The collective indrawn breaths were loud in the suddenly quiet room. Logan’s growled curse finally broke the silence, the professor, Hank, and Todd all chastising him after the children’s eyes widened in shock at the vile exclamation. Oddly, Rachel remained silent, observing him with a thoughtful frown on her face.
“What?” Logan snarled at her, seeing the look.
“You really do care for her, don’t you?”
Logan sneered at the girl and turned back to Elizaveta. As he approached her, Max’s low growl filled the room. Giving him a quelling look, Logan squatted on his haunches in front of the girl, placing his hands on her shoulders and standing her in front of him.
“Hey, munchkin.”
“Hey, Mr. Logan,” Elizaveta whispered. She relaxed noticeably at Logan’s lopsided, wistful smile.
“Listen, I’m not sayin’ I doubt what you see, but it’s hard for me to believe I’d ever hurt Rogue. And I think it’s hard for you to believe, too, since you asked me about it a while back, right?”
“Right.”
“So what I need you to do is go ahead and try to see it again, but instead of lookin’ at me and Rogue, can you try to focus on what’s around us?”
“You mean try to see where she is?”
“Exactly,” Logan said, squeezing Elizaveta’s shoulders encouragingly. “Chuck,” Logan asked without turning, “can you maybe take a look, too? A second set of eyes will help make sure we don’t miss anythin’.”
“Certainly,” the professor agreed. “I’m ready whenever you are, Elizaveta.”
The girl nodded and shut her eyes tight, a frown of intense concentration wrinkling her smooth forehead. “I’ll try to tell you what I’m seeing while I’m seeing it,” she whispered. “I’m not sure if I can, especially since there are three different visions. I see them all together now instead of one after the other. Like before.”
“Whatever you can tell us is more than we know right now,” Logan soothed.
Elizaveta nodded again and gasped when the visions began.
“I…um, in all of them, it looks like the same room. The walls are white. No windows. And those long lights on the ceiling with the bare bulbs. It’s noisy. Like a fire siren going off.”
“Can you see any people?” Logan asked gruffly.
The wrinkles in Elizaveta’s forehead deepened. “Um…in two of them. In the first one I can see somebody running after you down a hall, Mr. Logan. You’re kinda standin’ framed in the doorway, you know? You’re lookin’ at Miss Rogue on the table and your face is angry and sad at the same time.”
“Doin’ good, kiddo,” Logan murmured, “but focus on the other person instead of me and Rogue.”
“‘Kay,” she agreed. “He looks angry. Kinda panicky. And he’s got a gun. He’s pointing it at you and it looks like he’s pulling the trigger. Now he’s stopping and looking down at the gun. He’s surprised. I think he’s out of bullets.” There was sudden wonder in Elizaveta’s voice. “It’s like I can slow the vision down!” she exclaimed. “When I focus on something, it’s almost like playing a video in slow motion!”
“Good job,” Logan praised. “Keep goin’. What else do you see?”
“The man’s looking up from the gun now. He’s staring at your back, like he’s deciding whether to keep coming or not. Oh! He just tossed the gun on the floor and now he’s running the other way. I think he’s too scared of you without his gun, Mr. Logan!”
“Is there anybody else?”
“No. Nobody I can see. But I can hear people yelling, and running footsteps.”
“Can you tell what they’re saying?”
“Um…a bunch of different things. ‘He’s going for the girl.’ ‘Stop him.’ ‘He killed them.’ There’s more, but nothing I can make out.”
Logan remained in position in front of Elizaveta as the little girl searched his golden eyes anxiously, perhaps trying to figure out if he really wasn’t angry with her. Squeezing her shoulders again, Logan nodded once before releasing her.
“Good job, munchkin. I’m proud of you.”
Max moved in quickly and wrapped his arm around Elizaveta.
“What are you going to do, Mr. Logan?” he asked quietly.
Taking a deep breath, Logan addressed everybody and not just Max. “I’ll be gettin’ some supplies and then I’m going after them.”
“How are you going to do that?” Todd asked in frustration. “You just said you can’t track a helicopter.”
“I can’t,” Logan acknowledged grimly. “But I know what direction they went. I’ll start with that and I should be able to pick up the smell of aviation fuel when I get close to where they landed. I know it was a Huey Cobra, so I know how far away they could get without refueling.”
“That’s hundreds of square miles,” Todd protested. “And they could have changed direction mid-flight.”
Shaking his head, Logan explained, “They wouldn’t have doubled back or I would have heard them. They’ll also avoid civilian populations and it wouldn’t have been a registered flight path. Chuck, you can find out what flight plans were filed in the area, right? Get me that information and a map and I’ll know where not to look. That’ll narrow it down considerably.”
“Of course, Logan,” the professor agreed in a worried tone. “But I’m afraid Todd is right. That’s still going to be hundreds of miles to cover.”
Logan barked a laugh. “It’s actually tens of thousands of miles,” he informed them before shaking his head again. “But,” he maintained, “get me that information and I can narrow it down to under five hundred miles.”
“Helicopters can’t fly thousands of miles without refueling,” Todd argued stubbornly.
“No, they can’t,” Logan explained, his tone surprisingly mild. “But the area involved covers thousands of miles.”
“That doesn’t make sense!” Todd argued stubbornly. “I’m not willing to risk Rogue’s life on a wild goose chase based on numbers that don’t make sense.”
Logan growled. “Look,” he hissed at Todd, “I know what I’m talking about.”
“Really?” Todd challenged. “How?”
“Erm, yes, Logan, could you explain? I admit I’m having a hard time understanding how it could be thousands of miles.” Hank’s gentle tone clearly hinted that he thought Logan must be mistaken.
Turning to face the laptop, Hank could see that Logan had arched an eyebrow in a look of…pity? Frowning, the furry mutant suddenly felt uncertain of himself without really knowing why. But that look reminded him of somebody.
“A Huey Cobra can fly a maximum of 357 miles,” Logan stated quietly, never breaking eye contact with Hank. “To make it simple, let’s round that down to 350 miles. In fact let’s round most of the numbers down. Divide that by two - the flight out and the flight back - and that’s 175 miles. The area of a circle, which is what we’re really looking at in figuring out what a helicopter can cover, is pi times the radius squared. 175 miles squared is 30,625. Multiply that by 3.14159 and you get 96,211 square miles. Assuming I’m correct and they didn’t double back in any way, we’ll only need half the area of the circle, which is 48,105 square miles. Hence tens of thousands of square miles,” Logan finished dryly.
Despite hearing Todd spluttering behind him, Logan kept his gaze steady on Hank.
“I…did you just do all that in your head, Logan?” Hank asked faintly. At Logan’s slow nod, Hank finally realized why the other man’s pitying look was so familiar. In all his life, Hank had only met one person who claimed an intelligence superior to his own. The young student in his Theoretical Physics class had been trying to explain Supersymmetry to an equally young Hank by writing down mathematical examples. But Hank, who had always taken his intelligence for granted, was hopelessly lost by the third line. The boy - Aaron, Hank suddenly remembered - had given Hank a wistful smile and assured him, “It’s okay. I didn’t really expect you to get it.” Aaron hadn’t stayed in the class long. He got up to leave in the middle of a lecture one day and when the professor called after the boy in surprise, citing him as one of his best students, Aaron had shrugged and explained, “I’m bored.”
That Logan of all people was reminding him of that time left Hank feeling distinctly uncomfortable. And slightly angry. Logan had obviously been fooling him for years.
“Hank, my friend,” Xavier murmured, “don’t take it personally.”
“How can I not, Charles?” Hank exclaimed. “After all these years, I’m just now finding out that Logan is probably one of the most intelligent people we’ve ever met? I can only surmise that he’s hidden this from us for one of two reasons: either he doesn’t trust us or he finds us beneath him.”
Logan snorted loudly. “That’s bull. And it’s not important right now.”
Hank snarled in response. “I think it is important!”
“It’s not,” Logan insisted levelly, “not when Rogue’s in trouble.”
Feeling sudden shame that his hurt pride made him forget about Rogue for even a second, Hank nodded. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry,” he murmured humbly.
“Good,” Logan acknowledged simply. “Think you can help Chuck get that information together for me? Take a look at wind speeds - where and whether it was sustained winds or gusts - and find out how much the wind resistance could have shortened their flight. Also, figure out visibility on all the registered flights - you’re going to have to look at cloud cover, too - and we can shave off some more miles. Any craft that comes within sight of another aircraft is going to be radioing in positions to make sure they don’t cross paths. Since helicopters fly much lower than passenger planes, it’s unlikely we’ll get a hit, but we might get lucky with a smaller, single-passenger plane or another helicopter. Or hell, even a passenger plane making an ascent or getting ready to land. From there, finish by eliminating the most heavily populated areas.”
Hank was nodding as he jotted notes. “What about fuel?” he asked. “Would it be helpful to look into the purchase of aviation fuel in the area?”
“Could be,” Logan acknowledged, “if you cross reference it with other purchases. Military equipment, supplies and the like. I’m afraid fuel requirements are pretty common in a territory as large as a Canadian province.”
“We’ll do that, Logan,” the professor promised. “You’ll be taking the phone with you?”
“Yeah. But I won’t be calling you. You call me when you have something.”
“What about us, Mr. Logan?” Elizaveta asked fearfully.
“You’ll be fine here with Todd and Rachel, munchkin,” he said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
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Chapter End Notes:
It seems all I do is apologize for the long absences...anyway, I haven't given up on my stories.
Please forgive any mistakes with the math since it's never been my best subject, and it wasn't simply Logan showing off. His intelligence will become more important toward the end of the story and especially if I do a sequel.
Please forgive any mistakes with the math since it's never been my best subject, and it wasn't simply Logan showing off. His intelligence will become more important toward the end of the story and especially if I do a sequel.