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
Mary Elizabeth dropped from the invisible Double Helix to the roof of the Genomex complex. She rolled and hid behind an exhaust pipe on the roof. Invisibly the Helix skated away from the drop site; they were on their way to the latest disturbance that The Strand was involved in. This time they'd burst into a safe house of the other New Mutants. Although time was critical, Adam postponed his mission just long enough to put Mary Elizabeth in a position to put a humongous damper on Gabriel Ashlock's day.
Following the same trail that she'd used to get out of the building in the first place, Liz found herself next to the main furnace of the Genomex building. Turning on her camera glasses, she made sure that Adam, still in the Helix, but now over the site of the safe house, could see everything she saw.
"Ok, from the furnace room, take the left tunnel and go about fifty meters and turn right at the end of it"
"Aye Adam, by the by, are you sure that they're not gonna find me? Sociopath he might be, but Gabriel's no idiot. He'll know that I can use these air ducts to sneak up on him. What's to keep him from busting one open and dragging me out?"
"Well, with any luck, he'll be too busy keeping an eye on us here to worry about you over there. That is providing he even noticed you entering the building, which I highly doubt."
"Whatever you say, love, just don't blame me if I get a bit twitchy."
"Don't worry; everything is going according to plan."
And it was, for once it seemed as if Mutant X had gotten the drop on The Strand. Brannan, Jesse, Shalimar and Emma were all kicking some major butt over in the safe house. The other new mutants, the ones Mutant X were protecting got away cleanly in one of the emergency escape craft, piloted by Jesse. Shalimar and Brennan fought back to back, taking down as many of The Strand as possible.
Emma was using her sleepy-bolts to conk out any person that got in her way. This new addition to her telempathic arsenal seemed to be invaluable, until she became too involved in her targeting to watch her back. Shalimar yelled out a warning, but it was too late.
One of the Strand members, previously taken out by an electrical shock from Brennan's indoor lightening storm, reached from behind. He had a section of metal pipe in his hand, gleaned from the debris that lettered the floor during the fight. One swipe and the oblivious Emma dropped like a stone. Shalimar, with the quicksilver reflexes of an augmented feral, tried to get to Emma.
"No dice, bitch." Growled the mutant from The Strand, he reached deep inside himself and 'threw' out a wall of force that knocked everyone in the room but him off of their feet.
Recovering from his electrical shock quickly, the mutant from The Strand slung Emma over his shoulder and hopped into one of the black vehicles he'd arrived in and drove off. The other mutants melted back into the night.
Apparently distraught, Shalimar and Brennan found their way back to the Helix and limped home to lick their wounds and try again. Back in his 'acquired' office Mr. Ashlock sighed, a wide smile splitting his face, and mentally ticked off a check in his head.
"The Strand: one. Mutant X: zero"
Oblivious to the possibility that his building might have been infiltrated, Gabriel personally attended the arrival of Emma deLauro at the Genomex complex. That gave Mary Elizabeth the chance she needed to crawl out of the air system and into Ashlock's office. She pulled a computer disc form the thigh pocket of her urban camouflage gear and roughly shoved it into the computer on his desktop.
"Gently, gently, it's only plastic and silicon."
"Screw that, love, this is insane. All they need to do is look up and I'm totally busted." She ducked down, from his desk and half-hid in the knee space on the back.
"Relax, I've got everything timed. Just do what we talked about and everything will go smoothly."
"I'm worried about her, love, the man's a sociopath. He could do anything."
"No," Adam said patiently, "He'll only do what he thinks will gain him the most."
"Like that's reassuring"
"Good Evening Miss deLauro" Gabriel was a charming man, no matter what she knew he did and could still do to her she had to admit that he was a charming man.
"Fuck you, bastard" Emma cursed and struggled against her captors.
"My, my, didn't that Adam ever teach you ladies manners? I recall Miss Fox also saying something of the like when I briefly met her aquaintance."
"Yeah, well we got her back. They're going to come back for me, Ashlock, I won't stay here."
"You're right. At least about one thing. They will be coming to get you." He gestured to a mutant, standing a polite two steps to the rear. "Miss Reynolds here has so very kindly offered to act as your body double for the duration of your stay here. When you're friends come back to fetch you, they will only think that it is the real Emma deLauro that they have rescued." He smiled the vacant, insane smile of a true psychopath on the loose form the funny farm.
Miss Reynolds's skin seemed to ripple, then shift. Within seconds her entire body shifted into an exact mimic of Emma's features, right down to the handcuffs and slightly bloody spot on the back of her head.
"Good day, Miss deLauro. I hope you have a nice stay in pod storage."
True to form Emma struggled vainly to free herself. The doctors that crowded around her filled a needle with a clear, slightly viscous liquid. No matter what she'd done, Emma now watched as the contents of the syringe slowly seeped into her body. She struggled no more.
The medical personnel stuffed her limp body into a pod, setting the stasis cycle and shooting it off, deep into pod storage. Watching on Gabriel's computer screen Liz memorized the pod slot Emma had been assigned, before finishing off the program that Adam had created for the Genomex computers. She quietly slipped back into the air duct, meticulously fastening the grill behind her.
Gabriel settled back into his office chair, content to wait for Mutant X to make their predictable rescue attempt. While he sipped expensive Scotch Whiskey his former teacher, now foe, slipped through the bowels of the Genomex air supply. Landing lightly on the walkway above the pod storage room Emma was in, Liz scented her surroundings. No one had been there in years. No one, that is, but Emma.
Punching a few buttons on the pod cover, Liz encouraged the hermetically sealed pod to open. She then reached in to pull the still unconscious Emma out of the pod.
"Now what, O Brilliant One, she's been knocked out silly."
"Damn, I wasn't expecting them to drug her as well. Come back up to the roof, we'll make a transfer when the Helix gets back there."
"Sorry to rain on ye parade, love, but there's no way in hell I can get this lass up the pipes, even if she was awake."
"Crap, Ok, scratch the plan. We'll still come and 'rescue' the decoy we'll grab the real one too. Can you get to the armory from here?"
"What do you want me to do? Shoot him? That won't work, he can block them, I thought we was going to fry him?"
"No, the rifles have been modified to inject sub-dermal governors. You'll only get one clear shot, make it count."
"That's plan B! What the hell have ye been smoking?"
"Well have you got a better idea?"
Looking around the room, full of pods, a bulb lit up in her head. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I do"
Brennan, in the Helix with Shalimar and Jesse, was shaking to his very core. The 'plans' they'd made to capture Gabriel and put Genomex out of business in one fell swoop had crumbled to dust. Now it was all they could do to salvage the situation and rescue their two comrades still stuck in the Genomex building. Adam hadn't told him what the new plan was; all that he'd told them was that Liz was taking care of everything. They needed to find the real Emma and get the hell out. Blowing a hole in the roof of Genomex, he decided to do just that.
It was total chaos, Gabriel had, of course anticipated the attack, but he wanted to give the illusion of resistance so that they'd swallow the bait. That was how he ended up holding the decoy Emma with a gun to her head and making wild threats. At the last second she was supposed to 'break free' and join her 'friends' before they made their escape. Or so they thought. It was all going according to plan when from the rafters of the ruined ceiling, a voice penetrated the tense silence of the hostage negotiation.
"Hey pea-brain" he recognized that brogue; it was his old teacher, Mary Elizabeth. She was hanging from the rafters, upside down from her knees. Mutant X and Strand alike stared at the ceiling in suspense. She shook herself loose and dropped in an acrobatic aerial maneuver to the floor. "It seems as if ye passed petty dictator 101, but ye've forgot the most important rule of commando school, haven't ye."
"What do you mean?" Now he was beginning to sweat, how long had she been unaccounted for?
"Ye've always got to protect ye're perimeter, lad. Or nasty things like me'll come an' bite ye in the ass. Especially when ye least expect it. So why dinna ye put down Miss Reynolds and prepare ye'self for the real battle."
"You and what army?" he bluffed, ice trickled down his spine. She knew, and if she knew then they knew, and if they knew this entire action had been a set-up. Sure enough the Mutant X team had inched away, they were now jumping for the rafters and there was no one there to stop them.
"Oh not my army, lad, I dinna have one, but I believe Mason Eckhart and the GSA have a score to settle, don't ye think?"
At her words GSA agents, led by a slightly wobbly, but functional Eckhart, armed with sub-dermal governors started firing repeated rounds at Gabriel Ashlock. Too surprised to do anything, he fell helplessly to his knees. Many of the members of The Strand fell also.
First to the helix was Liz, for although she was the furthest away she was also the fastest. Then Jesse, then, tragically, was Brennan carrying a bloody Shalimar.
"What the hell happened?" Liz shouted as she immediately began to treat the multiple gunshot wounds.
"Damn GSA, they started firing on us when they finished with The Strand, Shal jumped in front of them."
"Well don't just stand there, idiot, get us home! Now! I canna treat her proper in a bloody jet for God sake!"
Adam could do no more than watch. He knew that, however long she'd been out of the loop; Liz's hands knew what they were doing. He'd never claimed to be a surgeon. He didn't even try to butt in and help, leaving that job to Jesse, whom Liz had been personally training. He kept an eye on Emma, whom Liz had returned the moment the Helix had landed. Jesse and Liz were covered in blood when they landed the Helix in Sanctuary. They barged right into Liz's room, because she'd slowly been acquiring the proper supplies to treat trauma victims and storing them in her closet. All that was left for him and the other members of Mutant X was to wait.
