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Three weeks! Jerk the mattress off the bed. Kick it towards the door. Three whole weeks-- He couldn't believe it! Drag the army cot opposite the doorway. That meant, including his trip up here, he'd been gone from the school more than a month. Set the bed upright against the wall. What was happening to him? Was he going catatonic? Shove chair and table over to the mattress.
Standing back, he studied the results of his labor. Table, chair and mattress by the door frame. The cot, vertical, its four legs resting against the wall, presenting its springs to the opening. He tested the springs now, throwing his body against the links--a stalwart, unyielding set, not about to bend under a man's weight and give him a comfortable night's sleep. Yup, the army bought well.
He'd done all he could. Might as well see if his screwy idea worked. Logan positioned himself by the door, picked up the metal table, held it by two legs. He foresaw three possible outcomes of what would happen in the next few minutes: 1-he would escape, 2-he would end up sleeping on the floor, 3-he would be battered to death.
What Logan didn't know about physics would fill a physics book, but he had observed that the magnetic field repulsed metal objects with far more energy than the energy which it received. He also was a firm believer that everybody and everything had a breaking point.
"So, let's put the two together," he now muttered, "and have us a little game of Ping-Pong."
Twisting his body, he swung the table around 180 degrees and with all his strength threw it into the empty doorway. Immediately, the magnetic field repelled the table with a force three times his effort, smashing it into the springs. The table bounced back, hit the field again, returned to the springs even faster--
Logan just barely ducked a broken-off leg, was about to straighten when a second whizzed by, struck the wall and ricocheted off. Citing caution as the better part of valor, he huddled behind the wooden chair, pulling the lumpy mattress over him for protection as he looked out between the chair's slats.
The noise was overwhelming: the springs whanging, the table--what was left of it, anyway--crashing into the bed, the bed itself angrily chattering at every strike, the table legs--thank God, there were only four of them!--snapping off, booming into the walls, or bouncing off the floor and ringing like church bells, and from the doorway itself came a hum growing louder and louder until the whole room vibrated.
It was only the table top now, rebounding faster and faster until it was just a streak and a whang and then, as the humming rose to a high-pitched, skull-breaking screee like a drill bit going through metal, the magnetic field suddenly burst with a hollow scrunch like a dropped watermelon, and the table top flew out to hit the concrete floor in the hall with a deafening clang and a trumpet flourish of dying echoes.
Logan wobbled to his feet. He was free, he realized dully. But he wasn't so sure that his freedom was worth the cost. His whole body was a-jangle: his bones felt like they were vibrating inside his flesh as if he were some kind of human tuning fork, and his blood swished about, sloshing in his veins like an agitated sea. Clutching his throbbing head, he wavered to the door, stumbled out into the hall, swayed off balance, and was kept from falling by Magneto.
He jerked to a halt, arms dropping to his sides. But it wasn't Magneto who had immobilized him, rather his own shock. The man regarded him coolly, looked past him into the wreck of the room at the deeply pocked and cracked walls where the table legs had struck, at the cot which had pounded holes in the plaster board for its feet, at the obdurate springs which bore only flesh wounds in the form of a few dented links.
"Clever." Magneto nodded in the direction of the army cot, a smile pulling at his lips. "But not a terribly subtle escape, would you say?"
Logan scowled at everything but at the man before him as he ground his teeth. "Guess not," he muttered at last.
"However," Magneto continued, "since you seem to have profited by your days of rest here and regained your strength--and just now so loudly stated how ready you are to leave--shall we go to the lab and pick up where we left off?"
Logan shuddered, found he was gasping and couldn't fill his lungs.
"I don't have to restrain you, do I?"
He almost laughed. Stupid to struggle, make a run for it. Magneto could stop him cold with a curl of his little finger. Logan swallowed, squeezed eyes and lips tight, gave a single, sharp shake of head, and followed the man down the corridor, jaw clenched against futile pleas and entreaties. He wasn't going to beg!--he hoped. Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed a smirking Toad, a horrified Fawn. Witnesses to his surrender.
He tumbled down a well of fire, screaming, weeping, pleading for the torment to stop. And finally it did. But his body still struggled to escape, limbs jerking, breath fast and shallow as he ran and ran.
"Rest. Rest, now." A cool hand steadied his head while a damp cloth blotted the perspiration off his face.
He reached out blindly, clutched the hand to him. "Make it stop. Please, make it stop!"
The hand tensed in his grip a moment, relaxed. "It has stopped, my boy. Rest, now."
But great, wrenching sobs tore him apart and he continued to flee the phantom pain. The hand slipped away, leaving him alone in the burning pit.
"Noooo . . . " he moaned, reaching out for that anchoring hand. His eyes flew open, searching for the security, the sanity it offered.
A man bent over him, smoothed back the hair from his forehead. "I'm sorry. It will all be over soon. This will help you sleep."
A sharp sting bit his arm. It was such a light, playful hurt compared to what he had endured that he laughed with surprise and pleasure. He smiled up at the sad-faced man.
"I know you. Don't I?" His words came out in hoarse whisper.
"Yes. I am Dr. Erik Lehnsherr. I am taking care of you."
"What happened . . . to me?"
"You've been hurt. But you'll be better soon. Sleep, now." The hands arranged the pillow under his head and straightened the covers, one dropped to squeeze his shoulder gently. "My brave boy. Your ordeal is almost over. You're doing well, better than I had hoped. I'm very proud of you."
He felt a flow of warmth surge through him at the man's praise. "Thank you," he whispered. "Thank . . . " And sleep took him.
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