New York City, New York
The Past, Four Weeks Ago
Rogue and Wolverine spent hours combing through the rubble of Sinister's underground sanctuary, finding little in the charred husk of the former manor. Most of the building had collapsed onto itself, sucked down into a gaping sinkhole that was now full of mud and burned debris. They uncovered a trio of corpses. Two of the Sabretooth clones and one woman, her body unrecognizable from the burns she had sustained. They found the latter clone in the wreckage of the atrium, where Storm had accidentally caused the gas explosion. Neither of them spoke as Wolverine lifted the remains of Sinister's clone and let her body drop into the crumbling sinkhole.
The stable had been burned, but its foundation stood. Remains of metal bars and fixtures lay amongst the smoldering wood planks and beams. The mysterious engine which the young Remy had spoken of was no where to be found. Wolverine grew incensed. As they climbed back to the surface, Rogue could sense Wolverine's simmering rage barely held in check. Once they were safely free of the cavern and its mysterious monsters once controlled by The Mole King, Rogue spoke.
"It seems t'me that Sinister wasn't expectin' us at all," she said, her head lowered to watch her feet as she walked. "Not near enough clones, no army like what Storm was tellin' us about."
Wolverine was quiet, silently marching through the Morlock tunnels at a ground-consuming pace.
"So why did that clone come to the school, to leave us a map that would take us straight here?" Rogue wondered aloud. "It couldn't have been a trap. When I jumped Sinister back in the dining hall, the look on his face... Well, you could tell he weren't ready for company. He was like an empty shell. He fell t'pieces right then and there. Probably gonna pop up somewhere else, like some kinda demented whack-a-mole."
"Are you done runnin' yer mouth?" Wolverine growled.
Rogue's mouth opened in shock. "Go soak your head, Logan!" she shouted at his back, her voice echoing in the dank tunnel. "You think you're the only one who's got a right t'be angry? Ah'm mad as hell!"
"I don't give a damn about whatever the hell you think you're going through Rogue –!" Wolverine retorted, not bothering to turn his head to respond to her.
Rogue interrupted: "You wanna stew in your own juices – fine! Ah don't see what that's gonna accomplish!"
Wolverine rounded on her. He pointed a finger in her face and Rogue's eyes grew wide with indignation. "Maybe we coulda saved ourselves a lot of time if you'd taken what we needed to know out of that kid's head, like I told you to. Instead of chasing our tails down in this hellhole."
Rogue drew back, sweeping her arm to knock Wolverine's offending finger away from her face. "Would you get a grip on yourself! You want me ta rip the thoughts right outta some little kid's head? What is wrong with you?"
Wolverine raised his arms out to his sides to gesture at their surroundings. "Where's the engine, Rogue?" he asked rhetorically. "Where's this so-called 'tube thing' spittin' out Creed clones?"
"Ah don't know, Logan! Maybe it fell inta the sinkhole! Maybe it collapsed and we didn't recognize it! Maybe – Ah don't know – someone came and took it! Why don't you stop and think about it for a second, instead of goin' off half-cocked!" Rogue shouted.
"That little kid is a goddamn liar! You know full well he knows more than he's lettin' on. He spotted you for a sucker the second he clapped eyes on you," Wolverine said. "You got sweet talked by some ten-year-old brat!"
Rogue sucked in a breath and spat out: "Why don't you get on back to the school, Logan? So you can get back to pantin' over that poor time-lost teenage Jean!"
Wolverine snarled at Rogue and his claws sprang from his knuckles. He stabbed his claws into the tunnel wall and slashed downwards, tearing loose chunks of concrete and mortar. Very quietly, he said: "Why don't you call up your old fella Magneto...and ask him to turn himself in? Maybe see if he can be bothered to not kill any more humans while he's at it?"
"You can go to hell," Rogue answered back, her eyes narrowing. "You're not fit t'run a school. It's a mistake to leave you in charge of children."
"It was a mistake to ever give you charge of adults," Wolverine responded. "You can barely manage yourself!"
Rogue threw up her hands. "Ah'm done with you," she said. She walked past Wolverine and continued down the tunnel. She was shaking with anger. Rogue would like nothing more than to put her fist into Wolverine's face, but unless she wanted her arm in a cast, she'd have to wait until she absorbed someone a little more indestructible. Nothing was going to be resolved with the two of them at each other throats. And both of them had control-issues that weren't going to be resolved at this particular moment. The first thing she was going to do was to take control of this situation on her own. She was going to track down that missing Gambit-clone herself.
The problem with that mission is that she could not even track down the genuine article, the real Remy LeBeau. It seemed too strange of a coincidence that he should disappear at the same time his younger counterpart should arrive, or that a stray Gambit-clone should be wandering around making mischief for his maker. Rogue returned to Stark Tower alone, having left Wolverine behind. First, Rogue would try the obvious. A little voice in the back of her mind, the prideful one, niggled at her that Remy had specifically asked her not to do what she was about to do. She dialed Remy's phone number. The phone rang twice.
"The recipient's voice mail is now – full," said the automated voice. Rogue was then unceremoniously disconnected with a cool: "Goodbye."
"Goddamn it!" Rogue shouted and threw her cellphone at the conference room wall where it smashed.
"That was government property, you know," Tony observed dryly. He was seated before a computer where one would assume he was working, but he was not. Instead, he was watching The Daily Show.
"As you are aware, our Congressmen and women are currently embroiled in a...spirited debate over certain articles in DOMA legislation," Daily Show host, Jon Stewart, was saying. "A few outstanding members, such as Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, have recently come out in support of gay marriage. But others hold fast to their values as this gentleman from Louisiana, Senator DesJarlais, has made perfectly clear. DesJarlais instead wants to strengthen the language...which if changed, would make mutant-human unions no longer valid or recognized by Federal law. Mr. DesJarlais, your statement?"
Jon Stewart's snarky countenance was replaced by a still photograph of Senator DesJarlais as the text from his recent press statement scrolled across the screen. "We cannot recognize marriage as a union between two people of the same sex...but certainly we have to recognize marriage between two persons of the same species. Mutants are not human. If you look at it from even an anatomical standpoint, that is, a mutant's body in some instances isn't even capable of a physical union with a human being. Take for example a mutant with toxic skin, that if one were to come into direct physical contact with that mutant, a touch may prove lethal! If we allow mutants and humans to redefine marriage as a union between two individuals of a different species, then we open the door to allow people to marry horses, dogs, and pigs."
"Turn that garbage off!" Rogue yelled.
"Relax, Rogue," Tony said, rocking back and forth in his desk chair. "It's a comedy show."
"Oh, and Ah suppose you find that funny, do you?" Rogue began marching in Tony's direction, fire in her eyes. "That part about mutants bein' like pigs?"
The camera had returned to Jon Stewart. The audience was booing and jeering the Senator's comment and Stewart smiled a clever smile. "Senator DesJarlais must have a valid point," Stewart said. "Clearly, it would take a lot to affront his sense of decorum, considering he comes from a state where this happens on an annual basis."
The screen cut away to a packed street of Mardi Gras revelers, most of which were dressed in scandalous apparel. It was clear the majority were inebriated. Many of the females in the crowd had to be blurred out. The studio audience applauded and hooted.
Stewart continued: "Mutants possess an extra gene, known as the X-gene. A human-mutant marriage would bring a little something extra to the institution. Extra-marital, if you will. Not unlike the affairs that have come to light in DesJarlais' own office. Recently, his intern has come forward citing inappropriate conduct in the workplace."
The audience booed.
"You have to wonder what other extra activities Mr. DesJarlais has been up to!" Jon Stewart said. "I dunno, maybe a little...late night bank robbery?" The faux-anchorman pointed his pen to the graphic over his shoulder. It featured a photo of DesJarlais beside a photo of a man that looked remarkably like Remy LeBeau. "Seriously, were these two separated at birth, or what?" Stewart asked. The caption below the photos read: Everybody Loves a Clone.
"Which brings us to other news...," Stewart continued. "The recent FBI discovery of NABC's rather prestigious clientele, which include several international terrorist organizations as well as the Mexican drug ring and head-chopper-offers known as the Juárez Cartel."
"Oh mah gawd," Rogue said, her eyes locked on the screen.
"Gambit robbed a bank," Tony observed lightheartedly. "And is now being lampooned on Comedy Central. Thank the omnipotent invisible godlike-being responsible that Steve never went through with asking Gambit to join the Avengers. That would have been embarrassing."
Perhaps this was the explanation for Gambit's sudden disappearance, though Rogue could not be convinced that Gambit was responsible for breaking into and attempting to steal data from an international bank, let alone work with a drug cartel. Rogue turned on her heel and started towards the exit.
"Where are you going?" Tony called after her.
Rogue didn't bother answering. She picked up one of the hand-held computer devices as she stalked through the conference room doors, letting them sweep shut behind her. Rogue would go to the closest point on that dysfunctional global map of Tony Stark's, the one that indicated there could be twenty or more Gambits scattered across the planet. The closest red blip had been in New York City, right here in Manhattan. She would start there, just to rule it out as a possibility. At last reading, the map indicated Gambit had used his powers in an alley between two buildings not far from Central Park. Rogue started for it, wishing she could still fly. Instead, she walked, holding the crystalline device out before her as she did. It took her twenty minutes to finally arrive at the place. She found herself standing at the entrance to an alley. People on the sidewalk rushed past and Rogue was forced to step aside so not to interrupt the flow of foot traffic. They alley did not look promising. She started down it. About halfway down, she found a doorway beside a dusty shop window. It seemed a very unusual place for a shop. She put her face close to the glass and used her hand to frame her eyes so as to peer inside. Rogue found the shop to be empty, but the sign on the door read: Sorry, We're Open.
Rogue pushed open the door and a bell rang overhead. She looked up at it, then around the shop. Numerous clocks hung on the walls, all ticking at different tempos. The sound filled the small shop. Before the window was a bench. Newspapers were fanned out on its surface. Rogue picked one up, finding it very strange. It was an issue of The New York Times, but there seemed to have been a misprinting. The entire paper was blurred out, including the photographs which were indistinct shapes in gray. Rogue set the paper down.
"Hello...?" she called as she wandered towards the counter. "Is anyone here?"
From a back room behind the counter came the sound of something being rolled across the wooden floor. A chair appeared, bearing an older man who was leaning back in his seat to peer through the open door. His expression was one of annoyance until he spotted Rogue. He must have found her appearance pleasing, because he suddenly smiled.
The man pushed his dark glasses up his nose with a forefinger and said: "Why, hello. How can I help you?"
Rogue came up to lean her hips against the counter. "Hi...Ah didn't know if y'all were open or not," she began. "It's a bit of an out-of-the-way place for a newsstand, ain't it?"
The man disappeared momentarily to stand up from his chair. He rolled the chair out of sight and then exited the back room. "I hate to muck up the place with a bunch of customers," he said.
Rogue returned his smile. She could not place his age, somewhere between fifty and seventy if she had to guess. Long white hair fell to the shoulders of the oversized oatmeal-colored cardigan he wore. The top half was dressed incongruously with the bottom half of his body. Jeans and Chuck Taylors completed his outfit. He was tall and thin, with an angular face. His mouth was bracketed by deep winkles, carved there over time by his sardonic smile. The man's eyes were shaded behind smoke-colored spectacles. The eyebrows above the lenses were colorless. His skin too was very pale.
"There's somethin' wrong with your newspapers," Rogue said and nodded back at the bench of newspapers at the front window.
"Oh? What's that?" the man asked.
"They haven't got any print on them," Rogue informed him.
The man's smile grew sly. "Well, you know what they say...No news is good news," he remarked jovially.
Rogue breathed out a single laugh. "It's a good thing Ah didn't come here for the daily news," Rogue said.
"Then what brings you here, my dear?" the man asked and crossed his arms.
Rogue spotted something behind the man that caught her interest. It was a playing card, stuck by its corner into the cork board on the wall behind the counter. Rogue's eyes returned to the man's face. "Ah wondered...do you know Remy LeBeau?"
The man pretended to consider, then bobbed his head. "I suppose I can claim I know him as well as anyone could."
"Have you seen him recently?" Rogue asked.
"He's been known t'pop in and out of here on occasion," replied the man. "You know, us folks've got to stick together. Birds of a feather and all."
Rogue paused to consider the man and the warm round tones of his accent. "Another southerner?" she said and smiled. "You're a ways from home."
"You can't ever leave home," he said, and tapped a forefinger against his chest.
Rogue decided she liked this strange man. "Do you know where Remy is? Ah'm lookin' for him." Rogue pressed.
"You, and a bunch of other folks," the man answered.
Rogue felt a rush of trepidation. "It's important Ah find him."
"I'm afraid you're about two days too late," the man said. "You missed him. He's gone."
Rogue felt a chill, as if someone had passed over her grave. "Gone where?"
The man shrugged, his expression was one of unconcern. "Ah, m'dear, why worry yourself about it? Why don't you have a seat and keep an old man company? Have a cup of tea, will you? Not sweet tea, though I'm sure you'd prefer it. I've found I have a palate for Earl Grey."
"Ah'm afraid Ah don't have the time," Rogue said.
"Time has no meaning here," the man said and gestured at the walls. One by one, each of the clocks stilled. Rogue watched as the pendulums came to rest until there was just one left ticking; a campy neon Elvis clock whose hips canted back and forth. The man glared at it until at last Elvis stopped his dancing. Rogue turned back to stare at the old man.
"Who are you?" she asked, feeling ill at ease.
"Sometimes I wonder that myself...," the old man mused.
Rogue took a few steps back from the counter. "Where is Remy?" she asked.
"You're a stubborn one," the man replied. "No sense in concerning yourself with what might've been. Leave the past to those of us who've not got much future left t'look forward to."
"D'ya think you can give me a straight answer?" Rogue asked, exasperated.
"I'm afraid all my answers come out crooked," the man said. "But if its straight talk y'want, I'd check tomorrow's paper. Gotta warn you though, the weather forecast's always wrong."
Rogue blinked at the strange man and then turned. She walked slowly to the bench with the daily newspapers. Amazingly, as she watched, the blurred images cleared and the type became stark black and white. Rogue picked up The Times. As she unfolded the page she saw a column in the left hand margin below the fold. The headline read: Suspect in NABC Theft Found Dead. Rogue's breath caught as she scanned the remainder of the article. The article read: Found in his apartment... Her eyes flicked to the head of the page. The paper bore tomorrow's date. She threw down the paper as if scalded.
Rogue turned to look back at the shopkeeper.
"There's nothing t'be done about it," the man told her almost apologetically. "He's gone on to the next chapter. It's the boy that still needs you."
Rogue didn't pause to process the strange man's words. She flew through the shop door and ran back into the alleyway. She took off at a run towards the Upper East Side. She dodged through busy Manhattaners, her heart in her throat. Remy's apartment was several city blocks away. With her uncontrolled breathing and her frantic heart rate, she found she had a stitch in her side before too long. She was moving at a limping run, her hand clasped to her side as she gasped. When at last she reached the apartment building she threw herself through the revolving doors and into the lobby. Rogue crashed headlong into someone exiting just on the other side. She spun, failed to right herself and crashed to the lobby floor.
"I'm so sorry," said a male voice. "Are you all right?"
Rogue shook off the man who attempted to assist her to her feet. "Watch where you're –," she began, then looked up at the man. She registered the look of surprise in the man's eyes.
"Ro –," the man started, then caught himself. "Ah. I –."
"Do Ah know you?" Rogue asked as she climbed to her feet. The man was tall and square, with forgettable features and stern unsmiling countenance.
The man might have glanced away, almost guiltily. His eyes returned to hers. "No," he said. "But I know you. You're Anna Marie. One of LeBeau – Remy's...friends."
Rogue was instantly suspicious. Everything about this man, from his nondescript haircut to the polish of his shoes said "cop" to Rogue. "And you are...?" she asked warily.
"Carl Denti," said the man and extended his hand.
Rogue didn't accept his handshake. "And what's Remy to you?"
Denti paused to consider. "A colleague," he said at last. "Do you know where he is?"
Rogue rubbed her side. "Ah don't."
"I've tried his phone," Denti continued. "And there's no response when I ring his apartment. It's important I find him."
"Ah'm sure it is," Rogue said, with profound contempt in her voice. "What do you want him for?"
"You've likely seen the news reports," Denti said in an undertone. "I need to talk to him...so we can work out a plan to clear up this misunderstanding."
"He's never made mention of you," Rogue accused.
Denti managed to look surprised. "No?" he said. "He never said anything to you about – about what he was working on?"
Rogue slowly shook her head.
"Oh," Denti said, nonplussed. "Only I thought you and he were... I suppose when I told him this was confidential I still assumed he would have...let you in."
"He hasn't told me anything," Rogue said hotly. "About you, or what it is he was doin', or why he's now on national television for robbin' a bank!"
Denti took her arm and pulled her aside as the lobby security guard's attention was now focused on them. He raised a hand to stay her protest. "Let's see if we can find him," Denti said levelly. "And we can clear up this mess."
Rogue jerked her arm free of Denti's grip. "Why should Ah believe a word you say?" she asked. "How do Ah know you're not some cop after him?"
"I promise you, I'm not a cop," Denti replied.
"Then who are you?"
"A Congressional staffer," Denti said. "Chief Investigator, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Gambit was helping me uncover a money laundering operation within NABC."
Rogue's eyes widened a bit. "Are you serious?"
"He interrupted a robbery, preventing the thieves from making off with thousands of names and the contact information for other crime organizations using NABC to launder their funds," Denti said.
"Ah had no idea," Rogue said, flummoxed.
"Do you think you can let me into his apartment?" Denti asked. "He has my briefcase, my laptop."
Rogue shook her head. "Ah don't have a key."
Denti raised a hand to scratch his temple in a brief sign of nervousness. "Oh," he said.
"We can ask the security guard," Rogue said and pointed. "Let's go."
Denti moved to stop her. "Does the guard know you?"
"No, but it's important! Someone is gonna try to kill him!"
"The security guard?" Denti asked, confused.
"No!" Rogue shouted. "Remy!"
Denti looked alarmed. He glanced up at the security guard, then looked to the elevators. There was a woman there waiting. She held a bucket with cleaning supplies inside. Denti nodded his head in the cleaning-woman's direction, indicating that he and Rogue should follow her. Rogue nodded her understanding. The two joined the woman at the elevator. She glanced back at them and smiled. She was a thin, lanky woman with blond hair pulled back into a long, long ponytail. Her eyes were made large by her thick round spectacles.
"Eostre has gifted us with the promise of a glorious spring," the woman told them in an airy sort of voice.
Rogue and Denti regarded one another, confused.
"It's a nice day," Denti commented.
The woman beamed at him. The elevator arrived and she stepped aboard. Rogue and Denti followed. The woman pressed the button that would take them to one of the upper floors.
"D'you know where we're goin?" Rogue asked Denti.
"He's in apartment 424B," Denti told her.
The woman holding the cleaning products glanced up at them. "Oh! Are you friends of Remy's?" she asked. "Only I'm going to water his plants for him just now. How fortunate we should arrive at the same time!"
Rogue felt a flash of concern. "Who are you?"
The woman smiled. "I'm Aspen. Remy hired me to clean his apartment while he's away. Oh, I recognize you now! From the photograph he had in his apartment. You and Remy share a powerful bond." The woman nodded sagely.
Rogue thought she had enough of strange people making unfathomable comments for the day. Thankfully, the elevator arrived at the appointed floor. The oddly matched trio disembarked. Aspen hummed to herself as they walked down the carpeted hallway. She stopped before an apartment door and removed a key from her coat pocket.
"He's done some aggressive spring cleaning," Aspen said with a watery smile. "I didn't let him get rid of everything. I put some things aside, pictures, mementos and the like. Maybe you could hold onto them for him...until he's feeling more spiritually balanced?"
"Uhm...," Rogue began.
Aspen unlocked and opened the door. "I put them in – agh! Oh, no! No!"
The woman was staring into the apartment, her hand at her throat. The bucket of cleaning products dropped to the ground with a clatter. Aspen screamed wordlessly as she looked through the doorway. Rogue nearly threw her aside in a panic, terrified at what she was going to see on the other side of that door. Somehow she knew what she would find. The scene before her looked staged, as if it had been created for a movie. It was hard to believe it was real. Rogue could no longer hear Aspen's cries or the words that Denti was saying to her. She felt Denti's hand clutch at her arm, but she brushed him off as she entered the apartment.
There was a body on the floor. It was lying on its back, its head turned away from the door to face the couch. There was a spray of blood on the sheet draped over the couch. It had darkened to a rusty brown. A large thick pool of congealed blood was on the hardwood floor just outside the perimeter of the decorative rug. The rug itself may have at one time had a pattern, but that pattern was lost for all the blood saturating the weave. Rogue walked towards the figure slowly, feeling as if she was moving through molasses. She was now standing over the body, looking at, but not seeing the still form. She might have fallen or she might have sunk slowly to her knees, it seemed that time could not be measured. Rogue knew without doubt that the man was dead and that there was nothing that she could do, but still she reached out and grasped the hand that lay across the man's stomach. The flesh was cold.
Rogue felt Denti's hands clasp her upper arms. He lifted her and pulled her away from the corpse. Rogue heard a strange sound, and she realized she'd been hearing it for several moments. It was a sort of moaning noise. She realized it was coming from her. She tried to fight Denti off, but he held her firmly. He gave her a brief shake.
"Rogue," he said, and his voice floated to her as if coming across a great dark void. "Rogue, stop. Don't touch anything. Do you understand? Rogue?"
Rogue could not take her eyes from the body. She recognized Remy's shape on the floor. The hand she had touched was now laying palm up on the carpet. Rogue saw there was a handgun on the carpet as well, near his hand. Her eyes moved up the arm, to the head that was turned aside. She could see he had been killed by a bullet.
Denti had moved back into the hallway. He was speaking to the cleaning-woman. Rogue realized she was cold. The whole apartment was cold. The window was open. The window was broken. Glass was on the floor, mixed in with the blood. Remy was dead.
Say goodbye, like for good. I don't want to see you anymore.
Was that the last thing he'd said to her? she wondered.
You know I still love you, right?
She'd been exasperated and angry with him at the time. She'd always felt one extreme or another when it came to Remy LeBeau.
Denti was carefully moving around the periphery of the apartment. He was putting his phone to his ear.
"What are you doing?" Rogue asked dully.
Denti glanced up at her. "I'm calling the police," he said. "Watch where you put your feet. We don't want to compromise the scene."
Rogue looked down at her feet. "What?" she asked, failing to understand his words.
Denti was suddenly standing beside her. "I know this isn't easy, but I need you to focus right now. Why don't you wait in the hall until the police arrive? We can't risk interfering with an investigation."
"An investigation?" Rogue echoed, looking up into Denti's dark eyes. "Into what?"
He looked at her, perplexed. "Rogue, a man has been murdered."
Rogue gestured weakly at the gun beside the body. "Murdered? But he –." She couldn't finish the sentence.
Denti looked down at the gun, then returned his gaze to Rogue. "Remy did not kill himself," Denti told her. He took a pace away from her and indicated the sweep of blood across the wood floor. "Someone entered through the window. And slipped in the blood. There was a struggle – here. Two people fought. You can see the glass has been scattered...nearly all the way into the kitchen."
Rogue watched Denti's hands move as he spoke. She then looked at the evidence on the floor. Denti passed behind her and she turned to watch him. "Another person was standing here," he said, and crouched. "She was hurt."
"She?" Rogue asked.
Denti indicated a portion of a bloody footprint. "She was bleeding. The trail leads from the bedroom."
Rogue's heart was beating very fast. "But who?" she asked.
"We'll have the guard at the desk check the security cameras," Denti said.
"Ah thought you weren't a cop?" Rogue asked.
"I'm not," Denti replied. "But I was with the FBI for many years. Super-human affairs. That's how I met Gambit."
Rogue's gaze returned to the body at her feet. She could now see the bloody footprints of the mysterious woman. She noticed that the corpse's feet were bare as well, bare and dirty. She crouched.
"Where are his shoes?" Rogue asked.
"More importantly, where is his coat?" Denti asked. "I don't think I've ever seen him without it."
Rogue's gaze traveled up the length of the body's legs, to his stomach and chest and finally to his face. As she reached out with a trembling hand, she knelt. She could feel blood saturate the knee of her uniform.
"Rogue," Denti warned, but she ignored him.
Her hand moved to the corpse's mouth. She touched his lips briefly, then drew her hand away.
"That's not Remy," she said and all at once she began to shake. "That's not him."
"What do you mean?" Denti asked. "How can –?"
Rogue ran her hands over each pocket on the corpse's trousers.
"What are you looking for?" Denti asked.
Rogue hurriedly rocked back on her heels then rose to her feet. Denti moved to steady her. Rogue shook her head from side to side. "Remy's teeth are straight...because he has – had – braces when he was a boy." She nodded at the corpse. "His teeth are crooked. That's not Remy. That's a clone. If Ah'm right, it's the clone that stole a bunch of files from S.H.I.E.L.D." Rogue rubbed her hands over her face, finding her cheeks wet. She rubbed her forearm across her eyes. "But he doesn't have 'em now."
"What could he have been doing here?" Denti asked, looking at the body more critically.
"Ah don't know," Rogue answered and indicated one of the bloody footprints with the toe of her boot. "But he didn't come alone."
Denti skirted the body to bring himself to the broken window. He looked up at the adjacent building. "The bullet came from up there," Denti said and directed his finger to trace the trajectory of the bullet in the air. He pointed down at the clone. "He was shot through the top of the skull. An assassination...?"
"But that doesn't make sense," Rogue said. "What about this struggle, here on the floor? Someone slid in the blood, which means the clone was dead before the fight happened."
Denti shook his head, at a loss. They could hear feet approaching from the hall. Denti quickly stepped away from the window. Rogue joined him at the open doorway. Uniformed and plain clothes law enforcement had arrived. "We're in for a round of questioning," Denti told her.
"Who would've killed that clone? Maybe someone thinkin' he was Remy?" Rogue speculated.
"If I had to guess, I would say the Juárez Cartel may be responsible. But this kind of assassination is not their usual M.O.," Denti said. "They usually use their killings to send a very public and brutal message. This was done cleanly. Not out of revenge or retaliation."
"Then why?"
"Perhaps to keep Gambit silent," Denti said darkly. "Or take him out of the picture."
Rogue regarded Denti critically. "What do you know?" she asked warily.
Denti shook his head. "I really need my laptop back."
"You could use the computers at Stark Tower," Rogue told him.
"I had a very specific set of files I needed to –," Denti began, then interrupted himself. "Did you mention...S.H.I.E.L.D.?"
Rogue gave a nod. "The clone made off with some files for Sinister," she told Denti.
Denti gave her a considering look. "The insane geneticist? They wouldn't have had anything to do with the Black Womb Project?"
Rogue paused. "How did –."
"Do you think you could consult those files for me?" he asked. "I need information on a name."
"What name is that?"
"Moreux."
"That sounds familiar," Rogue said, trying to puzzle out where she had heard it. "Ah know. It was the name that came up, that matched Remy's DNA in Tony's security system."
"There have been an awful lot of unusual coincidences lately," Denti commented.
"Ah'll say."
"Perhaps I should also ask you if you happen to have the phone numbers of a few professional assassins?"
Rogue looked at him crossly.
"Sorry, that was a bad joke," he said.
"Well...," Rogue began. "As a matter of fact, Ah know of at least one."
~oOo~
Next time: An assassin, a thief, and a politician walk into a bar.