Title: The Nemesis Project
Chapter 2: Not Right
Synopsis: A patient escapes a secret Psi-Corp facility on Mars struggling to reach Babylon 5 with the Rangers help.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. DUH!
Rating: Seriously. Same as TV show. Anything really nasty and I will point it out here!
A/N: 2 reviews in 24 hours… cool… So I'm slacking off my Uni work to write this.
Chapter notes: Well… Slightly longer chapter than last one – but don't get used to it… Or regular updates.
This is mainly exposition on my new characters… Oh – and peeps might wanna go back and glance at the Prologue again if some of this seems not to make sense ;-) Oh and the last bit isn't a flashback really. It's more sort of a look inside a person. Weird I know but I promise it will make sense eventually… Umm… Maybe!
Sorry, meant to do this last chapter…
Reviews:
Hilary Weston: Thanks, thanks, thanks and yeah… I got a bit excited and posted before beta-ing it… I always do that… I have gone back and fixed everything I found. And Marcus… Always a reason for reading any fic ;-) btw- when are you gonna update 'Mother Earth'?
Evilclone: Hiding? Me? Nope…. Just back at Uni… Scummy people giving me essays and worksheets, and pop-tests etc etc etc… cries And yeah about the whole Buffy thing… Then again I like Buffy too…
Anonymous: You'll just have to wait and see…
PadawanMage: Might do, might do... And I put something up in chapter two, basically between 'Epiphanies' and 'The illusion of Truth'… For the moment.
Hikari-Kayko: I updated! I Updated! LOL
Harry 2: Thanks. Start alright – it's the updating and finishing that's not so hot!
Jason had jerked back rather sharply at these strange words, and in doing so he saw his contact standing behind the girl. The man's face was pale and he was holding onto the dark haired girl with one shaking hand, on the other side of the girl was a small man, his face all but dripping sweat, eyes darting from the girl to Jason and the building behind him.
"Stars above Kellty!" he growled in harsh whisper at his contact. "She scared the shit out of me!" he looked back at the girl, she wasn't looking at him now, rather she was looking at the door he had stepped out of, her little head cocked to one side, dark tresses falling across her face, eyes half closed as though listening. He noticed she was swaying slightly, as though to some distant song only she could hear.
"Sorry man, she jus-"
"Can we get the freakin' hell outta here?" interrupted the short man. He was nervously jumping from foot to foot, his face was pale and sickly in the pale light.
Jason nodded, looking at the girl again as he made to walk past her, she was now staring at the wall of the seedy little bar, peering intently at the permacrete as though it were the most interesting thing in the universe. There was definitely something not right about her.
The two others tugged her along the narrow garbage filled alley, Jason shook his head. Dust. That had to be it, the resistance really were using dust kids. She was most likely on just enough of the disgusting stuff to give her heightened awareness, but not enough to drive her over the edge and mind-rape everyone around her.
He had heard of the Resistance using a combination of Dust and a couple of other drugs including sedatives to induce a state of telepathy in some of their own people to help them escape bloodhounds and avoid raids and the like. From the looks of this girl he'd rather use old-fashioned commonsense and good mental training to avoid detection any day.
He led them through a series of back alleys until they came to a small building pressed right up against the side of the dome. He glanced at his contact and motioned silently to a crate. As they were about to pull it aside the girl giggled. It was a giggle Jason had not heard the like of before, it sent a chill down his spine.
"They know where you run, they know where you hide." The sing song tone was shaded by the hoarseness of the girls voice. "mice in the maze, run where they tell, hide where they know… They can sniff out the living, freeze the dead." Her voice dropped lower and lower, her eyes fixed on the side of the little building, even as she tried to back away.
With chilling certainty Jason looked at the wall, she was staring straight at the concealed doorway. It looked like part of the wall but it wasn't. The little man Jason assumed was resistance was shaking like a leaf, Jason noticed with distaste the dark stain on the man's trousers, yet still he had kept his grip on the dark-haired girl – as though she were his lifeline. Perhaps she was.
"Kellty?" he questioned softly.
"Here?" his contact asked in a shaky voice. Without looking at him Jason nodded, his eyes still fixed on the dark haired girl, who, step by step, was dragging the little man away from them. "Don't know." Resistance found her, she wandered right into one of their bases. Started talking gibberish, then she started... She was pulling things out of their heads, thoughts, random shit. Then she talked rational like. My contact inside said she used your name. Said you actual name Jason. She- "
At his name the girl had frozen completely. Jason glanced briefly at his contact, he too was shaking with fear. Jason became aware his hands were shaking, palms slick with sweat, his mouth was dry. He looked back to find her walking back towards him, for the first time he realised she was wearing only a short dirty tunic underneath a raggedy long grey coat and chunky shoes that looked a size too big for her small ankles.
"They are coming for you." She did not look him in the eye, rather she stared at his chest, at the place where under his jacket… convulsively he put his hand on the spot she stared at. He could feel the reassuring lump of his Ranger badge pressing against his hand.
"Run." The word was soft, but it was all the impetuous Jason needed.
Marcus looked down at the young woman's face. He had seen faces like it before. On the urchins in down-below, on kids and young girls on countless other planets. A face that should be innocent but had seen too much darkness. Under-nourished and pale, the cheekbones rose too harshly, the eyes were sunk too deep, tiny slender arms that had a wiry strength to them. Yes he had seen people like this before.
But few had held quite the same air of mystery. For example, small slender hands, under the dirt on them he could see nails that had been manicured. A few were broken, one them had been cleaned where the break had caused bleeding, there were scratches and scrapes but beneath it all he could almost sense a past not so distant where those hands might have been holding school books not climbing walls. And crawling through sewerage. He had already looked at her clothing, it was wrong too. The short tunic was like a sleeping shirt, soft material of quality.
It didn't make sense. None of it made sense. She was not a street girl, yet she had the appearance of a street girl. She was important enough to Jason for him to have risked his life protecting her. But was she of importance to the rangers? Anyone who knew Jason knew that at times could confuse duty to the rangers with duty to those in trouble. If this kid was on the run from Earth Force for political crimes or some such Jason might well have sent her for no more reason than to keep her away from them.
That she knew something useful seemed far more unlikely. Then again few things seemed unlikely to him these days. He brushed at her forehead, touching those small marks, Stephen had gone off somewhere, muttering about them being familiar. Behind Marcus Sheridan shifted, a soft noise telling Marcus he was growing impatient. He looked up as the Captain stepped up beside him.
"Any thoughts?" he asked in his usual blunt way. Marcus sighed.
"Not really… Only…" He paused, trying to think how to put his musings into words.
"Only what?" asked the Captain before he could gather his thoughts.
"I'm not sure, but something's not right." He looked down again. "She's not a street kid, but at first glance that would be my guess. She isn't old enough really to be of use to us so why would he send her?" he looked over at Brennit Morley in the intensive care room, two nurses were bustling around him.
Brennit was a clever man, but also a man with a healthy dose of self-interest. Putting his craft into the state it had been in, a level of life-support he knew would probably kill them both and then propping the girl up next to the air vent and putting heat packs around her suggested she must be important.
But how? And why?
Just then the computer bleeped at them "Scan complete." The monotone voice informed them. Marcus turned to call out to Stephen when a whole series of alarms went off in the next room. Marcus and Sheridan rushed over to the glass observation window to see Brennit bucking and leaping and Stephen rushing in to bark orders at his people. The monitor's were going crazy.
"We're losing him, we're losing him." Called one of the voices. The heart rate monitor issued it's flat sound to inform them that the heart had stopped beating. Suddenly Marcus became aware of someone beside him.
Slowly he turned his head until he saw the small figure looking into the room, her face was tilted inquiringly into the room.
"He's falling…" the voice was soft but somehow harsh. Behind him Sheridan issued a muffled curse of surprise as he also turned to look at the dark haired girl.
Wide grey eyes stared into the room, no past the room Marcus realised. Staring at something he couldn't see, her head listening to something he couldn't hear.
"He's falling." She repeated.
Standing on the cliff. Standing on the mountainside, darkness stretches out far below. He standing on the cliff, he's looking out below as a hot dark wind blows across them. She reaches up; her hand hits something cold, something smooth. She looks at the glass window. The thought somewhere deep in her mind is that glass windows don't suddenly appear on desert cliff tops. Like a mirage floating over reality she watches a man in dark clothing waver in and out of view.
He is looking at her. He is saying something. Is he? Is he?
He looks at her. She can't look back. Eyes like those can burn you.
She doesn't want to burn.
'-s's not right… not right'
No. I'm not right… but that thought is a whisper she can't hear, not something understood. Something known. But not understood.
