"They're going to kill him!"

That argument fell on totally deaf ears. Both boys had seen Logan in action. Neither believed such an outcome remotely possible.

"Yeah, right." John scoffed for emphasis. "He can handle himself, Rogue. Let's book!"

"Bobby," she pleaded," please!" She was desperate now, determined, because when she said, "They're going to kill him," the part of her that resonated with him suggested that was something he desired.

All Bobby knew was that Logan was the scariest creature he'd ever encountered. He was every nightmare that had ever had come to life, and if he never met Logan again, he'd be haunted by these memories for as long as he drew breath. In a way, he blamed Logan for all that was happening tonight. The first time he came to the mansion was when they were attacked by Magneto; now, the night of his return, the Army. He was a walking invitation to disaster, and nothing good would come of hanging with him. He also saw the way Rogue looked at him, spoke of him, cared for him, and he hated him for holding the place in her heart he wanted for himself.

Leave him. Let him find his own fate. That was the smart play. It was what he'd told them to do.

Stryker took a step closer to Logan, the men behind him making adjustments to their stance and position so that he didn't block any shooter's line of sight. One twitch from him, that would be their cue to cut loose on full auto, with enough firepower to turn anyone alive into hamburger. Another man, whose manner and bearing marked him as an officer, put aside his rifle and set himself to make a grab for Stryker and try to yank him clear if things went sour. Given all Lyman had seen tonight of Logan's handiwork, he suspected that was a forlorn hope. He'd try regardless. That was his job, to look after Stryker, and most likely die with him.

Logan saw the action. Loyalty like that couldn't be bought, he knew. His estimation of the other man went up a serious notch.

If Stryker was a fraction of the man Logan judged him to be, he had to know the danger, but he made no acknowledgment of it. He played the scene as if they were two old companions, possibly even friends, reuniting after a long and enforced separation. No denying his courage, that was sure, and Logan's assessment of him went up another notch as well.

"I must admit," Stryker continued, carrying on this eerily incongruous conversation, "this is the last place I thought I'd ever see you, Wolverine. I didn't realize Xavier was taking in animals." A pause to let the barb sink in. Logan didn't react. "Even animals as... unique as you."

"Who are you?"

"Don't you remember?"

Logan blinked, wondering what was wrong with the air. A mist was forming between him and Stryker, the temperature plunging so rapidly that one breath was normal, the next gusting a cloud of icy condensation.

On the other side of the mist, Stryker reached out a hand to encounter a wall of gleaming ice that divided the hallway from floor to ceiling, wall to wall, forming a protective bulwark between the mutant and Stryker. The men around him stirred, suddenly anxious that they might become entrapped in ice themselves. But nobody broke ranks.

Logan considered using his claws. No matter how thick the wall, he could speedily turn it into ice cubes. But first he had to deal with the damn kids.

The look on his face caused John to take a reflexive, cautionary step backward and made Bobby thankful he was inside the passage, his hands held flat against the wall to generate and sustain his ice field. Rogue didn't flinch, didn't fade. She met him eye to eye with a will as stubborn as his own.

"Logan," she said. "Come on."

"Do as you're told, girl. Get outta here. I'll be fine." He used a tone and manner that had always gotten instant results. She returned both in equal measure.

"But we won't." Then, more quietly, "Please!"

Stryker wasn't sure what was happening. The wall was translucent enough to suggest to him that Logan was no longer alone, but it didn't allow him to see how many others had joined him or who they were. With swift, decisive movements, he plucked a penetrator grenade from Lyman's harness and jammed it into the ice. Lyman immediately pulled him back and around, to shield his commander's body with his own. The other troopers shielded themselves and scrambled for cover as best they could in the seven seconds that passed between Stryker pulling the pin and the bomb detonating. The shock resounded through the confined space, leaving those closest to the blast partially deafened, their bodies feeling like they'd just been pummeled by jackhammers. The force of the shaped charge went straight into the ice, filling the air with frozen splinters as it punched through the wall like a spear.

When the mist cleared, the wall lay in broken chunks, filling the hallway and partially covering some of the men.

On the other side, though, was empty floor. Of Wolverine, and the others Stryker had seen, there was no sign.

John led the way, even though Logan could see a lot better in the dark. The boys wouldn't admit it aloud, but both of them preferred having him between them and the bad guys.

At the first junction, John went left.

"John, no," Bobby called after him.

"This is where Petey and the others went."

"I've got a better idea. This way."

The other direction ended at the garage. Like everything else about the mansion, there was a public space and a private one. Upstairs, in a carriage house set a little apart from the main buildings, was the usual group of SUV's and vans, plus the professor's vintage Rolls-Royce. The basement held a far more eclectic and personal assortment of vehicles, including Scott's collection of bikes. Some looked normal, others were as wildly modified and revolutionary in conception and design as the Blackbird.

The choice for tonight was a sports car, blindingly quick but so well crafted and balanced that it could handle the local roads-which were narrow and wickedly winding-as though it were traveling on rails. The confines would be cramped, but it would carry them all.

John dropped into the driver's seat with the announcement, "I'm driving."

Logan yanked him clear as though he weighed nothing. "In your dreams, smart-ass," he growled. "Boys in the back."

Rogue rode shotgun, Bobby making sure to sit behind her.

"This is Scott's car," he said.

"Oh, yeah?" Logan didn't sound impressed, but actually he was.

"We'll need keys."

Logan's reply was the snikt of a single claw extending. He stabbed it through the ignition, twisted some wires together, got a spark, got a start, and they were on their way.

There was an evacuation tunnel for vehicles as well, giving them access directly to Graymalkin Lane, the road that ran along the estate's border. A left turn would take them to the neighboring town of Purdy's Station and the interstate, 684, that linked New York City with the main east-west highway-I-84-that bisected Connecticut and the southern tier of New York State. Turning right put them into the heart of Fairfield County, lots of woodland roads so gnarly and poorly signed that even the locals got lost occasionally. It was hilly country, constantly dropping into little ravines and hollows, which made it difficult to establish sustained radio or cellular communication.

Logan went for it like a shot, taking the turns at speeds that made the three passengers grab for their seat belts and then hold them tight. He drove without lights.

"Uhh," Bobby tried, swallowed, tried again. "You could maybe slow down, you know."

"Like hell," John retorted. "Go faster, dude, get us the hell away from here, please! " He finished in savage mimicry of Rogue's plea, both to Bobby and to Logan himself. "Jesus wept," he said, more to himself than anyone else, "what the hell was that back there?"

Rogue caught a flicker from Logan's eyes, his fingers working the leather-wrapped steering wheel and making it creak with tension.

"Stryker," he said after a while, as at least one penny dropped in memory. "His name is Stryker."

"Who's he?" Rogue asked.

His mouth stretched ever so slightly into a wry grimace, his head shook the smallest fraction.

"I don't know," he confessed, to her alone. "I don't remember."

She huddled deep in her seat, and he noticed that she was playing with something on her wrist: his old dog tags. He'd given them to her as a keepsake before leaving for Alkali Lake.

Seeing his look, following it to her hand, she unwrapped them from her wrist and held them out to him.

He took them, rubbing his thumb over the embossed letters like Aladdin did his lamp, hoping for his own kind of genie and three wishes to unlock all the secrets of his life, never considering-now or ever-that perhaps those secrets weren't something he should see.

He shifted gears and heard a yelp of shock and protest from John as his elbow clipped the boy in the cheek.

"What's your problem, kid?" he growled as John wriggled his head and an arm between the front seats, reaching for the center console.

"What are you doing, John?" Rogue demanded in that clippy voice that meant she'd been pushed too far and was ready to do some real damage.

"Too much silence, dudes. Majorly uncomfortable. Don't like it."

He pressed a button and the speakers erupted with what passed for music from a techno band that none of them had ever heard of and, after the first few seconds, didn't want to. The car's sound system was as superb as its engine and handling, the choice of cds was truly deranged, inspiring impassioned and derogatory comments galore from the kids. Logan didn't say a word. His own tastes ran mainly toward roadhouse R&B and classic jazz, with one exception that he'd never been able to figure out, an affinity that went back as far as his memory for the Japanese koto.

Of course, being the ultimate gearhead, Scott had built himself a system only he could understand. The damn controls weren't even marked. Probably had an operator's manual the size of the Manhattan phone book. The more John tried to kill the music, the louder it became. Finally, when Logan was on the verge of ending their torment with a swipe of his claws, the boy managed to find the eject button. Only this switch had nothing whatsoever to do with the music. Instead, a tray popped into view, revealing an oval-shaped disk about as small as your basic computer mouse.

With a grumble of righteous exasperation Rogue pressed another switch on the console...

... and they heard only road noise once more, and the wind rushing past.

She and Logan exchanged looks, he offering silent thanks for her saving the day, while she thanked him in return for his forbearance. Her fist, the arm that had worn Logan's dog tags, was tightly clenched, the same way he held it when he popped his claws. If she'd had claws to go with the residue of Logan's personality and powers she still possessed, John would have been shish kebab ages ago.

John noticed none of this. He was too engrossed in his new toy. He found another button and when he pressed it found himself holding a two-way communication device.

"Guys," he announced, "I don't think this has anything to do with the CD player."

Logan plucked it from the boy's hand. John's survival instincts were working overtime. For once he didn't protest as Logan examined the device. Whatever the infuriating idiosyncrasies of the car's sound system, this at least made some sense to him.

"Where are we going?" John asked after awhile, totally lost.

"Storm and Jean are in Boston" was Logan's terse reply. "We'll head that way."

"My folks live in Boston," Bobby said.

"Good," said Logan.

Rogue heard him, but she wasn't really paying attention. She was looking at Logan's hands, skin covered past both wrists with what could easily be mistaken for dried paint, caked a layer or two more thickly between the knuckles, where the claws went into their housings. Her eyes saw more than she wanted, her sense of smell revealed more than she could bear, and she looked down at her own hands, wondering suddenly how her sleeping gloves had gotten so badly shredded. Too much skin showing, she thought, I have to be really careful about touching anyone. Her hands were trembling with the memory of what she'd seen him do.

"Don't worry, darlin'," she heard him say, again in that quiet, private voice that was for her alone, "it's not mine."

When their eyes met, she gave a start of surprise, her mouth forming a tiny O of amazement. She was so used to feeling residues of his own ferocious-and murderous-passions, she found it hard to believe when she saw reflected in his eyes an echo of the pain and misery she felt. And strangely, she found that reassuring. It made her feel better-to know that he wasn't a monster after all. That man Stryker had called him an animal, had called him Wolverine instead of by name, but Rogue knew different.

His name was Logan. And he was human to the core.

Chapter Eight.

The mansion itself was the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The bulk of Xavier's School was hidden below ground, in a complex that stretched deep into the earth and sprawled every which way beneath the estate, employing technology as revolutionary as the design of the Blackbird. The schematics of the power source alone made the physicists on Stryker's analysis team weep with frustration. More than anything, they wanted to get their hands on this equipment, and none of them was happy to discover that their employer had other priorities.

A significant amount of space directly beneath the mansion was devoted to something Magneto referred to as the Danger Room. It was here that Xavier conducted the bulk of his explorations into the practical dynamics and limitations of the powers possessed by his students. Of equal significance, it was also where he trained his personal assault force, the X-Men.

Technicians began swarming through the building as soon as Lyman's troops reported it secure, but they quickly found themselves frustrated by command protocols keyed to retinal and voice prints they didn't possess and computer codes so deviously encrypted they couldn't begin to make sense of them.

Stryker didn't much care. To him, all that was of peripheral interest. As far as he was concerned, once his plan reached fruition, they could deconstruct the school and all of its tech at their leisure.

Under escort, he made his way down the main elevator to the uppermost level of the underground complex. Troopers with digital cameras recorded everything, to be downloaded into the main database once they returned to headquarters-more grist for the analysts' mill. Chances were, this would leave them in pig heaven for years to come.

They passed a locker room, and Stryker paused a moment to finger one of the uniforms hanging there. Another marvel of structural engineering. The material looked and felt like leather; it fit like a biker's speed suit, almost a second skin. But it was extraordinarily resilient, protecting the wearer from extremes of temperature and environment-snug in winter, cool in summer, dry in a monsoon-and, most practical of all in Stryker's opinion, better than Kevlar as body armor. Projections suggested it could survive a point-blank round from a Barrett .50-caliber sniper gun, the most powerful rifle made, one small step below an actual cannon.

He turned away from the uniform as Lyman hurried up to join him, calling his name.

"Tunnels," he reported to Stryker, standing briefly to attention and giving the older man a salute. "That's where all the kids went. And damn well shielded, too, better than this!" He indicated the circular corridor around them, with its ergonomically cool colors and lighting, the epitome of sensible industrial engineering. "From the way targets kept popping off our scopes, the house must be riddled with them, the entire compound, too! We used a sonic imager to find some of the entrances, but there were deadfalls right inside, sealing the escape routes tight. From the way they booked out of here, they had to have practiced escape and evasion techniques. I don't know if we can catch them at the exit points."

"Very prudent of them. How many did you get, then?"

"Six, sir. What should we do with them?"

"Pack them up. We'll decide later."

As the two men spoke, they approached Stryker's true destination, right at the end of this main hallway. It was a circular door that intentionally resembled the entrance to a bank vault, or to NORAD 's command center deep inside Cheyenne Mountain, built to protect the chamber within against any form of hostile incursion. Stryker doubted he had any tools in his arsenal, short of perhaps a baby nuke, capable of breaching this barrier. Fortunately, none were needed.

At his command, a pair of troopers stepped forward and set up the device they were carrying, placing it on a tripod in front of the doorway. To the right side of the door itself was a scanning plate, in which was embedded a multifaceted blue crystal, as pure a sapphire as any had ever seen. They set the lasing crosshairs dead center on the crystal, at the height of a tall man seated in a wheelchair.

The device was activated, the laser immediately refracting into a score of lesser beams that struck the crystal, replicating the retinal pattern they had recorded from Xavier's own eye.

It only took a moment.

"Welcome, Professor," said a gentle feminine voice with a hint of a highland Scots brogue. Stryker recognized it from Xavier's primary dossier; it was his collaborator, fellow geneticist and onetime lover, Moira MacTaggart of Edinburgh University.

Without hesitation Stryker strode along the platform to Xavier's console in the center of the great globe of a room. The others held back, just a little. To them, this was the heart of the darkness that was their enemy, the place where Xavier supposedly honed and worked his incredible powers. From here, so Magneto said, he could reach out to every mind on the planet. Stryker hoped that was true, hoped the old mutant wasn't exaggerating. Because that made this room the key to his ultimate victory.

He reached out to the gleaming chrome helmet on its stand but couldn't quite bring himself to touch it. This was Xavier's toy; let the mutant mental play with it. Stryker would watch. "Take what you need, gentlemen," he said as the soldiers entered Cerebro.

Saturday night. And Mitchell Laurio, creature of habit, was where he could be found every Saturday night he wasn't working. Fourth stool from the end at the Dew Drop Inn. It wasn't a great bar, but then he wasn't a picky guy. It had televisions to spare and, if the cash was right, a fella could persuade one of the waitresses to join him in a booth and provide a semiprivate show. Most nights, the video choice was sports or sex, but for some reason the bartender had switched the TVs over to some damn news show where two mooks were blathering on about mutants, as if anyone in the world actually gave a rat's ass about their opinion.

Laurio wasn't aware he was speaking those sentiments aloud but wouldn't have cared if he had realized it.

"... the Mutant Registration Act provides a sense of security similar to Megan's Law," said a middle-aged guy whose title card identified him as Sebastian Shaw, the latest tycoon turned politico. "A list of potentially dangerous mutants living in our communities."

His counterpart was half his age and twice his size, and Laurio remembered him from college ball. An All-American who passed on a pro contract to go to Stanford for a doctorate, the first of a whole bunch, it turned out. His name was Henry McCoy. People magazine said he preferred Hank.

"Megan's Law is a database of known felons, Mr. Shaw," he responded heatedly, "not innocent people who haven't committed any crime and may not even be likely to. It's akin to registering every member of a religious or ethnic group in the nation, on the presumption that some of them may be terrorists."

"Some might not consider that so bad an idea, McCoy."

" Some, Sebastian," McCoy shot back, "might consider America a better place than that."

"A damn mutant almost killed the President!"

"A person, who happened to be a mutant, made the attempt, yes. If he was a Lutheran, would you automatically condemn every Lutheran in the land?"

"If the knife had said 'Lutheran Rights Now,' I'd damn sure consider it."