-I don't own Mutant X or any of the characters. I do own this story and the character's I've created.
Mutant X: Flash Forward
*Author's Note* = This story is set between A Breed Apart, the first season finale, and the second
season premiere.
Part One:
The Brave New World
First there was silence. Then Emma DeLauro felt the numbness in her flesh give way to a feeling of being pricked by ten thousand needles. She tried to scream out in pain but there was no air. Her lungs burned and tried to draw breath. The vast nothingness around her yielded nothing but the brilliant luminescence that had washed over her only seconds before. Shivers of stunning cold ran up and down her spine. The light burned her eyes, yet they were closed and covered by her hands. 'So,' Emma thought apathetically as a sensation of being torn into tiny pieces wrenched from her any lingering sense of well-being, 'this is hell.'
Emma had never expected the price of her few sins to be this agony, especially not considering the heroic actions she'd been a part of since joining Mutant X. Yet, what could this blinding suffering be but damnation? Emma's mind couldn't focus because of the pain and the need to breath.
Then, like waking from a bad dream, it was over. Emma felt a sensation of falling. Her body seemed to drop an inch or two and she was laying on a cold, wet patch of green grass, staring up at the full moon. For a few moments, Emma's eyes were almost inhumanly acute, for they had begun to adjust slightly to the light from a few moments before. Now, as her vision became darker, her body seemed to realize it was no longer in pain. Joy overcame Emma and she wept softly, the tears streaming down her cheeks.
"I'm alive." She whispered to the night.
"So am I."
The voice came from beside Emma. She didn't need to look to recognize it. "Adam?" Her own words were colored now by concern. Adam sounded as if he had been through an even more painful experience than her. "Are you okay?"
Adam didn't answer. Emma turned toward him, worried. He was wiping tears from his eyes. "I suppose so." He said, his voice hollow and weak. "I feel like I've been run over by the Double Helix, though." A ghost of a smile formed on his face.
"Are you sure you're alright? You look terrible." Emma said without thinking. She started to sit up and apologize but a wave of dizziness and nausea forced her back to the wet grass. "Sorry." She grumbled, a hand pressed firmly to her stomach to keep what was inside from spewing out.
Groaning with obvious agony and extreme strain, Adam sat up and was immediately doubled over with a fit of dry heaves. It lasted too long to be a good sign. But even as Emma tried to get up and help her friend and leader, Adam was waving her back down. "I can take it. I'm not quite as feeble as all of you seem to think."
There was a long and uncomfortable silence in which both Adam and Emma looked around, considering their surroundings. They were laying in an empty field under a full moon. It was a cold night, with a sharp wind that howled along like a vengeful ghost hunting for prey. Clouds covered the moon slightly but there was enough light so see fairly well for about ten feet. To their right stood a collapsed in hulk of a building. To their left was a dusty road that could have led to Oz for all they knew. In all other directions there was nothing to be seen but glistening grass and patches of barren earth, pockmarks on an otherwise perfect earthly face.
Emma felt something go cold in her heart. "Where's Jesse?" She turned her head, wincing from the pain but ignoring it. "Shalimar? Brennan?" Her voice carried far in the empty landscape. Regardless, there was no answer. Fear quickly replaced pain as Emma forced herself to sit up straight.
Beside her, Adam was getting on his feet, albeit in a very unstable manner. He was still suffering from pains that were virtually indescribable. Even his superior intellect, a match for nearly anyone, was at a loss to find words sufficient to convey the depths of agony he had endured. "Shalimar? Brennan, Jesse? If you can't answer, make some kind of noise! Brennan, if you can, throw sparks!" Commanding in tone, a leader in every sense, Adam ignored his body's frailty and started searching for any signs of electrical discharge while listening for any sound that could conceivably be made by a person.
There were no sparks. Silence loomed ominous as a shrouded corpse at his own funeral.
"Adam?" Emma was trying to get to her feet. She stumbled, but Adam managed to catch her. He pulled her to him. They embraced out of fear and desperate need. "Where are they? What happened? One minute it's the middle of the morning and now. . ." Emma's voice trailed off as she started crying.
Adam smoothed her hair and tried to be reassuring. In truth, he was terrified. Ever the scholar, he had learned astronomy a few years ago. Now, staring up at the moon and stars, Adam knew that he and Emma had been trapped in that blinding and painful white light for a long time. Not seconds, not minutes, not even hours. They had been trapped for many days, perhaps even weeks. Adam shuddered. How powerful had Portia Klein become?
Emma must have been thinking along a similar track. "Do you think we were in on of Portia's stasis fields? Maybe the others are still stuck?" A horrified expression formed on her face. Emma couldn't bare the thought of her friends trapped in that white agony. "We've got to help them."
"No. If they had been trapped in stasis, they'd still be visible." Adam waved a hand to encompass the lonely area. Emma started to say something but Adam beat her to it. "And they wouldn't have left us behind. So that leaves only one conclusion." He paused, gathering his thoughts, rethinking what he was about to say, praying that he'd over looked something. Briefly, he wondered if he'd gone mad. When he accepted that no other solution made logical sense, Adam let out a deep sigh. "We weren't in a stasis field. We were transported through time."
Emma stared at Adam. "Tell me you're joking." When Adam didn't reply, Emma took a step back from him. "No. This isn't funny Adam." She looked around. The unfamiliar landscape, the strangely cold night when it had been summer, and the sheer desolation all around them seemed to break through Emma's attempt at denial. "Oh my God." She whispered.
"It's going to be okay. We'll get back to Sanctuary and we'll find a way to reverse the effects of Portia's attack." Adam said, though he knew it wasn't going to be anywhere close to that simple. He didn't want Emma to worry too much. He knew that it would be possible to reverse the effects, he just wasn't yet sure how to do it. First things first though. . .
"We need a place to stay the night." Emma said, almost as if she were reading Adam's mind.
He nodded. "If we follow this road," Adam gestured toward the dirt path, "we should find someone. I hope."
"I would have been happy if you hadn't said that last part." Emma muttered as she started walking. Adam followed, a pace behind and to her left. If anyone attacked them, Adam intended to flank them while Emma briefly defended. Her new mutant gifts and her talent for unarmed combat made her a more effective fighter.
'And,' Adam thought as another aching pain shot through his body, 'I'm still feeling the effects of the temporal displacement.' Now that he knew what the hellish white pain was, it helped him to deal with it.
In silence, the two walked for close to an hour. As they topped a hill, they came to a fork in the path, which was seemingly guarded by an enormous statue. In the darkness, they couldn't make out any facial features. But as they drew closer, Adam felt a chill hand grip his heart. Emma gasped and drew back a step.
"Oh, dear God, no." Adam said forcefully. He willed the statue away with all of his might.
But it remained. Its lined face a perfect sculpting of the man it was made to honor. Its dead marble eyes more alive than the real thing. A double helix in one upraised hand, the other clasped over a heart as cold as the statue's own. Glinting in the faint moonlight, like some demonic piece of scripture from a demon's black bible, was a plaque which read "All Hail Mason Eckhart, Emperor of Humanity."
*****
Grant Van Negus, an employee of his master Eckhart's most recent creation, the Genetic Subjugation Service or GSS, watched perplexed as two small dots blinked into existence on his scanner's screen. "What the hell?" He grumbled and swore foully, shaking the accursed machine
in the same way he did to break an infant's neck. "Lousy piece of Genomex trash." The screen
still showed the two blips that had not been there mere seconds before. Grant doubted the rebels
had suddenly developed cloaking technology so he assumed the scanner was malfunctioning.
"You there!" Grant snarled at the first technician he saw. The woman turned. Initially, there was a look of annoyance on her face at being addressed so rudely. It disappeared the moment she realized who she was looking at. Without a word, she fell to her knees, tears of sheer terror streaming from her eyes. Grant reached down and yanked her up by her throat, making no effort whatsoever not to hurt her.
"Stop your sniveling and take this." He struck the poor woman in the head with the sharp edge of the scanner, drawing a wicked slash across her pretty forehead. "Get it repaired."
Grant didn't bother to waste another second on the woman, who was bowing low and thanking him for his mercy. He had important business with Eckhart. And that took precedence over everything. Without any regard for those around him, Grant strode down the halls of Eckhart's Citadel. His heavy footsteps echoed like thunder down the path, warning all who walked ahead of him to part like the Red Sea.
Even without his important station, that of Chief Interrogator and Head of the GSS and GSA forces, Grant Van Negus cut an imposing figure. He stood six feet and six inches. His hair was thick and long, traveling down his spine to the cleft in his back; wavy like wheat and the same color, it flowed behind him like an emperor's cape. Thick muscle covered every inch of Grant's body, even his fingers looked supremely strong. His eyes were petrified ice and his lips were stained a deep red, as if drenched with his victim's blood. High cheek bones and a short, hawkish nose made him seem some noble born aristocrat from an ancient time. Regardless of his imperious stride and noble features, Grant's eyes colored him a murderous soldier of Eckhart's regime. No other man, inferior or Neo-Mutant, had eyes like his. At least, not since the day's of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. And even then, those great leaders of slaughter would have been uneasy around Van Negus.
Walking down the hall, Grant paid little attention to the people around him, for they scattered like so much frightened chattel. His eyes did find themselves roving the lavish paintings and icons that adorned the walls. There were images of his master Eckhart, of course, portrayed here as the savior of mankind, there as a god on high. But the one's that drew Grant's attention were the images of the legendary Mutant X team. He was especially intrigued by the picture of the two members who had never been found.
"Adam and Emma DeLauro," Grant read as he passed the painting by. "How I'd like to bring your heads to Eckhart. He'd make me a provincial ruler at the least."
The idea of ruling an entire country filled with pliant and helpless people made Grant giddy with evil glee.
*****
"Adam, tell me I've gone crazy." Emma begged in the darkness. She turned away from the statue, feeling sick again. "Tell me that's not Eckhart." Her eyes were on Adam, pleading with him. "Please."
Adam shook his head. "Don't think about it, Emma. Once we get to Sanctuary I can find a way to send us back. Then all of this goes away. I'll kill Eckhart before I let this happen." He kept watch on the marble statue, as if expecting it to attack, as they passed it by down the left path.
Together, they walked in silence. Every once in a while, one would stumble. The pain of temporal displacement had drained them horribly. After the fifth such fall, Adam felt something in his chest burning. "I've got to rest." He wheezed out as Emma fell to her knees beside him.
"What can I do?" She asked. Although her own body ached, although she felt weak as a newborn kitten, Emma was selfless. "I don't think we're too far from town. I can get help and come back for you." She started to go.
"Don't." The tone of stern command and dread in Adam's voice stopped her. "We don't know what this future's like. Maybe things haven't changed too much. Maybe its still safe to be a decent human being or new mutant." He paused to take several deep breaths. Sweat beaded his brow and Emma was worried by the chalk-like pallor of his skin. She would have been even more worried, except her own clothes were wet with sweat and her skin felt cold and clammy. "Eckhart may have changed things more than either one of us wants to think." Adam's mouth formed a mirthless smile. "I wonder how he got out of Ashlocke's stasis pod."
Emma shook her head. "Have to chance it Adam. We're both really sick. We need food and a place to sleep. Maybe even medical attention." She felt her chest tightening up, her lungs felt parched. "You know I'm right."
Grudgingly, Adam nodded. "Go. But be careful." He took a breath to say something else but a wave of pain passed through him. His eyes rolled up. The beat of his heart slowed. Adam dropped against a tree trunk.
"Adam!" Emma felt his neck. She found his pulse, slow but steady. It felt weak. "Don't die. Please, you're too good a person to die." Thoughts of looking for help filled Emma's mind, yet she could not leave Adam. She held him in her arms, using her powers to strengthen his natural will to survive. "Stay with me." Her whispers grew more urgent as she felt her own pulse drifting downward. Her vision was beginning to blur.
'I'm dying.' The thought was in both Adam's and Emma's mind. Portia Klein had managed to kill them after all. Emma heard someone shouting from the road, but she couldn't understand what they were saying. She tried to call back, but her face was buried against Adam's neck. 'How did I get here?' Emma wondered just before she drifted into darkness.
*****
Trudie Orion knelt beside the two strangers. "What the hell happened to you two?" She asked, her quiet voice a calm beacon of hope. The girl was unconscious, but the man stirred slightly at her words. He mumbled something. Trudie didn't understand half of what he said, his speech was blurred heavily. She caught four clear words and they were enough to get her moving.
"Emma. . . dying. . . help. . . Eckhart." The last word was spoken with hatred, despite the man's obvious incoherence and terrible pain. He was unconscious again before Trudie could reassure him.
"Don't worry you two," she said as she pulled a small pack of syringes from her shirt pocket, "you're going to be just fine." Trudie removed one needle and inserted it into a tiny bottle of bluish liquid. With practiced ease, she filled it. The syringe automatically forced any air out of itself. She checked the amount, nodded in satisfaction, and injected the blue medicine into Emma.
Moments later, Emma's eyes were fluttering open. She saw Trudie preparing a second syringe for Adam. "Who are you? What are you doing to him?" Her voice cracked and sounded very weak. Trudie turned toward her.
"I'm saving his life. Don't worry, an injection of Blue No.2 always puts a Neo-Mutant back in shape." Trudie lowered the needle to Adam's arm.
"Wait!" Emma croaked out. The other woman turned back to her. "He's not a new mutant. Adam's just a regular human." As the words left her mouth, Emma wondered if she'd just made a terrible mistake. If this woman was helping them because she thought they were new mutants, that could only mean that Eckhart had been overthrown by the good guys. Emma felt nothing but relief for that, but this woman might hate humans out of hand, thinking that all ordinary people are against new mutants.
Trudie blinked in surprise. "A regular human? You mean he's an inferior?" She turned back to Adam. "Weird. He tastes like a Neo-Mutant." Trudie's tongue darted out of her mouth. It was long and forked, exactly like a serpent's. It retreated back between her lips. For a moment, she considered how to proceed. By law, she could leave this inferior to die and not be prosecuted. In fact, she might receive a reward for such an action. Trudie looked down at Adam, then she turned to the Neo-Mutant girl. She looked so concerned for this man. It was strange to see that look of fear displayed on an inferior's behalf.
"Please, help him." Emma said as she felt strength returning to her body. "Adam's my. . . friend." She'd almost said 'leader' but that seemed wrong. There were other things she could have said as well, but they all seemed wrong too. Emma could sense that this new mutant woman wanted to do the right thing. But she didn't seem to be certain what the right thing was. Emma also felt a cold chill as she considered the woman's words. "You mean, he's an inferior?" Those words were spoken so simply and emotionlessly. Mason Eckhart had left a terrible scar on this future, but what the nature of that scar was, Emma was still uncertain.
"I'll help him." Trudie told the girl finally. "But not here. I don't carry anything for inferior's in my medical kit. We'll have to take him back to my apartment." She reached down and lifted Adam onto her shoulders. He was a full grown man and unconscious, but Trudie barely strained herself. "Can you walk?" She asked Emma.
"I think so." Emma responded as she rose to her feet. Whatever that blue medicine had been, it was definitely making her feel better. She took a few steps, shaky at first but ever more stable. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just help Adam."
The Feral, for that was what Trudie was, a serpentine Feral, lead the way to her sleek jeep. She'd parked just off the dirt trail. "I wasn't sure what had happened. I couldn't tell if the two of you'd been attacked by rebels or just enjoying each other's company." She said as she carefully
set Adam down in the backseat.
Emma turned a little red. She remembered how she'd fallen against Adam. From the outside, it must have looked like a lazy lover's embrace after a passionate embrace. Considering the sweat covering their bodies, that must have seemed the more likely choice. "Why did you stop?" Emma asked as she pulled herself into the passenger seat. She looked back at Adam and sensed that he was still holding on to life. His pulse might even have gotten stronger.
"Something didn't taste right in the air." Trudie said as she started the jeep's engine by pressing her thumb against a plate on the steering column. Her tongue hissed out again from her mouth, as if to help explain. "I'm a Feral obviously." The engine revved to life and they were off, the wind blasting by as they rocketed forward. "Name's Trudie Orion. What's your's?"
"Emma DeLauro." Emma answered without thinking. Suddenly, Trudie jerked the steering wheel sideways and almost went off the trail. She corrected herself at the last minute, sparring all of them a close encounter with a tree. "Was it something I said?" Emma asked in quiet shock.
Trudie's face had gone white. "He's an inferior named Adam and you're a Psionic, a telempath named Emma DeLauro?" She asked in a voice that was awed beyond description.
"Yes. That's us." Emma quietly said. 'Now what have I done?' She thought was Trudie Orion licked her lips, a nervous habit, and started sweating.
"By the blessing of God, our saviors have come back."
END OF PART ONE
Mutant X: Flash Forward
*Author's Note* = This story is set between A Breed Apart, the first season finale, and the second
season premiere.
Part One:
The Brave New World
First there was silence. Then Emma DeLauro felt the numbness in her flesh give way to a feeling of being pricked by ten thousand needles. She tried to scream out in pain but there was no air. Her lungs burned and tried to draw breath. The vast nothingness around her yielded nothing but the brilliant luminescence that had washed over her only seconds before. Shivers of stunning cold ran up and down her spine. The light burned her eyes, yet they were closed and covered by her hands. 'So,' Emma thought apathetically as a sensation of being torn into tiny pieces wrenched from her any lingering sense of well-being, 'this is hell.'
Emma had never expected the price of her few sins to be this agony, especially not considering the heroic actions she'd been a part of since joining Mutant X. Yet, what could this blinding suffering be but damnation? Emma's mind couldn't focus because of the pain and the need to breath.
Then, like waking from a bad dream, it was over. Emma felt a sensation of falling. Her body seemed to drop an inch or two and she was laying on a cold, wet patch of green grass, staring up at the full moon. For a few moments, Emma's eyes were almost inhumanly acute, for they had begun to adjust slightly to the light from a few moments before. Now, as her vision became darker, her body seemed to realize it was no longer in pain. Joy overcame Emma and she wept softly, the tears streaming down her cheeks.
"I'm alive." She whispered to the night.
"So am I."
The voice came from beside Emma. She didn't need to look to recognize it. "Adam?" Her own words were colored now by concern. Adam sounded as if he had been through an even more painful experience than her. "Are you okay?"
Adam didn't answer. Emma turned toward him, worried. He was wiping tears from his eyes. "I suppose so." He said, his voice hollow and weak. "I feel like I've been run over by the Double Helix, though." A ghost of a smile formed on his face.
"Are you sure you're alright? You look terrible." Emma said without thinking. She started to sit up and apologize but a wave of dizziness and nausea forced her back to the wet grass. "Sorry." She grumbled, a hand pressed firmly to her stomach to keep what was inside from spewing out.
Groaning with obvious agony and extreme strain, Adam sat up and was immediately doubled over with a fit of dry heaves. It lasted too long to be a good sign. But even as Emma tried to get up and help her friend and leader, Adam was waving her back down. "I can take it. I'm not quite as feeble as all of you seem to think."
There was a long and uncomfortable silence in which both Adam and Emma looked around, considering their surroundings. They were laying in an empty field under a full moon. It was a cold night, with a sharp wind that howled along like a vengeful ghost hunting for prey. Clouds covered the moon slightly but there was enough light so see fairly well for about ten feet. To their right stood a collapsed in hulk of a building. To their left was a dusty road that could have led to Oz for all they knew. In all other directions there was nothing to be seen but glistening grass and patches of barren earth, pockmarks on an otherwise perfect earthly face.
Emma felt something go cold in her heart. "Where's Jesse?" She turned her head, wincing from the pain but ignoring it. "Shalimar? Brennan?" Her voice carried far in the empty landscape. Regardless, there was no answer. Fear quickly replaced pain as Emma forced herself to sit up straight.
Beside her, Adam was getting on his feet, albeit in a very unstable manner. He was still suffering from pains that were virtually indescribable. Even his superior intellect, a match for nearly anyone, was at a loss to find words sufficient to convey the depths of agony he had endured. "Shalimar? Brennan, Jesse? If you can't answer, make some kind of noise! Brennan, if you can, throw sparks!" Commanding in tone, a leader in every sense, Adam ignored his body's frailty and started searching for any signs of electrical discharge while listening for any sound that could conceivably be made by a person.
There were no sparks. Silence loomed ominous as a shrouded corpse at his own funeral.
"Adam?" Emma was trying to get to her feet. She stumbled, but Adam managed to catch her. He pulled her to him. They embraced out of fear and desperate need. "Where are they? What happened? One minute it's the middle of the morning and now. . ." Emma's voice trailed off as she started crying.
Adam smoothed her hair and tried to be reassuring. In truth, he was terrified. Ever the scholar, he had learned astronomy a few years ago. Now, staring up at the moon and stars, Adam knew that he and Emma had been trapped in that blinding and painful white light for a long time. Not seconds, not minutes, not even hours. They had been trapped for many days, perhaps even weeks. Adam shuddered. How powerful had Portia Klein become?
Emma must have been thinking along a similar track. "Do you think we were in on of Portia's stasis fields? Maybe the others are still stuck?" A horrified expression formed on her face. Emma couldn't bare the thought of her friends trapped in that white agony. "We've got to help them."
"No. If they had been trapped in stasis, they'd still be visible." Adam waved a hand to encompass the lonely area. Emma started to say something but Adam beat her to it. "And they wouldn't have left us behind. So that leaves only one conclusion." He paused, gathering his thoughts, rethinking what he was about to say, praying that he'd over looked something. Briefly, he wondered if he'd gone mad. When he accepted that no other solution made logical sense, Adam let out a deep sigh. "We weren't in a stasis field. We were transported through time."
Emma stared at Adam. "Tell me you're joking." When Adam didn't reply, Emma took a step back from him. "No. This isn't funny Adam." She looked around. The unfamiliar landscape, the strangely cold night when it had been summer, and the sheer desolation all around them seemed to break through Emma's attempt at denial. "Oh my God." She whispered.
"It's going to be okay. We'll get back to Sanctuary and we'll find a way to reverse the effects of Portia's attack." Adam said, though he knew it wasn't going to be anywhere close to that simple. He didn't want Emma to worry too much. He knew that it would be possible to reverse the effects, he just wasn't yet sure how to do it. First things first though. . .
"We need a place to stay the night." Emma said, almost as if she were reading Adam's mind.
He nodded. "If we follow this road," Adam gestured toward the dirt path, "we should find someone. I hope."
"I would have been happy if you hadn't said that last part." Emma muttered as she started walking. Adam followed, a pace behind and to her left. If anyone attacked them, Adam intended to flank them while Emma briefly defended. Her new mutant gifts and her talent for unarmed combat made her a more effective fighter.
'And,' Adam thought as another aching pain shot through his body, 'I'm still feeling the effects of the temporal displacement.' Now that he knew what the hellish white pain was, it helped him to deal with it.
In silence, the two walked for close to an hour. As they topped a hill, they came to a fork in the path, which was seemingly guarded by an enormous statue. In the darkness, they couldn't make out any facial features. But as they drew closer, Adam felt a chill hand grip his heart. Emma gasped and drew back a step.
"Oh, dear God, no." Adam said forcefully. He willed the statue away with all of his might.
But it remained. Its lined face a perfect sculpting of the man it was made to honor. Its dead marble eyes more alive than the real thing. A double helix in one upraised hand, the other clasped over a heart as cold as the statue's own. Glinting in the faint moonlight, like some demonic piece of scripture from a demon's black bible, was a plaque which read "All Hail Mason Eckhart, Emperor of Humanity."
*****
Grant Van Negus, an employee of his master Eckhart's most recent creation, the Genetic Subjugation Service or GSS, watched perplexed as two small dots blinked into existence on his scanner's screen. "What the hell?" He grumbled and swore foully, shaking the accursed machine
in the same way he did to break an infant's neck. "Lousy piece of Genomex trash." The screen
still showed the two blips that had not been there mere seconds before. Grant doubted the rebels
had suddenly developed cloaking technology so he assumed the scanner was malfunctioning.
"You there!" Grant snarled at the first technician he saw. The woman turned. Initially, there was a look of annoyance on her face at being addressed so rudely. It disappeared the moment she realized who she was looking at. Without a word, she fell to her knees, tears of sheer terror streaming from her eyes. Grant reached down and yanked her up by her throat, making no effort whatsoever not to hurt her.
"Stop your sniveling and take this." He struck the poor woman in the head with the sharp edge of the scanner, drawing a wicked slash across her pretty forehead. "Get it repaired."
Grant didn't bother to waste another second on the woman, who was bowing low and thanking him for his mercy. He had important business with Eckhart. And that took precedence over everything. Without any regard for those around him, Grant strode down the halls of Eckhart's Citadel. His heavy footsteps echoed like thunder down the path, warning all who walked ahead of him to part like the Red Sea.
Even without his important station, that of Chief Interrogator and Head of the GSS and GSA forces, Grant Van Negus cut an imposing figure. He stood six feet and six inches. His hair was thick and long, traveling down his spine to the cleft in his back; wavy like wheat and the same color, it flowed behind him like an emperor's cape. Thick muscle covered every inch of Grant's body, even his fingers looked supremely strong. His eyes were petrified ice and his lips were stained a deep red, as if drenched with his victim's blood. High cheek bones and a short, hawkish nose made him seem some noble born aristocrat from an ancient time. Regardless of his imperious stride and noble features, Grant's eyes colored him a murderous soldier of Eckhart's regime. No other man, inferior or Neo-Mutant, had eyes like his. At least, not since the day's of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. And even then, those great leaders of slaughter would have been uneasy around Van Negus.
Walking down the hall, Grant paid little attention to the people around him, for they scattered like so much frightened chattel. His eyes did find themselves roving the lavish paintings and icons that adorned the walls. There were images of his master Eckhart, of course, portrayed here as the savior of mankind, there as a god on high. But the one's that drew Grant's attention were the images of the legendary Mutant X team. He was especially intrigued by the picture of the two members who had never been found.
"Adam and Emma DeLauro," Grant read as he passed the painting by. "How I'd like to bring your heads to Eckhart. He'd make me a provincial ruler at the least."
The idea of ruling an entire country filled with pliant and helpless people made Grant giddy with evil glee.
*****
"Adam, tell me I've gone crazy." Emma begged in the darkness. She turned away from the statue, feeling sick again. "Tell me that's not Eckhart." Her eyes were on Adam, pleading with him. "Please."
Adam shook his head. "Don't think about it, Emma. Once we get to Sanctuary I can find a way to send us back. Then all of this goes away. I'll kill Eckhart before I let this happen." He kept watch on the marble statue, as if expecting it to attack, as they passed it by down the left path.
Together, they walked in silence. Every once in a while, one would stumble. The pain of temporal displacement had drained them horribly. After the fifth such fall, Adam felt something in his chest burning. "I've got to rest." He wheezed out as Emma fell to her knees beside him.
"What can I do?" She asked. Although her own body ached, although she felt weak as a newborn kitten, Emma was selfless. "I don't think we're too far from town. I can get help and come back for you." She started to go.
"Don't." The tone of stern command and dread in Adam's voice stopped her. "We don't know what this future's like. Maybe things haven't changed too much. Maybe its still safe to be a decent human being or new mutant." He paused to take several deep breaths. Sweat beaded his brow and Emma was worried by the chalk-like pallor of his skin. She would have been even more worried, except her own clothes were wet with sweat and her skin felt cold and clammy. "Eckhart may have changed things more than either one of us wants to think." Adam's mouth formed a mirthless smile. "I wonder how he got out of Ashlocke's stasis pod."
Emma shook her head. "Have to chance it Adam. We're both really sick. We need food and a place to sleep. Maybe even medical attention." She felt her chest tightening up, her lungs felt parched. "You know I'm right."
Grudgingly, Adam nodded. "Go. But be careful." He took a breath to say something else but a wave of pain passed through him. His eyes rolled up. The beat of his heart slowed. Adam dropped against a tree trunk.
"Adam!" Emma felt his neck. She found his pulse, slow but steady. It felt weak. "Don't die. Please, you're too good a person to die." Thoughts of looking for help filled Emma's mind, yet she could not leave Adam. She held him in her arms, using her powers to strengthen his natural will to survive. "Stay with me." Her whispers grew more urgent as she felt her own pulse drifting downward. Her vision was beginning to blur.
'I'm dying.' The thought was in both Adam's and Emma's mind. Portia Klein had managed to kill them after all. Emma heard someone shouting from the road, but she couldn't understand what they were saying. She tried to call back, but her face was buried against Adam's neck. 'How did I get here?' Emma wondered just before she drifted into darkness.
*****
Trudie Orion knelt beside the two strangers. "What the hell happened to you two?" She asked, her quiet voice a calm beacon of hope. The girl was unconscious, but the man stirred slightly at her words. He mumbled something. Trudie didn't understand half of what he said, his speech was blurred heavily. She caught four clear words and they were enough to get her moving.
"Emma. . . dying. . . help. . . Eckhart." The last word was spoken with hatred, despite the man's obvious incoherence and terrible pain. He was unconscious again before Trudie could reassure him.
"Don't worry you two," she said as she pulled a small pack of syringes from her shirt pocket, "you're going to be just fine." Trudie removed one needle and inserted it into a tiny bottle of bluish liquid. With practiced ease, she filled it. The syringe automatically forced any air out of itself. She checked the amount, nodded in satisfaction, and injected the blue medicine into Emma.
Moments later, Emma's eyes were fluttering open. She saw Trudie preparing a second syringe for Adam. "Who are you? What are you doing to him?" Her voice cracked and sounded very weak. Trudie turned toward her.
"I'm saving his life. Don't worry, an injection of Blue No.2 always puts a Neo-Mutant back in shape." Trudie lowered the needle to Adam's arm.
"Wait!" Emma croaked out. The other woman turned back to her. "He's not a new mutant. Adam's just a regular human." As the words left her mouth, Emma wondered if she'd just made a terrible mistake. If this woman was helping them because she thought they were new mutants, that could only mean that Eckhart had been overthrown by the good guys. Emma felt nothing but relief for that, but this woman might hate humans out of hand, thinking that all ordinary people are against new mutants.
Trudie blinked in surprise. "A regular human? You mean he's an inferior?" She turned back to Adam. "Weird. He tastes like a Neo-Mutant." Trudie's tongue darted out of her mouth. It was long and forked, exactly like a serpent's. It retreated back between her lips. For a moment, she considered how to proceed. By law, she could leave this inferior to die and not be prosecuted. In fact, she might receive a reward for such an action. Trudie looked down at Adam, then she turned to the Neo-Mutant girl. She looked so concerned for this man. It was strange to see that look of fear displayed on an inferior's behalf.
"Please, help him." Emma said as she felt strength returning to her body. "Adam's my. . . friend." She'd almost said 'leader' but that seemed wrong. There were other things she could have said as well, but they all seemed wrong too. Emma could sense that this new mutant woman wanted to do the right thing. But she didn't seem to be certain what the right thing was. Emma also felt a cold chill as she considered the woman's words. "You mean, he's an inferior?" Those words were spoken so simply and emotionlessly. Mason Eckhart had left a terrible scar on this future, but what the nature of that scar was, Emma was still uncertain.
"I'll help him." Trudie told the girl finally. "But not here. I don't carry anything for inferior's in my medical kit. We'll have to take him back to my apartment." She reached down and lifted Adam onto her shoulders. He was a full grown man and unconscious, but Trudie barely strained herself. "Can you walk?" She asked Emma.
"I think so." Emma responded as she rose to her feet. Whatever that blue medicine had been, it was definitely making her feel better. She took a few steps, shaky at first but ever more stable. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just help Adam."
The Feral, for that was what Trudie was, a serpentine Feral, lead the way to her sleek jeep. She'd parked just off the dirt trail. "I wasn't sure what had happened. I couldn't tell if the two of you'd been attacked by rebels or just enjoying each other's company." She said as she carefully
set Adam down in the backseat.
Emma turned a little red. She remembered how she'd fallen against Adam. From the outside, it must have looked like a lazy lover's embrace after a passionate embrace. Considering the sweat covering their bodies, that must have seemed the more likely choice. "Why did you stop?" Emma asked as she pulled herself into the passenger seat. She looked back at Adam and sensed that he was still holding on to life. His pulse might even have gotten stronger.
"Something didn't taste right in the air." Trudie said as she started the jeep's engine by pressing her thumb against a plate on the steering column. Her tongue hissed out again from her mouth, as if to help explain. "I'm a Feral obviously." The engine revved to life and they were off, the wind blasting by as they rocketed forward. "Name's Trudie Orion. What's your's?"
"Emma DeLauro." Emma answered without thinking. Suddenly, Trudie jerked the steering wheel sideways and almost went off the trail. She corrected herself at the last minute, sparring all of them a close encounter with a tree. "Was it something I said?" Emma asked in quiet shock.
Trudie's face had gone white. "He's an inferior named Adam and you're a Psionic, a telempath named Emma DeLauro?" She asked in a voice that was awed beyond description.
"Yes. That's us." Emma quietly said. 'Now what have I done?' She thought was Trudie Orion licked her lips, a nervous habit, and started sweating.
"By the blessing of God, our saviors have come back."
END OF PART ONE