Author's Notes: Short chapter, sorry, I have to get ready to move in two days so things have been hectic.
Part Two: Exodus
"There's been a breach of security." Adam told Jesse, affirming calm in his voice.
"What do you mean?" Jesse asked, walking with Adam down the halls of Sanctuary to the main computer server. As he reached the terminal, he threw his body down on the chair and logged onto the system. Leaning forward to look at the screen over Jesse's face, Adam spoke again in a softer voice.
"I need you to contact the heads of each safe house and have them prepare to move their occupants into the motherhouse, effective immediately."
"What's happened?" Jesse asked, already working on doing what was asked of him. Running a hand through his short, curly hair, Adam sighed.
"We've been exposed," Adam asserted grimly. Jesse nodded, too involved in his task to let the weight of Adam's words sink in. "Shal?" Adam spoke into the COM link.
"Yeah Adam?"
"Fire up the Double Helix. We need to get a move on."
"Right."
Adam listened quietly for a minute even though the link had been cut off.
"What's going to happen to us now, Adam?" Jesse asked, looking up from the screen into Adam's eyes like a child asking about God. "We can't all run from them."
Adam nodded knowingly, in his eyes a ferocity the likes of which Jesse had never encountered before. "Don't worry Jesse, I have no intention of running."
* * *
"Emma?"
Shalimar. Again.
"Emma, I know you're there. Answer me. Where are you?"
Carelessly, Emma removed her COM ring, severing Shalimar's line, and placed the ring in her back pocket. Then continued on her way, walking up and down nameless streets for half an hour, wondering why she couldn't shake the numbness in her limbs. When she reached the hard, metal doors, she threw them open rudely and stepped into the warm, open space. She closed her eyes, feeling safer than she had been in the past twenty-four hours.
Finding her limbs, she approached the large idol, exquisitely crafted to look like it was ready to emerge from the altar and hold her.
'I haven't set foot in a church since I was ten,' she thought lamely to herself. She closed her eyes and searched amongst the millions of emotions…but there was nothing. No familiar presence washed over her, no trace of Brennan's whereabouts. 'I don't usually pray, but for you Bren, I'll make an exception. You better be out there, somewhere, alive.'
* * *
"All right everybody, I want you to grab three personal belongings and be ready for transport in five minutes. We have no time for arguments. Go." Jesse ordered to the large crowd of murmuring mutants in an unspecified underground mutant safe house. Around him the crowd quick dispersed and people were throwing in blankets and old pictures onto the Double Helix for transport.
Shalimar watched the weary, stricken faces of the younger mutants, devastated at having to give up their homes and identities to flee to the motherhouse. Quickly squelching the rising taste of bile in her throat she cried, "You heard the man, fellas. Hustle!"
They took off for London several minutes later. Jesse, standing in the middle of the crowd, voiced his optimism that they would soon return. In the corner, watching them, Shalimar said nothing.