“Is this really where you meet up to do covert black-ops stuff?” Kitty asks as we reach our contact’s location.
“I was hoping for, like, a high-end casino or the balcony of some skyscraper or something.”“Well, those aren’t exactly covert, are they?” I say as we slow the truck to a stop outside a high chain-link fence topped with razor wire.
“Besides, there’s more to this place than you’d expect.”“I guess,” Kitty says, careful to avoid a rusty piece of jagged sheet metal as we step out of the truck.
“I just wasn’t expecting it to be so…junky.”CC & JR's Scrap Yard is a several-acre landfill on the outskirts of Winnipeg. It's a cemetery of old machinery, as piled-up husks of dead cars and trucks, old kitchen appliances, retired school buses, and outdated construction equipment make a winding maze among the junk heaps. The piles of machinery stack up nearly twenty feet high in places, and the peaks of the makeshift hills are crisscrossed with wires and netting. In some places in that maze, it’s hard to see the sun through all the junk overhead, and the path is filled with switchbacks and dead ends.
For your average scrapper, the layout is inconvenient, sloppy. For someone wanting to stage a raid on an old Mutant Rights fugitive, it’s a death trap.
“So, like, what is this guy, the Jigsaw killer or something?” she asks, stepping over the faded white door of an ice cream truck.
“Forge used to provide my old team with gear for our missions,” I tell Kitty.
“Guy wasn’t just a genius; he had the ability to see mechanical energy in action. He could instinctively understand what kind of work might need to be done, and put together exactly the right tool for it. He was the first of our team to remember he had a conscience and walk away, and he wanted to make sure no one from the bad old days ever tried to drag him back in. So he made himself a place where he could be left alone, filled with some pretty nasty surprises for anyone who comes calling without his permission. Stay with me, don’t wander off, and don’t touch anything.”“That part so won’t be a problem,” she says with a giggle, then casually waves her hand right through the husk of an old sedan.
Slowly, we make our way down the path, and I guide Kitty through the maze little by little. Where the path forks, I take a moment to recall the right route, and take whichever the less obvious way is. When there’s an apparent straightaway, I veer off onto a passage that’s all but invisible unless you’re looking at the right angle. I don’t go out of my way to make noise, but I don’t hide the fact that we’re here. I want Forge to know we’re coming, and that we don’t mean any trouble.
“Oh hey, before we meet him,” Kitty asks,
“What should my code-name be?”“This again?” I sigh.
“Well, come on! You’re ‘Wolverine,’ he’s ‘Forge,’ and I’m not about to dox myself for some stranger.”“Suit yourself,” I say with a shrug, as I carefully step over a tripline and point it out to her.
“Let’s see, what’s a good call sign for a rookie…”“Ooh, I’ve got one!” she says.
“How about ’Shadow Cat?’”I raise an eyebrow.
“It’s totally cool, right?” she says, clearly proud of herself.
I chuckle.
“Yeah, it’s not half bad, actually. Just one problem.”“What’s that?”“You’re a rookie,” I say, grunting as I sidle through a tight squeeze between a rusted-out Cadillac and a pile of old Maytags.
“Rookies don’t get cool code names. Once we complete the mission, get you safely to Xavier, then you can be Shadow Cat. Until then…”I sniff the air, and amid the dust and dirt and old motor oil residue, I still smell that fake-coconut lotion that I told her to stop wearing.
”Until then, you’re Coconut,” I decide, and grin as I see that the name annoys her.
Eventually, we reach what appears to be a dead end. There’s a small clearing with a pile of TVs,surrounded by garbage heaps reaching up a good ten to fifteen feet in all directions. For a second, I think I’ve taken a wrong turn, when I see one of the screens flicker to life.
It’s just snow and static, but after a few seconds of hiss, I hear a voice.
”You really shouldn’t have come here, Wolverine,” says the thin, raspy voice of an old man.
”Wouldn’t have, if I had a choice,” I say back.
“Got pulled into a job, need passage into the States, and you’re the best bet on getting us there.”There’s a pause, then Forge speaks again.
”Who’s the girl?”Kitty crosses her arms.
“Just call me Coconut,” she says, giving me a hard glare.
Another long pause.
“Were you followed?” Forge asks.
I shake my head.
“There’s heat on us, but we don’t have an immediate tail. The quicker we get this done, the less time we spend here, the easier it’ll be to say you never saw us.”There’s another long pause, then the pile of TVs begins to rumble and slide to one side. Underneath, there’s a hatch about the size of a manhole, which slides open and reveals a ladder.
“Come on in,” he says,
“Let’s not waste time.”
”Okay, really, why a bow and arrow?” Floyd Lawton asked Clint Barton over the roar of the C-130’s propellers.
“You do realize that guns exist, right?”“Versatility,” Barton answered with a shrug,
“I can do stuff with a bow that you can’t do with a gun.”“Yeah?” Lawton sneered,
“Like what?”“Arc a shot over obstacles, bounce it off walls, load it up with speciality ammunition,” Barton answered,
“Oh, and I can shoot my bow without needing ear protection and alerting everyone within a half-mile radius that I’m there.”“Pfft,” Lawton scoffed,
“Give me a high-powered rifle, and I’ll shoot through your walls and obstacles, and drop anyone who hears the first shot so they can’t get off a warning.”“And if we want to take someone alive?” Barton asked,
“You know, the whole point of this mission?”It was Lawton’s turn to shrug.
“Bean bag rounds.”“Uh-huh. And that’s going to help you take down the Wolverine and grab the intangible girl?”“Got better odds than using a weapon from the damn Stone Age.”“Oh, I’ve got some surprises,” Barton grinned.
“Last I checked, arrows and bullets don’t travel at the speed of light,” said Buchinski.
“Technically, electricity only travels around 80% of the speed of light,” said Jenkins,
“and that’s through a good conductor. Lasers, on the other hand…””KING SHARK IS A SHARK.”“Enough measuring dicks,” Colonel Flag cut in.
“Intel has just given us a location. Beetle, you’ll do a flyby and provide recon when we’ve reached the site, backed up by Fixer’s drones. Once we have the target sited, Team A will engage with Wolverine. Incapacitate if possible, otherwise just stay alive long enough for Team B to advance on the primary objective. Team C will stay in reserve and go where the mission deems necessary.”Everyone’s stomachs shifted as the plane banked towards its new destination.
“ETA thirty minutes,” Flag said as he walked towards the large crates in the plane’s cargo bay.
“Time to gear up.” 
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