Back to Andrew, your regularly scheduled tale-teller!
March 1, 2002
Logan stood with his eyes closed and shirt off, his hand in the air, feeling a little foolish.
"Can you feel it?" Braddock asked.
"Uh," Logan stalled.
"Open your eyes," she said with a smile. He did.
She stood opposite him, her hand in the air as well, just an inch from his, palms facing each other. "Now for God's sake, Logan, relax," she said.
"I am relaxed, darlin."
"One step at a time," she murmured, more to herself than him. "Now, keep your hand opposite mine; be my mirror reflection." She moved her hand slowly to the left, and he moved his like her mirror reflection. Then she moved it to the right. He followed. She picked up a little speed, moving in a slow circular pattern. He copied the move. She snapped right, and he kept up, if a fraction late. She stopped, her hand in the middle.
"Now you," she said, amusement sparking in her eyes.
"Great," he muttered. "Ninja pattycake." But he moved his hand nonetheless, and she followed.
They stood in a forest glade, the empty spring sky above them, the coniferous trees around them changing scent as they awoke after a drowsy winter. Nearby, a stream played across the low point of the clearing on its way down to wider waters. The air was a bit chilly, but that did not hamper the two who moved together over the uneven earth.
After a minute or so of switching back and forth, she stepped back.
"Do you feel it?" she asked. "The connection?"
"I simply do not get it," he muttered, eyeing her blackly. "I hate feelin stupid."
She raised an eyebrow. "Relax, Logan. It is always awkward to admit ignorance. Once you have, then you can get past it and learn."
He winced. "This'd be easier if you'd tell me the point, you know?"
She nodded. "Here is the point. Touch me."
His expression cleared. "Finally, somethin that makes sense." He reached out, and she was not there.
He looked puzzled for a moment, looking at where she stood beside him, lips pursed with suppressed laughter, mirth in her eyes. He reached again, and she was behind him. Stepped back with a grab, and she was next to him. A ferocious grin spread across his features. "Here we go," he said, clapping his hands together and rubbing them. He crouched, and sprang.
She was out of the way of his spring, and behind him. He spun low with a kick but she had simply stepped to the side; at no time was she more than three feet away. Never out of arm's reach.
He played tag with her for a few minutes, then stopped, his muscled chest heaving with exertion, eyeing her sharply. She was cool and collected and… untouched.
"I take it back," he grunted. "Still don't make sense. I sure as hell aint slow."
"No," she agreed. "You are very quick, superhumanly fast. But you move on your muscles."
"We aint all psychic," he scowled. She shook her head.
"That's not what I meant. The purpose of my training was to teach my body to obey thought. The body is trained to rely on the goals of the mind and to accomplish them. An example. I learned to punch, yes, early on. But then I was taught to forget how to punch. I learned to simply desire an effect upon the target, and my body carries out my orders. The training to reach that level of focus and control is," she shrugged, "unpleasant but highly effective."
Logan eyed her for a moment. "Run that down my other side," he said slowly. "Half my brain must not be catchin it."
"While you're moving to punch me, there's a lot of wasted tension in your body," she said, touching his hard arm. "Your chest is tight, your arms are already partly flexed, and as you move, your body tells anyone who's looking and sensing exactly where you're going. Contrast that with a body trained to act before the thought is even completed. The mind is capable of much greater feats in the subconscious than it is in the conscious realm, and the body can move much faster if it is freed to do so. An example: tennis." She raised an eyebrow at him. "You ever play tennis?"
"Seen it on tv," he said, jutting his chin out at her, his hair wildly sweeping up from his head.
"If you teach your arm to swing for you, then all you have to think about is where you want the ball to go, and your body gets you to it and sends it over. When you are focused on the game, you reach a detachment, where you are allowing your reflexes and training to play for you instead of thinking the swing through."
"I don't play tennis," he said slowly, "but I do drop the hammer and let go, let my body do the thinking for me. Has been known to happen." He actually blushed.
She nodded. "What I'm demonstrating is how to do that while fully in control; rather than letting your body handle things on its own, you give it guidance and let your training do the rest. The training normally takes at least a decade, but at the end you are free to forget it all with your mind and simply become what you are, for you have been… transformed." A shadow flitted across her features for a moment.
Logan sighed. "Enough prancin around in the meadow. Let's get back to the cabin." He glanced at the lowering sun. "Bout a hour till dusk." He scooped up his shirt and buttoned it on while Betsy looked out across the forest.
"I envy you, Logan," she said quietly.
"I'm sure with enough gel yer hair can do this," he said to her back with a rakish smile.
"The way you see the world," she said, steadfastly looking out over the valley. "The sights and sounds and smells; the world must seem more… real to you than it does to me."
"More real?" Logan said, thinking it over. "Hm. Not more real. Just… less built around people, if you know what I mean. More what it is and less what people think it is."
The hike back to the cabin was short. Logan scooped up an armload of firewood and bumped the door open, dumping the split wood into the bin by the Franklin stove. Betsy got a match out of the box and lightly jumped up on a chair. She turned up the gas, struck the match on the rafter, and lit the lamp. She dropped as Logan was lighting the stove.
"Aint much," Logan said, looking around the two room cabin, "but you knew what you were getting yourself into." He grinned.
"Indeed," she said, and she lowered herself into one of the deep and comfortable chairs backed against the wall between the cabin's two rooms. "You certainly have a gift for privacy."
"Yeah," he said, looking out the window. "I've had to. Beans and franks?"
"Sounds delicious," she said, leaning her head back and closing her eyes.
She flashed out of her mind, more reflex than anything else. Logan, by the stove, was a tough read, so her mind slipped past him and soared up and out, as though she was ground zero for a sensory explosion. Her probe sliced through the woods, and rippled out like a shock wave; at the limit of a mile there were no intellects but the half-formed body thoughts of animals and the thought echoes of insect programming. She held at that range, then returned. Logan was oblivious.
Her psionics called this stretch of land empty because she and Logan were the only ones with sentient thought. She put her face in her hands for a moment and breathed deep.
Logan glanced over his shoulder. "You alright?"
"I'll be fine," she said clearly, and she swept her hands back from her face to her hair, smoothly capturing it. She twisted it into a simple knot she had mastered during her training. "Need help with supper?"
"If we wuzn't packin light I'd a brought my 'Kiss the Chef' apron," he said. "Don't spoil my fun. But you can set the table. Supper's almost done. I luv beans n franks." In a rapid practiced motion he sliced up the hot dogs with a paring knife, then tossed them in the skillet. They hissed and a wisp of smoke curled up. "Oh, and if yer itchin for somethin to do, you can get water from the spring." He gestured at two buckets upside down on the washing board.
She scooped up the buckets and headed out into the gathering dusk.
By the time she returned, Logan had brought the hot dogs to a sizzle and dumped the beans over them; he was in the middle of pouring molasses and barbecue sauce on them when she set the heavy buckets on the board.
"Just in time," he said. "You got yer ninja secrets, but I control the perfect mix of spices and sauces for franks n beans," he grinned.
"The suspense," she said dryly, "has me enthralled."
"Mock if you will," he said, nodding his head and grinning, "but I'll make a believer of ya."
She dipped water out of the buckets into the big plastic mugs on the table and delicately seated herself on the dented folding chair.
"Dinner," he said loftily, swinging the skillet off the stove and clomping over to the table, "is served."
"Merci, Monsieur," she said with an elegant nod. He scraped a pile of steaming food onto her plate, the rest onto his. He dumped the skillet in the sink and took his seat.
"Yer most welcome," he said, grinning at her. His grin softened. "I mean that, Bets."
She smiled, and speared some of his culinary masterpiece on her fork. She tried it out, a questioning line wrinkling her forehead. She slowly chewed, then nodded. "Interesting," she said.
He grinned. "Yeah, well, you don't hafta down it just ta make me happy," he said.
"No, I mean it," she said. "It is… interesting. Not what I'm used to."
Logan shrugged. "I get that a lot," he said.
They ate in quietness for a short time. She paused, looking at him directly. "You don't ask many questions," she said.
He sighed. "I don't need to," he said. "I know enough."
"You don't want to know how I ended up… there?" she said.
He put down his fork and looked up at her. "What you were doing at the Institute is none of my business until somebody makes it my business." He hesitated. "I trust you, Bets. Even if you'd rather I didn't."
"What makes you think I'd rather you didn't?" she asked.
"Let's call it a shot in the dark and let it go," Logan said with a shrug. "I decided a long time ago that you can either trust people or you can not trust people. Hell, there was a time when I went back and forth, back and forth, tryin ta figure out who I could trust. Even odds between when I was dead right and dead wrong. That's just too much work, Bets, and I am not up for it. My instincts trust you. So I will trust you. And that means somethin."
"What does that mean?" she asked quietly.
He grinned, leaning back. "I got a overactive heart and a empty head, more'n likely. I've seen both sides of that one, and I think I got the better deal."
"I think you're goofy," she said primly, spearing a hot dog chunk on her fork. He barked a laugh.
"That reminds me," Logan said, getting up.
"Do you ever sit still for more than ten minutes?" she asked as he headed out to the porch.
As soon as he went out he came back in, holding a cardboard box. "I brought you a cabin-warmin present to welcome you proper and all, since you'll be out here for a little while." He put it down and shuffled his boots. "Go on, open it." He grinned.
"But Logan," she said, "I didn't bring you anything." She started on the box.
"That's alright," he said. "This was too good ta pass up."
She got the box open and lifted out a mass of flannel. She stood and shook it out.
"Flannel nightie," Logan grinned. "Gets cold up here at night."
She couldn't repress a smile as she looked it over; purple and red and green, with a buttoned neck, and it fell all the way to her ankles, with long sleeves to boot. "It's amazing, Logan," she said, shaking her head. He laughed.
"Sure is. Now I'm gonna do the dishes and then go for my night run."
"Don't worry about the dishes," she said, folding up the night gown. "I'll take care of that. Go get your run in."
"Be back," he said, and he was through the door and off the low porch, then he disappeared into the brush.
She sat back down at the table and let her mind follow him into the darkness. The Project had left some psionic noise in his adamantium-wrapped brain, along with a psionic mine that she had triggered and disposed of. His thoughts remained psionically garbled and difficult to sort through, whether he liked it or not. She found it hard to penetrate his thoughts, but simple to follow his path in the darkness.
She put some water in a pan on the stove and heated up dishwater, absently looking down at her hands and smiling. Wondering if the toughening exercises they had put her through, the ability to sink her hands into hot sand, then hot gravel, would protect her from dishpan hands.
More than likely.
xXx
Logan cleared the rotting log with a sideways hop and jogged down the trail he was breaking in. The owls were starting early tonight; not ten yards away he heard a startled mouse scrabble for a moment with a squeak as the ghostly talons snipped it from the earth. The forest was sighing, letting the heat of the day release back into the night sky. Animals prowled. The trees shifted their weight and loads in the dim evening breeze. The sun's glory followed it down under the horizon. Stars, like the scents of evening, revealed themselves singly and in groups.
Moving through the evening, Logan found what he was looking for. A jump and a scrabble carried him to the top of a flat rock that stuck out of the hillside. At the base of the shelf was a fallen tree that had cleared just enough of a gap in the canopy for him to have an excellent view of the cabin. He saw Braddock's shadow moving inside.
Settling himself, he pulled out a cigar and lit it. Now, Betsy, she didn't like cigars, so he didn't smoke them inside when she came. One sure did taste good after dinner, though. Especially such an excellent dinner as beans and franks.
He drew on the cigar, and let the smoke drift out of his nose and mouth, losing itself in his wild hair. He lay on his back in the gathering chill of evening, enjoying the warmth of the sunbaked rock. He counted stars, knowing where they should be but completely ignorant of constellations.
"Like freckles," he muttered. "Like the sky has got glowing freckles." He drew deeply on the cigar again.
Soon he would get up and finish his rounds; check the edge of the lake, climb to his lookout to check the road to town, go into the old stands of ancient forest, then back to the cabin.
For now, though, the flat rock overlooking the cabin was difficult to leave.
xXx
Braddock finished her sweep of the cabin, and could find no clock. A battered radio was on a shelf, and it had an unopened package of batteries next to it. In case of emergency.
Logan's cabin might not be much, but it certainly was tidy. The blankets were folded and stashed, the few cooking implements and dishes were neatly stacked in the cupboard, and the floor was regularly swept before she came. He kept a tidy lair. She imagined a pile of bones outside the door of previous victims, as a warning, and suppressed a smile.
Logan's boots hit the boardwalk of the porch, and he swung into the cabin with an armload of wood. "Ya know," he said as he dumped the wood in the bin by the stove, "I'm really glad your ninja trainin overcame yer ladylike upbringin so you can use the outhouse."
She arched an eyebrow. "The dark holds no fear for a ninja," she said. "Nor anything in it."
"So how come I plowed through those jokers that attacked me on the roof of the institute?" Logan asked as he opened the front of the stove and tossed a stick, then another, of firewood into the stove.
She sighed as she took a seat on his battered couch. "Training takes a minimum of ten years, and for most ninja it takes twenty. Those with any level of skill undertake field missions during training. They are skilled fighters, but they are not completely transformed yet. Skilled men and women on their way to becoming ninjas have a place in combat, or in spy duties. Of course they all can't be at the level of master ninja, experts. You have to start somewhere, and they think that field experience teaches things that are more time consuming to learn in a dojo."
"Well, I guess I schooled them proper," Logan said.
"The ones that survived," Betsy shrugged. "Had it been a master, you never would have seen the attack coming and your skeleton and healing factor would not have saved you."
"Are you a master?" Logan asked, closing the front of the stove.
She shook her head. "No. Even with a year of accelerated, technologically enhanced training I am only masterful, not a master. I saw things…" she trembled for a moment. "A ninja master is no longer human," she said simply. And let it drop.
So did Logan.
"I'm tuckered out," he said. "Why don't you turn in and I'll finish closin up shop. You tired?"
"I suppose I am," she said with a smile.
He nodded at the doorway with the curtain caught up to one side. "Well, go on in and I'll finish up out here."
She rose, nodded to her host, and walked into the dark room. Her senses led her to the match on the table. She lit it, and lit the candle by the big bed. It had no frame, just box springs and a mattress on the floor. She sat on the bed, kicked off her shoes, and started brushing her hair. She paused, got up, slipped out of her clothes and pulled on the flannel night gown. She smiled.
Logan climbed up on the chair, turned off the overhead light, and puttered around in the dimness from the stove for a few minutes. Then he shucked off his shirt and lay down on the couch, pulling a blanket over his shoulders.
"Night Bets," he said.
"Good night, Logan," she replied.
She didn't go to sleep right away. By the time she had read a chapter in the novel she had bought at the airport, he was softly snoring.
That was the best lullaby she could have asked for.
March 2, 2002
After a quick breakfast of oatmeal, they pushed back from the table.
"I'm going to go take a bath," she said.
"I showed you where the crick is, you remember, right?" Logan said.
She smiled. "I can memorize complex blueprints with a glance, navigate a maze in the dark by smell, and you want to know if I can find a place not a mile from here you showed me three days ago."
"No need to get all smug," he muttered. "I saw something suspicious on the north ridge last night, I'm gonna go check it out."
"If you didn't find anything suspicious, I suspect you would get bored," Betsy said.
"That I might," he grinned. Then he plucked his hat off the coat rack and was gone out the door, across the clearing, into the woods.
Braddock stretched luxuriously, then stood and collected her shampoo and towel and soap and headed out the door herself.
Logan moved through the woods low and at good speed, staying in practice. In twenty minutes he had reached the area that had sparked suspicion last night. He examined it more closely.
At the base of the tree, an odd smell but a familiar one. He sniffed, sniffed the bark, where scents sometimes caught in the striated wood, away from the breeze. Yep. Unmistakable.
Brimstone.
He glanced at the tree, his fingers running lightly over its bark. There, there, there. Someone climbed this tree in a hurry. Someone agile.
Bet he jumped down.
Logan walked around to the other side, and looked at the ground.
Two toes and a dewclaw toe. Yes, he had company. Probably startled him in the dark last night.
He looked around the woods, then started off down the trail left by the three toed interloper.
