Six month after Remy died there was another death that garnered far more media attention. Ira Sloan, famed trauma surgeon and prominent �pro-humanity� activist died quietly in his home at the age of seventy one.
The media used the event as a sounding board to discuss mutant relations and the new civil rights movement. Obituaries and editorials were written calling Sloan everything from a hero to a Nazi and a hate-monger.
Logan was more inclined to believe the latter, but he didn�t pay much attention to the coverage. The world was filled with people dying. Only the lucky ones got to do it in their own homes.
Then the president of the hospital where Sloan had worked until his death, came to speak with Xavier. At the president�s request the meeting was private and held in haste.
When Jean ushered the president in he seemed nervous. He shook Xavier�s hand, his palms sweaty.
�Professor, it is an honor to meet you. I�m John MacKenzie, the president and chief orthopedic surgeon at Noresk Hospital.�
Xavier indicated a chair. �Please have a seat Doctor.�
�I wanted to thank you for taking the time to meet with me on such short notice.�
�It is no trouble. How can I help you?�
MacKenzie hesitated. �You have heard of the death of Ira Sloan?�
Xavier nodded. �I am sorry I can not offer my condolences.�
MacKenzie shrugged. �Sloan was a relic, and a cautionary tale. He exemplified how men of great vision in their intellectual views can be short-sighed in their personals one.�
Xavier nodded, but said nothing, waiting for MacKenzie to continue.
In the light from the window a thin sheen of sweat glazed MacKenzie�s brow. �At least,� he said, �I had always believed that to be true. Following Sloan�s death the hospital has made a profoundly�upsetting discovery.�
Xavier leaned forward. MacKenzie tension was radiating off of him like heat. �Please continue.�
�It seems that Dr. Sloan did not keep his work and his ideology as separate as we believed. We have found, sequestered at the back of his labs�..facilities we had not imagined he processed.� MacKenzie forced himself to meet the Professor�s eyes. �Sloan had�.obtained several humans with mutant abilities. He has been holding them captive in the rooms provided for non-human primate experimentation and has been experimenting on them.�
Xavier sat back, stunned. �I have heard nothing about this.�
�No. The discovery was only made this morning. Professor, you know I have no claim on you, but this is a matter of extreme urgency. The people we found, some of them are very poorly off. Our hospital will treat them for their more common injuries, but due to the nature of Sloan�s experiments some of them may require more specialized care than we are able to give.�
�What were these experiments?�
MacKenzie turned a shade paler. �As far as we can tell so far, Sloan has been trying to�.cure them of their mutations.�
�I see.� Xavier leaned back in his chair. He paused a moment, then continued. �We will help you of course, in any way that we can. My team should be ready to leave on the hour. I ask that you allow us use of your landing pad. You may fly back with us if you like, it will be quicker. In addition, I have resources in Scotland. With your permission I would like to contact my colleagues there and ask for their assistance.�
MacKenzie nodded. �That is as I hoped.�
�One further thing. I hope you understand, my primary concern here must be those injured by Sloan�s ministrations. I trust my team with complete discretion. They will not talk to any media, nor will they spread this story around. However, I will not ask those in my employ to lie. If asked, in cases such as a formal inquiry or legal proceeding, I will expect them to make full disclosure about what they have seen. We will not aid you in a cover up, nor will I lend my name to your hospital�s campaign of damage control. I am sorry to be blunt, but I need to consider the larger picture.�
MacKenzie rose. �We should go.�
His face was slightly flushed. �Professor, I am familiar with your work. I know you have no reason to trust the human community at large. But let me say this. I am a physician and a man of God. In my whole life I have never seen such atrocities as I saw today occurring under my very nose, in my hospital, perpetrated by my colleagues. You do not need to worry about a cover-up, I fully intend that my last duty as the President of Noresk will be to conduct a thorough and public investigation into these matters and ensure that they can never happen again, not in New York, nor anywhere.�
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The room was not large, it was more of a very wide hallway with high ceilings. Stocked along two sides were entire walls of cages, each built on a drawer, so that, like in a morgue, the cages could be drawn out to give the researcher a good look inside. Unlike a morgue these drawers were much shorter, only about four feet in length.
The smell in the room told Hank that it had been used for rats at some point and there was a small shelf of debris in a corner that held old rodent cages. Now the room smelled far worse, of human excrement, unwashed bodies and sickness.
There were forty-eight cages in all, all were filled.
�Where did all these people come from?� Asked Moira, her voice thick.
�Most appear to have been homeless, all were John and Jane Does admitted for treatment in the intensive care unit who were officially discharged.� Said Hank. �There old medical records for their original treatment are included in their files. Sloan was very thorough.� He fought down his own nausea.
McCoy was in charge of the initial identification and diagnosis of each subject. Once he had looked them over he was to either send them up to the fifth floor of the hospital, where an entire wing had been cleared to admit them, or send them to the roof to be flown to Muir for more specialized care.
Moira was supposed to be upstairs, overseeing the admittance of the former. Scott and most of the other X-men were on shuttle or guard duty, flying the planes or keeping the media out. Some, like Logan or Bobby were helping Beast and Moira get the victims where they needed to be. Xavier was in with MacKenzie and the Board of Trustees, trying to get a handle on what had happened.
That was the plan at any rate. In reality it was more like very slow chaos. The nurses in the ICU couldn�t admit the patients fast enough. It was a lengthy process and in most cases required information that was unknown, or had to be found by painstakingly flipping through Sloan�s records. Most of the nurses were showing signs of strain.
MacKenzie had been right that the new patients were the hospital�s responsibility, but he had underestimated the psychological trauma that his staff would feel on having to treat injuries inflicted by their own institution, some too horrible to readily devise treatment for, or even to understand. Hank was having to send more and more patients to Scotland, which meant that the process was delayed even further.
In the meantime he was giving each of the captives a more thorough exam than he had expected. None of them could be moved without a gurney, even the most recent arrivals were suffering from atrophy and bed sores. Still he used the time to familiarize himself with each case.
�Name: Jane Doe, Subject Number: 852, Age: Approximately 29, Affliction: Unstable skeletal/muscular system, Treatment:�.� Hank�s voice trailed off his eyes skimming the list of injections, biopsies, and surgeries. He took her pulse, and checked her eyes. Like all the patients who weren�t outright unconscious she was sedated, her responses lax and her gaze foggy and unfixed.
�Robert, this one isn�t too badly off. You should probably see to that one over there, no, not the winged man, the one with the cast.�
Hank struggled to keep his voice even. The strain was getting to him. He tamped it down. Later there would be time to grieve and despair. Now, surrounded by all these fragile, damaged bodies, the team was on a knife�s edge. They were looking to him to stay collected.
He fought down a rising panic. There were so many here, close to fifty, all of them mangled, all suffering from tortures of a kind he wouldn�t be able to imagine in his nightmares. Fifty! Deep in his heart he wondered if even half could be saved.
�Where�s the other gurney?�
Bobby shrugged. �They took it upstairs, said they needed it. I think they just wanted to slow us down a little, they�re pretty overwhelmed.�
�Well tell them to speed it up. The best case here is suffering from shock and dehydration. If they can�t move faster we�re going to have to start moving them to other hospitals.�
Hank moved further down the line, trailed by Logan who was holding the stack of unopened files.
Hank found the other man�s stoicism since Remy�s death deeply troubling, indicative of profound hurt that he knew Logan had not come to terms with. At other times, like this one, it had its uses. Logan was one of the few members of the team who would be able to handle seeing these things with out coming apart.
�Next, Name: John Doe, Subject Number: 7301�..�
On and on they went. Hank could feel his despair, but threatening to overwhelm it was a rising sense of rage. All these bodies, all these people, mindless with pain, locked up like animals in cages so small they could not stretch out, but were forced to lie cramped on their sides. Some were young, no more than seventeen. All showed signs of trauma. He fought his anger. <Later, you can do that later.>
�Name, Jane Doe, Subject Number 8384, Age: Approximately 19, Affliction: telekinetic manifestations, inability to establish/maintain the boundaries of brain/mind.�
Silently Logan swung open the next door and pulled out the tray. This cage was shorter than the rest, only about twenty inches from bottom to top. However the form inside was that of a full grown man.
�Name: John Doe, �Subject Number: 3513, Age: Approximately 25, Affliction:�� Hank scanned the page. His face suddenly tightened. �Logan, go see what�s keeping Bobby. We need another gurney.� His voice was strained.
Logan looked up. �What�s the matter?�
�Do it now Logan!� But Hank wasn�t even looking at him, he was staring at the figure in the cage.
Logan looked down. For a second he didn�t see what would make Hank shake. Then he saw it. The man in the cage��. Thin, with no more than a fraction of his pale face showing, obscured by a few wisps of auburn hair.
�Logan�.�
But Logan didn�t hear the doctor. All he saw was his kid, in a cage. His kid, in a cage.
He gave a hoarse scream and tore through the bars of the cage, slicing them instantly, and pulling the cage to pieces so that Remy was lying in the tray with the remains of the bars poking up around him.
�No.� Logan whispered. �No.� He stood back from the cage, afraid to touch Remy. He was shaking.
Hank wasn�t much better. �I can�t�� he took a step forward, a step back. �Where the fuck is Robert!�
�I�m right here man.� Bobby came in, followed by Moira. �What�s the big deal?� He looked at the cage. His face went white. �Oh God.�
Moira looked around the room. The three men were white as ghosts, and shaking. She quickly took charge. �Bobby, can you help me move him to the gurney? Hank, go upstairs with Bobby, see to Remy.�
Hank took a step back, �I can�t, I can�t give him preferential treatment, it wouldn�t be fair�..� he was babbling. He couldn�t seem to stop.
Moira put her hands on the sides of his face. �Hank, listen to me. You�ve been Remy�s doctor for many years. No one here is asking you to give up the patients you have commitments to. All right? My team and I can look after the others. Go.�
Hank stilled beneath her touch. He visibly took hold of himself. �Yes, yes of course you�re right.� He took a deep breath and seemed to steady himself. �Bobby?�
Bobby gently rolled Remy to better lift him. Moira gasped, Bobby got even paler.
From the front Remy was skeletally thin. His hands had been bound him with a plastic restraining device. His face was very pale, his lips almost the same color as his skin. Around his eyes were dark, crusty patches like bruises that stood out harshly against his nearly blue face.
He didn�t open his eyes or stir as Bobby lifted him and placed him on the gurney. Bobby gave a little gasp.
�He�s so light.� His voice broke a little. He gently reached out and cut off Remy�s bonds. Remy�s hands flopped limply to the gurney.
�Send Johnson down to me.� Said Moira. �Tell Kim he�s in charge up there until I get back.� She couldn�t hide the shaking in her own voice. <Keep it together. You can cry later MacTaggert.>
She looked at Logan, standing frozen, watching Hank and Bobby wheel out the broken body on the gurney. �Logan, you should go too.�
He seemed to recall himself. �No.� He said woodenly. �I�m fine. I can�t do anything for them and you need the help here.�
Moira looked at him concerned. �Logan, there are other people-�
�No.� he said vehemently. �I need to work. Let me work.�
She gave in, familiar with the strange ways of grief. �Alright. Next patient, Name: John Doe, : Subject Number: 4732, Age: Unknown, Affliction: Unstable effect on Dihydrogen Oxide. Treatment: 08/13, Injection with 45 mL anasandrinol three times daily, administered to the eye. 08/29, Insertion of electronic stimulating device subcutaneously by the right ear, 09/14, Neurosurgical removal of grey and white matter surrounding pineal gland, 09/24�.�
She looked up. Logan was pale. He put out his hand to steady himself against the smooth doors of the cages. �I�m sorry,� His voice was choked. �I�m sorry, I have to�...�
�It�s fine.� Said Moira gently. �Do you need any help?�
�No. No, I�m fine.� Logan pulled his hand back, sending a steel tray of instruments flying. He didn�t seem to notice when they hit the ground. �I�m sorry.� He repeated, and groped blindly for the door.
Logan didn�t go upstairs. Instead he wandered blindly until he found a door that led outside and stumbled out into the cool air.
He couldn�t think, couldn�t even breathe. All he could see was that figure on the bed, starved, broken. Remy alive. Remy was alive, all that time. Alive. How could that be? How was it possible?
All that time, how long? A hundred eighty-three days. Six months in a cage. How many times had the kid cried out, begging for someone to save him. How many times, while Logan lay awake in bed had Remy been thinking of him, praying to be saved?
How? How had he gotten there?
Six months. Logan had seen enough of the charts to know that most of the prisoners hadn�t lasted half so long. Remy�s file had been thick. What had that monster Sloan done to him while Remy was waiting to be rescued?
His knees gave out beneath him. He sagged to the ground. <I didn�t know. Oh God, I didn�t know.>
But he had known. All those months, all those conversations about the grieving process and acceptance and healing, through it all Logan�s body had carried the conviction he hadn�t been able to shake with any amount of logic, that Remy hadn�t been dead.
His body began to spasm with dry heaves. All he could see was that small bundle on the bed. Remy. What had the kid gone through to come back to him? What parts of himself had he given up?
Logan sat on the grass feeling the ice that had encapsulated him begin to melt. Slowly he began to recall himself, to remember what sort of man he had been before. He thought he could bear anything now, provided that he was allowed to meet it with his eyes open. All he had ever asked of his life was that he remember what happened to him.
Did he hope now? He didn�t know, couldn�t even say he remembered what the word meant. Remy was alive. The wasted form on the bed swam before his eyes. Pain or joy?
He returned to the hospital and found Hank more frantic than Logan had ever seen him. Tears of frustration stood out in his dark eyes.
�I can�t get an IV in. That bastard Sloan�. All the veins have collapsed. He needs fluids and the only thing I can use is that God damn shunt that bastard put in him to inject him with God knows what.�
Logan put a hand on Hank�s shoulder, trying to calm him. �Doc, it�s okay. I don�t think Remy is going to quibble with you over how you save his life.�
Hank stilled, his jaw working. In a moment his breathing had stilled. �Of course you are right Logan. I�m sorry I was, overcome for a moment.�
Logan watched as Hank shuffled off to a bed near the wall. He followed slowly, more than half afraid to look at the figure in the bed.
It was Remy. There could be no doubt about it, even starved, his head mostly shaved, his bruised eyelids closed tightly over his luminous eyes, there was no mistaking the long lines of his body, the tilt of his eyebrows on his pale skin.
Logan released his breathe slowly. He had been half supposing he had imagined it, that he would wake up in his bed and find it was a day like any other, and all the ones he�d lived for the past half year.
But Remy was there and he bore enough signs of trauma that Logan knew this wasn�t any sort of fantasy. The bonds at his wrists had been removed, but they had cut Remy almost to the bone. There were dark bruises left from needles and scars that could have been the result of anything from surgery to torture. His right shoulder was crooked, as if he had broken it and it had set wrong. Most horrifying perhaps, were the large, dark sores and bruises that covered his body, marks from where he had been restrained too long in one position and the skin under his body had began to fester.
He lay so terribly still. Remy had always defined himself through movement, fighting, dancing, laughing, moving like water. Even when he had sat watching the TV tucked against Logan, he had fidgeted until Logan had batted at him and growled affectionately.
Now he was absolutely quiet. The only proof that he was even alive came from the shallow rise and fall of his chest. Logan could barely see it, the movement was so small.
He reached out to touch Remy�s skin, and pulled away as if burnt. Remy was cold, he didn�t feel alive at all.
Hank saw Logan�s raction. �His skeletal muscles are atrophied; probably from the sedatives he�s been given. His body can�t generate its own heat. It�s why he�s on a heat pad, and why he isn�t shivering.�
The news did not reassure Logan any. What had been done to the kid so that he couldn�t even shake?
�It�s good that you�re here. The hospital has agreed to lend us a helicopter, so we�ll be leaving for the mansion in a few minutes. You can ride back with us.�
Logan nodded, not taking his eyes off Remy. He wanted to touch the kid, to run his hands over the smooth skin, to learn the feel of the Cajun�s body beneath his fingers again. He wanted, no, needed, to taste him, to reassure the Wolverine that Remy was alive and perhaps Logan was human after all.
He didn�t reach out. He was afraid of that cold skin. Afraid that if he pushed too hard, believed too firmly, Remy could vanish. He�d done it once, why not again? So he stood with his hands at his sides, drinking in the sight of the pitiful body on the bed until Hank arrived.
�It�s time to go.�