The 3 women walked through a dirty alley of a street lined with ancient 2
and 3 story houses. A chain-link fence separated a row of houses from a
second property. It was at the end of this street that they had arranged
to meet the New Mutant. A young man approached the women warily. He
passed by on the other side, observing them nervously, and then doubled
back toward them. Emma stepped away from the group. "Fitzpatrick?" She
addressed him using the agreed-upon name. The young man approached her.
"Yes, I am Fitzpatrick." "We can get you to a safe-house" Emma told him.
"There are other people out looking to capture you for your gift." The
man appraised her, his blue eyes suddenly turning dark as he read her mind.
Emma reeled back dizzily. "Hey, there's no need to do that!" she protested.
"But there is," Fitzpatrick replied. "I can read your mind as if you were speaking your innermost thoughts. The information is valuable. Too valuable to keep to myself."
"HEY!! What are you doing to my friend?" Shalimar jumped into the conversation.
"You're sleepy," Fitzpatrick said, directing his darkened gaze at her. Immediately, the blond woman started to fall forward in total exhaustion. Emma and Natalia caught her.
Tal glared furiously at the man then instinctively held Shalimar's head between her hands. "C'mon, Shal. Fight it, Fight it!" She said fiercely, her eyes suddenly changing to a shade of red.
"What are you going to do?" Emma asked Fitzpatrick forcing herself to keep calm. The man smiled crookedly. "I'll access all your memories and sell them to the highest bidder."
"We could be your friends," Emma countered. "Why would you want to sell out potential allies?"
"I don't need any allies." Fitz returned arrogantly.
"So your posting was meant to lure us to you?"
Fitzpatrick smiled evilly. Emma looked aside for a moment and envisioned Fitzpatrick blinded, and then mentally threw the image at him. The young man's gaze unfocused momentarily, then he laughed. "I'm a little beyond your mind tricks, Emma. You see, I've accessed your minds. I know who you and Shalimar friend are and what you can do. Now I'm going to blow your minds away." He turned on her and Emma started to cautiously back away toward her teammates. His eyes had changed back to those terrifying black orbs.
Shalimar opened her eyes groggily. She felt like her mind was clearing and straightened when she saw Natalia still there watching her intently. Her eyes were strange, glowing red, not Feral. "Remember me, my friend." Natalia said through a mind-link. Shalimar was alarmed at the depth of finality in her words.
Fitzpatrick smiled a really nasty smile at Emma. He saw that Shal and Tal had turned toward him. "Now for the dark-haired lady." He said anticipating.
"Lockdown," Shalimar heard Natalia say softly to herself.
Fitzpatrick directed his Psionic powers at Natalia. "You can't move," he suggested. Natalia's eyes went from a dull red glow to a fiery-red. She continued to walk toward the man. Shalimar and Emma tried to move to assist, but were riveted in place. The man's eyes were totally black, an unnerving sight to see. "I will have your mind," he shouted angrily. Natalia's eyes blazed fire.
Emma tried to tune in, but Tal, without turning, urgently told her, "No Emma, back away, both of you." Emma realized that her friend had not spoken a work, but had conveyed the thought telepathically. Suddenly, both Emma and Shalimar were free of the paralysis that held them in place. "RUN!" Natalia shouted into their minds. Unable to do anything else but comply, they ran for cover. Natalia still focused on Fitzpatrick motioned toward them with her hands, projecting her force-field at their backs causing them to tumble under a nearby porch.
A gray field was forming in front of Fitzpatrick's eyes; a red one in front of Natalia as they advanced then stopped about 10 feet from each other. Neither would break eye contact. The fields rapidly intensified and extended, almost like 2 stars going nova. Their Psionic fields collided. Shal and Emma, furthest from the Psionic blast in the hiding place that Natalia had thrown them into, fell senseless. Fitz's black eyes widened in disbelief as he contacted Natalia's mind to extract it. He fell comatose with that expression forever etched on his face. Natalia grasped her head and doubled over in pain, and lost consciousness.
A little later, Shalimar and Emma regained consciousness. "What are we doing here?" Shal asked.
"I don't know," Emma replied with a shrug.
"Shhh, someone's coming" Shalimar hissed. They retreated further back in their hideaway. Trench coated GSA agents converged at the site. Shalimar and Emma watched silently as they performed their methodical search, found Fitzpatrick's and Natalia's unconscious forms and took them away.
"Who were those 2 people?" Shalimar wondered aloud.
"I don't know, but I feel as if we're missing something," Emma answered thoughtfully.
At Genomex, Eckhart was waiting in the lab in anticipation. Two New Mutants had been successfully retrieved, the male was apparently the Psionic that they had been tracking for days, but there was a second one too. Mr. Hall approached him, staying a discreet distance from his employer. Eckhart looked over at him, secretly enjoying the fear he instilled in his employee. He glowered momentarily. "I take it that there were no witnesses," he stated, rather than questioned.
"No sir. I had the area checked out thoroughly," Mr. Hall answered quickly.
GSA agents loaded Natalia's body on the table next to Eckhart. He gave her a cursory glance, then back at his intimidated officer. Having successfully raised Hall's fear levels, Eckhart then relented with, "Nicely done, Mr. Hall." There was a tight caricature of a smile and a brief nod. Mr. Hall breathed an inaudible sigh of relief and exited quickly, before Eckhart could change his mind.
Eckhart then turned to Natalia's unconscious form to study her. He frowned, puzzled then displeased. Advance reports estimated this woman to be in her late 20's, but she looked more like a teenager-mid teens to be exact, he thought. Dark haired. What powers she would bring to the GSA, he wondered.
A lab assistant cautiously approached him with a report. "Preliminary report, sir." Still looking intently at Natalia, Eckhart took the report with a gloved hand and dismissed the assistant. He then perused the report, unaware that he was leaning against Natalia's shoulder and that somehow, even unconscious with her cerebral cortex shut down, she was still reaching out, assimilating information...from him. **** The report read:
ASSESSMENT SUBJECT: Jennifer Doe Gender: Female Articles: jewelry, ring-possibly wedding band, bracelet, earrings Age: approximately early 20's Documents: none Identification: Fingerprints: NO MATCH Hair: Brown Retinal: SEARCHING Eyes: Brown/gray Blood: INCOMPLETE Height: 5'9" Physical condition: vital signs within normal ranges Weight: 140 Muscle tone: good Brain activity: no sign of cognitive activity
Eckhart knew that Dr. Harrison would be taking care of the blood work. He would have to have the doctor verify the eyes and age, though. Eckhart didn't like contradictions or errors and he had no patience for incomplete work.
"Jennifer Doe." He thought, peering closely at the unconscious figure, feeling a strange affinity for her. "She is but a child. What a shame her mind was shut down." Straightening up, he instructed the attending physician, "Put this one on life support and electroshock therapy if necessary. Do whatever you can to revive her. She may have valuable information."
Back at Sanctuary, Emma and Shalimar walked in. "How did it go?" Adam asked, then concerned, "Where's Natalia?"
"Natalia?" Emma echoed, looking blankly at Adam, then at Shalimar. Shalimar shrugged innocently.
Adam suddenly felt as if the bottom dropped out of his soul and a feeling of dread swept over him. He opened his mouth to say something, his eyes filled with a worried expression. "Fitzpatrick. What do you know of Fitzpatrick?" He demanded hollowly. Again, there were the blank expressions. Almost frantic with anxiety, Adam exclaimed, "Do you remember ANYTHING of the mission?"
Shalimar regarded him, trying to think back, searching for clues. "Adam, we did leave a fairly deserted area of town."
"We were unconscious," Emma added, "but somehow hidden. When we regained consciousness, we saw GSA take 2 bodies away."
Adam closed his eyes in pain. "They've got Natalia, and "Fitzpatrick"." Even as he shook his head, his mind was racing, measuring options. "You have no idea if they are alive," he stated rather than asked. "Come to the lab." As he herded them down the hallway he said, "I've got to run some scans and tests.find out why you've lost memory of that incident.can we recover them.could Fitzpatrick have turned on you? He said he's Psionic. He could have wiped your memory. It doesn't match up. Why were he and Natalia unconscious?"
In the Lab, Shalimar stretched out in the body-length chair. Adam placed an open helmet over her head, designed to restrain movement and protect areas of the brain not being examined. He turned on a wide-spectrum beam that encompassed her head, functioning sort of like a cat scan. Staring intently at the monitor, Adam noted that a discreet area of the cerebral cortex seemed abnormal; dark, no activity. Frowning, he made some calculations and punched in a number on the panel. A thin beam of light lasting about 2 seconds then shot out at Shalimar's head. Her eyes suddenly widened and she drew in her breath in a horrified gasp.
"Adam, he attacked us! Natalia stood up to him and .." Adam gently quieted her, reminding her that Emma was next. For the next 20 minutes, the ladies filled him in on their disastrous mission. "Comm-link has been deactivated," Adam said concernedly. "Emma, can you establish any kind of contact with her?" Emma closed her eyes and telempathically scanned Psionic space for her friend's impression.
"Nothing, Adam. It's scary. It's almost as if she doesn't exist."
Her team mates shot anxious looks at her. "Don't say that, Emma," Shalimar protested.
AT GENOMEX......
Eckhart returned to the unconscious figure of Jennifer Doe. To say he was intrigued was putting it lightly. He looked at the brain activity monitor; it was still straight-lined at the cerebral cortex. "So young," he thought. They had just drawn a blood sample. He would look forward to seeing the results in a few hours. He stared at the child a little longer, wondering where she may have come from and what she had been doing in that alley with a powerful Psionic and what had happened to put both of them into unconscious states. Perhaps the two were related. Blood tests would clarify that.
AT SANCTUARY.....
Adam emerged from his laboratory, looking worn but hopeful. The Genomex database had shown blood work results on Jennifer Doe that clearly did not match Natalia's profile, in fact, almost everything had not matched. He wondered if the records had been falsified to hide something.
IN ECKHART'S OFFICE....
Dr. Harrison personally delivered the updated profile on Jennifer Doe. Eckhart looked at it then read it again more closely. "There's got to be some mistake." Eckhart stated flatly.
"I wish I could say that, but we repeated the tests multiple times." Dr. Harrison replied, looking at Eckhart speculatively. "Her DNA matches yours in all the critical areas by a factor of 70% which would more than establish paternity. Mason, it appears that this girl is your daughter."
"She appears to be 15 or 16 years old. Yes, it could be possible." Eckhart sighed. Thinking back he said wistfully, "I wonder who the mother is." Perusing the report again, he said, "The girl has New Mutant abilities: Feral - class Feline, Molecular - Regenerative." Eckhart glanced up sharply at Dr. Harrison, who nodded knowingly at him.
LATER AT GENOMEX.....
Dr. Harrison was saying, "Transfusion would be too dangerous even with her compatible blood. What would New Mutant blood do to you? We could try extracting the Regenerative components from her, but from the amount of blood we'd need, it could kill her and we don't have a good idea that this would work."
"The child is literally brain dead and means nothing to me." Eckhart stated coldly. "Run in-vitro tests on both our blood to see what preliminary effects would be obtained." He turned his back, dismissing the Doctor. His thoughts drifted strangely to the story of the goose that laid the golden egg. He wondered to himself if this "child of his" were to regain consciousness, if her self-healing abilities could be turned outward instead of having to drain her of her blood. Abruptly, he headed back to the lab to observe the girl.
AT SANCTUARY....
Adam had assembled the full team to brainstorm. "We are fairly certain that the woman they took away is Natalia. On the other hand, the Genomex report is totally discordant with what we know of Natalia. Could someone be fabricating this data? If this is so, why?"
Jesse speculated, "What if the report was accurate and our premise is true? Could another New Mutant ability have surfaced in Natalia? She is primarily a Molecular and Molecular have been known to have clusters of abilities."
"Very true," said Adam. "So we're looking at the possibility that as a result of that confrontation, she may have morphed to a different appearance. The report says there is no brain activity in the cerebral cortex. Maybe this condition induced some kind of transmutation, causing Natalia to revert to a template state." At the puzzled looks he added, "It's kind of like being blank page, ready to be written into. But this is all conjecture. I've never observed this to happen. "
AT GENOMEX....
Eckhart was staring intently at the unconscious, peaceful face of Jennifer Doe. She had been unconscious for nearly a week. She was an attractive girl. Surely she bore resemblance to her mother; however, he could not place her. He touched the girl's face with a gloved hand. "Will you not speak?" He asked her softly. In response, the straight-line graph on the monitor went wild. Eckhart backed away warily. Dr. Harrison had returned in time to see the monitor change. "Mason, whatever you said to her must have triggered a return to consciousness. Look, she's trying to wake up."
Emma reeled back dizzily. "Hey, there's no need to do that!" she protested.
"But there is," Fitzpatrick replied. "I can read your mind as if you were speaking your innermost thoughts. The information is valuable. Too valuable to keep to myself."
"HEY!! What are you doing to my friend?" Shalimar jumped into the conversation.
"You're sleepy," Fitzpatrick said, directing his darkened gaze at her. Immediately, the blond woman started to fall forward in total exhaustion. Emma and Natalia caught her.
Tal glared furiously at the man then instinctively held Shalimar's head between her hands. "C'mon, Shal. Fight it, Fight it!" She said fiercely, her eyes suddenly changing to a shade of red.
"What are you going to do?" Emma asked Fitzpatrick forcing herself to keep calm. The man smiled crookedly. "I'll access all your memories and sell them to the highest bidder."
"We could be your friends," Emma countered. "Why would you want to sell out potential allies?"
"I don't need any allies." Fitz returned arrogantly.
"So your posting was meant to lure us to you?"
Fitzpatrick smiled evilly. Emma looked aside for a moment and envisioned Fitzpatrick blinded, and then mentally threw the image at him. The young man's gaze unfocused momentarily, then he laughed. "I'm a little beyond your mind tricks, Emma. You see, I've accessed your minds. I know who you and Shalimar friend are and what you can do. Now I'm going to blow your minds away." He turned on her and Emma started to cautiously back away toward her teammates. His eyes had changed back to those terrifying black orbs.
Shalimar opened her eyes groggily. She felt like her mind was clearing and straightened when she saw Natalia still there watching her intently. Her eyes were strange, glowing red, not Feral. "Remember me, my friend." Natalia said through a mind-link. Shalimar was alarmed at the depth of finality in her words.
Fitzpatrick smiled a really nasty smile at Emma. He saw that Shal and Tal had turned toward him. "Now for the dark-haired lady." He said anticipating.
"Lockdown," Shalimar heard Natalia say softly to herself.
Fitzpatrick directed his Psionic powers at Natalia. "You can't move," he suggested. Natalia's eyes went from a dull red glow to a fiery-red. She continued to walk toward the man. Shalimar and Emma tried to move to assist, but were riveted in place. The man's eyes were totally black, an unnerving sight to see. "I will have your mind," he shouted angrily. Natalia's eyes blazed fire.
Emma tried to tune in, but Tal, without turning, urgently told her, "No Emma, back away, both of you." Emma realized that her friend had not spoken a work, but had conveyed the thought telepathically. Suddenly, both Emma and Shalimar were free of the paralysis that held them in place. "RUN!" Natalia shouted into their minds. Unable to do anything else but comply, they ran for cover. Natalia still focused on Fitzpatrick motioned toward them with her hands, projecting her force-field at their backs causing them to tumble under a nearby porch.
A gray field was forming in front of Fitzpatrick's eyes; a red one in front of Natalia as they advanced then stopped about 10 feet from each other. Neither would break eye contact. The fields rapidly intensified and extended, almost like 2 stars going nova. Their Psionic fields collided. Shal and Emma, furthest from the Psionic blast in the hiding place that Natalia had thrown them into, fell senseless. Fitz's black eyes widened in disbelief as he contacted Natalia's mind to extract it. He fell comatose with that expression forever etched on his face. Natalia grasped her head and doubled over in pain, and lost consciousness.
A little later, Shalimar and Emma regained consciousness. "What are we doing here?" Shal asked.
"I don't know," Emma replied with a shrug.
"Shhh, someone's coming" Shalimar hissed. They retreated further back in their hideaway. Trench coated GSA agents converged at the site. Shalimar and Emma watched silently as they performed their methodical search, found Fitzpatrick's and Natalia's unconscious forms and took them away.
"Who were those 2 people?" Shalimar wondered aloud.
"I don't know, but I feel as if we're missing something," Emma answered thoughtfully.
At Genomex, Eckhart was waiting in the lab in anticipation. Two New Mutants had been successfully retrieved, the male was apparently the Psionic that they had been tracking for days, but there was a second one too. Mr. Hall approached him, staying a discreet distance from his employer. Eckhart looked over at him, secretly enjoying the fear he instilled in his employee. He glowered momentarily. "I take it that there were no witnesses," he stated, rather than questioned.
"No sir. I had the area checked out thoroughly," Mr. Hall answered quickly.
GSA agents loaded Natalia's body on the table next to Eckhart. He gave her a cursory glance, then back at his intimidated officer. Having successfully raised Hall's fear levels, Eckhart then relented with, "Nicely done, Mr. Hall." There was a tight caricature of a smile and a brief nod. Mr. Hall breathed an inaudible sigh of relief and exited quickly, before Eckhart could change his mind.
Eckhart then turned to Natalia's unconscious form to study her. He frowned, puzzled then displeased. Advance reports estimated this woman to be in her late 20's, but she looked more like a teenager-mid teens to be exact, he thought. Dark haired. What powers she would bring to the GSA, he wondered.
A lab assistant cautiously approached him with a report. "Preliminary report, sir." Still looking intently at Natalia, Eckhart took the report with a gloved hand and dismissed the assistant. He then perused the report, unaware that he was leaning against Natalia's shoulder and that somehow, even unconscious with her cerebral cortex shut down, she was still reaching out, assimilating information...from him. **** The report read:
ASSESSMENT SUBJECT: Jennifer Doe Gender: Female Articles: jewelry, ring-possibly wedding band, bracelet, earrings Age: approximately early 20's Documents: none Identification: Fingerprints: NO MATCH Hair: Brown Retinal: SEARCHING Eyes: Brown/gray Blood: INCOMPLETE Height: 5'9" Physical condition: vital signs within normal ranges Weight: 140 Muscle tone: good Brain activity: no sign of cognitive activity
Eckhart knew that Dr. Harrison would be taking care of the blood work. He would have to have the doctor verify the eyes and age, though. Eckhart didn't like contradictions or errors and he had no patience for incomplete work.
"Jennifer Doe." He thought, peering closely at the unconscious figure, feeling a strange affinity for her. "She is but a child. What a shame her mind was shut down." Straightening up, he instructed the attending physician, "Put this one on life support and electroshock therapy if necessary. Do whatever you can to revive her. She may have valuable information."
Back at Sanctuary, Emma and Shalimar walked in. "How did it go?" Adam asked, then concerned, "Where's Natalia?"
"Natalia?" Emma echoed, looking blankly at Adam, then at Shalimar. Shalimar shrugged innocently.
Adam suddenly felt as if the bottom dropped out of his soul and a feeling of dread swept over him. He opened his mouth to say something, his eyes filled with a worried expression. "Fitzpatrick. What do you know of Fitzpatrick?" He demanded hollowly. Again, there were the blank expressions. Almost frantic with anxiety, Adam exclaimed, "Do you remember ANYTHING of the mission?"
Shalimar regarded him, trying to think back, searching for clues. "Adam, we did leave a fairly deserted area of town."
"We were unconscious," Emma added, "but somehow hidden. When we regained consciousness, we saw GSA take 2 bodies away."
Adam closed his eyes in pain. "They've got Natalia, and "Fitzpatrick"." Even as he shook his head, his mind was racing, measuring options. "You have no idea if they are alive," he stated rather than asked. "Come to the lab." As he herded them down the hallway he said, "I've got to run some scans and tests.find out why you've lost memory of that incident.can we recover them.could Fitzpatrick have turned on you? He said he's Psionic. He could have wiped your memory. It doesn't match up. Why were he and Natalia unconscious?"
In the Lab, Shalimar stretched out in the body-length chair. Adam placed an open helmet over her head, designed to restrain movement and protect areas of the brain not being examined. He turned on a wide-spectrum beam that encompassed her head, functioning sort of like a cat scan. Staring intently at the monitor, Adam noted that a discreet area of the cerebral cortex seemed abnormal; dark, no activity. Frowning, he made some calculations and punched in a number on the panel. A thin beam of light lasting about 2 seconds then shot out at Shalimar's head. Her eyes suddenly widened and she drew in her breath in a horrified gasp.
"Adam, he attacked us! Natalia stood up to him and .." Adam gently quieted her, reminding her that Emma was next. For the next 20 minutes, the ladies filled him in on their disastrous mission. "Comm-link has been deactivated," Adam said concernedly. "Emma, can you establish any kind of contact with her?" Emma closed her eyes and telempathically scanned Psionic space for her friend's impression.
"Nothing, Adam. It's scary. It's almost as if she doesn't exist."
Her team mates shot anxious looks at her. "Don't say that, Emma," Shalimar protested.
AT GENOMEX......
Eckhart returned to the unconscious figure of Jennifer Doe. To say he was intrigued was putting it lightly. He looked at the brain activity monitor; it was still straight-lined at the cerebral cortex. "So young," he thought. They had just drawn a blood sample. He would look forward to seeing the results in a few hours. He stared at the child a little longer, wondering where she may have come from and what she had been doing in that alley with a powerful Psionic and what had happened to put both of them into unconscious states. Perhaps the two were related. Blood tests would clarify that.
AT SANCTUARY.....
Adam emerged from his laboratory, looking worn but hopeful. The Genomex database had shown blood work results on Jennifer Doe that clearly did not match Natalia's profile, in fact, almost everything had not matched. He wondered if the records had been falsified to hide something.
IN ECKHART'S OFFICE....
Dr. Harrison personally delivered the updated profile on Jennifer Doe. Eckhart looked at it then read it again more closely. "There's got to be some mistake." Eckhart stated flatly.
"I wish I could say that, but we repeated the tests multiple times." Dr. Harrison replied, looking at Eckhart speculatively. "Her DNA matches yours in all the critical areas by a factor of 70% which would more than establish paternity. Mason, it appears that this girl is your daughter."
"She appears to be 15 or 16 years old. Yes, it could be possible." Eckhart sighed. Thinking back he said wistfully, "I wonder who the mother is." Perusing the report again, he said, "The girl has New Mutant abilities: Feral - class Feline, Molecular - Regenerative." Eckhart glanced up sharply at Dr. Harrison, who nodded knowingly at him.
LATER AT GENOMEX.....
Dr. Harrison was saying, "Transfusion would be too dangerous even with her compatible blood. What would New Mutant blood do to you? We could try extracting the Regenerative components from her, but from the amount of blood we'd need, it could kill her and we don't have a good idea that this would work."
"The child is literally brain dead and means nothing to me." Eckhart stated coldly. "Run in-vitro tests on both our blood to see what preliminary effects would be obtained." He turned his back, dismissing the Doctor. His thoughts drifted strangely to the story of the goose that laid the golden egg. He wondered to himself if this "child of his" were to regain consciousness, if her self-healing abilities could be turned outward instead of having to drain her of her blood. Abruptly, he headed back to the lab to observe the girl.
AT SANCTUARY....
Adam had assembled the full team to brainstorm. "We are fairly certain that the woman they took away is Natalia. On the other hand, the Genomex report is totally discordant with what we know of Natalia. Could someone be fabricating this data? If this is so, why?"
Jesse speculated, "What if the report was accurate and our premise is true? Could another New Mutant ability have surfaced in Natalia? She is primarily a Molecular and Molecular have been known to have clusters of abilities."
"Very true," said Adam. "So we're looking at the possibility that as a result of that confrontation, she may have morphed to a different appearance. The report says there is no brain activity in the cerebral cortex. Maybe this condition induced some kind of transmutation, causing Natalia to revert to a template state." At the puzzled looks he added, "It's kind of like being blank page, ready to be written into. But this is all conjecture. I've never observed this to happen. "
AT GENOMEX....
Eckhart was staring intently at the unconscious, peaceful face of Jennifer Doe. She had been unconscious for nearly a week. She was an attractive girl. Surely she bore resemblance to her mother; however, he could not place her. He touched the girl's face with a gloved hand. "Will you not speak?" He asked her softly. In response, the straight-line graph on the monitor went wild. Eckhart backed away warily. Dr. Harrison had returned in time to see the monitor change. "Mason, whatever you said to her must have triggered a return to consciousness. Look, she's trying to wake up."