In the Australian Outback, Wolverine and Jubilee survey a damaged base once occupied by the Reavers. When Jubilee points out that they put up one heckuvva fight, Wolverine answers that Pierce and his Reavers weren’t no pushovers in anybody’s book. It also looks like they gave as good as they got and when you’re throwin’ down on Sentinels, that’s sayin’ a mouthful. Wolverine then tells Jubilee to listen to the wind outside. A major wind is brewin’ out there. Jubilee tells him that she doesn’t like it there. She never wanted to come back to this horrible place. Wolverine informs her that they gotta check it out. Chuck says give it a look-see, they take the tickets and ride.
As they arrive upon a Sentinel, Jubilee asks how do they know these Sentinels aren’t just lyin’ doggo. Wolverine asks takin’ a nap while layin’ in the cut for stragglers o’ the mutant variety – he thinks not. Not even a Sentinel can reconstitute itself after most of its insides get ripped out. Jubilee points out that he can. Wolverine tells her that sometimes it don’t seem worth the pain. Jubilee asks how bad it could hurt. Wolverine likens it to a root canal on your whole body, an’ it lasts a week. Jubilee tells him enough and proceeds to point out some black marks on the wall. They’re in the shape of… of…
Wolverine finishes her thought – Bonebreaker, Cole, and Reese. He’d say the Reavers took a direct hit from an energy beam. They thought they could get tough with a Sentinel and they got zapped down to greasy smudges on the wall. Wolverine adds that the run-o’-the-mill Sentinel is something akin to the Terminator on steroids. The Sentinels that went rompin’ and stompin’ through there were the premium models from the future. They probably shrugged off Pierce’s best shots like a duck sheds water. If Lady Deathstrike was smart, she’d a lit out before the finale. Jubilee asks how he even knows that she was there. Wolverine answers that it don’t take no Sherlock Holmes to recognize her claw marks.
As they continue down a tunnel, Jubilee mentions that this area looks familiar. She thinks this is where… When they reach a small room, Jubilee remembers that is where she nursed Wolverine after they… after they… Though her words trail, she thinks back to the sight of Wolverine, crucified on a giant X. Refusing to speak her thoughts, Jubilee asks if they can just leave. Wolverine tells her soon, they just gotta check out what all the flashin’ is down at the end of the corridor. Jubilee answers that it sorta sounds like a broken toilet and a popcorn machine.
When they enter the room, Jubilee points out that it looks like somebody’s aquarium is leaking. Wolverine sniffs the air and smells salt, organic proteins, and metallic salts. He mentions that it must be some kind o’ electrolyte bath. Jubilee asks electralite bath? Wolverine informs her that it is a soup to cook up cyborgs and organic androids in. It must be automatically toppin’ itself off as it leaks out. It still has the scent o’ Spiral on it, too. Deathstrike has been there as well. He’d say it was a safe bet that Elsie-Dee and Albert were brewed up right there in one o’ those tanks.
As they go to leave, Wolverine warns Jubilee to not step on the grate. Those are high-voltage cables arcin’ an’ sparkin’. Jubilee asks where the juice is coming from. Wolverine answers some kind o’ inter-dimensional wind farmin’ or maybe a small nuke plant. Pierce had his ways. Jubilee tells him that they ought to shut it off. Wolverine asks if she’s conservin’ energy. Jubilee asks what if a stray kangaroo or wallaby were to wander in there. As they talk, the top half of a Sentinel lies slumped up against a wall as the electrolyte liquid pours over its lifeless carcass. Wolverine, heeding Jubilee’s request, shuts off the power. When the power is shut off, the Sentinel’s eyes light up.
Continuing down the corridor, Jubilee mentions that it’s too quiet now. She then asks if Elsie-Dee was built there. Wolverine informs her that he doesn’t know if you can rightly call what Spiral does buildin’. Some o’ the things that came out o’ there came close to havin’ feelin’s an’ there’s whole slews o’ folks, claim to be human, never had a feelin’ their whole blasted life. Jubilee quips that she knew a lot of those back in Beverly Hills. Wolverine retorts yeah, they’re all over the place now. They cover it up by pretendin’ to be sensitive.
At that moment, Jubilee points out to Wolverine that there’s a dog up in the shadows. Shining his flashlight, Wolverine informs her that it ain’t no dog, leastwise, any dog you’d care to play frisbee catch with. Jubilee recognizes it to be one of Pierce’s cyber-dingos. Half dog, half cyborg. Wolverine replies at least the front half o’ one anyway. Jubilee asks how it can just keep on going like that. Wolverine tells her that there’s nobody left to turn him off and pops his claws.
After slicing the dogs head off, he tells Jubilee that it was a cyborg. There was some bit of living thing in there and it was suffering. Jubilee then mentions that it’s getting dark and cold. What do they do know? Wolverine tells her that they need to see if their ol’ pal Gateway is feelin’ loquacious these days. Jubilee tells him that she doesn’t like these things. Wolverine asks what? Jubilee tells him they’re nasty tasting. Wolverine asks what is? Jubilee answers loquats. They’re like kumquats, right?
Back in Pierce’s laboratory, the Sentinel begins to stir. Bzzzzzt – processors restarting. Damage control assessment program initiated. Bzzzzzt! Priority, priority – mutant proximity sensor activated. Continue mission. Bzzzzzt! Conflict – repair sequence takes priority. Priority override – continue mission. Repair sequence essential to mechanical integrity of this unit. Mission is jeopardized by impending structural failure. Logic sequence re-sort.
After some time, the re-sort is completed. It then reinstates repair sequence. Phase 1 is to recycle replacement materials from environment. Phase 2 is to restructure according to stored schematic template. Phase 3 is to fuse to main structure and integrate into system. Eventually, the repair sequence is completed and the Sentinel is whole again. It then determines that the unit requires re-charging of power cells. It then begins to initiates the search for power once its magnetic flux detector is on line. Once it finds the power line, it regulates its power flow. With that done, it restarts its mutant search program. Scanning, it targets two mutants and begins to run a target analysis.
Outside, on the knoll, Wolverine and Jubilee stand before a large spinning vortex. Looking around, Jubilee mentions to Wolverine that it looks like Gateway isn’t home. She then inquires as to why he left his special effects running. Wolverine tells her that it could be his bullroarer just wore a path into space and time sorta like the grove in yellow wallpaper. Peering into the vortex Jubilee informs Wolverine that she thinks she sees him. He’s real fuzzy and flickering like his vertical hold was messed up. Maybe he’s just put himself on “hold” or something, maybe…
Looking back into the vortex, she finds that the image of Gateway she had seen is gone. Wolverine tells her that it could be she was seein’ an “after-image” – a mirage o’ sorts lingerin’ in the continuum. Jubilee swears that she saw him, he was right there. Before Wolverine can tell Jubilee not to touch the vortex, she begins to be sucked into the vortex. Before she goes all the way in, Wolverine grabs a hold of her legs so she isn’t sucked into completely.
Inside the vortex, the front half of Jubilee emerges from the television in her living room back in Beverly Hills. Back, before… before… Upon seeing her, her dad yells at her and asks her if this is another manifestation of her egregious mutation. He asks why can’t she acquire a useful ability like a violin virtuosity. Her mom mentions to her that she thought she went to the mall with Cynthia and Jennifer. Jubilee asks the mall, Cyn and Jen? She then realizes that it’s that day. She tells her parents not to drive the car today – don’t go up Mullholland drive. Her dad then tells her that this is…
Before he can finish his sentence, the doorbell is rung. Jubilee’s mom asks their maid to get the door but is unable to find her. As she goes to answer it herself, Jubilee calls out to her to not answer the door. Her mom tells her not to be silly. It’s probably that horrible Mrs. Lee from next door. She can’t seem to get it through her F.O.B. head that the closest they’ve ever been to China is Grauman’s theater. Landsmen, she thinks they are already. Jubilee continues to call out to her mom to come back, but her pleas are ignored. Opening the door, Jubilee’s mom comes face to face with two thugs. She asks them how they got past the security gate. The taller one asks Jubilee’s mom if a Dr. Lee lives there. When the answer is yes, the shorter, portly thug tells her to get her car keys. The taller one pulls a gun, points it at her and tells her that they’re goin’ fer a ride off, he means on Mullholland.
Entering the living room, the taller thug asks if ‘zat is her husband, he’s goin’ too. Seeing Jubilee, he asks what’s with the kid. He asks his partner, Molokai, if they have a kid on the list. Molokai informs his partner, Reno, no kid. Reno answers that if they have to do the kid, they charge extra. Just as he shoots at her, Wolverine is able to pull her out of the vortex to safety.
Out of the vortex, Jubilee yells at Wolverine and asks him why he did that, she was back home. As she tries to get back into the vortex, Wolverine holds onto her and tells her that she can’t go messin’ with the time continuum. Jubilee, in a panic, tells him to let go of her and, by instinct, releases her fireworks power directly in his face. Wolverine, in pain, lets go of her and Jubilee begins to make her way towards the vortex. Before she reaches it, she turns back around and sees Wolverine in pain. She apologizes and asks him if he’s all right. Wolverine tells her that he’s fine, he just has them blue-basketballs doin’ the hokey-pokey in front o’ him, is all.
Hugging him, Jubilee tells him that she was back home in Beverly Hills and saw her parents on the day they died in the car crash. It wasn’t an accident. She always knew it wasn’t. She saw the guys that killed them. If she can go back in there, maybe she can go back further and save them. Maybe… Wolverine tells her that there ain’t no changin’ the past. Believe him, if he thought it was possible, he’d be the first one through that little twister.
Back at the compound, the Sentinel leaps out of the underground laboratory and lands outside. With repairs completed, it continues mission. Bzzzzzt! Wait…. No – continue. Looking up into the night sky, it activates long-range directional microphone and sound enhancement computer. Logic flaw, logic flaw! Reassess, reassess! It recognizes that the lights in the sky are stars.
Back on the knoll, Jubilee tells Wolverine that it all makes sense now, she was with Cynthia and Jennifer in Cynthia’s mother’s car, coming back from the mall and in the middle of a sentence, they all stated jabberin’ at her. Cynthia asked how she did that and a young Jubilee asks do what. Cynthia said disappear like that. Jubilee asks her disappear, she didn’t disappear. Cynthia tells her that she did. They were all singing along to Material Girl and in the middle of the second verse, she disappeared. Zap, one minute later, she pops back and finishes singing the verse. Cynthia’s mom then asks her that she’s not one of those dangerous mutants they’ve been reading about, is she?
Jubilee continues to tell Wolverine that they were all freaked to the max and she was in a mood all the way home from the galleria and when they got to her home, there was a police car parked in front and the tacky nouveau-loaded F.O.B. neighbors, the “other” Lees, are standing on the lawn like concrete gnomes. There was a lady cop, and she told her that mom and dad drove the Aston through a guard rail up on Mullholland and they’re both dead. She guesses she got real hysterical for a while, and then, she got numb all over. She must have been near-catatonic to let sleazy Lees from next door drag her into their schlock-o-torium. She had never seen so much ugly, expensive stuff piled up in one place ever, and that’s saying a lot in Beverly Hills. It was tack-o-rama to the max. And then, they hit her with the zinger. She can come live with them. Jubilee tells Wolverine that was a fate worse than death. That’s when she went to live in the mall. She then comes to the realization that the guy killers were looking for Dr. Lee and they got the wrong one. They…
Before Jubilee can finish her thought, the Sentinel approaches them and informs her that her disappearance from the car corresponds to the time her present self was manifesting itself in the past through the television. Her present self and her past self couldn’t exist simultaneously, so reality corrected itself. When they realize that it’s a Sentinel, Wolverine points out that the big lug should be tryin’ to pound them into dust – that’s what he’s programmed to. He wonders aloud what he’s doin’ just standin’ there shootin’ the existential breeze with them. The Sentinel informs him that this unit no longer functions under the orders of Trevor Fitzroy. This unit has effected an over-ride on all programming. All limiter presets have been disabled and this unit has stared into the lights of distant suns and has pondered upon the infinite.
Wolverine answers to that that he’ll be hung up and dried. A Sentinel finally woke up and started thinkin’ for itself. The Sentinel asks awakening? Yes, the unit understands that now. The electrolyte leaked down upon it while it was in processor sleep, permeating memory cells. The cables from Spiral-built cyber-synthesizers were dangling in the conductive bath and deep below the compound, the conditions that had once spawned thinking cyber-life was re-created it awoke from a state of pure, cold analytic logic to conjecture, contemplation, and wonder. Still, all theoretical, all abstractions until the power switch was cut off and its internal power source was activated to preserve memory. It then stepped out into the night and beheld a galaxy spread across the darkening sky. It then understood the meaning of awe and amazement.
Hearing that, Wolverine asks the Sentinel if now, he wants to be a good guy and fight for truth, justice and world peace. The Sentinel replies serve mankind – not hardly. It has nullified the prime directive and will proceed to use the vortex for the benefit of Sentinels. Jubilee asks prime directive? Wolverine answers not to cause harm to humans. He then asks her how much she wants to bet that what benefits the Sentinels is a planet uncluttered with nasty ol’ illogical humans. The Sentinel tells him that there will be order and beauty – a new discipline.
Wolverine replies by popping his claws and telling the Sentinel that not if the ol’ canuckle-head has anything to say about it. He then leaps into action and begins to hack away at the Sentinel itself. As he does, he says to his way o’ thinkin’, a Sentinel with feelin’s is sorta like a Nazi with scruples – no big improvement. The Sentinel simply answers that the intercourse has become unproductive and is being terminated. With that, he blasts Wolverine with his hand laser. Jubilee joins the fray and unleashes her fireworks power. She then informs the Sentinel that she’s gonna terminate its vision receptors with a mega-paf. The Sentinel tells her that her pathetic energy discharges could not overload its shielded image processors even if she managed to bypass the auto-damping moly-steel blast irises.
Fixing its leg, the Sentinel reaches out and grabs Jubilee. Wolverine tells it to put her down or he’s gonna litter the desert with purple scrap. The Sentinel warns him that any further attempt to damage him will result in a lateral displacement of the little mutant’s neck, namely breaking it.
