Black-Market Clinic

"The intersection right ahead!" Caliban sat in the passenger seat and said to Logan beside him. "I remember there's a black-market clinic around there. The doctor has pretty good skills and a lot of experience with gunshot wounds..."

"Shit, just make sure you point me in the right direction!"

Logan cursed impatiently, driving the pickup truck recklessly through the streets of Oklahoma City, and finally turned into a back alley reeking of urine and decay under Caliban's guidance.

Caliban used to be a black-market merchant, and during those years when mutants were active, his business once spanned most of North America. Even though he had fallen on hard times now, his accumulated intelligence and network of connections were not entirely severed. To him, these dark corners of the city that normal people avoided like the plague were the places he knew best.

Under his direction, the pickup truck stopped in front of a low, small house.

"This is it." Caliban pointed at the iron door painted with strange graffiti.

"Damn it... You'd better pray you got it right!"

Logan, deeply irritated by Charles's injury, cursed, stopped the car, and without hesitation hoisted the unconscious Charles onto his back.

Laura supported the equally drowsy Miles, bringing him along with Logan and Caliban as they walked through that door.

"Ugh..." Miles clutched his head in agony. His brain had been pushed to its absolute limit, and now he could not even speak.

Reasonably speaking, he should have rested long ago; yet without seeing with his own eyes that old Charles was safe, he really couldn't find it in himself to close his eyes.

Just as Caliban had said, this was a black-market clinic, and the air was filled with a pungent mixture of disinfectant and rust. Inside the room, a tall, burly Mexican man with a fierce face had a cigar in his mouth, sitting with his legs crossed while reading an adult magazine. Seeing the group appear, he raised his head and looked over.

"Fernando, I need your help." Caliban got straight to the point.

The black-market doctor called Fernando looked up to see it was Caliban, glanced briefly at Logan carrying a wounded man behind him, and curled his lip. "Tsk, let me see who this is, our old friend Caliban... You look a lot more battered than the last time we met. Who's the patient this time? That old man?"

Logan couldn't be bothered to talk nonsense and directly placed Charles onto the examination table stained with unknown blemishes, then said coldly, "Fix him."

"Let's get one thing straight first, my prices aren't cheap."

Fernando muttered as he walked forward, rudely cutting open Charles's clothes with a pair of poorly sterilized scissors. When he saw the bullet embedded deep in the flesh, he clicked his tongue in wonder. "Nine-millimeter caliber, good thing it didn't hit the spine. Talk about dumb luck."

Next, he rummaged through a toolbox beside him to find a scalpel and tweezers, singed them over an alcohol lamp, and prepared to start the operation.

"Wait, give him some anesthesia!" Caliban reminded him.

"Sure, that costs extra." Fernando replied.

"...Fine." Caliban agreed.

He simply didn't dare let Charles undergo surgery without anesthesia, otherwise once Charles's powers erupted from the excruciating pain... everyone here would be in danger!

That kind of agony—no matter who it was, anyone who experienced it even once would never want to try it again.

Thus, the operation continued. Dr. Fernando conscientiously administered the anesthesia, then skillfully made a small incision with the scalpel, slowly extracting the bullet amidst a bloody mess...

Laura watched anxiously, her hands involuntarily clenched tight.

Logan leaned against the wall and silently lit a cigar. Through the swirling smoke, his expression was obscured.

Finally, Fernando dug that deformed bullet out of Charles's flesh and tossed it into an iron tray, producing a crisp clanging sound.

"Alright, he won't die for now." Fernando said, quickly tending to the wound, finishing the sutures, and wiping the blood from his hands.

As the sleeping Charles's breathing gradually steadied under the influence of the drugs, everyone let out a long sigh of relief.

"I'm gonna sleep..." Miles, who had been holding on by sheer willpower, finally couldn't hold out any longer. After saying this to Laura, his head slumped, and he fell into a deep sleep in Laura's arms.

He had long since reached his limit, and both his mind and body desperately needed rest.

"OK, my work is done." Fernando clapped his hands together, rubbing his fingers as he spoke. "Now, it's time to talk about the price. Surgery fee, hush money, cost of medicine... I want twenty thousand dollars."

"Fuck, you're robbing us!" Caliban raged. "Don't take me for some idiot who doesn't know anything! Fernando, this surgery is not worth this much at all!"

"True, it's really not worth it." Dr. Fernando nodded, then added, "But if I'm not mistaken, these people should all be mutants... These days, do you think it's easy to find a clinic willing to perform surgery on mutants?"

"..."

Caliban and Logan exchanged a glance, both of their expressions rather ugly.

The bastard was right, yet the asking price was indeed too high, and the cash the two of them had on them wasn't even enough to cover this amount.

For a split second, Logan even felt the urge to slaughter this greedy black-market doctor, but after thinking about it he gave up on the idea. Instead, he put out his cigar and said to Caliban, "Let's go."

"We need to go to the bank to get the money."

The afternoon sunlight was intense. Logan and Caliban walked on the road toward the bank with hurried paces.

"Seriously, I don't think we can keep going like this." Logan broke the silence first, his voice low. "Those two kids are massive trouble. Charles has already taken a bullet, and God knows what other dangers we'll run into if we keep going."

"Is that what you think?" Caliban asked softly. "But you saw Miles's power too. If those people show up again, we aren't without the power to resist."

"Resist?" Logan sneered, then slowly said, "You know what, Caliban... My intuition tells me that kid himself is the biggest threat!"

"I have a hunch those people might have all been drawn here by him! You know my intuition is always right!"

"..."

Hearing this, Caliban fell silent.

That's right, Logan's Beast Instinct was always accurate.

Yet, as Caliban looked at the bright glass doors of the bank, the young and resilient faces of Miles and Laura surfaced in his mind.

Arriving outside the bank, Logan prepared to walk in and get the money, but Caliban stepped forward first.

"I'll do it." Caliban looked calmly at Logan and said, "I still have some savings left... You should save your money to buy a boat for you and Charles."

Caliban knew Logan had been saving up to buy a boat, intending to take Charles out to sea to peacefully live out the rest of their days.

"Why?" Logan asked with some surprise.

Caliban thought for a moment. Reflected in his grayish-white eyes were the pedestrians coming and going on the street as he slowly spoke. "You know, Logan, in Miles and Laura, I saw... you and Charles from back then..."

"I know, that little guy Miles... is dangerous. Back at the casino, he genuinely wanted to kill everyone... but in the end, he still held onto a shred of restraint."

"So... I think... maybe they'll have a different future..."

"I want to see it with my own eyes."

With that, Caliban walked into the bank.

Logan stood where he was, lost in thought.

He thought of his dream boat, the Sun-Chaser. He really had been prepared to dip into that retirement money, but Caliban's words caused a tremor in his long-deadened heart.

"A different future, huh..."

The old Logan, whose beard was thick enough to be a bird's nest, let out a dry laugh and then cursed viciously, "Fuck!! In this shithole of a world, where the hell is any future?"

After that, he didn't say anything more, quietly puffing away on his smoke outside.

Time ticked away second by second. Five minutes, ten minutes...

As time dragged on, Logan gradually realized something was wrong, and a strong sense of unease surged into his heart.

Something's wrong!!

Logan tossed away his cigarette butt and rushed into the bank. The lobby was bustling with people and everything seemed normal, but that familiar figure—the one who always wrapped himself up tightly—was nowhere to be seen.

"Caliban?"

"Caliban, where are you?!"

Logan called out continuously, then questioned several people back-to-back, yet he couldn't get any news about Caliban at all.