“Hey, Witch... er, Wanda,” he said. “The way they’ve got us trussed up, me an’ Rogue can’t pull any of our usual stunts, but how ’bout you?” It dawned on him that he had only the fuzziest idea of how the Scarlet Witch’s powers worked. Some kind of mutant magic or something? She’d been a regular adversary of the X-Men once, back when she was still working for her dad, but that was way before Logan hooked up with the team. “Any chance you can witch yourself loose?”
Wanda tried to shake her head, was forcibly reminded of her restraints, and abandoned the gesture. “Not really,” she explained. “I use my hands to focus my powers and my eyes to pinpoint the target of my hex.” Examining her more closely in the mirror, Logan noticed that, unlike he and Rogue, the Witch’s hands were completely encased by solid metal hemispheres the size of boxing gloves.
Bet she can’t even a wiggle a finger, he guessed.
“It’s like trying to read in the dark,” Wanda said, attempting to fully describe the difficulties imposed on her by her specially-designed bonds. “Or turn a page with your hands tied behind your back. Maybe in time I might be able to manage something, but it doesn’t feel natural except the way that I usually project a hex sphere, if that makes any sense at all.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Wolverine said gruffly. Not for the first time, he was thankful his mutant senses and healing ability were simple and uncomplicated, as opposed to some sort of weird sci-fi type power. Let other mutants shoot energy beams from their bodies, read minds, or tinker with gravity.
Me, I like the basics—even if they can’t do me much good under the circumstances. Too bad Witchie didn’t inherit her dad’s magnetic powers. Then she could dismantle this whole setup in no time at all.
Putting aside thoughts of escape, at least for the moment, Logan reviewed the unlikely chain of events that had brought him here, events that seemed crazier the more he thought about them. Shape-changing deer—what was that all about? The injuries inflicted by the unnatural antlers had long since healed, thanks to his mutant metabolism, but the bizarre nature of the attack lingered in his memory.
“So,” he said aloud to the other prisoners, “I don’t suppose you two got bushwhacked by Bambi and his folks?”
Rogue looked like she had no idea what he talking about. “What’s a Disney movie got to do with all this?”
By the time they got through comparing notes, Logan felt even more in the dark than before.
“All I know,” he declared, “is that a setup like this, with all this E.R. hardware and crud, wasn’t built by no flamin’ puppets, deer, or tee-shirts! This place stinks of the kind of preening egghead who figgers the whole blamed world would be better off under his thumb. You know the type, Rogue. We’ve trashed enough of them.” He glanced at Wanda in the mirror, making a point to include her. “So have the Avengers, I bet.”
“But who are they, Wolvie?” Rogue asked.
Logan had no idea. As an Avenger or an X-Man, the three of them had probably made enough enemies to fill a couple dozen penitentiaries. It was likely someone with an interest in mutants, he guessed; that was the main thing all three prisoners had in common. Besides choosing a lousy day for a little R&R, that is.
“What do you think they want with us?” Rogue wondered aloud.
“Nothing good,” Logan stated with certainty. Unbidden, images from that other lab flashed through his mind, pulling back his lips until his fangs were fully bared. Pain and bones and spikes...
“They are awake and aware. Are you certain your shackles can hold them?”
“Fear not, my security-conscious friend. Trust me, those adamantium restraints would hold back the Hulk ... well, almost. Besides, even if they should escape, which is highly improbable, where could they go? Have you forgotten precisely where we are?”
“If only I could! And I still think it would have been wiser to have kept them separated. Why give them the opportunity to conspire against us?”
“The controlled interaction of their respective mutant traits is a fundamental aspect of my experiment. This arrangement simplifies procedures considerably, and it eliminates the inherent risks involved in physically transporting them from one location to another, such as from a solitary cell to a lab and back again. Indeed, statistics indicate that approximately 75.331 percent of successful escapes occur during the transportation of prisoners. You may be assured that all such logistical matters were subjected to thorough analysis and consideration during the very conception of this project.”
“I am not interested in procedures, only results. How long before you can-deiiver what you have promised? I have no desire to languish in this accursed place forever, not while entire worlds remain to be conquered.”
“Spoken like a soldier, not a scientist. Patience. The experiment is just beginning....”
The torture began without warning. Mechanical waldoes descended from the ceiling, bearing scalpels, lasers, and fiber-optic cameras at the ends of jointed metal arms.
Uh-oh. Looks like the fun’s starting, Logan thought, bracing himself for what was to come.
The whirr of the servoes came ever closer. Metal rods protruded from the sarcophagus, forcing his hands open and his fingers apart. His hairy palms thus exposed, the waldoes moved in closer to commence their inhuman tasks. A remote-controlled scalpel made surgical incisions across his right palm, then retreated a few centimeters while Logan’s stubborn flesh swiftly reknitted itself under the watchful eye of a miniature camera embedded in the base of the scalpel. Logan had no doubt that, besides the knife’s-eye view provided by the scalpel, the various sensors affixed to his body were monitoring his heartbeat, respiration, glands, et cetera, to see how they registered during the healing process.
“Take a good look, bub,” he called out to his unseen tormentor. Only the slightest trickle of blood escaped before the shallow cuts disappeared entirely. “You’re the one who’s goin’ to need healin’ after I get done with you!”
The only response to his threat came from an automated laser that directed a narrow beam of coherent light against his exposed left palm, methodically burning away the uppermost layer of skin, exposing raw, reddened tis-r sue. Logan grimaced slightly but made no sound, even as his hyper-sensitive nostrils smelled his own vaporized flesh. He’d bite his tongue off before he’d give the sadist behind the mirror the satisfaction of hearing one peep from him. The searing heat of the laser hurt more than the scalpel, but the damage it inflicted was nothing his mutant healing factor couldn’t handle.
That, he feared, was the whole point.
The scalpel sliced his right hand open again. This time, the blade struck deeper, all the way to the bone.
“A truly remarkable rate of metabolic regeneration, marked by an accelerated immune response and profuse cellular mitosis that appears to impose minimal strain on his circadian rhythms and autonomic functions. Wolverine’s recuperative abilities are just as formidable as I had been led to believe; I know of only one individual whose healing powers surpass those of this specimen. I will be curious to observe how Wolverine’s immune system copes with the various toxins and varieties of electromagnetic radiation I intend to subject him to. It should be a fascinating experiment.”
“Fascinating to you, perhaps. Do not let your idle curiosity interfere with the timely pursuit of our objective. What about the females? When will you begin with them?” ’
“Time spent accumulating new scientific knowledge is never wasted. Still, if it will ease your militaristic impatience, let us proceed to the next stage of my research. Kindly observe the specimen as Rogue.”
Poor Wolvie!
Rogue could barely bring herself to watch as the robotic arms slashed and burned Logan’s defenseless flesh. Sure, his special healing power would protect him from any permanent damage, but that didn’t mean the busy knives and lasers didn’t hurt like blazes. Her own hands, which already felt naked without their usual gloves, seemed even more exposed. She clenched her fists protectiv
ely and winced in sympathy with each new wound inflicted on Logan. What kind of no-good sidewinder could do this to another person? From what she could see in the mirror, they weren’t even using any sort of anesthetic!
She was tempted to offer Wolverine whatever paltry words of comfort she could come up with, but she knew that the stoic X-Man did not want anybody’s pity or sympathy, especially when a hostile party was almost certainly looking on. Her compassion might be seen as a sign of weakness or vulnerability on his part. So she kept her mouth shut, all the while wishing there was something— anything—she could do to relieve Logan’s torment.
And wondering when her own turn was coming round.
“What’s happening?” the Scarlet Witch asked, one coffin over. Her nose twitched beneath the metal visor. “What’s that burning smell?”
Trust me, sugah, you don’t want to know. Rather than keep the other woman in the dark, however, Rogue opened her mouth to respond. She hadn’t forgotten the Witch’s harsh remark about Carol Danvers, but no matter what the other woman thought about her, Rogue couldn’t let just let Wanda suffer in sightless suspense. ’Sides, I guess she’s entitled to feel the way she does, being a friend of Ms. Marvel and all.
“They’re performin’ some kind of medical experiments on Wolverine,” she began, wondering how much grisly detail the Scarlet Witch would want. “Ah don’ know why.”
Before she could explain further, the raised metal ridge running along the left side of her coffin slid downward and out of sight, at the same time that the ridge on the right side of Logan’s pulled a similar disappearing act.
What now? Rogue wondered apprehensively.
A mechanical rambling started up beneath her, like a conveyor belt coming to life, and the two metal caskets containing her and Wolverine began to slide horizontally toward each other, with not a single plate of chromed steel to separate their transfixed bodies. Rogue stared in alarm as her uncovered left hand drew steadily nearer to Logan’s scarred and bleeding right palm. It wasn’t the blood that frightened her, though, but the prospect of their two hands touching.
“Wait! Stop!” she cried out to whomever was operating the mechanism bringing them together. “Y’all don’ know what you’re doin’!”
Unfortunately, she had a sneaking suspicion that they did.
Their bare hands less than a foot apart and closing fast, Rogue’s frantic eyes found Wolverine’s. From the grim look on his face, it was clear he had also realized what their captors were up to.
No! she thought fervently. I won’t let it happen. I won’t! She straggled anew against the metal bonds holding her arm in place, but it was no good; not even Ms. Marvel’s stolen super-strength could break the ^yielding steel bands.
“Ah’m so sorry, Logan,” she whispered. “Ah don’ want this.”
“I know that, kid,” he assured her. She searched for 133
forgiveness in his face, finding it in his ageless black eyes. “It ain’t your fault.”
Somewhere to the right, now a bit further away, the Scarlet Witch demanded to know what was going on. But there was no time to explain, even if Rogue felt like sharing her profound humiliation and horror with the blindfolded Avenger, which was not exactly her first instinct.
Bad enough that I have to know what I’m going to do to Logan.
The edge of Rogue’s coffin clanked against Wolverine’s as the conveyances came to a halt. Her trapped hand pressed against his, flesh to flesh, and, despite herself, the young mutant gasped in anticipation. Strange new sensations, wild and unbelievably intense, flooded her mind and senses as, against her will, Logan’s powers and memories flowed into her, leaving him drained and unconscious. Familiar faces and exotic places rushed the stage of her memory: Sabretooth and Mariko, the Yukon and Madripoor, Heather Hudson, Jubilee, and Krakoa....
Her teeth sharpened into carnivorous fangs. Her brown hair grew stiffer and more fur-like in a matter of instants. Her eyes blazed with predatory fury as her senses came alive, smell and touch and hearing suddenly magnified a hundredfold. The whole world became brighter and richer and more vivid. Feral passions surged inside her, even as Wolverine slumped within his coffin, his drooping lips finally releasing the anguished moan that neither slicing blades nor scorching laser fire had succeeded in extracting before.
This is glorious, Rogue thought, tom between shame and exultation.
The damage done, hidden gears engaged and the two caskets began to withdraw to their original positions. Next
to Rogue, the left-hand wall of her coffin slid upward, back into place, cutting her off from the man whose vitality and unique attributes she had just leeched. It didn’t matter, though. Only a moment’s touch had been enough to effect the transference.
The shocking clarity and impact of her newly-heightened senses stunned Rogue. The light seemed brighter, throwing her surroundings into extreme focus, so that every edge and surface stood out with a distinctness that went beyond three-dimensional. She could practically feel textures with her eyes alone: the cool smoothness of the mirror, the leathery feel of Logan’s weathered face, the stickiness of his drying blood. Her ears brought her sounds that now seemed unnaturally amplified; her own heartbeat pounded like a kettle drum, nearly drowning out the sibilant hiss of electrons coursing through myriad electrical cables, while Wolverine’s pulse faded to a slow, dim rumble. Her nose twitched, alerted to both Logan’s musky odor and the faint scent of fear rising off the blinded witch. Her fists flexed against the sides of the coffin, instinctively trying to extend claws that weren’t really there.
She had only seconds, though, to take in Wolverine’s perceptions of the present, before his borrowed memories thrust her into a past that was not her own.
All at once, she was in another lab, floating in a tank of liquid nutrients while bubbles rose through the murky red fluid, obscuring her view of the facility beyond the transparent walls of the tank. Some sort of breathing apparatus covered her mouth, tasting coppery upon her tongue and forcing a plastic tube partway down her windpipe. More tubes dug into veins and arteries all over her body; she couldn’t move without getting tangled in a web of cables and thin capillary tubing. Metal spikes, attached to flexible steel cables, dug deeply into her bones, producing agonizing pain as her body tried to reject the foreign matter. The spikes, though, were embedded too firmly to be dislodged. Her eyes tearing up from the agony, she peered through the rising bubbles at the dimly-glimpsed silhouettes of nameless figures looking on, charting her ordeal on clipboards and computers. The lukewarm fluid raised goosebumps up and down her arms and legs. Her feet floated freely, unable to touch the floor of the tank.
This never happened, Rogue tried to remember. Not to me. Not now.
But Wolverine’s memories, dragged to the surface by more recent tortures, were too vivid to ignore, no matter how hard Rogue fought to regain control of her mind. She could not escape the crimson tank, could not distance herself from the spikes and tubes even as they began pouring something alien into her body, her bones. The forced infusion was cold and hot at the same time and made her flesh crawl; she could feel it spreading over her skeleton, bonding to the calcified hardness supporting her flesh and blood.
The adamantium! she realized in a precious moment of lucidity. This must be when they put the metal in Wol-vie’s bones.
Sharp, throbbing pains stabbed at her hands and she brought them up before her eyes, dragging I.V. lines and cables from her elbows and wrists. Her bottom knuckles swelled and ached, pulsating in synch, like there was something beneath her skin trying to get out. And there was: blood spurted from the backs of her hands as six sharp metal claws, three on each hand, tore their way through the fragile epidermis that stretched across her knuckles. The curved silver daggers sliced through the thick red liquid, further churning the bubbling solution surrounding Rogue. Her spilled blood joined the tepid fluid surrounding her.
No, she thought emphatically, still locked in the unfolding nightmare. Not me. Wolverine
.
Looking through Logan’s eyes, she glared past the gleaming claws at the shadowy figures lurking outside the tank, staring dispassionately at her grueling transformation. It was all their doing, she knew; they were the ones who had done this to him/her/whatever. An anger of frightening intensity seethed inside her. Beyond the pain, the violation, the icy dread at what she had become, her fury raged, savage and uncontrollable, like no anger she had ever experienced before. It didn’t even feel human, this rabid, instinctual frenzy. Her heart pounded ferociously in her chest. Her phantom claws ached for action. She craved her enemies’ blood, hungered for their deaths. Only the metal mouthpiece between her jaws kept her from gnashing her teeth in a bestial rage. All she could think of was tearing her foes apart with her hands and teeth and claws.
Good Lord, she thought, with the tiny spark of sanity remaining to her. Is this what Wolvie feels like when he loses his temper? How in the world does he ever keep this . . . madness . . . under control?
Then, from beyond yesterday, something sharp cut into her hand, yanking her back into the present at the same time that she suddenly felt a laser beam burning through her skin....
“Observe carefully. Note the subtle feral rearrangement of her features, the predatory glint in her eyes which mimics that displayed earlier by her primitive confederate. Her heartbeat, adrenaline output, and metabolism have increased by a factor of ten, while, according to my instrumentation, the transfer itself required less than one-point-eight-seven secondsvto take effect, with a corresponding diminution in the life energies of Wolverine.
“Also, as you can see for yourself, her newfound ability to heal herself at an accelerated rate appears indistinguishable from Wolverine’s, even to the exact amount of time required to repair identical third-degree bums. As nearly as I can tell, there is no statistical difference between the attributes originally manifested by the first subject and those duplicated by the second. I wonder how prolonged the physical contact must be to ensure that the transference is permanent? Perhaps I will conduct that test—when our work is complete, of course.”