DLRhanna

  Chapter 50- Favor for the FBI

  New York City – outside Lordy’s Pool hall/bar - Oct 25, 2008 (10:15)

  James ‘Logan’ Howlett- (Wolverine)

  Logan stepped outside and pulled a cigar from a packet from his inside jacket pocket. He looked around at the semi-crowded sidewalks and streets, as he lit the thing. Then he took a drag off of his cigar, while they waited. He sniffed twice as he picked up a familiar scent. So he pulled out his cigar and held the tobacco in his lungs for a moment, as a man in a grey suit and trench coat approached him.

  A man stopped before opening the door to the pool hall and asked. “Are you Professor Logan?”

  He let out the smoke in his system before he answered. “I am not a professor… I just help out around the school.” Logan waited as he looked the man in the eyes. Even with the sungsses on, he could make out the other man’s eyes perfectly. The two men shared a slient moment as the feral man took another drag off of his cigar before knocking off the cherry and put it out. He let out the smoke in his lungs before opening the door and leading the federal agent inside.

  He led him through the various pool tables all the way to a secluded booth where Ororo and the Professor were waiting for them. Charles was seated at the end of the booth in his wheelchair, while the X-men leader was seated in one of the booths.

  Logan then motioned for the man to get into the empty booth, just ahead of him getting in it as well. The agent opened his mouth to speak, but the professor held up a finger to stall the man. Then some people from a nearby booth suddenly got up and left. Once they were far enough away, Charles nodded at the agent to proceed.

  “It’s honestly amazing to think I am sitting with the famous X-men.” The agent started with.

  “Who said that we are?” Ororo asked him in their defense.

  There was a long silence, as the agent looked at each of them in the eye, before nodding and muttering. “Right, pusible deniability.” Then he took his sungsses off, and pulled out a small device.

  "There are not any recording or listening devices I can assure you," Charles told the agent.

  Then Ororo took the lead and asked. “How goes your own investigation?”

  The only human at the table sighed before admitting. "Slow. The dead assaints all had varied backgrounds and had very little connecting them… My partner is looking into a missing sheriff who we are more than certain is dirty and covered up several attacks in Iowa in his county. After all we only just found the mass grave made up of the men who attacked Exodus and Mystique earlier in the year, so somebody moved and covered up their deaths."

  "Oh, wow, color me shocked. A wman siding against innocent mutants." Logan muttered.

  Agent Duncan nodded a few times, and looked around the room again before he started talking about his own results. "Well, what your colleges told you was spot on. Our techs stayed up all night taking apart the tracker you got for us and they got little to identify the source of the tech. Only a couple of serial numbers tell us the parts were made from outside of the country. I should get more information on the factories and the business that produced them by either this week or next… assuming the colleges from those countries take my request seriously."

  Logan noticed Charles squint at the agent before he asked. “So our efforts were a waste?”

  The federal agent took a deep breath before answering. "I wouldn't say that… I am piggybacking on a college's wide-ranging warrant to look into that address you gave me. It was a little odd to me, and while I don't have the power to look into it further, right now, it might lead to something."

  “How so?” Ororo asked him to eborate.

  "Well, for one thing, the nd is owned by the Catholic Church." Agent Duncan reported.

  That made the three mutants look at each other confused. Once they accepted this fact, Charles still asked in surprise. “You are certain of this?”

  "Yeah, it was a monastery up until eight years ago. They tore it down and some company…" The federal agent started to expin before digging out his notepad, and its notes, before continuing. As he spoke he flipped through his notes till he found one that he was looking for. Logan could see the man's handwriting was terrible, like he was a doctor, or it was in code.

  "Ah, here it is." The federal agent said as he flicked the page in front of him. He cleared his throat before continuing. "Like I was saying, they tore down the old buildings instead of updating them to code back at the start of the new millennium, and a year and a half ter they built a warehouse on the property. There was a small attempt made by the local populous to make them protected historic buildings, but not enough of a movement could be formed behind it to save the old pce.'

  "Then a company, a one Summertime Solutions, built, owns, and operates the warehouse on the plot, which corresponds to the address you gave me."

  Again the three mutants share a look, before the professor admits. “We have never heard of them.”

  Duncan shrugged, before saying. "Nobody has, as far as I can tell. I only got a casual look into them, but other than the rent they pay the Catholic Church for renting the nd, and a couple of other properties on the west coast. I couldn't find any other records or dealings in their name.'

  "I got a request into the IRS to look deeper into them for me, but they could take months to get back to me. But I do find it odd, that I could find proof of them renting nd and buildings, and yet no signs of sales or purchasing any products to store in said properties."

  “I am not much of a w enforcement officer.” Ororo started with, but pointed out. “But even I find that rather suspicious, a business that neither buys nor sells something.”

  "Sounds like a money undering to me," Logan suggested.

  “Doesn’t matter what it sounds like, without evidence I can’t do anything.” The fed stated pinly.

  “Then what would you like from us Agent Duncan?” Charles asked the man.

  The agent leaned closer to the professor and admitted. “I need to talk to the person who gave you the address, with their testimony I can maybe push this further.”

  "It won't help you," Charles told the agent before either Logan or Ororo could admit that they got the address from a third party, a non-human one at that. Who could supposedly see the future?

  "I will be the judge of that," Duncan argued with the old man.

  Both X-men were a touch surprised when the professor lied when he said. "I highly doubt that a mutant's testimony will help, not when it was their ability to see the future that got us the address." To further sell the lie, Charles added. "We got the tracker from Exodus and the Brotherhood after all, you already know that they also looked into this matter from the information that we already gave you."

  Agent Duncan sighed before guessing. "Destiny gave you the address." Then he asked. "Why didn't they act on it then?"

  Logan and Ororo shared a look as their leader continued to sell his lie. “I cannot say that I truly understand their way of thinking, but I can tell you that the Brotherhood is still recovering from their recent losses, and are more focused on rebuilding and protecting their own over taking action. Well at least for the time being.”

  The agent ughed once before muttering. “To think, that a ruthless group like the Brotherhood, had ties to Braddock Consolidated.”

  "Makes you wonder what some of the other big companies have ties to, or what they are doing in secret," Logan added to the man's statement.

  “What if you had emergent circumstance?” Ororo asked the agent.

  “But I don’t.” The agent pointed out.

  Ororo shared another look with Logan, and when she winked he knew what she was thinking. So he smiled as he said. “But you would if a masked group of vigintes were fighting this warehouses staff. Any criminal evidence in pin view would be free for you to use.”

  Both the leader and vice leader of the X-men then looked towards the professor for approval, as the agent denied them. “No, no, no. I don’t feel comfortable having you people do something like that.”

  "I didn't think I needed to remind you that innocent families are being attacked by these people Agent Duncan," Charles told the reluctant federal agent.

  "No, you don't need to remind me. I've seen the bodies. After all, it was me that brought it to your attention… But I don't want to think about the example that we will be setting if I let you just do this." Agent Duncan said before running his hand through his hair, as he finished doing so he let out a wordless growl.

  The professor sat back in his wheelchair before he tried again to convince the agent. "We are not the Brotherhood agent. Our goal is the peaceful co-existence of humans and mutants, but right now the world cannot accept us. And so sometimes we fight… But fighting does not mean killing."

  After a long tense silence, the agent nodded and muttered. "If your people get arrested I can't protect them."

  Then Logan and Ororo heard inside of their minds. “Let’s go, we have families to save.”

  New York– Xavier Mansion, Sub-basement- Ready Room - Oct 25, 2008 (10:15)

  James ‘Logan’ Howlett- (Wolverine)

  “Tis too bad that Sprite is still in the Savage Land. She could make this mission easy.” Colossus said after Storm finished expining the pn.

  "You work with what you got Colossus, saves time and effort not thinking about what you don't have," Cyclops told the Russian mutant before Logan could.

  'He is either learning or clearly works better without the distraction. And oh boi, is she a distraction, being here.’ Logan thought while he let the others form their own battle pns.

  "I guess then it falls on me to sneak in." Morph volunteered. Then he cycled between some of his various go-to forms of men that he could use to sneak in with.

  Logan was about to agree with him, when the professor cut in.

  “That won’t be necessary this time Morph...” Charles paused to rub his bald head, before adding. “I will ascertain whether our suspicions are valid or not, but obviously I cannot aid in you the fight.” Then he tapped his paralyzed legs.

  'The little bit I saw of Wade's skin, proves that Nath'aniel can heal, that's for sure. It makes me wonder if he could do something for the professor's legs. Or maybe even Warren's injury.' Logan wondered. As he thought that the professor frowned at him, probably having heard his thoughts. So he added. ‘We’ll talk ter.’

  As he did, Storm asked the X-men’s real leader. “Are you sure?”

  Charles csped his hands together and was nervously rubbing his knuckles, as he answered her. “All of this screams premeditation and pnning. These attacks seem scattered and spontaneous, but I can’t shake the feeling that there is something more to it all… it’s as if…”

  "It's training." Logan offered his opinion. When everyone turned and looked at him he added more. "Not everyone has access to multiple millionaires and or even a billionaire, and can afford to build a secret training room in their basement. And not every organization can operate and train its men in the open. All of this stinks of the groups and teams that I worked with before coming here. They're just on a lower budget.'

  “As much as none of us want to admit it, it’s starting to look like Erik is right. Someone is preparing for a mutant/human war… and it’s our job to stop them.”

  His statements left all of them quiet, because he was right. None of them wanted to think that he was in fact right, or rather that Magneto was.

  Then the silence was broken, when the blue-furred man in the back of the room offered. "I can carry you in and out Charles."

  "That won't be necessary Hank." The professor started with, before changing the monitors to show the Google map of their target. The image was blurry but up to date. Charles then highlighted a portion of the image, before saying. "This nding site should be more than close enough for me to probe their minds thoroughly enough for us to know for certain."

  The sound of someone punching something made everyone stop their pnning, and look at the young teen that had struck his monitor. When Spike realized he had everyone’s attention he asked. “If they want a war, why don’t we give them one?”

  "Because that is not who we are Evan," Storm told the teen.

  “But Auntie Ororo…” He started to compin, yet it was his teammate that expined it to him.

  "Spike, our goal here is to peaceful co-existence with humans. That means that we have to be better than those that would want to kill us, fight them, yes, but we do not kill." Cyclops told his junior member.

  "Yeah bro, but it's not like yours or my powers have a power setting, especially mine," Havoc told his older brother beside him.

  “That is what your training has been for Alex.” The professor reminded them, before expining. “You can easily subdue them by using the terrain as your weapon. A box or piece of debris to the head is far less fatal than an energy bst to the chest.”

  "It's about when and where to fire as much as it is about having the ability to do what we do," Storm added. Logan remembered that used to be Agni's line, and his powers had been simir to the two brothers.

  Several of them seemed to think the meeting was over, after no one really had anything else to add, and their leader even told them as much, as Charles told them. "If you have any st-minute preparation, now would be the time to take care of it."

  "Hank, Kevin, Ororo, a moment please," Logan asked three people he asked for waited while the others moved to do whatever st-minute things they needed to do. The Professor also stayed behind but remained silent. But he waited till all the other members left, before the veteran spoke again. "Hank I am going to need you on this one…" The other man was about to remind him that he was retired, but Logan expined why before he could. "Look if these guys are even a tenth of what the people I used to work for used to be, they are either going to try and blow us up, thus why we need Storm to try and search for explosives.'

  “Or these people will have an already established exit strategy, so I need you to sneak in with Morph and hack their computers Beast. If Sprite were here I would have her do it, but she’s not, and you’re our next best hacker.”

  The big blue-furred man took a deep breath before nodding in agreement. "I'll do it."

  “Also, since you will be there Chuck, try and keep an eye on us will you?” Logan asked their leader.

  Who also nodded, but without a sigh. Then the professor added. “Hopefully we don’t lose anyone this time.”