Chapter 10: - Collect Call
A.N: - Thanks for the reviews peeps please keep them coming, anywho on with the show I mean story.
Jamie hit the enter key to accept the call, the screen read caller unknown, collect call do you accept the charges? As soon as the call was accepted the identity of the caller was revealed. Baby's face filled the screen, her white eyes focused upon the camera.
"Baby" Jamie whispered.
Baby began to speak in a monotonous drone. "Who I am is not important. Who I represent is not important. What I want is important. The fate of your team mate standing in front of you rests upon your ability to follow my demands."
"What are your demands? You coward, you need to use Baby as your puppet to do your dirty work" Jamie yelled before anyone could restrain him.
"I'd hold your tongue if I were you. Baby here is quiet defenceless" Baby said raising her hand up to show a hand gun which she pointed at her own temple. "She'd quiet willingly pull the trigger." It was very creepy to hear Baby talk about herself in third person.
"No" Jamie whispered again his eyes glued to the screen.
"What do you want? We'll meet your demands" Brennan said with an air of outer calm that didn't match his inner emotions.
"What do I want? What do I want?" Baby's tone remained the same as she tapped the gun against her chin in a way which would normally look thoughtful although with her lack of facial expression it was merely menacing "Well that's the key question isn't it"
The others made no response, but waited impatiently to hear what they had to do. Suddenly the puppeteer decided to cut to the chase. "I want Mutant X to deliver to me a copy of Adam Kane's mutant database. Well actually you will deliver it to your friend here" Baby said meaning herself.
"and if we comply?" Shalimar asked hastily.
"If you allow Baby to deliver the disk to me I will release her from my control. If however you attempt to stop her she will very quickly feel the need to take her own life" Baby raised the gun to her temple again and said "bang!"
Lexa ever the cynic asked "Why should we trust you'll do as you say?"
"You have no choice," was the simple reply "You will meet Baby at the canal, lock gate 27 at midnight. Do not be late, or…" Baby shot the camera at point blank range.
The team starred at the static filled computer screen until Jamie lent forward and terminated the call from their end. "At least we know she's alive" he said desolately.
"We also know this guy is pretty smart, he knows by using Baby we have no way of identifying him" Brennan said.
Jamie had been hammering away at the keyboard "unsurprisingly its untraceable, the signals been bounced around literally millions of times to places all over the world."
"I can keep looking through the database and see if I can remember where I know his scent from" Shalimar said "but I don't think knowing who he is necessarily going to solve the problem."
"You're probably right. We need a plan!" Lexa announced.
"You got any ideas," Jesse asked hopefully.
"Not really. But I know we can not give whoever he is a disc with the database on it. We've tried the fry it if things get dicey approach before and it didn't exactly get the result we wanted" Lexa said pointedly as Brennan glared at her.
Jamie agreed with Lexa "but what other choice do we have, I don't want anyone having that info but…" he trailed off.
"We'll just have to fake it, give them a blank disk." Shalimar interrupted.
"Great plan! We give Baby a fake, she takes it to him, he checks it and he kills her! Just great!" Jamie said sarcastically.
"No wait I see where Shal's going with this. If we put a tracer in the disk, we can follow Baby back to this guy and stop him before he can kill her" Jesse said.
"Will that work?" Lexa asked.
"It's the best chance we have. Besides this guy seems pretty sure of himself and if he's cocky he's careless." Brennan said matter of factly.
"Can we implant a tracer in a disc in so little time though" asked Jamie speculatively.
"Sure if everyone pitches in to clean up the lab, it's in kind of a mess." He blushed slightly "but uhh I think we can find everything we need."
"Do I want to ask why the labs in such a state?" Brennan asked snidely.
"Yeah, we couldn't help but hear a whole load of crashing" Jamie joined the ribbing.
Lexa looked at Jesse who seemed to have developed an overly keen intrest in a large potted plant. He was clearly going to be of no use whatsoever. She carefully thought over her response before admitting "Me and Jesse had a slight miscommunication problem that resulted in a minor demolition of the lab before a cease fire was agreed to" she smiled at the smirks on the others faces in response to her wordy reply. Jesse's face showed that he appreciated her curtailed version of events but upon seeing his relief she couldn't help but stir things up a little bit. She added "but it's entirely his fault!"
The others laughed at her childish taunt and the look of indignation on Jesse's face. He was obviously flustered. "I'll admit I did most of the damage. I went kind of AWOL when I thought she was dead" they gasped at this previously unheard part of the story.
"Calm down, I'm blatantly not dead people! Jesse needs to remember to check the heart monitors connected to the patient before he pronounces them dead!" Lexa explained.
He blushed "Were on a tangent here, but you're the one who went mental and start…" he was cut off abruptly when Lexa leant over and kissed him hard on the mouth.
"Shut up!" she said as she pulled away.
"Yes M'am" was Jesse's smiling response as he saluted her.
"Dude you are so whipped?" said a laughing Brennan ignoring Lexa's glare.
"Says you" was Jesse's response looking pointedly at Shalimar.
Brennan turned to the glaring feral besides him and unwilling to feel her wrath said meekly "point taken" as he pulled her into his side.
"Guys, as nice as this is, and I really mean that. Can we go sort out this tracer thing" said a still worried Jamie.
"Sure one disc avec tracer coming up" said Jesse.
The tracer implanted disc was created with plenty of time to spare, and after glancing at a map, they decided upon the best strategy for entering the location. With two and a half hours to spare the team set off in the Lark to reach the rendezvous point.