It was true that Xavier had a lot on his mind. There had been a series of attacks on the east coast. A seemingly random series of victims were brought into the hospitals in catatonic, or comatose states, all higher brain function literally non existent. At first the doctors had assumed that some strange disease was robbing these people of consciousness. But if it was a disease, no pathogen could be found in any of the victim�s bodies. Stranger still, none had exhibited any symptoms, or complained of so much as a headache to friends or family they had seen minutes before the attack.
Then someone was heard speculating that this could be some form of telepathic attack, and the media went crazy. There hadn�t been any rumors of a mutant serial killer in the New York area in years, but once the idea got hold it spread through city and down the coast in a wave of panic, fueled by the tabloids which were doing record business with the endless rumor and speculation.
Then the courts got involved, as the husband of the first victim applied for permission to remove her from life support. Medical experts were called in to try to certify brain death in a never before seen condition. Xavier was bombarded with summons and requests for interviews, both as an expert on telepathic injury and as one of the most prominent spokesmen for mutant rights in the country.
Every few days, like clockwork another victim would be found, sometimes in Philadelphia, or as far south as DC, most often in New York. The hysteria was building to a fever pitch, and even though more progressive analysts pointed out that there was no evidence that the attacker was a mutant, or even that there was an attacker at all, people�s fear and anger began to focus on the mutant community.
There were riots, and beatings. Mutants had their houses burned and their possessions thrown into the streets. Police in some of the smaller suburbs began jailing mutants �for their own protection�.
Xavier was on the move almost constantly, in New York trying to calm the fears, or meeting with local officials, or meeting with the lawyers he kept on retainer, working to get the innocent mutants released from custody. Meanwhile everyone seemed to be holding their breathe in anticipation, wonder who would be the next victim.
What was even more troubling to those inside the mansion was the knowledge that the crimes were not random, although so far no one outside of the mutant community seemed to realize it. Each victim had been a powerful advocate of mutant rights, some were Xavier�s closest friends. Most of them had worked anonymously, or within small communities, so their connection with each other was not immediately apparent, but the fact remained someone was deliberately tracking and attacking the activists.
Scott immediately got to work with the professor, drawing up a list of potential targets and setting a rotating guard of X-men to watch over them. Xavier drove the X-men ruthlessly during these weeks, trying to find and stop the perpetrator. Scott had rarely seen the professor so emotional about anything that had happened in the 15 years had been living in the mansion.
Honestly, there was little that they could do. The hospitals where the victims were being housed were frenzies of guards and cops, reporters and demonstrators. None of Xavier�s appeals for visitation rights had been granted and investigation of the crime scenes had been stymied by the legion of cops and reporter who trawled through them, destroying any potential evidence that the X-men might have found, such as scents or mind echoes. Like everyone around them the X-men were forced to wait until the attacker struck again.
Then, on the night before the court ruling on the injunction to stay the removal of the first victim�s life support, she suddenly woke up. She was groggy, and tired, but as the next few days ultimately proved, completely fine, with no ill side effects form her five week long coma.
About her attack she was unhelpful. She remembered no one, heard nothing, remembered nothing. She had simply woken up in the hospital, very tired, wondering how she got there. About her recovery, she recounted a hackneyed, familiar story of a tunnel, a bright light and a warm presence that had beckoned her home.
Her husband immediately converted to one of the fundamentalist religions that had been assuring him that removing life support from his wife would have been a grave sin. In his tearful press conference he recounted his wife�s tale of coming home, and her vague warm presence was christened the Cabrini Angel.
As cable news marketing strategies went, the Cabrini Angel was a great success. The story covered on the nightly news attracted more gawkers to the hospitals, they set up prayer vigils. These vigils themselves became news, feeding the cycle. Small shrines began appearing to the angel, and enterprising artists began selling little postcard images of her at subway stops and chalking her image onto the sidewalks outside the hospital.
In her turn, the angel expressed her gratitude towards the artists the news anchors and the vigil holders by obligingly curing another victim. Then another and another. Soon all the victims had been cured. But every two or three days another would be issued into the ER with exactly the same symptoms.
The X-men found all of this profoundly frustrating.
�Don�t get me wrong,� said Rogue. �I�m glad that these people are out of their comas. But I don�t know if it�s such a great idea to have this Angel chick running around vigilanty-cow-boy style. She�s an amateur at best and is going to get in the way.�
�Besides,� said Warren. �The name Angel is already taken.�
�It�s a crock.� Said Scott. �It has to be. Whoever this is�and we don�t know it�s a woman�is attacking these people and then healing them herself. She, or he, is addicted to the attention, plus they get to be a hero.�
�It�s possible,� said Jean. �But it�s also possible there isn�t any attacker. We found no echoes at any of the crime scenes and Xavier hasn�t seen any of the victims to form an opinion. No one capable of diagnosing a telepathically induced injury has gotten anywhere near the victims. It�s possible that this is just some new kind of disease and people are over reacting.�
�Sounds to me like they just ate some bad gumbo,� said Remy.
�But the contents of their stomachs showed no similarities to each other.� Said Hank, and the argument would start again, around and around for hours until Logan wanted to rip off his head and throw it at his team mates just to get them to shut up.
They�d been at this for months, the same talk, the same arguments. Nothing changed. The team was being run ragged, extra guard duty, plus their watches over the activists, which hadn�t been helping at all. Now, with the pandemonium that was being created the FOA was having a field day recruiting and had somehow co-opted the Cabrini Angel as a mascot for anti-mutant sentiment. As if that weren�t enough, Magneto was getting in on the action using the backlash against the FOA to suit his own purposes and they were beginning to get feelers that he was planning something really big.
When the meeting was over Logan jumped up, eager to get the hell out of there. But Scott�s voice stopped him. �Logan, can I talk to you a minute?�
Logan considered ignoring him, but decided there wouldn�t be much point in that, Scott would just track him down. So he stood, growling faintly with impatience as the other team members filed past.
�I just wanted to check in with you about Remy,� said Scott. �Have there been any new signs of trouble?�
�Only the ones you�ve seen.� Said Logan. In the past few weeks Remy�s slipping performance had become noticeable to everyone. �For what it�s worth, the old problems are still there. He�s always out late, dragging himself in drunk most of the time.�
Scott nodded. �I thought I would give you a heads up. I�m taking Remy off the active duty register.�
�The team can�t stand to lose a member,� objected Logan.
�I know,� said Scott grimly. �I don�t have much of a choice. The way he�s performing now could put everyone at risk.�
�Well why don�t you insist he stay home at night instead. Get some sleep and see Hank about the weight loss?�
Scott shrugged. �Xavier doesn�t think that�s a good idea. He doesn�t want to push Remy into isolating himself.�
�Xavier said that?� Logan was shocked. Xavier didn�t interfere with running the team, not ever. �That�s stupid. If he�s sick enough to not be on patrol, he�s sick enough to see Hank. What�s Xavier thinking?�
�I don�t know.� Said Scott, troubled. �I know he�s been distracted, but��I can�t help thinking that there�s something going on here and Xavier knows�. If Remy had a medical problem, if he were sick, something he would want to keep confidential�.� He looked at Logan warily, obviously afraid of the feral man�s response.
�Sick.� It took Logan a minute to understand what Scott was talking about and when he did he felt the blood drain from his face. �You think Remy�s HIV positive.�
�Or something like it. He has some of the symptoms, and we know he�s had some encounters in the past.�
�The whore house.� Logan said softly. �He was never tested afterwards. Hank didn�t know.�
�And it would explain why Xavier is asking us to go easy on Remy.�
�It�s not possible.� Logan was grasping at straws. �Remy comes in smelling of�.. He wouldn�t be sleeping with people if he knew he was infected.�
Scot shrugged. �If we�re right, then Remy knows he�s dying Logan. Grief can do strange things to a man. Besides,� he added, �we don�t know he�s having sex with them.�
The rest of the day passed in a blur for Logan. He wandered out into the woods, to be among his trees. There he spent most of the night, shaking, trying to come to grips with his conversation with Scott.
Over and over he kept hearing the phrase �Remy knows he�s dying. Remy knows he�s dying.� Over and over until he began screaming to drown out the sound, and once he had started screaming he found that he couldn�t stop. The forest echoed his cries, every creature in it froze, petrified with fear. In the back of his mind Logan wondered if he would ever be able to stop.