Kindness is the beginning of cruelty. --- From "Dune" by Frank Herbert

To my face, I am called Alia. Among the others, I am known as Alia of the Knife.

This speaks of my tenth year, the fifth month, when I grew tired of the life planned for me and put the blade to my wrists that I might join my mother in the world beyond. There was blood--an excess of it-- but I did not die. I was not allowed the luxury. Thoughts within my thoughts pushed their essence through me, until there was no room for anything but life and destiny. Later they would tell me I had been in darkness for two days, though I never felt the passing of time. I was within time, present and past and future at one moment, and it was in that moment that the Other revealed how we became one.

His name is Charles. His life is mine, my life is his. Two consciousness wrapped around a single nexus-- which is my brain-- feeding from a single force-- which is my body. It is said this is a gift, and even my mother told me such. It is said this is my destiny, but on three days ago I found out it was something entirely different.

I confronted him with this fact.

/You lied to me. You lied when you told me what I am. I was not born to be this thing you have created./

(Do not be so rash in your accusations, my dear. You have my wisdom within you, but in some ways you are yet a child.)

/I am not a child, I have never been a child, not even when I was born. You made me an old man before I drew my breath./

(What is it you want from me?)

/The truth. You've hid it long enough/

A heavy sigh-- his, he assumed he had permission to commandeer of my lungs. A tingle at the base of my spine and a numbing of the legs accompanied the motion; familiar discomforts that arise every time he asserts his presence. There is a danger, here: the same power that stole his legs will steal mine if I allow him too much control.

(Very well. You will have the truth. But I will need full control.)

No hesitation; an X-man never hesitates. We are the sword of the people, we must be quick and sharp and forged of steel. That is his myth, but I will be the one to create a reality from it. This much I knew before I could walk. And he thought I would be afraid of a little paralysis.

I grinned at no one, flicked the smile across the edge of my teeth.

/Take it, then./

And then I could not move my legs.

---

Part I: Charles

At first, it hit us like wet cement thrown in the face--We are at war.

Our control, our protection, was not as complete as we thought it was. Perhaps it was never complete at all, but the illusion was complex enough to provide security and even allow for moments of happiness. After all, were we not the heroes? Did we not deserve the satisfaction of being right, the assurance of knowing who we were and where we stood?

It was never that easy; I realize this now but of course, it comes too late. I am an old man, even in your young body, and there are certain regrets which come with age.

Before we blinked, it all was gone. Or rather, changed, although we refused to recognize the difference. We spoke of duty to the Cause and the need for peaceful resistance. Martyrdom shimmered in the air like oil under heat, and we were foolish enough to think we were ready for it.

We pictured death and blood and glory: more blood than death, more glory than blood. We imagined we would stride out, heads held high, to meet the battle, we saw nothing but shining, clean-cut rows of truth, justice, and freedom. We lived or died by media fragments.

(....bill passed....all known mutants....co-existence versus containment)

But within a month, within two at the most, it was already rhetoric. We ceased to blister; we grew calluses instead: hard patches of accumulated dead skin and discarded idealism. The entire thing seemed surreal, and we almost believed it could have been Hollywood. Some grand special effects manipulation used to give a drowning president some breathing room; it'd been done before. Any moment some gold-plated producer would go public and blow the cover on the whole secret.

There was no war. Ha, ha, the joke's on us.

Such a revelation never came, although we waited. Never let it be said we were impatient with our denials. We had long acquired the arts of deception, certain subtleties used to silence all unwanted questions. It is no surprise, then, that we were shocked when the end hit us. An ambush, of course, an attack based not in the streets but in the genes.

Of course, you already know the name and nature of the pathogen. The end result is no different now than before-- death. Violent, painful, ugly, death. To be fair, we tried to fight this as well. All stops were pulled out; all our best doctors worked themselves ragged searching for a cure. This is where I will bring your mother into the story, that you may know the kind of woman she was before we changed her. Before she became us.

She was not effected by the virus; you may thank your father for this. His name was Logan-- in case you would like specifics-- and his healing abilities neutralized the pathogen's effect on his system. We gathered core samples of his genetic structure and attempted to synthesize some kind of inoculation against the virus. All our attempts to treat infected mutants with the vaccine failed. Miserably. Our people died around us and all we could do was wonder when we would be next. A matter of time, yes, perhaps as small as minutes.

Within three weeks, everyone left in the mansion was infected. Jean first, then Scott, then it spread like wildfire. It was simple-- we were dying, your father and mother were not. Logan's immunity protected him and he passed it to her through her skin.

(You will want to know if it hurt him; certainly it did. The first two times-- before he got her under control-- he died. Not for longer than five or ten minutes, but it was long enough to show us what we were dealing with.)

Not that we didn't know anyway.

You have no right to judge me until you have sat in my shoes and felt the suffering of watching your children die around you without any power to save them. I could not save the Cause. I could not even save myself; this was abundantly clear. There was, however, another option. A different sort of death.

Once, long before the virus, Marie had accidentally absorbed the complete consciousness of a mutant by the name of Carol Danvers. There was a battle inside your mother's mind; she eventually gained control of the personality and assumed full range of Danvers' powers. This presented me with a decision to make. If I surrendered myself and my children to your mother, something of the X-men would be preserved. We would still exist, not in the flesh, but our minds and powers would be preserved full strength in her mind.

It was salvation, you see, not just for us, but for everyone. If we were not there to fight, who would?

No one. You must understand this above all else.

It had to be done quickly, while those of us left alive were still strong enough for the procedure. Scott, Jean, Ororo, and myself all vowed to make the transfer. A tragic, justifiable sacrifice. What did we have to lose? We were dying anyway. We could not let the dream die with us.

Your parents, however, did not share the view. She refused, and at the time I did not fully understand why. The disease had compromised my mental powers until the workings of her mind were clouded to me, unclear. Insubstantial. No such problem with Logan. He made himself abundantly clear.

(No freakin' way. I'm not gonna stand by and let you gang-rape her mind just to save yer bloody Cause.)

Later, I would ask myself if we would have done the same thing had we known why they refused.

The answer is always yes. We were that desperate.

Jean immobilized him before he could get the claws out; Scott took him down with a well-aimed blast. Not enough to kill-- we weren't murderers-- but enough to remove any threat of his interference. I did not want Marie to hurt herself in the struggle; I bent her mind just enough to force her to the floor and keep her in place until Scott was ready. He took her first, being the leader, his hands pressed to her face, his weight straddling her stomach to prevent her from moving away. Jean was next; it was an established fact that she would not want to survive any longer without Scott than absolutely necessary. She used her powers to lock Marie into place, to silence the protests (by this time it was a whisper anyway)

Ororo stood in the corner and closed her eyes.

And we poured ourselves into her, one by one by one.

But this was not the worst. I did not realize what we had done until I myself touched her, until I felt my consciousness detach from my body and rush into hers.

She was not alone.

I found myself not inside Marie but inside a tiny, fragile consciousness within her. Your mind, child, but not a mind yet. Merely a blank space, waiting to be filled with the imprints of life, although this life was now threatened by the flood of foreign minds in your mother. Your sanity, if not your existence itself, would have been forfeit had I not intervened. I sheltered you from the others. I gave to you my complete essence, my Self, and begin from that moment to build in you a power so great that you would become the leader I had promised my people. You would win victory where the rest of us had met defeat. You would be my legacy, my legend. Our future.

And have I not been a valued guardian? You were born with secrets some men die without knowing; by the age of four you spoke as a grown woman, and by six your mutations blossomed into their full power. Your father left you with super healing and your mother left you with the ability both to absorb and discharge energy through your skin. You, my dear girl, were the key. The antidote to the virus that decimated our people. Your touch could dispatch healing energy into the bodies of the sick; your blood held the raw materials needed for a successful vaccine.

You are a girl of ten yet you are feared by humans and revered by mutants. You are acknowledge as a healer, as one who has sight beyond time. The militia leaders consult you before their battles. Thirteen death commandos surround you at all times, sworn to your life in blood. I have given you this. I have given you destiny, future, life.

And in return, I took your parents from you.

What else do you require of me? Further details? Answers? Justification?

You have read too many history books, or perhaps you have not read enough. You expect a pattern. A theory, a line flowing from A (which is declaration of a just war) straight to Z (inevitably victory.) The truth is never that simple.

Do not blame us for believing in a cause, for making sacrifices. You must understand....

They were killing my children. So yes, we were ruthless.

We had no choice.

---

I did not know whether to hate him or thank him.

I cannot say I loved my mother; it was impossible to know who exactly I was supposed to love- which one of the Others I was to call mother. By the time I was born, Marie herself had disappeared. She surfaced, on rare occasions, for hours or perhaps days and these scant times were enough to make me miss what I knew I would never have.

The Others, at least, tried to take her place. Scott taught me patience and military strategy. Jean whispered to me the secrets of beauty and the power of seduction. Carol taught me defiance and an intimate knowledge of heavy weaponry; Ororo gave me the ability to pick any lock and break into any facility. Charles stored the information for me; processed it, released it into my mind as he thought I needed it. The Others themselves passed down the secrets quickly, desperately, as if they sensed a running out of time.

Four years, precisely.

I woke up one morning to find my mother had left the compound, without a word to anyone. An unidentified soldier found her body two weeks later; it was obviously the virus. Whatever immunity my father had given to her had simply run its course. All I had left were the teachings of strangers (an odd form of inheritance) and a pair of old dog tags. She'd left the tags in an envelope for me. A last ditch effort, an attempt to prove to me she had once been someone. But who?

It brought me to several questions for Charles.

/Why didn't you allow me to foresee her death? I could have saved her from it./

(Your gifts were not yet strong enough; exerting them early would only have served to risk a strain on your mind I could not allow. You were only four at the time; we had to be careful that you did not reach too far.)

/Why didn't my father save her? If he loved her so much?/

(You will have to ask Logan that.)

/So he's alive?/

We took a deep breath.

(Yes.)

/I haven't felt him?/

(I have shielded you from it. I fear it would be painful for you, even now.)

/Why?/

(He is considered insane and is held in custody. He believes your mother is still alive, that he alone can see her and talk to her.)

/I talk to her and they don't make me out to be nuts./

(You are their Sayyadina. The Friend of God. You may say white is black and you will believe as long as you heal them of their disease.)

/I will search him out and ask why he did not save his Marie, the one he claimed to love so much. And if he let her die, I will kill him. And he is not the only one I would kill....if I had the chance.../

(Your thoughts are futile, Alia.)

/Tell me of my thoughts./

(To kill me would be to kill yourself.)

/What do you think I was doing with the knife?/

Silence.

---

I do not like this place. It has the death smell.

Despite the outer benevolence-- the blue and purple pansies lining the sidewalk, the smiles on the faces of the orderlies, the yellow striped wallpaper in the foyer-- there is a sickening oppression in the air. A darkness that is only accented by the whitewashed halls and scrubbed tile floors, as if the excess sterility is meant to be a gag pressed over the mouth of the patients. Hiding their screaming, only I am beyond its effects. Charles and I can hear their souls, feel every shudder and wince of fractured minds.

A certain taste comes to mind: wet, thick, rotted like old meat left in the rain. Slippery and pervasive.

"The Sayyadina is disturbed."

Feyd, the captain of my death guard-- twenty four years old, a fanatic and a killer and a pretty one at that-- moves his hand closer to the knife on his belt. The obvious weapon is a pretense, a deception of sorts. My Feyd needs no weapons; he can shatter objects with his voice. Mere words. This includes, among other things, human bone, which as you can imagine, comes in handy in a pinch. My distraction has put him on alert; I can sense the power riding the edge of his voice, a slight humming, like an electric charge has been activated. His eyes have darkened to total blue, an intense burning color that signals his mutation. The color suits him well; this pleases me.

"It is the aura of the place." I tell him. "There is no danger." "If my lady says so."

He agrees with me, of course, but I am not oblivious to his careful movement closer to my side. His hand falls next to mine, close enough for accidental meeting of fingertips if we swing our arms right. We take special care to do so. My beautiful Feyd. After my cycles come to me and make me a full woman, he will be the first I seek out. Or perhaps he will seek me; I have read his dreams, the desire is there. In his eyes, too, but bridled: Charles has promised them that the man who touches me before my time will die. He would use my skin against them, I know.

Perhaps he thinks he is protecting me, but I do not think it fair.

I have full knowledge of the ways of men with their women yet I sleep alone. At times, it is maddening. The worst is when we return to one of our compounds and the guard is given leave. I hold a degree of mental link with all of my men-- this allows oneness in battle and ultimate trust-- but I raise my shields when I sense the melting of their consciousness with their lovers. I could not deny them this even if I wanted to. They are all killers; killers need women frequently to maintain sanity. Charles taught me this. But Feyd is different. He does not seek out the women. He stands watch outside my door; sometimes he enters the room and stands over my bed when he thinks I am sleeping. His hands hover over my face, centimeters above my hands. Above my lips. Such delicate fingers, the fingers of a man who is good at close-quarter killing. Once, only once, he touched my hair.

I cut off the curl and tied it around my mother's dogtags underneath my shirt. Right against the skin.

Charles still does not approve.

(He is a common soldier, Alia.)

This is only the thousandth time he has reminded me.

(Good for fighting and dying, if it comes to that. Perhaps even as a diversion, when you are older, perhaps even a lover. But not a mate. You have a duty to marry into power, you must--)

/I know. Preserve the bloodline. Don't lecture me on duty. I will love whomever I please./

(Your mother said that about your father once. Look where it got him.)

/My mother didn't send him here; you did. You killed them both when you raped her mind./

I end the conversation when we arrive at the administrator's office.

Feyd halts with a tap on the wrist; our secret code-- the signal for caution. He told me once that the first step to evading a trap is knowing that there is one. This is the reason the rest of my commandos are spread throughout the building, on his orders. Establishing a presence, creating knowledge of any possible danger. But if this is a trap, I pity the man behind the door. I have seen my Feyd kill before; it is pleasant only for him.

He knocks.

"Come in."

Feyd pushes the door open and I see a fat man in a white lab coat seated behind an oak desk. The nametag on his lapel reads Dr. J.R. Sebastian. His aura screams parasite. His pig-like eyes sweep me from head to toe in a mix of curiosity and something darker, but his words are addressed to Feyd. "If she's a patient, the children's office is down the hall--"

"I am no patient, old man." I spit the words at him, and wish for the twentieth time this morning that I was not trapped in the body of a ten year old child. "I am here to visit a man called Logan."

Dr. Parasite chuckles. His eyes crawl over me again, and I sense a thick gloating, a hunger, behind the stare. Repulsive. The good doctor best be careful; the stare is not unnoticed and Feyd's eyes only turn that color of blue when he desires to kill a man. The muscles in his knife hand quiver.

"My dear child," the doctor says, the fat tongue flicking over his dry lips as he paused. "I doubt very much a pretty little girl like you would enjoy his company--"

"Hold your tongue, fool." A growl; Feyd steps forward. The blue in his eyes crackles, the humming behind his voice increases until the objects on the desk begin to shake. "She is not a child. She is the Sayyadina, and you will do as she commands."

Sebastian resembles a bloated fish; his skin has gone rubbery white, his mouth gaping. Sweat beading up along the thinning hairline..

I am amused. Make him afraid some more, Feyd...

(A leader does not delight in the misery of others.)

C'mon, Charlie, do you always have to ruin the fun?

/Thank you so much, Jimeny Cricket./

"I am here to see the patient called Logan. I do not wish to wait anymore."

I draw myself up to full height, remembering Jean's lessons on the presence of a woman. You must combine seduction with untouchable mystery and hold these attributes in tension so long as the powers of youth endure. Feyd watches out of the corner of his eye as I shift my body into position. A hidden smile rides the lines of his jaw.

By the Goddess, I wish I had fullness of body instead of mere fullness of mind.

(Distraction, Alia!!)

Charles's voice gouges into the thought.

(Focus on the doctor, open his mind. Command him! Never let your men do for you what you can do yourself.)

I obey, grudgingly. The parasite's mind is grubby and flaccid, a sensation of wading through semi-solid grease.

I will need a shower after we leave. Several, in fact.

"Take me to him now."

The doctor fidgets with his coat buttons. "My lady...ahhmmmm.... you cannot....ahmm...speak to him." "Why not?" Increase the edge, fight the urge to laugh when he flinches.

I doubt he'll call me a little girl again...

"He is...ahhm...is sedated, my Lady....ummmm...quite heavily."

"Why?"

"Delusions, he...ahh...thought we were the...mmmm...enemy. Claimed, ah, claimed, ah, we had his...umm...mate. Killed t-ten of my...ahmmm.. best men...before subdued."

"Take me to him anyway."

"My lady?"

"Now!"

He jumps, rolls of fat quivering, and reaches for the telephone to call an escort.

Charles is pleased.

(Well done, my dear. You manipulated his fear quite skillfully.)

For a moment, I wonder why this makes us proud.

"Do you wish me to accompany you?"

Feyd lingers between me and the door, his eyes hovering on mine, twitching occasionally to glare at the orderlies standing to the side.

"No. I will go alone."

"At least allow me to scan the room."

"I already have. Only one consciousness, asleep."

"If he is the danger they say--"

"He is in a coma."

"Those can be faked."

"I'd know the difference."

He shakes his head.

"Sayyadina--"

"Wait for me, Feyd." I murmur, already moving past him to the door.

Room 428.

My father.

At first, stepping into the room is like stepping into a vacuum. I feel nothing from the man on the bed.

Not a jolt, a whisper, not even a flicker of life. The machines beside the bed register normal breathing and pulse, but his mind is dead.

(Extend yourself, Sayyadina. Push deeper.)

No, it is not death. It is something worse, a milky white haze of drugs and confusion smothering his consciousness. My eyes fly to his arms. Metal cuffs bind the wrists to the bed; two thin tubes pump clear fluid into the veins. They are choking him with their cursed medications...I feel it now, within me as well. A deep, terrifying coldness starts to spread through the back of my mind, numbing the thoughts....I can't breathe...can't...

Charles!!!

(Push through it, Alia. Push!)

The mist dissipates, suddenly, I am standing barefoot in fire. Smoldering fear, white-hot anger, ashen grief. Coals under the skin. Goddess, don't they know what they are doing to him? Their restraints. Their needles. Their drugs. I see the past memories, oh, dear Goddess. No.

Then it all is simply gone. Charles has activated our shields.

I lean back against the wall; my mouth cotton dry, my fingers quivering in exhaustion and anger. How dare they hurt my father in such fashion...how dare they. My Feyd will kill the doctor for this, he will use the Voice and--

(Revenge clouds the mind. Focus on the mission. You only have a short amount of time to open his mind and find the memories.)

But I can't fight through all that mist and pain and chaos...

(You will not have to. I will bridge your minds; you will enter his consciousness as a friend, wrapped in a memory of comfort and safety. He will come to you.)

I walk over to the bed and for the first time look my father in the face. He is too young to be so old. There are no wrinkles, no scars, not even a hint of gray in the beard stubble across his cheeks.

This is disconcerting. I expected age, some deference to the passage of time. Yet he is no different from the day he first met my mother. He will be no different when my daughters have daughters.

But yes, he is old. Ancient even. Even in this forced sleep, there is that restlessness: twitching of the eyelids, spasm of the muscles. He searches for someone. My mother.

(Hurry, Alia. We are losing time. The others will be back soon.)

Losing time. Tell me, has anyone ever saved time? Locked it up somewhere for safekeeping? Where would I put it? A jar, perhaps. Around the dogtags?

I sit down beside the bed and pull off the glove on my right hand. Gloves and scarves are a habit I picked up from Marie, although I can control my skin far better than she ever did. For me it is an intended eccentricity, a subtle mystery that fits well the persona of the Sayyadina. But the girl behind the healer simply likes the security they give me; the sense of basic protection. Like invisible hands rest over mine at all times.

My bare fingers trace a path down his arms (the muscles hard, the steel bones rigid; women desired him and I know why) over the hatred restraints. Down to his hand. Palm to palm.

One deep breath.

/I am ready./

Flying, no falling, into a light. A blinding storm of white fragmented with explosions of color and patches of sound. Then it all solidifies.

A cabin, surrounded by miles of pine forest and snowdrifts. A curl of blue smoke against a gray sky; impression of safety, warmth, love, but also of aching. A girl-woman stands on the porch, beautiful in the strange way that inspires abstract art. Her hands are gloved; a thick, multi-colored scarf is wrapped around her neck. Protection against the cold, but not only the cold. Two long white streaks in her dark hair, an awareness about her that makes her eyes almost as weary as mine.

My mother.

When I open my eyes, I am inside her, looking at the memory through her eyes. This is the shape Charles has given me; he knows Logan can never refuse her. But if that is true, where is he?

Wait, I see him now. Coming out of the shadows of the trees, a dusting of snow on his shoulders, in his hair. He moves slowly, cautiously, and from the way he cocks his head into the wind, he is smelling for something.

Me. Or her. Fine.... *us*.

He catches our scent and his head whips in our direction. Utter shock blanches his face, a pinched disbelief but also a joy. He begins to run; before I can blink twice he is climbing the steps of the porch. Staring us full in the face (an oddly disquieting burn, those eyes) and asking us if we are real.

"Logan."

He falls on his knees before us, arms clutching our waist, head buried against our stomach. A jumble of words.

"I knew you'd come back, baby. Knew you wouldn't leave me forever, they couldn't take you that long, I knew and baby I'm never gonna leave never gonna, God I love you, darlin' missed you so much so much..."

A flash of guilt. He says this to her, not me. I have no right to steal his memory of her for my own use. But I have to know what happened between them and she is the only one he will tell.

"I'm dead." I (not Marie) tell him, pulling back to look him in the face.

He looks as if we gutted him.

"I know, baby. I'm so sorry."

"Why didn't you save me?"

He flinches, grabs our hand and pulls it to his face. "I tried, God, I tried, but you wouldn't let me. You wouldn't let me stop any of it and then it was too late and--"

"Prove it"

"Baby?"

"Prove you did all you could. Take me inside the memories and let me watch."

He kisses our palm through the glove. "Whatever you need, darlin'. I'll show you whatever you need."

Now I can see why she fell in love with him. Why she never told me of him; it was killing her, you see. The knowledge that she had to leave him behind.

But enough of my story.

I wish to hear his.

---

Part Two: Logan

He stands outside the door, grocery bags in hand. Catching her scent. Burnt flesh, fresh blood, cigarette smoke.

It will be a day for razor blades and whiskey.

There are other scents, variations on a common theme. The hallway stinks of old beer, old urine, old pot. Everything aged, rotted, even the air: dead, decaying from too long without sun. (No one opens windows in this kind of place.) Even the colors: avocado green carpet, yellow stains on the walls, a vomit-orange bedspread.

He steps into the room, brings his eyes up to study the woman. Appraise the recent damages.

His first thoughts are always the same-- young, too young, although this has been a lie for sometime. The little paradoxes confuse him-- for example, the clothes she is wearing. A white cotton tank top, molded to the contour of the ribs; she has yet to show evidence of the child supposedly ripening underneath the skin. Jeans, dark blue, too baggy. She's still trying to hide something even though there's no point. Bare feet, the toenails painted dark green. Matching the fingernails perfectly-- it's a concern at that age.

Young, too young.

The rest of the picture contradicts this--

She hovers in the air above the bed, stretched out in a lazy reclining position amid a thin gray cloud of smoke. A half-finished cigarette held defiantly between two fingers. Desperation in the eyes; he knows why even without looking at her arms. He tries to avoid this as long as possible; it turns his stomach every time.

There will be burns: small, circular, from the cigarette, no doubt; if she used the lighter they would be long and thin. There will be blood: delicate lines of crimson breaking through the surface of her skin. No particular pattern, today, although she has been known to carve her initials. Or worse, his. An identification, she says. In case I forget who we are.

He's stopped hiding the razor blades; she finds them anyway. She's learning to manipulate the telepath in her.

He drops the groceries by the door. His voice is weary; it reveals that this is routine.

"Thought we talked about this, darlin."

"What?"

"You wanna cut something, you wanna burn something, you come to me."

He shrugs off his jacket, jerks his shirtsleeve up to his elbow.

"Right here. C'mon."

"We tried that in Philly, sugah. Didn't work, remember?"

Hiss of smoke through the lips, thin and curved like a bird's claw.

"There has to be another way."

"Nope. I gotta keep 'em under control. They get impatient when it's their turn for me. This reminds 'em that I'm still in control until the last minute. We still have--"

She twists her head back to see the clock.

"Fifteen minutes."

"You don't have to do this, baby. You can refuse."

"And go insane? You know the deal. I've told you. Charles promised to help keep them out of Alia and they promised to behave in my mind if I share control. Every other week. That's the way it breaks down, like it or not."

He does not accept defeat so easily; merely changes tactics. Shrugs his jacket off, eyes her cigarette.

"That really the best thing to be doin' right now? With the kid in ya and all?"

"Sure it is. Charles tells me she's got your healing. I could shoot us full of crack and hard whiskey and she'd just laugh and keep on coming."

"You talk like she's a tumor."

"According to some medical textbooks, she is."

"You believe everything you read, now?"

"Nope."

A pause, then a knife-edged grin. Sharp and fierce and gleaming like steel.

"Don't worry, sugah. She likes it when I smoke. Says it makes Charles mad."

"What if this hurts her? Having that bald freak in her head?"

"Not like I had a choice, was it?"

She delivers the words with the graceful devastation of a whiplash; they make no sound at all until they cut into his face. He flinches. She sees it, softens.

"He says she's fine."

"Do you believe him?"

"Yes."

More silence; it seems to be the vogue between them. He fishes a cigar out of his coat pocket with the intensity of a man who is trying to avoid a question. But, he can't find matches and this puts quick end to the charade.

"Whose turn is it?"

"Jean."

Her grin widens, sharpens. He notices know that the lips are smeared with deep purple. A color like a stain. Borderline tacky; Jean will hate it. This is probably the point.

"You seem to like her best."

"You know I don't want her, baby. I want you."

"You've got ten minutes--"

Her face twists, suddenly, her body contorts as if she is stabbed from behind. A knife thrust in the spine. Her arms shake; loose objects on the floor begin to vibrate and lift slowly off the ground. A change in the voice-- it is thicker, dripping from the lips.

"Come and get some, lover, I know you want a real woman instead of your little girl whore--"

Marie screams.

"Get back, you SLUT! I have ten left! Ten freakin' minutes and GET BACK OR I SWEAR--"

Actions speak louder than words.

She presses the glowing end of the cigarette against her neck, underneath the collarbone. Once. Twice. Third time's the charm--the chairs and grocery bags drop back to the carpet; her body falls back to the bed.

He's there before she can hit the mattress. Thin leather gloves on his hands; he couldn't have put them on that fast so it must mean he wears them all the time, now. Arms around her, holding her still. Another paradox-- the roughness of his voice measured against the gentleness of the embrace. Hands on either side of her face, running through her hair, a gesture of love but also of desperation.

They are running out of time.

"I'd kill them, baby. Every single one of the freaks, I'd kill them if they weren't already dead."

"Go ahead, sugah."

She pulls his hand to her chest, directly over her heart. His knuckles flat against the breastbone. Her eyes burning through the slits of her eyelids.

"Do it. Pop the claws. Make it quick."

He jerks his hand away.

"Not as long as you're still in there. Not as long as the kid--"

"What kind of life do you think they've got planned for her? What kind of life do you think I'm going to have?"

"We'll find a way, Marie. We will."

Now he's pulling her back against his chest, leaning back on the bed. Arms sliding down to her waist, protection or possession or both.

"It isn't going to work."

A crack in the defenses; her voice edges tears.

"Yes. Yes it is."

"I'm fading, baby, in case you haven't noticed. Every day they take more pieces. I can't even remember my favorite color. I've tried all morning but I can't and they won't tell me--"

"Red."

"Red?"

"Yeah, darlin. Smooth, thick, red, like the color of wine at some fancy restaurant."

Her hands move to cover his.

"Thanks."

"It doesn't matter, you know."

"What doesn't?"

"The color. You look good in everything."

She almost smiles. It's that almost that breaks him, every time.

"One day it'll all be gone. I'll wake up and I'm not even going to remember what you said to me the first time we met."

"I said I wouldn't hurt you."

"I believed it."

"If I could've stopped them I would have done anything--"

"I know. I never doubted it."

He kisses the crown of her head; her face is softer now, less metal and more like wax or snow. Melting on the edges, from heat. In stray moments like this, she retains the look of the girl he fell in love with. Pliable, innocent, pretty enough without forcing it into stark beauty.

That's how he thinks of her now-- stark, beautiful. The two words go together, despite appearances. Think of it as the forging of metal into a sword. Everything unnecessary is beaten away, cut off, until only a gleaming core remains. That is what she is now. Burnt down, hardened on the edges. The beauty is increased but it's impossible to look at it directly. There's a shining, like radiation. She'll burn your retinas.

She speaks.

"You still love me?"

"Don't know how not to."

She will know he's telling the truth just by the tone; simple and fierce. As is the tightening of his arms around her.

"Then promise me something."

"What?"

"Promise me that after the kid comes, whenever I disappear completely, you'll finish off the rest of them for me."

Horror in his eyes; she tried to phrase it delicately but he sees through the facade.

"No, baby, I can't--"

"Promise. Me."

She's twisted in his arms, now, her eyes are dead level with his. Hands on either side of his face, touching him through the sideburns. A blessing or a threat, from this angle it's hard to tell which. Although it can't be a threat-- there is no need. He is looking in her eyes, he is seeing the pain, he is powerless.

He pushes her back onto the bed in a kiss-- bare mouth to her bare mouth-- tears sliding down the side of his face where she can't see.

"I promise."

That is all he has time to say; he falls to the bed, limp. Dead weight, they would say, as if they were hauling a body from the sea. And in a way, he has drowned, only not in water. But this is acceptable.

It is a basic understanding that he is not expected to stand around and watch her disappear. He is allowed to retreat, or at least to be wounded in battle, while she is forced into the necessity of surrender. Without negotiation or terms.

No mercy will be given, but then neither is it required.

---

I have recounted this memory in length because it is the nexus. Everything hinges on it; rising or falling. More falling than rising.

Everything after can be relegated to abbreviation, simply for sake of the time. More cigarette burns and razor blades, but no scars. He will not allow it to go that far, which is understandable. He is the type to think he is doing something to protect, even if it is futile. Especially if it is futile. Her deterioration continues, subtle yet profound. Her descent into oblivion is many things but gaudy is not one of them. She has more dignity than that, even though there are two suicide attempts. And, towards the end, a last minute panic involving a bathtub of boiling water and a pint of gin. She'd read the trashy magazines, heard it was a way to kill things growing inside. She wants to save me from Charles; too bad he had already made me too strong for such devices.

I am born anyway. Scrawny, red, not crying, but they knew before hand I was not to be normal. They accept it; what other choice?

Three weeks later, she asks him to make good on his promise. Things are much worse now; she can't hold on any more. She remembers very little, soon it will be nothing at all. She asks him to kill her. He refuses. He's strong, but not that strong.

So she ties me on her back, shoves a wad of money into her bra, and leaves him.

Of course, he tries to follow. This is when the Others take over. They tell him that if he tries to interfere, they will block all of his memory from her mind and from the mind of his child. If he lets her go, they will leave her with enough memory to know she loved him once. They will tell me who he is.

(Lies, all of it. She remembered just enough to drive her insane and I was told nothing at all other than a name. Logan. My father. They said it like they were describing an unfortunate disease I once contracted but was now cured from.)

The rest is literally history; he does not have to be close to her to hear the rumors. She is Leader of the Resistance, mother of the Sayyadina, the child who heals. Four years pass. She disappears, but of course he knows how to find her. It's an instinct.

He is the "unidentified soldier" who finds the body.

Of course, no one felt the need to tell me he got there minutes too late to heal her. That he would not leave, that he broke, that he went insane. After all, I was the grieving loved one. What good would it do to let me know that a maniac had cried over my mother's corpse?

Charles suspected, but of course he kept silence.

I am young but one day I will be strong enough to be a threat. He anticipated, took precautions. As usual.

I did not understand, at first, why she left when she knew it would kill both of them. Or, rather, finish killing them. They had been dying for some time, if not in the physical sense of the word. Then I stumbled on one last memory, or rather a fragment.

He found a scrap of paper, tucked in a drawer with her personal effects-- a half-smoked pack of cigarettes, melted lipstick, cracked nail polish bottles. (Toward the end everything fell into a disarray, this is even evident in the handwriting. Jagged, scrawled, as if in blood.)

Westchester, no.Charles,no.No.No. Scott, Jean, Ororo. Please.No. Philadelphia. Burning. Keep Back. No. Miami, no, no, no.Jean, no.Logan.Please.Help. Nashville.Pain.Baby growing into what?.Ororo,nonono. Dallas.No,Scott,please. Burning. Razors. No use. Tijuana. Last stand. Boiling water, gin, forgive us now and in the hour of our deaths. Logan luvs Marie. Seattle. Baby. Marie. Drowned.

This is why my father could not be with her in the end; this is why she could not allow him to watch, or even to understand. For her, he belonged in another world. An alternate dimension of time.

---

To my face, I am called Alia. Among the others, I am known as Alia of the Knife.

This has not been my story, not all of it, but the ending must be mine. As is the choice. Continue with the life planned for me--the glory, the agony, the sainthood or martyrdom, depending on which way the coin flips. Or, rebel. Revolt, unravel the work of the people who destroyed my parents. Feyd and I could disappear, into Mexico, or further south, stopping at last in a village that stinks of goat droppings and corn whiskey, where no one asked questions. He could work in the fields to bring money and I could bear him sons, strong ones...

But this will not happen. There really is no choice.

I was born to live this life just as my parents were born to love. I can give them nothing except one last gift. The gift of forgetting.

/I want to take it from him, Charles./

(Take what?)

/All of it. The pain, the grief. The memories. I want to erase them. He will wake up and he will not know she existed. Never know she is gone./

(Do you want to bring him back that much?)

/Yes./

Charles must not argue; doesn't he feel the burning in my chest? The tears in my eyes? He must understand that this is not for me, or not only for me. The man on the bed before me cannot live with the memory of my mother. And I want him to live.

Forgive me, Marie, but I love him too.

(I will help you on one condition. You will no longer fight against your destiny. You will accept your future as a leader and you will carry out my dream.)

/Consider it done. I will become your myth. The Sayyadina, the Friend of God, although we both know that God is nowhere in this picture, at least not where we are concerned. I will win your dream before I see fourteen years. And in return you will erase everything that happened after he met Marie./

I will tell the doctors that the records are to be burned. They will tell him that he was found wounded on the battlefield, without memory, and brought here for care. He will believe them. Kindness and cruelty were never far apart in our line of work.

(I will need control.)

/Then take it and get on with things, old man./

The tingling comes, the paralysis, and I withdraw into a corner of my mind to watch Charles work. Truly, the skill of a master. I am yet in awe. It is over and done in a matter of minutes.

Or perhaps, not over. Not done, completely. I linger, within my father's mind (now dark, blank, empty). It strikes me now that I am truly no longer a child. A child must have a father and a mother and I have neither.

But wait. I cannot condemn him to this darkness. This hollow space. Not without some hope, a shred, a glimmer of light. I cannot let him remember but I do not have the heart to let him totally forget.

An idea springs to mind.

(No, Alia. It is too dangerous.)

/I will be careful. He will never know. This is my deal, remember. You do what I want./

A sigh.

(Very well.)

And I conjure the picture into our mind and he inserts it into Logan's. One final scene. A brushstroke, a coda.

An absolution, the only one either of us will ever receive.

---

Part Three: Alia

In his memory, I am invisible. I do not exist, I was never created.

In this world I cannot have flesh and bone. I am merely allowed eyes, one brief glimpse of my handiwork.

The sign above the bar says Laughlin City, although I am compelled to laugh. This place wouldn't even qualify for a small town. But it's warm and the beer's good and the fighting is the best this side of the border, and that's what brings the customers back for more.

Tonight's attraction, a handsome, brutal fighter by the name of Wolverine. Likes his cigars Cuban, his women blonde, his tequila straight. Everyone is willing to pay good money to see him go down hard; something in the eyes irks them. A mocking defiance but also an irony. As if he sees their entire lives in a glance, and sums it up as something he'd never want to live.

He wins, of course. Special talents, believe me, I'd know. Like daughter, like father. He drags it out just long enough for it to be fair, but this only makes them hate him more. They don't like the notion they're being toyed with.

I find it cute.

He collects their money at the bar, a wad of bills shoved into a hidden jacket of the coat. Orders up a whiskey, although without the usual blonde. Tonight he's not in the mood. He's feeling pensive, which is unusual. He's asking himself what he would do if he fell in love instead of lust, for once.

The dusty jukebox in the corner adds to the mood.

(I wanna dance with you....I see a world where people live and die with grace....the karmic ocean dried up and left no trace.)

He snorts, swallows another shot in one gulp. No one lives and dies with grace, and whatever karma is he doesn't much care for anything to do with it.

He zips up the coat, heads for the door. Only he's caught, mid-step. An unexpected collision of eyes, unexpected because they are so unlike any eyes he would imagine in this place. Soft, brown, innocent.

They belong to a girl sitting in the far corner, by the jukebox, wrapped up in a coat and scarf and gloves. She's not beautiful yet, but she will be. He can see it in the lines of her face.

She smiles. It catches him off guard; he returns it without thinking, even while he is wondering what she wants. His money, his whiskey, his pants? All three?

No, she's not like this.

She looks like the kind of girl who would smile just to see it land on someone else's face. He remembers his question of love, and then imagines that if he was going to risk it, it would only be for someone like her.

Someone who threw random smile across crowded rooms.

The jukebox winds down its song, slow, soft. He hasn't yet found the ability to break her gaze.

(I wanna dance with you.....I see a sky full of the stars that change our minds and lead us back to a world we would not face...we would not face...we would not face....)

The music disappears, cut off into the next request, a heavy guitar number that grates on his nerves.

By this time, she has turned away, or he has turned away, or both of them at once. It's dark in the room, it's hard to tell.

He fishes his cigar out of his pocket, strikes the match on his jeans, walks out the door.

There is the passing notion that he has seen her somewhere before, that he remembers her from something insubstantial like a dream or a past life, if he believed in that sort of thing. Which he doesn't.

But I make sure he knows her name is Marie.