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Title: The New Mutants II, Volume VIII
Author: kanedax
Fandom: X-Men Movieverse
Rating: PG-13 for language
Spoilers: The New Mutants I & II (see above)
Summary: Logan does research. What more need be said?
Notes: The players are almost set, and it’s going to get fun really soon. I also added three cameos into this chapter beyond the main characters introduced for story effect. Can you see them all? ;) As usual, I don’t own the X-Men, Marvel Comics, 20th Century Fox, or an atlas.
Previous Chapter (Steppin' Out) / Next Chapter (Garden)
If you had told me I’d be spending most of my time in a place like this, Logan thought for not the first time in the past few months, I would have told you you were crazy.
He lifted his head, which he had been leaning in his hands, and took a look around. He had to admit, staring down from his table on the fifth floor of the Toronto Reference Library, that it was a hell of a view.
He sighed, rubbing his temples with his fingers, forcing himself to concentrate on the stacks of books before him. He was glad to notice that the fingers of his right hand had started to gain a feeling that wasn’t pain. Ever since the Phoenix had sliced it off, neither he nor Hank were sure if it would be able to be re-attached, or in what condition it would be after it had been left on the floor of the Raft for a few hours.
Healing factor’s a kick, he thought, flexing his fingers again. He and Fuzzy had been debating whether he would have been able to re-grow a new hand completely, but decided in the end that a little minor surgery was all that was needed.
He pulled his attention away from his fingers, once again staring with a pained expression at his research.
“I’ve never been the book type,” Logan groaned, yet pulled another one down from the stack and opened it in front of him.
Like his experiences at the libraries in New York and Washington, his research here had led him to nothing but dead ends. The photographs he had found had division numbers listed beneath them, which he had used to look up the names of soldiers he had fought beside.
Unfortunately, in the early conflicts, there wasn’t much connection. Beyond the fact that none of the soldiers in these divisions had the name “Logan,” either as a first or a last name, none of the names matched up at all. There wasn’t even a John Smith to share between his divisions in the Civil War, World War I, and World War II. There were a few names shared between the Second War division and the Korean division, with only a five-year gap between the two wars, there were too many for him to narrow down.
What was more disheartening (or disturbing, depending on his mood) was the record of the divisions in which he had served. A disproportionately high number of soldiers had come out of the wars in coffins. He had either served in a larger number of serious battles than most troops, or there was something else at work.
And then there was the Vietnam situation. In America he had researched the division along with the others. To his surprise, there were no records in existence of this group of soldiers. The book he had found the photo in mentioned that they had fought in many of the major conflicts of the war, and yet he couldn’t find any other mention of them beyond that particular book. There was plenty of information on the battles themselves, but he was discovering more and more that gaps had appeared in the periodical section of the New York Public Library and the Library of Congress when it came to newspaper columns or magazine articles around that time period.
He took careful note of the information missing, and decided to try a different approach. So here he sat, stacks of old bound newspapers sitting in front of him in a country that was close enough to the US to collect their newspapers, but far enough away to keep any government entity from doing a little scissor work.
“God, but this is taking forever,” Logan muttered, poring over article after article relating to Dak To, Saigon, and the Tet Offensive. His eyes were drooping in weariness as wave after wave of articles flew past his vision, recounting wave after wave of violence that he couldn’t remember. No reference to the 203rd infantry, his unit, could be found.
Wait.
He sat up, staring down at the yellowed paper. There was a mention. The 203rd. Nothing stuck out as he read the article.
Except for one thing, the name that had made him stop in the first place.
Lieutenant William Stryker.
“Bingo,” he said, smiling. He had heard mention that Stryker was in Vietnam before he came to the time where he and Logan had met again. In that forty year period, Lieutenant Stryker had become Colonel. This was confirmation that they had known each other at least that far back.
But how far back was it before then?
He continued reading the article, but didn’t get too far before he recognized another name. He jumped up, reaching over to the other side of the table and pulling the information he had found on the Korean War next to him, and the World War II information before that.
He skimmed down the lists, and found a name that was in all three divisions.
“Steve Rogers,” Logan said, tasting it in his mouth. Could that be his name? His real name? It would make sense, it was the only one that matched up across the board.
But why would he use different names in the earlier wars, but decide to change his pattern farther down the road?
It didn’t make much sense, but since he couldn’t really say what his mindset was back then, it didn’t necessarily have to.
There wasn’t anything more in the article. Stryker’s name was mentioned as the leader of one of many divisions in Saigon, and Rogers was only mentioned in a list of wounded.
“Damn it,” he growled, pulling himself away from the article to study the pile of bound newspapers. He dreaded the search that was ahead of him, trying to find more information on Rogers.
“Sir?”
He turned his head to discover a short, young woman looking at his stack quizzically. He was surprised at himself, he was so ingrained in his find that he didn’t even hear her approach.
“You do know we have those articles in digital format, right?” she asked. He looked down to see that she had a laminated card hanging around her neck stating that she was a volunteer of the library.
“Yeah, I do, Miss, um,” Logan stared down at her card, reading it while also allowing his more bestial side to take in the view of her sweater, “Miss Van Dyne.”
“Janet,” she replied, blushing slightly and pushing her short dark hair behind her ear.
“Janet,” he repeated, smiling. “Yeah, I had a feeling you guys have them on your computers, or whatever. But I’m not what you’d call tech savvy.”
“Oh, it’s actually really easy,” she said. “I can show you how to use our system, if you want.”
“You can do that?” he asked.
“Sure,” she said, shrugging. “I’ve taught guys a lot older than you how to use it, it’s not a problem.”
“Well, I’m not your normal old man,” he said, standing and stretching, “but I’d much appreciate it after I get these books put away.”
“Don’t worry about those,” she laughed, waving him to follow her. “We’re interns, it’s part of the job description.”
“You’re sure?” Logan said, looking back at the pile.
“Yeah, I can get Barton or Pym to take care of them,” she said. “One of the pros about being a girl in a place like this, boys like Clint and Henry will pretty much do anything you ask them to do if you bat your eyes nice.”
“That’s pretty much a universal language, isn’t it?” Logan chuckled.
“Part of the woman’s codebook,” Janet said slyly, “But don’t tell anyone or I’ll have to kill you.”
“Your secret’s safe with me.”
“Well, have a seat,” she said as they approached the computer terminal. Logan pulled the chair back and sat down.
“So how do I do this?” he asked, gazing nervously at the keyboard.
“Well, just click on one of the areas you want to search with…”
“Click?”
“Wow, you really are illiterate,” Janet laughed. “Use your mouse, move the little arrow up to one of the boxes.”
“Okay,” Logan said, pushing the mouse jerkily across the screen.
“If you want to search for articles with a certain word or name in it, type the word in here,” she pointed to the first box. “If you want to search within a certain time frame, just click on the calendar there. Type in here if you want to search within a certain region, province, state, whatever, and here if you want to search within a certain newspaper.”
“And this is a Toronto thing?” he said.
“Well, this system is,” she replied. “We like to say we’re more extensive than a lot of other archives, but there’s gaps everywhere, you know?”
“Trust me, I know,” he replied. “Thanks a lot.”
“If you have any questions, I’ll be at the help desk behind you, telling the boys to get cracking on your books,” she said, and walked away.
He sighed, staring at the machine. “Well, no time like the present, he said, and typed Vietnam into the word box. He moved the mouse slowly down to the “Search” button, and clicked it. Within seconds he was bombarded with what the top of the screen was saying was over three hundred million articles.
“Jesus!” he yelled as he saw the types of articles being pulled up. “English! English!” He clicked the button saying “new search,” and the list of articles disappeared, replaced by the search page.
He once again typed Vietnam, and, in the Region area, typed United States.
Two hundred fifty million articles.
“Fuck,” he breathed. He put his chin in his hand and stared at the articles, which ranged from helicopter specs to protest song lyrics.
“Well, these things are supposed to be intuitive,” he mumbled to himself. “Let’s see how intuitive they can be.”
He typed the words Steve Rogers into the search, added Vietnam to the list, and started the program.
One match. The article he had been reading previously.
“Damn.”
He pushed the return button again, and tried searching for William Stryker.
A couple hundred articles, mostly relating to his work within the past five or ten years. He clicked on a few and read them. They all dealt with his reaction to press conferences he held as Colonel during the Israeli War. Nothing new there. He clicked back again.
“What the hell?” he muttered, typing another word into the Search area. “Let’s go for broke.”
Weapon X.
Not expecting anything, he was surprised to see three matches. All were from around 2010, and all were listed in the same newspaper. He clicked on the first, and a “Letter to the Editor” page opened from The Providence Journal. The letter is printed under the heading “Local Crackpots Corner”:
Providence Journal readers,
Through all the war and strife that’s occurring in the Middle East, the American people have been blinded to the true enemy: our own government.
For the last few years, I have been researching a vast conspiracy within our government that dates back to the birth of our nation. It is called Weapon X. I can’t say what this program entails, all I know is that it is dangerous. I have found ties between our government and such industrial corporations as Oscorp, Quest Aerospace, Stark Industries, and Nanosoft Software, as well as many countries such as Wakanda and Latveria, that fade into the same phrase: Weapon X.
I urge the editors of this newspaper to study the subject. It may be difficult, and it may prove fruitless, even dangerous. But there is a vast conspiracy, a conspiracy that many have died for, within the shadowy depths of the government that must be brought to the light of day.
Ben Reilly
Concerned Citizen
Logan shook his head. He scribbled a few of the names mentioned in the letter, then clicked back and searched the other two links for Weapon X. They were also links to the letters page of The Journal, and were readers reacting to the letter. They were fairly evenly split between those who thought this man, Ben Reilly, was a joke, and those who thought he knew what he was talking about. Logan couldn’t help noticing that those pro-Reilly letters sounded even more outlandish than the original, as the local crazies of the area found a perfect mouthpiece to expound their theories about Bigfoot, extraterrestrials, and the Freemasons, with one article going so far as to say:
I applaud Ben Reilly, who has finally come forward to speak for the silent minority. I have been researching this myself, and through repeated chantings of the words “Weapon X” while wearing my aluminum pyramid headpiece, I have come to learn that…
Logan went back to the search area, and began typing in the names of the countries he had written down. He cross-referenced them with the words William Stryker.
William Stryker and Wakanda. Zero hits.
William Stryker and Latveria. Zero hits.
Getting frustrated, he tried the search again, but with the corporations instead of the countries.
Nothing for Nanotech. Nothing for Stark. Nothing for Quest.
“Last shot,” he said, typing in William Stryker and Oscorp.
One hit.
The article was titled New York Company Signs Government Contract. It was from a business journal, and dealt mostly with the numbers. Stryker’s name did come up, as he was interviewed as a strong supporter of the contract.
“I like Oscorp’s vision,” Stryker said in a phone interview. “While I can’t get into any details of their work, of course, I can say that what they have in mind for our military will change the face of warfare forever, which will ultimately lead to changing the face of peace forever.”
He did a general search about Oscorp, and discovered that there was a lot to this company that he should investigate further.
Quest Aerotech Beats Oscorp To Military Funding
Unity Day Festival Ends In Chaos
Oscorp Founder’s Death Ruled Suicide
Quest Aerotech Firm Buys Out Oscorp
Son of Oscorp Founder Found Dead, Ruled Accident
He jumped back, and searched for Quest Aerotech. He noticed that most of the articles that came up, along with many from the previous search, were all listed as articles from The Daily Bugle, a newspaper in New York that he knew had been bought out within the past few years.
He opened a few at random (he noted that the last was under the title Quest Aerotech Merges With Stark Industries), and realized that many had been written by one particular reporter, and none of the articles seemed to take a very positive tone about any of Quest’s dealings with the government. Later articles, those which were written after the Stark merger, were much more positive, and the writer’s name wasn’t there. It had, in fact, been removed from the newspaper altogether. With the exception of one paragraph, saying he had “moved on to bigger and better things,” he ceased to exist at the Bugle after his last article about Quest.
“Well,” he said, looking at the two names he had written down on the paper, “Time for a little face-to-face.”
He walked over to the help desk, where Janet sat idly clicking her mouse around the net.
“Excuse me, Janet?”
“Oh, hi!” she said. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
“I found enough,” he said. “Is there a phone book I could use?”
“We only have a couple hundred,” she said. “A couple hundred websites, too.”
“Okay, scratch that,” Logan said, shaking his head. “Is there a phone nearby that I can make long distance calls on?”
“Yeah, sure,” she said, trying to contain a giggle. She slid the desk phone over to him. “Just hit 9 to dial out.”
“Isn’t this going to cost the library? I’m calling to America, that’s gotta be expensive.”
“I won’t tell if you won’t,” she said, winking.
Logan shrugged, and picked it up. He pulled out his wallet, and pulled the crumpled slip of paper from inside. He unfolded it and dialed the number.
After a few rings, a familiar voice answered.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Marie,” he said into the phone.
“Oh, my God!” Rogue squealed, “Hi! I was wondering if you were ever going to call!”
“Well, I’m a man of my word,” Logan replied. “Can I talk to Jones?”
“Yeah, sure,” Rogue said, her voice full of disappointment, “Hang on a second.”
“Hey, guys!” Logan heard her yell into the background. “Do you know where Jones is at? He wasn’t in class.”
A few mumbled replies that even Logan’s enhanced hearing couldn’t pick up.
“I’ll hand you off,” Rogue said a minute later, “as long as you promise you’ll call for real sometime?”
“Of course.”
“To talk?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Good.”
“Can I talk to Jones now?”
“Miss you, too.”
“I miss you plenty,” he said, but heard nothing in reply except the mumbled conversation of Jimmy and Lucas. Something about Siberia and suits.
“Are you sure this isn’t costing the library anything?” he repeated to Janet.
“I miss you plenty?” Janet said jokingly. “If you’re just sitting there chatting with your wife or someone like that I might have to report you.”
“She’s not my wife,” Logan said uncomfortably.
“Girlfriend?”
“Too young,” he replied.
“Never stopped Marilyn Manson,” she said, turning back to the computer.
“Who’s she?” Logan said, suddenly very confused.
“Hello?” a groggy voice answered.
“Jones, it’s Logan,” he said. “I can’t talk for too long, I’m racking up long distance bills here.
“Oh, hey,” Jones replied. “What’s long distance? That doesn’t exist anymore, remember?”
Logan looked down at Janet, who was smiling beneath her hand. “No, I guess I forgot. I’ll keep it short, anyway. I need you to look up some addresses for me.”
“Sure, what do you have?”
“Two names,” Logan said, pulling his notes up to eye level. “A Ben Reilly, and a Peter Parker.”
“Nope, they’re both unlisted,” Jones said almost instantaneously. Logan still couldn’t grasp just how much power that kid had in that head of his.
“Can you check any private databases? Government listings? I don’t want you to get into any trouble, but…”
“Sure I can,” Jones interrupted, snorting into the phone. “But it’ll take me a second to hack in. What did you say the first name was again?”
“Ben Reilly,” Logan repeated.
“Nope, still nothing,” Jones said groggily. “What was the second one?”
“Parker. Peter Parker.”
“Yeah, I found him,” Jones said, and Logan exhaled in relief. “Have a pen?”
Logan looked back at the computer, where he realized he had left his pencil, then grabbed a pen from Janet’s desk. She looked at him with a hint of frustration.
“Got one, go ahead.”
“It’s 1360 King’s Ridge Rd in South Kingstown, Rhode Island,” Jones recited. “I can get you MapQuest directions if you…”
“What’s a map quest?”
“Or you can use a map, whatever.”
“Call me old-fashioned.”
“Hey, quick question,” Jones said. “Does healing factor mean you can’t get sick, either?”
“I haven’t been sick in a few years,” Logan replied, “But I don’t remember anything beyond that.”
“Just checking,” Jones said. “Wanted to make sure Rogue doesn’t catch my scurvy.”
“Thanks for the info, and for not discussing your scurvy, Glitch.”
“Talk to you later, Wolverine.” The phone disconnected with a click.
“Your girlfriend is young, named Marie Jones, and your pet name for her is Glitch,” Janet said, reading from her notes. “Interesting life you lead, sir.”
“Don’t get cute,” Logan said, looking at the address. “Do you have a US atlas I can look at?”
“I can get you MapQuest directions if you want,” Janet replied, turning towards her computer.
“What’s a…?” Logan repeated, then shook his head. “Forget it. Atlas?”
“Sure,” she said, standing up and motioning him to follow. As he did, he looked down at the address again.
Just a few more hours, he thought, and I might find myself closer to some truth.
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