Thanks to:
Todd Fan – They really didn't do a great deal about New Orleans on the show did they? Although one of the eps taking him and Rogue there was cool, I liked that one! Sammy will be showing up in the next chapter and so will Rogue, but I try to keep the chapters to about 9 pages and this one got full up before I got to them.
TheDreamerLady – I never even thought that Emma might not die in her diamond form! Oops. I like writing different stuff, the humour usually happens between major angst fics just so I can lighten up for a while! I actually began writing a humerous Lancitty Valentines fic but I really don't have the time for it at the moment so it'll probably end up being posted ludicrously late. Or next year!
LadyEvils – The fire kid was called Rusty Collins, he appeared in some of the comics mostly as an Acolyte and was killed by Holocaust. I liked the idea that if no one realised mutants existed that they might think their powers are a bizarre side-effect of the flu and tried to use it. It might actually become a recurring theme in later chapters.
Chilean Rose – I'm glad you're enjoying it! It's the first really dark fic that I've written and I always appreciate knowing that it's good.
Telepathic Angel – Scott and Jean in this chapter! But Sam's out of action until the next chapter (for which he's probably grateful!)
UncannyAsianGirl – I don't have Windows XP, I'm still on the '98 version! I did have it but my computer crashed and I had to reinstall '98 again. Rogue and Mystique are in the next chapter! And the films you mentioned are all based at the other end of the country, I really don't sound like them…I know! There's a wrestler in WWE who's from my home town, he puts on a posh voice but sometimes he talks normally and then he really sounds like me, it's quite weird. It was funny, they pre-bleep the programme when they send it to the UK and they bleep 'ass' and 'piss' which aren't considered rude but they didn't bleep 'pillock' which is a bad word and then showed it on Saturday lunchtime, that was great. Soccer does sound like "sock her", which actually means to punch! Onto the fic – Remy will have to go through Mississippi to get away from New Orleans and he might just pick up a passenger ;) I have no idea how Rogue learned to ride a snowmobile, I can't envision Irene teaching her. Thanks for the info on the X-Men site! I was dreading having to search my collection for all their names, I'm pretty sure I didn't have them all and I could only remember Paige, Elizabeth and Joshua. And now I can look up Trask, I don't seem to have anything on him at all for some reason. Rogue's blood type changing every time she absorbs a power? I've never thought about it before but that would make sense. The flame mutant was Rusty Collins, one of the Acolytes and the wrestler was Unus (Angelo Unuscione) who was in the Brotherhood and Blob's best friend. Freddy thought he was dead but Pietro found him in Genosha. His power is an impenetrable force field and his kid was apparently killed by Avalanche. Originally I was going to have Dr Risman killed during the escape and I don't quite know what happened there…she's fun to write though because she has no real history and her comic book equivalent has a different name. Looking forward to seeing more music vids from you!
Author Note: I'm having a lot of computer problems at the moment so if the next chapter is a little late it's because it's being repaired. And apologies to everyone who wonders what the hell happened to the end of the last chapter of 'Viva Lost Wages', FF cut the end off! That happened at the end of my first fic and everyone thought I'd just tacked on a crap ending. That sucked.
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"I don't believe this!" Jean threw the phone across the room in frustration and buried her head in her hands. The third time she'd tried to call an ambulance and still there was no response. What the hell kind of emergency service didn't pick up when you called?
The mental control she'd had over Storm hadn't lasted long and there had to be people noticing the freaky weather by now. All her energies were going into keeping the Professor out of her head. She knew he couldn't help it, but she still didn't want him poking around her brain. Scott had thrashed around so much he'd knocked the ruby quartz glasses off and blown a hole in the roof of the mansion. She'd eventually managed to force his battle visor on, going into his mind and making sure he didn't open his eyes. He seemed to think she was his brother Alex, dead years before in the same plane crash that left him an orphan.
She'd tried calling Ororo's sister in New York, but there had been no response. Her own parents were away on holiday and weren't due back for another three days and her sister wasn't answering her phone either. There was no one else she could think of to help her. She was on her own.
She walked slowly back into the Professor's room, hoping he was awake and lucid and able to tell her what to do. Taking care of three ill mutants was not fun. Her hopes were dashed when she saw him lying on the bed, still and quiet. She smiled slightly. That at least had to be a good sign. The horrible raspy way he'd been breathing that day had stopped…
The smile died on her lips. Her hand gripped the door handle tightly and she had to consciously force herself to let go. Her footsteps dragged along the carpet as she neared the bed and time seemed to slow to a crawl.
Professor Xavier lay on his side, his eyes open and sightless. He wasn't breathing.
"Professor?"
Jean barely recognised the hoarse whisper as her own. There was no response from the man on the bed.
"Professor!"
She reached out and shook him violently, her mind going blank. She couldn't think through the panic running through her. The only move the Professor made was due to Jean's actions.
She reached out with her mind and tried to speak to him telepathically, immediately recoiling in horror. The nerve endings were alive but there was no thought there, no sign of his mind left.
He was dead.
"No. No. No no no no no…"
She backed away from the bed, her eyes never leaving the body on the bed. Her back hit the door and she shrieked, whirling around to see what was there. Without the body in view, it almost seemed like something she'd imagined.
She looked over her shoulder and saw that the Professor still hadn't moved.
Her nerve broke.
She ran from the room as fast as she could, sobbing loudly, not thinking about where she was going until she got to Scott's room and crashed through the door.
"Alex? Is it morning already?"
Jean slammed the door behind her, leaning against it and breathing hard. The sensible, levelheaded side of her was coming out and shoving her panic aside. You still have Scott and Ororo to look after. You have to do something…
Oh God, what if they die too?
She buried that thought quickly. No one else was going to die around here. She wouldn't let them.
"You'd better not have broken my fire truck…"
She glanced over at Scott, noting his paleness and the twitchy way he moved. It was no good. There was no way she could keep them from the hospital and to hell with people finding out they were mutants. But no one had answered when she'd rung the ambulance.
She was going to have to take them herself.
"Scott, where are your car keys?"
"That Duncan Matthews thinks he's such hot shit…"
Jean went over to the bed and rested a hand on Scott's forehead. He was burning up. Making a frustrated sound, she searched Scott's dresser. Nothing. Maybe it would be a mistake to take Scott's convertible anyway. The Professor's car would be more suitable.
She couldn't face going into his room again.
Instead, she went downstairs and checked his study. There were keys in there, three sets. Perfect. She picked up the phone there on the desk and tried calling an ambulance again. Still no reply. Thoughtfully, she pulled out the phone book and tried the hospital. It rang for a long time and she was about to give up when a tired voice said, "Hello?"
"Is this the hospital?"
"No babe, it's the fucking morgue."
Jean blinked. "Excuse me?"
"There's no one here," said the voice. It sounded to Jean like a teenage boy, thirteen or fourteen and getting toward hysteria. "The doctors all have the flu. There's no one looking after anyone. This place is full of corpses."
"You mean there's no point? I need help!"
"No help to be had here. They can't do anything. My mom…they brought her here two days ago and she died and they've just left her there! No one knows what's going on and there's no one answering the phones and there are no doctors…"
Jean closed her eyes, her heart going out to the scared kid at the other end of the phone. "Look, come over here. I'm at the Xavier Institute. Can you find your way here?"
"No point." The kids voice had gone flat. "I've got the flu. Started yesterday. Not too bad yet but I'm not lying to myself. I'm already dead."
"No, don't give up!"
"You haven't seen this place. It's a morgue. The city, maybe the whole state. Hell, the whole country for all I know. My advice is to just get the hell out of here before you get it too."
"There must be something we can do!"
"There isn't. I came back here because I saw what the flu did to my mom and no way am I going through that. I went home after…when she died and no one thought to look after me and that means they were too busy to think I might be alone. And when I came back she was still there. I'm going in the medical supplies and going out bombed."
"No, wait! Don't – "
Too late. The boy hung up on her and she replaced the handset slowly. The hospital was out of the question. The Professor was dead, his body lying upstairs. There were two people with the same illness that had killed him and there was nothing she could do to help them.
She was on her own.
She sat in the chair near the desk, drew her knees up to her chest and began to cry quietly.
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Pietro looked up at the building. It seemed to have been built to intimidate. He remembered it well, the last place he had seen his sister while she was dragged away, screaming for help. He hadn't done anything to help her, realising even then that it would be futile. He wondered if Wanda saw things the same way.
His plan was to walk into the building and ask to visit her. Then he would utilise his super-speed and get her out. That way he didn't have to fight his way through security until she was in his grasp, didn't have to worry about locks and electronic keypads. That kind of thing would only slow him down.
He walked into the building and paused. He hadn't been expecting a receptionist waiting for him to visit Wanda, but he had envisioned some one being there to question him. What he hadn't expected was no one. But there it was, the main reception area and no one was there at all.
Maybe they all have the flu and they left Wanda to starve…"Hello! Is anyone here?"
There was no reply. Pietro walked over to the desk and rooted through the drawers until he found a card, which seemed to be what he needed to unlock the doors. Still no one apprehended him.
This was too creepy.
He swiped the card through the lock on the door leading to the rest of the building. It admitted him easily, a quiet bleep the only sound. Still no one ran to ask him what he was doing.
From what Pietro had seen on the TV, he expected the place to be noisy with people screaming and crying. It wasn't like that. It was eerily quiet.
He peered into a room, the gap in the door barred. It was little better than a prison. There was no one in the room, but he could make out a tiny living area and an open door revealed a bathroom within. Wanda had been living in a place like this, where she couldn't even use the bathroom privately? He would have gone insane within five minutes. Then he reconsidered the metaphor and walked on.
There were quite a few empty cells before he got to one with an occupant. A boy lay on the cot in the corner, the lower half of his face bathed in snot and blood. Pietro shuddered. The boy wasn't moving and he had to assume the kid was dead. Just like Evan.
For the first time he wondered if Wanda had the flu and dismissed the idea. He'd know if she was dead.
He crept further into the institution, trusting his instincts to guide him to the right place. He couldn't face looking into another cell, not if he was going to see a body. He took a right and then walked along the long corridor, guessing that Wanda would be in the maximum-security area. That would be far away from the rest of the inmates.
Guessing that he was far enough in the building, he peered through into a cell. No one there. The next one bore the same results. Pietro clenched his fists in frustration and checked out the cell next to that.
There was a girl in the cell and for a moment he thought it was his sister. She had black hair and her back was to him, she was wearing the shapeless garments the institution called clothes. Then he realised it wasn't Wanda. Her hair was too long and she wore it in pigtails, a style Wanda wouldn't have had even as a child.
"Um…" Pietro rubbed his neck nervously. "Excuse me?"
The girl turned and grinned at him. "Hi there."
"Do you know where I can find Wanda Maximoff?"
The girl shrugged. "About three or four cells over. I can't be sure."
"You can't be sure?"
"I talk to her sometimes when we're supposed to be sleeping. But I've not seen her. She's supposed to be dangerous."
"You talk to her from here?"
"Yeah, if it wasn't for her I'd have gone mad!"
Pietro glanced around and decided to take a chance. "Wanda!"
"Pietro?"
"Wanda?"
Pietro sped over to a cell four cells over from the one with the girl in it. "Is that you?"
"Get me out of here."
"I will." Pietro looked through the bars and saw his sister for the first time in years. She had changed, just as he had. She was taller, her hair long and unkempt. She wasn't the little girl he remembered.
He used the card to gain exit to Wanda's room and opened the door. She almost fell out of the room and threw her arms around him.
"I knew you'd come! I knew it all along!"
"We have to go." Pietro extracted herself from her hug and glanced around. "I don't know how long before a guard catches us."
"They haven't been here for two days," replied Wanda. "I had water but no food. I don't know what's happening!"
"They must have the flu," said Pietro. "I've got to get you out of here."
"That reminds me…" Wanda punched Pietro in the arm. "You should have been here years ago! You just left me here!"
"I didn't have a choice! I didn't know where this place was or how I could get you out. I've…I've missed you."
Wanda smiled slightly. "I missed you too – but you should have got me out before now. How did you get me out by the way?"
"Stole the key card."
"Will that open any cell here?"
"Seems to."
"Good." Wanda ran a hand through her hair. "You need to let the others out."
"You're joking!" Pietro gave her a look of disbelief. "Dangerous lunatics and you want to just let them out?"
"Are you calling me a dangerous lunatic?"
"No!"
"Then shut up. The other people in here are the same as me and unless you let them go, they might die of starvation. You can't leave them in here."
Pietro saw her point. "But if anyone tried to kill me, they go straight back into a cell."
"Agreed." Wanda stuck out her hand and Pietro shook it solemnly. It was an old ritual of theirs.
"There's hardly anyone left," Pietro warned as he ran the key card through the lock binding the girl he'd seen earlier. "But I can unlock all the doors and give them a chance I guess."
The other girl in the cell shoved the door open and walked out, grinning at Wanda. "I knew you wouldn't let me sit in there!"
"No problem Lisa," replied Wanda. "How you feeling?"
"Fine," said Lisa. "Good to be getting out of this dump. I'm going to get an ice cream. You've got black hair. I always thought you'd look like a Barbie doll."
Wanda frowned. "Uh, why?"
"Don't know. Are you really dangerous?"
"That depends on my mood." Wanda shrugged. "Right now I'm in a good mood."
"But you never tried to escape?"
"Of course I did. But they did something to my room; I never could use my powers in there. Did you?"
"Yeah. Never got very far though." Lisa glanced at Pietro. "Is this your brother?"
"Yeah."
"The one you were going to disembowel?"
"Yeah."
"Can I watch?"
"No one's gonna disembowel me!" Pietro waved the key card at Wanda. "Are we letting these people out or are you two going to spend all day going over old memories?"
Wanda snatched the key card and began opening doors indiscriminately, throwing them open and leaving them that way without waiting to see if anyone else was coming out. Lisa wandered off down the hallway and Pietro glanced into some of the rooms his sister was opening. Most were empty, one was a broom closet. Two of the rooms he looked in had people in but they were lying on their beds and hardly moving. They had to be sick.
Between them, Wanda and Pietro opened every door in the building. Fourteen of the inmates were well enough to leave. Thirty-two were dead. A further nine people stayed in their rooms, too ill or scared to leave.
"Let's get out of here," said Pietro as the final door was opened. He desperately wanted to leave.
Wanda glanced at the front doors. "Pietro…does Father know you're here?"
"No."
"Thank you."
"I couldn't just leave you here." Pietro gave her a smile. "I haven't seen Father for a while. I don't know where he is."
"I'll find him," said Wanda, her voice cold. "And when I do, he'll pay for what he did to me."
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Logan was getting worried.
When he first arrived at the facility there had been doctors taking his blood samples twice a day and Fury had kept him updated as to the progress – or lack thereof – that had been made on the cure. He hadn't seen Fury for two days now. His duties seemed to have been taken over by Trask, some one that Logan didn't trust. The man was cold and hard, the type of man who couldn't be reasoned with. And Logan could sense that Trask didn't like him. There was no question who would win in a fight, but getting into that situation was something he'd rather avoid.
Fury had confided that they were getting nowhere fast with a cure. Given a few more weeks and they would have nailed it, but there weren't a few more weeks. The virus had spread too far and too fast. By the time a cure was made, those who were infected would be dead and the only people around to take it would be those already immune.
The immunity didn't seem to follow any pattern. The few people they knew who were immune had nothing in common. Some were mutants but not all of them. They were of different ages, races, backgrounds. There seemed to be no link between them. That had been the most information Logan had got from Fury before he just stopped coming and he had seemed run down and unwell then. Maybe Fury had gone down with the damn flu too, or perhaps some one in SHIELD hierarchy had decided that Logan shouldn't know too much and pulled Fury from the base.
Thoughtfully, Logan went to the side of the room and popped a claw, running it down the wall. Just as he had suspected. The walls were made of adamantium and that meant he wasn't going to be able to slice his way out of here. And he was locked in, ostensibly for security reasons – SHIELD were always paranoid about that – but that didn't make him any less of a prisoner.
There were always other ways out of a room given the time to think about it, but he already knew what his next move would have to be. The only person taking his blood samples over the last twenty-four hours had been Trask. The next time he arrived, he would have to overpower the man and get the hell out of there.
And then he was going to Bayville, to check in on an old friend. If anyone knew what was going down, it was Professor Charles Xavier.