He noticed it immediately as he woke up.
Thank God he sleeps in his boxers.
He called Adam on the com ring. Adam's barely awake response was met with an urgent request for Adam to come to his room.
Less than a minute later, a sleep-mussed, but striving to look alert Adam showed up at Jesse's door.
"I can't unmass them."
"Jesse? What is..." Adam stopped, shocked at what he saw.
Jesse had thrown off the covers and was sitting propped up against the headboard wearing nothing but his boxers. But what had startled and alarmed Adam (and Jesse) was the fact that his feet and ankles were covered in the harsh red lines that signify Jesse's massed state. His feet were frozen in a relaxed position. If it were not for the red lines, he would look like a dancer holding a pose.
"It seems to be moving up my legs. When I woke up I could move my ankles. I can't anymore."
'No! Not Jesse! This can't be happening, this can't be happening again,' ran through Adam's mind but he was careful to keep his face neutral he didn't want to prematurely worry Jesse.
Jesse, himself, was eerily calm. He was seemingly detached from the process. Adam wondered if he was in shock.
Adam shook himself out of his own temporary stupor. "Have you tried phasing?"
Yah, everything phased except my feet. I haven't tried to fully mass in case that just makes it worse."
"Ok, let's get you to the lab…"
"Adam, I can't walk."
Adam's habitual calm was shaken for a second, then his practical nature resurfaced. "Ok, let's get you onto your desk chair, and I'll wheel you to the lab. I'll call the others, to…"
"No! I mean, can we wait till we get to the lab and maybe try to reverse this before we call the others in. I don't want to alarm them unnecessarily." And I don't want to be caught in just my boxer shorts, thank you very much, thought, Jesse to himself. This is embarrassing enough without them running in now.
Adam caught Jesse's embarrassment and acceded to Jesse's wishes. He grabbed a pair of Jesse's workout shorts and a t-shirt and discretely turned away as Jesse put them on. Next he helped Jesse onto his chair and then wheeled him to the med lab. Jesse had to hoist himself onto the med bed using his arms and upper body strength because trying to stand on his pointed toes was awkward.
Just as Jesse had lain down on the bed Shalimar burst into the room, in a rush of heightened nerves and anxious energy.
"What going on? What's wrong? I was walking down to breakfast when I was Adam wheeling you in here. Jesse, are you alright? Why are you massed?" Shalimar demanded all in one breath.
"I can't unmass. And it seems to be spreading."
"What? What do you mean you can't unmass? Adam, what..?"
"He woke up this morning and his feet were massed. He can't unmass them as he isn't controlling the massing in the first place."
Shalimar suddenly focused on Adam. He was too calm. Something was wrong.
"You've seen this before, haven't you? You know what is happening to Jesse…" she trailed off waiting for Adam's response.
Adam was quiet.
"Adam?" It was Jesse. Adam raised his eyes to Jesse. Jesse's eyes were no longer calm. They were a wide terrified green, with panic starting to rear it's head, but Jesse's resolve was firm.
"Tell me."
Adam took a deep breath and let it out. He looked at Shalimar, who was seething with worry and tension, and then at Jesse, to whom he owed an explanation.
"Of all the mutations, moleculars are the hardest to create. Ferals are the easiest since you are adding straight DNA, albeit feline DNA, to an embryo. Elementals and psionics are harder but their mutations work along the similar principals to one and other. The mutant has heightened areas of sensitivity and receptors. For elementals their bodies are much more sensitive to the electrical pulses of the body and their powers are a reflection of how the charges and firings of the neurons and electrons in their bodies work. Psionics are one of the most difficult mutations to predict and account for, but working within the brain to enhance certain functions is a science that man has been working on for a long time and with careful manipulation telepaths and empaths are created.
Moleculars are a different kettle of fish. When the strain of mutated DNA is introduced to an embryo to create a molecular we're trying to make a mutation that actively changes the entire structure of the atoms and molecules of the mutant's body. Unlike the other types of mutation, moleculars often have limits on what their bodies can withstand and, like Jesse, can only phase or mass when holding their breath or in some cases not moving. While other mutations use the body as a conduit for their powers, moleculars are constantly changing their entire structures every time they mass or phase."
Adam paused, trying to determine the best way to say this. He looked into Jesse's eyes again, saw the beginnings of understanding, and knew it was best just to say it.
Because of the stress they put on their bodies, moleculars have the shortest life span of any of the mutations. I have only known one other molecular who lived almost as long as Jesse. She died when one day her internal organs just massed, and wouldn't unmass. Most of the other moleculars that were created died before they hit puberty …"
"So that's it?! Jesse's going to die? There's nothing you can do about it?" Shalimar was screaming, her eyes had gone feral yellow and she looked ready to rip Adam to shreds with her bare hands.
"Shal." It was Jesse. Whose eyes had gone curiously flat again, and whose legs were now encased in red lines from the thighs down.
Shalimar's fury turned to sorrow as she turned away from Adam and towards her first real friend,
"Oh, Jesse, " she sobbed as she threw her arms around her teammate, confidante and little brother.
As Shalimar hugged him Jesse's detachment broke and he cried on her shoulder in fear and anger. Adam stood beside the bed ready to offer comfort, needing it himself, but not wanting to intrude on the bond between Jesse and Shalimar.
Emma burst into the room, with Brennan right behind her. She pulled up short at he sight of her teammates on the bed hugging and sobbing.
"What's going on? I felt a spike of fear and a spike of anger and…"
"What's wrong with Jess? Why's he on the bed? What's up…"
Both Emma and Brennan spoke at the same time.
Adam held up his hands to silence them, and corralled them to the observation room to give Jesse and Shalimar their privacy.
"Adam, you're scaring me, what's going on?" Emma wanted to know, not liking either the look of sorrow on Adam's face or the waves of sadness she could feel emanating from her teammates.
Once again, Adam decided that simplest was best.
"Jesse's mutation is changing. His body is starting to morph to solid and based on previous incidents with other moleculars, I believe that within in a very short time period his body will permanently mass into solid form, effectively freezing both his heart and brain activities. His mutation is slowly but surely killing him."
"What?! It can't be! He. We're…" Brennan was out of words. It didn't compute. It couldn't be happening. He woke up this morning expecting to play a little one-on-one basketball with his teammate, not … not watch him…. He just couldn't complete the thought. He stared at Adam in shock.
Emma was struck silent. She was screaming on the inside, she wanted to not believe it, how could it happen, but the emotions made sense. What she'd been feeling when she woke up this morning, the fear, the anger, the overwhelming sadness, it all made a horrible sense. She looked through the observation glass in stunned shock. She looked up at Brennan and realized that he needed consoling as much as any one. She started to move towards him.
"Bren…"
"Don't touch me! I don't … I can't… No! Leave me alone!" And with that Brennan was gone from the room, gone from the building very likely. Needing to deal with the stress in his own way. Needing the literal distance to help cope with the immediate problem.
"Let him go, Emma, he needs…" Adam trailed off. Knowing that nothing would help Brennan now, knowing that the telepath beside him would need help, would eventually need a shoulder to cry on too. He wrapped one arm around Emma's shoulder and guided her back into the med lab.
Only to be met with Jesse's fear-filled eyes and Shalimar's furious gaze.
"You knew. You knew this could happen, would happen, and you didn't tell me." Jesse's voice was calm, but his eyes were snapping with fury.
"I wanted to believe that it wouldn't happen to you. You'd already lived longer than any other molecular by five years. Your mutation seemed stable enough despite the new abilities. I didn't want to alarm you needlessly."
"I had a right to know. It's my life. Or death as the case may be."
Adam winced as Jesse's words struck home.
"I didn't want you to live under a cloud of what was only a possibility. I wanted to spare you…"
"Adam, you should have told me. If I had known that it was possible that my future was going to be non-existent I would have done things differently. I might not have been a member of Mutant X, true, but I would have made sure to live every second of my life to the fullest, I wouldn't have wasted as much time worrying about things that seem trivial now. I would have seen and done more things. Hell, I would have gone to Disneyland! I wanted to see the Great Wall of…."
Jesse's tirade cut off with a gasp as the line of massing moved up past the tops of his thighs to his lower torso.
"Jesse!" Shalimar shouted and moved to hold him in her arms once more. She was standing as close to the bed as she could and had her arms around Jesse with his back to her chest, so that Jesse was facing Adam and Emma while leaning on Shalimar for support.
"It's ok," Jesse gasped. "Don't they say that a hard man is good to find?" Jesse tried to laugh through the pain.
"Jesse!" Shalimar pretended to be scandalized but neither of them could continue the façade.
"Adam, isn't there anything you can do?" asked Emma pleadingly.
"I've never been able to do anything to make and impact on Jesse when he is massed. When he is massed I can't introduce anything to his system. Nothing affects him, and I've never found an agent that would prompt him to reverse his massing without his conscious involvement."
"Jess, have you tried massing and un-massing? Maybe it would help? If you concentrate on your legs and try to mass them?" Emma asked hopefully, desperately.
"I haven't wanted to try it because it might make it worse." Jesse paused and took a deep breath. "But I guess I have nothing to lose."
Jesse took another breath and held it, and tried to mass his legs. The lines of red, which had been steadily creeping up his body, flew up to his waist and Jesse screamed in agony and released his breath. He dropped back against Shalimar, panting is pain.
"Ok… I guess… that was… a. bad idea…."
"Gods, Jesse, I'm so sorry. Here, let me try something…." Emma trailed off, as she probed Jesse's mind, trying to find a way inside to convince his body to give up on this attack. But all she encountered was a brick wall, a blanketing hardness, an impenetrable fortress that could not be breached. She tried sending out a pulse of relaxation, a wave of uncoiled positive energy, but she was rebuffed. Emma came out of her trance with tears in her eyes.
"What about a bolt of electricity?" she asked with sudden inspiration. "It worked when he was phasing erratically when he was affected by the nerve gas…"
"The nerve gas!" exclaimed Shalimar. "It affected Jesse, it bonded to his molecules. If we could synthesize some of that would it could…."
Adam interrupted gently. "Lightning won't work because it would only electrocute Jesse's upper body and be absorbed or deflected by Jesse's lower body. And I'm not sure the nerve gas would be able to reverse the process. It would only be able to bond with the parts of Jesse still unmassed by the time we finished synthesizing it, and I don't think we have that kind of time.
Adam said this last statement while looking at Jesse's body. The massing had made it to his abdomen, and was heading towards his ribs and lungs. Shalimar tried to shift Jesse to lay him flat but it was too late. His body was frozen bent at the waist, as he had been propped up against Shalimar.
"Getting me in a coffin is going to be a bit of a pain, heh…." Jesse was desperately trying to keep things light, as his teammates got more and more desperate and scared.
"Ssh, Jesse. I've got you." Shalimar did the only thing she could. She put her arms around Jesse and held him, with her arms circling his upper chest where he could still feel her warmth.
The lines of red had reached chest and he felt his lungs freeze, he couldn't get any air in, he couldn't take another breath, he couldn't talk. He couldn't turn his body to look at Shalimar, but his head turned to her, his eyes pleading, tears spilling over his eyelashes as he fought against the crushing weight of his chest.
Shalimar had her hands on his chest and suddenly felt his chest still as his lungs and heart massed solid. Jesse gave her an agonized look. He was in so much pain. And then suddenly it stopped.
Jesse's eyes froze open, looking at Shalimar, his body quickly solidified the rest of the way, the deadly red lines racing the rest of the way now that there was no resistance. Jesse was frozen in a seated mass, his arms up to hold Shalimar's, his head turned to look at his best friend, his tears frozen massed on his face.
Shalimar stood there frozen for a moment as well, staring at the unmoving body of her closest ally, her staunchest supporter and the one person she could tell anything to. There hadn't been time for last words, there hadn't been any declarations of love, nor were any needed. She had supported Jesse the only way she knew how, and it hadn't been enough. He was still dead. She still had to somehow go on without her best friend. Mutant X still had to find a way to survive without the heart of their group.
Shalimar finally gently pried her arms loose and kissed Jesse's massed forehead one last time and quietly left the room. Emma and Adam were still standing as they had been, with Adam's arm around Emma's shoulder. Both were in shock, and as Shalimar left, Emma turned to Adam and began to sob in grief and anger. And somewhere along the coast, staring out at the wild uncaring ocean, Brennan bowed his head and wept.
fin