The Captive

by Sanguine

Lewis captures Tom and Sloan

PREY


The Captive

by Sanguine


"People, I'm afraid I have some rather disturbing news," Attwood announced. " My contact informs me that that Lewis has escaped."

Sloan whipped her attention from Attwood to Tom. His expressive blue eyes widened slightly. He was sitting on the edge of Sloan's workstation and his body shifted subtly from an attitude of casual grace to tense alertness.

"How?" he asked, removing his gaze from Sloan's to regard the older scientist with chilling penetration.

Attwood returned Tom's stare unfazed. "Feigned death, and escaped in the infirmary, killed several guards and doctors." He ran it down like a laundry list. "He stole a helicopter and ditched it in the Pacific. But we don't think he's dead."

"He isn't," Tom assured.

"What do we do?" Ed wondered out loud, tension filling his voice. "We know he'll come after us." He shot an accusing glare in Tom's direction.

Tom got up off the desk and turned his back on the rest of them. "Maybe not," he said quietly. He walked out of the lab.

Sloan got up and glanced at Attwood and Ed with alarmed concern. She hurried after Tom.

She caught up to him in the foyer. She took his hand and forced him to look her in the eye. "Talk to me. What are you thinking, Tom?"

His eyes had a hard glacial expression, distant and emotionless, but gently he squeezed her hand. "I have to go. Leave here. Leave you," he explained with regret.

"Because of Lewis? You don't have to run from him. We can protect you!" Sloan protested desperately, trying to break through that cold stare.

Tom shook his head. He met her desperation with resigned sadness. "He'll come for me. He's already put you in danger once. I won't risk that again."

Her beautiful gemlike eyes watered but her face lighted up with characteristic determination. "But I'm the one who's the real threat to them. My work..."

Tom sighed bitterly. "That doesn't matter, not to him. Lewis will come for me. As much as I want to believe he doesn't have a hold over me any more. There's no way to be sure. Now that he's free, he's a danger to you." He squeezed her hand again and looked into her eyes with a pleading stare. "I'm a danger to you. I can't take that again, Sloan. I won't risk hurting you." He let go of her hand and let his fingers slip slowly from hers.

"He'll hurt you, Tom," she warned darkly. "He might even kill you. I won't let you do it."

Tom swallowed hard and his eyes loomed with unaccustomed emotion and vulnerability. He caressed her cheek and smoothed his strong fingers into her soft hair. "These emotions. You. Everything you've done for me. I don't know how to tell you the way I feel. Every day I try to delve deeper, understand more about what it is to feel. Sometimes, I think everything I was taught was correct and these feelings are nothing more than a weakness that needs to be overcome." He clenched his fist to his chest and struggled to find the words to make her understand. "But every day I find I want to hang on a little tighter, to you. To the way you make me feel."

Her moist lips parted and her eyes spilled a few tears. She reached out to hold him. "Then stay with me," she pleaded. "Together we can find a way. Please, Tom. You've become important, not just to the project, but to me. I need you to stay. I don't want to lose you."

She could actually feel him start to tremble with conflict. "Don't you think I want to?" he said softly, but sighed with frustration. "It was a mistake to think I could protect you from Lewis before. It was a mistake for me to go anywhere near you, or let him know that you're important to my life. It makes you a target." He looked guilty and held her at arms length. "There are things I haven't told you. Things you wouldn't want to know. Lewis will do anything to get control over me again. He'll use me against you." He let his hands fall from her shoulders. A little glint of the formidable predator was in his eyes as he admitted, "Sloan, I'm good, but I'm no match for Lewis."

She tilted her chin up with stubborn resolve. "That's exactly why you shouldn't go up against him alone. Tom, we can help you. Let us help you."

He stared into her eyes as if he was falling into her in some deeply spiritual way. Almost against his will, he nodded. He felt a terrible sense of foreboding, but he couldn't leave. He couldn't deny her anything. He wondered if maybe that was the key to resisting Lewis after all. Maybe she could save him, maybe this powerful feeling he felt for her would overpower the years of Lewis' conditioning.

She had the most indomitable spirit. She drew him in from the very first. His ability to sense emotions got caught and snagged in an intensity he'd only felt once before, when a mother had begged him to take her life instead of the son he'd come to kill. He'd been caught in something too strong and new to negate with ease. It was a power not a weakness. It had clawed at him, tore open places he didn't know existed and pulled out something so raw and vulnerable and yet promising a hint of similar strength.

He'd been taught to recognize and utilize potential weapons and advantages, so when emotional intensity presented itself with such overwhelming ferocity, he was confused, trapped by an instinct for acquisition that suddenly burdened him with more than he could handle.

He mulled it over a thousand or more times, struggling with apprehension, knowing Lewis would not approve and afraid of what he'd do to purge the undesirable complexity from his protégé.

Lewis valued precision, ruthlessness and decisiveness and he deplored the abyss of muddled emotional weaknesses humans indulged. Self preservation made Tom keep his dilemma to himself.

The way that mother selflessly offered up her life confused him. The fierce emotions she radiated were so like the violent rage of combat and yet she offered no other resistance and was obviously aware she could offer no physical threat. Her love was like nothing Tom had ever experienced. It was like a storm; like the collected implacable will of his kind energized with something so primal. The force of it shook him, ripped up his convictions and threw his mind into chaos.

He had convinced himself it was an aberration in her, or in himself, perhaps a chemical charge inherent in a mother's protection of her young. But then he met Sloan. With every intention in the world of snuffing out her life like a simple flame. Instead she had burned him. Her passion for life. An incredible strength of will and of emotion reached up again from a woman's eyes and shook him to the core.

Like the mother, she seemed to know she could offer no real threat or hope of resistance. Like the mother, she argued with her love.

He was lost to himself because of it. Lost to his people and their ruthless cause. Lost, most of all, to Lewis who had raised him to be the perfect remorseless executioner. He found he cared less about the withering derision Lewis would turn on him than he did about this amazing woman's capacity to feel.

He craved having a little piece of her great strength. He hoped beyond hope that she could pass that candle-flame of feeling to his soul and ignite whatever humanity might still remain. She could do nothing but fear and despise him. He knew that, had been taught it as a fact all his life, and yet he craved to the very depth of his heart and soul that she would show him how to feel the way that she did.

Sloan... She had a power over him unlike any he'd ever known. When she reached out to him with her love, he could do nothing but ache for more. It was as if, once created, the void inside could never be filled enough. He was terrified of letting her know; terrified of admitting his weakness and growing dependence, knowing even her nobility of spirit must despise him for his past.

Lewis would know, and he would know how to use it to destroy them. The gift Sloan had given Tom had disarmed him of the very skills that might protect them from Lewis. She couldn't see it, but Tom could. He knew Lewis would show no mercy just as he knew Lewis wouldn't kill him, not when keeping him alive would bring him so much satisfaction.

"Promise me that you won't go. You won't leave me," she insisted, shaking him from the reverie that was swallowing his attention.

Against every instinct and bit of knowledge he had, he looked her in the eye and swore. "I promise." He knew he'd keep it, even if it got them both killed. Lost to himself and the things he knew were right, he had only her for a compass. He'd follow her lead and make her ways his own. He didn't know what else to do.

Her tremulous smile was his reward.

Sloan hugged him. "It'll be alright. You'll see."

He tried to pretend to be confident but his heart was full of doubts. He followed her back through the lab to Attwood's office where they tried to formulate a plan of action.

It was decided that Lewis would most likely come from an unexpected angle. The only thing to do was to control what elements they could. They decided to take refuge in the lab, bolster security and see if they couldn't catch Lewis much the way they'd captured Tom when he was under Lewis' control.

They agreed to meet the next morning and start outlining strategy. Tom went with Sloan back to her apartment. He'd been staying there, or in hotels, since the burning of his home. He was comfortable enough but didn't have the heart to tell Sloan that only a few times in his life had he ever slept on a real human bed. He made it a practice to stay on the couch until he was sure that she was asleep and then lay down on the smooth hardwood floor. He didn't have the pattern burning up through his body to comfort him, but the hard floor felt more like what he was used to. Before she woke, he got back on the couch and pretended to be asleep.

They kept a strange distance, wanting physical intimacy and yet awkwardly unsure of just when or how to initiate it. He could tell she wanted more, and yet she seemed committed to some unspoken restraint. He wasn't sure how to proceed. He felt the same confusion, and was afraid to disrupt the trust and friendship they'd developed.

She slept with the doors of her alcove open so that they could talk. He didn't think she was aware that his vision was much better in the darkness than a human's. He could see her, see her face and sense her emotions, but she was effectively blind in more ways than one.

It gave him the freedom to stare, to watch her as she slept and dreamed or sat up in her bed and talked to him.

He was sure, if she could see his face, or sense his emotions, she would know how much he desired to cross the distance between them and feel her body close to his, hold her in his arms and...

No, he pushed the thought and the longing away. If she wanted him in a physical way, she would let him know. Her confusion came from the argument between her intellect and her emotions. She was attracted, but knew he was not of her kind, there were complications, and considerations.

He'd come into her life as an impostor, pretending to be an FBI agent and a human being. He was still content to let her think of him in those terms if she still could. He didn't want to be foreign and unknown, unacceptable and strange, a source of scientific curiosity and human fear.

He didn't know how to find balance and security on this strange middle ground between the two species. He was a traitor and an enemy to his own kind and among humans he was regarded with wary suspicion and fragile trust. His was content enough to risk his safety attempting to adapt to his new life, but he hated putting Sloan in danger. He hated how their relationship put her at odds with her kind especially those she cared about and depended on.

Her fierce loyalty was a new experience, one that filled him with a new warmth and pleasure, but he ached to see how it drove a wedge between Sloan and the rest of the team. She would not give up on him. She trusted him and brought out a side of his nature that felt so right and so good, but she was the only one. He knew the importance of her contribution to the work on his species was the only thing that kept him out of the hands of less ethical science.

Sometimes, Tom caught a glint in Attwood's eye of unhealthy scientific curiosity. And he knew that only Attwood's need to keep Sloan's brilliant mind on the project, kept him from being strapped to an examination table in some secret government lab. The thought made him shudder with horror. That same baleful stare was in the ruthless gaze of Attwood's mysterious female boss. But they seemed to believe that he was worth more as a field agent then a specimen. And it could be argued he was available for acquisition at any time.

He had resigned himself to their scientific curiosity, trusting Sloan to protect his dignity and integrity. He tried not to let it bother him when they asked their foolish questions or treated him as something without feeling or thought.

When they were investigating the pillar, his resolve was put to the test. He allowed Attwood to shoot him up with experimental drugs, in order to unlock the secrets buried in his memory.

He had sat quietly in his chair and tried not to show his fear of being at their mercy, knowing the drug would render him totally vulnerable physically, mentally and worst of all emotionally. He hungered to uncover his past, and solve the painful mystery of his visions, but he was afraid, as Lewis had taught him to be, as his own mother had so recently taught. Afraid of being helpless and under someone else's control.

And when Sloan had asked him to take off his shirt to allow them to examine his tattoo, he knew Attwood and Ed would see the marks of the beating he'd taken. It was against his instincts to reveal his injuries and weakness to the enemy. They could not have known that stripping off his shirt and turning his back for their examination was extremely difficult and against every defensive tactic instilled from birth. Holding still for their scanning device, letting them maneuver his body and talk as if he was not a sentient being unnerved by their examination, had been as difficult as yielding up his veins for Attwood's drug. But she asked... and he'd do anything for her.

She didn't know and he didn't know how to tell her that drilled into him from childhood was the directive to keep the tattoo hidden. To guard its secret. Until his mother had informed him just days ago that it was a mark of distinction, he'd always believed it was something shameful. He'd only ever been told to cover it up or suffer the wrath of his mentor, so he'd always taken great care that none should see it. He counted himself as somehow less than others of his kind because of it, and he dared never to ask any questions about it.

When Sloan ran her fingers lightly over the marked surface of his skin, Tom suppressed a shudder of forbidden emotion. Deep cords were struck in his mind and soul reverberating through his body. That someone should touch him with gentleness at all was an unaccustomed feeling, but something about her touching him there on the mark that set him apart even from his own kind, sent a shiver straight to his most guarded self.

Now, as he glanced around the familiar surroundings of Sloan's apartment, he tried to shake the feeling that somehow he'd been weakened and compromised by his efforts to be accepted by the humans.

"It isn't safe here, Sloan," he advised. Knowing from the wave of emotion emanating across the room that she would not accept it.

She was packing a small bag. "I don't think he could get to us this fast, Tom. I don't want to camp out at the lab without a change of clothes. I know you're worried, but we have time."

He had to concede that she was probably right, but he couldn't help being concerned. He tried not to show it as he helped her make dinner.

Sloan was silent and staring as he chopped the red peppers and added them to the bowl for the stir fry.

"What?" he asked, knife in hand.

She smiled and shook her head. "Nothing, its just that I've seen a chef knife in action but never quite like that," she said admiringly.

He smiled shyly and flipped the knife and caught it without looking. But he chopped slower and finished the task she set him to with a little more thought. His abilities made him self-conscious no matter how she might admire them, they reminded her of his inhumanity and set the two of them apart.

She joked that there was a job for him at a Japanese restaurant.

Tom liked spending time in her apartment. He knew they were both playing at being domestic partners, awkwardly sharing facilities and toying happily with an impossible future. It was a distraction and an illusion that they both indulged. He tried not to let on how very alien this ordinary human interaction was. He could play the part and enjoy it, but it was all outside of his experience with relationships. He'd been taught to obey and pay attention, or command and expect obedience in his relationships with his own kind. There was never equality and never ease.

When he was eleven and Lewis took him from his mother. She was angry at his display of emotion and struck him hard enough to split his lip and leave a vivid bruise the shape of her slim strong hand. Her eyes held only revulsion for his fear and his love. Her body had spoken only of total rejection. She had told him that he was no longer a child and it was time for him to be an adult and take his place among their people.

"Be ruthless and be strong," she advised him, staring into his weeping eyes with scorn. Her terrible beauty diminished him and made Tom feel insignificant and defective. "Make me proud," she ordered. And he'd pulled himself together and vanquished his grief and fear. He went to the cold man with the white hair who introduced himself as Lewis. He felt the man's hand on his shoulders as his mother finally smiled. "He's yours now," she said, warm as honey on homemade bread and as distant as the stars.

Lewis' grip tightened on his shoulders. "Yes. He is."

"Tom?" Sloan was asking. Her eyes concerned. "What's wrong?"

He loosened his grip on the heavy chef's knife and set it down with exaggerated care. "Nothing," he reported.

"Your face just now," Sloan protested. "You were a million miles away, and where ever it was, it didn't look pleasant."

Tom sighed. "Sorry. I was remembering something."

Her face lit up with interest. "Some of the past they erased?" She eased the wok off the heat as he moved away around the kitchen island.

"Yes," he agreed, with a bit of wonder in his tone. It was true... this memory was part of the childhood Lewis had erased. "I was thinking of when I first met Lewis."

"How old were you?" Sloan plied with interest.

"Eleven," Tom answered. "Lewis came to take me from my mother. I was afraid and didn't want to go. She was ashamed." He styled his words without emotion, unaccustomed to reporting on feelings of his own.

He was unprepared for Sloan's expression which deepened and softened to one of profound sympathy. "I'm so sorry, Tom. That must have been awful for a little boy."

"It was a long time ago," he said, uncomfortable with her sympathy and yet it touched him, touched the neglected child still lingering inside the man.

Sloan's compassion reached out like her warm, strong arms. He could feel it wrap him up even before her touch. "You're a good man, Tom. You are kind and gentle. Despite everything they did to you and whatever you may have done under their influence." She forced him to look into her eyes. "Do you hear me? Any mother worth her salt would be proud and overjoyed to have a son like you."

He closed his eyes and went still, instinctively protecting himself from a wound that threatened to open wide and destroy him. He held onto her, his arms returning her embrace.

"No," he said heavily. "You're wrong." He opened his eyes and let his arms drop. "I've tried to tell you, Sloan," he confessed, "as bad as Lewis ever was, I was every bit his creation and just as cold, just as cruel. What mother, besides mine, would want such a monster?" He chuckled bitterly. Suddenly he winced hard as an image stung his mind with sharp and painful clarity.

He saw his mother stand and turn to face him. He saw that cool collected poise fall like silk over an instant of startled revelation. Her dulcet voice finally giving him her benediction. "I'm proud of you." He noted it with the same satisfaction that he noted the smooth precision of the trigger action of the gun as he fired it. It was a perfect shot, Lewis would be satisfied and that was good.

There wasn't any air. The walls were closing in. Sloan's eyes were huge and frightened. He had killed his own mother and was just remembering it. Sloan would ask him what was wrong. He would tell her the truth and watch her concern and affection wither into revulsion.

She was shaking him, demanding. He could see the fear in her eyes and feel it radiate off her body in waves. He backed away from it. He tried to tear free of her grasp but she pursued him, fighting to hold on. She backed him into the untenable position of being forced to hurt her in order to free himself and that he could not do.

"Let me go, Sloan," he begged. As if he were wrapped in chains.

"Not until you tell me what just happened!" she insisted. "Remember, you swore you wouldn't leave me," she reminded.

"You don't want me here," he replied. "Trust me."

"No! You trust me, Tom. Tell me what's happening!" she stood her ground defiantly.

"A vision. A memory," he confessed and glanced to the window thinking of escape.

"Of your childhood?" she guessed, trying to center his attention on her.

"No. Of when Lewis took control, when he programmed me to come after you at the lab."

"Good," Sloan insisted. "The more we know, the better we can keep it from happening again. Tom, don't be afraid. Whatever he did. Whatever he made you do. It wasn't the real you. It wasn't you."

He groaned. "You don't understand, Sloan. You can't." He turned from her and bolted easily through the window. He was gone before she'd crossed the room to follow.
Over the dirty roof tops covered with patches of tar and plaster, down the rust-rough fire escapes and into familiar alleys, he fled.

All along he believed that before the final act, his new found conscience would keep him from killing Sloan. He believed he had a enough strength of self, to know his own mind and resist Lewis' control. For sanity's sake he had held on to the fragile conviction that no matter what, he wouldn't have actually harmed her, even under Lewis' drugged conditioning. But the vision of pulling the trigger on his mother, and the agonizing memory of the sweet satisfaction in fulfilling Lewis' command, had obliterated this pathetic fantasy and revealed the true depth of his depravity. He was more of a danger to Sloan than either one of them guessed. He was a monster capable of killing an unarmed woman, his own mother!

He sensed Lewis even before he saw the sleek black Lexus parked in the alley. He ran forward without hesitation. Lewis stepped out and opened his arms, with a sardonic smile mimicking warmth and welcome. Tom ran to the cold embrace of the only father he had ever known.

"There, there," Lewis soothed, kissing Tom's cheek and neck and caressing his body like a lover. "Whatever has you so distraught?" he asked with mild surprise.

"Kill me, Lewis," Tom begged. "Please."

The hands that raised him since he was eleven, showed him how to hold a gun, wield a knife, drive a car. The voice that taught him how to portray a confident human, an FBI agent or a doctor. Ever demanding, ever reassuring, omnipresent source of pleasure and pain, Lewis held him close and placed a kiss on his forehead. "Poor, Tom. Perhaps I will, just to show you how much I truly love you. But first..."

And the world swept up in a black wave as Tom passed out under Lewis' expert touch.


[][][][]


Sloan was confused and upset. She picked up the phone to call Ed, but set it down again, knowing how he'd react. He didn't trust Tom and continued to look for excuses to accuse him of some nefarious intention.

Ed was her best friend, but his stubborn suspicious attitude toward Tom, was driving a wedge between their friendship. He wouldn't understand, more importantly, he wouldn't even try. Attwood was no better.

Peterson was a slim hope, but he would report back to Attwood...

She had to find Tom, before Lewis did; before anything could happen.

Her security system chimed and she dashed for the monitor wiping her eyes from a sudden onslaught of grateful tears.

The small black and white monitor showed Lewis staring up. Sloan gasped. "Lewis!"

"Hello, Doctor Parker," he greeted with an easy smile. "It's good to see you again."

"What do you want?" she demanded, ready to spring for the phone and wondering where Tom was.

The monitor showed the ease with which he opened the security door. The incredible strength she found so intriguing in Tom was a source of terror in Lewis. He looked up again at the camera with a little grin. "I'm concerned," he said with mock sincerity. "It seems there's been trouble in paradise. Tom's distraught, and you're obviously upset. Have you two had a lover's quarrel?"

He disappeared from the monitor and Sloan backed away from the door. She dashed for the kitchen and the large chef's knife Tom had been using with such skill. The door burst open, cracking the frame and sending bits of the security chain flying across the room.

"Put that knife down!" Lewis snapped. "You're suicidal, poor thing."

"Where's Tom? What have you done with him?" Sloan shouted.

Lewis took her wrist in a hard grip. "Tom's in my new car waiting for the first of quite a few counseling seasons. Couple therapy for your sad codependent problem," Lewis explained in a light mocking tone as he pulled her roughly forward. She felt his fingertips hit her neck and saw a bright pulse of light behind her eyes.

When she woke, she was tied to a chair. Tom was sitting across from her, strapped down with cargo straps. She saw his ankles were chained and a chain went around his waist and connected to his handcuffs. She recognized the confinement as the same that Attwood had used.

His eyes were open and hard as stone. He moved his expressionless stare from some far point in the room to regard her. She was frightened that he was under Lewis control again, but his eyes softened the moment he realized she was awake. There was a desperate quality in his expression.

"Ah, Doctor Parker. Are you back with us?" Lewis inquired.

Sloan turned her head and saw him approach.

Lewis didn't take his eyes from her but said to Tom, "Tom, this is where you tell me to leave your girlfriend alone."

"It wouldn't do any good," Tom replied mildly.

Lewis smiled. He touched her hair and caressed her cheek with unwelcome tenderness. "She fascinates me. Oh, not for any specific quality, but the hold she has over you, Tom. It bears investigation. She must be a remarkable woman."

Sloan tried and failed to suppress the shudder of dread that ran expressively through her body at Lewis' cool seductive touch. Not even the killer Lynch had inspired this paralyzing fear. The intuitive part of her mind could sense Lewis' satisfaction. She focused on Tom.

Her fear was affecting him. She could see it in his eyes and the terrible strain of his body. He was fighting not to show it and give Lewis the advantage, but he had lost.

Lewis pulled away with languid grace and a malicious smirk.

His cruelty to Tom filled Sloan with a sudden cleansing rush of fury. Her fear was used against Tom, manipulating his emotions and revealing his vulnerability, for no other reason than to inflict pain. It was unspeakably vile. This cold, cruel monster was Tom's mentor. She admired Tom more for rising above this evil influence.

Lewis settled his hand gently on Tom's shoulder. He reached up to caress Tom's cheek and Tom jerked away as if burned.

"You know better," Lewis admonished. He pressed his fingers into the side of Tom's neck in a skillful move.

Tom cried out and grit his teeth, trying to control the pain.

Horrified, Sloan struggled. "Stop it!" she demanded.

Lewis regarded her with a placid expression, inscrutable and disconnected from the cruelty of his actions.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Parker. Let me make it up to you," Lewis offered. He got down one knee next to Tom. He placed one hand behind Tom's neck and with the other gripped the back of Tom's arm above the elbow.

"No," Tom protested tightly. He stared at his former mentor with savage denial.

"What's he doing?" Sloan asked Tom. But Tom wouldn't look at her. He strained uselessly against the chains.

Lewis stroked his arm. "Tom was never the type to blindly follow orders. A flaw in most operatives but I always valued this as a sign of high intelligence. He was one of my most gifted protégées."

"You drugged him, brainwashed him. Tom isn't like you!" she protested hotly.

Lewis smiled. "Yes, well certain states of mind are conducive to efficiently retaining high volumes of complicated information. It's a method we use to educate," he confided with pride, "and its very effective. Drugs are a last resort. I can induce this state of mind any number of ways."

"The post hypnotic suggestion you used to trigger Tom before," she guessed.

"One way," Lewis agreed.

Tom was trying to pull away from Lewis touch.

"What are you doing?" she demanded. Lewis began to squeeze the back of Tom's neck, then he ran his hand down Tom's shoulder.

"Sloan..." Tom ground out between grit teeth. But whatever warning he was about to relate was lost.

Lewis seemed to simply run his hand down past his grip on the back of Tom's arm to take his wrist in a strange three fingered grip. He turned it over and Tom's body suddenly went still, his eyes focused straight ahead expressionless.

"I said I was going to make it up to you," Lewis said. He turned his face to regard her with a little smile. "Watch," he directed.

All he seemed to do was gently straighten Tom's arm, but Tom groaned and his eyes rolled back in his head. He threw his head back and sucked in a deep shuddering breath.

"Pleasure, Doctor Parker. Pleasure like no human could ever give," Lewis said softly. He gently set Tom's arm back down. "My words. My touch. I have complete control over him anytime I want," he mocked, batting his eyes in a incongruous humorous mocking expression. "Jealous?" he taunted.

"You're a monster," she accused. "I don't want to control Tom."

He laughed at her and stood up crossing to her chair. He brushed her hair from her face and smiled sweetly into her furious eyes. "Of course you do. You're in love with him. But you should realize he can never belong to you. You've weakened him, poisoned him, but he'll soon come back to us. There is no other choice."

Tom growled. "You're wrong, Lewis. I'll never go back."

Lewis turned in surprise and Sloan could see Tom. His eyes snapped with frigid outrage. Somehow he'd broken free of Lewis' control.

Lewis twined his hand in Sloan's unruly curls with dreadful meaning. "Oh no?" he argued with that same smug equanimity.

She could feel his fingers probe searchingly at the base of her neck and then pain shot down her spine as if he'd driven an ice pick through the back of her skull. She screamed, but the pain lasted only a moment and she was staring across the room at Tom aware that Lewis had walked out. Her head ached and she was panting.

"Close your eyes," Tom instructed firmly. He reached out to her in the only way he could, with his eyes and voice, projecting comfort and concern. "Tip your head as far forward as you can."

"It hurts!" she gasped.

Softly, he answered from experience, "I know, but it'll feel much better in a moment."

She did as he instructed and tilted her head carefully from side to side, listening to his soft voice. The pain melted leaving a warm sensation that felt almost good. She could feel a tingling warmth in the small of her back at the base of her spine, it built until Tom told her to slowly raise her head. The sensation radiated upward traveling up her back and shoulders, raising the hair on the back of her neck and down along her arms.

She opened her eyes very slowly and focused on Tom's beautiful crystal blue eyes. "Better?" he asked.

"Much," she answered feeling as if she could float from the chair. "What the hell was that?"

Tom looked frustrated. "Lewis' own brand of accupressure. He's an expert at inflicting pain. A master with his hands. He could have killed you just now."

"That wasn't pain he gave you," she pried. Watching as his eyes slid from hers.

"Do you want me to bear my soul, Sloan?" he asked, tilting his head and giving her an enigmatic stare.

He would, she was sure of it, and the inquisitive side of her nature wanted to demand it, no matter how difficult it might be. But the compassionate side took over and she realized that such a demand would make her no better than Lewis. "I'm sorry," she apologized.

He pulled again at his restraints and Sloan's eyes traveled to his hands and the alarming appearance of blood dripping from his wrists to the floor.

"Tom, you're hurting yourself," she cautioned. She realized what he must have done when Lewis hurt her. He used his incredible strength against unyielding metal. It made her heart ache.

"I have to get you out of here," he growled.

"No, Tom," she corrected. "We have to get out of here. I won't leave without you."

"Sloan, listen to me," Tom said harshly. "If you get a chance to escape, take it! It may be our only hope."

"No. I won't leave you," she snapped with determination.

He closed his eyes, and her heart went out to him, to the hopelessness in his face and the quiet marshaling of his composure and strength. "Please," he said softly with his eyes still closed, like a prayer.

"Alright, Tom. I will," she promised. She would have promised anything to heal his pain. She knew he had a great dread of Lewis using her against him. She suspected, as she was sure Lewis did, that Tom would do anything to spare her, even if it was something so heinous she might never forgive him. It was their unspoken fear, a truth that hung in the air like a terrible foreboding. "Tell me why you ran from the apartment," she asked softly.

He opened his eyes and rolled them to the ceiling as he did when he was on the verge of confessing something difficult. "I told you that it was a memory from when Lewis triggered my programming," he ventured.

She could see his throat work and the shudder of his pulse. "It's alright," she urged.

He closed his eyes again briefly and drew in a shaky breath. "No it isn't, Sloan. Lewis had me kill someone."

She couldn't help herself and gasped, noting that her reaction went through him like an arrow. "Who?" she whispered.

Tom's eyes were cerulean blue changing from bleak winter sky to summer's warmth with the shift of his emotions. She felt like she could stare into them forever and never tire or look away, but no one could look for long into such mirrors of pain. The hurt seem to fold in on itself, ever over-lapping. Sloan was torn between fear and aching to hold him. The ache won out.

"My mother," he said with an ethereal calm that managed to make her shiver with sympathy. "I didn't know. I didn't remember," he explained. "The memory came back like a door opening, just there all of the sudden, a door to the other side of myself, to who I was, before, before you." He looked down and then let her see his fearless devotion. "I'm sorry I ran. I told you that sensing human emotions can be a burden. I knew how you'd feel. I knew I'd sense it, no matter how you tried to hide it. I couldn't face losing you that way."

"Something enabled you to tell me now," she said gently.

He nodded. "Knowing, will make it easier for you to leave if you get the chance. You won't want to come back. I don't want you to try."

Sloan shook her head. "You said you could sense how I'd feel. How do I feel, Tom?"

The cerulean gaze became distant. He tilted his head as if trying to catch some faint sound.

"Do I hate you?" she demanded.

He didn't answer.

Gently she persuaded, "I told you before that I don't judge you for what you did, when you were under their control. That hasn't changed. If Lewis makes you hurt me," she began, forcing him to listen though the words frightened and wounded, "or anyone else I care about, I won't blame you." She saw how he closed his eyes again and winced with the painful reminder of what they both feared. "Because it won't be you," she insisted. "I saw how you were, under Lewis' power, Tom. It wasn't you. It wasn't! If he makes you do something. If he makes you hurt me... I won't blame you and I don't want you to blame yourself."

"Sloan..." he protested in all encompassing appeal.

She would not be dissuaded. "Promise me. It's the only way he'll ever get true power over you, to turn you so against yourself and everything you've become. He'll use your guilt and pain to make you weak and vulnerable to his control. If you're strong. If you don't blame yourself, he can't have that. He can't break you."

"If he makes me hurt you," Tom promised. "I won't live with that. I'd rather die."

Her eyes widened and she felt a terrible chill, but her heart produced a warmth that brought tears to her eyes. "That would hurt me more than anything Lewis could do," she said with great care. Her voice shook. Looking at Tom's reaction, once again she was reminded that human emotions were new in his experience. Sensing them in others was a far cry from feeling them stir your heart and wound your soul. He struggled to accommodate the raw sensation. Indecision and misery crossed his face as his head tilted in an expression that she'd come to associate with his attempt to understand and assimilate something new.

She heard the door open and knew Lewis had entered the room by the hardening of Tom's expression. She gasped as he grabbed the back of her chair and began to drag her from the room. She was off balance and frightened, but one look at Tom's futile desperation stilled her. She knew the shock and the violence of his actions were meant to goad Tom and push him over the edge. "It's alright, Tom!" she called out. And struggled to calm herself.

She feared Lewis and hated that he knew it and could use it to his advantage. Right now she was fearing the worst, that he knew what killing her would do to Tom and he was prepared to do much worse. She'd already experienced his menacing touch and the ruthless mercurial workings of his devious mind. There was no way to predict what he'd do. His strength was terrifying. He drug her down the hall and into another empty featureless room. Effortlessly he sent the chair with her in it careening across the room. She fetched up hard against the far wall still upright. But she thought she heard the chair crack with the impact.

"This won't take long," Lewis promised.

"What are you going to do?" she asked, making no attempt to pretend she wasn't terrified.

"Do?" he said, sauntering across the room. "Why, doctor Parker, I don't have to do anything. A trick I learned from the great directors of our time, what's left to the imagination is far more frightening than anything I could conjure up. In a few moments Tom is going to wonder what's happened to you, soon after he'll do anything to assure himself of your safety."

"He won't betray us!" she asserted.

Lewis laughed derisively. "There is no us, Dr. Parker! Surely you're not that naïve."

She bit her lip and tossed her hair back out of her eyes. "I don't know what you mean."

The force of his derision was a palpable thing. She could feel it squeeze her heart. He despised her. Tom's alliance puzzled and disgusted his mentor. He looked at her as if she were the most repugnant of entities. It was enough to freeze her blood.

Slowly, his malicious mocking smile returned. "There is only you, Sloan. Tom doesn't give a damn about the human race. He has no loyalty for your cause," he said sternly. His eyes narrowed as he considered her gravely. "Something about you that, I must say, completely eludes me, has fundamentally compromised his integrity. He'll do anything for you and that's his weakness."

"You're wrong," she swore, but knew it was a lie.

He laughed at her brave words. "Your fear calls you a liar," he said. He backed out of the room and closed the door.

Sloan waited a little while and then began to work on the chair. The wood had cracked where the arm attached to the back and she could slip her arm toward the break. The ropes rubbed her skin raw but she was able to slide the ropes through the break and free her hand. It took awhile to get her circulation back and then she began working on the rest of the ropes.

She went to the window and looked out at a narrow walk between the house and a brick wall. She was on the ground floor. She went to the door and considered trying to free Tom but remembered her promise.

She opened the window, which was the kind that opened vertically on a slant. She had to break the hinge from the frame in order to squeeze out.


[][][][]


Lewis considered his former student with critical disdain. True to what he'd told Sloan, Tom quickly became frantic about her safety. He would not cooperate at all until he had some assurance that she was alright. Lewis crossed his arms and continued to study Tom.

"Would you die for her?" he asked finally.

Tom tilted his head and regarded his former mentor with a disquieting stare of unfathomable resolve. "Yes," he said with quiet conviction.

"Kill for her?"

Tom's glare intensified. "Yes," he vowed.

Lewis rocked back on his heels and shook his head sadly. "Don't you see? You don't love her; you need her. You need her to be the focus of everything you were born and trained to be. For her sake you're willing to kill, even die. It's a very short step from that to selling your soul and committing acts of unimaginable depravity, things the good doctor would no doubt disapprove of, but necessary to win her objectives." His ruthless eyes bored into Tom with ageless wisdom and fierce truth. "She hasn't saved you from us; she's replaced us."

Confusion and horror rippled through Tom. "She isn't like you. She wouldn't ask the kinds of things of me that you've asked," he protested.

Lewis bent down and rested his hands on the arms of Tom's chair. His face close to Tom's. "She doesn't have to ask. You are what you are, Tom. And you'll do whatever needs to be done to achieve your goal. It's your nature. It's what I trained you to do. How long do you think you can hold up this charade? In the end, you'll do what you do best. It'll be against us and for her, but do you think that'll make her look at you any differently? Do you think she'll be able to stomach the real you?"

Tom's gaze wavered. He tore from Lewis' iron will with desperation. With a needle's sharp precision Lewis had placed his seed of doubt. He knew just where the weak spots were, had always been, would always be. Even though Tom knew this was all part of his mentor's formidable art, his soul was shaken. He thought of Sloan, of what she would say and he lifted his head.

"You don't know the real me, Lewis," he snarled. "You don't know her." In his mind he was thinking of her voice and the look in her eyes when she told him that he was a good man, despite anything he may have done. He had to trust her instincts and intellect and allow himself to believe in her perception, or he would falter and Lewis would be there to catch him. "I'm not your creation any more," he vowed, hammering the words home with conviction.

Rage darkened Lewis' pale blue eyes. He reared back and backhanded Tom across the face. With a struggle, he recovered his composure. "You are," he swore angrily, "and you always will be."

Tom spat blood. He felt oddly calm and still, welcoming the familiar feeling of confidence and control. "Get over yourself," he retorted, meeting rage with ice.

Lewis was blocking him, all awareness of his presence as one of their kind was gone. To Tom it felt as if in one sense Lewis had disappeared, even though he stood before him in plain sight. It was an odd sensation, bringing sharply into focus how much he depended on his sixth sense to define his surroundings. Automatically he reached out to feel and understand the people in his immediate vicinity, it was as much a part of his sensory experience as sight and sound. With those of his own kind it was sort of a comforting sensation to be aware of each other at all times.

Instinctively, Tom strove to penetrate Lewis' block, reeling back in pain as Lewis' awareness pushed back with an intense force that Tom had never experienced before, it was like a physical assault.

"You see?" Lewis said intensely. "This is what we're capable of. This and so much more. We have abilities a few of us are just beginning to explore. You could be one of the strongest of us, Tom. Come back and we'll teach you."

"Never," Tom replied. "I've had enough of your teaching. I told you, this insane war of yours is unnecessary. We can coexist with them."

"You think so? You think that once the population knows that we exist, they'll all be like your lover? You can't be that ignorant!" Lewis snapped with disgust. "You don't know what's coming..."

"Then tell me, Lewis. If you know why we should be striving to wipe out the humans, other than our own fear, tell me. Make me understand. I'm through being the unquestioning instrument of your will!"

Lewis frowned. "I can't tell you. I won't tell you. You can't be trusted."

"When was I ever?" Tom said bitterly.

"It's a question of loyalty," Lewis said with acerbic sarcasm.

Tom cocked his head and pinned Lewis with depreciating censure. "No," he corrected. "You never wanted loyalty. What you wanted was blind obedience. There's a difference."

Lewis was unable to hide his rage beneath his sardonic facade. It burned from within, filling his body with electric tension and his eyes with savage fire. "I want loyalty. I demand obedience. The difference is negligible."

"You're not the type to indulge delusions," Tom accused.

Lewis frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Tom gave him a dark stare. "We both know what you wanted," he said coldly.

Lewis returning smile was just as cold. "And we both remember what I got..." he sneered.

"What you coerced," Tom corrected bitterly. "Is that what's really bothering you, Lewis? That you had to program me, manipulate me and coerce me into giving you what I would willingly give Sloan? "

"We're still talking about loyalty, right?" Lewis joked. "Because you haven't given her anything else. Or did you think I wouldn't know?" He leaned forward with an intense expression tinged with mocking sincerity. "Have you told her that you are, for all intents and purposes, a virgin?" he wheedled, with a lascivious grin. He seemed to enjoy knowing Tom wanted to tear his throat out, for the grin widened to a smile. "No? I'm sure her scientific mind would be fascinated."

He left again and could feel Tom's agitation. It made him smile with satisfaction.

When he returned it was to set up a video surveillance camera in one corner of the room's ceiling.

"Just so you know. If you try to escape, Sloan will die," he informed. He returned to Tom and started unlocking his restraints, making annoyed sounds as he noticed the vicious wounds on Tom's wrists.

Once he was free, Tom stood up. He glared at Lewis. "What now?"

The blow sent him flying back against the wall. He hadn't even seen it coming, but he jumped to his feet more then ready to fight back.

"Ah, ah, ah," Lewis warned wagging a finger at him as if he were a negligent child. "Remember Sloan," he warned and watched with satisfaction as Tom came out of his fighting stance and let his hands drop to his sides. He took the next blows without defending himself in anyway. Allowing Lewis to beat him to his knees.

Finally, Tom was laying on the floor trying to recover. "Are you finished?" was all he said.

"Do you have any idea what you're new friends put me through?" Lewis inquired looking down. "I haven't even started to pay you back."

Tom simply regarded him with a familiar look of strained endurance. He didn't try to move, just waited for whatever was to come.

"Hurts a great deal doesn't it?" Lewis said sympathetically. "Your mother tried pain. I could have told her it wouldn't work. I trained you better than that. Still, she's a primal sort, ruthless, remorseless; not the type to bother with subtlety."

"If you admired her so much, why did you have me kill her?" Tom managed to say.

Lewis shrugged elegantly and smiled. "Did I?" he questioned.

Tom looked up through a haze of pain. "I remember," he said.

Again that secretive little smile. Lewis crouched down. "Do you? How can you be sure?"

"Because," Tom struggled to sit up, "it would be like you to do something like that, Lewis. I know you," Tom snarled.

"Yes," Lewis purred. "Yes, you do." He caressed Tom's cheek with tender menace and immensely enjoyed the outrage in his eyes, but he knew better than to attempt to move or protest.

[][][][]


Sloan found herself on an old estate, with a long gravel drive surrounded by ancient landscaping gone wild. She had no idea how many people Lewis had with him or where they might be, so she tried to use the cover of the trees and gnarled bushes. Eventually, she came to a huge stone wall and was able to climb over it by scrambling up a old alvacado tree. A dusty road bordered by citrus groves greeted her.

Her heart hammered and her body felt flushed with numbing fear. She ran as if the devil himself was after her.

It wasn't long before she was able to catch a ride into LA with a pickup truck full of migrant workers. They were very kind and generous, concerned for her obvious plight. Once again she was grateful for keeping up with her Spanish. She told them where she needed to go and they drove her right to the lab.

[][][][]


Tom stared at the door. He was fairly certain it wasn't even locked. Lewis counted on his fear for Sloan to keep him prisoner. He'd removed the shackles and left him alone. He'd already tested his prisoner's resolve by delivering the beating.

He couldn't sense Sloan at all. After Lewis took her from the room, he received a jumble of impressions and her fear. He was so tense, concentrating so hard that the sudden flare of pain he sensed shocked him, and broke his connection. He roared her name, as he had when Lewis had kidnapped her.

The handcuffs bit into his wrists as he struggled. He thought he could still sense her, but it didn't last.

He paced the room for a little while and then sat down near the far wall, eschewing the chairs. He winced as he put his back against the wall. He was certain several ribs were broken. The waves of pain stole his concentration and made him sick to his stomach.

Lewis hadn't beaten him out of pure revenge. It was a calculated thing, even if Tom couldn't follow his logic. Maybe it was just to produce disorientation or maybe it was to manipulate Sloan. Lewis didn't need to resort to such primitive measures, not with the more elegant and precise methods that were his to command. Tom suspected it may have more to do with proving he'd let down his guard and take the abuse rather than risk harm to Sloan.

Over and over he regretted the two times he held a gun on Lewis and didn't pull the trigger.

He could feel Lewis just outside the door with others of their kind. His dread intensified as he sensed a feeling of outrage from Lewis.

When they entered, Tom saw it was two men and a woman.

"We'll take him now," the woman said. She wore a dark pin striped suit and her blond hair was swept up with elegant neatness. Her eyes were a bright clear gray.

"You don't have the right," Lewis protested. His whole manner was cold and tense.

She turned slowly and regarded him without emotion. "Explain," she said simply.

Lewis' expression was hard and brittle. "He's mine," he stated flatly.

Her headed tilted and she returned her stare to Tom. "Delicious..." she said appreciatively. "But a temptation best avoided, Lewis. You know what he is."

"That was never a factor before," Lewis argued.

She glared. "It is always a factor," she snapped. She walked across the room and frowned as she studied Tom. "I don't think he's thriving under your tutelage," she said critically. She motioned to the two men still lingering beyond the doorway.

"Put him in the car," she ordered. She pulled a syringe out of her pocket and gave it to the first man in the room.

"You won't need that," Lewis snarled with contempt, as the two men hauled Tom to his feet and prepared to inject him.

Tom wasn't able to put up much of a fight, but his dread of Lewis' touch made him try. Lewis slid his hand to cup the side of Tom's face and the tips of his fingers pressed into the back of his skull. His frosty glare fixed Tom's unwilling stare. "We shall reign in the kingdom of man," he intoned.

For an instant, Tom considered laughing in his face and humiliating Lewis before his peers. Instead he let his expression go blank and still.

"How do you feel?" Lewis inquired lightly.

Tom answered with the same easy tone. "My side hurts," he informed without the slightest hint of emotion.

"Your side hurts because I had to punish you," Lewis said smoothly. "But everything is alright now."

"Good," Tom replied with mindless simplicity.

"I want you to go with these people," Lewis said, indicating the beautiful woman.

"Where are we going?" Tom asked.

Lewis took him by the arm and helped him walk across the room. "That doesn't matter. Will you go with them?"

"Of course," Tom obliged.

The woman smiled. "Impressive, Lewis, but then all your work is." She reached out her hand. Lewis took Tom's hand and relinquished it to her cold grasp.

Tom walked with her, taking note of his surroundings. The abandoned Spanish style mansion, old and crumbling with neglect. The drive surrounded by thick overgrown hedges encroaching on the gravel crowding in like a hungry jungle. He tried not to let them know he was looking for any sign of Sloan. He tried not to reach out with his senses, because he knew if he projected anything but inane complacency, they would be on him like lions.

He was grateful that they hadn't chained him. He wondered why Lewis had resorted to that at all, seeing as how he believed he still had his trigger phrase. Maybe, he wanted him to interact with Sloan. Maybe he was still manipulating events. He hadn't mentioned her to this woman.

She let Tom to a car and opened the back door. He got in and sat very still. One of the men slid in next to him. She got in the front and the other man got behind the wheel. "Coming?" she said to Lewis. Tom heard him reply that he would follow in his own car.

They pulled down the drive. Branches brushed against the car and the sunlight flickered through the windows, growing steadily more mellow and colorful with sunset. Tom kept his eyes focused straight ahead, but noted where they were taking him.

The desert sky was lavender and the last light painted the stones a deep russet color. Tom knew this road and knew where his best chance lay. The guard next to him had relaxed. There was no sign of Lewis' black car in the side mirror.

With a sudden burst of speed Tom opened the door and threw himself from the car. His injured ribs fouled his movements and ruined the smoothness of his landing. He hit hard and tried to roll for cover. The old drain that served to protect the highway from flash flooding was his goal. He ran for it as best as he could, but noted with agonized dismay that his left arm was useless, broken or dislocated.

The cool shadow of the drain was a temporary refuge. He used its secret to seal himself away in a hidden chamber concealed in the wall. This was a little known but very old sanctuary for illegal aliens making their way to Los Angeles. It had served as a hiding place during the skirmishes over the aqueduct that carried water into the city. He'd used it before as part of a getaway. He could only hope his pursuers didn't know of it as well.

Eventually he could hear them searching the tunnel. He concentrated on blocking them, unsure if he could. Pain was making staying conscious difficult.


[][][][]



Ed's embrace was hard, vibrant with relief. "Sloan!" he exclaimed. "What the hell happened?" His dark brown eyes swept over her, widening with concern.

"Lewis," she explained in a single word. "He got us. He still has Tom." Her gaze swung to include Attwood as he rushed in. If she expected them to share her alarm and urgency, she was greatly disappointed. Their expressions closed. Ed looked away.

"That's unfortunate," Attwood pronounced.

"Unfortunate?" Sloan exclaimed. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. A horrible concoction of loneliness and dread twisted in the pit of her stomach. They had no intention of attempting to help her. They didn't share her concern, not in the least. She felt like retreating, shrinking away from men she no longer knew, alien unfeeling things as bad as anything they suspected of the new species. On the tip of her tongue were all the words she'd used before in Tom's defense, but in the place of anguished pleas and arguments a simple truth burned bright and clear.

She straightened her slight frame and glared. Her voice was rough and deep, but all the emotions raging inside got pushed aside by a glacial tide of sudden pure insight. "If it were one of you, Tom wouldn't hesitate. He'd risk his life, even though he knows you don't trust him. We're all he has." She stopped and corrected herself, "I'm all he has, and you're all I have to turn to. If you won't help me, I'll go back for him alone."

Attwood seemed unmoved and Ed still looked at his computer screen. Her heart went cold, but slowly Ed stood up and nodded. "You're right," he agreed softly. "How can I help?"

[][][][]


She watched through Tom's night vision scope as Lewis got in his car.

"He's leaving. He's put a couple of bags in the trunk," she informed Ed.

"What about Tom?" Ed asked.

"I don't see him. I don't think he's there," she said.

"What makes you say that?" Ed asked. He squinted into the darkness but could see very little. There were no lights on in the house.

Sloan passed him the scope. "I don't know. It's just a feeling."

She didn't see the speculative look Ed gave or the little shiver that ran through his narrow frame.

They watched as Lewis got in the car and drove away. Then Sloan scrambled up and began to make for the house. Ed followed her nervously.

The house was dark and empty. Lewis hadn't even bothered to lock the front door. Sloan brought her flashlight out and hurried for the room where she and Tom had been held. She swept the light around the room, saw only the chair and a heap of chains beside it.

"He's gone!" she exclaimed.

Ed pointed his flashlight up to one corner of the room. "Look, a camera." He began tracing the cord down the hall to another room. Sloan followed and they found the unit attached to a tv with a tape still in it. "Do you think the power is still on?" Ed wondered.

Sloan reached out in front of him and turned the tv on. The light filled the room startling them both. Ed rewound the tape. "We don't have time to watch all of this, let's just see if we can figure out how he got out, or where they took him."

She watched horrified as the scene of Tom accepting a beating from Lewis replayed relentlessly. "Oh my God..." she whispered. Tears spilled hotly over her cheeks. He looked so vulnerable and in such pain as he dragged himself over to one wall and huddled there staring at the door.

Ed hit the fast forward and they moved the tape up to when Lewis came in with the woman and the two thugs. They watched as Tom was dragged to his feet, and Lewis gave him the trigger phrase. Suddenly, Ed hit the pause button. "Look!" he exclaimed. "The guy's acting!"

"What?" her voice quavered as she asked. It wasn't the time to start doubting Tom again.

"The trigger phrase won't work. Attwood removed it," he said excitedly. "Tom's just pretending."

"How, when?" she demanded.

Ed looked embarrassed. "We used the mind control drug. Tom volunteered."

"Why didn't he tell me? Why wasn't I involved?" she protested.

Ed shook his head. "Take it up with him, if we get out of this," he said evasively. He hit the play button. They watched as Tom was led away.

They both jumped when they heard the car pull up. She turned off the tv and the vcr. They hurried quietly from the room. Ed tried to pull her into one of the vacant rooms but she shook her head. "He'll sense us!" she whispered and they ran. They found an unlocked door exiting the kitchen and ran breathlessly and blindly through the tangled yard.

They laughed with relief when they practically stumbled on Sloan's car hidden in the shadows between a couple of ancient scrub oaks.

"We'll follow his car when he leaves," Sloan said decisively.

"Yeah, and then what?" Ed sarcastically pointed out.

Sloan tried to think of something. "I don't know, Ed. I'm just hoping he leads us to Tom."

He bit back his retort and nodded. "Good plan," he said.

"We'll just follow, alright. I'm not saying we do anything stupid," she said. His dark eyes met hers with nervous tension and that lively intelligence she loved. Ed was a good friend. Her best friend actually. He had never failed her in anything she'd ever asked. He wasn't about to now either.

He smiled. "Stupid? Us?" he quipped. "Wait, there he goes, Sloan." He pointed to the black car pulling smoothly from the broken remains of the estates old gates to the dirt road.

"Alright, but I can't get too close. He'll sense us." She watched the soft cloud of dust kicked up by the car disappear between the groves of citrus trees, waiting till the headlights were almost out of sight before pulling from her hiding spot and following.


[][][][]

The refuge was dark and cool, getting colder as the night descended. Tom shivered and tried to decide his next move. He knew he couldn't stay long. His only real hope was to get a ride to somewhere he could use a phone. The ruthless practical teachings ingrained in him whispered relentlessly that all this had to happen before he was too incapacitated to save himself. He'd been injured and on the run before and knew there was a window of opportunity that shock and adrenaline provided the body before it was forced to give in.

He opened the secret door and staggered from the drain pipe out into the desert night. The warm stillness was so familiar. The feel of desert air and the scents of arid plants. He closed his eyes and savored the sensations.

The last time he felt this was when he traveled with Sloan and Ed to Mexico, to the place of his origins. The visions came strong there and he felt a deep connection to the land. Tantalizing essence of self awareness, of memories, of answers lingered in the air and shouted a soundless welcome from deep in the earth when he knelt down and touched the sand. He tried to gather up what the place was trying to tell him. He tried to let it open the secret places locked away from his memory, and for a long aching moment he knew what he was losing by betraying his kind, or maybe what they'd all lost in the insanity of their agenda. There was something there, something vital and almost in his grasp, but like the sand it sifted away before he could really understand.

He tried, after he sent Sloan and Ed away and after he'd done what he could to make sure they'd escape, to capture the elusive feeling, the deep stirring inside that hinted at so much but left him so empty. He was driven away, rejected with ferocity. The guardians of the sacred place would not allow him near. In the end, the best he could do was take the truck Sloan and Ed had been forced to abandon still containing the precious mummy and make for the border.

He stared up at the heavens full of blazing stars, took a shallow breath and began walking. He walked until he got to a place where he could easily climb the slope up to the highway. By then small sparks were going off behind his eyelids and he tasted copper in his mouth.

He saw the lights of a car approaching. It began to slow the moment the driver saw him. Tom felt dizzy, he felt... He looked down the slope and considered running, but knew he wouldn't make it. The car purred to a halt. Tom opened the passenger door and got in.

"Hello, Lewis," he greeted.

"You really shouldn't hitch hike, Tom. It isn't safe. There are all kinds of dangerous people. You just never know who's going to stop." He smiled and laughed to himself.

Tom rested his head back against the seat and closed his eyes resigned to the inevitable. Lewis put a tape into the car's sound system and hummed to the classical tune.

They drove on through the desert in silence. Tom rested his head against the door frame and tried to rest. He was startled as they pulled off the road onto a rough track. The car bounced and prowled over the rutted terrain until they approached a large hill crusted with great stone.

There were a few cars parked in front of a long black slit in the rock's fissure. The road to get there was guarded and seldom used. Rich amber light played off the red stone's interior and gave the shadows of the people gathered inside elongated black silhouettes.

It had been a long time since Tom had been in the presence of more than a few of his kind. The feeling was intensely intimidating.

Lewis took his arm and forced him forward. "I'm afraid neither of us has any choice here, Tom. I'd warn you not to embarrass me, but we're a bit beyond that now."

The fissure in the rock was a twenty foot tall entrance to a deep cavern, it was just a few feet wide at the entrance but the inside was an impressive cave. There were many gas lamps scattered inside and a large bonfire blazing away in the center. Twenty or more people were gathered around, most of them in expensive clothes and business wear. They looked strangely out of context in the rough setting.

Tom saw the blond woman from the house. Her eyes widened when she saw them enter, even though all of them must have been aware of their coming, unless Lewis was somehow blocking all of them just to make his triumphant entrance.

"Lose something, Marissa?" Lewis inquired sweetly.

The blond seethed. "Apparently, he wasn't under your little spell, Lewis," she accused.

Tom could feel Lewis tense. His hand rested possessively on Tom's good shoulder. "Oh, no?" he purred and had the satisfaction of seeing his rival turn livid.

Tom tried to pull away but was forced into compliance with relative ease. Lewis steered him over to a near by rock. "Sit down before you fall down," he advised. Tom sat cautiously on the rock at the back of the cavern.

A woman with long iron-gray hair wearing a stylish cobalt blue suit raised her arms. "The situation in the city has become intolerable," she announced in a voice that was like crushed velvet. "The mass exodus was necessary, but many of us have had no choice but to stay and hold our positions until the time comes. Discovery of our existence was inevitable. It is unfortunate that it has come at such a critical period, but we have been successful in quelling the outcome for the present."

Lewis stepped forward into the firelight. "Don't let yourself be fooled, lulled into a false sense of security. We're in more danger now than we've ever been."

"Who's fault is that?" Marissa accused. "You allowed yourself to be captured. They studied you like an animal."

"I allowed nothing!" Lewis answered coldly.

The woman with the gray hair held up her hands again. "Lewis has redeemed himself, Marissa. He has brought the errant one back. Thanks to Lewis that precious resource will not be lost."

There was a general murmur of assent.

Tom frowned, his pain for the moment forgotten at the promise of revelation. His interest turned to alarm as the assembly turned to regard him.

"Bring him into the light," the old woman commanded. Several of those nearest moved to obey her.

They stripped off Tom's shirt ignoring the pain they caused his ribs and shoulder. They tied his hands tightly in front of him and turned him so that his back was to the fire. They all saw the tattoo. He could hear them murmuring to themselves, speculating out loud. He felt violated and ashamed but there was nothing he could do but stand and endure their scrutiny.

"Then it's true. One of the chosen is a traitor," someone said.

"That doesn't change what he is," the old woman stated firmly. "We can't just kill him. What he carries is too precious."

"He's unstable," someone else argued.

"Weak," another seconded.

"Flawed," still another snarled.

"He was bestowed," a woman said from behind him. The word echoed out of half a dozen mouths. Along with words like, pattern, plan, and matrix.

"I can reclaim him," Lewis said quietly with firm conviction.

The dead certainty of his tone filled Tom with dread. He wanted to ask a thousand questions, but knew they would not be answered. He was led back to the back of the cave, while the others began discussing matters. He heard Sloan's name and Attwood's and Lynch. The argument seemed to be whether to pull out of California all together. He was losing his ability to keep track.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up into the eyes of the old woman. "Do I look familiar?" she asked.

Tom swallowed. His throat was so dry it was difficult to talk. "No," he answered truthfully.

She smiled in a familiar way. "I am your mother's mother," she informed.

This startled him a little. He wondered if he should tell her that he'd killed his mother at Lewis direction. Instead, he took the opportunity to ask the question burning in his mind. "You seem to know something about me, some importance I have. I'd like to know."

She smiled benignly. "You have no importance, Tom," she assured him. "What we are, all of what we are and our purpose in the grand scale of things is all distilled and defined into extremely dense and complex blocks of information. Each block of information is identified by a simple coded pattern, that denotes, time, date, place of origin, relevance. It's extremely efficient."

"Pattern?" he said softly. "The tattoo... the star chart," he put it together slowly. "It reveals a time and a place."

She smiled sweetly, but her sharp eyes glinted coldly. "Very good boy. The humans know all that? Distressing... All of us have the pattern imprinted on our psyche almost from birth, but very few understand even that much of its meaning. We keep our secrets through a process of compartmentalization. You are familiar with that method as one of our soldiers."

"Why the tattoo? If its a coded label for information storage, why me? I don't know anything," he protested.

"You don't have to dear," she said softly. "You're just a vessel, neatly labeled, with the added benefit of being useful for a number of difficult tasks in addition to your primary purpose of... storage."

"There're others like me?" he guessed.

She reared back as if insulted. "Of course we have back-ups. Who in this age stores valuable information without back ups?"

"In my subconscious you've placed a bunch of information like a computer file?" he surmised. He leaned against the wall of the cavern for support.

His grandmother observed him without sympathy, but she offered her hand for support as he sat down on the floor. "Not your subconscious," she said disparagingly. "You are confusing that with the racial memories we all share. What was bestowed on you is stored in your brain certainly and your body. Your whole genetic matrix is a huge source of data if one knows how to read it."

"Why are you telling me all this?" he asked suspiciously.

She shrugged. "You can't do us any harm where you're going. There's no reason to keep things from you that you can't divulge. I think it's time you shared in the brilliance of which you are a part, even if you are a traitor. Messages held in secret can be lost, destroyed, altered, even if they are written in stone. You proved that when you destroyed the pillar. We wrote our secrets for the future in the future," she confided with a gleam in her eye. "Not on paper, or only mere stone, but in the flesh of our children. The secret is held secure, passed on from generation to generation incorruptible and always fresh." She tapped his right shoulder with her hand. "Stone is not forever, but as long as we exist, the information can be passed on."

"How? What information?" he demanded with an edge of frustration.

She smiled thinly. "Ah, that really would be telling!" she teased. "None of us knows the whole truth, that's the beauty of the system. But when the time comes we'll all know. That much I am sure of."

"What part do the humans play? Why this drive to eliminate them when we can coexist?"

She frowned. "Why do you care?" She gestured to the cavern and the assembly. "Are you so far gone from us, grandson that you can't feel how clear it is here away from them. Haven't you noticed how they muddy the waters with all their emotions and their mindless energy and worse lethargy? They are a distraction. Their motives are impure. And make no mistake, they will destroy us if they can."

"You underestimate them. The emotions we're taught make us weak, make them strong. Compassion gives them a strength we'll never have," he said with conviction.

She gazed down serenely. "Your mother was right. You are lost."

Suddenly she raised her head. Tom tried to sense what she did but couldn't. He saw Lewis do the same thing. Alarm rippled through the assembly.


[][][][]


"Whoa, Nancy Drew!" Ed dragged on Sloan's arm. "We are not sneaking in there to discover what's up. We're going to call Walter and get some serious back-up."

"But they could kill Tom. We have to get him out of there!" she protested.

"We don't know he's in there," Ed argued pragmatically. "We don't know if he's even..."

"Don't say it, Ed. I know he's alive. I know he's in there."

"You scare me when you say that. You sound like one of them," he said seriously.

They stared at each other for a long moment. "I'm not," she said very carefully. "I'm not, Ed," she put the weight of her conviction behind the words and kept her eyes locked on his, until he nodded.

"Alright, so you're what? Psychic now?" he quipped.

She smiled. "Woman's intuition," she answered.

"I'm going to climb up on that hill and see if I can get the cell phone to work. Don't do anything until we're sure Attwood's guys are on the way. Clear?"

"Now you sound like them. Like Tom anyway," she teased.

Ed glared.

In the cave the alarm caused most of them to begin moving out. Less important foot soldiers covering the escape of the more important members. Tom used his bound hands on the rough surface of the cavern's wall to lever himself to his feet.

The two men who'd taken him from Lewis' hideout with Marissa backed up to guard him warily watching the entrance of the cave and waiting for orders. They both had guns drawn, but he suspected that like him they didn't feel whatever it was Lewis and some of the others sensed.

Above him, far above, Tom got the sudden sense of someone frightened but grimly determined. Ed, of all people. He seized the moment as one of his guards was distracted by the same flash of information and stupidly raised his gun to the ceiling above them following the sense of someone without thinking about how the threat was out of reach. Tom simply kicked out swiftly to the guard's knee and snatched the gun with his bound hands.

He put his back to the wall and prepared to hold his ground or die. "Get away," he said simply to the two guards. He took cover behind a large rock and prepared to fight. His shoulder felt like it was on fire and he could not drag in a deep breath, but they must have believed him capable of more, because they began to move.

Within moments they could all hear the sound of helicopters. The harsh light flickered in through the fissure. Tom watched Lewis, torn between taking him on and getting his grandmother and some of the others to safety. He wasn't surprised to see the sense of duty win out. The few who remained in the cavern made a run for it.

Tom could hear gunfire and the squeal of tires. The huge boom of a helicopter explosion and the more frightening sound of the cave's walls crumbling. His legs faltered and he slid down to the ground managing to keep hold of the gun.

He sensed her, long before he heard her voice.

"He isn't here!" Sloan exclaimed in despair.

Tom smiled grimly, yet another reminder of their differences, he'd forgotten for a moment that she couldn't sense him. He dragged himself to his feet, moved a few steps from his shelter and stood waiting. Her eyes loomed wide and wet. The white of her smile gleamed like a beacon. She came, trying not to let her emotions overwhelm her, failing to contain the great tide of relief that felt more like grief than joy, so hot, so heartbreaking. He couldn't bear to see her cry.

"I'm alright," he assured her. He gave her the gun.

She bowed her head and rested it against his bare chest to hide her tears. He could feel her struggle to gain control. She raised her head and kissed him. And then tried to untie his hands.

"No you're not," she corrected. Her voice shook. "You're hurt. Ed, help me!"

Her arms went carefully around him and suddenly his strength faltered dangerously. She couldn't easily support him but managed to get him close to the fire.

Ed edged away from the fissure's opening cautiously. "I don't think there's anyone left out there. They took your car, Sloan. The guys in the copter didn't make it. We're on our own." He knelt down by Tom. "God, you're a mess," he said by way of greeting. He went to work on the ropes and got the knots untied.

"Can you help him?" Sloan begged.

Ed's hands were surprisingly gentle as he ran them over Tom's battered torso. "These ribs are cracked, maybe broken," he said critically. He gingerly touched Tom's shoulder mumbling an apology at the obvious pain he caused. He crouched down in front of Tom and met his gaze with frankness. "Your shoulder's dislocated," he informed with genuine sympathy.

Sloan watched the two men exchange meaningful stares. "What?" she demanded, concerned.

Ed sighed. "Sloan, we're on our own here. We don't know how long it will be before we can get Tom back to the lab. The longer we wait, the worse its going to be."

Understanding, washed the color from her face. She took Tom's hand. "Ed, can you really do this?" she asked softly.

"Yeah, but it's going to hurt like Hell," he said, with genuine regret.

Tom's eyes shone in the flickering light. He searched Ed's face for a moment and then nodded with grim resignation. "Do it," he said tightly.

Sloan helped Ed maneuver Tom into position. Ed took Tom's hand and prepared to set the injury. He looked deep into Tom's eyes. "Trust me?" he asked.

"No," Tom confessed between grit teeth. "Do it anyway."

Ed smiled and tightened his grip. "Sloan," he said suddenly. "You're bleeding." Despite his pain, Tom's attention riveted instantly to Sloan with alarm. Ed took advantage of the diversion and forced the damaged joint back into place with a jolt that wrung a sharp cry from Tom echoed by Sloan.

The first words out of Tom's mouth were, "You're not hurt?" He seemed more wracked with concern than pain.

Sloan shook her head. "No." A hot tear traced down her cheek and she shuddered gripping his hand.

"An old trick," Ed said with a shrug. "A good diversion keeps you from tensing up and makes it easier to pop the joint." He found Tom's discarded shirt near the fire and used it to bind Tom's arm to his chest. He tried to be careful of the bruises and injured ribs. He was distracted from his work by Tom's penetrating stare. "What?" he inquired uncertainly.

"Thank you," Tom said. He seemed at a loss.

Despite his better judgment, Ed was sincerely touched. "Wait till you get my bill," he answered lightly. But he touched Tom's good shoulder with a gentle hand as he got to his feet. "I'm gonna check outside," he said.

Sloan took the gun from her pocket. "Take this," she offered.

Ed took it and turned it awkwardly over in his hand. It felt heavier than he thought it would. He shoved long held convictions about gun control into a grim corner of reality with tense determination and nodded. Leaving the two of them by the fire.

Sloan kept hold of Tom's hand. She smiled tenderly. "It looks like I've saved your life again," she said.

Tom grimaced. "I'm not complaining. How did you escape?"

"My chair was cracked and I was able to untie myself, then I went out a window," she said. "It was awful leaving you."

He squeezed her hand. "You did the right thing. How did you find this place?"

"We followed Lewis. We tried to anyway, we had to stay really far back. We lost him and had to keep doubling back trying to find where he turned off the highway. We took a chance because the road was called Indian Cavern. What is it with you people and caves?"

He almost laughed but his ribs hurt too much.

"Did you learn anything?" she asked.

He stared into her face so full of warmth and emotion. Her hands were so gentle where they touched him. He thought about how Lewis accused him of replacing his allegiance to his people with loyalty to her. It all seemed worthwhile, looking into her eyes. His people didn't understand the self-sacrificing courage of her kind, how it compensated for ruthlessness with such surprising tenacity. She had come, against all odds, unarmed, to save him. It was completely incomprehensible and stirred treacherous currents of raw emotion deep inside his being. "Yes," he said, answering her question.

"Are you going to tell me about it?" she prompted.

He smiled wearily. "Eventually. Do I have a choice?" Teasing her for her relentless inquisitiveness.

She smiled and the tears in her eyes made them shimmer like tourmaline in the firelight. "No," she answered. She raised his hand in hers and held it to her heart for a moment then raised it to her lips and kissed it.

He reached past her lips with his surrendered fingers and wiped her tears away. He let her emotions encompass and enter without trying to analyze and separate them from what reached back new and raw from within his own frame. For the first time he was sorry for her blindness, her human inability to sense emotions as he could. He wanted to fill the gap with words and tell her what he felt, but her eyes widened and filled with light and comprehension as if she didn't need his explanations. Sloan leaned down and covered his lips with hers sealing the words away.

It took a moment for him to return her kiss, but by then he felt unsure of just where he began and she left off. His sense of her emotions melded so completely with his own that there was no distinction.

When their lips parted, Tom stared into Sloan's eyes with wonder.

"I feel what you feel," he said, amazed. He knew the words were inadequate. He didn't know how to make her understand the magnitude of what he meant.

Her smile blazed and a sob caught in her throat. She understood completely. Though she had never given much thought to this facet of a relationship with someone who can sense emotions. Tom possessed a capacity for empathy that could reach deep, nurture a true understanding of her greatest desires and deepest feelings. She caught the wonder in his voice and in his expression. What must it be like to feel emotions that were always like treasures meant for other people? For the first time she understood a hunger in Tom, a craving that reached out for emotions she possessed, often to a debilitating and embarrassing degree.

A memory sprang to mind that she would never in her life forget, but was just now coming to understand. When he'd come to kill her and she asked why he couldn't do it, he had sounded so anguished when he exclaimed, "because you feel!" She hadn't really grasped the dilemma that tormented him, nor understood that he had the ability to sense emotions. Later on, after she began to suspect his ability, he confessed that his advantage could be a burden. She remembered his exact words and the flicker of pain in his eyes when he summed it up in those simple searing words, "to know." Now she knew what he truly meant. That it was a burden to be able to sense emotion that you weren't allowed to feel. It was a horror to be a killer and an instrument of destruction when you could sense the emotions of your victims. He could sense what he inspired. He couldn't escape it even if he wanted to and the only avenue left was to distance himself from experiencing the emotions from within. Perhaps that's what all his kind resorted to. Perhaps it was the main reason they wanted to destroy human beings and the source of this unrelenting onslaught of vicarious sensations.

I feel what you feel.... it was as if he had been born blind and was saying, I see what you see. Sights explained never have the impact of first hand experience. She knew she couldn't begin to imagine what he was feeling and thinking. She placed her hands on either side of his face and tried to open her heart and let him completely in.

"Then you know. And I don't have to say it," she said. And watched dumb struck with compassion and amazement as tears slipped from his peerless blue eyes. He stared with an expression of disbelief and wonder. She nodded to reinforce what he was sensing was true.

"For the first time, I wish you were like me," he said, horrified that he would ruin this perfect moment with his honesty.

She kissed him again. "I understand. We humans have a sixth sense of our own. It may not be as accurate but it has its moments," she said gently.

"I don't understand why you don't hate me, Sloan. Everything I am, all I've done..." he confessed.

"Shhhh... part of being human is being able to forgive," she whispered. "You don't need to understand. Some things are beyond that. They take a leap of faith."

"Is that science?" he jested soberly.

She smoothed his hair back and smiled tenderly. "No. Some of the best things in life come without a speck of logic and no way to quantify their value."

At the entrance of the cave in the shadows beyond the fire light, Ed stood vigil. The unmerciful acoustics of the cavern carried every soft word with painful clarity. He closed his eyes and tried to close his heart, but there was no protection from the hurt. Sloan was in love with Tom. Her incredible incisive nature had uncovered qualities in this member of the new species, and her compassion and tenacity had nurtured them to life. How ironic was it that she was capable of seeing so much in a stone cold killer of an alien race, and yet was blind to the love that had always patiently waited in plain sight?

Maybe that wasn't fair... They'd always been just close friends. He'd always gotten the crystal clear impression that to offer anything more would scare her off. She was affectionate, but had the biggest personal space of anyone he'd ever met. Admittedly, he'd been put off a little by her intimidating intellect. He knew Sloan wouldn't be the kind of woman that would be simple to accommodate. They met on an intellectual level, had a camaraderie that sort of precluded lustful chemistry... Until Daniels came along, he didn't think he wanted her as much as this... this awful feeling of losing her. To see the way she looked into Daniel's eyes made his heart lurch and his stomach tighten.

What kind of friend was he who couldn't be happy for her? He chastised himself bitterly, answering in the same miserable tone, the kind who loved her too much to be a friend. He pushed himself away from the cavern wall and walked out into the cold night air, praying for their ride to come soon before he did something stupid.

Daniels was one of the new species, destined to wipe out good old ordinary men like himself. "They don't need to kill us off," he muttered, kicking an inoffensive rock from his path, "they can push us out of the gene pool. They're stronger, smarter, snappy dressers... If they can sing, dance, and take out the trash, ordinary human men don't stand a chance."

Ed knew his bitter thoughts were unworthy, but indulged them anyway. He had to concede that Tom was in a difficult position, if he really had turned against his own kind and wasn't actually part of some deep, elaborate ploy. If Tom was what he said he was, then that threw a lot of their theories about the new species into the air. It would mean they weren't all predisposed to be killers.

He couldn't help but have his suspicions. Despite his faith in Sloan's intellect, he doubted her judgment where it was clouded with emotion. He felt helpless and responsible for keeping an objective eye on Daniels, but the scientist in him knew he couldn't be objective either, not when it came to Sloan.

It was tearing him up and he wondered if he should tell her. He could picture how her eyes would widen and look so stunned when he confessed his feelings, as if she truly hadn't a clue. The thought added to his bitterness. He stared up at the magnificent desert sky and groaned, Tom had more insight than she did. Tom had confessed that he never meant to come between Ed and Sloan. Tom knew right off how Ed felt and Sloan was oblivious or, if not oblivious, then damn unaffected.

One star became brighter and brighter until Ed realized it was a helicopter closing fast on his position. "Are you Glenda the good witch? Or one of the bad ones..." he muttered and ran back to the cavern. "Company!" he called out.

Sloan helped Tom get to his feet. Ed had to admit the guy was tough. He didn't look it, and that was sort of satisfying in a competitive way. It was fascinating to watch the way his expression changed as he concentrated on that weird sixth sense.

"It's Attwood," Tom announced. "His boss is with him."

The three of them shared looks of profound distaste that promptly brought a grin to all their faces.

"We have to get you to a hospital," Ed said to Tom.

Tom shook his head. "No."

Ed sighed. "Right, you probably can't go to a regular hospital. Well, the lab will have to do. I have some stuff there. At least we can get you patched up better."

"We heal fast," Tom assured him.

Ed rolled his eyes. "That figures," he grumbled. He put his arm around Tom and helped Sloan support him. They moved slowly from the cavern just as the helicopter was coming in. It moved slowly over the burning wreckage of the crashed copter and then settled in the dusty parking area. Trash flew up from the sage brush and spun through the air with swirls of dust. They ducked under the rotors as the door opened to admit them.

From the front seat next to the pilot Attwood opened the door to meet them. "Are you alright, Tom?" Walter inquired. Then recoiled from the withering looks the three sent his way. "Obviously not," he answered his own question.

Two men got out of the passenger area and headed for the cavern at the blond woman's stern direction.

"Where is Lewis?" she demanded.

"We don't know. He escaped with the others," Sloan answered.

The woman completely ignored her and turned her cold gaze to Tom. "Did you learn anything significant?"

Tom glared with open contempt. "Not to jump from moving cars," he replied with unveiled sarcasm.

"Mr. Daniels, I think you should show more gratitude for my help," she chastised.

He settled back against the seat and cocked his head regarding her with a cool discerning expression. "First, I'd like to know just what part you played in Lewis' supposed escape. Did you really think it would be that easy to track him? Just exactly when did you lose him? Or did you cut some sort of deal that you thought you could hold him to?"

Even Attwood stared at the woman with incredulous dismay. "Is this true?" he demanded.

She was too poised to let her discomfort show. She unfastened her seat belt. "Take them back to the lab," she commanded into her headset. She took off the headset and began to exit the helicopter. "I'll wait for the others. We'll see if we can't pick up the trail," she said calmly. "As for Mr. Daniels accusations... I'd consider the source if I were you Walter," she advised. She shut the door and walked slowly toward the cavern as the copter began to rise.

"Was that true?" Sloan asked holding Tom's arm. "Was she involved in Lewis' escape?"

Attwood interrupted Tom's response. "She wouldn't. Lewis is too dangerous!"

Tom turned from looking out the window to regard them with a serious expression. "It was just a hunch. She was alarmed, afraid... guilty," he said.

"No wonder she wanted to get away from you as fast as possible. She couldn't hide her emotions. You would know she was lying," Sloan guessed.

"She helped Lewis escape. What is she?" Ed exclaimed, "insane or just stupid?"

Attwood sighed deeply. "Powerful," he supplied, with weary resignation. "You have no idea just how influential she is."

"What the hell is her name?" Ed wondered out loud.

"Trust me," Attwood advised. "The less you know, the better."

Sloan disagreed vehemently, "We can't work that way, Walter! Who is she? Who does she work for?"

"For your own safety. I won't tell you, not yet, Sloan," Attwood insisted stubbornly.

She was about to argue, but was distracted by Tom. His head was bowed and his skin was cold and pale.

Ed noticed and reached across to take Tom's pulse. "He's dehydrated and shocky. It's a miracle he's lasted this long. We have to get him someplace where we can give him medical attention."

Attwood dug out an emergency kit and asked the pilot for some water which was stored in among the emergency supplies. Sloan poured some into the small flask cap and held it to Tom's lips. He stirred at her insistent touch, roused by the scent of water. He drank feverishly.

Sloan felt foolish for not thinking of this simple unexpressed need. Her eyes met Ed's with wordless suffering.

"It's all we can do for him now," Ed apologized.

"They didn't even give him any water," she said faintly.

All he could do was nod grimly. "Yeah, well compassion isn't their strong suit is it?" he observed.

Tom passed out again, his head resting on Sloan's shoulder. She shifted him into her arms so that his body lay across the seat with his head and shoulders on her lap.

Sloan looked at her old friend. "Ed, he told me they would come after him for not killing me. I didn't really think he'd be in more danger than the rest of us, but Lewis will do anything to get him back. They won't let him go."

"You think getting Tom back is more of a priority for them than stopping our work at the lab?" Ed said.

She nodded urgently. "I think so."

"Which means," Attwood interrupted, "that Mr. Daniels is more important than we've been led to believe." He twisted in his seat to regard them with serious intent.

Sloan was alarmed that Walter had overheard. "He didn't lie to us!" she insisted defensively.

"I didn't say he was solely responsible for the deception, but the fact is, he is more important than a mere operative," Walter argued implacably.

She couldn't help but cradle Tom protectively. "Walter, he has enough to deal with. I'm serious. Leave this alone," she said. She had never felt so fierce and so determined. It was a frightening power.

Attwood nodded almost imperceptibly, but there was sincere acknowledgment in his eyes. He turned around and faced the front.

She glanced up at Ed who was staring as if he'd never seen this side of her.

"You're going to make one terrific mother, Sloan. Like a lioness," he observed.

She tensed against his sarcasm but could see in his dark eyes that he was being utterly serious and meant nothing but a sincere compliment. So she sighed and relaxed and reached out for his hand. "Thank you, Ed. Thank you for everything. I know... I know this must be hard."

"You do?" he said lightly.

She nodded. "Yeah, I do. I never meant to hurt you. You're my best friend. When that start to hurt?"

He shrugged and felt uncomfortable, pinned by her intense scrutiny and signature emotional directness. "Maybe, when I realized that it wasn't my choice anymore," he admitted.

They stared at each other for a long moment then shared a smile. Sloan squeezed his hand and let him go. Tom stirred in her arms and her attention was diverted. "Hold on, Tom," she urged and felt him settle.

They landed near the university, behind the lab. Ed rushed out and got one of the lab gurneys. Walter and Sloan helped Ed get Tom on the gurney. They pushed it with careful haste to the shelter of the lab. Tom moaned and struggled to wake.

"It's alright, Tom," Sloan comforted. "Try to lie still."

They wheeled him into the lab and lifted him onto the examination table. Tom opened his eyes and one hand reached out and took hold of Ed's arm.

"Don't tie me down," he said harshly.

Ed was shocked and he looked guiltily at Sloan. He tensed uncomfortably. "Don't worry about it. We won't."

Tom's eyes searched feverishly and locked on Attwood. "Don't," he said.

Sloan frowned. "I think he's talking about when we chained him up after Lewis had control of him. He's hallucinating." She put her hands on Tom's good shoulder and tried to comfort him, as Walter rolled in the portable x ray machine.

Ed's eyes met Tom's clear lucid stare. "I promise," he said plainly.

Tom closed his eyes and relaxed.

Sloan stared with consternation over Tom's battered body to regard Ed. "What?" she asked.

Ed just shook his head. "Get bandages and the kit, Sloan," he directed. She made a visible effort to quell her curiosity and rushed to gather what they needed.

As soon as she was gone Tom opened his eyes again. "I may not be able to do this," he informed in a calm emotionless tone. "My training. I might react without meaning to."

Ed thought he sounded apologetic as if being a trained killer who could wreck havoc just on instinct was in the realm of an embarrassing reflex. "We'll be careful," he responded dryly. "Don't worry. You'll be out cold." He took Tom's pulse and noted with interest how the slower heart rate jumped. He felt a twinge of sympathy and added. "It'll be alright."

Tom sighed and shifted in pain. "I don't mean to offend you," he apologized with discomfort. His words were clipped and terse. "It's hard to trust..."

"Humans," Ed supplied grimly. "Yeah, I guess it must be, when you've been trained all your life that we're the enemy." But the blue eyes caught him with the most disconcerting stare. Ed recognized, with a chill down his spine, that it was an inhuman gaze, like the mannerisms Tom felt comfortable enough to reveal to them showing his true self, his real identity. Suddenly, Ed felt the revelation as a kind of offering, a kind of trust and his heart thawed a little. "I'll take care of you," he promised.

Sloan entered pushing a cart with a careful assortment of bandages and equipment. "I didn't know what to get. I think I brought almost everything we have."

Ed drew a shot and gave it to Tom. "This will take care of the pain, and put you out," he said. "Or at least it would if you were a 400 lb. Lowland Gorilla."

[][][][]

There was a pale amber light slanting across the ceiling. He followed it with a slow turn of his head and saw it touch Sloan's hair with fiery highlights. She was sitting in a chair beside his bed. Her soft auburn hair a riot of uncombed curls. The sunlight touched her face, running fingers of gold over the smooth skin and her slightly parted lips.

Tom stared in wonder, it was the single most beautiful sight he'd ever beheld and he wanted nothing more than to just let his vision linger.

She woke slowly. Her long black lashes fluttered and then her eyes focused on him and she smiled.

"Tom, you're awake," she greeted.

"I was watching you sleep," he said softly. "You looked so peaceful."

She smiled, flattered. "I've been watching you too. How are feeling?"

He almost told her the truth, but mercifully, he lied. "Alright. Thirsty. Where am I?"

She moved quickly to pour him a glass of water. "Crash room. All the labs have one for the techs to catch some rest in."

"How long was I out?" he asked.

She helped him sit up and drink. "Two days," she answered. "We had to keep you drugged." Her voice faltered.

He looked away in shame. "Did I hurt anyone?" he asked quietly.

She pressed her hand gently to his shoulder. "No. You didn't know where you were, or who we were. You were pretty out of it." She tried to comfort out of his despair. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"I'm sorry you saw me like that," he said miserably. "I'm sorry."

She turned his face to hers. "Tom, don't be sorry for who you are. I don't want you to feel that way. I know we're different, but that doesn't have to come between us. Pretending we're not, trying to hide our differences, feeling shame, that isn't the way. We have to share. We have to be honest with each other, its the only way to build trust and understanding."

He gave her a quizzical look. "Interspecies relations?" he asked with just a touch of humor.

She scoffed. "Who says anything about species? I'm talking about men and women."

He shared her humor but couldn't afford to laugh, but he basked in her smile and the sparkle in her eyes.

She brushed his hair gently into place with her fingertips. "You don't know how good it is to see you smile again. I was so scared when Lewis took you."

He took a slow careful breath and let it out in a controlled sigh. "I want to protect you, Sloan. I don't like knowing I'm a danger to you. As long as Lewis is still out there, I'm a target."

"Do you think he'll come here?" she asked.

"No," he said shortly. "At least not for a long time. His primary goal will be to protect the others. They'll move, change bases. He'll go underground for awhile."

"Are you sure?" she asked.

He nodded. "He'll still come, eventually." She was afraid. He could sense that. He could also sense something else. Her look was determined.

"We'll face that when it comes. We'll fight," she said, staring directly into his eyes, pulling him in with her remarkable strength of will.

"We'll fight," he agreed.

The unnamed emotion passed from her touch with a radiant warmth that stirred his soul and he knew in that moment that it was worth fighting, even dying, for. And he knew, because it wrapped around every sense he possessed, that she felt the same. It filled him with a heady joy and he realized, most of all, this warm, life-affirming emotion growing between them was worth living for.

"Do you feel what I feel?" she asked mischievously.

He let his eyes drink her in and said fervently. "Yes."





THE END





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