American comics: I am full of martial virtues and I love to be kind to others.

Several white-fronted grebes were startled and flew out from the bushes beside the runway, flapping their wings and flying towards the lagoon, leaving a series of tiny ripples on the blue-green water.

The Blackbird was parked at the north end of the runway, its engines already running, the hot air from the thrust vectoring nozzles baking a ring of blackened gas on the concrete below. The hatch under the fuselage was open, and the boarding stairs were down.

Sikorsky was at the south end of the runway, its rotors running at full speed, the downwash blowing sand and grass within a 20-meter radius into the air.

“Thirty miles. Seven minutes.” For the first time, there was a clear sense of urgency in Jane’s voice.

"Blackbird, go first!" Lynn shouted, his voice almost drowned out by the roar of the engines. "Scott, Blackbird, take off! Fly straight back to Westchester! Don't wait for us!"

Scott leaned out of the cockpit window. "And you guys?"

"We're going in a Sikorsky! McFly! Destination: Honolulu! We'll meet you there!"

"Is Sikorsky's range sufficient to reach Honolulu?"

Mike's voice came from the helicopter at the south end—he had already completed all the pre-flight checks in the pilot's seat. "Enough! The S-76's maximum range is about 400 nautical miles, 1100 nautical miles from Midway to Honolulu—not enough. But if we fly to Kure Atoll first—another atoll about 50 nautical miles northwest of Midway—there's an unmanned oceanographic observation station there that should have emergency fuel. After refueling, we can fly to Lisiansky Island—another 100 nautical miles—there's an abandoned naval facility there that might also have fuel—"

“Too many assumptions!” Pedro’s voice was almost a shout.

Do you have a better solution?

"Twenty miles. Five minutes."

"Get on the computers! Everyone, get on the computers! Now!"

Lynn was the last to step onto the Blackbird's boarding stairs. He glanced back at Midway Atoll—the white sand beach, the gray buildings, the last wisp of smoke rising from the communications facilities destroyed by lightning, and the puddles on the runway washed out by the torrential rain, which looked like shattered mirrors in the sunlight.

Then he glanced southeast.

Several tiny black dots appeared on the horizon.

It is growing at an extremely rapid rate.

"take off!"

He strode into the cabin. The hydraulic creak of the boarding stairs retracting and the screech of the cabin door closing occurred almost simultaneously.

The Blackbird's engines abruptly shifted from a low hum to a high-pitched, teeth-grinding shriek—the thrust vectoring nozzles spun vertically downwards, exploding into a cloud of white steam on the runway. The plane sprang up from the ground like a slingshot, climbing to two hundred feet in three seconds. Then the engine thrust shifted from vertical to horizontal—the acceleration felt like a giant hand shoving everyone into their seats.

Through the observation window on the bulkhead, Lynn saw that the Sikorsky at the south end of the runway had also taken off—Mike's takeoff maneuver was swift and clean. The helicopter completed a 90-degree yaw turn at a height of ten feet above the ground, then lowered its nose and flew at full speed toward the northwest.

The Blackbird broke the sound barrier in five seconds. The sonic boom created a white shockwave cone on the sea behind them, like a splash of water that blooms and disappears in an instant. The plane pierced the sky at an angle of nearly forty-five degrees, and Midway Island shrank below at a dizzying speed—from an island to a white arc, from an arc to a gray dot, and finally disappeared into the vast, unfathomably blue Pacific Ocean.

Lynn leaned back in his seat, his chest heaving violently. The pressure of the acceleration made his temples throb, the buckles of his bulletproof vest digging painfully into his ribs, and the old injury in his left shoulder, aggravated by the run, was now sending out pain signals in a dull and continuous rhythm.

But he was alive. They were all alive. The thirty-seven subjects huddled together quietly in the cabin behind him—some were crying, some were trembling, and some were just staring blankly at the rivets on the bulkhead. The twelve-year-old boy named Noah sat in the seat closest to Lynn, his golden curly hair damp with sweat, and the damn metal monitoring ring on his wrist was still flashing red.

Lynn reached out and gently pressed the metal ring.

"We'll remove this for you when we get there."

Noah looked at him without saying a word, but his hands stopped trembling.

At the other end of the cabin, Jane leaned back in her seat with her eyes closed, her face almost translucent with paleness—today's telepathic load had far exceeded her normal tolerance. Scott was in the cockpit, his left hand firmly gripping the control stick, his right hand on the throttle—the hole in his left shoulder from the prism beam still emitted a faint smell of burning, but his posture remained unwavering.

Ororo sat in the folding seat beside the cabin door. Her white hair had returned to its normal state, no longer floating or sparkling, but lying neatly against her forehead and ears. Her amber eyes had also returned to their normal pupils—the dark irises glowing warmly in the cabin's dim light. She glanced at Lynn.

"You're worried about Mike and the others." That wasn't a question, it was a statement.

"The Sikorsky range isn't long enough to fly directly to Honolulu. Mike said we need to hop on islands to refuel. Whether there's any fuel on those intermediate atolls is unknown."

"Was Pedro in that helicopter?"

"Pedro, Jason, Diana, plus fourteen adult subjects and two younger subjects."

Ororo was silent for a few seconds. Then she turned her head and closed her eyes—not to rest, but in a unique state of communication with some force in nature.

“The airflow over Kure Atoll is moving northwest,” she said softly. “I’ve redirected it—it’s become a steady east-northwest tailwind. This will save Mike’s helicopter about fifteen percent of its fuel.”

"You can change the direction of air currents a thousand miles away from an altitude of 60,000 feet."

"It's not about changing things. It's about asking. The wind doesn't like being forced—but if you ask politely enough, it will usually help."

Lynn looked at her, opened his mouth, then decided not to ask any more questions about the laws of physics. He glanced down at his wrist.

A woven bracelet of red, blue, and white threads lay quietly wrapped around his wrist under the blue emergency lights of the cabin. A small section of the red thread was worn down—perhaps from being scraped while crossing the barbed wire fence—but it wasn't broken. The three colors remained tightly intertwined, like three melodic lines of different parts intertwining and supporting each other in the same song.

Logan walked out from the depths of the cabin and plopped down on the floor opposite Lynn. His combat suit was covered in mud and rainwater, but there was still no blood. He took out the cigar he hadn't lit from his pocket, took a few bites, and then spoke in an unexpected, almost contemplative tone.

"In the last building, a little girl asked me if I was a superhero."

"What did you say?"

“I said no. I said I was just someone who opened doors for others.” Logan moved his cigar from the left side of his mouth to the right. “She said then you must be a superhero, because only superheroes open doors for others.”

He didn't say anything more. But at the corners of his mouth—on that scarred and stubble-covered face that never seemed to show any tenderness—there was a barely perceptible curve that curved upwards at a tiny angle.

The blackbird flew eastward at Mach 3 in the stratosphere at 60,000 feet. Below them stretched an endless expanse of deep blue Pacific Ocean, occasionally punctuated by a fleeting white wave that traced a ephemeral arc across its surface. The sun slowly sank in the western sky behind them, painting the stratospheric boundary a thin layer of orange-red—from this altitude, sunset wasn't a process of a dot disappearing below the horizon, but rather the entire horizon burning simultaneously, as if the edge of the earth were inlaid with a ring of molten copper.

The Blackbird landed in the underground hangar in Westchester at 9:11 p.m. Eastern Time.

The hangar lights flooded in the instant the hatch opened, their uniform, shadowless, cool white illumination creating a dizzying contrast with the dark blue-black sky of the stratosphere above the Pacific Ocean. Lynn's knees buckled slightly as his feet touched the concrete floor—not from injury, but from his body finally paying a long-overdue fatigue tax after the adrenaline had subsided.

Xavier was already waiting in the hangar.

His wheelchair was parked outside the safety line of the Blackbird landing area, next to a man Lynn had never seen before—a tall, blue-skinned man wearing a white lab coat, with gold-rimmed round glasses perched on a broad nose that didn't quite fit human facial structure. His fingers had an extra joint, his nails were neatly trimmed, and he held a medical writing pad in his hand.

“Dr. Hank McCoy.” Xavier tilted his head slightly towards the blue-clad man, giving a brief introduction. “He’s in charge of the subsequent medical assessments and placement.”

Hank nodded to Lynn. His movement carried the restrained elegance characteristic of a large feline—the range of motion in every joint was precisely controlled within a range that would not appear threatening. "Detective Carter. Good job."

"PhD."

The subjects filed out of the Blackbird's cabin. Some needed assistance—a fourteen-year-old boy's legs were so weak he could barely stand, and Logan lifted him off like a delicate instrument being unloaded at the dock, placing him on a waiting medical gurney. Others emerged on their own, but their steps were slow and hesitant, as if they had just woken from a long nightmare, unsure if the ground beneath their feet was real.

Hank immediately began the initial triage with three assistants dressed in white protective suits—two humans and a young female mutant with translucent skin. His movements were quick and gentle; his large blue hands lingered lightly on the wrists and foreheads of each subject for a few seconds, while biosensors on his fingers, glowing faintly, read basic vital signs.

“Seven have varying degrees of malnutrition. Three have untreated skin infections. One has a suspected poorly healed fracture—the seventh rib on the right side.” Hank scribbled rapidly on his whiteboard while simultaneously issuing brief instructions to his assistants. “Prioritize blood tests and full medical examinations. Everyone to the isolation observation area in the medical wing, individual rooms, no grouping—they need personal space to regain a sense of security.”

Xavier's gaze lingered on each young face that stepped out of the cabin for a second or two. His expression didn't change noticeably, but Lynn noticed that his right hand was gripping the wheelchair armrest tightly, the skin on his knuckles taut and white.

“Noah,” Xavier suddenly whispered a name.

The twelve-year-old blond boy with curly hair—the one with the metal monitoring ring on his wrist—was being led by Hank's assistant toward the medical wing. Hearing Xavier's voice, he stopped and turned around.

Do you know my name?

“I know a lot about you, Noah.” Xavier moved his wheelchair a few steps closer to him. “I know you enjoy stamp collecting and assembling model airplanes. I know that when you lived in Tucson, your father would take you to the Sonora Desert every weekend to see the cacti bloom.”

Noah's lips trembled slightly.

“This will be your home—if you want. No one will force you to do anything, no one will put iron bars on your door, no one will put this thing on your wrist.” Xavier glanced at the metal ring. “Hank, take that off him.”

Hank walked over, and with a gentle twist of his blue fingers at the seam of the metal ring—the metal made a crisp sound, and the monitoring ring slipped off Noah's wrist, rolled twice on the ground, and the red indicator light flashed one last time before going out.

Noah looked down at his pale wrist. The metal ring left a dark red mark, making his skin rough and dry in that spot. He touched the mark with the fingers of his other hand, his mouth opening and closing, but no sound came out.

Then he walked toward the medical wing.

Lynn watched his figure disappear around the corner of the corridor.

"Any news from Mike?" he asked, turning to Xavier.

"A short message came through our backup satellite band fifteen minutes ago. They have completed their first refueling at Kure Atoll—the marine observation station has a 500-gallon emergency diesel tank, enough for the S-76s to run the next leg. They are heading towards Lysianski Island. All are safe."

Lynn closed her eyes briefly. "Okay."

“You need to rest.” Xavier’s tone left no room for negotiation. “We’ll deal with the follow-up matters tomorrow morning—identity verification, legal procedures, and the remaining data on that USB drive. Your only task tonight is to sleep.”

"I--"

“This is not advice, Detective Carter. Your body hasn’t had a proper rest for over sixty hours. If you don’t get at least six hours of deep sleep in the next twelve hours, your judgment will drop to a level that threatens both you and your mission.” Xavier’s voice was gentle but firm. “I’m a telepath. I don’t need to scan your brain to see how congested the blood vessels in your eyes are.” (End of Chapter)