behind them.

Trying to keep to the darkest parts of the yard, Scott led them toward the fence. Kurt did the best he could to keep up, but it was clear that the pain in his knee was near crippling. Logan stayed with him, pulling his arm over his shoulders and hauling him faster. He heard more shouting, distant but in transit, and then they were at the fence at a spot next to a tree and Scott fell to his knees, scrabbling.

"She said it was here," Scott muttered, wrenching at the chain link. "By the tree."

Logan looked up and down the line, but he did not see another tree. The yard was barren of anything but grass. He saw beams of light bobbing.

"No time left," he said.
"Scott."

But Scott made a low noise and suddenly there was a gap, tiny, and Logan shoved Kurt down on his stomach and pushed him through. He grabbed Rogue next, and then Jean, pushing on her feet to help her slither under. The flashlights were closer now, so close, and Logan dove through, scraping his body and face. Rogue and Jean grabbed his hands, pulling him the rest of the way, and then they did the same for Scott so that his small woman's body looked like it was flying beneath the fence.

They ran. The nursing staff and security were so close

Logan could make out the expressions on their faces, and somewhere near he heard sirens. The area around the hospital was residential; they disappeared into the shadows of a tree-lined street and then Logan whistled and made them follow him down a back alley behind a row of houses, running, running, the sirens getting louder, and there were lights on in the houses, all of them, people awake and doing things, and that was good because it served as sharp contrast to the quiet places, the still and silent, like one small home at the end of the block that was dark and had no car in the narrow driveway.

The owner was a gardener, with a particular fondness for big bushy flowering plants that provided wonderful cover when one lay amongst them. Ferns tickled Logan's nose; he inhaled deeply, savoring what little he could of the scent. It was like smelling freedom.

"What next?" Rogue whispered. Sirens blasted the air and then passed, two cars in succession.

"We need to get back to the jet," Scott said. "That's our first priority."

Logan grunted. "Sorry, Cyke, but I disagree. There's no guarantee the jet's still there. We need to go prepared. Different clothes, at the very least. We also need to lay low for a couple hours. Once the excitement has died down, it'll be safer to go to the park."