Cyclops was watching Forge's tense face with mounting concern just as Ororo and Remy came running back into the lab. Forge never looked up from where he tapped away furiously at the keyboard, but Cyclops lifted his head immediately as they burst in, his brow furrowing. "Where's Logan?" he asked.
Ororo's face looked strained. "He's coming."
"And Santrock?"
Remy and Ororo exchanged glances, and Ororo's expression grew more disquieted. "I don't...I don't think we need to worry about him anymore," she said softly.
"Cyclops, we've got a problem," Forge said suddenly. Cyclops turned away from Ororo and leaned over the console, peering at the screen intently as Ororo and Remy crowded close to see as well. Forge pointed at the screen, tapping the glass with one finger as he cast a look at Remy's face close by. "Did you do this, Remy?" he asked. "Cyclops said you programmed a spike and sent it into the system."
"Oui, I did dat," Remy said with a trace of pride. "Did it work?"
"Like a dream," Forge said with a brief smile. "Logan's files...all of our files...have been transferred to the mainframe."
"Can you get dem out an' into dis system?" Remy asked. "I tried, but I don' know how to do it."
"That's the problem," Forge said gravely. "Santrock had a back-up plan."
"What kind of back-up plan?" Cyclops asked.
"He had the entire compound wired with those remote mines, not just the silo portion." Forge braced his hands on either side of the console and looked grim. "I think that's what he was doing over here when you first saw him, Cyclops. He was setting the detonation codes, to cover his escape, and bury us. And I don't know if we have enough time for me to send another spike and slip the files into this system so they can be deleted.".
Forge tapped the screen again. "Because the detonation program has been triggered."
"How much time do we have?" Ororo asked.
"That's what I have to find out," Forge replied. He began typing away at the keyboard again, as Cyclops turned away and stood in silence, his arms crossed over his chest in deep thought. Remy and Ororo turned to face him, heavy dread settling over them all.
"Can't we just leave?" Ororo asked suddenly. "Why do we have to have the files?"
"Because if they're not deleted, someone else could get them and use them," Cyclops replied. He lifted his head and looked at her steadily. "Do you really want others coming after him again...or you, or your baby?"
Ororo's face paled...she hadn't thought of that. Remy blinked, looked from Cyclops to Ororo's stricken face, then put a companionable hand on her arm. "Hey, Stormy? Dat true? You pregnant?"
She glanced at him and smiled a little. "Yes, it's true."
Remy grinned. "Dat's great! You get around pretty good for an enceinte lady."
Forge uttered a sharp curse and their attention turned to him. "What is it?" Cyclops asked quickly.
"Santrock did set the detonation code," Forge said in a low, worried voice. "And we have less than ten minutes to get those files and get out of here."
"What?!"
"Hurry, den, mon ami!" Remy said. He scrambled back to the console and stood over Forge with worried eyes. "Send de spike! Get dose files in here!"
"I can't, Remy. One of Santrock's controllers put up an icewall in the system...by the time I created and sent a spike, it would be too late. We have to go in through the mainframe!"
"Where is it?" Cyclops asked...then all attention shifted as footsteps were heard at the door behind them. They turned quickly, nervously at the ready...
It was Logan. He came in quietly, looking completely normal, if only a little weary and stained with blood, and he paused just inside the door, looking at no one but Ororo. Their eyes met in silence...then Ororo walked slowly to where he stood and put her arms around him. Logan seemed to hesitate for the briefest second, then he closed his eyes and returned the embrace tightly, Ororo's head resting against his shoulder as they stood in silence, just holding each other. In that brief moment, only Remy saw the look that flickered over Logan's face...it was relief, a lightening of his expression when Logan realized that Ororo loved him still...regardless of whatever dark thing had happened between him and Santrock.
"Good, you're here," Cyclops was saying. He turned back to Forge. "Where's the mainframe?" he asked.
Forge shook his head, his brow furrowed as he began to search the database again. "I don't know, Cyclops...no idea at all."
Ororo released Logan and turned back to them both. "The mainframe? As in mainframe operations?"
Forge looked up. "That's it. Why, do you know where it is?"
"It's on the fourth level," she replied. "I passed it on my way back up here...I'm sure of it."
"We can find it," Cyclops said.
"What's the hurry?" Logan asked. "Santrock is dead."
Everyone looked at him in the brief pause that followed. "You're sure of that?" Cyclops asked.
A dark, bitter smile came to Logan's face. "Positive."
Cyclops pointed toward the computer. "Santrock may be dead, but he set a detonation sequence for the rest of the compound before he ran off. We probably have less than eight minutes to get down to the fourth level, find the mainframe, and destroy those files before this whole place self-destructs."
"What in the hell...?!"
"Logan, listen..." Ororo began.
"You've got to be kidding me, Cyke!" Logan said. "Self-destruct...sweet smokin' Jesus..."
"I'm afraid I'm not kidding, Logan," Cyclops replied, turning away and beginning to head for the door. Logan snarled suddenly and pushed away from Ororo, following after him.
"What's with this we stuff?" he growled. "Get the others out, Cyke. I'm going down to find the files." He shook his head, muttering under his breath. "Why is there always a self-destruct plan? Is this a rule in some goddamn villains' handbook somewhere?"
"Logan, no..." Cyclops began.
"We don't have time to fuckin' argue!" Logan said, stopping and facing off with him. "I'm going down...I don't want to take the chance that another Santrock will hunt my family for the rest of our lives."
"I'm going with you," Ororo said suddenly.
Logan and Cyclops both looked at her in surprise. "No, you're not," Logan said.
"I'm not going to be separated from you again," she said firmly. "Now you either take me with you, or we can stand here arguing until this place becomes our tomb."
There was an endless, horrible moment as Logan and Ororo stared at each other. A look of quiet anguish glimmered in his eyes...but at last he nodded and grabbed her hand. "C'mon, then, darlin'," he murmured. "Let's go. Cyke, we'll see you at the top."
"I..." Cyclops began.
"Just go!" Logan snarled.
Cyclops met his eyes an instant longer, then nodded and motioned to Remy and Forge. Remy ran out first, and Cyclops followed without a backward glance...but Forge stopped and grabbed Logan's arm.
"Let me go with you," he said.
"No."
Forge's lips tightened, but he had the sense not to argue. "The mines in the south wing are set to detonate first. That gives you about another minute of time if you go out through the north wing." He gripped Logan's arm and smiled grimly. "Good luck, both of you. I'll see you at the Blackbird." He didn't add I hope, but they saw it in his eyes anyway, just as he turned and ran after Cyclops and Remy into the main corridor.
"Which way, darlin'?" Logan said.
"This way," Ororo replied. She ran through the opposite door, Logan right behind her, and she called back over her shoulder breathlessly. "We have to find the north side elevator. It's the fastest way down."
"It won't be working..."
"The cables," Ororo called back. "That's how I got up here...I climbed the cables."
They reached an intersection in the halls, and Ororo paused, looking down each side quickly...then she turned down the right-hand corridor and crowed in triumph. "Yes! The elevator!" she cried. It had to be the same one...it was in the same place at least, if she remembered correctly, but the doors on this level were shut tight just as they had been when she first climbed past them on her way to the roof. "Logan, can you get the doors open?" she asked quickly.
Logan ran up beside her, a flick of his wrist releasing the blades from his hand as he neared the elevator doors. With a snarl he slammed the claws into the door, wedging them in the narrow slit between their sliding surfaces, and with a mighty heave and a grunt he began to shove them open. His blades cut deeper into the sides of the doors, and the slit widened a bit, showing the blackness of the shaft beyond...then Logan managed to push them past their lock point and they opened suddenly, clanging against the walls.
Logan peered down into the shaft briefly, then reached out and grabbed one of the cables suspended in the middle of that rectangular darkness. "Come after me," he said...then he swung out over the shaft and began to climb down the cables quickly. Ororo waited until his head cleared the bottom of the floor, then she climbed out gingerly and began to follow after Logan as fast as she could.
There was unnerving silence for what seemed a terribly long time...the only sounds were those of the cables as they clanged and vibrated under Logan and Ororo's combined movements. She had no worries about Logan going too far...the top of the elevator car would stop him on the right floor, since it had been parked on the fifth...but a voice inside her was screaming to hurry, hurry...and they couldn't go any faster than they were. She glanced up once, her arms beginning to tremble again with the exertion, and she saw the lighter square at the top of the shaft where it opened on the roof far above her, the patch of night sky that she could see looking both reassuring and impossibly far away.
There was a thump below her...then she felt Logan's hands catch her around her waist and lower her to the roof of the elevator car. "Is this the right floor?" he asked.
"This is it. Come on," she said, and she took his hand in the darkness and began to run down the length of the hall. The rooms they passed on either side were thankfully familiar...she hadn't missed her guess after all. It was within a matter of seconds that she found the right door again...MAINFRAME OPERATIONS.
"Do you know how to find the files?" she asked...then they rounded the corner, bursting into the room, and she realized with a grin that her question had been meaningless. Among the room's banks of computers, one stood facing the door, its screen alight and a line of text blinking. She ran up to it, Logan right behind her, and her grin widened as she read what the blinking text said.
Project Wolverine...the words flashed over and over in green, and beside it, the single command with a question mark...Delete all files?
"Forge set it up for us," she said. "Thank the Goddess."
Logan leaned over her, his hand poised over the keyboard, then he tapped the enter key and accepted the command. The hard drive whirred softly...then the file name disappeared from the screen. Operation complete flashed...then the computer went dark. Logan glanced at Ororo and grinned.
"Almost too easy," he said.
A huge, resounding boom vibrated through the room, startling a shriek from Ororo as she grabbed Logan and held on tight. It was coming from the far side of the complex...there was another roar as more explosions echoed the first, and the floor beneath their feet began to tremble...the south wing's mines were detonating, right on schedule.
"You were saying?!" Ororo cried.
"Come on!" Logan grabbed her hand and ran back through the door, his speed outmatching hers until he was practically dragging her along. Ororo ran for her life, her heart threatening to explode from her chest as mine after mine ruptured in a deafening roar behind them.
***
Outside the compound and inside the Blackbird, Jean hovered on the edge of telepathic contact, attempting to maintain a link between her mind and Ororo's and Logan's without actually speaking to them and breaking their concentration. The others had all reached the jet safely...Forge was in the copilot's seat, contacting the professor as Cyclops flipped the ignition toggles, and Remy and Rogue peered out the side windows toward the compound, anxiously hoping to see Ororo and Logan come running any minute.
Victory! "They deleted the files!" Jean shouted jubilantly, and a cheer went up from the other occupants of the plane. Cyclops was grinning with relief...he started the Blackbird's engines, bringing their rumbling scream up to takeoff speed...
"Sacre bleu!" Remy suddenly cried.
Cyclops lifted his head and glanced out the window toward the compound, where Remy and Rogue were looking...and saw a fireball erupt from the south wing, the sound of its explosion reaching him a second later, audible even over the whine of the jet's engines. "The mines..." he whispered to himself.
Jean had opened her eyes and looked too...and now her face paled. She could still feel Ororo and Logan's reaction...they were still alive, and running as fast as they could.
"Where are they?" Rogue whimpered.
"They're still coming," Jean said aloud, closing her eyes again. "Oh, please hurry...hurry..." she breathed quietly, and the rest of the X-Men waited in anxious trepidation.
***
The south wing could be heard behind them, collapsing in a roar of screaming metal and percussive blasts just as the first of the north wing mines went off. Ororo shrieked without sound, unable to catch her breath, her hand crushed in Logan's vise-like grip as he ran through the corridors. Ororo stumbled once, and Logan yanked her back to her feet and kept running.
The hall behind them exploded...a burst of billowing fire rushed up the hall behind them...Ororo looked back once in terror, then Logan was ducking into the elevator shaft, hauling her behind him. The mines on the fourth level detonated, one right behind the other as neatly as a child with a pop gun...one, two, three...and they were coming closer. Explosions slammed into the walls around them, the ceiling above them, and Ororo looked up at the cable as she ran in after Logan, her heart sinking with despair. There was no way...absolutely no way they could climb back up that cable in time...no way she could even conjure a wind in time. They were trapped.
Logan stared at the cable, following its line up the shaft, then he turned and looked at Ororo just as another mine exploded somewhere behind them. She could feel the heat of the explosions now...soon the flames would reach them. She met his eyes desperately...this is the end, she thought, a brief flicker of sadness touching her heart...
Logan glanced back at the corridor, the first hints of fire beginning to lick at its edges as another explosion shattered the air somewhere above them. Suddenly his arm shot out and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her tightly against him.
"Hold on," he said.
Ororo blinked in confusion, but she obeyed at once, wrapping her arms around his neck, and with the ringing of metal on metal Logan's claws sang out of one hand. He released her waist, grabbed the cable with his other hand, then sliced through the cable beneath them with one swift movement.
Ororo shrieked in surprise. The elevator car, suddenly free, shifted and screamed against the walls of the shaft and began to plummet into the lower levels of the silo, dragging the cable Logan clutched upward so fast that Ororo's arms were nearly yanked out of the sockets. She squeezed her eyes shut just as Logan sheathed his claws and wrapped his free arm around her waist once again, and she clung to him as tightly as she could as they shot up toward the top of the shaft. The compound exploded and roared all around them....there was a burst of searing heat somewhere close by, and she peeked out gingerly, seeing Logan's head tilted up as he judged the speed of their ascent...then suddenly they were shooting up through the open end of the shaft. Logan grabbed the pulley housing quickly, shoving Ororo out of his arms as he let go of the cable, and they tumbled, landing hard on the surface of the roof just as the end of the cable chattered over the pulley system and disappeared into the depths of the shaft.
Ororo struggled to her feet, feeling the roof shift and sway under her boots. There was another coughing explosion...then a volcano of fire and debris ruptured out of the shaft. Her mouth fell open in stunned shock...then Logan grabbed her, catching her around the waist as they ran for the edge of the roof.
"Jump!" he shouted.
Ororo leapt lightly to the rubble-strewn ground below. She had a quick glance of the empty vehicle lot...Santrock's men had abandoned him truly...there wasn't even a solitary Jeep to speak of...then she hit the ground and rolled. Logan landed right behind her, stumbling to one knee with a grunt before he climbed to his feet again and hauled her upright. His arm was around her, running, pushing her before him...and then the last of the mines, programmed to detonate in one final, horrendous endnote, exploded with a howl behind them. Fire vomited into the sky...Logan dragged Ororo to the ground, covering her with his body as Santrock's compound blasted itself to pieces.
The deafening sound seemed to go on and on...then there was sudden silence, except for the roar of the flames as they licked hungrily at what remained of the missile silo. She felt Logan's weight roll off her, and she turned over and sat up shakily, staring in awe at the firestorm remains of the compound. The fire rose into the night air...she looked beside her, saw Logan sitting there watching her from a dirty, soot-streaked face. A heartbeat passed...then they both were scrambling along the ground, laughing like loons as they tumbled into each other's embrace.
Ororo took Logan's face in her hands, kissing it all over. "My love," she laughed. "We made it."
Logan grabbed her and pulled her into his lap, one hand sinking into her tangled hair as he lowered his head to hers and kissed her hard. She threw her arms about his neck and returned his frenzied kisses with equal ardor, the two of them laughing and kissing, oblivious to their friends piling off the Blackbird behind them. Jean and Remy looked like they might rush forward to hug them too...but Cyclops stopped them with a shake of his head and a smile.
Logan suddenly broke their kiss and looked down at his hands. Ororo stayed where she was in his lap, not understanding at first what had caught his attention...then she saw he was pulling the gold ring off his finger. "What are you doing?" she asked, laughing.
"I'm doing what I should have done two days ago," Logan said. He got the ring off and held it between his thumb and forefinger, suddenly looking at Ororo with a smile that faded into an expression of gentle tenderness.
"Here? Now?" Ororo asked, smiling, laughing as tears started to sparkle in her eyes.
"Yes, now," Logan replied. He looked down at his hands, then back up at her face shyly, and for one sweet moment he looked absolutely young.
"Ororo...will you marry me?"
Ororo's smile was beautiful, even as she started to cry. "Yes," she said. "Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!"
Logan slipped the ring on her finger with trembling hands, then pulled her into his arms and kissed her tenderly. Behind them, Cyclops and the X-Men began to applaud and cheer, but Ororo and Logan never heard...they were lost in each other, kissing and laughing as they held each other, silhouetted against the fiery sky.
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