Breakfast was interrupted by Bishop headbanging the kitchen door.

Henry opened the door to let him in, and it was found that the reason Bishop used is head to do the knocking was that his hands were full. "Package for you, Will," he grunted.

I have it," Henry said, taking the large box out of Bishop's hands and placing it on the floor.

Will got out of his seat and examined the return address of the package. "It's from my publisher." Plucking a knife out of the air, he cut through the seal on the package. After digging past a few layers of plastic, he pulled out a hardcover book. "My complimentary copies."

"Let's see," Rogue asked him. She took the book when he passed it to her and looked at the spine, whicj had gold lettering against a navy blue background.

A Most Excellent Murder

John Roland

"Not yet..." She opened up her copy and found the page.

To R., who's touched me more than she can know.

Rogue's eyes misted up, and she nearly melted into a puddle of bliss then and there. "Give him a smooch for me, will you, Betts?"

"No problem," said Betsy, giving Will a quick peck on the cheek.

"Thank you," Will said with a smile. Finding a manila envelope stuck between two of the books, he opened it and read the contents.

"'These should hit the bookstores in about a month. We've sent copies to the Times, The Bugle, The Tribune, the L.A. Times, and the Mystery Book Club. Enclosed are some proposals for the jacket art. If you have other ideas for a cover, fax or email us a sample within two weeks. Yours truly,' blah, blah, blah."

Sitting down next to Rogue, he opened up the envelope and examined its contents. He frowned as he leafed through the samples. "No. No. No. Hell, no." He dropped the pile onto the table.

Rogue spread them out onto the tabletop, and agreed with him. "These do not fit the tone of the story."

"I agree," Xavier said.

"As do I," Henry added.

Will tapped a finger against his chin as he thought. "Let me get Muir Island on the phone."

"Four by seven. Same as a paperback cover."

"I'll have to make sure that everything can be visible when it's scaled down. What did you have in mind?"

Will thought for a moment, then plucked his fedora out of the air. He placed it on his head, shading his eyes.

"It's a hot night, hot as hell, in a part of town that makes hell seem like a step up. The rain's just ended, and the streetlights make the road look like a tar pit that'll keep you stuck here forever. Look up the road enough, and you can see the bridge that leads uptown, where the ward bosses and bankers are being served dinner by their maids, while mothers down here are searching through empty cupboards so that their babies won't go to bed hungry.

"I look to my left, and I see an alley. At the end of it there's a door, and the door has a bloody handprint on it that's bein' washed away by the rain. The light above the door is shining on a body.

"Nobody's on the street. No one wants to get sucked in... into the street, or into the case. So the body just lies there, waiting for dawn, and the illusion that someone will care." He took his hat off and looked up at the screen. "Does that help?"

Piotr nodded. "You gave me plenty to work from. Are there any specific details that you want?"

"Make sure that the cross-supports on the bridge form an 'X'" He grinned evilly. "May as well raise a question or two."

Piotr grinned at that. "Not a problem. I should have it ready in about a week." He thought for a moment. "Maybe I'll sign it 'Peter Nicholas', just to get some controversy going."

"There's no such thing as bad publicity," Will agreed. "We'll discuss a price once you're done."

"All right. I'll give it to Meggan, and she'll give it to you in Hawaii."

"Fair enough. Just call me in a week with an update."

"Agreed. Muir Island out."

Xavier, like most of those seated at the table, was leafing trough his copy of A Most Excellent Murder. He glanced up at Will. "Why did you decide to set it in Chicago?"

"I know the area, so it was easy to pick locations for the major scenes." He smirked. "Besides, I needed a city where the cops and D.A.'s were corrupt. Chicago fit the bill perfectly."

"Does Al Capone show up?" Logan asked.

"He's mentioned in passing once or twice, but he never appears. We're dealing with people much lower on the totem pole."

"Enforcers."

"Pretty much. I might want to use the characters in another story later, so I didn't make it too specific."

"You're considering a sequel?" Betsy asked.

"A series of stand-alone stories, actually. Something like the Mike Hammer series. I'll see what the response is to this one before I decide."

The next few minutes were spent discussing various aspects of the book, but that conversation was interrupted when Will's phone rang. He glanced at the called ID. "It's Hawaii." Bobby and Topaz woke up a bit at that.

Will activated the phone. "Riley." He listened for a moment. "All right. Call Meggan, and tell her to be suited up and ready in... say fifteen minutes. We'll pick her up, then join you. Out."

"Oil spill about twenty kilometers of the coast of New Zealand," he said, standing up. "It needs to be contained before it hits a coral reef.

"Suit up, Ecologix. Time to go to work.

"The owner," Domenic said. "He's on hold."

"What's his name?"

"Andrew Willett."

"Okay. Somebody crank up the global display, and put him on speakerphone."

Meggan took the holoroom controls out of sleep mode, then switched the computer over to the Forge-designed, Pryde-programmed operating system, which displayed a transparent globe in the center of the room. At the same time, Ororo transferred the call and nodded at Will.

"This is Archetype, from Ecologix, Mister Willett. Can you please explain the situation to me?"

"Of course, sir." The voice seemed rather harried, and had an Australian accent. "One of our tankers, the Breaker Morant, was on its way back from Caracas when she developed some trouble with her engines. When the crew tried to fix the problem, something must have sparked. The engine room blew, and the explosion breached both hulls."

"Casualties?"

"Two dead, at least four injured."

"Has the oil ignited?"

"Not yet, but it could anytime."

"What's their GPS frequency?"

Rogue entered the frequency as soon as Willett gave it to them, and the ship's location was displayed on the globe.

"Next question, Mister Willett: Where is your largest recovery ship located? Not your nearest ship, your biggest."

Willett could be heard tapping on a keyboard. "The Ned Kelly, on its way to the North Slope."

"She's currently empty?"

"Yes."

"Set up a three-way call with the captain."

"It'll take a minute."

"Just put us on hold." He turned to the rest of the team. "Gather up the medical supplies and get them in here. St. John... no, better yet, Meggan... go to the equipment room and wheel over the standing tool chest with the red stripe down the side. That's the one that's all brass tools."

"Brass?" Topaz whispered to Bobby as Meggan took off.

"No sparks."

"Oh."

"Topaz," Will asked, turning to her, "can you create a levitation disk?"

"Of course."

"How much can it carry?"

"About three metric tons."

Will exhaled in frustration. "That'll be cutting it close."

"I'll carry Domenic and St. John," Rogue suggested. That'll take off about 200 kilos."

"That'll work," Topaz agreed.

"Mister Archetype?" Willed voice asked over the speaker.

"Yes, Mister Willett?"

"I have the captain of the Ned Kelly on the line with me. Go ahead, Captain."

"This is Captain Alex Turnbull. How can I help you, sir?"

"Can you and your crew be ready to begin recovery operations in fifteen to twenty minutes?"

"Excuse me?!?"

"Humor me, Captain. Can you get all of the prep work done in that amount of time?"

Turnbull was silent for a moment. "Yeah. We'll need a few minutes to prime and warm up the pumps."

"All right. Get started on that. What's your current speed?"

"Thirty knots."

"Heading?"

"Twenty-eight degrees."

"Is there a spot on deck where we can bring in equipment?"

"The sternmost deck. You'll have about a hectare."

"Perfect. We'll be there in twenty minutes. Expect you navigational equipment to go haywire for a few seconds."

Twenty minutes later, Topaz's levitation disk was groaning under the weight of cots, boxes of medical supplies, the toolbox, and four members of the team... Topaz. Bobby, Ororo, and Will.

"I'm going to let us drop straight down," Will told them. "Just land as close to our landing zone as you can. As soon as we're on deck, I'm heading for the bow. 'Roro, you coordinate with the ship's crew until we finish going through the Door."

"Right," Ororo confirmed.

"Okay. Drop on three. Two. One."

The holoroom vanished, replaced by a vast expanse of open sea. Th levitation disk began to fall, but Topaz got things settled after a moment.

"The ship's at two o'clock," Ororo said as she summoned the wind and flew off the disk.

"Going down," Topaz announced. They started a brisk descent... just fast enough to be slightly unnerving.

Topaz slowed the disk down as they neared the deck, and Will stepped off it just as they touched down. "Topaz, follow me. 'Roro, get us set up." He and Topaz headed towards the bow of the ship.

Captain Turnbull approached Ororo a few minutes later, as she was helping Rogue set up a pile of gauze dressings. "We're running at the speed you wanted," he told her. "Now what?"

"Our trip to the spill will take place in a few minutes. We will deal with the wounded, and you start recovery operations."

"Right. We'll need a few minutes to lower the hoses. After the pumps are running, we'll be able to give you a hand with WHAT THE F..."

"Language, Captain," Ororo said mildly.

Captain Turnbull's salty language was prompted by the fact that the seascape in front of the ship was being blacked out by an absolutely huge Door. At the same time, a strained roar of effort could be heard from Will.

"Maintain your heading and speed, Captain," Ororo said calmly. "We've never actually found out what happens if you only go through one of those halfway, and I don't think you want to experiment with your ship.

That got Turnbull's attention. "Maintain heading and speed!" he barked into his radio. "I want us going right down the center of that..." He paused, looking at the two women uncertainly.

"Door," Rogue supplied.

"That Door," he finished. "I'll give new orders once we're through it." He looked back at Ororo. "I'm heading back to the bridge. If anything's going to happen to my ship, I want to be at the wheel."

"Understood. Here." She reached into a pocket and handed him a spare communicator pin. "Press the center to talk. We'll maintain an open channel, in case you run into a problem."

She leaned over towards Rogue as the man hurried off. "Remind me to get that back," she murmured.

"Right." Looking forward, towards the Door, Rogue noticed something coming through it, approaching them. After a moment, she realized that it was the open sea, under a clear blue sky, unlike the overcast one which was currently above them. "There's our target."

Just before the Ned Kelly reached the boundary of the Door, the approaching horizon came up to meet it, and the ship sailed through, onto a smooth, unbroken sea.

Bobby, who was sorting medical supplies, turned his head for a moment, then nodded. "Right." He walked over to the sternmost end of the ship, and looked straight up at the edge of the Door.

"Iceman," Ororo asked, "what are you..."

Bobby silenced her with a gesture, maintaining his gaze. When the edge of the Door was directly overhead, he counted slowly to five. "Now."

The Door started to close, starting at the top and descending quickly. Within the space of about eight seconds, it had vanished entirely.

Will and Topaz returned to the staging area about five minutes later. Will looked slightly winded, but was otherwise fine. "You okay?" Rogue asked him.

He nodded, breathing heavily. "Just need a second." He looked towards the bow. "The spill's at about one o'clock. Fairly big. Pyro, could you keep any flames contained?"

"Yeah. I can move them away from the fuel. Once they're isolated, they'll burn themselves out pretty quick."

"Okay. Iceman, once the Kelly is in place and pumping, I want you to surround both ships with an ice dam. The currents will bring us close to the reef, and we need to keep the oil away from it."

Bobby nodded. "Topaz can buzz me if you need help with any rescues." The air around him steamed as he shifted into his ice form.

"Aim for height, not thickness," Will advised. "If we have to leave, the ship will still be able to ram through."

"Right." He created an ice slide and, anchoring it to the deck, used it to leave the ship. He began to circle the perimeter of the oil slick, leaving the ice dam in his wake.

Domenic stayed on the deck to finish setting up the triage area, and the others flew towards the wreckage... Meggan with St. John, Rogue carrying Will, and Topaz bringing along her levitation disk to serve as a stretcher.

The Breaker Morant had a gaping hole in her port side, through which oil was pouring out onto the surface of the water. The loss of so much of her cargo had affected the ship's balance, and she was beginning to list to her starboard side. A column of smoke, leaking from the top of the hole, indicated that there was a fire burning somewhere inside the ship.

"We'll start at the bridge and work our way down," Will decided. "Pyro, can you calm things down around us?"

"No worries. Lower me onto the roof, Meggan." Once she did so, St. John diverted the flames, sending them off in a stream that burned harmlessly in the air.

Meggan peered through the smoke as the flames died down. "There's someone in there." She flew through one of the broken windows of the bridge, coming out a moment later with an unconscious man. "He's very weak."

"Smoke inhalation, probably," Rogue said. "Get him to Avalanche and tell him to start an Oh-Two line."

Meggan nodded. "I'll be right back."

As Meggan flew off, the others entered the bridge, which was starting to clear of smoke. There was little physical damage, but a thick layer of soot covered everything. A tear in the flooring was starting to admit more smoke into the room.

Will moved over to the stairs and looked down. "The hatch leading belowdecks is shut. Rogue, Pyro..."

Rogue nodded and descended the stairs, St. John close behind her. She touched her hand to the hatch, jerking it back when her glove got scorched. "Not good."

"Hold on," Topaz told them. She muttered a short phrase, and they were all surrounded by a reddish aura. "It's a shield against fire," she explained. "Won't help if our lungs get baked, though."

"We'll risk it," Will said. He nodded to Rogue, and she opened the hatch.

What lay behind it was eerily beautiful.

The way down to the hold was a square staircase, which seemed to have been damaged by the initial explosion. The engine room, or what was left of it, lay a good ten meters below the end of the staircase.

A pool of diesel fuel, about a meter deep, lay below them. Flames danced atop it, clawing their way up the walls. The heat, even through their shields, was almost concussive in its intensity.

Topaz tapped Rogue on the arm, then pointed downward. Following the younger woman's aim, Rogue saw a body slumped over a large pipe. "Alive?" she mouthed. Topaz nodded.

Rogue tapped Will's shoulder to get his attention, then pointed down at the body. When he nodded, she jumped off the staircase and floated down. After doing a quick check to make sure that the man had no spine of neck injuries, she turned him over. His face was heavily bruised... most likely from the impact with the pipe, she guessed... but his breathing was steady. She picked him up in a fireman's carry and flew up, placing him on Topaz's disk.

"Anyone else?" Will asked Topaz. When she shook her head, he turned to St. John and nodded.

St. John held out his hands, and the flames sped towards the center of the room, coalescing into a tornado of fire that spun rapidly. A gesture lifted it into the air, cutting off its fuel. It shrank inward as it consumed itself, and, finally, faded away.

"Okay," Will said carefully, as the temperature started to drop, "let's keep moving."

Will nodded. "I don't want to cut through the deck plates... no telling what things are like below us. We'll walk down, and take things as they come." He pulled a Mini-Maglite out of a coat pocket. "The internal lights are probably out." He glanced at the injured man that topaz carried, then tapped his communicator. "Archetype to Avalanche. I'm sending a casualty to you. Concussion and minor burns, possible smoke inhalation."

"Copy."

Once the sailor was away, they started making their way down to the next deck. This proved to be a challenge, due to the fact that the ship's tilt was increasing. Topaz exhaled in frustration after she tripped for the third time. "The heck with this." She floated above the deck, and picked Ororo up with her. "This'll be faster."

"Good idea," Meggan agreed. She picked up St. John, Rogue grabbed Will, and they all flew towards the stairway.

Once they reached the proper deck, Meggan and Topaz were able to sense the pain of the crew. "How far ahead?" Will asked them.

"Twenty meters or so," Meggan told him.

He nodded, aiming his flashlight beam down the length of the bulkhead. "Looks clear. Watch your footing once you touch down." His communicator beeped. "Archetype here."

"This is Iceman. I've finished the dam. Where do you need me?"

"I'll let you know once we've reached our vics. Stand by." He nodded to Rogue, she let him down, and they started moving forward.

She's listing more," St. John observed. The ship's tilt, in fact, had become bad enough for the non-flyers to need to lean against a wall for support.

"The tanks on the other side are still leaking," Ororo told him. "She'll probably be on her side before she settles down."

"Oh, lovely."

Will suddenly stopped and cursed. "Rogue, Meggan, fly up ahead. Get that hatch open now!"

"What's wrong?" Ororo asked.

"Anybody who's unconscious is going to have a big problem if this tilt gets any worse. We have to get to them before people start slamming into walls."

As Rogue pried the bulkhead door open, looked into the gap bring created. "Looks like four or five people!" she yelled back, as she began to assist Rogue.

"Grab as many as you can and lean them against something that's bolted to the floor," Will instructed.

Right," she confirmed as she shifted her form to one thin enough to make it through the gap in the door. She slipped into the room as Rogue finished pulling the door open.

By the time the others reached the bulkhead, Rogue had it fully open. They stepped in to find that Meggan had already managed to move four crewmen to safety, leaning them against a large pipe that appeared to be a smokestack. "Five more," she said, gesturing downward. The crewmen she indicated were either unconscious, or too weak and disoriented to stop their slide as the deck beneath them shifted.

Rogue and Topaz moved swiftly, grabbing two injured each. As the last one neared him, just out of reach, Will grabbed Ororo by the wrist. Spinning around, he swung her out far enough for her to grab the injured man's jacket. He and St. John pulled them both back up.

"A little warning next time, " Ororo asked Will.

"Sorry, no time." He slapped his communicator pin. "Archetype to Iceman."

"Iceman here."

"You feel up to stretching your powers a bit?"

"About forty percent full," the second mate told him, glancing at a monitor. He looked up at the captain, then stared at something just beyond him. "WHAT THE F..."

"Language, Mick," Turnbull said quietly as he looked out onto the water, where a massive iceberg was forming underneath the Breaker Morant, lifting her up and out of the water. The column of ice reshaped itself as it grew, forming a depression just below the damaged ship that allowed the leaking oil to pool into a contained spot.

"Here they come," Mick said, pointing to where an ice slide was nearing the Ned Kelly. "Looks like they have more wounded."

Turnbull nodded. "Switch Wallace and Ortiz to medical duty. Then come back and take the wheel."

"Yessir."

Once he had someone at the conn, Turnbull headed sternward, where he found the superhumans working with his crew to stabilize the wounded. "How bad is it?" he asked the white-haired woman.

"Smoke inhalation, mostly. Most of the burns are superficial. Topaz is stabilizing the two who were worst off. A few broken bones, and one man may have hearing damage. Concussions all around."

Turnbull nodded grimly. "I've seen worse from this sort of thing. At least you got to them fast."

"They'll still need hospital care," the teleporter said as he cleaned his glasses.

"The U.S. Navy diverted a cruiser our way. Should be here in an hour or so."

"They'll have the resources," he agreed. "How's the cleanup going?"

"It'll take a few days. We'll have to break it off to empty our tanks, then come back."

The teleporter frowned, thinking. "I might be able to cut that down. Where do you go to empty the tanks?"

"Vancouver."

"Got a map of the city?"

Rogue and Meggan were able to assist the repair crew that the U.S. Navy provided, shuttling equipment and supplies back and forth. Bobby shrunk the dam as the water was cleared of oil, and the others assisted in the transfer of the wounded to the Naval vessel.

When, finally, the last welds had cooled, Bobby dissolved his iceberg, and the Breaker Morant floated one again... if a bit lopsidedly.

"We radioed for two tugs to drag her to Vancouver," the captain of the Naval vessel told Will. "There's a repair dock there to refit her."

Will nodded. "Is she salvageable?"

"They'll need to rebuild two tanks and the engine room, but she'll sail again eventually."

"Then, Captain, I officially relinquish possession of the Breaker Morant to your custody. If you have no objections, my team and I will be on our way."

"None at all. You've all earned some rest."

"To the successful debut of Ecologix," Ororo said, raising her bottle.

"Here, here," was the reply as bottles (and cans, since St. John had insisted on Foster's, and Will had soda) clinked.

"Remind me to write up some sort of press release tomorrow," Will asked Rogue as he munched on his pizza. "We'll fax it to that reporter who interviewed us."

"Are we going to slam the company?" Domenic asked.

"No reason to. They acted quickly to solve the problem, and there's no evidence so far to suggest that they were negligent. The dead crew can't speak for themselves, and any accusations would only hurt their families. It's best to let the regulatory agencies handle this."

"And we have to be pragmatic," Topaz pointed out. "Nobody's going to call on us for help if they think that we'll just bad-mouth them afterwards."

Ororo nodded in agreement, then winced and rolled her shoulder. Both Meggan and Topaz gave her sympathetic looks. "Pull something?" Topaz asked.

"Probably when I used you as a lasso," Will said wryly. "Want a rubdown?"

"It might help," Ororo admitted.

"I'll do it," Domenic volunteered as Will started to get up. Ororo glanced at him, then nodded agreeably, rolling over onto her stomach.

Topaz watched Ororo groan with relief as her shoulder relaxed, then nudged Bobby, who sat next to her. "I want one, too," she said with a pout.

"If the end result will be you two naked," Will interrupted, "then I'd prefer it if you went to your room."

"Sure," Topaz said as she rolled onto her feet, "tie my hands."

"I'd say that's more 'Tana's kink," he disagreed.

Topaz laughed hysterically as she and Bobby left... though the laughter changed at one point, Bobby having found a ticklish spot.

Meggan grinned, then looked at Will. "Why don't you wait until morning to send me back? We could both use the sleep."

"Sounds good," he agreed. He looked at Rogue. "Shall we?"

"Let's. Night, guys."

As they walked back towards the residential wing, Rogue took Will's hand in her gloved one. "What'cha thinking about?"

"We did good today. The men we picked up should all recover, we cleaned up all of the oil, the ship was salvaged, and we didn't even have to fight anybody. No downsides."

"That's unusual," she admitted, "but I'm not complaining."

"It... felt right, doing all of that." He stopped and turned to her. "Right now, at this moment, everything in my life feels right, like I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be. I'm doing work that benefits people on a global scale, and I feel like it's just a prelude." He ran his hands down her arms. "I'm in love with a beautiful, amazing woman who's willing to put up with the craziness in my life."

"A woman who you make feel loved, and very happy. One who isn't pitying herself anymore, and who feels as normal as any other woman." She leaned close to him. "And who loves you very, very much."

"Let me show you."

With a seductive look, she led him up to their bedroom..