A New Threat To Humanity

by Adianlangston

The X-Men, along with the help of Dr. Nori Yakamoto, must once again save Humanity from itself

Author: Blade
Rating: PG/R
Main Character: Nori Yakamoto, Logan AKA Wolverine, Cameo Appearances by
other X-Men.
Disclaimer: Nori is a homespun character of my own creation and as such is
strictly my property. Logan and any other X-Men however, are the creations
of Stan Lee and the Marvel Team and as such are copyrighted to them.
Distribution: Please ask first, though I don't mind sharing.
Feedback: Is much welcomed and appreciated.

----------------------------------------------------

Chapter One - Coming Into Her Own

Chapter One

The night was dark. Pitch Black. There was not a star in the sky
high above her and she smiled. Well, as much as one 'could' smile in
her position anyway.

There was something to be said for being a mutant, especially on
nights like this one. The pitch-blackness enveloped her, caressing
and holding her like a lover.

Though in all honesty, she wouldn't truthfully know what felt like,
but on this night, she could allow herself the fantasy of it at
least. Certainly in her years, she'd seen and 'knew' what the
relations between a man and woman were all about, she'd just never
taken the time to personally experience it.

Nor would she...probably. She just had far too many
responsibilities to take part in such frivolity. Her stern father
continually reminded her of those, she mused with a half grin as she
stepped away from her penthouse balcony and went back inside with a
heavy sounding sigh.

Naked, she padded her tiny 5'1" frame over to her desk and sank into
the high backed leather chair. Like the night she'd just left, it
enveloped her and once again she yearned for a lover's embrace.

"Dreaming again?" asked a slightly disembodied voice as she sighed
deeply.

She didn't bother to answer, knowing that it 'irked' the person
asking the question no end, but merely smiled as she sat forward in
the large chair.

Reaching out with a tiny hand, she moved the cursor around the
computer screen and clicked open her email with a soft smile and an
even softer chuckle of sound. The emails downloaded and she sighed
even more deeply as she began to scroll through them all and give the
appropriate answers.

About six hours later, she finished up with another click of the
mouse and sat back in the chair again. Rubbing at her tired eyes,
she blinked several times and rose from the chair. She'd been
sitting in it for so long that her naked bottom made a slight ripping
sound and she winced visibly.

With a chuckle, and rubbing at her behind, she padded off on silent
feet toward the kitchen. Her stomach growled in protest at her long
hours of work and she decided that feeding it would be a good thing.
Then sleep, she mused to herself.

Living alone had certain advantages she realized as she padded
through her vast penthouse unconcerned that she was still naked. She
owned the building outright, so she had no worry that someone would
be able to see in her windows. The building was the tallest in this
particular neighborhood, one of the reasons that she'd purchased it
all those years ago when her father had opened offices in town.

She smiled sweetly, remembering the conversation she'd had with him
about moving so far away. And to the US of all places. Japanese
women just did 'not' go off on their own. They resided with their
father's traditionally, until they were married. Then they cared for
their husband's and their new homes.

They most 'certainly' did not move halfway around the world and take
a position as 'head' of Research and Development for a multi-national
corporation. It was just unheard of.

And despite Tanaka Yakamoto's rather open business practices, he
was still a traditionalist at heart. Especially when it came to his
only child and heir. As it was it had taken her almost two years of
subtle hints and helpful business tips as a teen, to get him to
recognize that she was capable of handling business affairs.

When he'd finally consented to let her be part of his company, she
knew at the time it had been to shut her up more than anything else.
That and to humor her until she was rightfully married and pregnant
with child.

What her father didn't know, and never would if she could help it,
was that she was a full-fledged Mutant. She'd gone to great lengths
to hide her rather unique abilities from him, and she'd do nothing
to jeopardize that.

However, after some seven years under his staunch and heavy ruling
thumb in Japan, she'd decided it was time to be on her own. She'd
worked for the next five years, again dropping subtle hints and
helpful tips in his ear, to convince him that the company would
benefit greatly from an R&D facility in the US.

He'd finally relented, again, to shut her up more than anything else,
and a year later, the facility was complete. The day the doors had
been opened, she was on a plane, belongings in tow.

It was only after she was some miles from him that her father began
to realize what she'd known all along. She'd never be the
traditional Japanese woman, despite her upbringing. She was her own
woman, and though she loved her father deeply, she wasn't a
traditionalist like he was. And she never would be.

"IF" she ever married, it would be for love, and not because she was
pushed into it for whatever reason. Or because it was arranged.

But that was neither here nor there at this particular point, because
it wasn't really an issue. Since moving herself to Salem, her father
had actually laid off of her as the saying went and was content with
the vast amounts of work her departments were currently producing.

But she paid for it. Greatly. She worked long, strange hours,
mostly because of the time difference between the two countries, and
really had no time for a 'life'. While she may not share her
father's traditional values when it came to women in their culture,
she certainly shared his work ethic.

She was the first one in the office in the mornings and the last one
to leave. Well after most Americans were sound asleep in their beds,
snuggling up with their respective mates, she was still diligently working.
Sitting at her computer till all hours of the night,
communicating with the corporate home offices, and more often than
not ending up putting in almost 20 hours a day.

Thankfully, one the abilities she'd discovered early on in
her transformations was that she could operate just as well on four
hours of sleep, as none at all. It made no difference to her. If
she got an hour, she was up and ready to go to work the next morning
without so much as a yawn.

She was tired certainly, who wouldn't be after almost two years of
that type of schedule, but she never showed it or complained. And
she never would she knew. Short of collapsing in a dead heap, she'd
just keep going, doing whatever was neccessary to keep her father off
her back.

Granted that was just one of her abilities. Another was the ease
with which she could modify her physical body. She had no idea
where it came from, because her first concious memory of life was
that of a dumpster, but she was thankful for it most days.

Especially on nights like this. The darkness was one of her favorite
times, because she could hide within it and dream. She could forget
work, forget her father, forget all her responsibilities and
just be.

Be herself. Be another. Be whatever it was she wanted to be. And
tonight would be no different. Lost in her own thoughts, she didn't
realize she'd fixed herself a sandwhich, eaten it, and now stood
leaning against her own kitchen counter with an empty plate in her
hand.

With a shrug of her slim shoulders and a soft chuckle, she put the
plate in the sink and padded back out onto the balcony. Gracefully
she climbed upon the railing and balanced easily there for but a
heartbeat before leaping straight off and into the night.

The wind caught her easily a scant heartbeat later, and she was off
into the darkness, her form blending perfectly against the pitch
blackness. She floated along for a long while, lost to the warmth
of the night and her freedom.

Work slid away to the back of her mind. Life became non-existent
beyond the next up current of wind from the earth far below her.

~Gods...I'd give anything to be able to do this for the rest of my
life without the worries I have...~ she whispered to herself as the
next current caught and lifted her.

----------------------------

Eventually she had to return to her penthouse and pick up her worries right
where she'd left them. That also included a whole new set of emails, along
with two conference calls she had to listen in on. Of course she told none
of the other members of the calls that she was sitting in her home office
buck naked, but it brought a soft smile to her lips that she was indeed
doing that.

"Nori?" her father's voice called out over the speaker on her computer.

"Yes Father?" she returned, keeping her tone calm and even.

"Give me the projections for the next quarter." the older sounding man said
by way of soft command.

She took a soft breath, let it out in a softer sigh, and rattled off the
numbers quickly and efficiently. Her father "hmmm'ed..." seeming impressed
then moved on to the next part of the call which was new business.

An hour passed and finally the second of the two calls was finished. She
quietly and demurely said her goodbyes then rose from her chair again.
While the calls had gone on she'd also been answering her emails, which
testified to her multi-tasking capability, but if anyone had seen her they
would have known her heart wasn't into either in all reality.

Instead she was still thinking about her dreams and fantasies, of laying
with someone, anyone in the dark of night and being regarded as all woman,
instead of the staunch, yet seemingly demure, head of R&D for the company.

"By the gods I need to get laid..." she mumbled under her breath as she shut
down her computer and moved off to get dressed to head to the office. She
had a very long day ahead and tried her best to push her fantasies to the
back of her mind and concentrate on work.

But it wasn't going to be easy...

-------------------------

Her morning passed relatively quickly. New business, old business,
contracts all floated over her desk. Read and dealt with easily and
efficently as was her way. But still her mind wasn't on her work. It was
trapped somewhere in the dark recesses, dreaming of a life that was beyond
her at the moment.

Around noon the phone rang. She looked at it quizzically for a moment, for
it was unusual that her line rang without warning from her secretary as to
who it was. But she picked it up on the second ring. "Yakamoto." she said
softly, her tone calm and even.

"Ms. Yakamoto?" questioned a heavily accented voice.

"Yes?" Nori answered, looking again at the phone in confusion.

"I know that you do not know me." the voice continued. "My name is
Professor Charles Xavier. I run a school for gifted children here in
Salem."

She nearly dropped the phone in shock. ~Didn't know him?~ her mind cried
out. Well she didn't really, but she certainly knew 'of' him, what mutant
didn't...but when she answered, her voice showed none of her shock. "Yes
Professor. I've heard of your school. My firm makes regular donations to
your work." she said calmly, her voice holding just a hint of implication in
it's undertones.

"I know." he returned and Nori could hear the smile in those two simple
words. "That is the reason that I am calling you. Your firm has been more
than generous to us over the years and I'd like to invite you to lecture to
some of our students."

"Oh?" she replied, her calm facade breaking for a moment. "Really?" she
paused and gathered herself back under control. "Sir, I'm afraid I'm not
much of a public speaker. I would, however, be more than happy to lend you
one of my Public Relations people. They'd be more than willing to speak to
your students."

"That's too bad Ms. Yakamoto, I was hoping to intice you into visiting our
school, so that you could see what your generous donations are
accomplishing." Xavier countered, his accent dipping softly.

Nori gulped before she could reply. The most well known of their kind was
personally inviting her to visit his school. A school she'd wished she'd
grown up in, in some of her more weaker moments, instead of trying to figure
the changes happening to her all on her own. "Well, put like that Professor
Xavier, I don't see how I could refuse..."

"Good. It's settled then." he said and she could hear the pride in his
voice. "Shall we say Friday? At 1:00? I'll have the students assembled."

"Oh Sir. Like I said, I'm not one for public speaking in all truth. But I
will have my Public Relations department put something together for you and
I'll tag along for the ride. How's that?"

There was a soft sigh on the other end of the line and she thought for a
moment she'd disappointed him again. Then he spoke and she knew different.
"Fair enough." he stated simply.

They spent a few more moments on the phone, making the final arrangements,
then hung up. Nori looked at the calander in front of her and sighed
nervously. It was Tuesday and she knew she'd be a complete nervous wreck by
Friday. Meeting the Professor had been a long time dream of hers, even if
only for a moment, but she'd never initiated the contact. Well, other than
to make sure that her firm made an overly generous contribution to the
school on a regular basis. She believed in the work they did, believed in
Xavier's dream for peace between Mutants and Humans, and while she may not
be openly public about her own abilities, it certainly didn't mean she
couldn't help out where she could.

---------------------------------

Friday couldn't arrive fast enough. The rest of her week was calm and
uneventful, but every time she got a moment to herself, her impending
meeting with Xavier loomed to the forefront of her thoughts. She'd tried to
puzzle out what in the world the well-known man would want with someone like her, but could fathom absolutely no reason at all.

She watched the news all week, a habit she had anyway as a way to keep up
with not only the competition, but the world as well, but could find nothing
in the current events that would warrant the unexpected call on Tuesday.
Other than the normal Human/Mutant issues, a few trouble spots here and
there, and some minor issues with "Mutant Uprisings" in some of the third
world countries, there was nothing out of the ordinary.

She even checked with her "underground" sources, those not so much in the
public eye that tried to keep Mutant activity out of the mainstream
limelight. But again there was nothing out of the ordinary. Rumors mostly
about Magneto's current plots, but these weren't anything she hadn't heard
before.

Being the head of the R&D department for one of the largest Electronic
companies in the world, she had her finger in many pies, always aware of
what was happening in and around her but there was nothing.

So when Friday finally rolled around she still didn't have a clue as to what
in the world the Professor could hope to gain from a visit with her. She
woke early, as was her habit, and spent the first couple of hours in her
office. By ten though, it was obvious that she wasn't going to accomplish a
whole lot and gave it up. She needed to calm her nerves, needed to relax a
bit so she didn't make a complete fool of herself when she met Xavier later
on that day.

The only way she could do that was to delve into a project for a couple of
hours. She hadn't been in the labs for quite some time and knew it would do
her good to immerse herself in something small and seemingly insignifigant.
Some project that would be easy to complete in a short time. There was one
on the books of the company that she'd been meaning to look at anyway, so
she decided to do just that.

Working her way down into the secure areas of the 20 story building, she
easily lost track of time as she worked to perfect a small component of
electronic hardware. Looking up at some point she realized it was almost
noon and if she didn't hurry she'd be late getting to the school.

She was always prompt, early most of the time, and the thought that she was
running farther behind schedule than she liked, grated on her normally calm
and patient nerves. Making record time back to her office, she gathered up
her briefcase and met Mandy Rasputin in the lobby. The head of her Public
Relations department, the tall blond had a wide smile on her face as her
boss came toward her.

"Ms. Yakamoto." she said pleasantly. "Nice to see you again."

Nori waved her hand in the air. "You can quit with the formalities Mandy."
she quipped softly. "We're not near corporate." she added with a softly
teasing smile.

"Sorry." Mandy said softly as the two women waited for the company car to
be brought up out of the underground garage. "Habit since I haven't seen
you in so long."

Nori chuckled and shook her head as the car arrived and the two of them were
seated inside. "So, what have you got prepared?" she asked as the driver
pulled away from the building and headed out of town towards the school.
She didn't really care, truth be told, because Mandy was very competent in
her job, but she hoped the preview of the lecture would take her mind off
her nervousness.

Mandy launched into her speech and Nori listened with only half an ear as
they rode along. By the time they arrived at the school proper, Mandy was
halfway done, and still going. The ornate gates of the school opened with
an aged sounding creak and Nori had to smile. There was something to be
said for age, she mused as the limo pulled past the ornate gates slowly.

As they rounded up the drive, she could see the students outside. Some
were milling about in the front, older students by the looks of them, some
with bags looking as if they were leaving for a weekend. Others looked as
if they were there to see them off, and still more were just milling about
eating their lunches between classes and enjoying the bright, sunny day.
Checking her watch Nori saw they still had half an hour before Mandy's
lecture and she wondered briefly who would meet them.

Those students milling about immediately stopped to watch the long stretch
limo pull up in the courtyard of the drive. The driver got out and nodded
solicitiously to some as he came around the car and opened the back door for
the women. Mandy was the first out and Nori saw more than one of the young
males giving her an appreciative once over. Nori followed suit, though she
didn't expect the same treatment. She was far too short, and while
beautiful in a classic Japanese-American way, her staunch looks and mostly
icy exterior paled in comparison to the tall blond next to her.

Both women stepped forward in unison and headed for the front door just as
it opened. Another well-known mutant stepped out into the bright day with
an equally bright smile on her face in greeting. "Ladies..." she called
out, coming forward to take their hands in a warm shake. "Welcome to
Xavier's School for the Gifted." she said her voice and tone just as bright
as the day around them. "My name is Jean Summers."

----------------------------

Close to two hours later Mandy was just finishing up her presentation. Nori
shifted in her seat nervously. Mandy's lecture was good, engrossing the
students from the very beginning with a combination of wit and wisdom and
speaking to them as the young adults they were. They'd found out from Jean
when they arrived that the students she would be addressing, were mostly
seniors on the verge of graduation, and were preparing to enter the human
world in full control of their powers.

Hence the reason for their presence. Jean had explained that the Professor
hoped Mandy's presentation would help the young adults make a decision as to
which direction they wanted to go in their adult lives. Give them options
and a reality to the real, working world. Nori was impressed that Mandy had
thought this might be the case, and had tailored her presentation for just
such an eventuality.

But they still hadn't seen any signs of the Professor, nor was Jean very
informative. Of course, Nori didn't ask either, simply rolling with the
flow, but she'd be sorely disappointed if the man had taken the time out of
his busy schedule to call her personally and she didn't even get the chance
to meet him.

Mandy finished up her lecture to the rousing applause of the students then
spent the next several minutes taking questions and so on. She stepped down
off the podium after that and was immediately 'assaulted' by the more
interested students.

"Well, looks like your friend is going to be busy for awhile." Jean said as
she rose to her feet. "What say I give you the grand tour in the meantime."
she stated casually as Nori rose to join her.

"I'd like that very much." she commented and the two women headed off into
the mansion.

"You know your firm's contributions have been more than generous over the
years." Jean commented once they were away from the enthusiastic students.

"Thank you." Nori returned simply. "I believe in your work here. Helping
the young people of our generation gain control over something they had no
control over." she added as they walked along the ornate hallways toward
the back of the main house.

"Is that because you didn't have that opportunity yourself?" Jean asked
bluntly once they were well clear of the mayhem of students coming and
going.

Nori stopped dead. She knew Jean was an accomplished telepath in her own
right, but..."Are you asking because you read my mind? Or because you
genuinely want to know?" Nori countered cautiously.

Jean threw back her head and laughed. "Sorry," she apologized with
sincerity. "I didn't mean to pry." she added as the two women continued
walking along. "I can't help it sometimes. Especially when the thoughts
are so strong in a person."

It was Nori's turn to laugh, which she did, a pleasant sound that she didn't
often allow herself. "Forgive me. I didn't mean that to sound accusatory.
It's just that so few know what I really am, that I forgot where I was."
she added with a soft smile.

Jean put a comforting hand on her slim shoulder. "That's the beauty of this
place. You don't have to hide here." she said as she led Nori outside and
into the gardens at the back of the Mansion.

The wandered along in companionable silence for a short time, then turned
the corner of one of the hedges and Nori's eyes brightened as she spotted a
well known hover chair in the distance. She looked at Jean who only smiled
and nodded in his direction. "He wanted to greet you personally, but got
delayed. Go on, talk to him." she added, giving Nori's shoulder a gentle
shove.

Like a child meeting Santa Clause for the first time, her steps faltered at
first, but she pulled herself up and called on all her years in front of a
room full of irrate board members to calm her nerves. Pasting a nuetral
expression on her face, she approached slowly, getting her breathing and
nervousness under control through sheer effort of will.

The chair turned as she approached and the bald headed man within smiled
brightly at her. With his chair just a few inches off the ground the two
were eye-level and he held out his hands in warm greeting. "Ms. Yakamoto."
he said his smile never wavering as she came forward and clasped his strong
hands with her own tiny ones.

The moment they touched it was like a floodgate opened in her mind. She
felt his presence there, felt it pushing at things inside the grey matter
held within her skull, looking, searching, grasping at things that she
didn't even know she knew. Her breathing stopped, held still by his
presence, and after a moment her lungs began to desperately crave life-giving air. He was the first to break the contact with a soft hiss of breath, and she nearly bent double, drawing the warm air into her starving lungs.

"I've...I've never had 'that' happen before..." he whispered after some
time.

"Neither have I..." Nori managed to whisper herself, when she was finally
able to stand upright again. She looked at Xavier with a quizzical
expression. "If you don't mind me asking," she said as she recovered, "What
was that?"

He returned her quizzical expression. "I'm not really sure, but I think
maybe I opened up a block in your mind young lady. A block that's been
there since you were born..."

Nori moved over and sat down on a nearby bench as the thoughts raged through
her mind in the moments that followed. Her face went through a wealth of
expressions, frowning, smiling softly, confusion, fear, a bit of pure
terror, and finally settling back into her normal nuetral. Xavier let her
be while she worked out her own thoughts, keeping his telepathic abilities
curbed though he was very curious as to what was going through her mind. To
him, when they touched, it was like he was 'sucked' inside her mind against
even his considerable will, held there as something within her opened at
long last. Something that had previously been kept from her for many, many
years, held at bay by a block even more powerful than himself.

"I know who I am...." Nori finally said after a long moment of silence
between them.

Xavier raised an eyebrow. "You didn't before?" he couldn't help but ask.

"No." Nori said, her normally calm exterior breaking in her excitement.
"Well, no, not really. I know who I was raised by, how I was raised, but my
earliest memory was that of a dumpster." she said, rising from the stone
bench to begin pacing in front of him. Her three-piece Armani suit rustled
softly as she walked along in front of him, speaking almost excitedly. "I
was...I am the daughter of an Asguardian." she said, un-phased in her
movements. "My father left me, on earth, to be raised by my human mother."
she continued. "But my mother died, right after I was born...and...and
someone put me in a dumpster. Left me for dead. But...but I survived."

She took a moment to explain the gang of street urchins that had found her
in said dumpster and raised her for the first seven years of her life, then
being found and adopted by Tanaka Yakamoto. She didn't need to explain more
though, because the rest of her life was pretty much public record. But it
certainly explained alot, explained where her mutant abilities came from,
how she'd come to be what she was.

When she finished she threw her arms around Xavier in her excitement, nearly
bowling over his chair. "Thank you..." she all but shouted in her
exuberance.

"Oomph..." Xavier said as he managed to catch her at the last minute.
"You're quite welcome young lady, though I truthfully don't know what I
did...You pulled me in." he added as she moved back onto her own feet.

Nori laughed honestly for the first time in years, feeling as if a great
burden had been lifted from her shoulders. There was no longer a question
of her past, no longer a deeply hidden fear that she was anything other than
normal. Well, at least as normal as a mutant 'could' be anyway. And an
Asguardian Mutant at that.

Sitting on the bench again, she smiled honestly at Xavier and apologized
softly. "I'm very sorry." she said slowly, trying to find the words. "I
hope I didn't harm you."

Xavier waved away her statement. "No, not at all. More shocked than
anything else. I haven't met anyone with that kind of power in a long
time." he said slowly.

Nori frowned slightly. "Oh I don't have any powers, not like you, and
certainly not beyond what I've already figured out on my own through the
years. But now I do have some answers. Answers to my past that I didn't
have before I met you." she said with a sincere smile on her face.

"Well, I'm just glad I could help." Xavier returned, his British accent
deep and rich. "But that's not the reason I asked you to come. I didn't
even know that would happen." he said honestly. "No, the reason I asked
you to come is that I need your help..."

Chapter Two - Beginnings

"You need "my" help?" Nori stuttered after a moment of pure shocked
silence. "What in the world could I possibly do for you?"

Professor Charles Xavier chuckled softly. "Well, it's more a matter of
needing your expertise really." he finally stated slowly. "Your expertise
when it comes to computers and electronics."

Nori frowned at him again, her jade green eyes confused. "But Sir, and
pardon me for saying so, but again I have to ask, what in the world would
you need my help for? Granted I run the R&D for one of the largest Electronic
firms in the world, but still. I don't have any resources beyond what you
do I would think..."

"That's very true Ms. Yakamoto. Very true indeed. I do have considerable
resources, but what I do not have is an insiders view of your world."
Charles countered.

"My world?" Nori questioned again in a weak sounding croak. She'd never
thought of her father's business as a separate world in and of itself,
because it was all she'd ever known, but she could certainly see how it
would look different from an outsider's point of view. Electronic engineers
and designers were a bred all to themselves. Mostly wiz kids, or computer
nerds. Those that worked within her field were primarily loners, preferring
their computers and electronic devices to even human contact. Nori knew
she was guilty of the same behavior, but for all too different reasoning's.
Preferring a lonely existence because of being in the public eye as head of
the R&D department. Of course she'd had to hide her mutant abilities for so
long, that eventually it became more second nature than anything else.

She finally turned back to Charles and spoke with a sheepish smile. "Like I
said, I don't know what I could do for you."

Charles sighed and pushed his hover chair toward her seated position. "Ms.
Yakamoto, Nori," he began. "Not to long ago, about a month or so, my X-Men
found something while trying to settle an uprising in Brazil. They were
deep in the jungles down there and stumbled across a destroyed facility. It
didn't have anything to do with their current presence, so they decided to
check it out on their return trip. They didn't find much at all, save one
computer disk and what looks like a chip of some sort. Hank has been
working on it day and night since they returned, but has had no luck."

Xavier paused to let that information sink in, then continued. "While a
formidable scientist in his own right he isn't what one could call a
computer expert."

"Professor, don't you mean geek? Or nerd?" Nori said interrupting him with
a soft, almost teasing chuckle.

"Well, yes, there is that. He just doesn't have the expertise that you do
I'm sure. He tells me the disk is written in a code he just can't break,
which is where I'm hoping you can help." he went on, smiling softly at her
own joke. "I know about your research into Artificial Intelligence Nori. I
know what progress you've made with Mother? I believe you call her?"

Nori's eyes widened slightly in shock. No one outside of herself and a few
at the firm knew about her home computer system.

"Don't worry; you don't have a traitor in your midst. It was simply the
fact that I called your home before your office the other day and talked to
her. When I told her who I was, she was very informative." Charles said
with a laugh.

Nori quickly made a mental note to install a subroutine in Mother's
programming to prevent future slip-ups. "Sorry, in my business espionage
isn't uncommon. I'd hate to think someone that was supposed to be loyal to
me wasn't any longer." she apologized with a chuckle.

"I know, that's why I am confident that you can help. I'd like you to stay
for the weekend, work with Hank a bit, see what he has discovered so far and
see if you can further his research yourself." Charles explained.

"Oh..." was Nori's reply. "Well I'll certainly be happy to take an initial
look Professor, but I don't know about staying the weekend. I hadn't
planned on it, and as lame as it sounds I don't have a thing to wear..."

"Please, call me Charles." he said with a wave of his hand. "Don't worry
about clothing, I'm sure someone here is close to your size and we'll be
able to accommodate you."

"Well, I guess it's settled then..." Nori said and for some reason felt an
apprehensive twang in her gut.

-------------------------------

It was well into early evening before Nori looked up from the computer
screen again. After her conversation in the garden with Charles, he'd
personally led her down to the labs and introduced her to the well-known
scientist named Hank McCoy, or Beast as he was more commonly referred to.

The two hit it off almost immediately, breaking into a conversation about
the properties of the Time-Space Continuum and the effects of paradoxical time
tampering. Of course Charles was lost off the bat and neither of them
noticed as he discretely slid back out of the lab leaving them to their
discussion. The conversation lasted for almost an hour before they wound
down, both seemingly happy for once to have someone else to discuss such
things with that didn't phase out of the conversation almost immediately.

Finally, it was Hank that turned to the topic at hand. "Charles tells me
that you are something of a computer expert." he said, moving deftly across
the lab by swinging from some exposed piping and coming to a stop over top
of a workstation.

"Get it right Hank." Nori returned, her sensible heels clicking across the
floor behind him. "But yes, I am a computer geek." she amended with a
smile.

Hank chuckled, swinging his considerable bulk around to land in the chair in
front of the computer and beginning to pull up files and folders with a few
clicks of the mouse. "Good, then maybe you can tell me what in the world
this is..." he growled softly in frustration. "I've spent the last month
trying to merely figure out a basic purpose and I am still at a considerable
loss."

Nori peeked around his wide, blue furred shoulder and let out a low whistle
as her eyes landed on the image he'd pulled up on the screen. "Wow..." she
said, her eyes sparkling excitedly as she all but shoved the scientist out of
the way for a closer look. "I've...I've never seen anything like it..."
she said after a moment, then sat herself in a second chair and began
clicking around the program herself.

"Neither have I." Hank returned softly, his own eyes still intent on the
screen. "Nor this..." he added, resuming control of the mouse to click open
another file.

A long, streaming line of coding flashed over the screen and Nori's jade
green eyes squinted as she tried to follow it along. Like Hank she was lost
after the first several lines and she frowned. "Oh this will never do." she
said shortly, taking the mouse back and stopping the program then starting
it over at a much, much slower pace. "There, that's better. No wonder
you're having so much trouble with it." she added. "Even I couldn't read
it..."

They shared a quick laugh and set to work. That was where Nori now found
herself, still staring at the screen as she tried to decipher some of the
coding. She turned to Hank, who still sat beside her and shook her head
slowly. "I've never, in all my years, seen this type of coding.
It's...its almost like gibberish..."

She pointed to the screen with a slim finger. "I mean, look here," she said
indicating a place in the program. "This here tells whatever that thing
is," she began indicating the picture of the chip. "To add two and two and
come up with five," she said slowly, her tone and face perplexed. "And
here," she added as she scrolled down the screen again. "This tells it that
the only constant in the universe is death and taxes for cripes sake. And
here," she scrolled some more. "This tells it the answer to life in the
known universe is 42...but what is the question?" she growled in
frustration.

She hadn't spent more than a few hours with this and already she was
frustrated beyond belief. She could just imagine how Hank felt after a
month.

"I know." Hank picked up where she left off, scrolling down the screen
himself. "This part here indicates that the city of Atlantis not only
existed but is still flourishing deep under the earth's crust. It wasn't
destroyed so much as moved..." he sat back, pushing his small spectacles up
on his forehead before going on. "And further down in the program it says
that the Sun Gods of Aztec Mythology were actually an alien race that's
populated the universe for eons..." he sighed out. "And beyond that, the
coding turns to a language even I've never seen..."

Nori sat forward and scrolled down to where he indicated and let out another
slow whistle as she read over the part he was talking about. Indeed it was
in a language she didn't recognize either. "How big is this file?" she
finally asked.

"Well, near as I can figure it takes up all but about 1 meg of a 60 meg CD."
Hank returned. "Though some of it may have been lost when the lab it was
found in was destroyed."

Another slow whistle passed her lips. "You mean to tell me that there's
almost 59 megabytes of all this useless information to operate that simple
chip?"

Hank chuckled and pulled up a more detailed diagram of the chip. "That's
just it Nori." he said as the diagram filled the screen. "From what I can
tell this chip isn't so simple..."

They both spent the next moments staring at the screen, then Hank continued.
"I mean look at this pathway here," he said, pointing toward the screen.
"It looks like it connects to the main CPU of the chip, looks like it's
heading in that direction then stops," he said.

Nori's jade green eyes followed his finger then her own rose to the screen.
"No...look here. The same pathway picks up on the other side of the CPU of
the chip then wraps around and reconnects with itself, creating an infinite
loop..."

"I know...I know..." Hank returned, his voice laced with an excitement only
he could have. "But look here, it branches off not once, but twice later on
in the path and then wraps back around on those branches, creating yet more
loops within the chip."

Nori sat back in the chair, a clear look of astonishment on her face. "It's
like nothing I have ever seen before..." she finally managed to say in a
soft whisper.

"Now you see 'why' I was so perplexed."

"Have you tried connecting the program and the chip together?" she finally
asked after a long moment more of staring at the split image of the chip and
the program next to each other.

"Not yet. From the report Scott and the others gave me of the lab, and the
pictures they took, I could tell that whatever it was that they were doing
down there was not a good thing. Not to mention I just do not have the
equipment here to hook it up to, that would make it work properly. At least
I do not 'think' I do." Hank returned, his own eyes still fixed on the
screen.

Nori sighed. "Well, from what I can tell the chip looks to be pretty much
self contained." she said pointing to the screen again. "I mean it's got a
CPU here, and what looks like a possible power supply here, and it's
own internal directives here...." she added, pointing out each feature on
the screen as she spoke.

She reached over and picked up the physical chip from the table beside the computer, holding to the plastic case that housed it. "Have you figured
out what these leads are?" she asked after a moment of staring at the tiny
fiber optic looking filaments that roamed off the quarter sized disc in every
direction.

"That's the other thing that is throwing me off Nori." Hank said, using a
large finger to point at each. "I mean a standard chip has prongs that
connect it to a computer, correct?" Nori nodded and he went on. "These
leads are flexible, almost flimsy in comparison to a normal computer chip.
Almost like it was meant to put into something 'other' than your standard
computer board."

Nori frowned, not for the first time since coming to the lab, and sat in
contemplative silence for a long moment. "Ok, so let's assume that that is
the case. What in the world could you put a chip like this into?" she
asked, setting it back on the table between them and rising from the chair
to pace the floor.

"I don't know, you are the expert here."

"Funny Hank." Nori quipped as she paced. "But let's think about this
logically. You've got your standard computers, but we've ruled that out
strictly by virtue of its nature correct?" It was Hank's turn to nod this
time and Nori continued. "Ok, so that's eliminated. But you've also got
cars, planes, tanks, various military uses and the like."

"True, all true, but again all those are eliminated by the lack of hard
prongs. The fact that the leads are so flexible tells me that the slightest
jostle and the chip would break loose."

"Correct." Nori agreed with a snap of her fingers. "So that leaves us
with what, Human and animal. But why would someone make a chip to go into such, not to mention the programming code on that disc wouldn't make much sense to it anyway. At least not going by the normal standards of computer programming anyway," she said as she came back to chair. "Wait a minute..."

She took control of the mouse. "Ok, let's assume, just for a moment, that
all the useless information contained in this program goes with the infinite
loops within the chip." she said, her fingers clicking furiously between
the mouse and keyboard for a moment. "So, we removed those," she said as she frowned at the screen weeding out bits of the program. "And
viola..." she said a moment or so later as they both stared at the screen
again, still more perplexed than they had been before because all that
stared back at the both of them was the strange language neither of them had ever seen.

Nori sighed again, no closer to an answer than she had been before. "Ok, so now what have we got?" she asked turning slightly to look at Hank.

"More gibberish?" he asked his eyebrows raising into the air.

"No, we eliminated the useless information. The gibberish." she said at
the screen again as her eyes slowly squinted shut. "Most codes within
computer programs, most things, have a very specific purpose. Each line of code works with the next to make the program flow smoothly." she explained. She didn't think Hank was stupid, far from it, and he obviously had a good grasp on the basics of computers, but she said it more out of trying to work it out for herself at the same time. "But the weird thing here is that this program doesn't. With all the useless information included it jumps from place to place, almost like...almost like..." she stuttered, her words slowing down to nothing.

"Like what Nori?" Hank asked when she continued to stare at the screen her mouth slowly dropping open. "Like WHAT?" he practically shouted a second time when she didn't say more.

"Hank..." she gulped softly, her eyes coming back to him. "Do you have a
secure line here? In the lab? I need to make a phone call..." she
whispered, her voice soft and scared sounding.

Hank nodded, perplexed, but did as she asked. Nori dialed her home with
Mother answering on the second ring, as she was programmed to do.

"Yakamoto residence." she said in a pleasant if disembodied sounding voice.

"It's me Mother." Nori said slowly, still in shock over what she thought
the chip might be. "Prep for file transfer." she said by way of gentle
command.

There was a click, a whirl, and a beep on the other end of the line.
"Ready." Mother stated.

Nori clicked a few keys on the computer and its high-speed modem connected
to her home system in a blink. She started the transfer almost before it
was even connected then waited, rather impatiently, for Mother to confirm
receipt.

"What exactly am I looking at Daughter?" she asked after what would be a
heartbeat to a human, but was merely a nanosecond to her almost self-aware
computer system.

Nori gulped and asked the question she really didn't want to ask, but knew
she had too. "You tell me."

There was another brief pause, as Mother assimilated the data she'd been
given, analyzed it, conjectured over it for a few nanoseconds then
extrapolated the only logical conclusion. The same one Nori feared she'd
come up with herself. "Well, if memory serves me, I'd say this is a version
of some of your earlier research into artificial intelligence. To me, it
looks like someone has taken a human brain and tried to map it out. What I
do not understand is the underlying language within the program. I have
never seen anything like it at all." Mother returned in her disembodied
tone.

A hard knot of fear gripped Nori's stomach as Mother spoke in her ear. It
was exactly what she feared it was. "Put your considerable database and
resources into cracking that language Mother." She rattled off a number
then added, "Call me here when you do." then hung up the phone.

Hanging her head for a moment, she sighed and turned to face Hank. "If this
is what I think it is Hank." she began, an uncharacteristic tremor in her
voice. "I think someone has finally cracked the secret to the human
brain...and I may be partially responsible."

Chapter Three - Understandings

"The human brain?" Hank croaked softly, his face frowning as he worked out her suggestion in his own way and in his own time.

Nori was silent, letting him put it all together for himself. Professor
Xavier had been right when he said her expertise was just what was needed.

Hank finally looked up at her with dawning realization as the implication of
her statement became clear. "You...you don't think...do you?" he asked,
stumbling over the words just as she had.

"I do."

"But...but that's scientifically impossible." Hank whispered, seeming to
fall deep into thought for another long moment. "Isn't it?"

Nori sighed. "Cloning was outlawed in the late 1990's. Especially human
cloning." she said, not telling Hank anything he already didn't know. "It
was speculated, especially after CC developed all her problems, and went
psycho, that it was just too difficult to genetically reproduce a replica
copy of a living organism. Science, as you well know, never moved onto
human cloning because of the fear the clones would come out nothing more than mindless zombies."

"It was proven with CC the cat, that while a certain level of genetic
manipulation could reproduce a viable copy, it couldn't reproduce the higher functions of a thinking human." she sighed softly. "Most of us, as you know, while we grow, develop the higher functions of our minds through our youth and early adult hood. By the time our bodies stop growing around 20 to 25 years or so, our minds keep developing, growing more and more with what we come in contact with and learn. CC proved that a genetically manipulated clone, even an animal, didn't have the most basic capability to learn in the organic mush of their brains. Something somewhere hadn't been copied properly."

"I remember reading some of the research many a year ago." Hank intoned. "But what's that got to do with our little friend here?" he asked pointing first to the chip, then the diagram and accompanying program.

Nori walked over and leaned against the desk with her back to the computer. "Think about it Hank." she said softly. "When your learning something new, you concentrate on that one specific thing, but the back part of your mind, the subconscious is running around with a million different random thoughts all at the same time."

Hank nodded and she went on. "So, while your concentration is focused," she said turning just enough to be able to point to the screen and the chips CPU, "the rest of the brain is compiling, thinking, learning other
things..." she said roaming her fingers over the screen to indicate the
seemingly never ending looping pathways in the chips diagram. "You're just full of all these useless little tidbits of information. Like the names of
the actors that play in your favorite movie...or the recipe to your
favorite dish...or a bit of trivia about those old James Bond Movies, such
as did you know that four stunt men were injured during the last film.
Little things that in your lifetime you're probably never, ever going to put
to any useful purpose at all, but it is still a part of your higher thinking
processes. Something you learned at some point and retained the knowledge
of."

She pointed to the gibberish on the screen, the parts of the program they
had removed earlier. "If my theory is correct, then that is what this is.
What we thought was nothing more than "gibberish" represents the randomness
in a thinking human's subconscious," she said.

"Ok," Hank said following along with her train of thought. "But if that's
the case, then what is this base underlying program?"

"Well, if my supplication is correct, then it would only logically follow
that this would represent the human ability to learn and retain that
knowledge." she said, staring at the base parts of the program again. "But
seeing as how we've, science I mean, never been able to interrupt the
electrical impulses of the human brain into a language of any sort, I would
guess that whomever designed this program, and this language for that
matter, did just that. Figured out how to turn the impulses in our brains
into a comprehensible language by the chip."

"But how does that make 'you' responsible?" Hank asked next.

Nori turned from the screen again and stared at him for a long moment before
dipping her eyes away. "About five years ago I began to tinker around with
an idea for an artificially intelligent computer system. One that, when
finished, would be capable of independent thought and decision based off
it's own basic programming."

"So, that is nothing new." Hank reassured her with a slow smile. "You were
not trying to do anything that computer experts have not been trying to do
for the last 20 years."

"I succeeded." Nori said softly.

Hank's mouth was agape. With those two simple words. "You what?" he
croaked out for the second time in less than an hour.

Nori sighed softly, punched a button on his computer then spoke into the
air. "Mother?" she called out.

"Yes Daughter?" came the disembodied voice of her home computer system.

"If you had a choice between a peanut butter sandwich and pizza which would
you choose?" she asked casually.

"Well, Daughter that is a bit of a rhetorical question seeing as how I do
not eat, nor do I have a mouth or stomach in need of such sustenance...."
the computer began and Nori knew she was getting ready to spout off into a
very long winded explanation as to why she wouldn't ever need to make that
choice.

Nori interrupted her. "Mother, please, I know that you don't 'need' to eat,
but I'm asking as a demonstration, so please, just answer the question."
Nori said as gently as she could manage.

There was a sound from the speaker that could have been taken a huff of
indignation, but the voice came back with, "Pizza Daughter."

"Thank you Mother."

"You are quite welcome. Anything else?"

"Any luck with that code?"

"Not as of yet. But I am currently searching some more ancient texts I
found in the database of the Smithsonian, so I'm hopeful." The strangely
tin sounding voice replied.

"Keep me informed Mother."

"As always Daughter."

Nori reached out and punched the button to disconnect the speakers and mike
to Hank's computer. The poor man was still sitting there with his mouth
hanging wide open. "How...who...what...where...when?" The questions flowed
out of him in a rush and Nori had to laugh, easing the tension that was
gripping her shoulders.

"About five years ago I started playing around with continuous algorhythms."
She began. "My theory was that if I could find such an equation that would
give a program infinite choices, and give it a chance to 'choose' between
all of them, that I could install it into the base operating system of a
more advanced and faster model of your basic computer." She paused,
letting Hank catch up, then continued. "The theory worked and Mother was
born so to speak."

"Oh at first, she could handle nothing more than yes or no questions. Much
like a child learns the difference between hot and cold, right and wrong.
But as I downloaded more and more information into her memory, more and more
infinite choices, she began to grow. Eventually she told me she wanted to
learn more. And more, which is when I gave her access to the databanks that
my firm has access too. She advanced much as any person would, growing and
learning about things as she went. Making more and more choices. By the
second year she'd been online she was operating at about a teenage level,
though there really wasn't a way for me to tell because she advanced at such
an astronomical rate."

"I still don't see how that could relate..." Hank began then slowed his own
words, much as Nori had done awhile before. "This..." he said pointing to
the screen. "This is an earlier version, isn't it?" he finally asked.

"I'm not really sure. The possibility is there, certainly," she answered
honestly, turning back to point at the screen again. "The theory is the
same, of that I'm sure," she added as she pointed to the infinite loops in
the chips hardware.

"But how would these people have gotten a hold of your theory?" Hank asked
again.

"Well, to be honest there's only one of two possibilities. I either have a
traitor in my midst, or Mother has been hacked into." she said, leaning
against the desk again. "Actually only one possibility. Mother's line is
as secure as I can make them. She only has one incoming, which is the one I
just dialed, and two outgoing satellite linkups these days. One goes right
to the Yakamoto privately held satellite and the other to a government
groups."

"But the Professor said he spoke with Mother on Tuesday." Hank interjected
calmly.

"And he most certainly did I'm sure. Mother acts as my answering machine as
well. A very large answering machine, but there you go. It's an incoming
line to my home, not to her hardware or software. No, that line is the one
I connected to with your modem for the file transfer. It's a highly
specialized ISP of her own, with her own personal router and server housed
in a secured room in my home. Any tampering at all with it, to get to her
hardware and it explodes, with Mother's systems transferring by satellite
linkup to our office computers here in Salem."

"Ok, so that rules out her being hacked into. If she is as advanced as you
say, then she'd certainly be able to pick up on an intruder long before they
got to anything vital, am I correct?"

"Yes." Nori said simply. "She's operating far beyond anything even I
expected. If I had to give a rough guess she's aged to about 40 or so.
Hence the name Mother."

"Makes sense."

"So that leaves us with a traitor in my firm. Someone that discovered my
early theories somehow and passed it along to whomever made this chip."
Nori said with a long, drawn out sigh.

"Well, maybe not, was there anyone else working on this theory as well?"
Hank asked trying to help her take the blame off herself.

"Not to my knowledge Hank, though I appreciate the effort and the direction
you are trying to go." Nori said reaching out to pat his shoulder. "As far
as I know, no one has even come close." she said slowly. "Which leads me
to believe this is my initial research and whatever this strange language
is, only furthered it and tailored it more to a human's brain than a
computer."

"You really think that?"

"Yes, I do." Nori said, picking up the plastic case housing the actual chip
itself. "Look at these leads, they are undoubtedly fiber optic in nature
yes?" Hank nodded. "Ok, we know that fiber optics transfer light to and
from one point and another. And we know that a human's brain works on
electrical impulses that could be interpreted as light, so assuming that my
theory is correct and installing this into the correct point of a human
brain, along with it's active program, we can only conjecture that the chip
would begin to pick up on those electrical impulses and transfer them into
the chips base program."

"And in turn the chip would use its base program to return those impulses
and so on and so forth, thus creating thought." Hank said softly.

"Exactly."

----------------------------

Nori and Hank spent another two hours working out some of the more feasible
details of her theories, and then decided to present it to the Professor.
Mother still hadn't called back with any information on the base language,
but it didn't hinder them. They had enough to go on as it was.

However, it was with trepidation that they sat down, late into the evening
and began explaining what they'd found in the best terms they could.
Charles halted them about five minutes into it though and called to the rest
of the X-Men to join them. Hank and Nori exchanged nervous looks as one by
one the team filed in and were introduced.

Scott and Jean came in together, holding hands and smiling at one another.
Peter Rasputin followed not to far behind, his hair still wet from an
obvious shower. Next came Orono Munroe, more commonly known as Storm with
Remy Lebeau and Rogue not too far behind her. Jubilee bounced into the room
her bright yellow coat trailing behind her, and last in was Logan, or
Wolverine, looking stern and chewing on one of his favored Cubans.

Charles waited until everyone was seated then began the introductions
personally. "Ladies and Gentlemen, I know that you all know Dr. Hank
McCoy," he said holding out a hand. "But let me introduce, Dr. Nori
Yakamoto, Head of Research and Development for Yakamoto Electronics."

Jean nodded and smiled. Scott tilted his head slightly, a soft smile
playing over his strong features. Ororo bowed her head respectfully, while
Rogue and Remy both nodded only slightly. Jubilee smiled brightly and
waved, blowing a bubble with her gum in typical teenage style.

Peter, better known as Colossus, actually stood and reached out to take her
tiny hand in his own large one, smiling as he spoke to her in Russian.
"Welcome Doctor." he said.

"Thank you Mr. Rasputin." Nori responded, using almost flawless Russian
herself. She had after all traveled the world quite extensively in her
years in the due course of her research. "I won't say it's a pleasure to be
here just yet..." she added, still in Russian. "Maybe later."

Peter just tilted his head in confusion then took his seat again.

But it was Logan that set her off and immediately ruffled her feathers with
his comment after she was introduced. "Oh great, a computer geek." he
grumbled, taking a puff off the cigar then sitting back with crossed arms to
chew on it without further comment.

Had she been anyone else, she might have actually responded beyond the quick
glare she shot him, but she wasn't anyone else, so she didn't. Instead she
rose calmly and began to speak. "As Professor Xavier said, I am the Head of
R&D for Yakamoto Electronics." she reiterated slowly. "Earlier today he
asked me to have a look at the chip your team found in the jungles of
Brazil." she began.

Pulling up the diagram of Hank's, along with the program, she continued.
"I'm sure that none of you are yet aware of what his research has
discovered, so I'll give you a brief rundown. What you see on the screen in
front of you is a breakdown of the internal workings of the chip, the guts
if you will. Next to that is the program that was located on the CD you
also found within the facility."

She picked up the plastic case housing the chip itself and handed it to
Charles first. "As this comes around the table you'll see it has tiny,
almost invisible leads hanging out of it." she said as Charles passed it
down to Jean. As it began making the circuit of those present Nori
continued.

"In lamens terms, Hank and I believe that this chip is designed to create
human thought. Some of you may remember the experiments in the late 1990's
into the fields of genetic cloning." she said as the chip made it down one
side of the table and was starting back up again. "Cloning was banned in
the year 2001 because no one could reproduce a viable clone."

"What does viable mean?" asked Jubilee.

"Oh, sorry. By viable I mean a clone that was capable of independent
thought and action in the higher functions of the brain." she said. "In
other words, a human." She paused for a moment to let that sink in then
continued. "CC the cat was the first creature that was cloned with the
expectation of higher thought processes, but within the first few months of
her birth it was found that she was completely...well insane as far as cats
go. For the first months of her poor life, after she reached a point that
she was no longer classified as a kitten and was expected to think and act
on her own, she went rabid, attacking anything and everything in her path
with no rhyme or reason to her actions. She was only capable of the most
basic of actions. Things such as eat, sleep, attack and so on. The most
primal of functions."

"After she was put down, the scientists working with her tried several more
times with the same results. It was deemed that if they couldn't reproduce
a cat that could think and act beyond the most primal of deeds, then humans
would face close to the same fate." she said and turned toward the screen
behind her, moving the file into a close up of the chip.

"About five years ago I began tampering with the first stages of Artificial
Intelligence." she said in a strong, calm tone. "A thinking computer,
capable of making reasoning judgments based on it's own programming." She
turned back to those at the table and sighed deeply. "I succeeded." she
said, her voice still calm and neutral. "Mother?" she called out after a
moment. "Would you be so kind as to introduce yourself please."

"Hello all, my name is Mechanically Operating Thinking Home Exclusive
Retainer." The disembodied voice came from the speakerphone in the center
of the table. "It is a pleasure to meet you all."

There was a snort and a puff of smoke from the end of the table. "That
don't prove nothing." the gravelly voice of Logan rang out over the room.
"Cerebro can do that."

"I BEG YOUR PARDON!" the indignant voice of Mother rang out over the
speaker again. "I'll have you know, little pimple, that I am far and beyond
much more intelligent than 'that' bucket of bolts." she added with what
could be interpreted as another indignant snort.

Nori covered her mouth, holding back a snort of laughter herself. She
looked at Charles and saw the poor man had tears in his own eyes trying to
hold back his mirth and stay serious. Jean and Scott were looking at each
other and doing their best not to laugh as well. Peter ducked his head, his
wide chest jiggling as he seemed to be having trouble breathing. Remy
had the good grace to look anywhere in the room but directly at Logan.
Rogue turned her head slightly and was attempting to bury it in Remy's neck.
Jubilee was trying not to fall out of her chair as she leaned her head on
the table. Hank was looking a little more blue than usual.

And last but not least Logan was sitting there with his cigar clamped
tightly between his teeth about ready to chomp it clean in half. The middle
claw rose slowly out of the back of his hand and he continued chewing on the
end of his Cuban without a word.

When Nori could speak without breaking into laughter, she did so, slowly her
voice as calm and even as she could make with Logan sitting at the end of
the table, the single claw still poking upwards. "Thank you Mother."

Another indignant sounding snort came from the speaker then her voice. "You
are most welcome Daughter. And tell that gruff sounding, rude little pimple
that if he 'ever' compares me to that bucket of bolts again I will
personally shock every bit of adamantium out of his system..." she said
then the line went dead.

It was too much. Nori looked at Hank. Hank looked at Charles. Charles
looked at Scott and around the table it went, everyone exchanging looks. No
one could have said, for many years to come exactly who started to laugh
first, but someone did. It started out as a small chuckle, which quickly
turned into a rolling laugh, followed by several more, until everyone
sitting at the table was doubled over with it, tears all but streaming from
their eyes. Even the normally stern Charles Xavier was caught up in it and
was practically leaning on Jean's shoulder, his shoulder shaking.

When things calmed down around the table everyone looked up about the same
time to see Logan's reaction. Unfortunately all that greeted them was an
empty chair.

"Well," said Charles as he wiped the tears away from his eyes. "I guess
Logan doesn't want the adamantium shocked out of his system...."

Of course this comment, coming from the stern Professor collapsed everyone
into a fit of laughter again. Only Nori wasn't laughing as hard as she had
been. She actually felt a moment of pity for the poor man. She should have
warned them about Mother's 'temper' when it came to other computers. Nori
would swear the AI had developed something close to a jealous streak. She
sighed, chuckling only slightly now because it 'had' been funny and turned
to Hank. "Hank," she said when she could get a word in. "Would you
continue for me?"

Hank could only nod, still gripped with the giggles and Nori left the room
going in search of Logan. She felt the need to apologize, because she knew
all too well what it was like to be the butt of the joke. Her many years on
the streets of Tokyo as a homeless orphan had taught her that lesson all too
well. She didn't know much about the man other than he was gruff and rude,
but it didn't take her all that long to find him.

Stepping out onto the roof of the building, she found him by the glow of his
cigar. He was leaning against the building, staring out into the darkness.
She walked toward him on silent feet, coming to a stop against the lip of
the roof and leaning back casually. She didn't speak and Logan didn't look
at her at all, just continued to puff away angrily on his cigar. When it
was done, he flicked it to the gravel and ground it beneath the heel of his
boot. Fishing out another, his face lit up for a moment in the darkness as
he flicked his Zippo across the end, then darkness again except for the
single red eye staring back at her.

Nori could feel the anger washing off him in waves. "I'm sorry," she
finally said softly, her voice dipping low as if she was afraid to break the
silence.

"For what?" he growled out slowly.

"For not warning you."

"About?" another growl.

"Mother's temper."

There was a long silence, then a soft, barely audible word. "Thanks."

"Your welcome." Nori returned pushing herself off the roof to head back
inside, but Logan's next words stopped her.

"What is that thing we found by the way?"

Nori sighed and settled herself back against the rooftop, crossing her arms
over her chest as she spoke. "In simple terms, Hank and I think it's a
computer chip designed to create human like thoughts." she said with a long
sigh.

"What do you mean?"

Nori sighed again and tried to think of the best way to explain it to
someone not directly in her field of expertise. "You know how a child
learns by doing? Touching, feeling, tasting? Well, the nerve endings in
our body send impulses to our brains. Our brains interpret these impulses
to mean things. Hot, cold, good, bad, right, wrong and so on. A basic set
of instructions contained within our minds that allow us to work and
function. As we grow older, our brain gains more information, more data
that we use or don't use in our lives everyday. But still we retain the
basic knowledge that we learned as a child. Such as Fire is hot, means
pain. Or ice is cold, again means pain. Does that make sense to you?"

She saw the bright red eye of his cigar go up and down and knew he was
nodding. "Well, one of the problems science has always had was getting a
good grip on that 'map', that thing that makes our brains work. In
scientific terms it's known as the Cerebral Cortex. The center of our brain
that receives sends out and translates the electrical impulse from our
nerve endings, our optical endings and so on. In computer terms
it's known as the CPU, or Central Processing Unit."

"And you think this chip, that thing is that? A CPU?" Logan asked. His
voice was still angry, but not as deep and growling as it had been.

Nori shrugged. "We're not 100% sure, but yes, in a nutshell. It's a self
contained CPU that seems to be capable of replacing the human brain." she
said softly.

"But what would someone use it for?"

Nori was about to answer when the door to the roof swung open and Hank poked
his head out. "Nori?" he called.

She pushed herself off the lip and headed toward him. "Yes?"

"Mother is on the phone. She says it's urgent."

Nori was moving in a flash, her feet pounding down the hallway and her heart
pounding within her chest. She felt a very bad wave of apprehension wash
over her as she burst into the room and scooped up the phone. "What is it
Mother?" she asked, her heart still pounding away.

Nori listened for a long, tense and silent moment. Obviously, as every face
looked up at her, Hank had finished off the briefing and they all knew they
were waiting on this call. By the time it was done though, Nori's face was
pale white and her hand shook as she gripped the receiver with white
knuckles. "I understand." she finally said softly. "Download the file."
she added before dropping the phone back to its cradle with a shaking hand.

She gulped as the file was transferred, then pulled it up to the conference
room and read it over to confirm what Mother had told her. "Oh dear god..."
she whispered slowly as her fear was confirmed.

She turned slowly toward those in the room, noticing Logan had followed
them, and spoke, her normally calm voice broken and shaking. "Mother broke
the code," she said. She had to gulp at the dryness in her mouth before
she could go on, then she continued. "She...she found the language they
used. It's a combination of things really." she began, her voice getting
stronger as the anger at her discovery flooded into her. "Ancient texts
from the Mayan civilizations, along with a dose of American Indian, and
combined finally with some more modern commands."

Hank was the first to break the silence when she didn't go on. "Well, what
will it do once activated?" he asked, not liking the way she looked at that
moment.

"We...we were wrong Hank. The chip isn't meant to create human thought.
It's meant to inhibit it. Repress it completely, trapping it within the
mindless gibberish in the program." she whispered softly, her eyes locking
with his.

"And the base coding?"

"It's a suppressant too. Designed specifically to repress...to repress
mutant abilities. To...once it's installed, the tiny filaments are
programmed to invade and attach themselves to the cerebral cortex of a
human's brain. Once...once they've completely enveloped the brain, the
cortex, the main program activates and it...it overrides that part of us
that makes us mutants. Repressing one's powers and trapping the thinking
part of the mind in the gibberish contained within the rest of the program."
she whispered out on a tortured croak.

"But our mutations are directly linked to our DNA Nori." Charles stated as
if he were unworried.

"True Professor, but our minds control our powers," she said, turning blank
eyes towards him. "And without our minds in control of them...one...one of
two things would happen." she stuttered softly. "A mutant would either go
completely mad within the gibberish...or completely primal, with no rhyme or
reasons to his or her actions, running on pure instinct..."

Charles finally caught her implications. "A world of raving mad, out of
control Mutants..." he finally whispered with sudden dawning realization.

Chapter Four - A Truce

It was almost a full week later that found Nori once again in the
lab. After the conference with the X-Men she'd set Mother to work on the
basic language of the program. She was hopeful, that her almost self-aware
home computer system would be able to find a way to remove or even
disassemble the chip.

From what she and Dr. Hank McCoy had been able to figure out so far, once
the chip and it's program was installed there was no way to remove. At
least not without killing the Mutant into which it was placed. That
was something she wasn't going to accept at all, not when it was her early
research into Artificial Intelligence that had helped to spawn the thing.

"Can that thing really do what you said?" asked a deep and gravelly voice
from behind her.

Nori sighed deeply, leaning up from the microscope and hanging her head
beside it before she answered. "In theory yes." she whispered slowly, not
bothering to turn around. Lifting her head she stared across at the far
blank wall of the lab and went on. "If Mother's translation of the basic
coding is correct anyway."

There was a long silence and she thought for a moment that Logan had left,
but then his voice reached her. "Have you slept since last week?"

Nori had to chuckle at that. After their meeting late last Friday night she
hadn't
seen him at all. Most of the crew of X-Men had departed the conference room
in silence, the implications of the chip holding their minds with a grip of
fear she'd been feeling since she'd first laid eyes on the thing herself.
She sighed deeply, pushing out the breath and rubbing her eyes. "No." she
finally said honestly. "I can't. Not until I find a way to disable this
thing," she added, bending back to the microscope and the non-functioning
version of the chip it held.

She felt him behind her a moment before he laid a large hand on her slim
shoulder. "You're no good if you collapse from exhaustion." he commented
gruffly.

"I'll be fine..." she murmured, her eyes intent on the inner workings of
the chip.

Logan snorted and she heard him clamp down on the cigar in his mouth. "Suit
yourself." he said then she heard him turn to leave, getting almost to the
door before adding, "I wasn't concerned."

Nori chuckled again. Whether he liked it or not something had passed
between them up on the roof that first night, though she was as hard pressed
as he was to say exactly what. Maybe it was the fact that she'd gone after
him and apologized. Or maybe it was the fact that he smelled a kindred
spirit in her, both loners in their own way. Or it could have been....

She was lost as to what else, so she concentrated on the chip again. She'd
ended up staring at the chip because she'd already exhausted all the other
possibilities to destroy the thing. At first she'd thought that just by
turning off the program that ran it, would work. But the designers had
prepared for that and had installed back up after back up after back up into
the inner coding of the program to keep it running indefinitely. Contained
within the basic coding, a thing they'd just cracked recently, were infinite
loops that turned and twisted upon themselves, ensuring that no matter what
one did to the program, at least the basic one would just keep going. Next
she'd tried
taking out some of those loops, but got the same result. In the simulation
she ran, with the help of Mother, for every one loop she removed, two more
took its place.

After that she'd tried just simply destroying the chip. Unfortunately, it's
designers had prepared for this and had constructed the chip itself out of
the same type of Adamantium that coated Logan's own skeleton. She'd tried
Fire, Ice, Microwaves, Electromagnetic Pulses, anything and everything
she could think of and the chip remained untouched, the outer casing not so
much as scratched.

She'd concentrated for a while on the leads coming out of and going into the
chip next. But again, the designers of the chip had prepared for this as
well and no matter what she did to the leads they remained perfectly intact.
As with the outer housing she tried fire, ice, cold, micros, and pulses, but
nothing about them changed. Not even so much as their coloring. Her
tests confirmed that these too were coated with Adamantium.

So that was where she now found herself. Staring dejectedly at the inner
workings of the chip, trying to figure out how to disable it. From what she
could tell there was no way to disconnect the power supply and definitely no
safe way to disconnect the CPU of the tiny thing. In the simulations she'd
run with Mother in the last days she knew that once it was in
place and active the little bastard literally molded and formed around the
cerebral cortex of the brain, attaching itself and becoming completely
entrenched in the brain of the host. Disconnecting the power supply didn't
work because once installed it began to run off the brains own electricity,
thus giving it a seemingly endless supply of 'juice'. As long as the host
lived, the chip would be operational.

"Logan tells me you haven't slept...." said a familiar voice from behind
her.

She heard the hover chair hiss across the floor, but again didn't bother
turning as she spoke. "I haven't Professor. This is partially my fault and
I'm not going to stop until I find a way to destroy it." she whispered
adjusting the image in the scope with a twirl of the dial.

"Nori," he said gently coming to a stop beside her and reaching out to touch
her upper arm. "Driving yourself into the ground isn't going to make the
answers come any faster."

Again Nori had to chuckle, but she finally turned away from the microscope.
"Professor, one thing I've always known about myself is that I can operate
just fine on one hour of sleep or none." she said, turning to lean back
against the lab's counter. "I've always had a very high energy level Sir."
she said though it sounded lame even to her.

"That may be so young lady, but still, even you need rest." he said wisely,
reaching out to take her hand and pull her toward the door.

"Professor please. Just leave me be. This is my fault. At least
partially, and I'm not going to give up and rest when I'm sure the answer is
staring right at me." she whispered, trying not to sound overly rude, but
pulling her hand out of his. "Can you image if one of these things was
installed into say Juggernaut? Or The Blob? Or even Magneto?" she
whispered moving to go back to work. "I've got to find the answer...before
it's too late..."

She heard Xavier sigh then ask. "Alright. So what have you found so far?"

It was Nori's turn to sigh again, her shoulders slumping as she spoke.
"That the bloody thing is indestructible." she said after a long moments
pause. "It's made from adamantium, the same type that is in Logan's body.
All the components are either made from it completely, or at the very least
coated with it, shielding it from virtually anything. The program is
designed with so many loops upon loops that it wouldn't matter what you took
out of it, it just replaces it and keeps going. The power supply and CPU
are the same way, back up upon back up upon back up." she said, leaning
heavily on the counter now. "Short of destroying the host completely, and I
mean the kind of vaporization you'd get at ground zero of a 40 megaton
nuclear weapon, this thing would be the only thing left and it'd still be
running...."

"A bit like that Energizer Bunny on TV, it just keeps going and going and
going then yes?" Charles said with a raised eyebrow and Nori broke into
laughter.

"Yes, a bit like the bunny..." Nori said when she could.

"Nori, I was serious, you do need to rest. Get some sleep and look at it
from a fresh perspective." Charles said gently when her laughter had died
away.

Nori sighed again and nodded. "You're right, but I'm so close Charles."
she whispered. "I know there's an answer. No computer genius this good in
his right mind wouldn't leave an out, a backdoor, I just have to find it is
all...."

"From the looks of this though, and from what you tell me, whomever designed
this is not in his right mind I would think..." Charles replied as he
turned the chair and started to head out of the room.

He was half way there when he heard Nori snap her fingers loudly and let out
a whoop of what sounding like joy. "THAT'S IT!" she exclaimed. "Professor
you ARE a genius." she added as she turned back to the computer station
where the simulation of the program was continually running.

Charles swung the chair back around. "Well this I knew my dear." he said
in his typical wisdom. "But if you don't mind my asking, what exactly am I
a genius about?"

Nori laughed, the sound bordering on hysterical, as her tiny fingers all but
flew over the keyboard. "You just solved the puzzle Professor," she said,
half under her breath as she typed. A few minutes later she hit the "Enter"
key with a flourish then stared at the screen with bated breath. At first
nothing happened, then the program began to slow. Bit by tiny bit the
infinite loops within the program began to stop until all that was left was
the basic inhibiting part of the program. The part that would suppress a
mutants powers.

"EUREKA!" she shouted, pounding on the counter top and making the keyboard
jump. She turned then, her long black hair flying out behind her and gave
Charles a resoundingly noisy kiss before barreling out of the lab and
bellowing at the top of her lungs. "HHHHHAAAANNNNKKKKK!!" as she turned
the corner and headed off in search of the blue furred scientist.

---------------------------------

Once more the team of X-Men were gathered in the conference room. Once
everyone was settled, Nori stood again and began to speak. "Ok," she said,
pulling up the simulation of the chip and it's active program on the
holographic projection unit in the center of the table. "As I told you last
night, this chip and its program are designed to inhibit a mutants ability
to consciously control their powers, while driving them mad with its
infinite
loops of useless information, causing them to operate purely on instinct
alone. With no conscious control over their powers the genetic basis of
their powers, or rather the primal physical instinct would take control and
the mutant would be on autopilot."

"No decision as to whom to use their powers against, no conscious thoughts
as to whom they might harm and etc. Now in some, say Juggernaut, this
wouldn't be that big of a difference from the way he is now; except for the
fact he'd never stop. Nor would anyone else be able to stop him. He'd just
keep going until he was destroyed. Plain and simple and we all know how
hard it is to destroy someone like him. The same could be said for someone
like Sabertooth, or the Blob, or Magneto. Everyone following my drift
here?"

The heads around the table nodded and Nori started up the simulation. "Ok,
good. Now, this is a simulation of the human brain." she said pointing to
the holographic image. "The red lines simulate the electrical impulses
going into the cerebral cortex, while the blue lines represent those coming
out of it. It's a bit like your heart. For it to operate normally, blood
must flow in, then flow out again, continually moving to keep you alive."
she explained and the heads nodded again.

"Ok, so now we install the chip and it's program." she said, punching a few
buttons on the keyboard. A second later the simulated chip was placed over
the cortex and started up. "Now, I've already tried just destroying the
chip, out of the brain and that's impossible. It's mostly made and or
coated with adamantium and indestructible as near as I can tell. And once
it's in place it literally forms and molds with the hosts cortex, its power
supply ceasing as it begins to be fed by the impulses in our own minds."
she said, pointing to each part as it happened. "So that leaves out taking
it 'out' of the host once it's in there. At least without killing the host
because you'd have to remove the cortex itself to get the chip."

Sure enough they all watched as the simulated chip molded itself to the
center of the holographic brain and the blue lines of outgoing impulses
quickly began to slow until they stopped all together. Only the red lines
remained, constantly flowing inwards. "I've figured out in the last days
that the red lines are becoming trapped within the chip and program, turning
over and around themselves with no way to get out. Put simply it causes
your mind to constantly loop over its own thoughts, replaying again and
again and filtering in bits and pieces of the useless information installed
in the program until you just wouldn't know which way is up and which way is
down."

"Sounds like a terrible way to go..." someone whispered and Nori nodded
slowly.

"It would be." she returned, then punched the button that would install her
own program into the one on the chip. "It was Professor Xavier that came up
with the solution though." she explained looking to the older man again.
"I had tried everything physical to disable the chip, but suddenly realized
that I didn't need too. I could make those loops work for themselves...."

They watched as the blue lines slowly began to filter back out into the
brain again after she'd installed her addition to the program. "The trick
is to convince those useless loops of information that they now have a
purpose." she said with a bright smile. When no one seemed to get it, she
sighed and explained it a bit better. "When this thing is active, it would
be a bit like being stuck in a constantly rewinding video tape. You know
how when you're watching it, it hits a point, stops for a brief second then
jumps backwards to start all over again?"

Heads nodded and she went on. "Well basically, the little line of coding I
just added, 'cleaned' that dirty spot off the tape letting it play normally
again. It was simple really, almost too simple. I just had to convince the
loops not to start over again, that they now had a place to go and something
to do. Unfortunately there were hundreds of millions of them, so it takes
awhile for all of them to finish out the course of action I just gave them,
but I figure within a couple of hours normal brain function would return."

"Along with conscious control of their mutant abilities?" Scott asked after
a moment of watching the holographic image with its blue lines become more
and more normal as the moments passed by.

"Unfortunately no. That part I haven't figured out as of yet, however,
without the chaos in their minds, the basic program acts more as an
inhibitor to having access to them. Kind of like before a mutant matures and
their powers manifest. Whatever transformations they'd undergone would
remain, but any powers that had come along with those would be null and
void."

"But they'd be able to make conscious decisions again?" Jean asked.

"Yes Jean. Near as I can tell once my addition is made to the program it
would only take a couple of hours before the mutant would be in control of
themselves again." Nori said, turning off the simulation and sitting back
at the table.

"So, how do we install your addition?" Hank asked with a puzzled frown. "I
mean if this thing is already installed...." He let the end of the question
hang and waited for her explanation.

"Well, that would depend. There's a tiny access port on the underside of
the chip. If we find the chips before they're installed, then it wouldn't
be that big of an issue. Just a matter of connecting them up to a computer
and adding the additional lines of code." Nori explained. "Effectively
rendering the chips useless to their designers."

"And if the chip is installed in the brain already?" Rogue asked with a
quiet shudder.

"Well, there it gets a bit more difficult." Nori said with a sigh. "We'd
have one of two options, once we'd captured the mutant. Brain surgery,
which is dangerous in and of itself. Or design a delivery system that we
could somehow inject into the host mutant that would go straight for the
chip."

"Now you're talking Star Trek type stuff, aren't you?" asked Jubilee with a
wide smile lighting up her eyes.

"No, not really. I know some medical firms out there that are working with
my competitors to design tiny capsules capable of carrying whatever they
need to carry. They're initial theory is to use it as a way to inject low
amounts of radioactive material into a person's system that's targeted
towards any cancerous cells they might carry. The capsule would get to a
cancerous area of the body and release it's low amount of material. An
advance to save the person from expensive chemotherapy. We could use
something like that. Only design it to think that the chip is cancerous and
take the additional lines of coding to it." She sighed softly.
"Unfortunately the design isn't perfected just yet and it's still mostly a
working theory, but worth considering."

"What about finding the chips before they're used?" Charles asked. "Scott
and Jean have been working over the last week trying to find out who owned
the facility it was found in."

Everyone at the table looked to the husband and wife team. "To be honest,
we haven't had much luck Professor. The owners are buried under a mountain
of dummy corporations and false paper trails. As near as we can tell so far
though, a group calling themselves The Society to Aid Mutant Research owned it. That could mean a good or a bad thing as we've had several of
these groups pop up in the last few years as you well know. Some are
actually there to aid Mutants, while others are just the opposite."

"Yes I know." replied Charles. "Keep working on it though, we might get
lucky."

Both Jean and Scott nodded. Logan spoke up next. "Why don't we go back
there? See if there was something we missed? I mean we didn't exactly have
a lot of time the first time we were there..."

"Good idea Logan." Charles spoke up. "You, Hank, Nori and Remy do just
that if you please, while Scott, Jean, Ororo and Jubilation work on
narrowing down the owners further."

Nori spoke up then. "Sir?" she said politely enough. "I'm...I'm not an
X-Man sir. I...if something were to happen, well, I don't know how much
help I could be. I'm not exactly a trained fighter or anything..." she
added the last on a soft, almost demure sounding whisper.

It was Logan that answered though, instead of Charles. "Just stay behind me
darlin'." he said with a gleam in his eyes. "If trouble comes a lookin' me
and the cajun'll handle it."

"Oui Mon Chere." Remy Lebeau piped in. "You jus' 'tay behin' me and da
wolf..."

--------------------------

Several days later found the four of them cruising low over the treetops of
the jungle in the X-Men's infamous Blackbird. Hank was in the pilot's seat
with Remy right next to him. She and Logan had taken up two seats behind
them. Nori was pouring over some notes on her lap while Logan snoozed in
the seat next to her. She was doing her best to ignore him.

Charles had asked, after their last meeting, that Logan work with Nori a bit
to improve her fighting skills somewhat. That's why it had taken them
several days to actually get going to the destroyed facility again. She and
Logan had spent almost 24 hours working in and around the danger room with
him showing her some various moves to defend herself if the need arose.

She hadn't bothered to tell him that she'd had some basic defense classes
over her years in Japan, because that would have been rude. Instead she
listened intently to his gruff instructions, doing as he asked of her to the
best of her ability. She hadn't been totally honest with Charles and she
felt bad about it, but truth be told, she wasn't quite ready to go
gallivanting half way around the world with the X-Men. As she'd said she
wasn't a fighter, but did have certain ways she could defend herself if push
came to shove.

But one of her powers allowed her to modify her body and if shit hit the fan
she knew that's what she'd use more than the basic moves Logan had shown
her. But she hadn't wanted to hurt the poor man's ego, so she'd listened
and learned.

"We're almost there." Hank's voice broke her out of her thoughts.

She reached over and touched Logan on the forearm gently. "Logan?" she
called out.

Logan jumped and his claws came out, but he remembered where he was quickly
enough and sheathed them a moment later. During the time they'd worked
together an unspoken non-aggression pact seemed to have developed and he now
gave her an almost sheepish smile as his claws slid back into his forearms
before leaning forward to look between Hank and Remy.

As the Blackbird touched down a moment later, and they began to disembark,
Logan muttered in a soft, gruff voice. "Member what I said darlin', if the
shit goes south, stay behind me."

Nori kept her smile to herself and gathered up her pack. Following them
into the 100-degree heat, she immediately felt wilted and sweaty, but said
nothing. They'd each chosen to wear one of the X-Men's black combat suits,
though Nori's was a touch big. She'd borrowed it from Jubilee, but it was
still a size too big. Slinging the pack over her shoulder, she followed the
three men into the thick undergrowth.

It took them almost three hours of walking, but eventually they came to a
clearing in the dense foliage. The facility was over run by the jungles
vegetation, even though it couldn't have been abandoned all that long.
Signs of a fight were easy to see. Burned concrete, broken windows, a tree
that had collapsed onto one of the smaller buildings.

A large fence surrounded the five or six visible buildings. There was one
large one, and five smaller ones that were easy enough to see. From their
earlier investigation they'd only explored the upper most floors of the
largest building, but knew from the elevator there were at least seven
floors underground that had yet to be explored. It was these seven they
were now after. Inside Nori's pack was a laptop computer, complete with a
satellite uplink to Mother. Her intent was to find the facilities main
computer and download anything that might have been left behind. Something
they originally hadn't been able to do because of lack of equipment.

The four of them were just past a broken part in the fence when Logan held
up a hand and sniffed at the small amount of wind flowing through the trees
around them. "We ain't alone..." he whispered.

The warning was too late though. From all around them, men clad in black
form-fitting suits similar to their own poured out of the buildings in front
of them and the jungles behind. Surrounding them quickly, they pointed a
variety of weapons in their direction, anxious and ready for a fight.

Nori and Logan both seemed to do a quick head count, but it was Logan that
spoke first. "Cajun, you got the 20 on the right, an' I got the 20 on the
left..." he muttered beneath his breath. Nori caught Remy nod out of the
corner of her eye and saw Hank taking a step backwards in preparation to
protect her. "Darlin' stay close..." he added almost as an after thought.

But Nori wasn't paying him any attention, neither were the men that had
surrounded them. Instead they were all looking up and up and up some more.
Logan's claws came out with their distinctive 'shink' of sound and he was
getting ready to charge the group when he noticed they weren't paying him
any attention either. Remy had about the same problem and was charging up a
handful of his favored playing cards, getting ready to throw them, when he
noted the same thing.

They both turned slightly, to look behind them and see what had distracted
the others, and it was Logan that exclaimed, "HOLY SHIT!" before leaping
out of the way just a moment before a massive, bus sized clawed foot hit the
ground.

He rolled to his feet a short distance away, then had to jump again just in
the nick of time as a long blast of hot fire rolled past him close to the
ground and began to light up the men that were about to attack them.

"WHAT IN THE HELL!!!!" he bellowed a moment before he had to jump out of
the way again as another long tongue of flame lit up a group of the men
close by.

The giant head of a black dragon floated on an even longer neck close to
where he came to his feet again and a greenish-yellow eye that was the size
of him regarded him for a moment before turning slightly and unleashing
another long blast of hot fire from its Volkswagen sized jaws. The men
behind them, shocked into stillness by the sudden appearance of the massive
beast, spurred again into action, charging en masse with a bellow. One
swipe of her tail and all but four went flying back in the direction of the
trees from whence they'd come.

Logan had to jump out of the way again as she turned her massive body and
dispatched the four behind them with a second swipe of her bus sized clawed
feet. With the group of attackers dead or dying within moments of their
initial appearance, the large beast rose up slightly on it's hind feet and
beat it's 15 foot long wings once to put out the flames it had started.

This time Logan wasn't so lucky and was knocked flat by the blast of hot
air. Muttering a long string of curses, he got to his feet and was dusting
himself off just as Nori reverted to her human form. She was quite naked
and Logan got his second shock of the day, for she was the most beautiful
creature he'd ever seen. Almost identical to his precious Mariko, small but
firm breasts, flat stomach, wide hips, long legs and even longer hair
greeted and enticed his gaze as she turned to pick up the one piece black
jump suit and slip back into it.

When it was zipped up and she'd once again slung her pack over her shoulder,
she turned and smiled demurely at the three astonished men. "Shall we go
inside gentlemen? Or do you want to stand around in this heat all day with
your mouth's hanging open?"

Logan's mouth snapped shut with an audible click and he resheathed his
claws. Remy's chuckle reached his ears then and he saw the Cajun picking
himself up off the ground and dusting himself off as well. "Mon ami, me
tink's we should 'tay behin' 'er next time..." he said moving over to clap
Logan on the shoulder.

"Funny Cajun." Logan said with a snort of a growl. "Funny."

Hank was the only one that didn't seem affected by Nori's performance.
Instead he moved up beside her and nodded. "Very impressive young lady."
he said as the two of them moved off toward the main building. "Someday you
will have to tell me all about the scientific and psychological effects of
turning into a 22 ft tall Dragon." he said with a curious nod of his blue
furred head. "I would be interested to know how much you loose or gain from
it." he added as the pair walked away.

Logan could only shake his head as Remy followed the quietly talking pair.
He stayed back for a moment, his anger causing him to grind his teeth, then
muttered darkly as he jogged off to catch up to the other three. "Stay
behind me darlin'..." he growled darkly. "That was real
impressive...idiot..." he added under his breath. He wanted to confront
her with questions just then but they'd wait until after they were done at
the facility.

None of them bothered to question where the men had come from. They weren't
really interested, other than knowing that someone else was after the chip
too. Or at the very least the facility. From the looks of them though, and
their weapons they weren't indigenous to the jungles. And they hadn't been
there very long either, because the four of them could see signs that they
hadn't made it below the first one or two levels as they explored the
facility.

They made it to the third level before they found any more of them and it
was Logan and Remy that quickly dispatched the five leftovers. Logan
almost flew into a rage, but held himself back as he dove into the soldiers
with quick and deadly efficiency. It was Hank that had a theory once the
five were done in. He picked up one of their weapons and looked it over
closely. "If I had to hazard a guess, I would have to say these men were
not here by accident." he said as he leaned over the body of one. A quick
search produced no identification and he sighed. "Definitely paid
professionals."

"Were dey expectin' us?" Remy asked.

"I doubt it. Looks like these five were searching for something. Probably
the same thing we are." Hank supplied an additional guess as he picked up
one of their packs and pulled out a small laptop. Tossing it toward Nori,
who caught it easily enough and tucked it away.

"Then let's get it and get out of here before any more show up." Nori
suggested with another of those demure looking smiles.

Logan growled but nodded.

--------------------------------

Late that night the four of them returned to the Mansion in Salem. The trip
had been largely successful with Nori able to retrieve a large amount of
information from the facilities computer banks. They didn't know what they
had just yet, but Nori had studied it on the ride back from her laptop and
her look was hopeful that they'd gained what they needed. None of them
further discussed the 40 or so men that had attempted to assault them, nor
Nori's transformation from a 5'1" human to a very large dragon, but it was
clear that it was on Logan's mind.

He didn't say more than two words to her during their exploration of the
underground levels of the facility, nor on the ride back. Even when she
tried to directly involve him in conversation, he limited his answers to
monosyllabic replies or grunts and growls. Finally Nori gave up and went
about looking through the information she'd been able to retrieve.

When they landed, Scott met them in the hanger bay. "How'd it go?" he
asked Logan who was first off the plane.

"Ask the Dragon lady." Logan replied hooking a thumb over his shoulder.
Without stopping he disappeared through the doors to the hanger without a
backward glance.

Scott turned to the other three members of the team and raised an eyebrow
above the pair of sunglasses that covered his eyes. "Dragon lady?" he
asked as Remy, Nori and Hank came down the ladder of the Blackbird.

Both Hank and Remy burst out laughing then and between guffaws managed to
explain what had happened. "I tell you Scott," Hank finished off with.
"The look on Logan's face was absolutely priceless...eyes about this big..."
he added, holding up his finger and thumb about four inches apart, "and
pure shock on his face..." he said, starting to laugh again all the harder.

"Too bad the two of you didn't have a camera. That would have been worth
it." Scott said trying not to laugh himself.

Nori had the good grace to blush a bit before moving off toward the doors
Logan had disappeared through.
She needed to get into the lab and start analyzing the data they'd
retrieved, but the transformation into something so big had taken it's toll.
Combined with the heat in the jungles, something she definitely wasn't used
to and the lack of sleep over the last week and a half, it was starting to
wear on her. She tried her best to cover a yawn as the doors swished open.

Jean was coming through just as she was about to go out and the first
question out of her mouth was, "What's wrong with Logan? I just passed him
in the hallway and he looked ready to kill..."

This of course caused the three other X-Men to fall over in another fit of
laughter and Nori heard them beginning to explain what had happened all over
again just as the doors swished shut behind her. The last thing she heard
was Remy's imitation of Logan's voice giving the order to take the 20 on the
left, then his "HOLY SHIT' about 20 seconds later.

She sighed as she walked along the lower level toward the lab again. She
knew that Mother was already working on deciphering the data, but she wanted
to help herself. For just a moment, at the door to the lab, she thought to
go after Logan and explain, but then changed her mind. She didn't owe the
man anything at all; he was the one that had offered to protect her, not the
other way around.

With a heavy sigh she turned into the lab instead and began hooking up the
laptop to the main computer and it's connection to Mother....

--------------------------------------------

"Why didn't you tell me?" Logan's voice drifted across the lab sometime
later.

"Because you never asked." Nori returned, not bothering to look up from the
screen of the laptop. "None of you did."

"You could have saved me from making a fool of myself..." he grumbled after
a long moment.

"And miss the look on your face?" was Nori's retort as she typed away on
the small keyboard. She rose then and moved off to one of the other tables
in the lab. "It's not my fault you have an ego the size of Connecticut
Logan." she added as she picked up a file and returned to the laptop. "And
just assumed because of my short stature that I'd need protecting."

"But you said you weren't a fighter..." he grumbled next.

Nori shrugged her shoulders and continued to stare at the screen. "I'm not,
but that doesn't mean I'm not well capable of taking care of myself either."
she whispered as she bent close to the screen for a moment then leaned back
up. "I am a mutant after all..." she added as her fingers flew over the
keyboard.

There was a snort for a retort, then the doors softly swished shut. When
they opened again sometime later, Nori almost shot out another reply until
she heard Charles speaking. "They tell me I should talk to you."

"About what?" Nori asked, still not looking up from the screen. "And who
is they?"

"Hank and Remy for one." Charles returned as he maneuvered the hover chair
close to where she was working. "And about the fact that you seem to have
some very interesting mutant powers."

Nori chuckled. "I have 'one' interesting mutant power Professor." she said
softly, her fingers working furiously as she tried to peel away layer after
layer of false and useless information. Like the program designed for the
chip itself, what they'd retrieved was covered in numerous layers of
misleading data. Since they'd returned to the school it was all Nori had
been able to find. "And you've heard what it is. So what is there to talk
about."

Charles laughed softly. "Yes I have heard what it is. But young lady,
Dragons aren't supposed to exist." he countered.

Nori sighed. "Professor," she said finally turning from the small laptop.
"Just because you can not see or touch something does not mean it doesn't or
didn't exist at one time." she returned. "When I was a child, on the
streets of Tokyo, I had to scrap and scrounge for everything I got. From
food to clothing to just shelter, every day was a fight for my life. But it
didn't stop me from knowing something better was out there. Something
different." she said softly. "It didn't stop me from dreaming of a better
life either. From knowing that I wasn't destined to live like that, even
though I had nothing beyond what I could see and touch."

Charles didn't say anything and Nori continued. "One day while I was
digging threw a dumpster in search of my next meal I found this book. I
couldn't even read back then," she whispered with a soft, sad chuckle, "but
it had pictures in it. Pictures of Dragons and Knights, Kings and Queens.
I found out later, after Tanaka adopted me and put me in school and I could
read, that it was a book of ancient fairy tales. But before that, I used to
curl up, wherever I could find to sleep at night, and just stare at the
pictures, wishing I could make myself into one of the pictures in my book
and fly away from my life. Go somewhere different and start all over
again."

Her jade green eyes went distant with the memories as she continued. "I
used to dream of being born different, into a different life, one that was
happy and full of nothing more than food. I don't ever remember, back then,
having a full stomach. More often than not I wouldn't be able to eat for
days and when I did eat it was rancid, disgusting leftovers that had been
thrown away carelessly by someone else." she whispered slowly. "My life
consisted of what I could steal outright, or scrounge up from someone else's
garbage. My dreams were all I had, except for my book.

"One day, one of the other street gangs caught me looking at it and began to
tease me. Taunt me with things like, "What cha' got that for? You can't
read...and so on." she said turning to give him a sad smile. "They
snatched it from me and I got angry. Really angry, and almost beat the poor
kid to death just to get it back." She sighed softly, turning to look at
the computer for a moment, then back toward him again. "I...I didn't know
it at the time but I changed that day for the first time. One of the kids
that I ran with, Songi, said I turned into something that looked like a mix
between a cat and a human. Like I wanted to change fully, but didn't quite
know how and had to settle for a mix."

Charles still didn't say anything so she went on. "I began to practice
then." she chuckled softly. "I didn't remember changing, but Songi had
never lied to me, so I believed him and just kept at it. I was thinking
that if I could change into one of the pictures in my book, any of them, I
could get away and be free."

She hadn't realized it but she was crying until the large, slow tears began
coursing down her cheeks. Brushing them away, she chuckled sadly. "I
practiced and practiced and practiced some more but never could get myself
to change again. Not too long after that Tanaka found me...and well the
rest is history as they say."

"I've been meaning to ask how you and he found each other." Charles stated
softly, almost as if he was afraid to break into her tirade for fear she
wouldn't say more.

Surprisingly enough she answered. "Not many people know about my past
Professor. Only a few within my firm that were there the day I appeared at
Tanaka's side actually." She turned and dipped her head slightly as she
continued, as if she was ashamed of it. "I wasn't always scrounging in
dumpsters. The gang of kids that took me out of that dumpster when I was a
baby were quite the consummate thieves. We looked mostly for tourists, the
usual street gang MO if you will, but pickings had been slim that week, so I
was after the richest looking man I could find.

"Japanese men, especially businessmen, tend to carry a good amount of Yen on
them for whatever reason so that's what I was looking for. Tanaka fell into
my sights, and well, let's just say I wasn't as good as I thought I was..."
she said on a soft chuckle. "He caught me with my hand in the cookie jar so
to speak and took me in. He told me later he did it because he saw the
intelligent defiance in my eyes, but I knew it was more because he wanted
children. His wife had died before giving him any and he wanted an heir to
pass his company on too."

Again her eyes went distant with the memories and she continued. "He
thought I was a boy and didn't find out until much later, after I'd had a
bath and was cleaned up, that I was a girl. By then though he'd already
fallen in love with his little street urchin and decided I could stay.
Yakamoto Electronics was relatively small back then, so it was easy enough
for him to make up whatever he wanted." She shrugged. "He told those
closest to him who I really was, but most of the company was told that I was
his brother's child come to live with him and learn the family business.
When that group moved on from the company for whatever reason, it was just
assumed I was his daughter. I was legally adopted by that point, we just
never bothered to correct anyone's thinking that he wasn't my biological
father."

"That still doesn't explain how you can transform yourself into a 22 ft long
dragon young lady." Charles interrupted softly.

Again Nori chuckled. "I was getting there..." she teased, then went on.
"When my mutations started to manifest themselves, I started out small.
Figuring out what I could become and what I couldn't. I mostly began with
house cats, dogs, lizards and the like. From there I practiced with various
types of fish, dolphins, whales and etc."

"You can become a whale as well?"

"Oh yes. Easily. Even Killer Whales. Or rather Orcas I should say. I
tried a Blue Whale once, but it was too big and took too much of a toll on
me physically when I shrunk myself back into a human." she responded with a
soft smile. "It was many years before I tried a dragon from my book, and my
first attempts were quite comical. I'd end up with a dragon's head, the
paws of a tiger or lion, and the body of a fish...or some other strange
combination..." she chuckled. "Eventually I mastered the form, just like
all the others I can do, and that's what they saw yesterday."

"My dear...I hate to tell you, but that was almost three days ago." Charles
corrected.

Nori blinked at him. "It was?"

"Yes, it was." Charles tilted his head to one side and gave her a good once
over. "When was the last time you slept? Or ate anything?"

Nori seemed to think about it for a long moment before answering. "Um...I
don't know." she admitted honestly. "Like I said before Professor, I don't
tend to need a whole lot of..." she yawned widely then. "Sleep." she
finished with a sheepish smile.

"Well I think it's time you got some before you keel over young lady."
Charles said turning the chair toward the door again. "And Nori?" he said
a moment before he headed out.

"Yes Professor?" she questioned, turning back to the computer. She still
had so much more to do and wasn't about to stop when she was just beginning
to make progress.

"That is not a suggestion."

"Yes Professor." Nori muttered to herself, but made no move to rise from
her place at the computer.

--------------------------------

Logan was still angry. It had been almost a week since they'd gone to the
jungle facility and he still wasn't over his bruised ego. Of course Nori's
flippant comments the day after they'd gotten back didn't help matters much,
only adding fuel to the fire.

Everyone at the school had been smart enough to stay out of his way though
since they'd returned. Including Jean. But it was Jean that now came
looking for him. She found him in the Danger Room, working off some of his
still present anger. Taking up a position alongside the door, she waited
until he finished his latest round of evil menaces and spoke. "Why don't
you talk to her Logan?"

"About what?" he growled softly, still angry, but keeping it as much away
from her as possible.

"About being angry with her." Jean returned bluntly.

"I'm not angry with her."

Jean stepped forward, pushing herself casually off the wall and coming to a
stop in front of him. "And you're kidding who?" she said with an all too
knowing look. "We all see the resemblance Logan, even if you don't."

"Resemblance? To who?" he growled again, pausing the computer program. He
had the safety system off and didn't want Jean to get hurt. Cuts, bruises,
and gashes were already healing on him, but Jean couldn't take the
punishment he could.

"Mariko." she stated simply.

"Jean..." he growled a warning. "Don't go somewhere you're not wanted..."

Jean shrugged lightly. "I'm not." she returned. "But you might want to
think about it yourself Logan. Maybe this is fates way of giving you a
second chance." she added on a wise tone.

"You've been hangin' out with the Professor for too long girl." Logan
groused a second time. "You're sounding more and more like him."

Jean only smiled and left him alone with his thoughts and his anger. He
started the program up again with a long growl of rage and proceeded to go
through five more levels before he all but collapsed on the floor. He'd
tried for the last week to keep the woman 'out' of his thoughts. But one
image kept coming back to him. Her...naked...with the hot sun of Brazil
coming through the trees around them and casting her in a spotlight.

Each time it came to him though he felt something he hadn't felt in too many
years. Want...desire...need...feelings he thought were long dead. Things
he'd buried in himself for many years. Jean was right, the resemblance to
Mariko was there, underlying the surface, but Nori was her own woman. Her
face was softer than the typical Japanese woman, her eyes not quite as
oblong, but more round. She had some American in her somewhere, just under
the surface, but her attitude and expressions bespoke of her Japanese
upbringing.

She was demure most of the time, speaking only when directly addressed, but
blunt and forthcoming when the need was there. And she was damn good at
what she did, he had to admit. He knew from over hearing Hank and Charles a
couple of days ago, that they'd still be working on what the chip 'was',
much less how it actually worked if it wasn't for Nori's help. She was
intelligent, with a quick wit, and a quicker tongue when she allowed herself
to use it, and part of that scared Logan. Though he'd never admit it, the
fact that she could turn herself into a 22 ft tall Dragon in the blink of an
eye 'also' scared him.

She wouldn't need him. Wouldn't want his protection. There wasn't much he
could give her anyway. If what he'd overheard lately was even close to
being true, she was even wealthier than Xavier himself, so what could he
give her that she didn't already have, or could easily get. What bothered
him yet again was that she didn't 'flaunt' who she was. It had been his
experience in life, that wealthy people of her caliber and stature took
immense pleasure and in rubbing everyone's nose in it.

But not Nori. If he hadn't over heard the conversation between Charles and
Hank a couple of days before he'd have never known that she could easily
purchase her own country and never put a dent into her personal funds. He'd
been walking by Charles' office, when two distinct voices came to his
sensitive ears.

"How is it you know Ms. Yakamoto?" Hank was asking.

Charles chuckled in response. "I didn't before last week. At least not
personally, but her company has been making regular donations to the school
for years."

"Donations?"

"Oh yes. If I had to roughly guess, I would estimate the amount to be
somewhere around 10 million or so over the last five or six years." Charles
had informed the scientist.

"Her company paid for the labs and the Blackbird didn't they?" Hank had
returned.

"Not quite, but the funds certainly helped." Charles had countered around a
long chuckle. "Truth be told I would not be able to keep this school going
on my own. I am well off as you know, but it is donations from companies
like Nori's that really keep this place going."

Logan had moved away then, his thoughts in turmoil. 10 Million in five
years...he'd whistled softly. He'd done some digging on his own after that
and found out a lot about the woman. Her life was an open book really, with
plenty of information to be found. Corporate reports, Portfolio,
Prospectus' about the company were all easily attained via the Internet. Of
course all of it was impersonal, where she'd gone to college, where she'd
gone to high school, things of that nature, but still it was more than
enough to convince him she'd never want anything to do with him.

At least not the way 'he' was starting to want. All these things went
through his mind as he lay in the center of the floor, staring up at the
ceiling. Maybe it was time he got over himself and got to know her a bit
better, though the thought grated on his nerves a bit. He sat up with a
growl and tried once more to wipe the image of her naked from his mind.

It didn't work too well so instead he sat there, leaning back on his hands
and reveled in it with a long sigh. Closing his eyes slowly, he allowed the
image to go a step further, to them in his bed...her laid out on his covers
naked as the day she was born and smiling up at him as Mariko used to do
when they made love...

He shook himself and growled again. Nori was 'not' Mariko and he needed to
remember that. Even though they looked a lot alike they were two vastly
different women. With another strange sounding sigh he got up off the floor
and headed off in search of her. She'd been right, he realized somewhere
along the way to the labs. He hadn't asked about her, about what she could
do, and only assumed she was just a computer geek unable to handle herself.

He paused for a moment at the door to the lab, and then plunged ahead in
typical Logan style. He had to get her out of his system once and for all.
One way or the other. Pushing the button to open the door, he began
speaking before he was fully inside. "Listen I just wanted to..." but the
words died in his throat as he spotted her.

She was curled up on one of the tables in the lab. Her head was pillowed on
her arms and her legs were curled up to her stomach, looking for all the
world like a cat as her chest rose and fell softly in her sleep. He could
only stand there, staring across the lab at her; mouth once more hanging
open and he realized how much he did indeed want her. It was a hard pill to
swallow for sure because he hadn't allowed himself to feel that way about
anyone aside from Jean for a long time. Of course with Jean it was vastly
different because they both knew they'd never be anything other than
friends. Jean was deeply in love with Scott, had married him even, and was
now the forbidden fruit.

But Nori wasn't. By any means. Of course it didn't mean she'd have
anything to do with him, but he felt an overwhelming urge to try. For once,
hoping that maybe, it wouldn't get shoved back in his face...again. Moving
over to the table now though, he scooped her up into his arms with a
gentleness that surprised even him. She shifted and he thought he'd woke
her up, but she settled easily enough and her breathing returned to normal
within moments.

For just a moment he was tempted to touch her more than he was, but she
curled into his arms even more and tucked her face against his neck and he
dismissed the idea. He couldn't do that, even as much as he wanted too, so
he simply turned and headed up to one of the empty rooms in the school.
Most of the students were off on a month long break between classes,
visiting family and friends, and those few left behind didn't bother them as
he made his way to the upper levels.

Choosing a room that was close to his somehow made him feel better as he
laid her on the empty bed. Unbelievably she was still wearing the jumpsuit
they'd gone to the jungles in and he knew that she hadn't left the lab since
they'd gotten back. No wonder she'd curled up on one of the tables, he
mused with an uncharacteristic soft smile as he laid her down on the covers.
He was trying to slide his arms out from underneath her, when she let out a
soft, almost child like whimper. He stilled immediately and looked at her
face.

Her eyes moved underneath her lids rapidly and he knew she was caught in a
dream of some sort. She whimpered a second time, this one full of pain, and
he spoke. "Shhhhh now...it's alright." he whispered, still trying to pull
his arms from beneath her.

She rolled over, away from him with a third whimper and latched onto his
forearm with her tiny hands. With a strength that surprised even him, she
clutched at him, crushing his muscles in her grip as she whimpered yet
again. Reflexively his claws shot out of the back of his hand though he
couldn't feel it through the bruising grip of her small fingers.

Disentangling his other arm from her legs he began to stroke her hair
gently. "Nori?" he called out softly, his fingers calm and sure as he felt
the long strands of her hair. It was soft and pliable, giving and yielding
to his touch as he spoke again. "Nori honey, easy now, it's ok," he
whispered a second time. "Shhhh, come on honey, let go of my arm..."

He knew he'd be bruised and his fingers were already asleep from her
crushing grip, but eventually it eased up though she didn't let go
completely. Her eyes still moved under her lids and he knew she was still
caught in the dream. He didn't want to wake her because he knew she was
exhausted, or at least he guessed she was from her presence still in the
lab.

He tried again though. "Nori, let go of my arm..." he whispered, again
with a gentleness that surprised even him. Her strength was unreal and he
felt something twist in his gut because no one had ever been able to bruise
him like that. He squatted down next to the bed and continued to stroke her
head whispering soft words and hoping to ease her out of the dream. At
least enough that he could get her to let go and he could leave her alone to
sleep.

As he talked to her, her fingers eased up a bit more and he tried to slide
his arm out from under her. This only caused her fingers to tighten down
again, keeping his arm firmly pinned beneath her. After fifteen minutes of
grip, loose, grip, loose, he gave it up. Lifting her again and moving her
further into the center of the bed, he stretched out behind her on his back
with a long sigh.

"Ain't this just grand..." he muttered to himself, but there was no anger in
his tone at all as a soft smile played over his lips.

------------------------------------

When he woke next there was an unfamiliar warmth next to him. Blinking open
his eyes everything came rushing back to him in a flood. Nori...asleep...in
the lab...carrying her upstairs...arm pinned beneath her... the crushing
grip of her fingers...all of it. Looking down he found a pair of jade
green eyes staring up at him. Sometime while they'd slept she'd rolled over
and curled into his side and was now fully awake and looking very rested.
And very angry.

"I'm going to assume since we're both fully dressed that there is a
perfectly logical explanation for this?" she asked in a somewhat calm tone
though there was a heavy tremor of something else in her voice.

"You wouldn't let go of my arm." Logan explained simply, shrugging his
shoulders.

Nori sat up then, managing to elbow him hard in the ribs as she went. He
had the good grace to grunt as if she'd hurt him then rub the spot. "Well
it's true." he said a second time, sitting up himself to explain. "I found
you, in the lab, curled up on the table sound asleep, so I brought you up
here. When I tried to leave, you rolled over and put this death grip on my
arm and wouldn't let go." It was more than he'd said to anyone in the last
week and it surprised him. He pulled back the sleeve of his shirt and held
out his forearm for her inspection. Just underneath his skin was a dark,
black and yellow bruise. Most of it had healed while they slept, but there
was still some discoloration to the skin, testifying as to how hard she'd
gripped him.

Nori looked at the skin then turned to him, her eyes wide with shock.
"Logan...I am so sorry..." she whispered as tears formed on her bottom
lids. "I...I didn't mean..."

"Hey...now come on. It didn't hurt...much..." he said trying to comfort
her. One thing he'd never been able to stand was a female's tears. It was
his one weakness.

She tried to blink them away, to her credit, but one managed to slip free of
her lashes and course a path down her smooth cheek. "I'm sorry..." she
whispered again. Leaping over his lap she was off the bed and bolting out
the door in the blink of an eye.

Logan tried to reach out and grab her, but she was much faster than she
looked and was gone before he could. The door slammed open and against the
wall with a loud bang and she was flying down the hallway as he was rising
off the bed. "NORI!" he shouted but she was gone.

He sat back on the bed with a disheartened growl. "THAT went well..." he
berated himself on another growl. "It didn't hurt...much..." he said
imitating himself. "What an idiot I am..." he muttered, though he'd be
loath to admit it to anyone else.

----------------------------------------

He felt the rush of air from her wings long before he saw her coming in for
a landing on the rooftop. She was in the Dragon form and he had time now to
admire her for it instead of being worried about getting stepped on. She
was beautiful, graceful, her dark scales glittering like diamonds in the
night sky as she circled around to gain the angle she needed to land. Her
long wings sailed up and down with a grace all their own as she came in.

At first he thought she would just land on the roof as is, but realized she
couldn't. Her size, combined with her weight would put her right threw the
roof and several floors below. Not to mention the roof itself wasn't long
enough or wide enough to accommodate 22 ft of scaly flesh. He wondered what
she would do and found out a moment later. Right before she would have
touched down with her bus sized feet; she shrunk herself back into human
form and gracefully stepped down onto the rooftop.

As before she was quite naked and he saw her move over to the roof's lip and
pick up her jumpsuit. She was just sliding it over her hips when he spoke
softly from the shadows. "What's it like?" he asked slowly and calmly
scared that he'd frighten her.

She seemed un-phased though and answered in a calm tone of her own. "What's
what like?" she returned as she pulled the suit over her slim shoulders.

"Being a Dragon..."

Nori sighed softly. Zipping up the suit she leaned against the roof's lip
and stared out into the night for a long while before she answered.
"It's...it's hard to explain." she said in a barely audible voice.

"Try me..." Logan said just as softly moving to stand beside her.

"It's...it's a bit like...well it's a bit like being ancient. When I
change..." she paused and he saw her look at him out of the corner of her
eye. "When I change, I feel older than time itself." she said around a
long sigh. "Like I've always been able to do this, be this thing, like it's
a part of me."

Logan frowned in the darkness. "I'm not sure what you mean..."

Nori turned toward him then and smiled softly in his direction. "When I
first found I could change like that I did some research into the mythology
of Dragons. I don't think they were myths at all, but real beings that
inhabited this planet long before we did...or long before even the
dinosaurs. Even then they were ancient, but that's an aside really. From
what I've been able to dig up over the years, it's theorized that Dragons
believed in reincarnation. That they never really died per se, were just
reborn into something else. They supposedly lived for thousands of years
before they aged to the point of just falling asleep and never waking up
again, their bodies turning to dust to fertilize the earth." She laughed
softly. "I know how silly that sounds, but it's what I've been able to dig
up. They believed their soul moves on to another being and that that being
has the choice to either recognize what they truly are, or not."

"Do you believe you have the soul of dragon then?" Logan asked when she was
silent for a long while.

Nori shrugged. "I honestly don't know Logan." she replied turning back to
stare out over the silent grounds of the school. It was well after midnight
and it felt like they were the only two beings in the world just then.
"Maybe, maybe not." she finally amended softly. "I never knew my mother
Logan, or my real father, though when I first came here Charles helped me to
unblock a part of my memory as to who he was. I know now that that's where
part of my power comes from, but the form of the dragon I can only assume
comes from her. At least the mastery of it anyway. There's only been one
other mutant that's ever been able to form himself into a real dragon. Some
shifters out there can take on the illusion of one, but it doesn't work the
same way I've heard."

"The Jade Dragon." Logan supplied.

"That'd be the one." Nori agreed. "He's the only other mutant on record
that can become a functioning, real dragon."

"How many different forms can you take?" Logan asked after a while.

"I've lost count to be honest. But I tend to favor the dragon, or a large
cat if I'm in small quarters. Tigers and Lions mostly." she supplied in a
quiet tone. "Or a whale when I want to go swimming."

"Do you remember who you are? When you change?" he asked next after a
companionable silence had fallen between them.

"Oh yes. I remember everything. Who I am, where I come from, how I was
raised and so on. I don't loose anything of myself, my intelligence or
anything like that. I'm still the same on the inside, just not the
outside." she said around a chuckle. "I can't talk though, so
communication is difficult. If I'm a dog, my words come out as barks, a
cat...I growl and hiss...or purr...A lion or tiger is the same thing. Even
as a dragon my speech is limited to what they make. Grunts, groans and
growls."

"But yet you can breath fire." Logan said and Nori felt more than saw the
shudder that passed over him.

"Yes, I can. Very effective and very real fire as you saw." she whispered.
"I wouldn't have stepped on you by the way."

Logan laughed at that. "I could have been faster." he amended. "Getting
out of the way that is."

Nori joined him with an easy laugh of her own. "I guess I could have warned
you."

"That would have been nice." Logan bantered back with a soft growl, but it
belied the smile that touched his lips. It had been a long time since he'd
had such an easy and open conversation with anyone that he didn't want it to
end. "Listen, are you hungry?"

Nori turned to him and he saw something glitter in her eyes as she looked up
at him. "Absolutely famished." she whispered. "One of the drawbacks...I
could eat a horse right about now." she admitted honestly.

"What say we raid the kitchen then." Logan offered with the first friendly
type smile he'd shown to anyone in a long time.

"Only if you cook." Nori stated honestly. "Despite my rather traditional
upbringing I never learned."

"Well that cuts out the kitchen doesn't it." Logan said then fell silent
for a moment. "There's a 24 hour diner in town though that serves some
excellent burgers."

"Deal. Let me shower and change first though...I've got to smell
horrendous right about now." she said flippantly.

Logan didn't bother to acknowledge or deny her statement but called out
after her as she headed off the roof. "Meet me in the garage. 30 minutes."

She merely waved a hand over her shoulder and disappeared down the stairs
without looking back. Logan stayed on the roof and for once didn't feel the
need for a cigar. He actually felt at peace, somewhat anyway. She hadn't
mentioned waking up with him at all, but instead answered his questions
honestly, without holding back or hiding anything. Nor did she seem
intimidated by him, which was more than unusual in and of itself. Of course
she didn't have reason to be really. Being able to change into that dragon
form would certainly make him fear little. Not that he feared much anyway,
but that kind of power, that kind of size...well hell, it was no wonder she
wasn't worried about being around him.

She 'could' take care of herself. Again his statement about staying behind
her drifted to his mind and he actually had to laugh. No wonder she hadn't
responded when he'd made it. He almost kicked himself for being a fool
again, but didn't. Their conversation on the roof had more than soothed his
ego as he found out that she wasn't ramming it down his throat, it was just
the way she was. If not asked a direct question, she didn't see a need to
be very informative about anything.

He couldn't blame her; he was much the same himself. ~Never volunteer...~
he mused on another chuckling growl. Something he'd learned in the black
ops. It had saved his life more than once, sticking to that motto.

With a jerk he realized he was going to be late meeting her and barreled
down to the garage to find her waiting. At some point she'd had some
clothes sent over, or someone had gone to her apartment and gotten some
because she was dressed much the same as him. A soft, well worn looking
pair of jeans, oversized flannel shirt and hiking boots. It was quite a
change from the three-piece business suit he'd first seen her in, then the
jumpsuit they wore on missions. The outfit made her look like an all-
together different woman. Soft and comfortable. Not stern and unyielding,
the calm and confident business woman that had first told them about the
chip and it's purpose.

She smiled widely and spoke as he came toward the jeep. "You're late." she
said, keeping up the easy banter they'd adopted on the roof.

"Lost in thought." he shot back with none of his usual gruffness. "How'd
you know this was mine?" he asked as he unlocked the doors, opening hers
first then going around to get in himself.

"Logical deduction. You look like the jeep type." she continued to tease.

He snorted, but didn't bother to deny it. He 'was' the jeep type. "You
look...different," he said by way of passing compliment as he pulled out of
the garage and headed into town.

"Why Logan. If I didn't know better," she said without turning to look at
him, "I'd swear you were trying to give me a compliment."

"You read minds as well?"

Nori laughed at that. An open and honest sound he hadn't heard in a very
long time. She wasn't laughing at his expense, but more because she found
what he said funny. "No...nothing like that at all. Again logical
deduction."

He turned slightly and raised an eyebrow at her in question. She reached
across the space between them and put a soft hand on his forearm. "You'll
find that us computer geeks tend to think in black and white, ones and
zeros, ons and offs..." she said by way of explanation. When he didn't get
it, she went further. "We see the world in a different way."

"That's for sure." he muttered softly.

Again Nori laughed outright then continued with her explanation. "When you
said I look different, I deduced that you were paying me a compliment in
your own way because you've never mentioned my appearance before. See on or
off. One way or the other."

Despite himself, Logan could actually see the logic in her statement and
again he felt that twang of fear in his gut. They were getting too close,
too quickly and a part of him wanted to run, run far and away from her. In
less time than it took Mariko to win his affections, she was already worming
into his mind and heart. Well, she was 'already' in his mind, but now she
was working on his heart as well. The worst part was he didn't even think
she knew it.

The rest of the ride into town was spent in contemplative, but companionable
silence. Neither of them felt the need to speak, preferring instead to just
go with the flow right about then. When he pulled the jeep into the half
empty lot of the diner he turned in the seat to look at her. "Nori?" he
said.

Her hand was on the door handle, getting ready to open it, but she paused.
"Yes Logan?" she returned, her head tilted slightly as she looked at him.

He paused, opening and shutting his mouth several times before he could
speak. She didn't say anything, didn't push him, letting him say what he
was going to say in his own way and in his own time. "I just wanted you to
know..." Again he paused and again she didn't push. "That I was sorry."

Her head tilted a bit more and she frowned softly. "For what Logan?" she
asked.

"For the way I acted before. When...well, you know when we got back." he
rushed out, pushing the words out before he could change his mind and not
say them. She didn't deserve his angry reaction to her mutant powers
because she'd never really hidden them from him or anyone else.

Nori leaned in toward him and did something that surprised them both. She
hugged him. Wrapping her slim but surprisingly strong arms around his neck
she scooted across the seat and almost into his lap. He wanted her in his
lap and in typical Logan style pulled her across the rest of the way without
a word. She didn't need to say anything at all, just kept her arms around
his neck for a long time. Finally she shifted around and sat back against
his door, his arm once more pinned beneath her.

She smiled up at him, her head laid casually back against the window and her
eyes glowed teasingly as she finally spoke. "That was hard for you wasn't
it." It was a statement, not a question, and again Logan felt that twang.
Too close, too fast, but he stomped it back because just then he really
didn't care.

Logan only smiled, an honest full smile, and leaned down to kiss her
forehead softly as he whispered. "You have no idea..."

Nori chuckled her chest rising and falling softly as she spoke her next
statement. "Does this place have a drive-thru?"

"Sure does. Why?"

She leaned up then and pulled his face down to stare into his eyes for a
long moment. "Because I really do 'not' want to share this moment right
now." she whispered. "Or you...with anyone else...."

"Neither do I..." Logan found himself whispering honestly a moment before
he reached out to start the jeep again.

Fifteen minutes later they were driving past the gates of the school again,
heading up into the woods beyond it. Nori was still on his lap, neither one
of them seeming to want her to move just yet, with a bag full of burgers and
fries on the seat by her feet. Again neither of them spoke, having fallen
into that scary companionable silence. Logan turned off on a side road, the
lights of the jeep and the large trees giving the impression again that they
were the only two beings on the planet just then. Eventually he rolled the
jeep to a stop next to a large lake. It was a place he'd found on one of
his many angry treks of loneliness and he'd never spoken of it to anyone.

But it felt right to bring her here. Felt perfect, almost too perfect, but
he dismissed the thoughts before they could take hold as they clamored
laughingly out of the jeep a moment later. Logan routed around in the back
until he found a lantern and a blanket. Spreading out one, he lit the other
then smiled at her. "Be right back..." he said then disappeared off into
the trees around the lake at a gentle lope.

He wasn't gone long and returned within five minutes with an arm full of
wood he kept stashed nearby the tree line for those times he came up here at
night. Piling it up in the pit he'd dug long ago it didn't take long for
the fire to catch to the dried wood and he was settling back on the blanket
just as Nori was digging into her third burger.

Logan looked from her to the two previously full wrappers then laughed long
and hard. Nori gulped back her mouthful and punched him in the arm.
"What?" she asked innocently. "I told you I was hungry."

This only made Logan laugh all the harder and when he finally calmed, he
realized she'd finished off the third and was working on a fourth before he
could speak. "I'm sorry...I'm just not used to seeing a woman eat like
that."

"High metabolism." she said around another mouthful, which she washed down
with the beer they'd picked up along the way.

Logan smiled widely at her, his eyes twinkling in the firelight. "I like
it..." he teased softly, popping the top on a beer and pulling out a burger
of his own. "Guess I'd better grab one before you do huh?" he teased
again.

Nori didn't say anything but punched him in the arm instead. Logan had the
grace to wince slightly as he took a bite of the burger.

"You know, where I come from it's not polite to comment on a ladies eating
habits." she said when she'd washed the burger down with a long draw from
the bottle of beer. She let out a manly sounding burp a moment later and
Logan nearly choked on the bite he was chewing.

He managed to swallow then spoke. "Don't tell me you rip loose like that in
the boardroom?" he asked his mouth hanging open slightly.

Nori paused, the beer halfway to her lips again as she thought of the faces
of her executives if she was too let go like that during a monthly meeting.
She smiled sheepishly, casting her eyes down for a moment, but her smile
soon turned to a wide grin as she spoke. "President's daughter or not I'm
afraid they'd probably have me committed if I did...so I'd have to say
no..." she chuckled which turned into a full blown laugh a moment later.

Logan joined her, both of them laying back on the blanket and laughing
hysterically for a long while. It felt so good to just laugh over something
silly, to both of them, and when they calmed down they found themselves
staring at the stars high above them, occasionally letting a chuckle burst
forth.

"Logan?" Nori finally asked softly, as if she was afraid to break the
silence.

"Hmmmm?"

"Do you ever get scared?"

Logan sat up with a jerk to look at her, but she was staring up at the
stars. Eventually he relaxed back onto his elbows and stared out across the
lake. He didn't answer for a long while and Nori didn't think he was going
too, but then he spoke quietly. "Yeah...sometimes." he admitted honestly.

"When?" she asked when he didn't volunteer anything else.

Logan sighed. At first he wanted to clam up, wanted to get angry for her
intrusion, but something stopped him. For the first time in a very long
time it just felt right to open up to someone. Just as it had felt right to
bring her to the lake, it felt right to talk to her about things he hadn't
ever talked about with anyone. Even Mariko. "When I wake up in the middle
of the night...alone..." he said quietly not looking at her. He sat up
then, crossing his legs beneath him and picking up a twig from the stack of
wood. He twirled it in his fingers for a long while before he said anything
else.

"I've never told anyone, but...but I dream a lot. About...about my time
in...in Canada." he said slowly as if trying to find the right words.
"About what they did to me. About what...what I am, what I've become." he
admitted. "And it scares me sometimes...when I wake up alone...sweating,
not knowing where I am at first." he whispered his eyes dropping to stare into the fire. "Because I think I'm still there...especially when it's
really dark outside and I can't see the shapes in my room at first..."

"Then the smell of the school reaches me...and I'm ok again because
everything comes rushing back...but it's those first moments...that scare
me." he said, his voice whisper soft.

Nori sat up and moved over next to him. Linking her arm through his and
laying her head on his shoulder she spoke as well, her own voice as whisper
soft as his. "I get scared too." she admitted as she stared into the fire.

"Of?" he couldn't help but ask.

"As silly as it's going to sound, disappointing my father." she said after
a long moment of silence. "My adoptive father that is. That I won't hold
up in his eyes. That I won't meet with his strict expectations. That if he
ever finds out what I am..." she said, but didn't finish the sentence.

"He doesn't know what you can do, does he?"

She shook her head against his shoulder. "I think he suspects, but he's
never said anything. Oh, don't get me wrong, he loves me, and I think he'd
love me regardless."

"Does he know about the donations?" Logan asked after a moment. "To the
school I mean."

"Yes." she replied softly. "He asked me about them just last year." she
added with a soft chuckle. "He wanted to know why I'd taken my share of the
yearly profits and given it to the school."

"Your share?" Logan asked around a hard gulp. He'd already done the
calculations in his head after overhearing Charles and Hank and knew it was
almost two million dollars. "How much does your company make in a year?"

Nori chuckled softly but didn't answer. "It would scare you I think." she
finally said. "So I won't tell you, but let's just say that everyone in the
company gets an equal share of the profits at the end of the year. Right
down to the janitors." she whispered.

Again Logan had to wonder what in the world she would want to do with him.
"Nori..." he whispered on a soft breath of air. He had to gulp again, he
couldn't...he didn't want to ask the question on his lips and in his mind,
but didn't feel it would be right not to. So he did. "Nori." he said
again. He lifted her into his lap again so he could look at her.
"Statements like that make me realize...that...that there's nothing I have
that you...you would want."

Nori chuckled softly and leaned up to give him a chaste kiss on the lips.
"Logan." she said and her tone was honest and forthright. "Who said I
wanted anything from you other than the pleasure of your company."

"I have a temper..." he said softly, their lips inches apart.

"I know..." she whispered back, not moving away.

"A bad one." he stated with a soft frown.

"I know." she replied again, still making no move away from him, her eyes
twinkling with something he couldn't put his finger on.

"A really bad one..." he said a third time, trying to impress upon her how
bad it was.

"Logan." she stated firmly.

"Yes?"

"Shut up and kiss me."

With a long groan of need...he did just that.