To Forgive is to Forget
Chapter 7
by
Hunter
DISCLAIMER: When my plot for world domination comes into effect, I will buy Marvel comics, 20th Century Fox, and all characters attached thereto, but until then, nothing is mine, only the lame characters I make up to play with the X-Gang.
DEDICATION: With major hugs to Leylue, All Great and Powerful Wolverine Lore Protector and Guide. . . without whom, this little South African wouldn't of even have gotten this far. And to Barbara, Tyger, and whoever gets this site next. . . excellent job grrrrls.
The Blackbird, filled with very unhappy X-Men, flew fast. Gambit was getting on everyone's nerves as he kept exclaiming his disbelief upon the ease the soldiers had getting onto the mansion's grounds. Storm stared out of a window while Beast sat, and nursed a drug-induced headache from the dart when he had been hit. Jean communicated directions from the Professor who guided her from Cerebro, to Scott who was piloting the Blackbird.
Much to her dismay, Rogue had been left behind. She had not been stable enough to accompany them.
Cyclops wondered what on earth Wolverine had gotten himself into as Jean told him to hurry.
* * * * *
Heather stepped aside for Lloyd as he came into the room and placed his pen on the counter. The doctor, who had been ignoring her as she questioned his sanity, glanced up at him.
"I'm going to the lab now to get the tank ready. If you can avoid the Captain's pestering, I would greatly appreciate it if you could finish up the spray."
Lloyd was amazed at the apparent attempt at humor from the Doctor. Heather watched as Cruin left the room, and turned to Lloyd.
"Are you sure this is the only metal we can use?"
"Yes," Lloyd picked up the beaker with the spray solution and swirled it around.
"Does he know?" Heather indicated the lab where Logan lay with a nod of her head.
"Yep." Lloyd put the beaker down and fiddled with a funny looking swizzle stick.
Three guards walked passed the room heading for the lab and for Logan. Heather changed her tone and pretended to be bored as one guard stayed to stand at attention outside their door.
"What's that?" She pointed to the beaker that Lloyd was intently staring into.
"The mixture we are going to use to remove the adamantium."
"Oh." She leaned forward, and stared at it. "How does it work?"
"Its a mixture of mainly lesser elements which, when put together and then added to adamantium, makes it highly malleable."
Lloyd continued to played along. "The Doctor discovered it back when they first did this. It's apparently what they used to get the metal into a usable form in the first place. Anything other than intense heat won't do it. The tank contains a chemical solution that keeps the adamantium in its malleable form after the spray is first applied."
Lloyd took a breath. "I'm not sure what they used previously. Apparently something more primitive than what they discovered later," he replied offhandedly.
The doors to the room opened, and Heather watched as a guard came in to take a gurney. He pushed it out of the room as the guard on attention followed him to the lab. Lloyd stopped working and waited for them to clear off.
"I'm not to happy about this," he added quickly to his sister.
"Neither am I," she replied. Straightening up from leaning on the counter, Heather pointed to the solution in the beaker. "So this will get the metal off his bones without hurting him?"
"Yes," Lloyd sighed. "He said his name is Logan," he added.
"You spoke to him?"
"He asked me to let him go." Lloyd turned away from her, and acted real busy.
"Shit."
Heather fished in her pocket, and pulled out the dog tags. Handing them to Lloyd, she said, "I found these on him when we brought him in."
"Wolverine?"
"His code name apparently."
Lloyd twirled the tags in the light, and then handed them back to Heather.
"What are we going to do, Heather?" He felt sick to his stomach.
* * * * *
Heather left Lloyd and walked to the lab room. Logan was straining in his bonds, testing them for any weaknesses. They were stained with his blood. Heather was sure the man knew it was helpless, but admired the fact that he hadn't given up.
The guards had been preparing the gurney and now they were finished. The team leader gingerly came forward with a needle, and stuck it into Logan's neck. His claws shot out at the violation, but the guards had all heard about Resta, and kept well clear.
Logan's neck muscles strained, and he could feel the relaxant working on his body as he slowly lost control of all his muscles. He cursed the nearest man, and watched as his claws sheathed themselves uncontrollably. Not until then did the team of guards feel safe enough to untie him and move his body onto the new stretcher. Once they settled him onto the gurney, they closed the bands around his body, and proceeded to lock down his arms and legs.
Heather looked into Logan's eyes as he was wheeled away for the tank. As she followed, Lloyd caught up with them. He had finished the mixture. They followed the stretcher as it wound its way to where the tank was located.
"Do you think it's worth it? Killing one man for a good cause and all that? You know, the one for many stuff?" Lloyd asked as they neared the lab where the tank was located.
"I don't know," Heather answered. "It sounds good in principle though, doesn't it?"
* * * * *
The Blackbird dropped lower until it was skimming the top branches of trees. Gambit kept glancing at Logan's seat. He had finally shut up after Storm had snapped at him. Although Wolverine had only been with the X-Men for a short while, his personality had been firmly implanted onto the team. He was an X-Man. He was family. Scott was determined to get Logan back, even if he didn't really like him.
The jet hovered over a clearing. The Professor, through Jean, had indicated it was as close to the area where Wolverine was being held as they could get. Before Scott could complete the landing procedures, the other X-Men where busy moving out of the Blackbird, and towards a wire fence located at the end of the clearing.
* * * * *
The swinging doors opened automatically as Logan was pushed inside a closed off area inside the base. This room hit his senses all at once. The glare of the overhead fluorescence, the sounds of the machines, and the smell. . . this room had no smell. It was dead and sterile, overwrought with antiseptics.
Logan struggled to will his heart to stop beating so fast; the pounding was hurting his chest. The gurney came to a stop and a socket in the floor moved it into an upright position. Logan was again standing in front of what had been keeping him awake for the past 16 years.
There, in the middle of the room, was a man-sized glass tank.
Logan's eyes frantically searched for an escape.
Both brother and sister left the four-man entourage, and it's prisoner to join the Doctor. He was busy by the tank completing his prepping. Lloyd and Heather watched as the guards brought metal bonds and began to detach Logan from his second gurney. His healing factor had already begun to work off the relaxant. Best to act otherwise. He waited for his arms to be freed when he started to fight back.
The guards realized their mistake immediately as two of Logan's claws popped through the eyes of the man closest to him. Before the dead man had dropped to the ground, the Doctor was shouting at the three remaining guards.
"The prod! Use the prod, you idiots!"
Heather had never actually seen anyone bristle in anger before as Logan swung his claws into a second man. Three sharp spikes ripped into the man's chest and out again. His heart and pieces of his shattered ribcage flew out of his body before he even realized he'd been hit.
The doctor ran to the body and grabbed a small rod that was attached to a belt. He aimed it at Logan's chest as twin prongs of blue shot out. Logan doubled over almost immediately from the pain as electricity coursed along his metal-coated bones. The two remaining guards quickly slammed him back against a wall. They tied the bonds to his arms and legs. They also hit him several times for good measure.
Lloyd flinched when a fist connected with Logan's stomach, and Logan grunted. Horrified by what he had just witnessed, Lloyd shouted to Doctor Cruin.
"Can't you stop them!?!" Lloyd had looked up to the Doctor. Now he began to wonder why.
Dazed, Lloyd glanced over at his sister. Heather's eyes were glazed over. The 'haze' of Captain Wallace she had settled around her features began to fade as her mental control began to wear down.
Cruin ignored Lloyd.
"Put him in the tank," he sneered, "and clean up that mess." Walking away from the guards, he dropped the prod on the two bodies.
Logan felt like he was moving through mud. Cursing silently, he measured up his situation. Pretty damn helpless. He couldn't count on the younger doctor, and he hadn't been able to make contact with the Captain. The two guards dragged him unceremoniously towards the tank. If only he could move, but not even his claws responded to his commands.
Once they reached the room's center, the guards lifted Logan into the tank. They clipped his arm and leg bonds to joints melded into the base. Stepping back to make room for the doctor, the guards left the room after an impatient wave of his hand.
Logan felt a faint tingling worked its way up his body as the shock wore off. He snarled at the doctor who only calmly stared back at him. Reaching to the tank's side, Doctor Cruin lifted a mask and lowered it over Logan's face. It covered him from his nose to the middle of his neck. The mask had a mike in it to amplify any noise he might make, and a sensor at the pulse in his neck. Machines surrounding the tank began to display his heartbeat. The sound of his ragged breathing soon filled the room.
The ventilators in the room slowly replaced the air with sterile oxygen. A hint of anesthetic gas also floated in. Moving away from the tank, the doctor pushed a button on a side panel. It activated hydraulics on the tank to lift it up and back. The monitors displayed the rhythm of Logan's heart as it picked up its tempo at the movement of the tank. The pressure of Logan's weight moved from his legs to his back until he finally lay flat, staring at the ceiling as he did nearly every night in his dreams.
A glass plate shifted forward wrapping around Logan's body. It created a cylinder around him until only a small gap directly in front of his body remained. The machine monitoring Logan's heartbeat suddenly displayed a rhythm spike as a blue tinged liquid began to seep into the tank. A wet coldness crept up Logan's back, to his side, and to his chest. By the time it reached his face, Heather, covering her ears, had to turn and hide her tears as his screaming reverberated throughout the room.
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