Why hadn't they ever tried to find him? Why had he been brought here in the first place?

He clenched his fist, keyed the trigger in his nervous system, and put the claws away.

Snakt!

Only one man with the answers.

Moving fast, Logan descended the stairs.

Artie was the last. He looked a little wobbly as Nightcrawler let him go, but then so did the indigo-skinned mutant himself, and Storm caught him by the arm as he swayed on his feet.

"It's harder with a passenger," he confessed. "And when I transport six-"

"I'm proud of you," she said. "Consider this a good deed to counterbalance all those sins."

He smiled in gratitude, but only for a moment as Artie protested, "I think I have to throw up."

"It's hard for my passengers, too, I'm afraid," he confessed further. "But the nausea will quickly pass."

Not soon enough for Artie, who bent double and promptly expelled all the food he'd ever gworfed in his life. Storm held his head until he was done, then manifested a tiny cloud of rain to wash his face clean. That's when the room shook around them, and when she decided the quicker they were quits of this awful place, the better for all concerned.

The stairs led Logan to a lab that, like the rest of the base, had seen better days. It was circular, with massive cylindrical columns supporting a large ring in the center. Unlike most of the other sections of the base, however, this one hadn't been stripped to the walls. It looked almost... operational.

In his mind's eye, the room wasn't empty. He counted at least a dozen ghouls on hand for every session, wearing a freakish kind of armored surgical moon suit that was designed to protect the wearer not only from biological contamination but from physical attack as well. By sight, he couldn't tell men from women, young from old. They all had the same face, and that was the visor of their helmets. Scents were how he told them apart, except for Stryker. He remembered now that Stryker was the only one unafraid to show his face. It was important to him to be seen, and Logan wondered now if that was why Stryker had seemed so disappointed when Logan didn't recognize him at the mansion.

This was a surgical suite, and as he circled the room, unconsciously keeping well clear at first of the tank in its center, he noted the carts on which the nurses had piled the necessary medical instruments. The usual collection of scalpels and hemostats, scissors and retractors and clamps, but that wasn't all, it wasn't even close. There were tools he couldn't name, whose purpose he didn't know, but the mere thought of them sent an unaccustomed thrill of horror up his spine.

Along the wall there was a bank of light boxes, where they would clip the X rays before going to work on him. They always let him see what was there, they always told him what they planned to do, they wanted him to know... they wanted him to know... they wanted him to know...

All that care and effort and... consideration-for nothing.

One of the X rays had been him. Some of them looked like monsters, all of them were of mutants. Maybe all of them were him? Maybe he was the monster? He didn't know.

He remembered what Xavier had told him-maybe he didn't want to know? Right now, that didn't seem like so bad an idea.

Finally he forced himself to the tank. He'd thought it was empty, hoped it would be empty, but he was wrong. It was filled with an oily amber liquid and above it, suspended from the ring, a battery of instruments more appropriate to a slaughterhouse than a hospital. On pedestals beside the tank were what appeared to be molds: one with a set of three channels, needing no explanation, another with five, longer and slimmer and altogether quite elegant.

Next to the tank, at its head, was a large cylinder whose shape reminded him of a home hot-water heater, only this was made of a thick, transparent polymer that had the same transparent qualities as glass, but clearly much stronger. It had to be, since it was designed to hold molten adamantium, which came into the vat as hot as the core of the Earth. Attached to the cylinder were a number of long, snakelike tubes that ended in wicked-looking syringes built to punch through bone. The tank was half full of a silvery liquid.

He looked at that tank, at the cylinder, at the tubes, at the instruments-and knew at last where his nightmares came from.

"You know," Stryker said from across the room, though his presence came as no surprise to Logan. He'd scented the man's approach minutes ago. "The tricky thing about adamantium is that if you ever manage to process its raw, liquid form, you have to keep it that way. Keep it hot, keep it molten. Because, you see, once it cools, it's indestructible."

He paused a moment to let the implications of his words sink in, but Logan wasn't bothered. He'd already figured out that part. That had to be why they needed someone with a healing factor.

"But," Stryker continued, "I can see you already know that."

He was being very careful, keeping the full width of the lab, and as much equipment as possible, between himself and Logan.

"I used to think you were one of a kind, Wolverine. I truly did." He shook his head. "I was wrong."

Logan charged him and ran straight into Yuriko, who caught him by the arm and-using his own momentum as impetus-slammed him as hard as she could into one of the support columns. Stone cracked and powdered with the impact, but Logan wasn't even staggered.

Stryker caught Yuriko's eye, looked deliberately from her to Logan, and when she nodded, he took his leave, out a different doorway from the one he'd entered, taking time to lock it behind him.

Logan rose to his feet and extended both sets of claws. He had no interest in her, only her boss, but if she wanted trouble, he'd make it short and final.

In return, her own face looking bored, as though this sort of confrontation happened every day, she spread her fingers wide.

Logan was used to the reaction he got from other people when they saw his claws for the first time. Now, surprisingly, he learned how that felt as Yuriko's fingers elongated into eight-inch spikes. He didn't need to be told what they were made of, and he wondered how they'd managed the implantation. If she had a healing factor as well, this could be trouble.

"Holy shit," he said in amazement. She smiled, but it wasn't a human expression. In fact, nothing about her seemed human or connected; it was like she was some different species entirely, forever gazing at the world from the outside. She was predator, all others were prey. That was the natural order of things.

Her hand flicked out, faster than he could follow, and he felt a hiss of pain along his jaw, felt blood where she'd cut a shallow gash across his cheek.

He retaliated with a roundhouse swing that missed her by a mile as she ducked beneath it and came up like a jack-in-the-box, unleashing a powerful side kick to the belly that pitched him backward through trays of equipment, upending them on top of him as he tumbled to the floor.

With a banshee screech, she leaped after him, slashing at him with both hands, only to find her attack blocked by his own claws. Adamantium struck adamantium, creating its own unique brand of sparks as each of them fought to break through the other's guard and instead only managed to wreck the lab.

Stryker heard the sounds of battle and permitted himself a smile as he quickened his pace. Time, now more than ever, was of the essence.

Yuriko swung hard, but Logan slapped her aside. Before he could take advantage, she hurled herself clear of him, running straight at the wall and using it as a springboard to flip herself up and over. However, she made a slight miscalculation in her maneuver: As she twisted in midair, her finger claws ripped through a cluster of power cables fastened to the ceiling. They exploded with sparks, they were live and carrying a significant amount of juice, and they dangled and twisted in the air like manic snakes. That contact threw her fractionally off balance; she didn't quite land where she wanted to, or as smoothly.

It was the opening Logan had been waiting for.

Logan tackled her, and together they crashed through a glass wall into some kind of lounge. X-ray light boxes, equipment, computers galore crashed and shattered around them as they struggled. Logan had strength and a fair share of agility, but Yuriko possessed speed he couldn't hope to match. For every blow he landed, he took a dozen, and his uniform proved as effective at stopping her claws as a suit of air. Worse, her own healing factor seemed every bit as effective as his, only he was giving it a lot less work to do.

As they'd tangled on the floor, he'd caught a glimpse of the back of her neck, saw there the scar that marked both Nightcrawler and Magneto, and realized in that instant there could be no reasoning with her. In her own way, she was as berserk as he, and he knew she wouldn't stop until she killed him.

She hit him again, and again, using feet this time more than claws, choosing her blows with care so that she connected with soft tissue instead of bone. She wanted to wear him down, to strip him of the ability to defend himself, to remove all hope before she came in for the kill. That was what Stryker had asked of her, and she could deny him nothing.

She sent Logan crashing backward into the tank, and he tumbled into it, rearing up immediately only to collapse against the opposite end, eyes wide as his nightmares rioted up around him. He was clumsy and dazed, he had to be at the end of his rope.

With a ballerina's grace, Yuriko sprang onto the lip of the tank, striking a Kali-like pose, the fingers of both hands spread out before her like a pair of bloody fans.

Logan showed fear in his eyes, which was exactly what she wanted to see.

She struck, and as she made her move...

... so did he.

She slashed empty air, registering surprise and disbelief as Logan leaped straight up from the tank. Using all his formidable strength to defy gravity, he grabbed for the rack suspended above the tank and slashed through the wire tether that anchored it to the ceiling.

It dropped like a guillotine. He rode it down to crash on top of Yuriko and pin her to the bottom of the tank. She struggled and screeched, using her claws on the steel and concrete members that imprisoned her. It would only be moments before she was free.

They were moments Logan wouldn't let her have. On impact, he pitched himself clear of the rack and grabbed the syringes attached to the cylinder of adamantium, using the same movement to open the access valves. He spared her a quick and final thought- I'm sorry-and plunged the barbed needles between her unbreakable ribs and into her heart.

She screamed as the molten metal flowed into her body. She raged and struggled in a last desperate bid to escape, but she was doomed the moment Logan stabbed her. Adamantium oozed out her eyes and out her mouth, it burned through the very pores of her skin until she was coated from head to toe. Unable to maintain even a semblance of balance, she fell backward into the tank, creating a splash that emptied the vessel of half its volume of amber liquid. Her fingers twitched spasmodically as she sank to the bottom.

And then she was still.

Logan watched her, half expecting her to crack the shell and emerge more powerful and deadly than before. By rights she should be dead, from internal burns if nothing else, as the raw, fiery metal cascaded straight into her heart. God knows what kind of damage had been done to allow the adamantium to emerge from her eyes and mouth. Covered as she was, she couldn't breathe. Perhaps that would do the trick?

He hoped so, prayed so. She was as much a victim as he, and more. At least-and here he touched his fingers to the back of his neck to make sure-he wore no scar to brand him as Stryker's slave.

If he hadn't escaped, would that be him lying there? Or taking Yuriko's place by Stryker's side, as his pet assassin?

One thing more that Stryker owed him.

Time to collect.

He turned his back on this unholy place, and all it represented for his life, and started after Stryker's trail.

Nothing would stop him now.

Chapter Fifteen.

"You think they'll come?" one of the troopers, Grierson, asked Lyman.

Lyman nodded, automatically checking the other man's disposition. Grierson was hunkered down behind a concrete abutment, spare magazines at hand, spare weapons as well. He was on the young side for one of Stryker's men, but he had a superb personnel jacket, topped by a year spent as a platoon sergeant in the 82nd Airborne, humping the boonies in Afghanistan.

"They'll come," Lyman said.

"Can we stop 'em?"

"Those are the orders."

"No offense, but from what I saw on the video-"

"Those are the orders."

Grierson shrugged. "First time for everything, I guess." He hefted his long gun, a Barrett .50-cal sniper rifle, whose depleted uranium shells could punch through tank armor a mile away. "I get a decent shot with this!"

Lyman nodded again, aching for a cigarette. He never smoked at home, only in the field and only before a fight. Had to be nerves. Thirty years in the service, combat tours all over the world, and he still got nervous. He figured that was the difference between him and Stryker; the commander had no nerves, or at least none that he ever showed his men.

One more time, for reassurance, and to give himself something to do, he made the rounds of his fire team, checked their sight lines and kill zones, made sure everyone had an abundance of weapons and ammo. In a fair fight, against an adversary like themselves, no matter how well trained and disciplined, he would have called the outcome no contest. His guys had ideal ground, anyone advancing up this corridor wouldn't even come close.

As it was...

He'd broken the cardinal rule of clandestine ops: He'd brought along some personal items. Only pictures-the wife, the kids, the grandchild-to-be. His dogs. He'd raised them from pups, a pair of mixed-breed shepherds that kept his wife good company when he was away. With the kids building households of their own, his own home was too empty too often. He knew she was lonely; he hoped the dogs made it easier to bear.

He wondered what they'd say, his kids, seeing him here? He thought of the children they'd taken from the mansion and how cavalierly Stryker had condemned them. Funny, even though he understood the broad outlines of Stryker's ambition, he always assumed-no, he always chose to assume-that the targets would be adults. Full-grown mutants.

He did a dangerous thing for a soldier. He put himself for a moment in the other man's boots and considered how he might react if they were his children who'd been stolen.

He took a breath and then another, even deeper, because the first was way too shuddery and he needed his men to see him completely in control. He had to take a third, because this time the fear wouldn't be banished so readily; it had its hooks deep in him, and he had to pry them loose one at a time. Lyman wasn't a brilliant man; he wasn't into concepts. His skill was execution. Give him a mission, and you were guaranteed to see it accomplished.

"I gotta go, sweetheart," he whispered to the pictures in his hand, and he kissed each one in turn. One daughter, and her baby he knew he'd never see, three sons, his two dogs, and the woman who was the center of his life. He clasped his hands in prayer, bracing his wife's picture between thumbs and fingers, staring at it with such intensity that by force of will alone he could almost make it real.

That's when they heard the hum from inside the Cerebro chamber, a deep pulsing groan as if the world itself were stretching sore joints. It wasn't so much heard as felt, a frequency so low it made your insides quiver. At the same time, the floor beneath them, the rock around them, trembled, and every man in the fire team looked around nervously, half expecting some monster to come burning through the walls or the walls themselves to come tumbling down.

"Remember the briefing," Lyman told them. "This is part of the process. You guys may think this feels bad, but I guarantee you it'll be worse for the muties. Stay chill, people, stay alert."

"Five bucks says the gizmo nails 'em before we fire a shot!"

"Save your money, Manfredi," Lyman shot back. "I'd rather take it from you over poker."

He didn't get much of a laugh from his men, but it was enough. Lyman tucked away his photos and checked his own weapons. If the muties had half a brain between them, that first pulse should bring them on the run. They'd know the stakes now.

It wouldn't be long.

"I have a valid target," Grierson announced, leveling his sniper rifle.

Lyman whipped his binoculars to his eyes and brought the approaching figures into focus. Magneto and Mystique, at a range of one hundred meters. The old man was a half step in the lead, marching up the hallway like he was leading a whole army into battle. He didn't seem to mind Grierson's laser sight resting right over his heart.

"You're cleared to fire," Lyman said, and immediately a resounding boom filled the hallway around him, so loud he couldn't help flinching.

The shell didn't hit its target; it never came close. Without lifting a finger, without a gesture of any kind, Magneto simply stopped it in midair.

The rest of the team opened up, and the air around Lyman filled with the stink of cordite and the sound of spent casings rattling off the walls and floor. Every man here was a crack marksman, and this was point-blank range. The only pause in the murderous volleys was when someone had to replace an empty magazine. In the space of a few frantic minutes, they expended better than half their munitions...

... and found themselves with absolutely nothing to show for it.

Not one of the bullets came closer to their targets than an arm's length. It didn't matter that they were forged of nonferrous materials, that some were super-dense plastic. If Magneto couldn't manipulate the shells directly, he warped the magnetic fields around them, and him, using force and pressure to accomplish his goal.

Too astonished to be scared, the troopers gradually stopped firing. A couple looked to Lyman, hoping for a Plan B.

He couldn't think of one; he was transfixed by the scene down the hall. They'd thrown literally thousands of rounds at the two mutants, and now Magneto was reshaping them to his own requirements, pressing them so tightly together they formed a wall that completely obscured him and Mystique from view.

Why would they need a shield, Lyman thought. He knows there's nothing we can do to him- He heard a faint click, followed the noise, and had his answer.

The bastard had just pulled the pin on his grenade.

Lyman grabbed for the bomb and pitched it clear, thankful for the seven-second delay on the fuse, but even as he did he knew it was a useless gesture-because those same fateful clicks could be heard all around him. They had a whole case of grenades, each man carried his standard allotment, and every one of them had just been triggered.

He saw his wife in his mind's eye and reached for her...

... and he was done.

Of course the explosion of the grenades ignited what remained of the rifle ammunition, which created quite a fireworks display outside the chamber. Mystique tucked her body close around itself at Magneto's feet, placing her back right against his metal shield as strays ricocheted all around them.

When the ping's and whistles and pops and crackles and booms had all faded, leaving Mystique coughing from the smoke and the stench of ruined flesh, her ears ringing from the shock waves, Magneto set aside his shield, and they proceeded on their way.