Chapter 20: The Howl in the Blood Blood
The fishing lodge on Lac Perdu was rustic, isolated, and exactly what Elias needed: a quiet place to think and coordinate. Mac MacReady, after being well-paid for the day's "survey" and promised a generous bonus for a potential follow-up flight (a flight Elias had no intention of taking with him), settled in with a bottle of rye and stories of past piloting exploits, leaving Elias and Anya to their "archival work."
In the privacy of their modest shared cabin – two rooms separated by a thin wall – Elias reviewed Anya's sketches and debriefed her thoroughly. Her depiction of the fleeting movement near the fissure was chillingly evocative: a low, powerful silhouette, more animal than human, disappearing with unnatural speed. The rendering of the three parallel metallic glints was sharp, almost photographic.
"You're certain about the claws, Anya?" Elias pressed, his voice low.
"As certain as I am of the mountains themselves, Mr. Thorne," she replied, her gaze unwavering. "Three distinct, metallic points of light, moving in unison. They reflected the sun like polished steel. It was no animal I know." Her Archer calm was absolute, but Elias could see the lingering awe, perhaps a touch of fear, in the depths of her hazel eyes. This was beyond anything she'd encountered in the urban sprawl of Montreal.
Elias activated a small, pre-arranged signaling device – a compact shortwave radio transmitter with a coded burst function, its range boosted by a surprisingly effective antenna he'd discreetly had installed on the lodge's roof under the guise of improving reception for his "business calls." The signal was directed towards Thomas MacIntyre and Joseph Tomah, who were waiting patiently at a pre-booked hunting camp a day's journey south, near a rail line. The coded message was simple: "Target acquired. Proceed to rendezvous point. Await further instructions."
Now came the crucial decision: how to approach James Howlett, the Wolverine? The System's warning – "SUBJECT IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS" – was not to be taken lightly. Charging in, even with a Barbarian-enhanced Thomas, was suicidal if Wolverine possessed the kind of regenerative abilities and combat prowess legend ascribed to him. And then there was the matter of the "Exotic Energy Fluctuations" the System had detected. What did that entail?
Elias considered his options for empowerment. Giving Wolverine more power via a Barbarian or Archer upgrade seemed... redundant, perhaps even catastrophically so, if the man was already a powerhouse. The true prize was mirroring Wolverine's innate abilities – the healing factor, the claws (if they were indeed a biological trait or something grafted to him), his senses, his raw resilience.
"The System states," Elias mused aloud, speaking more to himself than Anya, though her presence helped him focus his thoughts, "that with a Prime Conduit, I gain their full power regardless of loyalty before empowerment. And a mirrored version of any innate abilities."
He looked at the available empowerments again: Barbarian, Archer, Goblin, and the custom Cognitive Archer variant he'd given Finch. What if he tried to grant Wolverine something minimal? Something almost symbolic, just enough to trigger the System's Prime Conduit protocol? Could he empower him with a "Goblin Lv. 0.1," essentially giving him a microscopic boost to his ability to find loose change, just to tick the System's box?