Anyway, if Jean was going to entrust him with the kids here, he'd do his best to be worthy of it. That meant putting names to faces, and powers to names.

This one was Jones. He had a first name but nobody used it, Jones included.

He was sprawled on the couch, picking at a full bowl of popcorn. He'd watch the big plasma screen until he got bored, then he'd blink his eyes. The channel would obligingly change. Watch a while, repeat the process. It happened often. Jones had a low threshold of boredom.

He noticed Logan's reflection in the screen but didn't look around. He didn't much like what he was watching, but he wasn't about to miss a moment of it.

"Can't sleep?" he asked.

"How can you tell?" Logan retorted.

" 'Cause you're awake."

No arguing with that ironclad logic, that's for sure. Kid had a mind like a steel trap.

"What's your excuse?" Logan asked.

"I don't sleep."

"Your loss. You guys got any beer?"

"Try the kitchen."

He did, and found one of the professional Sub-Zero fridges filled with all manner of healthy food: yogurt and greens, fruits and eggs and meats. Primarily organic, the produce of local farms and green markets. Minimal snack food. He grimaced, recognizing the influence of both Jean and Storm, and wondered how often the students made a break for the local Mickey Dee's.

The other one held fruit juice, mostly fresh squeezed, bottled water, and dozens of cartons of chocolate milk.

Grumpy now, Logan shut the door.

He wasn't alone in the kitchen anymore. Bobby Drake sat at the table, methodically excavating a quart container of ice cream.

"Hey," the youngster said, making an effort to keep his voice steady. Logan had sensed him coming, but clearly Bobby hadn't realized it was Logan in the room until the man had closed the refrigerator door, and by then pride wouldn't allow for even the thought of flight.

"Hey," Logan replied offhandedly, poking through cabinets and the walk-in pantry. "Got any beer?"

Drake's laconic response brought an amused twist to Logan's lips. "This is a school," Bobby said.

"So that's a no?"

Bobby smiled broadly and pointed to the fridge. "We have chocolate milk."

Logan growled and emerged from the pantry carrying a six-pack of Dr Pepper bottles. He pulled two from the cardboard holder and took a chair opposite Bobby. He made a small gesture with one bottle.

"Want one?" he asked. When Bobby nodded, he added, "They're warm."

Without a word, Bobby reached across to take the proffered bottle in hand. Air crackled and frost formed on his fingers and the fluted glass. He gently blew on the neck.

"Not anymore," Bobby said as he handed back the ice-cold Dr Pepper.

Logan popped the cap and took a long swallow. Just the way he liked it.

"Handy," he conceded.

Bobby gave a nod of acknowledgment as he repeated the process with his own bottle.

"So," Logan asked bluntly, with a sidelong look to the boy from beneath lowered brows, as he held up his right hand and, for show, popped the middle claw out, snikt, and in, snakt. Bobby's response was a choked spit-take that sent soda bursting from his mouth and nose, followed by a desperate grab for paper towels as he struggled to regain his self-possession. Through it all, Logan hardly moved, apparently engrossed in an examination of his knuckles for any sign of the blade's extension.

When Bobby had settled back into his own chair, Logan gave him his most dangerous smile and administered the coup de grace: "What's with you and Rogue, eh?"

Xavier didn't like Mount Haven. It gave him a headache.

He knew the reason: ultralow frequency harmonics whose pitch was specifically calibrated to inhibit any form of extrasensory perception, including his own telepathy. He could overcome it, of course; that was no problem. It just took a little more effort and exacted a more than equivalent cost. Far easier, while he was here, to keep his thoughts and his powers to himself.

What disturbed him was the notion that the designers knew what they were doing. It suggested a far greater familiarity with mutants than most people realized. Over the past months since Magneto's incarceration Xavier had made discreet inquiries to learn as much as possible about the government department responsible for the establishment of the prison, but painfully few of those questions had been answered. Perhaps the time had come to dig deeper.

Following the security protocols, his wheelchair had been exchanged for a plastic counterpart back at the main entrance. Under escort, he and Scott had proceeded to the cell block for the final series of identity and security checks, this time under the supervision of Magneto's warder, Mitchell Laurio.

With the peremptory manner of a man used to instant obedience, Laurio waved Scott back from Xavier's chair.

"I'll take it from here," he said.

Scott didn't like the tone, didn't like the man, and for a moment the two men bristled with challenges.

"Scott," Xavier said quietly, forcefully, to defuse the tension, "it's all right. I won't be long."

"Nice coat," Laurio said to Scott over his shoulder as he wheeled the chair toward the hatchway leading to the umbilical tunnel.

"Thanks." There was a little more of a flat, prairie Nebraska twang to Scott's voice, the kind you expect to hear from a gunfighter marshall whose job was to bring order to a lawless frontier.

"Nice shades." Meaning "I'd like to take them away from you, pretty boy."

"Thanks." Meaning "You're welcome to try."

The hatch opened onto a small platform where both men had to wait while the tunnel unfolded toward the cell itself, suspended in the middle of the room. Even through the translucent walls of the tube, it was possible to get a sense of the chamber's immensity, and especially the tunnel's height above the floor. It was designed to make visitors uncomfortable as they realized their lives depended on the strength and integrity of the network of rings and cables that held the tunnel aloft. Most quickened their pace. Laurio slowed his down, his own way of emphasizing that he was in charge here. He was the man! He left Xavier alone with the prisoner.

Lehnsherr had his back to Xavier and didn't turn around when he spoke.

"Have you come to rescue me, Charles?"

"Not today, Eric. I'm sorry." There was a quality of genuine regret to Xavier's voice, as though someday that circumstance might change and there would be a rescue.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Lehnsherr asked, and he sounded genuinely amused.

"The assassination attempt on the President. What do you know about it?"

"Just what I read in the newspapers." He turned to face his friend. "You shouldn't even have to ask."

Xavier couldn't hide his revulsion, he didn't try, as he beheld the bruises on Lehnsherr's face. The way the other man held his body revealed more eloquently than words that the damage wasn't simply confined to his face.

"What happened to you?" Xavier asked, aghast.

"I... fell," Lehnsherr said without irony. "In the shower."

"This isn't funny!"

"No." For emphasis, a shake of that leonine head.

"This is unconscionable."

"I'm a terrorist, Charles. An enemy of humanity. Given that status, and the circumstances of my capture, it's been made repeatedly clear to me that I should be... grateful for my treatment."

"Told by whom?" Xavier demanded, already formulating his protests to the authorities. "Who is responsible for this outrage?"

"You remember William Stryker?"

"I haven't heard that name in years."

"I've had frequent visits from him lately. His son, Jason, was once a student of yours, wasn't he?"

"More a patient than a student. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to help him. At least not the way his father wanted me to."

At the mansion, Jones donned a set of Bose headphones and cranked the volume, his flickering eyes changing channels faster than ever.

The assault force closed on the mansion from three directions, two by silenced helicopters flying a map-of-the-earth profile that had the wheels of their Sikorsky Blackhawks literally brushing the treetops while the third unit used SCUBA sleds to approach from the lake. The teams had been handpicked by Stryker himself, culled from the finest special operations cadres on Earth-American SEAL's and Army Rangers, Great Britain's Special Air Service, Russian Spetznatz, German GSG-9, Israeli Pathfinders, and some Vietnamese. They'd trained for this op for months, not only familiarizing themselves with the layout of the mansion but also exhaustively learning how to protect themselves from the myriad of powers and abilities they might encounter. Now, with all the adult staff of Xavier's School absent from the estate, the time had come to put that preparation to the test.

In quick and practiced succession, as the first units rappelled to the ground from their hovering aircraft, all the mansion's power and communications lines were interdicted and the security network neutralized. On command, the school would be completely isolated. Even cellular and radio communication would be off-line. From high overhead, an orbiting C-130 Hercules kept the entire estate under constant electronic surveillance, using thermal imagery to mark the position of the students. Only a couple of signatures indicated contacts who were awake. For the rest, it was already too late.

In the observation booth at Mount Haven, Scott leaned closer to the phalanx of monitor screens. He'd seen the bruises, too, and Xavier's reaction to them, but there was no sound.

The guard at the console shrugged apologetically.

"It happens," he said, by way of explanation, not for Magneto's condition but for the lack of audio.

"Here?" Scott asked pointedly. "With this prisoner?"

"We got backups on backups," Laurio growled. "You got nothin' to worry about. Joey, put in a call for a techie. Let's get this fixed before Movie Star here makes a federal case."

Both guards laughed, and Scott felt the hair prickle on the back of his neck. This was wrong, and he called out to Xavier with his thoughts as loudly as he could. He yelled inside his head, but the figure he could see plainly on the screen gave not the slightest indication that he heard any of it.

Lehnsherr picked up a pawn from the plastic chessboard on his cupboard, then exchanged it for a knight.

"And now you think that taking in the Wolverine will make up for your failure with Stryker's son?"

He placed the pieces back on the board and turned slowly to look at his friend.

"You haven't told him about his past, have you?"

Reluctantly Xavier shook his head. "I've put him on the right path, but Logan's mind is still fragile."

"Is it?" Lehnsherr obviously thought differently. "Or are you afraid you'll lose one of your precious X-Men?"

Xavier didn't reply at once. He looked distracted, brow furrowing, head cocked slightly to the side in concentration as though trying to make sense of some noise or other right at the edge of his awareness. He blinked, marshaling his telepathic resources against the low-frequency harmonics and the realization that the headache that was merely infernal now would be brutal by the time he was done. But this increased psychic sensitivity didn't give him the answer he sought. Instead it gave him insight into something far more serious.

"Eric," he cried, shocked at the scraps of memory he was perceiving and all their terrible implications, "what have you done?"

"I'm sorry, Charles," Lehnsherr replied, swinging his hand across the chessboard to knock down both kings at once. He was a proud man who had sworn long ago never again to become a victim. That he had failed, utterly, was a hard admission to make. "I... couldn't help myself."

"What have you told Stryker?" About my school, Xavier thought desperately, about my X-Men? He recognized the source of that burr in his awareness that had been bothering him, and called out a warning to Scott in turn, with all his own considerable strength.

"Everything," Lehnsherr said with the simple finality of a death sentence.

Both men reacted to a faint hiss from all around them. From apertures on every wall a cloud of mist could be seen flooding into the cell.

Xavier had time for one last, desperate outcry-" Scott!"-before oblivion claimed him.

On the monitors, Scott saw Xavier lunge forward in his chair, heard a faint echo of that call in his thoughts, watched his mentor collapse. It was over in seconds.

"What the hell?" he cried.

He looked up, heard an almost inaudible pop, and reacted to the impact of something small striking the middle of his chest. He didn't know what it was, but that didn't matter as his body reacted of its own accord to this sudden and unexpected ambush.

He quickly registered a new presence in the room. A young woman, Asian, beautiful, wearing a guard uniform and carrying a dart pistol. That told him they wanted him alive. In that same instant, he also assumed that the dart hadn't done its job, working on the presumption they'd want to neutralize him as quickly and efficiently as they did Xavier. It probably hadn't been strong enough to penetrate his leather coat and his uniform beneath. He knew they wouldn't make that mistake twice. He had to act first.

All these thought processes occurred in the split instant it took him to complete his turn. He identified the woman as the primary threat, and he wasn't overly gentle with his response. He tapped a control on the wing of his visor, the ruby quartz depolarized, and a beam of scarlet force exploded through the lens.

For the woman, it was like being hit by a battering ram. He caught her full in the belly, doubling her over and hurling her into the wall behind her. The whiplash of the impact cracked her skull against a projection and she dropped to the floor, bloody and unconscious from a nasty scalp wound. The same beam shattered the pistol and knocked off her lightly tinted sunglasses.

The guard at the console made a grab from behind, but Scott elbowed him in the face, used the same fist to deliver a sharp jab that dropped this adversary from the fight. That left Laurio and his partner.

A snap shot of optic blasts took care of the partner, but Laurio proved a lot faster than Scott expected from a man of his bulk. He tackled Scott before the young man could bring his eyes to bear. Laurio had seen how Scott manipulated the beams, and he was doing everything he could to keep the mutant's hands away from his visor. Without the power, Laurio likely figured this to be an easy fight.

Now, though, it was his turn to be surprised. Scott's slim and rangy figure was as deceptive in its own way as Laurio's. There was a wiry strength to him that matched the guard's, and a willing ability to take punishment. Laurio delivered a couple of hard shots to the body that were usually good enough to take the fight out of anyone, but all Scott did was wince with the shock and hit back just as hard.

Unnoticed in the struggle, the woman-Yuriko Oyama-stirred. Her wound had stopped bleeding and, covered now with fresh skin, was healing with a speed reminiscent of Wolverine.

Scott used a knee to lever Laurio aside, quickly rolling the other way to yank a nightstick from the belt of the guard. Both men came to their feet together, but Scott had the advantage as he hammered the handle of the stick into the pit of Laurio's gut. The bigger man staggered, gasping for breath, and Scott followed up with a roundhouse swing to the jaw that drew blood from mouth and nose as it threw the guard against the wall.

Instinct warned of another attack, a fresh threat; training prompted an instantaneous response. But quick as Scott was, Yuriko was quicker as she slapped the nightstick from his grasp. Scott gasped in pain as if he'd just been hit by a bar of steel. In blinding succession, she struck him in the hands and forearms and body, leaving him unable to defend himself actively with his own martial skills or his optic blasts. He wasn't sure how this had happened; he knew how hard he'd hit her, was certain when she fell that she was out for the duration. Yet here she was, attacking him, seemingly in better shape than ever.

Without pause, she set herself and launched a sweeping, flying kick for his head. He saw it coming, tried to avoid it, watched her compensate impossibly in midair, felt a murderous shock to the side of his skull as her boot connected. On the way down, she gave him another kick for good measure.

She reached down to check his throat pulse, satisfying herself that it remained strong, then turned to the monitors to check on Xavier. With a smile of triumph, she threaded her fingers together and cracked her knuckles. Mission accomplished.

Inside the cell, Eric Lehnsherr watched his old friend fall. The gas had been specially mixed for Xavier's genetic structure. It was effective against Lehnsherr, too, but it just took a little longer.

He coughed, thinking as he did about every time he had seen the white cloud pour from the vents of the "showers" that claimed so many at Auschwitz, remembering the feel of lifeless flesh still warm beneath his fingers as he and the other Sonderkommando dragged the dead from gas chamber to crematoria. The hair was cut from their heads, the gold was pried from their teeth. Everything that was perceived to be of value was taken from them, before their wholesale murder and afterward. Especially their dignity.

Never again, he had sworn then.