Conversation framed by * means telepathy.:)

"I don't believe you, Maggs."

"Shut up."

"A perfectly good mansion to hole up in and we only stay one night?!!!!"

"I said, -shut up-!"

"I coulda been swimmin' in the pool, baskin' in the sun but noooooo."

"Frizz, Maggs asked you to be quiet." Darcy was always so polite.

"I coulda been playin' pool in that fancy rec room, but noooo!"

"Darcy, my sister and now I'm tellin' ya to SHUT UP, Frizz."

"I coulda been..."

*Shut up!*

Chuck's metal command actually seemed to penetrate Frizz's tirade and she subsided. The five of them were hidden in the decorative bushes across from their motel room since they'd hiked from the mansion in the pre-dawn morning. Much to Frizz's chagrin. She rarely rose before noon if she could help it.

Two plain clothes policemen were sitting in a car across from the gang's clothes, money and information gathered so far. If the police were close, the Cyborgs were no doubt closer. Probably inside the bloody room. They had to play things cool until she thought of something.

"Maggs," Darcy hissed. She glanced in the direction he was pointing and saw two more 'policemen' walking towards the car, supposedly to releave those in the vehicle. The moving men wore the cloned faces of Cyborgs.

Funny thing about Cyborgs is that they couldn't track you if they couldn't see or hear you. They relied on their programming t tell them where to hunt, how and when to hunt their prey. Get them off their respective programs and the things were relatively easy to destroy.

The only problem was figuring out what exactly their programs were.

They varied in complexity and adaptablity so that it was like fighting a human one 'borg, a tin can the next.

*Chuck, link us all up, will ya'?*

*Done Maggs.*

*Darcy, got the 'borgs' gameplan?*

The young man surveyed the surroundings for a second before responding. Darcy had the most incredible gift for seeing the overall stratgem being used against the crew, then coming up with a kickass counter plan. That was often more useful to them than throwing flame.

When he turned back, he was smiling. This was going to be fun.

"Maggs, breakfast." Logan's gravelly voice called as he knoced on the girl's door. Each of the five X-men had decided to 'adopt' one of the children for the day to try to weasel some more information. It was all they could manage the previous day to get names (which he'd conviently forgotten in hopes of getting Maggs to open up a bit last night). It'd been agreed that since Maggs had admitted to Logan she'd been unnaturally mutated, Logan should adopt her for the day. He could relate to the girl, Jean had said.

It had disturbed everyone to discover that all the children had been victims of some madman (smelled like Sinister to him), but reassuring in a weird sorta way as well. It was unnerving to see another mutant with powers so similar to your own they could be related. What with the Summers clan constantly gaining new members, unknown relatives were always a possiblity. A possibility that Logan found attractive. He wondered what his relatives would be like. He was somewhat disappointed when he found out there was the likelihood that the girl wasn't related to him at all.

"Maggs, come on. Time to get up." he walked into the empty room. He picked up the neatly folded piece of paper off the crisply made bed before pelting down to the kitchen after the others. They were all staring at each other, dumbfounded.

"Note" he tossed it at Jean to read aloud.

"' Thanks for the beds, food, showers and save yesterday. Sorry for not sayin' good bye, but we got some private business to take care of. Later.'"

Jean looked up from the note.

"From what she said last night, I got the impression they didn't trust us much." Logan shrugged.

"But why? We opened our home, offered them shelter, food, understanding..." Beast protested.

"Without askin' for anything in return." Logan finished for him. A flash of understanding crossed Remy's face, but the others still seemed upset.

"See it from der side, homme. We give 'em so much, 'den POW! we 'it 'em hard wit pay back. Dey don' wan get stuck wit de big bill is all, so dey spilt 'afore we up."

"But we'd never DO that!"

"The children have no way of knowing that, my friend. From what Logan has said, their lives have not been the easiest and they do not know how to trust anyone outside of each other." Storm placed a hand on a perplexed blue-furred shoulder.

"They were looking for the 'catch' yesterday. That's why they all seemed so uncomfortable."

"That's right, Jeanie. Too much, way too soon." Only now, how do we find them before those Cyborgs do? Logan asked silently. Jean quirked an eyebrow at him, having 'heard' the question.

"Mes ami, Look!" Gambit pointed to the t.v. Jean turned it up as the anchor reported a local motel ahd been partially destroyed earlier this morning by a mutant attack. Shots of the scene showed two rooms in particular with singed, blown out walls and debris all over. Some of it gleamed and fizzled in the camera light as a closeup surveyed the wreckage.

"Cyborgs." Logan informed them solmenly, "the kids were there."

"But where are they now?" Storm's quiet voice seemed to echo unnaturally in the kitchen.

Logan turned in the direction of the garage. "Good question. Anybody else up fer findin' the answer?"

Needless to say, breakfast got very cold.

End of Chapter Four