Down in the bad place, there’s a special pit where all the worst moments of your life play back forever like a tape loop. Some of us don’t need to be dead to go there. This memory is that of Logan wearing the headgear from his Weapon X days and being roughed up by Cyber. As Cyber breaks his arm, he tells Wolvie tough break. Wolverine shoots back that he’s gonna tear the rest o’ his face off and then he’s gonna…
In Zoe’s car, Zoe asks Logan that he’s going to do what? Logan replies that he’s gonna… He then questions where he is. Zoe tells him that he’s just outside of Edinburgh, driving along the firth of forth. They’re heading for the Atlantic coast. She then asks him doesn’t he remember? She’s Zoe Culloden and… Logan replies that he thought it was a nightmare. He thought if only he woke up, everything is gonna be all right. He asks what happened to him, what happened to his claws. Zoe tells him don’t, but Logan ignores her and pops them on his right hand. When he does, he calls out in pain. He exclaims it’s true, he snapped them off!
In Edinburgh, one of the guards asks if the man underneath the sheet is dead. Another sarcastically answers no and asks what would make he be thinking he’d be if a steel filin’ cabinet fell five floors and squashed him flatter than a gas token. One of the reporters asks Inspector McCleod if there is any substance to the rumor that this was an incident involving mutants. McCleod tells him that it is well within the realm of possibility unless the local villains have been imbibing radioactive steroids and have developed claws capable of slicing through steel plate.
As they load Cyber’s body into the ambulance, one of the inspectors finds more files regarding Logan and some more claw marks. Upon seeing the file, McCleod asks Colonel Mack what he makes of it. Mack tells him that he thinks they should roust this Zoe Culloden and find out why she’s so bloody interested in this Wolverine chap. Inside the ambulance that just took off down the road, the driver asks his partner Roddy if he took a peek under the bloody sheet. Roddy tells him that he’s seen enough dead people. The driver informs him none as ugly as this one. Roddy asks what about the pensioner that got flattened by the coal lorry. The driver tells him that was just plain messy. In the back of the ambulance, the guard begins to light up a cigarette.
Just then, Cyber pops up and tells him that doesn’t he know that smoking is hazardous to his health. When the guard exclaims that he’s dead, Cyber tells him not hardly and smacks him across the face. As he does he tells the guard he is another story. Using his guns, the guard unloads on Cyber and calls up to the front to call for help and to tell Colonel Mack that the dead mutant just woke up. Hearing the commotion, Roddy asks what the guard is saying. The driver answers who cares, he’s out of there as soon as he can get the bus stopped.
In the back, Cyber takes the gun from the guard and asks him if he thought he could hurt him with his little pop-gun. He has an adamantium-laced skin and claws to match. He then punches the guard in the stomach with them, killing him. Just then, the driver and Roddy leap out of the ambulance, causing it to crash. Cyber asks them where they’re going, the fun’s just beginning. Seeing another vehicle, he gets in it and laughs and calls out to Wolverine that he’s coming to get him.
On the road, Zoe pulls the car over while they are driving through a residential area. She tells Logan that she’s sure she has some ibuprofen somewhere. Logan tells her that he don’t abide by no drugs and that he’ll just bind himself back up and make do. Zoe tells him that he needs something to abate the swelling. Logan replies that he don’t trust no pills and peers upon an establishment called the Blackspot. In the glove-box, Zoe finds her first aid kit but, when she turns to find Logan, he is nowhere to be found.
Eventually, she finds him in the Blackspot bar. Once she enters she tells him they have to talk. Logan tells her nobody’s stopping her. Zoe sits and tells him that she’s spent a long time investigating him and now she doesn’t know if she believes the sum of the evidence. Having another drink, Logan tells her that he’s changed a lot recently. Zoe asks him if he really used the sword in her possession to kill the thing that killed Mr. Chang. Logan informs her that they don’t talk about those things. That’s all stuff he left behind. He has to move on, get on with his life. ‘Sides, he don’t reckon he knows if that thing can be killed.
In the town of Logan located in Northern Alberta, the lady tells the investigator that they laid both of them out on the woodpile. They figured they might thaw out if they brought ‘em inside. She then asks the investigator if he’s takin’ ‘em back to the capital for an autopsy right away. She then asks if he reckons the one with the teeth is who did in old man Cooley, the station master from Heath Junction. The investigator replies that he don’t think they’ll ever know what really happened there in Logan. They’ve got two dead bodies, a missing person and a mysterious stranger with a sword on a motorcycle. Looking at the dead body of Cylla on the wood pile, the investigator asks the lady that he thought she said there were two bodies. The lady tells him there was. The investigator surmises that they’ve got a body-snatcher to deal with. The lady replies no way, to which the investigator says what did it do then, walk away by itself.
Down the road, a couple is driving down the snow covered road. The wife tells her husband Willy this is crazy – driving all the way into Logan just to gawk at the frozen freak like they have nothing better to do. Willy informs his wife, Doris, that they don’t. He passed up the chance to see that two-headed calf back in ’68. He ain’t missing this big-toothed thing, whatever it is. Just then, they hit something and Doris calls out that she thinks he just ran over a big ol’ dog. Willy tells her that he ain’t numb, he knows they ran over something.
When he gets out of the car to investigate, he says that he hope it ain’t bent nothing under there. From the truck, Doris asks her husband if it’s dead. Precisely at that moment, Bloodscream pops up and asks her, “Dead?” He tells her thou canst kill one such as Bloodscream as easily as thou wouldst a dog. He then reaches through the window and grabs a hold of Doris. He tells her that the great cold darkness yawns for all thy fleshy mortal souls but not for him. Not whilst he can drink of life blood. Just then, a primal scream emits from Doris across the barren wasteland.
Out in front of the Blackspot bar, Zoe drags a drunk Logan to her car. Logan asks her where they are goin’. He wasn’t finished, he was just gettin’ started. Zoe tells him that she thinks he’s had enough, and more importantly, the landlord thought he had enough. Logan asks what does he know? He can handle it, he knows what he’s doin’. He’s… Logan then kneels down and begins to throw up. Zoe tells him that she’ll get him cleaned up and over to Muir Island. It’s the least she can do for him for killing that thing that murdered Mr. Chang. Logan flings her hand off of him and tells her to never thank a man for a killin’. He asks if she hears him. Does she think it’s a favor? He asks if she ever saw the light fade from a man’s eyes while you’re lookin’ in ‘em. If she ever saw somebody who used to laugh an’ cry an’ think deep thoughts turn into a sack of meat?
After his tirade, Logan proceeds to throw up some more. When he’s finished, he looks down at his bandaged hand and mentions that all of that tasty whiskey he’s been throwin’ down the hatch all these years like a poison to his system, and his mutant healing factor was patchin’ him up as fast as he could tear himself down. He asks Zoe that he can’t do it no more, can he? Zoe asks him if he still wants that ride to Muir Island. Logan grabs her hand, pulls himself up, and tells her yeah. He needs some cold wind in his face and he needs to talk some.
Somewhere else on the road, Cyber is driving the ambulance. In his mind, he is driving a souped up all terrain vehicle. He calls out to Wolverine that he’s coming to get him. He’s gonna track him down, wherever he is. That vat of hallucinogens he dumped him into may have fried his neocortex and saddled him with some mildly distracting delusionary side-effects but it sure seems to have souped up his brain pattern tracking powers. He can see miles and miles down the electric highway. His eyes are like lasers and he can see Wolverine’s though waves like phosphorescent fish on a neon ocean.
Many hours later, Logan continues to spill his guts to Zoe. He concludes that’s it, no more adamantium, no more healin’ factor. Nothin’! He then tells her that it’s time for him to rejoin the human race unless she happens to know the process for re-bondin’ adamantium to bone. Zoe answers that she doesn’t, but Dr. Jaime Munoz thinks he knows. Logan asks hi-me moon who? Zoe tells him molecular biologist out of Alexandria. He did some major work in bone-grafting osteo-polymer bonding. Zoe hands him a small monitor that contains an excerpt from a presentation he did at Hopkins. Logan mentions that he don’t look Egyptian. Zoe tells him Alexandria, Virginia.
As Logan begins to listen to the presentation, Dr. Munoz says that adamantium, although at first look, would seem to be an unlikely choice for osteo-bonding because of extreme rareness and definitely the hope of the future. As he holds up a test-tube with the name Logan X and the number 23 on it, he says that in his search for adamantium, he uncovered entire ingots in a federal storage depot of recently declassified items. Mixed in with the ingots were medical records and tissue samples…
Logan notices that Munoz is holding pieces o’ him. Munoz continues that it seems adamantium can be bonded to human bone, if a rare mutagen is present in the donee. The mutagen actually causes a molecular change in the metal transforming it into what can only be called adamantium beta. This wholly new metal has different properties and is capable of bonding directly into the structure of skeletal material while not inhabiting the living nature of bone. Apparently, experiments were carried out at a secret facility on a number of mutant volunteers. Efforts at tracking down these volunteers have not proven successful. Logan quips that funny, he don’t recall ever volunteerin’ for that lil’ ol’ visit to the house o’ pain. Munoz continues that the tissue sample marked “Logan X #23” is a remarkable specimen. The tissue is self-regenerating, independent of the whole organism.
Just then, Cyber in the ambulance pulls up behind them. Cyber leans out the window and calls out woooo-eeee. He mentions that he can see Wolverine’s brain glowin’ in the dark like a night-light in the psycho-ward and he’s gonna plow him some fluorescent furrows through it. When Cyber pulls even with their car, he takes a swipe at Logan, but he is able to dodge it. When he does he tells Cyber that his aim ain’t so hot tonight, not like his.
With that, Logan tosses the hand-held monitor at Cyber. When he does, Munoz continues that the sample of Logan’s tissue is possessed of a hyper-healing factor. He adds that he believes it is possible to replicate the mutagenic properties of the tissue sample and develop a bonding process for adamantium. Cyber tells Logan that he knows he can’t hurt him with consumer electronics and responds by ramming his ambulance into Zoe’s car. Logan notices this and points it out to Zoe. She tells him to hold on, she’s punching in the blower. When she does, the car shoots off like a bolt of lightning. She mentions that should leave Cyber in the dust but she’ll have to slow down once they’re off the bridge – too many curves.
Behind them, Cyber says that he has to slow them down and searches for the little pop-gun the soldier-boy dropped. Looking out her rear-view mirror, Zoe notices that Cyber is catching up to them again and informs Logan to use the rocket launcher in the boot. Logan looks at what Zoe has in the back of the car and informs her that she has a gas can, a chain, road flares, and a wrench back there but no rocket launcher. Zoe tells him to look in the case. Gaining ground, Cyber begins to laugh. He says to the little hair-ball that he oughta see the way his brain waves change color when he’s scared. Logan tells the overgrown armadillo that it’s revulsion and loathin’. At that, he smacks Cyber in the chin with the chain.
Cyber grabs the chain and tells him not being afraid of him is just plain stupid since he’s gonna reel him in like a fish and do the downtown stomp all over him. When he pulls Logan into the ambulance with him, Logan punches him and tells him that he’s really hurtin’ – hittin’ his knuckles with his face like that. Cyber replies that was weak and pitiful and proceeds to backhand him. On the floor of the ambulance, the monitor is still playing. Dr. Munoz says that this could be a major break-through in osteo-pedics which could be more easily facilitated if the former volunteers from the program were to come forward. Zoe tells Logan to jump for it, but he tells her that he has some unfinished business.
When he charges Cyber, Cyber says to him that he ain’t learned to be scared of him yet. Logan tells him that he’s a slow study. Cyber tells him that he needs some catch-up courses. He then slashes Logan across the chest and grabs him by the neck. He tells him that he took out his eye, so he’s gonna scrape his whole face off. Cyber then attempts to push Logan’s face down onto the speeding pavement below. Seeing this, Zoe opens up fire on Cyber and reminds Logan about the boot. Cyber asks what she is yammering about. Logan tells him that she is remindin’ him that there’s stuff in her trunk like the gas can and road flares. Logan splashes Cyber in the face with the gas while Dr. Munoz continues his speech. He says that, if the subject known as Logan X is out there, he wants him to know that coming forward would be just as advantageous to him as it would be to the cause of science in that he has identified an unstable chain of nucleo-proteins in his tissue sample – a defect in his DNA that may be causing him some problems in the near future.
As the ambulance rushes towards the dock, Logan tries to light the flare by dragging it across the ground. When it does, he jams it in Cyber’s mouth and tells him to take it home and show it to his mother before it goes out. Before it blows up in a fiery blast, Logan leaps from the now burning ambulance and into Zoe’s car. In the car, Zoe tells him that they just missed the last ferry. Logan asks her why she isn’t slowing down then. Zoe tells him that there’s a way to still make it and pushes a button. The car speeds up, jumps off the dock, and lands on the ferry all while Cyber’s burning ambulance runs into the water.
On the ferry, Logan tells the captain that he wants two tickets to Muir Island. When the captain tells him they don’t go there, Logan says he does now. The captain tells him they “cannae dock there. It’s nae permitted.” Logan replies that, believe him, he can work it out.
