Thanks to my newest GS agent, Maddie Conlon, I finally had Emma deLauro. The telempathic new mutant lay unconscious in my lab. When she had joined Adam's little gang, I thought my chances of capturing her were nought, but as it turned out I should not have been so pessimistic.
"The force of your power's magnitude should have killed her," I said.
"Would you rather she was dead?" said Miss Conlon, who was standing to one side of the lab, pressing the fingers of one hand into her head.
I leaned over the unconscious Miss deLauro to take a closer look at her. Her powers were remarkable. With her on my side, I could turn the tables completely. "Having her as a prisoner gives us more options," I said. "What stopped you from delivering Mulwray?"
"I promised you a member of Mutant X and that's what you got," Miss Conlon said. She was still clutching her head.
"My concern over the toll it took on you remains, Miss Conlon," I said.
"It's just a headache. It'll go away."
"Talk to Dr Harrison about these side effects when he sees you for your fine tuning," I said.
"No. No more operations."
"If it wasn't for these operations, you'd still be a small-time hustler. Your job here remains open, Miss Conlon," I said, and turned to walk out of the lab.
"When I agreed to do this, I didn't realise everything that was involved," she said, following me.
"You're still interested, aren't you?"
"And if I say no?"
"I will certainly never force anyone to better themselves. Are you still interested, Miss Conlon?"
She took a moment to answer. "Yeah. Still interested."
"Then you have to maintain your health."
"I'm fine," she insisted.
"If you're to assume a position of authority in this organisation, we have to be certain of that," I said. With the amount of procedures I went through on a regular basis to maintain my fragile state of health, I failed to understand what her problem was. If she only knew what I was subjected to just to survive, she wouldn't complain about the occasional operation to gift her tremendous powers.
"I just need a little time to recuperate before my next operation."
"Of course. Take some time off. We can wait to meet with Dr Harrison until this afternoon. Three o' clock."
"Fine. See you at three," she said.
Dr Harrison arrived in the lab to take a look at Miss deLauro. I kept my distance, having flashbacks to the last time when I was in the lab with Dr Harrison and his so-called anaesthetised patient had assaulted me.
Dr Harrison took hold of her arm, preparing a rather large syringe. Before he could inject her, she seized him by the wrist.
"Get near me with that, Doctor, and you've breathed your last breath," she said, sitting up and twisting his wrist around.
"The man you are holding is Dr Kenneth Harrison, the GSA's most illustrious biogeneticist," I said.
Miss DeLauro seemed unmoved by that piece of information. "Is it always so damn cold in here?" she asked as she let go of him and flung him away from her.
"Well actually, the temperature of the lab has been lowered to inhibit the spread of disease and viruses," I said.
"Germs freak you out, huh?" she said, getting up from the table.
"I'm afraid Dr Harrison must complete his examination," I said. The man was still clutching his wrist.
Miss deLauro shook her head. "I'm not going to be your latest Guinea pig," she said. She kicked over a table and started attacking my agents in an attempt to escape. But several more agents blocked her path. She turned back to face me.
"Well, this is a side of Emma deLauro my intelligence told me nothing about," I said.
"Well I'm nothing like those Mutant X freaks."
"You call your own teammates freaks?" I said, wondering if this was some sort of ruse to ingratiate herself with me.
"You consider yourself normal?" Dr Harrison said.
"I consider myself gifted. Too valuable to be wasted as some mad doctor's lab rat," she said.
I found myself smiling. "I know it's a ploy, but I'm intrigued. What did you have in mind?" I asked, walking towards her.
"Why not try a real experiment? And let me join you," she said, stepping towards me.
"I beg your pardon?"
"You heard me. I wanna leave Mutant X and come work with the GSA," she said with a smile.
I smiled back, barely able to believe my luck. I was well aware that I might be walking straight into a trap, but I couldn't pass up an opportunity like this. There had to be a way I could turn it to my advantage.
I invited Miss deLauro to my office. I felt a vague discomfort about being alone with her. If what I had heard about her abilities was true, she could stare directly into my soul. The thought of anyone invading my privacy like that made me shudder in revulsion.
"I have to say Miss deLauro, this is quite unexpected. And quite unbelievable. Why do you want to leave Mutant X?"
"I'm sick of their mealy-mouthed non-lethal style," she said, turning around. "I'm ready for some real action. I thought I'd do well here."
"Not if you think you can manipulate me. What is it you want here?"
"Job satisfaction," she said, pacing the floor. "Adam doesn't recognise my true potential."
"I tried to get you to join us once before."
"No, you tried to make me your prisoner," said Miss deLauro, walking around to my side of the desk. "This is the first time you've listened to what I've had to say."
"You never wanted to talk to me before. Perhaps that hit from Miss Conlon affected your brain."
"Maybe it did. Maybe that's what it took to bring out the real me."
"The real you would betray your mutant friends?"
"They're a misfit gang of do-gooders that I'm forced to live with."
"This is all very entertaining. But why should I trust you?"
"You shouldn't. I'll have to prove myself to you."
We both looked at each other. I wondered if she was trying to read or manipulate my mental state. Although she professed to want to join the GSA, our association was yet too tenuous to risk implanting her with a sub-dermal governor.
We were interrupted by the intercom. "Dr Harrison's here."
"Send him in," I said.
Dr Harrison strode into my office, and I sat down.
"Conlon missed her appointment," he said. "We can't find her anywhere."
That came as no surprise to me. Despite her assurances, Miss Conlon had not sounded exactly unwavering in her loyalty.
"Perhaps it is time to cut our losses and move onto new test subjects."
"But I still need to get a final read on her condition. Otherwise, all the data we've collected thus far could be corrupted," he said.
"Let me find her," Miss deLauro said. "When I was with her, I picked up on where she might go."
"And where is that?" I asked.
Miss DeLauro seemed annoyed at my question. "It's a feeling. I'll know it when I get there."
"She's lying," Dr Harrison said.
Miss deLauro fixed him with a glare. "It's an opportunity for me to show you what I can do," she said.
Dr Harrison looked at me, and said, "You're not taking this seriously?"
"You'll be accompanied by GS Agents," I said.
"Fine," she said, smiling. "Just as long as they stay out of my way."
"I expect to hear from you every two hours."
Miss deLauro stopped in the doorway and looked over her shoulder at me. "I'll be back before you have time to check your watch," she said.
Dr Harrison gave me a look. He was clearly not happy. But my trust in him was already waning. I had now seen two of his patients wake up on his operating table. I didn't need to take his opinion into account.
Just as Miss deLauro promised, she soon returned with Miss Conlon in custody. I met them downstairs by the stasis pods. Perhaps I could trust the telempath after all. She had done as I asked, and had not to my knowledge used her powers on me.
"I can hardly wait till Adam hears about this," I said, relishing the thought. How does it feel, Adam, to not only lose your most valuable team member, but to have them defect to my side?
"He already has," Miss deLauro said. "In the midst of picking up Conlon we ran into Brennan Mulwray."
"So Adam's heard all about your change of heart by now," I said. I turned to Miss Conlon. "It would have been much easier for you to just keep our appointment."
"It would have been so much easier if you'd just killed me when we met," she shot back.
"I saved you from a wasted life and turned your piddling mutant powers into something truly formidable."
"All you gave me is pain."
"Which will soon be over," I said, and signalled for my men to take her away. "After Dr Harrison has completed the final examination, have Miss Conlon prepared for stasis," I quietly told one of my men.
"Yes sir," he said, leaving me alone with Miss deLauro. She gave me a look. I walked away before she could make a comment that might risk her job.
I went to the lab to observe Dr Harrison's final examination of Miss Conlon. However, I found Miss Conlon upright and leaving the lab, along with Miss deLauro. The looks on their faces told me they had not been expecting to run into me.
"In a hurry, Miss deLauro?" I said. "I demand to know what you're doing here. And don't use your telempathy on me."
"Promise," she said, seconds before she hit me in the face.
Dr Harrison was along shortly to help me up off the floor. When I asked why he had not been supervising Miss Conlon, he told me that he had been taking a bathroom break. There were a lot of things I might have said about that, but in the end, I declined to comment.
He took me into the lab and ran a few tests on me. Working in security as I did, this was not the first time I had taken a punch. But as my health was in a more fragile state, one could not be too careful. Thankfully it appeared that I had come to no serious harm, there was just some superficial damage to my exo-skin and I would require treatment to prevent bruising and swelling. I hurried him along, forcing him to complete the treatment in my office.
"Don't worry about Conlon, her powers will soon be depleted. She's got one or two pulses left in her at best," he said.
"So Conlon won't be the powerful ally I'd hoped for," I said, prodding at my sore cheekbone. "And your experiment is a complete failure."
It gave me a little satisfaction to berate Dr Harrison. But my attention was diverted to a pulse of light outside of the window. The temperature suddenly dropped, and I felt my consciousness slip away.
When I came to, I saw Dr Harrison holding onto my desk and trying to drag himself to his feet. I pressed the intercom and said, "All station heads to my office. Immediately."
Some of the station heads were flustered and confused when they delivered their reports to me. A few witnesses had seen Miss Conlon hit the stasis regulator with an energy blast. So it had been direct sabotage. I issued orders for the heads to perform a full check of the systems. Fortunately, it seemed that the failure of the stasis system had been short lived.
Dr Harrison stayed behind after the others had left.
"They had us. We would never have known what hit us," I said. And then what would happen? My superiors Washington seemed to deliberately maintain little involvement in my work. If I and the rest of the staff at Genomex died, I didn't have much faith that they would be able to contain this menace. I imagined new mutants running rampant around the country, holding the general public to ransom. The thought was frightening.
"I'd like to continue my research," Dr Harrison said. "I feel we're getting close."
"I fully support further exploration into the possibilities of grafting mutancy onto low level non-new mutants," I said.
"The research subjects would have to be expendable of course," he said.
"Do you have anyone in mind?" he asked.
I turned and gave him a look. That was all it took to keep him unsettled. He took a sharp inhale. I walked away, letting his worst fears run wild. I knew well that the greatest horrors often lived in one's own memories and imagination. A mere suggestion was often far more frightening than an open threat.
Despite the anti-inflammatory shot, my cheekbone still ached. My neck was starting to hurt again also. I supposed I should be thankful to have survived the attack on the stasis system. But I often found little to be thankful about in this life.
I had been wrong to trust Miss Conlon. What did I expect from a common thief? And Miss deLauro. Why did I ever expect anything other than a double-cross from a member of Mutant X? No, I told myself, I had not trusted them, not for a moment. I had merely been using them while I was able to. I knew better than to put my trust in anyone. All the important people in my life had betrayed me. No-one could betray me again if I didn't trust anyone in the first place. Trust was for fools and children.