Not all effects of the Hoboken incident were bad. Marie was sitting outside a lecture hall waiting for the classroom to empty when another student came up to her, a girl with cobalt blue hair, huge beautiful brown eyes and a leather jacket. "Hi."

"Hi." She was guarded. Who was she and what did she want? "Do I know you?"

"No. I’m Jessica. Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure. I might not answer."

"They say that your boyfriend was that guy in Hoboken. Is it true?"

"Parts of it. Why do you wanna know?"

She looked left and right. No one was in the hallway. Marie tensed.

"I’ve never told anyone I could do this before." She held out her hand and five-inch bone claws extended from her fingertips. They were shiny and razor-sharp.

The door to the lecture hall opened and students began filing out. The claws slid home and the cuts healed. "I thought I was the only one."

"You’re not. There are a few others. Do you always heal like that?"

"Since I was fifteen."

"Useful mutation. You never told anyone about this?"

"You’re the first."

"I’m glad you told me." Rogue looked her up and down. "Is that your natural color?"

"No." Jessica smiled a bit. "Don’t tell anyone but I’m a natural blonde." Marie could see the metal glinting in her mouth.

"Just curious. My daughter’s hair is blue and it’s natural."

"Lucky her. Manic panic is a pain in the ass."

Marie smiled. She was exhausted from dealing with school and it was nice to have a friendly face around.

"Does your boyfriend heal too? Are his like mine?"

"Yeah, he heals. His are metal, and they come out at the first knuckle, not the fingertip."

"I can’t believe there are other people like me. I thought I was a freak."

"We’re all freaks."

"What can you do?"

"Kill with a touch. Absorb other mutant powers, temporarily."

Jessica didn’t flinch away, to her credit.

"Wow. We are all freaks."

"If you could see where I live, you might not feel that way."

.

To: curichardson@wcc.edu
From: mdancato@wcc.edu
Cc: wctimes@wcc.edu
Date: January 16, 2005
Subject: RE: Mutant Registration NOW!
Attachment: hob711.mov

After reading your impassioned editorial, and laughing profusely, I felt compelled to write.

We can’t live in the ivory tower of academia anymore and pretend that the mutant menace is not at hand. Not when a clawed, fanged fiend literally beheaded two men in a 7-11 just across state lines.

The "fiend" to which you refer has no fangs. If you are going to take on the role of social commentator I suggest you at least get your facts straight. It discredits your stance, which is incredible enough as it is.

I have included footage of the infamous Hoboken incident before and after the widely shown decapitation. I suggest you review it in its brutal, grueling entirety before making a thinly veiled judgment about me based on my boyfriend.

The campus is crawling with mutants, forming student bodies such as MSO, bent on controlling and subjugating humans.

The MSO mission statement, which I know because I was one of the people who wrote it, is as follows:

"The MSO strives to represent mutant interests on campus, to provide a venue for support and socialization among mutant students, and to work as an alliance between mutant and non-mutant students to improve student relations, understanding, and general quality of life on campus."

I’m missing the part about subjugating and controlling humans. This is reality, not Plan 9 From Outer Space.

Half of them reportedly consort with the aforementioned Hoboken assassin on any given Saturday night. One of them has born his child, a so-called honor student.

Slinging arrows without seeing clearly is one thing, but when you are going to get specific (not to mention downright slanderous) about myself and my family, I really must object.

First of all I am an honor student, not that it has anything to do with this, and can show my transcript to prove it. Second, I have never had a child with anyone, although if I were to, it would certainly be with the "fanged fiend."

Whatever your political inclinations, bringing a five year-old girl into the argument is lame and insidious. The child to whom you refer was left by her parents on a cold spring night between two dumpsters behind a warehouse in South Philadelphia. She was only three, was dehydrated and terrified when I found her a day and a half later. A little over a year later I adopted her. She is a beautiful, creative, loving child and she is regrettably not my own, though I wish to god she was.

And when evaluating the "caliber" of my character, you might have bothered to meet me before rushing to judgment based on rumor and supposition. Were you afraid to approach me with your concerns? I’m a pretty easygoing person. Any of my friends, mutant and non, will tell you.

To the students and faculty on campus who support Ms. Richardson’s stance, I implore you to re-examine your own motives. Is your hatred based on fear? On unconfirmed rumors? I invite you to honestly examine the pillars of your own beliefs, and I hope that the arguments with which you support those beliefs are sturdier than those Ms. Richardson uses.

To Colleen Richardson, I invite you to an open debate on campus, any time, anywhere. If you are so sure of your views you will participate, I trust.

Cordially,

Marie D’Ancato

Marie woke that night to go to the bathroom. When she returned she crawled into bed next to Logan and sensed that he wasn't sleeping.

"Honey? You're awake, aren't you?"

His eyes fluttered open. "Sorry. Didn't mean to wake you."

"You wanna talk about it?"

"I dunno. Dunno if it'll matter."

"I'm here." She reached over and took his hand in hers. She closed her eyes and they were quiet for the length of several breaths. He sighed, a long slow intake of air, then spoke.

"I keep getting just to the verge of sleep and then I'll have a flashback. Like, bam. Those guys were supposed to have the sense to see my claws and go running. Fuckin'... hopped up on PCP. That guy was bleeding out of his nose, out of his mouth, even out of his damn eyes. I think that was what did it for me. I had a memory, just this image, of a guy bloody like that, in the lab, when I escaped. I think... I set him free, maybe other people too. And I was flashing back really hard and I was ... so afraid. And yet I knew that I was..."

She was quiet for a long time. "You were what, love?"

"I dunno," he said, and it was as if a wall came down. He had processed all he could. He lay staring at the ceiling, dark stubble on his handsome face, hair messy on the pillow. He looked at her.

"Sorry."

She pressed her fingers to his lips. "Never be."

He wrapped his arms around her and they were quiet, only breathing, wide awake. She felt his eyelashes on her shoulder as he blinked.

She ran her fingers through his hair. "Do you have any idea how much we love you, Logan?"

"Yeah," he said, and held her hard.

.

From: curichardson@wcc.edu
To: mdancato@wcc.edu
Cc:
Date: January 17, 2005
Subject: RE: Mutant Registration NOW!

FUCK YOU!!!

The WCC Times printed Rogue’s editorial in edited form. Colleen Richardson looked like even more of an ass. Rogue didn’t show either article to Logan.

Three days later, a phone call came into the school. "Hello, could I please speak to Mr. Xavier?"

"I’ll see if he’s in. May I tell him who’s calling?"

"My name is Mariah Christensen."

"One moment."

"Hello, this is Charles Xavier."

"Mr. Xavier, hello. You don’t know me but I’m … well I’m calling about the one they call the Wolverine. I need to speak to him."

"Can I ask what this is in regards to?"

"Yes, I think he’s my son."