The next morning:

"You'll be careful, won't you, honey?"

"Sure, Dad," said Gemini. "It's not too far away, and besides, I learned from the best."

He smiled, "When will you be back?"

"Hopefully for lunch. I'm due back at the conference centre in the afternoon. I think Cyclops knows where I'm going, but could you let him know anyway?"

"OK, honey. Good luck. I love you."

"You too."

Pyro jumped down from the cockpit to the hangar floor, and slammed the door closed. He watched a little nervously as his daughter began her first solo flight at the controls of the helicopter. He'd been giving her flying lessons over the last year or two, but this was the first time she'd ever flown the chopper herself without him alongside. He told himself to relax. Gemini was fully capable. He was just worried because any father would be.

As the helicopter rose from the hangar and into the skies above the school, Gemini turned to her passenger, "It won't take us long to get there. In a few minutes I'm certain we'll find answers to your questions."

Amnesia smiled, "I hope so. Thanks for doing this for me."

"Hey, no problem."

"You're absolutely sure about this? That I came to town as a speaker for this conference, but I lost my memory and never arrived there? That doesn't explain why I had your school's address written down. Or why I travelled here without any luggage."

Gemini shrugged, "I agree, some of it doesn't make sense. But we know now that you definitely are a mutant. Perhaps you just wanted to visit the school before going to the conference. And for all we know, you might have had luggage. But when you lost your memory, you didn't know where to pick it up. Or it could have been stolen."

"I guess."

"Don't worry. We'll have answers soon. Have you remembered anything else?"

"No. No, just that one thing last night when we were at the elevator. Nothing else has come back to me."

"Well, hopefully it's just a matter of time."

- - -

Gemini consulted the address Melody had given her, then looked up at the house once more, "Yup, this is the place."

"This is my house?" said Amnesia.

"Guess there's only one way to find out," said the duplicator, walking towards the front door.

The other girl followed her. The house was a one-storey building, with a small but well-kept garden in front. It appeared to be quite an affluent neighbourhood. They knocked, but there was no answer. A little optimistically, Gemini tried the door, but it was locked.

"I don't suppose you have the keys?"

"Nope."

"Well, no big. Just keep an eye out for cops."

Gemini knelt in front of the door and produced a thin piece of wire from somewhere on her person. Frowning slightly, Amnesia glanced around the street to make sure nobody was watching. The road was empty, apart from a white van parked further down. As the duplicator began to pick the lock, the blonde girl asked, "Where did you learn that?"

"Oh, in a previous life," Gemini murmured.

"Huh?"

"Forget it. Sorry! I've got to stop saying that."

Surreptitiously checking once more that the coast was clear, Amnesia turned back once more at the sound of the lock clicking open. Gemini opened the door and entered the house.

"Well, if I've just broken into your house, don't hold it against me," she remarked.

"I won't. What are we looking for?"

"Dunno. I guess it depends if you live alone or with your mom and dad. Let's try the bedroom. That's where the personal stuff will be."

As the building only had one floor, they had to search the house until they found the bedroom. It was situated at the rear of the house, and Gemini pushed open the door.

Neither girl was prepared for the spectacle that awaited them. Their eyes went wide with shock and they both gasped at the sight of the woman's body lying on the floor. The woman was curled in a foetal position and a pool of blood had soaked into the carpet beneath, and then dried. The putrid smell told them she couldn't have died too recently.

"What happened?!" was all Amnesia could squeal.

Gemini got closer to the body and kneeled down to investigate, but the decaying smell drove her back instantly.

"Ugh," she choked. "Well, I guess we found our missing speaker."

"So it isn't me? This isn't my house after all?"

"I guess not. There'll be a phone in the hall. Call the cops."

"I thought we wanted to avoid cops."

"We'll be long gone before they get here."

"So what does this mean? Why's she been killed?"

"I don't know. I don't know if it's a random murder or if it's part of something more sinister."

"What do you mean?"

"We need to get back to base and tell the X-Men."

"The who?"

"I'll tell you on the way. Come on."

After calling the police anonymously and telling them about the dead woman, the two girls hurried out of the house, closing the door behind them, and then began running in the direction of where they'd hidden the helicopter. The white van was still parked at the side of the road. Inside it, a figure watched the running girls through a pair of binoculars. When they were out of sight, he pulled the binoculars away from his eyes and blinked myopically. Reaching for his communicator, he initiated a call, "Boss?"

"Report."

"Confirmed sighting."

"Excellent. I'll inform the others. Return to base and await your next assignment."

"Roger. Over and out."

- - -

Scott and Storm were both at the conference centre as part of teams on the morning assignment, so Gemini looked for whoever was in charge during their absence. She eventually found Logan in the gym, with Chris, the two of them leading the younger children through some stretching exercises in preparation for a self defence lesson. She managed to catch their eye, and Chris called to the kids, "OK, guys, time out! Ten minutes!"

Of the five children, only Acceleratus looked disappointed to be told to have a rest. Folding her arms, she stood restlessly while the others sank down on to the floor, breathing heavily with the exertion.

"What's up, Alex?" said Chris, as he and Logan approached the seventeen year old.

Gemini told them what had happened: how she had taken Amnesia to the address of the missing conference speaker, confident that the two were the same person, and that exploring the house would reveal Amnesia's true identity – only to discover that she was completely wrong. The house wasn't Amnesia's. It was someone else's entirely, someone who had been killed. One of the key pro-mutant speakers, according to Melody, was dead, and it looked as if she had been murdered.

"What did you do?" asked Logan.

"Nothing," the girl said. "We called the cops and left. We'd already broken into the house and we couldn't risk being found at the murder scene. Is that what I should have done? I mean, I could have stayed and searched for clues, but I don't know how to investigate a murder scene."

"No, you did right," Chris assured her. "Without complete information, it was too risky to stay."

"That's what I thought. So what do you think? Was she murdered? Is somebody trying to sabotage the conference?"

Chris glanced at Logan, "What do you think?"

"I'm wondering how the press will treat this," Logan said. "Important mutant-rights conference speaker found dead. How long d'you think it'll take them to reach the conclusion that a mutant is responsible?"

"But she was a pro-mutant speaker," said Gemini.

"You think that'll matter to the gutter press? Damn it. If this breaks out, it could screw up the whole conference."

"Hey, a woman's dead. Doesn't that matter?"

"Of course it does, but we can't change the fact she's dead. All we can do is try and minimise the impact."

"And find out how she died," Chris added. "If somebody is trying to sabotage the conference, we need to find out who it is, and stop them."

"So what do we do?" the girl asked.

"For now, let the cops do their job. Once they figure out what happened, we can move from there."

"How are we going to find out what they know?"

"Hacking police records isn't as difficult as you might think."

Gemini's eyes widened, "Are you kidding? The cops will have all sorts of computer security in place to prevent hacking!"

"It's never stopped him before," said Logan dryly.

From across the room, ten-year-old Accel called impatiently, "Hey! That's gotta be ten minutes! Chris! Mr Logan!"

Gemini smiled for a second. It was cute how Accel, despite spending the last three years of her life in New York, had never lost her at-times incomprehensible East of Scotland accent. She still pronounced Logan as 'Low-gun'.

"Get a move on already, you lazy slobs!" Bibi yelled cheekily, in Accel's voice.

Logan turned, "Hey! Watch your mouth, kid!"

"It wasn't me!" Accel wailed. "It was her! But come on! I wanna learn to fight!"

"You wanna learn to fight?"

"Yeah! Come on!"

"You wanna fight me?"

"Bring it on!"

"All right," Logan adopted a fighting stance, and extended his claws. "Bring it on."

"Hey, wait a second!" Gemini cried in surprise.

Chris shushed her, "Relax, he knows what he's doing."

"Come on, kid!" Logan called. "I thought you wanted to fight!"

Accel hesitated for a second, but only for a second. Then she was zipping across the gym floor towards Logan, her speed increasing until she was little more than a blur. She drove at his legs, trying to force him off balance, but he side-stepped, and her momentum sent her flying forward.

"There, you see!" said Chris. "Never attack in anger! Always keep yourself properly balanced!"

Curling her body into a somersault, Accel was back on her feet in an instant, just as Logan's claws swiped through the air towards her head.

"What are you doing?!" Gemini shrieked.

Chris held her back from intervening, "I said don't worry! They've done this before!"

Accel ducked to avoid the claws, and rolled over once more. Logan swiped at her again, but she jumped and flipped over in mid-air – a move Vertigo must have taught her – kicking out at Logan's head. He dodged to the side, taking the force of the kick on his shoulder. With a blur, Accel had run round behind him and aimed another kick at the base of his spine. This time she caught him unprepared, and the momentum behind the blow knocked him over. Her hands on his shoulders, she tried to pin him to the ground, but he was too strong, and threw her to one side. She put her momentum into another roll, and flipped upright.

"Come on!" she yelled, clenching her little fists.

"Better look behind you," said Logan.

Accel turned, and had only a split second to react before Chris' fist could connect with her head. She dropped to the floor, her legs scissoring out to catch both of his, toppling him to the deck. The other kids cheered loudly.

"All right, that's enough!" Gemini cried, hurrying to pull Accel away.

"What's the problem?" Chris smiled. "It's just an exercise."

"An exercise in what? Killing her?"

"What are you talking about? We haven't even managed to touch her yet."

"I'm glad, otherwise she might be dead!"

Accel rolled her eyes, "Relax, Gemini! I can look after myself!"

"Didn't Pyro ever teach you to fight?" asked Logan.

Gemini looked at him, "Yeah, but he didn't try to practically kill me when I was ten years old!"

Chris shrugged, "There's no point in going soft on Accel. She doesn't learn anything that way. When she's out in the real world, some people might try to hurt her for real. This way she'll be ready to defend herself."

"What he said," Accel agreed. "I gotta be prepared. Besides, Chris and Mr Logan are so old and slow, they can't hurt me!"

"No, but we can give you detention…"

She stuck her tongue out.

"But she's only ten!" protested Gemini, who still couldn't see Accel as anything other than the tiny child they'd rescued from a band of human vigilantes.

"You think a terrorist will care what age she is?" Logan countered.

"She's capable," Chris said. "Gemini, relax. We're not in the habit of murdering our own students. We're not doing anything to Accel that she can't protect herself from."

Gemini hesitated, "Well…if you're sure…"

"It might help her save someone's life one day," said Logan, giving Accel a sly look.

"Hey!" the ten year old retorted. "I already have saved your life once, Mr Logan! Remember?"

"How could I forget?"

"'Cos you're old! Come on, let's go again!"

Chris shook his head, "No, not this time. It's someone else's turn. And you're still angry. Take a rest just now."

Accel moaned with disappointment and impatience, but obediently headed over to where the other kids were seated. Gemini said to Chris, "Are you leading our team again this afternoon?"

"Eh? No, that particular pleasure will go to Fliss today."

"Oh. Cool."

Gemini was smiling. She liked Shock – Fliss – too. Fliss was another of the X-Men who managed, or at least tried, to treat the teenagers as equals. She wasn't as cool or laid-back as Chris, but she did make more of an effort to try and understand what was going on inside people's minds. For someone who had to be over thirty, she was actually pretty good at understanding things teens cared about.

"Where is she?" the duplicator asked. "When should I report to her?"

"When Scott and the others get back from the morning shift, we'll have a meeting," said Chris. "You'd better come along since you're on the mission. You'll be briefed then, and Fliss will take you aside if she wants to say anything specific."

"OK. Is it safe for me to leave the kids with you? Are you going to try and kill any of the others?"

"We haven't killed any yet," he said sarcastically. "Give us some credit."

- - -

The young aide knocked tentatively on the door. She knew that her employer hated to be disturbed when he was busy. It had taken her nearly half an hour to summon up the courage to check on him. She had been expecting him to join her for breakfast, and on his non-appearance she had assumed he was skipping breakfast, or had called room service. After the morning meal they were scheduled to have a brief meeting to discuss the agenda of the second day of the conference, and then set off for the conference centre. They should have left half an hour ago – the driver was still waiting in front of the hotel – and she had finally taken the step of trying to attract his attention.

There was no answer to her knock on the door. The half-expected eruption of anger at being disturbed, was not forthcoming. She knocked louder, feeling a little bolder. After all, he'd asked her to wake him if he overslept. He was slightly prone to oversleeping during long conferences, when he worked on rehearsing his speeches long into the night. Again there was no answer, so she knocked a third time.

"Mr Russell?" she called. "Sir, are you awake?"

After ten more fruitless minutes of trying to rouse her employer, she began to feel slightly concerned. He might sleep in sometimes, or lose track of the passage of time as he strove for perfection in preparation of his speech, but he had never been this late before. For a man who prided himself on his timekeeping and chided others for their lack of it, it was virtually unknown. The young aide summoned a member of the hotel staff, who opened the door with a key.

"Mr Russell?" she said nervously, as she ventured into his room.

The shades were still down and the room was dark; he must still have been in bed.

"Sir? You've got to wake up! We're going to be late for the conference if we don't leave!"

The lump under the bedcovers did not move. The aide crossed the room and shook him gently, "Sir?"

He didn't wake, or react in any way. The lights suddenly flicked on; the maid must have hit the switch. It was then that the young female assistant realised her employer had been murdered. His eyes were wide and bulging, staring at the ceiling above him. His throat was red and raw. He wasn't breathing. His hands were frozen in position, as if they had been clutching an attacker, trying to hold him off.

She screamed.