X-Men: Dark Mirror Part 9

"Like I said, I know the area," Logan said. "It's on the north end of downtown. Real ritzy. We're gonna stand out, looking like we do."

"This is Seattle," Jean said. "Besides, we don't look that bad."

Logan said nothing, though she sensed he disagreed. He pulled onto the freeway. Jean saw the first flicker of downtown lights, the edge of the ocean pus.h.i.+ng up against the city sh.o.r.e. Boats, headlights s.h.i.+ning, trawled slowly through the waters. The air rus.h.i.+ng into the van suddenly felt colder; it smelled like salt, the chemicals of hard industry.

"I still don't get how this Doc Maguire could have had anything to do with our situation." Rogue drummed her fingers against the faux-leather seat. "What kind of beef would some psychologist in a mental hospital have with the X-Men?"

"The better question is why some psychologist who's rich enough to be living in Old Victoria would be working at a dump like Belldonne."

"A good conscience?" Kurt suggested.

Logan grunted. "A good conscience doesn't pay the mortgage, Elf. Not in this town, anyway."

"He was there for at least a year," Scott said. "Working full-time, with a concentrated focus on the most troublesome patients in the ward. Namely, us. Our bodies. Based on what I overheard, the doctor practically made us well. That's why not many of the nurses took him seriously when he told them to restrain us."

Rogue shook her head. "He obviously didn't do so great by me, or did I imagine all those stories?"

"What stories?" Logan asked.

"The previous occupant of Rogue's body became very creative with the use of her undergarments," Kurt said, dodging Rogue's fist. "Particularly with me."

"Right," Logan said.

They drove in silence until Logan pulled off the freeway, and then followed the road into a quiet business district shadowed by the tall towers of downtown Seattle. Jean guessed it must be near four in the morning; the sidewalks were empty except for a few lumpy bodies curled on cardboard flats. Jean imagined herself as one of those people, forced to sleep on the street, and swallowed hard.

"That looks like j.a.panese/' Scott said, pointing out a large sign plastered against an old brick building. Jean looked closer and noticed quite a few billboards written in Asian languages; there were restaurants, too, neon signs spicing up windows with names like HONEY COURT PALACE and DRAGON PEARL, Jean's stomach growled. Rogue glanced at her, and the two women shared a knowing look. Their snacking at the house had not gone far, but until they had money, it would be longer yet until they saw food.

"We're in Chinatown," Logan said. "Or the International District, however politically correct you want to get."

"Why are we here?" Scott asked.

"Gotta change cars, Cyke. At least our plates, but a car would be better. Something a little nicer for when we go into Old Victoria."

"It's four in the morning," Jean protested. "Surely no one will pay attention."

"The cops will, and excuse me for saying so, darlin', but none of us have ID, and the car we're driving screams 'poor.' I don't care how progressive this city is supposed to be, we go marching up like that, in one big group, and someone is going to ask questions. If nothing else, they'll look twice, and we don't want that."

Jean blew out her breath. "You're paranoid, Logan."

"No, I'm realistic. I've been in the gutter and I've been on top, and let me tell you, Jeannie, it ain't no picnic being on the bottom. When you got nothing, some people feel like they can treat you like nothing. We've got too much at stake to take a risk on something like that."

"Ach," Kurt said softly. "Just leave us behind, then. If we are such a burden, then let us off in some safe place and we will wait for you to go check out this Jonas Maguire's home. That would be easier, ja? But no more stealing cars, Logan. Even that has risk."

For a moment, Jean thought Logan looked sorry. Scott, glancing at him, said, "I don't like the idea of us being separated. We have no way of communicating with each othera""

Rogue jumped in. "And all we have right now is each other."

"But," Scott continued, as Jean knew he would, "Logan has a point. As a group, we attract attention."

"And I sure as h.e.l.l don't want to break into a man's home with a crowd," Logan added.

"So, what? You leave us behind in some back alley, twiddling our thumbs while you run out and save the day? Logana""

"This is not about Logan, and this is not about saving the day," Scott interrupted. "This is about survival, Rogue. We are in deep trouble, and this Dr. Maguire may know why. Anything that improves our odds of getting in and out of his house without detection, and anything that gets us home in one piece we will do, no matter how much it hurts our pride."

"Scott," Jean said. He ignored her, turning around in his seat to look out the window. A breathless silence filled the van, a waiting silence, and if Jean still had her powers, Scott's head would be full of words instead of this speechless isolation.

But that was the problem. Jean wondered if she and her husband even knew how to communicate with the spoken word; for so long they had relied on her telepathy to know every nuance of the other's soul, and nowa"nowa"

It hurt and she could not make it better, because now was not the time for fighting, nor would she ever fight in public with Scott. Not when they were on a mission and the others needed to have confidence in his decisions. Her anger never trumped her loyalty.

"Logan," Scott said quietly. "Find a safe place to park the van."

"Yeah," he said, glancing over his shoulder at Jean, "I got that."

Logan drove through narrow side streets that emptied into the heart of downtown; a landscape of artful steel and gla.s.s, towering over elegant facades of stone and brick, all of which pushed upward along impossibly steep hills that had their stolen van gasping for breath. Jean feared she would have to jump out and push.

"Gotta love these old engines," Logan said, patting the dashboard. "Come on, baby."

He drove them out of downtown, pa.s.sing through quiet neighborhoods; gently rolling streets lined with small comfortable homes and tiny yards, all of which ended abruptly on the edge of a large thoroughfare that took them on a winding path past the Seattle s.p.a.ce Needle, the park, and up yet more hills, up and up, until Logan pulled off the road into a small empty U-Park located beside some local shops, and stopped the car in the darkest corner farthest from the street.

Jean saw two people huddled together in the nearby bushes. They lay on top of a blanket. She could not clearly see their faces, but she thought they watched the van.

Logan unbuckled his seat belt. "We're in lower Old Victoria. Maguire's house is on Highland Avenue, which is about a mile from here at the top of the hill."

"I can't imagine what you were doing on your last visit to know all these things," Rogue said. "I think you've got this entire city memorized."

Logan shrugged. "I did some jobs. This and that. Point is, if I leave now, I should be back before it gets too light out."

"I'm going with you," Scott said. "No arguments."

"Fine." He did not look happy; Jean was surprised he did not put up more of a fight. Rogue, given the look on her face, was equally shocked.

"So it's all right to bring him along?"

Logan shrugged. "We're both chicks, Rogue. The only trouble we're going to attract is a drunk or a pervert. We look too innocent for anything else."

"Oh, G.o.d help us all," Jean said.

Rogue narrowed her eyes. "You're a s.e.xist pig, Logan."

"Oink." He climbed out of the car, but leaned back in before shutting the door. "You kids be good. No fighting."

Scott turned and gave Jean such a grave look, she opened the back door and jumped out after him as he slid from the car. He had a tiny figure, his slender legs dangling over the pavement as he dropped from his seat to the ground. Jean towered over him.

"What is it now?" she asked.

Scott frowned and drew her away from the van. "There are a lot of unknowns about all this," he said in a low voice. "Our plan is solid, but you know how it is, Jean. Nothing is safe. If we're not back by midmominga" earlier, evena"get out of here. Don't take the van. Clean it for prints, then walk away. Find a pay phone and keep calling the school until you get someone to listen to you."

"I love it when you patronize me."

"It's such a turn-on, right?"

"Only for you," Jean said. "I don't like this."

"Neither do I," Scott said, "but what do you want me to do? I won't risk all of us on something so chancy as breaking and entering. If anything goes wrong, the worst that happens is that Logan and I will be sent to jail or returned to the hospital. If you three are free, though, at least we still have a fighting chance of finding someone a" Xavier, this Maguirea"who can fix us."

Jean sighed. Scott touched her hand, her cheek.

"Come on, sweetheart. You know I'm right."

"I don't know anything," Jean said, "but I'm too tired to argue with you. Go on, then. Go with Logan and be a cowboy for the night."

"Cowgirl," Logan said, appearing beside them. It did not matter he no longer had his body or his mutant powers; he still moved silent as a ghost.

"I keep forgetting that part," Scott said.

"I can't imagine how," Jean said, s.h.i.+fting uncomfortably. Logan grinned, but Scott grabbed his arm and steered him away before he said anything inappropriate. Scott looked back over his shoulder and Jean tried to see her husband in that small feminine face, those large dark eyes.

"Bye," he said. Jean did not respond. She turned around and climbed into the pa.s.senger seat of the van.

"I hate this," Rogue said, but so quietly, so forlorn, that Jean could not bring herself to be irritated at her friend. "I don't like being left behind. I want to help."

'Yes," Jean said, tapping her feet on the floor. "Logan made a good point, though. All of us together would draw attention. Two young women, though?" She shrugged. "Less threatening."

"Really. Seems like a bunch of lousy stereotypes to me." Rogue pursed her lips; a familiar expression, much like the way she cracked her knuckles and then rubbed her arms, like she had something unpleasant under her skin. "I think Logan just likes playing it alone, but he's taking Scott along for the ride because he knows our fearless leader won't take no for an answer. We, on the other hand, are like a bunch of puppy dogs, sittin' pretty. Nice and obedient."

Kurt stared. "You are truly angered by this. That. . . surprises me."

"I don't know why," Rogue said. "Seems to me I got a right to be a little miffed. Some ... jerk... steals our bodies, takes our lives, and I can't partic.i.p.ate in bringing him down? Not even a little bit?"

"No one is holding you here," Jean said, too tired to talk reason to her, especially when she agreed with everything Rogue said. "You can still catch up with them, if that's what you really want."

Silence. Rogue s.h.i.+fted in her seat and lay back her head, staring at the van ceiling. Kurt patted her hand, saying nothing, but adding to the atmosphere a quiet sympathy that was gentle and comforting. Kurt had that way about him, no matter what he looked like.

jean thought about her own appearance, staring down at her hands as she leaned against the cold hard window. Dark brown skin covered large fingers and sinewy wrists, thickly muscled forearms that felt strong, and no doubt were; she felt her face, the bristles and thick jaw, the masculine features that were so utterly foreign. How strange, to know she was a woman, to feel like a woman, and yet be trapped in a man's body. She envied Rogue, and wondered just how Scott and Logan were handling their own displacement. Neither one had truly complaineda"not that they woulda"but it had to be just as strange and frightening.

Jean listened to the sound of her borrowed heart, beating slow and sure inside the chest she wore. Like a costume made of flesh, one that she could never take off.

Put inside this body because someone has a purpose for your face, your ident.i.ty, and they cannot risk there being two of you.

None of them talked. They sat and waited, lost in thought, until Jean noticed that the sky was beginning to lighten and that traffic on the street behind them had increased. Worry spiked her gut. She lifted her feet off the dashboard and got ready to leave the van. Maybe walk up the street just a ways, and see if she heard anything unusual. Police sirens, rus.h.i.+ng to pick up her husband and his crazy companion.

"Someone is coming," Kurt whispered. Rogue and Jean looked at him and he held up his hand. "Listen. There is a scuffing noise on the concrete."

jean listened, and after a moment, heard that light brush of footfall, even and unhurried. Only one, though.

Logan would be silent, she told herself, but she did not open the door. A shadow appeared on the other side of her window. A man peered in. He had a nice suit jacket on, and his face was hard and thin.

"h.e.l.lo," he said.

"h.e.l.lo," Jean replied, wary of the look in his eye. He smiled, but it was cold, full of teeth. She could not see his hands.

"I've been watching you for a while. There a reason you're parked here this time of morning?" he asked.

"Is there a law that says I can't park here?"

"Maybe. Depends on the why, and those girls you're waiting on."

"Girls?"

The man rubbed his chin. "I got a little something going on down the street. This is a high-cla.s.s neighborhood, you know? Takes a certain kind of girl, a certain kind of connection and know-how. You're doing it all wrong; the car, the clothes your girls are wearing. Keep this up and you'll bring the cops down on us all."

"We're not here on business," Jean said, finally understanding. "Those . . . girls . . . simply went to visit a friend."

"Friend." The man laughed, low. "Right. We ail got friends we have to visit early in the morning, don't we? Thing is, I'm not the kind who likes to share my . . . friends. My girls don't, either. Which is why, right now, I'm gonna ask you real polite to move this ghetto-a.s.s car of yours, and get the h.e.l.l out of my neighborhood."

"I can't do that," Jean said, not bothering to make any more denials. "I have to wait for my girls to come back. I'm sure you understand. I'll leave when they arrive."

"Not good enough."

"It will have to be." Jean felt Rogue and Kurt s.h.i.+ft quietly behind her. She wondered how anyone, even in this, altered state, could mistake her for a pimp. She wished she could read this stranger's mind, or take over his body with nothing but a thought. Make him crawl back to the hole he lived in.

Again, that cold smile. The man stepped away from the van and finally Jean could see his hands. He held a gun.

"Oh, darn," she said.

9.

IT HAD BEEN ALMOST TEN YEARS SINCE LOGAN WALKED these streets, and like most old neighborhoods, nothing much had changed. The houses still had their irregular steep-pitched roofs with patterned s.h.i.+ngles, the lawns were still immaculate, and the view of Elliot Bay and Lake Union still managed to take his breath away. Or maybe that was just his body. Patty, whoever she was, had terrible endurance, and these hills were the steepest in the city.

"I don't like leaving them," Scott said. His breathing seemed far more regular; Logan envied him for that.

"They'll be fine," Logan said, still trying to grow accustomed to the high squeaky tones of his voice. "You seem to forget that you're dealing with X-Men here."

"Powerless X-Men."

"Gimme a break, Cyke. You think Jean's telepathy or Kurt's teleporting are all that makes them strong?"

"Of course not, but it does give them an advantage."

Logan shrugged. He couldn't argue with that. Then again, there was no use crying over things that might never be changed. You just picked up the pieces and kept moving. Did the best with what you had.