My newest lieutenant, Mr Lynch had failed to apprehend the new mutant I was interested in, but he had however succeeded in apprehending her associate, Mr Valsberg, who was causing the leaves to fall off some potted seedlings as a little demonstration.

"Defoliation," Mr Valsberg said. "it's not big deal in the city of course but-"

"Tell me about Charlotte Cook," I said.

"We hung around in high school. She was pretty hot, but I was the only one who-"

Mr Lynch interrupted his enthralling story before I could. "Just tell him about the girl," he demanded.

"She was always kinda weird. Used to bother her that no-one would hang around with her. Especially when that stuff about her father came out, that was-"

"Shocking," I said. "Why did she contact Mutant X?"

"She hates this Adam guy. She figures if Adam lets her join Mutant X, she can ruin his life, like he did hers."

"What is it exactly that Miss Cook does?"

Mr Valsberg was smiling nervously now. "Well, what's in it for me if I tell you?"

Mr Lynch grabbed him by the front of his shirt and held his other hand up to his face. Mr Valsberg started gasping for breath as Mr Lynch used his powers on him. "It can wait," he said.

"She can change people," Mr Valsberg said, visibly agitated. "She can make them bad. It only lasts a minute on new mutants, but on, you know, real people, it can last forever."

"A new mutant with the ability to adjust the moral compass," I said. I began to turn over the possibilities in my mind. "Show the young man his room."

Defoliation, that was an ability with limited applications. Perhaps Mr Valsberg could be put to work somehow with the plant experiments at Tricorp Botanicals. But a power to control morality, now that was interesting. I wondered how much control Miss Cook had over this ability.

"Our sources tell us Charlotte Cook is back on the streets," Mr Lynch said as we walked by the stasis pods.

"Quelle surprise, her plan to bring down Adam has failed," I said.

"I think we could make use of Miss Cook's talents and achieve our own goals."

"What I understood from our little friend Mr Valsberg, she's a trifle unstable."

"She'd need proper training and guidance."

I stopped and faced him. "Are you suggesting you'd like to become her mentor, Mr Lynch?"

Mr Lynch was tapping his hands together, looking a little unsure. But he answered, "I am."

"She's your responsibility. If she fails, you fail," I said, and continued walking. "Extend an immediate invitation to Miss Cook."

"I'm trying to locate her now."

"Might I offer a piece of my own advice? Miss Cook is a wounded animal. We must try to convince her that we are her collaborators, not her captors. In her mind, Adam's responsible for her father's death. She wants revenge. We must harness this energy. It's priceless."

Mr Lynch wasted no time in capturing Miss Cook. As soon as I heard word of this, I told him to bring her to my office. She had her hands tied behind her back.

"Mr Lynch has the utmost confidence in your abilities, Miss Cook," I said. "I'm afraid I do not."

"Sir?" Mr Lynch said.

"I realise I might have been a bit hasty in agreeing to this."

"Please don't underestimate me, Mr Eckhart," Miss Cook said.

I walked over to my desk and sat down. "But I'm willing to be convinced." The doors behind them opened and another GS agent stepped into the room. "Remove her restraints," I told him.

"Hold on, it should be a controlled experiment," Mr Lynch said.

I dismissed his reservations with a tilt of my head.

As soon Miss Cook was released from her restraints, she reached out and touched Mr Lynch's hand. Her fingers appeared to secrete an iridescent substance which sat on his skin for a moment before being absorbed. I watched in fascination. Mr Lynch seemed a little more agitated about the situation than I, and frantically attempted to wipe the substance off his hand. Miss Cook was smiling mischievously at his reactions.

"How are you feeling, Mr Lynch?" I asked.

Mr Lynch had his fists clenched and was breathing heavily. Suddenly he lost control and grabbed the other GS agent and threw him against the wall.

Miss Cook turned to smirk at me as Mr Lynch grappled with the other man, who was struggling feebly in his grip.

"Did you know he was prone to this sort of behaviour before you hired him?" she said.

I smiled. "Nicely done, Miss Cook," I said.

She grinned, clearly enjoying this. Meanwhile, Mr Lynch had wrestled the other agent to the floor and was attempting to strangle him.

"That's quite enough, Mr Lynch," I said, but Mr Lynch ignored me.

"Oh, don't worry it'll wear off in about five more seconds," she said. "On new mutants."

I stared at her. "And on normal - excuse me - non-new mutants?"

"I, uh, only tested it once before," she said, giggling in a way that seemed both nervous and amused.

"And?"

"Well, it seems to last forever."

"Really?" I looked at Mr Lynch, and his victim, who was now lying on the floor. A change seemed to come over Mr Lynch, and he let go of the other man.

"All right, Miss Cook, I'm convinced," I said. "What was your plan?"

Miss Cook smiled widely. "Well, how about I use my power on Adam?"

"I'm listening," I said.

"I just have to put on an act like I feel bad about what I did," she said. "Adam will fall for it, I know he will. And then I'll get him to meet me."

I smiled. "Mr Lynch will arrange anything that you might need," I said.

Mr Lynch and the other GS agent had now got back to their feet, and were standing more or less to attention, albeit looking rather dishevelled and sheepish.

I had always had my doubts about Adam's moral compass. Despite his insistence that he was fighting for some kind of vigilante justice, he still continued to be involved in questionable activities. Could Miss Cook turn Adam into a model citizen, who would start to comply with my policies and the laws of this country? Or would she turn him into a dangerous maniac like she did with Mr Lynch? Then he would publicly destroy his own reputation. I'd step in, of course, before the regular law enforcement could do anything to him. And if he wanted to live, he'd have to play by my rules from that point on. Either way, I couldn't lose.

According to Miss Cook's reports, after she had lured him into a trap and used her power on him, Adam had knocked out Miss deLauro and took off with her. As Miss deLauro had once done the same thing to me, and was a dangerous psionic new mutant, it was as yet difficult to determine whether Miss Cook's power had turned Adam into a law-abiding citizen or an agent of chaos. Either way, it would certainly prove interesting.

Naturally, I offered Miss Cook a position as a GS agent. Even if Adam was not going to be a problem for me any more, I still had other adversaries who needed to be dealt with.

I went to see how well Mr Lynch was doing getting her instated in her new role.

I heard hysterical screaming coming from the room where Miss Cook was staying. That was rarely ever a good sign.

"I've changed my mind! I wanna leave now! Get me my stuff! I wanna leave!"

"Well, I'm sorry Miss Cook, but that's just not an option," I said. I was not prepared to let such a powerful new mutant slip through my fingers. Besides, she could cause untold havoc out there if I let her go free.

Mr Lynch took her by the arm and led her out of the room.

"Now we've all come full circle," I said as we walked down the corridor together. "You've gotten back at Adam for what he did to your father, and done us a great service at the same time. So how does it feel?"

"Okay, I guess," she said.

I turned to her. "Do I detect a conscience?"

She smiled and looked away.

"Your father exhibited the same tendencies, until I convinced him he had no choice but to sell me his research," I said. There was no way I could allow that information to enter the public domain. Not when it could be so useful in defending national security.

"My father?"

"I worked hard to convince him. The money, in the end, was his Achilles' heel," I said, and turned and continued walking. "Welcome to the GSA, Miss Cook."

I had been anticipating this, but I still felt as though I was caught off-guard when Adam turned up at Genomex. He was alone. I watched him walk in on the CCTV cameras, and instructed security to stand down for now. There was a chance of making an alliance, but one wrong move could ruin everything. Nothing in Adam's demeanour gave me any clue as to what he was planning. He was inscrutable as always.

He was smiling slightly and had his hands in his pockets when he turned up at the door of my office.

"Adam, you're looking well," I said, cautiously keeping my expression neutral.

"Your security people didn't look very surprised to see me," he said.

I slowly shifted to check the security guards on the door but I couldn't see them. That was potentially suspicious. "Nice to be back?" I said.

"I have something for you," he said, taking a disk from his pocket. "This is a complete list of the children of Genomex." He strode towards my desk and held out the disk, but before I could take it, he snatched it away from me. "But, you know, I was wondering, how would I fit in here? I'm a leader, not a follower."

"Well, I've always thought of myself as, ah, a team player," I said.

"Team player," Adam repeated with a smirk. "That's good." Even under the power of Miss Cook's abilities, he could see through my feeble lie. "That's very good, but of course we both know that that's not true. You'd have me in stasis in what, thirty seconds?"

He was walking around my desk towards me. I was beginning to regret my decision to tell security to stand down. I kept my eyes on him and slowly moved my hand to activate the button to alert them.

"No. You know, I think you should try a little stasis yourself," Adam said, and I reached for the button, but before I could a shock of electric paralysed me.

By the time I could move again, I discovered that Adam and Miss Cook had left the building. And with my orders to security still standing, the two of them had walked straight past them.

This was infuriating. Even with his moral compass turned one hundred and eighty degrees, Adam still opposed me. I wondered what this meant for the future. Had I inadvertently turned by greatest enemy into an even bigger threat?

No. Surely not. Waltzing back into Genomex and incapacitating me with an electric shock was far from the worst thing he had even done to me. It paled in comparison to the life changing injuries he had inflicted on me as I tried to stop him from betraying everyone at Genomex and causing a massive national security risk. I should have killed him, not tried to apprehend him alive. It had been very clever of him to first worm his way into my life and to make me believe he was someone I could trust.

Now once again, I had fallen for his tricks. And he was once again at large, along with Miss Cook and her mind-altering powers. But had Miss Cook really had an effect on Adam at all? I couldn't be sure. But I had seen her use her powers on Mr Lynch with my own eyes. Unless, perhaps Mr Lynch's performance in my office had been just that, a performance. It was, after all, impossible to trust anyone.

I called Mr Lynch to my office. I would send him after Adam and Miss Cook. And when he inevitably failed to apprehend them, I would have a concrete reason to discipline him. Sometimes, it was possible to ensure the odds would roll in one's favour.