Alliances Old, Alliances New

by Dark Mirage1

An alternate universe story in which Mason Eckhart acquires some surprising allies...

2007 Alliances Old, Alliances New126

2007

"Adam did it again, Jesse. He did that weird thing of kissing me on the top of my head. He doesn't do that to Shalimar."

Emma was seated by the Meditation Pool, speaking softly and assuming a pose of deep relaxation, but she was angered and annoyed.

Jesse sat down on the floor across from her.

"What brought it on this time?"

"He insisted upon 'examining' me. He enjoys 'examining' me a lot more than I am comfortable with, but what am I supposed to say to him?" She did not want her emotions easily read by casual observation. "Great, All-Knowing Adam, I question the need for these frequent 'exams' and have the queasy feeling your motivation is other than paternal."

Jesse rolled his eyes. He had doubts about Adam as well. "You could make the telempathic suggestion that you smelled bad, Jesse said, half-jokingly.

"He'd know I was intruding, and then he'd star asking and asking why I would do such a thing. Jesse, sooner or later this is all going to come out and it won't be pretty or pleasant. I can't begin to guess what Adam will say or do when that happens."

"Sounds like you need time away."

"As soon as possible, before I do any damage."

Jesse lightly smacked himself in the forehead. "Ah! I just remembered! I need several boards and some spare parts, and I'll just have to go make the rounds of computer and electronic stores to get exactly what I need! There. That was easy. What's your excuse? Shoes? Can the lovely Emma ever have too many pairs of shoes? He'll believe that."

Emma closed her eyes, feigning deep thought. "No. I think I'll say something a little more serious this time. I have wanted to take classes."

"Adam and Brennan are gone, making an antacid and Twinkie run. We only have to tell tales to Mother Shalimar." Jesse smiled.

"Won't take me long to pack." Emma sprang to her feet and went bounding off to her room to change clothes and pack.

Minutes later, they awoke Shalimar from a nap, and explained themselves to her.

"Tell Adam I'm going shopping for electronic geek stuff and Emma wanted to check out colleges, so I offered to drive her. We'll be gone a few days."

Shalimar stretched, still not fully awake.

"Just be careful to stay in widely separated places so he doesn't get suspicious. He's forbidden us to have any kind of relationship with one another." Shalimar wasn't smiling. This was no joke, but an inflexible, immutable rule of Adam's

"We'll be careful not to do anything to upset Adam," Emma said. "He has a lot on his mind, and needs nothing more to worry about."

"Drive carefully.' Shalimar yawned. "I'll tell Adam where you've gone. I need to complete this nap." Shalimar's feline genetic material found expression in many ways. On fine summer days, she was found of leaving Sanctuary to take naps in the sun.

Outside, it was early autumn, with many leaves gone to bright colors, with most still on the trees. The days remained warm, but the evenings were chilly.

"Hey, there's another one!" Emma said, pointing to a newly-arrived, half-rusted Camaro in the Sanctuary parking area. "How many of these heaps do you think Brennan's going to drag in here?"

"As many as his allowance and the available space allows," Jesse said, unlocking the trunk of his car. "That's the shabbiest one so far. He probably paid more to have it towed here than he paid for the car."

"Adam would have a fit if he knew about all this steel. There shouldn't be a parking lot out here." Emma giggled softly.

"Oh, Brennan can do no wrong. Just ask Adam. Brennan could bulldoze the trees and turn the property into a rest home for aged and decrepit Camaros, say one hundred fifty or so, and Adam would smile and tell me to park my car somewhere else. Jesse loaded their suitcases into the trunk. "And now, off to the real world."

"My, my, I detect an attitude!" Emma smiled, eyes wide at the vehemence of Jesse's comment.

"Well, it's true, isn't it? I didn't exaggerate much."

"The sad part is that it is true. I don't understand why Brennan is his favorite. He's a lot of trouble."

"That's the key. He is trouble. He requires watching and supervision. If you do your tasks reliably, without fuss, you may as well be invisible. Or nonexistent."

Emma did visit colleges and Jesse did purchase a collection of boards and other electronics. When their day was ended, however, they retreated to an apartment and life they shared about which Adam knew nothing.

Adam had made clear his disapproval of any relationship between them other than as team members. His unwelcome intrusion into their personal lives led Jesse to lease a modest apartment in a bland neighborhood filled with utilitarian apartments and lower middle class homes on tiny lots.

The people who lived here typically did not linger long. Except for some elderly people who had lived in the neighborhood for decades, most residents were transient dwellers on their way to something better, including a large proportion of college students. Still others were on their way down, clinging to what remained of their respectability. In any case, few troubled to get to know one another. Emma and Jesse were able to remain anonymous and unnoticed.

Jesse dedicated one of the two bedrooms to his computers and to the assembly of electronics which he did not share with Adam, devices he used to help keep his hidden life unseen.

Jesse involved himself deeply in the assembly of devices he did not share with Adam. Rather than work on them furtively in Sanctuary, he built them here where he would not be interrupted by the duties of Mutant X. But this left Emma with little to do.

"Jesse, how would you like to take some time away from your work and drive over to what's left of Genomex? I hear any mutant who want to can see Eckhart in a stasis pod."

A handful of mutants still working there made it known that the individuals still remaining in stasis were available for viewing by others like themselves. These were humans known to have worked against mutants. Most infamous of these, the one most mutants came to see and stare at was Mason Eckhart, formerly director of the GSA, and the subject of mutant nightmares.

Their nemesis frozen safely in place, mutants could come and stand over Eckhart and feel superior, as if they were standing above a declawed, defanged beast trapped in a deep pit.

"No, thanks. I saw enough of him walking about and breathing."

"I want to see him frozen in place with my eyes. I won't believe it completely until I see it."

"Well, go ahead, but if you could stop for groceries, that would be useful."

"Will do."

Security was lax. Emma walked in through the front door, asked directions of the receptionist, and followed yellow arrows on the walls to the stasis exhibition area.

The smiling, smirkily insincere portrait of Dr Harrison in the reception area was disturbing, bringing back memories of Emma's dealings with the traitorous botanist. Harrison might run was left of Genomex, but he had no GSA to enforce his wishes.

Shalimar had been present when Eckhart was seized and podded by Gabriel Ashlocke and Dr Harrison. Her description of Mason Eckhart secured in a stasis pod had been accurate and complete but Emma still was unprepared. Unmoving, his eyes open and staring, he looked oddly neither dead nor alive. Emma was struck by how small and unthreatening he appeared.

Surely he must have been larger? Has he somehow shrunk during stasis? Eckhart could walk into a room and menace everyone there with a look, a tilt of the head. He exhaled malevolence. This fellow here just doesn't look threatening.

Eckhart's agents had pursued her through the streets, chasing her like a criminal. When she was finally captured and corralled by the GSA, they herded her into an outdoor pen with about a dozen others. Forcibly implanted with subdermal governors, Emma had not known such humiliation and degradation before or since. What kind of mind was arrogant enough to conceive of penning up people like stray dogs?

Emma circled Eckhart's stasis pod like an animal making certain a predator was dead, and harmless. She sat down on the pod itself, allowing close, careful, thorough scrutiny of the man without the fear engendered during living encounters.

His captors had secured him in the pod with his unvarying black pinstripe suit and black shirt. Emma noted the oddly cut, carefully fitted black leather gloves and for the first time got a good look at the loosely fitted, slightly wrinkled biopolymer partly covered by the gloves, and extending out of sight up into the sleeves. Emma wondered if the shirt had sleeves. The plastic faux skin must have been miserably hot to wear. Like most people, Emma could not imagine a life spent never touching anything or anyone. The unnatural looking white hair was tidily in place. Believed to be a wig, or more likely, many wigs, not was absolutely certain, not even Adam.

With the satisfaction of a cat cornering a mouse, Emma leaned forward and whispered over Eckhart's still form, "Locked away from the world, down in there, you cannot hold me prisoner, control me, or induce pain. You cannot do anything to me, or to anyone."

Emma was startled to hear Eckhart reply inside her head.

Surely you have a purpose for being here other than taunting me, Ms deLauro.

She leaned farther forward on the pod unit, the better to see his face, even though it was locked and frozen in place, and even less revealing of Eckhart than it had been in full life. What's it like to be trapped in the place where you imprisoned so many others?

Here? It's cold. Numbly cold.

Did you enjoy putting people in pods, Eckhart? Is that what you lived for, to lock people away? Did you enjoy it?

No. Not at all. I've had to do a lot of distasteful things. Putting people into pods was one of them.

Emma was no stranger to Eckhart's arrogance, but she wasn't hearing that now. She paused a moment. Had she detected regret in his answer?

But you did it anyway, didn't you? Dozens and dozens of people like me., and dozens of ordinary humans as well. Who gave you the right?

The authority to confine people in stasis came from the parent agency of the GSA. Did you think I was acting on my own? That the GSA was my own private army, acting on my whims? The alternative to stasis was execution. I was in fact criticized for podding instead of killing the most dangerous of mutants, the ones who were insane or out of control. If I was the monster you imagine me to be, I would have pulled the plug on Ashlocke's pod as soon as Adam wasn't here to protect him, and I would not now be in stasis.

Eckhart, if you aren't a monster, what are you?

Someone paying the price for Adam's unwise ambitions and unholy perversion of science. Just as you are paying a price. Adam is amoral. He cares about things which amuse him, or which feed his curiosity. He does not much concern himself with who gets hurt.

Eckhart, talking about the hurt and pain of other people? As stunning as Emma found the notion, her nagging questions about Adam would not go away. She and Jesse discussed them, but could never find answers.

Emma felt vague, queasy disloyalty, but plunged ahead and asked the question anyway.

What about Adam?

Do I discern a flicker of doubt about Adam? A questioning? That is good. There is a lot to question about Adam, and a lot of blank pages that need to be filled. Even I could not find all the answers.

Emma hesitated to continue, but anger and confusion won out over restraint.

I'll tell you what I don't like. I don't like the way Adam uses me like a tool, or the way he sends us into desperate situations while he sits in the safety of Sanctuary giving orders. We risk our lives while he never so much as breaks a sweat.

That is not the way of good generals, Ms deLauro. Something has happened, hasn't it? You'll have to tell me what it is. My news sources are sadly limited at present.

This is crazy, Emma reflected. I am about to confide in Eckhart. Mason Eckhart, inhuman oddity.

We're getting hurt. Adam patches us back together like machines, and does not seem to care about us. We have special abilities, but we heal no faster than anyone else. He pushed us to take chances, to go back before the pain goes away.

Adam cares only for Adam.

And you? How are you better? Making our lives miserable because we're different?

Ms deLauro, the truth is far more complicated than that. It isn't that you're 'different', it's that each mutant carries the potential for the long-term destruction of humanity, with your tendency towards disease and early death. Every human on earth carries at least three or four mutations in their genetic material, and those are naturally occurring changed, not deliberate intrusions by a Breedlove or Adam.

The new mutants have qualities which make them superior to ordinary humans. If mutated DNA spreads unchecked through the population, humanity will suffer slow extinction. All we have ever been, known, made, or done will come to an end. What do you think I've been trying to prevent?

I suppose I never thought much about your motivations. I always thought you hated us for obscure reasons of your own.

No, Ms deLauro. I harbor no special hatred of mutants. My goal was to spare humanity a genetic plague.

Adam calls you a sociopath. He used to know you, so I believe his evaluation. You and Adam were part of the same program, weren't you? How can your hands be clean if Adam's aren't?

My hands. . . are not clean. They are covered with blood. Most of the induced mutations, including your own, were performed years before I joined Genomex. I am not formally trained in the life sciences beyond basic biology. I was in fact brought in when Paul Breedlove realized the program had the potential to get out of control, and that Adam could get out of control as well. I have spent my adult life cleaning up the mess Breedlove and Adam made. So many lives, so much destruction and chaos.

You rounded us up like animals, and penned us in cages. Have you ever been in a cage?

I have lived within the confines of a polymer skin for almost twenty years. The doctors insist I will never break free of that 'cage', so yes, I do know something about being trapped.

That. . . must be difficult. Emma had never considered Eckhart a victim of the Genomex program, but realized for the first time the implications of his condition.

Would you have come along quietly had I issued polite invitations? I think not. With the exception of the emotionally unstable, the plan was never for permanent podding.

No?

Emphatically no. The plan was to make phenotypic, and more importantly, genotypic fixes of individuals, who would then be allowed to return to society with our blessings and good wishes to live lives of ordinary humans.

And if they could not be 'fixed'?

We would offer them sterilization and release, or re-podding in hope of better repair techniques in the future.

That isn't what Adam says.

I do not doubt it. Adam says a good many things. Why would I lie to you now? I'm just this side of life in stasis and in no position to harm or threaten you.

I need to know the truth.

Keep listening, then. Everyone needs to know the truth.

How can I believe you?

Eckhart, never at a loss for words, did not immediately reply, but thought for a moment.

You could 'read' me. Then you would know the truth. There is no way I could deceive you.

I could.

I could, but your mind is not a place I want to go. The prospect is distasteful and more than a little scary.

Ms deLauro, I am podded, I cannot harm you. I command no one here. Are you afraid of what you might discover?

A little.

A lot. The possibility that you are telling me the truth is disturbing. I'm used to thinking that anything you say must be deceptive and manipulative, and is not to be trusted. To learn otherwise is to turn my world around.

Lies are more worthy of your fears.

'Reading' you would not be a precision process. There will be 'leakage', and I will learn things you would not choose to share. You may not like some of the things I will learn about you.

I have less to hide than you imagine. I accept the necessity of an intrusion. Any discomfort I feel from loss of privacy will be more than balanced by your learning the truth about Adam, and taking that truth with you. Possibly this is the only opportunity I will have of telling anyone on 'your side' what I know about the work Breedlove and Adam did. Adam will not tell you. If I am to be frozen here, someone must know the truth.

I'm still surprised you would open yourself to me. You have been known for your concern and guarding of personal details. No one really knows much about you. I must admit, I am suspicious.

For a moment, consider the possibility that nothing is operating here other than the obvious. Ms deLauro, you are the telempath. I am the mere human, defenseless against your kind.

I know.

Please. . . proceed. . . before I reconsider.

Emma closed her eyes, covering them with both hands to eliminate distractions. She concentrated upon forming a firm link with Eckhart, allowing rapid, complete transfer of memories.

These memories were not merely the recollections of the Eckhart Emma knew in the present, but those of a much younger man, little like the formal, cynical Eckhart, but a thoroughly human young man who cared very much about several people and who made no secret of his concern, an ordinary looking young man who had not yet been irreparably damaged and changed into a physical and emotional oddity, a serious and conscientious young man who nevertheless did smile and smile sincerely.

She shuddered as Eckhart's memories of Adam struck with the physical force of a strong wind: people, events, confrontations, all as Eckhart recalled them. Intense, overwhelming emotions, Eckhart's emotions, flooded through Emma's mind, a torrent of feeling and humanity.

Mason Eckhart was the coldest, grimmest individual Emma knew. Re-living his unexpected and forceful emotions stunned and shocked Emma as she acquired the sum of all he knew about Adam and the experiments in genetics. Almost as Eckhart had lived it firsthand, Emma experienced the 'accident' apparently induced by Adam, that left Eckhart more dead than alive, and knew his deep terror when Breedlove explained the implications of his crippled immune system. Adam was interwoven through all of this, and not in the way Adam recounted those days to Emma and the others.

The datastream halted abruptly, inducing a severe and sudden headache. Emma bent over in pain, massaging her forehead as Eckhart's memories unwound and lodged in her mind, settling in to become much like recollections of her own.

Ms deLauro, where are you?

Contact had broken sharply, as if she had bolted and run from the room. Despite his eyes being wide open, Emma had not understood until this moment they were unfocused and unseeing.

She opened her eyes slowly. I'm here. I have not gone anywhere. The memory transfer was painful when it stopped. Give me a moment while my head clears and I can think again.

How could I have been so blind? How could we all have been so blind and foolish?

I had no idea things were that way. I had no idea about Adam.

Hardly anyone is left who knows the whole of the truth. Ms deLauro, do you believe me? I did not mask anything to make myself appear better than I am.

I do believe you. I know about Breedlove's murder now. You knew I'd discover that, along with everything else.

Thank you for believing.

I saw Breedlove's murder through your eyes. I know you ordered it, even if someone else did the killing.

I deny none of it, Ms deLauro. Since you have my memory of the murder, you also must have in mind the motivation. Had Paul Breedlove made his public announcement, paranoia and hysteria would have followed. Anyone displaying unusual talents would have been suspect, and at risk from the ignorant. Just consider the irrationality people have shown over bioengineered tomatoes with a prolonged shelf life and otherwise deficient staple crops modified to produce all essential amino acids. Tomatoes and rice sit passively on your dinner plate. They don't walk and talk like a mutant. I believe a lot of innocent people, mutant and human alike, would have been injured and murdered had I not stopped Paul.

I've been on the receiving end of peoples' irrationality. I agree with you.

I have never claimed saintliness.

I'm overwhelmed by your memories of Adam. Emma paused and massaged her forehead. The memories were still settling into place. There is so much to absorb, so much different from the way Adam tells the tale. I don't like the way he has manipulated all of us by claiming he didn't know what was being done with his research. If anyone is a sociopath, it's Adam. I don't like being deceived.

No one does. Do not be hard on yourself, because Adam can be charming and persuasive. He fooled me for years. Adam is an intelligent man, but he hides elements of the charlatan behind legitimate science and technology.

Emma stood up, and walked deliberately towards the head of the pod, where it linked to a maintenance unit controlling individual requirements. She studied the controls briefly, found most of them arcane and confusing, then found what she was looking for.

She tore off the clear plastic cap over the emergency controls, installed to prevent their accidental use. Without hesitation she touched the upper screen which said, "Emergency de-stasis. Activate ONLY under expected or prolonged power loss."

Ms deLauro, did you just pull the plug on me? Eckhart sounded sad and disappointed. I feel so peculiar. Numb. I don't feel the cold anymore. I don't feel anything.

There aren't any instructions here for a normal de-podding, so I activated emergency de-stasis.

You?

Me. I've listened to Adam and believed him. There was so much he never

told us. Certainly I never knew about Adam and your wife. They both. . . betrayed you. And Adam was your friend.

Once.

I won't tell anyone else. I wasn't meant to know. No one else needs to know.

Thank you.

How do you feel now?

Nothing. Nothing's there. No sense of anyone's presence. Did I damage him bringing him out of stasis? Did I kill him?

Vague panic seeped through Emma's mind. Fifteen minutes ago, I would have been pleased to kill him. Now, I'm horrified at the possibility. This is crazy-making.

Emma rose from the stasis pod, and stood over Eckhart's body, ready to run to avoid discovery if she was sure she had killed him. She watched carefully, absorbed in finding any sign of continuing life. When the plastic pod cover automatically released with an audible click of the lock mechanism disengaging, Emma jumped backward. Realizing what it was, she lifted up the surprisingly thick and heavy cover, and swung it fully open. Eckhart looked inert and still, not dead, but not alive, either.

What have I done? Shouldn't alarms be ringing somewhere now that I've done this? Shouldn't guys in lab coats be here any time, probably including creepy Dr Harrison? Just how sloppy has this place become?

Mason Eckhart's head twitched, his eyes fluttered, then opened and blinked. Then they focused upon Emma.

You look different.

"Can you move?" Emma asked audibly.

I think so.

Slowly, with difficulty and obvious distress, Eckhart drew himself to a seated position.

"Speaking is difficult."

"We have to get out of here. I'll hold you steady." Emma offered him her hand.

Eckhart hesitated for a moment, then extended a gloved hand to hers when he assessed how weak and unsteady he was.

"Where is Ashlocke?" Eckhart asked.

"Fortunately, he's dead."

"What happened to him?"

"His body's own flaws caught up with him. Adam actually tried to save him."

"Adam…has so little sense. Where are we going?"

"A safe place Adam doesn't know about. Jesse's there. You have to talk to him. He's had doubts about Adam longer than I have."

Eckhart struggled to rise on his own, steadying himself with Emma's hand as he nearly fell. His coordination improved slowly as he emerged from the pod, and took each step. By the time they reached an outside door, Eckhart nearly ceased relying upon Emma to steady him.

"The exterior doors are all alarmed. At least, they used to be." Eckhart reached inside his jacket, removed a keycard, and swiped it.

The lock released.

"Someone got sloppy."

They stepped out into the daylight.

"It's autumn." Eckhart was astonished. "I've lost several months."

"You had no idea?"

"None. In stasis, I could think with clarity and focus, but there was no time-sense."

"My car isn't far."

"Good. I don't believe I'll be able to get very far. You were able to drive onto the property?"

"Yeah. Ashlocke released all the mutants from stasis. The remaining. . . humans were put on view for mutants to see."

"Is anyone is charge any longer? Someone should be noticing what you've done."

"Dr Harrison? Does that sound possible?"

"Yes. Malevolent miscreant."

Emma turned towards Eckhart, sensing deep fury directed towards Dr Harrison. There was little to be found in his face.

They reached the car. Eckhart grasped the roofline as Emma unlocked the passenger door.

"He's the one who betrayed you to Ashlocke, isn't he?"

"He is. I should have seen it coming. I blame myself. I'm going down fast, Ms deLauro."

She opened the door, and steadied him as he struggled to enter the car.

"Can I do anything?" Emma asked.

"Just get us away from here."

Eckhart buckled himself in securely, and almost immediately fell asleep, waking sometimes in traffic, and then sleeping once more.

There were two flights of stairs to climb to the apartment. Three-quarters of the ascent behind him, Mason Eckhart stopped and braced himself against the wall. He had hardly spoken during the drive.

Emma halted a step above, turning to him with a questioning look, but saying nothing.

"I'll be fine. I was dizzy for a moment. I am very, very tired." Eckhart sounded exhausted.

Emma smiled. "Well, you haven't eaten for months."

"True."

Emma reached out her hand. "I can help you the rest of the way." She was not sure what she saw in his eyes, but she sensed a welter of emotion unbetrayed in his face. Fear. Fear of her. Extraordinary pride. Self-loathing for what he considered weakness. A deep, overwhelming sense of loss, very personal, very guarded. "Please. Justify taking my hand for practical reasons, if you must. If any of my neighbors pop out into the corridor, they will remember seeing you."

He said nothing, but nodded, grasping her hand, and continuing on up the stairway.

"Jesse will be. . . startled to see you. Jesse will be stunned to see you. It might be best if I did the talking."

"Very sensible."

Reaching the door, Emma removed a key from a coat pocket, and turned it in the lock.

"Just a simple lock?"

"Yes, but electronically, Jesse has shielded the unit from the sensors Adam has. He has also rigged the comlinks to indicate the positions of both of us elsewhere, in different places."

"Why are you hiding from Adam?"

"He has forbidden us to be together."

"Arrogant of him. And not surprising." A fleeting look of distaste crossed Eckhart's face. Emma realized that by watching carefully, she found it possible to read Eckhart.

She opened the door, entering first, sensing through Eckhart's glove a slight tremor, indicating just how taxing ordinary effort was for him.

"Jesse?" She closed the door behind them, throwing the deadbolt with one hand and holding on to Eckhart with the other.

The room was ordinary, the walls bare, the furniture new, cheap, and bland, dominated by beiges and browns.

"Do you need help with the groceries?" Jesse Kilmartin did not look up from the laserprinted pages he held until entering the modest living room. His unguarded smile of greeting for Emma fled at the sight of slightly rumpled Mason Eckhart within the walls of his home, leaning against Emma, not twelve feet away.

Jesse tensed, ready to defend himself and Emma against this man.

Emma spoke softly and calmly. "Jesse. He has not harmed me. He is not a threat to us. I chose to bring him here."

"That's hard to believe." Jesse set the printout on a cheap, plastic-topped end table.

"Mr Kilmartin, as unlikely and outrageous as it sounds, it is true." Eckhart turned to Emma. "May I sit on your sofa?"

"Of course." She steadied him the few steps to the dark brown sofa, where he sat down slowly, in some distress.

Jesse followed every move Eckhart made, searching for a trick or a ruse.

"I think I'm going to have to lie down." Eckhart eased himself onto the coarse fabric cushions. "The contradictory fact about emerging from prolonged stasis is the extreme need for genuine. . . sleep after months in the twilight between death and life. I intend no harm to either of you. I may, in fact, be able to help you both."

His eyes closed. A shudder coursed through the length of Eckhart's body, and with that, he lapsed into a deep and profound sleep.

Emma turned to Jesse, speaking just above a whisper. "I know how this looks, but everything is fine. He did not do anything to me."

Jesse came to stand beside Emma, kissing her softly on the forehead. "Emma, that is Mason Eckhart, isn't it?"

She nodded. "I broke him out of stasis myself. I believe what he says. I want you to listen to him later. You have to listen to him."

Jesse shook his head, and pointed to Eckhart's immobile form. "I'm more than a little uncomfortable being in the same building with Eckhart. Having him napping in my living room makes me want to bolt and run far away. Or kill him while I can."

Emma shook her head. "I 'read' him, Jesse. There are things he knows that you need to know."

"You've been inside his head? He allowed you to 'read' him?" Jesse asked.

"He invited me. We have a lot to re-think. Your misgivings about Adam are justified. More than justified. There is so much about Adam that isn't very good. He has lied to us. He has misrepresented himself."

"But Emma, no matter what Adam has done, that is Eckhart. He sent his creeps after you. He podded up many of our friends. He is not a nice man."

"He doesn't claim to be. Listen to him when he wakes up. This is a complicated story. Once you sort it out, things are different than what we've been told."

Jesse sighed. "Black is white, and white is black, and the answer is through the looking-glass?"

"Something like that. Something that different. I know I cannot go on with what I used to believe was real."

"More pragmatically, what are we going to do with Eckhart?"

"For now, we're going to let him sleep. He could not stay awake in the car, and I had to help him up the stairs." Emma turned and removed an afghan from the back of a chair, and gently draped it over Eckhart's sleeping form, now drawn up into a nearly fetal position. Then she carefully removed his glasses, setting them safely aside.

Jesse watched in disbelief, hands on his hips, shaking his head. Emma turned to face him, saw his bewildered expression, smiled, and nodded towards the hallway.

"Let's take this discussion to your study," she said.

"I'm not comfortable turning my back on this man, not after everything he's done. Can you blame me?"

"Come on, Jesse."

He followed her into the smaller of the two bedrooms. Nearly all the space was taken up with computers and other electronic gear. There was only one office chair, so they sat together on the floor.

"If I had not seen you with Eckhart just now, I would not believe it. Kindness and concern for Eckhart? He deserves another kind of treatment from people like you and me."

"I understand, Jesse, really, I do. When you've heard him out, you won't think I'm so crazy."

"I'm afraid he's using you somehow. He's capable of doing anything."

"Not this time. That's very hard to do with someone like me. I generally affect other people."

"I know. But coming from my kind of family, I knew all sorts of brilliant, ruthless, manipulative men --and a few women-- who allowed very little to stand in the way of their ambitions. From what I've seen of Eckhart, he belongs in the front rank of such men, except that they dealt in money and property, and Eckhart deals in people and lives. Most of these guys cared about something besides themselves--a son, a daughter, a dog, a racehorse. Eckhart's the coldest man I've seen. He doesn't seem human. Watching you in the living room just now was spooky."

Emma sighed. "The act of 'reading' someone else's memories is not like transferring specific data files. It's sloppy. Eckhart allowed me to know his memories of Adam, but he also shared personal memories involving Adam, painful memories. He wasn't always like this, and he never wanted to be the way he is now. I promised him I'd tell no one his personal memories, and I won't, but Eckhart's had his heart sliced out and stomped on. He's lost so much. Jesse, I feel sorry for him. He's pitiful." Tears welled in her eyes as she re-lived Eckhart's memories.

"You're sure he isn't lying somehow? Fooling you is next to impossible, but this is Eckhart."

"Certain."

"This really got to you, didn't it?"

"Emma nodded. "He used to be somebody else. He was never charming, but once upon a time, he was human. There were people he cared about and who cared about him."

Jesse hugged her. "That's what makes you special, Emma. You have. . .an open heart."

"It's not always easy. Taking on the emotions and memories of others can be ugly."

"I can see. I've seen you pay the price for knowing too much about someone."

Emma shook her head. "But not in this case. Eckhart's not a monster. I would prefer to know how someone became…as he is than to believe some people are born that way, cold, aloof, detached. There's still a human buried deep inside of him, Jesse."

"I'll have to take your word for it. Adam describes Eckhart as always being pretty much like that, as if he takes evil pills every morning."

"Adam's at the heart of all this."

"I will believe your evaluation until I have a good reason to change my mind. But we have some major problems to solve beyond my expertise, unless Eckhart has the answers himself. What are we going to feed him? What about his infamous plastic faux skin? Isn't that supposed to be changed at least once every twenty-four hours? And his blood? The last Adam knew, Eckhart required transfusions, a lot of them, because his body makes no red or white blood cells. This isn't like bringing home a puppy."

"I could not leave him there, not after I knew what happened to him," Emma said, defending her actions.

"No. But we have challenges here, and we have to get back to Sanctuary tomorrow. If we stay any longer, Adam will have a lot of questions. You know how he is." Jesse rolled his eyes.

"We've talked about this before. When we go back, I think this should be for the last time. We have to break with Adam for good."

"Do you think that time has come?" Jesse asked.

"Knowing what I do, I will be uncomfortable being with Adam."

"We aren't going to be able to walk up to Adam, and tell him that we're quitting Mutant X and have him wish us well. He thinks of Mutant X as a lifetime commitment. Adam will see quitting as disloyalty, unforgivable disloyalty."

"We've talked around this before. We don't tell him. We walk out and never come back."

"We haven't worked out the fine points of how we could live safely away from Adam and all of his contacts. Adam has resources he doesn't tell anyone about."

"Adam will go crazy," Emma sighed.

Jesse did not sleep well. In the middle of the night he rose and padded quietly to the living room to see if Mason Eckhart really was sleeping on his sofa.

The light was dim, but Eckhart was there, and soundly asleep. He had not moved in hours, still drawn up in a fetal curl. Jesse pondered for a moment whether Eckhart had died, and briefly wondered how he would get rid of a body.

I had never considered that Eckhart sleeps like other people. How could anyone that paranoid allow themselves sleep? And where has he been sleeping? Did he sleep under his desk? Roll a cot into his office? And who did he trust to watch for him while he slept? He never seemed to trust anyone.

Eckhart looked small and insignificant on the dark sofa. More than anything, he looked vulnerable. Jesse intellectually believed Emma was convinced of the need to listen to Eckhart. He found the change in Emma's attitudes disturbing, too swift and too drastic, although Adam had lately given no shortage of reasons for doubt.

This is the man who terrorized us for so long? The stuff of stories? The bogeyman Adam spoke of daily?

Jesse found himself in the middle ground of not believing Adam or Eckhart, and at that moment, if he could have had his wishes, Jesse would have preferred to be done with them both. The issues involved would not go away, however, even if the individuals were gone.

An irrational thought came to Jesse. He had never had a better opportunity to destroy Eckhart, who had made him and Emma miserable many times over. The thought passed, and Jesse returned to bed and restless sleep.

Near daylight, Jesse woke once again. Quietly as he could, Jesse made his way to the living room. This time, he found the sofa empty. For a moment, he thought Eckhart had bolted.

"Good morning, Mr Kilmartin."

Jesse startled at the sound of Eckhart's voice, and knew Eckhart had seen him flinch, since he was backlit by the hall nightlight. He had the awkward sense that Eckhart had once again gained an unspoken advantage from his habit of surprise. Jesse collected whatever poise and balance he possessed at this hour and tried to sound unruffled.

"Good morning. I don't know quite how to address you."

Eckhart stood by the farther of two windows, a black silhouette crowned by odd white hair made faintly visible by the glow of the sodium vapor streetlights illuminating the neighborhood.

"It is awkward, isn't it? And ironic."

Any guard Jesse let down due to Emma's assurances was fully restored. Eckhart sounded alert and…arrogant, the Eckhart he knew, calculating, cold, predatory, demanding the greatest caution and care. Jesse became fully wakeful, ready to defend himself.

'I'm not armed, Mr Kilmartin. You could go granite, and smash me with no trouble. I am very much at your mercy. When I was put in stasis, they troubled themselves to disarm me. Fortunately, they took little else. Careless of them."

"I won't lie to you. I'm not comfortable having you around."

"No one ever is."

Jesse wasn't sure. Had he detected the faintest hint of regret?

"Do you have any family that could take you in?" Even as he asked the question, Jesse did not believe in it. He asked the question ritually, reflexively, something he would ask of a normal people with the expectation of a normal answer.

"My son is living in a dormitory, and not taking guests. He's a little younger than you."

Jesse was momentarily confused. The possibility of Eckhart having a connection to another human being had never occurred to Jesse. Eckhart gave every impression of being other-than-human, a creature hatched or decanted or cobbled together like Frankenstein's monster in a subbasement of Genomex. For a man who dedicated himself to the containment and control of mutant anomalies, he himself presented a more anomalous appearance and demeanor than any of the Genomex mutants.

The impression was not accidental, but deliberately cultivated by Eckhart since he found it so effective in handling people.

The possibility that Eckhart had parents never crossed Jesse's mind, and the data point that somehow, sometime he sired a son was no less than stunning, with all that implied.

Jesse seated himself in a chair by the nearer window. "I don't know what to do with you."

Outside, the sky was now light, and the pale light clearly disclosed Eckhart's smirk, which made Jesse cringe inwardly. That smirk never meant anything good before.

"Would you feel any better if I admitted this conversation is no less difficult for me?"

Jesse shook his head. "I don't know quite what you mean."

"I'm sorry. I'm not used to explaining myself to people. I'm not used to being with people. This is the first night in nearly eighteen years I've slept somewhere other than a sterile room or in my nearly sterile quarters at Genomex."

From anyone else, Jesse would accept the statement as sincere. From this man, he did not know what to conclude.

"You don't expect me to trust you, do you?" Jesse asked.

"Given our history, no."

"I want to know what you told Emma which convinced her. And I want you to know I find her change of heart hard to believe. "

"Your misgivings are perfectly reasonable. I would be surprised if you did consider the possibility that I tampered with Ms deLauro. She 'read' my memories of Adam. In that sense, there was nothing told, because nothing was selected or edited. She now knows the truth of Adam to the limits of my memories and rationality. If she's wrong, it can only be if I have lied to myself about nearly everything. Don't you believe her?"

"I don't want her hurt or used."

"I did not ask her to release me from stasis. I did not even know what she was doing. My first thought was that she was cutting power to the unit, killing me. I have no plans of hurting or using Ms deLauro. I owe too much to her."

Gratitude? From Eckhart? To one of us?

"Tell me about Adam. Emma insisted I must hear what you have to say about him. You hate him, don't you?"

"Yes. With every damaged cell in my body."

Eckhart's vehemence surprised even Jesse.

"You were friends."

"For a long while."

"What happened?"

"Adam is not what he seems. He is to everyone what he believes he must be to gain his greatest utility and advantage. Has he told you how sick all of you are, or that your sickness can only worsen over time?"

"We had to discover that for ourselves."

"I'm not surprised. Breedlove created the first mutant by himself at the end of the 1960s. Gabriel Ashlocke was a disaster. Breedlove had the good sense to replicated this work with great caution, and greater success in the next ten years, creating a relative handful of mutants. These are the individuals who are the parents of grown or nearly grown children today."

"The work goes back that far?"

"It does. Adam joined the company in 1978. Shortly afterward, despite the problems Breedlove's mutants were already displaying, the creation of mutants accelerated."

"I came in late to Genomex in the mid 1980s, but from what I saw, Breedlove and Adam fed each other's ambitions. They pushed each other's work into areas research groups elsewhere would not explore because of ethical constraints.

After more disastrous mutants were created in the early 1980s, one would think they would stop their work, but they did not. Adam pushed for additional experimentation on humans. They continued on and officially created over one thousand of you, lying to your parents about the nature of the experiments, making the thousandth mutant no healthier than the twentieth. I consider that criminal."

"It is, if it's true."

"I did say "officially" create. Breedlove's medical empire extended well beyond Genomex. I suspect there may be thousands more mutants. The 'Children of Genomex may be only a fraction of the whole."

"How do you know all of this?"

"Except for brief excursions, the Genomex complex has been the entire scope of my world since the accident. Nights I explored every office, every lab, every broom closet, every tunnel, and every archive. I found the original consent forms signed by the parents of the children of Genomex. The forms changed slightly over the years, but none of them reflected the drastic or random character of the experimentation being done, even though it was known to Breedlove and Adam, well before I joined the company. Adam even drafted the language in these forms. I found his notes and signatures on forms sent to printers."

"Can you show me these forms?" Jesse asked.

"The building which housed them was gutted in a fire."

"Convenient." Jesse made no attempt to hide his sarcasm.

"But the hardbound notebooks used to document this unholy work were all microfilmed, as were the volumes of computer generated data. The microfilm archives are maintained in a unused salt mine sitting partly under Lake Erie, where they will kept anywhere from fifty to one hundred years. They aren't going anywhere. A number of corporations keep records there."

"How would anyone ever retrieve something like that?"

"A private company operates storage in the salt mine. I have the account number written on a card sewn into my clothes. I have access anytime I desire with that account

number."

"Useful. You thought ahead."

"Knowledge really is power, Mr Kilmartin. The interesting thing about Adam is that there is so little information about him. I commissioned three separate, independent agencies to investigate Adam.

Before he turns up in college, Adam does not seem to exist. He does not seem to have been born anywhere or to have attended school anywhere. Adam simply presents himself one day to begin college, a precocious adolescent. These agencies produced three reports which are utterly dissimilar and cannot all be true. One even indicated that Adam is not human, but created, an android. In all the time you've known Adam, how much has he told you about his life before college?"

Jesse reflected for a moment. "I can't recall anything."

"That's more than a little peculiar, don't you think?"

Jesse nodded his head in agreement, then said, "But what do we know about you?"

"My life is traceable in public records back to my birth. That information may still be replicated at Genomex."

"What else do you want me to know about Adam?"

"Has he told you that he invented the subdermal governors and the stasis pods?"

"Yes, but he took his time getting around to it. What do you believe Adam is trying to do? If you know, why don't you tell me?"

"Adam's ultimate intentions are as obscure as his origin. I'm certain he's using Mutant X to achieve his goals. Haven't you ever wondered why he did not recruit individuals who already had technical training, who could be of great assistance to him? I was able to find and recruit such people, not by the ones and twos but by the dozen. We had the same list. Instead, Adam gathered people with an emotional dependence upon him, or people who lacked connections elsewhere. Or a thug like Brennan, wanted by several police departments, who would be motivated to stay in Adam's good graces for protection."

Jesse had wondered about Adam's selection of team members, especially as he became acquainted with more of the mutant underground, which did not lack for intelligent, skilled people. Yet Adam had not recruited from their ranks but selected individuals personally loyal to Adam, as opposed to those having loyalty to a cause. Jesse was perturbed by Adam's expectation of unquestioning compliance with his wishes, much like the leader of a cult. Jesse was uncomfortable with the demand to do things he did not understand.

The sun was just up past distant rooftops, and Jesse's face was clearly visible. Eckhart watched him carefully.

"I can see that this has troubled you. Good. If you have begun to doubt, you have commenced thinking. Adam would have you believe he gathered you all out of the goodness of his heart. Do not be fooled, and do not allow him to steal anything dear to you."

Eckhart's eyes flicked briefly from Jesse to the hallway and bedroom where Emma still slept. The gesture was so quick and subtle that Jesse did not process the implied warning immediately, and once the moment passed, he felt awkward going back and confirming Eckhart's meaning.

Emma? Does he mean Emma? What else could he have meant? And why is he warning me? Why does he bother?

"As to the problem of what to do with me, I have a solution, but I have no intention of activating it without your knowledge and coordination. I owe Ms deLauro my life. My sense of honor–-whether you believe I have such does not matter to me—demands my protection of her, and you."

Jesse was confused. Putting together Eckhart's apparently contradictory fragments was difficult business, and he could not be sure what he thought of the man. The only certainty was that he was far more complicated than Jesse ever imagined.

"What do you have in mind?"

"I have superiors in Washington. No doubt they have been looking for me since I was put in stasis. There is a transponder tucked away underneath my skin, but by now, if it is still active, the signal is weak. The storage room prevented the signal from getting out, or an armed party would have been there inside of twenty-four hours when no one heard from me."

"I had no idea."

A whole other dimension to the GSA that none of us ever considered. Adam must have known. Was he keeping us focused on hating Eckhart?

"Surely you did not think I acted independently? I suppose you did…I need to send email or contact these people by phone. They will be wherever I want to meet them inside of two hours. I need to be careful of how I contact them, because if their priorities or leadership have changed in the past months I am not sure I will be able to protect you."

"Good Morning," Emma said, wrapped in a pink bathrobe and wearing a pair of pink bunny slippers. "I'm glad to see you strong enough to stand." She entered the living room and sat down on the floor beside Jesse's chair.

"I'm feeling much better, Ms DeLauro, and thinking with much greater clarity."

"Eckhart tells me he has superiors in Washington who will be very curious about what has become of him."

Emma seemed surprised. "Superiors?"

"Of course. The GSA is –or was— part of the federal government. I've had a chance to examine my pockets and the inner linings of my clothes to see what remained safely with me. My captors were sloppy; all they did was disarm me. I still have every critical account number, every critical phone number, every critical email address I need. They even left behind cash, a personal bank card, and an ATM card. Just the right email or coded phone call, and I can summon a small. . . army inside of two hours."

"A small army?" Emma asked, stunned.

"An elite force, highly trained and equipped with an array of technical capabilities. The Genomex site is miserably vulnerable and difficult to defend. It sprawls over acres, and has too many points of access. I encouraged Breedlove to relocate years ago, but he liked being able to look out over the water. They will retake Genomex, probably using the plan I developed myself."

"You?"

"My time at West Point put to good use." Eckhart watched their reactions, smiling slightly. "Did you think I graduated from Satan's Academy for Archfiends? You seem so surprised to learn anything positive about me. You probably imagine I amuse myself by tormenting kittens and puppies."

"No," Jesse protested weakly, but he had in fact wondered what Eckhart found amusing, if anything.

"It doesn't matter," Eckhart said.

"To me it does," Emma said. "Who are these people in Washington?"

"A coalition of several federal agencies, allied with a multinational agency. Between them, they have broad enforcement mandates. I want to initiate their arrival properly. If I can first talk to the woman who coordinates this group, I will be able to convince her to give you considerable protections from Adam, but if something has happened to her, then I can promise nothing, and want neither of you traceable to the phone call."

"Why would we need protection?" Emma asked.

"From Adam. If you choose to break with him, and live free of him, I can offer some assistance, but staying free of him will not be easy. He will not be pleased with you. Have you ever seen Adam truly angry?"

"No."

"Adam is accustomed to getting his way. He can be highly emotional, explosively so. When you return to Sanctuary, take great care with what you do and say around him. Any hint of contact with me will elicit strong suspicions and accusations of long-term duplicity."

"What about hiding from you?" Jesse asked.

Anyone else would have displayed anger. Emma watched Eckhart, and saw only a dim flicker pass through the shaded eyes. She decided he knew exactly how people perceived him.

"On my honor –which I know does not mean anything to you— if you and Ms deLauro wish to go your own way, I will make no attempt to follow, and no one will know her part in releasing me from stasis."

"How will you explain your release?" Jesse asked.

"If I must, I'll lie."

Jesse turned towards Emma. "With that interesting comment, if half of what he says is true, we have a lot to learn about Adam."

"Whatever he says, he believes in the truth of it. Jesse, I think it's time for us to break with Adam," Emma said.

"Can you really see yourself doing that? What other home have you had?"

"I cannot comfortably serve with Adam any longer. I think you need to get away from him more than I do."

"Meaning?"

"Because you were part of Mutant X before Brennan. Because you have technical capabilities Brennan will never acquire because he lacks the discipline and the smarts to learn them. Just the same, he's somehow Adam's favorite. I know that grates on your nerves. Watching it grates on mine."

"Adam favors a marginally literate street thug over you?" Eckhart asked, astonished.

Anger in her voice, Emma answered for him. "Yes, he does, even if Jesse won't admit it. Adam takes Jesse for granted. Good old reliable Jesse. Adam assumes Jesse's technical expertise will always be available to him, on demand."

"That must be infuriating. But I've seen Adam make odd choices before. Perhaps in Brennan Mulwray, Adam resonates with a kindred criminal personality." Eckhart smirked, pleased with himself.

Jesse was not pleased with Emma's phrasing, but wasn't going to say anything with Eckhart standing there. He looked to Eckhart. "What do you have to say about our breaking with Adam?"

"I know what I would do in your position, but your lives are your own. The decision is yours, not mine."

Emma spoke. "My intention is to return one last time to Sanctuary. There are a few irreplaceable things I have not yet carried out of there."

"Do you have another place to live?" Eckhart asked.

"We're not going to tell you where we'll be going," Jesse said sharply.

"Jesse…" Emma chided.

"I wasn't asking the where, Mr Kilmartin. I don't want to know the where. I was asking the whether."

"This furniture is rented junk. All we really have to move are the hard drives and a suitcase or two of personal items."

"Wise."

The sun was fully risen now; the colors of sunrise faded from the sky. Eckhart left the window and returned to the sofa.

"I will call April from a pay phone…that would be safest for everyone."

"You're going to stand out in this neighborhood. Jesse, let him borrow a long coat of yours. Nobody wears suits in this neighborhood. I'm going to get dressed and drive Eckhart to a phone."

"I'll start pulling hard drives."

Emma drove Eckhart to a drive-up pay phone. But before pulling in beside the phone, she said, " I thought you'd be angry with Jesse. He does not trust you."

"He has no reason to trust me, and an extensive history justifying his suspicions. I would be no less suspicious in his position. He is concerned about you, and is quite protective. I believe he thinks I have done something to you."

"He does, although the reverse is much more likely."

"You have capabilities and talents in reserve, don't you?" Eckhart said.

"Are you guessing or do you know?"

"A little of both. Of all of Adam's people, I always believed you were the most dangerous. I do not want to be on the receiving end of those talents."

Emma laughed. "Adam has no idea I'm holding back. You're more observant than he is."

"Of course. My survival is rooted in my ability to observe people and events with great care."

"I expected you to blow up at Jesse several times. I don't have that kind of patience with him."

"A display of emotion would not have changed his mind. Showing anger would have only antagonized Mr Kilmartin, and I do not want that. I want him on my side. I learned a long while ago too to pick my battles."

"I wish I could do that," Emma said. "I just react to whatever people say."

"You can learn."

"I don't know about that."

"Ms deLauro, you are intelligent and insightful. Don't underestimate you capabilities." He hesitated for a moment. "If I can talk to April, I am confident she will help you."

"What do you mean?"

"Hiding from Adam will be nearly impossible given the way so much of what we do is tracked electronically. You've seen Adam tap into all manner of supposedly private records. He'll savage you once he smells betrayal. Consider what he did to me when I became inconvenient."

"What did you have in mind?"

"April and I go way back. She trusts my judgment. If I want to hire you and Mr Kilmartin, she'll bless it. Consider the possibilities. No running. A relatively normal life without looking over your shoulder."

"Shalimar is still a friend."

"I will not ask you to turn on a friend. What shall I tell April? To expect the two of you on this foray?"

Emma hesitated. "What if I cannot convince Jesse?"

"I won't mention names. If you're not there when I meet April, I'll say plans changed. She's been in this business a lot longer than I have. She knows better than to ask after information not offered."

Emma pulled the car up the last few feet to the phone.

Eckhart removed a business card secreted inside the lining of his jacket, and began punching numbers after dropping in the correct coinage.

"Good Morning, April. I hope I did not wake you."

Emma watched, fascinated. Eckhart actually smiled when he talked to this woman.

"Yes, this is Mason. Back from the dead. Again."

"The messages you've been getting were frauds, probably concocted by Dr Harrison. I've been in one of my own stasis pods for months."

"What I need from you now? A few dozen of your finest to take back Genomex from the bad guys."

"And one more thing: blanket protection for two people, no names, no questions asked."

"Very good. I will be there."

Eckhart hung up the phone. "We dare not dawdle. April is always on time or early."

"What did she say?"

"I'm getting everything I wanted, and probably more. If you are going to convince Mr Kilmartin, you must get back and do so. We don't have a lot of time."

Ninety five minutes later, Mason Eckhart, Emma, and Jesse stood beside their parked car at the edge of a general aviation airport, a few dozen yards from the two story cinderblock structure serving as its tower.

Facing into the east –-away from the prevailing wind— Eckhart searched the mid-morning sky for signs.

"I hope we're not doing something foolish, Emma," Jesse said.

"You still can get in your car and go, Mr Kilmartin. "You're not my prisoner, and not compelled to remain here with me."

"I don't want to become your prisoner, either."

"I only want the two of you with me willingly, freely." Eckhart turned about and faced Emma. "Ms deLauro, do you sense any menace, malice, or deception on my part directed towards you or the justifiably cautious Mr Kilmartin?"

She shook her head. "No."

"Visions of ill-intent?"

"Not towards us…but towards a fellow at Genomex. Dr Harrison. I wouldn't want to be Dr Harrison."

"The man who betrayed me. Dr Harrison. He is thoroughly deserving of my bad intentions. I should have taken care of him when I first noted him undermining and challenging my authority." He turned to Jesse. "Try to believe."

"I'm convinced Adam cannot be trusted. You have to earn my trust."

"Fair enough." Eckhart returned to scanning the skies. "There." He pointed to a bright light low in the heavens, hard to see against the blue sky.

"These people of yours are on time."

"Punctuality is one of April's great virtues. She has many admirable qualities. She is an old Cold Warrior."

The bright light resolved into a pair of brilliant landing lights. Behind them, a fainter light emerged, then another. By the time the first Gulfstream 4 reached the taxiway to the tower/terminal, another was visibly descending, a whole constellation of landing lights low in the eastern sky.

"This is from one phone call?" Jesse asked.

"One phone call to just the right person," Eckhart said, walking through the open gateway onto the pavement, the better to be seen by the crew of the first Gulfstream. He turned and waved Emma and Jesse to join him. They followed slowly.

The Gulfstream carried no markings save for its number and an American flag on its tail. The crew taxied up to within a few yards of the chain link fence, then shut down the whining engines, with the sound of the second identical jet screaming down the runway, applying reverse thrust for braking.

The door of the first plane opened, and a red-haired woman emerged, dressed in black and teal. She carried a steel case, and held a leather portfolio under one arm. She sprinted towards them.

Emma and Jesse had only seen her like in movies. The teal portion of her clothing was clearly Kevlar body armor. She wore a headset radio an automatic and a teal baseball cap with the front embroidered with a row of bright feathers with "Chief" written beneath. She was not a young woman, though she carried her years lightly, with dignity, style, and no small amount of mischief in her eyes. Dark auburn hair was pulled back from her face in a ponytail.

Behind her, the balance of the passengers of her plane unloaded weapons and gear.

"I rode as fast as I could, Mason. The cavalry is here." April smiled, a smile full of intelligence, humor, and hell-raising.

"This is impressive. Thank you, April."

April broke eye contact long enough to inspect Emma and Jesse. Emma was certain she was recognized.

The GSA must have photos of us.

"I thought I'd lost you. Routine confirmations kept coming in daily and my subordinates did not question them, until they ceased about twelve days ago. When I reviewed them, I knew none of them were from you. Are you still wearing your transponder?"

"Yes. I would have noted the surgery required to remove it."

"We could not detect it up even when we were over the numbers."

"The batteries must have failed a long time ago. I was. . . stored in a room preventing any transmission from getting out. Before proceeding, these are the people whom I request you protect as you would me."

April once again inspected Emma and Jesse. "Done."

"This is April Dancer, one of my superiors, and dead-shot." He turned back towards April. "Teal Kevlar, April? How did you find such a thing?"

"I had 'em custom made for my entire team. Bad guys never wear teal." She smiled. "My lieutenant should be bringing along one for you. I'm sure the same outfit would gladly do black pinstripe for you, if you wished. Oh, I brought you presents." She held up the steel case, and tapped on it. "A special feast, just for you, some blood, bio-polymer to last for a few days, and some other little treats, all for you. And a medical team to put it to best use, too."

"Thank you, April." Eckhart sounded as civil and sincere as Emma could recall.

"How long since you've eaten anything?" April asked.

"Months. Late spring."

"I was afraid of that."

She set down the case on the pavement and opened it. "The first course of dinner is served." She handed Eckhart an opaque plastic tube of about 100 milliliters in volume. "Simple sugars, vitamins, electrolytes, essential amino acids, and I'm told it tastes good, but I cannot vouch for that. Don't let the stubborn streak of formality in your soul stop you from eating in front of us." She returned to the case, and pulled a headset radio still wrapped in plastic from a pocket, and handed it to Eckhart. "These batteries work. We're on Channel C-8."

Eckhart put on the headset, and adjusted the earpiece and microphone. "Very thoughtful." He commenced consuming the semi-liquid contents.

"Details matter."

"Events turn upon attention to detail," Eckhart added.

April opened the portfolio, shouting over the din of jet engines as the Gulfstream fleet assembled along the fence line and armed men in teal Kevlar gathered behind her.

Emma and Jesse, more than a little awed by events, kept silent and watched.

"This is the plan you drew up for an assault on Genomex, should that ever be required. This is your most recent update from seven months ago. Everyone has studied a copy of it. Do you know of any changes to the facility? Anything to invalidate the plan?"

Eckhart shook his head. "I have no way of knowing what kind of security is in place. My impression on the way out of the building was that things had become lax."

"Perhaps someone has made our task easy."

A tall Asian man came to stand beside April. "Ms Dancer."

"Mr Morimoto, this is Mason Eckhart."

Morimoto grinned, and handed Eckhart a set of teal body armor. Then he opened a second steel case on the pavement as Eckhart donned the armor.

"Your weapon, Ms Dancer," Morimoto said.

"Thank you."

"And yours, Mr Eckhart."

"Thank you."

The last of the eight Gulfstream 4s shut down engines beside the fence.

"The medical team is lagging about twenty-seven minutes behind us. They required more time to prepare. I wanted them capable of dealing with whatever condition we found you. Are you ready?"

"I am, but…" Eckhart was briefly puzzled.

"Fear not. The remounts should be along shortly." Even before April completed her sentence, the sound of rotors intruded.

April stepped past Eckhart to Emma and Jesse. "The safest place for you is to go with us, but stay with the helicopter when we touch down. Do not leave it until you are told it is safe to do so."

Jesse nodded mutely.

"They look like sweet kids, Mason," April said.

"They can be." Eckhart smirked, and made eye contact with Jesse, knowing he had heard the exchange.

"Will you tell me someday how they are involved with you, and all of this? I could make some guesses, but with you the fine points can be surprising."

"Someday. It is a good story."

The first of the helicopters roared into view."

"Black helicopters, April?"

"Absolutely. I'm borrowing them from an agency I can't even name, not even to you."

"The conspiracy fans will be pleased. Details will be on the Internet in hours."

"Using black helicopters insures that anyone observing this operation carefully and describing it with veracity will be dismissed as a conspiracy loon."

"Brilliant. What about the neighborhood?"

"The local police have been told there is a chlorine release from Genomex."

"Chlorine isn't stored there, and never has been."

"Doesn't matter. The nearest houses have been evacuated and everybody else warned to stay indoors. The access streets have been blocked off. We'll go in low over the water. I needed something frightening but plausible, something which the police would use to justify keeping away the TV trucks. This way, news coverage will consist of stock shots of videotape made years ago with the usual corporations-as-the-handmaidens-of-Satan and chemicals-are-evil story. Some regulatory agency will slam Genomex with a fine, but having a free hand here to operate is worth paying a fine and admitting to an environmental sin, don't you agree?"

"Of course, April."

A fleet of black helicopters dropped down out of the sky, assembling in a line behind April's small army.

Concern crossed April's face. "Mason, are you up to this or do you need to wait for the doctors.? You look like hell."

"You are not going into Genomex without me. I can hold myself together a little longer."

"As I thought. But I wanted to give you that option. Turn on your radio."

"Ready."

April switched on her set, turned to the proper channel, monitored now by the helicopter crews and the armed men and women behind her. The giddy look vanished from her face. She waved to Eckhart, Emma, and Jesse to follow her to the nearest helicopter, speaking into her microphone, "Mount up."

The helicopters were quickly boarded, and took off together like a great flock of crows. They first turned south, and once over the water, descending as low as their pilots dared, a hundred yards out from the shoreline.

April put her hand over her microphone, and turned to Eckhart. "I brought the best I have, Mason."

"Thank you."

"How did they do this to you? No one steal a march on Mason Eckhart."

"Ashlocke corrupted one of my GSA agents from stasis, and convinced her to release him. I was betrayed by Dr Harrison, who allied himself with Ashlocke."

"Is Ashlocke still there?" April asked. "Even Breedlove and Adam were terrified of Ashlocke's capabilities. Putting him in stasis was a mistake. Something more final should have been done."

"No," Emma answered for him. "Ashlocke's dead. He was very ill."

"That's a relief. Adam was a fool for wanting to keep Ashlocke alive for 'future study'. Future study! Hah, Adam's ego knows no limits."

"I'm told he attempted to save Ashlocke right to the end."

"Foolish. I hate traitors," April said. "Who was your agent?"

"Morgan Fortier."

"I don't remember much about her, but she wasn't marginal. You had no reason to doubt her?"

"None."

I will give priority to finding Morgan Fortier and Ken Harrison. Each sub-team has separate goals and objectives. They'll land in different parts of Genomex. You and I are going through the front door."

Eckhart nodded understanding.

Genomex came into view. April uncovered her microphone. "Strike hard. Strike home."

The assault was anticlimactic. Ashlocke had disbanded the armed security force, believing he required no help from humans or mutants.

The receptionists at the front office were stunned to see their old boss come through the front door, armed, with a paramilitary force at his back.

Office workers were ordered from their desks and out onto the lakefront access road. Security cameras revealed no one else present save technical people, a reduced maintenance staff, cafeteria workers, and very few others. Everyone was taken from their work areas and gathered outside and forbidden to use their cell phones.

"Very quick. Very clean. I'm glad we did not have to flex any muscle." April looked relieved. "I'm glad Ashlocke wasn't here to welcome us."

"There should be a great many more people here," Eckhart said.

"Someone has probably done 'housecleaning'. Some people likely did not care for the new regime, sent out their resumes, and moved on. In any case, I strongly advise you eliminate your old staff completely, and start over. I would include the kitchen staff right down to the guys who change out the fluorescent lights. You have no way of knowing how deeply rot has penetrated."

"I will assume the worst. There are only two staff members I wish to retain."

"Oh?"

"Laura Varady. Psychologist. She's one of the longest-term employees, but I don't see her here."

"And the other?" April asked.

"Dr Rebekah Steyn. Chemist. She's been here fifteen years."

"The name is familiar," April said. "There was an incident last spring with Adam invading the facility. Isn't she the one who had to go to an emergency room?"

"Yes? She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Adam has personal issues with her. He turned Mulwray loose, and she was throw several yards by a 'lightning bolt'. I don't see Dr Steyn here, either."

"Maybe we'll still find them here, Mason. And if we don't, we'll find someone who does know where they are…and Fortier and Harrison as well."

Another group of employees was herded onto the access road in front of the plant.

Emma and Jesse were escorted from their helicopter to Eckhart, chiefly to maintain their distinction from the Genomex employees.

He turned to them. "If either of you know of any sins or good works committed by any of these people, now is the time to tell me."

"Straczynsky, is that the last of them?" April radioed to the agent leading the bewildered looking autoclave room workers.

"There is no one else left alive inside the complex. We have checked with thermal imaging, Ms Dancer."

"Very good. Get this bunch in a line, and start them walking towards the cafeteria. Mr Eckhart is looking for two of his people."

April turned to Eckhart. "While my guys are going that—Mason, I officially return Genomex to you."

Emma and Jesse, standing nearby, scarcely believed what they saw next.

Eckhart bowed low from the waist, took up April's right hand and lightly kissed it. "And I thank you , Lady-General Dancer." He smiled, and released her hand.

April was deeply amused. "Mason, one of the things I've always liked about you is your ability to surprise."

"I work at it."

"You succeed. I'm leaving Morimoto with you, along with three dozen agents to form a temporary core of a resurgent GSA. I'll help you all I can with rapid recruitment. An hour or so behind your medical team, I have a security crew which will change all the keycard modes, thumbprint settings, and iris scanners before dark. I don't need to tell you to be careful."

"No."

"And, you're going to have to craft a press release to sedate the media covering the 'chlorine' event and 'layoff' of workers. Perhaps two press releases. I have confidence in your ability to deflect media and public concerns away from real events."

"I already have some ideas and weasel words in mind."

"Good. Let's inspect the staff, shall we?"

The employees were herded one direction while Eckhart and April slowly walked the other. Most of the employees had no idea what was happening, but the sight of Eckhart and the armed men distressed them all. The employees believed what they had been told about Eckhart taking an extended leave of absence, and his return in this fashion unveiled that lie. Some of the women –and a few of the men—were crying.

Eckhart knew most of them. "Some of these are good people, a handful the best in the world at what they do."

April shook her head. "No doubt. But you have no way of knowing their loyalties. Get rid of them all, Mason. Provide a generous severance package and wish them well. Assist them in finding new employment, preferably in distant cities. You don't need to be vindictive, but you must be thorough."

"You are correct, of course."

A small, dark-haired woman broke out of the line and ran towards Eckhart.

"Mr Eckhart." She then lowered her voice. "I feared you were dead. They told us a story about your taking a leave of absence but I know better."

"Who is this, Mason?" April asked.

"Dr Samihah Shah. Please, Dr Shah, continue."

"I went to the hospital after she paged me from your office. She said Gabriel Ashlocke had done something to her, and that he had taken you. She was bleeding."

"But where is she now?"

"I don't know. I went back to the hospital the next day and she was gone. Her home phone was disconnected. I went to her condominium and found other people living there. Very bad things have happened."

"April, Dr Shah is one of those people I was describing to you…the best in the world at what they do. On the strength of my word, could you get Dr Shah and her three sons out of the city tonight, and relocate her to a position worthy of her talent and loyalty?"

"Absolutely, Mason. Dr Shah, I'm going to have two of the biggest guys I've got escort you back to my helicopter. They're actually well-mannered, decent men. Please look miserable so everyone who remembers will be convinced you've been arrested, or worse. I assure you, that is not the case. I will have you and your family in a safe place by sundown."

"Thank you."

"Thank you, Dr Shah," Eckhart said.

"I could do no less. You've treated me well, and Rebekah was my friend."

Two imposing men presented themselves to April. "Gentlemen, please escort Dr Shah to my helicopter. She deserves our special protection, but you must make it look as if she is being arrested. Put on a good show, but be gentle. Once you're out of sight of the crowd, please help Dr Shah in any way she asks."

The men nodded, and appeared to all but carry off the slightly made Dr Shah, who wore an appropriately dejected look.

"I'm going to have to return to Washington soon. Call me this evening and tell me what the doctors say. Is there anything else I need to do for you?"

"Yes," Eckhart began. "I need you to take out the garbage." Eckhart was focused upon someone in the moving line.

"Garbage?" April noted the look in Eckhart's eyes.

"Dr Harrison." Eckhart pointed out Dr Harrison in the line of workers.

April directed Morimoto to pull Dr Harrison out of the line. "Bring that one here to us."

Morimoto dragged the less than willing Dr Harrison before April and Eckhart.

"You've bet on the wrong horse, Dr Harrison," April said, purring.

"Where is Dr Varady?"

Dr Harrison smirked. "She had to be committed to an asylum. She began behaving quite oddly."

"Mason, they probably fed her psychotropics. Get a team working on finding her and breaking her out."

"Where's Rebekah Steyn?" Eckhart demanded.

Dr Harrison smirked. "Ah, dear Rebekah. Gabriel was a little rough with her. I'm told she was hemorrhaging when the EMTs took her away."

"What happened to her?"

"I don't know. She never came back here. But Mason, aren't you glad to see me?"

"You've taught me an important lesson, Dr Harrison, never to be lenient again."

"Mr Morimoto, see that he is placed in restraints. He's going back with us."

"Don't tell me what you do with him, just do something."

"I will take the trash out for you. Which rubbish heap did you have in mind? 'Take it out' over the lake and leave dinner for the fishes?"

"I do not care. I never want to see Dr Harrison again."

"Your wish, Mason, my pleasure." April nodded to her agent.

"Please get Dr Harrison away from me, Mr Morimoto," Eckhart said.

"What a miserable little toad of a man," April said.

"You defame toads."

Eckhart whispered to April, "No matter what you do with Harrison, alter the permanent records to show that he quit, so his heirs won't receive payment under any circumstances."

"Good idea." April nodded. "I require a moment with Morimoto and Straczynsky."

Eckhart stopped, and waited for Emma and Jesse to catch up with him. He removed his headset radio.

"We've managed a bloodless coup." Eckhart looked pleased. "I don't believe anyone suffered more than a bruise, or a loss of dignity." He nodded in the direction of Dr Harrison, being led away by several of April's agents.

"I'm impressed," Emma said.

"This is only the beginning. I am going to rebuild the organization, with greater emphasis upon enforcement. I am offering you both positions here, as my assistants."

"Why?" Jesse asked.

"Fair question. I do like your directness. Because, as odd as it might strike you, I like you both, and I trust you. You would be serving the best interests of your own kind as well, helping them avoid serving manipulators like Ashlocke and Adam, and help them live normal lives without fear."

"I believe him, Jesse."

"Thank you, Ms deLauro."

"Are you going to kiss my hand?" Emma asked.

"Would you like me to?" Eckhart looked amused.

"Yes."

"Mr Kilmartin, I shall not presume to act without your approval."

"Go ahead." Jesse shrugged, not wholly pleased, but at a loss to make any other response.

Eckhart bowed low to Emma, gently picked up her right had, and kissed it. "You have saved my life, and possibly the lives of uncounted millions. I thank you with all the sincerity in my heart.."

April watched it all. "Mason, your reversion to charm is a promising sign."

Emma blushed. "No one's ever kissed by hand before."

"That's unfortunate." Eckhart turned to Jesse. "Mr Kilmartin, my offer was a serious one. I wanted you along on this foray so that you would know this struggle is not mine alone. I need a technical man who can be honest with me and not use weasel words." He turned to Emma. "And I need a lieutenant who can ferret out future traitors. This is not make-work. This is important. No one, least of all me, will ever take either of you for granted here."

"Would we wear governors?" Jesse asked.

"No. If you chose to leave my service, I would hope you would be civilized, and tell me."

"I want to do it, Jesse."

"Without governors, you will always be free to act and free to leave."

Jesse shrugged. "I'll try it. I'm not convinced. But we require one last trip to Sanctuary. We are late now. Adam will be curious what kept us. He will ask questions."

"Be careful how you answer them, especially if he finds out what happened here today." He turned towards April. "April, meet my new assistants."

"Do they have names? I need names to issue paychecks."

"Names to follow. Could one of your helicopters drop these good people at their car?"

"Of course. I need to leave now, and your doctors are probably waiting for a ride. I also need to get Dr Shah out of here and collect her kids."

Eckhart stripped off the teal Kevlar, and handed it to April.

"You don't want to keep this?" April asked. "I thought it looked good on you."

"Not my color," he laughed.

"You don't have a color. You only wear black. Do you have a secure place to sleep tonight?"

"No one appears to have entered my quarters in all these months. That should be healthy enough. The air filters can be changed out tomorrow."

"Good. Mason, take care of yourself, and don't lose this place again. Give my doctors enough time for a thorough exam. You don't want them to miss anything critical."

"Thanks once more, April."

Jesse spoke. "We'll be back tomorrow, or even tonight."

"Be wary of Adam. You cannot be careful enough."

April handed Eckhart the steel suitcase. "Don't lose this, either."

Eckhart turned and entered Genomex by himself, and made his way to his office. His months-old access codes still operated; they would have to be changed.

The office was dark and silent. All the electronics were turned off. Eckhart turned up the lights, and brought all systems computers back online, returning everything to typical operation until the room was filled with a comforting, familiar electronic hum.

A thin layer of dust covered the desktop glass. Disgusted by the filth, he took care not to touch it, even with a gloved hand. He did not bother turning on his computer, assuming it to be trashed or corrupted. Instead, he sat down in his familiar chair, and searched for an envelope secured to opaque underside of the hydrofluoric acid-etched glass desktop…and found it. With that comforting discovery, he leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes, allowing himself a moment of stillness and quiet.

For a moment after Jesse turned off the ignition, he and Emma sat in the dark silence, making no move to leave the car. The only sound was of the wind in the pine trees and their own breathing.

"Telling one lie to people who trust you," Jesse began, "is bad enough, but to deceive them so many ways makes me uncomfortable. I've never done anything like this. I've always tried to be direct and straightforward with people…and I like it when I get that back from them. That's why I like computers."

"We knew coming back here would not be easy. We knew we would have to deceive them. Let's get it over with. Sitting here and thinking about things won't get them done. We either go and lie to Adam, Shalimar, and Brennan, or we go inside and stay, and be the faithful followers of a man we don't believe in anymore who has lied to us and deceived us all along."

"Adam I don't care about so much, but Shalimar's going to be hurt when she knows what we've done, and didn't trust her enough to confide in her."

"We can't take that chance. I think she'd run straight to Adam."

"I think you're right, Emma. I just wish you weren't."

"I know."

Jesse sighed, and unlocked the car door.

The trunk was nearly filled with their personal belongings from the apartment. For the sake of appearances, Jesse carried in his suitcase, which in truth was nearly empty, as was Emma's. He also carried a bag containing some of his computer and electronics purchases, items promised to Adam that he could easily abandon at Sanctuary. Emma carried the college catalogues and brochures, which she also intended to leave behind to lend credibility to the notion that she might return.

"What will we do if Adam figures out what we are doing?" Emma asked. "Any ideas?"

"He shouldn't be able to do that, but he figures out all kinds of things he shouldn't know. Sometimes, I think a lot of what he says is BS, but I don't want to bother arguing with him."

They entered Sanctuary, leaving their luggage and packages just inside the entrance. They followed the muted sound of conversation, finding Adam, Brennan, and Shalimar watching a recording of a news program.

Adam offered his best avuncular smile in greeting. Once upon a time, Emma had found that smile reassuring, a certainty in a world hurtling towards entropy. This time, however, she saw Adam for a moment through Mason Eckhart's eyes, through the filter of the moment when he was certain of Adam's betrayal. The memory was searing and sharp, and immeasurably sad since that betrayal led to losing his wife and children, and any hope of living an adult life compensating for an upbringing laden with loss and abandonment. Emma re-lived the moment almost as vividly as a personal memory.

Seen in this context, Emma found Adam's smile mocking and insincere.

You are a fraud. Perhaps someday I will tell you I know exactly what you are and what you have done, but not tonight. Tonight, I will smile and be Sweet Emma. How do you live with yourself?

"Where have you two been?" Adam asked. "Have you listened to any news broadcasts?"

You'd like an hour-by-hour accounting of everything we did, wouldn't you? Snoop. Emma struggled to contain her anger.

"We listened to music on the drive back," Jesse replied.

"You missed a lot," Shalimar said, smirking. "Guess what thawed out?"

Emma and Jesse mustered their best impressions of appearing unenlightened.

Jesse shrugged. "Tell me."

Adam looked half-amused. "Somebody defrosted Eckhart. He's back at Genomex."

Brennan looked up from the copy of Sports Illustrated he was leafing through. "It's all over the local news."

"Eckhart? He always avoided cameras," Jesse said. There weren't any camera trucks there today.

"Well, no, not about Eckhart," Adam began to explain. "The local news is full of the story about a 'chlorine leak' at Genomex. The problem is, chlorine gas was never kept at Genomex all the years I worked there and there is no reason that should change. Oh, somebody may have had a 'lecture bottle' sized cylinder for preparing solutions, but if one of those was emptied outside, that would not begin to justify evacuating the neighborhood. A few hundred people were chased from their homes to escape the peril of chlorine gas that doesn't exist. Venting it outside where the tank sits shouldn't be a problem."

"What is stored there?" Jesse asked.

"Nitrogen. There is a huge tank two stories high. But nitrogen gas is inert; that's why it's useful. The hazard it presents is asphyxiation by displacing oxygen, mostly in enclosed places, indoors or in reaction vessels."

"Adam thinks it's all a lie," Brennan said, smug as if he'd thought of it himself, smiling and proud. He unwrapped a Moon Pie as his reward.

"Don't you believe there was an accident?" Emma asked.

"No," Adam replied. "I believe something happened today at the Genomex site, but it didn't involve a ruptured gas tank."

"What does this have to do with Eckhart?" Jesse asked, wearing a convincing mask of puzzlement.

"He made a telephoned statement to the press about the 'chlorine leak'. All the stations have been playing it for hours." Adam rolled his eyes. "I think I have it memorized. Eckhart is a master of language. He put together exactly the perfect blend of concern, remorse, and promises of sinning no more to convince anyone he really gave a damn. If Eckhart thought blanketing the entire city with toxic levels of chlorine gas would stop mutants, he'd do it, and issue nearly the same press release as an explanation."

"How can you be sure this wasn't recorded months ago?" Emma asked.

"Well, I can't. But why bother? No, the only explanation is that someone freed Eckhart from stasis, and in order to do so, they had to make certain no one saw what they were doing. The threat of a leak of chlorine cleared out the nearest neighbors and the local police sealed off access by the press. Very clever."

Shalimar tossed her unkempt mane of shaggy blonde hair. "I can't understand who would bother to thaw out Eckhart." Her bare shoulders and midriff looked chilled. "Who would care about him?"

Adam laughed. "I doubt if the concern was personal, Shalimar. Don't forget that the GSA was part of American intelligence. The defrosting wasn't about freeing Mason Eckhart; this was about recovering lost turf. I was impressed with how sincere he sounded. He's one of the most convincing liars I have ever known. Now I think I know how effective his company pep talk following Breedlove's murder must have been, based on what I heard today and descriptions of the 'pep rally' from insiders." Adam smiled smugly.

Jesse's heart turned icy and leaden. Of course. After all the years Adam worked at Genomex, there would be people who could provide back channel details only an employee would know. Perhaps…someone there today recognized Emma or me or both of us, and Adam will know we were somehow associated with the retaking of Genomex. We could be one email or phone call away from disaster. We've got to get out of here.

"So, if Eckhart's back, what does this mean for all of us?" Emma asked.

Jesse was impressed with the poise and collected calm Emma had schooled into her voice, knowing she must understand the implications of Adam's statement.

"The hunt begins all over again. Eckhart won't stop his fanatical campaign against mutants until he dies. His hatred of mutants and me is all that keeps him alive. What a hollow little man. He's obsessed. He's probably insane." Adam spoke with utter conviction.

"I've never understood why he hates us so much." Emma sounded perfectly, thoroughly sincere. "What did mutants ever do to Eckhart?"

Careful, Emma. Pile it too high and deep, and there could be trouble. Adam knows us too well. We've spoken freely and honestly to him all this time.

Adam shrugged. "Eckhart is one of those sad little people who don't want anything to change, even if it's a change for the better." Adam sounded condescending. "And he hates me." Days before, Emma and Jesse would have believed it all.

I don't believe you, Adam. And I know you know better.

Emma wore a mild smile even as she damned Adam silently.

"I feel sorry for Eckhart," Emma said, and meant it, though not for the reasons Adam assumed.

"Don't waste thought on Mason Eckhart," Adam said. "He's not worth anyone's time."

"I don't want to waste any more time talking about Eckhart. I want to see what you bought." Shalimar said, grinning.

"I didn't do any shopping," Emma replied, shaking her head.

"No shopping?" Shalimar was stunned.

"I was too busy looking at schools." Emma sounded earnest.

"Poor girl. A trip out into the world with no shopping!"

Adam smiled at Shalimar, then crossed the floor to stand beside Emma.

"Emma, you can go ahead with this plan of yours to take formal courses, but the truth is I could direct you in just about any area of study on an informal basis that would be more focused and challenging than anything offered by the local colleges."

Months before, Emma would have reacted to Adam's tone as warm and concerned, but now she instead heard condescension, and arrogance in the way he believed himself superior in fields far removed from his expertise and specialty, and what he thought Emma would find challenging.

Adam kissed the top of Emma's head.

Emma exerted every possible aspect of self control she possessed not to flinch at Adam's unsought and unwelcome touch, and not to wield an emotional flare at him in response. She hoped that Shalimar was not watching too closely; just as animals could sometimes see past deceptions that would fool humans, Shalimar might just discern something about Emma which was not right, which was just wrong.

Shalimar bounced up from where she was sitting, wearing her trying-too-hard smile and stalked over towards Emma and Jesse.

"I just can't believe you didn't do any shopping."

Jesse was livid over the kiss. He had forgotten himself, displaying his displeasure openly. Shalimar's silly comment dragged him back to the need for deception.

"I thought the idea of taking formal coursework was silly, too, Adam, but after I thought about it some more, I'm considering an actual degree in electrical engineering with specialty concentration in avionics." Jesse managed his best I'm-earnest-but-harmless smile, except that he now felt anything but harmless.

Shalimar's nostrils flared slightly; Emma recognized that she was carefully scenting them. Then Shalimar did something else: raising her upper lip, she took in the volatiles wafting off of Jesse and Emma, flehming as some animals could when using her vomeronasal organ.

Emma and Adam were the only people who knew she possessed this unhuman sensory capability. Emma knew if she noticed what Shalimar was doing, Adam would as well.

"Jesse, whatever you want to know about avionics, I can teach you."

Adam was smiling, but Jesse could hear the edge in Adam's voice and knew he had succeeded in annoying him. From Adam's consternation at the uncommon experience of being questioned, Jesse knew Adam had a long night of indigestion stretching before him, and he was pleased with himself for being the cause of Adam's discomfort. Jesse wished he could do more to distress Adam.

Brennan closed his copy of Sports Illustrated and tossed it aside. "Avionics?"

"The electronics, Brennan," Jesse said casually. "In an aircraft."

Jesse watched Adam's face as it more and more reflected the turmoil in his stomach.

Paybacks are hell.

"Brennan, do you have plans for the balance of the evening?" Adam asked.

"Me? No."

"Would you go out to the twenty-four hour drugstore and get me a few packs of antacids? I feel a long night coming on."

"Oh. Sure." Brennan shuffled out.

"Well," Emma began, "I'm tired. I'm going to shower and turn in for the night."

Shalimar was still smiling. "I just can't believe you didn't do any shopping. Not even a pair of shoes?"

"No…not even a pair of shoes."

Emma did as she said, retreating to her quarters. Adam wandered off to his lab workshop to fill the time until Brennan returned with relief. Shalimar and Jesse were left alone.

"What are you two up to, Jesse? Emma's scent is all over you." Shalimar once again wore her trying-too-hard smile, this time with a sisterly interpretation.

"Shal, we've been in a closed car together for hours. What do you expect?" Jesse managed his best air of innocence.

"How long do you think you can fool Adam? He won't be happy with you when he finds out. You know his rules."

"And you should know how intrusive non-ferals find your talk about scent. It's rude, and it reminds people of how you are different." Jesse hated lying to Shalimar, so he chose to instead divert the conversation.

Shalimar was taken aback at Jesse's objections, since he typically was so accepting of anything she said.

"Well…Jesse…I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted. Don't put such trust in your animal senses. I'm going to shower and turn in, too. It's been a long day."

Shalimar smiled her trying-too-hard smile once more. "Good night."

She waited until she heard Jesse's door close and then padded off towards Adam's workshop, disturbed by what she had scented.

"Adam…can you talk?"

"Sure…anything to take my mind off my stomach sounds like a good idea. I hope Brennan doesn't dawdle over the martial arts magazines."

Shalimar closed the workshop door behind her. "There's something funny going on with Emma and Jesse."

"You noticed it, too. Uppity Jesse." Adam looked disgusted, but he was actually in gastric distress.

"No, there's more than that. They reek of each other's scent." Shalimar smirked.

"That's interesting. I noticed you flehming." Adam looked up from the pile of electronic junk he had been tinkering with. "I'll have to have a talk with both of them tomorrow."

"Well, there's something more about Emma. I know how crazy this sounds but I swear I scented the faintest whiff of Eckhart about her."

"Eckhart?"

"He doesn't smell like anyone else. He's very distinctive."

"Well, it makes sense that he would be unique…the combination of his pre-digested diet, odd profile of gut flora surviving his antibiotics, and volatile monomers from the biopolymer skin…but it doesn't make sense that our Emma would be anywhere near Eckhart. She loathes him. She always has. He's given her good reasons to loathe him."

"I'm as certain about this as I can be, Adam."

"Between that and Eckhart's reappearance today…too much coincidence. I don't think this will keep until morning. Go and get Emma, Shalimar. I want to examine her and be certain that this is our Emma…and that she hasn't been tampered with."

"Are you sure? What am I supposed to tell her? She won't be pleased. She's been sort of touchy lately. Haven't you noticed?"

"I have, but that's too bad," Adam said. "Tell her I insist. I'll meet her in the examination room."

Shalimar found Emma damp and dripping from her shower, all traces of others now washed down the drain.

"Adam wants to examine you, Emma."

"He wants to do what? Tonight? Now? I'm exhausted. I have a headache."

"I don't think he's going to take 'no', Emma. Just come along and get this over with."

"I'm really not happy. This is more than a little intrusive."

And I'm not happy about the way you allow Adam to order you about, although I'm sure it spares you the effort of thinking for yourself.

Emma wrapped her dripping red hair with a dry towel and put on her pink bunny slippers, then followed Shalimar to the examination room, protesting loudly enough to attract Jesse's attention. He trailed along behind the two women, saying nothing but listening. Emma glanced back once to be certain he was following.

Adam smiled at Emma, an unconvincing smile superimposed over his indigestions.

Emma did not return his smile. "Adam, I am not happy about this. I am tired, crabby, and wet."

Adam just kept smiling. "Take off the bathrobe, and get up into the examination chair."

Emma crossed her arms. "No. I'm wet and if I take this off I'll just have on my nightie and I'll freeze."

"Don't argue with me, Emma." Adam's voice held the raw edge of a threat.

Jesse walked through the doorway. "Adam, why do you always examine the women half-naked but Brennan and I get to keep our clothes on?" Jesse did his best to appear harmless, to imply that the question was nowhere near as loaded with meaning and implications as it actually was.

Shalimar turned to face Jesse, stunned by the comment. She said nothing but years of being used by men marked her. Always she had excluded Adam from this class of users, but Jesse was sure he saw doubt flicker through her eyes.

Good. Even Shalimar can learn.

Emma climbed into the exam chair, bathrobe, pink bunny slippers and towel secured about her head.

"I'm not playing, Adam. Take it or leave it."

"This isn't a game, Emma."

"No, it isn't, Adam."

Adam proceeded with the exam without further protest but he did not appear pleased, and he appeared even less pleased when the scan was complete. Emma was Emma, with no hint or suggestion of tampering.

"Well?" Emma challenged.

"Emma, I had to be sure that you were you."

Emma did not turn her head but fixed her eyes upon Shalimar, and glowered at the feral, letting her know who she blamed for this late evening indignity.

"Are you satisfied?" Emma asked. 'Can I leave now?" She was already sitting upright, legs swung over the edge.

"Yes."

Emma slid down to the floor and stalked off to her room, bunny slippers slapping on the hard floor.

Jesse turned to leave.

"Jesse, what is going on here?" Adam asked.

"With what?" Jesse asked, all innocence.

"Emma."

"I don't know. PMS?" Jesse wore his highly useful look of earnest harmlessness. And Adam believed him, and thought no more about Jesse, who turned away and walked off to his room, amused with how easy it was to fool the supposed 'smartest man in the world'. Marginalized and taken for granted, Jesse perfected the look of naïve innocence. If Adam was going to habitually underestimate him, Jesse was going to put Adam's poor judgment to work against him.

Shalimar turned to Adam. "Well?"

"She's perfectly normal. This is our Emma."

"Well, maybe it's PMS."

Back in their rooms, Emma and Jesse selected and packed the last of their possessions to take with them from Sanctuary. Brennan eventually returned from the drugstore, with antacids and martial arts magazines.

Jesse stayed awake, stealth fully checking every hour until Adam finally stopped playing with his electronic junk and went to bed. Sanctuary fell silent. Emma was dressed and waiting when he knocked ever so softly, and only twice.

Very quietly, they left Sanctuary, making three trips to Jesse's car, filling the back seat before finally leaving their old lives behind them forever.

They did not say anything until they had put the access road to Sanctuary behind them and had reached the highway.

Emma watched behind them, searching the darkness for the mindset of the hunter.

"No one followed us out of there, Jesse."

"No one expected us to leave. Adam's suspicious, but he thinks sweet little Emma and good old reliable Jesse will wake tomorrow in Sanctuary, and be prepared to be Adam's puppets. He was probably going to sit us down and talk at us for a few hours, one of those endless Daddy Adam monologues."

"Adam will throw a fit in the morning."

"Good. Brennan will have to get him more antacids. Do you still want to return to Genomex?"

"Yes," Emma said with certainty. "If he goes against his word, or tries to implant us with governors, I will have an unpleasant surprise for him."

"I'm not convinced it's the best thing, but you've been inside Eckhart's head, so I will try this."

They drove on through he darkness saying little more. They reached the gatehouse two hours before dawn.

April's agents staffed the gatehouse, heavily armed, and looking haggard from lack of sleep.

Jesse left the car, and entered the guardhouse.

"We have no identification which you would recognize, but Mr Eckhart is expecting us."

"We'll have to check."

"Of course. I wouldn't expect you to do otherwise."

A few minutes passed by. Jesse realized that at this hour, Eckhart might actually be asleep.

The agent hung up the phone. "Mr Eckhart recognizes your names and described you both perfectly well, but he wants two of us to follow you to the front entrance. Until he personally recognizes you, precautions are necessary."

"I would expect him to be careful," Jesse said.

"Don't take it personally."

"I'm not."

"Good."

Jesse returned to the car and waiting Emma.

"Well?"

"We're going to meet Eckhart at the front entrance. Two of April's agents are going to follow us just to be sure we're really us." Jesse re-buckled his seat belt.

"This doesn't feel real to me yet," Emma said. "Having our personal stuff crammed into this car, driving about in the middle of the night to a friendly meeting with Mason Eckhart…"

"This will take some getting used to. I wonder if Eckhart is surprised we came back?"

"I don't think he believes anything he cannot see, touch, or otherwise be sure of."

"That makes sense. Emma, don't do anything these guys could interpret as going for a weapon or any kind of aggressive move. They're armed as heavily as they were earlier, but now they're tired and they aren't thinking clearly."

Jesse parked as close as he could to the front door. Jesse and Emma did not linger in the car, but stood outside it and waited for the agents to escort them inside.

Eckhart waited within, flanked by another pair of agents.

"These are the people I was expecting. Thank you." With a nod, he dismissed the agents from the guardhouse.

"Good morning, Ms deLauro, Mr Kilmartin." Eckhart's tone was as inflexibly formal as either Jesse or Emma could recall. Safely returned to his familiar Genomex domain, he had shed some humanity, and reverted to his no-nonsense persona.

The agents who had flanked him returned to the reception area.

"What now?" Jesse asked.

"I assume you are accepting my offer?" Eckhart asked.

"Well, we're here," Jesse said.

"Jesse…yes, we do accept," Emma said.

Emma discerned a fleeting look of amusement on Eckhart's face.

"You'll need these." He pulled a pair of unlabeled keycards from a pocket and handed one to each. "They will open any Genomex door until 18.00 tonight –6 PM—but by then, you will be issued others. You have not been singled out for special treatment; mine isn't good past that time, either."

"Everything we own is sitting outside in my car," Jesse said.

"The car and contents are safe here. In the short term, the very short term, I've set up living quarters for you and for April's people on Genomex property. Don't worry, I don't expect you to live here. I'm going to lease space in nearby apartment buildings shortly, but of course, you may make any arrangements you please. Also for the short term, I'm going to have catered meals brought in to further simplify everyone's life. They won't be elegant, but no one's been unhappy so far. Do either of you have any special dietary concerns, health or religious?"

"No."

"Good. I did not think it wise to have people coming and going at all hours, not until I'm more sure of having control. Was there any problem in leaving Sanctuary?"

"Adam was suspicious," Jesse said. "We don't know why; we tried to figure it out on the drive here."

"Shalimar sniffed around us. Something she scented sent her running to Adam. I hate it when she does that."

"The why of it probably does not matter now. You're here, you're safe. But I suppose we should be watchful for Adam. Knowing him as I do, I expect him to come hunting for you both."

"After everything that's happened, it's strange to think of Genomex as being safe," Jesse said.

"Life is strange, Mr Kilmartin."

Emma watched Eckhart carefully. The comment was addressed to Jesse, but she knew she'd need to explain to Jesse that Eckhart had said something significant and revelatory.

"What did April's doctors say?" Emma asked.

She correctly anticipated he would be surprised by the question.

"All of the news is good. Stasis appears to have been a positive experience. Many of my personal…functions…effected some measure of repair or enhancement. This was unexpected. I may be able to dispense with blood transfusions, which I would gladly avoid. The risk of disease is so great for me." Caught off guard, he had probably said more than he wished.

He isn't used to anyone asking after his well-being. Does anyone but April give a damn about him?

"I would like to meet with you after lunch and begin some real work. In the meantime, if you could retrieve short-term luggage from your car, I can show you your temporary quarters."

"I'll get it," Jesse said, turning and leaving Emma in the lobby with Eckhart.

"I am glad you're both here," Eckhart said, slightly but noticeably less formal.

What did it cost you to make that admission? Emma realized that Eckhart would never be able to be completely formal with her again. She knew too many personal details. She sensed that he felt somewhat vulnerable around her, but not quite to the degree of fear she detected the day before. And something else, tentative, not quite formed: he wanted to like her and Jesse as well.

"I'm glad we had a choice between running away from Adam and coming here."

"Something happened, didn't it?" Eckhart asked.

For someone who maintained such exquisitely careful and painstaking control of his own emotions, Eckhart was a skilled and thorough observer of other people. Emma was impressed.

"Shalimar. Shalimar scented something specific on me. Probably Jesse. Possibly you. Adam put me through a horrible exam last night. I'm not sure he believed I was truly myself."

"Don't worry about Adam. Adam isn't here."

No, Adam's not here. And I am pleased with that. Adam is not here, and will never rule my life again. Adam is not here to tell me what to and what to think, who to like, and who to hate.

"Should Adam try to invade this place, I am prepared to make his visit short and uncomfortable. I'm fed up with Adam's little invasions of Genomex. The last one involved Mulwray blasting an unarmed female PhD. I watched from a monitor in my office. When she didn't move, I thought she was dead. That isn't going to happen in the future."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm thinking of offering every employee the option of going about armed after thorough training."

"A water pistol would be just as effective against Brennan," Emma laughed.

"So it would."

When the sun rose over Genomex and over Sanctuary, Adam woke early, turning over a technical matter in his mind. He knew Jesse would know more about it than he did, although Adam would never let Jesse know that.

Adam punched in the intercom code to Jesse's room, and received no response.

Only the dead can sleep through an intrusion like that, he reflected. Can Jesse, innocent Jesse, be brazen enough to be spending the night with Emma, defying my rules?

Next, Adam entered the code for Emma's room, not really knowing what he would say if she responded. Receiving no answer from her, Adam stomped out, almost breaking into a run.

He punched in the security override code for Jesse's door, and swept into the room. Jesse's bed was rumpled, but not slept in. Adam pulled open several drawers; he knew where Jesse kept sets of expensive precision tools. The tools were gone, and Adam knew that wherever the tools were, so too was Jesse.

Emma's room was just as empty. Adam found her jewelry gone, and knew Emma was also gone for good.

At least, she's gone until I can catch up with her and drag her back here. Until I haul them both back here. No one's ever done this to me.

Adam stormed out of Emma's room and pounded on Shalimar's and then Brennan's doors in succession. They poked their heads out, still looking sleepy.

"Council of war. Now." Adam's stomach was beginning to churn.

"What's going on, Adam?" Shalimar asked. She was wearing a fluffy, shapeless pink bathrobe which was one of the few items of clothing which kept her comfortably warm enough in this chilly place.

"Emma and Jesse are gone. Jesse's electronics tools are gone, and so is Emma's jewelry. They're gone. They've run away. I should have listened to you, Shalimar."

"Where would they go?" Brennan asked. "Why would they go?"

"I think Eckhart got to them. I don't know how, but I cannot imagine them just leaving. They've got to be at Genomex."

"I know what I scented on her, Adam, but Emma hates Eckhart." Shalimar felt hurt at the possibility of Jesse and Emma running off without a word to her, and annoyance at Adam making Mason Eckhart the root of all he did not like. Adam's fixation upon Eckhart had left them unready and unprepared to deal with any other threat. They had merely been lucky that Gabriel Ashlocke died without doing much damage.

Adam did not calm down. "Well, it's the only clue I've got unless one of you knows something useful I'm unaware of."

Shalimar shook her head.

"Jesse hasn't said anything to me," Brennan offered.

"If they've betrayed me…"

"If they've betrayed you, they've betrayed all of us. I'll claw their eyes out." Shalimar's eyes flashed feral. But she had done that for show. Hurt as she was, she could not imagine hurting Jesse or Emma.

"If they don't have a good explanation for themselves…" Adam was nearly shaking with fury. "We need to look for them at Genomex. I need to know what Eckhart's doing there, anyway. Let's do that right now."

"Now?" Brennan asked.

"Yes, now. Did you have something better planned?" Adam asked sarcastically.

"Well, I was having a guy drop off a 1969 Camaro this afternoon."

"You'd better make other arrangements."

"He wanted to be paid in cash."

"Brennan, it is hot?"

Shalimar rolled her eyes. Of course the car was stolen. Why did Adam even bother to ask?

"I don't know?"

"Brennan, I don't want stolen property brought here."

"But I don't know if it's stolen."

"Leave the money under a rock. We have to go. Call the guy from mid-air."

Adam was in a hurry. He wouldn't let Shalimar make a potty stop and he wouldn't let Brennan grab a handful of Little Debbie Nutty Bars. Adam ignored his own rules and got the Double Helix aloft without the walkaround inspection and preflight checklist he mandated for others.

"If they're there, I want them no matter what it takes." The Double Helix emerged from the mountainside at just subsonic speed, far faster than flight was intended within the tunnel. Entering recklessly into heavily traveled airspace, only automated systems spared them collisions with a pair of MD-11s.

Adam raged the balance of the flight, wearing at Shalimar's patience and making Brennan ignore him completely.

Well away from Genomex, Adam put the Double Helix into stealth mode before bringing the craft down inside the perimeter of the fence line. Exiting the plane, the three made their way along the beach which stank of small, decaying fish lying everywhere.

"What are we doing, Adam? Are we going to walk in the front door?" Brennan's question was unusually apt, because Adam had in fact given no thought to what they would actually do, just that they had to do something at Genomex, and now.

Adam spun about in the sand to confront Brennan, aggravated with any questioning of his authority. Behind Brennan, Shalimar had stopped. With intense concentration, she was carefully digging out a hole in the sand with her right foot, unconcerned with the world about her.

"Shalimar, not HERE!" Adam shouted.

Inside the complex, their arrival had not gone unnoticed. Emma, Jesse, and Eckhart watched their progression along the beach from several cameras.

"I swore to you that I would not ask you to turn against your friends, and I meant it, but your former companions seem determined to deliver themselves to me. Do you have any idea what Adam is doing?"

"None," Jesse said.

"He seems to be headed for the front door," Emma noted.

"Adam's plunging ahead as if he expects to walk in the main entrance unopposed. Can even Adam be that emotional?" Eckhart mused.

"They wasted no time hunting for us," Jesse said.

"Adam must be in a state of white-hot rage to approach the complex with such a lack of caution." Eckhart watched as Shalimar dropped back and began digging her hole. "What is she doing?" He adjusted the camera to zoom in on Shalimar.

"Oh, no!" Emma said, horrified.

"What is it?" Eckhart asked.

"She's digging a hole like a cat, right before…"

Jesse laughed. "Is she going to do what I think she's going to do, Emma?"

"Yes. This is so embarrassing."

"Mee-Aw," Jesse said, laughing.

"Oh, dear God," Eckhart said. "I've read reports about ferals who did this. The same non-human DNA allowing her to drop eight stories and land like a cat also compels her to relieve herself like one. But I've never seen it before. Or wanted to."

Adam lunged for Shalimar, seizing her by the back of the neck and dragging her away from the hole.

"Shalimar, Shalimar, we've talked about this several times and I thought you understood that you cannot DO this. Not in front of other people."

"Huh?" Shalimar was confused. The urgency of her full bladder had tripped an instinctual response, overriding her human restraints.

One of April's agents outfitted as a groundskeeper, weed whacker in hand, lumbered into view.

"Hey!"

"This isn't going to work." Adam turned and ran for the Double Helix, Shalimar and Brennan bounding after.

Jesse smirked. "You never told me Shalimar did that."

"She never told you, either, and you've known her longer than I have," Emma said.

"Someone must have conditioned her at a young age against such instinctive behavior, or everyone would have known about it. Ferals frequently display conduct considered outrageous for humans, but not for the sources of their animal DNA. The ones unfortunate enough to have been raised without proper discipline and conditioning are all but impossible to…housebreak…as adults."

Jesse listened to Eckhart's serious comment, but he was still deeply amused by Shalimar's behavior. "Do you know if she has a litter pan, Emma?"

"Jesse…" Emma's patience was nearly gone.

"Mr Kilmartin, it is just possible that she may. Many ferals are quite bizarre. Those with mammalian DNA are generally…mostly human. However, those with invertebrate DNA are quirky physically and mentally. Some of the work Paul Breedlove did amending insect DNA to human embryos was nothing short of monstrous."

"Insect DNA?" Jesse had not heard of this work. His giddy mood vanished.

Eckhart nodded. "All the living examples were mercifully destroyed before I came to Genomex, but I have seen films and photographs. Paul documented his unholy science with painstaking care and completeness, but from him, that isn't surprising."

"That's revolting," Emma said.

"Genomex is full of secrets. Some of those secrets are astonishingly hideous and grim, like the insect ferals. That work was worthy of the Third Reich or the Japanese Empire. The shiny, high-tech façade of Genomex is a lie. 'Paul Breedlove' was a lie, a fiction to gloss over a much darker origin."

Jesse's levity was long vanished. "We're part of this now. We should know."

"Yes, you should. In the closing days of WW2, a number of German scientists deliberately surrendered to American forces rather than be captured by the Soviets."

"Operation Paperclip," Jesse said.

"Yes. The American government brought these people to this country and put them to work, despite the fact that some should have been prosecuted as war criminals. We've come to think of rocket-building as a high-tech, clean-room activity, but the V1 and V2s were built in hellish underground factories by slave labor imported from all over Europe. The same man who laid out the launch area of Peenemunde did the initial planning of Cape Canaveral as well. Breedlove did not work in rocketry, but was part of the Third Reich's so-called medical research."

"He was a Nazi?" Emma asked. She had never heard rumors of Breedlove having connections to Nazism or Germany.

"When he called himself Kurt von Schuler he was. It took me years to piece Breedlove's past together into a coherent whole."

"Adam always spoke so highly of Breedlove. Didn't he know?" Jesse asked.

"Adam would not be the first man to ignore his hero's blighted beginnings. He was more than Breedlove's protégé; Paul treated him like a son, a spoiled son. Adam got away with things which would have gotten anyone else dismissed."

"Such as?" Jesse asked. The idea of Adam the Pure, Adam the Paragon committing offenses amused Jesse. He wanted to know more.

"Adam had a disagreement with another employee that ended up in Breedlove's office. When Breedlove backed the other employee and not Adam, Adam broke into the Genomex email and sent nearly everyone onsite a message describing this individual as falsifying her academic record and having the social habits of a cat in estrus."

"Wow," Jesse said.

"Well, of course the matter came to me. Breedlove knew Adam was responsible but he would not discipline him, although he added his signature to the letter everyone received branding the email as false and vicious, and defending the young woman's qualifications and character, promising any future abuse of the email system would lead to immediate dismissal."

"What did Adam do?" Emma asked.

"Well, Breedlove had him in his office for several hours later that day, and the 'exchange' was loud and heated. I was told Adam did not speak to Breedlove for weeks, and naturally, Adam blamed me for all the unpleasantness, even though he brought it on himself. I was security director. I was doing my job."

Emma smiled, reading more of Eckhart than he might have wished. "You did the right thing."

"Everyone, absolutely everyone knew that only one individual at Genomex could do such a nasty, juvenile act and keep their job. There had been jokes before circulating about how Adam really believed he was the smartest man in the world, but after this incident they became jokes about the 'smartest and most insecure man in the world' since it came out that Adam had been making overtures to this very intelligent and lovely woman, who paid him no notice whatsoever."

"Adam doesn't have much capacity for laughing at himself," Jesse said. "Outright ridicule must have made him crazy."

"He did not handle things well. Most of the jokes were much ruder than I have described."

"I can imagine," Jesse said.

"How long did this go on?" Emma asked.

"Months," Eckhart answered. "Adam would not let go of it. His lies blew up in his face, so then he spent a lot of effort trying to sabotage this woman. Fortunately, she did not play the game with him and his attempts ended only in further ridicule and erosion of his reputation, and ever more rude jokes. Accustomed to getting his own way, Adam took a long time to understand that he would not always get what he wanted, no matter how smart he was."

"This is just not the way Adam describes his twenty years at Genomex," Jesse said, "although I believe your story. A lot of techy guys are like that, capable and competent in their work, but socially confused."

"Paul Breedlove inculcated the attitude in Adam that he could do no wrong. Breedlove gained influence over Adam at a very young age. A wiser man would have developed his son in a more balanced fashion. All Breedlove wanted from Adam was a lot of work, and someone to carry on his own studies."

"To hear Adam tell it, Breedlove was a saintly man, a pure scientist motivated by curiosity," Emma said. "Not just a solid researcher, but a good man."

Eckhart hesitated before adding further comment.

"So much for appearances. I was able to confirm that Paul Breedlove was briefly Dr Mengele's protégé…when Mengele greeted the boxcars newly arrived in the hell of Oswiecim, and decided who would live and who would go to the 'showers'. For a short time, Paul Breedlove stood by the railroad siding beside Mengele."

"Can you imagine? The medical prodigy Kurt von Schuler, not old enough to serve in the Nazi war or terror machine, participating in the unspeakable, and decades later presenting himself to the world as Paul Breedlove, savior of sick children?"

"This deeply disturbs you personally," Emma said. "Why?"

"For years, I served Paul Breedlove with great loyalty. I believed him. I did not learn about his origins until after my 'accident' confined me to Genomex. I had uncounted hours in the middle of the night to delve through the corporate archives. I was not absolutely convinced of what Breedlove was until I opened a banker's box containing documentation of his life in the Fatherland, including an extended pedigree confirming his 'pure Aryan descent', and his Nazi party card."

"Wow," Emma said.

"Did all of this burn in the same fire that destroyed the consent forms?" Jesse asked.

"The pedigree is gone, but the party card I took with me that night. It's hidden behind paneling in my quarters."

Eckhart appeared impassive and controlled, but Emma's mind was buffeted by the turbulence and intensity of his emotions.

"Paul saved my life several times after the accident, before I knew anything much about him other than his official biography. He was unquestionably brilliant and creative; without his efforts, I would be dead. He devised most of the protocols that keep me alive. I should have been more astute. More aware. More questioning. More insightful. I feel tainted by the association, touched by the hands of one of the lesser monsters of the last century."

"You did not know." Then Eckhart's vivid recollection of Breedlove's murder flooded her mind. "But now, his victims are avenged," Emma said quietly.

Their eyes met.

"I think you did well," she said.

"I sometimes wonder what the old Nazi would have thought had he known of my descent from a daughter of Judah Benjamin. Part of my pedigree is southern."

"Who was?" Jesse asked.

"The Jewish attorney who in turn served as the Attorney General, Secretary of War, and Secretary of State of the Confederacy. It's no secret; it's a source of family pride. But it never came up in conversation with Paul."

Emma and Jesse's temporary quarters at Genomex consisted of an office with desks and bookcases pushed to one side, with a clothes rack and an inflatable mattress. Restrooms with lockers and showers were conveniently close.

Their circumstances were Spartan but private. April's staff was housed similarly but in conditions more akin to a barracks or dormitory.

Emma stood by the floor to ceiling window and looked out over the water. A nearly full moon, not visible from this angle, shone down upon the waves.

"What are you doing up, Emma. It's the middle of the night." Jesse his watch aside in the darkness.

"I woke up thinking about Paul Breedlove. How does anyone become a Paul Breedlove, Jesse? Or a Mason Eckhart? Is it possible that any of us could become a monster, or at least a very damaged person, and not even notice the process?"

"I don't know. I hope that I would notice myself changing."

Emma sighed. "We watch old movies and not so old movies, and it's always so obvious that the Nazis are evil and that the forces of Empire are evil. You watch, and you imagine that if you lived in such times, you would be on the side of good."

"Well, yeah."

"But that's the scary part, Jesse. I realized today that we can't be sure what side we'll find ourselves. Only a handful of human monsters set out to commit mass murder, but they always seem able to find lieutenants and assistants. Where does responsibility begin and end? I don't think anyone can imagine a reason to believe Mengele was not responsible for the deaths he ordered. The guards who herded people into the 'showers' were responsible, though they did not select the victims or the time of their murder. What about the guys who put the Zyklon B in place? They knew what it was for, but they never had anything to do with the people. What about the guy who drove the delivery truck bringing in fresh stocks of Zyklon B? Or the guys who worked in the plant where it was manufactured? What about a file clerk working in that plant, who worked to feed her family, who had nothing to do with manufacturing, and who never did anything to harm Jew or Gypsy, who never threw a brick through the window of a Jewish shop? Is that file clerk evil? Where does evil begin, Jesse? Where does it end? Is evil rooted in all of us?"

"I don't know."

"I don't, either. Paul Breedlove touched us, too. Just as Eckhart is alive today in some measure because of something Breedlove learned or was directed towards during the Nazi medical programs, we exist as part of the legacy of those programs."

"That doesn't make us evil."

"Oh, no. Absolutely not. But it connects us to something we believed was remote and unrelated to us. Except it wasn't."

"Like finding out that not only was your great-great-grandfather was from Alabama, but that he owned slaves."

"Exactly. The past turns out to be not so dead after all."

"I could make a joke of all this and say that Eckhart is being a gloomy influence on you, but that would be wrong. The questions you're asking, no matter who led you to ask them, are important."

"My agenda remains unchanged: to limit the influence of the Genomex mutants upon the human gene pool and protect society from the dangerous or destructive mutants. Dealing with dangerous individuals leaves few options. But I want to try a different approach with those who are not violent, not criminal, and who, given the choice, would elect to live otherwise ordinary lives."

"What do you have in mind?" Emma asked.

"A kind of mutant outreach. Meetings with one mutant at a time, or small groups of mutants."

"If I went to the underground, and proposed such a thing, they would assume you are controlling me. These people don't trust you. No one would come to such a meeting." Emma shook her head for emphasis.

"Hear the whole of it: either you, or Mr Kilmartin will approach the underground to find a likely candidate. The second meeting will be on neutral ground with only the two of you and me present. We will use open, public locations so this is apparent."

"You?" Jesse asked.

"Me only. No armed GSA agents will be there. I'll be armed. I'm always armed, but that is about protecting myself from ordinary criminals or future betrayals. I'm simply too vulnerable physically to do otherwise. You will display that you are not wearing governors, and confirm I am telling the truth to the limits of my knowledge."

"They hate you," Emma said. "You must understand this."

"I don't believe I've ever expected to be liked by anyone, Ms deLauro."

Emma was stunned. "That's so sad," Emma said.

"Not really. That attitude frees me to be utterly blunt and thoroughly rational. My object is not winning the affection and friendship of the Genomex mutants. I want to deal with them humanely, and still prevent disaster. They should all know they are sick, whether symptoms of their inevitable decline have begun or not."

"That probably isn't generally known," Jesse said. "We have not known for long."

"They need to be told their children will share their illness and early death. I cannot compel them to be childless, but knowingly making damaged children is selfish, and cruel."

And you mean that.

"Those who agree to make no contribution to the gene pool will be offered the best known treatments and their lives will be extended. We'll know who they are. We'll leave them free to live as they please, with no intrusion from the GSA. No one will know there is anything different about them. They will have normal lives, no governors, no stasis pods."

"And the ones who won't agree?"

"Initially, I will concentrate solely upon removing the dangerous ones from the streets. After about nine months, however, most of all of the others should know about the program. At that time, my agents will be instructed to gently bring in any mutant. I'll make them the same offer with identical conditions."

"I will do everything to allow every mutant capable of living an otherwise normal life be able to live that life. For the predators and mentally unbalanced, I will conduct business as usual. Criminals, once captured, will be implanted with governors and handed over to the courts to be prosecuted. There are too many mutants using their talents to prey upon honest people. All mutants should be concerned with the way the criminals among them cast doubts upon the character of them all."

"We tend to think of ourselves as mutants first," Jesse said, "although the flaw in that line of thinking is obvious."

"A criminal with mutant abilities does not care if he is preying upon humans or mutants. They are not selective."

"Most of us need to understand that," Emma said, recalling Brennan's stories of easy gain. She could recall no expression of remorse from Brennan.

"I will pursue criminal mutants with utmost dedication. Ordinary law enforcement is unprepared to capture them."

"You are good at it," Jesse said.

"I've never enjoyed the pursuit, Mr Kilmartin. Temperamentally, it suits me, and I'm good at it, but I do not enjoy it. No doubt there are those who believe I relish the hunt, but the truth of it is that I am probably one of the few men in this country with a proper understanding of the problem and the stomach and will to aggressively work towards a solution."

Jesse and Emma sat silently.

"If you can offer better alternatives, I'm open to your ideas. It's a difficult situation, but I cannot think of any fairer way."

Jesse shrugged. "I can't think of anything."

"I wish this wasn't necessary," Emma said.

"So do I. But it is. I've explained what is at stake."

"I suppose it's always like this when people find themselves facing such a task. They all wish they could be doing something else, but life did not offer that possibility, not if they were going to be responsible adults. Just saying that sounds old-fashioned, but it is the simple, painful truth, isn't it?" Emma asked, looking sad and reflective.

"Yes," Jesse said.

"Exactly so, Ms deLauro."

"What exactly do you want us to do?" Jesse asked.

"I assume you still know how to contact the underground?"

Emma nodded.

"Mr Kilmartin, note that I am not asking the how of this. As odd as it might sound to your ears, I do want to establish trust. Trust is fragile, painstaking to acquire, and all too easy to destroy. I'm not asking for special consideration, only the opportunity to earn your trust."

"I understand," Jesse said.

"Good. Make contact from a pay phone. I don't want anyone inside or outside of these walls to be able to trace these contacts. I don't want to know anything about it. What I don't know, I cannot tell anyone else. You must understand that there are people, such as April, to whom I am pledged to speak the truth. Do you think I am being fair enough with you?"

"Yeah," Jesse said.

"Meet with them. Set up a second meeting, with the two of you, and me. Just as I will not be bringing armed agents, I expect them not to be accompanied by a pack of aggressive mutants."

"A lot of them would like to kill you," Jesse said. "Killing you is a frequent topic of conversation in mutant circles."

"No doubt," Eckhart said without hesitation or emotion.

"But you'll have protection, won't you?" Emma asked. "You expect us…to protect you."

"Yes," Eckhart said, meeting Emma's eyes.

She met his gaze unflinchingly, knowing, sensing, that he was not being arrogantly manipulative or quietly presumptuous. What was present was trust in Emma's understanding and acceptance of what she had learned from him and growing confidence in her own intelligence and character. She found his assessment flattering.

"Thank you."

"You are welcome."

Over a year of living an unsettled life had aged Allison Turner. Already thin, she now appeared haggard, her manner subdued. She approached Emma warily, searching for signs of a trap about to close around her.

"There's a strange story making the rounds about you." Allison's manner was wary and guarded.

"I can only tell you the straight story, Allison, which is that Jesse and I have left Adam's group for personal reasons."

"Adam says you left Mutant X because Eckhart offered you a better deal."

"It's not that simple. Jesse and I had discussed leaving Adam for months. Adam controls the personal lives of Mutant X, as if each of us was still a child, not an independent adult. Coincidentally, Eckhart offered us a safe place to go, and a way to help other mutants. Things just happened to work out the way that they did."

"Help mutants? Eckhart? Emma…what has he done to you?" Allison's face tensed. "Emma you hate this man as much as I do. He penned us up in an outdoor cage like a bunch of stray dogs. What is going on with you?" Allison crossed her arms defensively and glared in puzzlement at Emma. Emma had always seemed reasonable before, so Allison had difficulty in understanding the drastic change in attitude.

"Nothing. Come see for yourself." Emma held her hair away from the back of her neck, and bent her head forward and down, proving to Allison that she carried no subdermal governor. "Jesse doesn't have one, either."

Allison came to stand just behind Emma, and inspected the back of her neck, puzzled and dubious. "I don't understand. He has to be doing something. Eckhart's always up to something. I don't think he knows how to have a straightforward, honest thought."

"I'm doing this of my own choosing. Eckhart's…odd, but he's not deceiving or using me."

Allison rolled her eyes. "You sound crazy. Do you know how crazy this sounds?"

"I know how I sound, but it's the simple truth. You know what I can do and you know he has no defenses against me."

"Adam is looking for you. He's looking everywhere. He has everyone out looking."

"Is he offering a bounty on me?" Emma asked.

"He is offering a reward. He wants you back badly. Every time there is a rumor of Jesse or you being sighted, Adam flies to investigate the rumor himself."

"Allison, I am not a minor child and Adam is not my legal guardian. I am an independent adult woman, as you are. I did not pledge myself to serve Adam for life, even if he would like to believe that. By what right can Adam tell me what to do or where to be, Allison?"

Allison stood silent for a moment. "Well, I don't know. I can only tell you what he's saying." Adam's authority and wisdom were rarely questioned by anyone in the underground. Adam was accustomed to merely desiring a thing in order to get it. His wishes and whims were treated by the underground as if they had the weight of logic or law behind them.

"I'm not going back to him, because I do not wish to be treated like a child."

"Maybe you and Adam need to talk and reach some kind of middle ground position."

"With Adam, there is no middle ground. There is Adam's way, and everyone else's, which is wrong, wrong, wrong. Allison, can you be back here tomorrow at the same time? It's important."

"I could be here. Why?"

"I will be here with Jesse and Eckhart."

"With his goons ready to drop a net over me? Not a chance, Emma."

Emma shook her head. "It'll just be the three of us. No goons. No 'nets'. Just talk."

"Sounds like a great opportunity to kill Eckhart. I'll bring a few friends along. Everybody will want a chance at him."

Emma shook her head. "No friends. Just you. If I sense the presence of people with murderous intent, I'll warn him."

"You are serious. You would tell him, wouldn't you?"

"I promised Eckhart that I would."

"I don't understand what you are doing with that man. I don't think he's the Antichrist, but I think he's one of the harbingers."

Emma laughed. "I believed that once, too. The truth about Eckhart is much tamer."

"Things are not the way Adam explained. Adam lied to us about our past, and about our futures. We need to know the truth. We can go into that tomorrow. What if you could live a normal life, without having to look over your shoulder for the GSA, be able to use your real name, never need to run, never need to hide?"

"With Eckhart out of the freezer, that isn't going to happen. Emma, I know how he is."

"Be here tomorrow. Hear what he has to say. Just listen. Nothing will be asked of you."

"This has to be a trap. Eckhart schemes in his dreams."

"If this is a trap, I swear I'll kill Eckhart myself. You know I can do that. So does he."

"How many people does he have watching us now?" Allison asked.

"None. Eckhart didn't want to know anything about this meeting. He doesn't know that I'm talking to you, or where I am."

"This is all so crazy."

"I know. But Allison, situations can change."

"Just be here tomorrow. Please."

"I don't know. Emma, I don't like the way I have to live. I wish there was another way. But I'm scared."

"I understand. Jesse will be here tomorrow, too. You've known Jesse a long time."

"I make no promises, Emma."

"Try."

Jesse entered Eckhart's office, still feeling vague discomfort.

"I've completed packing up the contents of Dr Harrison's office for later evaluation. I didn't find anything demanding attention now."

"You didn't find any of his 'playthings'?" Eckhart asked.

"Playthings?" Jesse was puzzled.

"If the reference does not mean anything to you, you didn't see them, and you should consider yourself fortunate."

"I'm confused."

"Dr Harrison had some unusual personal pastimes. He left some of his toys sitting out in plain sight, and I had the ill luck of seeing them. Harrison was a very strange snake of a man."

"He had an odd window garden."

Eckhart groaned. "His carnivores."

"What do you want done with them?"

"Get them out of here."

"I'll pitch them."

"Dr Harrison gave each one of those plants a name, and he talked to them."

"Names?"

"Gidney. Cloyd. Ysabeau. But that's not the worst of it. He didn't feed his pets dead insects, oh, no. He ordered cartons of live insects and released them inside the terrariums. I had the ill luck of witnessing feeding time once."

Jesse sat quietly for a moment. For some time, he had considered Eckhart the oddest individual in his experience, but here he was, listening to Eckhart describe the hobbies and interests of Dr Harrison, who made Eckhart seem almost normal.

"That's like the snake people who feed live mice to their pets," Jesse said.

"Yes," Eckhart replied, with great disgust. "Ken Harrison was bizarre."

Allison appeared on time at the appointed place and hour.

Emma smiled. "Hello, Allison."

"Thank you for coming, Ms Turner." Eckhart sounded sincere without a suggestion of irony or sarcasm.

Allison stared coldly at Eckhart. He was accustomed to unfriendly stares and she wasn't able to get him to change expression or look aside. "Everyone told me I was out of my mind to do this."

"Do you see any signs that things are other than the way I said they would be?" Emma asked.

"No. I'm still looking." Allison was wary of her surroundings.

"Ms Turner, the best way to allay your fears is for me to speak bluntly and succinctly. If you had a choice, would you prefer a life lived openly, without GSA intrusion?" Eckhart's tone remained polite.

"We'd all like that." Allison looked ready to run.

"I'm prepared to offer you that life. I'd rather not spend mine chasing you."

"In return for turning in my friends?" Allison crossed her arms defensively. "I won't do that, and I won't tell you where any of them are."

Eckhart shook his white head. "No. Nothing like that. I have not asked that of Ms deLauro or Mr Kilmartin, and I shall not ask your betrayal of anyone. You are aware that each and every Genomex-created mutant is fated to develop diseases involving the immune system, and to die a relatively early death?"

"I've heard rumors. We've all heard those stories. I don't believe them."

"It's true," Jesse said. "Ask Adam. He's known all along. He'll confirm it."

"I'm confused, Eckhart. If we're going to die off anyway, why are you bothering with us? If it's true, why not just let us croak?"

"Because any children of the Genomex mutants will face the same diseases and early deaths. They'll carry the seeds of a slow-moving plague. And there is more: the transgenics will have not only this problem, but genetically they present yet another: while they're likely to be fertile with an unaltered human, crosses with other transgenics may yield no progeny, sterile progeny, or grotesque monstrosities. Prior to the Genomex mutants, humanity consisted of a single species. The transgenics could splinter us into dozens of species. Take this all to its logical end, Ms Turner."

"Which is?" Allison asked, highly suspicious.

"The Genomex mutants, with their tendency towards early death and their subdividing the species, could bring about the extinction of humanity. With all their survival advantages, they initially do well and tend towards many children, but in the long term, the Genomex mutants will be a disaster for the human race."

"What do you want me to do?"

Allison was aware of dozens of mutants a few years older than herself who were showing signs of illness. None of them seemed to ever become well again. She met Eckhart's eyes. Allison knew he was a master manipulator, but in this case, she was convinced he believed the truth of what he was saying, hard as it was for her to admit that he might be less than a monster.

Whatever else he might be, he believes what he has just said with absolute conviction. Emma was right. I had to see this.

"If you agree to have no children, to never publicly display mutant abilities, the GSA will not only leave you to live a normal life, but when your inevitable medical decline begins, we will treat you and prolong your life. You will never be expected to wear a governor. I make the same offer to all mutants, except the deranged ones, the criminals, and th0se who have lost control of their talents, and who are hazards to everyone in society."

"And you don't expect us to turn in our friends?"

"No. But I would hope you would tell your friends that I am making the offer," Eckhart said.

"Why are you doing this?"

"To concentrate my efforts upon the capture of dangerous individuals. As well as I do, you know how dangerous some of your peers are."

Emma spoke. "I sense nothing deceitful in what he has said, Allison."

"We haven't caught him in a lie yet," Jesse offered. "I was just as dubious."

"How long do I have to decide?"

"One month," Eckhart replied. "Call the main switchboard number at Genomex, and ask for 'Mainstream'. And please, call from pay phone or a cell phone if you remain fearful." Eckhart shook his head. "This is not about rounding up people who cold be living productive, honorable lives."

"You're asking a lot to expect people to give up having children."

"As a father, I know. But there is no cure, no fix, no workaround. Knowingly creating children who are damned to a slow, early death is selfish and cruel, don't you think?"

"What about the ones who already have kids?" Allison asked.

"They agree to have no more and we track their children, and at some time, we make the same offer to their children. This problem isn't going to go away quickly. I don't expect a resolution in my lifetime."

"What about any mutants who are sick now and need treatment?"

Eckhart sighed. "You already know some very sick people, don't you? My medical staff is small at present. I am actively recruiting doctors, nurses, and support people to staff a specialized treatment in the old St Katherine's Hospital, which Genomex has purchased. The building is being remodeled. I thought I had more time to prepare, but I don't. Ms Turner, refer any sick mutants to the main Genomex number. I will contact local hospital and contract with them to take care of ailing mutants until St Katherine's is ready."

"What about the children of the people who are really sick?"

"The children…" Eckhart began, "we'll have to take responsibility for them as well. I had not thought through to that, Ms Turner. Possibly they could be placed with mutant adoptive parents. How does that strike you?"

"Probably a good idea," Allison replied.

"You've given me a good deal to think about," Eckhart said.

"So have you. What do you get out of this, Eckhart?" Allison's voice had lost a good deal of its edge of distrust.

"I hope, the preservation of humanity, and all of its works. Genomex mutant DNA spreading throughout the human race implies eventual extinction."

"You really believe all of this," she said.

"The science implies no other outcome. I have to believe what is rational and logical. When you leave, please tell your friends that no matter how they feel now, they are all ill people."

"What would you do if I just walked out of here?" Allison asked.

"Nothing. You are free to walk away any time you choose. But I intend to keep talking to others like you. I have worked with mutants most of my adult life. Most of you want what everyone wants, not a marginal life lived in the shadows. Most of you are capable of living such lives."

Allison shook her head. "I don't think there's anything left to say. It has been interesting."

"Thanks again for coming, Ms Turner."

"Jesse, could you walk me to my car?"

"Sure."

Allison turned to Emma. "Goodbye, Emma."

"Take care of yourself, Allison."

Emma waited until Allison and Jesse were beyond hearing before saying anything.

"I think you did well. Allison is no pushover."

"She was listening with great care."

"She was. She knows a lot of people. The word will get out."

"I must admit to feeling overwhelmed by the size and complexity of the problem. Damn Breedlove. Damn Adam."

"I can understand why you would feel that way."

"How could intelligent men do these things?" Eckhart asked. "Curiosity and ego are no justification."

"I used to think that you were the cruelest, most arrogant man on earth."

"And now?"

Emma almost smiled. "And now, I find myself concerned that you are being too hard on yourself. You cannot fix everything, yourself, immediately! I can feel your frustration and impatience. Give yourself credit for what you have done and are doing. Breedlove had a lot of smart guys working for him, technical guys who understood the program and its implications. Where are those smart guys now? Picking up paychecks in distant cities while you, Breedlove's security chief, pick up the pieces of a technical disaster."

"A technical blasphemy."

"I don't know what to make of all that, Jesse, Allison said.

"I understand. I've come around to changing my views. Eckhart is difficult, but he's not a monster. He's been good to Emma and to me. Everything he promised us has happened."

"So, this isn't about your getting back at Adam? That's what Adam tells people."

"I have nothing to 'get back' at Adam for. I couldn't stay with Adam as one of his 'children' any longer. The time had come to grow up. Adam was paying me an allowance, like a twelve-year-old. I'm not a child and I don't care to be treated like one, either."

"But isn't Eckhart using you for his revenge? He makes no secret of hating Adam."

"Oh, he hates Adam, and with good reason, but he doesn't waste time thinking about Adam the way Adam burns the hours thinking bad thoughts about Eckhart. He wants to see Adam prosecuted for some crimes, within the legal system."

"I can't get over seeing you working for him. Neither can Adam," Allison said.

"Eckhart offered me a way to develop my technical skills and really help other mutants."

"He's really not keeping you as prisoners?"

Jesse shook his head. "No. I signed a lease this morning for an apartment of our choosing. Eckhart advanced me salary to do that."

"Adam is really angry with you. I've never heard him rage this way. Everyone who has talked to him has a story about Adam ranting, making scary suggestions about what he would like to do, especially to you. Be careful not to let him catch you, Jesse."

"Eckhart warned us. He knows that side of Adam quite well."

"Do you think Eckhart's for real, that he doesn't have some dark, murky, obscured Eckhart agenda, just out of sight?"

"Emma is certain there is no deceit. If I didn't believe Eckhart, I wouldn't help him. He's not paying me anything I couldn't match at another company. I'm doing this so I can help other mutants as well."

"I'm confused. What you're saying is so different than what we all believed."

"Emma 'read' him. She says he's telling the truth. Between his physical problems and the personal hell he's been through, Emma says everything fits and makes sense."

"If…I decide to accept this offer of his…and he has managed to deceive both of you…"

Jesse stopped walking, and turned to squarely face Allison. "Emma and I have discussed the possibility. Emma would destroy him. We've already decided that. Since he did not insist upon governors, we were suspicious that he had another control technique. We've tried doing things all over Genomex and found no limitations. Emma has even wafted impressions my way in Eckhart's office, in front of him, and he never knew. No difference. No limits."

Allison Turner was the first mutant to leave the underground. After her, there were many others who came forward to the meetings with Emma, Jesse, and Eckhart. All of them were told the same things as Allison, and made the same promises.

The mainstreaming of mutants proceeded as promised. They settled into their new, openly lived lives. They then told their friends who remained behind in the underground, still living marginal, uncertain lives. The numbers of mutants in hiding decreased by one third after only six months, but that did not tell the complete story since the rate at which people left the underground increased all the time as word spread that the mainstreaming offer was legitimate and real.

Only mutants who were criminals, insane, or whose powers were out of control were sought and captured by the GSA, and they increasingly composed more and more of the underground, further motivating honest mutants to leave.

These developments did not escape Adam's notice. Increasingly, the underground became identified with the criminal element, undermining its legitimacy and respectability, also making Adam and Mutant X appear more and more a rogue outfit whose time had come and passed. Adam's influence among the mainstreamed mutants waned as they grew more and more concerned with mundane matters that preoccupied ordinary humans, whose world they now occupied.

The mutants among the earliest out into the wider world were surprised to learn that Adam, Shalimar, and Brennan were still dashing about in the Double Helix, actively encouraging mutants to remain hidden. Some concluded, incorrectly, that Adam was allied with the criminals and always had been.

These developments distressed and angered Adam beyond measure. He began thinking in terms of a counterattack, which of course would require good intelligence about Adam's enemies.

Adam outfitted Shalimar with a shoulder-length dark brown wig with tight curls, and had her wear a sedate cotton skirt and blouse in bland pastels. Anyone who knew Shalimar would not be fooled at close range. However, in the company of a mutant couple who sincerely sought to leave their uncertain life in the underground, Eckhart, Emma, and Jesse would not be inclined to carefully scrutinize the tamely attired third mutant and discover the flamboyant Shalimar beneath the dullness.

Shalimar could not defeat Emma's awareness of the emotions swirling about her, but she could concentrate upon recollection of several movies with highly charged and distracting emotional content instead, confusing Emma's perceptions.

Shalimar met the other two mutants—a couple who divulged only the names of Barbara and Karl—minutes before Jesse appeared to lead them to the meeting in the middle of a food court at a huge regional shopping mall.

She said nothing to Jesse, knowing her voice would give her away, and merely nodded when asked if she was the anticipated mutant Charlene.

From the timbre of their voices, Shalimar knew Barbara and Karl were nervous and anxious about this meeting. They spoke of friends who had already left the underground, and coaxed them into putting aside their fear and dread of the GSA. Their uncertainty would go far to mask her own deception, hurt and disappointment directed towards Emma and Jesse, and virulent emotions focused upon Mason Eckhart.

Shalimar was queasily ill at ease spying upon her once upon a time best friends. She wanted to get in, get on with it, and get out, then allow Adam to vacuum out her thoughts and observations so he would leave her alone for a while. She was weary of Adam's present rantings about betrayals and ungrateful people. With fresh data, he would have something different to howl about.

Eckhart noticed something familiar about 'Charlene': her swaggering gait, incongruous with her tasteful clothing.

Emma was not fooled for long. To Emma's sensibilities, deception hung in the air like smoke or fog. She carefully scrutinized the apparent source, recognizing Shalimar. Emma and Jesse could defend themselves, but Shalimar could launch herself upon Eckhart and break his neck as a cat would a bird's before he could fire his gun. Emma stood up, prepared to move against Shalimar, putting herself between Eckhart and Shalimar.

"Eckhart recognized Shalimar just as Emma moved to defend him. Ms Fox, surely you did not believe that disguise would fool anyone here for very long?"

Shalimar's eyes flashed feral at all three of them. "I wanted to get close enough to see this for myself. How could you do this, Jesse?"

Karl and Barbara looked very puzzled.

"I grew up, Shalimar. When I did, Daddy Adam wasn't who he said he was, but less. Much less. Leaving Mutant X was inevitable. Joining Genomex was not, but that has turned out well for Emma and for me, and for a lot of other mutants."

"Did you have to turn on your friends? Or me?"

"Emma and I haven't turned on anyone. Shalimar, can you name one honest, sane mutant who has been turned over to the GSA? I can show you a spreadsheet of burglars, drug dealers, and con artists who are now at some stage of prosecution, in very public trials. I can show you another, fortunately smaller spreadsheet of dangerous, out of control mutants. Most of them are being treated with anti-psychotics, but a handful of them required a subdermal governor."

"Back to the Bad Old Days, huh, Jesse?"

"What else could anyone so with 'Kilohertz'? Yes, Shalimar, we've re-captured Kilohertz. Has Sanctuary been betrayed?"

"It's enough that you're working for him." Shalimar pointed accusingly towards Eckhart, her disgust obvious.

"We've helped a lot of mutants stop living like fugitives and start lives as normal people," Jesse said.

"And you think that's what he's really doing with them?" Shalimar demanded.

"I know what is happening. I've gone and checked on some of these people myself. They are receiving the treatment Eckhart promised. No GSA. No interference. They just live their lives. You need to find out the truth."

"Thank you," Eckhart said softly.

"That's not what Adam says. Why would Adam lie?"

Emma was angry with her old friend. "Just for once, Shalimar, stop listening to Adam, and find out for yourself. Talk to Allison Turner. You've known her a long time—so has Adam. Find out what she says."

"I have talked to Allison. She sounds like someone on drugs. What she says can't be true."

"Except that it is," Jesse said.

"Why would Adam lie, Ms Fox? Because his ability to manipulate and influence shrinks a little more with each mutant leaves the underground. What will Adam do when it's just him and a pack of unreformed thieves and con artists?"

"Adam says she's being used."

"If anyone is being used, Shal, it's you. If anyone is doing any manipulation, it's Adam. That's why we had to leave his little 'family', and have our own lives."

Shalimar had seen Jesse emotional and angry before, but she had never seen him so calmly, adamantly sure of himself and his beliefs before.

Emma took another step towards Shalimar, the better to protect Eckhart as she sensed Shalimar's rising anger.

"Ms Fox, I am certain you could whine baseless assertions for another hour, but I suggest your time would be better spent talking to your friends who have left the underground as opposed to listening to Adam, whose grasp of reality is self-serving and perverse. Adam has conveniently forgotten his sins and omissions, pushing them off onto people who weren't even with Genomex when the events happened. None of us has the time to indulge emotions here."

"He's right, Shal," Jesse said. "There are people here who came for a discussion, not your emotional outburst."

"Jesse, do you think he's going to let me just walk out of here?"

Eckhart answered her himself. "Yes, I even encourage you to do so. These people have been standing here quietly, not able to say anything. I'd like to talk to them, today."

Shalimar flashed glowing eyes at Eckhart.

"Very nice, Ms Fox, but please, none of us have time for such displays."

Shalimar turned and stalked out, stopping once, looking back, expecting someone to follow but she found no one even watching her depart the food court.

Shalimar returned to Sanctuary perplexed by what she had witnessed, and wanted to talk to Adam about everything. Jesse's unexpected confidence and maturity, and Emma's spontaneous, undirected move to protect Mason Eckhart puzzled her deeply.

Eckhart was different, too. His speaking manner was unchanged, but before anyone recognized her, he had appeared almost relaxed in the company of Emma and Jesse, as they did with him. People who worked for Eckhart were typically afraid of him, and tense in his presence.

Adam was waiting for Shalimar. "So, you saw Emma and Jesse. What is Eckhart doing to control them?"

"That's the odd thing. I don't think he is controlling them. I didn't see GSA agents anywhere, either. There really seemed to be only the three of them."

"Eckhart never goes anywhere without protection. He's too paranoid. Not that he lacks for reasons to be wary."

"But he had protection. When Emma was sure who I was, she stood up and put herself between Eckhart and me. He didn't tell her, she just did it. If I had jumped on Eckhart and tried to claw his eyes out or break his neck, Emma was prepared to do anything she had to do to stop me, Adam. He was not directing her, but he wasn't surprised when she did it, either. Neither was Jesse. It's as if they're formed…a team of their own."

"Eckhart and Emma and Jesse. How cozy," Adam said sarcastically.

Adam pulled a fresh roll of antacids from a pocket, and opened it as he talked. "Could sweet Emma have been a GSA plant all along, from the beginning?"

"No!" Shalimar was stunned by the suggestion. "Emma has hated Eckhart since the day Frank Thorne captured her and Eckhart put her in that odd little outdoor pen. She doesn't have any reason to protect Eckhart. Neither does Jesse."

"That we know of," Adam said darkly. He didn't have any possibilities in mind, but he liked the queasy look of distress Shalimar displayed in response to the comment.

"Did Jesse have anything to say for himself?" Adam asked.

"He said he hadn't betrayed anyone and that it was time for him to grow up."

Adam laughed nervously. "So he flies out of this nest and into Eckhart's! That doesn't make any sense."

Except that it did, and Adam knew it. Jesse was getting paid well now, and so was Emma, and they were no longer subject to Adam's rules.

Adam began ranting about Eckhart.

Jesse had attended enough meetings with Eckhart and his rapidly growing new technical staff to notice a difference in the way he treated Jesse compared to the other new hires. In a group, he was blunt, succinct, and conscious of time spent. Everyone left these meetings with unambiguous and demanding marching orders, including Jesse.

But Jesse noted that Eckhart frequently held him after these meetings, or summoned him to his office for more discussion of his work.

"No, I don't see how that could be done." Jesse shook his head.

"None of the computer models we tried indicated that as a likely outcome. I have the graphs here."

Jesse had seen Eckhart savage others who gave the same kind of report, but without backing their conclusions with numbers or facts. Eckhart was annoyed and irritated by loose ends and leaps of logic. He made anyone miserable who delivered work lacking adequate support. The use of the word 'feel' as a justification for any conclusion elicited an especially corrosive burst of succinct verbal vitriol.

Jesse carefully assembled his facts and his numbers in advance, in as brief and clear a manner as possible, without sacrificing completeness. Jesse never received the scolding or threats meted out to some others, people prone to offering bloated, wordy reports, or those who indulged in weasel words when they had nothing to say at all.

"Perhaps this project is impossible, but before concluding that, Mr Kilmartin, go back and consider all of the possibilities. Is there any help I can give you to facilitate your analysis? Could you use an assistant on a temporary basis? If a temp would make your work easier, Genomex uses an agency which has found good people in the past."

"I can handle it. I would like to discuss things with you an interim basis. I know the technical details, but I've come to appreciate your pragmatic analysis."

"Of course we can discuss this project. I know you're not making a lame attempt at flattery—I don't think you would know how-- I like that. Fawning makes me ill and angry. We need to stay honest with one another."

Jesse was startled by the last comment, reminded anew that Emma's rescue had changed his attitude towards Emma and Jesse forever. Eckhart still demanded the best from Jesse, as he did from everyone, but Jesse's logical, linear style meshed well with Eckhart's own, and he had no need to flog Jesse verbally. Jesse delivered his best without manipulation, and suddenly realized he shared values with Eckhart.

"You look surprised. I hope that our relationship will develop along different lines than my other employees. You're not my typical recruit, and I do not want to treat you like one, although you have to understand I cannot display that openly. People are what they are, and even though I expect much of you, any perceived favoritism could result in their jealousy and your misery. You have to work with all of them, no matter how petty and gossip-prone. There can be an amazing amount of intrigue and drama within the confines of a corporation." Eckhart smiled.

"I'll crunch the numbers again, and see if things cannot be tweaked more favorably."

"Good. Mr Kilmartin, I've had a lot of PhDs and engineers report to me over the years, and you have the mind to do high caliber technical work. You have considerable formal training, but have you seriously considered completing a formal degree, even going on to a graduate degree? Genomex would pay for your tuition and I would gladly release you to attend some daytime classes."

"You would?" Jesse was astonished, recalling a similar conversation with Adam.

"Of course. Developing talent in-house is always more rewarding than trying to stumble upon it in the wider world. I've always encouraged my best people this way; they're not the ones standing around whining. Whiners whine. Doers do."

Jesse laughed. "That's true."

"And while you're in classrooms with other "doers", you could be networking and unofficially recruiting other good people for me. The search for good people never ends."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Right before you came in, I had email from a field agent. Dr Laura Varady has been found. She was the site psychologist, and a member of the former staff I wanted to retain. She's had a disturbing experience, locked away for months and force fed drugs. I don't have many details but the ones I have are horrific. Part of the difficulty in finding here was the way she was admitted under aliases. When I get to the bottom of it all, I intend to see the individuals responsible prosecuted."

"Will she be coming back here?"

"Absolutely. I was told that was one of the first things she asked about. She has family here, even grandchildren, but it occurs to me that Ms deLauro's special talents could prove useful in healing Laura. Do you think she would be interested?"

"I'm sure she would. You know how Emma is. I'll ask her."

"Laura Varady was much-loved by nearly the entire staff. Only a handful of fairly peculiar people didn't care for her, and they seemed to dislike everyone, from Breedlove on down."

Even the cold, aloof Mason Eckhart cared about Dr Laura Varady. I wonder if she'll be surprised to learn how hard he's been looking for her?

Jesse described the ordeal and release of Varady to Emma over lunch.

"Eckhart wanted to know if you would be interested in helped Dr Varady emotionally heal."

"Well, of course."

"I couldn't promise for you, but I expected you would want to help.

Emma met with Eckhart as soon as he could clear time in the afternoon.

"I want to help your Dr Varady if I can. As a psychologist, she understands what has happened to her, but I can induce calm and relaxation, maybe even replace intrusive images with benign ones."

"Good. My thinking was that after months of being fed drugs to make her appear psychotic, she wouldn't want anything to do with pharmaceuticals."

"Well, I can understand that."

"I have few details, but she's been kept incommunicado almost from the time I was put into stasis, and kept under the influence of drugs. Ms deLauro, Laura Varady is a genuinely kind and decent woman. I don't know yet how bad her condition is, but I suspect you could help her with mood and adjustment faster than more medication. I believe Dr Varady will probably begin to feel better being back in familiar surroundings, doing productive work. I've always found hard work to be a potent healer."

"When will Dr Varady be back?"

"Perhaps as early as tomorrow afternoon. She wants to talk to me."

"Have you found any trace of the other one, Dr Steyn?"

"None. She signed herself out of the hospital, and after that, she vanishes. The next-of-kin information in her personnel file was years out of date and useless. I know she has a brother named Steve whose work has him moving frequently, but none of the Steve Steyns my agents found had a sister named Rebekah. If he used 'Steve' in preference to a given name that is odd or awkward, and he keeps moving, I might never find him."

Emma sensed much emotion when Eckhart discussed Dr Varady. The psychologist was important to him personally. Didn't Adam say Eckhart's mother committed suicide when he was ten or eleven? Maybe that's just another one of Adam's lies. Maybe Laura Varady is a kind of mother-surrogate.

Emma could not clearly sort out all the emotions linked to Dr Steyn. The most obvious was a sense of loss and failing her somehow, great guilt for some oversight or lapse. Detail-driven Mason Eckhart had missed something?

Emma put up the best shields she could construct. What she knew already made her feel like a sneak, despite the fact that emotions, anyone's emotions, would surge through her mind unsought and unbidden. Eckhart was an intensely private person, and as he had earned Emma's respect, she had come to respect his privacy. She had believed once that his secretive nature obscured a cruel, sordid soul with analogous inclinations and memories. Now she knew he buried personal pain and built barriers to fend off more damage. Eckhart was well-informed about her telempathic talents; Emma did not wish to cause him more pain, just knowing she knew.

"I cannot imagine being a sane person and locked in a mental institution against my will."

Eckhart hesitated. "I can. My father was a psychiatrist who worked with violent, unpredictable patients. He was slow to adopt the practice of keeping everyone in the wards sedated so they wouldn't be much trouble. His wards were run as they had been decades before."

"That's horrible."

"One weekend he locked me in a ward with some of his patients as punishment. He didn't come back for me until Monday morning. So, understand how important it is to me that we do everything we can for Laura."

"I'll be ready to help anytime, any hour."

"Thank you, Ms deLauro."

"And I'm sorry for what your father did to you."

"I survived. My father expected me to come out of there crying…but I didn't give him the satisfaction. In the long term, it was a valuable lesson."

"Perhaps. I can sense the agitation the memory is causing you. I'd hug you, but I know you don't like to be touched. I could impart a few moments of calm and serenity to you…your heart rate and respiration would go down."

"Thank you, but…"

Emma interrupted him, smiling but frustrated. "Why do you guys have to be such stubborn stoics? It's admirable to press on despite pain when there's no alternative, but I'm offering a beneficial alternative. It's the rational thing to do!"

To her surprise, Eckhart smiled back. "I yield to your logic. Please proceed."

"Done," Emma said, willing serenity. "Just sit quietly for a few minutes."

"Thank you."

Not until she returned to her desk did Emma realize the significance of what had just happened.

Mason Eckhart just admitted to me that he gave a damn about another human being, neither progeny nor lover. He shared a horrific memory with another human. He trusted me to go into his head and calm his emotions. Eckhart trusts me.

When Robert Varady drove his mother to Genomex the following afternoon, Mason Eckhart was waiting for her just inside the front door, not knowing what to expect.

"Welcome back to Genomex, Dr Varady," Eckhart said, displaying one of his rare genuine smiles.

"Thank you, Mason. You're looking better than I hoped after your ordeal."

The same could not be said of Laura Varady. Months of being held prisoner while fed disorienting drugs had left her thin and emaciated. Her character and personality had withstood the assault, but the strain of enduring abuse and ill-treatment was plainly etched upon her face.

"Your office is exactly as you left it, but it's a little dusty. Let's talk in my office."

Dr Varady inspected the faces of the receptionist and others visible in the front offices.

"I don't recognize anyone, Mason."

"You won't. A lot of people left as soon as Dr Harrison took over; they couldn't get their resumes out fast enough. But of the ones remaining when I returned, I could not be sure of their loyalties. No one is left here from the old days except you and me."

"That's an extreme measure, Mason."

"I'm an extreme man. I won't go through that again. They weren't exactly turned out on the streets. They were in fact treated very gently."

"What about Samihah?"

"She is happily making more money in Memphis."

"What about Rebekah? Surely you did not dismiss her?"

"I cannot find her. I've had agents searching for months."

"Keep looking. Keep in mind what they did to me. Rebekah could be enduring the same. Where is the traitorous Dr Harrison?"

"I honestly do not know. I turned him over to one of my superiors and asked only that I never have to look at him again."

"I don't particularly want to see him again, either. I'm not sure what my duties are to be if everyone I know is gone."

"Every potential new hire is being carefully screened. There is someone I would like you to work with. Do you recall the name Emma deLauro?"

"A telempath. One of Adam's followers. Potentially very dangerous."

"She's not with Adam any longer. Now she works for me."

"How did you manage that?"

"I told her the truth. That's more than Adam bothers telling his people."

Dr Varady rolled her eyes. "Adam has always had difficulties with truths that did not suit him."

"Ms deLauro's fiancé also was formerly one of Adam's people."

"We both know how vindictive Adam can be. Watch your back, Mason. Adam makes everything personal. When can I meet Ms deLauro?"

"Any time. She was looking forward to meeting you."

Eckhart summoned Emma to his office.

Laura Varady was very much what Emma had expected. She was sincere and genuinely warm.

"I've got architects from the St Katherine's rehab due in here shortly. Ms deLauro, if you could explain in detail the outreach program and the long-term treatment plans, that would give me an opportunity to review the last discussion I had with the architects."

"Of course," Emma said. She rose from her chair. "My office is close to yours. None of your books or papers have been touched. Mr Eckhart was quite adamant about that."

"I don't believe I've ever worked with a telempath before."

"Well, I've never worked with a psychologist before, so we're even. Mr Eckhart is deeply concerned about possibly taking on personalities like Dr Harrison. I would think you would know what to look for; by the degree and tendencies of the emotions I detect, I have a good idea whether or not someone is telling you the truth."

"That's a little scary."

"I'm careful not to intrude more than I must. I've been looking forward to meeting you. Mr Eckhart spoke highly of you."

"He did?"

"Oh, yes. You're surprised?"

"No and yes. Sometimes Mason had me convinced that he thought I was a meddling pest. Every Christmas I would drag him out of his office for the company Christmas carols."

"You did that?"

"No one else dared. Then, when he came back to his office, it would be decorated."

"I cannot imagine that office decorated for anything."

Dr Varady laughed. "I suspect he would have been disappointed if I did not do that. His protests were never convincing. Mason used to be such a nice man before Jackie left him and took the kids. I never could get him to talk about it."

"He's the most private person I've ever known"

"Since I knew him before the accident, and my children are all grown, I took on Mason as a special project, to keep him from sinking entirely into himself. For a time, I thought he was coming out slightly, but now, I'm not sure what I saw. I'm amazed that Mason was able to get you away from Adam. Adam is one of the most charming, mesmerizing individuals I've ever known."

"And intrusive. I didn't want to be a little girl forever. Adam wanted us all to remain children, his children, and that just isn't how things should be when you are an adult."

"I'm sure Mason's warned you about Adam's temper."

"Yes."

"Not long before Harrison betrayed us, Adam and one of your former companions broke into the facilities. Dr Steyn discovered them before they could do any damage. Years before, there had been an ugly incident involving Adam and Rebekah. I was involved as were Mason and Breedlove. Adam nearly got fired. He should have been fired. He had his mutant friend toss Rebekah several yards onto hard floors. She wasn't armed or threatening them. Adam just wanted to see her hurt. Never forget that Adam never forgets."

"Unfortunately, Brennan's not every bright and will do pretty much what Adam commands. Brennan's another reason why I had to leave. He had become Adam's favorite. Brennan could do no wrong no matter how much went wrong."

"Doesn't sound like Adam was a very good parent!"

"No. What do you know about Adam?"

"Next to nothing. Breedlove exempted him from the requirements expected of everyone else."

"That's odd."

"I thought so. Mason agreed."

Months later, settled in to their apartment, Emma surprised Eckhart by inviting him to dinner. To her surprise, he accepted.

"I didn't think he ever left that building except on GSA business surrounded by a bunch of guys with forgettable faces packing heavy weapons."

"They'll just park all over the neighborhood pretending to read newspapers in matching black SUVs." Jesse laughed.

"They're not coming in here."

"Do you think he'll wear black?" Jesse asked.

"Be nice, Jesse. I doubt if he owns anything else."

"That way, he never has to worry whether or not he's wearing the right color socks. There are advantages to his approach. I wonder if there's only one?"

"One what?"

"Set of Mason Eckhart clothes."

"Oh," Emma began. "Shirts I don't know about but there are at least three suits."

"How can you tell?"

"I saw one that was double-breasted. There seem to be two widths of stripes in the others."

"I never noticed."

True to predictions, Eckhart showed up wearing black.

"We've heard from so many of our friends about how their lives have been transformed. Usually, we have to drag it out of them, but with a little work we can get them to admit to gratitude to you for taking the first step and making their present lives possible. They'd never think of telling you, but I think you should know."

Mason Eckhart appeared confused, even troubled. Jesse was no manipulative flatterer; whatever he said, he meant.

"I did not begin this program to earn the gratitude of anyone. Very likely the long-term positives of sparing humanity the nightmare of a genetic disaster will be understood by few and positively appreciated by fewer still. And if I've done my job properly, my name and actions won't appear in the footnotes of history."

Emma laughed softly. She was not surprised by Eckhart's grave and thoughtful response to Jesse.

"Oh, we know that. We discussed it, and decided you should know you have made a lot of people…happy. Not all unintended consequences are bad." Jesse smiled.

Eckhart looked even more bewildered.

Hey, I just said something good about you. I wasn't trying to make you uncomfortable or miserable, just give credit where credit is due. You're on the edge of panic because someone said something good about you to your face, and honestly meant it.

"I suppose they are not."

"You've done a good thing," Emma said.

"More good than Adam's done in his time of dashing around," Jesse added.

"I want to get better at collecting the dangerous ones, but unfortunately, too many mutants perceive them as peers instead of threats to all of us."

"That's changing, too," Jesse said. "The criminals and unstable mutants are being seen more and more realistically. Fewer mutants are willing to assist them or give them a place to hide."

"I have a personal favor to ask," Emma said.

"Ask me." Away from Genomex, Eckhart could be polite and mannered to an old-fashioned degree.

Emma smiled. Over time, she had become charmed by this strange, exacting man, who lived behind more barriers and had more surprises in him than anyone she had ever known.

"Jesse and I are going to get married next month, a very small, very private ceremony. Just a handful of friends, with punch and cake afterwards. I would like you to give away the bride."

"You would?" Eckhart was startled.

We've confused you now. How long has it been since you were part of anyone else's life?

"Yes, very much," Emma said.

"Well. Then I would be honored."

And he means that, but he'll be giving this a lot of thought.

Jesse was surprised to hear Brennan's voice when he picked up the phone in his Genomex office. For a moment, he wondered how Brennan had found him, then realized he had probably just gone through the switchboard like anyone else. Jesse's presence at Genomex was not a secret.

"Hey, I was in the neighborhood, and I thought we could talk."

Who does he think I am? One of the people he used to steal from? Or may still be stealing from? Adam has sent him to sniff around. Who does Adam think I am?

Jesse was annoyed by the interruption, but quickly realized that Brennan would faithfully report everything he heard to Adam.

There are a few things Adam needs to know. Faithful follower Brennan will be sure to tell him, too. Even Brennan's stupidity can be put to good use.

"Sure, Brennan. Where did you have in mind?"

"The little square between the bagel place and the one-hour photo shop at the strip mall on Warsaw. It's only a few blocks from Genomex."

But of course, you just happened to be in the neighborhood.

"I know the place. I can get away from here in a few minutes. I'll meet you there."

"Sounds good."

Months ago, Jesse had abandoned his casual look for corporately suitable suits, and he now looked like what he was, one of the more valued technical people at the resurgent Genomex.

Brennan is probably still dressing like a fourteen year old trying to look cool. He's too old for that. On him it doesn't look cool; it looks silly and a little sad.

Jesse made an extended detour to Eckhart's office on the way to the parking lot.

"Mason, I just got an interesting phone call from Brennan. He said he was close by and wanted to talk. He wants me to meet him at the Lake Ridge mall."

"And what do you guess Adam's pet felon wants? Or more accurately, what does Adam want? Adam hasn't had much to do the last few months except protect criminals and crazies."

"No idea. But I thought I'd ask if there was anything you wanted pumped right back to Adam since Brennan will tell him everything I say, probably within an hour."

Eckhart smirked. "An opportunity…well, be sure to tell him how we've been making the task of the police easier by siphoning the criminal mutants off the streets, into the courts, and locked away in prisons. Have you ever seen Brennan's Mulwray's record?"

"No."

"I'll forward the file to you. Interesting reading."

"I'm sure it is."

"Jesse, this meeting could be a ruse to capture you. Adam probably whiles away his evenings these days pondering unpleasant thoughts about you and Emma, and me, of course, so take no chances around Mulwray."

"I'm carrying an activated GPS device. I don't trust Brennan." Jesse shook his head.

"Good. I could have a pair of GSA follow you at a discreet distance. You don't want to become Adam's 'houseguest'."

"It's a busy mall, lots of people everywhere and even has a police substation there."

"Adam's world is crumbling, and his judgment was never the best even when he wasn't angry."

"If you wouldn't mind sending agents…"

"Of course not. I'll have them meet you at the parking lot door."

'If I learn anything useful, I'll send you email about it."

"Be wary of Mulwray. He's dangerous. What he lacks in intelligence, he nearly makes up on impulsiveness."

"Thanks, Jesse smiled, turned, and left.

Jesse described Brennan to the two agents before leaving the building.

The square was crowded with people eating bagels and sandwiches outside, making the most of one of the last fine, warm days of autumn.

Brennan was indulging himself in a bag of chocolate chip bagels, chewing with vigor and intensity while staring off down the street at a Burger King. He was so engrossed in his current bagel that he failed to notice Jesse's approach.

Jesse stopped just short of Brennan, who was seated on a stone retaining wall holding low shrubs and flowers. Brennan looked larger than Jesse remembered.

"Brennan." Jesse said, just to break the chocolate chip trance.

Brennan looked up from feeding. "Hey, Jesse." Then he took in the way Jesse was dressed. "What's up with all this? Gone over to the Dark Side?"

Brennan was wearing jeans, a Camaro t-shirt, and chunky wooden beads strung on a leather cord.

Jesse laughed. "It was time to stop dressing like junior high. I have five people reporting to me."

"Did Eckhart send you to his tailor?" Brennan laughed. He thought it was a fine joke.

"As a matter of fact, he did." Jesse smiled.

"I want to see the back of your neck."

"Sure." Jesse sat down on the low retaining wall next to Brennan and bent his head forward for the inspection of his neck.

"No governor, huh?"

"No."

"I didn't expect that. I thought this no-governor stuff was a lie. Adam says it can't be true."

"No, it's real," Jesse said. "There's no mark, either; I didn't just have one removed."

"Want a bagel?"

"No, thanks, I'm going to lunch in an hour."

"Jesse, Adam would really like you to come back. He won't say it, but he misses your help."

"He does?" Jesse feigned surprise.

Imagine that.

"Yeah. He had tried three other guys to replace you, but they haven't worked out."

"What happened?"

"One of them kept getting into arguments with Adam, kept insisting that Adam was wrong about things."

"What kinds of things?"

"Oh, you know how Adam seems to know everything about everything, history, music, electronics, old movies, medicine, genetics?"

"Yeah."

"Well, this guy was no dummy, and he kept stopping Adam and correcting him."

"Adam must have like that."

"He finally threw the guy out after he insisted Hill Rise didn't win the 1964 Kentucky Derby. Adam said the guy was just jealous because he had done so much with his life and this other guy hadn't."

Even I know the truth about Hill Rise.

"Yeah. Sounds plausible to me. What about the other two

"Uh, they left after they found jobs in industry. They wanted paychecks instead of an allowance. They left the underground and everything." Brennan shook his head. "They weren't much fun anyway. I couldn't get them to go out to bars with me and they criticized my driving."

Brennan extracted another bagel from the bag.

"Brennan, Emma and I are getting married in a few days. What would Adam have to say about that?"

"Married?" Brennan was stunned.

"Yeah. We're looking for a house to buy around here, too."

"Wow."

"I like my life here, Brennan. I don't want to go back to living under Adam's rules and getting an allowance like I did when I was twelve. I've gone back to school to finally finish my degree. I like what I'm doing. I like the way I'm actually helping people like us. People don't want to spend their lives running and hiding."

"Sounds like you've sold out, Jesse. You know Eckhart's up to no good."

"It's not about money. I could match or beat what Genomex is paying me in a number of companies. I have yet to see any evidence that Eckhart is doing anything other than what he has promised."

"His goons have been rounding up a lot of my friends lately."

"Fellow felons?" Jesse asked.

"Well, yeah."

"He always said the GSA would pursue criminals. Just because a criminal is a Genomex mutant doesn't mean they're outside the law. He's been implanting them with governors and turning them over to the police. They're being prosecuted just like any other criminal charged with the same crimes. I don't see anything wrong with that."

"You have gone over to the Dark Side." Brennan grinned. "You're hopeless. What has Mr Creepy done to you?"

"Mr Creepy? Is that what you call him now?"

"That's what Adam calls him." Brennan laughed.

"How clever."

"Yeah. Adam can be funny, although lately he's been pretty crabby."

"PMS?"

"PMS? Hah."

"Brennan, have you ever heard Adam talk about anything before the time he went to college?"

Brennan reflected for a moment. "I can't think of anything."

"Neither can I. Sometimes I wonder if Adam is really human, or if Breedlove made him."

"Made him? Huh. Does it matter?"

"Hard to tell." Jesse wasn't sure if Brennan had understood the implications of his speculation.

"Hey, you've gotta see my new car. Well, 'new' old car. It's newly restored."

"Let me guess. A Camaro."

"Yeah. A '68. I had it repainted with rally stripes and everything. Kew-wel."

They stalked off to the parking lot. Jesse noted the two bageless GSA agents pretending to be reading newspapers at the edge of the square. Eckhart disapproved of his agents munching on the job. He hated finding crumbs in the SUV fleet carpeting.

Brennan had parked the Camaro so that it straddled four parking spaces. The body was painted blindingly red with contrasting white stripes.

"Very nice, but Brennan, don't you ever worry about attracting the attention of the police driving something like this? This is a cop-magnet. Arrest Me red."

"Yeah, but it's fun."

"It looks fast just sitting here. Aren't there warrants out on you in three states?"

"There used to be. Adam said he fixed all that."

"How could Adam 'fix' things?"

"I didn't ask."

"Well, if I were you, I'd drive this thing under the speed limit. At least you've got some plates on it. Adam never should have let us drive around without license plates. That's one of the first things cops notice—cars without plates."

"Want to take a ride?" Brennan asked.

"I've really got to get back."

"Oh. Yeah. Well, if you change your mind about working for Mr Creepy, Adam sure wants you back."

"I don't think so, Brennan. Tell Shalimar I miss her. So does Emma."

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend," Adam said, smiling smugly.

"Hey, I like that," Brennan said. He had never heard it before.

"I don't like this at all, Adam." Shalimar's face bore no sign of her usual trying-too-hard smile. She was also completely covered, with no portion of her anatomy threatening a daring escape.

"These guys hate Eckhart as much as we do. Working with them is a natural alliance."

Shalimar shook her head. "I'm not convinced. These guys control ninety percent of the drug trade in this state. I don't care if they're mutants. We should not associate with such people. We're supposed to be the good guys."

"Shal, they're old buds of mine," Brennan said, smirking.

"I don't care. Brennan, and I'm not surprised. They're drug dealers. They cause a lot of misery. If we work with them, how are we any different?"

"Shalimar, it's clear we aren't going to get Emma and Jesse back. Unless we capture Mr Creepy, and put a stop to his fraudulent program of 'mainstreaming' mutants we won't have an underground to maintain."

"I'm not sure that's a bad thing," Shalimar replied.

"What did you say?" Adam demanded.

"The people I've talked to who have left the underground don't have any regrets. I've talked to a lot of them. I don't know of anyone who's had a visit from the GSA except the ones who lied and who turned out to be wanted for serious crimes."

Adam was not pleased. "There is more than a whiff of disloyalty in that statement."

"Even the ones who turned out to be mental cases have been handled gently. The treatable ones work in the world, but sleep at halfway houses so their medication can be monitored. That sounds a lot better to me than running through the streets confused and psychotic. To me, it sounds quite humane!

"It's all a variant of the Big Lie, Shalimar. Tell a Big Lie often enough, and people will believe it. That's all Eckhart's doing, lying and lying. One day all the pretty stories will stop, and all the mutants will be rounded up for whatever purpose he might have in that evil white head of his. They'll all wish they hadn't abandoned me."

"Mutant X wasn't supposed to be about sheltering criminal actions by calling them something else! If you smuggle drugs using the Double Helix in return for the delivery of Eckhart, I don't see how we haven't become criminals."

"Shalimar, we're fighting an evil, amoral enemy who must be stopped."

"I won't be part of this operation." Shalimar flashed feral eyes at Adam. "This will have to be just you and Brennan. I will not be part of ferrying drugs and I'm not going to work with those guys to get Eckhart." With that, Shalimar stalked away.

"What's gotten into her?" Brennan asked.

"I don't know, but when we've got this operation behind us, I have to have a serious talk with Shalimar. I don't care for that attitude."

"I don't, either," Brennan echoed.

Adam and Brennan made a total of four flights smuggling drugs, filling every possible space in the Double Helix.

"We'll never get the stink out of the cabin," Brennan said. "I don't know exactly what stink it is, but whatever it is the drug-sniffing dogs go crazy over it."

Adam smiled his all-knowing smirk. "Well, I don't intend the Double Helix to come within sniffing distance of a drug-sniffing dog. I think we'll be able to outrun them."

"Yeah. The Double Helix is fast."

Having performed the heavy lifting portion of the deal, Adam demanded and got a team of eighteen of the most violent gang members available. Some of them were mutants.

Adam put the Double Helix into stealth mode and dropped down onto the front lawn of Genomex. Defensive forces had only a few seconds to realize what was happening, and to respond properly.

Brennan's group had nothing to lose. Most of them were killers several times over, so they did not hesitate to use their weapons.

Even after a general warning was given, there were people caught outside of the sealed areas. Eckhart watched their approach from his office, cursing himself for not preparing for an assault force of this nature. He recognized Brennan Mulwray's face. Seeing that, he composed a brief email to Dr Varady, and hoped she was still alive to read it. He sent it off moments before Brennan swaggered into his office wearing a gloating smile.

"Back in your preferred element, thuggery, Mr Mulwray?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You've splattered the blood of my people all over this building. Does Adam know what you've done?"

"If it was up to me, I'd fry you now, right now, but Adam wants you alive. I guess he has plans of his own. He's waiting outside." Brennan turned to his companions. "Get him out of here."

They dragged Eckhart up and away from his desk. Fearful of tearing his faux skin, Eckhart went along with his captors, back through the corridors of Genomex, past and over the bodies of dead and dying GSA, office workers, and technical people.

Eckhart cursed himself for not foreseeing Adam going to such desperate lengths.

Dragged and half-carried outside into the sunlight, Eckhart watched as the Double Helix became fully visible. At that moment, he knew exactly where he was going and was certain he would not be coming back.

Adam was all smiles as Brennan boarded with Eckhart dragged behind him.

"This level of thuggery is a surprise even from you, Adam."

Adam reached into a pocket and removed a small spray can. "Welcome aboard the Double Helix, Mason. I prefer my passengers be docile, and that they stay put." With that, Adam sprayed Eckhart's face. Eckhart choked, then sagged to the floor.

Reviewing videotapes made a grim experience for Emma and Jesse.

"I'm shocked that Adam would have anything to do with something like this," Jesse said.

"Brennan could not manage an invasion like this on his own. And what would he want with Mason? No, Adam's all over this."

"Brennan never really changed much. He probably knows these guys from the 'good old days'."

"April, can you see all of this clearly? These tapes are not the best."

"I can see enough."

"We could still lose some people in the hospital, but we have eleven dead, including your Morimoto, Wulfe, and Jackson. The others were all Genomex people. They did not care who they shot up."

"Only drug traffickers would be armed like that. I'll have some good images pulled from the tapes. Once I find out who they are, they won't be walking around much longer. What are we going to do about Mason?"

"If Adam is nutty enough to do something like this, I don't want to think about what he's doing to Mason," Emma said.

"Adam could be keeping him in any number of safe houses," April said.

"Adam could, but I don't think that's likely. I think he would take him to Sanctuary, where he felt safe."

"Then we'll go in and get him."

"That's all but impossible. Sanctuary is carved out of a mountain. Once Adam seals it off, it is impregnable."

"Then he creates his own tomb."

"Possibly. He has huge stockpiles of everything. But I suspect he probably has a back door somewhere. You might take down half the mountain and find Adam long gone."

"What are you thinking?"

"That Emma and I go in by ourselves. Adam will be expecting heavy cavalry, not the two of us."

"Are you ready to take on Brennan and Shalimar?" Emma asked.

Jesse nodded. "We aren't going to sit here and do nothing at all."

"If you fail, I want you to know that I will see that Adam knows no peace until I capture him or destroy him. He has gone very bad. Find Mason. Do not delay. I know him. He will believe no one will come for him. If the circumstances appear hopeless, he may choose suicide over torment. Good luck."

April's image faded from the screen.

"I can't believe Shalimar was part of this," Jesse said.

"Maybe she wasn't. We didn't see her on any of the tapes. It's not like Shalimar to miss an opportunity to kick GSA agents in the face."

Jesse nodded agreement.

"She sounds like a lovely young woman," Dr Varady added sarcastically.

"Shal does like action, but I cannot imagine her being part of this barbarity." Jesse paused. "But if I find out she was involved, the past is gone."

"We'll have to be sure."

"I would not have thought Adam capable of sending this Brennan in here with a gang of thugs." Dr Varady shook her head. "Adam was moody and sometimes explosively emotional, but killing people, just to get his hands on Mason is a whole other level of descent for Adam. Breedlove should have disciplined Adam a long time ago before Adam's ego and ambition got so out of hand."

"Too late for that now," Emma said.

"Much too late."

"How does it feel, Eckhart?"

The lighting was dim and Eckhart's focus soft and uncertain. The world appeared as a soft, dark blue blur. None of that mattered; he recognized the voice of Shalimar Fox.

"What do you mean? The drug Adam fed me?" Eckhart turned his head at the sound of Shalimar's footsteps on the hard floor, and the world went swimming about him. He was grateful for being completely restrained. He lived with nausea daily, but never became used to it.

"That's part of it. You won't want to go anywhere with that stuff in your system. How does it feel to be a prisoner? Adam's prisoner?"

"Thanks to Adam, by his negligence or intent, I've been a prisoner for nearly twenty years. I did not volunteer to live inside a faux hide of biopolymer, require frequent transfusions of blood, be pickled in antibiotics and antivirals, or sleep in a chamber of filtered air. I've been a prisoner for a long time, Ms Fox."

"This is different, Eckhart. Now you are cut off from the people and machines that keep you alive. You are under Adam's power now. No one here cares what happens to you. No one on earth is concerned with where you have gone. And no one will come to save you."

"I accept that," he said quietly. "I have lived my life for some time now assuming that people care very little about what happens to one another. Most people are not evil or malevolent, just apathetic and self-focused."

Shalimar laughed. "Adam found your transponder, and dug it out of you. I dumped it two hundred miles from here."

"That must be why my shoulder is sore. Adam always was a butcher."

"He did the work while we were still airborne."

"Observing strict sanitary conditions, no doubt."

"Adam knows what he's doing. Your friends with the feds will never find you."

"Miss Fox, the difference between people like you and people like me is that you actually expect people to be loyal and faithful, even when such behavior inconveniences them. I know people better than that. As long as you serve their interests, of course they'll be your friend. But if they must pay a price for such loyalty, don't expect much. I'm a realist. I've seen what people do to each other. They are shallow, fickle, and weak."

Eckhart's negative comments were beginning to darken Shalimar's mood. "That's so bleak. How can you stand to live?"

"Sometimes, it's difficult. But consider this, and see if you can tell me it's not true: if you treat a cat or dog consistently well, almost invariably they will reward you with their friendship. But if you treat a human being well, you never can be sure what you will get back in return for your good works. Live a little longer, Miss Fox and you will come to know the truth of it."

"You must have selected some pathetic friends to think that about people." Shalimar shook her head.

"Such as Adam? He used to be a regular visitor to my home. I once believed he was my friend."

"He says you always hated him," Shalimar challenged.

"That isn't true."

"Why would he lie?"

"Why? Why he usually lies. To avoid dealing with the cumulative guilt of his unholy life. He's told lies so long about his deep involvement in the creation of the Genomex mutants that I think he must believe them now."

"He didn't know what his work was being used to create. He had no idea what was really happening."

"Hogwash, Ms Fox. Breedlove and Adam oversaw the entire operation. The only difference was that Paul had the authority to write bigger checks."

"Adam was told he was helping sick children. That's the only reason he did that work."

"Someone working at Adam's level isn't put into a lab and assigned unconnected tasks to perform. Researchers at Adam's level know the entire scope of a project because they tie everything together into a coherent whole. He was Breedlove's recruit, Breedlove's protégé, Breedlove's chosen successor. Adam knew everything, from the beginning."

"That's too horrible."

"Don't think that you know Adam; that's a trap. You wouldn't be the first to fall into it. He has fooled many people, including me."

"I'm not convinced by a word you've said, Eckhart." Eckhart was making too much sense. Shalimar was becoming irritable.

"Your feralness makes careful reflection difficult. When you cease to be of use to Adam, he will discard you, just as he will discard his pet street thug."

"Adam's not like that," she insisted.

"But he is. He needs the relatively young to send out on his errands. He requires people with great strength and lightning reflexes. When he sees these qualities vanishing, he'll recruit younger team members. Just as animals in the wild peak at a young age, you cannot be far from an inevitable decline in strength and speed. All those drops from great heights have no doubt stressed and taken their toll on your knees. Even transgenics like you are still limited by your human biomechanics."

"My knees are fine."

Except they weren't. Shalimar hadn't said anything to Adam, but every morning upon awakening, her knees were stiff and sore. She had taken to a daily routine of a morning walk to warm up out of the pain, but now that no longer helped.

"Adam's guilt has fostered a need for adulation from the very people he created as flawed, unfortunate freaks. He could not unmake his mistakes, so he has surrounded himself with mutants who have no one else to love but Adam. Surely you don't believe the present Mutant X team is the first? Adam has been cycling through mutants for a long time."

Shalimar had wondered what Adam did with himself in the years after leaving Genomex and the founding of the present Mutant X. Adam did not speak of those years, although there must have been mutants in need of help. Why hadn't any of them asked Adam? Did they hold him in too much awe?

Shalimar became annoyed with herself for listening to Eckhart. She dismissed all of her doubts…for a moment. Then they promptly returned, as nagging and pervasive as ever. Her eyes glowed briefly, a sign of deep annoyance.

"I'm curious. Did you take my advice and ask your formerly underground friends about their present lives?" Eckhart inquired.

"Yeah."

"And are their lives a living hell of harassment and intrusion by the GSA?"

"To hear them tell it, the biggest problems in their lives are their boyfriends, incompetent coworkers, and their diets. They don't sound like the same people. We had very little left in common."

"It all sounds very ordinary, doesn't it?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"Did anyone say they want to go back to the underground?"

"Not one. They all sounded…like you programmed them."

Eckhart laughed. "By crediting me with extraordinary powers, you're missing the obvious, that none of us wants to be a peculiarity. These people are living lives of relative contentment, and their concerns have become mundane. In other words, exactly what I promised them."

"There has to be a catch," Shalimar insisted. "It cannot be the simple or straightforward, not coming from you."

"There is no catch. I realized that collecting all of the sad anomalies Breedlove and Adam created was an impossible task, and decided I really only needed to control the ones who were insane or who could not manage their own talents. The courts could take care of the criminals. The honest ones could just possibly manage themselves, if they were told the truth. Perhaps even you would like to live quietly, without having to watch for the GSA all the time?"

"Oh, you want me to believe this so I'll turn you loose!" Shalimar laughed.

"No, Miss Fox. I don't expect to leave this 'Sanctuary' alive. But no matter what happens to me, the plan will continue. Your former team members believe in it, and will not allow it fail. What we're doing will not stop with me. It is not about me, and never has been."

"Adam won't kill you."

"I know Adam far better than you. We have an extended history. I know things about Adam that probably no one else alive knows. Silencing me serves Adam well several ways. Given the opportunity, he knows I'll see him charged –and punished—for his crimes."

"Crimes?"

"Against humanity."

"Adam?"

"Did he ever tell you that Paul Breedlove, of 'saintly' memory, began his researches in the death camps of the Third Reich?"

Shalimar was stunned. Adam spoke of no other man with greater respect and admiration than Paul Breedlove.

"That can't be."

"I didn't think he'd tell anyone about Breedlove's beginnings. Like so much else, Breedlove's Nazi past is just one of those things Adam has not gotten around to telling you, his supposed friends. Adam can be quite calculating about what he shares and what he keeps to himself."

"You're just trying to turn us against each other!"

"If the truth has that effect, so be it."

Shalimar stomped from the room. Eckhart closed his eyes, glad for the silence and relief from Shalimar's emotionality.

His peace was brief, however. He listened as another came near. He could not place the rhythm of the footfall, and did not think it was Adam. Keeping his eyes closed, he assumed a look of relaxation. Perhaps if the approaching intruder was convinced he was sleeping, he would be left alone and have the opportunity for sleep through the nausea.

"You're quite a sight, Eckhart."

"How so, Mr Mulwray? Care to articulate your observations?" Mason Eckhart did not open his eyes, displaying his contempt for a common street thug. Brennan Mulwray's inclusion in Adam's group puzzled him, since the felon was not intelligent, technically trained, and he was inclined to ignore instructions.

"I'm trying to talk Adam into letting me bring a bunch of my friends here so they could see you as Adam's prisoner." Brennan laughed.

Eckhart opened his eyes and turned slowly to face Brennan. "And how much would you charge for admission? I cannot imagine that you would pass up a scheme enriching you. You could buy another junk car."

"Huh?"

"You are a common criminal. Since adolescence, you've made your way in this world as a predator. Nothing I know of you indicates a moment of regret or remorse for years of pillaging and preying upon the vulnerable. You have not changed in the time you've been protected by Adam. You're using Adam's band of renegades as a convenient hiding place until you find something better."

Brennan's silence was more telling than any protest he could have made.

"Adam isn't much of a realist, but I am. I've studied your criminal record in great detail. You are fast approaching the age by which most thugs weary of violence and uncertainty, and go straight, or are killed while committing a crime, or find themselves sentenced to spending most of the projected balance of their lives in prison. You've never noticed how few 35, 40, 45 year olds are active in your 'profession'?"

Brennan was accustomed to his good looks and charm assuring him of getting his way. Years had gone by since anyone had spoken to him bluntly about what he was. Adam blithely ignored Brennan's past.

"What I've wondered –and I don't really know the answer—is whether you've carried on your criminal career on the sly while enjoying Adam's protection."

Brennan was a thief, not a con artist, and what Eckhart saw in his face was easy to read.

"Well. So you have remained 'active'. Eventually, the real world will overtake you and Adam alike. I wonder what length of penal penalty Adam will have to serve for sheltering you from the police? I can hope it won't be trivial. Perhaps Adam's accumulated fortune can go towards restitution of your victims. That certainly sounds fair to me."

"Why do you think you know everything?"

"I have no such illusions. I know enough to know how little I know. I've tried to reclaim a lot of thugs like you. The numbers of mutants who turned their powers to criminal endeavors is surprising and does not bode well for a society with an increasing proportion of Genomex-manipulated DNA. Most criminally inclined mutants prefer a life of easy plunder. I sometimes wonder if Breedlove did not breed-in the tendency towards taking the easy way out of everything."

"I should just fry you."

"And how would you explain the results to Adam? I'm sure he has plans of his own for me and would be deeply disappointed if you denied him the pleasure of my torment."

Brennan hesitated.

"That's wise. You don't want to be on the receiving end of Adam's wrath. I should know. Look what he did to me."

"What did you do to him?"

Eckhart smirked. "What I did was discover what he was doing to me."

Brennan looked puzzled. Eckhart's reply was too convoluted for him. He quietly turned and left the examination room. Eckhart relaxed, relieved to be left alone. He closed his eyes, knowing sleep would not come, but that Adam would.

Eckhart did not have long to wait.

"Mason."

Eckhart studied Adam's face carefully, especially the eyes. To others, Adam was many things, but Eckhart knew his failings well. He could discern the irrationality Adam hid well from nearly everyone else.

"What are you running here, Adam? A cult? Your followers sound like true believers, parroting whatever you say, and drinking the Kool-Aid."

"A cult, Mason?" Adam laughed nervously. "What are you talking about?"

"Perhaps I should say 'occult'. I've heard the stories about your exploration of ceremonial magic. 'I guess magic is a bit like science'. What would Paul think of that statement, Adam? Come to think of it, he might approve. Lots of those old Nazis knew an unholy lot about the occult."

Any self control Adam retained vanished with Eckhart's laughter.

"You weren't there. You don't understand."

"But I wish I had been there to see the smartest man in the world invoke demons. Is there a scientific journal somewhere which would print your findings about demonology? With proper references, of course."

Only Eckhart had the nerve to take Adam less than seriously. Everyone else accepted his posturing as a serious scientist, never questioning his pronouncements no matter how unlikely or bizarre they seemed.

"You're in a lot of trouble, Mason. Your transponder is under a few hundred feet of water a long way from here."

"Your feral friend already had the pleasure of telling me that. But I have a question for you."

"What's that?"

"Does Shalimar have a litter pan in her room or is she fully humanly housebroken?"

"Why?" Adam was puzzled by the question and had no idea what prompted it.

"Does it matter? We both know how peculiar ferals usually are. Transgenics are the least human of all the current crop of freaks."

"She does not have a litter box in her room." Adam was irritated by the question.

"You must have done an admirable job of training her. The task must have required great patience."

Adam changed the subject. "I've dreamed about this day…having you here like this."

"Poor Adam. For you this has always been personal. You have never been able to stand back and reflect upon your own ungodly work. You've never been able to abandon it when it so obviously was going wrong, ruining the lives of hundreds of people. You're still carrying on here, in a much reduced fashion."

"You were at Genomex, too."

"Adam, I joined the company after most of the mutants were created, and not as a life scientist. It was a long while before I was even told about your work. I don't share your responsibility for creating these sad anomalies, and hence, I share none of your guilt."

Adam had told himself the lie of Eckhart's involvement in creating the Genomex mutants to so many people for so long he had come to believe it himself. Eckhart's denial was unexpected.

"You don't deny approving genetic experiments to the present day, do you?" Adam asked.

"Of the dead-end, criminal sort you and Breedlove specialized in, yes, I do deny that. I was never midwife to hundreds or thousands of births of diseased, doomed, damned individuals the way you were."

Adam looked confused. He wasn't accustomed to anyone contradicting him, and in all his fantasies of this moment, he had never considered that Eckhart would remind him of truths he had hidden from himself.

"Breedlove suffered the same kind of memory slippage, Adam. As near as I can determine, he created Gabriel Ashlocke when I was about five or six years old. I refused to share his guilt, and I won't share yours, either."

"You're ruining everything. I don't know what you're doing to the mutants who were underground, but you persuaded them by the hundreds to leave safety and put themselves out in the open and at risk."

"Can you name one honest individual who has been picked up by the GSA?" Eckhart asked.

"You're just biding your time."

"Not at all. I've taken great trouble to place only the sane, stable ones in plain sight. The lunatics and the criminals are being rounded up the same as always. They're a hazard to everyone. Even to you."

"You think they're all criminals."

"Not at all. But I do wonder what you were thinking, sheltering someone with a record like Mulwray's. You weren't exactly rescuing a juvenile. Mulwray is an adult criminal, a little short of smarts, and a lot short of remorse."

"I'll worry about that."

"You'd better. When the police catch up with Mulwray and with you, you will have something to worry about. You always did think you were above the law; you got that from your old Nazi mentor Breedlove, I think."

Adam was surprised by this revelation. '"How do you know about Breedlove? No one is left who knows except me."

"Don't be so certain of that. I have shared the knowledge with a few select individuals. And I've got Paul's Nazi party membership papers, the originals in a very secure place. How brilliant could he have been if he did not destroy those?"

"I don't believe any of this. You made a lucky guess."

"Why not? The Nazis documented everything with great care. So did Paul. All those nights I could not sleep I spent searching company archives. I found out what Paul really was. The really odd thing is how I found plenty of your work, computer print outs from instruments, hardbound lab notebooks (you don't have the handwriting of someone who learned cursive writing in an American classroom, Adam), supply requisitions, expense account forms, but while I was able to locate personnel files for Paul and Eleanor, I found nothing about you, not so much as an address where you lived before you were hired. In fact, the only proof extant that you existed prior to 1978 are some patents later integral to stasis pod technology. You seem to appear as a graduate student without bothering to be born anywhere as anyone. Very odd. But then, so are you."

"You'd like to know what it all means, wouldn't you?" Adam smirked, but his stomach was beginning to churn.

"I'm guessing it all goes back to Paul Breedlove."

"Too bad the Genomex archives were burned when Breedlove was murdered."

"I had been through every box in that building years before. When you sleep as poorly as I do, and you cannot leave the facility, well, you have time to ferret your way into all kinds of obscurities. I've been through every square foot of the facility, even the sub-levels sealed off before you joined the company"

"Sounds like you've had an exciting life, Mason."

"The one you damned me to living."

"Not that, again."

"You could play dumb to Paul and have him believe you but we both know how motivated you were to be rid of me by then. You hadn't counted on Paul even trying to save me. And your timing! You suddenly develop a conscience after years of creating wretched anomalies just as it is obvious I'm not about to die and leave you free to act! I wasn't supposed to survive a week, was I?"

"Mason, the antivirals have made you delusional."

"I don't think so. Paul kept feeding me painkillers and sedatives, so my personal memories are vague and dreamlike. But there's nothing dreamlike about Breedlove's notes on my condition or the day he thought he had solved the specific issues of keeping me alive. Or the meeting he had with you late that day. Or the security logs showing you removing items from the building that afternoon and evening. You weren't as clever or subtle as you imagined. You had started your inevitable exit from Genomex."

"You cannot prove any of this."

"I don't need to. Your own actions betray your motivations. The day you began transferring records and equipment out of the facility was the day you decided to leave Genomex, even if that break did not come until later. You knew where things were going, with Breedlove keeping you on an ever-tighter leash, reducing your involvement in human work, and demanding that he be kept informed of the nature of your experimentation. By the time you actually spent your last day at Genomex, you had prepared to carry on the work here, hadn't you? One day you had enough of Breedlove's control, and off you went."

"I seem to recall you having some part in all that business."

"As security chief, it was my business to stop the use of company computers to spread slander. Adam, how could you have been so witless? Tracking what you had done took minutes to unravel."

"I did not imagine the matter would come to you."

"Wishful thinking. By then, you knew if you stayed Breedlove would have shut down most of your experiments. The only way to continue your work was to leave Genomex, pose as the champion of the mutants to gain access to them, while carrying on much of the same work, just calling it something different, "adjusting" their DNA. They are as sick as they ever were, and you keep collecting data. When does it end, Adam?"

Adam turned without a word, and left the examination room. He did not have a good answer for Eckhart, and when he checked his pockets, he discovered only empty antacid wrappers.

Eckhart wondered how much time he had won for himself, and how useful that time would be for him. Inside the biopolymer, his skin had begun to itch, indicating the time for a new faux skin was long past.

"I've dreamed of this for years, Mason."

Eckhart shuddered to full wakefulness to see Adam removing a syringe from his left arm, from which the sleeve of his jacket had been neatly sliced away. Adam wore an unwholesome smile.

"Doing a little medical research in the Breedlove tradition?" Eckhart said.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"With his Third Reich origins, Breedlove never did have much concern about ethics."

"Paul was a brilliant man, whatever his origins. He was one of the most gifted innovators of our time."

"Who bequeathed a plague upon mankind as his miserable legacy."

Eckhart realized he was losing sensation in his hands and feet, and that general numbness was spreading. He dreaded that Adam had perhaps given him something to relax every muscle, including his heart, but he refused to give Adam the satisfaction of appearing fearful.

"He was a great man, Mason. Even you respected him."

"Until I learned the truth of the man. Adam, he was a brilliant fraud, from his name to his feigned concern for people. And he made you part of his fraud, though he did not have to work hard to convince you to assist him. You plunged in without reflection. But you never did make a habit of considering the consequences of your actions."

Eckhart tried to move his right hand, and found he could not.

"You lack the intellect to understand the significance of his work."

"Which you, naturally, have in abundance, since the great man himself pronounced you the smartest man in the world. Do you know why he told you that? So you would be the one to come in on weekends and holidays and tend to experiments so Paul wouldn't have to." Eckhart laughed. "Breedlove deceived everyone around him in some fashion. That's how he survived and flourished. You've learnt some of those lessons but you're not nearly as good at it as the old Nazi was."

Adam looked puzzled. "Aren't you beginning to feel a little peculiar?"

"I've felt peculiar for most of the last twenty years, thanks to you."

Adam said nothing for a moment, knowing better than to deny responsibility to Eckhart.

"Well, that's all about to end." Adam pulled a pair of scissors from a pocket and stood over Eckhart, wearing a queasy-making smile. "Whether you're numbed or not, I'm going to begin."

The biopolymer skin Eckhart wore consisted of several layers, intended to give it strength, flexibility, and limited porosity, but it was not engineered to resist scissor blades, though it did have limited self-sealing properties to protect against small, simple punctures. Adam snipped away at the upper arm, removing a thin strip less than an inch wide extending from just below the shoulder to the elbow, the skin below exposed to the air.

"There. That'll give you something to think about." Adam grinned unhealthily, and met Eckhart's eyes.

"Paul would be so proud of you, Adam." Eckhart was calm, rational, fully in control, although the implications of such exposure were disease and death.

Adam had expected a different response.

"I'm going to go check my email."

Eckhart fought the impulse to inspect his exposed skin until Adam left the examination room. Some sensation remained in his upper arm, and he was startled by the unfamiliar sensation of coolness arising from sweat freely evaporating from his skin. He had not felt that in years.

Eckhart was long past the time when antibiotics needed to be infused into his system. Bacteria and bacteria spores adrift in the air would settle onto his exposed flesh. Having no defense against them, some of those organisms would find conditions favorable, commence multiplying, and infection would spread throughout his body and kill him. Death would not come quickly.

Eckhart had schooled himself to a high degree of personal control. He could avoid any outer impression of panic, but he lived daily in dread of bacteria and viruses, and now found himself in the middle of what he feared most.

Adam, in the best of circumstances was not a stable personality. Moody and emotional, Adam was not predictable. Overt cruelty was a new aspect, however, making him more dangerous than ever. There was no telling what else he might do.

Whatever Adam had injected, sensation was now dulled throughout Eckhart's body. He wondered if this served any purpose or was merely Adam's way of asserting more apparent control. He considered coping by imagining himself elsewhere, but realized whatever had been injected possessed the additional effect of making him alert and aware mentally, unlike a pain killer which tended to put one asleep. Adam did not want him to miss one moment of his slow slide towards death.

Eckhart realized Adam must have been prepared at any time to deal with him as a prisoner, to have such specific medications stocked and available. He was puzzled all over again why Adam so effectively fooled people despite his moodiness and emotionality.

Finding reasons to go on had never been a problem before this. As no one else alive understood, Eckhart knew how unstable Adam was and how dangerous it was to be subject to his whims. Even if anyone knew where he was, all Adam had to do was seal all the entrances. Sanctuary was a fortress, capable of holding out through a prolonged siege. Eventually, even Adam would run short of food or toilet paper, or something, but by that time, Eckhart knew that he would be long dead. He could not imagine a way out, and knew if he wasn't careful, Adam would use this against him.

Eckhart was also sure Adam would never allow himself to be trapped deep inside a mountain. No doubt there was at least one escape route out, probably only one Adam knew about. He was likely to have made provisions for an escape and setting up life with another identity.

He heard the door to the examination room open, but the effort required to turn his head was too great. Adam's voice and that of Shalimar informed him soon enough who was present. He wondered what other surprises Adam had waiting.

They came to stand before him, talking about Eckhart as if he was not even there.

Shalimar wrinkled her nose in disgust. "He's beginning to smell."

"Only to your sensitive self. He'll keep a few more days," Adam assured her.

"Things smell pretty putrid in here to me."

"This is going to take a little time. Isn't this worth a little discomfort?"

"What are you doing to him?" Shalimar asked.

Adam pointed to Eckhart's exposed arm. "I'm just letting nature take its course, and letting things happen the way they should have years ago. For now, anyway."

"You're going to let him rot?" Shalimar asked, wrinkling her nose once more.

"Something like that."

Eckhart watched Shalimar's face, unsure what he saw there. Disgust?

Adam turned to Eckhart. "You're awfully quiet, Mason. That's not like you. You always have something to say."

"I thought you were doing an admirable job of explaining your methods and yourself. Pray continue."

"How do you do it? You're more dead than alive to begin with. How do you keep going?"

"Because I believe in things outside of myself. What I do isn't about me. It has never been about me."

"You live on hate. Hate defines you. Without your obsessive hatred of mutants and of me, you don't have anything left in this world."

"No, Adam. That's not true. There is little in this world worth the energy of hating."

"Not even me?" Adam sounded both disbelieving and disappointed.

"Especially not you. You are an intelligent individual who has turned his gifts and energies towards negative goals. Everywhere you go, you leave a trail of changed and shattered lives, without a twinge of conscience. You are a perversion of what a good researcher should be, and what you could have been. How could I hate such a failure? Feel pity, perhaps; feel annoyance at the squandering of talent, but hatred? No. I used to believe you were a talented con artist, but I've come to think you believe your own lies."

"You sound like you're describing yourself, Eckhart," Shalimar challenged.

"Really? My history with Adam extends a good deal farther than your own. I know things about Adam that I'm sure he has never shared with you. Of course, there are some things he has never shared with anyone. There is no record of Adam ever being born, for example. I could never determine if he happened like the rest of us, or if Breedlove manufactured him."

"Manufactured?" Shalimar looked puzzled.

"Manufactured. As in android." Eckhart watched Adam's face carefully.

Adam smirked. "You're crazy, Mason. You've been crazy a long time."

"I've read Breedlove's original lab notebooks from the 1950s and 1960s. My German is good enough for that. He had a wide-ranging, if unholy intellect, and androids were a possibility that fascinated him. I've wondered if you aren't in some sense Paul's son, partly mechanical, partly electrochemical, and partly some grafting of his own flesh."

"You're delusional." Adam did not sound so sure.

"I don't think so. Paul could have created you, trained you, wiped your memory clean and then sent you off to college at the age of twelve. Breedlove charities paid your tuition. Genomex recruited you. And you've never wondered why? You're the scientist, Adam. Isn't good science a matter of asking the right questions?"

"You've been living inside that plastic skin for too long. Your brain has become pickled."

"In the years when we were friends, you never once mentioned a single childhood memory, not even in the presence of my own son Grey. That's very odd. Some childhood memories should have been prompted but not in your case. Perhaps you were assembled at the apparent age of ten, loaded with the proper software and memory, and shipped off to college when you were 'twelve'."

"Your son?" Shalimar was astonished.

"Yes. Adam had no friends, and I used to invite him to my house on weekends. I felt sorry for him. I know how it is to be an isolate, so I had him spend time with my family: cookouts in the backyard, fishing trips with Grey, that kind of thing. Adam even came along when we went to cut down our Christmas tree. Yes, Adam was there for all of these things."

"That sounds unbelievable," Shalimar said. She could not imagine Eckhart as any other than the odd man she knew now.

"Tell her it's true, Adam."

"It's true," Adam said grudgingly.

Shalimar knew they had an extended history, but these details were wholly unfamiliar.

"I welcomed the lost-soul nerd into my home, and he repaid me by betraying my trust, didn't you, Adam?"

"That was a long time ago," Adam said, avoiding Eckhart's eyes, and Shalimar's as well.

"A long time? Do you think time excuses destroying my family?" For a moment, Eckhart allowed emotions free rein.

Shalimar turned to Adam, looking for an explanation, but none came. Adam remained silent.

"Adam, you're such a fraud. You tear apart my family, assist Breedlove in creating several thousand unhappy anomalies, spread their slow-moving plague through the world, and still you believe you're a good man—or whatever you might be."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Are you, or are you not, human?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"One to which I was unable to obtain a definite answer. Surely you can tell me. I received reports indicating you are other than human."

"It's an absurd thing to ask, Mason."

Eckhart smirked. "I'll take that to mean you are an android. That goes far to explain how little regard you have for humanity. Perhaps in humanity's demise you imagine the rise of your own kind."

"You're insane," Adam responded, still not addressing the issue.

"Really? So much about you makes little sense otherwise. I wonder what Jackie and Danielle would think of the question?"

Adam seized scissors from a drawer and began cutting open the biopolymer about the top of Eckhart's arm. Once he had cut completely around, he unpeeled the plastic from the entire arm.

"Running short of patience, Adam?" Eckhart asked, regaining perfect outward poise.

"I'm tired of listening to you."

"You never listened to anyone. You've always been out of control. Paul should have pulled your batteries early on."

"Your whole arm is exposed. By morning, things should be interesting."

"I will begin going septic. Without heroic intervention, I will die. And you believe living memory of what you have done with die with me, don't you?"

"Who else is left?" Adam asked.

"Grey. He's not a little boy any longer. He's almost done with his undergraduate work."

"Everyone knows you had no contact with your children after Jackie left you."

"Everyone was wrong. When you let someone know what you love, you've given them the key to destroying you. Grey and the twins aren't small children any longer and don't require the careful protection of children."

"I don't believe you. You never spoke of them."

"Disbelieve at your peril. There are people to carry on my work and my children know who did this to me. They've heard the whole story."

"Good fantasy, Mason."

"Fantasy? I told each of my children the truth to their faces when they became old enough to understand."

"Impossible."

"Really?" Eckhart asked.

"You never left Genomex except for a few hours at a time."

"There are aspects of my life of which you know nothing, Adam. We all have our secret lives. I'm careful to protect that which is important to me. I could not be part of their lives the way I wanted, but they did not grow up thinking I abandoned them or did not care. They grew up knowing most of the truth, that I was ill and could not be with them, but within the bounds of my life, I've been the best father I could manage. They talk to me about most anything you'd expect. They know I love them."

"Very clever, Mason. I had no idea."

"You weren't meant to have any. They are my children. My concern. Nothing that you would understand."

Shalimar knew Adam well enough to know that his present anger was just barely controlled. If Eckhart pushed just a little more, Adam would strike out. Then she realized that was likely Eckhart's intention, to avoid a drawn-out death by infection.

"Mason, how long do you think you can last with your arm exposed?"

"A matter of days, depending upon the virulence of the organisms introduced."

"It won't be pretty," Adam said.

"The very same end awaits all your 'mistakes'. Why did you make so many of them? Was there a competition between you and Breedlove? What are you planning on telling your 'children' when they start dying off? Tell them that you meant well, but things just did not go as hoped? And what are you going to tell their children? I could understand creating a handful of these tragic lives, but thousands, then to run away when the time came to clean up the mess? That's criminal."

"And what do you call what you've been doing the last few years?"

"Highly unpleasant, but necessary dirty work. This is not the life I planned to live, but it is a necessary one."

"You enjoyed it," Adam said.

"No. For you, this may have been entertaining, amusing, fodder for your curiosity, but for me it's a nightmare from which I never waken, trying to stop the plague you've unleashed."

"What you need is an inoculation." Adam grabbed Shalimar's wrist, and dragged her bare arm against the length of Eckhart's right arm, quickly, before Shalimar could react.

"Ow! Adam!" Shalimar's wrist and arm hurt, and she was not pleased with being forced to touch Eckhart, who appeared even less pleased about being touched.

"There! Now we won't waste time waiting for just the right microorganisms to waft through the air to you! Staphylococcus aureus should do just fine." Adam looked pleased.

"I think you missed your proper time in history, Adam. Your sensibilities are medieval."

Adam smiled. "That's enough for now. I'm going to give it some time…for growth. Shalimar, I would wash that arm thoroughly…just in case."

Adam strolled from the exam room, Shalimar a few paces behind him. As she reached the door, she paused until it closed behind him. She turned and looked back towards Eckhart, then turned off the light.

"Try to rest," she whispered.

Eckhart was exhausted by his confrontation with Adam. He was grateful for the silence and dark, but was made more aware of how hungry he was. He closed his eyes and slipped into troubled sleep, plagued with disturbing dreams.

He had no idea how much time had elapsed when he awoke to the sound of light footsteps on the hard floor. In the dim light, he was certain only that his visitor was not Adam.

Shalimar turned on a bench light, and turned to see Eckhart watching her warily.

"Is Adam sending in the second wave of tormentors?"

"Adam didn't send me. I'm not sure what you can or cannot eat or drink, so I just brought you some orange juice."

"That's safe enough. Why are you doing this? I'm puzzled, Miss Fox."

"I don't approve of the way Adam's treating you. I refused to have anything to do with the gang he contracted with to capture you." Shalimar released Eckhart's right arm, and handed him the tumbler of orange juice, which he drained.

"Thank you."

"Do you want another?" she asked.

"Yes."

"What else can I bring you? What kind of food?"

"Very simple foods. My digestive enzymes are limited. My usual diet is almost pre-digested. My gut flora cannot handle complex foods. Adam doesn't know you're doing this, does he?"

Shalimar shook her head.

"Be careful. You do not want to be on the receiving end of his wrath."

"I'm going to leave your left arm clamped down. I won't be long."

Shalimar returned with more juice, simple sugar cookies, and potato soup. She retrieved a bottle of vitamins from a bathrobe pocket. "I take these myself. You look so suspicious."

"I have a suspicious nature. Life taught me that. Frequently, it proves useful. I'm not ungrateful. Ingrained attitudes are difficult to change."

"I think all the food here is okay."

"Too late now if it isn't. Thank you, again." Eckhart managed a weak smile to try and convince Shalimar of his gratitude.

"I went and talked to a lot of my friends who used to be in the underground. Only the ones who have committed crimes have heard from the GSA. Like you said."

"I concern myself only with the troublemakers."

"That's why Emma and Jesse joined you, isn't it?" Shalimar asked.

"That, and to be together without Adam's interference. They were going to leave Mutant X sometime soon. I simply provided them with a solid reason for leaving when they did."

"Adam is not pleased with their engagement."

"That really is not his business," Eckhart said softly. "Adam always did have difficulties with behavioral boundaries."

"Adam likes to think of us as his children, and the reminders that we are not, well, he does not care for those reminders."

"It could be simpler than that. He might think of you and Emma as his private preserve. Adam's ego knows few limits. What he does not know, he makes up. When he does not find the past convenient or useful any longer, he changes his memories."

"What are your kid's names?" she asked.

"The oldest, my son Grey, is nearly done with college; the twins, Michelle and Deirdre, are a few years younger."

"Twins?"

"As I once was. Marc drowned when we were eight."

"To hear Adam tell it, one day you showed up at Genomex hell-bent to make him miserable with very little else in your thoughts. Adam never said anything about your having a family."

"He has reasons for not wanting to remember, or for remembering things differently."

"Adam has a lot of secrets he hasn't told me, doesn't he?"

Eckhart nodded. "Be wary. His affections turn on a knife-edge, and perceived slights or disloyalties are not forgiven or forgotten. Genomex was once full of people who used to work for Adam but transferred out at first opportunity. I'm sure he describes his departure from Genomex in terms of heroic escape, but the truth is that by that time his attitude towards the staff had become hostile and combative, and he had nearly killed me. Breedlove was sliding down into a romanticized memory of his own past, and was the only one left who would try to work with him. Even Paul Breedlove was becoming fed up with him because his conduct was becoming more disruptive. Meetings with Breedlove were increasingly acrimonious as they took on more and more of a disciplinary nature."

"How would you know?"

"Some of Adam's sins were security matters. Using the onsite computer network to anonymous, slanderous email, for example."

"Adam?"

"For Adam, all slights are personal and never forgotten."

Eckhart drank some juice, and then continued. "Adam was not pulling his own weight, and the early indicators that the mutants were all likely to suffer from compromised immune systems were overwhelming. There was a technical meeting of the leading researchers who presented proofs of these outcomes to Breedlove and Adam. Breedlove had the humanity to accept the data as legitimate. He suffered an emotional breakdown soon afterward and was never himself again. His life's work had been discredited and damned for the perversion of science that it was. Adam became loud and angry and by day's end had quit Genomex."

"Adam says he quit when he found out what was really being done with his work."

"That is absurd, and I will tell you why. Adam spent nearly twenty years at Genomex. He used to be called the 'Prince of Genomex', because it was obvious Breedlove was grooming him as his successor. No one works at that level in a technical field without knowing exactly what the overall project involves. Adam was not only designing experiments, but coordinating the work of hundreds of other people. He wasn't off in a corner on the periphery of research; he was directing it."

"You're saying he's lying?" Shalimar asked.

"He is not telling the truth of those days. Possibly he's told himself the lie so many times he now believes it. Even if Breedlove managed to dupe Adam for twenty years, given Adam's position, wasn't it his responsibility to know and understand the work being done by people and labs working under his authority?"

"You're making a lot of sense. I almost wish you weren't."

"Does it make much sense that I, in various security capacities, knew better than Adam what Genomex was doing? And that I was directing it? No. But Adam always knew."

Shalimar's disappointment was obvious.

"I'm sorry, Miss Fox, but that is the truth of it. Consider yourself fortunate; when I discovered the truth of his character, he left me like this."

"Adam says that was an accident."

"Adam says a lot of things that just aren't so. I'll be ill if I eat any more, Miss Fox. Thank you."

"Do you want anything else?"

"My medical team?"

"I can't help you with that." She smiled slightly, picking up on Eckhart's subtle sense of playfulness.

"I'm puzzled by your kindness, but I am grateful for it."

"Some things just aren't right. I'll do what I can for you."

Eckhart nodded towards his arm. "What Adam does not know is that I have recovered some ability to resist disease, but I remain far from normal. I will take a long time to kill this way."

Deep underground, Eckhart lost all sense of 'day' and 'night'. The next time someone disturbed his sleep, the intruder was Adam, who looked well-rested, perverse and malevolent. Eckhart had seen that look before and knew it implied nothing good.

"Since Shalimar made that remark about the way your beginning to smell, I've set up a cage for you to better control the odor."

"How thoughtful." Few things annoyed Adam more than individuals he could not impress or manipulate.

"I'm not doing it for you, Mason. I'm doing it for Shalimar. She has such finely tuned senses." Adam paused, inspecting Eckhart, searching for evidence of infection and decay, but finding none. "You look to be in surprisingly good condition. You should be showing signs of your exposure to bacteria, viruses and all the other microscopic life and near-life forms. Could it be that some of your well-paid research teams has found a partial cure for you? You must have a number of people dedicated to that task."

Eckhart took his time to respond, studying Adam's eyes and wondering if they contained rods and cones or manufactured light and color sensors. He could not be sure if Adam's comment indicated an expectation of obvious deterioration, or if Adam was being cruel.

"No."

"No? Well, too bad." Adam shrugged, as if dealing with a trivial matter. "Brennan will escort you to your new quarters."

Having no means of defense and no possible escape, Eckhart was not about to argue with a street thug already motivated to fling him into a wall hard enough to kill him. Brennan came to stand over him, grinning a dull-witted smile. He was enjoying having the advantage over Eckhart, who allowed himself to be herded off to the room Adam described as a "cage".

Brennan opened the door, stepped back and allowed Eckhart to enter, shutting the door without comment.

The room must have served as a guest room, and had its own private bathroom. Eckhart examined it carefully to see if it was overrun with mold, and was relieved to discover that it was not. However, the door locked from the outside. Adam was prepared for all manner of guests.

The room appeared stripped of most furnishings, leaving only a bed, which did have several blankets. Sanctuary, deep in the earth, was damp and chilly.

Late that evening, Shalimar opened the door, and found Eckhart dozing. He woke suddenly, startled at the sound of Shalimar's footsteps. She carefully closed the door behind her, making no sound, then turning on the overhead lights.

She was wearing a shapeless, full-length pale pink bathrobe.

"It's just me. I can't stay long because Adam and Brennan will be back soon. I've got something for you. Antibiotics."

"Where?" Eckhart asked, puzzled.

"Where did I find them? A lot of people don't complete a course of antibiotics, no matter what their doctor says. I collected these from Emma's and Jesse's rooms." Shalimar handed him the bottles.

"Thank you, Ms Fox." He read the labels. After more than a decade of treatment, Eckhart knew the efficacies and drawbacks of most antibiotics as well as most physicians. "I don't know how effective they will prove, but they cannot do any harm."

"Are you hungry?" Shalimar asked.

"Not yet. What are Adam and Brennan doing?" He wasn't sure she would tell him, but Adam had left him undisturbed for a long while and he was curious to know what absorbed Adam's attentions.

"Working on the Double Helix. Adam has to do everything now with Jesse gone and Brennan isn't picking things up very quickly. In fact, I think Brennan does not want to learn. It's too much like honest work for him."

"Jesse must be missed here. He's capable, adaptable, and dedicated."

Shalimar smiled, then realized who she was smiling at, and about whom. "Yeah. Jesse's a good guy. And a good friend."

Eckhart swallowed two of the more potent antibiotics. "I'll find a good hiding place for the balance of these. What is Adam's mental state?"

"Moody. He's brooding over something. If he was female, I'd swear he had PMS."

"I'm probably not dying fast enough for him. Or perhaps moon phases affect the efficiency of his batteries." Eckhart watched Shalimar's face to see what she made of his speculation.

Shalimar did not quite understand the last comment, wrinkling her nose in puzzlement.

"Batteries, huh? I'll sneak back later with some food."

"Miss Fox, be very careful. Adam is dangerous. I've seen him rationalize whatever destructive behavior he commits. He is capable of turning on his friends with no hesitation."

"I'll be careful."

Left alone in his subterranean pen, Eckhart once more reviewed possible paths out of Adam's control, and again could discern none workable. He was deep underground in the lair of a probably certifiable Adam, who commanded the loyalty and strengths of a pair of mutants. Eckhart assumed he was on his own and anticipated no help from anyone outside. Shalimar's unexpected assistance would extend his life several days, but he could feel strength leaving him, and worse, driving off his despair was becoming difficult. He knew that would make him less able to perceive an opportunity should one arise. A long time ago he had read that "fear is the mind-killer", and surely that was true.

Shalimar padded silently back to the kitchen, intending to stuff her bathrobe pockets with food for Eckhart. Brennan kept the place stocked with snacks and treats. Shalimar suspected him of keeping a secret stash of Little Debbies and Moon Pies in his room for 'emergencies'.

She startled at the sound of Adam and Brennan returning from the Double Helix, voices loud and angry. They were doing a lot of arguing lately which drove Adam to antacids and Brennan to all but choke himself on Twinkies. Brennan's excesses were beginning to show, but Shalimar hadn't thought of a way to gently tell him that he was on the threshold of going to fat.

"Brennan, you have to learn to pay careful attention to any maintenance done on the Double Helix. If something goes wrong at ten, thirty, fifty thousand feet up, you can't just limp to the side of the road the way you can in your old Camaros. The ocean of air is unforgiving and the Double Helix is all but impossible to glide to dead-stick landing. Without power, she'll fall to the earth with the grace of a rock."

Shalimar had heard this particular rant before from Adam. Some variation of it emerged following most every session when he attempted to teach Brennan anything technical. Brennan always responded the same way, sometimes using the same words, swearing he was trying the best he could, and that Adam should give him points for making the effort.

Adam would answer with, "Effort is nice, but doing a task properly and well is the only thing that matters."

"Like us, Adam?" Brennan would say, smirking, and move on to Little Debbie Nutty Bars while Adam fumed. How convenient if would be for Adam it would be if Brennan would just become all that Jesse had been. The desire was unrealistic and from what Shalimar could tell from the lack of improvement in work or attitude, Brennan was unlikely to replace Jesse in a technical capacity.

"Adam, I don't have the patience to listen to this again. I've heard it before. I'm trying the hardest I can. Just give me time."

Brennan grabbed a box of Twinkies and stalked off to his room, where he would be safe with his martial arts magazines and his pornography.

Shalimar waited until she heard Brennan's door close. "Adam, I don't think Brennan is going to be your new technical guy. I don't think he wants to learn. If he wanted to be a technical guy, he would have learned that kind of thing and not become a thief. I think you're going to have to start recruiting on the outside again."

"That approach failed three times already, Shalimar." Adam was smiling his I-know-more-than-you-do smile that made Shalimar uncomfortable.

"Try again. Brennan's not going to become Jesse, as useful as that might be."

"Damn Jesse! I let him work on all kinds of upstream tech here, and even paid him an allowance! What was he thinking?" Adam pounded his right fist into the nearest counter top.

"I have a pretty good idea, Adam. 'What kind of future do I have with Mutant X if I do all the support work, get none of the credit, and am taken for granted, while a guy with limited smarts gets all the attention?'"

"This is about Brennan? Did Jesse say that to you?"

"He didn't need to. You've assumed good, reliable Jesse would always be there to take care of the difficult technical tasks, no matter how you treated him otherwise."

"That was his job, Shalimar! What was he supposed to be doing?"

"And what is Brennan's job? Consume his weight in Little Debbies daily?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Adam asked.

"All Brennan's good for is to be what he's always been, a thug. Now he's Adam's thug. But you favored him over Jesse."

"Jesse's just jealous. He has to get over those unresolved issues with his father. He wanted me to be his father and I'm not."

"Adam, I don't know what else to tell you. You drove Jesse away."

"Jesse and Emma sold out to Eckhart for money!"

"That isn't true. Jesse could match or top what Genomex is paying him. It's not about money; it's about being valued, and having the chance to become even more skilled. It's about being treated like an adult instead of a kid."

"You think Eckhart values Jesse? Jesse's just a tool to him. Eckhart uses everyone. That's always been his style."

"Adam, I think you're wrong about that."

"Shalimar, if conditions here are so miserable and unpleasant and I am so unfair, treating you like children, I don't see you or Brennan making any moves to leave."

"Where would I go? I have nowhere to go. Brennan has only one place to go: prison. For a long time. Where else but here is he going to be kept in unlimited snack foods, get respect for doing what he's always done, and be secure from the police? How many police departments are still looking for him? Most of the local ones, right?"

Shalimar was nearly in tears. She had not realized until this moment that she stayed with Adam not because she believed in what he was doing, but from lack of any other choices. Now, she felt trapped.

"Maybe you should leave, Shalimar. Maybe your time of usefulness to Mutant X is at an end. You seem to be getting a little ouchy on those knees, anyway. I don't know what you'd do out there, though; you're not exactly trained to do anything. Maybe you'd be good in zoos. I'm not sure I could give you a good recommendation, however."

"Adam!" Shalimar had seen Adam this mean and nasty once before, when 'poisoned' by a character-altering toxin. Now, she questioned if the toxin had changed him, or merely removed some self-control. His eyes looked flat and emotionless, curiously non-human.

"I don't want to be taken for granted, either!" She turned and bounded off to her room, saddened and hurt. Nothing Adam had said surprised her. That he said all of these things at once was different, and she was left to conclude she was foolish not to have put it all together a long time ago.

She hoped Adam would apologize later, but he never did.

Shalimar couldn't sleep. Between feeling suddenly trapped with a hostile Adam and a food-focused felon, and realizing what Eckhart said was true, Shalimar was deeply unhappy.

She understood that she needed to change her circumstances, that she needed to leave Sanctuary and start her life over somewhere on the outside. Perhaps Jesse and Emma would help her, if she could convince them she had nothing to do with the bloodbath at Genomex. But how could she do that? They both knew how deeply loyal she was to Adam.

In the old days, she talked to Jesse and Emma for hours at all hours. Their phone number was no secret but was openly listed in a public directory.

Shalimar wished she could pick up the phone and talk to either of them now. Calling that number from any phone in Sanctuary would trigger an alert to Adam, even setting off an alarm in the middle of the night to wake him. In moments, he would know who she was calling, and a few moments after that, he would be pounding on her door, screaming a demand that she explain herself, or worse. If she didn't immediately release the door to open, Adam would key in his codes to override her settings. Adam would invade her lair, her safe place, and getting rid of him to restore peace and quiet could take hours.

As long as he believed he could influence an outcome, Mason Eckhart never gave up on anything. Looking about his private pen, he realized Adam might just have handed him a chance of survival by moving him here.

Between Shalimar's generous feeding and fortuitous find of antibiotics, he did not feel well or strong, but he was no longer losing ground. Perhaps some restored functionality of his own immune system was involved. Perhaps improvement continued following his release from stasis. He started to hope that he could will his way back and regain lost strength. Wouldn't Adam be surprised?

Inactivity was now as much Eckhart's enemy as Adam. Still weak, he willed himself to rise from the bed to begin walking about the perimeter of the room. Resting as needed, he guessed he could cover the equivalent of several miles a day. Adam had once tried to kill Eckhart in a clumsily staged industrial accident and discovered his former friend was hard to kill. Only heroic medical treatments, a strict regime of blood transfusions, and Eckhart's fierce personal will to survive and prevail kept him alive after Incident X, and he remained a very difficult man to kill, as Adam was about to re-learn.

Emma and Jesse drove up the access road to the graveled parking area as they had done many times before, but this time driving a dark blue Genomex issue sedan. The area was full of old Camaros, many more than before. They parked as they always had, and ascended a poorly marked trail to a well-hidden steel door.

Emma looked back at the collection of ancient Camaros.

"Do you think it's possible they're breeding back here, making rust-babies when nobody's watching?"

Jesse laughed. "Maybe the word is out that this is a dumping ground for useless Camaros."

Emma turned back to the door. "Speak 'friend', and enter," Emma said.

"If only it could be so easy," Jesse reflected. "But, this is Adam. Adam can be very lazy." With that, Jesse unhesitatingly punched in the old access code, which released the door.

"And Adam rants about Mason being arrogant," Emma whispered.

"Unless Adam's setting a trap," Jesse replied. "Adam probably has no idea how difficult an opponent I can be."

Emma giggled softly. "Brennan probably couldn't remember new codes. Adam probably had to re-enter the old one so Brennan wouldn't be out here all night sleeping in one of his ratty old Camaros with nothing to eat unless he as carrying some Moon Pies."

They entered Sanctuary and were met by deep silence.

"Nobody's home," Jesse said. "Ah, an antacid run for Adam, a snack and treat run for Brennan, and a relief from living underground run for Shalimar. Brennan was looking chunkier when I saw him. Wait here. I'll make sure the Double Helix is gone. Then we'll find Mason."

Jesse found the hangar bay empty. "Yes, they're making a Twinkie run."

Since Eckhart was not being held in the examination room, they guessed correctly he must be in one of two sparsely equipped guest rooms. Emma tried one door while Jesse tried the other.

Emma found Mason pacing the far wall of the room, a dark blue blanket draped over his shoulders. He stopped, turned, and faced her, not quite believing what he saw.

"Emma."

"I've come to save you again. You look surprised."

"I am."

Emma smiled. "Jesse and I could not leave you here with Adam. Jesse's here, too."

"I did not expect anyone to give a damn. Anyone who ever cared about me is gone."

"Not so. Jesse and I do. Everyone seems to be gone."

Jesse entered the room, and whispered, "Not anymore. The Double Helix just came back. I could hear the engines out in the hallway. Let's not get trapped in here."

"You're ready to confront Shalimar and Brennan?" Emma asked.

"We came here knowing that was likely."

"I'm not going to be much help to you," Eckhart said. He uncovered his exposed arm. "Adam's been busy with me. I'm going to require medical attention."

Jesse smirked. "I'm relieved we won't have to carry you out. We didn't know what kind of shape you'd be in. If we hurry, we might still beat them out of here."

Moving quickly as they were able without making much sound, they made it as far as the Meditation Pool before they were discovered.

Brennan lumbered in from the hangar bay, chewing on the remainder of a Little Debbie Zebra Cake. For long moments, he started at Emma, Jesse, and Eckhart in dull surprise, as if unable to process the sight. Finally, he was able to frame a comment.

"Well, look what's here. Adam, you won't believe what I've found. Better hurry."

"Brennan, don't mess with us. We're going to walk out of here with Mason, and not make any trouble for you if you won't make trouble for us," Jesse challenged. We didn't come here for a fight, but we're prepared to deliver one."

"Hah. Jesse, you're crazy. Eckhart's not leaving alive. Adam's wanted to get his hands on Mr Creepy for years and he won't just give him up." Brennan began generating a swirl of sparks between his hands, a gloating smile on his face. "Looks like you and Emma won't, either. Not that you deserve to leave alive."

Jesse shook his head, wondering how he had ever counted this selfish, shallow, stupid soul a friend. "Brennan, you'll never be more than a common street thug. And you'll keep chasing kid-dreams of hot cars and great babes. You'll always be a kid, despite your years and no matter how silly the pose looks. You will never be any kind of man."

Brennan laughed nervously as Adam and Shalimar arrived behind him.

Adam stepped in front of them both. "And you, Jesse? What about you? How do you live with yourself? You're a traitor to your own kind. You've sold yourself and them for money, sold them out to Mason Eckhart."

There had been a time when Jesse would not have argued with Adam, but he did now, without hesitation and with conviction. "I haven't betrayed anyone. What I have done is help a lot of people leave behind a life on the run and live productive lives in the larger society."

Adam was stunned at Jesse's speaking against him. He was expecting the compliant Jesse of the past, who would go along with everything Adam said and did, who followed Adam's commands without question or doubt.

"If anyone is a traitor, Adam, it's you," Eckhart said. "You've already destroyed lives by the thousand. But to this day, you gloss over your perversion of science and feign ignorance of what hundreds of researchers did under your personal direction. By unleashing this genetic plague, you've betrayed the whole of humanity, sowing the seeds of mankind's extinction."

"Someone will find a way to fix the flaws," Adam answered. "Advances will be made. Science always goes forward."

"Perhaps. Perhaps not," Eckhart said. "There are no certainties. Even one generation of human pain is too much pain, just because you lacked the wisdom to stop when you knew the oldest mutants were doomed."

"In the meantime, all the mutants you created have to face the certainty of degeneration and early death." Jesse had never been so angry with Adam.

"We have to live with the reality that our children would be just as flawed as we are," Emma said. "Adam, that means I won't have children because unlike you, I'm not going to create human pain."

"You're both so ungrateful. What would you have done without me? I gave you tremendous powers." Adam looked bewildered.

"Lived a normal life. If I could give my powers up in return for a normal life, I would do it," Emma said. "They are no gift. They are a curse. I can use them to positive purposes, but they limit who I can become."

"You've got them well-trained, Mason. How did you do it?" Adam smirked.

"All I had to do was tell them truth. You tend to be sparing of the truth, Adam. Can you contradict the facts of their condition? Can you offer any hope other than the vague promise of someone someday somehow will fix the problem? No, you cannot."

"Adam, Mason's not controlling us. We are acting as we choose."

"You're a fool, Jesse. You would never do these things on your own."

"We've never undergone any training or conditioning from the GSA or anyone else. Emma and I are not wearing governor or any other control device. Our thoughts and our actions are our own. Now, we're going to leave." Saying that, Jesse took a step forward towards the exit.

"Brennan…zorch him," Adam commanded.

Brennan smirked, and did as he was told, forming a lightning bolt, then taking easy aim at Jesse.

Neither Adam nor Brennan noticed Shalimar as she dropped down into a crouch, and sprang forward to topple Brennan to the floor before he could harm Jesse.

Brennan was caught off guard, not anticipating an attack from behind. He tumbled out of the fall, and quickly regained his footing, turning in anger to Shalimar.

She landed awkwardly, and hard, dragging herself away from Brennan, clasping her left knee with both hands, face distorted by pain.

Brennan was oblivious to her discomfort. "Shalimar, have you gone crazy?"

"No. You have. You fool," she shouted in her rage and pain, her eyes flashing feral. "That's Jesse."

"Doesn't matter. Jesse and Emma have gone over to the other side. They're enemies. Jesse's not one of us anymore."

"Just let them leave! We can't hurt Emma and Jesse. They're our friends."

"Were our friends, Shalimar. Brennan's right, Shalimar," Adam said. "They'll destroy us if we don't destroy them first."

"You blight every life you touch, Adam," Eckhart said. "Your capacity for destruction is unbounded.

"Brennan, finish what you started, but start with that one," Adam said, pointing to Eckhart with a flourish.

Brennan was quicker in forming a lightning bolt this time, taking aim at Eckhart and getting off the opening burst before Emma could cloud his mind and stop him short of a full delivery.

Eckhart was thrown down and back to his knees by the partial release, slightly dazed and disoriented, but aware.

Emma turned and ran to him, kneeling. "Mason?"

Adam grinned unpleasantly, flashing an angry smile. "Mason, is it? How touching. Emma, you are an ungrateful wretch. When I took you in, you were a confused, frightened little girl. I tried hard to make something better of you, to raise you up above the level of the ordinary and banal. Now, look at you, wasting your time and your gifts on that weak, pathetic, pitiful specimen of humanity."

He's jealous, Emma realized. He wishes he could believe I would care as much about him.

"Mason, can you stand on your own?"

"Yes. Emma, don't turn your back on Mulwray."

Emma stood up and faced her former friend and mentor. "And now I'm a thinking, independent adult woman, and you really don't like that, do you? You cared for us only when we were trusting children who did not question the words or intentions of the Great Adam, the Prince of Genomex, who had all the answers!"

Adam's face flushed with embarrassment and rage. "Brennan, zorch them all!"

Brennan would require more time to form a lightning bolt his time.

Eckhart knew this; he stood up, turning to Emma, "Emma, if you could control Mulwray, Jesse and I…"

Emma did not wait for him to finish. Making the most of the increased lag time between charge beginning to full-charge release. She filled Brennan's mind with overwhelming fear and panic, then temporarily blinded him. The results were better than she hoped.

Brennan's response was to whine and thrash in rage, striking out wildly.

Emma fine-tuned her assault, convincing Brennan he was in fact confined, reducing him to whimpering, howling confusion, inside a rigid tube two feet in diameter.

"Emma cannot maintain this degree of control for long," Jesse said.

"I know," Eckhart replied. "We need to neutralize him in the water. Jesse, take one arm, and I'll take the other. He's going for a swim."

Together they grasped the unseeing, confused, panicky Brennan, and dragged him to edge of the Meditation Pool.

Eckhart turned to Brennan, looking into his dull, unseeing eyes. "Mulwray, you're nothing but a savage bully."

Brennan hit the water, generating a geyser of sparks. Drained and weakened, he sat dazed in the water, still blinded and panicked to the point of inaction.

Eckhart turned back to Adam, who still blocked their passage. "Well, Adam, have you had enough? Can we simply leave?"

"This is different Mason, you getting physically into things. You usually are so careful to protect yourself."

"I've nothing left to protect. The integrity of my biopolymer is already compromised. Your pet felon will need time to recharge before he can threaten anyone. It's time to step aside and let us through."

Shalimar was still huddled in pain.

Eckhart turned to her. "Ms Fox? Can we do anything for you?" He said no more, not wanting to betray her.

Shalimar's voice was small and strained. "Yes. Jesse. Emma. Please don't leave me here."

"Do you want to go with us?" Jesse asked.

"Oh, yes. I can't stay here. And I don't think I can stand on my own, either."

Adam's eyes looked crazy now. "Another ungrateful traitor! I should have gotten rid of you months ago when I knew your knees were going."

"You knew I was coming apart and you kept putting me at risk?" Shalimar asked, still not wanting to believe the worst of Adam.

"Of course. That's your purpose."

Jesse strode toward Shalimar. Adam turned from Eckhart and lunged at Jesse's back. Eckhart moved swiftly to trip Adam, collapsing him into the floor face down.

"That's enough, Adam," Emma warned. "If you move from where you are, if you so much as twitch, I'll leave you blind and helpless for hours."

Shalimar struggled to stand, bracing herself against Jesse, standing on one foot.

"Emma, I need some help here," Jesse said.

"The bad knee is just too painful to bear any weight. I can hop, but that's all."

Random sparks burst around Brennan as he sat stuporously in the water, looking up dully at the spectacle of Adam's empire falling apart.

Jesse, Emma, and Shalimar hobbled over to stand above Adam.

Jesse stood over his former mentor. "Adam, if I ever find out that you've got another 'team' to feed your ego, I swear I'll find you no matter where you are, and I'll stop you." They continued on to the door.

Eckhart stood just short of Adam's head. "And I'll back him with whatever he needs. Adam, your life is not over. Turn your considerable talents to some positive endeavor, and try to make amends for the horrific mess you've made of your life and so many others. Goodbye, Adam."

Mason Eckhart turned and walked swiftly to the door, not troubling to take a last glance back at the fallen Adam and the still-sparking Brennan. He stepped out through the door to the outside, and was relieved to be free and breathing the clean air of early evening.

Ahead of him, Emma and Jesse were helping Shalimar into the car.

"Where do we take her?" Jesse asked.

"Genomex. There would be too many questions asked at any other hospital. I need prompt attention as well. Both of you need to know Ms Fox had nothing to do with the savages who raided Genomex, and that she helped me survive in there. Ms Fox, I promise you will receive the best care."

"As your prisoner?"

"As my guest. What you do when you knee is repaired and function is your business."

"We really should contact local police and let them capture Brennan," Jesse said.

"Too dangerous," Eckhart replied.

"What do you think Adam will do, Mason?" Emma asked.

"Exactly what we warned him against. He'll form a new team, probably a more dangerous team since his potential recruits are now criminals or insane. Adam could make me very miserable, although I suspect when I ask for a broader mandate to use force against him, that request will be granted."