Spirit Quest Chapter 14: Whirled Peas by DreamWeaver
Author's note #1: Although SPIRIT QUEST is a sequel to SHADOW MAN in which Logan's trip to Alkali Lake pits him against Magneto, Mystique and Toad, it is an independent story in its own right.
Author's note #2: Hey, if Marvel first says Logan has blue eyes, then in Ultimate X they're black, I can have them green here for the purpose of the story to make them more unusual and distinctive.
"Come on, get up!
Logan was dead. Nobody could order him around anymore -- and it felt damn good! But the noise persisted buzzing in his ears like an angry hornet and then the shaking started just when he was sifting into a heap of black sand.
He roared, and it came out a kitten's mew. Swung a fist that would send his tormenter into the next dimension, and his arm flopped feebly on the ground. He felt his head being lifted and tried to wrench free but his muscles were on strike, then something cold tricked into his mouth and he choked, swallowed, choked again. Water! A rough, callused hand, wet with the same amazing liquid, swabbed his face. The shock forced open Logan's glued-shut eyes. He squinted, made an ineffective grab for the canteen hovering above him.
"Easy, pal. Not too much at first. Think you can sit?"
At Logan's noncommittal grunt, the hand, with arm attached, slipped around his back, levered him more or less upright. The movement awoke something in Logan's chest and a coughing spell tore through his body leaving him quivering and limp.
"Man, you got the hack bad! Here, drink a little more." And the mouth of the canteen pressed lovingly against his split lips.
Logan let the water slide down his raw throat as if it were the sensuous caress of a woman's long, cool fingers. He swallowed and peered at the canteen's owner. Two glints marked eyes shaded by a wide-brimmed hat. Nose and mouth were snugly swathed in a red bandana. So he focused on the tip of feather peeking from beneath the scarf and breathed in the unforgettable combination of wet dog and warm bread. "I know you!" His accusation came out a raspy croak.
"Damn right, paleface." The reservation cop squatted on his heels. "Said I'd be keepin' an eye on you. What the hell you doin' here? Didn't you read the sign? This is contaminated land."
Nothing the guy said made sense but Logan decided to play along until he knew the score. "Sometimes I don't read so good. What the hell are you doing here?" he challenged.
The bandana muffled Hawk's guffaw. "Sometimes I don't read so good neither. And now here you went and trespassed in a restricted area. I oughta spout your rights and toss you in the clink. But that'd be doin' you a favor, wouldn't it, pal? Three hots and a cot. All the water you want."
"Sounds damn fine," Logan agreed hoarsely and his cracked lips unwillingly stretched in a painful grin.
"Thought so. Well, you can forget about lyin' in the lap of luxury. Not about to put some ornery, shit-faced, white man on the rez's tit. You'll just have to stick it out at Grandfather's."
"Grandfather . . . "
"Yeah, the old guy told me you was out here, said to haul you in. Don't know how he knew. Don't wanna know. Spirits and stuff give me the willies. I'll take deadbeat, loser trash like you any day."
Logan's laugh was husky. "Feeling's mutual, bub."
With the help of a strong hand under his arm, Logan managed to struggle to his feet but the sudden altitude made his head swim and a dense fog descended over his eyes causing his knees to buckle.
"Hey! Hey, none of that! No prima donna faintin' spells. Have some more water."
He drank, finally pushed away the canteen. "Okay . . . I'm okay."
Hawk chuckled. "Yeah, I can see that. Come on, paleface. Sooner you're at Grandfather's the better."
Their progress was slow and halting, the cop half carrying Logan, supporting him around the middle and securing a flaccid arm across his shoulders with a firm grip.
As Logan's bare feet shuffled over the barren, yellow earth, a flicker of curiosity sparked in his brain. If this was the spirit world, why was his skin no longer gray, but its normal color, and how come Hawk was here? And if it wasn't the spirit world, how the hell had he managed to escape? The questions niggled at him and finally he ran a dry, swollen tongue over equally dry, scabbed lips.
"Where are we?"
The cop's hat swiveled around, dipped as Hawk surveyed him. "Mean to say you really didn't see the sign?" And at Logan's careful shake of head, he grunted, continued, "This is -- was -- Ralston Complex. During the Cold War it was a classified, top security installation. Chemical warfare rumor has it. Then somethin' happened here and they shut the place down practically overnight, razed the buildings, bulldozed the land, posted it. Since Ralston was official Canadian property the geniuses in Ottawa made it disappear by givin' it to the rez. See, we'd been petitionin' for more space, hopin' for some of that bottom land down by the river. But with a stroke of the pen they took care of both the rez's petition and the Ralston problem. Now, accordin' to the books, we're one of the country's biggest reservations -- with our very own private, poisoned desert for a backyard. When the wind blows wrong everybody on the rez gets the hack, coughin' their guts out, the kids worst of all."
"Can't the authorities do something about it?" Logan wheezed.
The glints of eyes shrank to pinpricks of scorn. "The government? Man, don't you know what GS stands for? It ain't 'government service', pal, it's 'go slow'. If the powers that be don't do nothin' the protests quietly go away. And I'm talkin' graveyard quiet."
Logan chewed over the cop's words, tried to fit spirit world with toxic wasteland. Couldn't quite make a match. At first glance the two places looked identical -- yellow, gravely dirt, land flat as an open hand. Even the rotten egg stink was the same. But here was sound in the distant drone of a plane, in the little hissing dust devils the playful breeze stirred up then abandoned. And in the direction they were headed he could see a ragged fringe of green. Bushes, trees, Logan didn't know which at this distance, knew only nothing that color, nothing alive and growing, was natural to the spirit world.
"This place is big. How did you find me?" he croaked.
Hawk laughed. "Hey, paleface, I might not be Tonto, but a blind man could read tracks like what you left. See? There they are, clear and sharp as words on a printed page." He nodded at the narrow, scuffed trail they were following. "One pair of bare feet, marchin' straight as a ruler from the cut fence to where you was sunbathin'."
Logan saw, and didn't understand, and fell to coughing twice more before Hawk at last prodded and pushed him into the truck that served secondary duty as police car, there finally letting him alone. And Logan sank into the dark, huddled around the heavy lump of fire where his lungs used to be.
*******
"Drink, Wolverine."
Wolverine would not drink. The stuff smelled foul and tasted worse. It had already been poured down his gullet once and, wiser now, this time he kept his muzzle as firmly shut as his eyes. But the bony hands would give him no peace. Stick-like fingers dug into the hinges of his jaw, pried open his mouth. Wolverine snarled in warning, gurgled, choked, as the liquid poured in. He must swallow or drown. Wolverine swallowed.
*******
He lay in a flowery meadow and soft petals brushed his skin, lightly rested on his brow, slipped down to his throat, there to settle a moment before lifting to his lips. He kissed them.
"You're awake!" Startled, Kia jerked her fingers away. In her other hand sloshed a glass of brown liquid.
Logan saw it all through slitted eyes. Now he looked at her openly, his grin shameless. "I ain't gonna down anymore of yer damn swill! That said, what's the diagnosis, Doctor?"
Kia sniffed in disapproval and set the glass on the dresser even as the corners of her mouth twitched. She sat beside him on the double bed in the cabin's lean-to. "You're certainly not the most patient patient! But I have to admit that you've recovered, despite all my efforts to the contrary."
She turned serious. "If only I could inoculate everyone on the rez with your rapid regeneration. I've been trying to develop a serum, but I've come to the conclusion that a person has to be born with the healing ability. The gestation process seems to be critical. Maybe somehow introducing it into the womb . . . " Casey's little frown creased her forehead and she stared at the wall, seeing something there Logan could not.
"Well, at least the kids got it -- " he began, glanced at her. "But that means . . . "
She broke off her study of the bare, wooden planks, smiled at his distress. "I still have a few years left, thanks to you and Grandfather. Though I was furious when I learned he stupefied the children with his copal smoke and gave you a hallucinogenic drug."
"Hallucinogenic? You mean -- what I saw, did, wasn't real?"
Kia shrugged. "Reality is what we believe it to be."
He turned that over in his mind. Serpent, Rock, Cougar . . . The spirit world and its denizens had all seemed painfully real to him. "You passed out. What happened?"
"I have a defective heart. A simple operation can repair the problem if it's discovered in childhood. Mine wasn't. Now as an adult I have to pace myself. I overextended, collapsed. Thank you again for bringing me to Grandfather rather than taking me to the hospital." She squeezed his hand.
"There I would have been hooked up to all kinds of machines. Ever since Alkali Lake I've been suspicious of technology. Machines treat people as specimens, numbers, lines on a screen, not as human beings. Grandfather's herbal teas, no responsibilities, mostly, the long, restful sleep -- that's what put me back on my feet."
Logan understood the part about technology. A truck, a motorcycle, a jukebox -- as far as he was concerned civilization had reached its peak with those three items and the inventing could stop right there. But -- had Kia been brought down by a weak heart or a soul dart? -- that he wasn't so sure about.
"Seems I remember the cop bringing me to the old guy, too."
"He did. Then, when you had recovered sufficiently from the effects of the contaminated dust, I had Hawk drive us here so we could recuperate in peace and quiet. What on earth possessed you to go to Ralston?" she now demanded, horrified.
Logan gave a humorless laugh. "Hard to say. How are the kids?"
"They're fine. They're staying at Grandfather's a few extra days. No more trance-like ceremonies, though." She gave a shy smile. "I've prescribed myself a little vacation," she confessed.
"From doctoring too?"
"An intern from town is doing my rounds. Something like community service."
"So it's just you and me here."
She nodded, mute, an odd, guilty expression on her face as she met his gaze before looking away.
He felt his gut knot up and his eyes narrowed. "What is it, Kia?"
"You . . . I . . ." She laughed, half-embarrassed, half-irritated. "How is it you can make me feel eighteen again? And not a well-educated, poised, attractive eighteen, but a clumsy, naive, tongue-tied eighteen! I was hoping . . . "
He waited, silent.
Kia sat up straighter. "Do you remember my telling you about the vision of -- "
"Five children," he supplied. "There's only four so far. What's the problem? Aren't you going to cook her up in the kitchen like you did Kevin and the twins?
"How did you know the last one's a girl?" Kia demanded. "I didn't say . . . But I must have."
No, darlin', you didn't, Logan said to himself, studying her. A little snake told me. For some reason this unborn child was a threat to the enemy. She was why nightmares hounded him out of the school and its safety, why Sabertooth twice attacked Kia. For Mystique and her pals the solution was simple: kill the dad, or kill the mom, or kill both the parents and the kid won't be born.
"She's gonna be somebody special, isn't she?" he now said. "I mean all the kids are special, but this one . . . "
"Yes," Kia replied simply. "Did you ever see one of those bumper stickers that said 'Visualize Whirled Peas'?" She laughed. "I was so bound by books I took the message literally. It was years before I realized the words actually meant 'Visualize World Peace.' Say that fast and you get 'whirled peas.' Well, that's what she does -- 'whirled peas.' It has something to do with the healing of the earth, then almost overnight no more poverty, no more famine, no more fighting . . . "
Logan sucked in air, released it in a little laugh. "Damn! I'll be out of a job."
She smiled down at him, made to reach out, ruffle his hair, quickly pulled back the errant hand and folded it tightly with the other in her lap. "You'll land on your feet. You always do."
The brilliant warm glow that suddenly flooded her face erased the last fifteen years and Logan wondered how he ever could have left her. She was beautiful now, but she must have been stunning back then. With the glow her flowery meadow scent abruptly intensified and a surge of heat swept through his body in response. He felt inexplicably timid, nervous, excited, as if this was his first time alone with a broad. Broad . . . Distracted by Kia's heady aroma, for some reason Logan found himself pondering words and terms he had never before considered. Guys 'had sex,' 'got laid' -- the same way guys said they 'had a beer,' 'got plastered' -- as if the woman was a thing. It was the women who called it 'making love.' Guys 'screwed.'
To his shame, he realized he didn't know what Kia liked when she 'made love.' And the night that produced Connor he was pretty damn sure he hadn't bothered to find out. There was a wide spectrum of what pleasured him and he'd assumed, if he ever gave it thought, that something in that array would entertain the night's partner. He'd never found out if this was true for he never asked, never heard a complaint because he never returned.
"Land on my feet, eh?" he heard himself say -- and the next moment was shocked by the presumption of the words which then spurted out. "Happens I'm on my back at the moment, darlin'. Want to join me and make sure we whirl these peas together right?" He spread his arms in invitation.
The glow deepened and she gave a hesitant little laugh. "We hardly know each other," she said demurely, not meeting his eyes. "However -- " Now her regard was bold, a smile tugging at her lips. "I was hoping you'd suggest that. The real thing is so much more fun than doing it with a petri dish!" And she fell into his embrace.
All references to characters belonging to the X-Men Universe are (c) and TM the Marvel Comics Group, 20th Century Fox and all related entities. All rights reserved. Any reproduction, duplication or distribution of these materials in any form is expressly prohibited. No money is being made from this archive. All images are also (c) and TM the Marvel Comics Group, 20th Century Fox and all related entities; they are not mine. This website, its operators and any content used on this site relating to the X-Men are not authorized by Marvel, Fox, etc. I am not, nor do I claim to be affiliated with any of these entities in any way.