Spirit Quest Chapter 6: Leave Taking 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.
He tossed his knapsack in the truck bed, waited while she went in to tell the girls she'd be back soon and to do their lessons for school tomorrow. She came out carrying Kevin, wrapped up and rosy with sleep, laid the baby behind the seat. "I saw him with you when I left this morning," she remarked. "He always knows when people are upset and goes to them."
Logan said nothing, got in, rolled down the dirty window, looked out.
The engine came to life at the first turn of the key. "Wow! Thanks!" she exclaimed, and they were off, the cabin dissolving in a cloud of dust. The track wound among the trees, finally emerged to confront a slightly wider road crossing their path, distinguished in importance by sprouting a row of mail boxes. Connor was sitting there on a rock, thumbing through a magazine.
"Connor!" The truck halted and she rolled down her window. "I've told you not to read other people's mail!"
"Well, how come we don't get any? 'Sides, the Robinettes never pick up their stuff." He crammed the magazine back in the box and slammed shut the little door. "Where are you going?" And without waiting for an answer he jumped into the back of the truck, making himself comfortable on Logan's pack.
She sighed, turned left. "Now that I have you as a captive audience, Logan, I might as well finish what I was going to say and be done with it. I told you last night that one of my duties at Alkali Lake was collecting body fluids. That included semen."
He frowned, glanced at her, but she was looking at the road.
"I was on a month's emergency leave. My parents were killed when their gas heater exploded and the house caught fire. Dad was lucky, he died instantly, but Mom . . . How she managed to survive three weeks with those burns I don't know."
She said nothing for a while, just stared out the windshield, then gave herself a little shake. "While I was gone about a dozen of you at Alkali Lake rebelled, escaped. I got back two days before the base shut down. Nobody had time to give me the details of what actually happened, so I'm sorry but I don't know how you and the others managed to do it or how many were recaptured. Or killed. The place was in a furor. Files were being crated, shipped out, destroyed. The same with parts of the lab, especially our medical samples." Her eyes flicked over at him, away. "I stole your semen."
A hundred things surged up in his mind, finally settled into a single thought. He'd been screwed. And didn't even have the fun of doing it. "Why?" he ground out.
She took a deep breath, concentrated on maneuvering the truck through a mine field of potholes. "I don't know . . . Yes, I do. I wanted your children, our children. I had to steal it." Now she looked straight at him to the lively peril of any on-coming traffic.
"After that night when I tried to kill myself, visions have come to me regularly. Visions of future events, not always concerning me or even anyone I know, but scenes of what will be, or scenes of what can be if some little, minor thing happens. That morning when I returned to Alkali Lake and found you had escaped I had a vision of me and five green-eyed children. To one side was you, Logan, and by that I knew that they were our children. Then the two of us slowly faded into the background and the children grew and -- "
A car blatted its horn and she swerved to let it pass. She fixed her eyes on the road once more. "Our children are strong, Logan. They have powerful medicine. They are protectors, creators, healers. They will help not only the Indian nations but all downtrodden, suffering people. I have seen it. So since you had escaped, I took your semen. Later, back at the university I examined your DNA, manipulated the genetic code, changed it, added, subtracted. Did the same to my DNA, put the two together, grew cultures. Connor's a warrior like you, Logan. He was fortunate to be born with your rapid healing, but I made sure it was in the mix for the others. When Connor was four I had myself impregnated with the most recent results of my experiments. The twins are watchers, guardians, sharp-eyed to see when wrong is being done and unafraid to reveal it. Seven years later I developed Kevin. He's the most powerful of all, attuned to the spirit world yet sensitive to the living . . . "
Logan moved on the seat, restless, antsy, finding it difficult to breathe. Attuned to the spirit world? The woman was a raving lunatic! Claiming she concocted designer kids like some broads cut out cookies?
"Pull over here a minute. This is fine."
"I know you must think it sounds crazy."
"I . . . didn't say that."
She smiled at him and appeared almost normal. "You've been awfully patient, Logan. One more thing and I'm finished. I had Connor get you out of the Pit Bull last night because you're in danger. I saw it."
Logan saw it too. He was in acute danger of being buried in bullshit! "I gotta take a leak."
"Oh! Of course." The pickup bumped onto the verge of the road, stopped.
He thought his features were expressionless as he reached for the door handle, but she must have seen something in his eyes because she gave a self-conscious laugh.
"In danger . . . Melodramatic, I know," she said. "Well, I guess the details can wait for a call of nature."
Logan stepped down, went to the boy in the back.
"Hey, kid . . . Hand me my knapsack, will ya?"
Connor looked at him. "You going?"
"Yeah, gotta head out."
The kid sneered. "Dad for a day, huh? Job's just too tough for you."
Logan scowled, gnawed his lip, focused on the bald truck tire without seeing it. "Yeah, guess so," he said at last. "You're doing fine. You don't need me."
"I never said we did!" the kid snapped. He picked up Logan's backpack and hurled it at him, jumped down to the ground. "The girls like you though, and so does Kevin. Can't imagine the goddam, shitty-fuck why!" With narrowed eyes he dared the man to discipline him and when nothing happened he gave a jeering laugh and started for the cab.
"Hang on a minute." Logan caught his arm, shoved some money in his hand. "It ain't much but it's all I got."
"We don't need your -- "
"Buy something for the little ones, or your mom, or buy yourself some shoes, or get that damn truck fixed, or . . . Take care, kid." Logan slowly released him, shrugged on the pack, started to leave, hesitated. "Lissen, if you, your brother, your sisters ever need help . . . "
Yeah, then what? He was off to the wilds. The nightmares had shown him what he might do to others, to his friends, even to these kids if he stayed. What he might do to his kids if he stayed. Because nuts as the woman was, he believed her about this. They were his kids. But who could Connor go to for help when his mother finally cracked?
"Professor Xavier. Westchester, New York. Got that?"
"Huh? Whaddaya mean?"
"Just say it, dammit!"
"Xavier. New York. West . . . "
"Westchester. Remember it. Yeah, well . . . So. Okay. Gotta go." He took a last look at his son who glared back sullen and angry, then finally turned away.
Logan hadn't even reached the trees when Kevin screamed. A moment later Connor yelled and there was a squeal of tires. He swung around. The truck was where he'd left it, door still open, but the kid was inside the cab cradling the woman in his arms. Barreling down the road all but hidden by dust was a car and from it came the stink of sickening-sweet rancid meat.
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