Monday dawned bright and clear. Rose felt exactly the opposite. She'd slept poorly and there was a sour taste in her mouth as she got ready for work. She'd been forced to skip her morning coffee, her stomach already too awash in acid to even contemplate adding more. If she could have called in sick without raising suspicions, she would have. At least her shields were holding and her emotions were mostly composed by the time she arrived.
Unfortunately, passing by Thorne's office almost made her lose her hard won composure. He was gloating and very pleased. That boded poorly for some new mutant, but there wasn't anything she could do about it.
The alert that popped up on her screen as soon as she logged into her computer did cause Rose's composure to slip, but at least there wasn't anyone to see it. She had a meeting with Eckhardt at 11 am. Combined with what she'd felt from Thorne, she dreaded finding out what the subject of the meeting would be. Burying herself in the minutiae of GSA rules and regulations at least kept her mind busy in the intervening hours.
It also helped her build her mental walls up enough to distance herself from Thorne's emotions. It didn't seem to be enough to stop her mind from providing the words that might go along with those emotions, which was odd, but it wasn't something she had time or energy to think about just then. At least she had enough warning to maintain an impassive expression even as she felt the same emotions amplified threefold as she entered Eckhardt's office.
"Ms. Briggs. Mr. Thorne reports favorably on your progress. Today you will be joining him on a GSA raid. You are to stay in the background and observe only."
Rose heard the words, but her mind was providing her with a made-up litany of the thoughts behind him and she almost winced. Panic started to set in as she realized Eckhardt and Thorne were both waiting for a response. She managed a nod and a soft thank you for the opportunity. It was enough. Eckhardt dismissed her with instructions to get the details from Thorne and she hurried back to her cubicle.
A few minutes after she logged back in, Thorne sent her the details, and her instructions. Because of her research expertise, her job was to obtain the floor plans of the safe-house they were raiding, and to posit the likely security measures. And she only had an hour to do it.
The address made it a simple task to obtain the floor plans, or at least the originals. No doubt they had been changed, but there was still a fair amount of information she could get from it. She knew the area of town the safe-house was in and that allowed her to make some assumptions and educated guesses about the more obvious security options.
Half an hour after she'd received the assignment, Rose was headed out to her car. She slipped behind the wheel and laid her head against the headrest, closing her eyes for a moment. She'd known, from the minute she ran into Jesse, that sooner or later the two lives she was living were going to collide. It seemed like today was the day. She felt sick and was only just keeping her fear from taking over.
After a few deep breaths, Rose dug her phone out of her pocket and pried the back cover off. It took a minute to switch out the SIM chip, slide the cover back on and power up the phone. Once it was ready, she opened an app and made a few modifications. She was too impatient to make all the changes she'd intended to. The number she needed was already in the speed dial list though this time she added the extra code on the card that Jesse had given her. She kept the message short, there was little enough time as it was.
"There's going to be a raid on the safe-house on 24th street in about 90 minutes. Sorry I couldn't warn you sooner but I just found out."
It only took a couple of minutes to reconfigure her phone and then she was heading back inside to give Thorne the information she'd come up with.
"Shit." I looked at the time-stamp on the message and then at the clock. I'd caught the message as it came in, but there wasn't any time to waste. I slid out from behind the computer, keying my comlink on the run. "Safe-house raid in less than 90 minutes. I'm firing up the Helix. Details on the way."
By the time I'd received acknowledgments from the rest of the team, I was already firing up the Double Helix. Even as Brennan slid into the other pilot's seat, I had the craft in the air and headed out of the hanger bay.
"Coordinates are loaded, Bren. You got it?"
The dark head nodded as he took the controls. Brown eyes looked over at me curiously. "What's going on, bro? How come the short notice?"
I was already pulling up the call and putting it on the speakers. I filled in the few details I had as soon as it ended. "Our mysterious informant apparently came into the information late. Scrambled number and voice modified like before. Two differences this time. They used the scramble code when they called and the voice modification wasn't as complex. Our caller is a woman."
As I spoke, I shunted the schematics for the safe-house to my teammates screens. As the images came up, the atmosphere shifted from frantic to controlled. I could tell my teammates were still worried, the lack of time to plan would make things more dangerous, but this was something we were used to, and we weren't going in completely blind.
"This is safe-house 9. It's one of our smaller ones, only houses three or four people. There is a back door, but I wouldn't suggest using it. It leads to a narrow alley lined with fire escapes. Anyone going out that way would be a sitting duck."
Brennan made an adjustment to our course and activated the stealth systems on the Helix. "Can you take the back then, Jess? You can hold that doorway if the GSA sends someone in that way."
I nodded, updating the plans and sending a copy back to Adam at Sanctuary. As rushed as we were, my anxiety had increased out of proportion. The fact that we were on a short time table reminded me of Rose and that sense of running out of time. Something else was nagging me, but I didn't have time to figure it out now. I could only hope we were in time to thwart the raid and figure out everything else later.
Dressed in a regulation GSA suit, Rose slid into the backseat of the black SUV with some trepidation. Thorne took the front passenger seat as the driver turned the engine over. For most of the drive, she listened as Thorne lectured on what was expected of her. She barely listened, hoping the safe-house would prove to be empty. It wasn't until just before they arrived that she actually listened to him. "Ms Briggs. You will be accompanying Waters and Shulman. Your job is to make sure that no one gets out the back door."
Thorne let her out at the end of a narrow alley. Two cookie cutter GS agents were waiting for her and she assumed they were Waters and Shulman though she didn't bother asking. Rose just followed them down the alley, through a couple of turnings until the end came into site.
The height of the buildings cut off both sun and wind. There was still a touch of morning chill in the shadowed alley and Rose shivered. She was grateful for the chill though. At least it kept the smell of the garbage strewn around the alley down.
The closer they got to the end of the alley, the more Rose started to pick up. It was hard to keep her expression impassive, especially with the intensity of the emotions she was sensing. If what she was feeling was at all accurate, Mutant X was in the building. They'd gotten her warning. Now they just had to get out. She'd really hoped that they'd be able to get in and out before the GSA arrived, but that had been wishful thinking given the short notice.
One familiar presence was heading for the back door and Rose took a couple of steps back. She could only hope that door wouldn't open because if it did everything she'd been working for, everything she'd allowed herself to hope for, would be gone.
It seemed her luck, what little of it Rose had, had finally run out.
xxxxx
The warning had come almost soon enough. Just a few more minutes and we would have gotten everyone out and been gone before the GSA arrived. The 3 new mutants who had been staying at the safe-house were on their way to safety at least. All we had to worry about was getting ourselves out and that we had plenty of experience with.
I headed for the back door as planned. It wasn't likely the GSA would try to send people in that way, but if they did, I could hold the door by myself until the rest of the team got away. I was already scanning the alley as I stepped outside, but I froze as the door swung shut... For a crucial second, shock and disbelief paralyzed me. GS agents I'd expected. Rose standing with them, I hadn't.
Jesse! Run! Get out of here!
The words were carried on a wave of shame and fear, directly into my mind. The power behind them overwhelmed me for few seconds, but it seemed Rose had broadcast them broadband because the two other agents were clutching their heads even as I raised mine. My eyes caught hers and in that split second, I saw a welter of emotions run across her face.
Motion in my peripheral vision caught my attention and I turned to find one of the agents pulling his gun. It wasn't me he was aiming for though, it was Rose. Even as I started to move, my brain kicked into overdrive. These agents had just discovered that one of their own was an uncontrolled mutant. That made her a traitor and a more immediate threat than I was... And that was their mistake.
I massed as I rushed the agent, spoiling his aim, but the other agent had his gun out now too. Even as I moved toward him, he took aim at Rose. There was the briefest of hesitations before she turned and ran. I wasn't close enough for anything but a high kick. I connected, but the gun went off just as I did. The agent hit wall but didn't go down. Momentum spun me around just in time to see Rose turn abruptly before hitting the brick wall behind her and fall, unmoving, to the ground.
In that moment, all the frustration and anxiety I'd been feeling coalesced. I phased through the agent who'd shot Rose and lashed out with a back kick. The connection reverberated up my leg and I felt a certain satisfaction as he dropped to the ground, already unconscious.
I'd expected an attack from the other agent, but it hadn't come. A quick scan of the surroundings found him and for a brief second I saw red. He'd just injected Rose with a subdermal governor. I rushed him, massing just before slamming him into the wall. Conscious or not, he wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon.
I was close enough by then to see the blood spreading out beneath Rose, and she still wasn't moving. Not good and I didn't have a lot of options. I activated my comlink. "Guys, I've got a mutant who's hurt bad. I'll explain later, but I'm getting her to the Helix. Meet you there."
There wasn't any time to evaluate how badly Rose was hurt. More GS agents might come down the alley or out the door. She was still breathing, if shallowly and I took that as a good sign. I knew it might cause more damage, but the need to move quickly was more important right now. I swung Rose up into a fireman's carry and after a quick mental review, phased us both through the wall and into a stairwell. It was a matter of minutes to reach the roof and the stealthed Helix. By the time the others arrived, I had Rose strapped into a seat and the medical scan parameters set.
Brennan slid past me and into the pilot's seat without even a glance at our passenger. He knew I'd be busy tending to her injuries and it would be his responsibility to get us in the air. Emma's eyes widened a bit, but something was holding her attention and she more or less felt her way into her seat. Only Shalimar took a good look at the woman I was treating and I winced as she reacted.
"What the hell, Jess? She's a GS agent!"
Shal braced herself against one of the seats, glaring at me. Brennan finished the takeoff before turning a disbelieving look in my direction. I barely glanced at either of them, intent on reading the scan results. Adam's voice came through the com system requesting an update and saving me from having to make an immediate answer. I affixed a visual cloak to Rose's temple and waited.
The exasperation was easy to hear in Shal's voice as she answered Adam. "Jesse brought an injured GS agent on to the Helix, Adam."
I felt a wry smile touch my lips as I spoke up. "I think I finally found out what Rose was hiding, Adam." A short, humorless chuckle escaped before I continued. "Guys, this is Rose. And it seems she's a telepath as well as an empath."
Shock stopped the conversation for a few seconds, but it didn't take long before Shal and Brennan found their voices, and their objections, again. I just let their voices flow around me as I set up the last of the scans and patched them through to Sanctuary. I rigged a pressure bandage over Rose's wound and finally sat down. After a minute, I lifted my comlink to my lips and triggered a private link to my mentor. "Adam, Rose was shot trying to warn me. She sent out a broadband telepathic call. They didn't know she was a mutant until then."
The other end of the link was silent for a long moment as Adam digested what I'd said. "All right Jess, I understand. But sedate her, and put a visual cloak on her. Looks like I'll get my blood sample after all."
"Visual cloak is already in place, Adam. Her scans should be coming to you now. Just tell me which sedative to use." I didn't think the sedative was necessary, but I wasn't going to argue against it. I was already going to have enough explaining to do.
"Just a minute," I heard his keyboard click a few times. "Sending you the dosage information now, Jess."
"Thanks, Adam." I knew Adam would hear the relief in my voice that I wasn't going to have to argue with him about this.
"Don't thank me yet, Jess. She may have warned you, but she's been withholding information and lying to us. And we still don't know who she really is."
I sighed, knowing he was right. "Trust me, Adam, I know. And I get the feeling this isn't the end of things." Shutting down the comlink, I got the sedative started and then kept my attention on the scans.
Shal and Brennan had apparently realized I wasn't listening to them and shut up, but a brief glance at their posture was enough to tell me they weren't happy with the situation. I wasn't about to try to explain things at the moment though, I had other things to keep my attention.
Whatever had kept Emma's attention seemed to have let go though. I caught her glance as she shook her head slightly. She looked at Rose, and then me for a few seconds, then made her way to the front of the Helix. Leaning between the pilot's chairs, I could barely hear her words to the others. "Guys, she really did risk herself for Jesse. And she knew exactly what she was doing when she did."
Blond and brown heads turned to look at the empath in surprise and they spluttered a bit before her expression registered. "From what I picked up, she lost a lot more than just her job today. So let's give her a chance before we rush to judgment, okay?"
I managed to catch Emma's eye as she returned to her seat and mouthed a thank you to her. She gave me a slight smile as she sat down and turned her attention elsewhere again. The rest of the flight was quiet to the ears, if not to our minds.
xxxxx
Pain had taken her down a dark tunnel to oblivion, and that's where Rose wanted to stay. Hints of pain intruded on occasion, trying to pull her back to the present. Rose fought to stay where she was and not just to prevent the return of the pain, though that was certainly one reason. Well, motivation, maybe, rather than reason, since rational though wasn't exactly on the play card at the moment.
Besides, the physical pain wasn't the only thing she'd left behind. Rose couldn't remember exactly what it was, but there was something she dreaded returning to even more than the pain. So she fought the return of consciousness, allowing the warm eddies of lethargy to pull her further into the darkness and overwhelm her. She fled from the hints of pain and hid herself from the presences, familiar and unfamiliar, that tried to pull her from the safety of the darkness. Whatever was waiting for her there, she wasn't up to dealing with it right now.