Disclaimer: I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, and I don't mean to offend anyone's sensibilities.
Thank You: Stelmarta for being there! Mom because I love her!
Spoilers: A Breed Apart
Chapter Four
In the dead center of the Food Lion cold storage warehouse, lay the feral whose 'survival instincts' had led to her discovery by police and ultimately by Adam. Emma approached her with care; she was hissing and bearing a wicked looking set of teeth.
"Hey, it's Ok. I'm not going to hurt you. Look at me." When the cornered feral made eye contact with Emma, she gently released the mental 'sleepy bolt' in her direction. The trapped feral keeled over without a murmur of protest.
"Nicely done, Emma." Adam's voice was slightly hollow, coming all the way from Sanctuary. "Be careful, she's injured. Let's get her to Sanctuary. Good work all of you."
"Whoa, look at this!" Shalimar had been first to get to the fallen New Mutant.
"What is it?" Adam asked over the comm.
"She's reptilian, or at least partly. Look at her tongue, it's forked."
"She's Reptilian?"
"It looks like it," Brennan knelt down next to Shalimar. "And someone hasn't been taking very good care of her, she's skin and bones."
"Get her out of the cold; I think I can fix her."
"Fix her? Why do you need to fix her? What's wrong with her?"
"It's a long story; just get her out of the cold. If it's who I think it is, we've just made a very important friend. Bring her back to Sanctuary ASAP."
"Sure thing"
Upon the arrival of the Double Helix to Sanctuary, Adam was waiting. Almost before Brennan finished the landing procedure Adam had climbed in to the crew area. Sure enough, as he expected, Miss Mary Elizabeth was curled up in Shalimar's lap. The body heat of a feral was greater than that of a regular human being. Shalimar looked questioningly at Adam. At the first glance his guess, because guess it was, was confirmed. This was the Mary Elizabeth Braddock that he'd known in his old days at Genomex.
"It's ok, Shal. You and Liz are going to get along great. She just needed to borrow your body heat."
"You know her?" asked Jessie.
"I know her; she's one of Genomex's most spectacular examples of what not to do with genetics. Anyone ever wonder how Genomex figured out that fire and feral don't mix? They tried to create a Salamander, a mythical lizard that could create fire."
"Oh my God! She's the fire elemental?" exclaimed Shalimar.
"Yes. She was one of the most innovative genetic creations of Genomex and she's deathly terrified of herself. I treated her once, a long time ago, her entire group was experiencing a genetic meltdown. The other amphibian/reptile mixes were pretty crude; their genes were just dissolving, but Liz was the sturdiest of the lot. They'd finally managed to get a decent cold blooded sample and had integrated it into her systems flawlessly. It was brilliant, especially," he said with a self-deprecating laugh "twenty years ago when all we had were old style gel electrophoresis and truly decrepit computers." He shook his head "Brilliant, brilliant work and they had to go screw with it and try the fire element thing too. She's one hell of a spitfire. Pun intended."
"Damn." Brennan watched her disbelievingly "Did they pod her?"
"No," Adam stroked her curly mop of hair "Just stuck the whole bunch of them in a glorified refrigerator. Any reptile will go into torpor if the temperature is cold enough and if I remember correctly she was, or rather is, extremely light, temperature, and sound sensitive."
"Then how did she get out?"
"I think," Adam's voice hardened "that Mr. Ashlock had been messing around in Genomex's pod storage. C'mon, help me get her to the lab."
A day later Shalimar was sitting in the lab, Mary Elizabeth Braddock, or Liz as Adam called her, had not yet woken up. She was reading the latest issue of Field and Stream and wondering at the stupidity of humans that thought they need all that crap to catch and shoot an animal. It was easy, all you had to do was track them, catch them, and kill them. She didn't understand why normal people didn't get that concept.
"uhhhh"
"Hey, take it easy, all right? You had quite a fall." Shalimar got up, and walked over to the bed. She slid an arm around her shoulders and helped her sit up; gingerly the New Mutant took heed of her surroundings.
"Who the hell are ye and what in the name o' the good Lord am I doing here?"
"My name is Shalimar Fox and you were injured when you fell through the roof of a cold storage warehouse in Chicago. We brought you here to heal. This place is called Sanctuary."
"Uck, that's right. I remember. Nice work, lass, but if I hanna been half-outa me mind from that damn fire you wouldna got me." She flicked out her long, black tongue; tasting the air around her.
Shalimar chuckled, "You sound like Scotty saying that the Warp Engines 'canna hold any longer!'"
"Well that's 'cause I am." She said indignantly, giving Shalimar an amused look, "Scottish, tha' is not the most excellent Mr. Scott. Me name's Mary Elizabeth."
"I know," Shalimar smiled, "Adam told us about you."
"Hey now, who be tellin' tales on me?" She sounded vaguely annoyed, but was more interested in seeing if she could still move without wincing.
"I am" Adam walked in, his eyes twinkling, "Welcome to Sanctuary Liz. Long time no see."
"Aye, and how long, may I ask, have I been out o' th' loop?" She rolled her head, wincing at the popping sounds.
"From what I can tell, almost twenty years." Adam told her, apologetically.
"Damn" she tried to get up, but her golden eyes went wide and she reluctantly sat back down. "Got a lot to catch up on then"
"Not right now," Adam said firmly, "You need to heal. If I didn't know your genetic structures as well as I do, I'd think it was a miracle you survived. But I do know it, and no matter what you say you need to rest."
"Asshole," She swore pleasantly. "You always were such a prick."
"So you've said. I assume you and Shalimar have introduced yourselves. She'll show you around and help you meet and greet the rest of us." Adam smiled wickedly.
"God bless there's more o' ye? And I thought one was bad enough. Shalimar, same me" she made a dramatic gesture and pretended to collapse on the cot. The effect was spoiled somewhat by the fact that she had to edge her way down the bed slowly.
"I wouldn't worry; they're not all like him." Shalimar winked, she could see what Adam said about them getting along well.
"I'm flattered ladies. Are you still nocturnal, Liz?"
"Does the sun still rise in the east?"
"I'll take that as a yes." He grinned at Shalimar, "Looks like you've got some company on those long night shifts." He reached over to tousle Liz's hair and darted out as she swatted at his hand and scowled.
"Great, I could use it." Shalimar slid an arm around Liz's waist and helped her to her feet. "C'mon Jessie will raid the fridge when he sees you. You look like a damn skeleton."
"Ach, well that be the price for not eating in two decades. Lead on Miss Shalimar. I suspect that I could use it."
Shalimar was right. One look at the way-too-skinny reptilian and Jesse was throwing open 'his' refrigerator doors to feed Liz whatever and how ever much of anything that she desired. Once seated, introduced, and eating everyone was immediately curious about Liz and her past connection to Adam.
"So what did you guys do anyway?" Emma asked eagerly, Adam had never been very chatty about his connections with Genomex. Having an independent source of information was a rarity and Emma was determined to make the most of it.
"Well, it depends. How much do ye already know?"
"Next to nothing, he's not very proud of having been a part of Genomex. We've been here almost a full year and we've just learned about him and the stasis pods and sub-dermal governors." Shalimar was seated next her on the sofa. Brennan was seated on one wingback chair, Emma in the other. Jesse was stretched out on the floor of the 'study'.
"Well hell. He finally got his head turned around straight then did he? Damn the Genomex bastards. He's right to screw over the lot of them. Well once upon a time, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away Genomex was a legitimate biological research centre an' a very pretty little thin' on a burgeoning geneticists resume, understand? Now, our curly haired friend was as burgeoning as any geneticist in the lot, he was given the rather unenviable task of charting the genetic meltdown of a series of genetic mistakes, more commonly referred to as my platoon. Now, as of the 'units' under his tender care, I was the sturdiest of the squad. I'm a trained combat trauma medic, if ye were at all interested, an' we took it upon ourselves to try an' save as many as possible. Of the thirty-six units undergoing genetic meltdown twelve survived the 'restructuring' process."
"We tried" Adam said softly, from the doorway into the study.
"Aye, tha' we did." She flicked her tongue in and out rapidly. "We an' the other two of the stooges Larry and Mason, we tried. Then that idiot Ashcroft got loose an' the whole thin' was put inna cold storage for 'the duration'. He's loose again ain't he? That's how I got out. I could smell him. Genius I.Q. and everything, but the damn man can't read a two-penny sight tha' says not to warm up the pods."
"You know Ashcroft?" Brennan asked.
"Son, I trained Gabriel Ashcroft." She gave Brennan a rueful stare, "He mighta been the first 'new mutant' that the idiots grew from scratch, but the rest of us had to go thru' it th' old fashioned way."
"It was Mason Eckhart wasn't it? He let Ashcroft loose, didn't he? Then he couldn't control it so Adam created the governors and the pods. He caught Gabriel, and he got the credit for it and scrapped the genetic re-sequencing program to make New Mutants."
"Well now Adam, ye know how to pick 'em don't ye? She's sharp as a bloody tack." She made eye contact with the now somber leader of Mutant X, and then turned back to Emma's question. "Yes, lass, tha's th' way it went down. After we got 'stored' I suspect that's when Curly here understood what was goin' on. I dinna ken what happened next, but …"
"I waited," Adam spoke softly "Learning as much as I could. Setting up the code that erased the computer's memory when I finally left. Skimming away money and supplies from Genomex to found Sanctuary."
"Then ye did the smart thing." She grinned lopsidedly at him, "Always was the smartass." He walked over behind the sofa and put both hands on her shoulders. She slipped her own up and squeezed them. "Now some idiot's let Gabriel loose again hasn't they?"
"Yes," said Shalimar "They're called 'The Strand' and they popped him from pod storage a few weeks ago. He took Genomex over from Eckhart." Shalimar looked a little sheepish, "They even managed to abduct me long enough for Gabriel to try and work his magic on me. But Brennan and Jesse and Emma got me back."
"Ye're lucky then. He don't give up easy." She sighed and gave Adam another squeeze, "Well that's enough o' this little heart to heart. Any more saccharine and I'll be sick. Besides that, I'm getting' cold again. Have ye got a heat lamp Adam?"
"Yes, but I think I can do better than a heat lamp. If' you'll let me experiment on you yet again, I'm pretty sure I can fix your genetics so you're a little more comfortable in the world." He massaged her shoulders slowly, working out some of the stress from her telling the story. She may not let it show, but she was deeply affected by it; Masons deceit, the death of her squad, and her placement in 'storage'.
"Fix me?" She was hissing contentedly under his ministrations, "I thought this was a good as it got."
"Let's just say genetic technology has come a way in the last twenty years."
"Aye, but lets also say that a few things have remained the same." She smiled at him, letting her golden eyes twinkle in his dark ones.
He twinkled back, "That they have, Liz, that they have."
