It started to rain. Again. He hunched his shoulders and shoved his hands in to his pockets. Lowered his head and stole a glimpse from the girl that was trudging alongside him through the deserted city. She was shivering. They’d have to find a shelter soon. He had already given her his jacket several hours ago when first drops of rain had fallen.

“Holding up there, kid?” He asked. She jolted as if he had slapped her instead, and for a moment her eyes darted wildly back and forth, as if she had just woken up. Then her feverish gaze landed on him.
“Just peachy…” She huffed, then a fit of coughs nearly toppled her over and they had to stop so that she could support herself against a signpost.
“Come on. It says no parking here,” he grunted and nudged her shoulder. She let out a watery chuckle.
“You know… Your jokes really suck…” She muttered, spat on the sidewalk and for a moment looked as if she was going to collapse right then and there.
“You didn’t tag along because of my dazzling sense of comedy.”
“I guess not…” She hissed.

For a while they walked in silence. Storm was gathering more power, and rain was coming down in turn water and in turn half frozen slush of ice and snow.
“What does your sniffer say about that one?” The girl asked, pointing towards rather classy looking hotel. Waldorf Astoria was written above the grand entrance with tall, decorative golden letters.
“I don’t care what my sniffer has to say. We have to get you someplace warm and dry before you get pneumonia or something…”

The lobby was wide and spacious. Place looked like a royal palace. Chandeliers hanging from arched ceilings, gold and velvet coating every surface that wasn’t polished, dark wood. Floors were covered with thick, plush carpets and on some areas left bare to reveal pristine, gleaming marble.
“It doesn’t smell bad in here. But we better be careful still. Stay close,” he said and urged the girl towards wide set of stairs at the south end of the lobby. She threw a longing glance towards a row of elevators on the opposite wall.
“Death traps. This place has been deserted probably from the beginning. There’s no way we’re getting in to them…” He grunted. Then crouched slightly and scooped the girl up on his arms. She squeaked from surprise.
“I’ll carry you over the threshold, darling, but don’t go expecting anything because of it.”
“Regular joker strikes again…”
“That’s mister Regular joker to you, missy.”

He had to stop at the fifth floor to take a breather. The girl weighed next to nothing, but her weigh added with the weight of the metal coating his bones and coupled with the fact that he had last slept and eaten almost a week ago we’re almost big enough reason to bring him to his knees. He laid the girl on to a conveniently placed couch that stood on the corridor, and sat on the floor, leaning his back against the wall and closed his eyes, trying to steady his breathing.

“Where are we going anyway? To the moon?” The girl asked.
“Can’t get that far… Seventeenth floor is as high as we can get…”
“But why there? At this moment I’d settle for maid’s closet, you don’t have to haul me to a suite or…”
“I’m sure we can find a suitable closet for you from the top floor… But I want to get as high as possible. We might have to stay here for a while. At least until you get better. The less we leave traces of ourselves to the lower floors, the less chance we have to bump in to disturbance.”
“Oh.”

Disturbance was just fancy way of saying that he preferred her company over any other potential survivor. Most likely because everybody else he had encountered so far had been in constant state shock or in some other way messed up from the head. She was just hungry and sick.

“Home, suite home!” He huffed and kicked open a door revealing a lavishly furnished living room. She could feel his muscles trembling from the strain.
“You can put me down already,” she said. He let her feet slide to the floor and made sure that she was able to stand on her own before he let go of her.
“Do you think you can manage on your own for a while?” He asked.
“Why? Are you leaving?” She asked worried.
“I’m going to raid the kitchen. Can’t promise you anything fresh, but I’m sure they have tons of canned and dried food. And I was going to try and see if I can find the pharmacist. We have to get some decent meds in to you before that flu turns in to something real nasty.”

She flopped on to a couch. Rain was pelting against the window behind green velvet curtains. Logan had left after he had made sure that she locked the door behind him. He would have smelled if anybody else was up here, but it was better to play safely than end up dead just because you were too lazy or careless. Or end up even in to something worse than to the hands of a murderer. She shivered when events of the past two weeks finally started to dig in.

It had been a perfectly normal day. Warm weather, sun was shining and birds were chirping, and she had been trying to decide whether she should go to the beach with the rest of the students. After all it had been the first day of summer holiday. And first time she could follow the other kids to the activities that included bare skin. She was a mutant. From her birth her skin had been lethal to touch. Her mother had nearly died giving birth to her. Needless to say, her parent’s had put her up for adoption quickly after it became apparent that her poisonous skin wasn’t some minor complication that could have been corrected with western medicine. Professor Xavier, known mutant and spokesperson of his kind had adopted her and raised her as his daughter. Actually she had been everybody’s daughter. Xavier had been the headmaster of a school meant for mutants and every teacher and student had treated her as part of their rather extended family from the first day to that last, awful night.

She closed her eyes. The professor. Scott. Jean. Ororo. Beast. Kurt. All gone. Gone just like ninety nine percent of the world’s population.

After it was over and all that were left were abandoned buildings and empty roads she had gathered what little she could carry. She had been planning to go and see if there was anybody else left. She hadn’t gotten far when first of the survivors had found her. They had taken her belongings. She had managed to escape with her life only because the group of five men and few women had been too busy fighting over her suitcase to pay any attention to her.

Next group she had encountered had been perhaps even worse. A family. A mother, two children, and a father who guarded his loved ones with a shotgun, threatening to shoot her if she got too close of them. They were sane, but afraid that she might be one of the insane ones. She had left before the father lost his patience.

At the end of that day she had been tired and lost. At the end of the second day she was starving for real food. And at the end of the first week she had been weak as a new born kitten, ready to topple over from the smallest gush of wind, when two men had ambushed her. They would have probably either raped or eaten her if the luck hadn’t been on her side.

First she was been getting mauled by heavy ox of a man that smelled of sweat, dirt and cheap liquor, man’s hands tearing her clothes and his teeth lodged deeply in to her shoulder, his breath fanning over her neck with raspy murmur. Then men, the one on top of her and the other that had been holding her legs were gone, and Logan had been standing there, full moon behind his back casting something akin of a silvery halo around him. Logan. Or Wolverine. Of course she had seen him several times before; he was a regular guest at Xavier’s because of his position as an X-man. Most of the kids had been afraid of him. Most of the older girls had had a crush on him. And she?

She really didn’t know what to think of him.

She had fallen asleep when knock on the door woke her. For a moment she didn’t remember where she was. Then it all came rushing back. She rose to her wobbly feet.
“Who’s there?” She shouted through the door.
“Room service. Open the door, kid.” She sighed from relief when Logan’s voice came through and hurried to open the door. He was standing in the corridor next to something that looked like an extremely large kettle. It was huge. And filled to the brim with various items he had collected.
“Move. I need to get this inside,” Logan said, grabbing the brim of the large metal container and started to drag it along the floor.

“You didn’t carry that from downstairs!”
“I didn’t. Pushed it in to the elevator and took the stairs myself. At least we know now that they’re working. We have to barricade that door…” Logan grunted when the container stood in the middle of the suite. He walked to the door, closed and locked it. Then dragged a heavy drawer in front of it.
“That should hold for a while if anybody tries to get in.”

She was already delving in to the container. Food, clothes, medicine, booze, cigars… It was a regular treasure chest. And Logan tsked, grabbed her shoulders and steered her back to the sofa. Then he started emptying the container, strengthening the improvised barrier in front of the door with canned food and various other items. When the container was empty he dragged it in front of the fireplace.
“What are you planning to do now?” She asked.
“I don’t know about you, but I could really use a bath.”
“Uh… I’m quite sure that a suite of this size has a bathroom for that…”
“And cold water. I’m going to light a fire and warm the water in this,” Logan said, clapping the side of the container with his palm. It let out a hollow echo.
“What is it?” She asked.
“A kettle. Found it from the kitchen. I think they used to cook potatoes in it. You’ll probably fit in there just fine. I’ll warm enough water for both this and to the bathtub. You can soak in here. When this is next to the fire the water will stay warm longer.”

She had already fallen asleep again when Logan woke her up. Fire was crackling in the fireplace, and dance of the flames reflected from the shiny surface of the kettle.
“There’s soap and shampoo on the mantel. I brought you a towel, nightgown and a bathrobe. Do you need anything else?” Logan asked. She shook her head.
“Fine. I’ll be in the bathroom. If you need anything just give me a shout.”

She started to undress when Logan suddenly opened the bathroom door.
“Don’t need anything for the next half an hour. Okay, kid?”
“I won’t. Enjoy your bath.”

He certainly was going to enjoy. For her this all had started mere two weeks ago. He had been living this nightmare for the past six months already, searching for clues, grasping straws, trying desperately to undo what had been done. In the end he and Xavier both had had to face the facts. World was ending and there was exactly jack shit they could do to prevent it.

He peeled off his tattered and soaked clothes and threw them on the floor. Then, after brief consideration he pushed the door of the bathroom slightly open and kicked the reeking pile of cotton and denim out before closing the door again and stepping in to the tub.

He lowered himself in to the water carefully, groaning from the relief when the water that he had left nearly boiling started to work on his bunched and knotted muscles, opened miniscule clotted up veins and relaxed tendons and joints. It felt entirely too good, and after a moment he was almost asleep, his head resting against the brim of the tub. He hooked his hands over the brim as well to prevent him from drowning and let his eyes slide shut. He could afford a brief nap.

His mind drifted off to the girl that was currently bathing in the living room. Like a giant potato in that fucking kettle, he noted slightly amused. Marie. Or Rogue like everybody else at the Xavier’s had used to call her. He had a vague memory of her from several years past. Small girl, not much older than two years, and Xavier had been calling her his daughter. Marie had been staring at him with bright, brown eyes from behind her ‘father’s’ wheelchair until Ororo had stormed in and snatched her, admonishing her gently because she wasn’t supposed to be with her daddy when her daddy had important visitors.

What were the odds that she had survived when everybody else from around her had disappeared and perished? From slim to none. Her survival only had raised his interest, and now that it started to look like she’d beat a bug that had been grown in a lab somewhere, intended to erase the mutant race from earth like it was just a common flu, he was definitely interested.

Bugs. Disappearing population. End of the world. Day after day rain and shit and ice and snow. He started to drift off, sliding lower in the tub until his nose was only barely above the surface, his jaw resting against his chest.

He was asleep.

For an entire five minutes he was blessedly unaware of everything and anything around him. Then his head drooped lower and he snorted a great deal of water in to his lungs, and the world returned when he bolted up, coughing and gagging. And there was a knock on the door.
“Half an hour over already?” He asked.
“Two hours already. Did you drown in there or something?” Marie asked without opening the door.
“Nope… No such luck.” Two hours? He had been more tired than he thought was possible. No wonder the previously warm water actually felt cold now. No wonder his fingers and toes were all wrinkled. He grabbed a bar of soap and washed himself, then rinsed off quickly and wrapped a fluffy bathrobe over his shoulders. Fluffy and pink. But it was miles better than the clothes he had worn earlier. The clothes he had worn for the past month in fact. He’d have to burn them. There was no way in hell he’d be putting them back on, not even if he had lye where to soak them a bit before.

“Are you decent out there?” He asked before opening the door. He heard Marie giggling. Well, that was a good sign.
“As decent as I can be… I found the chocolate. Thank you.”
“And I trust you found your meds as well?” He asked, stepping in to the room.
“Found them. Took one, then ate some bread and… Uh, I think it was canned ham… Before I started stuffing myself with candy.”

She was sitting on the sofa, a huge box of chocolates balanced over her thighs, another already empty box at her feet and her lips smeared with chocolate. There was a small smudge of it on the tip of her nose as well. She was high from the sugar, and not as feverish anymore as she had been earlier.

“You want some?” She asked, holding the box out for him. He shook his head and reached for a mini-sized bottle of whiskey from the mini-bar.

“So… What are we going to do next?” Marie asked, still munching chocolate. Logan emptied the whiskey and thought about an appropriate answer while it trickled down his throat. Shrugged his shoulders.
“I haven’t really thought about it. All my plans concerning the future went down to drain when the shit hit the fan. We… Xavier and I… We spoke about this often. But always, in every fucking scenario it wasn’t this bad.”
“How bad?”
“It looked pretty fucking grim, but only for us. Only for mutants. And Xavier had his contacts. They were already developing a vaccine. Nobody counted in fucking techno-mages. They were… They were something you could find from those games kids played in the internet, not a real thing.”

Techno-mages. As if the Legacy hadn’t been bad enough, it had attacked mutants and humans alike, finishing off almost forty percent of the world’s population in one week. After that the real Hell had been unleashed. Strange portals had started to appear to the regions where majority of the Legacy survivors lived. And one by one people were drawn in to those portals, through their shimmering surface in to the great unknown. And there were people able to create those portals, walking on the earth like the proverbial four horsemen. Drawing power from all the possible outlets, electric lines and power stations and throwing portals at unsuspecting men, women and children until there was nobody left.

“You have seen one?” She asked. He nodded. He had seen one, up, close and personal. And had managed to introduce it to the business end of his claws just in time before it threw a portal at him.
“What did it look like?”
“Nothing much. A man in a suit. May have been an Armani… Something expensive anyway. Just the kind of guy you would expect to see at Wall Street, with a briefcase and a laptop. Only thing that gave it away were the eyes. They were all silver. After I killed it I noticed that there had grown a cord between him and his laptop. He wasn’t just holding it; wires grew from his fingertips and went through the screen of the laptop… And it was screaming when I stabbed it.”
“The man was screaming?”
“No. The computer. But enough of these ghost stories for now. Time to go to sleep.”
“But I have to brush my teeth and…”
“Consider that one of your smallest problems. And it’s solved. Here,” Logan said, reaching to the pile of goods he had scavenged from the lower floors and handed her a toothbrush and paste.

While she brushed her teeth Logan entertained himself by slugging back more of the miniature-sized bottles of booze. His mutation ate away the alcohol before he managed to get even dizzy, but he had long ago learned to take his kicks from where he could get them, and the burn of the liquor as it trickled down his throat was almost pleasurable experience enough if he swallowed really carefully. Or if he tilted is head back and didn’t swallow at all, just let it slide down slowly, very, very slowly… And why the hell was the chandelier above his head swinging? Almost as if there was somebody walking up on the roof and steps made the whole thingamajick tremble and…

“Fuck!”

He rolled off from the couch just in time to avoid the heavy chandelier as it fell. One minute it hung up there, trembling and swaying lightly, then suddenly it was missing some vital parts, like the whole fucking roof from above it, and it came down, decorative, golden rods which held the crystals on it piercing the couch right where he sat just half a second earlier.

Noise alerted Marie who bolted out from the bathroom, her lips smeared with toothpaste, brush sticking out from the corner of her mouth and her eyes wide as saucers.
“Grab some clothes! Warm clothes! Quickly!” Logan was already pulling on jeans and shrugged on a shirt, started gathering medicine and food to a small knapsack.
“Hurry!” She had found some clothes, but he wasn’t apparently going to wait that she got dressed. He had already moved the rickety barricade and opened the door. He was standing at the doorstep, his eyes fixed to the roof, which was… Which was… There was something wrong with it, but it took her almost five minutes and several flights of stairs to comprehend that the whole roof from the room that Logan had chosen for them had somehow vanished to thin air.

“Logan! Logan, wait! What’s going on?” She tried to make him to slow down, but Logan was having none of that. His hold from around her wrist held and he was practically dragging her down.
“”What happened?” She huffed when he finally stopped for a short breather.
“Techno-mages. It was a portal. I don’t know if they just wanted to take a look at what those suites look like or are they after us. I hope it was just curiosity. If it wasn’t…”
“We’re screwed?”
“Exactly. Ready to get going again?”

Question was apparently rhetorical in nature. She was about to open her mouth to answer when they heard footsteps from somewhere above them, and before she even realized Logan had yanked her after him again.

They practically flew down the stairs. She stumbled twice but managed to find her balance. Logan wasn’t as lucky. At the first landing he fell and rolled down the last steps. And now she could hear more footsteps, approaching rapidly from above. She could see a pair of sneakers, attached to jeans-clad feet.
“I don’t think…” She started, frozen to the spot, chant ‘No Armani, No Armani, No Armani’ running through her head when Logan scrambled back up, grabbed her arm and threw her through the lobby towards the entrance/exit.

She rolled over the floor until a large marble column stopped her rather painfully. She turned to look at Logan who was running towards her and shouting, no, screaming for her to get the fuck out, and there was something round and silvery spreading behind him, like a mirror, except this mirror was growing silvery tentacles that slithered over the floor, walls and roof at alarming pace…

“No Armani? What the fuck was that all about?” Logan panted, slouching next to her against the wall.
“You said… Earlier that it was wearing Armani…” She huffed, trying to calm down her breathing, trying to remember if she really had been chanting those words out loud.
“Not all of them, you twit! Just the one I saw earlier!”
“How many of those there are?” She asked. Logan shook his head.
“I don’t have a clue. I have seen two. But there has to be even more…”

They had stumbled out from Waldorf and bolted off, terrible screeching sound, like nails on a chalkboard echoing from the lobby of the hotel behind them. Now they were in a completely other side of the city, hiding in an alley between small boutique and an Irish pub. Screeching had stopped almost an hour ago.

“What was that noise?” She asked, rubbing her ears. They were still tickling.
“I don’t know. But it seems to sound only when the portal is wide open and ‘hunting’.”
“Can we go back there?” She asked, sliding on to the ground when her knees finally gave up. Logan shook his head.
“We better not. They don’t ransack places twice, but… Those portals, they do something… something bad. It would be the same hotel, but not entirely same. Different… Spoiled.”
“Spoiled?” She asked, scrunching her forehead in confusion. Logan huffed and crouched next to her.
“I don’t know how to explain it better. Those places contaminated by the portal… There’s no scent. No sound. No anything. Like they just died down. Like there’s not even time in there. Waldorf Astoria would still be Waldorf Astoria, but kind of like a carbon copy of the original. And I don’t know what it would do to us if we went there. I once accidentally stepped in to a room where a portal had opened and I was sick like a dog for hours afterwards. It felt almost as if that place sucked the fucking life out of me.”
“Then they’re not much different from me…” Marie whispered, staring at her bare hands and feet, trying to remember if she had given her clothes to Logan or were they still back at the hotel, in a heap on the front lobby.
“I guess. A bit like you. But you can control it. Cold?” Logan asked, shuffling the knapsack down from his shoulders. She nodded. Logan dug up a pair of jeans, warm shirt, sneakers and socks and gave them to her. She stared at them for a moment, then turned to look at him.
“No undies or bra?” She asked. Logan smirked.
“Uh… Forgot. Sorry.”
“Figures… Men…”
“It’s not that bad. Going without, I mean.”
“Not for you. You don’t have extra jiggling parts.”
“Fine. We’ll look for some underwear for you on our way out of here.”
“Okay. Could you…”
“What?”
“Turn around! I’d like to get in to these clothes before my ass freezes off!”

Logan waited behind the corner while she changed. She could smell a whiff of tobacco in the air. He had remembered his precious cigars, but not underwear for her? Men.
“Ready?” She heard him asking. She stepped towards the sound, then her knees gave up and she fell on her face to the ground, unable to move. Suddenly she was so goddamned tired that it shouldn’t even have been possible. Then Logan was there, swearing a blue streak.

“We have to get out of this fucking city. Somewhere more… Isolated. Far from population centers.” Logan’s voice sounded strangely dulled as she drifted somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. He was walking and carrying her. Rain was coming down in sheets. She realized vaguely that he had found a sheet of plastic from somewhere. She was cocooned like a caterpillar from head to toe, and it felt actually nice to be warm and dry.
“Techs roam around in bigger cities… More potential targets in those. But you’ll fucking die if we have to rough it up out here much longer. Legacy’s not something to play with.” Legacy? She had Legacy? How the hell was she still alive? She must have asked that out loud, because Logan answered.
“Few are strong enough to beat it. Have seen it happen before. But you’re the first one who’s sane. If it doesn’t kill you, usually Legacy messes up your head for good. You’re not out from the bushes yet, but you’re already getting better. But if we keep skipping out here in the rain you’ll fucking relapse or something.”

He kept muttering obscenities, kicking pebbles and debris on the ground as he went. She closed her eyes and pressed the side of her face against his chest. He was warm, hot under his shirt. She could hear his heart, and air as it swirled in and out of his lungs. Slight rattle. Like rice crispies when you poured some milk on them. Had he been sick as well? Was he sick right now? Had he gotten Legacy from her? Or was the sound simply raindrops dripping on to her improvised raincoat? She tried to concentrate and push her ear even closer against him, but it was too big of an effort and she gave up.
“Logan?” She whispered instead. He shook the rain from his eyes and turned his gaze to her.
“Are you alright?” She asked. He nodded.
“Just sleep. I’ll try and find us a safe place to wait out this fucking storm.” She would have wanted to reach her hand and wipe off the watery slush of half-ice, half-snow that was coming down along the rain and gathering on top of his head, but plastic restrained her movements and she settled for burrowing her face against his chest once more and drifted in to slumber.

When she woke up it was quiet. Logan was still carrying her. It had stopped raining and she felt already miles better.
“I think I can walk on my own already.”
“No, you can’t,” Logan grunted and kept walking. She harrumphed in confusion and tried to see what was going on. She regretted looking down as soon as her eyes landed to the ground and to Logan’s feet.

He was wading through silver mud. Silvery strands were slowly soaking to the denim of his jeans and climbing higher, reaching almost his knees before gravity made them fall back again. Portal.

“We’re almost out of city already. There has been a portal somewhere nearby not too long ago.” Logan spoke. His voice sounded strangely muted and hollow. He seemed distracted somehow. Like he was trying to remember something.
“If you’d put me down we could run,” she suggested.
“No. This shit would eat you up under ten seconds. Just sit tight. We’ll get to clean ground soon enough… I… I think…”

She tried to get a better look from their surroundings. Rising sun was revealing more and more, and what she saw wasn’t pretty. Or it was pretty. Deathly beautiful, everything gleaming and shimmering wetly, metal and new, pure silver. And there was no sign of ‘clean’ ground anywhere near.
“Logan?” He didn’t seem to listen. She had to repeat his name three times before he turned to look at her.
“Are you talking to me?” He asked. For a second a brief memory, a short clip from some old movie flickered in her mind, but she pushed it back.
“Are you alright?” She asked. He sniffled a bit and cleared his throat.
“Yeah… Just tired.”
“Doesn’t that stuff… Is it a good idea to wade through it?”
“Don’t have any choices. Besides, it’s not that bad. It can’t dissolve my bones.”

It took a while for that particular revelation to sink in. When it did she started to scream. And stopped screaming immediately when Logan winced.
“Sorry… Oh, my God! How can you say that you’re alright? Doesn’t that hurt?” She asked. Logan shrugged.
“No. Feels just numb. And little wobbly. But it’s okay. I’ll get us to somewhere better soon and my feet will grow back as soon as I get rid of these shoes and jeans…”

It took them a little longer to reach clean ground than he had expected, but finally he was able to put down the girl and give his feet some much needed attention. He was no doctor, but he was pretty sure that after part of him had dissolved to liquid, metal-like substance, he should have bled to death under few minutes, but when he took off his boots and shrugged off his jeans, he found no blood, just his own bare feet. Granted, the tone of his skin was closer to grey than the usual, but other than that there seemed to be no ill effects.

“How do you feel?” The girl asked. He rubbed his ankles. Network of crinkles lined his forehead for a moment when he thought about it.
“I don’t know. The usual?” He finally huffed.
“Is that… Is your regeneration really that fast?” Was her next question.
“I guess it is. Or that shit, whatever it is, cauterized the wounds before I bled to death. Either way, I’m alright now. And we better get moving. It’s spreading to our direction…”

He pulled a fresh pair of jeans from his knapsack, regretting the fact that he was now missing shoes. The pair he had worn earlier he had thrown away. Silvery substance cling to them, making them unfit for use. Well, it wasn’t the first time he had taken a hike on bare feet. Would be all good.

His feet were already numb, half frozen from the icy slush when they saw a small shack in the distance. The girl wasn’t faring much better. She was coughing. He could already smell blood in her breath though she claimed to be just fine. But in the end, wouldn’t it be better if she died now? At least she had that option. To die peacefully. He knew for fact that there really wasn’t a safe place left. Techno-mages kept casting their portals, and the amount of poisonous residue kept growing. He could keep running, running until there was no clear land left, nowhere to hide, but what was the point in that?

“Logan?” Her voice sounded like it was coming from a bottom of a well, distant and distorted. He tried to concentrate, really tried, but what the hell was the point?
“Logan?” Why wouldn’t she just shut up and die?
“Logan?” It wasn’t like she was walking around, carrying the extra weight and responsibility. Why the hell did she have to be so fucking fragile and needy?”
“Logan!”
“What?” It came out angrier than he intended, but that didn’t faze her a bit. Instead flinching she pointed towards the ground.
“You have been standing there for quite some time already. Is that stuff warm or what’s keeping you from moving?” She asked. He blinked and turned to look at what she meant. There was a miniscule puddle of silvery residue, and he was standing in it. When he shuffled away from it he could feel his head clearing. He could have sworn he had been walking this whole time.

“You can’t feel it when it happens?” Marie asked. He shook his head, now regretful of his earlier foul thoughts.
“That’s weird. It can’t be a good thing. What if it creeps up on you when you’re sleeping?” She asked. The residue actually moved. It wasn’t fast, and Logan wasn’t sure if it was movement per say, or did it just expand, but it was in a constant motion.
“Then you die,” he grunted, struggling not to add the words his mind was still persistently whispering, words of how it necessarily wouldn’t be a bad way to go. Since when had he became this… This depressed? Since when had he become willing to admit the defeat? And why now? They had gotten clear from techno-mages and their portals, their only problem currently was how to get in to that small shack they had seen from the distance before the storm really exploded.

“Logan?”
“Yeah?” Again more aggravated than he really meant.
“Shouldn’t we keep walking?” She asked. We? Wasn’t he the only one walking?
“Yeah. Aren’t we?”
“Nope. Are you alright?” Alright?
“I don’t know. Am I still standing in that goddamned puddle?”
“No. But it’s flowing closer. Can’t you see?”

Now that he knew what to look he could see it. Silvery tendrils reaching towards him, liquid metal oozing forward, reaching greedily towards his bare feet. He forced himself to take the necessary steps away from it. Each step felt like he was shedding something, peeling off layers from his mind, breaking bonds that he hadn’t even known that existed.

“I think that shit is getting in to my head… It gets easier to think and move the further I get from it. Keep your eyes open and give me a shout if you see more of it. We have to start going round it, no matter how small the puddles are.”
“Okay. Just… Could you keep walking?”
“I’m not? Fuck. Give me a kick if I fall to la-la -land again, okay?”
“Okay. Keep walk…”

He grimaced when her dry rattle and cough turned to much less dry.
“You need to spit it out?” He asked. The girl looked at him innocently, then swallowed.
“Spit what out?” She asked.
“Nothing. It’s nothing…” Maybe it was better that she played brave and gave him the option to stay clueless.
“Yeah… Absolutely noth…” She closed her mouth, her cheeks reddening and her eyes watering, struggling not to cough anymore.
“Shit. We better pick up the pace…”

They made it to the shack just in time before the icy slush turned to real hailstorm. Chunks of ice the size of a grown man’s fist were bombarding the ground, and the roof of the shack.

He lowered the girl carefully on to the floor, stretching his back, listening the small cracks of it. Then kneeled next to her. Her lips were starting to turn blue, and her skin felt icy cold. He peeled off the plastic from around her and gathered her on his arms. She was shivering.

“C… Can I touch you?” She asked, her teeth chattering.

For a moment he mulled over her words. Touch? He was touching her even now. What the hell was she talking about...

“You want to drain me? Why?” He asked. Rattling in her lungs was getting louder.
“I... I can borrow your mutation...” She wheezed.
“Why?” He wasn’t all that sure if it would be a good idea.
“I want to live!” She croaked, smearing her lips and chin with gooey black and red blood. He could see with his mind’s eye viral particles eating her away from inside out, attacking mutated cells, consuming them greedily.

“This world has gone to Hell, kid. You really want to live?”

She wasn’t able to answer anymore. Not verbally. But the fire in her eyes spoke volumes.
“Fuck... Just how strong are you?” He asked, already calculating the odds of surviving from the drain. She blinked. Then blinked again, her lips twisting to a grimace, and he realized that her heart rate had hiked up considerably. She’d be gone in a matter of seconds. One thing less to take care of.

One life squandered because he was a fucking coward.

“Fuck this...” He huffed, leaning against the wall, making sure that he wouldn’t collapse on top of her. He placed his trembling palm over her cheek. She had already lost consciousness, but he could feel the pull. Sickening loss of energy and life, chilling cold creeping up his metal-coated bones and turning marrow to icy slush. His heart was struggling now, rebelling against the force of her mutation. It was fighting a losing battle.

World grew suddenly dim. He couldn’t hear or see, let alone smell anything past his own agony. He tried to let go of the girl, but he couldn’t summon enough strength to move his hand.

To his immense relief the girl opened her eyes. Her startled gaze fell over his features, now twisted to a grimace, and she crept away from him, severing the connection between them.

He sagged against the wall, struggling with each breath he took. He was drowning. Carrier. He carried the virus. The perfect weapon. His mutation kept the symptoms at bay, but now Legacy had full reign over him.

“B... Better?” He managed to ask. Marie nodded.
“What about you? Will you be alright?” She asked. He shook his head, then cleared his throat.
“I don’t know...”

He spent agonizing hours in throes of the Legacy, nearly drowning when fluids started to build up in his lungs. In the end he was victorious. Perfect weapon. Unable to die.


“Oh, shit...”
“Are you okay?” The girl. Worried gaze scanning him from head to toe.
“Yeah. I guess. Weather cleared any?” He couldn’t hear the bombardment anymore, but the girl shook her head.
“What do you mean?”

Instead of answering she walked to a tiny window that was covered with a tarp. She lifted it. Thick fog crept over the cracked glass, turning the view milky white, drowning all the details. He kept staring at it long enough to fool his senses to believe that there really was nothing but that swirling mist out there.

“That can’t be good...” He shook his head and sat up, then dragged himself to a standing position. The girl was at his side instantly, offering support. At first he was going to brush her off, but when the world tilted alarmingly he accepted, even welcomed her help, and steered their steps towards the rickety front door. Cracked it slightly ajar and peered through the crack.

“Not good at all...” He muttered, motioning the girl to stay still. She dared a quick peek from the outside world as well, lines of worry growing over her forehead as she turned to look at him and mouthed one word: Techs.

Three of them, just standing there, thick tendrils of fog curling around their ankles and climbing up their legs, reaching for the laptops fused to their hands.

“What the fuck are they doing?” He asked. Question was more of a rhetorical one, he could see perfectly well that techs were opening a portal. A giant portal, right at their doorstep.

“It doesn’t look like they know about us. Why would they open a portal out there when they could just throw it in here?” She whispered. Logan shook his head.
“I don’t know, and it scares the shit out of me... Why would they funnel bunch of rocks and dirt when there still are cities left to ransack?”
“You’re scared?” She asked.
“And you aren’t?” Logan snorted, left eyebrow hiking upwards to the challenge.
“I don’t know should I be more scared of the portal, or the fact that you’re scared...”
“Why don’t you think about it while we run the hell away from here.”
“Uh... I don’t think we have the time to run...”

The portal opened with a great woosh, huge silvery disc that swallowed good part of the scenery among the small shack and two terrified mutants.

He was walking down the road, heavy torrent of rain pelting his head and shoulders. His clothes were soaked through. Somewhere high up on the sky full moon loomed behind thick and heavy clouds, making them appear as solid objects. He wiped off trickle of water from his forehead, taking a better look of his surroundings. He could see the front gate of Xavier’s boarding school little further down the road. For the umpteenth time he cursed the pile of trash of a truck that had broken down and left him walking. Xavier could have used the information he carried several days ago.

“Well, better late than never... Fuck.” Late had never before been a part of his vocabulary. Never and now were more up to his alley. He hunched his shoulders and pushed through the last steps, then stopped in front of the gate, now puzzled.

They had removed the simple padlock that had held the gate closed. It was now replaced with an electric locking mechanism. There was a doorbell, as well. And above it a black rectangular that looked like a some sort of receiver.

“Finally. I wonder what made the prof to change his mind...” He briefly wondered, then rang the doorbell. The receiver crackled briefly.
“This is Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. How may I help you?”
“You could start by letting me in, before I fucking drown or rust!” He grumbled, knowingly refusing to use the codename which the Professor Xavier had reserved for him.
“Wolverine? We have been waiting for you.”
“Open this goddamned gate before I tear it open, Cyclops...”
“Professor Xavier is waiting in his office. You do remember your way there?”
“I do. You in hurry or something?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, it’s well past midnight, Logan. Not all of us enjoy being up and awake at this time of the day. Welcome back.”

The gate clicked open. For a brief moment he hesitated. Sudden bout of panic and nausea gripped his innards. He shook his head.
“You’re getting senile, bub...”

He knew that the front door of the mansion would be locked. It really didn’t matter to him. He never used it anyway. He felt more at ease when entering through a small door at the back of the enormous building. It lead to a small kitchenette. It was mainly reserved for the teachers, at this time of night it should have been deserted, but as he opened the door a dim light greeted him. A girl sat there, cradling a ceramic mug in her hands. He could smell peppermint, and something artificial, cough drops perhaps?

The girl raised her gaze from the tea she was nursing. For a moment she looked as if she were going to say something.
“What’s this? I thought you brats were supposed to be sleeping at this time of day,” he grunted, more out of confusion than the actual need to have any kind of conversation with her.
“I have flu. Miss Grey told me to get my food and drinks from here to avoid infecting other students,” the girl said.
“And it’s night already,” she then added as an afterthought.
“What ever...” He growled and continued his trek through the kitchenette. Professor Xavier’s office was just around the corner.

It wasn’t often when he saw it fit to approach any of the inhabitants of the mansion, let alone one of the students. On those rare occasions they usually didn’t talk back in such bitchy manner. The girl with long, brown hair and a tea cup probably had a good excuse though; nose and throat clogged up with snot couldn’t be a pleasant state of existence. It wasn’t her attitude that made him annoyed. It was the distinct feeling that he knew the kid from somewhere.

“Logan. It’s good to see you,” Professor Xavier greeted him.
“Not so good to see you, Wheels...”
“It’s that bad?”
“Worse. It’s started.”
“I see. Where?”
“Everywhere. People arrive to a hospital. Symptoms match with a common flu. Headache, sore throat, runny nose... The whole shebang. Once the fever sets in there’s nothing that can be done. After a day or so they just die.”
“And this is happening everywhere?”
“All around the world. But there’s a bright side to this.”
“And what might that be?”
“This little bug they developed... It doesn’t discriminate. It takes down mutants, but humans as well.”
“And that’s a good thing?”
“They botched up the design. Perhaps they made another mistake as well. Perhaps this little bugger isn’t 100 percent lethal? Or maybe there are people immune to it?”
“Perhaps you’re right. That remains to be seen. In the meantime we can do nothing but wait.”
“Go ahead. I’m not going to stick around. I’ll be at the city for few more days if you need anything. After that... I’ll come and check up on you later. If there is such thing as later.”

He had been standing up during their whole conversation. Now he turned to leave.
“There might be no need to come back later, Logan. Approximately 50 percent of our students have reported to school nurse today. Apparently they’re having flu.”

He didn’t know what to say. Suddenly the whole thing felt so stupid and pointless. For the last couple of years he had been collecting information from various sources. For the last six months he had been working non-stop with Professor Xavier, trying to thwart the inevitable, trying to stop the world from ending. And now this? The whole fucking mansion was as good as dead. Professor, Scott, Jean, Ororo, that girl from the kitchen, even the fucking rats at Jean’s lab, all dead as a doornail.

“Oh, and Logan... I found some new information. I don’t know if you’re immune to Legacy or not, but just in case... Just in case that you are, you should be aware that there’s another threat out there as well...” He turned to take the folder that the professor was offering. It was thin. Inside of it was a single sheet of paper. He folded it hastily and stuffed it to his breast pocket, then walked briskly out, closing the door behind him.

Dead. They were all dead. He was probably as good as dead. Legacy was designed to target primarily the X-gene.

For a moment he entertained a thought of staying here. But what good it would do? Waiting for death to come wasn’t his cup of tea, and that’s all there was left to do here.
“Fuck...” He took a deep breath. There probably was a bottle of beer in the fridge. There usually was when he came around. Professor Xavier’s way of saying welcome. He’d take it and drink it before leaving.

The girl was still in the kitchenette, her whole attention turned in to a thick book. He resisted the urge to leave. He was going to drink his last beer here. He wasn’t going to let some kind stop him from doing that.

Out of principle he sat to where he always sat. His back turned towards sturdy stone wall, giving him clear view over the kitchenette. For a while they both sat in silence, then it suddenly became too much for him to bear.

“What’s the book about?” He asked. He already felt like he was encased in to a tomb. Perhaps hearing her voice would shake off that nasty feeling.
“History. We have a quiz tomorrow,” the girl answered. He bit his tongue. It would have been rude to point out that there most likely was no tomorrow for her.
“History? That’s... That’s nice,” he blurted out instead, earning a puzzled gaze from her before she turned her attention back to the book.
“Would call it boring instead. Why the hell it’s so important to know what happened before? I’m more interested about the future...” She muttered, reaching for the cup of tea.

He finished his beer in record time and stood up to leave. When he reached the doorknob the girl called him.
“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about agent Egypt and burial rites?” She asked. He didn’t turn to look, just shook his head.
“I don’t think that I’m that old, kid...” He said, then walked out.

He suddenly faced a new dilemma, standing outside of the massive gate of Xavier’s school. He really had no way of leaving the city. Aside from stealing a car that was. He had done that before, but right now it looked less than appealing solution. Of course he could have asked Xavier to release one SUV from his fleet, but that didn’t sound such a great idea either. After all, he was the big wuss who was about to flee from the final battle. He was stuck in N.Y. for the duration.

He snorted, then nearly choked to sudden fit of giggles. Sooner than it was absolutely necessary he felt like laughing no more. Small trickles of water flowing over his face tasted salt and stung his eyes. No matter what, he’d be the last of them. He’d see the end. He’d see them all die. He’d see the whole fucking world to die and all he could do while it happened was to wait his own inevitable death.

Next few weeks flew past quicker than he had expected. During first week people were still up and running their daily chores. Legacy was on the news, but they dubbed it as a formerly unknown strand of influenza. Stay home, drink plenty of liquids. Have an aspirin. During second week first whispers of the true nature of the sickness could be heard, not through official channels. A doctor from a small free clinic managed somehow to print flyers and spread them in the subway. In those he described the symptoms, and told the whole, ugly truth. There was no cure, and the disease was, in fact, lethal.

He didn’t know what had happened to the good doctor. He had been there, waiting for the train and watching him handing out the flyers when police had showed up and taken the doctor away.

After third week it was apparent to everybody. There was no cure. There was no way to avoid infection. Once you felt the first chill tremors of the fever you’d die or go insane. He wasn’t all too sure of which outcome he’d prefer. Rest of the population didn’t seem to care. People were still dying. Survivors were wandering around the streets, attacking anything and everything that moved, including themselves.

He found the girl by accident at the end of the third week.

Drunken stupor was a preferred state. To maintain it was becoming increasingly difficult. Nobody sold the booze anymore. He had been hunting up and down the streets for a bar, a liquor store, a drug store... Hell, he would have taken anti-freeze for cars if anybody was offering. Unfortunately it seemed that any kind of mind altering substances were sold out. Few stores still up and running were mainly selling canned goods, and stocks of them were rapidly diminishing as well. His mood was foul, as foul as the weather. Steady torrent of rain stopped every now and then only to make way for a sudden hailstorm. It was one such storm that made him seek shelter from a dark alley to his right.

As he dove in to the darkness, hoping to find a shelter of sorts he quickly realized that he wasn’t the only one who had had the same idea. The alley was already occupied by two, burly men. At first it looked like they were fighting over a pile of rags, but when the weather suddenly cleared a bit he could see what was happening.

A girl lay on the ground, fighting for tooth and nail. She was losing the battle. There was no way she could have fought off two grown men. She was kicking and scratching. She was cussing and screaming.

At first he was going to leave. Quietly. It really was none of his business what those freaks were up to. Then the girl screamed again. She wasn’t screaming for help. She was screaming out of rage and frustration. She still had fight in her. Out of curiosity he took a deep breath. He could smell the foul stench of Legacy from both of the men. They were already deep in the throes of insanity. He could smell faint scent of fever and nausea radiating from the girl as well. Yet there was something different in her.
“Oh, crap... I’m really not going to do this, am I?” He huffed. Then stood up.

“Hey! Assholes!” His voice boomed from the surrounding brick walls. It didn’t seem to frazzle his adversaries. They didn’t spare a glance to him. They were too deeply engrossed over their prey. And the girl screamed again, this time for help. At least she had heard him.

It was easy to dispose two lunatics. It was hard to resist the urge to tear them literally in to shreds right in front of the girl. It wasn’t their fault, it wasn’t her fault that the world had gone straight to hell and that he was now completely sober, first time for well over two weeks. Yet it took a physical struggle to keep the claws in and just snap necks from the two men.

Sudden clarity became almost bearable when he recognized the girl. She was from Xavier’s.
“They never gave us that quiz...” She whispered when he crouched next to her, then promptly passed out. Legacy had been pestering her for the past three weeks, but it was starvation that brought her down. Something that could be easily corrected.

He patted down his pockets. Found the item he was looking for, a bar of chocolate. Then cursed his own stupidity. If he gave her anything to eat now, she’d only choke. He pocketed the half melted bar, then grabbed the girl instead and stood up, hoisting her to his arms. She weighed next to nothing.

She was shivering. And slowly gaining her bearings. Soon she was able to stand on her own wobbly feet.
“You’re Wolverine.”
“And you are?”
“I’m Rogue.”
“What kind of a name is Rogue?” He asked, bored of the cloak and dagger –policy. As useful as it had proven in the past, there really was no point to it anymore.
“My name is Marie,” the girl said.
“My name is Logan.”
“You don’t have anything to eat, do you?”

He gave her the chocolate. It was clearly an effort to open the fragile foil wrapping, but she managed it on her own as they walked. He really hadn’t had a clear plan of what to do with her, but there had to be a reason for her surviving the plague that had killed off 99 percent of the world’s population. That alone made him curious. And while she wasn’t the most talkative companion he found her presence somehow comforting.

It started to rain again. He gave the girl his jacket. It was wet, but leather would protect her from the ice if a hailstorm broke out again.
“Come on, kid. It says no parking here,” he said when the girl stopped and leaned against a traffic sign.
“You know... Your jokes really suck...” She whispered.
“Yeah. I’m not much of a comedian. But I’m guessing that you don’t even expect witty conversation now?”
“Nope... Getting to someplace warm and dry would rank higher on my wish list...”
“That’s on my to do –list. That look okay to you?” He pointed towards a large office building. The girl stared at it for a moment, then turned to look at a classy looking hotel on the other side of the street.
“What’s wrong with that hotel?” She asked.
“It’s not a good place to go, trust me.”
“Okay. The office it is, then. They do have coffee makers and snack vendors in there, right?”
“I’d think so.”

He didn’t know what had made him choose the office instead of the hotel, but it soon became apparent that it was the right decision. As they sat in the darkened room on a couch that one could have called almost comfortable, a man with a laptop was approaching the hotel. As they watched the man reached with his right hand, all casual as if he was hailing for a taxi. The whole hotel got swallowed by a something that looked like a sheet made of mercury.

“A tech.”
“What?” The girl asked.
“A tech. I have seen those before. I have seen that silvery stuff before. Once you touch it you’re gone.”
“Gone? As dead?”
“As gone. I don’t know what it does, but it covers you completely and then you just disappear.”

They sat and observed, both chewing on peanuts and chocolate they had raided from a vendor just outside the room they had chosen. It didn’t take longer than few minutes. At first they could see the clear outlines of a massive building from beneath the silvery sheet, then suddenly the sheet collapsed to the ground and there was nothing left. Just an empty lot, surrounded by buildings that obviously held no interest to the tech that simply left.

“What are we going to do now?” The girl asked. He thought about it for a moment, then scratched the back of his head.
“I don’t know...”
“We have to do something!”
“You’re sick. You’re probably going to die anyway. We’re both going to die. Me... I was just going to see how long it’ll take.”

Again silence fell. Then the girl turned to look at him.

“You’re not a nice guy, Logan,” she said. There was a shimmer of tear in her eyes.
“It’s not easy to be a nice guy in this world, kid. Being nice only gets you killed sooner.”
“But I don’t want to die!” It was a scream born out of rage.
“Tough luck, kid. Looks like you’re fresh out of options.”

She turned to look at the window that he kept staring. They could see their faces reflecting back from the silvery mirror.

“Fucking techs...”

Xavier had taken the news surprisingly well. It’s not every day you get to hear that you’ll be probably dead within next two weeks. The old telepath hadn’t even blinked when Logan told him that first Legacy victims had been spotted in N.Y. General Hospital.

“And they think it’s a common flu?” Xavier had asked. He had nodded. Xavier had rubbed his forehead, then turned to look out through the window.
“It’s probably better this way. I rather have people die over influenza than mutant plague.”
“Yeah... You guys need anything?” He had asked. Professor Xavier had shaken his head.
“Though I’m sure that Jean would appreciate extra pair of hands when this thing reaches us. And there’s the case of the mystery note as well.”

A slip of paper, few words written on it with sturdy block letters. A warning of sorts, telling them to forget the goddamned bugs and concentrate to techno-mages instead. Nobody knew what those were. Nobody knew what to expect. Nobody knew who had written the message, but one morning it had been sitting on Professor’s desk.

“You want me to keep looking for the writer?” He asked. The Professor shrugged his shoulders.
“Either writer, or those techno-mages, whatever they may be. Clearly the writer perceives them a far more credible threat than Legacy.”
“You know, something in that message bothers me...”
“What is it, Logan?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps I’m being paranoid, but it looks almost as if I had written it...”
“Did you write it?”
“No. Not that I remember.”
“Well, that settles it, then. But if you excuse me, it’s late already... There’s a room for you at the dorms. Nothing grand, I’m afraid, but...”
“Thanks, professor. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Mystery message still in his mind he left the Professor’s office. He felt restless, so instead of going to bed he decided to take a good look of the mansion, learn his way around rather now than later during the next day when halls and corridors would be crowded with students and teachers.

At first he was under the impression that he was the only one skulking around at this time of night. When he reached a small kitchenette near the grand entrance hall he realized that he had company. A girl sat in there.

“Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping?” He asked.
“That’s... That’s none of your business...” The girl rasped. She obviously had difficulties in breathing.
“Well, actually it is,” he said, stepping closer. The girl turned to look at him, giving him quite thorough once-over.
“Xavier just hired me. Technically I’m your superior, so...”
“Superior? ... I don’t give a shit... of your superiority...” She rasped, then turned back to the book she was reading. Conversation over.

He grabbed a beer from the fridge and sat opposite her. For a while they sat, the girl pretending to read a book and he just listening the wet rattle of her lungs.
“What’s the matter with you?” He finally asked. The girl huffed, then cleared her throat.
“Why am I... being such a bitch? I have cystic fibrosis... What’s your excuse?” She wheezed, them grimaced, dug up a handkerchief from a pocket of her bathrobe.

He waited until she was able to quit coughing. Scent of fresh blood assaulted his sinuses.
“Is that why you don’t sleep?” He asked. The girl nodded.
“I have maybe a week... I want to finish this book before I die...”
“So I should fuck off and let you mope here all by yourself?”
“That’s the basic idea...”
“And what if I don’t? You’re going to cough and spit on me?” He wasn’t going to back out now. No girl, dying or not, should have been able to make him do anything against his will.
“If you don’t leave me... I’ll touch you...”

For a moment they both sat in silence, then a smile crept over the girl’s face.
“That... That didn’t come out right...” She giggled, trying desperately not to cough.
“Well, not that I would mind if a pretty lady wanted to grope me, but you said it like it would be a bad thing,” he said, taking a sip from his rapidly warming beer.
“It’s my ‘gift’... I have poisonous skin; I hurt people if they touch me... Kill people...”
“Shit. That has got to be the most fucked up mutation that I have ever heard, kid.”
“Tell me about it...”

The girl turned her attention back to the book. Now she really was reading it instead of just trying to avoid his company. He stood up; perhaps he really should leave her alone. He was at the door when the girl called him.
“Hey...” He turned to look. The girl looked at him, her head tilted and a questioning smile on her lips.
“You think that I’m pretty?” She whispered her question.
Calling her pretty had originally been a slipup from his part, unintentional phrase that crept in to his speech when he wasn’t paying enough attention. But now...
“Yeah. You’re pretty alright,” he said.
“Th... Thanks...”

He left, but not in time to avoid the hopeful smile that rose on to the girl’s face. It annoyed him. It spoke volumes of how she was treated among other students. A simple compliment from a complete stranger and she was ready to set the world on fire with joy and happiness that radiated from her.

He found the room that Professor Xavier had mentioned easily enough. It was small, and apparently he was sharing a bathroom with his neighbour, but it didn’t really matter. He wouldn’t be spending his time in there. Now it was time to sleep, but after that his work would begin. He’d have to track down the writer of the mysterious message, or find the threat mentioned in it and dispose it if possible.

Bed was narrow but comfortable. Moon cast its soft glow through the window. Light was bright enough to keep him awake, but he didn’t have the heart to draw the curtains closed. It wasn’t often when he got to see and actually appreciate full moon. Usually he was either drunk or on assignment at this time of night.

He could almost feel the light on his skin, cold and soft caress whispering over him. Ghostly fingers mapping every inch of him, curling around his toes and fingers, tousling his wild hair. Blunt nails raking over his pectorals, ever so lightly at first, then suddenly increasing pressure until it felt like he was being gutted alive, and he just had to get up and close the curtains, then return to bed.

It was impossible to return to that blessed tranquil he had fallen. Now the pillow felt lumpy. Sheets were scratchy and bed felt like somebody had replaced it with a slab of concrete. He sat up, rubbing his face tiredly. There was no way of explaining his sudden jittery feeling, and he just knew it wouldn’t go away. Not anymore.

He grabbed a notebook and a pen from the bedside table. Called the words of the mystery note from his memory and scribbled them over a crisp white page, trying not to think about too hard what he was doing. He pulled the original note from the pocket of his jacket and unfolded it.

Two messages were identical.

“Holy shit.”

It was a task he was poorly equipped to. Supervising the med lab and simultaneously combing through archives they had managed to raid from a secluded compound that they suspected to be the base of operations for spreading the virus they knew as Legacy fell on him soon after Jean and Professor Xavier succumbed to disease that everybody already referred as mutant plague.

“I’m thirsty...”
“I need to go to the bathroom...”
“It hurts! It hurts!”
“Where’s my mom? I want my mom!”
He probably would have fled the scene if it wasn’t the girl he now knew as Rogue. She read stories for the younger patients and sat and talked with her dying elders. He occasionally wondered if she realized that immunity she had gained through touching him accidentally would eventually fade. Right now she was riding on a borrowed horse and it would soon drop all its shoes. But it really didn’t matter. As long as the horse kept going he had the time to delve deeper in to grim details in the thick pile of folders that lay in front of him.

...Results are unfortunately far from conclusive. Legacy is prone to mutations; especially the most virulent strands have a tendency to....

...Several trials have shown no reason to approve Legacy as the first priority tool...

...Failure. Only 50% lethality...

...progress. Yet far from success. I urge you to consider possible alternative methods...

...When combined with another project it’s possible to reach satisfactory results. See [censored] for more detail. Mr. W. Stryker assured me that the prototype has been working in all tested scenarios so far. He asked you to contact [censored] from [censored].

The last one caught his attention. Stryker wasn’t completely unfamiliar name to him. He straightened his back and rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly. That name still brought forth strong sense of fear and nausea, even after all these years.

Wolverine was no stranger to genetics and mutant experimentation. His past, as hazy as it was during day, often came to taunt him in the form of dreams, and those dreams were far from pleasant. And now this. It really was no surprise that Stryker had connections to Legacy, but it made matters more serious. Before this discovery it was almost certain that at least small percent of the population would survive after all. With Stryker messing up things... Only God knew what would eventually happen.

“Hey. Did you find something?” Rogue asked.
“Bad news,” he said.
“What can be worse than this?” The girl asked, drawing his attention to their rapidly dwindling flock of patients. In the beginning there had been only few of them. Then the med lab had filled to the brim and Jean had had to start making house calls. Part of dormitories had been transformed so they could better serve as an isolation ward. Now there were only five of them left. Five younger students who got sick last, and they’d probably be dead soon. He prayed that they would die. Alternative was insanity. Rogue didn’t know that he had singlehandedly slain those few who had survived from the Legacy; he wasn’t even planning to share that with her.

“I found a familiar name. A man who’s supposed to be dead. Legacy was originally failed project. A man called William Stryker made it to work somehow.”
“How?” Rogue asked her eyes now wide as saucers.
“I don’t know. That’s what I’m going to find out next. As soon as I get some coffee first.”
“I’ll go and get you some.”
“No. We’re both going to take a short break,” he suddenly decided. Rogue looked at him and the five boys that were currently sleeping, surprisingly peacefully.
“I don’t...”
“You have been watching over them long enough. It’s time to take a short breather before you collapse. We’ll go and I’m going to get some coffee. You’re going to bed. I’ll come and wake you if anything happens.”

He practically had to force Rogue to take the stairs to dormitory. After he was sure that she had gone to bed he let down his guard, dragged his feet through the necessary steps to reach the kitchenette and let his head droop against cool marble surface of the countertop.

Stryker was most likely dead already. Stryker wasn’t the type of guy to leave loose ends and clues floating around. It would be an act of futility to try to find any information of Stryker’s project now.

When his cheek felt almost as if it was frozen he turned his forehead against the marble. Grit his teeth.

When it had been only the legacy that he had had to think about all had been clear and easy. There was a virus that was going to kill everybody, or turn them insane. With Stryker in the picture... Stryker had been a sharp man. He had been a stubborn man. But Stryker had also been just a man, flawed being. And there was every chance that the great plan of making Legacy work wasn’t Wolverine-proof after all. He’d just had to look harder, and he’d find the faulty gear.

“And I don’t know where to look anymore...” He breathed words out, then swallowed the bitter disappointment and stood up, just in time before Rogue walked in to the kitchenette.
“What the hell are you doing here? You were supposed to sleep,” he asked.
“I... Could I sleep somewhere else?” The girl asked.
“What’s wrong with your own room?” He asked, trying to remember when he had last seen the set of general keys he had taken from the janitor after the man had died.
“It’s the moon... I know this is going to sound stupid, but promise not to laugh at me?”
“I promise.”
“It’s scary. It feels like... It feels like I should run away from it, hide before it sees me,” Rogue stuttered, then turned her gaze, her whole posture slouching. She was expecting him to laugh.
“The moon?” He asked instead, remembering his own reaction towards it from a week before.
“Yes.”
“Okay. Move your stuff to infirmary. I guess it’s easier...”
“Yeah. It probably won’t take long before I would have to go there anyway...” Rogue huffed.

She was about to leave when he grasped her shoulder.
“I have been thinking about that. How... How do you want to leave?” He asked. Rogue looked at him, puzzled look on her face.
“Well, it’s kind of obvious that I’ll be the last one to die. Do you want to stay here or go someplace else?” He asked. There was no need to elaborate further. No need to add the words ‘when you get sick again’, Rogue already knew that the state of her health now was due to his mutation still lingering in her system, but eventually Legacy would override it.
“I... Can we go? Now?” She asked, clearly disgusted over her willingness to abandon their patients. All of the five boys at the infirmary would die, that was a fact, but was it a valid reason to abandon them?
“We can go now if you want to,” he said.

“No... No. It’s better if we wait until they’re dead. It wouldn’t be right to leave them like this,” Rogue said after long period of silence.
“Okay. We’ll wait until they’re dead, then leave.”
“Where to?”
“It’s up to you, kid. I guess it’s safe to assume that moon is not too high on your wish list, but anywhere else...”

There really was no reason to bury the bodies of their last patients. Nobody would return to the mansion. There would be no more students, no more teachers, no more X-Men. Logan and Rogue simply left after the last of the kids died, locking doors behind them. Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters had turned to a mausoleum.

The girl was sick. He had seen the first signs of Legacy tightening its hold of her last night. She had been tired and feverish. He was sick. He could feel the fluids building up in his lungs, but he knew it would take at least a week before either of them would die.

“I think I want to go to Alaska now,” Rogue said as they sat in a truck right in front of the ornate gates that now hung wide open.
“Alaska? What’s in Alaska?” He asked perplexed. Out of all the options he hadn’t expected this.
“There’s snow. Lots of it,” Rogue said.

He didn’t have the heart to tell her that it probably would take them too long to reach the snowline now. He’d get her to Alaska, dead or alive.
“Okay. But before we get going we better stock up some supplies. There won’t be gas stations along the road anymore. We need at least...” And then it became impossible to speak. He could only cough and gag and try to suck in air that suddenly felt thicker than tar. The girl just sat there, staring out through the windshield, waiting for him to either pull it trough or choke to death.

“Shit... Is this how you felt before? ... All the time?” He finally asked, breathing deeply and leaning his forehead against the steering wheel.
“Pretty much.”
“Can’t blame you for your bitchyness...”

It was their second day on the road. They had just barely made their way out of the city. Roads were blocked by cars. It looked like they weren’t the only ones wanting to get some space between them and death. Only difference was that they were still alive unlike drivers in the cars that Logan had to haul to the side of the road so they could get through.

“Would you fuck me?” Rogue suddenly asked. He turned to look at her. Then shook his head.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not suicidal, kid.”
“But what if I had normal skin? Would you fuck me then?”
“No. I’m not paedophiliac, either.”
“Well... If I was older and had a normal skin, would you...”
“No. I wouldn’t fuck you under any circumstances.”
“Why not? You said I was pretty.”
“Yeah. I don’t fuck pretty girls. Nobody should.”
“Oh... O-kay...”

It was something he actually was proud off. He fooled around whenever he got the chance, but never with girls like Rogue. Never with girls he’d end up hurting. And the girl currently staring numbly through the windshield didn’t seem to understand it.

“What’s wrong with me, then?” She asked. He shrugged his shoulders.
“Is it because I’m going to die?” Was her next question.
“And why the hell should I fuck with you?” He grunted slightly annoyed but more embarrassed.
“I... I’m curious. Nobody told me that I was pretty before. Nobody saw me like that. They all saw me as the Rogue. The girl with a killer skin.”
“I’m not going to tell you that you should wait for the right guy since you don’t have the time for it...” He begun, then cleared his throat.
“Just suck it up, kid. Life’s a bitch and then you die.”
“Yeah...” Rogue huffed, then leaned slightly forward coughing and gagging.
“And no more deep conversations... They’re bad for your h... health...” He managed to wheeze before he had to steer to the side of the road and stop. It was impossible to keep the truck on the road and cough.

“We’re not going to make it to Alaska...” Rogue whispered, falling against the backrest of her seat, her eyes closed.
“Does it matter?” He asked. Now it was Rogue’s turn to shrug.
“Would have been nice... to see the snow. To make angels.”
“You’re going to end up as one, pretty girls like you do always.”
“I’d rather live.”
“Wouldn’t we all...”

On their third day on the road they were forced to abandon the truck. Logan had no strength left to clear obstacles on the road. Rogue wasn’t faring any better. Logan was carrying her.

“Look! It’s... It’s the moon!”
“Like fuck it is, kid...”
“What is it, then?”
“Don’t know, don’t care...”

Shimmering surface of a portal swallowed them. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the portal closed and disappeared.

“... Oh, shit...” He cracked his eyes open and sat up slowly. Utter chaos greeted him. People were running and screaming, klaxons blaring and the whole building around him was trembling from the force of Cyclops’ concussive blasts.

He wiped off the blood from his eyes; then turned his attention to the support girder still lying across his feet. He was able to squirm loose once he took off his shoes.
“Wolverine, we need you ASAP!” Jean’s panicked voice called him through static. He clicked the radio mounted on his shoulder once. He’d be there as soon as it was possible. Jean had teamed up with Storm as soon as they entered the compound, those two could hold up the fort long enough for him to get his shoes back on.

“Wolverine, hostiles coming your way,” Cyclops warned him.
“Yeah, yeah...” He grunted his response, then crept behind a large filing cabinet. He was going to get his shoes on before he did anything else. The whole fucking mission smelt bad. It looked bad, it sounded bad, and it smelt bad. It was bad, period.
“This is a fucking ambush, Cyke!” He growled, and received no answer from the other man. Either the fearless leader was down, or just generally pissed off at him again.

With shoes on he felt much more at ease. No need to watch broken stuff lying on the ground, now he could turn his whole attention to his adversaries. Instead of five soldiers he had expected to barge in he found himself standing there, surrounded by five of his own kin. Mutants, armed to the teeth with quite frightening arsenal of different kind of weapons.

It was a rule that you never harmed another mutant. A rule that Scott, Professor Xavier, Jean and Ororo respected. Wolverine however had no qualms. He wasn’t going to discriminate anybody over something as menial as race or species. He managed to dispose all the five mutants before they had the chance to use their weaponry on him.

“Jeannie, you still there?” He asked.
“... Still here, move your ass, Wolv... You ...bitch!” Message was muddled with static, but the good doctor sounded as if she was okay.
“Sorry about delay, had to take care of personal problem first. I’m on my way to you now,” he said.
“... sonal hygiene? Wolverine!”

He grasped the radio and tore it off. Obviously it was of no use. Damn trinket had been causing nothing but troubles for him anyway. He crushed under his heel before charging towards the stairs. Jean and Storm were one floor above him.

It was a large, rectangular room. Walls painted white. Floors and roof had undergone the same treatment. After that every visible surface had been decorated with cables and wires. Smack dab middle of the room sat a man. He was naked apart from lap top that lay on his bent knees and multitude of cords and cables that seemed to connect him together with the computer and the room itself.

“Holy shit! What the fuck is that?” Logan asked surprised. Jean shook her head. Storm looked as puzzled as Logan.
“He’s been just sitting there since we broke the door of this room. We thought that you might know more about this,” Jean whispered.
“And what gave you the impression that I’d know jack shit about this?” Logan asked.
“This looks like something that only Stryker could have done. You two share a past, and we thought...”
“You thought wrong, Jeannie. I share nothing with Stryker. And I don’t know what the deal behind this guy is. But he’s freaking me out...” Logan said with a low voice.
“He’s just sitting there,” Jean pointed out.
“Yeah. Would you just sit over there, buck naked when people scream, shout and fight around you?” Logan asked. There was no explaining why he suddenly felt cold chill racing down his spine. There really was no reason why he felt the urge to maim the man sitting on the floor, for all he knew the poor bastard could have been one of the tortured test subjects, but there was no way of denying it. He wanted to kill the man, as quickly as possible.

“Jean, Storm... Let’s get the hell out of here. I have a bad feeling about this guy...” He grunted and started backing out. Suddenly the man on the floor moved. His eyes turned to look at Logan. His blank face transformed slowly through confusion to anger.
“Failure in transdimensional displacement. Script invalid. Unable to proceed.” His lips didn’t move, the voice came from the speakers from the corner of the room.
“We really should get the hell out of here, now!” Logan barked, then grabbed both women with him and fled the room.

He kept running, dragging Jean and Storm with him. He could hear the computerized voice booming everywhere around him, counting down numbers. He didn’t know the purpose of the countdown, but he had a distinct feeling that it was something unpleasant.
“Wolverine!” A new voice echoed from behind him. He stole a quick glimpse, and what he saw made him almost stop.

Rogue stood there. Doorway to the room behind her was shimmering silver, rippling and glistening wetly. She was reaching out for him, trying to beckon him to her. It was Rogue, but it wasn’t the same girl he knew. It wasn’t his Rogue. There was something seriously wrong with the way the apparition kept flickering and blinking as an old movie.

“Wolverine! It’s Rogue! We have to help her!” Storm shouted, struggling against his hold.
“It’s not real, you twit! Real Rogue is at school, remember?” He grunted, forcing both of the women to take the flight of stairs so fast that they all three stumbled; only barely avoiding falling down. All the while they run they could hear sickening sweet and high-pitched noise ringing in the air, making their ears twitch and eyes water.

Cyclops was waiting for them in the room where Logan had maimed the five mutants, his eyes glued to the scattered pieces of the broken radio.
“We better get out of here, Cyke!” Logan huffed, then grasped him as well and started dragging the whole team with him towards a corridor that he hoped would lead them to the exit. When he dared a quick glimpse over his shoulder he could see silver, creeping over the walls, floor and roof, reaching towards them. He couldn’t smell it, but the noise it made and appearance of the substance struck a strange cord inside of him. He was afraid. Genuinely terrified. Nothing good would follow if they got caught in to the silvery embrace, that much he knew on an instinctual level.

“Wolverine, wait! Don’t leave me here alone!” Rogue’s voice called after him. He paid no attention to it, voice was familiar, but the girl was not real. She wasn’t real. The Rogue he knew had only once called him Wolverine, after proper introduction she had always used his real name.

“Wolverine, please don’t leave me! I don’t know what to do if...” Exit was there, they were running through the doors, then they were outside, now even Cyclops helping him to force Jean and Storm towards the jet that waited little further from the compound they had just raided.

Outside the level of the noise was almost bearable. When they stopped to wait for the jet’s loading hatch to open they witnessed quite confusing sight.

Building they had just left behind started to crumble. It looked as if it was collapsing and folding on to itself. Everything was over in a matter of seconds. First the roof caved in. Then the walls started to fall, almost as in slow-motion, everything falling neatly towards the center of the compound and simultaneously disappearing, melting in to a great pool of silvery liquid. When the building was gone the silver pool begun to shrink in size, disappearing from their eyes as well.

“We have a problem,” Professor Xavier declared when the team gathered in to his office.
“No shit, baldy? We were there trying to look for the source of the Legacy, and the whole fucking building disappeared,” Logan huffed. Professor shook his head.
“No, no... The problem is far more serious than that. I was observing your progress through Cerebro. The building didn’t just disappear. It was moved.”
“Moved? To where?” Scott asked puzzled.
“That is a good question. I’m able to track down any mutant, at any time and any place on the earth. Right after the building vanished I was unable to detect any of the mutants that disappeared with it. It appears that they simply do not exist anymore,” professor said.

Logan, Scott and Ororo could only stare at the Professor Xavier. None of what he just had said made any sense to them. It was Jean who broke the sudden silence.
“Alternate reality? Is... Is that even possible?” She asked hesitantly. Professor Xavier nodded.
“We do know that General Stryker has been dabbling with Legacy and related projects. We also know about his... Frankly perverse interest in mutants and different mutations. People with gifts that are able to bend time and space really exist. It looks like Stryker has managed to harness that ability, to some extent. Which brings me to the core of our problem...” Professor Xavier paused.

“We have to stop him!” Scott huffed. Now it was Logan’s turn to glare at him.
“Stop a guy who can manipulate time and space? Good luck with that, fly-boy...”
“Children, stop your bickering!” Professor Xavier exclaimed.
“Stopping Stryker isn’t our agenda anymore. It is simply impossible task. Far more important is to find out if he has already managed to tamper with our fate. As far as we know, we may not even really exist,” Professor continued.
“What the fuck? Of course we exist! I’m sitting right here, you’re there and last time I checked, this School was still filled with brats of all sizes and shapes!” Logan blurted.
“That may be the case. Or we’re merely a discarded timeline, a shred that co-exists with actual line for a brief moment before disappearing. Our primary goal from now on is to locate a mutant with the ability to shift through different dimensions and send him, or her, to gather intel. Our timeline might be the only one, but if there’s several...” Professor said.
“Then were screwed,” Logan said.
“Yes. Indeed. For the lack of a less vulgar description of our situation... We’re screwed,” Professor Xavier confirmed.

It was up to Professor to locate their saviour. Since there was nothing left to do but wait Logan left the sublevels and found his way to a small kitchenette. It was reserved to teachers during day time. Now it was well past midnight, and only few people were up. Only one person sat in the kitchenette. Marie.

For a long while he stood at the doorway, staring at her back. At the compound he hadn’t been 100 percent sure of the identity of her lookalike. Not before the apparition had called him Wolverine.
“Had a rough day?” Marie suddenly asked, without turning to look at him.
“The usual. We came, we saw, we kicked ass and took names,” he huffed, then walked in and sat opposite her.
“But that’s enough about me. How was your day?” He asked, eyeing the pile of used tissues and a steaming pot of tea in front of Marie. At the morning she had complained that she felt a bit chilly.
“I guess the flu caught me finally,” she said, sipping the tea.
“That sucks. You should go and see Jean. Ask her to check it up,” he said, all of a sudden worried over the sniffling girl.
“No, it’s okay. I just take an aspirin and go to bed...” She said. And he knew, just knew that he should take her to see Jean as soon as possible.
“Come on. I bet Jean is still at the med lab. I’ll take you there and she can check you up just in case.”
“Just in case of what?” Marie asked, still cradling the ceramic mug in her hands.
“Well... Just in case that it isn’t a regular flu? What if it is something more serious? Like pneumonia?” He tried to assure her that it really would be a good idea to go and see Jean. He knew how ridiculous it sounded.
“Fine. I’ll go as soon as I finish this,” Marie huffed, saluting with her tea.
“We’re going now. We better hurry before Jean goes to bed. She had a rough day and...”
“Okay! Okay! I’m going!”

To his immense relief Jean found no reason to be worried. Marie was suffering from common flu.
“But it was a good catch, Logan. It could have been more serious,” Jean said after Marie had already left.
“Cases of Legacy have already been reported.” To that Logan had nothing to say. For a long moment they just sat there, steady hum of the ventilation system the only sound in the world.

“What do we do when it reaches us?” He finally asked. Jean sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose.
“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. And it scares the shit out of me. Right now only thing we can do is to isolate patients and hope that at least some of us dodge the bullet,” she said.
“But I have a bad feeling that Legacy is the one bullet that nobody, not even you, is able to dodge,” she continued after a short pause.

That night he was unable to sleep. Jean’s words kept pestering him. How did you dodge a hail of bullets that were targeting the very basic structure of you? How did you hide from something you couldn’t see or sense otherwise? How did you stop a whole world from dying?

Finally, after several hours of tossing and turning he sat up on his bed. The only possible solution he had managed to figure out was isolation. Complete isolation. Selected group of individuals, remote location and no contact whatsoever with the outside world. But was it already too late? Who would choose the group? Who’d decide who got to live? And where was a remote and isolated location? And what if he was asking the wrong questions? What if the Legacy wasn’t the ultimate threat?

“Oh, for fuck’s sakes...” He shook off the cover and grabbed his jeans. He’d go nuts if he just sat here alone. He wasn’t the brain of any operation. He was the muscle that made any operation work. His knapsack waited at the bottom of his closet, already packed in case of emergency. He got dressed, then just as he was walking out from the door he returned and grabbed a piece of paper and a pen from his bedside table. Scribbled a hasty note after sudden realization.

On his way to student dormitories he slipped the note from underneath Professor’s door. Xavier would understand it. He had to. Starting from the next morning Professor Xavier’s Academy for Gifted Youngsters would be short of two mutants.

“Where are we going?” Was Marie’s first question.
“I don’t know yet,” he answered. The girl looked at him with a puzzled look on her face.
“Jesus, kid. When somebody wakes you in the middle of the night you should be asking ‘what the fuck’, not where he’s going to take you.”
“Well... What the fuck?” Marie asked hesitantly. She obviously wasn’t quite awake yet.
“Shit hit the fan. It’s time to get going before it rains down on us.”
“Legacy?” Now she visibly perked up.
“How the hell do you know about it?” He asked genuinely amazed. The whole ugly truth about the viral threat was closely kept away from the students.
“I heard Jean talking about it with the professor the other day. It really is happening?”
“Yeah. Legacy is happening. And whole lot of other things. Gather your stuff, we’re going to find a suitable fort to hole up and wait for it to be over.”
“Okay...”

It struck him when they were sitting in his truck, waiting for the garage doors to open. The mother of all déjà-vu’s. Marie was sitting next to him, sneezing and sniffling, trying to get her sinuses and lungs to cooperate after a brief explosion to cool night air. Her pitifully small backpack lay at her feet, and he was feeling a bit down all of a sudden for some reason.

At some time, at some place they had done this before. They had taken off in his truck, driven for a while. She had been sick. Really sick. The kind of ‘you’re going to die’ –sick. He had been sick. The kind of ‘you wish you’ll die soon’ –sick. They had been driving towards Alaska and then...

As soon as he almost managed to grasp a hold of the fake memory it disappeared, leaving him feeling slightly uneasy and uncertain. Alaska? Why the fuck would he chose Alaska of all the possible places? He shook his head, then another strand begun to uncurl, portraying images of things he hadn’t really lived through, but perhaps at some time, at some place somebody had done all those things he now saw.

Silver. Everywhere he looked he could only see silver. The girl on his lap was now struggling, trying not to cough, and there was blood on her lips, her breath reeked of it...

“It says no parking here...”

He stared at the piece of paper, trying to remember if he had written it. It was his handwriting, but what the hell were Techno-mages?

Stryker, laughing. Pointing at him, then suddenly lunging forward and pushing him back, towards a portal. Huge silvery disc swallowing him, darkness shrouding his vision.

Waking up. Hurting. Lungs bursting from the sheer amount of viral particles. Throat aching, screaming for relief. Can’t cough. Shouldn’t cough. You kill them all if you so much as breathe out now...

CARRIER

When he came to, they were still sitting in his truck. Garage doors were open and the engine was running. Marie was staring at him.
“Where did you go?” she asked.
“Got a bug up in my gears, nothing to worry about. Ready to go?” He asked, trying to shake off the chills that raced down his spine.
“Fine and dandy. If we’re going to sneak out, we better hurry before anybody begins to wander why the lights are on at this time of the night.”
“We’re not sneaking out. I left a note to the Professor,” he said. It wasn’t a lie per say. He had left a note. He just hadn’t seen the need to include their departure to it. The professor would notice soon enough that they were missing.

“So... You really don’t have anything planned?” Marie asked. They were sitting at a gas station just outside of the city. They had bought a map and Logan had circled few locations from it.
“I do have a plan. To get as far away from everybody and everything as we can get. It’ll take a while, but... These places would be okay, but the problem is, that we need some sort of a shelter from the weather. And we need to be able to defend it, too.”
“That would rule out a camper, right?” Marie asked. For a brief moment he had been considering a camper, but she was right. It was easy to move, easy to relocate, but the past experience had shown him that those things were death-traps on wheels. They’d need something more solid. Underground bunker equipped with fully developed and active security system would be ideal, but he had a nagging feeling that those weren’t just lying around, waiting for suitable occupants.
“A camper could do for now. But you’re right. We have to find something better. These places...” Logan said, tapping the few circled dots on the map.
“These places are as remote as it gets. That means that there’s no shelter from the weather, or possible attacks, but there’s a good chance that nobody comes looking for us from there.”

For a moment they both mulled over their options.
“You said that Legacy isn’t the only threat for us. Attacks? What’s going on?” Marie then asked.
“I’m not sure. But I have this funny feeling that somebody is after me. After us. Professor thinks that we’re dealing with some sci-fi shit. Alternate universes or something. And I have been getting these weird blackouts. Almost as if I’m remembering something that hasn’t really happened to me, but it may have happened to me at some other place or time... Shit. Does this make any sense to you at all, kid?” Logan asked. Marie stared at him for a long while.
“I think so... I... I have been thinking that I’m going crazy. Or that I’m daydreaming, or... I sometimes get the feeling that I should be very ill. Or that I should be very afraid of something... I haven’t told to anybody, because it feels so strange, and... I’m not crazy?” She asked hesitantly. Logan shrugged his shoulders.
“If the professor is right, we’re no crazy. Just knee deep in shit.”
“That’s... That’s good... I guess.”



“This doesn’t look too bad. Roof is leaking, but you can fix it, right?” Marie asked, eyeing the small shack they had found. It most likely had been used by lumberjacks at some point, and when the nearby sawmill had closed off the lumberjacks had left, too. Now it was just a shack in the middle of nowhere with a leaky roof and walls that needed insulation for the coming winter.
“I don’t know about this... Where there’s a road there’s bound to be other people, sooner or later...” Logan ventured, leaning against the doorjamb and resting his gaze on a dirt track leading through the forest.
“We have been on the road for well over two weeks already. We checked all those other places. There’s nothing more left!” Marie shouted, suddenly aggravated. He could smell her fear. He couldn’t blame her. On the road they had seen first signs of Legacy. It hadn’t been pretty. And unfortunately she was right.

At first it had been simple. Driving around and staying in motels. Eating from diners scattered along their path. Then one day it had begun. More often the motel was closed, diner burned to crisp, and lately they had passed several trucks that just sat on the side of the road, some of them intact, most of them looking as if they were raided.

Legacy had arrived, and people everywhere were busy hiding from it and gathering supplies to fare over the worst.

It started to rain. Again. He hunched his shoulders and shoved his hands in to his pockets. Lowered his head and stole a glimpse from the girl that was trudging alongside him through the deserted city. She was shivering. They’d have to find a shelter soon. He had already given her his jacket several hours ago when first drops of rain had fallen.

“I guess that Xavier wasn’t as smart as you thought he was…” The girl whispered, her feet sloshing in the muddy water around them.
“No shit, Sherlock?” Logan asked and wiped his forehead to get rid of small streams of water that trickled over his eyes.
“Or you could have been… Uh… Less cryptic, you know? I bet that you made up part of those words, and nobody understood what you tried to warn them about.”
“I wasn’t making stuff up, kid. I was in a hurry. I needed to get us out of there. Timmy died that afternoon, and there were at least seven other kids dying at med-lab. I wasn’t going to wait for us to get sick!” Logan growled. Marie sneezed.
“Well, I am sick now…” She said and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
“You got flu. If we had stayed any longer you’d be dead. So quit your fucking whining and move your ass. You’re going to get pneumonia if we don’t find a shelter soon.”
“Fuck you, Logan…”
“Fuck you, too, darling.”

In all honesty he could have taken his time to explain things properly. There really was no rush. People were already dying, few hours or even few days wouldn’t have made any difference, but he had had a sudden urge to get going, like it was more important to get away, like it was more important to get on to the road than try to stop the disease.

Ugly truth was that he was afraid. Afraid of the cost of stopping Legacy. At first it had seemed impossible. Legacy was running rampant, and something, or somebody was bending the reality, fabric of the universe. People, buildings and whole cities were disappearing and distorting, leaving behind traces of strange silvery substance that was crawling with the virus and had corrosive effect. They managed to find the source of the virus as well as the culprit for disappearances. A mutant of sort, capable of travel between alternate universes. Unfortunately General William F. Stryker, head of bio weapons program of U.S. Armed Forces had found the mutant first and was using it to manipulate the world around them, trying to erase mutant population.

“We could have gone after Timmy,” Marie said.
“We could have…” Logan admitted.
“I could have drained him. We would have to worry over Legacy now, we wouldn’t have to keep thinking if we’re still around after Stryker’s next attack.”
“Yeah. And you could be you. Or you could be just like Timmy, making all of us disappear one after another. Draining Timmy sounded a bit too easy solution, there has got to be a catch…” Logan started, not sure which one he was trying to convince, Marie or himself.
“Too easy? Draining Timmy to death would have been easy? Logan, pull that head of yours out of your ass, I’m not sure if I heard you right through all that shit you’re spewing!”
“I’m not saying that it would have been easy for you! It wouldn’t have been easy solution to any of us! I don’t want to kill that kid any more than you do! But killing him would have left us facing only Legacy, and it was only a matter of time before Jean would have found a cure. I’m sure that Stryker has something up in his sleeve, just in case something happens to Timmy.”
“Or Timmy is his ace, perfect backup plan if Legacy failed! Have you thought about that?” Marie asked, already sounding more tired but every bit convinced that professor Xavier’s original plan of erasing Timmy from the equation was still their best option.
“I have thought about that. I have thought about many things. I haven’t been sleeping so well lately, with all the thinking I have been doing. And no matter what way I look at things, killing Timmy would probably at least help us a bit, but we’d lose you for good, and I’m not ready to give up on you, kid. So shut the fuck up. I don’t want to hear about it if it involves you sacrificing your life just so that the rest of us might get through this shit a bit easier!”

He was soaking wet, tired and angry, but more than anything he was frustrated. The whole deal with Legacy and Timmy who was now better known as Techno-Mage had only started couple of weeks ago, but Logan felt like it had been going on forever. Like he had been banging his head against the brick wall that Stryker had built for better part of an eternity, always failing, picking up the pieces and starting again. And he was rapidly losing his will to go on.

“Have we been here before?” He asked, eyeing No Parking –sign with suspicion.
“Don’t touch it,” he then said when Marie was about to lean on it. Instead of supporting herself against slightly rusted metal post Marie grasped a hold of his arm, gazing him questioningly.
“It’s dirty and cold,” he explained, then ushered the girl further from the spot before stopping again and turning to look at the sign once more.

“Come on. It says no parking here.” The girl let out watery chuckle. She really was tired, his pitiful attempt of a joke wasn’t that funny. He’d have to find some sort of shelter soon. He couldn’t let her die over exposure, not after all they had gotten through already.

He shook his head. It felt so real. He was teetering at the brink, small nudge and he’d tilt over.

Public buildings were deathtraps, he knew that very well. But there seemed to be nothing wrong with the upscale hotel. It felt empty. Smelt slightly dusty and deserted. Nothing wrong. Absolutely nothing.
“We can’t stay on the ground level. Pick a suite. Any suite. It’s on me,” he said, pretending to reach his wallet. The girl wasn’t pretending anymore.
“You know… Your jokes really suck…” She wheezed. He crouched and picked her up on his arms.
“Yeah. But you didn’t tag along because of my dazzling sense of comedy.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. Marie was staring at him. He felt like he should explain, but he didn’t know how. He didn’t know even if he’d be able to speak anymore. His sinuses felt clogged up, and strange electric buzz made his teeth itch.

Silvery tendrils were spreading, reaching for them. They were everywhere, leaving puddles of mercury at their wake, making terrain slippery and hazardous. There was no place to hide, nowhere to run. He tried anyway. He couldn’t feel his feet anymore, soft tissues had dissolved and he was running on bare bones, adamantium coating clinking sharply against pavement. Numbness was creeping up, at first he couldn’t feel his knees, but all too soon he lost all the sensations from below his waist and fell heavily on to their silvery grave, burying the girl underneath his heavy carcass.

He fell on his hands and knees, gasping for air that felt thicker than syrup all of a sudden. Pavement was cool and wet against his burning palms, water soaked through his jeans and small pebbles were burrowing in to his flesh. From the corner of his eye he could see silver. Silver tsunami approaching rapidly, swallowing the world around him.
“Logan? Are you alright?” He could hear Marie’s voice, but it was muffled, as if she was speaking from underneath water.

They were dissolving. For some reason he could still see, first to go were all the soft tissues, leaving bare bones behind. Skin, muscle and organs simply vanished, then bone started to turn porous, small holes appearing and growing bigger, eating away the girl from underneath him. Plastic sheet hadn’t been enough to keep her safe and he could only scream when last piece of her skull faded away right in front of his missing eyes.

“Soft spot. Right behind that door. Don’t open it.”

He struggled to get grasp of reality. Images and sensations were drowning him.

“Run! Marie, fucking run!”

It wasn’t a tsunami. It was a bubble. Large bubble cocooning them and there was no escape, it was closing in and soon they’d be gone, just like…

…before. This all had happened before. At some time, somewhere before he had been kneeling, trembling from fear and exhaustion, just waiting for it all to be over. He had done this before. Many times now he had done this, in all imaginable universes, in all imaginable times with all variations, and not once had he succeeded in beating the odds.

“Not again… Not again!” He pushed with all his might, rising from the ground and reaching for the girl, grasping her hand and dragging her in to alley left of them. He had tried to hide there before, but not once had he noticed a door on the wall. Fire exit of the hotel, hidden behind trash cans.

“Logan, what…” Marie started to ask, but he didn’t have the time to answer, he sliced the lock of the door and pushed it open, throwing them in just in time to avoid flurry of silvery tentacles. Door slammed shut behind them and he could hear loud crashing sounds, trash cans exploding from the sheer power of the silvery substance.

“What…”
“Shush, it’s out there,” Logan silenced Marie. For a while they both lay on the tiled floor, not moving, not blinking their eyes, not even breathing. And there was no sound to be heard from outside.
“I don’t think…”
“Hush, kiddo.”
“Logan, what ever you think it’s out there… I didn’t see a thing. First you were screaming on the ground and next you were dragging me here, and that wasn’t very nice, I think I sprained my ankle and…”
“Shut up, I’m trying to listen!” Logan hissed.

Again silence fell. And nothing was happening. Logan sat up slowly. Marie followed carefully and together they stood up.
“What the hell happened?” Marie finally asked. Logan shook his head.
“I don’t know. I… I was here. I was somewhere else. And here. At the same time. And that silver shit was creeping up on us. You didn’t see it? Feel it?” He asked.
“No. I’m just cold and wet. Can we please find a place to stay for a while? I think that I’d like to get some sleep. In real bed. This is a hotel, there’s tons of real beds upstairs, you know? You’re starting to ramble and hallucinate, I think some rest would do good to you, too.”
“I wasn’t…” Logan started to protest, then decided not to. He ushered Marie deeper in to the bowels of the building, away from the potentially hazardous fire exit.

Lower levels of Waldorf Astoria hid the ugly and gritty world of maintenance from the guests. Janitors, room service, housekeeping, kitchen, waste disposal… Each and every one of them quite essential in maintaining the façade of luxury, yet something that had to be hidden from delicate eyes of customers. Now they were as abandoned as the upper levels. Machines were still silently humming.
“Generators. I don’t know how long they’ll last, but at least for now we can get a warm meal,” Logan said.
“Is it safe to stay here?” Marie asked.
“Probably not. But we really have no choice. You need to get better before we can get going. If we stay out of sight and try not to spike up energy consumption we should be okay. They’re tapping in to main grid, there’s still enough juice left. They’re probably not going to bother with generators before the last power station falls. Probably.”
“So if we’re lucky they’re not going to find us? I like those odds,” Marie said, then turned to look at the doors that lead to kitchen.
“Hungry?” Logan asked. She nodded.
“Do you know how to cook?” Logan asked. She shrugged her shoulders.
“I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out…”

It soon became apparent that even Logan with his less than stellar skills by the stove was more competent, and they ended up eating slightly burnt eggs and charred bacon. Marie found several cartons of orange juice concentrate, but it was frozen, so they ate it as a dessert.

“That was probably the best meal I have ever had,” Marie said. Logan shook his head.
“Don’t. Don’t go there, kid. You’re acting as if your life is over.”
“It isn’t? Take a look around. There’s nothing left. We’re just running to buy time, but eventually we’re going to get caught.”
“No. We’re going to find out where Stryker is keeping Timmy, and we’re going to make that kid repair everything he broke,” Logan said. Marie looked at him like he just grew second head on his shoulders.
“You’re talking like we’re living on a giant sandbox, and you’re going to seek out the mean boy who broke your sand castle and make him to build a new one.”
“Yeah. That’s the basic plan. All we have to do is to get Timmy free and he’ll be able to twist the reality back on the right tracks.”
“What makes you think that Timmy wants to do it? What makes you think that this isn’t something that he’s wanted to do all along?” Marie asked. For that Logan had no answer. That was the possibility he hadn’t been willing to speak out loud, it wasn’t something that happened. Little ten year old mutants weren’t hell-bent to destroy the world and end the lives of millions of people, right?
“It has to be Stryker. I won’t believe that Timmy’s that skewed. He’s just a kid…” He started.
“Just listen to yourself! What happens if we find Timmy and we aren’t prepared for that possibility? What are you going to do if he’s behind this? Slap him on the wrist and tell him not to do it again? Hope that a lollypop would persuade him to turn back the time? There’s a good chance that I really have to kill him!” Marie interrupted.
“That’s the fever talking, kid. We better get some sleep. We’ve been running for days, it’s no wonder that we’re wound up. I’ll see if there’s a cot in that employee lounge next door…”

There was one bed, surprisingly comfortable couch and a set of chairs and a table. He lid on the couch, giving Marie the opportunity to enjoy sleeping in a real bed. At first she kept complaining that the sheets smelled funny, but she fell asleep quite quickly. That left Logan some free time to mull things over.

She very well could be right. If Stryker had warped Timmy’s mind enough, this all could be Timmy’s doing. He had hard time believing that even Stryker was willing to go this far just to get rid of mutants. Stryker’s agenda was to gain human superiority; he hadn’t been aiming for complete annihilation and apocalypse. Timmy had lashed out and things had spiraled out of hands.

He turned to look at the sleeping girl. Sacrificing her for the good of the world? It perhaps was the wisest strategy, but was he ready to let go of her? He had a distinct feeling that the fragile connection that had formed during passing days they had spent together was just the tip of an iceberg. There was something… Something buried underneath this all, a strong connection. She felt like…

“Soul. Life,” He whispered in to darkness, and then cringed. He was talking about a girl he had met only couple of years back when she was just an awkward and gawky teenager. Truth to be told she hadn’t changed much from that, but there still was that strange connection he felt with her. Like he had been meant to find her.

Rain was still pelting the small windows at the upper part of the wall. Heavy torrents blurred what was visible of the grey and dead world out there. Was she right about that, too? Was this all futile? Last losing battle before the inevitable death? Was he only postponing the end?

“No.” She had to be wrong. Otherwise they could just get up right now and go outside and wait for it all to be over. And that wasn’t an option for him. He wasn’t going to give up. Not when there still was a chance to revert this, when there still was a chance to go back and live a life that he was meant to live. He didn’t know what that life was, but somehow it was connected with the girl.

He turned on his side so he could keep his eyes on her. Darkness veiled the fact that she was ill. She was just a girl, sleeping after long day. His eyes drifted shut, but he could still see her in his mind’s eye…

It was early Sunday morning. Kids were outside; he could hear them through open window. Currently they were trying to dare the youngest of the siblings to eat a bug of sorts as a dare. He closed his ears from their bickering and turned his attention to his wife. She was still asleep. Or at least pretending to be. He wasn’t completely sure. But there was a way to find out. All he had to do was to pull off the cover and…

Loud clap of thunder woke him up. Dream had been strange, but pleasant. He couldn’t remember details of it, but judging from the warm feeling inside of his chest life had been good.

He could hear clatter from the kitchen. Then a string of curses that would have made a crude sailor to blush. Some more clatter, then a loud bang. He stretched his muscles and took a whiff from the scent that was floating in the air. Pancakes? She was baking pancakes? Judging from the instant growl and murmur of his stomach he had actually slept longer than he thought.

When the noise from the kitchen rose to a level where he started to wonder if Techs would hear it he got up and went to investigate. Maybe pancake-breakfast was salvageable after all?

Sight that greeted him when he pushed open the kitchen door made him blink. Twice.

Entire kitchen was covered with thin sheen of flour. Tables were full of pots and pans. Various books lay open here and there. He crouched quickly to avoid lethal projectile, tin can of pineapple that obviously refused to sway under Marie’s command. Tin can exploded to the wall right above his head, spilling the sweet contents all over the kitchen floor.

“What the hell are you doing?” He asked slightly annoyed, grabbing a towel from the rack on the wall and trying to clean up the mess, more out of habit than necessity. They weren’t going to stay long and there really was no need to leave the place pristine. Sooner or later it would be destroyed.
“What does it look like? I’m making breakfast”, Marie said.
“Looks more like the third world war. It’s food. And it’s already dead. No need to kill it again, kid.”
“Yes, chef! Why don’t you give it a try if you’re so great at it?” She hissed and showed a bowl of pancake mix in to his hands.
“I tried making it from the scratch, but all the eggs I found were rotten. I found this from the lobby. But it’s the last package, so be careful with it.”
“You went in to lobby?” Logan asked worried, only now noticing her new clothes.
“I was careful. And I got some new clothes for you, too. And raincoats for us. And…”
“You should have told me. We could have gone together. What would have you done if something happened?” Logan asked, more worried than angry.
“Nothing happened. And we can go there again. There’s tons of stuff just waiting to be picked up. I didn’t know what we need, so I just took the most obvious and…”
“We’re not going anywhere. I’m going alone. You’re going to stay here and finish making these pancakes,” Logan said, handed her the bowl he had been holding and stormed out from the kitchen.

Previously he had been too tired to even think about supplies, but now… This kind of hotels had shops in the lobby. Those shops were prepared to make even strangest requests of the customers true. Marie’s idea of raincoats was a good one. With any luck he’d find a tent and other camping supplies as well and they wouldn’t have to worry over weather anymore.

He tried to be reasonable and gather only the absolute necessities, they’d have to carry everything on their backs and weight was an issue. For reasons unknown to him he added on top of his chosen supplies several packages of chocolate, miniature bottles of quality booze, cigars and several lace and sports bra’s that he believed to be the size that would fit for Marie. Only much later, many hours after they’d left the Waldorf Astoria would he realize that he had forgotten good Cuban cigars that waited for him there at plain sight, still in pristine condition in the humidor near the cashier’s desk.