Call Back Yesterday

Wormholes and Rabbit Warrens

 

 

May 6, 2005 greeted him with an ear-popping screech then a thud that bottomed his stomach out. His gut roiled. He had to get that helmet off now; he knew the spew force after time-travelling and it would be unbelievably noxious inside a helmet.

Remy fell out of the sphere, helmet pushed up to his forehead, in time to puke against a brick wall. After recovering from vertigo, he took a look around. The wormhole spat him out in an alley between a ramshackle building and a new development. The neo-Victorian townhouses he saw outside in 2013, he realised. In 2005, only the foundation had been excavated. The screech came from the gouged pavement under the sphere. Luck or fate kept the location empty for now.

Carefully, he removed the hazmat suit and the helmet, laying it out on the seat in such a way that would make donning it again easy. He pushed the door closed; the latch clicked, the hydraulics hissed. It might have been his imagination but he swore he heard the chip in his wrist ticking, counting down his 150 hours.

With the cash Logan stowed in his pocket, Remy rented a car to Salem City. Because it wasn't his money, he splurged on the latest model Ford Mustang. If he had to prevent the end of the world, he'd do it in style. Good thing too 'cause Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters looked like a summer cottage for the fucking Queen of England. Too bad the security didn't match.

He pressed a button on the intercom system beside the gate. "Can I help you?" asked a young female voice.

"I'm looking for either Charles Xavier or Scott Summers."

"May I please ask who this is?"

"The name's Remy Lebeau. Tell them it's real important life-or-death stuff."

He thought he heard her mutter "Like that's new" just before the gates beeped and swung open.

The Mustang eased down the driveway, blending in as much as a swamprat like him stuck out. Hell with it. Remy jogged up the steps. The noises of a full home increased as he neared the door. He didn't have to wait long for someone to answer the doorbell. A gorgeous thing with Jessica Rabbit curves and a punky white streak for bangs met him on the other side. Every bone in his body went loose except maybe one. "Hello, chere," he drawled.

"Hi. Come into the study. I'll get one of them to come out." She opened the door wider, gesturing into the wide foyer. "Just go through those doors and I'll get you something to drink."

He smiled his thanks. "You a student here?"

"Yup," was her answer. She worried at her gloves, smoothing and tugging at the slight wrinkles. Since it wasn't that chilly outside and her body language screamed "Stay Away," he guessed her powers had something to do with touch.

"Wanna see something cool?" he asked.

"Depends. Are you gonna open your flasher jacket?"

He laughed. "Not hardly, chere. Lookit this." He palmed a card out of his sleeve and, with a twist of both hands, he made it appear between his index and middle finger. Energy hummed around the edges of the cardboard and along the lines of the ink. When it had the barest charge, he let it go. It cracked and smoked in midair. Ash showered his shoes. He showed his hands to her, shiny with scar tissue. "You do get a hang of it eventually."

She almost smiled as she stuck her hand out. "I'm Rogue."

"Remy." Stroking the base of her thumb, he added, "Please tell me you're about to graduate."

"Four more credits but I'm not eighteen until February. And I've got a boyfriend."

He clutched his heart. "Then I'm gonna have to live with the knowledge that I'm a dirty old man at twenty-two and hope that he treats you right until your birthday. After that, all bets are off and I'm gonna charm you away, hein?"

Smiling, she said. "You can try. And I might let you."

"You might let what?" Joe American entered the room, all coiffed blond hair and Colgate teeth. He put an arm around Rogue's waist. Ah. This was the boyfriend, looking like the last man a punky Jessica Rabbit would date. Remy sent her a look that asked "Are you for real?" which she answered with a frown. Huh. Love was truly blind.


Two sodas and a bag of chips later, Xavier finally called Remy into his office. That was all the time he needed to cement his strategy: Just tell 'em like it was. A telepath would peek in his head anyway to find the truth and if Logan's future ugliness didn't convince him, nothing would.

The old man sitting behind the huge desk looked familiar but Remy couldn't quite place him. Maybe he robbed the guy at some point.

"You seem familiar to me as well, Mr. Lebeau," said Xavier.

Remy stiffened. "You gonna scrape my head this whole conversation? 'Cause believe you me, you'll have plenty of trouble doing that with explosives going at your nuts."

Xavier put his hands up in a sign of peace. "I only overheard what you have at the forefront of your thoughts. I consider it unethical to search thoughts without permission."

"Yeah, which is why you control people sometimes."

He nodded. "As a last option when I feel there is no other choice."

"You poking in my brain now?"

"I... believe that you believe you're time travelling."

"Exactly what I thought a shrink would say. Cards on the table." He fanned a deck in his left hand, then his right and back to his left before spreading it out in an X on the desk. With each point, he flicked a card over. "I don't wanna be here. I don't wanna be any part of no apocalypse. I just want to go home, get a girl, get a magnum of champagne and steal a Lamborghini, in no particular order. But this here--" he pointed at the chip at his wrist-- "tells me I gotta play along with the voices you think are all in my head. So do me a favour: Lock Summers up, send Logan on over to Canada instead and make sure he uses those claws to separate her head from her shoulders. You do it right now, we all get happy except Grey who gets dead. Again."

At the end of his monologue, the cards facing up showed a royal flush.

"You'll forgive me if I ask for proof," said Xavier.

"Hell, I don't know. Logan said Grey was calling Summers back to Canada. Man thought he was going nuts, hearing her voice in his head. Maybe that's why he's shut up in there."

Xavier looked pensive. He closed his eyes momentarily and Remy had the impression that no one was home right now. He looked around. Some of the books on those shelves had to be first editions. A statue near the window looked like an authentic Henry Moore; would be hard to carry out though. There had to be lighter pieces around the house, stuff that would fit in the sphere.

"Scott's mind is closed to me." Remy snapped his attention back to Xavier, back in his body. "He has some mental shielding; it forms naturally when surrounded by telepaths. But he shouldn't have to strength to keep me completely locked out."

"There you go. She's got her evil psychic claws in him."

"I'm afraid it's not that simple."

"Sure it is. Logan kills things; it's what he does and he's damn good at it. Tell him the kids'll die if Grey lives, point him west by northwest and let things happen."

Xavier threw him a look of admonishment. It would have worked if Remy actually gave a shit about school. "Logan and Dr. Grey were very good friends. It would be very difficult for him to hurt her."

Remy rolled his eyes. "Jesus fucking wept, you gotta be kidding me! Like that ever stopped the Wolverine."

"I would appreciate it if you didn't refer to Logan's fighting abilities as his only worth."

"It ain't?"

"We believe otherwise," said Xavier. "Now, please, I must speak with the staff about this. You're welcome to take a room here. Otherwise, Salem City has a comfortable inn less than ten minutes' drive away."

He got the message: We think you're crazy as fuckbugs but we'll play along until we call the men with the white jackets. He could wait one more day in 2005. All the better to case the joint.


The problem was Remy liked kids. He genuinely liked the little guys and couldn't help but look for Network in the clump of hyperactive arms and legs surrounding the Playstation in the rec room. She had to be a teenager here; he placed her at mid-twenties in 2013. He shifted his attention to the foozball deck. Rogue was there with the Mutant Ken doll, a gumchewer in a micro mini and a guy who could probably benchpress a Volkswagon Combi without breaking a sweat. The gumchewer was the right age and had some Asian in her but she didn't look like Network. The rest of the students in the area were too young.

A skinny little freckle climbed on his lap while he played with his cards. "Can you do magic tricks?"

"Can I do magic tricks? Ma 'ti, I am a wizard."

"Like Harry Potter?"

He blinked. "Who?"

She stared at him, aghast. "You don't know Harry Potter?"

"Uh. Course I do. He's a wizard."

She beamed and nodded, crisis averted. "Show me?"

Cutting the deck in half, he flicked it up into the air in controlled arcs so they shuffled into each other at the peak of the arcs. The trick garnered "ooooh's" from the other little ones and they crowded around him, game console forgotten. He performed two other complicated shuffles before fanning the deck out. "Pick a card."

Until the dinner bell rang, he was the entertainment. Even the high schoolers wandered in, pulling the smaller ones on their laps for a better view. Rogue stood near the back, arms hugging her own waist. A smile played on her lips.

"That was real nice of you," she told him as they left for the fining hall. "Ever since... well, it's been a while since the kids laughed."

"What's it going to take to make you laugh?" he wanted to know.

She shook her head. "Give it up, Remy."

"Never. Too much fun teasing a smile outta you."

"Boyfriend," she reminded him.

"Adds to the fun. I steal you away while he ties his shoe laces."

"As if I'd let you." Before he could retort, she sashayed to her chair in the dining room and out of earshot. He'd miss her in '93, that was for sure; her and her Jessica Rabbit body.


As predicted, Summers popped out of his room the next morning with a pack slung over his shoulder. Under heavy questioning from Xavier, Logan and Remy, he admitted to hearing Jean call to him.

"I just need to see," said the poor sap. "I won't do anything."

"If she can call you from a thousand miles away, she can make you do whatever it takes to resurrect her," said Remy. "Let Wolverine go."

Summers' lips thinned to a white line. He leaned away from Logan, just the slightest bit, and his nostrils flared like he smelled something foul stuck to the bottom of his shoe. Ah, so there really was tension going on in there. From how Logan avoided eye-contact, Remy was pretty sure Grey cheated on Summers and Summers knew it. Talk about your fucked up relationships.

"We're supposed to take this psycho's word that Jean's alive and she'll bring around the end of the world? Come on!" Logan crossed his arms, glaring.

"I took your word," said Remy.

Xavier said, "To be safe, I'd like Logan and Ororo to go to Alkali Lake. If what Remy says is true, then we would have prevented a disaster. If not, no harm done. Scott, I'd like your permission to enter your mind. This entity, whoever it is, has targeted you and for your own safety, we need to study it and reinforce your mental shields."

Summers sulkily consented.

"Funky. My job's here's done." Remy clapped his hands together. "It's been a slice, y'all, but I got places to see and people to do back in '93. I'm gonna head back to my magic ball and try to get home before the big, bad Armageddon trashes my ticket back."


Remy wasn't expecting a parade (okay, maybe a small party) but he didn't think his return to 2013 warranted a left hook from Logan's gimpy hand. "What the fuck?!"

"We told you to kill Grey!" Logan roared.

"I did!"

"No, you fucker, you told them to kill her. Do you really think the X-Men would kill?"

"How did you know--"

"Preview told us. She looked into that fucking alternate dimension, you goddamn cheat."

"Those X-Men had you in the roster," said Remy. "By the way, thanks for telling me you were screwing Grey behind Summers' back. That wasn't uncomfortable at all."

"I never touched her."

"That wasn't the vibe I got."

"Considering I first found you surrounded by hookers, I'm not surprised your brain would go straight to the gutter." Logan exhaled a great cloud of smoke. "You have to kill her when she's helpless because I can't. Not me when I'm at that time and not me time travelling."

"I ain't an assassin."

"You're going to have to be."

"Fuck you." Remy threw his gear into the sphere. "Find some other idiot to puppet. I'm going home."

Trembling slightly, Network stood in front of the sphere and said, "You can't."

Remy's eyes lightened to red. "You gonna want to step away, chere."

"We control the sphere. We can send you wherever we want."

He snatched her wrist tight and twisted. "Or you could send me to '93 before I charge your clothes. See if you can change out of it before it explodes."

"You said you didn't kill."

"I didn't say nothing about maiming." Energy bled through the threads of her shirt.

"We can just keep you here for a year. You'll still die if you don't get back to your time and the longer it takes you to do what we want, the sicker you're going to get." The words came out in a panicked rush as Remy continued to charge her clothes. "Wolverine!"

Feeling several sharp angles whistling towards his head, Remy ducked, spun and pulled on Logan's leg. The other man toppled back but recovered quickly. By this time, Remy had Network in a headlock.

"I ain't kidding about blowing her shirt up."

"And we aren't kidding about letting you die," said Logan. "Go ahead. Blow her up. We don't have a lot of hospitals around here any more, especially not for mutants so it'll take at least half a year for her to recover. By that time your hands and feet lose feeling except for a bit of tingling. Then, while she decides whether or not she wants to punish you for making he go through months of pain, you'll get sicker and sicker. The time-fade's kind of like Parkinson's disease; you slowly lose control and sensation of your body from the outside in until you're barely a working brain inside a paralysed body. We can keep you until you're trapped in your body. At that point even if we returned you to 1993, you'd be too damaged to recover fully."

Remy gritted his teeth. "How do you know that?"

Logan showed off his teeth as well. "After twelve tries, we know."

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