Wolverine and Yi Yang are locked in combat. Yi Yang thrusts her scimitar into Logan’s chest and Logan reciprocates by sticking his claws into her chest, locking them in place. She tells him that only her beloved Night Raven has touched her so deeply; deep enough to drive her thoughts from this mundane existence onto a higher plane. And he, she adds, he required a small nuclear device to do so. Wolverine separates his claws, slicing Yi Yang in two and leaving her for dead. He replies that he’s gifted that way.
Elsewhere, Ms. Brink is with Winsor, otherwise known as Contagion. Harry Sikes cowers in the corner. She informs Contagion that it isn’t right. Flip’s intelligence seemed to preclude the possibility of his introducing chaos to the scenario. He asks her not to fret. He blames himself. Flip is far beyond the curves of normalcy at this stage. A rampant and growing intellect is doomed by its own expansion. As he opens a case containing small missiles for his cane, Winsor says he wishes he could freeze the moment when his head finally explodes and encase him in amber. What a tremendous #### that would be to Damien Hirst.
He doesn’t mind, though. Flip fulfilled his most essential role simply by sharing his DNA. His usefulness as a human computer is debatable, but he doesn’t blame him for boring of the exercise and trying to introduce a greater level of unpredictability. Ms. Brink asks if she should begin flooding the corridors with Corruptor gas. Winsor thinks not. They’ve known all along that their system tends towards entropy and chaos at an obscene rate. Recapture would simply encourage greater sloppiness and restart the cycle. He reckons they’re better off pressing to the finale now. After all, he adds, Logan is weeding their most unstable elements. Soon it will be only the two of them… reliable variables, who remain. He is comfortable that they will be able to maneuver him as needed. “Until he blinds us,” replies Ms. Brink. Winsor looks at the monitor and sees Wolverine standing in front of an open junction box. Winsor understands.
Ms. Brink asks once again if she should use the gas, but Winsor believes the controls from the gas system run through that junction. Ms. Brinks checks the schematics and agrees. Winsor suggests that she arm herself.
(meanwhile)
Mortigan Goth takes a swig from a bottle of booze. Before him is a mirror covered by a white sheet. He asks why he always tries to self-ruin. He is comfortably set up and positively wallowing in all he could hope for. It is an absolute sty of malevolence, perversity, madness, foul humors, nefarious intentions, necrophilia, outright cannibalism… and there he is, contemplating how to ruin it all. “I asked where is he?” Wolverine repeats. Goth apologizes, but he wasn’t paying any attention. He was distracted by his impulses towards self-destruction. Wolverine tells him he’ll be giving him a shove in that direction if he doesn’t tell him where Winsor is. Goth rambles on about how all that is required of him is that he succumbs to obscenity and vice. He has only to abandon his humanity and he will have peace. He will spare not only himself but his captive soul as well.
Wolverine doesn’t understand what he’s mumbling about and he ain’t got the time. He has to get to Winsor before he starts spewing God knows what viruses. He needs help. Goth knows that and he finds it a noble goal. What pleasure it must be to give in to such impulses. Wolverine gives him one last chance to speak. Goth informs him that Winsor has taken on a new name: Contagion. It’s something he’s been dreaming of since he was five. He has infected them all. He gave his own son, Flip, a literal infection. The rest of them he infected with satiation of their own desires. Slaughter got money, food and power. Suicide he gave the ability to die, to sleep and so on. Yi Yang received new experiences. Scavenger was given bodies to feed him and physical sensation. Marjorie Brink was given the knowledge to help her become a savior of the future. Madcap was give a venue that caters to his beliefs, and as for himself, he has filth in which to balm his fair intentions. He stands and reaches for the white sheet.
Through gritted teeth, he adds that it’s quite unfair that his soul should suffer the tortures of his good deeds. He tries to spare it. But inevitably, he weakens. He mirror reveals Wolverine’s reflection. Wolverine says he isn’t leaving until he tells him where Winsor is. He advises Logan to head down the hall, widdershins for three turns and go for the obvious door. Wolverine warns him that he’ll come back for him. “#### off you #### hero you,” replies Goth.
Once Logan has departed, Goth talks to the mirror. He apologizes for what ‘he’ has endured. It was a charitable moment for him, but another eternity of Mephisto’s attentions for him. He wants to make it up for him. He can take something in return. A doppelganger then crashes through the mirror and leaps at Mortigan Goth.
Elsewhere, Logan discovers the blue-skinned Corruptor, hanging upside down connected to a machine. He notes that Winsor has been giving him a fever to keep that psycho actively-suggestive sweat flowing and evaporating into the collectors, making sure he has a reservoir on hand to make someone do what he wants. He could do with a little himself. He admits that when he finds someone in a situation like that he usually helps them out. However, Beast mentioned that the Corruptor was a total scumbag so he’s gonna have to wait.
Meanwhile, whilst loading a pistol, Marjorie Brink asks Contagion when they might have some reinforcements. He replies it won’t be soon enough. He’s afraid that Suicide’s healing factor is rather slow and severe tissue trauma to the brain will take some time to heal. The bisection that Yi Yang suffered will require that she maneuver her upper half into alignment with her lower before she can begin to heal. Ms. Brink thinks that Scavenger and Slaughter are stuck in something of a feedback loop. Scavenger is draining Slaughter of negative lifeforce, which, in turn, sucks his own positive lifeforce into Slaughter. It might continue like that until they are dragged apart. Contagion asks about their other helpmates. She replies that the last time she saw Mortalis (Goth), he was extremely drunk and talking to his mirror again. Madcap, she assumes, is at loose ends. Contagion states that Ms. Brink is therefore his last line of defense. She aims a pistol at an imaginary target and replies that she’ll try her best.
(elsewhere)
Also aiming a gun is Madcap, his target being Wolverine who has come across him. He tries to hypnotize Logan but he’s already prepared and covered his eyes with some dark cloth. He tells Madcap that he doesn’t really like hurting crazy people so he wants to smell him getting out the way. He replies that it’s fine. Wolverine can’t really hurt him. “Look.” He shoots himself with his weapon which unleashes colorful balls of energy that swirl around his head. He tells Logan that he is a chunk of human silly putty he can slice and dice. Logan, meanwhile, is a feral berserker warrior with an alloy skeleton and the stature of a munchkin. “Think of the fun we could have #### each other up!” He likes the idea of the reality show they could pitch. All he has to do to get started is look into his eyes and relax.
His eyes begin to swirl and he adds that he doesn’t even need to do that. His crazy is strongest in his eyes but what it really requires is focus. It could be the gun or it could be his colorful outfit. Or, he continues, it could be his voice making Logan jut unstable enough for him to do something really out of character. Like, for instance, letting a super nutso enemy get right next to him without mincing him first. He has a crazy idea. Why doesn’t Wolverine just peel off that blindfold and look directly into his eyes without blinking for maybe a second or two and they’ll go find a groovy bunny costume he can wear from now on? A Playboy Bunny costume, that is.
Wolverine reaches up and puts his eyes underneath Madcap’s mask. He wants to make his own suggestion. He informs Madcap that the universe is not meaningless. It has order. There’s a plan and every act has consequences. And you all pay for your sins. “Think about that.” Madcap’s eyes grow wider and he gasps, “Katy? What have I done?” He runs off down the corridor screaming, allowing Wolverine to continue his quest with his claws now extended.
As soon as he approaches the door, Ms. Brink shoots through it, blasting him in the chest. As she reloads, Logan warns her that if she shoots him again he’s going to forget that she’s mostly harmless. As he enters the room, she tells him that she can’t believe he can stop her shooting at least once more. He replies that he smells something funny. He’s been smelling it for a while, now. It’s hard to say for sure seeing he doesn’t really know her, but it smells to him like she’s been acting out of character the whole time he’s been there. She tells him that if she is to fight the demon sun, she must be willing to go to any extreme to learn anything. Logan says that’s the other thing that he’s been smelling. She smells of Corruptor sweat. It’s like she been drinking it.
She aims her pistol at him and warns him she’s the last line of defense. Logan looks over at Winsor, who is still sat in his chair, cane at the ready. He says that he must confess that he has been giving Ms. Brink a bit of a Corruptor roofie. He apologizes to her, but tells her that, left to her own devices, her own personal motive would only have allowed her to indulge a slightly moral flexibility. Tears begin to trickle from her eyes as she realizes she’s been played, yet she is barely unable to do anything about it. He adds that if the future is going to be able to rely on her for leadership, she’ll have to become much more thick-skinned. He only managed to nurse her through the last few days by tripple-dipping her pencils in Corruptor compound.
Marjorie looks away for a moment and tells Logan that she told him. She’s not usually like this. She turns the gun on herself and says she’s sorry, only for Logan to grab it before she pulls the trigger. He points to the side of the room and tells her to go stand there. He then looks at Winsor and lets him know that he’s feeling better than he did in the lab. Shoot another rocket at him, he’s gonna miss and he‘ll be mad. Winsor replies, in that case, he’ll have to make certain he jumps in front of it. He shoots a rocket towards Marjorie Brink and Logan has no option but to put himself in the middle. The blow knocks them both to the floor.
Winsor says to Marjorie that he must thank Logan when he wakes for freshly dousing her before his gloves dried. He asks her how long it took for him to recover the last time he shot him. Complying once again, she replies just over a minute. He asks her to subdue him. This has spun more out of control than he desired. As Ms. Brink aims her pistol at Logan’s eye, she is about to add something to her statement, but Wolverine’s healing factor has already compensated for his injuries and he knocks her hand away as she fires. Winsor realizes he is alone. Wolverine leaps at him with his claws out and Winsor puts his hands up. “No claws! No claws! I’m a human biological weapon of mass destruction! No #### claws!” Wolverine puts away his claws and is about to punch Winsor, but he responds by vomiting on him.
Logan drops to the floor, covered in gunk. Winsor smiles and informs him that it contained camelpox, hemorrhagic fever, Kilham’s rat virus, tumor virus, syphilis, zoysia, mosaic virus, WVU virus 2937, AIDS, oropouche and Mengele virus. Wolverine’s face begins to heal almost immediately and he replies that it’s a good thing he’s had so many infections lately. He punches Winsor hard in the gut, flooring him. Winsor continues his concoction. “Mumps, echovirus 9, Australian bat lascivious, klongo, Marburg, smallpox, sowbane, Kaposi’s and dengue.” Logan grabs him by the collar and drags him across the floor. He tells Ms. Brink that she’s gonna be okay. She should do some good. The future needs saving. As he departs, she turns and looks over at Harry, sitting in the corner, drooling.
Winsor adds a few more ingredients as Logan drags him into the room where the Corruptor is residing, hooked to the machine. He vomits on Logan once again, only to be told to shut up and try some of the sweat himself. He pushes his head against the Corruptor’s chest and tells him that now he’s feeling all suggestive, there’s something he wants him to do. He orders him to brew a new virus; one that eats all the bad stuff in his DNA. “Heal yourself!” He then cuts the Corruptor down and he lands on Winsor hard. He tells him that now Winsor’s blood can’t make anyone sick any more, he can make him bleed. He’s not up to it right now. He leaves Winsor in the Corruptor’s capable hands and departs.
Back in the other room, Marjorie Brink grabs one of the pencils that Winsor used on her and apologizes to Harry. She should have thought of this before, but she wasn’t feeling herself. She puts it in his mouth, allowing the juice to flow. She tells him that he doesn’t have to be sick. That’s his gift. He just needs to be told to use it. “Feel better,” she commands. A few moments later and Harry comes round. “Lady,” he says, “I feel like a million bucks.”
