xXx
"I got him. Corner of 9th and Stuart," Logan murmured.
"Sir, I got him. Corner of 9th and Stuart," the sniper said into his mike.
"Roger, Eagle One. Moving out. Do you have the shot?"
"Too many pedestrians," murmured Logan.
"No sir, too many pedestrians."
"Eagle Two, confirm sighting?"
"Eagle Two, can not confirm, repeat, can not confirm."
"Cowboy hat, flannel jacket, whiskers. I see him," Logan muttered.
"Cowboy hat, flannel jacket, whiskers, I see him, sir," the sniper said, sweat beading on his face.
"Plan B, go," the team commander said. Logan bared his teeth. Plan B. He swept the sight of the rifle across the intersection, scanning for her. Wondering what shape she'd be this time.
A meter maid raised a walkie talkie to her mouth; Logan read her lips as he listened. "No sign. Eagle One, no sign. Reconfirm?"
"No need," Logan muttered. "God I love a woman in uniform." He lined the sniper rifle up on the meter maid's left leg and breathed out. His finger contracted with his lungs; when his lungs were empty the gun bucked. The meter maid went flying back as though she'd been hit by a car, her hair snapping loose around her face as her hat flew into the crowd.
Logan rolled back as a bullet cracked into the scope of the rifle. That would be Eagle Two. His sharp hearing heard the explosion of orders through the sniper's radio gear. The sniper lay on the roof, wrists and ankles zip tied. Logan tossed him his hat, then sprinted to the rear of the building as a chopper roared closer. He couldn't help grinning.
Over the back of the building, slamming into the wall of the building next door, sliding down and hitting a window ledge; he balanced for a moment, then snapped his hands into the pane of glass. It exploded inward with the dull metallic thud of his fists. He tugged himself inside, sprinted down the hall. Office building.
Logan dashed to the stairwell as shouts and general alarm spread around the broken window. He hopped over the railing; again, again, then he quietly opened the door and strolled out into the hallway. A cafeteria. Midmorning, so not a lot of traffic. He glanced around, then vaulted the six foot counter and window assembly. He darted into the back, where a cook looked up, startled.
A moment later Logan walked to the back elevator with a chef hat and an apron. Three floors down, and he was in the main kitchen of the building, behind the food court. A back door, and he was out.
A municipal bus was pulling up. He hopped up the steps and gave a handful of quarters to the machine, then worked his way back and slung himself down in a seat, yanking his chef hat off. He watched out the window as the black-clad men sprinted around the side of the building, and he squinted up at the thudding blades of the helicopter as it swooped around the side of the building looking for him.
Ten minutes later he swung off the bus and disappeared into the crowd. He had an appointment to keep.
xXx
Peter was strolling towards the front doors of the art building when he hesitated. His eyes and nostrils flared, and he sensed… something. Something familiar. Something that alerted him. He cautiously approached the front doors, and glanced out. Cigar smoke. That was it.
Logan grinned at him, turned, and slowly started crunching down the snowy sidewalk. Peter quickly caught up. "How'd you find me here?" he asked, his tone urgent.
Logan shrugged. "College boy, developer fluid, nearby college with a photography lab, registrar's office, cross-reference Peter. Takes a genius."
"You are a very scary man, Logan. Remind me not to get on your bad side."
"Which brings us to our next point," Logan said. He took a deep drag on his cigar. "I need your help."
"With?"
"I need to get up close and personal with Bryant. That's just what Creed will be waiting for. So I need to get Creed busy somewhere else. Can you help me?"
"What is your plan?"
Logan shrugged. "Make you smell like me, then lead Creed away to somewhere secluded. Restrain him temporarily, and get away. Under no circumstances so much as touch each other."
"How do you think Creed will pick up the scent?"
"He no doubt thinks I'm spoilin ta tangle with him as bad as he wants to take another poke at me."
"He's wrong?"
"I'm not ten years old anymore. More's at stake than my personal dislike of Creed. I grew up, he didn't. Plain as that. He'll be looking to pick up my scent at the park. He missed me there once, but he knows I'll be back for him."
"How does he know that?"
"Sixteen
years ago he would have been right," Logan said. "Now here's
the tricky part. You got ta get him to chase you, but not see you. Do
not under any circumstance mix it up with him. Clear?"
"Sure.
And how do I restrain a monster like that? You do have a plan."
"Yeah, I have a plan, but I don't think much of it. I figure a big trank gun loaded with cyanide would put him down for the count. Wouldn't kill him, but it'd give you at least ten, twenty minutes to get a head start. Point is, soon as he knows he's been tricked he'll head straight for Bryant to intercept me or he'll go after you. And I don't want people killed because they're in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"You ever hit him with cyanide before?"
"Nope," Logan said.
They walked, quiet, for a short time.
"When do you want this done, Logan?" Peter asked.
"Tonight. Now."
"I don't have a lot of cyanide on hand. But I can lead him for a merry chase. Believe me, Logan, I can get his attention and get him to follow me for a while."
"Too dangerous," Logan said, shaking his head. "You frustrate him, he'll start killing innocents until you hold still."
Peter stopped and turned to face Logan. "Trust me. I can handle this guy. Let me do it. You want my help, I'm offering it. But you can't dictate terms to me."
Logan looked him in the eye, then sighed and nodded. "Okay. Don't make me sorry, kid."
Peter smiled. "Wouldn't dare. So. How do I smell like you?"
Logan grinned.
xXx
"I don't need to say it, do I?" the woman with a blonde page boy hairstyle said to the man by her hospital bed.
He scowled at her. "Don't get smug."
"Smug?" she said, her elfin features contracted with scorn. "Smug? Bryant, let's not forget I'm the one in the hospital with a shattered leg. Let's not forget I was only there because of your orders. Logan is not to be underestimated. I recommended adapting a site appropriate for confrontation and luring him to it. Your genius team knew he'd try to make contact at the park so you tried to arrange for the ambush there in the open with a hundred ways out."
"We had the situation as bottled up as the police could make it," Bryant said tightly, his Canadian accent bleeding through his composure.
She sat up, eyes flashing. "The police are the wrong weapon against Logan," she hissed. "Numbers on our side equal body count on our side. Logan is damn good, if you've forgotten. I haven't. If we are going to catch him, we have to have bait he can't resist in a trap he can't escape." She breathed heavily for a moment. "Where is Lisa, anyway? I thought that was her whole purpose in this escapade. Establish contact and smooth recovery."
"When
you're in charge, what you think will matter. As it is, you follow
my orders. You aren't team leader on a mission. You are a resource
for this, nothing more, and you do as you're told." He stopped,
his face flushed. "How long until you can reshape your leg?"
"I'll
be mobile by tonight," she said, staring at him. "By tomorrow,
good as new. A fifty caliber slug through the bone of my leg takes
time to reconstruct."
Bryant nodded curtly. "I'll make arrangements to move you to our headquarters. It seems your life is out of danger." He turned to go.
"He could have blown my head off," she said softly. He stopped, inclined his head towards her without facing her, then pushed the curtain aside and walked out into the room, out the door, gone.
She leaned back, closed her eyes, and sank her consciousness into her body. She sifted through her delightfully mobile flesh, finding the chips of bone scattered into her leg by the bullet that had left a hole the size of a baseball through her leg. She dissolved the bone, reformed the bone. The pain was intense, but her nerves were steady. Another hour or two of this torture and she'd be able to walk.
Danger.
She snapped back to alertness. Blinked her eyes; they shifted back to a lovely green. She gasped, her pupils contracting.
"Hiya darlin," Logan said. He stood three feet from her, staring at her. He wore a leather jacket, jeans, flannel. His smell washed her in a thousand memories.
"Logan," she said with some difficulty. She attempted a smile.
"Nothin personal," he said, pulling out a cigar and a lighter.
"I know," she nodded. "I'm still alive."
"Headquarters." His eyes did not leave her as he bit off the end of his cigar and spat it at the floor.
Her eyes narrowed. "So that's what this is about. Identify and isolate me, then interrogate me. I push this button and you're trapped." Her finger hovered over the nurse call button.
He shrugged. "Push it then," he said, taking his eyes from her and lighting his cigar.
Her hand left the button. "You don't want to kill me, do you."
"Never did," Logan shrugged, looking up. "What's between me and Creed is between me and Creed. You never wanted to get involved."
She sighed. "If Bryant finds out I told you, I could be severely disciplined."
Logan barked a laugh. "They know better." He shrugged. "Tell me or I'll kill you. Tell em I said that."
They looked deep into each other's eyes, and she looked away. "Waterstreet and Nineteenth," she said softly. "Warehouse, Kybersly and Sons."
"Defenses?"
"Standard
laser grid, nerve center in the second floor in the north east
corner. Got any smokes?"
He grinned and pulled out a pack of her favorite cigarettes. Fingered one out, put it between her lips, lit it. She took a drag, leaned back, exhaled through her nose, and narrowly regarded him through the haze of smoke.
"Thank you. Backup system is under the warehouse, along with the armory. He's got thirty agents. They've used this place before, so it's been hardened and it has fiberoptic accesses. They made a cell for you that's underwater with about six inches of breathing space in a six foot cube even you shouldn't be able to cut through."
"Anything else?" Logan asked.
"Automatic miniguns, independent power sources, tasernets, that sort of thing. Come on, Logan, that's more than you need."
He nodded. "True. Take care of yourself, darlin. And stay out of my way."
"One and the same, Logan. One and the same." Her eyes gleamed yellow and slitted through the cigarette smoke. She smiled at him, and he turned. In seconds he was beyond recall.
She took a deep drag on her cigarette, counted to fifteen, and pushed the nurse call button.
xXx
Peter stumped down the sidewalk, very unhappy in his cowboy boots that did not quite fit properly. He reeked of cigar smoke and other Logan smells.
He had circled the park area twice, stopping five times to smoke for a while and watch the situation. Then he had felt that would be plenty, so he'd started down the street. First sign of Creed and he could lose the boots, jeans, coat, and hat; pull the hood up on his mesh, and tango with Creed.
Two miles away from the park, his scalp tingled, and his subconscious alarms were triggered. He became alert, listening, intent.
Creak of a fire escape. Stutter in a garbage truck engine two streets over. A slamming door. What was it? What lit up his cautions?
The scrape of claw on brick.
Peter zipped a webline up to the corner of the apartment building he was walking past; the line contracted as he kicked off, and it swung him almost halfway up before he hit the wall. That was plenty of time for him to shuck the boots and jacket, and to pull up the hood. He hit the wall and swarmed up. Slinging over the top, he saw Creed two buildings down. Creed saw him, too; snarled a grin, turned, and ran.
Peter hopped out of his jeans and sprang after Creed. He knew that when he caught him, he'd be able to give Creed his best shots, his heaviest hits. A cold feeling settled over him as he realized he might not be able to kill Creed even if he wanted to.
Then it was all speed and trajectory as he sprang across the rooftops. Creed was fast. He was heavy, but he was strong and he knew this area. He cleared the warehouse roof and landed on the ledge that ran between two roof levels. He stood and loped along the narrow wall; Peter realized the roof probably wasn't strong enough to support Creed's weight.
Creed ran from him in a straight line, so it was speed on speed. Peter could keep up, but he felt a grudging respect for the agility of the vast bulk of his opponent.
Creed dropped three stories and landed in a crouch. He darted to the side as Peter swung down and stuck to the wall. Peter could feel Creed's heartbeat; it thudded wherever it was, into the ground and into the wall under Peter's fingertips. His senses cast about, searching. For the first time, Peter felt fear. Nothing that big should be able to hide.
Creed narrowed his eyes at Peter and smiled a feral snarl. Not Logan, then. Fine. This one had it coming…
xXx
Logan crouched on the fire escape having a leisurely smoke, watching the warehouse. It almost looked abandoned. Logan considered the doors, windows (what few there were,) walls, floor, guards. He watched for three hours, through one changing of the guard.
By then he had a plan.
Logan slipped through the shadows and then came up to the building from the side. Normally he'd cause a diversion to see how the defenders reacted, to gauge their response readiness. Tonight he knew that any disturbance at all would put them on full alert specifically for him. He'd have to do this quiet-like. And all the missions he started quiet-like tended to end in a bloodbath.
He had checked the city schematics for the sewer layouts of this street, but he was positive the sewer entrance to this building would be heavily guarded. Still, it would be a handy escape route if necessary. He had considered getting to their hidden satellite dishes and wrecking them, so they'd come and investigate and he could slip in. The plan fizzled; he knew they'd spot that as his handiwork immediately, before they even went out to look. Facilities with budgets like this one didn't have a lot go wrong on accident, so he'd had to think very, very carefully about how to get in.
The laser grid would be tied into the hardening of the building, so if he was going to breach the windows, door, wall, or roof he'd have to be damned careful. The grid wouldn't hurt him, but it would sound the alarm and bring things that would. The vents were designed too small for people, with redundancy systems and air scrubbers.
So he'd watched the back of the building for an hour or so. The cameras focused on the chute, then the chute dumped refuse, then the cameras resumed their scanning.
Logan timed his jump and leaped from the rooftop down three stories to clang into the dumpster. None of the ground sensors could have picked up his approach, and none of the cameras were watching at that moment. There was no perfect way in, but this was as close as he could get, and if they were going to come for him here, they'd just have to come for him.
He waited. He was laying in piles of shredded paper, take out pizza, take out Chinese, food wrappers, and so on. Now to wait for the chute to open again. He relaxed and waited.
xXx
Peter dropped to the ground in the alley. "Creed," he said softly and clearly. "Why don't you come out where we can talk." His scalp writhed as though ants were swarming all over it. Everywhere he could smell Creed's musk, feel him breathing, hear his heartbeat; but he was hidden in a way Peter did not know how to hide. Hidden as a predator hides before pouncing on its prey.
In answer, a concrete block whipped out of an overturned dumpster. Peter's body dodged before he even spotted the threat. Instead of hitting him square in the head, it crushed into his turning shoulder, spinning him around twice. His elastic bones compacted, his tendons stretched, his springy flesh screamed; the concrete block spun off, whirling through the air to explode into dust and gravel against the wall. Peter's arm sent sheets of pain through his nerves.. He had never taken a hit like that. Nothing broken. Another block; must have had one in each hand. Peter dropped to the ground on all fours, alert and tense. That missile flew over his head and slammed into a heavy steel door, crushing a six inch deep dent in it as the block scattered with the force of impact. And there stood Creed.
Peter's fear coursed through him with adrenaline. He would have his workout. Too shaken for witty repartee, he cut loose with both spinners and slung web at Creed.
Creed bounced to the side and hurled himself headlong at Peter, his jaws open in a roar that came out no louder than a throbbing growl. His claws hissed through the air as Peter sprang to the side, sticking to the wall, then cartwheeling over Creed and landing behind him.
Peter gave it everything he had; he planted a blow square on Creed's spine. He heard a crunch as his powerful fist sank to the heel of his hand in solid muscle. He felt his flexible finger bones bend under the strain, he felt the power move through him and out of him as his blow thudded home.
Creed spun with a backhand that caught Peter in the head. His skull changed its shape, but it was too flexible to crack. Peter sailed away, dark suns bursting in his head, feeling his brain squeeze against his skull. Concussion. Bad one, too. But he was spinning midair and he slapped against the wall without further harm. Creed was already on top of him. Breath came hard to Peter as he sprang to the wall of the building next to him, then slung web to get out of Creed's reach.
Creed hesitated, watching Peter. Then he smiled, slow and cruel. He leaped at the wall and bounced off of it to clear a fifteen foot fence topped with barbed wire.
Peter clung to the wall, breathing hard and trembling. He was afraid. He was afraid of Creed. Creed was strong, fast, skilled, ferocious, and almost invulnerable to damage.
"What am I," Peter breathed to himself, "his press agent?" He dug deep within and found the resolve.
Peter dropped over the fence and found himself in a junkyard.
"Great," he breathed.
