The X-Project

While working on their case loads, Sarah and Remy find an irregularity, and call in Bishop for some help.



Remy tossed his trenchcoat on the chair as he walked into his office. Seven hours on an airplane back hadn't provided any brilliant ideas to come up a way to find Amanda and get her out of London. Trapped inside a city, in a way that no one had ever seen, and as a result, had no idea how to reverse. The members of X-Force would have run themselves into the ground if they hadn't forced people to switch off, come home long enough to sleep and catch up on their regular work. The in-box of his desk was depressingly full, and Remy poured himself a cup of coffee before turning around and walking back out to the cubicle farm.

"Dere's a mountain on my desk. Anyone got anything useful here?" He said, only realizing after he spoke that only Sarah was there. "Sorry." He muttered, and handed over a cup of coffee to her."

She shrugged in reply, taking the cup of coffee and leaning back in her chair. "It's okay. I already knew that deep down you were a whiny bastard. Your secret is safe with me." The pile of work on her desk looked only marginally smaller than his, mainly because the work hadn't filtered down from the Trenchcoats yet. They'd been preoccupied. She pointed to a file on her desk. "However, I do have a complaint. Vandalism in the subway? There's a mess of it down there already. Are we seriously going to get involved every time somebody spray paints another hooker's name and number on one of the subway cars?"

"Can't imagine dat it's on you desk because someone painted a picture of a cock on de wall." Remy took a sip from his cup and took a check look at the file. "Pipe bomb in de switching point in de tunnels. Dat still doesn't explain why it's been placed under a departmental investigation and..."

The Cajun put down the file and pointed to the numbers on the top part of the document which Doug's search engines had culled. "See dis number here? Dis is a call number; like a transmission number when dey need to forward a document to de FBI or some other agency. Dere anything special 'bout dis area of tunnel dat you remember?"

"It isn't far from where I lived." Lived. Past Tense. A year ago, saying that would have driven her crazy, and she would have spent the next two weeks trying to talk herself into going back. "But there's nobody down that way anymore. Other than those assholes who decided it was a good place to crucify mutants, and we cleared them out. Let the door hit them in the ass on the way out."

"Dere's got to be a reason why it's going up to de Agency level. No one was killed." Remy raised his voice. "Bishop, you over dere? Come take a look at dis."

Being it was just a room of cubicles, and an empty one at that, Bishop already knew what was going on. He walked over, a file in hand behind his back. "Very funny. Who the hell spray painted a picture of my dick on the wall and called me a hooker?" He couldn't manage to not laugh after just a moment. "Yeah, I got you."

A much thicker file was dropped onto Remy's desk. "This is my file on it. I put copies of all the related stuff in there so I don't have to dig around. The problem isn't what they did there alone but what they have been doing. Apparently they're 'Gene Nation' and someone has decided they're the closest thing to a terrorist cell we have around here and in the open." Bishop put his hands into his jacket pockets, they were still bandaged up and it bothered him so he kept them away for the time being.

"Gene Nation?" The Cajun shook his head. "Dat's a new one on me. Explains de transmission of de file up to de FBI, and why dey keeping it quiet." He thumbed through the file for a moment before tossing it over to Sarah.

"Bishop, if you got some time, go digging a little into dis. See what you fellow officers and saying, and if dere's a plan right now. It sounds pretty low tech, but just incase, Remy like to know if de city 'bout to be taken over by some Brotherhood Junior group."

"I got it. I'll send anything I dig up over." Just like that Bishop was off. Once he had something to do he didn't stick around long and this one was pretty clear.

"Dat Bishop? Remy think he talk too much." Remy took a sip from his cup. "If you got some time, see if you can get down on to de site, check it out? Dis doesn't feel right for a coordinated plan, but... I can't put my finger on it. Call me wit' what you find, and we see if we can make any sense of dis."

Something about the name "Gene Nation" sent the hairs on the back of Sarah's neck bristling. It was strangely familiar, but nothing came instantly to mind. She pulled a highlighter out of her desk to mark at the interesting parts of the file, and waved mock-dismissively without turning back around. "Yeah, well, at least he's funny."

"Remy funny. People laugh at me all de time." LeBeau gave her a wry smile and returned to his office.