(disclaimer: I don't own the fine characters of Mutant X and receive
nothing but personal satisfaction from these fanfictions)
"I've repaired as much of the damage as I can, your eyesight should improve steadily over the next several days. What are you able to see so far?" Adam asked in a guarded tone.
A thousand sarcastic responses came to mind, but Daari put them all aside and answered, "Some colors and shapes; fuzzy." Her mind was clear of the drugs that Adam had given her earlier and she wanted it to stay clear. She didn't want to risk angering him when she didn't know where she was or how to escape. She was trapped and, before she could push the thought from her mind, she felt the panic welling up as the mangled corpses started laughing at her from the shadows of her mind.
"Would you like to get up and move around a bit?" Adam's question broke through the vision just in time for her to escape its grasp.
"Yes," she said, surprised that she would be allowed any measure of freedom.
"Jesse will show you around," Adam stated as he released the restraints, "as to the amount of freedom that you are allowed, that will depend exclusively on your behavior."
Jesse offered Daari his hand which she hesitantly accepted. She could see light and dark and some fuzzy shapes, but grudgingly acknowledged that she couldn't navigate in an unfamiliar building yet. As they left the lab, Adam turned to Emma, "Emma, I need you to be careful. I was calling you for several minutes before you responded. Daari's sub-dermal governor won't prevent her from taking control of you once you've established the contact. Now have a seat, I want to run a quick scan to make sure that you're okay."
Emma started to protest, but saw the look on Adam's face and decided against it, plopping into the chair with a sigh. As the scan finished, Adam leaned against the chair, facing her and asked, "So, did you see anything that could help us know what is going on inside that head of hers?"
"Nothing helpful," she responded, shaking her head, "just as I was pulling out I saw three mangled bodies, just barely visible, like something out of a horror movie. But not enough other information to understand what the corpses symbolize."
*****
As Jesse lead Daari out of the lab, he noticed her squinting, trying to focus on the large orange structure in the main room. "That's our dojo where we train," he offered, "Adam has it programmed with tactile, holographic GSA agents for us to practice sparing against."
"Well, from the pile that you left at the refinery, your training seems to have been effective." Daari noted with a slight tone of disgust.
As they sat down beside the waterfall, Jesse tried to strike up a friendlier conversation. "That was a pretty fair Aussie accent back in the lab, did you spend some time there?"
Daari smiled, "Yeah, after High School I spent several years down there doing a walk-about, trying to get my head straight. Things finally mellowed out and I got a job working for a dive boat operation on the Great Barrier Reef. There was a public college at the port, so I used some of my tip money to buy used text books to read while we traveled to and from the reef. After a few years, I audited a bunch of courses and got a degree in General Studies."
Daari was surprised as she found herself starting to trust this gentle man. He represented everything that she hated about herself, and yet she found herself talking to him about her personal life, as if they had been friends for years. After dropping her off at the guest room and setting the alarm that would alert the team if she left the room, Jesse went upstairs to where Adam was waiting.
"Any idea about what was behind the rage we saw this morning?" Adam asked as Jesse joined him on the couch and Emma pulled up a chair to listen.
"Not a clue," responded Jesse as he shrugged his shoulders, "she talked a lot about the time that she spent in Australia, coming up here and getting a job on a dive boat in Florida. But nothing about why she went from using her new mutant abilities to provide her Scuba clients with thrilling encounters to working for the GSA hunting down other dangerous 'freaks'. What are we going to do with her, Adam?"
Adam sighed, "I don't know. We don't want her back at Genomex, her telekinetic abilities were trouble enough, but her ability to communicate and influence animals - that's telepathy and if she develops that skill to the point of being able to influence people." Adam shuddered. "On the other hand, putting her into the underground without knowing what set her off is NOT and option. I'm open to suggestions."
"Well, I can tell you that she and Jesse have built a pretty solid rapport," offered Emma. "Maybe if he takes her to an out of the way stretch of beach, she might drop her guard enough to tell him what's going on. I noticed when she shared the animal visions that the ocean is where she goes to 'ground' herself. Brennan and I were going to use the computer to see if we could trace her life, see if we can spot anything that will give us a clue."
Adam nodded and the three of them headed off to their rooms.
*****
Early the next morning, Jesse stopped by the guest room to pick up Daari. After grabbing a quick breakfast, he asked her if she would like to join him for a walk on the beach. She accepted eagerly, anxious to get out into a more neutral setting. Once they were a distance away from Sanctuary, Jesse removed the visual stealth devise that blocked her rapidly improving vision.
"Is it just my fuzzy vision," asked Daari, "or does this thing not have any windows?"
Jesse smiled, "Everything is pretty much electronic with detailed scanners, so it doesn't need windows!" Daari shook her head, obviously displeased at having to trust electronic gadgets that much. Suddenly, she felt the craft hovering and then landing on solid ground and she let out a sigh of relief.
The hatch opened to a beautiful stretch of sunny beach with a cool breeze gently blowing. Daari stepped out and took a deep breath, took off her shoes and rolled up her pant legs. Jesse copied her actions and followed her out angle deep into the cool salt water. He noted to himself that Emma had been right on target concerning Daari's feelings toward the ocean.
After walking for an hour along the deserted beach, the two of them sat to rest on one of the many logs that littered the high tide line. As they sat looking at each other, they moved closer until they met in a deep kiss. Leaning back into the kiss, suddenly they lost their balance, falling back onto the soft dry sand behind the log. Laughing, neither moved to get up as Jesse rolled to a position where they could continue kissing.
"So," asked Daari, "just how deserted is this beach?" She reached up and slid her hands under the tail of his shirt, running her hands up his chest under the shirt.
"Totally, I scanned it before we landed," he replied as he raised his arms, allowing her to pull the shirt off over his head. As they removed the rest of their clothes, dumping them in a sandy heap on the log, Jesse considered his comlink for a moment and then decided that he didn't want any eavesdroppers. He removed the ring and placed it in the pocket of his pants before rejoining Daari on the sand.
*****
Emma was sitting at the computer when Brennan came up and stood behind her. "Find anything yet?" he asked.
"Maybe," replied Emma, "something definitely happened. I've found her school records and she was a straight A student until her senior year when, all of a sudden, her attendance dropped, she switched to an alternative school, dropped out of that and eventually graduated under a private tutor. Shortly after graduation, she booked a one way flight to Australia and dropped off the face of the earth. Three years later, she resurfaces as a dive master, working on a tour boat on the Great Barrier Reef and later moves up to an operation in Florida. Then, in the space of two weeks, she quit her job, had several drunk & disorderly run-ins with the police and ended up at Genomex."
"Hmm, I wonder if the police records show anything unusual in the area at that time. That's a pretty small town, I'll show you how to get in!" Brennan said as he reached over Emma's shoulder and started keying commands.
"Uh, is this legal?" she asked in response. Brennan just smiled and Emma nodded, "that's what I thought."
As they scanned through the police records, Emma keyed in for more information about one of the reports. "What is it?" Brennan asked. Emma didn't answer, and he watched as all of the color drained from her face and she pushed up the armrest and ran toward the bathroom.
Adam ran over to the computer where Brennan was sitting down to read the police report, "What happened?" he asked with genuine concern.
"Apparently, those corpse images that Emma picked up weren't symbolic after all," replied Brennan, still reading the report. "According to this, they found three known gang members in a wooded area near the school with their skulls unexplainably crushed, as if in a vice. There was evidence that one of the men had engaged in sex and that another was in the process and there was a blindfold and some rope in the area. The police believed that it was a gang rape, but didn't know whether the victim killed the attackers and escaped or if someone else intervened."
"Brennan," said Adam, "can you check the police reports in Florida around the date that Daari quit her job?"
"Sure," replied Brennan as he pulled up the reports. Emma walked back over toward the two men and sat on the couch, out of view of the computer's monitor. "You going to be okay?" asked Brennan. Emma's affirmative nod was less than convincing. A moment later, he announced, "got it! There was a body found on the beach, less than a mile from the dock that she worked from; same thing - his skull was unexplainably crushed. The report notes that there was tissue under his fingernails and signs of a struggle, but they had been unable to match the DNA which appeared to be contaminated with "foreign substances"."
"Sounds like how a police forensics lab would explain new mutant DNA," Adam said, shaking his head. A moment later and a look of concern crossed Adam's face, "where's Jesse?"
"Oh God, Adam, I suggested that Jesse take Daari out to the beach! They left three hours ago," responded Emma with raising panic in her voice.
Adam reached down to manually activate the comlink system, "Jesse? Jesse?" he called urgently. Then, as he looked at the comlink controls, "Damn, his comlink is deactivated. Emma, did he say where they were going?"
"No," replied Emma, "but they took the Double Helix."
"Good," said Adam, "we can use the Global Positioning System to locate it!"
*****
Just then, they heard Jesse and Daari laughing and talking as they came in from the hangar. As everyone ran down to make sure that Jesse was okay, Jesse asked, "Yeah, we're fine, what's the problem?"
Confused, Daari continued, "sorry we're a bit late we, uh, got a little sandy, so we decided to take a swim and then we didn't have any towels, so we, uh, had to dry off."
"Daari," Adam said, with an intensity that made the young woman want to curl up into a corner and become invisible, "come into the garden, I need to talk to you." Brennan and Shalimar headed back upstairs, knowing that they would be briefed later, while Jesse held Daari's quivering hand and Emma followed them into the garden where they sat down.
Adam told Daari about the police reports that they had found, summarizing them for Jesse and then gently asked her to explain what happened.
Fighting back tears, Daari explained, "I always knew that I had a little bit of Telepathy, but didn't even know what a new mutant was or that I had telekinesis until I was attacked by a gang of guys from school. I tried to separate my mind from my body when the first guy attacked me, but the second guy." Her voice trailed off as she started crying.
"What happened when the second guy 'attacked' you?" Adam encouraged gently, consciously not using the word 'rape' and instead, using Daari's description.
Her voice still shaking, she continued, "There was so much anger and so much hatred that it felt like a part of my brain just exploded, and then they were all just laying there dead. It took me two days to get through the rope because I couldn't call for help. I was surrounded by dead bodies and I knew that, somehow, I had done it and I couldn't explain it.
I couldn't deal with knowing what I was capable of doing, so I told my parents that I was going to kill myself. We talked about it and I said that I would be willing to try to put my life back together if I could find a way to be away from people. That's why I was on walk about in Australia. I finally started to get everything back together again and moved back to Florida when one of our clients asked me out for a drink after our dive.
On the way back from the bar, he grabbed me and threw me down on the sand and.and everything fell apart. I felt like I was some kind of dangerous animal. Then someone came and talked to me while I was in jail for a drunk and disorderly and told me about Genomex. Adam, I felt totally out of control and, if there's one thing that Genomex is good at, its controlling new mutants."
Satisfied with her explanation, Adam asked if she would be willing to work with Emma to overcome the panic so that she could respond with less lethal force, and if she was willing to leave the GSA. Agreeing to both, Adam promised to get her into the underground.
"I do know somewhere that I might be able to go," she mentioned. "A tour operator at a dive resort near Hobson Village in Belize offered me a job as a guide. He recognized my ability to have the right animals just happen to swim right in front of my clients and said that he could use someone like that."
"Great," replied Jesse, "do you have any contact information?"
"Yeah, the resort is called Hamanasi, they have a web site," she answered.
A week later, Jesse offered to fly Daari down to Belize to begin her new life. "How long will it take us to get there?" she asked.
"Long enough," replied Jesse as he switched the Double Helix onto autopilot and the two of them picked up where they left off on the beach.
"I've repaired as much of the damage as I can, your eyesight should improve steadily over the next several days. What are you able to see so far?" Adam asked in a guarded tone.
A thousand sarcastic responses came to mind, but Daari put them all aside and answered, "Some colors and shapes; fuzzy." Her mind was clear of the drugs that Adam had given her earlier and she wanted it to stay clear. She didn't want to risk angering him when she didn't know where she was or how to escape. She was trapped and, before she could push the thought from her mind, she felt the panic welling up as the mangled corpses started laughing at her from the shadows of her mind.
"Would you like to get up and move around a bit?" Adam's question broke through the vision just in time for her to escape its grasp.
"Yes," she said, surprised that she would be allowed any measure of freedom.
"Jesse will show you around," Adam stated as he released the restraints, "as to the amount of freedom that you are allowed, that will depend exclusively on your behavior."
Jesse offered Daari his hand which she hesitantly accepted. She could see light and dark and some fuzzy shapes, but grudgingly acknowledged that she couldn't navigate in an unfamiliar building yet. As they left the lab, Adam turned to Emma, "Emma, I need you to be careful. I was calling you for several minutes before you responded. Daari's sub-dermal governor won't prevent her from taking control of you once you've established the contact. Now have a seat, I want to run a quick scan to make sure that you're okay."
Emma started to protest, but saw the look on Adam's face and decided against it, plopping into the chair with a sigh. As the scan finished, Adam leaned against the chair, facing her and asked, "So, did you see anything that could help us know what is going on inside that head of hers?"
"Nothing helpful," she responded, shaking her head, "just as I was pulling out I saw three mangled bodies, just barely visible, like something out of a horror movie. But not enough other information to understand what the corpses symbolize."
*****
As Jesse lead Daari out of the lab, he noticed her squinting, trying to focus on the large orange structure in the main room. "That's our dojo where we train," he offered, "Adam has it programmed with tactile, holographic GSA agents for us to practice sparing against."
"Well, from the pile that you left at the refinery, your training seems to have been effective." Daari noted with a slight tone of disgust.
As they sat down beside the waterfall, Jesse tried to strike up a friendlier conversation. "That was a pretty fair Aussie accent back in the lab, did you spend some time there?"
Daari smiled, "Yeah, after High School I spent several years down there doing a walk-about, trying to get my head straight. Things finally mellowed out and I got a job working for a dive boat operation on the Great Barrier Reef. There was a public college at the port, so I used some of my tip money to buy used text books to read while we traveled to and from the reef. After a few years, I audited a bunch of courses and got a degree in General Studies."
Daari was surprised as she found herself starting to trust this gentle man. He represented everything that she hated about herself, and yet she found herself talking to him about her personal life, as if they had been friends for years. After dropping her off at the guest room and setting the alarm that would alert the team if she left the room, Jesse went upstairs to where Adam was waiting.
"Any idea about what was behind the rage we saw this morning?" Adam asked as Jesse joined him on the couch and Emma pulled up a chair to listen.
"Not a clue," responded Jesse as he shrugged his shoulders, "she talked a lot about the time that she spent in Australia, coming up here and getting a job on a dive boat in Florida. But nothing about why she went from using her new mutant abilities to provide her Scuba clients with thrilling encounters to working for the GSA hunting down other dangerous 'freaks'. What are we going to do with her, Adam?"
Adam sighed, "I don't know. We don't want her back at Genomex, her telekinetic abilities were trouble enough, but her ability to communicate and influence animals - that's telepathy and if she develops that skill to the point of being able to influence people." Adam shuddered. "On the other hand, putting her into the underground without knowing what set her off is NOT and option. I'm open to suggestions."
"Well, I can tell you that she and Jesse have built a pretty solid rapport," offered Emma. "Maybe if he takes her to an out of the way stretch of beach, she might drop her guard enough to tell him what's going on. I noticed when she shared the animal visions that the ocean is where she goes to 'ground' herself. Brennan and I were going to use the computer to see if we could trace her life, see if we can spot anything that will give us a clue."
Adam nodded and the three of them headed off to their rooms.
*****
Early the next morning, Jesse stopped by the guest room to pick up Daari. After grabbing a quick breakfast, he asked her if she would like to join him for a walk on the beach. She accepted eagerly, anxious to get out into a more neutral setting. Once they were a distance away from Sanctuary, Jesse removed the visual stealth devise that blocked her rapidly improving vision.
"Is it just my fuzzy vision," asked Daari, "or does this thing not have any windows?"
Jesse smiled, "Everything is pretty much electronic with detailed scanners, so it doesn't need windows!" Daari shook her head, obviously displeased at having to trust electronic gadgets that much. Suddenly, she felt the craft hovering and then landing on solid ground and she let out a sigh of relief.
The hatch opened to a beautiful stretch of sunny beach with a cool breeze gently blowing. Daari stepped out and took a deep breath, took off her shoes and rolled up her pant legs. Jesse copied her actions and followed her out angle deep into the cool salt water. He noted to himself that Emma had been right on target concerning Daari's feelings toward the ocean.
After walking for an hour along the deserted beach, the two of them sat to rest on one of the many logs that littered the high tide line. As they sat looking at each other, they moved closer until they met in a deep kiss. Leaning back into the kiss, suddenly they lost their balance, falling back onto the soft dry sand behind the log. Laughing, neither moved to get up as Jesse rolled to a position where they could continue kissing.
"So," asked Daari, "just how deserted is this beach?" She reached up and slid her hands under the tail of his shirt, running her hands up his chest under the shirt.
"Totally, I scanned it before we landed," he replied as he raised his arms, allowing her to pull the shirt off over his head. As they removed the rest of their clothes, dumping them in a sandy heap on the log, Jesse considered his comlink for a moment and then decided that he didn't want any eavesdroppers. He removed the ring and placed it in the pocket of his pants before rejoining Daari on the sand.
*****
Emma was sitting at the computer when Brennan came up and stood behind her. "Find anything yet?" he asked.
"Maybe," replied Emma, "something definitely happened. I've found her school records and she was a straight A student until her senior year when, all of a sudden, her attendance dropped, she switched to an alternative school, dropped out of that and eventually graduated under a private tutor. Shortly after graduation, she booked a one way flight to Australia and dropped off the face of the earth. Three years later, she resurfaces as a dive master, working on a tour boat on the Great Barrier Reef and later moves up to an operation in Florida. Then, in the space of two weeks, she quit her job, had several drunk & disorderly run-ins with the police and ended up at Genomex."
"Hmm, I wonder if the police records show anything unusual in the area at that time. That's a pretty small town, I'll show you how to get in!" Brennan said as he reached over Emma's shoulder and started keying commands.
"Uh, is this legal?" she asked in response. Brennan just smiled and Emma nodded, "that's what I thought."
As they scanned through the police records, Emma keyed in for more information about one of the reports. "What is it?" Brennan asked. Emma didn't answer, and he watched as all of the color drained from her face and she pushed up the armrest and ran toward the bathroom.
Adam ran over to the computer where Brennan was sitting down to read the police report, "What happened?" he asked with genuine concern.
"Apparently, those corpse images that Emma picked up weren't symbolic after all," replied Brennan, still reading the report. "According to this, they found three known gang members in a wooded area near the school with their skulls unexplainably crushed, as if in a vice. There was evidence that one of the men had engaged in sex and that another was in the process and there was a blindfold and some rope in the area. The police believed that it was a gang rape, but didn't know whether the victim killed the attackers and escaped or if someone else intervened."
"Brennan," said Adam, "can you check the police reports in Florida around the date that Daari quit her job?"
"Sure," replied Brennan as he pulled up the reports. Emma walked back over toward the two men and sat on the couch, out of view of the computer's monitor. "You going to be okay?" asked Brennan. Emma's affirmative nod was less than convincing. A moment later, he announced, "got it! There was a body found on the beach, less than a mile from the dock that she worked from; same thing - his skull was unexplainably crushed. The report notes that there was tissue under his fingernails and signs of a struggle, but they had been unable to match the DNA which appeared to be contaminated with "foreign substances"."
"Sounds like how a police forensics lab would explain new mutant DNA," Adam said, shaking his head. A moment later and a look of concern crossed Adam's face, "where's Jesse?"
"Oh God, Adam, I suggested that Jesse take Daari out to the beach! They left three hours ago," responded Emma with raising panic in her voice.
Adam reached down to manually activate the comlink system, "Jesse? Jesse?" he called urgently. Then, as he looked at the comlink controls, "Damn, his comlink is deactivated. Emma, did he say where they were going?"
"No," replied Emma, "but they took the Double Helix."
"Good," said Adam, "we can use the Global Positioning System to locate it!"
*****
Just then, they heard Jesse and Daari laughing and talking as they came in from the hangar. As everyone ran down to make sure that Jesse was okay, Jesse asked, "Yeah, we're fine, what's the problem?"
Confused, Daari continued, "sorry we're a bit late we, uh, got a little sandy, so we decided to take a swim and then we didn't have any towels, so we, uh, had to dry off."
"Daari," Adam said, with an intensity that made the young woman want to curl up into a corner and become invisible, "come into the garden, I need to talk to you." Brennan and Shalimar headed back upstairs, knowing that they would be briefed later, while Jesse held Daari's quivering hand and Emma followed them into the garden where they sat down.
Adam told Daari about the police reports that they had found, summarizing them for Jesse and then gently asked her to explain what happened.
Fighting back tears, Daari explained, "I always knew that I had a little bit of Telepathy, but didn't even know what a new mutant was or that I had telekinesis until I was attacked by a gang of guys from school. I tried to separate my mind from my body when the first guy attacked me, but the second guy." Her voice trailed off as she started crying.
"What happened when the second guy 'attacked' you?" Adam encouraged gently, consciously not using the word 'rape' and instead, using Daari's description.
Her voice still shaking, she continued, "There was so much anger and so much hatred that it felt like a part of my brain just exploded, and then they were all just laying there dead. It took me two days to get through the rope because I couldn't call for help. I was surrounded by dead bodies and I knew that, somehow, I had done it and I couldn't explain it.
I couldn't deal with knowing what I was capable of doing, so I told my parents that I was going to kill myself. We talked about it and I said that I would be willing to try to put my life back together if I could find a way to be away from people. That's why I was on walk about in Australia. I finally started to get everything back together again and moved back to Florida when one of our clients asked me out for a drink after our dive.
On the way back from the bar, he grabbed me and threw me down on the sand and.and everything fell apart. I felt like I was some kind of dangerous animal. Then someone came and talked to me while I was in jail for a drunk and disorderly and told me about Genomex. Adam, I felt totally out of control and, if there's one thing that Genomex is good at, its controlling new mutants."
Satisfied with her explanation, Adam asked if she would be willing to work with Emma to overcome the panic so that she could respond with less lethal force, and if she was willing to leave the GSA. Agreeing to both, Adam promised to get her into the underground.
"I do know somewhere that I might be able to go," she mentioned. "A tour operator at a dive resort near Hobson Village in Belize offered me a job as a guide. He recognized my ability to have the right animals just happen to swim right in front of my clients and said that he could use someone like that."
"Great," replied Jesse, "do you have any contact information?"
"Yeah, the resort is called Hamanasi, they have a web site," she answered.
A week later, Jesse offered to fly Daari down to Belize to begin her new life. "How long will it take us to get there?" she asked.
"Long enough," replied Jesse as he switched the Double Helix onto autopilot and the two of them picked up where they left off on the beach.