“I’m very sorry, Miss Laura.
Mr.
Miles is currently under strict custody at Northern Command.
I am temporarily unable to establish contact with him.”
The spark in Laura’s eyes dimmed once again.
“Aurora, have you already left the Kansas Medical School?” Logan asked.
“Yes, Mr.
Logan.
After Mr.
Miles was taken away, I remained in the Walter West Wing laboratory.
Not long ago, I finally completed the final data calculations for the Mutant Enhancement Serum and uploaded them.
Now, only the last step remains: refining it into a finished product.”
“Refining the serum…” Logan muttered to himself, immediately linking it to the phone call from earlier.
“Does that medical checkup phone call have something to do with you?”
“Yes,” Aurora replied.
“The core principle behind the Mutant Enhancement Serum theory left by Mr.
Miles lies in reverse-engineering the genetics of the new generation of artificial mutants as a blueprint, extracting targeted genetic information, and then perfecting and reinforcing the native mutants’ genes.”
“Therefore, I now require blood samples from you and Miss Laura to synthesize the first Wolverine Enhancement Serum.”
“Through anonymous online channels, I submitted a project proposal to the College of Biological Sciences at South Dakota State University and rented a laboratory.
Their staff will assist me in completing the subsequent production.
All that is missing now are blood samples from you and Miss Laura.”
“‘Wolverine Enhancement Serum’…” Logan murmured, then asked in a low voice, “Why me?”
“Currently, only you and Mr.
Charles are eligible subjects for the Mutant Enhancement Serum.
However, producing the Professor X Enhancement Serum also requires a genetic sample from a new mutant whose genetic template is based on Professor Charles…
In other words, it requires Mr.
Miles’s blood sample.”
“The problem is that Mr.
Miles is not here right now.
At present, only you and Miss Laura meet the requirements for creating the Wolverine Enhancement Serum.”
Logan fell silent.
…
A few hours later, the pickup truck pulled up outside the Sanford Health Medical Center in South Dakota.
This was the very place they had been directed to for the checkup.
Laura opened the car door and couldn’t wait to jump down, but when she turned back, she saw Logan still sitting in the driver’s seat, staring blankly ahead.
“Logan, what are you thinking?” Laura asked.
“I don’t know…” Logan said quietly.
“I don’t know if…
doing this is right.”
He lifted his head to look at Laura’s clear eyes—eyes that looked so much like his own once did—his voice hoarse.
“You know, Laura…
I used to kill people.
A lot of people…”
“But they were bad people,” Laura replied, confused.
“So were we…” Logan said softly.
The man understood that he had arrived at a crossroads of destiny.
One path led to the past; the other led to decay and death.
The former terrified him, representing endless fighting, slaughter, and madness.
He was tired, too worn out to fight, and only wanted to find a quiet place to grow old and die.
Yet, even as he thought this, the resolute gaze of that boy back in the lab’s cold storage room surfaced in his mind once more.
“…”
Logan’s hand trembled slightly before loosening again.
On the other side, seeing that Logan was reluctant to get out of the vehicle, Laura quietly reached into the back seat and pulled out that dog-eared issue of the *Uncanny X-Men* comic.
She flipped to the page featuring “Wolverine,” reached out with all her might, and thrust it right in front of Logan’s face.
Logan looked up.
The Wolverine in the comic…
had a wild, proud smile, brandishing his sharp claws with abandon, ripping apart one enemy after another, unstoppable by anyone.
“Laura,” Logan rasped, a trace of pleading entering his voice, “I swore an oath…
never to do this again…”
“Are you scared, Logan?” Laura asked, staring into his eyes, her voice eerie in its quietness.
Under the dim yellow light of the truck interior, Logan opened his mouth, momentarily at a loss for words.
“I…”
Before he could finish, Laura slammed the comic shut and threw it hard against his face.
*Thwack!* The comic book hit old Logan’s face.
It didn’t hurt physically, but to Logan, it stung deeply.
“Coward!!”
Laura yelled, gritting her teeth as tears streamed uncontrollably down her cheeks.
“I get it…
Logan, I’ll go by myself!”
“I’ll save Miles myself!!”
With that, she didn’t look back.
Shouldering her backpack, she ran out into the dark night toward the open road.
Watching Laura leave, Logan’s expression remained dark and motionless.
He sat quietly in the truck, like a withered tree about to turn to dust in the wind.
Just then, in the back seat, Charles, who had been unconscious all this time, let out a soft sound.
“Logan…
Logan?”
The old man’s voice was very low and slurred, like a sleepwalker’s mumble.
Hearing Charles speak, Logan turned around sharply and leaned close, asking urgently, “Charles?
Are you awake?”
However, Charles kept his eyes tightly shut, unheard of his call, caught up in his own dream world.
“Logan…
Do you know…
these past few days, I’ve been so happy…”
A look of child-like serenity appeared on the old man’s face.
“I saw two wonderful little kids…
They were like you…
and like me…
and like…
that bastard Erik…”
Logan froze, then let out a soft chuckle, squeezing out a grim smile.
“I couldn’t help wanting to be close to them…
to be their teacher…
I felt like I was back in the old days…”
“The sunshine was so warm, and the lawn was filled with children’s laughter…”
“But I know…
I don’t deserve it…”
“I remember everything now…
I did things…
unspeakable things…
What happened at Westchester, I remember it all…
This wasn’t the first time I hurt people, I just…
I just didn’t know before…”
“Logan…
you didn’t tell me either…
We…
we were just running…”
“Running away…
always running…”
Logan took a deep breath, gritting his teeth as he slowly covered his face with his scarred hand, hiding his expression…
even though there was no one else there to see it.
After a long silence, old Charles spoke again in a barely audible whisper.
“Logan…
where are you?”
“Miles…
Laura…
where did you go?
Why…
why can’t I hear your voices anymore?”
His voice was filled with confusion and terror, like a lost child wandering in endless darkness.
“Logan…
I…
I want to go home…”
“…Go home…”
Charles’s voice grew fainter and fainter, until finally, he drifted back into a deep slumber.
Logan looked up blankly, gazing out the window at the night sky.
There were no stars or moon tonight, only pitch darkness.
“Hoo…”
After a long time, Logan exhaled heavily and slowly pushed open the car door.
…
In the dark night, Laura sprinted along the road.
Blur-eyed from tears, she tripped over a stone and tumbled hard onto the ground.
“Ugh…”
Laura grunted in pain.
She thought of everything that had happened: Caliban’s disappearance, Charles’s severe injuries, Miles’s final farewell…
The young girl couldn’t hold it in any longer.
Lying on the cold asphalt road, she sobbed softly, overwhelmed by grief and helplessness.
Before long, however, a rough, calloused hand gently gripped her shoulder from behind, lifting her off the ground.
Realizing it was Logan, Laura tried her best to stop crying and asked hoarsely, “Logan…
where are we going?”
Carrying her, Logan turned back along the road he had walked, slowly stepping back toward that illuminated medical center, one pace at a time.
As the old man walked toward the brightly lit hospital, he whispered to the little girl in his arms:
“We’re going home.”