But I kept on looking for a sign in the middle of the night
But I couldn't see the light, no I couldn't see the light
I kept on looking for a way to take me through the night
Couldn't get it right, couldn't get it right.

(Climax Blues Band--Couldn't Get It Right)

The song ran through the girl's head again. She didn't know why she remembered it so clearly after all these years, but she did. So much of what happened to her in the time be fore the darkness was forgotten. Some of it the girl couldn't remember; some of it she didn't want to remember. But no matter what, the song stayed.

She was sitting on the mattress which served her as a bed. Her knees drawn up to her chest, arms wrapped around them, her head resting on the tops of her knees. Her hair fell forward, obscuring her face except for one eye. Using that one eye, the girl peered around the dark place she now knew to be her only world and looked around for her own, personal "sign in the middle of the night."

As she expected she saw none. It didn't bother her. She knew better now. Years ago she might have been disappointed, but that was years ago. The girl had learned a lot since then. There was no salvation for the truly wicked, only darkness. Slowly she began to sing,out loud; but in truth, only to herself:

"Kept on looking for a way to take me through the night
Couldn't get it right, couldn't get it right..."

It seemed to Magnus' ears that the alarm was getting louder, more insistent, as if it was trying to say, "Hey, will someone come and take a look?"

"I've never touched alarm volume," Magneto answered Logan drying, raising his voice to be heard above the persistently shrill buzzer. "And every time I go near the thing, it shuts off and the screen goes blank."

"Then do it now!" Logan suggested, his hands still clamped over his ears.

"No, let me!" Kitty walked over to the computer and ran her long, nimble fingers over the keys. Within seconds, the alarm silenced itself, as if it were a howling puppy, now quiet in the presence of a beloved mistress.

Logan and Magnus both shook their heads, relieved that the screaming had ended. "Cerebro likes her," Magnus commented, jerking his thumb towards the young girl, who was still running her fingers over the keyboard, almost lovingly. The fourteen-year-old girl was a genius with computers.

"Careful Mags, " Logan warned him, a slight grin on his face. "You sound jealous. It's just a machine."

"I'm not jealous, just annoyed," Magneto commented. "Every time I'm in here, working on this danger room pro gram the blasted thing chooses to start raising the alarm. Every time I go to find out why, that section of the computer shuts down. It's gotten tiresome."

"Hm...... I think I've figured out the problem," Kitty called out, her eyes still on the screen, her fingers on the keyboard. "At one point the entire computer system was programmed to shut down and go into a self preservation mode whenever.." She paused and looked up, realizing what she had to say was likely to cause discomfort to the new leader of the school. "...when certain people came near it." she finished quickly. "Uh.. I thought I'd reprogrammed it, but one of the command strings I typed in didn't read to the mutant detection area. I'll... Uh.. fix it now." She set to work, not looking at the two individuals, one standing near her, the other a respectable distance as if afraid if he got near the machine it would begin wailing again.

"Is that why the alarm was going off?" Magnus asked, moving himself and the chair farther back. "Because I was near?"

"No," Kitty responded, still typing. "It was going off be cause Cerebro detected a new mutant. Your presence was causing it to shut down.. play dead so to speak. But it's okay now." She typed in a few more lines and hit the return button with a firm press of her pinkie. "There. It should be fine." She looked at the screen, studying the information it held. "Hey, maybe you guys ought to come take a look at this."

Logan looked over her shoulder, reading the screen. Magnus waited for a moment, then approached cautiously as if he still expected the computer to suddenly "play dead,” as Kitty had put it. The screen wavered once, then held true. He stood to the left of Logan, looking over Kitty's shoulder.

"Look, 'Rebro detected another mutant," Kitty explained, using one of her nicknames for the computer. Magnus wasn't sure if he liked this habit of hers or not. It was a machine, not a person, why did she feel the need to give it a nickname? He sometimes felt silly even refering to it as Cerebro, but what else was he to call it?

The computer's screen had split into an information area across the bottom and a map area above. The map image was flickering and changing as it kept narrowing down the location. Magnus looked at the information area. "Hm," he murmured thoughtfully. "Apparently this mutant is manifesting abilities completely unknown to Cerebro's memory banks."

"Yeah," Kitty agreed. "'Rebro doesn't have any idea what he/she can do, but the power potential is tremendous!" She pointed to a tiny bar graph which Cerebro used to judge the best it could with it's sensors the potential for power. The bar was completely red, indicating that Cerebro con sidered this mutant beyond its powers to fully assess. Of course, given the fact that Cerebro had never dealt with this type of mutant before, it was likely that the bar graph exaggerated a bit, but it did draw Magneto's interest. He moved a little closer to Kitty, a little closer to Cerebro.

The sensors had narrowed down the search to South Carolina, then enlarged the state so it took up the entire area of screen. A red circle pulsed and glowed over the approximate area Cerebro thought the mutant could be found, a small town called Jericho. Magnus frowned, wondering about this mutant. How old was he/she? Had his/her powers manifested themselves in some obvious, public way? Small towns had a reputation for being especially hard for anyone different to adapt and fit in, if this mutant was in deed powerful, there could be a potentially dangerous situation brewing. "I think we should check this out," he said softly, looking over at Logan. "Are you up for a trip down south?"

"I'm always up fer a trip." Logan shrugged. "How we getting there?"

Magneto thought for a moment. They could fly down, but an inner voice of reason told him to be careful. He had no idea what he'd find when he got there If indeed this mutant was powerful, he was going to try his best to get him/her to join them. "We'll drive," he decided.

"Road trip," Logan commented, nodding. "Any particular reason why we're going that way? There are faster ones."

Magnus nodded. "I'm aware of that, but under the circumstances, I think driving would be best. If it turns out we want to take this person with us immediately, a car would be useful. It won't take long with two people able to drive."

"Can I come along?" Kitty asked, turning away from her buddy 'Rebro to face the two men, her eyes shinning eagerly.

Magnus shook his head. "Absolutely not. You still have school. Besides, we have no idea what we'll be up against. Considering everything about this mutant is completely unknown to us, I'd like to keep this as discrete as possible. It's just going to be Logan and myself."

Kitty frowned, obviously disappointed. "Figures, I'm old enough to save the world, but not to go on a road trip."

"You'll live," Magnus commented in a dry tone of voice. The look of hurt flashing on young Kitty's face made him regret he'd been so abrupt with her and he cleared his throat. "Logan and I are just going to check things out. If we decide the best thing to do would be to have a couple other representatives of the school come down to talk to this mutant, you'll be first on the list to go. Is that all right?"

A broad grin flashed across the girl's face, immediately putting her into a better humor. "Sounds fair to me," she confirmed.

"Not to change the subject," Logan interjected, "But I got a question for ya Mags. Why me? You're right--we're dealing with a total unknown here. Wouldn't it be better to take Peter, Storm, or even Kitty here? If you're going to try the 'I represent a school for gifted students,' approach, I'm not exactly the best spokesperson you could pick. I'm not exactly oozing with charm."

"I have.. charm enough for both of us if it comes down to that," Magnus answered, without the faintest trace of a smile on his face. "I want you to accompany me for other reasons."

"Which are?" Logan leaned against the wall, lighting up a cigar.

"If there is any sort of trouble, you're a good brawler. I can count on you to get us out of a jam without an unnecessary display of power." Magnus explained.

"Is that the only reason?" Logan asked, looking skeptical.

"No," Magnus answered calmly. "The other reason is that we have no idea how old this mutant is. Chances are, if he or she is just manifesting his or her powers now, he or she is young." He paused, looking at Logan, who's eyes had narrowed slightly. Magnus didn't know if it was be cause he was anticipating the answer, or if he'd gotten some of his cigar smoke in his eyes. "And whether or not you like it Logan, young people, children, seem to like you. They trust you on sight and that could be important." He cut his gaze over to Kitty who was nodding in agreement.

Logan looked as if he was going to argue this point, then caught Kitty's nod himself. He drew in a deep breath. "Yeah, maybe you're right. Don't know why that is, but..." He let the rest of his statement go unsaid and stood straight. "So when do we leave boss?"

"As soon as possible," Magneto said.