Humanitarian Causes
By Hunter

Twenty minutes earlier, the Captain had announced that all personnel in this bunker were to undress, and prepare for a medical examination by the base’s medical officers. It was a compulsory exam; routine after the number of problems this particular army regiment had been suffering through. Among the ranks, some men whispered of chemical warfare exposure. One man had refused to undress citing his religious beliefs. The Captain declared that religion had no place in the army. He ordered the men under his command to pin the solider and forcefully strip him down. Moments later, thirty soldiers, the medical officers, and the Captain himself, stared in undisguised horror and disgust at the stripped solider. He stared back at them from the corner, and the tail, which, until now, he had managed to hide, thrashed against the walls.

Somewhere in the Midwestern United States.

Logan warily watched the crowd from the corner of his eye. Keeping his rifle in plain view, he slowly patrolled the fringes of the throng. A thin trickle of sweat rolled lazily down his spine. The heat of the night swirled lazily in the over crowded barn. The few women present were rapidly waving fans. It wasn’t doing much good, other than adding their body heat to the furnace. On a hastily erected stage, a well-built, blond man paced up and down speaking to the gathered men and women. As the crowd grew more excited with every hard comment or question he directed down to them, they punctured the air with their upraised fists.

“Sheep,” Logan muttered under his breath. He nodded cordially to a guard he had just walked past. A reassuring mental touch calmed him slightly.

“Hey, Jeannie, what’s taking so long? You wouldn’t believe what these guys smell like!”

As if fate intervened to prove Logan’s point, a large over weight man suddenly threw up both his arms and sprinkled Logan with small droplets of sweat from his shaggy hair.

“Goddamn! Sonofa…!”

Jean laughed lightly inside Logan’s mind. “Almost ready. Just waiting for Storm to confirm position.” Logan smelt the air; anger, rage, excitement, a tinge of fear. And lots of failed deodorant.

“Getta move on it, will ya’, Red! I don’t know how much longer I can take this shit,” he added in disgust.