Jean pointed. "They're coming back."

Not just coming, but running. Rogue's expression, a combination of red-faced embarra.s.sment and anger, alarmed him.

"What happened?" Scott asked.

"No time," Logan said. "There's a guy who's leaving in two minutes. He works for a manufactured-home company and he's transporting part of a house to Minneapolis."

"An actual house?" Kurt asked. "That sounds much better than stealing a car."

"Yeah, I think this one cla.s.sifies as breaking and entering. You guys ready to go?"

They followed Logan out into the vast parking lot, which seemed more like a way station for an army of semis. Toward the center, surrounded on both sides by two trucks bearing the sign OVERSIZED, they found one half of the manufactured home. The other side of it squatted several wide s.p.a.ces to the left.

"Does it really matter which one we take?" Scott asked.

"Guess not." Logan pulled a pocketknife from his jeansa"a gift from James, who had also given them clean clothes, some food to carry, and a backpack for their few belongings. Scott could not take money, but those other things seemed less . . . offensive than cold hard cash.

You're too technicala"and you're a hypocrite.

Very true. He was also an a.n.a.l-retentive control freak, but not everyone could be perfect.

Plastic sheeting covered the inner half of the home; Logan cut a small slit into the farthest edge, a s.p.a.ce just large enough for them to fit through, and held it open as they squeezed into the house. It was not that easy. The actual floor was at least three feet off the ground, requiring a bit of maneuvering that was difficult with hard plastic shoved tight against his back. Scott missed being tall.

Despite some difficulties, less than a minute later they all sat in a back bedroom, the farthest spot away from the white plastic barrier separating them from the road. Logan occasionally peered out the windows.

"I thought that guy was leaving soon," Rogue muttered, when after several minutes the truck still had not moved.

"What happened in there?" Scott asked, peering into her red face.

"Nothing," she said. He looked at Logan, who shrugged and scratched his head.

"Some, uh, derogatory language was used by our ticket out of here. He saw you three sitting on that bench and thought it was funny."

Rogue sucked in a deep breath. "He made me so mad I wanted to hit him."

"Nearly did, too. That's part of the reason we ran out of there so fast."

Somewhere distant they heard voices; a car door slammed and then an engine roared to life. The house vibrated.

"Perfect," Logan said. "This is slow, but we'll get to Minneapolis by tonight."

"You're right, that is slow." Scott tapped the newspaper against his thigh. "I feel as though we've got a deadline. Thing is, I don't known when it is."

"And if we're too late?" Logan asked.

Scott felt everyone stare at him, but he did not say a word. He felt just as lost as they did.

Rolling down the freeway in a manufactured home was not, Scott decided, such a bad way to travel. Except for the fact that it was agonizingly slow. So slow, he wanted to pull his hair outa"a feat he could actually accomplish for the first time in his life, given that his hair was now a length suitable for gripping.

"I can't stand this," he said to Jean. "Not knowing what is going on at home is driving me crazy."

"Me too," she said, stretched out on her stomach. The carpet had plastic over it, which crinkled every time they moved. "There's not much we can do about it, though."

So for the rest of the day he tried to rest, to strategize a response for an imaginary series of events that would likely never take place, but if it did, was currently out of his control. Such as a.s.sa.s.sination attempts on the President of the United States, or some other world leader; declarations of aggression against all humans; joining the Brotherhood of Mutants, which, now that he thought about it, might very well have orchestrated this little body crisscross. The only problem with that was the Brotherhood were usually much flashiera"and they liked to brag a whole lot more. Scott could not imagine one of them pulling this off without coming to the mental hospital to rub it in their faces.

And if it was the Brotherhood, the X-Men would probably already be in the newspapers by now.

Unless it was something else they were after. Technology, maybe. Secret files that Scott and Jean would most certainly have access to. The possibilities were endlessly troubling. He needed aspirin.

He took a nap and dreamed about James resting inside a grave full of writhing tentacles, smiling and crying, with Dog perched on the edge, howling at the moon. He woke up, gasping, and felt Jean do the same. She held her head.

"What is it?" he asked, reaching for her. It was getting easier to look into her stranger's face and feel desire. It also helped that they were alone; the others had retreated into the living room for a game of cards, another of James's gifts. The bedroom was all theirs.

"That sensation in my head. It was stronger this time. There was a definite focus."

"Do you think shea"whoevera"got anything from you?"

"I don't think so, but it has me worried. At first I could tell myself it was an accident, but now it's looking deliberate." She hesitated, looking at her hands. "I suppose it could be something else."

"What?"

"Well, it occurred to me that if our counterparts inherited our physical abilities, like my telepathy, for example, then we should also have inherited some of theirs. As in, their mental illnesses. Patty, for example, is supposed to be a paranoid schizophrenic, while you apparently suffer from some debilitating social disorder, which is vague enough to be completely unhelpful. Rogue's chart, according to Kurt, has her diagnosed as suffering from an acute bipolar disorder. And I'm just mean and delusional."

Scott waited for more. Jean sighed. "My point is that even if our consciousnesses have been transferred, we should still be suffering from the same physical abnormalities as the people we are occupying. Just because the thinking minds are different, does not mean the brains are."

"So you're saying we should be crazy."

"Yes. At the very least, displaying some symptoms of mental illness."

"And if some of us have always been a little crazy?"

"Logan doesn't count, Scott." Jean tried not to smile. He nudged her with his elbow, forcing her to make room against her much larger side. It was odd being the smaller person in their relationship. He was getting used to it, though he liked it better the other way around.

"So," he whispered, angling his mouth close to her eara"his ear, a man's eara"and shutting his eyes, "I understand what you're saying, but unless we start frothing at the mouths and speaking in tongues, I don't see how it matters. Science isn't going to get us home. The man who did this, on the other hand ..."

"We'll figure it out," Jean whispered. "Now rest a little, Scott. Go to sleep."

Lulled by her voice, her touch, he did.

18.

FOR SEVERAL DAYS, STORM SPENT MOST OF HER TIME in Professor Xavier's office. The psychic dampeners gave her a sense of security she could not find elsewhere in the Mansion, and while Remy's portable dampeners were another comfort, the large airy room continued to be the only place she felt safe. She blamed it on the lingering presence of the professor, that sense she always had around him that everything would be fine, that the answer to all life's difficulties was always close, part of every person.

She told herself those same things whenever Scott and Jean or the other three X-Men came to see her and inquired about certain things going on the school. Like why hadn't Storm cleared the field trip before allowing the children to run w.i.l.l.y-nilly through the city, and why was she in this room all the timea"it must be stifling, come out, come out, and play.

Ororo did not feel like playing, and there was something in the way Jean looked when she asked the question that gave her the unsettling sensation that she meant another kind of play entirely. One that would be inappropriate and utterly unappreciated by her husband.

And her roses continued to die.

Of course, it also occurred to her that she was completely overexaggerating and that all these differences she senseda"subtle, inexplicablea"were simply figments of her imagination. Figments, too, of Gambit and Jubilee's minds. After all, the three of them did have similar backgrounds, having grown up on the streets, victim to the various humiliations and desperations a.s.sociated with such hard living. Maybe they suffered from a shared psychosis, some paranoid delusion as a result of that experience.

Or maybe their friends really weren't the same people.

"They're not the same people," Jubilee said, during one of their brief meetings inside Xavier's office. The girl was painting her nails and popping gum, although there was a darkness in her eyes that bothered Ororoa" a heaviness of spirit that she had never thought to see in Jubilee.

"You still think they have been . . . body-s.n.a.t.c.hed?"

Jubilee looked up from her nails. Her eyes were hard. "Yes, Ororo. I do." And then she relaxed, the darkness melted away, and Ororo no longer knew if it was a mask or the real girl when she said, "Dude. I know you're still on that trauma kick, but have you even asked Jean or Kurt if anything bad happened?"

"Yes. They ... didn't give me any details."

"Then there wasn't any trauma. Those two can't keep their mouths shut around you. It's like, you show up and they start going a mile a minute. Blah, blah, blah."

Ororo narrowed her eyes. "Must I remind you, Jubilee, that you are speaking to an elder? You should be a little more polite."

Again, Jubilee stopped painting her nails and gave her a look that was far too old. Remy said, "If anyone acts traumatized, it's Rogue. She hasn't talked once since her return."

"Body-s.n.a.t.c.hed," Jubilee said. "She has a nefarious purpose."

"I think she is genuine. The others?" He waved his hand. "Je ne sais pas."

"Could they be shape-shifters, then?" Ororo wondered out loud. "Are our friends being held captive somewhere else?"

"If they are shape-shifters, they're really bad at the whole impersonation thing," Jubilee said. "Do you know what I saw this morning? Wolvie in the gym, standing in front of the mirror, ogling his body. Do you have any idea how disturbing that was?"

"Non," Remy said, dry. "What don' you tell us, ma pet.i.te"

"But before you do," Ororo said, cutting her off, "I want to know if you two have learned anything about Seatde."

"Nada. Scotta"" Jubilee stopped, swallowing hard. "Scott made some d.i.n.ky little voice records a day or two before coming back. Something about how they still hadn't found what they were looking for, but they were going to the hospital that night to look around."

"Which hospital?"

"Belmont, Belvue-"

"Belldonne," Remy said. "We called. They said no one fittin' their descriptions had stopped to ask questions, or been seen. They weren't really talkative, though. Seems they lost some of their patients recently. Police are out lookin' for them."

"No relation to our people?"

"Don' see how."

"Unless Wolvie and the others were transferred into their bodies and they've made their break."

Ororo looked at her. "Do Scott and the others act mentally unwell?"

Jubilee shared a quick glance with Remy.

"Mentally unwell?" she said. "How about Scott accusing Remy of having s.e.x with me just because he saw us together?"

"Talking," Remy clarified. "Together talking. And he didn't exactly accuse us of s.e.x."

Jubilee gave him a look. "He was a total pervert, Remy."

Ororo covered her mouth. "How could he? Scott knows better."

"Exactly," Jubilee said.

Ororo sat back, stunned. Remy said, "You should know, 'Ro. None of those who came back refueled the jet."

"What?"

"Don' worry," he said. "I did it. But I did check the levels and matched them to those lil' numbers Scott likes to keep about how much fuel we burn, dependin' on the distance. There wasn't enough gas in that tank, cherie. Not by a long shot."

"What are you trying to say, Remy? They went somewhere else first?"

He shrugged. "Seems that way to me. Unless someone on that plane dumped some fuel or started getting a taste for it in their drinks."

"What kind of diversion from the flight schedule are we discussing?"

"At least a hundred miles. Not far in the Blackbird, but it burns the gas all the same."

Ororo slumped back in her chair. This was looking quite bad.

"Yo," Jubilee said. "We still have another problem. Bobby and the others aren't answering their cell phones. I've been trying to reach them and all I get is a busy signal. Now, Bobby is a big talker, but still. You were having the same issue with the Professor, right?"

"I have been in the control room, but I can find nothing wrong."