I had to admire whoever had set up the security systems for the secure area, even if they were making my job hard. Well, maybe not hard, but definitely more time-consuming. That made it hard to keep my mind on what I was doing.

It turned out the secure area was pretty well protected by heat and motion sensors, laser trip wires, and retinal scanners. You had to have a security card that matched your retinal scan and fingerprints to even get in. I could have gotten in and stayed undetected – for as long as I could hold my breath. Once I had to drop my phase, I'd set off every alarm there.

So we had to do it the hard way. Only one computer outside the secure area was connected to the system, and it was in an alcove protected by sensors that could only be by-passed by another security card. Luckily, I had access to the main security system. The first security card was easy.

It gave me access to the computer I needed, and that computer had the specs for creating the card required for the secure area. Then it was back to the main security computer because that was where the card encoder was.

There wasn't time to create cards for everyone. I wasn't sure I wanted to give Juliana that much information about us either. Jarod, however, was a known quantity to her. I ran through my thinking with him and before too long he had a working secure access card. We would have to stay pretty close to him until I got to a computer in the secure area. Once I did, I could probably spoof most of the sensors along our route.

Roslin woke slowly, pain buzzing along every nerve. She was still in the bio-chair, still restrained. Her senses told her she was alone. Not that the knowledge did her much good. She was well and truly caught, and she was no longer sure if escaping was worth the effort. It wasn't as if she had anywhere to escape to.

She'd had hope in Harrison's hands. She'd even had hope in Juliana's hands. Roslin frowned. Just how had she gotten from Paragon to her home? A sharp pain tore through her head, leaving despair and apathy in its wake.

And then Jesse walked in. He crossed the lab, that cold smile on his lips. The gentle caress along her jaw startled her. It also warned her before she felt his breath hot on her ear.

"I think you owe me, Roslin, and I intend to collect. You owe Brennan too. I'm sure he'll want to collect on that as well."

Jesse's voice was almost gentle, but the laugh that followed them wasn't.

"You caused us a lot of trouble, but since you have something we need, I guess I'll have to wait. At least until Adam's ready."

Roslin couldn't believe what Jesse was implying. It was so far from the man she'd come to call friend. She squeezed her eyes shut as pain shot through her head again. Jesse laughed.

His laughter faded as he moved away. Roslin heard the lab door open and shut. She was alone again, but she couldn't bring herself to take advantage it. There was no reason to fight what was happening, nothing left to fight for. Her thoughts sank into a personal darkness that seemed to last forever and no time at all.

Things had been going entirely too well for my peace of mind. Human security in the secure area was minimal, especially at this hour. It occurred to me that Juliana might have even sent some of the security guards away, if she wanted to keep what she was doing private.

We'd gotten in and found a computer without seeing signs of anyone. It took a few minutes to find the floor-plans and a bit longer to spoof the security systems. Finding which lab we needed was a process of elimination. Each lab was supposed to have a video feed, but there were eight labs on the plans and only seven in the feeds. No doubt Juliana was recording her experiments on Roslin, but she'd cut the feed out of the security loop. It worried me even more, the lump in my stomach growing heavier.

We were about two corridors from the lab when Emma whimpered, sagging against the wall. Everyone stopped. After a few seconds and a couple of deep breaths, she pushed away from the wall with just one word.

"Hurry!"

We didn't run, but we weren't far from it. Jarod broke off from the rest of us at the last cross hallway. Juliana and maybe Harrison would be in the observation room. The rest of us headed straight for the lab.

As satisfying as it would have been to bust the lab door open, it would have slowed us down and warned the people in the lab. We stopped short and I phased the wall instead. I stepped through and dropped the phase once I was sure the others had made it through.

Jarod paused outside of the observation room. He wasn't entirely certain how he was going to distract Juliana, but he ought to have a moment or two to figure it out once she saw him. He took a deep breath, opened the door and walked through it, scanning the room. It only took seconds to spot Juliana and the man next to her, just now turning toward him.

"Hello, Juliana. It's been a few years."

By her reaction, he'd caught her by surprise. Whoever she had expected to come through the door, it hadn't been him. She recovered just as quickly as he expected though.

"Jarod. This is a surprise. I certainly didn't expect to see you."

He lifted a brow, moving toward the back of the room and away from the observation window. A quick glance at Juliana's companion showed him to be indecisive.

"Dr. Harrison, perhaps you should head back to Genomex. Juliana and I need to have a talk."

Harrison looked between the two of them and nodded, leaving the room as unobtrusively as possible. Juliana watched Jarod. She waited until the door swung shut before speaking.

"What are you doing here, Jarod?"

"I came looking for you. Quite an interesting business you have here. Why Roslin?"

The corner of Juliana's lips quirked upward slightly.

"Because she owes me. I got in a lot of trouble because of her."

Jarod sighed, knowing that nothing he could say would change her mind. He had hoped, but it was time for a different tactic.

A sulfur smell brought Roslin back to the lab. Emma and Jesse were just within her sight. Adam wasn't, but he spoke from behind her.

"I need to see how physical pain affects the readings. Jesse will do the honors, since I have to watch the scans. Emma has her own job to do."

Roslin watched Jesse, though she didn't really want to. She refused to beg, to cry. She kept eye contact with him. At least until he picked up a scalpel without ever losing that slight smile. The first cut burned and then everything went black. Roslin was left alone, hanging in the midst of nothing.

As I came through the wall, the others were already in motion. Emma was at Roslin's side, studying the readouts of the equipment she was hooked up to. Brennan was herding three people in white lab coats toward the corner. They were nervously watching the electricity sparking from his fingers. Shal had just slammed a guy into the wall, knocking the headset he was wearing to the ground.

A pained sound came from Emma's direction. A glance showed Roslin, face taut with pain, straining against the restraints. Seconds later, she went limp. Emma bit her lip and started undoing the restraints quickly. Quick looks at Shal and Bren showed they had things well in hand.

I wanted to join Emma, but I had my own job to do. I headed for the closest computer, plugging in a flash drive. I ran a search, only filtering for information on Roslin or mutants. One of my favorite pieces of code moved any files that came up to the flash drive. Moved them, not copied. I was taking the data, removing it from Paragon's server so they couldn't use it in the future.

Jarod must have been successful in keeping Juliana occupied because we weren't interrupted. Shal's opponent didn't put up much of fight. I think she was actually enjoying herself as she worked the fight in the direction of Brennan and his charges. Once all the Paragon employees were together, Brennan and Shal locked them in the supply closet. Emma was frowning, studying the equipment and its readouts again.

Roslin was either asleep or unconscious – I suspected the latter. Not surprising, but worrisome. Whatever Juliana's people had done to her, it hadn't been pleasant. Whatever it was, whatever drugs they'd given her, we should be able to counter, once we figured it out. That was why I was grabbing so much data.

"You should go now, Juliana. Go home. Don't call security, and I'll keep your secrets. Otherwise, I think you and your nice little research group might find yourselves with some unwanted attention."

Juliana pursed her lips, studying her fellow Pretender. Jarod leaned against the wall, arms crossed and just looked back at her. She swore under her breath, anger and a spark of hatred in her eyes.

"If you had any proof beyond your own observations, you wouldn't be here Jarod. You'd have already reported us."

"What I do or don't have is irrelevant, and you know it, Juliana. As long as no one starts looking, it doesn't matter."

Her lips thinned and she turned her head, looking through the observation window. The team was in full control of the lab by then. When she looked back, the anger in her eyes had grown.

"You came for her. You came for Roslin, didn't you?"

"Let's just say I have an interest in some of her abilities and leave it at that, shall we? Take my offer and you have time to clean things up. Don't, and there will be investigators here by the end of the day."

The two Pretenders studied each other for several minutes. Finally Juliana sighed.

"Fine, take her and get out, but I won't forget this Jarod. If anyone comes sniffing around Paragon, you will regret it."

Jarod smiled slightly and nodded toward the door. It was time to rejoin the others.

"After you."

The lab door swung open, startling us. It was Jarod, looking just a bit harried. I frowned, letting the current file finish downloading and pulling the drive out. Something about Jarod's stance told me it was time to go.

"Let's get moving guys."

I stood up, heading for Emma and Roslin, but Jarod waved me off. He picked Roslin up himself and started for the door.

"You all have abilities we might night on the way out. I've got her."

He had a point, and it was time to go. I took a last look around before following the others. I wanted a clear memory of the place. Adam would want as much information as possible when we got back.

Things had gone so smoothly inside the secure area that we let our guard down. We made it out of the secure area and halfway back to the corporate tower before the lapse caught up with us in the shape of three security guards. I suppose we were lucky they were only armed with batons and not guns. There's no way I could have shielded everyone at the same time.

Emma and I stayed with Jarod, edging toward the corporate tower. Brennan and Shal put themselves between us and the guards. Brennan didn't bother to spark up. Three to two when one of the two was a feral wasn't much of a contest. Besides, we didn't need to take the guards out. We just needed to get out of the building. It was nerve-wracking for most of us, though Shal seemed to be enjoying herself.

I ran through the floor-plans in my head. If I remembered right, we didn't need to make our way through the corridors. If we could get to the wall behind Jarod, I could phase everyone through to the corridor behind it. A second phase through the corridor's other wall would get us to the elevators. I nudged Jarod toward the wall. Emma would stick with us, and I could count on Brennan to keep Shalimar from getting too involved in the fight.

Brennan waited until we reached the wall before sparking up. I took a deep breath, put a hand on the wall and exhaled. As the wall phased, Brennan fired off a tesla coil with just enough juice to stun the guards. I followed him through the wall and took a minute to catch my breath after I let the phase go. I didn't have much time. The guards would recover from the shock pretty quickly, so I needed to phase the next wall and get everyone through before they got to us.

I shook myself and focused on the wall as I crossed the corridor. A slow exhale and the wall phased. I waved everyone through, keeping one eye on the far end of the corridor. Shal went first, just in case someone was on the other side. Brennan waited until everyone else was through, but just as he stepped through the wall, one of the guards made it around the corner.

I let the phase go and turned to face him. I had a couple of seconds to size up the corridor. Narrow, but not narrow enough to make me uncomfortable. There wasn't room for anything fancy, so this was going to be more a boxing match than anything else.

They had a little training, but didn't know how to win this kind of fight. He didn't follow up when he landed a punch, and even though he hit hard, he didn't aim for anything vital. He did have some speed and the fight lasted longer than I liked. Finally I landed a solid combination and he hit the floor, dazed. I wiped the blood from my lower lip before exhaling and phasing through the wall to join the others. All in all, a split lip and a soon-to-be black eye were a small price to pay for getting Roslin out of there.

The others were waiting at the elevator for me. After getting caught like that, the elevator made me nervous. I knew it was clear. The tower would be empty for another hour or more. I had to take a deep breath before I followed the others into the elevator. Between the adrenaline and nerves, claustrophobia was trying to raise its head. I kept my back to the doors and my eyes on Roslin, still unconscious in Jarod's arms. It was enough to keep the walls from closing in on me. As soon as the doors opened enough for me back out of there, I did, with a huge amount of relief.

As soon as we got back to the Double Helix, Jarod and I made Roslin as comfortable as possible and started the medical scans. I did a blood draw, sending the results directly to Adam. Roslin was still out and it would take even Adam a few minutes to evaluate the data. While we waited, I plugged in the flash drive and started uploading the data to Sanctuary.

Brennan and Shalimar hand their hands full. The weather had kicked up into a pretty nasty storm. We all strapped in as turbulence shook the aircraft. I watched the progress of the upload. Emma had that distant look that said she was either connected with Roslin, or trying to connect with her. Jarod was staring at the blank screen in front of him.

Finally Adam got back to us. He was hesitant to add anything to the chemical cocktail already in Roslin's system unless it became necessary. I didn't know whether to hope Roslin would wake up before we got back to Sanctuary or not. It would reassure me, but I didn't know if it would be a good thing for her.