xp_logs | Guess Who?

Dr. Marcus Witt had already been on duty for nine hours when they brought the John Doe into the emergency room. After a Saturday in St.Louis, they had been receiving the fall out in the manner of gang victims, drug overdoses and general mayhem in the ER. He scowled into his sixth cup of coffee, which was turning his stomach into a ball of acid, and doing nothing to improve his mood. Adjusting his glasses, Marcus accepted the clipboard handed to him by the paramedic and flipped over the top sheet.

"Attack victim, Marcie?"

"Good question." Marcia Lambton shrugged, hating the fact that she had to work the heaviest shift of the week. "Guy found him in an alley beside Forthams about thirty minutes ago and called us. The kid was out when we got there and hasn't stirred yet."

"Damage?"

"Multiple contusions to the skull, maybe even a fracture. The trauma is pretty bad. Odds are he scrambled his brains doing it."

"He?"

"I think it was self-inflicted. There's bits of brick dust and grit in the wounds, the contusions match blunt trauma and there's the fact that he had a brick covered in blood in his right hand when we found him."

"Shit." Marcus clucked his tongue. "Restraints it is. Thanks Marcie."

"No problem. Henry dropped the kid's effects in the bag. Maybe there's some ID in there?"

"I'll take a look." Dr Witt walked past her and into the attending room. There was a figure lying on a bed, and two nurses working on getting his clothes off and the monitors on him. Marcus took a good long look at the young man before flipping back to the sheets. The kid had the rake thin appearance of a junkie, and his body was covered in old scars. Marcus turned the arm to look for tracks marks, finding none to his relief.

"Nurse?"

"Yeah doc?" The burly man who was cutting off the last of bloody clothes looked up.

"Blood work in yet?"

"Sent it down as soon as he came in. Paras managed to stabilize him first."

"Good. Then we can wait for the results before adding anything else to his system."

"Bet it's a cocktail in there. Looks like a speed freak to me. Maybe coke or meth too."

"Can't just get alcohol poisoning any more, can we?" Witt sighed. "Right, I want him prepped for x-rays. Lets find out how bad he scrambled his brains and plan some surgery. Barry, you mind tiptoeing through his personals? See if you can find any identification?"

"Sure. I got ten minutes anyhow." Barry nodded, dumping the clothes shreds into the garbage and walking over to the black duffel bag. He put on a pair of fresh latex gloves, because you never knew what you might find in a junkie's collection. The bag was only half full, and clothes took up most of it. A bulky trenchcoat, a pair of jeans, a couple of shirts; Barry took the time to rifle the pockets, but found nothing to indicate the identity of the patient. He was dumping everything back in the bag, including the odd segmented tube of metal he couldn't identify when the cop from the front wandered in.

"Hey Joe."

"Barry. That the stuff from the kid they brought in?"

"Yeah. Just trying to find out if there's any id cards or anything."

"Well, pack it up. Looks like our John Doe is wanted in a couple of states. Cross state break and enters."

"Fucking junkies."

"No kidding. Cross state means the feds. The agent is going to be here in ten minutes. How's the JD looking?"

"Witt's working on him right now. He's a mess alright, but I doubt it's worse than some trauma. Unless he seriously cracked his skull or opened up a blood vessel, he should come all the way back. Check with Witt."

"I will. Still up for the game on Monday?"

"Yeah. The wife has a meeting, so I'm stuck on my own that night anyway."

"See you then."

"Later."

***

Angelica Cortez wrinkled her nose as she dumped the black duffel bag on her desk. The heavy canvas bag had obviously seen better days, and it carried the unmistakable odor of hard living with it. She had stopped into the hospital to confirm the John Doe they brought in matched the description of the teenager that had escaped lockdowns in

Chicago and Cleveland earlier that year. The doctor had confirmed that he wouldn't be waking up any time soon, and after detailing a uniformed officer to guard the door, she had collected the bag back to her office to see if see could come up with any kind of identity for the mystery felon.

The clothes had all been checked for identification, pictures, anything that might give them a clue to his identity. Cortez hurried through it, putting each one aside for further investigation at the lab if it was needed. She pulled out the two and a half foot long cylinder of steel that ran the length of the bag. It had lines running along the circumference up and down it, and after a few minutes of testing, the ends of the staff shot out.

"What the hell is this?" Angelica muttered, turning over the now six foot titanium staff in her hands. It was light and flexible, and with some speed behind it could be a devastating weapon. Now where does junkie trash get something like this, she thought. Someone had invested a lot of money to make this, and she mentally noted to run a check to see if anything matching its description had been stolen recently. That had mostly emptied the bag, and she began methodically searching the seams, inner pockets and folds.

"Bingo." Cortez grinned, coming up with a crumpled piece of thermal paper. It was a credit card receipt; the impressions still surprisingly clear, considering that going by the date on the paper, it had been jammed away for six months or more. She copied the information onto a clean pad, and slipped the receipt into an envelope. If she needed, it could be sent to optical imaging, which would slowly reconstruct the information from the original paper.

The FBI has a very cooperative relationship with the credit card companies, especially since former agents were highly sought after for security positions with them. It took her one phone call to reach her old boss, now the head of fraud investigations for Mastercard.

"Andy? It's Angelica."

"Cortez, long time. How's George?"

"On the days he remembers that he's no longer a twenty year old fresh from the Academy, he's good." Andy laughed at that. "Look, I've got a John Doe here in St Louis. B and E spree through three states. All we got on this guy is an old credit card receipt. Probably one that he stole, but it's the only thing we got to go on."

"You want me to run the numbers?"

"I'll cook you dinner."

"Sold. Gimme the info." Angelica read off the numbers, and chuckled as she listened to Andy's laborious typing in the background.

"Got it. The card belongs to one Shinobi Shaw. Odd name. Platinum though, no limit. Bill goes to a New York address." Andy read out the info as Angelica copied furiously. "Anything else?"

"I don't think so. See you Saturday?"

"Yeah. Tell George he still owes me five bucks from the Blues game."

"Thanks Andy." Angelica hung up and turned to her own computer. The FBI had several databases, including connections to all of the individual law enforcement banks nationwide. She typed in the information, tapping her pen against the side of the keyboard as the program searched the millions of available files. She was surprised when the priority screen started flashing.

"The hell--" The FBI database had flagged all queries about the address to be directed to the main office in Washington DC. Angelica frowned as she picked up the phone, and dialed the long distance number to DC.

***

"And he's still there, huh? Stable condition?" Fred Duncan said over the phone. The call had come in obscenely early on a Sunday morning, and the Deputy Assistant Director was in only because of a case review he wanted to cover. "Thank you, Agent Cortez. We'll be sending someone down from here to take over the suspect. Yes, we're assuming jurisdiction over the field office, but you will credit for the identification. Send the bag back to the hospital. Are people will take it from there. Good work, agent."

Duncan hung up the phone and tapped his notes for a moment, drumming his fingers on the desk as he considered. Fred Amos Duncan was a rising star at the Agency. He was the youngest DAD in history, making his position on an impressive track record of successful investigations. His specialty had been mutants and mutant related cases, and over the years he'd built up a range of contacts and specialists to enter into investigations with. During the agency reshuffling post-Liberty Island, the President had added the development of law enforcement response to the mutant issue as a high point on their mandate, leading to the creation of a new directorate, now headed by Duncan.

Xavier's school had been redflagged for years, and Duncan had put out the call that anything even remotely attached to the school came through his department. Which led him back to the call and the situation in St Louis. Fred considered for a moment before picking up his phone and flipping to B on his rolodex.

***

"Fred. This is a surprise." Madelyn Bartlett grinned into the phone, pacing around the lab in customary fashion.

"Well, I thought 'I'm up really early on a Sunday. Who else deserves to suffer?' and your name just popped up."

"I'm sure. How have you been?"

"Better than the alternative, I guess. Lots of work."

"I heard. How's the new crew, Mister DAD."

"Busy. Your friends have been giving us a lot of work."

"We try." Madelyn turned, stepping back over the phone cord. "This business or pleasure, Fred."

"Business." Duncan said, smiling to himself. Bartlett had been a fresh rookie out of Quantico on his last field team in Baltimore, and had impressed him as a talented forensic investigator. He took her under his wing for a while, showing her the ropes for running a successful investigation. He'd been stunned to hear she'd left the agency seventeen months ago, for a research position with Xaviers. It had been the first indication of her own thoughts on mutants he'd picked up on.

"Shoot."

"Do you have a Shinobi Shaw at that school."

"Sebastian's son? Yes, of course."

"It's that Shaw? Damn. Look, has he been seen in the last two days?"

"I saw him eating breakfest about an hour ago." Bartlett said, obviously very puzzled.

"That's curious." Duncan rubbed his upper lip, pausing for a long time on the phone. "Look, we've got a John Doe in St.Louis. Been knocking over liquor stores after hours across a couple of states. Escaped a couple of lockdowns. The only piece of information we've got on this guy is a credit card slip from this Shaw's account. Any ideas?"

"I can't think of anyone that could be robbing cash registers." Madelyn said. Suddenly, a thought struck her. "Fred, this John Doe? Cajun or deep south accent? Longish auburn hair? Lippy as hell?"

"Auburn hair. The rest we don't know. Our John tried to cave in his face with a brick and damn near succeeded. He's still unconscious in the ER at Deerbrook." Duncan flipped open his notepad. "Five ten, slim build. Pretty close to malnourished according to the hospital. Still waiting on the blood work but likely a drug user."

"Shit." Bartlett kicked a chair. "He's one of ours. Disappeared out of the medical bay here around March. We haven't heard from him since."

"Well, he's currently out in the ER. Is he a mutant?"

"Yes. High level one too. Might be a bit unstable."

"A bit?"

"He's got some issues, Fred. Spent some time on the streets. I think he might be a little damaged from that."

"That's all we need." Fred switched ears with the phone. "Look, Madelyn, if you can get him to the school, can you assure me he doesn't blow up a major city or something?"

"Absolutely."

"Alright, I'm going to sit on this for twelve hours. Sunday, low priority, etc. If John Doe happens to disappear, then it's just another unsolved series of cases. Besides, the robberies are pretty minor. It was the cross state lines that made it our jurisdiction."

"Twelve hours?"

"That's all I can give you, Red. And we didn't have this conversation."

"Got it. Thanks Fred." Bartlett hung up the phone, swore and trotted up the stairs. She needed to talk to Charles about this one.

***

"Doctor Witt?" Marcus Witt turned from his contemplation of the rack of x-rays in front of him to come face to face with two somewhat attractive women in dark suits. The six hours of sleep he caught in the doctor's lounge had brightened him up considerably, and he was musing about how good this day was turning out right up until they both held up wallets.

"Dr.Madelyn Bartlett, Agent Betsy Braddock. FBI." Madelyn said in her best no-nonsense agent voice. Behind her, Betsy was just slightly playing with the mind of the doctor, suppressing his natural skepticism to make him less apt to question their legitimacy.

"I hope this isn't about the parking tickets." That earned a chuckle from Madelyn, and he visibly relaxed.

"No, doctor. We're actually here about one of your cases. A John Doe, brought in sometime after midnight last night?"

"Ah, him. He merits the FBI?"

"He's a witness for a major federal case, Dr Witt. There was an error and we lost track of him a few days ago." Betsy said, working off the story Madelyn had built. "He's an addict, and we think he slipped us to try and score a hit."

"Well, whatever he got, it was some bad shit." Witt said, tapping the x-rays in front of him. "Poor bastard nearly split his skull open with a brick. Look at the deep bone bruising along the brow and over the occipital lobes. He managed to cause a slight lateral fracture across the coronal suture through the parietal bone, and there is some damage to the frontal glabella. No intercranial bleeding or swelling, so the chances of any actual brain damage is very slight."

"Nerve or occular damage?"

"Not that we can find, except for some severe subretinal bleeding. His eyes are black from it, but there was no damage. Not sure how he managed that, but he's damn lucky."

"Blood work?"

"Your boy was on a cocktail of stuff. Methamphetamines, some phencyclidine. I didn't know people still used that."

"It's a mnemonic suppressant."

"It's a nightmare. Best guess is that he got some bad crank, and tried to stop the images with a rock." Marcus Witt shook his head. "It's not as uncommon in here as I'd like."

"Is he stable?"

"For travel?"

"Yes."

"I'd strongly advise against it, just on the grounds that head injuries can get real bad real fast from complications. However, if it is necessary, as long as he's monitored for the next twenty-four hours closely, he should be fine."

"Thank you, doctor. That was the answer we needed. There is a jet waiting for us at Lambert field. We need to get him to Washington as soon as possible."

"Give me twenty minutes, and I can scare up an ambulance and a paramedic team to run you over. That serious, huh?"

"Very." Bartlett looked through the window at LeBeau, lying unconscious, half his head swathed in bandages.

"Just one question?" Witt wiped his glasses. "What is his name?"

"That's not something you need to know, Doctor." Psylocke smiled knowingly, and Witt nodded again.

"Got it. Let me get that transport. We'll throw his personals in there." He shuffled out as Betsy joined Madelyn at the observation window.

"It's definitely LeBeau. God, he looks like hell." Betsy noticed. "What has he been doing for the last six months?"

"I don't know, but I think Witt's wrong." Madelyn said grimly. "It wasn't the drugs that made him do it, I'll bet. LeBeau's blood chemistry was very odd, maxed out for resistances and anti-toxins. The drugs might have helped, but I think he did it intentionally."

"Why?"

"I guess we'll have to ask him when he wakes up."

"More trouble than he's worth."

"Aren't we all." Madelyn said quietly, and turned back to the job at hand.

***

The first thing he noticed when he opened his eyes was the white cleanliness of it all. Not the normal motel or alleyway he'd gotten used to again. A tree of bags with lines running from them hung above him, and the tubes fed into a series of drips up and down both arms. Monitors dotted his chest, and he could hear the muted beeping of his heart rate from the other room. His eyes wearily tracked the room, coming to rest on the window at the end, in which sat a redhead in a labcoat and a blue mountain of fur. For a brief moment, he had hoped it was just a normal hospital.

Remy LeBeau looked back at the ceiling, realizing that he was back where he had started six months again.

"merde." He said softly but intensely before closing his eyes and succumbing to sleep again.

***