The Deal

The atmosphere in the laboratory building's lobby had frozen.

Impact, Elias Vance, walked slowly toward the slight girl holding a hostage at clawpoint. He said nothing. Every step was steady and forceful, carrying the unmistakable pressure of a soldier.

He slowly raised a hand. The air before his palm warped, light bent around an invisible force, and a few floating motes of dust were crushed into nothing. His target was clearly Laura. Night Demon, the hostage in her grasp, did not seem to factor into his calculations.

Just as he was about to strike, a weak yet perfectly clear voice rang out from the speakers around the lobby.

"Stop!"

Impact froze. The energy in his palm did not dissipate; it merely stopped gathering.

He halted and swept the lobby with a knife-sharp gaze before fixing on a speaker in a corner of the ceiling. "...Mr. Miles?" he asked, a note of uncertainty in his voice.

"Elias Vance." Miles's voice continued at an unhurried pace, as though reading from a file. "Former specialist in the United States Army's Delta Force. Severely wounded in a terrorist attack involving Mutants and discharged. Later recruited by Northern Command's Special Projects Division into the Purifiers project. Codename: Impact..."

Despite hearing his file recited word for word, Impact showed no reaction. He even lowered his charged hand completely, and the suffocating force field vanished with it.

Laura's expression shifted at the sound of Miles's voice. Then she gradually realized something was wrong...

"Looks like the Department of Defense's military firewalls aren't as secure as they claim," Elias replied calmly. "Mr. Miles, since you're willing to speak with us, I assume you've come to your senses."

"I don't want to waste words." An unmistakable command rang in Miles's voice. "I want to speak to General Lake. Now."

"I'm afraid that won't be possible, Mr. Miles." Elias shook his head. "We brought no electronic communications equipment on this operation. I'm sure you understand why. If you truly want to speak with our commanding officer, show yourself first and cooperate with us."

"Heh..."

Elias's airtight official response drew a dry laugh from Miles. Amplified by the speakers, it echoed through the empty lobby, grating like metal scraping metal.

The huge LCD display in the center of the lobby flickered, then abruptly lit up.

Amid a glare of white light, a live image of the cryogenic storage room appeared before everyone.

A man lay rigid on the floor, his body covered in thick white frost, his skin an unnatural bluish purple. It was Lightwave, Davis. His chest barely moved; he seemed to show no signs of life.

Miles sat slumped against the metal wall beside him, ice crystals coating its surface. His body was just as frozen and motionless, his arms twisted at unnatural angles, plainly broken. His purple lips were cracked, and fine frost covered his face. Only his bloodshot eyes remained fixed on the camera, staring out at the world beyond the screen.

His lips did not move in the image, yet his cold voice came word for word from the lobby speakers.

"This is the laboratory's liquid-nitrogen freezer. Current temperature... minus seventy-three degrees Celsius." He sounded as matter-of-fact as a weather report. "Davis is almost done for. So am I. Maybe I can last another two minutes? One? Tch... Who knows."

Elias's pupils contracted almost imperceptibly.

"By the way, this freezer was built to underground-shelter standards, so I wouldn't recommend forcing the door. I've also physically locked the distribution room for the entire building. You can't cut the power... You could try tearing down walls to find the cables, I suppose. But I'd hurry. Time waits for no one."

Miles paused, seemingly gathering what little strength he had left.

"Oh, and Elias." He used Impact's real name again, an oddly pleased lilt entering his voice. "Remind General Lake to pay Kansas Medical School substantial compensation afterward to repair the building. You're the 'good guys,' after all. You can't leave a mess behind, can you? As for us... we're already 'terrorists.' I doubt you expect terrorists to pay damages..."

Laura finally understood. Miles was going to sacrifice himself!

She immediately moved to rush over.

But in the next instant, a hand settled firmly on her shoulder. It did not press hard, yet she could not move another inch.

Impact had reached her side without her noticing. Even as he held Laura in place, his eyes remained locked on the screen.

At the same time, Miles's weak but irresistible voice sounded in Laura's mind.

"Laura... listen to me!!"

"..." Laura gritted her teeth. Trembling, she stopped struggling.

"Fuck..." Elias swore under his breath, his face darkening.

With Miles threatening to throw his own life away, Elias felt as though he was dealing not with a child, but with the most ruthless, reckless madman imaginable.

And they truly could not ignore that threat.

Gritting his teeth, Elias signaled to the squad leader. The soldier understood at once and hurried out of the lobby without a word.

Before long, he returned carrying a heavy olive-green case. Inside was an old-fashioned military satellite phone with a thick antenna.

It was their last resort for an emergency in which all communications failed. If Miles resisted to the end, they would have no use for it. If he cooperated, though, they could use it to contact General Lake quickly.

Elias had not wanted to reveal that card so soon. He had hoped to use it to win more concessions from Miles. But Miles refused to play by the rules. It was as though he had known their limits from the start, and neither threats nor persuasion worked on him.

Either the boy was a master of psychology and negotiation... or he was genuinely ruthless and insane!

Ruthless to his enemies, and even more ruthless to himself!

Elias picked up the satellite phone, switched it on, and dialed with practiced ease. After a quick series of steps, the call connected. They had reached General Lake, several kilometers away in the city.

The lobby fell silent. Every eye turned to the small phone.

Once he had been quickly briefed, General Lake's steady voice came through it. "Mr. Miles, what do you want?"

His voice echoed through the lobby speakers, calm but edged with an inexplicable sharpness.

"I have only one demand," Miles said clearly through the sound system. "Let Logan and the others go."

There was silence on the other end for three seconds before General Lake spoke again.

"Frankly, that puts me in a difficult position, Mr. Miles."

"You and Charles Xavier are both important targets in this operation. In fact, the latter may be more important. He may be old, but his terrifying, uncontrolled psychic power remains a major destabilizing factor. I don't think putting a nuclear bomb that could go off at any moment in a little girl's hands and letting them roam free would be wise..."

The general spoke naturally, as though he were not bargaining at all, merely stating cold facts.

But Miles seemed not to hear him, and made no attempt to argue. His bloodshot eyes stared through the camera at Impact and the phone in his hand.

In less than a minute, the frost on his face had thickened again. Even his eyebrows had turned white.

The boy's meaning was clear. If they refused, he would wait there to die.

A deathly silence filled the lobby. Impact's knuckles whitened around the phone, his face dark as thunder. The soldiers behind him stood motionless, but their taut muscles betrayed their nerves.

Laura looked from the screen to the unconscious Logan. Slowly, she lowered her head, letting her hair hide her expression.

Time seemed to stand still.

Another dozen seconds passed before a long breath finally sounded over the phone.

"...Very well, Mr. Miles. You win." A trace of distinctly human irritation finally entered General Lake's voice.

At his answer, Miles blinked at last, so slowly it was like a rusted gate swinging shut.

"Get them a vehicle. Laura will take Logan and Charles away. You will not follow or stop them in any way... I'll raise the temperature here a little, so I'm still breathing when you come in... Half an hour after they leave, I'll open the door."

Miles's voice continued through the speakers, delivering his final terms.

"A vehicle is no problem," General Lake said, his composure restored. "But who will drive? That little girl? How will she get two half-dead adults into it?"

"Wait until Logan wakes up," Miles answered. "That old wolf will wake. He just needs time..."

"Sorry, but I'm not waiting that long." General Lake seemed to chuckle over the phone. "My schedule is full. I don't have time to wait for our legendary hero to wake up at his leisure."

He paused, then issued an order to someone beside him.

"Dr. Zander, stop standing there and do something."

Before long, a bespectacled man in a white lab coat hurried in, accompanied by several soldiers.

He glanced at Miles's wretched state on the big screen, then down at the half-dead Logan on the floor. Shaking his head, he sighed.

"So this is the legendary Wolverine? What an unremarkable end."

Dr. Zander's feelings toward Logan were complicated. His father had been one of Logan's creators, and Logan had also killed him. To Zander, Logan was both an important legacy left by his father and the man who had murdered him.

Logan's existence had also convinced Zander how chaotic and uncontrollable Mutants were. It had strengthened his resolve to research genetically modified food and accomplish his grand undertaking: "eliminating Mutants at the source."

Of course, he now worked for the military.

"Wake up, Logan," Dr. Zander murmured. He crouched and took a syringe from the metal case he carried, deftly filling it with fluorescent green liquid. "A high-concentration cellular activator, made especially for Mutants like you... Let's hope your body can withstand a stimulus this strong."

Then he drove the needle into Logan's neck without hesitation.

The drug took effect quickly. Logan's healing factor, which had all but lost its activity, was forcibly reawakened. His horrific wounds slowly began to repair and close, and even his heart started beating strongly again.

A few minutes later, Logan's body jerked, and he woke.

"Roar!"

Logan bellowed as he awoke. His muscles tensed, and instinct drove him to lunge at his enemies. But at that moment, Miles's voice rang sharply in his mind.

"Stop!"

"Please, Logan... take Laura and Charles and go!!"

Logan stopped.

Now fully awake, he looked around. He saw Impact, Elias, before him, and the soldiers surrounding the laboratory building. Then he saw Laura behind him, along with the unconscious Night Demon.

Finally, his gaze fell on Miles on the big screen, looking like a frozen corpse.

He began to understand what had happened.

"Mr. Miles made a deal with us," Elias told him. "He traded himself for your safety, Mr. Logan... So you can take the little girl and Charles and leave."

"Fuck..." Logan glared at Elias. His claws slid out involuntarily, veins bulging along his arms. He was plainly on the verge of losing control again.

But after a moment, Logan wrenched his head away, retracted his claws, and grabbed Laura.

"Let's go!"

Laura stumbled as he pulled her, but her feet seemed nailed to the floor. She turned her head and stared at the huge screen.

Only after Logan had dragged her several steps did she wrench against his grip and cry out toward it.

"Miles!"

Her piercing, tearful cry echoed through the silent lobby. No one else made a sound.

The boy on the screen remained propped against the wall, covered in frost. He did not move or answer. Perhaps he did not want to speak. Or perhaps... he truly had no strength left.

Half an hour later, the cryogenic storage room's heavy alloy door slowly opened with a teeth-grating scrape.

"Move, move!"

"Careful! These two are almost dead!"

The medics waiting nearby rushed in with stretchers and carefully carried the dying Miles and Davis out.

The frost on Miles was so thick that the original color of his clothes could no longer be seen. Only his chest still rose and fell, almost imperceptibly.

Dr. Zander strode forward and waved the medics to a halt. He took a metal collar from his assistant. A red indicator on it blinked on and off.

The collar was a Mutant Suppressor, designed to inhibit Mutants' special abilities. It was mainly used in prisons built specifically for Mutants, and also as a temporary containment measure by the military and advanced research institutions.

When Dr. Zander fastened it around Miles's neck, the people around him seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

The slight, paralyzed boy had put them under tremendous pressure.

"We meet again at last, X-0." Dr. Zander bent down and studied Miles's head closely, his eyes full of admiration and curiosity, as though examining a priceless treasure.

To a researcher, someone like Miles—a unique case whose Telepathy had mutated into Electronic Sense—was an unprecedentedly valuable research subject!

Miles could only glare weakly at him before closing his eyes in exhaustion.

His condition had deteriorated so badly that he could no longer speak. His earlier words had been sounds he simulated by controlling electronic devices. Now his ability was suppressed and both his arms were broken. His head was the only part of his body he could still move.

Seeming to realize Miles's predicament, Dr. Zander gave a soft chuckle. Then he and the others escorted their "prizes" away.

A little over ten minutes later, General Lake appeared once more on a Fox Television news broadcast. Facing a forest of microphones and flashes that lit the scene like daylight, he wore a confident, composed smile.

"...The extremist terrorist hiding among civilians, codenamed X-0, has been successfully captured."

"Victory will always belong to the soldiers of the United States! To our great democratic republic!"

Amid praise from the public and the media, he boarded a military transport plane with his battle-tested Purifiers squad. Under the eyes of countless onlookers, they took to the sky.

On an interstate highway outside Kansas City, an unremarkable pickup truck moved with the traffic toward the horizon.

Three people were inside: Logan at the wheel, Laura in the passenger seat, and old Charles in the back, hooked up to a mass of life-support equipment.

Through the rear window, Laura watched the plane shrink to a black speck in the night sky. Her clenched teeth would not stop trembling.

"They've taken off?" Logan asked quietly from the driver's seat.

"Yeah," Laura forced out through her teeth.

Silence settled over the cab again. A long while later, Logan asked hoarsely, "...Where to now?"

"North Dakota," Laura answered softly.

"Don't you understand yet?" Logan's voice carried a helplessness he could not suppress. "Eden doesn't exist! It was just a story in a comic book. Gabriela lied to you... There's no Eden for Mutants! You saw it yourself... There's no place for us in this world..."

"Shut up!" Laura cut him off, her voice sharp with emotion. "I'm going to find them!"

"Find who?"

"Richter, Rebecca, and Delia..." Laura spoke each name through gritted teeth, her voice rough. "Then we're going to get Miles back!"

Logan said nothing. Then he pressed down hard on the accelerator.

Meanwhile, at the University of Kansas Medical School, the original staff began clearing up the devastated site now that the crisis had ended.

Looking at the ravaged laboratory building, Dean Dr. Li De felt sick over the hospital's enormous losses. The military had taken part in the operation, but after discussions, it had shifted responsibility for compensation onto the insurance company. And nearly every American knew insurance companies were happy to sell policies; whether they would pay a claim was another matter.

While she was worrying over it, the finance department called. An anonymous donation of 1.5 million dollars had suddenly appeared in the hospital's account.

"This..."

Dr. Li De froze, then a possibility came to mind.

She looked out at the dim, cold scene beyond the window and sighed silently.

Inside the Walter West Building Laboratory, which had just weathered a fierce battle, everything seemed calm again.

On a forgotten computer in a corner, a blue progress bar in a hidden upload window finally reached its end.

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