xXx

The plane finished its picture-perfect landing, and the side portal of the sleek jet opened to lower stairs. Pepé moved out to greet them. A short man with wild upswept hair strolled down the steps, glancing around and sniffing.

"Hey, you make it," Pepé said. "Remy, he be with you in a minute. Then you all go, ya?"
"Yeah," the short man said, digging out a cigar. He tore the end off with his teeth. "Remy in there?"

"Sure is," Pepé said. Logan headed for the outbuilding, and Pepé raised the stun gun and lined it up on the back of his head.

Then Pepé's eyes snapped wide open, and he gibbered for a moment. His face began to shift and flow, then he collapsed on the runway, form oozing and twitching. The gun clattered to the pavement. Logan turned, looked from the collapsed figure to the woman standing over it.

"Nice work, darlin," he said.

"You should be more careful, Logan," she replied calmly as the gleaming psionic knife dissipated. "Creed is nearby as well."

"You got him, Bets. I'm gonna go get Remy. He's in there," Logan said, gesturing with his chin. He looked down at the garbled figure on the ground. "She gonna be okay?"

Braddock shrugged. "Yes. In about an hour. In the meantime she can try to muster the concentration to ponder the consequences of her evil deeds."

"That's what all a us are tryin ta muster the concentration to ponder," Logan grunted as he headed for the outbuilding.

Braddock turned and faced the swamp. "Creed," she said in a clear voice that carried over the bayou. "I am not tracking you by scent. The muck will do you no good hiding from me."

He said nothing as he rose from the swamp water, slathered in mud and weeds. He grinned, and slogged to the edge of the mere and out onto the runway. He shook like a dog, then settled, growling, into a combat stance.

"You Logan's girl now?" he rumbled. "Let's see what you got, frail." He barked a laugh and came in low, talons outstretched, leaping with unreal speed. She took a step to the side and pivoted out of the way, and he slashed through empty air. Landing in a crouch, he spun and took a stride towards her, lashing out. A pivot spun her away from his attack, and her fingertips cut into his elbow.

He faced her again. "That supposed to hurt?" he sneered.

She raised an eyebrow. "Doesn't matter. For the next few minutes, even with your healing factor, your left hand is useless."

He looked down at his arm in surprise. Aside from a wiggling finger, his hand had gone dead. He glared at her.

"It's on, now," he snarled. "No more Mister Nice Guy."

"Oh, really," she sighed. "Let's end this." Her eyes narrowed, and her fist was bathed in a peculiar purple light. With a subaudial hiss, a shard of seething, contained energy slid out of her fist, filling out a triangular wedge of light.

Creed darted in, slashing. She stepped out of the way and put the dagger through his face, then ducked gracefully as his lunge threw him to the ground, where he twitched fitfully. She sighed, and glanced over at the outbuilding. Logan was just reaching the door.

Logan nudged the door open with his foot. In the dim light of one bare bulb he saw Remy, tied to a chair, his eyes staring, twitching thoughtlessly. Next to Remy, a trim red-headed teenager held a gun to his head and watched him with narrow, angry green eyes. "One step closer," she said, "and your swamp rat friend paints a mural."

"Two down, kid," Logan shrugged. "Gonna be three. As fer shootin the swamp rat, you'd save me a hell of a lot of trouble."

Her eyes flared, and she reached into his mind. Her eyes snapped wide open and she recoiled, her head bumping into the boards of the wall behind her. Logan darted forward and snatched the gun while she was distracted. "Did I mention my head's a mess ta poke into?" he said with a grin.

She shouted. He smashed through the flimsy wall of the hut and sailed into the predawn bayou in a flat arc. He crashed into a tree and plopped down in the mud, his whole body tingling and aching.

The redhead stood by the hole in the wall, looking out into the swamp. She was smiling. Then she spun—

Just in time to catch the chair on her head and shoulders. It splintered in a most gratifying way, but Remy's heel whipped through the confusion to smash into her ribs. She flew back and crashed into the wall, but he was there, his next blow uncoiling at her. She ducked and landed a good punch to his ribs, but he was all sinew and bone, and the last thing she saw was his knee lashing out at her eye socket. The blow connected hard, knocking her head back against the wall again, and Remy stooped with his fist poised to hit her again if need be.

"Remy, you all right?" asked Braddock from the doorway. He looked up with his best rakish grin.

"I am now, chere. Good for Logan to bring you along. Thanks for waking me up," Remy said, looking down at the groaning and twitching girl on the floor.

Braddock said nothing. She knelt by the psycher. "I was in his cabin," she said quietly. "He invited me along because I could pilot the jet."

"Whatever you say, mon chere," Remy grinned knowingly.

She chuckled. Then she went rigid. "Hear that?" she asked.

Remy nodded grimly. "Choppers. We gotta move."

Braddock stood and jogged out towards the plane. Logan was just coming out of the swamp and heading for the plane as well.

"Shall we?" Braddock asked him, raising an eyebrow.

"Too late," he said, shaking his head. "They got missiles that could take us down easy, before we could get the distance. Time to go with plan b."

"Ah yes," she said, nodding. "How well I remember plan b."

"Dis is bad ting," Remy said. "I hate plan b."

Just then an ugly helicopter roared into view, and it opened up with a salvo of missiles that crashed into the grounded jet in an incredible blast of painful sound. The jet exploded, sending them sailing back through the air. Two, then three, then four helicopters screamed into view and settled on the battered tarmac around the flaming jet. Doors rolled open and soldiers jumped out, fanning out to secure the landing area.

Braddock, Remy, and Logan were gone. One soldier found Mystique and helped her rise, another checked on Creed.

Mystique was blonde, cute, and in charge. "Who's your commanding officer?" she shouted over the chopper engines.

"Lieutenant Wentworth," the soldier shouted, pointing. Mystique strode over to him.

"Are you Special Agent Teak?" the lieutenant shouted.

"Yes," she nodded. "Let's go in there where we can talk," she yelled, gesturing at the outbuilding.

A minute later they were in the relative quiet of the building. "What was your briefing?" Agent Teak asked.

"Two terrorists," the lieutenant said. "Remy LeBeau and Logan Sendry."

"Add a third," Agent Teak said, her eyes slitted and vicious. "Elizabeth Braddock. Each of them is trained in a number of terrorist tactics, so treat them as extremely armed and extremely dangerous, even if you see no weapons. I don't think they've gone far, but for now leave the choppers running and establish a perimeter while I check with our special intelligence to see if they've gone far."

"Yes sir," he said, and he stepped out of the building and headed for his troops. Agent Teak put her palm on her forehead and winced; her mind was a riot of pain.

On the roof of the building, Rachel sat looking into the gathering dawn. She felt a stirring in her mind, then silent speech, clear and articulate in her thoughts.

Rachel, the voice said. May I talk to you?

Rachel felt the other mind, the other voice, not prying or imposing but simply there. She nodded her assent, if for no other reason than the novelty of the non-hostile contact.

Twenty years ago we were in almost this exact same situation, the voice said. We were a bunch of kids then, except Logan. I was here with them. I worked for the Project, can you believe that? I was a non combatant, along for the ride to be a spotter for Creed and Mystique. My heart goes out to you.

Keep your heart, Rachel thought. I have no patience for your pity.

Aren't you at all curious to know what happened? Braddock thought to her.

Rachel was silent, her silence answer enough.

Back then the Project had a program for psionics, and I was a teenager in its courses. As the hunt went through the swamp, Remy and Logan snatched me and spirited me away from the soldiers. I knew for sure they were going to kill me. But they didn't. Even after I had tracked them halfway across Louisiana, they took me aside and talked to me. Remy told me what they had done to him, but I couldn't trust him. Then Logan told me the Project was evil, and he made me look into his head.

Silence.

Well, you know what that's like, Braddock continued. Rachel bit her lip.

I couldn't go back to Extechops, Braddock thought. I resigned, right to Bryant's face. Then they tried to hunt me, so I pulled every secret out of Bryant's head I could reach and threatened him with it.

Both women smiled at that.

Freedom, thought Braddock, is possible, if you dare to reach for it.

Yes, see how well that worked out? Rachel thought, bitter. Twenty years later, here you are again.

But it's not the same, Braddock disagreed. I'm free. No unscrupulous men give me my marching orders. My mind is my own, my choices mine to make. It is worth the risk, worth the price, to be free. Just think it over.

The contact ended, and Rachel struggled with emotion.

Mystique popped her head up out of the building. "Rachel!" she said. "Are they still nearby?"

"Yes," Rachel managed, surprised to find a lump in her throat. "They're not far."

Just then one of the choppers changed the pitch of its engine, and it rose from the runway. Soldiers scattered as the minigun started spinning. The pilots abandoned the other three choppers just before a line of bullets ripped the gunships in half, spraying metal fragments across the sprinting soldiers. Soldiers fired at the helicopter, the bullets ringing off its steel hide ineffectually. Then the chopper veered to the west, corrected, and thudded to the west and the south.

"Damn," Mystique gritted out. "There they go." She pulled out her phone and punched in a number too secret to be in the autodialer. Some ordinance detonated in the ruin of a helicopter.

"Fury here," came the rough voice. "Doesn't sound like success."

"It isn't," Mystique said, her voice sour. "They hijacked a chopper and escaped. Send an extraction team for your soldier boys. Let us finish the job. They're headed to Mexico. The soldiers can't do this without creating an international incident."

"So you were on top of things when they arrived?" Fury said.

She gritted her teeth. "There's a certain way these things are done," she said evenly.

"Poorly. You're coming back to base, operation failed," he snapped. "Maybe Bryant was right about you. We'll see how Garrett and Wilson do." The line went dead. Mystique leaned back on the roof and looked at the rising sun.

At least he'd send an extraction team.

Down on the airfield, the soldiers struggled to put out the blaze with a few fire extinguishers they found in the office. It was almost comical. "At least we're in a swamp," Mystique mused.

A rattling thud, and Creed was on the roof. "I'm going after them," Creed said. "It's a trick. I can find them."

"We're being recalled to headquarters," Mystique noted.

Creed snarled, deep in his chest. "I'm going after them," he repeated, and he jumped off the roof, leaving only the aftertaste of his fury behind.

Mystique glanced at Rachel, and the two women slid off the roof to follow him.

As they landed, Rachel suddenly realized—

Creed bashed her head, and stars exploded in her sudden darkness as she sailed through the air and slammed to the ground, rolling with the force of the blow until she finished limp and motionless.

Mystique came up with a gun, but Creed was ready for that; he snatched it and startled her with a head bash to her face. She reeled, and he gripped her by the neck and easily hauled her off the ground.

"Don't follow me," he growled. He shook her once then tossed her over to where Rachel lay unmoving. He leaped into the swamp and was gone.

Mystique clutched her neck, gasping. Rachel lay unmoving, blood trickling from her nose and mouth. "Medic!" Mystique croaked, her voice damaged. She focused for a moment. "Medic!" she shouted, loud and clear.

A quick look reassured her that Rachel simply suffered from a concussion, nothing that wouldn't heal. She revived, groggy, as the medic trotted over.

"Look after her," Mystique said, standing and brushing herself off. She looked out into the bayou. "To hell with Louisiana anyway," she murmured.

Now it was all in the air. She wondered how it would come down.

xXx

Remy and Logan slogged through the muck. "I hate plan b," Remy muttered.

"I think you said that already," Logan said, "maybe even twice. Hell, maybe even thirty times. In fact, if you say it again I might have to slice your whiny hide open to see how many more you got in there."

"De mosquitoes make you grumpy," Remy said. "I understand dat. I let it go dis time. I know you just out of sorts and not your normal charming self cause we been slogging tru mud for de past two hours."

"Don't forget the heat. If it wasn't for you, I'd be at work eatin lunch right now. So don't give me lip. 'Sides. You called and asked for help. Well, there's nobody chasin you now, is there?"

"Whatever happened to plan a?" Remy asked forlornly. "Dat would be better dan going into a trance so de psychers can't see us, while our bodies be stuck up in trees, until de soldiers go away."

"Plan a was to let the Project have you. Though I can't imagine what they would want with a swamp rat who can't stop whining about his rescue."

"Hey, dey be working on super charmer soldiers next. De ladies love dem, dere friends can't say no to dem, and dey need an expert to teach dem de Art. Of Smooth." He grinned his most charming grin, the one he saved for special occasions.

"Gawd," Logan muttered. "I need a cigar."

Remy's laugh rang through the swamp.

May 3, 2002

He was unconscious when she found him. She fished him out of the deeper water and pulled him up on the mudbank, then crouched and waited, watching the burning house. A few minutes passed, and the flames were dying down. Xavier stirred.

"Braddock," he managed, his voice weak. "You saved me."

"I did," she agreed. "Don't you dare try to take control of my mind."

"Not sure I could," he managed. She saw he had sustained several burns, and he was in poor shape. "Not sure I can stay conscious."

They were quiet for a moment, him breathing and her waiting.

"Are you going to take me to a hospital?" he asked in a small voice.

"I haven't decided yet," she said. "Presumably you would rather be taken to a safehouse."

"I don't have many left," he said, slowly shaking his head, "and none in this part of the country."

She was quiet a moment. "It seems completely insane for me to do anything but kill you and walk away."

"I won't come after you ever again," he said, his voice weak. "I swear it. Please. Please don't let me die."

She let out a long breath, then stood and picked him up. He was uncomfortably light.

"Geraint," whispered Xavier, and Braddock was possessed of the knowledge of how to contact Geraint. Then Xavier slipped into unconsciousness.

She thought for a long moment. She couldn't just release Xavier into the world at large. If she turned him over to the Project, that would be heavier on her conscience than killing him. She weighed her options for few seconds that seemed to go on forever.

Then she had a plan.

xXx

"It's Ms. Braddock, sir," the assistant said, handing the cordless to Mr. Stark where he relaxed in the jacuzzi. "Your instructions were to always put her through."

"Thanks," Stark said, taking the phone. "Hey. Logan isn't back yet," he said into the mouthpiece.

"It's not about Logan," came the lovely voice on the other end. "I have a problem…" she said.

"I get a lot of that," Stark said, sinking a little lower in the water.

"I have a refugee from the Project who is badly hurt and may die. I can't vouch for him, but I can't let him go either. I don't know what to do," she said, a little lost. "I was hoping maybe you… He's burned, and I don't know if I can save his life," she said.

"You said you couldn't vouch for him," Stark sighed. "Tell me more."

There was a long silence. "He's a psycher, Stark. A powerful one."

Stark felt an almost irresistible urge to hang up the phone and let this one go away. He moved the phone away from his ear and his finger hovered over the disconnect button. But something inside him rebelled, rose up, forbade him. He had one moment to choose.

Then the moment was past. He put the phone back up to his ear. "Where are you?" he said.

"Thanks, Stark," she smiled, relief clear in her voice. "I owe you one."

No, Stark thought, you owe Logan one.

"I'm transferring you to my assistant to work out the details," Stark said, and he proceeded to do so before he could change his mind. Then he sat in the jacuzzi and looked up at the ceiling and let his thoughts wander.

He wondered how long he had until the Project targeted him.