Once again, Remy found himself waking up with no memory of how he had come to be in his present situation. It felt as if he had jumped forward in time; a flash and he found himself in completely different surroundings. He could feel bright light bearing down on him, shining red through his closed eyelids. He could hear a low steady thrum of mechanical equipment and behind that, a familiar chirping sound. His head rolled to the right, away from the light, a wave of pain-induced nausea sweeping over him. His head, which was lying on a smooth hard surface, was pounding. He could feel a knot of pain at the back of his skull, a new source of pain in his left cheek. Surely, two blows to the head in the last twenty-four hours was not a good thing. So, he reasoned, he must have been knocked unconscious. He would have to piece that bit together later, because the first order of business was figuring out just where the hell he was.

His eyes slit open. Blinking through tears, his surroundings swam into focus. He was under a blindingly bright light. Beyond the glow, shapes were cast in sharp contrast, all black and white in the wash of sterile light. Remy saw he was lying on a metal table, his mobility limited. With a pang of fright, he realized he was bound, and not only that, he was bound with medical-grade restraints. Heavy Kevlar straps held his arms to a thick belt around his waist, another pair pinned his legs to the table. A harness around his shoulders kept him from rolling from the tabletop. It was a restraining device he was unfortunately familiar with, the kind used to restrain uncooperative hospital patients. The straps were cinched together with magnetized locks. The hum he was hearing came from nearby equipment, which, guessing from the vital signs tracking across the various arrays, appeared as something from a med lab. Remy swallowed his rising panic, closed his eyes, and turned his head to the other side.

When he reopened his eyes, he had another alarming revelation. There was a second table beside his own, likewise occupied. It came as a terrible shock to see Lucas Bishop lying still on the tabletop, his body covered with a sheet up to his shoulders. His face was unnaturally pale in the harsh light, casting deep shadows under his eyes, giving him a cadaver-like appearance. Remy inhaled sharply and nearly called out to Bishop, belatedly stifling his cry. He tested his restraints, rocked slightly on the table. He knew from experience he would not be escaping these bindings without help.

Remy could see other sheet-draped tables by angling his head towards his feet. Above him hung several bright fluorescent lights, and beyond that, plastic sheeting draped like the interior of a tent. From the dampness in the air and scent of mold, he thought himself to be underground. His ears strained, searching for more clues. Again, he heard the irregular chirping.

Crickets, he placed the sound now. Lots of crickets.

The memory of Lucas telling him: You have a cricket in your pocket.

Recalling the image of a cardboard egg carton exploding in his hands, crickets flying in all directions.

Insects fleeing into floor registers.

A giant friggin lizard: Lockheed.

Katherine's hard gaze.

The barrel of a gun.

His memories came back in a rush, filling in the blanks. With a chill, he realized he was in the basement of The Graymalkin.

~oOo~

He was thrown to the floor, a gun pointed in his direction. The woman formerly known as Katherine changed before his very eyes, her brown eyes burning amber-gold, her curly hair straightening and turning from brown to red. It was a mind-boggling trick, the subtle shift, fooling his brain into believing this was how Katherine had always appeared.

"We need to talk," the woman said. She was the same red-headed agent who had questioned him in the holding cell back in New Mexico.

His head reeling, Remy attempted to sit upright, shoulder screaming in pain. He clutched it with his opposite arm and groaned. "You? Y-you're Katherine?" he managed, stunned. "What? How?"

The woman crouched beside him, wrists on her knees, weapon dangling casually in her grip. His eyes raised from the pistol to the woman's eyes. "It appears you need it spelled out for you, LeBeau. I am not Katherine."

Remy's eyes widened with alarm. "What did you do with her?" he asked. "Where is she?"

The woman shook her head from side to side, red hair swinging. "I haven't got a clue," she responded. "Katherine's computerized extracurriculars had her on my radar for some time, but they abruptly ceased a week ago. Her disappearance is a welcome coincidence. I was able to assume her place."

"But how are you—," Remy stopped himself, understanding dawning on him. "You're one of the powered people. You can change your face."

The woman smiled grimly at him. "You're catching up," she told him and then suddenly pressed the barrel end of the gun to his forehead. "Now. Where are the files, LeBeau?"

He shook his head slightly, mouth opening to respond. She cut him off. "No lies."

"I don't have them," he told her.

"None of your half-truths either. So you don't have them with you. I'm asking you where they are," she said with extreme restraint.

"You're the one who trashed my apartment," Remy concluded. "You know I don't have them. Did you drug me, too? Did you put on Doctor Cece's face and trick me into taking those pills?"

"I did no such thing," she snapped. "I'd have killed you outright if—," she shook her head, dismissing her thought. "Did you sell us all out to your handler, then? Did you give the files to him?" she demanded. From her blazer she produced a crumpled and folded bit of paper, glossy like a magazine cover. Remy saw it was a book jacket. She held the paper inches from his face. With eyes slightly crossed, Remy could blurrily see the author of Engineering the X-Gene pictured there: Nathaniel Milbury.

With forced calm, Remy responded slowly and clearly: "I have never seen that man before in my life."

"You lie," she hissed. "I know he commissioned you to steal his research from those labs. You said it yourself, he felt the research belonged to him and him alone."

"I also told you I only spoke with the man in writing," Remy responded heatedly. "It gave me the impression he was real old, or old-fashioned anyway."

"What are you doing here then, LeBeau, if not spying, collecting victims for him! And what are you doing with Anna-Marie?" The woman's expression was a hardened mask, rage added a tremor to her voice.

Remy's eyes searched her face, feeling a cold sense of dread settle over him. This woman knew Rogue's real name. "How do you know Anna-Marie?" he asked quietly. "Are you the one she's hiding from?" His eyes widened with realization. "You're one of the government creeps from the conference. You were gonna put her in prison like you'd a done me!"

Her sneer was cruel. "You're so, so close," she said condescendingly.

Remy lurched forward but froze when she trained the gun at his chest.

"I wouldn't have put you in prison," she told him. "You would have been killed on your way to the facility. A tragic traffic accident in the mountains. It would be too risky to have you fall into their hands—benefit the program in some way. No, you were better off dead. Just as soon as I had those files. But then you disappeared. How did you escape? How?"

Remy answered: "The way I do everything, with a lotta plain dumb luck."

The look she gave him was homicidal.

"A mysterious benefactor stepped in on my behalf. My knight in shining armor. Or a silver double-breasted suit, anyway," Remy elaborated, his mind spinning. What did she mean 'the program'? She was one of the government operatives, wasn't she? But no, this woman was a professional imposter. Maybe she was just posing as a government agent. "You'd think the cut'd make him look like a 1930s-era gangster, but he pulled it off, I gotta admit." He could give this woman a reason to leave, send her on a wild-goose chase. And at the same time, he could throw his former boss under the proverbial bus, and let this psycho perform vehicular homicide on the guy. He added suggestively: "You know…he was interested in those patient files, too."

The woman threw herself at him, knocking Remy flat to the floor. "You little rat-bastard! Who is he? Who did you sell them to?"

"What d'you want them for!" he tried to shout at her, grimacing as the gun dug into the underside of his chin. "If y'ain't with the government? What good'll they do you, anyway?" His eyes strained in her direction. "But you're one of the patients, then, ain't you? You're in that experiment, Black Womb!"

Some unexpressed emotion flickered over her face and he felt her give a small quake from where she straddled him. "Milbury stole something from me, years ago," she said through her teeth. "And after he took what he took—he gave me something no one would want. I birthed a monster. A deformed creature. I will see that Milbury never has his work, and neither will the Program."

He had moved beyond being frightened for his life, to a burgeoning anger that swelled in his chest. He could easily imagine what life must have been like for the monster she had given birth to. "The Program?" Remy prompted. "This the one roundin' up powered people? Wouldn't want them gettin' those files either, findin' out about what you are then, enh? Is that who all's after Anna-Marie?"

"Anna told you about the SRP?" the red-head appraised him consideringly. "You believe they're pursuing her? No. They would never suspect her as one of the powered…if she were working for them. If she were on the inside, working with them."

Remy stared at the woman. "Like you."

The woman pressed her lips together in a thin smile. Agreement, then.

"Who are you to Anna-Marie?" he asked, feeling the bitter sensation of anger rushing up his throat like bile. "That she'd run away from you?"

"She would never run from me," the woman sneered. "She's my daughter."

It came as an unpleasant shock. How could beautiful, compassionate, feisty Rogue be related to this cold-hearted woman? Through numb lips, Remy asked: "And you'd use her to be your spy? You'd send her right into the lions' den?" He could feel his eyes burning bright.

"You sound as if you really care," she told him coolly, "but I doubt you are capable."

She seized him by his injured shoulder and bore down on the injury. Remy snarled out a shout of pain. Gripping him by the shoulder with one hand, she drew back the other and cracked the gun's grip across his face. It connected with his cheekbone and his head whipped to the side. He gasped with shock at the sudden pain and the white flash behind his eyes. She was rearing back to strike him again, snarling: Where are the files, once more when his free hand snapped out and closed upon her wrist.

"Throw it—!" Remy growled through gritted teeth. "Throw it away!"

She was about to respond when her eyes darted to the side, seeing her hand wrapped around the pistol's grip, which now glowed a lurid pink.

"Agh!" she snarled and tossed the weapon towards the nearby wall. She leapt from Remy, rolling across the floor to come to her feet.

Remy scrambled, but the ensuing explosion knocked him down before he could stand. He tumbled forward, feeling debris from the shattered apartment wall strike him. His ears were ringing and he shook his head to clear it. He managed to get to his hands and knees. Plaster dust and smoke filtered through the air and he coughed. There was an acrid smell of burning metal and spent rounds. Remy looked up, searching for the agent. He could not find her. Remy pushed himself to his feet, debris crunching beneath him and tumbling from his shoulders and hair. He cast a glance at the crater in the apartment wall where once there had been some bizarre demonic drawing. Bits of the sorority flag fluttered. He was caught up in assessing the damage when he heard a sharp ringing sound of metal. Remy instinctively lurched away from it. A sword swung through the empty space his torso had just been.

The red-head had returned with a weapon, one of Yana's decorative swords. It seemed it was more than ornamental.

"What the hell, you crazy—agh!" Remy once again dodged a sword blow from above, which came down to split the back of the couch.

As his attacker tugged the sword free, Remy lunged at the woman. She had just turned and raised her weapon again when Remy grasped her by her forearms and forced the sword up and away. He was taller than her by several inches, though she seemed to match him for strength given his weakened shoulder. They grappled, practically snarling in one another's faces. Remy was slowly gaining the upper hand, forcing the sword to the side, squeezing it from her grip by putting pressure on her wrists. The exertion was causing him to weaken. Her face was very close to his own when it began to shift. With horrified transfixion, he watched his own visage appear.

She threatened softly in Remy's voice: "I can make your life a whole lot worse for you wearing this face. Someone you care about might—get—hurt."

"You wouldn't—!" Remy started.

But she hooked a heel behind his own and shoved him hard. He fell backwards to strike the floor once again. Blearily, he looked up at her, expecting her to deal him a killing blow. Instead, she quickly looked towards the front door and tossed the sword aside. Still wearing his face, she ran for the back door leading to the courtyard. Confused, Remy watched her go. He was seeing double. He lay back down on the floorboards, exhausted and in pain. A shadow passed over him. For a moment, he thought he had been saved. A shaggy-headed form loomed over him, growling softly.

"Logan?" Remy blinked open his eyes. The man standing over him was not Logan at all, but an enormous blond-haired man with a snarling fanged face.

"You must be Creed," Remy said conversationally. "Logan said you were a scrawny fella, but looks like you're all grown up."

A clawed hand the size of a dinner plate reached out and claimed Remy by the front of his shirt. Remy was drawn upwards toward that beastial face, struggling weakly in Creed's grip. "And I'll be takin' you down," Creed growled, and with inhuman strength he tossed Remy through the remnants of the damaged wall. Then all was black.

~oOo~

"Guess he meant that literally," Remy mumbled, as he continued to take in his subterranean surroundings. Creed must have taken him through the steel door to the cellar. He did not recall the journey here after he had been thrown through the wall like a ragdoll. How did Creed become so powerfully built in such a short amount of time? How was Remy going to get out of these restraints and escape? And what about the other victims who lay in eerie stillness? Why were they here? Were they dead? Did Creed kill them? Was Remy next?

There was a soft increasing whine, like that of an overworked computer processor, a flash as the already too bright lights grew brighter, then sudden darkness. The basement fell silent save for the chirping of insects. The lights gave a half-hearted flicker, illuminating again before falling back into darkness. Remy's eyes searched his surroundings, blinking in an attempt to acclimate to the sudden lack of light. All around him, the building gave a shudder and a soft moan, like a settling beast. He could see better now that it was dark, and was able to make out the building's support structures, the pipes and vents that crisscrossed the ceiling. His eyes tracked the twists and turns of pipes for heating and water, the crisscross of electrical wiring. They were not far from the boiler, by his estimation. Mentally, he could map his placement beneath the Graymalkin, somewhere in the center of the building, under the courtyard. To his left, there was what looked to be a Frankenstien's monster of equipment, the likes of which he had seen during his venture through the Alamogordo lab. The monstrous makeshift lab just happened to be where one of the building's support beams should have been.

"I reckon that's prob'ly not up to code," Remy observed.

"Blast," cursed a voice from the darkness.

There was a grumble of a generator and half of the lights flickered back to life along with the various monitors and equipment. Footsteps approached the table where Remy lay. He felt himself go rigid, bracing for whatever was next. A figure came to stand over him. For a moment, Remy thought he was looking up at Charles Xavier, the bald man now standing tall and proud above him. Remy blinked in confusion.

The man seemed equally nonplussed. "As the typical dose proved ineffective the previous night, I'd given you enough tranquilizers to put down a small elephant," he said. For all he looked like Xavier, his cold and mocking tone of voice was decidedly not. "And yet, here you are, bright eyed and bushy tailed."

"Is that—is that what you've done to the others?" Remy rasped out, turning his head to look at Bishop. Perhaps he was not dead after all.

The man mockingly grinned down at him. "A telepathically induced coma," he said. "Until I have determined that they are of no further use."

Remy didn't like the sound of that at all. "And what use is that?"

The man tilted his head in consideration. "There are those ideal examples amongst the powered who possess strength, skill, intelligence, and control. Whose talents provide an added edge. And then there are those…who don't." His mouth gave an insincere frown. The man's voice indicated where Remy fell in his estimation.

"For those that don't make the cut, what then? I suppose it's too much to hope you just show them the door?"

"Oh, heaven's no," the man said with a false chuckle. "We can't have the likes of you gadding about, mucking up the gene pool, producing undesirable outcomes."

Remy frowned at him. "Doctor Milbury, I presume?" he said.

Not-Xavier gave him a calculating look. "Ah, so you've read my book?" He sounded almost eager.

"What did you do to Doc McCoy?" Remy raised his head, hoping to spy the doctor nearby. "That was you in his apartment! You're a shapeshifter, too!"

Not-Xavier raised his considerable eyebrows. "Too?" he said in a speculative tone. "So, there are other shape-shifters about?" With that, he began to transform, changing from Xavier to a pale, hatchet-faced man with a trim beard and ink-black hair. Remy grimaced in revulsion. Milbury seized Remy by the jaw and forced him to look into his black eyes. The onyx orbs shone with a glaze of burning red power. "I wish to learn what you know, my boy," he crooned softly. "First, you will tell me about this other shape-changer you have uncovered. And then, you will reveal the location of the files I had you steal."

Remy glared at Milbury. "You're one sick puppy, y'know?"

Milbury pressed a finger to Remy's lips. "Shh-shh. You needn't speak aloud. Please, spare me that. I can simply strip the information from your mind. You can make it easier on yourself if you merely concentrate."

Remy attempted to turn his head, escape Milbury's penetrating gaze and will his thoughts to the back of his mind. "What're you gonna do with these people? Let them go!"

"You should be more concerned with yourself, young man." Milbury's expression turned inward, then became petulantly frustrated. Remy's brain felt foggy, suddenly heavy. He experienced an unpleasant pressure behind his eyes, a thunderstorm in his ears. Remy had to give credit to Emma Frost, her own technique was a lot more delicate than Milbury's.

The storm abruptly stopped. "It seems you are either too stupid to form coherent thoughts, or your powers interfere with telepathy," Milbury said, annoyed.

At a loss, Remy shouted: "You're not—you can't do this!" Remy struggled against his bonds. He thought back on what the golden-eyed agent had said to him: Collecting victims. "Y'can't–collect–these people!"

"Oh, but I already have," Milbury told him, looking around in phony, wide-eyed amazement at his own accomplishments.

"And for what!" Remy cried, his eyes flicking from one sheet-draped table to the next. To look anywhere but into the doctor's insane gaze. Again, the red-headed agent had revealed something to him. Milbury stole something from me… "You…you're stealing from them?" After he took what he took… "You took her powers. Their powers."

Milbury gave him a satisfied look. "Quite. That is my power, the power of my own brilliant mind that formulated a process allowing me to appropriate the abilities of the powered. It unfortunately involves a somewhat lengthy and uncomfortable procedure, as my good friend Mister Creed has discovered."

Remy paused in his struggles. "You did that to him?" Remy asked, horrified. "You turned him into…that animal?"

"He was already in possession of a surly attitude," Milbury made a mue of distaste. "Predilections towards violence, anger issues, those kinds of things. I simply borrowed a few attributes from our good Doctor McCoy to enhance his…eh, physique. But, oh! His own expedited healing ability, what a useful power to possess. And so fortunate for him to have, as he likely wouldn't have survived the experiment otherwise! Oh, yes, I retained his healing factor for myself. Not so much the growling and unkempt hair and the eating of squirrels and whatnot." Milbury had raised his hand and was waving it in an airy way along with his exposition.

"So you've stolen Xavier's powers? And Creed's?" Remy's thoughts spun, wanting to give the doctor more time to run his mouth while Remy contemplated escape. "And a shape-shifter's?"

"Among others," Milbury said in a very self-satisfied way. He looked about him, as if expecting guests. "I anticipate Mister Creed's return with my next acquisition. Her abilities should improve my own grafting process." Milbury's teeth shown down at him. "That I might gain new abilities with merely a touch." Milbury waggled his fingers down at Remy.

Remy went still, his gaze frozen on Milbury's face, dread pooling in his stomach. "People will be lookin' for me!" Remy suddenly shouted. "There's a building meetin' any time now. I have t'be there!"

Milbury gave a short laugh. "There is no one looking for you! If you were to suddenly vanish, it would come as little surprise to anyone. As if anyone gave a good goddamn where you are, besides. You have fallen through the cracks your entire life. If anyone had cared about you, I would have found you ages ago, as I have so many others. Now, fulfill your last obligation to me and reveal where you've hidden my research!"

A jolt of electricity seemed to spring from Milbury's hand. Remy gave a shout, his body arched up from the table as far as the restraints would allow. His skin buzzed and tingled, his extremities felt numb.

"Agh," Remy panted out. "Ah, hell…" This was it then, he thought. There's no escaping this nightmare. But he couldn't give up, let Milbury have his way with Rogue. He had to get out of here, warn her, try to save the others. There was something niggling him about the locks on his restraints, a faint tingle of energy that he might be able to use…

"Never mind," Milbury turned away. Remy heard rather than saw the madman walk away to elsewhere in the lab, listened to the clink of glass vials. When Milbury returned he was holding a syringe in one hand. "Once this takes effect, I expect you'll lose what few inhibitions you have," Milbury said, eyeing the syringe and tapping it with a finger. "If I can't pry the knowledge from your thick skull, or shock it out of you…"

The needle neared Remy's forearm. Somehow this was the most frightening thing to happen to him yet. He shouted: "No…no, don't!"

"Relax, lad. I'm a professional," Milbury pressed the needle to the inside of Remy's elbow.

From behind Milbury, Remy could see the sheet of plastic ripple as if in a breeze. Then there came a sharp inhalation of breath and the sound of a foot scraping against the floor.

Milbury paused and turned.

"Ah," he said and smiled. "The guest of honor has arrived."


Next time: Just a boring building meeting to discuss changes to section D-9 of the interpersonal relationships clause.