by Perri Smith
"Have you found anything, Jean?"
Jean took the Cerebro helmet off, shaking out her hair and trying to shake away the splitting headache. "Nothing, Professor. There's too much ground to cover, and the longer they're gone, the more ground there is to search."
"I know, Jean," he said. "But we have no other choice than to keep looking. Eventually we will find them."
"I just hope it's not too late," Jean murmured as she traded places with Xavier. He could sense her fear, even though she was trying to hide it. She and Logan had always been close, if not as much as Logan would have liked, and his disappearance was hurting her deeply. Guilt was as strong an emotion as fear, and more dangerous to them.
"Jean." His voice was gentle as he spoke to her, one of his most beloved students. "We're doing all we can to find him."
"Maybe it's too little, too late." Jean's frustration boiled over, finally finding a convenient target. "Maybe if we had worked harder, gotten him to come inside, this wouldn't have happened. We should have tried harder!"
Xavier bowed his head, feeling his own guilt hit yet again. She wasn't saying anything he hadn't told himself a hundred times in the last fifteen hours. "We did what we could, Jean."
She wouldn't look at him, her head also bowed, her face hidden by the fall of red hair. "It wasn't enough."
"Take it easy, Jean. If he hadn't been out there, they might have come in." Cable strode in, flanked by most of X-Force. "And I get the feeling we wouldn't have enjoyed that."
"You've found something?" Jean sat straight up.
"Something. Not a lot, but it could narrow down the search," he said.
"Whoever grabbed Siryn and Wolverine had been there for a little while, and there were quite a few of them. We found signs all over the place -- some cigarette butts, some wear and tear on the shrubbery. I get the feeling they were planning to stay for a lot longer, until Wolverine and Siryn caught them. Stands to reason they must be working out of a base, probably nearby."
"If that is correct," Xavier said slowly, "then why have we been unable to locate them? The closer they are, the easier it should be to find Wolverine, at the very least."
"Maybe you're not looking in the right place," Domino said, tossing a torn, bloody piece of fabric to Xavier. Jean intercepted it, almost dropping it when she recognized the familiar insignia on the shoulder. A blood-red circle, with a stylized winged figure embroidered on it in black.
"Look familiar, Red?" Cable asked, not needing an answer.
Jean nodded anyway. "Whoever took them was Genoshan."
"Great," Boomer commented, "now we're looking for a Genoshan needle in a haystack. Big help. What do we do now, call Immigration and ask how many Genoshans have snuck into the country lately?"
"Not quite," Cable answered. "We call Genoshan Immigration. Chief Magistrate Anderson owes us big -- it's about time she paid off."
******
"Wakey-wakey, sleepy heads."
The call was unnecessary; neither of them had slept, but had passed the hours sitting in the cells doing nothing. Siryn raised her head from her knees just enough to give the new arrival the dirtiest look in her repetoire. Unfortunately, it rolled off the woman like water.
She recognized the black-haired woman as the one that had put her to sleep on the plane that had brought them here. The rather ordinary-looking man behind her looked to be Siryn's opponent from the original snatch-and-grab. Both wore brown and green fatigues and were armed, the woman with a gun similar to Delphi's at her hip, the man with a knife that seemed almost big enough to qualify as a sword.
"Do y' always come boy-girl, boy-girl?" Siryn asked sarcastically. Logan just sat back, watching.
The woman laughed with forced hilarity. "How nice. Rebound, did you hear? The songbird's a real comedian." Rebound looked something less than amused. The woman turned back to Siryn with a falsely soothing look. "But don't worry, songbird, I'm sure he'd think you're funny any other time. It's just Deadpool burning out everyone's funny bones."
"I can think o' better things t' burn out," Siryn answered, her voice dripping with disgust. "More painful things, too."
"Careful, Nyct, sounds like Deadpool ain't her favorite person right about now," Rebound commented in a thick Southern drawl.
"No, I don't think he is," Nyct agreed thoughtfully. "However, it won't matter much; she'll likely be dead before he gets a chance to see her again. I'm sure it'll break his heart."
The mention of death caught Siryn's immediate and full attention. "What're y' talkin' about?"
Nyct smiled, showing a large amount of teeth. "What part of 'dead' didn't you understand?" She pulled a key out of her pocket and unlocked the door to Siryn's cell. "Now, why don't you do this the easy way, songbird, and come along nicely? Otherwise, the boys there -- " she gestured over her shoulder to five soldiers who had appeared behind Rebound. They wore similar uniforms, uniforms which should have looked familiar; she couldn't quite place them. " -- they'll have to carry you and they're not wild about the idea or hauling around 'mutant scum' like yourself." Nyct laughed again. "Such a cute turn of phrase, that."
Something in the words rang an alarm bell in Siryn's head, but she had more immediate problems and no intention of doing things the easy way. As soon as Nyct was close enough, Theresa swung on her with her left fist, and brought her right elbow down into the woman's face. Nyct managed to avoid the blow and swung back, a looping roundhouse that Terry blocked, ducking under it to throw another elbow, then grabbed Nyct by the hair and pulled the other woman's face hard into her knee.
At the same time Wolverine lunged across his cell, ripping his chains from the wall effortlessly. He reached through his bars and grabbed Rebound, pulling him back and ringing his head against the metal. His claws snicked out at the same time, going for the throat -- and sliding off as Rebound's head bounced off the bars with no apparent effect.
His neck still trapped in Wolverine's arm, Rebound pulled at it with one hand, trying to keep himself from being choked. But he dropped the other to the knife on his hip. Wolverine saw the move and got there as Rebound pulled the knife loose, grabbing Rebound with his free hand and twisting his arm up and out, away from his body. But popping his claws with no healing factor to counter the damage had left his hand slippery with blood -- Rebound pulled his hand loose and slammed the blade down and back into Wolverine, managing to pull away when Wolverine's grip loosened reflexively.
"Logan!" Siryn yelled, dropping Nyct and jumping at Rebound. He twisted the knife and pulled it from Wolverine's stomach, swinging it out to meet her. Instinctively, she started to scream and followed up the useless sound with a side kick that should have sent him to the ground. Instead it bounced her away to slam into the wall.
"Don't learn too fast, do you, girl?" The ordinary face had become ugly, twisted with hatred and the pleasure of drawing blood. "That's why they call me Rebound -- things just bounce right off me."
She wiped blood off of her head and got her feet under her, ready to make another try at it. Behind Rebound, she saw Wolverine staggering back to the bars, blood flowing from the wounds in his stomach and the backs of his hands. With horror, she realized the effect the neutralizing collars were having on his healing factor.
Horror turned into resolve and she launched another attack, coming in low this time to knock Rebound off balance. The results were predictable; once again, she skidded into a wall. Rebound never moved. Neither did the soldiers, but she could hear their sniggers from where she lay, dazed and bleeding from head and lip. They hadn't moved during the entire fight.
Nyct did, dragging herself up before Siryn could. "And here's my talent, you little bitch," she spat through a bloody mouth. "Lights out."
Siryn had just enough time to decide she was tired of sleeping before the choice was taken out of her hands.