Disclaimer: I don't own the characters of Mutant X, I just borrowed them
and I plan to return them in good condition! So don't sue me, please!
Alliance
As the Double Helix landed in the underground cavern, Emma and Shalimar both looked at each other and, in one voice said, "Something's not right".
"Okay, everyone on alert!" cautioned Adam as the team left the VTOL and headed to the elevator that would lead them up into Sanctuary. When the hidden doors to the elevator opened, all suspicions were confirmed. Directly in front of the doors, someone had drawn a symbol on the wall: a circle with four lines which appeared to form an arrow pointing up and an arrow pointing to the right.
"Do you recognize the symbol?" Jesse asked Adam as Shalimar and Brennan split up to search the room.
"Yes, it's the sign of an organization known as 'Circle'. The group is made up of natural psionics and I've been trying to make contact with them for years." Adam replied.
"You've succeeded!" came a woman's voice boldly from the dojo area.
As Adam, Jesse and Emma joined Shalimar in front of the dojo, they saw a woman standing on one of the upper stairs with four dangerous looking men behind her. She was wearing a dark maroon jumpsuit with a black cape/cloak over it. She had short, curly brown hair and unnaturally green eyes.
Adam stepped forward and replied in a calm voice, "I provided an email address, you could have just sent a message for us to meet somewhere." The calmness in his voice didn't fool any of the Mutant X team. They knew how sensitive Adam was about any compromise to Sanctuary's location. Finding someone inside would have him feeling anything but calm.
While Adam spoke, Jesse moved casually over to the holo-controls and attempted to activate the force field that would have trapped the four men, leaving them just the woman to deal with. Nothing happened, the controls appeared dead. "You don't think that I would make it that easy, do you?" The woman asked, glaring at Jesse.
"Hey, can't blame a guy for trying!" Jesse responded as he backed away from the controls in response to the large gun being aimed at him by one of the men.
Emma had a feeling that the woman wasn't as menacing as she looked, but was completely blocked from reading any feelings or images and couldn't even get a hit off of any of the men. She had met people before who seemed to both know when she was trying to scan them and be able to block her, but she had never dealt with an entire group of them before.
"Are you the 'Guardian' of Circle?" Adam asked, trying to project an aura that would encourage the man to lower his gun and also signal Shalimar not to attack. He was all too aware of her feline sense of territory.
As he waited for the woman's answer, Brennan came up quietly behind him and whispered, "I know her."
"Yes, I am", the woman finally replied.
Brennan stepped around Adam and slowly moved toward the intruders with his hands open and slightly out to his sides, showing that he held no weapon. "Hey, Erin".
The woman looked at him in surprise for a moment before recognizing him, "Brennan?" she asked. "I knew that there was an 'electrical' on the team, but I never suspected…my, my, the little boy down the street done grown up 'fine'!" She added while giving Brennan a look that almost made him blush.
Seizing the opportunity to break the tension, Adam noted, "It sounds like you two know each other."
"Yeah," replied Brennan "Erin and I are from the same neighborhood, she saved my butt a few times." He realized that he was walking a fine line, trying to sound casual as he fed information to the team.
Erin smiled, "How could I resist, it was such a cute little butt!" Brennan cringed, in the current situation, everything was dead serious, but he knew that comment would bring him hours of abuse from his 'friends'!
His mind drifted back to one of those times. Knowing that he couldn't swim, a few of the neighborhood bullies had shoved him off of the bridge into the river and then ran away, laughing. Erin had run over and reached down with her left hand to pull him out. He remembered the uncontrolled electrical current that he discharged just as he grabbed her hand; how he had seen the current run up her arm and the look of pain on her face, but she didn't let go and pulled him to safety.
Brennan looked over to her left hand and his heart sank as he noticed the slight clawing of her fingers that were the result of nerve damaged that he had caused. He was instantly flooded with all of the guilt that he had felt that day. Erin obviously sensed his thoughts, because she slipped her hand into her cloak, out of sight.
"I've been trying to make contact with you for years, all of a sudden you show up. What happened?" Adam asked, as much to distract Erin's attention and allow Brennan to get closer as anything.
"Matty Conlon happened." Erin replied with a cold fury in her voice that made Emma glad that she couldn't read the woman. "Dr. Harrison has been given Carte Blanc to collect as many 'expendable' natural ESPers as needed for his experiments in enhancing naturals into "new mutants". Up until now, we've been satisfied to let you and Eckhart fight over your artificial mutants as long as it didn't affect us. Now, Genomex has crossed the line." *(see Double Vision)
Shalimar muttered to Emma, "Yeah, if there's a line, Genomex will cross it!"
By this time, Brennan had moved, unnoticed, to the stair that Erin was standing on. Everything he knew about this woman told him that she wasn't the threat that she portrayed, but he knew that the situation needed to be diffused before someone did something that everyone would regret!
Ignoring the glares of her four bodyguards, Brennan stepped toward Erin and placed his hands gently on her shoulders. She looked at him and started to ask what he was doing when he folded his hands around the collar of her cloak and slowly started to peal it back over her shoulders. "Why don't you take off your 'cloak' and stay a while?" He asked, ignoring both the shocked look and the woman's voice in his head – How dare you! --.
As Brennan removed the cloak, laying it inside out across his arm, the team could see several knives and at least two small guns and a stun-stick hung on the inside of it. "Bastard!" she mouthed silently at him. She didn't know what bothered her more, the fact that he had just smoothly exposed and disarmed her, or the sly smile dancing behind those deep brown eyes as he did it.
Adam spoke up, "Now, if we can just dismiss your 'friends' and take care of that" he pointed to the knife in the sheath around her right thigh, "you and I could sit down and have a nice discussion about Genomex's line- crossing tendencies."
"That," Erin replied harshly, "is ceremonial and I don't remove it!" Brennan remembered a time when Erin and her friends had met to discuss a truce with one of the area gangs. She had run a small locking chain through a slit in the handle of the knife like through the eye of a needle that prevented the knife from being pulled out of its sheath. He looked at the various paraphernalia attached to the inside of her cloak and noticed the chain hanging by a small loop.
He looked at Emma and filled his mind with an image of her coming up and taking the cloak. Emma got the message and, as she carefully approached, Brennan unsnapped the loop, freeing the small locking chain and handed the cloak to Emma who quickly retreated with it to a back room.
Brennan crouched down at her right side, so close that the inside of his left leg brushed the back of her right leg as she looked down at him, amazed at the shear audacity of this once-shy boy. He slowly reached his hands up, passing the chain between her thighs and through the slit in the knife handle, closed the small padlock and pocketed the key, all in one smooth motion.
Erin never broke eye contact with him. She couldn't believe that he would have the nerve to do this; she couldn't believe that she was letting him get away with it! "What do you think you are doing?" she finally asked down into the mischievous eyes looking up at her.
"I was…just…wondering" Brennan said slowly as he started to stand up right next to her, "if…I…could…still…make" he moved closer so that his body was making contact as he rose. That did it! It was more than Erin could resist and she felt her face flush and the heat indicating that her eyes were practically fluorescent as they closed in a moment of overwhelming lust. As her concentration wavered, so did the bodyguards behind her, revealing their holographic nature. "…your eyes glow." Brennan finished with a smile.
Meanwhile, Adam processed the treasure trove of information that Brennan had just handed him. It was always important to know an opponents weaknesses and Brennan had just exposed hers to the whole team. He allowed himself to relax a little as he realized that, while still dangerous, the woman before him was now unarmed and alone.
"Listen Mole-rat," she said, intentionally using his old street nickname as her mind released the holographic guards into oblivion, "you just destroyed my whole 'presentation', it took me hours to set up that scenario."
"Erin," Brennan responded, "I'd like you to meet my friend, Adam. And you don't need any scenarios or 'presentation' to deal with him." They walked down the steps and Erin tried to regain a little of her composure in the face of this totally intimidating man who managed to sound so calm and gentle. She didn't trust him; she had done her best to knock him off guard and gotten absolutely no reaction. She had tried to scan him once downtown and had to mentally 'jump back' as she was almost overwhelmed by a flood of equations and analytical calculations.
At the bottom of the stairs, Adam held out his hand to her. Erin looked at his hand, looked at him, shuttered and then placed her hands firmly in her pockets, she was definitely not going to touch him and risk mental contact again. Adam hid the disappointment that he felt and lowered his hand. There was so much that he could have learned from that simple touch: was she sweating, where her hands cold, was she trembling with insecurity or filled with solid confidence?
Brennan and Erin followed Adam up the stairs to the lounge area, while the remaining team members spread out to confirm that no other systems had been compromised and to discover how she had evaded the security system in the first place. Upstairs, Adam sat down at the table and Erin sat directly across from him. A slight scowl creased his brow, sitting directly across was a position of confrontation; he would have preferred that she sit to the side in a position of cooperation.
In response to Adam's query, she explained about Circle. "The standard legal system has no way to deal with ESPers – psionics, I believe you call them. So, Circle steps in with a code of ethics; which are enforced internally. Basically there are two sides to the issue. My side is mostly focused on protecting the 'innocents' from being meddled with, like the Prosecution in a court setting. We've ignored your prior requests because, on a philosophical level, we tend to support the mission statement of the GSA. The other side is represented by the Advocate and is mostly focused on protecting the rights of ESPers, like the Defense in a court setting."
"To give you an example, if an ESPer was working in sales and used his or her talent to influence a non-aware buyer then, as Guardian, I would be interested in making sure that the innocent person was not unduly influenced to their detriment or in violation of their free will. The Advocate would take the position that a person should be allowed to use the talents that they were born with to make a living and that the ability to influence a weak mind through telepathic suggestion is no different than being able to influence someone through the crafty use of language or keen observance of non-verbal communication."
As she spoke, Adam listened intently. The need for some form of law pertaining to New Mutants was obvious if they were to function as part of the general society. This was the main reason that he had been interested in Circle in the first place. There was a lot that he wanted to learn about how a small group of people with special abilities managed to function almost undetected within society, but Erin's reluctance to talk was as obvious as a brick wall standing between them.
When Erin yawned, Adam looked at his watch and realized that it was quite late, so he suggested that Erin spend the night in one of the spare rooms so that they could continue the conversation in the morning. Brennan smiled and noted that there was plenty of space in his room. Erin smiled back and said, "Now there's something that crossed my mind years ago!"
Brennan responded, "Hey, I was willing!"
Erin laughed, "Yes, but you were also only 16, I was 21, speaking of legal consequences! The state would have called that statutory rape and unfortunately, I would have to face a jury of MY peers, not yours!"
Brennan stood inches from her and whispered, "I'm not 16 any more."
Noticing that Adam had discretely disappeared, Erin replied, "Yes, but not here, I have a place about 45 minutes away."
A short time later, they pulled up to a small cabin by a private lake, surrounded by tall evergreen trees. Brennan noticed the generator on the deck and the lack of electronics in the house. There was no television, radio, computer, microwave, or even a clock. The only evidence that he was still in the current century was a satellite cell phone in the kitchen. "Welcome to MY sanctuary," smiled Erin, leading him back to the bedroom.
Brennan started a small fire in the bedroom fireplace to take the chill out of the air while Erin went and poured a couple glasses of wine. As they sat on the bed, sipping the wine she lifted her glass, "A toast – to aging!" Brennan smiled, finished his glass and placed it on the bedside table before pulling Erin back against him on the bed. As he removed his shirt and pants, Erin let out a small gasp of appreciation. "I doubt you have much of a problem with bullies pushing you off the bridge now!"
A melancholy smile graced his lips for a moment, "Actually, I managed to find some bigger bullies out there, namely Eckhart and his men." Erin reached down and placed her finger on the chains lock and it opened, releasing the knife. She removed the sheath and laid it on the bedside table and then, removing her clothes, it was Brennan's turn to admire what he had dreamed about over all of those years. But he noticed a number of scars, life had been rough on this woman, but he was certain that he could still reach the gentle part of her soul that he had seen in her eyes the day she pulled him from the river.
Standing up next to her, Brennan ran his fingers lightly through her hair while she ran her hands up the muscles of his stomach and chest. She had felt the rock hard muscles as he had rubbed up against her on the stairs, but they had been hidden by his loose silky shirt. As she continued exploring his sturdy shoulders, the moon came out from behind a cloud and, through the un-curtained window, its light danced across his smooth flesh. Erin moved closer, melting into the incarnate power in front of her and they stood together for a long time, enjoying the feel of each other's warm flesh in the still chilly room.
Finally, Brennan ran his hands from her shoulders down her arms until they locked fingers and she noticed a small shudder as he encountered the stiffness in her left hand. He opened his mouth to say, yet again, how sorry he was, but she cut him off by reaching up and planting her lips over his soft, moist mouth. Successfully distracting him, their kiss grew more passionate and he finally pushed her without resistance back onto the bed.
Looking up at the strong, handsome man hovering over her, Erin felt defenseless again, but this time was different. In this place, at this time, with this person, she finally felt that she was safe. She consciously pushed aside the last remnant of resistance and surrendered herself to him, dropping her guard, totally.
Brennan stifled a gasp of surprise as their minds connected through the intimate contact of their flesh. Suddenly, he knew just what she wanted. As his hands and lips moved over her body, he was aware of both the feel of the flesh under him and the feelings being aroused by his every move. It took him a few minutes to get used to the reflection of sensations that echoed his own pleasure, but he soon relaxed his mind into the intoxication of feeling her enjoyment in addition to his own.
Later, as she screamed out again in pure ecstasy, Brennan laughed as he kissed her, "Now I see why you wanted to come way out here, instead of staying at my room!"
* * *
As the first rays of dawn filled the sky, Brennan walked out onto the deck and turned on the generator so that they could have hot showers. He leaned on the rail, looking out over the still lake and smiled, feeling both the relaxation as well as the fatigue of the night's activities. Touching his comlink ring he spoke into it, "Shalimar?"
"Wondered where you were this morning, I had to settle for kicking holographic ass, instead of the real thing! Not like you to miss your workout." Shalimar answered teasingly.
"Don't worry about me," responded Brennan, "I've gotten enough exercise for today! I just wanted to check in, I'm at Erin's cabin about 50 miles out. We're going to take a shower, grab a little breakfast and then come back there. Let Adam know?"
"Sure thi...ugh…hey...uh, sure thing big guy" she answered. Brennan smiled, realizing that she had continued her sparring while talking to him.
* * *
During the drive back, Brennan commented, "I notice that the nerve damage in your hand never healed, maybe Adam could take a look at it. I'd bet money that he could find a way to fix it."
"You're probably right, but it's just too big of a risk. I know the location of Sanctuary, and I know how he feels about that. I don't trust that he wouldn't use his knowledge and his technology to try and remove that information from my memory. I don't know what lengths he would go to." she explained.
"I don't think that he would pull something like that. He did have a psionic remove memories from Eckhart about the location of Sanctuary, but Eckhart learned the location from Adam's stolen memories to begin with. But, if he gave you his word – you could rely on it." Brennan responded.
When they walked back into sanctuary, Adam was there to greet them. This time he didn't bother offering a handshake, nor did he need the physical connection to identify the difference in Erin's demeanor. She seemed relaxed, almost playful. Adam tried not to let his mind linger on what sort of activities had lead to the transformation.
Erin and Adam went back up to the lounge area, but this time she sat on the couch, allowing Adam to join her. Adam smiled at the change from a confrontational stance across the table to a casual position, chatting on the couch. They spent over two hours talking about the difficulties of setting up laws that would cover the range of possible psionic offenses, let alone the considerations that would need to be made in dealing with moleculars and elementals. Both agreed that, if New Mutants were ever to be a regular part of society, then the possible abuse of their abilities would have to be addressed.
As they joined the rest of the team for lunch, Brennan got Adam out of earshot and told him about Erin's hand, asking if he could help. He assured Brennan that he would try, but that he wouldn't do anything without her permission. After lunch, Brennan asked Erin, in front of Adam, if she would let him look at her hand. She looked Brennan in the eye and he felt as if she were staring straight into his soul as she asked, "Bren, I know the type of life you've lead; I know the number of times that you've been burned and how hard it is for you to trust. Can you honestly tell me that you trust this man?"
Brennan shuddered slightly under the intensity of her gaze, but there wasn't any hint of hesitancy in his answer, "Yes, Erin, I trust this man – with my life." Adam looked at the floor, not wanting the others to see the flood of emotions that filled his eyes. He couldn't begin to explain how honored he felt when he heard Brennan's words.
Erin then looked over at Adam. "I give you my word, all I'll do is fix the damage in your hand…and take a small sample of your DNA?" he added with a hopeful smile. She had given him enough information during their conversation that he felt like there was a balance in the information and he was willing to let her leave, even with the location of Sanctuary.
"My DNA?!" she responded with a playful attempt at surprise. She respected his honesty, because she knew that he couldn't resist the chance to compare the natural psionic mutantcy to the new mutantcy.
"It might help me come up with a way to permanently stabilize psionic new mutants. Currently, there are recurring problems with psychological problems caused by chemical imbalance," he reasoned.
"That and you're just plain curious!" Erin replied.
"Damn right!" Adam laughed as he led her to his lab.
* * *
Later, Erin and Brennan met in the garage to say goodbye. After chatting for a while, Brennan again ran his hands down her arms and they interlocked fingers. He felt the weight of years of guilt being lifted from his shoulders as he felt the strong, healthy fingers gripping his as she pulled him down to her waiting kiss.
Alliance
As the Double Helix landed in the underground cavern, Emma and Shalimar both looked at each other and, in one voice said, "Something's not right".
"Okay, everyone on alert!" cautioned Adam as the team left the VTOL and headed to the elevator that would lead them up into Sanctuary. When the hidden doors to the elevator opened, all suspicions were confirmed. Directly in front of the doors, someone had drawn a symbol on the wall: a circle with four lines which appeared to form an arrow pointing up and an arrow pointing to the right.
"Do you recognize the symbol?" Jesse asked Adam as Shalimar and Brennan split up to search the room.
"Yes, it's the sign of an organization known as 'Circle'. The group is made up of natural psionics and I've been trying to make contact with them for years." Adam replied.
"You've succeeded!" came a woman's voice boldly from the dojo area.
As Adam, Jesse and Emma joined Shalimar in front of the dojo, they saw a woman standing on one of the upper stairs with four dangerous looking men behind her. She was wearing a dark maroon jumpsuit with a black cape/cloak over it. She had short, curly brown hair and unnaturally green eyes.
Adam stepped forward and replied in a calm voice, "I provided an email address, you could have just sent a message for us to meet somewhere." The calmness in his voice didn't fool any of the Mutant X team. They knew how sensitive Adam was about any compromise to Sanctuary's location. Finding someone inside would have him feeling anything but calm.
While Adam spoke, Jesse moved casually over to the holo-controls and attempted to activate the force field that would have trapped the four men, leaving them just the woman to deal with. Nothing happened, the controls appeared dead. "You don't think that I would make it that easy, do you?" The woman asked, glaring at Jesse.
"Hey, can't blame a guy for trying!" Jesse responded as he backed away from the controls in response to the large gun being aimed at him by one of the men.
Emma had a feeling that the woman wasn't as menacing as she looked, but was completely blocked from reading any feelings or images and couldn't even get a hit off of any of the men. She had met people before who seemed to both know when she was trying to scan them and be able to block her, but she had never dealt with an entire group of them before.
"Are you the 'Guardian' of Circle?" Adam asked, trying to project an aura that would encourage the man to lower his gun and also signal Shalimar not to attack. He was all too aware of her feline sense of territory.
As he waited for the woman's answer, Brennan came up quietly behind him and whispered, "I know her."
"Yes, I am", the woman finally replied.
Brennan stepped around Adam and slowly moved toward the intruders with his hands open and slightly out to his sides, showing that he held no weapon. "Hey, Erin".
The woman looked at him in surprise for a moment before recognizing him, "Brennan?" she asked. "I knew that there was an 'electrical' on the team, but I never suspected…my, my, the little boy down the street done grown up 'fine'!" She added while giving Brennan a look that almost made him blush.
Seizing the opportunity to break the tension, Adam noted, "It sounds like you two know each other."
"Yeah," replied Brennan "Erin and I are from the same neighborhood, she saved my butt a few times." He realized that he was walking a fine line, trying to sound casual as he fed information to the team.
Erin smiled, "How could I resist, it was such a cute little butt!" Brennan cringed, in the current situation, everything was dead serious, but he knew that comment would bring him hours of abuse from his 'friends'!
His mind drifted back to one of those times. Knowing that he couldn't swim, a few of the neighborhood bullies had shoved him off of the bridge into the river and then ran away, laughing. Erin had run over and reached down with her left hand to pull him out. He remembered the uncontrolled electrical current that he discharged just as he grabbed her hand; how he had seen the current run up her arm and the look of pain on her face, but she didn't let go and pulled him to safety.
Brennan looked over to her left hand and his heart sank as he noticed the slight clawing of her fingers that were the result of nerve damaged that he had caused. He was instantly flooded with all of the guilt that he had felt that day. Erin obviously sensed his thoughts, because she slipped her hand into her cloak, out of sight.
"I've been trying to make contact with you for years, all of a sudden you show up. What happened?" Adam asked, as much to distract Erin's attention and allow Brennan to get closer as anything.
"Matty Conlon happened." Erin replied with a cold fury in her voice that made Emma glad that she couldn't read the woman. "Dr. Harrison has been given Carte Blanc to collect as many 'expendable' natural ESPers as needed for his experiments in enhancing naturals into "new mutants". Up until now, we've been satisfied to let you and Eckhart fight over your artificial mutants as long as it didn't affect us. Now, Genomex has crossed the line." *(see Double Vision)
Shalimar muttered to Emma, "Yeah, if there's a line, Genomex will cross it!"
By this time, Brennan had moved, unnoticed, to the stair that Erin was standing on. Everything he knew about this woman told him that she wasn't the threat that she portrayed, but he knew that the situation needed to be diffused before someone did something that everyone would regret!
Ignoring the glares of her four bodyguards, Brennan stepped toward Erin and placed his hands gently on her shoulders. She looked at him and started to ask what he was doing when he folded his hands around the collar of her cloak and slowly started to peal it back over her shoulders. "Why don't you take off your 'cloak' and stay a while?" He asked, ignoring both the shocked look and the woman's voice in his head – How dare you! --.
As Brennan removed the cloak, laying it inside out across his arm, the team could see several knives and at least two small guns and a stun-stick hung on the inside of it. "Bastard!" she mouthed silently at him. She didn't know what bothered her more, the fact that he had just smoothly exposed and disarmed her, or the sly smile dancing behind those deep brown eyes as he did it.
Adam spoke up, "Now, if we can just dismiss your 'friends' and take care of that" he pointed to the knife in the sheath around her right thigh, "you and I could sit down and have a nice discussion about Genomex's line- crossing tendencies."
"That," Erin replied harshly, "is ceremonial and I don't remove it!" Brennan remembered a time when Erin and her friends had met to discuss a truce with one of the area gangs. She had run a small locking chain through a slit in the handle of the knife like through the eye of a needle that prevented the knife from being pulled out of its sheath. He looked at the various paraphernalia attached to the inside of her cloak and noticed the chain hanging by a small loop.
He looked at Emma and filled his mind with an image of her coming up and taking the cloak. Emma got the message and, as she carefully approached, Brennan unsnapped the loop, freeing the small locking chain and handed the cloak to Emma who quickly retreated with it to a back room.
Brennan crouched down at her right side, so close that the inside of his left leg brushed the back of her right leg as she looked down at him, amazed at the shear audacity of this once-shy boy. He slowly reached his hands up, passing the chain between her thighs and through the slit in the knife handle, closed the small padlock and pocketed the key, all in one smooth motion.
Erin never broke eye contact with him. She couldn't believe that he would have the nerve to do this; she couldn't believe that she was letting him get away with it! "What do you think you are doing?" she finally asked down into the mischievous eyes looking up at her.
"I was…just…wondering" Brennan said slowly as he started to stand up right next to her, "if…I…could…still…make" he moved closer so that his body was making contact as he rose. That did it! It was more than Erin could resist and she felt her face flush and the heat indicating that her eyes were practically fluorescent as they closed in a moment of overwhelming lust. As her concentration wavered, so did the bodyguards behind her, revealing their holographic nature. "…your eyes glow." Brennan finished with a smile.
Meanwhile, Adam processed the treasure trove of information that Brennan had just handed him. It was always important to know an opponents weaknesses and Brennan had just exposed hers to the whole team. He allowed himself to relax a little as he realized that, while still dangerous, the woman before him was now unarmed and alone.
"Listen Mole-rat," she said, intentionally using his old street nickname as her mind released the holographic guards into oblivion, "you just destroyed my whole 'presentation', it took me hours to set up that scenario."
"Erin," Brennan responded, "I'd like you to meet my friend, Adam. And you don't need any scenarios or 'presentation' to deal with him." They walked down the steps and Erin tried to regain a little of her composure in the face of this totally intimidating man who managed to sound so calm and gentle. She didn't trust him; she had done her best to knock him off guard and gotten absolutely no reaction. She had tried to scan him once downtown and had to mentally 'jump back' as she was almost overwhelmed by a flood of equations and analytical calculations.
At the bottom of the stairs, Adam held out his hand to her. Erin looked at his hand, looked at him, shuttered and then placed her hands firmly in her pockets, she was definitely not going to touch him and risk mental contact again. Adam hid the disappointment that he felt and lowered his hand. There was so much that he could have learned from that simple touch: was she sweating, where her hands cold, was she trembling with insecurity or filled with solid confidence?
Brennan and Erin followed Adam up the stairs to the lounge area, while the remaining team members spread out to confirm that no other systems had been compromised and to discover how she had evaded the security system in the first place. Upstairs, Adam sat down at the table and Erin sat directly across from him. A slight scowl creased his brow, sitting directly across was a position of confrontation; he would have preferred that she sit to the side in a position of cooperation.
In response to Adam's query, she explained about Circle. "The standard legal system has no way to deal with ESPers – psionics, I believe you call them. So, Circle steps in with a code of ethics; which are enforced internally. Basically there are two sides to the issue. My side is mostly focused on protecting the 'innocents' from being meddled with, like the Prosecution in a court setting. We've ignored your prior requests because, on a philosophical level, we tend to support the mission statement of the GSA. The other side is represented by the Advocate and is mostly focused on protecting the rights of ESPers, like the Defense in a court setting."
"To give you an example, if an ESPer was working in sales and used his or her talent to influence a non-aware buyer then, as Guardian, I would be interested in making sure that the innocent person was not unduly influenced to their detriment or in violation of their free will. The Advocate would take the position that a person should be allowed to use the talents that they were born with to make a living and that the ability to influence a weak mind through telepathic suggestion is no different than being able to influence someone through the crafty use of language or keen observance of non-verbal communication."
As she spoke, Adam listened intently. The need for some form of law pertaining to New Mutants was obvious if they were to function as part of the general society. This was the main reason that he had been interested in Circle in the first place. There was a lot that he wanted to learn about how a small group of people with special abilities managed to function almost undetected within society, but Erin's reluctance to talk was as obvious as a brick wall standing between them.
When Erin yawned, Adam looked at his watch and realized that it was quite late, so he suggested that Erin spend the night in one of the spare rooms so that they could continue the conversation in the morning. Brennan smiled and noted that there was plenty of space in his room. Erin smiled back and said, "Now there's something that crossed my mind years ago!"
Brennan responded, "Hey, I was willing!"
Erin laughed, "Yes, but you were also only 16, I was 21, speaking of legal consequences! The state would have called that statutory rape and unfortunately, I would have to face a jury of MY peers, not yours!"
Brennan stood inches from her and whispered, "I'm not 16 any more."
Noticing that Adam had discretely disappeared, Erin replied, "Yes, but not here, I have a place about 45 minutes away."
A short time later, they pulled up to a small cabin by a private lake, surrounded by tall evergreen trees. Brennan noticed the generator on the deck and the lack of electronics in the house. There was no television, radio, computer, microwave, or even a clock. The only evidence that he was still in the current century was a satellite cell phone in the kitchen. "Welcome to MY sanctuary," smiled Erin, leading him back to the bedroom.
Brennan started a small fire in the bedroom fireplace to take the chill out of the air while Erin went and poured a couple glasses of wine. As they sat on the bed, sipping the wine she lifted her glass, "A toast – to aging!" Brennan smiled, finished his glass and placed it on the bedside table before pulling Erin back against him on the bed. As he removed his shirt and pants, Erin let out a small gasp of appreciation. "I doubt you have much of a problem with bullies pushing you off the bridge now!"
A melancholy smile graced his lips for a moment, "Actually, I managed to find some bigger bullies out there, namely Eckhart and his men." Erin reached down and placed her finger on the chains lock and it opened, releasing the knife. She removed the sheath and laid it on the bedside table and then, removing her clothes, it was Brennan's turn to admire what he had dreamed about over all of those years. But he noticed a number of scars, life had been rough on this woman, but he was certain that he could still reach the gentle part of her soul that he had seen in her eyes the day she pulled him from the river.
Standing up next to her, Brennan ran his fingers lightly through her hair while she ran her hands up the muscles of his stomach and chest. She had felt the rock hard muscles as he had rubbed up against her on the stairs, but they had been hidden by his loose silky shirt. As she continued exploring his sturdy shoulders, the moon came out from behind a cloud and, through the un-curtained window, its light danced across his smooth flesh. Erin moved closer, melting into the incarnate power in front of her and they stood together for a long time, enjoying the feel of each other's warm flesh in the still chilly room.
Finally, Brennan ran his hands from her shoulders down her arms until they locked fingers and she noticed a small shudder as he encountered the stiffness in her left hand. He opened his mouth to say, yet again, how sorry he was, but she cut him off by reaching up and planting her lips over his soft, moist mouth. Successfully distracting him, their kiss grew more passionate and he finally pushed her without resistance back onto the bed.
Looking up at the strong, handsome man hovering over her, Erin felt defenseless again, but this time was different. In this place, at this time, with this person, she finally felt that she was safe. She consciously pushed aside the last remnant of resistance and surrendered herself to him, dropping her guard, totally.
Brennan stifled a gasp of surprise as their minds connected through the intimate contact of their flesh. Suddenly, he knew just what she wanted. As his hands and lips moved over her body, he was aware of both the feel of the flesh under him and the feelings being aroused by his every move. It took him a few minutes to get used to the reflection of sensations that echoed his own pleasure, but he soon relaxed his mind into the intoxication of feeling her enjoyment in addition to his own.
Later, as she screamed out again in pure ecstasy, Brennan laughed as he kissed her, "Now I see why you wanted to come way out here, instead of staying at my room!"
* * *
As the first rays of dawn filled the sky, Brennan walked out onto the deck and turned on the generator so that they could have hot showers. He leaned on the rail, looking out over the still lake and smiled, feeling both the relaxation as well as the fatigue of the night's activities. Touching his comlink ring he spoke into it, "Shalimar?"
"Wondered where you were this morning, I had to settle for kicking holographic ass, instead of the real thing! Not like you to miss your workout." Shalimar answered teasingly.
"Don't worry about me," responded Brennan, "I've gotten enough exercise for today! I just wanted to check in, I'm at Erin's cabin about 50 miles out. We're going to take a shower, grab a little breakfast and then come back there. Let Adam know?"
"Sure thi...ugh…hey...uh, sure thing big guy" she answered. Brennan smiled, realizing that she had continued her sparring while talking to him.
* * *
During the drive back, Brennan commented, "I notice that the nerve damage in your hand never healed, maybe Adam could take a look at it. I'd bet money that he could find a way to fix it."
"You're probably right, but it's just too big of a risk. I know the location of Sanctuary, and I know how he feels about that. I don't trust that he wouldn't use his knowledge and his technology to try and remove that information from my memory. I don't know what lengths he would go to." she explained.
"I don't think that he would pull something like that. He did have a psionic remove memories from Eckhart about the location of Sanctuary, but Eckhart learned the location from Adam's stolen memories to begin with. But, if he gave you his word – you could rely on it." Brennan responded.
When they walked back into sanctuary, Adam was there to greet them. This time he didn't bother offering a handshake, nor did he need the physical connection to identify the difference in Erin's demeanor. She seemed relaxed, almost playful. Adam tried not to let his mind linger on what sort of activities had lead to the transformation.
Erin and Adam went back up to the lounge area, but this time she sat on the couch, allowing Adam to join her. Adam smiled at the change from a confrontational stance across the table to a casual position, chatting on the couch. They spent over two hours talking about the difficulties of setting up laws that would cover the range of possible psionic offenses, let alone the considerations that would need to be made in dealing with moleculars and elementals. Both agreed that, if New Mutants were ever to be a regular part of society, then the possible abuse of their abilities would have to be addressed.
As they joined the rest of the team for lunch, Brennan got Adam out of earshot and told him about Erin's hand, asking if he could help. He assured Brennan that he would try, but that he wouldn't do anything without her permission. After lunch, Brennan asked Erin, in front of Adam, if she would let him look at her hand. She looked Brennan in the eye and he felt as if she were staring straight into his soul as she asked, "Bren, I know the type of life you've lead; I know the number of times that you've been burned and how hard it is for you to trust. Can you honestly tell me that you trust this man?"
Brennan shuddered slightly under the intensity of her gaze, but there wasn't any hint of hesitancy in his answer, "Yes, Erin, I trust this man – with my life." Adam looked at the floor, not wanting the others to see the flood of emotions that filled his eyes. He couldn't begin to explain how honored he felt when he heard Brennan's words.
Erin then looked over at Adam. "I give you my word, all I'll do is fix the damage in your hand…and take a small sample of your DNA?" he added with a hopeful smile. She had given him enough information during their conversation that he felt like there was a balance in the information and he was willing to let her leave, even with the location of Sanctuary.
"My DNA?!" she responded with a playful attempt at surprise. She respected his honesty, because she knew that he couldn't resist the chance to compare the natural psionic mutantcy to the new mutantcy.
"It might help me come up with a way to permanently stabilize psionic new mutants. Currently, there are recurring problems with psychological problems caused by chemical imbalance," he reasoned.
"That and you're just plain curious!" Erin replied.
"Damn right!" Adam laughed as he led her to his lab.
* * *
Later, Erin and Brennan met in the garage to say goodbye. After chatting for a while, Brennan again ran his hands down her arms and they interlocked fingers. He felt the weight of years of guilt being lifted from his shoulders as he felt the strong, healthy fingers gripping his as she pulled him down to her waiting kiss.