Author's Notes: This story is part of a fan-fic compilation by BelaLeBeau. The complete story archive, simply called "Ordinary," can be found at www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/Bayou/8406/ordinary/ordinary.html.  The premise behind the compilation goes like this:
"What if the heroes and villians of the X-Men's world were no more than ordinary people?  What if there was no such thing as Genosha or the Astral Plane, and shapeshifting and telekenesis were mere figments of the imagination?  Where would Xavier's followers and foes be, without the Professor's School for Gifted Youngsters?  Perhaps their lives would be something like this..."
Here is Lorna's story.  Remember, no Polaris, no Mistress of Magnetism.

Most men would consider her gorgeous, but right now she would've traded her looks for invisibility.  The young brunette in the black jumpsuit was running down the long hallway lit by evenly spaced flourescent lights.  "So far, so good," she thought.  No one had spotted her.  "If I get out of this one alive, I'm done.  This is the last one," she muttered breathlessly.

There were no tell-tale markings on the wall or even on the few doors that she passed, but that didn't matter.  She'd memorized the map, and knew to make a left here, down the cross-hallway she had come to.  Then she began counting doors. 1...2...3...4...5...here it is.  She spoke softly into the small headset that fit snugly but comfortably around her head.  "Matt?  Lorna.  I'm going in."

She pulled a small, thin card from her utility belt, and inserted it into the electronic lock.  Lorna stood back and shielded her eyes as the lock's numeric keypad almost immediately erupted into a shower of angry sparks.

She kicked the door open to reveal three stunned lab technicians.
"Nighty-night," was all she said as she took a small, black metal sphere off her belt, pulled the pin, and tossed it into the center of the room.  After a flash of blinding light and a mushrooming plume of billowing white smoke, the technicians coughed briefly, then slumped to the floor.

The clock was ticking...she had to hurry.  She rushed over to the technician that had stood nearest the lab hood, and checked his pulse...strong.  Then she pulled the identification badge off the front of his lab coat and stuffed it into a pocket on her belt.

Under the lab hood, there was a large chunk of silvery-white metal.  Lorna recognized it immediately as element number 77 --- Iridium.  She smiled and knew she'd found their prize.

She had been bored with geology.  It was getting her nowhere.
Crystals, minerals, dirt, and rocks.  Oh, God, lots of rocks.
Limestone, basalt, and granite.  Who cares?  There had to be something
else in this world for her.  Deep within her soul, there was a yearning,
almost a passion, to be something else.  Something more.  All this
knowledge, all this power, untapped.

With a gloved hand, she picked up the chunk of iridium.  As she recalled that iridium was one of the few metals with no magnetic properties, a strange sense of deja vu washed over her.  She shook it off quickly, however, reminding herself that she needed to focus.

Lorna was just able to carry the chunk of iridium in her hand.  Although her grip would have been better without the gloves, the salt on her skin would corrode the metal.  It was a little larger than she thought it would be, and wouldn't fit into her utility belt pocket.  She had to be careful.

"Matt, I've got it."

"Everything's clear here, Lorna," he responded calmly.
 

She'd met Matt a year and a half ago.  At first he'd seemed like an
ordinary guy.  Sure, he was good looking and all, but otherwise pretty
unremarkable.  A real mommas-boy.  Or so she had thought.  What she
hadn't realized was that Matt saw her untapped potential as well.  So
slowly, once he was sure she could handle it, he brought her into the
fold.  A new world that offered promise of adventure and money.  Lorna
leaped at the opportunity he gave her.  Her life hadn't been the same
since.  And she'd rewarded him for it, body and soul.

She ran for the door she had come in and peeked out into the long hallway that seemed to stretch forever.  After checking both directions, she saw no one.  She headed left and began running again, keeping the iridium tightly in her grip.
 
Just as she was about to head right down another cross-hallway, two guards caught sight of her.
"Stop!  Don't move," their voices echoed down the hall.  Lorna stopped, and turned to face her pursuers.  Before they could get any closer, she pulled a second, slightly larger object off her belt, yanked the pin, and hurled it down the hall toward the
guards.  An ear-splitting BANG shook the floor and walls as an explosion filled the hall with thick, grey smoke separating her from the guards.  She took advantage of the precious seconds to resume her escape.
 

Now they were a team.  Over the past year, they'd pulled off several
small, successful heists.  It was more than enough to give them a
comfortable lifestyle.
 

It was exactly as they had practiced so many times before.  Matt made sure Lorna had the whole plan down cold before even making a final decision as to when this was going to go down.  But despite the hours of practice, she began to get a little disoriented.  A couple times she thought she'd made a wrong turn.  Even more disconcerting was the likelihood that her stun grenades had alerted others.  She tried not to psyche herself out, though.  She knew the more she did that, the more disoriented she'd get.  So she let instinct take over.

Now once again, she became sure of where she was going.
"God these halls stretch forever...Just two more turns to go.  Another 50 meters...25..."
 

Her appetite for adventure had begun to wane over the past few months.
It was probably because she had just come too close on several
occasions.  An irregularly shaped scar on her left thigh was a constant
reminder that she was living on borrowed time.  This was to be their
last mission.
 

Now, finally, Lorna burst forth from an employees-only access door that she'd opened using the access card she'd stolen from the techie.  She was still sprinting, but home-free.  She ran toward the car, where Matt was ready, and had the engine revving.
 

This was to be their last mission.  About 4 months ago, some "creative"
research had revealed that a large chunk of iridium had been found in a
meteorite that had landed in the New Mexico desert.  A company named
Geotek had paid the landowners an absurd amount of money for the rare
find.  This was all public knowledge.  What most of the world hadn't
learned was that the iridium contained small traces—imprints—of
circuitry that was not of Earth origin.

The Geotek scientists had been instructed in no uncertain terms to keep
their mouths shut for the time being.  Until something could be
confirmed, until the implications could be weighed.  And until all the
avenues for profit could be explored.  The last thing they'd need was to
have some government operative taking the find of the century.

Matt and Lorna had the fortune to meet up with one of the Geotek
scientists at a party.  He was a talkative fellow, who had met the
couple awhile back.  "Matt, you're a lucky guy," he'd told him.

"You'd never believe the project we've been working on lately," he'd
told them, with the excitement of a child.

Nonchalantly, they made an attempt to work the details out of him.
"We've got quite a little project ourselves.  We'll trade.  What's your
story?"

Although he trusted them, he knew better than to leak the project.  He
was under strict orders, and the punishment would be severe if he did.

Matt and Lorna weren't about to give up so easily.  A furtive glance
between them, and she knew what to do.  Matt took his leave of them,
with a feeble excuse about finding a long-lost colleague that had just
walked in.

"Let me get you a drink, Dr. Sanders."  Sanders was so enthralled with
Lorna that he hadn't even noticed Matt never even approached his
"friend."

After a few more drinks, lots of flirting, and some whispered promises
that she had no intentions of keeping, they had some incredibly valuable
information.  It was worth the price of the permanent vacation they had
wanted.
 

"We're rich, honey!  We're rich," she yelled into the headset.  Thoughts of warm tropical breezes on some remote island in the south Pacific wafted through her mind.
        "FREEZE!"  The large behemoth of a man called out in a voice that boomed like a Mack truck.  Lorna's shock and distraction threw her graceful rhythm off balance.  She found herself tumbling to the ground.  The instant seemed to stretch forever as she saw the chunk of iridium slip from her grasp.
        As Lorna hit pavement, the last thing she remembered was the heavy footsteps of the guard, the sound of car tires peeling out, and the static on the headset.  The chunk of iridium lay shattered in a million pieces, scattered across the asphalt.
 

REFLECTIONS

The Lorna Dane of this universe has a lot in common with her Marvel
counterpart.  It was Malice who told us about Lorna's yearning to be
something more, to be someone else.  We may never know just how much of
Lorna's dark side was showing when Malice possessed her.  In this
strange symbiotic relationship, Lorna and Malice both insist that the
other was the one in control.  Eventually the two working in concert
became a gestalt, by their own admission.

This story supposes what Malice had said was true. Lorna is always
striving to be just a normal person, and has gone to great lengths to
avoid being an X-Man in the past.  Perhaps if Lorna were to lead the
normal life she's always wanted, it might not  turn out so well.  No
magnetic powers.  No magnetic properties.  Then, like the iridium, her
dreams might lie shattered across the asphalt.

Thanks to Bela, Dave, Elise, and Maureen for their encouragement and
ideas.