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face away from him. “What makes you say that?”
    “Because it’s always a woman. Always. What’d she do to you? Cheat on you? Dump you?”
    “She died,” Logan said quietly. “Five years ago. Today.”
    “Man, I’m sorry to hear that. What happened, if you don’t mind my asking.”
    “Rather not say. Trust me, ya wouldn’t believe me anyway. See ya later, Clancy.”
    “Yeah. Yeah, okay. And Logan…good luck getting drunk or picking a fight.”
    “Don’t worry ’bout that,” said Logan. “I’m a pretty resourceful guy. I’m sure I’ll find a way to pull off one or the other.”
    And with that, he walked out and let the door slam shut behind him.

36  

FOUR

    EMMA Frost had warned that violence at the school would not be tolerated in any form. That caution was still ringing in the air when the Sentinel attacked.
    There had been no warning whatsoever. One moment Emma had been finishing her speech, and the next the entire ceiling of the room was being torn away. The sun’s rays filtered through in a haze of red, but no one paid any attention because they were busy dodging the debris that was tumbling from the ceiling.
    Many of them had, at some point or other, seen the mutant-hunting Sentinels on television. But that hadn’t really conveyed just how big the damned things truly were. This particular Sentinel was gargantuan, and seemed even bigger to the terrified students. The blue-and-purple robot was twenty feet tall, yet some would later swear that it was bigger than the Washington Monument.
    And there was another one behind the first one, looking down with its expressionless face and perpetually glowing yellow eyes.
    A handful of the students actually responded in a manner that was 37 appropriate to beings of their nature and power. One young boy left the ground, flying as quickly as he could between the bits of falling debris. Another student, an Asian girl with a look that was both frightened and determined, created a force field that conformed to the shape of her body, as if it were some manner of energized armor.
    The vast majority, however, scrambled to get out of the way of the oncoming threat. “Mutants targeted,” rumbled the nearer Sentinel, and several of the students were knocked off their feet and nearly trampled in the rush to get away. The Sentinels, they knew, had been created specifically to seek and destroy mutants.
    Scott Summers was on his feet. Memories of his boring speech were immediately banished from the minds of the students as he snapped open his visor and they beheld Cyclops in action. A red beam of energy lashed out, blasting into the nearest of the Sentinels, staggering the gigantic robot but not stopping him. Hank McCoy was yanking clear his necktie, all semblance of the erudite and urbane individual from minutes earlier gone and replaced by a snarling creature that truly fit the name “Beast.”
    Kitty Pryde backed up, phasing right through her chair. Her power gave her limited offensive capabilities, but she was studying the oncoming robot carefully, looking for some sort of weakness, some opportunity she could seize to fight back against the unwanted intruder.
    And as people screamed and energy blasts ripped through the air and the Beast unleashed a defiant roar, and as the students were nearly killing each other just to get clear of the terrifying, towering robot that was coming right at them…
    …Emma calmly touched a device sitting atop her podium.
    38 Just like that, the Sentinels faded away. The debris likewise disappeared and the ceiling fixed itself, the hole vanishing to be replaced by a flat sheet of metal.
    It was difficult for the students to process the idea that they were no longer under attack. Their collective pulse was still extremely high. One of them leaned against the wall, dramatically clutching at his chest. (He would later be found to be suffering from heartburn.)
    Finally, all eyes turned to Emma, who was standing precisely where she had