POV: Rogue

I can't sleep.

We went back to the mansion last night, again, and didn't find any new clues, again. It's only been a few weeks, but I'm beginning to lose hope that we'll ever find Scott and the children. It's like they disappeared into thin air.

I've tried to talk to Logan about it, but he won't listen to anything that sounds like giving up. It's not that I've given up on them, I've just lost faith in the methods we're using to find them. Logan's a great tracker when there's a physical trail to follow, but there just isn't one in this case. He relies too much on his senses, and I can't convince him to switch to another tack.

Of course, I don't have many ideas other than what we've tried. If either of us had any computer skills, I know we could find them through the government databases, but the only person I know even close to being that computer savvy is... was Kitty.

I hate that. I hate having to correct myself, having to switch my friends, my family, from present to past tense. It isn't right. It's not fair. Kitty should be shopping for cribs and baby clothes, not rotting away in some government facility.

No, can't think about that. I can't imagine what everyone's bodies would look like now. They're not in them anymore. They're gone, free, whatever's happening to their bodies isn't happening to them. Stop it. Don't think about it.

I sit up and pull the covers away. If I'm not going to sleep, I might as well get up and do something, get my mind onto something else.

Logan groans at my movement, but he doesn't wake up. He hasn't been sleeping well, what with the nightmares and all, and we just got back to the hotel at six this morning after searching the abandoned mansion all day yesterday and all night last night. I don't want to wake him up from what little rest he's getting. Of course, he'll wake up pretty soon if I'm not lying beside him.

Hmm, there's a 7-11 down the block. If I ran down there and got a book, I could stay in bed with Logan all day and still keep my mind distracted. It'd really help him if he could get a decent amount of sleep.

In fact, we probably shouldn't try heading out today. I should stop by the motel office on my way and pay for another night. It's already 8 and if everything works out, Logan will sleep long past the 11:30 check-out time.

I'm almost dressed when Logan moans, "Marie?"

Damn that man. He's such a light sleeper that despite the fact that I've been whisper quiet, he's woken up.

"It's ok, Logan," I whisper. "I'm gonna go pay for another night. I'll be right back."

"You tired?" he asks in a weary drawl, his eyes still closed.

"Yes, sugah, really tired. I'm just gonna pay for the room, and then come back and get some more sleep."

"Kay," he answers as he snuggles his face back into the pillow.

When I walk into the worn down, dingy lobby, there's no one at the front desk, but I can hear a guy talking in the back office, so I wait. There's a newspaper on the desk so I pick it up, intending to flick through it and kill a little time. Of course, that's before I turn it over and see the front page with a grainy black and white picture of Logan's face staring back at me.

It looks like it was taken by one of the security cameras in the mansion from what little I can see of the background. It's the corresponding title, though, that makes my blood run cold, "Mutant Suspected in School Disappearances." I scan the article only to find that Logan is being accused of the disappearances of sixty-one students, faculty, and staff at the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters. The police want him for questioning. They suspect foul-play. There's a manhunt on.

"Look, I told you. He's here!" The voice from the back office has risen in volume and frustration and now I can make out what he's saying. "Yeah, the guy from the paper. He's travelling with some woman."

He's turning Logan in. We've gotta get out of here, get as far away as possible. Now.

"I don't know who she is. Are you gonna send someone? Ok, but make it quick. I don't wanna be the next one to vanish."

That's the last of the conversation I hear before I'm out the door and running back to our room.

"Logan! Get up. We have to get out of here. Now!"

I'm already rummaging through his duffle bag, pulling out jeans and a T-shirt, when he sits up groggily in bed.

"Marie? What..."

I just throw the clothes at him. "Dress. Now."

Running into the bathroom I start dumping shampoo, conditioner, soap, all of my stuff into my overnight bag. There's no time. We have to get everything and get out.

By the time I leave the bathroom, Logan's dressed and packing any clothes we'd left out in the room into his bag. He's wide awake now and gathering all our stuff together just as frantically as I am. I pick up my other bag and his boots on the way out the door, and he follows me with his own bag in tow.

Running to the Jeep, I pull out the keys and, throwing the bags into the back and Logan's boots to the floor on the passenger side, I get in and start it up. Logan jumps in on the passenger side, and as soon as he shuts the door, I'm backing out of the parking lot and speeding towards the freeway. We have to get as far away as we can as quickly as possible.

Logan waits until we're speeding down the highway before he asks, "Marie, what's going on? We can't leave. Not with Cyke and..."

"They're looking for you."

"What?"

"The police. They think you're involved in what happened at the mansion. They can't get you, Logan. If they do, the soldiers'll find you and then..." I let my voice trail off. I don't want to think about what would happen if they captured Logan.

"We can't leave, Marie. We can't stop just because..."

"No. We have to, Logan. Just for a little while. Please. I can't lose you, too."

POV: Dr. Elizabeth Mason

It worked, and I have to credit myself for my own ingenuity. The GPS data shows that the mutant just crossed over into Pennsylvania. I've scared him away.

Now, all I have to worry about is the thousands of other things that could go wrong with this plan before it's over.

For one thing, they killed a lot more mutants than I'd expected during the trial run. To make matters even more complicated, one of them was pregnant. Although the resources are available to keep my plan working, the computer power necessary to keep everything running smoothly is incredible. If anyone bothers to check, the gigabytes per second of data I'm processing through the mainframe will give me away.

Fortunately, Dr. Thacker's been so focused on the logistics of collecting bodies from all over the United States and transporting them as discretely as possible to disposal facilities, that he's left the technical aspects of the project to me and my team. Since I'm in charge of the assignments, I can ensure that none of them detect what I'm doing.

It is quite a conundrum Dr. Thacker has. How do you kill or capture over a hundred thousand mutants from all over the United States quickly and efficiently? He doesn't want to disturb the moral sensibilities of the public by allowing the bodies to remain visible. After all, the citizens of the United States voted for mutant registration, not mutant extermination.

If I wasn't totally against everything he's doing, I might feel sorry for him. As it is, I only feel sorry for myself. The logistics of my counter-plan are more complex than he could ever dream, and the stress of fooling an entire bureaucracy is weighing on me.

I don't sleep well. I wake up several times during the night with ideas to make the plan better or realizations of faults where my work could be detected, or worse, where the plan could fail on its own.

Sometimes, I wish that it were three months from now just so I could know how everything turned out.