X-Men: Dark Mirror (3 page)

"Oh," said the man, uncomfortable. "He didn't actually say you were going to get better. Remember? Quiet rooms, Mindy."

Scott nodded, still looking down at the ground. Meek, ever so meek. "But I'm not alone?"

"No, kid. You're not alone." He looked sorry he had said anything, and began backing away. Scott could not let him leave. He needed those names.

"Who else?" he asked softly, finally looking him in the eyes.
"Please."

It was like catching a deer in headlights. Scott would never have been able to get away with this in his own body, but Mindy had a history here, a presence, and Penn slowly said, "He put out the call on you three and Jeff. Jeff and Patty. So far those two have lived up to the warning. We've got our eyes on the rest of you. Doc is almost never wrong."

Your "doc" sounds like suspect number one,
Scott thought, lowering his gaze. Nurse Penn walked away, but not far. He stopped at the station where some other employees waited, still holding coffee mugs, still with keen gazes as they surveyed the room and its milling patients. Rachel's outburst had been an unmemorable ripple in their morning; nothing more, nothing less.

Scott turned so that his back was to the nurses and security guards. "I know where Jeff is. We need to find this Patty."

"Jean and Logan," Rogue murmured. "What the heck happened to us, Scott? Where are our real bodies?"

Kurt made a deep sound, low in his throat.
"Meine freunde,
until we find our old selves, these
are
our real bodies."

"Thanks for the reminder," Scott said, still trying to ignore his breasts. "Okay, then. Kurt, I want you to find out as much as you can about Dr. Maguire. Rogue, look for this Patty. Be discreet. You've already got a reputation and we don't want you locked up. I'm going to see if I can get in to see Jeff."

Rogue frowned. "What if they're the wrong people? Might be a coincidence that doctor named us."

"I don't believe in coincidence," Scott said. "We'll meet back here in an hour."

Interesting, living in a stranger's skin. Rogue, much to her surprise, found that she did not like it. An old fantasy, to be sure: being another person for a day, someone normal. No mutant powers, no burdens. Just a regular life and an ordinary body covered in delightful, touchable, skin.

She was a good daydreamer. Fantasies full with the thrill of titillation, acting upon the forbidden. Touch me, touch you. One warm palm sliding against a cheek, a throat, and oh, some kiss, something sweet on the lips. Heaven. Heart's desire.

And now she had it—or at least, the possibility—and she found that the flesh was not so forgiving, that her dreams frightened her.

Ah, Remy. I wish you were here.

She was also quite grateful that he was not. Too many complications. She was not even certain he would want her, looking as she did. Old, rough, the product of a hard life. The irony being, of course, that this body with its scars and aging aches, was probably a better reflection of her heart than the real thing.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You got no time for pity.

Right. She had work to do. One thing the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants had taught her, long before she ever joined the X-Men, was that you did your work or you died. Only the strong survived. Life never favored whiners.

And at least she was still a woman. Poor Scott. He and Kurt had already slipped out of the dining room, and it was funny watching them; Rogue did not know who Mindy and Renny had been before, but now they looked like trouble—the cartoon kind, little rascally animals that tiptoed about with mischief on their minds. Scott could not help himself; there probably wasn't a lick of humor in him right now, certainly no mischief—but in that body, with that delicate face reflecting his stubborn frowns, there was an aura of the surreal, the ridiculous, that Rogue simply could not shake.

Kurt did not make it any easier. She could tell he was enjoying himself. But that was Kurt, always able to take the best out of any situation. Rogue wished she had that talent Despite wanting to laugh at her friends, she did not have the same sense of humor about her own predicament.

At the far end of the dining room was an area filled with shabby orange couches and battered faux-wood tables. Games littered the floor and scratched surfaces: chess, checkers, playing cards, even a shabby version of Monopoly. Bodies, too. Some of the men and women looked like tattered versions of the games, old and plastic, so heavily medicated as to be near death. They smelted like urine and sweat and despair. Rogue hated it.

This could have been you, if you had never learned how to control all the voices in your head.

Friends, enemies, strangers—men and women who had been sucked into her soul over the long years, thanks to her powers. Some of them still spoke to her, still whispered schemes in her dreams. Yes, she could have ended up in a loony bin. Still might, if she wasn't careful.

Actually, forget that. She was already here.

There were patients in the recreation area who looked like they were having actual conversations. Rogue wandered over to them. She needed to find this Patty, and those folks seemed like a good place to start. If she got desperate, she might try the nurses and security guards. She hoped it did not come to that. Based on what she had already heard, "Crazy Jane" had a reputation, and asking for the whereabouts of another patient might look suspicious. The less contact she had with the authorities in this place, the better.

She chose her targets carefully; she did not want to be seen with people who might not normally associate with someone like Crazy Jane. Too many questions, and in this place, she had no power—nothing to protect herself with except brains and caution.

Not that she could complain. The alternative, after all, was death—and considering how easily she and her friends had been taken over, she was surprised to still be breathing. Why anyone would go to the trouble of stealing their bodies—and then keep their minds intact—was beyond her.

Rogue found what she was looking for in the far corner of the recreation area, sitting at a small table. A young man and older woman, both of whom looked capable of handling someone like Jane—but sane enough to actually know something. She moseyed over. Their voices carried.

"My mom is coming today. God, is she a nightmare." The young man tapped his fingers along the edge of the table. Up close, he looked and sounded so youthful, Rogue revised her opinion and downgraded him to "boy." Scraggly hair, pointy chin, shiny forehead.

"Love, Kyle," said the woman across from him. She was eating an apple, holding it tight in a pudgy fist. "You can't complain about that."

"The hell I can't, Suzy. Did you know—" He stopped, finally noticing Rogue. She cast a shadow on their table. "The hell
you
want, C.J.?"

C.J. Huh, cute. Rogue said, "Just company. Anything wrong with that?"

"This is a
private
conversation." He gave her the finger, but it was halfhearted, like an old habit.

Rogue grabbed the nearest chair and sat down. "If it was so private, sugah, you shouldn't have been talking so loud. Ain't just the walls that have ears in this place."

"Funny way you're talking. You been taking lessons in redneck?" Suzy's small eyes could have been blue or brown; every time she blinked, they seemed to change.

"Don't know," Rogue said, making a stronger attempt to dull her accent. "You been taking lessons in how to get your face punched in?"

That earned her a thin smile. "Good old Jane. Always so predictable. I love getting a rise out of you."

"That's not all you like getting," muttered the man. Rogue shot him a sharp look, wondering what
that
meant. The woman laughed.

"Bad, you're so bad!" She set down her apple and began shuffling cards. Instead of passing them out, however, she cut the deck in half and then fanned the stack with her palm. She looked at Rogue and her eyes shifted from blue to brown. "Choose one, Jane. Come on. I dare you."

Rogue did not want to choose a card. She had come here to ask questions, not participate in games. Nor did she like the peculiarity of the woman's shifting gaze, her intensity. Rogue, faced with that scrutiny, was reminded again of her precarious situation; she felt exposed, weak, utterly and miserably human. For all her fantasies to the contrary, Rogue wanted her powers back. She wanted to be a mutant and feel safe again. Safer, at any rate. She could not escape the irony of that.

"Well?" said Suzy, sly. She tapped the cards with one hard fingernail. "Let's see what fate has in store for you."

If Rogue had her way, fate would provide both of her missing friends, as well as a swift escape from this place and a safe return to their bodies so they could begin the ass-kicking that someone so royally deserved.

Rogue chose a card. She had a job to do, and that came first. If she humored this woman, played along with her crazy games, then maybe she would be more willing to answer Rogue's questions.

A nine of spades. Rogue did not know what that meant. She looked at Suzy, and was not comforted by the flush creeping up her sagging neck.

"That's a bad card," she said.

"Of course," Rogue said. "Those are the only kind I get"

"It means you've cast yourself in an illusion," said the woman, leaning close. Her eyes shifted, dark to light: unmistakable and eerie and utterly unnatural. "You don't know the difference between dream and waking."

"I know enough," Rogue said smoothly, though on the inside a chill settled deep in her gut. Her eyes might belong to a different woman, but they did not lie. Suzy was a mutant. Probably low-level, perhaps only a physical permutation, but with enough kick in her genes to set her apart. Rogue wondered why she was in the hospital, if her incarceration had anything to do with her mutation. She wondered if this woman, because she was a mutant, might know something about why the X-Men were trapped here. It was no accident that Rogue and her friends were living in the bodies of strangers. Wasn't any machine she knew of that could accomplish that, which meant a person had done the deed. Another mutant.

Rogue shifted in her chair. She should have just stuck with a simple interrogation instead of an attempt to fit in.

You never could do anything simple.

"Why are you here?" Rogue asked Suzy. Another bad question, but she might as well go for broke. She wanted to know if the woman was here against her will.

Suzy said nothing. Kyle's gaze darted to both women, back and forth, back and forth. His fingers drummed the air. He looked worried.

"I want to talk about my mom," he said.

"I tried to kill someone," said Suzy softly, ignoring him. She stared into Rogue's eyes. "Bang, bang, you're dead. But you already know that, C.J. Or you should."

"Yeah?" Rogue said. "My memory's bad. Remind me of something else, Suzy. Did you enjoy the killing?"

"Suzy," said Kyle, imploring.

Suzy bared her teeth in a smile. "I was crazy at the time. I didn't know what I was doing. Something
you
should be familiar with."

Rogue shrugged, holding Suzy's gaze. The mutant woman was here for a good reason, and if her, then maybe others—if there were other mutants in Belldonne. Rogue had the feeling that Logan's contact was full of it—or else had deliberately misled them. If so, it was the best trap that had ever caught her.

"C.J.," Suzy said. "You're not acting like yourself."

"That's because I'm crazy," Rogue said, and shoved the nine of spades back into the lineup of cards. "Did you hear about Patty?"

Kyle looked relieved by the change of subject. He shook his head, still playing air drums with his fingers. "Dumb girl. She screwed over the wrong guard."

"What'd they do to her?"

"Quiet room," Suzy said, still staring, eyes narrowing into pins of shifting color. Pain prickled the spot between Rogue's eyes; watching Suzy's face was enough to give her a headache.

Kyle slid forward on his chair. "You thinking of busting her while she's down, C.J.?"

"Only if I can find her," Rogue said, allowing the rough gravel of her voice to pack the menace she needed. "Which quiet room is she in?"

"Third floor, near the west-wing station." Suzy picked up Rogue's discarded card. She ran the edges over her fingers and palm, and then pressed it to her lips. "You'll need a distraction."

"You offering one?"

Again, she smiled. "Interesting that you need to ask."

Rogue frowned, and glanced around. No one but the nurses and security guards were paying attention to them; most of the other patients slumped in chairs or shuffled across the floor, radiating a dull discontent that seemed borne of boredom, confinement. There were some areas of dynamism—nervous anxiety, scattered bursts of laughter—but beneath even that was an undercurrent of unease and fear. No one wanted to be here. If you did, Rogue thought, then you really were sick.

She stretched and kicked back her chair. This body still felt strange; an ill-fitting glove, one that had unfamiliar aches, an odd rolling looseness in her joints. She stood and Kyle grabbed her arm. It was startling, for a moment horrifying, to feel his hand on her bare skin.