Kin

by 12thMonkey

Deep in the Canadian wilderness four dangerous mutants escape from a secluded research facility-and only Logan, special operative of the Secret Service, can stop them...

Tyson Carter drew air in and began moving under the warm blankets of his bed. He squinted hesitantly and saw the dark room, the moon's silvery glow bathing the dresser and walls through the thin curtain. He stretched, buried his face in the pillow.

A hand was on his shoulder. "Hon... the phone..."

He stretched some more, blinked. Sure enough, there was the soft chirp of the phone, something he hadn't entirely heard in his half-awake state.

The hand gripped him more firmly. His wife. "You getting that?"

He murmured, reached out and brought the cordless handset to his face.

"Mmmmm... Hello?"

"Tyson? It's Colleen."

Even in his dreamy fog the name caused a spark of concern. Colleen? At this time? He opened his eyes fully and caught the red numbers on the clock. One-fifteen.

"Tyson? There's a problem."

He pulled himself to a half-sitting position, brought the phone to his other ear. "Problem? What problem?"

"We've had an escape."

"A what?" Tyson's voice caused his wife to draw herself up as well, her concerned hand now resting on his arm.

There was commotion behind the voice of the caller. Shouting. A lot of people moving around. "An escape. It's bad."

"An escape? Who? What?"

"You need to come down here. Nevil and Dwight are already here and I called Bruce-he's on his way, I guess. What? Trish-"she was speaking to someone else-"I've got him on the phone now. Yeah." Then back to Tyson, "It's a madhouse up here. You've got to get in."

"What's happened?"

"Four, Tyson. Broke right out. We don't have a clue how it happened or where they're off to. I've called a red." Then she shouted, "Yes, dammit! I'm talking to him now!" Quieter, to him, "Sorry. Please, you need to hurry in. I don't know what to do."

"Hold tight, okay? When Nevil gets there have him call me on my mobile. Make sure Miles keeps containment on things-we don't want anything leaking to the press. Okay? Give me a half hour."

She said nothing, and he disconnected the call with his thumb. He took a deep breath.

His wife clung closely to him, and he could see the worry in her moonlit features. "What is it?" she asked.

"Do me a favor, okay?" he said. She nodded. "The kids-take them to your mother's. For a couple of days."

"But school..."

"Don't worry about school. I'd really rather have them... away for a while. Okay?"

She nodded.

"And would you pack my bag for me? I'm going to need to rush a little."

She wouldn't let go of his arm. Her fingers were tighter than ever now. "Can you tell me?"

He offered a tight-lipped smile, leaned over and kissed her cheek. "It'll only be a couple of days."

He swung his legs off the bed and made for the bathroom.

xxx

Colleen's description of it being a madhouse was generous. Tyson arrived to see his normally stoic staff darting about in near panic, rushing up and down stairs, screaming at callers over their cell phones, angrily smashing keys on laptops. When Colleen found him standing in the doorway, she ran to him immediately, and Nevil quickly had a hold of his arm to lead him about.

"The entire staff here?" he asked over the din.

"Bruce is still heading in," Colleen said.

He turned to Nevil, "You get everyone ready for the meeting like I asked?"

"All set."

Tyson bent down to speak into Colleen's ear. "Fifteen minutes-upstairs. Let's get away from this mess."

xxx

Tyson perched on the edge of his desk and nursed a steaming cup of coffee, burying his head in his hand between sips. He sat at the front of the informal meeting of his most trusted aides, a half dozen in all. From between half-open fingers he stared across the room at Colleen.

"So youre telling me they simply vanished? No one has any clue?"

Colleen held her hands out. "The individual cells are still secure. There's no sign of damage. We have no witnesses..."

"But we're certain they've breached the outer containment?"

"Yes. They hit a motion sensor in twelve. Just after that security arrived-they had nothing to report but all five sentry guns in that sector were destroyed. We're sorting through the information in their computers to see what they can tell us."

Dwight broke in, "Not only the motion sensors, but each of the security cameras leading out of the containment area were destroyed as well-in the same way."

"Burned. Melted." Colleen nodded.

Tyson took an uncomfortable sip. "So were looking at around one in the morning?"

"Based on when the motion sensors went off," Colleen said.

"Okay..." Tyson checked the clock on the wall. "Two hours. And they were heading south, at least when they left containment. Any idea where they're headed, or where they might be now?"

"None," Nevil spoke up, rubbing his neck. "There's been a full sweep going on to the south of Ulai Lake for the past hour, and they've turned up nothing." He moved to a portion of the wall with a map suspended from the ceiling and gestured to the underside of a small body of water. "There are two small roads away from Ulai-here to Foster and then to the east headed for Tate, and then farther south to Chariottville. We're scouring those roads, and were looking into a cooperative effort with the RCMP to secure those towns."

Tyson shook his head. "I don't want any communication with the civilian authorities-at all. We've got to keep this under wraps and clean it up ourselves." He glanced toward Miles, who nodded silently from his seat at a desk. "Besides, there's no reason to believe they would be following a road, right?"

"No," Nevil responded, "but at this point there's no more reason to believe they'll be headed into the deep woods than there is to believe they'll be headed into town. We've got no idea."

"And Tyson," Colleen said, "if, God forbid, they decide to go into a town, for whatever reasons-do you really think we can keep a lid on it then?"

Nevil nodded, and this inspired a grimace by Tyson. "We need to handle this ourselves. There's no question. If they head towards a town, we need to know about it, and stop it."

"Easier said than done," Nevil made his way back to the desk to find his own coffee. "You've been briefed on the four that have escaped?"

"Nevil-this is my briefing. What should I know?" A quick survey of the faces showed their concern. He turned toward Colleen. "Well?"

She removed a sheet a paper from the desk beside her and brought it to Tyson.

Tyson closed his eyes, the paper bending in his grip. "My God. Worst-case scenario."

"It is," Nevil added. "They're out and they're mad."

"The most important four from Andrew's little project," Colleen said. "Really, we shouldn't be surprised."

"We need to wrap this up, fast," Tyson drained the last bit of coffee from his cup. "Colleen-you find out how this happened. Not general notions, but specifics. How, when and where, and any idea of where they're heading."

"Sure," she said.

"Miles-you've got the lock-down on any information to the media. Spin it in whatever way you want-nothing happened, routine accident-I don't care, so long as it's kept quiet with a capital Q."

"Already on that," Miles was lighting a cigarette.

"Ryan-" the phone rang, and Colleen answered at her desk. She put it on hold, and nodded toward Tyson. He leaned and picked up an extension. "Tyson here. What? When? Doctor Andrews? Oh, damn... How many? Damn..." He reached down to his cell phone, which was now blinking a bright red. "My mobile's ringing- That's him now. Okay. Coordinate with Bruce..."

Tyson returned the phone and addressed the room, "They've surfaced. It's not good." And then he flipped open his cell. Anxious chatter started in the room, and Tyson quieted it with a wave. "Bruce? Yeah, I heard. How the hell did they get there so fast? And what the hell could they be up to? Get up here, Bruce... Right." He snapped the phone shut.

"How bad?" Miles coolly flicked ashes into a tray.

"Bad. Things are still sketchy but it looks as if one of our security sweeps ran past the house of Doctor Andrews-"

"Michael..." Colleen sat up. "Oh my god- what happened?"

Tyson continued, "They were going to escort him and his wife back to home base as a precaution, when the four showed up."

"My god," Colleen raised a hand to her mouth.

"Bruce is going to get details and let us know. Looks like it didn't take long. We lost Doctor Andrews and most of the security team."

Colleen turned away and Nevil could only utter a whispered curse.

"His wife?" asked Dwight.

"No one knows yet. It was just a radio call from a survivor. We're sending in another team. The four escaped... no sign of them. I guess there's a helicopter that's crashed as well."

Miles drew on the cigarette. "That could be tougher. Civilian casualties are going to be rough to explain."

"To the public and Parliament," Tyson said. He rose and approached the map. "Doctor Andrews' house is down here... that was quite a run in such a short time."

Nevil stood next to Tyson. "Theres some sort of purpose here... Right for the Doctors house."

"How?" Colleen asked. "They can't do that, can they? I mean... they're not smart enough."

"Maybe not... Nevil's the expert here. What do you say?" Tyson asked.

Nevil looked squarely at Tyson. "I told you what I think. This is as bad as it could get. We couldn't have hand-picked four worse escapees. And they're mad. That security team... I'll wager there won't be much left of them when we get there."

"Together," Tyson stared up at the map. "Together we can't even guess at what their upper limit could be."

"I think were about to find out," said Nevil.

Tyson exhaled through gritted teeth. He leaned toward Nevil. "Our first priority needs to be the safety of the other research members. We can explain just about anything, but slaughtered families isn't one of them. Get everyone in the area back to the compounds. In case there is a plan here."

"All right."

Tyson stared up at the map. "Straight as an arrow, right out to Andrews. That's no animal thinking. That's a plan."

"God help us then," Nevil whispered.

xxx

On this day, Nancy Hu had begun her morning routine well before the break of dawn, ready for her first day away from the lab in nearly a month-and she was going to make every minute count. There were plans to see the parents today, and it would take an early departure to make it there on time. And even then, she thought with a grin, Dad would complain she was late and that she didnt care about the family any more.

She exercised and allowed herself a long, hot shower, then worked on a pot of coffee that filled the lower level of her home with the most wonderful aroma. She selected a favorite CD on her stereo, and dressed between sips of coffee and watching the sun rise through the tall trees at her backyard. Jeans, blouse, the gold eyebrow ring she indulged in only during free time. And how little of that she had these days...

She turned off the stereo and was about to head to the garage when she saw the dark silhouette of a van emerge from the wooded lane to her house. She opened a space in the blinds with her fingers, squinted at it as it came to a halt in her round driveway. The side door slid open and two men came out, in jeans and blazers, and still within the van she could see at least three others.

A chill passed through her. They were security from Ulai Lab. And they were approaching her door with a determined stride.

She had it open before they could knock.

"Hello, guys," her eyebrows bent. "What's going on?"

"Doctor Nancy Hu?" the first one asked.

"That's me. What's going on?" she peered out at the van and saw a man in the passenger seat, and more in the back.

"Good to see you're here. We're to take you to a secure compound per Mr. Carter's orders. Would you please make the call?"

She didn't move. That chill came again. It was something they had been briefed on, periodically, but... here it was now. The van in her driveway. Something terrible had happened.

"Miss Hu?"

She finally turned and focused her eyes on them. "I'm sorry. Yes, of course. The call."

Nancy turned away from the doorway and made her way to the long sofa, where she had dropped her cell phone. She picked it up, punched in a speed-dial number she only barely recalled, and listened to it ring.

"Hello? Tyson? It's Doctor Hu. Whats going on?"

"Nancy... They're all right. Go ahead with them. You're going to Compound Two."

"All right," she tried to sound calm, but thought she hadn't succeeded. "Can you tell me what's happened?"

"In due time. First of all we want to make sure you're safe. So let's get you out of there, right?"

"Why wouldn't I be safe?"

"Just a precaution, Doctor, I assure you. I'll tell you the rest when you arrive. This is all just protocol. Nothing to be alarmed about."

"Sure. Protocol. Thank you, Tyson. Goodbye." She closed the phone, and looked up at the two men, who were now in her living room. "How long will I be away? Can I pack?"

The two men looked at each other. "A small bag, Miss Hu. We should be leaving."

She walked to the spiral staircase leading up and on the first few steps noticed the shoulder holster under one of their blazers. Squeezing the railing was all she could do to keep from fainting.

xxx

"So, wait a minute- If we're taking precautions for me, what about my family, Tyson?"

"Your family's not a concern, Nancy," Tyson leaned back in the vans seat and stared past her at the thick, dark woods flying by.

"Excuse me? What do you mean, they're not a concern?"

"Sorry... I mean there's no reason to be concerned about them. They've spent no time at the lab, they haven't worked in Directive 21 at all... why would they be a target?"

"I don't know. Why would I be a target? Why would anyone? Why wouldn't they just run to the woods and leave everyone alone now that they're free?"

The van hit a series of hard bumps that shook all of the passengers, Tyson and Nancy, another man, small and with tiny, round spectacles, in a seat opposite them, and five members of security, all with their identical blazers. The little man grabbed for his seat belt for the first time and secured it across his waist.

"I'm with Tyson, Nancy," he said. "The precautions are good-because we just don't know enough right now, and especially after what's happened to Doctor Andrews. But your family-and mine, too-there's no reason their lives should be disrupted."

She turned to him. The engine howled loud enough to force her to talk over it. "Frank, how could you say that? No reason..." Then to Tyson, "I know what they're capable of. And you're just... underestimating them. How could you not think they have some plan? After what we've seen at the lab?"

Tyson waved a dismissing hand at her. "And I think you're overestimating them. They're not much more than animals, at least on the most basic level. Survival is going to be paramount for them, not sitting around a map and plotting revenge. The whole Andrews incident... we think that was most likely an accident. They wandered into a security sweep and felt threatened... nothing more than that."

Frank pushed his spectacles up. "A very unfortunate accident for Doctor Andrews."

"It was no accident," Nancy insisted. "Number Eighteen-the mind-thing-tell me it couldn't have gotten information about Doctor Andrews from one of us in the lab. Anyone with access to personnel files, or just a general idea of where he lived, would have been enough."

"So you think this diabolical plotting may involve your family, as well?" Tyson asked.

"No... I don't know. Tyson, why is this idea of revenge so farfetched to you? After all weve done to them in there?"

"You make it sound like-"

"Tell me. Be honest. If you escaped from there, and you could... wouldn't you think of revenge?"

Frank frowned. The bumpy road rocked him uneasily in his chair. "You have a very unpleasant sort of logic, Nancy. I hope you're wrong." He turned to Tyson. "And for us? Clearly revenge must be a concern or we wouldn't be whisked away like this. Will we be safe?"

"Just a precaution. You're going to be taken to Compound Two. It's underground and well away from Ulai Lab. Not only will there be the sentry guns and motion detectors, but you'll have a team of live security personnel to keep you safe. Oh, and one important addition has been made-we've managed to arrange for an operative from a special arm of the CSIS. He's exceptional, I understand, and he's got experience in these sort of dealings."

"That right?" Frank said, almost cheerily. "Quite the specialist, mmmm? A bodyguard, of sorts? For us?"

"Of sorts," Tyson smiled. "And I believe you'll both be familiar with him. By reputation, at least. We've decided to fight fire with fire, as they say."

xxx

When Tyson swung the door open he revealed the sparsely furnished underground leisure room of Compound Two to Nancy and Frank. It had been a long walk down a dark, concrete corridor to their destination, every step being more claustrophobic and depressing.

"Miserable little place," Frank had said, "like a coffin."

Nancy hushed him and pulled at his arm to hurry his pace. Finally there, the inside of the room was no less disappointing than the rest of the compound.

"Interior design isn't our specialty," Tyson grinned and led them inside.

Against the far wall was a long row of metal lockers, and in the center of the room two plain brown sofas and a coffee table. On the sofas sat two others from the research team, Doctor Rafa Praia and Doctor Lisa Jenkins, both of whom rose with weary smiles to greet the new guests.

Frank reached out a hand. "Well, if we need to be trapped down here, at least the company will be good."

"Any others from the team?" Nancy asked.

"Maybe soon," Tyson said. "We wanted to make sure we had those closest to Ulai Lab safe first. We've got enough room here for fifteen, if we need it. I doubt well come anywhere close."

"Fifteen..." Frank said. "A lot of room down here, isn't there? You've been planning for this sort of thing long?"

"Better safe than sorry, Frank, you know the policy. And I'm surprised you don't recognize this place... this used to be the site of our old Geo-8 labs way back when."

"Ahhh... Of course, of course," he peered over his spectacles to get a better look around. "This is the lower level of Lab Two. Once the Ulai Lake facility was opened, these were turned into bunkers. I remember."

"See..." Tyson smiled, patted him on the back, "you're not so old after all, Frank-memory's still holding up. They were primarily for use in the event of a terrorist threat-you guys have always been seen as a target. And our little emergency now was always considered as an outside chance, as well. Have to be prepared for everything."

The door eased open and Colleen leaned in, nodded at Tyson. He clapped his hands together and said, "Well, we'll have to put off our tour until later. Our head of security would like to have a word with us to give us all the heads up. Probably best we don't keep him waiting."

Tyson led them through the door and a long series of winding, concrete tunnels. The underground bunker revealed itself as larger and more complex with every turn, but remained every bit as unappealing. Their shoes clacked against the hard floor, and the row of overhead fluorescent lights cast darkly sinister shadows that swirled around their feet. Along the way they passed by three pairs of armed guards, something that drove home the danger that surrounded them-if it hadn't been already apparent.

At the last door he walked through and gestured for them to follow. Although it was considered the meeting room, there were few obvious differences between it and the previous leisure room. A row of lockers, two sofas and a table in the center, but this time a pull-down screen toward the back and a line of stools against the opposite wall added to the scenery.

Three others were in the room when they entered-Bruce, Security Head at Ulai Lake, another man wearing jeans and a polo with the lab insignia, and a third, sitting on a stool against the far wall, short and stocky and almost entirely hidden by the shadows.

"You all know Bruce, I'm sure," Tyson said, and this prompted a nod from Bruce. "This is Donovan, who'll be coordinating security at this Compound." Donovan took turns shaking hands with the small crowd. "And that is Logan." He nodded in the direction of the man bathed in shadows, who gave no return gesture. "The CSIS has been gracious enough to loan him out to us. We're going to be relying on him a great deal for your personal security."

The four spread out between the two sofas, along with Colleen and Bruce, while Tyson found an arm. Donovan stood at the end of the two sofas and addressed the group.

"Well-I'm sure everyone here knows why we're at the compound now. Early this morning there was a breach in the containment at the Ulai Lake facility. Four of the genetically enhanced mutants housed there made a coordinated escape and bypassed all of the security. Currently their whereabouts are not established, but we have several leads we're pursuing and teams of personnel scouring the area around the lake."

From the corner of her eye, Nancy saw a small glow in the shadows. She turned briefly toward the man on the stool. In the dark, where even his face was only a smudge, the tip of a cigar burned red.

"Now I'm sure you've also heard about the incident involving Doctor Andrews shortly after the escape. Our best evidence indicates now that this was an unfortunate accident. We believe the four encountered the Doctor's home in an effort to escape, and would likely have simply bypassed it-but there happened to be a security team there at the time and an altercation ensued. The result was the loss of life of a number of our security personnel, and the regrettable deaths of Doctor Andrews and his wife."

There were a few short gasps at that, and Frank removed his spectacles and wiped a hand around his dampening face.

"Now I want to make it clear-there is no reason to suspect that any of you are targets. No reason at all. We're simply taking this precaution because even though there is a remote chance, we need to safeguard against it. We have the ability to make you safe, so were doing so. The only trade-off is you might find the accommodations a little sparse."

"We haven't shown them the cots, yet," Tyson joked.

"It gets worse?" laughed Doctor Jenkins.

Nancy watched Donovan with half-hearted interest, glancing occasionally at the strange, secluded man against the wall. There was only a bare outline, but though he seemed short-his boots were propped on the bar between the stool legs-he appeared unusually muscular, and the cigar was held between the knuckles of what she took to be remarkably thick hands.

Donovan continued, "I know this is going to be a difficult request to adhere to, but until we can absolutely guarantee all four have been apprehended, we ask that you remain inside the compound. For your safety we have armed members of the Ulai Lab security force patrolling both inside and out. Around the exterior of the compound are ten of our elite security members in state-of-the-art AACS- that stands for Advanced Armored Combat Suits- as well as fully automatic sentry guns and a complex network of motion sensors and cameras. I assure you nothing can get-"

"You mean the same network that the four broke through up at Ulai?" Frank asked. And then more meekly, looking at his other research associates on the sofas, "I'm sorry... I didn't intend it that way..."

Donovan held out a hand. "No, no... don't worry. It's a good question. It's different now because we're expecting them. Right now, a bird couldn't take a crap within a hundred yards of this compound without us knowing. We're geared up and ready."

"I still do not like it," Doctor Rafa Praia said. "Wouldn't we be safer far away from here- out of Canada, even-instead of in this bunker? Frank is right."

There was some nodding, and Lisa Jenkins agreed.

Nancy saw the cigar tip glow again. He was just sitting there, silent, motionless, smoking and listening. It was eerie, and something about him, though he said nothing and did nothing, struck her deep inside. Something primitively menacing and sinister- like the dark clouds of a thunderstorm far away. She turned away instinctively and watched Donovan.

"True... but we need to take travel into consideration," Donovan replied. "You're safer here. The last thing we want is a repeat of the incident with Doctor Andrews. We simply can't provide the kind of security on the road that we can here."

"It was a no-brainer," Tyson said. "If you could look out there and see what they're doing to protect you... there's no way you could compare it to a convoy of trucks."

Doctor Praia shook his head. "I understand."

"Well then, if there are no more questions..." Donovan paused and looked at the group, "we intend to get you out of this and back to your normal lives in short order, but until then we promise to give you regular updates on any information we have..."

Nancy glanced to the back wall again-the stool was empty. He had left the room, silent as a cat, and was no where to be found. For the first time she glimpsed in the shadows a door, impossibly difficult to reach without being noticed. When she turned back, Donovan was in the middle of a brief word with Tyson before he exited the room.

"Safe my ass," she said to Tyson, standing up and making her way through the door as well.

xxx

"So, what do you think we should do? Do we stay?" Frank leaned forward in the sofa, looking decidedly ill, perspiration glistening on his forehead and upper lip.

"Have we a choice?" Praia asked, sitting on the sofa across from him.

Doctor Jenkins crossed the room, touching Nancy's arm. "I like the look," she said, gesturing to her own eyebrow and smiling at the golden ring in Nancy's. Nancy smiled in return. "They're bickering like little children."

Nancy took a deep breath and looked over her shoulder at the two men on the sofas. "They're nervous. Poor Frank-he looks awful."

"I'm nervous, too," Lisa said softly. "We can't really leave, can we? If we wanted?"

Nancy shrugged. "Tyson's gone. He said he was leaving for Ulai Lake. I guess we could force Donovans hand... or maybe Bruce, he's still here."

Frank pointed to Nancy. "Exactly! We find Bruce and tell him we've decided-we've all decided-we're going to leave. What is he going to do? Surely he can't keep us here..."

"Can't he?" Rafa Praia said, stretching his legs out. "We do not seem to have a phone line."

"I imagine he could, couldn't he?" Frank rubbed his chin thoughtfully, looked at the ceiling. "I wonder... how far under are we? Thirty feet? More?" He searched his pockets in vain for a handkerchief, and then simply wiped his face with a hand again. "Ungodly mess, this is. I certainly didn't envision this when I went to bed last night." He turned to Nancy and Lisa. "They caught me driving to work. Pulled me over, easy as can be. Thought I was just heading in for another day at the lab." He forced a laugh.

"That fellow, lurking about at the back of the room," Rafa said. "Who was that? We are borrowing him from the CSIS?" He looked around at the others. "Unpleasant looking sort of fellow, don't you think?"

"Tyson said he was our bodyguard," Nancy said. "He's some sort of specialist, I suppose."

Rafa raised his eyebrows. "A bodyguard? Against those four? What could he possibly do?"

Lisa had made her way to the back of the sofa Frank sat in, put a hand tenderly on his shoulder. "Are you all right, Frank?"

He looked up at her, a streak of perspiration running from his temple. "I guess my constitution isn't up to par."

A noise from the corridor stopped their conversation. Through the heavy door could be heard pounding footsteps, and Nancy crept to it and opened it up. A pair of guards, rifles in hand, ran by.

Rafa stood and Frank twisted on the sofa. "Nancy," he asked. "What's going on?"

"I'm not sure," she replied, leaning out a bit to peer around.

Another guard came dashing by, this time in the other direction. He stopped just long enough to address Nancy. "Ma'am," he said, "I'm going to need to ask you to stay right here."

"What's wrong?" she asked, but he was gone, down the hall.

"Oh my god," Lisa breathed, her grip becoming tight on Frank's shoulder.

"They're here, aren't they?" Frank whispered. "They've found us."

Donovan appeared at the door. "I need you all to stay calm." He had a holster strapped to his side. "Please stay right here, in this room." He eased Nancy back from the door.

"What's going on?" she asked, two more guards running through the corridor.

"Just right here. Don't go anywhere," Donovan said, and he closed the door on her.

"They've found us! Already..." Frank sank back into the cushions, staring blankly at the floor.

"That was fast, certainly," said Rafa. "What happened to Doctor Andrews couldn't have been an accident, then. They're here for us."

Something rumbled distantly. Everyone but Frank looked to the door.

"What was that?" Nancy asked, and she reached for the door lever but stopped short.

"Must have been loud, whatever it was, to hear it down here," Rafa looked up at the ceiling, as if he could see past the dozens of feet of concrete and earth over them.

"My god," Lisa said, trembling. "They are here, aren't they? They want us. This is how... this is how poor Doctor Andrews felt when they came for him..."

The door opened again. Nancy stepped back, confronted by eyes piercing with an intensity she had never encountered before. It was Logan, the shadowy figure from their meeting, now close enough to touch. Feeling his hard gaze, her first instinct was to back away, but his voice stopped her cold.

"We're leaving," he growled beneath sharp whiskers. He had a tan coat, its collar pulled up, and he was tugging on tight a pair of leather gloves.

Nancy didn't move right away, shaking as if a stray dog had cornered her in a dark alley. He reached out, gripped her like a vice, and pushed her toward the sofas.

"Get your friends," he told her. "You're all following me, and we're getting out of here."

Nancy helped Frank to his feet, and Rafa moved slowly around the sofa. "What's going on? They're here, aren't they?"

"You're going to help us?" Lisa asked, her eyes wide.

"They're here. And you're going to need to hurry."

Logan pulled Nancy roughly through the door, Frank stumbling sickly behind, and Rafa followed. Lisa seemed rooted to her spot beside the sofa.

"Do we need anything?" she asked. "How long are we going to be gone? Should I bring a bag?"

"Ain't got time for nothing but moving," Logan grabbed her by the collar and shoved her through.

Out in the corridor they could hear a distant confusion of sounds. A mixture of high and low noises that could have been voices. A popping and rattling that might have been gunfire. That ominous rumble again. All filtered through the thick concrete of the bunker.

Logan had already begun to charge down the corridor, the others struggling to keep up with him. He paused impatiently at a corner for the little group before plunging on.

"What's happening out there?" Nancy asked, allowing Frank to lean on her as they hurried through. She glanced back down the corridor briefly. "It sounds like... fighting."

"They're opening this place like a sardine can," Logan said, and he took a quick look to make sure everyone was still following before moving.

"Just like at Ulai Lake," Rafa said. And then louder, "Tyson, Bruce-none of them have any idea what they're dealing with here."

Something boomed loudly behind them, and they all stopped nervously as if waiting for an impending doom. Logan bared his teeth and began grabbing at them and shoving them ahead angrily.

"Ain't got time for this, dammit!" spittle flew from between his teeth. "Need to keep moving!"

They quickened their advance as best they could, with both Nancy and Rafa helping along Frank, who was breathing hard and sweating harder and moving at a snail's pace. Logan kept well ahead, staying just barely close enough for them to have a direction to follow.

"Do you feel that?" Rafa touched his forehead and looked over at Nancy. "The heat? Do you feel that?"

Frank nodded weakly. "I do. It's burning in here."

"Twenty-two," Nancy said, her arm under Frank's. "It's probably got everything ablaze over us."

Rafa looked timidly behind them. "Or down here..."

The popping noise had become louder, despite their effort to escape in the opposite direction. Shouts, horrifyingly clear, came down the corridor after them. Then another loud rumbling-a sound that could only have been the crumbling of a concrete wall.

"My god," Rafa exclaimed. "They are coming right down here for us!"

Nancy and Lisa glanced behind them, seeing nothing, and urged Frank on faster, turning a corner until they came to an outstretched arm. Logan had stopped before a large metal door, testing the lever handle with a gloved hand, the others gathering nervously. They saw immediately the lever didn't budge.

"Locked?" Frank whimpered as he pulled away from Nancy and Lisa to lean against the wall. His hand went to his chest. "Please tell me its not locked."

Logan slammed a shoulder into the door. It thumped loudly but wouldn't move.

"Where does this go?" Nancy asked.

"Security access to the outside," Logan said, taking a step back and eyeing the door. "Must've shut her up during the lock-down."

Frightened, Lisa exclaimed, "You mean-we're going out there? With them?" while Rafa yelled, "We will never get that door down. Are you saying we have to go back... through them? That we are trapped down here?"

Logan turned to eye Rafa squarely. "I ain't said no such thing."

He held out a fist, and with a mechanical pop something burst from the back of his hand. Nancy jumped and Lisa screamed. Claws. Three fourteen-inch long projections jutting from the back of his hand, between the knuckles, their razor sharp metal edges shining dangerously in the fluorescent light.

"Oh my god-" Frank fell back into a corner.

With a quick downward swipe the claws had slashed clean through the door, almost soundlessly, the metal only uttering a groan and the lock popping slightly as it split in two. The claws disappeared into his hands.

"You're a mutant," Frank breathed. "Just like them."

"Sshhhh... Frank," Nancy reached down to put a hand on his shoulder, hoping he didn't notice her tremble. "He's helping."

Logan pushed the door open to reveal a small room. There was another, louder rumble behind them-something they could feel at their feet, in the walls around them.

Everything went black.

The group cried out almost together. In a panic they screamed and groped for anything stable their hands could find.

"Stop it!" Logan growled. "Shut up and don't move."

More frightened of their escort than what awaited them in the darkness, they quieted immediately. Arms curled around anonymous bodies, desperate fingers intertwined. There was only their breathing and the sporadic sounds of gunshots and cries to be heard. Another rumble. And then somewhere overhead the sound of gears turning. They could hear a hatch swinging open and with it the silvery shine of moonlight poured in.

Their eyes found the one source of light immediately. A tall ladder on the side of the room led to a small opening far overhead, and through the opening was the clear Canadian night sky filled with the peaceful glow of the moon.

A rough silhouette of wild hair and a firm jaw appeared beside Nancy. "Get to the woods-you'll see it when you get up there."

"What about-"

"It's clear," he insisted. "Worst parts down here."

One, two pops, far away. Silence. Another. Nancy nodded to herself, took a deep breath, and began steering the bodies around her towards the ladder. She bent over to help the sagging mound of Frank back to his feet, felt him damp and quivering.

From just below the tall ladder, Rafa said, "That is very high."

Nancy pulled Frank to her and guided him into the room. "Can you do it?" she asked him gently. He was breathing hard, but nodded, and she could almost see him in the darkness.

They made their way up, feeling their way from rung to rung with a slowness that belied their panic. The darkness was almost comforting, hiding the 30 foot drop from the top and forcing their eyes to focus on the ever-nearing opening to freedom. Rafa was the first one through, clumsily stepping to the last rung and desperately digging his fingers into the moist, cool dirt to drag himself the last few inches from the hole.

Lisa was the next to emerge, and threw herself flat to the ground, making a panicked survey of each direction before reaching down into the hole again and grabbing hold of Frank's sleeve.

"Do you see anything?" Nancy called.

"No-nothing," Rafa shouted down, now grasping Franks other arm in an attempt to help him from the ladder.

As directed, once all four had pulled themselves from the ground, they made their way to the trees, crouching low as if enemy eyes could see them at any moment. To their right the earth undulated in little rolling hills, and above them smoke billowed high into the night sky in three separate, black columns.

They puffed and wheezed their way to the trees, and upon reaching the first Frank stretched out a hand to hold one, begging hoarsely for the group to stop. Nancy put her arm around him protectively, but Logan had already caught up to the group, and pointed deeper into the woods.

"Got to keep moving," he ordered.

Nancy squeezed Frank. "You can do it, Frank. I know you can." She pulled him as gently as she could and he gave her a quiet look, something that thanked her for not leaving him behind, and soon he was again thudding heavily along.

They all made their way farther into the woods. The trees, at first sparse, soon became thick and close and covered most of the sky. Only thin, silvery slivers of moonlight broke through the branches and fell at their feet to guide them. Logan stayed at the rear, moving at an easy pace just fast enough to keep up.

In the lead, Rafa stumbled badly. A fallen limb surprised him and sent him sprawling. The others had passed him before they even knew he was down, and only Logan was there to pull him up by his collar and push him ahead.

"Where are we going?" Lisa yelled from the lead.

"Up," Logan said, and sure enough the ground beneath them had already begun a steady incline.

The four of them, unaccustomed to such exertion, fought their way up. There was no path, and they labored against the knee-high grass and fallen limbs all around. Soon the thick canopy overhead broke up, and the moon and stars glowed down upon them again.

"To the left!" commanded Logan.

They followed a route to the left against the border of occasional trees, and from there they could tell the hill had leveled out. A look behind them revealed a deep slope into the darkness.

"Oh, Nancy, look," Lisa grabbed onto Nancy's arm and pointed across the hill to a clearing below.

The smoke billowed heavily now from the compound, and bright, wicked flames licked up from earth that had collapsed deep into the structure beneath. Even in the scarce light, enormous patches around the area seemed scorched, and little fires continued to flicker all around.

Rafa pointed to a series of dark objects, barely visible at what must have been the head of the compound. Staring at them closely brought a series of gasps from the group-vehicles, smashed and overturned, tossed about like little toys in a tantrum, some still smoldering in the cool night.

Logan had joined them, and stopped briefly to view the carnage they had escaped from.

"Are they still coming for us?" Lisa breathed.

Logan grunted. "Don't seem like it. Think they're still down there." His nostrils flared in the breeze, and thick lines developed at his eyes as he squinted. "Damn mess."

Frank was leaning heavily against Nancy, a hand wiping sweat from his face. "What... what do we do? What do we do... if they come after us... again?"

"We do not let them catch us, Frank," Rafa pointed to the compound. "What could we possibly do against that?"

Logan had Lisa by the arm and showed her their new direction. "Ain't interested in finding out, I'll tell you that. Let's get moving."

xxx

The wind knifed through the trees silently. They could feel it blowing down from the hill and into their dark, quiet hiding place. They huddled against a small pile of tree limbs they had gathered to block the biting wind. Nearby a tiny stream wound farther downhill, gurgling against smooth rocks that sparkled in the moonlight.

Frank held his arms tight around his chest. "Can't we have a fire? A small one?" Cold air dug through his thin clothing. "I can't feel my fingers."

Nancy made a sad face and took Franks fingers in her hands. "He said no fires, Frank. Not even a small one." She rubbed his hands with hers. "We can't make ourselves obvious."

"It'll be light, soon," Rafa said, checking his watch. Looking through the leaves provided no hope of daylight-only the glowing moon surrounded by darkness.

Lisa blew on her own fingers, feeling the chill in them. "How long has he been gone?"

Nancy looked at the moon between the long, thin limbs, wondering if she could use it to gauge the time of his departure. "Been a while."

"A long while," Frank said to her. "Maybe..." and then he stopped, his eyes turning down when Nancy looked at him. "Maybe we should head out again. Get farther away from the compound. Instead of just sitting here, I mean."

"No," Nancy said. "He said to wait here."

"We've rested," he continued. "I can go on again."

"Perhaps Frank is right," Rafa said. "What if he... what if they found him?"

Lisa pulled her knees up to her to keep warm. "I can't even think of that. They'd be coming for us right now."

The wind grew stronger, whistling in the nearly bare branches well above their hiding place. A cloud passed in front of the moon, and their faces all grew black.

"I think we should leave," Lisa said, turning to the others.

"We have to," Frank said. "We can't just wait here to find out what happened. We need to go."

"Where the hell are you going to go?" the sharp voice barked from behind them. Logan made his way around their shelter, quiet as a cat, not even the dry leaves beneath his feet making a sound.

They looked up at him with a mixture of relief and fear.

"Don't even know where the hell you are. End up walking right into them."

He pulled off his coat and dropped it on the ground in front of them, then peeled off his gloves and did the same. Nancy pulled the coat in and wrapped it tightly around Frank. Lisa took the gloves.

"Are they coming?" Nancy asked.

Logan crouched near them. "No. They're still down there."

"Then a fire..." whimpered Frank.

"No fire," said Logan. "We ain't taking any chances, either."

"They're still down there?" Nancy said. "So, then, the guards... Everything down there...?"

"Gone," said Logan. "Those guards stopped putting up a fight by the time we got to the top of that hill."

Rafa had begun breathing quickly. "They rolled right through those guards. They leveled the compound. What can we do against them? What?"

Frank looked up from the folds of the coat. "They're just going to hunt us down like animals, aren't they? Why? What do they want from us?"

"How bout you tell me?" Even in the dark, they could feel his eyes boring through them.

Nancy turned to face the dark figure. "What... did they tell you?"

"Not much. That were dealing with escapees from Ulai Lab. Dangerous mutants held in containment. Everything else was classified." He leaned toward her a little, and she could see the unusually sharp canines beneath a curling upper lip. "Just us here. What do you say we declassify things?"

Nancy nodded uncertainly. The moonlight cast a silvery sheen on his unnaturally muscled forearms, coated with thick, wiry hair.

"Doesn't really matter now, does it?" Rafa turned to her. "If I am dead, I won't care what was classified and what was not."

"I agree with Doctor Praia," Frank said. "I just want to live."

"All right," Nancy nodded again. "I don't know why they would have kept anything from you. The four are mutants, and they were being held at the Ulai Lake containment facility. They are... extremely dangerous."

"I saw."

"Did they tell you about Doctor Andrews?"

"Yup. So you think they've got a grudge against you scientists that worked there?"

Rafa spoke up. "There was no reason to believe this while they were being observed. They acted in a very primitive state-barely above the most basic animal intelligence. The coordination that they are exhibiting now is beyond anything-"

"Clearly something changed," Nancy said. "Or they were hiding their true capabilities while they were contained."

"Shouldn't we be going?" Lisa asked, and then cowered when a snarling face turned to her. "I'm sorry, but... I mean, are we safe? Just sitting here?"

"We'll get going when I say so," snapped Logan. "If they find us, I ain't interested in being surprised. We'll get everything on the table now." He turned back to Nancy. "What're we up against? And I want details."

"Well... they have very advanced mutant abilities. Very advanced considering what we thought was their mental development. There's the Tank-its been designated number 30. Its huge-fifteen, twenty feet tall. Its strength is exceptional, but we really don't have a good idea as to its upper range, and that's true for all of the mutants."

"There's number 22. It seems to be able to ignite combustible materials from a distance. That was probably what happened with the bunker."

"Had a lot of trouble at the lab with 22," Frank wrapped the coat tighter around his shoulders, a painful smile on his lips. "Sure had trouble with him."

Nancy went on, "Eighteen is the mind-thing. It has the ability to form an empathic connection with others-instill emotions, the occasional hallucination. We had reason to believe that its abilities were far more extensive than it showed at Ulai Lake."

"It was very docile," Rafa said. "Thankfully. It was not as aggressive as the others, or we may not have been able to contain it. All of us were susceptible to its abilities. We all received its touch now and again."

"Guards would sometimes spontaneously begin crying around its cell," Nancy said. "It was docile, but no one wanted to work around it. I felt sorry for it after a while."

"And the fourth?" Logan asked.

"Number Three. It's the most feral of the four—an animal, mostly. Vicious. Its main mutation is its ability to... ghost. It's the only term to describe it. It can become completely intangible, and while at the lab it required the most sophisticated technology to keep it from escaping."

"Number three is likely the leader, if they have one," Rafa added. "While at the lab it clearly demonstrated the most aggressive personality of the four, and for that reason it probably is the most dominant now that they are free."

Logan grunted. He brought his head up and sniffed at the air, and looked deep into the woods.

"So, what do you think?" Frank asked. "What should our plan be?"

Logan stood up. "We're going to stay ahead of them. Let your boys at Ulai take care of them." He pointed across the stream and into the blackness. "There's a small town about six hours away from here at the rate were headed."

The others rose as well, joints stiff in the cold air.

"Damn," Lisa said, brushing the soil and bits of dry leaves from her. "I've never, ever been without my cell phone. Until now." She forced a smile at the others. "Doesn't that suck?"

xxx

They marched wearily between the trees, for the first time a hint of morning light guiding their path-just barely enough to make their right a shade brighter than their left. Through shallow streams, up difficult grades that caused their feet to slip on dewy clumps of vegetation, everyone silent in the ominous dark of the forest.

Only Frank could be heard, puffing heavily as he forced himself on, digging his nails into the moist dirt, as he struggled up a mound. His pants were wet to his thighs after an accident in a stream, and Nancy fought mightily to keep him going. He wrapped two filthy hands around a protruding root and pulled with all his strength, Nancy tugging at his belt to get him over, the other two stopping to grasp his arms.

But his feet pumped and kicked and finally fell loose, his entire body sliding in a muddy mess into a little pile, as he gasped, "No use. No use."

"Come on, Frank," Nancy whispered, taking his arm again.

"I can't," his lips were too exhausted to even form words. "There's no point."

"Frank..." Lisa pleaded from the top of the mound.

Logan was there, as well, looking down.

"There's no point... Why run?"

"Frank, stop it," Nancy demanded, taking his arm more firmly. "Don't talk like that. We need to keep going. See-its almost light. We're almost through this."

"Why run?" he mumbled again, his cheek against the dirt. "We're here. Why run?"

"Frank?"

"We're here. You can't run." He opened his eyes and looked at her, but it wasnt Frank.

He turned to glare up the mound. "And you, Logan. Why?"

"What the hell?" Logans head darted around, looking for any clue that something had gained on them in the dark.

"Shit!" Nancy tried to drop Franks arm but he grabbed her tight.

"Leave them, Logan," he said, pulling her closer to him. "They're ours."

Logan was down in a moment, and he pried Frank's hand from Nancy, who stumbled back into the mud.

"It's the mind-thing!" she yelled. "It's got Frank!"

Frank now had Logan's shirt gripped, staring into Logan's eyes. "Don't fight us. Don't run. Leave them. And come with us."

Logan easily knocked the hands away. "What the hell are you?"

"They are ours," Rafa said. "Let us have them."

Lisa screamed. Rafa had twisted his fingers into her hair and was pulling her farther up the mound. She screamed louder, fighting and scratching.

Logan jumped upon Rafa and pulled Lisa free. "What are you?" He hissed at Rafa. "What do you want?"

"They're ours," Frank called. "Let us have them."

"No!"

"And come with us," Rafa said, a hand rising to gently touch Logan's face. "You're the original."

"Come," Frank repeated.

"Let them go!" shouted Logan, squeezing Rafa hard by the shoulders.

"You're the original," Rafa replied, his head flopping as Logan shook him. "Let us have them, and come with us."

Nancy clawed her way to the top of the mound. "Logan! You'll hurt him!"

"Let them go!" he shouted again, and suddenly Rafa went limp.

A mechanical whirring began somewhere in the forest.

"Damn-" Logan just had time to pull Rafa and Lisa down the slope when the buzzing of a high-speed gun filled the air above them with falling leaves and branches and dirt.

They tumbled into the mud and Logan was up instantly. "Stay down!" he commanded, the flashes of projectiles striking all around them. But already Lisa was on hands and knees, possessed and crawling into the darkness.

Nancy screamed out. Frank had her by the ankles and was dragging her roughly through the shallow stream as she clawed and kicked. Another burst of fire whistled overhead, ripping through a nearby tree trunk

Logan grabbed Frank's arm, who looked up briefly before receiving a blow to the base of his skull. He crumpled, and Logan pulled him free of the water and let him drop.

"Get her," Logan yelled at Nancy, lifting her out of the stream and pointing her toward the barely visible Lisa. "And stay down!"

She coughed and choked, cringed at a new volley of fire. "What is it? What's coming?"

"One of those damned combat suits from your lab." Long, metal claws popped out from the backs of his hands. "I'll take care of that. You just grab her."

He made his way with cat-like speed along the edge of the stream, gliding up the ridge to a point that allowed him to see just over. The combat suit, dark and barely visible between two angled trunks far away, turned with a surprising agility to face Logans new position. Gears whirred as it targeted two guns mounted on its shoulders, unleashing a torrent of fiery rounds to blast apart the ridge Logan was at.

He was already gone, darting to another spot on the ridge to peer over and watch as the battle suit adjusted its position again. Below, in the stream, Lisa splashed on, and turned her head up to Logan.

"Logan... you're one of us..." she called. "Why do you fight?"

The combat suit shifted around a trunk to better target the new spot on the ridge.

"You fight against us... your kin... and for the humans... Why?"

"You ain't going to get a one!" he shouted down. "Not a single one! You hear me?"

"You deny what you are! Don't! We are your brothers!"

The guns adjusted, but had not yet fired.

"Do it, Logan! Use your claws on the human inside! Show them what you really are! And come to us..."

The guns buzzed and the ridge burst apart with mud and mangled plants flying in every direction. Logan had slid down the ridge just enough to avoid the incoming fire, passed along the stream and back up to another spot at the ridge's edge, concealed by thick grass and a rotting log. When finally he edged a careful eye between broken bits of bark, a terrible surprise was waiting for him.

Rafa, out in the open and walking steadily towards the armored soldier. Logan could just see the soldier's blank gaze within the armor's visor.

"The humans...must die forwhat they've done," called Rafa.

Then Lisa, "You are one of us! Leave them! They will all die!"

Rafa stopped only yards from the mechanized suit, and it turned to him, guns whirring to acquire its new target.

"Damn!"

Logan bounded from the safety of the ridge and over the log. The suit spun, its guns firing an immediate barrage at him that lit up the darkness. Trees splintered around him. Bark exploded in great chunks. Fiery projectiles screamed past his ears.

Just near enough, he leapt in the air-as if to jump upon it-and dropped into the dirt, rolling. The soldier twisted in the wrong direction, defenseless against a single swipe of a claw, its razor-sharp edges severing crucial connections in the armor's leg.

The soldier inside the suit stumbled to its left on its one good leg, and then collapsed in a heap, its guns blasting apart two huge holes in the soft mud before its ammunition was exhausted.

Logan stood near it, claws at the ready, scanning the deep blackness of the woods for any other sign of movement. Nothing.

Rafa walked the last few steps to Logan. "Why must you fight us? We should be one against the humans-for what they have done to all of us."

"What are you?" rasped Logan, staring into the vacant eyes approaching him. "How do you know me?"

"We are kin. Your blood flows in us. Come with us-and we will be one against the humans."

"Leave! You're free! And you've come back-why? For blood?"

"It must end... Join us. We are kin. But if you fight us... you will die."

Rafa's legs buckled and Logan caught him just before he fell to the ground. He set Rafa down and stood over the fallen suit. Two quick cuts of the claws and the back of the suit lay open, fluids pouring from sliced tubes and thin wires trembling in the breeze. Cradled inside was the unconscious, green-clad soldier.

Another couple of careful cuts and he retracted the claws, digging in with bare hands to crack apart the last bits of armor and rip sensors and cables off of the soldier's exposed skin. He snapped the helmet off, at last freeing the limp man, and slung both the soldier and Rafa over his shoulders.

He carried the two back over the ridge, and down below was Nancy, breathing hard and pinning a now unmoving Lisa to the ground.

"Is it over?" Nancy asked. "She just... went limp."

"For now," he splashed into the stream.

She looked up at him, a tiny scratch across her cheek. "My god-are you all right?"

He looked down and saw the trail of blood he had left, an injury to his hand still dripping into the stream. "Nothing. Can you carry her?"

She gave Lisa a closer look. "I can... drag her, I suppose."

"Drag her, then. We've got to get out of here."

Nancy drew a deep breath, wiped away water from her face with a sleeve, and took hold of Lisa's arms.

xxx

By the time they arrived where Frank had been deposited, they were fortunate enough to have both Rafa and Lisa return to a groggy consciousness. Lisa had to sit a moment on the edge of the stream before she was ready to continue on her own, and she finally rose only with Nancy's help.

"It was awful..." she breathed. "I could... see everything I was doing, but..."

Logan had the soldier over one shoulder and Frank, who still hadn't opened his eyes, over the other. They all trudged through the woods at a pace that was far too slow for him, and had him glancing around repeatedly for any sign they were being followed, occasionally stopping to test the breeze with flaring nostrils.

"You can... catch scents, can't you?" Nancy asked. "Like a wolf? That's one of your mutations?"

Logan turned back briefly to her. "Thats right."

"Anything?" she asked.

"Nope."

She looked to a slight clearing on the right, where, without her even noticing, it had become morning. Bright light had finally begun streaming through the leaves.

"Number eighteen," Nancy continued. "The mind-thing. I'm guessing it can mask the whole group of them. At least until they're right on top of us."

"Figured that when they got the jump on us back there," Logan said. "Any other surprises for-"

Logan stopped suddenly. The others, sensing that danger might be near, did the same.

He made a noise. Nancy looked around, and whispered, "Logan?"

He made another noise. A grumbling, growling noise. Both Frank and the soldier slipped from his grasp and tumbled into the ground.

"Logan! What's wrong?"

The guttural growling continued, this time forming what could almost be heard as words.

"What?" she repeated, moving in closer.

The growling finally became words, and he spat out in some strange, inhuman voice-"Run!"

Nancy stumbled back and Rafa, who had crept too close, simply didn't have time to pull away. The claws popped and Logan whirled and a hand found Rafa's throat, pulling him in. Nancy and Lisa screamed almost as one.

"Do it, Logan," Rafa said. "The human deserves it. Break its neck. Do not resist."

Logan howled, as if something angry and primitive were trying to escape from him. "Get out of my head!" he bellowed, shaking and spitting and aiming the free set of claws at Rafa's chest. Then suddenly, with a final howl, Logan released him.

At the same time, Frank had stirred and found a pistol on the prone soldier, and while Nancy and Lisa screamed for him to stop, he was groggy and confused by the howling and screaming and by Rafa shouting, "Do it! Do it!" and with his own primal scream, emptied the gun at Logan.

Two shots caught Logan in the back, making him grit his teeth, and at the same time Rafa's chattering stopped abruptly. Rafa fell to the ground, a wet dark spot rapidly growing across the front of his shirt.

Nancy scrambled toward her fallen friend. A strong fist gripping her forearm stopped her. "They're here," Logan hissed, his hand trembling from some dark, inner confrontation. "Run!"

She had only the briefest glance at the rumbling, crashing sound coming from the forest when everything around erupted in angry orange flames. She scurried away, the flames searing at her arms and legs, clawing for any escape from the inferno.

Something howled loud and deep and from over the edge of flames Nancy saw trees tumbling down, shaking the ground. She crawled through the only path the red embers and licking fires would allow, staying low and pulling herself along by digging her fingers into the muddy soil.

A group of trees bent aside, and from the half-dawn glow charged an enormous, growling beast, many times the size of a normal man, thick, black hair covering its gigantic muscles. It opened its mouth and bared its fangs to hiss, raising a thick log in its hand as if it were a club, and focusing its eyes on Logan's bent figure.

Already engulfed in flames, Logan turned, claws at the ready, but the thing was upon him too quickly and struck him with the log so hard it lifted him off the ground and hurled him into the trees. He smashed into one like a cannonball, splintering it at is base and sending it crashing down. Right away swirling fires swallowed him whole, covering his body in an embrace of death.

The flames around Nancy had died back a little, and she took the chance to get her bearings. Only feet away was what remained of poor Frank, all crumpled and burnt up, with little flames still dancing over the shreds of his clothes. She turned away from that and to the prone soldier, who, while badly burned, seemed to be moving now, scraping a hand painfully across the dirt.

She had to help him! On her knees, she looked around for some sign of Lisa-she was going to need help if she was going to get the soldier away, and with Logan clearly dead, Lisa would be her only hope. She was afraid to, but had no choice, and finally called out for her help.

"Lisa!" she cried, trying to muffle it enough that only a nearby Lisa would hear. "Lisa, please! Where are you?"

The giant thing charged at where Logan lay, waving the broken piece of log that now remained in its hand. Nancy thought it was the only chance, while it was still distracted and before it turned its attention to her, to get to safety. She grabbed the soldier under the shoulders, digging her fingers into the uniform, and began pulling with all of her might.

To her left, the giant swung its club again, smashing huge bits of trees and ground and demolishing what remained of his own log. Logan's limp figure was lifted into the air and came crashing down on its shoulder and head with enough impact to form a small crater in the soft earth. The giant took a broken tree it had uprooted and raised it up in one hand, growling like some hungry bear.

To her surprise, what remained of Logan had brought itself to its feet, bloody and charred, but claws still gleaming in the half-light. He, too, gave an inhuman growl, and bounded toward the giant.

Something else entered the fray. Lean and naked, with its narrow face full of sharp teeth, running like the wind and finally leaping at Logan. Logan made a reflexive swipe with a claw, but the thing disappeared into a thin mist just before impact, and the claws passed harmlessly through. He couldn't recover in time to avoid a backhand by the giant which sent him another twenty yards in the air, blasting apart limbs and branches and sending everything down in a tangled pile.

Again a swirling inferno erupted around Logan, consuming leaves and wood and plants instantly. He climbed to his feet, waving his arms to free himself from the fires, when another smash of the tree sent him flying in a different direction. He had barely freed himself from the deep rut his landing had created before the smaller beast-Number Three-had found him, its talons making several swipes, ripping through Logan's flesh, before disappearing to avoid an angry cut from the metal claws.

It appeared again, landing a foot just below Logan's jaw, then slicing his side open. Logan swung a fist toward it, passing through the intangible figure, and received another gaping wound across his chest when it solidified. Occupied, he was once more helpless when the giant took a mighty swing, its club going clear through the ghostly figure and hammering Logan like some child's toy deep into the woods.

Nancy cried out when she saw Logan flying, his body trailing a stream of blood and fire into the treetops. The two beasts turned immediately to her, the smaller one opening its long mouth to show her rows of pointed teeth. She had dragged the soldier twenty yards, and now that she had been noticed, she tried desperately to increase her pace, gasping and whimpering and pulling with all of her might as if she thought she might outrun them.

"Human... ourssss..." the smaller one stepped nimbly toward her, hissing menacingly, narrow slits of eyes locked on her.

"Oh, god... get up," she pleaded with the soldier as the thing neared. "Please... wake up..."

It bent over, nostrils flaring at her, a hand or forepaw down to inspect her closely. It looked almost like a smile, she thought, with its lips curled back and row after row of teeth exposed. But the corner of its mouth quivered angrily, and it reared, ready to lunge.

Suddenly it swung its head around. "Logan…. "

The giant took a step back as well, and sure enough, at the edge of the trees, the small, mangled figure of Logan appeared, burnt and bloody and squinting at them through one eye.

"Leave her alone, you sons of bitches, and finish what you've started—if you can!"

The two beasts howled together, and Logan cried out fiercely in return. Like some wild demon thrown from hell he charged at them, claws ready, teeth flashing. He smashed into the giant-thing, avoided a swing, wrapped around its neck and plunged claws in deep. It bellowed in pain, dropped the club and grabbed for the twisting creature at its throat.

The smaller one was there in a flash—leaping on Logan in an effort to pry him free. Logan fought off the one, while hanging onto clumps of thick hair and slashing over and over until blood ran free and they all tumbled down together in a twisted mass of red flesh.

Logan's blades were flashing wildly. He ignored the slashes through his own body and plunged and cut at every opportunity. The giant-thing roared, flailed its hands about to grab hold just once of an arm or leg. Finally it twisted around and Logan had to leap away to avoid being pinned beneath it.

Number Three tackled Logan, cut through him twice, and ghosted away. Flames sparked and swirled again, and in a blink all of his flesh was ablaze. The giant staggered to its feet and smashed into Logan with all of its might.

Logan's impact with the trees broke two of them in half, and Number Three narrowly avoided being crushed by disappearing as one struck the ground. It reappeared beside Logan, slashing at him, turning into intangible mist just in time to avoid the metal claws.

The giant had returned with a club in its hand and swung, snapping another tree in two. Logan barely avoided it and swiped at the club, severing it at its base, and slammed his shoulder into the thing's middle, bowling it over. His claws gouged deep and it howled long and painfully.

He felt the rush of the thing behind him, tried to evade it and surprise it with a slash of a claw, but it was too fast and latched onto him and clawed and pitched him into the dirt. It disappeared just as Logan was knocked back by a blast of fire, and blinded by flames, he didn't see the giant again until too late.

Lumbering and bleeding heavily, the giant-thing raised the half-club and smashed Logan into the earth, shattering the club and burying him with the impact. It swayed there as Logan struggledweakly to free himself, unable now to even pull himself from the mud, one mighty hand over a gaping, bleeding wound across its chest.

"The human…" the smaller one hissed, and two other beasts emerged from the safety of the trees, at last certain Logan was no longer a threat. They were small and almost more human, but still thin and lean and covered in the same thick hair.

A final blast of hellish fire exploded around Logan, consuming the last bits of flesh covering him, but even still the dark shape now deep in the flames continued to writhe.

The four beasts made their way as a group in the direction Nancy and the soldier had disappeared in, the giant-thing turning for a moment to bellow angrily at Logan before continuing on to follow its companions into the woods.

And behind the four creatures, out of their sight, the fires finally died away, as did the last, lingering struggles of the burnt and battered figure within.

xxx

Mud covering her, a cold sweat dripping from her brow, Nancy grunted and fought dearly for every inch she pulled the unconscious soldier. Dirt and bits of plant clung to his shoulders, and together they had scraped a long path through the soft forest floor. She grunted, her fingers knotted painfully, dug deep into the fabric of his uniform.

Her heart had stopped when the noises deep in the woods faded, and there came the booming sound of that final howl. They had finished with Logan—and were after her. She had whimpered and pulled frantically, dragging the soldier's dead weight with a strength she didn't know she possessed, certain they would be upon her any moment.

Burrowing through a cluster of brush and pulling him around a fallen tree limb, a reflection caught her eye from over her shoulder- the early morning sun, glittering off a window hidden in the distance. It was a cabin, she saw, small and simple and tucked quietly away in the woods. Her heart jumped again, and with renewed strength she wiped sweat from her face with a tattered sleeve, and clutched the soldier's arms tighter and dragged him toward it.

Panting hard, arms and legs burning, she strained to pull him over a small rise in the ground, doing her best to keep quiet for fear that any sound would bring the beasts on her again.

"Come on, Nancy," she whispered to herself. "Come on, babe. You can do it. It's nothing. Come on."

She dragged him through the small, empty dirt path that stopped in front of the cabin, keeping her head up and looking around for the slightest hint of movement. The steps leading to the porch were the toughest of all, and she cried out twice, so loud she knew it would attract attention, before she finally heaved him to the doorstep and collapsed into the cabin wall, gasping.

Everything was dark and quiet inside the cabin, the shades pulled down tight at all the windows. No one came to the door, and nothing moved inside. It was empty, sure enough, and although no help would come for her from inside, it would be a safe place to hide, at least for a while.

She tried the doorknob—locked—but that wasn't about to deter her. Her body trembling with exhaustion, she put a foot to one of the squares of glass on the door and smashed it in with a heel. Then she reached a hand inside, fumbled for the lock, and swung the door open.

Inside it was dark, and it became obvious with a quick glance around no one was there. She bent back down to the soldier, whispering quietly, "You can do it, babe. You can do it." She took him by the arms and pulled him inside, and after a look into the forest, she snapped the door shut as quietly as she could.

She let out a deep, exhausted sigh, and slid down the wall to the floor, eyes closed, but listening. Listening.

Nothing out there but the gently moving woods.

Light from the new morning gradually filtered in through the shades, and she could see the sparse emptiness of the cabin around her. The only piece of furniture was a folded lawn chair propped against the far wall. Everything else was bare.

She turned her eyes to the unconscious soldier, who was just becoming visible. His head was turned to the side, his mouth open, cheeks and hair caked with dirt.

"You okay?" she whispered, not expecting a reply. She nodded to herself. "You don't look okay—but you're alive, right? That's all that counts right now."

Her head fell back into the wall. "We're alive." Her eyes moved rhythmically from one window to the next. "We're going to stay that way." And then, turning to the soldier, "Got that?"

Realizing her hunters had extraordinary sense of hearing, she stopped talking. Too much and one of them, passing outside, could find her easily. And so she waited, silently, watching the windows, listening to the little sounds of the forest.

Where to from here? How long could she stay hidden in that tiny cabin before they found her? Before the mind-thing tracked her down, or Number Three trailed her scent right to the front porch?

She screwed her eyes shut. Too many questions. She couldn't stay—and surely an escape from the cabin with the solider, or even alone, would be suicidal. Those things were out there. Hunting.

For her.

Her eyes moved from window to window. Window to window. Window to window….

xxx

A noise came from around front. Nancy sat straight and made a quick glance to each of the windows. The sun had come up to shine brightly through the far windows, and now with enough light she could see plainly there was no movement at any of them. She cursed quietly, realizing she must have fallen asleep for the sun to be up like that, if even for only a few minutes. A hint of a shadow swung by the door—something dark and primal and menacing. Its rasping breath came heavily through the shattered window as it neared, and she could feel its presence on the other side of the door, almost reaching through to her.

She looked into the one empty adjoining room, wondering for a moment if perhaps there might be knives in the kitchen, or a bat in the closet, or anything….

She stiffened when it touched the door. Trembling, she turned slowly, and against the shade was the bent, hissing shadow of her hunter, near enough to touch.

Run! Was there a back door? Through a window! Break it if you have to!

The soldier!

Nothing she could do about the soldier, heaven help him!

Body tense, watching the shadow from the corner of her eye-

She bolted. Scurried to her feet and made for the next room.

The door flew open. It grabbed her and she screamed.

She whirled and clawed at it, her nails raking flesh, screaming,

It rasped something unintelligible from deep in its throat.

She screamed more, and it shook her until her eyes focused, and she stopped, gasping.

Logan.

Mangled and disfigured, his face now no more than a lump of melted skin with one eye staring out through a half-open slit. He was naked, battered beyond belief, hairless and burnt with enormous gouges opened in his muscles, and one arm around his middle to keep his insides from pouring out.

"My god—Logan…. How?" she choked.

He shut the door and pushed her, his bulk stumbling against her and then into the wall, leaving her blouse and the paint covered in bloody prints. He gave a guttural growl, pulled her along with his one free hand.

She pulled back suddenly. "The soldier! Logan—the soldier!"

He glared at her with the lone eye, the folds of his mouth contorting painfully. "Dead," he hissed, and forced her to the next room.

She whimpered and cried out, and he shook her hard again and shoved her toward a door, which she opened, sobbing. Stairs descended into the darkness, and with Logan shoving her on, she hurriedly felt her way into a small, musty basement, the only light coming from two tiny windows high on the walls. Rough hands took her and pulled her into a corner, pushing her down without protest, and finally his body pinned her there, squatting on the ground, his back pressed into her. Dirt and blood and sweat filled her nostrils, and the only sound she could hear was his labored breathing through fluid-filled lungs.

In the dark, she curled her arms tightly around herself, and began to sob. Softly, not loud enough for anyone else to hear. She closed her eyes, tears running down her cheeks, and bent her head to the shoulder in front of her.

xxx

She gave a start, awake and alone in the dark basement. Her eyes, now accustomed to the low light, searched around, and noticed only the new glow now streaming from the open basement door.

"Logan…" she breathed, a dozen ghastly images running through her head—of him laying dead just outside the door, or stumbling outside and bleeding in a stream. A little louder, "Logan…."

On hands and knees she crept slowly to the stairs, and was stopped by a sudden creak just above. A shadow filled the doorway.

"Just me," Logan's voice rasped as he made his way down the steps.

Nancy let out a deep breath, relaxed at the sound of the creaking wood. When he hit the last stair and finally came into view, she put a hand to her mouth to hold back a gasp.

"My god, Logan—"

He had undergone a stunning transformation, in what couldn't have been any longer than an hour or two. He was now wearing boots she recognized he must have taken from the soldier, along with his pants as well. His bare chest, while still showing signs of considerable injury, was no where near the mangled mass of scars he had entered the cabin with. There was still an indentation in his abdomen, some long scars, an area of forearm that sparkled silver beneath its injured flesh when light hit it. His face was no longer a hideous disfigurement, but instead seemed to be merely a curled lip from an injured mouth, and a closed eye.

"Logan," she repeated, reaching out to him. "My god, it's a miracle. It is. This is… your mutation?"

"Part of it," he answered gruffly.

"I'm sorry… I know about you. A little. It's amazing. A miracle… you're a miracle. God's touched you. Truly."

He grunted. "You can change out of that shirt if you want. Into something clean and dry."

"From the solder? So… he is dead, then?"

"Got burned pretty bad." Her eyes closed, and she looked as if she were about to cry again. He continued, "Ain't nothing you could have done. You did more than anyone else would've." He paused, then said, "He'd appreciate it, looking out after him like you did, especially when you didn't know him an' all."

She nodded to herself, breathed deep. "I… couldn't Not with him dying. I'd rather stay in this."

"All right, then. But you'll get some damn strange stares when we get to town."

"I don't care." Then she looked at him again. "The others? What happened?"

"A mess—"

"Rafa… god, poor Rafa. I know about him. Saw him get shot. He wasn't moving. And Frank…. Lisa," she exclaimed, "what about Lisa?"

The side of his mouth curled up angrily. "They took her…."

"What? They did what?"

"They had already taken her by the time I started following. Couldn't get close enough to do anything, but I think the mind-creature did something to her—I don't know what. Then they just dropped her in the woods… left her there."

"Left her…?"

Logan shook his head. "I checked. She was burned bad, too. Dead before I got to her." He looked at her, judging her reaction. "It's the only reason you got away. They went for her instead of you."

She covered her face. "Don't tell me that." After a moment she had composed herself, wiped something from the corner of her eye. "So where are they? Those things?"

"Damned if I know. Out there somewhere…. They're hidden from my senses, I can't catch a scent of any of them." He squinted at her with his one eye. "If they wanted us, they'd be here. They ain't afraid of me—I'm no match for them and they know it. So if they're not here, it's for another reason."

"What… what did they do to Lisa?"

"Don't know." And then he added, "What would they have wanted from her?"

Nancy closed her eyes and shook her head sadly.

Logan looked her up and down. "About time to get moving—we can't tempt fate too long. Think you can make it?"

She moved toward the stairs on shaky legs, leaning with one hand against the wall, and gave him a firm nod. "I'll be fine. I have to be."

They ascended the stairs together, and once she needed to reach out and hold his arm to steady herself, but gained her strength quickly and went the rest of the way on her own. Upstairs, she noticed the spot where the solider had been was now empty, and she turned with a questioning look to Logan who was pulling on a green shirt and rolling up its sleeves.

"Out back," he answered.

"Buried?" she asked, and then added hopefully, "Any of them?"

"No time. Nature'll take its course. No worse than anything else."

He opened the front door, let the fresh air play over his face. He sniffed at it, as if it mattered any more what his senses told him, and swung the door fully open.

"It's cold," he said, nodding at her scant clothing, wet and shredded in spots. "You should at least have a jacket."

She shook her head. "I'll be fine. Really." She stepped through the door.

It was colder than she had remembered it, and the wind was picking up. But there on the porch, with the warm sun hitting her, she felt refreshed, and took a deep breath of the crisp, clean air. It coursed through her, invigorating her, and her breath billowed out in a rolling white cloud.

She rubbed her arms for warmth and nodded to him. He led the way, across the path to the cabin and into the thick wall of trees.

"We're heading to the town?" she asked, looking up to the sun to judge their direction.

He was a few yards ahead, watchful eyes constantly penetrating the woods. "Back to the compound."

"Why? Why there?" she asked, surprised.

"No idea where those things are. But I'll bet anything they won't be returning to the compound." He climbed a hill easily. "They probably got what they were looking for, and by now it'll be crawling with your friends from the lab. That's our fastest chance to pick up help."

xxx

The return trip was slow, each of the rolling hills or steep walls of vegetation added more and more to her difficulty, and her legs seized up and forced her to stumble onward like some mechanical robot, face contorted in pain. Always ahead was Logan, never tiring, his movements swift and sure, like a hunting tiger, despite the injuries he had suffered. His mutation—the healing—was miraculous, beyond anything she would have imagined, and from a short distance it appeared as if nothing had happened to him at all.

At one point, out of breath, she had to lean against a tree, and he immediately returned, looking her over with narrow eyes.

"Rough time?" he asked.

She nodded, little puffs escaping her lips. "Much tougher this time. I don't have anything left."

He looked into the distance, eyes always searching.

"When I said… when I said in the cabin that you were a miracle, that you were touched by God… I meant it." She took a deep breath. "You're amazing. You are."

He snorted at her. "They say God gives with one hand and takes away with the other." Something like contempt passed over his eyes. "Everyone don't think like you, hon."

"I know. I'm sorry. It's confusing… for everyone. Some can't accept when others have been given a gift—even one as amazing as yours." She stood up straight. "You've been given a blessing, Logan. You have. Don't let anyone let you think otherwise."

"Maybe your god should have blessed me a little more and just made me human, then." He gestured up a steep grade in the distance. "We're going over this ridge."

They set out again, and this time she had a little more energy in her steps, but the travel was still slow and laborious. Climbing over logs, wading ankle-deep in streams, and finally the long climb up the ridge, which seemed to grow higher and steeper with every inch. Toward the very top she had to cling precariously onto dangling plants and tree roots to pull herself up the final few yards. Logan was there already, in a small clearing, sniffing at the air and looking over the gradual sloping canopy of tree tops before them. She approached him, breathing hard, but marveling at the view.

"Wow…" she breathed, hugging herself against the cold air. "This is pretty." She gasped a few times. "I wish I were on vacation here."

"You recognize where we are?" he asked.

She gazed out over the wide expanse of green in front, turned a little to look behind them. She couldn't see the cabin, or any signs of where they had been. No compound was visible ahead, or paths—only gradually descending trees.

Nancy shook her head. "I guess the compound's over there. I guess. The cabin's just gone now. And I don't see any town, either. Anywhere. Just trees." She laughed a little. "It's pretty, though."

"All right, then. Just so you understand." He took another deep breath of the clean air. "Getting cold out here. Something's heading in—snowstorm, it feels like. Probably pretty big. Sometime just after dark, I'd think."

She looked at him crossly. His tone had changed, become more ominous, threatening.

"Going to get damn cold. A lot worse than it is now. It'll be cold, and the snow'll pile up fast, and it'll be dark as death out here."

"We'd better get to the compound, then," Nancy said, watching him closely.

He turned, stared at her with one eye. "It'll be hard as hell finding your way back in that kind of mess. Especially if you don't know where you are to begin with."

Their eyes met, and she opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

"You'd stumble around in the dark, couldn't see nothing, snow whipping in your eyes… until pretty soon you just couldn't go on. Cold would get to you, and then the snow would cover you up. Out here… in those conditions… take forever to find a body, even with luck. And that's if the animals didn't get there first."

"What are you saying?" she asked meekly, the words barely coming out.

His upper lip curled in a snarl. "I'm saying we're going to sit here and talk. And you're going to tell me what I need to know or things'll end up just like I described."

Her eyes opened wide, and she took a step back. Her arms hugged around her body tighter. "Why? Why would you?" And then, softly, "Don't. Please."

He stared at her squarely. "I ain't no murderer. But I am done with being in the dark about things. You understand? I'm not mad at you, either. Not much, anyways. If I were, I would've cut you in two without a blink. Tyson's just leading you around by the nose, and I know that. But I'm done with the lot of you, and I'm letting you know where things stand."

She turned around, as if hoping to find help, and whimpered when only the trees were to be seen.

"I'm sorry…" she said. "It was all confidential. We were warned not to talk about our research at the lab." She backed away slowly, feeling his menacing glare boring into her. "I'm sorry… if I had known what would happen…."

There was no more room for her to retreat. Another foot behind her was the steep downhill slope she had grappled her way up.

"I don't have anything to hide. I swear. If I knew things would turn out like this, I would have told you everything from the start."

"Good. Ain't much time before the cold digs in." He looked to the sky and saw the increasing gray clouds far off. "So… what's really going on at Ulai Lab?"

From a distance she gathered herself, arms wrapped around her to cover her from the biting wind. "We're…." She paused, and gathered her words again. "We're doing research on genetic mutations that produce… varying degrees of supernormal abilities. Like yours, though the vast majority aren't nearly as well-refined, of course."

"The mutants—where do you find them? Do they come to you? Or do you find them?"

She noticed the hostility in his voice. "We find them, mostly. If an individual begins to manifest some form of supernormal ability, it's usually not under his or her control, and we hear about it. A fire. A accident someone miraculously survives. Strange happenings anywhere. Usually it's nothing, but sometimes….

"Sometimes there's a candidate. They're usually frightened, and we offer our help. Often, there's not much we can do, and it's simply a matter of keeping the candidate safe and to prevent him from causing harm, either to himself or to others."

"Keep 'em safe, eh?" he grunted, and then, "Those creatures. Where do they come in?"

She swallowed, and her eyes closed. "My division of Ulai is slightly different. We… we don't look for cases of supernormal manifestations. We…" and here she paused, and looked at him, trying to gauge his reaction. "We create them."

"What?" he spat. His eye tightened into a thin slit, angry lines forming in his face.

"It's called Directive 21. We've been charged with the task of replicating the mutant genes that produce these extra abilities. Those creatures that escaped… they were grown in Ulai Lab from…" and here she paused again, "from stored genetic material."

A fire grew suddenly in his eye, and his lips curled back in a rage. He grabbed her wrist, squeezing her hard and pulling her to him.

"Stored? Stored from where?" He shook her fiercely, and she cried out and dropped to her knees in pain. "Where did you get it?"

Whimpering, begging, she couldn't pull free from the iron vice of his fist, and collapsed at his feet, sobbing. "Please… please don't…"

"Where?" he howled.

"From you!" she screamed back, tears streaming down her cheeks. "From you!"

He flung her away and stumbled back, fists balled in a rage. "How?" he spat.

She was curled on the cold dirt, rubbing her wrist and sobbing. "During your time with… Project X. There were still some blood and tissue samples remaining. We realized they had incredible… regenerative capabilities, and it opened a new window for us to… understand the processes at work."

He was still trembling with rage. "Those things out there…. They're me. No wonder they called me kin…."

"Logan—it was just to understand. I know what it must look like, especially to you…"

"So you created those things, and you kept them caged, and you experimented on them… and now that they're out… you want me to kill them."

"It's not like that… it's not. If we had known it was going to turn out like this…."

"What was I… bait? Was I bait at the compound… to lure them in? Because they know who I am, and what I am? Have me finish off your problem—butcher 'em because they're not convenient any more?"

"No. No—I don't know why. I don't think…. That wasn't what Tyson wanted. He was desperate—he needed you. He had no where else to turn."

Logan was crouching now, looking out in the distance to the gray clouds rolling in, soon to overtake the bright sun at their backs. Then he turned to her, an equally dark expression covering his face.

"I should leave you here for what you've done," he said.

She swallowed. The cold wind knifed through her thin clothes from the darkness of the woods.

"Talking to me about God," he spat. "What do you know? Only thing you know about God is pretending you're him."

A surge of anger appeared across his features, and he snarled suddenly, teeth bared. He rose and made his way to the edge of the clearing, toward the far slope of the hill. Just before the beginnings of the trees he paused.

He said over his shoulder, "Keep up. You can't keep up… I ain't coming back for you." He disappeared into the woods.

The first small flakes began to fall. Nancy took a deep breath and closed her eyes, feeling one of the icy flakes melt away on her cheek. She picked herself up and marched after him, grimacing to herself at the pain shooting through her.

xxx

The snow had begun blowing steadily by the time they reached their destination, driven by a brutal wind that shook the treetops overhead. A thin white blanket had spread across the ground in spaces it had found between the trees, kicked up in spots by gusts blowing in between the trunks and down through the limbs. She squinted against the flakes biting her face, wrapped her arms tight to protect herself from the cold.

The journey was difficult for her, up and down rolling, ragged terrain for the second time, and often her legs buckled and she found herself in the snow in a heap, with barely enough strength to rise again. But there was Logan, despite his threat, barely a shadow in the distance, stopping and watching, waiting for her to pull herself up and continue.

It took hours to reach that ridge near the compound, and when she staggered to the top, Logan was waiting, looking down on the smashed concrete wreckage from the same point that they had left it. Overturned vehicles, crumbled walls, gaping holes in the earth. But now crawling with white Ulai Lab security vans and personnel, and camo-clad soldiers.

Logan looked back at Nancy. "Company's coming."

In a moment, the whirling blades of a helicopter flew by overhead, kicking up a blinding curtain of snow and shining down upon them a series of spotlights. In a brief moment of visibility she glimpsed dark figures with body armor approaching from every angle, long guns at their shoulders trained on her.

"This is Doctor Hu," she shouted over the din. "We're from Ulai Lab! Help us!"

One of the soldiers drew close enough to see, and he lowered his rifle and raised his visor. "Doctor Hu—we've been searching for you. Glad to see you're all right." At his signal the others lowered their weapons as well.

She took a deep breath and dropped her head, nearly collapsing in the snow. "Thank god. Thank god. You have no idea how happy I am to see you."

"The others, Doctor?" asked the solider.

Nancy just shook her head.

"Ain't no others," Logan spat.

The soldier's eyes found Logan, and then back to Nancy. "All right. Let's get you back down—we have some shelters set up. Warm you up and get you some medical attention."

With the armed escort surrounding them, they made their way down the hill. The helicopter circled overhead, casting intense beams of light into the woods before them, while the soldiers remained vigilant, their rifles sweeping back and forth during the entire journey. When they arrived at the foot of the collapsed compound both were directed to a quickly constructed shelter with plastic walls, and while Nancy was gladly led inside, leaning all of her weight on a strong soldier, Logan simply grunted and disappeared into the dark.

It was the first bit of heat she had felt all afternoon, and when a young lady was introduced to her as the medic and offered her a bed, she stumbled toward it and was able to lift herself up only with help. The soldier, who by now she was only barely aware of, eased her back and the young lady was saying soothing things she didn't quite understand.

Looking up at the top of the little shelter, she half saw the face of the young medic, and Nancy blinked, and then again, and the warmth and the soft bed took her all at once.

xxxxxxx

Nancy awoke to a gentle rocking and humming, cradled in a soft, cloth seat. Even before opening her eyes, she knew it must be one of Ulai Lab's vans, and she could feel her head pressed almost painfully now against the glass, striking it occasionally when they hit a bump. The seat belt stretched across her neck in a way she didn't like, and when she finally half-opened her eyes, all she could see were the trees whipping past.

Panic seized her. "Logan!" she cried out, twisting in her seat. "Logan!"

The thought of being out there, in the woods, alone with those things and without him—

"Hon… Hon."

Nancy turned to the other voice, the seatbelt cutting into her neck. It was a woman in the passenger seat of the van, just in front of her, turning around and speaking to her soothingly.

"Hon… he's in the van behind us. Really."

Nancy craned to see out the small windows behind her, and sure enough there followed through the dark wooded path another white van. She relaxed in the seat and took a deep breath.

"We'll be at the lab soon," the woman said.

The only thing in Nancy's mind were the encroaching trees and looming danger all around. "The lab? Why the lab again?"

"Tyson Carter's request. Safer there, I suppose."

"Safer…" she laughed to herself. As if there was such a thing anymore. "We should be in a helicopter… if we were really worried about safety. And even then…."

"The helicopters have been pulled for the security effort, Doctor. Don't worry—we're safe."

The van descended sharply, curved to the left and finally entered a clearing. The sun had already set and the growing gloom of the deep Canadian wilderness crept in upon them. She could see, illuminated by a series of lights farther down the road, the wide steel and concrete structure of Ulai Lab, its perimeter guarded by patrolling soldiers. The van slowed a little and was waved through a checkpoint piled high with sandbags, attentive soldiers swiveling their tripod-mounted machine guns to keep the van in sight.

Nancy noticed there must have been at least a dozen of those sandbag-checkpoints within view, and maybe hundreds of soldiers either stationary or marching in groups around the Lab. One or two of the armored combats suits could even be seen patrolling. At the side of the building she could just make out a large collection of vehicles—military jeeps and things with tracks and others with big guns mounted on them, soldiers buzzing about them in an orderly fashion, some even filing into the opened rear hatches.

"It's turned into a military base," Nancy said. "They've taken over."

One of the heavy steel doors to the underground garage began to raise for them as they neared it, and at the same time Nancy watched a series of the vehicles drive off, down a winding road and into the darkness.

She was jarred back to attention when the van hit the sudden incline into the garage, and she sat back watching the gray concrete walls flash by. The van came to a stop deep under the building, everything dark and gray with fluorescent lights hanging far overhead. The woman in the passenger seat unhooked her safety belt and turned back to Nancy.

"All good," she said, swinging the door open.

Nancy unbuckled and followed, the slamming doors echoing in the wide open space. She was just behind the two others in the car when she saw the first familiar face at a distant corridor. Tyson Carter.

"Oh my god, Nancy," he said, moving toward her, flanked by men in suits and soldiers with rifles. "You have no idea how worried we were."

"Tyson," she felt what she thought was a sob coming, but choked it down. "It was awful."

Behind her, the second van pulled into the garage and the giant door descended slowly to the ground, cutting off the little moonlight shining through.

"I'm so sorry," Tyson said. "The compound—it should have been safe, Nancy. We don't know how it could have happened. Oh, god… and Doctor Praia… and Frank…."

Tyson's eyes darted to the side and suddenly Logan was there, his thick fist wrapped around Tyson's throat and pinning him back against the concrete wall. Nancy cried out.

"You little shit, Carter," he snarled, holding him tight while the soldiers scrambled around them in panic. "You used me for bait back there—"

Tyson whimpered, his eyes wide and full of terror. Logan went on, "Ain't got the balls to handle your problems—need to hire yourself a butcher, huh?"

Rifles raised at them from every direction.

Sharp fangs were only inches from Tyson's face. "Thought you could get me to lure them in—finish them off like they didn't even exist. Like there was no problem."

One of the soldiers, staring down the sights of his rifle, shouted, "Let him go! Let him go now!"

"Logan! Don't! Logan!" screamed Nancy.

Logan turned slowly to meet the soldier with two steely eyes, fiery with anger. "And you're going to do what?"

"Let him go!" was the return.

"Don't," Tyson croaked, his face turning an unnatural purple.

"Please! Don't shoot!" Nancy screamed, knowing the terrible consequences of even a single shot.

Logan fixed his glare back on Tyson. "And you knew where they came from, too. Damn near my flesh and blood. And you wanted me to kill them. After what you did in here to them."

"You don't… understand," choked Tyson. "Logan… you're all we… had."

"I ain't going to kill you Carter—they're going to do it for me. They're going to come here, and I ain't going to be here to stop them. They're going to come here and rip you piece from piece. Scatter you all around this damned lab and burn it back to hell where it belongs."

Logan released his grip and Tyson sank against the wall, gasping and wheezing. He knocked aside one of the rifle barrels pointed at him and went into the dimly lit corridor.

"I'm leaving in an hour, Carter," he called. "I expect to be paid."

xxx

"It's terrible," Tyson said, holding his throat as he led Nancy and two others into the command center they had set up at the lab. He had a deathly pallor to his skin, and his eyes were dark and had the look of a cornered rat.

The office was a disaster. Papers had fallen to the floor in discarded piles. Manila files were thrown about over every desk, as were empty foam cups, and in one place an entire cup of coffee had spilled across the top of a desk and down to the floor. But no one seemed to care. The few individuals still there were worn, each one now smoking or nursing a cold cup of coffee.

Tyson moved to the enormous map against the wall, littered with little colored pins and flags and post-it-notes. "Any word from Chariottville?"

Nevil pulled a cigarette from his lips. He was watching a half-dozen small televisions they had set together on desks, each on a different channel. "Nothing yet. Local news crews are filtering in. They've already had news breaks to report what they know—which isn't much more than us right now." He took a closer look at Tyson and the deep red mark around his throat. "What happened?"

Tyson shook his head. "Logan's angry as hell. I can't blame him."

Nancy was eyeing the disaster around her, standing against a projector pointed at a screen set up against the wall. There was a laptop connected to the projector, its screen filled with colored lines bouncing from side to side.

Colleen approached her and squeezed her arm, a look of concern on her face. "I'm sorry," she said. "I heard about what you went through out there."

"What's going on?" Nancy asked. "What's happened with Chariottville?"

Tyson put his face in his hand. "Godawful mess. Just godawful. After they were done with the compound they made their way south. Met up with one of our security teams and destroyed it. And not more than an hour ago they ripped through Chariottville. Burned everything to the ground."

Nancy took a deep breath. "All the soldiers outside… that's what they're here for."

"We got military help once they hit the compound—and now with what happened to Chariottville…."

"Out of our hands now," said Bruce, tall and broad-shouldered, his short blonde hair now a tousled mess. "Military's in full control of all operations here now."

"I've been shouted at by everyone up and down the ladder," Tyson said, not to anyone in particular, but purging a heavy weight from his shoulders. "People who approved of Ulai—who funded us, for goodness sake—they're all washing their hands of us now."

"I saw a line of… tanks or APC's or something taking off from out there," Nancy said.

"Going to Chariottville," said Bruce. "They're pulling away some of the forces here to trap those things near Chariottville. But they've got to rush, and this is the closest they have men stationed right now."

Nevil turned from the televisions. "Foolish as all hell, if you ask me. We're going to need every last man out there if they decide to show up here. Every last man."

"And here?" Nancy asked. "Are we safe here?"

"We're safe," Bruce replied. "This place is sealed—"

"Who knows," Nevil said, waving a hand, cigarette smoke making patterns in the air. "You don't know, Bruce. None of us know. Those things could come walking in here—"

"Have you seen it out there? Have you seen the protection we've got—"

"Both of you. Stop it." Tyson's voice was firm, but weak. "Let's just hope it doesn't come to that." He thought for a moment, looking unhappily at the map dotted with the little red flags and notes of lost confrontations with the beasts. "I don't know if we can stop them. Right now, I don't know if we have anything that can stop them."

A somber silence fell over the room. The quiet televisions flickered from scene to scene, Nevil perched at the edge of a desk watching them, his back to the room, drawing deeply on his cigarette. Tyson sat as well, exhausted shoulders drooping down as if he were melting away.

After a while, Colleen said to Nancy, "You're probably still tired. We've set up some beds down in C wing. It might be a good idea to catch some rest while you can."

Nancy nodded. "That would be wonderful. But I wish… I wish we could do more than just sit and wait."

"I understand," Colleen put a friendly hand on Nancy's back and led her through the door. "But like Bruce said—it's out of our hands. All we can do is wait."

"And pray," added Nevil.

xxx

Nancy had been guided to one of the large rooms emptied out except for dozens of cots crammed inside. While most of the soldiers were housed in an entirely separate wing, this portion was designated for the civilian members of the lab still in the area and needing protection. She had been told politely by a large uniformed man that this was one of the areas she would still be permitted access to, so, along with a few other lab members she distantly recognized who were already there, she sat down on her cot, in silence.

There was very little activity. The occasional soldier or security would pass by the door, and those inside the room sat or laid by themselves, without a word to anyone else. She had stretched out for a while, staring up at the light fixtures and gray metal beams, and then got up and roamed about the mostly empty room.

At the doorway she stopped. Something caught her attention, but she didn't quite know what. She lingered there for a moment or two, noticing nothing, and then out of nowhere it struck her again. The faint smell of cigar.

She edged her way out the door and looked through the hallway.

"Logan?" she breathed softly.

She knew searching for him wasn't a good idea. He was angry and violent and dangerous. But it wasn't entirely his fault. Tyson had clearly manipulated him, and on top of that, she felt a certain bond with him—from her work at the lab for so many years, and from the gifts he had been given. She wanted to see him just once more before he left, to prove… maybe to prove that all humans weren't bad, and that she wasn't as terrible as her work at the lab made her seem.

She followed what she believed to be the direction of the cigar smoke, down the corridor which was mostly empty. There was only one man she passed in the hallway, a green-uniformed soldier, and she asked him if anyone had gone ahead of her.

"Sure, miss. Shorter guy. Down that way."

Nancy continued and finally came to another garage, packed with soldiers milling about, sitting on vehicles and boxes, eating and drinking and reading. And at the far end, near one of the doors to the outside, was Logan, getting clearance from a guard at the door to leave.

"Logan—" she called, her shoes making a echoing, tapping noise through the chamber as she approached him.

He turned and looked at her with two strong eyes, and again she marveled at his remarkable gifts. He had changed into suitable clothes, jeans and dark shirt and jacket with a satchel slung over his shoulder. His hair was short, but beginning to return, and he had the beginnings of dark stubble across his chin and cheeks. She stopped in front of him.

"You're leaving?" she asked.

"Damn right," he had that cigar clenched and smoldering between his teeth.

"You were paid?"

"That's right."

"Where are you going?"

He bit down on the cigar, losing patience. "Don't know."

There was a pause. "They could use you here, you know."

He grunted. "So that's what this is about." He said to the guard, "Let me out."

The guard nodded, punched the code into the door and lifted the heavy bar.

"You made your bed," Logan said, putting a palm to the door and swinging it open. Cool night air came in, and the moonlight sparkled off the dusting of snow on the ground.

He left through the door and she followed him outside, wrapping her arms around her to keep warm.

"Excuse me," the guard reached out a hand to Nancy. "It's dangerous out there, ma'am."

"It'll just be a moment," she said, following Logan's quick stride.

"Really, ma'am, you shouldn't be out there at all," said the guard.

"I understand," she said. "Logan—if you don't know where you're going, you might as well stay. There's at least some safety inside."

"Ain't going to be much more than a graveyard here," he said. "If you had any sense you'd be gone, too."

"Then at least help them. You're right—they can't do anything here against those things. What if they do come?"

Logan stopped and made a half-turn and ripped the cigar from his teeth. "Help them? Help them what? Help them so that next time it's me in there? So you sons-of-bitches can grab me and put me in a cubicle and experiment on me for years?" He clenched is teeth around the cigar and continued walking. "You'll deserve every damn last bit they give to you. Every one of you."

Her breath billowed from her half-open lips. She shouted at him, "You don't understand! We wanted to help! We're only trying to help!" And then softly, sadly, "We only wanted to help…."

xxx

Logan continued past the small road, to the very edge of the trees. There he pulled the satchel up his shoulder a little more and stopped. Something bristled inside him. He squinted, and listened, and bit down on the cigar.

The soldiers. He could hear them. Outside patrolling and inside talking. Vehicles winding down the road far away. The faint sounds of small animals shuffling in the woods. A bird. He sniffed at the wind, and caught the gasoline on the air, the wet earth, the men that had been by this way not long ago. There was nothing. But yet….

Logan… brother…

In his head. He snarled and bared his teeth.

We're here. Help us. Help us free them.

"Get out of my head," he spat, staring into the darkness for any sign.

Come with us…. Help us….

"What? What do you want? Revenge?"

Help us free them….

"Free what? What do you want?"

Your brothers… in the lab…. Your kin….

A cold sensation spread up his spine. In the lab. Brothers in the lab.

"Damn them." He threw down his cigar and satchel and bolted for the open door.

xxx

Nancy, surprised to see him running back, was dragged roughly inside.

"Close the door, dammit!" he shouted at the guard, who immediately did as he was told. General panic ensued within the garage, with soldiers dropping their plates or books and making for their weapons.

"What's wrong?" Nancy gasped, and by the look in his eyes, she could tell. "Are they here?"

He grabbed her hard by the arms and shook her. "What do you have in here?"

"What?" she stammered.

"What do you still have here?"

"What do you mean?"

He growled angrily and threw her aside, and she tumbled to the floor. "Carter," he hissed, and sprinted out of the garage and down the hall.

The excitement of the garage had not yet filtered through the rest of the building, and he made it through the winding hallways easily, stirring up only a few diligent guards who called after him as he passed. When he arrived at the quiet command center, he banged the door open with such force it jarred everyone to their senses. Tyson jumped to his feet, wide-eyed and frightened, and backed away from the snarling figure in the doorway

"Logan, what—"

Bruce, in the corner of the room, brought a hand to his pistol.

"What are you doing here, Carter?" Logan demanded. "How many do you still have here?"

"What are you talking about?" Tyson's voice quivered.

"You know what I'm talking about," a trio of blades popped from the back of Logan's hand. Colleen cried out and fell backwards into the wall. Logan took another step toward Tyson.

"Wait. Logan—"

"How many?" The shout ended in a backhanded swipe of his claw, carving a desk in two and sending all of its contents in a violent crash to the floor.

There was a collective jump in the room, and Tyson cowered against the map. "A hundred and twenty seven! Exactly!" His trembling hands were pulling at the map in an effort to flee, shredding large portions of its side.

Logan drew in a deep breath through clenched teeth. "You arrogant bastard." Penetrating eyes glared around the room. "All of you. Think you can play God… pick and choose what life's good and what ain't…. Well, they're here for you now. Right outside your front door."

"Oh my god!" Colleen cried.

"Chariottville!" Bruce exclaimed. "That must have been a diversion! To pull away our forces!"

"Logan!" Tyson said, trying to steady his voice. "Logan! Listen to me! You've got to help us!"

Logan retracted the claws. "You're going to get what's coming to you, Carter. I promised you that. You've doomed everyone in this lab."

"No! No! You don't understand! Logan, listen to me! Okay. We still have a lot of specimens in the lab. I admit that. But listen! If those things are here, they're here for one reason—they want to set loose the others. Imagine that, Logan! A hundred of those things, loose, coordinated…. Do you have any idea what they could do… the destruction they could cause? Logan!"

A speakerphone buzzed on one of the desks. "Bruce—" Silence for a moment, and then again, "Bruce? Are you there?"

"Yes?" he answered, never taking his eyes off Logan or his hand from the gun.

"Bruce—we've got multiple breaches. Sectors three, seven and eleven. Three and seven are reporting aggression from our own forces—we're assuming that's the work of Specimen Eighteen. Sector eleven has reported intense fires resulting in heavy casualties and loss of equipment. They've had to pull back to a defensive position within the compound."

"That's what they've wanted all along, wasn't it?" Logan said. "What's in the lab. They just needed the rest of you to get inside your heads—to figure the best way back into the lab." A sour smile appeared at the edge of his lips. "They've been manipulating you all along, with feints and diversions. And you thought they were just animals, didn't you? Not even that—just mutants."

"Bruce?" came the voice on the speakerphone again. "Bruce? Do you hear me?"

Nancy appeared at the door, out of breath, pulling hair from her face. "Oh my god—what're you all doing here? We've got to get going! Something just smashed through the garage door! Everyone's shooting at each other in there! No one knows what's going on!" She gave a tug on Logan's forearm. "We've got to go!"

"Ain't no where to go," Logan said calmly. "They want you all dead. Won't be anyplace safe for you outside."

Nancy burst into tears, her eyes welling and her hand trembling. "Why? Why? We were only trying to help! To keep people from being hurt! Why are they doing this to us? I only wanted to help!"

"Maybe you were," and then he turned to Tyson, "but they weren't. They knew what they were doing. Directive 21… was that a military project, Carter? What were you studying those mutants for?"

A jarring rumble shook the building to its core, Bruce losing his balance and Tyson falling into a row of file cabinets.

"My god!" the speakerphone shouted. "My god! One of our helicopter's just flown into the building! My god, Bruce! Are you—here comes anoth—"

A second rumble vibrated through the floor and walls and the speakerphone went dead.

Colleen wailed.

"It doesn't matter what any of that was for now," Tyson said, his face ashen. "None of it matters, don't you get that? If those things get in here and set loose the others—they'll have an army! They'll have a coordinated army that nothing on earth can stand up against!"

"Logan, please," it was Nancy, her hand squeezing his arm. "You're human—not one of them! Don't take their side against humanity! Please!"

Logan's fists grew tight. His nostrils flared, the corner of his mouth curling angrily. At last he said, "Show me where your lab is."

"What?" Tyson said.

"The lab! Where the others are! If that's what we're defending, I need to see it."

Tyson glanced toward Bruce, who responded nervously, "Don't—"

"It's either me or them, Carter," Logan said. "Take your pick."

Tyson hesitated, but another rumble under their feet made his decision. "All right. It's underground. Deeper than the garages. I don't know what's left between here and there."

He wound his way out the door, looked both ways cautiously. He said to Bruce and Colleen, "We should all go. It's the safest place now."

They all flowed together out of the room and through the hallway. Logan guarded front and back, keeping the group tight, sniffing the air for any approaching dangers. Bruce pulled out his pistol and kept it at the ready.

It seemed a perfectly ordinary set of hallways they made their way through—quiet and clean, with no disturbances, as if they were passing by on any other day. But at every corner, Logan forced them to stop so he could scout it out, and only let them proceed once he was certain it was clear. Nancy kept close to him, remembering the dangers of their previous escape.

Tyson pointed farther ahead. "There's an elevator around that corner. We'll need to take that to the lower level."

"Be careful," Bruce called, glancing behind them. "If there's guards, we don't want to surprise them. They could start shooting—no one knows what's going on around here."

Tyson said to Logan, "There's supposed to be guards—but who knows now."

Logan held up a hand. "Wait." And he listened. He jerked a thumb to their rear. "Soldiers."

"Finally," Colleen let out a heavy sigh.

Logan gestured ahead. "Keep moving."

"Shouldn't we wait for the soldiers?" Tyson asked.

"Move," insisted Logan.

They could hear the heavy steps of the group of soldiers approaching from some corridor behind them.

"What's going on?" asked Colleen.

Logan had positioned himself between the nearing soldiers and the small group and popped the claws from both of his hands. "Get going!"

Nancy was up and shoving the others on. "He said move!"

The soldiers swung into view and began firing instantly, squeezing off a few rounds that burst into the walls before Logan was on them. Darting and spinning, his claws halved two rifles immediately, and one kick and a strong forearm brought two others down. One of the soldiers dropped his disabled rifle and reached for his holster, but Logan smashed an elbow into his face and hammered the back of his fist into the last.

"More coming!" he shouted. The others hadn't moved far, and he nimbly bounded in front of them to clear the way to the elevator. Half way there, he stopped dead. "Everyone drop!"

They stopped in a confused hover between running and falling to the floor. That's when they could hear the whirring of mechanical gears and micro-motors and one after the other three of the armored combat suits stepped into the intersection. Their guns targeted and he sprang at them—two managing to fire off their cannon at him, one blasting apart the wall and the other shredding his arm, the slugs pinging off of the metal-laced bones underneath. But when he landed it was on them in a pile, bowling them over and cutting through vital components and gears. One more cannon buzzed, just missing him, gouging the ceiling with a deep, angry rut and sending concrete and rock all over. One more quick cut and that was silenced as well.

"Hurry!" he shouted to the others.

It took a moment for them to gather themselves. First Bruce, and then the others, running the last few dozen yards, shaking off bits of powdered rock from their heads and arms. Logan punched at the button to one of the sets of elevators, his other hand dripping in a red pool collecting at his feet. They clamored to the door just as it slid open, and another group of soldiers appeared at the far intersection, rifles raised.

"In!" Bruce shouted.

Logan covered them, taking three shots square in the chest, a half-dozen more clanging off the closing elevator door. Just then there came a violent tearing overhead, metal screaming and chunks of cement falling in. The lights flickered and died. The elevator door stopped closing. A shower of sparks rained down.

The ceiling was suddenly gone, only falling pieces and loose cables and wires remained, and somewhere behind the dust and dirt the looming shadow of the giant-thing appeared, growling like an angry bear, swinging an enormous fist and battering Logan into the wall.

The soldiers advanced methodically, firing off round after round into the elevator, which issued terrified screams and shouts. Bruce was somewhere inside, kneeling, returning fire with his pitifully small pistol.

Another massive fist came crashing down, holding in it a wedge of concrete, smashing the wall just above a diving Logan. More ceiling came cascading down in a smoking, sparking pile. Inside the elevator, Bruce was now crying out—for help, for something, anything- out of ammunition and watching the soldiers draw within a few mere yards, a steady stream of bullets peppering the half-closed door.

Logan bounded to the elevator, evading a swipe by an gigantic paw that ripped through a wall. He arrived just ahead of the soldiers and clung to the side of the steel frame, focusing on a mass of exposed cabling. With one swipe of a razor-sharp claw he had made a complete sever and the car went rumbling down the shaft, its occupants screaming, and smashed with heavy finality thirty feet below, those inside shaken and battered, but safe.

A backhand by the giant connected with Logan and sent him flying into a wall. It broke apart like plaster, crumbling atop him. The thing, growling angrily, pulled down the last bit of outside wall, knocked away another portion of ceiling that crushed the soldiers beneath its collapsing weight, and climbed nearer to its buried foe.

In a dazed effort to free himself, Logan pushed aside mounds of rubble, moving in slow-motion, and was finally dragged clear when the thing grabbed hold of his leg and pulled him in. He struggled, almost to his feet, the giant-thing hammering a chunk of sharp concrete against his back, pulverizing the rock and Logan at once.

He lay motionless for a moment, and then began crawling, one arm holding his side together, dragging himself away, a long winding trail of blood staining the floor behind him. The thing wrenched free a thin pipe from the remains of the ceiling and water came spewing down, into the walls and across the floor, soaking him. He had made it to the wall, a deep rasping sound coming from him, and pulled himself up, his eyes turning slowly to the beast.

It drove the pipe with incredible force, through his ribs and clear into the concrete wall behind. Logan cried out in agony, blood bubbling up through his clenched teeth. He gripped the piped and howled, pinned there, pulling at it with strength he no longer had, his life escaping as hot, red fluid dripped from his nose and mouth.

All he could do was watch. The beast growled, its thick fur waving in the night wind, and reached to the floor for another chunk of concrete. It found the largest, crisscrossed with supporting iron bars, and brought it high over its head—swinging it down with all of its might on its impaled victim's head.

The full weight of it exploded against Logan-at the same time there was a flash of metal and a trail of blood. The beast screamed out, careening backwards in a shower of blood, pawing at the stump of its arm. Logan hung limply, covered in debris, the claws of his right hand now glistening red, and an enormous severed arm laying in the rubble at his feet.

It continued its unearthly screaming, piercing the night, and through half-open eyes he watched it lumber into one wall and then the next, bringing everything down around it, and finally falling just outside the building. Logan hung there, and could hear it whimpering, digging its way across the snowy earth, farther and farther away.

He breathed in deeply. The sounds of the fight were still present—someone, somewhere continued to resist them. Gunshots, a helicopter whirling overhead. He could make out distant popping and cracking of a fire eating into the building, and the shimmering orange glow it cast against the trees.

Taking a deep breath, he sliced through the long pipe pinning him and it clanked against the concrete when it fell. He grit his teeth and with a snarl he pulled himself free.

For a moment he was on his knees, grimacing in pain, feeling the wet all over his chest and back, and down his waist. With the help of a tall pile of rubble, he stumbled to his feet, leaning against the wall for support. Out there the thing was still mewling sadly, somewhere he couldn't see, and scratching at the ground in a feeble attempt to pull itself to safety.

"That's right, you sons-of-bitches," he spat. "One at a time…. I can take you if it's one at a time…."

He dragged himself to the elevator shaft, saw the remains of the soldiers crushed beneath the collapsed ceiling, and outside a wide path the giant-thing had dredged up as it pulled itself into the woods. From his new position, he could see a vast wing of the lab consumed by a violent fire towering into the night sky, two and three floors above him completely ablaze. An armored vehicle approached and sped by, completely unaware of his presence.

Down the elevator shaft the frenzied screaming and pounding continued. He dropped himself into the shaft, landing nimbly thirty feet below atop the car itself. Those inside the car gasped, and Nancy shouted, "Logan? Is that you? Logan?"

"That's right," he answered, bending back the door of the emergency exit and slipping in.

"Thank god!" Tyson said.

The interior smelled thickly of blood, and Colleen was laying in the corner in the dark, her neck a mess of open tissue. A jacket was laying on her chest, covered in her blood.

"She was shot," Nancy cried. "Up there. We tried to save her… tried to stop the bleeding… tried to call for help…."

"That thing?" Bruce asked. "Thirty? Is it still there?"

Two quick cuts had the elevator door open, and the weak glow of the corridor's emergency lights filled the car.

"It got the worst of the deal," Logan said, sniffing at the air and gazing around.

He led them out of the elevator, Bruce hanging onto Tyson and stepping gingerly on his right foot. Nancy came up behind, gesturing down one of the halls.

"That way to the holding cells," she said. And then she cast a quick look of panic toward Tyson. "What if they got here first? What if they're already out?"

Logan let the air play through his nostrils. "Seems quiet... No guards?"

"Should be," Tyson replied. "But in the confusion… they could have gone anywhere."

He moved quickly, silently, in the direction she had pointed in, disappearing in the shadows for a moment. "Something here…" he breathed.

They followed him cautiously, and Nancy called his name once or twice when he had melted into the dark for so long they no longer knew if he was there.

"Take a good, long look," he said, standing before the scene in the corridor. "This is on your heads."

When they came close enough to see, Nancy pulled back, and everyone uttered a horrified moan. It was the entrance to the lab- electronically locked, sliding double doors of remarkable size, and in front of them, piled waist-high, were the shattered bodies of a dozen guards, mangled in a horrifying way, their flesh bruised and swollen and broken. The door was riddled with pockmarks from hundreds of bullets in an attempt to gain entrance, and once their ammunition was exhausted….

"They just smashed themselves into the door…" Nancy spoke between trembling fingers.

Red smears covered both doors. Bloody hand prints. Bits of metal from rifles they had used in an effort to bash their way in lay about the floor.

"It made them hammer themselves against the doors until they were dead," Tyson said. "It couldn't get in… thank god…."

"Yeah," Logan snorted, and he began the gruesome task of pulling the bodies away from the door, two and three at a time. Once the path was clear, he popped a claw and cut through the lock between the doors, shoving them apart and opening the way to the inner labs.

It began with a long corridor with floor to ceiling glass on both sides. On the other side of the glass were long tables and lab equipment, computer consoles and rows and rows of monitors, everything dark except for the few items still on emergency power. Farther down were a series of steps that led to a tall, circular door.

"That's the security checkpoint. It'll be locked, too." Tyson looked up. "Past the checkpoint, heading up, are the separate modules for each of the specimens, twenty to a floor, for five floors, and then more lab space."

Logan had moved in toward one of the glass walls, anger growing inside, his lip quivering. Through the closest glass, the row of monitors had movement that immediately caught Logan's eyes.

"Logan…" Nancy said. "Logan, wait…."

The monitors flickered from one enclosed space to the next, each one with a small figure within view of the camera. Most were barely human, with distorted limbs and features, and many shuffled their twisted bodies to and fro within the tiny enclosures. Others, not so fortunate, were restrained by various means to the floor or wall and writhed uncomfortably. One that a monitor glanced at briefly was hammering repeatedly on the door with three hideously enlarged limbs, over and over, in silence.

And his blood coursed through them all.

He turned, breathing hard between teeth clamped tight. "I'm helping you… for this?"

Tyson turned pale. "Logan—you saw what they're capable of. Outside the door. They can't be let out."

"They can't," Nancy reached out to touch him. "It looks awful… but there's no other way. It's too late now. They can't be let out."

"I know they can't be let out, " he gave another look at the scenes flashing by on the monitors.

Suddenly he shoved her back and jerked toward the open door, snarling and baring his fangs and popping his claws. Bruce and Tyson stumbled away in unison, staring at the empty doorway.

"Logannnnn…."

The hissing materialized into a physical form, lean and naked, row after row of sharp teeth, and thick, heavily muscled legs and a body covered in dense hair. Its long snout turned to Bruce and Tyson, then past the glass and to the rows of monitors flickering image after image.

"Brothersssss……"

"No point in coming this way," Logan said. "I can't let you do it."

"Help usssss…" it hissed. "Freedom…."

"You got your freedom, and all that's come of it is bloodshed. Ain't going to be no more. It's over."

It howled and leapt at Logan. He spun, his claws passing through it, and the thing reformed in midair just behind him, tackling Tyson and plunging its claws into his chest. Tyson's scream was cut short when it opened its maw and sank dozens of razor-sharp teeth into his throat, and he gurgled and thrashed wildly underneath it.

Logan lunged for it, swiping twice just as it ghosted away. Bruce had scurried back and Nancy ran to the steps, terrified, smashing her hands against the checkpoint console. The thing appeared again, dragging Tyson along the floor, slashing him again with its claws.

Logan bounded after it and made a wild cut through nothing but air, and as he turned it was already upon Bruce, lifting him into the air by one arm as he kicked and screamed, and throwing him against the metal wall. Logan was there, claws flashing, one this way, the other in the opposite, hoping to catch it off-guard.

The thing had separated Bruce and Nancy, making it impossible to defend both at the same time, and when it turned toward the checkpoint and Nancy, Logan hurried there to cut it off. It materialized, opening Logan's chest with a strong swipe, and was gone as he returned the attack, cutting through the guardrail around the steps. He twisted and hacked, off-balance, missing again, and the thing jumped on his back and ripped apart his shoulder with a gnawing, shaking bite. He tried to fling it off and reached behind him and it was gone.

He held fast to his neck, feeling the blood pumping out hard, one hand on Nancy behind him to make sure she was still there.

"Where is it?" he shouted.

"I don't know!" she cried. "I don't know!"

It was on him again—its talons cutting across his face, avoiding two swipes of his claws, and gashing his belly, only inhuman reflexes on his part prevented him from being cut in two. He swore, hacked at the air again, and left himself open to a vicious kick to his neck, throwing him over the guard rail and into the checkpoint console.

It flashed its eyes at Nancy and in a second Logan was up again, between them, and it darted in the other direction, toward Bruce.

Bruce was pulling himself away, inch by inch, when it fell upon him. He swung and struck rock-hard hide just before its teeth dug into his neck from behind. Logan jumped at it and it twisted away quickly, pulling his arm and smashing him through the glass wall in a waterfall of sparkling shards. Monitors came down and tables were upturned and chairs toppled. He collided with the corner, clothes and body shredded, slippery with blood.

When he climbed to his feet it was howling madly, and he saw its jaw around Bruce's neck, his body a motionless rag doll. It pulled him along, howling, biting and slashing as if it received some pleasure from the torment it was giving this poor corpse. Then it dropped the body, and turned its face toward Nancy.

"Logan!" she screamed, seeing the eyes focus on her. "Logan!"

She squirmed away as it sprang at her, hurdled the guardrail, and pinned her to the floor with a leathery paw. She screamed again as its putrid breath surrounded her and its open jaws descended on her throat.

Logan's claws passed through it just before it could bite down. It became an intangible mist, appearing again behind him, slashing through his flesh and knocking him into the metal door. He tried fighting the thing off but it was nothing but vapor and a series of sharp bites and tearing nails, and it backed him against the corner and ripped open his chest with its two paws, exposing a set of gleaming silver ribs.

He whirled away but it stayed on him, its fangs ripping apart his neck and as he swung an uppercut through its body it bit deep into the front of his neck, and soon he was holding his throat as blood spurted through his fingers and he was falling with the thing on top of him, its fangs sinking deeper and deeper and twisting and gouging.

The struggle was over. It raised its bloody mouth from Logan's still body, dripping red from its wet fangs. Hanging over him, ready to strike if he should even breathe, it hissed a challenge, showing all of its teeth at once.

But Logan didn't move. There was a growing stain of blood under him, his arms and legs splayed out, mouth open. It took a step back, hissing softer now, eyeing what it had finally done. It turned briefly to Nancy, who could only whimper, and then back to Logan.

"Logan…" it hissed, sadly. "Brother…."

It growled, something low and guttural, and reached out, touching the motionless body gingerly.

"Logan…" it hissed again, looking over the body and shaking its head, twisting almost frantically. It threw its head back, howling long and hard in agony, as if its own body had been destroyed, and it ended in a long, sad hiss as it moved in closer, padding through its brother's pooling blood.

It leaned in, breathing softly, touching its long maw to Logan in some wordless apology….

Logan's arm darted.

Three claws pierced its side before it could ghost away.

It screamed out in terror and pain and sprang free, the claws cutting at its heart.

It disappeared and appeared, its howling loud through the empty corridors, stumbling backwards, what could only be shock and sadness on its alien features. It faded away again, finally solidifying half inside the metal wall, its final scream echoing its torment long after it was dead.

After a long time, Nancy opened her eyes again and pulled her hands from her ears. It was still there, its scream, ringing inside her head. She gasped at the glimpse she got of its animal torso, hanging out of the wall, its arms dangling limp.

She ran to Logan, kneeling in his blood and pressing her palm to what was left of his chest to feel for breath, for a heartbeat, anything.

"Logan?"

He was breathing, his chest rising and falling shallowly. His face was a terrible nightmare of open wounds and blood.

"Logan?"

An eye opened weakly, and he made a gurgling noise in his throat.

"You did it, Logan," she said softly. She bent down to embrace him, touching him lightly, his blood clinging to her skin and blouse.

The first thing she noticed was the smell…

The acrid, burning that filled the room, and when she looked up two more beasts had entered the chamber, tall and naked and covered in dense fur. Little flitting embers danced around the one, sparking and glowing in a hypnotic nebula around its body. The other had the most intense eyes, locking on hers and staring deep into her soul.

They stood there, surveying the room. Broken glass, bodies, blood… the contorted image of their own flesh dangling unnaturally from the surface of the wall.

"Logan…" she sobbed, squeezing his arm and resisting the impulse to run from him.

He turned weakly in his own blood, squinting at the hazy figures he saw at the front of the chamber. He pulled himself up, limbs barely working now but claws out and ready, staring them down from his crimson mask with searing white eyes.

"Freedom…" the one sang from inside its fiery cocoon.

"Ain't… going to let you," blood dripped from his mouth as he growled the words. "Bring the… whole damn army… you ain't getting past me."

Nancy turned to him with vacant eyes. "Freedom," she said.

"No!" he shouted back at them, bracing himself for the inevitable blast of fire that would rain down on them. "Ain't none of them being set free! It ends here!"

"Freedom..." the creature sang out again. "Help us…."

"Logan…" Nancy said, "we are here to set our brothers free, but not to set them loose. This is not our world. Though we are of you, we are not like you. We do not belong here, and neither do they. Their suffering must end. Help us give them freedom."

Flames began licking up the walls in delicate tendrils, across long, winding trails on the floor.

"You are right, brother… it must end here," Nancy said.

She blinked, took a deep breath, and reached for his arm for support. "Logan… they want us to leave."

He squinted at them, watching the flames creep along the ceiling, begin eating away at the walls and floor tiles, and he slowly backed away. He pulled her with him, staggering up the steps and to the checkpoint door. He cut through it and struggled to push it open as the fire engulfed the front end of the chamber.

"We can escape through here?" he asked her.

"If they've left it open for us," she said. "There's another elevator—we can get outside."

He looked up at the ceiling, to where the terrible prisons began just overhead, imagining cell after cell, filled with loathsome, pitiful beasts, trapped every bit in life as now in death. A glass wall shattered, and he gave one more look at the things that called him kin, quickly disappearing within the swirling flames now choking the center of the chamber, and left with her through the door.

xxx

Their route to the surface was relatively clear. The carnage was everywhere. Bodies and bullet holes, small fires—and when they at last arrived at the elevator the power wouldn't so much as open the door. But he shoved it apart and carried her over his shoulder and climbed all the way up. At the first floor there was the gagging smoke from a massive fire swallowing the lab, and he shattered a window and they left through there.

Outside was littered with bodies and wrecked vehicles. Nothing moved, nothing was left alive. One crashed helicopter burned yards from the wall of the lab, while another smoldered brightly within the woods. In the distance a crowd of armored vehicles had battered themselves against a crumbled wall, bodies thrown and hanging all around them.

They made their way up a slope and into the forest, leaving the burning hulk of Ulai Lab well behind them. It glowed warmly in the night, and for a long time she sat in the snow against a tree and watched it burn. At one point a part of the enormous structure she knew to be the cells glowed bright and collapsed upon itself, great arms of flame reaching out to the sky. She nodded, feeling her cheeks grow moist with tears that she wiped away with the back of her sleeve.

"Come on," Logan said, extending a hand to her. "We've got a long walk ahead of us."

She took his hand, and it felt firm and strong and safe, and she followed him into the woods.

xxxxxxx

Civilization was a distant, confusing trek through massive woods, with only Logan's senses to guide her. Countless hours marched by, impossible to measure with the blackness of their surroundings and thick clouds hiding the moon. At the very top of a hill she leaned an exhausted arm against a tree and gazed down with relief at the first sign of humanity—the barely perceptible dark shape of a thin road, meandering through the woods. They followed that, along its edge, and at last, when they thought for sure the night was almost spent and daybreak about to embrace them, they came across a series of lights shining like beacons in the night.

Windows. A lone truck stop by the side of the road, lights bright through its windows and a badly worn and flickering neon sign announcing its presence. At that her limbs grew heavy—heavier than at any point in their journey, and she reached to him for support.

"Finally…" she said, his firm hand holding onto her. "Can't believe I've made it this far…."

"Hell of a sight we'll be," he answered, and guided her the rest of the way.

Inside they made immediately for the restrooms, and with the help of the satchel they recovered at the lab, they were both able to clean up as best they could, washing off thick layers of dust and dirt and blood, and slipping into cleaner clothes.

Satisfied with her appearance, haggard but no longer frightening, she left the restroom and got change from the waitress, who squinted at her suspiciously the entire time. She dropped a few coins into the pay phone on the wall and called the only number she still had fixed in her head. Her parents. When a friendly voice came through the line, she whimpered a little, clutching the phone close to her face and whispering between sobs.

"What road is this?" she asked the waitress, eyes red and puffy.

The waitress and the cook exchanged glances. "That's Airway Road. That way there is heading into Foster, miss."

She finished the conversation, and rested the phone in its cradle with a deep sigh. When she turned, the waitress was leaning over the countertop.

"You okay, miss?" she asked.

Nancy nodded and wiped away a tear. "Yes, thank you. Car trouble out on the road. We've been walking forever."

"Like some coffee?"

Nancy forced a smile. "Please. Two cups." And she joined Logan in the booth at a shadowy corner, away from everything.

The waitress approached and two cups clattered to the table along with a dish of cream.

"Mighty rough night to be lost out there," she said. "You sure you're okay? How about you, mister?"

The waitress cast a suspicious glance at Logan, who turned his battered and scarred face toward the window, lifting the coffee to his lips.

"We're all right, thank you," Nancy replied, returning the waitress's look squarely. "A little lost before, but we're fine, now. Just need to warm up. And I called my parents. Thanks, though."

The waitress looked hard at Nancy, as if awaiting any signal of trouble, and when she received none, she returned to her place behind the counter, wiping it down and whispering to the cook.

Nancy pulled the cup to her after some cream and sugar, and warmed her hands around it. She took a deep breath and looked at Logan.

"Why am I alive?" she asked over the steaming cup.

He was still gazing out the window. Wide expanse of snow-covered trees stretched out into the dark.

"I mean… everything else is gone. Everything. Everyone. But here I am." She shook her head and sipped at the coffee again. "My god… there are so many things I don't understand anymore."

A lone truck passed by in the night, its twin headlights glowing as it sped by.

"I don't think they wanted to hurt anyone… not really," she said. "But Ulai… They wanted to erase Ulai and everything connected to it right off the map. They didn't want anything to remain, did they? Not even a memory." She stared at her reflection in the dark brown surface of the coffee. "Everyone thought they wanted to make an army of those things… but they didn't want that at all. They just wanted the suffering to end."

She took another sip, and it warmed her insides. Her reflection disappeared below tiny ripples. "Why am I alive, Logan? Why didn't they take me, too? Like the rest of Ulai?"

He worked his coffee as well, reluctant to respond. "Maybe when it looked inside you… it saw something worth saving. Maybe it knew you could take something from this mess… this death and bloodshed… and turn it into something good."

She blinked. "What? What am I supposed to do?"

"That ain't something for me to answer—only you can. Maybe… maybe you're supposed to keep this from happening ever again."

She sipped at her coffee, and thought.

Finally, she said, "And you? What about you?"

"Far as?"

"What happens to you? Where do you go? Back to CSIS?"

He grimaced. "Ain't nothing for me there. Figure I'd take some time away and sort through some things. Maybe I learned a little, too… like you did."

They sat quietly, watching the tiniest bit of daylight begin its rise through the trees and slowly, gradually, grow into morning.

"Morning, already," she said sleepily, leaning a cheek to the back of the seat. "Maybe… things will finally get back to normal."

Logan took a final swig of his coffee, looked out into the woods with thin eyes. "Ain't no such thing."

Nancy awoke to a touch on her arm, and she lifted her head to see the waitress standing over her. "Think your dad's here, miss." She gestured out through the window.

A car pulled into the lot next to the truck stop, and Nancy shifted in the booth to have a better look through the window. The shape of the car was something she recognized—a tall, gold SUV, its windows glittering with sunlight, and when the door opened the short black hair and dark coat she saw brought an immediate smile to her face. Her father. She watched him stride toward the door.

Before the bells of the door rang she was off the seat and running to embrace him. She squeezed him hard, burying her face in his neck, breathing deeply of the cologne he wore and letting her tears spill over his shirt.

"Thank you," she breathed, over and over. "Thank you."

She pulled herself away for a moment, brushing the tears away. "Logan, Logan, this is my—"

He was no longer there. He was gone, as was the satchel, and his coat. She turned quickly behind her, and to the back door, and to the waitress—but he was gone.

"Your friend?" asked the waitress, looking back at the cook. "Well… he left a little bit ago. Told us to look after you 'til your father showed up."

She took a deep breath, as if waking from a dream and feeling it slip slowly away from her, and crushed her face into her father's chest again. She wrapped her arms around him, saying, "It's over now. Over."

He hugged her back and nodded, leading her out into the safety of the car.